“Insane?” Twingo scoffed. “I’ll admit it’s boring as hell at times, but I’ve never fully gone insane.”
“That’s debatable,” Jason said.
“It’s not boredom or claustrophobia,” Kellea continues. “As soon as a slip-space field forms it seems to scramble their brains, for lack of a better term. They’re irrevocably turned into raving lunatics just a few seconds after meshing.” The pair fell silent for a moment.
“Is that a common thing?” Jason finally asked, thinking back to the cavalier attitude he’d had towards interstellar flight when he first found the gunship.
“This is the only known case,” Kellea said. “Scientists from all over the sector have studied it but nobody knows exactly why it happens.”
“This sounds like a made-up story,” Twingo accused, looking at Kellea suspiciously.
“It’s true nonetheless,” she said before walking off the bridge. Jason thought he detected a slight smile tugging the corner of her mouth as she did so. Twingo watched her back for a moment before turning to his terminal and accessing the local network, obviously seeking independent verification to the tale.
“So,” Jason said to Kage, who was so completely absorbed in his console he hadn’t heard a word of the conversation going on around him, “what do you think is the best way to handle Kellea’s request? I don’t want to call this Steader from our com node if we can help it.”
“You don’t trust him?” Kage asked without looking up.
“I don’t know him,” Jason corrected. “But beyond that I don’t trust the ConFed. They had agents and operatives crawling all over Camderan-2 looking for her and Bostco, and I have no doubt they’re monitoring communications to her known associates.”
“I could play the usual games with fragmenting the signal and bouncing it through multiple nodes, but with actual intel analysts looking for us and this Steader not being aware of our scheme ... there’s significant risk to using that method,” Kage explained.
“Alternatives?”
“We need to get to a facility that has a common network repeater node. The sheer volume of traffic going through will mask most of what we’re doing,” Kage said. “They could eventually figure it out, but we’ll be long gone by then. Just make sure Captain Colleren doesn’t give up too much information when she talks to him.”
“Is there a major repeater node close to our position?” Jason asked as he thumbed through the navigational data on his display. He grabbed the controls and began the climb up out of the atmosphere, throttling up the main drive as the nose came up.
“We’ll be backtracking a bit, but there is a transfer station six-point-three lightyears away,” Kage said, hardly noticing the ship pushing her way up into space. “This is actually perfect, Captain. The station is almost completely automated. Deep space haulers dock, unload their cargo, and it’s transferred automatically to the receiving ship when it docks. They also have a ConFed class-three slip-space node. That will be out best bet.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jason said. “Give the nav data to the computer and plot us a mesh-out point.” Kage quickly routed him the needed data and waypoints and the Phoenix was soon hurtling through slip-space away from Solamea.
Giving the instruments another thorough check, Jason slid out of his seat and went to inform Kellea of their plan. Upon his arrival at the main deck, he could see the normally transparent walls of the infirmary were an opaque white. When he went up to the door it didn’t open. He could have told the computer to override the lock, but he decided to leave Doc alone for the time being. With one last suspicious glance at the locked door, he walked back out to the common area.
“We’re on our way to an automated cargo transfer station,” he said as he approached the table where Kellea and Crusher were sitting. As usual, Lucky was standing off to the side. “There’s a com repeater there that Kage wants to use to access the network and get in touch with Steader Dalton. What can you tell me about him?”
“He’s Crisstof’s First Son, so he’s what you would expect,” Kellea said, putting her mug down. “Polished, urbane, reserved ... he’s been groomed from an early age to take over the family empire, so to speak.”
“What is this First Son, First Father business?” Crusher asked.
“Crisstof’s people have possibly the most convoluted family structure you’ve ever heard of,” Kellea explained. “For example, Crisstof has twelve wives, and each of those wives probably has from five to ten husbands each. It’s a web that’s nearly impossible to figure out. Anyway, Steader is Crisstof’s first-born son that is actually from his genetic material. This moved Steader’s mother into the coveted First Wife position and solidified that pairing as the core of Crisstof’s family.
“Of course, the others are still actively scheming since you never know when Steader could meet with an untimely demise and open up the First Son slot to the first comer.”
“That sounds like a nightmare,” Jason said with a shake of his head. “But more to my point, you don’t have much direct interaction with the son?”
“Nothing past being present at the same social functions and him being present at some meetings with his father,” she admitted. “He’s far more interested in the political wrangling and managing the family fortune than he is riding around in a starship for months on end.”
“Since we are dealing with an unknown quantity in Steader Dalton, is it wise to make contact?” Lucky asked.
“No,” Jason admitted. “But we’re taking precautions. I also want to make sure that we agree to keep the conversation vague until we can figure out where he stands.”
“Agreed,” Kellea nodded. “So how long until we can make contact?”
“We’re not running too hard so we’ll reach the transfer station in just over twelve hours,” Jason said. “After that, I’m not sure how long Kage needs to work his magic.”
