Admiral Wolf

by C. Gockel

Phaser fire flashed on either side of the bridge. The ship wasn’t well-armed, wasn’t fast, and wasn’t particularly maneuverable. He might be lucky enough to be blown up.

  Volka left Bracelet on the holomat and stumbled to Sundancer’s bridge, her whole world feeling like it was in pieces. Sundancer was a mournful shade of pale blue-gray, but she couldn’t make herself be happy to brighten the ship’s mood. Sixty was her anchor in the Republic. The one person in this crazy place where everyone was a walking computer who didn’t look down on her as inferior and believed in her and understood her. Or she thought he was. That he would believe something so terrible made the whole world seem topsy turvy and wrong. She could never be at home in the Republic. Her heart wasn’t safe.

  She wished for the keel to open, so the ship at least wouldn’t see her cry. At her wish, the floor opened up and Volka jumped out. She landed lightly on her feet in the hangar. It was so large and empty, she felt like it was echoing her thoughts. She all but ran toward the door. She needed a place with windows, a place not so cavernous.

  “Cat girl alert,” said one of the Marines on guard as she ran past him.

  “I’m not a cat!” Volka growled, eyes getting wet. She stepped out into the main thoroughfare of the Fleet section of the gate. The hallway wasn’t crowded, and she did run. She passed a pair of Marines, one of them saying, “Poor sucker. I’m going to cheat at the poker match and he isn’t even going to—” and then she was too far past them to hear. She raced past another set and heard “What was that?” and “Would look better in a shorter skirt,” but she was too upset to snap back at their rudeness. At the exit to the civilian area of the gate, she felt worry and concern. She couldn’t tell if it was Sundancer or Carl’s worry, but she had to get away, had to see stars, the hallway was closed in, and she felt trapped. She glanced up and met the eyes of the Marine on duty, a man she didn’t know, and had never even seen before.

  “Ma’am, can I help you?” he asked, then his lips stopped moving, but Volka heard him say clearly, “She’s someone important, I think. If she hurts herself, I’ll be the one in trouble.”

  “I just need air,” Volka gasped.

  He was afraid to let her pass. She darted past him before he could stop her. The sliding door to the main area opened, and she dashed into the bright white light of one of Time Gate 1’s commercial concourses teeming with travelers—and so loud Volka put her hands over her ears.

  “I should just leave him; I know I should.”

  “The stock is going to split soon.”

  “I can’t reach my dad, he’s in System 5—”

  “Should we keep trying for a baby if these miscarriages make her so depressed?”

  “I miss you, daddy.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  She put her hands over her ears, and it did nothing to quell the noise. More than words, she saw pictures in her head, hazy imaginings that crowded her vision until she was nearly blind—people, things, sex … She turned in place, trying to see a way out of the mental barrage, but there was no escape. And worse than the words and the images were the feelings—the heartbreak, the greed, the loneliness.

  Volka fell to her knees, hands still over her ears, eyes closed, heart racing. She was reading the thoughts of everyone.

  “Hatchling, hold on. I’m coming,” Carl cried.

  A stranger’s thoughts rang in her mind. “Ugh, a junkie.” The disgust that followed the thought almost made her vomit.

  She might have imagined or heard a hiss from Carl, and then a swear. A second later, she felt the prick of nails from a tiny paw on her knee. “Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth,” Carl instructed. “Breathe in through your nose for ten.”

  “What is that supposed to do?” Volka cried, but she did it.

  “Are you hurt?” a woman asked in a kindly voice. But inside, the stranger was thinking, “The furry fetishists would love her ears. If I recruit her for the brothel, I’ll get an excellent finder’s fee.”

  Carl hissed at the woman, and his necklace crackled. “My bite is venomous and strong enough to down an elephant.”

  Gasping, the woman jumped away.

  Putting a second paw on Volka’s shoulder, he said … no, thought, “Now breathe out nice and slow. That’s it, Hatchling.”

  Volka exhaled.

  “How cute, an emotional support werfle!” another woman thought … no, she’d said it aloud.

  Volka almost laughed with relief until she heard their thoughts. “I wonder if I could get one for my cousin.”

