Echoes of Avarice

by Brendan O'Neill

  “Uh, yeah. No problem.” Connor walked back to the table with the sheets. He grabbed the pile and began shoving the individual sheets onto the shelf next to their partners, jamming them hurriedly into place. When he finished he looked back to see Charisma staring at him with folded arms. She shook her head at him.

  “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said, exasperation clear in her voice. She brushed past him, giving a hip thrust and a smirk as she went, to straighten the mangled sheets. All Connor could do in return was shoot her a goofy smile.

  He turned back to the clear panel and the beautiful gases that slowly swirled so close by. “Is it getting closer?”

  “It is,” Dr. Dawud replied. “We arrived a day early, so we’re going to wait inside for a while.”

  “Cool,” Connor said, then turned to Charisma. “When are you off?”

  “About three hours. Then I’m going for training with Rana. You should probably go find her. You really need to practice every day.”

  It took every bit of his self-control not to grimace at the thought. His body was still a little sore from his last workout. But he finally managed to force a smile, hoping it looked sincere. “Yeah. Good idea.” Even Connor could tell he failed.

  The gymnasium carried the usual smell of stale sweat as Connor trudged in. Rana Lavi was on the furthest mat, teaching several of the civilians her ASSAULTS defense techniques. Lavi gave him a small wave before driving one of her trainees down onto the mat. Connor couldn’t help but notice that the sound of bodies hitting the mat was becoming disturbingly familiar around the dangerous woman.

  “Glad to see you could make it,” Rana said without looking at him. She took a moment to correct one of her trainees before continuing. “Hope you’re ready to work.”

  Connor only nodded. She paired him with a behemoth of a man, a rather nice fellow who was somewhat unfamiliar with the concept of self-control. For the next hour, Connor was forced to use every trick and technique he knew to avoid being pummeled by the huge man. He even invented one or two moves in his desperation to keep from being crushed.

  When Lavi finally ended the training session almost two hours later, Connor felt like he was about to die on his feet. His chest was burning as it heaved, and his appendages felt like they had weights strapped to them. The big man who had chased Connor around the mat patted him on the shoulder and wished him luck. Connor tossed a general platitude back to the man as he found a bench that he could die on. He dropped onto his back, closing his eyes while he gasped for breath.

  “You’re looking better, but you still need work.” Lavi’s voice cut through him like a blowtorch.

  “Doing my best,” Connor wheezed.

  “No, you’re not. Not by a longshot. You should be progressing at the same rate as Charisma. The fact is, you’re only watching the chest of your male opponents. Your watching the female’s necks. I’ve told you before that you need to watch the chest so your peripheral vision can see the feet.”

  Connor opened his eyes to see the striking, yet aggravating woman standing over the bench, her arms crossed. Like always, Lavi showed almost no signs of stress or fatigue.

  “She’s just better at it than me,” he muttered. He didn’t want to argue the chest thing again. It was the way he was raised. A glance he was ok with. Maybe even an extended glance. But he couldn’t just stare at a woman’s chest. It was disrespectful.

  “No, she works harder than you,” Lavi said, frustration clear upon her face. “She’s taken me up on my offer to train you two outside of class and is here whenever she finds time. If you spent as much time here as you do at the gun range, you’d be at her level. Quit slacking and finding reasons not to train.”

  Connor was about to respond when a gut-wrenching crash shook the whole ship. Everyone was hurled violently to the floor. The crash actually lifted Connor off the bench, and he ricocheted off the wall before crashing down atop Lavi on the floor. An ear shattering metallic screech reverberated through the ship and the metal decking vibrated fiercely.

  “What the fuck was that?” Connor asked when it finally stopped. It had only lasted seconds, but it felt like minutes. He looked around at the carnage and injured in the Gym. The ship’s automated claxon blared, warning of a higher alert status.

  “Kind of hard to tell from down here, hero.”

  Connor looked down at the woman beneath him, who raised an eyebrow at him. Then he realized who he was on top of and rolled off as though he were laying on a grenade.

