Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11 Read online

  “That’s bollocks, and you know it. Anyone who talks to me for a minute, then you, will say you’re the born officer. Are you sure you don’t remember anything past the last year or two? Look in the mirror sometime, really look. There’s something there, in your eyes, when you don’t think anyone’s paying attention, it’s as though you’ve seen three or four lifetimes and at least two of ‘em went sour on you. There’s something in there, maybe not the memories, but you learned some lessons. How else would you have cruised through boot camp with the Rangers, taken up arms as though guns were a part of your arm, then pushed through Apex hard enough to make the whole fleet take notice.”

  “I don’t know about the whole…”

  “Who do you think everyone’s talking about right now?” Yawen asked with a slightly rueful chuckle. “The new Valent. Not the father, not your probably-soon-to-be Valent mother the Admiral, she’s as much as disappeared, but you. To the rest of the fleet you’re the one everyone is expecting something from, something amazing.”

  “I hope not, I don’t even know what I’ll be doing,” Alice replied.

  “With your own ship and a special operations team?” Yawen said. “I don’t want to know. Not until it’s run-and-gun time. They’re not going to hold you back long, though, so if you wanted excitement, I bet you’ll get it, and it’s a good thing you’re taking me with you. You’ll need someone who can save your ass.”

  “I signed up to serve, that’s all,” Alice said. The transit car stopped for a moment. They could hear another one pass by, and it resumed. “I’m glad you’re on my team. Really glad. You probably will save me more times than I can count by the time you get promoted.”

  The doors opened, and they stepped out into an airlock leading to a moderately sized hangar. Alice could see Ayan and Terry Ozark McPatrick talking within. She emerged from the airlock with Yawen at her side and was shocked to see the Clever Dream. Some of the armour plating had been warped by heat damage, there were patched holes across the starboard side of several different sizes and one of the missile launchers was stuck open, half ruined.

  “You’re just in time, Alice,” Ayan said. She didn’t greet her jovially. It was as though she had adjusted her tone and demeanour for a wake, and looking past her mother, Alice could see that Oz was more morose than ever. He turned away for a moment, then joined the three women with a put-on smile. “It’s good to meet you again, Alice,” Oz said, offering a hand.

  Alice took it and shook it once but used it to lead herself into his arms. He was more than a head taller than her, but when he returned her embrace, it was clear that he needed it much more than she did. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she stepped away.

  “Haus Geist was killed in the last engagement with the Order,” Oz said quietly. “It was as though they knew exactly where to hit the Triton, where he was. We’re hiding the ship from the fleet so they can’t see the hole one of their ships punched through the hull to get him.”

  “How? Few people even knew about him,” Alice asked, more in disbelief than out of inquisitiveness.

  “He said he could feel a human with telepathic enhancement aboard the Glorious. His name was Dron. Then they hit us with the biggest weapon they had and let us go. We got away quickly, but they could have slagged half the fleet as we were leaving. If it wasn’t for your father, the Revenge, and Samurai Squadron, we wouldn’t have had a chance at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Oz,” Alice said. She was keenly aware that Yawen was watching as quietly as she could, staying out of the circle that Ayan, Alice and Oz had formed.

  “Geist wouldn’t want us to mourn him. He even left an active program aboard the Triton that was derived from his knowledge and thought patterns, so only the people who were telepathically linked with him would notice his absence. To most of the crew, there’s no difference.”

  “If there’s anything I can do, I’ll be there,” Alice offered.

  “Thank you, but I’ll be fine,” Oz said. He was putting up a brave face, but she knew he wasn’t fine, and it would be a long time before he felt right again. She wished he could give him a clean start like she had only months before but kept the thought to herself. Sometimes pain was as much a teacher as any other sensation or experience. For now, there’s an artificial intelligence here that has been waiting for you. He’s refused to contact you using Crewcast or other normal channels, he’s afraid he’ll be hacked into while he’s vulnerable.”

