It was barely a minute since they had emerged from the Fold,-or whatever the hell had happened-and Jane was, well, pissed. She hated vacsuits, and the fact that she was exiting the ship by way of the toilet didn’t help.
There was a reason for that, of course. The ship had three airlocks-one astern, in the area that itself had no oxygen, one at the bow, in the living quarters, and one amidships, in what was technically a ‘Waste Dump’. Unfortunately, Deck Officer Abrams had taken one look at her dossier,-and the fact that she wasn’t even technically rated for spacewalking-grinned evilly, and ordered her to the amidships port.
There was a reason for that, of course. The ship had three airlocks-one astern, in the area that itself had no oxygen, one at the bow, in the living quarters, and one amidships, in what was technically a ‘Waste Dump’. Unfortunately, Deck Officer Abrams had taken one look at her dossier,-and the fact that she wasn’t even technically rated for spacewalking-grinned evilly, and ordered her to the amidships port.
There were, apparently, legitimate reasons-it was closer to the rear of the ship, and it was easier to open without having to mess with the bulkheads, which were all automatically on lockdown anyway after the depressurization. Anyway, speed was of the essence in a Pressure Loss situation-it took three minutes to die in hard vacuum, and they had already used something in the area of seventy seconds.
And, being the low woman on the totem pole, so to speak, she was the one in the vacsuit, trying to cram into the disaster known as the amidships airlock. It was four, maybe five feet long, two tall, and two wide. At least they had had to empty it before using it as an airlock.
“You ready, Steele?” Ensign Hans Henrick, the Atmospherics Specialist, said, voice muffled over the radio.
“Yes sir.” She said, checking her gravitic tether for the fifth time. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t turned itself off in the ten seconds since she had checked it last.
“We’re beginning to siphon the air out now.” He said, and she almost immediately heard a hiss, growing gradually fainter. It barely took a minute, before the doors slid open.
She thumbed the tether, and fell forward. It used the same maneuvering technology as a fighter, which, from her casual observation during the battle, didn’t reassure her.
Hell though, she would not give them a hard time about that. She, for one, had been absolutely useless-she had been practically lounging around, technically on ‘Damage Control’ duty, but with full knowledge that she wasn’t supposed to be called upon.
Except, well, the other Ensign Henrick had screwed up the Ansible or something, beginning a sequence of events that wound up with Jane on the wrong side of the hull.
“This is Middie Steele, testing comms.” She said as the gravitics in her suit recognized the Warbler and latched onto its hull.
“We hear you loud and clear. This is Deck Officer Abrams, in SENCOM, and I’m going to be talking you through this op.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“First, I need you to find the breach. It could be anything from a massive gash to a pinprick, but if the data from Atmospherics is anywhere near accurate about how fast we lost air, it’ll be at least a few feet in width. Also, if anyone shares his deity of choice, you may want to pray that it is for his sake.”
She scanned the hull, looking for anything that might be the breach. It didn’t take long-a large gash, maybe two by three feet, right at the edge of the bulkhead between the Engine Room and Port Storage Compartment.
“I have a visual on the breach.” She said. “Permission to enter?”
“Granted.”
Handling the gravitational discrepancy created by reentering the ship was nauseating, but not particularly hard.
The compartment wasn’t particularly small, but it still came off as cramped. It was the one part of the ship that wasn’t filled with clean surfaces and smooth lines-rather, it was still unmistakably mechanical. There were computers and whatnot, but even a single wrench was a surprising sight.
Then, she saw Hudson’s body-no, not Hudson’s body, Hudson. The man was floating, uniform jumpsuit glowing slightly-the thermal elements were apparently operating correctly.
“I’ve got a visual on him!” She practically shouted, grabbing a Rescue Wrap from her belt. The Wraps were the single greatest innovation in wreck-recovery in the past twenty years. They resembled rolled-up tarp, with reflective coating, and a few valves spaced at regular intervals. You, well, wrapped the victim in the Wrap, layering it on as thick as you could, then hooked it into the ship’s HVAC and Electric systems.
She had, perhaps, thirty seconds to do it-and, considering that she was essentially packing a lunch sandwich, that would be more than enough.
And I thought nothing I learned in school would ever help me. She thought, as she twisted an air tube into the wall.
