Of Treasons Born

by J. L. Doty

  With limited power, he barely managed to deflect the next target, and the next. Then he had three targets allocated, then four, then—

  “Easy there, Spacer.”

  York drifted back and forth between oblivion and pain. He tried to focus on the words of the medical corpsman.

  “… have to tank you … hospital ship … bad shape …”

  He eventually found a strange state of lethargy where nothing mattered. More by reflex than anything else, one of the thought-trigger keys for his implants rolled through his mind, but nothing happened.

  He went away for a while to a place with no concept of self, didn’t really sleep, but surfaced now and then to a slightly elevated state of consciousness. When that happened, he wondered where he was, and again that thought trigger tried to key his implants. He thought he might have been successful, but then he went away again.

  Mathias! Why did that name come to mind?

  An older man appeared in front of York in a hazy shimmer of a dream. He was missing a leg and an arm, but somehow he stood on one barely visible ghost of a leg. The man screamed and tore at his own face, then charged, his hands extended to tear at York, one nothing more than a phantom visible by a vague, shimmering outline. York screamed, turned, and ran.

  The man returned again and again, and there were others like him, men and women. One of them finally cornered him, a woman he wanted to call Sharfa. In desperation, he fought back as she tore at his eyes, found himself kneeling on her lifeless body pounding on her face, her eyes open and unseeing. The next time Mathias came after him, he did the same to him.

  Chapter 16:

  Recovery

  “Stand by all hands,” allship blared. “Down-transition in twenty minutes and counting.”

  Commander Valerie Chechkova scanned her fire control console one last time to reassure herself that all was in order. She glanced sideways at Ensign Tomura, who was hunched over his own screens, tense and fearful. He looked her way, and attempting to sound casual and at ease, she said, “Relax.” She gave him a reassuring smile and tried not to let her own fear show. The imperial heavy cruiser Defiant, with all hands at battle stations, was about to down-transit blindly into what might be a very hot situation, and she didn’t like having an unblooded trainee assisting her at Fire Control.

  She glanced down at the outboard scan summary she’d loaded into the corner of one of her screens. Still in transition, Defiant’s own scan systems were useless as the ship screamed toward Orion 1341, an unnamed system that had been in enemy hands for two years.

  Captain Turcott had five ships under his command. One hour ago, three-tenths light-year out, Talent’s Pride had down-transited, launched its combat drones, and began broadcasting detailed scan data to the rest of the strike force, all still in transition and driving into 1341’s nearspace. In that way, they weren’t completely blind while attempting a close approach. But the Pride was still too far out to give them any detailed information.

  On her screen, she saw the destroyer Harbinger down-transit behind them. It started feeding them scan data immediately, and she was relieved to see no sign of enemy activity, so they weren’t in imminent danger of taking a torpedo. Now that Harbinger was providing better scan data from closer in, Talent’s Pride up-transited­ to rejoin the strike force.

  “Down-transition in ten minutes and counting.”

  Captain Turcott’s voice spoke softly through Val’s implants. “Helm, let’s start dumping some of that speed.”

  After a series of heavy losses in this quadrant, the feddies had retreated several light-years, withdrawing from quite a few systems in the area. Most of them were much like 1341: no real strategic resources like habitable planets, but as imperial forces moved in to consolidate the new front line, it was a great place for a nasty little ambush.

  As a cautionary move, they were coming in on a classic swift-strike approach. At full drive, in excess of two thousand lights, they knew their transition wakes were easily visible and could be targeted by pickets properly positioned along their course. The classic approach should allow the strike force to drive deep into 1341’s nearspace with minimum probability of blindly taking warheads. If an enemy vessel threw anything at the strike force, the ship that had down-transited would lock onto the transition launch and provide accurate targeting data to the main force.

  Orion 1341? That number sounded oddly familiar, so Val ran a quick search, was surprised at how rapidly results showed on her screen. “Shit!” she said as she read the first entry.

  She keyed her implants into the command circuit. “Captain, I just checked, and the last engagement of Sirius Night Star took place in this system.”

  “Holy shit!” She recognized the com officer’s voice.

  “That’s a gloomy thought,” Turcott said. “Got to be a lot of ghosts in this system.”

  Ensign Tomura leaned toward her and asked, “What’s Sirius Night Star?”

  “Two years ago,” Val said, “the imperial Ninth Fleet was wiped out at the battle of Sirius Night Star. Not a single imperial spacer came back.”

  Tomura’s eyes widened and he looked fearfully at his console.

  “Down-transition in one minute and counting.”

  Val ran her systems through one last pre-combat check, then leaned over and said softly to Tomura, “Remember, while there may be trouble waiting for us, we don’t know that for certain, so be very careful to wait for orders from me or the captain before firing on anything.”

  He nodded. “Aye, ma’am.”

  “Down-transition minus ten seconds and counting, Nine … Eight … Seven … Six … Five … Four … Three … Two … One …”

  Val’s screens fluttered as the helm-officer said, “Sublight.”