  “I know the damage looks rough,” Ayan said, gesturing towards the sleek, Arcyn Starskipper Luxury Combat vessel. It didn’t look nearly as sleek or stylish as it once did. “We were in contact with the Triton early on while they were on their way back from the Iron Head Nebula and consulted with Lewis, got his permission to do a full refit once they were back here. The other condition was that you agree to the work as well, but with his permission, the Triton flight and repair crews stopped working on getting him back in shape. Lewis knows what we’re proposing for the refit. You know the technology, it’s in what you studied during your time with the Apex program.”

  “Should I go aboard?” Alice asked, staring at the patched holes.

  “He’s expecting you,” Oz said.

  Alice started walking towards her ship, wishing she could remember more than impressions and brief mental images of it. The feeling that she’d spent a long time aboard, that it was more than just a ship was ever present. This was a friend, a companion comparable to most of the friendships she’d made. She turned around and looked to Yawen.

  “I’ll stay here, I can meet him later,” she said.

  Alice nodded and boarded using the forward ramp. It was just large enough for one person, with narrow stairs. Without thinking, she found the cockpit. “Hello, Lewis,” Alice said.

  “Is that really you, Alice?” Lewis asked, his voice clear and a little gruffer than she remembered. “You are quite different from your last incarnation. It seems you’ve gone from woman, to girl, now back to woman. If it weren’t for the records Oz and Lieutenant Garrison showed me, I would doubt it was you at all. You are more Ayan and Jacob’s daughter than the person I knew.”

  “I had a rebirth. It’s really me, Lewis, I missed you.” She thought for a moment, there was a memory, no, a number of memories and a sensation but if she tried to recall more than tiny fragments of events, they dissipated like wisps of smoke in a breeze. “I missed having you in my head?”

  “That’s right, you used to have a communications node installed,” Lewis said, his tone lightening a little. “You remember?”

  “A little, here and there. It’s hard, like I’m learning a new language or something, but looking around…” she leaned towards the forward entrance. “I recognize the recycler and cleaning system near the entrance. I got those two mixed up a few times, didn’t I?”

  “I always asked if you were sure you wanted to recycle something when you used that compartment after you destroyed a jacket in there,” Lewis replied.

  “There was one time, I had to use a waste line to get away. The smell was…”

  “More than I wanted aboard!” Lewis laughed. “It’s you! It’s you, after all! When they transferred Garrison and the report on you showed that you didn’t remember much of your old self, well, I was near panic.”

  “I’d hate to see what happens when you panic,” Alice said, slowly sitting in the pilot’s seat. “This feels familiar, but a little off somehow.”

  “You were eleven centimetres taller when you used to sit there,” Lewis said. “And narrower, especially in the hips.”

  “Watch it,” Alice warned with a chuckle.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “You’ve been through some serious adventures yourself, haven’t you?”

  “I’m the only ship in the fleet with seven layer cloaking technology and a variable missile launcher system. If you ask me, I was under-utilized.”

  “It doesn’t look like it from the outside,” Alice said. “If you don’t mind me saying.”


  “I took extensive damage, it only makes sense that most of it looks worse from the outside than it does within. I still kept every member of the crew safe and sound, but I have to admit there were moments when I wished I had a few more layers of armour.”

  “What do you think of me taking command? Running missions with you?”

  “Only if I can help you with your memories. Oh, and get that full refit. The thought of having over eighty four percent of my mass replaced and being rebuilt in a new design would frighten me if I hadn’t already seen the intended results. Regenerative systems, new sensors, a dimension drive or two, a micro-fusion array and uni-generator would be more than enough to make me happy, but the design they plan on putting it all in with me is like upgrading to an embarrassment of riches.”

  “So, you’re excited, not even a little afraid?” Alice asked.

  “Afraid? Well, they’re not transferring me to another computer system. Why? Do you know something I don’t? Should I be afraid?”

  Alice suddenly felt as though she was undoing a lot of work someone else did to reassure him. “I know less than you do. I’ll just miss you while you’re on the line being rebuilt, transferring a bit of my nervousness, sorry.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry, Alice. Like you, I will come out the other end looking better than ever. Perhaps not as well rounded or bouncy, but better.”