“Ensign Hudson is secure, SENCOM.” She said, suddenly aware that she was breathing heavily. “From my assessment of the damage to the hull, it’ll take maybe ten minutes for me to apply Sealant.”
“Copy that, Ensign. Buzz someone if you run into any difficulties.”
Sighing, Jane took the canister of Sealant off her belt, and began applying it, and hoping that she wasn’t sharing a room with a Hud-sicle.
“No, Captain, I don’t mean that the Ansible is offline. I mean that, as far as we can tell, no other ansible within a dozen lightyears of here is online, and there’s nothing higher than a Class Three within four or five times that.” Elise said, repeating that particular snippet of information for the third time.
Commander Shan tapped her foot, then said, “And remind me where we are, Ensign.”
Coming from almost anyone else, that might have come off as deliberately obtuse. From Commander Kimberly Shan, it was scathing instead.
“We’re in an uninhabited system near Kynak, Commander. That puts us, at most, thirty-six lightyears from Saray or Tantaline, and thirty from Bernan. In other words, we’re well within the Ansible network, and shouldn’t be having these difficulties.”
“So what do you find as the most likely cause of this?”
“I don’t know, Ma’am.”
“Is it interference? We experienced some of that at Saray-the Species D fleet appeared to have some way of blocking out Ansible signals.”
Elise shook her head. “No, ma’am. I’ve glanced over the records from the battle, and background Ansibilic fluctuations were damped by that also. We’re still able to read those now, however.”
“So then you’re clearly doing something wrong, Ensign. I want you to go over the entire Ansible, and find whatever’s causing the Arrhythmia.”
Behind the mask that a decade in the military cultivated, Elise seethed. The Ansible was working, and Elise had thought that Kimberly Shan of all people would understand that. “Yes, Ma’am.” She said, managing to keep her voice calm.
The Skipper nodded, then turned sharply, stalking out of the room.
Elise had heard of Kimberly Shan-about five or so years ago, that name had popped up in conjunction with a few highly innovative techniques for calculating Ansibilic paths, including one revolutionary paper that had been immediately sent to every Ansibilics Specialist in the fleet on how to calculate a Tactical Fold with an astonishing ten percent likelihood of success.
That didn’t sound like much, which was why very few commanders still used them. Previously, however, Tactical Folds had a fraction of that efficacy-fractions of a percent of them wound up within a thousand miles of their intended endpoint. They were still risky, but certain elements of the Coven insisted that they could be used with devastating effect in skilled hands, so they were still included in the Fleet School training for Ansible Specialists.
Of course, they typically didn’t go this wrong. When they failed, they typically dropped the ship into orbit around the nearest planet. An Arrhythmia complicated things, but thirty lightyears...
That shouldn’t happen.
Elise slid out a tray, filled with electronic circuitry, and a few esoteric chemicals and structures. The equipment that monitored Ansibles was complex, operating it almost as much so. But the Ansibles themselves were, essentially, simple.
They weren’t made, but discovered. The first Ansible had been found in deep space, by one of the early Generation Ships. The ship’s Commander had been perplexed by what his instruments had indicated was a naked singularity, something that wasn’t really supposed to exist. Yet there it was, sitting in space, spitting out radiation like nobody’s business.
They still were ironing out how the hell Ansibles were allowed to exist by the laws of the universe, but they clearly did. Early experimentation had indicated that they could be split, and that these smaller singularities emitted radiation in a rhythmic manner. Initially this had been dismissed as a curiosity, and it was assumed that they were merely synchronized.
Eventually, however, it was realized that`the Ansibles weren’t just attuned to each other, they were, quite literally, the same. The same thing, but in two different points in space. What went in one came out of both.
Instantly.
Not ‘very, very fast’. Instantly.
True, faster-than-light communication. It had taken a few decades for one of those first Ansibles to make it back to the technological haven that was Earth, but once it got there, the field of Ansibilics was born. Ansibles opened the way to all sorts of technology-Foldspace was only accessible via an ansible, as were the techniques used to generate artificial gravity aboard ships.
