by Erik Wecks
Four days after leaving, Jo still found herself startled by the reality of it all. It had all happened so ridiculously quickly.
In the silence of her meal, Jo absentmindedly reached across her body and rubbed the lump on her arm, where she could feel the transmitter under her skin. All she needed to do was to command it, and her transmitter would use its entangled particle link to broadcast her whereabouts back to the fleet. Part of her feared that she would soon regret her decision and be going home, a part of her that grew more vocal in moments like this one when she was trying to make sense of her hosts.
Besides the four Timcree in the raiding party, there were two more on board the transport, where they now sat. After a few days aboard, Jo had come to feel “transport” was perhaps a generous word. Truly, the ship was more derelict than anything else. Yet when she wasn’t terrified by its constant vibrations and unexpected sounds, she was fascinated by the Timcree’s ability to keep it flying. In some places, the general color seemed to be more rust than anything else. She was finally getting used to the hum and flicker of the ancient lights.
When Jack had seen the condition of the freighter the Timcree used to dock with the Gallant, he almost rescinded his permission for Josephine to go with them.
Most worrying was that almost all of the radiation shielding seemed to have been removed, which would have been problematic enough in a normal star system. Here in the Anvil, where every other day brought some kind of stellar weather, it seemed downright foolish. Jack had offered to replace the shielding for the Timcree, a rather extravagant offer, and one Jo doubted that he would have made if she hadn’t been intending to go with them.
Kolas had refused, saying his ship was in perfect condition, a fact which would be contradicted shortly after their departure from the Gallant when the life support had gone out, forcing them to use portable breathing systems for about eight hours before the mechanic—a Timcree whom Jo thought was named Thradling—had sorted out the problem.
The Timcree’s refusal to accept any gift—big or small—from a Gravlander puzzled Jo. Even if the shielding had never been installed, it could have been worth a fortune on the black market. Like so much else about her new companions, Jo found herself baffled.
Still, only four days after leaving the Ghost Fleet, Jo felt a deep attraction to the rusted freighter. She hoped that someday it would feel like home. So far the Timcree hadn’t given her anything productive to do, leaving her to wander the ship by herself or read in the lounge, which also served as a galley, but after the crowding and expectations on the Ghost Fleet, she savored the downtime. At meals and elsewhere, she was still treated like an honored guest, but she knew that would change.
Patience, Jo thought. It will take time.
In general, the Timcree were a quiet lot. Only the commander spoke English well. His lieutenant, a male named Ardo Tanith, spoke haltingly, although he clearly understood more than he said. However, his halting speech made conversation difficult. Jo still felt nervous around him, as he was the one who had put the gun to her head. The other four spoke only Kree.
The seven of them sat together in the small mess hall of the Timcree transport. Silence seemed to be the rule at table. The only speech was some kind of short chant said before the meal. It was the same each time, so Jo took it to be a prayer. Wanting to be respectful, she had started bowing her head along with the Timcree as they chanted.
Jo was just about to put another spoonful of the bland paste in her mouth when the commander spoke unexpectedly, disturbing the calm. “You are not from a military family, are you?”
Jo wondered how he had reached his assessment. “No. I am not. While I have been with the Ghost Fleet since its escape from Pontus, I only joined the military two years ago.”
The apparently sanguine commander did not nod or give any other sign of his thoughts. “If you were not part of the military, why were you in their fleet?”
“My family and I were refugees. My surrogate father—the man you met—works for Prince Jonas.”
“What is this word ‘surgate?’”
“Surrogate—it means substitute. The man who raised me was not my biological father. My biological father was killed by the Unity Corporation when I was very young. My brother and I escaped along with the man who raised me.”
“The man I met, he was not military, either.” It was a statement, not a question, but Jo thought she heard a note of surprise in it.
Jo took a moment to think through what she wanted to say next. “You are correct. He wasn’t military until a couple of years ago. He received a field commission from the fleet prince.”
