“You make a point, but only to obfuscate the real meaning of your original comment. Disgusting, you said,” Dron said, calmly starting down his dais steps. He enjoyed opportunities to educate his people. “You wonder if I’m the kind of person who used to pluck the wings off of flies, or glue cricket’s legs together when I was a child. I can say with confidence that I wasn’t. I was a sweet boy, one who loved my parents and adored my sister, who unfortunately was born with a high dose of psychopathy. For years, I was the fly who could not take wing, and I was the cricket with crippled legs. I was trapped in a storm pipe by my sister for three days once. She wanted to see how long I would live without food or water, and when she discovered that I’d been drinking from a filthy leak in the pipe above me, she broke my nose, my cheekbone and my arm, then she locked me back in. That night, when she left me there alone so she could go to bed, a neighbour heard me whimpering in the dark. Miss Hammond had always suspected that there was something off about my sister, and didn’t open communications with her to tell her that her little brother was found in a pipe under the dirt. She was wise enough to contact my parents, who were horrified, and with her urging, I told them what my sister had done. Once I told them about that, it was like a dam breaking. I filled my parents ears with a dozen tales of cruelty, the worst of the activities my big sister put me through.” Dron took a moment and sighed before going on. “Finally convinced that their girl had been born with an active gene, you know it, they call it the ‘Warrior Gene’ that allowed her to behave the way she did, they had her taken by bots in the night and treated against her will.”
Dron sat down on the edge of the control console and smiled a little at the Commander. “The next time I saw her my wounds were mended thanks to the medics who took care of me right after being found, and she was in tears. The regret she felt was so deep that she could barely speak to me. For the first time I saw my sister as someone with deep vulnerabilities, so I held her in my arms and told her only the kindest things. I loved her, I forgave her, and I never believed she was really that cruel, even when she was ripping my wings off and gluing my legs together. I speak metaphorically, of course, of the fly and the cricket. My forgiveness sent her into hysterics after a few days, her guilt only grew, and she was sedated, watched, and treated for years afterwards. Every time I saw her, I remembered to forgive her, to tell her how much I loved her, until one day she disappeared. You see, I am a true believer in the healing power of revenge, so when it comes, when I am taking revenge, you probably won’t know it until you’re broken, until the only option you have left is going somewhere where I’ll never find you. Can you guess who Freeground Alpha is in this story?”
The Commander regarded him for a moment, stunned.
“You have a guess,” he said, tapping Commander Teller on the shoulder. She was one of the brightest. “I bet you’re right, too.”
“It’s obvious. Freeground Alpha is represented by your parents in the story. They only need to be shown the truth.”
“Exactly,” Dron said. “This is the lesson we teach them, and once the Triton arrives, we have another lesson to teach. That is – they are powerless to stop us.”
“They have arrived. Again, I only saw an energy surge, a wormhole opening but no other sign of faster than light transit,” reported Commander Teller. “It’s as if this is an orchestra, and you’re conducting.”
“No one respects a brown-noser,” Admiral Dron said, standing up and starting up the steps to his dais. “Give our forces the order to return to base in five minutes. They are to disengage. Do we know where the Revenge is?”
“Still holding station in sub-sector nine-oh-thirty,” replied Commander Vinen as he settled back into his seat.
“Good, send Flight Theta to capture that ship. Make sure that the David Collins is on hand to observe, but they are not given permission to engage. They lost that privilege when they embarrassed themselves against a gunship.”
A pair of cadets stopped at the foot of his dais in their light blue and green uniforms. One had a tray of biscuits and the other a tray with a full tea service.
“Oh, come up please,” Admiral Dron said. “I could use a cup of tea and a biscuit. Then make sure you serve Commander Teller on your way out.”
Chapter 33
Echoes
A dream can break the morning. It was an expression he’d heard somewhere, and Jake thought it was clever, but he never paid much attention to it. As he waited for the cargo lift to finish its descent to the aft section of the port hangar, it rang true.
