Interstellar Service and Discipline 03 Fallen Star.lit

by Morgan Hawke

  She bloomed into being, feeling the tides of space against her skin, tasting the different flavors of stars, and hearing the harmonies of solar systems as orchestras of incredible grace. Ever changing, ever moving, ever harmonious ... She could listen to it forever.

  “Are you all right?”

  She had to pull back into herself before she could respond, and found that her cheeks were wet. Fallon wiped at her cheeks, still feeling the pull of the music of space. “Yeah ... Yes, ‘Syr. It’s so ... beautiful.”

  His arms tightened around her. “Yes, yes, it is.”

  “Ready to proceed into jump-space on your mark, Captain.” The nav-pilot’s calm voice was a soothing ripple.

  Fallon jumped. The nav-pilot’s voice had come through her link to Khan.

  “Begin.” The captain’s command was a deep bass through the link.

  Fallon concentrated and realized that other voices chatted softly along the link. There was another voice murmuring under it all, but she couldn’t quite hear it.

  “Activating Phalrium hull grid and opening quantum teleological space-time manifold at factor eight.” The nav-pilot’s anticipation came through loud and clear.

  The ship’s skin seemed to shiver.

  Fallon suddenly felt the fabric of reality shifting into a shimmering field of crushed star-space. It coalesced to spiral around the ship.

  “Jump-space gateway open and stable, Captain.”

  The captain lifted both hands. “Advance drive, speed four. Proceed into jump-space.”

  “Proceeding into jump.” The nav-pilot’s voice echoed with deep calm.

  Fallon took a deep breath. Tension shimmered through her inner array in echo of the ship.

  The ship shimmied, collected itself, and lunged, not forward, but through the quantum-folded layers of space as a needle thrusts through tight folds of cloth. Her mouth opened as the calm orchestra of eternity became a wild rushing concert of screaming, whirling stars -- that swallowed her whole.

  Something caught her, steadied her, and pushed her mind to focus on the harmonious melody in the center of a whirling storm of sound and color. It was the ship, sliding between the layers of folded space like a finely honed blade too sharp to even feel its passing.

  Fallon’s heart settled down to something less than complete panic. There was a hand pressed over her mouth. She sucked in a breath.

  “Are you all right?” It was Khan.

  Fallon could hear him, but he seemed to be very far away. She nodded. Her voice didn’t want to work.

  “I thought you said she didn’t have a piloting array?” It sounded like the captain.

  “There is no pilot’s access,” a soft feminine voice whispered. “Merely broad perception.”

  Fallon’s curiosity surfaced. Who ...?

  Attention and amusement became directed at Fallon. “I ...” Presence echoed all around.

  Fallon’s breath caught. She was hearing the ship’s sentience -- and it was paying attention to her. The ship sensed her presence. Oh, shit! Alarm raced through her inner array. Her pixie programming activated, shrinking her sensory signature to a tiny mote of light. Out of sheer habit, her spectral program activated, reversing her light into a mote of shadow, masking her signature.

  “Oh!” The ship registered surprise. “Has she gone?”

  “Isabeau? Are you still connected?” It was Khan. His concern echoed across their link. Curiosity poked her way, but encountered nothing. Of course. “Where are you?”

  Fallon froze. Uh-oh ... “Oh, I’m ... right here.” She turned off her spectral programming, but kept her pixie program running, letting her sensory signature gleam like a tiny comet against the larger presence of Khan, and the ship. Hopefully no one had noticed that she had disappeared completely.

  The ship registered outright surprise.

  Fallon bit back a groan. The ship had noticed. Time for some damage control. “I’m using my pixie program. It makes my signature too small to notice.”

  “I see that. I barely sense you at all.” Khan’s curiosity increased and suspicion entered the link. “However, there was no trace of you, before. Nor was there a trace of any active programs.”

  Oh, shit ... he noticed it. Her pixie program and the spectral programming at its heart were part of her secret array. Khan may have thought he’d mapped her entire brain, but in reality, he only had her surface programs. Without her personal coding language, they wouldn’t even know that those programs were there -- until she used them. And she had just used them.

