Running Black

by J. M. Anjewierden

  “We aren’t sending you over there alone,” Bill stated, frowning all the while.

  “Of course not,” the captain said. “Even if this was entirely routine, we wouldn’t, much less so now.”

  “Who goes with me, then?” Morgan asked. She was fidgeting a bit in her seat, and looking down, she realized her right hand was playing with the closure to the pocket that held her small Iridium Special.

  The small pistol, and its tiny suit-piercing rounds, had certainly saved her life when the Fate was boarded. She hadn’t had it with her when the assassins kidnapped her, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t be found in that situation again.

  “We can’t send too many of the mercs; their distinct skinsuits will be too obvious. They also won’t be able to actually do what we need of them if everything is okay. One should go, Sgt. Eck I think, he knows you best. I can think of four others, off the top of my head, among STEVE’s crew who have military experience. Any more than six would be suspicious as well, I think.”

  “Six against a whole station, that’s reassuring,” Morgan said, mostly in an attempt at a joke. From the grim faces around her, she realized it had not landed.

  “We don’t need you to do anything of the kind,” the captain said. “Just get back to STEVE if something is wrong, nothing more.”

  “No heroics,” Bill said, to which the captain nodded.

  “If the station is in pirate hands, that’s a job for the Navy, more specifically their Marine detachments. Just because STEVE is armed doesn’t give us the duty – or the right – to go seeking fights.”

  Morgan nodded her agreement, then sighed and stood up.

  “We’d better not keep them waiting, then. How long until we dock?”

  “Forty minutes,” the astrogator said, glancing at his console.

  “Then I’d better go get ready. There are a few things I need to grab from my quarters before I head down to the main airlock.”

  The captain walked with her back to the lift.

  “I mean it, Morgan,” he quietly said while she waited for the lift to arrive. “No heroics, no unnecessary risks. Moreover, no antagonizing the captain, since it is almost certain we’re all just being paranoid and nothing is wrong at all. He was rude, yes, but being rude back won’t help anything. Especially not with the clock ticking; don’t forget that while we’re docked, we have to retract some of the radiators.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And one last thing. My instructions to the men going with you will be to be alert, but don’t give offense. I am not telling them we suspect pirates. If they’re doing their jobs, they’d notice any problems without the warning, and if we do tell them, they may end up jumping at shadows. There’s nothing harder than not thinking about an Albion Albatross than when someone tells you not to think about an Albion Albatross.”

  Morgan bit her lip. She felt that was a mistake, but it wasn’t her place to contradict him. Telling them was the better option, telling them and trusting them not to overreact.

  “Yes, sir,” was all she said, repeating herself, though not quite with the same tone as before.

  Chapter 22

  “The first order issued by a commander mounting a military invasion is the jamming of the channels of communication of those he intends to conquer.” My ancestor said that, all those centuries ago on Earth. He was talking in a religious context as one who had also served in the armed forces of our ancestral home, but of course it also applies in many other circumstances, including militarily, and make no mistake, our struggle against the devil can be seen as a military battle. He seeks to dull our senses, to make it harder for us to hear the still, small voice of the Spirit guiding us. Dull our senses enough, overload us with fears, doubts, irrelevant concerns, and we can’t even perceive our own thoughts, our own wisdom for all the noise. Communication truly is vital, in whatever we do, be it our jobs, our marriages and child-rearing, our religious lives, and even in understanding ourselves. Take time to pause and reflect, not just on the weighty matters of faith, but of every aspect of your lives.

  - Bishop Karl Packer, Planet Zion.

  MORGAN PRETENDED she didn’t notice the trembling in her hands that had come back as she descended to the crew deck in the lift.

  She pretended she didn’t notice it as she sat on her bunk, checking the spare magazines for her weapon, cramming a few more into the pocket opposite the concealed pistol at her hip and then most of the rest into a pouch she strapped to her arm, one usually intended to safely hold removed bolts when working in microgravity. That left only one that didn’t fit.

  Still her hands trembled as she pulled off her suit, standing there naked as she looked at a small compartment below the suit’s molded air tanks on the suit’s back.

  It held a length of hose that could be used by a rescuer to connect an external air supply, a backup to the hose attached directly to the unit. Pulling the collapsed coil of hose out, she set it aside and placed the last magazine in its stead. She wouldn’t be able to retrieve the magazine without help were it actually needed, but there wasn’t anywhere else it would fit, and she vastly preferred to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

  She sat back down for a moment, looking at the slight bulges on her suit where pistol and magazines lay, and suppressed a shudder.

  She was gripping the edge of her bed hard to steady herself, feeling vulnerable and foolish and angry, all at once.

  It has to be me, but why does it have to be anyone?

  For all their talk about paranoia and likelihoods, Morgan knew. She knew. The station was in the hands of pirates. She couldn’t figure out why they wanted someone from STEVE over there in person, but it couldn’t be anything good.

  The only solace she had, beyond the fact that she’d at least have the skinsuit acting as her armor not only against the vacuum of the Black, but against most bullets as well, was that she could imagine even less reason to have someone come if all they wanted to do was kill them.

