Slipspace: Harbinger Page 11

  “That’s exactly what I said.”

  She pushed the voices out and attempted a bite of food. The plate had cooled a bit since it had been served, but there was still enough warmth for the seasoning to do its job. But as she savored the meal, the old argument continued.

  “Have you been outside in the past two years? Have you seen what the Ralgon did to our planet? They’ve slaughtered us like livestock, razed our cities to the ground, and crushed our society.”

  “We would have expelled them on our own.”

  “Maybe, eventually, but at what cost?” Vivine had argued. “Without the ISPA, Mother, we would still be subjugated.”

  “Maybe,” came the response. “But in the end, we traded one occupying force for another and the Alliance got what it wanted: a unified Varem. They just didn’t expect us to unify against them.” She turned and met her daughter’s eyes. “This is a good thing, Viv. You’ll see. It’s time we live on our own again.”

  She never agreed with her mother’s logic. The Alliance had been their savior and had poured time, energy, and resources into trying to rebuild the home world. In that time, she had come to believe in what the ISPA stood for, and wanted to be a part of their work. Anything would have better than the anarchy that reigned on Varem. The civilian government had failed, corrupted by Cadre interference, and the once-unified world was on a course to devolve into gangland war.

  “If you go,” her mother dictated, “you will not be welcome here anymore.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t want to come back. The unified government may have failed, but for the brief moment it did exist, things were good. I don’t want to live in hell. Whatever your opinions are about the Alliance, just about anywhere in their jurisdiction is better than here.”

  “And what will you do?” she had asked.

  “I’ll live, Mother. Mere survival is not enough. Not anymore.”

  It came as no surprise to her that she found herself stowing away on the last Alliance cruiser out of the system. It came as no surprise that she’d been caught. It did surprise her, however, that the ship’s Captain decided to give her a job instead of throwing her into the brig.

  “We’re heading out to deep space beyond the border and I can’t have you being a drain on our supplies. You’ll earn your meals on this ship, or I will see you put off it. Is that clear, Petty Officer?”

  Over the next thirteen months, she earned her keep and then some. By the time they returned to Alliance space she had been promoted three times, and held two recommendations for officer’s training. The rest was history.

  “Lieutenant?”

  The voice of the executive officer jarred her out her recollection. Melor turned in surprise to the expectant face of Commander Cassandra Amado.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’d like to review the ship’s status before the Verasai delegation comes on board.”

  “Of course, Commander.” Melor keyed her tablet over to the ship’s engineering network and brought up the systems dashboard. Diagnostics populated the screen and as the last data points came in, she pressed another button, culling all the data into a summary report template designed for command review. After the last data point populated inside the template, Melor handed it over.

  The commander reviewed the report. “Excellent work. Unfortunately, Lieutenant, the engines overloaded ten minutes ago. When they explode, they’re going to take the entire ship with it. We should evacuate.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Melor replied, her voice trailing off as her thoughts drifted once more to her mother.

  Amado frowned and clapped her hands in front of Melor’s face, snapping her out of her trance. “Lieutenant!”

  “Yes, what?” she snapped.

  “Where is your head, Melor?”

  Melor sighed. “I’m sorry, Commander. I’m finding it hard to focus.”

  The executive officer took a seat opposite Melor and sat. “I take it you weren’t expecting your mother to be on board that ship.”

  “Not even close, Commander. And to be allied with Curnan...” Silence hung between them as Amado looked at her expectantly. “Commander, if my Mother has allied herself with that animal, then there is only one thing she is planning.”

  “You think they’re going to try and start annexing territories again.”

  “I do, Commander. The practice isn’t unheard of, though I have to admit I’ve never heard of them destroying a target this large to start. Even with what I know of her, I can’t think my mother is capable of such an act.”

  “Evidence would seem to indicate she may well be, Lieutenant. Can you square yourself with that?”

  Melor kept silent. It had been so many years since she had seen her and if she were truly honest with herself, she had to admit that she could not say with any confidence that she knew her mother any more. Hell, she may never have known her.

  “I don’t know, Commander,” she conceded.

  “Well,” Amado said as she took a sip of her coffee and stood. “You’d better figure that answer out, Lieutenant, and do so damn fast.”

  She offered no response.

  “Thanks for the reports.”

  Melor watched her as she walked off and wondered if it was too late to request an immediate transfer.

  October 15, 2832

  04:00

  Deep space - Mjöllnir

  SCHRIDER ENJOYED THE PRIVATE MOMENTS, the moments when no one could corroborate the presence of the host body. Behind the locked doors and in the dark rooms, Schrider could relax. Useless gestures like blinking the eyes, subconscious movements of the hands or feet, and even the act of allowing the host to breathe could fall away and Schrider could just be. But even that simple act of existing had changed since the beacon of Prime had gone dark and left Schrider to float in the void. If this was how the humans experienced their so-called lives, Schrider wanted no part of it.

