Wings of Earth- Season One

by Eric Michael Craig

  “Alright, so how would I respond?”

  “If you accept my offer of submission, you would extend your right hand and press your palm to mine. If you consider us equals, you’d use your left hand and do the same,” he said.

  Shrugging, Ethan extended his left hand and they bumped palms.

  “When it gets interesting, is if you extend your right hand to assume dominance, and I respond with my right hand,” the other man said. “Then we fight for your wife and children.”

  “Really? I don’t have a wife anymore and I don’t think there are any children either, so you’re welcome to take both of my exes,” he said, “but I think I’ll stick to a hand shake with you.”

  “Bradley Parker, OpsSec Chief,” Ansari said, introducing the other man. “May we join you?”

  “Of course.” Ethan sat back down. “This is Nuko Takata my pilot and all around right hand. Unless that has some significance?” he added with a wink.

  “Not at all,” Parker said, swinging a chair around from another table and dropping into it.

  “Brad is my right hand,” Ansari said. “Or maybe I should say I’m his left hand? He’s been here longer than any of us. Almost twenty years now.”

  “That’s a long run in a single posting,” Nuko said.

  “It’s not too bad,” he said. “Doc Ansari’s pretty casual and I don’t go down to the surface unless I have to. The natives don’t make me as crazy because I don’t have to figure them out.”

  He looked around the bar and nodded toward three people who sat at a single table but had their backs toward each other and seemed to be talking to the surrounding walls. “Like that.”

  “That’s how the Ut’arans debate without confrontation,” Dr. Ansari explained. “It’s another of their social rituals.”

  “No matter how many times I see it, you’ll never convince me it’s not insane to argue with your back turned on the one you’re trying to piss off,” Parker said with a sarcastic smirk.

  “It shows trust and respect,” the doctor said.

  “I can see that,” Nuko agreed.

  “Would you like to?” the Mission Director said. “I mean, go down, and see Ut’ar firsthand?”

  “That’s a fascinating offer, but I thought the planet was off limits,” Ethan said raising an eyebrow.

  “We’ve taken guests down there before,” Parker said. “Any time we have to keep a ship here to offload, we try to make it up to the crew. It’s bending the rules a little, but we’ve got plenty of people down there to keep an eye on you, so it isn’t that much of a risk. I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”

  “I’m ready,” Nuko said. Her eyes lit up like a kid looking at her first scoot-runner. “I so need to suck down some real air and walk outside under a real sun.”

  “It’s a heavy world,” the captain said. “I think you could get air into your lungs at two-g, but walking would get old fast.”

  Her face fell and Dr. Ansari laughed. “Captain you don’t have to be a mean old man. We’ll provide you with Pressure Support Exosuits. They help with muscle and circulatory augmentation. They’re quite comfortable.”

  “We also have a well-outfitted basecamp where you could stay between excursions,” Parker said. “It would be like an old fashioned big-game safari. If you know the term?”

  “Without the killing,” Nuko offered. “They called those photo-safaris if I remember rightly.”

  “True. No killing,” the doctor said, nodding. “I can guarantee it would be quite the experience.”

  “Boss, if you say no, I’ll make you walk home,” she said. Her words sounded like she was kidding, but her expression made him think she might be serious.

  Dr. Ansari was right though, it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and anything would beat sitting around and drinking himself into a stupor while they unloaded the cargo.

  “If I say yes, you’ve got to be the one willing to tell the rest of the crew we left them here and went on a safari,” Ethan said. “I’m thinking the mutiny might be quick and we’ll both be walking back.”

  “There’s plenty of space in the camp for all your people if they want to go,” the doctor said.

  “I guess I’m out of reasons to say no,” the captain said, winking. “Except—”

  Nuko slapped a hand over his mouth and shook her head while she waggled her other finger in his face. “Except nothing! Or the rebellion starts now, Captain Walker.”

  She held her hand over his mouth until he nodded.

