“You were lucky,” Alij said. “I heard about a trader run that stayed—the bodies of its crew added to the supply list.”
“That’s an old story,” Harkness countered. “I’ve never heard proof of it.”
“What proof would there be? We know from the Sand Wars that the Thraks have little use for prisoners. Even if they wanted us, we wouldn’t be kept in very good shape.”
“Then we need to make sure it won’t go that far.”
Jack let his breath out slowly. He felt their gazes upon him. He looked about the control room. Harkness cleared his throat.
“What are you going to do?”
He took it in before responding, “What kind of weaponry do you have?”
“Four, guns, two mounted on each fin aft. Not much.”
“Is the firing circuitry mounted on a single board, or do you have to have a man at each gun?”
“They’re tied in.”
“That helps. Anything else? Mines?”
“No. My reputation is my best defense. Everybody knows I don’t carry much of any worth,” Harkness said.
“And this ship maneuvers like a garbage scow.” Jack saw the pilot wince, but did not apologize. He looked over Alij’s shoulder to the computer screen where the graphics overlay brilliantly detailed the window of their exit and the likely placement of the Thrakian warship waiting for them. “We have some time,” he said. “I need to think.” With that, he left a stunned silence behind him on the bridge.
***
He sought the gym and Bogie. The battle armor hung on its rack, quiet and yet deadly. Jack approached it and sat down cross-legged in front of it.
The battle which the transport crew and the Thraks were about to engage in was not in his line of expertise. He knew that and surely Harkness’ crew comprehended it—but perhaps not. He fought on the surface, a man-shaped mobilized tank, a machine meant to slog through the lines of the enemy. He was, in so many words, a weeder.
The thought creased into a smile. Some weeds were tougher than others to pull.
He stood up and went to the suit. He needed to think and there was only way he could do it without interruption. Bogie blossomed open to him and, after kicking off his boots and stripping off his jacket, he stepped in. Inside, he kept himself occupied clipping leads to his torso and taking care of the other details of suiting up. He tried to ignore the chamois at his back as it settled about this shoulders like some bat-winged creature. He closed the seams and snugged the helmet on with a half-twist to seal it. The world immediately became muffled. Isolated. Refined to the visor and the target grid.
“Bogie,” Jack said. “I need to remember.”
The sense of welcoming surrounding him pulled back in surprise. Then, *Jack, do you not remember on your own?*
How could he explain what had been done to him in the name of the Dominion? The seventeen years he’d lain in cryogenic sleep, adrift on a lost transport, his mind locked into a military debriefing loop. Those years had stripped away most of his memory of his youth and his beginnings just as the Thraks had physically stripped away his family when they’d attacked Dorman’s Stand and reduced it to a sand planet. The corner of Jack’s mouth twisted bitterly.
Nor had he been well-treated when found. There had been ugly hints that perhaps his mind had undergone indoctrination when being brought out of cold sleep and treated for the side effects those seventeen years had wrought.
Jack had one recourse left to capture those years—Bogie. He had no way of knowing for sure if the creature had been alive enough while first incubated on Milos to absorb any of Jack’s conscious or subconscious memories, but while on Bythia, there had been some indications of Bogie’s ability to do so. It was Jack’s only way to regain what being a soldier for the Dominion had stolen away from him.
He could feel the warm and comforting presence of the chamois across his shoulders and back, almost as though a fatherly figure had put an arm around him.
“Bogie,” Jack said quietly. “Your memory is all I have left of Milos and before. If you can remember, if you can give it to me so that I can remember, then…”
*Then what?*
“I’m not sure. Then I’ll know why I fight. Why I hate. Why Amber is in danger just being a part of me. But today I have to remember all of what I know about how Thraks fight. I remember most of it… but it’s overshadowed by the Milots and their damn berserkers.” Jack plunged to a halt. “Dammit, I’m not a computer. I don’t have access to old files.”
