“Fine, Lopek has agreed, but what is your last condition?”
“I want the CDF to arrange for a place for Senaya in the Engineers Guild. With full privileges, not just some hokey guest position, but a real sponsored place in the entire program."
“Hold for a second, I need to check,” his mother said.
“Kai,” Senaya said, “that’s… I don’t know what to say…” She turned away and wiped the cuff of her jacket across her face. Bandar placed a hand on her shoulder and gave Kai a nod of appreciation, or perhaps admiration. It was always so hard to tell with Bandar, what with half of his face obscured by the chrome prosthetic.
“Don’t mention it,” Kai said, smiling at his best friend and kind-of-sister. “If we’re going to risk our lives on some crazy rumor, we might as well get all we can out of it.”
Senaya's eyes were damp. She just nodded, holding back her emotion.
The comms line crackled back to life and Kai’s mother spoke again.
“Consider it done, although she’ll have to complete the entrance exams the same as everyone else. We’ll send the details to you later; I need to wait until the dean of the guild is back from a research trip. Senaya can work on the exams during the downtime of the mission.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Locke,” Senaya said, choking out the words. “I… really appreciate this; it’s, well, it means a great deal. Thank you.”
“If it helps motivate you all to find the Blackstar device, then it’ll be worth it.”
After some further discussion of the practicalities of to whom they'd report their progress and various security protocols they must follow, they got on to the subject of their first task and lead to follow up.
Kai’s mother sent them a data file of a woman who was the last person to speak with Kai’s father before he disappeared. Marella Maio—aka Lexis Drey—was a science historian and one of the foremost experts on Navigator technology and history.
“She spent a considerable amount of time with your father,” Brenna Locke said, “but soon after that, once it was confirmed your father had disappeared, she stopped working within the Coalition and retired to a remote, unaffiliated planet called Parsephus.”
“Where is that?” Senaya asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Most haven’t, dear. Parsephus is an independent rock on the far edge of the Lasides Quadrant. It’s one of the few remaining inhabitable rocks near the veil of the inner ring planets.”
“Perhaps she moved there to study it more?” Kai suggested. “I mean, there are thousands of independent worlds she could have retired to, but to be so close to the veil, given her interest and specialty, surely points to the fact that she hasn’t quite retired from everything to do with the Navigators’ history.”
“We believe that to be the case too,” his mother said. “Which is why we think it’s best that you seek her out. Although she won’t have anything to do with the Coalition anymore, she might be willing to speak with the son of a missing father.”
Kai wanted to suggest something about manipulation, but it would be wasted. He knew the score now, and manipulation or not, if it led him closer to his father, then it was fine by him.
“So other than what you’ve sent us about this woman,” Kai said, “is there anything else you can tell us? It says here the planet she’s on has over a billion people of mixed species—that’s quite a crowd for us to search through.”
“There’s a large datapak with the file I’ve sent,” Brenna said. “You’ll have a few days’ travel to get up to speed. Everything we know about her and her location is in there. I suggest you get reading.”
“Why us, though? Surely you could have sent a GTU agent to pick her up?”
Silence.
“Mother, what aren’t you telling us?”
His mother sighed. "We did, numerous times. She refused to speak with them, and none of them came back alive. But you're Kendal's son. She'll talk to you."
“You know this for a fact?” Kai said.
“Admittedly it’s a bit of a gamble, but in her last encounter with a GTU agent, she suggested something along those lines. You’re connected, Kai.”
“I guess there’s little option but to try. Fine, we have a deal, then.”
“It is for the best. And, Kai, don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
Before he had a chance to reply, the line cut. “Well,” Kai said to Senaya and Bandar, both staring at him from their elevated position, “I suppose we better run preflight checks and prepare for subspace travel. Sen, how long will it take?”
Senaya tapped out a few commands on the astrogation computer and said, “About two standard days.”
“Do we have the fuel?” Kai asked.
“We do,” Bandar said. “I always make sure the ship is fully loaded—just for emergencies.”
Kai wasn't convinced of that. It was evident Bandar was banking on this outcome and had put everything in place to get it to this point. "Well, if you two are ready, I suggest we get going. The sooner we get to Parsephus, the sooner we can find out what this woman really knows."
“So you're the captain of the ship now, eh?" Bandar said with a slight smile.
Kai thought about it for a moment and said, “Well, why not? It is my father’s ship, and in lieu of him, I guess it makes it my ship now.”
Still smiling, Bandar said, “Well, that’s fine by me. You can take responsibility while I go grab some of that delicious subspace sleep. I trust you can remember how she works?”
Kai opened his mouth to protest, but Bandar had already turned his back and headed down the steps and out of the cockpit and presumably to his quarters.
“I guess you’re in charge, then,” Senaya said. “Just like old times. I’ve prepped the astrogation protocols, and the subspace engines are online. Once we’re settled in, we can make the jump. Shall I set it for two minutes’ time?”
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
With that, Senaya tapped in the commands, and the two of them headed for their bunks to strap in before the initially uncomfortable jump procedure kicked in.
