Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder)

by Scott Rhine

  The doctor read the Japanese man’s bio-monitors remotely from a handheld device. “He might finish this hurdle but we’ll have to carry him out if he does.”

  Zeiss shook his head. “No good. Red, this shortcut is burning too much time and resources. I say we walk the long way. Herk already blazed the trail.”

  She called Sojiro back to his body and snapped, “Double-time it.” The doctor and Zeiss helped the dazed Japanese man keep up with the rest of the team.

  At T-plus eight minutes, Herkemer reported, “First floor was too hot to continue. We had to ascend the elevator shaft to second floor. The catwalk is open to observation from above. Wires and bubbles are everywhere, so be careful.”

  Red’s group was scaling the shaft to the second floor by T-plus nine minutes. She was first up. “I see you, Herk. You’re ninety meters out. Hold location and send me your position history file. We’ll use it to thread the maze in fast-forward.”

  “Roger. Transmitting. We’re stuck at a chasm anyway.”

  She whispered, “Just let me clean up the false branches. Here.” Red broadcast an overhead photo overlay. “Everyone follow me single-file as soon as you hit this floor.”

  At T-plus eleven, as Red met up with Herk, he pointed to a glass cube. “I think we’ve spotted the data core. It’s down there to your right.”

  “In the middle of nuclear hell,” Zeiss noted all the bubbles seething below.

  “We can almost touch it!” Red cheered.

  An armada of glass-bottomed boats observed their every move.

  “Half the team is still strung out along the catwalk,” Zeiss noted. “We’ll see if any of them has a brainstorm before we commit.”

  The entire team could hear Apelu singing the song “Let’s Dance”, but instead of ‘serious moonlight’, he said, “Sirius Moonfight.” The Samoan chuckled at his own wit.

  “Keep the channel clear,” Red ordered.

  “Check his oxygen mix and pupil response,” suggested Auckland.

  Yvette, with Herk’s team replied, “Roger.”

  When the nurse approached, the Samoan roared and tossed her off the edge into the mass of bubbles. “Speargun!” shouted Zeiss.

  To those nearby, Herk shouted, “Back off, don’t try to take him! Something’s wrong.” Over the growls and chuckles of the Samoan, he said, “He has symptoms of page break, a form of psychosis . . . shit!” He blocked a blow from the other man with his teak speargun stock.

  After she landed, Yvette shot her gun into the wooden side of the nearest observation craft. Climbing the line, she read her badge. “780 . . . 840 . . . 860. (pant) Thank you, confidence course training. Holding at 870.”

  “I can cut his air line from here,” Red said, taking aim.

  The Rex slammed Herk against the dome wall with a roar.

  “Nobody dies today!” Zeiss insisted pushing her arm outward and down.

  The stretching action caused her to fire her weapon. She watched in shock as her spear shattered the glass cube of the data core. “You did that on purpose!” Red accused.

  “Core destroyed, safe from the enemy. Evacuate all personnel now!” Zeiss ordered. “Use the guns; follow Yvette.”

  Herk dropped his dark-blue dye bomb to sow confusion and avoid getting crushed by the rampaging Rex. The dye expanded outward like squid ink or alien blood.

  Auckland radioed on the public band as he fled, “Emergency medical team needed for Apelu. Psychotic page-break in progress.”

  When the boats realized that students were targeting them, they fled in all directions, dragging the attached test-takers along.

  Zeiss shot his spear into the stern of a fleeing vessel and handed the line to Red. “Go! The water will slow you too much. He’ll kill you.” When she hesitated, he added, “Do I have to get Herk to tie you to this? You’re too important!”

  “Come with me,” she said, grabbing the gun with both hands.

  “Trust me,” her husband begged.

  Herk put an arm around her as they were dragged over the catwalk, dodging pipes, plumes, and wires.

  The Rex stepped out of the cloud, laughing. “You gonna take me by yourself, Taz?”

  “No,” Zeiss said, keeping his distance. “I’m here to keep you company until help arrives.”

  Apelu ripped a two meter length of pipe off the set and advanced. “I swim better than you.”

