The Boundary Zone

by A. B. Keuser

  "If you believe the history texts, hey were sacrificed as unworthy to their gods." Cable added, remembering the number of times Aaron had gone off on that bit of minutiae.

  "Lovely. So glad we wiped them out... but if it's working, does that mean this KaRapp is legitimate? That he has the right genetic code?" Raza asked, looking to Kenzie for an answer.

  Kenzie nodded, looking to the lieutenant with a worried scowl. "Doubtful. I’d guess someone figured out how to get around that little problem."

  Cable clicked off the screen.

  It was time for the part he’d dreaded since he’d stepped through the hatch.

  Maybe the real reason he wanted Bezzon as far away from his team as possible was that he’d always encouraged open discussion and problem solving.

  "Alright. It's a standard monkey in, monkey out. Any questions?"

  "Yeah, I’ve got one.” his last squad member, Anders had sat silently in his chair, glare fixed on two points that his gaze bounced back and forth between as though he were watching a laser pong match. “Why the fuck is she here? I mean, I know we need a replacement tech, but pull one from the ranks. We can’t trust a traitor’s sister."

  Cable slammed his fist down on the table, and Kenzie jumped. He'd seen the way the color drained from her face at Marcus’ words.

  "I will not hear another ill word about Lieutenant Flack. Do you understand me?" He turned his glare on the others around the table.

  "There is one thing you will get clear in your heads right now. Mackenzie is not her brother. And you will treat her as though you never knew Aaron Flack. Understood?"

  There was a muted grumble from Anders, but affirmatives chimed all around. [AJ2] He dismissed them, ignoring his own irritation and watched them filter out. Except Kenzie.

  She stayed in her chair, her face a mask of concern and confusion. When the others were gone, she stood, coded in the DND with his code - something he didn't know she'd swiped - and turned to him, her face blank.

  “Is it true?”

  “I’ve spent six months trying to figure out how to tell you.” Six months avoiding the inevitable.

  She worried her lower lip and pulled a data recorder from her pocket. “What is his file going to tell me?”

  He didn’t ask her where she got it.

  He knew.

  Gunk.

  The retired admiral would be in serious trouble if anyone found out about that transaction.

  “We can’t plug that in here. It will tag you. But I can bring up the original.”

  He did. Gunk wasn’t the only one willing to do something stupid for Kenzie.

  When he stepped aside, she sank into the chair he hadn’t bothered with and scanned the file.

  "Aaron was selling secrets.” Her flat tone would have led anyone else to believe she’d already known.

  She stared down at the screen, brows twitching as she read the detailed reports.

  “He was tried in absentia and dealt with in accordance with SOP."

  Cable couldn’t look at her. “The universe is a cruel bitch."

  "I spent a good twelve years trying to convince you of that fact. And you never believed me."

  "When your world is shattered and the pieces are systematically destroyed one by one... well, happiness is fleeting." He paused, pulling the hastily pulled together tool kit from his back pocket, he handed it to her. “It’s probably substandard to what you had… but you need a new one.”

  Kenzie unrolled the kit in her hand, examining each of the tools like other women might inspect jewelry. “This will work out fine. Thanks.”

  He keyed in the information they were able to get through long range scanners and satellite relays.

  The thing might have been behind an ultrasonic curtain, but subtle shifts gave them glimpses. Enough to piece together a broken, puzzle of an image.

  Kenzie’s lips parted and she crowded in next to him.

  He moved away a moment after he should have.

  She wasn’t the only one who’d have trouble following the rules now.

  “How much time will I have to play?”

  He knew the look too well to consider humoring her. When she or Aaron looked at tech like that—like its lines were more seductive than any person they’d ever met—he knew it was time to worry.

  "The mission briefing says we destroy it, Kenzie. Don't try to salvage it."

  She looked up, eyes still dilated, hopeful hurt playing across the lines in her forehead. "But it's Ka tech. I've never gotten my hands on Ka tech before."

