Hecate

by J. B. Rockwell

  “Cool. Right. I’m all about cool.” Henricksen scooped up the reader, studying the RV-N diagram in silence. “You already signed on, didn’t you?”

  Sikuuku’s guilty flush confirmed it. Didn’t have to say a word.

  Henricksen grunted, shaking his head. “Explains why you’ve been so coy about assignments these last couple of weeks.”

  “Kinsey came and saw me in the hospital.” Sikuuku looked at him, face apologetic. “Got my orders a week after that.”

  “And since then?” Henricksen prompted when Sikuuku went quiet. “You’ve got orders. Why the hell are you still here?”

  Sikuuku laughed softly. “Nothing ever gets by you, does it?” He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely together. “Thing is, the squadron needs a captain.” He caught Henricksen’s gaze and held it. “And I think I know just the right one.”

  “Really?” Henricksen touched the stars on his collar—intrigued despite himself, worried at the same time.

  Secrets weren’t his thing. Warship—that’s what he wanted, not some Black Ops intel squadron. A captain’s billet, a proper one, complete with command.

  Wasn’t sure he’d ever get that if he signed onto a skunkworks project. Wasn’t sure he’d ever get free if he mired himself in this Black Ops squadron.

  “Sikuuku—”

  “Not goin’ if you pass it up.” Stubborn set to Sikuuku’s jaw. Sharp shake of his head. “Black Ops sounds interesting—not gonna deny that. But I won’t work for some stick-in-his-ass Academy grad. Vouched for you with Kinsey. Told me the billet was yours if you wanted it.”

  Henricksen smiled ruefully. “But he sent you to try to convince me.”

  Smart then, this man Kinsey. Picked up enough from his discussions with Sikuuku to know he’d be wasting his time coming here himself.

  “How in hell does a ground-pounder get involved with Fleet Black Ops, anyway?”

  “Connections.” Sikuuku twiddled his fingers, gesturing vaguely. “Knew someone, who knew someone—you know how these things work.”

  Henricksen grunted nodding. Lot of officers made promotion that way. Worked their way into choice billets by having their connections pull strings.

  Not the way he liked to operate. Not at all.

  “Think on it.” Sikuuku drained his glass and set it down, shoving back his chair. “Doc won’t clear me to leave station for another week.” He wrapped his fingers around a bandaged forearm, grimacing a bit. “Think on it for a few days, then let me know what you think.”

  Henricksen sighed wearily, rubbing at his face. “I can’t promise—”

  “Not asking you to.” Sikuuku was quiet a moment, watching Henricksen, eyes skipping around the room. “Keep it,” he said, when Henricksen offered him the reader. “Bottle, too. I’m sure I’ll find another somewhere.” He smiled crookedly and tapped two fingers to his temple, stood and turned toward the door. “Goodnight, Garrett,” he said, opening it.

  “’Night, Akewane,” he said distractedly, barely noticing when the gunner stepped into the hall.

  The door clicked closed, leaving Henricksen staring at the reader while Sikuuku retreated to his quarters, booted footsteps thumping heavily against the metal decking outside. He checked the time out of habit and found it almost midnight.

  Midnight, and his rack still empty. Well past when he should by all rights already be in bed.

  But the reader beckoned—his own and Sikuuku’s both. Henricksen pulled the one to him, poring over the list of assignments one more time. Gave up partway through and grabbed up Sikuuku’s, cursing the gunner for bringing him this problem as he dove into the Raven’s data, giving it another thorough going over.

  Five

  Fate decided things, in the end. The Bastion ops boss position filled up the very next day—no great loss, Henricksen really, truly didn’t want it—leaving him just two options: the Black Ops Raven assignment that wasn’t even officially listed, or a tour as commanding officer on an ancient Titan named Vertigo.

  No choice at all, really. Black Ops was iffy—questionable whether it would help or hurt his career—but stepping down to a Titan…

  Bad move. Especially since he’d just made captain.

  That’s how Henricksen ended up on a military cargo transport. He and Sikuuku both, packed in amongst the crates of dried goods and the cases of ammunition. The spare parts and machinery the Fleet staged at Dragoon—a Meridian Alliance space station tucked way, way out. Far from the nearest planet—Fermi, a rock not even worth terraforming—and just a hop, skip and a jump from the frontier.

