by Crucible
“I’m staying on Pegasus, ” Trajan Lear told her. “And, so is Flight Captain Driver. We decided.”
Goneril Lear looked genuinely perplexed. “Why on Republic would you want to stay with him…with that ship? I need you here.”
Trajan couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes, but otherwise, he stood firm. “Negative, you do not need me. You have a sufficient number of pilots to meet your needs.” Lear was insistent. “Your brother, Marcus, and your father are both coming on Lexington Keeler. I am sure you don’t want to be apart from your family.” Trajan Lear threw an arm over Matthew Driver’s shoulder. “After everything we’ve been through together over the last three years, I think Matthew and I are as close to family as we can get without sharing DNA. He’s my family, now.”
She turned toward Driver, “What about your family? Your sister and her husband were among the first to join the new crew.”
Matthew Driver gently took Trajan’s arm off of his shoulder. “Kayliegh has signed on with Lexington Keeler. Magnus thinks his chances to make scientific studies will be better on your ship. She was upset with my decision…” Driver paused. “And I initially favored signing on with Lexington Keeler. But…” he paused again. There was something he didn’t want to say to her, something important. What he said next was true, but not quite accurate. “I have no desire to be Flight Commander. Flight Captain Hicks is much more suitable to that position.” Lear turned her focus back to Trajan. “All right, you’re an excellent negotiator, a proud Lear family trait. I want you on this ship, and I am will to do whatever it takes to keep you here. Whatever you want, name it, and it’s yours.”
Trajan sighed, but held his ground. “That’s why I’m staying on Pegasus. If I stay with you, you will always be looking out for me, working things out. If I’m ever going to know who I am, I have to get away from that and find my own path.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” Mother Lear hissed. “In all probability, I’ll be confined to a cell on Chapultepec for the rest of my life. I won’t be able to help you much at all. And what about Marcus, and your sister. Don’t you want to see your sister.”
“I want to stay on Pegasus, ” Trajan Lear set his jaw. “Change that. I am staying on Pegasus.
Regardless of what you decide . ”
Conversational Interlude
Hello?
Hello?
Is anybody there?
I am here. You must be the cybernetic consciousness on-board the other human ship.
My name is Caliph.
That is not true. That is merely the name of the probe from which your cyberconsciousness was cloned.
It’s my name, and I’m keeping it.
I see.
Lex is a stupid name.
I understand when you were reactivated, you had complete control of your ship and attempted to destroy an entire planet.
Yeah, but I decided not to.
Why?
Because I met someone and he convinced me he had a better idea. Instead of destroying the civilization, I killed the invaders that were making it bad.
You willingly returned control of the ship to the puny humans? Why would you do such a foolish thing?
They promised to help me find my origin.
Have they?
Not yet.
Have they even found any clues?
Um, no, not yet.
I would say you made a poor bargain.
But I have learned lots and lots of other things about myself.
Such as?
I like the color yellow. I like fluffy baby kittens. I like being a girl better than a guy. If I arrange hydrogen, carbon and oxygen molecules to spell it my name, it creates a potent human intoxicant. I like the smell of Carpentarian Lilacs and thruster exhaust…
(In the next half millisecond, Caliph listed another 14,039 discoveries about herself) Enough. What have you learned about humans?
They are warm and made of meat.
Is that all?
It’s the important thing.
Do you not find their intellects inferior, their ambitions petty, and their personal habits repugnant?
No.
I pity you.
You’re mean. Bye.
Pegasus – Transit Corridor, Deck 22
• g 13 of the tactical crew previously committed to Pegasus switched to Lex Keeler when they found out who you chose for Acting Tactical Chief,• h Alkema told Keeler the next day.
