by L S Roebuck
“Now you listen, Lt. Blight, you have no —” North said almost pressing his nose into Blight’s forehead.
“It’s you North. It’s you! You are the spoiled rich military brat, who has never had to give up anything, had a perfect life, who knows nothing. And Amberly. The spawn of our enemy. Even with her nearly a half light year away, she still has you thinking with your pants. She played you, North. She played everyone! She still is. She is an evil person who deserves to die for the suffering she caused. And you are giving her safe quarter in your heart!”
“Careful, Alicia, North has been known to punch fellow marines for dissing his friends,” Sparks said dryly, with a smirk of entertainment at rolling over her face. “But he’s a traditionalist, so I don’t think he hits girls.” The captain seemed to be ignoring the conflict, seated, with his elbows on the table, holding his head in his hands.
“That’s his mistake then,” Blight said, seething now, eyes burning holes through the tall marine. Then in one quick motion she brought up her right fist and buried it between North’s jawline and neck in a powerful uppercut. Caught by surprise, North fell back into the wall, making a thud as his 85-kilogram body collided with the cold metal. Blight pulled her right fist back again to take a second swing, but Nyota and Rhodes both jumped for her, each grabbing an arm. Blight instinctively flailed at being restrained, and her left hand broke free of Rhodes and unintentionally nailed her in the eye socket.
“Darn it! Ow. Sh—” Rhodes stepped back and put her two hands over her eye.
Blight looked at Rhodes and was immediately ashamed for accidentally hurting the younger woman in her rage, the tension instantly draining from her body. “I’m sorry, Rhodes.”
Cho stepped for the door. “I’m going to get an ice pack for that.”
North straightened himself, then ran his hands to straighten his uniform. The pale Blight had gone bright red with embarrassment. She knew her conduct was unbecoming of an officer, and was preparing for a rebuke from the XO, whom she just struck. He could throw her in the brig for assaulting an officer. The captain looked up a North, but said nothing.
The silence was getting awkward, which Sparks couldn’t stand. She was about to fill the air with some sarcastic quip when North spoke. “You are right, Alicia. I have no idea what you have given up to come and defend the freedom of people on Arara whom you’ve never met, with little hope of ever seeing home again. I’m sorry.”
“Sir… I,” Blight stammered.
North rubbed his chin. “I know I deserved this, but maybe next time a slap? You could break a bone with that hook of yours.” North smiled weakly, and sat down at the table.
“Yeah, but I didn’t deserve this,” Rhodes said, as Cho returned with a medicated freeze pack. The teenager placed it over her throbbing eye.
“I’m so sorry,” Blight said, putting a hand on Rhodes’ shoulder, and both of them took seats at the table.
“You’ll be fine, Ensign,” North said.
“Well, now that that’s settled, let’s get back to the business at hand,” the captain said, hoping the incident had vented the appropriate amount of steam.
“Yes, let’s,” Nyota agreed.
“Sparks, what did you find out from our new passengers?”
“The dead woman and the comatose man — his name is Arvin — those two are brother and sister. The baby doesn’t belong to either of them. An orphan from the battle. The other woman’s name is Ryder, and we don’t have any records on her. She seems to be exhibiting signs of shock. Ryder told me that Chasm took over Cortes after murdering most of the waypoint’s senior leadership. Not surprisingly, the Chasm operatives on Cortes received the same Scorched Earth command we did on Magellan. Obviously, they were successful where we failed.”
“How can you say that with no remorse, Sparks?” said Blight, her blood pressure increasing.
“Oh, let’s not start that again,” Bollard griped.
“What I really want to know from Sparks is if she thinks Chasm has already lit Marquette?”
“The Chairman believed the waypoints were valuable, and if she thought she could save one and still break away from Earth, then she would,” Sparks explained. “I’d give even odds that Marquette is still alive and well.”
“The we make for Marquette with all haste,” Obadiah said. “If we could capture Marquette intact, staging our assault on Arara would be much easier.”
