by Randal Sloan
She felt completely paralyzed, unable to leave the security of the tiny sick bay despite the fact she felt physically fine. She knew she’d lost her nerve, but she had no idea how to get it back. She had been so terrified that Daghol, which is what the First Sentinel called himself, had won in their struggle and was taking control of her mind. That fear was one of the reasons she’d been so deeply in that coma. She had been hiding from him deep within herself.
The door to the sick bay chimed, indicating she had a visitor. Her heart skipped a beat for a second. She had been dreading the possibility that her leader would come to tell her to get back to work, and she feared her time was up. Jarra was her friend and she shouldn’t be thinking that way about her friend, but the thought evoked near terror.
“Enter,” she replied, knowing she had to get it over with.
To her total surprise, it wasn’t Jarra who entered but instead her teammate Gabo. The surprise must have shown in her eyes, for Gabo almost turned around to leave.
“No, don’t leave,” she said. “I was just expecting Jarra and I don’t know what to say to her.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, we all know you’ve been through a lot. I’m sure she’ll give you all the time you need. I just wanted you to know we’ve all been thinking about you, and well, we need to talk.”
“Okay.”
When he didn’t continue, Sara gave an exasperated sigh. “So are you going to keep me in suspense?”
“Sorry. You know me. This kind of stuff is hard for me, but here goes.” He gave her a smile and then looked right into her eyes.
“When we thought we might lose you, I sorta realized something, something I knew all along but wasn’t willing to act on it. Not knowing if you would wake up made me realize I had to at least give it a shot.
“Every day since the day I met you, I’ve been attracted to you. Over the past few weeks that has grown stronger and stronger. I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Sara caught her breath, but she didn’t look away. She felt like she was looking straight into his soul and she knew just how hard for him this had to be. What if she rejected him? She saw the fear in those eyes, and knew he wanted to run out of the sick bay.
Sara already knew some of what he was feeling because she’d been able to pick up on it more than once before. She also knew something else. She’d been experiencing something too, but she’d been strongly suppressing those feelings. She’d justified it by saying to herself it was too risky, not wanting to risk the chance of negatively affecting the team if their relationship failed badly. Mostly, she’d just been afraid to put her own heart at risk. She’d not had good luck with that in the past.
She reached out to take his hand. “Please, don’t leave. I think I have feelings for you too, but I’ve done a terrible job of dealing with them. No excuses, but you know enough of my history to know I’ve always struggled with trust issues. Now that seems kinda silly, after all we’ve been through.”
She laughed. “I guess my near death experience has affected more than one of us.”
She gave him a smile. “If you’re still willing to risk it, I’m willing to give it a try. No promises, but we can see where it goes.”
Gabo returned her smile with one of his own. Heck, he was practically beaming. He sat down beside her, not turning loose of her hand.
He also didn’t leave until it was time for his next duty shift.
Chapter 4
Things That Must Come Together
Jennife Makenze, or Jenn as she usually was called, had been an Imperial forensic accountant for exactly one week, and she was quite excited. She knew she was easily excitable, but her current excitement was due to the fact she was being sent out into the field! No quiet beginning in a boring office for her. No, sir!
Not only that, but she was being sent off to a new planet. That was almost unheard of. She knew she was lucky to have drawn an off-world assignment at all, but this was even more special. She would be the first to examine their books and her stamp of design on their systems would have a huge effect on everyone’s work there in the future. It was just unreal!
Of course, her current accommodations were not so great. The Empire was quite disorganized at times, imagine that, and when the Provisional Governor had been rushed off to take his new position, not all the staff had been assigned. That meant by the time Jenn had gotten her assignment, the large and comfortable ship the rest had been shipped out in had already departed. So some idiot had decided Jenn would have to travel by courier.
Not that they asked her. It had only been her fourth day of work and the whole time her supervisor had been telling her he was still waiting for her assignment to come in, leaving her to wonder if she might even have a job by the end of the week. Then on that fateful day, her supervisor called her into his office, and catching her completely by surprise, told her about her assignment. To make it worse, she was already late for her ship and they’d rushed her off to the spaceport with almost no warning. She didn’t even have time to pack a bag!
Jenn would have been perfectly willing to wait for something more reasonable to make her way to her duty station, but no one gave her a chance to talk about it. Instead, she was shoved out into space on a shuttle with no time to catch her breath and then crammed into the extremely fast but tiny little courier ship and sent on her way. Despite her excitement, that part of it had been a nightmare.
Apparently, they’d held the courier for her to get there. That only made things worse. The Captain took one look at her and proclaimed, “This is the big emergency we had to wait for? Now we’re behind schedule for no reason.” His disgust was obvious.
He turned to one of the two ship techs. Their tiny ship didn’t rate an engineer. “You’d think we were a passenger ship. Get her to the ‘guest’ quarters and get us underway. Maybe we can make up some of our time.”
