by B. V. Larson
“Right, but if they change their minds and engage again, call me back to the command deck.”
I left and headed down toward my aunt’s cabin. I had a sick feeling… we’d endured hard maneuvers before, but I knew she was four to six times the age of most crew members aboard. It would be a shame if she’d died alone with a crushed ribcage.
On the fourth chime, the door finally dissolved. I’d never been in my aunt’s quarters. They weren’t what I’d expected.
Rather than an ostentatious and out-of-place display of wealth, she’d opted to keep the room spare and functional. There was no sign of the old lady herself—at least not at first.
“Aunt Helen?” I called.
An egg-shaped capsule stood near the far wall. Something stirred within it. I’d thought the capsule was a chair at first—but it was something else entirely.
The capsule spiraled in my direction and split open. Purplish goop spilled out on the floor—along with my ancient aunt.
“What is it?” she rasped. “Haven’t you done enough to these old bones today?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I came to check on you.”
She was on the floor in the midst of the foamy mess that had spilt out of the egg-thing. She looked up at me, and I realized as the foam evaporated she was nude. I turned away.
“Hand me a towel, damn you.”
I found a towel and handed it to her. I did so with my eyes directed toward her desk.
She laughed and covered herself. “Are you embarrassed? Or disgusted?”
“I’m a gentleman,” I said.
“Good. Good answer.”
She put on clothes and flopped in a chair behind her desk. She let out a long sigh.
“This trip will be the death of me. Did we kill any pirates? I can’t see much inside that egg. There’s audio input from the ship’s feed, but that’s about it.”
I examined the contraption. “This is some kind of survival system, isn’t it?”
“Built to withstand atmospheric reentry, if necessary. It can take more newtons of force than your skull can without cracking, that much I assure you.”
Pinching up some of the purple foam, I worked it between my fingers. It disintegrated quickly into a slippery film.
“Pressure-absorbing foam? Complete submersion?”
“My doctors recommended it. Overpriced quacks—but they were right this time. This ship could kill someone as weak as myself without serious protection.”
Nodding, I turned to face her again. She’d dressed herself in a gown of black. Her hair still looked as if she’d shampooed it without a rinse.
“I had no idea you had such a useful survival system in your cabin,” I remarked.
“I didn’t reach my two hundredth birthday and pass it by without taking care of my health.”
My eyes did a slow blink. Two centuries. I’d guessed her age could be that extreme… but now she’d openly admitted it. Deciding it would be impolite to press further on the subject, I moved on.
“We destroyed three of the pirates,” I said. “The others have run off.”
“Hmmm,” she said, looking over recordings of the action on her desk. “It appears the last one almost took us out. If they’d been able to build up more kinetic force before ramming us—”
“Yes, I know. We’d have all perished.”
“Well? What are you going to do now, Captain Sparhawk?”
I thought about it for a moment. There was really only one answer.
“I’m going to chase them down and destroy them all.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m not surprised. Nor do I think now that I could do much to stop you. You are like your father, no matter what anyone else back on Earth says. They only look at the uniform and sneer. But I see a ruthless man. A man of honor—but someone who is determined to achieve his goals.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“Nevertheless, I feel uplifted by your words.”
She glared at me for several long seconds. At last she sighed.
“All right,” she said. “You’re going to chase these Stroj and wipe them out. What if they arrive at a breach point before we can catch them?”
“Then I’ll follow them into hyperspace.”
She played with her computer scroll. “What if they’re heading into a breach marked as terminal? Something no one has found their way out of alive?”
After thinking for a second, I made my choice. “I’d have to follow them.”
She fooled with the scroll, letting it tip and bounce on the desk.
“Why?” she asked sincerely.
“Because Captain Lorn has proven to me, on multiple occasions, that he very much cares about his personal skin. Each time it’s threatened he runs or deflects. He’ll kill any and all of his underlings for the privilege to keep breathing. Therefore, he’d never take us on a blind jump he couldn’t escape.”
She nodded. “For the record, I agree with your predictions. Even better, we’re about to get a chance to put this theory to the test. As we speak, the pirates are heading for a blind jump into a bridge that’s been marked terminal by your little friend, the Connatic.”
I snatched the scroll from her. Somehow, it displayed the command deck. Tapping at it, I was able to view the crew from any angle. I could even pull up displays of our instruments and weapons systems. It wasn’t a control system, but there was no data it didn’t seem to have access to.
I tossed the scroll back on her desk. “Cameras?”
She nodded.
“How’d you get them to do it?”
“Star Guard?” she asked mildly. “I’m supposed to be in command of this mission, remember? That was the condition I made when they begged me to take this role. In order to perform my duties, I needed aids.”
“Like this survival egg? And a spying app depicting my command staff in every detail? This is why whenever I leave the helm alterations are made to my orders, correct?”
“I’ve only done that on rare occasions.”
