"No, I think I need to look at how well I fit in the fleet. My instincts might all wrong for an officer, and that's what this fleet seems to want me to be."
"Wait, what does that mean?" Alice asked, startled.
"I'm taking off for a while. You're the only person I want to stick around for, and I wish that was enough, but I don't think we'll get to see each other for weeks, months, so where does that leave us?"
Alarm and anger made Alice's vision blur as they collided in her head and chest. "We have interstellar comms now. We can meet in simulations."
"Your part of a special unit, so we'll have long blackouts too," Carnie replied.
"If you want to break this off, just do it," Alice said angrily.
"I'm just saying I don't know what'll happen to us, but I have to go," Noah told her. "I'm really sorry, Alice. I wish it was enough to…"
"You don't even know if I'm enough to stick around for, we've barely started to get to know each other. I know I'm complicated, I'm downright weird, but I'm not finished learning about you, Noah," she didn't know when the tears started, but they were there. "Please, give the fleet another chance, even for me. I don't care why."
Noah wiped his eyes and looked away. "This is just getting harder," he said as he pressed his finger and thumb into the corners of his eyes before looking back at her. "I'm sorry, Alice. I'm completely crazy about you, but I've gotta go. I hope there's a someday and another place for us, but I've just gotta go."
"Don’t. You know I can do something about where you end up. I don't use my leverage often, but I'd use it all for you."
"I'll always know I didn't get wherever you put me on my own, so would everyone else. I just don't fit here, so I hope we find a way to go on, but I'm not made for the military. Stay safe and watch for my messages on the Stellarnet." He closed the call so abruptly that he nearly cut off the last word.
"But…" Alice said, staring at the empty space where the hologram of his head and shoulders were. Is that who he is? Things get hard and he runs? Were we only falling in love in my head?
The tears kept coming, the hurt she felt burned in her belly and made her breathe in gasps. Alice chucked her bracer across the room and let herself fall back onto the mattress where she curled around a pillow and let his words hurt as they echoed through her mind.
Theodore came in a few minutes later, his voice quiet but alarmed. "Everyone within thirty metres is in tears, Quan sent me to check on you. He will shield them, but it is difficult. What is wrong, Alice?" he sat on the bed and stroked her shoulder.
"Noah's leaving the fleet," Alice said, mentally starting a count-down from ten in her head. It was one of the simple exercises Quan taught her to help her with control. "He's leaving us."
"That explains a message he sent me," Theo said sadly. "Well, it is healthy to fully engage in whatever you're feeling, so I'll send Quan a notification that he'll have to shield the crew from further grieving."
"I can get it together," Alice said, sitting up.
"You'll only prolong your suffering," Theo said, his eyes filled with sympathy. "It took me one point four seconds to process Noah's message. That's a long time for an android of my class, over a hundred times the norm. He said he'd try to keep in touch, that he'd try to see me in the future."
"He tried to end things with me," Alice said. "No one's ever broken up with me before." A fresh tear rolled down her cheek.
"I can stay with you, if you like," Theo said.
"That's okay," Alice replied. "I think I'll try to sleep. I'm supposed to start on light duty tomorrow."
"I'm sorry," Theodore said. "I know you'll miss him."
A fresh pang struck her as she nodded. "I'll build the wall in my head up so Quan doesn't have to protect the galley and fabrication crews for the whole shift." Alice knew how to contain herself, but sending her emotions out was a new development, she wasn't well practiced at it yet.
"He's willing to shield them as long as he must, as long as you need," Theodore said. "I believe he's willing to sacrifice a great deal for your progress and happiness to make up for his earlier transgression. Perhaps because of who you are."
"Daughter to the Queen-Admiral," Alice nodded.
"Oh, no," Theodore said, sitting down on the bed. "You're so much more than that. A woman with so much perseverance, the right intentions, intelligence, and a kind of charm that's only beginning to surface. So many people love you, Alice, and only for who you are, not who you are attached to."
