She stared at him. His vacsuit had cleaned itself; there was no trace of the slaughter moments before on him but the floor told the tale.
He turned and dropped a thin, round disc in front of the door and an energy barrier appeared. When he turned back to her there was deep concern in his eyes, he gently took her chin in his hand. "Ashley, they were about to do terrible things to you, I had no choice."
"I-" she tried to work up some saliva, her mouth was so dry. "I know. You're the one whose been killing the spies," she whispered.
"The West Watchers, yes. I wish I could have told you, or anyone, but it would have put you and everyone else on this ship at risk. I was assigned to the Triton after she was bought by Regent Galactic. I got onto the custodial crew and made sure that I was given a permanent place on Wheeler’s second crew." He took a bottle of water from a dispenser beside the bed and gave it to her. “Here, drink slowly.”
She willed herself to sip the water slowly instead of greedily drawing it through the straw. Its cool relief eased her dry throat. The silence it imposed gave her more time to look around. The dim lighting in the room was enough for her to realize that she was in the ship infirmary, and even through the shield at the door she could tell it was too quiet outside. Something was very wrong. Ashley ignored her rising fear as best as she could and, instead of asking about the ship or what was going on, she decided to do what she supposed Stephanie would do; investigate the nearest possible threat. "You're from Earth? Are you the real captain or something?"
"I'm a silent observer, or I was supposed to be, but the West Watchers were too big of a problem. They would have given away your position, eventually gotten access to people like Frost, people with control codes, so anyone with a tie to them had to be taken care of."
Several shots impacted the shield.
"Listen, I'll tell you everything if you can promise to keep my secret."
Ashley didn't know how she felt about the grisly display, or Larry’s true identity. He was dangerous, and if there was any truth to all the spy movies she'd seen, agents would do anything to keep their secrets. It was her turn to put on a false front.
She shrugged and smiled at him. "I'm just happy to have my bikini bod back. Last I remember I went over the pilot's console like a wet noodle. A wet noodle that went crunch."
"Get dressed, that shield won't keep them out forever," he told Ashley as he handed her a black vacsuit that matched his own. He turned around and pulled the ammunition from both the rifles as she got dressed behind him. "They were able to evacuate medical for the most part, but they couldn't move you. They told me it would take at least twenty hours for the recovery meds to do their work while you rested in a coma. The longer you had to recover, the better."
"So someone's boarded the ship?"
"More like everyone's boarded the ship. The only place that isn't like a war zone is the Botanical Gallery. Medical was sealed too, but I opened a couple doors so I could take care of a few of these corporate soldiers. As soon as I found out they were from a division of Regent Galactic, the gloves came off."
"What do we do?" Ashley closed the front of her vacsuit and turned towards him.
"Well, I'm going to get you to a secure compartment where I've routed a few communication taps so you can take control of the ship." He clamped a more military style command and control unit than she was used to onto her arm and brought up the stealth controls. "All right, you want all the systems on and you can use Crewcast to link to me so we can communicate on a low powered, low range scrambled channel. You'll also be able to see me as though I'm not cloaked."
"We're not going out that way, are we?" Ashley asked as she looked at the shield between them and the soldiers who blasted at it repeatedly with their rifles. Their shots made a hissing sound against the energy barrier.
"We're taking the back way," Larry said, his tone was still all business. He walked across the room, hopped up onto the bed and popped the cover off of an air vent. It was wide enough for them to fit through, but not by much. "Once we're inside we'll activate our cloaking systems."
She shrugged and climbed up onto the bed behind him as he wriggled into the air vent. Ashley managed to get her arms and shoulders inside before she had to struggle for every inch. "This looks so easy in the movies."
"Grab my feet, I'll help you up." Larry pushed himself backwards a bit so she could get a good grip.
She wrapped her hands around his ankles and held firm. "Ready."
To her surprise he pulled her almost halfway inside. He moved ahead again and she was most of the way in and able to easily wriggle behind him. "Wow, stronger than you look," she said, mostly to herself.
