by Jamie Sawyer
“Then it’s lucky that I don’t have plans,” I muttered.
“You and me both, girl,” Carmine said. She turned to Sergkov. “Fine. I don’t have much of a choice but to take you there, do I?”
“No,” Sergkov said. His command façade was back up, game-face in place. “You don’t.”
“That Krell is your responsibility,” Carmine said. “Whether it can ‘talk’ or not. We’ve more than enough to worry about out here, without a xeno threat loose on my ship. Understood?”
“The Pariah is an important asset,” Sergkov said. “I’m eager that we field-test both its combat and communication abilities.”
“Fine, but while it’s on my ship, it follows my rules.”
“We can use the brig,” I suggested. “That has cameras, and it’s big enough to act as a containment cell.”
“Yes,” Carmine said, nodding sharply. “That’s what we’ll do.”
Major Sergkov didn’t exactly agree, but said, “That’ll be all.”
With that, he turned on his heels and left the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVA
In Medical, the Jackals were receiving treatment for the various injuries done to their real bodies during the fight in North Star’s bar. Since they had now extracted, those scrapes, bruises, and cuts had come back with a vengeance. I extracted from my simulant too, and Zero set about patching me up.
“Easy there,” she said, a hand to my shoulder. “It looks like the stitches’ll hold, but I’m no medical doctor.”
A dish and tweezer arrangement sat on a metal trolley beside the couch. The dish was filled with bloodied shards of glass, each of which Zero had just painstakingly—and painfully—removed from my ribcage. A collection of nasty wounds to the left of my ribs was currently taped with amateur butterfly stitches.
“I’m good,” I said. “They’re only flesh-deep.”
“Which is more than I can say for that injury to your chest…” Zero said.
I sat on the edge of the examination couch in my Army-issue underwear, bra crossing the black welt of a bruise that had appeared directly over my sternum. Had to be said, it was an impressive injury: I’d seen bullet wounds that looked less spectacular.
“It’s not real,” I said. “Warlord hit me when we were ambushed in the tunnels. He punched me with an exo-suit glove. Damaged the HURT suit.”
My HURT suit currently sat in the charging cradle, the torso armour scarred by the dent that Warlord had caused. The damage was largely superficial—Warlord might’ve been strong, but he hadn’t breached the armour—but the whole incident had shaken me.
I had told the Jackals some of what Sergkov had said—sufficient that they knew who Warlord was, and what we were up against. Unlike Sergkov, I didn’t believe in keeping things from my team.
“Looks like you’ve been hit by a tactical nuke,” said Riggs, inspecting my injury.
“That’s not funny, Riggs,” said Zero. “The injury looks real.”
Although that was true, a scan from the auto-doc had confirmed that it was only simulated. The bruise was a stigmata—the result of the human brain’s efforts to interpret injuries done to a simulant-body. More transitions you did, the more it happened. Science Division didn’t really understand why. There was a lot about the simulant tech that Sci-Div still hadn’t figured out, despite its extensive use throughout the Alliance armed forces.
Of the Jackals, Riggs had probably been the luckiest, having escaped North Star with only the occasional cut or bruise: nothing that would require more than a few minutes under the auto-doc. When my eye turned to Novak, I was reminded that things could’ve been so much worse.
“You going to pull through over there, Novak?”
“Will be fine.”
Novak was in a black mood. Occupying one corner of the infirmary, he had assembled a collection of various bladed articles on a medical bench, and he still clutched the black-bladed weapon that had been lodged in his thigh. That was a big, ugly knife, with a hooked tip made for causing maximum injury. The name “ADRIANNA” had been printed along the blade—relevance unknown, the former property of one of North Star’s hookers who was now quite likely deceased. The last time that I had seen that weapon, it had been planted in the chest of a traitor MP; I guessed that Novak must’ve retrieved it.
“Still enjoying your souvenir, I see,” Riggs offered.
