Resilience

by Fletcher DeLancey

  She frowned. “Your—no, that can’t be right. I saw images. Dr. Wells told me about it. It hangs down, like every male mammal on Alsea.”

  Groaning again, he planted his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands. “I’m going to have a talk with Dr. Wells.”

  “Talk to me first. Do you have—is it a disability?”

  “No, it’s not a disability!” He looked her in the eye for the first time. “It’s working perfectly well, thank you. Just not when I want it to. Sucking Seeders, I was trying everything. And then you made that sound, and . . .” He waved a hand. “It reacted.”

  “You mean that’s normal?”

  “Normal for a fifteen-year-old,” he mumbled.

  “But—it reacted? By itself? Isn’t it part of you?”

  “Trust me, sometimes I don’t think it is. Yes, it reacted. I tried to stop it, but sometimes it can’t be helped. It’s just biology. I got an erection even though I didn’t want one. Can we talk about something else now? Philosophy would be marvelous. Or religion. Tell me more about your Fahla.”

  She sat on the other leg of the couch, keeping the corner between them. “I still don’t understand. Alsean mammals have penises, and they don’t change direction.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  “And you weren’t very aroused. I know how erections work; we studied that in biology before I left school. It requires sexual arousal to increase the blood flow to the erectile tissue.”

  “That might be the most unsexy set of sentences I’ve ever heard. Next time I want to kill an erection before it starts, I’ll remember that. Right after I remember you leaping across the room.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right, let’s get it over with. Yes, erections are caused by increased blood flow, and yes, the penises of male Gaians can, er, change direction when they expand. It makes it easier to enter a female.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed in sudden understanding. “Because yours don’t aim forward like other male mammals.”

  “Correct.” His embarrassment was beginning to retreat. “And there are different kinds of sexual arousal. There’s the part that happens in the brain, which I guess is what you sense, and the part that happens down here.” He waved a hand in the general direction of his crotch—which, Rahel was fascinated to note, was now lacking any sign of the erection. “The part that happens down there isn’t under our control. We can get erections in our sleep.”

  “Really? That seems counterproductive. Also uncomfortable. What happens when you roll over, is it like landing on a small tree branch?”

  He stared at her in disbelief and a tinge of horror, then threw his head back and laughed. She couldn’t help smiling at the sight, despite having no idea what was so funny. At least he wasn’t mortified any longer.

  “If I had a stiff one like a tree branch, I’d either be bragging in the Blue Rocket or looking for help in medbay, I’m not sure which. It’s not that hard.”

  “Oh. You said you tried to stop it. How did you do that?”

  “Unsuccessfully.”

  This time, she caught the humor and snorted a laugh. He laughed with her, and the last vestiges of discomfort fled the room.

  “I think about things that are as far from arousing as possible,” he said. “Cleaning out the waste reclamation tanks, for instance.”

  “Ew.”

  “See? That should have worked. It didn’t. Then I tried thinking about what happens if an entire cargo of stolen defender mines goes on the black market.”

  “I understood the first one. This one . . .”

  “All the senior staff are worried about it since the Tutnuken missed the rendezvous.”

  She had heard about the cargo ship, of course. After arriving at the rendezvous and finding empty space, the Phoenix was now backtracking the Tutnuken’s likely route from its last stop. But no one had mentioned mines.

  “I thought we were just trying to find a lost ship. It was carrying a load of weapons?”

  He nodded. “Captain Serrado doesn’t want to say anything until we have more facts. It may have had mechanical issues.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “Are you guessing, or do you know?”

  “You feel doubtful. Not assured.”

  “I’m definitely doubtful. If it had mechanical issues, why didn’t the crew send a message? A ship would have to take a lot of damage before the quantum coms stopped working. It doesn’t make sense. What makes sense is that someone knew that ship was carrying mines and hit it for the black-market value.”

  “What happens if they go on the market?”

  “Nothing good,” he said grimly.

  She studied him. “You feel like that about it and it still didn’t stop your erection?”

  “You see now?”

  “Amazing. I’m going to ask Dr. Wells why she didn’t tell me about this.”

  “You are not!” He looked at her more closely and narrowed his eyes. “You were kidding.”

  She offered an innocent smile. “Lhyn says learning to tease is a critical part of fitting into the culture. Am I fitting in?”

  “Far too well,” he grumbled.

  16

  Tutnuken

  “Still no response, Captain. I’ve even tried the laser com and radio. They’re not answering.”

  Ekatya studied the blocky cargo ship off their starboard side, coasting on nothing but inertia with its dead, dark engines. She had ordered a matching speed while staying far enough away to be cautious, then magnified the view so the ship took up half of the bridge display.

  Overhead, under her feet, and on the port side was nothing but stars. Normally, she felt at home when surrounded by open space, but it was making her itchy now. There was nothing here to explain why the Tutnuken had cut its engines. They were nowhere near a space station, planet, moon, or even an asteroid. This location was four days away from the ship’s last stop. Nor had it deviated from its planned route—the Phoenix had practically run over it while backtracking the flightpath on file.

