Expedition (The Locus Series Book 2)

by Ralph Kern

  Grayson nodded and slipped on the headphones as he waited for the laptop to finish loading the software.

  “Focusing in now.” She continued manipulating the dials, each turn moving the orientation of the cylinder by fractions of a degree. “You should be getting it through now. I’ve got a good bounce.”

  “We’re definitely getting warmer,” Grayson muttered as he heard the cacophony of noise coming through the headphones. “Yeah, positioning is hot. The system’s just calibrating out the ambient noise.”

  Grayson pressed the earphone to the side of his head, listening to the montage of noise which flowed through, the intensity changing in time with the sine wave stretching across the computer screen in front of him.

  Occasionally scratchy voices emerged from the noise, other times, the sound of cars. Slowly, but surely, the unwanted sounds were discarded as the system automatically tuned out the stuff he didn’t want to hear.

  After a few minutes, there was only the noise of a television on low volume, the creak of someone moving on leather, the occasional click of fingers on a keyboard. “Okay, looks like we’re dialed in. If a mouse squeaks, I’ll hear it loud and clear.”

  “Great.” Bradley came back inside the lounge area and flopped down on the other leather settee. “You want to take the first listen?”

  “Yeah.” Grayson leaned back and propped his feet on the clear glass table. He picked up the hotel menu and began flicking through. “And a pizza sounds good right about now, too.”

  “I don’t think this is the kind of place which does pizza, Karl.”

  Chapter Eight – The Present

  Jack kissed Laurie on the top of her head as he entered the suite which was now their home. She sat at the ten-seat dining table, her laptop open in front of her, trying to do four jobs at once and getting nowhere on any of them.

  Distractedly, she nudged her head up into his lips. “Good day at the office?”

  “Different.” He slipped his jacket and holster off and laid them carefully over the back of one of the unoccupied chairs. “I had to go shore side to Anchorage and see Bautista’s bunch.”

  “You had to what?” That caught her attention. Laurie looked across as he flopped down onto the settee and pulled off his boots. She was vaguely pleased he was less and less self-conscience each day about exposing his prosthetic leg. When they’d first met, and even long after, it was something he’d sought to hide. She’d gently reassured him it wasn’t something he should ignore, but accept. But for the moment, she was more concerned about his day. “Why the hell did you go there?”

  “Mack had what she described as an ‘unscheduled landing under stronger than normal gravitational conditions’.”

  Laurie quickly processed what he meant. “You mean she crashed?”

  “Not quite.” Jack leaned back into the sofa with his tablet in hand. “But she did have to put down, and right in the middle of one of Bautista’s fields.”

  “Is anyone hurt?” Laurie stood and walked to Jack, slipping her arm around him and curling into his side. On his tablet, she saw him starting to tap out a report. Even here, everything seemed to involve paperwork. “Did they hurt anyone?”

  “No and no.” Jack squeezed her hand before releasing it to carry on typing. “In fact, they couldn’t have been more helpful.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “We got the crew back and we’re arranging the recovery of the aircraft,” Jack replied. “Your father has even invited Bautista to tonight’s get-together.”

  “That bastard?” Laurie couldn’t contain the surge of anger which welled up in her. That man had killed people, tortured Jack with his own bare hands... and now they were going to be expected to break bread with him? “No way. No bloody way.”

  Jack shrugged. “This new world is the same as the old. Enemies eventually become friends once the dust settles.”

  Laurie looked at Jack, trying to detect if he was just toeing the party line or whether he genuinely believed it. As ever, he was keeping his personal feelings hidden, even to her. She’d long since accepted he didn’t share much. It wasn’t that he was particularly shy, untrusting, or even unloving, it was more if it was something he didn’t feel he could change, he kept his own council. “Let’s just hope those new friends don’t become enemies again.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said as his fingers tapped rapidly at the touchscreen keyboard. He paused and looked at her. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

  “I’ve got too much going on. I was thinking of giving it a miss.”

  Jack lowered the tablet onto his lap and frowned at her. “You’re taking on too much.”

