“Anyway,” Davi said, interrupting Remmy’s animated retelling. “While they were busy at that end, my team was running retrieval missions. One of them was to pick up an old friend of yours, Lucius Wheeler, from Longshadow. It cost me a good soldier, but we got him to the Sunspire.”
“And I still don’t know exactly what his game was. I think he was looking to trade his way back into Freeground, but I don’t know if he got his way. Still, there had to be something else,” Remmy said, rubbing his chin.
The mention of Wheeler got Ayan’s hackles up. “Do you know if he went to Freeground?”
“Don’t think so,” Remmy said. “Watched him as much as I could when I was creeping around on security feeds, but I didn’t spend much time on the Sunspire after we teamed up with the issyrians.”
“Issyrians?” Jason asked.
“Right, yeah, back to story time,” Remmy said. “The new, creepy Clark connected with the issyrians and his framework took on a lot of similarities to them, though there was also edxian and other race data in his system. He started going strange, physically, and a little in the head, too. He stopped paying attention to Isabel, so I started to get to know her. Still miss her, actually.”
“Remmy,” Davi said.
“Yessir?”
“Stay on target,” Davi said with a little smile.
“Right, yup, okay. We fought for the issyrians, who were getting suppressed by Regent Galactic. Davi comes in and helps us out with some of his people so Clark, Isabel, Mary, and I will follow him back to the Sunspire and report. We got through that hell, wrecking the terraforming initiative for all the little Regent Galactic boys and girls real good and head back to the Sunspire. Davi here lost a good friend in that fight too, next it was my turn.
“We got back to the Sunspire where not all was well. Command was pretty pissed because Omira and I faked Clark’s death, and there he was, wearing all that dreamy framework tech on the inside, showing them a side of the tech that they never thought was possible. They tried to take him into custody, we ran, I was the slowest, so someone uber-stunned me and I got stuck behind. Clark and Mary got back to the research vessel, don’t know what happened after that.” Remmy’s speedy retelling of events came to a sudden stop, and he looked down at his hands. “Isabel was killed trying to escape. Some dick hit her with one of those new Freeground super-rifles, she didn’t have time to feel much. Waste of a nice girl who loved people pretty easy. Even me, a little.”
“I got lumped in with him,” Davi said, picking up the story. “Like he said, we were the scapegoats for all that going south. Wheeler escaped, that’s the last I heard of him.”
“Was it really him?” Ayan asked. “Not an android?”
“Definitely didn’t scan as an android, Ma’am. He could change his face though, sounded like it was something frameworks like him could do,” Davi replied. “Only saw him do it once, but I’m sure he could be in disguise just about anywhere.”
“Yeah, slippery one,” Remmy added, recovering a little. “I get way down when I think of Isabel, she had way too good a heart to end the way she did. That brings us here, though. Not much happened in transit that we could tell, since we were in nice, closed in quarters. No access to comms or the computer. Got to know this jarhead pretty good though,” Remmy said, grinning exaggeratedly at Davi, who shook his head. “Dropped us off like they said, didn’t leave us much choice but to come here, not that I wanted to go anywhere else, to be honest. Big fan of yours,” Remmy said to Jason.
“It’s not mutual,” Jason said with a deadpan expression. “What happened to Doctor Omira Gerring?”
“Disappeared,” Remmy said. “Doctor Anderson said she was probably wearing her own brand of cloaksuit.” He turned to Ayan and asked: “So, can we sign up? I don’t do windows, and sweeping is murder on my middle back, but I’ll code, crack, or hack whatever you want for three squares and five weeks vacation a year. Oh, and the Vivaldi is from Doctor Anderson, who told me to tell you that he sent us.”
“I’m looking to sign on too, if you’ll have me. I wish there was a way for you to check our story, Ma’am,” Davi said. “All we have are our transit records, and I think the giant nafalli at the gate already verified those.”
Ayan pretended at considering the request, but she already knew what her answer would be. “Did you get much rest on the way here?” she asked.
“Too much,” Davi said.
“Good,” Ayan replied. “I’m going to assign you to the work crews for the night. You’ll be on shift for six hours then you’ll have five hours’ rack time. Sergeant Machad will introduce you to an officer who can set you up with a bunk, but keep any precious items on you. Are your vacsuits a recent design?” Ayan asked, looking at the black suit that had the same outer appearance of her own armoured suit.
“Yours are a bit better,” Davi said. “I scanned when we got close to the gate.”
“We’ll set you up with one,” Ayan said. “One of my senior officers will find a better position in our ranks by morning. You’ll be on probation.”
“Understood. Thank you, Ma’am,” Davi said, standing up and saluting.
Remmy wasn’t far behind, looking scrawny and short in comparison to his companion. “Thank you,” he added. “Sorry about the name calling on the way in.”
“Name calling?” Ayan said, standing up straight and returning the salute.
“Called you beautiful, Ma’am. It’s true, but maybe embarrassing?”
Ayan laughed. “Good luck. Thank you for joining us.” She looked to Victor as Jenny led the newcomers out. “Take a break, go get something to eat. I’ll be safe here,” she said.
Victor nodded and followed Jenny out.
