Starship Eternal (War Eternal Book 1)

by M. R. Forbes

  He looked hurt. "I just wanted to know. Of course, I have to report this to the Captain. She'll want to know why I haven't given you the update."

  "Of course. I guess I should take it as a good sign that she wants to go through the trouble? She isn't intent on getting rid of me just yet?"

  Watson headed for the door. "I wouldn't make too many assumptions when it comes to the Captain. She can be a little moody sometimes." He shifted himself out of the room and locked the door behind him.

  Mitchell leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He figured that either someone would be along shortly to grill him about the ARR or he'd be by himself for some time.

  26

  Eight days.

  That's how long Mitchell estimated he spent locked in the storage room. It was hard to be precise without his p-rat to check the time, but he got used to his cycle of eating, drinking, sleeping, and using the pisspot.

  It was almost enough to make him insane, and maybe that was what Millie wanted. He fought to stay focused, to use his meditation skills to hold the boredom and loneliness at bay. He tried not to think about Ella or his predicament, and as a result found himself thinking about Major Arapo more often than he thought was healthy.

  In an effort to get his mind away from that, he increasingly found himself ruminating on the Goliath. M had said the damage he had done to the implant would cause him to remember his past life. Although it couldn't exactly be called past life. Past history? Past future? What had he done, and how did it relate to the ship that was built on Earth over six hundred years earlier?

  It was hard to stay patient, sitting alone in the empty room, knowing that there might be some threat approaching that according to the clone was destined to destroy humanity.

  Unless he stopped it.

  Somehow.

  The train of thought was as circular as M claimed time to be. He did loops around the arguments, broke himself of them by doing any kind of physical exercise he could manage, and then swung back around again once he was exhausted, starting with Ella, and then the Major. He had a feeling he had known her before. Had they been lovers once?

  He could hear the sounds of the ship at times, the docking clamps releasing on the mining equipment, the internal shuddering of the vessel when the hanger opened and closed. He knew the moment they went back into FTL, spending only three days near the planetoid, only one and a half actually mining it. They could have collected a few tons of ore at most in that short amount of time. Not nearly enough to make the trip profitable.

  It was enough to make it look like they were mining, though. What was Captain Narayan really about?

  Mitchell was doing pushups when the door to the room unlocked and opened. Anderson stepped in, looking the same as he had the day he had left Mitchell down there.

  "Let's go," he said. He was brandishing the gun again.

  "Where?"

  "Captain wants you cleaned up. Back to the shower."

  Mitchell got to his feet. He was filthy again. The smell of old sweat wafted from him. At least he had opted for the Marine-offered laser treatments to permanently remove his facial hair.

  "Where are we?"

  "Hyperspace."

  "Where are we going?"

  "None of your business."

  Mitchell walked out ahead of Anderson, making his own way back to the lift. They took it up to berthing, and then back to the shower. Both the bunks and the head were conspicuously empty this time around.

  "Two minutes," Anderson said.

  Mitchell washed himself down in a hurry. Anderson gave him a fresh pair of grays on his exit, along with a Navy-issued flight suit.

  "A suit?" he asked.

  "Captain's orders."

  Once he was dressed, Anderson marched Mitchell away from the berthing and back to the lift. He thought he was going to be returned to his prison, but instead the former Space Marine sent the lift up to A-Deck.

  The lift opened out to a long inner-hallway. A conference room sat on his right, a communications array on his left. A man sat at the comm station, leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, ignorant of the men in the hallway. He wore a Navy uniform, though he had torn the sleeves from the jacket to keep his muscular arms bare.

  Mitchell stared as they passed, confused by the room's existence. It was way too much equipment for a mining ship like this one. It would have been out of place on a ship like the Greylock.

  "Keep walking," Anderson said.

  He had slowed while he tried to figure out what the array was doing there.

  Anderson pointed him to a door a little further down. It was identical to the rest, though there was no clear carbonate window into the contents of this one. When they reached it, Anderson knocked.

