by Ron Collins
Pretty much the entire shuttle got quiet for a moment when her gleaming white body first appeared.
But then they had landed and the ship’s artificial gravity system had gathered them all up, and everyone, including Todias Nimchura, quickly got their wits back around them.
Which for Nimchura meant he was back to being pissed off.
“What are we doing here?” he said, breaking the silence he had been warned to hold.
“You’ll be briefed when it’s proper,” his guard replied.
“I hear we’re going home,” Winni Paschel said as the shuttle touched down in Einstein’s bay.
“Shut up,” her guard replied.
The sound of doors closing rumbled through the frame of the craft.
Winni had been a ranger who landed in the attack force. Unlike Nimchura, though, she had never played well with others, and hence had never been outside a cell for the full seven years they had been on Atropos. Her cheek carried a self-made tattoo in bleeding red ink, and her short hair had been recently “styled” to the best of someone’s ability—mostly razored, with a tufted peak of red left to curl down over her forehead.
Whatever was happening, it was big.
Universe Three had cleaned them all up, and issued them each fresh duds. Clean pants and shirts. Polished shoes, and jackets that matched. It made him feel like they were all dressed up and ready for cotillion.
The shuttle door opened.
“On your feet.”
That’s when his guard put the clamps on his arm and led him forward. He was last in line, probably because they figured he had already been subdued once—or maybe because they didn’t want his bruised cheekbone to be toward the front.
Winni’s words bounced around in his head.
Could she be right? Were they going back to the UG?
He didn’t understand much of what had happened to him in the past few hours, but it almost made sense that something like that could be happening. A prisoner transfer maybe—that was one of the scenarios the captives had all discussed back in the first days after the attack had failed. “How many U3 traitors are you worth?” was a game they played until (1) it got boring, and (2) it became obvious there wasn’t going to be any miracle trade coming to save their asses.
But now they were all gathered together and being herded down the utility corridor of one of U3’s Excelsior spacecraft.
He had been assigned on Orion for months back in the day.
He knew its layout like the back of his hand. They were walking down utility corridor C, a central path out of the main docking bay. Heading to pass several base systems and toward the temporary quarters. If they were being stored someplace, that made sense, he supposed.
As they walked through the ship, the idea of a trade now began to play on his mind.
The idea bothered him.
Why now?
Where the hell was this kind of thing earlier?
He thought about Hadri. Would she even want to come with him? What if she did? He didn’t know how he felt about that. Until now he hadn’t realized how much he had given up as he forced himself to become comfortable with a life spent pouring concrete. It was easy to get complacent when the world around you treated you with such indifference, but it annoyed him. All of it. He had decided that Universe Three wasn’t any better than the UG, but the same could be said the other way around. What if he was going back to them? What then? Another string of media events, UG military leaders sucking the soul from him for their PR benefit? Eating him up until there wasn’t anything left? Nimchura thought about Deuce Jarboe. Really thought about him for the first time in a while. Remembered the shit-eating grin Deuce could get when he was screwing around with a journalist, and remembered the pepper-spray of debris that clattered against Nimchura’s Firebrand as he flew through what remained of his wing leader and his spacecraft.
His skin crawled as the column of captives marched through the corridor.
The chill of Einstein’s controlled environment didn’t help. The carpet-muffled footsteps that clamored off the corridor walls felt ominous.
Screw them all.
He may just be small fry. Just a guy. But who the hell was anyone to tell him how he should run his life? Who the hell were they to parade him around like some kind of a show dog?
The line spread out before him.
He watched a hallway branch off.
They moved into a utility corridor, a segment of the ship that broke off into a series of small nooks and crannies filled with utility accesses, and that included passages that led to several smaller command centers.
The shuttle bays were down the aisle and around to the left.
He was at the back of the line.
They came to an opening to the left. Without conscious thought, Nimchura dropped his shoulder, rammed into his guard’s side, and brought his fist up to the soft part of the man’s gut, right below his xiphoid process. The air rushed out of his lungs in a single soft ompfh as Nimchura wrapped his opposite arm around the guard and dragged him quickly down the hall.
The man gave a silent, gaping gasp.
Nimchura brought his knee up, and drove the man’s head into it.
The guard went limp as a sack of concrete.
If Nimchura’s grip hadn’t been sure, and if he hadn’t been conditioned from years of hard labor, perhaps he would have dropped the man. And if that had happened, perhaps the falling of the body would have alerted others to the action. But Nimchura’s grip was sure. He eased the dead weight to the ground without sound, then scampered down a hallway, making a quick right and a left, then finding an alcove across from a systems panel.
The showers, he thought—they would be safe.
Unless U3 had reconfigured the plumbing, there was a systems team restroom down the next hallway.
He edged out and checked the hallway to his left. Movement down the way. Standard. Two crew members going about their job.
