The friend made a rude noise. “Whatever, man. Even you’re not that big of a prick. I—”
“Hey,” the man said, in the half-whispered, half-slurred voice of a drunk man trying to be subtle, but failing utterly. “Watch this.”
Jake couldn’t help but glance over his right shoulder. A waitress walked past the table behind him. She yelped and dropped the tray she was carrying. The bottles crashed to the floor, spraying the legs and feet of nearby patrons and the men at the table behind Jake laughed.
“Hey little honeybuns. I’ve got a nice thick sausage here for you,” the man said, reaching back to grab at the waitress’s rear-end again.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Jake turned around and walked over to the men, still in their technician’s uniforms and filthy from grease, grime, and the black marks of torch weld burns. Their drunk-red faces wandered up to his. “I couldn’t help but overhear your comments to our wonderful server.”
The man who’d groped the waitress grinned, and stood up. And up. He towered at least half a foot over Jake, and his arms looked as if he’d single-handedly shaped the NPQR Phoenix out of a solitary piece of steel.
“And?” He looked from Jake down to his still-seated buddy, and burst into a bellowing laugh.
Jake took a step forward, trying not to limp as he put weight on his still tender sprain. “And, I suggest you apologize to her, and then take your leave of this fine establishment.”
The man stopped laughing, but leaned down, breathing his fetid, sickly-sweet alcoholic breath into Jake’s face as he replied. “Make me.” He glanced down at Jake’s uniform, seeing the insignia representing his service in the Resistance Space Fleet. “Or are you too much of a coward?”
Ben leaned over to Jake’s shoulder and mumbled, “Careful, Shotgun,” but as he looked into his friend’s eye, Jake saw the signal—the look. The look that said Ben had his friend’s back.
Good old Ben.
“You know what?” Jake began, starting to walk past the unshaven drunk, “I think I’ll just start walking this way,” he inclined his head toward the exit, watching as the man kept his bloodshot eyes locked on Jake’s.
“That’s right, coward. And keep walking!” He glanced at the waitress who had knelt down to clean up the mess with her rag, leering as he thrust a hip in her direction.
And suddenly he was on the ground, his feet swept out from under him by a powerful kick of Ben’s leg, and before the man knew what had happened Jake started kicking him in the face, in the groin, in the stomach—any target he could find, kicking as hard as he could, knowing that if he didn’t end the fight then and there, he would lose it, being in no condition to fight with a half-broken arm and a sprained ankle.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed at the edge of his awareness that Ben had one of the other men, still seated, in a choke-hold, and Crash loomed menacingly over the other two, eyeing them with as much malice as he could muster. But all Jake could think to do was kick.
And kick.
The drunk’s face was a misshapen, bloody mess, and he held his crotch in one hand and his broken nose in the other, but still Jake kicked.
The waitress grabbed his arm. “Honey, he ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
He stopped, his chest heaving from the effort. Crash nodded at Jake. “You good, buddy?” and all he could do was nod in response. The man on the floor groaned, and cursed, and spit out a tooth, but did not get up.
Ben released his blue-faced thrall, shoving his head forward as he stepped away, before smoothing out his uniform and running a hand through his perfectly gelled brown hair.
Jake leaned down to the man, who now held his face in his hands. “I believe you owe our friend here an apology.”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, in that case,” Jake swung his foot back.
“Sorry! Okay? Fuck. Sorry,” he said, without even looking at the waitress.
“It’s ok, honey, I get it all the time,” the waitress reassured Jake, patting him on the arm as she left.
Ben tapped his wrist again, indicating the time, and Jake straightened his uniform as he followed his friend out after saying his goodbye to Crash.
“Shit, Jake, did you have to maul him?” Ben walked fast, without even looking back.
“If I didn’t, he’d have gotten up, and I’d be in a world of hurt. Today’s my first day on the Phoenix, and we can’t have that.”
