Resurrection

by Jeffrey Burger

  ■ ■ ■

  Thorne dropped himself heavily into the seat behind the desk in his quarters, which doubled as his office on the small Marauder Class gunship. After a deep cleansing breath, he tapped the keyboard, a holographic screen on the desk winking into existence, the signal flashing from the Black Widow’s holding screen to the comm’s live feed. “Hi, Pop. How’s Mo…”

  “Your mother’s fine,” interrupted JonLouis Thorne, adjusting the round wire-frame glasses sitting on his nose. “Now where in God’s name are you, Michel - and how’s my ship?”

  “The ship is fine, Pop. I’m good too, thanks for asking…” He glanced at the corner of the screen, confirming the transmission was securely encrypted. “We’re in Tuscany…”

  “Tuscany? What the hell are you doing in Tuscany?”

  “We had to take a bit of a detour, Pop…”

  “Joyriding…” countered JonLouis shaking his head in irritation. “Did you forget who raised you, boy? I know you better than that - you’re out there zooming that ship around, shooting things up…”

  It was a conscious effort on Michel’s part not to let his face crack into a smile. “It was a legitimate detour, Pop. Long story…”

  “Then shorten it...”

  Michel sighed, rubbing his forehead, “I ran into an old friend - you might remember him…”

  “Michel, you are on an escort assignment, how did you possibly find time to socialize…”

  “We picked him up in a rescue pod, Pop. We almost ran over him. Remember Jack Steele? He used to come to our Bar-B-Qs… Tall, dark hair, moustache? Used to be a cop in Chicago?”

  JonLouis sat back, his brow furrowed, tugging on the short silver goatee that matched the short-cropped silver hair atop his head. “I remember him… What on Earth was he doing out there?”

  “He couldn’t tell us, he has no memory. But he was in trouble - and he is a Brother. I couldn’t just…”

  “I understand,” waved his father.

  “We took him for some medical attention. It was out of our way, but we’re back on track to ArmaCore now.”

  More contemplative, JonLouis rubbed his earlobe in thought, “The client was just getting concerned… the delivery is over a week late.”

  “I know, Pop. It couldn’t be helped. We’ve also had a few run-ins…”

  That changed JonLouis’ expression to one of curious interest, “How did the Marauder fare? Did the Palladium take any damage?”

  Michel shook his head, “Not a scratch. And the Black Widow takes care of business; she handles like a champ.”

  JonLouis took a relaxing breath, “Good to hear. Any problems?”

  “None. And we may have our first sale…”

  “How did that come about...?”

  Michel leaned back in his seat, relaxed for the first time since the conversation started. “It seems, Jack has some considerable influences. He was impressed with the Widow. We discussed multiple units…”

  “Interesting.”

  “We’ve discussed one design change, however, he wants to include GOD drives on the units he orders…”

  JonLouis leaned in, “Well that poses a problem, Michel. First of all, we don’t have any way of getting those devices. They’re restricted. And second, there’s no room in the hull to fit them in; it would take a substantial redesign…”

  “He has some thoughts on that,” smirked Michel. “And it turns out, Jack can get us the drives as well…”

  “How?”

  Michel was trying not to grin like a Cheshire Cat, “Jack is a Vice Admiral with the UFW…”

  JonLouis leaned into the screen again, his voice low, “Son, are you sure about this? I respect your judgement and admire your trust in this man, but the circumstances in which you picked him up, sound very strange - it all seems much too convenient.” He shook his head, “I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel right.”

  His father wasn’t wrong. It was about as strange as it gets. Which is why he didn’t delve into Jack’s strange ability to redesign the hull to accommodate the equipment. Or the fact that he was married to the Queen of an entire planet. That was a lot to take in, even for him; he could only imagine how that would sound to his father. And discussing Synths? He wasn’t even going to attempt that subject. “Well, that’s why we took a five-system detour to get him medically checked out, Pop. I wanted to be sure he was alright…”

  JonLouis had sudden butterflies and he pinched his lower lip in consternation, “Son, I want you to be extremely careful. I have a bad feeling about this, something isn’t right. Promise me you won’t let your guard down…”

  “I promise.”

