"Anything else we'll need to know that you can think of? Anything that might not be in the mission packet?" Mosler waited this time until he was sure she was done talking.
"One point of interest, something she let us know before going dark, was that she'd recently helped out a mercenary crew that had a human with them. I think you know who that would be."
"We do," Mosler confirmed. "They were there the same time we were. Helped us escape a sticky situation on Nott."
"So I read," Wilford said. "Just so we're clear on this, Jason Burke is still officially considered a criminal and a rogue element by Earth. Do you understand what I mean by that, Commander?"
"Understood," Mosler said stiffly.
Jacob tuned out the rest of the briefing, his ears ringing at the mention of Burke. So, his new team had had more than just casual contact with his estranged father or, at the very least, felt like they owed him a favor. Was that why he was here? He hadn't missed the hardening of the eyes on Mosler when Wilford proclaimed his father a criminal.
The fact that Jacob was now being forced to drag out his feelings for a man he'd only met once and reexamine them irked him. Who seriously gave a shit about Jason Burke? These NAVSOC clowns spoke of him in hushed, reverent tones, but from what Jacob understood, he'd been responsible—at least indirectly—for not one but two attacks by alien armadas on his own home planet. Then, like a coward, he hopped on his stolen ship and blasted off before he could be apprehended to stand trial for his crimes. All of that didn't even begin to touch on his feelings regarding Burke, about the questionable genetic makeup he passed on and ditching his mom after getting her pregnant.
In high school, when they'd learned about the two attacks in history class, he'd been forced to watch the videos from when one of the aliens hijacked the world's broadcast systems and actually demanded that his father be turned over along with the ship he'd stolen. It was beyond humiliating despite the fact nobody knew they were related.
He'd met his father once at the insistence of his grandparents. The man had landed his ship in a field in the middle of the night and had come sauntering down the ramp with his crew of alien mercenaries in tow. Jacob had been fourteen and had been especially terrified of the hulking alien he now knew was a Galvetic warrior and a being that was actually a sentient machine he always thought of as an android, though that wasn't what they called themselves. The other three aliens had been weird, but appeared harmless. He never could figure out why they would follow Burke, a human who had admitted to bumbling into possession of a powerful ship and had nearly gotten his own people wiped out twice.
"Hey! Pay attention, Brown!"
"Yes, sir," Jacob barked out of reflex, acknowledging that he'd been spoken to by a superior yet not actually admitting he hadn't been paying attention. He'd been half-listening to Wilford and knew she'd been droning on about logistics and the guts of their mission brief would be sent to their ship via a secure link for security reasons. Now, Commander Mosler was back up at the lectern and had been going over maintenance issues with his support crew. Jacob had heard the doors open and close behind him but hadn't turned to look and see how had entered.
"As a professional courtesy, we'll be taking Captain Webb with us on the Corsair when we depart," Mosler was saying, gesturing to the head of NAVSOC as he walked into the ready room. "We'll fly out of here fast and link up with the Pathfinder-class starship, Endurance, and drop him off before pushing ahead with our own mission. Put your fucking hand down, Sullivan. I'm not taking any questions until we get our official orders and mission brief." The team's pilot lowered his hand and shrugged.
"Murph, you take Brown to logistics and get him geared up before hitting the armory and letting him pick out any personal weaponry he may want that we don't have on the Corsair. Lieutenant, just make sure anything you grab you're actually qualified to use."
"Yes, sir," Jacob and Murph said in unison.
"You're dismissed, but you are not to leave the Ops Center," Mosler said. "You can grab chow in the flight kitchen and piss away the time in the rec room, but I catch any of you leaving and I'll keelhaul you myself. That's a serious punishment on an interstellar ship." There were some dutiful chuckles at the joke and everyone climbed out of their seats to file out of the ready room.
"Let's go get you some spaceman clothes, LT," Murph said with a friendly slap on the back. "You comin', Fisk?" The question had been to Staff Sergeant Brian Fisk, one of Jacob's two support noncoms.
"Nope. You two have fun playing dress-up."
