Richard Carpenter flew through the rift and vanished.
“I got him,” said Damien. “He’s fine.”
“Now you,” said Misha.
“No, I’m balancing the reactor,” cried Patel. “I need three minutes.”
“We don’t have three bloody minutes,” yelled Misha. “We’ve got maybe two before they blow a hole on every side of this building.”
Karishma didn’t look up but Charlotte saw the anger well up in her. “I can’t change the laws of physics any more than I’m doing!”
“You’re fine,” said Omandi. “We’ll buy ourselves a few more minutes on this side.” She turned to Sokolov. “Misha, give me your HID weapon.”
“What? No? With all due respect, sir. In about two minutes, some exceptionally well trained special operators are going to blast their way in here and—”
“Will you be able to stop all of them?” Charlotte asked.
“Well, no, but—”
“And do I have anything with which to defend myself?”
Misha had pulled out her weapon and stared at it. “No.”
“And which of us is better equipped to fight without a weapon?”
“Fine,” growled the security officer, and thrust the HID pistol at Charlotte.
She turned it around in her hand and examined the single dial that protruded from the rear of the weapon, such that her thumb naturally rested on it. “It’s on the second setting, is that right?”
“No, you should turn it to ten and vaporize anyone that comes near us, but I know you won’t do that, will you?”
“No, but you said you were shot with it a bunch of times, right?”
“Yeah, I wanted to know what it felt like and what I could take while still remaining conscious.”
“Well?” asked Charlotte.
“Captain, you can’t use me as the baseline. I can stumble through setting four. It takes setting five to really knock me on my ass, and anything above setting five starts to burn organic matter.”
“It’s balanced!” screamed Karishma, then more softly, “I can’t believe I managed that.”
Sokolov stepped forward with her back to the rift and extended her hand. “Ok, you can give that back to me now. Get yourself through, Captain.”
Charlotte shifted the weapon to her left hand, grasped Misha’s with her right, then said, “Karishma, can we both jump through at the same time?”
“God no, Captain. Every single test I’ve run shows diverse organic mater gets fused together. You two would become conjoined twins…for about one second…before you collapsed and died that is.”
A voice called from behind them. “Time’s up. Lower this barrier or we’re setting off the charges.”
Charlotte nodded and said to the open air. “Branson, lower the shield and return to ISZ immediately. No questions. No comments. Go now.”
The blue glow faded from behind them and Charlotte said, “I’m sorry, Misha, you need to go through…that’s an order.”
Sokolov barked a laugh. “I don’t take orders that leave you dead, Captain.”
Charlotte gave her a smile. “Yeah, I know. Setting five, right?”
Misha’s eyes widened in alarm. “Captain, what the—”
Omandi pulled the trigger and a beam of blue-green energy struck Sokolov in the chest. She shuddered violently for a second, and her legs began to give way. Omandi rushed forward, tossed her weapon through the singularity gate and caught Misha’s limp form beneath the shoulders. She heaved, using the security officer’s momentum to help launch her through the spacial rift.
“Do you have her?” yelled Charlotte frantically. “Damien, tell me. Do you have her?”
His voice came back, laced with both concern and sadness. “We’ve got her, Captain. She’s unconscious but otherwise seems unhurt.”
Omandi fell to her knees and laced her fingers behind her head. “Lt. Commander Patel, collapse this rift. Damien, you are in command. Decommission my hand terminal, find our first officer and then, God willing, find me.”
There was a long pause and Charlotte didn’t move as she heard booted feet approaching in a rush. Finally, Damien said, “Aye, sir. We’ll find him and you.” A second later, her hand terminal gave a high pitched screech and went dead.
Chapter 25
Respite at ISZ
“She was being noble?” yelled Misha as she leaned up from the bio-bed. “That’s the best you’ve got, Damien.” The android shrugged, but before he could say anything else, Sokolov pushed Richard’s hand away from her face and glared at him. “Doc, you jumpstarted my little nanite army and gave me this horrible stuff to drink. I appreciated the first, and tolerated the second, but please, don’t faith heal me. I’m good.”
