Myles puffed out his plump cheeks. “If I knew that, I'd ask Stella to cold tank him.” He sighed. “Listen, you've heard how low morale has sunk in the ranks because of our recent losses to the Scaleys. Incidents of insubordination have trebled just this year alone, and there are signs it will get even worse. If I panicked over every suspicious case, where would I stop?”
“But Dr. Darron is in position to do a great deal of harm,” Sloan said. “My God, he's our psyche-physician!”
“Enough,” Stella said. “We have two possible security risks on board the Spaceranger, and I have only nine hours to decide. If I ask that one or both be removed it could delay our departure for weeks, perhaps forever. Do either of you have anything to add?”
Silence. Finally, Sloan gave her a rueful smile. “Stella, this is one reason I never wanted your job.”
Stella nodded. “Thank you both for your time.”
She watched them leave, waited briefly, then left herself, careful to palm lock the door against trespassers.
She slipped down the corridor, glancing behind her to see if she was being watched. Perhaps Jason's paranoia was contagious. Summoning a tube, she entered and descended.
Her destination was amidships, sixteen levels below, where an armed guard at a station checked her features against those on her badge before snapping her a salute. A metal door opened and she passed through.
“Commander McMasters?” A stunningly beautiful woman in a white lab coat greeted her. Shaking hands, Stella noted with bitter envy the lustrous auburn hair, soft, even features, and curves that the shapeless coat couldn't quite conceal.
“Dr. Wynn. I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice.”
“Not at all, Commander. How may I be of service?”
“I'd like to see our pilot.”
“Of course.” Dr. Wynn hesitated, obviously hoping for some explanation, but Stella didn't provide one. “If you'll come this way.”
They moved down a path bordered on both sides by cryotanks. “How many crew do you have here?”
“Two at present.” Dr. Wynn pointed at a corpulent man working on a nearby cryotank. “That's Jason's replacement pilot, Peter.”
Stella glanced at him, and then followed Wynn to a chamber on the other side.
“He's in here,” Dr. Wynn said.
Stella stepped up to the viewport and looked inside, seeing another male. This one was beautiful, endowed with a muscular, well-formed body and limbs. Tight raven curls framed a handsome face.
“That's Jason,” Dr. Wynn said. “He wears his hair long.” She touched Stella lightly, laughter in her voice. “He said he came from a long line of Greek heroes. That a distant ancestor of his piloted the Argonaut.”
Stella looked at her, but Dr. Wynn was gazing raptly through the port at her side. Despite the coolness of this section, her cheeks were flushed.
“Have you known Jason long?”
This time Dr. Wynn looked at her. “Only two days. He reported here from the Valiant and Dr. Darron and a team of us performed the procedure.”
“It went well?”
“Oh yes. His brain was extracted through the back of the skull, transferred to a nutri-cell and interfaced with the ship. Reimplantation should also be routine.”
Stella studied her expression. “Evidently he made an impression on you.”
Dr. Wynn blushed. “You might say that. He has quite a way about him.”
You can say that again. Stella turned back to Jason, her eyes passing over the molded contours of his body. Below his waist, black curls clustered about his sex. Oh yes, she thought. Such a man must be good at many things.
What had she expected to find here? A clue that would tell her what to do? All she had discovered was something she should have known: that unlike her, Jason had a body he could return to and someone who would care.
“Thank you for your time, Dr. Wynn,” she said. “I believe I'll go back now.”
* * * *
It was time. She strapped herself into the commander's purple chair and leaned back. The chair was not only located in the center of the bridge at a slight distance from others, but came with screens that could be activated for privacy. During her career she had wondered about the isolation. Now, for the first time, it was driven home. The separation stressed the loneliness of command, its terrible and awful burdens. On this craft no one could make decisions or take the blame but herself.
Click. The screens rose about her, called forth by Jason.
“Well, Jason,” she said, feeling a new intimacy. “It looks like it's just you and me.”
