by B. V. Larson
Then I had an inspiration. If she had a crush on me like I thought… I racked my brain for Moranian’s first name. “Rose…it’s Rose, right?”
“Rosalie, sir.”
“Rosalie, please. Don’t you want me back in command?” Cheap, maybe, but I was desperate.
That deliberately ambiguous, loaded question hung in the ether a moment. “Yeah. Yes I do,” she said with emotion in her voice,
“Then come down and see me.”
“On my way.” That she didn’t call me “sir” or “Captain” in that final statement spoke volumes.
Detaching the wire, I jumped down and woke up Kwon. “Stand by. We may be getting out of here.”
Two long minutes later the door opened. I stared into the muzzle of a laser pistol.
-16-
Sergeant Rosalie Moranian’s pistol wavered as she saw me and Kwon. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish for a moment.
“Lower that weapon, Sergeant!” Kwon snapped before she could speak.
Instead, her grip firmed. “Sorry, Sergeant Major. I can’t do that until your identities have been confirmed.”
“We can’t even convince Valiant’s brain to test us. And…” I looked around, seeing her alone. “Where’s your marine detail?”
Ignoring the question, she looked me up and down. “It looks like you. But we were told you were dead and what with the apparitions…”
“Apparitions?”
Her throat worked. “Weird things have happened since you left. People have disappeared and then reappeared, and vice versa. I saw…” She gulped. “I saw my dead mother show up right in front of me, just for a moment, solid as life. She even left a scuffmark on the deck…I think. So you might be…”
“Ghosts?” I chuckled and reached over to knock on the doorframe. “Solid.”
“So was my mother.”
I stepped slowly forward. Moranian backed up, still pointing her gun at my sternum. I said gently, “Rosalie, I’m not dead. We never died. There was some kind of glitch.”
“Keep your distance,” she said, as her back hit the bulkhead.
Holding my hands at my sides, I advanced until the muzzle of the pistol touched my chest. Then I leaned forward slowly, my brown eyes locked on her hazel ones. Reaching with my lips, never dropping my gaze, I kissed her gently. “Still think I’m a ghost?”
Lowering the gun, she reached up with her free hand to touch my face, and then hungrily kissed me back. I was just beginning to enjoy it when I felt Kwon’s hand on my shoulder.
“Boss?”
I ignored him as I broke the clinch and Moranian touched her lips. “Look, Sergeant, that was…never mind. I’m really Cody Riggs and this is really Kwon, and you need to take us to someone with command authority.”
“Someone with command authority is already here,” came a loud feminine voice filled with outrage.
Oh, shit.
Turning, I saw my girl Adrienne in full fury, a gun in her hand. “Get away from her, whoever you are,” she said.
“It’s Cody, hon,” I replied as I backed up.
“Cody Riggs would never kiss a marine. You’re some kind of apparition. You and Kwon turn around and get back in that cell. I’m going to lock the door and pretty soon you’ll disappear.”
I noticed not only was she angry, but tears were streaming down her face.
“Sweetheart, it’s really me. We didn’t die on the Raptor transport. Kwon and I came aboard on Greyhound, and Valiant’s had us locked in here ever since.”
Adrienne wiped her face with her free hand, wayward blonde hairs sticking to her cheeks. “If that’s true, why the fuck were you making out with her?”
“She had a gun on me. I had to prove I was real somehow,” I said, my palms held out, placating. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time. She’s had a crush on me lately,” I said, sounding lame.
“So you don’t actually want me?” Moranian said, raising her pistol to point at me again.
“I—Rosalie, I can’t. You’re under my command. Even if I wanted to—”
Adrienne screamed, “What do you mean, ‘even if I wanted to’? Do you want her? Is that it? Is that what this is all about?”
Moranian swiveled, beginning to aim at my girl. I reacted without thought, snapping forward to knock the pistol out of her hand. At the same time, a green beam sizzled, the flash blinding me for a moment. When I could see, Moranian lay on the deck clutching a smoking hole in her gut. Kwon squatted beside her, checking her over.
