Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture Read online

  “Before I'm done! Get going!” Captain Gammin called after her.

  She walked through the short hallway leading to the bridge and stepped onto the grated catwalk that wound around the upper level of the bridge. The lower level had a proper deck with smooth plating but she avoided it as much as possible. The Palamo’s First Officer, Eyig Paudi, an angosian with little sympathy for humans and an itchy finger for his slave obedience unit, or SOBU as the slave crew called it. He peered up at her from below, the blue and green colours of his skin swimming slowly across his face.

  Whenever he got excited the blue would darken and expand over his angular mouth. It's down pointed corners made people of his species look harsh, their low lidded eyes made them look suspicious of everything. “He's finished toying with you?” Eyig wheezed. He was laughing at her, it took her a while to understand what that sounded like, but the wheeze over top his low voice gave it away. At least it wasn't Doctor Thurge.

  “He says he'll be out in a minute,” Nerine replied as pleasantly as possible. She'd managed to mute her ire but it sounded more flat than cordial.

  “Good. We're almost ready.”

  Nerine continued along the catwalk, passing behind navigation, fleet command and communications stations all busy with whatever they'd be doing that day. She tried not to flinch as the criss cross metal walkway slipped between her toes.

  When she arrived beside Kadri, one of the communications officers, she swung a stool out from under the console. “Sit,” Kadri said as she filtered through a myriad of natural and unnatural signals.

  Nerine wasn't about to refuse. The older woman was like a surrogate older sister. “Hi Kadri. What's goin' on today?”

  “We're raiding Ossimi Ring. The scouts say Eden Fleet took out all their defences and Regent Galactic hasn't come in to clean up the mess. Have you eaten?”

  “I ate yesterday.”

  Kadri pulled a nutrient bar from a pocket sewn inside the chest of her jumpsuit and handed it to Nerine. “Here, eat.”

  She listened. It had become easy to pretend she wasn't hungry. There were few people Nerine felt comfortable asking for anything from, but Kadri always had extra food. Where she got it was something she simply didn't want to know. “What're you looking for?” she asked around a mouthful of the chewy, caramel flavoured bar.

  “I'm looking at a wormhole exit point. I know it's not a Regent Galactic or Eden ship but I can't seem to get a perfect fix on the transponder. They're coming in pretty slow though, shouldn't be here for another day or so.”

  “Is that the profile?” Nerine asked, pointing at the blurry shape on the top layer of her screen.

  “It is, nothing much to look at. More like a shifty blob,” she turned the opacity of the wormhole readings screen down so they could barely see it. Anyone else looking on would see them looking at signal waves that were being analysed.

  “Is that the right transponder info?”

  Kadri looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening in and looked at the decoded transponder information ponderously. “Free Ship Triton under Captain Valance out of Pandem orbital space,” she muttered to herself.

  “He's a freedom fighter. There were news casts all the time on Enreega before the Eden Fleet hit it and my starliner was taken.”

  “Let's send him a message,” Kadri's smile was a thin, stretched grin. “I think over half the ship knows who he is.”

  “What are you telling him?”

  “Shh,” Kadri worked at the controls as quickly as she could, transmitting a recent audio feed and a few written messages Nerine wasn't quick enough to read. “Okay, it's sent, the logs are deleted and I'm entering the conclusion about the wormhole entry point in as a minor energy fluctuation.”

  “If they catch you-”

  “They'll click that fancy button and poison me to death, then no more caramel bars for you,” Kadri whispered. “So keep your little gob shut and we'll see what Valance can do for us.”

  “From your mouth to the heavens,” Nerine whispered hopefully before popping the last bite of the nutrient bar into her mouth.

  Chapter 2

  Captain Jacob Valance

  The blinking, buzzing of Captain Valance's command and control unit forced it to roll off the bedside table. He sat up and swung his legs over the side. “Captain Valance here,” he said aloud. His subdermal jaw implant relayed his response to his control unit, which passed it on to the bridge.