“Shouldn’t we go and see if we could salvage supplies, water and fuel from Cortes, or what’s left of her?” Bollard said. “If Marquette is gone, too, that means a full one and half-light years of no re-supply before we get to Arara, and there will probably be no welcome port there for us.”
“What will that cost us in time, Condi?”
“Staying on present course to the likely location of Cortes, will take an additional two months over making a direct line approach to Marquette,” the Magnus computer voice spoke.
“And then, however long the operation would take to recover what was salvageable,” North said. “Time is of the essence. We have enough supplies to miss several waypoints. We’ll make it to Arara fine.”
“Yeah, but what about the way back?” asked Rhodes. If we can’t resupply at Arara, things could get pretty dicey on before we could get back to Magellan.”
North stood up again, and paced the short room. “Let’s be realistic. If we don’t win, we are not going back.”
North turned to the operations officer. “Blight, you are right. I’m a hypocrite. I lived in a perfect world that was shattered by Chasm. I had no idea what evil was.”
“Steady, North,” the captain held up his hand to his first officer.
“We may die, Rhodes, or we may make it back to Magellan someday, but don’t you understand, there is no going back for me,” North said. “The Magellan, my home I loved. The people. That life. It’s dead. Gone. Chasm destroyed it, even if the waypoint is still intact. All I have now is pain and brokenness. All I have left is the fight. All I want is to take from Chasm what they took from me: Everything.”
Sparks relaxed on a glossy black couch in the executive officer’s suite. She scooted her body against the couch back, and friction from the polyvinyl material of her pants rubbing the couch’s artificial patent leather made a high-pitched screech. North jumped in response, and Sparks laughed at the Marine.
North’s quarters on the Magnus were actually larger than his apartment on Magellan. As the number two in command of the powerful warship, North enjoyed nearly 40 square meters in what would be his home for at least the next four years. The only decor on the slate-grey walls were three pieces of art he had taken with him from Magellan. North was not a man for excessive sentiment, but he did harbor deep feelings.
Sparks looked at the three framed images, and considered their significance to North. The first, framed in a rare, ornate oak frame, was a portrait of his father Ogdin, and his mother, Anne, who had died from the Araran Sweats. The Sweats were one of the few illnesses that evolved after humans left for space, rather than those they brought with them. The couple were young in the photo, standing in a golden field of ripe ligrans, a genetically-engineered cross between lupins and lentils.
Growing up on Arara as part of an experimental “cohort” of test-tube children, Sparks never had cause to travel the smaller agrarian continent of Ingram. Instead, she trained with her cohort brothers and sisters to become future leaders of Arara in the cities of Carmenica, the larger, more populous of Arana’s two continents. The only other major land mass on the blue planet was the Lewis Islands, where Kimberly Macready had grown up.
Sparks could see the clear family resemblance of North to his parents. For a moment, she felt a flash of jealousy and wondered if she had any physical resemblance to the man and woman who contributed the genetic material to start her life. She would probably never know.
The second image hanging on the wall was that of a night skyline of an old Earth city. North had told her it was Vancouver, Canad
a, and the picture had been taken around the year 2000. Tall buildings, lit by hundreds of windows, jutted into the darkness and wispy fog that Sparks understood to be common on Earth. North said the photo was a gift from his grandfather, who received it from his great grandfather, an early settler of Ingram who was born in Vancouver.
The third image was an abstract painting of three crosses. Sparks knew it had some religious significance, probably related to North’s Christianity. As a humanist, Sparks didn’t give religion much heed, but thought perhaps studying North’s faith might be helpful in future manipulation of the Marine. She made a mental note to ask him about the meaning of the painting at a more appropriate time.
North opened a small cabinet Sparks knew to contain rare liquors. He pulled out a bottle of what looked like whiskey and poured a stingy splash into two glasses. He handed one to Sparks, who barely had time to wonder where North got his stash, as she downed the shot. She reveled in the burn on the back of her throat.
