by J. E. Gurley
Amissa was just as adamant to forgo the smaller Skip increments. As he lay neuro-linked to her, he on the bridge, and she in her cubicle, she once again tried to persuade him to allow her to experiment with longer Skips.
“It is not an efficient use of our time to make these annoying small Skips. I can plot a course that will take us to our destination in two Skips.” Her mental tone was petulant.
“Ship’s sensors are not that accurate,” Jazon argued. “How can you navigate beyond their limited range?”
“I can see the path to our destination, as if it were a painted line on the fabric of space. I will not stray from it.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. How can you see beyond ship’s sensor range?”
“I … I don’t know, but I can.”
“Can you show me?”
There was a moment’s hesitation as he sensed her frustration. “No. I have no mental image to link to you, but I assure you, I can see the path clearly.” Her ire was evident both in her mental tone and in the leakage he felt trickle into his mind, as was her certainty in her abilities.
“I don’t dispute you, Amissa, but we must follow the safe route and use our sensors. This is a proto-type ship.”
“A snail’s pace!” she shot at him so vehemently it thundered in his mind.
“How can you see what the ship’s sensors cannot?” he demanded again.
“I don’t know. I see it, and then it appears. I cannot explain the procedure. It has become second nature to me now. Can you explain walking to an invalid?”
Her irritation was beginning to concern Jazon. Part of it was due to her youthful exuberance, but she seemed driven by these newfound abilities, wanting to test them to their limits. If she made a mistake, they could plow into an unseen gravity well, shredding the ship and its crew into molecules.
In his mental image of her, she seemed older. Was she maturing so quickly, or was it merely his desire that she do so? If her body was maturing at such a rapid pace, hormonal changes could explain her bizarre attitude.
He tried to infuse calmness into their link. “Amissa, we will walk to the Claw Nebula if we must to keep you and the others safe. I can’t permit you to Skip beyond safe sensor range.” He took the tone he imagined he would use with a petulant child, hoping to contain her recklessness.
“If you do not trust me, perhaps you should let the computer guide us,” she retorted, spitting out the word ‘computer’ with such vehemence that he was concerned for her stability. Looking at her biologs, he noticed her enzymes were fluctuating wildly. He couldn’t understand her frustration.
“The computer isn’t fast enough, as you well know. Concentrate on getting us there. On the return trip, we can try it your way.”
“You don’t expect us to survive the mission. I can sense it in the back of your mind. You’re just trying to mollify me, like a child.”
“I’m trying to get us there in one piece. Once the mission is over, I’ll concentrate on getting us home alive. I care for your concerns, Amissa, but I won’t risk this ship.”
“There is no risk.”
He decided to try reasoning with her. “Lord Hromhada chose me as captain for a reason.”
“Because the Dastoran’s cannot link with me.”
“I meant he chose me to run the mission, not you. Perhaps he shared my concerns as well.”
“Lord Hromhada wished me to exercise my senses to their fullest. I know this. The mental exercises were for that purpose. This is why he ….”
“Why he what?” Jazon caught a flash of a room, the one he had seen in his dreams on the way to Ithira.
“I don’t know. I thought I remembered something, but it slipped away.”
“Try harder,” he urged
“It’s no use. It’s gone.”
She’s lying. “I must see about the others. Please continue to follow the course we have laid out.”
“The others are fine. I can see them.”
Jazon heard the harshness in her voice. He took a deep mental breath and said, “They need to see me, for reassurance.”
“Very well.”
He started to remove the neuro-link helmet.
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
“I will show you something, something Lord Hromhada entrusted to my care. I will give it to you if it will reassure you about my intentions.”
“Go ahead.” Jazon wondered what secret Lord Hromhada had entrusted to her.
