Alice was half way through a sigh of relief at finishing her short update when an alarm whooped in the cabin and the lights flashed red. Everyone closed their helmets and began to get ready. Alice watched her information stream for an update to her orders while she watched her group check in with Yawen. “Sorry! Sorry!” announced the pilot through the intercom. “We saw an assignment for SOCU Alpha come up and forgot that Lieutenant Valent is Special Operations Combat Unit Gamma. Won’t happen again! Sorry,”
“If Mump and Smoot do that again, I’ll make sure they don’t make the mistake a third time,” Private Beck said as she disengaged her head protection and ran her hand over the blonde stubble on her head.
“Easy, Tulsa, I think everyone’s on edge.”
Alice left her helmet in place and started looking up Lieutenant Garrison, the pilot who helmed the Clever Dream. He was still in the service, still assigned to the Triton as a combat pilot but on leave. Without an instant’s hesitation she began filling out a request to have him assigned to her unit as the primary pilot. He outranked her, so it was just that, a request, but she hoped he would take a position on the Clever Dream one more time.
Nine
The Lucky Ones
* * *
“How did this happen?” Ensign Sharim asked from the edge of a gurney. Things were finally under control in the medical bay, or what had been repurposed to be the new medical bay.
Zac was about to breathe a sigh of relief when Ensign Sharim stormed in, furious that the stop shot didn’t work, she was pregnant. “You were pregnant when you boarded this ship and started duty. I can only assume that the scanners aboard were overtaxed by so many people being aboard at once. They installed new computers, but that doesn’t mean all the connections in the system were perfect. How your own health monitor didn’t pick up the pregnancy is beyond me.”
“I shut most of the monitoring technology off on my comm unit,” she said. “I was sick and tired of Fleet tracking everything I was doing, where I was going, what was or wasn’t in my uterus.”
“Fleet doesn’t gather that information until they need it. Until they do, it all stays right there,” Zac said, pointing to the command and control unit. “The only way it sends information out on its own is if you’re in some kind of trouble, or if there’s a change that has to be addressed. If you didn’t disconnect that, it would have stopped you from serving aboard the Revenge completely because you are pregnant.” He checked her records quickly and realized that she was a member of the Refit and Repair staff. “How are you part of a technical crew if you don’t know how your own comm works?” he muttered to himself.
“What was that?” she asked.
He flagged her as a security risk, something she wouldn’t see. If she was just paranoid, they’d clear her with a reprimand for disconnecting from the Fleet computer system. If there was something worse going on, then the Captain should know. “Nothing,” he took a breath and faced her. “Okay, I can temporarily slow your pregnancy so you can make decisions when we get back home.”
“Terminate it,” she said.
“No. You have every right to make that decision on your own, but I’m only a medical technician, not a properly trained doctor. Go find one of those and then make your choice, have it aborted, but I have the luxury of not having that duty.”
“It’s just a drug cocktail,” she retorted.
“If it’s that simple, then use your comms auto medic to administer it. Oh, wait, you disconnected it!”
“Don’t get angry with me,” she warned.
“Too late. Get out. I’ll have someone find you with a new comm unit in hand, I’ll make sure the auto medic system is working, and then you can do what you want after you’re reprimanded.”
“After I’m reprimanded?” she looked truly shocked. “Fleet’s going to reprimand me for having an abort…”
“No, they’re going to reprimand you for tampering with a piece of equipment that’s made to save your life and attend to a long list of medical issues,” Zac said. “If you left it alone, you would have never had to come to me. Can’t you see I’m trying to make a new medical bay out of a half-blasted cafeteria? Oh, and by the way; please tell someone in damage control that I could use a hand. Thank you, goodbye.” He already felt guilty about how he treated the Ensign, but he didn’t watch her leave.
Once he heard the door close he dropped into one of the only good chairs. “You were too rough with her,” said his medical assistant. Its narrow, dented head shook slowly. “I’m sure it was no small matter to her, you could have been supportive.”
“I’ll record an apology once I calm down. Maybe it’ll lessen the penalty she’ll get for tampering with her equipment,” Zac replied. He brought up a hologram he’d watched a hundred, perhaps a thousand times. His boy, Brian and his little girl Andi were four and six when it was taken. They piled on top of him, trying to pin him to the floor as he pretended that they almost had him. They giggled and pounced over and over, squealing when he picked one of them up or pretended to pin them for a moment.
“Okay, that’s enough for now. Wash up for lunch,” Gabriella, his wife said. He stopped the recording, not ready to see her even in holographic form again.
“Why do I keep getting lucky when everyone else gets killed?” he asked, remembering the moment he thought he’d be crushed to death when his medical bay was destroyed.
“As an adult male, you are more well suited to survive challenging situations…” his medical assistant began to answer.
“It was rhetorical,” Zac said quietly. He rested his eyes for a long moment, breathing, relaxing the muscles in his neck and shoulders. “Somewhere on this ship, there are at least two people who are very happy that Stephanie Vega is pregnant. That’s good. There are fifty three people who are properly medicated, no longer in pain, and back on duty or recovering comfortably.”
