“Advise caution. It shouldn’t have done that on its own,” Kazi said. “My IF is damaged.”
“I did that.” Thwip joined their position as the module filled with urgent engineering crew.
“You know how to shift,” she said sleepily.
“Not really.”
“Kazi, stay awake,” Crave warned, after her blinking grew heavier. “Report.”
“Yessssir.” Her words slurred and came slow. “The sequence I used to shift the dock—I performed accurately as I always do, sir. Exactly… like I’m trained to do, sir. I’m certain the log will reflect that I did.”
“Report,” Crave demanded, because she looked in danger of losing consciousness.
“Yesssir. The dock reshifted back to neutral… on its own. It claimed—a critical segment malfunction—wouldn’t accept my commands once it started.”
“You didn’t error out,” Thwip told her. “The logs indicate that it’s a tech issue. Dock mechanics are outside my specialty, though. The engineers will have to sort it out.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They left her to the arriving medicas. Leo hailed through to them in the loop.
“Early analysis is that the dock shift had a critical segment malfunction and went into a crisis stabilization sequence. If it hadn’t stabilized, the dock and ship would have suffered severe damage. The system didn’t care that live crew was present; the risk of waiting to correct itself would have meant larger losses. That’s how it’s hashed to perform.”
“Can we take the automatic safety feature offline and only cue it manually?” Crave asked.
“Negative. We’d need P2 master shipbuilder swipes to do it, but even if we had them, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ll have the engineers investigate and confirm, and I’ll reset the Vesper’s master swipes and forward to unit. Good show.”
With a “Copy that” from Crave, Leo looped out. Blyku left Kazi’s care to Sanders’ team and devoted herself to Crave. As she and her specialists busied around him, Thwip scanned Crave’s shoulders, where the deck shift levels had clamped down on him. A few wide slashes were cut through the suit’s exterior where the dock shift had contacted the trepid with the most force, but, aside from some light bruising, Crave’s body was not injured. The seams slowly reknit, and Blyku’s team accelerated the heal with an IRT2 trepid tool that patched the suit’s material loss, and required two techs to operate.
The medica-techs had to transport Kazi to the PT lab to break her out of her damaged hood before treating her injuries. Assuming that the shadow shift was at an end, Thwip was about to head to the lab with the techs to see how they would execute a controlled split of the arrow’s hood without harming its user, but Crave passed Blyku’s trepid and med check, dismissed her back to Kazi’s care, and ushered Thwip out into the hangar deck corridor, resuming their steady circuit of the Vesper. Once they were away from the emergency response on the hangar deck, the ship grew quiet again.
It’s as if nothing happened.
“That’s our first mission mechanical error,” Crave said. More silence. Then, “This isn’t typically how a Nova unit operates. We’re separated. Muting each other frequently to avoid ambient distraction. We should be together, working on one task at a time, but we’re out preparing different crew teams. We’ll be back to unit standards after mission prep.”
“I don’t have much to compare it to, so I’m golden with whatever works.”
“It’s not ideal.”
A hail from Leo lit on their IFs.
“Go ahead.” Crave looped Leo in.
“A part in the dock shift system experienced radiation exposure before it was installed during the build.”
Leo pulsed the specs of the damaged part to their IFs: it was J-shaped and smaller than Thwip’s thumb.
“It’s been removed, a replacement is being printed, and the system is in review. Freight dock is offline until further notice. ETA of return online: unknown. Engineering will send updates every fifteen minutes throughout shift. Will notify P2 as soon as we are no longer covert black. Rest of hangar is operational.”
“Leo, can I have all the logs on the malfunction?” Thwip asked.
“Anything to do with the ship’s build time and specs is classified. We don’t have access.” Leo sent what he did have to Thwip’s hood and looped out.
Thwip browsed the error logs as he walked. It’s not PT-related. I wouldn’t know what to look for. Will the ship’s mechanical engineers? He cleared the data from his IF and noticed Crave watching him. Their IFs were still synced from the crisis. Crave unsynced them.
