by Ian Cannon
“Yeah. Are we clear?”
“We’re clear,” he groaned. “Remind me not to ever do that again.”
“I will.” She hopped up onto the rear deck and bolted for the main corridor.
The kids.
One of the jumper drones assigned to locate REX and crew, sat crouched on one of the asteroids of the Zii Band overlooking that sector of spinning destruction. The whole area down there moved like a spiral micro-galaxy with debris both coalescing powerfully in some areas, and ripping apart in others. The drone fancied itself as did the Cabal as Drone 01197283-sub1-H, though it preferred simply Sub1-H.
Its optic sensory had collected the strangest motion among the circular currents. Something had threaded at great speed through the turmoil behaving uniquely to the rest, perhaps like a spaceship. Pieces of information suggested it was the target vessel navigating in rolls and maneuvers through the field, but data was fractured from the shifting ferromagnetic and gravitonic currents. Sub1-H’s final observation before losing the signal was of a series of explosions. The nature of the energy expended and the light produced suggested it was machinery being incinerated—perhaps the target vessel—as opposed to rock and ore colliding. There could be no absolute certainty though, without further inspection of the residual debris.
Sub1-H detached from its stone and hurled down into the maelstrom. Narrowing in on the location of that explosive plume, its guidance engine brought it down through a series of micro-adjustments. Referencing its own preservation software, it calculated the likelihood of a vessel surviving passage through the storm. The survival/non-survival ratio that its mind-pulse-brain produced was dramatically skewed, and as it sank lower into the storm toward its target rock, it even began to doubt the odds of its own survival.
Sub1-H landed on the target asteroid’s surface gathering immediately that it was a medium-sized S-type silicaceous asteroid consisting of iron and magnesium silicates with trace amounts of zinc and carbon-rich compounds. This was particularly unimportant data to collect, except when compared to the immediately surrounding residual debris, which was markedly not from the asteroid. The surrounding debris was wholly alloy, which suggested whatever had smashed into this particular asteroid, and was thusly pulverized, was manmade.
Sub1-H performed a split-second, but highly complex rundown of possible, non-random conclusions and drew one in particular. The debris was from the subject vessel. This is where it had crashed rendering the crew dead.
Its logic center wrapped up its observation and conclusion into a transmission catalog and spit the information out into the Zii Band asteroid field as a data stream headed for Arkin Home. Experiencing a finite sense of closure to the first leg of its mission, it prepared for another jump that would hopefully take it back home.
Too late.
Sub1-H’s sensors collected an incoming objet, determined its immediate situation to be of terminal danger and looked up. Here came one of the asteroid children from that immense, planetary collision. It was spinning fast enough to create the thinnest of gravity fields around itself. Sub1-H squealed out a string of zeros and ones that would have been interpreted by any likeminded machine as a pejorative—perhaps something like holy narsicles!—then got smashed into bits.
Nevertheless, Sub1-H’s data stream made it to a brother bot several kilometers away, and was relayed back toward Arkin Home.
Chapter Thirteen
Ben finger-swiped through his gage readouts on his pilot’s screen. He checked primary systems. He’d had to auto manipulate several systems, rerouting and re-directing a number of operational functions. The traditional booster systems were the worst off. With some creative engineering, he was able to reroute fuel flow regulation from the primary fuel system through a tertiary coolant line. It should work, though it would render certain operational systems inoperable, namely the emergency reserve engine coolant. It didn’t matter for now, as long as REX didn’t overheat and explode in a ball of atomized matter.
REX had taken quite a beating. Now, everything was beginning to stabilize. The biggest question was the inner-warp drive. Fixing that was up to REX himself.
Tawny had left the cockpit an hour ago to go see about the children. Ben had wondered if he should join her, but he decided against it. Being a third wheel was never his style. And—as he’d sensed—her connection to those kids was something unique to only her. It was special. It was deep, something he couldn’t fully understand. She had seemed evermore preoccupied with them over the last two days, and allowing her space to explore those feelings, especially through her connection with them, was probably wise. He’d only be in the way.
