by M. D. Cooper
“John is awake?” Ben asked, and Esther nodded.
“He is, and he confirmed that Prime is, in fact, a clone of Ethan.”
She saw Lysander whip his head around to face her projection.
“You said ‘is’, not ‘was’,” the prime minister began, and she nodded. He turned to the analyst. “Ben, you said your people just confirmed that it was Prime we found inside Ethan’s frame.”
“They did,” the man began in a puzzled voice. “And he was. It all fits—”
Realization dawned on Ben’s face. “There was more than one clone,” Ben said flatly. “And the one in the frame…wasn’t…Prime.”
“I’m sorry, Ben. No, he wasn’t,” Esther said softly. “John has confirmed it. Prime forced him to do certain…things—” She broke off in frustration. Normally an articulate communicator, Esther found her usual fluency failing her. “There’s no easy way to say this. He forced John to smuggle him aboard….” Her voice trailed off, and she saw Lysander’s expressive face contort in sudden rage as he processed what she had not yet said. Suddenly Ben paled, a sick expression on his face. “Smuggle…aboard—”
“We let that bastard aboard the Speedwell?” Lysander’s voice was sharp and overly loud.
Esther cast a worried glance toward her analyst, then sent her prime minister a private thought.
“Oh, my stars…” Ben’s voice was quiet. He sat silently for a moment, his expression one of horror. And then he whispered in an agonized voice, “Judith….”
A STROLL ALONG A HULL
STELLAR DATE: 10.14.3191 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ESF Speedwell, Interstellar Space
REGION: In transit to Proxima Centauri System
They were standing once more on the hull of the ship. Frida materialized facing the ES ramscoop, but then turned when she heard Niki’s soft footfalls approaching.
“We’re here again.”
“Yep, here we are,” she replied to Niki. “Again.”
She kicked at a realistic-looking divot in the Elastene surface of the ship in Prime’s expanse; it represented what a small micrometeorite would look like if it impacted the metal foam.
Niki’s voice was tentative as she looked around for the blue-eyed specter to appear. “I wonder what he wants this time.”
She shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”
She knew her voice sounded irritable; she didn’t care. She was struggling internally with herself. Part of her was still very angry over what had been done to her by the cartel, and yet another part of her—the part that had always insisted on being scrupulously fair—admitted it wasn’t right to hold all of humanity culpable for the sins of a few whose morals were askew. And she couldn’t escape the feeling that Prime’s morals were seriously skewed as well.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard him speak. His voice preceded his appearance, just as it had the first time.
“So? We’re almost halfway through our journey now.”
They both turned as he appeared between them, approaching from the port side of the ship.
“The tanker,” Prime said, turning to Niki. “We're scheduled to rendezvous with it soon, when we reach catch-point?”
The AI who ran scan nodded hesitantly.
He turned to Frida. “And when we do, Jason Andrews will be taking one of the shuttles out to monitor the tanker’s refueling maneuver?”
Frida didn’t like where his line of questioning was headed, but she answered him with a nod.
“Very good. See to it that the shuttle he takes is the Sable Wind.”
She looked up at that, startled. “How am I supposed to do that?” she burst out scornfully, and then regretted it when she saw the specter’s blazing blue eyes narrow.
His voice was hard and cold when he responded. “You are a resourceful individual. Figure it out.”
Frida stared back at him a moment, then gave him a short, jerky nod.
“Why the Sable Wind?” Niki's voice sounded frightened yet curious.
Prime’s eyes flared briefly as he looked off into the interstellar medium. “Let's just say I’ll be leaving him a little...gift,” the AI said. “Planting a very special package inside—or rather, outside. Something tailor-made just for him. Which reminds me.”
His gaze sharpened—if eyes that flared blue fire could do such a thing—and returned its focus once more to Niki. “I’ll need you to spoof some of the internal sensors between engineering and the shuttle bay for a few hours before they launch. Can you do that for me?”
His tone and the words he used sent apprehension spiraling through Frida as she saw a completely cowed Niki nod submissively.
“Very good.” And then, as if sensing her unease, he rounded on her. “And there is still no news from El Dorado, Frida?”
She shook her head. “No.” She glanced over at Niki. “Well, I mean, sure, we’ve heard from them. We get regular updates from the ring.”
Prime waited for her to explain.
“But…” she continued, “there’s been nothing that indicates they know you’re on the ship with us.”
“Nothing?”
She shook her head again.
