by Eric Warren
She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all as she reached the hypervator. What Zenfor must think of them now. Maybe they didn’t deserve help from the Sil. Maybe instead they deserved exactly what was coming.
13
Cas had to stop himself from kicking the wall every time he turned the corner on the way to Bay Two. She had to throw her weight around, didn’t she? When he’d taken this rank and offered to report to Evie, he’d assumed their relationship would have remained the same. That she wouldn’t have turned into some kind of tyrant who seemed to get pleasure at ordering him around. The look on her face had been joyful when she’d told him to come down to the Bay. And for what? What purpose did it serve to see him squirm? He couldn’t figure out what she might be thinking. Didn’t they have enough to deal with? Cas had done nothing but be accommodating. For almost an entire season. Yet no matter what he did, it always seemed like the wrong move. He didn’t want to have to go to Greene—but he might not have another choice.
He entered the Bay to see Rafnkell standing beside one of her ships with a group of the spacewing pilots close by. Cas hadn’t had much of a chance to meet any of them as he hadn’t spent much time in the Bays since the Reasonable Excuse had been destroyed. The pilots tended to stay close to their ships, something he’d overhead one of them say was a “hot standby”, whatever that meant.
“Oh shit,” Rafnkell said as soon as she saw him. “They sent you?”
Cas faltered a moment, then resumed his course to them. He’d forgotten not everyone on the ship reported to Coalition Central. The spacewing pilots were part of a different branch of the military: The Sphere Corps. They had their own chain of command and while they were technically under the command of Captain Greene, they had the autonomy to use their own discretion when necessary. It didn’t matter if Cas had on a Coalition uniform or not, to them he was probably the same criminal in a different set of clothes.
“They sent me,” Cas replied with as much confidence as he could. He caught the other spacewing pilots giving him inquisitive looks.
“I guess you’ll do. You are an engineer, right?” Rafnkell asked.
“In another life.”
Rafnkell turned to her pilots, two women and a man. All three seemed to be in excellent shape which was something he’d heard about the corps. If you couldn’t get through basic you sure as hell weren’t flying your own ship. It was part of the reason he’d gone into the Navy instead of the Corps, he’d known there was no way he could have passed the physical. “This is Grippen, Jann, and Ryant. Work with them. We want to boost the anti-grav capabilities of the ‘wings. My hope is it will negate whatever is out there and we can use the smaller ships to maneuver. Maybe even tow Tempest out if we have to.”
Cas reached out to shake the pilots’ hands. All three were human, as all space corps flyers were. Because of the design of the one-person ships, aliens typically couldn’t fit and work the controls. Unless special modifications were made and as far as Cas knew, none ever had been. The first one, an olive-skinned woman with bright blue hair and dark eyes put her hand out, giving him a firm shake. “Lecia Grippen. But call me Lecia,” she said. “And don’t mind the boss. She’s got a bug up her ass because the captain sided with the alien instead of her.” The other two pilots broke into howls of laughter as Rafnkell pressed her lips in a line.
“Just for that, you get to clean the exhaust manifolds,” she said.
“Anything but the manifolds!” Lecia yelled, releasing Cas’s hand. All of them broke out into laughter again; even Rafnkell cracked a smile. The man behind Grippen, tall with skin the color of umber and a shaved head lifted the goggles off from over his eyes and eyed Cas, a smirk still on his face.
“You’re the criminal, huh? Don’t look the part.”
“We never do,” Cas replied.
The man grinned in response. “Dorsey Ryant. Try not to piss off my boss or I’ll have to commit a crime of my own.”
“Got it.” Cas heard the Corps were close, but he hadn’t realized how close. Their comradery was the stuff of legends.
The other woman had a long face which betrayed no expression but she kept her eyes trained on Cas. She didn’t offer her hand other than to raise it. “Jann.” Then she dropped the hand and crossed her arms.
“Saturina’s kind of quiet,” Lecia said, leaning close to Cas. “It’s nothing personal. It will take her a few weeks to decide if she likes you or not.”
