by Tom Chattle
Bauer gave Chen a quick kiss on the cheek and sat up in bed, allowing Chen an appreciative view of her well-muscled torso and chest, ident-tags nestling between her breasts. "As fun as this was, I really have to get going. I have an unruly gaggle of Marines that need some serious taming before they're ready to deploy."
"According to McCann, there have been more fights between your Marines and some of the junior crew." Chen couldn't help but switch to official mode at the mention of the Marines, and the ease of doing so annoyed her.
"My whole unit is Martian, Auri. On a long voyage, there were bound to be some rough-ups. Even this long after unification, there are still some that resent it." Bauer shrugged.
Pouting, Chen watched her pick up her gray-blue tank-top off the floor and pull it on. "Sure you can't stay a bit longer? I don't have to be back on the bridge for a while."
Shimmying into her fatigues, Bauer grinned. "I have work to do, Auri. Why don't you get some actual rest?" Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Bauer leaned over to pull on her uniform boots.
Chen rolled over and slid her arms around Bauer's stomach. "I'm too tense. That's why I need you to stay."
Bauer laughed and batted Chen's hands away, then she stood and gathered her hair back up into a bun. "How about we just do this again soon?" Not waiting for an answer, she bent down and kissed Chen again. "I'll see you later."
Chen watched the Marine make a quick check of the corridor before she exited, then she kicked the tangled mess of sheets off her with a sigh and padded over to the small alcove that functioned as her en-suite bathroom. She slid into the cramped shower and hit the button, allowing hot water to gush over her. Head down, steamy air filling her lungs, the afterglow of endorphins wore off and a wave of melancholy coursed through her. Curling a wet fist, she pounded it against the composite wall of the shower. Regardless of how flippant she was with McCann, she couldn't shake the embarrassment of her disgrace at the Academy—it festered in the back of her psyche, bubbling up whenever her mind was idle, even months later.
The worst part? It had been all her own fault. Though she didn't want to admit it, Chen had nobody to blame but herself. Sure, persistent fellow students and poorly timed condescension from her boyfriend hadn't helped, but in the end, it was the same impulsive behavior she'd fought her entire life that had led her to make a rookie mistake and send the training cutter Acadia scraping along the hull of the Naval Academy's main orbital station.
If the disapproval of the Academy faculty was bad, the berating she had taken from her mother had been a thousand times worse. It had always felt to Chen that, as an important political figure, her mother had always been more worried about her societal standing than her only daughter's well-being. She had come close to losing it completely when she'd learned that Chen had been officially reprimanded.
Resting her forehead against the smooth wall, Chen took a deep breath of the hot, steamy air. The alcohol, the sex...they helped, but they were what got her in this mess in the first place. An angry growl escaped her, and she threw her head back, letting the water flow over her face before shutting off the shower. It was no use getting moody now. Whatever her reservations about the mission, they had a job to do.
Chen stepped out the shower, toweled off, and discarded it on the floor when she was done. She slammed her knee into the corner of the tiny dresser and cursed. Her quarters were small—barely a third the size of a modern ship—but at least she had them to herself. A crumpled piece of gray and blue stood out to her, and she bent to pick it up. Bauer's utility cap. The sight of it sent a pang of emotion through Chen. Somehow, the compact room felt wrong when the Marine lieutenant was not there. The dangerous thought that their little stress-reducing arrangement was developing into something more alarmed Chen. That was the last thing she needed right now.
With a grunt of annoyance, she threw the cap onto the bed. "Fuck."
- 6 -
2208.02.19 // 14:41
UVS Valiant, Arcturus System
Chen adjusted the collar of her freshly starched uniform and stepped from her quarters into the empty passageway. Usually, there would be some ensign or other hurrying along to their duty station, but with the severely cut down crew aboard the Valiant, the hexagonal, conduit-clad hallway was eerily quiet, only the ever-present hum of the engines gently vibrating through the metallic gray bulkheads.