Alice sat up and hugged Theodore, a gesture that he returned expertly, and she found herself crying again.
"Oh no, that didn't help, did it?" Theo asked.
"It did," Alice wept. "Hope you don't have anything important to do for a while," she added as she squeezed him.
Thirty-Two
The Escape
* * *
The mental image of Alice weeping was Noah Lucas' only company while he made his way to Hangar Three. How could I do that to her? I should have stopped talking the moment Alice finished telling me that she'd just been through something major, something that had her rattled. She must have been shaken really bad too, because she broke right down and we've only seen each other a few times. It doesn't feel that way, though. I felt like I was carving my own heart out.
He stopped in front of the lift. Trying to ignore how he felt about breaking things off with Alice was almost as hard as forgetting the impact he had on her. It felt like losing a member of his tiny family, and he could only blame himself. Commodore McPatrick ordered him to break ties but he didn't have to call Alice and lie. He couldn't tell her what he was up to, but he could have left her hanging for a little while so he could figure out some way to tell her that he didn't really quit the fleet.
A tug on his shoulder turned him around. "Where are you going?" Pixie asked, looking at his duffel then back up into his eyes. "What happened?"
"Alice and I are over," Noah said. The sound of the notion out loud made him want to find a corner and break down. "Thought I'd go for a ride."
"Then I'm going with you. People shouldn't be alone after breakups," Pixie said, turning towards the lift doors. They opened and she stepped inside.
"Hell no." A thought occurred to him then. "How did you even know I was out of my rack at almost oh-four-hundred? I'm not even in the same berthing as you anymore."
"Um, I was having trouble sleeping and I was curious?"
"Get out of there, I've gotta go," Carnie said.
Pixie crossed her arms and shook her head.
With a sigh, he stepped into the lift and punched the button that would take him down to the secondary hangar doors. "You're not coming with me because I'm not coming back."
"What are you going to run in? Did you get your fighter moved down here somehow? You could be stuck in your cockpit for days, weeks. That's gonna suck."
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. If you try to follow me, I'll drop a web round on you," Carnie warned.
"Nah," she said.
The doors opened and a Clever Class Corvette with no name came into view. A crewman and two robots were casually leaving the far end of the hangar, the lights dimmed behind them. "There's my ride," Noah said.
"No way, a factory fresh Clever Class?" Pixie asked in awe. "I heard there were three delivered, but there was a notice that only deck crew were allowed near them."
"You're hacked into the system deeper than you should be," Noah accused in a whisper as he looked around.
"Yeah, I know a guy on the Excalibur who had a few loose high clearance access codes made," Pixie admitted.
It was the first Noah had heard of lax security in the fleet. It was alarming. "What else did you learn using that code?"
"Fine, honesty time: I saw your breakup call with Alice. What the hell are you thinking? Most guys are selfish idiots, I thought you were different, but I guess I was wrong."
"Is that a question or are you so used to butting in where you're not welcome that you have to make
sure I hear your opinion?" Noah said, raising his voice just enough to hear it echo across the massive hangar then lowering to a whisper.
"I do not butt in!"
"You're like an annoying little sister: you need to know everything but you're not quite ready to have your own drama yet."
"You're just a..." Pixie was visibly annoyed, but more than anything she looked hurt.
It looked like he struck a nerve, one he didn't know was there, but her silence spoke louder than any screeching retort. "I'm sorry. I just need to do this on my own. I don't have a future in the fleet anymore, but you can work hard and come out of the program as an officer, make something of yourself here."
"Don't go, I'm sure you can get through this too," Pixie said, looking determined again.
"Some people aren't meant to be a part of a crew," Noah said stiffly as he left the lift and tapped the SECURE CLOSE button on the other side. It was a manual control for the deck crew, so they could make sure the lift was closed when they had to depressurize the hangar.
