“That’s a good idea,” she said. “I’d like to get what we can from Forrester first, but it might be best to give him a preliminary assessment of what we know so far.”
“We have just arrived at the basecamp,” it said. “The situation is unstable at the moment. It may take upward of an hour to get an opportunity.”
“That gives us a chance to work out a plan to get the doctor to make a house call,” Quinn said.
“A what?”
Chapter Sixteen
Ethan stood beside Dr. Stocton in the main gallery of the Rockpile and watched the massive display screen. Doc Leela was checking over Rene, but he seemed to be mostly tired and sweaty, and not much worse. “This stinks like a blown recycler and you know it.”
“It’s a little bit of a problem,” Toby said, nodding. “It’s not the first time we’ve had hunters camping so close but given how soon they arrived after you got back, it’s worrisome.”
“Toby, they were hunting us,” Sandi said. “They were attempting to run us down.”
“That would be an assumption, and you’d better hope it’s not true,” he said, holding up his hands in reaction to her obvious indignation. “If they were hunting you down, then it means they saw you. That makes you at the very least partially responsible.”
“How dare you…” she said, sputtering to a halt.
“You can take that up with your boss when you get back to Watchtower,” he said. “It wasn’t my call, but Dr. Blake wants you and Tash on the next shuttle back.”
“We’re supposed to be on the rotation,” she said. “That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not, but I’m far more concerned with why this hunting party isn’t behaving normally.” He waved in the direction of the screen.
“I think that’s obvious,” she said. “There’s been a contamination incident.”
“I think that’s a far bigger assumption than that they were hunting you,” he said, turning away to stare up at the image on the wallscreen. “And you better hope that’s not true or there will be careers cashing out.”
“Someone had to shoot at least one of the natives,” she said. “That is a fact and not an assumption.” She held out the pellet fragment and waited for him to take it.
He stared at her hand in disbelief but didn’t move. “I thought you gave the fragment to Isaiah?”
“I gave her another one,” Ethan said. “There were plenty of them out there.”
“I will need all the pieces you collected for forensic evidence,” he said, looking at the captain and frowning. “I was monitoring your Windwalker’s comm channel, so I heard what you found. Unfortunately, you didn’t gather the evidence in a way that preserved its scientific integrity, and as a result there’s no way of knowing if it is indeed something that’s connected to the body, or just a matter of coincidence.”
“Coincidence?” It shocked him that the mission commander could so easily dismiss it.
“Most of our personnel carry stunners,” he said. “Sometimes they have to use them on animals. No one reports those kinds of incidents unless it results in an injury. There’s no way to know if one of our earlier expeditions got tangled up with something at that location and then this dead Ut’aran coincidentally set up his zo’mar utel in the same place but at a later time.”
“What about all the other irregularities?” Sandi asked as Nuko and Angel came in and sat at the table behind them.
Toby sat and drew in a slow breath. “No matter how I say this it will sound dismissive, but I swear that’s not my intent. I know you all just lived through an unbelievably tough day. Any of you would have to admit that the things you witnessed could be coloring your perception. I just don’t see any real scientific evidence to connect it together.”
“How many coincidences does it take, to make it not one?” Nuko said.
Toby turned in his chair and glared at her like he was about to tell her to butt out, but he bit down on his response.
“When you run a starship, you learn not to be caught behind the data curve,” Ethan said. “I know you’re going to tell me that science depends on factual data only, but survival has to be more flexible than that.”
“Captain, I appreciate your concern but we’re far from a survival situation here. We’ve locked the Rockpile down tight and there’s virtually no way they can get inside,” he said. “We’re perfectly safe in here and we can wait them out. I think it’s best if we remain focused on what we can learn from this situation and not pursue wild conjecture.”
“Of course… Doctor,” Ethan said, clenching his teeth and taking a deep breath. “I have a crewman to check on, and I don’t want to be in your way while you analyze yourself into a happy complacency. So, if you will excuse me, I think I’ll see how he’s doing.”
Nodding at Angel, he pivoted to walk away. “After I’m done, I’ll be in my bunk.”
“I’m sorry, Captain Walker. I didn’t mean for that to come out sounding like I am not concerned,” Toby said. “It’s possible you may be right about the complacent nature of science, and that might imply that it’s wrong for me to exclude things that are extremely unsettling to contemplate. I just don’t know what good conjecture is, when we don’t have enough information to form an accurate through line in our thinking.”
Ethan turned back and leaned forward putting both hands on the table as he looked at Nuko. She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Angel shook her head. Both of them knew him well enough to know he was thinking about telling Toby to frag himself. Finally, he sighed.
“In command school they teach a decision tree for assessing problems,” he said sitting down in the nearest chair. “You start with what you know for sure. If that doesn’t give you a complete answer, you start gluing the pieces together with what you might know.”
“And if you don’t get an answer with that, you throw the widest possible net that encircles all the things you know and can guess at,” Nuko said. She’d taken the same classes he had.
“Then at least you are ready for anything that might be inside your reality,” he finished.