The door opened behind to a massive sigh. He turned his head to greet her as she slid into the co-seat. He gave her a warm smile, but didn’t say anything. He’d never felt like he’d had to dance around her before. Not ever. Now, he found himself doing the Golothan conga with balsa noise-makers in hand. If she wanted to talk, she would. Otherwise, he’d let her enjoy some peace and quiet.
She finally said, “How’s REX?”
Ben inhaled, said, “REX has issues.”
“About to get me some anger issues,” REX said adding some brevity to the mood. “I’m tired of being smashed-slammed into big rocks, you know?”
Ben smirked and said, “Yeah, starting with all subprime coolant systems. They’re wasted. We’ll have to watch our flying.” He looked up in thought. “And our maneuvering. And our retro braking.”
She said, “We just got fixed.”
“Easy come, easy go I guess.”
REX chimed in petulantly, “And I just got a new paint job too, remember?” He was referring to the Orbin care he’d received while docked over the gold planet—new color scheme, new repairs, new equipment. All gone, thanks to a few gazillion tons of asteroid.
Tawny ignored, said, “Anything else?”
“Inner-warp’s offline.”
“So, here we are again,” she said. “Dead in the void.”
He tilted his head and said, “Nah—just needs a recalibration. REX is working it out. Maybe take a little time to reboot, as long as we don’t blow any more fuses.” He gave her a reassuring glance and said, “We’re limping, but we’re still on our feet.”
REX grumbled, “Oh well gee, that’s a fine understatement. You guys just ripped me a new assteroid hole—again!”
Tawny looked up as if to address their disgruntled ship and said, “You got us through, REXY. For that we’re eternally grateful.”
A long silence passed between them before REX said, utterly pacified, “Well, okay.”
Hesitating to breach the subject with his wife, Ben said, “How are the little ones?”
She looked back over her shoulder, down the corridor. “I calmed them down. It was a rude awakening.”
“They okay?”
She nodded vaguely. “They’re fine. Sleeping again.”
He chucked her on the forearm and said, “You’re good with them.”
Her eyes shuddered, defensively. “I speak their language, that’s all.”
Ben gave her a one-sided grin. “Why don’t you just admit it, sweetheart?”
“Because I don’t want to,” she snapped angrily and got up.
He made an innocent gesture with his hands, but said nothing.
Tawny stopped at the hatch, one hand on the wall, apologetically. She started to say something, but couldn’t. She finally said, switching subjects, “What about comm?”
He turned his head, profile. “What about it?”
“Do we have ears?” she asked.
He quirked his lips. That was an odd question. Who would they call? His face melted into a knowing grin. Tawny wanted to call … her.
The Bitch.
He turned all the way around to look at her and said, “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Tawny sighed big and moved back to the co-seat, sat down. “Our cargo,” she punctuated, “N’halo—will never be safe with her out there. I want to g
et a feel for who we’re dealing with.”
Ben rubbed his chin feeling the grizzle scratch against his palm. He said, “Picking a fight with the Obsalom—”
“They picked a fight with us, Benji,” she interrupted.
He nodded his head. True, true. “Okay—we’ll need to be in radio range of a DPM satellite for the relay, but—yeah, we have ears.” He continued, “And we’ll have to contact our new friend. You know, in the data stream.”
REX cried, “You want to talk to iDaisy? I know where iDaisy’s at. You want to go see iDaisy?”
Ben gave him a curious look and said, “Its name is iDaisy?”
“Her name is iDaisy, thank you very much.”
“It’s a her?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“Uh,” Ben didn’t want to insult his ship, so he kept his mouth shut.
Tawny said with a grin, “Did she tell you what her name is, REXY?”
REX said, “Isn’t that obvious, too?”
Ben said, “What is iDaisy?”
He said, “She’s an Intellectual Da-ta Sy-stem. She’s iDaisy.”
Ben and Tawny glanced at each other privately. Ben asked, “Is she your girlfriend, REX?”
REX blathered, “What? No!” A moment of silence flittered by. “Why, do you think she wants to be, or something?”
