Of Bravery and Bluster

by Scott Kelemen

  An official looking man had stepped to the front of the auditorium along with their instructor and assessor, Lieutenant Commander Bryan Hackles. Knowing the class was about to be called to order, Sam whispered her way, “I’ll think it over.”

  He hadn’t chased her away, and both knew from his tone of voice that his answer was more of a yes than a no. She glowed with pleasure as she settled in next to him. Sam felt her warmth, and wondered if he was fooling himself into letting the serpent right into his house after keeping the windows locked all this time.

  At the front, the man who prepared to address them couldn’t look any less like a scientist in his wool suit and fake smile. He looked ready to try and sell Sam a used atmosphere shuttle for a good price. “Greetings, class of 854. My name is Vern Pollok. You’ll be my fifth Trip-E run-through, so rest assured you’ll all be in good hands.”

  He fiddled with the datapad in his hands, and the screen behind him lit up with a pre-made presentation. Hackles leaned against a nearby podium and yawned as if he had seen this all before. Pollok sounded genuinely excited by the parade of images that emerged, “Who can tell me what these three sequences have in common?”

  The first sequence played through.

  Sealed environment suits explored an urban landscape, everything covered in white snow and ash. The faint blue from the lights cast from inside their helmets could been seen like meagre flashlights against a harsh, unforgiving background. Moving slowly, the human explorers were prying open buildings, versions of ground cars that looked somehow wrong, and even peeling open sewers as they sought answers to a long-dead past. A change came, and the image shifted to inside a laboratory, where the human expedition was carefully cracking open what looked like a cryogenic chamber, far more advanced than anything the Navy cadets had ever seen.

  Pollok added context, “Those are some of the very few images the Lauran government has ever released about its scientific expeditions on Aradei. The centauroid race annihilated itself through nuclear conflict nearly a thousand years ago. The radiation is still too strong to walk around unprotected, and will be for another thousand years. More is being learned every year, but we do know that they had made amazing strides in cryogenic technology. Why? That is difficult to say, but that technology is one reason why the Laurans can keep the original leader of their world Laura Reissmark alive for hundreds of years in a state of perfect suspended animation. Remarkable effort on their part. Only a few trickles of technology have emerged from the Laurans to the Alliance, but some of it has improved our own ability to extend the life of scientific samples, improve refrigeration systems by several generations, and more.”

  He tapped another button, and a new set of images emerged.

  A series of photos indicating time stamps, showing the local rodent varieties of Helix being kept alive to ten, then twenty years. The typical life expectancy normally hovered somewhere around two or three. The sequence showed a celebration when the first such animal reached its fourth birthday, then a quick series of snap-shots as further and further successes pushed out those boundaries.

  Pollok once more added his piece. “Here, Helican geneticists are leading the way with Life Extension Protocols. Already, these impacts have been felt among the population at large. Alliance lifespans hover around 140 years on average, and since these treatments are not universal, those numbers go up for those who can afford the more advanced gene therapies. But even the expensive versions become more cost-effective every day as the science becomes increasingly mass-produced.”

  He keyed the last sequence open.

  This time, there was an image of the Glacier Auditorium, the famous central presentation hall at Icelock University, the most prestigious learning establishment in the known human galaxy. Buried into the snow and ice of the frozen planet of the same name, the university was featured in hundreds of videos, from documentaries to action films. That auditorium ranked as one of the most filmed locations in recent history. The image then shifted to one of the labs as bio-suit protected scientists fought a war against some unknown pathogen that was pictured on screen doing microscopic battle with the cures that were being tested against it.

  Pollok was ready again. “On Icelock, their vaccination and immunization research facility are second to none. They have a Navy education program as well. There, in the third montage, you can see one of the Academy’s most promising new recruits Emma Masterfield taking part in designing a sterilization vector to rid Marrana’s World of the Redvax strain virus.”

  The presentation came to an end, and he strode out in front of the group. “Well? What do these have in common?”