  Parker snorted. “We can see who swings the right hand on your ship can’t we?”

  “Apparently so,” he said, grinning. “So when would this happen?”

  “We’ve got a staff cycle tonight,” Dr. Ansari said, glancing across the room and squinting to read the chrono. “About three hours if you and your crew can be ready.”

  “Alright, go let everybody know and …”

  She launched herself toward the exit before he finished.

  “She doesn’t seem too enthusiastic, does she?” the doctor said, glancing at the OpsSec chief and shaking his head.

  “I think she became a pilot because she couldn’t afford to be a tourist,” Ethan said, watching her wind up toward a full run. She nearly trampled Kaycee as she headed through the door. Fortunately, the doctor danced to the side and avoided the crash. Barely. He could see her say something to Nuko before the pilot pointed toward where he was sitting and vanished out into the corridor.

  “Captain, I was looking for you,” Kaycee said as she walked up. She glanced at the two men sitting with him.

  “Well you’ve found me,” he said.

  Her face said she was still chewing on something and didn’t like how it was sitting. He already knew he didn’t want to go there.

  “This is my ship medic, Dr. Keira Caldwell,” he said, watching as Dr. Ansari stood up to do the greeting ritual.

  Kaycee looked at him for a second tilting her head then responded by bumping palms with her left hand. Without waiting for him to explain the significance.

  “May I speak to you for a moment please, if you don’t mind?” she asked, returning her focus to Ethan in an obvious indication that she meant… alone.

  “I was just going to ask if you wanted to take a field trip down to the planet with us,” he said. Maybe if he could distract her, she’d slow down on whatever she thought was such a crisis. “Dr. Ansari has offered us a chance to go on a little safari and observe the natives in person. I think it would be good for you to get some fresh air while they finish unloading up here.”

  “From what I overheard on the ship I didn’t think Dr. Blake would risk anyone down there who wasn’t a trained sociologist,” she said, clearly taken by surprise by the offer. “Social contamination and all that.”

  “He tends to be overprotective of the tribes,” Parker said. “We’re very careful.”

  “Bradley’s right. We’ve had no incidents and we’ve gotten good at watching without being seen.”

  “I don’t think I’m suited to a safari,” Kaycee said, letting out a controlled breath through her clenched teeth and frowning. “Especially on a two-G world that’s covered in jungle. I wilt in the heat and gravity.”

  Wilt in the heat? Ethan thought. She lived on Starlight Colony, and that has to be the hottest place humanity has ever settled.

  “Dr. Caldwell, I’m sure you’d do fine down there,” Dr. Ansari said. “We use Pressure Support Exosuits and they make it very easy to get around on the surface.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve had gravity sickness from a PSE before, so I have to be very careful.”

  Ethan stared at her. She’s pushing back way too hard. Finally, he nodded. “You could stay and look after the ship I guess, but it seems like this is an opportunity that would be a shame to miss.”

  “I’m sure it is, but really I can’t,” she said.

  “The other thing that might affect your decision, is that we’ll be doing some maintenance on the sta
tion,” Parker said. “It might be a lot less hospitable around here for a few days.”

  “Honestly, we were hoping to give you a vacation and keep you from having to wait it out in your ship,” Dr. Ansari said.

  “What kind of maintenance?” the captain asked.

  “This is an old station and we’re planning a recycler purge,” he said. “It’s urgently overdue and we were waiting for parts that you just delivered.”

  Ethan’s closed his eyes and grimaced. He’d had to purge recyclers, and as long as he could pay to have it done, it wasn’t something he wanted to experience ever again.

  “It’s alright. I don’t mind staying aboard the ship,” Kaycee said.

  “You’ll want to do that, too,” he said.

  “Of course. How long will this safari take?” she asked.

  Ethan looked at Dr. Ansari.

  “In order to see much at all, two or three days but you’ll have to stay for a four day landing cycle.”

