by Jake Bible
“You sure?” Motherboard asked.
“I am,” Wanders replied.
“Good then let’s not talk about this crud again, copy?” Motherboard said.
“Copy that, LT,” Wanders said. “Pebbles are lined up.”
“That goes for the rest of you, as well,” Motherboard said.
“What the fo did I do?” Cookie asked.
“Nothing. Yet,” Motherboard said. “But I know this Team, and I know when there’s one crack, there is sure to be more. Get it out of your heads that the op is over and we are starting another one. The op never ended. We’re still in the crud. Get fired up and prepped for the coming fight.”
There was a rumble from below and huge bubble of lava popped sending fiery sparks flying up past the ledge and the Eight-Three-Eight. The members of Zero turned to watch the sparks then settled back into their tasks at hand.
It took them a good hour before they’d completed the modifications to not only the Eight-Three-Eight’s wings, but also its engine couplings and thruster flaps. Motherboard stood looking at the ship as Geist came up to her while the others hurried inside once the ramp had descended to let them back in.
“Hey, LT?” Geist asked.
“Yes?” Motherboard responded, twirling a span-wrench in her hand. “What’s on your mind, Geist?”
“How burned are we?” he asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the glow that came up from below the ledge. “Are we volcano burned or just a little singed?”
“I’ll be honest, Geist, I don’t know yet,” Motherboard said. “Once I speak with the Colonel, I can answer that question.”
“It’s not like we took on a Marine platoon or anything,” Geist said. “We handled a cruddy situation that was forced on us by some duplicitous Fleet Intelligence traitor. We did our job and tried to complete the op, but a foing spy stopped us.”
“True,” Motherboard said. “That’s our story. But we have no idea what story the Fleet Intelligence scum sent to Headquarters. As far as we know, he painted us as traitors from the start and he had full authority to go after us.”
“You think the only way out is to find Sha Morgoal and the Keer kid?” Geist asked. “Then complete the op by interrogating Sha Morgoal? Shouldn’t we just cut our losses?”
Motherboard turned and focused on Geist. He tried not to flinch, but even through the visor of her environmental suit’s helmet, her gaze was wickedly stern.
“You consider Mug being taken just a simple loss?” Motherboard asked.
“Eight Million Gods, no!” Geist exclaimed. “I’d die to get that big bear back!”
“Then adjust your perspective,” Motherboard said. “I know you’re trying to think big picture, but we have no idea what the small picture is right now. Except that our target, a hostage we rescued, and a valued teammate were all snatched right off our ship. Even if Colonel Leguin pulls the plug on the op, I plan on getting those three back strictly on principle. At the very least, we’ll get Mug back. That’s a promise.”
“I hear you loud and clear, LT,” Geist said. “I guess I just needed to get my own mind wrapped around it all. I may not be a whiner like Wanders is when he gets freaked, but I have been known to voice a little dissatisfaction when I’m confused.”
“Have you now?” Motherboard chuckled. “I hadn’t ever noticed.”
Geist smiled then nodded to Motherboard and started walking up the ramp.
“Geist?” Motherboard called out.
“Yeah, LT?” Geist replied, turning to face her once again.
“I know the others give you crud all the time, but it’s just part of how Zero works,” Motherboard said.
“Fo, LT, I know that,” Geist said and frowned. “You don’t need to tell me that. It’s all good fun.”
“Except it’s not,” Motherboard said. “They look to you more than you think. When you gear down and get your game face on, your real one, then they follow. Hole may be Master Sergeant and my second-in-command, and Mug may be the big Mama Bear that looks out for all of us, even me, but you’re like Zero’s compass. Wanders is off, obviously, and Cookie may not show it, but he’s getting freaked out by this Syndicate crud.”
“He is?” Geist asked. “How can you tell with him?”
“I just can,” Motherboard said. “I’ve read his files and there could be some history with the Syndicate we may not know about.”
“I haven’t noticed anything wrong with him,” Geist said.
