Black Box

by Ivan Turner

  He entered the room quietly and without her notice and waited in silence, just watching her work, trying to gain control of his frustration. Failing. He didn’t know what she was doing. There were no patients. Maybe she was taking inventory.

  Like all of the other rooms on the Valor, the infirmary was small. There were just two beds. Anyone who needed to recuperate from an injury would do so in his or her own bunk unless the injury was particularly severe. Along the far wall were a number of cabinets which Beckett knew held medical instruments and drugs. He had inspected the whole thing himself before disembarking, but that was a formality that he felt was a waste of time. He didn’t know what the majority of the stuff was and had had to rely on Cabrera’s word anyway. On his right was a bench on which the doctor was currently working. It ended partway along the wall where there was a doorway. Beyond that doorway was a medical lab but it was ill equipped, used primarily for the testing of toxins and possibly diseases. No one was using that lab to cure cancer.

  Beckett cleared his throat.

  Startled, Cabrera turned, almost dropping a glass beaker.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” she said.

  He grunted in reply, wanting to say something clever. This was no time for pleasantries, though.

  “Did you treat Rodrigo’s wounds?”

  Cabrera shook her head. “It was Soames.”

  Belinda Soames was a medical technician that had just been assigned to the Valor. She had filled the empty spot on the medical roster that had been made when Paul Royce had been transferred off ship.

  “What did you hear?”

  Cabrera looked puzzled. “Burn wounds. The shoulder wound was…”

  Beckett shook his head. “What did you hear about me?”

  She went silent, cold. He could tell that she understood him, but her lips thinned out around her mouth and the color left them.

  “You tell me, Samantha,” he said, his voice raised.

  “I don’t know anything, Captain.”

  His face twisted and he stepped close to her. “Don’t you lie to me. Do you think I’m fucking around with you?”

  She began to tremble a bit, fought to control it. “Nothing but rumors, Ted. Nothing you probably haven’t heard yourself.”

  “Tell me,” he insisted.

  “Paul was my mentor for a long time. Kind of like you and Rodrigo.” She meant Paul Royce, the previous medical officer on board the Valor. “But he was paranoid. He was surly and anti-social, which is what landed him on this ship in the first place. He’s spent his whole career waiting for the other shoe to drop. When they transferred him off of the Valor, he was sure that it finally had.”

  “He didn’t ask for that transfer?”

  She shook her head. “Believe it or not, he liked it here. They sent him over to the Noble without any explanation. But Paul knows a few people and he did a little digging. It’s not him they’re after. It’s you.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Captain. The Admiralty.”

  “So how do they plan to get rid of me?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how much of it is true. But they transferred two of the Force’s biggest yes men onto your boat as well as Admiral Tedesco’s daughter.”

  Shaking his head, Beckett started to laugh. It was all becoming so clear. “It’s all a farce. Hardy was right.”

  “Sir?”

  He looked at her. “Gear up, doctor. We’re going off ship.”

  She looked suddenly stricken, but he didn’t seem to notice. He completed his instructions, giving her twenty minutes to meet him at the airlock, and left the infirmary.

  Drafting the Team

  “Are you all right?” Dorian asked.

  Beckett nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  It was a rare occasion indeed that Beckett came to visit his executive officer in her cabin, the cabin she shared with Samantha Cabrera. The cabin itself was akin to a walk-in closet. It was slightly bigger than Beckett’s, with two fold-out bunks and a single dressing area. There was little room for personal affects. Samantha had a few, some pictures of family tacked up on the side of her bunk. She had made a nightstand out of a tiny footlocker. It was pushed up against the wall now, the things on top fallen over. Beckett noticed an antique paperback book. The Color Purple. He had never heard of it, wondered if it was the kind of book he would enjoy.

  “You don’t look fine,” Dorian said to him, noting that he was paying more attention to Cabrera’s stuff. “Did you come to see me or Samantha?”

  He looked up, surprised a little. “You, actually.” Suddenly, he felt squeezed in. If Hardy was right and there was some mysterious conspiracy then Beckett couldn’t know who was involved. If Rodrigo could turn against him, then anyone could. How efficient was it for him to believe that Dorian was on his side because she looked like she had no idea what he was going to say?

  “Allison, I need a favor.”

  The word favor was out of context coming from a superior officer. Subordinates asked for favors. Peers asked for favors. Superiors issued orders. Did he need her to do his laundry?

  He continued. “I’m going to be going off ship.”

  “Do you want me to put together an expedition roster for you?” That was a veiled question. Normally, it was Hardy’s job to put together the roster. Since it was an off-the-record expedition, it was actually Beckett’s job. Dorian just wanted more information. Truth to tell, Beckett would never have guessed that she’d be that curious.

  He shook his head. “That’s not it.”

  “What is it then?”

  He hesitated, bad for a captain, unprecedented for Captain Beckett. “Only two people on board will know that we’ve gone.”

  “Who’s the other person?” she asked, betraying no surprise.

  “Chief Hardy. If anything should happen, he’s the only person you can confer with openly.”