“A commission as a rear admiral?”
Jo shrugged. “The Ghost Fleet works under extraordinary circumstances, and Jack Halloway has a way of making himself useful to those in power.”
Commander Kolas absorbed this new information while chewing quietly. “It is good fortune that we found you. The universe smiles upon us.” Here he paused for a second, and Jo thought he was contemplating something. With a single, firm nod of his head, he said in a strong tone, “It was meant to be.”
It was Jo’s turn to let the silence linger. “Let us hope that it brings good fortune to all.”
Kolas nodded slowly. “Let us hope.”
After a moment, he changed the subject. “You have a brother?”
“I do.”
“Is he also on the fleet?”
“No, he is not.”
“Where is he?”
The last four days had been some of the loneliest she had ever known. Her longing for even simple communication and her ever-present desire to please had made her unwary, but the commander’s question jolted her back to reality. It struck Jo that there might be more behind it than simple friendly conversation. The Timcree lived throughout the galaxy. Their populations were said to be just as large or larger in the Unity homeland as they were elsewhere. They were known smugglers. There were rumors that they were even slavers, but Jo had been inclined to disbelieve them.
Jo realized that she might be in danger. What’s he digging at? A sailor from the Ghost Fleet, an escapee from the Unity, and a survivor of Aetna—Jo knew that she could fetch a pretty price if the right people in the Unity found her.
Shut up, Jo! She paused. She had no doubt her face had betrayed her fears. She looked up at the commander. “I would rather not say.”
Even as the words left her mouth, Jo realized their inadequacy. Refusing to tell communicated almost as much about her importance as did a direct answer. Jo looked down at her tray.
The Timcree’s eyes narrowed a little, scrutinizing her deeply. It was the first understandable expression she had seen on his face since arriving.
Then Jo thought she detected a thin smile. “Information is a commodity. You have much to learn, but you are quick-witted and perhaps teachable.” The commander looked down at his plate and continued his meal. “The device in your arm, it is to spy on us, no?”
Jo blushed. She had no idea how the Timcree knew about the recording device. However, she felt that denying its existence might only antagonize her host. “That’s one way to look at it, I guess. One might also say that it is designed to spy on me.”
The Timcree commander only looked at her, saying nothing.
“I mean, I think that it is designed to spy on both of us, and I am not comfortable with it, either, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize our partnership. Let me take care of it.”
The Timcree commander didn’t move his gaze. “That would be good, Internist Josephine Lutnear. I value the information that I possess, and I would like to choose when I give it away and to what person.”
A couple of days after their conversation, Jo sat on the old spring-framed bunk in her quarters. On her lap she held the medical tablet from the mobile lab in her gear. Her heads-up sat dropped down over one eye. Using its screen, she watched a small, injected attack bot swim through the tissues of her own arm.
“There you are
,” she mumbled quietly.
Compared to the microbe-sized bot, the recording device seemed immense, as tall as a skyscraper. The tiny bot had been forcing its way through the surrounding tissues for nearly an hour, looking for a particular node that Jo knew would be the small broadcast unit. It wasn’t where she’d expected to find it. It was also smaller than she expected. It gave her pause.
I wonder…
She waited for a moment, fearful that she might be stumbling into a trap, then decided that there would be no way to know unless she went forward. Her heart suddenly beat faster.
Before moving forward, she spoke aloud to the room. “I just want to say for the record that my intention is not to be disloyal to any of the oaths I have taken. My host is uncomfortable with the recording of all his interactions with me, as am I. The recording of one’s sight and hearing without consent breaks the military code of conduct, among many other Athenian civilian laws, but that is neither here nor there, as I would be willing to consent to some part of that activity. However, after my conversation with Commander Kolas, I deem this device as a threat to the successful completion of my mission, and so I am going to attempt to disable it. If I should ever return to the Ghost Fleet… I mean to say, when I return to the Ghost Fleet, I only hope for your understanding and leniency.”