  Idiot! Fallon wanted to bang her head on something hard, but the only convenient hard surface was Khan’s chest. She had a bad feeling that she was about to get into big trouble.

  Khan’s silence was deafening and his suspicion was a growling pressure along the link. “Isabeau, why do I have the feeling that there is something you haven’t told me?”

  Oh, yeah, trouble was coming all right. “I’m not used to being seen by ships, so I ... panicked, and one of my programs kicked in.”

  “A program that makes you completely invisible to sensory detection?”

  She took a careful breath. “Well ... yes. I can’t get into a ship’s mind if they know I’m there.”

  Khan tensed under her. “A program that cannot be seen when active, even though I am in direct link to your personal array?” The message slid across the link masked from everyone else -- including the ship.

  The hair on Fallon’s neck rose and sweat formed all down her back. Oh, yeah, she was in very deep trouble. “Yes.”

  Anger throbbed hot and heavy along their private connection. “Isabeau, are you going to tell me, or do I need to peel it from your skin with my whip?”

  She held very, very still. “You have to be equipped with spectral programming to detect it.”

  “Spectral programming.” Suspicion seethed through Khan.

  Fallon was almost too scared to breathe. “It’s a programming code that’s made of absence or shadow, rather than energy. ‘Spectral’ was the only name I could think of that fit.”

  “You built it?”

  “Well, yeah ... I had to find some way to mask my energy signature while I was looking through a ship’s mind, so I wouldn’t be seen -- and expelled. So I used non-energy, or reverse energy. Spectral energy.”

  “There is no such thing as spectral energy.” Disbelief threaded through the anger that throbbed from Khan.

  Fallon cringed. “True, it was something I made up. But it works pretty good for something that doesn’t actually exist.”

  “There was no sign of this ... spectral programming in your scan.”

  Fallon took a deep breath. “Of course not.” Either he killed her for hiding this from him -- or he didn’t. “Because your scan couldn’t read the spectral coding language either. Your scan saw what Peter made for me, all my basic programs. I doubt it found any of my real programs.”

  “When did you plan to tell me this?”

  Fallon’s mouth went dry. Truth or lie? Shit ... When in doubt, go for the truth. They rarely believe it anyway. She released a breath. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you at all.”

  “Isabeau.” His entire body vibrated with tension. The link thumped loudly with restrained fury.

  “Yes, ‘Syr?” He was really, really pissed. She hoped her death would be swift, but she sincerely doubted Khan had anything swift in mind.

  “I am going to beat you bloody.”

  He wasn’t going to kill her? On second thought, he was fully capable of coming up with something worse. “Yes. ‘Syr.”

  Khan grabbed her thick braid, shoved her forward, and jerked the jack from the back of her head.

  The stars dissolved and normal sight returned. Fallon winced.

  In a single breath, Khan disengaged from his link and shoved Fallon from his lap and onto her feet. He did not let go of her hair. He turned to face the captain and the commander.

  Both men abruptly saluted, their fists slamming against their
hearts.

  Khan nodded and marched Fallon down the stairs and into the hallway.

  She marched, driven by the punishing grip on her hair. I am so fucked .

  Oh, yes, you are, came across loud and clear.

  She blinked. What in bloody fate ...? Where the fuck had that come from?

  Khan stopped and jerked her around to face him. The collar allows telepathic contact, if I so require it. He smiled. I am suddenly of the opinion that I should have been monitoring your thoughts all along, rather than occasionally.

  Occasionally? He’d been in her head occasionally? She narrowed her eyes at him. Get out of my mind! Lightning seared up her spine and through her augmentations. She knew that feeling. It was the punishment setting on the collar.

  It stopped before she could take a breath to scream, but her knees gave out. Khan’s fist was the only thing that held her up off the deck. She moaned.