  This surprised her. She had expected it would be Rodrigo, but, of course, Rodrigo would be included in the expedition. “When will you be going?”

  “Immediately.”

  She nodded. “You only have about an hour and a half of daylight, you know.”

  “It’ll be enough.”

  “For what?”

  He started to answer, checked himself. It was too much information to give with too little information in possession. If Dorian was as uninformed as she appeared, her lack of knowledge would not prevent her from doing her job. If she was in on the conspiracy, if in fact a conspiracy even existed, then let her keep guessing.

  “I’m due in Control in about ten minutes,” he said. “I’ll need you to take that shift.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  And he left the room.

  With only ninety minutes of daylight, Beckett didn’t have time to waste. Not knowing who to trust was going to force him to keep the number of expedition participants low. He was planning on taking Cabrera and Bonamo only. Inviting Cabrera, if you could call it an invitation, had happened in the heat of the moment, but he didn’t regret it. Maybe there wasn’t any more she could tell him. Either way, he wanted her close. Next, he needed to find out where Bonamo was. Hardy always had the current duty roster on his reader and Hardy always kept his whereabouts known to the captain.

  “Bonamo’s off duty,” Hardy confirmed. “He’s either in the barracks or in the toilet because he doesn’t eat at this time and the rest of the squad seems to be giving him the cold shoulder.”

  “Do they know about his report?”

  Hardy shook his head. “Not likely. Those reports are sealed. Captain, department head, and Crew Chief. Do you really think Boone took the time to look it over?”

  At the moment, Beckett didn’t think he could trust Boone to be his usual lazy and incompetent self. His behavior had been so different on this voyage that Beckett could hardly discount him as being involved in the conspiracy. Even if Boone hadn’t looked at the reports, that didn’t keep Bonamo s
afe. Once they got home, the Admiralty would have a look at them and the young soldier would be a hero or a pariah.

  “You need to take one more soldier with you,” the Chief continued.

  “They’re all under Rodrigo’s command.”

  “Technically, they’re under Boone’s command. Regardless of who fired first, though, there’s still some nut out there with a laser gun. Bonamo just won’t cut it.”

  “Maybe I’ll take Boone, then.”

  Hardy shook his head. “I don’t recommend it. Boone doesn’t like you. He doesn’t like Rodrigo either but I wouldn’t put it past him to side with the Admiralty over you.”

  Beckett thought about it. He knew all of his crew by name and by reputation and many of the older ones personally. He didn’t care for MacDonald. Alraune was the best shot, but she was both unpredictable and an asshole. Knudson shared the latter two qualities without bothering to have anything close to the first. That was the trouble with Beckett’s crew. Rookies and bastards.

  “Burbank,” Hardy said when he was sure that Beckett was having trouble with the decision.

  The captain made a face. “Isn’t she a little too anxious?”

  “And green,” Hardy agreed. “This is her first flight and she’s been bumping into herself. But I started tracking her as soon as we made port and I’ve been keeping an eye on her throughout the duration of the flight. Limited contact with the others. She’s friendly with Malouf and has some sort of affection for Klon.” Malouf was another navigator with a lot of years of service. Klon was a deck hand, had no rank and never would. He was more of a grizzly old codger than Hardy. “She’s clean and that’s what we’re looking for.”

  “Fine,” Beckett agreed. “Where is she?”

  Hardy smiled an ugly smile. “She’s suited up and waiting by the airlock.”

  Retracing the Steps

  Bonamo was fast asleep and Cabrera had to be replaced by Soames so, all in all, they didn’t get under way until another twenty minutes had gone by. Beckett wasn’t quite sure how he was going to get past the soldier on duty at the air lock, but that turned out to be no problem since the soldier on duty was Burbank, just as Hardy had promised. Taking her with him meant no guard, but Beckett was sure that Hardy would have that covered as well.

  The shadows were lengthening even as they started off through the jungle. For all but Bonamo, this was their first time outside the ship. No matter how many times a person visits another planet, he can always tell that it’s just not home. Even for a veteran such as Beckett, his senses became heightened and he became aware of sounds and smells that he took for granted in familiar surroundings. Though the great leafed plants could be equated to giant ferns, they were not ferns and they all noticed the stringy blue veins running through the leaves.

  Beckett kept them moving at an accelerated pace, well aware of his battle with the clock. He was relying on the satellite recordings stored on his reader for the general route and would later turn to Bonamo for specific locations.

  The jungle grew up around them like an overly green blanket. Even the tree trunks were more green than brown. The bark was mostly covered in moss, but the exposed areas seemed to have a soft wet look to them too. Bonamo confirmed that they were following the general route taken by the first expedition. Beckett kept his eyes on his reader. Cabrera looked at the fauna and became excited every time she caught a glimpse of a native animal. It seemed to her that symmetry was definitely the exception rather than the rule. In the meantime, the two foot soldiers kept their eyes everywhere.

  “Sir?”

  Beckett looked up at Burbank’s summons. She indicated a spot a few feet to their left. The grass and fernlike bushes surrounding the trees had been scorched. A short pole stood sticking out of the ground. It was supposed to have a head with an antenna but the head had been blown off and the jutting wires were blackened.

