by Mark Wandrey
The complex resembled a wagon wheel with six spokes. At the end of five of the six spokes was a four-story building with a two-level sub-basement. Flying buttresses in the colors of each Chosen branch connected the central hub to the buildings. The gold arch for Command was straight down the hall from the entrance. To her left were Scouts and Logistics, and to the right were Science and Training. The sixth building contained classrooms and storage. There were hundreds of Chosen billets in each wing, and the entire complex was only about twenty percent occupied. The size of the complex allowed for significant growth and showed considerable forethought by those who’d designed it fifty years earlier. Constructed from ceramic concrete and dualloy, it would long outlive the great grandchildren of the Chosen currently in residence.
Having branch members billeted with their own section helped foster a sense of unit cohesion. Each hub was a standalone building connected to the circular hub by tunnels at the fourth floor and ground levels. The central hub had a huge courtyard garden on one side, and the portal facilities on the other. The hub’s upper floors held dozens of offices, mostly used by the Command branch, and the top floor housed the Chosen Council chamber and offices.
Her original barracks, the one she’d shared with Cherise and the other five-star Chosen awaiting assignment, was in the empty spoke. For the first time, she’d be living with her working team and, ironically, it wouldn’t be in the Command hub. She walked down the mostly empty fourth spoke. In the room she’d shared with Cherise, she found one of the other girls studying and exchanged greetings. Minu told her about her reassignment, and the woman congratulated her. That was the extent of their conversation. Minu added a good bye once she’d finished packing and left without waiting for a response.
She walked back down the hall, through the spoke, and into the Science wing. It was her first visit to Science, and she half-expected to see wild-eyed scientists, whirling experiments, and unfathomable devices. Instead, it looked just like the spoke she’d lived in for the past year. Minu stopped at the first office on the hall. As in all the other spokes, this was the office of the branch coordinator.
A young five-star looked up when she entered. “Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked.
“I’m reporting for assignment.” The boy seemed dubious as he accepted her computer chip and slid it into his terminal. After a moment, he nodded and spoke into thin air.
“Chosen Minu Alma is here, sir. Certainly.”
“The Coordinator would like to speak with you,” he said. He handed the chip back and gestured to a door behind him. Minu thanked him and walked around the counter. Two silver stars and the name ‘Bjorn Ganose’ adorned the door. Hoping protocol was the same in Science as in Command, she knocked once and entered.
Bjorn Ganose stood, his tall, thin frame unfolding gracefully. He looked the same as he had when she’d seen him at her after-action report meeting. “Minu,” he said with a huge smile and came around his desk. She heaved a sigh of relief and met him halfway. She almost tripped over a massive pile of electronic components and went head over heels. “Oops, sorry about that!” he said and gracefully caught her elbow. “Cleaning lady is out this week.” A huge head of wild white hair, a bushy mustache, and equally bushy eyebrows gave him a slightly bemused countenance. His eyes were keen and always moving as he shook her hand with a firm, but not overbearing, grip. “I knew your father, you know,” he said, nodding as if agreeing with himself. “I was on the support team when he came through the Trials.”
“Honored to meet you, sir.”
“Pht,” he spat and patted her on the arm. “Any daughter of Chriso can call me Bjorn. Sit and talk a minute,” he said and gestured to a chair piled high with computer tablets. “Who left that junk here?” he cackled and tipped the contents onto the floor. Minu sat, careful not to dislodge one of several piles of equipment stacked on the desk. The piles were so tall she had difficulty seeing him once he sat back down. “I understand you came through the Trials with Pipson?” he asked around a stack of paperwork.
“Pip? Sure, his help was invaluable.”
“Smart lad. My grandnephew, you know. Sadly, his father was not of the right mindset to be Chosen. Couldn’t even handle the passing discipline needed to get through the Trials.” While he mumbled, Minu sat and stared off into space for a minute. He appeared much older than Jovich, but they must have been nearly the same age. He came around and noticed her sitting there. “Oh, my, what were we talking about? I’m sorry, I was in the middle of an experiment when you came in.” He gestured over his shoulder at a work bench. On it was a Concordian device that looked a little like an espresso machine. It whirred and vibrated, occasionally discharging an ominous puff of smoke. A nearby computer tablet recorded its emanations.
“My assignment to the Science section?” she reminded him.
“Oh yes, right. After your last mission, the Tog told the Leadership Council to promote you to four-star. According to the rules, Command four-stars get their own teams. There weren’t any available, so everyone was trying to figure out what to do with you.” As he spoke, he gestured expansively, almost knocking a pile of old-style paper books off his desk. Minu caught the tilting stack and righted it without Bjorn noticing. “Naturally, having heard all about you from Pipson and seeing nothing but glowing reports from Training, I offered to take you on. You see, we have to have a couple chaps from Command here anyway. Fosters inter-branch cooperation or some such crap.”
“I understand,” Minu said, glancing at the strange device that was now beginning to whistle and spit puffs of fire.
