Damage Control - ARC

by Mary Jeddore Blakney

  After that, she couldn’t identify anything. It didn’t help that all she wanted to do was smash it all, instead of study it. Of course, if she could have gotten out of the therapy capsule to smash anything, she wouldn’t have bothered with that, either. But trying to figure out what was in front of her was better than thinking about being stuck here, and about her lost chance to escape.

  And of course, that’s exactly what she did think about for precisely 27 minutes, according to the Chuzekk clock. But it felt more like five hours.

  When she heard footsteps again, she smiled. “Nurse!” she called. “Nurse, I have a question.”

  The footsteps grew louder, and Jade grinned so wide her cheeks hurt. She could feel her top lip pull tight against her gum. She’d never been so happy to see a person she disliked, but any company was better than being alone and unable to move a muscle.

  But it wasn’t the nurse. “Perhaps I can answer the question,” said Gyze, appearing around the corner of some shiny things that looked like they could have been chrome pipes or glass tubes.

  “Gyze!” Jade didn’t realize she was screaming until she heard herself.

  He touched her mouth with his knuckle, and bumped her teeth, since she was still smiling. “Capsule therapy is unpleasant even for Chuzekks. I can only imagine what it is like for an alien who has never even heard of it.”

  “Gyze,” Jade said, her smile fading. “They said my spinal cord is damaged. They said I have only limited use of my legs.”

  He looked at something to the right of her head, where the nurse had looked. “That’s true, but you will be better soon.”

  “I hope you’re not just saying that. All I can think about is I want to get home!”

  He brought his left hand up to her face and brushed the backs of his fingers across it from her left eyebrow to her chin. “It is difficult to be patient, and time seems to increase in a therapy capsule.”

  “I miss Geonily so much!”

  Gyze just looked at her and nodded.

  “And my boyfriend, Diego.”

  Gyze flinched, and Jade decided to change the subject.

  “You know what? This is silly, but I miss the oak trees.”

  “What are oak trees?”

  “They’re big, strong hardwood trees that grow behind my house. And in the fall...at this time of year, their leaves turn orange and fall off.”

  “On my planet there are bushes that turn purple when an earthquake is coming.”

  “That’s amazing! I wish we had bushes like that. They must save a lot of lives.”

  “Not as many as they should. They are almost extinct.”

  “Oh, that’s not good. How do they work?”

  “No one knows. Our scientists have studied that question for many dozens of years.”

  “Do you really think I’ll get better? All the way better? Or at least so I can walk again?”

  “Yes. You just need some patience, and you will heal soon.”

  “Is this ‘therapy capsule’ really necessary? The thing is worse than the garoshh.”

  “Much worse. Yes, it is necessary.”

  “I just want to go to my room and get better there.”

  “They cannot move the therapy capsules to patients’ rooms. They’re integrated—“

  “Into the hospital, I know. I didn’t mean that. On Earth, when people get injured, they rest in bed, and heal that way.”

  “That sounds like a slow process,” said Gyze.

  “Not really. I broke my ankle once and—“

  Jade stopped talking when Gyze caught his breath and stared at the readout to the right of her head.

  “What’s wrong now?” She almost didn’t want to know.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s alright, you can tell me.”

  The squinty nurse walked up behind him, just as the front of the therapy capsule began to swing slowly outward, opening the capsule and letting Jade slip down until she was standing on the floor.

  “I told you that you would be better soon,” said Gyze, “but you did not believe me.”

  “What? You mean that’s it, I’m all...”

  “You are healed,” said the nurse, “and you may go home.”

  “So that’s what? Totally healed? I have to come back for more sessions, or what?” Jade rocked up on her toes and stretched each leg gently, waiting for the shooting nerve pain to come back.

  “Totally healed,” Gyze laughed. “You are free of the therapy capsule until the next time you attempt to correct a keev.”

  “I can go back to my room today!” said Jade. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I told you ‘soon,’” Gyze replied. “Is that the wrong word?”

  “No, it’s the right word. It’s just that ‘You’ll be better soon’ is usually just a polite thing to say in my culture. You just say it to make someone feel better.”

  “You are healed,” said the nurse, “but you will not go back to your room today.”

  Jade put her face in her hands and hung on tight, trying not to lose control. One moment of weakness and she could end up with Chuzekk claws in her spinal cord again.

  “You are going home,” the nurse explained, “to Earth.”

  18

  the feed

  Thaddeus walked past a nervous Chuzekk soldier on foot patrol, ducked into the Bierhuis and ordered his usual Heineken.

  "Is that Frenck?"Aaron Rosenbaum came down from the other end of the bar—all six-foot-seven of him. They'd known each other since college. He thumped Thaddeus between the shoulder blades, but not too hard. "I thought you were dead, Frenck. How'd you manage to survive the National Mall attack?"

  "Shitload of luck. How's the family?"

  "Wife and kids are fine. Bastards got my niece Emily, though. Just got out of Annapolis, too. Graduated with honors. She was really gonna be somebody. Got a posting at the Pentagon."

  "That's pretty fucked up, Aaron. I'm sorry."