For the first time in as long as Kai could remember, he felt like he had the opportunity to truly achieve something that no one else could: solve the riddle of Kendal Locke and the Blackstar.
Chapter 11
Brenna Locke took another shot of Equilibrium to stabilize herself during the long subspace jump to Protsima II. Her mission was to find and interrogate a shrain Host agent whom Lopek suspected of controlling the infiltrators on Haleedez and the other planets targeted for attack.
She had already been traveling for a whole standard day and was starting to feel the effects creep into her thinking—small hallucinations of thought, taking her off into strange philosophical experiments that led everywhere and nowhere.
For some species, this was a welcome occurrence, and many insights had been stumbled upon this way, but her mind was too rational and fought against the intangible, creating within her a schism of the real and unreal.
Too long in that mode would lead to a sense of disincorporation, the results of which she had seen firsthand. It was like having one’s mind sucked out of every orifice and dissipating into the vacuum of space. The GTU had lost dozens of good agents over the decades this way. Since Equilibrium had been invented, the number of lost agents had been reduced, but not to zero.
The truth was, some liked the disincorporation of the physical.
Intangibility brought its own kind of comfort. When all was unreal, nothing was real, and if nothing was real, then there was nothing to fear or be concerned with. One could just ride the subspace high for as long as they remained alive.
There was a rumor that one of the Coalition’s most respected philosophers, Fenway Niakaku, didn’t even have a body anymore, that his brain was held stabilized in a vat of chemicals, and his neural activity projected into a computer system for translation.
Even with her level of security as a senior GTU agent, she couldn�
�t get confirmation if this was true or not. Either way, she had realized early on that intangibility wasn’t for her.
After a few minutes of lying in her bunk, she started to feel better, the drug taking over certain neural pathways and avoiding the loss of the self. The side effect of this was hyperactivity. She had to do something to occupy her mind, or she would drive herself to distraction with pointless tasks.
Reading was always a good way to accompany the levelling effects of Equilibrium. She flicked on the light in her bunk, sat up against the bulkhead, and loaded a file onto the holoprojector at the end of the bed. A series of icons representing files and media hovered in front of her.
She gestured her hand over a file marked ‘Kendal Appearances.’
A written document displayed before her. She had read it a number of times before, but it always brought her a sense of relief that Kendal, her husband, and best friend, was still real. He'd been missing for over three years now, and during that period there had only been two concrete sightings of him.
It would be so easy to just forget and let Kendal Locke become an idea of someone. A homeopathic suggestion of something once solid and real.
But she refused to give in to that. Besides, the words comforted her.
The two sightings were brief and revealed nothing of his condition or ultimate destination. Even the file she had sent to Kai regarding Maio didn’t have anything concrete. She just hoped that when Kai finally found her, the two of them together would be able to make some connections and find a trail.
Having finished scanning through the familiar document, Brenna instinctively gestured to a media file that featured a video of her and Kendal’s wedding.
It was entirely too brief, clocking in at less than ten seconds, but Kendal was so full of life that even during that short stretch of time, he stood out and made her heart flutter. The video showed the two of them standing atop a dais at the end of a long hall. Their friends and colleagues lined the edges and held out their hands as per the tradition. Kendal turned to face them and held out his hand. One row of getting lowered theirs in response.
Then it was Brenna’s turn, and the other side followed.
Kendal bowed deeply to the onlookers and then to Brenna. When he stood, he leaned in and whispered into her ear. She could still hear those words now as if she was right back there.
“I’ll be with you until the edge of time and space, always.”
Even Equilibrium couldn’t help her emotional response to that.
So she did what she always did—paused the video and let the tears run down her cheeks while she savored the pain and regret until it died away and the desire and motivation to find him filled the void.
Rage soon followed behind in its small seemingly insignificant way, but it would grow and consume her, as it had always done. Which was what made her such a good agent.
Lopek, of course, took advantage of this for the GTU’s benefit.
But that was fine, because all the time the GTU's motivations aligned with hers, she would continue to do what she did best. And when their motives were no longer mutually beneficial—she would go her own way whether Lopek wanted that or not.
She wouldn’t have got where she had without contingencies.
Loyalty, after all, was a social construct. The universe recognized no such thing. It was just a state of energy transitioning into something else. And for Brenna, this energy was currently about vengeance. She would have revenge for Jannis Fo too and for all those that had died at the hands of the Host terrorists.
Her mind conjured dozens of scenarios, and she felt herself sinking into them too deeply. Even with the help of the drug, she still had to be self-aware not to let herself slip.
She got rid of the projections of her wedding video and the files she had collated and got up, stumbling unsteadily through the vibrating passageway of her ship to the small cafeteria.
The coffee dispenser had been refilled while she was docked at HQ. It wasn’t the best stuff in the universe, but it would do for now. She made a ritual of the preparation, forcing herself to be present in the moment, focusing on every last little detail, all in the aims of keeping her mind from slipping into the unreal.
Her cup of coffee was complete, and she sat down at the table, cradling the mug in her hands.