“Oh my God, Adrienne,” I said. “You shot her!”
“Damn right I shot the little tart. Kalu told me you and she had been getting friendly. Then when I saw the vids…”
“Vids? What vids?”
“Boss,” Kwon broke in, “We’ve got to get her to a med-bay.” He picked Moranian up like a child in his arms and moved toward the brig’s exit.
“Unconfirmed personnel are not authorized to leave the brig,” Valiant announced from the wall speakers.
“Adrienne, you have to let Kwon take her to a med-bay.”
She chewed her lip for a moment, and then nodded. “Valiant, command override. Allow the unconfirmed Kwon to take Moranian to a med-bay and keep them both there until further orders.”
“Command override accepted.” The brig door opened, and Kwon quickly carried Moranian down the passageway and out of sight.
Leaving me alone with Adrienne.
“Babe, I’m sorry about kissing her. It was really just to get her to stop pointing her gun at me.”
Adrienne stomped her foot as if getting ready to throw a tantrum. “Stop lying, you bastard! I saw you screwing her!”
I choked. “Screwing her? The only time I touched her was just now!”
“Liar! I saw the whole sequence—how you gave her that beetle horn, an obvious phallic symbol. How she wore her uniform tight for you, just the way you like it and how you kept ‘accidentally’ running into her every five minutes. Then your little drunken trysts in the darkened corridors, just like you did with Kalu and I don’t know how many others!”
“Not true,” I protested. “The only time I ever touched Kalu was that once. Yes, I was drunk and mad at you, but that was before we were even together, really. Come on, sweetheart! We’re solid.”
“God, I was so stupid. I forgave you,” she said, pounding her free hand on the wall. “I made myself believe you, but you lied to me then and you’re lying to me now!”
“Wait,” I stopped her. “You said you got this from Kalu? We think she hacked our suits to report us dead. She was also the one trying to seduce me, competing for my attention with you. You won, she lost. She must have faked those vids because I never, ever hooked up with Moranian. Yes, Moranian has a hero-worship crush on me, but Kalu’s playing you!”
Her aim wavered. “I want to believe you, Cody, I really do, but…”
“Look,” I said. “Let’s put our personal problems aside. The first thing I need is for you to get me to a med-bay and order DNA tests for me and Kwon to prove we are really ourselves. If we’re not ourselves, there’s no point in being mad at a fake Cody Riggs. If we are, no matter how you feel, you know I’m the rightful captain of this ship. Do you really think that Sokolov has been a good commander since taking over?”
Adrienne’s brows furrowed as she lowered the pistol, and then holstered it. For a moment I thought about overpowering her, but Valiant would defend her by shooting me with the auto-laser it had tracking me right now. No, I had to hope she saw reason.
“All right. Valiant, command override. I’m escorting this person to the infirmary for DNA tests. Open the door.” Adrienne pointed with one long-nailed finger, and I strode past her without making eye contact. As much as this current tiff bothered me, I had more important things on my mind.
When we arrived at the infirmary, I saw Kwon standing over a closed med-bay with Moranian visible through its nano-glass canopy. I glanced at Kwon.
“She’ll live.”
> “Good.” I stepped over to an open med-bay and climbed in. Kwon did the same.
Adrienne tapped at the control screen and the canopy closed over me. “You and Kwon are staying inside until the DNA test comes back,” she said. A biopsy needle stabbed me, taking a tissue sample.
“Fine,” I said, gazing up at her through the clear material. “Can you stay here until that happens? Let’s talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you, whether you’re real or not.”
“Let me tell you about what we’ve been doing since you last saw us,” I urged her. “C’mon, what can it—”
Just then, all four of the medical tentacles inside with me extended from their receptacles and picked up sharp instruments—a saw, a drill and two scalpels—with eerily precise motions they stabbed into my flesh. I howled and grabbed the nearest one with both hands, pulling as hard as I could. I felt terrible pain as the other three chopped at me, but in one convulsive effort I ripped the one I had out of its socket.