  Pulling her suit back on, she checked what she could to make sure it was fitted properly. She took a moment to adjust the pistol and magazines so they didn’t print so much.

  Still feeling uneasy, she made to leave, to head for the airlock and whatever awaited her. Something made her pause at the hatchway, and for a moment she just stood there, listening to the small sounds of the ship around her, the only other thing breaking the silence the pounding of her heart and the inarticulate scream of fear in her head.

  Is there nothing else I can do? Morgan thought. No, there isn’t. Well, perhaps one thing.

  Returning to her bunk, Morgan sank down to her knees, awkwardly clasping her hands on the spongy surface of the mattress.

  “Oh God. Gertrude tells me You exist, and sometimes I want to believe her, other times I am not sure.” Morgan’s words were halting, hesitant. “If there is a God, and you are God, can You help me now? I am going into great danger, not just me, but the whole crew. Maybe the crew of the station as well, if they are still alive. I guess You’d know if they are or not. I don’t want to die, and I don’t really want to kill anyone again, but I don’t know if they’ll give me a choice. I don’t want to leave Gertrude and Haruhi, or my other friends like Emily, or even Max. I don’t want to leave before I can figure out what this is all about. Life. I guess.”

  There was something she needed to do to end the prayer, but she was having trouble remembering it with the anxiety bearing down on her. Squeezing her hands together tightly, she tried to draw it out of her memory.

  Oh, right, the whole thing with the son championing us before God. “In the name of the Son, amen.”

  Pushing herself to her feet, Morgan took a moment to take stock of her state, emotional and physical.

  Nothing was different, but at the same time, she did actually feel a little better. She knew nothing more of what was to come, or how she would fare, but her breathing was a little more regular, less panicked, and her hands steadied at last.

&n
bsp; “You’ve done this before, Morgan,” she told herself. “You survived then, and you’ll survive now. You don’t want to hurt anyone, but if the pirates care more about other people’s things than they do their own lives, that is their choice, not yours.”

  Tapping her hip over the pocket with her pistol, Morgan opened the hatch and strode out, pushing through the fear that was still there, however much better she felt.

  Chapter 23

  One of the best, brightest things about being human is also the strangest, namely, our compassion. How many people volunteer to search for a single lost hiker? How often is one of those searchers injured or even killed in the process? How many brave men and women run toward the fire or the firefight in order to help others? Logically it makes no sense to risk many to save a few, or even an individual, but we always do it. Oh, sure, when it is a kid trapped down in some pit or other you can argue that instincts are involved, our need to perpetuate the species, but it happens with grown adults and our elders as well. As a species, we are capable of great selflessness. Great selfishness too, of course, and cruelty that sickens me, but I choose to believe the former is the more common response.

  - Rachel Manfried, Central Coordinator, Zion Volunteer Services.

  Sgt. Eck

  SOMETHING WAS up, but as usual, no one bothered to tell the grunts anything. Max was curious when he was ordered to report to the main airlock with a nearly full kit, including flat-pack grenades designed to look like pouches on his belt and his NCR-6 rifle.

  He was suspicious when he got there and noticed that he recognized two of the four crewmen present, Anders and Bolton, both men he’d chatted with at length about their military days.

  He was concerned when he realized the other two, ladies he wasn’t familiar with, had the look of former military about them. What’s more, all four were armed with pistols. Discreetly, of course, and you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know what to look for, but armed they were.

  Then Morgan joined them, brusquely coming over to Max and demanding he check her suit’s seals.

  Max was no longer concerned.

  No, not at all. He was alarmed, the brief glimpse of her face triggering all of his instincts to protect, to destroy threats, at once.

  Max stepped in closer, keeping his voice low so the others wouldn’t overhear.

  “What’s wrong, Morgan? Did something happen to you?”

  “No,” Morgan said, pausing as she took in a deep, deep breath. “No, nothing has happened.”

  Max leaned back and finished his check. Everything was fine, so he scooted around her to get a better look at her face.

  Was the emphasis there intentional? She seemed to be trying to dismiss my question, and that makes me think it wasn’t a conscious choice of inflection.

  “Then what is all this about?” he asked, stepping back a pace and gesturing over his shoulder toward the airlock and the four crewmen beside it.

  “We just need to go deal with a rude captain. That’s all we’re expecting,” Morgan answered.

  Max narrowed his eyes and looked closer at her. Something had scared her, more, something had shaken her. The panic he’d seen when they’d first met, when she thought she had lost her father’s spanner aside, he didn’t think much could do that to her.

  “Its more than that,” Max said, quite confident in his assertion. He’d spent a lot of time with Morgan over the past six months, and he’d like to think they’d become friends. He’d hoped that meant they could trust each other, but this made him wonder.

  “It’s nothing,” Morgan said, her fingers tapping a pair of buttons on her uplink, deploying her helmet, which polarized a moment later, leaving him looking at a reflection of his own face rather than hers.

  Don’t be an ass, Max, he admonished himself. If you trust her, trust that she has a reason for not telling you. It might not even be her choice, if the captain ordered her or something.

  “All right. I’ll follow your lead,” he said, backing up and giving her space. “Whatever you need from me, you get. Rude captain? No problem. Capturing a Navy frigate single-handed to get you takeout? Just say the word.”

