Commander Charlene, just as Emery predicted, led them through the “chapel” and up the ladders to the control center. Abram was behind her, followed by Zabat, who looked so ill that he might vomit on the spot. Emery and Rand followed, with Tahir bringing up the tail end.
This was one of the critical pivot points in Abram’s plan: There were no contingencies if they couldn’t capture the generational ship’s control center, and they needed to do it without any warning, subsquently leaving the system through the time buoy. They’d also like to prevent any warning going to the stations near Laomedon and Sophia II, but if that happened, Abram could adjust his plan.
Last up, Tahir climbed out of the vertical airlock in time to see Abram grab Commander Charlene’s arm and, twisting it behind her, fluidly pull a flechette pistol out of his loose coveralls. The commander’s briefing ended in a punctuating cry. Tahir numbly drew his weapon.
“Nobody move.” The concentration in Abram’s voice lashed Tahir’s nerves and he winced, having intimate familiarity with that tone. Most of the controllers turning in their chairs immediately froze.
Tahir saw movement from the corner of his eye and he turned, but Emery was faster. The neck and base of the controller’s head exploded in blood.
“No!” yelled Tahir. He took two strides to reach the young man, but no one could help him as he slumped forward and slid from his chair. Emery’s hit had been mercifully lethal.
“Don’t move.” Emery threatened the controller to the left, who had involuntarily started forward to help the unfortunate victim.
“Tahir, see what he was doing,” Abram said.
As instructed, he turned to the console and realized that the victim had been monitoring the Minoan time buoy.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“That’s all you can come up with, college boy, with all your expensive education?” Emery smirked.
“If you hadn’t covered the place in blood—” Tahir stopped, realizing everyone in the center was watching them, not that they’d remember much from these first few moments.
Abram’s face was wooden, waiting for Tahir’s response. Suppressing a shudder, Tahir wiped gore from the panel that displayed the prompts and buttons for that station. The smell of blood bothered him; he wasn’t as hardened as the others to violence—I shouldn’t be here. Not that he was afraid to die, but this was his fatalism speaking rather than the frothing fanaticism that Emery carried. Emery will die for the cause and I’ll die for nothing.
“This station talked to the time buoy,” Tahir said as steadily as he could. “There’s not much the crew is allowed to do. I think he put it through an initialization loop again, but I don’t know why.”
Emery growled in frustration and stepped over to look at the console. He made a show of examining the prompts and the button outlines, but Tahir knew he didn’t understand the display. Emery whirled on the comm operator.
“Tell us what he did!” Emery pointed his weapon into the comm controller’s face.
“I don’t know anything about the buoy,” the man babbled, near hysteria, his face bloodless. “Hardly anyone does—we just follow the checklist.”
“It’s coming online again.” Tahir kept his voice matter-of-fact, hoping to calm Emery. “The buoy is still in closed mode, controlled by the Pilgrimage.”
Tahir relaxed. Control of the buoy was critical in temporarily isolating the system. Permanent isolation wasn’t on anyone’s mind. After all, that required destruction of a buoy. That was beyond the realm of possibilities—unless one had a stolen TD weapon in the hold of one’s hijacked ship. He looked up and met Abram’s eyes, which were steady and calculating. He was always surprised, considering the crazy plans that hatched inside Abram’s head, to see signs of rational thought. It was easier to think that a madman drove their tactics. Sadly, Abram’s plan would work and Tahir merely hoped to mitigate casualties. Luckily, Abram needed most of these people alive.
“Start shutting down the comm, Tahir. You’ll have to stall requests for bandwidth allocation until we’ve got control of the entire ship,” Abram said.
Tahir moved over to the comm console and noted the current allocation. He glanced a warning at the operator, who pointedly turned away and vomited, now that his fight-or-flight instinct was letting his senses work again. The crèche-get would all have problems once their noses started functioning. They probably hadn’t ever smelled blood before.
Meanwhile, Abram spoke into his own short-range comm link. “Teams two, three, and four can proceed.”
