“Temper, temper,” Jeffery said as he placed the tool back in the waiting hand. “What’s the matter down there?”
“Nothing, provided you don’t mind power spikes causing a blowout and electrocuting whoever’s sitting here. Half-wits.”
The rapid clicking of a ratchet floated in the air, punctuated by a strained grunt.
“There,” Felix said. “Tom, grab my feet and pull me out, would you?”
Harris obliged and a moment later Felix stood dusting off his dark red Bucephalus uniform.
“Didn’t expect to see you out here, Jeffery,” Felix said. “Thanks for making the trip. Did you bring me anything interesting?”
“Four shiny new, five-twelve kilobyte QERs. Two for Bucephalus, two for Magellan.”
“Great. That’ll speed things up.” Felix noticed a rectangular patch of hair missing from the side of Harris’s scalp. “What’s that about?”
“Implanted coms,” Harris said. “They’re requiring the whole crew to get them before launch.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Felix said. “The latest crew gossip beamed straight into my head 24-7. Anything else?”
“Well, we heard rumors on the way out here that our transport was also delivering the new captain,” Jeffery said.
“Really? Who did they pick?” Felix asked.
“We don’t know. It was kept confidential. Last I knew the list had been whittled down to about a half dozen candidates.”
“You were on that ship for two weeks. You didn’t see them anywhere?”
“They didn’t fly economy,” Harris said.
As they spoke, the double doors of the bridge’s lift tube hissed open. Felix, Harris, and Jeffery turned in unison to see the new arrival. A familiar man in a perfectly tailored and pressed AEU Navy dress uniform stood astride the doorway, and Felix’s stomach did a barrel roll.
“Oh, please,” he pleaded to whichever deity might intervene. “Anyone but him.”
“Permission to enter the bridge,” Maximus Tiberius said with a self-congratulating grin.
“If we say no, does he have to leave?” Felix asked in a hushed voice.
“No,” Harris said quietly before facing the newcomer. “Permission granted, Commander.”
“Ah.” Maximus pointed to the rank insignia on his collar. “Count the bars, Lieutenant.”
Harris realized there were not three but four gold bars on the man’s shoulder.
“Sorry, Captain, sir.”
“Think nothing of it. I only just acquired number four. Still getting used to it myself,” Maximus said. He leaned in closer and inspected Harris’s features. “Have we met, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Three years ago, in Washington.”
“A conference?”
“No, sir. The Captain’s Mast.”
“Ah! That explains it. It’s a miracle I remembered your face after a night walking the planks of the Mast, but you clearly remember me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s understandable. I’d remember me, too. So which one of you is the warp drive tech?”
“Hyperdrive,” Felix said through gritted teeth.
“Hmm? Did you say something, son?”
“It’s a hyperdrive. Warp drive’s still impossible.”
“Oh, so you would be the tech I’m looking for, then.”
“I am.”
“I am … sir?”
“This isn’t a military ship, Captain Tiberius,” Felix said tersely.
Jeffery made a display of clearing his throat. Maximus simply smiled.
“I remember you now, the quiet one afraid of girls. Freddy? Fissel?”
“Felix.”
“Well, then, Felix. Do you also believe that a nice fur coat would make me a Jack Russell terrier?”
“No,” Felix answered, suddenly off balance.
“Well, there you have it,” Maximus said. “There’s what a thing is made to look like, and there’s what a thing is. And this is a warship, and warships belong to militaries. Now, we have another transport coming in a week. Except this one will be filled with dignitaries, politicians, and the inevitable swarm of media. They’ll be expecting a launch ceremony. I intend to give them one. So I need your personal assurance that we’ll be ready to take this show on the road by then.”
“Well, that’s simple,” Felix said. “You don’t have it.”
“Thank you. I’ll be glad to … wait, what did you say?”