Suddenly, his mind was following Amissa as she led him through a convoluted maze of light-fiber connections and solid-state crystal chips. It was a wild roller coaster ride through cyberspace, looping the loop and diving into a mind-bending spiral that shifted directions with such abruptness that he lost his breath. Finally, they came to a gut-wrenching stop at one junction so innocuous one would have overlooked it except upon close inspection. There, disguised as a part of the ganglia of crystal fiber circuitry, nestled in an optical cocoon, lay a device, a simple switch designed to channel Skip engine power into the weapons systems. By allowing this switch to remain open, he knew he could blow up the ship. Examining the node with his mind, he saw that it would activate upon a mental command code word.
“Why?” he asked.
“Lord Hromhada did not trust you. He feared you might attempt to steal his ship.”
“I see. Would you have used it?”
“It is an embedded command, but I can no longer comply.”
“Why not?”
“My … my emotional state precludes this action. I will give you the code word. It is Tuthrom Imhocoda. It means ‘Hour of Doom’ in the Dastoran tongue.”
Slowly, Jazon dropped the link and removed the helmet, perplexed at Amissa’s admission. A stream of sweat trickled down his forehead. He had been in the link for over three hours. He rose from his chair and stretched, popping the vertebrae in his lower neck. The sound startled him in the quietness of the bridge.
He passed the three Dastorans practicing in the weapon pods. Huumba threw him a condescending look, and continued with what he was doing. M’Kat had locked himself in his cabin, probably plotting to kill them all. Ulrich was alone in the galley. Lyton was missing, and it was just as well. The professor’s constant consumption of alcohol just reminded Jazon of his renewed desire for it.
“Ulrich,” he acknowledged as he headed for the coffee urn, a poor replacement for vodka, but all he could afford to drink.
Ulrich seemed in high spirits. “Jazon! Good to see you,” he replied. “Have a sandwich. The turkey is excellent.” He picked up a platter piled high with sandwiches and held it out to Jazon with a broad smile on his face.
Jazon took one of the sandwiches from the platter and bit into it. He grinned at the taste. “It’s real turkey.”
“Yes. I’ve checked the galley. The Terran food is of the highest quality. Lord Hromhada is taking very good care of us.”
“Yes, like lambs to the slaughter,” he said as he sat down opposite Ulrich.
Ulrich dropped his smile and leaned closer to Jazon. “You still suspect he won’t let us return?”
Jazon grimaced, remembering the hidden autodestruct device. “He can’t afford to. We know the Dastoran secret.”
Ulrich shook his head. “He told us his secret to entice us into going, knowing we couldn’t tell anyone, and yet we went anyway. It makes you wonder who the real fools are.”
“We’re not licked yet.”
“If you say so.”
Jazon frowned. “I’m worried about Amissa.”
Ulrich stopped eating and looked at Jazon. “Amissa the girl, or Amissa the AI?”
“Both, actually, but mainly the AI. She insists she can plot a course all the way to the Claw in one Skip. That’s far beyond the ship’s sensor range, and as you know, Occam’s Razor has one hell of an array.”
“Perhaps she can. It seems that the original Lady Amissa would have scored high on the Jantzen Psi Scale. It is probably the reason they c
loned her remains. If the Dastorans have been cloning and gene manipulating her for six hundred years, then there’s no telling what she might be capable of.”
Jazon put down his sandwich and took a long sip of his coffee, savoring the rich flavor, pondering Ulrich’s discovery. “You mean she might be a telepath.”
Ulrich shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“But it was Lord Hromhada’s face I saw in my dreams. Amissa said he used a telepath to boost …” He dropped his half-eaten sandwich back in his plate. “Damn!”
“What? What?” Ulrich urged Jazon to continue.
“Amissa said Lord Hromhada used a telepath to boost his abilities. If she was the telepath, why didn’t she just say so?”
“If I remember correctly, you don’t have a high regard for telepaths. Maybe she sensed this.”
Jazon slammed down his fist, spilling his coffee and startling Ulrich. “Double damn! That’s why she can manipulate me so well. She’s reading my mind, using my every thought, every emotion to play me like the fool I am!”
“What do we do?”
“Do? What can we do? We complete the mission and we steal the ship – somehow.”
