Forgotten Worlds

by D. Nolan Clark

  He was a lot smaller than any of Ehta’s other people, but then again he wasn’t a marine. A motif of meshed gears ran around the perimeter of his collar ring, which identified him as a neddy—an officer, specifically, of the Naval Engineering Division. He had rather delicate features, wispy hair, and a ring of metal circuitry like a monocle around his left eye. Lanoe knew it would allow Paniet to access and manipulate displays without using his hands. “Yes, Sergeant?” he asked.

  “This shrimp’s Paniet. One of the few neddies I ever met that was worth a damn. Typically you ask them to build you a lean-to and they want ten forms filled out and tell you it’ll take six weeks. In the battle of Trench 917, Paniet built me a bunker overnight, out of nothing but mud and spit.”

  “And approximately seven thousand tons of upcycled fibercrete,” Paniet said. “Rather proud of that one.” His voice was high-pitched and a little squeaky. His smile seemed like a permanent feature of his face. “Oh,” he said. “I beg your pardon. We haven’t been introduced.” He held out both hands toward Candless and she shook them as if she were afraid they might snap off in her grip. “Hassan,” he said. “Hassan Paniet. Is this a Hoplite?”

  Lanoe frowned. “That’s right,” he said. “You didn’t see it on the way in?”

  “Oh, I never look out the windows during spaceflight,” Paniet told him. “Never anything to see, is there? That’s the problem with space. It’s so empty. A Hoplite! These old birds are legendary, you know. Proved almost indestructible way back in the Establishment Crisis.”

  “I remember,” Lanoe told him.

  Paniet didn’t seem to register his tone. “If it’s not too much trouble—do you think I could take a look at the engines?”

  “I insist,” Lanoe told him. “That’s what you’re here for, after all. To keep them from blowing up or shaking to pieces.”

  “Delicious!” the engineer said, and then smiled at Ehta and Candless. “Lovely meeting you, dears,” he chirped, before kicking away toward the vehicle bay’s exit. Lanoe watched him go with a frown.

  “He’s the best you could find?” he asked Ehta, once the man was gone. “A neddy who built you a bunker, once? I need somebody who can keep a warship in one piece, not somebody to build me a house.”

  “Give him a chance,” Ehta said.

  “He’s your responsibility,” Lanoe told her. “I’m promoting you to lieutenant. It’s not official but I need you to be able to pull rank. You’re my warrant officer, as of now. So all these people you handpicked? If they mess up, it’s your fault.”

  Ehta shrugged. Most likely she’d expected as much. “I’ll get them squared away,” she said. “Find them bunks, start a duty rotation.”

  “Have any of them served aboard capital ships before?” Candless asked. Her lip was curled, just a bit. “The uninitiated among them might need a crash course in oxygen and water protocols. It looked like some of them might even need microgravity training.”

  “This batch? Half of them signed up for the Marines less than a month ago,” Ehta said. “Hellfire, they don’t need all that stuff, they need a lecture in basic hygiene.”

  Lanoe’s brow furrowed.

  “You asked for loyal people, people you could trust—not seasoned veterans,” Ehta told him. “Like I said, I’ll see to it. First, though … I’m sure my timing’s lousy, but when do we eat around here? My guys haven’t had a decent meal in a week, most of ’em. Things got pretty lean, planetside, with ThiessGruppe blockading our supply lines.”

  “This ship has plenty of foodstocks in stores,” Candless told her. “Though if you want more than cold food paste we’ll have to detail someone to be the cook. Lanoe seems to have fired our old one. Your marines—are any of them at all good at food preparation?”

  “I think we can handle it,” Ehta said. “If it’s one thing marines actually know how to do, it’s eat.” She kicked away without any kind of farewell, and suddenly the vehicle bay was almost empty. A few marines remained, being violently sick, but at least they had the decency to stay well clear of Lanoe and Candless.

  “So,” she told him, “I don’t suppose I can have an explanation of what just happened here?”