There were complicated rules governing what ansibles could talk to what other ansibles, too. ‘Parent’ Ansibles could talk to their ‘Children’ at any distance, ‘Siblings’ were able to communicate at greater range... There were complex diagrams and formulas for the interactions between any two given Ansibles, and how to relay communications throughout the network.
That was assuming that one had a network, which, at the moment, they appeared not to. As Elise found more and more pieces of equipment operating perfectly-although there were several warning lights telling her about the Arrhythmia-she felt that her earlier conclusion was becoming more and more likely.
For whatever reason, they were the only ones using their Ansible within dozens of light years-and while it was less than seventy from Tantaline to Bernan, they were squarely in the mile of that. In other words, while they had been out of sync with the rest of the universe-for two whole months of normal time, though due to how Foldspace worked, they hadn’t perceived any of that onboard the ship-something major had happened, and anything that resulted in the Ansnet being shut down was going to be bad.
When the pressurization sequence for the Engine Room finally started, Cassidy Freeman had already been outside with a medkit for ten minutes. When it was finally safe to enter, she wasted no time getting inside, and sizing up the Rescue Wrap that had been quite amateurishly applied to Ensign Hudson.
The man was conscious, though clearly hypothermic, floating off to one side of the room-apparently, they hadn’t turned the gravity back on yet. He was also probably in shock-he had been subjected to freezing temperatures in the decompression, followed by something significantly above body heat as his suit’s thermal elements had kicked in. Not to mention the fact that they’d have to check for brain damage-when he had been been recovered, he had been deprived of oxygen for well over two minutes, so it was entirely possible that he had sustained loss of mental capacity. The fact that he had been subjected to such cold, ironically, actually helped his chances, as exposure to vacuum was known to trigger the Mammalian Diving Reflex, an evolutionary adaptation that optimized the body for resistance to drowning. Having said that, the effects of hard vacuum weren’t well understood-during the Xon War, warships had been designed to be large enough that they could sustain combat damage, so there had been periodic exposure, but, since that had been before the Republic-Imperiata war, many of those hadn’t been mainline Terrans.
She kicked herself off the ground, heading towards Hudson, unsheathed her rigging knife, and started cutting through the Rescue Wrap. Hudson was, rather disturbingly, awake, and although she had been trained to expect that in a situation like this, it still complicated things.
She had brought a man from Weapons named Makoro Karazwaki to assist with bringing Hudson back to the Warbler’s medbay, up in the bow of the ship. He had felt like a decent person to her-someone who had already been through troubles in life, and found himself, so to speak. “Open the stretcher, Makoro.” She said, grabbing Hudson as she cut the last of the Wrap off of him, sheathing her knife again.
Makoro-still in the 1g environment of the Port Storage Compartment-already had the stretcher assembled, and its Antigrav module turned on.
“Push that in here please, Makoro.” She said, grabbing a wall to stabilize herself. Hudson was, unfortunately, not speaking up at all, which meant that he was definitely in shock.
It wasn’t hard to strap Hudson onto the stretcher, or pass it through the gravity discontinuity between the engine and storage rooms. Traversing it herself was harder, but it felt good to be back in 1g. First day of my new assignment, Cassie thought, and we’ve already broken one. Typical.
Kimberly had, after long and careful consideration, come to a conclusion-she hated Julian Shishani with all her soul. The man had clearly gone to great lengths to set up some sort of elaborate game for her, in the middle of a war. Manipulation and games were acceptable training methods, but the amount of stupidity necessary to think that, though the Warbler was admittedly not a high-value ship, randomly removing it from the fight was a good plan was mind-boggling.
In short, she thought Julian Shishani, First Citizen of the United Terran Republic, the man who had destroyed several worlds and won more wars in his lifetime than most ever had the chance to die in, was a jackass.
She glanced around the bridge, waiting for Jae to get the final Damage Report together, and Celia Abrams to get off the comm with Elise Henrick. In the meantime, however, there were dozens of other things to attend to-permanently sealing the breach in the Engine Room, having someone go over the outside of the hull in a vacsuit to check for damage, running diagnostics on all electronics, triple-checking the Ansible to make sure that it wasn’t going arrhythmic again... The list went on and on.
One by one though, the red warning lights were replaced with yellow alerts, a few even going back to being completely green before Celia Abrams entered the room, tablet in hand.