Jason waited until the door slid closed before looking to Ayan. “You were good with them,” he said. “Very relatable, but in charge. That’s a balance you had trouble with before, especially near the end.”
The last thing Ayan wanted to talk about was her predecessor. She moved to the centre seat and sat down. “Can I get the fruit medley, please?” she asked. A pillar rose in the middle of the seat with a hot fruit dish in the middle with roasted vegetables on the side. “Do you want one?” she asked Jason.
He waved the offer off.
“I know I’m different,” Ayan said. “I think the Victory Machine pushed me down that path, and I’m starting to feel right in my own skin.” She silently wished Laura was still around to help, or so she could befriend her all over again as she learned about herself. Ayan could feel the grief fighting to the surface and stuffed a quarter of a plum into her mouth.
“What was it like, seeing the future?” Jason asked.
She chewed and swallowed quickly, feeling selfish at not focusing on Laura. She should be the one to support Jason, but the pain was so fresh, and there was so much going on, she didn’t want to break down when everyone needed her. “The Machine had a lot to show me, many futures. It would take days to write the report,” Ayan said. “Not that there would be much point, it’s always changing. The distant future was beautiful though. It extrapolated that I had a son and a daughter, and I was so proud of them. Worried about Laura-“ she stopped there, wishing she’d left her daughter’s name out of the story, “I worried about her as much as my aunt probably worried about me.”
“You named her Laura,” Jason said. “Thank you.” He looked shaky.
Ayan dropped her fork into the bowl and crossed the room. Her arm was around him, and his head was on her chest. “I’m so sorry,” was all she could think to say as she shed her own tears silently, stroking his hair.
“She was the only one who had patience for me,” Jason said after awhile. “Through my jack addiction, after, when I was relapsing and so distant. I was so in my own head I don’t think I told her I loved her for months,” he said through tears.
“She knew, Jason. I know she knew,” Ayan reassured.
He cried without comment until Ayan’s meal grew cold, and she couldn’t help but rec
all Jake’s blunder of checking the time after awhile, when she tried to lean on him. Jason finally picked his head up and laughed at himself. “She wanted me to reengage with my emotions, guess she got her wish.” He wiped his face and looked at Ayan, nose to nose. “Thank you for being here, Ayan. I know it’s as hard for you, she was your best friend, but you’re here anyway. I wouldn’t be strong enough to do the same.”
“I’m sure you would,” Ayan replied, wiping her own tears away.
“I have to ask, what did Roman look like?” Jason asked.
“Roman? He was at the end, in a coma. He was exposed to temporal radiation for months.”
“It took months,” Jason said, nodding. “Good.”
“Why?”
“I got a message,” he said, pulling it up on his comm unit. “As soon as you got back from the city, it was a short range burst from your comm, Roman hid it there.”
“Hello, Jason,” Roman’s visage said. It wasn’t the emaciated man she’d seen recently, but the strong police sergeant she’d come to know in Mount Elbrus. “I know you’re suffering now, and you feel alone, adrift. I’m sorry. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the terrible thing that’s happened to your wife. The galaxy still needs you, even if for just a little while longer. I hoped I would be strong enough to close the Victory Machine’s viewing portals myself, but I’m not going to make it. I need you to take my place in the service of Citadel. The Victory Machine will transport you far from here, it’ll show you what to do from there, so you can destroy it. I wish I weren’t offering you this mission, because I know you’ll take it. The only person you can share this with is Ayan, who will eventually understand. Goodbye, and I’m sorry.”
“No!” Ayan said in a panic, grasping at Jason’s comm unit and the arm it was attached to. “Laura wouldn’t want this! You’ve got such a long future ahead.”
“You didn’t see me in the Machine’s version of the future, did you?” Jason said calmly.
“That doesn’t mean anything! I didn’t see a lot of people, but I’m sure they’re still alive in the future.”
Jason kissed her on the lips, an innocent but affectionate gesture. “I want this. This feels like the right thing to do, and that’s been so hard for me to find for a while. I’m sorry I couldn’t find Wheeler or his people.” He gently pushed her away and smiled with tears in his eyes. “Oh, you’re going to be amazing, Ayan. I’ll look for you before I turn the Machine off, and I bet you’ll be so amazing.” He disappeared from sight.
Ayan reached for him, her hand grazed his arm, but the door opened and he slipped away. “Stop him!” she screamed into the hallway.
Two soldiers who were passing by looked at her dumbly for a moment. “Lewis! Scan for him! Close your hatches!” Ayan said.
The hatch down the corridor began closing while a woman was carrying a small crate up the ramp. She was bowled over before the ramp finished closing, and Ayan knew Jason was gone. She sunk to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
Chapter 42
The First Watch
The four Ramiel and three Uriel fighters hadn’t moved a millimetre during takeoff, and the small hangar crew was satisfied that they were ready to launch and retrieve ships on short notice once the doors were re-cut. They only had room to perform repairs on two fighters at a time, but with only four mechanics reserved for smaller ships, there wasn’t much justification for more. When the interior of the Warlord was complete, there would be room for two fighters and a shuttle in the repair bay.
