As he did, a term he’d never seen before appeared twice, then three more times. Of the five entries, four of them had destination codes marked CLS in standard.
Classified. Kr’et’Socae frowned with one side of his mouth.
Victoria Bravo will have to wait. Gods be with Thraff to execute the plan to satisfaction. My path diverges for the moment.
Time to pay my friends in the Information Guild a visit. If they won’t tell me, I’ll find what this other term is supposed to mean. Without a GalNet connection, he would have to wait. Consulting with the Cartography Guild with nothing more than a name would waste his credits. He needed to know the destination before he negotiated with them. Until then, it was best to remain in the shadows. He snapped off the torch and sat quietly in the darkness, eyes closed, and meditated using one of the old Peacemaker techniques. Focused on the word, he let the tunnels of his mind look for an answer, but there was none.
He’d never heard of Uluru. But he would find it. Someone would know what it was.
* * * * *
Chapter Ten
Victory Twelve
Hyperspace
Tara adhered to her standard practice of remaining on the bridge for an hour after hyperspace transition. There was nothing to see outside, and all systems continued to perform nominally. Her passengers engaged in normal activities in the spinning living quarters opposite the equipment bay, while she remained strapped into her seat in microgravity. Technically, Victory Twelve had been hers for just under a year while Jessica performed her duties as a Peacemaker, but Tara had no desire to change anything. She’d secured the mementos and photos Jessica had in various places, but the actual decor of the ship’s interior remained unchanged and decidedly Jessica’s in its design. The command seat was comfortable, with a large compartment built into the base that held a stadium blanket from the University of Georgia. No matter how cold she was, Tara couldn’t bear the thought of using it. There were also posters from the campus on the wall near the hatch. One of them was inscribed in Jessica’s neat, expressive handwriting.
Never Forget Where You’re From.
She’d seen the words every day, but they hadn’t resonated until now. Sitting in the command chair, Tara knew precisely where she’d come from, and she knew she would never return there, even if her life depended on it. She’d grown up in a small farming community in Nebraska that had barely recovered from stretches of climatic chaos and bureaucratic nightmares. After scoring high enough on her initial VOWS to get noticed by a half dozen mercenary companies, she left the family business. As an athlete in high school, she could’ve gone to any number of colleges and universities in the Midwest, but sports had been an escape from farm life. By playing softball, tennis, basketball, and running cross-country, her life from the age of thirteen on had been filled with sports. Her family approved of her athletic endeavors which made staying out of the house and avoiding the constant bickering easy. Tara would get home from school and practice, including extra sets in the weight room and laps around the school, by nine o’clock. She’d eat the late dinner her parents saved for her and do her homework with headphones on to avoid the arguments from the other side of the house. With three brothers and an older sister who’d had a child out of wedlock and come home in disgrace, there was never a quiet evening. She’d go to bed at eleven and get up the next day at five to help with the early morning chores before leaving for school by seven for another set of weights or practice—whatever her coaches wanted.
After graduation, the offers came in droves, but Tara turned them all down. The entire family sat down for a Friday evening meal while her father went through the offer letters, sorting them by sport, then by athletic conference, as if it mattered. Satisfied, with a big, shit-eating grin on his face, he looked down the table at her and asked the million-dollar question. Where was she going, and what was she doing?
Her father’s wrinkled and perpetually sunburnt face crinkled and fell when she opened her mouth. More than fifteen years had passed, and she shivered remembering how cold the family dining room grew.
“I’m not going to college.”
Her father gaped, coughed once in surprise, then laughed. “I’m sorry, what?”
She looked at his crestfallen face. “I’m not going to college.”
“Then what in the hell do you think you’re going to do, young lady?” he asked, his voice rising as his hopes for vicarious athletic glory paled. “You’ve worked your ass off in four sports for this! You’re not going to college?”
“No, I’m not.” Tara reached into her back pocket. “I have five offers from mercenary companies. Gray’s Goblins. Death On Tracks. Bjorn’s Berserkers and—”
“No!” Her father sputtered into a rage and flung his glass of beer at the nearest wall. “You will not become a mercenary. You are going to college! You’re going to be a professional athlete! You’re going to—”
“What? Save our piddly ass little farm?” Tara asked with venom in her words. The financial strain of the family business was a sore point, making it easy to elicit the response she knew would come.
“Our piddly ass little farm?” her father screeched. Face flushed, fists clenched, he stomped toward her, but she was already up on her feet, moving toward the hallway. “This piddly ass farm gave you life, Tara. It gave you food! A roof over your head! It gave you everything you throw back in our faces. You’re going to waste your talent! You’re going to end up like Shannon Marks. She could have had it all, too. Could have been a professional tennis player, better than any of them other girls, but she wanted a boyfriend. Is that what you want? A boyfriend?”
“No,” Tara said backing down the hallway toward the sanctuary of her room. “I want a life. I will not be forced to practice and train for someone else’s entertainment. I am not that person, Dad. You might want me to be, but I can’t do that. I would rather make better money doing things that matter out in the galaxy.”