  The ship showed no signs of piracy. There were no scorch marks or holes in the hull, no open airlocks, not even scraped hullskin from the grapplers of a boarding pod. The massive midship cargo door was tightly closed. If the Tutnuken had been hit for its mines, the pirates had boarded without a struggle and tidied up when they left.

  Right below her, on the second level of the central bridge dais, Commander Lokomorra swiveled his chair around to face her. “There’s only one way to find out what’s going on over there.”

  “External investigation first,” she said. “I’m not authorizing a boarding party until we’ve looked in the windows.”

  As chief of security, Commander Cox led the investigative team, closing the gap between the two ships in a shuttle escorted by three fighters. For the next hour, the bridge buzzed with activity while the team nosed all around the silent ship and sent back baffling results.

  The engines were completely cold. A close examination of the hull confirmed its integrity. Thermal scans showed wildly divergent temperatures, with some areas retaining normal heat while others were barely warmer than the space they were flying through.

  “So, partial environmental failure and they sealed off those areas.” Ekatya was studying the thermal scans on the display, superimposed over the real-time visual of the ship.

  “Could have been automated,” Lokomorra said.

  “If their automated systems were working, we’d have a distress beacon. Or at the very least, an IDT.”

  That the ship was traveling without even an identity transmitter was the strangest thing of all. IDTs were self-contained and usually the last thing to fail in the event of catastrophe. The only reasons to not have one were either total destruction of that part of the ship, or deliberate disabling for stealth movements.

  A cargo ship contracted to Fleet for a simple delivery had no reason for stealth movements, unless . . .

  She looked down at Lokomorra. “D
o you think they were double dipping?”

  He pursed his lips, then gave a slow nod. “Might explain a few things. If they’ve got something in that cargo hold they’re not supposed to be carrying, they wouldn’t be motivated to put out a distress call.”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me I was being cynical.” That was just what she needed, a corrupt contractor mixing defender mines with contraband.

  “You can be cynical and still be right.”

  Commander Cox appeared on the part of the display currently showing the shuttle’s quantum com. “The drone is in place,” he said. “Look at this.”

  After conducting every other scan, the team had launched a drone to literally look in the ship’s windows. Unlike a warship, the Tutnuken had no need for an impervious battle hull. Its bridge had several large windows, and their drone was hovering outside one of them.

  Ekatya stared at the video feed. “There’s no one up there?”

  Cox shook his head. “Looks like they set the autopilot and left.”

  “That violates about twelve laws,” Lokomorra said.

  “And a bunch of Fleet regulations. All right, Commander, I think we’ve seen enough. Call back your drone and come back to the barn.”

  “Boarding party?” Lokomorra said when Cox signed off.

  “Boarding party,” Ekatya agreed.

  It was Rahel’s first time in a section chief meeting. Though she held no Fleet rank nor even any supervisory responsibility, she was considered a senior officer by virtue of her Alsean Defense Force rank, not to mention her status as the only Alsean in Fleet. Until now, however, her training had taken priority over the issues discussed in most section chief meetings.

  Captain Serrado had said this one would be different. She had not exaggerated.

  Rahel sat two seats away from her, between Commander Lokomorra and Dr. Wells. The other ten section chiefs were arrayed around the large oval table, with Zeppy and Shigeo directly across from her. Every eye was on the display taking up the far wall.

  The last time Rahel had been in this briefing room, the display was a window onto the red mists of base space. Now it was divided into eight video feeds. Given the partial failure of the ship’s environmental systems, each member of the boarding party wore a full envirosuit complete with helmet cam and sensors, which streamed their data to this room. A holographic representation of the Tutnuken hung suspended above the table, with eight red dots showing the location of each Phoenix crew member as they fanned out into the cargo bay.

  At the moment, the video feed labeled Korelonn was enlarged for easier viewing. Lieutenant Korelonn was second in command of security and leading the boarding party, which consisted of six more security officers and one data systems analyst. His helmet cam was panning across endless racks of gray crates stacked to the ceiling of the cavernous bay. All bore two symbols: one of Fleet and another that looked like a stylized explosion.

  “Looks like they’re all here,” he said.

  The crates loomed larger as he walked toward one rack. His gloved hands reached out to snap open a series of locks on a crate, then swung down the front panel. Inside, nestled in cushioning material, was a black disk that looked to be half the size of the table Rahel was sitting at.

  “How does that work?” she whispered to Lokomorra. It seemed a vanishingly small target for a ship to blunder into.

  “They’re attracted to pikamet radiation,” he whispered back, watching Korelonn check the mine. “They’ll be activated by any ship coming out of base space. If the ship doesn’t send the right code, the mines will swarm it.”

  Korelonn closed that crate and spot-checked three others. The other seven feeds showed similar activity.

  “Thirty-two checked, thirty-two intact,” Korelonn said.

  “I think it’s safe to say they weren’t hit by pirates.” Next to Zeppy, Commander Cox folded his arms across his chest. They both had dark skin, but the resemblance ended there. Cox was shorter and much wider, with hair that laid flat rather than standing straight up. Where Zeppy’s eyes were round and amused, Cox’s were narrow and penetrating—a fairly good indicator of their personalities, Lhyn had said.