Ulrich chuckled. “That’s what I like, a well-formed plan.”
Jason pointed his finger at Ulrich. “Confide in no one, not even Lyton. We can’t trust him either.”
Jazon saw Ulrich’s blank look. “Look, Lyton’s got the ‘you know what’ in him. He can destroy this ship whenever he wants. Who is to say he and Lord Hromhada aren’t working together. They’re both big on this Three Principles thing.”
“As am I,” Ulrich added.
Jazon looked at Ulrich and smiled. “I trust you, Count Stumphman.”
“And I trust you.”
“Then that’s the size of our little circle of conspirators – me and you.”
Jazon picked up his sandwich and finished it as he stared down the corridor. Neither he nor Ulrich spoke as they ate their meal, each lost in his own thoughts. Jazon was thinking about how close he had come to the ultimate mistake – falling in love. Amissa and Lord Hromhada had played him like a fish on a line, reeling him in so slowly he thought he wanted to be caught. He wondered how many fish swallowed the tantalizing shiny bait dangling in front of them, and then interpreted the tug on the line as an invitation to more food. They probably looked up from the frying pan with love in their eyes. On the other hand, if Amissa was Lord Hromhada’s tool, why had she revealed the secret of the autodestruct device to him? He was confused.
Huumba’s entrance broke the silence and his thoughts.
“I demand to know why I have not been allowed to access the weapons programs,” he shouted. “How can my men and I practice if we cannot shoot?”
Jazon looked up at the Dastoran Drone and smiled. “First of all, don’t come in here shouting at me. I’m the captain, remember.” Before Hummba could interrupt, he added. “Second, I have decided to release control of the weapons systems to you and your men.”
“But I ….”
Jazon raised his hand to stop Huumba. “I will tell Amissa to load the practice program as soon as we Skip back into our space. Then you and your band of merry men can practice to your heart’s content.”
Huumba looked confused at the Robin Hood reference but nodded. “Very well. I simply want to do what I was sent to do.”
Their eyes locked for a brief moment. “I’m sure you do.” Jazon’s retort was lost on Huumba who simply turned and stormed out of the galley. Jazon looked at Ulrich. “That Drone wants my head as a trophy to get his breeder’s rights.”
“Maybe he and M’Kat can split you,” Ulrich joked. “Why did you change your mind about the weapons?”
“If anything happens to Amissa, it might be better if our Dastoran friends had some practice.” Jazon finished the last of his coffee. “I’m going to check on the Skip engines.”
“Amissa’s doing that,” Ulrich offered.
Jazon shot Ulrich a ‘what have we been talking about’ look.
“Oh, yeah,” Ulrich replied.
On the way to the engine room, Jazon passed M’Kat’s room. The door stood open. He knocked briefly but got no response. He peeked in. The smell of raw meat was an overpowering stench. The fact the Trilock liked it a little gamey didn’t help matters. Jazon noticed a half-empty plate with large chunks of raw, bloody meat with an empty bottle of Floxian wine beside it, as if the ambassador had left in the middle of his meal. Jazon turned to leave when an object on a side table caught his interest. He walked over and picked it up.
It looked like the small stunner Jazon carried but had a much larger power cell. It was not of Trilock manufacture and had a strange feel to it, almost as if designed for a smaller hand than a Trilock’s, but it was too large for Jazon’s hand. That left Ataxan. Why would the Trilock have s stunner of Ataxan origin, especially when stunners were illegal on Ataxa? A stunner seemed an odd weapon choice for a Trilock, especially for an ambassador.
He laid it back on the table. Later, he would have Amissa scan it to try to determine its purpose. Jazon didn’t mind that the Trilock brought a personal weapon aboard Occam’s Razor, but something about the familiar shape rang a bell in the back of his mind. He wracked his brain, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The last thing he needed roaming the ship was another Trilock assassin, especially one less inclined to confine his attack to a knife.