As Minh made his way from the rear fighter bay, he couldn’t help but wonder at how much work was left to do on the Warlord. Though the ship was fully functional and looked complete on the outside, more than half the habitation area hadn’t been finished. While replacing her main support beams, it had been decided to remove whole sections of deck plating, leaving half the habitation areas - most noticeably the cafeteria - unusable. He could hear the sounds of conversations drifting down the narrow hallway towards him as he passed through a bulkhead door. The new hatch looked out of place in a hallway with cables lining the sides of the corridor. It was a work in progress.
So was the Warlord’s crew. He emerged from the aft-most section of the ship into the only usable large cargo bay. As instructed, the crew had broken out dozens of mismatched portable chairs and tables. A bunch of small sealed crates rounded out their common room furniture. The off-duty crew sat around leisurely, waiting to watch a large holographic projector, talking, or just laying back on one of the cots that had made their way down from the crew quarters. “Commander!” called Joyboy, a pilot who had become well known for his up-beat nature and big, toothy grin. He was at a table surrounded by crewmen who hadn’t yet learned that he was also a card shark.
Minh picked his way across the room to the table, looking the crowd over. There were over ninety crew in the hold, several of them waiting for a mechanic to finish hooking up a large, beaten up holoprojector. He was head and arms deep in the base of the old machine. “Did you say there was a trick to this, Commander?” he called over his shoulder.
Minh perked up at hearing his rank being called, then saw Stephanie answer. “Yeah. When we first set it up aboard, Ashley tweaked something so it projected a bigger picture than it was made for.”
“Over-projecting didn’t burn a lens?” the mechanic asked dubiously. “Because that could be the problem.”
Stephanie stepped over and gave the old machine’s base a solid kick. She waited a moment before asking, “no?”
The broad shouldered mechanic shook his head. “That’s not gonna help, but I think I see the problem.” After a moment of squirming to reach something inside the machine a hologram of a talking kitten came on screen with the caption “KAWAII KITTEN” dancing around it. A child appeared in the air, opening a small stasis package. Within was a kitten who lazily rolled over and mewled “hi Mom,” inspiring groans and sounds of awe from the watchers. “Okay, a word of advice for all the new people,” Stephanie announced in a surprisingly loud voice. “Captain doesn’t allow pets aboard, so if you buy a Kawaii kitten, do not open it! You can’t put the little buggers back into their stasis packs once they’re out, and they’ll follow you around asking for treats and other crap. That, and they’re obnoxious, latch on to random people, and when they grow up they become social maters, so it’s like having a furry soap opera with lots of shrill yelling.” Most of the crew seemed to take her seriously, while a few offered boos in return. “Seriously, I’ll flush it out the airlock if I see it.”
“Hey Ronin, glad you could join us,” Pisser, a tall, narrow-faced woman with green hair told him as she sat down at the table. “Everything okay in the rear launch?”
“Locked down tight. Looks like our support crew gets a break, they’ll be here soon,” he replied, still distracted with trying to take in the various activities of the crowd. After being alone for so long, seeing large crowds of people was still strange. At first they were difficult to take, even frightening. Thanks to his partially completed therapy, he could handle a crowd and sometimes found them mesmerizing.
“You gonna sit down?” Joyboy asked. “Maybe play a few hands? I gotta get something off my chest.”
“I bet he does,” Pisser said. “Joyboy’s been a baaaaad boy!”
“Gambling is the preoccupation of many fools and occupation of a few plunderers,” Minh-Chu said offhandedly.
“That’s a no, Joyboy,” interpreted Pisser. “Ronin knows better than to waste his luck on a card game.”
The mechanic who was working on the holoprojector noticed him as soon as he stood up and started walking over. “Sir!” he called out. “Commander Ronin, Sir.”
“That’s me unless you’re about to give me a reason to wish I was someone else,” Minh replied, shaking the man’s offered hand.
“I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of myself and all the slaves you and your captain freed from the Palamo. My name is David, this is my fiancée, Nerine.”
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Before Minh could reply he was embraced briefly but enthusiastically by a far too skinny young woman with curly brown hair. “You commanded the fighters who disabled the Palamo?”
Minh didn’t quite know how to react, but took a cue from Commander Stephanie Vega, who nodded from a couple of metres away. “I did. I’m sorry, you must have lost people in that fight,” he said.
“Almost none,” David said as he took Nerine under his arm. “Your people managed to disable engines and weapons without damaging life support in most areas. There were a lot of burns and several decompressions, but you guys took care of us and picked up survivors who were lucky enough to be wearing a vacuum suit.”
“If the Triton and Samurai Wing never turned up, we’d probably still be on that old carrier,” added a man from behind Stephanie, who was wearing a grin that made her amusement plain.
“You’re welcome,” Minh offered. “How are you getting on aboard the Warlord?”
“I signed up as a machinist and general mechanic,” answered David with pride. “Nerine here is one of your new food preps.”
“I prefer cookie,” she corrected with a playful grin. “Speaking of which, Tom’s probably looking for me. Gotta go get a bunch of forma protein squares processed into something that looks edible.”
A few people who overheard her announcement shuddered at the mention of the processed food.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework Page 41
