by Craig Allen
“Not at all, Admiral.” Cody nodded toward the planet. “Any idea where that hopper came from?”
“Hoppers, I’m afraid,” Jericho said. “The one that fired upon you was blown to bits, as you saw firsthand. As for the one that crashed, we have no idea. The hopper itself seemed to be a modified version of the Banshee Eight, which is what was used back when the UEAF Kali crashed ten years ago.”
“A copy made by the Reed Entity?”
Jericho shook his head. “There is another possibility. Remember, the Reed Entity did not know who owned the ships we had encountered in the nearby globular cluster.”
“So the toads decided to attack for no reason?” Cody frowned. “That seems reckless, even for them, Admiral.”
“That it does.” Jericho stroked his chin for a moment. “After the battle eight months ago, the top brass ordered us not to investigate the rest of the system but to keep our focus on Kali Prime. Otherwise, I would have sent a dozen probes to the outer planets and beyond. Who knows what else is out there? Maybe the Reed Entity has some hidden technology they refuse to reveal to us in spite of our threats.”
“Would anyone know if we did send a probe, Admiral?”
Jericho snickered. “Tempting, but yes, they would. Protocol requires all probe activity to be reported into logs, which are then sent en masse back to UET command. And they won’t be happy if I do something they specifically denied.”
Cody shook his head. “It’s almost like they don’t want us going out there.”
“A bit paranoid, don’t you think, Dr. Brenner?” Jericho raised an eyebrow. “By the way, how are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Admiral. Not my first close call.” Cody recalled half a dozen events from his orbital-drop days, including one time his chute bunched up on him. He decided not to share.
“Well, we all appreciate what you’ve done,” Jericho went on. “However, I have a situation that may require your ambassadorial skills.”
Cody forced himself not to smile. He wasn’t a trained ambassador. He was just a sports jock who’d found he had a knack for getting into security systems. During the Spican war, he had translated the Spican’s neural language, which paved the way for peace. He wound up as an ambassador simply because the last indigenous creatures of Kali Prime, the fliers, preferred to talk to him rather than anyone else. Cody was sure that had something to do with the fact that he, along with a handful of marines, including Sonja, had helped free the fliers from captivity.
He felt like a lifetime had passed since then.
“I’ll help however I can.” Cody didn’t question why the admiral was delivering the orders himself instead of using an intermediary. They’d become quite friendly over the months.
Jericho nodded then handed over a viewer. “I’d like you to stay aboard the Olympus Mons for now. We’ll send you the orders later. Details to work out, you understand.”
“Of course.” Cody never understood why the military waited until the last minute to hand over orders, but he had learned not to question it.
He started to ask how he was getting there, but then he saw the flight schedule on the viewer. Banshee One Eight, pilot Sonja Monroe. He couldn’t prevent the grin spreading across his face.
“I understand she graduated piloting school at the top of her class,” Jericho said. “I expect her to make lieutenant quickly. You keep that to yourself, though.”
“Of course, Admiral.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I should probably go.”
“Yes.” Jericho suppressed a grin. “I’m sure Ensign Monroe is waiting for you in the docking bay right now.”
Cody departed, doing his best not to run for the docking bay. Reaching the Olympus Mons would take a few hours, and it would just be him and Sonja in the hopper. Alone at last.
~~~
Cody searched for tube eight, hoping he had the right docking bay. He’d have to head to the other end of the ship otherwise.
He finally found it. A hopper was sitting with its grav plates on, still strapped to its docking points. Holograms floated in the air around the hopper: Warning! Keep Back Twenty Meters.
After a moment, the grav plates died down. Steam still poured off the coolant systems around the engines as the pilot’s door opened and Sonja stepped outside.
“Test looks good. Thanks, guys.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The crew returned to their duties, leaving Sonja scowling.
Cody wanted to laugh out loud. She had been an NCO for ten years, ever since the war with the Spicans. If anyone had called her ma’am then, she would have wrung his neck.