  “You have to follow the rules, or we’re both going to end up like Aaron.”

  Mouth twisted in a frown, she nodded her understanding and leaned forward to trace the lines of the fuzzy image again.

  “There’s something wrong with it.”

  “I thought you’d never seen Ka tech before.”

  “There are vids still.” She shot him a tired glance. “Everything I’ve seen has been overtly organic, or natural. They didn’t refine metals and form them into wires like we have. They found a different way to harness and transport energy. This almost looks like… biomech out of a tech-noir flick.”

  “Whatever it is, we’re going to deal with it and when we get back, I’ll put in another formal request to dissolve your conscription.” He cleared the screens and wiped all sensitive data. “Raza should be waiting outside for you.”

  “Do I need a guard.”

  “It’s more for other people than it is for you. You saw how Anders reacted.” When she rolled her eyes, he added. “And so you don’t get lost. There’s no reason for you to learn your way around when we could have you off the ship before we have to head out on a second mission.”

  She stood, removing the DND, but stopped before her hand touched the door’s palm pad. "What happens to traitors?"

  Cable finally sat, running a hand over his closely cropped hair. "They ordered me to kill him.”

  He watched her face twist into a new sort of pain, but she didn’t ask if he’d complied with those orders. On this ship, he couldn’t tell her the truth anyway.

  She turned away from him, disappearing into the corridor.

  “And now the ugly truth is out.” He switched the projection back to the blurry image of KaRapp.

  But it wasn’t. Not really. And until they found the man hiding behind the corrupted feed and ragged robes, he wasn’t even sure he knew the truth.

  Flicking off the projector, he resecured the data files and left.

  Kate Stacy leaned against the bulkhead, her eyes locked on something down a cross corridor, but Cable knew she was waiting for him.

  As he passed, she took up a place beside him and kept pace. "How'd introducing the new Flack go with the crew?"

  "Fine."

  "You’re lying."

  "It was never going to be easy. No one threw any punches.."

  "Fine." She said, mimicking his blunt, deep tone. "Just thought you'd want to know. There rest of the station civies have been transferred to rescue ships and are being taken to a hub port. Mersen told me which one... but I wasn't paying that much attention. It’s in the official logs"

  "Were they questioned about the explosion?"

  "No. All of our techs agree, the structural collapse of the station caused a non-passive failure of the electrical system, sparking the oxygen rich atmosphere inside and then... BOOM."

  Cable didn't like the way she smiled about that. "Were there any casualties?"

  The smile turned sour. "What Buck would call an acceptable loss. Four men, all civilians who refused to leave."

  And the man Kenzie had killed inside the detached hive.

  Cable nodded. He knew there were some on board the station desperately opposed to its demolition. He'd planned to remove them forcibly when the time came. He bore no grudge against Stacy for getting her men out alive, rather than dragging the stubborn stationers out of their holes.

  "Several of the Civies wanted blood. A few of them swear we’re behin
d the whole thing... the attack, the evacuation, the explosion."

  “Lucky for us, they aren’t our problem anymore.”

  Stacy finally left him as he stepped to the hatch to his quarters. If there was one perk to the rank of Commander, it was the privacy that came with having your own bunk. However small it may be.

  And his quarters were small.

  Sitting heavily on the bunk he closed his eyes and did his best to work on the mission strategy. In a different time, he would have bounced ideas back and forth with Aaron. In a different time....

  "The nice thing about you, Cable, is that you're such a linear thinker. Don't get me wrong, if you want to, you can pull something crazy out of your ass, but you've got something of a knack for straightforward and simple, don't you?"

  He'd landed a punch to Aaron's smug mouth then. They were in the ship's gym, back when he had a ship to command. And his friend laughed off the hit, calling Cable a string of curses.

  "But for all your linear thinking, you don't fight fair, do you?"

  "I see an opportunity, and I take it." Cable had blocked Aaron's swings, landing another to his second's ribs.

