Flight of the Magnus

by L S Roebuck

  Skylar noticed her discomfort as she looked at the sealed dome, and took her hands into his.

  “Amberly Macready,” he said softly as he gently turned her to face him. “I know what you are thinking. Look at me. This wasn’t your fault.”

  She did as he asked and inclined her head toward his. Looking into Skylar’s blue eyes as he pushed back one of his long yellow locks somehow made her forget the horrible things. With well over an Earth year since the battle, her scars were starting to heal. Skylar’s gracious and charming attention was an emotional balm. She needed a friend, and he was there. Alone, at night, she wanted a more-than-friend, a companion, a committed something. But she felt like she was too screwed up in the head over North and Dek. Letting someone else in, someone like Skylar, would be unwise.

  At first Amberly thought that her wall-building was her mother’s wisdom guiding her, but later she came to own the decision. Keep some emotional distance from Skylar, she scolded herself. She couldn’t blame her mom forever. Kimberly Macready was gone.

  “No, it is my fault,” Amberly said. “Maybe my mother would have been able to attack us without my help. But the point was she got my help, unwitting though it was. I helped her. That’s what happened. Not some maybe.”

  “Did you ever think that if you hadn’t have gone along with the Chasm plan, you wouldn’t have been able to stop Sparks from destroying Magellan?”

  “That’s what Commander Moreno thinks. And the governor.”

  “And me,” Skylar filled his voice with all the tenderness he could muster. He tilted his head and kissed Amberly’s red crown.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, but it is strictly confidential,” Amberly said in an unusually hushed tone, as she pulled Skylar close to herself. “You can tell no one.”

  Skylar seemed amuse. “Okay, Amberly. You can trust me,” he said with a bit of false hurt in his eyes.

  “I’m serious, Skylar,” Amberly said with a hard look. “If you tell someone else, it could be treason.”

  Skylar started to snicker at the absurd statement, but then he saw the seriousness in Amberly’s eyes, and stifled his reaction. “OK, then. I understand. I won’t tell a soul.”

  “And I do trust you. But more importantly, Moreno cleared me to talk with you. I’m going away, and I want you to come with me,” Amberly said, as she sat down on a water tank at the edge of the crop field. The corn covered about a half square kilometer, but because of the stalks’ height and the curvature of the dome, the rows seemed to go on forever.

  “Going away? Where? How? There are not deep space ships coming from Arara, and who knows when the next ship from Earth will get here?” Skylar didn’t try to hide his confusion.

  “Sonnet.”

  “The Spencer Belt? Why?”

  “Moreno has asked me to assemble and lead a secret team to reboot Fuentes Station, to gather the materials needed for defending Magellan should Magnus fail.”

  Amberly was surprised that Skylar’s first reaction was anger.

  “Why didn’t she tell the Council about this?” Skylar said crossly. “Martial law is over. This is a representative democracy, not a military dictatorship.”

  “We think that there are still Chasm operatives in deep undercover that would sabotage the effort. We can’t go public with this, and we don’t know if we can trust the Council. They could be compromised by Chasm.”

  “What? Chasm? No way,” Skylar said. “We airlocked half of them. The rest we exiled. Why would you think that Chasm is still around?”

  “You remember that encoded message from North,” Amberly explained. “He said–”

  “Wait. If there was anything but personal information in that message, you should have informed the Council. We are the voice of the people.”

  “Would you shut up and listen to me?” Amberly raised her voice. She hadn’t thought so before, but now Amberly was wondering if the prestige of sitting on the Magellan Council had gone to Skylar’s head. Skylar’s countenance shrunk immediately as Amberly’s own anger blossomed; Amberly made a brief mental note that this was the first time she had ever seen Skylar Trigs back down to anyone. “Apparently sometime in the past few months on the Magnus, North has flipped Sparks somehow. She told North there were deep undercover Chasm agents – Hawks she called them – who answered directly to the Chasm Chairman and whose sole purpose was to make sure the will of the Chairman was followed absolutely. Secret lethal enforcers. No one in the Chasm ranks were supposed to know who the Hawks were, until Chasm had control of a waypoint.”