“World of hurt my ass. You know I would have stopped him,” said Ben in a self-assured voice. Jake laughed inside, marveling at his friend’s hyper-developed sense of confidence. As a youth, his doting parents had enrolled him in every class they could find, seeking to give their prodigy every advantage, and that included training with world class specialists in combat—MMA, jiu-jitzu, even fencing. Not to mention all the extra summer science classes, math competitions, and robotics courses. Yeah, Ben was a real renaissance man.
“I had to win. On my own,” said Jake.
“With a little help from me, of course.”
“Of course.” He grinned. “Thanks for that.”
Ben glared at him. “Yeah, thanks to you too—we’re ten minutes late.”
With a laugh, Jake shot back, “Don’t worry, Manuel, I’m sure you’ll be Captain Watson’s favorite no matter what you do.”
***
Captain Titus stood indecisively at the ready room door, listening to the crashing, pounding sounds from the space beyond the door. More heavy metal, this one with more powerful harmonic tones, Titus noted, picking out the perfect fifths climbing higher, then lower as a voice croaked out some irreverent lyrics.
He took a deep breath and opened the door, and almost wished he hadn’t.
Admiral Trajan stood in the middle of the room, eye closed, holding what looked to be a guitar, with some sort of acoustic amplifier attached. His left fingers grasped the neck and his fingers slid along the strings, pressing them down to the frets in pulsing, rhythmic motions as his right hand beat on the strings. Music from some nameless band sounded over the speakers, and the Admiral played along with them, only occasionally missing a beat or straying from a chord.
The music stopped. Trajan opened his eye. “Captain. Good, you’re here.”
“I didn’t know you play, sir.”
“I play all instruments, Captain.”
Titus did a double take. “All of them, sir?”
Trajan fixed Titus with a steely, cold glare. “All of them,” he repeated. “My father insisted.”
Captain Titus almost felt sorry for him, before he remembered who he was dealing with—one of the most feared and respected military tacticians of the age, and possessed of a fiery, merciless temper. At least, so the rumors went—Captain Titus had yet to see any evidence of the sort.
“I see, sir. Very admirable.” He wandered over to the wall, examining the pair of pipes displayed as a cross, their bells intertwining around each other at the top to form almost a skull shape.
“The Panreh pipes. Very popular on the continent of Panreh, on Fijiaan, a world in the Vitari sector.”
“They look like blowpipes, almost,” said Captain Titus.
“Yes, they do, don’t they? The people on Panreh were ruled for over a hundred years by the people of the other continent of Fijiian, and being both a highly musical people and one that valued its freedom, they modified their main instrument into a blowpipe into which thick darts the size of your thumb could be inserted. The darts, of course, were dipped in the most deadly of poisons. Death follows quite quickly after being pricked.”
“Did it work? Did the people of Panreh free themselves?” Titus didn’t know the Admiral was a galactic historian as well.
“Not at first. Their enemies crushed them with a brutal hand. But early on in the conflict the leader of the oppressors was invited to a concert by the people over whom he ruled, as an offering of peace. Halfway through the concert, the player of the Panreh pipes aimed at the governor’s head and blew. The dart sunk right into
his forehead, killing him almost instantly, and the player kept right on with his performance. The music was so beautiful, they say, that no one even got up to help the governor until after the final note had played.”
Titus stared at the pipes, unsure of whether to believe the story or not. Societies out on the peripheral worlds tended to descend rather quickly into folklore and magical tales. “And the player? What happened to him?”
“The story ends there. I doubt it is true. Nevertheless, the pipes were used as both an instrument of music, and an instrument of death.” Admiral Trajan continued his strumming of the guitar, his voice sounding more distant as he listened closely to the music in the background. After another moment the music stopped, and Captain Titus noticed that the Admiral had flipped the music off and set down the guitar.
“And you, Titus? Any musical talent?” The icy stare softened, and Admiral Trajan turned to the console to bring up a schematic.
“Viola, sir, but only when I was young. I played in our academy orchestra when I was a teenager.”
