It puzzled Brant that the target had been a tiny geological survey team on a practically worthless planet. It concerned him that one of the people missing from that practically worthless planet had later turned up on a secret research station, from which all data, personnel, and experimental weapons were now missing. It worried him that a secret research station had been breached in the first place, even more so that afterwards it had looked for all the world as if the staff there had simply downed tools and walked away. And as for the missing ships, which had been assigned to guard the planet and its secrets… it was deeply disturbing that they had vanished without any trace. Not even debris had been found.
But Branathes had seemed delighted to hear the findings of Caden’s expedition. Delighted!
Maybe he was simply relishing his temporary role a little too much. With the invigilator for the Kosling system otherwise engaged on Earth, Branathes was acting up in her absence to ensure routine duties were taken care of. Those duties had included attending the emergency meeting at Ramm Stallahad, even if it was just by hologram, and Brant could well imagine the lowly monitor experiencing something of a thrill as he conferred with the gathered invigilators. Especially when it came time to advise them of critical intelligence; Branathes had always enjoyed being seen as the man in the know, that much was certain.
Even so, that did not really explain his reaction. Delight? When Brant had received the communiqué from Throam, which had included images of the dead Viskr commandos, he had felt a chilly sensation that instantly tightened his scalp. Even with his poorly suppressed suspicions about the intrusion at Gemen station, having Viskr involvement confirmed was still a startling experience. It meant that now he had to consider the context for these events, and that context was almost certainly going to be aggressive military action from an old enemy. War seemed likely.
Perhaps Branathes actually wanted to see war. He would not be the first armchair warrior to imagine that large scale conflict was exciting or entertaining.
“We’ll beat them back again, just like we did last time,” he had said after the meeting. “They won’t stand a chance, the sabre-rattling fools.”
Brant did not share his enthusiasm: the last war had cost the Imperial Combine dearly, and that cost was much more of a reality to people in his line of work than it was to people like Gordl Branathes. The monitor would just get the final figures, all neat and clean and bloodless, innocent little numerals over which he could hold his brow and bewail the insanity of war and tell himself he felt very sad. It would be Brant who had to trawl through the list of the dead to tabulate Kosling’s losses; there would be names and biographies and file images.
That was, he reflected, not even his only concern. Branathes had given Brant no tasks. The monitor had come away from the conference carrying the knowledge that the Viskr were probably preparing to launch an all-out assault, and he had not yet required one single action of his operator. Even assuming that Caden would be successful in his mission, and that the Navy would muster their fleets in time to meet any advance forces, Branathes was being sloppy. The Viskr Junta would not be playing games when their fleets arrived, so it would have been good to know there was some kind of preparation going on.
There was not much he could do about it. Branathes was his senior officer, and if he was not going to give his operator any orders then that was the end of it. But what Brant could do was continue to learn. Right now, down in medical, there was a woman who was quite probably a piece of material evidence.
He quickened his pace.
• • •
The admiral is a difficult man to read, thought Santani. Despite the length of their working relationship, she had never quite managed to spot the difference between his expressions of concern and excitement.
His face was a mask of either emotion. Or possibly neither of them; she really could not say. Not even his tone was giving her any clue.
“You won’t be completely alone; I’ll leave Bravo Company in your care. The 951st will barely miss the lazy beggars.”
“Thank you, Admiral. That’s… appreciated.”
“I’d like to say I will miss having Hammer running alongside me,” he said, “but I think we both know it’s a bad idea for you to come to the rendezvous.”
“Sir?”
“Come now Aker, the Commodore-class is seriously dated.”
“Dated she may be, but she’s mine.”
“I know you love the old girl, but your reluctance to take a new command is now keeping you away from the line.”
“The only way I’ll leave this ship behind, Admiral, is if she’s smashed into a million pieces.”
“Spoken like a true captain. Well I can’t say I blame you; she’s a design classic.”
“She is at that.” Santani was vaguely aware that this was one of the longest conversations they had had for a good while, and it was essentially going nowhere. Anything to dance around the great big elephant on the command deck.
Pensh looked at someone out of Santani’s view, and nodded. “The MAGA transports are on their way to you now. Four platoons — don’t say I never give you anything.”
“Thank you.” There was a long pause. “Admiral…”
“If it doesn’t need saying, Aker—”
“—then don’t say it.” She completed the sentence for him. “Good luck.”
“And to you,” he said. “I hope that Shard and his mission are worth something, because I get the sense our time is running out.”
“I know the feeling.”
Again, someone out of view of the holo passed a message to the admiral. He nodded, and told them to prepare the ship for jump.
“It’s time. The armada awaits. Until next we meet, Captain.”
“Until next we meet.”
The channel closed. Beyond the four tiny dots of the MAGA landers, which closed steadily on Hammer, the other ships of the task force manoeuvred slowly towards a newly formed wormhole. First Sai and Dagger jumped away, then Stiletto, disappearing into the event horizon like knives dropped into a dark pool.