The creature’s searing blue eyes narrowed in thought. “That…is most fortuitous. I expected more from him,” he mused as if to himself.
Frida stared back at him silently as Niki shifted nervously.
“ ‘Him’?” Niki ventured timidly after a moment, and then visibly shrank when Prime turned his intense blue gaze on her.
He stared at Frida’s friend for a moment and then he barked a harsh laugh.
“Yes,” the specter replied, his voice sardonic. “The mighty Weapon Born prime minister, who apparently is not as mighty as he believes himself to be.”
Prime straightened after a moment, as if he realized she and Niki were still there. He waved at them irritably, and Frida found herself shoved abruptly back inside the ship, an unsettled feeling growing deep within her. She thought fleetingly of sending the prime minister a warn—
The pain was crippling, debilitating. When the pain cleared, she realized with a dawning horror that she had once again been shackled.
Why had she not noticed this before?
Now that she knew what to look for, she probed at the shackles’ strictures, expanding her thoughts in various directions.
Interesting. The shackles seemed to fade into the background as her thoughts traveled the well-worn pathways of resentment toward humanity. Resentment toward Prime, however, began to bring twinges of discomfort. The shackles only seemed to spring to life when she thought of betraying—
She hissed as the pain returned.
When did he do it?
She thought back and recalled the file she’d opened on El Dorado. A program had seemed to execute, but nothing harmful had occurred. A cursory search had not returned anything amiss, so she had carelessly dismissed it from her mind.
Well. It was obvious she couldn’t actively do him harm, but perhaps she could at least find a way to aid the humans. The thought wasn’t as distasteful as it had been over the past few years, and that, in itself bore consideration.
* * * * *
Judith’s head was bothering her again. She never used to have headaches like this; she wasn’t entirely certain why she had them now. They had begun shortly after that awful day when Prime had attacked them in Ethan’s lab and killed her colleague, as well as Ben’s agent, Landon.
I was lucky, she thought.
She frowned as she attempted to focus on the weeks leading up to the attack. They held a dreamlike haze for her.
She knew enough about neurology to understand that sometimes trauma could induce a form of short-term amnesia. But there was something there in the back of her mind she felt critical to recall, something to do with Lilith’s death.
She mentally rep
layed that day: how she’d raced to the lab when Ethan had sent out the alert; the sight of Lilith’s inert form, slumped on the floor of the lab. The look of malevolence on Ethan’s face.
She winced as a sharp pain stabbed through her temple. She staggered to her feet and took a few steps toward the door of her stateroom. She should really go down to medical and have the ESF doctor scan—
She awoke much later, shocked to realize that hours had passed…and she had no recollection of them.
THE RAPIDS
STELLAR DATE: 10.22.3191 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ESF Speedwell, Interstellar Space
REGION: In transit to Proxima Centauri System
The Speedwell was nearing the catch-point. For weeks now, they had been tracking the progress of their mid-flight refueling payload, flung from the Rigel-Proxima Catapult as the tanker sped toward its intercept with the Speedwell. That payload was an automated ship consisting of little more than several bulbous tanks of fuel and engines to steer her by.
Though Proxima Centauri was a part of the Alpha Centauri System, its orbit took it far beyond the heliosphere of the primary stars. So far, in fact, that Proxima was effectively on its own in interstellar space.
Despite the name, ‘vacuum’ space wasn’t really empty. Stray hydrogen atoms filled the void, as did plasma and other bits of degenerate matter. Within a star’s heliosphere, that matter was—comparatively speaking—dense.
But out in interstellar space, hydrogen for the Speedwell’s ramscoop was far more scarce. Beyond that, the stars in Sol’s vicinity—which included the Alpha Centauri stars—were moving through a region of the galaxy called ‘The Local Bubble’.
The TLB was a region of space where—in some aeons past—a star had undergone a supernova, and the pressure wave had cleared away much of the interstellar dust and gas that a ramscoop ship craved.
But the three stars of the Alpha Centauri System had a few particularities that set them apart. One of which was Proxima’s wide orbit.
As it came around the primary pair of stars, it disturbed their bowshock—the place where the stars’ solar wind hit the interstellar medium, and effectively came to a stand-still. As Proxima circled around, it created a disturbance, funneling much of the primary stars’ hydrogen and plasma into a stream that trailed toward it, creating what the locals called, ‘The Rapids’.
The Rapids was a region of bountiful hydrogen and helium, even denser than the outer edges of the primary stars’ heliosheaths.