He resisted the urge to run up the ladder leading to the docking platform. Civilians weren’t allowed up there, not unless they were boarding or exiting a hopper. He waited patiently as she stood atop the platform, scanning the massive docking bay of the warship Tokugawa.
Finally, her eyes fell on him, and she nodded.
A nod? They’d argued earlier, but he thought they’d gotten over it. Maybe she just didn’t want any public displays of affection.
Cody watched her slide down the ladder and approach him with the strides of an officer, which was quite similar to an NCO walk, Cody noted.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I’m good.” Cody set his rucksack down. “And by the way, congratulations, Ensign.”
The corner of her mouth curled upward. “Don’t you dare call me ma’am.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” Cody nodded toward the myriad of crewmen working on hoppers or other vessels within the docking bay. “They’ll be calling you that from now on, you know.”
“Yeah.” She looked across the docking bay. “I guess I’ll have to get used to it.”
They stood for a moment, staring at each other awkwardly.
Cody broke the silence. “You got your new orders?”
“Not yet,” she said. “The CAG said he’d pass them down shortly.” She shook her head. “Don’t know why he couldn’t have given them to me when I—”
“Ensign Monroe?” A petty officer walked up to her. “I have your orders, ma’am. You’re babysitting.”
“Am I?” She smiled as she looked at Cody, then she took the viewer from the officer’s hand. “I’m being transferred off the Tokugawa.”
“To the Olympus Mons,” Cody said.
The petty officer looked at him. “And exactly how do you know that?”
“I’m the baby.” Cody shrugged. “And a whole lot more.”
Sonja snickered as the petty officer’s face went red.
“Oh, Cody Brenner, right.” He rubbed the top of his head. “I, uh, thought you were taller.”
“Didn’t mean to be short.” Cody didn’t think he was all that short, but he’d gotten that sort of remark before from people who had heard about him from before the war and must’ve pictured him at over two meters tall.
“I loved the Hawaii drop, by the way.” The petty officer laughed. “Man, you nailed it, even with the high winds and the broken gear.”
“Pure skill.” Cody had told the story of his Honolulu drop at least a hundred times on board the Tokugawa. He was surprised the petty officer hadn’t recognized him. Then again, with a crew of over a thousand aboard the Tokugawa, this was probably the first time they had run into each other. “Well, it was nice to meet you.”
“Thanks. Uh, I didn’t mean nothing by the baby thing.”
“Of course not,” Cody said. “I prefer clueless wonder myself.” He gave the petty officer a smile.
The officer chuckled then looked at Sonja and stood at attention. “By your leave, ma’am.”
She nodded to one side. “Dismissed.”
He saluted and turned to leave. He walked a short distance then turned to face Cody. He put his fists to his chest then spread his arms wide. It was something orbital droppers did and fans of the sport emulated. Cody returned the gesture.
“Do you ever get used to that?” Sonja asked.
Cody started to re
ach for her but stopped himself. “A reminder of my days as an athlete or being called a baby?”
“Both, I guess.”
“You used to call me baby, you know.” Cody rubbed his chin. “Or do I have that backwards?”
She turned her lips inward and stared at the deck. Then she tapped her ear and looked up at the platform, where a crewman mirrored the gesture. “Acknowledged.”
“We’re ready already?” Cody asked.
She stared at him with narrow eyes and a half smile. “We are if you are.”
Cody hefted his rucksack, and Sonja made her way to the ladder leading up to the platform. Cody followed wordlessly.
~~~
The hopper’s navigational lights lit up the interior of the launch tube, not that there was anything to see. The end of the tube opened like a sphincter, and a few seconds later, the blackness of space surrounded them.
Sonja activated the comm. “Banshee One Eight is free and flying. Changing course to zero four zero by three two five.”
“Understood, Banshee One Eight.” The Tokugawa’s comm officer’s voice sounded bored over the radio. “Zero four zero by three two five.”
