Found Girl

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Coop wasn’t sure why he’d been invited to this particular party so soon after getting a few strips burned off his hide for giving Arian and her dragon access to the ship’s systems. Old man might have been down, but he was not out. At least he didn’t hold a grudge. Coop knew better than to defend himself. Pappy wasn’t as angry about that as he was about being lost.

  Lost in space.

  They were all trying to wrap their brains around this new reality.

  To find a way to get found.

  As the meeting progressed, if felt like everyone circled the big question so no one had to be the one to say it out loud.

  Where were they? And how far was that from home?

  After all the reports had been presented, a silence fell over the room.

  Pappy’s laser gaze tracked slowly around the table, pinning each person in place for what felt like a long time. When Coop’s turn came, he held it but felt like he’d been sliced and diced again when Pappy finally moved on. He blinked and exchanged a wry look with the Chief.

  Pappy flicked the edge of his computer with a finger. “These reports are helpful, and I appreciate the work that went into preparing them while you also dealt with the aftermath of the incident.” He leaned back in his chair and studied them all once more. “Shall we deal with the elephant in the room? Where are we? How do we get our people home?”

  Odd that these, the hardest questions to answer, finally broke the tension.

  Typical of Pappy that he focused on his people and getting them home. That would be why they’d take a bullet for the old man, even when he regularly burned strips off them. Coop didn’t grin because he wasn’t stupid, but inside? He might have. Pappy’s gaze flicked his way, and he sobered all the way through. Might have straightened in his seat, too. Didn’t relax when Pappy’s Basilisk gaze moved on again, finding the head geek and stopping.

  “We don’t know, sir.” The geek did a decent job of not melting into his chair.

  “What do we know?” Pappy asked, his tone at odds with his expression.

  The geek perked up. “There are several inhabited planets in this system.” He did something on his computer that put a view of the system on the big screen. There was a general shifting in the room, as people adjusted position to see.

  Pappy studied this data like he hadn’t seen it before. “And we know this how?”

  “Concentration of heat sources, indications of a power grid, orbiting satellites—”

  “Satellites?” Pappy snapped.

  “Yes, sir.” The geek pulled in the view. “They are not dissimilar to ours and could indicate some level of space capability, or that the indigenous people are heading that way.”

  “So they can see us?”

  “It’s possible. I mean, they probably have telescopes, so yeah, if they are looking, we could be…visible. We’re not exactly hiding.”

  Silence.

  “What about radio signals?” asked Pappy’s number two.

  “We are picking up radio signals,” the geek admitted, “but we have not been able to translate them.” He blinked twice. “Not unlike our world, there appears to be a range of, um, languages. At least, that is the general consensus.”

  Dr. Derwent, the first contact team leader, cleared his throat, then probably wished he hadn’t.

  “You have something to share, Dr. Derwent?”

  His gaze shifted one direction, then the other. He cleared his throat again. “Our linguistics specialists have been having trouble translating the signals.”

  “Trouble?” Pappy shook his head. “What kind?”

  “Even in primitive people, there are…well, we usually had ways to find a starting point, something familiar. They…” he hesitated and Pappy made an impatient sound. “Well, they sound like…birds.”

  “Birds?”

  “That’s what they sound like to us, too, sir,” the main geek said.

  “Birds,” Pappy said the single word flatly, but the two men still flinched.

  “If the species in the system are avian-based, it could complicate communication,” Derwent stated the obvious. “We encountered the same problem with, well,” he faltered some, “the Draze Dragon that traveled with the alien young lady. He uses telepathy to communicate with, um, well, that’s what he uses, because his anatomy is quite…dissimilar from ours.”

  “Something about the shape of the throat,” Coop added, then wished he hadn’t. Pappy’s gaze pinned him for a few seconds, then shifted back to the screen.

  “How much of scanning data is from our scanners?” he asked with deceptive mildness.

  “The…the…” the head geek faltered, perhaps sensing the trap, “the alien ship has better scanning than we do.”

  “Even with the Garradian boost?” Pappy arched a brow.

  “We are a long way from those planets, sir.” The geek tugged at the neck of his tee shirt.

  “In the Garradian system—”

  “—signals were boosted by the outposts, sir,” the wing geek put in. “They were all over the place.”

  Pappy tapped his fingers against the desk for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he asked, “And we’re sure this is accurate?”

  The head geek looked at his wing geek, then back at Pappy. “Well, yes, I mean, not one hundred percent. Not without getting eyes on…things.”

  Pappy leaned back and studied the data again. “Can we do that? Can we get eyes on without being detected?” He turned back to the table.

  The head geek did a pretty good job of holding his ground. “Well, if we used the Garradian shuttles, maybe.” He turned to the screen. “We could send a team or teams, but we don’t know…”

  “…what we don’t know?” Pappy made it sound like a question, but it wasn’t. Not really.

  “Yes, sir. I mean, no sir. I mean, pretty much, sir.”

  “Okay.” His gaze did another traverse of the people in the room, but there was more worry in there now. “What do we know? And what do we need to do to move the dial in the direction of knowing more?”

  Silence. Coop hoped he wasn’t supposed to answer that.

