by Damon Alan
“We’ll see about that,” he growled as he surged forward to catch the return ball once again.
She dropped into a defensive stance between him and the hole, her arms spread out to keep him from charging around her. He drove hard to the right, then jinked left. She overcompensated, and he rolled the ball past her legs.
Heinrich wasn’t about to let this guy beat her on the court. She pushed off with her legs, twisting her body in the air, flailing her arms out. She caught the ball just as it passed the rim to drop into the hole. The rules required her to take the ball outcourt before she could try for the shot herself.
They skirmished for half an hour, neither managing to score the ceiling goal before the other hit the floor goal again. The requirement to hit both goals before the other player hit one made scoring rare.
Heinrich scored on the floor, and returned to the outcourt to wait for the return ball. Kuo pushed up next to her, forcing her to take a step to the side with his superior mass just as the ball was ejected from the return hole. She slipped her hand down along his thigh, running it from just above his knees to just below his gym shorts.
He yelped like she’d hit him instead of caressing him, spun around like she’d use an electrical charge, and at the same time dropped the ball. As his mouth hung open while he stared at her, she launched the ball toward the ceiling. Normally Kuo would push off the wall to overtake the throw from this range in zero gravity, but his feet were planted helplessly to the floor as the ball soared through the ceiling goal.
“I scored,” she said, grinning at him.
“You cheated,” he complained. “You sir, are a cheater.”
“Zeroball is a bit like combat. There isn’t any cheating if you score the points. If you cheat and lose, you just look like a fool who couldn’t win regardless.”
The ball shot from the return hole and rolled to his feet. He didn’t bend over to pick it up.
“You quitting?” she asked.
“You have to be kidding me,” he pretend snarled as he picked up the ball. “I have tricks of my own.”
“Like what?” she asked. “You can’t grope me, I’m a superior officer.”
He rested the ball against his side and complained. “That’s not fair. By the regs you’re not exactly supposed to grope me either.”
“That wasn’t a grope, that was a distraction,” she responded. “Besides, you like me.”
“I like you?” he replied, laughing. “You like me.”
She rose from her defensive posture and stared at him for a moment. “I do,” she said. “I didn’t know I’d have that in me, but I do.”
“I know about what happened to you. It was part of my briefing to be your XO,” he said. “The man that hurt you, he wasn’t a man. Men don’t hurt the innocent. He was an animal, and I’m glad he’s dead.”
A tear, the first she could remember crying for years, flowed from her left eye and slid down her cheek. She looked at him and wondered what it was that made him stand out from the other men she’d met.
His face softened as he sensed her pain, and he dropped the ball to the floor. He strode forward and pulled her into his embrace. “Sure you do. You’re human. Maybe together we can right what was wronged inside you. I can feel there is something between us, and I think you can too.”
“It will be slow,” she said, looking up at his face. “I trust you, but I really need to trust you, if you understand.”
The score chime sounded as the ball rolled into the hole, pushed there by his foot.
She whipped around to stare at the floor goal. “You jerk,” she said in shock. “You goaled on me at that moment?”
“Two things,” he responded. “First, you let your guard down and the game isn’t over. Second, I will do whatever I can to help you heal your wounds. You wouldn’t respect me if I didn’t goal on you at that moment, because being treated like a victim isn’t what I think you need.”
That was true. She didn’t want someone she could dominate. “What do you think I need?”
“Someone who treats you like you’re not broken.” He slipped his arm around her once again, this time lifting her from the floor before tossing her roughly sideways away from the return hole. He then leaped forward to snag the ball as it returned to play. As she picked herself up, unhurt with the padding she wore and from being in only a half gravity, he tossed the ball through the ceiling goal.
She walked toward him, stopping only a few centimeters from his chest. She grabbed his head behind the neck and pulled him down, giving him a forceful but non-sexual kiss. As she pulled away she whispered a challenge.
“If you want it rough, our next session will be in the boxing ring.”
She strode toward the door.
“You didn’t ask me anything about Gaia,” he said.
Laughing, she opened the door, then paused to look back at him. “Hanada, you don’t know anything about Gaia. But if you bought that line, maybe the rest of the bridge crew did too. Get a shower, you smelly oaf, and I’ll see you at your station.”
She was still laughing as she closed the door behind her, obscuring his confused face.
* * *
“Captain on the bridge,” Mors said as she entered the room.
“I have the conn,” Heinrich replied.
“Captain has the conn,” Seto acknowledged.
“Sitrep?” Heinrich asked.
“Gaia has responded to our hails, and is preparing to receive our crewmen for the jump,” Seto reported. “We have matched speeds close enough we can make the shuttle transfer at any time after we jump in system.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Kuo walked in and strapped into his gravcouch as the Stennis transferred to the inner system. Close enough to their target they could see the other ship as a tiny white dot on the viewscreen.
“Hail the Gaia,” Heinrich ordered. “I have questions, brought into my mind by my cautious XO.”
Seto complied.
“This is Gaia.”
“Gaia, this is Captain Heinrich. I am about to launch a shuttle to your position. What is the status of the colonists?”
