“It’s Lillianna,” said the girl.
“Oh, Lillianna. That’s a beautiful name,” said Rena. “So much better than Pumpernickle. I’m happy to meet you. I bet they call you Lilly for short.”
The girl’s smile faded then, as if she were remembering the people who had called her Lilly, and the memory of them was fresh and hurtful.
Rena realized her mistake at once. “Well, you’re safe with us, Lillianna. We even made cookies. Do you like sugar cookies? I had to cheat on the recipe because we don’t have all the ingredients, but they’re yummy just the same.”
Before the child could answer, another young girl came up through the docking tube and into the airlock. Smaller. Maybe three years old. Not as frightened as the first. She shielded her eyes from the bright lights and took in her surroundings with a slight look of wonder, as if she had never seen such a clean airlock before.
“Well, my goodness,” said Rena, “here’s someone else come to join us. Hello there. And who might this be?”
“This is my sister,” said Lilliana. “Her name is Penny-Lu.”
“Penny-Lu?” said Rena. “I love that name.”
“Her real name is Penelope. But that’s too long, so we call her Penny or Penny-Lu or Penny Lulu Bells, which is as long as Penelope but my mom uses it anyway.”
“I like all of those options,” said Rena. “It’s going to be hard to use just one. Hello, Penny Lulu Bells. I’m Grandma Rena.”
Child number three came next, but unlike the others this one was crying. Terrified. Screaming her lungs out at having been lightly but unceremoniously pushed up the docking tube by whatever adult she had been clinging to. She was about the same age as Penelope but was clearly no relation. Darker complexion, rounder features. Rena scooped her into her arms and instantly the child quieted, not because she was no longer frightened, but because Rena was such a curious surprise. A kindly old woman? That was unexpected.
Imala almost laughed then. Perhaps there was something instinctual bred into humans that old women were not warriors and thus not to be feared. To be in their arms was to be safe. Perhaps that had evolved in us, over tens of thousands of years and countless old women showing kindness in a tribe.
Whatever the reason, Captain Mangold spoiled it.
“Well, hello there,” he said to the child. “You’re all safe now.”
The third child turned to him, remembered that she was in a strange, frightening place surrounded by strangers, and started wailing again.
“Nice move,” said Lieutenant Owanu.
Mangold jumped to his own defense. “I said the same thing Rena did. Basically.”
“I’m taking them into the kitchen,” said Rena. “Come on, Penny-Lu. Come on, Lillianna. Let’s get some cookies.”
Imala watched her go, curious to see how Rena would handle taking a screaming child out of a room in zero gravity. On Earth, the parent would simply pick up the child, plant it on a hip, and march out, in control. But in space, to hold a child was to increase your mass and offset your balance and complicate the mechanics of your launches. You had to push off harder; but you also couldn’t bend and rotate at will, for fear that you might sling the little person away from you and send it careening into a wall. It was like treading water while holding a watermelon, except the watermelon was made of fine china.
For Rena, handling screaming children was as natural as breathing. She deftly placed the crying child’s arms around her neck and then gently swung the child up onto her back, like a mother orangutan gathering her newborn. Then she grabbed the child’s ankles and pulled her in close, turning the girl into a wailing backpack. Then she pushed off the wall as graceful as always and drifted out of the airlock with the other two girls scrambling to keep up.
“I’ll help you,” said Imala as Rena reached her in the corrridor.
Rena caught herself and shook her head. “I can handle three children. You stay and make sure Mangold doesn’t kill these people. They aren’t pirates.”
Then Rena pushed off again and led the children toward the kitchen.
Imala entered the airlock and caught Captain Mangold’s notice.
“That accounts for the three children,” said Mangold. “Next comes five adults. Are we going to make them strip naked and come in here with their hands up like you proposed? Or can we safely skip that part?”
“Pirates have children too,” said Owanu. “We’re not in the clear yet. I say we do this right and take every precaution.”
