by Daniel Gibbs
“Come on. You’re no soldier. If you were, you would have upped with the Marines—or stayed in after your four years of compulsory was up.” Harry glared at him. “Instead, you took off for the cities and didn’t even give Mom and Dad the chance to figure out how they would keep things going.”
“They’re doing fine.”
“Yeah. Fine. Because Dad thinks it’s great when a son runs off and abandons his family.”
“Look, nothing I say is going to change what you think of me. I understand. But the offer’s still there. Do you want my help or not?”
Harry shoved the monitor into its alcove and turned toward Jackson. “I want you here as my partner in management, Jack. Dad can’t get around well these days. He’s going to need DNA therapy if he’s going to survive, which means Mom has to make sure everything stays in the black. The last guy we had running the north range took off for the neutral systems so he could buy into a get-rich-quick scheme. Money’s great. I need a partner.”
“A partner? You mean a flunky. I haven’t forgotten the way you always pushed me around when we worked side by side after I got done with my service. You didn’t treat me any better than the hired hands—or even the combine bots!”
“Just because you’re family doesn’t mean you get any special breaks. You have to earn your place, like everyone else. Instead you wasted your time.”
“On school. On getting myself into CIS. Doing intelligence work.”
“Spy crap.” Harry scowled. “Like I said, not real soldiering.”
Jackson spun away from the rail. “It really doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’re going to find fault with everything I do. When I worked the ranch, it was always something with my tracking algorithms or the way I separated the herds. Then it was me never being around. And whenever I come back, we do this stupid sparring, when all I want is—”
“To help, sure, I heard you. So, transfer the money, and get back on your spaceship.”
Jackson seethed. He was ready to lay his brother out on the deck. He’d hit men for saying the same, whether in character when undercover or in the heat of the moment. But that wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Let me ask Mom about it, then.”
“She’s busy—took Dad into the clinic for another treatment.”
“Well, if I had her comm code, I could call her, but—”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you. Get over it.”
Enough of this. Harry tried to walk past him, but Jackson grabbed his shoulders and shoved him up against the bulkhead. “Will you knock it off for two seconds? The work I do is important, no matter what you think. I’ve had to stand back and watch people die. I’ve had to abandon others when I knew they could wind up captured and tortured. I’ve had to spend months lying to almost everyone around me just so we could stop threats to the Coalition that won’t ever show up on the news nets because my bosses want the public to stay happy with the way we’re recovering from the war. So don’t you stand up here on your safe little skiff and tell me I don’t know anything about soldiering! You hauled your fat carcass out of the service the second your term was up, and you haven’t looked back! Hiding behind your essential designation for running a food source. Hook the CPUs of two bots together, and they could do your work twice as fast with a quarter of the mistakes!”
Harry swung at him. Jackson dodged enough that the blow only grazed the side of his head instead of smashing into his nose then drove his own fist deep into Harry’s gut. But Harry tripped him, and before Jackson could adjust, he crashed onto his left knee.
Sloppy. He staggered away, bracing against the rail again, ready for Harry to come at him. If he was anything like he’d been, he would charge like a bull seeing red.
Instead, his big brother stood there, slumped against the bulkhead. He cradled his midsection with one arm. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to bring you along. What an idiot I was—thinking you’d fall back in love with home after five seconds of flying over it.”
“I always loved you and Mom and Dad,” Jackson said. “But I hated this place because it turned the three of you into tyrants who never let me have a moment’s peace. All it does is suck the life out of you, never giving you enough no matter how many resources you pour into it. At least with Intelligence, I’m vital and independent. Not at the bottom of the food chain.”
He stormed past Harry and pulled the monitor out. Thankfully, no one in the family had changed the access code in years. Once he was in, he initiated the transfer from his accounts. “There. I hope it helps with repairs or whatever you need. Now, I’m headed off-world for a while. I don’t know when I’ll be back next, but when I am, I want to talk about Christmas.”
