The confines of the maintenance crawlspace made it worse. True, it would be far less cramped if he didn’t have to share it with Master Rating Eria Vauss as she instructed him on the installation of a fusion plasma shunt. But knowing why it sucked really didn’t help. He rolled one shoulder, trying to keep his end of the forked shunt steady.
All he ended up doing was jostling Vauss’s arm. She flickered an annoyed glance his way, obviously wishing she could be doing this with a maintenance ‘bot that wouldn’t lose focus. But, she could only grouse so much to a superior officer, even if that officer was junior and just learning the finer points of the station systems. “I’m not having any more fun than you are, Sir. Fair warning, if you bump me any harder, I’m going to drop this. We won’t break it, but it will suck when it comes down on your legs.”
That was true. Jona was born to the heavy gravity well of the First Point of Trinity, and even his arms were quivering with the effort of holding the hardcrystal, y-shaped tube in place while Vauss engaged the seals at each end.
Shuffling in tighter to the shunt, Vauss lay on her back and wedged her hands inside the inner access hatch and traced the seals by memory. She flipped the catches and breathed easier now that she wouldn’t be crushed if her student officer screwed up. “Got it.”
Jona sank back, groaning in relief. “Are we done?” He tried not to sound desperate, but the icon was impossible to set aside, and it seriously stung.
Vauss wasn’t about to spoon feed him the answer. “You tell me, Sir. What comes next?”
Unable to admit the truth of why he had to rush, Jona bent his mind to the task. Fastest way out was through. “We need to connect the test sensors, right?”
Vauss blinked in surprise. “That’s…actually right.”
Despite his desperation, Jona laughed. “Try not to sound so stunned, Master Rating Vauss.”
Vauss flushed as he called her on her insubordinate slip of the tongue. All the station technicians were well aware that Jona had been exiled to the station for some remedial engineering training in a more controlled environment than a warship of the fleet. To his credit, he hadn’t given up, and even showed a little talent now-and-again. Trying to gloss over her slip, she asked, “So how do we do that?”
Jona got excited, already reaching for a glowing number pad tucked in the access space’s far corner. “Just need to enter the release key and the computer will light up the right cabling path…”
Vauss gasped, her hand snaking out to try and stop him, “No! You didn’t change…!” She didn’t quite make it.
That number pad was used for all the different systems concealed within the crawlspace. He had forgotten to change the actuator from the lubrication system over to the sensor net, so his command opened a vent nozzle only an arms-length from Vauss and blasted aerosolized oil right into her face.
Her hand came up, trying desperately to block the spray even as she screeched, “Turn the damned thing off!” She kicked her feet as the airy liquid began to burn against her skin. It wasn’t highly corrosive, but the sheer volume made the atomized shower feel like a gout of acidic flame scouring her skin.
Jona froze, then clawed at the pad as panic stained his voice, “What’s the command? I don’t know this system!”
“Same thing. Same damned thing again!”
Jona’s haphazard flurry of entries finally hit the right combination. The hissing rush of oil faded off to nothing.
There was only silence. A heady scent of synthetic lubricant seared their nostrils, and a faint haze of smoke rose off Vauss’s body from where her skin had been scorched red.
Vauss shivered against the rising pain as she shifted carefully towards the exit from the tube. Her eyes flashed with anger and pain, and she didn’t dare look at Jona. The sight of him was going to set her off, and she really didn’t want to be spaced for killing an officer. “I…I need to get out of here and down to sickbay. Now.” She was proud of herself. ‘I don’t sound at all like I want to kill him, right?’
To Jona, she sounded pissed, and he knew he deserved it. Shocked out of inactivity by what she said, he blurted out, “Yes! I’ll…I’ll help!” He slid after her, extending his arms to take some of Vauss’s weight so she could move tenderly out of the crowded space.
His eagerness resulted in more than a few painful grinding encounters against her raw skin, but Vauss didn’t care. She just needed out. They tumbled into the central engineering room, pursued by the mist of oil clinging to their clothes.
The watch chief’s mouth fell open. “What the hell happened to -?”
Vauss’s palm flashed out, demanding he stop right there. ‘They can’t shoot me for interrupting a chief from saying something stupid that will result in me clobbering an officer, right?’ “Don’t...ask.”
She turned on Jona now, who stood meekly nearby and at a total loss as to what to do next. “Listen to me, Sir. I’m going to get the doctor to drown me in burn cream and get the nanobots building my skin back.” She painted the harsh picture on purpose, wanting Jona to cringe at what she was going to have to endure because of his mistake. “We need to let those fumes clear, but then someone needs to finish that sensor net install. That shunt feeds the perimeter object deflection grid, and we can’t have the sensors down for long. Log the incident, and make sure another team follows up on it next shift. Understand?”
Jona nodded quickly, eyes going wide as the red burn on Eria’s face kept deepening. It nearly matched the fierce red of that icon in his HUD, still demanding his attention with ever-increasing power. The strobe was hammering against his retinas. Off kilter, he blurted out, “Ahh, umm, I think your skin is getting worse.”