  “They were hit by something,” Captain Serrado said. “We just boarded them by force and haven’t heard so much as a peep. Lieutenant, I don’t want your team setting foot outside that bay until you’ve checked every meter of it. Let’s not have any surprises.”

  “Understood, Captain.”

  “And keep your eyes peeled for contraband.”

  Rahel thought that was a particularly gruesome Common phrase. Who peeled eyeballs?

  As the team searched among the racks, Commander Cox caught Rahel’s attention. “We need to get you trained in an envirosuit. We could use your talents over there. Be nice to know if anyone is waiting outside that bay.”

  Beside her, Dr. Wells kept her gaze on the display, but her emotional signature flashed red with annoyance and a darker shade of fear.

  Rahel carefully did not look at her. “I look forward to that part of my training. But your thermal scanners have a longer range than I do.”

  “Yeah, but our scanners don’t have an intent readout. I can think of a hundred times when that would have come in handy.” He pointed at the display. “In situations like this, it could be the difference between life and death.”

  Dr. Wells turned her head to shoot a glare across the table. “Perhaps we should worry more about getting First Guard Sayana properly trained and less about using her as a tool.”

  Rahel opened her mouth to say that missions like this were what she wanted to do, but Captain Serrado beat her to it.

  “First Guard Sayana has a great deal to offer several sections. You can all fight over her later, when she’s finished her training and knows what she wants.”

  “I’m not fighting over her.” Shigeo offered his irreverent grin. “Though who knows, maybe plants grow faster if she projects happy feelings on them.”

  “I could try.” Rahel smiled back, hoping to convey her appreciation for his diplomacy. “I haven’t learned to project, but I did listen when a classmate was learning. Plants might be a good first target.”

  “I think I found something,” said a female voice.

  The video marked Kitt, a lieutenant from data systems, was showing a rack of crates that looked like all the others—except for the holes in the front panels.

  “Hold your position, Lieutenant.” Captain Serrado had her forearms on the table and was leaning forward, intently studying the video feed. “What in all the purple planets did that? It looks like they were melted through from the inside.”

  Korelonn jogged over to join Kitt. “Thermal readings show nothing in there.” His hand appeared in the video, holding a knife.

  Rahel raised her eyebrows, instantly approving. Despite what Captain Serrado said, the only sections she was interested in joining were weapons or security. From what she was seeing now, security was far out in front. The weapons teams didn’t get to board mystery ships with knives in their belts.

  Korelonn tapped his knife blade on one of the melted bits dripping from the edge of a hole. “It’s hard. Whatever melted this did it a while ago.” His hand vanished, then reappeared sans knife. Carefully, he snapped open each lock. “Kitt, get behind me.”

  Both video feeds shifted as they moved to the side of the crate. Kitt’s visual frame was now largely filled by Korelonn, and her heart rate was climbing. His remained steady, a testament to his training.

  He dropped the front panel and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  “Stay there,” he said quietly, and stepped in front of the crate. “Huh. Okay, I don’t know what this is. It looks like a pile of black rocks.”

  “Lieutenant Korelonn.” Kade Jalta, chief of the science section, pushed her blonde hair behind one ear as she focused on the display. “Your light has an ultraviolet setting, right?”

  “It does, yes.”

  “Will you shine it on those roc
ks, please?”

  His hand reappeared, now holding a slender black cylinder. When he clicked it on, both he and Kitt let out an awed “Whoa.”

  The nondescript black rocks were now brilliantly glowing crystals, covered in a vibrant web of violet and orange lines. Rahel had never seen anything so beautiful. Her crafter mother would love it.

  “Don’t touch them.” Commander Jalta turned to face Captain Serrado. “Well, now we know what the crew was hiding. That’s unrefined teracite. And judging by the dense lattice, it’s weapons grade.”

  Serrado’s tight jaw was the only sign of her anger. “Lovely.”

  “What’s teracite?” Shigeo asked.

  “It’s the part of a Delfin torpedo that makes the boom,” Jalta answered. “Dangerous even in the unrefined state. And not very common.”

  “Teracite is why the Delfins are our largest yield,” Serrado added. “It’s also why we carry so few of them. Every time we launch a Delfin, we’re firing the equivalent of a small shuttle in terms of cost.”

  Shigeo looked down the table to the chief of weapons. “Guess that explains why your budget is so much bigger than mine.”

  “When you need teracite for your orchids, we’ll talk about budgets,” Serrado said. “Commander Jalta, is there anything about the properties of teracite that explains those melted holes?”

  “Not a thing. I have no idea what made that. But I sure don’t like it.”

  “Me either.” Korelonn’s voice came from the display. “I like this even less.” He shone his ultraviolet light on the floor below the crate, revealing a faintly glowing line that faded out as it progressed. “Something melted those holes and walked away.” His light traced over the floor in front of the other crates and found multiple glowing lines. “A bunch of somethings.”

  “Oh.” Jalta looked shocked. “I really don’t know what would do that.”

  “They’ve got stowaways,” said Captain Serrado. “Something that came in with the teracite. Check the rest of the cargo bay, see if anything’s moving.”