"You don’t usually come here,” she said matter-of-factly.
"No. I need to find a pilot for a second-wave prospector. It’s a permanent job with ownership percentage, depending upon performance. Know anyone who’s interested?”
The woman looked pointedly at the two beers he had beside him, so he hurriedly picked up the untouched beer and offered it to her. She took a long swig from it.
"Aren’t you lucky?” She smiled and her face lit up, reminding Matt of angels from the paintings in the orphanage that depicted the trials of St. Darius.
She nodded at Olaf. The big man had started snoring, sprawled across the bar floor in front of them.
"That’s my boss. I’m looking for new employment.”
CHAPTER 5
Mankind learned to destroy life long before we understood its creation. Gaia sparks life on her planets, while we struggle at terraforming. We researched the Minoan time buoys and we couldn’t understand the theory behind their constructive use, but our baser instincts uncovered the temporal distortion wave: a destructive force that disrupts matter at quantum levels. When we learned to rip apart the fabric of the universe, mankind’s true nature as the ultimate destroyer was revealed.
—Rant: The Ultimate Destroyer and Why We Deserve Gaia’s Rage, Lee Wan Padoulos, 2098.345.02.15 UT, indexed by Heraclitus 21 under Conflict Imperative
The air was warm and she smelled human sweat. After twelve hours in the cramped Naga, she should be immune to these scents. The edge of her console dug into her side as she twisted in her seat. An acrid taste spread across her tongue and her stomach clenched, tightening into a ball. Her scalp prickled as she glanced from Cipher’s face to Brandon’s face. They were sweating also, their faces shining in the sickly green instrument lights of the EM-DAMPENED Naga control center.
"Did you hear what I said? That probe is carrying a TD warhead.” Cipher’s voice cracked. "The mission brief was wrong. It’s not an intelligence payload.”
"You authenticated the wrapper. We authenticated the orders. We executed as ordered.” The muscle on Brandon’s right cheek twitched.
"I broke the encryption on the payload packet. Time of detonation is—soon.” Cipher’s eyes were large, her short orange hair plastered to her head with sweat.
"We weren’t authorized payload information,” Brandon said.
It’s too hot. Ari adjusted the environmental controls. Behind her, the discussion escalated in intensity, heating the small control center further.
"Ari has to get us out. Now!” Cipher was panicking.
"No. Orders are to verify final probe position.” Brandon, as crew commander, tried to stick to their orders.
"No one knows what a TD wave—”
"Cipher, if that’s an intel payload—”
"Ari, drop us out of normal space. It’s starting.”
She heard Cipher retch, then Brandon, both using their training to try to control their fluids. She felt bile rising in her own throat. The ship bucked and stretched. Console lights faded and recovered. Violent orange and red replaced sickly green. Multiple alarms went off.
"Ari—” Brandon gurgled.
Life, mission, security, operations. L-M-S-O. The hierarchy for handling emergencies. Save the lives of the crew, handle mission next, security issues, then simple operational problems. If the crew didn’t live, the mission didn’t get done.
Her console seemed farther away than it used to be. The center smelled of vomit. The twitching heartbeat signal from the time buoy was paralyzed. It fed the Penrose Fold referential engine and it couldn’t stop, could it? That was physically impossible. She hit the controls feeding her previous calculations to the referential engine and prayed that they had an accurate lock from the time buoy. If not, they were lost forever.
They dropped out of real-space. Without drugs, without preparation, without references, she tried to pilot N-space, where normal senses could betray her and kill her—
Ariane woke with a gasp. Taking deep breaths, she stopped fighting her restraint webbing. Sweat covered her body. The air from the cruiser’s vents felt cold and the skin on her arms and legs started stippling.
I’m Ariane Kedros. I’m a commercial pilot, with a reserve commission of major. The exercise of reinforcing her identity helped calm her. Lying in the dark of her cabin, she stopped trembling.
"Command: lights, slow.” Ariane spoke carefully; the systems on the Bright Crescent weren’t familiar with her voice.
