by Jamie Sawyer
“Get me a scotch on the rocks,” Loeb barked.
The lieutenant jumped to action, pouring liquor from a decanter and clink-clinking ice cubes into a glass. The sound alone gave me a thirst.
“Our mission was to secure the Artefact,” I said. “And there is no way I’m leaving Damascus Space until we’ve achieved that objective.”
“Things have changed,” Loeb countered. “My orders were to provide Naval support to this operation. I’ve dutifully executed the same.”
“Then I’ll overrule you. I’m mission commander.”
“I know exactly what you are. I’ve read the damned debriefings. We’re out of communication with the Point. Considering your impaired psychiatric condition, I could have you detained for further evaluation. I’m not going to do that, yet, but I am calling time on this operation.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I can do whatever I damned well please, Major. This is my ship, and I am fleet commander of the Damascus battlegroup. Don’t make me pull rank on you. I have a duty to inform Command of what we’ve just seen. The only way to relay that information is to jump back to the Point and deliver the news in person. Given the circumstances that is the only method that we have available.”
“We both know that’s a lie,” I said. “It has nothing to do with method.”
Loeb had made plain that he’d wanted off Operation Portent from the start. I remembered our conversation in this very room, only a few days ago. Loeb had been looking for justification to withdraw from Damascus Space and now he finally had it. The arrival of the Krell war-fleet was perfect.
Loeb saw the way that my mind was working. “Sending a tightbeam communication to the Point from inside the Maelstrom is too risky, what with that Krell war-fleet roving around the galactic neighbourhood. No; going back in person is the only way.”
He gave a self-satisfied, smug smile. If someone inside Command did have the gall to investigate his decision, he’d already planned his defence.
“We’re on the verge of cracking the Artefact. I just need a little more time!”
“Time is the one thing that we don’t have,” Loeb said. “The Point needs to be informed immediately—”
“Then send a single ship back. Repurpose one of the freighters! The Northern Pledge has a fast Q-drive.”
Loeb’s eyes were steely cold: he’d already made up his mind. “The War is on again,” he said. “The only way to crush this problem is a full-scale show of force. Not cloak-and-dagger tactics, not reliance on new-fangled technologies, and certainly not through exploiting the remains of some aeons-old xenos’ wreck.”
He thrust his finger at the view-port, at the Artefact outside. I had to consciously avoid looking at it, because even the suggestion of the Artefact made my data-ports ache. Tired as I was, I wanted to be back out there all over again.
Williams fidgeted uncomfortably beside me.
“I agree with the admiral,” he said. “I’m sorry, man, but I didn’t sign up for this.”
“What exactly did you sign up for?” I shouted.
Williams had demonstrated that he was no Legionnaire. His words to me, when we’d first met, echoed in my mind: “I’m only interested in the glory work.” Sailing through the Maelstrom, in the midst of a Krell fleet of such magnitude: there wasn’t much glory in that.
He pulled a face. “Just not this. That was a big fleet, man. Got to be a serious security risk. The Point should know about it.”
Loeb took in the exchange: savouring the animosity between Williams and me. “There’s more, and maybe worse,” he said. “Much worse.”
Worse than leaving Elena aboard the Artefact? Worse than abandoning her in deep-space for a second time?
“Saul is part of the problem,” Loeb said. “Professor Saul sent that transmission.”
His words shook me from my pit of frustration. He slid a print-out in front of me: I scanned it, but couldn’t focus on the contents. Transmission logs – encrypted messages being sent from the Colossus.
USER NAME: SAUL, ASHAN (PROF).
I guessed what was coming. Fought to stay standing.
Compromised. That was Elena’s word.
Loeb went on: “Saul has sent several communications through the lab deck. He’s been using the FTL transmitter, employing an encryption algorithm used by them.” Loeb’s face looked almost smug as the words tripped off his tongue. “Saul is Directorate. He has been sending his research to an unknown receiver somewhere beyond the QZ.”
