by G J Ogden
“Glad to see you have your priorities straight,” said Sterling, cocking an eye at Banks.
“We’re leaving here empty-handed as it is,” Banks replied, stepping toward the kitchen. “Since we’re stuck here for the next four hours, the least we can do is get fed.”
Chapter 16
A moment of weakness
Sterling soon discovered that the rooftop shelter was as basic as Landry’s description had made it sound. Nevertheless, it was adequate for their needs. The shelter provided protection from the rain and offered some respite from the lashing winds. It also had the advantage of not being populated by bitter and irate colonists, eager to slit their throats.
Seemingly more concerned about her rumbling belly than the prospect of being murdered, Commander Banks had carried up three pots of the stew from the kitchen. To Sterling’s surprise it was delicious. Contained within its unappetizing-looking, murky brown contents were a variety of root vegetables and a dark meat that was so tender Sterling imagined it must have been cooked for days. What the meat was, Sterling had no idea and frankly didn’t want to know.
After their meal, there was nothing more to do than wait. Sterling rested back on the hay-filled sacks that passed for furniture in the shelter and found himself drifting off to sleep, lulled by the sound of the wind and rain. Suddenly, he woke with a start to find that Banks and Shade were no longer in the shelter. The darkness had lifted and the storm was rolling away into the distance, leaving only a light pattering of rain behind, like an afterthought. Sterling rubbed his eyes and pushed himself up, but then heard a scratching noise. He froze and looked for his rifle, but it wasn’t there. Cursing under his breath he looked around the shelter for anything he could use as a weapon then grabbed a fork from the empty bowl of stew he’d eaten earlier. Creeping toward the source of the noise, he was about to tap his neural interface to reach out to Banks and Shade when a hooded figure flickered through the shadows toward him. Springing forward, Sterling grabbed the figure and pressed the fork to their throat. Moments later the barrels of two plasma rifles were pressed to the sides of the intruder’s head and Sterling saw Banks and Shade appear.
“Please, it’s just me!” a voice said. Sterling pushed back the hood and found himself staring into the terrified eyes of the old man, Hubbard. “I came to find you. I have more to say!”
Sterling removed the fork from the man’s neck, leaving three tiny pin-pricks of blood behind.
“Damn it, Hubbard, you were nearly skewered and blasted into a dozen pieces,” Sterling said, shuffling back inside the shelter.
“I know, I’m sorry, but I had to sneak out,” Hubbard said as Banks and Shade lowered their weapons. “Landry doesn’t want me to speak to you anymore. They don’t trust you. And you should be wary of Lars and his friends. They mean you harm.”
Sterling snorted a laugh. “Harm is our specialty, old man,” he replied, causing Hubbard to shrink away slightly. “I’d suggest you advise Lars to stay the hell away from us.”
The man then reached inside his coat and Shade again thrust the barrel of the rifle at him.
“Not so fast, old man,” Shade snarled.
Hubbard obeyed and continued at a far more unhurried pace, like he was moving in slow motion. A few seconds later the man opened his hand and held out a data chip.
“The human male who was in the shuttle, he gave me this,” said Hubbard, offering the chip to Sterling. “He said it would help others to find him. He promised me that if I got it to Fleet, he would make sure I was taken care of. He said he’d pay to have me taken from this world to somewhere better.”
Sterling took the chip and briefly examined it, though from its external appearance it was unremarkable. He pocketed the device and returned his attention to Hubbard.
“When did he give you that?” Sterling asked, regarding the older man with cold suspicion. “You said the Sa’Nerran warrior killed the other colonists who came to investigate the shuttle. Why didn’t it kill you too?”
Hubbard’s head dropped and he turned his eyes away from Sterling. “I… I hid,” the old man replied. “In the warehouse, when I saw the others get shot. I took their weapons, but I…” he then held his head with shaking hands. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill it.”