  Lavi was on her feet in an instant, checking on the people nearest to her. Most of the gym’s patrons were already pulling themselves to their feet, but several remained on the floor, either completely still or writhing in pain.

  Captain Yuji’s voice came over the intercom. “We’ve impacted something in the nebula. All units to stations.”

  “You take charge of the civilians here,” Lavi commanded as she started backing toward the door. “Get the injured to the medical bay and the rest to their quarters!” She turned and rushed out the doors, along with most of the uninjured CPS and Fleet personnel. A corpsman remained behind to help with the wounded.

  Connor placed a couple civilians he trusted in charge of getting the rest to their quarters and was relieved to learn from the corpsman there were no spinal injuries. Before the big man he had sparred with earlier could leave with the other civilians, Connor called him over.

  “I need your help in moving these wounded to the medical bay.” He pointed to three people lying motionless in the rapidly clearing gym.

  “You got it, Connor,” he said with a smile and slapped Connor on the shoulder. Effortlessly, the big man lifted two of the still forms and started for the door. Connor lifted the last, rather glad the man left a small woman behind. His muscles were still weak from the workout, and it was only the adrenaline that allowed him to carry her.

  “I don’t know your name,” Connor huffed as he caught up with the big man. The giant had a man over his right shoulder, and a woman over his left.

  “John McKay.” McKay wasn’t even straining at the weight of the people he carried.

  “Right. Connor Harper,” Connor replied, then realized McKay had been using his name all along. “But you already knew that.”

  “Didn’t know your last name. That’s good to know.”

  McKay tried asking a few more questions but gave up when Connor was unable to respond. His adrenaline was wearing off quickly and it was all he could do not to drop the poor woman.

  Luckily, he’d copied McKay and slung the woman over his right shoulder. But half way to the medical bay, his body already had a severe list, and he had to use both arms to keep her from falling. Instead of wrapping his right arm around her legs as he should have, he had to wrap his right arm up and over her hips to keep her from sliding off his slanted shoulder. Connor’s right hand was desperately holding onto her waistband in an attempt to take some strain off the failing muscles of his right arm. His left hand was holding her thigh to keep as much of her weight possible on his shoulder than his flagging right arm.

  Streams of people, some mobile and others carried, poured into the overworked med bay. When Connor finally, mercifully, entered the packed medical bay, he collapsed inside the doorway sending the poor woman sprawling. He’d been so desperate to hang on to the woman’s waistband that, when the pair crashed to the floor, his hand still grasped the waistband of her leggings.

  “Connor!” Charisma gasped and rushed over to the sprawled woman. Her voice lowered. “Are you ok?” She glanced at him with worry as she grabbed a sheet to cover the unconscious, and starkly bottomless woman.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back. “How are things in here?” Connor held his fist up before his face, gazing at the long strip of black material it held for a moment until he realized what it was.

  “I’ll take that,” Charisma said quickly, snatching the material out of his hand. She turned back to evaluating the injured woman. “Busy,” she replied over her shoulder, t
hen nodded toward Dr. Dawud.

  The doctor was speaking aloud to the communications system as he worked on several patients, giving an account of the medical situation. “Do we know what we hit, sir?”

  Captain Yuji’s voice came back over the intercom. “A ship of some sort, but with the interference, we don’t know what kind. We suspect their engines are dead since the impact has caused them to drift. Once we realized their engines were dead, we fired our grappling cables to their hull.”

  “You can tell their status?” Dr. Dawud asked, an edge of curiosity in his voice. “Did you find a way to cut through the interference?”

  “No, we only know it’s a ship because someone looked out a window. But I want you prepared for more injured. The nebula is too thick to see the other ship clearly, but we’re pretty sure it’s of human design. We don’t know the condition of the other crew; they may have need of medical attention.”

  “Understood, sir. Do you have an idea of when? I have quite a few wounded here, and it may be an hour before I get a chance to look at them all.”

  “You should have it. The grappling cables will shear if we put too much strain on them. We’re slowing its momentum, but it’ll be well clear of the cloud before it comes to a complete stop. In fact, it should be clearing the nebula now.”

