Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  “On the bright side, Cuts didn’t have enough time to blow all his pay this time!” laughed Eric, slapping his counterpart on the back.

  “So I’m going to just tell you all what our job is, so there’s no confusion. A certain criminal has decided to hold our ship hostage in order to facilitate the transference of one secure data package to Ambrose Station in the Gossamer System.”

  “But that’s an exclusion zone!” cried Cuts, with several of the others joining him.

  “I understand that. But this bastard Jenner says he’s put enough concealed bombs on board to gut the Dreaming permanently. If he thinks we’re pussy-footing about or we deviate from the plan, he’ll remotely set them off, and he’s put this little trollop on my ship to ensure we don’t mess with the plan.”

  The two Argen hissed at her threateningly, and Crege pulled out his ever-present lurzak blade, stepping towards her.

  “We kill her. Find bombs, throw out airlock.”

  “You could try, little man, but even if you had the shirtan to kill me, I have the charges fixed with a dead man’s switch.” Offered Artemis, casually leaning against a crate of supplies.

  “Yeah I figured you would,” said Max, “that’s why I had Fel lock you out of the Dreaming’s local network.”

  “Ha-ha! I never said it was an app on my overlay, I have a biometric transmitter implanted.”

  Max glared at Artemis for a few seconds before Fel interrupted.

  “Captain, if I may? How will we get into the exclusion zone? Isn’t the Protectorate Fleet blockading the system’s Jump Gate?”

  “Seth? You want this one?” offered Max, looking into the hold’s camera.

  “Sure. The blockade is only a military one. Humanitarian missions are allowed to enter, provided they sign a waiver acknowledging that there will be no rescue attempts should you run afoul in the system.”

  “There’s one catch,” Artemis interrupted, stepping forward to address the crew, “Your ship cannot be armed with anything stronger than a class 2 defence system. The Protectorate doesn’t want the Ghantri gaining any more ships that it can throw at the blockade, so any ship going in won’t be able to defend themselves from anything larger than a shuttle if they’re attacked and they won’t be able to call for help when they are.”

  “We’re fucked.” uttered Cuts.

  “Anyone who doesn’t think they can handle this job, can set down at the Harakiwa Jump Station when we pass through and resign with two jobs worth of pay. No hard feelings.” As Max said this, Artemis stepped in front of Max and stared at her.

  “No, they can’t. Anyone steps off and I’ll activate the charges.”

  “I won’t be putting my crew at risk if they don’t want to, it’s a rule I’ve always set on my ship.” It was a challenge. I leaned forward in my chair.

  “You also had a rule about not working for a criminal, and here you are.”

  “In case you missed it, I argued very loudly about taking this job. Ask Jenner.”

  “Benedict has calculated that in order for your crew to have the best possible probability of succeeding, all of your crew are needed.”

  “How do you think their performance is going to be if they’re scared out of their wits?”

  “They’ll lean on your leadership, and your First Mate’s, to get the job done.”

  “You have a very high opinion about me and my crew!”

  “Are you saying that you don’t have faith in your own people?”

  “I’m saying that you’re placing a lot of pressure on my people and putting them in danger on a whim. I don’t operate like that.”

  “You’ll adapt. Benedict chose your ship and your crew for a reason.”

  “And what reason is that?”

  “Because you are both skilled and expendable. You’re better than most mercenary crews, but not as expensive. You have no prior dealings with known criminals so you’ll pass inspection at the blockade. They won’t suspect you of smuggling illicit cargo.”

  “Which we are!”

  “No, you’re not. Benedict was very clear when he said you won’t be doing anything illegal.”

  “So what are we doing?”

  Artemis merely smiled and walked back to her crate.

  “What about me?” came a small voice in the back. Hergo, or Denno, stepped aside to reveal Zoe with a raised hand. “I’ve only been here for a short while, I’m not a full crew member yet. Can I go?”