  “Uncharted space”, that vast section of stars, or so the star charts proclaimed. Truth was the Meridian Alliance ran surveys decades ago. Mapped out vast stretches of frontier space in infinite levels of detail, marking the stars, and planets, and all the emptiness in between. Just happened they didn’t see fit to share those charts with anyone, purposely keeping that knowledge to themselves.

  Didn’t want anyone dropping in unannounced, after all. Not with Dragoon out there—a staging ground for all sorts of wonky experiments and hush-hush operations. A training ground for elite troops, and now the home of the Ravens: Black Ops’ very own stealth ship squadron.

  Three days of travel on that bumpy old cargo hauler to get to the space station. Three days of leapfrogging through hyperspace, following a long and confusing to make sure prying eyes couldn’t track their transit. And when they finally got there—tired, irritable, bored to tears after being pent up in that no-frills transport with just a worn-out deck of cards to amuse them—they were met by a very young, very apologetic ensign dressed in a conspicuously anonymous uniform.

  No patch on his shoulder, no emblems of any type, in fact. Just a snug set of black coveralls, and those ensign bars on his collar. A silver nametag pinned to his chest.

  “Taking this whole Black Ops thing a bit seriously,” Henricksen muttered, sharing a look with Sikuuku beside him.

  The ensign—nametag read Fisker, freckles on his cheeks spoke of some Old Earth, grey-skied ancestry, youth spent on some planet circling a star shining above—braced up hard and snapped off a very smart, very regulation salute. Held it, back ramrod straight, arm angled just so, waiting until Henricksen returned the gesture before dropping that hand to his side and gesturing diffidently for them to follow. “With me, sirs, if you please,” he said, dipping his head.

  Odd lilt to Fisker’s voice. An accent that almost seemed familiar, but wasn’t. Not quite.

  Henricksen slid a look Sikuuku’s way, eyebrows lifting as Fisker about-faced and set off. Caught the gunner staring at Fisker’s back with an odd, almost thoughtful look on his face. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Interesting place, this station.” He set off after Fisker without another word, leaving Henricksen scratching his head, wondering what the hell to make of that cryptic comment.

  Docks where the transport dumped them was a huge, echoing place, vaulted ceiling with exposed, composite metal girders rising twenty feet overhead. Metal decking and matching wall panels, a single, wide corridor stretching left and right.

  Mechanized cargo haulers roamed everywhere, towing skid pallets piled high with everything from toilet paper to machine parts to the dry goods their own ship had brought. Fisker scanned his credentials at a security door, pressed his hand to a panel to let it read his prints, presenting an eye to the retinal scanner at a prompt.

  A flash of green and the door chimed politely, popped open and let Fisker through. After that, things got fuzzy. One monotone hallway leading to another hallway, a labyrinth of drab, grey corridors—metal decking, plasmetal walls, a few polyglass panels here and there—that left Henricksen dizzy and disoriented. Completely confused.

  Good thing they had Fisker to guide them. From the outside, Dragoon seemed relatively anonymous—a hulking, bloated stack of cubes piled atop more cubes, creating a massive, floating fortress in space—but inside was a labyrinth of criss-crossing hal
lways. Blank ends and locked doors and everything grey-on-grey.

  And there was a smell to it—that’s the one thing, the only thing that really stood out in Henricksen’s mind. A stale mustiness that stank of oil and machinery, bone-chilling cold and long disuse that greeted them at every turning, growing stronger, more pungent and potent the farther they traveled. The worst of it centered around the vents for the air filtration system, hinting at a rottenness at the station’s very center. A deep-seated contagion too difficult to roust out.

  Old station, Henricksen thought as that smell wrapped around him.

  Old machinery working the filtration system. Ancient ducting piping the environmentals around. Newer sections added on over time, but the core systems still there. Upgraded, augmented, but too bulky and unwieldy, too expensive to rip out.

  Odd place for Black Ops to set up. Darlings of the Fleet, from what he could tell. Surprised they’d relegate their base to an ancient, creaking station like this. Almost asked Fisker about that when he stopped at the next pressure door—dozens of them on this station, isolating each section from the next in the event of explosive decompression—but figured him being an ensign, and low on the food chain, he likely wouldn’t know.