Novak simply sucked his teeth, eyes fixed on the arrangement of blades in front of him. Several were homemade—just pieces of broken metal and plastic, with tape-wrapped handles. The way that Novak looked at those things wasn’t natural.
“You’re going to need to give those up,” I said. “I can’t have you running around this ship with weapons, Novak.”
“Why bother?” he said, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Is no point any more.”
“What bug has bitten you?” Lopez probed. “Jesus, we just escaped from a space station full of Black Spiral agents, jumped through a Shard Gate, and managed to avoid being vaporised by a fleet of enemy ships.”
“Drone is gone,” Novak grumbled.
“I thought you didn’t like the drone?” Lopez said, frowning. “Make your mind up!”
Novak shook his head. Fiddled with one of his blades. “Will suffer penalty on service contract. More years, yes?”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” I said. “Listen, we can work that out.”
There would no doubt be questions asked of me, as to my decision to deactivate Novak’s surveillance drone. The fact that the drone, and its onboard memory, had been destroyed back on North Star might well mean that a penalty was applied to Novak’s remaining sentence. I decided that it was better not to mention that: not until we made contact with the chain of command.
Novak was in the worst condition of all, and hadn’t yet changed out of his ruined fatigues, or even received proper medical attention. Instead, he had a medpack taped high on his left thigh, over the stab wound. The dressing had already turned a dilute pink colour.
“I don’t care what you say, you’re going under the auto-doc,” I said. “You were damned lucky that blade didn’t hit an artery.”
“Is not necessary,” Novak said. “Is also just flesh wound, like you, yes?”
“Yeah, flesh and muscle,” Feng said.
Feng didn’t look much better. He had new fatigues, but the wad of medical dressing over his shoulder blade was visible at the open neck. He calculated his movements to shield the pain; I’d seen the burn injury caused by the shockrifle, and it looked plenty painful.
“At least we got transition under belt,” Novak rumbled. He had scored his arm with a knife: seven long cuts scarred over, an eighth still fresh.
“You don’t need to keep doing that, Novak,” Zero suggested. “I’m keeping a record.”
She had set up an ad hoc scoreboard on the SOC wall, and the glowing data-feed provided a modest morale-boost to the squad. Post–North Star, the Jackals, except for Riggs, had eight transitions apiece. Riggs sat at twelve. I had two hundred and twelve effective transitions. Jesus, I felt old.
“Time off sentence, yes?” Novak said, forcefully.
“You know your contract better than anyone,” I said. “If it says you have time off your sentence, then you get it.”
“Only another nine-hundred-odd years of penal servitude to go,” Riggs said.
Novak settled back on the couch, satisfied with the figures on the board. As I looked at the mess of ugly tattoos across his face and legs, I caught myself once again wondering what it was he’d done to get this gig.
“We’re several days from the Hannover’s last location,” I explained, “and there’s a lot to do before we get there.” I, too, was back in command-mode now. “By rights, I should have you all up on breach of regulation: I didn’t approve that transition back on North Star.”
The squad went quiet. Every one of them, except for Zero of course, had made an unauthorised transition.
“
I specifically told you to remain on-ship, Private Feng,” I said.
Feng nodded. “I know. But shit was going down out there, and if I hadn’t skinned up…”
“That’s hardly the point,” I said. “Are you trained in the use of the Class VI combat-suit? Or the M115 plasma rifle?”
Feng went quiet. There was no answer to that: the Jackals hadn’t trained in that equipment at all. Daktar had been the closest they’d come to using proper kit. We’d been using recon-suits and shotguns back then, and it felt like a lifetime ago.
“It wasn’t that different to the armour we used on Daktar,” Lopez piped up. She shrugged her shoulders. “Used the same haptic feedback response.”
“That armour is bigger, heavier, and meaner than a recon-suit,” I explained. “And I’m not saying anything about the M115.”
“It’s a hell of a weapon,” Riggs said, shaking his head.
“Corporal has a point,” Novak added.