“So how does that apply here?” Toby asked, staring up at the optic images on the wallscreen.
“For sure, you have a long dead native that had his head bashed in. You also have a massacred tribe from last night or this morning. And now you have wakats and Ut’arans camped out on top of us.”
“And they are using weapons we’ve never seen them use before,” Sandi added.
“There has to be a lot more to it than that,” Ethan said. “I’m sure I don’t have the expertise to contribute meaningfully, but I know how to piss people off enough to keep things stirred up. Eventually, that will get the creativity flowing.”
“Maybe we should get everybody in here and break this up into pieces,” Toby said. “More eyes on it might make it easier.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” he said, wondering just what he’d volunteered to do. Me and my stupid mouth.
He looked over at Nuko who was clearly thinking the same thing. You and your stupid mouth.
“Captain Walker, I need to recharge,” Marti said. “I have completed downloading the information I recorded during today’s expedition and would like to shut down my automech for internal maintenance.”
“That’s fine,” Ethan said, glancing at the mission commander to confirm he didn’t need Marti’s input.
“If I may have your assistance for a moment,” it said, raising both eyebrows on its projected face and looking toward the door without moving. “Please?”
Assistance? As far as he knew, unless something was broken, Marti took care of itself without help. “Do you need me to get Rene?”
“Negative, Captain. Your assistance will be adequate,” it said.
“Adequate? I think I’ve been insulted,” he said, standing backup and heading toward the power locker Marti had conscripted to use as a charging station. “I’ll be right back. Let me know what I miss.” He made sure that Nuko caught th
e idea that he suspected the AA was trying to get him out of the room.
She nodded and glanced over at the automech. Message received.
Marti spun and walked over to the shielded electrical closet and pulled the heavy metal door open. It stood to the side so Ethan could go in first and followed him in, pulling the door closed to seal them in.
Offline, flashed on its faceplate.
“This is an automated report delivery from Marti aboard the Olympus Dawn to Captain Walker in the basecamp,” it said in a strangely different voice. “I programmed my body in advance to make sure you were isolated from being overheard, or from this communication being monitored. The AA in the automech is capable of operating the body, but while we are in the shielded locker, there is no way for you to respond to me in real time regarding the information that I am about to deliver. When the message is complete, you will be given an opportunity to record a confirmation and provide instructions that can be delivered securely back to me once you open the door.”
“I understand,” he said.
The automech walked past him in the narrow space and hooked up its connections to the power feed lines. Acknowledged and logged, flashed on the faceplate.
“Message follows: Captain Walker, Dr. Caldwell has confirmed her suspicions that there are Ut’aran natives living and working in various capacities throughout Watchtower Station. She has completed a clandestine biomedical scan of one native who was serving security duty outside the airlock of the Olympus Dawn. This particular Ut’aran native has a surgically installed neuro-transducer implant capable of modifying and controlling its behavior. The reason these individuals are not still on the planet is unknown, but as they are present in large numbers and intermingled with the human residents, there must be widespread knowledge of the situation. Dr. Caldwell further suspects that the passenger, Marcus Elarah is also an Ut’aran native as he exhibits a marked physiological similarity to the subject of her bioscan. If this is true, his removal from the planet and transport to Proxima would constitute a major criminal act.
“The situation in the station has become extremely volatile, and until she can come up with more answers, she advises you to interact with staff in the basecamp with caution as this scale of operation will undoubtedly also involve personnel on the surface. Anyone involved in illegally removing the indigenous Ut’aran people from their home world, and subjecting them to surgical implant procedures, must be assumed to be dangerous.
“I have analyzed the doctor’s data and concur with her findings.
“End Message. Standing by to record reply.”
Ethan leaned back against the wall and took several deep breaths. Holy frak. There’s no way of knowing who I can trust.
“Begin recording,” he said, rubbing his forehead as he struggled to fit this new bit of information into his thinking. “Kaycee, first thing I need to say is I’m sorry I doubted you. Right now, we’re trapped inside the Rockpile, so we’re safe as long as we don’t stick our noses into places they don’t belong. We won’t be going anywhere, and with any luck that will keep us out of trouble, but that goes both ways. You also need to make sure you don’t get into anything up there to get yourself into a stink.
“We’ve got two days before the shuttle returns to pick us up. We’ll figure out our exit strategy, when we get back aboard.
“Marti, I assume you will also listen to this message once I open the door, so you need to make sure that everything we’ve recorded down here for the last two days is also available to Kaycee. I know her well enough to know she won’t turn loose of this, but she needs to do whatever she has to in order to keep the ship safe. That has to be her first priority. We will keep our heads down, but you all must do the same.
“Walker out.”
He thumped his balled up fist against his forehead and growled.
This was supposed to be a gravy run, and a once in a lifetime vacation. How the frak did it go this far sidewise?
“Are you ready to transmit?” he asked.
“Yes, Captain Walker,” the automech said. “As soon as the door opens, I will reestablish communications with the Marti awareness. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
“Remind me never to doubt one of Kaycee’s hunches again.”
