by S. Walker
"We know." Siers sounded like a man with a chest cold. "It's alright."
"No, really. I wasn't going to leave anyone." System schematics and icons broke into rainbow fragments of light, rolling down both cheeks on cool trails. She flicked tears impatiently with one hand, sending droplets floating away. "No matter what I said. I wasn't."
"Then it's just-"
She ran right over him, angry and bitter. "But I could have. It's- what I would have done. Not even that long ago! Catch me at any point a year ago and none of that would have been just pretend. I've never done it that up close and personal, not really, but I've signed off on dozens of authorizations and lost no sleep at all." Jamet looked haunted, face drawn downwards and a thousand yard stare. "And the worst part is... I can still feel it. Can still get there, in my head. Back to just numbers, assets and promotion items instead of people."
She pounded the console, frustrated at being unable to explain it better. "I want to feel different now. Better. But I haven't changed. And that Upper... that could have been me. Still is me, just not-" Jamet went limp, suddenly tired. "Not lucky, I guess."
Siers listened quietly until she was done, eyes sympathetic and coughing slightly now and then. When Jamet ran down he nodded once, then began working his console surface in a long series of file opening, dragging and moving gestures. "Do you think our captured Executive is going to be more trouble?"
She flicked a hand toward the CEO station. "Absolutely. If not now then whenever we get within reach of Corporate HR. That arrest was completely illegal; I probably just cost you enough sanctions to fund a colony for a year."
"Well if it helps, lieutenant." He dragged an icon on his workspace, transferred it to her broken console. "You have my approval. I was about to order our big Engineer to grab her anyways, you just beat me to the punch. Proverbially speaking."
Jamet slowly frowned at her workspace, pulling the icon to the working half of the console. It opened with a single tap, expanding into a huge list of files, subfolders and database queries. It looked like personnel records. Thousands of them. "What's this...?"
He was looking steadily her way, cheeks flushed and eyes bloodshot. "Something to keep you up at night, lieutenant. Those," he nodded toward her display surface. "Are the records of everyone you've ever signed off on."
The bridge spun. She felt sick. It was a monstrous censure of her record, but even worse was how premeditated the whole file was. No one simply pulled everything together that fast with a couple of lookups. "You had these already. Why? Are you- I mean, were you going to-"
"Blackmail you?" He seemed amused. "Force you into a contract? Throw you into career oblivion? No, of course not. But I needed to know the kind of person you were, the good and the bad. That, right there?" He pointed to the records, silently shuffling through her display. "Is the worst. And if you ever feel like you're too close to the way things were, how you used to be-- well. Read them over. Make amends, if you feel the need." For just a second a look of incredible sadness crossed his face, there and gone again in the flick of a groomed mustache. "It helped me, once."
She palmed the records, then made a fist to close all of them at once. "I don't think I can do that. Sir."
"You don't have to right now. But it's there, whenever you want."
For an awkward moment Jamet felt caught between extremes, horrified someone knew every past error and relieved at the same time not to be judged over it. Or, she supposed, judged and somehow forgiven. Put on probation, perhaps? Making a grabbing motion at the icon, she dumped the entire file into personal storage and changed the subject. "Did our rescued workers get bedded down?"
Siers went from brooding directly into a surprised chuckle. Then he started coughing, one hand pounding his chest. "They did! In fact, I think you may have given our Comms technician something of a gift by having her help. Did you happen to pay attention to her handling the rescuees?"
"Um," she thought back. There was a lot of yelling, she recalled. Some very directive bullying as well. "I was in a bad place, but I don't recall anyone giving us any trouble after Emilia came down to help. Did I miss something?"
In response he hit a button on his console, bringing the overhead speakers to life. Emilia's voice came through loud and clear, sassy with a strong edge of humor in it.
"-egency rations?! Get out here! Someone help me with these, I got way too many of them! You annnnnd... you! Start handing these out. Sure, take four if you like, I don't give a goddamn- what? Oh you don't like that kind? Well look at Pinto Bean Patrick over here, getting picky! Fine! Now you have two of them, how's that feel nodon'tyougivehimthat! Pudding is for producers only! Well shit, guess someone doesn't want extra sleeping rolls. That's RIGHT, I've got sleeping ROLLS, start passing these things-"
Siers cut the speakers off, eyebrows slanted and grinning while Jamet wheezed her way through laughing so hard she couldn't draw breath. "Something tells me she has them under control."
"Em- Emilia-" she had hiccups, now. "She's a dorm mom?"
"I'm just as surprised, honestly. At first I was concerned they would mob her, but after the sanitizer scene-"
"The sanitizer scene?"
"She sent several back in twice, then threatened to force everyone into multiple hot showers a day if they didn't behave."
