“Good thinking. Maybe we can make one of those Order opposition factions into an ally.”
“Fat chance, they'd be calling a lot of attention to themselves if they tied themselves with us. I'd rather quietly offload whoever's unhappy with getting paid sporadically without making a big deal of Triton being near their port.”
“Maybe you should send Ayan. No one knows she's here and from the little I've seen I can tell she's a fair diplomat.”
“We'll see what Jason comes up with. In the meantime tell Chief Grady to get as many people outside clearing the damaged engine components so we can install the replacements. I want us ready to go as soon as possible. Things are getting complicated and I'm liking this area of space less and less.”
“I'm starting to agree with you. Anything else?”
“The Clever Dream's munitions inventory is low. Next time she lands have someone restock her.”
“I thought we had an inventory tracking system for that.”
Jake could see Oz bringing up the munitions tracking screen, “This won't be in the record. I rigged a few things on the Palamo personally.”
“Ah, all right. I'll have someone do inventory when the Clever Dream lands and replenish her stores.”
“Oh, and get some sleep.”
“Will do. You do the same.”
“Someday. See you later Oz.”
Jake stepped outside and walked towards Alice's private room.
“Ashley and Larry just left. She brushed her hair,” Iloona's eldest daughter and full time nurse told him as he passed. “She does it once a day.”
“How is the neural therapy going?”
Iloona answered from the central nurse station. It was impossible to ignore the fact that the infirmary was made to treat many more people, to be staffed at a much higher level. It always seemed empty, especially with all the rooms cleaned, open and lit. “She's responding but progress is slow. Her personality will most likely be intact but she'll have some memory loss.”
“When do you think she'll wake up?”
“Considering the work the therapy is doing, putting her back in control of her body, there's no telling exactly, but I'd say three or four days. At this point I'm satisfied that her chances of waking up are almost one hundred percent.”
“Thank you Doctor. You'll never know how grateful I am.”
“As a mother of eleven, I know exactly how grateful you are. Go spend time with your daughter.”
Jake entered the room. The door closed behind him. She was laid out in a single bed. The pillow was fluffed under her head. Her brown hair flowed down around her shoulders with a healthy sheen. Alice's expression was serene, restful. All the scars from the extreme physical trauma she'd suffered on the bridge of the Triton two weeks before had been corrected. She was in perfect shape other than the stem brain damage she'd suffered.
He sat in one of the two chairs at her bedside. The lights were dim, shadows played on her face. “I'm back. Looks like things are interesting again,” he said as he retracted the gloves of his vacsuit and took her warm hand in his.
There were no calluses. It was one of the first things he noticed when they finished surgically rebuilding her hands. It was as though she was brand new again, she'd found a way to be a child after all.
“Wheeler and Regent Galactic have locked me out of my accounts. I thought they might do something like that, I had a plan, but like Ayan said; the banks were closed on Pandem,” he knew she'd find the humour in the jest and paused as though she were laughing silently. “We saved thirteen hundred and nine slaves today. Some are still on smaller ships, but they're free. The station you guided us to was under attack. We got here in time to save it. I'll have to tell the Station Forewoman you led us here. Maybe he'll remember you.”
He watched her. There was little chance she'd wake before his eyes, that she'd stir at all, but he couldn't stop looking at her. The steady rise and fall of her chest was slim reassurance. He wanted to pick her up in his arms and gently rouse her awake, but knew it wouldn't help. He forced a smile and kissed her hand. “It's so quiet here. I don't know what it's like in there for you, but the quiet out here is something else. The slaver ship, Palamo, they called it, was so loud, so chaotic. Those people couldn't wait to get off. I think it was falling apart before Minh and his squadron touched it. I wish you had been there. Everyone wanted to touch me on their way by, a few of them spread the word about what I did in the Enreega system. They thought I was there to save them, that the distress call was the only reason I stopped in this area. We were barely able to keep order at first, then they realized we only had so much space on the Clever Dream. Things calmed down once word spread that I'd be getting everyone off the Palamo no matter how many trips it took.”
“They'll fit in. Most are just happy they don't have to share a bunk with someone. Half their berthing was burned in a fire and the Captain never saw rebuilding as a priority, he just bunked them in shifts. Some of them didn't have shoes. Most are too thin. I think you'd like how things turned out today, even though it started out rough. It all makes my problems with Ayan seem small. I don't know how to pay her or anyone else back for crossing the lower arm of the galaxy to get to me. I've given them everything I can, but it just doesn't seem like enough. It's like the new ready quarters. There are four offices with bedrooms. They're clean, finished but there's no furniture in the offices. Just a little short of the mark. How do I repay that kind of devotion? Oz says he and Jason were in token positions aboard the Sunspire, that Freeground Fleet didn't fully trust them. Laura says she wouldn't be anywhere else, and Jason's happy to be in charge of his own Intelligence Department. Ayan, well, I don't know how to talk to her,” he smiled at himself and shook his head. “You'd laugh at that, I'm sure. If you're anything like me, you'd just say; 'push through it, just say what's on your mind, or start asking her questions. Get her to talk.' Good advice. Hope she feels like talking after our fight this morning. She did it right though. She pushed me until she got something real out of the conversation. I just wish I had said it right.”
