“Brutus. Not today, buddy. Wait for gravity,” Cain suggested. That was when Tandry snapped, hurling the small orange ‘cat at Cain’s face while scooping a meowing Mixial up with her now free hand and closing the hatch behind her. Cain heard a clunk as something was wedged against it. Brutus bounced off his human’s head and spun away down the corridor.
“Way to go, Bee. I think you may have gotten us both banned from this deck,” Cain said as he went after the ‘cat. “We’ll say hi to everyone a little later. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry!” Cain declared and pulled himself down two levels to the mess deck where he was able to conjure up a good meal from the fabricator. Brutus didn’t need anything, since he had stuffed himself on capybara and low-flying birds during the past week. He had a little belly on him, just like most of the ‘cats.
Afterwards, Cain made rounds to check on his charges and see how the volunteers were getting along with the crew. First stop was the bridge, to check on Pickles and Fickle.
The captain was in his chair, looking older than Cain remembered from earlier that same day. Fickle was in a new seat on the right side of the space while Pickles leaned over him, pointing to various items on the numerous display screens. Senior Lieutenant Pace sat in the middle, a new position where he had the controls to fly the ship. On the left side was a young woman who seemed to be doing what Pickles used to do. That made Cain wonder what Fickle was doing.
She turned around and looked Cain up and down, his uniform, his rank, his medals. “You must be the infamous Major Cain,” she said, licking her lips.
‘Run!’ Brutus advised, laughing.
“I need to go,” he said and flailed on his way out the hatch.
“I’m never going in there again,” he told Brutus as he conspicuously went the opposite direction of the sensor space where Mixial was currently being held captive. This direction gave him the opportunity to see how Ascenti and Zisk were getting along.
Chirit could not have been happier adding another Hawkoid to the team. They were reviewing systems at a rudimentary level, but for Chirit, the alternative was having no one in the chair. He’d rather have two with basic skills, who were trainable and motivated. Cain left them alone to continue their indoctrination.
The major stopped by the garden deck to see how the ‘cats were getting along. He saw that they seemed to be everywhere, when at one time, he thought that level was enormous. It had the ability to sustain the crew almost indefinitely with what could be grown there. The ‘cats were clinging to anything they could get their claws into, mostly the small trees where they were wedged between branches and wrapped around limbs. The Rabbits were nowhere to be seen. Carnesto nodded pleasantly while Lutheann watched him closely.
Cain excused himself and carried Brutus with him past the next deck to engineering. He locked eyes with the ‘cat before opening the hatch, trying hard not to smirk.
‘I will make you pay, human,’ Cain thought he heard far in the back of his mind. They went inside to find Briz and Starsgard deep in a mind-bending conversation about some technical detail of the EM drive thrusters. He tried to watch, but it made his head hurt. Ellie was nowhere to be seen. Brutus breathed a sigh of relief for the brief reprieve in emotions that his human seemed unable to suppress, especially when it came to the opposite sex.
“Prepare to undock,” came the call over the ship-wide broadcast. “Airlock is secured. Undocking.” Cain thought about it. He hadn’t posted a guard to ensure that no Androids entered the ship.
“Jolly, I need to be sure that no Androids entered the ship while we’ve been docked,” Cain asked the AI.
“I can confirm that, Major Cain. My sensors are always focused on ingress routes to the ship. We received our supplies under the watchful eye of your Marines, and after they entered, no Androids or any other creature followed,” Jolly reported.
“Thanks, Jolly. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I need some hardware, if you don’t mind fabricating me a few Marine logos and some Shooting Stars and Space Stars, all three ranks, please.” Cain opened his neural implant and shared the three-dimensional logo.
Cain continued to maintenance where he found a man spewing blood from his nose. Spence floated nearby, his fists still clenched. Cain rolled his finger, encouraging the corporal to tell his side of the story. Tobiah was next to him, hackles raised and fangs exposed, hissing. The man pinched his nose and snarled back.
“This knucklehead thought he’d pin his shoddy work on me. I haven’t even picked up a wrench yet, but I know enough to see that isn’t right!” Spence pointed to a valve that was clearly installed backwards. The flow arrow pointed at the arrow on the attached pipe.
“Jolly, can you have Garinst meet us on the hangar deck please.” Cain looked from one to the other. “I’m not sure I approve of settling our differences with a fistfight,” Cain said for public consumption, while privately, he asked Brutus for Tobiah’s impression of what really happened, knowing that ‘cats were hopelessly honest.
‘I don’t need to ask. This man was actively trying to sabotage the ship,’ Brutus said simply.
‘We found our spy,’ Cain suggested.
‘No, he just doesn’t want to go to deep space. He wants to stay in space dock, take recreation on the shipyard’s space station. It appears there may be some gambling going on out there.’
Garinst arrived and Cain shared the ‘cat’s revelation with him.
“I knew no one could be that bad!” the lieutenant commander stated emphatically.
“Corporal Spence, get two Marines down here and secure this creature. He’s to touch nothing until after the captain and commander have determined what to do with him.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Spence replied, opening his neural implant and making the request of Sergeant Stalker.