“Corsica, correct?” The Admiral, of course, would have studied the backgrounds of all his senior officers in excruciating detail, but Titus supposed he was making polite conversation.
“Yes, sir. Born and raised in the heart of the pax humana.”
“Then you are lucky, indeed. I, however, was born on Hadrian’s World. Do you know it?”
“A mining colony, if I’m remembering correctly, sir.”
“You are. And not just any mining colony. Hadrian’s World is actually a giant chunk of metal orbiting the smallest gas giant of an average star in the Hades sector. Nearly one percent of it is gold. The rest is tungsten, uranium, silver, palladium—all the other usually precious metals.”
“That must have been nice, sir, living in a place rich with precious metals. I’d imagine the streets are pretty clean there,” said Titus, trying to make a joke. It was clear from Trajan’s expression that the attempt fell flat.
“Then you would be imagining wrong. You’ve been to Praetoria—the seat of the empire of Corsica. You’ve seen the golden city, where the skyscrapers, the streets, even the dumpsters are overlaid with gold to satisfy the emperor’s and the aristocracy’s fancy. Hadrian’s World is indeed the treasure chest of the Empire, but its inhabitants enjoy none of it. Our streets? Paved with chemical-infused waste tailings from mining operations. And my father, seeking to ensure a future for me that did not involve digging metal out of the ground, forced me to play music. All day long. Every day. With no food or water until I had mastered whatever lesson he had given me for the day, under threat of extreme punishment, until I was sixteen years old.” He paused, glancing up at him, grinning ever so slightly. “Do you know what I did then?”
“No, sir.”
The solitary eye returned to the console, and the Admiral pressed a few more buttons.
“I killed him.”
“Sir?” Titus couldn’t help the look of horror that he was sure spread over his face.
“I jest, Captain. What boy could kill his own father?” Titus had no answer to that, and said nothing. He wondered if it was truly a jest.
The Admiral continued, “No, Captain. I left. I snuck onto the first freighter I could find after my sixteenth birthday, and I left Hadrian’s World, and I have never returned. Nor do I plan to.”
“Yes, sir.”
Admiral Trajan drew himself up to his full height and turned around to face him again. “Now then, Captain. The freighter arrived moments ago filled with the minerals promised to us, did it not? And we sent the promised oxygen tank?”
“Correct, sir.”
“Good. Detain the crew of the freighter. Be discrete. Arrange for our security chief to take them to the holding cells on deck fifteen, the ones right next to the shuttle bay, and keep them there for the next several days. Do not let them see anyone in an imperial uniform. In fact, have the security chief change into a Resistance uniform before he escorts them to the brig. Tell the freighter’s crew that when we release them, they will be making a delivery for us to the Terran system. Understood?” He turned back to the console as he waited for Titus’s answer, and retrieved a data pad plugged into the terminal.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then give these instructions to our chief engineer. Mr. Lombardi. He has a background in chemical engineering, does he not? Take this, and hand deliver it to him. Show it to no one, and tell him not to print it off, or to connect this data pad to any terminal. After he has read the orders and the accompanying material, he is to commit it to memory. You will stay with him for as long as it takes for him to memorize it, ensuring that the pad never leaves your sight. After he hands the pad back to you, he is to have a security escort stand guard on the fighter bay, where he will do his work. He is to speak to no one. Not to his engineers, not to the security officers, not to you. When your task is complete, incinerate the pad. Do not read it. Do not just throw it in any trash incinerator receptacle, but personally carry it to waste management on deck twenty-nine, and put it in an incinerator yourself, visually confirming its complete destruction.” He took a deep breath. “And tell no one of these orders. Understood, Captain?”
How very odd.
“Understood, Captain?”
“Fully, sir.”
Trajan took a step towards Titus, coming face to face with the man. Titus willed himself not to flinch as he stared directly into the Admiral’s eye socket. “Captain, this is perhaps the most critical part of our mission. Fail at this, and I will be most disappointed. Do exactly as I tell you, and the Resistance will be ancient history within the month.” The Admiral placed the data pad into the Captain’s outstretched hand.
