Spoils of War

by Terry Mixon

  She’d decided that Anders could wait. He had a decent idea of what was going on, and she needed to figure out a few of the mysteries aboard this ship.

  One of those mysteries had been the captain’s quarters. Someone had gone to the trouble of ripping out the bulkheads around it and making an almost palatial suite of compartments. Like in the conference room, they looked costly and were stuffed with luxuries. Definitely not something one found in Fleet.

  All of the prisoners were dressed in orange ship suits, undoubtedly to make sure that if any of them got loose, they’d be instantly recognizable. Doctor DuBois had made a pass through the unconscious prisoners and said that without a more detailed examination, he couldn’t be sure, but they looked healthy enough.

  Her decision made, Grace took up a spot against one of the walls, ate a ration bar, and drank some water. She watched with interest as the prisoners began groaning and twitching.

  Having been stunned herself, she knew they were going to have ugly headaches for hours after the event. Still, she’d bet they’d be happy enough at having been freed.

  The new surroundings confused the befuddled crew. Or at least most of them. One in particular was very quick on the uptake.

  She watched the middle-aged man with shoulder-length brown hair and striking gray eyes staring around the room after he’d sat up. He seemingly only blinked twice before he stood and took a narrower scan that settled on her.

  He staggered when he started walking but managed to make it to her without falling over.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “What happened?”

  His voice was raspy and dry, but he had the tone of someone who was used to giving orders and being obeyed. Perhaps he was the ship’s captain or one of her senior officers.

  Or, based on some of the other oddities, something completely different.

  “I’m Grace Tolliver,” she said. “We’ve seized this ship and freed you. Whoever you are.”

  The man frowned as he sank into a handy chair, already rubbing his temples. “A cross-border raid, then. That would mean that your people are operating under a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. So, you’re basically active-duty Fleet and marine personnel operating under cover of having been released from service. Is that correct?”

  She smiled slightly. “If you’re familiar with the process, then you know that I’m not supposed to confirm that. Let me repeat my question: who are you? In fact, what is this ship, and how did you get captured?”

  “That’s something of a tale. Shouldn’t we be focusing on our safety first? Not that our captors were giving us much information, but we have to be inside the Singularity by now. I can’t imagine how you captured this ship, but they won’t have been traveling alone. What are we going to do next?”

  Grace put a little bit of iron into her tone. “We aren’t going to do anything unless you tell me who you are.”

  He chuckled darkly. “You’d hardly know it by looking at me, but I’m Lord Reginald Fowler, Duke DeSantis.”

  The Imperial nobility wasn’t commonplace—which was kind of the point—but there were enough of them, and they were spread out to the point where Grace certainly didn’t know very many of them at all by name, much less sight.

  A duke might have heavy responsibilities or none at all. It wasn’t as if a noble title necessarily meant one was qualified to do important work. Though, she had to admit that if the man had a heavy cruiser outfitted for his use, he was probably somebody of note.

  “I’m afraid that I’m not familiar with you, Your Grace,” she said. “Perhaps you could add a few details. How did the Singularity capture you?”

  “I’m fairly sure that I was betrayed,” he said as he scanned the compartment and his waking people. “I command the Parasis Sector militia. I was moving between worlds when we were ambushed by half a dozen Singularity warships that were concealed inside an asteroid belt.

  “We were a couple of flips away from the border, so we weren’t really expecting to contact enemy ships, particularly in force. Someone that knew my schedule had to have leaked it for them to be able to find us so readily.”

  “And you chose to surrender?” she tried to keep any judgment out of her voice, because there were circumstances in which surrender was the right choice.

  “We didn’t have an option,” he said bitterly. “Someone sabotaged both of our fusion plants. We lost power, and they were able to board us before we could stop them. The captain did the best he could, but they were shielded against the antiboarding weapons, and we just couldn’t stop them.

  “Our marines died trying to anyway, but they boarded us so quickly that my people didn’t even have time to get into powered armor.”

  Grace had never heard of any kind of cross-border raid with this kind of sophistication. If true, the Singularity had set out to capture one of the high nobles of the Empire. That by itself would be enough to start a war. A real war.

  “I should get you and your senior officers to brief Captain Anders. Formerly Lieutenant Commander Anders. He’ll be able to sort out what’s going on while we’re formulating a plan to get this ship out of the Singularity.”

  Fowler shook his head. “The bastards executed every single officer on the ship and all the surviving marines. All that’s left are the enlisted crew. A lot of them are formally Fleet, but not all. Gargoyle used to be a Fleet heavy cruiser until she was seconded to me. Having former Fleet personnel serve on her made a lot of sense.”

  At least Grace now had a name for the ship and an idea of why some of the things about her were so unusual.

  “According to the Singularity officer in command when we seized the ship, one of the fusion plants had failed completely,” she said. “The other one was questionable, and they were waiting for repairs. They sent their escorts off to investigate what we blew up during our raid.