“I’m going to let it go this time,” I said. I nodded at Zero, who had remained quiet throughout the exchange. “But using the heavier tech is hazardous. We had real skins out there; the major and Zero could’ve been at risk.”
“I didn’t want that,” Feng said quietly.
Zero gave a blasé shrug of her shoulders, which I could tell was for Feng’s benefit. “I’d rather be wasted by a stray plasma bolt than be left with the Krell.”
“It shouldn’t have come to either of those things,” I said. “But I’m serious about that equipment. It isn’t for greens. We’re going to use the time before we reach the Hannover’s coordinates to run simulations, for armour and weapons drills. I want you all to really learn to use those tools.”
“Does that mean that we aren’t green any more?” Riggs joked.
“It means that I don’t want you killing each other by accident during the next deployment,” I said.
Although she wouldn’t be able to participate, Zero brightened up at the suggestion. “The simulator-tanks have a VR facility. I can set up some scenarios, if you want.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Not only that, but I want the Jackals to assist Captain Carmine as required. Riggs, you draw up a duty rota. Whatever Carmine needs done, we’re doing.”
“Copy that,” Riggs said, nodding. “That Warhawk shuttle in the hold needs to be prepped, for a start.”
The Warhawk was a basic runabout shuttle, likely to be needed if we conducted any off-ship activity.
“You see to it,” I said.
“What are we going to do about the, ah, fish?” Lopez asked me.
“It’s going into the brig,” I said, pulling on my fatigues and trying to avoid catching the stitches. “And I want round-the-clock surveillance on it. We’ll run a watch-schedule.” I paused. “An armed watch.”
“Wouldn’t want to trust Lopez with a gun,” Riggs said, with a mild smile.
Novak rumbled a laugh. “Senator did okay on North Star.”
“Yeah, about guns,” I said, rolling my eyes in Lopez’s direction. “We need to have a discussion about what happened back there.”
Lopez bit her lip. “A formal discussion? As in, I need an HR rep before we talk?”
Novak let out another big belly laugh at that, although Lopez clearly hadn’t meant it as a joke.
“All of you, except Lopez, get out of here,” I said. “You’ve got jobs to do.”
The team sullenly filtered out of the infirmary, leaving Lopez and me alone.
“You brought a restricted firearm aboard North Star Station,” I said. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
The rebuke sounded hollow before it had even left my lips, but Lopez hung her head and answered, “I have an idea.”
“Smart ass,” I said. Then sighed, adding, “Maybe it was kind of a stupid question. Where did you get the weapon from? Did you bring it aboard the Santa Fe?”
“Yeah,” Lopez said. “My brother gave it to me. For protection, he said. I’ve had it since I joined up. I thought it was a good idea to have some backup, just in case.”
“And you didn’t think to request permission to bring it onto the ship, or the station?”
“I … kind of hid it.”
I slapped Lopez’s Revtech 911K down on the table. The gun’s arming indicator blinked red, indicating that the weapon had been made safe. It was a high-end piece of equipment. The sort of gun that you bought when you had more money than sense: largely made of plastic-steel hybrid, undetectable by most scanning methods. Ownership alone was prohibited in twelve of the thirteen Alliance territories, and having it aboard the ship probably breached several interstellar statutes.
“It’s a nice sidearm,” I said. “Good range. With those rounds, it also has decent stopping power.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she admitted. “That was the first time I’d fired it.”
“Well, at that range it would’ve been hard to miss,” I said, recalling Alpha Dog’s destroyed head.
“Are we going to have a problem here, ma’am?” Lopez said, pursing her lips. “I know that it was wrong. I’m sorry. But if I hadn’t brought along the gun, we would probably be dead—or worse—right now.”
The girl had a point. “Do you have any more contraband that you want to report?”
“Nothing, except for maybe some more rounds in the barracks…”
I leant in to her. “Then here’s your punishment: I want you to learn to shoot that thing, and keep it on you at all times.”
Lopez’s expression brightened. “Copy that,” she said.
