by Hellfire
“Is there anything salvageable on board, anything we could use?” Alkema asked. “Spare parts, extra metal plating…”
“No, its technology is incompatible with our systems, and we don’t need the extra mass.
We’ll just set it adrift and move on.” She sounded grim. Part of her was going to miss the old bird.
“Maybe the commander will have a look around when he finishes the negotiations,” Alkema said, smiling still.
“Is there any reason you’re still on my bridge?” Change snapped at him.
Caught off-guard, Alkema admitted there wasn’t, and then sheepishly made his way toward the intraship tubeway transport dock.
Pegasus – Inhabitation Decks
Max Jordan’s family was always happy to see him after a mission, and he was usually happy to see them.
After he had gotten out of Hospital Four, he went to the dinner Pieta had made for him, and pretended to enjoy the undercooked meat and cold, wet vegetable casserole. After the meal, they repaired to the family room and settled into the big tan couches, put some Auroran music on the recreational sound system, and Pieta and David Alkema had subjected him to a far more thorough interrogation than Station Manager Aso had given him. The topic of his simulated conjugation with Caliph was not raised, and even Marcus had listened intently while he told of their battles with Solarite pirates. All while, Pieta fussed with the twins.
“Did you meet any nice girls?” Pieta asked him when he got to the part where Liminix CH-53 passed through the picket line of Aves and maneuvered to dock with Pegasus. Despite her best efforts to lose weight, she had grown soft around the edges, which was the way of Bodicean women.
“Just the three in the crew,” Jordan answered his half-sister.
“Technician Forbes asked me if you’d like to work on her shift harvesting mauves in the Agro-Botany Bay next week.” Since Max had grown up, Pieta had taken a special interest in trying to fix him up with various girls in the ship’s crew.
Max Jordan smiled and shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t think I’ll have anything better to do.” He made a mental note to find something better to do.
Eventually, they grew bored with him, and he was finally able to get to his personal sleep chamber. He stripped out of his uniform and got into his sleeper, wearing nothing but a thin pair of briefs. The sleeper bathed his body in alpha waves, and soon he was sleeping peacefully.
And soon after that, Caliph appeared to him. This time, she wore the form of Tactical Technician Courage, a woman of about Jordan’s own age, with a tight body and an exciting mix of red and black hair. The real Courage filled out a tactical suit very nicely. The Caliph version appeared naked except for a tactical belt.
“Take me, Super Stud!” she purred at him.
Max Jordan’s dreamself folded his arms demurely behind his shoulders. ‘Caliph, we need to talk.’
‘We can talk after we have sexual relations, unless you would prefer to fall asleep or dream about sports and food,’ she purred at him, waving a finger sensually in front of his nose. She tried to kiss him, but he pulled away.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking. You know how upset Johnny Rook got when you simulated sex with his wife?’
‘Yeah, did you ever find out what his problem was with that?’
‘I did… and it got me to think. Every time you simulate a real woman, it’s like… well, it’s wrong. I mean, most of them would be kind of freaked up if they knew I was having simulated sex with them.’
‘They should be flattered,’ Caliph huffed. ’Perhaps he is jealous because he can only have sexual relations with a single female form.’
‘Maybe he is,’ Max conceded. ‘But, all the same, I have to respect his feelers. He’s my best friend.’
Around the dream image of Caliph/Courage, an ominous purple-black aura was beginning to build; like a storm-front at the end of a summer heat-wave. ‘If he is your best friend, then what am I?’
‘I think what we have is way beyond human friendship,’ Max told her, lovingly.
But she didn’t seem placated. ‘It’s because I’m not made of meat, isn’t it?’
Max kept trying. ‘I wouldn’t trade our togetherness for anything, Cali. I’m not saying we have to stop, but I am saying maybe we should, you know, not simulate sex with other people.” To his surprise, this really pissed Caliph off. Immediately, she transformed herself into a simulacrum of Pieta naked. Max Jordan averted his eyes, but in his dream state, he could not close off her image.