“You aren’t good at all,” he replied. “Seventy percent of your nanites were dead. I’ve given you a transfusion from my own flora which should bring you back up to half strength, but it’s going to be days before you are…good. What were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking?” spat Misha, “Well, Rick, I don’t know, but I can tell you what I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t thinking that my Captain would shoot me with a level five HID blast.”
“She did ask you what setting to use,” offered Damien.
“I assumed,” growled Misha, “that she would use the information to…shoot the bad guys, not me.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have told her you could shrug off a level four shot,” murmured Rick as he accepted Misha’s empty cup. “You need to drink another eight ounces before—”
“No, absolutely not. That stuff tastes terrible. What is it? And if I recall correctly, I told Omandi that I could withstand a level three discharge, not a level four. That crazy Kenyan could have killed me.”
Richard handed her another cup filled with the slightly blue liquid. “It’s a dense amino acid electrolyte mixture with specific additives to enhance your nanite repair and production capacity.”
“It tastes like shit,” she grumbled, but took a long swallow anyway.
Damien crouched down and stared directly into Misha’s eyes as she lay on one of the med-bay’s ten bio-beds. “You either do not recall correctly or you are lying. Out of respect for your privacy, I won’t try to decide which it is. However, I have a perfect recollection of your exchange with Captain Omandi and your exact words were, ‘I can stumble through setting four. It takes setting five to really knock me on my ass.’”
Sokolov took another swallow of the blue tinged drink and managed to make the very act look angry. “She shouldn’t have shot me. I’m so pissed at that woman. You know what, she’s actually better off where she is than with me right now.”
“You don’t mean that,” came a voice from the med-bay door. Linnea and James walked in, then joined the others clustered around the security officer’s bed. Linnea took Misha’s right hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re not really even angry with her. You are angry with yourself, and you don’t need to be.”
“Barbie,” growled Misha, “do I look like I’m in the mood for a Scandinavian mind meld? Stay out of my head.”
“I’m not in your head, nor do I need to be. James and I saw the whole thing play out on the Galileo’s terminal feed.”
“It’s true,” said James, “I even wondered aloud what the captain was doing and Linnea called it right off. She said, ‘Charlotte’s going to shoot her.’ I only had about thirty-seconds to make fun of our young comms officer before Omandi did exactly that.”
Misha drained her cup and squeezed. The acrylic creaked, then, with a final crack, shattered into several sharp pieces. Richard grumbled something unintelligible, scooped up the shards, and examined her hand. He seemed surprised that it was completely uninjured but gave Misha a sour look anyway. “We should let her rest,” said the doctor. “I read up on the various HID settings before attempting to rouse her. She was hit with what is considered a potentially lethal dose of particle radiation. According to the design specifications, it’s the
last stop before the HID’s cutting and disruption settings.”
Sokolov pushed herself back against the raised head of the bed. “I don’t need rest. What I need is to get our captain back. I’m getting up.”
“You are doing nothing of the sort, Lieutenant,” said Damien and laid his hand gently on her chest.
She stared at his hand for several long seconds then looked up at the android. “Do you want to keep that new hand of yours, Damien? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“It’s not who I think I am, that counts, Misha. It’s who I know I am and that is your commanding officer.”
Sokolov pinched up her face, “Bullshit, I’m not taking orders from an—”
“Android?” finished Damien. He shook his head in disappointment, then said, “Given your background, I would have thought you less prone to such prejudice.”
“What? Oh, shut the hell up, Damien. I couldn’t care less what your body is made of. However, it bears remembering that I knew you before you even existed. I was there when Howard-Prime first dreamed you up, so from my perspective, you are just an annoying baby brother.”
“And now you are under that annoying baby brother’s command,” said Damien evenly.
“Says who?”
