Ethan glanced around the patio. Most of the people nearby were watching the sky. Probably tracking the base jumpers. He patted the table in an effort to get Rene to pull his seat back. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Do you remember the first two attacks on the ship? Or the sabotage?”
“What attacks? Sabotage?” He looked confused.
“What about pulling the passengers out of their sleepers and sending half of them to the Sun?”
“You’re full of crap. That never happened.” The confusion on Rene’s face was shifting toward frustration with a rapidly building dose of anger.
“Do you remember the singularity bomb we dropped?”
“Singularity what?” He blinked several times and wrinkled up the corner of one eye into a doubting squint.
“I’m sure you don’t recall anything about packing all two hundred of us into the Dawn so we could complete the run either.”
“On one ship? We’d never be able to keep that many alive on the Dawn.”
“It was only for eight days.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t funny Ethan.”
“No. it’s not,” he said. “I’ll bet you haven’t got many memories of the entire run that are outside of engineering.”
Rene looked down at the table as he dug back into his memories.
“Probably the first thing you remember that’s real, is when Coldwater boarded the ship and interrogated us.”
“I remember that. His people tossed everything.”
“Do you remember seeing the Tahrat after he let us go?” Ethan asked.
“The Tahrat? What the hell is that?” He cocked his head to the side and then his eyes lit up with recognition. “Wait, I know that word. From history.”
Ethan nodded. “That’s right. We had an encounter with one, right after he left. But you weren’t on the ConDeck, so you didn’t see it.”
“The only Tahrat belongs to the Shan Takhu Institute. Why would they be involved? What the frak game are you playing?”
“I’m sure you don’t remember me getting my brain messed with either?”
He shook his head. “Is that what this is? Some kind of delusion because you’ve got a problem?”
“No, it all happened. Just not like you remember it.”
Rene looked down at his drink, grabbing it and pitching the exotic flower out onto the table and slamming the contents down. It might have been fruity, but it packed enough kick that he hissed as it hit bottom. “I don’t believe you,” he said once his lungs managed to get air again.
“That’s alright,” Ethan said, looking down at his own drink. “It’s better if you don’t.” A wave of sadness washed over him and he realized he would have been better off not saying anything. He wanted to rewind this conversation and remove it from the engineer’s memory too.
Rene leaned back in his chair and ran both hands through his short hair, scratching at his scalp like his brain was on fire. “Are you honestly telling me we finished the mission, but something went wrong and I can’t remember it?”
“Lots went wrong. We lost a ship and two crewmembers, but we did finish the run.”
“Why don’t I remember that?” The engineer looked down into his glass and shook his head.
Ethan cleared his throat and looked back up. “Everybody on board had their memory wiped. We all agreed to it.”
“Except you?”
He shrugged. “That brain problem I mentioned kept the block from sticking in my case. The memories came back to me right after we got to Cygnus Deep Four.”
“I cannot buy this. I’ve known you for a lot of years, and although I don’t always agree with your decisions, you’ve never lied to me before.”
“I’m not lying now.” Ethan held his hand up like he was swearing an oath.
“This is just too incredible to be true. I mean the STI and plussers and—”
“I never mentioned plussers,” he said.
A puzzled expression flashed over his face in several rapid-fire waves before it settled into a solid scowl. “Then where did I come up with that?”
Ethan was about to answer, when his thinpad chirped. He’d taken to not wearing his collarcomm as a concession to the social norms of Escabosa, but he hated to be out of contact. It just wasn’t his nature.
Holding up a finger to pause their conversation, he pulled the thinpad out and slipped his earpiece over his lobe, holding his hand over it to keep from offending the sensibilities of the high-born patrons of the bar.
“Boss, where are you?” Ammo asked.
“In the terrace bar above our cabana suites.”
“Are you alone?”
“I’m with Rene,” he said. “We’re having that conversation.”
“That conversation?”
“Yah, he remembered something, so I’m helping him put it back together.” He didn’t think it was advisable to tell her he’d prodded enough it was no surprise the engineer was breaking through the block.
“That’s not good, but we can deal with that later. We might have a problem.”
“What’s swinging?”
“Marti and I are on our way down from LEO station. We were here to help send Angel and Quinn off on their base jump. You probably can see them by now.”
He twisted to look over his shoulder toward the sky. The fiery descent had ended and two bright yellow parafoils were visible far out and above the open ocean. “Ammo says our adrenaline-fueled handlers are the idiots,” he whispered, jerking his thumb in their direction.
Rene just shook his head. He was still stuck in processing mode.
“Assuming they survive, make sure they stay anchored until we get there. Something stinks like a raw turd.” She clicked off the comm without further explanation.
Glancing over, he realized his engineer wasn’t liking how things were digesting.
“Ammo wasn’t blocked either?” he asked.
Ethan sighed. “Neither was Kaycee.”
“Why?”
“Because of what’s going on in here,” he said banging the side of his head with a fist. “Somebody needed to help me adjust to my new brain.”
“Just… No,” he said, pushing back from the table again.