  The woman asked or thought, “Where can I get one of—?”

  Carl’s necklace crackled. “Ma’am, I am on duty here! Ether the question like a grownup!” Very gently, he said to Volka, “Another deep breath, Volka.”

  Volka wasn’t sure it was working, but she tried again. And let it out slowly. She thought the voices were receding, opened her eyes, saw the floor, and then she thought of Sixty—and her mind roared.

  “No, think of deer,” Carl said. “Think of how cuddly I am. Think of how you are going to reward my cuddliness by giving me the liver of the next deer you kill.”

  Yes, she’d give him the next—Volka’s skin heated. “You’re using compulsion!”

  “Yep,” said Carl.

  Volka glared at the werfle and realized she was seeing him with her eyes, not her mind. He’d wrapped Bracelet around his neck.

  “You’re trying to distract me,” Volka accused him.

  “You will give me belly rubs now!” Carl ordered. The compulsion was thick. Volka could feel the threads of the universe tugging between her and the golden creature. She realized she could break the threads, but she didn’t want to. She pulled Carl into her arms. He rolled upside down, and she obediently rubbed his tummy. He purred, and Volka rose from her knees, her eyes blurry and her face wet.

  “What do I do now?” she asked.

  “Let’s go someplace quiet,” Carl suggested.

  Volka turned back to the Fleet section of the gate. Whatever authentication they used for her worked, and the doors opened. She stepped through, and the same worried guard as before said, “Are you all right, ma’am?” There was no secondary motive in the question.

  “I will be,” Volka said.

  “You will,” Carl said into her mind. “You’ve taken the first step.”

  “What is the next step?” Volka asked, walking back toward Sundancer.

  “We nap,” said Carl.

  “That’s your answer to everything,” Volka protested.

  “Because it is true,” Carl said.

  Volka might have protested again, but she yawned instead. And then she thought of Sixty and the phaser fire streaming past his window.

  17

  Autodestructus Interruptus

  Galactic Republic: System 5

  6T9 had lost the desire to remain operational. But apparently his lack of desire wasn’t enough to override his self-preservation routines: his Q-comm sprang into action, assessing the situation. Two ships behind the Osprey at two and seven o’clock. They had come out of nowhere; ergo, they had faster-than-light drives. Their phasers had probably only missed his ship because they’d been given an estimation of his trajectory. Their ships were too valuable to lose; they wouldn’t take too many risks. But since his ship didn’t have weapons to speak of, they were probably prepared to finish the job.

  6T9 had only two defenses: the Osprey’s damaged time bands that could deflect limited amounts of phaser fire and the vast computing resources of his server. His Q-comm was humming so brightly it was overloading his visual and auditory circuitry, but it didn’t matter. He was connected to the ship via a hardlink and could see through its sensors in 360 degrees, better than he could with his own eyes.

  He sent power to the time bands. The ship shook violently.

  In its cheerful voice, the Osprey declared, “So exciting to hit lightspeed again! How I love to bask in the glow of the Big Bang!”

  Even if reaching lightspeed with Osp
rey’s damaged bands were possible, that wasn’t what 6T9 had in mind. Monitoring the heat of the phaser cannons on the ship behind him, he waited until exactly .25 of a second before they fired and then simultaneously sent his ship into a corkscrew and switched all power to reverse thrusters. The time bands amplified the thrusters’ power, and though the Osprey didn’t go in reverse, its velocity reduced so rapidly that the phaser fire missed them completely, and the enemy ships went sailing past. The crazy corkscrew hadn’t been random—and it was the only reason the Osprey hadn’t collided with the ships.

  6T9 had a choice then. Run and hope his slower ship wasn’t worth the effort to pursue or fight … without weapons.

  It may have been an auto-destruct semi-wish influencing his reasoning, but 6T9 chose to fight. With a shout, he let the Osprey curve to port, then slammed off the reverse thrusters, engaged the regular thrusters, and sent the Osprey on a kamikaze course for the ship at seven o’clock. After all, their ships were valuable, and his was not.

  “Yee-haw!” the Osprey shouted.