“Says our Captain.”
Misha’s eyes widened in alarm, and she quickly scanned the room, then sank back into her pillow as each person nodded to her unvoiced question. She sighed. “Fine, Damien, I’ll rest…a little, but I expect you to have an executable rescue plan ready in the morning.” She noticed Linnea averting her gaze. Misha squinted at Damien. “What?”
“We aren’t going to look for her…” he said, then raised a hand in an attempt to forestall Sokolov’s profanity laden explosion. “We aren’t going to look for her, just yet. The Captain ordered us to secure one of the first officer candidates, then execute the command succession protocol she developed.”
“Wait, what’s that?” asked James. “I heard her place you in command, and order us to recruit the first officer, but she didn’t mention anything about a command succession protocol.”
Damien nodded and pulled out his hand terminal. He made a few taps then swiped up. Everyone in the room glanced toward their own terminals as each one chimed or pulsed in turn. “That message was coded for delivery when her personal hand terminal went offline. Please read it for yourselves to confirm what I’m about to say. Essentially, it orders us all to the lunar colony where we are to recruit Chao Keung. If he accepts, Captain Omandi asks that we evaluate him for immediate command succession. Upon a unanimous vote from everyone in this room, he would irrevocably take command. If we do not all agree, then I would retain command until we secure Captain Omandi’s release.”
No one spoke for what seemed like minutes. Finally, Linnea broke the silence. “I suppose it just remains for us to decide if we are going to follow our Captain’s orders or not.”
Misha pulled on the thin blanket, settled herself deeper into the conforming bed cushion, then looked over at Linnea. “No, Barbie, it does not remain for us to decide anything. Our Captain has issued a lawful order and it’s our job to carry it out. If Omandi had the foresight and composure to both anticipate this situation, and plan for its resolution, then the least we can do is execute. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. Actually, I’m pissed as hell! Once we get her back, she’s going to hear all about that. For now, I love you guys, but please get the fuck out so I can sleep and make baby nanites. I have the feeling we’re going to need them on Luna.”
James heard the Galileo’s external hatch cycle open and craned his neck to see who was entering the shuttle. Misha froze in place, and the two stared at each other for several seconds, then Sokolov sighed. “You’re early.”
James gestured to the copilot’s chair, then turned back to one of the many display panels. She settled into the seat and swiveled to face him. “I thought I’d be the first,” Misha said softly, as she absently ran her fingers over several controls. “How long have you been at…whatever it is you’re doing?” she asked.
He glanced over and shot her a familiar smile. “A bit. Is there something I can do for you, love?”
She said nothing for at least a minute, then reached over to a pulsing green toggle and flipped it. The toggle began to glow red and the cockpit speakers emitted a low, rhythmic, chime. Misha furrowed her brow and flipped the switch back to its original position. The red pulse and warning chime continued but at a slightly faster pace. She frowned. “What’s that switch do?”
James didn’t look over. “That’s the Gal’s self destruct circuit. She’s counting down. When the color and sound are both constant,” he raised both hands while still keeping eyes fixed on his panel, “boom!” Misha narrowed her eyes at the Irishman and flipped the toggle back and forth several more times. “That’s not going to help,” he said, then spun to face her.
“Well, you turn it off then,” she said.
“Can’t. It needs a command override code.”
“From Damien?” She asked.
James shook his head. “Nope, the Gal’s still coded to Omandi. I was going to code her to Damien before we launched, but I guess we won’t get a chance now.”
Misha stared at the rapidly flashing switch and then back to Branson. “You are fucking with me right now, aren’t you?”
He grinned and tapped a button on his panel. The toggle went green and the sound stopped. “I am, indeed. That was the secondary CO2 scrubbers. It was trying to tell whoever flipped the switch that she is an idiot because the primary scrubbers are working fine.”
“You are a juvenile asshole,” she hissed.