Abrams saluted, albeit poorly, although that could have as much to do with coming down off the adrenaline high that they had all felt as insubordination. “Ansibilics report.” Abrams said, voice confirming Kim’s suspicion of exhaustion.
Kim held out her own tablet, tapping it against Abrams’s. “Thank you, Deck Officer. Is your Section restored to readiness?”
Abrams nodded. “Yes-although not if you count Ansibilics as part of SENCOM.”
“Appoint someone to keep track of the department then, and the rest of you are dismissed to your quarters. I’ll handle Ansibilics for the moment.”
Abrams actually smiled slightly, before returning to the SENCOM room.
The Ansibilics report was an absolute mess. Apparently there was a small Ansible on several of those Species D drones-a disaster waiting to happen if they drew too close. That meant that literally all other sensor data was suspect, as spacetime had a tendency to warp in the presence of multiple Ansibles. However, none of the ansible-equipped drones had come close enough to cause the sort of interference that should have interfered with the fold this badly.
No, the computer’s data reported something entirely different, namely, that there was another Ansible aboard the Warbler. That was patently ridiculous-the Ansibles would have entered an Interchange state and begun to seriously mess with the basic structure of spacetime long before either had entered the craft. Therefore, she plugged several of the sets of numbers into the Warbler’s main computer. It didn’t have the specialization of the one over in Ansibilics, but it had more raw power. The computer still claimed that it would take at least fifteen minutes to process the data, so she let it run on its own, and left for the medbay.
She had been expecting a dingy, barely-sanitary closet to serve as the Warbler’s medbay. Instead, she found a miniature hospital that would have put some planetary specialty centers to shame. She swiped a card for access to the room, and was denied. The words ‘MEDBAY IN USE’ flashed across the monitor of the lock.
“Just a minute!” Someone shouted from inside, voice muffled but feminine. Cassidy Freeman then-Medical Officer for the Warbler. Freeman was a rookie, with practically no service record, although her dossier indicated that she was a more than competent medic.
Kim pulled up her tablet, and opened the crew statuses. She tabbed over to Hudson’s biosign entry, and began to absorb information.
The man didn’t have a Neuronic, which was unsurprising, as, like the majority of the Republic’s population, he was an Ecumenical Christian. That meant that they were limited to external biosensors, as well as whatever had been manually entered into the database. The most current entry was over fifteen minutes old, indicating that he was in shock, but would likely survive. Kim breathed a sigh of relief-she didn’t want to ever lose a crewmember, but on the first full day of command would be far more unfortunate.
The medbay was set into an alcove between the HVAC and Berths sections, which meant that one could spend a few minutes sitting around waiting for the bay to become unoccupied once again.
It took more like twenty minutes for the door to slide open, and Cassidy Freeman stepped out, clad in a ruffled Fleet jumpsuit with an even messier set of medical scrubs over them. The look was quite comical, actually, a state which was not helped when Freeman clicked her booted heels together and saluted. “Ensign Freeman reporting for duty, Ma’am!” She said.
Kim stood and returned the salute, before saying, “At ease, soldier. How is Ensign Hudson?”
“Ensign Hudson is remarkably well, considering his near-death in vacuum earlier. He’s badly coordinated, and likely will have some level of permanent brain damage. However, some level of Morton therapy should be able to greatly minimize said damage, but, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Captain’s Antimatter Key is required to unlock the Morton storage.”
Kim frowned. Morton, named for the man renowned as the father of anesthesiology, was an incredibly potent memory-fixation drug. She wasn’t aware of any high-profile medical studies of the drug in the past twenty years, though she had a sneaking feeling that she was forgetting something, and it was commonly used as part of a cocktail with hallucinogenic street drugs. Regardless, it had the rather unpleasant side effect of random memory deletion. Or at least, it was random, unless one specifically targeted certain ones.
“Your assessment, Ensign?” Kim asked.
Freeman hesitated. “Do you foresee this being an extended tour, Ma’am?”
Kim didn’t even have to think. Regardless of whether Julian was messing with them or if there had legitimately been some sort of horrible malfunction aboard the ship, they were going to be away from the Fleet for a long time. “Yes.”