  “This is Price, sir.”

  “You're Lieutenant Commander Price now, Agameg. Don't be afraid to take pride in that. What's going on?” Jake asked as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes. What time is it? I swear I just closed my eyes a minute ago. He thought.

  “We've received an emergency transmission. Someone sent it straight into our wormhole from our projected arrival point.”

  “Have you reviewed it?”

  “It's addressed to you, sir.”

  “I'll access it from here.” Jake picked up his command and control unit and shook his head. Four AM. Four hours sleep. It'll have to be enough. “Make me aware of any other developments, I'm up for the day.”

  “I will sir.”

  The channel closed. Jake stood and accessed the emergency message. The header noted that it was sent from a ship called the Palamo, registered with the Royal Acquisition and Distribution Salvage Company. The rest of the usual information was missing. There was no Captain or First Officer listed, no port of call, and no government flag. Jake couldn't help but think about how closely the Triton’s status matched what he was seeing. They didn't run under a flag, weren't registered with any company and their port of call was so out of date it wouldn't show up on most navigational networks.

  He started for the bathroom, the governor program in control of the environment in his quarters increased the light level just enough for him to see. Grabbing a denta tab from the dispenser and popping it into his mouth, he played the message.

  The agonized, high pitched scream of a young woman filled his quarters. Jake flinched, bit his cheek and dropped his comm unit into the shower. He shook off the initial shock and muttered; “If I wasn't awake before...” Jake snatched the arm command unit from the floor and strapped it on. It covered from wrist to the middle of his forearm.

  Emitters vibrated the air, scrubbing his skin free of dirt and debris. Fans pulled the air through the stall. The screaming message stopped and a passive male voice assigned to read his text messages replaced it. “This is a scanning officer on the Palamo. The Palamo is a carrier crewed by slaves. We are about to raid Ossimi Ring Station. The scream you just heard was recorded moments ago as the Captain tortured his Cabin Girl. It is a routine event here. I am told you have saved slaves before and we appeal for your help. We are all implanted with control devices. I don't know much about the Ossimi raid, only that the crew have been forced to jury rig their enviro suits so they're ready for heavy gravity. Please help.”

  Jake scrolled through the message from one end to the other, viewed the raw code version and even replayed the scream at a lesser volume. There was no more information.

  The cleansing chamber fell silent. All this time and I haven't had time to have a proper wet shower. Some day I'll take advantage of the finer things Triton has to offer. Jake thought as he looked at the bone dry shower nozzles in the walls of the stall. He stepped out and made his way to the bedroom, replaying the transmission, scream included as he pulled his control unit off.

  The cabin girl sounded young, small. He'd heard someone scream just like that before when they were caught in a highly charged field and electrocuted. It was years ago when they had landed the Samson for repairs. No one was watching James, one of their new repair people. He had gotten under the main mass reactor, thinking it was completely powered down. While he was making fine adjustments inside the machine his aligner bridged two connections and he was burned bone deep. It took over a minute, he was alive for most of the incident. They couldn't get to his body until the mass r
eactor's capacitors had finished discharging. All James left behind was a charred husk. James' screams were so piercing, so loud that people came running from eight docks down.

  That's what the cabin girl's screams sounded like, someone who was in so much pain they weren't conscious of the sounds they were making. Jake's mood darkened, his temper started to rise. He shook it off as best he could as he closed the front of his new, heavily armoured vacsuit and transferred all activity and access to the command and control unit built into it. The unit he had tossed onto the bed locked and deactivated.

  Jake brought up the status screen. Minh was still asleep, due to wake in half an hour, he'd gone to sleep six hours beforehand. His last report indicated that his fighter wing was ready for combat. A squadron was on standby, ready to launch as soon as the Triton arrived on the edge of the Ossimi Ring.