“Where are the other new additions to the crew?” Cain asked Garinst, getting angry when he was told that one was in wastewater. One more was in maintenance and the last was the young Ensign on the bridge. Cain nodded and bolted away.
“You saw her, Bee. Did you get any insight?”
‘Yes. She and Ellie have become friends so she was messing with you. She’s not the spy,’ the ‘cat replied.
“That leaves two, little man. Let’s see what this individual is doing to my wastewater treatment system.” Brutus hung on as the major kicked his way through the open space of the stairway into the spindle section and his former workspace. Opening the hatch, Cain was treated to a stench that almost blew him back into the corridor.
“What the hell is going on in here?” he bellowed. “Jolly, where is he?”
The man yelled from inside for Cain to shut up, he was handling it. Cain waded in through the nearly toxic cloud. Brutus started gagging.
‘It’s him,’ Brutus said simply, before begging to be taken outside.
“I’ll be back,” Cain yelled over his shoulder as he retreated from wastewater treatment. He floated down the spindle until he found a private area. “Jolly, is there a pick-up and speaker in this area?” Cain asked hopefully.
The AI responded instantly. “Of course, Major Cain. How can I help you?”
“I need a private line to the captain and the commander.” He waited until Jolly said that they were there. Cain started without preamble. “Someone is corrupting Holly, and I’ve been attacked repeatedly. This whole mission has been on the receiving end of everything bad that the SES could throw at it. One thing I learned was that there was a spy among the newcomers to the ship. With Brutus’s help, we’ve found him. He’s the one in wastewater treatment. The other one from maintenance was actively trying to sabotage the ship, but only so he could stay in the shipyard. The SES did you no favors with these people.”
“Did Brutus see anything from Ensign Kalinda?” the captain asked.
“He said that she’s fine,” Cain responded. “What do we do with these two? And I don’t know about the last one in maintenance. Garinst said that he wasn’t very good, either. Marines
are already working to fill the empty positions.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Major,” Daksha said through his vocalization device. “Cryosleep for those three. Let’s be done with that, and we’ll turn them over when we get back. I would have enjoyed seeing them thrown out the airlock when we were docked with the Traveler. I’m sorry we missed that opportunity.” The Tortoid was more open than what Cain remembered, but last time, he was a lowly ensign.
“If your Marines could bring them to the hangar deck, we’ll have a med bot standing by. I expect that they may not come willingly.”
“Once gravity is reinstated, we’ll take care of it,” Cain answered.
Almost immediately, the captain announced to everyone on board, “Prepare for artificial gravity!”
Cain issued the order, then went to the hangar deck to wait. He was joined soon after by a med bot, and bots being notoriously bad conversationalists, it stood there in silence. Stalker arrived with nearly half the platoon carrying three trussed up and yelling humans. They deposited the packages roughly on the deck, holding them down as the med bot got to work. Soon, all three were sleeping. They were taken to the cryopods and sealed inside. The lights flashed until they showed a solid green.
At one point in time, Cain would have been appalled at the harsh justice, no trial, the word of a Hillcat their only accuser. Not anymore. Maybe that was the slippery slope the SES didn’t want to go down, but cryosleep wasn’t a punishment. It was a way to pass time. They would be woken when the ship returned to Cygnus space and then they’d be summarily removed from the ship.
The Marines filled in the empty workstations and Cain even returned to wastewater with the Wolfoid called Silent Tracker, who volunteered to help. Jolly made the wastewater treatment job easy from the technical side, where the major swore the private to secrecy. No one needed to know that the job didn’t take a techno-whiz.
The Marines trained in their shipborne jobs. They trained as Marines, although most of that was talking through issues while gathered on the mess deck. They integrated with the crew and most importantly, the Marines took turns on the garden deck, helping the Rabbits and keeping the peace.
The captain took the ship out the far side of the system, accelerating for one hour out of every four to reduce the time within the Cygnus heliosphere. Pace turned the ship and started a slow deceleration as they approached the trailing edge of the gravity well so they didn’t impact personnel movement within the ship. They started banking dark matter while still in the well, calculating that they had two more weeks to kill before they would be at capacity.
Although Cain was given quarters, he was rarely in them. He wanted to be everywhere at once, helping his people, working on something that would improve their chances when they reached Concordia.
And then there was Ellie. When he showed up at her door, she welcomed him in and with a near carnal passion, they went after each other. He felt both bad and incredible. She made him feel alive. He felt guilty, too, when he thought of Aletha, which was too much of the time. His only reprieve was preparing to fight, working with his Marines. Brutus encouraged more of the latter as the former drove him a little crazy.
And much to Tandry’s dismay, Mixial escaped and Brutus arrived as top suitor after a few ugly ‘cat fights. Cain knew the little guy was scrappy, but not how far he would go to get what he wanted. Carnesto was furious after losing a fight to the much smaller Brutus, but Carnesto had two new slices across his face, giving him a far more rugged appearance which appealed to some of the newer ‘cats. Cain also received some new scratches in response to the emotional tidal waves he sent the ‘cat’s way.
