by M. D. Cooper
“Figures,” Katrina muttered. “What’s the point of having an all-powerful, ascended AI on our side if you don’t throw us a bone every so often?”
Joe shook his head. “Those concepts seem mutually exclusive, Bob.”
“OK, Bob…but you’re capable of a lot more than just making us think we’re soldiering through feeling unwell,” Tanis said. “You could reshape reality around us, and we’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference.”
“You can say that again,” Joe confirmed.
“Ah, here we are,” Katrina said, gesturing toward where a five-meter-long segment of the Starkiller’s hull lay on the deck. Two of the Voyager’s crew, Karl and Camilla, stood next to it, an array of investigative equipment nearby. “So far as we can tell, this is off the ship’s starboard wing.”
“I’m still amused that they gave that ship wings,” Joe said as he knelt next to the utterly black object. “It looks nearly undamaged.”
“Close to it,” Karl replied. “I think it might have popped off from gravitational shearing forces. Maybe a bit of enemy fire was in the mix—there are a few pits on the surface—but that ship has seen so much combat, it’s hard to say for sure.”
“Maybe,” Tanis said, a hand on her chin. “I don’t recall the Starkiller ever having its shields breached. Though I suppose it might have been nicked once or twice while jumping. What does spectral analysis reveal?”
Karl passed her a tablet. “Nice thing about this ultra-black coating…since it absorbs almost all light, it keeps a really good record of what it’s seen.”
Tanis nodded as she looked over the analysis results on the tablet. “OK…that’s rather telling.”
“What is it?” Joe asked.
In response, Tanis passed the results to a holoprojector built into the palm of her hand. An image of the hull-plating segment appeared, rotating slowly in the air. “I agree that this is the leading edge of the starboard wing. And right along the edge, well, that’s the result of the wing coming into contact with gate energy. A lot of gate energy.”
“What about prior contacts?” Katrina asked. “The Starkiller has jumped many times. It could be an accumulation.”
“I see what you’re doing,” Tanis said, giving the other woman a languid wink. “But you can see the prior echoes of gate energy—all at much lower intensity—in the bulk of the material. No, I’d say that this last signature was from a single jump.”
“Catastrophic?” Joe asked.
“So is that roughly where you landed?” Tanis asked Katrina. “They were jumping while close to the black hole, and popped some ablative plating off when they turned off the stasis shields for the jump?”
“Pretty much,” the captain said with a nod. “And we agree that it had to be a hell of a jump to leave that signature. Troy’s calculations show that the gate had to be active for at least five minutes.”
“Shit.” Joe whistled while shaking his head. “Where would that take a person?”
Tanis handed the tablet back to Karl. “If this is all correct, it means that Tangel and Finaeus jumped out of the MWG to another galaxy…which raises a whole host of other questions.”
“And does it mean that the core AIs left the Milky Way?” Katrina added. “Stars…we’re scouring this galaxy, already. Do we need to survey every single one in the local group?”
Tanis pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes before running her fingers up and through her hair, then smoothing her locks and pulling them into a tight ponytail. “Maybe…but that’s going to take millennia.”
Joe chuckled, shoulders heaving. “You make it sound so easy, Bob.”
“That’s a solvable problem,” Tanis said. “And yeah, we might actually have to do this—though I think we’ll need to have a little bit more evidence first. I can’t orchestrate what would be the single largest effort in our collective species’ history based on a signature from a hull plate.”
Angela said.
“If there was one to find, we would have already found it,” Katrina said. “We’d have to go diving past the event horizon, and even if we could get back, there’s no way to ‘see’ in there.”
“Fair point,” Tanis said. “We’ll just have to look for more evidence. If we found this in the accretion disk, maybe there are more clues in there.”
“Of course,” Katrina replied with a nod. “Then we’ll swing by Far Reach Base and drop the rest of this off for cataloging before getting back to the core.”
“Kat.” Tanis placed a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Thank you for your efforts, but…a decade of your time is a lot. I don’t know that I can ask more.”
Katrina patted Tanis’s hand with her own. “Think nothing of it. I am doing this for Tangel and Finaeus as much as anyone else. We’ve spent more time traveling across known space for a good bottle of hooch, so ten years at the core is nothing.”
“What a bottle of hooch it was, though,” Karl said, rubbing a hand across his stomach. “We should get another, someday.”
“And hold on to it for when we find Tangel and Finaeus,” Camilla added.
“Alright then,” Tanis gave the Voyager’s crew a grateful smile. “I’ll let you get back to it. I’m sure folks watching the ring-lift would love to see me there for it.”
