by J. N. Chaney
The nurse chuckled. Thorn forced a smile, but it felt waxy on his face.
“Let’s go with exciting, sir,” he said, reaching for his uniform and boots. Eyes averted, Thorn dressed and thought of Nyctus, and secrets, and memory.
Thorn touched the ID panel beside the door to Tanner’s planning room, located immediately behind the Hecate’s bridge. The door slid open, and Thorn stepped forward,
Then he stopped, seeing the little room jammed with people.
“Squeeze in, Stellers,” Tanner said, gesturing him forward. “Everyone get cozy.”
Thorn pushed his way, sliding between the XO and the Hecate’s Security Chief, a man named Braxton who had, in the three years Thorn had known him, smiled once. Besides them and Tanner, the ship’s intel officer took up virtually all of the remaining space. As Thorn pushed against Braxton, the man glared at him—a bit unsettling, since their faces were about twenty centimeters apart.
“You realize you have to buy me dinner now,” Braxton deadpanned.
Thorn gave a grim nod. “Only if you take me dancing after.”
Braxton let a glimmer of a smile leak through his eternal scowl, then they both turned as Tanner cleared his throat.
“Save the romance for your off time, kids. We’ve got Nyctus to hunt,” the Captain said, Thorn chuckled along with all the rest, even though the dream he’d had in the Infirmary about Tuck still hung around, dark and unwelcome. Tanner didn’t even crack a smile, and just pressed on.
“The reason I’ve had you all jam in here is this,” Tanner said, touching a control and bringing an image up on the screen mounted on one bulkhead. Thorn had to crane his head around the XO’s to see. The image was that of a man, dressed in an ON uniform, sitting at a console aboard—a ship, although there was nothing to indicate which one it was. Probably a capital ship, given the expansive bridge, but that was all he could tell.
A moment of silence was finally broken by the XO.
“Okay, sir, it’s . . . someone, sitting at a bridge station.” She looked at Tanner. “Is there something more I should be seeing here, sir?”
Tanner opened his mouth to reply but paused as Thorn leaned forward.
“You have something to add, Stellers?” the Captain asked.
Thorn examined the image. That face—
“I’ve seen this man before” Thorn curled his lip. It hadn’t been someone he’d met at Code Nebula; he knew all those people well enough that he’d recognize them without trouble. Who then?
“Wait,” he said, as the memory popped open like a new data window. “Right. I don’t know his name, but he was the Tactical Officer aboard the Centurion.”
“Right first time, Stellers,” Tanner replied. “Which leads me to ask, how do you know this man?”
“Well, I don’t, actually.” He went on to explain how, not long after being assigned to the Forward Operating Base known as Code Gauntlet, Thorn had been tasked to assist in figuring out how the Nyctus were degrading ON sensors. This involved watching the Centurion’s flight-recorder data play out the doomed ship’s final moments, from the perspective of the bridge crew.
“And this man was the Tactical Officer.” Thorn looked at Tanner. “How long ago was this image captured, sir?”
The intel officer answered. “Three days ago, aboard the Colossus.”
“She’s Admiral Best’s flagship, isn’t she?” the XO put in. “Command ship for the whole Rimward Fleet?”
“That’s right,” Tanner replied.
Thorn took a moment, letting the information percolate through his overloaded senses. This, the images of Tuck, and his vision of the little girl on Nebo were all combining to cause hairline cracks in his certainty about what was real. The unnerving moment passed, and he spoke up.
“So he survived the wreck of the Centurion?”
“That’s what we’re supposed to believe, yes,” Tanner said.
The Security Chief’s frown deepened. “Supposed to believe, sir?”
Tanner nodded at the intel officer.
“The Centurion took a direct KEW hit on her bridge just a few minutes into the battle. Fleet Intel has reviewed the imagery and came to the conclusion that no one could possibly have survived it. Not a missile. A KEW, at hard acceleration, and a direct hit.”
