by G J Ogden
Sterling nodded and smiled to the crew members in return, but always at the back of his mind was the thought that he might need to send them to their deaths. He felt a twinge of sadness and regret at this prospect. Then, as with his thoughts of Gunn and Captain Riley and the crew of the Aristotle, the feelings vanished and he felt nothing at all.
Chapter 3
Food for thought
Sterling slid his meal tray onto the table and dropped into the seat opposite Commander Mercedes Banks. She had been waiting patiently for him, chin rested on top of clasped hands with her elbows on the table. Her meal tray was already in front of her.
“Sorry that took so long,” said Sterling, nodding to one of the wardroom staff who had just brought a flask of coffee to the table. It had taken Sterling twice as long to get his meal tray on account of the need to exchange polite yet ultimately meaningless pleasantries with half a dozen members of the Invictus’ crew. He’d put on a good show, or so he thought, but try as he might, Sterling detested small-talk. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the wellbeing of his crew, because he did – he just wasn’t interested in hearing the minutiae of their lives.
“Everyone is always keen to say hello to the captain,” replied Banks, stabbing her fork in the compartment of eggs and bacon in her meal tray. “I always get to do it first though. Commander’s prerogative.”
“Should I be worried that you enjoy being in my head first thing in the morning?” replied Sterling, examining the contents of his meal tray. There were eggs and bacon, plus brown sugar oatmeal, some sort of cake bar and a selection of dried fruits and nuts.
“You need me in your head, to make sure you get up in time to do your ritual workout,” replied Banks, scooping another hearty forkful of food toward her mouth.
“Which menu number is this one?” asked Sterling, starting on the eggs and bacon first, as Banks had done.
“This is meal pack twelve,” replied Banks, with her mouth half full. A piece of egg dropped from her bottom lip and bounced off the table like a tiny squash ball.
“I prefer the one with a grilled ham and cheese,” said Sterling, batting one of the rubbery pieces of egg around the tray. “Which number is that one?” he added, setting down his fork and pouring them both coffee from the flask the crew member had brought to the table earlier.
“That’s number twenty-seven, though we haven’t had any in for months,” said Banks. Then she paused with her fork half-way to her mouth. “Is this a test, Captain? Is there an Omega Directive that covers knowing the contents of every single Fleet meal pack?”
“If only our lives were that uncomplicated,” snorted Sterling.
Banks nodded and shoveled the waiting food into her mouth. “So, what happened to the Aristotle?” asked Banks, changing the subject to the matter Sterling had raised during their neural conversation.
Sterling shrugged. “There isn’t much in the report,” he replied, switching to the oatmeal instead of the bacon and eggs, which were already cold. “A Sa’Nerran skirmisher squadron surged through the Void aperture in quadrant three and hit Outpost Gamma Eleven completely by surprise.”
“How did they manage that?” asked Banks, who had also started on her oatmeal after polishing off the eggs.
“It’s not clear, but in all likelihood the Sa’Nerra managed to turn someone on the outpost. Someone in a command position,” said Sterling. “I can’t see how else they would have been able to attack unseen.”
Banks let out an unconvinced harrumph. “We’re like damned zombies when we get turned, so that doesn’t sound right,” she said, taking a bite of her cake bar, in between spoons of oatmeal. “Surely someone must have noticed if a command-level officer had been turned? They would have been walking around the place like they were half-asleep.”
Sterling shook his head. “Something has changed,” he said, pushing the eggs around his tray. “The number of outposts that are falling to the Sa’Nerra is accelerating, and we’re losing more of our recon patrols in the Void too. They’re getting closer to our space, Mercedes.”
Sterling recalled the most recent briefings from the admiralty, and it made for grim reading. The first major shift in the Earth-Sa’Nerra war had come when the aliens deployed their neural control technology. However, while this had allowed the Sa’Nerra to control Fleet crew members, and turn them against their own kind, the 'turned' crew had at least been easy to spot. The neural control technology the Sa’Nerra had devised caused permanent brain damage, making those affected act more like programmed automatons than sentient beings. The suggestion from the reports was that the aliens had enhanced their technology, though quite to what extent was unknown.
