by Rob Dearsley
Arland whipped around to look at the young scientist. “You have a live Turned?”
Hale eyed Dannage. “Is that everything?”
Dannage shook his head. “Back in Nowhere and again as we were leaving Granite IV, I…, I don’t know. I guess I linked with one of the Terran ships that turned up. The Vanir?”
Hale nodded. “Light escort, I was at officer training with her captain.”
“Some sort of information feed, but it was so vivid, like nothing I’ve felt before.” He frowned, thinking. “Ahh heck, I was like I was the Vanir. I could see what she saw. Feel what she felt. I was, I don’t know. I can’t describe it.”
Stars. He’d mentioned the visions, but why hadn’t he told her it was this bad? Did he think she would think less of him? Damn that stupid muppet. He didn’t have to carry this on his own. She was supposed to be there for him. They all were. That’s what friendship was all about. She knew he was worried about the military taking advantage. Did he think she’d just tell them everything?
Hale said, “Information integrated so smoothly you don’t quite know where you end and the ship begins?”
Arland recognised the words. Hale had used them before to describe her ship-link.
By the expression on Dannage’s face, he had drawn the same conclusions. “I thought you said your ship-link was an implant?”
Hale nodded. “It was. But there were stories, cautionary tales. The idea of a biolink between a ship and a person. The X-Ships must have known about it. I guess that’s how they turned enlisted crews.” Hale’s eyes went distant.
“Is that it?” Arland asked. It couldn’t be. Hale was their best chance at fixing this. She had to know something.
The doors opened to admit someone new. Arland could hear two sets of footfalls but kept her attention on Hale.
Hale met Arland’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” Arland bit the words off.
“Angels.” Hale broke eye contact, rolling her neck. “Fine. Yes, I’ve seen this before. I guess after half a million years there’s no one left to enforce the redactions.”
“Tell us everything,” Craven said, his gaze piercing and intent.
Interlude One
(Terran Office Training Station, Terran System, 50,000 years ago)
Istand in line with the other trainees, shifting nervously from foot to foot. I straighten my uniform, grey trainee fatigues, and brush my fingers over the embossed nametag on my chest. ‘Junior Lieutenant Hale’. Command training would change that. By the time I leave here, I’ll be a full Lieutenant. My first step on the command track, the first step to captaining my own ship. Stay focused on the prize. It’s the way to get through this.
And right now, ‘this’ is the implantation of the ship-link. Breakpoint. Either it works and we go on, or it doesn’t and… I don’t want to think about the alternative. It’s not going to happen anyway.
I’ve read all about the ship-link. It’s what the last three weeks of training have been about. Learning diagrams, charts, power flow patterns, engine cycles. Learning ‘ship speak’, as one of the instructors puts it.
We’ve even spent time learning the ins and outs of the implants themselves. All the training, the classes, have built up to one thing. This.
Now I’m here, about to be fitted with my very own ship-link and I’m nervous as hell. What if it doesn’t take properly, or if something goes wrong? At the very least, the training would be over, my dreams of being an officer shot down like so much chaff.
The buzz of whispered, excited conversation is barely enough to drown out the constant hush of the air system. Trainees crowd the wide hallway while instructors move back and forth trying to keep a path clear for other station staff to pass our knotted mass of nervous trainees.
We inch further forward, there’s only one person left in front of me. A sandy-haired young man, about my age.
He turns to face me and I see my own worry mirrored in his tan eyes. “I’m sure it’ll all be fine. We’ll both be captaining our own ships in a couple of years.” His smile is forced but it helps. He’ll make a good captain one day. I’m sure of it.
He extends a hand toward me. “I’m Sylus.”
“Hale,” I reply, taking the offered hand.
“Next.” A bored voice echoes down the hallway.
And with that, Sylus is gone through the frosted glass door of the surgical bay. The ghostly shapes beyond ready to embrace him into his new life.
I turn to look back along the hallway, at the knot of recruits waiting. Will it be different? After the ship link. They say it doesn’t change you, but can that really be true? Despite everything I’ve learned, that I’ve read, I can’t imagine what it will be like to share part of my mind with one of our warships. Be able to commune directly with their core minds.
That had to change a person. How could you share yourself, intimately, with something as powerful and vast as a warship and come out unchanged?
A scream cuts through the hallway, shattering my thoughts.
Behind me, the other recruits are frozen, caught between the instinct to help drilled into us all in combat training, and the shock that something could happen here. In the heart of the Imperium. We’re supposed to be safe here.
Training kicks in, and I’m running toward the source of the scream before my mind can catch up to the rest of me. My hand reaches for the service weapon on my hip. It’s not there. We’re not allowed weapons in the training facility.
The trainers are already ushering us away or trying to. They don’t share the confusion or shock of the recruits. They look scared.
Angels. What the hell? Before I know what, I’m doing, I’m shouldering the frosted glass door open.
Another scream rips its way free of a figure strapped to the bed in the middle of the room. Medics garbed in green smocks scurry around, frantic, scared. A middle-aged woman is trying to hold the man – a trainee by the grey fatigues – down. Behind them, a younger woman in a technician’s uniform is white-knuckling her console as the screens flood with erratic, overlapping feeds. A male medic, not much older than me, is frozen in shock, hands loosely resting on one of the equipment trollies.
