by Alex Deva
"So you can use them against us later?"
"Hey... I fly a tiny crate. Best I could do would be to annoy you to death."
Again, that softened her up a little. Gaines was amazed at how malleable and naïve she was.
"It really looks like a crate," she said. "Why do you call it that?"
Again, he didn't miss a beat. That the girl apparently was unaccustomed with the most common form of space short-transport for the past fifty years no longer surprised him; he was already building his strategy around it.
"It's short for 'cruiser autonomous transport equipment'," he said matter-of-factly, betraying nothing. "But, you know, I'd rather be flying one of these tiny things than something as big as a cruiser."
"As a what?" she asked.
This time, he sincerely laughed.
"That long big thing, the Kennedy."
"Ah."
"Yeah."
Who are you? Just who the hell are you, where did you come from, and what's all this about? Are you also three hundred years old, like the others? The questions wanted to explode through his lips; instead, still trying to play his cards right -- although he didn't quite know what the game was yet -- he kept quiet, nodding and smiling.
"So, what's the message, mister Lincoln?" she said.
"Oh," he pretended to remember, masking his true reaction at being called that. "I've got it right here on the tablet," he said, gesticulating with the mobile device.
Then, he realised his gaffe. Shit, fuck, shit, you're so fucking stupid, Steven, he thought, mentally kicking himself. The girl can't read English!
Trying to fix the error, he continued:
"But I'm only supposed to show it to the people in charge. So, I guess... if you could, please, take me to them?"
She didn't answer, but she'd stopped smiling. She was thinking intently and watching him. Should I say something? Apologise? he thought.
She kept pondering.
I should definitely say something.
"This is one amazing ship, Doyner, and to be honest, one pilot to another, again? I can't wait to see what it’s like inside. So, if you wanna take me to whoever's in charge, I'll just tell them the message" -- he almost said give, but changed the verb in a last minute attempt to divert her mind from the written nature of the nonexistent message -- and go back to my crate, but, you know? It's not everyday I get to see something like this. I'm really into space design..."
She was still watching him, as he ended:
"... and this is like Christmas to me, you know?"
And that changed everything.
* * *
"You damn near killed me," said Aram.
"No, that wasn't me. That was one of the Wings shooting."
"Yeah," he said, wryly. "Big difference."
She shrugged. "I'm not saying that I could've killed you and I didn't. But I have a job to do here."
"You have two jobs to do," said Mark.
"Right," she said, directly. "Now, suppose you ask me where Gaines is."
They looked at her.
"Well, where is he?" said Mark.
"He took a crate and flew over to your ship. He's got orders to deliver it and you directly to the ONI in Suitland."
Aram looked at Mark.
"Shit," he said. "That's right, he said that. We gotta go back. Now."
"Why?" she asked. "Your crew handled six SEALS. Can't they handle one more man?"
They stared at her and Mark said:
"No. No, they can't. We need to get back there, right now."
"Why?" she asked again, confused.
"Jessica, right? Listen. You're working for the other side of the war. Eurasians, right? The Queens?"
"I'll thank you to keep your voice down," she said, dryly.
"I'm guessing you're sending us there for pretty much the same reason the Yanks want us here."
"Actually, you know what? No, I'm not," she said, frowning.
"Jessica, I don't believe you. I may be out of this time, but I know them. Hell, I was part of them. They'd give anything to have access to our ship in times of war. Please, don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying, sergeant," she said, cooly.
Mark just went on, speaking quietly and quickly.
"Point is, if you want us to ever get to these coordinates, we need to get back to our ship, while there's still a ship to get back to. You understand?"
"No, I really don't," she said. "Who did you leave back there? An unattended dog from nineteen eighty-one?"
Aram grabbed Mark's elbow and spoke:
"Hey," he said, ostentatiously, right in front of her. "You think she's setting us up for something?"
The Brit turned his attention to him, then at the annoyed woman.
"You think she's tricking us, pretending to be getting us out, you know? I'll break her spine right here and now."
"I suddenly don't like you as much when you're dressed, blondie," said Jessica.
"No," Mark said. "I'm tempted to think this is a genuine action."
"A genuine action," she puffed. "Spoken like a true gentleman from three hundred years ago."
"Well, might as well tell her, then," said Aram.
"Tell me what?"
"That there's only three of us, lieutenant."
"What?!"
"And the third is a twelve-year-old girl," added Aram.
"A what?! You brought a little girl into the Moon War?"
"Actually, she brought us here," said Mark. "But that's why we need to get back. If your boss somehow gets his hands on her..."
"...and he will! But..."
"I really, really don't have time to explain."
"Sergeant, you have a fuckload of explanations to give, but you're right: not to me and not right now. Right now, your only takeaway from me is to please go to those coordinates. Doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. And now, I'd best get you to one of the other crates, so this is how we're gonna do it. We're gonna exit the brig like I'm Lawry, which I am, and like you're Porter and Willard, which you're not, but it says so on your helmets. I'm gonna go right, and you're gonna go left. Fourth airlock on your left will be a crate. Access code is two-seven-oh-seven. Repeat that."
