by J. M. Hagan
“Flent? Never heard of it. Can anyone play, or do I need a rule book?”
With a slight grin, Jeriko split the deck. “I take half, you take half. We see who can make the most pairs.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“Well, I read your profile. You’re from unknown space. I’m gonna have to take it easy on you.”
“You read my profile. Already?”
“Yep. I received the notification of your arrival a few minutes ago. I opted to let, Malora, go and meet you.”
“How come it was left up to you guys? I mean, isn’t there an Officer who deals with that?”
“Oh, yeah. His name is Fischer. The guy is in charge of station security, though, so don’t expect to see a lot of him. Tier-1 cadets are mostly left to their own devices. Nobody is gonna come wake you up in the morning or bark at you the way they do with the grunts. If you don’t have self-discipline, you’ll never make it.”
Jack took his half of the cards. There looked to be roughly thirty or so in a full deck. The cards were stylishly drawn with rovian numbers, his highest being 13. Jack began sorting them into pairs.
“Well, you know all about me,” said Jack. “That leaves me at a disadvantage.”
“You always will be, where I’m concerned, Murphy,” he told him, his jaw tightening.
“That a fact?” Jack’s eyes got reinforced by steel as he stared back.
“You scored highest among your crew. Higher than most who have applied for tier-1 candidacy in the last ten years. But I scored better.”
“You said that like you expected me to know it. But this is news to me, man. Did I really score that high?” Jack asked, leaning into the table with joyous intrigue.
He wasn’t interested in having a battle of egos – the fact that he had done so well was all that mattered. Jeriko could keep first place.
The fernode took a moment to study him with those oaken eyes before a crinkle formed in his nose. “You know what, Murphy? I think you and me are gonna get along just fine.”
“Really?” Jack smiled. “What makes you say that?”
“You lack a killer instinct. It’s obvious you won’t become competition.”
Wise guy. Mocking me? When all I’ve done is be nice? Fuck him. “Yeah, man, nothing to worry about from me. I don’t give a shit about being number one.” That was until you opened your big mouth. I love taking people down a peg. Challenge accepted.
15
Location: Maji-Onda Station, Security Wing
Fischer hit the bottle hard the night before. It didn’t matter, he still had to begin the day at 0600. Like always, even with the hangover, he got up the second his alarm sounded. Then he staggered toward his shower, getting undressed along the way, and hit the cold water on.
Freezing water hit his flesh and soaked his grey hair. That initial shock to the system was enough to wake him up fully every time. Then he hit on the hot water and let out a breath of relief, running a hand down his wrinkle-hardened face.
He always believed in starting off the day with a little self-punishment. After his shower, he did push-ups until he couldn’t do a single rep more.
As the CO of Maji-Onda Starman HQ, and the Chief of Security for the entire station, he needed to be strong and alert if he was going to be an example to his men and women. Even though he was nearing his seventieth birthday, he still projected a strong and powerful presence.
He got dressed in his tan circle-neck uniform, leaving the top button undone as always. Then he proceeded to HQ command where he grabbed some coffee from the dispenser outside, and rubbed his thumping temples as he awaited his cup filling.
There were hundreds of screens lighting up the room, with a dozen analysts who had been working the night-shift.
“Can you believe this crap?” said Tomvel, one of the more talkative analysts, as Fischer came in checking his itinerary on his PDP. “He probably made it in a HC.”
Carz laughed at his side, as they watched the viewscreen together. “Yeah. Probably. There’s no way this is really the Dok’ra.”
Fischer almost spat his coffee back into his mug. He drew his eyes from his PDP and went over to the two analysts who were eating from food cartons at their stations. Bandora eggs over easy. About the only thing in the cafeteria that was decent in the morning.
“What’s this?” Fischer asked, when he was standing over them, and the analysts tried to look busy upon noticing his presence. Tomvel almost dropped his food carton in the process. He didn’t give a toss that they were eating on the job. These men were working their lives away at these terminals.
“Sir, I didn’t realise you were…”
“Looks like it’s from a damn war movie,” Fischer grunted, taking a drink of coffee as he viewed the space battle onscreen.
He viewed the screen and saw several Dok’ra fighters locked in combat with what looked to be a cruiser-class vessel.
There was no mistaking it when he saw the two transport gunships, this footage, real or not, showed the Dok’ra his grandfather had died fighting in the Great War.
“Yes, sir,” said Tomvel.
“Where’d you get this?”
“A citizen brought it to Media-1. He claims this footage was taken just a few days ago.”
Galaxies, don’t let that be true. With reddening cheeks, Fischer attempted laughing it off. “Bullshit. Did they check the authenticity?” Like everyone else, he had felt safe in the knowledge of their extinction his entire life.
“We’re currently reviewing the authenticity of the file for them using our best tech. If it’s real, they’re gonna run with it on the evening news. But, I can tell ya, if this is a fake, it’s a damn good one.”
“How come they sent it to us?” asked Fischer. “Shouldn’t they be sending shit like this to the Federation?”
“Well, sir, that’s the most interesting part. It seems that the crew of this ship are our newest tier-1 cadets.”
Fischer put a hand to his head. “We have more new arrivals? How many?”