  The hatch slid open. The muzzle of the gun pressing into his back enticed Mitchell to enter.

  The room was clean and warm. A sofa rested near the center, a lounge opposite. Colorful rugs were laid across the metal floor, paintings hung on the walls, and a grand view of the blackness of hyperspace was visible through small portholes arranged along the far side near a dining table. Two places had been set, and the smell of real food brought Mitchell to an immediate salivation.

  Millie walked into the room from an adjoining doorway. She was still wearing her uniform, though she had lost the hat and let her hair down. It fell in ringlets to her shoulders, the small change revealing her to be more attractive than he had initially guessed. She was still plain, but there was an edge to it now.

  "Mitchell," she said. She looked at Anderson. "You're dismissed."

  "Captain, are you-"

  "Dismissed, Lieutenant."

  Anderson bowed slightly, shoved the gun into Mitchell's back one last time for good measure, and then left the two of them alone.

  "I know you haven't eaten actual food in a few days. Our stores are running low, but Lopez found some pheasant hiding in the back of the freezers." She smiled. "Pheasant meaning some kind of edible bird from some planet or other. We can't afford to be that choosy. Please, come have a seat."

  Mitchell stood there. He didn't trust her or her hospitality. "I don't understand this."

  "I told you I had an idea how you could earn your way to the Rim. I brought you here to discuss it."

  "Why didn't you just drop by my cell?"

  "I know you had a run-in with Ensign Briggs in the shower. Whatever you think you know, Mitchell, I'm not a monster. I have a job to do, and I do it to the best of my ability. That's all."

  "I doubt that's all."

  "Sit. Eat." She made her way over to the table, taking one of the spots. "You should be thankful I'm being gracious. I could have killed you days ago."

  Mitchell followed her to the table and sat. His eyes latched onto the slices of cooked bird and the small potatoes that surrounded it. She motioned for him to take some, and he did.

  Millie stared at him while he took the food. She kept staring when he offered to serve her, lifting slices of meat and placing them on her plate. She stared while he took the first few bites and a sip of the wine that had been delivered with it.

  She waited until he was starting to relax. Then she sprang it on him.

  "I know what happened on Liberty," she said. "Not just the Shot, but the Prime Minister's wife."

  Mitchell had to force himself to not react too strongly. "Lies," he said.

  "I don't care if they are or not. You saw the array on your way here?"

  "Yeah. A bit upscale for this tub, isn't it?"

  "It is. I'm also guessing you're smart enough to realize that we didn't spend much time mining the rock we found you circling?"

  "You aren't miners. Or salvage. I got that much. Mercenaries?"

  Millie laughed. "Not quite. I'm going to tell you our secret, Mitchell. First, I want you to tell me yours."

  "Why?"

  "What do you mean, why?"

  "Why do you think I have a secret? I told you, I'm trying to escape the Alliance."

  "Yes
, I know. And you want to go to the Rim to hide. Whatever you heard about the Rim, it isn't as lawless as the rumors suggest. It's just a different kind of law. Step foot on any of the planets there, and the first person who sees you is going to sell you out." She laughed. "Except you don't actually need to hide, do you Mitchell?"

  She knew more than she was saying. She had just told him as much. "Make your point, Captain."

  "You can call me Millie," she said. She took a sip of her wine, her eyes refusing to leave him. "I have an advanced communications array on board. Three days after you showed up in my path, an autonomous envoy fell in about a thousand AU from our position with a transmission."

  She paused, waiting to see him sweat. Mitchell made himself breathe steadily. He knew she wanted something from him, and she had a plan on how to get it. This was all leading up to the pitch.

  "It seems that Captain Mitchell 'Ares' Williams was found dead in an old hanger near a Gentech farm. They tracked a starfighter leaving the same hanger, one that disabled a mech and destroyed a few drones before launching into space and vanishing before a frigate could intercept. They don't know who was flying the fighter, or how the pilot was connected to Captain Williams." Her eyebrows lifted. "Do you want to finish the story, or shall I?"