He sighed and leaned on the edge of the bed. “Everything's been so loud ever since I left medical this morning. I didn't realize it until I got back here. Maybe that's all I need, some quiet so everything can fall back into place, like neural therapy. A little quiet so I can rewrite the map in my head a little, make sense of it all again.”
The news that two pilots were lost had brought quiet to the Pilot's Den. The holographic leaderboard and highlight displays went unobserved, and the reclining seats arranged in a loose circle were mostly empty. Only three off duty crew members wore simulation nodes on their temples, interacting with some training or practice simulation no one could see.
Minh welcomed it. He sat alone at a table half way between the reclining seats and the bar with his eyes closed. People glanced at him as they passed by, seeing someone sitting perfectly still with their eyes closed was unusual away from the simulation seating.
Few people took the time to take a good look at Minh. When Ashley did, from where she sat at the bar waiting for Agameg and Larry, the first thing she noticed was that he wasn't wearing neural nodes or a tap collar. She sipped her cold, clear, carbonated Liquorice Doll, a sweetened liquorice alcoholic beverage as she watched him. He'd escaped her notice until she saw the bartender, glancing at him while he talked to a friend at the end of the bar.
When she looked over he was sitting alone, his eyes already closed. It was more than she could stand. She couldn't figure out what he was doing and she finally stood and quietly walked to his side. "Whatcha doin?" she asked in a whisper.
One of his eyebrows sprang up into an arch. "I'm playing guitar," he said slowly, calmly.
"Oh. So you have a brain bud or a neural implant or something?"
"No, I'm playing guitar…" he paused to take a slow, deep breath, "…in my mind."
"So you're imagining it?" she couldn't help but smile. It was the most peculiar thing she'd ever heard.
; "Yup," he answered as one of his eyes popped open suddenly. "You could play drums maybe?"
"I don't think it would work. Unless we made noises, but I mean.. " Ashley offered with a shrug.
Minh laughed and nodded.
She couldn't help but notice how his whole face smiled while he was laughing, his eyes, his mouth, it looked like his cheeks were fleeing to his ears under the pressure of his smile.
"If we were allowed to use recreational sims aboard, I might try to recreate my guitar, but I can't complain about my own imagination. It's a pretty cool place."
"I could imagine," Ashley agreed. "If you can play guitar there. I've only seen a few people play classical electric."
"I used to have this really nice replica," he brought up a hologram of his electric guitar on his comm unit. "Ignore the paint job, it's just something I was playing with," he said, referring to the psychedelic radiating ring design.
"Wow, where is it?"
"Crushed up somewhere on Pandem, except for these," he pulled a necklace out of his vacsuit and held it out for her. Strung along a simple silver chain were three polished steel tuning keys.
"What happened?"
"Crash landed. Not my fault either, there were people after us."
"Glad to see you made it."
"I almost didn't. All that was left was the cockpit and the afterburners, but that's why I like to fly a ship with a great big-"
"Hello Ashley," interrupted Paula. She was carrying a laden tray. She shot Ashley a look heavy with warning.
"Oh, hi Paula." Ashley looked back to Minh briefly. "It was good to meet you, Wing Commander. I'll see ya."
"Call me Minh, or Ronin, or something else if you come up with something better," Minh called after her as she turned and strode back to the bar and her drink.
"Do you know her?" Paula asked as she put the tray down.
Minh took his steaming bowl of vegetable vishri lo mein and tall container of water from the tray. "Five minutes ago, no. Now? Well, I think I've met her, but I wouldn't say I know her."
Paula nodded curtly as she finished moving her fruit bowl and cherry juice from the tray. "She's kind of light headed. You know, lights are on but-" she ended the comment with a shrug before tossing the tray onto another nearby table.
Minh looked at Ashley and tilted his head as though slightly confused and considered her very closely. He knew she noticed him looking out of the corner of her eye. She pretended not to be aware as she took a sip from her straw. She'd changed her vacsuit since she got off duty, the one she wore had a gold Chinese dragon drawn up her leg and back so it looked like it was climbing the dark brown fabric. Her straight black hair fell over the dragon down to her waist. She didn't wear a sidearm like most officers, himself included. Looking at her side profile, he could tell it was taking a great effort for her not to break into a shy smile.
"Minh?" Paula asked, looking over her shoulder irritably.
He looked back at Paula, shaking himself free of his surprising daze and smiled. "I don't know her well enough to say if anyone's home."
"Trust me, I'm surprised we've survived this long with her at the helm."
Minh nodded absently and cracked his chopsticks apart.
"I think the only reason why she's here is because the Captain bought her from some slaver two years ago, at least that's what I hear. She was a serving slave of some kind, I'd rather not guess which kind."
"How are things going on the hangar decks?" Minh redirected.
"They'd be better if the Captain didn't have us taking on a new wreck every half hour. We've packed every spare hole we have in storage, even in manufacturing storage, and the night crew will be taking three more in. He wants to keep them clamped above landing bays."
"That's not so bad."
