by Michael Orr
“Nash?” The exec was a tall man with early gray in his hair and a solid air of authority. They shook hands and BenKotch immediately brought up the Hwarak’mogk.
“We’ll be looking t’you for insights on the Alliance,” he said later, after a lengthy discussion. “You’re about the only officer in the fleet who’s actually been ta Central. s’Why we asked for you.”
“Well, I’m ready to add all I can.”
BenKotch hesitated and Jerrett felt the hint of jitters again.
“Sump’m goin’ on, Commander?”
“Mmmm...we were under the impression you had contacts at Central, Nash. Open lines of communication.”
Now the jitters were back in full force. “I was able to establish initial channels, Commander. As much as can be expected for a three-day visit. But I can prob’ly grow those into useful contacts if need be.”
BenKotch was studying him closely. A slow smile crept across his face and he gestured for Jerrett to take a seat while he did the same. “Leyne said you were the real deal.”
Nash’s smile broke rank. “Rev’s behind this?”
“He told me I wouldn’t find better. That’s the promise I made ta Cap’n Yusuf.”
Jerrett sat back, digesting the revelation. “I appreciate your gamble, sir. Thanks for takin’ me on.”
BenKotch shrugged easily. “Thank Leyne. Anyway, you’ve got the gift from what I can see. We’ve got a certain culture here. Not everyone fits the mold.”
BOOK II
* * *
18
* * *
ESS ASHERAH – SAIPH SECTOR – APR 30, 2371
Asherah’s second cruise had a very different flavor. First cruises were always the privilege of the elite, and their collective sensibilities turned Asherah into one big black-tie event. But for her second cruise, Asherah was open to whoever had the digics, noble or not, and the party was much more along the lines of a spring break.
Now the gargantuan ship was closing in on the Saiph system, and Trish was out with Caylee exploring the New Rio district. They strolled along the main boulevard with its glitzy ‘beachfront’ hi-rises and carnival atmosphere, neither one paying enough attention to notice they’d gained a shadow.
He maintained a respectful distance but never took his eyes off them. If there was anything clandestine about his movements, no idle bystander would’ve picked up on it. He hung back when the two girls were hailed by a crier at the bazaar.
“You ladies ever seen one’a these?”
It took Caylee several steps before realizing Trish had stopped to see what the crier had.
“Seriously?”
“What?” Trish pipped. “Just looking.” She turned back to the crier. “How’s it different?”
He held up what looked like any other connec-lens. “Pop this in and your world turns into a game.”
He pointed to his holo display and Trish humored him while Caylee put herself on hold.
“The lens adjusts to whatever your life does, turnin’ the whole thing into a game level.”
He touched a pad and the holo converted itself into a tactical display.
“Ohh...” Trish wrinkled her nose, but he went on:
“Everything ya do is part’a the level you’re on. Ya just keep leveling up as ya go, and there’re perks whenever ya reach a milestone. Exclusive communities you can join; accessories you can only get from us when ya hit that mark. Things that make your life a lot more int’resting.”
“Nope. Not for me, thanks.” She waved herself off.
“Don’t ya wanna hear whatcha get at five hundred?” he said, but only to the girls’ backs.
“Can you imagine?” Trish shook her head as she and Caylee ambled on amidst the trill of steel drums.
Caylee sneered. “There’s a few guys at the center doin’ it. Dinkuses.”
“z’If life needs ta be any more complicated,” Trish agreed.
Behind them, their shadow stepped up to the crier. “I’ll bite,” he said, making sure his quarry didn’t take notice.
SOMEWHERE – ALLIANCE SPACE – APR 30, 2371
It was a long trip, with Loni’s ship frequently dropping out of slipstream to let people off and pick up others. Each person was assigned a sleeping pod and could visit the common area at any time, but there were no windows and no way to get one’s bearings. Not that it really mattered to Loni, but it would’ve been nice to see outside. This was space, after all.