With that, Jo sent the drone forward and watched as it moved a threadlike probe under the joint between the broadcast unit and the main housing of the device. For an instant, there was the tiniest of blue sparks. The camera on the attack bot started to vibrate, and Jo’s screen went dead.
“Motherfucker,” Jo said under her breath.
It took another three hours and six more attempts, but Jo finally found a way into the code of the recording device. From there, the job got much easier. The arrogance of the programmers at Fleet Intel amazed Jo. There wasn’t even an attempt to hide the functional code of the device. Jo had it shut down in a matter of a few minutes. With a device like that operating under her skin, it made her head spin to think how easy it would have been to hijack her sight or hearing.
Cleaning her teeth at the small recycling sink, Jo wondered anew at how easily the Athenians accepted government interference with their lives. Even though she escaped the Unity when she was four, Jo had seen enough. Governments, and authority in general, weren’t to be trusted. Give them too much control and bad things happened. Any Unity citizen even half aware knew this to be true, and here the Athenians willingly gave away the freedoms the Unity citizens would have killed to possess. Jo sighed.
It’s no wonder we lost the war, thought Jo. The Athenians had no idea what they possessed. If they did, they would have fought like hell to keep it. Instead, they went down with only a whimper.
Jo finished her routine, climbed in bed, and fell asleep thinking about her brother.
Sometime later, Jo woke clenching her jaw and grinding her teeth. The sounds of her panicked screaming lay as a ragged fringe at the edge of her consciousness. Now awake, only silence remained in the dark.
Even though conscious, her terror did not immediately recede. She was four years old again, lying on a mattress, similarly thin and uncomfortable, held up on a frame of metal springs.
In the dark on the Timcree freighter, Jo dwelled in a living nightmare as her mind raced through that catastrophic day on which she lost four members of her family, including her parents.
In lucid moments, she could no longer remember what her father looked like, but in this moment, he was a god—a man who cared too much, who gave his life because he could not abide watching as a fellow prisoner was beaten in the Unity Corporation re-education camp.
For a second, she watched again in horror as the over-muscled man, whose rage and hatred she could see with crystal clarity, turned and aimed his fletch pistol at her father and fired, sending him sprawling on the ground in front of his wife and three of his children.
As if in slow motion, four-year-old Jo turned to seek comfort in her mother. Knowing what would happen next, she wanted to yell, to run, to stop it, but she was too late. She was always too late.
In her memory, Jo buried her face in the seam of her mother’s dirty pants. She wished she could live in that small but inadequate safety for all eternity. Only a second or two later, strong arms would rip her away without a kiss, without a goodbye. She would not see her mother again until just before she died a few days later.
On the freighter, Jo felt her shoulders heave. She blinked as her eyes turned hot. Anguish distorted her face with a scream that carried no sound, and Jo came face to face with all the rage, the fear, and most of all, the black hole of abandonment and insecurity at the center of her being. For a moment she was held there, smothered in her loss. Then reality rushed in like atmosphere trying to fill a vacuum, and Jo once again knew where she was and what had happened.
She hadn’t had a flashback that vivid in years—not even during the stress of medical school. Jo thought it might be the thin blanket she now had wrapped around her knees and the spring frame on her bed. In the dark, her cabin on the freighter certainly felt like the prison cell where she had been dumped alone for three days, where she’d replay over and over the horror of her loss.
Jo tried to breathe slowly. After sixteen years, she doubted her pain would ever heal.
Still over-fueled by adrenaline, Jo jumped when someone pounded on the door of her cabin. Ardo Tanith didn’t wait for her answer before he entered. Leaving the rounded bulkhead door open, he stepped quickly into the room, looking around. Seeing nothing, he stopped.
Jo quickly wiped her eyes, pushed down her sobs, which stuck in her throat like a vice, and wrapped her blanket more tightly around her. She tried to smile. “I’m sorry. I had a nightmare.”