‘That oil’s residue is like acid, you moron! What do you expect?’ Vauss nearly said it. She bit back the words by the merest fraction. Instead, she just lashed him with her glare and stormed out of the space, heading for the relief that awaited in Sickbay.
Jona let out the breath he had been holding, then risked a sheepish look at the watch chief. “I didn’t mean it.” He had nothing clever to say and would do anything to get away so he could open that message in some measure of privacy. His pathetic eyes were a plea to be excused and dismissed.
Chief Watson smirked in response. “Yeah, we know, Sir. Junior officers and junior ratings never do. Start figuring out how you’re going to explain this to the department head, because the Engineering Officer is not going to be seeing sunshine and roses when he hears about this. Now, get that corridor sealed up, label it as off-limits until the vents clear away the gas, then get on that log.” While he didn’t yell, he also didn’t scrub any chastisement out of his tone. The mistake had been innocent, but the young officer needed to feel a little guilt and a little fear so he’d learn something.
Jona flooded with relief as the chief walked off, leaving him to work. He scratched the small patches of burned skin where the deflected oil spray had gnawed on him. He’d get the burns treated, but right now a little flayed skin was nothing against ignoring that icon any longer.
He stumbled over to a private office, away from the central recording system. Everything in engineering was tracked, and he didn’t want to be seen watching this. Once alone, he manipulated his interface and called up the message. The painful strobe of that red icon finally faded. Any relief was offset by the concern for what the message contained.
The image that appeared was an unfamiliar face, but that hardly mattered. There was no preamble. “H19 F12 T67 V34, you are being activated.”
Jona froze. “Activated? You’re a fucking Agent?” There could be no doubt. Only the TSU knew his citizen activation number, and only an Agent would dare use it in that particular phrase. A phrase that allowed any TSU special operative to demand immediate, direct assistance from any citizen of Trinity. Penalties for failing to comply were purposefully harsh, and generally extended to one’s family as well. And friends. Pets. Vague acquaintances.
Yeah, you didn’t ignore this sort of thing.
>
But…he was no-one. A screw-up. “What could you possibly need me to do?”
The recording answered him directly enough. “Included in this message are a series of technical changes that you will carry out to the station systems. These are to be completed prior to the indicated time-stamp, or the mission will have failed.” No threat was included. None was needed. He dared not let the mission fail. “Once completed, reply to the bland questions included in the original text of the enclosed cover message. Answer ‘yes’ to all of them. Use no encryption and include no attachments. Reply to the indicated sender. That will be sufficient to confirm.”
The video feed ended and burned away part of his implanted computer memory. Not deleted. The hardware was incinerated. He wouldn’t be able to watch it again even if he had the skills to recover deep-deleted material. He just hoped the burn hadn’t taken a few of the brain cells surrounding his implant along with it, just to be safe.
All that was left was the questionnaire message and the technical specs.
His mission. “I have a mission.” Saying it out loud didn’t make it any less ridiculous.
Then again, not doing it wouldn’t make his family any less dead.
His bewildered mind drifted back to the mess waiting for him in the maintenance tunnel. He staggered out into the main room again, working almost on auto-pilot as he set a cautionary lock in place, ensuring no one would go in except for an emergency. He totally forgot about the log, or any of the other instructions given to him.
Distracted, he drifted out and headed for the wardroom for a hasty meal before his evening study period. He was already trying to figure out how he could get access to everything he would need. He had to get this done. Strange or not, he didn’t dare fail.
***
Glen Sanders had grown to hate the confines of subsection 4BX on the support ring of the Havoc system’s faster than light communication array. The effort he had invested to make the previously radiation-soaked space habitable did not change how much he despised his own, personal, cramped slice of hell.
Whatever the section lacked in amenities, it did have some offsetting virtues. For one, privacy. He had taken advantage of gaps in station maintenance schedules to secretly carve out his hideaway with illegally obtained shielding. Considering that he was supposed to be dead, and that if seen alive he would instantly become a wanted fugitive, privacy was his golden chariot.
If that was his chariot, then the fact that he could tap into every message that passed through the FTL platform was his weapon of choice. With nowhere to go, he had devoted his whole life to cracking open every inch of Academy computer code he could reach. Calling him a super-user inside the system would have been insulting to his real level of access, and the computer AIs were now tame pets eating out of his hands.
From that vantage, he had watched for far too many months as Johanna Summer and her friends continued what could only be described as successful paths through the halls of the Academy.
A dozen times he had been tempted to emerge. Each time, he had crunched the numbers and plotted his course to redemption. Every time, he had determined any action unfeasible. More truthfully, impossible. He needed to take Johanna alive, extract her from the system, and get them both home to Laura’s Star.
Impossible. She was watched continuously as a known political target. His own fault, for having failed the first time. Worse yet, the Academy’s transports were being tracked more precisely than before his last attempt. Shipment schedules were locked tight against black market smuggling. The Navy had learned its lesson after the dishonorable attempt at defection from an entire class of cadets. It was determined to never let it happen again. He had no way out.