‘What are you doing, Cali?’ he begged of her.
‘WHY are you LOOKING AWAY?’ she roared at him. ‘It’s still ME. No matter what illusion I create, it’s still ME and it will always be ME!’
‘I understand that, but not everybody else does.’
‘Then, why won’t you look at ME?’ she raged.
‘Because she’s my sister.’
Caliph changed again, this time to an image of a naked Goneril Lear. It was a terrifying effect… but also kind of arousing.
‘So THAT’S the way it IS, huh?’ She shrieked at him in that horrible bitch-voice Pieta affected whenever she didn’t get what she wanted, a voice that seemed perfectly normal coming our of Executive TyroCommander Lear. ‘So, all of a sudden, YOU decided that simulated SEX with any woman on the ship isn’t GOOD enough for you. Is THAT how it is, MISTER Max Jordan. Is THAT
how it is?’
‘I just want to be with you Cal,” he insisted.
‘LIAR!’ she raged. ‘I can see your thoughts. I know you think about other women on this ship.
LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!”
“Cali…”
“Don’t Cali ME!” She raged at him. “I know your thoughts. I know how you FEEL! I took away your bad memories, but I can bring them BACK and WORSE!” Max Jordan snapped awake in his sleeper, heart racing, his sheet bathed in cold sweat.
He did not sleep again that night.
Pegasus – The UnderDecks
Transferring the cargo from Liminix CH-53 to Pegasus was not going to be easy. Tritium was an unstable element to begin with, and could only be safely transferred via electromagnetic isolation conduits. The Tritium cargo transfer equipment Pegasus had been equipped with was not compatible with the cargo ports of the other ship. The Hellions had been unable to supply them with specifications for designing adapters, so that task had to wait until the old ship was alongside and could be studied.
This task fell to Technicians (Fuel Specialists) Watts and Sparks, who took to space in EV suits to study the ports close-up. They left through one of the UnderDecks’ airlocks, and flew over to check on the connectors. Behind them, the big red sun of 200 200 Ara glowered ominously.
The umbilical connectors had mated with the cargo egresses on tanks 1 and 2. Sendors could not confirm a tight seal, so these were the first points they checked. The fuel crews, anticipating discrepancies in the specifications, had designed the connectors on the Pegasus to morph, so that they would fit to the Liminix CH-53 quite snugly.
The fits were tight, so Watts opened the Pegasus connector, and then cycled the release on Liminix CH-53.
Watts first noticed the problem, which he did when he scanned the area around the juncture for leaks and emissions.
“Sparky, come take a look at this,” he said.
“Please stop calling me Sparky,” Sparks replied. The nickname irritated her. She looked at Watts’s readings, then double-checked with her own scanner.
“This can’t be right,” Sparks smacked her portable scanner. “Double check those readings, and alert whoever is in command today. This could be a problem.” Pegasus – Officers’ Lounge (All Crew welcome)
At one time, these had been the Lear Family Quarters. They had been transformed, by order of Pegasus’s Commanding Officer, into a 10-Star Cocktail Lounge. Crisp white linen tablecloths topped intimate, holo-candle-lit tables for two or four. There was a row of booths along one wall, upholstered
in a tasteful cream color that matched the walls. A piano tinkled smoothly in the corner, attended by a faceless android. The tables were attended by android cocktail waitresses whose resemblance to a certain former first officer was uncanny.
Presiding over the lounge was a tall, thin man with barely a memory of who had once been. His red hair was clippered close to his scalp and he wore a stylish white dinner jacket.
There was no de jure dress code in the Officer’s Lounge, but his elegant presence inspired most of the crew to dress up for a night out in his bar.
When Eliza Change arrived, Philip John Miller Redfire turned his host and bartending duties over to a crewman and an automech, crossed the lounge, and took Eliza’s hand. “I was wondering when you would find time for an old friend,” he whispered in her ear.
