by Blaze Ward
Yu nodded to himself and dug into his food. “Sounds good, sir,” he said between bites. “Let me finish this and I’ll escort you to the bridge.”
Javier was careful not to let the scowl reach his face. Yu was doing his job. All that squank about honor and ransom didn’t stop the Captain from assigning him a minder and escort, everywhere he went.
Could be worse, though. At least Sykora had kept her distance.
Ξ
Javier knew better than to ascribe it to luck. Even bad luck.
Just as he settled into his new workstation on the bridge, Sykora entered and moved to a space facing him from across the bridge. She was wearing a pistol this morning. Unusual. And had a nice clean field of fire at him if she wanted. Not unusual.
Javier decided not to say anything to Yu. She was probably a good enough shot that there wouldn’t be any collateral damage if things got out of hand. Not that he was planning to do anything stupid today. Not here.
He watched the Machinist’s Mate settle in to the workstation facing his, mirroring Javier’s display so he could watch and learn.
Javier decided to find the silver lining and pulled out the headphones. He handed them to Yu as he pushed a few buttons to change Yu’s display to a training mode, with his own screen in a corner.
Yu got a panicked look on his face. “What happened?” he whispered.
Javier grinned. “Put them on,” he said, “and start working your way through the training simulations.” He settled into his chair and toggled through options. “I’m going to be calibrating for the next three hours, and eventually you need to know how all this stuff works, if you’re going to keep being my sidekick.”
Yu relaxed, strapped himself in, and went to work with the sort of single–mindedness he had shown in the bio–scrubber. Not much verve, but lots of enthusiasm. Javier had had worse Yeoman working for him, back in the day. He looked over as the Captain emerged from his day cabin and relieved the Gunner from the watch.
Sokolov speared him across the bridge with all the seriousness one could put into being The Captain.
“Mr. Aritza,” he said, Commanding Officer addressing a junior Centurion on a new deck. “Are we ready to proceed?”
Javier had to resist the urge to salute or something. Too much of Fleet was coming back to the surface. He didn’t want to be that guy any more. A glance at Sykora. Or lunch for the black widow in the corner. “Affirmative, Captain,” he said, crisply. “Give the word.”
Sokolov nodded. “What are our specifications, Mister?”
Javier decided to play along. The Captain was making a show for the rest of the bridge crew, people who were strangers to Javier for the most part, unprepared for a sudden eruption of caustic sarcasm in their midst. “Well, sir,” he replied. “How well does Storm Gauntlet compare to the old Bannockburn?”
Javier watched a small grin cross the Captain’s mouth for a second. Only two Academy grads could have that conversation. It set a good tone, considering the rest were likely outcasts and dregs of various navies, put to shore by drink, temperament, or budget cuts. “Without a dedicated Science Officer,” the captain announced, “she’s probably comparable to the Academy Training Corvette. Perhaps five to ten percent better at shorter ranges. Less so at distance.”
So, about what Javier expected for a boat like this. The sensor pods were cheap and durable, and probably older than about half the crew. “In that case, Captain, I would expect to improve on that by a factor of four or five after initial calibration, and six afterwards. If I had access to the kind of tuned automation that had been written for my old probe–cutter, as much as ten.”
Javier could hear the gasps and snorts around them, depending on whether or not people believed him or thought he was boasting. He gave the whole bridge crew a carnivorous smile, lingering for a special moment on Sykora. She could have been carved from white marble.
He turned to the Navigator, a big Dutchman who seemed to know what he was about. “If you’d like to watch, we could bring up screen fourteen on the main display.” The man nodded at him. “Fifty percent transparency, please. Thirty percent overlay.”
The big screen in front of the captain split into two images, almost identical, with the old pod readings on the left and the pod from Mielikki, brought up to Storm Gauntlet’s calibration, on the right.
Javier approved. The man was decisive and professional. Sokolov seemed able to surround himself with good people. Getting them all hung from the highest yardarm would probably make him feel bad. Afterwards. For a little while.