“I said you don’t have my assurance that we’ll launch in a week. So far we’ve only done this with prototypes less than a hundredth the mass. Even then, the first three blew up. I’m not prepared to give you assurances that we’ll launch on a deadline. There is too much calibration to do, and too many variables. The politicians want a party, fine, but they need to consult with us about the scheduling, not the other way around. We simply aren’t ready.”
Maximus listened politely, which itself made Felix uneasy. He’d half expected to have his head ripped off. Then the captain replied.
“Felix, baby,” Maximus said. “You’re just going to have to accept that people are never ready in times like these. Page-turners and bolt-tighteners always demand more time than external forces permit. That’s your job. My job is to remind you the real world and the people cutting our checks don’t care. So get us as ready as you can in a week, and maybe find yourself a little helping of faith. Can you do that for me?”
“Faith in what?” Felix said, an off-key note of contempt ringing through his voice.
“Whatever you like! That’s the secret,” Maximus said. “Faith in God, the mission, your shipmates, faith in your work, or even Bucephalus herself. The object of faith doesn’t matter, just the act of having it. That’s what tripped us up for so long.”
Maximus looked at the chronometer on the main plot. “Wow! Is that the time? Look, I’ve got to get moving to the other departments, lots of elbows to rub. But hey, good talk, everybody. And you look sharp in that uniform. Red is a good color on you.” He made a shooting gesture with his fingers at Felix as he backed out of the bridge. The lift tube doors closed and he was gone, leaving the three friends in baffled silence.
“What just happened?” Felix asked no one in particular.
“I think,” Jeffery said, “you were just put in your place by a Jack Russell terrier.”
* * *
A week passed, and Felix found himself on display for the world’s press. Fortunately, he was only one of many. The entire Bucephalus crew flanked the podium where Captain Tiberius stood, a great shinning white albatross with gold trim among a sea of red.
The press conference filled the portside shuttle bay almost to capacity. The shuttles themselves had been removed in preparation for the representatives from all the major holo-networks, vlogs, and accredited news sites from Earth to Luna to Mars to the dirigible cities of Venus.
Felix had been around large herds of reporters on several occasions, but this time was different. This time they knew who he was and what he had accomplished. The preconference press release has seen to that. Another part of Eugene’s bargain: credit given where it was due.
However, the glare of the media did not shine on Felix at the moment. For the first time, he was grateful Captain Tiberius was there. When it came to stealing the spotlight, Maximus was a first-rate supervillain.
“Captain Tiberius,” Stan Blather of CHS News jumped in. “Before journeying out here, we polled our viewers to ask, ‘Is launching the Bucephalus without full space trials too dangerous?’ Seventy-eight percent of respondents answered yes. What is your answer to them?”
Maximus’s smile was broader and brighter than a chrome grille. “Thank you for the question, Stan, and I’d say the only polls I care about have girls dancing on them. Next question.”
The room alternated between laughter and abject horror, but Maximus didn’t give them time to sort out which before pointing to the man Felix personally blamed for this whole dog and pony show, G. Libby Hackman. It w
as his news site, Loose Lips, that had published the leaked memos. It was his profile that matched the person tailing Harris a couple of years back.
“Yes? You, sir.”
Hackman let a stubby little arm fall back to his side and took his time composing himself. “Thank you, Captain. I’d like to build off Mr. Blather’s question. Considering the short workup time, unproven technology, and the unknowns you’ll encounter once in deep space, certainly even you must agree this mission seems a little … audacious?”
“Audacious?” Maximus gripped both sides of the podium and leaned back as if in shock before returning to the microphone. “No, audacious is the dandelion I found growing in the grass trimmings on the deck of my lawn mower. Imagine the stones on that plant. If it had a mouth, it would’ve spit in my face as I plucked it. We could all learn something from that ambitious little weed, people.” He motioned for the next questioner, “You, in the bowler.”
“Jimmy Lancier, New Detroit Gazette,” said a man as yet unburdened by the need to shave.
Felix remembered him from the old neighborhood. He was the annoying kid who never stopped asking inappropriate questions. Apparently, he’d made a career of it.