  “You mean, before the plan changed and they decided to try to blow Magellan and the others to kingdom come?”

  “Yes. That is why we must keep this secret. Not even the Council must know we are rebuilding Fuentes Station. No one must know until we know for sure Chasm has been put down for good.”

  “Amberly, this whole Hawk thing,” Skylar shook his head, “are you sure Sparks isn’t just playing us. Trying to wind us up or just have a little fun at our expense? It all seems so cloak and dagger, loaded with drama and probably little truth.”

  “Thor wondered the same thing,” Amberly conceded. “But I know Sparks, well sort of. We have, I don’t know, some sort of a bond because both of us at one time worshipped my mother. Sparks once said that made us like sisters. I thought she was crazy then, but over time, I’ve come to feel like she was right.”

  “Your mother was impressive, but now she is influencing operatives from the grave? That’s sort of weird, Amberly,” Trigs protested.

  “Well, it’s weird when you put it like that, but I trust Sparks is telling the truth. Call it sister’s intuition.”

  “I have a sister on Arara, but I never had any sixth sense that helps me know whether she is telling the truth or not,” Skylar offered. “Chasm agents or not, I don’t understand why we are so worried,” Skylar said, trying to force the tone of the conversation into what he thought was more sane territory.

  “Why do you think this threat is real enough to keep things from our duly elected leaders?” he asked.

  “It really doesn’t matter what I think,” Amberly said.

  “Of course, it matters what you think!” Skylar protested, growing angry again but he was not sure at whom.

  “Skylar, Waypoint Cortes is gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  “Chasm won. They followed Scorched Earth protocol. Everyone is dead. Skylar, I’ve seen the vids.”

  Skylar was silent for a second, his face went blank. He stared at the corn stalks for a few moments. Amberly let Skylar process the horrible news.

  After a minute, Skylar’s eyebrows rose, and he quietly mumbled, “How did you see the vids?”

  “About six months ago, Magnus found a derelict runabout, the C.S.S. Ironman,” Amberly explained. “It had escaped Cortes just minutes before an antimatter reactor core overload explosion ripped the waypoint into pieces. Amazingly, there were three survivors on board, including a year-old kid, I believe.”

  “That video was in North’s message?” Skylar said. “Wow. That sort of thing could incite a panic. Very clever of the Marine to encode it in a private message outside the watchful eyes of central communication.”

  “I know,” Amberly said, “I had kind of hoped that North would send a message to…” Her voice trailed off and she felt awkward, turned away from Skylar and blushed. She really liked Skylar and was embarrassed if he picked up how she was foolishly pining for North.

  “Why would you want me to come with you? To Fuentes Station? You’re asking me to give up my seat on the Council, my job as the director of central communication.”

  “Maybe you’d give up your seat. Maybe not. Skylar, I’m giving up a lot, too,” Amberly said. “Hopefully, it’s just temporary. But this is important. We have to be ready, and we are too weak after the last Chasm assault. I need a good communications officer who can also be a part of the leadership team. I need a second in command, someone wh
om I can trust. You can help this mission be a success.”

  Skylar turned to face Amberly directly, looking deeply into her bright green eyes. He considered her soft red hair, her button nose framed by her symmetrical face. He liked what he saw. He spoke slowly, deeply. “That’s the only reason you want me to come?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” Amberly said. She was pretty sure she knew what he was hinting at, but didn’t expect it and wasn’t prepared to respond. She was trying to get over North, whom she rejected first, and then he harshly, publicly rejected her at her trial. She also thought she could have a future with Dek. His perspective on life was much closer to hers than North’s, perhaps because both she and Dek were heavily influenced, like Sparks, by her mother. But while there was some chance of North returning to Magellan, however slim, Dek was exiled, never to return. Amberly had the opportunity to go with Dek to Earth, on the American Spirit, but in the end, she decided that she could not let go of her home and her friends for adventures in exile with the roguish Dek.