As the cabin slowly brightened, she unfastened the safety webbing and let it wiggle to the sides of her bunk. She didn’t remember getting into bed after finding her quarters. She sat up, relieved that the cruiser was maintaining light gravity. Her dream had been vivid, but at least it wasn’t a waking terror that was indiscernible from real life.
She opened her locker and pawed through the mess she must have thrown together in the dark. When she found the d-tranny, she sighed. Delta tranquilizer was the space traveler’s best friend. Everyone could take it because it didn’t affect cognitive functions or reactions. It prevented the gradual and deleterious effects of N-space and, of course, wasn’t supposed to be addictive.
Ariane pressed an ampoule against her implant and sighed after it drained and started dispersing the d-tranny. They said you couldn’t tell when d-tranny entered your bloodstream, but "they” were wrong. She could feel it without displaying her doses from the implant.
She checked the shift schedule and tried to adjust her dosage of bright so she could adapt her sleeping patterns. Then she carefully laid out the rest of the ampoules, making sure she had enough d-tranny to get her through to her next requisition. During her active duty assignments, she rationed everything carefully. She snorted. Sure, d-tranny isn’t addictive.
She put her ampoules into a folding packet she could keep on her person, inside her uniform. She remembered when Matt had suggested addiction reprogramming and shook her head. Exposing her secrets would be dangerous. Too many people wanted to rid themselves of the moral quandary that she represented. Would Matt be one of those? She also suspected the shadowy people in the Directorate that gave Colonel Edones his orders weren’t above getting rid of her, should she become an embarrassment.
She was slipping back into her new persona, replacing "Owen” with "Colonel Edones” in her thoughts. She paused. She needed to send a message to Matt.
"I’m sorry, Matt, but this is something that I have to do. Aether’s Touch will have a couple months’ downtime and besides, this is an important mission. . . . ”
Her voice trailed off. They were the same trite words, but for once, they were true. She wiped her message and started over, trying to be as earnest and forthright as she could, yet stay classified. She tried four times before she thought the message acceptable.
She sent it off, wishing she could speak to him directly. Matt was a bright boy, though. He’d trace the packet backward, calculate when and where it’d exited from MilNet, and determine she was in-system when she sent the message. However, in a system crowded with habitats, he wouldn’t know that Karthage Point was her destination.
She went to the cruiser’s galley and ordered a large meal. With her enhanced metabolism, she needed a hefty amount of calories to make up for the N-space drop. But her body craved more than food. She shouldn’t have had that drink with Colonel Edones; her body was still pining for more alcohol, hoping for oblivion. She wolfed down her meal as she ignored the cravings and the sensation that her skin wanted to crawl off her body.
Back in her cabin, Ariane read the background information for the mission, making sure that all data stayed in the cruiser’s storage vault. When finished, she replaced the sweaty sheets and got back into her bunk. As pilot of Aether’s Touch, she was the one who lost both sleep and weight when they dropped out of normal space. Now she could catch up.
The klaxon and flashing take-hold alarms didn’t wake her when the cruiser made its first deceleration adjustment for Karthage Point. Neither did the messag
e alarm. She woke, groggy, to a crewman shaking her shoulder. He had to enter her cabin to wake her.
"The mission commander ordered you to the bridge,” the crewman said. "Check your bright dosage, ma’am.”
She thanked the young enlisted man and after he left, she opened her locker. As expected, a clean uniform awaited her, but she wrinkled her nose in distaste. When she was active duty, she’d never liked the intelligence arm of AFCAW. She never had to don the black and blue Directorate of Intelligence uniform for her previous missions under Owen’s command. Now she was officially a golem. So live with it, Major.
"Take hold, take hold. This is second warning. Prepare for low-g maneuver.” The male voice sounding through the cruiser indicated they were close to Karthage Point and preparing for an adjustment.
Ariane dressed quickly, grabbed her issued slate, and headed toward the bridge. The vector warning lights were flashing, fading from yellow into orange. The cruiser’s crew were experienced because the adjustments had been precise and few.
"Major Kedros reporting to the bridge.” She saluted the mission command chair, far removed from equipment consoles and occupied by Colonel Edones.
"Glad you could join us, Major.” Edones’s tone was biting. "Please take the comm monitor station.”