Her father brayed with ominous laughter. “You been talking to Colonel Judge, ain’t you? That crazy old man and his stories are going get you killed, Tara. There ain’t no glory out in the universe. The only glory we got is what we’ve been given here. We scratch it out of the dirt just like everybody else does.”
Tara shook her head. “Not me.”
Defeat slumped her father’s shoulders. “You’ll change your mind by morning, Tara. Because if you haven’t, there’ll be no place for you to go come breakfast. You’ll be out of this house and off this property. You turn your back on opportunity? On this family? We’ll turn our backs on you.”
She’d hated the tears that squirted out of her eyes because they gave her father hope. He turned around, believing he’d won. He stomped back to the dinner table and told her mother in a soft voice that everything would be all right, that in the morning, Tara would go through the letters and decide. The conversation returned to a normal volume, and she heard the tinkling of silverware striking plates as the family ate without her. That they’d ignored her words, her dreams, and returned to the business of the farm stung. In the sudden crush of pain came fresh resolve. Through her tears, she studied the mercenary offers. Only one had an immediate deployment opening.
Death On Tracks.
She’d answered the offer on her slate and packed a meager backpack with enough clothes and old army rations to take her the two hundred miles to Omaha. As the sun sank below the western horizon, she’d climbed down the ivy-covered trellis outside her window, turned east, and ran.
Never Forget Where You Are From.
Never Go Back, Tara added. As much as it hurt her to think about it, it happened too long ago for her to do anything. Her family reached out once, six months after her departure, but that was it.
The ship’s intercom system clicked on. Xander’s voice filtered from the small speaker on her console. “Hey, boss. I think you might want to come back here. We’ve been looking at the data set again. I think you’re going to want to see what Vannix has come up
with. We have a target list, and it’s much shorter than you think.”
Intrigued, Tara unclipped her shoulder harness. “Roger that. I’ll be down there in a few minutes. Has Rains fully recovered?”
“I’m okay, Tara.” Rains said. “My knee is pretty fucked up, but the sedative has worn off.”
Vannix spoke next. “His wound is substantially more than superficial, Tara. He’ll avoid surgery, but he’s not going to run any marathons anytime soon. We’ve started laser wound therapy, but he will need additional medical attention when we reach Victoria Bravo. I assume they have good medics there.”
“I’m fine, Vannix,” Rains said with a grunt.
Tara nodded to herself. “I’m glad you’re okay, Rains. We have a few things to work out.”
“We do. I’ve been an ass, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m ready to do what we need. You’re in charge of Force 25, and I apologize for my attitude.” He didn’t say anything else, but his tone was promising.
“Until your knee heals enough for you to board a CASPer, I want you running exercise control. Set up a sim run in two hours. Give me a plan based on the terrain you select, and we’ll have Lucille program the opposing forces.” Tara waited for him to counter, to argue, but he didn’t. Perhaps the young Peacemaker realized she’d just given him the keys to the kingdom.
“Got it,” Rains said simply. “I’ll get it ready, Tara. Make sure Lucille is connected.”
<
Perhaps there is hope, after all.
His injuries weren’t his fault, although he did charge the lone Cochkala sapper. She knew his pride was hurt far worse than his knee. He’d feel worthless without something specific to do beyond running their training programs and simulations. They had time before they reached Victoria Bravo to sort something out.
Just when you think you have a plan.
Tara snorted. “Okay, I’m on my way down.”
She pushed a button and disengaged the intercom system. Her eyes swept the instrument panel at the command station. Among the multi-colored Tri-Vs were a litany of systems that seemed to be within norms. Victory Twelve was the most reliable ship she’d ever crewed. The cockpit section would comfortably hold her current team. There were navigation and weapons positions forward of her command chair. To her right was a sensor station. The entire space was clean and functional. It was exactly the way Jessica had intended, but she’d always had Lucille as a copilot. Hell, Lucille was more like the entire crew. Flying a ship like Victory Twelve wasn’t something one person could normally do, but Jessica Francis wasn’t a normal human being. Tara shook off the thought. Jessica had Lucille for all those years and missions. Tara had the near-AI now. There wasn’t much difference, despite how she felt. She was able to get around fine by herself. She was the lead on a critical mission for the Peacemaker Guild, with two additional Peacemakers on board. Aside from the tactical issues and growing pains, Tara realized a little pride was swelling in her chest.
Keep your head, Tara.
Kurrang’s words echoed in her head. She had a long way to go before she could enjoy the fruits of her labor. She’d done precisely the right things to find Bukk and the young Peacemakers on Karma without being detected. With a ship traversing the galaxy, the challenge was no different. To do the impossible, Force 25 needed to be more than invisible.
They needed to be outstanding. But there were only five of them. Without a miracle, or two, outstanding wouldn’t be enough.
