Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder)

by Scott Rhine

  “Do not finish that sentence.”

  “That trawler down there looks suspicious,” he said over the radio, adding coordinates.

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” Red fumed. “You just called me—”

  “Chilean registry,” Sirius Control announced. “They have a large Antarctic claim.”

  “There are flashes on the deck. I say we run a missile drill, just in case,” Zeiss announced.

  Setting her jaw, Red gunned the engines and sent the craft into an evasion tumble. Her navigator made a queasy hiccough sound, causing her to grin in satisfaction. Alarms started to whir. Her hands busied themselves compensating and attempting to launch countermeasures. “Only one of the decoy packages deployed,” she said, voice cracking.

  An explosion followed. Concussive air forces made the ship buck as shrapnel peppered the hull. More alarms flashed.

  “Sometimes one’s enough,” he said. “Good job.”

  She took the craft down near the water’s surface to confuse enemy radar as she looked for red lights on the panel. “Options if they launch again?”

  “Eject the copilot chair as bait?” Zeiss suggested.

  “Then we’d have to eject, too,” she countered. “It’d be too much drag, too far from shore.”

  “Blow the Cassavettis drive mounts,” he suggested. There was a steel pole atop the craft that went from the front of the ship past the rear where the star drives would mount. Every pilot hated the rod because it cost extra fuel and tangled anything close. However, the school insisted on keeping the metal albatross because the drives were so expensive and mission-critical that pilots had to be aware of them at all times. As part of their plan to jettison the drives on Sirius landing, Red had convinced Smith to add an emergency disconnect switch for the mount pole.

  “Engine two is out of true,” Red interrupted. “It’s vibrating. Help me find the shutdown.”

  Zeiss unclipped to hop over to the copilot chair just as the ship shuddered again. She managed to keep them out of the water, but he slipped and banged his helmet on the overhead. Without pausing to complain, he hunted for the proper control. Over his headphone, Sirius Control was feeding him instructions. “Roger,” he called, punching the fuel shutoff. “We’re smoking like a pile of wet leaves, but Red’s holding.”

  Returning to his station, Zeiss announced, “Grav and thermal sensors identified the weapon as an Iranian-made, shoulder-mount, surface-to-air, nothing major. They’re out of range now. Tell Starlet to avoid.”

  “Confirmed,” Control answered. “Starlet will avoid the flash bulbs. I’d hate to meet what you view as major, Z-man.”

  Red raised an eyebrow at his protective streak for her grandmother, but complained, “It’d be nice if the sensors told us what it was before it hit.”

  Tapping a few controls, Zeiss announced, “Sydney’s a bit far. I suggest we re-vector to Christ Church Airport, New Zealand.”

  “Your call, Z-man,” Red said distracted by a dozen minor emergencies.

  “Dunedin is a little closer,” noted Sirius Control.

  “Their tarmac will melt when we aim our jets down, and they don’t have the foam trucks for the belly slide if our landing gear jams,” Zeiss asserted. “We might be able to land at Pegasus base; they have VTO repair facilities.”

  “Good call, Z-man,” answered Control.

  “ETA thirty-two . . . no, thirty-three minutes,” he said, reciting the heading change.

  “We’ll make reservations for you with the NZ authorities,” Control promised. “They’ll find you a safe place to bunk till Half-Pint is cleared to fly.”

  Red was sweating profusely but maintaining their course.

  “You’ve got this ride under control,” Zeiss encouraged. “I’m going to head back to check the passenger compartment for holes.”

  “You’re staying right there, Mister,” she ordered, pale with fear.

  “Do you need sugar or fluids?” he asked.

  “No. Just moral support.”

  “Roger. Switching to private mode, Control.”

  In fifteen minutes, they received instructions from the New Zealand authorities for their emergency landing. Zeiss handled all the radio chatter, including a welcome for their military jet escorts. Red had her hands full of ornery controls. She was surprised when she overheard Control saying, “Incident report received Z-man. We’ll forward your remedies to the review board, but I disagree with your root-cause analysis. In this case, you were the solution not the problem.”