  Sam couldn’t help himself. Each of those topics were fascinating, and if they had the chance to take part in even one of them, perhaps the trip wouldn’t be such a waste of time.

  Playing up to the one in charge, Korey took the risk of guessing out loud, “Your team participated in all those projects somehow?”

  Pollok was amused at the thought. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. These are the leading-edge research projects in the field of microbiological studies. They would not allow any proprietary knowledge out beyond their walls. But each of those has led to trickle down benefits to other projects. And, as the cutting edge has moved forward, we have been a part of helping make their past successes more commercial. They produce the best, but they do it in small quantities for exorbitant fees. Our job is to help companies who have acquired the equivalent technologies of the past and bring them to the common people of the Alliance. It might not be as sexy, but we help a lot more people in our own way. But everything you see here was once up on those screens, and those that came before you were leaning forward in your chairs hoping we would be working on them. You’ll be living their dream for them.”

  He had put as sweet an icing as he could on a less than edible cake. Some of the class even looked mildly heartened. Most of them saw through the game.

  Hackles peered around the room, a wry smile on his face. “Fortunately for all of you, it doesn’t have to be exciting to count as a substantial part of your final grade. Which means you get the chance to live their dream, and live your own by passing this evaluation and returning home for graduation. Fair?”

  That drew in a little more enthusiasm from them all. Instructors like Hackles had been pounding into them the habit of hard-work on demand since their first year at the Academy. Fighting through one more project and dragging themselves one step closer to the finish line was a solid, less-dream-like goal they could sink their teeth into.

  “Alright. Split up and select lab partners. Remember, I have your records here. I don’t want to see any of you working with anyone who you worked closely with on another major project over the last four years. If I see you disobeying, I’ll mix you up. Come down to the front of the class, and Mister Pollok here will split you up amongst the various projects being handled here by the Beacon orbital labs. You’ll act as research assistants and technicians throughout your time here. You might not be doing any original work, but I expect all of you to master the techniques you are taught. Each of the labs will evaluate whether your presence has been an asset or a detriment, and you’ll be graded accordingly.”

  He spread his hands wide, an invitation to get started. “Enjoy!”

  Sam dropped his face into his palms. “This is going to be a disaster.”

  ***

  “Alright, here it comes.” Sam watched the specimen tray rising out of the incubator like a chef opening an oven. “If my calculations are right, then…”

  He faded away as he saw all the lights on the status sensors slowly shift into red.

  Brenna finished for him. “- then we have charbroiled a perfectly lovely sample into the scientific equivalent of burnt porridge.”

  Sam exhaled a long, controlled breath. “Well, shit.”

  “Eloquent. Perfectly descriptive. At least you’re good at something.”

  “I’m good at a lot of things.”

  “Fro
m everything I’ve heard around the Academy, I guess I’d have to agree.”

  “Dianne’s been talking about my flying again? Or Garam about how I helped him with tactics?”

  “Right. I’ll let you believe that’s where your reputation lies.” Brenna leaned back in her chair with a feline stretch. “So much for pulling a late night to catch up. I think we might be farther behind now.”

  From the opposite end of the lab, the giggling pair of Erica Senti and Ashley Hunter stumbled into the area. They were drunk on success more than the single bottle of zinger they had snuck in to share during their late-night session. Ashley caught Sam’s eyes, and that was enough to bring the clumsy back to the surface. She kicked a chemical cart, raising a fearful clatter. She clutched on to Erica, who nearly fell over because she hadn’t been paying any attention to Ashley’s plight. Her eyes had glazed over as she babbled to her long-time crush. “Thought we heard someone else over here!”

  Brenna watched the girlish display with hidden pain, embarrassed for them. She was poise to their vapid display of flushed honesty. “Hope your time wasn’t wasted?”

  Forced to remember there were two people at the table, Ashley jumped a little. She kicked the cart again, and whatever she was going to say dissolved into a muttered curse.

