by E M Garcia
Xaveer folded his arms across his broad chest and grunted. "We should lean on the droid then. It's a good resource and exploiting it doesn't create casualties."
"I don't think Wes would agree," I said.
My wrist com vibrated. I glanced at the screen just long enough to see it was a call to my personal line. Only three people knew about that channel; Izzy, J’selle, and the Admiral. I slipped my hand into my pocket and nodded toward the screens. “I’ve had enough. Make sure the two of them don't kill each other or him”.
“Can't take the heat, Ambassador?” Xaveer asked.
“Not exactly my cup of tea I'm gonna comb through the data from before the first attack. Maybe we missed something.”
"Do you want some company?" Izzy asked, perking up.
I shook my head. "Not this time. I need you make sure Xaveer actually does his job."
I ducked out of the room and walked down the corridor. When I was alone, I pressed the button on the side of my com. The Admirals face popped up on the screen. Even in a hologram steely expression and stern gaze sent a shiver down my spine.
“Uncle Archer….” I swallowed.
“Ambassador, the Hammer is reporting that they lost all contact with the Calypso.” He lowered his chin. “Where are you?”
“We've had mechanical trouble," I said. "We pulled into friendly port to make some repairs.
Rage flashed in his eyes. “I’m going to pretend you didn't just lie to me, little girl. Save us both some trouble and tell me where that damned AI is.”
I tried to respond, but my throat was too thick to speak. Swallowing, I forced myself to hold his gaze. If I did anything less, I would loss his respect for good.
“I don't have it, sir,” I said.
The Admiral released a sigh. His shoulders slumped for a second before returning to their perfectly square position. “Ambassador Cage, as a representative of the Terran Federation, I am informing you that we are invoking our rights and reclaiming control of the Calypso. I'm dispatching orders tapping Galeon Howard to take command."
My knees wobbles as Uncle Archer's words hit my ears. I leaned back agaisnt the wall to steady myself. It wasn't about the stupid competition with Gale, too much had happened for me to care about that. It was the look of utter disappointment in the Admiral's eyes. I hadn't thought it was possible for him to hit me with that look again after I left the Federation. This time, it was worse.
“Yes sir.” I whispered, trying to hide the tremble in my voice.
He stared at me, suddenly looking every bit of his seventy years. “I’m disappointed in you, Tammy.”
He cut the line. The words weighed on every step I took back to interview room. Everybody was exactly where I had left them. Xaveer stared at the view screens. Izzy tried to avoid them. Gale, Alix, and Wes stared at one another, each waiting to see which of the three would be the first to yield.
“Commander Howard," I said, interrupting him in the middle of a question. "I need to speak with you and Lieutent Barnes, please."
Izzy furrowed her brow. "Tam, are you all right?"
I wanted to tell her I was, but I couldn't bring myself to lie to her this time. When Gale and Alix walked into the room, I stood up straight and let my hands fall to my sides.
"Gentlemen, I've just made contact with Admiral Westbrook. The fleet has initiated Article 804 of the Alliance treaty.”
“What?” The note of panic in Izzy's voice made my heart sink further. Damn it, why had I answered that call?
“Ironhide?” Gale asked. He didn't look surprised when I nodded. Alix didn't look surprised either.
"What just happened?" Alix asked.
Gale held my gaze as he answered. "The Fleet just took control of the Cal, and unless I'm wrong, that puts me in command."
"I assume the orders are on your pad." I rubbed my trembling fingers over my lips. "Uncle Archer didn't give me many details."
“How?” Xaveer asked.
“All Alliance members maintain the right to reclaim their ships at any time,” Izzy said. “The provision isn’t used often.”
“Guess they felt like it was worth it this time,” I said.
I turned to Gale. “Commander Howard I'd like a few minutes with your prisoner.”
He raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to do that we haven't?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Reason? Beg? I don't have a plan, I just don't have anything to lose."
Gale pursed his lips together for a moment then nodded. "Do it."
"You can't be serious," Alix protested.
