by Nick Webb
Just a hundred kilometers? Surely the Independence would have detected….
And then she finally understood. Her eyes brightened momentarily as she stood up. “There’s another one?”
Tigre smiled. “And this one is all yours.”
The door opened, revealing Ensign Babu with a steaming cup of coffee. Proctor blazed right past him out the door, leaving the young man standing there with the cup, not quite knowing what to do. “Coffee’s off?”
Volz waved Babu forward, reaching for the cup. “Ensign, never stand between an admiral and a shiny new ship.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Orbit over San Martin
ISS Independence
Sickbay
Zivic had gone back to check on Ace and Bucket in sickbay when the call went out from Lieutenant Farrell to his squad. They were to report to the fighter bay in one hour, with their bags packed. This was no patrol—this was a long-term deployment.
Ace’s midsection was bandaged from where her restraints had dug in during one of her high-g maneuvers that the inertial compensators could not keep up with. She had suffered some internal bleeding, but was otherwise now fine. The doctor was only keeping her as a formality—for observation, to make sure she hadn’t suffered a concussion.
Bucket sat on the bed next to hers, with Zivic in a chair between the two beds. “Farrell wants us down there, stat,” he said with wry sidelong glance at one of the nearby nurses, who, in the time they’d been there, had already said the word stat at least ten times. “We gotta convince her to let you go.”
“We could just all three get up at once and run. Stat,” said Bucket, too low for the nurse to hear.
“Or I could go ask the admiral to just order her to release you. Stat.” Zivic watched as the nurse struggled with a piece of equipment next to another patient worse off than either Ace or Bucket. She looked flustered as she repeatedly tried to get the monitor to turn on, to no avail.
The nurse jabbed a panel on the wall to turn on the comm, but she was a little too frustrated—the plastic casing cracked. “Nurse Cunningham to maintenance. I need someone down here to fix some electronics, stat.”
Zivic and Bucket both held up fists to their mouths to keep from laughing.
A voice came through the comm speaker. “Sorry, we’re a little swamped down here since the battle.”
The nurse threw down a meta-syringe in frustration. Zivic half expected it to shatter, but it just bounced off the floor and clattered away into a corner. “I’ve got injured down here. I need someone, stat. Or else one of them might not make it. Try explaining yourself to the admiral then.”
Bucket let a snicker slip out, and Ace shot him with a glare. “Stop being an asshole.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Stat?” Zivic snorted in an abortive attempt to stifle the laughter.
“Are you blind?” said Ace, watching the nurse rush to the other room, marked Intensive Care, to attend to another patient that had started crying out. “She just watched Doc Patel get shot in the chest, and she’s the only one here. She’s already lost two patients today, not counting Patel. Stop being dicks and give her a break.”
Bucket finally recovered from his laughing fit and pointed to the intensive care room. “Look, Ace, I’ll give Nurse Stat credit for not cracking under pressure, but we’ve got to get out of here. Farrell’s waiting, and will have our asses on a plate if we’re not ready to go for whatever mission this is.”
“Don’t you mean, heads on a plate? Or do you mean kick our asses? I really feel like you mixed your metaphors there,” Bucket said. He poked at one of his bandages on his shoulder.
“Fuck you.”
“Well, that is my call sign, after all.” He peeled back half the bandage, revealing the now-dried gash on his shoulder. “At least, until Admiral Proctologist banned it.”
“Bucket sounds much better anyway,” said Zivic, watching the nurse through the window in intensive care, waiting to make his move. If she could just get distracted for half a minute, they could sneak out, get off the ship and on their mission, and ask forgiveness rather than permission. “And Ace sounds much better than … wait, are you even an Ace? How many bogeys have you shot down, anyway?”
Bucket snorted again, this time pointing a thumb at Ace. “You haven’t heard how she got her callsign?”
