Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Are you giving me a new assignment?” Larry asked. He wanted to see the Triton rebuilt, to make amends with the people he respected when they returned. The crew that infested the ship until recently won him over, and he wanted to see the lights on, the ship full of life again. He wanted to be surrounded by the broad diversity of the people he’d come to know while he was undercover. Larry didn’t want to leave, or pursue another assignment, but if Citadel gave him an order, he would have no choice. Duty was his life.

  “We are fighting far from the cradle of humanity, and it is our hope that no one ever knows it. The war we wage is one that should never be brought to Sol system or the core worlds.”

  “Who are you fighting?” Larry asked. “What are your chances?” He was suddenly torn. Being aboard Triton would be good for him, but he couldn’t do so with a clear conscience if he knew his comrades were fighting and dying somewhere else.

  “I can’t share that information with you,” replied the anonymous voice. “But you will be leaving the Rega Gain system. You will critically damage the Triton’s computer core, the quantum entanglement communications system right now, and, if possible, destroy the Triton itself. Once you are finished you will board a craft with faster than light capabilities and report to point ninety three. You will need a stasis system – the journey will take over two years.”

  “The Triton could be home to thousands, it could be an asset to the entire region and major rallying point for the war. I’ll assume command, reveal myself with the codes I carry,” Larry said with determination. “I can make sure that the Triton reflects the excellence we strive for in the Sol System, and humanity will see that Sol Defence hasn’t abandoned them.”

  “No. You do not have the strategic mind nor the disposition to assume command of a Zhàn Class Carrier in combat or peacetime. People have always been tools to you, pawns, and the task requires a better balance between sensitivity and practicality. This is not a debate. Sol Defence may believe that it’s time for people to learn about the technology hidden at the heart of the Triton, and they may have faith in the crew that found her, but Citadel knows that they are engaging in some dangerous wishful thinking. This comes from the highest level. Destroy the Triton. Join us once it’s done. Our cause makes the conflict with the Order of Eden look petty and meaningless.”

  It was the last thing Larry wanted to do, but he’d seen Citadel’s judgment calls lead to positive outcomes before. They did see a bigger picture, who was he to argue? The former crew of the Triton would get along without him, and without the ship. It was terrible, but he was duty-bound. “I understand. It will be done.”

  “You know what failure means.”

  “I do,” Larry said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The transmission ended, and the command and control unit returned to its previous state, watching Agameg as he finished his inspection of the bridge controls. Larry turned it off and sealed his vacsuit. He activated his suit’s cloaking systems and left his quarters.

  Chapter 23

  Beggars And Foragers

  Oz cringed inwardly as he saw a red-faced man, full of self-importance, striding towards him. He had shoulder-length bleached hair and a pronounced chin. He pressed through the line of civilians who were getting paid before they left the space rented by the former Triton crew. "My favourite commander," he announced sarcastically.

  People lined up between the wires that had been strung to indicate the double line all paid attention. Being in a queue was boring, and to most of them someone like this man was a welcome diversion. Oz was happy that most of the civilians who wanted to leave to seek out family or return home for their property had already passed through. There were fewer than twenty left.

  Oz looked him up on his command and control unit; his name was Chazick Tweed, and he was a manual fabricator aboard the Triton. He had less than two days of work logged since. “Have we met?” Oz asked, allowing himself an amused smile. He’d faced so many entitled people over the course of his career, he had started to find them amusing instead of frustrating long ago.

  “No, not face to face. I’ve just gotten orders from you and your under-thugs every day for the last two months,” replied the fellow as he stopped to stand within arm’s reach. “You’d think wearing that wrapper of a uniform was bad enough.”

  Oz nodded, hoping that it would be enough of an acknowledgement to get to the point. “You must be in a hurry to leave, we’ll process you out right away.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Chazwick.

  “You cut in front of all these people here,” Oz said, gesturing to the more patient people behind him. Some of them smiled at him, others were busy listening to or watching something on their comm units.