  “We all are, Jack.” She sighed, pulling away from him and stood up to return to her own work.

  “Yes, but unlike most of us, you’re doing two jobs.”

  Laurie sat before the computer again and tapped the screen, waking it from the dormant mode it had slipped into. He was right. Trying to coordinate the schooling of the four hundred and seventy-eight children while also acting as the lead for the scientific investigation of the region were both more than full-time jobs. But... “Someone’s got to do it.”

  “Yeah.” Laurie found Jack’s hands on her shoulders, gently kneading them. “But do they both have to be you? Maybe you should decide which you want to do more.”

  The door opened and Reynolds walked in, pausing in the doorway. Jack withdrew his hands quickly and retreated a few steps, to Laurie’s amusement. She knew it was hard on him being in the suite she shared with her father, but it had made sense for him to move up here after they got together, freeing up Jack’s stateroom. But living with the new girlfriend’s father, especially when he was his boss and the defacto president of the community, couldn’t exactly have been easy.

  Reynolds began clapping his hands. “Come on you two. Showers, suits, dresses. You’re not going to be late.”

  “Daddy—” Laurie started to say.

  “And no excuse will be acceptable. I can’t make it clearer than that,” Reynolds called firmly as he walked into his bedroom.

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said, before glancing at Laurie. “To be continued.”

  ***

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” Reynolds put on his widest beaming smile as he stood at the round captain’s table in the center of vast dining room. Maritime-inspired oil paintings looked down from every surface giving the space an ostentatious and quaint appearance.

  “It is not often we get to indulge these days. And it is less often we remember to thank those who work so tirelessly to keep this good ship running. But tonight is a reminder to us all that it is you who keep our home, Atlantica, working smoothly. Sometimes those tasks are invisible, seen by no one, but are still for the benefit of all. This meal is for you,” Reynolds continued as he gestured at a table on one side of the dining room. “The twenty people who work in the ship’s recycling center. And for you, the forty-two plumbers we have on board who keep our toilets flushing and water flowing. The stewards, the shopkeepers, the janitors, and the technicians. All of you, who have been called upon to continue working in these, the most extreme of circumstances. To you, we owe our thanks.”

  Symbolically, the senior officers, led by Kendricks, walked down the sweeping stairway which led to the first tier containing the galley. They each held trays containing bowls in their hands. Kendricks walked to a table surrounded by cleaners and began laying the soup down in front of them.

  He struggled to remember the names of them—there were over two thousand crewmembers on board after all and only three hundred had been invited by lottery to this room. The other off-duty crew were in the ship’s twelve other restaurants and eating halls, each presided over by a senior officer. But where he could, he exchanged pleasantries.

  Once the first dish was down. He made his way back to the central round table. As much as he wished he could have kept the tradition of the captain serving dishes throughout the meal going all night, this dinner had taken on a whole secondary
function. Diplomacy.

  Standing around the captain’s table were John and Laurie Reynolds, Jack Cohen, Heather Slater, Perry Donovan, Conrad Wakefield, Lars Solberg, two nervous looking porters and, of course, Urbano Bautista. His shoulder gave a twinge of pain. A reaction to being so close to the man who had inflicted the injury.

  He took his place and clasped his hands in front of him, lowered his eyes, and spoke loudly and clearly. “Tonight, the crew of Atlantica and her guests unite in thanks. Thanks for the food we have, the drink. And the companionship. We thank those who have been lost for their service and sacrifice. But we remember them for the hope and chance they’ve given us. We have so many religions here in this room and none. I ask you all to take a moment to thank whichever god you worship for our bounty.”

  The room went silent. Kendricks let the quiet roll on for a few seconds before looking up. “Please sit.”

  The room was filled with the scraping of chairs as hundreds of people sat. The murmur of conversation and clink of cutlery washed over the wood-paneled room.

  “I’m expecting great things here, Liam.” Conrad Wakefield rubbed his hands theatrically before picking up his spoon.