The hopper’s grav engines came online and spun the hopper around. In seconds, they zoomed away from the Tokugawa and into the midst of the fleet.
Cody spotted a couple dozen ships on the hopper’s sensors, ranging from small destroyers to larger warships, of which there were two others in addition to the Tokugawa. They were all too far away to spot. Space was vast. But considering the entire fleet had only a dozen or so warships, as Cody remembered, having three at Kali Prime meant the United Earth Treaty council was taking the Kali situation seriously.
Cody focused the hopper’s magnifier on the spiny, egg-like shapes of the Spican vessels, which hovered with the fleet. The sight of those ships still made Cody’s blood chill even though the war had been over for years.
Spicans had joined the fleet to deal with the “Kali problem,” as they called it. Their idea for dealing with said problem was to nuke the planet until it glowed, but Admiral Jericho had managed to convince them otherwise.
The thorny ships hovered in space, unmoving but still horrifying. Cody had once overhead a marine call them “the devil’s eggs.” So many humans had died during the Spican War. Everyone had lost someone or knew someone who had. When the war ended, the alien spiderlike Spicans turned out to have something in common with humans: regret. The reasons for the war were still sketchy, but from what humans could tell, it had been a giant mistake. That led to the Spicans feeling another emotion they shared with humans: guilt.
So alien, yet so much in common. Cody wished he could say the same about the denizens of Kali.
For several moments, neither he nor Sonja said anything as she maneuvered the hopper around a battle cruiser.
Cody decided a little conversation wouldn’t hurt matters. “The fliers have been asking about you.”
“Have they?” Sonja raised an eyebrow. “They remember me?”
Cody didn’t mention that they referred to her as Cody’s “mate.” “They’re a little upset about how everything turned out.”
“Can’t blame them,” Sonja said. “Their whole planet was poisoned by the Reed Entity.”
The comm chimed, and a file uploaded.
Cody pulled it up. “It’s our orders. We’re… Oh wow. We’re going to the planet’s surface?”
Sonja read her copy. “Yeah. Wow’s an understatement.” She adjusted the hopper’s course until the red planet was visible on the starboard side of the front canopy, then she set the autopilot. “ETA, three hours.”
Cody read through their orders again. “I mean, I knew the Tokugawa’s medical team had an idea. I read the report they sent to Admiral Jericho and the senior staff, but I didn’t think they were actually going to try it.”
Sonja had unbuckled herself from her seat and turned to face him, a broad grin on her face. Before he could speak another word, she crawled over the seat toward him and unbuckled him.
“We’ll worry about that later.” She pulled him out of the seat.
It amazed Cody how she could remove her flight suit so quickly.
~~~
They lay together in the co-pilot’s seat, staring at the view of Kali. Cody was more than happy to have Sonja back.
“How’s your arm?” Cody asked.
She held up her left arm and bent the elbow a couple of times. “Feels fine. Can’t even tell it was sheared off.”
Cody remembered well. The pilot-side door had been ripped away by weapons fire, along with her arm. He had to land the hopper himself, which he had managed somehow.
Another hurricane had kicked up and spun across the planet’s brackish ocean, then it crossed the horizon, disappearing from sight.
“What an ugly place,” he said. “I mean, it was ugly when it had a yellow sky, but now…”
“Yeah.” Sonja leaned against Cody’s chest. “There’s only one reason I came back here.”
He looked down at her, smiling, all doubts vanishing from his mind. “It’s really good to see you, you know.”
“Yeah?” She smiled at him. “I missed you.”
Cody stared at her. When he’d first met her, the last thing on his mind was having a relationship, especially with her. She was a hardcore marine gunnery sergeant, a veteran of the Spican war, and was still mourning the loss of her husband in that war. Now she was an ensign, a pilot, and from what Cody could tell, completely devoted to him.
“Wish we didn’t have to stay here,” Cody said. “I think Grandpa would like you.”
