by M. D. Cooper
Rachel leant forward and whispered to Tanis. “Did Bob just try to be funny?”
Tanis pursed her lips and nodded. “It’s a new thing of his. He’s just full of the ha-ha’s.”
“You can recognize an attempt at humor, as well. Doesn’t mean it was actually funny,” Tanis replied.
Huh, she looked almost exactly like Tanis. Like she was admonishing herself, Rachel mused.
Tanis looked up and saw that Rachel was staring intently at her.
“Yeah, it’s like I’m my own mom or something. Stars, that’s a disturbing thought.”
“So, what’s got you all into the ha-ha’s?” Rachel asked Bob, changing the subject.
“Really? I didn’t know you read books, Bob. What are they called?”
“Really? How long does it take you to read a book?” Rachel asked. “A millisecond?”
“It makes me feel like there’s a bee inside my head when you do that,” Tanis complained. “You need to go to the expanse when you read those from now on.”
Tanis laughed and shook her head. “OK, I really do have to read these now.”
The maglev train slowed as it reached the platform closest to Engine, and the two women disembarked, following the twisted corridors until they reached Terry’s location.
The Chief of Security was in a small storage room near one of Engine’s machine shops. Rachel noted that they were only a short distance from the MSAR region, where the ship’s particle accelerator funneled scooped hydrogen into the matter annihilator that produced energy and antimatter.
Though CriEn technology meant they didn’t need to run the annihilator anymore, Rachel preferred to keep it operational as a backup power system.
It was currently undergoing its weekly test run.
“Tanis, Rachel,” Terry said as the two women joined her in the storage room.
“All alone in here?” Tanis asked, and Rachel looked around, surprised to see none of the SOC MPs present.
“I figured that there’s nothing the three of us can’t do,” Terry replied. “I have teams nearby, but Finaeus has only made the three Shadowtrons—he has Earnest’s original disassembled in his lab.”
Rachel approached one of the gun-like devices that sat on a table beside Terry. It reminded her of an ME-33 sniper rifle, but with seven barrels instead of one.
She picked one up. “I still can’t believe this is called a ‘Shadowtron’. I thought that was a joke when I first heard it.”
“Sera loved the name. Said it was ‘badass’,” Tanis said with a laugh as she picked up one of the weapons.
Angela added.
Terry hefted hers. “I don’t care what they’re called, so long as they work.”
“So, what’s the target?” Rachel asked.
Terry passed a data packet to Rachel and Tanis over the Link. “Ensign Kasha. She’s a tech who works on the annihilator. Bob says she’s in Machine Bay 13.11 working on fabbing some replacement parts for after the test run today.”
“Stars,” Tanis muttered. “She wasn’t even on the list of suspects for people who could have freed Elena. Which means that either the remnant in her is very good, or there’s someone else, still.”
“We’ll know more once we nab her.” Terry walked toward the door and looked at the other two. “I’ll cover the rear entrance; I assume you want the honors, Tanis?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“Uh, no, I guess not,” Terry laughed.
Two minutes later, they were in position. Terry was just outside the machine bay’s rear door, and Rachel outside the main door. Tanis was making her way past the fab units to where Kasha stood at a testing rig that was putting the new components through their paces.
Rachel heard Tanis say something to Kasha, then she heard a scream and a brief scuffle.
A minute later, Ensign Kasha appeared at the far end of a row of fab units, racing toward the door.
Rachel raised her Shadowtron and fired the eV detection wave toward Kasha. Sure enough, the holodisplay on the weapon showed a remnant within the woman. She wasted no time firing the capture field, and saw the remnant begin to flow out of the Ensign.
As Rachel spoke, the wave coming from her Shadowtron flickered, and the remnant broke free from the field.
It streaked past Rachel and down the hall.
Rachel turned and gave chase, following the remnant via the display on her Shadowtron.
She heard Tanis behind her, but didn’t look back as they raced through Engine.
Rachel rounded a corner and then passed down a long corridor, the remnant a dozen meters away, slowly increasing the gap.
Then Terry appeared at the end of the passageway, firing her weapon. But the remnant was moving too fast, and a second later, it was past Terry and through the doors leading into the MSAR.
The three women burst into the MSAR and raced through the forest that surrounded the annihilator.
Rachel called out.
Terry waved them on from her place in the lead.
The trees began to thin, and they came into the large clearing in the center of the MSAR where the matter annihilator stood on its tower.
