by P. R. Adams
Munoz’s booming voice rolled up the stairwell.
Meyers! Rimes took a step down, and Durban shifted, as if aware of the fragility of the moment for the first time.
The shouting stopped, and Rimes relaxed.
Durban took a tentative step down the stairs. “Should I…?”
“I think they’ve sorted it out for now.” Rimes relaxed as best he could, which wasn’t much. It had been Durban’s moment to step up and lead, and the moment was now gone. “Look, Tim, the way I see it, there are two officers with any experience at orbital assault. I don’t care what anyone tells you, experience can’t be replaced.”
Durban reflected for a moment, then cleared his throat. “You won’t regret it.”
“I never worried I would.” Rimes’s earpiece chimed. He had twenty minutes to shower and meet Fontana in the officer’s mess. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. I’ll see you again at 0700.”
“I’ll have them ready. Sorry about the…” Durban vaguely waved ahead of him as he retreated down the stairs.
Rimes forced a short laugh that didn’t sound the least sincere to his own ears; he hoped it sounded more convincing to Durban.
Rimes jogged the rest of the way to his cabin. He was just ahead of the rush for the showers, able to slip in and out of the head with minutes to spare, but he was still behind schedule.
As he approached the officer’s mess, he saw Fontana—shoulders hunched, head down—waiting for him at the hatch. She looked at him as if she were a jilted date. Rimes cringed inwardly at the thought and its implied normalcy.
From a distance, she’s just another one of us.
Rimes came to a stop in front of her. “Sorry. Our workout ran a little long this morning.”
She blushed and dropped her eyes in embarrassment, but not before her teeth showed in a grin. “It’s all right.”
She…thinks I’m flirting? “I’m usually prompt.” Rimes caught an ensign staring at the two of them. A momentary flicker of shame knocked Rimes off-balance. This feels a lot more awkward than I expected.
“I understand. Really.”
Rimes rubbed the scar on his temple. This isn’t going like I wanted it to. We need to get inside. “I know your time is valuable. I don’t want…I didn’t mean—”
Fontana’s eyes narrowed. “Captain, I understand. We’re both busy.”
Shit. I just can’t get this meeting to work right with her. She’s taking offense, trying to direct things now. More time lost unnecessarily. I wasn’t expecting her to assert herself so strongly; I need to drive this conversation.
“Sorry.” Rimes looked at the hatch, then back at Fontana. “I didn’t mean otherwise.”
“Maybe we should get our food?” Fontana turned, the tension all but gone from her face.
They entered the mess, gathering trays and utensils. A moment later, they settled at a small table. As Fontana scanned the room, Rimes quickly dug into his plate—vegetable sausage, faux eggs, dry toast, and fruit slices. It was habit, the way a soldier ate.
Fontana watched him, amused, then looked down at her modest bowl of oatmeal. She tilted her head suddenly, as a bird might. “You always sit alone?”
Rimes chewed on a slice of sausage and looked around. He’d never given it much thought. Chow wasn’t much of a socializing time for him. He took a drink of water. “I guess I do.”
“What about your friend? The serious lieutenant? He always seems to be alone as well.”
Rimes held the last of the sausage just outside his mouth. Is she asking…? No. Don’t even try to understand her. “Durban?”
“Is that his name?” Fontana quickly scanned the room again, then returned to staring at her bowl of oatmeal.
Shit. I think she is asking about Durban. “Timothy. You could probably call him Tim.”
Fontana blushed. “Oh, I—”
Definitely asking about Durban. I’d never thought of how they…felt. He thought of teasing her, but it didn’t feel right. “You should meet him, if you haven’t already. He’s a good officer. I can introduce you.”
Fontana blinked rapidly, her mouth opening and closing, then she turned back to her oatmeal. She watched him over the edge of the bowl, as if she might find an answer to her uncertainty that way. Rimes scooped the last of the fruit slices into his mouth, and blinked at her slowly, trying to see her as just a fellow human. Mr. Durban, I think she’s smitten with you.