“Captain,” he followed up, “permission to hard ping the system to baseline my systems?”
Sokolov played along nicely. “Approved.”
Javier unlocked a control on his touch screen with a password, and pressed the revealed button. Like every other default sensor control system in space, it emitted a sound like an old wet–navy sonar system pinging. He smiled. Some engineer, centuries ago, had achieved a personal form of immortality.
He paused and watched his local screen, overlain with a mask as he supervised Yu’s training. There shouldn’t be anything hard enough to generate a return wave for several light minutes in any direction. This was the boring part he always left for Suvi.
After several minutes, he opened up the configuration console and began tinkering. The system had about eleven hours of passive data to work with. He started adjusting things to the sorts of baseline values he already knew from years with this hardware, as if everything was new. No point in letting them know what he could really do.
A little red diamond appeared on his screen as the computer started washing noise out of the signal. Sokolov was apparently paying closer attention that he let on. He leaned forward. “Mr. Aritza?” was all he said.
Javier was already dialing the signal in and decoding the information. “Stand by,” he said.
That can’t be right.
Can it?
Huh.
“Captain,” Javier said into the pregnant silence. “that appears to be a very old emergency beacon on the fourth planet, which appears to be habitable.” Leave it at that. He really needed more information to draw better conclusions. Better to be kind of ignorant at this point and show off later.
Sokolov tore his eyes from the screen to look over. “How old, Mister?”
Javier could read the avarice in his voice.
Avarice? Right, pirates. All about money.
“Sir,” he said. Damn, this was just like the Fleet days. Maybe he needed to paint his monitor lavender or something. Just to keep him from getting all serious and stuff. “If the crash date being broadcast is correct, at least seventeen years.” But. “However, the power source is extremely weak, and well past it’s expected lifespan.” And the kicker. “You would normally have had to be almost in orbit in order to pick it up, if you weren’t looking.” Or hadn’t just hired an expert on sensor systems to go beyond standard baselines.
Sokolov was doing calculations in his head. “That suggests survivors maintaining it, or at least good maintenance worksystem robots,” he said. He turned to the Navigator. “Mr. Alferdinck, plot a jump to get us close. Ms. Sykora, prepare a landing team and wake Smith up to fly you in.” He saved the best for last. “Mr. Aritza, you will accompany Sykora’s team to investigate the wreck.”
Javier goggled at him, completely off–guard. “What do I know about xeno–archaeology?”
Sokolov got that evil Captain’s smile going. “The fact that you even know the word puts you ahead of most of the crew, Javier. That’s why I hired a Science Officer.”
Javier cursed inside as he unbuckled from his seat. That man was entirely too good at this.
On one hand, things wouldn’t be boring.
On the other hand, surviving these people long enough to have them all arrested was going to be a task.
Crap.
Part Two
Javier grabbed Yu and swung by the cargo deck for a quick teaching session.
/> “Okay, Ilan,” he said, “since I’m going to be down on the planet for however long, you’re in charge of feeding the chickens. First step, locate them. I’ll wait here.”
Yu goggled at him briefly, then put on his serious face and headed aft.
Javier let go a breath and grabbed the feed bin. He set it on the counter, cracked it open, and thrust a hand in.
There. Suvi.
He closed his fist and pulled his best friend out, sliding her into a pocket, safe. If they had found her, his life wouldn’t be worth a bucket of warm spit.
Yu clomped back into the botany station. “Found them,” he beamed. “Sleeping in the apple trees.”
“Good,” Javier replied. He pointed at the feed bucket. “That’s chicken feed. Don’t worry about refilling the bucket today. I have more in cold storage.” He picked it up and handed it into Yu’s uncomprehending clutches.
Ilan looked kinda lost, which was the point here.
“What next?” he said softly.
Javier smiled. “Now you open it up, fill the scoop halfway, close the bucket, and follow me into the forward bay where the fruit bushes are.”
