by Richard Fox
“No, ma’am. Just checking up on a buddy,” Corporal Keith Landon said. He swiped a playful air punch at Garrison. “Did you eat three trays? You gotta have a tapeworm.”
“Corporal,” Booker said, tone hard.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Sorry. Have a good day, Sergeant.”
Fallon’s Strike Marines retreated to their table where they were soon laughing too loudly.
Booker had barely sat down when Lieutenant Fallon ventured over from officer country. “Sergeant Booker, I must apologize for my men. They’re spirited.”
“Not a problem, sir,” Booker said.
Fallon motioned for the three of them to sit. “I was talking to the captains. It’s almost time for a new class of Strike Marines to arrive. That means we’ll be considering internal transfers.”
Booker said nothing.
“Again, Sergeant, I hope my men weren’t a problem,” Fallon said.
“No problem, sir,” she said.
Fallon nodded and left the same way King had not long ago.
Booker stared after him.
“Are you serious?” Adams asked. “Did that just happen? He’s trying to break apart our team.”
“Sounded like he was recruiting us, me probably,” Garrison said.
Adams gave him the finger, started to punch him, but pulled her fist back with a growl. Garrison laughed.
Adams ignored him in favor of Booker. “He’s full of shit, right?”
“Who, Fallon or Garrison?” Booker asked, suddenly exhausted. “Are we done here or does Garrison need another fifteen million calories? Let’s go before Gunney comes back and we’ve got to salute and execute on something.”
Chapter 4
Valdar placed the palms of his hands on the desk and pressed down to stretch his back while sitting. In the age of omnium technology, paper had become a blessing and a curse. Stacks of the waterproof, flame-resistant stuff held down the left side of his desk. His mission since the end of the war had been to move these critical documents from left to right, sometimes reading and signing them during the process. To add insult to injury, all of it was duplicated on his data slate just to ensure humans never forgot the nexus between digital and analog tech.
He dropped his hands into his lap and stared. “Can we return to the digital age now that the Xaros are gone?”
The empty room offered no answers.
Leaning back, he took a moment to stare at the opposing wall where a picture hung of President Garret shaking his hand during his promotion to admiral. Another of a visit to the Dotari home world, and yet another of his nephew Ken Hale departing for New Terra, perhaps to find his brother Jared, perhaps to make something of his life with Gall—settle down and raise little Hales.
The strangest picture, the last group photo of the four Karigole, stared at him with disturbing force. Photogenic, they were not.
“My glory days,” Valdar muttered defiantly, refusing to accept death by paperwork. Patton—that old warhorse of history—had it right, taking the old barracks song about fading away with a grain of salt. “Old goats don’t fade away, they just butt out.”
A chime sounded at his door.
“What?” he growled.
Egan, his executive officer, hurried into the office, a break from his normal decorum.
“Something on fire?” Valdar asked.
Egan shook his head quickly. “Worse, admiral. A Dotari VIP shuttle is on approach. No notice from Saturn command or Camelback.”
Valdar pinched the bridge of his nose. The Breitenfeld was a popular site for alien dignitaries. Interest in the ship that delivered the death blow to the Xaros seemed to transcend species. No notice visits were a constant headache for the admiral and his ship.
“I cleared it to dock in Bay 19 as soon as it makes its way around the rings,” Egan said. “You want me to get the dog and pony ready for the show?”
Valdar tossed the data slate aside as he stood. With one swipe of his hand to smooth his uniform, he moved toward the door. “Well, don’t just stand there. We don’t keep diplomatic envoys waiting on the Breitenfeld.”
“Any paperwork I can take care of while you hobnob?” Egan asked, nodding toward the desk.
“Watch yourself, XO.” With Egan at his side, he strode to the bridge. “You get too good at answering my mail and it’ll become a permanent additional duty.”
Valdar pulled up a sensor scan on his gauntlet screen. The approaching ship was small, even with enhanced optics. Valdar stared as though he could accelerate its progress across the panoramic space-scape on the main view screen.
