Artemis Files 0.5: Lexington

by Bradley Warnes

  Pausing in mid-step, the man softened his voice in commiseration. “Commander, this is an honourable assignment considering the circumstances. Just remember it isn’t forever, and when you return you’ll be able to get on with life without the media being in your face.”

  The man smiled and reached into a pocket, pulling out a small item.

  “There is one other item I’ve been asked to deliver. It’s a package from Valentine’s Gate in Windsor addressed to you personally. I don’t know what’s in it, but one of the Royal Equerries hand delivered it to me before boarding the Packet Boat to come out here.”

  Remaining silent, he reached out for the flex and the small box, knowing there were dozens of questions he wanted to ask, but biting his tongue. Between the bureaucrats, the Admiralty, and Royal Family, his fate had been determined without thought to what he wanted. He should be used to it after a career in the navy, but sometimes it just hit you in the face how callous the entire nature of service life could be to individuals.

  “Well good luck, Commander and don’t forget this is a very honourable duty being imparted to you, one that is going to make a difference. Tonight, when your commission is stripped from you while streamed to the media, be strong in the knowledge that you are doing the right thing. Now….”

  Turning his attention to the view outside, he tuned out the officer and the shallow platitudes wishing good fortune and adventures, leaving the man to exit without a word in return. With his eyes fixed on the snow-capped mountains, he stared into the distance and tried to clear his mind. The answers would come soon. If only he could clear his mind, he might understand why this was happening to him again.

  The sound of the door opening again disturbed the attempt to clear his mind. Ignoring it, he knew the Captain had returned with one more nugget of advice that would seal his fate.

  “So you’re the one.” A different voice announced, the words spat out as if the speaker had swallowed gravel, chewed it for a day and was spitting out the remaining detritus after his teeth had ground it down.

  He didn’t recognise the man standing inside the doorway dressed in a military issue black combat skin replete with holstered weapons and fat fingers stabbing the air in his direction. Silver haired, the deeply lined and tanned face studied him carefully, blue-grey eyes sweeping up and down as if to assess his worth.

  “I’m Farquhar, the unlucky bastard tasked as your babysitter. If you’ve finished daydreaming for today, I need to start your physical training. Come on, time’s wasting while you sit there making moon faces out the window.”

  Scratching his chin, he shook his head. “I’ve only just found out about this, don’t I have time to read the briefing flex first?”

  The man stared at him as if he’d just been insulted. Lifting a heavily muscled arm between them, he saw a finger stretch out to beckon him forward.

  “There’s three rules you need to learn while you’re in my charge, son… One - I’m your God for the next few weeks and whatever I say, you do without question. Two - if you don’t listen to what I say, you’ll be given a new deployment inside a metal box on a decaying orbit bound for the closest sun. Three - whoever you were and whatever you did before today doesn’t matter any more… you’re mine and until I hand you over to the poor SOB’s on Lexington, your worthless life is in my hands. Do you understand, Montclare?”

  “No, I don’t understand, and it’s Commander Montclare, if you don’t mind. I’ve given my life’s blood to earn the rank and you can at least give me the benefit of addressing me by it.”

  The man’s face split into a smile, one that sent a chill down his spine as brown-stained teeth were revealed and the grey eyes stared at him.

  “You were a Commander in the Flying Corps, but now you’re nothing but a piece of shit stuck to the bottom of my boot. Your life as a pampered, wallflower hanging around palaces or as a show-off, flyboy pilot is over, so get your arse into gear now. Otherwise, we can start your training with a hand to hand demonstration lesson… and I promise whatever you’ve learned in your misbegotten youth and service years, it won’t be enough.”

  Chapter 3

  “Can you understand what I’m telling you when I say the man is not fit for this operation? He was serving on Galway to recover from the injuries and treatment in a POW camp… sure it was at the personal request of Duchess Langford, but it’s a fact nonetheless. Now she’s broken-off the engagement by flex, he’s in a fragile state. We can’t send him out, not with one of these ships. He’s liable to break or do something to reveal the nature of the mission. We….”

  “How do you know she’s dumped him?” The man’s voice asked, interrupting the doctor.

  “We found the engagement ring and flex in the garbage chute. You know all his waste materials are checked, so when I saw them I knew it’s raising the warning threshold too high. It’s making this a very risky prospect, so I want to….”

  “Doctor, listen to me carefully. I’m only going to say it once more, after that you’ll be removed from this project and sent to some godforsaken posting out in the backwaters of the Frontier. I have it on good authority that if the Commander disappeared out there, people back home wouldn’t mind. He’s going, Doc, no matter what your findings tell you. Your job is just to make certain he doesn’t go loco before we give him the ship and send him away.”

  He could hear the threat in the man’s voice, even if she couldn’t. He’d seen men like this before in his career, even before he was in the navy when only a young kid on Galway and mixed up with the rebellion. They were dangerous, focussed only on their orders and how to successfully execute the mission without care for anyone else being hurt in the process. During his time flying attack boats, pilots with the same attitude wouldn’t last long and were soon killed, caught up in their own fixation on a target or strict adherence to mission objectives.