Two weeks of traveling like sardines left everyone in a blank state. Nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to plan for or expect. They had no idea where they were going or what they’d meet on the other end, and Loni withdrew even deeper into herself as the days passed. By the time they were finally allowed to disembark she was near catatonic, spending hours staring at the inside of her pod.
But the day eventually came and she lined up with her fellow passengers, sharing a mix of trepidation and hope. The jaded girl that had boarded the ship with nothing else to do was gone, replaced by a deeply subdued and inward soul. Her gaunt eyes gazed out at a foreign world and wondered if it had a place for her. She felt a thousand years removed from her old life.
The hatchway opened with a hiss and she cleared her ears, adapting to the odd sounds and smells of whatever awaited outside. The line moved forward and she emerged into a massive cavern sheltering enormous ships like beasts out of a horror story. They had to be almost two kilometers long...sinister predators like nothing Earth would ever make.
Sheltering these like a cocoon, the cavern itself was a well-lit hive, with small vehicles whizzing around the larger ships, apparently getting them ready. Along the edges were docks swarming with figures, some human, some alien, all working at various tasks in and around the vessels. The scene was huge and heavy and exhilarating, and to Loni’s numb eyes it was a place of promise like nowhere else. If there wasn’t something for her here, she’d be out of luck anywhere.
She waited breathlessly, watching a trio of white-robed men at the head of the line study her bioscan. The only thing to do now was pray nothing had gone awry during transit.
“Loni Daneca.” The leader verified his screen. She nodded even though he didn’t look up. “You’re on Nine,” he said.
“Nine?”
He looked up, cold eyes taking in her short, punkish black hair and nondescript features. “Just count your way down the berths.” He pointed at the lineup of huge ships. “You’ll be cleaning crew.”
“I’m on a ship?” she gasped, never imagining she’d be involved in the actual operation. “That’s–”
“There’s no need for anyone here,” he explained, taking time she’d never imagined those cold eyes would volunteer. “This’z just a launch site. Soon as the fleet leaves, this gets shut down.”
“Th-thank you.” She could’ve hugged him.
“Fidelis.” He made the slightest possible head bow, then looked past her to the next person in line.
Still befuddled, she stepped out of the way and took in the seen before her. Most of the berths were empty, and from here it looked like she had kilometers to hike. There were hints of a mover opposite her in the cavern, and after a fifteen minute hike she found a sizable wait in front of her, but it beat hoofing it down an hour and a half’s worth of dockyard — especially after barely using her legs for the better part of a month. Even just standing here waiting her turn was sapping her.
Then she realized she might be experiencing the first stages of EID. Women were more susceptible to it than men.
What if I’m all the way out here just in time ta hafta go back? They’d never let me return this soon. This could be bad.
Suddenly, it struck her that she was caring about herself. Legitimately concerned. At exactly what point had the living-dead-girl who’d wanted only to be ended come back to life? And how’d she find herself here at the heart of the crusade when she didn’t care a fig for the cause?
Whose life IS this?
“Loni Daneca.” The guard staffing Nine’
s gangway read her bio. “You’re the first cleaner t’show up. ’Gratulations on your seniority.”
“Um...okay,” she twittered. According to the guard, Nine didn’t even have a captain yet, let alone staff or supplies. Loni was the first actual crew member aboard. The others here, most of whom were aliens, were just techs getting Nine up and running.
“You’ll need t’get a feel for the lay’a the land. Study this chart.” He handed her a holo-key with a step-by-step map of where she was on the ship. “When other cleaners arrive, you’ll be the one showin’ ’em around.”
“Um...y-yessir.” She wondered how she’d manage being the leader of a group doing work she knew little about.
“There’s a depot over there...” The guard pointed to a distant mountain of boxes stacked against the cavern wall at the foot of Nine’s dock. “I’m told there’s bedding ’n cleaning supplies in there somewhere. You’ll hafta fish ’em out. Prob’ly best ta wait ’til more cleaners show up so you can go through it as a group.”