“Yes, yes!” Katrina clapped her hands. “That’s right. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“No worries,” Joe replied. “This was a good interruption.”
“The very best.” Tanis agreed. “We might not know where Tangel and Finaeus are, but we do have good reason to believe it’s just a jump away.”
Angela sighed.
CHAPTER 9 - KYLIE
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8959 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The Barbaric Queen, Homestead Station
REGION: Pi Scorpii Beta, Independent Systems of the Lupus Cloud
He threw a glance over his shoulder, and Kylie offered him a shrug in return.
She knew the conditions and was hoping her crew wasn’t going to violate them.
“Thanks, Space Traffic Control. Queen out,”
Rogers replied before closing the channel. “Should be worth it for our supply run. This is the only place to get black truffles this far out.”
Kylie sighed. “Sometimes, Rogers, I worry about you. We’re here for an actual mission, you know.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I have no problem mixing business with pleasure. We seem to be really good at it these days.”
Kylie couldn’t argue with that, so she just tousled his hair and took leave of the bridge.
Her waist-length hair was pulled into a tight braid, and she wore a tight pair of leather pants and a long sleeve shirt over her armor. Just because she couldn’t bring a weapon didn’t mean she was going completely unprepared.
“Who’s ready for a field trip?” Rogers asked as he followed behind her.
Marie and Burton leapt out of their hiding places in the passage, each shouting ‘Me!’
“You keep them out of trouble, Rogers,” Kylie said through gritted teeth.
So help him if he led them straight into trouble.
Rogers looked offended as he placed his palm over his chest. “You know me, Cap. I’m nothing if not the fun but safe uncle. No trouble will be had. Other than maybe too much sugar.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. “Uh huh.”
At the airlock, she kissed Grayson goodbye. “Keep the home fires burning for me while I’m gone.”
“I will. You just be careful.”
She nodded. “You know all I care about is coming back. Besides, we’re in Lupus—no one here wants to cause trouble and risk their chances of getting on the Alliance’s Trans-Galactic Gate Network. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.”
“Doesn’t mean everyone agrees with the idea of galactic peace, though, does it?”
Kylie silently admitted he had a point. She had seen enough systems that were barely holding on to even a semblance of order, and more than enough humans who resisted the very idea of peace, to wonder why she still continued to try.
“Be nice to Mr. Fizzle Pop,” she implored instead.
Grayson sighed and glanced away. “He’ll be fine. I can’t promise to be nice, though.”
Well, that was something.
Kylie strode down the ramp, and Winter fell in line beside her. Up ahead, she watched the kids skip along while Rogers and Jenny walked in time.
“You done kissing your old man goodbye?” Winter asked.
Kylie peered at him out of the corner of her eye. “Something on your mind?”
“Nah,” Winter shook his head. “Worried about Lana, I guess.”
“She’s tough. She’ll be fine.”
“Things between us…. Just, it’s been rocky since Bubbs left, you know? Lana…I think she’s antsy. Looking for a change of scenery.”
“She loves you.” Kylie gripped his shoulder. “It’ll work out.”
“Nothing lasts forever, Captain. Doesn’t matter how good it is. Forever just doesn’t happen.”
She frowned. Did that mean Winter was thinking of leaving too?
So many people had come and gone, but it had always been Kylie, Winter, and Rogers—even from the very beginning.
What if it came time for even that to change?
As Kylie watched Marie run ahead toward the lift, she felt the weight of how much everything changed. But she’d do her damnedest to make sure the important stuff did last forever.
* * * *
Homestead Station gave Kylie the willies for two reasons: it was impeccably clean, organized, and the people all seemed happy. Okay, maybe that was three reasons, but Kylie was used to stations like Heaven, where weapons weren’t allowed, but people wished the rule was different.
She was far more comfortable with that, given how everyone had an itchy trigger finger.
Maybe she was just a jaded pessimist. She couldn’t imagine trying to settle down somewhere that didn’t mean meeting shady contacts inside of darkly lit pubs.
Kylie sipped her drink. She sat at a table with a fern plant in the corner. Meanwhile, the bar was lit up with neon lights. Pink, green, and yellow. The place wasn’t subtle; the music was loud, the drink was strong, and Kylie wished her contact would just show up all ready.
She drained her martini glass and placed it toward the edge of the table.
Like I’m really going to do that. She rolled her eyes.