Tara tapped the cockpit hatch controls and closed it off from the rest of the ship. It was the only part of Victory Twelve with actual windows to vacuum. The irrefutable laws of spaceflight said that an impact severe enough to damage the half-meter thick hull would hit the minimally shielded windows rather than the actual hull. The radius of the windows was a third of a meter, and they served as emergency portholes for docking. With the extensive camera systems outside, she hadn’t needed to look through the portholes in weeks, much less thought about closing the hatch for safety.
Tara shook her head to clear it. What the hell is wrong with me?
Victory Twelve, despite its registration to Jessica Francis and its designation as a Peacemaker vessel, was her ship. Taking care of it for Jessica had been simple. Using it for the mission to find the Haulers had been easy. But, now that it was a target, the level of risk Tara felt seemed to quadruple her stress levels. She paused at the entrance to the thirty-meter long, three-meter-wide tube that constituted the ship’s forward spine and looked toward the central section. Along the sides of the tube, twenty-four storage compartments hung in eight equal rings.
Jessica would shit if she saw this. Tara snorted and a smile appeared on her face. The modifications to Victory Twelve that allowed it to carry the cargo necessary for the mission pushed the ship’s tolerance to maximum. Yet the ship continued to perform flawlessly. She couldn’t help but wonder how Lucille felt, or if Lucille could feel anything at all, about her throttling. Had she noticed? Why did she care so much about how a computer felt?
Did Lucille see her as a friend?
The last question stung more than the others. During her time with Reilly’s Raiders, Tara’s sole confidant was Lucille. The only place Tara found solace during those months had been inside Deathangel 25. Inside, with the cockpit closed and Lucille to talk to, everything had seemed okay with the universe. Whatever had happened at Victoria Bravo cost Tara more than it would cost Jessica. That she would even consider lessening the ability of Tara’s companion seemed—
Stop it, Tara.
Jessica knew, likely better than anyone, including Tara, what advantages Lucille could bring to a mission. She would not take them away from Tara without a reason. Tara pushed off the bulkhead and flew through the center of the tube, reaching out to correct her course by brushing against or pushing off the supply bundles. Beyond the approaching central junction was another forty meters of tube connecting the forward sections and the rotating bays and crew quarters to the engines.
“Lucille, you have the ship.”
<
“What have they been doing?”
There was the faintest twinge of regret in Lucille’s voice as she replied, <
Fuck this.
Tara sighed. “Lucille, pull up the sim. As soon as it’s loaded, let me know. I’m not in the mood to talk right now.”
<
Tara grinned as if the dam over her emotions cracked down the center and fell away, cascading out of her in a wide smile. “Roger that, Lucille. All of us. Shootout at the Oogar corral. Not the Marauder’s one; the one where the Oogar charge and charge and charge.”
They’d jokingly called it MAC therapy in Reilly’ Raiders. The simulation was designed to allow crew members to let off steam. In the simulation, CASPers had unlimited ammunition, power sources, and magnetic accelerator cannon rounds. With feral, leaderless Oogar sprinting forward madly, it resembled a twenty-first century video game, complete with cascading sheets of purple Oogar blood. The exercise served no tactical purpose other than release. The first rule of mercenary work was simple—sometimes you just needed to blow shit up.
<
“No,” Tara said. “We have 168 hours remaining in this transit, and that’s plenty of time to talk strategy. Right now, I need a break, and I’m betting they do, too. We’ll do this, have a good meal, then a down night. We can get back to work tomorrow. Make sure everyone knows the schedule for tonight and have them move to the simulations area. I want everyone to have the chance to offload some stress.”
Instead of pushing off the central junction toward the crew quarters, Tar
a fell in the opposite direction and grabbed the ladder. As the gravitational force increased slightly, she could feel weight returning to her limbs. She placed her feet and hands on the outside of the ladder and slid down like a firefighter. She’d done the same thing on silos as a teenager. The friction warmed her hands. Tara reached the bay and saw Deathangel 25’s canopy open. She beamed.
Whatever Lucille might be thinking, she was still Tara’s wingman, best friend, and teammate. That, in and of itself, was a little victory. Little victories, in these times, are everything,
Everything.
* * *
The forward galley emptied, allowing the creature a quick, discreet movement. After being lodged in the central junction’s lower maintenance airlock for the last several hours, stretching its limbs and straightening its spine felt good. The computer’s announcement for the crew to traverse the connecting tunnel came with a few seconds of terror and panic. As they passed less than two meters below, the crew paid no attention to the upper storage racks. Arranging for the clandestine hiding place had been easy. Getting aboard, though, hadn’t been as easy as promised. For a first phase, however, it was enough.
Now, with the crew unexpectedly involved in a training exercise, the creature had an unmissable opportunity. First, though, it had to open the main instrumentation conduit between the command section and the engines and make a connection. Monitoring the computer’s activities and capabilities was critical to mission success. From there, it would simply wait until the ship reached the first destination where transport home could be found and arranged.
The conduit ran through the central junction just four meters away. Stretching its muscles felt good and emerging from its hiding place felt even better until something hard and cold pressed up against its head.
“Who the fuck are you?” the decidedly Human voice growled. “And, what are you doing on my ship?”
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