Loni nodded and he twirled the holomap to show her where the cleaning crew would be quartered. Then she was on her own aboard the dreadnought, wandering through its dim alien corridors with nothing but her wits and a holomap to guide her.
“Well, whatever’s gonna happen now, here I am.”
ESS ASHERAH – ALLIANCE SPACE – APR 30, 2371
Trish was keeping the lights vivid and the beat fast, and the crowd was on fire. Drops of perspiration flung from her gyrating body into the closest partiers. There were some who even staked out positions for that very reason. It was a thing now.
Tonight was heavy. Standing room only. Upturned faces etched themselves like portraits into Trish’s mind and she reflected on what she saw in them: lust, passion, wonder, scandal, amusement, absurdity... There was no controlling a guest’s reaction. That was the nature of performance.
She had also come to realize that she never danced for a crowd. There was no collective mindset with everyone thinking the same thing. Everyone here was having their own private experience, and she was dancing for each guest personally — an intimate affair between her and the individual. That changed the tone of her exhibitionism; made it much less intimidating. It also fascinated her guests, who gawked at the fury with which she tuned her miraculous form to the music, all with eye contact.
Such outrageous intimacy amidst pure abandon captivated one guest in particular, who kept to the outer fringes of the club at its encircling robo-bar. To his eyes and everyone else’s, the Zodiac was a marvel of entertainment-tech: one lone, spectacularly naked girl dancing wildly at its center surrounded by hovering dance floors that orbited her floating stage like planetary rings. Sometimes dramatic, sometimes lighthearted and fun or even cutesy, Trish’s performances drenched partiers in a kind of hypnosis that seeped into their pores like a drug.
With typical poetic license, Goddess’s marketers billed the Zodiac Lounge as ‘the galaxy’s most extravagant show’ and ‘a first in cruising history’, making it a must-see for every passenger, young or old. And their spin was working.
Most nights, the line to get in stretched all the way down the 233-meter tall tower into the open air of the plaza below. From ten o’clock into the early hours, throngs of revelers would elbow their way through long queues to lose themselves in the pulsing music and manic lightshow presented by Asherah’s most expressive hostess. But tonight it was neither hedonism nor curiosity that held the interest of Trish’s most ardent admirer.
Still tracking his quarry, the ‘shadow’ scanned Zodiac Lounge’s swarming crowd through the tactical view of his new demo lens. The app’s ‘wireframe’ mode turned everyone around him into hologram ghosts, which was fine if you wanted to treat the people around you like targets.
He opted to minimize the wireframes and let the GUI display his beginner stats. Just about all of them were at zero, but everything he looked at took on a strategic value. Girls earned the most points, but even liquor had a value scale. Cognacs rang in at the high end.
He refocused beyond the display and lost himself in Trisha Thierry’s hypnotic stage gyrations...surfed on her enchanting rhythms until an image bloomed in his mind.
She hovered before him in pale glory, trapped in a blackness that defied explanation. And superimposed on her terrified image was a disturbing mixture of man and alien, its elongated limbs holding freakish instruments as Trish blurred between timelines.
Now, a bonbon of blonde hair turned her into somebody new. Somebody frantic. Her screams filled a private, endless universe and he found himself standing apart from a girl who wept into the mouth of eternity. Her ice-white snowball of hair shocked him back to the present moment.
He shook it off, switching the lens to ‘dormant’ and focusing on the reality around him. A nearby figure at the bar was tugging at his attention, drawing him in. The figure carried the same energetic signature as the man-thing in his vision.
Shapeshifter!
Teague couldn’t help shooting furtive glances in that direction, hoping he wouldn’t get its attention. Leaned into the bar to fight off his disorientation and order another drink...something to whet his senses.
He downed it and looked over, noticing the figure had moved on. Trish was going on break, her stage disappearing through the club floor, and the hairs on Teague’s neck stood on end.