"So, I hear you don't want me along for this one, Sergeant?" Jacob asked after they'd cleared out of earshot. He hadn't meant for it to sound so confrontational.
"No offense intended, LT." Murph shrugged, not at all looking embarrassed or contrite. "I'm not exaggerating when I say it's a fuckin' jungle out there, and until you experience it firsthand, no amount of training can prepare you for it. The Reaches are an especially shitty part of an already shitty region of the quadrant."
"Fair enough," Jacob said, appreciating the straightforward answer. Despite having heard Murph talking behind his back, he couldn't help but like the guy. The tall African-American had a powerful build and seemed to glide across the ground when he walked and possessed an easy-going demeanor that belied the fact that he was a highly trained operator in a UEAS Special Forces unit. "Just do me a favor?"
"If I can," Murph said.
"I take criticism fairly well. If you see me about to step into a huge pile of shit, feel free to nudge me out of the way." Murph laughed at that.
"Hell, I'd have done that without you asking," he said before growing serious again. "Getting down there on these planets, interacting with aliens even though you can understand them, it takes some getting used to. Even people who pass the psych eval sometimes crack up the first time something that looks like a potato with eyeballs asks them where the nearest bathroom is. We all have to depend on each other, so if you feel like you can't handle it, just be honest with us. Ain't no shame in admitting you're freaked out by freaky shit."
"Will do," Jacob said, thinking back to the time he'd met his father's crew. If the aliens they'd meet weren't too much more exotic than that group, he should do okay.
"You like our ride?"
"She's a beauty," Jacob said, and he meant it. The ship before him looked both graceful and menacing.
"Captain named her the Corsair," Murph continued. "No class designation, she's one of one, no other boats like her in the fleet. She's also the only ship currently assigned to Scout Fleet that was designed and built entirely by humans. The others have all been bought off our alien friends and modified."
"A lot bigger than I thought it'd—she'd—be." Jacob hurriedly corrected himself. Murph may have been a jarhead, but he seemed to view his ship with the same reverence any spacer would who was worth their pay.
"Three decks, seventy-three meters in length and a wingspan of fifty-eight meters and some change. I forget her gross weight," Murph said as the automated open-air car pulled to a stop before the ship. The support crews were scrambling all over her, and Jacob could see half a dozen cables and hoses still attached.
The Corsair had a pure delta wing configuration, her main hull blending seamlessly into the wings. There were no visible weapons or even portholes. The ship appeared a single, monolithic construct. Even the gaps for the access panels were all invisible.
"Now you look more like you belong," Mosler shouted over the noise as he walked up. "A few more scars and a bit less clean and you'll be ready for the Reaches…mostly."
"When do we leave?" Jacob asked.
"We're topping off our fuel now and Munitions has already been out to arm her, so as soon as our VIP gets here, we'll be clearing out. Murph get you squared away with gear?" Mosler asked.
"Yes, sir," Jacob said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the three hard cases that contained the rest of his clothes, equipment, and the personal weapons assigned to him. Murph had told him to just
take whatever they offered and lock it up in his stateroom since the Corsair's armory was fully loaded with alien armament that Command wasn't even aware they had. Jacob had raised an eyebrow at the NCO casually admitting to about half a dozen regulatory violations and one outright crime right in front of an officer but said nothing.
"Come over here for a minute so I don't have to keep shouting," Mosler grabbed him by the shoulder and led him over to a small security shack near the landing pad. "One more thing we haven't talked about… I know you're beyond green, and we're throwing you into the shit well before you're probably ready for it, but you're technically second in command on this mission."
"What about Sullivan?" Jacob asked. "He outranks me." Although they were both lieutenants, Sullivan was in the Navy, which meant he was an O-3 while Jacob, a Marine second Lieutenant, was an O-1.
"True, but Scout Fleet crews are organized so that the Marine detachment commander is higher up the chain than the pilot regardless of rank," Mosler said. "Sullivan is a competent officer and a good leader, but he'll have his hands full most of the time navigating and piloting. This isn't a debate. I'm asking you if you can handle taking command if something happens to me."
