“I couldn’t let you go with the way we left things,” Ayan said. “Well, the way I left them.” Her vacsuit was black, without the heavy encounter armour she wore earlier. There was no rank marked; if she activated her headgear she'd be indistinguishable from most of the crew outside.
“I was going to call you,” Jake said. “The next thing I was going to do.”
“I’m here now,” Ayan said, “and I’m so sorry.”
Jake could see the tears welling up. He crossed the short distance between them, and took her into his arms as she rose to her feet. By the time she rested her head on his chest she’d broken down completely. His instinct was to hold her tightly, but he held back. He could feel the new muscles in his arms cramping as he focused on fine motor control. Ayan had never felt so small, or so delicate.
He let her cry for so long he had to check the time by looking at a display behind her without letting on. He felt some of her grief, but the Warlord was getting set for departure. “Laura was a friend to me too, the first one from the old crew to accept me,” Jake said. “She was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”
“What am I going to do?” Ayan asked, looking up at him. “I never let on, but she talked me through so much. She was always there, and I never told her how important she was.”
“She knew,” Jake said. “Laura was smart enough to know exactly how much you loved her.” Telling Ayan that brought Jake’s grief out into the open, and he was surprised to find a tear escape and roll down into Ayan’s upturned face.
“She was so brilliant,” Ayan said, her lip quivering. “One of a kind. Can’t help but wish she let herself be scanned.”
“The best of us don’t have time to worry about making backups,” Jake said. “And that she was.”
Ayan’s hands squeezed the fabric of the front of his vacsuit and she cried into his chest for a few more minutes before calming down. “Crying like a child,” she said as he carefully stroked her back. “Since I came back I haven’t been able to get a grip on emotions like I used to. ‘Fraid you’ve taken some of that on the nose.”
“It’s entertaining,” Jake said through a smile. “I never know what’s going to come out of you next.”
She pounded his chest weakly.
“See?” he said.
Ayan laughed and took a step back, wiping tears away. “I’ve also come here because I know we’re going to be separated for a while, and I’m thinking that might be good. It think it’s time for us to be professional about all this.”
Jake didn’t like where the conversation was going. “Professional,” he repeated.
“There’s a time for relations, and it’s just so hard to try right now. I can’t focus on what’s important while I’m trying to make personal time when there’s none. I know you’re thinking about other things too, while I’m in your arms you’re checking your comm. That’s not the way we should be, Jake. We’re distracted from each other and our duties, it’s dangerous.”
“It sounds like you’re convincing yourself as much as you’re trying to tell me,” Jake replied. “Where is this coming from?”
“My best friend just died, things are going on here, and people depend on me. I need clarity,” Ayan said.
Jake watched her, on the verge of tears, and tried to hold his frustration in check. “Distance from me will give you that,” Jake said. “That’ll solve your problem?”
“I hope there’s time later,” Ayan said. “But I need space now. You do too. I know it, especially after you checked-“
“I have a ship readying for lift-off, sometimes-“
“It can’t be helped, yes, but still,” Ayan said. “Just give me the space.”
“It’s yours,” Jake replied. “Maybe you’re right. We’re keeping my officers from being on the bridge, I’m sure.”
Ayan fixed him with a hurt expression, and he wanted to cross the short space between them to reverse any damage he’d done. Pride and frustration prevented it.
“I do want to take time when there is some, Jake,” she said quietly. “But we have to be professional now. I’m sorry if this hurts, it’s not easy for me either.”
“I’m fine, you’re right,” Jake said.
“Be careful, Jacob. I do need you back here whole.” There was a seriousness in what she said that made him wonder for a moment, but he let it pass. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Take care of yourself, take the time.”
Agameg entered the bridge behind them and stopped. "Commander Rice? I didn't know you were joining us, welcome aboard," he offered. The fine cilia along his cheeks and soft lower jaws rippled and changed colours from green to light brown to yellow.
"Sorry, I'm not staying aboard. I wish I were though,” she said, sniffling and shaking her head. “It would be nice to escape.”
Jake and Ayan couldn’t help but notice as Agameg's face turned pale, nearly white, and his large green eyes went wide. "Oh, you were saying farewell, I'm so sorry. I'll return later."
"No, I'm stealing time,” Ayan said. “Don't let me get in your way. Oz gave me something he retrieved from the Triton," she said, returning her attention to Jake. From a satchel she retrieved a small transparesteel box with a glass inside. Inscribed on the black base was 'A Drink With Jonas.' “I thought it would be perfect for your quarters.”
"I thought that was lost," he muttered in a hushed tone. Jacob accepted it and turned it around, looking at all sides. The memory of sitting down next to his predecessor, the nearest thing he had to a father, in the Pilot's Den aboard the Triton came flooding back. It was impossible to avoid remembering what happened next when Regent Galactic activated a destruct device hidden in the first Wheeler, who clung to Jonas so he wouldn't die alone. He did his best to put the lingering anger and grief aside. "Thank you."
Agameg was concentrating very hard on checking the reactor readouts and ignoring what was happening a couple of metres away.
“Thank Oz,” she replied. “Stay safe.”