“Then I’m going to go and grab some rack time,” Kellea said, rising from the table. “Gentlemen,” she said with a nod and walked off towards Berthing. Jason watched her go before turning to his friends.
“Has Doc been locked up in the infirmary since we launched?” he asked.
“More or less,” Crusher said disinterestedly. “Why?”
“Just wondering,” Jason answered before heading back to the bridge.
*****
EMERGENCY LANDING CLEARANCE GRANTED. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED FOUR STANDARD HOURS TO MAKE REPAIRS BEFORE YOUR CLEARANCE IS REVOKED.
“Fairly straight forward,” Jason said as he guided the Phoenix (now flying as the Zephyr) towards one of the emergency maintenance hangars in the lower levels of the station. They needed to get Kage and Kellea within the station itself in order to get a signal out without putting the Phoenix at risk of being discovered. All ConFed Intelligence would be able to glean was a point of origin, but by that time they would be long gone.
“I should only need fifteen minutes to break in and grab a channel,” Kage said confidently. “If I can’t do it by then, I can’t do it at all.”
“I don’t want a gaggle of people roaming around the station,” Jason said. “Kage, Captain Colleren, and Lucky will go and try to make contact with Steader Dalton. Twingo ... you, Crusher, and I will be outside in the hangar pretending to inspect something on the ship.” He received a chorus of affirmative responses in return as he flew the ship into the final approach lane. After a few more minutes the blinking navigational lights of the station could be made out.
“Does this station have a name?” he asked as he peered out the canopy at some of the mammoth freighters docked at various points along the station’s hull.
“Not officially,” Kage replied. “It’s just a depot that’s given a number designator. I’m sure the deep space haulers have a name for it, and it’s likely something utterly disgusting, knowing that lot.”
“They are a strange bunch,” Twingo agreed. “Must be something about being stuck on a ship for months on end.”
&n
bsp; “I’ve gone up to two years without leaving the Diligent before,” Kellea said evenly.
“Well,” Twingo floundered, “by strange I meant that—”
“I’d leave it alone,” Crusher advised quietly. Kellea looked at the engineer with a single raised eyebrow, daring him to continue. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Twingo slowly turned his seat back around and pretended to be engrossed in the engine output efficiency graph that was displayed on his terminal.
“We’re almost to the barrier,” Jason said. “Killing the drive and dropping the gear. Twingo, bring the repulsors online.” There was a split second of near silence on the bridge as the hum of the engines dropped away before the whine and clunks of the massive landing gear deploying could be heard. Using the docking thrusters, Jason made a few fine corrections and then began slowing their forward velocity until they passed through the atmospheric barrier and into the hangar at just over one meter per second forward speed. The computer automatically powered up the repulsors to compensate for the station’s gravity as Jason lowered them down to a soft landing.
After spinning the Phoenix around so her nose was pointing out into space, he turned to his crew. “Let’s be quick about this. If your signal is detected it won’t be difficult to figure out the Zephyr just happened to land here at the same time.”
The three members of the “com team” hustled down the ramp and quickly disappeared down one of the service corridors. Jason and Twingo also disembarked, the latter bringing along a repulsor sled. The short engineer hopped onto the device and lifted himself up under the port nacelle that housed main engines one and two and started popping open access panels. After a few moments of rummaging around inside and Twingo’s ever-present string of cursing, Jason couldn’t take anymore.
“You don’t have to be that convincing,” he said. “We just need it to look like we’re really doing maintenance.”
“Actually,” Twingo said between curse words and grunts, “you’ve managed to cause real damage with your flying. I’m not acting. I’m re-aligning the injection system for number two’s plasma intake manifold.” Jason decided to leave it alone and veered the conversation onto another course.
“Did you notice that Doc had the windows to the med bay blacked out?” he asked. “What do you think he’s doing in there?”
“I couldn’t even begin to guess. But he was acting a little strange since you brought back that ... thing.”
“Yeah, this is shaping up to be a strange one,” Jason mumbled to no one in particular since Twingo had already buried himself back into the access hatch. With nothing better to do, he walked around the perimeter of his ship and inspected the hull and running gear. He paused and frowned at an especially nasty blaster burn along the forward transition where the hull blended into the starboard wing. Sighing in disgust, he moved along towards the nose cone that housed most of the delicate sensor hardware.
He was moving back around the port side of the ship when Kellea, Lucky, and Kage came back through the service hatch. From their relaxed manner and easy pace, Jason assumed they had been undetected. “How did it go?” he asked when they were within earshot.
“Surprisingly easy,” Kage reported. “I was able to bounce our request through the com node of a deep-space freighter that’s docked up above us. I didn’t even have to use the station’s com center.”
“And you were able to contact Steader Dalton?”
“Yes,” Kellea said. “Also surprisingly easy. I’ve only met him a few times, but I do know that he’s notoriously difficult to get in touch with in most cases. I sent the request through as Commander Bostco and he himself answered within minutes. The conversation was necessarily short, but informative.”
“Twingo! Button her back up,” Jason called up to his friend. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“All done up here,” Twingo yelled back. “Just closing the panels back up.”