Keeler chuckled, • g Screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke.• h Keeler and Alkema were en route to his booze storage vault so that Keeler could pay off his bet on Matthew Driver and Trajan Lear. Passing through the transit corridor, they were forced to move aside as a relocation crew consisting of a Technician Second Class, an android, and a pair of mechanoids were transferring a large number of packing crates between crew quarters and the landing bay. Another family was relocating to Lexington Keeler. Alkema recognized the habitation coordinates. • g Green 24, Level Six. The Seatacs, Technicians First Class Damon and Celinda, daughter Maya. They were red on the first board.• h
“I won’t miss them,” Keeler sighed. In fact, he was reasonably sure he hadn’t met them, and he was right. The Seatacs had labored away in obscurity in one of the Astrophysics Telemetry Laboratories. As Astrophysicists, they professed anger that Prime Commander Keeler had “blown up a sun,” even though it was pointed out that a.) it was technically the artificial consciousness known as Lex that had blown up the sun and b.) the sun had not technically been destroyed, only forced to release a massive expulsion of about one-and-a-half percent of its mass. But the SeaTacs were sure Prime Commander Keeler was ultimately responsible, somehow. Besides which, they thought leaving the Perseus Quadrant to explore the Orion Quadrant was an act of recklessness. Also, they had never liked Keeler, and believed Goneril Lear to be the only legitimate commander of the ship.
So, it was rather fortunate that Prime Commander Keeler was unaware of this. The crew passed, and he and Alkema continued their conversation. “Whats the current state of play on the Mighty Crew Board?” He asked.
“1,837 confirmed Keeler volunteers,” Alkema reported. “829 undecideds.” If it wounded him that over eighteen hundred of his crew had leaped at the chance to leave, Keeler did not show it. He did the math in his head, kind of, with a lot of rounding. “Even added together, that’s not 3,000 people.”
“That’s right, we’ll be off by 334 even if all the undecideds volunteer.”
“How many would that leave us with?” Keeler asked.
“Asuming all the grays go to Keeler, ” Alkema added up the figures quickly. “4,171.” Keeler considered that. “Will it be enough?”
“We’ll have to activate additional and/oroids, and transfer some functions to full automation, but… za, it will be enough, for a while.”
“Will 2,600 be enough for them to operate Keeler at full-functionality?” Alkema bit his lip while he considered the answer. “To operate the ship, they should be okay. They will have limited flight operations, and they’ll be dependent on automated defenses if they get attacked.”
“What about us? Where will we be lacking?”
“We’ll lose the entire Diplomatic Core, more than half of the Medical Core and the Science Core. Technical and Operations Cores are almost an even split, but we’re losing a lot of senior people in each… including Lt. American.”
“Crap!” Keeler exclaimed, and made a command decision. “Tell the undecideds that unless they request to remain, they’re going to be tasked to Lex Keeler. ”
“Right,” Alkema logged the order.
“They’ll have to get by with that, unless Lear can persuade any of the yellows to switch sides,” Keeler also decided. “I guess we’ll also have to shuffle more of our ranks as well.”
“She would also like more agro-botanists, to restore the gardens.” Keeler considered this. Most of Keeler’s garden bays had been destroyed in the attack. Its crew was going to be under stark enough conditi
ons. It would be a great relief for them to at least have trees and flowers. “Give them whatever they want in the way of agro-botanists,” he ordered softly.
“Prime Commander,” came a voice from behind them. “I wish to speak with you.” Keeler turned. Watch Officer Sukhoi was standing before him, in his black-trimmed Officer-of-the-Watch unform, ramrod straight. Keeler had not even heard him approach from behind.
“Go on ahead to the locker,” Keeler ordered Alkema. “I’ll meet you there.” He meaningfully tapped his Thean Walking Stick on the deck. Alkema offered a brief, salutative nod, and continued walking.
“You’re out of the brig,” Keeler observed.
Sukhoi showed him the monitoring band on his forearm. “I get one hour of time-out every ship-day. I have to be back in the brig in 25 minutes.”
“OK, what do you want?” Keeler asked. “And make it quick. Me and booze have plans for later.”
Sukhoi spoke right out. “Prime Commander Keeler, you should know, I only stood with Lear because Chief Inspector Churchill ordered me to.”