"Yes, sir.” Ariane cast a quick glance about as she went to the most useless position on the bridge, a station rarely manned on operational vessels. She and Edones were the only black and blue on the bridge; everyone else wore the green uniform of normal operations.
Grudgingly, she admitted that Edones knew what he was doing. Making her an intelligence officer isolated her from the operational crew members. No one glanced her way. No one was interested in a black and blue relegated to monitoring comm for some obscure purpose.
She slid her slate into the console as she listened to the bridge crew going through their checklists for approach to Karthage Point. She wished her military duties were as straightforward. At one time, she believed they were written in black and white with crisp edges. No longer.
"Take hold, take hold, take hold. This is third and last warning. Prepare for low-g maneuver.” The pilot’s intonation was singsong, almost bored. Everything was routine. Crew members on the cruiser had already stowed loose equipment and strapped themselves into their positions.
Ariane slapped her restraints on, feeling them squirm and slide to keep her snugly in her seat. She frowned as her slate indicated an arriving personal message. Matt couldn’t have found her so quickly, could he?
She had nothing better to do while the cruiser made its last adjustment. She opened the message.
It was from Edones: "Remember, Ari, that it’s better to be the hunter than the hunted. Good luck.”
Yes, I’ll need it—and thanks for hanging me out as bait. Why had she agreed to take this mission? She remembered Cipher’s anguished face from her dream. That’s why I’m here. Cipher’s military service had gone unmarked; the other victims were the same, murdered for doing their duty. None of them got a hero’s funeral. She jabbed viciously at the slate, directing the note to be shredded.
The briefings and background packages regarding the assassinations were secured in the classified vault of the cruiser. She went through her slate, scrubbing everything that she’d be taking with her. She couldn’t afford to be sloppy, not on this mission. Everything on the slate looked normal and supported her persona.
She never once looked toward Colonel Edones during approach and docking. Playing the good intelligence officer, she monitored comm patterns that were already being analyzed by AIs. Every once in a while, she reviewed an AI’s sample, finding the expected operational chatter.
"Karthage boarding will occur at oh six thirty,” announced Colonel Edones. He left the bridge without a backward glance.
Ariane checked her shift schedule. She’d board with Colonel Edones and afterward, she’d transfer to Karthage Point. Her orders were temporary; she was assigned to Karthage for thirty days. The deadline for completing all baseline inspections and verifying initial inventories was six months out. There was a chance she might not even see a Terran inspection team at Karthage, but right now she didn’t have even half a plan regarding the hidden purpose behind her orders. She logged off her station and left the bridge.
No one likes devoting their life and career to a mission, only to have it pulled out from under them. The Mobile TD Weapon Treaty was doing just that to the Naga personnel on Karthage Point, which accounted for the sour expressions of Lieutenant Colonel Jacinthe Voyage and her two aides.
"Lieutenant Colonel Voyage is commander of the Thirty-second Strike Squadron, under the First Strategic Systems Wing.” Colonel Erik Icelos, the commander of Karthage Point, was introducing personnel.
While Jacinthe Voyage seemed tense and sullen, Colonel Icelos was relaxed and friendly. As facility commander, he wasn’t threatened by the loss of the Naga mission. Karthage Point was valuable to AFCAW and would always be operational. He wasn’t worried about being transferred to another career field, being retrained, or worse: separated and abandoned. He also didn’t show any underlying anxiety, if he knew he was targeted for assassination. Perhaps Edones hadn’t yet told him about the murders. Icelos greeted Colonel Edones, and Ariane watched for familiarity between them, but saw none. Perhaps they’d never met each other in person.
Colonel Edones motioned to Ariane. "This is Major Kedros, who will be your inspection team liaison officer. She’ll be your adviser for treaty compliance.”
Ariane stepped forward and Icelos started slightly. He was a big man with broad shoulders. His blond hair was turning white and cut to tight fuzz about his head. Ariane didn’t recognize him as the young command post controller from the Fourteenth Strategic Systems Wing, but he’d remembered her. In contrast to Ariane, he’d aged normally. He must have rejected the dangerous rejuv treatments offered by AFCAW. Smart man.