“Are you going to eat those?” Commander Banks said, stabbing her fork at Sterling’s eggs.
Sterling smiled. “All yours,” he said. Then he watched Banks scoop up the leftover eggs and bacon from his tray with her oatmeal spoon and dump them on to her own tray. “Do you have two stomachs or something?” he wondered, watching Banks polish off his cold eggs and bacon like she hadn’t eaten in days.
“You know me, just a fast metabolism,” Banks replied. Then his second-in-command gripped her fork and pressed her thumb against the metal, bending the implement into a ninety-degree angle as easily as if it were made of putty. “Plus, it helps keep me strong,” she added, with a wink.
“Your freakish genetics are what keeps you strong,” Sterling countered.
He prided himself on his own physical strength and conditioning, which was largely as result of his daily press-up routine, but Banks was on a whole other level. Sterling remembered reading Banks’ file for the first time after taking command of the Invictus, and how it described the twenty or more genetic variations that contributed to her super-human strength. However, despite her exceptional genetics, Mercedes Banks possessed more of a swimmer’s physique than that of a power athlete.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Sterling added, remembering the many times when Banks’ deceptive strength had proven useful on their missions. “Your superpower has always come in handy when fighting the Sa’Nerra.”
The door to the wardroom then opened and Ensign Kieran Keller walked in. He anxiously looked around the room, nodding and smiling at some of the other occupants while fiddling with the cuffs of his tunic.
“Look at that kid,” said Banks, aiming her bent fork in the direction of Keller. “To look at him, you’d never think he’d have made it through basic training, never mind managed to land the helm of the first Omega Taskforce ship in the fleet.”
Keller then walked inside the wardroom, almost knocking into three crew members while traversing the short distance between the door and the serving counter. He saw Sterling and Banks at their corner table and waved at them, narrowly avoiding karate-chopping a tray of food out of the hands of Nurse Peters as he did so.
“He’s a twitchy one, that’s for sure,” said Sterling, waving back at his helmsman. “But the kid can pilot a warship like no-one I’ve ever seen. And he gets the job done, no questions asked.”
“He may not question his orders, but he sure as hell questions himself a lot,” said Banks, stealing the cake from Sterling’s tray. “What was his Omega Directive test, anyway?” she added before shoving the cake into her mouth.
Banks had slipped in this question on the sly, in a breezy and off the cuff manner, but Sterling wasn’t about to fall in to her trap.
“You know Griffin’s orders forbid me to reveal the nature of everyone’s Omega Directive tests,” Sterling said, cocking an eyebrow at Banks. This wasn’t the first time she’d pried, and it wouldn’t be the last time she did so either.
Banks huffed a disgruntled sigh. “It’s not fair that you get to know everyone’s test, and I don’t.”
“Make captain, then you’ll know everything, at which point you’ll probably wish you could forget it again,” Sterling replied. He admitted that it had been fascinating to read about the macabre challenges that Admiral Griffin had d
evised to single out the crew of the Invictus for their transfer to the Omega Taskforce. However, it had been grim reading too. “Not everyone on the ship passed an Omega Directive test, you know? At least, not one like ours,” Sterling then added, taking a sip of coffee. He went to pick up his cake bar before remembering Banks had already devoured it like a starving wolf.
“I know, it’s only the bridge crew and other officers,” said Banks. “Still, everyone on this ship had a psych evaluation and a test of sorts, to make sure they can handle what we’re out here to do. Not that most of them actually know what really happens here.”
“It’s better that way,” Sterling replied as Ensign Keller came toward them. “If they knew then they wouldn’t want to be within a light year of this ship.”