Harry laughed, but it was a cold, angry sound. “You think there’s going to be presents for you under the tree? Is that it?”
“I want to come back and spend time with you guys.”
“Do me a favor—don’t bother looking up the clinic. If you show up there looking to say goodbye, Mom won’t answer.” Harry headed for the control cab. “Let’s get you back to the terminal. If you walk the three kilometers in time, you should make the next tram into the city.”
As Jackson watched Harry go, he struggled to get his heart rate and his breathing under control. It was ridiculous. He could smoothly spin tales to criminals and traitors without worrying about his cover, but after less than half an hour with his brother, he’d gotten into a fight—however brief—and further alienated himself from his family.
Maybe Harry was right. Maybe everything he was doing was selfish, all of it for Jackson Adams instead of his nation or his people or even his kin.
But the more Jackson looked back on what his family had become, the gladder he was for sticking to the path he was on, no matter the reasons.
In any case, he was glad to be out of uniform. Walking the three klicks to the tram station from the skiff terminal would be far more comfortable in his civilian shoes.
Sinclair waited by the airlock leading from the fleet yard’s station onto CSV Oxford. He shouldn’t be nervous. It was his vessel, after all, one with which he was intimately familiar and which had served him well over the war’s past few years. Standing there, gazing through the windows at her form spotlighted in yellow glare, he couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of all the work done as of late. Would she even be the same ship?
Preposterous. It was only a collection of bolts and bulkheads. Even as he thought it, Sinclair knew he didn’t believe a word. A ship like Oxford was alive, as far as he and her crew were concerned, alive and home all at once. Nowhere else in the galaxy felt as comfortable. His apartment on Canaan might as well be a brig on a prison barge.
Which was why seeing Oxford with subtle differences to her exterior made him nervous.
“Hey there, Colonel.” Kenneth Lowe, president of Strathclyde Shipboard Integrators, strode up to him. The cheery man, pushing forty, had the grin of a person waiting to share a big secret. “Ready for the grand tour?”
“I daresay I know my way around the old girl more than you do, Mr. Lowe.” Sinclair meant no critique and carried no rancor in his tone. “But I shall be delighted to play the role of curious guest.”
“Trust me, you’ll get a kick outta all the modifications we made, all according to your specs, of course, sir.” Lowe punched the access code. “Come on.”
At first, Sinclair couldn’t put his finger on what was different. The deck and bulkhead carried the sheen of upgraded paneling, of course, but the corridors were the same. The layout seemed a tad off.
“Yep, this is one of the modules,” Lowe said. “We’ve reconfigured the hull so it can accept a whole range of ’em—hangar expansion for fighters, Marine barracks, cargo holds for extended duration missions.”
“I see. This current installation is the sensor expansion, I believe.”
“Got it in one, Colonel. The hardware is linked to your command center. Captain Tamir and Chief Warrant Officer Eldred are overseeing the final tes
ts. Once it’s all up and running, you’ll be able to reconstruct a 3D scan of what a League commissar on Teagarden is having for breakfast.”
Sinclair appreciated the jovial exaggeration, even if it lacked technical specificity. He could get all the relevant details from Captain Tamir once the tour was concluded—not that he hadn’t already read every sentence in the overhaul report before Lowe had opened the airlock. “It sounds delightful, Mr. Lowe. I’m perfectly happy to haul a bigger belly full of sensors this mission rather than having to deal with a hold crammed with the Terran Coalition’s wayward children.”
“Hey, I’m not gonna tell any Marines they’re missing out on a deployment because you spooks want to play it quiet. Just know that if you need to, you could zip back here in a couple days, spend less than twenty-four hours in drydock, and be back out in space, equipped as a troop transport or a backup carrier.”
“Impressive, indeed. And as for those couple of days, I’m equally happy we’ll be able to get nearer to Teagarden faster, should the need arise.”