Freeman was silent for a full thirty seconds. “Commander, I personally am more than a bit of a pacifist. I joined the Fleet because, at the time, it was largely a peacekeeping organization, and I joined it explicitly in a role to help people. I will say that I would personally never condone the use of Morton in any situation, as the risk of entirely rewriting a personality is far too great to tolerate. However, from a purely strategic standpoint, I would also say that the use of Morton will greatly increase the odds of the recovery of the skills of Ensign Hudson, even with the possibility of some personality loss.”
“So in other words, we’re weighing the rights of an individual against the potential loss of the lives of the crew of this starship?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And once we know if he’s recovered naturally it will be too late to administer Morton?”
“Almost definitely. All neurochemistry is highly complicated, but I can say with high confidence that it will be too late at that time.”
“If I give you an order that goes against your personal conscience, will you obey it, Ms. Freeman?”
There was a long pause. “Ma’am, under this circumstance, you can have anyone administer a shot of Morton to Mr. Hudson. Therefore, while I personally may find such an action repugnant, it will minimize the likelihood of major neural damage if I am the one to administer such a treatment.”
Kim nodded. “If you would then make preparations for a Morton injection, Ms. Freeman.”
Cassidy’s face hardened slightly, her stance shifting, but, true to her word, she answered with “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll need you to unlock it from your Antimatter Key.”
As the door to the medbay slid shut behind Freeman, Kim sighed. It was an ethical gray area to order a soldier to do something against their conscience like this, however, Hudson was unlikely to recover adequately to be useful unless given Morton.
Kimberly made her way back towards her own office and quarters, where she unlocked her safe and removed her Antimatter Key. A silver pendant, shaped like a teardrop, with a single button in the center.
Kim pushed it. “Commander Kimberly Shan of the UTFS Warbler.”
“Activated.” The key replied, voice highly computerized. It was a deliberately inhuman sound-the key was used for controlling such vital, and potentially disastrous items such as the ship’s antimatter and Morton supplies, so their holders were supposed to minimize interaction with them.
“Unlock one dose of Morton.”
A pause, then, “Accomplished.”
Kim pressed the button a second time, then placed the key back in the safe. It was the single most valuable item on the ship, apart from, obviously, the substances it controlled. The Warbler carried enough antimatter to destroy cities, and regulation required that they have at least one dose of Morton for each member of the crew.
Her comm buzzed. “First Officer to Skipper.”
“Go for Skipper.” She replied.
“Sitrep is ready on the bridge. The mainframe computer’s also indicating that it’s done with something, and won’t tell me what.”
“Apologies-it was running some Ansible data for me.”
“Ah. In that case... Just get down here, Commander. There’s something you’ll need to see.”
Cassy took the scalpel out of the bag cautiously, making sure that the chip was still lying on the table where she had left it.
She made a cut into Hudson’s skin, above the ear, and immediately clamped a cloth against it to stop the bleeding. With her free hand, she took the chip, and pushed it into the cut, letting the nanoconnectors inside of it do their work. After a few minutes, she put down the cloth-she could already feel the chip doing its work inside of Victor.
She placed one hand on his forehead, the other on his chest. She could feel him breathe, in and out, in and out, rhythmic. It wasn’t strictly necessary, and likely had no effect whatsoever, but she liked to be in tune with people when she read them.
She reached out, connecting to the neuronic she had just implanted into Victor’s head, tracing it back up the nerves, into his brain. The connection was horrible-it had been in for perhaps five minutes, and the brain wasn’t supposed to transmit data through a microchip, after all-but it would do.
She let Hudson’s memories flow through her, everything from his parents to his school to his boot camp to his first assignment. She pinpointed everything to do with his Fleet School training, pulling it to the front.
She concentrated on those memories, those skills, making sure that the areas around them were free of any confusion or damage. When she found some, she instructed the neurons how to rebuild, how to work around these problems, how to recover lost memories.
There was very little, if anything, complicated about it. Like the scalpel she had used to cut his skin, she was precise, efficient, and gone practically before anyone could notice. She broke the link between them, and removed the chip from Victor’s flesh, tossing it into a biohazard bin, and then ejecting it into space. There was no room aboard the Warbler for any sort of trash, and the sort that might cause the members of its crew to sicken or be injured was doubly unwelcome.