The Breitenfeld orbited Saturn, gliding above rings of ice and rock. Colors shifted for thousands of kilometers on the flat surface. A faint image of the ship reflected like a ghost navigating in silence. Looming beyond the gas giant, the void joined forces with the shadow cast across the planet by the belt of debris. Cold, stunningly beautiful, and massive, the scene was daunting to a man who had spent most of his career in the blue-water navy prior to the Xaros invasion.
Admiral Valdar faced the view screen with his hands clasped behind his back. His crew, some old and some new, maintained the fresh silence. “We were on our way to establish this colony when it all started.” His mouth felt dry and his voice sounded soft to his ears.
“We were,” said Egan.
Valdar had preferred a career as a blue-water sailor. His sudden reassignment to the Breitenfeld on the eve of the Ember War had been unwelcome, but he’d excelled as a void ship commander. Something tightened around his chest and the corner of his eye twitched as memories came back. He’d been lucky enough to survive when the Xaros took Earth. His wife and children weren’t. The original Saturn Colony, which Valdar thought would’ve been an assignment lasting a few months became a gambit to preserve the human race against an unstoppable enemy.
“Well, don’t get all sentimental on me, XO. You have the bridge. I’ve got an old friend to greet in docking Bay 19.”
Egan laughed under his breath. “Old friend? That doesn’t narrow it down. Who is it this time?”
“A pilot. Someone the Breitenfeld picked up far from home,” Valdar said. He left the bridge, confident Egan could handle anything the Saturn Colony supply ships might do in the shipping lane they were monitoring.
As he walked the hallways and ducked through the lower bulkheads around reinforced areas, he paid special attention to structural details of his old ship, which hadn’t seen action for a while. Stopping when no one was near, he patted a support beam. Drawing a breath and holding it with his eyes closed, he exhaled, growling softly. “You got us through Toth battle groups, Alliance treachery, and everything the Xaros could hurl at us, old girl. I cannot thank you enough. My crew thanks you.”
Grav plates and ship ventilation purred at the edge of silence. He remembered warning klaxons and the sound of his voice ordering battle stations on the public-address system…rail guns hammering the enemy in space, Marines and sailors fighting Xaros drones and other nasty boarders, Eagle fighters making emergency landings after getting shot up.
Opening his eyes, he could scarcely believe the Breitenfeld had come through so much.
He walked taller and tried not to think about the past or the future.
A pair of junior officers snapped to attention as he approached. He acknowledged them without saluting and continued to the docking bay. A petty officer gave him the all clear, then stood aside as the door opened. Out of habit, Valdar glanced at the emergency lockers where decompression and other safety gear were secured.
“You’re doing good work here, Petty Officer Trentson.”
“Sir,” the petty officer said.
Valdar inspected the area, speaking briefly with each of the officers and senior noncoms running the docking bay.
“Admiral Valdar, I wasn’t aware you would be visiting us today,” a lieutenant said. He turned to give orders.
“As you were, Lieutenant. Let’s keep this casual,” Valdar said.
&
nbsp; The bay was one of the largest open spaces in the Breitenfeld. A squadron of Eagles and their crews awaited his order to launch into action. “Always ready” was their motto, even on this dull assignment. On the other side, opposite the combat line, were maintenance ships and EVA stations for almost any peacetime contingency.
Lo’thar, one of the first Dotari to serve alongside humans, finished a conversation with the Marines guarding his recently docked shuttle and strode toward Valdar.
“Admiral Valdar! It is good to see you. I thought you would be in a special place befitting your rank,” Lo’thar said after saluting in the way unique to Dotari.
“Lo’thar, it’s been forever. I’ve got a bit of cabin fever. News of your arrival was most welcome,” Valdar said.
“I was told desk work was such a noble pursuit that only the highest-ranking minds of the Terran Fleet could do it,” Lo’thar said.
“Let’s have a walk around my old girl and I’ll show you my new toys,” Valdar said. “The newer generation of Eagle fighters have a fair amount of automation in them now that the threat of Xaros hacking has gone away. And they’re faster and carry more ordnance.”