  Connor weaved his way through the bay and pressed the pad that opened the panel. It opened to a thick soup of gas, ice, and rock that was now whitish-blue. “I can’t see anything.”

  “They’ve cleared the cloud,” said one of the wounded Fleet personnel. “We haven’t yet.”

  Connor turned back to the porthole, waiting for the cloud to dissipate. It seemed like an hour before the gas and dust started to darken. Then, almost instantly, the cloud disappeared and Connor gaped.

  For the last decade one ship above all others had become legendary in its defense against the Ka’Rathi. A ship that extended the life of its fleet and its empire at the cost of its own. And now Connor saw the name of that ship written prominently in massive white letters across the side of the derelict. It was the Pegasus.

  Chapter 10:

  “Remember to trust in the soldier that’s leading you.”

  Colonel Bradley’s deep voice echoed off the walls of the crowded mess hall. It rolled over Connor like a wave, rooting him to the spot. He looked up at the colonel as the imposing man stood on a table and spoke to a crowd of civilian volunteers dotted with CPF soldiers. His adjutant, Lieutenant Chen, stood on the floor to his left, busy making notes on a clipboard. Between knitted brows and darting eyes, the apprehension oozed from the volunteers so thickly that it could almost be tasted. The CPF soldiers, on the other hand, seemed either bored or annoyed at having to babysit civilians.

  “You will not make a move without your team leader’s explicit orders,” Col. Bradley said as he looked around at the sea of faces before him. “Each team will consist of one colonial soldier leading three civilian volunteers. One tech, one surgeon, and one security. The security volunteers have been issued firearms, but there will be no call to use them. Teams from both CPF and Fleet have already made a superficial sweep of the ship to collect bodies and sensor data, and they assure us that the amount of radiation the ship had been exposed to makes the chances of any possible threat unlikely.”

  One of the volunteers raised a hand. The same woman who Connor had carried to the medical bay after their impact with the Pegasus two days earlier.

  “Yes?”

  “Is the Pegasus still radioactive?”

  “No, the initial security team was able to activate the ship’s life support. By now the automated radiation scrubbers in the life support systems will have cleaned out the radiation. If you have any other questions, ask your team-leader. Each leader has been briefed on their individual assignments, circumstances, and the derelict’s general disposition. The teams have been posted on the wall,” Col. Bradley said pointing at the wall to his right. “Please find your name and assemble with your team-leaders.”

  Connor pushed his way to the wall, fighting the swarm of people to find his name. Finally, he came close enough to see the board. The title of security was just to the left of his name, right under that of the team-leader. Master Sergeant William Carter.

  A huge smile broke across Connor’s face as he pushed back through the crowd to find his bearded friend. Wild Bill was leaning against the wall in a tactical vest and holster, talking with a fellow who wore a band on his left arm. It was yellow with a black wrench that identified him as a volunteer technician. The Texan grinned as Connor approached.

  “Good to see you, kid,” Wild Bill said. That laid-back country drawl of his always made Connor smile. “Have you met Jason Heyerdahl? He’s our tech.” He waved to the slightly portly man he had been speaking to.

  “Uh, no. But I think I saw you once or twice in the medical bay. I’m Connor Harper.”

  “Yeah, that was me. And I recognize you. You run all those archaic vids.”

  “I hope you like them,” Connor said as the two men shook hands, but Heyerdahl didn’t respond or share his smile. In fact, the man looked positively troubled. Wild Bill seemed to read the poor bastard’s mind.

  “Don’t worry,” Wild Bill said. “This is a cakewalk. We get in, do our job, and we’re back in time for waffles.”

  “We have waffles?” Connor asked, his mouth suddenly watering. But the good-natured smile on the Texan’s face told him the comment was a joke.

  “Ah,” Connor said, then looked around. “Our surgeon isn’t here yet. I don’t suppose its Charisma, is it?”

  “Nope, sorry,” Wild Bill said. “She’s been posted to Corporal Lavi’s team.”

  “Wait,” Heyerdahl jumped in. There was a distinct tremble in his voice. “What if we run into trouble?”

