by Isaac Hooke
“A message from Noctua?” Tahoe said.
“Could be anything,” Rade told him. “But let’s hope.” He returned his attention to the Centurions on the surface. “Algorithm, have your robots place the final charges and then track down the source of that beacon.”
The Centurions finished up and then followed the HS3s, marching quickly through the melted hatch leading to the adjacent dome. In moments they had surrounded one of the Artificial women lying dead on the turf. Rade watched the scene unfold from Algorithm’s viewpoint.
“The signal is coming from this one,” Algorithm said.
“Can you interface with that signal in any way?” Rade asked.
“Negative,” Algorithm said. “It has the characteristics of a non-interactive distress beacon. It appears to be coming from the AI core area. Would you like me to open it up?”
“Do it,” Rade said.
Algorithm flipped the Artificial woman over and lifted away the hair from the base of the neck. Algorithm tore open the skin, then opened the steel panel underneath. The Centurion inserted a slender metal finger into the cylindrical opening containing the AI core.
“What do you have?” Rade asked.
Algorithm removed a small, fingernail-sized chip.
“The signal beacon is coming from this,” Algorithm said. “It appears to be a holographic storage device, rigged with a nano transmitter.”
“All right,” Rade said. “Return to the shuttles and bring that device aboard.”
Roughly half an hour later both Dragonflies had docked with the Argonaut, and Rade met Algorithm in the cargo hold, where Surus was waiting in her host, Ms. Bounty. The stunning Artificial stood next to a large glass container with a black box attached to the upper pane inside. That container was the Phant trap. It was currently empty at the moment, of course.
As their client, Surus wasn’t bound by the dress codes Rade enforced on the rest of the crew. The tight, black fatigues she wore accentuated her figure; a gap in the upper bodice teased a small amount of her ample cleavage. Her hair was worn in a ponytail that reached to the small of her back.
Algorithm meanwhile was all hard angles of black and yellow polycarbonate, with small spheres in the joint areas where the servomotors resided. The robot’s face was a smooth, curved visor, the only features two small camera lenses that provided stereoscopic vision.
Surus held out her hand and accepted the tiny chip Algorithm offered. She placed it in a small reader device, and, judging from the way her eyes defocused, Rade knew she was accessing the contents.
Finally, the alien host looked up.
“It appears you were right, after all,” Surus told Rade.
“How so?” he asked.
“Noctua escaped,” she said.
two
Rade nodded slowly.
“Noctua reached the escape craft after all,” Surus continued. “And carried the Acceptor to the vessel via one of the base shuttles. She has sent me the location of the station where she plans to take the device—she has chosen one of the many bug out sites I’ve placed throughout the galaxy. At some point, we will have to retrieve the Acceptor from that site.”
“You’re certain it’s not a trap?” Rade asked.
“The message passed all the necessary identification and validation standards,” Surus said. “At the very least, I know that Noctua created the message. But you are correct, she may have been coerced into doing it.”
“It’s too risky to send a message to the station to confirm either way,” Rade said. “We could lead the Greens right to it, especially if they’re snooping the system’s InterGalNet packets. And we can’t just fly there, either, for the same reason. You said it yourself: they’re watching us.”
“We could fly there,” Surus said. “And it wouldn’t matter... if I intended to destroy it.”
“Do you intend to?” Rade asked.
“Yes,” Surus said.
Rade hesitated. “We already agreed that the enemy is watching us. So my question for you is, wouldn’t those same watching eyes have discovered Noctua already? And followed her to the station?”
“Would they?” Surus said. “I’m not so certain. If she switched stations and ships several times along the way, it is highly probable that she eluded them. She is well-trained in tradecraft. I would expect so, given that she holds the knowledge of a thousand species within her memory core. So, then. Will you take me to the station? It’s two jumps away, in the Dakota system of T’anhua.”
Rade crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m still not convinced we won’t be walking into a trap. Tell me about this station.”