  Over the past few weeks, he’d also come to learn more about him from too close a perspective, one that still left scars and bruises across his body after their training sessions.

  “Mister Farquhar, you can’t threaten me. Admiral Vanderlin appointed me specifically to review all our contributions to the project. So listen to me when I say Commander Montclare is a serious risk. At the first sign of a problem, he is likely to fight rather than run away, his record is clear about that point. All his OER’s agree that he’s immature and acts without giving correct analysis to a situation, charging in to battle without thinking of safer, more alternate solutions. The escapade with the POW camp is the clearest example… it was only pure luck he managed to pull Duchess Langford out of there before they discovered her identity.”

  “It doesn’t matter what his efficiency reports say… he is being tasked with this assignment. It comes from a higher authority than either of us can control.”

  The man’s voice lowered and he couldn’t hear anything else that was said in response. But after several minutes and the Doctor’s grunts, he heard her voice again.

  “I’m making a note in his file and sending it up the chain. He’s already under tremendous stress and the tasks he’ll do while he’s out there are only going to increase it. This makes him a risk, not only to his own frame of mind but to everyone else in the project. If he cracks, he’s liable to develop any number of psychoses, and while not a risk of doing harm to others, he is very likely to disappear with one of our expensive spaceships. I can see it clearly, even if you can’t.”

  The man’s reply was muffled, and before he could strain himself to hear, the hatch opened. The man lingered in the doorway to study him, grey eyes flecked with blue looking him up and down.

  After a significant pause, the man smiled. “What did you hear?”

  Shrugging, he looked past to the Doctor, her face pale and wan. She avoided his eyes and stared at her comlink, fingers sliding through the holo-display.

  “Not much… she wants me to stay and you want me to go, hopefully to never return. Is there anything I missed in that?”


  “Don’t be a smart-arse, Montclare, it will get you killed out there one day. Go in and see the Doc for your therapy session, after that I’ll see you back in the cargo bay for more hand-to-hand training. Got it?”

  “Sure….”

  They stared at each other, neither giving ground. He knew the man would try to pummel him to pieces in the training, despite all the dirty tricks he’d learned on the streets as a teenager and in the ranks of the navy, but he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction now. Setting his jaw, the older man pushed past and ambled slowly down the narrow corridor of the Packet Boat. Fixing a smile on his face, he entered the office and waited for the hatch to close before sitting.

  Glancing up, her watery brown eyes avoided his and focussed on the bulkhead behind his shoulder. Reaching up, she padded her light brown hair to stall for time.

  “Did you hear what I said?” She finally asked, her tone uncertain.

  Since meeting her two weeks ago, he had learned that she tried to avoid confrontation where possible. A habit that was noticeable in her dealings with him in their daily sessions, although when pushed, she’d stubbornly stand up for her beliefs or opinion and lose the well-practiced calm.

  “Yes, Doc, I heard most of it. I didn’t know you went through my garbage… if I’d known; I would have just kept everything clean and tidy for your spies to collect.”

  Still avoiding his eyes, she leaned forward. “So how does that make you feel? What comes into your mind, considering we know about Duchess Langford breaking the engagement banns?”

  He gave a shrug and leaned forward in a similar manner to herself. “How do you think it makes me feel?”

  “I’m asking you… I can make an assumption, but I’d like to know what is going on in your mind. Throwing the questions back on me won’t help the matter. So tell me….”

  Giving a loud exhale, he leaned back and shook his head. “Look, Doc, if you want to know the truth it was probably on the cards for awhile. We rushed into a relationship while serving together on the carrier… she was flying one of the ASRAC boats, the Advanced System Reconnaissance and Control craft used to gather intelligence, provide jamming and early warning, or to cover the attack boats on their missions. After the POW camp, we just sort of fell into our engagement through romantic happenstance, but I guess it was never going to be more than a semi-serious fling. I’m not from a good pedigree or bloodline, so the Royal Family hated me because of that and made sure I knew it every day we were together. Another thing is that we never set a date for a wedding, or spoke of a life together outside of the service… we drifted together. I always thought it was from the circumstances of our meeting and her wanting to escape the rigours of nobility… but over the last few months I guess I knew it was coming one day.”

  “I see, and does that make you feel angry, resentful… do you harbour ill feelings toward the nobility or your fiancée?”

  Releasing a sarcastic laugh, he rolled his eyes. “Listen, Doc, I heard you and Farquhar. Whatever my state of mind about all this, it doesn’t matter in the big picture. Someone wants me to disappear out there in the Hinterlands, so whatever I’m feeling has no regard. Let’s be honest here, there’s more to this deployment than I gather from the initial briefing documents, can you tell me what the real scoop is?”

  Crossing her arms about herself, he watched as she closed up. The body language was as clear as the frown appearing on her face.

  “It’s not my place to say, not that I even know the whole picture. I’m just part of the process for evaluating the potential crews. If this were a normal situation and you came under review for the mission, I can tell you that you wouldn’t be selected. There are too many flags in your file from your past, then your manner of thinking without giving due thought to the bigger picture, or the innate distrust of the system. Bren, this is a team effort and you’re too much of a solo player.”

