The Belt Loop _Book One

by Robert B. Jones

  The seagulls were attacking her husband in earnest now and as she worked her feet in the thick sandy ocean floor she turned her head just in time to see one of the birds swoop in low and tear away a piece of her husband’s face. He screamed. She fought for control and splashed her arms in the waist-high water. Then something bumped her side and she looked around and down. It was Har.

  The birds were squawking at a feverish pitch now. She looked back at the shore and Jerrod exploded right before her eyes! She ducked her head instinctively and covered her ears.

  Squawk squawk squawk! “. . .Lieutenant Hansen. Lieutenant Hansen. Bridge to Lieutenant Hansen.” Three loud pips erupted from her communicator stack. She jumped off her cot and stumbled to the bulkhead before the seagulls could squawk at her again.

  “Hansen here,” she managed weakly, raising a foot to see if it was covered in sticky mud.

  “Okay then, Max. Sid Corman here. Man, you must have been zoned out pretty good, I’ve been trying —”

  “Okay, you’ve got me. What is it lieutenant?” she snapped.

  “— To get a yeoman to go to your quarters. Commander Yorn wants to see you. In the wardroom at 1530 hours.”

  Max shook her head and rubbed her eyes.

  “Hey? You copy? Yorn in the wardroom —”

  “Roger that, Sid, message received,” she said at last, this time without the rancor. She yawned and looked at her watch. Twenty minutes to get her ass back in gear. Twenty minutes to put that dream behind her. As she retreated to her small shower stall, her thoughts drifted to Har.

  * * *

  Doctor Isaacs looked at the body of Mike Ryon and shook his head. The marine had been stripped down to the waist from both ends by one of the hospital corpsmen and Isaacs was preparing to conduct his autopsy. He had just finished a heated discussion with a CPO from the MA — Master-at-Arms — detail and after assuring the chief that he would be getting a full report for his records the doctor had unceremoniously ushered him out of his sick bay. He considered his primary duties of maintaining a healthy and fit crew to take precedent over some officious prick from the goon squad. Those shipboard cops had little to do and they found a way to insinuate themselves into each and every facet of ship operations.

  Maybe he should send the chief over to the worm and have him arrest gravity, the culprit in this “crime” that resulted in death.

  After looking over the recordings from Yorn, it was obvious what had happened to Ryon. The sergeant had fallen backwards into the void of the worm’s cargo hold, and instinctively hit the stud for the suit’s jet pack. Those little jets were great for levitating in vacuum and weightless environments but useless otherwise. What the sudden burst of speed did for Ryon was assure him a sudden and perhaps painless death, adding a few meters per second to his rate of descent. He had hit the bottom of the hold face first and the impact had smashed his faceplate and crushed his skull and the slow depressurization had turned his head into cherry pie. End of story.

  Still, he had to do the necessaries and as he pulled his mask into place and adjusted the pickups for the recordings, Isaacs did not relish what he had to do. He had even thought of letting one of his subordinates do this autopsy. However, in the interest of science and in a sudden fit of devotion to duty, he started the Y incision.

  * * *

  “It’s some kind of dried mucus,” Milli Gertz told Davi Yorn. “I don’t have anything like this in my databanks but as soon as the DNA samples are analyzed I will let you know.”

  “I tried to get a piece that was well away from the impact area, Milli, you know, away from where Ryon bought it,” he said.

  “You did fine. This piece is large enough that I can analyze part of it for amino acids, burn part of it for spectroanalysis, prepare a tincture of it with denatured alcohol, reconstitute it with water for the centrifuge, and do a whole lot of other tests. The sample is fine, Davi.”

  “Great,” he said, his heart not really into it. “I’ll check back with you later. I’m on my way back out.”

  “You boys and girls be careful over there, Davi.”

  “Affirm that,” he said.

  She broke the connection and returned to her duties. The lab was jumping now, and her rankings and ratings were thrilled with having something to do instead of measuring the spectra from particulate samples gathered from the occasional comet they passed. This was actually exobiology: an organic sample from an alien ship.

  And, Gertz knew, more exciting things were still headed her way. That cargo hold was loaded with cocoons. Alien cocoons. From what she had gleaned from her conversations with Commander Yorn, there were thousands of cocoons in cages aboard that ship. Most were in different stages of decay but she knew as soon as she had one of those cocoons on her workbench, she would be able to tease out some kind of answer as to its composition and origin. She would be able to compare the alien DNA to all of the standard models she had in her data base from eleven explored worlds. Gertz could see in her mind’s eye the painstakingly slow process of dissection and documentation that awaited her and she could hardly wait.

  These were the moments that made her career in the Loop bearable. Who knows, maybe she would get a special achievement award, maybe even a promotion if she found something really noteworthy. But promotions would involve Fleet and she also knew that Fleet was on the stingy side when it came to up-ranking restricted staff officers. The Colonial Navy was still considered a combat outfit and those officers that did not command combat troops usually had only one way to get a leg up: kiss a lot of unrestricted ass.

  But, for now, she was content to run the series on the glass-like dried sample Yorn had sent her. She should be able to tell a lot of things about the life aboard that ship from the analysis of this mucus.

