by B. V. Larson
“All right then. Give me my orders.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to write them yourself? You seem very full of ideas today—even for a human.”
“Not at all,” I said, “I’m yours to command, Captain Ursahn.”
Grumbling, she left me with instructions, then lumbered out of the chamber. Everyone present breathed a sigh of relief.
=13=
Captain Ursahn left the base, taking Godwin with her to the transmat chamber. They vanished soon afterward. I didn’t get to witness the procedure, and I was left curious about it. They had kicked me out and slammed the doors.
I thought afterward I could tell when the transmission was made, because I heard a deep thrumming sound that seemed to penetrate the rock walls. Then the lights flickered momentarily, and the thrumming stopped.
“What kind of game are you playing at, Blake?” Dr. Abrams asked me when he came back out of the transmat chamber. “Are you a traitor? Have you signed on with a foreign power?”
“I’m trying to keep us all breathing,” I said. “That’s a serious effort.”
By this time, General Vega was back from the infirmary and walking again. He looked groggy and pissed-off. I made the mistake of asking him how he felt.
“How do I feel?” he demanded. “I’m enraged! I was beaten senseless—a criminal act. I don’t know how you withstood close contact with these savage aliens for so long, Blake. I want to lodge a formal complaint with their government. We should demand they extradite Godwin into our custody!”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t even answer such a request,” I told him, “if they could even comprehend it, sir.”
“Blake is right,” Abrams said. “The aliens don’t think in a linear fashion. They’re ruled by emotions, rather than logic.”
He was right and wrong at the same time. To my way of thinking, humans were just as easy to fire up as the Rebel Kher, but we had a different set of rules regarding what was acceptable interaction.
Normally, I’d have kept these opinions to myself, but I couldn’t today since the stakes were so high.
“General, have you ever sniffed another creature’s hindquarters?” I asked him.
He looked at me as if I’d gone insane. “No, but I’ve kicked any number of junior officers in that precise region!”
“Sir, bear with me. What I mean is that normal behavior for the Kher isn’t the same as it is for us. They’re not actually aliens, by the way, being genetically related to our species—but they are very different.”
“What’s your point, Blake?”
“Sometimes, humans see familiar behavior patterns in dogs—but dogs aren’t human and can’t be expected to match human norms. It’s the same way with the Kher.”
General Vega held a cold compress to the back of his head and muttered something about putting down animals. But he’d stopped talking about extradition.
“Let’s go over Captain Ursahn’s orders,” I suggested.
“Orders?” General Vega demanded, getting upset all over again. “She gave us orders?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said. “It’s because we’ve built a ship. Godwin was here to find it—apparently, they’ve been suspecting we were building one.”
“All those probes…” Abrams said. “Maybe they have more spies and drones here on Earth which we never detected.”
“Right. Anyway, Godwin is an agent—kind of like a tax agent.”
General Vega boggled at me, but he didn’t talk. His face only got redder as I went along.
“You see General, it’s like this,” I told him, “they want our ship to serve in their Fleet.”
“That’s not all,” Abrams added, “tell him the good part.”
I tossed him an angry glance. “Well… they insist that I be the one to fly her, sir. They only respect—”
“Ah-ha!” boomed the general, pointing a finger at me that was rimed with dried blood. “I see it all now. Scheming, maneuvering. Well, I won’t stand for it, Blake. I told you you’re not going on that ship, and I meant it.”
“I don’t have to be in command, sir,” I said. “I don’t even have to be a pilot. I’ll just be along for the ride.”
“No, you won’t—you’ll be behind bars in the brig!”
“General, the Kher have made a formal request. Also, they’ve made a threat to go with it.”
He glowered at me. “Keep talking, you worm.”
“They don’t like the fact that we’ve built a phase-ship. They figured that out in about ten minutes—”
“Who showed them my ship?” Vega demanded.
I glanced once at Abrams, then dropped my eyes. It was a subtle way of indicating the Doc was my accomplice. Vega followed this interaction closely.
“The Kher insisted, sir,” I explained. “They threatened to blow up the ship—this entire installation.”
Abrams became alarmed when the general turned on him next.
“You did this!” Vega said. “You’ve been scheming on your own for months. Blake’s a worm, but you’re a traitor!”
“What?” Abrams asked, producing a high-pitched, nervous laugh. “Come now General Vega, don’t be ridiculous. You should hear yourself. It’s embarrassing.”
None of Abrams’ words improved the general’s mood. The two went at it, Abram’s insisting the general was being absurd, while the general made plenty of threats.
I took that moment to slip away. There was clearly no love lost between these two, and I didn’t want to catch any of the fallout from their struggles. Shifting the blame to Abrams was a rude thing to do, and it had been almost too easy. I rationalized that these two deserved each other, and the fact their plans had gone awry wasn’t my responsibility—not entirely, anyway.
As I was bone-tired, I went back to my quarters and flopped on my bunk. It wasn’t until the morning chimes woke me up, heralding another dawn in this pit below Cheyenne Mountain, that I struggled awake again.