“Ship, are you there or are you too busy navigating?" she said aloud to the AI.
“Navigation is under control, Agent Locke,” the AI said through a pair of discreet speakers in the ceiling. “I have a few cores to spare for other processes. Do you have any tasks you wish me to perform?”
“How about you conjure a cat for me to converse with,” Brenna said and then took a sip of the hot beverage.
“A reference to our earlier conversation. If I were able, then I’d comply, but sadly, until the Coalition develops the technology to spontaneously create living matter, I’m afraid you will have to remain without a cat.”
“Shame, I think you were right; I’d get more happiness from conversing with one. Even though they wouldn’t be able to reply, they’d be more comforting than you.”
“Would you like me to send a requisition order to Protsima II to provide you with a ship’s cat?” the AI said, and Brenna couldn’t decide if the thing was following orders logically or being a sarcastic ass. She wasn’t convinced the programmers of the AI wouldn’t have given it more capability than just rote answers and ability to run ship functions.
“Do you want a name?” Brenna asked. “It’s weird just referring to you as Ship.”
“Would it make you feel better to humanize me with a moniker?”
“Yeah, actually it would. Even just to make the grammar of talking with you less awkward. Do you have any preferences?”
The AI was silent for a moment. Brenna thought it was probably going through its lookup database of responses as it had suggested it did before. It came back with a suggestion.
“You can call me Felicity,” the AI said.
“As in intense happiness?”
“No, the other meaning: appropriate expression, often to one’s thoughts.”
“You don’t have thoughts.”
“My programmers did. Given I’m just responding to your stimulus, one could argue that I’m expressing the thoughts of my creators.”
“Felicity it is, then. Though I will shorten it to Flick because life is too short to have four syllables in a name."
“As you wish, Agent Locke.”
“So, Flick, tell me, what do you think is beyond the veil? Why’d the Navigators create a barrier to those inner worlds?”
“I couldn’t possibly speculate. I don’t have the data. If it’s a question of motivation, I can cross-reference my library of literature to present you with a list of things that motivate beings.”
Brenna sighed and drained the rest of her coffee. Giving the AI a name didn’t actually make conversing with it any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t bother. Perhaps some things should remain a mystery.” With that, she got up and returned to her bunk, lying down on the bed and focusing on the minutiae of sensory input.
Being observant of sound, heat, and smells, without labeling, helped to keep her mind on the right track, aided by the drug. Keeping present also helped to alleviate her stress and worry about Kai and Kendal.
It didn’t take long, however, for that relative peace to be shattered.
Felicity alerted Brenna to a distress signal.
“Where’s it coming from?” Brenna asked. “Specifically.”
“It is point three of a light-year from our current position,” the AI said. “Between the two Crechzowski systems—a popular trading route for the fifth segment alliance of planets.”
“Coalition?”
“Yes, it appears so. The frequency is registered to a Delta-class freighter. Protocol dictates we should help. I can make the necessary route alterations if we act within the next twenty seconds.”
Delta-class freighters were usually undercover a
rms supply ships. Their manifest, if checked, would indicate it was carrying grains and freeze-dried foodstuffs, but in truth, they were generally shipping ammunitions, power cells, and other military supplies.
Brenna considered ignoring it and keeping going to Protsima. She had a job there that she wanted to finish, but Coalition military protocol superseded even direct orders from her GTU superiors. And if they were in trouble, she would regret not fulfilling her duty.
“Okay, Flick, bring us out of subspace and put us on a vector to the signal. Shields up and lasers on standby.”
“Consider it done. May I suggest you strap in. We are going to have to make an alacritous adjustment from our current vector, the results of which will be more pronounced than usual subspace exits.”
“I hear you. Give me a countdown on the holoscreen in the cockpit, please. And bring up the comms transmission switched to the distress signal frequency. Thanks, Flick.”
“As you wish.”
Brenna hopped off her bed and moved purposely to the cockpit, where she strapped in and prepared to receive another shot of Equilibrium. She would need it with such a sudden exit from subspace.
The countdown on the projection screen ahead of her was down to single figures.
When it reached zero, Brenna closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.
Her entire being tensed against the metaphysical experience of dropping out of subspace. She never quite understood how it worked; she just knew it felt like hell coming out of it at such a velocity. It wasn’t the same as g-force, it was something more fundamental. Something that seemed to affect the very particles that made up her body and her mind.
Her thoughts elongated, stretched against some invisible but undeniable force.
A silent scream distorted her face, and her spine arced against the retreating subspace.
Half a minute more of this out-of-body-and-mind experience elapsed and then, like a light turning off, it stopped, and her body and mind slumped back into its normal position like elastic. She shook in the seat, her muscles straining against the straps.
An acute pain shot through the center of her brain and coalesced into a throbbing ache behind her eyes. A drop of blood fell from a nostril. Her ears popped. Every auditory sensation was covered in echoes and reverb so that it sounded as though she were a small mouse in a large cathedral.
Blackstar Command 1: Prominence Page 9