"Well, maybe. The suits can form a temporary bond with almost any non-liquid material."
"Really?"
"Yeah, you didn't know?"
"I mostly wore these because I liked the way they looked and they helped with my phobia of decompression."
"Oh, well that makes sense too. Time to activate the cloaking systems."
Ashley did as she was told. The vacsuit hood came up and her faceplate sealed as the cloaking systems came online. She held her hand up in front of her face and could only see the outline of it on her head's up display. "So I'm completely invisible now."
"Yup. Except for on dedicated sonic scanners. Old tech, who knew it could defeat new cloaking suits."
"You know, somehow I thought I'd feel different."
Larry chuckled momentarily before saying; "We have to move Ash, we're in a bit of a spot."
"Right, bad guys behind." She did her best to wriggle forward and keep up, but she couldn't figure out the gripping system in the suit so she did it the old fashioned way. "Knees and elbows, knees and elbows," she muttered as she hurried behind.
"So why didn't my suit protect me from getting broken up?"
"It tried. Your head and neck were protected, but with the inertial dampeners almost completely down under your seat, well, not even the suit had time to react. Jump of a bridge, or even a chair and the suit has time to see it coming, but getting bashed against your control terminal in a quarter of a millisecond is a different story. Normally Triton protects us with inertial dampeners that are always compensating for the environmental stresses, you just got really unlucky.”
"Don't remind me. I'll never forget what that felt like," Ashley interrupted, shuddering at the thought.
"I got knocked out, had a skull fracture and a couple broken ribs. I didn’t have to go to medical, but I didn’t want you to be alone. "
"So you stayed for me?"
"Of course. Not the entire time though. I had to help people evacuate to the Botanical Gallery and the hangar deck then came back. They meant to get you out, but time ran short, so they sealed the infirmary instead. It would have taken days for anyone to cut through."
"But there were soldiers inside my room," she objected lightly as she followed Larry down a narrow side passage.
"I had to open up a part of medical so I could hide some evidence."
"You mean-"
"I've been doing what I can. Taking out as many of them as I can manage, and a few got behind me. I almost didn't get to you in time."
"You got there in time. Thank you Larry. What happened? I mean, the last thing I remember was-"
"Going over your terminal like a wet noodle. I'll catch you up while we move," he said as he stopped and waited for her to catch up.
Ashley redoubled her efforts, still working the stiffness out of her muscles. "Good thing I took up yoga, otherwise you might have had to tow me. Feel like I've been asleep for days."
"That's been known to happen with serious internal reconstruction."
Another topic Ashley didn't want to ponder at length. She remembered Oz rushing to her side on the bridge. The memory of the pain wasn't clear, but she would never forget the forced reassurances Oz plied her with as the pain medication kicked in and eventually put her out. She didn't expect to wake up. "Anyway, what's up with the
ship?"
"All right, so we were knocked around because these crews can track a ship at faster than light speeds.”
“I remember that bit.”
"We made it to the planetary nebula, got some repairs done but then we were discovered. I was in medical letting the accelerated healing meds do their work when the order came down to start the evacuation. Most of the slaves volunteered to stay aboard, so did most of the security teams, gunners, and hangar deck crew. The evacuation happened so fast that no one argued when I told them that I'd stay with you in medical so you wouldn't be alone when you woke up in a sealed section of the ship."
"And I thank you, regardless of your secret agent status," Ashley beamed. She was starting to have difficulty keeping up, and Larry was actually picking up speed. "Slower, little slower there, speedy."
"Oh, sorry. It's not far. We're about fifteen meters away from the edge of medical."
"So everyone left has been fighting ever since?"
"Exactly. Oz and Jason are directing Chief Grady, Agameg and Frost. I've been trying to overhear as much as I can on comms, but most of Jason's encryptions are too good to get around."
"Aggie?"
"He's leading most of the slaves."