“Yes, Commander,” Jason's voice responded. “As I said before, I will always be here for you, even when others aren't.” A moment later: “Ser, I have Control on hold. Should I patch them through to you?”
Though required, the question was a formality. Stella held back a moment. “Jason, can you see what I look like?”
“Ser?”
Why am I asking this? “Can you see my ... face?”
A brief pause. “Yes, Commander. Your signature is quite clear.”
Signature? “You mean you can't actually see what I look like?”
“Commander, present technology doesn't quite permit that. Beyond and within the ship's parameters, I distinguish objects by spectroscopic patterns. It's not quite the same as seeing with my eyes, but I assure you, I've been extensively trained, and it's just as accurate and efficient.”
Stella smiled at his defensive tone, and then found herself wondering if he could tell she was smiling. Of course he could. He just couldn't tell what she looked like.
“Get Control,” she said.
“Yes, Commander.”
A click. A moment later came a man's voice: “This is Control, Commander. We have you cleared to launch in two minutes. Will you lift off or abort?”
How many commanders had answered that question in the past three thousand years? She wet her lips with moisture that was not saliva and looked up at the bulkhead.
“Ad astra, Commander?” Jason said.
Ad astra. Oh yes, it was ancient Terran Latin and meant ‘to the stars.’ “Please stand by,” she said to Control. She started to recline her chair.
“Allow me, Commander,” Jason said. The chair shifted and she felt herself carefully tipped back. She gripped the chair arms, then relaxed and closed her eyes. Oddly, she imagined it was Jason's muscular arms that held her. She felt herself sink into his embrace as his voice caressed her.
“How is that?” he whispered, just centimeters away.
“Commander, this is Control. You have sixty seconds to liftoff.”
Jason's arms gently cradled and cushioned her. Though she knew it was wrong, that the Empire had a rule against fraternization, it was as if she were under a spell. And was it truly fraternization when she couldn't even touch his body? She smiled, feeling his close presence almost on her face, her lips. Shall we go see those distant stars together, Jason?
A heartbeat later she opened her eyes, hardening herself. No more weakness. Damn it, decide. Do it now. Right or wrong, decide.
“Commander, this is Control. You have thirty—”
“McMasters here,” she said, cutting him short. “Everything's fine at this end. Let's go for it.”
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* * *
CHAPTER THREE
After the roar of their engines and the cruel pressure she barely felt; after all systems checked out go and they reached five thousand kilometers per second; after the thrill of command was tamed by a week's routine and they slowed for a billion kilometers to reach their first jump-it was finally time to meet her crew and tell them of their mission.
Straightening her uniform, Stella glanced one last time at the black whirling funnel nine hundred kilometers away on the holovid display and left the bridge, followed by her officers.
“Commander, I've been meaning to speak to you.”
She glanced at Darron's imposing bulk. “Not n
ow, George. We've got a meeting.”
The tube door opened, and they entered and descended. Darron, Carol, Myles, Sloan. Only Jason, she thought, was physically absent, and she would have liked him to be here more than anyone else. She thought of his voice, of how it changed ever so slightly when he spoke to her, as if they had an understanding. As if he thought of her too and dreamed as she did, of the day he could reach out and touch her hand. She knew it was foolish to think such things and to agonize about her sexuality and attractiveness to men. It was even more foolish to think of Jason restored to his body and naked in her cabin. After all, she had a ship to run and a mission to perform. She must not be distracted from that.
Still, she couldn't get rid of the feeling that she and Jason shared a bond, one she yearned to explore and deepen, to find out if their feelings were as real as she hoped. She imagined them together, his lips burning against hers as he moved inside her.
She cleared her throat and glanced about, wondering if anyone could tell what she was thinking. Beside her, Darron fidgeted. Then his eyes settled on hers, and he smiled.
Why don't I feel at ease with Darron? Stella thought. Is it that he baited me earlier, or that I feel guilty for having humiliated him?