  “Get that shipment delivered to ArmaCore and get yourself home…”

  ■ ■ ■

  His appetite having returned, Thorne headed back toward the galley, the conversation with his father replaying in his head. The fact that his father actually displayed concern over the circumstances surrounding recent events, got Michel re-examining his actions. He hated second-guessing himself. But there were a lot of coincidences… and he wasn’t real fond of coincidences. Especially when they started looking more and more like they were arranged. Convenient. Planned. Of course, when you reanalyze stuff, sometimes the subconscious has a way of connecting things that really aren’t. Was he being paranoid now?

  “You actually going to eat this time?” asked the grill chef, handing him a plate of food over the glass counter. “Or are you here just to make a mess again?”

  Thorne just shot him a look of derision and pulled the plate from his grasp. “Not now, Cookie.” He put the plate on his tray and turned away, heading for a table. No, it was absurd. Why would someone go through all that trouble? Or risk? What would they hope to gain? One small ship? It didn’t compute in Thorne’s mind. Was his trust in Steele blinding him? And he was Jack, they proved that. There were just some things that made no sense at all – too many to ignore; how they found his pod, his strange behavior in engineering, and the most disturbing – his ability to re-engineer the ship’s plans.

  Cookie walked by the table, pointing, “Stop playing with your food and eat it…”

  With a snap of his fingers, Thorne waved him off. No, it had to be coincidence… Even Sigmund Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” He was going to have to let it go. There was just one problem with that, his mind didn’t like unsolved issues. With or without his conscious effort, it was going to try to solve the puzzles. A tray slid across the table, bumping up against his own…

  “What is up, my brotha’ from anotha’ mutha’?”

  Thorne cracked a smile, “Hey Jack. You’ve been scarce lately...”

  “Figured you needed the space to do your thang. I know we went quite a bit out of your way for me. I feel a little bad about that.”

  “Just a little?” joked Thorne. “No sweat, man. We’ll get there.” He eyed the pile of food on the tray across from his, “Um, you a little hungry, Jack?”

  Jack grinned, “Y’know, growing boy and all that…”

  “You eat all that and the only way you’ll be growing is sideways.”

  “Funny man…” Steele used his fork to indicate the food on Thorne’s plate, “Better than finger-painting with my food, buddy. What’re you trying to create there, Michel...?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE DRAKE, DARPINGER RUN SYSTEM : WANTED

  Jack Steele reluctantly poured himself a half mug of coffee, dumping a liberal amount of sugar in the mix. “So, no milk, Chief?”

  The Command Master Chief shook his head, gesturing toward the walk-in cooler, “Gone with all the other food that went bad when the compressor in the cold room took a dump.”

  “So, our food supply reserve?”

  Daryl shrugged, “We could still go two weeks if you like soup and crackers…”

  “Oh, screw that,” frowned Jack.

  “Ok then, a couple days. Maybe.” The Chief sipped his coffee, “I’ve been known to subsist on coffee
alone for a week.”

  “Blych…” Steele made a face and poured the coffee down the drain, setting the mug in the sink. “Rancid swill…”

  “I’m hurt,” feigned Daryl, “you don’t like my coffee?”

  “No offense Chief, I don’t like coffee period. I just thought it’d be better than the lousy tap water we have…”

  “Yeah, well, it doesn’t make the coffee any better, either.” He leaned back in his chair, holding his mug in both hands, “Did you give any more thought to making a stop at Hoyle’s before we hit the gate to Ballistraye?”

  Steele hung his head, his arms dropping limp at his sides, “Unnnghhh,” he groaned.