“Which worries me,” Motherboard said. “He’s the opposite of Wanders. When he isn’t complaining is when I get worried, and he’s quieted down considerably.”
“You want me to keep an eye on them,” Geist stated.
“No babysitting, just use that Tcherian perception of yours to make sure neither of them is going to crack,” Motherboard said. “We are the best of the best, but we’re also living beings. We’ve had a good run and I’m afraid our bad patch may be coming. Not saying it will, just trusting my gut is all.”
“How much guts do you have?” Geist asked. “Isn’t most of your belly filled with android steel?”
“Most of your belly is gonna be filled with plasma bolts, smart ass,” Motherboard replied, smiling, the sternness gone.
“Good to know,” Geist replied and smiled back. “I’m heading in, you coming?”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Motherboard said.
“Roger that,” Geist said.
Geist left Motherboard to her musings and made his way through the drop hold, into the cargo hold, up more than a couple of ladders, and to the corridor leading to the bridge. Before he’d gotten within a few feet of the open bridge doors, Geist could hear the argument building.
“What the fo is going on?” Geist asked as he stepped onto the bridge.
“Wanders wants a private channel, and I’m not inclined to give him one,” Hole said. “If he is going to contact an Edger then we should all be able to hear that conversation. I am going to have to insist on it.”
“And I said I cannot lie to my contact, and if there is even a hint that someone else is listening then it’s all over from there,” Wanders said. “Edgers aren’t stupid, despite the Fleet’s reports. Their tech is getting better and better and they will backtrack the signal. He’ll know if it’s just me and him or if others are on the line too.”
“You can’t really expect us to go along with that?” Cookie asked.
“You have to,” Wanders said. “I’d rather you all listen so you know I’m not one of the traitors in the Fleet.”
“No one said that,” Geist said. “Don’t even go there, Wanders.”
“We all know you are beyond loyal to Zero,” Hole said. “You have proven that again and again. I do not suspect any of you of being traitors. That hadn’t crossed my cybernetic mind at all.”
“Good,” Wanders said. “Then trust me to say that I have to talk to my contact privately. Once I get him to trust that none of this will blow back on him or the Edgers then maybe, maybe, we can have a broader discussion with him. LT first then the rest of you as we figure out what steps to take next.”
“Leguin will tell us what steps to take next,” Motherboard said as she joined them on the bridge “Let me speak with him, inform him that you have an Edger contact, and get his opinion. If he says you have authorization to make contact privately then I will allow it. If he has his doubts then the decision is made and we risk your contact being upset. Considering what we are dealing with, it is a risk that I am willing to take.”
Wanders began to argue then only nodded.
“Good,” Motherboard said. “Hole? Is the com system safe to use?”
“It is,” Hole said. “Would you like us to clear the bridge?”
“No,” Motherboard said. “I’ll make the call from my quarters. The rest of you get prepped for the next phase of our op. Wanders, you get ready to make your call as soon as I am finished speaking with the colonel. Whatever is decided, I want us wheels up ASAP.”
“Whatever is decided?” Cookie asked. “What if Colonel Leguin decides we’re to come back to Headquarters and stand down?”
“Then I guess the com system isn’t working properly and I didn’t hear that part of the conversation,” Motherboard said. “I will then have to assume Leguin gave the order to find and rescue Mug. It’s a safe assumption I am sure you all agree with.”
“Hooah,” they said in unison then laughed. The laughter died as all minds turned to the obvious.
“What if we can’t find Mug?” Geist asked.
“Not an option,” Motherboard said.
“Yes, but—” Geist pushed.
“Not an option,” Motherboard replied with enough force to make it very clear that it was indeed not an option.
She caught each teammate’s gaze then nodded.
“Be ready,” Motherboard said.
They nodded back as she left the bridge.
Geist sighed and settled into his seat. He looked over at Wanders. The Gwreq was busy cracking, setting, then re-cracking the knuckles on all four hands. Geist looked at Cookie and the Cervile was staring at a spot on the bridge’s ceiling. He looked at Hole and she was looking back at him. Geist gave her a smile, she smiled back then turned her seat around and started running through engine diagnostics.