  “Good, so I’ll sign off on the work and you’ll wake up later feeling like a new ship.” She patted the dash before getting to her feet. “Then we’ll have work to do.”

  “Thank you, Alice. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Six

  The Special Operations Combat Unit

  * * *

  When the alert came, Alice was walking back to Oz and Ayan, struggling to find something to say to Admiral McPatrick. He was so sullen, he looked so tired, that his mourning seemed to have crossed the line between emotional damage to physical harm. She could not have imagined that someone that sturdy, that confident could look so weakened.

  “I gave my approval,” Alice said. “Lewis is excited about the upgrade, a little unsure about being temporarily deactivated, but he’s looking forward to the change.”

  “Good, he’s up next on line fourteen,” Ayan said. “We’ll do an extra round of tests to make sure he doesn’t wake up to a bunch of bugs and bad bends.”

  That’s when the invasion alert jostled her nerves and chimed on all their command and control units. At a glance she could see the whole fleet was on yellow alert. Her muster point was only three decks down, in an unused squad room. Yawen compared her instructions quickly and nodded. “We’re activated.”

  “We have to get to the command centre,” Ayan said. “Good luck, you two.”

  “Keep your heads on a swivel,” Oz added.

  “You too,” Alice replied, unsure of what to say in the moment. She looked to Yawen, starting for the stairway. “We’ll make better time under our own power.”

  “Good thinking,” Yawen said.

  By the time they descended three decks on the steps and arrived at the squad room, which was laid out and set up with comfortable seats that looked a lot like they belonged in the cockpit of a fighter, Yawen and Alice knew who they would be in command of. Most of their squad members were cadets who they were responsible for watching and assisting during their time in the Apex program. “It looks like they took the best from both of our squads and made one functional group,” Yawen said.

  “Not bad thinking. I’m surprised we get any credit, we didn’t have much time to help them out while we were in the middle of the academic curriculum.”

  “Speak for yourself; I’m sure my squad were praying to get rid of me. I was in their business and pushing them to get higher scores every day.”

  “That explains why you weren’t around for days at a time,” Ayan said.

  They entered the room, Regan, a tall trainee who looked to her for help more than once during training flashed a smile at her as she and Yawen made their way between the middle aisle between the seats. “Officer on deck!” he shouted.

  All twelve members of their squad snapped to attention. “At ease,” Alice said. “Our commander is on route with our orders. We’re here first, so we sit first. Take the front row.”

  As they settled in, two more squads of fourteen arrived, filling half the seats. One other team, led by Titus and an Ensign she didn’t recognize, wore the Special Operations uniforms, but the other two squads were marked with the insignia and colours of regular security staff. Titus nodded at her with a little smile and spotted something over her shoulder. “Officer on deck!” he shouted.

  Lieutenant Commander Robert Terran strode in, looking at something on his command and control unit. “At ease,” he barked without looking up. Several pilots followed him, taking seats where they could find them. “Good muster time,” he said as he looked up. “There’s no time for long introductions or speeches, thank all the Gods and stars. The Eagle won’t be ready for action for at least seven more days. That doesn’t mean that her personnel get time off when trouble has crossed our borders. I was supposed to begin group assessment for the security teams and give our Special Operations people time to settle in, but this is Haven Fleet. Nothing happens when it’s supposed to, and the order of operations is always changing. The primary elements of our fleet are occupied. They are still executing rescue and recovery operations on what’s left of Freeground Alpha and assisting the Nafalli. Our defence is…” He looked over everyone’s head to the rear entrance as the doors slipped open.

  Most of the soldiers turned in their seats to see what drew the Lieutenant Commander’s attention. A tall, dark haired Junior Lieutenant stood in the doorway with a smaller, stockier man of the same rank who held his jacket in his hand. His Special Operations uniform was only closed half way up his torso and he was out of breath. “In or out, gentlemen!” the Lieutenant Commander barked.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” started the taller one. He and the fellow with him filed in and sat down in a hurry, their squads flowing in behind them. “We were using one of the closed storage bays for a football game between delta and beta squads.”