“Four, sir. Three humans and a Plysarian female. They arrived in the late hours of last night.”
Just hearing that candidates had given this footage over made him give this evidence a lot more credit. Before he could consider it, though, Mara called him.
“Chief, the ambassador has arrived.”
Fischer removed his eyes from the screen that had threatened to plunge him into a nightmare and remembered his duties. He grinned at his personal assistant.
“You boys check this just to be sure,” he said, turning away from them. “Let me know what you find.”
“Yes, sir,” Tomvel responded, hurrying to have another bite before his food got cold.
As he approached her, Mara came over and tried to adjust his collar. “Get off,” Fischer blurted, with a throaty groan.
As organised as she was, it was little wonder the woman who worked around the clock to assist him in the smooth operation of Maji-Onda was so uptight when it came to dress code. Fischer’s top button was undone, and he liked it that way.
“Sir, you are about to meet with the first Ishar representative to visit this station in almost a decade.”
These types of meetings grated him. There weren’t enough hours in the day as it was for everything that demanded his attention. He was more concerned about the pirates outside, and the criminal element within the station itself, than a meet and greet with some foreign Ambassador.
“I know. I met the last one. It was back when you were a cadet in training on Minto-4.”
“Delta-3, actually. I read the report on the last incident,” she warned him, in strong tones. “The delegate was unhappy with his reception from what he described as a cold and bitter rovian.”
Despite what the report said, Fischer had no such compunction. The last Ambassador had been an asshole, plain and simple. “You sure he didn’t mean old?” Fischer joked.
“You’re still young.”
Fischer laughed, shaking hi
s head. “Damn right, I am.”
They were coming down the stairway that led to the main thoroughfare, and the bustle of the crowd got louder with each step they took. Morning, noon, and night, this place was alive and noisy. He’d grown so accustomed to it that it was music to his ears.
“We’ve got the ambassador round the clock security,” Fischer groaned. “I don’t understand why she’s insisting on meeting me. She should be meeting with the Captain.”
“The Captain will be present, too,” said Mara, and Fischer grunted. Last thing I need. Two chattering women this early in the day. “She’s preparing tea for you.”
“Tea? What the hell do I want with tea? I’ve just finished my coffee. You know what I need?”
“Another coffee?”
Fischer nodded, holding the rail as he took the last step. “With cream and sugar.” Despite his cold blast this morning, there were some lingering effects from the previous evening. His diminished energy levels demanded coffee in abundance.
“What have I told you about your diet, Chief?”
If this girl had her way, he’d be living on green leaves and a whole load of codswallop that came from the ground. “Fine. I’ll skip the cream and sugar this time. But I want bacon for dinner,” he said, in a sure tone.
Mara took a note on her PDP with a sigh. “Anything else I need to take note of before your meeting?”
“Yeah. I want a meeting with our new cadets, and real time updates on what our two analysts come up with regarding that Dok’ra footage.”
*
Location: Maji-Onda Station, Starman HQ, Training Area
Having barely slept, thanks to his new roommates incessant snoring, Jack got up early and saw that he had a message on his PDP from Cadet Malora. She requested that he meet her in the training area on the floor below.
Apparently, they had been partnered up by someone working in the offices that decided to pair them all together based on their skills.
Jack made it to the training area and grinned as he approached her. Malora wore an olive t-shirt and dark grey cotton gloves, with brown pants and boots. She had sweat on her brow as she exited the training room, holstering her weapon on the way out. When she looked up, blue eyes like ocean waves fell on him, and Jack grinned.
She was just a few inches shorter than him, and he could tell from the outline of her figure that she was in keen physical condition.
“Good morning, Jack,” she greeted, and his eyes were drawn to an old scar on her arm that looked to have been made by a blade.
“Morning.”
Malora brushed by him. “You have three days to prepare for the test,” she informed him, as she went to the gun rack and checked the contents. “You’re either very confident, or very naïve, to think that you can just wing it. Either way, I’d bet you’re ill prepared for the assessment.”
“I got here as quick as I could. Circumstance, and all of that.”
Malora slung a rifle over her shoulder, then took two cartridges and put them in the pouch on her belt. “So, what kind of fighter are you, Jack?”
“Whatever kind I need to be; I’m pretty adaptable.”
“You use that line on all the girls?”
Jack sounded a breath of laughter. “I favour pistols and sub-repeaters.”
She pursed her lips in quick thought. “Ah, close-range. I prefer long-distance fighting myself. It takes a different kind of mettle.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not the all-guns blazing type. Well, usually, at least.”
Malora took a sub-repeater from the rack and handed it over. The weapon was an XR-2, an upgrade from the one they had on-board Europa. Their fighting equipment was passing through security and was due to be available by that afternoon. He would have to make do with what they provided him.
Jack checked the clip size and saw it had an extra five shots more than what he was used to. It was sighted with a red-dot lens, and he formed around it comfortably as he took aim.
“Like you said, you’re pretty adaptable,” she said, grinning.
“Do we use live ammo? I mean, this thing is fully loaded.”
“Yes. In the training room, anything goes. You won’t get this kind of realism in a HC.”
