by Rick Partlow
Maybe that youth drug is kicking in. I feel better than I have since I was in college.
I’d gone to bed in a T-shirt and shorts after an incredibly welcome shower—and the heads on this ship were also built to human specs because the Helta version of bathrooms and showers didn’t even merit consideration for human use, but I’d left a fresh set of utilities hanging off the edge of my locker, waiting for me. It was a damn good thing our personal effects had been pre-loaded on the shuttles and taken to the Truthseeker ahead of schedule, or I’d have been bumming spare uniforms from the Rangers.
I was no stranger to dressing quickly, and I even took the extra minute to brush my teeth, ignoring the continued knocking on the hatch. Jambo had been leaning on the hatch and, when I opened it, he nearly fell inside.
“Jesus Christ, Andy, what took you so long?” he demanded. “We’re not going on a date, you didn’t have to pick out your best dress.”
“A couple things, Jambo,” I said, arching an eyebrow. “First of all, this…” I pointed at the hatch, “is a hatch, not a door. And this is a bulkhead, not a wall. And that is a passage, not a hallway.”
“And this is a Space Force,” he countered, grinning lopsidedly, “not a Space Navy, so I don’t have to use that squidward lingo. You’re in the Army now, jarhead.”
I pointed to the USMC tape across the chest of my utility blouse.
“This says otherwise, and as long as I’m along, we have at least one Space Marine. Anyway, what time is it, and how long was I sleeping and why the hell did you drag me out of bed?”
I wondered how Olivera would react if he heard the two of us jabbering back and forth like this. Technically, I outranked Jambo, but also technically, I was an advisor attached to his Delta Force team, which meant I was under his command, even though I wasn’t in his chain of command and I was commissioned in an entirely different branch of service. It was all so muddy and complicated that it was easier just to forget our ranks. It was certainly easier for Jambo, since he was used to dealing with the murky rank structure in Delta.
“It’s 0715 Greenwich Mean Time,” he answered seriatim. “Which is our ship time, just so you know. You slept for almost nine hours, which should be enough even for a washed-up Marine reserve officer, and I am waking your ass up because we’re about to come out of hyperspace for our first navigation check and Colonel Olivera wants a stand-to.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “We need to haul our sorry butts to the armory and get geared up. They gotta make sure your new helmet is working right, anyway.”
“What about breakfast?” I wondered, pushing the door shut before I followed him down the passage. It was well lit and stretched another fifty meters behind me and thirty ahead to a T intersection. “Do we get breakfast or is that another cultural difference we have to deal with?”
“The Helta only eat one large meal a day, in fact,” Jambo informed me, “and snack a lot. But us humans will be eating chow on our own, since our table manners disgust the fuzzy-wuzzies, apparently. And breakfast is delayed until we jump back into hyperspace on the other side of Centauri B.” He shrugged and fished a protein bar out of his thigh pocket, tossing it back to me. “But I brought you something to tide you over, since I know what a bitch you are when you’re hungry.”
I nodded thanks and began tearing into the bar, the stale chocolate and peanut butter taste barely registering in my mouth. I just wanted something in my stomach before I got all cranky.
The armory, it turned out, was nearly a half a mile from our quarters and I was just about convinced I was never going to find anything on this ship without being led around like a ten-year-old kid. Infuriatingly, everyone else seemed to be navigating it okay, because we passed by and were passed by a handful of Rangers along the way. I knew some of them enough to be nodding acquaintances. Thank God we didn’t have to salute on board ship or my arm would have been worn out by the time we got where we were going.
I don’t know what the armory had been before the modifications to the Truthseeker, but now it was one of the most fortified sections of the ship. The hatches into the section could all be sealed at need against pressure and radiation, and Jambo had assured me the three-inch-thick emergency seals were good against small arms fire as well, though he didn’t explain how he’d tested them out.