  What she didn’t know was that all of her dreaming and anticipatory excitement would be short-lived considering the events that were about to unfold.

  * * *

  Har Hansen, or should we say Admiral Hansen, looked out of the vent. By now, he had managed to work his way up to deck ten and he’d stopped to rest his weary little body. His shoulders ached and his legs throbbed from all of the energy exerted getting up the vertical shafts. They were just a little too big for the span of his shoulders and he had to brace himself with his legs and forearms to make the vertical climbs, inching up a few centimeters at a time. It had taken him more than five hours to travel up four decks. At the pace he was going, it would be a week damned near before he got to deck four and the observation lounges just aft of the crew mess. And he would have to detour around those stupid armored sections near weapons control and the torpedo magazines sitting amidships, stupidly right in his way.

  The adventure part of this was starting to wear off, he decided. It was time to rest and eat a little bit of his food. Har popped the lid on one of the MRE containers and stuffed the contents into his hungry maw: watery soup first, beans next, then the bread. The little square of cornbread was disgusting and he wondered who in their right mind would want to eat this stuff with so many other delicacies available to the crew. He spit it out and left it behind him as he progressed away from the vent overlooking the crew recreation area. He devoured the spongecake dessert and left the plastic wrapper in the duct. Soon he would have to find a spot to relieve himself and he tried to remember some of the more secluded spots he had scouted out before. His brain was approaching overload and he knew it.

  Har crawled a few more feet and stopped. He bunched up his backpack and put his head down on it.

  Within three minutes he was fast asleep.

  Chapter 11

  “Captain, Chief Penny here,” the disembodied voice said from the captain’s comm speaker.

  “Come,” Haad replied into the air, recognizing the voice outside his hatch immediately. He was sitting alone in his ready room and looking over his notes. He had decided to launch one of his courier boats with sit-reps — situation reports — on his discovery. He punched a stud on his spherical driv
e and watched as the shiny ball of metal rotated to a stop. Since a sphere was the optimal design to hold the most information, the little device was used to transport both audio and video streams back and forth among the members of the Third Colonial Navy Fleet. With over 150 ships plying the voids of the Loop and beyond, CINCBLTFLT — Commander-in-Charge, Belt Fleet — was the recipient of hundreds of messages a month.

  Chief Of The Boat Osca Penny pushed the hatch open and sheepishly poked his head in. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, captain,” he said. Osca Penny was a lifer with over thirty years in, one of the few rankings older than Haad. They had served together on the CNS Sturgeon Bay and when Haad got the Christi Penny immediately put in his request for transfer. The Chief of the Boat was one of the most important non-coms on the ship, overseeing pretty much all aspects of the vessel operations from the bottom up, or from the bilge to the conn in naval parlance.

  “Just filing my report for Fleet, senior chief. What’s on your mind?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d like to say a few words at Gunny Ryon’s funeral. I checked with the boss in the 410X corps and he had no objections. Just wanted to run it by you anyway,” he said. Penny was a tall sailor with African lineage in his heritage and his forebears must have made a conscious effort to preserve that part of the bloodline since, bucking the trend toward a race of coffee and cream humans out here in the Fringes, he had managed to maintain the rather dark complexion of his forefathers. His prominent cheekbones and deep set black eyes provided an interesting contrast to the lightweight khaki tan of his tunic and his insignia of rank on his left sleeve. The senior chief stood a few feet away from the captain’s steel desk and awaited his reply. Haad had been proud to officiate at Penny’s advancement ceremony when he made E-8 two years ago.

  “I don’t have any objections to that, chief,” Haad said. As far as he was concerned, if the Chaplain Corps had not raised any objections, who was he to protest? The non-denominational aspect of crew life was a fact in today’s Navy and most of the sailors that had spent more than two weeks in the Fringes or the Belt Loop quickly lost whatever religious proclivities they had brought with them from Elber. As the universe revealed itself to these men, they looked for meaning that Gods could not supply.

  “Thank you, sir. And the courier boat is ready to launch whenever you’re satisfied, sir,” Penny said.

  “Fine, Osca. Anything else?”

  “Captain, just between you and me, what the fuck is that thing out there? I mean, the scuttlebutt is getting out of hand below decks. People sayin’ that worm thing is alive, it ate Gunny Ryon, they got some kind of death beams over there and they got cages for the humans they’re gonna capture. What’s the real story, skip?”

  Haad had to laugh. He knew how the rumor mill worked on the ship. One rating would overhear a snippet of conversation, enhance it at will, and before long the whole story was blowing up water like a depth charge off the fantail disturbs the sea. The Navy never thought to put SRD ratings — Stupid Rumor Disposal guys — alongside the EOD men. “Chief, what you see is what you get. That derelict ship didn’t kill Ryon, he fell to his death because he was not careful. There are no death rays to worry about, and the cages are full of dead aliens. That enough for you? Now you know everything I know.”

  Chief Penny guffawed. “Thought so, cap’n. Just as I thought.”

  “Do me a favor, senior chief, and try to quell that nonsense whenever you hear it. This is the kind of distraction the crew doesn’t need.”