Sterling could hear the shame and regret in the man’s voice, but he felt no pity for him. This man had been given an opportunity to kill an enemy and stop Colicos from falling into the hands of the Sa’Nerra. All Hubbard had to do was shoot a single Sa’Nerran warrior. Instead, the man had cowered in the darkness. Had Hubbard stopped the alien then and there, perhaps the neural weapon would never have been developed at all, Sterling considered. He knew that not everyone was a fighter. And he knew that Hubbard was not the first to falter in the face of the enemy, nor would he be the last. It was unfair to lay the blame on the old man’s shoulders, as in truth there were many who shouldered far greater responsibility for the current state of the war than Hubbard. However, Sterling couldn’t help but wonder how many lives had been lost because of the old man’s one act of weakness.
“Did he say anything else or do you remember anything else?” Sterling asked, burying the anger that the man’s story had caused to swell inside him. “His name, the ID of his shuttle? Anything?”
The old man shook his head. “No, he only said that he was important and that Fleet would come for him if they knew he’d been taken.”
Sterling sighed and nodded then stood up, feeling suddenly deflated again. The mission was the worst roller-coaster ride of emotions that he’d experienced yet. He preferred a straight fight to sneaking around on what was increasingly looking like a wild-goose chase.
A rumble of sound rolled across the horizon, but this time it wasn’t thunder. Sterling peered into the brightening sky and saw the Invictus’ Combat Shuttle heading toward them from the outskirts of Thrace Colony.
“If you find him and rescue him, do you think he will get me off this world?” Hubbard asked.
There was a glimmer of hope in the old man’s voice, but mostly Sterling sensed desperation. “Honestly, I have no idea,” Sterling replied, truthfully. “I doubt it.”
Hubbard’s head fell low and Sterling returned to watching the shuttle, which circled the apartment block and began to set down on the far side of the roof.
“Can you take me instead?” the old man pleaded, stammering the words. “I want to leave. I don’t want to die in this place.”
Sterling shook his head. “The Invictus is a ship of war,” he said, peering down at the old man, who was still on his knees. “There’s no place for you there.”
The door of the shuttlecraft then hissed, releasing the processed air inside and allowing the cold, wet air of the planet to replace it. Ensign Keller was inside, silhouetted by the bright lights from the cabin. Sterling turned away from Hubbard, whose head hung low, shoulders shaking gently as he wept, then began walking over to the shuttle.
“What about the supplies?” said Banks, who had remained in her customary place by Sterling’s side.
“Landry gave us nothing and we owe her nothing,” Sterling replied. “Besides, they don’t deserve our help. They’d have let us die on this forsaken rock.”
“And what about him?” Banks added, nodding toward Hubbard, who was still weeping on his knees.
“He’s not our problem either,” said Sterling, frostily.
Banks nodded then glanced at Sterling out of the corner of her eye. “I feel like I should have at least fixed their table, though,” she said.
Sterling frowned at her, unsure whether she was being serious or just making another one of her ill-timed jokes. This time, he really couldn’t tell.
“We’ll drop a disaster pod when we leave,” Sterling said, reasoning that this was a fair exchange for the information they’d received, and the damage they’d left in their wake. “After that, these people are on their own.”
Chapter 17
New discoveries. New questions.
Sterling entered the compact science lab where Lieutenant Razor had been analyzing the data chip they had recovered from the old man on Thrace Colony. Pausing just inside the door, he realized that he’d perhaps only been inside the room maybe half a dozen times in the entire time he’d been in command of the Invictus. Considering the compact size of the vessel, he mostly spent his time moving between his quarters, the wardroom and the bridge. However, his decision to visit his chief engineer in the lab, rather than pull her away from her work, had the unexpected side-effect of making the ship feel strangely bigger.
“What have you discovered so far, Lieutenant?” asked Sterling moving beside Razor, who was working at one of the benches. Her skin, which had been augmented to provide UV protection on account of her albinism, sparkled more lustrously under the harsh lights of the lab. “We’re just burning fuel, idling in orbit until you give us a heading,” Sterling added, trying to subtly jockey the engineer into working faster.