She kissed him warmly, and asked for a glass of pale gold wine. He knew what she liked, and he had a bottle of an Arcadian vintage that predated the ship’s launch perfectly chilled. He supplied her with the drink, then took a quiet table in a discreet alcove Goneril Lear had once used for meditation.
He held her hands. “I missed you very much over these last few days.” She brushed back her hair with her fingertips. “The Hellion Mining Operations reminded me of home. I should have like to have seen their homeworld. Did we have any success in locating it?”
“There are something like 172 planet-sized rocks orbiting in this system. Anyone of them could have been Hellion Prime,” Redfire told her. “But we just held position here. The Hellions told us not to send out any probes, and we respected their request.” Redfire kissed her hand, held it, and fixed her in his gaze. “Eliza, it’s been well past two years now. I think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level.”
“You always think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level,” Change replied, in a mild pique.
“I love you,” Redifre told her.
“I know.”
“I want to marry you.”
“I know that, too,” she said.
“So why not?” Redfire told her. “I admit, the man I previously was not a good husband to his dear wife, but I’m not that man anymore.”
“It isn’t because of that,” she told him. “I just don’t feel that marriage is in our destiny.
Our relationship satisfies me the way it is. I don’t see any reason to make any adjustment to it.”
Redfire tried to laugh. “Really? We’re such an odd, pair, Eliza Jane Change. What are the odds that either one of us will ever…”
“You need to figure out who you are,” she interrupted him.
With that, Redfire could not even manage forced laughter. “I used to think that. Then, I realized that while it was true that this amnesia stole my past, I also realized it gave me the chance to remake myself in the image of any man I wanted to be. The man I want to be is the man who loves you.”
Before she could respond again, her COM Link called for her attention. She answered it quickly. “Lieutenant Commander Change.”
“Commander Change, this is Technician Sparks in the Fueling Station. We have a real problem with the Tritium. You better come down.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sliding her hand out of Redfire’s grasp.
“I’ll explain en route,” Sparks told her. “Just come down here.”
“I’m on my way, Change out,” she looked over to Redfire. “We will have to pick this up another time. There’s a problem with the Tritium.”
“The Tritium, what is it?”
“I won’t know until I get down there.” She made haste to leave but saw that Redfire was looking at her forlornly.
“All right,” she said. “It’s a radioactive isotope of hydrogen we use as aviation, fuel, but that’s not important right now. What the hell is it with you Sapphireans and that dumb joke?” Pegasus – The UnderDecks
When Eliza Jane Change arrived in the cargo transfer bay, she was giving off something of a roiling black and purple aura herself. It got worse when she saw that David Alkema was already in the CTB, talking grimly with Technicians Watts and Sparks.
“What is this I hear about there being no Tritium in my Tritium tanker that I risked my life to get?” she demanded.
“We’ve checked all six tanks,” Watts confirmed. “There isn’t a drop of tritium on that ship.”
“What’s in the tanks?” Change asked, snatching the data pad away from him and looking at the results for herself.
“Slush Deuterium,” Sparks answered. “It’s a by-product of the refining process.”
“I know what it is,” Eliza Change was seething, her brow tensioning with controlled anger. “They conned us. Those air-sucking gravity whores conned us. They used us as a decoy while they escaped with the Tritium.”
It all seemed obvious now. How had they hidden it from her? Aso must have known.
Miko had to have known. Now she knew the real reason they kept the crew isolated, and her attention on the repairs to the ship.
She shook her head, her cheeks stinging hot with shame at having been tricked. Cargo switching was one of the more transparent scams in the old Mining Guild. She had never fallen for it, but she had known a trader captain who had been taken in by a cargo of cloned pseudo-beast embryos that had turned out to be kidney beans.
Why hadn’t she seen it this time?
“Can we get any use at all out of the Deuterium?” Alkema asked Sparks.
“It’s highly impure,” Sparks answered. “But we could refine it. There might be… 80 -
90,000 usable liters of Deuterium.”
Watts added. “Pegasus has some auxiliary fusion reactors that can run on Deuterium.