Thorn remembered standing on the Centurion’s virtual bridge in the simulator at Code Gauntlet, watching the grim recreation of her last minutes and how it had so abruptly ended. The imagery run after that, taken from the external feeds of surviving ON ships, caught the battlecruiser’s destruction in horrific detail. There was no way anyone could have survived that. And yet—
“Flukes do happen, sir,” he said. “I’ve heard some pretty wild tales of skin-of-the-teeth survival in battle.”
“And some of those are even true,” Tanner replied. “But yes, that does happen, and it does seem to have happened in this case.”
Now it was the XO who looked confused. “So what are we doing here then, sir?”
“Appearances can be deceiving, XO,” Tanner replied. “This man somehow didn’t die aboard the Centurion, it’s true. But he wasn’t found and rescued by the ON. Instead, the man simply resurfaced about six months ago, claiming that he’d been found by salvagers, managed to get away from them, then made his way back to ON lines. I’m a fan of dumb luck, but this stretches my concept of it and tickles my natural cynicism. I know I’m guilty of being overly cheerful—”
Someone snorted, but Tanner went on, unperturbed. “And yet, I’m left with an intense need to know how this could have happened, given that good luck rarely occurs when we’re fighting an enemy as creatively evil as the squids.”
Thorn narrowed his eyes. The story was plausible; there were salvagers, grubby opportunists, who carried on the age-old tradition of plundering battlefields after the fighting was done.
“But we don’t believe that, I gather,” the Security Chief said.
“No, we do not,” Tanner replied. “People, meet our newest Nyctus problem. We call them Skins.”
2
“Lieutenant Wixcombe, report to docking port four ASAP.”
Kira glanced up as the synthesized voice spoke over the general address system, then sighed in disgust. Finally, she’d managed some free time, having bargained with both the Duty Watch Commander and another of the Stiletto’s Lieutenants, a sallow-faced young man named Davis, who totally sucked at poker. With two more favors in her bag, she’d used the first to finally get more than a few hours of sleep, and had planned to use the second to get serious about contacting Thorn.
But now—
“Lieutenant Wixcombe,” the mechanical voice repeated. “Report to—”
“Yeah, yeah, on my way,” she snapped, prying herself out from behind the tiny worktable in her cramped quarters. The Stiletto, a heavy cruiser, was by far the most spacious ship to which Kira had yet been assigned, but crews grew in proportion to the size of the ship, so it really wasn’t any more spacious than, say, the Hecate—not on a per-person basis, anyway.
Still, she thought, fastening her uniform and grabbing her cap, the ON could no doubt make an empty field seem crowded.
She made her way along narrow corridors, stepping over hatch coamings along the way with practiced ease. Captain Densmore insisted that every member of the Stiletto’s crew be able to navigate every centimeter of the ship in complete darkness while blinded by smoke. It was a dedication to crew survival Kira hadn’t heard any other Captains practicing.
It was also another reason Kira was convinced Densmore actually wasn’t a spy for the Nyctus.
She stopped to let a trio of crewmen pass by, each carrying a hefty power cell. They nodded as they passed Kira, and she nodded back, a formal acknowledgement of an officer by enlisted Ratings when there wasn’t room to properly salute.
She carried on, heading for Docking Port Four. She had no idea why, but that was typical aboard the Stiletto. Technically a ship of the line, the Stiletto was actually much more sp
ecialized. If she was on the front line, then something had gone really wrong in the war. Her real mission was support for covert ops. She deployed and recovered spec ops teams and other intel specialists on furtive missions, most of which Kira knew absolutely nothing about. But then she didn’t need to know about them, and was only read into those missions she did. Keeping secrets came naturally to intel officers. Keeping secrets on the Stiletto was practically religion.
She stopped again, this time to let a forgettable man in a plain day-uniform pass by. The man, who barely acknowledged her, had no insignia or rank badges, just a security chip with a four-digit number on it—5783. Kira watched him recede down the corridor. Whoever Mister 5783 was, he wasn’t ON.