“Are we done now? Everyone know each other? All your egos satisfied?” Rafnkell stood in the middle of them. “We’ve got work to do. You three know the guts of these ships. This bastard here knows engineering. Allegedly. Work together. Get the anti-grav levels above two-hundred percent. And if you get that far, push for three-hundred.”
“Sir,” the three pilots said in unison.
“Get to work.” She left the four of them there, heading to a different part of the bay.
“How much do you know about the Class Seven Spacewing?” Lecia led Cas to the closest fighter parked near the side wall of the bay.
“The standard stuff. Ionic core engine, a range of maneuvering thrusters. Most of the ship is dedicated to dogfighting so you have a lot of weapons equipped.”
“Yeah, Jann likes the weapons,” Ryant said behind him. “Outfitted her ship with four extra guns, not that it improves her hit percentage.”
“Still beats yours,” Jann replied, her arms still crossed.
“Whatever,” Ryant replaced the goggles over his eyes. Some sort of display appeared on the inside of them. Cas figured it must be something the pilots use to help them navigate. “I need a few shots to warm up. But when they hit, hoo-boy they hit good. Tell me again how many kills you have?”
Jann shoved him. “I’ve got plenty.”
Ryant turned to Cas. “Out of the two of us, who do you think is the better pilot?”
“Um…”
“Wait, no.” Lecia’s moved over beside them, her face animated. “Out of the three of us who do you think is the best pilot?”
“How would he even know?” Jann asked. “I heard he flunked out of piloting school in the academy.” Heat rose around Cas’s neck.
“Whoa, really?” Lecia asked, her brow drawn in confusion. “I thought it was something everyone could do. Not as good as us of course, but isn’t that like, a basic skill?”
“She’s right, I did flunk out,” Cas said. “I never could get it.”
“But wait. I thought you were a super-criminal who escaped Coalition guard and lived among the Sargans. How’d you get away if you can’t pilot a ship?”
“I had help. My—I helped a robot escape. He was my pilot,” Cas explained.
“Is he the one in sickbay now? He sure doesn’t look like a pilot.” Lecia’s eyes were wide with interest.
“Yeah. He needed a new job since—”
Lecia turned to the others. “We need to get him down here. I wanna go up against him.”
“Lis, we’re in the middle of a crisis here.” Ryant pointed toward the Bay opening, which was open to space, nothing but a force shield keeping the vacuum from consuming all of them.
“Yeah, I know, I mean once all this is over. Think Raffy will let us dogfight a machine? He can even use Jann’s ship, extra weapons and all.”
“I’m not letting that thing in my ship,” Jann replied. “No one flies Ester but me.”
“God, that’s a geeky name.” Lecia turned back to Cas. “Could you order him to come down here? I want to see if he can fit in my cockpit.”
Cas fumbled with his words. He’d expected them to be more serious about performing these upgrades. The ship was in a dire position after all. But maybe he could use Box’s help. Or, Box could help the pilots with their upgrade while Cas went back to check on Zenfor. He hadn’t been happy about leaving her, especially with Evie ordering him out. He could be of more assistance to her than he could here, at least in the short term.
“Sure,” Cas said. “But I don’t order h
im. He’s a fully-functioning individual. He makes his own decisions. I can ask him, but that’s it.”
“Yeah, of course. Whatever,” Lecia said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”
Cas shook his head. “It’s fine.” He tapped his comm. “Box, you busy?”
“Just cataloging blood and trying not to spill it. Xax startled me earlier and a bag exploded all over sickbay. It was awesome.”
“Oh, I definitely want to meet him,” Lecia said behind Cas.
“Can you come down to Bay Two when you get a minute? The pilots down here want to meet you.” Something like a high-pitched scream came across the comm before it cut off. “He’ll be right down. He gets excited when he gets to do new things.”
“Great,” Jann replied. “So the anti-grav generators we have on the ‘wings now are basically for take-off and landing—to get us out of the hangar without hitting anything or skidding across the deck plating. I think what Raffy wants is to reroute some of our power to keep them on all the time, while we’re out in open space.”