“What does a girl need to do to get another?” Sparks laughed.
North frowned, and looked at the half-empty whiskey bottle. Instead of pouring Sparks a second shot, he simply handed her his glass and put the bottle away, securing the cabinet with a biometric lock.
Sparks didn’t down the second shot, instead just judiciously sipped it. North sat down in a plain aluminum chair.
“So, let’s get to business, then,” Sparks said. “What I am about to tell you I thought to be propaganda or Chasm myth, stories told to keep the rank-and-file undercover Chasm operators on the waypoints under control. It’s imperative that you get this information to my sister.”
“To Amberly,” North corrected.
“That’s what I said,” Sparks responded. “I wouldn’t want any harm to come to her because she didn’t know.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” North said, still incredulous about the dramatic “secret” that Sparks was about to tell him.
“The Chairman allegedly had super-secret undercover operators, called Hawks,” Sparks eyes seemed to reflect a childlike fear as she said the name.
“Hawks?”
“Yes. Their identity was known only to the Chairman. The only purpose of the Hawks was to make sure the will of the Chairman would be done. If a triumvirate —”
“The three-headed command group of a Chasm cell?” North asked.
“Yes, like Dek, Järvinen and I were the triumvirate for Chasm on American Spirit,” Sparks continued. “If any of us grew soft, or decided to defy the Chairman’s orders directly, a Hawk was the silent enforcer to make sure either we complied or were eliminated.”
“But this whole Hawk thing could just be a bluff, right?” North pressed.
“Could be, but why risk it?” Sparks admitted. She knew however, that the Hawks were real, based on what Ryder had secretly told her about the last days of Cortes. If any Hawks survived on Magellan, then they may try to finish the work that Raven One had started, and destroy Magellan, and Amberly Macready along with it. And because Amberly had saved her life, and because Amberly was the closest thing she had to a family, Sparks wanted to protect her so-called sister.
“Look, I know you care about Amberly,” Sparks said as she stood. She reached a hand forward and gently slid it over the stuble on North’s cheek. “She means a lot to both of us. Just tell her to be careful. Send her the message.”
North looked at Sparks. He had no reason to not trust her anymore. This Hawk thing couldn’t be some sort of coded message, North mused. Sparks had been an unlikely confidant and friend. She didn’t believe in the Chasm cause anymore. Or maybe she was just playing them all, North wondered. If so, she was more dangerous than anyone would have guessed.
Sparks leaned over the seated North, and kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear, “Thanks for the drink.” North stared dumbly as she walked out his door.
North and the Captain had already agreed now was the time to risk sending Magellan an update. Most importantly, they needed to pass on the news that Waypoint Cortes was gone, but they also wanted to send a quiet warning to Moreno and Thor that deep sleeper agents could still be operating on Magellan. But what if the agents were plugged into the comm networks? Where better to hide then as a communications officer? Skylar and Skip surely were not Chasm, but a half-dozen other techs worked to decrypt official messages, and North didn’t know any of those well enough to trust them.
So why not use a personal channel, the Captain had suggested. Most personal messages didn’t have great encryption. Fortunately, Amberly had sent a special encryption key to North before he had left Magellan.
“Condi, begin a video message to send to Amberly Macready on Magellan,” North spoke to the VI. “Please encrypt with this key.” North pulled out the key and touched it to his infopad. He looked right into the info pad’s camera.
“Hey Red …”
CHAPTER FOUR
Waypoint Magellan, November 11, 2603, Earth date, 13 months after the Battle of Magellan.
Amberly had never run faster in her life. She had already stripped off the heels she borrowed from her older sister, her feet hurting as they pounded the cold alloy floor with abandon in Amberly’s mad sprint home. Her new apartment, a common studio suite close to Magellan’s main hangar, was farther from Rick’s than the apartment she once shared with Kora.
After North was outvoted in a military tribunal that declared Amberly’s innocence, but before he left on the Magnus mission, North had refused to see Amberly. She resorted to sending an encryption key via a trusted courier, Kora, to let North contact her confidentially should he ever change his mind on the Magnus.