“Look, I’ll lift the inhibition lock we put on Marti, and you can confirm all of it,” Ethan offered, reaching out and grabbing Rene’s arm. “It probably won’t help you remember, but at least it will prove I’m telling you the truth.”
Chapter Five
Rene stared out across the cove watching the sun creep down over the horizon in silence. Ethan had pulled his chair around so he could admire the brilliant orange waves as they streaked the crystal waters with liquid fire. It almost felt like the times they sat together on the middeck staring out the observation windows at the collar of stars, except this time he could feel the turmoil in his friend’s mind and heart.
He knew there wasn’t anything he could say to help until Rene confirmed what Ethan had said and then worked through the aftermath. So instead of talking, he just sat and waited with him. A companion and a friend was all he could be.
“Ethan Walker?” A woman appeared between them. She’d walked up unnoticed and until her voice startled him, she’d not existed in his universe.
“Yesterday I was. Today I’m still working on it.” He shrugged but pushed his chair around to widen the view. It was worth getting in wide-angle too. She wore a professional blazer, and where the light overcoat ended, the skin began. Real skin and not a layer of thinskin pretending to be flesh. Escabosan fashion was something that Ethan could appreciate. It helped to combat the island fever with a dose of distraction.
“You are the registered owner of the freighter docked at Tijeras Lunar Two? The Olympus Dawn isn’t it?” she asked, smiling as she let him scan her once over. Or maybe twice over.
“Yes. Well, my company owns it. But I’m the captain.”
“My name is Sinthya Darvelle.” She pulled out a professional identitag and handed it to hi
m.
He pressed it against his thinpad on the table and glanced at the display as he handed it back.
Legal Advisor Class-three. Unaligned.
Damn.
Obviously, he hadn’t tied off far enough away, and they were about to ask him to move his ship. He’d berthed the Dawn as far from Escabosa as possible, knowing that a common freighter parked at the resort stanchion would have been too much for the elite sensibilities of the guests.
“Our stanchion permits are good through the end of the month,” he protested, anticipating her next line.
“Of course. Your ship is fine.” She smiled, shifting her weight and leaning against the side of Rene’s chair with her hip. Ethan glanced at her legs and realized she was well aware that the view of her long legs was far better if she remained standing. After making sure he took in an adequate dose of her decidedly female charms, she shifted back. “May I sit for a moment please?”
“Actually, we’re waiting for friends,” he said, refusing to rise to her bait. He stole a quick look across the terrace and saw Marti and Ammo coming down the lift from the upper platform. He nodded in their direction. “And in fact, there they are.”
“Absolutely, no problem then,” she said. “I represent a client who wants to retain your services. If you’re willing, I’d like to arrange a meeting as soon as you have the time. You should have my contact information on your thinpad.”
Ethan glanced down again at his screen and nodded. “And who would your client be?”
“Mr. Brendan Pierce of Proxima-Overgaard Service Enterprises,” she said as if he should recognize the name.
He nodded because it seemed more polite than shrugging would have been. “You should understand we’re here on vacation for most of another week, minimum. Even if we were to come to an agreement with your client, it will not happen before then. But I’ll have my load broker contact you in the morning.”
“Mr. Pierce has asked that you be involved personally in any business meeting I would arrange on his behalf. He was specific that he expects your negotiations are not to be done by proxy.” She landed a strange bit of emphasis on the last word and it caused a memory to twinge.
“We’ll be in touch.” He nodded, standing up as Marti approached the table. Ammo had stopped to order a drink first. When he glanced over, she was standing with her back to the bartender and had both elbows on the bar. He could see she was talking, but her eyes were on Ethan and the advisor.
Ms. Darvelle looked like she was about to offer her hand, but instead she cocked her head and raised her arm, snapping her fingers twice. The waitress appeared a few seconds later with a dark bottle and several tall stemmed glasses. “A bottle of Tortuga Vineyards ‘57. Compliments of Mr. Pierce. I believe you will find it is an excellent vintage.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow and then smiled. He wasn’t a wine aficionado, but he was knowledgeable enough to recognize the value of the gesture. Not that he had ever heard of Tortuga Vineyards.
“Tomorrow then, Captain Walker. I will tell my assistant to expect your comm.” She cut a hard pivot and headed across the terrace, nodding at Ammo as she passed.
“Who was the skin operator?” Ammo asked as she walked up.
“An agent for some rich guy with a load to haul,” he said, tossing her the thinpad with the woman’s contact info on it.
She slid it into her thinskin without looking. Her eyes telling him she’d check it out later. She dropped into the seat beside him and tilted her head in Rene’s direction, her expression asking, Is he alright?
“He will be,” he said aloud. “I think he just needs to take a walk with Marti and get some of his questions answered.”
Marti had just slid into the seat beside her and its face showed that it was almost as confused as the engineer.
“You two need to take a stroll down by the beach. Alone. Tell Rene everything he needs to know about what really happened on our last run,” Ethan said. “He made a good point about it being dangerous to keep him in the dark.”
“Understood,” Marti said. “Are there any limitations to what I should disclose?”