  “C’mon, Jaxon, we can get the refrigeration taken care of, get a month’s supply of food, top off our fuel - we can even have the water tanks flushed…”

  “Fuel? I thought you just put in new fuel rods…”

  The Master Chief’s eyebrows registered surprise, “Uh, you do know the fuel rods just handle fuel flow, right? Like a metering and filtering system?”

  Steele gestured with his palms up, “No freaking clue, Chief. No speaky engineery. That’s your job. When I tell her go, she’s supposed to go. When I tell her stop, she supposed to stop. When I tell her…”

  Daryl waved off the diatribe, “I get it.” He shook his head, “Typical pilot.” Glancing down into his nearly empty mug, he continued, “As I was about to say, you do have money, right?”

  Steele pursed his lips, “Some…” he lied.

  “Good, maybe we can even pick up a couple more hands…”

  “Fiiine,” groaned Steele. “Wait, what?”

  “Aww, c’mon,” complained the Chief, rising to his feet, “the two of us can’t run this ship effectively…” He moved over to the coffee maker and filled his cup, “What if we run into trouble? We don’t even have a tactical officer or any damn gunners. And as much as I don’t mind cooking, it would be nice if we actually had someone else who could pitch in. How about a navigator or a helmsman so you could actually be captain?”

  Steele rubbed his beard, “I don’t know, how are we going to find and pick these people?”

  “You let me worry about that. I have a system…”

  “Hmm,” grunted Jack. “I’m not sure I can even afford to pay anybody.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, there’s plenty of ways to make money out here… legally,” he added, after seeing a flash of concern on the pilot’s face.

  Steele wasn’t sure if he was more concerned about running into trouble without a crew, or subterfuge within a crew that had no loyalties. “Ok,” he said, with severe reservations playing through his mind. “But I get the final say on anyone we bring on board.”

  “Deal,” grinned the Chief. “Look, think of it this way, it’s only a few hours out of the way, when we leave Hoyle’s we can head straight to the gate to Ballistraye. It won’t really cost us any time.”

  “Except our time out of service,” sighed Steele. “How long do you think we’ll be tied up at Hoyle’s?”

  Daryl sipped his coffee, “I’m going to be optimistic, I’m going to say… two days tops.” He stared at his coffee for a moment, making a face of distaste, “It’ll be nice having sanitized water tanks. I might as well have them check the filters while they’re at it.”

  “Try not to run up the bill too much,” cautioned Steele. “I’m not exactly flush…”

  ■ ■ ■

  Jack wasn’t sure what to expect from Hoyle’s Station, out in what was considered Dark Territory. But about six hours from the gate to Ballistraye, drifted a glittering blue and silver gem, positioned above a habitable planet not unlike Earth, it’s dark side gently speckled with lights.

  Arms extended from the center of the station, some farther out than others, all with round, numbered landing pads at the end, the station reminded Steele of an octopus – though the station had far more than just eight arms.

  Steele slid the throttles back, “I’m not getting any approach or traffic information.”

  Daryl stood behind Jack at the helm station, “Somebody went for a piss break. No worries – see the pads ringed in green about mid-way out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Pick any one. They’re reading our ship size and showing us which is appropriate…”

  Steele nodded, angling the Drake to the left, eyeing a pad inward of one ringed in orange. “I’m assuming red means we’re too big, what does orange mean?”

  “Red could mean we’re too big or the pad is occupied. Orange means it is reserved for something.” He scanned the pads, “I don’t even see any yellow tonight - yellow means we can fit but it might be tight.”

  Steele rolled the Drake to orient it to the landing pad he’d picked, “Green it is. Gear down,” he announced, flipping switches. “So, you’ve been here before?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Uh-huh,” Steele acknowledged dubiously. “Do we have gravity on the pads or do I need to magnetize the gear?”

  “You’ll have gravity.”