"I'm afraid someone's going to smash right into them, with the way the fighters land and what happens if we have to take another ship in, like in an emergency? We'll only have two elevation shafts available it'll take forever to get fighters loaded into the main hangars too."
"Those cockpits are pretty comfortable. I'm looking forward to taking a nap in one if I ever have to take one through a wormhole."
"Sounds dangerous. Something that small maintaining and travelling through a wormhole."
"One Uriel has enough power to run most of the Clever Dream's systems. They're nice ships."
"But there's nowhere to move. You'd be stuck in the same position for hours, days maybe."
"That's what the muscle stimulators and indoor plumbing in a pilot's vacsuit is for."
"I'm eating," Paula reminded, holding up a materialized half peach. It had been made so each half was small enough to be bite sized. "Anyway, what are we going to do with nine ships that are almost ready for scrap?"
"They don't look like they're in bad shape from the ones I've seen. Maybe he's starting a used ship lot? I know I've flown worse."
"You're not serious. I mean, with people after us it's no time to start a business."
"Of course I'm not serious," Minh smiled mildly.
"I can never tell when you're joking," Paula shook her head slowly. "Anyway, I don't know what we're doing out here. At least when Alice was in charge we seemed to find a direction. Now, it feels like we're just falling into things."
Minh's first instinct was to react in defence of his Captain, to blindly state his faith in his Captain, but he held back when he noticed Ashley listening in from where she sat several meters behind Paula. He didn't know what her life was like before she'd met Jacob Valance, but looking at her and considering the trust he'd placed in her as Master of the Helm, it looked like he had made at least one good decision. She had marked Jake as her only pilot trainer in her profile after all. He'd done a good thing, freeing her, and with his actions on the Palamo, as harsh as he'd heard they were, his decisions seemed consistent. "See a slave, free a slave," he said loud enough for anyone listening in to casually overhear. "Anyone who can give someone with nothing a place on their ship and win can set my course anytime."
Chapter 13
Morning
The main launch deck of the Triton was silent. The Clever Dream was set up in the centre of the dimly lit expansive space with all the boarding ramps lowered. Its hull gleamed as though it was fresh from the manufacturer, only the new power generation and energy collection systems were in place, expanding its girth, giving its long black hull a muscular appearance. It was a long range, luxury gunship, one of the only ever built, and it looked fully restored.
Jake heard boot steps coming down the cockpit crew ramp and turned to see Alice. She looked exactly as she did when he met her on the Triton. Under her worn imitation leather bomber jacket she wore a blue vacsuit and heavy gun belt. She was armed with the duplicate of the same heavy sidearm he'd used for years. “Hi dad,” she smiled.
He rushed forward and took her into his arms before she stepped off the ramp.
There was nothing guarded or restrained about her laugh as he spun her once and put her down. “Good to see you too,” she beamed.
“Where are you coming from?” Jake asked.
“Not far. Making a few last minute adjustments before I go.”
“Already? You should stay for a while. Everyone from the First Light is here, they're looking forward to meeting you.”
“I can't, father. I have to go.”
In the blink of an eye he realized that she didn't look like the woman he'd met on the Triton. Facially she appeared as she did when she was only an artificial intelligence on his wrist, a constant companion he had programmed since he was seventeen until he was thirty four. “The neural therapy's working. You'll be on your feet in a couple of days,” he reassured.
Alice's smile faded. “I can't connect to that body anymore. Whatever unique brain structure that woman had that let me transfer her has been repaired. I can't go back. Not completely.”
“I can have them recreate the conditions, we can bring you back,” Jake took her arm.
Her brow furrowed. “It's too late. I'm in your memory system right now, a little light on data, but Iloona was right; my human personality survived. I only wish she was right about the rest. I'm moving on, using your comm system to transfer myself to the hypertransmitter.”
“You've made the jump to digital, why do you have to keep going?”
“I'll never forget my time on the Triton. If I had to do it all again I'd do exactly the same.”
“We can help you.”
Alice shook her head. “I wish I had more time with you. In person, as a human. Thank you for showing me the trust and love of family.”
“Tell me what I can do to fix this. I'll do anything!”
“I know, that's why I have to leave. I love you father,”
The hangar and Alice faded from sight. He woke to the sound of the door opening behind him. Iloona rushed in and looked at the status screen behind the bed for a long moment.
Jake saw her nose twitch with worry, her hands clench together and he finally looked at the status display himself. All the activity readings for Alice's brain functions were in the red. The bed was forcing her to breathe, keeping her heart beating. The clock on the display said he'd been asleep for seven hours.
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her fingers. He put it back in its place with great care and turned away.
“I'm sorry. I don't know how but the therapy failed. She's gone Captain,” Iloona said consolingly.
Captain Valance nodded once and strode out of the infirmary. “Bridge, shut down all power to hypertransmitter and wormhole systems.”
“Yes sir,” replied an officer from engineering. Who it was, he was unsure. “But Craig in communications informs me that a high compression micro wormhole just formed and closed. A few encrypted gigabytes of information was transmitted and then deleted from our system.”
“Thank you,” He replied flatly as he closed the comm channel. Jake's stony expression and cold gaze were enough to press people out of his way as he marched to the bridge.
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