  Prick. “Thank you, Conrad. I can only hope it matches up to the fare you must be used to on the Osiris.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it will,” Wakefield responded with a cocky grin.

  “One day, you’ll have to invite us again to your beautiful, and might I add, heavily armed vessel.”

  “We couldn’t possibly match up to Atlantica here.” Wakefield smiled condescendingly.

  Or more likely, you don’t want to share the stocks of premium food you’d have brought through. Wakefield hadn’t allowed anyone aboard the Osiris since he’d first arrived.

  “It would be prudent,” Slater leaned forward, “to examine integrating the Osiris’s defense systems with our own now we’ve completed repairs.”

  “Sure,” Wakefield said agreeably. “Let me know when you want us to drop by.”

  “I was thinking your place.”

  “I’ll be sure to RSVP you soon.”

  What is he hiding? Kendricks caught Slater’s eye, then Reynolds’s. The admiral gave a slight shake of his head. Wakefield had shown an obtuse reluctance to allow anyone near his ship. And that was backed up by armed security who had made it clear they were instructed not to let anyone aboard. Reynolds said he’d handle it, and Kendricks had to trust he would.

  Mister Santino, the headwaiter, took position next to Kendricks’s chair. “Ladies, gentlemen. Today, our chef has taken the bounty of this world and turned it into something special. For your appetizer, we have spinach and shallot, slowly reduced to a broth and seasoned with the finest picks from our herb garden. To drink with it, we have a young Grenache, light so as to whet the appetite. A blend of our own stock and cultivated grape produce.”

  Without ado, Mister Santino, the definition of composure, moved on to another table. Kendricks had the distinct impression he could keep his cool in any situation. The firm discipline he instilled throughout his kitchens was exactly what was needed throughout the rest of the ship. And exactly what he hoped Solberg would bring to the engine room.

  “To a new world,” Wakefield preempted Kendricks, taking his glass and holding it up to the table. “Bottoms up.”

  Kendricks gave a polite smile, feeling anything but. This was his table, the captain’s table, and Wakefield was trying to grip it. And change the subject. “And let’s not forget the old.”

  “Absolutely.” Wakefield smiled back across the table and took a sip of the wine. A brief grimace crossed his face, swiftly hidden. As Kendricks took a sip, he could see why. The wine “blend” meant it was, in fact, just watered down.

  Reynolds leaned forward, interlocking his hands, and his look was pointed, firm. “Amongst all we mourn, we forget we have much to celebrate. Our situation may be precarious, but it is under control, and grows more so every day with the food we produce and the salvage we recover from the container ship mine. There are rivalries in our past. Bad memories and turbulent times. It is important that we move beyond that.” He fixed Wakefield with eyes for a moment before turning to Bautista. “I want to thank you for your efforts today. That was a delicate situation, handled well, and I hope something which bodes well for our future. Together.”

  Bautista’s attire came nowhere near that of the others; his white shirt and black trousers gave him a somewhat swashbuckling appearance. Fitting, Kendricks supposed, for a man who had until recently survived this exile into the future by becoming a pirate.

  “As you say,” Bautista said slowly. “We are together now. That we did things which were wrong are beyond doubt. But now we want to show our commitment to being full partners.”

  “All of you?” Slater asked cuttingly.

  Bautista leaned back. Kendricks could see he was shutting down again. An overture had been offered by Reynolds, then snatched back by Slater. Another twinge in his left shoulder caused him to wince briefly.

  Yet somehow, he struggled to reconcile the man who’d shot him with the one now across the table from him. Physically he was the same; tall, athletic, almost the stereotype of the smoldering Hispanic lothario. But psychologically, he seemed a different man. Reserved. The sorrow and pain in him evident in every expression. Even in the first month since Atlantica had arrived in the region, the man had changed.

  But he’d killed members of Atlantica’s crew, too. No amount of pain and sorrow could be suitable punishment for that. Kendricks felt himself hardening again, his brief pang of sympathy dispelling.