  “My report stands, Control. I signed the override for the preflight. We had no copilot and insufficient counter-measure equipment.”

  “Starlet signed, too,” reported Control. “She has a message for you. Auckland’s parents will bring you the package tomorrow. Good luck with the mission.”

  “What mission?” Red demanded.

  “After we land,” he told her. “ETA fifteen.”

  “Now,” she demanded. “Are you still working spy stuff?”

  “No,” he said, calmly. “Trust me for a few minutes.”

  “I more than trust you; I rely on you in life-or-death situations. I just need to know.”

  “Not on the air,” he reminded.

  “Privacy mode,” she called, switching off. When he did likewise, she asked, “Ultimately, who do you support, me or the UN?”

  “Why? Are you planning to break a law?” he joked.

  “The only law I’m breaking is the reason we were founded—to complete the mission to Sirius.”

  “You already know the answer or you wouldn’t have asked.”

  “A lady always asks, gives an opportunity for graceful refusal.”

  “Correction: beautiful, talented lady.”

  “You’ll get your kiss when we land. I need a direct answer.”

  “I couldn’t refuse you anything.” His tone was so soft and sincere she risked a glance in his direction.

  “I love you,” she said. “I can’t imagine a time I wouldn’t need you by my side. This experience just reminded me that we could die at any time, even before the mission. I don’t want to wait anymore. Marry me today.”

  “We can’t do it today,” he said with a smile.

  The craft wobbled for a moment before she countered, “Daniel knows the chief magistrate. He can arrange it.”

  “No,” Zeiss explained. “The rings won’t arrive until tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “Our rings are in the package that Claudette and I arranged. This whole trip was rigged so I could propose in some romantic location.”

  Her smile couldn’t get much bigger.

  “So what you meant to say was ‘yes, captain, sir, please?’”

  “Do you want that engraved on your ring?”

  “I want it engraved on my neck, tonight,” she said, throatily.

  “Yes, captain, sir, please,” he said with a swallow.

  Over the radio, she broadcast, “Hah, Control, I asked him first!”

  “Can we say competitive?” Zeiss mumbled as the people in the Academy control room wished them well. His smile couldn’t get bigger either. “Don’t you want to go to Kangaroo Island or those amethyst fields? Someplace exotic?”

  Forgetting to hit the privacy switch, she answered, “I only brought food for three meals. If you want exotic, you can make Tasmanian Devil sounds again while you attack me.”

  Control burst out laughing. Red’s ears turned pink as the island air-traffic controller said, “Z-man, sounds like we’re going to have to change your call sign to ‘Taz’.”

  Chapter 37 – Honeymoon

  Red’s team, Auckland’s parents, Trina, and Claudette made it to the wedding; however, Daniel couldn’t travel that far from the island. Red immediately asked Sonrisa to be her maid of honor and decreed everyone would wear their flight suits. “It’s an astronaut wedding; it should look like one.” The girls disappeared to work on Red’s hair, which was abnormally disheveled.

  Zeiss stood b
etween Herkemer and Sojiro. “To be honest, I was planning to ask Professor Sorenson so I wouldn’t have to make this decision. Guys, who should I pick to be my best man?”

  Sojiro spoke up first. “Let me do the video. Herk can stand up by his lady.”

  The groom clapped the Japanese student on the back in thanks.

  The Polish bomb disposal tech raised an eyebrow when he saw his friend from the side. “Z, did you know you’ve got a hickey on your neck?”

  When he reached to cover it, everyone laughed. “Don’t worry,” Herk said. “I’ll get some makeup from Horvath; she’s close to your coloring.”

  “Done this before, have we?” asked Zeiss, embarrassing him back.

  Herk cleared his throat. “Where’s the ring?”

  “Um . . . Mira loves hers and didn’t want to take it off,” the groom whispered. “She claims the captain of a ship can perform the ceremony, so she declared it yesterday. This show is for you guys.”

  “You’re kidding, and you let her?”