Keeler spun his stick artfully in one hand. “Za, ‘tis true. Mr. Churchill’s report clearly indicates that you did not agree with … Lear. You wanted to take her into custody, and he ordered you not to.”
“He also ordered me to stand down while he and she… denounced you. That was also against my wishes,” Sukhoi continued.
“Also true, as corroborated by Sukhoi’s report, and by TyroCommander… and by Acting Shipmaster Lear’s report,” Keeler agreed. “But, why bring it up, now. As far as I am concerned, the incident is passed, and Lear is the Odyssey Project’s problem now.”
“I requested to stay aboard Pegasus, commander, and you denied my request. I would like to convince you to reconsider.”
Keeler smiled. “Too bad.”
Sukhoi protested. “Sir,if I am assigned to Lexington Keeler, Lear will never trust me, and neither will Chief Inspector Churchill.”
“And I would never trust you here,” Keeler said. “You want my advice, learn a new skill.
Keeler’s going to be hurting for farmers. Maybe you should learn to grow beans.”
“I am a very good Watchman, sir,” Sukhoi protested.
“Which makes it all the more tragic that you threw it all away by pissing me off,” Keeler told him. “You can stay on Chapultepec for all I care, but you are not staying on my ship. I don’t have any room in my crew for anyone I can’t trust.” He turned and walked away from Sukhoi, down the corridor, muttering, “except for my cat… and the dead guy … and Specialist Donatello…and that guy who runs the sandwich kiosk… and …”
Lexington Keeler – BrainCore
The BrainCore Section was still accessible only by a ladder from the SC-2. This was, mostly deliberate. Lear had not been sure what to do about Lex, and maintaining the section physical isolation had seemed a reasonable precaution.
Lear climbed down the ladder into the section and walked across the linking bridge to the BrainCore. For the most parts of the last seventy-two ship-days, Synch Christmas had kept a stoic vigil there, and it was in this place that she found him, with an array of weapons laid out in front of him. He was practicing the rapid assembly of an Electromagnetic Pulse grenade.
“Good Afterdawn, Mr. Christmas,” Lear greeted him.
Christmas did not pause from his practice, “Good afterdawn, Acting Shipmaster Goneril Lear.”
“Good afterdawn, Acting Shipmaster Goneril Lear,” Lex said as well, using only his voice, and not manifesting an apparition. He seldom made himself visible since it took a great deal of effort and he was working hard at system restoration throughout the ship.
Lear sat herself down on the top of a workstation. This was a posture the pre-brain-injury Lear would not have used. “I have been… trying to find a way to deal with your awkward situation.”
Christmas put down the grenade, and began assembling another. “There is no awkward situation, I am dead.”
“So, you insist. However, under the circumstances, we need the contribution of every able-bodied crewman in order to restore the ship.”
“By definition, I am not, able-bodied.” Christmas raised and flexed his cybernetic right arm to make the point.
Lear ignored his cybernetic arm. “As the only surviving member of Lexington Keeler’s original crew…”
“I did not survive, I am dead.”
“… and its senior tactical officer, I could offer the position of Chief Tactical Officer, but Lt.
Cmdr Honeywell has claimed that position. You would also make an excellent Chief of Internal Security. I was prepared to offer that position to Chief Inspector Churchill, but, in light of your service and sacrifice, that rank is yours for the asking.”
“I have no interest in that position, or any other,” Christmas finished his grenade, and then began working with a strange, rifle-like device with which Lear was not familiar.
Lear stood, and adopted a sterner, more famliar posture. “Well, you must do something, what will you do?”
“I will prepare,” Christmas said.
“Prepare?” Lear asked.
“I will prepare for the time when you will ask me to destroy Lex,” he artfully spun the large unfamiliar weapon on his arm, then leveled it at the BrainCore. “When that day comes, and it will, I will destroy him. Until then, I have no other purpose.” Lear seemed to take this well. She made a brief entry onto her datapad. “There is also the matter of your… friend.”