  “Sorry, baby girl, you’re in too.”

  Max was clearly irritated, and began pacing again.

  “Zoe, I’m sorry to get you into this, I’m sorry to all of you.”

  “Captain,” offered Crege, “this warrior stands with his kitrak.”

  “As do I.” said Fel, standing beside Crege.

  “I can’t leave the Dreaming, Maxine, I’ve put too many years into her to walk away.” Said Eric. After a few seconds, he grabbed Mal and pushed him forward.

  “Hey! Yeah ok, I’m in too. If I don’t Seth will try and be a mechanic again.”

  The two Argen clapped each other on the shoulder and hissed in agreement.

  Max stood there watching them for a few moments, pride in her face. Just when I thought she was going to tear up, she dismissed everyone and yelled at them to turn up for duty on time. Artemis waited until everyone but Max had left the hold before turning to leave.

  “Sit your arse down, bitch! We’re going to have a chit chat, woman to woman.” ordered Max.

  Artemis stopped and turned around to face Max again, crossing her arms below her breasts and leaning back on her heels.

  “If you interfere with my crew, I’ll have you sedated and let Crege cut you open to find that implant.

  “I don’t intend to. How you run your ship is part of why Benedict chose you.”

  “That includes messing with their heads. Especially Seth’s. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You’ll be bunking with Zoe, so don’t even think about screwing with that boy’s head. He’s got enough to think about without you swimming around in his lizard brain!” Jeez, thanks, Max! I thought.

  “Look at you. Playing mother to a man who neither needs nor wants it.”

  “You’re wrong, if you think you have me figured out.”

  “Maybe not, but I have figured out your surrogate son.”

  “He’s a good man! You keep your filthy claws away from him, slut!”

  “Sticks and stones, Max. All right, have it your way. I won’t seduce him,” she admitted with that predatory smile again, “but I won’t discourage his advances either.” Good heavens! What have I gotten myself into!

  “Mark my words, Derris, if you cross me there won’t be a powerful enough crime boss in the galaxy who can protect you from my wrath!”

  Max stormed out of the hold. Artemis stood there a moment chuckling. Then she looked up into a camera and blew a kiss before walking out of the hold with a sultry sway in her hips.

  8.

  My shift was up after four hours, and Denno relieved me. I gave him a brief handover, pretty much a summary of any contacts the sensors had picked up, and asked if he had any questions before I left. He had none, so I went after to my cabin to refresh myself.

  According to the navigation computer, we had just over ten days to get to our first POI, the Harakiwa Jump Gate and the station that services it. Ship life while underway, I explained earlier, consisted of a routine. The Dreaming operated on a 30 hour cycle, which served as the most comfortable and convenient circadian rhythm to get used to for most of the crew. Watches were four hours long, held by everyone except for the Captain. Zoe, only being an intern who wasn’t yet certified as a watch keeper, held a two hour watch with me supervising.

  Everyone else had duties besides watch keeping as well, such as preventative maintenance, cleaning responsibilities, and any projects that Maxine had us working on. What we did with our time outside of these duties was up to us. The Dreaming had an area in the cargo hold set aside as a gym, and supply cont
ainers could be unsecured and moved to make room for a sparing mat. The main living spaces contained a dining mess compartment that could be used as a lounge and games area, which also featured a holo-projector for entertainment. Most people used their cabins a fair bit also, reading or watching films on their overlays.

  One of my responsibilities was to ensure that we maintained a constant state of readiness; that we were prepared mentally and physically for any eventualities that arose. To combat complacency and to maintain that edge, I ran periodic exercises. I worked with Eric to organise damage control events such as ship-borne fires. I worked with Fel to develop simulated combat scenarios to put the crew through. I’d drop the occasional fake emergency and time the crew getting to their stations. When the crew had time, I also ran short self-defence and weapons handling training sessions.