  Khan glared down at her. Whose mind? White-hot fury accompanied the thought. He didn’t wait for an answer. He tugged her back onto her feet, shoving her before him as he marched in a long ground-eating stride. His heels thumped on the carpeted deck.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The grueling march continued through several broad corridors and ended with a sharp left turn into a small very plain chamber walled in black and carpeted in dark blood-red. The compartment was commanded by a broad black desk on the immediate left and a huge, nearly floor-to-ceiling window against the facing wall, showing space as it streamed by at jump speed. The door cycled closed behind them.

  Khan unsnapped the leash and pushed her toward the desk. He tugged out the desk chair and shoved her into it. He slapped both palms on the desk’s surface. A keyboard formed from the desk’s surface and three holographic displays bloomed into being. A second keyboard, completely holographic, appeared and lifted to sit under his palms.

  Khan’s fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. “You will give me a copy of this spectral code of yours. Now.”

  “Yes, ‘Syr.” Fallon folded her arms and raised a brow at him. “I need a direct access jack and a rather specific Imperial interface script editor to make you that copy. ‘Syr.”

  Khan curled his lip, showing a long tooth. “Name your program.”

  She did.

  Khan tapped across his floating keyboard. The program appeared on the main display before her.

  Fallon blinked. Great Maker, he not only had the program she needed, his version was newer than hers. She winced. Newer than hers had been. Everything she’d owned was lost back on Dyson’s.

  Khan leaned over the edge of the desk by her right knee, opened a drawer that hadn’t been there before, and wasn’t there again after he pushed it closed.

  Fallon blew a strand of hair from her nose. He would have a mimetic desk.

  Khan uncoiled a direct data jack, plugged one end into a port that appeared under his palm and then held the other end out to her. “Begin.”

  Fallon set the jack into the back of her skull and began writing code. Her spectral code activated, and the music that ran it began to play.

  Khan frowned. “Do I hear music?”

  Fallon nodded, watching as the code on the holographic display began to shift into harmonious patterns. “I have a problem with math. Music is mathematically precise so I use it to memorize key phrases of coding.”

  Khan frowned at his display. That explains the stylistic flavor of her coding.

  Fallon glanced at Khan, guessing that he’d meant his comment to be private. Apparently the collar-induced telepathy went both ways.

  Fallon felt her program shift, and the text written before her abruptly changed composition. Her programming still saw it, but it no longer existed as light.

  Khan frowned. “What happened?”

  Fallon frowned at her display. “I’m running it to check for flaws, ‘Syr.”

  Khan stared at her. “There is nothing on my display.”

  Fallon smiled tightly. “It’s there, you just can’t see it. You have to have the programming code downloaded to perceive it.” Her internal program scan ended. It was functional. She turned to Khan. “It’s ready, ‘Syr.”

  “Burn a copy.”

  Fallon shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. You can’t save it the way you can normal programs. What it’s written in disintegrates. If you want it, I have to upload it to your internal array and activate it there. We need to tandem link.”

  Khan frowned and his gaze chilled. “A direct mind-to-mind activation?”

  Fallon held his gaze and nodded. She could feel through their telepathic connection exactly how not pleased he was to hear this. “If you want this program, the only one who can give it to you, and activate it, is me.”

  Khan walked away to stare out the window at streaming space.

  Fallon crossed one knee over the other. Either he trusted her or he didn’t. If he didn’t trust her enough to go into his mind, install and then activate the code, that was perfectly fine with her. Without an active code, he couldn’t see hers -- and erase her programs.

  Any other programs could be replaced with a bit of hacking, but not this one. If he took her code, she would not be able to replace it without going back to Dyson’s for Peter’s help. She could rewrite it, but she couldn’t activate it. Peter was the only other one with an active spectral code.

  She was betting he didn’t trust her enough to let her set the code.

  Khan clasped his hands behind him and his head lifted. “Have you lied to me in any way?”

  Fallon frowned. “About what?” She cleared her throat. “‘Syr.”

  Khan turned to face her. His mouth was tight and his entire body radiated tension. “About anything.”