He paused as Yu di so, the image of serious scholarship. They headed forward.
Surrounded by fruit bushes and meta–dwarf and columnar fruit trees, Javier gave Yu a serious look. “Okay. Now cluck.”
“I beg your pardon?” Yu’s face went completely slack.
“Cluck,” Javier said. “Like this.” He made a sound with his teeth and tongue.
Yu repeated the sound, sort of. A few times.
“Good,” Javier said. “Athos will usually find you first. d'Artagnan will almost always be last. Just stand here clucking until all four arrive, and scatter a little grain as you see each one.”
Javier stepped back as the first hungry lady arrived in a fluster of wings.
Yu dumped a little of the grain out, and was suddenly ankle deep in chickens as two more surrounded him.
“Good, Ilan,” Javier beamed. “Do this every morning around the start of day shift. And make sure you check their water dish in the vegetable garden. You’ll probably need to fill it ever three days or so.”
“What about you?” Yu asked, a little panicked.
“I’m going to be planet–side, probably for a couple of days at least. Enjoy.”
Javier stepped out of the room, down the hall, and out of the arboretum.
Suvi was safe, for now. Now he just had to avoid getting killed by crazy dragon–lady.
Ξ
Aft, on the flight deck, Javier decided he really liked the assault shuttle pilot. Delridge Smith was a gray–haired lunatic who favored Hawaiian print shirts and talked a mile a minute.
The tiny flight deck of the assault shuttle, separated from the aft section by a seriously–sturdy airlock, was decorated like a Merankorr brothel, all pinks and pastels, with Terran Caribbean music playing quietly in the background. Javier watched as the man completed a very detailed and thorough pre–flight check, literally touching everything as he went, talking to himself under his breath the whole time.
Javier felt safer just watching.
He felt Sykora arrive.
He still felt safe. Maybe.
She was wearing field gear, so light on armor and long on camouflage patterns that slowly moved as he stared. It kinda looked like bread baking, the slow bubbling effect as dots and stripes evolved. He wasn’t sure if it was going to make him motion sick if he stared long enough.
Sykora was armed to the teeth, with a knife, a pistol on her hip, another knife, a second pistol in a shoulder rig, and a big, nasty battlerifle slung on her back. He had known street gangs less well armed. Of course, most of them were less dangerous than this woman.
She was also carrying a familiar–looking backpack. His. She walked up and handed it to him with a simple “Here.”
Javier flipped it open and looked inside. Everything was generally in place. He smiled up at her. “Thanks for repacking it cleanly. I told you the only firearm I owned was the pistol in my cabin.”
She shrugged. “It was still necessary to confirm.” Her eyes conveyed a certain level of distaste, but that might be for someone who didn’t own enough weapons to impress her.
He decided to ask, anyway. “Any chance I could get it back, since we’re going down onto the surface of a potentially hostile planet?” He even tried to sound charming.
She smiled at him in the way grown–ups do with rambunctious eight–year–olds. “You’ll have me,” she said serenely. “I’ll protect you from the bad men.”
Javier was pretty sure Gandhi would have lacked the willpower not to roll his eyes at that one. He wasn’t Gandhi, so he did. And then pulled out his sensor remote and toggled the settings to confirm everything was ready to go.
She leaned over his shoulder to look. “What is that?” she said, at least trying to sound nice.
He glanced sidelong, and up, at her, close enough to kiss, or bite. Decisions, decisions. “Short–range airborne autonomous remote,” he said as he pulled it out of the pack. It looked like a knobby, gray, grapefruit.
Javier flipped the power on and gave it a soft toss in the air, like a beachball. It hovered about a meter over his head, rotated a few times as it mapped the flight deck, and began a slow orbit of the space.
Javier pulled the matching portable computer from the bag and powered up the relay controls. The room was mapped in visual, ultrasound, radar, and infrared, with a stack of dials and gauges giving him various readings on people and equipment.