  Pappy tapped the table top with the fingers of one hand. Stopped. “We’re out here because some very smart people not only looked past what seemed possible but did something about it. They moved the dial, turned a ‘what if’ into this, into Project Enterprise.” Another pause. “You are part of the smart people, or you wouldn’t be on my ship. I need to you to think past this moment, to kick on the afterburners and get from ‘what if’ to ‘how can we do this?’ I need you to help me get our people home.”

  Another silence formed, but this one was more thoughtful, less scared.

  “And I think we need a risk assessment.”

  “A…risk assessment, sir?” the wing geek asked.

  “What are the risks of another wormhole opening up while we’re sitting here thinking? I also want a threat response worked up.” He glanced at Coop now. “We ran into hostiles in the last system. Using what we learned from that, we need to upgrade our responses. We also need,” he paused and blinked several times, “a rationing and resupply plan.” He looked at them again, but this time it was his ‘we can do this’ look. “We may be here awhile. We need to survive and thrive. We need to live long enough to get home.”

  Coop saw nods and notes made.

  “And don’t just check off my list. Put your heads together and make your own lists. What will it take to find out what we need to know? Work together. Work alone. Get as many of the crew involved as you can. Keep them busy, keep them focused on solving problems. We don’t need panic. We need solutions.” With a hint of a grin, he added, “Make it so, people. Make it so.”

  A laugh ran around the table, breaking even more of the tension into pieces. Pappy rose, and everyone hastily followed suit. “Dismissed.”

  As the room slowly emptied, Coop caught Pappy’s glance, read it correctly, and waited until they were alone. Pappy showed Coop his back—his unhappy back—sh
oving his hands in the pockets of his pants while he studied the data screen—or appeared to.

  “You think I need to bring them in.”

  Coop didn’t ask who he meant or answer the question Pappy hadn't asked. Even though he’d been in the room with the smart people, he didn’t assume Pappy considered him one of them.

  “Do you think the lizard knows where we are?”

  “He might. I haven’t asked him, sir.” It wasn’t in Coop’s job description, as Pappy had made clear earlier.

  “Could they have caused this?” Pappy swung around to face him, his expression hard. “Or contributed to it?”

  Coop considered the question, not because he thought they had or because he had any way of knowing. Mostly he didn’t want to get dressed down again.

  “Did you talk to the geek who came down with me and Tiger? What does he think?”

  Pappy sank into his seat again. “He doesn’t think they did anything, but he can’t be sure there wasn’t an accidental connection.”

  “They did help us, sir.” Coop didn’t like saying it, but…

  “I haven’t forgotten. I’m also aware that right now, their fate is tied up with ours.” He stared at something Coop could not see.

  Coop considered the trip through the damaged ship. Finally ventured, “Arian didn’t have to do what she did, sir. I—” He stopped, not sure what he was trying to say. Women, alien or not, weren’t easy.

  “Chief says things weren’t going well when she showed up. That she made a difference.” Pappy suddenly swiveled to face Coop. “If she’s so good, why is her ship still down?”

  Coop hesitated. Pappy had a point. “We don’t know that it is, sir.”

  “Then why are they still here?”

  “It’s a big universe. Maybe they are lost, too. Maybe…they had two wormhole transits. Maybe they are tired.” Or hiding from someone? “We don’t know what they are doing out here.” It was a small ship, though. Feelings were not his skill set and yet…something was odd there, even beyond the telepathic dragon. He spoke slowly, “Rhubreak seems to have a kind of code. He told me he hadn’t been invited into our systems, but that he couldn’t prove he hadn’t been nosing around.” And he had gotten in far enough to talk to Coop when he needed help.

  “Rhubreak?”

  “The dragon, sir.”

  Pappy’s eye may have twitched. “And the girl? What’s your assessment of her?”

  He had to get this right. “She’s…profoundly pragmatic, at least, that’s how she seems to me.” He felt a cold chill at the memory of that hatch closing her into the central core. She’d been pale when it opened, but had still insisted on finishing the mission.

  “Pragmatic?”

  “She didn’t hesitate climbing into the core, even after she knew how dangerous it was.” He frowned, considering. “She wasn’t scared, but she wasn’t brave.” Not their version of brave anyway. “Just…”

  “Pragmatic.” He nodded slowly. “I wish we knew what they wanted.”

  “Have we asked them, sir?”

  He made a gesture. “Not really. I let Derwent handle that, might have been a mistake. We don’t have time to be diplomatic anymore. We need to know.” He shot Coop a look. “She was right about one thing, though.”

  “Sir?”

  “How do we know? How do we trust them when she didn’t seem to know what the word means?”

  Coop hesitated. “I think she knows now, sir. She’s had a good look at us, at how we roll. I don’t think she would have helped us if she weren’t part of the way there.” He frowned.

  “What’s the problem, Captain?”

  He looked up. “We could lose her trust, too. Where she comes from, I don’t think it was a picnic.”

  Silence for a long minute. “You think we should ask for their help.”

  “They might know more than we do. The dragon seems to know something about Earth, based on a couple of things he’s said to me.”

  “Then why haven’t they said anything?”