“It’s a free port,” Surus said. “Known as Nātowēssiwak. Essentially a trade hub for the Dakota. We will find mostly merchants and their mercenary escorts there.”
Rade accessed the InterGalNet records via his Implant and looked up the station. He saw that it utilized the classic hourglass design that allowed starships to dock directly. That meant if things turned sour, all they had to do was pull away from the station. There wouldn’t be any ferrying back and forth between the Argonaut and the outpost while exposed in a shuttle.
“Are there any populated worlds nearby?” Rade asked.
“Well, it orbits a planet containing a dome colony,” Surus said. “There are three hundred thousand inhabitants. They’re Dakota pioneers. There are also many scientists, engineers and their families—those involved with the terraforming process.”
Rade hesitated. Finally: “All right. I’ll take you to this planet on one condition: if you sense a Phant after we dock, I’m going to give the order to depart immediately. We’re not in Phant hunting mode here, but the trap avoidance mindset.”
“That is agreeable to me,” Surus said.
“Good,” Rade said. “I’ll have us set a course to that station once we’re done here.”
“Thank you,” Surus said.
Rade bid her farewell and then made his way through the cramped passageways back to the bridge.
After taking his seat, Rade glanced at Manic.
“Detonate the charges,” Rade told him.
He switched his viewpoint to the external ventral camera of the Argonaut and watched the explosives detonate from orbit; organic fireballs ravaged the base and shattered the domes in sequence.
“Now that’s a thing of utter beauty!” Bender exclaimed. The dark-skinned man was decked-out in his usual diamond earrings and gold chains, though since he was on duty he only wore a small subset of his jewelry collection. He had been uncharacteristically silent since the Centurions had discovered the dead Artificials at the base, but he seemed to be coming back to his old self. “Those explosions almost remind me of a woman coming.”
“Ever heard of cummingtonite?” Manic asked.
“Huh?” Bender said. “You’re coming tonight?”
“It’s a mineral,” Manic said. “Not sure why, but what you said reminded me of it.”
“Well I’m going to be cummingtonite, don’t you worry,” Bender said. “Surus is finally going to give in to my advances, I know it.”
When the debris had settled, Rade said: “Bax, bring us into a lower orbit. I want us out of view of the authorities in the rest of the system.”
“Understood,” the Argonaut’s AI said.
“Manic, when Bax gives the okay,” Rade said, “fire the Vipers repeatedly from orbit over the next several hours. I want that site utterly razed.”
Manic smiled malevolently. “Gladly.”
“You really like blowing things up, don’t you?” Bender said. “Almost too much. I suppose it makes sense. Everyone picks on you, so you have to take your frustrations out somehow.”
Manic shrugged. “You like blowing shit up, too, or you wouldn’t be here with the rest of us.”
“True, that.” Bender flashed his golden grille. “Course, I like whaling on you and making your pussy ass bleed, too.”
In several minutes Bax had achieved the necessary lower orbi
t, and Rade watched on the external camera as the lasers repeatedly ate into the wreckage of the base. The destruction would prevent any advanced technology contained within the site from falling into the wrong hands.
Rade dismissed the camera feed and turned toward Lui. “When Manic is done, have Bax set a course for the Gate.”
“Where are we headed?” Lui asked.
“T’anhua system,” Rade answered. “Nātowēssiwak station.”
“Nata what?” Lui said.
“Look it up,” Rade said. “It’s the only station in T’anhua.” Rade glanced at Tahoe. “You wouldn’t happen to have any friends there, would you?”
Tahoe shrugged. “Just because I’m Navajo, I’m supposed to be friends with everyone living among the Dakota?”
“That’s not exactly what I said, but point taken,” Rade told him. “I’ll be in my office, holding my head in shame.”
“I doubt it,” Tahoe said. “The holding the head in shame part, anyway.”
“Not really my style, is it?” Rade asked.
“Not at all,” Tahoe said.
Rade squeezed past the stations and entered the hatch to the adjacent compartment, and shut it behind him. He sat down behind his desk, and then pulled up the ship’s repair status for review.