  Her heart and head were still tangled from that emotional trauma, and though she had been growing in friendship with Skylar, a perfect balance of Dek and North, she hadn’t really thought about them as a romantic couple.

  “Well, I was hoping it was because …,” Skylar chose his words carefully, “… you’d like to have the company of a good friend.”

  Amberly smiled. Skylar had become a good friend, a good male friend, when she needed a male friend. She had Lydia and Kora, but there was something about the strength only a male friend could provide, she thought. She recoiled slightly that she had the thought, the ghost of her mother’s antipathy for men echoing between her soul and mind. Then she grabbed at the out Skylar had graciously given her. “Skylar, I want you to come because I’d love to have the company of a good friend.”

  “Great,” Skylar said, “I’m in.”

  “You’re in?”

  “I’m in,” Skylar repeated.

  Amberly instinctively threw her arms around him in a firm embrace. “Thanks.”

  “Definitely in,” he squeezed her in return.

  “I wish you and Trot would come with me,” Amberly said, as she sat eating artificial eggs – some reconstituted protein powder – in her sister’s apartment. “We are still trying to fill out our medical staff. We could use a good nurse. And your police officer husband could handle security for us.”

  “No way,” Kora said as she placed dishes in the sanitizer. “Are you done with that?” Amberly considered the remaining “eggs” on her plate an pushed it over to Kora, who scraped the scraps into the recycler, and then placed the plate into the sanitizer and closed the door.

  “Come on, sister, what happened to your sense of adventure?” Amberly teased.

  Little Alroy started crying in the other room. “That is what happened to my adventure.”

  “Kids,” Amberly said. “I’m never having one.”

  “Now don’t say that,” Kora called out as she passed into her bedroom, only to return holding her baby boy. “This little man is a whole new adventure. It’s just not as glamorous as leading a secret mission in an asteroid belt. But he’s worth it. Aren’t you worth it, my little baby boy?”

  Alroy responded with a slight coo and a bit of spit up.

  “What am I going to do without my best friend?” Amberly looked at her sister.

  “So, I am your best friend, now that you need something,” Kora teased. “What about Skylar? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him. Maybe he’ll be your new best friend.”

  Amberly blushed a little. “Our relationship is purely platonic,” she said defensively. “Besides, I am not sure how ethical it would be for me to have a romantic relationship with someone who would technically report to me.”

  “Oh, so you’ll have Skylar at your beck and call. That’s sort of a turn on.”

  “Kora!”

  “Okay, but technically you are everyone’s boss on this mission, right? So that means if you stick to the rules, you are going to be very, very lonely. Poor Amberly, all alone on that cold rock. With only your memories of North to keep you company as you take lonely space walks in the Shard Caves. Or would you be thinking of Dek?” Kora pressed her index finger against the lip of her closed mouth, and rolled her eyes up. “Hmmmmm?”

  “Kora Macready Wilder!”

  “Okay, sorry. Not helpful. Let me see if I can think of someone who can be your security chief, because you can’t have my Trot. You need someone undeniably loyal to Earth? What about Private Wong?”

  “That drunken reprobate?” Amberly snapped.

  “Well, there isn’t exactly a bar at Fuentes Station,” Kora said. “And Wong was one of North’s most trusted strike Marines. And there is no questioning that he is truly loyal to Earth. Zero percent change that guy is secret traitor. He’s loyal to a fault.”

  “You have a point,” Amberly said. “But do you think he would work for me? He holds me personally responsible for the death of his friends.”

  “Well, if this mission is as important as you say it is,” Kora reasoned, “then I bet Wong could put aside any misgivings has to serve homeworld and waypoint.”

  “You may be right.”

  “May be right?” Kora smirked. “Little sister, you owe me a finder’s fee.”

  The Marine Commander’s office was intimidating to the uninitiated. First off, it was especially large for a waypoint. At nearly four meters wide and eight meters deep, the office was even larger than the governor’s suite. Near the door was a plain metal conference table – like everything else in the room, a dark, deep grey in color. The table was surrounded by a half dozen uncomfortable-looking chairs, made from the same alloy as the table. At the far end of the room was a desk, illuminated by only a small lamp. A large, worn upholstered red chair sat behind the desk, and behind the chair, was a floor to ceiling plexiglass viewport showing the eternity of space.

