by Ryk Brown
“But if the Falcons have poor aerodynamic performance, don’t they need those powered lift systems?”
“For sustained flight operations, yes, but that uses a considerable amount of propellant. And they fly well enough to takeoff and land from conventional runways if need be. The point is, they should not be using them for atmospheric operations. They should be using them strictly for space operations. Doing so would allow them to be reconfigured, giving them greater interior space and considerably more utility.”
“Why do you think of such things?” he wondered.
“What do you mean? I’m always thinking of such things, you know that.”
“I mean, why now? After all that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours…”
“Twenty-eight,” she interrupted in her usual annoying way. She knew it irritated him, but she enjoyed watching his reaction.
“Twenty-eight hours. It just seems like you’d have other things on your mind, that’s all.”
“I’d rather not have other things on my mind, Yanni. I’d rather fill my mind with problems to solve, systems to analyze, equations to unravel…anything other than the events of the last twenty-eight hours.”
“I guess I can understand that,” he said as the chimes sounded, indicating a guest. Yanni got up and went to the door, checking the exterior camera display before opening it, as their security detail had instructed. It seemed a silly precaution to him, since there were two armed and well-trained guards at the door itself, and two more near the elevators. “It’s Navarro,” he told Deliza as he opened the door. “Captain,” he greeted.
“Mister Hiller,” the captain replied with a respectful nod. “I was summoned?”
“You were?”
“He was,” Deliza called from the sofa.
“You were…she did…”
“I understood,” the captain replied. “May I?”
“Of course,” Yanni replied, opening the door further and stepping aside to let him enter the room.
“How may I be of service?” Captain Navarro inquired.
“I have decided that I would indeed like to go to Sol.”
“Is there some urgency I am not aware of?”
“Not particularly, I just don’t think it serves any purpose for me to sit around this hotel suite, wasting credits and accomplishing nothing of value. Besides, the data cores should be returned to Earth, now that it has been secured against the Jung.”
“I am not certain that is the case,” Captain Navarro warned her.
“They are certainly as safe on Earth as they are here, are they not?”
“I expect that is a matter of opinion.”
“Well, my opinion is that it would be better for them to be in the hands of the Alliance, where they might be able to utilize some of the technologies contained within, rather than gathering dust in the Avendahl’s cargo hold.”
“I understand,” Captain Navarro replied. “And how soon do you wish to depart?”
“Tomorrow morning would be fine,” Deliza told him, “after I sign the papers granting you full legal authority over my family’s business matters in my absence.”
“Perhaps you could wait an additional day?”
“Whatever for?”
“My personal shuttle is being used to ferry the family of my first officer’s wife to the safety of Corinair. It will be back tomorrow evening, after which it will need to be refueled and provisioned, as well as have the data cores loaded and secured for the voyage… A matter I expect Mister Hiller will wish to supervise, since the safety of the data cores is his responsibility.”
“Why can’t we just take a cargo shuttle?” Deliza wondered.
“The journey will take the better part of three days time,” the captain explained. “The accommodations on a standard cargo shuttle may not be to your liking, my lady.”
“He’s right,” Yanni said. “Trust me on this.”
“In addition, my shuttle is faster, better equipped, and has better defenses than a standard cargo shuttle. I would also like to send several fast-attack jump shuttles along as escorts, to ensure your safety. I believe that Admiral Dumar would welcome their addition to his forces, and I have more than enough for the immediate future.”
“All reasonable arguments,” Deliza conceded. “Very well, we shall wait until the day after tomorrow.” Deliza cocked her head to one side and nodded respectfully. “Thank you, Captain. As always, your advice and concerns for my safety are greatly appreciated.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Captain Navarro replied, nodding in return. “Mister Hiller.”
Yanni smiled at the captain, nodding politely as well. He opened the door, let the captain depart, and then closed it again. He looked at Deliza. “For someone who insists she is no longer a princess, you sure do sound like one at times.”
* * *
Naralena looked at herself in the mirror, unfamiliar with what she saw before her. Her face was unchanged, albeit without any subtle touches from the makeup she preferred to use, but her hair was…short. It had taken her more than an hour to get up the nerve to cut it off, and then another just to get it trimmed up into something presentable. She knew little of Koharan hairstyles, only what she had seen on their entertainment and news media. And she was not a hairstylist, by any stretch of the imagination. She had kept the ends trimmed herself for several years now, both while living on Haven and during her time aboard the Aurora. But her hair had been well past the middle of her back for more than a decade, and now, it was just…short.
She had been staring at it for a quarter of an hour, making final adjustments, all of which accomplished nothing. She had carefully bagged up all the hair, just as Gerard suggested, so that it could be disposed of without a trace.