“In other circumstances, if we weren’t surrounded by all this shit, I’d take a dimmer view. But as it turns out, you’re right: the gun saved our asses.”
She scooped up the pistol with a little more confidence than when she had handled it back on North Star.
“That’s not the only punishment,” I said, wincing again as I moved around the infirmary. “You’ve got first watch on the Krell.”
“Q-jumping in T minus two minutes…” became a familiar refrain.
How many jumps did we make? I lost count. The Santa Fe plunged ever deeper into the Maelstrom’s heart.
Carmine’s estimate of “several days” turned into sixteen, subjective.
Sixteen days jumping around the Maelstrom, neither avoiding nor seeking the Krell’s attention. Sixteen days sealed in the metal can of the Santa Fe. Sixteen days of wandering the empty corridors, thinking about what had happened back at North Star, about what could be happening elsewhere in the universe.
This far out from the Core Worlds, there were no newsfeeds, no relay-stations and no comms: we were on our own. Those planets became dim and distant, the glow of their stars paling. For all I knew, Senator Lopez might now be Alliance Secretary General. Simulant Operations could’ve been disbanded. And what of the Black Spiral? What of Warlord, of the man I now knew as Sergeant Clade Cooper? Sixteen days, allowing for the time-dilation effect of Q-space, was months of real-time.
I used the time to work on the damaged HURT suit. Cooper had put a crater in the chest armour, and I wasn’t going out in the armour unless, and until, it was repaired. The work was decent, honest labour, and it was a task that gave me some focus. Several hours later, and the HURT suit looked good as new: sitting in its charging cradle, ready for the next deployment.
As promised, there were endless armour and weapons drills: both simulated and actual. I suspected that the Jackals even started to enjoy the daily manoeuvres. None of it was practical experience, of course, but that wasn’t the point. The Jackals were beginning to function together as a team. The shift was slight, and gradual, but it was something.
“You should run some field tests with the Pariah,” Sergkov suggested one day, as he watched us coolly from the corner of the Simulant Operations Centre.
“We’re good,” I said. While the Jackals ran their VR sims, Carmine had assigned one of her crew to guard the alien.
“The xeno doesn’t have a neural-link,” Sergkov said
, “but I know that Dr. Skinner was working on it.”
“A Krell that can make uplink via the simulators?” I asked with amazement. That idea was plainly terrifying.
Sergkov gave a non-committal lift of his shoulders. “As I say, nothing was finished. Dr. Skinner had great plans though. The Pariah was central to many of them.”
I towelled myself dry, eager to break this conversation. “Well, we’re doing VR runs in here. The Pariah can’t play.”
Sergkov shrugged. “Perhaps we should set up a training room in one of the cargo holds. It wouldn’t take much effort.”
“Like I said, we’re good in here.”
Sergkov had been a shadow since we’d left North Star. He ate mess in his quarters, kept tabs on the Pariah, and occasionally enquired about journey times. Only made his presence felt when necessary.
“You know,” he said, “the Pariah saved me and Sergeant Campbell on North Star. You saw what the mutant specimens did, how out of control they were.”
“Sure,” I said. “But do you really know what’s going on in the fish’s head?”
Sergkov crossed his arms over his chest. “My point is that it didn’t side with Dr. Skinner’s failed experiments. Doesn’t that show you something? Had it wanted to get away, it could’ve? That’s all I’m saying.”
“Fine. It saved your ass. It saved Zero’s ass. I admit it. Happy now?”
Zero manned her console, trying her best not to get involved in the conversation. Since we’d taken the Pariah onboard, she had been almost as reclusive as Sergkov: making the SOC her safe place. Like she was frightened to walk the corridors on her own.
The conversation was interrupted by a chime from the ship’s PA. It was Carmine, on the bridge.
“You down there, Keira?” she asked.
I opened a comms channel. “I copy,” I said. “Just running some simulations.”
“Lordy, at this rate those Jackals will learn to shoot straight by the end of this journey.”