That had been her introduction to the ship. Most of the crew resented her being there. They had so little space themselves, she realized carrying a passenger was a real hardship, but they could have been nicer about it. No one had really been ugly to her, but she could see it in their eyes.
She wanted to scream at them, “It’s not my fault! It’s not like I chose to be here.” But she kept her mouth shut. Most of them didn’t bother to speak to her after she’d been shown to her quarters that first day and it suited her.
The little galley where they ate their flash processed meals was tiny, so Jenn waited until she knew they were underway before going down there, hoping she didn’t have to deal with the crew. Having just sat down to try to eat the non-appetizing meal she’d chosen out of the few choices she found, she was surprised when she had a visitor, a young man who looked to be only a few years older than her. All the crew she’d met had been old, at least to her young mind. This one was not.
“Jeffre Thomas at your service,” he told her with a smile, offering her his hand. Jenn found herself at a loss for words. Who was this friendly person?
“Who do I have the pleasure of making an acquaintance with?” he asked when she just stared for a moment.
“Sorry. Jennife Makenze, Jenn to my friends. I haven’t exactly been welcomed around here, so you caught me by surprise.”
She finally shook his hand. “You’re welcome to join me for one of these gourmet meals, Mr. Thomas,” she said, covering her uncertainty at how to address him with a slight smile.
“Please, call me Jeff.” Jeff had already grabbed a meal-pak and placed it in the flash heater. “They’re not too bad,” he told her as he pulled it out. “As long as they’re not past the expiration date. Luckily, as a courier most of the time we restock just before our mission, so ours are usually just off the rack.”
“Why are you not out working in the galley-ways like the rest of our illustrious crew?” Jenn had to ask. Her reference to the slave labor driven sea vessels of the past was not lost on Jeff, but he just smiled.
“I’m the pilot on this tremendous vessel,” Jeff repl
ied, continuing with the tongue-in-cheek. “We’re now in hyperspace, running on autopilot for this first easy stretch of our journey. Once we get further out toward the Rim, the spaceways are not so well known, so I’ll have to take over for the AI then.”
"AI’s are terrible at navigation off the beaten path,” he told her by way of explanation at the question he saw in her eyes. “That means this is the best time for me to grab a bite to eat.”
By this point Jeff was sitting at the table with her, the flash covering for his meal discarded and a spice dispenser in his hand. Based on his liberal application, Jenn suspected that was how he really managed to eat the stuff and still smile.
“But enough about me,” Jeff told her. “Tell me about yourself and why you’ve been sent out in our swift little vessel.”
“I’m a forensic accountant, and I have no idea why I’m here other than the mysterious movements of the Empire.”
In between bites, Jeff asked, “What in the galaxy is a forensic accountant?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Jenn said with a smile. “In this case, because it’s a new planet provisionally joining the Empire, what I’ll be doing is rather important…”
She went on to explain in some detail, growing more and more excited as she explained what her role would be. In his defense, Jeff never once asked her to stop.
Despite his initial response to the job title, by the time she’d finished, he actually found it somewhat interesting. Not interesting enough to want to ever be caught dead doing it, but still interesting to hear about. He also suspected, Jenn would be quite good at it.
No, he’d stick to piloting, something he was quite good at himself.
Master Sergeant Gibbons listened intently as the three girls told their story. He only had to interrupt a couple of times to clarify things they said. They would make pretty good operatives, he realized. Everything they told him was straight and to the point, yet they offered enough details for him to understand the situation fully without having to dig through a lot of fluff.
Finally, they finished, ending with their take as locals at the discussion they’d overheard. Mr. Black was undoubtedly representing the local crime syndicate with connections to a small group of pirates. The aliens they were not so sure about, but they had to be living underground in the cave systems. The redhead sent an audio file to his implants so he could listen to the exact conversation. She also included a datastream with all the information they had on the crime syndicate and aliens. She was working with at least a generation-old control wand, yet she was able to interact directly with his implants.
That one needs to meet Sara, he thought with a smile that he mostly managed to hide. As he thought that through, he realized, On second thought, maybe not. I'm not sure anything in the galaxy would be safe against the two of them. Later, much later, he would realize he had no idea how true that would turn out to be.
As soon as they finished their story, he sent for the resort staff. “Make sure these three have whatever they want,” he told the man who still tried to bow to him. “Add it to our tab,” he told him before the man could ask.
Addressing the girls, he said, “I’ve got to start some things moving on my side and send off that message to the Princess. Order whatever you want to eat, and hopefully by the time you’re done, I’ll be back to explain some of our plans.”
The three looked at him in near disbelief, unable to believe it was true, but the Master Sergeant just walked off. No one had ever offered them food before and certainly nowhere near as luxurious a spread as this resort had.
“Is he serious?” Missy asked the others, looking over at them to see similar looks of puzzlement.
“It appears so,” Sissy replied, ever the practical one. “It would be foolish to not take him up on it.”