  The station, grew to fill the view through the armored glass and Steele activated the landing assist cameras, watching the superimposed crosshair on the inset video feed, as it tracked and lined-up with the small bullseye painted on the pad. He adjusted the Drake’s attitude to match the landing guides in view of the belly camera, easing the descent until the gear met the surface. “Aaand we’re on the mark.” He zeroed the controls, shutting down the systems one-by-one. “So how do we get from the ship to the tunnel in the arm?”

  The Chief leaned past him, pointing out at the mechanism arcing over the landing pad like an accordion from its edge, “It will dome over, lock secure and pressurize. It takes about five to ten minutes.”

  Rising, Jack reset the security entry, effectively locking out the computer system, “So now what?”

  “We’ll have to stop in at the service and repair desk to give them our to-do list, and then…” He pointed at Steele’s sidearms, “Two? Now you’re wearing two?”

  Jack shrugged, “Yeah, so? Fastest reload is a second weapon…”

  Daryl shook his head with a silly grin, “I have no words. None. But you can’t take them on the station. No weapons.”

  “That sucks,” grumped Jack. “You’d think in this neck of the woods it would be a necessity.”

  “Neck of the woods?”

  Steele rubbed his forehead, “Ahhh, crappy neighborhood?”

  The Chief dismissed it with a wave, “Well it may not be UFW space, but it’s not that bad. Hoyle’s Station is a corporate owned station, a mining and trade hub. It’s relatively clean and safe - good security. But don’t get me wrong,” he added, slapping Jack on the shoulder, “there’s plenty of places out here where you don’t want to venture out without those things,” he rapped on Jack’s holster. “This just isn’t one of them.”

  ■ ■ ■

  Stepping off the Drake to the deck of the landing pad felt akin to being parked in the center of an enclosed football stadium; wide, open, a soft, flat, non-skid carpet-like surface underfoot, a retractable bubble canopy overhead.

  Ground crewmen arrived via a motorized cart, plugged diagnostics transmitters into the Drake’s data port to estimate fuel needs and repair issues, asking for and taking note of any issues relayed by the crew. By the time the Master Chief and Jack Steele reached the service and repair desk in the station, the Service Manager had a full assessment of the Drake’s requirements and all the associated costs.

  Steele examined the estimate on the screen facing him, “How close to this estimate with the actual cost be? Any hidden costs?”

  The Service Manager, a tall thin, grayish man, tilted his head in an unspoken question, “Captain, the quote is the quote. Unless we find something that is not covered on the initial statement, there will be no changes.”

  “And if you find something?”

  “Then we will of course notify you, for your approval of anything additional. That does not happe
n often, our assessments are very thorough.” He nodded towards Jack’s screen, “Do you approve?”

  “Yes,” nodded Jack. “It looks fine.”

  The Service Manager typed in on his own screen, the word approved, showing up on Jack’s screen. “Work will begin immediately,” advised the gray man. “How will you be paying for that?”

  “ITC card,” replied Jack.

  “Very good,” nodded the Service Manager. “Your invoice will be uploaded to the station’s finance system. You will be able to access any one of the station’s kiosks at your convenience and pay with your ITC account. Your service will be complete within twelve hours. Will you be staying aboard your ship, or on the station?”

  Jack and the Chief exchanged glances, “The station,” they answered in unison.

  “Wonderful. Your stay and any ancillary purchases can be added to your overall invoice and taken care of through the station’s finance kiosks.” The man handed Jack a digital card to keep track of his account and charges. “You gentlemen have a good stay at Hoyle’s.”

  ■ ■ ■

  The station wasn’t as big or as fancy as Nelson’s Point, but it was relatively clean and surprisingly busy, with a more lived-in feel, more of a work environment as opposed to a shopper’s paradise. Though it was not without its retail attractions.

  “What’s next?” asked Jack. “Groceries?”

  “Not until the coolant compressor is replaced. We’ll order our supplies tomorrow, they’ll deliver it right to the ship.” The Chief pulled up his sleeve revealing a MOBIUS with a broken screen, “I really need to get a new MOBI - and I noticed you don’t even have one. They’re kind of essential.”