  Penny twirled him a two finger salute and backed toward the hatch. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Haad reached for the stud on his recorder and paused. Penny was still in the room. “Something else, senior chief?”

  Penny hesitated and said, “It’s probably nothing, sir, but Chief Nels reported that one of his ratings mentioned something to him that made his day report. Someone is stealing food from ship’s stores.”

  Haad looked up. “Elaborate.”

  Penny related to him what was transpiring down in the cargo stores. His recitation took about three minutes. He finished with, “And, Torne supplied two cycles’ worth of manifests to back up what he had found.”

  Haad leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. That’s all he fucking needed right now, some yo-yo with nothing better to do than raiding ship’s stores. Probably stealing some goddamned strawberries. He rubbed his head with his left hand and squinted at the chief. “Get with the MA chief and see what you can find. Probably just some of our younger inexperienced seaman apprentices doing shit to set someone up for extra duty.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I’ll make it so,” Penny declared and left the room, easing the airtight hatch closed behind him.

  Haad finished his recordings and readied himself for Ryon’s funeral.

  * * *

  The device was heavy but Rich managed to get it into place at the last gun placement on the port side of the Christi. Normally this space was occupied by one of the MK-256 zanith-laser guns that spewed forth a dazzling greenish focused-beam that was capable of penetrating any fashion of opposing hull. Rich mounted his little surprise on the gimbaled mount and used both hands to swing the weapon through its cone of firing angles. Satisfied that his “baby” was mechanically sound, he went back to the magazine stores and figured out what he needed to do next. Fucking worm ship, killing our guys. Not on my watch, he thought.

  He went to the end of the magazine control bulkhead and popped the mag seals on one of the control panels and pulled two tiny integrated circuit boards out and looked around to make sure he was alone.

  Next he replaced the panel cover and slipped the boards into the open pocket on the front of his tunic. Twenty minutes later he was back in his fire control/weapons locker at his workbench. He reached up to a shelf and grabbed a set of magnifying glasses and swung the ECU lens into place in front of his right eye. Slowly he looked at the first chip and plugged it into one of the slots on his bench. The small LED screen to his right displayed a list of components and their electrical values. He touched a few items on the list on his screen and the image shifted to a three dimensional view of the component on one side of the screen and a blinking locator icon on the other side, showing where the chip fit into the greater scheme of things on the jam-packed circuit board.

  Rich pulled open a drawer below the bench and extracted a chip, encased in a small plastic case, checking the nomenclature on the lid, making sure that he had the correct part. He then put on his anti-static gloves and grounded himself to the metal leg of his bench. Swapping the components only took a second or two and after he ran the values list for the second time, he carefully eased the circuit board out of its slot, put it back in its plastic case, checked the sight-glass on the cover to make sure it was still in the green, and then slipped it back into his pocket. The second board took half the time to alter as the first.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Gena Haslip was on the Green Team and as the only female unrestricted line officer — a ship’s officer authorized to command a ship in this man’s Navy — she took her duties very seriously. She was currently resting her somewhat ample butt in one of the steel chairs in the wardroom below the Christi’s bridge and conversing with her boss, Commander Yorn.

  “So, Davi, are you sure she’s right for this assignment? I mean, her performance has been steadily going downhill ever since she rotated here,” Commander Haslip said.

  “Not to sound judgemental of you, Gena, but perhaps we’re not talking about the same person. Have you looked into her background? I’m not just talking about her current ‘anti-social’ behavior on this ship. I’m talking about her continued above-average performance appraisals and her personal endorsement from the captain.”

  “Endorsement or not, the other officers are not that keen on her. They say she’s stand-offish, not a team player, and she has poor interpersonal skills. That’s peer review and it’s hard to overlook,” Gena Haslip said, s
macking her open hand down on the steel desk lightly with each point she made.

  Davi Yorn shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Her aloof behavior is borne out of a desire to be left alone, don’t you see? She lost her husband, had to leave her kid behind, and, so far, she’s rejected any and all advances from the rest of the male officers on this ship. That’s your ‘peer review’ for you; they can’t get into her pants so they talk her down. Think, Gena. How many times did you get trampled on by your senior officers when you had to kick them out of your bunk? It hasn’t been that long ago,” he said.

  She paused to consider what Yorn had just said. Maybe he had a point. “Well, I’m just saying, if she goes out with me I expect her to do her damned job.”

  “Were you talking about me?” Hansen said, coming into the wardroom from the open hatch.

  Haslip turned and her face reddened. “As a matter of fact, lieutenant, I was.”

  Max looked through her and said to Yorn, “Lieutenant Maxine Hansen reporting as ordered, sir.”

  He looked at her and tried to suppress a smile while he glanced down at his watch. She was right on time. “Stand at ease, Hansen. This little briefing is strictly informal. I wanted you to meet with Lieutenant Commander Haslip to go over the away assignment the captain has volunteered you for.”

  Swell, she thought. Another day she would have to leave Har to fend for himself. “Away assignment? For how long, sir?” she asked Yorn, completely ignoring the woman seated directly in front of her.