She neared the turbolift to the bridge and depressed the button to call it. It had almost arrived when the ship rumbled and the blue-tinged lighting flickered, then went entirely dark for a long moment.
"Damnit!" Chen growled in the silent blackness of a ship without power. "What the fuck is wrong now?"
The power surged back on before she could move, and she hammered at the lift commands, but they didn't respond. Safety overrides from the loss of power must have frozen the mechanisms again.
Chen grimaced, jogged to a nearby hatch and levered it open, ducked under the bulkhead and slid down the cramped ladder to the deck below.
Several more decks and she was at the main engineering level, the acrid tang of burnt electronics already prominent in the air.
She pushed at the hatch, but it wouldn't budge. Exasperated, Chen put the full force of her foot against the scratched metal and kicked, the heavy door finally swinging open with a tortured creak.
A cacophony of wailing alarms greeted Chen, and a frenzy of activity filled the engine room she stepped out into.
The multi-deck space was filled with thick, black smoke, and a wall of flames roared around a cracked plasma manifold mounted against the huge rift core that provided power to the entire ship.
Jumpsuit-clad technicians scurried around the raging inferno; streams of foam aimed at the tower of flames that was doing its best to spread throughout the engine room.
Before Chen could comprehend the scale of the disaster, a lumbering figure decked out in a full fire-suit thrust an extinguisher in her hands and moved on.
He edged closer to the flame, glancing back over his shoulder and activating his own extinguisher. "Don't just stand there, help me put this thing out!"
With no time to think, Chen surged forward and raised the nozzle in her hand. She flicked the safety switch and depressed the button, sending a stream of thick foam that rapidly expanded spewing toward the fire.
In response to the assault, the fire seemed to redouble its anger, a huge flare reaching almost to the top of the massive rift core it rested against. Chen grimaced. If the fire damaged that, they would be stranded here until someone came to look for them. Even with secondary power generators, the ship would probably run out of air long before that happened.
Ferocious heat lashed at her exposed face, yet Chen edged closer, the arc of foam aimed at the center of the fire the best she could. Between her and the others now fighting the inferno, it soon died back, leaving thick black scorch marks up the rift core casing, but otherwise, it seemed the damaged was contained.
Satisfied the other technicians had it under control, the man who had handed her the extinguisher stepped back and ripped the mask from his face. He tossed it across to a work bench and set his extinguisher down with a clang.
"Good work, Lieutenant," he coughed. "Thought I was going to have to do everything myself again."
Chen followed him to the far side of the room. Chief Dayton Cartwright's attitude and odd turn of phrase tugged at the corners of Chen's mouth, even with how serious the situation had been. Smooth-headed and strong-bodied, Chen didn't know how he managed to squeeze into the hundreds of service tubes aboard the ship. Large in every way, personality included, Cartwright was pushing fifty, far outranking Chen in terms of experience. With the length of time he'd served in the fleet, he should be running the below-decks of a cruiser by now, not terrorizing fresh engineering graduates on a vessel as old as he was. Chen hadn't found out the full story as to why he was aboard the Valiant, and she got the impression he wouldn't give her a straight answer if she asked.
"What the h
ell happened, Chief?" Chen demanded, stepping over a jumbled pile of flex cable. The lighting finally stabilized, and the engine room was bathed in harsh, white light, the air still filled with a smoky haze even with the extractor fans humming at full speed.
Without looking behind him, Cartwright let out a laugh that sounded more like a trumpeting elephant. "Everything's goin' to shit, Lieutenant. Tertiary manifold blew outta nowhere. Poor Keynes almost got a face full of plasma. Computers had to cut power to stop the entire core overloading." The comm panel on the wall flashed with an urgent call, but he slapped the screen to dismiss it. "But not t'worry, we'll get her fixed up." Banging a fist on the bulkhead, he grinned, a cracked tooth prominent. "Maybe not good as new, but enough to give one of these new hulls a run for its money."