“I’m a little paranoid after what happened in my recruit group,” Thwip admitted.
“After KIAs in ongoing battle zones, most active-duty military deaths are operator error. Nova stats are almost exclusively the latter. We’re more likely to be ghosted by an accident—equipment malfunction, environmental miscalculation like poor radiation management in space, miscommunication—than by a hostile target. Sometimes it’s not anyone’s fault: chaos is always trying to creep in. You won’t catch flak for being thorough on safety protocols and review.”
“A typical Nova support crew is two hundred and fifty, including Novas—and for this mission the crew is augmented.”
“Four hundred fifty total,” Crave confirmed. The corridor outside of the commissary buzzed with crew heading in and out, preparing for the day’s first key shift. Thwip’s aurals caught casual discussion of the ship dock’s error.
“That’s a lot of people to watch out for,” Thwip said, watching the crew hustle by. His IF gave their names, but there were too many to learn at once.
Crave raised his right hand, flicking his pointer and middle finger twice to indicate a right turn. They bypassed the full corridor in favor of a right curve that led to a less-trafficked, parallel corridor. The modules here were crew residences.
“You were watching me.”
Crave walked a few steps before responding. “Explain?”
“When I almost broke my arm my first day. You stopped it.”
“A few hours with the medicas would have delayed your progress.”
“When our IFs were synced in the module, I saw the Vesper safety feeds you’ve set live on your IF. That’s how you knew about the orange frame before it happened?”
“Leo’s safety officer has an aggregate of live data that I keep on the wings.” Crave resynced their IFs and showed Thwip the hash parameters he’d set.
Thwip looked through them closely. He’s not just looking to be alerted on technical systems errors in the ship, he’s using the ship’s internal scan points to scan for multiple raised voices in same location, raised heart rates… human responses to emergencies.
Crave flexed his fingers as though testing his suit after Blyku’s material replacement. “If you have the right people and organization, it’s not difficult to monitor those feeds. Leo’s crew had a few years on us prior to our pairing. They are experienced, detailed, and organized. Kazi’s just an HSO, but she’s trained to shift and under severe duress she did fifteen things right that gave herself a chance of extraction and limited the potential for ship damage. That’s officer-level skill and thinking from the lowest-ranking enlistee aboard. Some of the head specialists are high-maintenance, but only because the augmented crew Leo recruited for us for this mission are exceptional.”
“Blyku.”
“Donner, Caveasas, Angelthroen—”
“Donner… Harvatii Donner? Here, on this ship?”
Crave moved his fingers, pulsing his IF. “Leo, reserve Donner for us. No preference on location. And send lunch.” He paused, and then added, “Remind her that it’s not optional.”
Thwip’s heartbeat accelerated and he saw his chem balancers nudge in response.
“Donner to meet you in the sunlab,” Leo returned.
We have a sunlab?
Crave doubled back the way they’d come, and Thwip followed, pulsing excitedly for the Vesper’s schematic.<
br />
“Sunlab’s not on the schematic. Added layer of security. Location 0000:02AA. There’s a secret level above the command deck.”
“The high-maintenance level?” Thwip said wryly.
Crave grunted. “Affirmative.”
When they reached the end of the corridor behind the command deck, Crave removed one of his gloves and pressed his palm to the Vesper’s seamless wall. It retracted right to reveal a secret incline that led to the 00 level. Crave pulsed his face mech transparent at the eyes, and Thwip chose to do the same.
“Put yourself on private mode whenever you come here,” Crave said, blocking the rest of the loop besides Thwip. “And don’t log your SOCs.”
Thwip blocked the loop except Crave and hashed his SOCs not to log what they scanned. He decided to go beyond just his eyes and extended transparent mode to his entire mask. They both pulsed their external chatter active as they passed into the sunlab’s entry. Thwip assumed that Donner’s sweetener had something to do with the module’s appearance. In contrast to the rest of the Vesper’s cool tones and minimalist design, the shipbuilders had given her antechamber an intimate sitting area with a circular flat arc table, surrounded by high-backed chairs and warm bronze-hued walls. An intricate diagram of the Sunway lined into the wall above the table gave a regal appearance to the featherweight blond in an arrow suit sitting hoodless on an orange-cushioned seat underneath.