That was another reality about the Stiletto; ON ships did sometimes carry civilian personnel, usually shipyard representatives overseeing flight trials, various types of contractors, or certain mission specialists. Densmore’s ship had more than its share of civvies aboard, though, all of the spooky variety. Kira wasn’t even sure how many civilian personnel were aboard the Stiletto. She presumed someone had a head count for civvies, in case the ship ever got into trouble and had to be evacuated.
Although Kira suspected the Stiletto would likely be scuttled long before there was any threat she might be compromised by the Nyctus.
The only thing she did know about Mister 5783 was that the blue diamond on his security chip marked him as a member of the ELINT—electronic intelligence—department. That was the Stiletto’s other major role—eavesdropping on electronic comms of all types, from transmissions to the characteristic EM emissions of ships underway.
ELINT occupied almost a third of C-deck, a part of the ship into which Kira had only been once—and then with most consoles covered up. That was part of Densmore’s everybody-know-every-centimeter-of-the-ship-even-in-the-dark thing, but Kira was absolutely confident that after only one visit, she’d be able to get hopelessly lost in ELINT, even with the lights on.
Intel was a world of compartmentalization. And the more Kira learned just how compartmentalized it was, the more dysfunctional it all seemed.
She reached Docking Port Four, to find Densmore already there. A striking woman, Alys Densmore had a perpetual sense of knowing about her—both of secrets kept and the ability to glean anything from anyone, a kind of prophet whose sole purpose was to sniff the wind and understand who held what advantage at any point in the war. On one level, it made her mysterious, an enigmatic, figure of vague menace. On another, though, it just made her annoying.
“Ma’am,” Kira said, saluting. “I was called here, but I’m not sure why.”
Densmore nodded. “In about ten minutes, a civilian shuttle is going to dock here. It will contain the pilot and one passenger. The passenger will be your responsibility. You will escort him to briefing room five-alpha and proceed to debrief him. I’d like your summary report on my desk by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.”
Kira suppressed a grimace that all commanding officers could sense no matter how minor. It was in their skill set, and thus Kira’s face was a marvel of neutrality. Not only was she going to lose the duty-free shift she’d bargained for, but now she was going to be stuck babysitting some civvy for who knew how long. A hint of her displeasure must have leaked into her expression, because Densmore gave her a narrow-eyed look.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
“No—” Kira began, then stopped, because there were moments, rare but important, where being wholly honest with a superior officer was the best course of action.
“Actually, ma’am, there is. I’ve been aboard this ship for almost three years now, and you’ve consistently rated me above grade that entire time. I’ve never been late for duty. More often than not, I’ve stayed on duty past the end of my shift to help with some damned thing or another. I—”
“Am getting burned out,” Densmore said. “Is that where this is going, Lieutenant?”
Kira gave a slow nod of grudging admission, realizing who she was speaking to. “Actually, ma’am, I think that is part of it.” She shook her head. “No, that’s actually all of it, really. I just need some time to recharge. I’m roasted, and not in a good way. My judgement is—it’s not bad, but it’s not what it should be, and you deserve my best.”
“And you want to try to meet up with Lieutenant Stellers?”
This time, Kira avoided a scowl. It really wasn’t any of Densmore’s—or anyone else’s—business, what she got up to during her personal time off. But her relationship with Thorn was no secret to Densmore; in fact, she probably knew as much about their relationship as anyone. So Kira finally shrugged.
“If I can track him down, yes. I haven’t seen him in—” She paused, thinking. It had to be at least six months, a brief cross-over of their paths at Code Catapult, an ON’s FOB—forward operating base. The Hecate and the Stiletto had both docked there for resupply, giving them almost two full days together. There’d been no time together since.
“About six months,” Densmore said, offering Kira a thin smile. “You met him at Code Catapult.”
Kira smiled back. “You certainly know your crew, ma’am.”
“I know everything, Wixcombe,” Densmore said, her smile taking on a more predatory edge. But she immediately relented into something more like actual good humor. “Which means I also knew you’d finagled this duty shift as time off.”