Ensign Keller then walked into a chair and causing a knife to slide off his tray. The knife struck the hard metal deck and chimed like a bell, then all the eyes in the wardroom fell on the young ensign.
“Sorry!” Keller called out, kicking the knife across the deck toward Sterling’s table, like a soccer player dribbling a ball toward the goal.
“That’s why I’m so keen to know what Keller went through that made Griffin promote him to the Invictus,” Banks went on, over the continued scrape and rattle of the knife as it clattered across the floor. “The Admiral eats guys like him as a mid-morning snack.”
“Hi Captain, Commander,” said Keller nodding and smiling at Sterling and Banks.
“Morning Ensign,” replied Sterling, smiling back at the young man. Unlike the other pleasantries he’d been compelled to utter since leaving his quarters, he was actually glad to see Keller. Despite his ensign’s fidgety nature, he liked the man.
“Well, are you going to sit, or eat standing up?” said Banks, scowling up at Keller.
Sterling felt his lips curl up, but managed to suppress the smile. He and Banks had a sort of good-cop, bad-cop routine going with Keller, along with some other members of the crew. Banks was always the bad-cop – it was a role she enjoyed almost too much.
“Sorry, Commander,” said Keller, sliding his tray onto the table then drawing a chair out from under it. The chair screeched across the deck, causing the occupants of the wardroom to again look in the young ensign’s direction, though this time with more pained expressions on their faces.
“Don’t apologize, just sit your ass down,” said Sterling, grabbing the tall ensign’s sleeve and dragging him down. Even though the eyes in the room were not looking at him, Sterling still found the mass of stares uncomfortable.
Ensign Keller drew his chair closer to the table, again causing it to screech across the deck plates like a demented banshee. Keller then smiled and tucked into the food with his fork, which was the only implement left on his tray.
“Meal pack twelve, I love this one,” Keller said, savoring the aroma of the eggs and bacon as if it were his mother’s home cooking. “Twenty-seven is better though. That grilled ham and cheese is amazing.”
Banks laughed and rolled her eyes, and this time Sterling allowed himself a slight chuckle too. Keller looked at them both, his face drained of blood, clearly worried that he’d made some sort of huge faux pas.
“You’re not wrong, kid,” said Sterling, shooting the young man a reassuring wink. “Meal pack twenty-seven is definitely where it’s at.” He slapped the ensign on the shoulder, causing the piece of bacon on his fork to fly into the middle of the table.
The door to the wardroom opened again and Sterling cursed, turning his head away swiftly. Banks scowled at him then looked over to see who had entered.
“Don’t look or he’ll come over!” hissed Sterling, under his breath, still hiding his face from Commander Evan Graves, the ship’s medical officer. Banks shook her head again, but said nothing.
“Doctor, over here!” said Ensign Keller, waving exuberantly at Commander Graves.
Sterling looked at the ensign as if he’d just invited Satan to dine at their table. “What did you do that for?” he growled, throwing his hands up in the air.
Keller frowned at Sterling. “Dr. Graves is fun,” he said, apparently struggling to understand his captain’s objections. “I like his stories about wild surgeries that went wrong, and about dissecting Sa’Nerra to find their weak points.”
“Sounds like the perfect mealtime conversation to me,” Banks cut in, also looking at Keller like he was a different species.
“Captain, Commander, Ensign,” said Graves, nodding respectfully to each of them. “May I join you?” Commander Graves spoke with a plain, level tone, that was still somehow engaging. It was the classic doctor’s language – calm and unemotional, yet authoritative.
“Sure, sit down Doctor,” said Sterling, kicking out a seat for his medical officer. He might have been cold-hearted, but he wasn’t rude, at least not to the man’s face.
“So, Commander, what’s the latest on the Sa’Nerra?” asked Ensign Keller, an eager twinkle in his eyes. “Found out anything new from slicing and dicing them up?”