Robin caught up to me in the passageway on my way to breakfast. She showed me an ankle-bracelet and glared at me like I’d clamped it onto her myself.
“What’s on your foot, there?” I asked as if I didn’t know.
“They caught me trying to get into the transmat room. You government people are crazy. I’ve got a clearance, or I wouldn’t be working down here.”
I shook my head. “That isn’t how clearances usually work,” I told her. “Often, there are limitations and not much overlap. Privy to project A, but clueless about project B, that’s our motto. You’re probationary, anyway.”
“They told me all that,” she complained. “But one tiny slip-up, and they get to monitor my every movement electronically? That’s bullshit. I’m a prisoner here.”
“No, you’re not,” I said, “but if you keep sneaking around, you may well become one. These bracelets are a small addition to the Non-Human Acts. They called it ‘implicit acceptance of electronic surveillance’ but the reality is the rules have all changed.”
“That’s the worst thing about the aliens,” she said. “After we made first contact with the Rebel Kher, our rights went down the toilet. The government thinks it can do anything to innocent civilians.”
I pointed a finger at her. “You’re no longer an innocent civilian. You have to get used to that. You’re one of us, now.”
Her face squirmed, but she didn’t argue. Right then, I couldn’t recall why I’d wanted her to come along badly enough to bargain for it. Sure, she’d helped me when I needed it, but I could already tell she was going to be a huge headache.
“You’re going to have to start doing your job,” I warned her. “This ship will be exiting this hole in the ground soon.”
“What?” she asked, her complaints stopping dead.
I began to explain, and she produced an old-fashioned notepad and pen. They’d confiscated her electronic devices for obvious reasons, and they’d yet to return them. They were still telling her they were “processing” her equipment. They clea
rly didn’t trust her yet.
None of my recent interactions with Ursahn had been declared top secret, so I told her about it. As our PR rep, she had to at least know what was happening.
When Robin learned that I was going to be on the ship when it flew—at least if Ursahn got her way—her entire demeanor shifted.
Robin smiled in a big way. It was as if the sun had come out. She touched my arm, and her eyes were shining. Damn, this girl wasn’t subtle.
“Any chance you could take me along, Leo?” she asked. “Just for the maiden voyage?”
I could see her angle a mile off. She was planning to experience the initial flight test—very brave of her in an experimental craft—and write about it later on. Inside information like that could be worth millions to certain media organizations. People were very curious about the Kher and the ships that haunted our skies.
“Uh… I don’t know,” I told her. “The brass doesn’t even want me to go, actually. But the Kher are insisting.”
“Why?”
“They trust me I guess… well, I mean to say they believe in my capabilities.”
She laughed. “An interesting self-edit...”
We ate breakfast together, and she began to charm me all over again.
Was that her plan? It was hard to tell.
=14=
It took nearly a week to get the ship out of the mountain tunnels and assembled inside a hangar they’d built for it on the surface. There were delays and problems every day.
As the ship took shape on the mountainside, it began to look long, dark and sinister. To me, it resembled a boomer more than anything else—a nuclear-armed submarine. It wasn’t as stream-lined as a sub, however. It had protrusions, fan-like sensor arrays and one very large cannon with a stubby barrel that hung under the prow.
The weird thing about the cannon was it didn’t have an opening at the business end. That’s because it didn’t fire shells—or anything else. It wasn’t a gun in the traditional sense. It was a large-scale disruptor, which damaged distant targets by shuffling their molecules between normal space and hyperspace. At least, that’s how I understood it.
Ursahn returned to Cheyenne Station twice more, asking if we needed help. She offered to blow a wider shaft in the rock from space to speed up the process. Of course, this would lay waste to the station on the surface. Her suggestions weren’t appreciated.
By this time, word had come down from Washington that we were going to have to comply with Captain Ursahn’s wishes. She’d probably pulled some strings with the politicians. They were all afraid of the Kher. If she’d demanded to cut off all our heads and boil them in oil, the cowards in D. C. probably would have gone along with the idea.
It was on Thursday that we got our next surprise from Washington. As we hauled up the last chunks of the craft’s stern to the surface, a voice spoke behind me.
“Leo Blake… I’m not surprised to find you’re already here.”
It was a familiar voice, and I whirled around, hardly able to believe my ears.
“Dr. Chang?” I demanded.
We clasped hands. He beamed at me. He was an older, wiser man and we’d been through Hell and back together. Part of my original Hammerhead crew, I’d lost track of him over the last six months.
“Good to see you’re still breathing, Blake,” he said. “I would have thought someone might have gotten tired of your tricks by now.”
“They have, Doctor,” General Vega said, overhearing him. “They truly have.”
He stalked away, saying no more. I turned back to Chang.
“Where did you come from?” I asked him.
He jabbed over his shoulder with his thumb. A helicopter was sitting on one of the pads, blades still whirling. That was nothing unusual, as people had been coming and going all day.
But my eyes landed next on the group exiting the aircraft, and my jaw dropped. I recognized them—all of them. They were my old crewmates.
Dalton and Samson were both there, arguing on the pad. They hadn’t gotten twenty steps before they’d started up about something.