His visions were never wrong. Prometheus had verified enough of them to rate him as a latent seer. Not quite a reader, but awake enough to glimpse certain timelines going on around him. He couldn’t just let this happen; but if he warned her, what could she do? Would she even believe him? Maybe he could head this thing off at the pass somehow.
One thing in her favor, he told himself. Nothin’ll happen ’til her show’s over. Whoever’s after her’ll want a head start before Security gets on their ass.
19
* * *
ESS ASHERAH – ALLIANCE SPACE – APR 30, 2371
Trish downed a bottle of fortified water in her ready room, rummaging through her latest messages — harmless love notes, most of them. But there was an invitation standing out from the rest like an alarm.
“Uh-uhhh,” she scolded. “You know the rules, Mister or Miss Whoever-you-are.”
She opened it and faced a startlingly gorgeous man along with the title: SIR ARIK BERGERON.
“Holy Fuckeddy!” she breathed. “Aren’t you prettyyy!! And a knight!!!”
She couldn’t resist playing his contraband message:
Hello, MORNING GLORY
My main reason for taking this cruise was to visit your club, and it’s turned out t’be my finest decision yet. Keep the winning streak going??? I'll wait up.
She tapped her lip. Well, this’z a problem.
Private performances were absolutely verboten by the cruise line. It most likely would get her fired.
“But LOOK at ’im!” she drooled. A dream had just stepped into reality and asked for her by name.
Far forward of the Zodiac in Asherah’s control center, Saia was struggling to stay awake. Her long-awaited promotion had finally come, but at a cost. She was dog tired working her new third-shift station. After all the effort to move up in Ops, this was the payoff. She hadn’t slept decently in days, and there was no telling what was going on in her social circle.
She would've hit up the infirmary for stims, but it would flag her resistance to new schedules. ‘Sorry, Miss Nobody. We gave that spot t’someone with a more fluid circadian rhythm.’
*Gling*
“Actual,” she monotoned.
Trish materialized in the holospace. “Whaddya mean, ‘Actual’?”
“Hey you!” Saia brightened. “I didn’t even look t’see who it was.”
Trish bolted from the gate with: “Hey, I need an address.” She sent over her knight’s profile and Saia’s weariness bled into a mood.
“Sooo, no ‘how ya doin’?’ No ‘how’s the new job?’”
“Sorry. I’m really rushed. I’ll pop by tom
orrow.” Trish smiled hopefully. “Promise.”
“Just look it up yourself.”
“Yeah, and light up Security’s tree like a firefly.”
“Ah.” Saia skulked her way into the elite passenger database. “So, now I’m an accomplice in your illicit tryst?”
“Luv U!” Trish blew her a kiss.
“Heartless little tease.”
“T’morrow. I promise. Gotta go.” Trish disappeared.
Saia flicked off the holo and leaned back to rest her bleary eyes. “And twist it too, why dontcha?”
With mission accomplished, Trish returned to the club in rare spirits. It was time to head out into the crowd and mingle.
She rode her stage up to the party and was descending the steps into the crowd when a guy by the club entry caught her attention. There was a youthful rakishness about him that she wasn’t used to. Medium gold hair waved around his crown like cold flames, and every item of his mod fashion was exceptionally well-fitted.
He was studying Trish’s dazzling descent with rapt attention, and she stopped cold. For just that moment she sensed a whirlwind around him, like he was at the center of a hundred different things.
Who in the...?
Her heart raced. Couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Two breathtaking men in one night!
Her mind ran away with notions of what it would be like to go with him. She envisioned jaunts through mysterious corners of space...dinners with the nobility...expensive vehicles...maybe even danger and heroics. It all emanated from his aura like an exotic cologne. Who the hell was this guy...one ‘Teague Alaan’ according to her lens?
He broke eye contact at the intensity of her stare and Trish slammed down face-first into reality. The last she saw of him were the fine lines of his back and shoulders melting into the crowd.
Now hold on a minute...
The fires of her will reignited.