“I understand, Lu,” McKnight interrupted her sympathetically. “You don’t need to explain yourself; in truth, I’m glad you decided to stick with us. You’re the heart and soul of the Recon Team. I don’t know what we’d do without you—and I mean that literally.”
“Traian is second in command,” Lu Bu said seriously, feeling extremely self-conscious at such effusive praise being hurled her way. “He is capable of leading team.”
“Traian’s proven that he is more than capable on assignments like this one,” McKnight said in an equally serious tone. “But he’s a full rung below you in the estimation of your CO.”
“I…” Lu Bu stammered, feeling her ears begin to burn, “thank you, Captain.”
“You’ve earned it,” McKnight said with feeling. “Now, is there anything else you need from me for this mission?”
Lu Bu considered the query before shaking her head confidently. “We have weapons and equipment already on the Mode. We are ready to depart.”
“The key in this assignment will be improvisation,” McKnight said heavily. “You’ve got two days here on Capital before you have to depart; I suggest you use them to gather whatever miscellaneous supplies you might lack.”
“Traian has already purchased our supplies,” Lu Bu replied. “When I was…pregnant,” she made no attempt to hide her dislike for that particular period in her life, “I created inventory lists. We stocked this ship after I receive my smashball earnings.”
McKnight snickered and nodded, “That was a hell of a thing, Lu…I don’t know that any other woman in history has been out laying waste to pro athletes so soon after childbirth.”
“It was…rewarding,” Lu Bu allowed as she remembered the hollow feeling she had experienced during the final play of her short tenure with the Capital-based team. Then her thoughts turned to her mother, Dr. Middleton, and her three little ones who were in their berth nearby. “But I am eager to face new challenges.”
“This will definitely qualify,” McKnight said hesitantly. It was clear there was something her CO wished to say, but was reluctant to do so for some reason.
“What is it?” Lu Bu asked after a lengthy pause in the conversation.
“It’s Lynch,” McKnight explained, lowering her voice and looking around warily as she leaned further in. “I just…I don’t trust him.”
“This is wise,” Lu Bu agreed.
“But he’s right,” McKnight continued in obvious exasperation, “as far as we can tell, he’s never backed out of a deal—and he’s always provided at least as much as we’ve asked for in previous dealings.”
“If he was baiting a trap,” Lu Bu mused, “this would be a smart way.”
“Exactly!” McKnight exclaimed in agreement. She then lowered her voice again and continued, “But I just…I don’t know. He’s clearly not telling us something—and that something is bound to be important—but if what he is telling us is the truth, we…” she trailed off as her voice grew tighter the more she spoke.
“If his information is accurate, we have no choice,” Lu Bu said, believing she had identified the source of her CO’s disquiet. In truth, she shared it. But she had long since come to terms with the fact that their lives—including her own—were tactical assets to be deployed in the best manner possible. “The reward is too great; we must take this risk.”
“That was my thinking,” McKnight sighed.
“Then my team will leave tonight,” Lu Bu declared. “We have supplies, fuel, and equipment already; we should not waste time.”
“If you’re determined to leave,” McKnight plucked a data crystal from her hip pocket, “head to these coordinates first. It’s where we neutralized the Raubach warships en route to Capital, and I’d like you to get a look at their statuses before moving on.”
“We will be discrete,” Lu Bu assured her as she accepted the crystal.
“That would be best—and be sure to observe our comm. protocols throughout the mission,” McKnight added as she stood. Lu Bu followed her lead and brought her hand up in salute, after which Captain McKnight did likewise, “Good hunting, Lu.”
“Thank you, Captain McKnight,” Lu Bu said, after which the meeting was concluded and Lu Bu made her way to the engine compartment where Yide and his sister were performing maintenance on the Mode’s power plant. “How long until finished?” she asked after entering the dark, greasy compartment.
“Two hours,” Yide replied promptly.