“Shut your face, Bucket—”
He ignored her. “So we’re down at Futwick’s, back before we had to change the name, and we’d just finished our first training mission on board the Independence—this was about two months ago, before Proctor showed up—and the pilots are down there, starting to get wasted. And Ace here isn’t drinking. So I say to her, Ace, why aren’t you drinking? And she says, blow it out your hole. So I pour her a shot of whiskey, and one for me, and I say, with pleasure, but I like to do my blowing drunk. So she downs the shot, and I shit you not, two minutes later she passes out. After one drink. Batship, meet Ace.”
Zivic saw the nurse duck into the office, and he nearly stood up, but she turned around at the last second as another patient started groaning, calling for her. “Ace, huh? Look, let’s just get the hell out of here and get on this mission, and maybe you’ll have a chance to be a real Ace. Farrell says this mission might involve a bit of shooting….”
Ace cocked her head and asked, almost absentmindedly, “do you think Qwerty’s going on this mission?” She fingered a handmade pink thread bracelet on her wrist.
Zivic started to wonder what in the world would make her ask that, and wondered if the bracelet was from her mysterious girlfriend when he saw what he was waiting for. Finally. The nurse went into the office and shut the door. Bucket jumped off his bed and grabbed his pants, which lay folded on a nearby chair. “Ok, let’s get out. Stat.”
The distant look disappeared from her face as Ace pulled out her IV and ripped the blanket off, and the three of them rushed the door. They were gone long before the nurse emerged from the office, but they were only halfway to the pilots’ locker room when Farrell’s voice came over the comm. “Ace, Bucket, Batship, where the hell are you? We’re leaving in twenty.”
Bucket tapped a wall monitor that they passed, turning on the comm receiver. “Would you say you want us there, stat?”
Zivic batted his hand away from the monitor. “We’re almost there, Lieutenant. Batship out,” he added, cutting off Farrell’s response. “Come on.”
The rest of the squad was waiting for them in the locker room, already suited up. Thomas “Barbie” Adams, the Australian, greeted them with a nod. Vo “Spectrum” Pham was sitting off to the side, fiddling with a game on his datapad. And Farrell himself was seated at the command desk, talking on the comm with the bridge. He watched them come in and pointed to their lockers, indicating that they should suit up. He himself was still in his regular uniform.
“What, is he not coming?” said Zivic.
Spectrum, still playing his game, shook his head. “Negative.”
“Negative? You mean, no?” said Bucket. He sat on the bench and pulled on his flight suit pant legs.
“That’s what I said.”
Barbie stood leaning against the bulkhead with his arms folded, patiently waiting for them. “Seems you’re going to be the squad leader, Batship. Hold’em’s staying here.”
That caught Zivic by surprise. “What?”
“Orders from the admiral herself. Wants a small squad accompanying her on some secret mission. Wants you heading it up. Guess she wants one Volz here and one Volz with her.”
Zivic scowled. “Name’s Zivic, not Volz.”
“He’s your pops, ain’t he?”
“In name only,” he said, without thinking. The others laughed.
“You mean, in sperm only,” said Bucket.
“Look,” he said, exasperated, struggling with his flight suit’s collar air seal, “He left when I was five. Mom married my real dad, the one who raised me and took care of me, Mr. Jesús Zivic, a year later.”
; “Jesus?” Bucket thumbed towards him, grinning at Barbie. “Guess that’s where he gets his messiah complex from.”
Zivic frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothin’. Just that, you do love riding in to the rescue. And making a big show of it.”
Ace, finished with her flight suit, punched Bucket in the shoulder. “Lay off. If Batshit didn’t have his messiah complex, as you put it, I’d be dead. So shut up, get your suit on, and let’s go kill some Dolmasi bastards.”
Spectrum chimed in, still not looking up from his game. “You mean GPC bastards.”
“GPC?” said Zivic and Ace at once.
“Think it’s a coincidence that someone managed to get sympathizers on the Independence to take a shot at the admiral, and then we’re here at the epicenter of GPC activity?” He finally tapped his datapad screen off and tossed it aside. “All signs point to GPC. I think we’re about to go mop up the scum, so to speak.”