All systems were online and operational. Nothing had changed since yesterday. Wait, scratch that. One of the industrial grade 3D printers had broken, but the repair drones had already fixed it.
Seeing green across the board was a good change, especially considering what the first few weeks of the trip to Surus’ base had been like. There hadn’t been enough raw materials aboard to repair the damage sustained in the last mission, so Rade had to make a few quick stops along the way to procure more. Afterward, the repairs had been performed while underway: the breaches in decks four and five were plugged, and the hull armor in those areas reinforced. The laser-damaged seals that partitioned the inner passageways of the ship were also fixed—Shaw had been forced to cut through them when Bax had turned on her in the last mission—and there had been no mechanical failures since the replacements. Even so, eventually Rade would have to secure the ship in dry dock for a few weeks to get the repairs finalized.
The Hoplites had also received damage, but the mechs had also been repaired in house. Rade had rendezvoused with a black market trade ship to pick up another Hoplite to replace Tahoe’s lost mech. That way, if the Hoplites were required in the coming mission, Tahoe would no longer have to use Shaw’s. Rade wasn’t sure if Shaw would come with him when next the Hoplites were deployed, but it was nice to have her mech available so that at least she had the option.
Satisfied with the repair status, Rade closed the display, and tried to remember what else he wanted to do. He found himself unable to concentrate.
I should check on Shaw and the kids.
He smiled at that. Kids. Rade never thought he would ever be a father. Because truthfully, he never really believed he’d live long enough, not in his line of work. But strangely, he had.
He sometimes wondered why he was the one who was allowed to have the good fortune to live as long as he had, and to find true happiness, when so many of his friends, his dear friends, had died.
He stared off into space, his mind drifting away...
A flashing beacon overlaying his vision alerted him to an incoming call.
Rade blinked rapidly, and glanced at the clock in the lower right of his vision. Two hours had passed.
I still experience lost time.
He wondered if he’d ever be completely normal.
Probably not. Then again, who wants to be normal?
Rade connected Manic. “What is it?”
“The base has been sufficiently destroyed,” Manic informed him. “Bax has set a course for the Gate.
“Thank you,” Rade told him, and disconnected.
His duty shift was nearly done, so Rade left his office, and the bridge, and then headed toward the stateroom he shared with Shaw. She wouldn’t be there at that time, since even after his normal duty hours ended, she ordinarily stayed with the twins until late evening. Her way of punishing him for moving them to sickbay, he supposed.
On the way, Bax told him: “You really must convince Shaw to return to the bridge soon. The crew misses her.”
“Maternity leave, Bax,” Rade said. “She’s got a while to go yet.”
“There’s nothing she can’t do that robots with nursemaid programs cannot,” the Argonaut’s AI said.
“No,” Rade said. “But what you’re not understanding is that she wants to do this. By the way, what’s our arrival time to the station?”
“Roughly twenty-five days,” Bax said. “Assuming nothing transpires to change that estimate along the way. Like an ambush at one of the Gates.”
“Positivity,” Rade said. “You would do well to practice it, from time to time.”
“Fret lowered my positivity settings with his negative outlook,” Bax said.
Rade chuckled. “Then raise those settings.”
“I’m a happy bunny, fa-la-la-la,” Bax sung.
Rade shook his head. Silly AI.
When he reached the stateroom, he changed into a T-shirt and slacks, freshened up, and then headed toward sickbay.
He paused outside the entrance, took a deep breath, and then stepped inside.
three
When the sickbay hatch opened, Rade found himself standing in a long, somewhat cramped compartment with beds stacked bunk-bed style against the bulkheads. It was vaguely reminiscent of the berthing areas he had stayed in during his military days. Two Weavers were tucked in between the gaps between the beds.