Rimes set his spoon down. He was suddenly unsure how Durban might react to the idea Fontana had an interest in him. Worse, Rimes couldn’t shake the worry that a genie might compromise his second-in-command. She’s one of us, damn it.
“Do you always eat like that? So much food, so fast?” Fontana swallowed a spoonful of oatmeal.
Rimes gathered the pear, apple, and banana bits onto his fork, then shoveled them into his mouth. He washed the sweet fruit mixture down with a swig of water and wiped his face with a faux-cloth napkin. “Lesson one in infantry: treat every meal as your last opportunity to eat. That plate was probably close to a thousand calories. In the field, you can burn that off before noon. You don’t have the luxury of several minutes to eat and chat. You can’t forget that unless you’re never going into the field again.”
Fontana looked at her oatmeal with what could have been a frown. “We lead such different lives, Captain. You wear a uniform, I wear business suits. You rise before the sun and have no idea when you’ll get to sleep. My day usually starts around nine and ends by six. I sleep when I want to. You train to kill; I train to better understand our enemies.”
I can’t understand her; she can’t understand me. And on top of that, part of her job involves touching human minds. That must be hard. He laughed inwardly at the thought that a pusher—a telepath—couldn’t understand someone. Having the data isn’t understanding, apparently.
“Your understanding of our enemies makes it possible for me to kill them.” Rimes looked into Fontana’s ghostly gray-blue eyes, unsure what he hoped to see there. He certainly hadn’t expected the confusion and doubt.
Fontana’s face tightened, and her lips turned down in a near frown. “So my value to you is that I make killing my—genies easier?”
This isn’t working. I need to emphasize our common traits. “If you consider it from another angle, we’re actually a lot alike. We work for the government. We strive to protect our…nation and make her stronger. We train constantly to better ourselves in order to execute our duties with maximum effectiveness.”
Fontana smiled, enough to reveal some of her teeth. It had a pleasant enough effect that Rimes suddenly didn’t see her as a mockery of human life.
He still wondered what DNA—terrestrial and other—had been integrated into normal human strains to create her.
Not normal. Mundane. She’s as normal as me.
But how do I know what she is? Could she just be another Kwon or Perditori, aggressors who see humans as animals to be slaughtered? I need to believe I can trust her, and I need her to trust me, and that starts by acknowledging her and the importance of her role.
Fontana blushed as if she could sense his thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about what happened the other day on the bridge. The push. Affecting so many people.”
“Including you.”
Fontana nodded. “To a degree, yes. It might as well have affected me the way it left me in the end. I could hear you. I was aware of everything around me. I couldn’t—” She scraped at her oatmeal. “Have you ever looked at a bright light and not been able to blink or look away, even when you desperately wanted to?”
Rimes nodded. Bright light, hazardous fumes, high-risk thrills. Everyone had experienced at least a momentary lure from something dangerous. It’s part of the human condition. Human. He tensed at the realization.
Fontana’s hand shook as she set her spoon down. “I could feel this force at work. I could sense the mind behind it.”
Rimes watched her for a moment. She suddenly seemed very vulnerable, ver
y human. She can’t be just another one of us. We need her to be…more. How am I supposed to even deal with this if I see her as just another human? “You think we’ve made the wrong decision, pursuing them?”
She shook her head. “We don’t have a choice. I think they’ve made their intentions clear.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’ve been meeting with Captain Fripp and Commander Stafford. When I explain to them what we know we’re up against…You can see it in their eyes. They’re not ready. I don’t think we’re ready. And this is our only opportunity to act.” She studied Rimes as she might a perplexing puzzle.
“We could try to build out the fleet, improve our tactics—”
Fontana shook her head and sagged. “Time is the enemy. Think about it. These—we—are the first iteration, the product of human engineering. What happens when genies breed and the DNA works outside the control of the lab? What happens twenty years from now when the first generation of true genies comes into its own?”