How long did he have?
Too late to worry about that.
He stepped around the corner to the right and ran directly into a young woman who had been coming out of the command station.
“Oops,” she said, chuckling as she caught him to keep them both from falling. “Sorry about that. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he said, considering his next steps.
“Jump time coming,” she said, quickly. “Everyone’s in a rush.”
Then she strode away, checking a portable datapad.
She thought Nimchura was part of the crew. Amazing. He gulped down his pounding heart and headed toward the facilities.
Then he stopped.
No.
There was a better place to go.
One of the skimmer launch bays was nearby. Just a zig and a zag away, then a short walk down another corridor. Depending on how U3 did things, there might be a guard there, or might not.
But Nimchura didn’t care.
A moment later he was zigging and zagging.
A lone guard stood at the entry gate, which he took care of with a nonchalant approach, a quick joke, and a right cross that came from somewhere south of Mississippi. He pressed the guy’s palm to the control pad, and listened to the security gate pop open.
Then he stepped into the tight corridor that held eight rounded bulkheads and eight air locks, each with a Z-pad skimmer behind it. He took the first one, and hit the manual override.
The gate released its lock and the round door swiveled open.
He stepped onto the entry platform, a flat bit of flooring that served as both the back end of the skimmer and a transition gate between the Z-pad’s docking air lock and the mother ship.
“Roger that,” a voice came from nearby.
The pilot was only an arm’s length away, sitting at the controls of the Z-pad skimmer, reading off the mission profile and going through prelaunch checks.
What the hell? Nimchura thought.
He hadn’t expected the skimmers to be prepping.
> He toggled the lock closed, and the door swung.
The pilot had been so intent on his mission that he hadn’t noticed the intrusion.
Nimchura reached into a storage bay and pulled down the emergency kit. It opened with a click that was strong enough the pilot finally turned his head.
“What are you doing?”
Nimchura grabbed a capsule of painkiller from the kit. He dropped the rest, then plunged the delivery end of the packet into the man’s shoulder. The pilot was already buckled in, and had limited movement.
A moment later, he was slumped in the seat.
“What was that, Mouser?” a voice came over the intercom.
Nimchura pulled the man’s helmet from his head, and spoke into the microphone—putting on his calm tone.
“Running one more preflight,” he said. “Hold just a moment.”
“Roger that.”
The man would be out for a while.
Nimchura unbuckled him. It took all his effort to drag his ass out of the cockpit, but he managed. A quick negotiation with himself led to him opening the back gate one more time, and dumping the pilot. He would rather take the chance of being found prior to getting himself launched than deal with a U3 pilot who woke up with a hangover afterward.
The door finally shut, and Nimchura crawled into the pilot seat. He put the helmet on, and glancing down at the controllers, toggled a diagnostic and his radio system. “We’re green on preflight,” he said in monotone, scanning the rest of the flight plan.
The entirety of what he saw filtered over him.
“Jump code called in five seconds,” the controller radioed. “Four…”
A whole string of skimmers were prepping to be launched.
Targeting schemes were preplanned.
“Three…”
Holy shit, he thought as he looked at his target.
“Two…”
Nimchura’s gaze flashed across the control panel to see his assigned position. He recognized Galopar.
“One…”
Holy shit, he thought again. What had he just stepped into?
“And we are go for jump to superluminal.”
Holy shit.
CHAPTER 13
UGIS Orion
Local Date: January 25, 2215
Local Time: 0730
Torrance stood on Orion’s bridge as the rest of the crew prepared for launch. It was an open, brightly lit space the size of a classroom. The forward section was a clear screen to open space. Projectors displayed status on the glass. Men and women in dress grays sat at consoles or stood at ease, their holographic controls giving them visual feedback as they spoke softly and pointed to data that poured from readouts.
A star chart in the middle of the control center gleamed with yellow and white markings, their current position a crimson triangle. Their eventual destination, Eta Cassiopeia B—or more precisely, the free space around Galopar—was a turquoise blaze toward the edge of the display’s field of view.
Orion would jump to arrive on station in just a few minutes.
Torrance had not slept, but a shower and several successes had left him feeling like a changed man.
After the endless stream of funerals and state functions it was good to be back on an operational ship.
“This is your first super-L, isn’t it, Commander?”
He turned to see Ambassador Reyes standing behind him.
Despite the silvered tip to his hair, Reyes appeared younger than he was. His skin was smooth except around the corners of his eyes, and those eyes were wide and of a light brown tone that bordered between hazel and almost green when the light hit them just right. His smile was smooth and practiced, the same expression he wore in all his PR appearances, a simple pulling back of the corners of his lips. He was dressed in a flowing black coat over a collarless blue shirt, the coat piped with a silver runner on the sleeves and along the buttons, of which he had engaged only two. His pants were classic black.