The door opened, and in walked Ensign Babu, Admiral Proctor’s personal assistant. “You all ready?” he said.
“Coffee’s in the other room, Babu,” said Zivic.
He scowled. “Not why I’m here. Finally,” he added. “I’m coming too. I’ve got basic flight training, so I’m grabbing a suit, just in case. Any spares?” He looked questioningly at Farrell.
“In the locker.” Farrell paused his muttered conversation with whoever he was talking to on the bridge and nodded towards the corner. “You’re not getting in one of my birds unless it’s an emergency though, Ensign.”
“When is it not an emergency these days?” Babu opened the locker and grabbed an extra suit, stuffing it into his bag. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning heroics. It’s just, with the admiral, I’ve learned it pays to be prepared. You never know what she’s got up her sleeve or what she’ll order you to do.”
Bucket smirked. “Like, for example, if she wants tea or coffee. One sugar packet or two. Stevia or sucrose. Almond or vanilla. I tell you, it’s a wild ride you’re on, brother.”
Babu scowled. “Up yours, Bucket. I’m gonna be a starship captain someday, and you’ll be calling me sir, sir.”
Bucket’s eyebrows shot up an inch. “From personal lapdog slash assistant coffee-getter to starship captain? You’re either under the influence or delusional.”
Farrell finally terminated his call and pointed to the door. “Ok. Out. Proctor’s shuttle’s leaving in five. Don’t embarrass me, people. The admiral asked for the best. Unfortunately, the best is currently on swing shift in their bunks, so you’ll have to do. Get out of here.”
They all rushed out the door, Bucket still fiddling with his air seals. Zivic caught Babu by the elbow as they left. “Hey, ignore him. You’ll make it. Trust me, Proctor only does this to people she sees potential in.”
Babu brightened slightly. “Really?”
“Really. I mean, hey, she asked a fuck-up like me to lead this mission, didn’t she?”
Babu looked less-than-convinced as he went out the door, leaving Zivic to wonder if maybe Proctor wasn’t a little delusional herself for asking him to head the mission. And then wondering if shooting down one hundred and one GPC fighters would count the same as Ballsy’s one hundred Swarm fighters.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he whispered to himself, and followed the others out the door.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Orbit over San Martin
Shuttle
Proctor leaned forward in the shuttle’s copilot seat, peering through the port, searching for the ship that Admiral Tigre swore was there.
“Still nothing?” she asked. Lieutenant Whitehorse, piloting the shuttle, shook her head no.
“I’m just following the course the admiral gave us. We should be nearly there. Just three klicks away. But … judging from these sensor scans, if I didn’t know it was Admiral Tigre giving us these coordinates, I’d say we’d been had.”
Proctor leaned back and craned her head to talk to Rayna Scott, who was sitting across from Fiona Liu. Proctor wondered if she would regret bringing Liu along. Who knew what kind of intel she would absorb on this trip. But leaving Liu behind for Volz to deal with had seemed less than desirable. Besides, she wasn’t bringing any marines along—Tigre had assured her his very best were waiting for her on the new ship—and she already knew Liu was good in a fight.
Rayna was also good in a fight, in her own way, Proctor acknowledged wryly. Though the engineer was currently fidgeting with her seatbelt buckle. Proctor leaned in a bit more. “Rayna? Do you know anything about the new stealth tech IDF was researching? I authorized the initial spending fifteen years ago, but the early efforts were … not promising. I’d assumed they’d never amount to anything….”
Rayna spoke to her seatbelt buckle—as long as Proctor had known her, the brilliant engineer had always addressed whatever mechanical device was nearby rather than the person talking. Even in a meeting with top IDF brass, Proctor would notice Rayna subtly glancing over to the light switch and talking towards it rather than the generals and admirals. A quirk, but having her brain on their side was more than worth it.
“If you’re talking about actually bending light around an object, you’re right, on a large scale it’s not feasible. Bending a single wavelength around a small object? Sure. Bending all wavelengths around a large object? You’d have better luck using a hydrowrench for a circuit diagnostic.”