  A large, muscular, gray form plowed the Samoan over from behind. “But not better than them,” Zeiss said, referring to the dolphins. To the newcomer, he said, “Grateful greeting, Cheerful. Not shark.”

  The Rex rose to his knees. “WTF?”

  “He thinks you’re a people-shark. Stay down while I talk to him and the others out of their misconception,” explained Zeiss. “If you put down the weapon and stop broadcasting aggression, the pod of dolphins can carry us both to safety. Either way, I’m not leaving you until you get help. What do you say?”

  “You know what I’m going to do to you, Taz?” The Rex narrowed his eyes.

  “Why don’t you tell me in detail?” Zeiss suggested, sidling out of range again.

  The light for point-to-point personal message came on inside Zeiss’s helmet as the Rex said congenially, “I’m going to take you to the surface, sit you in Rogers’ boat, and force scotch on you till you wanna puke.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You passed the test—the first team to get away with every team member alive and not put one of us in the hospital. For which I owe you personally. I almost pissed myself when your wife took aim at my head with that speargun.”

  Rogers came over the channel. “That’s confirmed. I’m awarding 140 points for the people, 10 for the time, and 25 for destroying the data core as a secondary goal. That’s 175 points with the condition that you become team lead, Taz.”

  “But Red . . .” Zeiss objected.

  “Failed,” Rogers replied. “Every good decision your team made, starting from the planning, came from you. Decide. Team one went down in flames; it was like a teen horror movie. They stayed separated and between the Rex, the radiation, and the traps, we nailed them all. Team three only scored 95 last year. They still haven’t figured out there’s no way the data core leaves this base. The enemy strike team hits them at the launch pad if they get close. You’re going to win, but only if you want to.”

  Zeiss sat on the edge of the catwalk and rubbed the dolphin’s flank as it swam by. “I’ll do it, sir, but can I ride away with the medics to give me a little time?”

  “Affirmative, but no contact with your team. I’ll tell them you’re safe, and that they shouldn’t share information with the final testing group.”

  Zeiss had the mock medical crew take him straight to Trina’s boat to ask for help.

  ****

  Red was sitting with Risa in the changing room when Trina arrived. The rest of the team went to mourn and await the details of Zeiss’s probable maiming. Trina opened with, “The faculty sent me to give you the news. Frankly, the rest of them are as afraid of you as that poor Rex was.”

  “What?” Red asked, indignant.

  “Sonrisa, could you tell the others that Taz escaped without a scratch?” the professor asked. “Oh, and mention that you won the competition.”

  “Yes, sir!” Risa agreed, leaving the other two to speak in private.

  “That’s great!” Red said. “Where’s Z?”

  “Getting debriefed.”

  “Why?”

  “The faculty went over every second of the exercise with him twice—made him justify everything he did. In the end, they confirmed him unanimously. He’s a team lead.”

  “He?”

  “You need to be happy for him, Mira.”

  Tears of frustration welled in Red’s eyes.

  “What is the first concern of our Academy?” demanded Trina.

  “Safety of the astronauts,” she replied.

  “That’s what Taz did out there today. You were going to shoot your own team member!” T
rina accused.

  “He was a Rex,” the younger woman insisted. “He needed to be put down!”

  “It was all staged as a psychological test!” her aunt hissed. “You failed miserably. Taz saved you from your own knee-jerk responses. The only doubt was whether Taz figured the scam early. All the monitors agree that his responses were genuine. When you wanted to stay, his heart red-lined.” After a long pause for the information to sink in, Trina said, “Conrad made a bargain so you could get to space: he leads. You can’t be trusted with life-or-death calls when you want something too badly.”

  Red was blinking out tears and struggling to breathe as Trina continued. “Those notes in his file that you wanted to see? Z told you ages ago—anger management. He said he’d never met someone who held onto more anger and resentment. If you don’t let it go, it’s going to poison everything in your life. I was hoping that marriage would take the edge off. It has—some. But you’re too self-centered to lead.”

  “Hypocrite!” shouted Red. “People are just as afraid of you—killer!”