The man was certainly ambitious, he thought. But he only said, “Yes, sir,” and seeing the Admiral lazily salute, he nodded, spun on his heel, and walked out the door.
All the tales of the legendary war stories and tactics of the Admiral danced around in his head as he walked down the hallway to the elevator, and he fought off the temptation to look at the pad.
What in the world could he be up to?
***
“Lieutenant Commander Mercer. Lieutenant Commander Jemez.” Captain Watson saluted, standing at stiff attention. Jake and Ben mirrored him.
“Sir,” they said in unison.
“Pleased to meet you both. Welcome aboard.” The greying captain extended a hand and the pair reached forward to meet it. “I’ve studied your service records, and I’m looking forward to our time together,” the Captain said, eyeing them both up and down. Studying us, Jake thought. Deciding who he wants as his XO. He’d read the assignment memo from the Captain, and knew that the current XO had been brought out of retirement to serve on the Phoenix, and would go back into retirement when a replacement had been suitably trained to the Captain’s satisfaction.
“You both know the program, I presume?” he asked, not waiting for their reply. “My XO is old, and cranky, just like a good XO should be, and he wants to get back to his retirement. Jim nearly decked me when I told him I was recalling him for a few months, so don’t get in his way, or remind him of the Florida beach house I’m taking him away from,” he said, grinning a thin, professional smile.
“Sir. So you intend for one of us to take the XO’s command, sir?” Ben stood at ramrod attention, his muscular arms held firmly at his side.
“One of you three, yes.”
Ben glanced at Jake.
“You, Commander Mercer here, and Lieutenant Commander Po will be my senior officers on this assignment. Doctor Nichols holds the rank of commander, and is technically senior to you all, but the old coot doesn’t even come to my staff meetings anymore.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ben.
“Now don’t try to turn this into some nasty competition, boys. To be honest, I think I know with some certainty who will be my XO, who will be the wing commander, and who will be the operations chief. But one never knows just from studying service records, so think of the next fe
w weeks as the test drive, where I get to try all of you out, take you to your limits, and see what you’re made of.”
“Yes, sir,” repeated Ben. Jake nodded, standing at attention. Wing commander. He could deal with that, being the head space jock. He knew beyond any certainty that the Captain would choose Ben as the XO, having read the man’s service record himself. Captain Watson was the spitting image of Ben—an early rise through the ranks, smart, capable, and by the book.
The Captain, sitting in his ready-room chair, glanced at the open doorway and motioned for Jake to shut it, then he pressed a button on his data console and the room erupted with the whirling orchestral sounds and timpani crashes of a composer Jake immediately recognized as Betaan—one of North America’s Neo-Romantic composers. The Captain waved them in closer, keeping his mouth nearly motionless as he spoke in a low tone.
“And gentlemen. Be ready. The production schedule has been accelerated, to our good fortune. The shipyard has unexpectedly sourced a shipment of Gadolinium and Neodymium, which means that all nine ships will have their gravitic drives modified with the game-changing technology within the next few weeks. We’re back on track for a D-day celebration no one will soon forget.”
Jake replied, mimicking the Captain by keeping his voice low and his mouth still. He could barely hear himself speak with the music crashing in his ears. “So the plan is back on track? We steal the Nine, engage whatever imperial fleet the empire has sent for the commemoration and launching ceremony, and then liberate Earth?”
“Precisely. It’s a day long in the coming, gentlemen. Political events, military posturing, and technical breakthroughs have all converged in a rather singular manner, and the High Command of the Resistance doesn’t see an opportunity like this coming around again for decades. The outrage from the senate over Dallas, the imposition of the Truth and Reconciliation commission, the reigning in of the military, and now these nine ships and their new capabilities,” he said, listing off the events with one finger after another, “they all converge on this spot, right here, right now.”
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