“Yes, sir,” Torrance said. “First super-L.”
“You’re in for a treat, then.”
“I’m Commander Torrance Black,” he said too quickly. He extended his hand and shook the ambassador’s when it, too, was extended.
“Alberto Reyes,” the ambassador said. “I am thrilled to finally meet you in person.”
Torrance cleared his throat in a nervous gesture. He knew about Reyes from news reports. The ambassador was a lawyer by degree, but had worked for several companies straight from school before going into a string of purely diplomatic positions, positions that included dealing with Universe Three in the early days of asteroid belt wildcatting. He had been assigned this role for his relationship with Casmir Francis himself.
“I understand the view is spectacular,” Torrance said.
The ambassador nodded, his eyes getting a faraway expression. “It is beyond my ability to describe. Perhaps we should enjoy it together.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I can’t wait to see it.”
Torrance sat in one of the six observation chairs at the back of the bridge. The ambassador sat beside him.
“Launch positions in five minutes.” Abke’s voice came over the room.
Torrance was surprised to find his palms sweating.
They watched the crew work for another minute.
“Tell me,” Torrance finally said. “How do you expect the negotiations to go?”
The ambassador shrugged. “I never predict.”
“There are people around here who aren’t entirely on your side, you know?”
“What side is that?”
“Well,” Torrance said, trying to come up with something that sounded proper. “A lot of the crew have lost friends to U3. Some of those are hoping your negotiations prove fruitless.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Torrance pressed his lips together.
“What about you, Commander?” Reyes said. “You’re Everguard’s hero. What do you think of my mission?”
“I don’t know.”
“That may be the most honest response I’ve ever heard.”
Torrance shrugged off the compliment. “I see both positions, I guess. But I don’t know. Intergalactic wars would seem to be hard to win.”
“That’s right. But they are also very hard to lose.”
“What do you mean?”
Reyes was silent for a moment, as if considering things.
“Think about it, Torrance. You don’t understand just how huge the galaxy is until you’re out there.”
“You’re right about that,” he said, looking out the observation screen into the darkness of space. “There are a lot of places to hide.”
“And that is the problem,” Reyes responded. “Especially when your opponent is small and mobile while your own population is very large, very easy to find, and quite limited in its ability to get around.”
Torrance nodded, thinking about history and about entire cities that had been wiped out in single blasts. If U3 actually won a full-fledged war, the Solar System’s primary civilizations would be sitting ducks.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. I suppose infinite hiding places give a group that doesn’t want to get caught a lot of leeway. And I suppose hidden enemies can do a lot of damage.”
The ambassador gave him an appraising glance that made Torrance uncomfortable.
“You are an interesting man, Commander Black. Are you sure you have found your true calling?”
“What do you mean?”
“Very few people can see things from more than one point of view, and those few are very important.”
“How do you mean—”
“One minute to launch,” Abke said over the comm system.
The crew came to a stand-down at their desks.
Their work was done, their “go” signals set. All that was left was to let it all happen.
Reyes settled back in his chair.
“Launch engines full thrust,” Abke reported. “Multi-d
gate toggle is on the timer. Five seconds. Four. Trim engines active. Two. One. Launch initiated.”
“We are go for jump, Captain,” the navigation desk said.
Torrance became amazed.
Colors bloomed red and green like Christmas lights and flowed in rivulets. A blue wave twisted into a ghostlike dragon before disappearing. Green lighting clapped to the oohs and aahs of the crew. Energy billowed like time-lapse photos of thunder clouds. Stars became yellow flares.
Torrance sat in slack-jawed wonder. “How long does it last?” he finally managed.
“Until we drop out of FTL,” Reyes replied.
“My God.”
“Yes. I’m sure it’s something like that.”
Neither spoke from that point on.
The Meeting
CHAPTER 14
U3 Ship Einstein, Z-pad Launch Bay, Galopar orbit
Local Date: Conejo 4, 9
Local Time: 0645
Nimchura wrapped his hand over the Z-pad’s joystick, trying to remember the craft’s technical specs as the seconds ticked past. He had flown a Z-pad before, but it had been more than a while. He remembered the crafts’ higher-order specs. Powered by a pair of CuttCo engines. Built more for escort than attack, and as such was focused on maneuverability rather than speed. It meant he probably couldn’t outrun a real fighter, but he could essentially stop on a dime.
Along those lines, he let his eyes scan the control panels above him where a row of toggles that engaged trim boosters had been built into the framework of the fuselage.
The central plasma cannon was armed and fully charged. He had two laser weapons mounted on each side of his cockpit pod, which was round and transparent, which, assuming he dropped radiation shields, would give him a view of space that would make him feel like he was sitting on a flat platter—though why he would drop his radiation shields was beyond him. He may be an idiot flyboy, but he really wasn’t carrying a death wish.