I’d just gotten ahold of another one when there came a flash and everything went dark and still. When I opened my eyes, I saw Adrienne holding her laser pistol in her hand and smoke curling from the mechanism.
Across the floor I could see frantic motion within a canopy. “KWON!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “HELP KWON!” I pointed emphatically, and then my vision grayed out. I was losing blood like a sprinkler despite the nanites and Microbes within me. What irony it was that I was in a med-bay, dying from lack of care.
I came awake still inside the machine, but the canopy had been detached and now lay on the floor. Old-styled combat bandages had been slapped onto my larger wounds, and I could feel the itching sensation that accompanied nanite-driven rapid healing.
“Adrienne,” I croaked.
Her face loomed into view, filled with concern. “Cody…” she touched my cheek with her hand.
“Kwon?” I rasped.
“He’ll make it. He’s got a lot more blood to lose.”
“Good. Water?”
Adrienne brought over a bottle and helped me sip it. I felt terribly dehydrated.
“You believe me now?” I asked.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Obviously someone sabotaged the med-bay’s programming to kill us.” I raised a battered hand to wave in the general direction of Moranian’s machine. “Is Moranian okay? Did she get cut?”
“No, she’s fine. No problem with hers.”
“Check the programming,” I said as I relaxed again, feeling unconsciousness threaten. “Check—” Then I went out.
* * *
When I next awoke, I almost had a heart attack. I was in a new med-bay, well lit and with four operating tentacles. Fortunately all of them were stowed and my bandages had been replaced with clean skin-seal. An IV ran to the back of my hand, and I felt a whole lot better.
My worries eased when I touched the manual control to open the canopy and it rose up on silent gimbals. I pulled out the IV needle and rolled out of the med-bay onto my feet in one smooth motion, still concerned the thing might go rogue again.
I found myself standing in my boxers on the infirmary floor. Two broken med-bays rested nearby along with a row of operational ones, two occupied. One held Kwon and the other Moranian. I hit the eject button on Kwon’s after checking to see that his health rating was almost one hundred percent. A moment later he was up and with me looking for something to kill.
The infirmary door opened and we both crouched reflexively, running sideways to take cover, but it wasn’t necessary. My chief engineer, Warrant Officer Sakura, stood in the doorway. Short and stolid, nevertheless she was a welcome sight.
“Hello, Captain,” she said. “Miss Turnbull is on her way. I happened to be closer.”
We stood up from our hiding places and walked forward. “So you believe we are who we say we are?”
“I do. After talking with Miss Turnbull, I examined the programming on the med-bays. They were set to kill you if either was ever put inside. I scrubbed their brains’ memories and reloaded their operating systems from the permanent backups.” Sakura ran her palm along the canopy of one of the empty machines. “Bad job.” She seemed tired and distracted.
“Yes, really bad for us,” Kwon said.
“No, I meant…” Sakura paused, staring at the big man. “Yes, it was bad for you. Sorry. I’ll increase the frequency of my random diagnostics from now on. I’m also going over every ship system starting with Valiant herself, looking for anomalies. I’ve already found a few.”
“Such as?”
Adrienne rushed in at that moment and threw herself into my arms. “You’re okay?” she asked, running her hands through my dark hair and kissing me.
“I am now,” I said with a smile.
“Good,” she said, shoving us apart with both hands. “I haven’t forgotten about her.” Adrienne pointed with her chin at the one remaining occupied med-bay.
I sighed. “I told you, sweetheart, the kiss was completely tactical. I was trying to get her to bring us here and have us DNA-tested.”
“If she had, you might be dead. I had to blow those units’ brains out before they stopped chopping on you, and then I had to get Sakura in here to help patch you up.”
I looked from one woman to the other in confusion. “Where’s Jones? Where’s Achmed?” Those were our two corpsmen. Both had quarters right outside the infirmary.