"I don't rememeber asking your opinion, Lieutenant," Gale said. The hierarchy restored, Alix's mouth snapped close and he moved to attention. "The Admiral is gonna expect me to report in the next hour, Tam. You've got until then to get some answers."
I nodded and turned to go. Alix caught my arm and leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Trick doesn't like authority. Whether you have it or not right now doesn't matter, he'll see you as an authority figure. He will try to rattle you."
"He doesn't have anything strong enough to rattle me," I said grimly.
Mason's green eyes tracked me as I entered the interview room. He leaned back, clapping his hands together and smiling.
"Well, well, Ambassador this is a treat," he said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
I slid into the chair opposite Wes. "I don't think we should bullshit one another anymore, Trick. Do you?"
He raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his knees. "You've been holding something back?"
I nodded, folding my hands and setting them on the table. I never took my eyes off Wes. When reality caught up with Wes Mason, I needed to see his reaction. "For starters, Shadow and The Lady didn't make it off the ship without casualties. J'Selle shot me on her way out."
Wes froze. "What?"
"If she shot me because I was in her way, what do you think she'll do to someone she doesnt care about?"
He rolled his eyes and leaned forward, bracing the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Damn it, J'Selle, you're fucking crazy."
"Yeah, that thought crossed my mind, too," I said. "Right about the time the slug tore through my shoulder."
"I had no way of knowing she was going to do that," he said "I haven't spoken to J'Selle in years. At least, I hadn't until two weeks ago."
"Who reached out to who?"
Wes's eyes snapped to me again. He set his jaw. For a second, I didn't think he would answer.
He sighed and leaned back, sliding his hands over his scalp. "She reached out to me. She figured I had an axe to grind with the Federation and the Alliance, and I might still be steamed enough about it to help her. She was right."
“Your file says you left the Fleet by choice before your citizenship was revoked.” I quoted the information to gauge his reaction, but I knew Wes was telling me the truth. He looked too defeated for anything else.
“That's because they'd have to admit how badly they fucked me over," he said, leaning back again. "I gave my life to the fleet and one philosophical to agreement, disagreement, bad down the train down the toilet go.
“Not that you're bitter,” I said.
"Why should I be bitter? If I still worked for the Fleet, everything I made would be theirs. By kicking me, they made me a very rich man.”
"I don't think you were ever after money, Wes."
He sniffed. "You're smarter than I gave you credit for. I'd have happily stayed in the Fleet if they would've taken me seriously. One day I turned in a report about an AI we were studying. He was light years ahead of anything I had ever seen. Meeting him convinced me that we were wrong about AI. We treat them like slaves. One day it's gonna come back to haunt us."
“That's why you started Radiance Lives?”
He nodded."Not for what it's become. To organize, protest, maybe use the money I made to get some media coverage. I didn't know what it would become. The guys who run it now, have their hearts in the right place, but they'
re organics. Our brains are limited by what we've seen. What they’ve seen tells them violence is the way to get a point across.”
"You have a habit of trusting the wrong people at the wrong time, Wes," I said.
He smiled. "It's bitten me in the ass a few times. I didn't even get a chance to see J’Selle, on Aurora. After that stunt at the dock, I had an incentive to lay low. The gala just cemented things. Nell's pretty much the only person I see these day. My lawyers are the only people who call. Nell's safe, right?"
I nodded. "I wouldn't hurt Nell. I wouldn't hurt RAE either."
"I believe you," he said. Even so, his body relaxed. "But I can't give you RAE. I don't have him."
“You can tell me how to find Shadow and The Lady," I said. "That's just as good."
“Sounds like a cheesy vid serial," Wes leaned back and shook his head. "You're Alliance, which means you wouldn't be in here talking to me if you still had power. You're not in command anymore. How it feel to be deposed?”
Wes's gentle green eyes harded as he watched me. I couldn't tell if he was eager to hurt me for some reason or just desperate for human contact. Either way, I couldn't feel any of the anger toward him he felt toward me.