“What the hell are you doing? You don’t have the crew to run this ship yourself.” Commander Charlene had recovered from shock; her voice had a caustic bite that almost hid the waver. Some of the crèche-get straightened. Perhaps they were starting to think clearly.
Tahir shook his head. Lucid minds were dangerous. Abram needed cooperation and he couldn’t get it if there was coolheaded leadership. This was a problem right out of Qesan’s writings: Either Abram would have to make an example out of the commander to coerce the crew through fear, or he had to separate and imprison her, using her well-being as collateral for the crew’s good behavior. Tahir knew which option his father would take. Abram placed greater stock in fear than loyalty.
“Go stand inside the airlock.” Abram had his weapon aimed at Commander Charlene and made a motion with his other hand. Charlene looked confused but did what Abram told her. She couldn’t make a quick escape and still evade the flechettes.
“Captain Zabat, please follow.”
Zabat made a small, whimpering sound and shook his head. Abram sternly motioned again and added, “We will force you, if you lack the courage, and that will be bad for the woman.”
Sweating profusely, Zabat shuffled to where Abram pointed and stood, as directed, facing Charlene.
“Closer.” Abram reached into his pocket.
“Charlene, I’m sorry.” Zabat’s hoarse whisper to the confused woman was audible throughout the deck. The two stood little more than three meters away from Abram, hardly a safe range, but Abram might be deranged enough—
Emery and Rand took what cover they could under the consoles, crouching down and turning away.
“Turn away and cover your ears,” Tahir said sharply and loudly, for the crèche-get’s benefit.
He and the comm controller were as far away as possible in the circular room, but they were also directly across from the airlock. The controller whose name tag read JUSTIN exchanged a quick glance with Tahir. Justin’s eyes were glazed with indecision and fear, but he followed Tahir’s lead in turning away, hunkering down, and covering his ears.
Tahir heard a thump, then felt a slight concussive force and hard pellets of something hit him. He looked down and saw bits of gore interspersed with tiny smoking balls from the many incendiary implants in Zabat. They quickly burned out and turned into dark specks, as designed, without enough smoke to trigger the alarms. The sharp smell it left behind was faint but unique. Behind him, there were sharp screams of fear, pain, and horror.
Surveying the center, Tahir was unsurprised to see Abram whole and safe, although he would have tiny scars from the incendiary balls that had hit his face and hands. Perhaps insanity truly protected him. Abram’s front was a mess of gore, although not as bad as the airlock, which had taken the brunt of the exploding bodies. There was no indication that Zabat had even existed, but Tahir could see Charlene’s body. The ship itself had suffered no damage. Two of the controllers were weeping, and others were still in shock. Those gagging and covering their mouths and noses were recovering the quickest.
Abram listened to messages played by his ear bug. He nodded, his eyes distant, seemingly removed from the catastrophe.
“My teams now command your support and engineering centers,” Abram said, motioning to the woman at the environmental monitor. “Call for cleanup. All of you will be safe, provided you cooperate with our requests.”
Abram’s voice was mild; he might have been talking a
bout the weather or the local food. The environmental controller stared at him in confusion. When Abram frowned, she put through the call in a tight and wavering voice.
“We have your two other captains in custody, so be on your best behavior.” Abram’s voice almost purred with satisfaction and Tahir knew why. By executing Charlene, yet keeping the other two captains as hostages, Abram had satisfied several instructions in Qesan’s writings.
Abram walked over to Tahir and the comm controller, wearing the gore on his front like a badge. The controller kept his eyes on his console.
“It’s time to stop all communication between this ship and the outside. Do it in a way that won’t alarm anyone,” Abram said.
Tahir nodded. Most of the seven hundred people on the Pilgrimage III were still ignorant of the takeover. Abram was commandeering major control centers and systematically containing the secondary work areas. Then he would widen his attention across the entire G-145 system and find a suitable ship to modify for carrying the TD weapon.
Ariane felt free and peaceful. No ghosts rustled in her head as she walked through the desolate corridors toward the slip where Aether’s Touch connected. Hal had set his head down on the table and slept, snoring in oblivion until the bartender roused him and sent him off. At that point, Ariane noted the time and realized she had to leave. She had six hours before she had to catch a ride down to Priamos.