  Professor Horvath flinched at the word but held her ground. “I draw lines. I protect family rather than hurt them. In our home, I can be Trina, not Nena Horvath.”

  “I can be Mira,” the girl wailed.

  “Really? What’s Conrad’s birthday?” Trina asked. When Red couldn’t answer, the teacher followed up with, “Too hard? What’s his middle name?”

  “He doesn’t have one,” Red claimed.

  “Wrong—it’s Heinrich after his father. He doesn’t use it because he doesn’t want any part of the man. His favorite food?”

  “Pancakes,” Red said.

  “No, he said that for your sake. He likes angel food, scallops, and fresh pumpernickel. You hate scallops so he does without that, too.”

  “He never complains to me about that,” Red whispered. “But the fact that he doesn’t get the seafood he wants doesn’t justify his stealing my team.”

  Trina stood, shook her hands at the ceiling, and raged, “You don’t get it, girl. Your fight with Kaguya isn’t over space, it’s over the most important thing you have—Conrad.”

  “Omigod, you do have feelings for him!”

  “Yes, as a mother-in-law. I’ve known you two were going to bond since you met. He’s your other half, Kitten. Treat him as such.”

  “I do.”

  “He shouldn’t be afraid to tell you anything.”

  The words hung in the air, unchallenged.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Mira.

  “Yvette and I watched his tapes with Kaguya. It was brutal, worse than some Rex beatings I’ve seen. But he never bonded with her. Conrad fixated on her tattoo and your face. Now Kaguya is trying to turn that into a wedge. It’s ripping him apart.”

  “How?”

  “Open your eyes. Kaguya sends him emails, postcards, and presents. Her synth-voice is the new interface for all Mori computers, big and small. Her new album is getting advertized on TV and radio even before it’s finished. The symbol on the cover of that sexually charged album is her rabbit, and his programming song is the title track.”

  “He never said anything.”

  “You need to decide what’s important: a thirty minute ride in space, or the rest of your life.”

  Trina walked out. Red left the island on the Half-Pint alone to think.

  ****

  Daniel sat up with Zeiss to wait in the restaurant. When Red returned around midnight, she texted her husband: “You have something that belongs to me. Private dojo, alone.”

  “Take some Advil now,” Daniel advised. “It’s not too late to go to the locker room and pretend you didn’t read the message.”

  Zeiss shook his head. “I tell her everything. I’ve got to go take my medicine like a man.”

  He picked up his martial-arts bag and badged into the locked dojo on the lower level. She was waiting in her flight suit, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Lock the door,” she ordered.

  He did so, setting his bag down. “Trina told you about my promotion.”

  “You should have,” she countered.

  “Yes,” he said, handing her the captain’s bars.

  She stood beside him. “You want me to put them on you the first time?”

  “I’d like that.”

  She opened the pin and slapped it into his chest.

  “Damn,” he complained.

  “It’s military tradition. The extra’s for not telling me about all of Kaguya’s love letters.”

  “Sorry,” he said, removing the pin from his chest and taking off his T-shirt to look at the wound.

  “Now that that’s out of the way, I want what’s mine,” she said backing him against the wall.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nope, you’re not leaving here till you give it to me. Music: on.” The speakers played the same song as when he first saw her in a bikini.

  She swayed to the music as she unzipped the front of her flight suit and dropped it to the floor. The only thing she was left wearing was a pair of frilly, sheer, black socks.

  He was so captivated that he didn’t ask questions, just stared in disbelief. She rocked to the beat as she gradually pulled the one sock down and launched it at him playfully. Then she slid the second sock down with a sultry smile. Hidden behind the first few centimeters were the symbols: “M+CZ” with their wedding date.

  He grinned until he saw the rabbit beneath. His heart skipped a beat and his breathing grew ragged. The tattoo was the same as Kaguya’s in all respects, except this one was ears up. When the second sock was gone and the music ended, she said, “Isn’t there something you’d like to give me, Captain Zeiss?”

  When the medics knocked on the door to check on his spiking heart monitor, Zeiss panted, “Go away.”