  “Our time is short, and we’ve got to get this ship in motion if we intend to keep her. Otherwise, we’re going to have to scuttle her and stuff all of you into the freighter that we’re traveling on. If we can get you all.”

  The man rose to his feet, clutching at the side of his head. “I think we’d best go to see your commander. If my people can help, you’ll have them. If I can help, you have me. Time is exceptionally short, Lieutenant. You are a marine lieutenant, correct?”

  Grace nodded as she stood. “I used to be. Do you have any staff that you need?”

  He shook his head grimly. “No. They shared the fate of the officers. The bastards spaced them.”

  Hearing that enraged Grace, but she didn’t have time to deal with it now. They had the bastards prisoner, and they’d pay. She’d see to that.

  While they still had a chance of getting out of the Singularity with this ship, every minute that passed made the challenge more difficult. Those two destroyers were going to come back at some point, and when they did, there was going to be a fight. A fight they’d almost certainly lose.

  One Twenty-Four woke abruptly, blinking as she saw Fei removing the somatic stimulator from her forehead. She sat up and saw that Gerard Dubois, the doctor that had performed the procedure, was already working on other patients, leaving her alone with her mentor.

  “Everything went as planned,” Fei said. “Since Gerard doesn’t speak the tongue, he thought it best if I take you through your testing to be sure that everything is working properly. Besides, I have a lot more experience working with this kind of hardware than he does.

  “We’re actually very lucky that the Singularity didn’t destroy the equipment. I’d imagine that would’ve happened in due course, but they hadn’t gotten around to wrecking the implantation hardware or dumping the implants and nanogenerators themselves.”

  “Why didn’t they?” One Twenty-Four asked. “From the way that Keeper spoke about that kind of thing, I’d have expected it.”

  Fei shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out when we start questioning the Singularity crew. They should be waking up about now. No need to worry. All of th
em are safely locked away under heavy guard. How are you feeling?”

  One Twenty-Four considered the question. How did she feel?

  Honestly, no differently than she had before. For someone that had just had a machine implanted in her head, she felt amazingly… normal.

  “I feel fine. How does it work?”

  Fei helped One Twenty-Four swing her legs over the side of the bed and sat next to her.

  She was still wearing her skinsuit, so the surgery on her torso must’ve been conducted with it open, and then the doctor had resealed it. Or perhaps Fei had done so.

  Fei put a hand on One Twenty-Four’s leg. “There’s a lot to learning how to use implants. Each person’s experience is different. Think of it like an artificial person listening for your instructions, which then attempts to carry out your orders and present you with information. It’s going to learn from you while you’re learning from it.

  “It may seem intrusive, but the implants are always listening for you to issue them an order. I’ll walk you through accessing it for the first time, and after that, it’s going to be a matter of you experimenting to see what works best for you. Are you ready?”

  One Twenty-Four felt as if she should be terrified, but she wasn’t. This felt like the right step for her. She was almost like an Imperial Marine, and no one could take that from her now.

  “I’m ready,” she said after taking a deep breath.

  “I want you to think this as concisely as you can,” Fei said. “Focus hard and act as if you’re speaking inside your mind. ‘Implant initiation status check.’”

  One Twenty-Four spoke those words in her mind, and information suddenly blossomed onto her awareness. It was almost as if she were reading a screen of data, but it wasn’t visual. It wasn’t like something was speaking to her, either.

  Everything seemed to be working as designed, though she wasn’t sure how she knew that. Her cranial implants were represented in the list, and so was the nanogenerator. Her medical nanites were inactive, though they had been customized to her DNA.

  Based on what Fei had told her, active medical nanites would influence her developing body, and the results of that weren’t always predictable. None of that was guaranteed to be bad, but the Empire was cautious in how they treated their young.

  Perhaps overly so.

  One Twenty-Four knew from personal experience that the Singularity didn’t share that viewpoint.

  When she’d wondered to herself about what the medical nanites could do to a developing child, it was as if she’d read several articles on the subject, and the information was impressed on her mind. It all happened in an instant and made her smile. It was like having the knowledge at her fingertips even though she hadn’t known that she needed it.

  According to the information her implants provided, the medical nanites had a genetic image of what her body should be. The fact that her body was still developing meant that their perception of her was that of an adult. Prematurely activating them had the potential for the nanites to attempt to “heal” her from “injuries” that were, in fact, part of her being a child.

  She wondered if she could instruct the medical nanites to only look for trauma. The answer came back immediately that she could not, but that the doctor might be able to do so.

  It was as if an operating manual for her medical nanites was present in her mind. It felt as if she had been reading it for minutes, but her implants informed her that only a couple of seconds had passed.

  It seemed that her cranial implants could provide her with the time as well. That might be useful.

  “I have questions,” she said slowly. “The medical nanites indicate that the problem with a child having active medical nanites is that they can inappropriately alter a body that’s still developing.

  “Is it possible to have the medical nanites perform an assessment of my body on a daily basis and use that as a template for its repairs? I can’t imagine that my body would develop too much in such a short period of time.