Razor glanced up from the computer console she was working at and frowned at Sterling. “Surely, Ensign Keller has just put us into a geosynchronous orbit around the planet?” the engineer asked. “Besides the need for a little station-keeping, we shouldn’t be burning any excess fuel.”
“It was a figure of speech, Lieutenant,” Sterling replied. He sometimes wondered whether his analogies were simply too subtle and clever for the rest of the crew, or if they were just plain bad. “I just mean that we’re stuck here unless you can find a clue as to where Colicos went,” he added, spelling it out for the engineer.
“Of course, sir,” said Razor, politely. “Fortunately, I believe I have found something.”
Razor then turned the screen of the console toward Sterling so that he could better see the contents. He frowned at the information flowing across the display, quickly realizing that none of it made any sense to him.
“I just see a lot of gibberish, Lieutenant,” said Sterling, squinting at the pages and pages of code. “What am I looking at here?”
“Mostly, gibberish,” admitted Razor. “The chip contains a hastily processed, raw data dump from a shuttlecraft’s main computer core.” She then began working on the console and a star map appeared on one of the larger wall screens. “The data on the chip is quite badly corrupted, likely as a result of age and poor storage conditions, but I believe I’ve pieced together a section of the vessels’ journey from its navigational logs.”
Razor tapped a button on the console and the computer began to trace a line through the star map. It passed through Thrace Colony and extended out toward the edge of the star system, where it abruptly stopped.
“So, where did it go from there?” asked Sterling, trying to contain his disappointment. The amount of information the data chip had provided was barely more than they already knew.
“Computer, add the locations of all known apertures that lead toward Sa’Nerran space to the display,” Razor said. Moments later, three markers appeared on the map. “Project the course of the shuttle based on its last known course and speed.”
Sterling watched as the computer extrapolated the shuttle’s course, accounting for the gravity well of the planets and other stellar phenomenon it passed by on the way. The line on the map continued to grow until it neatly bisected two of the three aperture markers.
Sterling raised an eyebrow at his engineer. “This is the part where you impress me, isn’t it, Lieutenant?” he said. “Because I see two possible routes where that shuttle could have gone, and only one Invictus.”
Sterling was impatient for Razor’s answer. He sincerely hoped that the engineer wasn’t about to conclude that they had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing which aperture Colicos had gone through.
“Then prepare to be impressed, Captain,” Razor replied, with just the right amount of swagger. “Because these two aren’t the only apertures that lead into Sa’Nerran space from Thrace Colony.”
Sterling frowned as Razor again worked on the console. A few seconds later, a fourth marker appeared on the map, way beyond the edge of the system’s outermost planet.
“How have we not detected that aperture before?” Sterling asked, accessing one of the other consoles and zooming in on the location.
“It’s something Fleet has never seen before,” Razor replied. “In fact, were it not for me focusing scans along the line of the shuttle’s projected course, I would never have discovered it either,” she went on. “It would have been like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, except without even knowing that it was a needle you were looking for.”
Sterling felt a tingle of excitement run down his spine. Like any good spacefarer, he loved a good mystery, and he loved discovering something new.
“Okay, I’m impressed,” said Sterling. “Now impress me some more…”
“The signature of this aperture is uniquely different to every other aperture on record,” Razor continued. The engineer’s voice was also laced with energy and excitement. “However, it appears to be built on the same core principles as the known Fleet and Sa’Nerran apertures,” Razor went on.
Sterling rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the new aperture on the wall screen. The data chip had provided as many questions as it had delivered answers.
“Can we extrapolate where it leads to?” Sterling then asked, turning back to Razor.
“It’s guesswork at this point,” the engineer replied, shaking her head. “In principle, an aperture with this energy signature could have a surge radius many times larger than existing apertures. Perhaps, it could even lead directly into Sa’Nerran space.”