Physically, the key was a nondescript plastic chit. But if one encoded a message with the key, only its mate, which Amberly had, could decode it. Amberly knew in theory the key could be cracked with brute hacking force, but that would take years of using Magellan’s main computing processors, if one could even get permission to have that resource allocation.
Why would North only send a message back to me? Was he sorry? Did he regret his vote? Or worse, has North grown more bitter and broken? Amberly thought. She pushed herself, her lungs felt like they would burst, and her stomach felt a little queasy.
She had to pass through the promenade that connected the Tube to the Marine HQ and main hanger. This section had been significantly damaged in the Battle of Magellan, and in an effort to erase the horror from memory, or perhaps just prove Magellan could rebuild stronger, the area was one of the first repaired. This entertainment district gleamed with a sleek, modern design, filled with cafes and retail stores and even the new Snyder Memorial Art Gallery. The broad hallway was lined with shops that were relatively busy.
As she passed by Chinatown, one of the open-air restaurants that survived the battle, her mind was distracted by her memory of the night when she followed North there. It was that night she began to deceive him, not knowing that she herself was being deceived by Chasm. Chasm had promised her information about her dead mother, Kimberly Macready, if only she would steal a pass card from North. Chasm did deliver — Amberly found out more than she wanted to know. Specifically, Kimberly, also known as Raven One, was not dead, and she was leading the murderous insurrection.
If only she could go back, and not go back to North’s apartment, and undo the Judas kiss she gave for that darned pass card. I would have never known my mother was a psychopath, Amberly thought. Ignorance would have been better. I would have remembered my mother as a strong, caring powerful woman who taught me to seize my own destiny. Or maybe I would be dead, and mom would have succeeded without my involvement.
SMACK.
Amberly ran full-speed into Midas, the courier who had protected Amberly during the final moments of the Battle of Magellan.
“Owwww!” Midas cried out in surprise. “Why don’t you —”
Amberly had bounced off of the bulky man and fell onto the floor, the shoes she was carrying in her hands unintentionally flung forward a half dozen meters before sl
iding to a halt.
People dining in Chinatown gasped at the spectacle of the petite young woman colliding full boar into the older, larger man. The shock in Midas’ expression quickly melted into a smile when he recognized the redhead who was trying to stand up. He offered her a hand.
“Amberly Macready,” he said, with a big smile. “How have you been? I heard you got a big promotion at the Science Corps so that’s why I don’t see you when I’m making the rounds—”
“Sorry, I… North… gotta… run,” Amberly croaked out. Her lungs were on fire, but she forced her body back into a sprint towards her house.
“Amberly… wait,” Midas called after her but she didn’t look back. “Have you heard from Sparks?”
Midas smiled again. Young people, always in a hurry, he thought. He absentmindedly rubbed his face, and felt something odd. He looked at the hand he had hoisted Amberly off the floor with — his fingers were smeared with blood. Not his, he surmised. Amberly must have cut herself, he thought. Hope she takes care of that. Then he proceeded on his way to catch the next Tube car.
Amberly opened the in-seat cabinets in her small living/eating area. She stored most of her valuables there. She quickly tossed a blanket she had crocheted for her late father, Alroy Macready, out of the bench and onto the table. She pushed aside a stun gun. The weapon was confidentially given to her by Commander Moreno and Governor Thor in case she needed to defend herself from vigilantes who had never forgiven her Chasm trespasses.
“Where is that encryption key?” Amberly asked herself as she rifled through her possessions.
Verne, her VI — which normally lived in her infopad but when at Amberly’s place, transferred into the living space computer unit — heard the question and answered. “If you are referring to the key whose pair you gave to Commander North, then you’ll find it in the lower drawer of your vanity.” Verne and the infopad it called home were a gift to Amberly from her father on her 13th birthday, the last gift he gave her before being murdered by his wife.
