by Medron Pryde
“Good.” Malcolm chuckled and looked back out into the burning activity at the heart of the station. “So…we’re still on target for the end of the week?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat then and sighed. “Hopefully, even Hastings should be ready.”
Malcolm nodded. Hastings had been a problem since he found her, but it looked like the Peloran yard mechs had finally punched through the destroyer’s issues. Sometimes literally. And hopefully no new ones cropped up. Of course, he’d thought that before with Hastings. He turned back to Dawn, sucking in a deep breath. “Well, I suppose we should…”
Dawn shifted her head to the side, her eyes going out of focus as something else caught her attention. It only lasted half a second, and then her eyes came back to his, a worried look in them.
“What?” His question was simple and serious, all hints of the earlier joking gone.
She pursed her lips and sighed. “A courier just arrived with a message from Charles. It’s…not good.”
A chill ran down Malcolm’s back, and his eyes flicked over to scan the starships he’d assembled. The undeniable feeling of a shoe waiting to drop hovered over him, and worry intruded into the jubilation of mere moments ago. “Well then.” He licked his lips and turned back to Dawn, steeling himself for whatever bad news her words suggested. “I suppose I should see it.”
Dawn winced but nodded, and a holoform appeared next to Malcolm in the observation blister. Charles Edward Hurst was as old as Malcolm, in both reality and appearance. They’d grown up together, and Malcolm remembered both the boy and the man always wearing a dress suit, whether he was about to climb a tree in the Hurst family woods or conduct business negotiations in a downtown Philadelphia tower. In this recording though, he wore the standard service uniform of the Republic of Texas Marine Corps.
He knew his history, but the uniform looked odd to his Pennsylvanian eyes. East Coast militaries did not consider the cowboy hat proper headwear, for instance. Yes, the Canadian Mounties wore them. So did American Armored Cavalry troopers. And half of the western states and provinces from Old Mexico to the Northwest Territories included the ubiquitous Stetson in their uniform codes. Malcolm just couldn’t shake the feeling that a big black cowboy hat looked wrong on Charles. If the man had to join the military, why couldn’t he have joined a civilized branch, like the Pennsylvania Star Fleet?
His eyes flashed over to Dawn for a moment though, and he frowned as he considered her words again. Her sister asked her to help him. Malcolm remembered the day Dorothy smiled and told Charles just why she’d been born. To help him. Seeing Charles caught flatfooted and surprised to that degree had been a very good day for one Malcolm McDonnell. She’d known he joined the military to make contact with someone like her, to get help from someone like her. Would Dorothy have agreed to do that if Charles had stayed closer to home? And would she have asked Dawn to help one Malcolm McDonnell? Malcolm pondered that question and Dawn just smiled in return.
“Hello, Mal,” Charles’ recording said from the holofield, pulling his attention back to the old friend whose uniform marked him as anything but the scion of one of the richest families in all the worlds. “I am sending this message because I recently received information suggesting that my family has finally realized they are missing a rather large sum of money.” Charles winced. “They are understandably interested in finding out where exactly the money went, of course.”
Malcolm snorted. That was probably one of the more emphatic understatements he’d heard in his life. If Charles’ family had picked up on even a tithe of the funding Charles had diverted to the Wolfenheim Project, they would turn over entire star systems to find where it went. And hiding a ship the size of Wolfenheim was difficult.
“My information says they have not yet traced it to me, but assuming they do, a link between me and Wolfenheim will be obvious enough that even dear cousin Lenny could probably voice it without asking his mommy what to think.”
Malcolm laughed despite the gravity of the situation Charles was painting. Dear old Leonard had to be one of the biggest wastes of oxygen in the known universe, and Malcolm had often wondered how Lenny had enough brainpower to keep breathing. But Charles was right. If they ever did trace the missing money to Charles, even Lenny would think of Wolfenheim. Class One Colonization Packages were extremely rare.