“That fucking bastard…” Williams muttered in disbelief.
This was too much. How could it be happening again? The Asiatic Directorate seemed to have agents everywhere, always one step ahead of me. Always under my skin. In some terrible way, it made sense – was completely explicable. This was Dr Kellerman all over again. Sci-Div seemed to be the vulnerable underbelly of the Alliance military complex: an easy target, filled with little men and their personal schemes.
“And so, you see, even if I wanted to continue this operation, I have no choice. I’m ordering the arrest of Professor Saul. Don’t make me add your name to the detention warrant, Major. We’re taking Saul back; he can be Mili-Intel’s problem.”
“I want to speak with him,” I said. “I need to know what he has been doing out here.”
“Once he’s in custody, by all means. Preparations for launch back to the Point will take some time. You have two days to undertake whatever further investigations you want. But I’m prohibiting any further expeditions to the Artefact.” Loeb looked at me levelly, predicting my response. “Don’t try anything silly. We can all walk away from this with some dignity.”
The hint of a smile played at the edge of Loeb’s lips, but I didn’t see anything funny in what was happening.
“Dismissed. Both of you.”
I stormed out of Loeb’s quarters, in the blackest mood I’d experienced since our arrival in Damascus Space. Williams followed behind me.
“Maybe this is for the best,” he said, with a tone bordering on joviality, like the news was a relief to him. “It’ll be good to get back to Liberty Point. Maybe I’ll buy you a drink—”
I turned on my heels and grasped at the collar of his fatigues. In a single motion, I lifted him off his feet and pushed him hard against the wall.
The pounding in my head was becoming overwhelming. It was all I could do to keep my rage in check; not to take it out on the worthless trooper. Williams scrambled and gasped. I enjoyed the look in his eyes – the realisation that even old and skinless, I was a force to be reckoned with.
“Shut the fuck up, Williams, or I’ll finish what Kaminski started.”
“Yeah, man…I…understand—” he stammered.
“That’s just it: you don’t understand. You don’t understand at all.”
“C…copy you, man,” Williams managed. “I mean – sir.”
“You done?” came a voice behind me.
I held Williams for a long second. Let the anger drain out of me. I eventually let him go. He slid down the wall, to his feet.
“Just about,” I hissed.
Jenkins stood at the end of the corridor. She gave me a disapproving look.
“If you boys have finished…” she said.
Williams ducked out from underneath me. He smoothed his fatigues, ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll see if I can help with that arrest,” he said. “I’ll let you know what the Marines say, sir.”
“You do that, Captain,” Jenkins said. “I’ll take care of the major.”
Williams disappeared off down the corridor, shaking his head.
“Was any of that really necessary?” Jenkins asked me.
“I’ve had enough of that asshole. Captain or not. Cole promised me the best; instead I get unmotivated fuckers like that.”
“Yeah, well. Seems like I pick them.”
“Loeb is pulling the plug. We have two days to wrap things up. No more expeditions to the Artefact.”
“I know.
He sent a directive a few minutes ago. Figured you might need someone to talk to.”
She meant well, but there was nothing that my crew could do to help me. What could I really do? Mutiny was a fleeting, fantastical possibility. But even if I skinned up, even if I managed to persuade the rest of my team that this was the right thing to do, Loeb still controlled the Colossus.
“Is she all right?” I said.
“You mean Mason?”
“Of course I mean Mason.”
“Nice of you to ask. Seems like your priorities have been elsewhere recently.”
“Don’t start with me, Jenkins.”
“Mason hasn’t been right for a long time. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“I mean it,” Jenkins said. “She’s been struggling.”
“So what’s her condition?”
“She’s in a coma; possible neurological feedback. The medtechs think she needs proper attention back at the Point.”
“She’ll live,” I said. “She is no reason to leave.”
“She might live. No promises, but she’s stable for now.”
“Aboard the Artefact,” I asked, “did you see her? Did you see Elena?”