  “I thought we would be unloaded in a day or two,” Kaycee said. “Won’t that hold us up on getting back?”

  “That’s true, but we’re self-employed and unlike someone I’m looking at, I don’t think this is an experience I could forgive myself for passing up.”

  He studied her face trying to read why she was resisting so hard. Is it more of her paranoia?

  “The basecamp has a controlled gravity environment. Wouldn’t that make it something you could enjoy too, Doctor?” Parker said.

  “Isn’t the point of a safari to get out and explore?” she asked.

  “Obviously, there would be day trips out to various observation points,” he said.

  “But it would only be for a few hours at a time and it’s only for those you’d need a PSE,” Dr. Ansari added.

  “Unless you’re in exceptional condition,” the OpsSec chief said. He tilted his head to the side like he was sizing her up in a far more intimate way.

  “I’m not,” she said, glaring back at him. “So, I think I will have to pass, but I’m sure the others will be interested.”

  “Nuko went to ask them,” Ethan said.

  “When will you be leaving?” she asked.

  “In a few hours,” he said.

  “We’ve got a team shift change at the Rockpile tonight,” Parker explained.

  “Rockpile?”

  “That’s what we call the basecamp. It’s disguised to look like boulders, so the natives don’t realize we’re there,” Dr. Ansari said.

  “That makes sense,” she said. “What about indigenous biology? Do you have any medical procedures you need to follow to avoid bi-directional contamination? Maintaining barrier protection protocols must be a challenge.”

  “As long as everybody’s up on their inocs, we only have a specific set of boosters,” Parker said. “It’s a quick process.”

  “It’s two hours to local sundown and, since we only do our flights in and out after dark, we try to shuttle in as close to sundown as possible,” Dr. Ansari said. “The local day is about thirty hours and it’s winter in the northern hemisphere, so the nights are longer. It’s actually very comfortable planetside this time of year.”

  “The heat won’t be that bad,” the OpsSec Chief said. He smiled at Kaycee. “You really should go along.”

  She shook her head. “I have some medical research journals to catch up on. The rest of the crew will have a wonderful time without me I’m sure. I know I’ll regret not going, but I think I have to stay aboard the ship and let you all have the fun for me.”

  “Fine since you’re determined not to go have a good time, I guess I can leave the ship in your hands,” the captain said. “Just try not to get into trouble while I’m gone and if you do, Marti can help you clean it up before I get back.”

  “I promise. I have no desire to be breathing recycler blowby.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Why doesn’t anyone else see this is wrong?” Kaycee muttered under her breath as she stood inside the inner hatch to the docking arm watching several teams from the station unloading the cargo container.

  Why do they have a security guard on their own personnel?

  A station security officer stood at the opposite end of the long airlock supervising the work from where he could see in both directions. He was unusually attentive and not the typical station guard that stood his post with only enough enthusiasm to stay a half-eyelid short of sleeping. This one watched every move anyone made as they loaded the crates onto small roll-alongs and shoved them off down the corridor.

  She waited for him to wave her through the traffic and he smiled as she got within a few meters of his end of the lock. “Afternoon, Dr. Caldwell,” he said, nodding as she walked by.

  She nodded, glancing at him. Very professional, she thought. Too professional.

  It was just another thing that tickled at her awareness as she stepped through the hatch and into the interior of the cargo box.

  Generally, freight was unloaded through the outside walls of a container, but since they didn’t have the facility here to do that, they worked from the interior and removed the deck plating to access the load in stages. A massive pile of deck panels stood off to the side. A catwalk ran the length of the container, and because they’d already stripped out the end of the box closest to the airlock, it left the walkway suspended in an open space, twenty meters from anything.

  What would have been an amply wide catwalk, was covered with open wheeled carts and she had to thread her way with care through the clutter, and the small army of laborers, for over half the distance back to the main part of the ship. Fortunately, there was a safety railing or there would have been several times she might have tumbled over the edge.