“Yeah?” She nudged him. “Well, we wouldn’t have to stay if you hadn’t promised you’d be an ambassador to the fliers.”
Cody felt a touch guilty. “I can’t go back on that, either.”
“I know.” She turned around and kissed him. “That’s one of the things I like about you.”
“What else do you like? Any ‘thing’ in particular?”
She grumbled. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“I just might.” He glanced out the window again. “You know, if we’d never come here, that planet wouldn’t be poisoned right now.”
“And we wouldn’t have met.”
Cody couldn’t deny that fact.
“And you don’t know what would’ve happened to the fliers,” Sonja added. “They might’ve died if it weren’t for us. The toads were doing their best to kill them off.”
Cody shuddered at the thought of the toads and half wondered what they looked like after the Reed Entity altered them. Before the change, a toad had a mouth that split its head in half when it opened and strong, snakelike back legs. And rising from the pink frill on its back was a large, central arm.
They were Kali Prime’s top predators, at least until the Reed Entity decided to take full control of the planet and every living thing on it. After that, they were nothing more than slaves, assuming the Reed Entity allowed them to exist at all anymore. It had killed off all the toads manning space vessels eight months prior, switching them off like machines in a manner doctors couldn’t quite understand.
“We’re really going down there,” Sonja said.
Cody nodded. “Yeah, I read the report about a month ago. Something about using medical fields. They’re hoping they can use that to keep the bacteria in the atmosphere from chewing up the outer hull.”
“And us with it.” Sonja took a deep breath and snuggled closer. “I hate this place.”
Cody did too, but given that he had promised to help the fliers find another home, he doubted he would leave for a long time.
The main systems alarmed, and the HUD tracked an object on gravimetrics.
“Shit.” Sonja jumped away from Cody, making him grunt, and landed in her seat. “The hell is that?”
“A ship, obviously, but—”
Before Cody could finish, the sensor blip vanished, and the alarm ceased.
“What the…?” Cody went back over the log
s. “They dropped their Alcubierre bubble then put it back up again.”
“So they traveled to Kali faster than light then sped away again.” Sonja pulled the logs herself. “There’s a transponder signal, but the ID is scrambled.”
“It’s encrypted,” Cody said. “It’ll take me time to unscramble it.”
The comm chimed. “Banshee One Eight, this is Olympus Mons. Do you copy?”
She reached for the radio, verified the video was off, then answered. “This is Banshee One Eight. We are inbound, ETA”—she checked their course—“twenty minutes.”
“Very good.” A gruff voice had replaced the smooth one of the Olympus Mons’s comm officer. “I assume you saw that ship pop in and out again?”
Cody recognized the voice as Commander Gaston. “We did, Commander. It was gone before we could get any details. Just an encrypted transponder.”
“We got the same,” Gaston replied. “Doc, I’d appreciate if you could learn more about that transponder, just in case. And by the way, any reason you’re not sending visual, Banshee One Eight?”
Sonja stared at herself then at her flight suit on the deck behind them, next to Cody’s clothes. Cody did his best to hide his smile.
Before Sonja could answer, a deep laugh came over the comm. “We’ll see you in twenty mikes, Banshee One Eight. Olympus Mons out.”
Sonja sat back in her seat and crossed her arms, staring at the Olympus Mons, which had just come into view on the canopy. “No secrets on a small ship, are there?”
Chapter Two
The docking tube of the Olympus Mons was much shorter, and in seconds, the hopper landed inside the tiny docking bay of the destroyer. Her docking bay was smaller than the bridge of the Tokugawa.
Cody had become familiar with the Olympus Mons. Whenever the fliers requested to see Cody or whenever Admiral Jericho wanted Cody to see them, that was the ship that took him to the large structure known as the Hive, where the fliers currently lived.
The deck actuators spun the hopper around so that her nose faced the tunnel, then Sonja opened the rear hatch. She checked her suit zippers and headed outside. Cody tucked in his shirt and followed.