“I thought that this was about Mason, not Elena,” Jenkins tutted. But she knew that response wouldn’t be enough for me, and added: “I was behind you, and my bio-scanner couldn’t reach so far into the structure—”
“Did you see her?” I asked again, my voice rising to a near shout.
She shook her head. “There was nothing there, Harris. My scanner was empty.”
I followed Jenkins to the mess hall, where the remains of the Lazarus Legion waited.
Kaminski and Martinez occupied the recreation room, just off the main hall, and Jenkins had abandoned a half-eaten meal in one corner. When I entered the hall, the rest of the team stopped: eyes on me. A couple of Navy officers darted out of the door. Eager to avoid me.
“It’s over,” I said. “Loeb wants to recall the fleet.”
“That was expected, after what we saw today,” Martinez said.
He was talking sense; but I wasn’t interested in sense. I was interested in results.
“We heard that Saul is in custody,” Kaminski said. There was no surprise in his voice and the words were spoken with an undercurrent of disappointment, like he had always expected someone on the team to be a traitor.
“With Mason in the infirmary,” Martinez said, “maybe, just maybe, this is for the best. She needs help.”
I pulled a chair from under the table, slumped into it. Put my head in my hands. I wanted a drink now more than ever: needed something to numb the pain in my head, my heart and my data-ports. Beneath all that, my rage flowed like the tides of the Maelstrom. Jenkins’ eyes flashed towards Kaminski; a barely perceptible gesture that spoke of joint concern. The idea that they might’ve been talking about me, might’ve shared worries, made me even angrier.
I shook my head. “Elena was concerned that I’d been compromised. Maybe the operation was compromised from the start…”
“Leave it, Harris!” Jenkins said. “We gave it our best shot. It’s over.”
“Elena wants out,” I said. “I can help her. She wants me to activate the Artefact. I’ll do it with or without your help. I’m not leaving this place.”
The Legion said nothing. I sat back in the chair, looked into the eyes of each of them. I realised then that I didn’t care any more whether they believed me or not.
I believed. That was all that mattered.
“I’m going to argue this out with Loeb,” I insisted. “He can go fuck himself if he thinks I’m leaving in two days. Tomorrow morning, assemble in the SOC as usual.”
None of the group immediately responded.
“Understood?” I said. “And make sure that Williams keeps that traitorous bastard in custody. I want him interrogated; I want every detail of his operation exposed.”
“Affirmative,” Jenkins said, with more than a little reluctance.
I thought about going to the SOC and making transition again, but figured that it was too soon. I’d be seen, and in the current climate Loeb was looking for any opportunity to undermine me. As difficult as it was, I had to wait again.
But Jenkins’ words had wounded me. And so, a guilt that I couldn’t repress drove me down to Medical. I was angry with myself for putting Mason in danger; for allowing her to end up like this. Dejah Mason was a trooper under my command and she was my responsibility.
The infirmary occupied one corner of the Medical Deck, and was even more clinically sterile than the rest of the med-bay. Decontamination docks sat open and a medtech was at a workstation just inside the ward. I got her attention.
“I need to see Private Mason.”
She was a small blonde woman of Martian stock. The name-tag on her chest read TREENA BAILEY, MEDTECH GRADE A3: I vaguely recognised her as the girl I’d seen with Williams at the Alliance Day party.
Bailey looked up and gave a brief smile. “Of course. She’s in bay three.”
“How’s she been?”
“You have security clearance to access her medical data directly.”
“I don’t want data. I want to know how she is.”
The tech’s brittle smile flashed again. “Sorry. We’re all kind of on edge, what with the news about the Professor. I still can’t believe it.”
I shrugged. When the girl realised that I wasn’t interested in trading scuttlebutt, she went on, “Dr West is her treating clinician. The working theory is that she suffered some form of neurological feedback during extraction.”