“Like I'm on a sinking ship." I said. "And my choices are to drown or save as many people as I can.”
He nodded toward the angel wings on my neck. "Been playing with your necklace much lately, Ambassador?"
I furrowed my brow, reaching up to brush my fingers across the bumpy silver surfacy. "It's weird, but I haven't felt the urge lately."
"Where did you get it?"
"Jackson gave it to me."
Something shifted in Mason's face. His lower lip trembled as the color drained from his face. "Fuck, you're Jack's little sister."
I smiled. "If it makes you feel better, I've heard that was his reaction when I was born. My parents had me a little late."
"He may have mentioned it once or twice." Wes looked down at his hands, then back up at me. “ It's the definition of people that's the sticking point. I’m not gonna help you destroy RAE, and I won’t help the Alliance take him back. He’s not a slave.”
“I’m not asking you to do that.” I said. “I’m just asking you to help me save Daq and J’Selle before this gets out of control.”
Mason and I watched each other in silence, each waiting for the some sign from the other. He sighed and leaned back, rubbing the butt of his hands over hsi eyes again.
“There are seven facilities on the planet," he said. "I live in one. They're in one of the other sex, but I don't know which.”
I let out a breath and relaxed my shoulders. Glancing at the camera node in the wall, I nodded to Gale and Alix. We were going on a trip.
"I think I might have a way to find out," I said.
26
"Can you two try explaining that again without sounding so...you know...woo woo?" Xaveer winced and lowered himself, leting his torso-sized thighs rest against the back of the co-pilot chair. The frame groaned in protest.
Gale raised his hand and pointed the index finger toward the cieling. "I'm lost too."
All seven of us stood on the bridge, crammed around a digitzed representation of Benjo. The surface of the desert planet filled the room with a yellow glow. Mason and I took the crew through the quick explanation of my communication with RAE. When that went over every head but Izzy's, we tried a slightly longer version. We were on our fourth go round, and everyone but Mason still looked at me like I said we should build a colony of the surface of the sun.
I didn't blame them. If I hadn't heard RAE speak, I wouldn't have believed it either.“It's not that hard to understand," Wes said, rolling his eyes. "Think of what Cal looked like when she was unplugged."
Gale nodded. "She looked like she was freaking out."
"That makes sense," I said. "You it was like solitary confinement."
"Now imagine that stretched over years," Wes said. "RAE isn't from our galaxy. We've ever been able to communicate with him. For all intents and purposes, he's just as looped at Cal was."
I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing the backs to get some warmth into my skin. The thought of my sister-in-law smuggling a half-crazed AI across the galaxy didnt' inspire comfort.
“Why Tam?” Alix asked. "Why not any of the rest of us?"
“Maybe there's a quirk of her anatomy?" Wes shrugged. "Without running detailed tests I can't be sure. In a general sense, data is like heat. It moves does the scale of concentration along the path of least resistance."
"English, Trick." Alix snapped.
"Data likes to move to places where there isn't data already," Wes said. "But it shouldn't move from an AI to a human brain."
"Could Shadow merging with her have caused it?" Xaveer asked.
“I doubt it," I said, shaking my head. "He couldn't hear it either."
"Then it's have to be something unique to Tam." Wes said.
"What if Demon's almost right? What if Shadow didn't cause it, but it's something about me that appealed to both of them?"
Wes shrugged. "That would work, I guess, but what?"
"My implants." I tapped the side of my head, right over the spot where Daq touched me to enter my mind. "I never finished my training. They’re mostly empty.”
Wes nodded, a clever grin spreading across his lips. “Plenty of space for RAE to make himself comfy. That could definitely be it.”
Izzy shook her head and frowned. "It couldn't. Tam's never said anything about hearing Cal."
I shrugged when everyone looked at me. "I can't hear Cal unless it's through the speakers."
Wes 's face fell “Okay, I can't explain that one.”
“That's because your theory is bullshit, kid.” Alix said.