Most dreams slipped away as he woke up, the details becoming muddy then quickly disappearing as though they never passed through his mind. The dream he was having before his alarm roused him was proving difficult to forget. He could see Ayan in an older Freeground vacsuit, all but her face covered as she drifted in a sea of light that looked exactly like a trans-dimensional wormhole. The blue, green and white light of hyperspace – that place between dimensions – bathed her in cold hues.
At the same time, he had the sensation that he was fighting something, struggling to break free from bonds he couldn’t see. He managed to fight his way to her. She was sickly, waxen skin and features that had thinned. “My one candle in the dark,” she breathed, smiling a little. “Finally found you,” her eyes closed, and she drifted further out of reach, her white shawl trailing behind her.
His alarm woke him up as she was about to touch the side of the energy tunnel and get pulled apart by the forces there.
Jake’s morning check in was haunted by the memory of watching the first Ayan, Ayan Rice die in front of him, breathing her last as she celebrated finding him. He lied to her then, he wasn’t really Jonas Valent. Laura was at his side as she breathed her last, another person who wasn’t with them any longer, a person he had always been fond of. He was also reminded of the crewmembers who were killed by spies. The dream hit him so his entire morning was filled with thoughts of dead loved ones and crewmembers.
Ayan and he were incredibly busy during their time aboard the Revenge, and it seemed like they weren’t growing closer, but he felt her absence keenly. They’d slipped into a routine of working together, near each other, and of depending on each other so naturally that he didn’t see it until she was gone. While the moment of fairly tame physical intimacy they took were wonderful, he still marvelled at how well they fit together, those memories seemed less important compared to hours of easy communication and the passage of advice between them. He was surprised at how much he learned from her while she was aboard, and how easy it was. He supposed she learned as much about the ship and how the people aboard worked with each other, but her encouragement and a smile that came easy and often from her seemed more important. Sending her away was the right decision, but his mind kept playing the nasty trick of flashing to visions of her drifting through hyperspace, sallow and cold.
The cargo lift arrived at its destination and the Sargent was there waiting for him with thirteen of his soldiers. “Sargent Bateman,” Jake said as he stepped out. “How are our guests?”
“Hanging up like trophies along the hull, Captain. None of them have been able to get free of their suits.”
“They’re all set to get doped into hibernation,” Ensign Zac Levine said. His red uniform stood out amongst the black soldier’s armour. “You forget how tricky long term hibernation doses can get until you’re taking care of twenty nine people from twenty four different planets and genetic groups.”
“How long would it take to put them under?” Jake asked. He knew this was potentially a waste of time, but his crew had things well in hand on the bridge, so he could afford it.
“I hit the master command, and the medical setup in their suits starts the process up. Maybe a minute and they’re all under for days, weeks, a couple years if you want,” he replied.
“I hope the next person they see is from Triton Fleet Intelligence,” Jake said.
“But the last face they see is yours,” Frost said as
he entered from the hallway to Jake’s right. “Or mine, if you’ll let me have a minute with a few.”
“You’re not a member of Intelligence or Security. We’re doing this by the book, Frost.”
“Out here? Who’s to say what happens to a few of those bastards on this heavily damaged ship. An airlock could open on its own, or a machine could glitch up and operate while they’re standing next to it, anything could happen.”
“Ever get that feeling that you’re hearing a conversation that you’ll forget as soon as it’s over?” Zac said to Sargent Bateman.
“I’ve heard of that, feeling a little amnesia creeping in right now.”
“No,” Jake said firmly. “Frost, get back to work. Everyone else: no one gets selective amnesia on this ship. We’re conducting a war from this hull, and that means we’re going to have to kill a lot of enemy soldiers, but those traitors are at our mercy. We can hate them, lie to them, wish that we could flush them out the nearest airlock, but they are in our care. We are accountable for everything that happens while they are our captives.”