“Are all systems ready for flight?” she asked, seeing Yide’s sister swing nimbly down from her perch above the ship’s primary fusion plant controls.
“Everything is ready,” Yide nodded. “Our pre-flight checks will take one hour, so we can launch in three hours.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Lu affirmed. She turned to leave, but stopped before she had exited the compartment. Turning to face the pair of young Sundered, she struggled to find the right words to convey her feelings, “I…your help is important—both of you. We will not put your home in great danger.”
“It is your home as well, Fengxian, even if only for a time,” Yide said after wiping his large, dark lips and baring his teeth in what was a welcoming smile by Sundered standards—but to anyone who had not spent time with the Sundered, the expression was severe and savage. “Your people are our people, your trials are our trials, and your battles are our battles.”
Knowing that Yide had just put the sentiment into better words than Lu Bu could ever hope to do, she moved toward him and offered her hand in friendship, which he accepted in his long, powerful hand.
“Then let us go to battle,” she said, feeling herself swell with pride at having the privilege of doing precisely that with such stalwart allies and, more importantly to her, such precious friends.
Holding little Meng in her arms was probably the most rewarding experience Lu Bu had come to know when interacting with her infant children. He was long and stout with a large, heavy skull, and he had eyes that seemed to move with unerring precision to whatever held his focus. In most ways, he reminded Lu Bu of herself and this somehow managed to both please and dismay her.
“Yide will not expose this ship to unnecessary danger,” Lu Bu assured her mother after gazing into Meng’s nearly black eyes for several silent moments. “He will bring us to a rendezvous with Lynch and then wait for pickup coordinates.”
“It’s ok, Su,” Dr. Middleton said as she soothed little Su, who had begun to fuss for some reason. Lu Bu found herself scowling in envy as her mother immediately recognized the source of Su’s discontent having to do with his diaper, and as her mother went about changing the little one’s clothes she spoke in a light, conversational tone, “We have plenty of supplies here on the ship, and I think they’ve come to think of it as their home. Little Xun seems fascinated with the air recycler, and won’t sleep anywhere except beneath it,” she tilted her chin toward the third of Lu Bu’s children, who lay quietly beneath the rectangular, wall-mounted air unit. She seemed to study it in unbroken silence, only occasionally breaking her gaze to check on her mother and grandmother’s positions before returning her attention to the seemingly all-important piece of equipment.
“I am sorry that we must go to assignment,” Lu Bu said, knowing she had butchered the words but also knowing that she needed to discuss the issue since they had not yet done so. “I know you disapprove, Mother, but—“
“Nonsense,” Dr. Middleton said after finishing with a diaper change in no more than one quarter the amount of time it would have taken Lu Bu, “this is your life, Lu, and we’re here to be a part of it.”
Lu Bu blinked in surprise. “What…what do you mean?”
“I mean,” her mother explained patiently as she gently rocked little Su up and down in her arms, “that I already made the mistake of turning my back on someone who loved me because I disapproved of his career—no, I was scared of it,” she amended seriously as her gaze drifted off in silent contemplation for a long moment. “But I’m not scared
any more, Lu,” she continued after finding her gaze and holding it, “this is our life, and all I want is for us to be together. I’m willing to sacrifice my own preferences in order to make that happen, but I need you to understand that we can’t do this forever.”
“I know,” Lu Bu nodded solemnly, knowing that she had not yet arrived at a decision as to how she should spend her life. The only thing she did know was that she could play an important part in the events to come, and that those events would impact the lives of billions of people who depended on warriors like her to defend them. “We will not live like this forever, Mother,” she vowed.
“That’s enough for me,” Dr. Middleton said with a sad smile before looking down at little Su, “don’t worry about the little ones. I’ll take care of them while you save the galaxy,” she added with what Lu Bu had come to know as a mother’s warmth.