Chen couldn't help but smile at his report. "I'm glad to hear it, Chief. We have enough to be concerned over without worrying about being stranded light years from any chance of rescue."
The comm chirped again with an insistent tone. Cartwright growled and acknowledged the call. "What?"
"What's going on down there, Chief?" McCann's voice crackled over the wire, full of concern.
"Nothin' worth worryin' about," the Chief grumbled back before cutting the line.
Chen chuckled, able to imagine the look of concerned annoyance on her friend's face up on the bridge. "What caused the blow-out?"
Cartwright inclined his head toward a large diagnostic console embedded in the rear wall and moved in its direction, grabbing a rag to wipe the mechanical grease off his hands. Chen followed him, trying not to appear like she was having a hard time keeping up with the man's long stride.
"Gonna take me a while to sort that out. The rift-drive was doin' pretty good after we fixed that resonance problem. At least until the bloody manifold blew, that is. Probably just an old component the Fleet didn't want to fork out the money to replace. Bit more tweakin' and we'll have her up for a race with anyone in the galaxy." The chief swiped through additional reports on the huge status screen. "Port drive pod still has had a few issues, but the other's compensating." He scrolled through the long list before him. "Weapons are mostly good. Comms are a bit fucked up, to be honest, but we're working around the problem."
"Is there anything you're concerned about?" Chen got the feeling he was holding some bad news for last. "We can't have something like this happening again."
"Well," he scratched the stubble forming on his chin, "couple of my kids noticed some hull-fatigue on their last go around. Dunno how the hell the fleet yard goons missed it, but there could be more of it that we haven't found yet."
Chen's mouth twisted into a frown. She wasn't an engineer, but any command officer at the Academy was required to take a litany of engineering classes to understand how the ships they commanded worked. "That doesn't sound great, Chief. What's the worst-case scenario?"
"Worst case?" Cartwright snorted. "Worst case is the hull is compromised and we need a tow back to Earth." He shrugged broad shoulders and patted his belly. "My gut says it's just a few areas they missed. Even I can't believe the yardies missed enough damage to keep us from running."
Relieved, Chen nodded. "Thanks, Chief." Systems problems and unexpected asteroids notwithstanding, the likelihood of them needing to do anything strenuous on this mission was low. "I'll leave you to it."
"Aye, we'll keep her runnin' for you, Lieutenant." Cartwright inclined his head and turned away, immediately back to work.
Weaving her way back through the scorched engineering bay, Chen nodded at a few junior technicians who scurried out of her way. She exited back to the turbolift, and a loud pop-hiss made her jump.
A thundering tone echoed across the bay behind her. "Goddamn it, secure that ion capacitor before I give you something to write home to your mother about."
Chen let a smile wash across her face and decided the chief had things well in hand. She thumbed the button to close the turbolift doors and ascended back to the command deck.
- 7 -
2208.02.19 // 15:09
UVS Valiant, Arcturus System
Chen entered the bridge and slid into her seat next to McCann.
"In case you hadn't noticed, we had a small problem in engineering," McCann said, raising a weary head to greet her, his brow raising when he saw Chen. "What happened to you?"
"Hmm?" Chen inclined her head in question.
McCann nodded at her face. "You've got a little something on you."
Chen grabbed the monitor attached to her seat arm and tilted it, the faint reflection showing black streaks of soot smeared across her face. "Damnit, someone could have told me." She used the back of her jacket sleeve to wipe at the marks. "I just had a shower, too."
McCann chuckled. "Guess you're probably more filled in than I am on the problems, then."
"It would be nice if there weren't these problems in the first place." Chen gave up on making much more headway in cleaning her face and turned her attention to the viewscreen.
Compared to the last time she had seen it, the expansive view displayed before them was very different. The small, fuzzy dot had resolved itself into a large, cloud-wreathed planet, blue-gray continents peeking out from beneath the stormy clouds. Flashes of lightning in the upper atmosphere rippled across the sphere, and a broad band of thick, icy rings orbited at a sharp angle, glittering in the harsh light of the distant star. No Earth, that was for sure, but it was hauntingly beautiful in a brutal sort of way, captivating Chen. This was the sort of thing she had signed up for—exploring new, alien planets, not chasing some famous admiral's daughter across space.