“As you wish, sir,” it said. The face reappeared the instant he pushed the door open.
When he walked out of the closet and looked around, the main gallery had filled with staff members. There were no open seats around the table, but Ethan realized the less they interacted, the safer they’d be. Several groups of anthropologists were arguing with each other about what might be happening, and Angel and Nuko had moved out of the line of fire and were standing near the back wall.
The captain caught the handler’s eye and jerked his head toward the door to the dorm rooms and the MedBay.
Angel nodded, tapping Nuko on the arm to make sure she followed as they slid toward the door. Fortunately, no one saw them sneak out.
Chapter Seventeen
“Operations control,” the face of a middle-aged man appeared on the screen in the MedBay. Ammo had swung the screen so he could see that she was in a diagnostic chamber but nothing else in the room.
“We’ve got a medical emergency on the Olympus Dawn. We need help. It’s our doctor.” She stared at him like she was studying him for dissection, even as her voice carried a tone of almost abject terror.
“What kind of medical emergency? Don’t you have your own medic?” he asked, apparently unperturbed by her plea.
“It’s our doctor who’s injured. She’s having seizures,” she said.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
“She was exercising and one of the machines slammed her. She’s got a serious head wound, and the seizures just started. We got her into our MedBay but they’re getting worse.”
“You don’t have anyone else aboard with medical training?”
“Quinn’s got basic emergency triage only,” she said, glancing off screen like she was watching something. “This looks like a brain injury, but without a doctor we can’t tell.”
“Bring her to our medical center, I’ll have Doctor Forrester meet you there,” he said.
“Problem with that. Last time we tried to leave the ship they chased us back inside with guns. Your OpsSec Chief ordered us not to leave the ship under any circumstances.”
“Stand by, let me check that.”
“Frakking hurry. She looks like she’s dying,” she said.
“Copy,” he said as the comm went blank. Ammo winked at Kaycee who stood out of optic range outside the door to the MedBay watching her performance.
After several seconds, the screen lit up as the controller came back. “Mr. Parker said you can bring her to the medical center. He’ll send a team to the airlock to escort you, and you will not be allowed access anywhere except—”
“Did you miss the part where I said she was having seizures?” she challenged. “She’s got a head and neck injury and she’s flopping around like a slug on a hot recycler manifold. We have her strapped down to a diagnostic bed. We can’t transport her. Send the frakking doctor you dimflatch.”
“I work for a living, bitch,” he said. “You got a problem with my boss, that’s you and him.”
She rolled her eyes and looked like she was going to jump through the screen at him. “What I’ve got is a problem with somebody who doesn’t understand how liability works. Our doctor is Keira Smythe-Caldwell. Does any part of that name register on your feeble scanners?”
“Not really,” he said.
“You ever hear of Smythe Biomedical?” She paused while he connected the data points in his brain. “Yah, she’s part of that family. Do you know how many frikking lawyers they will have ripping you and your lousy station to space dust if you let her die because you got your shorthairs twisted?”
He started tapping something into the console in front of him. Probably checking their identity records to confirm who their d
octor was. “Stand by. I’ll explain your situation to the boss.”
“Just hurry the frak up,” she said as the screen went off again.
When it lit backup, it was Bradley Parker. “The doctor will be there in a couple minutes. I don’t want any problems. Is that clear?”
“That will depend on you,” she said. “Just hurry.” She slapped her hand down on the panel and disconnected the comm.
Kaycee was grinning and trying not to laugh out loud. “You really do have steel eggs. You know that?”
“Nah, I just read the shift-boss’s face. He wasn’t going to fall our way unless I spanked him, so I grabbed the closest paddle.”
“Why’d you think that would work?” she asked, stepping back into the MedBay and taking a seat on the stool by the bed.
“Looking at him I could tell he’s a low-mid-grade administrator in the upper-middle of his career,” she said. “He’s comfortable when people above his paygrade push, or he’d have risen farther up the stack by now. I borrowed your family name to make sure he knew I was breathing better air than him.”
“I’m ready with the collar,” Quinn said. He’d been working on modifying a cervical support brace at one of the lab benches in the back of the MedBay. Marti had printed several components and they’d cobbled them onto the collar.
“What will that do?” Kaycee asked.
“One of the prisoners in the program at Upstate had been a doctor before he grew an unhealthy fascination with cutting people into little pieces without anesthetic. He was a smart guy though, so he figured out a way to jam the comm to his implant. It was almost a week before we realized he’d done it and it got a lot messy before we figured it out.”
“It doesn’t block the communications channel,” Marti corrected. “When activated, it will generate a moderate level electrical impulse that should scramble the internal signal pathways in the implant.”
“You built one of these? In a half hour?”
“It’s not that complex. I just ripped the guts out of a contact stun wand and dialed down the power so that it won’t knock him out,” he said. “It’ll sting enough that it won’t be a pleasant experience for him, but it’ll work.”
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 49