  A roar of rage and exhilaration escaped 6T9’s lips, but then red light spilled out in identical spheres from their former pursuers. For a millisecond, 6T9 thought they’d engaged a new, heretofore unknown weapon, but then the spheres collapsed, and the ships vanished. He cursed.

  “More pretty fireworks!” Osprey said. “I hope you were able to enjoy them.”

  6T9’s circuits sparked. Fireworks? The red spheres? Hadn’t Osprey mentioned something about “fireworks” before the attack? He checked. The ship had, but 6T9’s attention hadn’t been in 360 degrees; it had been on Volka. When gating through a normal time gate, there were disruptions in gravity and space-time. There had to be some sort of disturbance free-gating as well. He began checking the ship’s other sensor logs and smacked a hand on the console in front of him in frustration. The ship’s sensors weren’t sensitive enough.

  The ship started to shake; red warning lights went on behind his eyes, telling him that a time band spark had started a fire in the main cabin. Alarms blared, and he realized he had bigger problems. “Brace for reentry,” he announced over the ship’s intercom, and began planning a new approach to New Grande.

  Which was when Carl appeared in the co-pilot seat wearing Bracelet around his neck.

  6T9’s eyes didn’t pop out of his head. That was technically impossible. However, he did have a sudden gear-deep understanding of what that expression meant.

  “What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into!” Carl growled.

  “How are you here?” 6T9 asked.

  Rising to his back two paw pairs, Carl put six tiny paws on his hips. “Have you lost all your balls?”

  6T9’s brow furrowed, but he was too busy avoiding a small weather drone to respond.

  Osprey piped in, “He has plenty of balls. We played chicken with fireworks!”

  6T9 blinked. The ship understood metaphors? That was more than the small local time gate above his asteroid could do. His lips quirked. “And I’m also anatomically correct,” 6T9 managed to say, the weather drone behind them.

  Making a throat-clearing sound, Bracelet whispered, “Carl, I think perhaps you meant marbles?”

  “Haven’t you caused enough trouble, Bracelet? Ganging up on a carbon-based life form’s imperfect memory. Hmph!” Carl grumbled. “You two idiots hurt and insulted Volka.”

  For a moment, 6T9’s circuits went dark, but they lit again as another drone streaked past the Osprey, and 6T9 had to do evasions more quickly than the artificial grav could compensate for. Lights flashed warnings throughout the cockpit. His own sensors flashed warnings as his body rocked in his seat.

  “Carl, I’m trying keep people alive here!” 6T9 protested.

  “I have every confidence you are perfectly capable of crashing a spaceship!” Carl retorted.

  Compensating for his abrupt maneuvers, 6T9 demanded, “How are you here?”

  “I’m in a mindscape, you blithering idiot!” Carl snapped. “Just like you are. Bracelet is roping me in over the ether.”

  6T9 blinked. He was still in a mindscape. Of course he was. He’d never unplugged.

  “The important question,” Carl hissed, “is why I am here! You hurt Volka.”

  “And I hurt her too,” Bracelet whispered mournfully.

  “Yes,” Carl confirmed. “But you are a baby and can’t know better.” He pointed a claw at 6T9. “You, on the other hand, should have. Listen, 6T9, I love you like a hatchling, but accusing a weere of unfaithfulness is the highest insult.”

  “It was an accident,” 6T9 protested. “And a not unlikely deduction—”

  “Weere end their own lives rather than live with the shame of such suspicion!”

  6T9 might have gone briefly offline. When he came to, the heading was off. As he frantically adjusted it, Carl continued. “Don’t worry, she won’t be that foolish. But 6T9, I know something Volka doesn’t, and I’m going to tell you now so you can make up your mind and not string her along.”

  Clouds streamed by the ship. Flames from the rapid reentry rose on either side of the cockpit.

  Carl snapped, “She will always be connected telepathically to Darmadi. She cannot help it any more than I can disconnect my brain from my once-sister Shissh no matter how much she nags me.”

  An enormous Bengal tiger popped into the mindscape between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s chairs.

  6T9’s jaw dropped. “How—?”