“Sedative, quickly!” shouts the older woman, fighting to keep the bucking trainee on the bed.
The male medic stays frozen. To hell with him, I shove him aside and go for the equipment trolley. Half a dozen hypodermic injectors are lined up neatly on metal trays.
“Green flashing!” the woman calls before I can ask the question.
I grab up the hypo with the green strip down the side, rush past the still stunned medic and jam it into the trainee's neck, feeling the click as it dispenses its contents. I just hope I’m doing it right.
The trainee’s head rolls and tan eyes meet mine.
Angels. No. I stumble back, my hand going to my mouth. It’s Sylus. This can’t be happening. Not to him. I was just talking to him. There must be some mistake.
Sylus’s eyes follow me clearing, as though he recognises me and his convulsions stop. “I can see everything. Everything!” The words turn into another gut-wrenching scream as his eyes lose focus, rolling back in his head.
His expression. The fear and confusion in his eyes. It’s haunting.
Sylus’s body bucks, every muscle tensing at once, throwing the medic clear and then he goes still, back arched, every muscle locked tight.
“He’s synchronising,” the tech’s voice is little more than a whisper in the sudden quiet. “This shouldn’t be possible. Brain waves are spiking all across the board.”
The lights flicker and gravity fluctuates. I flail for a nearby trolley to steady myself. Angels, what is happening?
An older man rushes in medical scrubs flapping around him, bushy beard and eyebrows contorted into a frown. “Don’t just stand there, get the damn Faraday Cage. And get her out.” He points a liver-spotted finger at me.
The tech grabs a metal contraption from beside her con
sole and pushes off toward the bed. She’s joined by the older man as they hinge the metal frame open and try to get it around Sylus’s head. But the odd angle and lack of any kind of leverage works against them.
Before they can get the cage in position, the gravity resets, throwing us all toward the wall, the deck pitching up beneath me at a steep incline. The gravity shifts again and I tumble toward Sylus, fetching up against the side of the bed. The Faraday Cage bounces off my chest. I grab for it on instinct as the room drops into freefall again.
“Put it on his head,” shouts the older man as he bounces off a console, flailing like a landed fish.
I grab the side of the bed with one hand and, with the other, force the open cage behind Sylus’s head, and slam the front half down over his face. A green light on the top of the cage comes on and the device chirps once.
The gravity resets, dumping me unceremoniously onto the floor.
A combat marine, over eight-feet tall and built like a tank, bustles in, hoists me over his shoulder and carries me from the room.
Sylus’s moans echo down the hallway, past the gaggle of concerned trainees. Their shocked eyes track us as the marine carries me down the hallway. I am never going to live this one down.
The marine carries me into a small interview room, just a table, two chairs and the blank half-dome of a security sensor for company. After depositing me on the far chair he leaves, locking the door behind him.
Well damn.
Left alone with my thoughts, I find myself replaying the scene in the medical bay over and over in my head. Sylus screaming. The doctors clearly panicked. I can see everything. What had he meant? What did any of it mean? Is it going to happen to everyone here, to me?
That thought sends a shiver down my spine.
I’m still buzzing after… I have no words for what happened back in the surgical room. It all seems surreal. A dream, or nightmare. Still, I wish there were some way to work off the tension.
I half rise, meaning to walk the room. But the red-blinking glare of the scanner dome keeps me seated. Whatever happened in there, I definitely wasn’t supposed to see it. Which means I’m probably in trouble. And I don’t want to borrow more. So, I settle back in the chair and wait.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably less than an hour, one of the training staff walks in and takes the opposite chair. He’s heavyset and square-jawed, his military buzz-cut stippled with grey. I jump to attention and snap off a smart salute.
He returns the salute and waves for me to sit. “Miss Hale, I need to ask you a few questions. My name is Commander Bates.”
I go back to the chair and sit opposite him. “What happened? Is Sylus okay?”
He holds up a hand, stopping my questions. “Were you and Mr Sylus close? Did he ever talk about his family?”
I frown. What’s his family got to do with this? “No, sir. I hadn’t spoken to him before today.”
Bates nods as though this is the answer he expects, even though he doesn’t seem happy about it, and writes something on his flex.
“That’s fine. Tell me what you know about the implant procedure.”
I clench my jaw, frustrated by the odd turn his questions are taking, but comply. “The ship-link implant is inserted at the base of the skull, where it attaches into the short-term memory and sensory processing cortexes. The device can then be synced with any intelligent computer system.” I recite the textbook description from memory. “But you already know this. Is this some test?”
Bates ignores my question and writes something on his flex. “What about the prep.”
I frown, studying the page in my mind’s eye. My finger twitches, flipping back to the previous page. Bates makes another note. “A cocktail of drugs is injected into the implant site to help with adoption. The exact composition varies from person to person. What does this have to do with Sylus?”
Bates nods again and makes more notes. I’d dearly love to know what he’s writing about me. Or maybe he’s just doing a crossword to intimidate me. The joke sends a small smile dancing across my lips.