  Aaron perched on the empty stool to Thaddeus’s right and leaned in. "Listen, we don't have to take this shit. There's groups forming all over. We're getting organized. We're going to make ET go home."

  "And let me guess," said Frenck. "You're here to recruit me."

  "Well...yeah. I mean, you saw what they did. You were there. Don't you want to fight back?"

  "You think a bunch of fat old guys like you and me can accomplish what the US military couldn't?"

  "Hey, it happened in France. French Army couldn't do shit. Along comes the Maquis, and all of a sudden the Nazis are in trouble. Different kind of fighting."

  "With a little help from the Americans and Russians. All I can say is I'll think about it."

  "And Canada. Can't forget Canada."

  "I'll sleep on it, okay?"

  Next to nearly getting killed on a regular basis, the worst part about being a news videographer was that you could never count on a full night of sleep. This phone call actually came at the very decent hour of nine a.m., but Thaddeus had been up till six chasing a tip that had turned out to be nothing.

  It was Aaron. "Listen, I know I said I'd give you some time to think about it, but one of our sister groups is organizing a protest. It looks like it's gonna be good—big turnout. You could really make the difference for us, Frenck."

  "What are you asking me to do?"

  "Well, first of all, I'm sure you're going to want to be there doing your thing no matter what. I mean, we're talking about thousands of demonstrators—peaceful demonstration. But you could really help the cause by giving us an exclusive."

  "You want to get an exclusive on my feed? For what? You got a network lined up?"

  "Well, it's not a network exactly. But we got a lot of stations on our side."

  "Wouldn't it help your cause a lot more if all the major networks got the feed instead? Why go exclusive?"

  "Do you have any idea what those bastards would do with the footage? They've got all the networks by the balls, you know."

  "Yeah, I
have an idea what they'd do with the footage, Aaron. They'd edit it to make it support their position. And I think that's exactly what you'd like to do, too."

  "You always see through all the shit, Frenck. That's what makes you special. The difference is, we're the good guys. We're doing it to help get our planet back."

  "When do you need to know by?"

  "Call me when you're setting up, okay? The protest starts at ten in the morning on Saturday."

  Thaddeus didn't get a chance to call Aaron. He started to reach for his phone as soon as he had his equipment set up, but a beautiful brunette in her twenties interrupted him.

  "Michelle John, CNN," she announced, holding out her card.

  "Thaddeus Frenck." He glanced at the card and stuck it in his pocket. "Let me guess: you're asking for an exclusive."

  A guy joined them from out of the protest crowd, with what Thaddeus took to be prematurely-gray hair.

  "I am," said Michelle. "Normally, I'd talk about how we offer the highest compensation for exclusives in the industry. But I don't think you're interested in that, so I'll remind you that CNN has a very good working relationship with the powers that be. And while some more reactionary vigilante types may not agree with that, you and I know that acceptance of the way things are, when there's nothing you can do about it, means no more needless waste of Human life."

  Before she was half done, Aaron was calling him. He nodded to Michelle now and picked up the call. "Yeah."

  "Sorry to put the squeeze on, man, but my tech's gotta know, like, a minute ago."

  "Tell them both no," said the gray-haired guy. "I've got a better option for you." He offered his hand. "I'm Fletcher."

  what comes next...

  Did Piper find a way home again? What happened back home when she disappeared?

  Why was Zuke flying over Earth in the first place? Who chose the planet for exploration?

  Why wouldn’t Chegg let Jade have any contact with Earth?

  What was Chegg’s secret Earth mission and what made it so dangerous?

  Who is Fletcher and what is he up to?

  Read the full story in the four-book series, The Fletcher Variable.

  The Chuzekk Wiki

  To learn more about Chuzekks and the Fletcher Variable universe, visit Chuzekk.wikia.com. Feel free to contribute anything you find interesting from this book, but please be kind and warn other visitors of any spoilers.

  Bonus Story

  _________________________________________

  the scout’s tale, part i

  from The Canterbury Tales by Luke Bellmason

  Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Have you ever wondered how your jump drive really works?

  OK, sure, so you simply dial your destination into the navigation computer and press a button, but that navcom has to calculate a trajectory to the point in space where you want to be, then has to take into account all of the gravitational fluctuations between here and there, then has to crunch those numbers into vectors for the jump drive, which then flips your vessel into hyspace at just the right angle and velocity so that it finishes up in lospace at precisely the right point.

  For all this to happen there needs to be an extraordinarily detailed map of the galaxy you’re in, from every black hole, pulsar and gas giant, to every moon or lump of rock. The map doesn’t just need to know where these things are, but also where they’re going, how fast and where they’ll be at the moment you arrive. To put it simply; someone had to go there first.

  So spare a thought for the brave boys and girls of the Federal Galactic Naval Fleet Astrogation Squadron. We’re a rare breed. Subjected to a battery of tests to make sure we won’t crack up when we’re left on our own for years at a time and trained to be totally independent.

  I’d been on seventeen missions during my career, more than almost any other scout. I’d faced countless hostile aliens, spacial anomalies, supernovae, poisonous creatures and threatening letters from my health insurance provider, but none of these things filled me with so much dread as being promoted. My husband had put them up to it, of course.