  “Near-death experiences really shake her up. We slept in the same bed but didn’t . . . I told her we needed to get some advice from Trina and Yvette about the first time.”

  “You could’ve asked me, Z.”

  The groom laughed. “Try that conversation over the island air-traffic radio. That’d be on Facebook next. I thought you and Risa were going to wait.”

  “She is . . . I’ve visited a few football bleachers and bars in my day. Risa knows about it.”

  “I’ll get some good vodka and then you can advise me on some specialized problems.”

  Herk nodded. “Are you taking a week off?”

  Zeiss shook his head. “She doesn’t want to miss class. Nothing gets in the way of the mission; you know that.”

  “No money?” Herk deduced incorrectly. “We can take up a collection.”

  “I’m actually good. I got a consulting contract recently. Since I didn’t have time to get you a present, let me buy Risa’s plane ticket to visit your folks.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Her folks paid for your ticket. You can’t afford hers on your savings.”

  “Z, it wouldn’t be right.”

  “Fortune Aerospace gave me a signing bonus this week—six figures. I figure you deserve a share for all the hours looking after Red for me.”

  Herk’s face broke out in a grin. “You talked me into it. All we got you was a lousy T-shirt. It has your new call sign on it.”

  “Great,” Zeiss said, drawing out the word with sarcasm.

  “Oh. If you’re riding back with us, you need to finagle seats and get someone to volunteer to babysit the Half-Pint.”

  “I’ll invite the mail plane crew and buy a keg,” the groom said. “Go; get my makeup. We’ll be watching this video together every June for years.”

  Mira turned off her media fogger for the brief ceremony. When Zeiss saw her come into the chapel with baby’s breath in her hair, he said, “I do.”

  “Not yet,” Herk hissed.

  The groom’s rapt attention made Mira glow.

  After the ceremony, Trina had to slap a security seal on the wedding license because Mira signed her birth name in big letters. The bride hadn’t decided what last name to use yet; she had so many to choose from.

  ****

  Sunday, Zeiss wore the new Taz T-shirt back to the island, to much cheering as they deplaned. Mira didn’t talk much; she just leaned against him, their auras humming together. As they walked past the maintenance crew, the bride received several appreciative whistles, which made her blush. “It’s the dress and the hair,” she said.

  “Seriously, you could have your own theme song, too,” Sojiro said.

  “‘Shine,’” suggested Zeiss, and she smiled.

  Daniel greeted them in the tunnel, beside Jezebel’s star. He handed the bride and the groom each a new badge. “Congratulations. You’re the first occupants of the new married student housing.”

  Zeiss shook his hand. “Thanks—for everything.”

  “Family,” Daniel said. After Mira hugged her uncle, he reaffirmed, “You are shining. We’re all happy for you.”

  ****

  Classes became a blur for the couple. Conrad spent most of his time staring longingly at her in the next chair. Instructors tried to catch him off-guard, but he could always recite the last paragraph. In Program Management class, he added, “But it won’t ship on time because you don’t start testing until it’s too late to fix the problems.”

  During the class on Sun-Tzu, Professor Rogers asked, “What is the true purpose of a soldier?”

  Most people asserted something along the lines of, “Killing who your boss tells you to.”

  Conrad listened. When everyone else had given their opinion, he said, “Most of a soldier’s time should be spent preventing war. When war is imminent, he should plan for every eventuality. However, when war is declared, it is a soldier’s duty to end it as quickly as possible so that he may return to his primary calling.” Rogers debated him for the remainder of the hour, but the former TA quoted from the warlord’s writings to support every point.

  As the class rose to leave, Rogers called Conrad to his desk. “You don’t talk much.”

  “I don’t want to monopolize the time. Other people need to learn.”

  “You’re bored?” asked the instructor.

  “I plan. This semester, during your class, I’ve designed a variation on the media-blocker virus to detonate warheads before they hit. I also sent air-traffic a set of path-randomizing algorithms to keep the enemy guessing but still enable us to find our people if they splash.”

  Rogers blinked. “Is that all?”