"Yes, sir," Jacob answered with a confidence he didn't feel. What's the worst that could happen? If Mosler was taken out of action for some reason, Terranovus would order the Corsair back to human space immediately rather than turn the mission over to some rookie second lieutenant.
"Good," Mosler said. "Go get your shit and put it in your stateroom. You'll be on the command deck across from me If you go up the— You know what? Just have Murph show you where it is, and then go up on the bridge and wait for me. Don't touch anything."
Murph had helped Jacob get his gear secured in his quarters and pointed him in the right direction for the bridge. The bridge itself was situated at the prow of the ship and sandwiched in between deck two and the command deck. When he walked onto it, he sucked in a breath at the stunning view. It appeared that he was just standing on a platform overlooking the flightline since the main display began at the rear bulkhead and encompassed the entire bridge.
"Real windows and portholes are fairly useless on a starship," Ryan Sullivan said, startling Jacob. He was seated at the pilot's station that was near the front of the bridge and sunk into the deck in a sort of pit, for lack of a better term. "There's nothing to see outside once we're in space, and I don't even look out while flying within an atmosphere anymore. They're just a needless vulnerability. This wrap-around display is also holographic so it can project images in front of you or highlight details outside in three dimensions. There are also displays mounted in the external bulkheads throughout the ship. Psychologists seem to think it helps even though, like I said, there's nothing to see. Pretty cool shit either way."
"Definitely," Jacob said. "I took a few classes in naval starship design and never heard of this technology."
"It won't make it to the rest of the Fleet for another ten years or so. Fleet brass doesn't like to put untested systems onto their capital ships," Sullivan said, climbing out of the pit and extending his hand. "Welcome aboard. None of us go by our names or rank in this outfit. Just call me Ryan or Sully."
"Thanks," Jacob shook the proffered hand. "So, the Corsair is that far out on the cutting edge?"
"In most ways, yes," Sully said. "What's not widely known is that some of our systems were adapted from alien technology we procured on our own without the help of our Cridal allies. That's definitely something you don't want to talk about to an outsider. The common misconception about the new generation of scout ships entering service is that they're designed and built totally in-house and, for the most part, that's true, but Scout Fleet crews are always on the lookout for anything that can give us an edge."
"It's one of Scout Fleet's standing secondary directives," a new voice from the bridge entrance said. Both Sully and Jacob turned to see Captain Webb leaning against the hatchway. "The terms of our binding agreements within the Cridal Cooperative dictate what we're allowed to receive from our trading partners and make sure that Cridal oversight knows who's sending what, where. But Earth was careful to negotiate the explicit right to develop our own technology as well as purchase and scavenge as needed. It's a thin gray line we're walking in that we're not entering into new trade agreements with outsiders when we simply buy or…acquire…something from an outside source. With that in mind, it only makes sense to have our most forward units keep their eyes open for anything useful. The main fleet has no such standing order."
"I see, sir," Jacob said carefully. It seemed a risky game that NAVSOC was playing, but he had to take it on faith that Fleet brass and the civilian oversight on Terranovus knew what Captain Webb and his operators were up to. He couldn't even fathom that a lowly captain would be rolling the dice with the safety of their home world by executing unsanctioned trades and, if he was reading between the lines right, theft of sensitive technology.
"I doubt that," Webb said, "but you've never been out of Terran space and graduated from the Academy all of ten minutes ago. You'll learn. How long until we're ready to push off, Lieutenant?"
"The Corsair is ready, sir," Sully answered. "Reactor is nominal, engines are ready, and the ground crew is standing by to unhook the umbilicals at our order."
"Very good," Webb said. He looked like he had something more to say but, instead, turned and walked back through the hatch.
"Webb doesn't leave Terranovus much anymore, not even to go back home," Sully said quietly. "I wonder what the hell is so important he'd hitch a ride with us out to a Pathfinder-class ship."
"Isn't the Endurance the ship that was involved in the attack that led to the collapse of the central banking system within the ConFed?" Jacob asked, digging deep to try and remember any of the scuttlebutt he'd heard floating around about human involvement in the incident.