*Neither am I. I… cannot do what you wish of me.*
“Bogie, you remember, I know you do—you kept me going on Bythia, and what you remember may be piecemeal but it’s better than nothing! It’s mine. Give it back to me!”
*I have no control. I don’t understand things well enough yet. I’m still new, Jack.*
Jack stood inside his armor and suddenly felt alien to this piece of equipment that had been his second skin for as long as he could remember. Could remember, dammit, that was the problem. He stretched and felt the Flexalinks move with him. Because he had no solace other than in movement, he fell into a drill routine.
The armor moved with him supplely, far more gracefully than most would suspect looking at its rigid links, but that was part of its effectiveness. The rest depended a great deal on the man wearing it, for the structure took care and maintenance and a man was only as good as his mechanical ability in the field.
Bogie said suddenly, in his undervoice which sounded like rocks tumbling over one another in a deep-running stream, *I can give you this.*
Jack had hit the power vault before hearing Bogie, and as the memory hit him, he doubled over and the suit slammed into the hold flooring, but Jack barely felt it, for he was burning inside his mind.
Fire swept across a verdant world. Peace and healing disrupted in the middle of the night. The skies vibrated as warships came down, and their weapons struck. A firestorm sweeping across Claron, charring all in its path—his breath caught in his throat. Fear again. The suit, his escape, his tumbling in freefall in deep space without hope of ever being caught… the horror of knowing this memory came courtesy of, not the Thraks, but warring factions within the Dominion itself where he should have had no enemy.
“Bogie!”
*Jack.*
“Stop it,” Jack ground out, his body curled tightly in pain, his temples throbbing, his gut sucked to his backbone in the nauseating panic of endless freefall.
As abruptly, the memory left.
Jack caught his breath first. Sweat dripped off his forehead. He had no idea the memories he’d asked for would be vivid recreations of what he had gone through. Before he could say anything else, Bogie said, *Perhaps this will be better.*
He was swept away again…
Dust motes swirled in the air, and he sneezed as he leaned over a row of greens, the sound of the automatic harvester droning in the background. The sky was the color of his mother’s eyes, brilliant yet everchanging blue, even to the clouds which wisped across. The dirt gave up the smell of growing things, leafy greens hybridized from what had been collard greens on old Earth, Home World, but which Jack was just used to seeing heaped up in his mother’s crockery, steaming under butter as greens. He liked them well enough. They were a staple product of his parents’ farm. Jack preferred the orchard though he could not climb in any of the trees except for the windbreaks.
He pinched at a leaf now, examining the underside critically for sign of mites or fungus, frowning in an expression which he knew imitated that of his father. His father stood far away at the fields’ end, carrying his keypad in the crook of his arm, varying the harvesting pattern of his machinery as he worked.
Jack stood up. He looked down the row of growth and saw, almost beyond his eyeshot, a nest resting under wavering, wilting leaves. The harvester loomed beyond, darkening the horizon with its presence.
He moved so quickly he almost lost his cap. His brother’s cap, too, and not only would he catch hell for
wearing it, he’d catch double hell for losing it, he thought as he bolted forward. He pitched forward, scampering down the irrigation trough, even as the nesting bird dove past his face, wings fluttering and beating at his eyes. Jack ducked away and tugged his hat on tighter.
He stopped a few meters from the nest and stood, his chest heaving from the run. His shirt clung wetly to his back. Dust swirled around him and then settled. The noise of the harvester battered against his ears and he looked up, watching it head straight at him.
His dad was beyond sight and hearing. Jack would have to save the nest on his own. He eyed the creamy black and white swirled shells. The mother would come back—she’d just been nipping at his ear—and if she perceived him as a real threat, she’d cover the nest, feign a broken wing, then try to lead him away.
It was the nest covering movement he waited for even as the harvester bore down on them, blocking out the sun’s rays as it came.
Jack stopped squinting as the shadow fell across them. He reached up and took his brother’s cap off as he waited.