“There are five crewmembers who have restored sight,” his medical assistant added.
“I play this game alone, remember?” Zac told him. “Still, thanks for that, I forgot about them.”
“Sir? Can we help?” asked a meek voice from the hallway.
He sat up and opened his eyes. They were crewmembers from different departments; engineering, launch deck hands, and personnel support. He took a breath and cleared his throat. It was time to put a brave face on again.
“Our duty shifts are over, so we thought we’d offer some time to, you know, tidy up,” said one of the youngest crewmembers he’d seen. His hair was perfect, and he was part of the operations team.
“You’re right, I could use a hand. Please, call me Zac,” he told them. “Do they train you guys in good timing before you leave the academy?”
Ten
So Close
* * *
Lucius Wheeler enjoyed the warm breeze as he sat on the third storey balcony of the Star Worshipper Inn. He was so close to a Haven Shore recruitment centre that he could see it in the distance. Landing fields had been flattened, antennae and emitters pointed high in the sky on top of a large observation tower.
No one in the system knew who he was, or why he was there. He sipped his cup of Lil Spice tea. It was tart but pleasant, good for the nerves. There was a way in, and he waited for his contact to arrive.
“Sir, there is a priority message for you,” said a waitress in old fashioned black and white wear. Humans had taken up the simple work, since no one outside of the Haven Government trusted bots anymore. He liked it, except for the new custom of gratuities. She held a small, round holoprojector in her hand. “Would you like me to tell them to contact you directly?”
“No, I can take it, thank you,” he said, handing her a platinum pip. He activated the unit, an Echo Corporation logo appeared for a second, telling him that someone was using a quantum communications network to make contact. The face of a fairly average looking man of smaller stature appeared, he was in an Order of Eden uniform. For a moment he thought it was Hampon, and he did seem a litt
le familiar. “Privacy mode,” he said, engaging a system that would ensure that only he could see or hear the hologram. “Do you realize where I am right now?”
“Of course, how do you think I found you?” the man said calmly. “Your contact is one of my spies.”
“Do you realize how much trouble I went through to get this close?” Wheeler asked.
“You had your DNA altered, which took some doing since you’re a framework, have worn a few different faces, paid your crew off with the last of your money and took a small ship, which you do not own, to Tamber. A deal with Patrizia Salustri and her people facilitated… something, what you wanted to accomplish with her is still unclear, but now you’re awaiting the arrival of my operative so you can become a citizen of the Haven Government. To what end, well, I can’t be sure, but I’d guess you want to cause some harm.”
“How long have you been watching me?” Wheeler asked. “And how?”
“Your whole framework system is detectable if you know the serial number. You think the model you’re in is somehow special. In truth, it’s just different. It’s not like the one the Valents were using. The serial numbers were removed from our system for reasons I may never know, along with a number of others. We’ve always known where you are, Lucius. Your contact is not coming. Whatever you arranged with Salustri will most likely go through, there’s nothing we can do to stop that, but you are being recalled.”
“I’m done with the Order of Eden, with Regent Galactic. I just want to get even, then get gone,” Wheeler said. “I’ll get close enough somehow.”
“No, you won’t,” Dron said. “I’m curious; what was your plan, anyway?”
“I don’t know, I thought I’d send Ayan a selection of pretty dresses, maybe a bouquet with a hornet in it. What do you think? They put a bounty on me, ruined my life in any sector where the British Alliance has a foothold. They’ve gotta die.”
“But, how?”
“I was going to figure something out once I became a citizen. Until then, I can’t get a good look at anything. What passes for Hart News these days doesn’t go into detail about anything. Those so-called journalists won’t even hop a fence to get better footage, so I have to go in.”
“Not an unwise plan. Perhaps you can give us a few tips on how we can get more people over the fence when you join my fleet. It’s time, Lucius.”
“Not a chance,” Wheeler said.
The man in the hologram smiled a little. “It’s not your choice. Who do you think is ultimately in control of you now that the whole framework development vault has been opened? Now that the entire database has been decrypted? When you regain consciousness, you will be standing right in front of me. We’ll talk then.”
The hologram disappeared. Wheeler felt himself slowly stand. He knew he was going back to his small ship. There he would chart a course then execute it. He tried to fight for control, but his body would not respond. Then all sensation stopped, as though someone flipped an off switch in his head.
Eleven
The Team
* * *
Being further down than Alice would have liked on the list of Special Operations teams to be called on was wearing on her people. They waited, all geared up and ready, within the cabin of their armoured shuttle as it held position.
The only good thing about having the extra time was getting the opportunity for her to introduce herself to the new people on her team. They were all from Yawen’s group of cadets, people her friend spent so much time with that it cost her several points in the Apex program. Yawen was always doing something with the cadets, so much so that Alice felt that she had neglected hers, even though she made herself available for questions, guidance and spent as many combat and physical training exercises with that as she could, which amounted to more than half the sessions they had. It seemed like a lot, but it was nothing compared to Yawen’s level of attentiveness.