She congratulated herself on her control; she’d sipped slowly and paced herself. She wasn’t sure how many beers she’d had, but wasn’t it good she hadn’t obsessively counted them? The empty station no longer felt lonely or creepy. She began to hum a tune, one that had been repeating in her head, as she turned the corner.
A woman blocked her way. She was Terran, by the look of the bland jumpsuit, but with a jarring originality not usually found in Terrans. For one thing, she had flamboyant, burgundy hair. That wouldn’t be strange for anyone living on a Consortium world, since Autonomists had no problem with artificially coloring any part of their bodies, but Terrans prided themselves on their eugenics and their ability to breed natural enhancements to the human body. They didn’t color their hair and they tried to breed for consistent physiques; this woman wasn’t any taller than Ariane. Though she was extremely petite for a Terran, her tight jumpsuit revealed strong muscle lines along lithe limbs. Her complexion was perfection: Unmarked, unscarred, and much lighter than Ariane’s, her face was as cold as honed alabaster.
“Uh . . . hullo.” Ariane stepped back to regain her personal space. She felt grubby and quickly smoothed her baggy crew overalls around her waist and hips.
“Hullo.” The woman cocked her head to the side. Her light gray eyes seemed angry and mocking.
“Who are you?”
“I’m disappointed, Major Kedros. I didn’t expect to find a Destroyer of Worlds stumbling around drunk, nor did I think you’d be such a pretty little thing.”
“I’m not drunk.” The words came out automatically. Who is this woman? Someone this small couldn’t be a TEBI agent, given Terran prejudices about people outside the “average.”
The woman sniffed delicately. “You reek of alcohol. Perhaps that’s to be expected, since Major Kedros had to be checked into an addict commons.”
“You’re on Parmet’s staff.” Ariane made the most obvious assumption.
The woman’s face and body were suddenly empty of emotion. It was an instantaneous change that Ariane had seen before in those trained in Terran somaural techniques. She would have backed away, but she found herself against the bulkhead. Stupid, to get myself maneuvered this way.
“Isrid is my first husband. He lost a brother and I lost a second husband at Ura-Guinn. Pryce and his wife were joining our multimarriage and Pryce would have fathered my next child.” The woman’s tone was flat.
The Terrans strictly controlled their licenses for having children, and often had to apply for them years in advance. She didn’t know what to say, and she couldn’t apologize for the Ura-Guinn mission or for following her orders. It was wartime and this woman wasn’t the only one who lost loved ones, at Ura-Guinn or some other battle. However, this was the story staring her in the face right now and Ariane had to look down, breaking eye contact.
That was her first mistake. She caught the blur of movement on the rightmost periphery of her sight. Her flinch was late; her second mistake. Her shoulder barely slowed the kick and the right side of her head exploded in pain. How the hell did that happen—a tight fist caught Ariane in the solar plexus and she went down—so fast? She tried to roll away, gasping for breath, but she ended up wedged against the bulkhead and received several kicks in the kidneys for her effort.
Can’t breathe. Pain. She couldn’t avoid the woman’s well-aimed boots. Even if she could voice an emergency, there were no operating nodes in the corridor to record her. The kicks paused. Her lungs gasped and wheezed.
“That was too easy. You’re just a pathetic drunk.” The woman delivered her scornful words in an eerily impassive voice.
Ariane tensed, expecting another kick. Her eyes were watering and she couldn’t hear footsteps over her wheezing breath. Eventually she opened her eyes, seeing the bulkhead meet the floor in front of her eyes. A seam in the tough, flexible display covering was right in front of her and she could see the tiny connection threads that allowed an image to slip from the bulkhead to the floor.
Now that she wasn’t gasping as much, she heard nothing. She tasted blood. Trying to roll her head to look the other way, she moaned. She was alone in the corridor. From the pain, she figured the blows against unprotected organs had caused bruising, perhaps bleeding, and she might have a cracked rib.
