by Patty Jansen
No time to check, but if Aidin, the Aidin I knew, stood outside my room, that was evidence I was right.
What now?
There were shouts and crashes outside. I thought I heard the crackle of a laser going off. Someone kicked the door, hard.
I dropped to my knees and crawled under the bed.
Then all went still.
The lock clicked and the door opened, slowly. I pressed myself further under the bed, my heart thudding. Someone walked in. By the light from the corridor I recognised ISF-issue regulation boots.
"Charlotte?"
Carla Avery.
"Charlotte, are you OK?"
I slid myself from under the bed. She blew out a breath when she saw me.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"The constructs broke into the ship through the cargo docks. About fifty of them came in. Somehow, they managed to undo all the work we did. All the constructs have their old files back."
"Yes, I had just worked that much out. Where are they?"
"A whole group of them are running loose in the ship. The rest we're keeping sedated."
I opened my cupboard and pulled out my uniform. "I got to get to the hospital."
"No. Admiral Ferreira requests your immediate presence at the bridge."
I looked at my bare feet. "Can I get changed first?"
"Now, please. Admiral's orders."
Guess military didn't care about pyjamas.
Her expression softened. "I'm sorry, but we have bad news. We have about three hundred rogues running around free and armed, and the Dawn Rising has broken hyperspeed formation, too. They've been in contact with us and sent a message. You better see it for yourself."
I followed her out of the cabin.
Aidin lay in the corridor. A couple of technical grunts had dumped him unceremoniously on a stretcher. Even with a nasty bruise on his face, he looked like a Greek god. He was breathing evenly, thank goodness.
I wondered what would happen to him now, or what would have happened had I opened the door for him.
I would never harm you, Charlotte.
Wouldn't he, not even if seven thousand of his brothers were also possessive about me?
We walked through the maze of corridors. The metal floor was cold under my feet.
Armed personnel, one every few steps, lined my path. Guns were trained on every hatch, on every panel that opened, on every door.
I had only been to the command room once, just behind the bridge. While the bridge crew looked after the day-to-day piloting of the ship, decisions were made by high-ranking officers in the command room. It was a spacious affair, carpeted, with an oval table in the middle, where the top brass of the ship already gathered, all in spotless uniforms. On bare feet and in my pyjamas, I felt I might well have been naked. I wasn't even wearing a bra and my ample breasts swung with every step.
Commander Carla Avery found her seat on the other side of the table. "This is our ship's surgeon, Lieutenant Commander Charlotte West, the woman in question."
I saluted.
Captain Mayfair was there, and next to her sat Admiral Ferreira, a grey-haired man with a sharp face. He didn't raise an eyebrow at my pyjamas, and I would have been able to tell the smallest twitch, because his eyebrows were so bushy they threatened to crawl into his eyes.
Commander Ehrlich rose, pulled a chair back for me. "Aren't you cold?"
Before I could say anything, he took off his jacket, with its red epaulettes and military decorations, and draped it over my shoulders.
"Thank you." My voice wouldn't cooperate. I gazed out the window to the bridge, where the two pilots sat behind their controls.
"Lieutenant Commander West, you have been told about the situation?" said Captain Mayfair, her voice just as cold as usual.
I met her eyes, which held nothing but ill-veiled pity. "That the crew of the Forward has managed to break quarantine? Yes."
She snorted. "That's one way of putting it." Not hers, obviously. In some way, in my sleepy stupor, I was strangely proud of my soldiers. We had made them smart enough to know what we were doing to them, and they had cobbled together the resources to outsmart all these arrogant walking suits who thought the men were resources.
Go Kali, go Aidin.
"Lieutenant Commander West,' said Commander Ehrlich, 'Charlotte, if I may."
I nodded.
"I'd like to play the communication we've had from the Dawn Rising."
He hit a button on the centre console and the projection screen in the corner of the room sprang into life.
It displayed a face of a young man. He looked so much like Aidin that he could only be another Landau.
His mouth moved but his speech wasn't loud enough for me to hear.
"Most of the message is about how the crew has disposed of their captain," Commander Ehrlich explained, but then he turned the sound up.
The man said, "Lastly, a message for Charlotte. Do not be afraid. We are coming for you."
The screen fuzzed over, and fell silent.
"All these men seem to be after you," Commander Ehrlich said.
"I know." My voice sounded stronger. I knew, and I was overcome by a strange feeling: I didn't care.
He gave me a look of concern, as if he thought I should be in tears, and continued, "You must understand we will protect you, by all means."
I stared at him. Those three words by all means meant violence. Would they fight the constructs? Because they wanted me?
"You can't mean that. These men have been our project for the last four years. It would be akin to calling off the attack on the Allionists."
"Not calling off," said a deep male voice. "Altering the situation somewhat. We take control and then ask for voluntary service. These men were bred to fight. I'm banking on the fact that most of them will want to fight. We'll have to jettison the rest."
"But that's lunacy!" These men lived for each other. You couldn't just ditch a lot of them.
And then I clamped my jaws, because the man I'd just called an idiot was Admiral Ferreira.
