by M. D. Cooper
“That going to take long?” Thompson asked. “I don’t relish sitting here in this exceptionally large target—even though it is amazing—while we wait and see if one of those folks out there decides to end the party and send an RM our way.”
“Don’t worry. Helen is helping them modify the spec for this ship. It’s going quite well. I wouldn’t worry too much about RMs. Apparently there have been no small number of missiles sent this ship’s way and it’s still here.”
“For real?” Cheeky asked. “That’s got to be some story.”
“Who’s Helen?” Dr. Philips asked.
“Don’t worry yourself,” Cheeky drawled. “She’s an AI. She won’t spread any germs.”
“Fine,” Dr. Philips sighed. “I want to inspect your cargo, as well.”
“Once you clear Thompson here, he can show you around. You’ll not open anything without his permission, and if a door’s locked, it stays locked. Our environmental systems are the same ship-wide, so you don’t need to look in every corner to find out if anything is amiss.”
Dr. Philips looked unhappy but accepted that. “Where’s your last crew member?”
Sera smiled as Nance stepped into the wardroom. “Here she is.”
Nance was in her full getup. Her isolated air supply was hooked up and her facial filter totally sealed. She held several sealed containers with what Sera assumed where her blood and tissue samples.
“What is this?” Dr. Philips asked, clearly alarmed. “Is she sick? Is it contagious?”
“Yes, very. We usually don’t let her out, but you demanded that we all assemble,” Sera said, working to retain a straight face.
She glanced across the table at Cheeky, who was snickering behind her hand.
Dr. Philips followed her gaze and scowled at Nance.
“This is serious. Give me those,” he said and snatched the samples from Nance.
“This is Nance. She’s our bio,” Sera said with a grin. “It would seem that she feels about you the same way that you feel about us.”
“She’s right, you know, Mark,” one of the women in the group said to Dr. Philips. “At least some of the diseases they have may require biological specifics that we haven’t evolved to allow for yet, while everything that we have in our systems they can probably catch.”
“And none of which occurred with Tanis, I’d like to remind you,” Sera pointed out. “Our basic nano is that good, at least.” Nance sat at the table, her back ramrod straight. “Besides,” Sera continued. “She always dresses like this; it’s not really that much of a statement about your chances of infecting her, but of anyone’s.”
The Intrepid’s medics took Thompson’s sample first, then Dr. Philips took one of his party with the super and left to go over the ship. Sera turned to Cargo.
“Bridge and all crew quarters are sealed, right?”
“It’s not my first inspection,” Cargo smiled. “Gonna make ‘em say please for every little thing.”
The woman who had come to Nance’s defense smiled at them as she took samples from some of the foodstuffs in the wardroom. “Don’t blame Dr. Philips, he’s just ferociously bored. He spent the whole time on Victoria out of stasis, only because he wholly expected to wake up to a colony next time. It’s starting to wear his personality thin.”
Sera laughed. “That much is apparent.”
The woman smiled. “I’m Terry, and this is Anne and Sam.” She gestured to the woman and man still with her in the wardroom who nodded in response. “We just got thawed last week. It’s hard to believe we ended up in the ninetieth century!”
“Alive and well,” Cargo replied with a smile.
“They’re not going to let us settle that moon down there, are they?” Terry asked.
“I’d say the chances of that happening now are between zero and nil,” Sera agreed. “The Intrepid out-values it about a million to one, but newly terraformed worlds are very rare in this region. Bollam’s World is in the midst of a heavily settled space; they have no expansion available, so this is their only option.”
“So, where are we going to go, then?” Anne asked.
“Once we get your ol’ girl FTL capable, we’ll head out to rendezvous with the FGT. They’ll set you up with a nice colony well out of the way.”
A quick check informed Sera that Helen and Priscilla were still lost in a deep conversation. Great, this was going to give her a headache whether she paid attention to it or not. She asked Helen at least to keep the blood vessels in her head from swelling.
“FTL?” Terry asked. “So that rumor was true.”
“You bet,” Sera replied. “We provided the details for the technology. If your Reddings are all history says they are cracked up to be, then the Intrepid should be ready to make the jump in less than a week.”