  “No one asked, no one cares. Sit down and listen up,” Lieutenant Commander Terran said rapidly and coolly. “Twenty eight minutes ago, three ships from the Cefa System arrived on the edge of the Haven System. That’s the Rega Gain system, our home, for anyone who is as mentally behind as Lieutenants Foran and Steno were late. The lead ship arrived dead. All souls lost in transit thanks to hundreds of Order of Eden driller scramblers that were aboard. This is the first time we’ve seen them use small attack bots that affix to an outer hull, drill through and go after crew or critical systems. Early intelligence reveals that this may have been a ship carrying an outspoken group of rebels. There was an automated message telling us simply that the Cefa System has been overrun and thousands of refugees are coming. You can play it back later. The other two ships were filled with civilians and the few rescue ships we could scramble got to them in time. There were no attack bots aboard. While they were doing their jobs, more ships began arriving. The rescue teams we have are overwhelmed, and if the Order of Eden or any of their allies decide to push against our border, we will have plenty of fighters, some good heavy fire support, but no boarding teams, no multi-role support staff to back them up and take up important secondary objectives as they come up. Our Captain volunteered his crew, and I am in charge of the Special Operations Division, so that takes us to this moment. You have each been assigned to an extended combat shuttle. Your current objective is to perform rescues on ships as assigned. Keep your eyes on your scanners. Watch for suicide bombers, do not attempt to dock with a ship that scans as empty. We are aware that some of these ships are arriving with failed life support systems and those tombs will be dealt with last until we’ve saved everyone we can. If anything looks wrong, if you even hear someone mutter; ‘For the Order,’ you will retreat back to your shuttle and back off unless
you are Special Operations. The Order will do anything to infiltrate and interfere with us, we are tasking Special Operations with handling the more complicated situations. No one else should attempt to resolve a situation that may have a combat element today. Remember your training. We’re in for a long day.”

  “Lieutenant Commander, Sir,” called the short, half-dressed Lieutenant from behind. “How many ships are we up to?”

  “Did you make it through training without learning to read, Lieutenant?” Terran asked. He held his command unit up; the thick arm band flashed a screen of quickly flowing text. “You have more information than you need right here. If you don’t know how to read it, then have one of your people show you. Let’s get to work, dismissed!”

  A pair of pilots approached Alice and Yawen, they were both short, stout people. “Ensign Tamera Lott, reporting for duty, Lieutenant,” said one. “This is my navigator; Ensign Manda Lott.” She said, gesturing to her twin.

  “Your shuttle awaits, Ma’am. Prep’s all done,” Manda said. “Engineering’s got us set up with one of their brilliant newbies, he’s waiting for us.”

  Alice took a brief look at the people in her charge. Everyone had all their gear on them, so their armour was complete, and each wore their sidearm and were checked in with their general kit. “All right, let’s not keep these refugees waiting. If anyone forgot anything, now’s your last chance.”

  “I could eat,” Regan said. “I missed lunch.”

  Yawen tossed him a meal bar and moved past him, shaking her head.

  “Lead the way, Ensign,” Alice said to Tamera.

  Seven

  Big News

  * * *

  The briefing room, the hallways around it, and most of the equipment areas on the command deck were wide open. The walls, doors, and all non-essential small circuitry had been repurposed for repairs. Any metal that could be recycled into armour and wasn’t structurally required was pulled and utilized. Nothing aboard the Revenge was wasted. Not even the Captain’s quarters were saved from the cannibalization. Jake was down to a bed, a footlocker and one light. The table, his food and drink dispenser, shelves, cupboard, drawers, sound buffering material and even his hygiene system had been pulled. He still had his privacy and a comfortable bed, even though the size of his quarters was cut in half so they could use the extra plating.