All in all, it made for an interesting three weeks since their departure from the Space Station Traveler. There was one exception.
The closer they got to the ISE drive activation, the more dour the commander became.
IC1396
The jump to IC1396 was unspectacular. Briz ran around like a mad Rabbit, checking and verifying that the systems had not been stressed beyond capacity. They started banking dark matter immediately as they stayed outside the heliosphere, slowly moving the ship to give it a clear line of sight to the planet Concordia.
Master Daksha had spent his time working with Jolly, Rand, and Cain to determine the message they’d send to Graham, the Concordian AI, Holly’s counterpart. Jolly compressed the data and with Chirit’s help, transmitted the packet toward the planet.
The commander, the captain, and the major met in Daksha’s quarters after the message was sent. “We’re not giving them much choice,” Cain said. “But you know I’m good with that. I’d love for Brutus to get close to their leadership, find out if any of them are salvageable.”
“Actions, not words or thoughts,” the Tortoid said slowly, unblinking and unmoving. “We are basing our next steps completely off what their AI tells us. We trust him more than we trust humanity.”
“I think we’ll always trust an AI more,” the captain stated, a sad look on his face as he nodded in agreement with himself. Cain didn’t acknowledge the statement. He saw the turmoil in his life when he lost the ability to trust Holly.
“When we’ve banked to seventy-five percent, take us into the well,” the commander ordered.
The Marines started running repel boarders exercises. Briz installed his anti-shuttle traps at each airlock, while Cain, Stinky, and Pickles practiced with the new weapons control console. There were small missiles that had been mounted inside the new module. They were short range and required an active radar to paint the target to help them lock on. In addition to the missiles, there was an electromagnetic jammer, along with a hull-electrification option, in case someone tried to penetrate the ship using a spacesuit and a torch.
Cain wondered about the utility of that option, but figured it was better to have it and not need it.
They announced to the crew whenever the exercises were getting ready to start so no one was inadvertently run over by Marines rushing to and fro, swinging their kukris. When they tried a flash-bang, Jolly flipped out, which put the kibosh on any other use of their best breaching tool.
Even the ‘cats laid low, although you couldn’t tell it from the Rabbits’ grumbling. Cain made sure the Hillcats were fed well so they'd mostly sleep and stay out of the gardeners’ way.
Rand, Daksha, and Cain were in the commander’s quarters for what was becoming a daily get-together. “What changes did they make for you, Jolly?” Cain asked, wanting to be certain what to expect.
“I am able to defend the ship and crew against anyone not of the ship when we are outside of the Cygnus star system. If there is an ambiguity, the commander, the captain, or you, Major Cain, can provide direction that will not cause an anomaly. And under no circumstances am I to terminate or suspend the communications link with the neural implants,” Jolly replied.
Cain tried to think of any scenarios where that wouldn’t work, and he couldn’t come up with any.
“That works for me, Jolly. I’m glad to have you back. How do you feel?” Cain thought of Jolly as a living creature with feelings. With such a change to his basic instinct, it was possible that he was out of sorts.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been better. Thank you for asking, Major Cain,” the AI responded joyfully.
“That works for me, too,” the captain chimed in. Master Daksha had a more wait-and-see attitude.
The week came and went, then the second week as they waited for a reply from the AI on Concordia.
When they finally received Graham’s answer, it was both better and worse than they hoped for.
News of the last visit by the Cygnus-12 had spread across the planet. The people started to rise up and the world was on the verge of civil war. That wasn’t what Daksha wanted. He wanted a controlled descent away from central control, then at the precise moment, Cain and his people would swoop in and cut the cord, freeing the people. Daksha also wanted certain Concordians to pay the price for their duplicity and tyranny, but he didn�
�t share that with the captain or crew. They couldn’t know that he wanted revenge.
The Concordians had made him look like a naïve fool. His ego wasn’t so great that he couldn’t make mistakes, but it hadn’t been a mistake to make first contact, but it had been. The dichotomy grated on his very soul. He wanted to make things right and free the people of Concordia so they could realize the value of self-determination, the power of hope.
The bad news from the message was that the government was preparing to strike towns and villages. They wanted to send a message by killing a huge number of their own people.
Graham’s answer suggested that time was limited. He was doing what he could to keep them from launching their offensive, but they worked around each obstacle he threw in their way.
“Take us into the well, Captain Rand, best possible speed,” Daksha ordered over a ship-wide broadcast.
They’d banked fifty-eight percent dark matter and would continue to run the system within the heliosphere, although it would be far less efficient. Thirty minutes out of every three hours, they accelerated at five gees, ten actual. The crew was getting worn down as The Olive Branch screamed down the gravity well on a collision course with Concordia.
“My engines!” Briz cried, even though the EM drive was not being taxed. At twenty-five gees, it would start to get warm, although at that acceleration, the living creatures within the ship would be dead. Ellie laughed at the Rabbit, watching the meter barely register power usage.
Cygnus Expanding: Humanity Fights for Freedom (Cygnus Space Opera Book 2) Page 29