  As he’d hoped, she giggled a bit at his absurd statement, but it was gone almost as soon as it started. She also leaned a bit, looking past him.

  Turning to follow her gaze, he saw the station’s airlock was approaching fast. They’d be docking within moments.

  As if on cue – and really, it probably was – the ship’s speakers came on as he thought it.

  “Final docking procedures in effect. Forty-five seconds to contact.”

  He could feel the deck shudder underneath them as the ship’s thrusters kicked their output up a notch, finishing the slow deceleration to match the station’s speed and trajectory.

  Morgan stepped past him, her helmet retracting as she walked.

  “All right. This should be simple. The station captain is upset with us over the delay caused by the Herald’s accident. He’s demanding we send someone over in person to smooth things over, which is why I’m here. You’re all here to help get the transfer started once that’s done. Nothing we haven’t done before.”

  “I haven’t,” one of the ladies said. “I’m a fusion tech.”

  “And why are we all armed?” one of the men asked.

  Morgan cleared her throat.

  “Okay, it isn’t anything you don’t know how to do. As for why you’re armed, there were some alerts from the company we received a little bit ago. They raised our alertness level, and that automatically includes having crew who go off ship go armed if possible.”

  “Frankly this stinks, ma’am,” the other lady said. “This smells like an ambush.”

  Every head whipped around as everyone, Morgan and Max included, stared at her.

  “Would you care to explain?” Morgan asked, speaking very precisely and slowly.

  They were interrupted by the dull clang as the ship made contact with the station, the airlock having extended automatically to mate with its twin on the station. To either side of the airlock, clamps extended out from the station, latching on with powerful electromagnets onto STEVE. Max knew that other clamps would be doing the same both to the fore and aft of them. Just within the slice of the station he could see from where he was standing, a large cargo hatch began to open on the station.

  “Ma’am,” the woman said, Max instantly recognizing the ‘you’re an officer and I can’t tell you that you’re an idiot’ tone, “Everyone was waiting on personal messages eagerly. We got them most of an hour ago. How many of those do you think were talking about the Navy’s alert, and asking us if we were safe? How many of us have friends who are former military and can read between the lines, recognize that the Navy saying it isn’t pirates is in fact evidence it is, but they don’t want to cause a panic? Or that the lack of distress calls tells us the same thing?

  “I’ll admit, I have no idea why you seem to think there are pirates waiting for us over on the mining station, but you must have some reason, why else do we have four former grunts and a gussied up merc accompanying you to hand over some paperwork?”

  For a moment, Morgan covered her face with one gloved hand, and then she burst into laughter. She laughed so hard that she doubled over, clutching her sides. It wasn’t the happiest of laughter, Max thought, but it at least had to be better for her than the mixture of rage, fear, and anxiety he’d seen on her face when she’d first joined them.

  “So much for secrets,” Morgan said, still laughing. In fact, she was laughing so hard she was crying. She tried to wipe away her tears, but was only marginally successful because of her skinsuit’s gloves.

  Max, having had been trained by people who had far more experience than him needing to wipe blood, sweat, and tears from their faces while armored, pulled a handkerchief from one of his pouches.

  “Here,” he said, handing it over.

  “Ah, haa, thank you,” Morgan said, fighting off another bout of laughter.

  �
�So what’s really up then, ma’am?” one of the men asked. “Not much point hiding anything now, is there?”

  Sighing, Morgan sucked in a deep breath before answering.

  “Honestly, we don’t know anything for sure. It’s all speculation. To keep it brief,” Morgan glanced over at the airlock, or more specifically the display on one side that showed its progress in finalizing the connection with the station, and then continued, “The man who demanded we come over isn’t the captain they had when we left; that was a woman named Margaret Hanover. A couple small things seemed suspicious as well, and there is the alert from Zion’s Navy. We can’t just leave because of suspicions, so over we go. We can’t just ignore it, so we take precautions."

  “Do you think there are pirates?” Max asked.

  “Yes,” Morgan said without hesitation. “I feel it in my gut.”

  “Then demand they send someone else,” Max said, all but hissing as he did so. “Send Marigold. They won’t know enough to tell the difference between a merc officer and a merchie.”

  “They won’t? Are you so sure? We have been making deliveries here since before I was born.”

  “Wait. I thought Takiyama got this contract after Madison Shipping collapsed. That was only twenty years ago,” Max said, confused for a moment. After mistaking her for a young teenager the first time they’d met, he’d looked up her file. She should be a few years older than he was.

  “Why do you even… How?” Morgan said, pausing as she looked at him with incredulity evident in her eyes. “Is that important right now?”

  Max just shrugged and gave her one of his trademark grins.

  “It is never a good idea to think a lady older than she actually is.”

  Morgan rolled her eyes.

  “Seal’s ready. Let’s get on with this,” she said, gesturing toward the airlock with her chin. “Get your helmets up,” she said, directed to everyone rather than him. “We still don’t want to piss them off if everything is fine, but we can just tell them there is a virus going around the ship we don’t want to risk giving them, if they object.”