“They are safely stationed on the moon I am orbiting. They will be safe for millenia in their current state.”
“Very well. Why do you want to return to the Oasis system.”
“Again, as I said, I am lonely.”
Heinrich gestured at Seto to kill the microphones, then she looked at Kuo. “You still question whether an AI can get lonely?”
“It’s said that during the AI wars the machines felt emotions as we do,” Kuo answered. “Whether those emotions are real or not, I don’t know. That was thousands of years ago. But machine emotions played a part in why we outlawed unshackled AI after the war.”
Heinrich gestured for the mic to be opened. “Gaia, I understand. I am a bit unsettled leaving the colonists here, but you saved my life. So I will help you in any way I can.”
“I know, Inez. We are friends. That is what friends do.”
Heinrich sighed. “Mister Mors, send our people over to the colony ship. Have them advise me when they are ready for the jump.”
A few minutes later she watched as the shuttle darted off toward the other ship.
Was Gaia really her friend? Or was it a machine playing probabilities much as the Hive did? A few days ago she wouldn’t have questioned it. But Kuo’s reluctance reminded her of the reason AI laws existed.
She had no way to tell if Gaia was friend or machine. No way of knowing. In either case, the AI had gone out of her way more than once to protect a good person. Sarah Dayson seemed to trust the intelligence housed in that vessel. So for now, Heinrich would as well.
Chapter 45 - Captain’s Personal Log
AI Cynthia118B recording, Fleet Captain's personal log, personal archive: Galactic Standard Date 12:55:13 40 FEBBED 15332
Personal log entry #033, Fleet Captain Inez Heinrich, origin Matikar IV, Pallus sector.
Current Location: Th
e outer Oasis system, speed matching to Refuge.
For a first command on this scale, I feel like it’s gone well. No losses, no confrontation… it’s quite possible that being the only sentient beings within millions of light-years has something to do with our success. Sometimes plans run smoothly when there isn’t anyone on the outside to mess them up. Whoever built the comm station we encountered, they seem to have vanished into the obscurity of time. The hologram that greeted Hamden’s team looked human, but then whoever made the site painted exact replicas of our ships thousands of years before those ships were built.
The ground team that descended to Mystery, which is what we’ve named the world we found at the signal origin, performed admirably under Lieutenant Hamden. He’s got natural skills, that one. Even though there was some sort of incident with two of his team members, I’ve left it for him to deal with. I don’t know his job. I have no business meddling in it. If I get my way, he’ll be commanding our marines at some point. Particularly on the ships I command.
Mystery. It’s still every bit as much of one now as it was the day we jumped there. Emille may know more about what’s going on down there than I do, but she’s looked confused every time I’ve seen her. When I bring it up she gets a sorrowful look like she stepped on my toes and tells me that she’s every bit as interested in understanding what happened as I am. And asks for time to sort it all out.
Again, I don’t know her job. Technically on the ship I’m her commander, but she’s the most alien person I’ve ever met. I feel she’s hiding something, but I also get a deeper sense that she’s protecting us somehow. And if anyone can do it, she can.
She’s probably the scariest person alive, and I don’t easily intimidate. She blew up a star. Her aura of power alone would make a person cautious when they approach her. I try not to be nervous… but she blew up a star.
[A twenty-nine second pause]
On a more personal note, I’ve taken things along a path with Hanada… Captain Kuo that scare me just as much as Emille.
Can I love a man? I never have before. I mean, I’ve had dates, relationships, with men they’ve always been so hard. With women… well, to be honest, they’ve always been too platonic for my tastes earlier in life. The ones with the men, however, they all end up the same way. With me overbearing them and inevitable conflict as they attempt to reassert their manhood. And then finally with the separation and loss of friendship.
I don’t want to do that. And now, after Orson, I’m even more protective regarding male intentions. It’s been a couple of years. I need to get over it.
[Eight seconds of silence, then a slapping sound, AI estimates 81% probability to be Captain Heinrich striking herself. Followed by laughter]
I played some dirty zeroball with him, full contact. I took him to the floor.
[laughter]
To be fair, he did give it right back. He threw me across the court! If we weren’t at half gravity at the time, he’d have hurt us both. And technically we’re probably both guilty of assault, but I do like that he didn’t posture. He did what he had to do to even the game.
Not win.
Even the game.
[A fourteen second pause]
I need to give him a chance. I need to figure out how to make this one work. We have something, as he said on the court. Chemistry, if you will.
Cynthia, do you have any research on human courtship stored in the ships computers?
[AI answers in the affirmative, begins to provide a list organized by peer review certification]
Stop. Just send the top ten to my datapad. I’ll read them on my time. Link my data pad to my port command console on the bridge.
Kuo won’t be able to see that screen. He can’t know I have no idea what I’m doing.
End the log, Cynthia.
Chapter 46 - Hamor
03 Mapri 15332
Bannick’s ship drifted seven hundred AU from Hamor. The star was so remote at this distance that it barely stood out among the stars in the rest of space.
Nearly two hundred other ships floated nearby, a large chunk of the Komi fleet from four systems, appropriate protection for the future leader of the Syndicate. At least since he’d decided to jump to a location so near Hive space in order to observe as Sarah Dayson blew up a star. Or didn’t. Either would be telling.