  “We haven’t asked. I think it’s that code thing. Maybe it’s a kind of prime directive.”

  Pappy considered this and nodded, then looked at Coop again. “There’s something odd about the two of them.”

  “Yes, sir.” They were aliens, but he knew what Pappy meant. There was something odd about them and between them. And he wasn’t sure they knew the right questions to ask to get the answers they needed.

  “But you think I should talk to them?”

  “Well, we are pretty screwed, sir.”

  Pappy gave a slow, reluctant nod. “Here or there?”

  Coop knew what he’d prefer, keeping them both on their ship, but— “Here, sir.” He met Pappy’s annoyed gaze. “At least we—you can sit down.”

  “We, Captain. The lizard talks to you, after all.” Pappy gave a reluctant, almost grin.

  Coop thought about mentioning Arian could relay, then figured that Pappy knew this and didn’t trust her. He nodded.

  Pappy sighed. “See if they will both join me here in—” He looked at the time. “—let’s say half an hour?”

  “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

  * * *

  “Did that do it?” Arian asked, letting her hands drop to her sides, her head resting on the decking. She kept her tone neutral but noticed that the hand she lifted to push back an errant piece of hair shook, the sparks of light under her skin dimmer this time. She was tired, but…

  It is functioning within acceptable parameters now.

  She scrambled out into the corridor, took a breath, then rolled over, and gathered up her tools. Only then did she stand. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the green lights indicting acceptable parameters. She started to turn away, then stopped, her chin down.

  “Was there any damage…” She stopped.

  No.

  Too bad. She headed toward the bridge.

  Rhubreak had managed to deploy about half their stabilization hooks, which had not been enough to keep them from slamming into the Boyington’s hull several times during the encounter with the anomaly. There was impact damage to some of their less obvious systems, including the one she’d just repaired. She pulled a cloth from a rear pocket and mopped at her damp face. Next up, she needed to work on internal temperature controls. It kept ramping up because the outer bay was still cold

  Banshee is approaching this location.

  Coop. It had been several days since she’d seen him. She moved toward the hatch, stopping just out of sight to watch him cross to the ramp. The sight of him made her heart leap in her chest, then beat faster. At her sides her fingers curled into the palms, so that she wouldn’t reach out to him. They’d almost died. It seemed…urgent…that they press lips once more. That she tell him…something. The words lodged in her chest, getting hammered by her swiftly beating heart. It felt that, if she could touch him, the words would be freed.

  But would they be welcome?

  He moved loosely, his stride confident, his gaze clear and direct as he looked around the bay. He stopped, frowning. Based on where he was, it was the new damage to her ship that he looked at. She saw worry in his gaze, but not suspicion or distrust. He must have secrets. Everyone had them, did they not? It was the nature of the secret that mattered, surely? If she was…repulsed by what this ship carried, how would he, or his people, feel if they found out?

  She did not try to shut this thought off from Rhubreak but was not surprised when he had no comment to offer. He must have felt her reluctance—for possibly the first time in her life—to effect the repair. It was the thing that they both pretended was not there. That the machinery that kept the two pods very, very cold, and their contents, did not exist.

  She took a long, slow breath, seeking for calm, reaching for the place that had helped her escape the Enforcers for so long, then stepped out of the shadows as Coop reached the foot of the ramp.

  “Hey,” he said, stopping to smile at her. It did not completely reach his eyes. But pe
rhaps her answering one did not as well.

  My people will have questions, he’d said, but this time, he was the one with questions in his gaze.

  “You are welcome here,” she said, automatically, her gaze clinging to the sight of him, against her will. “You are weary.”

  She almost flinched at her words. It was out of character to make a personal comment. To mind someone else’s business.

  You are changing.

  Was she? She longed to be different, to be someone these people could trust, to be someone Coop wanted—

  Since her return to this ship yet again, she had not let herself think as much about his people or the things she’d learned. When she’d gone through the ship with Coop and Tiger, she’d felt one with them, but once she’d helped get their systems up, the divide between them had opened once more. It seemed that what had happened had not been as big for them as it had been for her. It felt as if the more she tried to fight free of her past, the more it held her captive.

  Because she did not know how to change enough, she’d kept herself too busy to think or feel. Now waves of thoughts and emotions tried to break free, so much she swayed, and had to steady herself with a hand pressed on the frame of the hatch.

  Was it her longing to belong that had fooled her into thinking she did belong? Was she once more star gazing, longing for that she could not have?

  But you did escape to the stars.

  Ships were not people. Ships were…ships. Ships did what they were told. If she felt dissent from the ship, she ignored it. People…were not that simple. So she veiled her longings behind her ‘good citizen of the Consortium’ facade and stepped back so Coop could enter. But he did not.

  His smile turned rueful. “I’m tired. We all are.” He hesitated. “The Colonel would like to speak with you and Rhubreak, if you can spare the time?”

  An order wrapped in a polite request. Tell him I will be pleased.

  Arian felt her lips thin for a moment, at Rhubreak’s assumption that she would be happy to speak with Coop’s Colonel—who had made his distrust of her very clear. Of course, she would for Coop, but—