  “Confirmation code, sir?” asked Alistair.

  “Aardvarks, Antelopes, Armadillos . . . and especially Rabbits.”

  Alistair nodded and waved the others away. “Good night, sir. Congratulations.”

  They couldn’t help hearing giggles and animal sounds coming from the workout room.

  Chapter 41 – Near Misses

  The club celebrated Zeiss’s promotion and their own status as an official team. Red signed her name ‘Lt. Mira Zeiss’ with the official call sign ‘Red’.

  As promised, Lou and Pratibha, the female graduate working at NASA, came to the party. Pratibha was from southern India, small and burnished brown. Zeiss was discussing the tetra-engine prototype schedules with Pratibha when Mira stroked a stray hair behind her ear. He stopped in mid-sentence to gaze at his wife. When their eyes met, Mira blushed. She snuck over beside him and slipped her fingers between his. Pratibha said, “The alien economic flow-analysis can be applied verbatim to the construction of a large-scale science project.” Suddenly, the manager wavered and sat down. “Doctor, could I have a word with you?”

  Auckland ran over, and Yvette followed. Pratibha said, “I may have brain damage. I’m suffering from vivid smell hallucinations. I experienced these once before after a blow to the head during Extreme Environments training. Don’t laugh, but I could swear I was swimming in a sea of those little sugar-covered, marshmallow rabbits children get at Easter.”

  The doctor turned to Zeiss. “Get a room, you two. You’d make a bottlenose blush.”

  Yvette and Sojiro snickered as the couple excused themselves for a few moments. The artist explained, “Red broadcasts food smells when she has strong emotions.”

  Pratibha blinked. “That’s strange; my brother experienced the same effect when he met—”

  Trina swooped in before she could finish the sentence. “Have they won you over?”

  “The food is divine. The infamous Mr. Zeiss is not very talkative, but the rest of the team is unparalleled,” the Indian woman admitted.

  “In addition to being a newlywed,” Trina said with a smile, “Z is planning a Collective Unconscious reading for Sonrisa and Rafael so they can pair-bond before Mr. Her
kemer receives his Override training. He’s also trying to solve a fuel problem for the prototype his wife designed, surprise thirty freshmen at paintball, and schedule attendance for a Fortune Aerospace board meeting without missing any course work. We’ve appealed to the board to delay the meeting to the week between semesters, after the Herkemer wedding.”

  The NASA employee raised an eyebrow. “There’s a poem about burning a candle at both ends.”

  Trina nodded. “How soon could you join the team for training?”

  “I would need time to wrap up my current project and get back into shape.”

  “Mr. Zeiss can arrange a salary of—”

  “Shut up,” Pratibha said, smiling. “We both know I’m going to sign, even if I had to pay you. I’ll be training in space on the fastest ship ever made with the most talked-about crew this island has ever produced.”

  Trina shook her hand. “Welcome aboard. I’ll have documents for you to sign before you leave.” The professor departed.

  Sojiro filled the gap with, “Tell us more about your likes outside of work.”

  “So you know how to draw my character?” Pratibha asked.

  “Yeah,” Sojiro said, looking at his smitten friend, Auckland.

  ****

  Herk and Risa didn’t take to bonding quite as well as the others. Instead of the mellow melding of the other couples, the engineering-oriented pair bickered more, especially when one looked at the other judgmentally. After talking to both of them, Yvette told Zeiss, “Risa may have a mouth on her, but she actually filters 90 percent of what she wants to say to people. Now Herk’s getting it with all ten barrels. Mainly, she’s worried about the Rex procedure.”

  “And what’s his problem?” asked Red, talking for her husband.

  “Herk says he’s out of sorts from the beating he took in the test. He can’t take his usual pain meds or Marsh might bounce him from the Override reading,” the nurse explained.

  Conrad whispered, “He can borrow Risa’s cramp medicine. It’s approved.”

  “I want a video of that conversation. They could make a commercial out of it,” Mira giggled. “You were careful to separate what Herk says from the true cause. What do you think is behind his grouchiness?”