  “Actually, those are the easy problems. I’m also trying to redesign the round pods to fit my wife’s enormous square freezer. The most difficult puzzle is deciding what Fortune Multimedia can develop now for TV shows, educational software, and other products to ease the economic earthquake that’s coming. That’s really Mira’s pet project, but I’m trying to help because we do things together.”

  The instructor hesitated. “You missed a test while you were out. I think you’ve had enough time to catch up. Do you have a couple hours now?”

  Zeiss nodded and sent Mira home to eat without him. Rogers gave him a pad and he answered questions for another hour. When the navigator student turned his answers in, the instructor said, “Normally this takes longer. Are you sure you don’t want more time?”

  “No. I have a good memory, even better since I became Active.”

  The instructor hit autoscore for the first few sections and then read the essay. “You pass the course, better than my score when I took it. Congratulations, you’re a lieutenant.”

  “What? No. I want to come to class,” Zeiss objected.

  “Stow it. You’re doing a small-team tactics independent study with Horvath the rest of the semester. I hear you suck with guns, but you’ve got a good mind for strategy. You’re wasting everybody’s time here, Conrad.”

  Later that day, in the men’s changing room, Red’s team prepared for an underwater-repair drill on the model space ship. The women regularly suited up with the men to save time and increase group safety. Herkemer discussed possible restructuring of the Half-Pint. “To get more fuel, we could use the warning beacon’s fuel tank from the L point.”

  Zeiss blinked a few times as he computed. “It has the capacity, but slowing down would cost us time on the run. We’d have to fake a repair. How long would it take to do the cannibalism extra-vehicular?”

  “For Herk alone, an hour and a half,” Risa estimated.

  Zeiss winced. “How many people can we get outside?”

  “Five of us are EV rated. We can fit three through the airlock at a time,” Risa replied.

  “If we can get six wrenches, eighteen minutes?” Zeiss guessed. “That’s still a lot of acting and remote sensors to disable. I’m not saying no, but we’re going to have more problems to solve.”

  Red snu
ck into the changing room; only Toby squealed. “I’m not looking at yours,” she replied. To her husband, she said, “Did everything go okay with Rogers?”

  He ran a hand over his neck. “I can’t be in class anymore. I have to take some special remedial thing with Trina.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Advanced Small-Group Tactics?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted sullenly.

  “That’s fantastic. You’ll get to design the anti-terrorism drills for the freshmen next year. You’ll be the new nightmare for lowerclassmen; that’s so cool! When will they let you take the lieutenant’s exam?”

  “He gave me my bars already,” Zeiss mumbled.

  Herk overheard and picked him off his feet in a hug. “Fantastic! Beers on you, again. I’ll tell the others.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zeiss apologized when the enthusiastic bomb technician left. “I’m a professional student. I’m good at tests.”

  She stroked his face. “It’s okay. Never be ashamed of success. Our team gets the points.”

  “You’re not mad that I got the rank first?”

  “No. I’ve already had Trina’s advanced training. This means we’ll be able to take more classes together next semester.”

  He smiled. “Definitely.”

  ****

  When Zeiss showed up at Daniel’s door the next morning, the billionaire said, “Conrad, you don’t have to do this. You don’t work for me.”

  “I want to spend time with our uncle,” Zeiss replied.

  Daniel smiled. “You want advice.”

  “Red wants to work out with me in martial arts, but I don’t want her to get hurt. The last couple times we sparred, I ended up in the clinic.”

  “Yeah. Make her the teacher,” Daniel suggested.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been the mentor for the first two years. It’s been an unbalanced relationship. What she’s really asking for is a chance to be in the lead.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Right now, you have to guess what she needs. How much of your time does that take?”

  “Most of it.”

  “If you let her tell you and listen, won’t that save you time?” Daniel asked. When Zeiss didn’t respond, he added, “She’s got a decade of experience on you in both quantum talents and fighting. You said it yourself the day you met her—she’s world class. Don’t worry about injury; it’s the teacher’s responsibility to protect and challenge the student.”