by M. D. Cooper
Angela replied.
“Doc knows best,” Sera smiled.
Sera helped Tanis raise her legs and move her arms in their full range of motion before she sat up and took a deep breath.
“Everything seems to be in working order,” she looked to Sera. “Are you all healed up? I recall you saying something about a rib of mine making a hole in you.”
Sera ran a hand down her ‘skin’. “All healed and right as rain. Angela knew a few things about flesh and polymer bonding. She and Helen gave me a bit of an upgrade—now it grows back on its own.”
“It’s a pretty straight-forward mod,” Tanis agreed.
“Fina. You’ve called her that a few times,” Tanis observed. “What does it mean?”
“Hush.” Sera looked perturbed.
“Now I have to know what it is,” Tanis said.
“Sera is my name; it’s just shortened a bit.”
“No!” Sera shouted in dismay.
“I must swear you all to secrecy,” Sera said. “I’m completely serious—I can’t wheel, deal and smuggle with a name like Seraphina.”
“Who else knows?” Tanis asked.
“Other than you, just Flaherty.”
“Stop it! You’re giving all my secrets away,” Sera’s face was beginning to redden. Tanis could tell she was adding some choice comments to her AI in private.
“You two are quite the puzzle,” Tanis said with an eyebrow raised.
“Hey, on a different track,” Sera began, appearing to choose her words carefully. “Have you thought about what your ship will do now that it’s stuck in the ninetieth century?”
Tanis let out a long sigh. “Not really. I imagine we could find a moon somewhere in some system and terraform it in trade for what we have. I’ve looked at the star charts, there aren’t a lot of options around—not without a really long trip.”
“I…this isn’t the sort of information that one bandies about, but I think I can help. I have contacts I can reach out to when we get to Bollam’s World.” She paused, indecision clouding her features, then finished her statement. “I can get in touch with the FGT.”
Tanis sat up, locking eyes with Sera, searching for a sign that his was subterfuge…or a joke.
“You’re serious?”
Sera nodded. “Serious as a railgun slug to the chest.”
“How do you have contacts like this?” Tanis asked.
Sera didn’t reply right away and Tanis waited in silence for the captain to make up her mind.
“I…I’m not ready to talk about that yet. It’s not a part of my life I like to reflect on.” Her face lightened. “But I promise I’ll tell you, just not yet.”
Tanis wasn’t sure what to make of Sera’s admission, but even suspect contact with the FGT was more to go on than she had five minutes ago.
“OK, thanks for your offer. I can wait for the details,” she replied
“You ready to get some solid food in you?” Sera asked and stood from her chair.
“More than ready, my stomach is grumbling like it hasn’t had food in a year,” Tanis replied as she carefully settled on her feet.
She stepped gingerly as they walked out of the med-lab into the central corridor on the freight deck. “Angela wasn’t kidding when she said I’d have to take it easy until my muscles get back in sync.”
“I had a full rebuild once,” Sera said over her shoulder. “Was quite the experience. The nerves and muscles are never exactly where they were before. Takes some time to get your responses timed properly again.”
“Now you have a story I’d like to hear some time,” Tanis said.
“I bet you would.” Sera smiled back at her.
Nance met them at the ladder to the to the crew level; Tanis noticed the woman’s head was exposed for only the second time since she had been on board, and her long brown hair was brushed to gleaming perfection.
“Tanis, it’s good to see you conscious. Sabrina notified me that you were awake,” She said pleasantly.
Sabrina seemed much calmer than even before Sera had been captured. Perhaps the AI had realized that even without her captain near, the crew wasn’t going to abandon her to some scrap yard.
“Thanks Nance,” Tanis said aloud. “Sera tells me I’m currently breathing thanks to in no small part your actions.” She patted her chest. “I’m quite impressed that you could grow a new heart with what you have available on this ship.”
Nance smiled. “It’s the least I could do.”
Tanis turned and took a long look at the ladder before letting out a long sigh. “I think I’ll use the lift today.”
“Probably a wise choice,” Nance agreed.
The rest of the crew was waiting in the wardroom when she entered, trailing a hand along the bulkhead to assist her uncertain balance.
“Hey folks,” Tanis summoned all her energy to give a winning smile.
There were greetings all around; even Flaherty actually used words rather than his customary grunt. Tanis sat as gracefully as she could manage and Cheeky poured her a cup of coffee.