  “There won’t be any trouble,” Wild Bill said. “Trust me.”

  “He’s right,” came a feminine voice from behind Connor. He turned to find the 5’2 red headed woman he’d struggled to carry to the medical bay after the two ships impacted. Her left arm was adorned with a black band bearing the red cross of a medic. “That ship was flooded with enough radiation to kill even the microbes. That’s why the bodies were found in such good condition. Dr. Dawud was kind enough to show me some of the pictures from the initial security sweep.” She turned to Connor. “Thanks for carrying me to medical. I just wish you hadn’t torn my favorite leggings.” The woman added a grin to the last sentence.

  “Sorry about that,” Connor said meekly. His eyes unconsciously shifted down at the memory of her half naked form.

  Her grin never left. “I was just having fun with you. I know you were just trying to help.”

  “Wait,” Heyerdahl cut in. “The bodies were in good condition? I heard they were found in pools of blood.”

  “And with massive lesions of the skin,” the woman added. “But there was no bodily decomposition because of the constant radiation and intense cold. In fact, this is the first time since the incident that the atmosphere of the ship was warm and free of radiation. Decomposition wise, they might as well have just died two days ago.” She looked around at the others, fascination with the forensic science etched on her face. The looks of disinterest from the other three blew right past her. She looked like a kid in a candy store. “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m your surgeon, Teryl Frasier.”

  “Well now that you’ve all introduced yourselves,” Wild Bill cut in, “it’s time to introduce myself. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Master Sergeant William Carter. Feel free to call me Sergeant Carter, Sergeant, or Carter. Any of the three is fine. Connor is our security volunteer, who obviously missed the bin of armbands.”

  “I didn’t see…” Connor trailed off as he looked around for some sort of bin through the forest of human forms milling about.

  Wild Bill just patted his shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. We can pick it up on our way to the port evacuation bay.”

  “Evacuation bay?” Frasier ec
hoed.

  “Yup. This ship has only one transport shuttle capable of carrying up to ten people. With six teams of four, that’s a lot of trips back and forth. So, we’re using the two evacuation shuttles as well.”

  Connor grabbed his red armband with its gold sword design out of the bin as they left the mess hall. Frasier prattled on as they walked, informing the group of the varying effects of radiation poisoning, and interspersing her lectures with the occasional question. The constant rush of words kept Connor’s head spinning as he tried to focus on not screwing up his first real mission. Her words seemed to be inflaming Heyerdahl’s anxiety at the conditions we might find. The verbal deluge didn’t seem to faze the Texan, however. He strolled through the corridors as though on a Sunday walk.

  Wild Bill halted them in front of the armory and motioned Connor inside. Connor was so excited that he could taste it. He still wasn’t sure about his Assaults training, but he’d become an excellent shot and stopping at the armory meant only one thing. A weapon! He knew he wasn’t supposed to be excited, but the thrill made Connor’s stomach roil. Wild Bill shut the door behind them.

  “Grab a tac-vest, tac-holster, pistol, and rifle,” Wild Bill said as he collected a black, boxy looking assault rifle with next to no barrel.

  Connor did as he was told, while Wild Bill unlocked a faded yellow wire mesh locker. He made a point of selecting the same boxy machine rifle as his Texas friend. When he turned back around, Wild Bill was relocking the locker.

  “Here,” Wild Bill said. He handed Connor one clip for each of his firearms. The pistol’s clip was slim and shiny, and fit into the gun like a hand fitted into a glove. Next, he took the magazine for the rifle, admiring it. It was made from a special polymer, which made it as hard as steel, but ultra-light and transparent. This transparency made it easy for the user to know when the magazine was empty. Such as now.

  “This is a training mission for just about everyone on the team, with the possible exception of the engineer,” Wild Bill said, reading Connor’s confused expression. “You won’t need either weapon, but you’re carrying them to get some field experience. You’re receiving ammo for the pistol for emergency situations only. I alone will determine what makes an emergency. Unless I tell you otherwise, you will not even touch that pistol. You will not even rack the weapon. Understood?”