“He meant it,” Krissy said. “My truth detector puts him at 99.99%.” She looked at her friends. “Our only problem is to choose what to eat. I want an omelet, pancakes and the works, but I know if I eat that much, I’ll be sick.”
“What if we order all of it and split it?” Missy replied. That brought smiles to them all.
An hour later, three very satisfied girls were cleaning their plates.
Then the Master Sergeant came in. “I’m sorry to spoil your fun, girls, but we’ve got to deal with your little problem.”
He held his hand up as they started to rise. “No, no, just sit still. I’ve called the squad to come in here. We’ll meet here to discuss our plans, something I’m sure you’ll want to hear.”
He laughed. Later Missy would say it was an evil laugh. “Especially since you're going to be at the center of it all.”
Master Sergeant Gibbons had sent Jackson to gather the men while he composed his message to the Princess. It had worked out perfectly and they received the final go-ahead for the message just as he entered the com room.
As the girls looked on wide-eyed, the members of the squad of Marines came in, a few at a time at first and then a whole bunch at once. That left a couple of stragglers that drew the eye of the Sarge; they knew they were in trouble. The Sarge never seemed to forget a thing, so sooner or later they’d pay.
As soon as the last was there, the Master Sergeant stood to face them. “These three are under my protection, so I’d better not hear of any problems. They’ve provided us with details around a plot to overthrow the government, some kind of pact with a group of aliens that apparently have been hiding underground on this planet for centuries. We’re not going to allow their little revolution to succeed.
“I’ve sent out an emergency com drone for help. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to contact the Princess directly as it appears she’s still away on her mission. Space Command will forward our message on to her. I’m certain they’ll also send us a squadron, but it’ll be several days getting here. We all know how fast the Princess’ little ship is, so I still believe she’ll be the first to arrive.”
He stared at them all for a moment, using the glare that could peel paint off a bulkhead. More than one of them shifted in his seat, the stare making him more than just a little nervous. But as soon as the Master Sergeant was sure he had everyone’s full attention, he went on, “So that means for now, we’re on our own. As I see it, our mission is threefold:
“Our first and most important job is to ensure that at least a portion of the local government survives, despite the fact that most of them are not worth saving.” He turned toward the three girls, “Yes, we know that your government is corrupt and has been withholding resources from the people for centuries. When the Princess gets here, she’s going to fix that.
“Our second job is to protect as much of the Galactic Empire’s provisional government as possible. I’ve asked for a few moments of the Governor’s time, but he’s refusing to grant it. Apparently, he’s too good to speak with ‘mere’ Marines. So we’ll collect whomever we can and add them to our protection.
“Our third task, and just as important as the others, is to protect these three and as many of their friends as we’re able to gather.”
He waved his hands around the room. “This resort is entirely indefensible, so we’re moving to the city. Specifically, Block 85, home turf for the girls. There we will take our stand and hold until the Princess arrives.”
He gave them all a big smile. “Don’t worry, boys. You won’t be fighting with sticks and pop guns. I just happened to have arranged for a little package to be delivered prior to our arrival. It turns out that’s going to be quite providential. I have for each of you a full load-out of all your favorite toys and your full suits of armor. Plus a few more goodies.”
He looked at Resault and Sarbensky. “And none of it is ceremonial.” Both men grimaced, for they’d been the victims of that useless ceremonial armor. Even with modern science, having to have their legs regrown was not the least bit fun. Neither had been their rehab.
“I know you boys are still in rehab, but unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of leaving you off t
he team. I’m provisionally reactivating you with the understanding that you’ll be assigned jobs that won’t put you at risk.”
He saw the look in their eyes and gave them a smile. “No, despite what you want to say, you’re not nearly at 100%.” His smile turned somewhat evil. “But you don’t need to be sad; you’re not going to miss out on all the fun. When the others see what I’ve got in mind for you, they’re going to be quite jealous.”
On the Master Sergeant’s orders, Jackson used his implants to send the men off in groups to collect their weapons, armor, and other gear. With those tasks in hand, he left to arrange their transportation to the city.
That left Robert sitting alone with the girls, who were looking kind of stressed. “I’m sorry you wound up in the middle of this, but I’m going to need your help with a few things,” he told them. “For starters, I need the plans for Block 85, including the underground network I know you have.”
Missy had for a very brief moment felt annoyance at the way the Master Sergeant had taken over, but then she remembered that they had come to him for help — for help they desperately needed. She looked over at Krissy.
“Go ahead and send them to him. What else do you need?” she asked.
“I need a list of the ones in your Imperial government that you think are worth saving — only people you believe are willing to accept change. I can promise you the Princess is going to throw out the whole system. We’re going to need to get them and their families to Block 85 before everything goes sideways. The same goes for the ones you can contact through your Protection network who you believe will need protection, especially the children.”
Missy nodded. “We have a system we can activate for emergencies, although we never expected something like what we’re seeing in this crisis. The hardest part will be getting the children moved there and finding enough food to keep everyone fed.”