“How do you always have such wonderful coffee on this ship?” Tanis asked as she inhaled the aroma.
“Sera blackmails station masters,” Cheeky replied with a shrug.
“Now you’re giving away my secrets too?” Sera threw her hands in the air.
“Other secrets have been shared?” Cheeky asked. “Why wasn’t I informed?”
As they all ate, Sera retold the story of her escape from the pirate headquarters for Tanis’s benefit. When she reached the part where she left Rebecca alive, Cargo shook his head with disbelief.
“I still can’t fathom what possessed you to leave her alive; she’s going to gun for you—for us—forever.”
Tanis watched a brief war of emotions play across Sera’s face.
“I could have, I really wanted to…” the captain finally replied. “But for some reason I didn’t have cold-blooded murder in my heart that day.”
The crew nodded respectfully, though Tanis wondered if they noticed what she had; Sera had committed murder before—and not just once. Tanis wondered what she would have done. It had been a long time since she had taken a life with her own hands; it changed a person, and not just the first time either—there was a definite cumulative effect. Perhaps Sera, like her, had spent some time recovering that part of her soul and didn’t want to lose it again.
When she described the ransacking of Rebecca’s quarters, Tanis couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ve only known you for a short time, Sera, but it does not surprise me one bit that you spent no small amount of time in another woman’s wardrobe.”
“Given her current condition, there’s probably a parable of greed in there somewhere,” Cargo said with a shake of his head.
Sera gave a simple shrug i
n response. “All I was wearing was a hazsuit. I couldn’t wander through their platform like that.”
“Why not?” Nance asked. “I bet it would have attracted a lot less attention, then the state you’re in now.”
Cheeky laughed. “Surely you know by now, Nance. Sera loves attracting attention. It may be her dominant personality trait.”
Sera’s face turned down in a brief sulk. Everyone else was looking at Cheeky and missed the expression, but Tanis’s ever-present nano-cloud spotted the reaction.
“Fine, mock me, but you’re all jealous of this stuff—at least now that Helen and Angela have made it less intent on killing me, and a little more accommodating to my biology.”
Cheeky gave a mischievous grin. “I wouldn’t mind getting into your new skin, just not the way you are.”
Sera flushed, and quickly returned to telling the rest of her tale; the battle in the warehouse, and hiding in the stack of crates. Tanis noticed there was no mention of the case that Sera had with her on the Regal Dawn. No one else mentioned the omission and she wondered if the crew knew anything about it.
“So, what are the chances that we have to worry about Rebecca sending her entire fleet after us?” Cheeky asked.
“I think they’re pretty slim—for now,” Sera said. “They’re probably looking for a new headquarters.”
“Why’s that?” Thompson asked.
“I destroyed their last one,” Sera smiled mischievously.
“Wait,” Cheeky raised her hand. “You didn’t mention that before. How did you do that?”
Sera paused, and Tanis wondered what she had done that she didn’t want to share with the crew. After a glance at Flaherty, the captain continued with her tale.
“I did tell, I said that I altered their sensor array.”
“Yeah,” Thompson agreed. “But what for?”
“So I altered it to emit a very specific signal.”
“You mean it’s true?” Nance asked; her eyes wide.
Sera nodded in response.
“You’re killing me with all this crypticness,” Cheeky yelled. “What did you do?”
Nance pulled her eyes from Sera and cast a wary look out the porthole into the dark layer. “I’ve heard stories…. If Sera means what I think she does…she had it eaten.”
Tanis leaned back in her chair and took a long, slow, breath. Everyone looked surprised—except Flaherty, who looked slightly upset. The most emotion she had ever seen him display; outside of when Sera was captured.
“Something ate the space station?” Thompson asked.
“There are things that live in the dark layer,” Sera spoke slowly, as though searching or the right words. “Things that no one understands. We don’t know if they are organic, silicate or purely energy based. No one has been able to learn anything about them—or if anyone has, they didn’t live to tell the tale. However, there is a signal, which attracts them, and they move fast. Somehow they can propel themselves though the dark layer.”
Everyone looked somewhat paler—Tanis was certain she did as well; not a few nervous eyes glanced out the porthole into the blackness.
“So these things eat stations?” Thompson asked.
“They are attracted to gravitons from what we can tell. Mostly, they stay very close to the largest clumps of dark matter, which are clustered near stars in relative space. It’s why transitioning into the Dark Layer too close to a star is often a one-way trip—even if there are no clumps of dark matter nearby,” Sera replied.