Rachel spotted the remnant twisting around one of the struts supporting the annihilator and fired at the thing, but it was out of the Shadowtron’s effective range.
Terry had stopped running and Rachel caught up to her, Tanis a moment later. Rachel watched through the holodisplay on her weapon as the remnant reached the inlet portal for the annihilator, and passed through the weaker field there before being drawn into the annihilation chamber.
“Damn, it’s gone,” Tanis said with a heavy sigh.
“I’ll count that as a win,” Terry said, lowering her weapon.
Rachel realized that Tanis had been staring up at the annihilator without using her weapon’s detection wave to see the remnant.
She was about to ask how Tanis could see the thing, when the Admiral shook her head and walked off, leaving Terry and Rachel standing beside one another, wondering if Bob was right.
Had the thing died in the annihilator, or did it escape somehow and evade detection?
“Let’s do a sweep to be sure,” Rachel said, and Terry nodded.
Neither were surprised when they didn’t find anything.
UNINTENTIONAL BAIT
STELLAR DATE: 02.09.8949 (Adjusted Ye
ars)
LOCATION: TSS Regent Mary, Bridge
REGION: Near Montana, Galas System, Vela Cluster
“Ensign Dyna! What’s the ETA on recharge?” Krissy called out as the ship’s AI executed a new jinking pattern. The dampening systems were running on reserves, and the rapid maneuvers were beginning to jostle the crew.
“Ma’am! CriEns are all offline, main connection got disconnected, backup isn’t failing over. Repair team is at the relay, working on it.”
Krissy ground her teeth. She’d asked for an ETA, but his answer told her what she needed to know: not soon enough.
She glanced at the main holotank. The three Airthan cruisers were still back there, closing, but holding their fire. They may have caught Krissy’s ship, the Regent Mary, with its stasis shields offline, but the shield was up now, and even with the CriEn modules offline, the ship could withstand a withering assault.
For about ten minutes or so.
She turned and stalked back to the command seat, settling into it. Captain Nelson should be in it, but he was in the infirmary, having been hit by shrapnel during the enemy’s opening salvo.
Krissy blamed herself. Khardine forces hadn’t seen any Airthan ships in the Vela Cluster since their arrival, and she’d grown lax.
The Regent Mary had been taking in supplies above Montana, shields down and engines cold, when the enemy ships had appeared and opened fire.
“What’s the scan data say?” Krissy asked. “Were they stealthed, and we just missed them somehow?”
“No, ma’am,” Ensign Donald replied. “They appeared between us and the local star. Even ISF stealth tech would have cast a shadow at that range.”
“Are you saying they jumped in?” Krissy asked sharply.
Ensign Donald nodded. “I don’t see any other alternative, Admiral Krissy.”
Krissy sat back heavily. That meant one of two things: there was a traitor at the Sector Command, or there was a traitor here at Montana. Someone had to have passed the Airthans intel on her location with enough advance notice for them to get the message to vessels that were in a position to jump in.
The Vela Cluster contained thousands of stars, and Krissy’s fleet had barely visited ten percent of them—there could be dozens of holdouts harboring Airthans.
I need more ships! Krissy shouted in her mind. She was spreading herself too thin…as evidenced by being in this system with just one ship, and getting caught with her pants down.
Even so, she had a tool that the enemy did not. One that she was all too willing to avail herself of, especially right now.
“Comm. Message to Admiral Orman. Advise him of our situation, and tell him I want his…second division here on the double.”
“Yes, ma’am!” the ensign on Comm called out before activating the QuanComm system.
“Let’s see you beat this,” Krissy muttered aloud, and received a few appreciative nods from members of the bridge crew.
Admiral Orman and his fleet were currently guarding Estrada, the capital of the Vela Cluster. Based on his latest reports, the second division should be close to the system’s inner jump gates. With a quick data relay at Khardine and factoring in time to get the ships through the gates, she could expect to see backup within twenty minutes.
So long as the enemy didn’t decide to test out the stasis shields on her ship overmuch, they could hold out that long with ease.
“Admiral Orman confirms,” Comm announced. “Second division ETA to jump gates is fifteen minutes. Full ship transfer is twenty-seven.”
The Estrada System had eleven jump gates. Provided all were currently online, that meant the initial group of ships would be more than enough to subdue the three enemy cruisers.
“Thank you, Comm,” Krissy replied, resolving to keep ships closer to gates in the future.
“They’re firing on us again!” Ensign Donald cried out from Scan. “Helm’s jinking pattern is ninety percent effective.”