Terry blushed and the other two looked guilty. “Here you are doing all of this for us and we’re treating you like some sort of quarantine violators. I’m really sorry about that.” She looked over at Nance. “If you don’t mind, I wouldn’t mind seeing the environmental systems on this ship after we’re done here. I used to be a bio on some small transports. I’d like to see what’s changed in the last couple of thousand years.”
Sera was surprised that Nance nodded in agreement.
A half an hour later, the inspection was over. The preliminary examinations showed that Sabrina posed no threats and Terry promised to see if there was anything that the crew of the Intrepid could inadvertently pass to them. Dr. Philips wanted to take more samples, but his med techs managed to convince him that they should spend time reviewing what they knew to catch any possible issues fast. If anything suspicious turned up, they would do a more thorough investigation later. The way Terry winked at Sera when they left, she was certain that nothing would come to Dr. Philip’s attention unless it was a truly serious problem. She also set a time to come back and see the environmental systems with Nance.
“I thought they’d never leave,” Thompson said as he closed the inner airlock.
“Good times,” Sera smiled.
* * * * *
The bridge was empty when Sera stepped onto it. Cargo was off duty, and Jessica asked Cheeky to join her in reviewing the specs of the ISF fighters and how the Intrepid would stack up against the enemy fleets.
Sabrina responded after a moment.
Sera laughed.
Sera felt her ire rise for a moment, but forced herself to let it go. She knew enough not to attempt to control everything. That road ultimately led to total loss of control.
Sera reached behind her headrest and pulled the hardlink cable out and con
nected it to the port at the base of her skull.
When Sabrina confirmed the hardlink, she activated the U-layer transmitter secreted away in her shower. She set the coordinates for the message and called up the script she had pre-recorded. Sera paused for a moment and listened to her words, wondering how they would be received, what the FGT would require of her in return. She pushed aside her indecision and sent the message.
The ship’s power usage meters rose and the reactor increased its burn to cover the discharge she had pulled from the SC batteries.
THE LAKE HOUSE
STELLAR DATE: 10.27.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid, Orbiting Fierra
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
“Think you were a little hard on her?” Joe asked as he led Tanis to the maglev station.
Tanis let out a long sigh. “Maybe…I don’t know. It’s not like she can have any secret so mind-blowing that we can’t handle it. We’re going to figure it out; she should just tell already.”
“Reminds me of how eager you were to share the details of your mission at Toro,” Joe replied.
“That was different,” Tanis said. “Those records were sealed. I couldn’t talk about it.”
“Don’t play games with me,” Joe locked eyes with Tanis as they stopped and waited for a train. “You may not have felt any of your decisions on Toro were wrong, but you felt shame for how it was handled, how you were treated—by the military, your father, and your husband.”
Tanis broke eye contact. Even after all the years, thinking back to those days hurt more than she cared to admit.
“OK, point taken.”
Joe asked privately.
Joe’s face split into a smile so bright Tanis almost had to look away. He grabbed her by the waist and spun her around.
Tanis laughed and he set her back on the deck plate.
“Let’s get out of here and enjoy our reunion,” he said. “All that unpleasant saving everyone’s skin stuff will come crashing back on you soon enough.”
“Gee,” Tanis said with a chuckle. “You sure know how to take a load off my mind.”
A maglev car pulled up beside them, and they stepped on, along with several other passengers—more than a few were whispering about seeing the general.
Tanis sat and rested her head on Joe’s shoulder, blocking out the worry and all the distractions around her. There was no doubt in her mind that they would come out on top of this challenge.
Joe was right. She needed to take this time and relax and rebuild her reserves.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the ride to Old Sam, neither verbally, nor over the Link.
The maglev made several stops, and passengers came and went, but Tanis barely noticed. Eventually, the train came to rest at their stop, a station half a kilometer from their cabin.
They disembarked and walked down the long, wooded path, arm in arm.
In the woods around them, birds sang and the sounds of small animals going about their business could be heard. Tanis saw a mother deer and her fawn in a clearing as they neared their destination.