Rimes took a drink of coffee and pondered the idea. Fontana nervously sipped at her water. Behind her, officers filtered into the room and settled at other tables. They seemed an interesting mix—serious, jovial, loud, quiet, solitary, gregarious. So much about human society relied upon diversity to survive, even to grow.
Diversity. Not some monolithic entity. Can I see the genies as they are rather than as I imagine—want—them to be? If I do that, maybe I can better understand them. But understanding makes it harder to see them as enemies.
Rimes set his coffee cup down. “Maybe they outgrow the need for revenge. Maybe their kids tell them it’s not worth all the pain and suffering. Or maybe we destroy ourselves before they can. We’ve certainly come close enough before.”
Fontana smiled, a genuine, open smile that fully revealed her teeth. She had pronounced canines and sharp molars, like a wolf. Noting Rimes’s reaction, she blushed ashamedly and closed her mouth. “Evolving out of your violent natures. It’s a hopeful notion, Captain, but it’s certainly not what your people had in mind when they designed mine. Excuse me.”
Rimes couldn’t help feeling he’d missed an opportunity.
13
25 June, 2167. USS Valdez.
* * *
“Captain Rimes to the bridge. Captain Rimes to the bridge.”
The message echoed in the hangar bay where Rimes’s team was training. In no time, the echoes became so distorted, they were almost incomprehensible.
Rimes had jumped at the initial burst of noise. His breakfast with Fontana had left him bothered, and several hours passing hadn’t set his mind at ease. He held up his hands and stepped away from Lopresti. Her face was flush again, an angry red instead of its usual pale pink. She maintained her low, defensive posture until he was completely off the training mat.
The team needs to stay with the training if they’re going to have any chance against genies. Meyers could lead them, but that would just be undermining Durban. I’ll have to find a compromise, damn it.
Rimes waved Meyers forward and turned, arms raised, to get everyone’s attention; Munoz looked away angrily. “I need everyone to focus on these defensive postures and counterstrikes for the remainder of this session. Knowing how to defend against a superior combatant can save your life. Lieutenant Durban is going to be checking your progress, so focus, people.”
Durban gave a semi-satisfied wave, then stepped back from Corporal Sung, who took over Rimes’s position with Lopresti. The compromise wasn’t very satisfying, but it was the best Rimes could make of things.
He pushed it out of his mind and jogged for the stairs.
No matter how badly he needed a shower, it would have to wait. They were less than an hour out from the original ETA for Rendezvous One Charlie Alpha. Plus, he’d never been summoned over the intercom for anything trivial in the past.
The bridge was surprisingly quiet when he arrived.
Fripp looked up from his station as Rimes came to a stop atop the stairs.
“Captain Rimes.” Fripp jerked his head toward the viewing port. “What do you think?”
Rimes took in the view, marveling at the dreamlike, alien beauty of it. Bright yellow wireframes highlighted spinning, twisting objects. He was surprised there was so much obstructing their path, but then he was no astrophysicist. “I don’t understand, sir. I thought we would be in relatively open space?”
The gravitic field surrounding the ship flared visibly, deflecting a large rock away. Rimes looked again and realized the rock looked more like a twisted glob of superheated metal. “Is that…?”
“Is that wrong, Captain? Is that something we should be worried about? Is that all that’s left of Task Force Seventeen?” Fripp’s voice rose with each question. “It sure as hell looks like it to me! Five patrol ships and a signal ship. No distress beacon. No sign of any lifeboats or survivors. One hundred and thirty-three men and women, more than a billion dollars of military assets.”
Rage darkened Fripp’s pasty face as he pointed into the vastness of space. “I knew Captain Sorkin. She was a competent officer. She had two children. And now she’s so much radioactive dust accelerating through space.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Rimes felt a tingling along his spine. She fell for the same trap that nearly wiped out our task force. It had to have been more than one shuttle to take out the entire task force. They must have been carrying nuclear warheads.