  “Sure,” Lanoe said. “The time’s come. I’ll work up a formal briefing. Give me an hour and assemble all of our officers on the bridge. And make sure the crew are all ready for acceleration—we’re moving out immediately.”

  “I imagine that’s the kind of thing an XO would do,” she said. “I wouldn’t know, having never been one before. I’ll do my best not to disappoint you. Permission to leave the deck?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Lanoe said, and waved her away.

  He stayed a moment longer—until the noise of the vomiting marines spurred him to head out on his own. He supposed now that he’d promised to fill everyone in, he actually needed to think about what he was going to say.

  On the bridge, Bury reached for a navigation display to see if there was any indication of where they were headed. Ginger slapped his hand away.

  “Hellfire, Bury!” she whispered. “We just got made officers and now you want to wreck that before our first briefing?”

  Bury grunted but he moved back to the wall where she and Candless had positioned themselves. One more person telling him what to do. He thought of what the prisoner had said, about everyone in life manipulating you. He wondered what Ginger wanted from him.

  Before he could spend much time thinking on it, though, he saw more people come into the bridge—a big marine in a heavy armored suit and a neddy. He barely registered the little engineer. In the Navy, pilots didn’t associate on an informal basis with their mechanics. It was slightly different with marines. You were supposed to treat PBMs with respect because you knew they weren’t likely to live very long.

  Most of the marines he’d seen on Rishi—officer candidates who spent a short semester there learning how to serve on capital ships—had looked scared and desperate. Like life hadn’t given them any choice but to take on such a dangerous occupation.

  This one, though, looked different. She had hooded, cynical eyes and an irreverent grin. When she caught him staring, she blew him a kiss.

  He looked hurriedly away.

  Lanoe came onto the bridge next, and everyone stiffened in attention. Lanoe waved one hand at them to relax. He seemed tired. “I guess this is everyone,” he said. “I’ll just get started.”

  Bury frowned at that. He’d been told that every officer on the ship—down to lowly ensigns like himself—had been called for this briefing. A big cruiser like the Hoplite, though, should have had a lot more than six officers.

  “You might have noticed we’ve had some personnel changes lately,” Lanoe said. Almost as if he were reading Bury’s mind. “When I was given this ship, it came with a full complement. The problem was that I didn’t know any of them. Which meant I couldn’t trust them. I know how that sounds, but give me a chance to explain.”

  He kicked over to grab the back of the pilot’s chair and looked back at them. He gave the neddy a skeptical look. “You’re here, all of you, because either I know you personally or Lieutenant Ehta trusts you. XO, tell me, how does the new crew look?”

  Candless lifted one shoulder. “Rough. Untrained. And there aren’t enough of them to run this ship.”

  “We’ll make do,” Lanoe told her. “We have enough for a skeleton crew. We’re not flying off to war anyway. Our orders are less strenuous than that. Engineer Paniet—did you have a chance to look at the engines? Are they in order?”

  “Oh, they’re lovely,” the neddy said, bringing his hands together in front of his chest as if he were genuinely excited.

  “All right,” Lanoe said, raising one eyebrow. “Good. Then we can get under way.” He tapped at a virtual keyboard and a display lit up above the navigation position, showing a three-dimensional map of wormspace. It looked like a ball of knotted string. He tapped another key and the map expanded, the wormholes stretching outward, splitting into new paths, twisting
back around themselves. Candless let out a little gasp and leaned forward, as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. Bury had no idea why. He glanced over at Ginger. She must have noticed Candless’s reaction as well, but she just shrugged.

  Deep within the ball of string was a single green point, presumably their destination. It meant nothing to Bury without any context to place it in. It could have been Hel, his homeworld, for all he knew, or it could be a star in a distant galaxy. Wormspace was weird.

  “Our orders come directly from the Admiralty. From the very top. A remote listening station picked up a message a short while ago, and we’re going to investigate where that message came from and why it was sent. The Navy has a compelling interest in finding these things out. So do the polys. We have to make sure we get there first, and without being followed.