He shook his head. “Give him anything he asks for, as long as it won’t put Kai and her people at risk.”
Rene glanced at the two of them then without saying a word, stood up and walked toward the stairs to the beach. The Humanform automech fell in a step behind.
“He’s not taking it well,” she said, watching after them as they descended toward the sand below.
“I pushed him a bit hard, but he was digging at why Nuko and I are drifting apart, and I sort of mentioned that it was best if he didn’t know. From there it spiraled out until he uncovered a fragment of memory.”
“How big a fragment?”
“He remembered that our cargo was plussers.”
She nodded, letting out a slow breath. “Well if that’s what is coming up first in his memories, that’s probably a good thing. Especially given what just happened.”
She leaned forward reaching out for the bottle and the puller. “Where are Quinn and Angel?”
“I sent them back to the cabana to clean up. Adrenaline in an EVA suit gets ripe, and not in a pleasant way,” he said. “Before they get back, drop the goods. What’s the stink?”
She twisted the tool into the end of the bottle and pulled the cork. Glancing around the terrace she leaned toward Ethan and lowered her voice. “Marti pegged someone tracking us.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it was this new prospective client doing his diligence. Rich people tend to be rich, because they are cautious.”
“I scan that, but following our handlers is pretty low tier.” She poured them both full glasses of the wine and leaned back in her seat. She didn’t look at him but was watching the terrace behind him.
“Maybe he’s thorough too,” Ethan suggested. “Or maybe it was you he was tailing.”
She shook her head. “This is more than that. The one that Marti made today was an augment.”
“A plusser?” His mind leapt to Sinthya Darvelle. She didn’t feel like one, but she sure looked the part.
“I don’t think so, she didn’t stink right,” she said. She slipped her finger over the rim of the glass and touched the top of the wine. Winking at him when he raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry a paranoid habit.” She smiled and took a sip. “You never know what you’re putting in your mouth if you don’t check first.”
“If your tail wasn’t a plusser?”
“Then she’s a STIF. As we were leaving the observation deck, I caught her putting what looked like a Tele-Amplifier Comm in her pouch.”
“Frak. If she had a TAC, that tells us something doesn’t it.”
“Yah. She isn’t working alone.”
Chapter Six
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the sky had a faint pink glow with thin noctilucent clouds reflecting just enough light to make the ocean shimmer. Far out at the entrance to the cove, a glowfish leapt up and twisted through the air. An arc of neon against the subtle pastels of the ocean and sky.
Ethan stood on the balcony deck of his cabana, trying to enjoy the slight tang of the fresh air, but it just wasn’t happening. He couldn’t sleep. The truth was, he hadn’t slept much since they had arrived, so this was only slightly more of a problem than every other morning he’d spent here.
No one else was awake. Marti’s body sat silently in a chair, attached to her charger and otherwise dead to the world. He knew that far up above the distant moon, Marti’s awareness was awake and working on whatever it was that Marti did when no one was around to talk. But her automech was far more human in its need to recharge.
Before he left his room, he’d dialed up a Spiced Escabosa Dark and was waiting for the servobot to bring it out to him. He’d spent many predawn mornings on the deck, and he stretched and flexed the muscles of his back, watching the world unfolding before him.
It would be several hours yet before morning opened for business, but when it happene
d, he’d be wide eyed and fully caffeinated.
“Your spiced coffee,” Marti said, appearing in place of the servobot. She had been out on the beach explaining things to Rene until well after midpoint, so he’d expected she’d need to charge late.
“Thanks, Marti,” he said, taking the cup and sniffing in the exotic fragrances of the drink. “Weren’t you out late?”
“I was,” she said, standing beside him and staring out into the distance. “It was a very difficult discussion.”
“I’m sure.”
“He has decided to return to the Dawn in the morning as he is more comfortable there,” she explained. “He intends to review the actual records of the last mission in the hope that it will help him restore his sense of connection to the ship and crew. He also expressed a feeling of betrayal, even though he acknowledges that it may have been necessary.”
Ethan nodded. “I can understand that. I felt that way too.”
“I am sure he will resolve the issues he has. He did say he knew he would ‘get over it.’”
He turned away from the railing and went to sit at the table. The sunbrella above the table blotted out most of the stars, so he touched the button to fold it down. Reclining the chair, he stared up into the sky and could almost pick out the brightest filaments of the Eastern Veil Nebula. The air filtered the light just enough toward Oxygen Three that if it had been only a little darker, it would have been visible.
Marti followed him over to the table and sat.
“Is he going to be alright?”
“I believe so,” she said, turning her face on and frowning. The projected face was for helping others feel comfortable with what otherwise was a short, humanoid robot body. It also helped to give the AA a definitive gender identity.
The fact that she turned it on at all, said she wanted to discuss something important for him to understand. “He seems to be willing to accept the underlying reasons we kept him unaware of the real status of our last run. He remained uncertain of his having volunteered for the memory block, but the recording that you ordered him to make beforehand, convinced him not to maintain… a grudge.”
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 87