Lu Bu knew she would never be as Dr. Middleton was. She knew that she did not have the same gentle, nourishing and kind demeanor, and she knew that her lack of those attributes played no small part in why her children preferred their grandmother’s touch to that of their mother.
It was a painful thing for her to accept, but she also knew that it meant she needed to provide other things to her children: things like a sense of honor, loyalty, duty, and courage.
“I wish…” she found herself saying unconsciously before catching herself.
“What?” Dr. Middleton asked. “What do you wish?”
Lu Bu found her eyes misting as a flood of thoughts, feelings, and memories surged to the fore of her mind. “I wish they could have known their father,” she said, slipping into her native tongue unconsciously.
“They can know him,” Dr. Middleton said in Qin with unexpected firmness, prompting Lu Bu to look at her quizzically. “They can know him through you,” she explained, switching to Confederation Standard, “and through your memories of him.”
“Perhaps,” Lu Bu allowed after a thoughtful moment, “but mostly I wish…” She hesitated to speak the thoughts that had been swirling at the edges of her consciousness since she had learned of her pregnancy what seemed like a lifetime ago. Then she decided to give voice to a concern she had silently dealt with throughout the ordeal, “I wish they will be more like their father.”
“Oh, Lu,” Dr. Middleton said gently, “you are far more than you give yourself credit for being.”
“I am not smart,” Lu Bu said with unexpected anger, causing little Meng to twitch his entire body at hearing her outburst. She rocked him for several seconds, surprisingly preventing him from crying, and said, “I wish they will have their father’s brain.”
“Let me tell you something, Lu,” Dr. Middleton said softly, “each of these little angels is unique; there has never been anyone exactly like any of them, and there will never ben anyone exactly like any of them ever again. They are a gift from the universe to the universe, and the fact that you opened the door to their life doesn’t mean they will be defined by either their mother or their father.”
Lu Bu had never considered the issue in that manner. To her mind, she had always considered that they would be largely defined by what they were, and what had gone into their creation on a genetic level.
“Are you anything like your birth mother?” Dr. Middleton asked pointedly.
“No,” Lu Bu declared in alarmed surprise. There was very little in life that she wanted more than to be unlike her birth mother.
“Think about that the next time you think poorly of yourself,” her mother said with quiet patience. “These little ones need you—and they need you to be you, not some impossible version of what you think you should be. Fei Long loved you, your shipmates love you, and I love you precisely because of who you are and what you believe is important. Don’t dismiss our love so easily by declaring yourself unworthy of it.”
Lu Bu felt tears stream down her cheeks and began to nod as she heard her mother speak such powerful words. “Thank you, Mother,” she said tremulously as she looked down at Meng in her arms, “thank you.”
“We point transfer to the target system in one minute,” Yide reported.
It had been nearly a week since their departure from Capital, and Lu Bu found herself itching for the battle to come. She reached up to her Storm Drake armor’s collar and activated her suit’s backup com-link, “Recon Team, sound off.”
“Traian here—ready to roll, ma’am,” Traian acknowledged in his usual, enthusiastic manner. Since their heart-to-heart regarding alcohol, he had experienced a significant uptick in attitude and performance, and Lu Bu was honored to call him her second.
“Hutch here,” the former smashball star followed, “ready to lay out some hits.”
“Mantis here,” the newest member of their cadre declared in her silky-smooth voice, “just give me a target.”
“Shiyuan here,” John Jarrett, Fei Long’s facially disfigured best friend declared, “but, uh, I’m fresh out of badass lines…act like I said something clever about kittens or something?”
The rest of the team began to chuckle as Yide added, “Yide here; point transfer in ten seconds.”
The seconds ticked down one by one until the now-familiar vibrations thrummed through the ship’s deck plates, signifying they had completed their point transfer. A moment later, the ship lurched as though it had broken a relatively weak tether attached near the stern.
“Sump broken,” Yide reported.