Sterling watched Commander Graves begin to separate the bacon from his eggs with his knife and fork with the precision of a surgeon. This was not in itself unusual, considering that Graves was actually a qualified surgeon. However, there was something about how meticulously the doctor was going about the task, completely plain-faced, that was a little unsettling.
“I have not performed any further internal examinations since you last enquired, ensign,” Graves replied, adding a single piece of bacon to the center two prongs of his fork. “However, recent research from HQ medical suggests that the Sa’Nerra suffer brain damage if starved of oxygen for more than ninety seconds.” The doctor then placed the piece of bacon into his mouth, chewed it for far longer than seemed necessary, then swallowed. “That is roughly half the length of time compared to the average human,” Graves continued.
“That’s good intel,” said Keller, excitedly. “We could develop that as a tactic, in desperate situations. You know, starve them of oxygen.”
“Every situation we face is a desperate one,” said Sterling, though he had to agree it was a potentially useful piece of information.
“How did they find that out?” Keller then asked, tucking into his oatmeal.
“They probably placed a number of Sa’Nerran prisoners into an airtight chamber and removed the oxygen inside,” said Banks, eyeing up the cake on Keller’s tray.
Keller laughed and looked at Graves, who had just finished feeding himself another single piece of bacon. He appeared to notice that Keller was looking at him to confirm or refute Commander Banks’ theory.
“Likely there was more to it than that, but the Commander is broadly correct,” Graves said, flatly.
On any other wardroom table on any other Fleet ship, such a revelation would likely have been met with shock and even revulsion. However, on board the Invictus, the news of Fleet medical performing live alien experimentations was met with nothing more than the raising of an eyebrow.
The computer’s voice then spoke from a speaker above Sterling’s table. “Captain, you have an incoming communication from Fleet Admiral Griffin, routed via the aperture relay. Priority One.”
“Looks like breakfast is over,” said Sterling. He glanced up at the ceiling to answer the computer’s message. “Acknowledged, computer, I’m coming to the bridge now,” he said.
“We got trouble?” wondered Banks, accidently squeezing the fork she’d been toying with so hard that it snapped.
“It’s Griffin, so the chances of trouble are high,” replied Sterling. “We’d better get to the bridge.”
Banks and Keller immediately rose, both pushing their chairs back in almost perfect harmony. Sterling then got up, but noticed that Graves was continuing to eat his breakfast in his processional, almost robotic style.
“Don’t get up Doc,” said Sterling, not that his medical officer showed any intention of rising. “We won’t need your services just yet.”
Captain Sterling, Commander Banks a
nd Ensign Keller than set off for the exit, but they’d only made it a couple of paces before Commander Graves spoke up.
“You will, Captain,” the doctor said, skewering another piece of bacon like a master spearfisher. “You always do.”
Chapter 4
Griffin Delta Zero Four
Captain Lucas Sterling stepped onto the compact bridge of the Fleet Marauder Invictus, closely followed by his second-in-command and helmsman. At just over one hundred and fifty meters long, spread across only six decks, the Invictus was small by modern Fleet standards. Yet, like Commander Banks, the ship was far stronger and more powerful than it appeared, as the Sa’Nerra had learned to their cost many times during Sterling’s short tenure as Captain.
Commander Banks and Ensign Keller took their posts while Sterling headed toward his ready room to take the call from Griffin. En route, he spotted Lieutenant Opal Shade already at her station at the weapons and tactical console. She was stood with her hands pressed to the small of her back, her dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She’d obviously spotted him, though it was also clear she was trying hard to make it appear she hadn’t done. Sterling then realized that the relieved night-shift crew were anxiously glancing at Shade as they headed for the exit, all looking thankful to be leaving the woman’s ominous presence. Sterling would have also felt more comfortable simply continuing on to the sanctuary of his ready room, but he could hardly ignore his weapons officer, despite the fact she appeared to want him to.
“Lieutenant Shade, you’re at your post early this morning,” said Sterling, managing to instigate the conversation with a suitably banal piece of small talk.