Tawny and Ben shifted a chorus of “Uh’s” and “Umms” back and forth before Tawny muttered, “Who knows, I mean it’s possible.”
“Yeah, sure—possible, right,” Ben agreed. He cleared his throat moving on and said, “Yeah so, let’s go talk to iDaisy. Plot a course to the nearest DPM sat.”
REX said, “I already did. It’s right here. See, look. Course plotted. All we have to do is go. It’s that simple. So …” He waited for someone to say something, then bellowed, “C’mon, let’s go!”
Ben flashed his hands forward and said, “Okay, go. Let’s go.”
Wing Commander Havilok got the news at his post overlooking the Prolium command crew. Captain Terrelis stood next to him, a long-faced, square-jawed man with frosted sideburns who hailed from the twin planets of Iot and Zet, a very staunch people patriotic to the core. Terrelis was all Confederation, all the time. Cabal was in his blood.
Havilok read the data stream relayed from Drone 01197283-Sub1-H and grimaced subtly. It had recorded shattered imagery of the target object as seen through a random series of broken signals before the drone witnessed a seething amount of energy coming from its last known location. An explosion. Upon inspection, it determined the analyzed debris was from said vessel.
Conclusion: Complete annihilation.
Terrelis smiled darkly and said, “Congratulations, Commander.”
Havilok nodded. He wanted prisoners, not particles.
One of the forward command crewmembers called, “Sensor Array to Command.”
“Go,” Terrelis said.
The operator said, “We have an approaching vessel, sir. Condor One.”
“The others?”
“We lost contact in the debris field. No word.”
Havilok said, “We’ll debrief him personally.” He and Captain Terrelis turned to leave the bridge, but he stopped, turned back. “Have Senator Torian meet us.” He spit the words.
“Yes, Commander.”
They exited the bridge, took the central lift to the lower decks and moved on until the ship’s interior switched from the congenially designed passenger levels and into the harder, colder combat sectors. They moved across a long landing that serviced the gunnery crews to either side and into the fighter bay. Condor 1 was just settling into its slip. It bore the long cobalt blue striping of Group Leader, etched toward the rear with insignia slashes. The ship had scoring all over it from rocky debris glancing across the fuselage. They watched from the catwalk as automated bots and bay crew personnel shuffled to the vessel to refuel, repair and re-arm.
The pilot squirreled from his cockpit and emerged looking disgruntled. It was the look of a fierce pilot, failed in his mission. He inhaled on a pharma device that would dilute the effects of his combat roids, and shook his head. A liaison escorted him immediately to the combat briefing room where Havilok strode in with Terrelis close behind.
The pilot gave a snappy salute—right hand across the chest, palm down, fingers locked. “Lieutenant Metris, Condor wing one-zero lead, at your service.”
“As you were, Lieutenant,” Havilok said. The man loosened up. “What happened out there?”
“It was as expected. We made contact. Engaged. Comm was scattered. We pursued the mark into the maelstrom, at which point …” he hesitated, ashamed. “We lost him.”
“Lost him?” Terrelis sneered.
“Yes, sir. Sensors were intermittent at best in the interference.”
Terrelis said, “The others?”
“I got visual on six, destroyed,” he said putting his eyes to the floor. They were his men. He looked back up. “I have received no word on the others.”
“Nor have we,” Havilok broke in. He took a breath. “We’re getting reports from our search drones that the target was annihilated.” He searched Metris’s eyes for confirmation. None came. The man had seen nothing of the sort. “What do you think of that?”
“I—” his gaze switched to his captain, then back to Havilok. “I would be skeptical.”
“Why?”
Metris turned away putting his thoughts in order, paced to the plexi wall with a view of the outer bay, and stared out. “My men were excellent pilots. I know good piloting when I see it. This ship—this freighter captain—” He bit his tongue, pinched his words off. Turning to his superiors, he muttered, “I want another shot at him, sir.” He closed his eyes, took a breath. “I want him dead.”
Captain Terrelis’s face tightened.