If Tanith understood her, he gave no sign. He simply stepped back to the door and gestured for her to follow him. “Come,” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out of her quarters and waited for her to throw on her Navy uniform.
Slowly, Jo stepped out of bed and pulled on her nurse’s jumpsuit, worried thoughts dancing through her mind. Did I scream so loudly that the whole crew heard me? Is Kolas going to ask me questions? Since the conversation at the table two cycles ago, Jo’s discomfort had grown. When the Timcree held her hostage on the hospital ship, she had felt a sense of adventure and wide-open spaces in going with them. Now, only a standard week later, she was already feeling again that sense of anxious insecurity and impending doom that had haunted her in the Ghost Fleet, and in the rest of her life.
It occurred to her that her screams were not the likely cause of Tanith’s sudden appearance at her door—he had arrived too quickly—and she wondered what could have gone wrong for him to wake her from sleep.
She stepped out of her quarters into the dim and messy corridor. Stacks of abandoned crates stood here and there, carrying who knew what treasure saved by the Timcree for its future usefulness. Tanith stood beside her door, waiting. He neither looked at her nor said anything. Instead, he turned and walked at an unusually brisk pace toward the bridge, which lay high above at the back of the ship. In several places, Josephine had to duck between hanging wires as they went. At one point, half the grating had been cut away to get at a component underneath the deck and had never been replaced. Jo stepped around the exposed ductwork and data terminals and continued aft behind her companion.
Arriving on the command deck, Tanith stepped forward and quickly took his seat at the helm. Razod Kolas sat in the captain’s chair, one hand upon the torn synthetic leather of its arm. He waved Jo forward to stand beside him, and for just a second, Jo thought that once again she saw the barest threads of a grin cross his face.
As she stepped forward, the mechanic climbed onto the command deck behind her, along with the others on the crew. Looking out the front windows, Jo noticed that they were now running perpendicular to the gravity well with the local star to starboard.
The commander didn’t look at her when he spoke. “We are up orbit fro
m our community. It is time that we turn and face them for docking. It is a tradition that we gather for the viewing.”
Feeling more of an outsider than ever, Jo didn’t say anything, but instead turned her gaze forward.
The commander gave an order to his second. “Klipst Kree.”
“Pa, Klipst Kree,” came Tanith’s reply.
Slowly the ship started her rotation, pointing her nose up the gravity well, facing the deep dark, and beyond it, the limb and bulge of the Milky Way. Then, as if suddenly pulled toward the local star, the bow seemed to nose over, past the outer reaches of the universe, and fell quickly toward Josephine Lutnear’s new home.
From behind, a structure slowly drifted into view. Still several kilometers away, Jo could make out little of it except for the sun glinting off its mottled exterior. As it caught them up, Jo realized just how large a structure it must be, and she gasped. The details came into view, and the ship’s crew began to talk among themselves in animated tones, and then Jo finally understood what was before her: ships. Hundreds of them all tied together, airlock to airlock, all of them in various states of disrepair, some of them open to vacuum. So many of them piled together that it was almost impossible to tell where one began and another ended. Some of them massive ore haulers, others nothing more than personal transports capable of holding, at most, two passengers. Josephine’s mouth gaped open in awe.
Soon Tanith had the Timcree transport expertly circling around the mass. He seemed to delight in seeing how close he could come to the hulls of the behemoth without hitting them. A couple of times he even seemed to scare some of the other Timcree on the command deck, causing them to shout at him. In contrast, Commander Kolas remained as unperturbed as ever.
Eventually Tanith found the location he sought—an airlock on an ancient luxury liner. As Tanith brought the ship into the dock, Jo gaped at the huge derelict above her. She had no idea how a ship designed for low-orbit pleasure cruises two hundred years prior had found itself in deep space, hurtling around a star behind an abandoned gate. The ship bumped gently to a stop.