They both repeated the four digits.
"Soon as you get there, you're basically on your own. The crate's already signed off for departure. I hope you make it, and I hope we'll meet again."
She braced her feet and opened the door to the spine corridor, then exited and left without looking back.
The two men pushed themselves out, grabbing the textile loops that were everywhere on the walls. The corridor was wide enough to accommodate three or maybe four people walking abreast, which was more than enough given that there was normally no actual walking.
In front of them, a handful of crewmen were getting in or out of other compartments. Only one of them passed them by, giving them nothing but a cursory nod. They pretended to be engaged in conversation and turned away their faces.
All of the hatches were on their left. As they passed the second one, a voice crackled in Mark's headset.
It was Jessica. "Did you say twelve years old?" she asked.
"You've read my file too. But she's not her."
"But she's like her."
He didn't say anything.
"So, I thought you'd wanna know," she continued.
"What?"
"Sara's killers."
He became instantly nauseous. In a second was so sick, he nearly threw up in his helmet.
He tried to fight the bad taste in his mouth, and swallowed repeatedly. Aram was listening, too; the big Dacian grabbed Mark's suit and pulled him forward. They were just passing the third hatch.
"Well, I guess you'd call it justice. That whole Muslim cell was completely annihilated. The actual killers were decapitated in front of the other extremists, and they were all found dead. Strangled or stabbed, to the last one. Your government sat on it for decades, to avoid a war or something, I guess. Turned out, you
r former buddies in the SAS did it. After you disappeared in oh-fourteen, they assumed you'd been killed, and they revenged you."
Mark was trembling. His hands and feet felt ice cold, and his suit automatically tried to compensate the thermal imbalance. His heart was racing, and the tiny part of his brain that was still governed by reason remarked that, hopefully, the raised BP won't show up on someone's biotelemetry monitor, until it remembered Lawry having disabled that, or rerouted it or something.
"Red's wife?" he managed to ask in a husky voice.
It was Jessica's turn to stay silent. The men arrived at the fourth hatch, which was stencilled "TRANSP SHIP 2" next to an access keypad. Instructions to open the door were clearly displayed in pictograms and in writing. Aram couldn't read, but he could make sense of the pictures, and he knew enough of the digits. He keyed in the code, opened the door, slid into the crate, then turned and gestured Mark in.
The Brit was livid.
"What happened to his wife?" he half-whispered.
"Suicide. I'm sorry. Good luck, sergeant."
Aram pulled him in and shut the door.
XXVIII.
"You're a Christian?" asked Doina.
Gaines heard the tone of her voice, picked up the ball and ran with it so hard he could've scored six points through a brick wall.
"Sure am!" he said, enthusiastically. "Always was, always will be. I take it you believe in our Lord, too?" He carefully avoided any specific deity names.
"My mom..." she started, then stopped, then went on. "She taught me to love Yesus since I was a child."
It took the American all of two seconds to translate the unfamiliar pronunciation of Jesus, and much less to give up trying to make sense of it.
"Indeed His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory," he contributed.
"Amen," finished the girl.
"Wow," he said, renewing his brilliant smile. "Imagine finding a fellow believer all the way here, on the other side of the Moon!"
She laughed a little.
"God works in mysterious ways," she said.
Gaines nodded vigorously and really wished for something equally impressive to say, but nothing came to him, so he ended up with an enthusiastic "Amen!" of his own. Fortunately, it seemed good enough to the girl. She reached around her neck, pulled out a small cross that seemed to be made of wood, and showed it to him proudly.
"Hey, that's nice," was all the American found to say. "Got that from your mom?" he ventured.
"Yes," she answered.
His face one great friendly smile, he gently pushed himself towards her, arms carefully visible at all times, as if to look closer. She didn't move, so he approached and gestured may I? and she nodded and he felt the wooden cross through his spacesuit glove.
He realised the gesture was much less personal than he had hoped, so he tried to fix that. He didn't really need permission, but just to score another point, he asked, meekness pouring out of his voice:
"Alright if I take off my helmet?"
She nodded again. He undid the catches, removed the thing and made a show of inhaling deeply. The air did, indeed, have an interesting tang to it.
"Wow," he said, already missing the security that the complete suit provided. "That's so much better," he finished the lie.
"We get very good air," she said, proudly.
He tried to cling to that, too.
"I can tell!" and sniffed around, appreciatively, like an atmosphere judge at an air tasting contest. "It's really clean," he concluded, setting up his next question. "How do you manage to keep it so clean?"
"Doi -- I mean, the ship -- removes the bad stuff and adds in the good stuff," she said, a monument of candour.
"Sure, but where does she get the good stuff from?"
"Oh, she makes it."
A warship that makes its own air. Could it be...? He decided to gamble.
"Like she made those projectiles which you threw into those ships?" Again, he carefully avoided saying my ships.
"Yeah," said the girl, looking down. "I guess."
And he scores!!! He nodded a few more times, then said:
"You think Doi" -- he imitated the girl's pronunciation as best he could -- "would mind giving a fellow Christian a glass of water?"