“Are they out in interstellar space at all?” Tanis asked.
“Every so often one is spotted.” Mostly ships don’t emit enough gravitons to attract them that far out, but like I said, there is a signal you can emit that’s like ringing the dinner bell—even out in the void, they’ll come—in this case, they most certainly have already come.”
“So you killed an entire station full of people?” Tanis asked.
Sera scowled and her voice gained a cold edge. “Of course not. Do I look like a barbarian?”
“More like a Barbie doll.” Flaherty said softly.
Sera stuck her tongue out at him. “I gave them fair warning.”
“If these things are real, and you know so much about them, how come I’ve never heard of them?” Cheeky asked. “You’d think pilots would have stories.”
Angela replied.
Sera took a moment to reply to Cheeky’s question.
“The knowledge is too dangerous. If people knew, they could plant a transmitter on a ship and it would transition to FTL and…well, let’s just say that it would be the end of FTL travel. Plus, no one wants to run the risk of accidentally pulling one of these things into relative space.”
“Can that happen?”
“No one knows…no one wants to find out.”
“Makes sense,” Nance said with a nod.
Sera answered a few more questions about her escape and from there, conversation drifted to Sabrina’s upgrades and the course to Bollam’s World. The crew was far more relaxed with Sera around. Even though she never acted superior, they all looked to her for advice and confirmation of their beliefs and opinions. Sometimes she disagreed or criticized, but usually managed to be supportive while doing so.
Tanis knew the hallmarks of a leader, moreover, someone raised around great leaders. She knew the traits because she had honed them over decades. Sera appeared to possess them naturally; Tanis was certain the captain had not actively focused on the skills, but had learned them through observation—before she ran from whatever position awaited her.
Ship-time slipped into the third watch and the crew began to disperse to their quarters. Tanis was one of the first out; she begged exhaustion and retreated to her cabin where she fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of Joe waiting for her on the Intrepid and their happy reunion.
THE RETURN
STELLAR DATE: 07.25.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, Interstellar Dark Layer
REGION: 73 Light Years Core-Ward of Ayrea
Sera reclined in the captain’s chair and stroked the leather upholstery.
It was good to be back on Sabrina. The ship was glad to have her captain back too, the crew was happy, and Tanis was going to live to see another day.
It certainly would have been embarrassing, not to mention potentially dangerous, to approach the Intrepid with Tanis dead. She really liked the woman; though from another age, Tanis felt like a kindred spirit. The effort she had put into Sera’s rescue had also earned her points—though the weapons upgrades painted a target on Sabrina. They would have to go before long—at least the more obvious ones.
She didn’t fault Tanis. Time was short, and, as a military woman, going in with the big guns was likely her style.
Given Tanis’s nano spending spree on the PeterSil EK platform, she may even need to change the registry of her ship. Too many people would wonder what job Sabrina had pulled to get that sort of credit. Some old friends were certainly going to take notice.
It should have upset her more, but Sera’s plans for the Intrepid would force her to confront those individuals sooner rather than later anyway—regardless of the mess Tanis had made in Silstrand.
>
Helen’s silvery laugh echoed through Sera’s mind, a sound she had heard often, ever since she was a small child—probably even before she could remember.
Sera smiled. She was glad Helen felt that way—this life, this adventure as her oldest friend put it, was grand, far better than what her father had planned for her.
“They’ll try,” Sera whispered to herself.
War. The sort of war like none ever seen before—and people had worked up some good ones in the past. Humanity was still recovering from the last one. But her father had always stayed out of prior conflicts. This would be different.
It would spread across the Orion arm of the galaxy, all of humanity would be engulfed.
“Cheeky, could—” she began, only to see that her pilot was no longer on the bridge. Her musings had been more distracting than she thought.
Sera brought up the nav data herself and reviewed it one final time.
From Angela’s scan data, plus stories of other ships that had been lost in the Streamer, she knew the Intrepid to be in interstellar space, rim-ward of Bollam’s World—perhaps even within the star’s heliopause.
Bollam’s World lay on the far side of several interstellar federations and demarchies. Not to mention the core worlds.
Known as the AST, the core was a strong federation with far too much red tape for Sera’s taste—their security was rather invasive, even for ships just passing through their systems. Sabrina would give those worlds a wide berth.