“I have cutouts in place,” Charles continued to explain with a grim expression, “but I learned long ago to never underestimate the investigators my family can afford to hire. I have worked with them. I know,” Charles muttered with a dark laugh. “I would not count on your cover holding much longer. Unfortunately, word of this was delayed and I only just received it. I ordered the courier to expedite his trip to New Earth, but am concerned with the timeframe. If you can, launch before the end of January.”
Malcolm winced and looked at Dawn again. She nodded in understanding of the timeframe, and Malcolm’s gut filled with a sinking feeling.
“Any day after that is borrowed time, I’m afraid,” Charles said with a shake of his head. “Move fast, Mal. Time is running out.”
Malcolm looked at the calendar on the wall showing the current date. February 5, 2309. He glanced back to Dawn and saw her grim expression of agreement. If the Hurst family found out, he was running on borrowed a time. In fact, they could be on the way at this exact moment. Malcolm scowled at the perfectly lovely mental vision of warships heading to New Earth to look for him and shook his head. Charles’ father would just love to finally have a reason to do something rather permanent to one Malcolm McDonnell, eternal scourge of the Hurst family mansion in more youthful days.
And for one frozen moment that seemed to last for an eternity, Malcolm had no idea what to do.
Five years of planning and hard work. I always knew there was a chance that the people funding the Wolfenheim Project would realize they were funding it and demand their money back. I even planned for it. I just never expected to actually have to use those plans. And they picked a rather inconvenient time to get a clue. Years of planning distilled into days and hours of action, all the time wondering if I even had hours at all. It was a bloody hectic time.
II
Malcolm gazed out at the yard complex and Normandy, pieces of her still floating beside the ship. Ideas and plans flashed through Malcolm’s mind as he tried to come to terms that they had to leave right bloody now instead of by the end of the week. Normandy wasn’t ready. The colonists weren’t ready. They couldn’t leave. But they had to. He didn’t have a single plan to cover this.
He turned back to Dawn, part of him wanting to ask her if she had any ideas. But the stubborn streak that kept him from wanting to rely on anyone checked that inclination. He growled in annoyance and Dawn’s grey eyes widened in response. And then it clicked. There was a plan in place that could be beaten, abused, and tortured into the shape he needed.
Malcolm snorted, and felt the plan coming into place in his mind. “Get me to the shuttlebay,” he ordered, his voice far more steady than the nerves under it. But as he considered the plan more and more, he knew it could work.
Dawn stood still for a second, studying him very closely. He returned her look and she nodded in grim approval. “We’re two minutes from the nearest shuttlebay,” she said as she spun on her heals and stepped back into the corridor. A quick turn later, she disappeared down the passage at a far more rapid clip than the leisurely stroll they’d taken earlier.
Malcolm followed her around the corner, leaving the view of Normandy far behind, and immediately began to struggle to keep up with her avatar. “Order all ships to recall their crews from the surface,” he gasped between breaths. “And round people up if they don’t answer. We need everyone on the station yesterday.”
Dawn chuckled as she led him through the warren of corridors cut through the formerly Shang warships that made up the outer ring of the Peloran yard complex. “I’ll tell Captain Wyatt to do her best,” she intoned with a shrug. “But yesterday might b
e a bit hard,” she added with a turn of her head and a wink.
Then she turned into another rabbit run, and Malcolm had to grab a handrail to keep himself from skidding as he followed her. “And if Charles is right, yesterday might be too late, too,” Malcolm growled. The Peloran refits incorporated massive cybernetic control systems that removed the need for the large crews most Terran-built ships required, but if even a tithe of their crews were on liberty, there would be hundreds of men and women to round up. And they simply couldn’t sail with so many gone.
“Alan?” Malcolm nearly shouted, making certain that the station’s privacy filters would pass the words to its brain.
The station’s cyber flickered into existence beside Malcolm an instant later, long holographic legs matching Malcolm’s pace through the warrens of the former warship. Alan was one of the oldest cybers Malcolm had ever met, a member of the original Peloran Contact contingent. And unlike many cybers, he’d never changed his appearance to the more Terran standard that many had. He still looked unambiguously Peloran.