“Rumors are swirling that Bucephalus is some sort of prototype warship,” Lancier continued. “Would you care to comment on her weapons load?”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you, Jimmy, but I’m afraid that whatever defensive and offensive systems the Bucephalus may or may not have are classified … as totally awesome.”
Unable to avoid the inevitable any longer, Maximus leveled a finger at the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. In this case, it was an eight-hundred-pound gorilla named Buttercup. After several generations of captive gorillas being taught sign language, they eventually organized and demanded citizenship. So the Association for the Advancement of Non-Human Persons was formed. Its membership includes several thousand gorillas and chimpanzees, sixteen herds of elephants, twenty-seven pods of dolphins, and a particularly clever African gray parrot who served as treasurer. Buttercup had recently become a correspondent for Branches & Fruit Monthly, following his award-winning essays “Zoo Employees Fragile. Do Not Wrestle” and “Why You Not Groom Human Children?”
Buttercup started signing furiously into the small holographic translator he wore around his neck. After he’d finished, the device spoke in a calm female voice. “Why no furries on crew?”
Without missing a beat, Maximus said, “Oh, come on. With a crew this large, there has to be at least a couple of closet furries. C’mon, folks, raise your hands. We’re all adults here.” The crew looked back at him in muted horror. “Nobody? Well, they’re probably just shy.”
Buttercup bristled. Despite being packed into the shuttle bay like a can of green beans, the rest of the journalists managed to create a five-meter circle around the offended primate.
Maximus had to shout into the microphone to be heard over the rising hoots and growls. “I think that about wraps it up for the Q&A. See you all tomorrow at the launch!”
He deftly slid out of the way just as Buttercup’s chair shattered the podium.
CHAPTER 22
Vel Noric stepped cautiously through the great hallway leading to His Superiority the Kumer-Vel’s chambers. Many Vels had walked the path before him. The fortunate walked out promoted. The less than fortunate did not walk out at all. The supremely unfortunate were still here—or their heads were, at least, fixed to the walls as a reminder of the price of incompetence.
It alarms me not, Vel Noric thought. There were more practical ways to deal with an unfit Vel than to take their ship off patrol and pull them all the way back to the Nest. Besides, that business in the Tekis Nebula last cycle hardly justified making Noric into a wall mount, did it?
Noric felt fairly confident it didn’t, but he couldn’t help noticing the empty wall cavity illuminated by the orange light of Faan’s sun. If the sun-fading in the paint was any indication, the previous occupant had only just been removed. The crest atop Noric’s skull slacked a little more, and his pace quickened.
The interminable hallway finally ended at a set of impossibly tall doors of solid wood, embellished with leather accent panels whose origin Noric didn’t wish to dwell on.
A hard voice from a speaker in the doorframe: “State your purpose.”
Noric leaned in and answered. “Noric, Vel of patrol cruiser #7803. Here to present myself to the Kumer-Vel, as directed.”
The door unlatched itself and swung open ponderously. The centuries-old hinges creaked like the tapping fingers of an impatient giant. Despite a sudden blast of hot, moist air, a shiver ran through Noric’s scales.
A solitary figure emerged from the darkness inside. After a moment, Noric recognized the features of Ruckk, the official representative of the Turemok species at the six-seat table of the Assembly leadership, and the most powerful single individual he’d ever been in such proximity to. Noric stood resolute, respectful, but not cowering.
Ruckk gave him a cursory glance before snorting as if he’d just stepped over a dead jelbow.
“Good luck in there, Vel.”
“Thank you, Representative,” was all he managed.
Ruckk regressed down the empty hall, leaving Noric alone to face his fate once more. There was nothing for it. He passed through the imposing double doors as the darkness enveloped him. The echoes of Noric’s footfalls betrayed the cavernous size of the room.
Noric continued to walk forward into the inky blackness, his anxiety growing with each step. He switched the spectrum of his optical implants to UV. Nothing. He switched them to heat, only to find the room was a completely uniform temperature, which just happened to be Turemok body temperature.