“Does she know you guys call her Raffy?” Cas asked.
Lecia shrugged. “Who cares? She’s called us worse. It’s something we all do.”
Cas couldn’t get over how close they all seemed. “Did you all go to the academy together?” He couldn’t be sure, but Lecia seemed younger than the other two. And Rafnkell was definitely older than all three of them.
“Nah, the chief put us together a couple years ago. Been flying together ever since,” Ryant replied. “We have a good squad. Linkovich, Iavarone, Blackfield. They’re all the best in the business. And then there’s these two screw-ups who somehow conned their way on the team.”
“Hey,” Lecia said, her blue ponytail whipping around as she turned to face him, pointing in his face. “I was with the Chief before you were.”
Ryant smiled. “And she obviously needed to find more talent.”
Jann rolled her eyes and stood off to the side as they argued.
“Boss.” Cas turned to see Box striding into the Bay, the middle part of his torso covered in a dark red splatter.
“He’s here!” Lecia strode over to meet the robot before Cas could catch up with her. “You weren’t kidding about the blood.” She laughed.
“It got everywhere. Jimmy’s still cleaning it out of the crevices.” Box glanced at the woman in front of him. “Captain Grippen.”
“He knows me,” Lecia whispered.
“Captain Ryant. Captain Jann. It is a pleasure,” Box said.
“Box, I was wondering if you could help us with some anti-grav problems the spacewings are having.”
He tilted his head. “Problems?”
“Not problems,” Ryant interjected. “But we’re trying to increase the efficiency of the anti-grav units.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Box replied. “It will be a matter of shunting additional power from the weapon systems. But you’ll need to reinforce the current anti-grav units in there now or they won’t be able to handle the load.”
“Think you can help them with it?” Cas asked.
Box turned to him. “What are you doing?”
“I need to get back to Zenfor. She’s working on some probes that will hopefully tell us what is going on out there that’s got us stuck.”
“Oh,” Box replied. “Sure. It isn’t like sickbay is busy right now anyway. But if we start racking up a body count, I’ll have to go.”
“Understood,” Cas replied.
“So, Cas said you were his pilot,” Lecia took Box by the arm and led him back to the spacewing.
“It’s a good thing too. If you’ve ever seen him try to fly, it isn’t pretty. He almost killed a crewman with a shuttle.”
Ryant leaned over. “That was you? Linkovich told me about that. Said you almost overloaded the shuttle’s core just to get them to back off.”
“My mission wasn’t exactly authorized,” Cas replied.
Ryant flipped his goggles up again. “Yeah, no shit. Ballsy move though.”
Cas noticed Jann giving him a strange look. “Yeah. Thanks. Anyway, you guys should be in good hands with Box. If you run into any trouble or if he starts acting up just comm me. I’ll come calm him down.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ryant said. “We’ll take care of him.” Cas nodded, noticing Lecia was giggling at whatever Box said—probably one of Cas’s horror stories while they were on the Reasonable Excuse. Ryant and Jann turned to follow them. Cas watched them for a moment before returning to the exit to make his way back to Zenfor.
14
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cas said under his breath as he reached the outer door to the weapons lab. Inside there was shouting from different voices, though the clearest was Zenfor’s. Upon entering he found Zenfor towering over Ensign Tyler, both of them locked in an argument which neither seemed prepared to lose. “What is going on in here?” Cas asked.
“Have you seen what she’s done?” Tyler asked. “These probes don’t conform to any Coalition Standard I’ve ever seen. We can’t use these, they could be dangerous to the ship.”
“They won’t damage your ship or your crew. Do you think I want to be stranded out here alone?” Zenfor retorted.
Tyler glared at her. “I’m sure you could find a way to pilot the ship back to Sil space with your advanced knowledge.”
Zenfor turned to Cas. “He is being uncooperative. I believe I am within my rights—”
“No!” Cas stepped forward. “No, he’s fine. He’s just…concerned.” He turned to the ensign. “Aren’t you, Tyler?”