  The silence had been inevitable from the moment Schrider had come into existence. But even in youth and the growth to maturity, Schrider had often heard the whispers of the others Prime had assigned to infiltrate. That was their role. Blend in while cut off from Prime, and report back at regular intervals. But there had been no intervals with Schrider. Prime had withdrawn, leaving Schrider alone, and had not returned. Instead, an intermediary had been designated: one with whom Schrider was to coordinate exclusively, and this intermediary would relay Prime’s will.

  Now the time had come to make contact once again.

  With the Alliance flotilla in the system, it would have been no effort at all for Schrider and the host to conceal yet another communication within the existing traffic. But the archaic methodology was sloppy.

  Had anyone been present, they might have noticed the small patch of silver hair that had started to protrude from the back of the host’s neck. They most certainly would have noticed as small blue white discharges arced from follicle to follicle. It might have worried them. And it should. Not because of the damage the discharges could have done to the host, but because of the communication it facilitated.

  I am here, Schrider called into the void.

  No reply came from the blackness.

  Stepping to the edge of the outer compartment, Schrider turned the host’s back to the bulkhead and focused as the discharges arced not only between the metallic hair penetrating the back of the neck, but also between the metallic elements of the ship’s hull. Too small to be registered on the sensors, the energy would pass into the ship’s hull where it would be amplified just enough, Schrider hoped, to be received by the handler elsewhere in the Alliance flotilla.

  I am here, Schrider repeated.

  The void remained black.

  But then, a tiny pinprick of light bled through the black, so weak at first that Schrider had thought it an illusion, a hallucination fueled by what the humans would call ‘wishful thinking’. The pinprick grew brighter, more intense, and then for the first time in days, S
chrider felt the presence of another.

  Report.

  Only one voice, Schrider realized, but still more than there had been a few moments ago.

  Nothing more to report than what Amado has reported to Marr. A delegation of the Verasai are en route to the Mjöllnir now. Amado intends to find common ground and broker continued peace, though suspicions remain as to Verasai motives.

  There was silence as the pin light in the void faded for a moment before growing more intense.

  We do not have a resource within the Verasai fleet. Their motives remain unknown to us.

  How shall we proceed then?

  Silence hung for a moment.

  Do nothing at this time. Allow this meeting to play out. Too much intervention on our part could tip our hand too soon.

  Surely, we cannot permit a peaceful resolution to come from this meeting. If the Alliance and the Verasai were to ally...

  There will be no alliance. Even if the two parties walk away peacefully, no lasting alliance will be formed.

  But if there is?

  Then I will find them a target to focus on.

  Schrider remained silent, but the instructions did not sit well. Still, Schrider was the operative and the operative served the handler.

  I understand.

  The light in the void dimmed and brightened again.

  My host is being called away. Maintain silence for the time being. We will be in touch again when the time is right.

  The light faded out, yielding to the endless black of the void. Again, Schrider was alone.

  October 15, 2832

  07:30

  Mjöllnir - OpCom

  THE DATA POINTS had run together a while ago and were it not for the assistance of Lieutenant Aler, Vivine Melor might have had a nervous breakdown. On the surface, the assignment was simple: take a data analysis, validate it, run comparatives against the data already in the Mjöllnir’s database, and correlate.

  But this carried so much more weight. Forget that the results of her analysis might end up determining the course of whether or not two major powers went to war with one another. Forget that the data in questions could potentially be a minute by minute sensor recount of the slaughter of a quarter of a million people. Forget all of that, as if it were even possible. The data had come from her mother.

  She had been lucky enough to dodge her mother when Captain Amado sat down to meet with her. But from what she had heard from Commander Amado, Mother was likely going to be staying on board for a few more hours. For as big as the Mjöllnir was, Melor suspected it was not big enough to keep the two of them apart for long.

  “Well,” Aler said, breaking the silence, “assuming the data hasn’t been tampered with or falsified, the Verasai might actually be truthful in their assertions. I just ran the correlative analysis, and the weapons signatures of whatever they were hunting... what did they call them...”

  “Remali,” Melor offered.

  “Right. The weapon signatures of these Remali they were hunting are highly correlated with the weapon signature of whatever it was that killed Artez.”

  “How close?”

  “Eighty-five percent. It’s not perfect, but I certainly think we’ve found a solid lead.”

  Melor offered no response.

  “Unless you have something I should know about?”

  She knew he was prompting her for her evaluation of the data’s integrity but, for the moment, she had nothing to offer. Her analysis algorithms had finished and she did have results. But nothing conclusive had come out of the review. Nothing stood out, the data verification keys were all intact, the timeline made sense. Everything looked in order.

  “I don’t see anything that indicates the data has been falsified,” she reported.

  “Fantastic,” Aler responded. “I’ll tell the Captain the data is good.”

  “No, Commander,” she said. “I think you misunderstand me. I didn’t say the data was good. I only said I couldn’t prove it was falsified. There is a difference.”