I’d seen a few Helta along the way, moving from quarters to duty station or the other way around, but there were none of the aliens in the armory, by their choice rather than ours. It was just humans, mostly Rangers, besides Jambo’s team, except for a squad of MPs who’d come along with the ridiculous title of “ship’s security.” As if a company of Rangers and a Delta team couldn’t provide more security than a dozen Army cops.
They were in line at one of the stations when we arrived, though, being handed out standard non-powered armor and M27 carbines by an officious armory clerk who sounded like every other armory clerk I’d encountered in every facet of the military. His general air was that the weapons were his and he was just loaning them to us, and we’d damned well better bring them back in good working order and cleaner than we’d been issued them.
Jambo butted ahead of a squad of Rangers, ignoring the dirty look the E5 in charge of them gave us, and leaned up against a waist-high counter across from the skeletal, ashy E6 clerk. Row upon row of Svalinn exoskeletons were lined up behind him, accessible through a single entrance into the armory storage area, forbidden fruit hanging just out of our reach.
“Hey Jonesy,” Jambo said to the man, “Major Clanton here needs some comms. We had to leave in a hurry and his set was left behind in Idaho.”
“Shit, Jambo,” the supply sergeant said, making a face at him. “You think I’m a damn Wal-Mart or something? A fucking officer should know how to keep track of his equipment, all due respect, sir.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, nodding. “I can just feel all the respect oozing out of you.” Okay, I might let Jambo get away with ignoring my rank because we were old friends, but some fucking Army supply geek? Oh, hell no. “Listen Sergeant Jones, I’ve had a shitty couple of days and been forced to kill way more Russians than I ever expected to. Let’s leave aside the fact I outrank you, and the further fact that I am authorized by Colonel Olivera to requisition whatever I damn well please without so much as a by-your-leave. No, let’s just concentrate on the most salient information here.” I cocked my head to the side. “Sorry, do you know what ‘salient’ means? In this case, it means important, as in could end your fucking career level of important. If I can’t get what I need from you, I’ll just head down and find Colonel Brooks and let her know the reason. You know how many thousands of Rangers would have killed their mother for this mission? You know how easy it would be to get you transferred to a supply depot in fucking Alaska? To make sure you never leave the atmosphere again?”
“Sorry, sir,” Jonesy said, eyes going wide, as if he hadn’t expected a textbook officer tirade from a Marine major. “I honestly didn’t mean no disrespect, it’s just that we’re in a fucking spaceship, you know? All we got is all we got, and there won’t be any replacements for it until we get back to Earth.”
“And because you explained that to me so carefully and respectfully, I will make sure to take extra-special good care of this particular set of comms that you’re about to issue me,” I promised him. I put a hand out, waggling my fingers expectantly.
“Yes, sir,” he said, sliding open a drawer in a heavy, metal storage unit attached to the bulkhead. He pulled out a plastic case and handed it over to me, but held onto it when I tried to grab it. “Gonna have to sign for it first, sir,” he added, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course.” It wouldn’t be a government operation if I didn’t have to sign for it. I took the stylus and signed the tablet he offered me. “You do much reading, Sergeant Jones?”
“I think I read a book once,” Jonesy said, taking the tablet and making his own mark while I pulled out the communications unit, sticking the earpiece in and hooking the case with the tr
ansceiver onto my uniform belt.
“How’d you like to be in one?” I offered, my smile malevolent, with instincts not as old as the military ones but just as ingrained after the last ten years as a writer.
“Hey, that would be damned cool,” Jonesy enthused, grinning. “Think they’ll put me in your show?”
“I can make some calls,” I offered. “They’re always on the lookout for interesting new characters.” To get killed off in the first ten minutes to establish a threat.
“Awesome man…I mean, sir. Let me go grab your armor.”
Jambo was laughing softly as Jonesy went off to free our Svalinn gear from the racks.
“Damn, Andy, that was impressive,” he murmured, low enough that the supply sergeant couldn’t hear him. “You chewed his ass then turned him into a fan all in about ten seconds. Didn’t think you still had it in you.”