That was a rare but not unknown complication for a sim operator. I’d probably increased the chances of such an occurrence by putting my people under too much pressure. With so many extractions, in such a short period of time, it wasn’t surprising that one of the team would break. Maybe Mason just wasn’t up to it. Maybe she wasn’t really Sim Ops material after all.
Maybe none of them are up to it, that voice whispered.
“She’s currently in a medically induced coma. Dr West is running some blood tests and further scans. She’ll be on shift in the next hour if you want to speak with her. Or I can comm her direct, if you’d prefer.”
“No. I just want to see Private Mason.”
“Go on through.”
I’ve never liked hospitals. The smell of medical equipment; the lighting. It’s the same wherever you are, whatever word you use to dress up the location.
Sub-chambers lined the edges of the main ward, rigid plastic curtains partitioning them from the rest of the room. A robot auto-doc – all white plastic shielding and gleaming apparatus-tipped arms, like a mechanical octopus – sat at the end of the ward. The doc’s clamshell-design canopy was open, the moulded treatment couch unoccupied.
I pulled open the plastic curtain to Mason’s cube. She lay in the bunk, in a hospital gown, covered to the chest by a clean white sheet. She looked haggard; eyes faintly shut. A plethora of medical devices were wired to her body: feeder tubes, data-cables, reader pads.
“Good evening, Dejah,” I whispered.
She didn’t respond. Only lay there, still, chest faintly rising and falling. In rhythm, a machine beside her emitted a sibilant wheezing. A plastic rosary lay on her pillow, next to her head. That had to be from Martinez.
I lifted a data-slate from a holder beside her bed. I linked my wrist-comp to the terminal and downloaded the material – her medical history and case notes – just in case I might need it.
“I shouldn’t have brought you out here,” I said.
Mason just looked on. Impassive, calm: next to death.
I touched the young trooper’s hand. It was cold, rigid. Mason reminded me of my sister: her youth, her determination. Seeing her like this – immobile in the hospital bed – made the comparison even stronger. I shook my head, forced back the memories.
“This is my mission,” I said to Mason. “It’s always been my mi
ssion, and I’ll complete it alone. Sleep well.”
I slipped the data-slate back into the holder. Pulled Mason’s bedsheet up to her neck. She didn’t rouse.
I slid out of the cube, closed the plastic curtain behind me.
By the time I left the Medical Deck, the Colossus’ night-cycle had commenced. The late watch staff had taken over, and the ship was generally quiet.
There was nothing else for me to do but sleep. It had been a long and tortuous day.
As ever, my dreams were troubled. I kept waking up on the Buzzard’s Run. The openness terrified me – all of those stars, reaching out to infinity. I thought that I could hear Elena’s voice, calling to me across time-space. I felt so cold, hands pressed against the glass corridor walls.
Except that when I woke up, I was back in the tiny officer quarters aboard the Colossus, and it wasn’t cold at all. Quite the contrary: I was drenched in sweat, in the grasp of a feverish headache.
I heard – or at least, thought that I heard – voices from outside my room. Speaking in whispered, accusatory tones.
“He’s crazy. Proper Section Eight.”
“We’re going to have to relieve him of command. Nobody back at the Point’ll question that decision.”
The voices sounded like Kaminski and Jenkins. There was laughter as well; hushed, malicious laughter.
“Right on, sister. But I’ll do it if we have to; I’m captain.”
That had to be Williams.
Had they – Kaminski and Jenkins – been in on this with Williams from the start? Jenkins had been laughing with Williams at the Alliance Day party. Had the entire confrontation between Williams and Kaminski been staged, a way for Williams to get aboard the Artefact alone?
Williams spoke again. “We’ve got to think of ourselves now. There’s no way that Dr Marceau is aboard the Artefact.”
I tried to move but found that I couldn’t. A great weight was on my chest, pushing the atmosphere from my lungs.
“Sleep now,” said another familiar voice.
It’s best this way, whispered the voice in my head.