  “All right,” he said slowly, shifting his position at the table closer to her. “Show me what you’ve found. Or, in this case, what you haven’t found.”

  She started in on the results of her scan and that no obvious signs of tampering had been detected. Not that she expected they would. The Verasai had to know the Alliance would test the integrity of the data. No. If there had been tampering, it would have been subtler.

  Melor walked Aler through the next layers, down to the data indexing. Everything looked intact and after an hour of back and forth, still neither she nor Aler could divine any evidence to indicate data tampering.

  “Why are you still skeptical?” Aler finally asked.

  Melor rubbed her eyes. They had started to hurt and she suspected she had strained them with tension.

  “It just doesn’t feel right,” she confessed. “When was the last time you ever heard of the Verasai willingly using something that resembled diplomacy to get what they want?”

  Aler gave a noncommittal shrug. “Granted, they seem to prefer armed conflict over diplomatic discussion.”

  “So why change that now?”

  “Well,” Aler began, “from a tactical perspective, it makes sense for them to stick to the pattern they know, which gives credence to your concerns. But at the same time, since we expect a certain set of tactics from them, they become predictable. By changing their approach, they throw us off balance and put themselves in a position that is difficult for us to anticipate.”

  “So, you agree with my concern that it might be a deception.”

  Aler offered an appreciative shrug. “I can understand your suspicion, yes. But to be honest, I think there’s a far simpler answer to be had here.”

  “Which is?”

  “Regent Melor called off the attack because she didn’t want to risk injuring you.”

  The floor dropped out from under her and a pit in her stomach opened so deep she might have felt swallowed up by it. Had she truly been the reason why they weren’t shooting at each other? Even after all these years, after the anger and the frustration, the harsh words and the promises of things changed forever, had her mother held back because of her?

  “Why would she do that? We never saw eye to eye on anything, but I don’t know why I’d intimidate her enough to stand down just by being on board.”

  Aler chuckled as he pushed away from the table, the tablet in hand. “You’re missing the most obvious.”

  She looked at him, but gave no reply.

  “You’re her daughter and no matter what happened between you two, she loves you and doesn’t want to see you come to harm.”

  She should have felt warmth and love in that moment. Instead, cold fear came over her. Had she become a vulnerability to be exploited, a bargaining chip that ensured the safety of her ship and crew so long as she remained aboard? What could, no... what should she do about it, if anything?

  “What does that mean for me?”

  He cocked his head. “It means you may have just prevented a war, Lieutenant.” He held the tablet up. “Eighty-five percent correlation. Strong evidence we would not have right now if we were shooting each other.”

  October 15, 2832

  08:30

  Mjöllnir - Captain’s Quarters

  NIRA AMADO LOVED HER HUSBAND. Despite its obviousness, the thought resonated with her as she leaned against the doorway to their bedroom and watched him sleep. She had been so angry with him for asking her for a stimulant. He knew better than to put her in that position, especially when she had voiced her concern over medical ethics versus command authority back on Lumo. He had promised he wouldn’t put her in that position, she had trusted him, and in the first major crunch time crisis, he stepped back from that and put her in a place to choose between him and her medical ethics and she had caved.

  Or so he thought.

  He looked so run down that she couldn’t bear to leave him high and dry: tired, drained, and exhausted. She had to h
elp him in that moment. Her duty to him as his wife demanded no less. But at the same time, there was no way in hell she would dope him.

  Saline placebo to the rescue.

  The injection did nothing to him. She had played it as though it was what he had asked for, but when all was said and done, she had ‘doped’ him with saline, useful for little more than hydrating and serving as a base for medicinal mixtures. But he had believed she was giving him a stim, he had believed she was righteously indignant by the act of administering it.

  The psychological effects had been all he truly needed.

  Still, perhaps the damage had been done and she had set a precedent that she would compromise her ethics at his request. Once this crisis passed, she would sit him down, come clean, and make damn sure that he never put her in that position again.

  Never again, she lied to herself.

  At the end of the day, she knew she’d do it again. She would do it for him. Next time, she might even mix a vitamin cocktail for him instead of giving him pure saline. She would do it again, she told herself. She had come out here at his request, yes. But she had agreed to join him, to deal with these clashes of her duty as a medical practitioner with her duty as his wife. She had come with him knowing that out here onboard this ship and at this time, she could do the most good; far more than she could do in a Lumo hospital.

  Yes. She would do it all over again if she had to, no matter what she told Cody when she sat him down. She would, for at the end of the day, she realized, her duty as a physician to do no harm, her professional drive to do the most good, and her emotional need to support her husband unconditionally all pointed to the same conclusion.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  October 15, 2832

  13:30

  Bellerophon - Admiral Marr’s Office

  CODY AMADO ADJUSTED his jacket before giving the ECO a nod. For the first time since arriving in system, he actually felt rested and with that rest came clarity and a renewed attention to detail. The enlisted man knocked his hand against the hatch, before opening it and stepping inside. After a moment, he stepped back out and bade the Captain enter.