James shrugged and turned back to his displays. “The juvenile part is not news, Lieutenant, but I object to being labeled an asshole.”
Misha gestured to the toggle, “Then what the hell do you call that?”
He glanced over. “A conversation starter. You just let me know when you want to tell me why you are here over an hour before our designated launch.”
“You were here before me,” said Sokolov defensively. “Why were you here so early?”
Branson spun around and leaned forward. He stared at Misha for several seconds, then said, “Well, I’ve been here for the last three hours because I’m scared shitless I’ll screw something up and get one or all of us killed. I’ve never been in space before, which is giving me a wee bit of pause. Beyond that, just because I’ve been able to fly and drive anything I’ve ever set my mind to in the past, doesn’t fill me with confidence that I can get us to the fecking moon.” He leaned back and waved toward the command consoles. “So, Lt. Sokolov, I’ve spent the last three hours running accelerated simulations, with Coleman throwing random problems at me to solve.”
Misha pursed her lips, but said nothing. She pointed at another toggle. “What’s this one do?”
Branson looked over and said, “Oh, that one vents all the air out of the Galileo and creates an internal vacuum.” She tilted her head toward him and laughed. He smiled, then said, “Basically, that’s the Gal’s headlights. Honestly, this ship is a marvel. You could pretty much press any button or flip any switch you wanted and not get into too much trouble. The redundancies have redundancies.” She nodded and he cocked his head at her. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m so freaked out if the ship’s so well designed?”
Misha shook her head. “You’re afraid of being the weak link in the chain. Even a marvelous ship is only as good as her pilot. What kind of problems did Coleman throw at you?”
“Oh, pretty standard stuff. Shield failures and micro meteor hull penetrations. The occasional fusion containment breach and a couple life support system failures. My favorites were the hostile fire simulations. Yeah, those were special.” He lifted up a little and looked between his legs. “Yeah, I think those stains are there to stay unless Howard-Prime thought to treat the pilot’s chair with shite-be-gone.”
Misha arched an eyebrow. “Who would fire on us?”
He shrugged. “No idea, but in the simulation the Chinese military shot at us with a rail gun, and Luna used LIDAR-tracking missiles.”
“Jesus,” she said.
“No, Coleman couldn’t conjure Him up. I think the captain is the only one who’s on a first name basis with Him anyway.”
“Yeah, a lot of good it did her,” grumbled Sokolov. “Of course, if her security officer was worth a shit, she wouldn’t need Jesus.”
“I doubt the captain would agree with either part of that statement.”
Misha chewed on her lower lip, then looked over at Branson. “Well, she should.” James sighed and waited. “How do you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“What you just did a minute ago, when I asked why you were here early. I can never do that.”
“You mean give an honest answer to a simple question?” chuckled James. “I’m Irish, love, we are honest as the day is long.”
“Bullshit, and that is not what I’m talking about. Hell, I’m honest about a lot of things, but not—” Misha broke off, and shook her head, obviously angry with herself.
“Look,” said Branson, “I get it. Really I do. We all wear masks, Misha. Sometimes they slip, but more importantly, sometimes we need to take them off.”
She stared at him. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
He squinted at her. “I’m not sure I believe that, but okay, let me explain anyway. Take me for example. I’ve made my way in the world as a live free or die rogue. I exude contempt for authority, and waltz my way through even the most dangerous situation with a devil-may-care attitude.” He tapped his chest. “I’m James Thomas Branson, master pilot, navigator, and driver. Every man wants to be me and every woman wants to be with me.” He leaned forward and tapped Misha on the knees. “So, let me ask you something, Misha Sokolov. Do you think that’s the real me or is it my mask? When people ask me if I prefer James or Jim, I never tell them Jim, because Jim is the guy behind the mask. Jim is the guy who told you he was scared shiteless. Jim is the guy who wants his captain back and Jim is the guy who knows you are the best fecking security officer he’s ever met.”
Paradigm 2045- Trinity's Children Page 29