She was quite impressed at his level of expertise. It was evident in the way he moved, and in the way he considered every detail and every possibility, no matter how remote, in order to prepare for anything that might occur. It engendered trust in him, and it made her feel safe, or at least as safe as she could feel, considering the circumstances.
One last look in the mirror. “How did you get so far away from home?” she asked her reflection. She took a deep breath, picked up the bag of hair, and finally left the bathroom.
Naralena walked confidently out into the living room, ready to face the rest of the group in her new persona. But the group was nowhere to be found. Only Gerard was there, standing in the kitchen.
“Finally,” he said as he noticed her. “I was afraid something had happened to you in there.” He turned to look at her as she approached. “Wow, you look great!”
“Really?” she asked, doubtful. “Wait, if you’re lying, I don’t want to know.”
“No, really. You look much better. It was a good choice of cuts. It frames your face much better, makes you look half your age.”
“You are well trained,” she retorted, sitting down at the table.
“I’m sorry if it’s cold, I’ve been holding breakfast for so long, I thought I was going to have to throw it out and start making lunch,” Gerard said as he came over and sat down across the table from her. “It’s not much, I’m afraid. Some fried potted meat and some rather stale biscuits.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” she replied, picking up one of the biscuits.
“The others have gone hunting,” Gerard explained as he took a biscuit himself, “with any luck, we will have fresh meat later today.”
Naralena bit into the biscuit, tearing off a piece and chewing it.
“Is something wrong?” Gerard asked. “It’s the biscuits, isn’t it?”
“They are indeed stale,” she said as politely as possible.
“They are supposed to have a very long shelf life, for storage in such remote cabins. I guess it has b
een some time since any of my people had a chance to rotate supplies.”
“It’s all right,” Naralena assured him. “I’ve had much worse.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why do you say that?” Naralena wondered.
“It’s just that you have a rather stately, elegant manner about you. I am trained to notice such things, you know.”
“I am surprised that recent experiences have not bred such mannerisms out of me,” she said as she picked up a piece of the fried, potted meat.
“It is subtle, to be sure, but it is there nonetheless. I would guess that you came from a wealthy family, with a very proper upbringing and a good education.”
“Guilty on all counts, I’m afraid.” Naralena made a face as she chewed the meat.
“Too salty?”
“A bit.”
“I tried to give it a bit of flavor. I guess I failed. To be honest, I never have been much for cooking.”
“I never would have guessed.”
“Hey, in all fairness, I didn’t have much to work with,” Gerard defended. “So, I know you’re not from Earth,” he continued. “So where are you from?”
“Volon.”
A surprised look came across his face. “I would’ve guessed one of the core worlds, or maybe even the fringe. I’ve never heard of Volon.”
“It’s a very long way away from here,” she told him.
“It’s in the Pentaurus cluster isn’t it? The one Jessica was talking about?”
“Not in it, but nearby.”
“So how far away is it?”
“About a thousand light years.”
Gerard looked even more surprised. Then he cocked his head to one side, squinting. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
Naralena said nothing, only shaking her head.
“Jesus, how far can that jump drive take people?”
“It wasn’t a quick journey,” she assured him. “It takes more than a month for larger ships like the Aurora. But we have smaller ships that can make it in a few days. Jump-enabled comm-drones can make it in a few hours.”
“Incredible,” he muttered. After a moment of contemplation, he continued. “So, you’re a well-to-do, well educated young lady from the planet Volon,” he said as he choked down a piece of his biscuit. “What is your specialty?”
“My specialty?”
“What did you study in school? What career did you train for?”
“Languages. I was trained to speak many different languages.”
“Really, I speak a few myself, I’m proud to say. English, Spanish, a little Russian, and obviously Jung, Cetian, and Koharan, which admittedly isn’t that different from Cetian. How many languages do you speak?”
“At last count, thirty-seven.”
Gerard’s mouth hung open, a wad of half-chewed stale biscuit still visible on his tongue.
“You might want to close your mouth… You’ve still got a hunk of…”
Gerard closed his mouth and swallowed, nearly choking on the piece of biscuit. “Thirty-seven, huh?” he said, trying not to appear to shocked. “That’s impress… How the hell does anyone learn to speak thirty-seven languages?” he blurted out.
“I was genetically skewed in vitro,” she told him.
“You mean, they gave you the ability to speak thirty-seven languages, genetically? They can do that?”
“On Volon, they can genetically enhance traits that an embryo already possesses,” Naralena explained.
“How do they know?”
“There are tests that are conducted just after conception. But it just means that whatever natural linguistic abilities I had were increased. It’s not like I was born speaking all those languages.”
“Well, I figured that,” Gerard said. “Do they do that with every embryo?”
“No, it’s an elective procedure, and it’s quite expensive. Very few can afford it.”
