War of the Spheres

by B. V. Larson

  “Dock and locked. Make way for the crew.”

  Whenever a ship returned to port, the crew was anxious to disembark and get a beer in their hands. They’d been on duty for long days and nights, pulling twelve-hour shifts in the infinite cold dark vastness of space. Yard-dogs knew this, and they hugged the walls to let the rush exit the ship and flow on by unimpeded.

  Once the stream of crewmen died down, I fell in with the station’s hands as they began to board the ship. Most ignored me and made off to perform their particular tasks.

  An ensign glided next to me, seeming to keep pace alongside. After a fourth side-glance, he came near to confront me.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “What are you doing here, crewman?”

  Pulling aside my collar, I tapped my rank insignia. He outranked me, but not by much and only indirectly. “I’m Chief Gray. I’m under orders from General Niederman himself—I can’t really say more about it.”

  He narrowed his eyes and stared at me for a second. “I don’t know you.”

  “That’s right, and you don’t want to. I’m going up to the bridge. You can call Niederman to check up on me in the meantime.”

  He frowned. I could tell he didn’t want to call Niederman—but he didn’t give up.

  “That just doesn’t sound right to me,” he said, not backing down. “I think something’s wrong here. You wait right there, Chief.”

  He drifted away to confer with a lieutenant. That left me on my toes inside the main hold, and I didn’t wait for him to come back.

  Instead, I bounced away from him while his back was turned.

  I hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of Viper from a distance when we were in the transport earlier. Now that I was able to get a feel for her, she seemed large for her class.

  Even other destroyers had some variation, and it was necessary to get to know any new ship’s layout. I was looking forward to exploring her, but I was sure moving forward and topside was going to take me closer to the bridge.

  It seemed abnormal to me that a ship this size would stay fully at null-G during a refit. Maybe she had a big load-out or some circumstances that required it.

  I paused at a side passage. All was quiet so I made my way to the gunnery deck which was clear of personnel. The ship’s gunnery stations were impressive. One man could command a whole battery of cannons from a single seat. I grabbed the Gunnery Ops’ high-backed chair and swung myself into it, and then I spun to face a black upright screen.

  I’d never been aboard this particular ship, but I’d been on many just like it in the past. It was all familiar in a haunting way. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recall one damned specific as to how and why I’d served on a gun-deck before.

  Activating screens with a brushing touch, I looked out at the universe. The view was made up of harsh glaring whites—such as the Moon’s surface, reflecting sunlight, and dark shadowy geometric shapes. Struts, beams, tubes… Luna Station and Viper herself looked almost as if they’d merged together. Here and there, vapor vented out into space in white plumes.

  Farther out, standing like fireplugs with rotating heads, were cannon turrets. They didn’t move often, but when they did, you couldn’t help but wonder what they were looking at with their AI brains.

  Besides the turrets, there were plenty of other docking slots. Viper was the only major ship that was connected to nurse power and fuel from the station at the moment, but there were five other slips massive enough to accommodate cruisers, and a dozen more for smaller craft.

  The whole space yard had a menacingly industrial appearance. It looked like a great place to sever a limb or be crushed by things much weightier than a man—perhaps die in vacuum or get burned alive.

  Tired of sight-seeing, I tapped into the main comm-feed.

  “…so, where the hell’s my gravity, Commander Collins?” I heard the captain’s voice growl.

  “We’re still trouble-shooting the grav-generator, sir. It’s just a glitch.”

  “The back-up too?”

  “We’re working on it, sir.”

  “Make it right. You’re fouling up the party for a lot of tired souls.”

  “Roger that,” the commander sighed. “We’ll get it squared away.”

  “Out.”

  Flickering lights caught my eye. Under a glossy bubble, which allowed partial containment against hard vacuum, bright welding arcs twinkled over the hull of a corvette docked there. Men in reflective suits looked tiny as they crawled and bounced all around the moored ship. I also noticed there was a squatty defense turret on a limb of the station straight across from my viewport.

  There was a lot more I wanted to see aboard Viper, so I shut the board back down and left the Gunny’s chair spinning as I bounded back into the passageways.

  I ran into several commissioned grunts, all of whom looked at me with a bit of confusion. After ascending two ladders, I caught a glimpse of a sleeve sporting the heavy bars of an officer.

  Turning away before I could be identified, I grabbed the push-bar of a transport cart. Reaching to its side I flicked off the stow latches and threw myself behind its bulk and steered it down an adjoining passage.

  No one followed me, so I ditched the cart once I was out of sight and continued on.

  Security was disturbingly lax. I wasn’t getting challenged much—and that surprised me. I guessed these boys were just doing a job—glad to get off-duty for a drink and some down time.

  To me, it made no sense since they had recently encountered an unknown enemy, but I chalked it up to my good fortune for the moment. I was getting a good look around.

  My luck held out until I got to the next deck. There were no station hands buzzing around anymore, so I’d shucked off the spacer suit.

  Up here, the main passage was broad and much shorter. There were numerous viewports to either hand on this deck—rounded rectangles of thick, curved polymer most of which framed the starry blackness of space.