  “What…is that a communications relay?” Cabrera asked.

  It was. It was the first one Bonamo had hammered in. It also explained why communications had gone out so abruptly. Approaching it cautiously, Beckett studied the scene. Without a full forensics examination there wasn’t much that he could determine. The only prints around the relay were Bonamo’s own. Even Beckett could tell the shape and pattern of a UESF standard issue boot. The relay itself was still firmly hammered in so it was clear that nothing had hit it. So what had caused it to combust?

  “A short circuit could cause damage internally,” Burbank suggested.

  Damage was one thing, but the relay was destroyed.

  “Sabotage?” Bonamo asked.

  Beckett nodded. That’s just what he’d been thinking. He did not like the direction in which this investigation was taking him.

  “Let’s move on.”

  They shortly reached the spot where the two groups had split and the young foot soldier stood quietly for a few moments while he got his bearings.

  “I’m trying to remember,” he said by way of explanation. “We kind of changed positions during the argument.”

  “What argument?” Beckett said shortly. He was unaware of an argument.

  Bonamo reddened. “Oh, well, the sergeant first wanted to go off alone. She was pretty adamant about it, but the lieutenant disagreed.”

  Appearing to dismiss the new information, Beckett motioned impatiently for Bonamo to lead them on. “I want to see the spot where Cummings was shot.”

  Bonamo looked around again for a minute, and then pointed. “It’s over that way. It’s not that far.”

  They moved on, Bonamo stopping briefly in an effort the get his bearings. He was going strictly based on memory, having no skill at tracking. Eventually, though, they reached the spot and he stood aside so Beckett could take it in.

  Where they were was a small and narrow clearing between the trees. There was enough room for two or three people to stand abreast but it was long enough to space them out front to back. The trees there looked like the trees everywhere else, except for the far side of the clearing where the soil and plants had been trampled and pushed aside, presumably victims of Rodrigo’s charge. Close to the spot where they entered, there was a patch of ash and dried blood. That was where Cummings had died. Beckett checked the satellite recording to try and get a fix on Rodrigo’s position. He moved over to where Cummings would have been standing when the beam hit him. He was hit full in the chest so it would have had to come from nearby with the sniper likely on the ground. Finding the sniper’s location could be important, but he didn’t want anyone wandering around the site until he had finished his own preliminary investigation. Behind him, the other three stood and watched.

  Slowly, Beckett drew his sidearm and aimed into the jungle ahead of him.

  Burbank tensed, but he put a hand out. “I’m just trying to recreate the scene.”

  Cummings could have pivoted on the spot, but that would be a condition they would only have to consider if the obvious didn’t pan out. It seemed likely that he’d fired into the area through which Rodrigo had eventually pursued the sniper. There were multiple boot prints, but they weren’t clear. Beckett was finding it increasingly difficult to believe that Cummings had panicked and fired at nothing.

  “Bonamo, go into those trees and see if you can find Cummings’ slug.”

  The young man went without hesitation, but stopped just before the tree line, something on his right side attracting his attention. Beckett was involved in another direction and didn’t notice the soldier bend and pick up what looked like a rounded piece of plastic. The plastic was mangled and there were the remnants of circuitry hanging off one side.

  “What’s that, Mr. Bonamo?” asked Cabrera, stepping forward. Burbank, left alone, looked desperately for something to do. She moved off toward the break in the trees where the sergeant had gone crashing through, thinking to investigate it while Bonamo was involved with something else.

  “I think it’s Sergeant Rodrigo’s shoulder pad,” he answered, looking carefully at the damage.
By now, Beckett was looking up at him and waiting for a conclusion, but Bonamo didn’t notice. Switching on his flashlight, he moved to the tree nearest the spot of the fallen piece of armor and began to do a careful inspection of the bark. He looked higher and lower, scanning all the way down to the roots. “I’ve got some blood over here, sir.”

  The captain hurried over and allowed Bonamo to show him what he had discovered. Obviously, this was the place Rodrigo had been standing when she had been wounded. Her boot prints were everywhere. But the blood splatter indicated that she had been hit from behind. In addition, it didn’t take an expert to see that she hadn’t been in mid dive when she’d been hit, which contradicted her report.

  “Look at this, sir,” Bonamo said, handing over the shoulder pad.

  Beckett looked at it and knew the problem right away. “This is ballistics damage.”

  Bonamo nodded, taking back the pad and placing it on his own shoulder. Though he wasn’t Rodrigo’s height, nor was he standing in exactly the same spot, he was hoping to determine the ricochet pattern.

  “Samantha, did Soames pull a bullet out of Anabelle’s shoulder.”

  She shook her head, bewildered. “She reported an injury consistent with a laser burn.”

  Soames had lied on her report.

  “Found it,” Bonamo shouted. He pulled his knife from his belt and began digging into the soft bark of a nearby tree. In the four steps it took Beckett to reach him, he had already dug out the slug and was nodding to himself. “It’s definitely from Cummings’ gun, Captain.”