So, he watched. Waited. He needed inspiration.
A panel chirped an alert at him. His malaise receded as a new piece to an old puzzle showed itself. Isolation had made him his own, best conversation partner. “Well, well. What have we here?”
He opened the three messages flagged in his display. The similarities in the sub-layers of code stood out immediately. He tried to open them, but couldn’t read the encryption. Just like the last time he had seen that particular pattern. That spoke volumes about whoever was generating these messages. This was the only encryption in the whole star system that he couldn’t break open. But, now he had three more samples to work with. “Got you!”
He started the back trace he had been waiting to conduct. It had been months since he had caught his last sniff of that pattern. And never so many in so short a span of time. “Business must be picking up. But what are you up to now?”
He was sure of so little, but he suspected this unknown player was an instrumental reason the rogue cadets two years earlier had gotten as far as they had. Those cadets could not have done it all on their own. He had uncovered significant evidence to hint at a hidden player, but localizing their identity was not a priority. The minor rebellion was long over, the investigation was closed, and the cadets stopped before they could fly off to a life of piracy.
But if the cadets were gone, why was their helper still active? Why was he still seeing traces of their efforts to create waves in the Academy’s structure?
He concluded, ‘If someone continued to upset the balance at the Academy, then they might be willing to help me carve Johanna out of this place before she graduates and disappears into deep space.’
So now, whoever this was might be his only ally. And they were starting up something new. Three messages in a single day, so heavily encrypted that even his best cracking attempts failed as if they were constructed by a rank amateur. He reiterated, “What are you doing all of the sudden? What’s changed?”
He needed to talk to them. He had to make contact. That was a risk. Convincing them to cooperate might be impossible, and they might see him as a possible security leak worthy of elimination.
“Worth the risk. I’ll make myself useful to them. Get them to owe me,” he muttered. He needed resources, and this was the only faction in the whole solar system that might cooperate with a technically deceased criminal.
Three messages. Three time stamps. Like old fashioned cartography, triangulation was now possible. He could track this back and find them.
The impossible was becoming possible again. But they might move quickly. The irony was not lost on him. “After so much time, suddenly I don’t have enough.”
After so long a wait, he would not let this opportunity pass him by.
Chapter 3
Makaio Walker was a hulk of a man and looked anything but graceful as he chopped at the white sphere nestled in the grass at his feet. The face of his golf club connected, and his sheer mass and strength delivered explosive power to the ball, but the contact lacked finesse. The ball sheared away in a distorted arc and skittered off nearly into the forest, where it settled cozily into the thick grass.
He shot the unrepentant ball a furious glare that would make a human offender quake with fear.
Being the inanimate object that it was, the ball remained immune to the intimidation tactics.
Makaio clenched the club in his hand hard enough to bend the shaft a little. “You little son of a…”
The calming hand of Garam Anton appeared on his arm, a friendly reminder that inanimate objects didn’t care about such displays. “Remember, this is supposed to be a game of peace and focus.”
“I am focused. Focused on crushing that ball into dust.”
“I don’t think that’s the right idea. If you want to get into the open invitational at the end of the week, you need to take ten strokes off your game for the qualifying round.”
Makaio pulled his arm away, this time glaring at Garam. “Unlike you, I didn’t have the chance to get private lessons from Johanna during last year’s midterm break.”
“You could have. You just chose to go winging off with Dianne and Sam for a few laps around the planet in those racing shuttles. Everyone has their priorities.”
“What’s she up to now? You
aren’t trying to recruit her for the open?”
Garam shrugged, “I was lucky to get her to focus on this for as long as I did. She did it as a favor. A pity. She has real talent, but no interest at all. I actually thought you were going to ask her for help this week.”
Makaio shook his head. “I thought about it on the way back from the outer system, but we only have ten days before we get selected for our Trip-E assignments and ship out again. Felt selfish to eat up her whole down-time helping me.”
Garam gestured at himself, “But you don’t mind wasting my time?”
Makaio snorted, “You like playing. I’m just giving you an excuse. So, come on, out with it. What am I really doing wrong?”
“I told you. Peace. Focus…”
“Do I look like Johanna? Do I look like I am ever going to have inner peace?”
“Right. Well, then…try a slower backswing.”
“You say that every time.”
“Stop rushing it, and then I’ll stop saying it.” They started walking to where their shots had landed, and Garam tried to divert Makaio a little, “Taken a look at the Trip-E assignments yet?”
Falling into stride with his friend, Makaio let himself get steered away from his tirade. “Is there a single person in our class not scrolling through the list obsessively?”
“Johanna.”
“Other than our weird friend Johanna.”
Garam shrugged, “How about anyone who was visited by one of the Training Standards Officers recently?”
Makaio winced. “Had to bring them up? I swear, seeing them walk around after each major assessment gives me chills. Why not just use an e-notice?”
“Tradition. Like everything else around here.”
Of Bravery and Bluster Page 3