  As I shot down the central passage, I encountered an officer wearing his duty cap and a commander’s insignia. He was right in front of a viewport, but he was looking straight at me.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Get yourself over here.”

  Before I responded, I guess I paused, and he didn’t like that. He drew a close-range sidearm and quickly pointed it at my chest.

  “Get over here,” he warned me again. “I want to see your hands. Right now!”

  “Easy Commander, I’m here on business,” I said.

  I wasn’t positive yet if this was the same Commander Collins I heard getting heat from the captain—but the voice sounded right. My foggy long-term memory allowed me to be ten times as sharp for the present, and I was rarely wrong about these things.

  I showed him my palms and made my way carefully over to him. I was plainly caught in the act and unarmed to boot.

  Automatically, I assessed the man’s speed and temperament. I was pretty sure that I couldn’t turn that gun away before he blasted my ribcage open with a gush of plasma—even though I was pretty fast. I was still measuring the odds though, and I considered it an option.

  “Just what in the hell are you doing on my ship?” he asked.

  “Commander Collins, right?” I asked.

  Caught off guard, he paused. He didn’t have a nametag I could see—but his expression assured me I’d guessed right.

  “You’re the guy that ensign was talking about. We figured you were probably some kind of indentured miner who’s trying to stow away. Am I warm?”

  “Ice cold, sir. All you need to do is scan me. Call it in and check me out. I’ve been cleared by the Ministry of Control. I’m allowed to access the command deck of this ship, and I’m exercising that right at this time.”

  As he tapped his earpiece and started muttering to someone, I knew he was going to have to access his comm-link at some point.

  The thing was, I should have clearances—but I wasn’t certain. Getting into the lab had been one thing. The Watchers had sent me there, and
they’d arranged a path through every guard, lock and bureaucrat. But now, I was up in space, and this destroyer and her crew were pretty far off the grid. It might well be that my authority didn’t extend so far from Earth.

  Accordingly, as I watched him, I made plans. When he got distracted enough, I would make my move.

  I knew he wouldn’t be able to kill me now that he was messing with his comm-link. His gun wasn’t even leveled evenly at my chest, and his eyes had drifted away from the target. I could best him and escape—perhaps only wounded.

  But I didn’t want to do that. Collins was just doing his job—in fact, he was doing it better than most of the crew on this boat. So, I watched, and I waited patiently.

  What happened next surprised me.

  Chapter 20

  “Chief Warrant Officer Gray, Special Ops?” Cmdr. Collins asked me. “Is that you?”

  I immediately dropped my plans to disable him and escape. I became very pleased instead.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  His weapon hand dropped to his side, and my heart rate slowed.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said into his comm-link. He squinted at the readout on his unit and twisted up his lips in disgust. “Affirmative, that’s him.” He nodded his head and listened some more. “All right. If you say so,” he said and tapped his earpiece.

  He holstered his gun and faced me while I continued to give him my calm poker-face.

  “Chief Gray, you’re to follow me,” he announced coolly. He drifted up the passage toward the bridge.

  That was the direction I’d wanted to go in the first place, so I didn’t give him an argument.

  “Lead on, sir,” I said politely as I slid down the passage after him.

  In under two minutes, we’d stopped outside a closed and sealed door in a bulkhead. The captain emerged after an awkward wait during which Collins stared eyes-ahead and stone-faced.

  The captain passed through the bridge access-way, and spun the dogs back into their slots behind him. He tapped a smartscreen pad by the door which turned red, then flashed off a return salute to my escort.

  “Thank you Collie,” the captain said with a smirk. His voice was deep and impossible to ignore. “I’ll take it from here.”

  It was hardly detectable, but I noticed the commander’s expression soured at the nickname.

  Once the captain and I were alone, he stretched his arms and took in a deep breath. Dark-haired and wearing a high collar, the man was taller than me, thin of build and very fit. His hair was beginning to lose its dark color. Single strands of silver were scattered everywhere.

  He nodded to me and wore the relaxed smile of a man who loved being at the top of the food chain.

  “You’re a determined man, Chief,” he said. “But I don’t like spooks who come aboard Viper and snoop around like they own the place. How can I get your ass off my ship?”

  He turned and stared at me in way that probably made many people uncomfortable. I cocked my head for a look at his nametag. “Captain Jessup?

  Jessup nodded a single time. “That’s right.”

  “I’m just here to brief myself in general about your vessel,” I said. “Would you mind if I asked a question or two?”

  “Not at all, son. Follow me to the mess deck, and we’ll grab some hot caffeine.”

  Springing from the knees and toes, he shot off very fast and smooth down the passage to the next door and straight through it. He moved quickly, and I followed on his heels.

  I managed to keep up, and three turns later we were there.

  As I drifted up to him, he was already dispensing a suspended blob of dark, scalding liquid in the air of what served as a galley on his boat—and then a second one close by. While they hovered there, a thin skin of steam wrapped around the surface of each drink in a swirling haze.

  He neatly nudged the steamy skin of the globe before him, and it began to oscillate rhythmically. He admired the effect for a moment before taking measured sips. I was getting the impression he was showing off—maybe showboating to intimidate me.