Bjorn saw her expression and gestured dismissively. “Happens all the time,” he laughed, before continuing. “Pipson said your instincts are top notch. That’s good, because I think an outside idea or two will do us some good. We’ve been working on a few projects for decades, and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”
“Decades? Sir, I don’t know the first thing about science. How can I possibly help? Well, beyond basic applications of Concordian tech operations and what we learned in school, that is.”
“Naturally, or you’d be in our branch. You must realize the nature of our problem. Most of the hard scientists are civilians. Sad, but true. The best scientists have little time for muscles and guns. The Trials are highly unfair to the type of brains we need here. Still, a few do get through from time to time.” He chuckled and patted his chest. “And I flex my muscles when I can, to get a few into the Chosen despite their lack of caveman skills. Having a place on the Chosen Council has its advantages, you realize.” Another stack of parts went crashing to the floor, again without notice. Minu didn’t try to stop it.
The strange machine stopped spitting fire and began to hover over the counter. Out of nowhere, a crab-type robot skittered along the counter and grabbed the apparatus before it could float away. An animated struggle between mass and lift quickly ensued. Minu was so entranced, she missed what Bjorn was saying.
“—sometimes a different tack is needed.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“It’s like the old story of the Kloth around Plateau. For decades, they’d line up thousands of soldiers and battle the beasts into submission. Then one day, a pig farmer suggested using bait to lead the migration around their territory, thus giving them time to build that grand migration wall. Now they’re scarcely more than a nuisance.”
Minu knew the story well enough. It was Mindy Harper’s husband who’d come up with the plan to divert the Kloth using goats and pigs as bait. What she hadn’t known was that he was a pig farmer! “So, you’re saying that I might be able to see something the scientists are missing, even though I don’t really know what they’re doing?”
“Exactly!” he yelled and jumped to his feet, just as the apparatus lifted off the shelf, crab-bot in tow. “I was waiting for that to happen,” he said and grabbed the device. To Minu’s surprise he began to float. “I suspected as much!” he said gleefully, as he drifted up toward the ceiling.
“You see, it has no effect on mechanicals; only biologicals are levitated by the graviton neutralizing field! Mechanicals are lifted through brute force!” The crab-bot gave up and dropped back to the counter, where it landed nimbly on its spindly legs. The bot’s optical sensors watched impassively as Bjorn’s head bumped against the ceiling.
“Fascinating, sir.”
“Isn’t it? Just imagining the applications makes me dizzy. Or maybe it’s a residual effect of the anti-graviton?” Minu suspected multiple collisions with hard objects was more likely. “This bears further experimentation. I don’t suppose you’d grab my leg and see if it extends to you?”
“I really should find my assignment and meet the team, sir.”
“Of course, of course. That’s another reason why we need a few command types over here. Just a moment, and I’ll come down and go with you.” He tried to let go, but his hand stuck as though glued there. He looked surprised and amazed. “Well, I do seem to have a dilemma. Maybe you’d better go on without me, while I figure this out.”
“Will you be okay?”
“Me? Certainly! On the way out, tell Arnold to give you your assignment, then ask him to come in and give me a hand.” Bjorn bounced off the ceiling and began to drift toward a massive stack of EPCs. “And do ask him to hurry!” he said as he flapped his free arm like a swimmer. All he succeeded in doing was sending himself into a three-axis spin. He was beginning to turn purple when Minu excused herself.
Arnold, his assistant, handed Minu a computer chip, then listened patiently as she explained his boss’s latest hijinks. “Again?” Arnold said, exasperated, “I’d hoped he’d given up on that thing. Took us almost a day to shut it off last time.” Minu left just as a resounding crash echoed from the office, and EPCs came rolling out the door.
She popped the chip into her tablet, and it provided all the information she needed. Her billet was on the ground floor at the end of the wing, her office was on the third floor, and her lab assignment….Lab? What did she need a lab for?
First, she stopped at her billet, a small, private room about two-thirds the size of her old bedroom in the Chosen Tower. She found her bins waiting and set her backpack next to the stack. After exploring the tiny kitchen and private bath, she rode the lift up to her office.
Her office was minuscule. Still, it was her first office. It had a secure computer hookup as well as places to store hard files and even a small fluid display wall like the one in Dram’s office. She played with the controls for a minute before settling on an ocean scene. It seemed a little out of place in the concrete cubical, but it made her smile. She could make it simulate a window if she wanted. But aside from snow and rocks, there wasn’t much to see this time of year in the mountains, so the ocean scene stayed.
Next, she headed for her lab. Stepping through the open doorway, she saw it was about twenty meters long and half that wide. One entire wall was a fluid display, and the floor was laid out in a grid that allowed her to move power and data feeds as needed to several reconfigurable work benches. Row after row of shelves and cabinets lined another wall, each sporting a programmable digital label describing the contents. She walked over and opened one of the cabinets. It was full of all kinds of scientific apparatus, most of which she had no clue how to use.
“You break it, you buy it,” said a voice from the doorway. She turned and saw a four-star Science Chosen standing there, hands on his hips, looking annoyed. He spotted the four gold stars on her cuff and sneered. “How’d you get in here, anyway? The lab is coded. Only members of the team assigned here should be able to enter.”
“Well,” she said, “First off, the door was propped open. And second, maybe I’m in here because this is my team.” He looked taken aback. “Minu Alma, Command,” she said and offered him her hand.