"Newcomers, they're free now."
"All right, he and the newcomers have been playing a game of fight and retreat, keeping the soldiers from settling into any one place. So far it’s been working, they can’t get ten minute’s peace and the soldiers I’ve been watching recently are so unnerved they’re almost useless. I don't know what the master plan is exactly, but from what I'm seeing they're staying aboard while Frost, all his gunnery people and about half the security teams counter attack that command carrier. I was able to listen in on their central command channels. They didn't see it coming, and several decks have been disabled. Their timing couldn't have been better, the enemy had taken more than half of Triton and were about to concentrate their efforts on the bridge."
"So, what's the plan?"
"I can't tell for sure, but I know having a pilot hooked into a secure secondary control node will help, so that's where I'm taking you."
"Fantastico, we get to be big heroes."
"No, you get to be a big hero. If anyone asks, you woke up and sealed us in the primary medical conference room."
"Oh, yeah. I guess the truth would pretty much break your cover wide open," Ashley didn't know if his secret was one she could keep. Stephanie had been looking for him for weeks. The West Watchers on the Triton were being killed, strangled to death one by one. Evidence that they were linked to the Order of Eden always appeared along with the bodies, which was too convenient. Jason and Stephanie were both after him but she owed Larry her life, or at least her virtue, and she knew that regardless of how he secretly frightened her, it would earn him at least a temporary reprieve.
"Everything I do is for the good of the ship, Ash. I'll let the right people know who I am when the time comes, but until then I need to operate quietly."
"Does anyone else know?"
"No."
Ashley's train of thought was derailed as she spotted a small thermal outline in the corner of her eye. She glanced towards the artificially imposed image and her visor display zoomed in. "There's someone left in medical."
"It's a soldier, move on."
"No, that's too tiny to be a soldier." Her thermal display had picked it up, and the tactical system, which she still wasn't used to, directed her to the next vent to get to her. Crewcast marked the little one as Zoe, and the quick details listed her simply as; ‘Pandem orphan, nafalli, approximately eighteen months of age. Admitted to medical for swallowing a toy boat. Object was extracted while the patient was under light anaesthetic.’ The admission time was an hour before her own, and before Larry could do anything she was through the vent and inside the two bed treatment room.
"Ashley! We don't have time for this! She'll be fine until we have control of the Triton again."
"Oh hush, there's time. Get down here and make sure no one comes in," Ashley said as she slowly opened the cupboard door between her and the youngster. A sudden flurry of medical supplies inside told her that she'd found her, and that the youngster was in a panic.
Ashley fussed with her command and control unit for a moment before she managed to deactivate the cloaking system and release her hood. "It's okay, you're safe." She peered into the near darkness of the cabinet and met two pale blue eyes. They were a wide, fearful pair.
Larry lowered himself down into the room behind her and checked the locking mechanism on the door.
"Get me that blanket," Ashley said quietly.
Larry didn't move.
She half turned towards him; "Larry! Gimmie that blanket!" she ordered in a harsh whisper.
"She doesn't know either one of us; she's not going to come. Besides, what good is a blanket? She's nafalli, she’s got plenty of fur."
"You don't know anything about children, do you? I bet she's really hungry and wouldn't mind a friendly face or a pair of arms right now. Got any food on you?"
"I put some ration bars in your pocket."
Ashley dug for a moment before she found a thigh pocket filled with ration bars. She pulled three and examined them quickly. "Mango, vanilla and chocolate. Well, I think I know what'll get your attention," Ashley said in a pleasant tone. She was careful not to let any of her anxiety slip through the gentle smile she wore. The smell of sweet chocolate filled the air between her and the young girl the instant the wrapper was torn aside. Ashley feigned glad surprise at the sight. "What's that? Ever have one of these?"
"Seriously, Ashley, if we take her with us we can't use our cloaksuits, and our mobility will be seriously restricted."
Ashley ignored him and went on; "My name's Ash, I'm here to take care of you for a while, okay?"