“Well, hold on. There's an easy way to test it.” Wes swiped his hand over the globe of Benjo, sending it rotating wildly on it's axis. He dragged his finger over the surface, rotating his wrist as it slowed. “If we hover the Cal over the facilities, Tam might be able to hear RAE."
"And if Shadow catches her instead, he and The Lady will know we're here." Xaveer shook his head. "We could lose them."
"It also forces us to prove a negative." Izzy said. "Nothing will be proven if Tam doesn't hear anything."
“I know which direction J’Selle and Daq went when they got here,” he said. “They’re most likely at one of the three canyon facilities. That cuts our search time significantly.”
I turned to Gale. “Technically, you're in command.”
Gale glanced at my out of the corner of his eye. “Do it."
I nodded firmly and turned back to the globe, focusing my eyes on the golden yellow surface. Wes guided the cursor over the first two facilits. I didn't hear anything besides my own thoughts.
"Nothing so far." I said.
Alix turned to go. ”I’m in a go get that cruiser outfitted with what ever weapons I can. When we decide to go down and love the old-fashioned way, you know where to find me.
"You doubt the Ambassador, LT?" Wes said.
"You know, kid, you're brilliant, but you're a little fucked in the head."
I sniffed to stifle my laugh. The murmur started in my head. It was so quiet, at first I almost most didn't hear it. I leaned forward toward the globe, staring at it with my mouth open as the whispering grew louder.
“Whoa….” I hovered my finger over the globe, sliding it onto the spot where the murmur was loudest. “I don't know if Daq and J'Selle down there, but something sure as hell is.”
Wes bent down to look where I pointed. He grinned.“My cruiser can only take two people, and I need to be one of them for it to run.”
Alix rolled his eyes. “Figured you would say that. Next you’ll say you need Tam with you to hear the damn AI.”
“And hopefully talk The Lady down, yes.”
"Hate to break it to the kid, but there's no way in hell you’re going down there with the Ambassador alone.”Alix set his jaw and rolled his hands into fists.
"What the hell do you think I'm going to do to her?" Wes barked.
I slid between Alix and Wes, holding a hand out to against each of their chests. "Whoa! Calm down. Trick, LT has a point. The last time I tried to talk The Lady down, she shot me."
“Wounded. If she wanted you dead, she’d have gone for a headshot.”
“Why does everybody keep saying that?!” Izzy asked.
“The point is, Alix is right,” Gale said. “There's no way in hell you and Tam are going down to that planet alone.”
“We don't have to,” I said. “I still have a shuttle and it can hold five.”
“What about the return trip?” Gale asked.
“With the way I feeling right now, J’Selle will be lucky if I don't stuff her in storage locker instead of a seat.”
"You've got no business going down to the surface at all, Tam," Alix snapped.
“If Wes is right and I can hear RAE, you’ll need me there if J’Selle and Daq move when you get close. Besides, you’ll need me flying the shuttle.”
“Wes and Nell can run the shuttle…or Mac.”
“Alix--.”I let a tone of warning creep into my voice, forgetting for a second that Alix had six inches and nearly one hundred pounds advantage over me. He would never hurt me, but I didn't think he was above picking me up and trying to lock me in my cabin.
He walked over, lowering his head to look at me with glassy eyes. “Ambassador, I believe you are making a serious mistake.”
Suddenly, I was all too aware of Alix's presence. It wasn't threatening as much as overpowering, demaning my acceptance.
I shook the sensation off and raised an eyebrow, tilting my head to the side. “Duly noted, Lieutenant. I'm going.”
Alix nodded and turned on his heel. “Have it you're way. I'm gonna get the gear ready."
“Good to see old age hasn't dulled LT’s temper,” Wes said.
"I'll talk to him," Gale said. I caught his arm as he moved past me.
"You didn't set him off, I did. Let me take care of it." I gave Gale a look that begged him not to argue. When he shrugged, I sighed in relief and headed for the lift.
As I approached the interior shuttle bay door, I hesitated. I hadn't been inside the room since the night J'Selle shot me. I took a breath to steady myself and stepped inside.