“Boy and will you. The new antimatter reactor’s purring. True, we had to rip out bulkheads and expand Engineering to compensate. Never mind lodging the new drives into the aft section. But yeah, you’ll cut your travel times down from a week and a half to a couple of days out to the border and back.”
That was delightful. One of Oxford’s advantages was her ungainly appearance. The other was her designation as a technical research ship, which implied a slow bucket. Being able to leap through space-time with the same speed as the Coalition’s most advanced carriers and cruisers would enhance her ability to subvert expectations.
“How about her teeth?”
Lowe grinned again. “We pulled ’em and gave her fangs—new missile tubes, doubled your concealed CIWS Point Defense Mounts, added one double-barreled 250 mm magnetic-cannon turret, also concealed. The panels are retractable. We’ve tested them with deployment times of three seconds max.”
“Outstanding.”
“Even with the upgraded shields and additional armor plating, I wouldn’t recommend wading into a brawl, Colonel. No matter how much reinforcing and arming we did, she’s still got the bones of a freighter. You push her too hard, and she’ll snap.”
“I quite understand. We do go way back, she and I, but I appreciate your candor. Rest assured I have no desire to slug it out with a destroyer anytime soon.”
They made it to the operations center floor, which took up several decks and was packed with every conceivable holo-projector display and sensor readout known to Terran technology. Sinclair smiled at the sight of the plaque bolted in their midst, bearing the CDF Intelligence motto “In God We Trust, All Others We Monitor.” As far as he could discern, some enterprising soul had given it a fresh polish.
“Colonel on deck!” Captain Alon Tamir leapt to his feet and braced to attention.
Scattered enlisted crew did likewise, each of them analysts or technicians responsible for assisting in the interception and decryption of whatever transmissions were their current target.
“Good to see you back aboard, sir.”
“As you were, Captain.” Sinclair noted that Chief Warrant Officer Miranda Eldred was a bit slower in her response. Given she was ex-Coalition Intelligence Service with barely a recruit’s worth of time spent in CDF uniform, he was willing to overlook such details, especially given her results. “And how are we handling the new coat of paint?”
“As well as can be expected, sir. We have glitches to work out.” Tamir glanced at Lowe. “No offense to our contractors. They did a great job getting everything torn out and plugged in, in record time. But it’s taking some getting used to.”
“They moved a half dozen consoles.” Eldred sighed. “I had all the subroutines planned just so. It’ll take the entire trip out to the border just to get them dialed back in, but that’s fine. It gives me time to catch up on my target practice at the range.”
“Ah. Feeling a tad rusty, are we, Warrant?”
“I’m not missing the fieldwork and the insidiousness of the decisions therein, Colonel. But riding the console doesn’t get the blood pumping as much as being steady on the trigger, I’ll have to admit.”
“Very good.” Sinclair leaned in close to their workstations. “I trust you’ll have this all sorted before departure, eh, Butter Bars?”
Tamir’s face flushed at the mention of his affectionate but old nickname, one that had survived through several promotions over more than four years of service. “Yes, Colonel, we will. But only if you remember which direction to face when giving us commands to set sail.”
Eldred broke into chuckles that she tried desperately to stifle but, failing, buried herself in running the new setup on her decryption console. Lowe whistled and feigned inspecting the sealant on a newly reinforced bulkhead.
It didn’t bother Sinclair. He could tolerate certain amounts of kidding aboard ship. It helped lighten the crew’s mood before they set their minds to the upcoming tasks, ones which required the best of their concentration. If the jokes failed, the pranks were sure to take up the slack.
“Sorry, Colonel, but I’ve got to jet.” Lowe checked his communicator. “I’m supposed to make sure a couple of raiders have enough spare parts before they ship out. You can find your way back to the airlock if you get stuck, right?”
Before Sinclair could respond with appropriate sass, Lowe scooted for the operations center exit.
Sinclair rocked on his heels. “I trust you’ve taken a moment from your busy schedules to peruse our orders?”