  We were nowhere near as drilled as a military vessel, but I used a lot of my experience as a Star Marine to instil an ethos into the crew that meant if they practiced hard, they could handle the real thing easy.

  Max had Eric and Cuts secretly searching for the charges, in hopes that we could at least get to the bombs if we ever got the chance to disarm them. We also needed to know for sure that the threat was real, we’d feel pretty foolish if in the end it turns out there were none. Jenner didn’t seem like the kind of guy who bluffed, though, and it was no surprise when Cuts found the first one.

  It was welded into the primary emissions coupler, which meant that if we tried to remove it, it would probably sense the lack of flow of emissions and detonate. It didn’t look too big a charge, though, and I guessed that if it did go off, the most damage it would do is make it so we couldn’t accelerate at maximum for longer than an hour before the radiation killed us all. They kept searching.

  Thankfully, Artemis had gone to bunk with Zoe after all, so I had my cabin back to myself. I used the extra space to take stock of my armoury, ensuring that all my armours were in good repair, and that I had enough batteries for my guns. I also asked Fel to see if he could put together another scrambler to replace the one I’d lost at the Crystal Lounge. I also downloaded all the information I could regarding Ambrose Station. I couldn’t get anything recent, of course, just reports and news articles from its early days during construction before the Ghantri took it over. I’d taken a print out of the station with me to mull over during one of my watches I kept with Zoe and after I watched her run through her check list we started to talk. As usual, it started with her asking questions.

  “What are the Ghantri like?”

  “What do you remember from the news?”

  “Not much, I was only a teenager when it happened, I was more interested in studying cybernetics than some distant war.”

  “Right, well, the Ghantri are actually two separate species.”

  “Ah huh, the Ghantri are the big ones, and the Jaani are the smaller ones!”

  “That’s right. I haven’t seen many Jaani, but I know they’re the technicians. The Ghantri tend to be the heavy lifters and labourers. They both evolved from primates, similar to humans, on their home world of Ghan. Although the Jaani are smarter on average, the Ghantri are the master race. The Jaani appear to have evolved alongside them in a kind of symbiotic relationship.”

  “Their big brothers.”

  “That’s one way of thinking of them. The Ghantri are predators, through and through, I think the Jaani just came along for the ride as a subservient race. It’s effective though.”

  “Do you remember them before the war?”

  “No, I was too young too. I do know that when the Protectorate first opened the Jump Gate into Gossamer System, the Ghantri welcomed the fleets with open arms. Ghan was a rich, verdant world, a super earth. There were a few other planets in the system that were rich in minerals, a gas giant as well. The Protectorate brokered trade agreements with the natives, exchanging technology for mining privileges.”

  “The Ghantri didn’t have space travel before the Protectorate? I thought they never contacted non-spacefaring races?”

  “No, the Ghantri did have space flight, not real advanced, but they could still zip around their system using chemical rockets.”

  “That must have taken years of travel to get between POIs!”

  “I guess. Ambrose Station was built during the first decade of contact. It was nearly finished too, when it all went to shit. There was a colony starting out on one of the moons of Laz’oh Dar, the gas giant. I think they’d started terraforming Nsarri as well, the next planet after Ghan.”

  “Why did they attack? They had everything they could need already.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was in their DNA, their apex predator evolutionary imperative. Why trade for things when you can just take them. It was a savagely executed attacked too. They must have been planning for years. Virtually overnight they killed all the Protectorate officials and ambassadors, captured as many star ships as they could, and nearly destroyed the rest. A pitched fighting withdrawal forced the surviving Protectorate ships back to the Jump Gate. They had to leave hundreds of thousands behind on Ambrose Station and who knows how many on the colony at Sho’da Nar.”

  “That’s the moon orbiting Laz’oh Dar?”

  “Oh. Yeah, apparently they’re named for heroes of Ghantri mythology.”

  “I remember hearing about something called The Push. Can you tell me about that?”