  "Sorry? I'm not going anywhere. I just want to make sure that I'm getting paid for my time," Chazwick replied with exaggerated offence as he was scanned by one of the guards.

  "According to this we owe you three hundred twenty GC," Oz replied.

  "I saw that, and it doesn't match my calculations. You owe me over twenty eight hundred for my time, and that's at a quarter of someone with my skill makes at a minimum."

  "We pay for working hours minus billet and board," Oz explained, leaning on the edge of a crate filled with reclaimed comm units. "The only exception we make is for people who take care of children, who get a small additional allowance to assist with their care."

  "I can't help it if you haven't put me to work on something useful.”

  “My sergeants assigned you to three different fabrication shops and you only showed up at the first one for twenty three minutes. We needed you there, and it was the same thing you were doing aboard the Triton.”

  “It wasn’t exactly the same thing,” Chazwick said, waving his hands. “You had us making parts that any heavy materialiser could do using scrap and water.”

  “All our heavy materialisers have been down for about six weeks, because there are too few people with the expertise to make replacement parts in the fabrication shop,” Oz said. Several people in line behind him shook their heads or groaned or both.

  “If someone told me that, I would have gotten to work instead of sitting around. I thought the parts I was assigned to make were for one of your junk heaps.”

  “It’s not up to you to decide!” shouted a short man further back in line. “The Shop Manager puts the priority list together, then we get to work. I thought you worked in a shop before.”

  Oz put his hand up and made eye contact with the gentleman. “Thanks for the reminder,” he replied. With a glance at his command and control unit he saw his name was Ross Sherman, and he was standing beside his wife, Anna. They were both experienced fitters and fabricators, highly prized on any crew.

  “I’m just here to ask if we can get my cousin to bring my kids and his family here. She’s in the Sonsarru system, just a few days away,” Ross asked.

  “There’s a line here for a reason,” Chazwick said.

  Oz’s temper flared momentarily. “You’ve been sitting on your ass doing nothing for weeks, what’s another few minutes?” he said to Chazwick. He looked back to Ross and his slightly taller wife. “Later today we’re making an announcement about that. I won’t go into great detail, but soon we’ll have room for people with a good work record to invite their families to live with them. If you have friends out there who need a place, they’ll be welcome to apply or pay their way here.”

  “How are you going to manage that?” asked Anna. “We’re bunking on top of each other as it is.”

  Oz pointed across the busy, cluttered settlement, to a two storey tall stack of large crates. “You see those? We’ve found some flat, safe ground to lay them out and put them together. When we’re done, we’ll have a real settlement shelter. I can’t tell you where they’re going yet, but it’s going to be better than this.”

  Ross looked to his wife, who nodded at him. “Thank you, Sir,” he said and the pair turned and walked away. More than half of the peo
ple in line, in red, yellow, and blue vacsuits marking them for what part of the work force they were from, turned and followed. Oz was left with only four people leaving, far fewer than he expected.

  Chazwick turned to leave as well, and Oz caught his shoulder. “You know, I dealt with someone a lot like you on the Triton,” he said. “I was happy when he left, and I’ll be happier to see you go.”

  “What?” Chazwick said, turning on Oz with outrage. “You can’t do that!”

  “Let’s look at this in closer detail,” Oz said, glancing at the three others in line to make sure they weren’t growing impatient. They seemed to like the idea of the impending show. “You sat around for nearly two months, wanted to get paid for it, and now you’ve changed your mind since discovering that you can invite your lazy family to stay with us and eat our food.”

  “I have more training than that guy and his wife put together,” Chazwick said. “Look it up on your thing, if you don’t believe me. You need me.”