"Oh nooooo!" Jamet collapsed across the console, howling laughter. Siers joined in, chortling until he started coughing and then going on until his face was completely red. Both of them let the last hours' worth of tension go all at once, pouring worry and frustration out in a long, cathartic stream of humor.
And that was the moment the bridge hatch opened. Paul and Janson blinked at the two laughing lunatics, then gave each other a brief side eye full of silent communication. A lot passed between them in a single moment of raised eyebrows and concerned expressions. "Did ah miss something...?"
Jamet waved them in without looking, then wiped tears out of both eyes. "Suh- sorry. Just bl- blowing off steam. It's been a he- hell of a day."
"Ah can agree with that." With his Security helmet off the big man looked much less intimidating, although zero gravity did strange things to his beard. He kicked off from the hatch, deftly alternating hand and foot touches to steer himself into Engineering. "Our Executive isn't happy, but she also isn't going anywhere f' a bit. Got her in the port storage."
Jamet sobered up in a hurry. "Not the one with...?"
"Nah. Those boarding drones are more aft, by the reactor. Paul? Did you two get those handled?" The big man buckled in, keeping himself secured to the workstation area. A moment later he had the display wristed to life, ID opening up the ship systems.
"Yes. Well, all of the units we found at any rate." He made zero-g look graceful, ultralong arms and legs always within range of an anchor surface to rotate around. "There may be more in the damaged areas of the ship; they seem to either come in on debris or somehow grow in place. We will know when the gravity comes back on."
Jamet turned towards Medical and started to ask a question, then visibly hesitated with a look of worry on her face. Paul noticed the motion and smiled crookedly. "The young Minyer will be fine, lieutenant."
"I didn't want to ask. But, is he...? You know?"
Paul nodded. "Leukemia." Then waved dismissively. "He is seven months behind on treatment, but that life support tent was incredibly high echelon. Preventative aerosols kept the cancer in abeyance for nearly a quarter year and slowed progression afterward. I have him on a course of retros now, another month or so will see him cleared. Unfortunately," he aimed a slightly worried look in Jamet's direction. "There may be a lengthy series of therapy sessions in his future."
She looked away, wounded. "I didn't mean to."
"I was not blaming you. In fact, I think you may have done the right thing... in the long run." Paul looked significantly at Siers, then transferred an approving grin her way. "Well done, Impossible."
Everyone pretended not to notice as Jamet choked up. "Ahem. Alr
ight. So we're carrying an entire group of refugees, the ship is damaged, there are hostiles in system that chase Krepsfield drives and we can't use local gravity. Is that about right? Did I miss anything...?"
"Our entire caf supply is freeze dried." Janson winked.
"Well, it's official: This may be my worst assignment, ever." She looked straight ahead, pretending an extreme interest in the system map. "But the company wasn't too bad, all things considered."
Paul started laughing, high and atonal, followed a moment later by the big engineer. "Not too bad at all! Could a' done with slightly less getting thrown about the bridge, but yah can't have it all ah suppose."
Captain Siers chuckled along, then started bringing up system icons on the shared workspace. "That does bring up a good question, though. How are we going to get out of Pilster? Without drawing a lethal amount of attention, that is." He brought up an overlay of red dots, pinpointing each attacker in the asteroid belt. It looked like a particularly virulent form of disease. "Also, not to alarm anyone but Emilia's results came back from the Kipper's slow scan of the asteroid belt. These additional contacts are likely new rocks being converted into attack vessels."
Jamet's jaw dropped. She grabbed at markers, transferring them onto her local console and enlarging snapshots. "Wait, what? How? Are you sure?"
He nodded. "Do you recall what the scans were looking for?"
It felt like ages ago, but she cast her mind back to Siers' order to Emilia. "Albedo. You had Comms start a scan for shiny surfaces, or something too bright to be a natural rock. So all of these are asteroids with high reflection?" Jamet highlighted them all at once for a quick count. "Ninety four new contacts?! How is that possible!"
Paul took the images and arranged them using the captain's trick, showing them from brightest shine to lowest as a progression of how complete the vessels were. He pointed at each as they spun through the workspace. "I think we are seeing a geometric increase. Notice how few are fully completed?" He indicated the finished builds, entirely converted into hexagons and beginning to exude cloud cover. They were only a small fraction of the overall force, but the most menacing by far. "I think as each gets completed it begins a manufacture on the nearest resources available. So a completed one starts another, gets it to a certain point and moves on to begin the next. It is... frighteningly self sufficient."
It was a sobering thought. Jamet wasn't sure what everyone else was thinking, but all that ran through her head was a multiplication table. One made two, two made four, four made sixteen. But wait, that wasn't right; in this case one started one, then began a second, third and fourth just as the original began making its own little assembly line.