  Jake checked the load and safety on his side arm and locked it into his thigh holster then snatched his black long coat off the hanger. He was out the door and down the private hallway for the Officer's ready quarters before the lights finished coming on. The command level concourse was quiet, only a few security guards passed by as he made his way to the main lifts. It was rare to ride the express car alone, especially all the way to medical. On the way he checked on Alice's status. Still unconscious. Not quite a coma, not quite dreaming.

  Instead of visiting her he turned in the other direction and stopped in the largest of the family rooms. They were comfortable spaces reserved for friends and family waiting on news from the infirmary. They were all empty, a good sign.

  Jake looked at the broad two dimensional screen. The image was so high quality that it was indistinguishable from a transparent section of hull. It was even laid out the same way as many of the observation points, starting half way up the wall and stretching the entire length of the room. The warped view of space outside, with stretched stars and light gossamer haze of the wormhole they were traversing filled his view. The countdown clock on his command and control unit told him that they were to emerge from the wormhole in seconds.

  Crewcast, the new personnel tracking and networking software Jason had installed told him that everyone was waking up early, even Minh, who had somehow managed to get ready for duty in the time he'd spent in the lift.

  The field of distorted stars became clear as they emerged from the wormhole. A few larger, wayward asteroids hung in the space outside of the Ossimi ring's rapidly rotating perimeter, catching the sun's light on their icy surface.

  It's decision time. Jake mused. He played the scream back in his subdermal earpiece as he looked out over the rapidly moving field of asteroids. Triton was turning and accelerating along the edge of the field so it could keep pace with the whirling expanse of rock and ice. It stretched on like a horizon of blue, black and white with no visible end.

  Jake closed his eyes and listened one more time as the wail played back in his ears. For over five years he operated under the assumption that Alice was his biological daughter. He looked for her as he made his way across entire sectors on the Samson, earning his way across the stars with bounty hunting and retrieval work. When he discovered that they weren't blood relations, that she was actually his personal artificial intelligence made flesh, it changed very little. If that cabin girl was her, if it was his daughter being tortured, he would go to any length to get her back, make her safe and punish the ones responsible.

  There was nothing he hated more than slavery. In some cases it was worse than murder. He remembered being a captive himself. The result of some personality bending, information retrieval experiment. The playback ended. This isn't how good decisions are made. I don't have a clear head on this and I'm making it worse. He deleted the playback of the scream and looked at the broad display. On the left side was the edge of the asteroid field, so large it looked like a straight line stretching out into space. On the right was the open blackness of the universe.

  There were other ports. Busy solar systems with dozens of planets and asteroid belts to hide in while they made repairs. They could disappear into another wormhole and limp their way to another hiding place where they could activate their new hypertransmitter and try to find an ally. There had to be someone in reach who opposed the Order of Eden or would at least buy ill gotten cargo if they started raiding supply routes and capturing ships.

  Slave ship. The term conjured images of filthy accommodations, barely edible food, brutal discipline and the stripping of one's identity. It took a special type of person to Captain such a ship. He had run into people with implants before. Neutralized them before. He knew how to deal with them. I've never had the chance to take on an entire ship until now. Triton might not be fast or manoeuvrable right now, but she's powerful, and we've got fighter squadrons ready to go. I have five commanders I trust. Two weeks of solid practice and preparation for multi aspect engagements. We're ready, the crew is burning to get into some kind of action. If I leave these people on that ship without trying I'll never live it down.

  “Busiest two weeks of my life,” Oz said as he stepped into the family room. He stepped up beside him to take in the view offered by the faux family room window.

  "Good morning."

  "You look like you've got something on your mind."

  "Straight to it. You've been in the military too long."