My eyes searched the others. I spotted Gwen, but I didn’t see Mia.
That thought made me smile. Mia wasn’t on Earth—she was lightyears away on her homeworld, Ral. But with everyone else showing up, I’d automatically looked for her.
“Freaking out a little, Leo?” Gwen asked, walking up to us next.
“Yeah…” I said, giving her a hug.
Gwen squeezed me back, harder than any normal girl could do. She still had her symbiotic inside her, altering her biochemistry among other things.
“Gwen,” I asked, “what are you guys all doing here?”
“No one told you?” she asked. “I’ve been trying your cell, but it just goes to voicemail.”
I shook my head. “Confiscated. This project has been beyond secret—until now, I guess.”
“How long have you been on this mountain?” she asked.
“More than a week.”
“Well then, you must know more than we do about the new ship. They just gathered us up over the last few days to deliver us here. They’ve only told us bits and pieces about what’s going on. From what I understand, the Kher insisted we be here when they accept the ship for their Fleet.”
I stared at her for a second. My mind was racing. “I wonder if the general knows about you guys…”
I didn’t have long to wait before I found out. General Vega was marching in our direction, red-faced and stern. He came to me and looked at each of us in turn.
“The original crew… I might have known. No doubt, you’ve been laughing with your friends among the Kher, using your pull to—”
“General,” I said, “I have no idea how these people got here. I’ve had no contact outside of this base in more than a week. You know that.”
“Hmm…” he said. “I’ve always liked you, Blake. You brought home the ship we’ve studied for a full year. Are you lying to me now?”
“No sir.”
“All right,” he sighed. “Well, your friends can watch the proceedings. I won’t object. My flight crew should be landing any minute now. They’ve been training for months on simulators. They’ve visited the project while it was still in the works. They’ll be very pleased to see the ship fully-constructed. This will be a quite a moment for them.”
Dr. Chang cleared his throat. “That’s not how things are going to go, General.”
Vega stared at him for a moment. Already, he was suspecting the worst.
“What do you mean?”
“We are the new crew. Your people aren’t even coming out here today. Washington canceled their flights and informed us two days ago. We were gathered in secrecy and brought here. I’m shocked they didn’t inform you, sir.”
General Vega hung his head. I felt sorry for him. I’d been pencil-fucked by plenty of bureaucrats in my day, and I wasn’t even a senior officer.
To his credit, Vega didn’t shout. He didn’t tell us we were all scheming monsters. He knew it went higher up than us—it had to come from the top.
Instead, he straightened up and sucked in a breath of cold, clean mountain air. Then he nodded.
“Okay then... if that’s how they want it. Do any of you know how to fly this vessel?”
Clearing my throat, I raised my hand.
“I’ve taken the liberty of familiarizing myself, General Vega,” I said. “She’s based on Hammerhead’s design, after all. I can fly her in a pinch.”
“The final twist of the blade,” Vega said staring right through me. “I get it, Blake. Well played... All right, carry on.”
I could tell that he wouldn’t believe anything else I had to say, so I didn’t bother. There wasn’t any convincing him that I was innocent. The rest of my crew he believed—but not me. Sometimes, it’s bad to have a rep for “fixing” things.
“That was smooth,” Dalton said. He’d walked up as the general made his exit. “I can see you’re still at it, Blake.”
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He made a crude gesture suggesting I was taking advantage of the general.
I frowned at him. Dalton was a British man with a low-brow sense of humor. He was very effective as a crewman and a combatant—but he was a true pain-in-the-ass to have around.
“It wasn’t that way, Dalton. I’m as in the dark as everyone else.”
“Oh, right, right,” he said. “Say no more, mate.”
We clasped hands and each of us forced a smile. We’d probably injured each other as many times as we’d paid one another a compliment. Still, there was a mutual respect between us after serving together.
Samson stepped up next and shook my hand vigorously. He also slammed his huge hand onto my back until I almost coughed.
He was just as dangerous in a fight as Dalton, but bigger and slower. What he lacked in sophistication, he made up for in enthusiasm. When we’d first met, he’d been convinced I had to die—fortunately, we’d come to be friends on the Kher ships. Somehow, being among the very few humans aboard a starship full of vicious creatures had a way of forcing people to get along.
“Great to see you, Leo,” he said. “Really great. Are we flying this phase-ship?”
He indicated the long dark ship that loomed behind me. I glanced at it.
“Is it that obvious what it is?”
Dalton snorted. “What? Is it supposed to be a secret? If so, I can assure you it’s a dismal cock-up. Anyone who’s seen a phase-ship up close would know it in an instant.”
I nodded, staring at the ship. She was sleek—and I hoped, deadly.
But what were the Kher going to think of her? Phase-ships were abominations dreamt up by the Imperials. War crimes made of metal and polymers.
I was going to have my work cut out for me convincing the Kher Admiralty this was a good idea.
=15=
As a naval aviator, it’s always been my belief that the line between “ship” and “aircraft” was bridged by spacecraft.
After all, who could tell me if a large space-going vessel was more like a surface vessel or an airplane? Which command model should be followed?