Bates locks eyes with me, his intense and angry. “You think this is funny, Miss Hale?”
I duck in contrition. “No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Bates seems to accept my apology and settles back into his seat. “One of those drugs is a neural plasticity accelerator. Mr Sylus had an unusual reaction to this drug. That’s all.”
Oh Angels, what are they doing to us? This can’t be the norm, or I’d have heard about it before. Thousands of people go through Officer School every year. If something like this was common, they’d never be able to hide it. “But it’s safe, sir?”
“It’s a one-in-a-million anomaly. This is the first time it’s happened in my ten years here. And I fully expect to never see it again in my career.”
That makes sense. “Will he be okay, sir? Sylus, I mean.”
Bates put’s his flex aside and leans forward. “He’s being sent back to Prime. The medical facilities there will be able to reverse the effects. He’ll be fine.” He taps a control on his flex and turns it to face me.
The translucent screen shows a standard military Non-disclosure Agreement. All boilerplate, this never happened, you were never here and if you say anything different, we have a deep, dark hole ready and waiting for you.
“I must ask you to sign. You understand you can never talk to anyone about what you saw, or what we’ve talked about here. Do you have any questions?”
Yes. Hundreds running through my head, but I know he won’t answer them. One falls to the front of my mind. It sounds so terribly selfish in the face of everything that’s happened. Sylus is being packed off to Prime, his career in tatters. My mind flashed back to the sight of him, back arched, eyes rolling.
I ask anyway. “Will I be able to stay?”
Bates replies, “Of course. If you wish, you’ll take the ship-link tomorrow with the remainder of the class and carry on as normal. If you don’t feel ready after this, then we can role you back. It won’t count against you.”
Officially maybe, but people talk, make assumptions, and the NDA means I can’t say anything to defend myself. “No, I want to carry on.”
Bates smiles. “We’ll make an officer out of you yet. Sign the form and grab some chow with the others.”
Nine
(Liberty Station, Nowhere, Present Day)
Admiral Niels walked the halls of Liberty Station surrounded by the Nowhere senators and their honour-guard. Liberty Station was one of the smaller Nowhere habitats, but the seat of their government, so it was well appointed and well-guarded. The station was kept colder than he would have liked. It made the old shrapnel wound in his leg ache.
Jenna, Niels’s aid, glanced up from her flex. Stars she was young, the damn leg wound was older than her. “You good, sir?”
“Just old, Jen. Just old.”
They turned into a wide, ornate hallway. Banners hung from the walls, displaying a bright orange slash through the blackness of space – the Nowhere symbol. A glance over his shoulder showed the two pilots, Lloyd and Slater tagging along behind the group, talking amongst themselves. Niels frowned. The Name Lloyd rang a bell, someone he’d served with back in the day. Not this guy he was too young. Damn-it, everyone was a kid these days. Maybe the pilot’s father – or grandfather. No, he wasn’t that old. Was he?
“They don’t seem to lack for resources,” Jenna commented before turning her attention back to her flex.
Niels allowed a small smile. Jenna was as sharp as they came. She’d been assigned to him after the war, and she’d proved herself while they’d been setting up the Pyrite facility.
As the group reached an oddly utilitarian door, Niels felt the atmosphere shift. The guards tensed, tightening their formation, and the senators became quiet and pensive, their steps quickening.
“What’s going on?” he asked the nearest man, a junior senator in orange ceremonial robes.
“Huh?” the senat
or turned to Niels. “We’ll be there shortly.”
Bulkhead doors opened onto a larger, two-level compartment. The roar of noise from the other side hit them like an almost physical force. The guards tightened against it while the senators huddled together like sheep looking for protection. Jenna folded her flex into a trouser pocket and shifted closer to Niels.
Either side of the protected, central walkway, protestors pressed against security barriers. The voice of the crowd crashed around them, too loud and discordant to understand what they were saying. Niels caught snatches.
“Go home SDF! Independence for Nowhere!”
Protestors crowded them from both sides. It couldn’t be like this all the time. For the most part, the Nowhere senators were doing what these people wanted by limiting interaction with the Colonies’ Government to necessary trade. Word of Niels’s arrival must have gotten out, and they’d come out in force to voice their opinions.
The crowds crashed against security barriers manned by more guards with riot shields and stun batons, but not nearly enough to actually stop them if they had a mind to rush.
The junior senator looked around eyes wide. “There’s only ever been a handful before.”
“I guess they heard about you,” Jenna said to Niels, her hand staying near her service weapon.
They were halfway through the gauntlet of protestors when the crowd went preternaturally quiet. Niels breath caught, as around him, the world seemed to hold its breath, waiting. Something was about to give.
“Admiral Niels!” A voice boomed from the crowd. A man rose above the others, presumably standing on something. “Admiral Niels, we know you’re there. Come on then. Face us. The people whose fate you’re going to decide.”
Niels took a step toward the crowds.
“Don’t,” Jenna said half a pace behind him.
Niels stopped between the guards. “I’m here. What do you want?”
“Just like you to hide behind our guards,” the man sneered.