"Just a moment—got a priority message,” said Edones, touching his implanted ear bug. He pulled out a slate and frowned at whatever was loading. "We’ve got problems, Colonel. Let’s speak in your office.”
The two colonels hurried away, leaving Ariane with the squadron commander and her aides. Jacinthe looked Ariane up and down, with a lift to her lip like a generational orphan facing a plate of dirt-grown vegetables.
"Got any Naga experience, Major?” asked Jacinthe.
"I became licensed to pilot Naga vehicles on a tour in maintenance, ma’am, in the Pelagos system. I also served on several STRAT-EVALS.” Ariane’s record could easily be checked, if Jacinthe was interested. For a moment, Ariane’s jaw tightened as she thought of the lackluster career that Colonel Edones had designed for her.
"STRAT-EVAL scenarios aren’t the same as putting in the years at ops, Major.”
"Yes, ma’am.” Ariane agreed, but the irony of the conversation almost made her laugh. Instead, she coughed. She’d read the records for Lieutenant Colonel Jacinthe Voyage, who’d left her generational ship after the destruction of Ura-Guinn. Jacinthe, who’d only seen peacetime operations, presumed to lecture Ariane on what it meant to be operational?
"Do you need a drink for that cough, Major?” Jacinthe’s frigid gray eyes glittered.
Not the kind you’re offering. Ariane shook her head.
"Fine. Then I’ll show you the inspectable areas of the station.”
Jacinthe Voyage had long legs and set a pace that made Ariane feel as if she was scurrying to keep up. She tried to lengthen her strides and remain dignified. She glanced around at Karthage Point and decided it was a tight operation. The corridors, uncommonly clean and uncluttered, couldn’t be compared to Athens Point because AFCAW didn’t allow remotes on military habitats. MilNet nodes had to suffice and the only displays on the walls were for official use only. The station was trying to give her a newcomer orientation at the same time Jacinthe threw questions at her, often over a shoulder as they took a turn.
"You’ve worked for Colonel Icelos before,” Jac
inthe said.
"No, ma’am.”
"Oh, I thought he recognized you.”
Ariane made a mental note about Jacinthe’s observational skills.
"You took the entry test for crew while stationed at Pelagos.”
Once again, Ariane’s jaw tightened. Apparently, Jacinthe had read her record.
"Yes.”
"Didn’t make the cut, huh?”
"No, ma’am.”
Ariane was relieved when they reached the training bay. The treaty defined training facilities as inspectable areas because there were operational modules from the Naga weapons systems installed in the bay and there was room for possible warhead storage. Now Ariane could throw some barbs of her own.
"Colonel, since your training bay is so far from station entry, you’ll have to blank all rosters, schedules, and daily orders from the walls between the two areas. You’ll also have to suspend all crew training during the course of any inspection.”
"That’ll throw off our certification schedules. How much notification do we get?” Apparently, Jacinthe had paid less attention to the treaty protocols than Ariane’s records. Perhaps she was testing Ariane’s knowledge?
"Each side is required to give two UT days’ notification of inspection, and the notification must identify a specific facility. As the inspection team approaches, they must announce their intent to connect twenty UT hours away, then twenty minutes away. The facility to be inspected must allow inspectors to board within one hour of connection. By then, you must clear everything of intelligence value or anything that identifies personnel.”
"I assume you can provide us with checklists, Major. We’ll adjust them for Karthage and have command post drive the procedures.” Jacinthe sighed. Her gaze went to the schedule board for the modules, showing which crews were inside for training or evaluation. She headed for an observation cab, motioning Ariane to follow.
Ariane glanced at the board also. The senior crew was under evaluation in the module they were entering. Since the senior crew designed all Karthage crew evaluations and training, a visiting senior crew from another squadron had to perform the evaluation. Three heads turned when Jacinthe and Ariane entered the cab, then focused back on their work. The cab, attached to the Naga module, had equipment that recorded everything that went on inside the module. On video, as well as through windows, Ariane saw the familiar interior of the Naga control center, although this was the Naga-26. The Naga-26 was the newest version of the weapons system and had been fielded after the war.
Peacekeeper Page 7