“And here was me thinking they were top of the line.”
“They are. But it’s still just a simulation, no matter how real your eyes tell you it is. A lot of fools have been killed in training rooms at Starmen HQs.”
“Yeah?”
She looked over his shoulder and flicked her head at the door behind him. “In there is the firing range. I wanna make sure you know what you’re doing before we go into a live fire exercise.”
Well, we used the Alpha-98 training program in the HC. That means we had live rounds. What is it Claudia always says? Show, don’t tell?
Jack took a deep, steadying breath. As targets sprang up, he shot them down. The sub-repeater was on single-shot mode, and he was aiming for the highest scoring ring each time. He was yet to miss, and his clip was almost spent.
“Very good, Jack,” she said, when he fired off the last round and achieved a perfect score.
Good? No, Malora, that was fantastic. “Thank you,” he said.
“All right. Let’s take it up a notch,” she said, tossing him a mag.
Jack caught it, released the spent clip, and then inserted the new one in a flash, hitting it in place with a firm hand. Malora hit a switch on the wall.
The bell rang. The first target shot up.
Jack aimed – the target moved side-to-side. He tracked it and shot, hitting the centre. Two targets followed at the same time, both of them moving fast in opposite directions. Okay…this is a little harder.
He hit them both. Then another target shot up. He tried to hit it quick, but it moved just as he fired and he scored the lowest points. So much for my perfect score.
Jack finished with that being the only blemish on his score card, and she gave a short round of applause, as if attempting to arouse his ire.
“You scored very highly for your first attempt. In fact, aside from, Jeriko, you scored higher than anyone has in Maji-Onda for ten years.”
“Jeriko, did better?” he asked, disappointed.
“Yes. By two points.”
Jack grinned. “I still consider that an achievement.”
“As you should.”
“So…I scored higher than you?” he asked, as she led him out of the firing range.
Malora frowned. “Yes, but not by much. You should consider beating me an achievement, too. Believe me, I’m good.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t doubt it.”
Malora stopped to glare at him. “Are you mocking me?”
Jack got red. “What? No. Of course not. I was just saying, you’re obviously skilled. We’re both level-1.”
After a moment of stern glaring, she decided to believe him. “I admit, you’re better than I assumed.”
You’ve no idea.
*
Location: Maji-Onda Station, Embassies
After a gracious and formal meeting with the Ishar ambassador, which included some tasty cakes and surprisingly good tea, Captain Lu and Chief Fischer left with smiles on their faces. They maintained a professional silence until they turned the corner and stepped out into the main floor of the busy embassy.
“Least she could’ve done was add a little spirit to the tea,” Fischer groaned, and the Captain side-glanced at him humorously. She always enjoyed his rascality.
“You know, I’ve been holding something for you for a while now, Chief.”
His eyes lit up, as his birthday was approaching, he expected some kind of special beverage. “Captain, you’re too good to me.”
Then his PDP vibrated. Fischer took it from his pocket and saw a message from Mara. “One moment, Captain,” he said, fitting in his earpiece. When he played the audio message, the sound came through that clearly.
“Chief, the video file has been authenticated. Media-1 will run with the sto
ry on the next news cycle.”
Fischer stopped abruptly. Captain Lu squinted at him. She suspected her day was about to get a little more interesting.
“What is it, Chief?” she asked, standing up straight with her hands behind her back.
Shocked that he was even having the conversation, Fischer explained everything to her as they walked out of the embassy and took the elevator down to the market. By the time the doors opened, she had been fully appraised of the situation.
“I’ll get in touch with High Command immediately,” she told him, walking at a brusque pace. “If there’s a Dok’ra threat nearby, we need to deal with it ASAP. So long as they’re out there, every life on this station is in danger.”
“I agree,” Fischer rasped, in bitter disappointment.
“What’s your next move, Chief?” she asked, her serious eyes full of worry.
“I think I’m gonna meet with this crew, and hear the story first-hand.”
“Good idea. Relay me the details.”
Location: Maji-Onda station, Security Wing
Fischer hurried to his office connected to the security wing and Mara followed him inside. He ran a hand along the touch-sensitive surface of his desk computer and his unique touch unlocked the screen. He read over the personal files of their newest cadets.
“My God – four tier-1 candidates working together?” he mused. Despite the problems they brought with them, this was a great find for the guild. “Been a while since I saw such a formidable alliance.”
He eagerly sought the file of the most promising candidate, as designated by his test scores and overall psych evaluation.
Cadet T-1 Murphy, Jack – ident code 944-025
Species – human
Training Program – Alpha 98
“Alpha-98 – an old training model,” Fischer commented, with a curve in his brow as he caressed his chin. “Same one I used.”
“They come from a cruiser-class vessel, named Europa, first registered in the Plysarian systems 85 galactic standard years ago,” said Mara, reading it over on her PDP. “The Alpha-98 program was last in circulation 28 years ago.”
“Nothing wrong with the program, though,” Fischer yapped. “Alpha-98 produced some of the best candidates we’ve ever seen. The software needed updating to give the company some sales. That’s about it. A younger, less experienced officer might demand that they pass an assessment using newer tech – but it’s fine by me.”