The bird wheeled about him once, her gray and speckled body arrowing across the field. He caught a glimpse of white-ringed amber eyes, piercing and alarmed.
If only Dad hadn’t taken the safety off the harvester, it would have perceived him and halted. It was a drain on the batteries, Dad said, and so he’d removed it. Who would be stupid enough to stand in front of the machine, anyway?
Salty sweat dripped into his eyes and he brushed the sting away with the back of his hand, wincing as his vision blurred. From the corner of his eye, he saw the mother bird drop frantically to earth and attempt to cover her nest with both her body and any stray twigs she could scratch up.
Jack pounced, cap in hand.
He could feel the heat reflecting off the harvester’s grill, waffling off his face. He’d have freckles for sure after this!
The cap swooped down, locking over fowl and nest. Jack shoveled in his other hand underneath and plucked the nest from the ground, a mere meter from the harvester’s whirling blade. He turned and rant
He didn’t stop running until he reached the windbreak. There, he found a tree with a comfortable fork that he could reach if he shinnied up high enough. It was tough going with the nest in hand, but he made it, locked his legs around the trunk and deposited the nest. He left the cap on it and fell back to earth.
The grass here was lean and stringy, half-browned by the sun, and it did little to cushion his fall. Jack leaned back on his spare hips and bruised elbows—always bruised, he remembered—and watched the nest. The cap joggled and dimpled as something under it moved.
He had to leave it alone now, leave it alone or risk chasing off the mother bird for good. He knew that. He knew almost as much about the local creatures as he did about his father’s farm. So he watched as the mother bird emerged, fluffing her wings out indignantly, and knocking the cap off herself. It fell to one side and hung on a slender twig. He thought of what he’d tell his brother to get him to come out of the house and see what had happened to his cap.
The mother bird looked over her nest and appeared to be satisfied with conditions. Jack caught his breath. He, too, was satisfied. As he got ready to get to his feet and dust himself off, the twig broke and the cap slid down to land at his feet. Jack grinned and picked it up. All in all, a good day.
Jack sat up. The suit moved with him. Bogie said, *I cannot control it.*
“I understand,” Jack answered. He drew in his breath. His brother. The farm. His father. He’d forgotten most of that. He leaned his head forward, touching the cool shield of the visor to his forehead. He had his nightmares of the Thraks. He’d encountered one or two as a free mercenary. He knew what he had to know to face them.
He got to his feet. The gauntlets flexed as he balled his hands. Nine fingers clenched. Ten in his memory of a boy scooping a nest out of the path of destruction. How close had that blade been? Perhaps it would have been only a matter of time until he’d had that finger sheared off, for he’d cheated the blades that day. The scar ached in response.
* Again,* Bogie said.
He wanted to tell her she was free, but he was afraid she’d smell the murders of two men on his hands, and so he decided to wait until morning to gift her with their deaths.
“Amber,” he said, to capture her attention. “Look at me.”
Her face turned. She used her hair to veil her thoughts from him, its strands sweeping down and covering half her face. One soft brown eye watched him warily.
He could think of nothing else to do and nothing that he wanted to do more. He crossed the room and knelt beside her on the pillows, and took her in his arms. Gently he swept back her hair.
The expression in her eyes shocked him. “You love me,” he said quietly, and was surprised to hear his voice waver.
Amber shook her head. “Dammit, Jack. It took you long enough to see it.”
“I haven’t been looking.”
“No.” She reached up and traced the side of his face where a very faint scar swept into his dark blond hair, all that was left of a laser burn she’d doctored for him long ago. “And if I were looking, what would I see?”
A heat rose in him and he found it difficult to answer, “The same, I hope.”
She hugged him tightly again, burying her face in the curve of his neck where it met his shoulders. That was all the answer he needed.
The pile of pillows shifted, covering the floor near the Bythian courtyard window as they lay back. Jack fought for control, trying to move slowly, his hands seeking out, then holding the curves of her body. She answered, biting his lower lip gently, then moving away so that she could open his shirt. She uncurled the hairs on his chest as though they were buds and found his own nipples, and caressed, then kissed them.