“Scanning,” Shiyuan added promptly, and for several seconds there was tense silence throughout the ship. “I have two contacts whose profiles match those of the disabled warships,” Shiyuan reported confidently, “but I see no other ships.”
“What is the status of those ships?” Lu Bu asked, gripping Glacier Splitter’s haft tensely as she cradled the massive, enhanced warhammer in her hands.
“The Cis is showing an active EM signature…” Shiyuan replied as his hands flew over the sensor console. “There it is,” he declared, pulling up an image of the disabled warship’s flank, “there’s a docked ship engaged with the Cis’s primary airlock.” A quick series of magnifications and visual enhancements revealed that a ship was docked with the warship—and that ship was quite familiar to Lu Bu.
“Lynch,” she growled as she saw the yacht which she, Kratos, Bernice, and the late Sergeant Gnuko had ridden in pursuit of Captain James Raubach IV.
“I have an incoming transmission,” Shiyuan said after a faint series of blips and beeps emitted from the nearby comm. panel. “It is audio only and set to repeat.”
“Play it,” she instructed.
“Good of you to show up early,” Lynch’s voice crackled over the Mode’s cockpit speakers. “We’re pullin’ some gear off the Cis that might come in handy later on; you’re welcome to join us if you’d like…good of you to show up early—”
“That is the end of the transmission,” Shiyuan said after the message began to repeat.
“We did not come to steal equipment,” Lu Bu said sourly.
“True,” Hutch agreed over the link, “but I, for one, would like to see what he thinks is important enough to risk sitting out in the open like that.”
Lu Bu had not considered that particular point and found herself nodding in agreement, “Good point, Hutch. Traian, your opinion?”
“We are in the intel business,” Traian said wryly.
“Then take us in, Yide,” Lu Bu said confidently, having already decided to do so. But she had learned from Sergeant Gnuko that it was sometimes important to build consensus before taking a potentially dangerous action.
So Yide powered the Mode’s engines and they drove for the disabled Destroyer.
“Glad you made it,” Lynch said, having awaited their arrival on the other side of the airlock through which they now entered the crippled warship. The smirk on his face was something which struck Lu Bu wrong—just as nearly everything else about the man had done since their first meeting—but she kept her own features schooled into a professional mask as sh
e and her people stepped aboard the dark, cold vessel. “Nice threads, by the way,” the arms dealer added with an approving grin, gesturing to her team’s Storm Drake armor with dragon-themed helmets. Shiyuan, Yide, his sister, and Lu Bu’s family—meaning Dr. Middleton and the babies—were still aboard the Mode, where they would remain until the Recon Team returned.
“What are you taking from this ship?” she demanded as Traian and Hutch moved to secure the nearby intersection. She had taken no risks prior to embarkation, and her entire team was prepared for zero-gee vacuum, with their helmets securely sealed and their life support systems operating independently of the warship’s surprisingly active, but minimal life support systems.
“Right through the front door,” Lynch chuckled before beckoning for the team to follow him, “I like that. Come with me and I’ll show you.”
They proceeded down the dark, foreboding warship’s corridors until reaching a small team which appeared to have removed most of the local bulkheads in order to expose what she recognized as a shield generator’s backup control system.
“How we comin’, Fish?” Lynch asked of a medium-height, thickly built man who turned and flashed one of the warmest smiles Lu Bu had ever seen.
“Just about done, boss,” the man, Fish, replied confidently. “We’ll have the frequencies and signature readings soon.”
“Good,” Lynch nodded before turning to Lu Bu, “we took the liberty of downloading everything that was in the backup memory buffers; the main databanks were scrambled but good, and most of the useful gear was already gone. You’re welcome to the fragments of info if you’d like them.”
“Why do you need shield frequencies?” Lu Bu asked skeptically as Fish returned to his task.
“They’ll come in handy later on,” Lynch said with a wink, but failed to elaborate further before apparently changing subjects. “How much do you know about mass drivers?”
McKnight's Mission Page 28