The door opened, and they left, entering Assembly, the largest room on the ship. Two levels aft of the bridge, it was dotted here and there by miniature gardens of flowers and shrubs. Stella saw glorious red, white, and pink blossoms that, as always, struck her as incongruous. “We talk of war/Amid the scents of heaven,” she recalled an anti-war poet writing, “And scatter lives like petals/Throughout the universe of time.”
Leading her officers, she marched down the central aisle toward the platform at the front. Though her crew stood at attention on both sides, some couldn't resist looking at her. Look at the freak, she imagined them whispering. That's not her real face and body. They grew them in a lab vat.
Shoulders back, Stella mounted the platform and stood erect behind the rostrum. Perhaps two hundred crew faced her. On vidscreens, she saw nine hundred other souls watching from stations about the ship. Stella turned to the large hologram suspended three meters high in the room's center. Kolanera, the twelve-year-old Emperor, gazed back at her with soft, guileless eyes as if thinking of his parents, who had died in a tragic accident a year before. Malik, the Regent-Protector chosen to rule in trust until Kolanera reached his majority at nineteen, was not shown. Stella recalled with unease the rumors she'd heard about his dishonesty and corruption.
“In the name of our Emperor, Kolanera the Fifth,” she intoned, “let us raise every voice and heart and sing our Imperial Anthem.”
She began singing and two hundred voices immediately followed, obedient to a thousand-year-old tradition. Glancing about, Stella saw that those on the screens held their hands clasped over their hearts and were singing too.
Raise every voice and heart
That we true soldiers play our part.
Our Emperor's will shall be our way,
To serve and die-glorious pay!
Though comrades perish at our side,
We shall fight on bravely-not abide
The foe who scorns His sacred crown.
We strike him boldly-cast him down!
Even though the anthem's meter and rhyme scheme were deficient, she loved and was true to it, just as her soldiers were. As they sang together, she felt very close to them, united by a common goal and purpose, by a commitment to something larger than herself. Her eyes teared, and for once even her terrible accident seemed joyful, an unexpected benediction.
The last voice faded in the chamber, leaving it strangely silent.
“In the Emperor's name,” she said, “you may sit.”
They did so, and she was aware again of her difference from them, of her terrible apartness. But one glance at her Emperor's trusting features strengthened her resolve and she started to speak.
She greeted and told them of their mission, which she knew they already suspected. “Comrades, as you have no doubt guessed, we have been assigned an important mission. We have been ordered to rendezvous with General Loran's forces and support him in the greatest engagement yet in the war effort, one that may ultimately decide its course.”
A few faint cheers greeted her words. She waited, then, punctuating her remarks with forceful gestures, tried to present their role in the best possible light. They were a valuable force essential to General Loran's campaign, she said, and the combat readiness of ships like theirs would make a crucial difference in the coming battle. She informed them of the two wormholes ahead before they reached their goal some 8268 light-years distant, of how their first jump would be undertaken in just a few hours.
Her last statement caused a few in the audience to murmur. Evidently, they had not expected to face the rigors of a jump so soon.
When she was finished, she folded her hands on the rostrum. “Are there any questions?” she asked.
She waited, half-expecting someone to rise and expose her as an impostor. But they all sat cowed. Rank is rank, she thought, touching a gold commander's wing on her collar.
“That being the case,” she said, “I now turn the proceedings over to Dr. Darron, who will share with you some recent findings and, uh, meaty tidbits about the enemy. Again, I wish you well, and I look forward to working with you on this most vital enterprise.”
Returning to her seat amid applause, she was met halfway by Dr. Darron. “Commander,” he whispered, “there aren't any new ‘tidbits’ about the Scaleys. It's the same old stew!”
She patted his shoulder. “Then spice it up, George, but make them care.”