Several moans later, she was on her feet and stumbling toward Aether’s Touch. Anger was beginning to replace shock, although she wasn’t as angry with Parmet’s wife as she was with Parmet. She and Parmet had a deal. He was supposed to stay quiet about the original AFCAW crew members. That was his payment for having her sign over the leases to certain Terran contractors.
What a bastard. He might not have released anything on ComNet, but he told his family. Gaia knows who else might be gunning for me. Since he didn’t keep his side of the bargain, tomorrow I’m going to see about getting rid of some Terran contractors. Her anger was healing in its energy. By the time she reached the outer airlock of Aether’s Touch, she had the presence of mind to wipe her bloody hand on her coveralls before she typed in her code and gave her password for voiceprint analysis.
“Muse Three, send a request to the Pilgrimage Three for the bandwidth to do an AI-indexed ComNet search.” There were advantages to having an agent of AI stature. She could give Muse 3 complicated instructions that would have required her manual assistance if she’d used the ship’s systems.
“Yes, Ari.”
It’d take time to message the generational ship, since the relays for Beta Priamos Station weren’t working yet. Meanwhile, she opened the med closet and tried not to cringe at her image in the mirror. Her scalp had split on the side of her head, hence all the blood in her hair, on her face, down her neck, on her hands—all over. By gingerly prodding and turning her ear, she determined the skin and cartilage weren’t torn beyond the capability of plastiskin to hold and heal.
After cleaning her head and wounds, she pulled out the scanner. Being second-wave prospectors meant being prepared for medical emergencies, so Aether’s Touch was equipped to heal some straightforward injuries, such as cracked and broken bones. Yes, one of her ribs showed a small crack, justifying her painful breathing. The rest of her ribs looked good, perhaps because of the bone growth stimulation she’d received after escaping Cipher’s most dramatic explosion.
She applied a full dose of stim and agreed with the medical diagnosis that displayed, “Rest and limited activity required for three days,” but she had to leave for a contractor meeting in five hours. Embarrassingly, it took mere minutes for a diminutive Terran woman to kick the shit out of the “Small Stellar Terror” and leave her
like a rag doll on the deck.
Assessing damage to her internal organs was problematic. The med scanner showed she hadn’t ruptured anything, but there could be finer internal damage and bleeding. She’d test again in a couple hours, when she might get better information.
“Ari, the response from the Pilgrimage Three is negative. No bandwidth can be allocated at this time, due to maintenance.”
“Did they give a projected time for completion of the maintenance?”
“No.”
That was unusual. She should give Justin, or whoever was controlling comm, some flak for being so vague, but she needed sleep more than she needed to look up whether Parmet had a wife with burgundy hair. She reached for bright, the friend of all shift workers, particularly those in space who didn’t have planetary rhythms to guide their sleep patterns.
“Ari, from the test results, you appear to be injured. Should I call nine-one-one?”
“No, Muse Three. I fell and have some bruises, that’s all.” She lied, hoping the pesky AI didn’t access the voice stress analysis algorithms. “Besides, there’s no medical staff on Beta Priamos, so there’s no one to call.”
“You could send a message to Matt.”
The comment had a tiny hint of slyness and Ariane froze. Would she have even had those drinks if Matt had been here? She queried her implant and relaxed when she saw the blood alcohol content was barely measurable. It still might have slowed her reflexes, or perhaps Parmet’s wife was really that fast. Either way, she didn’t want Matt to learn about this.
“No, Muse Three. There’s nothing Matt can do to help me and we’d worry him unnecessarily.”
“Agreed, but the tests indicate you should rest for three days.”
She wondered how much time Nestor had wasted on emotional mimicry, since the damn thing sounded concerned, even motherly.
“I’ll rest for three hours, Muse Three; then I have to get down to the Priamos surface for a contractor meeting.”
No response.
If you want to sulk, that’s fine, but I won’t trust you with waking me. She added the bright to her implant and set the time delay. For backup, she set an alarm, one that didn’t run through the systems within Muse 3’s reach. After gingerly arranging herself on her good side, she quickly fell asleep.
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