“Those newly minted regulations are soft enough for a little bending,” Frost said.
“We follow them,” Jake said, rounding on Frost and staring him in the eye. “Not just when it’s convenient, it’s the only way everyone knows what’s expected of them and where the limits are. Nothing in the regulations were drawn up frivolously, everything serves a purpose, and in this specific case, it’s so we have as many captives as we can keep for Intelligence to do their work. When they take legal measures to interrogate these people, we’ll learn more than whatever torture methods you bring to the table would get out of them. Oh, and don’t worry about punishment, that’s in our regulations too. Their stay won’t be comfortable here. You have a job to do, Frost. Get to it.”
“Yes, Sir,” Frost said, snapping to attention. “Am I dismissed, Sir?”
“Dismissed,” Jake said. He could see Frost was angry, disappointed, but he would adjust. He waited for Frost to retreat the way he came before looking through the transparasteel door leading into the narrow outer hull cargo area that held the captives. Their vacsuits were sealed and affixed to the bulkhead so they were suspended off the deck and kept still. He sympathized with Frost as he saw the pilot, Teller Rosen who nearly caused the destruction of the Revenge. The very idea of pulling him down off the wall, using an improvised nerve activator from medical to make him feel like he was being skinned alive was more tempting than he’d ever admit. He realized he was clenching his jaw, that several of the crewmembers in the room were watching him, and retreated from the idea.
“Let’s help Intelligence out a little. Program a normal ninety minute sleep cycle into their suits followed by twenty minutes of induced hyper-vigilance. While they’re awake, flood their helmets with the maximum sustainable lumen level, the most obnoxious noise package you can find, and make their suits shake in random locations. At the end of the cycle, put them back into a pre-REM sleep and start over ninety minutes later. Keep it up for three days then put them into full hibernation.”
“They won’t know which way is up by the end of that, and it could do real harm, Sir. As a medical practitioner, I must object on the record,” Zac said. “Do you understand, Captain?”
“I’m making it an order, Technician,” Jake said. “This is one of the approved techniques under extreme circumstances. I will take full responsibility. No one speaks to these prisoners, have all their suits muted so they cannot say anything unless a senior officer disables the muzzle command.”
“Understood, I’ll begin the cycle as soon as I get the files loaded into their suits.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Jake said. “Make sure Frost can watch remotely.”
“Yes, Sir,” replied Ensign Levine.
Jake didn’t stay to oversee the programming or the beginning of the hellish sleep deprivation cycle he’d ordered. Zac would perform his duty. Instead, he made his way back to his quarters.
He was startled to see the hatch open and maintenance workers walking out with metal sheets. Before he said anything he remembered that Ayan had put a request in for their quarters to be joined. “Sorry, Captain, we’re almost finished here,” said one of the crewmen. She looked too young to be a member of the crew, so many of them did. “Chief Uppal was looking for more materials for repairs and saw that Captain Anderson still had a request to merge these quarters, so she bumped the priority to the top of the list. Lucky coincidence. Like I said, we’ll be finished in five minutes, just putting some finishing touches in. When we’re done, it’ll look like your cabin was always that size. Oh, did you want to keep both tables?”
“Both tables?” he asked, leaning into his quarters to look. He realized then that Ayan’s quarters had a table and chair as well. “No, just leave me a table, two chairs, the upgraded bed and one of everything else. You can recycle the excess for repairs.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said. “It’s going to be nice when we’re finished, if you don’t mind me saying, Captain.”
“Not at all, carry on,” he said. There were five people working on the job, and he watched for a moment as the extra table, food processor, and several other unnecessary fixtures were removed. They worked together like a highly motivated team, even though they were doing something that some might say wasn’t terribly important. “What colour would you like the carpet to be, Sir?” asked a young, blonde haired crewman, holding up a device that had a wide sprayer on the end. “Maybe mauve?”