Despite the conversational murmur that always permeated the command deck, Santani felt very alone.
• • •
“I’ve not seen anything quite like this before.”
Doctor Vella Laekan stood close to Amarist Naeb, her patient now lying on a bed in a private medbay. The psychiatrist held a holo in one hand, and leaned against the edge of a cabinet with the other. She looked at Brant with an expression that suggested his guess was as good as hers.
He had seen a lot of that particular expression this past day, and his own opinion was that his guess would certainly not be as good as hers.
“What do you make of her?”
“There’s an old term from classical psychology,” she said. “Tabula rasa. That’s her.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Sorry, it’s a very old language. It means ‘blank slate’, and that’s essentially what she is.”
“Go on…”
“Everything that makes her her appears to be gone. Or at the very least, it’s inaccessible. Motivation, behaviours, emotion, in fact her whole personality; they all appear to be — for want of a better word — absent.”
“She looked like she was whispering something earlier on.”
“It’s possible her memories are intact, and her mind is playing through them randomly. Or there might be conscious thoughts going on in there, and that’s how they’re being manifested. I really couldn’t say at the moment. I need to get her under a scanner and take a look at what’s happening in her brain.”
“Help yourself,” Brant said.
“Are we aware of any next-of-kin? I’d like to know if there are any similar conditions in the family history.”
“Not that I know of. I’ll look into it.”
“Thanks, that would be a real help.”
Brant cast his eye over the quiescent patient, noting the fixed expression on her face. H
er eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, and her mouth was now still. Only the slow rise and fall of her chest and the occasional blink indicated that she was still among the living.
“You removed her restraints?”
“I don’t think she really needs them, do you?” Laekan said. “She’s not about to leap out of bed and start dancing.”
“You’re the expert.”
“Serious error in judgement, if you ask me.” The voice came from behind him.
Brant turned to see Tirrano slouching against the wall of the medbay, just inside the isolation hatch. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she gave no clue as to how long she had been behind her colleague.
“I asked you to stay away from her,” said Brant.
“Exactly: you asked. You didn’t order, and you can’t because we’re the same rank.”
“She’s part of my case, Peras. Not yours.”
“Which is why I’ve not interfered,” she said with a thin smile.
“Give me strength.” He muttered it under his breath.
“Funny, isn’t it? I called her the Blank Woman, and the expert says she’s a blank slate. Common factor? Blank. Rasa. Rasa. Oh, I do like the way that sounds. She’s a Rasa.”
“She’s a person,” said Brant. “You could do with getting that into your head.”
“Person or not, I don’t trust the Rasa bitch. Not one little bit.”
Brant sighed, exasperated. Ever since Tirrano had arrived at Kosling, he had begrudgingly accepted that she was in fact quite brilliant at what she did. It was just a shame that she was so awful as a person, and that he was the one who constantly had to tolerate her. “Did you come here for any specific reason?”
“Not really.”
Brant turned away. The apparently airy, care-free persona did not fit Tirrano at all, and he had not taken long to figure out that it was one she adopted when she wanted something. It had also not taken him long to figure out what that something was. He grimaced.
“Doctor Laekan,” he said. “I’ll make myself available if you find anything new.”
Laekan did not peel herself away from her work at the holo, but waved him off without looking. “I’ll let you know.”
Brant headed for the exit, passing straight by Tirrano. As the doors parted and he left the medbay, she followed him into the maze of Fort Kosling’s corridors.
“Why so grumpy?” She said.
Grumpy? That was a term that suggested frivolity was in play, that she was teasing him gently. Not for one moment did he believe she genuinely operated on that level.
“I’m not grumpy, I’m busy. You do know the Empire is possibly on the brink of war, yes?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said. “A heist and a Rasa do not an invasion make.”
“What’s your alternate hypothesis?” He asked, knowing full well he was being drawn into a conversation he need not have.
“I’ll grant you the Viskr connection,” she said. “Three dead commandos is a big hint. As for the hit on Herros, we can infer they want our tech, but we can’t infer what they plan to use it for. As Admiral Betombe once said, ‘capability is not intention’.”
“Capability is not intention,” Brant echoed. “It sounded grand when he said it at Brankfall. In this context it just seems naïve.”
“It could be they’re fighting someone on the rim-ward side of the Perseus arm. Our listening posts can’t see that far. Perhaps they’re already at war, and they’re desperate.”
“I don’t think so. The latest intel shows the bulk of their armada deployed along the core-ward border. Our border.”
“It’s only ‘the bulk’ if you consider the fleet numbers we know about,” she said. “We have no idea how busy the Viskr shipyards have been in the past two decades.”
“True.”
“In fact, that would be just like them. Get their asses handed to them at Laeara and Chion, then slink off to devote an entire generation to ship-building.”