Proctor waved a hand towards the front viewport. “Then what do you think? Is it possible? Did IDF Research actually come up with a way to do it?”
Rayna shrugged, and actually glanced up to meet Proctor’s eyes. “Could be. They may have come up with another mechanism. Rather than bending light maybe they just painted the hull really, really black and prayed they didn’t occult any starlight.”
If their shuttle was moving at all, there’d be no way to tell, since to Proctor’s eyes the distant stars were fixed points. Except for the five fighters trailing them, there were no objects nearby to judge their speed. No point of reference. And so the subtly shifting stars directly ahead of them took her by surprise. The shift was so small she almost missed it.
The nav computer saw it too. “Coming to a full emergency stop!” called Whitehorse. She worked furiously at her controls, trying to figure out what had caused them to stop. The nav computer claimed there was an obstruction, but nothing showed up on the main sensors.
Lieutenant Qwerty at the shuttle’s tiny comm console sat up a little straighter. “Ma’am, Admiral Tigre is callin’.”
She nodded for him to patch it though, and Tigre’s voice boomed over the cramped compartment’s speakers. “Shelby, do you see it?”
She looked out the viewport again. Nothing but black emptiness and distant points of light. The stars that had seemed to be shifting earlier had disappeared. “No. Miguelito, what the hell is going on?”
“It’s right in front of you. Watch—they’ll open the shuttle bay for you to land.”
And then, as if the darkness itself was peeling back, a section of the view ahead of them lit up with an almost piercing brightness. When her eyes adjusted she recognized the interior of a small shuttle bay, just a few hundred meters ahead. “What the hell….”
“IDF Research has made some progress since you left command, Shelby. We’ve nearly perfected stealth, though as far as I know there are only two ships in existence. Luckily, IDF Research has a major laboratory and production facility here on San Martin. So I nabbed one for in-field testing. And now it’s yours until we figure this shit out.”
Qwerty tapped a few buttons, and nodded. “Yeah, looks like the approach vectors and landing coordinates are coming in now. Just room enough for six of us in there.” He glanced over at Proctor. “Small ship, Admiral.”
She murmured her reply, still transfixed on the blotch of light floating before them—the interior of a shuttle bay, surrounded by stars. “Doesn’t need to be big. Just needs to be fast and run silent. This could be just what
we need to get to the bottom of everything. Without a target on our backs.”
Ensign Babu deadpanned, “Fantastic. This will make my job a whole lot easier.”
“Fewer bullets to jump in front of for me?” asked Proctor.
“Screw that—that’s the marines’ job, ma’am. No, I mean, it’s a small ship. Easier to keep track of you and supplied with coffee. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep up with you on a ship the size of the Independence?” Babu was talking absentmindedly, still staring at the light from the open shuttle bay with blackness and stars surrounding it.
“I’m sure this has all been very hard on you, Ensign.”
“You have no idea, ma’am,” he murmured, which made Proctor smile. In the few weeks he’d served as her personal aide, she’d come to rely on his dry humor and sarcastic asides. And the coffee.
The shuttle glided past the shuttle bay doors and settled into a cramped parking space off to the side as the five fighters behind them soared in one by one.
“Miguel, what tech does this stealth rely on? Rayna here tells me that multi-spectral light-bending just isn’t possible.”
“Not over an open channel, Shelby,” his voice boomed over the comm. “I’ll be joining you shortly and we can talk aboard the Defiance before you head out. See you in a few.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Orbit over San Martin
ISS Defiance
Conference Room
The conference room was small. Everything was small on the Defiance. The deck officer, whose name Proctor still did not know, had briefly shown her to her quarters, which were little more than a bed within a closet.
Proctor and her small, trusted group of crew members had been sitting at the ship’s conference room table for under two minutes when the door opened again and Admiral Tigre stepped through, his uniform sleeves a little too short and a few stains from the day’s lunch dotting his pant leg, but wearing that broad smile she had grown to love over the years.