He was human, of course, like every other major alien race that made Contact, but unlike the short, nearly childlike, Shang, the Peloran averaged an impressive two meters in height. Alan was tall and graceful, with long limbs that would have given him longer reach in a knife fight if he weren’t a hologram. High cheekbones and a pronounced forehead shielded deep-set eyes from harsh light, while thick, straight eyebrows redirected rain, snow, or other elemental attacks, which would probably be of use to his physical avatar. An angular jaw cut hard, determined lines in his face, and long hair stretched down to his neck, covering the slightly elongated, pointed ears of a race literally designed to be super soldiers by their long-dead creators.
“Yes, Mal?” the cyber asked in perfect imitation of the calm voice that all Peloran must have practiced very carefully in order to replicate. Alan, of course, didn’t have to practice at all. It was part of his code, and Malcolm actually felt it calming his nerves as well. Which was probably good now that he thought about it. The ability to sound and act calm no matter how chaotic the battle was a valuable trait in any soldier. And being able to spread that calm by mere presence would be invaluable.
Malcolm sucked in a deep breath and willed the nerves away. “Did you read Charles’ message?” he asked after letting the breath go, eyes on Alan.
Alan nodded with a no-nonsense set to his jaw. “He copied it to me.”
“Good.” Malcolm followed Dawn around another corner, nearly bouncing off a bulkhead as he misjudged the width of the new corridor. He corrected, pushing off with one hand, and shot after her with his best ground-eating strides. “We need to expedite our launch window,” he said with a glance to the station cyber.
Alan shook his head as his hologram kept up with Malcolm with what appeared to be no effort at all. Of course, he was the brain of the station. He knew where everything was. “I will do my best,” Alan answered, but his eyes looked troubled. “My resources are stretched, though.”
Malcolm let out a breath as he almost reached Dawn before she made another turn. “Every resource we put into this project will be wasted if Charles’ family stops us,” he muttered, grabbed a handrail, and swung himself around the corner to find a hatch opening before him. He smiled as he recognized the shuttlebay and shot through the hatch after Dawn, with Alan in tow. Alan made displeased sounds beside him, but Charles only had eyes for the small shuttle waiting for him. “I’m serious, Alan. Charles put a lot of work into this. So did I. So did Dawn. So did you. It’d be a real shame if it all came to naught.”
“I agree,” Alan said, his voice filled with manifest unhappiness as Dawn disappeared into the shuttle. Malcolm slid to a stop at the foot of the ramp and turned to face the cyber. Alan looked out at the stars visible through the energy screen holding the air in the bay for a moment that must have been an eternity to his cybernetic mind. “Very well,” he finally said, shaking his head. “The Wolfenheim Project now has number one priority. I am reassigning resources now.”
“Thank you,” Malcolm said with a nod and darted onto the shuttle. He slid to a stop, looking at the double row of seats on either side of the main aisle running nearly the entire length of the shuttle. It was a passenger shuttle, identical to those filling Wolfenheim. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take your shuttle too,” he added to the holoform that had followed him in.
Alan chuckled, projecting wry amusement as the shuttle’s hatch began to close. “Of course you are.”
“Get up here and strap in!” Dawn ordered from the front of the ship.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Malcolm answered without hesitation and shot forward into the cockpit. A second later, he dropped into the copilot’s seat and started snapping the five-point harness in place to secure him against extreme acceleration.
“Better,” she said from the pilot’s seat, eyebrows raised as she considered his progress. Finally she turned to Alan, who was leaning into the cockpit with a far more deferential look. “Am I clear to launch?”
“Absolutely,” Alan answered with a smile. “Bring her back in one piece and I think I can even forget to charge you rental fees.”
“I don’t care what the other girls say,” Dawn said with a mischievous grin and placed her hands on the controls. “You’re a dear.” She flitted her fingers, and their shuttle streaked out of the bay and into space.