  The bridge went silent. Fresh out of transition, Defiant was a blind target with only long-range information from Harbinger’s scans, and no idea of what they’d down-transited into until Scan got them data.

  “We’re clear to a hundred thousand kilometers and expanding, sir.”

  Val let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, heard others doing the same.

  “Thank you,” Turcott said easily. “No surprises then. Now let’s see what’s on long range. Drones out, Commander. Hold them at the limit of your short-range scan.”

  A distant, ghostly clang sounded through the hull of the ship as six drones shot out of their launch bays. “Drones out, sir,” Scan said.

  Val’s scan summary compressed as the drones shot outward from Defiant’s hull and their effective scan baseline broadened. At fifty thousand kilometers, the drones shifted into a complex circular orbit about Defiant, and the scan summary compressed even faster.

  With one ear tuned to the bridge circuit, Val focused on the main batteries. If they got into a firefight now, it would at least be at a reasonable distance.

  “Parasitic demand from the drones is smooth. Response is strong. Clear to one million klicks and expanding.”

  “Excellent,” Turcott said happily. “Good job. Hold the drones at fifty thousand klicks. Go to extreme long range and start scanning. I want a full system map soonest.”

  Over the next half hour, the tension on the bridge slowly dissipated. And while they remained at battle stations, everyone relaxed a bit. After two hours, they had a full system map, though if there were any feddie hunter-killers running silent, their scans wouldn’t spot them, so they still had to move cautiously.

  “Captain,” Val’s implants said in the com officer’s voice. “I’m getting a computer-generated imperial distress signal. It’s on an old, out-of-date encryption key, but it appears to be authentic.”

  “Computer-generated?” Turcott asked.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve asked the ship’s computer to connect me with a live operator, but it says there are none. It’s identified itself as Andor Vincent, a hospital ship, and
it’s apparently unescorted.”

  “What the hell is an unescorted hospital ship doing out here?”

  “Don’t know, sir, but I’m accessing its registry details now. Based out of Dumark, it was … Oh my God!”

  All the tension that had dissipated from the bridge suddenly returned, and when the com officer again spoke, there was no mistaking the awe in his voice. “It was last assigned to the Ninth Fleet, is listed as having gone out with all hands at Sirius Night Star.”

  Defiant’s bridge was silent for several seconds, then Turcott said, “No live crew left?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Tell the Vincent to stand by. We’re busy right now. We’ll get to it in a couple of days.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Like her fellow crew members, Val’s thoughts immediately shifted back to the more important task of ferreting out any possible dangers in the system. But a few seconds later, the com officer spoke again in that awestruck tone. “Captain, the Vincent’s computer wants to know if we want to take possession of its … patients.”

  “Patients?”

  “Yes, sir. Apparently, it has more than a hundred critically wounded survivors of Sirius Night Star. The Vincent’s been running silent and keeping them alive in her medical life-support tanks for the last two years.”

  When York awoke, he immediately recognized the trappings of a sick bay ward on a large man-of-war. He assumed he was still on Africa, but he felt strangely different. He tried to move, but his muscles didn’t respond. Moments later, a medical corpsman walked into the room, looking into a hand terminal and vocalizing into his implants. “Yes, he’s awake.”

  He stopped beside York’s bed and said, “Well, young man, welcome back to the living. How do you feel?”

  “I can’t move,” York said.

  The corpsman shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. We’ve got you on a central nerve block. Don’t want you overreacting or seizing after two years in the tanks.”

  “Two years?” he asked.

  An older man marched into the room wearing an officer’s uniform, rank of full commander. “How is he?”

  The corpsman looked again at his hand terminal. “Looks pretty good. The regrowth took nicely. Let’s turn off the block.”

  The older man nodded. “Sounds good. Do it.”

  The corpsman did something on his hand terminal, saying, “We’re going to bring your nervous system back online slowly. Don’t worry about feeling partially numb. That will pass quickly.”

  York had been through this once before, but not after being out for two years. He expected to feel the kind of prickly sensation like that when circulation returned to an arm on which he’d slept. His fingertips tingled a little, but over a period of several seconds, he regained the use of his hands and legs without any real discomfort. They helped him sit up, then stand up, and he felt surprisingly strong. He learned they were on the heavy cruiser Defiant and that the older man was her senior medical officer, Commander Platkin, and the corpsman was Petty Officer Checkman. The corpsman told him that soon he’d be sent back to a hospital at a large naval base, though no one was quite certain where.

  Platkin said, “We’re not sure what to do with you, young man.”

  They showed York a vid of his naked body and it surprised him. He was more muscular than he remembered.

  “You must’ve filled out,” Platkin said. “Sixteen to eighteen, that’s an important growth age. And the Vincent kept up your muscular stimulus treatments, so we expect you’ll recover rather quickly.”

  They asked York hundreds of questions, most of which he couldn’t answer. At one point, they read a list of names to him, wanted to know if he recognized any of them. Among them were Mathias and Sharfa, but he cautiously denied ever hearing of them.