He watched her walk away, unable to shake the nagging feeling that he was missing something important.
“If you don’t mind me saying, Sir,” Agameg said. “She seems extraordinarily stressed.”
“She just lost her best friend,” Jake replied, starting for the engineering station behind his captain’s seat. “Sometimes people push instead of pull people closer when they feel alone.”
“I’ve been around humans long enough to know there is something different going on, more than loss.” Agameg observed him for a moment before saying; “I thought you should know.”
“Thank you, Agameg,” Jake said. “We’ll hurry back. We’ll sort this out.”
Chapter 37
Launch
Whirling dust encouraged the last of the people caught out in the open on the landing slips to get behind a closed door or up on a high, flat space. Ayan and fifty eight others watched from atop the Clever Dream as the Warlord hovered carefully through the hangar doors. Hundreds more watched from the tops of large cargo containers and emergency shelters.
It was as if the Samson’s pocked, rough outer hull had been shed, revealing a sleek, dark hull beneath. Sensor, emitter, and collector fins ran across the front like dark teeth, and down sections of the length like razor fins. To Ayan, the new shape made the ship look more like a predator crouched low, ready to pounce and devour. The four engine pods stretched out behind the ship on extendable reinforced arms that would stretch out in four directions when they were in proper flight. Old-fashioned hover engines built into extra armoured buffer zones of the hull kept the ship aloft while it was flying too low to use its main engines. Most of the new hardware on the vessel was used or recovered from nearby wreck yards, but no one could tell from the outside. Twenty-eight thick barrels lined the bottom of the ship in two rows near the sides. Five turrets were built in, more would be added, and there were other weapons hidden or incomplete beneath the emitter fins.
“Man, I wish I could be there when they park
next to the sun and flip the switch,” someone nearby said.
“Why?” asked Jenny Machad.
“You think that’s the way it’s supposed to look? They’re going to let the ergranian steel hull absorb radiation from the sun and, if everything goes right, a lot of those parts will be flush. Those barrels will look like internal mooring mounts. The fins will keep extending, of course, but all the more delicate exposed stuff will get covered, like the mounting points on the turrets.”
“Wow,” Jenny replied. She turned to the technician and offered her hand. “I’m Jenny.”
“Sergeant Jenny, looking at your rank,” the other replied. “I’m Tara. Just a machinist.”
Ayan took a moment to glance across their large settlement. Hundreds of people in sealed vacsuits watched the Samson from atop shipping containers and other vessels. Beyond their own perimeter other people were taking notice as well. They were far enough from the whirling dust to stand out in the open and watch the grey-hulled ship slowly manoeuvre out of the hangar.
Most of the on-looking technicians had done work on the Warlord but remained behind to start shifts on other ships. “I can’t believe we finished it,” she overheard Tara say on proximity radio.
“I know. I only worked on it for a month, but it felt like three. Where are you working next?” asked one of the nearby machinists. They were on her left, while Oz was on Ayan’s right.
“The Skimmer.”
“Me too,” he replied. “They say it’ll take a week to finish work on her. I bet we’ll be done in four days. I wonder if they’ll retrofit her with a hull like that after.”
“Nope, that’s about as far as that ergranian stuff will stretch beyond putting ingots in a nutrient bath. It’ll take a while to purify another seed batch,” said a worker Ayan knew as Galie Aulm, an issyrian who joined the Triton encampment a few days after they arrived in Port Rush.
“There’s a lot of Laura in that ship,” Jason said from behind. Victor moved so he’d have room to stand beside her and he stepped into place. “There’s a lot of you both, between her work on the emitter systems and you working on the hull.”
“There’s a lot of her everywhere,” Ayan said. “She built the shield over our heads, made repairs on the Clever Dream with me, it goes on and on.”
“That’ll recede,” Jason said. “We’ll move on, parts will be swapped out as they age, I’ll lose her things somewhere along the way.”
“We die twice,” Liam Grady said. “When our bodies stop working, and then when we are forgotten. Laura was an impressive woman. I’ve never heard anyone speak ill of her, and people speak of her often. She’ll be alive for a very long time.”
Ayan looked to Liam Grady and nearly kicked the champagne bottle off the edge of the Clever Dream. Victor caught it by the top and handed it to Ayan. “That would have been bad,” he said.
“I’m guessing that would have been unlucky,” Ayan said, wrapping the bottle in her arms. She was blushing at the near blunder, and happy she wasn’t the only one laughing, even if it was nervous laughter.
“Not to mention expensive,” Jason said. “We paid twelve hundred GC for that, it might be the last properly made bottle on this moon.”
“I’m going to cover that,” Ayan said, looking down at the foil-wrapped top of the bottle. “I have pay I’m not spending.”
The ship slowed to hover in front of her. It began to turn, slowly drifting closer and closer. Liam Grady moved so he could squeeze between her and Jenny, who made room. “I’ll hang on to you while you smash that. Have you thought of a dedication?”
“I was going to use the Freeground March,” Ayan replied. “It’s tradition.” She thought a moment and said, “It’s their tradition.”