When she was seated, Carol smiled and gave her an approving nod. Stella smiled back and turned her attention to the rostrum, where Darron nodded at a tech operating a holo projector. A moment later an image equal in size to the Emperor's appeared facing it in the air.
A Scaley.
Scattered curses, sounds of shock. Stella leaned forward, wondering if her plan to motivate the crew would work or backfire. Admittedly, the symbolism was heavy-handed, but this juxtaposition of good and evil, of beloved Emperor and despised enemy was having an impact.
As the crew settled down, the tech slowly rotated the three-dimensional image so they could see it from all sides. For perhaps the thousandth time, Stella studied the face and form of the enemy.
Vaguely reptilian, the size of a large human, a Scaley seemed at first almost beautiful, with delicate features and mottled, silver-blue scales. The longer you stared at one, though, the more disquieting it seemed. There was something intangible in a Scaley's face or appearance that was deeply disturbing to humans. Scientists, xenologists, and philosophers had endlessly debated, but all anyone knew was that humans instinctively felt it and that the Scaleys were deadly, intent on devouring the stars.
Merely five years before, when the Empire of United Worlds was enjoying an unequalled period of conquest and expansion, the Scaleys had invaded this part of the galaxy. Where they'd come from, no one knew, nor whether they had any real culture, beliefs, or language as humans understood them. None of their ships had ever been captured, and the few Scaleys taken prisoner had somehow self-destructed or willed themselves to die, leaving only rapidly deteriorating corpses for analysis.
If only we could speak to one, Stella thought. Establish contact in some way. At the rostrum, Darron was warming to his subject, trotting out an old theory. Indications were that the Scaleys were a hivelike species and mentality, like bees and ants. That would explain their implacable efficiency. He raised his eyes to the Scaley revolving above. “If so,” he said, “we may have to emulate and even surpass their ferocity in the service of our Emperor.”
There was robust applause, followed by Darron's call for questions. Several hands rose; Darron picked one.
“Ser,” said a crewman, “why do Scaleys always die after we capture them?”
“Apparently,” Darron rumbled, “it's a genetic trait to prevent them from dis
closing military secrets or compromising their security.”
A woman rose, a dietician Stella recognized. “Dr. Darron, based on the fact that we've lost every battle against the Scaleys, do you really think we have a chance to win this war?”
Dr. Darron waved to quiet the resulting outburst, and then seemed lost for words. Watching him, Stella remembered Jason reporting that Darron felt the Empire was weak and already beaten. If he believed that, how could he possibly respond?
On the other hand, if he was a traitor, appearing to be tongue-tied might be an excellent way to sow doubt and undermine their mission.
Darron's apparent inability to speak was having an effect. Murmurs rose, a rising crest that would soon—
Stella reached the rostrum in five strides. “Of course we'll win!” she shouted. “We'll win because a free-thinking race that can love and serve a cause will always prevail over a mechanical one, however cruel and efficient.”
Her eloquent words stilled the assembly, but the woman seemed unimpressed. “Commander, that hasn't been proven. This is the first conflict we've had with any alien race.”
Stella glanced up at the Emperor's boyish face, then at their alien nemesis. “True,” she said, “but—”
Suddenly brilliant red lights began flashing at the four corners of the hall. A moment later, a piercing shriek rent the air. “Battle Stations! Report to Battle Stations!”
Sloan was already leaping from the platform. In the sudden commotion, the packed crew struggled to avoid collision as they left for different stations. Stella, knowing her speed would enable her to reach the bridge first, saw many crew glance fearfully at the vidscreens.
She was watching when the displayed scene changed, became that of open space, which rushed toward her in a close-up. When it stopped, the black maw of the wormhole was clearly visible.
As was the sleek length of the Scaley warship positioned directly beside it.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
Though she'd trailed Sloan and her other officers from the platform, Stella gained the bridge first. Ignoring the tubes, she tackled the utility stairs that climbed the ship's length.
Beyond Those Distant Stars Page 3