He activated his helmet and strode to the narrow forward ramp. A high-priority personal message notification popped up in his HUD and he blinked it away immediately. It was probably Pixie. He activated the crew ramp and the narrow stair lowered. The security systems weren't set up yet, it really was a factory fresh ship.
While he waited for the ramp to close behind him, he checked the message notification and saw that it wasn't from Pixie, but Alice. CAN'T LEAVE THINGS LIKE THAT. NEED TO TALK BEFORE BATTLEGROUP GOES SILENT IN AN HOUR.
Frozen to the spot, he considered its meaning. In one hour the ship Alice was on and the battlegroup around it would switch to silent running, and they wouldn't be able to use the long range communications systems for hours, maybe days or weeks. More importantly, Alice either didn't accept his goodbye, which wasn't really a breakup as much as it was an attempted one, or she needed to know more. Either way, it was another chance for him to just say 'I'm sorry' and try to mend things. Try to continue things. None of that matters! I'm supposed to break ties. If I call her right before I steal this ship and run off, I'll be breaking my cover before it's even established. He thought to himself as he retracted his helmet and started for the cockpit. But my stomach won't stop churning and my head feels like an overinflated Pongo Ball.
He realized he was headed the wrong way when he came face to face with gun and equipment cases. They rear compartment was full of them. At a glance, he could see there was enough equipment there to arm and armour at least thirty people. He took the ladder down and saw that there was a manufacturing bay installed. A tap on the pad revealed that only he had full access. Some of the security was set up after all. "I bet the stuff up there is bleeding edge, and this thing is ready to start churning out…" he looked through the list and saw that it was primarily set to produce high quality knock-offs of the most popular combat equipment in the galaxy.
Dropping his duffel, he rushed up the ladder, then to the cockpit where he tapped the tiny command chip to the ship's main console. A hologram of Commodore McPatrick appeared. "Noah, we need you to go deep under cover. You'll be using your own name, your own history. Your mission begins when you leave Hangar Three then escape the main fleet using the quad drive. Your first stop is programmed into the computer already. When you arrive at your destination you will begin the main part of your mission. Using the fabrication technology on this ship you will become an arms dealer, supplying resistance groups and mercenaries that fight against the Order of Eden. You will become their most reliable source of small arms, equipment and armour. The fabrication systems we've installed don't have the patterns for proprietary Haven technology, but they can make tens of thousands of other objects that you may find useful, and your customers will be eager to get their hands on. I don't need to tell you how important it is that you don't let the ship we're giving you fall into enemy hands. Eventually you'll need a crew, and that's what the crew quarters and advanced equipment are intended for. You are not to sell the Haven Fleet military equipment we've loaded onto your ship, use it to protect recruits you trust. When you find a resistance group you think is ready to meet someone from Haven Fleet, contact me using the secure protocol in this message. We'll make sure someone from the fleet encounters them and offers them a place in our organization. You will go on growing your customer base. We will make sure whoever we contact doesn't suspect that you were a part of it. This mission will serve Haven Fleet in two ways. By arming resistance groups, we assist them in their fight against our common ene…" Noah stopped the playback and checked the time. He had nine minutes left to steal the ship before it was oh-five-hundred.
"What the hell? It sounds like this mission will go on for months," he checked the summary on the main display panel and saw the mission duration. "Five to seven years?" he read aloud in shock, backing away from the controls, shaking his head. "I'll be on my own for…" he leaned on his knees trying to catch his breath as he imagined being away from Theodore, Minh-Chu, everyone in Samurai Squadron, and most of all, Alice for five years.
Iora came to mind, the long stretch of time he spent before meeting Theodore, at least it seemed like a long time. He was so lonely that he was willing to risk having a potentially dangerous robot as a companion. Sure, he knew the technical details; that it was unlikely that Theodore could be infected by the Holocaust Virus, but he was infected by the end of his time there. Even after Theodore was reduced to a hunk of junk, he still kept him in the passenger seat. Beyond the details of his solitude on that planet, he recalled the feeling. Creeping loneliness and the inability to trust anyone because there was always a catch, even with the nicest of people. How would the mission he was about to embark on be any different? "No Theo," he answered, looking to the frozen hologram of Commodore McPatrick hovering over the ship's main console.
