by Smith, S. E.
She chuckled at this sending heat punching through his mid-section like a plasma fire. Smiling at her in return was not life threatening, so why did it feel as if it was?
“You, my friend,” she said, turning back to the controls, “are the master of the understatement.”
My friend? Master? These seemed positive signs though he was not sure why. The fire settled into a smolder, but in his chest, the feeling was…warm. Pleasant.
Silence returned, then built. He studied his screens while his mind tried to find something, anything but the scary words. I like you. I would like to hold you and touch your mouth with mine.
It was too soon. He did not need a squirrel to tell him that. Last night the words had moved easily from one person to the next, except when they reached him, but he’d watched and listened. And failed to learn.
You are dazzling her, are you not. The squirrel could do better. At least it could dance. He shifted, so that his body angled more her direction and latched onto words that drifted past.
“Your world,” he had to clear his throat, “it sounds pleasing.”
Her lips turned up again. “I like our third rock from the sun.” She leaned back, her gaze going distant. “I’m sure you’re used to seeing planets from space but for me, when it was a big blue ball hanging there—” She gave a shake. “I wondered what I was thinking to leave.”
“What did you leave?” The question popped out and for a moment he tensed because the question had almost been “who did you leave?”
She hesitated, and he wondered if he’d crossed a line. But she sighed and said, “My family. That was hardest because I couldn’t tell them how far away I’d be. We keep in touch, but they have no idea where I am.”
This seemed very strange, but what did he know of family?
“You miss them.” He did not ask this. He felt it, saw it in her eyes.
“I do. I got an email from my mom in the data dump before we set out.” She did something and an image containing several people popped up as a holo. Her gaze softened more. “That’s my dad and my mom…”
He felt her longing, but something deeper and darker welled up from a place he did not know was there.
Another image appeared. “That’s me with my brother and sister. Mom found it in a box of stuff and thought I’d like a copy. We’re standing in front of Old Faithful, it’s a geyser.”
He did not know geyser.
“I think I was maybe ten there.” She leaned back again, bringing the picture of her parents up once more, so that the pictures were side by side above the control console.
My parents. My sister. My brother.
Kraye stared at them as the darkness swirled closer and closer to the surface. It was a roar in his mind, but in the roar, he thought he heard crying—
“Are you all right?” Her hand covering his yanked him from the storm.
His throat was dry, his skin damp.
“I am fine,” he said, surprised his voice sounded fine. The breath he was able to draw in hurt but not as much as the one before it.
“You sure?”
I had no parents. But that was not possible, was it?
“I—” the lie died at the look in her eyes. “I do not…remember parents.” A memory stirred again with the words, but so did pain. The darkness. He pushed back, and the memories subsided.
“But—” She stopped. “Were you…adopted?”
“I…” He did not want to say the words, but—she needed to know. Then he’d know. But he could not watch her face as he said it. He stared out the view screen. “I was a slave.”
Her hand on his tightened almost to the point of pain. He had to look then. Her face with tight, her eyes stormy. She was disgusted—
“Bastards. But you’re free? The robots—”
“I am free.” The words helped. “I am free,” he repeated, his voice stronger. “I ran away. But they—the Captain rescued me.” He tried to think of more he could add, but what?
His life could be summed up in those three sentences. I was a slave. I ran away. The Captain rescued me.
She was quiet for a few moments, then she said, “Families form in lots of ways.”
Were the robots his family? He did not know a lot about family. He did know they were his crew mates, his friends. He nodded. He did not want her pity, but at least he had her attention. The edges of her mouth turned up.
“I’m trying to imagine what it was like to grow up with…them.”
He glanced at the picture. “It was not like that. But…” The smiling faces of her family caused pain to echo from some deep place in his mind, but her touch anchored him in the now. “It was good.” It was safe, which was ironic since the robots had many enemies, and yet it had, and still felt…safe.
“I’m glad.” She hesitated. “My dad used to say where you start isn’t as important as who you become.” She tipped her head to the side. “He’d like you.”
The pain retreated further. Would he? He opened his mouth to say—he was not sure. He did not get the chance.
Alarms blared.
We have a contact.
* * *
“Have they seen us?” City asked, snapping to attention and pushing to the side what she’d learned about Kraye. She’d think about that later. The hologram of her family vanished, replaced by tracking information on their unknown contact.
That is not known.
Did Rita sound a little incredulous that City had asked? She didn’t—yet—have the attitude that the AI at Central Outpost had, but give her time…
They weren’t cloaked but the Emissary’s skin had stealth capabilities. What no one knew was how well this worked in real space.
“I’m going to try a course change and see how they react,” City said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kraye nod. It would take time for both the course change and for the bogey to see it and react. So she had time to note that this super alert Kraye was, well, sexy. His thin intense face and the combo of his relaxed but alert body conveyed confidence. His dark skin made his hands pop against the controls. Those hands might have prompted not-on-the-bridge thoughts if she hadn’t been on the bridge. She admitted to herself that she’d liked having him on her team when they went toe-to-toe with the bad guys in their last action.