Angry, I began to pace. “Why did Star Guard put me in command of this ship if they didn’t trust me?”
She laughed. “They don’t trust anyone. Especially not after the Stroj ate half their commanders. That wasn’t so long ago, William, and they very much remember it. They sent me out here to provide adult supervision. If I remember correctly, those were Halsey’s precise words.”
I glared at her. “Halsey. I should have known. He promotes me, praises me, but doesn’t trust me when it comes down to it.”
“Judging by your behavior thus far on this voyage, I believe he was right all along.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I said. “I’ve made the right choices. I’ve explored three systems and fought off several deadly attacks.”
“You’ve made choices… that’s true. Whether they were the right ones or not, well, that remains to be seen. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll clean up a bit. Will you be having dinner with me?”
“No thank you, Lady.”
I stormed out. I could hear the old warhorse chuckling behind me.
-31-
When I got back to the command deck, Durris was the first one to incur my wrath.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him.
He gave me a blank look. “Tell you what, Captain?”
“That the ambassador has been spying on our activities.”
“Oh… that. I honestly thought you knew. It’s your ship, sir.”
I felt a red heat rising around my neck. “She came up here and reversed my instructions on several occasions. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir… and I really feel I must lodge a complaint at this point.”
“How’s that?” I demanded.
“It’s difficult to keep two conflicting sets of orders straight, especially when from day to day I don’t know who’s in command.”
I bared my teeth momentarily, but I controlled myself. “It’s Star Guard’s fa
ult, not yours. It’s been too long, I think, since Earth’s met a serious adversary. We’re out of practice. There can only be one captain on a ship. That’s a basic rule of every navy throughout time. This fiddling from CENTCOM amounts to a social experiment, and it’s been a dismal failure.”
“I would applaud a return to the old principles,” my first officer said.
We eyed one another for a moment. I could see how Durris was in a tight spot. He was only trying to follow orders—but whose orders were legitimate? Halsey had really screwed things up for me on this mission.
“Let’s put that aside for the moment,” I told him. “Where are the pirates headed? Can we catch them?”
“They’re headed for this bridge entry point, here,” Durris said, directing me to one of the red links on the screen.
“Hmm, one that goes nowhere,” I said in concern, “at least, according to the Connatic’s charts.”
“Interesting,” Durris said. “The question becomes whether or not we believe Lorn is the suicidal type. Personally, I don’t think he is.”
“Neither do I. Let’s follow him.”
Durris followed me to the helmsman, where we laid in our coordinates and felt the Defiant shift course under our feet.
“To answer your second question, Captain,” Durris said, “we can’t catch up. At least, not until the enemy reaches the breach point and enters hyperspace.”
Durris eyed me. He wasn’t sure what I’d say next.
“Follow him anyway,” I repeated decisively.
Returning to my seat, I slouched in an uncharacteristic fashion. I’d felt somewhat betrayed by Durris about the surveillance, but I hadn’t let him know that. He was, after all, trying to follow orders. As this was only our second mission together, I guess he hadn’t seen fit to inform me concerning what was going on during my absences.
Rotating my chair around slowly, I fixed Yamada with a stare. She noticed in time and looked back questioningly.
“Let’s talk,” I said to her.
I led her out, and we walked the passages toward the lower decks. I didn’t feel like going to my office or my cabin. For all I knew, they were bugged as well.
“What’s this all about, Captain?” she asked.
“I’m trying to find somewhere private—perhaps the gym. There’s no one there at the moment, I believe.”
She gave me a strange look, but she followed along without comment. When we found the gym, it was indeed empty. PT was a required regimen for all aboard, but it was only done in shifts which usually occurred at the beginning of the morning and evening watch periods.
We had no weight sets in the gym, of course. Instead there were intelligent machines that varied stress-loads on various muscle groups according to the ship’s angle of flight, G-forces and the individual history of the participant.
Yamada looked around in confusion. “You call this private?”
“We’re alone, aren’t we?”
She searched my eyes and shook her head. “Well… all right. Wait!”
I’d been sitting down on a bench-press machine and settling in to do a few repetitions. Her sudden change of tone caught my attention.
“What?”
“Are you crazy?” she asked. “I’m not going to do it on a sweaty weight-lifting machine. You can forget about that.”
“Forget about what…?” I asked. Suddenly realizing what the misunderstanding was, my mouth sagged. “Lieutenant,” I said sternly. “That wasn’t my intention at all.”
She crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto her left hip. Her eyes narrowed to regard me suspiciously. “Well, as you seem to be working your way through all the women on this ship, I naturally—”
“That’s an unfair and inaccurate description of my behavior,” I protested. I began pumping the machine, which felt good. Cracking my muscles against the increasing squeeze of the machine gave me a satisfying release of tension.
“Really?” she asked. “What about the Connatic?”
“She’s not aboard this ship. She never was a member of the crew.”