“Really?” Alan asked, a disappointed tone to his voice.
“Oops,” Dawn whispered, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth. She did a very good job of acting contrite when she wanted to. “Forget I said a thing.”
Alan aimed a doubtful look at her. “Right.”
Malcolm chuckled as the shuttle vibrated around them, but shook his head and got down to business. “How long before you can get us ready to launch?”
Alan licked his lips and shrugged as he got back to business. “Most of the ships are in finishing stages now. I can have them done today. Normandy is still open to space, but we should be able to button her up and launch by morning. Hastings will take longer.”
Malcolm fought hard not to wince at the mention of that ship. A part of him almost wished he hadn’t found her at all. Almost. “We may not have longer.”
“I know.” Alan sighed. “But we have had setbacks with her.”
Malcolm did wince this time. All of the warships he’d found for the mission were first generation gravtech, old enough that any modern navy had retired them decades ago. It had taken him years to find the handful he did, stored in mothballs or languishing in some planetary defense fleet. But Hastings was by far the worst of them. The problem was, where they were going, he was going to need every stray hull he’d found, which was why he’d paid far more than he should have to bring the old wreck here.
“Just…do what you can. Please.” Malcolm shook his head, not happy with the delay now that he knew Charles’ family knew something was up. He wanted to be out before they thought to look his way. Assuming they hadn’t already.
Alan smiled at him in understanding. “I will do everything I can,” the cyber answered, his tone serious. “Good luck, Mal.”
“Thanks,” Malcolm whispered and sucked in a long breath. “I think I’m gonna need it.”
Alan nodded again and his holoform flickered out of existence as the shuttle continued to accelerate away from the yard complex. Malcolm leaned back in his seat and looked at Dawn.
She smiled back at him. “Course laid in for New Earth. I even asked for a landing slot and a car.”
“Well then.” Malcolm chuckled at the fresh realization that sometimes she was better than he was at knowing what he’d need. He’d forgotten to think about the car. “I suppose we should get going.”
“By your command,” she intoned, ran her hands across the controls to swing the shuttle around towards New Earth, and then tapped one final command in. The shuttle’s main engines came to full power, kicking them forward and away from the station. The acceleration slammed him ba
ck in his seat as the inertial compensators fought to catch up with the drive power, and Malcolm forced himself to breathe. Dawn wasn’t worrying about fuel consumption, which considering the time constraints they were under now was a good thing. He could use a good, short trip.
Malcolm walked down the shuttle’s ramp, hearing her hull popping as she radiated heat from their hypersonic reentry. New Earth’s Landing Starport spread out around them, starships moving through the air above on nearly silent gravitic plating. Only minor bursts of flame from maneuvering thrusters could be seen as the ships approached or left the starport. A massive freighter landed on a nearby landing pad, settling down with a hydraulic hiss as her landing gear took the load. Beyond, a freighter clawed for space, and he wondered if it was another of the ships preparing to join the weekly convoy to the fleets at Sunnydale.
He looked down as a limousine floated down towards the landing pad next to their shuttle, and Malcolm focused on it. A familiar face stuck his head out of the rear window, and Malcolm stopped in surprise as he recognized the man that didn’t look a day over fifty. The cue ball standing in for a head was new though. The Reverend John Parker had been Charles’s steward when Malcolm and he were young. He hadn’t been a man of God back then, but he’d been a nice old man. They’d probably become too friendly, and maybe John had been too willing to let them have too much fun. Charles’ father fired the old man the better part of a century ago. And now he was a pastor on New Earth, probably putting some space between himself and Mister Hurst. Malcolm had to admit he understood the idea. Mister Hurst had a real imposing temper.
“Well hello, Mal,” John said with an amused expression and waved them over.
Malcolm snorted and approached the vehicle with a wry smile. “Hey, Baldy.”
John raised one hand in protest. “Hey! New Earth summers get hot. It’s purely a defense mechanism.”