Geist began going through the defensive and shield systems to make sure that the modifications didn’t compromise their stability.
Twenty
Once the doors to the conference room closed, and everyone received the signal in their coms that the space was secure, Fleet Admiral Gorbia Kimo stood and addressed the four others seated before her. Despite the Fleet’s open-race policy, all in the room were human and all were free of any cybernetic replacements. It wasn’t that purity was encouraged, it was that it cut down on the variables of trust.
Trust was not something that anyone in the conference room came by naturally.
“Do I need to state what a cluster this has become?” Kimo asked. A tall, beefy woman, Kimo created an intimidating presence, even amongst the hardened veterans she addressed. “Do I need to point out that it has taken a considerable amount of effort to keep this problem from becoming general knowledge? What happens if the press gets ahold of this? We just recovered from whatever that incident was with the Salvage Merc Corps, I’m still not certain what happened there, and now we have the quite real possibility that Fleet Intelligence has been compromised? Unbelievable.”
“Admiral, I take offense to that,” Major General Ved Gerber said. He sat ramrod straight in his chair, his black hair shorn tight to his scalp. Heavy wrinkles from weather, not advanced age, coupled with more than a few battle scars, crisscrossed his deep brown face. “Every operative within Fleet Intelligence is vetted by multiple outside organizations.”
“Which could easily be the problem,” Commandant Jicks Walton interrupted. He wasn’t a muscular man, but looked like he could leap the table and snap a neck without breaking a sweat. “Perhaps if we kept things in-house and allowed my officers to vet the Fleet Intelligence operatives and agents, we could be sure of their loyalty.”
“And who would be sure of your Marine officers, Commandant?” Gerber spat. “I know your Marines call my people spooks and mock them like they aren’t actually a part of the Fleet. Why would your officers be any different? They know plasma carbines and blowing up Skrangs; they don’t have the subtlety to understand what it takes to fully run Intelligence. Hell, forget subtlety, they don’t have the intelligence to understand Intelligence.”
“Yes, my Marines call your people spooks, but may I remind you, Major General, that I am Commandant of the entire Fleet Marine Corp which means I am Commandant over you as well,” Walton snarled. “Push me any harder and I’ll demote you down to—”
“That isn’t correct, sir,” Colonel Ory Leguin said. The man was middle-aged and fit, but he looked tired, as well as bored to death. “Due to possible conflicts, Fleet Intelligence is actually a separate organization from the Fleet Marines. Has been for a good half-century. Technically, you do outrank Major General Gerber, but he reports directly to Fleet Admiral Kimo, not you.”
“And the Fleet Admiral reports to the Fleet Council,” Councilman Douglas Keer said. Keer’s appearance beat Leguin’s on the tired scale by several levels. The shadows under his eyes were deeper than black holes. “So can we please stop playing who’s in charge and get down to how we find my son? I am not just here as a representative of the Fleet Council, but as a parent that is three seconds from losing his mind and hiring private security to handle this.”
“The Salvage Mercs won’t take the job,” Leguin stated. “They’ve let me know as much already.”
“You reached out to them?” Kimo asked.
“No, ma’am,” Leguin replied. “They reached out to me before I even entertained the thought. They’d heard what happened and wanted to make sure I knew they could not help. Apparently, they have some conflict due to one of Zero’s relations.”
“Please tell me this is not a story of a Drop Team member being compromised because of a whore?” Walton said. “Your people are supposed to be above that sort of thing, Colonel.”
“Calm down, Commandant,” Leguin said. “I misspoke. I should have said relative instead of relation. A member of Zero has a relative in the Edger separatist movement, and due to that incident that none of us can quite recall, the SMC has decided to sit this one out.”
“Should I be worried that none of you seem concerned that something serious happened between the Fleet, the Skrang Alliance, the Edgers, and the SMC, yet no one can actually say what?” Keer asked.