  “We think some of the tanks failed,” Checkman told him one day while York was exercising in a physical therapy rig. “Some of the older spacers died of trauma that wasn’t on their admitting report, so it must have happened after they were tanked, a lot of bruising about the face and shoulders.”

  York recalled the visions of beating Mathias and Sharfa to death, and was glad he hadn’t admitted to ever hearing of them.

  They were quite interested in the dreams he’d had while tanked. He admitted to the nightmares, but didn’t tell them about fighting Mathias and Sharfa.

  “When we tank someone,” Checkman told him, “we always shut down their implants. But all of you shared similar dreams, so we think there was some sort of leakage going on, something we don’t understand yet. We’re guessing that’s why you had those nightmares.”

  York learned that the older spacers in the Vincent’s tanks had died during that two-year stretch, and that among the younger ones, they were seeing signs of mental instability for which they could find no record of prior symptoms. “It’s interesting,” Checkman told him. “The older the spacer, the more instability we see. You were the youngest, and you’re the only one who appears to have come out of it mentally unscathed.”

  York decided to never speak of his experiences on the Vincent. And he swore that he would never allow them to tank him again.

  Carson stood in front of the news kiosk on Luna Prime looking through the display window, pretending interest in a vid showing a local sporting event, while really watching the reflection in the window of the people moving back and forth behind him. He spotted his contact across the busy concourse walking his way, couldn’t recall the fellow’s name, wanted to call him Tolliver, but he wasn’t the same young fellow he’d met before, though he appeared cut from the same mold. Again, Carson suspected an attaché of some sort working for someone very high in the Admiralty. And again, there was no question that the fellow was regular navy, not AI.

  He stopped next to Carson, pretended to be interested in the same sporting event on the same vid. “Any difficulties?” he asked softly without looking Carson’s way.

  “The commandant was a little reluctant,” Carson said. “But I pointed out that it would be detrimental to his career to … resist. And the identity codes you gave me ensured his cooperation, though he was actually insulted when I offered him the compensation you provided. I was unable to assuage his bruised sense of duty.”

  “Will that be a problem?”

  “No, he’ll cooperate.”

  “Then keep the extra compensation for yourself,” the young man said. “Consider it a bonus. I’m glad to be done with the Ballinov brat.” He turned to leave, and as he did so he dropped a small comp card on the floor beside Carson’s shoe. Carson lifted his shoe and stepped on it, hiding it from anyone nearby. He let the fellow disappear in the crowd before reaching down and picking up his payment.

  He wandered down the concourse, had a couple of hours to wait before he could board his ship. He found a bar, sat down at a small table with his back to a wall. An attractive young waitress came his way and he ordered a drink. Then he pulled up a small hand terminal and let his curiosity get the best of him. The young fellow had said, “… the Ballinov brat.”

  That name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it, so he ran a quick search. When he got the answer, his heart went cold.

  He shut down the hand terminal, threw some cash on the table, and didn’t wait for his drink. He walked quickly out of the place then down the concourse, conscious of any vid that might be recording him. He used the moment just as he turned a corner to switch his visual distortion field to a different image. On one camera, a distinguished man in a business suit would appear to walk out of sight around the corner; on another camera, a merchant spacer would appear to step into view. He changed appearances four more times, threw the payment chit in one trash bin, the hand terminal in another, and in a third he completely discarded the identity of the Carson persona. He would never use that again.

  He didn’t dare board the ship for his scheduled departure
, instead took the first berth he could find on an outbound ship. He’d go out a dozen light-years and obscure his trail before returning to his base of operations. It was a horrible waste of time, and he’d miss an appointment or two, but better that than the alternative.

  What a fool he’d been! Never be curious, he reminded himself.

  Chapter 17:

  The Academy

  York healed quickly, though they’d taken care of the real healing before allowing him to reawaken. He did ask Checkman about his injuries, learned that he’d lost a leg at the hip and a good-size chunk of his lower torso. His lungs had also suffered some serious decompression damage. The medical staff guessed his pod had been punctured by a shell fragment that had taken off the leg and decompressed the pod. But the pod’s damage-control systems had managed to reseal it before he suffered too much brain damage, though there had been some neurological impairment they’d patched up. The pod’s medical systems had kept him alive until his comrades aboard Africa had retrieved him. Then the Vincent’s tanks had kept him alive until Defiant came along. Checkman said, “If you’re alive when we get to you, and still retain some reasonable level of cognitive ability, we can probably fix you.”

  York asked to transfer to Defiant’s crew, but apparently they had standing orders that all survivors of the Vincent were to remain on noncombat status until the powers-that-be decided what to do with them. Once they’d offloaded the survivors from the Vincent, they’d split them up among the five ships under Captain Turcott’s command. There were a little over twenty on Defiant, but York never saw them. Checkman told him the others had all suffered at least one psychotic episode and were in isolation under psychiatric observation.