Sykora eyed it professionally. “Is that thing armed?” Of course. Trust the killer to go there immediately. Still, a two–meter–tall wall of professional paranoia between him and bad things planetside wasn’t necessarily the worst idea he’d had today.
“Not this model,” Javier pushed the recall and watched it settle lightly into his open palm. “I rarely set down on a planet without scanning it hard to begin with, so I know where the dangerous carnivores are, usually. This is mostly for working in tight quarters, like cave systems.”
She was still an expert. “Or wrecked starships,” she said, already adjusting her tactical planning. Scary. Good, but scary.
The pilot rescued him from any further comments as he wandered over. “Any time you’re ready, Sykora,” he said. “Gonna man the turret going down?”
She shook her head. “This isn’t a hot LZ, Del,” she replied, counting crew members to make sure everyone was there. “I’ll ride with the rest in back.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. He turned and walked up the big rear landing deck and into the small airlock. As Javier watched, the man grinned at him, waved, and cycled the hatch closed.
Sykora completed her own count and looked around. “Mount up, people,” she called, walking up the ramp.
Javier watched around a half dozen people file into the shuttle ahead of him. Two were obviously security goons, armed and armored up like their boss. Two females that looked like scouts. A couple of regular crew he recognized vaguely from Engineering.
Inside, he found Sykora in a jump seat at the top of the ramp. She patted the one next to her. “Aritza,” she said, command voice invoked, “you sit here.” One seat was as good as the next, so Javier settled and strapped himself in while she watched. She nodded when he was done, apparently satisfied that he wasn’t a total landsman. Little did she know.
Sykora pulled on a field helmet and keyed a microphone live. “Gunship One, we are go for launch.”
A red light came on, flashing, followed by a horn hooting, and then the ramp began to rise, closing with the solemnity of a bank vault. Interior lighting came up at the same time and the shuttle began to vibrate and hum as the pilot brought systems on line.
A nudge in his ribs, just as he closed his eyes, leaned back, and prepared to nap. “You’re going to sleep through this?” Sykora looked shocked.
Javier shrugged, at least as much as he could in five–point harness. “Not my first
time in an assault shuttle, lady,” he said over the growing racket. “We’re probably fifteen minutes to clear the ship from here, forty minutes orbital to match ground windows, and then an hour to get low enough to deploy the wings. Another hour to scout a landing spot and settle.”
She scowled professionally at him. “We need to go over the plan for when we land.”
Javier looked at her with a lazy smile. “I’m the scientist, you’re the big, dumb, gun bunny. I scan the wreck. You shoot things. Not hard at all.” He closed his eyes and leaned back.
She poked him harder this time. “That’s what you think of me?” she asked. There was a new edge to her voice. “Just another killer?”
Javier couldn’t resist. He already owed her. Several times over, if he thought about it. He opened his eyes, let them roam over her whole body, lingering in the girlie places, before he made eye contact. “Yes.” And then he closed them again and tuned her out.
Part Three
Sykora settled into her drop station, secured in place as the last fuel connection severed with a ping that rattled hollowly through the shuttle.
Djamila seethed.
Like all things, it was internal. In Neu Berne society, image and social station was everything. She had learned that early, the daughter of a manual laborer and a former “entertainer.” The Navy had promised her an open society, where one could advance based purely on merit and skill. And it had been, but only to a point. She had had to prove herself better than everyone, man and woman, to be accepted.
But she had. Oh, yes, she had. First in her training crèche. Record scores on physical fitness, obstacle course, and survival training. Elite tactical school. Zero–G combat school, where she had earned the nickname “Angel of Death” for her ability to move in powered armor in three dimensions, with a weapon in each hand.
She had been the best.
It had even been good enough for a poor, blue–collar waif, with no family connections and no university, to be commissioned as an Officer and a Frieholder. But it could not get her accepted. Not by the elite of the Neu Berne Navy.