“It’s good to be home,” she said with a contented sigh.
They rounded the bend and her breath caught. She expected to see the cabin and its grounds overrun by weeds and debris—after all, with the time in stasis after leaving Kapteyn’s Star combined with the months following her abduction, neither of them had been to the cabin in years.
But there it stood, the yard clean, what appeared to be a fresh coat of paint on the walls, and the garden overflowing with fruits and vegetables.
“Did Bob arrange this?” Tanis asked as they approached.
“No, I did,” a voice said from behind them.
Tanis turned to see Ouri stepping out from behind a tree. Her shipsuit was covered in dirt and a pair of work gloves hung from her belt.
“Ouri!” Tanis cried out and rushed to embrace the woman. “Thank you so much for this. You have no idea what it means…I guess that’s why you ducked out of our meeting early.”
“And had Priscilla make your train take longer,” the colonel grinned. “It hasn’t all been me. A lot of us from the SOC, command crew, and no small number of Marines have been down here. Even Amanda was here not long ago weeding your strawberry patch, but she had to run and prep to trade off with Priscilla.”
“Come inside,” Tanis said and took Ouri’s arm. “I’ll make coffee—I imagine there’s coffee.”
Ouri chuckled. “Your larder is fully stocked. I would come in, but you have no idea the workload I’m shielding you from right now. I came down here because I wanted to see the look on your face, but I need to get back to the grind.”
“Are you sure?” Tanis asked. “I know your boss; he works for me.”
“I seem to recall that, yes,” Ouri replied. “But if I stay, Sanderson is going to start calling both of us, and I want you to enjoy yourself for a few more hours at least.”
“OK,” Tanis agreed. “But we have to sit down before long, you’ll really want to hear about my little trip, especially New Eden.”
“New Eden?” Ouri gasped. “You were there? Is it as beautiful as we hoped?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Tanis said replied with a wink.
“Are we sure this is our Tanis?” Ouri asked Joe. “She seems far too easygoing.”
“I think the smuggler crew she spent the last few months with has rubbed off on her,” Joe replied.
“Stars, I really do wish I could stay,” Ouri said, a frown clouding her expression. “But duty calls. I’ll see the two of you soon enough.”
Ouri turned and walked back up the path, leaving Tanis and Joe to spend a last moment admiring their home before stepping inside.
* * * * *
Later that afternoon, as they relaxed in front of the dying embers of their fire, Tanis suddenly reached out and grasped Joe’s arm.
“You resigned your commission for me?”
Joe chuckled. “Just got to that place in your queue, eh?”
She sat up and turned to him.
“What were you thinking? How could you…” her voice trailed and she let a slow smile creep over her face.
“You and your belief that the mission is everything,” Joe chuckled. “I thought you were beyond that.”
“I am,” Tanis said with a sigh. “It was a momentary relapse. What I meant to say was ‘thank you’.”
“You’re welcome,” Joe said pulled her close for a long kiss, which Tanis returned.
Suddenly she pulled back, her piercing eyes locked onto his. “Wait. If you resigned and/or went AWOL, how is it that you were in command of the Andromeda when you scooped us up?”
“It turns out, Bob forced Jason to back down. My resignation never hit the official record,” Joe said with a shrug.
“It’s nice to have your friendly neighborhood AI-god on your side,” Tanis said with a laugh.
d with a sigh.
“The next thing in your queue is likely a note from Jason telling you that my punishment is up to you,” Joe said with a wink.
“Oh, is it now?” Tanis asked as she leaned back and pulled him on top of her. “I wonder what we should do about that?”
AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION
STELLAR DATE: 10.28.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid, Orbiting Fierra
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
Sera tried to swat away Helen’s voice. “Lemme ‘lone…sleeping.”
Sera snorted and turned over, fighting the voice that was telling her she should wake.
“Kay, kay.” Sera knew from decades of experience that when Helen thought it was time to wake up, there was no fighting it.
Captain Andrew’s warm chuckle filled her mind.
Sera checked and grimaced.
Sera tried to compose her mind, this sort of thing was important, probably not to be missed.