Fripp returned to his station. He was already calming down. He kept his back to the view port. “I want your assessment, Captain. I want your assessment, and then I want Miss Fontana’s assessment.”
The ships had been stationary at the time of the attack; they’d been in a tight formation, and the attack happened recently. The wireframed debris was all heading away from the rendezvous point.
“It looks like they hit her task force the same way they tried to hit ours. The trajectory of the debris seems consistent. Melted hull components, small segments—I’d guess a modest-sized nuclear blast to take out each ship.”
Fripp impatiently waved his hand. “Skip the obvious, please. I need a summary at the moment. You can provide details once you’ve consulted with Miss Fontana.”
He’s rattled. Worse than before. “Well, they had to ram them, breach the hull for the nukes to be most effective, and the ships had to be close for the explosion to produce that sort of damage. Without the codes and more than a little incompetence, that says they used that telepathic push technique.”
“With Captain Sorkin, we can rule out incompetence. So now there’s the potential for them to control the crew of six ships at once?” Fripp’s hands shook as he wiped at his brow.
“It’s possible, sir.”
“Are you an expert on this telepathic nonsense now, Captain?”
Rimes’s fists ball up, and his right foot came off the deck as if to step forward. No! Meet the panic with calm. He shoved his hands behind his back and set his foot back down. “No, sir, I’m no expert. But I don’t think it’s necessary for the telepathic push to affect six crews at once. If they gain control of even one person—Captain Sorkin, for instance—they could have that person bring the other ships in tight. Get them in tight enough and maybe one big warhead could do the trick.”
Fripp considered for a moment. “Commander Stafford, we’ll need to communicate to the task force that all orders from the task force commander need to go through the same checks we’ve put into place for bridge integrity. Also, establish S.O.P. to maintain safe distance between all vessels at all times. Five hundred meters should do. Confirm with Weapons.”
We’re missing something. He knows it, but he can’t admit it. What would rattle him so badly? “Sir? How would they have known to ambush the task force here?”
Fripp froze, the panic touching his wide eyes again.
“The encryption’s compromised, sir. Or they’ve scraped operational intelligence from someone’s thoughts.”
“It could be other elements compromised, but
we can’t take that risk.” Fripp coughed nervously. “Commander Stafford, get a high-priority message out immediately to switch to alternate code keys. Emphasize encryption may be compromised. Pass along our recommendations on task force dispersal as well. And—” He looked back at Rimes. “Indicate our concerns and tactics regarding these telepaths, including the possibility they may have insight into our operations. Captain Rimes will confirm his theory with Miss Fontana.”
Stafford seemed on the verge of shock; he dazedly made his way over to the signalman. Uncertainty was visible in every crewman’s face and body language.
How many of us are like that, worried our next move will be our last?
“Captain Fripp, would you have a moment, sir?” Rimes looked through the hatch to the passageway.
Fripp grunted, then exited the bridge; Rimes followed.
“Morale’s going to be a problem, sir.” Rimes glanced meaningfully back at the bridge.
Fripp fixed Rimes with an icy stare. “Some things are obvious even to someone like me, Captain.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Submarine warfare has always depended on stealth. A crew walked on eggshells most every day of duty during war. One noise, one error in judgment, and the boat could be dead. It took a special sort of crew.”
Has he already lost faith in his crew?
“Sir?”
Fripp’s face stiffened. “We’ll find out what sort of crew we have soon enough, I guess.”
I can’t get him to accept that we all need to change how we operate, what we think, not without antagonizing him, and I can’t afford to do that more than I already have.
“We have to have some idea of the genies’ fleet composition, don’t we, sir?”
“We have a good idea, but no one expected suicide shuttles with nuclear weapons onboard. No one uses nuclear weapons, damn it.”