“Have the adults come in wearing their undergarments,” said Imala. “Rather than completely stripped. I’m sure these good marines can verify the miners are unarmed. Female marines patting down women, male marines patting down men.”
“I know how a pat-down works,” said Mangold.
“Of course,” said Imala.
Captain Mangold relayed the request down the docking tube, and the adults came up one at a time in their undergarments. As each arrived, they were patted down and given an emergency blanket to stay warm. Imala knew at once that they weren’t pirates. There was no edge to them, no appearance of evil, no deception. They were traumatized, terrified, thin and shivering, but otherwise normal, innocent people. Three women and two men. All young. Mid-twenties, early thirties. All wearing masks and breathing supplemental oxygen. They were gaunt and haggard and scared out of their minds.
Captain Mangold had obviously reached the same conclusion as Imala, because when he spoke he was kind and sympathetic. “I’m Captain Mangold. Welcome aboard the Gagak. You’ll forgive us for taking such precautionary measures, but pirates use deceptive tactics, and my first responsibility is the safety of my crew.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” said the shorter of the two men, who spoke with a slightly French accent. “We owe you our lives.”
“They took my sister,” said one of the women suddenly. “Her and three other women. We have to go after them. Please.”
Captain Mangold glanced at Imala. This was news to them.
“It’s true,” said the short man. “They killed most of our crew. Lizbet, Dianne, and Marina here hid on the ship or the pirates would have taken them, too. We didn’t tell you when we radioed because we feared you wouldn’t come. Going after them would be dangerous, yes, but we can help you. These women, they are family.”
“We have to find them,” said the woman. “Please. My sister.” The woman began to cry.
Captain Mangold held up his hands. “Everyone, please. I recognize you’ve been through an ordeal. My focus right now is tending to you and the children. This is Lieutenant Owanu, our crew physician. She needs to examine each of you so that we can provide appropriate care. Sergeant Lefevre here will then escort you to the showers, where you’ll find fresh clothing and personal hygiene items. Following that, a hot meal.”
“We shouldn’t wait,” said the crying woman. “The longer we wait, the harder it will be to find them. I beg you, please.”
“Ma’am,” said Mangold. “You’ve been through a harrowing ordeal, and you need medical attention. One thing at a time.”
The short man spoke to her in French and the woman nodded, crying.
“We are thankful,” said the short man to Mangold. “We hope you consider our plea. They have taken our family, people we love.”
“I understand,” said Mangold.
“Who were they?” said Imala. “The pirates, can you describe them?”
“It was Khalid,” said the short man. “That was the pirate’s name. Khalid. K-H-A-L-I-D. It was important to him that we remembered how to spell it. He had us practice doing so in front of him just to make sure we got it right. That’s when I realized that he might not kill us. He wanted us to spread his name. He wanted everyone to know it was him.”
Imala could see that Mangold recognized the name. “You’ve heard of him? This Khalid?”
“A Somali pirate,” said Mangold. “The Fleet knows him well. High-priority target.”
“He chased us for tw
o days,” said the short man. “It was a game to him. An amusement. Like a cat plays with a mouse. He would let us believe we were getting away, and then he would hit us. Literally. Ram us. He breached our hull. We lost three people instantly. We sealed off that portion of the ship and pushed on, but we knew it was no use. No one responded to our maydays. Which was another thing I didn’t understand at the time. Khalid could have easily taken out our transmitter. He could have silenced us. But he didn’t. He wanted us to call for help. He wanted everyone to know it was him.”
The woman was crying harder now, and the other women were trying to comfort her.
“Sergeant Lefevre, escort these people to the clinic and assist Lieutenant Owanu.”
“Yes, sir. This way, if you please.” Lefevre repeated the instructions in French, and the miners and marines and Owanu exited the airlock, leaving Captain Mangold and Imala alone, with little Chee still in Imala’s arms.
“This changes things,” said Imala.