Kira blinked. “Wait. You knew that, and you assigned me duty anyway, debriefing this civilian—”
“When you’re aboard this ship, your time is my time, Lieutenant Wixcombe.”
“Yes, of course, ma’am, but—” Kira let the complaint die of natural causes. She really didn’t want to get into this.
But Densmore let herself grin, if only just. It was a look of understanding, forged over years of dealing with the machinations of junior officers and their complex lives. “You wanted the time to try and contact Stellers, because you’ve been trying ever since the Vision of Nebo, but he hasn’t been reachable.”
“You know, ma’am, I appreciate that you’re the Captain and all, but I think your crew—and especially your officers—are entitled to some privacy.”
Densmore held up a hand. “No, I haven’t been eavesdropping or spying.”
This time, Kira forced herself to maintain her composure, while quietly reinforcing the shield she’d erected around her thoughts. Her captivity by the Nyctus had shown her that, when it came to locking down her own mind, there was almost no one who could enter that space without her permission. Thorn was the only exception. She’d done so ever since, partly out of sheer reflex, born of the trauma of that awful ordeal as a captive of the squids.
But a big part of it was Densmore herself. Kira and Thorn had come to suspect that Densmore might be in league with the Nyctus, which would be a massive problem for the ON. They’d shared their concerns with Captain Tanner of the Hecate, who’d offered to keep her aboard his ship, when Fleet began talking about assigning her to work for Densmore.
After some thought, she and Thorn had decided that putting her in close proximity to Densmore might be for the best. They didn’t have enough evidence to actually level any sort of accusation against her, so the best they could do was have her accept the posting to the Stiletto—with Tanner’s help—to keep an eye on the enigmatic woman.
And here she was. Three years had passed, and she’d found absolutely no evidence Densmore had any connection to the Nyctus at all. Kira had concluded they were wrong, Densmore wasn’t compromised—but she still kept her thoughts guarded. The woman finding out that Kira had been spying on her, to see if she was a spy, would at least lead to a tense, awkward conversation.
But Densmore had just made an explicit reference to spying. Did she know, or at least suspect something, after all?
All of this flashed through Kira’s mind in a moment, firmly behind her formidable mental shields. Densmore didn’t seem to notice, though, as she just kept on speaking.
“I’ve been tr
ying to get a hold of Stellers myself,” she said to Kira. “I have no doubt you have too, and I assume you’ve had no success either.”
“Yes, ma’am. Right after the Vision, I tried to contact him. I’ve tried several times since, but gotten nothing,” Kira said.
The Vision. That’s what the Starcasters had come to call the gut-wrenching event, when they’d all witnessed, firsthand, the destruction of Nebo by a Nyctus KEW bombardment in real-time, and from the perspective of a remarkable little girl. Kira still hadn’t begun to really process the implications of it, which hit her harder and more deeply than most. In fact, she’d been avoiding it, just keeping the horror of it in a part of her memory she could ignore.
For now. But not forever.
She needed to talk to Thorn.
The certainty of it, the absolute necessity to contact Thorn, made up her mind for her. “Ma’am, I’ve taken no leave in three years. Most of that time, I’ve been aboard this ship, doing what I think is some pretty damned good work for you.” Her body language was rigid with decisiveness. At a cool look from Densmore, she settled back, hands held still with an effort. “I want to take some leave now. I’ve earned it, and I’m entitled to it.”
Densmore gave that slightly predatory smile again. “The exigencies of service, Wixcombe. We’re at war, so, yes, you might have earned it, might be entitled to it, but I don’t have to approve it at all.”
“Ma’am—”
“But I will,” Densmore went on, her smile fading. “The fact is, you have done damned good work, and if I refuse this request for leave, I know what will happen—you’ll start doing your job, and nothing more.” She shook her head. “In the type of work we do, doing your job isn’t enough. I need you at the tip of the spear, not somewhere back along the shaft, just helping to push the tip along.” She glanced at the docking port; the panel beside it showed that the approaching shuttle had been captured by the auto-docking system and would be connected in just over a minute.