“Then I was right, your parents were wealthy.”
“They were not poor, but they were also not wealthy enough to afford the procedure outright. They had to take out loans to pay for it. They made payments on the loans for my entire life.”
“If they couldn’t afford it, why did they do it?”
“Only a select few get to attend institutions of higher learning,” she explained. “Most go to trade schools, get decent jobs, then spend their lives working and living check to check. My parents wanted better for me. Skewing my genes insured that I would get into a university and that I would have a chance for a better life.”
“Then how did you end up in the Alliance, and a thousand light years from home?” Gerard wondered.
“My father was in an accident at work. After that, they could no longer afford to make the payments. They were going to indenture my mother…”
“Indenture? You mean, like a slave or something?”
“On many of the worlds in and around the Pentaurus cluster, failure to pay a debt is punishable by indentured servitude. Once convicted, the creditor has the right to sell the debtor sentence to whomever they choose in order to recover the debt. They couldn’t take my father, as he was disabled and could not fetch an adequate price to cover their bad debt. They were going to send my mother to work for the ring miners in the Haven system. I couldn’t let that happen. I was young and healthy. She was not. She might not have survived.”
“How long were you required to serve as a slave?”
“Five years. Early into my second year, the Aurora came to Haven. One thing led to another, and here I am, a thousand light years from home, hiding out in a lakeside cabin with three men I hardly know.”
“So what happened with your debt?” Gerard wondered. He had long since stopped eating, enthralled by her tale. “I mean, if you left before they got their monies worth… They didn’t come after your parents, did they?”
“They would have,” Naralena admitted, “but after the Alliance formed and overthrew the Ta’Akar empire, Tug… I mean, Casimir, he paid my parent’s debt. He even got my father treatment. Last I heard from them, they were doing quite well.”
“Damn,” Gerard exclaimed. “That’s quite a story.” He watched her a moment as she suffered through another piece of over-salted meat. “It was all true, right? You weren’t pulling my leg, were you?”
“Nope. It’s all true.”
“So, what do you do for the Alliance?”
“Since I spoke pretty much every language in the area, Captain Scott asked me to be his communications officer. I’ve been doing that for about a year and a half now.”
“Then how did you end up on a covert mission on an enemy held world?”
“Jessica wasn’t getting the hang of Jung quickly enough. Her Koharan and Cetian were passable, but…”
“So they sent you to do the talking if any Jung asked you questions,” Gerard surmised.
“That’s about it.”
“Man, and I thought my life was strange.”
* * *
“We have confirmed Lieutenant Commander Nash’s intelligence about the capabilities of the Jung nanites,” Doctor Galloway told the admiral over the video comm-screen. “They appear to be simple sensory monitoring devices, designed to monitor and record visual and audio inputs from the host.”
“How is that possible?” the admiral wondered from his office on the Karuzara. “Wouldn’t they need an enormous amount of data storage capabilities?”
“One would think, yes. We’re not quite sure, to be honest, but the prevailing theory is that only a small percentage of the nanites are used for sensory monitoring, while the rest are used for storage. Others are used to act as a sort of ‘hive mind’, a distributed intelligence capable of analyzing the data and deciding what should be kept for
later transmission and what can be discarded.”
“How did you figure all of this out, Doctor?” The admiral leaned forward in his seat, curious about the doctor’s findings.
“Well, a lot of it is still guesswork, I’m afraid. To be honest, without the descriptions from Lieutenant Commander Nash and the Koharan reporter, we’d probably still be rather clueless at this point.”
“Can we do anything about them?” the admiral asked.
“Not yet. However, it should be relatively simple to create a method to screen everyone for the presence of Jung nanites.”
“You can distinguish them from Corinairan nanites?”
“Oh, quite easily, yes,” Doctor Galloway assured him. “Our nanites are made of synthetic materials, while the Jung nanites are made from materials found in the human body, or in the food that humans normally consume. That’s why ours require booster dosages, or dosages based on the amount of treatment needed. The Jung nanites are able to replicate using raw materials found in situ. In fact, we believe that Mister Bowden’s description of their function is likely quite accurate. Once the Jung have identified a host that is likely to be privy to desired intelligence, they can command the target host’s nanites to start replicating in order to increase their capabilities as an unknowing operative.”
“So you believe that the host has no idea they are acting as an agent for the Jung?” the admiral asked.
“That would have to be the case,” she told him. “The human psyche is very powerful. If the host was aware that they were being forced to do things against their own ethics and beliefs, they would not make very effective operatives.”
“Can we make use of these nanites, maybe somehow take control of them?” the admiral asked.
“Highly doubtful, sir. Their control codes are undoubtedly encrypted, and we don’t even know yet how they communicate with their controllers. Maybe, in a few years…”
