Sonata in Orionis (Earth Song Book 2)

by Mark Wandrey

  The search turned easier at that point. The scout teams were trained to be meticulous, and it was no surprise that the best reports came twenty years ago by a young four star scout team leader named Chriso Alma. Junk Piles seemed to be his specialty with literally hundreds of missions to them all over the galaxy. Most reports contained description listing categories of goods found on the alien repositories, and most of those noted piles of obsolete equipment. Some of his reports read more like novels and included images or sketches of almost everything they saw. Chriso's generation of the Chosen were the first to really venture out into the frontier, and that was the biggest reason why so many of them never returned home.

  She downloaded the entire database and began to compile it. The problem she quickly encountered was that most descriptions logged were abstract and or too simplistic. Computer parts, energy conduits, and broken robots were some of the common descriptions. Of course that could describe any of a hundred things, most of which were useless to her. She settled on sorting by category, it was a start.

  Later Minu broke for a quick meeting with Alijah who was working on a novel way to circumvent the targeting computer. After that it was a light snack and back to the data. As she found herself once again alone late at night, the data began to blur and she needed to call it quits. Her stomach insisted on some attention before sleep so Minu rode the lift down to the cafeteria and got some food from the overnight automated attendant and sat eating on autopilot. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen one of the cooking staff or eaten a fresh meal.

  "You're turning into a vampire," she heard someone say. Minu turned and saw Aaron standing in the doorway, a towel around his neck and wearing only shorts. She'd forgotten just how well muscled he was, and the intervening years only made him more ripped.

  "I could say the same for you," she said. Aaron shrugged and went to the attendant, taking a salad and a sports drink.

  "Can I sit?"

  "Sure."

  He sat down and unwrapped the salad. She could smell the healthy musk of his sweat and it made her nostrils flare unconsciously. "What are you eating?" he asked as he dug into the salad.

  "Burrito, corn chips and a cola," she admitted, feeling self-conscious considering his dinner. "Don't say it."

  "Wasn't going to. With a body like yours, eat whatever you want. I doubt your body fat is over five percent."

  "Four and a half," Minu admitted, "the doc was lecturing me last week. He says it's why I still don't have a menstrual cycles-" She realized how stupid of a thing it was to say but it was too late to take it back.

  "Hmm, thanks for sharing that." Minu turned beet red. "Damn, now I'm sorry I got the French dressing."

  Minu punched him off handed in the arm. It felt like punching a slightly padded steel wall. She cursed and massaged her knuckles and he laughed at her put out expression. She laughed to despite herself.

  "Look," he said, "about the other day in the HERT..."

  "Don't bother," she said, the levity of the moment gone in a flash.

  "I feel like I have to."

  "Aaron, I don't think this is the time."

  "Well it needs to be. I've never had a chance to talk about how I feel about you." Minu looked up, her heart giving a jerk. “Ever since the Trials I've been in-”

  "Hey Minu," said a new arrival. Minu looked over her shoulder and saw Christian standing there. She was never more grateful to see her unofficial boyfriend. "You want some more company?"

  Aaron gave her an uncertain look. "Sure," she said without take her eyes off Aaron. Christian strolled up and leaned over her. Minu tilted her head up and he kissed her fully. It was a very natural act. The only reaction Aaron showed was a narrowing of his eyes and a little twitch of the corner of his mouth. "Have you met Aaron Groves?"

  "I've commanded a scout team with Aaron as a member once," Christian said and offered his hand. Aaron hesitated the barest of moments before taking the offered hand. Aaron tossed the remains of his meal into the recycler on his way out. He didn't bother saying good bye. "He seems upset."

  "Old issue," Minu said and chased the last bite of her burrito across her plate. "I've been working on an idea concerning my project, and I was wondering if you can give me some input." She outlined her issue with the components, having to take longer than planned because he didn't have the knowledge to understand why the components were so difficult to obtain and utterly necessary to finish the weapon. "You're a three star command, can you get me a look at the off world mission schedule?"

  "You hoping for a scout team to bring back some of your materials?"

  "More than hoping, I'm depending on it."

  "Why not just tell Dram?"

  "Because it will end up on Jacob's desk, and I'd just as soon not go that way."

  "Okay, I think I understand. I'll get you the schedule. But, is there anything you can get me?"

  Minu glanced at the wall clock and then gave him her most demure look. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

  Chapter 11

  June 22nd, 518 AE

  Science Branch, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  "Minu!" the voice yelled through her door. She fairly fell out of her bed trying to get to her feet and answer the door. Halfway there she heard the chiming of her communicator and ignored it, continuing to the door, only pausing to snatch a robe from a chair to cover her nakedness. Her visitor just started to knock again as she pulled the door open. It was Pip and he looked very excited. "I've been trying to get you for an hour!" he complained.

  "I can tell," she said and turned her back on him. He followed her in and closed the door.

  "We struck pay dirt."

  "Tell me." Minu silenced her communicators insistent attempts to wake her up, noting that it was not quite five in the morning. She really regretted the late night in Christian's quarters, for many reasons. She dropped the robe and fished in a dresser drawer for clean clothes.