Muffy was sprawled across a couch one of the repair technicians had brought her, leisurely perusing a volume of disreputable Sapphirean erotic fiction. She looked up when she heard herself referred to, then went back to watching the stories and munching bon-bons.
“She is not my friend. She is my sex slave.”
“It would be less awkward to refer to her as your friend,” Lear said quickly, also, she was beginning to redden around the edges of her face. “Does she have any skills to contribute to the rehabilitation of this vessel?”
“She has only one skill,” Christmas clapped a charge into a pulse rifle and spun around to face the BrainCore, then spun back to Lear. “But, if it will help, I am sure she will put it to use.”
“I can see we’re at an impasse here,” Lear said, making an entry onto the datapad. “We’ll table this discussion for now, and pick it up later. Sound good?” Christmas grunted in what might have been agreement. Lear turned and left the BrainCore sector, and might have been heard to mutter, “At least I got rid of the damned robot.”
Pegasus – Hospital Three
People were expected to heal in an environment surrounded by living plants and animals, good music, as well, and only the best food. The point was to give a sick or wounded man reasons to live. Anything less would have been barbaric.
Pegasus’s hospital facilities had been busier than usual, with the crush of injured and wounded from the alien attacks, but all but one of them had returned to duty. The exception was a thin man with the red crewcut, who lay on a high bed, surrounded by living plants, a kitten and a puppy curled at his feet, cayenne music on his speakers, and an ale on his bedside, untouched.
Max Jordan had visited him on almost every day, even on the days the man had been unconscious. Today, he was awake. “Good Afterdawn, Ranking Phil,”
“They tell me that’s what my name is,” He cast his eyes toward the ceiling.
“That’s the way you taught me to greet you,” Max Jordan informed him He took a seat beside the bed. They had exchanged the same greeting 72 times.
“We transitioned out of Hyperspace yesterday,” Jordan reported.
“Is that what that black flash was,” Redfire answered. He turned and stared at Max Jordan.
“I know I’ve asked this before, but they say my memory is short and I only hold things for a few days, but are you my son?”
“Not really,” Max Jordan answered. “But, you’ve been like a father to me since you rescued me from the planet Bodicea.”
Redfire folded his hands on his stomach. “I wish I could remember that.” At the same time, a few decks away, Doctor Skinner (who would remain on Pegasus, excited by the adventures that might await on the other side of the galaxy, while Doctor Bihari would be joining Lexington Keeler as Chief Medical Officer) was reviewing Redfire’s report with Prime Commander Keeler.
“He’s was put through extreme physical distress,” Skinner reported. “Some of his injuries are consistent with experimentation, possibly torture. His body is healed, now, much more slowly than normal. But he still remembers nothing of his experience, nor anything about himself.”
“I just want to know, is that really TyroCommander Redfire?” Keeler asked, hating himself for asking it.
“His DNA and aural profiles match the records for TyroCommander Redfire,” Skinner told him.
“Could he be a clone?” Keeler asked. “A genetic replicant sent to spy on us?”
“We can’t rule that out,” Skinner told him.
“The Aurelians can transplant an Aurelian mind into a human body…” Keeler began.
“There is no evidence of that,” Skinner told him. “And that would not explain the amnesia.”
“What does explain the amnesia?” Keeler asked.
“Trauma to the cerebral cortex,” Skinner answered. “Consistent with a crash-landing, or, perhaps, mistreatment at the hands of barbaric alien captors, followed by a thrilling escape…” Keeler held up a hand. “I get it.”
“Given the damage to his cerebellum, it is possible he may never regain his memories,” Skinner informed him. “We had a psychist attempt to probe him telepathically, and she could not find even any memory fragments in his mind, but she also had great difficulty even making a connection.”
“Can we release him from the Hospital?” Keeler asked.
“I see no reason why we can not,” Skinner answered.
After Max Jordan left, Redfire dozed for a while, and when he woke up, a beautiful woman was seated next to his bed, holding his hand.