The other four crewmembers were working quickly to clean everything in sight using hand sterilizers. “Dark blue?” Jake said. “You don’t have to -”
“Don’t worry, Sir, it’s self-cleaning and it’ll only take a minute,” he said, setting the colour on his sprayer and moving into the room. “We ready?”
“Start at that end,” replied the young crewwoman, pointing at the door.
In seconds, the bare deck was covered in spray carpet that looked soft and inviting. Moments later, two clean glasses, two mugs, and bowls were organized beside the food processor, his adjustable bed and all the other furniture was arranged in the space. Using another sprayer, a crewman coated a whole wall with active paint and he set it to display what was outside the ship so it looked like Jake’s quarters were located near the outer hull with a transparent section.
“Your new quarters, Captain,” said the first crewwoman he spoke to, flashing a smile at him. “Enjoy.”
He stepped inside and shook his head. The red and blue light from his fake view of the nebula filled the room. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that he was in a guest suite with an amazing view. By Triton standards, the quarters were still tiny, but he had the largest quarters on the Revenge with simple but comfortable features. The size and style didn’t impress him as much as the crewmembers who put it together, however. Seeing a maintenance team finish the job in minutes with such efficiency left him stunned. Those young people were front line damage control crew when they were on high alert, and seeing their performance was encouraging.
“If Ayan could see this,” Jake said to himself. He turned away from the comfort his enlarged quarters offered and was on his way to the bridge when Ashley emerged from the hatchway and nearly collided with him. Her worried expression was enough to signal that she had something on her mind, so Jake stepped backwards and opened the door to his quarters. “We can talk in here.”
“I’m sorry I was stuck in my bunk the other day when I was needed on the bridge,” she said as she followed him into his quarters. “Oh, wow, they did a great job on this place. It doesn’t even feel like I’m on the Revenge anymore.”
“It’s okay, Ashley. Everyone knows one of the Order spies used some kind of bonding gel to seal the door to your quarters.”
“Thank you, but I should have had something with me to cut my own way out. When the security team got there they went through the door like it was made of paper, if I had a real sidearm or a vacsuit with muscl
e in it I would have been out in a minute. We wouldn’t be struggling to repair the ship the way we are.”
“That wasn’t your fault, our security wasn’t ready for so many Order of Eden people to go active at the same time. I have great faith in Stephanie and her people, but I’m still surprised that the worst thing they managed to do before we froze their suits was trap you and eject a few hundred rounds from the main magazine. We got lucky.”
“Still, I should be more prepared, more independent,” Ashley said. “I’m in this all the way now, I should have some kinda soldiers’ training. I need to be qualified on more than ship systems and flight.”
“If you want training, we can help. Join me on my morning jog, and ask Stephanie to assign a trainer to you for firearms handling and whatever else you need. Just take my advice and don’t use Minh-Chu as your main trainer. It’s always better to go with someone who you don’t have a serious relationship with.”
“Oh, okay. I guess he might take it easy on me if he were my trainer.”
“Or he might go hard on you, and that could complicate things outside of your training. You usually lose either way.”
“About Minh,” she said. “How much longer can we wait for him here?”
Jake knew the question was coming. “We can wait another three hours, then we have to drop a buoy and meet with the Triton.”
“I’m worried,” Ashley said quietly. “He should have been here three days ago, we were the ones who got here late.”
“I know, but Minh and everyone with him are survivors. Carnie, Hot Chow, Sticky, Finn, everyone else, they’ve all been through things that should have gotten them killed. It only made them more resilient, better in a crisis.”
Ashley smiled a little at the mention of Minh-Chu’s crewmembers. “I like them, they’re good people. I still have to ask Hot Chow how he got his name.”
“Oh, I know that one. He shouted ‘hot chow!’ when he saw he spread in Haven Shore’s refugee centre after being on emergency rations for a while when we found him. Sticky was there along with a bunch of other pilots, of course, she wasn’t called Sticky then.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10 Page 27