“A technicality. What about Zye?”
Her words made me pause. I looked at her, and she stared back.
“You heard about that, did you?”
“She’s telling everyone—all the women, that is. She starts off by asking weird questions about our sexual habits and partners. Eventually, she gets around to asking if we’ve slept with you while informing us that she has. Then she asks who else we think might oppose her.”
“Oppose her?” I asked in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“It means she’s warning us off.”
“I see,” I said. “I was under the impression she didn’t have any strings attached to our moments together. She seemed very casual about it.”
“You might be feeling casual, but I think she’s taking things more seriously.”
“Great. Is that your entire list of my crimes? On this basis I’ve become a philanderer in your eyes, apt to do anything? Half this ship is involved in some kind of relationship. I think it’s a natural hazard during such a long mission.”
Inwardly, I was concerned. Had I started a disintegration of discipline? Long-term voyages with both sexes aboard had always been problematic, and Star Guard’s policies had become lax over the decades.
She thought about my words seriously. “We’re pair-bonding,” she said. “You’re right. We’ve been out here for many weeks, and we’re so far from home we can’t even see our own star at night. We’re looking for mates. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“It’s a threat to discipline. This must be why the old colony ships only allowed family units to board. Even then, there were problems.”
She nodded. “What about Suzy?” she asked me suddenly.
“Who?”
“That brassy ensign Suzy Gelb. She works the nav table with Durris.”
“I barely recall such a person,” I said defensively. In truth, the girl was quite attractive, and my eye had lingered on her from time to time.
“Every male on the ship has his eye on her. The word in the passages is that you’ve slept with her as well.”
“That’s worse than a rumor. It’s a lie. A fabrication.”
She sighed and uncrossed her arms. “All right then. I’m truly sorry, Captain. I got carried away, and I’ve embarrassed us both.”
“It’s quite all right,” I said. “Now, if you’ll kindly remove your clothing and climb aboard this machine…”
I met her shocked expression, and I laughed. “Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.”
She moved as if to strike me, then remembered who we were and laughed instead. We’d worked together in tight quarters for years on ships much smaller than this one.
“Remember Cutlass?” she asked wistfully. “I think of that rust-bucket every day.”
“So do I,” I said. “I felt an attachment to that vessel I’m only just beginning to build for this one.”
“There wasn’t much room for an affair aboard Cutlass.”
“Not unless you wanted a dozen eyes to watch.”
My first command had been a pinnace that worked as an escort ship for the destroyer Altair. A tiny ship with a tiny crew, I’d learned how to lead and keep a ship from falling apart while commanding her.
“Anyway,” I said, “I’m glad you’re giving me some inside information on what everyone else aboard is thinking. Why have I been left in the dark about these things?”
“Well… there’s a certain natural distance. You’re in command of a starship. That’s a lofty position. Aboard Cutlass, we all seemed like a family.”
“Right... Add to that the distraction of Lady Grantholm’s antics, and I’m all business most of the time. I’m missing out on the psychological mood swings. I need to track the morale of the crew better.”
“I can fill you in on that point. The crew is very impressed. We’re still alive, and we’re going after the pirates. The only act that’s thoug
ht of as a mistake involves Lorn. Most of them believe you should have tried harder to kill him when you had the chance. We’re glad you’re correcting that mistake now.”
“I agree,” I nodded. “That was a mistake.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, Captain?” she asked.
“Yes. I wanted to establish a rapport,” I said. “Also, I want you to tell me if my aunt tries to undermine my authority again.”
“But sir… that would place me in-between the highest ranking people aboard.”
“Exactly. Will you do it? For me?”
She stared at me for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes. For you.”
I fell back onto the bench press again, but before I could squeeze together my pectoral muscles, she darted in and kissed my cheek.
Watching her leave, I began a vigorous workout. My muscles burned afterward, and it felt good.
-32-
Two days later we arrived at the breach. To us, it appeared as a sinister and uncertain region of space. It was invisible, but still somehow oppressively dangerous in our minds.
The pirate ships had left us well behind by this time. They’d crossed the barrier nearly seventeen hours earlier. We had no idea what they’d been doing during that interval. They could have traveled far toward the exit—or perhaps they’d prepared a trap for us.
The problem was they were undetectable on the far side of the bridge. It was my opinion they were setting up an ambush in there. Waiting for us to crash through, so they could light us up with every weapon they had at close range.
Yamada said something as I pondered the approaching bridge.
“What was that, Commander?” I asked.
“Sir, I’m getting trace tritium readings,” she said more loudly.
“There’s nothing odd about that,” I said. “Standard fuel traces left behind by—”
“Captain!” she interrupted, now sounding alarmed. “I don’t understand it, but I’m picking up these readings from beyond the barrier. The traces lead to either side of it.”
My mind froze as I registered what she was saying. My eyes darted to the timer—we had one minute twenty-nine seconds to the breach point.