“Attention!” The order came from one of the Rangers, a junior NCO, and all the rest of the command present locked up immediately.
I turned and saw Lt. Col. Brooks entering the compartment with her officer corps in tow. Technically, I suppose I should have come to attention as well, but none of the rat-bastards had locked up when I came in, so I didn’t feel too guilty.
“As you were,” Brooks said immediately, waving the courtesy off. “Everyone get back to work, we’re pressed for time.”
“Good…morning? I think? Colonel,” I said, nodding to her. “Is it morning? Do we have morning on the ship?”
“Beats the hell out of me, Andy,” she admitted. “But it feels like zero-dark-thirty up in here, with everyone busting their asses to get geared up and then waiting around and doing nothing.”
“We all had our share of that, ma’am,” Jambo said, stepping past the desk and strapping into his Svalinn. “But at least this time, we got some reason for being worried.”
“Not so much worried as cautious, Master Sergeant,” Colonel Olivera said from behind us.
I hadn’t seen Olivera walk in just behind Brooks, and maybe he’d intended it that way to keep from having the same sort of fuss made for him. Julie was with him and both of them looked a bit haggard. I had the sense that they’d been on duty since we’d left Earth orbit and still hadn’t had a chance to sleep.
“You two here to get strapped, sir?” I asked him. I’d been heading back to put on my gear, but I paused to nod to Julie.
“Policy,” he confirmed, half his mouth turning up as if he’d tried to smile but was too tired for it. “My policy, so I’d damned well better follow it. All detachment personnel are to be armed whenever the ship drops out of hyperspace, just in case.”
“Why not just go armed all the time?” I asked him. “And maybe have the Rangers rotate platoons in and out of their exoskeletons for a reaction force?”
Olivera sighed, exasperation rich in the sound.
“And I would love to do just that,” he assured me. “But as much as the Helta need our help, we still need theirs to get our own ships. And Joon-pah has shared with me just how uncomfortable it makes his people to be around weapons.”
“You’re shitting me,” Jambo said, stopping mid-motion strapping on his chest armor. “They’re fighting a fucking war, and they’re uncomfortable with us carrying guns?”
“That was basically my response as well, Master Sergeant,” Olivera agreed. He motioned at Jonesy with an impatient get over here gesture. “Sidearms and gun belts, Sergeant. One for me, one for Colonel Nieves, quick as you can.” Jonesy, to his credit, didn’t try to give Olivera the same ration of shit he’d given me, just went about his business. Olivera turned back to Jambo and I. “Anyway, I tried reasoning with him and he said he could put aside his own feelings, but he was worried about his bridge crew being distracted and since, God forbid that the furry bear people who are going to give us a starship should be nervous when our lives are in their hands, I am going to bend over backwards to keep the captain happy.”
“You sound a bit on edge, sir,” I said, tightening the armor plates on my right arm. “We have something specific to be worried about at Alpha Centauri?”
“Should be nothing there at all,” he said, taking a holstered SIG from Jonesy. “The place has a couple habitable planets and we may want to try putting bases there at some point, but for right now, there’s not as much as a vertebrate in the whole system.” He shrugged. “But yeah, I’m worried. We have one ship, a company of Rangers and two armed shuttles, and that’s it. If we run into any serious resistance out here, anything like what the Helta have been going up against, we’re pretty much fucked.” He checked his watch and swore softly. “I have to get back to the bridge.” He eyed Brooks and Jambo. “And you all have to get locked into the shuttles before we jump.”
“Aww,” I complained, “I was hoping for a seat on the bridge again.”
“Not this time. But you can watch from the shuttle’s remote feed.” He waved on his way out. “Hell, you’ll probably have as good a view as I will.”
“We’re going to be in a new star system,” Julie said, sounding much more excited than Olivera about the whole business. She was practically giggling as she headed out the hatch. “And there I was thinking that flying a ship around the Moon would be the coolest thing that ever happened in my life. That was just a trip around the block by comparison.”