  “So the Protectorate managed to block off the Jump Gate on the Gossamer side, and halt the Ghantri advance there. There weren’t enough Protectorate warships on the other side to do more than that, however. Ghantri war parties would attempt to break the blockade every few months, but so far it’s held. The Push was a counter offensive a few years ago, the Protectorate had signed an accord with the big players in the Votus-Eridani Network to enlist local militaries to join the offensive. Intelligence estimated that the Ghantri still had hundreds of thousands of civilians captured in the system, primarily being used as slave labour. It was all set up as a big political stunt by the Protectorate, offering shared access and colonisation opportunities to Eridani and Harakiwan governments.”

  “If they sent ships.”

  “And marines.”

  “You mean the Primacy Star Marines?”

  “Yeah, the Primarch of Kanto Prime pledged a full division of Star Marines, twenty thousand soldiers for the meat grinder.”

  “I actually remember that! I watched Primarch Singh XXVIII make the pledge, and my mother and I took a charter ship to Kanto Moon to watch the parade!”

  “If you looked close enough, you might have seen me.”

  “You were in the Corps then?”

  “Sure was, I’d just made corporal.”

  “Is that when you…you know…your augments?”

  I didn’t answer right away. My first reaction was to close up, change the topic. Talk about politics or navigation. She saw my hesitation, my jaw clenching. She reached out and touch my hand.

  “I’m sorry, you don’t have to talk about it.”

  “No, I do. I’ve…been having issues with what happened there and I need to sort it out before we go back to Gossamer. Max told me that you could help. That talking to you might help me work out some things.”

  “Ok, but only at your own pace, all right? You can’t go through a past trauma by being forced to relive it, without being in the right mind to do so.”

  “We don’t have much time. Max said I need to get sorted or I could cause people to get hurt if I’m not one hundred percent.”

  “Is that how this happened?” she gestured at my shoulder. “You weren’t one hundred percent when this happened and this is the result?”

  “No, I was good. I was solid then.”

  “So this wasn’t your fault? You didn’t screw up?”

  “No…no I....”

  “So what makes you think being one hundred percent can prevent something like this from happening?”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

&n
bsp; “It wasn’t your fault. What happens to the crew on this job probably won’t be your fault either. You can’t control every facet of cause and effect, you can’t predict fate or twist the forces of chaos to ensure we all go home alive.”

  “Well, no…”

  “So don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. Just because you’re First Mate of the Dreaming of Atmosphere, or were a Corporal in the Star Marines, doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to get PTSD. You need to realise that you have an avenue to address it. It’s not a weakness, but the opposite! You survived!”

  I sat there, mulling it over. After a few more minutes of silence, she turned around and started fiddling with the console again.

  “You can talk to me any time you need to. Oh, what’s this mean?”

  I looked up at what she indicated, and saw that the sensors had picked up a contact on an intercept cause with us. That already raises a number of alarms in my head – ships don’t seek each other out by intercepting them, not unless it’s a pre-arranged rendezvous. There were very few legitimate causes for such an action. No, most likely it was hostile.

  “Probably a pirate.” I said, turning to my console and activating the general alarm. I grabbed the PA microphone, “Secure the ship for combat! All hands, close up at stations and report.”

  Zoe was wide-eyed and scared, staring intently at the systems console she was sitting at, for all the world looking like she was determined to do what was necessary. I smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped.

  “Zoe, your station is in med lab.”

  “Oh, I thought…”

  “Fel will want to sit there.”

  “Yes, okay. I’ll be going then.”

  She stood up and almost made to bolt out of the command module, then stopped and turned around and surprised me by giving me a short hug. Then she turned and ran, not looking back. Huh, maybe Max was right. I already felt a better.

  A moment later Max and the rest of the command staff entered the compartment and we sealed the hatch. The compartment lights dimmed as I switched my console to battle configuration, and turned a deep sapphire blue. Crege started a checklist with Fel, recording readings and activating various systems.