HEAD INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM HARVATII DONNER
Thwip’s hardhood identified Donner, but he would have recognized her without it from news captures. She had fine, straight waist-length hair in various shades of yellow; it struck him as ray-like as it streamed from her head, framing her face. She’s still seated. Unlike Blyku, she’s not familiar with military protocol. Thwip swung his grin wide.
“You’re the happiest Nova I’ve ever seen.” She rose and came forward toward him. From the permanent smile lines around her eyes to the faint, timeworn quality of her voice, it was obvious that, while well treated, she was well past her two hundredth year.
“It’s all the crashing into walls I’ve been doing. Massive fun. I’m new.” He shrugged it off with another easy grin.
Her face tilted and her eyes brightened. “Notes on what pleases a deadly interstellar warrior.” She looked up at Crave. “Hello again, Commander. How do you find the time?”
“Lunch.”
“I’m likely the worst food service technician aboard.”
“They’re bringing it. You’ll eat it.”
She pressed a wide, close-lipped smile at Crave and spoke to Thwip. “I don’t get hungry anymore. Only for resolution, nothing tangible.”
Crave sat down at her flat arc table, and she and Thwip joined him.
“You’re here to discuss numbers.”
“Are they still lining up?”
“I made a few adjustments for your review, based on what Wheck forwarded. My forecast is unchanged. Lucy’s at the mild point of its stellar cycle, so there will be no interruption. As you intended, you have the flexibility to make minor flight adjustments. The window remains open, and I remain mildly impressed by your plan. We’re getting close, aren’t we?” She added for Thwip’s benefit, “I am no warrior, but I shall like to go against the Lucians. I shall like to win against them. Their scientists don’t just go along with the military, they apply themselves with relish to defense and war. It has to be stopped.”
Crave spread his hands on the table in front of him, drawing her polite attention. “As part of diplomatic negotiation after we complete the mission, P2 is going to deliver on collapsing the Golden Gate for leverage. They won’t destroy it totally, but they will render it unusable without enough rebuild that it will be a barrier for attackers to reactive it, so that if the gate is ever taken, hostiles are slowed down. But the chance of rebuilding it eventually will still be there. Leo received confirmation last night. It seems right that you should be informed.”
Her head drooped in reply to Crave’s news, and the shorter pieces of hair that framed her face grazed the table’s surface. “How we sacrificed to get this far into space, and then, in war, to prevent the collapse… It’s an affront to science.” She sighed and lifted her chin. “I suppose it has come to this: it’s necessary to end the war. I imagine the political debate and public outcry will be perilous for the government and military. Ah, but thankfully, Commander, you do not strike me as any more interested in politics than I am.”
“That’s what a handler is for.”
“Then let us not speak further of the civic arguments. I begin to bow before the pressures of time.” She put a slim, naked hand on Thwip’s gloved hand. She must have read his mild confusion, because she again spoke to him in explanation. “Ancient sailors looked up to the stars for navigation; we use them as the wind in our sails. I am old. It is unlikely that I will return from this mission. The Vesper is my last sail. To assist your unit in seeing our Nativity’s parted sunstar reclaimed will be my final task. If it costs me the last and greatest gate I created, so be it.”
He watched her sunny face. He’d just met her, but the thought of the UNP losing a scientist of her supreme caliber was tragic. Her casualness about her own death somehow made it sadder. Thwip stacked his other hand on top of hers. His chem balancers tipped.
“Then you’ve already named a successor to your work?” he asked, thinking of scientific tradition. “I don’t remember hearing who it was.”
Crave glanced at him in warning, but he’d already said it and Donner was already reacting with a look of restrained anger.
“Yes. Of course you are too young to know. My successor left me long ago, at the start of the war, and betrayed me by defecting to the Lucian separatists. If she is still alive, then she is on the planet, and you will find no greater enemies among humans than we two. That is the resolution I hunger for.” She relaxed her shoulders and leaned back, withdrawing her hand to her lap. “My mother always said that we meet our adversaries early in life.”