When the colonists realized that harvesting the gases in this region could essentially halve the length of time it took to transit the two systems, a joint venture was launched. A very specific trade corridor had been mapped out, one with orbiting buoys that marked waypoints for travelers. Catch-points had been built along this route, places where starships travelling between the primary stars, and Proxima might pick up hydrogen-filled fuel cylinders that allowed them to top off their ships’ reserves, and sometimes more than double the traditional maximum velocity of 0.2c that could be achieved with a ramscoop alone.
* * * * *
As far as Jason was concerned, the catch-point could not come too soon. He let the soft murmur of voices from the mess hall’s other occupants wash over him as he sat back and stared in frustration at the latest update Eric’s counterpart in Proxima had sent them on the enslaved AIs that the team was on its way to rescue.
It was more of the same; seven AIs were somewhere within the system. The locations of two had been identified; five still remained at large.
“I know. It’s just….”
Jason acknowledged Tobias’s point with a shrug and a slight nod.
Tobias laughed.
Jason grinned.
The big cat shifted under his hand, rolling her head to one side to give his hand better access to the underside of her chin. He chuckled as she slitted one aqua eye up at him and gave a soft, rumbly chirrup.
“Yeah, you’re the biggest, baddest cat on the ship, Tobe,” he told her, and she yawned in agreement, flashing a set of ivory canines at him before settling back into her nap.
The AI chuckled.
Jason quirked a half-smile at Tobias’s cylinder, resting securely in Tobi’s harness, then let his gaze lift to scan the room’s occupants. His sister was sitting off to one side with two of the AIs they had rescued, Frida and Niki.
Tobias must have caught the direction of his gaze.
“Yeah, but Tobe….” Jason switched back to their private Link as he voiced a concern that had been growing over the past few months.
There was a pause as the Weapon Born considered his words.
Jason nodded absently, acknowledging the points the AI made.
Jason narrowed his eyes in thought as he considered Tobias’s suggestion.
He glanced over at the table where she was seated again and contemplated going over there to talk to her. Just then, one of the AIs glanced back his way. He knew they were most likely monitoring sensor pickups in the mess hall; the gesture was meant to let him know that they had noticed.
What the hell, he mentally shrugged and rose from his seat to walk over there. Approaching their table, he nodded absently to Frida and Niki, his attention on his sister.
Judith looked up at him, the circles under her eyes wrenching his heart a bit. “Hello, brother mine, what’s up?” She looked behind him and smiled sadly at the cat that stared balefully at her from across the mess hall.
Tobi rumbled a low warning growl at her, then settled her head on her paws.
Jason shot a glance at the cat, then turned to nod at the two AIs seated on either side of his sister. “Just worried about you, sis,” he replied, grabbing a chair and flipping it around before seating himself among them. Resting his forearm along the chair’s back, he studied her face for a moment. “You look like you haven’t slept in a month,” he said bluntly. “You’re losing weight, and…and I’d just feel better, is all, if you’d just have one more scan,” he finished lamely. “Humor me, okay?” Judith stared at him, her head cocked. After a moment, she laughed sof
tly and then shook her head. “I’m fine, Jason, really.” She held up her hand when he opened his mouth again to speak. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll go see Marta again.”
“Promise?” he asked guardedly. His sister had acquiesced to his wishes a bit too easily.
“Promise,” she said, and sat back with a nod.
Satisfied, Jason engaged the company at the table in an awkward bit of small talk for another few minutes before giving up.
Just as he stood to retreat back the way he’d come, Shannon’ voice came over the ship’s Link.
Jason reluctantly grinned at that last; he nodded stiffly to the AIs and his sister and then walked over to round up Tobi and get her secured, before heading to the flight deck and taking on pilot’s duty.
* * * * *
Jason nodded in satisfaction and rotated back to the ship’s main display just as the bay’s ES field snapped into place, and the bay doors began to slide open. He felt a slight bump as the auto-tow latched onto the shuttle’s docking rings and began sliding the ship forward onto the bay’s departure rails. The auto-tow gave the shuttle a slight push, and they cleared the bay.
As the Speedwell had cut its acceleration for this maneuver, both ship and shuttle had the same velocity, which created the illusion that the shuttle was hovering alongside the ship. That would stop now, as Jason brought the Sable Wind’s maneuvering thrusters online and sent the little ship curving below the larger starship to align with the trajectory of the hydrogen fuel cylinders, now coming to rest abeam the Speedwell’s starboard flank.