She smiled, coyly.
"You really want to see the ship, don't you?"
"God's my witness that I do," he kept using the religion card. "But I'm thirsty, really."
"Don't you carry water in that special suit of yours?"
He did, of course, and he'd grabbed a fresh life pack before he'd entered the crate.
"Yeah, a little, but I'm out," he lied again.
She considered, leaning her head on a side.
"You swear you're not one of the bad guys?"
"Doyner," he said, looking her in the eyes, "us Christians ought to stick together. I swear to God that I mean you no harm. I'm only curious and thirsty."
She fingered her wooden cross, then said:
"Come on in."
* * *
Mark squeezed his eyes shut and whispered:
"Fuck."
Aram sat on the pilot's seat and secured his suit.
"Sit down and strap in, Mark."
The Brit didn't react.
"Mark!" Aram raised his voice. "I heard everything, I get what you must be going through, I understand. But, right now, you need to sit the fuck down and strap the fuck in ."
The other opened his teary eyes and watched him.
"Oh, Aram," he said. "What have I done?"
The Dacian looked him in the eyes and enunciated clearly.
"Mark. Remember Doina?"
The girl's name had an effect on the former special forces soldier. He nodded.
"We need to get back to her, mate. She's alone with that snake. We need to go, right now. Either he'll steal our ship and kidnap Doina, or he'll blow everything up. Remember? You taught me about blowing shit up."
Mark grimaced and drew a deep, fractured breath. He pushed himself into the seat next to Aram and strapped himself in. It took him a good few seconds to realise what was happening.
"The hell are you doing?!" he asked Aram, astounded. The Dacian was inspecting the screens in front of him; he touched one of them, and they lit up in quick progression.
"How did you... What are you doing?" repeated the Brit.
"Hang on," said Aram. He watched the screens intently; much of them consisted of red boxes gradually turning green. When there was no red left, he put his hands over the model of the ship in front of his seat, and pulled it back, slightly.
With a shudder, the crate's frontal thrusters came to life, and the ship floated gently backwards. Aram waited for it to completely clear its dock, then twisted the command model.
He must've twisted it harder than recommended, because the sudden acceleration nearly threw them off their seats. Their suits reacted, analysed vectors and compressed those body areas most susceptible to pool blood in vasodilation. The sensation was uncanny.
"Easy, girl," mumbled the Dacian.
"You can fly this thing?!" asked Mark again, in complete amazement.
"I paid attention on the way here," answered the other.
"But, no offence, you know nothing about how it works!"
"Yeah, well, nobody told me I had to. Now, where's Doi?"
Mark gaped at him stupidly for a few seconds, then finally moved his eyes to the portholes.
"Think we're too far to see it," said Aram. "See if you can make sense of these drawings here."
The screens were covered with information, but Mark had some idea of what he was looking for. He checked each screen until he found the vaguely familiar disc of a radar screen. Good thing those still look about the same, he thought. Assuming they were in the centre, he looked for objects around.
The largest thing was a great semicircle at one side, and he realised it was the Moon. The second largest thing was long, moving slowly away from the centre, and carried a label tha
t said "USS KENNEDY". And the third largest thing was round, like a smaller disc. He clicked on it, but no label appeared.
All the other things on the screen had labels. Transponders, he remembered.
"Has to be this," he said. The round object was to the far left of the screen.
"Turn left, slowly," he instructed. Aram obeyed, twisting the command model. The target on the radar moved sluggishly to the right, until it was almost above the radar centre.
"I got it, I got it" said Aram. "Thing's like a moving map, right?"
"Except for the map part, yeah."
The Dacian carefully manoeuvred the command model, accelerating the ship on its way, then stopped his input. The crate continued on the same speed, until they noticed it was veering off-course.
"Damn thing's broken," observed Aram.
"No," said Mark. "We're in a lunar orbit, so we're already falling towards the Moon. Doi's just staying in orbit. You need to keep adjusting the course."
"The other guy didn't have to."
Mark thought for a second. "Then he was probably using the autopilot, maybe combined with some beacon aboard the Kennedy. At least that's how aircraft worked in my time."
"You had an aircraft?"
"No. But I kept jumping out of them."
"You what?!"
"Yeah, I've had my share of para training. I'll tell you all about it, one day."
Aram focused ahead as he kept making small corrections, and said:
"I learn a new word every day. So, I guess 'para' is another word for 'stupid'."
Mark looked at him, grateful for his friend's attempts to recapture his attention and jumpstart him into usefulness.
"Yeah. Jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane."
"So. Why hasn't anybody shot at us yet? Nobody to give the order when the captain's gone?"
"I'm sure he's left someone in charge. But our lady friend is probably watching our backs."
"What if they catch her?"
"What difference does it make? We need to keep going."
Aram smiled. "That's better," he said.
* * *
He could barely contain himself. Alone, using nothing but smooth talk, he had gained access into the amazing warship and the trust of her pilot. Who, for all it seemed, was home alone.