Oscar Holm, a thin, slightly short man with new strands of hair filling in a horseshoe shaped void on his head introduced himself first. He noticed that Alice glanced at his newly carpeted scalp right away and rubbed the new growth with a smile. “You like? I just started gene-meds for premature loss, couldn’t afford it where I came from but Fleet’s helping me out for free.”
“It’s going to look great,” Alice said, glad that Holm set a casual tone to the introductions. Everyone was ready to go, they all had one eye on their status feeds, so there was no need for strict behaviour at the moment. “How long has it been coming in?”
“About two days. They waited until my file was set up for active duty before telling me I could get it done.”
Not knowing exactly what to say, Alice fell back on her command training and mentioned what she remembered from his file. “You were an electrician on Xono Drift before you joined up? That had to be interesting.”
“Yeah, I think I learned how to wire half the ships ever made there. Xono was half scrap, and half whatever ships they could weld in or hard dock. I pulled a lot of wire and ran even more with Jessen, here.” He pointed at a dark haired woman at his side. Her gaze was cool and calm. Naja Jessen looked like she was observing everything around her, drinking it all in from moment to moment. “She’s the one who I had to listen to over there. Lady has a nose for when you’re about to cut through the wrong beam and make a whole pier crumple.”
“I had two year’s training in structural engineering before I started running guns for the Zulitch family. They turned on each other and I ended up stuck on the Xono Drift. This is a much better career move, thanks for having us on your team.”
“I didn’t get to choose this time,” Alice said, prompting several nervous glances and raised eyebrows. “But I don’t think I’d have chosen differently if I had the choice.”
“Yeah, you’ll learn to love us,” Holm said, pushing the conversation along and bumping into a taller, broad faced man who looked like he was straight out of a Viking epic. “This is Knud and the tall beauty behind him is Beck. They’re both one hundred percent hunter - as in former bounty hunters - and were marooned on Iora for three weeks before they got their ship flying again and got to Haven Shore.”
“The Southern Refugee Centre, but close enough,” Beck said. “It’s not really an interesting story.”
“Iora was a mess,” Alice said, accepting Knud’s outstretched hand. It was huge, nearly twice as wide as her own. It seemed like Beck did the talking while Knud nodded politely.
“You’ve been? I thought it was actually pretty quiet until the Order showed up.”
“I’ve had some experiences,” Alice replied. “I have to ask; what are two bounty hunters doing at this level of the military?”
“We were gunners and runners for Victoria Bell, so we bagged a few bounties, sure, but she was the star. We were just support.”
“Thank you for signing up, I’m glad you’re on my team.”
“It feels like this is where I’m needed,” Knud said shyly.
“You’re right, it is,” Alice said.
It was impossible to ignore Yawen, standing proudly beside Alice as she was introduced to the four people who followed her into service from her cadet group. For the first time since the introductions began, Alice looked directly at her. After a moment her former roommate subtly tilted her head towards Regan and the rest of the cadets from Alice’s group. “Right, I’m happy to introduce the service men and woman that I’ve been able to take from training,” she said, moving to stand beside Regan. “This is Private Fitz Regan, the resident joker and secret deep thinker of the group.”
“A farm boy who went to university for starship engineering but got caught in this adventure of a war. Real Tamber original resident,” he said with a nod. “You have signed on with two of the most kick-ass ladies I’ve ever seen, if you’ll pardon my language, Lieutenant,” he said, pointing to Alice and Yawen from above.
“No worries,” Yawen replied.
“This is Sang Tran,” Alice introduced. If Minh-Chu had a se
rious minded younger brother, she could easily see it being Sang. “He’s our hacker, one of the white-hats who kept on trying to break into the Academy computers while he was in training.”
“With permission,” he added. “I found seven vulnerabilities, but if I tell you what they were, you’ll have to take another oath of secrecy.”
“I’m his not-so-serious side,” Cara Luu said. “We were both born in the core worlds on the Stellar Mark, one of the ships that crash landed on Tamber in the early days of Haven Shore. I don’t know if the Lieutenant remembers, but we met her when she was with the Rangers. She was one of the people who helped get us out of the wreck.”
“I wish I did, I’m sorry,” Alice said.
“It’s all right, you’ve changed so much that I didn’t realize you were the same person until a month ago. Anyway, I used to do repairs on the Stellar Mark, now I can get into any ship you like, kinda the best counter-part for my boyfriend here.”
“I am not your boyfriend,” Sang said without a hint of humour.
“You’re lucky fraternization rules protect you,” Luu said with a wink.
“What kind of ship was the Stellar Mark?” asked Holm.
“Part passenger transport, part bulk freighter. Most of the crew were third or fourth generation, just making our way around the galaxy getting paid to pick up and drop off. It was a huge ship, I grew up there and I don’t think I saw…”
The alarm whooped loudly, and all of their command and control systems populated with new information on a ship that just came into the area. It was a small, hundred and fifty metre long passenger ship named the Gibson, it was the thirty ninth ship to arrive. It set off an antimatter alarm on every ship within seventy million kilometres.
“Scans are coming in, Ma’am. There’s just shy of five hundred fifty litres of liquid antimatter on that ship and it is losing power,” Beck said.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11 Page 6