  Millions of stars, moving slowly as Magellan rotated, became the magnificent backdrop to those who had an official audience with Rita Moreno, who ascended to high office after her previous boss, Commander Anderson, was gunned down in this very space by one of his own Marine Strike commanders. A pair of faux-leather guest chairs sat in front of the desk.

  Anderson’s portrait, along with the twenty-two other Marines who perished in the Battle of Magellan, lined the right-facing wall as one entered the office. Each portrait was individually lit and the wall had the aura of a shrine. On the left facing wall were 37 portraits, hung upside down, with a dramatic red mark struck across each one. The mark looked like splattered blood. These were the faces of the government officials and Marines who were a part of the Chasm conspiracy. The convicted traitors to Magellan were now exiled or executed. This wall was in perpetual shadow, though the ambient light made it easy enough to make out faces as one passed by. Platinum letters below these portraits read: Never Forget Eternal Vigilance Is The Price Of Freedom.

  Private Wong, wearing full dress uniform, entered the office. He had not yet received an official reprimand for his assault on Amberly Macready, and figured this was the reason for his summons. On the one hand, he regretted his drunken behavior, that was so unbecoming of any Marine. On the other, he blamed Amberly for the death of so many good men and women. He was troubled that not only was she walking freely around the waypoint, but also, she was considered a war hero and received an honored place in the civilian corps.

  The door slid closed behind Wong, and he looked across the room to the desk. He could see Moreno seated in her red chair, silhouetted against a glorious star field. And in one of the chairs in front of the desk he saw the unmistakable scarlet hair of Amberly Macready.

  “Private Wong, reporting as ordered, ma’am,” Wong said as he brought his hand into a salute.

  At the salute, Moreno surprised Wong by standing, and then she returned the salute.

  “At ease, Wong,” Moreno said as she fell back into her chair. “Won’t you please join us?” T
he commander waved a hand toward the empty chair. Wong started to cross the room, scanning the portraits of the fallen. He saw Snyder’s portrait, along with Wing Commander Jindal, and in the center was Anderson’s. He turned to the other wall, and immediately recognized the upside-down portraits of Strike Commander Johnson and Chief Jurist Adams. The last picture on the wall, also hung upside down, was that of Kimberly Macready. The red mark cut across her face, covering her mouth and cheeks. It did not obscure her glossy black hair, which inspired her Chasm code name, Raven One, or her piercing green eyes, which seemed to be staring back at Wong.

  Although Raven One was not a member of the military leadership or elected civilian leadership, she was a top researcher in the Science Corps, the government-run research group. Her daughter had followed in her footsteps, and thanks to Raven One’s destructive plan, had effectively murdered everyone in the way for Amberly to be Corps’ director, Wong thought as he turned back to the desk and Moreno’s gaze.

  “Please, Eli, sit,” Moreno indicated the chair again. Wong did as he was told.

  “Mission Commander Macready and I wanted to offer you a promotion and an opportunity to serve our homeworld on a dangerous adventure,” Moreno said as she folded her hands together and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk.

  Wong shook his head. “Come again?” he said, leaning forward as if he couldn’t hear Moreno. “A promotion?”

  “Yes. Should you accept this assignment, I will be promoting you to Staff Sergeant to command a Marine unit dispatched to support the mission,” Moreno said.

  “Ma’am, I am confused,” Wong said, who was generally bewildered. Staff Sergeant rank represented a jump of three ranks, when Wong was expecting demotion, or worse dishonorable discharge for assault. “I thought I was going to be disciplined for conduct unbecoming of a Marine with regards to Miss Macready.” Wong looked at Amberly’s face for the first time since arriving, trying to guess at what was going on. Amberly’s soft face had a youthful glow of energy and vitality, but her brow was furled. Wong didn’t read anger, but rather intense focus or even fear.