She took her robe off. Bare skin touched bare skin. The port wine dark sky without sheltered them in privacy. A house lizard skimmed the curtains as Jack moved over her. She tangled her fingers in his hair, drawing his face close to hers, gentle brown eyes widening in the mystery of their first lovemaking.
Even as he moved to open her, lightning struck his mind. Its blue fire silvered through and he stiffened, unable to move without pain. All desire was seared from his flesh even as Amber moved to draw him closer. Paralyzed, his senses darkening, he could say nothing as he slipped from consciousness, knowing Amber’s mind had struck to kill him.
He came to, sweat cascading down his torso, and Bogie said, *I am sorry.*
Jack’s throat had constricted and he could not respond for a moment.
*I don’t understand these memories,* Bogie added. Then, * Again.*
“No!” Jack cried, as a crimson wash flooded his eyesight, and his body froze in catatonic reaction as Bogie fed him one last memory. Thrakian forms rose before him.
Harkness leaned over Alij’s shoulder. He straightened and looked out over the bridge. “Where the hell is he? Is he going to do something or not? We’re out of frigging time.”
Leoni said tersely, “He’s still suited up in the gym. He’s been motionless like that for hours.”
“Maybe he’s meditating or something before battle. I heard about those Knights,” Alij added.
“Meditating.” Harkness made a sound deep in his phlegmy throat. His response was cut short by the opening of the bridge portal, and then the opalescent glare of the whitish battle armor filled the bulkhead. The man could not move all the way inside; he was too large for the compartment.
Jack took his helmet off. Fresh air tickled across his face. Sweat plastered his hair to his head as he cautiously ran gauntleted fingers through it. He smiled briefly in memory of a bald sergeant who swore he’d lost his hair that way, lasering himself with his own gauntlet.
The three officers looked at him.
“Well,” Harkness rumbled. “What are we going to do?” He stabbed a finger at the screen where the edge of subspace now defined the clear presence of a Thrakian warship waiting for them.
&
nbsp; Jack said, “I suggest we surrender.”
Chapter 3
Surrender?” Harkness straightened his bulk, a half-growl smothering in his throat. “I knew it the minute you wouldn’t go into cold sleep. I should have known it the minute I saw the lot of you straggling in, your butts whipped. You’re a goddamn coward.”
Alij had gotten to his feet, resting a slim but trembling brown hand on the back of his chair. “Pilot,” he said to his employer, but Harkness was advancing on Jack, battle armor or not.
“You’re afraid of the deep sleep and you’re afraid of them, out there!” Harkness jerked his head. Spittle hung from the corner of his mouth that he did not bother to wipe away.
“You’re a damn fool if you’re not afraid of the Thraks,” Jack said evenly. He carried his helmet under his left arm like a second head. Removed, but not inactivated, faint noises came from the gear.
“I won’t lose my ship to Thraks!”
Jack arched an eyebrow. “I don’t think you have much choice, pilot. This… ship… is not equipped to fight. Leoni, am I correct in my assessment of the cryo bay as a lifeboat unit that can be detached?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long is it equipped to maintain life support?”
“Four weeks.”
“With its cargo awake?”
“No, sir,” Leoni said, ignoring Harkness’ look of spite and hatred at him. “Awake, a little less than ten days.”
Jack looked back to Harkness who stood, his beefy frame shaking with ineffectual rage. “Ever docked with the lifeboat before?”
“What has this to do with anything, you ball-less wonder?”
“Everything.” Jack pressed against the bulkhead, leaning in as far as he could, until his broad-shouldered armor stopped him. “You do have a pilot’s license, do you not?”
“Yes. Yes, goddammit, I’ve got a license.”
“Then, sometime in your career, you must have passed the exams to do so. Could you do it again?”
Alien Salute Page 3
