“Trained for what?” Wes asked.
“Mutiny. Insurrection. Attack.” Echo said.
“Defensive or offensive? Preventing mutiny or supporting it?” Wes asked.
“I don't know really.” Echo sighed. “Both.”
“Let's get back. I hope the ramp seals.” Wes said.
CHAPTER THREE:
Black Badgers
“The ECHO attached a full inventory of weapons on the boat. It was a standard Drop Squad, twelve man kit. The inventory included serial numbers. It was them. These were the very ones. The ones now in the Solstice 31 Memorial Museum... “
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.
<<<>>>
The feast was set up in the High Keepers roof garden. Wex was there an hour early like all the servants. To stand by and wait. An army of cooks and slaves artfully displayed fruit and flowers and candles in elegant holders. When they fled, teams of gardeners came out to groom the turf where they walked until it was no longer tramped as they backed their way out.
Where Wex was placed was in among the boughs of a beautiful pine. A flattened boulder was there for her to stand on, in the evenings shadows. In trees globes glowed in the branches about the table that was set for ten.
They all waited in silence. Wex spotted two snipers. She wondered if there were more as she watched the sun set on high arcing vapor trails of falling debris that burned up before it reached the ground.
As the light faded, so did she. In her formal black habit and cloak with her hood up she became nearly invisible.
The High Keepers shuttle approached and landed on their pilings. Five people got out of the shuttle plus the pilot. An older couple, a younger couple and an elderly man. An Usher escorted them through the gardens to the beautiful banquet table. They stood behind their chairs and waited. Wex recognized them as one of the noble families of Exeter. The men were all dressed in the finest house livery, and the women wore traditional, elegant one button dresses of dyed linen deepest blue to almost black. Even at this distance, she could see their fine ivory buttons.
A few minutes later Keeper Ronan was escorted in with two women of great beauty. They had the blackest hair and pale fine skin. Their dresses were deep dark green satin and left nothing to the imagination. Their arms were bare.
Ronan ignored them, they kept their eyes downcast.
Well played Ronan.
A full half hour passed before the three men emerged from the High Keepers private entrance.
When the High Keeper was close, enough he waved his hands dismissively saying, “Sit, sit, please don’t wait for me.” The look on his face told them he knew that he had kept them standing the for over an hour already.
“Keeper Esau, have you ever met Ronan from the East Isles? He sits on the High Council. Ronan, you already know Donner, he is one of my High Trackers.” This last part he said to the other men at the table.
“And this is three generations of the noble house Gideon.” He gestured first to the old man continuing, “Elder Silas, his son Pierce, the head of House Burgrave, and his heir Julian.” The women were completely ignored.
While he was making introductions, the wine was poured.
This was her que to begin playing. When she did all conversation was lost to her. She played light frivolous tunes that were simple tunes usually played for dancing. She played sea shanties and tavern favorites as the meal progressed.
The girls with Ronan played their parts as well. They ate small amounts of food and drank a lot of wine. They fawned on Ronan, and he ignored them.
The men were discussing policy. House Gideon simply listened for the most part. Ronan seemed more interested in the food than in the topic discussed. He had just tasted the fish and then the roast duck, waving it aside in favor of a double helping of the wild boar.
Wex never did know what insult made the old man stand and knock his chair over backwards. He leaned on the table and as he drew his first breath to scream at the High Keeper she saw the subtle signal he made with his fingers.
A crossbow bolt was suddenly protruding from the man’s eye.
As he toppled over dead, onto the perfect lawn, the High Keeper wiped his mouth on his fine napkin and tossed it onto the dead man’s face.
He stood and said something to Ronan. Ronan nodded and raised his wine glass to the High Keeper. Ronan’s women were stifling laughter, looking at the old man, behind hands, goblets and averted eyes. The High Keeper turned and walked away.
When he was gone High Tracker Donner stood and rounded the table and took the young Gideon woman by the arm and dragged her to her feet. Julian did nothing to stop him. Half way to the exit from the garden she stumbled and fell to the grass. Donner dragged her to her feet by her blond braid until she stood tiptoe. He drew his knife and showed the dagger to her. With a well-practiced flick, he cut the button off and her dress fell to the grass.
Still Julian did nothing. Didn’t say a word. He looked away.
Then Keeper Esau dragged the other Burgrave woman away as well.
Wex stopped playing then.
Ronan kept eating the large portion of wild boar. This knife and fork were the only sounds in the quiet garden. After a few minutes, he set down his utensils and finished his wine. Wiping his mouth on is napkin as tossing it over the bones of the wild boar he stood still holding his crystal wine glass. He paused and took the open but full bottle of wine from the ice and began to walk away. Stumbling girls on either side trying not to spill the glasses they had just refilled.
“Wait… what do we do?” Julian, the heir, asked in desperation.
“Go home. I thought you lived in Exeter.” He said callously.
“But what of Sue and Ren?”
“They will find their way back, or not. Either way, it’s on you.” Ronan said and walk away.