***
“Is it bad that I don’t feel at all guilty about pulling rank and getting a seat in the cockpit?” I asked Brooks.
Well, “seat” probably wasn’t the right word. Both of us were in full Svalinn armor, which pretty much precluded sitting, but we were squeezed into Shuttle Alpha’s cockpit along with the flight crew. I don’t know if Captain Holden, the pilot, was crazy about Brooks and me looking over her shoulder, and if it had been me, she might have risked telling off a technically superior officer here in an advisory capacity. But Brooks was Authority with a capital A, and not even a Space Force zoomie was going to question her right to be there.
“Not bad at all,” Brooks assured me, her arms folded across the chest of her armor, her M900 slung at her back. “You know as well as I do all the times having rank just means getting blamed for shit other people did. You have to grab all the good you can.” Her visor was up and unsealed and I could see the grin on sturdy, hard-jawed face. “Besides, you know. First time in another star system and all that. I wasn’t going to miss it, even if I had to bribe the pilot.”
“I accept bribes, by the way,” Elizabeth Holden told us. “Also, we’re coming up on jump in thirty seconds. Might want to watch the show.”
She motioned at the viewscreen, which was tied into the feed from the Truthseeker’s external cameras. I was a bit disappointed when I’d first seen the specs and saw that the shuttles weren’t going to have actual windows. I mean, it made sense from a structural integrity standpoint for the viewscreen to be purely electronic, but even the space shuttle had windows.
“Ten seconds,” Holden droned. She was one of those pilots who liked to make announcements. I’d run into them before on transport birds and I couldn’t stand them. “Five...four…three…two…one.”
There was the same feeling I’d had before, but attenuated somehow, as if leaving hyperspace wasn’t as spiritually traumatic as entering, or maybe I was just getting used to it. The screen flickered to life and the twin suns of Alpha Centauri A and B were off the port bow.
“Holy shit,” I said, unable to hold the words in. I turned to Holden. “Can we see any of the planets from here?”
“Don’t ask me,” Holden said with a shrug. “This is just a feed from the bridge.”
I scowled, stewing for a second before I remembered that my comms unit could link into the bridge’s command channel. I accessed it from the touch pad on my left forearm and brought up the image from the security feed into my HUD display. Olivera and Julie and the rest of the bridge crew looked different somehow viewed from the high angle, like actors in a play.
“Sensors?” Olivera asked. I knew he was
tense because he’d told me, but I couldn’t detect a bit of it in his voice. He had the fighter pilot cool down pat.
“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” Major Baldwin said. She glanced over at the Helta officer beside her. “Klohn-Gro, you see anything?”
I expected the Helta to speak through Joon-Pah or an electronic translator, but apparently, the Helta bridge crew had been learning English over the last few months, even if the random workers I’d run into yesterday hadn’t.
“The sensors detect no habitation,” the Helta said, and if his accent was stilted and poorly pronounced, it was still a damn sight better than my Helta. “I would like to take a closer reading of the third planet.”
Baldwin looked back over her shoulder at Olivera.
“We got time for that, boss?”
“How long for a fly-by, Nieves?” Olivera asked the Helm officer.
“Just close enough for a good sensor sweep?” Julie asked, shrugging. “We’re already in the correct orbital plane, and this exit point isn’t that far away. Maybe an extra two hours in realspace, unless you want to try a micro-jump.”
“Are we sure we can do those?” Olivera sounded skeptical.
“They are certainly possible,” Joon-Pah said. “Navigationally, they are simpler than a jump between star systems. Though I admit concern for the stress on the superstructure of two jumps in such quick succession. There is a certain resonance established in the cellular frequencies of all matter during a jump. You may have felt this.”
I sure did. Thanks for warning us beforehand, Fozzie.
“It is mostly harmless to living organisms, but with repetitive exposure, it can weaken the molecular bonding we use to seal the seams of our ship. Most ships of the Alliance adhere to a policy of one jump per system for this reason.”