Thwip nodded; it made sense in the context of his own experiences. Kevlin.
“She said we spend some of our lives intertwined with them, whether we seek it or not. We cannot escape our ties to that fated opponent. I don’t know if I believe that, but I did meet mine in my youth, and I will see the open ends tied off.”
Thwip puzzled over their age difference. She noticed his expression.
“Again I forget how vast modern history is, and how little the young know. She and I are close in age, but her genoming is superior to mine, and at the start of my career I was exposed to radiation more frequently. Protection was rudimentary then, and modern treatments can only do so much. Her health exceeds mine. If she is still alive, she will outlive me, and she is too dangerous to leave behind with an enemy who daily threatens the rest of humanity. No one else could know my work half so well.” Donner paused in self-reflection. “I’ve waited a long time.”
“HIM Sjohest, aka The Namesake,” Crave informed Thwip only in the loop. “She’s third on P2’s covert list of high-value intelligence targets, last surfaced during some of the war’s worst space exchanges thirty years ago. That’s a big clear for anyone hunting war traitors.”
Donner regarded Crave’s stillness. “I never know if you all are invasively scanning me. My heartbeat. My body temperature.” She banged her knuckles on Crave’s hardhood. “What are you doing in there?”
Thwip took a look at her bio signs on his IF. Even when she’s angry, she’s calmer than the rest of the crew. We don’t make her nervous.
She made an annoyed sound. “I like to have some privacy, some dignity. There is so much scanning aboard military craft, and no privacy. I passed Blyku in the corridor yesterday and she informed me that she was glad to see my levels relaxed. My levels,” she said again, indignant.
“She reads bio scans like you read stars.” Thwip pivoted, hoping to get away from what angered her. “Didn’t you once save an entire base from a stellar event? I’ve heard of it in military scienc
e courses, but I assume the best details are classified.”
“Yes.” She turned to Crave, continuing her thread. “Blyku told me something interesting. That despite her skill, she can’t get a confident read on your emotional status from her data. ‘Cool as Titan ice,’ she said. I wonder how you do it?”
Crave pulsed his face mech to opaque in answer, obscuring his eyes from her, and Donner chuckled faintly.
“I see.” She kept watching him, though she couldn’t see his face. “I remember a young man, a student called Finne, appointed to my lab on Denizen for a three-month research stint. Recently I learned that, at that time, he was not a civilian student but secretly a Nova recruit. The military’s elite cover protocols are impressive. And invasive. Is no place sacred?”
If she meant that Crave was that undercover recruit, he gave nothing away.
“When you wear your hardhood, you can make yourself less available to external bio scanning,” Thwip offered.
She refocused on him. “I was twenty-one, working at Noster Academy’s sunlab on Timo as a research assistant, and there was a team of us. It was a civilian operation. I’ve always avoided the military as far as possible. Sunlabs as you know them today did not exist then. We had far less data to interpret, and there had never been an observation of a particle event of that type. By today’s models the sudden variation would be simple to predict and avoid.
“Of course”—she smiled—“I developed those models. My alert saved the people; the base fried.”
Thwip carefully asked more about the prediction that had launched her career, building up to the technical aspects of her role in extending the Sunway. Crave didn’t speak, so Thwip had her full attention and time to hear a few of her stories, which were augmented by her sunlab crew when they arrived for lunch. Some had been with her for over a century, and had first-hand accounts of her work.
Afterward, Crave returned to the corridor that led to the residence modules near the commissary, where they followed the sound of rowdy cheers. At the source, Crave showed Thwip the result of thirty-one pilots coordinating their sweeteners: a module devoted to capture gaming-arc setups, including a preview of the forthcoming Generals of the Nativity “war experience.” A container of gaming half masks and gloves stood open on the floor near the wall. The off-duty pilots complained about technical inaccuracies in the game’s star maps and some of the military plotting, but they were still playing when Crave and Thwip left them.
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