“Gone with Sokolov to the surface along with most of the crew.”
I raised my hands as if to grab my head. “What the hell is going on around here? I leave for a couple of days and the whole place goes crazy! No, wait, don’t answer that yet. First, we need our identities confirmed.”
“I already did that when we stuck you back in the clean med-bays,” Adrienne said. “You’re you.”
I took a deep, ecstatic breath. “Valiant?”
With the exception of Adrienne’s first-ever whispered “I love you,” I heard Valiant speak the absolute best words of my life.
“Yes, Captain Riggs. Awaiting instructions.”
At the confirmation I was once again Valiant’s commanding officer, Kwon and I both slammed our palms together in a high-ten like jubilant football players after scoring.
“Valiant,” I said over the big man’s celebratory exclamations. “I want you to identify who hacked you and how. Check all of your programming against your backups.”
“I am already performing a similar script input by Chief Engineer Sakura. Shall I restart?”
“No, sorry, never mind.” I shot an apologetic look to Sakura. “Valiant, how long until you finish?”
“Approximately nineteen hours at current neural loads.”
“Go ahead and do it, but all subsequent commands from me will take priority.” I didn’t want Valiant slow to fire because it was bogged down with contemplating its navel.
“I know the outline of what occurred,” I said, turning to the two women, “when we didn’t come back. We could see the battles between Stalker and Valiant. I need to know what happened here with Sokolov. He took over, right?”
“Begging your pardon, Captain,” Sakura interrupted. “I’m still trying to keep us from crashing. I need to get back to Engineering.”
I nodded brusquely and waved her back to her duties. She left, face expressionless as usual, and I turned back to Adrienne.
“Yes,” Adrienne said. “Sokolov took over. He was the only commissioned officer still alive—we thought—so there was no question. Everyone was shaken up by word of your death. We needed a steady hand, and we all wanted revenge, so we took it out on the Raptor battleship. You called it Stalker?”
“Yes. I got the name from my Raptors.”
“Sokolov wanted to space the Raptors that came aboard before you died. He said the damaged transport could pick them up, but that seemed unlikely. I told him he’d have to put me out with them, and the other officers backed me up. As a compromise, the Raptor noncom suggested they go into hibernation. T
hey’re still in a cargo bay.”
That was interesting. “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you. Go on.”
“The battle cost us a few more people, but we drove Stalker back to the fortresses. Then Sokolov ordered us to attack again. That didn’t sit well with the crew. It didn’t seem necessary. We’d beaten them, but now he wanted us to take on the four forts as well. Over time, he convinced us. We understood the necessity of getting through the ring to make progress toward home. Besides, the whole Orn system seemed to have turned against us.”
“I guess I can understand,” I said, trying not to sound doubtful. I found it irritating that they’d so easily been taken over by Sokolov.
“But Sokolov wanted more than that,” Adrienne continued. “He didn’t just want to escape this system. He wanted to punish the Raptors. He was getting more tyrannical and arbitrary by the minute. But what could we do? Valiant recognized him as the legitimate commander.”
“There’s a protocol to remove a ship’s captain, but it takes unanimous consent of the officers including the medical officer.”
“We don’t have a medical officer.”
I made a gesture of disgust with myself. “I know. My mistake. I see I’ve made plenty of them, starting with not immediately commissioning and appointing a full staff once my own captaincy was confirmed.”
“And that kiss. Let’s not forget about that.”
I fought not to laugh at such a low-priority detail. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t consider it to be an insignificant matter.
“Okay,” I said. “Back to the story. You managed to drive Stalker through the ring and follow in Valiant. Then?”
“Then we chased them across this system as they fled toward the golden planet. The Slab just watched us, teleporting here and there as if to get a better angle on the battle. From some comments he made, Sokolov seemed to hate the Slab too, maybe worse than the Raptors, but he didn’t try to attack it.”