She got up to sixteen factories equaling the exponential end of the universe when Janson interrupted the tense silence.
"Somethin' isn't right. Where's the resources comin' from?" Janson took the display, switching to color codes. The most complete vessels kept their red color while everything else went to gray. "Here's the most active area, mostly around that shut down smelting facility. Which makes sense; it'd be heavy in processed ore and such." More dots lit up, orange this time and wrapping a quarter way around the belt going clockwise. "Here's the secondary builds, between uh... ah guess fifty to seventy five percent complete. Taking liberties on that. But now look at the last group, ones that are below twenty-five percent done or so." Yellow dots this time, like miniature suns that spread almost halfway around the system star.
He pointed at the display. "Now, ah don't have the local survey data, but if that section was heavy in raw resources the smelter would've been put there, first. Common sense. But they're building each other just fine, near halfway across a very wide area-- a bit slow, but they're pluggin' along." He spread both hands and waved them to indicate the whole bridge. "Think about what it takes to make a ship. All kinds of exotics and composites. Even if they got some fancy manufacturin' process to skip some steps-- where's it all comin' from?"
Siers tapped thoughtfully on his console, bloodshot eyes tracking arcs of colored dots. "That is a very interesting question. But does it help us get out of the system in any way?"
"Ah'm not sure, sir." Janson looked crestfallen. "Just found it hard to figure out, engineering-like."
Paul motioned for attention. "There is another problem, actually. We may not, in fact, be able to leave."
Everyone looked at him in surprise. "What? All we have to do is get to the arrival point," Jamet pointed at the spot, clearly marked on the system map near the edge. "If we don't get smashed before then, we can- oh, fuck."
Siers closed both eyes, then rubbed them with his thumbs. "I didn't think of it either, lieutenant. Paul, you're right: We can't go."
"Uhhhmm. Am I missin' something?" Janson looked confused.
"We can't leave if there's any attackers left in system," Jamet explained in a hopeless voice. Damn it all, why did everything have to be so complicated? "Because if we take off for a Corporate system they'll follow us there. Just like that warship, or those haulers from seven months ago." Realization hit, hard. "Dammit, that might even be how they spread-- they're just following ships around."
Despair settled over the bridge, passing from person to person like a dark cloud. "So, to outline this problem again," Paul said, his atonal voice and vocal cracks making it sound worse. "We are carrying loads of evacuees, our ship is damaged, hostiles target our drive, we cannot use local gravity and even if the Kipper managed to run we would be bringing the problem with us." He waited for a reply, then nodded to confirm his own points. "Is that our consensus?"
There was a long, fraught silence.
Then Siers frowned. He tapped the system display, highlighting a dark callout window. "Engineer?"
"Sir?"
"This smelting facility. Is it intact?" The icon brightened to life, displaying options for schematics and database queries.
Janson looked unsure. "Ah would have to ask Emilia, but probably. She said they must've closed up, or ah guess were between shipments for processing. Can ah ask why?"
Siers worked the display, enlarging the smelting schematic and checking features. "It's a singularity crushing system, correct? Pulls raw ore in one side, smashes it with an event horizon and runs the pieces through a plasma setup?"
"Close enough, ah suppose."
The image centered on the smelter, then he drew a line from the dark facility to the Kipper. Numbers lit up next to it showing distance and range. "That is a far shot, but could one of our lifeboats make it, perhaps? Could we get there in a single trip?"
Paul shared a worried look with Jamet. "Sir, lifeboats are one way trips. If you are thinking of transferring everyone to the smelter for long-term survival I would advise against it. Better to remain here, use the Kipper and... I am not sure. Perhaps affect repairs on the habitation ring?"
Jamet nodded. "I'd rather not live out a couple years on a tiny processing facility, sir."
He waved them down, eyes bright and fixed on the forward display. "Not to live on, Paul. Could we get someone there and start it? Get the fixed Krepsfield going and fire up the smelter itself?"
"Whoa, sir." Janson looked alarmed. "You'd have a system's worth of attackers ramming you in something like... uhh, four or five minutes. That station is practically next door to 'em."
"But what if we wanted that to happen? If we wanted them to hit it?" He grinned suddenly, lines on his face combining into an evil look. "Aren't plasma setups extremely volatile? After all if they were safer wouldn't they be on a processing station, like this one?"
Jamet blinked, then blinked again. Slowly she caught the captain's evil grin, lips pulling back. "Yes sir. They are, in fact, highly dangerous. I'd have to pull records but I am pretty damn sure there is a reason it's four or five hundred thousand miles away from anything else. The last time I heard of a failure-- which is pretty likely, Corporate-built systems being what they are-- the Management budget in question went into the red for years and years. Tons of assets
lost."