All at once, the image she was presenting and the meaning the upcoming moment could take was apparent to her. The visions given to her by Roman and the Victory Machine left her with the impression that she played a major role in building the society she saw her children in. She tried to picture that conjured moment, when she faced both her children on the day of her sixteen-year-old son’s departure.
She still couldn’t recall where Jacob Valent was, but it didn’t matter. Ayan couldn’t get the face of her yet-to-be son out of her mind. The memory of the dress she was wearing, the families in the background saying farewell to their young sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters was clearer to her than it was at first, too. There was so much in that vision, so many good things she wanted to cling to.
The Warlord would be the first ship launched in whatever society would grow out of the moments she was living, and she wouldn’t have it look like a funeral. She summoned the vacsuit outfit menu and quickly selected the dress that looked like the one in her vision of the future. It was white with hints of yellow, cut to modestly suggest her best features, and fit for comfort. Her black vacsuit shifted and changed colour until it matched the dress on her display. The mid-shin length, loose skirt was whipped up to her knees by the wind, but the vacsuit fabric didn’t allow it to go up any further. The wind calmed and she saw almost everyone who wasn’t on security duty hurriedly changing their outfits to dresses, suits, and several switched to loose-fitting clothing that looked like ancient pirate wear. It became a theme, and by the time the Warlord was looming within reach, Ayan was all smiles.
“Do you remember any poetry from when you were younger?” Liam asked, remaining in his robes. He was the only one that came dressed for the occasion already.
Ayan already had something in mind by the time he finished speaking. She called it up on her comm unit and projected it onto the hull of the Warlord. “Written by King Harold the Fourth,” she read. Her reflection mixed with the poem projected onto the hull. She looked serious, and much younger than she expected. It was evident that she had been crying.
Ayan cleared her throat and read the poem, looking from bright red letters to the reflections of everyone standing at her sides on the Clever Dream.
“Go on, young soldier,
to battle, to war.
Stand fast, young sailor,
by the barrel, by rail.
Live long in honour,
we love you absently.
We build anew now,
for you in your peace.
Go on, young soldier,
until your fight is done.
Stand fast, young sailor,
until your sea is calm.”
“May this ship protect her crew. We ask that the sailors of old watch over her and all aboard.” Ayan hefted the bottle then brought it up above her head, grasping it by the neck. Jenny and Liam gripped the back of her dress at the waist, beneath the scooped back. “Oh please break on the first try,” she said under her breath to the mirth of the people standing nearby. “I christen thee: Warlord.”
With all her strength, she smashed the bottle against the side of the ship, and it exploded in a hail of champagne and glass. Her vacsuit instantaneously covered her the front of her body, resuming its previous shape after all the debris was deflected. Cheering and applause rippled across the settlement. Everyone who was watching had a view, thanks to a few people who were transmitting it all to the Stellarnet, something that didn’t even cross her mind thanks to her preoccupation.
The Warlord started slowly drifting away and Ayan stepped back, regaining sure footing. “Thank you,” she said to Jenny, who was still holding the back of her dress.
She released her grip. “That was beautiful,” she said.
“My Aunt taught me about the British’s last days on Earth, when they were still at war. It’s from the last king born there,” she replied. Liam Grady’s hand stopped clenching her dress, but his open palm moved up her back, in a familiar, comforting gesture. Ayan didn’t stop him. His hand was warm, gentle, and welcome.
* * *
It took Jake a moment to tear his attention away from the two dimensional image in front of his command seat. Ayan was looking towards the sky, watching the Warlord depart. Liam Grady was
right beside her, his hand stroking her back. “I don’t have time for this,” he said finally.
The bridge was fully manned, with Finn on the engineering console and Ashley at the helm with her new navigator, Clara Ramone. Kadri, formerly from the Palamo, manned communications, Frost sat at the primary tactical station, and several other crewmembers watched operations or temporary screens that were set up to monitor extra systems. Stephanie sat at the main operations console right beside Jake, a new seat that was the same height as the captain’s chair.
“Okay, this is taking some getting used to,” she whispered. “These old displays are easier on the eyes, though.” The two dimensional screens were projections, like holograms, but they could be set so only the intended user could see them.
“They came cheap,” Jake said.
“Aye, but they’re still in use on most battleships where I come from,” Frost said. “Simpler tech, harder to break, easy to fix.”
“I believe it.”
Jake looked to the main display projected against the front of the new bridge and watched as the four main engines spread out and moved forward, pointing in four directions around the ship. They took over for the smaller support engines along the bottom of the ship seamlessly as they made their way into orbit. The blue sky turned black, and thousands of lights belonging to just as many ships came into view. A notification came up on his screen telling him that the Warlord had clearance to approach the sun. “How are the controls, Ashley?”
“Smooth, responsive,” Ashley said. “The mind-wire is nice too, no more pedals.”
“Good. Don’t ignore the foot controls, though. Just because we were able to adapt the neural listening control from an Uriel doesn’t mean it’s one hundred percent yet,” Jake replied.
“Aye, Captain.”
“How do you feel about doing the solar roll-over for real?” Jake asked.
“Can’t wait,” Ashley replied. “That was the dullest simulation I’ve ever run, and I ran it five times.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework Page 36