  Fallon stared down at her right hand, thinking, and frowned. Had she? She’d omitted a few things, absolutely, but she couldn’t recall a single thing that she’d lied about. She looked up. “Not that I can think of. No, ‘Syr.”

  Khan nodded. “Very well, then.” He walked around the desk, opened another drawer that hadn’t been there, closed it, and it wasn’t there again. He stood over her and held out a tandem jack. “Do it.”

  Fallon blinked. He was trusting her? “All right.” Her fingers danced across her keyboard. “The code is ready for upload.” She took the tandem jack and swallowed. The probe had exposed some of her -- this would expose all of her.

  Trust. He trusted her. She was going to have to trust him, too.

  She got up out of the chair. “Please, have a seat.”

  Khan frowned slightly. “Will it hurt?”

  Fallon bit back a smile. She’d asked him that about the probe. “Actually, no, but it does knock you off balance when it’s first activated.”

  Khan tugged at his robes and sat.

  Fallon affixed the tandem link and readied the upload. She looked over at him. “Ready?”

  He flashed a brief smile. “I am.”

  Fallon hit the mark key. “Beginning upload.” She watched the code proceed down the page. “Nearly done.”

  “I don’t feel a thing.” Khan’s voice was steady, but Fallon was pretty sure she could smell nervous sweat coming from him.

  She smiled but kept her eyes on the screen. “You’re not going to, your mind can’t see it yet.”

  “How many people have this code?”

  “I do, and Peter, though I’m sure Peter’s given the code to someone else, by now.” Fallon tapped the keyboard and made an adjustment. “And you.” She looked at Khan. “Ready to activate?”

  Khan swallowed and took a breath. “Do me.”

  Fallon blinked, then reached in and touched his code. The strains of the orchestral piece that held the activation key pulsed from her mind directly into his.

  He frowned. “Music again?”

  Fallon didn’t answer. She turned to the display. The code shifted, connected, and came into harmony. It was active.

  “Oh ...” Khan sighed. He leaned back in the chair with his eyes closed.
His eyes snapped open and he jerked forward, focusing on the display screen. His eyes narrowed. “I can see it.”

  Fallon swallowed. Oh, yes, he could.

  His brow rose. “Can I disappear the way you did?”

  Fallon glanced at the window of rushing stars and lifted her hands to remove the jack in her data port. “You said you wanted a copy, ‘Syr.” She took a deep breath. “You can do everything I can, and you can tell if someone has that program active in their system.”

  “How?”

  Fallon lifted her shoulder just a little. “They tend to ... resonate, like tuning crystals.”

  Khan removed the jack from his skull. “Resonate ... I see.” He turned to her. “How do I work it?”

  “When you sleep, it plays a kind of how-to file. When you wake up, you can use it.”

  Khan frowned. “I dream it?”

  “It was the easiest way to do a tutorial, ‘Syr.” She’d been a kid at the time. Dream-flight had been the only way to do a tutorial.

  Khan pursed his lips. “And it cannot be tampered with, because no one can see it?”

  Fallon nodded. “Other codes can’t detect it, because the languages are made of opposite compositions.”

  Khan shook his head. “How did you come up with this to begin with?”

  Fallon looked at her toes. “I had a really vivid dream, ‘Syr.” Inspired by one too many retellings of Peter’s stories of flying children and a sparkling gold pixie, no doubt ...

  “A dream?”

  Fallon nodded. “I was eleven at the time.”

  Khan turned the chair to look at her. “You wrote this when you were eleven? ”

  Fallon looked up and smiled. “No, ‘Syr. I had the dream at eleven. I actually made it when I was fourteen.” Her smiled faded. “I was seventeen before it could do everything it does now.” She hadn’t needed to be completely invisible until she started breaking into sentient ships.

  Khan rose from his chair in a rustle of black and red silk robes and set his palm on the broad black desk. The holographic displays winked out and the keyboard she had just used was absorbed back into the desktop. His eyes narrowed and a smile curved his mouth. “Are you ready for your whipping?”