There was still too much fear in those blue eyes, and for a moment Ashley didn't know what to do.
"She's not going to come," Larry repeated.
"Shush," she retorted. She didn't want him to be right, and even more importantly, she didn't want to have to capture the little one with the blanket, she'd been through enough. Another tact came into mind then. With a sigh she looked at Zoe and pouted. "You don't wanna play?" She slowly put the bar down in front of Zoe and left it there.
"Oh, this is ridiculous."
"Go take care of your friends out there, I don't think we'll be taking the vents to wherever we're going," Ashley instructed in an artificially sweetened tone.
"What? She'll fit, if you manage to get her under control."
"You really don't know anything about children, do you? She might feel safe in this dark little spot, but you'll see some real water works if you try to get her into another one. I don't care how you do it; just give us a safe place to be until this all blows over."
Larry shook his head and chuckled softly.
"What? I'm not kidding."
"Look." He nodded towards the cupboard.
Ashley looked back to the rewarding sight of Zoe happily chomping at the chocolate meal bar, which seemed too big for her. Taking a risk, she wrapped the blanket around the little girl and drew her into her arms. Zoe was focused on her meal, but her free hand found a thick tangle of Ashley's hair and gently clung. She pushed her legs into the folds of the blanket and snuggled against Ashley, quietly chewing chunks of the bar all the while. "Someone's movin' in," Ashley chuckled.
"Wonderful," Larry sighed. "Just wonderful. I'll see if I can get us behind a couple security doors." He unlocked the door and crept out, closing it behind him.
She looked after him, worriedly for a moment. After a moment she realized that little eyes were watching. Ashley returned her attention to Zoe and forced her levity to return. It wasn't difficult. "Can I have a bite?" she asked, pretending to make a try for the bar.
Zoe pulled the meal bar to her chest playfully and shook her head exaggeratedly. Her long, pink nosed nafalli snout waved in the air, making the gesture even more comical. Th
e youngster's coat was a swirl of light brown and blonde, visible even in the dim emergency lights. She returned to taking big bites of the bar, but her blue eyes were fixed on Ashley.
"Good stuff, huh?"
Her little passenger nodded, not taking her mouth away from her meal.
"Well, I s'pose I'll just have to settle for vanilla," Ashley sighed as she opened another meal bar with one hand.
Chapter 27
Moving Day
"Is this right? Ayan struck a deal with Patrizia Salustri?" Stephanie demanded as she arrived on the bridge of the Samson. "The last time we dealt with that crazy bitch, we ended up chasing royalty straight into Chinbotsu Prison! I still have an outstanding warrant for that!"
The creaking of the deck underfoot and the sounds of the thrusters trying to keep the ship level invaded the cabin. "We were very well paid. Besides, we don't have a choice. We've already lost one ship to customs, if we stay here, we're going to lose another," he replied from the pilot's seat.
Stephanie didn't recognize Jake's copilot, but Finn was at the engineering station, trying to direct crew people across the ship to reinforce stress points. The trouble started when they tried to dislodge the Samson from the muck it had sunk into, but the hull was brittle thanks to previous combat damage. The only way to hold the hull together was to get it off the ground and use her thrusters and emergency integrity systems, which were failing in some areas according to Finn's yellow and red flashing screen.
She shook her concerns for the ship off and pressed her point; "You should have sent me out. All she got out of the Carthans is a standard privateering agreement. Any green outfit could have walked in and gotten set up with the contract we're on now. We have experience, a record with another government. That should have been worth something."
"Sure, but it's not worth a damn if some bounty hunter bags you on your way back because you had to bring that record up during negotiations, or because some freelancer caught sight of you.”
“I would have been fine, you know better than anyone that I can take care of myself, and we’ve been through this part of the sector before. Maybe I wouldn’t have made a deal with someone like her if I was at least playing babysitter in the background.”
Fragments sf-6 Page 26