  “You tracking all this?” Sikuuku asked as they reached their seventh—or was it eighth?—security door.

  “Huh-uh. Completely lost.”

  “Me too,” Sikuuku grunted. “Die of starvation if you get lost in here. Speaking of which—you carrying any snacks, Fisker?”

  “Sir?” Fisker turned around, blinking owlishly as the pressure door’s security panel flashed and chimed, popping open.

  “Nothing, Fisker.” Henricksen pointed at the door, waving the ensign on. “He’s just…” A glance at Sikuuku beside him, lips twitching in a smile, “eager to see our new accommodations.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fisker eyed the gunner uncertainly. “This way. Almost there.” He pushed the door open, stepped through and held it, waiting for Henricksen and Sikuuku to follow.

  “Sir, he calls me.” Sikuuku grunted in disgust.

  Chief’s anchors on the gunner’s collar—senior enlisted and not anyone’s “sir”.

  “Leave it,” Henricksen warned, pitching his voice low. “Ensign, remember?” He tapped a finger to the stars on his collar. “Still learning the ropes.”

  “Even you figured out the difference between chiefs and officers—”

  “Leave it.” Henricksen grabbed his arm and gripped it hard. “Young kid.” He flicked his eyes to Fisker waiting patiently on the other side of the door. A slightly confused-looking Fisker who shuffled his feet, obviously wondering what was going on. “Give him time. He’ll figure it out.” A pat on the gunner’s shoulder and Henricksen stepped through the doorway, waving Fisker ahead as Sikuuku fell in at his side.

  Still didn’t look happy, but he kept his complaints to himself after that. Walked along in silence until Fisker lead them somewhere that looked different. A corridor with a grey length of wall on one side, just like all the others, and the opposite filled with windows. A half wall of plasmetal panels rising from the floor, connecting to triple-thick panes of polyglass reaching to the ceiling above. The view through them uncertain, looking out on a wide expanse of cavernous hangar deck.

  “Guess this is it,” Sikuuku said, nudging Henricksen in the side.

  “Apparently.” Henricksen stepped to his right, staring through those panes of glass, taking a good, long look at the hangar on the other side.

  Not much to see, actually. Dark in that hangar bay. Light from the hallway spilling through the windows, illuminating the decking just outside. But the rest of it…

  Wreathed in shadows. A pitch black void stretching endlessly into the distance.

  Fisker coughed politely, smiling when he had Henricksen’s attention—a nervous thing, twitching and uncertain, pulling at the corners of Fisker’s mouth. “This way, sir.” He nodded to the end of the hallway, and a set of stairs leading to a landing outside a sealed door. “I’ll wait here until you’re ready, sirs,” he said, stationing himself outside.

  Henricksen left him there, pulled the door open and stepped through with Sikuuku a step behind him, letting Fisker pulled the door closed behind him while he examined the room on the other side.

  Control room, from the look of it. Wall of floor-to-ceiling windows on his right, looking out on the hangar deck, banks of monitoring stations in front of them, others scattered about the room, pushed up against the walls.

  Trio of lab-coated civilians huddled together on the far side of the room, directly across from the door. Bright white clothing showing ghostly in the control room’s dim lighting, heads bowed together as they discussed something on one of the station’s panels.

  Pinstripe-suited administrator type standing by the windows, back to the door as he considered the hangar deck below.

  Henricksen ignored the lab coats—engineers, scientists, some other form of project support crew—and focused on the man in the obviously expensive clothing. Broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, skin the color of the sky at dusk. Feet spread wide as he stood in front of those windows. Back ramrod straight, hands clasped loosely behind him.

  Marshal bearing, despite the civ suit. Scars on the back of the man’s head, twisting beneath a short cap of salt and pepper hair. Matching scar, though thicker, peeking above the starched collar of an equally pinstriped shirt.

  Starch and stiff meant military, and that stance—feet and shoulders in line, hands resting in the small of his back—screamed infantry. Drill sergeant, if Henricksen had to guess. Combat master sergeant, something of that ilk.