  "They ran DNA analysis on the body," Mitchell said. He knew how the story went. "They're certain that the corpse they found was Captain Williams because they got an exact match. He was killed by gunfire taken during his attempt to escape York after he was accused of rape. Now you're wondering - if the dead man was Captain Mitchell Williams, who the hell am I sharing this meal with?"

  She nodded, the smile remaining on her face. "There's also the matter of the FTL-capable fighter which you claim to have stolen, and which the Alliance says isn't theirs. Which brings us back to the beginning. You have a secret, and I want to know what it is."

  "But you don't want to kill me over it, or we wouldn't be here."

  "I think we can help each other, Mitchell. Or whatever your real name is. We don't need to dogfight one another with lies and half-truths."

  "Than you tell me a truth, Millie," Mitchell said. "The drone that came out of FTL nearby. Did you intercept its transmission, or was it aimed at you?"

  "You first," she replied. Her poker face was impeccable.

  "You won't believe me."

  "Is your story that unbelievable?"

  "Truth is relative."

  "Relative to what?"

  "What you already believe. What you pray to. What you're predisposed to think. Did you know I scored a 1570 on my aptitude exam during enlistment screening? Top one percent, and I was supposedly going to be fast-tracked right through officer's training. A shooting star. My brother is a Navy Admiral, and he said I was going to make General before I was thirty. I didn't."

  "Why not?"

  "I wanted to be a pilot. I didn't believe in the score because it didn't suit me. You won't believe my story because it won't suit you. Hell, I'm not even sure if I believe it, or if the bullet I took on Liberty caused me to lose my mind. I'm not wholly convinced any of this isn't a hallucination or fever dream or something."

  "Trust me. I'm very real." She took another sip of wine. "Tell me your truth, then. You've already guessed that I don't want you dead."

  Mitchell picked up his glass and downed the wine in one swallow. Liquid courage? He was hoping it would help clarify reality for him.

  "My real name is Mitchell Williams. The body they found in the hanger was a clone. My clone. I don't know who made him, all I know is that he claimed to be from an alternate timeline. Have you ever heard of something called 'eternal return?' "

  "It sounds like reincarnation. Is it like that?"

  "Kind of, but on a much, much bigger scale. The way the clone explained it to me, it's like the entire universe being reincarnated exactly the same as it was the last time. It goes on and on this way for eternity. That is until something changes it. He said they created an engine, he called it an 'eternal engine,' that can transport them from one cycle of time to another. He told me that his kind, whatever they are, for whatever reason, want to destroy us, and that this whole thing is somehow connected to the first starship humankind ever built. Have you ever heard of the Goliath?

  She thought about it. "It sounds familiar, but I'm not an expert on Earth history."

  "Me neither. Supposedly this ship holds to key to our salvation, and I'm the one who's destined to find it. Or at least, I may or may not have in past loops, except I screwed something up and we all died anyway."

  "So your clone told you to go and find a lost starship, gave you an FTL-capable starfighter, and sent you on your merry way? Was this before or after you got in trouble with the Prime Minister?"

  "After. They set me up to become public enemy number one in order to stop me from the future I might have had."

  She stared at him in silence.

  "I told you that you wouldn't believe me."

  "You have to admit, it sounds impossible."

  "I know."

  "It does explain a few things, though. For instance, how you can have a starfighter with an FTL engine. Or the fact that neither Watson or Singh has been able to do so much as get the damned cockpit open. Even the access doors are incompatible with any of our tools. They were going to take apart the helmet you were wearing, but after Watson said your ARR was offline, I told them to hold off. I was worried they might not be able to put it back together again."

  "It uses a wireless neural network link with the ship's AI," Mitchell said.

  "Amazing." She put her hand to her face, supporting her head and continuing to stare. "I want to believe this."