  Bill was a commodore with his own fleet. We’d met at the Academy when we were both fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds and had married just as I’d passed the entrance exams for the scout service. I always joked that he knew what he was getting into, but Bill laughed a little less at that joke each year. He’d stayed with the home fleet and raised our two children while I’d been out in the distant reaches of the Galaxy for years at a time.

  We’d talked about ‘promotion’ many times over the years. I would take a command aboard one of his ships and we’d serve our remaining time together before retiring. Every time I went away I’d told him it was my final mission, but then I always wanted one more, then another. Eventually, it became harder to persuade Bill to let me go.

  The ship he’d chosen for me was the FGS Talisman, one of the carriers that launched the scouts out on their missions. We’d come to Riga, one of the sectors I’d catalogued on my first mission when this sector had been unknown space. Now it was part of the Federation of Galactic Worlds. All of the Lonestar class scout ships were lined up along hangar deck for the ceremony. Their pilots were standing proudly beside them in full dress uniform. I walked in to fanfare and applause.

  The whole senior staff of the fleet were lined up on the stage at the other end of the deck. Bill stood in the middle, all dressed up. Next to him was Captain Sanvari, the outgoing Captain whom I was due to replace. The walk to the stage seemed like several kilometres. I felt strange, breathless. I wanted to run out of the place.

  Eventually, I climbed up onto the stage and Bill started talking. I couldn’t hear him, of course, as I immediately froze to the spot, staring out at all those faces watching me, petrified. Bill reached out to slip the extra gold bar onto my collar, but as he did, his hand slipped. I felt the stage move and I saw everyone move sideways. I watched the tiny gold bar tumble out of Bill’s hand and drop away. Lights flashed, a siren wailed and the crew scattered in every direction. We were under attack.

  Bill and I ran for the elevators. Another volley hit the carrier, this time from the rear.

  “They’re targeting our engines,” I shouted, but Bill didn’t hear me.

  We dashed into the elevator and hoped it would get us to the Bridge. The doors began to close and we saw Captain Sanvari running to catch up with us. I held the door, but another powerful blast struck one of the launch bays, which had opened to allow the defence fighters out. There was an explosion, and several of the Lonestars, fully fuelled and loaded with weaponry, went up. Bill pulled my hand away from the door controls, and the elevator lifted rapidly upwards.

  By the time we’d reached the Bridge, the attacks had increased.

  “I think I might have an idea who these people are,” I told Bill. “Remember, I was out here on my first mission.”

  Commander Laxmo rushed over and Bill gave him the news about Sanvari.

  “There’s over forty attacking ships, sir,” said Laxmo. “They’re split into six groups.”

  “They’re concentrating on the capital ships, right?” I asked, but it was just like I was invisible.

  “Get us out of here, Laxmo, move the fleet out,” ordered Bill.

  I could see from the monitor station that my instincts had been right. I knew who was attacking and I knew what they wanted.

  “Look at those sharded drives,” I said, “they’re Bodarian ships. They’re after the Lonestars. They only want the gold cores from hydrives.” Another group of fighters flew by and launched torpedoes into our flanks. “Laxmo, give the order to the crews, we have to get the scout ships away.”

  “No!” shouted Bill, “turn us around, Laxmo, we’re not stopping to launch.”

  “Don’t forget who’s in command here,” I said. “Captain Sanvari is dead; this is my ship.”

  Bill tried to pull himself up to his full height, but he was still twelve centimetres shorter than me. I think tha
t had always bothered him. “You’ll recall, Commander, that the commissioning ceremony was interrupted. It is the duty of the flag officer to assign promotions.” I couldn’t believe he was quoting book and verse to me in the middle of a battle.

  “Look, Bill,” I pleaded, “I know these people. They’ll try to take out our engines and shields so they can board us.”

  This was typical Bill under stress, relying on rules and regulations. It was his way of coping. I knew that following procedure meant nothing when you were dead, and I knew I was right.

  “Commander Laxmo, in the absence of Captain Sanvari, I’m in command, not the commodore.”

  Laxmo looked confused.

  “Commander Laxmo, you’re in command and you will obey my orders,” countered Bill.

  “Really? We’re doing this now?” I shouted over the noise of missiles hitting the hull plating. The Bodarians had knocked out our defences, precisely and methodically, just as I’d predicted.

  “Don’t be so stupid!” Bill yelled at me. “Just shut up and let me handle this.”

  “You’re the one who’s being stupid,” I screamed at him. “You never listen to anyone! They’ll have disabled our jump drive and stolen our scout ships by the time we’ve turned around!”

  “Sir, what should I do?” asked Laxmo, but it wasn’t clear who exactly he was asking.

  “I told you, turn us about and jump us out of here,” said my husband.

  “No! Laxmo, give the order to launch. Get those scout ships away,” I shouted.

  “Commander Fielding!” The commodore bellowed.

  “It’s Captain Fielding,” I yelled, “and this is my ship!”

  “Two weeks ago you never even wanted the bloody ship!” said Bill. “Now all of a sudden you’re ready to command it.”