“And in one piece,” Lo’thar said, moving close to one of the fighters when he’d received permission from the flight crew. “Easier to land with landing gears! Gall used to scream at me, ‘Lo’thar, why are you trying to get us killed? Lo’thar, use the marked landing zone. Lo’thar, I swear you waited until I was getting shot before you blew up that drone. Lo’thar, Lo’thar, Lo’thar!’ She was fun.”
Valdar laughed but noticed how quickly the Dotari veteran abandoned his war stories. “Let me show you our new grav plates, then the armory.”
“You are the admiral,” Lo’thar said.
“An admiral with a single ship to worry about,” Valdar said. “I spend most of my time training fleet commanders. They actually have to rise through the ranks now. We stopped minting tactical geniuses after the Hale Treaty.”
“The Dotari were relieved—but surprised—when Earth signed the treaty. We thought the senior human named Ibarra would have protested more to the terms. The procedurals were his technology, yes?” Lo’thar asked.
Valdar stiffened slightly. “Ibarra protested enough.”
“He is gone on a science expedition, yes? We have not seen him in Earth news for years.”
“That he’s gone is all that matters,” Valdar said. “I never cared for him or his methods.”
Valdar led the way to a platform facing a wall-sized view screen. The dramatic view of Saturn, which seemed closer than it was, still took his breath away.
The Dotari pilot seemed impressed but preoccupied.
“What brings you all the way to Saturn, Lo’thar?” Valdar asked.
Lo’thar produced a tablet and tapped until several pictures came into focus. Valdar raised an eyebrow at the image of an infant Dotari breaking free from an egg the size of a football. He wasn’t sure if anyone had informed Lo’thar that humans—as a rule—did not share pictures of childbirth. Though the event for the Dotari was plainly less…messy.
“This is my daughter,” Lo’thar said. He clicked his beak as he swiped through photos of the little alien who looked almost human but for her thick black quills in place of hair. Dotari infants suckled like human babies, developing their beaks later in life and changing their diet to hard shelled foods.
“She’s adorable and I think fatherhood suits you. But I don’t think you came this far out just to show me a photo album,” Valdar said.
Lo’thar stared at the picture for several moments before putting the device away. “She is our joy.”
The quills on his head drew into tight clusters and his beak locked tightly between words. With his feet set shoulder-width apart, he looked into Valdar’s eyes as though he were a human negotiator rather than Dotari.
“We call it the phage, and it is killing us. Our home world is as we remember it, but over the many centuries since we fled the Xaros, the Dotari changed. We adapted to the long years in the generation ships. Adapted to the barren rock that was Takeni. And when Dotari was freed after the Ember War, we rushed home…far too quickly. Our immune systems weren’t ready to fight the old diseases on Dotari and now we’re dying.
“I came to you because you saved us from the Xaros on Takeni. You saved us from a threat we could shoot, that we could run away from. The phage is a different enemy, but one that can still be beaten with your help,” Lo’thar said.
“I’m a ship driver, not a doctor,” Valdar said.
“My ancestors made it to Takeni, and from there, our separation from our home world and our doom began…but there were other fleets,” Lo’thar said, “like the one the Xaros twisted and used to attack us on Takeni.”
“I don’t follow,” Valdar said, playing dumb as wheels began turning inside his head, all leading to one conclusion.
“The Golden Fleets that left Dotari before my ancestors departed with the best technology. They were not generation ships, but sleeper ships. The passengers on those earlier ships walked on Dotari. Grew up on Dotari. Their blood carries the immunities we need to survive,” Lo’thar said.
“You found such a fleet?” Valdar asked.
“Yes, yes, we have,” Lo’thar said. “But there are a number of complications.”
“You know more than you’re telling me, Lo’thar.”
The Dotari veteran shifted, adjusting the distance between them. A tremble went through his quills and he looked embarrassed.
“Tell me all of it, or we’re done here,” Valdar said.