Havilok showed a grim appreciation for the truth. Drones only saw blips and numerals. Pilots saw talent. He turned to face the bay with a dark realization dawning in his eyes. They underestimated this freighter captain. Their target was still out there. The hunt was still on.
The door whisked open and they turned to face Senator Torian as he entered. The look on his face demanded answers. He wouldn’t like them any more than Havilok wanted to give them.
REX ascended the Zii Band without incident, using the long, winding river of clear space between opposing asteroid fronts. Once they’d risen a few kilometers over the landscape of tumbling goliaths, the ship swung about headed back in the direction of civilized space way off in the cosmic backdrop, and zoomed away. His destination was sector oh-seven-eight, space parcel three-zero-one, cube nineteen, subcube nine-nine. Or as it was known to Tawny and Ben, the closest DPM sat in the data net that might offer the most cover from long range detection.
As Ben had glanced over his pilot’s screen, the thrusters were at several degrees above nominal space flight. REX was in a hurry. It made him grin.
Less than an hour later, they slowed to approach speed with the Zii Band still visible in their six, and swam up to the DPM sat. It sat lonely in space with its solarvoltaic fins angled toward Wi’ahr, which appeared like a glowing marble in the distance.
Tawny peaked in on the children. They slept in their tangle of bodies, a few fidgeting in dream, others snuffling quietly. She stepped away satisfied and met Ben in the main hold. They would comm with the Bitch over the main holotable.
Ben gave her a ready look and cleared his throat. “This is captain and co, Tawny and Ben Dash of the privateer freighter REX calling data stream entity,” he guessed, “iDaisy—are you in range?”
That voice that had once sounded sexless filtered over REX’s innership comm, “Hello, REX. I know who you are. Glad you returned. What can I do for you?” It now sounded remarkably smoky, almost sexy, decidedly like a female. Ben couldn’t tell if it was a psychosomatic process REX had put in his head by declaring her female, or if the entity called iDaisy had altered her vocality to appear more feminine. Whatever the case, Ben gave an impressed fa
ce.
“Establish a ship-to …” he paused. It was a request he had never made before, and said, “ship-to-satellite radio signal relay.”
“Done,” iDaisy said. “What’s next?”
Ben gritted his teeth with a nervous inhale, and said, “Establish a private DPM band for inner-system transmission/reception.”
“Anything for you, REX.” The sound of an auto purr resonated. “What’s the dot product destination?”
Ben rolled his lips anxiously, buying time. His eyes went to Tawny. She gave him an insistent look. He said, “We want to talk to this … matriarch.”
“I thought that’s what you might say. There will be a momentary pause. I will have to make the connection. Depending on my Matriarch’s proximity to her communications medium of choice, it may take a few moments.”
“We’ll wait.”
The sound of a DPM line assembling in the ether and making a connection across the system chitter chattered over the comm. Neither Ben nor Tawny knew precisely what to expect, but something told Ben this would be one of their more harrowing conversations. This Obsalom Bitch was sure to be a real narse-head of a woman. He sat down at the table, elbows squared, fingers locked in a fist. Tawny lurked back and forth behind his chair, patiently waiting.
The 3-D image holoformed over the table, caught their attention. At first, it showed only snow and blank space closing the cosmic distance between them and their recipient. Then an image shuddered into wavy lines. At first it showed the apparition of a humanoid, no details, nothing discernible. But it stretched and cleared as their signals connected and solidified the image.
The image was of a woman from the waist up with a long, narrow midriff bared under a skin-tight sleeveless halter-top, giving way to her long throat gaiter. Her shoulders were smallish, hard-looking and square, and a pointed triangular chin lent to a grin pulled dramatically to one side. The blood red tribal stripe at the sides of her face stretched into a definitive warrior woman’s look. There was a sensuality in her sharp, ice-like eyes that screamed both sex and murder. When she shifted her position slightly, it became obvious she was standing upright staring into a communication holoball hovering before her. She was obviously looking into their 3-D image in return. Barley visible in the background was what appeared to be a wide open space, perhaps a control bridge of some sort.