“This changes nothing,” said Mangold. “We’re not the Kuiper Belt Police, Imala. We can’t go chasing after Somali pirates. We have a mission to fulfill. CentCom may have allowed us to divert for this, but they sure as hell won’t have us divert to track down pirates.”
“Full disclosure,” said Imala. “CentCom was against us coming here. They ordered us not to, in fact. But before you go nova, Ukko Jukes overrode their order and told me to do what I thought was best.”
Mangold was furious. “You lied to me? You said CentCom gave us the go-ahead.”
“No. I said we were authorized to go. Which was true. That authorization just happened to come from the Hegemon of Earth, whose authority trumps that of CentCom.”
“You’re telling me this now?”
“Would you rather not know?”
“I would rather you have been transparent and told me the truth before we launched.”
“Coming to the aid of these people was your insistence. You wanted to come as much as I did.”
“That was before I knew CentCom was against the idea. Do you have any idea what this does to my career? The leaders of the Fleet think I just disobeyed a direct order. This is insane.”
“And that’s why I didn’t tell you,” said Imala. “I knew you’d give too much consideration to CentCom’s objections.”
“You’re damn right I would,” said Mangold. “Because they’re in charge.”
“Unless their orders conflict with the Hegemon’s,” said Imala. “His orders are the ones we follow.”
“How do I even know he gave you orders? You could be making that up. I have no way of verifying.”
“Why would I lie?” said Imala. “If I was going to lie to you, I would have simply lied about CentCom and told you they gave us their blessing to proceed.”
“That’s essentially what you did before we launched,” said Mangold. “You deceived me.”
“When you fulfill this mission and kill the Hive Queen, I don’t think anyone at CentCom will care much about any previous insubordination,” said Imala. “They’ll be too busy pinning medals to your chest. And if telling you before we launched would have made you change your mind and not come to rescue these people in some effort to preserve your career, then I see that I made the right choice in concealing it. I’d also be deeply disappointed to learn that you place a greater value on what stodgy old admirals think of you than on obeying the commander in chief or on the lives of innocent people.”
“Don’t take the moral high ground on this, Imala. You broke trust.”
“Would you have come?” said Imala.
Mangold didn’t answer.
“If you want to inflict some punishment, I’ll gladly accept it,” said Imala. “Court-martial me if you choose. But the Hegemon of Earth will come to my defense.”
“You’ve never mentioned getting a message from the Hegemon before.”
“Because I never had,” said Imala. “I didn’t realize he had an ansible. But of course he would have one, he’s the Hegemon. And even if I had known that, I wouldn’t have assumed he was on our network and would communicate with our ship. But he did. Nor would I have assumed that he would disagree with CentCom and veto their orders. But he did. Ask yourself, Captain. Who at CentCom wanted me to run the ansible? Answer: no one. Not a soul. And yet the position was given to me. Who has the authority to override them other than the Hegemon? The very fact that I have the position I do should be all the evidence you need to know that I’m not lying. It infuriates you that I’m the only person who can access the ansible, but just imagine how much more it infuriates CentCom. I’m barely a member of the Fleet. I have no military training. Or comms training. I have a baby in my arms, for crying out loud. I am the last person in the world CentCom would want controlling the ansible, particularly on a military operation central to the mission of the Fleet. But that is precisely why Ukko Jukes gave the task to me. Because he doesn’t trust CentCom. And he would much rather have a person loyal to him with the ansible than someone loyal to military commanders.”
“So you’re loyal to the Hegemon?”
“He seems to think so. Or it’s less about loyalty to him personally and more about a mutually agreed-upon commitment to good sense first and the rule of CentCom second.”
“We can’t ignore CentCom,” said Mangold.
“I’m not suggesting we do,” said Imala. “They run this operation. But we also can’t ignore good sense and human decency. We do what we must do, and we hope it aligns with the commands of CentCom.”
“No, it can’t work that way,” said Captain Mangold. “This is a military operation. We can’t go rogue and follow our own compass.”