As he stood looking out into space from his quarters, he studied a large carrier running routine training operations nearby. Grapplers and G-Ks injected themselves into one side of the ship, torn from flight by a landing cradle. Caught in a magnetic grapple, the inbound vessels were shunted to another section of the massive vessel to be magnetically catapulted into space for another go around.
The process for expelling them was simply the reverse of the process of catching them.
It was an efficient and fast system.
His chime sounded, indicating a message from the bridge.
“Speak.”
“Lord Komi, there is a bubble inbound. It matches the gravity wave signature of our scouts, but we have no way of knowing if the Hive might be able to mimic our ships.”
“Go to battlestations, Admiral, let’s be cautious. Prepare the fleet to squash more flies.”
“Very well, sir.”
Alarms didn’t sound in Bannick’s quarters, but he knew the rest of the ship was flying into action. As was the fleet. The carrier diverted their launched attack ships toward the expected egress point of the incoming bubble.
That meant they were training with live nuclear weapons in play.
As it should be.
“Bridge,” he said.
The answer came fast. “Bridge, Lord Komi.”
“When will the bubble arrive, exactly?”
“Forty-three seconds, sir.”
“Very well.” He made a gesture with his hands to close communication. He stared forward, towards where Hamor would be, waiting to see a burst of light signal the arrival.
There it was. So fast that if he’d been blinking, he might have missed it.
Palia leaned over his desk and pushed some controls. The tactical frequency for the fleet came out of the room’s loudspeakers.
“Palidragon fleet, this is the Lynx. As ordered, we stayed on station two days past the deadline the Oasians set for Hamor’s destruction. No attack was observed. I repeat, no attack. The star is entirely normal.”
“Lynx, this is Admiral Hedget. Return to the main fleet and fall into your assigned position. After scanning, you will return to Mindari in the main bubble.”
“Lynx copies.”
So Dayson’s promise remained unfulfilled. The Hamor system lay untouched, and what may have been a ploy to divert Bannick’s resources may have worked if he didn’t have so many ships available to him.
By now the Mindari system was saturated with combat vessels on loan from his sister, Andina. A favorite of his and far down the chain of succession, she stood to profit if Bannick’s successes elevated him to lead the empire.
Maybe she’d have Dayson in her clutches by the time he got home. The lying Admiral Dayson, with her mysterious jump technology.
He’d have her.
“Bridge,” he said again.
“Yes, Lord Komi?”
“How long until we arrive home?”
“Forty-eight days, sir. We enter the bubble in approximately two hours.”
“Very well. When we exit highspace, make sure we are at battle stations,” Bannick ordered.
“As you command, Lord Komi. We will be ready to fight.”
Bannick again ended the communication with a gesture.
“Do you expect Oasians or betrayal from your sister?” Palia asked.
“I have been lied to by Dayson, never by Andina, at least not since we were small children,” he responded. “No, Andina will be as cooperative as she always is. But Dayson told me this tale for a reason, the tale of Hamor. She burned her credibility for a purpose, and it would have to be huge, wouldn’t it?”
&nb
sp; “I expect it would,” Palia said. “But maybe she is simply toying with you.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But I don’t think so. She doesn’t sound like the toying type.”
“We’ll know when we get to Mindari,” Palia said, touching his back. “In the interim, the fleet will run itself. You and I have over a month to spend doing the things we love.”
He turned to face her, a wry smile on his face. “Indeed we do.”
Chapter 47 - Yarrrrr
04 Mapri 15332
The Michael Stennis slid into Refuge orbit, but even before it arrived shuttles were already departing the ship for the surface.
Alarin needed to return to Zeffult to check on the state of his nation and the building of his capital.
Heinrich spared a shuttle for him alone. A perk of being a head of state.
Hamden and his crew seemed particularly hurried to get somewhere, Heinrich put them on a shuttle in the first round of departures. They were, after all, heroes after their ground based adventures on Mystery.
Emille went with them, to deliver the packages to Peter Corriea.
The entire experience still hurt her brain. Battle tactics? That was easy. Understanding how a building was built thousands of years ago with the sole purpose of attracting the Stennis to Mystery to deliver some packages? Off the charts inexplicable. How did the AI on the planet know of Peter? Or of them at all?
Emille said she couldn’t explain it properly without Corriea, and Alarin said he had no idea what was going on, that Emille wasn’t telling him anything. If the hurt look on his face was any indication, he was telling the truth. Whatever the conversation between the AI and Emille meant, she was keeping it secret.
The conversation Emille had with the AI was recorded. She offered to playback the radio conversation for Alarin to interpret, but he refused. Said he trusted his wife, and if she wanted to wait to tell him, there was a reason.
Heinrich had never met a man so patient. Maybe not all men were heathens who deserved to be kicked where it hurt the most. She’d considered using the translator AI to learn the message herself, but hadn’t. She didn’t have the history with Alarin that the others did, but she knew his reputation and respected him greatly because of it. She wanted to stay on his good side.