  Erica was fidgeting, not certain what to do with her hands and completely oblivious that Brenna had asked the question. She gushed to Sam and Sam alone, “We got lost in the work! If we can just isolate the right enzymes that can eat away the rot that Ashwind’s ecosystem causes, they could finally plant real corn there! Our lead researchers think we’re close!”

  Sam’s smile was more charmed than embarrassed from the awkward fawning. “Glad to see you are making yourselves a part of progress. I think we’re on the opposite team. We’re close to making our research team cry.”

  Erica laughed a little too hard. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll make it work! Are you coming out for drinks? Bunch of the others are meeting at the station’s jazz bar.”

  Genuinely considering the possibility, Sam weighed the cost in time. “Afraid not. At least, not until this goo we’re poking starts cooperating.”

  Ashley had finally recovered herself enough to gesture broadly at the door, and come a hairsbreadth from knocking over a gas burner perched on a nearby table. “Well, we’ll be there for a few hours if you change your mind. Think they call it the Grind for short.” She tugged at Erica’s sleeve. “Come on. We’re already late!”

  Erica backed away, still grinning like a star-struck fool. “Sure. And, you know, there is always tomorrow. Right?” She waved a final time and let herself get dragged away.

  Brenna called out with amused irony to the empty air, “I can’t make it either, by the way!”

  Sam couldn’t help but chuckle. “Now you know how it feels.”

  Brenna tried to play innocent. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Really? You know precisely how beautiful you are, and you use it like a blade. A few well-placed smiles to any guy in the room, and the rest of us might as well not even exist.”

  “I sense judgment in there. How are you any different?”

  Sam knew he was judging, at least a little. He tried to fight it, but the barb came out anyway, “I’m not trying to do it.”

  Her eyes flared. “If I am such a monster to you, why are you even here? Just to prove you are the better person? That you deign to consort with the enemy?”

  “It isn’t like that.”

  She challenged him, “So, what is it like?”

  He leaned forward, letting out a small touch of pent-up frustration that surrounded her in his mind. “I don’t want to believe in what you are, alright? Not since the first moment I saw you in the first-form gunroom.”

  “Why? Because you want me for yourself?”

  She had called him on his shallowness, and Sam felt trapped between honesty and trying to say what might be better received. But their effort at cooperation was threadbare and their project was in ruins. He didn’t feel like keeping his shield in place against her. “Yes. You caught me. I’m sure Dianne and Garam would love to be here as I admit this, but there it is. Cards are all on the table. I want to tear your clothes off every second I’m in the room with you, and the reason I don’t is because you bought into that bullshit about Trinity and the Mother Planet. It’s all a lie, and I know it. And if you can’t see through that political garbage, then I can’t respect you enough to do everything I want to you. Call me crazy, but I need both! Alright?”

  She was quiet. Staring at him. Then, said, “That’s why you don’t…you know, with them.” It was a statement, not a question.

  He waved at the air where Erica and Ashley had been standing. “They aren’t treating me seriously. I’m just a fantasy. I don’t want to be a fantasy.”

  She met his eyes. “I don’t either.”

  He still couldn’t keep the judgment from his eyes. “Or a pawn?”

  Her face flushed. “I won’t be that. Not his. And not yours.”

  He pushed out of his chair and captured her arm. Drawing her out of her seat, he leaned her against the nearest wall, pinning her in place. “I never wanted you to be. You ask yourself, can you say the same of Tanner?”

  Her lustrous eyes were demanding, brighter than he had ever seen them. “Do you think being with you can change what I believe?”

  “You said you don’t need to be changed. You needed space to be yourself. Are you there yet?”

  Brenna was silent again. Almost too long. “I don’t know what you could say to make any of this real. What could make this not about the game?”