  “Okay, you’re not getting the point, and I really do want you to get it because you’re about to get punted to Port Rush, where people will hear your story about this,” Oz said. He wasn’t really concerned about Chazwick spreading the word about his work or depart policy, but knew that the other people leaving might. "Let's use Xander here as an example," he said, waving to one of the money counters. "He's getting paid to help us pay people and make sure that they have the leave code so they can get transit off Tamber. Before he was given that job, he and his two sons have been working in a cleaning crew they started. No one told them to start one, they just saw that the one we put together was having trouble keeping up and made themselves useful."

  Chazwick was obviously offended. "Picking up garbage on the tarmac? That's what you expect-"

  "I expect people who stick around to be useful, that's why we're adding a detail to our news package later today. No more refugees. If someone is working or taking care of children, then they can stay and they get paid for being useful. No one's going to get rich on the wages we're offering, but I don't see anyone else hiring this many off-worlders."

  "Then I'll start working, fine. I still want everything you owe me though. Since I didn't know the conditions, I deserve compensation," Chazwick demanded.

  "Oz!" squeaked a nafali woman with big, watery green eyes and a twitching pink nose. "I can't find Zoe!" She held up a tiny vacsuit and comm unit, indicating that the toddler had doffed them both at some point.

  Oz quickly checked on her in crewcast and realised that the woman who had signed up to take care of Zoe, Vivian Lea, had passed through the other civilian checkpoint with two human children. "She's been gone for six hours," he said to himself.

  "Am I getting paid or what?" demanded Chazwick.

  "You're leaving," Oz said darkly. "Goodbye." With a quick command he dosed Chazwick with enough sedative to knock him out for an hour. He went wide-eyed and collapsed so quickly that the nearest guard almost didn't catch him. "Get his comm unit, anything he received on the Triton, put the three hundred twenty GC he's earned in one of his secure pockets and dump him in a bathroom in the nearest starport with his vacsuit sealed," he ordered.

  "That's not even enough to catch a transport to Weatherly," muttered a nearby civilian.

  "Maybe he can find a ship in need of a resident pain in the ass," Oz muttered as he turned his attention back to finding Zoe. "Take over, Tim," he told a nearby guard in shrapnel-scarred heavy armour. He stepped beside Panloo, who eyed him anxiously. "All right, you see what I'm doing here?" he said as he brought up the Crewcast search interface. "I'm going to use every comm with Crewcast to scan for Zoe. If she's near anyone, we'll find her."

  Within a few seconds Oz's command and control unit projected a holographic image of Zoe sifting through a waste bin outside the commissary. To Panloo's horror the little nafali girl retrieved an uneaten third of a synthetic cheese bun. The older nafali screeched as she watched Zoe chomp into a bite shaped curve of the bread as though picking up where the former consumer left off. "Where is this? Where is she?"

  Oz grabbed the nafali's hand and started running towards the shipping container that had been converted into a canteen. "We'll be there before she finishes," he promised.

  They made swift progress between temporary buildings built from scrap, under two smaller ships being repaired, and across a small opening before Panloo saw Zoe, sitting on the tarmac enjoying her found meal. As soon as the tall nafali woman caught sight of the youngster she quadrupled her pace, dropping to all fours, leaping over a pair of guards who were on their way to the canteen.

  In a sequence of motions that Oz would have missed if he blinked, Zoe was swept up in Panloo's arms and the remaining bread was batted out of the toddler's hands. The toddler looked dazed as she took the situation in and chased the rolling bun with her eyes. Oz pulled a chocolate ration bar from his pocket, his last one, and unwrapped it as he closed the distance.

  Just as Zoe's eyes began to well up, the chocolate flavoured food was under her nose, and Oz was her biggest hero. "No strange germs on this, I promise," he said, out of breath.

  Zoe’s little furry hands were about to wrap around the precious food when Panloo intercepted them. "Oh no, I’m going to hold this for you. Once you’re done eating we’re going to clean you up."

  Oz verified that Panloo was listed as one of Zoe's backup caregivers and nodded to himself, not surprised that Ashley had set it up herself. Since then, Panloo spent every spare minute with the youngster. "Are you two going to be all right?"