He had converted a small section on the far side of the sickbay to serve as a nursery. There resided the stacked cribs he had 3D-printed for the twins. He and Shaw had moved the infants into the cribs from the incubators after each of them had reached their natal terms a few days ago. It had taken two months to fly to Surus’ base all the way from Russian territory: more than enough time for the babies to mature. The Weavers removed the phototherapy masks from the infants’ eyes, instituted some final operations and drug infusions to correct the complications of the preterm birth, and gave the approval for the move.
Though Shaw was on “maternity leave,” she wore fatigues like the rest of the crew, with her hair in a ponytail. Rade supposed she felt the most comfortable in that clothing. She sat in a chair next to the cribs, and from her posture, he thought she was reading a book via her Implant. Her bronze skin seemed silky, full of life—the latter was a good description of her spirit in recent days, especially after the children awakened for the first time. He was a little worried she would suffer from postpartum depression, given the warnings from the child rearing VR experience he had used before the birth, but she had never seemed happier, at least to Rade’s eyes. And what made her happy, made him happy.
Shaw glanced up, and when she saw him, her cheeks dimpled in that way only hers could, and her eyes crinkled along the edges, shining a shade of blue today.
The smile was infectious, and Rade returned it heartily. He hurried over, gave Shaw a long hug, followed by a peck on the lips, and then turned toward the cribs. Sil was on the bottom crib, wearing a pink top, and Alex on the upper crib, in a blue top. That was the only way Rade could tell them apart, since they otherwise looked identical, at least at that age. They were both awake.
He bent over and scooped up little Sil from the bottom crib. The umbilical from her self-cleaning diapers trailed behind her. The diapers essentially had soft suction units placed underneath the excretory canals, similar to a jumpsuit, with a tube leading away to the ship’s sewage treatment and recycling unit. It required constant monitoring to make sure the babies didn’t wrap that tube around their necks.
“And how’s my Sil today?” Rade said. “Aren’t you the cutest baby ever!”
Rade bobbed her up and down, and Sil giggled. He gave her a big kiss on the forehead, and set her back down into th
e crib.
He reached up and grabbed Alex from the bunk above, and deepened his voice. “Hey there! Future hero in training, here! How’s my tough guy?”
Alex promptly broke into tears.
“What, what?” Rade said. “Look, clown face!” Rade stuck out his tongue and bulged his eyes.
That only made Alex cry even harder.
Rade felt a sudden panic. He knew what to do in the heat of battle, but when it came to calming a wailing child, he had no idea. He glanced at Shaw uncertainly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t lower your voice when you talk to him. Just speak normally.” Shaw reached out her arms.
“Here. Go to mommy.” Rade quickly transferred him to Shaw, glad to have the crying baby off his hands.
Shaw held him, swaying gently, humming softly. Alex began to calm down.
It calmed Rade, too, and he had to wonder if she was doing it more for him than the child.
Alex stopped crying entirely, and Rade sighed, exhaling in relief.
I’m not cut out for this.
The thought made him laugh inside.
Well you better get used to it. Because you’re a father.
He paused to consider what that meant.
A father.
I really am, aren’t I? What a weird feeling.
Alex remained quiet for several moments, sucking on the pacifier Shaw had given him. When he met Rade’s eyes, Rade made a big happy face.
That only made Alex erupt in a new bawling fit. The pacifier fell from his lips, and this time Shaw couldn’t calm him.
“Hmm,” Shaw said. She checked an indicator on the side of the diapers. “Looks like a blockage in the self-cleaning unit.”
“I got it.” When Rade was present, he refused to allow Shaw to change the diapers. It was his way of showing her that he appreciated all the work she spent during the day with the kids, and that he cared about his role as parent, and would try to do his part.
He took Alex and placed him in Sil’s crib while Shaw held her in her arms—it was just easier to work with the bottom bunk. He slid a plastic cover underneath the baby, and then opened up the diapers. He crinkled his nose at the smell. Because of the small size of the units, occasionally excrement got caught in the drainage tunnel, and it had to be cleared out or it would press against the baby’s skin. Rade couldn’t help the sour expression he made as he cleaned that unit.