He met my eyes. My heart thudded against my ribs.
"Not a very nice solution, I agree," he said, "but these men seem to have become very smart indeed. We should use them where we can. I have to consider not just their lives, but the lives of the people at Taurus."
I bent my head. "I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't mean to..."
"I understand. You are a doctor, and you are passionate about your patients, but right now, we all agree that your presence here is a risk to us."
I looked up. What were they suggesting?
"We're going to let you drop off in a shuttle. You'll continue towards Taurus, but at a much slower speed, and arrive hopefully when we've dealt with the Allionists. Meanwhile, Lt. Fenwicke can deal with the constructs. Once we've got the rogues under control, we'll isolate the hospital system and re-program them. We've had plenty of practice, although we will still be able to consult you."
"No." I shook my head, but they were all talking to each other.
"We need to disconnect the Forward," Commander Ehrlich said. "Isolate the problem."
"If the Allionist Mission hears about this, they'll be laughing their heads off!"
Carla Avery said, "If necessary, we knock the rogues all out, re-program the Forward to return to Earth and sort it out when we get back."
I said again, louder this time, "No. Cutting communication won't work. Some of them are telepathic."
They were silent then.
I continued, "They will know what has happened to their comrades, even if you allow no communication. They always come back for their mates."
And so they would always come back for me, because I was one of their mates. Stupid I hadn't seen it before.
The door opened and a group of armed men marched in, putting an end to whatever thoughts I had.
"Your escort to the escape vessel," Captain Mayfair said. "Your clothes are on-board."
I rose, hesitated. Saw A
idin as he had lain on the stretcher outside my room, so close to his goal. What if...
But I let the moment pass and walked out the door with the soldiers. I was a coward.
There was a laser flash on the far end of bridge, a shower of sparks, an explosion. Shouts. The men around me drew guns. A few cat-like figures sprang out of the smoke.
Commander Ehrlich grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me back into the command room. Someone slammed the door shut.
There was laser fire on the other side of the window, my escort discharging weapons at dark figures running onto the bridge. There were so many.
Commander Ehrlich pushed me under the table. "Stay down."
I sat there, my knees pulled up against my chest, listening to the sounds of running feet and cracks of discharging lasers. The latter sound was coming from ever further away: the soldiers were no longer outside the door of the command room. With a chill, I realised that this meant they had been shot. Those men protected their superiors in this room.
In that case, hiding under a table was not much use. If the constructs had made it this far in these numbers, they knew I was here. If they had escaped the Forward despite the guards, they would fight their way in here, and a lot of people would die and maybe even the ship would be damaged. I couldn't let that happen; we were fragile in space. This was not the way to solve the problem and it was not the way we could ever fight a war.
I rose.
"Charlotte!" Commander Avery hissed from the corner of the room where she stood with her gun levelled at the door. "Are you familiar with the concept of following orders? Stay down."
I did, wondering what she had in mind. There were six people in the room, all top brass hopelessly out of weapons practice. The guards were out of action, the bridge had already fallen, and more construct soldiers were streaming in through both entrances; I could hear them.
"Urgent backup requested in the command room!" Carla Avery shouted into the microphone of the room's comm.
Laser fire went off outside the window. The acrid stench of molten plastic drifted in.
I scrambled out from under the table.
"Charlotte, get the fuck out of the way!" Carla Avery hissed.
This time I didn't crawl back under the table, but walked towards the door, into the range of her gun. Her chest heaved with deep breaths, but she didn't move.
"Charlotte..." Her voice was low and menacing.
I turned around, staring into the barrel of the gun, levelled at my chest.
Would she really shoot me? Probably not, I decided, although I wouldn't put it past her. Strangely enough, I didn't care. I turned back to the door, but found Admiral Ferreira blocking my way.
His voice was soft and menacing. "That was an order. You're endangering my troops. Get out of the way."
I shook my head. "I know these men better than anyone aboard this ship. They won't stop until they have what they want. You have heard what the spokesman from the Dawn Rising said. I am what they want. If you let me drop off in a shuttle, they will follow me. If you lock me up, they will fight their way in until they have me. I'm going outside. I'll talk to them."
Carla Avery snorted. "Forgive me the crudeness, but I don't think they're interested in talking."
"You will stay here as ordered," Admiral Ferreira said.
I straightened my back and met his hard gaze. My heart thumped so hard I was afraid it was going to jump out of my chest. "I am the fleet surgeon, responsible for the wellbeing of the construct army. I cannot condone any jettisoning of part of my force. Moreover, I don't think it will produce the result you desire. And I think that all of us here agree what that result is. What do you want, Sir? This force fighting for our joined aims or all-out war and having to justify the loss of years of investment to your financiers on Earth? Do you want to recapture Taurus or not?"
He went red in the face. "You invoke section 46.sub-section a.1?"
"I do."
I saw in Carla Avery's eyes, in the slackening of her snarl, that she understood, and for just that tiny moment I knew that I had been wrong: she wasn't more powerful than me at all. Just more scared.