  “I suspect there was at least one poly spy onboard this ship when I took command. Specifically, someone I know used to work with Centrocor as a military liaison. That’s reason enough for me not to trust him. I’ve got him locked up in the brig. Lieutenant Ehta, you’ll need to station a guard down there. Someone smart enough not to pay attention to anything the prisoner might say. It’s our old friend Maggs, if you can believe it.”

  “That guy? Yeah,” the marine said. “I believe it.”

  Lanoe nodded. “So that’s one threat taken care of. Maybe the only one. The possibility remains, however, that there was a second spy onboard. That’s the reason for our abrupt crew change. Call me paranoid if you like, but this mission really is that important. For the moment I’m not at liberty to give you any details as to where we’re going or what we intend to do when we get there.” He took a deep breath. “I will have to ask you to trust me, for now.”

  Bury couldn’t help himself. “Seriously? Come on.”

  Every eye in the room turned to stare at him. Ginger looked like she might explode from sheer embarrassment. Instantly he felt like an idiot for having spoken out loud, but what was done was done. Nothing to be gained by turning back now.

  “You pretty much kidnapped us,” Bury said. “You dragged us out of flight school, and now we’re supposed to just accept this—”

  “That will be very much enough,” Candless told him.

  “Just let me finish, I mean—”

  “Ensign. I said that was enough,” Candless said, pushing her way across the wall until she was staring him right in the face. “You were given the very great privilege of attending this briefing due to your rank. A rank, I will point out, that you have not yet earned. You will be quiet right now or I will confine you to quarters. Indefinitely.”

  Bury’s eyes went wide.

  In all the time he’d known her—in all the years he’d studied under Candless—she’d never looked so serious. She had corrected his piloting and his gunnery myriad times. She’d told him how to wear his suit, and how to address a superior officer. Finally she’d insulted his piloting, and he’d been forced to respond to the insult. Even that insult, however, had come as a sort of gentle admonishment. An almost motherly kind of correction. This was something else. This was a direct order from a superior officer.

  School time was over.

  Bury might have made things very bad for himself just then, purely on principle. Just as he’d once challenged her to a duel over an insult. The only thing stopping him from doing so was that he wasn’t entirely an idiot.

  That, and the way Ginger looked at him. Her eyes were almost begging him to back down. To stop before he went any further.

  He lifted his hands in surrender.

  “XO has a point,” Lanoe said. “This is a Navy ship, and we’re on an official mission for the Admiralty, no matter how secret it might be. Those of you who have worked with me before might be expecting a little slack, a little leniency. We can’t afford that this time. We’ll be running this ship by strict Naval regulations and discipline.” He turned and looked specifically at Lieutenant Ehta. “We’re doing things for real this time. Am I understood?”

  The marine nodded. “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “Good. I will not be answering any questions at this time,” Lanoe said. His face had never even twitched. It was like Bury’s outburst hadn’t touched him—as if it was something for his XO to deal with. “I would like to speak with my Naval officers separately now. Engineer Paniet, Lieutenant Ehta—that’s all. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” the neddy said. The marine shrugged and slouched her way out after him.

  When they were gone, Lanoe addressed Candless. “XO, we have one big problem to resolve. It’s why I wanted you and your ensigns to stay behind.”

  Candless was still staring Bury right in the face. He didn’t dare look away.

  “Go ahead, Commander,” she said. Still not moving. “I’m listening.”

  Hellfire. She’d made her damned point.

  “When I replaced our personnel, I wasn’t able to secure any flight crew. You may have noticed that we didn’t have any other pilots at this briefing.”

  For a long moment Candless didn’t move. Bury felt the seconds tick by, each one more excruciating than the last. “I did notice, yes.” Finally, she moved, and it was like Bury had been impaled on a spike that had just retracted.

  “We’re going to have to take turns flying this crate,” Lanoe told her. “You’ll take first watch. Keep your ensigns here and train them, so we can eventually bring them into the bridge rotation. Just follow the route outlined on our charts.”