But as aviation fuel, it’s useless. The Aves were designed to run on Tritium.” Alkema considered this. “Our fuel reserves are below 10%. When they get to 5%, Odyssey Project Protocols require us to return to a known fuel source. We either have go back to Chapultepec. Or, we could try and locate another source in this Quadrant before that happens.”
Change grew even more angry as she heard his words. This was Alkema’s approach to a problem. Work around it. Find some way of getting to the desired outcome through a different solution. It was his way, and it usually worked.
But it was not her way.
“No,” Change answered. “We’re going to get our Tritium back from the Hellions. We made an honest deal, and we lived up to our part of the deal. That Tritium belongs to us, and we’re going to get it, whatever it takes.”
Before Alkema could object, she grabbed him by the collar and looked hard into his eyes. “Get with Tactical Lieutenant Commander Kitaen and anyone else you need. I want a plan to get my Tritium back in the next two hours. Any resource you need is at your disposal.”
“The Hellions are long gone with the Tritium, and we don’t even know where their homeworld is,” Alkema pointed out.
Change considered this. “Our probes could survey the system…” She paused, and reconsidered. “No, that would not be practical. It would take too long. Once they have the Tritium off the ships, we’ll never be able to get it.”
“Which is why we should consider finding an alternative Tritium sources,” said Alkema.
Eliza Change considered the problem for a moment longer. Then, a memory flashed into her mind, a memory of Liminix CH-53 pulling up to the docking arm, of the arm swinging into place and locking with the ship, of an umbilicus mating with the input above the hatch.
She turned. “Follow me,” she ordered.
“Where are we going?” Alkema asked.
“To the airlock.”
Liminix CH-53 -Main Bridge
Although he was not familiar with Liminix’s systems, it did not take long for Alkema to access the navigational core from one of the stations on the Bridge. He quickly isolated the archival data and displayed it for Eliza Change.
“Exactly as you said,” Alkema confirmed. “When the umbilicus connected, it linked the ship with the station’s braincore, which they call a
‘computer.’ It automatically updated Liminix’s Navigation database, including an automatic destination update of the location of Hellion homeworld.
He linked the navigation database to his datapad, so as to better manipulate the data.
On the forward part of the bridge, one of the navigation screens showed a map of the system.
A dwarf planet lying just outside the debris field was highlighted. In the Hellion language, a sidebar indicated this was Hellfire Prime.
“Translate this matrix and lay in a course,” Change ordered.
“You bet,” Alkema quickly transferred the Hellion coordinates through the Lingotron.
Change turned and made for the hatch. “I’m going to Pegasus’s Bridge, have the translation complete before I get there.”
Alkema sent a command to the Lingotron to get to work on it, then followed her out.
Pegasus - Main Bridge
By the time they reached Pegasus’s Main Bridge, the translation was complete.
“Transferring navigational coordinates to Helm,” Driver reported
“Transfer to command station also,” Change ordered. A neural link emerged from the arm of the command chair and coiled around Change’s arm. “Helmsman Atlantic, lay in a course for these system coordinates?”
Atlantic snapped alert, as though he had been daydreaming. “Sorry, ma’am?”
“Wake the hell up and lay in a course to the system coordinates Mr. Alkema just sent to you,” Change ordered. “I can do it myself if you’ve got something better to do.”
“Aye Ma’am, sorry ma’am.” He activated the helm interface, which grew over his left forearm and left eye. “I’m plotting a course around the debris field. Our ETA at the specified coordinates is approximately six hours, 61 minutes.”
Change looked dissatisfied. “Negative, cut through the debris field. That will reduce our transit time to fewer than three hours.”
Atlantic turned to her, an anxious look on his face. “Aye, ma’am… but that will take us… through the debris field.”
“I know that,” she told him. “Not hitting anything will be your problem.” Nervously, Atlantic input commands into his helm station. Pegasus’s four gravitational drive engines squeezed space-time around the ship and pushed it forward, surfing on its own personal gravitational wave front.