  “I’m adopting her,” Panloo said softly. There was a dedication in her eyes that was almost fierce.

  “You have my blessing,” Oz replied.

  “Will I lose my job? I’ve been flying shuttles.”

  “If you can get this one to stay in a vacsuit or safety seat while you’re flying, then I don’t see a problem,” Oz replied. “Jake proved a vacsuit can survive re-entry, so I’d say a child’s safety seat would do even better. Just make sure they’ve got the right gear for safe decent built in.”

  “I’ll seal her inside if I have to,” Panloo said.

  “Nafali carry their children everywhere when they're her age, right?"

  "Female nafali, yes, and I haven't had any of my own yet, so she's going to get all my attention," Panloo cooed at Zoe, who was happily munching on the gooey chocolate meal bar.

  "All right, then I'm transferring primary care to you right now. You won’t be eligible for any combat missions though, so be prepared to play taxi around here until Zoe is ready to spend time with a caretaker.”

  “I’ll make that sacrifice,” Panloo said. “Combat flying is too nerve-wracking anyway.”

  “You’re sure you can keep this one under control?” Oz said, aware of Zoe’s legendary escapist abilities.

  “Oh yes, I’m sure,” Panloo said with a smile.

  He had enough nephews and nieces to know that was a remote possibility at best, but he was willing to give it a chance. At worst, she’d be forced to seat Zoe into a toddler carrier and seal her into a vacsuit. “Congratulations,” Oz said as he watched the pair together.

  Zoe looked at him as she finished chewing a mouthful and struggled in Panloo's arms. Oz stepped closer and was rewarded with a sloppy wet kiss on the tip of his nose. "You're welcome," he chuckled. He grinned as she returned her attention to the half eaten meal bar.

  “I’m going to take her to see Ashley after this settles in her stomach,” Panloo said.

  “Aylee?” Zoe said, her eyes widening.

  “I think she remembers her,” Oz said. “That’ll be good for them both.” His comm warbled a quiet alarm and he checked it immediately, routing the sound to his subdermal comm. "Ayan’s shuttle is leaving for Port Rush City in five minutes. The security team is aboard and the trip is expected to take one hour. There are protestors surrounding the base of the building, so our entry point will be on the roof.” Oz signalled his acknowledgement of the message, wishing he could
have gone with them.

  "Is there something wrong?" asked Panloo.

  “Just another day at the office,” Oz said. “You should get your things together and make yourselves portable. It looks like you’re going have a lot of flying to do. We’re moving the civilians soon.”

  “Oh? What will the new settlement look like?” Panloo asked.

  “I can’t say yet, but it’s going to be better than this,” Oz said. “I have to draft a plan and figure out how we’re going to do this while I check in with a few other things. Do you two have everything you need?”

  “Yes,” Panloo said, nuzzling Zoe’s pink-tipped nose with her own. The toddler nuzzled back for a moment before burying her face into the loose white fur around Panloo’s neck. “Thank you so much, Commander.”

  Seeing the pair together, so happy was a sizable victory to Oz's heart. "You’re welcome.”

  * * *

  STATUS CHANGED reported Crewcast on Ashley’s comm unit. She looked at it and saw a picture of Panloo with Zoe. An announcement orbited them in golden letters: “Commander Terry Ozark McPatrick approved Panloo Utta’s adoption of Zoe!”

  “You miss her,” Liam Grady said. They were sitting together in the finished corner of the Samson’s galley. The hatch was sealed, not that anyone would enter, since the deck was half in pieces. The plates of metal that would cover the floor were piled in a corner. A path of fitted deck had been finished so someone could easily get across to a major junction box. There was enough room there to set up a table and three chairs.

  The faint sounds of people working below managed to drift up through the sealed ceiling. Ashley could hear Frost yelling something at someone, but couldn’t make out the words. “It was one of the worst things about being sealed up in a suit for so long. I couldn’t visit her, but I was able to sneak out early on and ask Panloo if she could check on her for me.”