  "A team came back a couple hours ago with several hundred plasma channels." Minu found clean clothes and began dressing. She saw over her shoulder that Pip was sneaking a look, though not nearly as much as he might have a few months ago. His regular trips to Chelan for what he called 'dates' with Cynthia had made him a lot more grounded, and a little less desperate. Everyone knew it was getting serious. Sure she was a little on the round side with bad skin, but they were a good match. She'd seen them together once on a trip shopping with Christian and they looked very happy.

  "Are they a perfect match?"

  "Actually, these are a little bit better than we hoped for."

  "Outstanding," she said and finished dressing.

  "They're being delivered to our lab as soon as possible." Minu nodded her head. "You've been working out a lot," he noted in his typical offhand manner.

  "Get a good look, did you?"

  "Don't be that way," he said, looking hurt and embarrassed, “I'm spoken for.”

  "Regretting your little round girlfriend? You could have had me, you know." Storm clouds appeared on his face so she decided to calm things. "I didn't mean anything by that. Cynthia's a nice girl."

  "And she understands me," Pip said, the perceived insult already forgotten. "What about you and Christian? You keep that pretty quiet."

  "What about us?"

  "Is it serious?"

  Minu almost didn't answer, and that surprised her. Wasn't he her boyfriend? They'd talked last night about what shared quarters would be like, and still she didn't think about it as being 'serious'. And then he’d make it more complicated. She opened the door to her room and waited for Pip to pass through before closing it. She paused there and he looked at her expectantly. "He said he loved me last night.'

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, oh." Minu headed toward the lift to go to their lab.

  "And do you love him?"

  "How should I know?"

  "You'd think if anyone would know, you would."

  "I've never loved anyone, so how do I know if I love him?"


  "I love Cynthia."

  "How do you know?"

  "I just do." Minu made a rude noise as the lift opened. "Really, it's that simple. I feel it here,” he said and pointed at his belly button."

  "What if you're wrong? What if it's indigestion?"

  "I can't be wrong."

  "How can you say that?"

  "Because you have to want to love someone for it to happen. It's a decision you make to allow it. Uncle Bjorn says it’s like giving up to God."

  I didn't know Bjorn was religious, she thought. "What if you want to love someone, but you think you love someone else and think about him every time you're with another person?"

  The lift arrived at their floor and Minu stepped out. Their lab was right across the hall. Inside she sat on a stool next to one of the many work benches covered in parts of shockrifles. Pip sat next to her, his face holding that look he got when he was giving something his whole attention. "Then I would say you're in real trouble."

  "You can say that again." Minu activated the labs computers, bringing the systems on line.

  "Does Aaron know how you feel?" Minu spun around, her mouth open in surprise. She tried to cover it up, but the howler was in the house. "Hmm, that's what I thought."

  "How did you know-"

  "That you're in love with Aaron?"

  "I'm not in love with Aaron!"

  "Then you're the only one who thinks so."

  "I saw him last night," she admitted, "I was up late in the cafeteria having a snack when he showed up. Later I got Christian to help search for our parts"

  "Guy works quick, must have been a team in the right place. Why didn't you go to Dram yourself with that?"

  "I didn't like the idea of going to the council begging for help."

  "They practically fell all over themselves to help you." She shrugged. "You know you're turning into something of a miracle worker."

  "What?"

  "Yeah, people talk about you in hushed tones and say how much they want to work with you."

  "A four star? Please." Pip leaned over and covered three of the stars on her sleeve, leaving only one visible. He cocked his head from side to side, admiring how it looked. She slapped his hand away and laughed at him. "A woman First Among the Chosen? That'll be the day. I'm not even eighteen yet!"

  "Things happen fast around here."

  There was a knock on the lab door and he jumped up to answer it. A pair of gristled looking Chosen scouts stood there with a typical Concordia design cylindrical shipping case held between them. "Where you want it?" one of them asked.

  While Minu examined the paperwork they stood patiently, one casually examining the tables of parts and wires. “Kind of like Frankenstein’s lab here,” he said off handedly.

  “We get that a lot,” she replied.

  “You're Chriso's kid, right?” the other asked.

  Minu look at him, catching the three black stars on his sleeve and nodded in reply.

  “I think it fucking sucks that you're here in a damn lab, and not in the field,” he said suddenly. She looked in surprise from him to his partner. The other man nodded his head in earnest agreement. “Regardless, you're doing your family name proud.”

  Once Minu signed off on the delivery and the two Chosen were gone she and Pip popped open the case. “I told you,” he said and gestured in the direction of the departed scouts.

  “Whatever,” she said, trying to brush it off. Now she understood what her friend meant a little better.

  True to what she'd been told the case contained dozens of plasma channels. The two set about sorting them by model and condition. Even considering quite a few were damaged (difficult to tell without the proper training), there were almost five hundred suitable for their uses and another two hundred of various grades either too large, or too small. She made a note to have Mandi catalog them and then deliver the rest to Logistics.