Tamir frowned. “Yes, sir, we have, and I have to say, I’m not sure about this arrangement. Captain Adams is effective, sure, but he’s not known for being a team player.”
“The man has a reputation for successfully completing his operations, Captain.”
“He does, but there are, ah, what I consider disconcerting elements.”
“Don’t mince words, Captain,” Eldred said. “You think he’s a maverick with a tendency to pull a rabbit out of the hat at the last minute.”
Tamir shrugged but didn’t elaborate further.
“And what’s your opinion of this new element, Warrant? Since we’ll all be working in close concert as part of this new unit, and given your past experience, I value your input,” Sinclair said.
“Well, Colonel, from a CIS standpoint, he’s good. He earned himself a decent rep.” Eldred snorted. “A better one than most of my fellow operatives could boast, with less collateral damage. I’m not saying he’s perfect. The consensus was that he had one major weakness.”
“Do elaborate.”
“His heart. He cares too much about people. He’d go out of his way to keep his cover intact, not only to protect himself and his team but to make sure the people his missions brought down got fair trials, decent treatment under the law. It didn’t matter what they did.” Eldred crossed her arms. “Which is likely why he didn’t stick with CIS.”
“This makes a difference to you, I see.”
“It does, sir. When I walked away from CIS, I—had a gap to fill. A chasm, really. The things I did needed forgiveness, and thankfully God was always there waiting to take me back in, no matter how long it had been since my last confession. I don’t know what faith Captain Adams follows, but if he’s had to deal with the same struggles I have, then he’s done an admirable job of keeping his hands clean. It can’t have been easy for him.”
“Very insightful. Thank you both. I think we shall endeavor to do our best to welcome these new assets into our fold. I’ll make their dossiers available to you. Captain, see to it their five-person team is berthed on Deck Nine, down near the shuttle bays. That should work to their advantage.”
“Understood, Colonel. I take it we’re departing ASAP?”
“Indeed, Captain. We have just a few more hatches to batten down, as the saying goes. Carry on.”
Sinclair left them to their tasks as he ventured deeper into Oxford’s corridors. He spent the next several
hours familiarizing himself with the changes made by the SSI contractors. He had to admit Kenneth Lowe demanded perfection from his people. The work done was just so. Still, Sinclair made notes on his tablet to tweak a few things back to the way they’d been the next time his ship was due in drydock.
Then he made his way to the officer’s mess, where, at that time of shipboard day, he was the only person in attendance. The solitude was welcoming. He needed the space to be alone with his thoughts for this mission.
Eldred’s commentary about Captain Adams stuck in his mind. Given the decisions Adams had made in the past, Sinclair was wary of his impact on the Oxford crew. It also remained to be seen how Adams would cope with a full special ops team aboard. Sinclair smirked. They weren’t the kind of men who enjoyed working hand in hand with cake-eaters, no matter their groundside experience.
Ah, well. He resolved not to worry on the issue too much as he delved into the files related to the upcoming operation. It was the kind of assignment he relished—new elements, an untested set of capabilities, and behind-the-scenes work meant not only to protect the Terran Coalition but potentially to help innocents.
Sinclair pondered what Eldred had said about her faith and Adams’s. The work those men and women did had an inherent darkness. Analysts like Tamir were above it all, metaphysically as well as literally. They didn’t see the results of their actions in terms of human collateral. Eldred knew the very real and often very bloody costs. Whether Adams had grappled with that reality before, and to what extent, Sinclair knew he would have to ascertain.
He allowed himself a quick arrow of prayer to the good Lord for wisdom and began bringing together the plans for Covert Action Unit 171 in earnest.
6
Fleet Yards
Canaan—Terran Coalition
14 July 2464
An expandable, pressurized cofferdam connected Oxford’s main cargo hold to the station. A herd of service bots trundled back and forth with the supplies needed for the mission’s duration as deck crew supervised the storage process. Jackson stood to one side, watching the work and waiting for their last team member to arrive.