  I noted his uniform was trimmed on the snug side, and he appeared to enjoy wearing the trappings of his accomplishment unnecessarily. There was crap tidily pinned all over him—like a glory hound who’d grab some wherever he could.

  I gave my floating beverage an experimental tap. A small sphere broke off and drifted slowly away, wobbling. Without thinking, I leaned over and slurped it with enough air to avoid a burn.

  “This is your chance, Gray,” he told me. “Start snooping. What does the Ministry want to know?”

  He gave me a calm stare like he was hunting prey—in fact much about the captain reminded me of a wolf. On the surface, he was respectable and almost elegant, but something from underneath was wild and dangerous. He was not unlike myself in this way.

  I was no prey animal. In fact, I was broader of shoulder, deeper of chest and longer in reach. I was put together to get a job done. I didn’t need any applause, and I gladly took his invitation—diving into it.

  “Captain Jessup, it seems unconventional to me that your ship is docked-on in zero G—you’re not even running light gravity.” I said.

  “True,” he returned as he studied me.

  His eyes looked tired or just unimpressed, but I knew there was a lot going on behind them. They drifted to my rank, and I watched them scan my clothes. He was measuring me up carefully.

  “You’re a chief warrant officer from Control,” he observed, “but you sound like a Fleet man. Why’s that?”

  “I’ve served on ships before,” I said vaguely. I studied my beverage, and I hoped he would take the hint and stop prying.

  He didn’t stop.

  “So, Chief, let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Who are you working for—who pulls your strings? Give me a name.”

  “That’s privileged information. I can’t really discuss that sort of thing.” I tapped off two more sips of hot coffee while he watched with narrowed eyes.

  “You seem very familiar with a null G environment.”

  “It’s second nature to me,” I agreed, and I turned back to face him with a smile. Before he could form his next question, I grabbed the initiative again. “Have you seen anything unusual or suspicious aboard your ship lately, sir?”

  “You mean before the last ten minutes?” he said and chewed the inside of his cheek. He was still watching me. “Nope.”

  “Captain Jessup, I assure you I’m only here to help my people safely execute their project.”

  “Yeah? Well, just see that you keep yourself on their list of problems, not mine.”

  “Fair enough...” I said. “You picked up the remains of that rogue patrol ship before you came back in. Isn’t that right, sir?”

  “Huh… and what do you know about any of that?”

  “I was hoping to find out what you knew about it, sir. It’s extremely important that I isolate and prevent any opposition to the project under my care. It mustn’t be compromised in any way.”

  He eyed me with distrust. “You’re some kind of spook, aren’t you? I’ll bet you’re not even a real chief. You’re a con-job from Control.”

  “As you know, Captain… my clearance—”

  “Yeah, yeah…” he said, heaving an annoyed sigh. “Save it, Gray. I’ll tell you what I know. Back at around fourteen hundred hours, there was definitely some oppositional activity out here—illegal flight patterns, too close to restricted space. Whoever those crazy, separatist bastards were…”

  Jessup just shook his head without finishing the thought.

  “So Viper did investigate the wreckage?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Was there anything unusual discovered?”

  He maintained the eye contact, but paused before answering. “No.”

  “When your destroyer stopped escorting the transport,” I said, taking a new direction, “you spent a good amount of time chasing something. What did you find?”

  J
essup’s face darkened, and he didn’t speak for a while. “We were… led on a goose chase by someone who seemed pretty good at it. We didn’t find anything, and I’d rather not linger on that waste of my time.”

  “What exactly was it that fooled you into abandoning your position as escort?” I asked.

  I watched his face sharpen with a hint of bitterness. “I don’t appreciate the label of ‘fool’ or the accusation of abandonment, Chief,” he said. “Nobody makes a fool of me, and I do what I’m damned-well supposed to. Let’s call your unauthorized interrogation over—shall we?”

  “Look at the bright side sir,” I said pleasantly. “Your career isn’t finished… yet.”

  Jessup’s expression shifted back to hostility. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I just mean to say that I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to redeem yourself. Any lingering negative impressions these events have created won’t necessarily damage your reputation. The jury is still out, sir.”

  He bent an arm and adjusted one cuff link and then the other. Then, he straightened the front of his jacket into a crisp plane with a line of shiny buttons. “A threat, huh? That’s how you’re going to end this interview? Fine. Is there anything else, Chief Gray?”

  “That’s all I need for now,” I lied. He’d been far from cooperative. But I found it interesting Jessup hadn’t mention anything about aliens. He didn’t seem to suspect any non-humans were involved.

  “You know…” Jessup said, forcing what I knew was a false smile. “Maybe we shouldn’t end things like this. I think I’m ready for a drink and a massage. Come with me, and we’ll wrap up this investigation of yours on a positive note.”

  With a shrug, I agreed. After all, I hadn’t gotten much through questioning. Maybe a drink in a social setting would get him to tell me more.

  Following him through Viper’s guts again wasn’t easy. I hadn’t had the time I’d wanted to learn my way around her, so he led me on a merry chase. I could tell he wanted to leave me in the dust—but he couldn’t quite do it. I was physically younger and more agile than he was, despite his long familiarity with the ship and with null-G.