  "But you don't."

  "No. Not completely. Clones from the future? Right now, I'm working on keeping an open mind."

  "Technically from the past. Is that so impossible though? Every time we move into hyperspace we're breaking relativity."

  "Not breaking. Bending. Anyway, you're talking about an entire shift in the way we as a species consider time. That's a pretty big thing."

  Mitchell shrugged. "Well, believe it or not, Millie, that's my story. I hope to God that you're a real thing, that this ship is real, and I'm not passed out in a field somewhere, or that this isn't Hell. Either that, or I hope I wake up right now. Let me tell you, it hasn't been fun since the Prime Minister walked in on me with his wife in my lap."

  "So that part is true?"

  "No. These... I don't even know what to call them... travelers? They can send transmissions through the implant. Suggestions. Did I have sex with the Prime Minister's wife? Yes. One, I didn't know she was his wife. Two, it was consensual, believe me."

  "I do believe you. I got access to your records. You were one of the top jockeys in the most elite company in the Space Marines. Liberty wasn't the first time you earned a commendation, and you have zero marks against you over ten years of spotless service."

  Mitchell had been reaching for another slice of the bird. He dropped his fork, his own suspicions drawing nearer to resolve. "How did you get my records?"

  She smiled. "To answer your earlier question: the drone that dropped out of FTL sent us the transmission. I'm the lone Admiral in the one-ship Navy known only as Project Black. Welcome to the Riggers."

  27

  "The Riggers?" Mitchell asked. He was frozen in his chair, eyeing Millie as though she might sprout fangs and tear into him.

  "From the root term 'frig-up,' which got slang-shortened to 'frigger,' and then just 'rigger.' We're the Alliance's dirty little secret. A small black ops team of some of the best of the best who just happened to run afoul of some galactic law or another."

  He was dumbstruck. He struggled to find words. "I.. How? I mean... I never heard of-"

  "Here's the deal, Mitchell. Everyone on this ship has been court-martialed. Some of the reasons aren't at all pretty or forgivable. Some of us should have been jettisoned into space. The thing is, we have undeniable skills, skills that the Alliance spent
a lot of money on providing us and aren't exactly keen to lose. So, about five years ago they started a program under the table - Project Black. The idea was to bring all of us frig-ups who have at least some concept of chain of command and patriotism together and send us off to do all the low-down dirty that the Alliance can't afford to be connected to. In exchange, we get to continue to live, breathe, and soldier on."

  "This is a military vessel?" Mitchell said softly.

  "Yes. You already worked out that the whole mining thing is a front. Good for you. There's a reason we have a Knight and a Piranha in the hold. We also have a couple dozen of the most ferocious Army grunts in the universe on board. We do what the Alliance can't do. We drop in where the Alliance can't go, including the Rim. You wanted to disappear, Mitchell? This is your chance. Your best chance. The Alliance thinks you're dead, and I want it to stay that way."

  "If I join you."

  "If you join us."

  Mitchell leaned back in his chair. His first thought was that he couldn't believe his luck. His second was the realization that there was no luck involved. The starfighter's course to the planetoid had nothing to do with the air supply. He hadn't programmed the thing to take him anywhere. The destination was preset, his control an illusion. M wanted this ship, the Riggers, to find him. It was the only thing that made sense.

  He started laughing. Even if the future had changed the moment M arrived into the time loop, that didn't mean there was no advantage to knowing what might have been.

  "What about Goliath?" he asked.

  "We have operational orders," she said. "We can't go hunting for a lost starship."

  "I need to find the Goliath. Don't you get that? If what my clone said was true, we're all dead without it."

  "I told you, I'm still on the fence with believing your story. I don't need to believe you to want you on board. To want you as part of the team, badly enough that it's going to be my neck if any of the top brass ever hears that I've got you stowed away here."

  "What if I say no?"

  "You become a security risk that I won't take. You won't say no, not when push comes to shove."