“The fleet we found is in interstellar space. It will reach its intended destination in another three hundred twenty-five years—Chosun’s Star, you call it. There is a Crucible gate there.”
Valdar’s lip twitched. He had an inkling where this was going.
“That’s a long time,” Valdar said. “Can the Dotari survive that long without a cure to the phage?”
“Some of us might. There are protocols moving into place. The Dotari serving in your Armor Corps, pilots and support teams on the carriers, our small base on Hawaii; all will be cut off from the home world soon. A seed for future generations. But this does nothing for those on Dotari, for everyone with the phage. To do nothing is a death sentence for so many of us. My daughter especially.” Lo’thar ended his words with a low trill. Valdar wasn’t sure how to interpret the new sound.
“And how do I work into this?” Valdar asked.
“You can take us to the Golden Fleet,” the Dotari said, his eyes sparkling. “You can help us bring back a cure.”
“Lo’thar, old friend,” Valdar said, holding up a hand as a chill shook him. Lying was part and parcel of protecting classified information. There was a potential solution to Lo’thar and the Dotari’s problem, one they shouldn’t know about. “That isn’t possible. Knowing where the Golden Fleet is doesn’t do us any good. The Crucibles can send us one way. A fleet goes out, it’s stuck in deep space with that Dotari fleet too. We’d have to wait until it reaches the next star hundreds of years later.”
Lo’thar didn’t respond.
“Sorry, Lo’thar, it doesn’t do us any good to find a cure we can’t bring back.”
“But there is a way,” Lo’thar said, taking a step forward with renewed energy and determination.
Standing tall, staring Valdar in the eyes, Lo’thar made a Dotari sound in his throat that might have been a word. His eyes glowed with an intensity he had lacked while touring the flight deck. The quills like thick hair braids on his head moved with each deep breath and his stance looked both relaxed and ready.
“And what…exactly is that?” Valdar asked, feeling as though a stone was balancing on his chest, needing only to be shoved aside.
“Let’s talk somewhere private, Admiral Valdar,” Lo’thar said.
“No one will pay attention to us here. I selected this observation deck for privacy. There is…ambient noise in the system here. One of my secrets.”
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Lo’thar nodded, then began as though his life depended on what he said next. “We know about the portable Crucible program. Our leaders thought we’d be told, and there are many of us unhappy that it has been kept secret, but we know it must be complete by now. In the—how do you say it—the testing phase by now.”
Valdar controlled his surprise, but the Dotari father didn’t wait for him to get his balance.
“I just need you to champion our cause,” Lo’thar said.
“How could you know about the Grinder—the program?” Valdar winced at his major gaff, admitting he knew exactly what Lo’thar was talking about. Keeping secrets was not his forte; Earth had spies for that.
As Lo’thar laughed without much humor, his quills fluttered on his head. “The Mutual Defense Treaty allows us access to the omnium reactor on Mercury. Think about it, Valdar. How could we not figure this out? We are not ga’amon’an, sitting around with our heads ducked beneath our wings. For the last year and a half, an exceptionally large amount of mass was transmuted that was not listed on the production schedule.”
Valdar clenched his jaw. The Dotari had his facts down pat and had clearly been practicing his delivery.
“All of this was shipped away within hours of creation on the same navy ship that kept changing its transponder identification. It left the Mercury base on the same course every single time, out to Sedna. Given the mass that was transmuted, the hull size of the ship, and the amount of strain her engines exhibited each time she pulled away from the factory, we—”
“Deduced what it was carrying,” Valdar interrupted.
“Yes. Material the same volume and density as a Crucible gate,” Lo’thar finished. “If you—I mean, they—hadn’t tried so hard to hide what they were doing, we might not have noticed.”
Valdar frowned. “Very clever, Lo’thar. But if what you’re saying is true, and I can’t say that it is, why do you think I can acquire it for our—your—purpose?”
Lo’thar laughed, finally rolling aside the imaginary stone on Valdar’s chest.