  Candless pushed off the wall and grabbed the back of the pilot’s chair. Strapping herself in, she swiped the display over to her control position. “Understood,” she said. “So I’m going to be your XO, your pilot, and your flight instructor.”

  “I wouldn’t trust anyone else with the job,” Lanoe told her.

  “I suppose I can be your quartermaster as well. And your flight surgeon, as it occurs to me we don’t have one of those, either.”

  Apparently she was allowed to talk to him like that. The unfairness of it burned inside Bury’s chest.

  “You have the bridge, Lieutenant,” Lanoe said. He started to move toward the hatch. He was leaving.

  Bury thought of Maggs, in the brig. Of what he’d said. Ask Lanoe about the Blue-Blue-White.

  It didn’t exactly feel like an appropriate time.

  Lanoe left without another word.

  When he was gone, Candless gestured for the two ensigns to strap in. “Well, it seems we have our work cut out for us, doesn’t it? Ginger, you take the nav station. Bury, you can be our information officer, for now. Just sit down and please, I beg of you, don’t touch anything until I tell you to.”

  Bury moved quickly to take his seat. At least the three positions didn’t face each other, so he wouldn’t feel like Candless was watching him the whole time.

  Ginger pushed off the wall, but instead of heading to her own position, she kicked over to Bury first. She didn’t say anything. Just grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. He wasn’t expecting it—he’d thought she was angry with him, too. He had no idea what to make of it.

  Then she moved to the nav station, and he couldn’t see her from where he sat. He could only hear Candless giving her instruction.

  “The first thing you need to know about this chart of wormspace,” she told Ginger, “is that it’s completely wrong. Specifically, there’s way too much of it …”

  Lanoe was halfway down the axial corridor when the lights tinged with amber and a chime sounded from speakers all the way up and down the shaft. He grabbed the rungs set into the wall as gravity began to gently tug him downward, toward the engines.

  Candless had them moving. Good.

  The captain’s quarters lay just aft of the bridge. The largest cabin on the Hoplite, though that wasn’t saying much. While the marines and engineers slept in modular bunks not much larger than a coffin, the captain was given a low-ceilinged room three meters long and two wide. There was just room inside for a proper microgravity bed, a workstatio
n, sanitary facilities (that he shared, blessedly, with no one), and a narrow storage locker. Most of the wall space was covered with a variety of displays, all of them now switched off, their surfaces a dull, rough-textured gray. There was nothing he wanted to put up there, just then. Nothing he wanted to see.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. Pulled his gloves off and scrubbed at his face with his hands. There was just one more thing to do. One more thing, and then he could try to sleep before his shift came up on the bridge rotation. He knew he needed to get it over with. He needed to be fresh when his time came at the pilot’s chair. Still, he hesitated.

  What he was going to do—it wasn’t fair. Too bad it was necessary.

  He didn’t have to get up to reach the storage locker. Inside was an empty Navy suit, the helmet retracted inside the collar ring. He pulled it out and laid it carefully across the floor, putting the arms down at the sides, uncrossing the legs. Then he reached for the key recessed underneath the collar ring. The key that would bring up the helmet.

  When he pushed the key it was as if the suit inflated itself, bulging out into the shape of a very tall human being. The helmet flowed up around a hypothetical head, its carbonglas already turning black as it polarized.

  Valk came to with a start. One of his big hands clenched into a fist and bashed against the floor, three times. Then he sat up. It was impossible to tell if he was looking around, trying to figure out where he was. Impossible, and meaningless anyway. Valk didn’t have eyes. He couldn’t “look around” himself. His visual sense came from tiny camera lenses built into the suit. It occurred to Lanoe for the first time that Valk couldn’t ever close his eyes. That he hadn’t, in the entire seventeen years since he’d died and been brought back in this abominable form.

  “Lanoe,” Valk said. “Lanoe, my clock … My internal clock must be wrong. You switched me off. You switched me off days ago.”

  “Yeah,” Lanoe said.

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” Valk said.