  “Heather,” Reynolds said firmly. “Not now. Not tonight.”

  “I still want Karl Grayson.” Slater ignored him and leaned forward. “Make no mistake. I don’t like you. But you sailed straight into my guns, you knew you’d lose and you still did it. I can respect that. Grayson though, there is no way in hell we can ever respect what he did. Or forgive him.”

  “Heather!” Reynolds repeated sharply.

  Bautista stared at his untouched soup for a long moment before looking up. His expression was firm again as he stared into Slater’s eyes. “I know what you’re asking, and no.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. We’ve given you fuel, food, provisions. We’ve worked to make this alliance succeed. But the people who follow me are used to following a strong leader. The big man.”

  “An alpha,” Wakefield interjected, before waving his hand. “Sorry, please continue.”

  Kendricks gritted his teeth. The man was a damn control freak, wanting to give the impression it was him who was arbitrating.

  “Already there are murmurs I have given too much,” Bautista said plainly. “That I am weak. If I give more, then I will lose control. And who will replace me? Someone who is not as friendly? Or worse, Anchorage’s community will fracture and instead of one faction, you will have many to deal with, each with their own ideas and agendas. Grayson is not a person anymore, he is a symbol.”

  “He is a murderer,” Slater said.

  “So are you. Eighty-seven people, Captain Slater. Eighty-seven people on my side were killed in our battles. Twenty-three are still suffering horrible injuries. One man has no arms after the fire of your guns. We have to spoon-feed him. I visit him every day and watch him cry in frustration because he’s not even able to wipe his own ass. Do you know what he was before the Locus? A mechanic. He can now no longer do that. He’s lost everything.” Bautista’s voice was calm, measured. He was relaying facts, not emotions. “I want to see no one else like that. Not ever. We’ve paid our price and it was high.”

  Kendricks closed his eyes. The terrible human cost of their battles weighed heavily on him, too. So many on both sides had suffered.

  “Enough,” Reynold’s voice rang out over the table. “We have one single imperative from here on forward. To survive and thrive in this new world. And that will be together. We are changing the subject.”

  He picked up his spoon, dipp
ed it into his soup, and lifted it to his lips. “And for tonight, I for one am going to enjoy this meal.”

  Murmurs of agreement echoed round the table with differing levels of enthusiasm. The two porters looked like deer in the headlights, seemingly wishing to be anywhere but here. Kendricks reckoned they probably felt less like they had won the lottery to make it to the head table as drawn the short straw. He made a gentle overture to them. “Gentlemen, I apologize for our lack of decorum. Please, tell us a little about yourselves...”

  ***

  “As with any of the finest tasting menus in the old world’s best restaurants, we ask you to keep a somewhat open mind for your next course.” Mister Santino clicked his fingers and the officers still serving the food laid a dish in front of each of them. “Seared fillets of Muroidea, with a potato crush and a cherry tomato sauce.”

  Kendricks raised his eyebrow and took a mental deep breath. He’d been forewarned about this one, but not many of the others had. The small slivers of meat had been laid artfully next to dollops of creamed mash. Torn leaves decorated the plate, and a red sauce was drizzled over it. To be fair, the chefs had done excellent work. It looked pretty damn appealing.

  “This looks good.” Donovan leaned forward and sniffed at the plate. “We all had pescetarianism forced on us on Nest Island and meat is still a luxury.”

  Without ado, he speared a fillet with his fork and popped it in his mouth, and chewed it. “An interesting flavor, almost lamb-like.”

  “And is it good?” Kendricks asked, trying to keep the grin from his face.

  “Oh yes,” Donovan said as he chewed, seemingly forgetting his manners. “What is it?”

  “Mister Santino?” Kendricks opened his hand, inviting him to say.

  “Muroidea.” The waiter gave a rare hint of a smile beneath his pencil-thin moustache. “Is something a nutritionist on the passenger manifest assures us is very healthy. In fact, in terms of raw nutritional content, it is far better for you than steak. In a 300-gram portion, it contains more protein, and far less fat.”