***
Wes Hagan woke up not knowing where he was at first. His neck was seriously aching. He was still in his pressure suit without the helmet. The collar hard beneath his jaw line. His mouth was very dry.
“Echo, status.” He said groggily as he sat up on the cot that was folded down from the wall.
“You have been asleep for seventeen hours. The combat rations kept you going and effective for about thirty hours. You fell asleep at the console and later you barely made it to this cot. I have been trying to gently wake you for an hour.”
A small spider-like maintenance bot, the size of a shoe, walked up and handed Wes an energy drink.
He took it, raising an eyebrow.
He noticed Echo's avatar sitting on an equipment case across from the cot tailor fashion.
“I did that?” Wes pointed at the small spider bot.
“Yes. That and a few hundred other things. You get a lot done when you put your mind to it.”
Looking back into the boat he could see that four of the suits were missing. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Echo.
“That was your idea as well. You figured how to bypass enough protocols on the suits to allow me to remote control them all. You stationed four of them outside, in case we needed to do something fast and easy.”
“I am remembering.” He chugged the entire bottle, then handed it back to the spider who walked it away.
“You made another directional transmission back to Earth.” Echo continued.
It was all coming back to him. “I need food. Bad. Real food.” He stood and somehow knew where to go. The compartment was unmarked. “Galley, open. Coffee, now.”
A small mini-kitchen emerged from the wall just behind the pilot seat, like magic. The stainless coffee carafe was already steaming by the time he reached for it after retrieving a cup.
“Thanks, Echo.” He sipped the coffee and sighed. “I need to get out of this pressure suit and take a shower. So I can think.”
“Eat this first, it will help.” There was a small chime and standard sausage, egg and cheese sa
ndwich was dispensed from the automat.
“I loved these as a kid.” Hagan took the perfectly square sandwich and his coffee to stand in the space between the pilot seats to look at the moons stark vista. He ate his meal in silence. He knew crumbs were falling into the collar of his pressure suit, but he didn't care.
Wes heard the clicking footfalls of the spider bot, and when his coffee was gone he tossed the reusable light plastic cup over his shoulder, and he heard the spider catch it before it touched the floor. When he turned the spider, the cup, as well as the mini-kitchen, were all gone.
***
Ronan, Cass, and Lor staggered across the Citadel bridge singing a filthy tavern song about a wench with full lips and wanton desires. Ronan drank empty the hand blown wine glass and tossed it over the side of the bridge into the chasm. When the crash was heard Cass threw her glass, forgetting to was still half full. Lor went to the edge and dropped hers straight down.
Then Ronan through the bottle, hard. A bit of his anger bled through the throw. The girls slid under each arm and dragged him to the carriage. Avis made sure they all got inside and then signaled to the drivers.
Avis sat across from the three of them and opened a case that contained hot water and wash clothes. Each of the gladly excepted a large wet cloth and began wiping down their faces and necks, the girls also wiped down their arms, sticky from spilled wine.
After the second switch back in the road, the carriage stopped, and the girls got out and forced themselves to vomit a dramatic amount of wine. They got back in, and more wet clothes were waiting for them as well as cold flasks of water.
“I will never get used to eating and drinking so much and still being hungry and sober,” Cass said.
“The key is to drink it without getting it in your mouth much. At least, then you can taste things. Straight to the throat.” Lor added.
“Someone invented the foul stuff so Noble Houses could feast and never get fat. Or avoid poison…” Ronan’s voice faded away as the door closed.
“Why did it happen?” Cass asked now with a tremble in her voice. “Sheep shearing schedules? What matters there so much? Why?”
“It wasn’t about sheep; they were there to be punished and humiliated. I knew it as soon as I saw that it was Esau and Donner.” Ronan wiped his face again with a dry towel. “And I was there to be tested, to see how I would react. To see if I would defend them.”
***
It took him a few minutes to get out of the pressure suit. It was the Half-Zipper version. He wondered why they still called them zippers. There were no teeth with this kind of thing. Just a double set of continuous seals from his neck to about his navel. Then layers of Velcro seemed loud, and the space seemed small today.
With practiced ease, he lifted the collar and then slid though the opening as the suit collected around his calves. The whole thing smelled of sweat and urine. The inner suit was next and in less than a minute Wes stood naked in the center of the ship, stuffing the inner suit into the laundry unit and then hanging the pressure suite in the standard locker where it would be cleaned and tested.
The floor was warm under his bare feet as he moved to the shower that was on the port side just beyond the center hatch. The shower stall was bigger than the one he had on the Ventura. It was bigger than the typical shower in a standard life boat. It had been made for bigger men. Men like Sargent Ferris. All dead now.
He was soon clean and the water was replaced with the winds to dry him. He liked the wind to be cool after his shower, so he adjusted the temp down. His mind emptied as the air dried him.
Hagan emerged clean and dry. The ship had coveralls in many sizes and colors including engineering blues which he selected out of force of habit. He didn't put on any shoes but rolled the pant legs up his calves halfway.