He’d already pulled up all available data and brought their weapons systems online. This might not be his ship’s bridge, but it didn’t matter. He was as home here as she was.
She wished she could read his thoughts because even his body language was close-lipped—unlike Faxton. The question she had about the diplomat, was he interested? Or was he interested in appearing interested? He and his assistant had been so not interested in each other, she figured they must be a little interested. She didn’t care if they were heating up the alien sheets together. She did care if they wanted to use her as cover.
She could wish that Kraye showed a little interest and not just to get Faxton to back off. She half frowned. Could he? Would the guy raised by robots know how to flirt?
I was a slave. I am free.
Guy had to be left with some issues. Usually, she tried to avoid guys who were major fixer uppers. She looked at dating like buying a car. You could love the lines, but a smooth finish was not an indicator of what was under the hood. She didn’t expect perfect, but no one wanted a break down.
“They are reacting to your course change,” Bull said, from behind her, making her jump a little. She hadn’t heard him come onto the bridge.
“So they can see us,” she muttered. Did that mean stealth only worked in atmosphere? Or was something else giving them away?
“Let’s cloak and see how they react,” she said. “We do not want to bump heads with anyone unless we have to.” Not this early in the mission. She hit the intercom. “We have an unknown contact. Get to a secure position and strap in if you can.” Even the turtles had a sort of docking station. “Rita, please activate the stasis shields around the habitat when you can.” The shiel
ds would hold the water—and anyone in it—in place if they had to execute maneuvers that would negatively impact loose objects.
Aye, aye, Sergeant.
She bit her lip on a grin. Rita seemed to love the military stuff. “Let’s hope we won’t need it.”
The bridge was quiet while they waited for the physics of space to work out. City almost asked Rita to give them some music to fill the silence, but resisted the urge. She liked to feel and hear the ship around her. More than once she’d felt a change before the instruments registered it. Even the small throb of music could come between her and the ship.
Contact has slowed and is scanning intensely.
“So they did see us. Now they can’t. Or they are pretending they can’t.” She glanced at Kraye. “You and Bull operate in this region. Can you look at the scanning and see if you can identify our bogey?”
“Of course, I mean aye—”
“Of course is fine.” She shot him a quick grin before turning back to her controls, her gaze scanning the data much like their scanners were giving space a going over.
The hatch opened behind them. She started to turn and look, but stopped when she heard a soft whinny-meow.
“Not a good time, Tiger.”
The tiny clip-clops didn’t retreat. There was a jump seat—she took a quick look back and sure enough, Bull had dropped the jump seat for him and secured the harness. City gave a resigned shake of her head.
She input evasive maneuvers programming, a series of small, but random course changes that should be hard to predict. She didn’t want to light them up with a lot of power usage either. “Do we have any more data on the bogey?”
“They are continuing on a course to our original position, but at reduced speed,” Bull said. “They know we are here, but I do not believe they can see us.”
I concur.
Was it her imagination that AI’s tone got warmer when she talked to Bull?
“Sergeant?” Bull’s tone was the same as it always was, so it was weird she had the feeling he was puzzled. “There is…I am uncertain how to describe…”
“Describe what?”
“We received the coordinates for the Testudinians world from them, did we not?”
“That is my understanding,” City said, half turning to look at him.
“It is not there.”
City blinked. “A trap?”
“It was there when we entered the system, but now it is not.”
She was pretty sure the Death Star hadn’t got to it. So that left— “They, what, cloaked their whole planet?”
“It would appear so.”
She opened her mouth, but closed it again, tension in her jawline. In her last briefing with General Halliwell aboard the Boyington, he’d mentioned a lost expedition ship and a sanctuary. He had a report by some geeks who had found data that the Garradians were working on a planet-wide cloaking tech. So it wasn’t totally impossible, she supposed.
They are transmitting a message.
“Can we receive—and understand it?”
I am attempting a translation.
The pause was impressively short. Rita might be crushing on Bull, but she wasn’t letting it distract her.
I believe the language is Testudinian.
“It’s a turtle ship?”
I believe so.
“Can you confirm, Bull? And let’s see if we can get a feed to our Testudinians. We might need them to smooth things over.” While she waited, she leaned toward Kraye. “Did we know they were space capable?”
“I did not know,” he said, a sudden grin softening his face.
The smile, even at half strength, suited him. He needed to smile more. She thought about what he’d told her. Not a surprise he didn’t smile much. Her return smile might have been warmer than she considered suitable for the bridge. She turned back to her controls. Maybe she’d pick Bull’s, um, processors, see if she could get some intel on what Kraye liked. So she could see him smile again.