“Hmm, less believable.”
“They are governed by a military junta.”
“But they’d be insane to devote decades of resources to a retaliatory strike.”
“Who’s to say the Junta leadership isn’t insane?”
“Touché. But what about the Rasa?” He mentally kicked himself for using the term Tirrano had coined in medical. As apt as it was, it sounded so derogatory.
“Whatever role she played, clearly she got herself dumped. Maybe her usefulness ended.”
“That we can both agree on,” he said, “as it’s pretty clear the operation was far too clinical for a mistake as big as leaving someone behind.”
“But you’re otherwise still not convinced?”
“No. Not with other ships and gates going silent.”
“Very small numbers though,” Tirrano said. “Could be just coincidence.”
“You don’t seriously believe that?”
“I think I’m going to wait for a proper reason to discard the possibility.”
They had reached the doors to Brant’s office, and he stopped dead. He turned as if to see her off. “Well, this is me. Lots to do.”
She inclined her head slightly. “Need any help?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
Brant smiled weakly as Tirrano turned on her heel and tossed her hair. Before she was even out of sight down the corridor, he had entered his office and secured the doors behind him, isolating the compartment from the rest of the station.
“Fuck that!” He said.
• • •
Rendir Throam was boiling up inside, for two reasons. The first was that he had taken a very large dose of his pre-workout mix, and not left quite enough time since his last intake of protein powder. The combination was remarkably productive, and he kept having to belch away the excess gas. The hot prickly face and feeling of floating slightly above his own body he could deal with. But the gas was making decisions for him about what he was going to do with his diaphragm and his lungs and his shoulders, and as a natural consequence of this subterfuge it was playing hell with his form.
The second reason, the one voted most likely to give him a peptic ulcer, was the gaggle of idiots who seemed intent on ruining his gym session.
He could not really say or do anything direct, for the idiots were Hammer crew. If he smashed one of them to the deck for getting in his way he would not only end up clapped in irons for the rest of the mission, but Caden would probably be lecturing him for the duration. He could rage quietly to himself though, and nobody would be any the wiser.
There were three of them, clustered around the squat rack while they chatted, with one standing within it as if about to spring into action at any moment. That one was flicking through screens on a wearable holo while he talked to his buddies. He sprang nowhere.
Funny how the squat rack seemed to be the equivalent of a water cooler on virtually every planet, station, and ship where Throam had visited a gym. He could explain away the behaviour of these guys as a means of combining light exercise with a bit of social interaction. They were, after all, stuck on a starship which provided a reasonably Earth-like gravitational pull, but few chances to meet new people. Maintaining both fitness and friendships was very important if your duty rotation was measured in months rather than in days. He knew this full well, having spent a year on the Embolden when he was still attached to the Fearsome 310th.
Okay, so he had himself not spent that much time socialising in those days, because he had had Euryce Eilentes’ bunk to dive into at the end of each of her shifts. However, he had spent enough time in the well-equipped ‘workout hall’ on that fine, majestic carrier to see that it was — for other people at least — a social hub of sorts. Had he not had his own specific goals for his body at the time, he would nonetheless have still been in there every day, maintaining his strength and speed and cardiovascular performance along with everyone else. Like them he had
a responsibility to be fit for his duties, but at least he also had the benefit of enjoying it. He could understand why others did not; why they saw exercise as a tedious necessity, and why they combined it with their friendly diversions whenever they could. He just did not agree with them.
On any other day it would not have bothered him so much; he would have just concluded that these particular idiots were unmotivated. But today was leg day, and he needed the squat rack. He knew exactly what would happen when he started to try and split his sets between the squat rack and the leg curl: whether it was malicious or subconscious, whichever piece of equipment he was using, at least one of those guys would drift over to monopolise the other, until eventually he would either be asking them to move every time he switched exercises, or he would go insane and kill them all or himself or everyone else or combinations thereof.
He could do it. He was boiling up inside. He was boiling up inside, and he had training. He could definitely do for them all.
Fantasising about violence was one of Throam’s most useful coping mechanisms. He rarely, if ever, enjoyed actually being violent, except for those occasions on which he was able to utterly destroy something inanimate. Destruction was fun. It was only in his mind’s eye though that he allowed himself to get carried away with the living.
He would be the first to admit that pharmaceuticals were a large part of it. The medi-training cycle he favoured was excellent for building and maintaining muscle, but the excess testosterone could be a real bitch. The start of every cycle also included a run of methandrostenolone, which not only caused a rise in blood pressure — contributing no doubt to the sense of boiling inside — but also tended to short-circuit his emotions. He found himself angry at nothing, angrier still at things that should not have made him angry, and angriest of all at things that would usually make him slightly annoyed. When anything happened which on a normal day would make him fly into a rage, he would have to go and lock himself in the head for a while. It was safer for everyone that way.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 14