  "Something I should learn from you, old friend."

  But in the end, it hadn't been a trait he'd needed to learn, he already had it. In spades. Not even cable had the moxie to take some of the opportunities Aaron had entangled himself in.

  Cable shook the thoughts from his mind and tried to focus on the mission. But nothing came to him, except the look on Kenzie’s face when she realized what he'd done….

  Solitude wasn’t his friend.

  He left his bunk, knowing Stacy would be gone.

  He needed to eat, and as much as he didn’t want to deal with the normal rank and file, he wanted to deal with the officers less.

  “Mess hall, it is.”

  Fifteen

  Mack had spent her fair share of time in mess halls. They were always the same, though as with everything else on this damn ship, there was that sterile flare to the usual blandness.

  “Stick with me, okay?” Raza leaned in to say as Stacy left them. “Out here in gen-pop I can’t guarantee the reaction you’re going to get.”

  The food wasn’t something she wouldn’t normally have chosen, but she was pretty sure no one could mess up. She was wrong.

  Hunger forced her to swallow the less than appetizing meal, and she gained a sympathetic look from Raza as she grimaced, sucking down water as though they were headed for a desert.

  Peezus and Marcus--who had finally deigned to introduce himself--joined them as Mack was half way through sucking down the overly salty bowl of broth she had left, and to her surprise, the bruiser sat next to her without so much as a frown. Maybe Cable's order to treat her as though they'd never known her brother was holding on better than she'd have guessed.

  "Fair warning, this ship only has good food in the commander's lounge and the infirmary. Everything’s made to be nutritionally balanced and provide the energy we need." Peezus stabbed a straw into a gelatinous substance and sucked it down. "I for one, find a reason to visit the good doc once a week... it's really all we can hope for."

  "Since you have to get an invite to the commander's lounge if you're down on the food chain and that only happens with Cable when you've done something exceptional." Marcus didn't seem to mind his food. "Or exceptionally stupid."

  Raza pointed her spoon at him. "Right, because he's going to can you."

  “I didn’t realize you could be fired… maybe that’s my out.”

  “Not fired, reassigned. Not a walk in the park. Johannes got a six month stint with the sanitation services on some back world skiff.

  Mack turned at the sound of the mess blast doors opening and didn't hide her disgust as Lieutenant Bezzon walked along the far wall. He ignored the food processors and went directly to a half full table in the far corner.

  "Remember the time... what was his name? Spork! That was it. Spork thought he was shit made of gold when Cable invited him up... we all knew the truth though. You know when you do something great... like Raza's seven hundredth kill. That's exceptional. Mediocrity was Spork's bread and butter, and it was only worse when he finally took some initiative."

  Kenzie tried to ignore Bezzon. "What did he do that was exceptionally stupid?"

  Raza shook her head as though saying his crime was an equal embarrassment to the crime itself. "He forgot whether or not he'd armed the grenades... instead of figuring it out, or letting someone know, he left it. No one was hurt, thank the void. But we lost a decent amount of ammo and gave away our position. Cable didn't say a word about it that mission. And maybe Spork thought the commander didn't know it was him. But one way or another, Spork went up to the lounge and I never saw him again."

  "Of course you didn't. He bunked with us. That was the most annoying thing ever." Peezus continued to stab at his food.

  "It wasn't awful at first," Marcus said.

  That received a snort from Peezus. "Yeah, it was fine when he was stonewalling us. It sucked once he started bawling. The MPs had to haul him away like a little girl afraid of going into small school."

  "I've seen plenty of little boys just as afraid of the unknown." Mack decided there was no point in spending excessive time on Spork’s ordeal. "What usually happens when you're canned?"

  "Depends on the offense. Demotion or reassignment... sometimes to another squad... sometimes to the bowels of hell."

  Mack listened to the bulldog ramble on about what happened to some of the more interesting candidates to get canned as Bezzon pointed in her direction. A trio of heads turned her way, anger narrowing their eyes and thinning their lips. Fuck.