Tyler glanced up at the two-and-a-half meter tall Sil and seemed to rethink his position. “Uh…yeah. I just don’t want to use anything illegal or dangerous.”
“It isn’t dangerous,” Zenfor said. “As for illegal, that doesn’t matter. It will give you the information you need.”
Tyler gave Cas a “can you believe this” look but Cas didn’t do anything to encourage Tyler. They needed to get these probes finished and set up in the launchers. “How close are you to being finished?” he asked Zenfor.
“Only a few minutes. I called in a small team for their assistance but when the ensign arrived they all left.”
“I’ll help you finish,” he said. “Then the ensign and his team will be happy to load the probes in the launching tubes. Right?”
“Yes. Sir,” Tyler said, though it was different this time. He wasn’t openly mocking Cas. He had to listen to him.
Cas smiled. This rank thing had its advantages after all. “We’ll notify you when they’re done.”
Tyler took one last look at Zenfor before he retreated through the weapons lab doors.
“Your decision to retake your previous title seems to be working,” she said, returning to her work. “Though I’m not sure it is worth the price.”
“What do you mean?” Cas asked.
“Had you been wearing that uniform when you approached me, your head would now be swirling the bottom of a Sil drain somewhere on my ship.”
Cas dropped his eyes. “I appreciate you listened to me was because I said I wasn’t part of the Coalition.”
“And now you are again. It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
He’d been afraid of that. Zenfor responded to him because he was an outsider. And now he’d become part of the group again she might back off. “I’m still the same person.”
“Are you?” she asked, not looking up. “This wasn’t what I meant when I said you were separate from the rest of them.”
He couldn’t say yes with a straight face. Because she was right, he had changed. The old Cas never would have done something like this. Maybe he’d lost part of himself along the way.
“Five more minutes,” she said, hunched over the prototype probe. “Help me keep this sensor bundle in alignment.”
“Sure,” Cas said, his mind a million miles away.
***
Cas hadn’t had time to return to the Bay. Once Zenfor had comp
leted the prototype, they’d delivered it to engineering where Sesster had orchestrated the construction of two more based on the original, impressed with the design. That in itself was a rarity as Claxians were seldom impressed. But if anyone would find that honor, Cas figured it would be a Sil.
The probes had been constructed quickly thanks to Zenfor’s streamlined design and loaded into the launch bay. Cas had notified the bridge of their progress and he and Zenfor had made their way there to watch the launch itself. But as soon as Cas stepped on the bridge he caught Evie’s eye and it was plain to see she wasn’t happy. She didn’t say anything, only stared daggers at him for an extended minute before turning back around in her chair to watch the screen.
“Everyone ready?” Greene asked once Cas and Zenfor had taken their positions. After acknowledgements from everyone, he gave the order to launch. Three trails of superheated plasma appeared in the bottom of the screen, each headed in a slightly different trajectory. “Let me know as soon as you receive some telemetry,” Greene said.
“It won’t take long,” Zenfor replied. “They’ll begin transmitting as soon as they are clear of the event horizon.”
“She’s right, Captain,” Zaal said. “I’m getting information back now. The area seems to be devoid of anything. No particulate matter, no stray asteroids, nothing. It is an absence.”
“Information coming in from the second probe, sir,” Lieutenant Uuma said from tactical. Cas wondered if Yamashita’s comment from earlier had earned her a demotion of any kind. He couldn’t see how. And it wasn’t as if he could ask Evie. “I’m getting some…strange readings. Zaal, can you double-check me? Is this right?”
“What is it?” Greene asked.
“Probes seem to indicate a lifeform at the center of the phenomena, Captain,” Zaal said.
Greene leaned forward in his chair. “What kind of lifeform?” Cas glanced at Zenfor, whose gaze remained trained on the main viewscreen. He was as interested as the captain to learn what could be living at the center of such a strange area of space. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen spaceborne organisms before; they were rare but not unheard of. The Grande-Grande being the first one to come to mind.