  He didn’t say anything. His lips claimed hers in a hungry kiss, the frustration he had carried inside expressing itself in a whole new way. His strong, lean leg slipped inside one of hers and eased her thigh open. The leg he had dreamed about slipped around his own and hooked into place.

  Words were unnecessary after that. A picture was worth a thousand words. Entwined bodies were worth millions.

  Chapter 13

  Derek Tranton remained with his forehead planted on the restaurant table. “Can you believe we have another four full jumps in hyperspace to get to Helix? Over a month with my stomach trying to crawl out of my belly.”

  Makaio let the sandwich he was packing into his gut fall to his plate. “Thanks for that image.”

  “How can you eat?”

  “How can you not? I hate hyperspace as much as you, and my appetite craps out on me. Look at the size of me! I need to make up some caloric intake before we bounce out of here.”

  “Ugh. Takes me days to get my appetite back.”

  Makaio grunted in sympathetic pain. “Since our layover is only two days, you have my pity. How long before we have to be back on ship?”

  Derek pulled his datapad into site without prying himself off the table and checked the chrono. “Two hours. I have to scrub micro-filters, and you will have the ultimate thrill as you crawl through sensor data to confirm the navigation computers are tracking our position within the right parameters!”

  Makaio let his head slump back, defeated by boredom. “They try and find ways to make us miserable. And damn, are they good at it.”

  Derek finally pulled himself up into what resembled a seated position. “They manage a good variety, don’t they? Virri is going to play paralegal for the ship’s lawyer. At least she gets to sit at a desk for a few hours. Where is Miz Tarlet, anyway?”

  “Last seen creeping up the main concourse peering into random shops. Seemed to be looking for something specific.”

  Derek mocked her despite her absence, “Here? The Z-16 mining supply station isn’t exactly a hub of interstellar commerce. What about Crawson and Ayn?”

  Makaio kicked his feet up on one of the other seats. “Why, I do believe Shawn and Yo Min are spending some quality time with each other in that special sort of way we shouldn’t interrupt.”

  “Wasn’t he hooking up with your friend, Dianne?”

&nbs
p; Makaio smirked. “Apparently, Dianne invited Yo Min to share. Said he had skills she would appreciate. I didn’t want to know any more. Dianne isn’t exactly the possessive type.”

  “Seriously? Dianne set him up with her? He’s an empty shirt!”

  Makaio leveled a warning look at him. “He’s also my friend.”

  Derek waved away his insult. “Forget it. I’m just jealous and sick. It’s a miserable combination. Besides, Ayn Yo Min blew me off two weeks into the trip. I was sure she had a guy back home. Looks like she was just waiting for her shot at Shawn.” He caught sight of the door. “Doubt I’ll get lucky on this station. I mean, will you look at this one by the door? My options are looking grim.”

  Makaio turned to take in a rat-like woman who slipped in from the concourse. Clad in greasy working leathers, she might have been one of the station mechanics. But something about the mess didn’t fit right. Makaio swore she looked fake, as if she was playing the role instead of just walking out of a dirty engine space. “She’s going to be trouble.”

  “Why? Wouldn’t touch her with your hands.”

  “Charming. And you wonder why women go home with someone else?” He watched the woman scan the room, then lock onto them. “What the hell? Why’s she coming over here?”

  Once targeting them, she made a comet-line through the tables until she was at the table-side. “I would ask if you are Walker and Tranton, but you are hard to mistake.” Her angular eyes fixated on Makaio’s two-hundred-centimeter height, broad chest and the sun-tanned hue left by his Polynesian heritage on his skin and hair. “You stand out in a crowd, friend.”

  Makaio tried to play it easy, though his suspicion hadn’t fallen away. “It’s a curse. I live with it. Mind if I know how you know my name and where to look for my unmistakable self?” One of the perks of leaving the ship was that they had permission to be out-of-uniform for a few hours. Being strangers on a small station, their hair-cuts probably gave away that they were in the Navy, but their names weren’t pinned on their chests when in civvies.