“Can we surge through it?” asked Sterling. There were a dozen more prudent queries he could have – and perhaps should have - asked first, but the one he’d chosen was the only question that really mattered. Razor, however, appeared uncertain.
“For Colicos’ shuttle to have successfully entered that aperture it would need to have radically modified its surge field,” Razor answered. “It would take a genius to do it.”
“I think it’s fair to say that Colicos has the relevant qualifications,” Sterling replied, though he was conscious that his engineer had not answered the question he’d actually asked. “But let’s assume Colicos has the chops to make the surge. What I’m asking is can the Invictus follow?” Then he paused and rephrased his question. “In other words, Lieutenant Razor, do you have the chops?”
Razor raised one of her snow-white eyebrows at Sterling. “I believe I do, sir,” she said, confidently.
Sterling nodded and smiled. “Well, you once told me you were looking to gain as many Fleet commendations as possible, so you can muster out early. Here’s your chance to chalk up another one.”
Razor nodded and smiled, something he’d rarely seen the Omega officer do. “Challenge accepted, Captain,” she said. “Prepare to be impressed again.”
“Keep me apprised, Lieutenant,” said Sterling, preparing to leave the engineer to her work. However, Razor was quick to stop him.
“There is one other thing, though, sir,” Razor added, resuming a more stoical expression. “I managed to matched the energy signature of this portal to something already in the Fleet database.”
Sterling stopped and returned to the engineer’s side. “That sounds ominous,” he said, impatient to hear what Razor had to say next.
“The aperture array that the Titan, the Sa’Nerran super-weapon, used to disintegrate the moon has a near-identical signature.”
Sterling frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, yet, but I’ll continue to analyze the data and see what I can find out,” the engineer replied. “However, it may suggest that these apertures are dangerous. Perhaps even unstable.”
Sterling sighed. As usual it was two steps forward and one step back. “Understood, Lieutenant, stay on it,” he said, again turning to leave.
The door to the science lab swooshed open and Commander Banks walked in. She took several paces inside the lab then sto
pped and peered around the space. She wore the expression of a person who had entered a room then immediately forgotten the reason why they’d done so.
“Are you lost, Commander?” asked Sterling, as Banks continued to gaze around the lab with a look of deep consternation on her face.
“Has this facility always been on the ship?” Banks asked, pressing her hands to her hips and frowning at Sterling.
“Yes, Commander, it’s always been here,” Sterling replied, shaking his head at his first officer. However, he didn’t want to admit that he’d had similar doubts after first walking into the science lab.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Banks said. “I’m sure I’ve never been in here before.”
Sterling rested back against the workbench and folded his arms. “Is there a particular reason why you’re here now, Commander?” he said, trying to jog his first officer’s memory.
Commander Graves then walked in. He was holding a complicated-looking contraption in his hand that was a mass of spidery wires and smaller components. The medical officer frowned, realizing that three of the Invictus’ other senior officers were also in the room.
“I hope I am not interrupting, Captain?” Graves began in his usual, polite and anemic manner. “I have some new information regarding the neural interface I reclaimed from the colonist on Far Deep Nine.”
“No, the more the merrier, Commander,” Sterling said, waving Graves over.
As the medical officer approached, Sterling realized that the main component in the device Graves was holding was a neural interface. Sterling could see that there were still lumps of brain attached to the device in various places. He grimaced at the contraption as Graves dangled it, along with the lumps of brain matter, in front of his nose.
“Let’s hear it,” replied Sterling, gently pushing the device away from his face with the back of his hand.
“As James Colicos hinted at in the logs we recovered from Far Deep Nine, this device is a neural translation matrix,” Graves began. “I believe that Doctor Colicos used a similar device to map the brains of the Sa’Nerran hosts he captured, examining the neural activity of the alien species in infinitesimal detail.”