  Oz shrugged. "Guilty as charged. You can take the malcontent out of the military but you'll never get the military out of the malcontent. "

  The pair watched as seven two seater Uriel starfighters flew ahead of the Triton in formation along the edge of the asteroid field. They were impressive ships, with eight engine pods and two main bidirectional thrusters. Small gunships in their own right, capable of carrying a vast array of weaponry as well as modules specialized for extra power, wormhole generation, rescue, troop delivery and many other purposes. They looked on silently as they disappeared from sight. "What do you think of Triton?" Jake asked as he used his command unit to cancel all fabrication and ordered the staff to wake immediately and begin producing heavily armoured gravity outfits. They would fit over the crew's regular vacsuits and compensate for extreme environmental conditions. He added a new design as he completed the order; a Triton skull would be printed on the protective plates mounted on the suit's faces.

  "The ship is incredible. She puts everything I've seen to shame. Your people have done a good job at getting her in shape."

  "What about her people? What do you think of her crew?"

  "Aside from a few who've found their way to the brig, they've fallen in line. Most seem to like what they're doing well enough, whoever doesn't is offered the opportunity to train for something else and try qualifying. A lot of them follow through. A few of them are still a bit of a mess, but there's a chain of command, people are falling in line. Why do you ask?"

  "I've lost objectivity. They're refugees to me Oz, and I have trouble sending people I'm trying to protect into battle."

  "It happens."

  "Ever happen to you?"

  Oz thought a moment before answering. "I got to know the crew on the Roi De Ceil very well, Jake. Every time we took on a Vindyne ship there was a chance some of us would be killed. We got better at our jobs as time went by, but those renegade captains got more desperate. Some of them fought us until there was nothing left for the boarding teams."

  "For Vindyne? I've never seen a more soulless corp."

  "That's what I thought at first. Then I realized they were fighting for the way of life Vindyne provided. Their ships didn't look like much compared to what we were running. Close quarters, thin hulls, few creature comforts, but they were more secure than being on the ground. Vindyne controlled systems were collapsing, crime bosses were becoming barons. Sheriffs were becoming Presidents, and civil wars were breaking out everywhere. Lorander managed to take control on a few worlds, so life got better there, but that still left hundreds of major cities, worlds, and stations without an upper government. People left aboard ships had weapons, structure,
leadership and mobility. They took what they could and moved on unless their Captain had some misguided idea of raiding colonies or taking territory for themselves. A lot of them did. For a while we were the ones who were supposed to stand in their way. When the fighting got too hot, when Vindyne territory had really gone to hell, Freeground ships were relegated to keeping a lane of retreat protected for the few refugee ships that were cleared to enter our territory. You wouldn't believe how many former Vindyne ships tried to sneak or fight their way through."

  "Now we're the renegades."

  "Chief Grady doesn't think so. He calls Triton a city. After spending the night in one of the botanical gallery apartments I'm starting to agree. I woke up to an artificial pre-dawn so convincing I thought I was on a planet somewhere. Now I'm here, in an infirmary so well built it looks more like a full on hospital. Thanks to these," he gestured at the display, "it feels like there are windows everywhere, more like we're walking from one tower to the next on some sort of tall space station. Most people feel at home here now. They have full time jobs, food rations, credits for extra materialization shopping, neighbours and friends. It's not all sunshine and smooth sailing, Security Chief Vega conducted her first raid on black market trading a few days ago, but things are pretty good."

  "I heard about that. We're putting that bunch off at the next port."

  "Good, I was wondering what you'd decided. There was nothing on report."

  "It was Stephanie's suggestion. She thought punishing them aboard would be a blow to morale."

  "Getting put off is bad enough. It's hell out there."

  Jake nodded and sighed. "How do you feel about being aboard?"

  Oz looked at Jake. His black and crimson vacsuit and long coat made him an imposing figure. His expression was difficult to read. There was a great deal the man wasn't saying, whatever he had to express would come at his own pace. "Honest? I'd rather be no where else. Taking control of off ship operations is a perfect fit, even in simulations. Minh, Ayan and Jason are the same way. They've all found their places, though I suspect Ayan wants something more, I don't think she knows what yet."