"Please. I've tried this your way. I've worked hard to override the constructs' mindbases as you wanted. It hasn't worked." Go Kali, show them what you're made of. "I'm asking all of you to let me try what I think is the right way of dealing with these men, and getting all the troops back into line. Fifteen minutes is all I want. If it doesn't work, you can shoot all of us."
His brown gaze focused on some point outside the window. Two construct soldiers had the ship's captain in his chair, hands raised. Two dishevelled soldiers had taken up positions on either side of the door to the command room. One of them was dripping blood onto the floor.
"Fifteen minutes?" His eyes met mine.
"I don't think I'll even need that long."
His face was unreadable, but he nodded, once, and stepped aside.
The tip of Carla Avery's gun lowered. While I left the room, my bare feet silent on the carpet, she muttered, "Bugger me dead."
I stepped into smoke so thick I could barely see anything. Laser fire hissed somewhere to my right. The two soldiers tried to tell me to go back, but Carla Avery waved them aside.
I coughed, breathed deeply to calm my racing heart, and called out. "I'm Charlotte. If you care about me, stop fighting now."
Silence was immediate. Then there were shouts, and whoops, and whistles.
A figure detached from the smoke. There were tears in his uniform, a smudge of black on his cheek, but with his curls and strong chin he might have been a Greek god.
"Charlotte?" His eyes glittered.
It was Kali. I hadn't seen him, but just knew.
I nodded, and within two seconds, he had enclosed me in muscled arms and hefted me onto his shoulders. "Look! Charlotte is here. Come out, guys!"
They all came, carrying guns and knives and wired up with electronics. They crowded around us and patted my hands. Donagh was back, and, heavens, Aidin. I reached out and ruffled his curls. They were smiling and laughing and clapping each other on the shoulder. Kali's shoulders were warm under me. His hair smelled of engine oil, smoke and metal.
The regular troops still stood around the perimeter of the room, holding guns. I tapped Kali on the head. "Put me down, please."
He did. They were all taller than me, and formed a solid wall of human flesh between me and the guns. I felt safe. They would never let any harm come to me. I knew these men better than I knew my own family. They were my family of little boys.
"Listen," I said, and they opened up a circle around me. "I want you all back in your ship as soon as possible. You have all caused us a lot of trouble with your stunts and these people here are not impressed. So you are now going to recall every single man still running about this ship. You are going to offer your apologies and then you are going to get on with your jobs. We have a war to fight, and we want to win it.
"We are all going to work the hardest we can to see how we can win it, and how we can all survive to become the greatest army there ever was. You are going to be heroes."
Someone at the back of the swelling crowd yelled, "Charlotte!"
And they all took up the chant. "Charlotte, Charlotte!"
I struggled to keep tears from my eyes, motioning for them to be quiet, which eventually, they did.
"Right. I now want you to move back to the Forward as quickly as you can, take nothing and no one from this vessel. Go back to your assigned positions. Move!" The last bit I improvised as my confidence grew and I saw that they were all listening and that all the crew of the Comfort were watching, some with their mouths open.
The men rose almost as one, stowed their guns and abandoned their hostages. The first ones were already marching out. No one else moved.
At the door to the command room, Admiral Ferreira gave me a strange look. Was it admiration I saw? He should try it more often; it made him look friendly.
I spread my hands.
"You can come out. It's safe. I vouch for them."
But he didn't come until most of the men had gone. He nodded and that was probably as much appreciation I was going to get from him.
"I will have you escorted back to your cabin." he said.
"No." I fumbled for the PDA unit I wore around my neck and gave it to him. "Give my position back to Dr Spencer. This is the wrong place for me. I'm going with them."
21
That was seven years ago. Taurus has been ours for most of that time, guaranteeing the passage of supply ships from one part of the trade Axis to the other. We re-built the ravaged colony with our own hands and added a nice abode for ourselves.
Now we patrol the section around the planet. We charge docking fees and protect merchant ships from pirates and other rogues.
We had almost finished building our own housing when one day, in the middle of a conversation, Aidin looked at me and undressed me with his eyes. I smiled because I had waited for this moment, knowing it couldn't be too far off. He blushed and turned away and never mentioned it again. Apparently, Rane had it worked out much earlier, but he was always the shy one, so I cornered him in the garden one day where he could not escape me. We kissed, hot and eager, and his hands strayed under my dress. He enjoyed it, but wouldn't admit to it for weeks and was the subject of much teasing. They were such little boys. Jade was the first one to come into my bed at night and provided the ultimate proof: they were not second-rate humans, but hot-blooded men who were fast growing up.
I reserved a special day for Aidin.
In the months afterwards, he and others would come up to me and feel my swelling belly, eyes filled with wonder. The child that grew within wasn't just Aidin's; it belonged to all of them.
I have three little girls. Two have red hair, one is dark. At night, Aidin shares my bed, or Jade, or Rane, or any of the others. They are sweet, and poetic. When not on duty, they play music or organise games. I watch them and they make me feel proud.
For the first time in my life, I feel liked. I feel safe.
They call themselves Charlotte's Army.