  As Bezzon sat back, leaning against the wall with a sick smile on his lips, the others stood. Tossing their food into the nearby receptacles, they turned to face her. Intent clear in the tilt of their mouths, the harsh stare leveled at her.

  Swallowing hard, Kenzie looked away and tried to speak quietly. "Uh, guys. I think someone just learned my name... and they don't look happy about it."

  Raza and Peezus turned to the three headed toward them, the bruiser next to her continued to suck down his food. She didn't know whether to be worried or comforted by the fact that he was so disgustingly calm.

  "What do you want Oliver?" Raza said, twisting her stir stick in the coffee she'd retrieved.

  "Rumor has it - and judging by the name tag on your friend there's uni - this is the traitor's whore sister."

  "Sounds like someone's been filling your head with fluff again."

  "She looks like him too. I can smell the stink of a traitor's blood on her."

  "I bet the only thing she's good for is a rough fuck."

  "Better not, for all you know, traitor spreads like a VD...."

  Raza leaned forward on the table and studied them. "Seriously? You three must be from Thua. They let brothers marry sisters there, right? I mean inbreeding is the only explanation for your stupidity."

  "Watch yourself, Raz. I don't give two shits about you, but her. She deserves the same fate as her bastard brother."

  From the corner of her eye, Mack saw Stacy speaking quickly into the mess comm panel. That was good. Someone at least knew these three were looking for a fight.

  Marcus had leaned back, posture loose as he smiled up at them. "Listen, Oliver. Mack is a part of our team. What her brother did, doesn't matter. Not when it comes to her. So, tuck your tail between your legs, scurry off to your friends and think before you speak next time. She may be a Flack, but she's on our side."

  "I have half a mind to see what color her blood runs."

  "Walk away now. All five of us out rank you, and you know what happens to assholes who strike a commanding officer."

  "Fuck. I should get a medal for killing her."

  "Threatening a superior officer has its own sentence; you want to take this up with Mersen?"

  Oliver shrank at that, shifting as he looked to the two behind him, as though checking to see if they'd
be willing to back him up... if it came to that.

  He turned, to go, pushing the others back toward the table, but Mack saw the muscle movement a moment before her turned back.

  Their bruiser pushed her off her stool before she realized what was happening, and she landed hard on her ass - it was going to leave a mark. Raza and Marcus managed to throw Oliver off balance in his attack, but he had lost all sense and was lashing out at Marcus, the knife had already hit him twice, from what Mack could see. His friends had backed away quickly as they watched with wide eyes. Apparently, attacking Marcus had not been a part of their plan. And now that the wind had blown that direction, they were both bailing.

  Raza and Peezus tried to help their fallen friend, and Mack did her best too - though she certainly wasn't trained for it. But no one else helped. From the looks on their faces they were either too shocked to help, or not ballsy enough to fall in line with Oliver. Mack was thankful for the latter. At the present, any random soldier could swarm her and that would be the end of that.

  A bellowing order to stand down saw Raza pulling her away, and Peezus standing to attention. But Oliver was too far gone to hear it, and as Marcus kicked him off, the blade stabbed into Marcus' shoulder. The mess went deathly silent, save for the grunts of pain as the bruiser pulled the blade from his shoulder and Cable dropped Oliver to the ground, pinning him and taking the cuffs offered by Stacy.

  He handed Raza a gun. "Watch him. If he does anything stupid. Take out a knee cap."

  "Yes sir."

  He moved to Mack's side and grabbed a stack of napkins from the nearby table, pressing into Marcus’ wound and asked, "You doing alright, soldier?"

  "I got bit by a fly sir. Nothing to worry about."

  "That was one hell of a fly." He glanced up at Mack his eyes sweeping over her briefly. "What about you, Captain?"

  "Fine.” she remembered herself at the last second. “Sir."