They had tried to bar the cat from group conversations, but it never seemed to work. Somehow, he always found his way through. At first, Kylie worried the exclusion hurt his feelings, but he seemed to view it as a challenge.
Kylie looked up to see it was just the waitress. She wore a pink mini skirt and fishnet stockings—pretty, but she looked college-student young. Not that one could really tell in systems where rejuv was common.
“Can I get you a refill? What about a dill pickle martini? They’re all the rage. Pretzel bread and beer dip on the house.”
“No, thank you. I think I need to get going,” Kylie rose from the booth.
“Got stood-up, huh?” The waitress scowled. “That’s the worst.”
“A story as old as time.”
Kylie transferred credits over to pay for her bill and then exited through the front door. She walked out to the balcony’s edge, which provided an epic view down through the station’s rings. It looked like an unending spiral, making her a little dizzy.
Homestead was a multiple-torus station, so spinning was normal, but it seemed to be picking up speed.
What’s going on? I didn’t have that much to drink….
She checked her HUD, querying a system analysis. Her vitals were all over the place, and her blood sugar was spiking. Like she’d been drugged—which should be all but imposible with her mednano.
So much for peace in the galaxy.
She turned around and saw a woman approaching in full body armor and a helmet. Kylie reached out and grabbed the woman by the throat just as the woman did the same to her.
A drone suddenly appeared over the balcony’s edge, closing in to determine whether they were engaged in illegal activity.
“What now?” Kylie whispered through gritted teeth.
The woman released her throat, and slowly, Kylie did the same.
“I had to make sure that you came alone.” The woman’s voice sounded mechanized. “And that I could trust you.”
“Drugging me was unnecessary.” Kylie scowled.
Her nose had started to run, and she wondered what symptom might be next. She didn’t like to show weakness, but that didn’t stop her from gripping the railing to stay upright while her nano worked to flush out the rather clever mix of toxins.
The woman passed a token along to Kylie’s HUD, and she accepted the data file.
“You’re looking for General Mulke. He has technology he shouldn’t.”
Kylie nodded. “Stasis tech?”
“Got it in one. He’s working on replicating it, and from there, he’ll become…a big problem.”
Kylie flipped through the file. “And his lab?”
“More than one location is possible, but I can tell you that Mulke is on Pi Scorpii Beta’s capital world, so his lab is probably there or nearby.”
“And you can get me close?” Kylie asked.
“Yes, access to a party he’s hosting. The word is that a few people who are eager to get their hands on his stolen goods will be there.”
Interesting.
Kylie reviewed the data, which contained an invitation token to a ball and silent auction—plus cover identities for her and one male. She did love a black-tie event.
Once kids were in the picture, who got to dress up anymore?
A party, a date, and an abduction. What co
uld be better than that?
“Thank you,” Kylie said. “I’ll send payment once I get back to the ship, not a moment sooner.”
The woman’s stance shifted, and Kylie thought she might be amused. “Smart. Not that I’d hurt you. We have the same goal, even if we go about it in different ways.”
“Oh? And what is our goal?”
“To protect people. I just don’t want company.”
The woman dove off the balcony, flipping end over end to land three levels down, where she ran off without missing a beat.
Kylie wasn’t so lucky. Her stomach ached like it had been pierced with a hundred needles.
She groaned and gripped the railing, releasing her body’s reserves of mednano.
Kylie bit back a curse.
* * * * *
Kylie lay in the medbay while her system flushed out the remaining toxins—toxins her internal nano should have been able to handle.
It was hard to stay down and rest when she could smell the frying bacon from Rogers’ latest supply run. However, the thought of eating or drinking anything didn’t do her any favors.
Instead, she kept her head firmly on her pillow and stroked between Mr. Fizzle Pop’s ears. He hadn’t left her side since she had been brought in. Kylie had never thought of herself as his favorite human, but with Ricket and Bubbs both gone, his choices were dwindling.
She had to admit she liked his company.
“You know, Marie would love if you slept on her bed.”
Mr. Fizzle Pop’s ears twitched, and he looked up. “SHE PULL FUR. PUT STUPID CLOTHES ON ME.”
“Well, that’s because she’s a kid and she loves you.”
“PURPLE NOT MY COLOR. MAKES ME ITCH,” Mr. Fizzle Pop grumbled and leaned back for an epic stretch.
The large cat lost his balance and began to slide off the bed, his eyes growing wide and paws flailing as he disappeared over the side. “MOMMA!”
Kylie chuckled as the medbay doors opened, sitting up partway when Grayson entered. “Hey,” she said.