  “Welcome back,” Quinn said as she broke through to the inner edge of the traffic nightmare. “Good thing you’re a dancer.”

  “I am?” she asked almost disturbed by the handler’s observation skills.

  He turned on a sarcastic smirk and when he let it linger just long enough, he winked. “I only look big and dumb. Momma taught me to always notice the details.”

  He leaned against the railing with his arms crossed in front of him, watching the process at least as attentively as the guard on the other end. His eyes darted back and forth as he tracked the unloading with a surprising intensity.

  “Something wrong?” she asked, reading him for several seconds before she turned to see what had his attention.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’m just watching things.”

  “What are we watching?” Ammo asked, appearing behind him and startling them both. She always moved like a cat. Silent and probably deadly if something motivated her in that direction.

  “A lot of sweaty boys and girls unloading stuff,” he said.

  “As fun as that might be normally, I’m about to be off on a field trip,” she said, slinging a small bag over her shoulder and stepping around Quinn to brave the chaos on the catwalk.

  “Damn, I wish you weren’t going,” Kaycee said. “I’ve got this problem, I think, and I was hoping we’d have a chance to talk about it.”

  “What kind of problem?” she asked. “I’ve got a few minutes before I need to report to the MedBay to get my inocs upgraded.”

  “You haven’t been to the medical center here yet have you?” she asked.

  “No, why?”

  “It’s the shiniest set up I’ve seen this side of STI,” Kaycee said.

  “Nice. But why is that a problem?”

  “They’ve got a Cyberquan-Twelve manning the front desk,” she said. “The entire traffic control network in Zone One doesn’t need that much AA power. What makes it strange is that it’s not the diagnostic system, it’s the frakking receptionist.”

  “That’s odd, but why is that something that has you up in a twist?” she asked.

  “Let’s put it another way,” Kaycee said. “That quantum AA cost more in real chit than the entire rest of this station. Why the holy frak do they need that kind of resource her
e?”

  Ammo set her pack down and leaned back against the railing across from Quinn. “I think that’s a reasonable question,” she said. “I assume you had a reason for going there in the first place?”

  “I wanted to see if I could slick-whistle my way into their medical records and see what Elarah’s story was,” she admitted.

  “Doc, I didn’t know you played that way,” Quinn said. He still stared down the catwalk, watching the activities. “Hard to do that with an AA isn’t it?”

  “Yah, but I figured the Director of Medical Services might be susceptible to charm.” She shrugged. “And he was, for about ten seconds, before he melted a chip and developed a multiple personality on me.”

  “What?” Ammo blinked several times.

  “Nojo,” she said, holding her hand up like she was making an oath. “Completely blew his brain circuitry and was even having convulsions of his augment arm. I literally was thinking that it was going to come right over his head and beat the frak out of me.”

  “Augment arm?” Quinn asked, glancing at her. “Like a medical tool?”

  “He was wearing a Polymed Microsurgery Arm with the neurosurgery attachment when he came out to talk to me. The damn thing went insane and started having seizures,” she said. “There were several times it felt like I was talking to two different people at once. And that they were fighting for dominance with each other.”

  “Neurosurgery? That doesn’t sound like a common need in a station like this,” Ammo said. “Have you told Ethan about it?”

  “I tried,” she said. “He was sitting with the head of station security and the director of the science mission, negotiating the terms of your field trip.”

  “This might be troubling,” Quinn said, without looking at her. “I know I’m new here, but I think you should tell him.”

  “Once I know for sure what’s going on, I will,” she said. “He’s shut me down for days over my ‘paranoia’ and until I have something concrete, I don’t dare take it to him again.”

  Ammo stared at her, drumming her fingertips on the railing, her nails making faint tinkling sounds that were barely audible over the sound of the crews working in the box. “You have been sounding over the top about Mr. Flatline the brainless observer,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. I’ve got my own things that don’t balance square, but none of them were enough to raise a flag.”