"Well, that's quite a view," Bauer said, appearing behind them.
Chen nodded distractedly. "It most certainly is." Breaking her gaze from the viewscreen, she motioned idly to Moreau. "Where do we stand on the trail of breadcrumbs?"
Moreau tilted her head, brow knitting in confusion. "Breadcrumbs?"
"The trail from Wilde's ship, Ensign," McCann responded. "Have you never read Hansel and Gretel?"
Noting her flustered expression, Chen wondered if McCann's gentle ribbing of the ensign might be more than she could handle and resolved to talk to him about it.
"Umm, no sir, I have not." Moreau hid her embarrassment by focusing on her console. "There is some additional debris, but the trail dissipates in orbit. The gravity wells in orbit probably pulled it apart."
Chen looked up, narrowing her eyes. "Gravity wells?"
"Yes, ma'am." Moreau overlaid data on the main screen. "There appear to be regular points in the planetary rings that are emitting a weak gravity field."
"Any danger to us?"
"I don't believe so, ma'am."
"What's the closest one?" McCann asked.
"Bringing it up on screen now," Moreau replied, preempting his next question.
The screen cut over to a zoomed-in view of a cluster of rocks, loosely assembled around an unseen central core. One of the larger rocks drifted slowly, allowing the bridge crew a better view of the object within. Quite massive, almost half the size of the Valiant, it consisted of two parallel angular domes, reminiscent of turtle shells in their armored, blocky style, with a thick middle pillar connecting them. Four long mast-like appendages thrust out from the center pillar, smaller spires sticking out in a random pattern.
"Holy shit," McCann breathed. "Is that...?"
"Sure as hell not human," Bauer replied, voice low.
A shocked silence came over the bridge, only the gentle hum of the engines and quiet hiss of the life support systems filling the space. Chen tried to organize her thoughts, a whirlwind of questions entering her mind. While the existence of biological alien life was known, only circumstantial evidence of potential alien civilizations had ever been discovered within the sphere of human expansion into space. As it had been for centuries, the intellectual debate about the existence of such was still strong, even after all the technological advances and scientific discoveries over the years. In the Academy, one of Chen's ma
in presentations had been on the possibility of intelligent extra-solar species, much to the derision of some of her more straight-minded classmates.
While everyone else had been gawking at the viewscreen, Moreau had been staring intently at her console screen, flying through algorithms with the computer. Clearing her throat, she looked up. "Uhh, ma'am?"
"Yes, Ensign?" Chen replied, reluctantly dragging her attention away from the remarkable discovery.
"I've run some calculations based on the number of gravity fields around the trail we've been following." She paused, glancing back at her screen uncertainly.
Chen waited a second before aiming what she hoped was a reassuring smile at the woman. "Go on."
Moreau bobbed her head and continued. "Well, based on the strength and apparent orbital velocity of each object, I determined the effect they would have had on the chemical makeup of the trail, running that simulation backward to determine their origin..." She trailed off as though she expected everyone to understand and stood in silence at her station. One hand nervously tugged at the cuffs of her uniform jacket.
McCann held two fingers to his temple as he tried to understand what she was getting at. "Your point, Moreau?"
Her blue eyes widening, she rushed her answer. "Well, I know the trajectory of the ship as it headed into the planet, sir."
"Why didn't you say so!" McCann shook his head.
Moreau twisted her mouth in consternation. "I thought I did, sir."
Chen couldn't help but smile at the frustration of her second-in-command. "You may have just given McCann a headache, Ensign, but great job."
"It's like she speaks another language." McCann sighed, a pained expression crossing his face.
Bauer snorted. "No, it's just you that doesn't understand her, McCann."