“Mr. Faxton, can you get on the comms with us? We might need your expertise if this is who we think it is.” Should she ask about their missing planet? It wasn’t on her mission brief, she decided reluctantly. And she wasn’t a geek. Did she even know the right questions to ask without revealing something she shouldn’t?
“Aye, aye, Sergeant.”
She glanced at Kraye and thought he looked surprised. “It’s why he’s here.”
* * *
“That went a lot faster than I thought it would,” City said, relaxing back into her seat. For the first time since they’d been lit up by the turtle ship, she realized how tense she’d been. And that she was hungry.
“It is optimal that this ship can remotely transport objects,” Kraye agreed.
If he was tired, it didn’t show. For a face with the potential to be mobile and fascinating, he kept a tight lid on his muscles. Which was probably not that surprising for a guy raised by a bunch of robots who couldn’t break out in expression if their lives depended on it.
“It would have taken longer to make the transfer,” City agreed, rotating her shoulders to ease their stiffness.
“We also acquired intel that might prove useful,” Bull said.
City released the lock so her seat could rotate her around to face him. “Can we trust it?”
The turtles had appeared glad—no, that wasn’t quite right. They weren’t terribly expressive either though they had more capacity than the robot. Their huge sad eyes might have reminded her of Eeyore. They hadn’t invited any of them back to their missing planet and had said they’d require time to consider it when Faxton proposed further diplomatic contact. And since not even the Emissary’s sassy sensors could “see” a cloaked planet, they had no idea what it was like. It was a disappointment. What was the fun of “boldly going” if you couldn’t also ‘boldly’ see something?
Not that City blamed them. Some nasty humans had kidnapped two—or more—of their people, most likely intending to add them to soup. She couldn’t imagine what else the slow-moving species could have done for the bad guys.
“Trust?” Bull didn’t shrug, though that might not be something he could do. “No, not without verifying. The Najer could tap into the beacons and satellites situated around the system. I brought some of that programming with me, but it has limitations.”
“Limitations? Like what?”
“The Najer has technologies that this ship does not. It would not be advisable to risk compromising this ship’s systems, so we will not have the same level of access.”
Even City knew he was talking about hacking. She nodded.
“One of the things I am seeing in what you sent me, they are advising against traveling directly from here to the Sulian Nebos’ planet. Rita, I need you in on this, too. If this intel is good that’s a lot of ship activity happening along our planned route. What are our options?”
A hologram appeared in the center of the bridge, giving all of them a view of where they were and the other intended destinations. Rita added labels to possible hazards. City studied the hazards, a mix of magnetospheres from astronomical objects and spatial instabilities. “It’s kind of like a trail through a mountain pass, isn’t it?” Lots of places for an ambush. “So what’s a better option?”
“I am running our options,” Bull said.
City might have sighed a little. Too bad they couldn’t bust a move to the Harparian’s planet. She knew she’d sleep easier when the bird was off the ship. Which gave her an idea—admittedly one cribbed from the robots.
“You guys fire probes so you can get a look ahead. Could we do that? I’m thinking of Teuhhopse, the Harparian’s home. Get a heads up on any problems we might encounter there?”
A probe is possible.
Rita sounded intrigued. Or like City, she wanted more information on where they were going. “High mountains” wasn’t cutting it for them.
Tiger wriggled out of his harness and approached the hologram, studying it as intently as they
were. “Got any ideas?” she asked him. He turned and stared at her for a long moment, then lifted a hoof and batted at one of the planets, as if it were a ball she’d asked him to play with. His interaction with the hologram made it ripple like the surface of water.
“Thanks, Tiger—”
That is very interesting, Tiger.
Rita almost sounded excited.
Bull might have come to attention. “There are anomalous forces in that region. If we did a comet drive jump to the edge of the region, as we dropped out, momentum should carry us into the Sulian Nebos region from this direction.” His metal digit traced a path. “It is a less obvious approach.”
“Would we be able to slow down in time?” City asked, looking at his equations. “And what about possible hostiles around that—” What was it, anyway? “Unstable…nebula?”
I can provide braking at the optimum time.
“And our momentum will confuse any hostile forces lurking there. We will…”
“…blow past them?”
“Something like that,” Bull agreed.
“If something is lurking near the planet, our arrival should provide enough confusion that will give us time to assess threats,” Kraye said.
City nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a plan. Do we need to deploy the probes before we go into comet drive?”
Probes?
“Well, if we’re going to look ahead, maybe we should look at all of our ahead?” It didn’t sound grammatical, but Rita seemed to understand.
I will prepare them. We should launch just prior to initiating comet drive.
“Make it so,” City said. Okay, she’d been waiting for a chance to say that and she was the only one who’d get it—
Her caticorn made this sound that almost sounded like a chuckle. She looked down, running into his Puss’n’Boots gaze. There was more to him than met the eye. And that was saying quite a bit.
“Rita, you okay if we take a break to eat? Meet you back here in thirty?”
“I will remain here,” Bull said, “Can Rocky go with you to obtain sustenance?”