“Councilman Keer,” Kimo said, “you are fairly new to the Fleet Council, so your dealings with the SMC has been limited. This is not the first incident that involved them that ended on less than clear circumstances. There have been many over the decades. We tried clearing them up early on, and it always ended with more confusion. As long as the SMC stays completely neutral in the galaxy then we will let the gaps in information stand.”
“Gaps in information?” Keer chuckled. “You sent heavy cruisers to Bax and no one can recall exactly why, other than there was a Skrang Alliance presence that needed to be reminded they were in violation of the War Treaty.”
“And our ships did their jobs,” Kimo said. “The Skrangs backed down and the SMC was satisfied with our response.”
“Bloody crime how we kowtow to those mercenaries,” Walton said.
“I agree with the commandant on that point,” Gerber said. “They are too closed off and have too much power in the galaxy to be given the freedoms that they have.”
“Colonel Leguin has said the SMC is not involved, so why are we harping on this?” Keer snapped. “Can we move on to what we are doing to find my son?”
“Colonel Leguin? Can you address this?” Kimo asked.
“Ma’am? I’m not sure how I can,” Leguin replied. “Once the Intelligence ship rendezvoused with Zero’s ship, then Dylan Keer became Intelligence’s op. My people had a different op to deal with after that. If you’d like to speak about that then we certainly can, but I wouldn’t know where to start with Councilman Keer’s son.”
“What other op, Colonel?” Gerber asked.
“Well, sir, your officer seemed to know perfectly well what it was, so I am sure if you continue digging deeper into your organization, you will find the answer waiting for you,” Leguin said. “But until I am ordered to divulge that information by the commandant directly, I’m afraid that is need to know.”
“I could have you thrown into a black site where they would never find you,” Gerber growled.
“I doubt that, sir,” Leguin replied. “You forget that Lieutenant Falk was Intelligence once. The few black sites I didn’t already know about, she was able to fill me in on.”
“There are plenty more,” Gerber said and grinned like a Gorborian shark.
“Gentlemen, stop,” Kimo ordered. She focused on Gerber. “Colonel Leguin is
correct, the Keer boy was your agency’s responsibility. Whether the fault of an officer gone rogue or not, you did not receive the young man and you did not deliver him to his father as you were supposed to do. You failed, Major General, pure and simple.” She switched her focus to Leguin. “But Dylan Keer was in your Team’s custody and they were the last Fleet representatives to have custody of him. They are also the most capable Team to retrieve him.”
“Except that they cannot be trusted,” Walton said. “I am not saying they had anything to do with this SNAFU, but until we bring them in and debrief them then we cannot say for certain. Considering the gravity of this entire situation, anything less than certainty would be a mistake.”
“I want to know what this has to do with Sha Morgoal,” Keer said. “Why would a galactic crime lord kidnap my son and then be seen dealing with the Skrangs? It makes no sense.”
“It brings up questions, is what it does,” Gerber said. “Why would the Skrangs be interested in your son? The obvious answer is to use him as leverage against you. Why would they think that would work?”
“Besides the fact that I love my son more than my own life?” Keer shouted as he jumped to his feet, an accusatory finger jabbing the air towards Gerber. “You obviously do not have children!”
“Councilman, please,” Kimo said. She moved to place a hand on the upset man’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off. She held up both hands and waited until he calmed down and was seated again. “Thank you. I believe what Major General Gerber is asking is what could the Fleet Council be working on, you specifically, that would make the Skrangs risk breaking the terms of the War Treaty?”
“And the Edgers,” Leguin said.
‘The Edgers are not part of any treaty,” Walton grumbled. “Fringe scum.”
“No, I mean why would the Edgers be interested as well,” Leguin clarified. “Unless they were there for some other business they had with Sha Morgoal.”
“Too coincidental,” Gerber said.
“Is it?” Leguin asked. “If you say so. You’re the spook at this table, so you’d know the difference.”