  FET12, the sex ‘bot 6T9 and Volka had rescued from the Copperhead and given a Q-comm to, poked his head over Shissh’s. “Hi, Sixty.” Well, that answered 6T9’s unfinished question. FET12 must have roped Shissh into this conference call.

  Shissh chuffed at Carl. “You love my nagging.”

  “Don’t interrupt me!” Carl protested. “This thing is going to blow at any moment.”

  “Thank you for remembering,” 6T9 exclaimed, adjusting power on the starboard thruster as the port side thruster started to fail.

  Shissh and FET12 abruptly disappeared.

  Shaking a claw at 6T9, Carl continued his rant. “It is innate. It is part of her hardware. She cannot make it go away. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. Get over it or let her go!” He put all paws on his hips and huffed.

  Always. Connected. To someone not him. All of 6T9’s circuits went dark—and then fired to life when the tip of one of the wings ripped off, twisting the ship madly.

  “You should probably leave this mindscape,” Carl advised. “You’re probably scaring your crew half to death.”

  6T9 ripped his mind into the real world. A gasp beside him made his eyes dart to the real-world co-pilot chair. Michael was sitting there, face contorted in fear. Ahead through a break in the clouds 6T9 saw the city of New Grande, or what was visible beyond the phaser fire and smoke. Ships of various makes were engaged in combat above the city. It was impossible to tell friend from foe. He gulped. He’d volunteered to take himself to the frontlines, hadn’t he? And he’d volunteered to do it without Volka. She was fighting on another front somewhere … or maybe she was with Darmadi. Maybe Darmadi would comfort her … again … after 6T9 failed her … again.

  “The RoboForce factory is on fire,” Michael shouted.

  6T9 glanced in the direction of the factory, zoomed in, and verified that it was in flames. And not only that …

  “They have troops stationed outside the factory,” Michael declared, and 6T9 took mental note that the man had augmented distance vision.

  6T9 smiled grimly. He’d been right to worry that someone would give away their destination to the Dark. Good thing he’d never meant to go there anyway. “I have a Plan B,” he lied.

  “Uh-huh. Can you land this thing?” Michael whispered.

  6T9, still connected to the ship’s systems, grimaced. “No.”

  18

  Always Connected

  Galactic Republic: Time Gate 1

  Dear Alexis,

  I miss the bread you serve at breakfast and fresh
, Luddeccean butter.

  I miss coffee that tastes real.

  I miss our discussions of alien mythology. I remember you telling me that in The People’s myths, they went from an agricultural age to a space faring species in just over two thousand years. Maybe it wasn’t mythology, Alexis? Maybe it was real. Between beings who were true telepaths, how could there be subterfuge? How could they enjoy causing pain?

  A flash of white outside the window of Alaric’s hospital room made him look up. The window was now facing away from Earth, and against the black, Volka’s ship stood out like a luminous pearlescent teardrop.

  He remembered her tearing away from their last conversation. It had hurt, and she had known it. Undoubtedly, she was off to something equally dangerous. She hadn’t come to see him before this current mission. He was equally relieved—he didn’t like his brain being excavated—and disappointed. And frustrated, too … he should be out there.

  Despite all those emotions, he put his hand on the chill barrier of the window. “Take care, Volka,” he whispered, and added, with the deepest sincerity, “Take care of her, Little Ship … and yourself.” The ship vanished, but Alaric’s lips quirked. “Ah, you heard.” He knew they had.

  For a few moments, he regarded the black. Strangely, he didn’t feel any less for his wife for still having feelings for Volka. There was no contradiction. They were all connected. It made him feel fuller now, more whole, not conflicted as it once had.

  He dropped his hand from the window, and in its reflection, he noticed a shadow in his doorway. That feeling of connectedness instantly vanished.

  His gaze met that of the android Sinclair in the reflection. How long had he been there? He’d felt camaraderie with the machine before, but now he remembered what it was—a spy—and an obvious one at that.

  Irritated he’d been caught off guard by Sinclair again, Alaric said tersely, “Good afternoon.”

  The android didn’t flinch, look away, or apologize for intruding without warning. “Good afternoon, Captain Darmadi,” Sinclair replied. “I’ve been authorized to invite you to Earth.”