  "We couldn't have done better if we ordered them," Pip said, almost giddy with excitement. Minu was still sorting and he'd already strapped one into a tester and was watching as the instrument pumped live plasma through the device and monitoring how the apparatus did its job. "These are perfect, especially considering the price."

  "Okay," Minu said and took one of them in hand. It was a damaged unit of the type they needed. She removed the red mock up from the exploded Shock Rifle and then carefully fit the new part in place. "With the collimators we got last week, all we need are the computers."

  "We knew it would come down to that," Pip said, turning off the tester and looking at the exploded view shockrifle. So close, yet still so far.

  "You're right, so what can you do about it?"

  "The computing power is just too much for any small application computers we have." He picked up one of a dozen small computers that were laying around the lab. Like the others it was about thirty centimeters long, twenty centimeters wide, and five millimeters thick. "Between laser colmination, ranging data, plasma management, and plasma beam flow control, we need about half the power of one of these."

  "We've been over this before, there has to be a solution."

  "It isn't that easy. The Concordian manufacture computers into everything, well almost everything. And like so much of what they do, even large durable goods are basically disposable. They strip out large sub-assemblies, but you can't just snatch a module out and replace it. If it was our engineering, we could get some device with a comparable sized computer for our uses, say a medical scanner or flight computer on a transport, take it out and adapt it. The computer in an Concordia made transport or scanner is integrated, or any of another dozen damned systems." Pip slammed the computer down on a table. It bounced once and slid to the floor. Minu noted it continued to function faithfully, both immune and indifferent to the terrible treatment. "I wish I understood why they engineered things this way, but I don't. There are shortages of so many small commonly used components like EPC while we still see new large scale machines using the same damn upward scale of construction. It's completely contrary to logic! In any sort of assembly process you make small components and assemble them into bigger ones."

  "Makes sense. So what does that tell us?"

  "That the Concordian build a lot of shit from top to bottom in one facility, more than likely. A huge factory that makes everything right on the spot and incorporates parts as they are made, instead of assembling piecemeal.” Pip shrugged. “Like Ted said, something is wrong with the whole process."

  "It's a convincing argument, but it doesn't get us any closer to making a hundred Shock Rifles." Pip nodded and scratched his chin. Why hadn't she noticed before that he had a little bitty beard growing there?

  "You did a good job of deflecting me." He said, fixing her with one dark eye.

  "Huh? About what?"

  "You being in love with Aaron."

  "Damn it, Pip! I have a nice relationship with a man who loves me, not one fucking that little bitch Mandi."

  "Is that what was getting under your skin? They only went out together for a few days."

  "Days? I didn't know that." She looked at him and he nodded his head in confirmation. "When did it end?"

  "A week or so ago. They had a rather public falling out. Something about her playing grab ass with another Chosen."

  "I could have warned him about hat." Minu was mumbled. Her communicator rang and she answered. "Chosen Alma."

  "Minu, this is Dram."

  "Yes sir?"

  "Can you meet me in my topside office this morning. No big hurry, just after you get into your lab?"

  "I'm in the lab now."

  "Eh? Oh, you got some parts didn't you? Okay, as soon as you can get here." He cut the connection without waiting for her confirmation. When the Second among the Chosen summoned you, it wasn't a request.

  "I'll be back as soon as I can. When the team comes in I want their efforts split between working around that damn computer problem, and assembly."

  "You want to start the assembly run, now
?"

  "Sure, might as well." She got up and headed for the door.

  "Without the computers, we're just wasting our time."

  "No, we're keeping busy. Besides, we'll get this licked, sooner rather than later."

  "You seem awful certain."

  "Comes with the stars." Pip snorted just as she was heading out the door.

  "Thanks for coming so fast." Minu sat in the office and glanced out at the rising sun. Summer was quickly approaching and at eight the sun was barely up. She admired his office though, much nicer than the one he’d occupied as the scout commander kilometers below. A corner office on the top floor of the Steven’s Pass facility, it overlooked the courtyard below where the Portal was located.

  "No problem, sir." He offered her a drink and she took some coffee. She’d acquired a taste for the bitter drink after so many weeks of long hours.

  "You've had a month, how are you coming?" Dram was never one to beat around the kloth. Normally his directness was something she admired. Today, not so much.

  "Well, those components today are a big piece of the puzzle." She looked at him and could tell from experience that her non-explanation wasn't going to be enough. "We're stuck on the computers."

  "No chance of fabricating something?"

  "I have them working on it, but Pip doesn't believe it's possible."

  "If Pipson doesn't think so, you have a problem."

  "I agree. He's discreetly asked several outside people to confer on the matter. All in complete confidentiality, of course. His opinion is universally concurred."

  Dram nodded and picked up a tablet. He read something then shook his head, holding out the computer and looking at the device itself. "Something so ubiquitous. We can't just take it apart and rebuild it?"

  "I wish we could. These computers are made as one piece units, almost grown. While Pip maintains we could interface one of these computers, in fact that is what we have done during development, it is not practical on the production weapons. The data communication between computer and gun are two way, and extraordinarily fast. Wireless won't work, only a hard link. The user would be forced to have a weapon tethered to him via the control computer. It negates a good deal of the concept of the weapon."