  “If I was actually injured, then they could perform their designated function without harming me or my development. If I was hurt, they could be instructed not to use the damaged areas as part of the template for future updates until I’d healed.”

  Fei seemed to think about that for a moment and then slowly nodded. “I’ve just checked my own implants and asked some questions from the data that I took the time to store there about medical nanites. Data that I made sure was uploaded to your implants as well.

  “It should be possible, but I’m not an expert. We should ask Doctor DuBois.”

  The marine waved a hand at the doctor, and he came over. They spoke in Imperial Standard, so One Twenty-Four wasn’t able to understand what they were saying.

  Or was she?

  She instructed her implants to translate what they were saying into the tongue and was immediately presented with a translation of the words being spoken. It sounded a little rough but was more comprehensible than Grace’s accent.

  “Gerard,” Fei said. “Andrea has a question that I’m not comfortable answering, and we’d like to hear your medical opinion. She thinks that it should be possible to have her nanogenerator update its template of her body on a daily basis rather than keeping them inactive.

  “That would allow them to protect her while not putting her body in danger as it’s developing. What’s your opinion?”

  The man shrugged slightly. “I can update them to do that. Since her implants are active, it’s going to take her approval for the change, but it will only take a minute. Even young adults that get medical nanites have to go through this process, because their bodies don’t actually stop developing until their mid-twenties.

  “Even longer, really, because of the regenerative properties of the nanites themselves. If I do, her development will slow down and she’ll look like she’s in her mid-teens when she becomes a legal adult.

  “The final programming doesn’t usually go into place until the recipients are in their mid-thirties. We’re starting this way earlier than I’d prefer, but with proper monitoring, it shouldn’t be dangerous, though she might not be fully developed until she’s in her forties. Considering how much risk we’re at, it’s probably a prudent decision.”

  Fei considered that and slowly nodded. “I’ll explain this to her, and we’ll do it now.”

  “I… understand you and… concur,” One Twenty-Four said haltingly in Standard.

  Her mentor’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re very quick on the uptake, Little One. Most people don’t figure out that they can have their implants translate for them for quite some time.”

  Fei turned back toward the doctor. “Let’s get this done so that I can get her out of here and leave you to your work.”

  While the doctor brought out his equipment, One Twenty-Four looked at Fei and switched back to the tongue. “What are we going to do next?”

  “Grace said that she found the people previously in charge of the ship. They’re going to be briefing Captain Anders very shortly. I think it would be best if you’re in the room.”

  One Twenty-Four frowned. “Why?”

  “Apparently, the owner is someone very powerful inside the Empire. Grace feels that if you’re presented appropriately, he might make a powerful advocate to speak on your behalf.

  “The best way to do that is for you to be present when they explain how your actions and your background helped turn the tide of battle.

  “Then, when he questions you, you can explain how you’ve left that life behind and what you want in your own words. If you can convince him of your sincerity, he could be a powerful protector.”

  The idea of having to convince someone to protect her was unsettling, but One Twenty-Four steeled her nerve. If she needed to convince someone of her value, then she’d do so.

  What Fei hadn’t mentioned was that if she failed to win this man’s support, he could just as easily condemn her. No pressure.

  34

  After con
sulting with Anders about the meeting location, Grace led Duke Fowler to the briefing room just off the bridge. Unlike the one that now was obviously the Imperial noble’s territory, this one was spare and military in appearance.

  Anders sat at the head of the table with the officers that Grace recognized as being in charge of the major departments aboard Bright Passage. The only one that was missing was Alan Kyle. That probably meant that he was on the bridge, keeping watch in case trouble came calling.

  As soon as she and Fowler entered the briefing room, Anders stood, and the rest of his officers stood with him. It was a show of respect for someone socially superior to themselves even though the man was still dressed in prison orange.

  Anders started to give up his seat, but Fowler waved a hand in negation and sat farther down the table. “Let’s not stand on ceremony. I understand that we’re in a very bad position, and I don’t want to waste any time bowing and scraping. You’ve seized Gargoyle from the Singularity, and that puts you in command. We can sort everything else out when we have time.”

  Without bothering to argue, Anders resumed his seat, and his officers followed half a beat later.

  Grace leaned against the wall just as Na came in with Andrea in tow. The girl had her helmet on, so her tattoos weren’t visible. That was probably a good thing right now, because that was a needless distraction when they were on the clock.

  Andrea wouldn’t stand out, because there were a couple of marines in the mercenary armor stationed at the back of the briefing room with their helmets on.

  Well, Andrea wouldn’t stand out because of the armor anyway. The fact that she was so much shorter and slimmer than the marines would probably register at some point, but for the moment, Fowler hadn’t noticed.

  When he did, there was going to have to be an explanation, and then she’d see how he responded. As a powerful Imperial noble, his support could open a lot of doors. His resistance could also hamper Andrea’s ultimate chances of success. It was a gamble but one that was worth taking.