“It’s not our compass,” said Imala. “It’s the Hegemon’s, who is the commander in chief of all IF forces and the ultimate authority here.”
Captain Mangold sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “This is not how it works.”
“Then you are not a student of history,” said Imala, “because men in congresses and parliaments and seated on thrones have been ordering generals around since war existed.”
“From now on, you inform me, your commanding officer, of everything that’s given to us via ansible, including and especially when that message is from the Hegemon of Earth. No filtering, no concealing.”
“Of course,” said Imala.
“The correct response is, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Yes, sir,” said Imala. “And Chee here says, yes sir, as well.”
Captain Mangold glanced down at the baby and sighed again, as if reminded that the mission was now writing its own script instead of following the one he had prepared.
“What do we do about the miners who were taken?” said Imala.
“I don’t want to dehumanize the situation here,” said Mangold, “but we’re talking about four women. Wait, let me finish. Look outside again at the damage to that ship and remind yourself what we’d be up against. Khalid is a killer. I don’t know what he’s flying, but it’s equipped with military hardware. Look at the dent in the side of that ship. He rammed them, intentionally, without any worry about inflicting damage to his own vessel, so we can safely assume it’s got military-grade shield plating. A flying tank. A battering ram. We, on the other hand, are in an old mining ship retrofitted with a few weapons. Even if we were commanded to track this bastard down, we’d be in for the fight of our lives. What’s more, we have already deviated from our mission, which takes precedence over everything. The Hive Queen may be in that ship out there, Imala, and if we take it out, we might end this war. If we don’t take it out because we’re playing constable and getting ourselves killed by a homicidal Somali pirate, we fail billions of people. So you do the math on that one.”
“I’m glad to hear you still refer to the Hive Queen,” said Imala. “You see? CentCom isn’t always wise in their decisions.”
He looked annoyed.
“I’m not suggesting we go after these pirates,” said Imala. “But it does no harm to find out
what we can and then pass that information on to the Fleet. That’s intel the Fleet can use to conduct their strike or rescue mission.”
“We’ll interview them after they eat and shower,” said Mangold.
“We?” asked Imala.
“You’re the one who has to give the report to CentCom, so you’re the one who should ask the questions and hear all the answers. Plus you’re a…”
“Woman?”
“You have an infant and a, I don’t know, a maternal disposition. These people will be talking about a traumatic experience. They’ll see you as someone they can confide in. Your personality will play better than mine.”
“Thank you,” said Imala. “Though of course you’re perfectly capable of doing it.”
“That’s my decision. And I want Owanu checking that wound of yours. You’re the only person who can operate the ansible. I can’t afford to have your condition worse than it already is.”
“Yes, sir.”
Later, when they gathered for dinner, the miners all looked more presentable in their IF-issued jumpsuits. Rena asked simple questions, keeping the conversation away from the attack and instead focusing on the miners and their history. The whole crew was from Montreal and surrounding cities. They had bought a ship after the first war and tried their hand at mining, believing that the Kuiper Belt was a much less saturated market and thus a land of opportunity. One of the surviving women, the one whose sister Khalid had taken, was the mother of Lillianna and Penny, which gladdened Imala’s heart. The other girl, sadly, who had cried nonstop in Rena’s arms, had lost both of her parents in the attack.
Imala left dinner early to nurse Chee, but in truth she needed an excuse to exit. Her abdomen was a hot cauldron of pain, after having moved around all day, and it was becoming more difficult to conceal the pain from the others.
She slipped into the ansible room, where she knew no one could follow her, and gave Chee her breast. The baby was a natural. Imala had read all variety of nursing nightmares leading up to the birth, but all of that breastfeeding anxiety had been for naught. Chee had no complications whatsoever. Even in the awkward, cramped confines of the impact bubble, Chee had taken to the practice without any problem when the ship wasn’t accelerating. Upon realizing this, Imala had cried with relief. Sobbed, right there in front of Rena and Lieutenant Owanu. A big blubbery rush of relief.
The Hive Page 23