Thirty minutes later the Phoenix was racing away from the transfer station towards her mesh-out point. Once again they were simply burning fuel in a long, lazy loop through the sector as they hadn’t a specific destination in mind. Jason was painfully aware that not only were they not making any money, they were risking a run in with a ConFed ship that might or might not be looking for a ship that matched the description of the gunship. But the strong ties and loyalty he had to Kellea, not to mention his friend Bostco, pushed him on to see how things would shake out.
“So what did we learn from Crisstof’s First Son?” Jason asked, leaning back in the pilot’s seat as the canopy darkened.
“Not as much as I’d have liked,” Kellea admitted, “but I can understand the need to be terse. I’m sure his communications are being monitored so, unsurprisingly, he spent much of his time encouraging me to turn myself in. But he did slide in a few bits of information.
“The ConFed is still actively hunting me, specifically their Special Operations Section including the Intel division. I also learned that Crisstof is being held on the planet Aracoria.”
“That’s not surprising,” Doc said. He had joined them once they had gotten back underway, but the med bay was still locked up tight. “Aracoria is home to more than a few ConFed Council members, most of them quite influential.”
“Is it a capital world?” Jason asked.
“No,” Kellea said. “It’s a terraformed planet that’s only been habitable for the last few centuries. But in that time it’s become home to many of the rich and powerful. The ConFed has one of their main battle fleets based there.”
“So a smash and grab is out of the question,” Crusher said.
“It always was,” Jason said with a snort. “There’s no way our little team is getting someone that high-profile out of a maximum security detention center. At least not without massive collateral damage and a guarantee of being hunted down by the ConFed Starfleet for the remainder of our short lives. Besides, just freeing Crisstof won’t accomplish much without knowing what’s happening behind the scenes.”
“I wasn’t actually serious about busting him out,” Crusher answered. “But it brings up an interesting question: what do we do now that we know where he’s being held?”
“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,” Jason said.
“You have no idea how little comfort I find in that,” Crusher said with a sigh.
Chapter 12
“This is not one of your better ideas,” Doc said bluntly.
“You say that so much it’s lost all meaning,” Jason said. “Think about it for a minute ... we have a chance to just walk right in and directly get information from Crisstof himself.”
“You’ll be flying the Phoenix right into the belly of the beast,” Kellea protested. “I can’t believe that someone in orbit won’t recognize this ship.”
“Besides that,” Twingo added, “how do you know Crisstof’s legal council will go along with this?”
“I don’t,” Jason admitted. “But I have various methods of persuasion at my disposal.” Crusher let out a humorless chuckle at that. Kellea stared at the warrior for a moment before making the connection.
“You’re just going to have Crusher scare him into submission?”
“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary and that he will agree to allow us to be involved in the ... investigation,” Jason said. “But no, I had no plans to threaten him directly.”
“Then who?” Kage asked, seeming barely interested in the conversation.
“His family lives on Aracoria,” Jason said quickly, holding up his hands to cut off the chorus of protests. “Hang on! Of course we’re not actually going to hurt anyone. If he calls our bluff we’ll be blasting off from the planet pretty damn quickly.
“I think it’s our only real shot of getting in to see Crisstof, and I also think we aren’t going to get much further until we do. All we have are some vague eyewitness accounts and a thing that looks like a pickled kelpen. By the way, Doc, what exactly are you doing with that thing in th
ere?” He threw the last question out as casually as he could manage.
“Nothing all that exciting,” Doc said evasively. “I haven’t learned anything useful, if that’s what you’re asking.” It wasn’t ... but nice deflection. What are you up to in there?
“So enter in a new course for Aracoria?” Kage asked, finally looking up from his console. Jason looked around the bridge; despite the looks of consternation on more than one face, nobody offered up any further protest.
“Let’s hit it.”
*****
“Holy shit!” Jason said breathlessly as he got his first view of Aracoria. “You weren’t kidding about the money on this world.”
“It is quite the sight,” Kellea agreed. “But it also provides more than a few obstacles. The surveillance and security on this planet is second to none.”
“It’s not that good,” Kage sniffed in disdain.
Jason returned to looking out the forward canopy as the computer took over flying duties in the planet’s heavily-congested transfer orbits. Aracoria, while impressive on the daylight side, was positively stunning as they crossed the terminator and flew around the night side. The planet’s landmasses were so heavily populated they seemed to glow incandescently with practically no space left undeveloped. Even the oceans were dotted with bright lights that likely belonged to vast floating cities.
He had to remind that part of his brain that recoiled in horror at the ecological impact a population that dense would have that this planet was almost entirely artificial. After being terraformed and given an atmosphere, no expense was spared at importing the needed water and biological material to make it a vibrant place to live. What normally would have taken eons had been done in just a few centuries. Pollution was a secondary concern since the massive machines that had belched out the atmosphere had been refitted to constantly filter and process the air, and even the oceans were continuously scrubbed and strained.
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