Straightening up, he paced the short distance between the seats in the small bridge. "I finally felt like I had a family again." His hands ran down his face. "Like I was really a part of something. Then there's Alice, and I've never had that before. It was new, but, it was…" he trailed off, pacing a few more times. "What do I do?"
He punched the back of the pilot's seat several times. "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" That felt good, but it didn't clear his head. There was a short list of people he felt he could go to for advice. Minh-Chu, Theodore and Alice. All three of them would probably have completely different responses if Noah asked them about his situation. "I know who I want to call," he muttered to himself. "But I may have screwed that up."
The hologram of Commodore McPatrick stared at him, and he stared back, his mind blank for a moment as if the gears were momentarily seized. The clock on the console said it was one minute away from oh-five-hundred. He watched it change to oh-five-hundred and an instant later he did something that he knew really would get him in trouble. "Communications," he said to the ship. "Make a secure call to Alice Valent, compress the mission orders I'm playing back right now and send them to her, attach the following statement; 'I just got this mission. I tried to break us up because I was told to cut ties with everyone. I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you behind. Not sure what to do here, but I know that. I'm so sorry about everything I said. Let's make this decision together.' End message, send immediately."
"Sending the message and compressed data as specified," the computer replied in a mundane voice. Several seconds later the communications station stated that the message had been received and opened.
"Let's make this decision together," he muttered to himself. "Cheesy, very cheesy." Seconds, then minutes passed.
At long last, his com-con blinked, indicating that he had a call incoming from Alice and he accepted. "I'm so sorry," he said before she could say anything.
"That's what this was all about?" Alice asked, pulling the shoulder of her uniform vacsuit up and on. "You didn't want to end things?"
"No, hell no," Noah said. "I was ordered to." That was a partial lie that could come back to bite him, and he rus
hed to correct it. "I was ordered to break ties as though I was leaving the fleet forever."
"Well, good job, flyboy." It looked like she'd been crying. "I can't believe Oz is sending you out solo. I mean, you're the guy for it, but you're also absolutely not the guy for it. Just because you ran solo for a long time before doesn’t mean you're ready to do it again."
"He said you inspired the mission, something about you trying to recruit a resistance group?"
"Seriously? That was a disaster. I thought I could walk in there, read everyone, then use that to get people moving in Haven Fleet's direction, but the whole recruitment thing fell apart," Alice explained. It looked like she was putting her sidearm on, but he couldn't be sure since he could only see her from the shoulders up.
"Are you strapping up?" he asked.
"Yeah, the whole ship is on alert. Everyone cleared to carry a weapon has to have one on them unless they're resting in their quarters. Where are you now?"
"Aboard the corvette they loaded up for me. Listen, I saw all this, got the details of my mission and all I could think about was how I didn't want to leave you behind. Then I learned it would be for five years, maybe seven, and I felt like I was about to run out of road and the brakes weren't working. I couldn't leave things the way I did."
Alice looked at him, wiped her eye and started to smile. He could see relief in her tired smile. "Don't ever do that to me again."
"We're back on?" Noah asked.
"We were never off. There was no way I'd let you get away before I was finished with you, I'd hunt you down first," she said with a wink. It was a front; her speech seemed choked.
"That's a little scary, but coming from you, it's cool."
Alice cleared her throat and nodded. "Speaking of hunting, I'm going to go wake my dad up and see what we can do about modifying your mission. It's time to yank on some strings."
"Whoa! I just wanted some advice. This doesn't look like the kind of mission I can turn down, what do I do?" Noah asked, instantly more nervous than he could ever remember being. "I don't want to make a giant fleet-wide issue out of it."
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 13 Page 25