It’s a test, he thought. A test of what, though? His resolve? His willingness to stumble along blindly? He stopped in his tracks.
“Reveal yourself, Kumer-Vel,” he said, trying to keep apprehension from infiltrating his voice.
“You do not give the orders here, Noric,” a booming voice echoed from the darkness.
Noric couldn’t pin down its point of origin. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“That is true,” Noric said more quietly. “However, those giving orders should be powerful enough to face their opponents, not hide in the shadows.”
The hissing/grating sound that substituted for laughter among the Turemok reverberated through the hall.
“So you cast yourself as my opponent? The denizens of the hallway should have counseled you against aspiring to that mantle.”
Noric immediately regretted his choice of words, but to retreat now would be a mark of weakness. “I will assume whatever mantle the Nest requires. If that must be your adversary, so it will be.”
An interminable moment of silence followed. Finally, the voice responded. “Not today, Vel. The darkness serves as reminder that there is much you cannot see.”
Noric let his anxiety ratchet down for the first time since making planet-fall. “Then tell me what you see, Kumer-Vel.”
“I see many things. Before me, I see a Vel, whose standing has turned to glot, literally in this case.”
Noric’s crest fell completely flat. So the news from Tekis had reached Faan, after all. Karking tourists.
“However, I’ve learned that even a Kumer Vel cannot judge an inferior’s worth on a single incident,” the darkness said. “So before rendering my judgment, I reviewed your record, your accomplishments, and most importantly, your logs. You and I perceive a common threat, Vel Noric.”
“The humans,” Noric said without hesitation.
“Very good, Vel. I see we share some patterns of thought.”
Noric relaxed, if only just. “They grow more emboldened by the cycle, Your Superiority,” he said. “One of their vessels reached the border of their preserve and immediately stole a marker buoy.”
“Yes, I read your report to the Assembly,” said the echo. “But I’m curious, why did you not simply destroy the v
essel for piracy?”
Noric selected his next words with care. “My Hedfer-Vel, J’quol, counseled against it. He believed that the Assembly would have frowned upon destroying an unarmed vessel. After considering the repercussions their judgment could have for our forces, I agreed. We are forced to operate under too many pointless restrictions already. No need to add more Gomeltics to the hunt.”
“Your Hedfer-Vel is a brave one, I think. You are fortunate to have him.”
“Brave, Your Superiority?” Noric asked.
“Yes, brave enough to advise against attack; a risky suggestion to make among our people.”
“I … had not considered that,” Noric said truthfully. “Still, I’m ambivalent about the decision.”
“How so?”
“There will be consequences,” Noric said. “When they return to Earth, they will use the marker to accelerate their technology. They could pose a genuine threat in as little as one or two of their centuries.”
Noric waited patiently, despite the distinct feeling that the room was growing even hotter. After what seemed like a full cycle, the voice returned.
“What if you were told the humans have already opened their own high-space portal?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Noric said. “It would just be a matter of getting inside the buoy and adapting its high-space com to—”
“Not the humans on the ship you were tracking, Vel,” the voice interrupted. “The high-space portal was detected on Earth itself.”
That did surprise Noric. “That’s not possible. There hasn’t been enough time for any signals from the ship to reach Earth. They can’t have copied the technology.”
“That is true, yet here we are. One of our reconnaissance platforms detected the high-space portal on Earth’s surface almost half a cycle ago,” said the voice. “So either you can believe that the humans produced a high-space portal domestically or that they have some way to communicate instantly, which the best Lividite scientists ensure us is impossible.”
Noric bristled at the implication. It wasn’t that long ago that the Turemok had been galactic infants, anchored to Faan by technological stagnation. But centuries of Lividite aggression pushed the rest of the neighborhood into desperation. The Turemok were unshackled from their home world and forged into a spear to thrust at the heart of the Lividite enemy. However, once their purpose was fulfilled, they could not be stood back down again. Millennia later, the Turemok were still the talons of the Assembly, and they were merciless in their quest to preserve their position.
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