“Why are you barefoot?” Echo asked as he settled into the pilot seat and began to strap in. “My feet can feel the ship through the deck plating. It can tell me a lot.” He looked over as Echo settled into the co-pilot seat. “I can already tell that the power plant is not standard on this thing. The hum of it feels like a small dark matter reactor. Not a conventional reactor.”
“Echo, I want to test the grave-foil repairs. I want to also recon the area. Let's do a thousand meters straight up, with gentle rotation. Up and down. Should we collect DS-01 to DS-04 before we ascend?” Hagan asked looking over to her.
“DS-01, 2,3, and 4. Secure to skids for short hop.” Echo ordered out loud for Hagan's benefit. She was driving them all. They were an extension of her.
Wes watched in the display as two of them place a foot on the massive front skid plate and grasped a hand hold that was there for this very purpose. DS-03 and 04 secured to each of the rear skids in the same way.
“Here we go,” Echo said as Wes began to have the feeling of falling up. The rise was smooth and symmetrical. The boat performed a smooth barrel roll, and the one-G fall into the sky felt good to Wes. Feeling natural for the first time in days.
As the ship ascended it spiraled giving Wes a slow moving change of view.
“Echo. Is this boat equipped with any additional hardware or scanners we could use?” Wes had learned to use direct command questions with this Artificial Intelligence system. He had also come to recognize the pause that was caused by assessing contradictory orders.
“The decking on this lifeboat is equipped with grave-plates.” Wes felt the gravity adjust to a comfortable one-G as they flew. “There are enhanced optical sensors and more powerful secure communications. There is also a large data repository on board. I believe it is a backup of the Ventura's survey data from this tour. All of it.” Echo said, adding emphasis to the word all.
“You have already guessed that the conventional power plant was replaced with dual dark matter reactors,” Echo said.
“I don't suppose you have a couple FLT drives back there somewhere?”
“We had the Memphis,” Echo said with a tinge of regret in her voice.
“Please prepare a report of all the out of spec modifications that have been made to this boat. We need to name her now. My boat, my home, my tomb.”
***
“Scanning in progress now. Are we looking for anything specific.” Echo asked from her seat.
“Yes. High ground. I want to launch the second drone later today in the opposite direction. I want maximum coverage.” Wes stopped talking.
He thought he saw movement on a ridge below. The spiral of the rotation took the view away to quickly for him to focus.
“Wes, what's wrong?” Echo sounded concerned.
“I saw something, down on that ridge… It looked like a woman cresting the ridge...” his words fell away as he waited for the ridge to come back into view. “She was wearing a gray cloak and had red hair.” He looked at Echo. “She wasn't wearing a pressure suit.”
Echo slowed the rotation and let Hagan visually scan the ridge for thirty minutes before he gave up looking. He violated his own rules about staying strapped in while moving and went to get another cup of coffee.
When he sat again, he not only had a cup of coffee he had another military ration bar.
“Are you sure you want another Iron Ration?” Echo asked.
“Iron Ration?” Wes asked as he opened one end and slid it out.
“That's what the Black Badgers called them,” Echo replied.
“Black Badgers?” Wes asked.
“Sorry. That was their nickname. They were a very closely held and compartmented military squad, and they all wore lanyards with their security badges. Theirs were black badges with their photo and their unit logo. Black badges became Black Badgers.” Echo explained.
Wes just shook his head.
“I'm going to try something different this time Echo. I want you to monitor me closely and report to me any significant changes in my behavior. I need to be sharp.” With that, Hagan took one bite and wrapped up the rest of the bar and slid it into his breast pocket.
“Let's move
the boat to that peak we can see on the horizon. If we can park there, we could cover a lot of ground fast. If the Memphis crashed, it would be in that general area.”
The Life Boat moved that direction as Wes began to discuss naming the ship with Echo. By the time they reached the new landing spot, they decided to call the ship, Sariska.
“Why do you want to call the life boat Sariska?” Echo asked
“Well, you made me think of it. There is a wildlife sanctuary in India called Sariska. You remind me of a woman I met there.”
This made Echo Smile.
***
Eyes watched the ship go from the shadows on the ridge, gliding toward the peek on the far horizon. Lips moved, cursing silently in the vacuum.
CHAPTER FOUR:
Scarecrows
“We didn't know he was one of them. We didn't know he was not human, in the beginning anyway. We didn't know He was hiding. He was patient. He was playing the long game the whole time.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.
<<<>>>
The cells lined the hall on both sides. It had the feel of complete emptiness. The silence of dust. There were not even rats here. There was no dripping water, no shuffling of prisoners in their loneliness and discomfort, no rattling of chains. This deep the ventilation system was perfectly silent.
The small bare feet moving through the darkness was the loudest sound. The prisoner could hear her fingers as they drifted along the wall. He knew she was counting cells in the blackness. His cell was two meters deep and two meters wide. One entire wall was bars, a fist width apart.
She didn't know he could see her in the absolute dark.
Solstice 31: The Solstice 31 Saga, Books 1,2,3 Page 75