  “If you’ve seen my file, then you know there is a reason for much of that. If you were press-ganged into the navy because of a crime you didn’t commit… then you might be distrustful of the system too. It was only thanks to a deathbed confession that my past crimes were found to be made up so one of the rebels could escape the death penalty.”

  “For which the kingdom was very apologetic and offered you a commission and wide choice of assignments in reparation.”

  “I was a teenager and they’d already written me off as guilty of the bombing… doesn’t matter what they do later to try and make up for it. I was judged and sentenced accordingly. Just like now, I’ve been judged for the Governor-General’s assassination and sentenced accordingly, exile to the Hinterlands. Where’s the justice, Doc, when a bureaucratic system, the Royal Family, or people like Farquhar can just decide my fate without consideration of the facts?”

  “Don’t you think that’s just a social construction of reality forcing those ideas upon you?”

  “They seem real to me.”

  She regarded him in silence for a long minute, and then with a hand waving toward the porthole, she cleared her throat.

  “This is a delicate mission, in which you will be the eyes and ears of the kingdom. You have to be careful out there, and as its been decided that you’re to go alone it’s going to be even more dangerous. You need to be slow to anger, clear of thought, showing caution in everything you do. You’ll have a high-tech starship, one that will adjust itself to your behaviour and attitude over time, hence the questions I’m asking in these sessions. In all of this, the role you’ll undertake is as important as the strike missions you used to fly, the future of the kingdom is out there in those worlds and through careful judgement, you can guide future progress. This is a big responsibility… do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He gave her the nod she was seeking.

  “You’ve been given information flexes about the region, but they don’t paint the picture as well as experience. The Hinterlands is a desperate place, thousands of systems that have collapsed into barbarity and become de-civilised. You have some jewels that everyone in the core knows about like Elysium, Mithere, and so on… but most of the worlds will have people trying to kill you for your starship, perceived secrets of technology, or even because you dress in the wrong type of clothes. At Lexington, they’ll provide a more in depth briefing on which worlds are safe and which to avoid, but in all of this you’re going to be alone and the final judgement is up to you. Based on what I’ve heard from returning crews, you can’t trust anybody out there.”

  “Pretty much sounds like here.”

  She snorted and shook her head. “That’s why I don’t think you’re ready for this role! I believe you’re too immature and carrying emotional baggage that will harm your perspective.” She cleared her throat and avoided his eyes. “Listen to me, Bren, we aren’t your enemies, and this isn’t a sim… this is a real mission with important consequences.”

  “Sure, Doc….”

  Giving a sigh, she watched him with those watery brown eyes finally meeting his. When the silence drew long enough to become uncomfortable, she offered a smile.

  “There is a purpose to all these sessions we’re doing, you know. It’s important that we establish a baseline of your psych profile, analysing how you think and react to certain stimuli. Down the road, whenever you check in with the supply tender or return to Lexington, you’ll undergo follow up sessions to verify your identity… just to make certain that you haven’t been changed in some manner. The medical staff will be doing the same thing, ensuring that your physiology remains within current frames of tolerance.”

  He listened to her words, processing what she wasn’t saying and not finding enough to form answers to satisfy his curiosity. They were going to a lot of trouble here just to send him out on exile, so what were they afraid of out there?

  “One curiosity highlighted from our examinations this week is your latent psi potential. If you were in the ISA, they’d earmark you for specialised training in one of the intelligence departments or the
military. Are you aware of your talents, have any powers manifested?”

  “No… and I don’t really hold much stock in psionics.”

  “You should, it’s real enough. It’s just a shame it wasn’t discovered earlier because you might have received training to harness some of the potential. As it is, you’re too old for the training regimen they give psionic adepts so it’s just a note in your file to add to the baseline metrics.” Observing his expression, she leaned forward and pointed to the comlink sitting on her desk. “It’s even more important in your case that we have these baseline readings done. The other teams are made up of Special Forces or handpicked service personnel, and they’ll have their own checks and balances aboard. For most of them, once selected for the mission, they go through six to twelve months preparation, not only for the ship but also for the activities they’ll undertake as part of their cover. Again, concessions are being made for you and it’s suggested that you should play the role of a merchant and rogue… something the initial sessions indicate should be right up your alley.”

  “Rogue?”

  “Yes, and if I was you, I’d grow out your hair and dress accordingly. One of the team at Lexington will take you through a quick course in commerce broking and trading, but again it’s going to be abbreviated from what we offer to the others.”

  “Okay, if you insist.”

  She frowned at him. “It’s a suggestion… and one I’d listen to carefully. The other teams will on the main be acting as mercenaries or privateers, but in your case it’s not possible.”

  “Of course.”

  Releasing a deep sigh, she leaned back in her chair.

  “I know you hate these sessions, but we still have thirty minutes before your physical training with Mister Farquhar. I’d like to use this time to delve into more of your underlying motivations and value choices. The two examples I’m interested this time is the period at New Algiers when you were first deployed as a TAB pilot and before that when you were still an enlisted rating and encountered your first slaver.”