The Trilock’s cabin was the last one before the double bulkheads dividing the ship’s engines from the rest of the ship. Jazon opened the double airlock expecting an assault of engine room clatter. To his surprise, the engine room was extremely quiet for a Skip ship. Only a low, pervasive hum and a rhythmic throb in the decking indicated the enormous amount of power generated there. Completely automated, Occam’s Razor had no need for an engineering crew, but a certain amount of routine maintenance was still necessary.
Jazon noticed the hatch leading to the power frame was slightly ajar. Opening the hatch, he noticed movement inside. He pulled his knife from his belt and bent over to crawl inside. Moving cautiously, by the time he had crawled around the stanchions holding the power frame in place, there was no one there. He knew there was a second opening farther down the access corridor. If someone had been inside, he could have escaped there.
Jazon carefully checked the power frame and Skip engine controls for any sign of tampering but could find none. He performed a complete system’s analysis, but it indicated nothing was amiss. Finally, he removed a bomb sniffer drone from the security locker and set it loose. Half an hour later he was satisfied that if someone had been inside the maintenance corridor, he had left no nasty surprises. He suspected it was the Trilock trying to discover the schematics on the Interstitial Drive.
He thought he could detect the odor of raw meat over the ozone smell of electrical apparatus, but it could be residue on his clothing from entering the ambassador’s quarters. Perhaps it was time for a talk with the Ambassador.
Amissa’s voice over the comm interrupted him. “I detect a group of ships nearby in real space. Power surges indicate a battle.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Jazon rushed back to the bridge and checked the monitor. Nothing showed on his bridge screens. He quickly donned the neuro-link helmet.
“Show me.”
Through Amissa’s eyes, he could detect eight Cha’aita ships and six Alliance vessels – three Terran Cruisers, two Dastoran Thistleships, and a single Trilock Thistleship. There was indeed a battle ensuing around the massive red giant star Pralax. The star was too far away for the ship’s sensors to pick it up. How had Amissa located the battle? Even as he watched, two of the massive Cha’aita vessels converged on a single Terran cruiser. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of firepower of the two vessels, the Terran cruiser didn’t stand a chance. He stood helplessly in cyberspace and watched as the Terran cruiser exploded in a giant incandescent cloud of gas. He winced as the ship vaporized, knowing that nearly three hundred humans h
ad died so suddenly.
“Should we assist?” Amissa asked.
“No.” He couldn’t risk bringing an untried ship and untrained crew into battle.
Amissa sounded defensive. “Our weaponry is more than a match for one of the Cha’aita ships.”
“Perhaps, but we aren’t trained well enough to fight. Our mission is important. Lord Hromhada warned against exposing his ship to unnecessary danger.”
A Dastoran Thistleship exploded, sending fiery fingers of plasma out like a blossoming flower of death.
“A priority override has been engaged,” Amissa announced suddenly. Her voice was cold, distant.
“What do you mean? Disengage!”
She didn’t answer. The ship lurched back into normal space near the outer edge of the conflict.
“All hands to battle stations,” he called out on the comm.
He sensed the Dastoran Drones at their stations within moments, powering up the weapons.
“Take us in slow behind that ship.” He indicated a lone Cha’aita vessel making for one of the remaining Terran ships.
Amissa took Occam’s Razor to within 2000 meters of the Cha’aita vessel before it noticed them.
“Fire!” he called.
The ship shuddered as the two heavy particle guns opened up, and a flock of tiny, high-yield missiles lanced out, enveloping the Cha’aita ship in a net of explosions. Lasers flashed like Christmas lights, sending fiery fingers of death into the enemy. The Cha’aita ship began to glow as its engines overloaded, and then exploded into an expanding ball of white-hot gas.
“Direct hit,” Huumba called out in triumph.
“Keep watching,” Jazon warned. The ship twisted as Amissa turned it sharply to avoid the expanding cloud of plasma.
Now, two Cha’aita ships spotted them and converged on their position. One of the Terran ships tried to break free of the fight to come to their aid, but fell back under withering fire.