“Alijah Richards, embarrassed,” he said and took the proffered hand. As they shook, she noted his thin, dexterous fingers and total lack of callousing, just like Pip. “Pip said our new commander would be a girl, and I didn’t believe him.”
“Believe it. Now, where is everyone?”
“Home for the day. Most just got back from the memorial in Tranquility.”
“Okay, we’ll meet here at oh eight hundred tomorrow. Please email everyone and let them know I’m calling a staff meeting.”
“Understood,” he said. Misgivings aside, he was still a Chosen. She nodded and left. “Now, to the cafeteria,” she said, and headed for the lift. Tomorrow would be a busy day.
* * * * *
Chapter 10
Octember 2nd, 515 AE
Science Department, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass
The meeting the next morning went better than she’d hoped, and worse than she’d planned. It wasn’t easy telling a bunch of experts that their new boss was a sixteen-year-old girl with no experience in their field.
Pip was glad to see her, and rather pleased with himself for planting the idea in Bjorn’s mind. Of course, Minu got the impression that the idea wasn’t too hard to plant, since Bjorn was friends with her father and Jovich. She’d run into Bjorn at breakfast, and he’d acted like he didn’t recognize her. He was either very mystifying or borderline senile. Pip handled the introductions to the rest of the team.
Alijah, whom she’d met, was a specialist in high energy physics. She found out later that meant he knew how EPCs worked and could design things to use them. Terry Drake was a blond-haired man in his late twenties. He was probably the best-looking man she’d ever seen; he could easily have been a model back in Tranquility. His demeanor was modest when Pip explained he was a brilliant electronics engineer and knew materials science to boot. Why he only wore four stars was a mystery.
The last member of the team was Mandi Bishop. Minu was surprised to see another woman enter the lab, until she noted the civilian clothes. Bjorn’s comments about civilian scientists working for the Chosen came to mind right away. At thirty, Mandi was the oldest on the team, and she was as good-looking a woman as Terry was a man. Her curly brown hair was meticulous, and she favored tight-fitting blouses. Minu shouldn’t have been surprised when Mandi asked the first question.
“So, is it true you were in the same class as Pipson?”
“If by class you mean the same Trials, you’re correct. Is there a problem?”
“I find it hard to understand why they put a young girl with no scientific background in charge of this lab.”
Minu looked at her for a long moment. Mandi was probably ten centimeters taller than her and tried to use every millimeter to her advantage. Minu had always been the shortest girl in her class, and one of the shortest girls she knew. When you were accustomed to taller people surrounding you, the leaning tower of intimidation didn’t work. Minu’s father had once said that ‘small man syndrome’ was something almost completely reserved for males.
“I guess you’d better speak to Bjorn about your concern, as my assignment was his and the Chosen Council’s decision. In the meantime, I’m in charge of this lab, and I mean to get down to business.” Mandi smiled acidly and gestured with her hands as if she were offering Minu the lab as a present. Sooner or later I’m going to hurt her, Minu thought as she took her computer tablet from the holster on her hip.
The computer holster was basic equipment for most people working in Science. Minu had first seen one on the mission to GBX49881, when Pip wore three. The standard-issue jumpsuit belt, made of basic synthetic web material, easily accepted a number of removable pouches and holsters, including the one designed for small handheld tablets. Mandi did a surprised double take at Minu’s use of the ubiquitous computer holster. “I’ve reviewed the research schedules and want to make the following changes. First, I’m moving the examination of the Mok-Tok EPC interface to the top of the project list. I want Alijah to push this along, with Terry providing backup. I have a feeling you guys will strike pay dirt and show us some practical applications. Next is the reverse-engineering project on the salvaged gravitic impeller labeled GI-0
11.”
Minu glanced up from her tablet to see how her team was taking her orders and saw them staring at her with their jaws hanging open. Pip was the exception. He was watching Mandi out of the corner of his eye, a devilish grin on his face. Even through Mandi’s slack-jawed surprise, he could still see the resentment. Minu had gotten very little sleep the previous night. She’d spent the hours learning about her team and their research projects. After more than a year as a Chosen, a night of lost sleep was a small challenge.
She continued for a few minutes, reprioritizing their work for the next six months, before putting aside the tablet and summarizing. “That’s what I have so far. Any comments or suggestions?” Everyone except Mandi had a few suggestions. Minu made notes on her tablet and told them she’d take them all into consideration. Command training emphasized that team members would respect a leader who valued their opinions, even if they seldom used them. They nodded, and she smiled. She’d shown she was open to input, but also that she was in charge and would exercise that power. Pip gave her a subtle wink of encouragement, and her heart swelled.
Once the meeting was over and the team went to work, Mandi approached. Minu could tell she was spoiling for a fight, so she decided she’d let it happen and get it over with. “I want a word with you,” the woman said.
“Fire away,” Minu said, giving Mandi her most amiable smile.
“What were you thinking, moving my impeller project to second priority? I’ve been prepping that reverse-engineering project for over a year.”
“I don’t understand your question.”
Mandi blinked and gawked. “What part don’t you understand?”