  Henricksen disliked him instantly. Military was one thing—a life he chose, no other he wanted—but infantry, in his experienced, were a bunch of puffed up pricks. Put more stake in spit and polish than actually getting the job done. Like those Academy grads they churned out of Sosholo and Yunshinshin but without the wealth and privilege.

  “This is Kinsey, I take it?”

  Sikuuku nodded, looking surprisingly anxious. Grabbed Henricksen’s arm as he stepped forward and shook his head hard, making a chopping motion with his hand to warn him not to talk.

  Henricksen looked at him, and at Kinsey by the windows. So that’s how it is. Summoned to the king’s court and now we wait on his pleasure.

  His dislike of this man Kinsey deepened. He hated stupid, bullshit games.

  “Gentlemen.” Kinsey pivoted, hands linked behind him, staring at them from across the room.

  Strong face on Kinsey. Hard face. Wide nose set above lips pressed tightly together. Dark eyes like onyx sitting beneath a creased and scarred brow. He stared at them a moment, letting the glow from control room’s empty monitoring stations crawl across his body, flickering across his pinstriped body. Giving them a narrow-eyed, almost disapproving look.

  Five seconds he stood there, studying his visitors like he didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with them. And then the shoulders eased a bit, and the lips softened, curving into something that almost resembled a smile. “How was the trip in?” he asked in a measured, politely bland voice.

  Kinsey stepped away from the windows, offering his hand. Henricksen looked at it, and at Sikuuku, walked across the room and wrapped his fingers around Kinsey’s.

  Firm grip, fingers clenching tight. Kinsey’s eyes locked onto Henricksen’s face, never wavering as he pumped that hand up and down.

  Challenge in that stare. Kinsey measuring Henricksen, judging him based on that handshake. What Kinsey saw in his eyes.

  Pissed Henricksen off, being sized up like some racehorse. Made him want to cold-cock the guy right then and there and drop him to the floor. But he squeezed that hand instead—lean, sinewy, rough with callouses—and stared right back.

  Dead-eyed. Closed up. Giving him nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

  That smile again—a quirk of amusement that never quite reached Kinsey’s eyes. He squeezed Henricksen’s hand and released it, moving
a step back. “So you’re Henricksen,” he said, eyes flicking to the stars on Henricksen’s collar. “Heard a lot about you.” The smile twitched, turned condescending. Twitched again, changing as he turned to Sikuuku. Taking on life as reached for his hand. Seeming real for the first time. “Good to see you again, Akiwane. How are you feeling?” he asked, pushing at the gunner’s sleeve.

  Bandages still, hiding under Sikuuku’s uniform jacket. Would be for another couple weeks, but the skin beneath was almost healed—scarred and pale and tattoo free, but whole now. A vast improvement over the twisted, bloody mess it was a month ago.

  “Fair enough.” Sikuuku smiled back, looking pleased that Kinsey cared. “Cleared for duty, which is all that matters.”

  “True enough.” Kinsey’s smile widened, showing the whiteness of his teeth. “You’ve filled him in on what we’re doing here?” A nod to Henricksen, eyes never leaving Sikuuku’s face.

  Sikuuku shrugged uncomfortably, sliding a look Henricksen’s way. “What I know anyway.”

  Which wasn’t everything—Henricksen read that in the set of Sikuuku’s shoulders. Knew as much from their earlier conversations.

  “I suppose you’ll want to see them.” Kinsey turned his eyes toward Henricksen, smile taking on a cold edge. “The squadron, that is.”

  “Wouldn’t mind.” Henricksen kept his tone even, refusing to be baited. Intimidated or cowed. “Seeing as how I’m supposed to be in charge.”

  Kinsey’s eyes flashed—a brief moment of anger, quickly brought under control

  Chink in tight-ass’s armor. Henricksen smiled in satisfaction, filing that little tidbit away.

  “You’re assigned to the squadron, Captain.” Kinsey stepped in close, getting right in Henricksen’s face. “But make no mistake about our roles here. I’m in charge of the project.”

  Henricksen blinked slowly, favoring Kinsey with that dead-eyed stare. “Don’t want the project, Kinsey.” He nodded to the windows, the hangar deck on the other side. “Just want the birds. Just want to fly.”