"Involved might be too strong a term, but she was there in-system when the shit hit the fan. Word has it— Captain on the bridge!" Sully snapped to attention, and Jacob followed suit out of instinct as Mosler strode through the hatchway.
"As you were," he said. "Are either of you two dipshits even paying attention to what's happening outside the ship?"
"I—"
"Shut up," Mosler cut Jacob off. "We have visitors, very distinguished visitors who want to talk to you."
"Me?" Jacob asked.
"This is going to be a long cruise if you continue to act confused and question everything I tell you, Lieutenant," Mosler sighed. "Get your ass outside, now. Was that clear enough?" Jacob wisely clamped his mouth shut and followed Mosler back through the ship to the rear loading ramp.
"I don't know what they want with you. They don't really talk to anyone except Webb," Mosler said. "In fact, this is the first time I've seen them outside of their own compound since they arrived here."
"Who are they, sir?"
"Political refugees, and not human ones, either. It may have something to do with your unusual family makeup, or they may have just seen your face and don't like you. They're quite enigmatic, and also unimaginably powerful. A single one of these guys could kill us all within the span of seconds."
That last bit of description gave Jacob an inkling of who he was going to see…and why. As he jogged down the ramp—with Mosler staying conspicuously in the ship—he saw that he was correct: battlesynths. Three of them.
The species was a subset within a race of intelligent beings that had been created on a planet called Khepri. They were actually machines, designed at first to do menial tasks for their masters and then, if the legend is to be believed, an accident in their development led to full sentience. The species that made them, the pru, named them something that roughly translated to synthetic, or synth for short. Most synths were average sized bipedals that, while strong, weren't necessarily dangerous. Their cousins, dubbed “battlesynths” were a different story. They were hulking, powerful machines that had onboard weaponry, armor plates covering vital part
s of their body, and were known to have a lack of humor and general distrust for anyone not of their kind. Jacob knew more about them than most humans. He'd actually met one in person when he was a child.
Jacob knew that a regular synth had been behind the attack on Earth that happened before he was born, its picture still all over the Nexus if anyone wanted to search for it. But one of the secrets he carried with him from his childhood was that when his father had come to visit after the second attack on Earth, when Jacob had told him that his mother was dead and that he never wanted to see him again, one of the members of his alien crew had been a battlesynth named Lucky.
"Greetings, Jacob Brown," the baritone voice boomed from the lead battlesynth. "Or should I say, Lieutenant Brown. Congratulations on successfully completing your training at the Academy."
"Thanks?" Jacob said hesitantly. It took all his willpower to not flinch or retreat as it closed in on him, leaning down to look him in the eye.
"We are friends of your father, although we have heard you do not wish to be associated with him," the battlesynth said. "Perhaps a wise decision. He is an honorable, though erratic man. That is not the purpose of my visit, however. My designation is Combat Unit 707. I am in command of what remains of Lot 700 here on Terranovus."
"Is Lucky one of you?" Jacob blurted out before he could silence himself. He didn't know enough about these beings to know what might be an insult or not.
"Combat Unit 777, or Lucky, as he was known, was killed while trying to save our comrades as well as the life of your father," 707 said. "But yes, he was a member of Lot 700."
"I see," Jacob said. So, it looked like Lucky was another casualty of his father's blundering ways.
"We owe your father and his crew a great debt," 707 continued. "He negotiated with your government to allow us a home here and risked his own life for ours on more than one occasion. In return, we offer our services to you, if they are ever needed." He handed Jacob a small cylindrical device. "This is a slip-com homing beacon. If you activate it near an active slip-com node, it will be able to get a signal back to us. I will assume it is a dire emergency and take necessary steps. I understand you will be assigned to Marcus Webb's command and can only assume you will find yourself in grave peril at some point in the future. I urge you not to use this frivolously, however, for all our sakes." Jacob almost refused the device, looked up at the unreadable mask of the machine's facial armor, and simply nodded. He pocketed the device and figured it'd be simpler to just destroy it later than argue with this strange being.
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