Sighing, she injected Victor with the antidote to the anesthetic/paralytic/sedative she had given him barely a few minutes earlier, then gave the now-empty syringe the same treatment that she had given to the chip.
Morton’s a sledgehammer. She thought, thinking back to the times she had felt a mind that remembered experiencing it. No, her own Neuronics were far superior-entirely free of side effects.
The PA system sounded, calling all crew to the Mess. Cassidy shrugged-Hudson wouldn’t wake up for another fifteen or so minutes, more than enough for a typical crew meeting to go by, and he was peacefully in a bed.
Sighing, she stood, and headed for the door, removing her bloodstained gloves and scrubs, changing into an actual uniform.
She wasn’t looking forward to this meeting-she already knew it was going to end badly.
The Sitrep, or Situation Report, was uninteresting-breach in the Engine Room, not much else. That was typical for a smaller ship like the Warbler, which left more time to deal with less routine things.
Like the fact that the Mainframe had just confirmed the calculations of the Ansibilic Department’s computer, apparently.
Jae wasn’t an Ansibilicist. He couldn’t calculate a fold to save his life-and there had been times in his life where it would have been more or less that useful. He was a warrior though-not a scientist.
Commander Shan though... She was both. He had seen the way she handled the ship in combat-she was more than capable of fulfilling her duties, even if she had joined rather... Reluctantly. He had seen her dossier, he knew how she had joined. It didn’t seem to make a difference in her dedication to the Fleet.
She looked up from the table she had the various printouts displayed on.
“These numbers don’t make any sense, Jae.” She said, flipping through the stacks of papers. “Or rather, they do-and that’s a problem. It keeps saying that we jumped with another Ansible onboard, and that’s what forced us dozens of lightyears away, but then it says that we experienced none of the spatial distortion that a second Ansible should have caused.”
Jae hesitated for a moment, then said, “Would you like to see what I found, ma’am?”
The Commander glanced up from her papers, towards Jae. “Yes, apologies. You said over the Comm that you found something you thought was relevant to the jump?”
Jae nodded, and pulled the watch out of his pocket. It was black, with a touchscreen like any other Truekeeper watch. He turned it over, exposing the lettering on the back. ‘Class Sixteen Ansible. DEACTIVATE BEFORE JUMP!’ Below it was a logo Jae knew all too well-that of the United Terran Republic’s Tactical Services.
Commander Shan swore. “Our Agent is apparently an idiot, I see.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“Don’t underestimate them, Jae-there’s a reason we hate them so badly. This one made a mistake, but...” Shan took the watch and turned it over in her hands. “What is this? A communication device of some kind? Why wouldn’t they just route it through the ships primary ansible as background noise?”
“Maybe it’s a backup? Or perhaps designed for a situation such as this one where there’s widespread damage to the network?” Jae knew the answer of course-and had, in fact, just given it to her. He had used these before, after all.
“Possibly.” Shan looked Jae straight in the eyes, intensity shining through. “Jae, as my First Officer, and the single most experienced man on this ship, what is your assessment of our current situation?”
“With the fact that we just lost two months to foldspace, and can no longer find any other Ansibles operating in Terran space? I’d assume that we lost the war, Captain.” Jae knew they had both been thinking it. That didn’t mean that he was necessarily supposed to say it, but Shan didn’t seem the type to punish people for speaking the truth.
She did, however, wait a moment before speaking. “Agreed, unfortunately. Who knows?”
“The two of us, Elise Henrick, and Celia Abrams are the only ones that know the details. All of SENCOM will have some sort of idea that something’s up, and they’ll likely be pretty close-also, there’s no telling what, if anything, the rumor mill is saying.”
“Then we need to tell them something, obviously.” Shan sat down at one of the chairs she had brought onto the bridge, burying her face in her hands. The bridge was supposed to be clear of all objects, to help facilitate the holographic displays that filled it in battle. Commander Shan, apparently, liked to have paper in front of her sometimes. “Does it have to be the truth?” She asked, voice muffled.
Jae hesitated. As Shan had said, she respected him, and, well, it was mutual. He had a job to do aboard the ship, and it was explicitly to put her in impossible situations, but no-one had foreseen this situation. “That sounds like a choice a Tactical Agent would make, commander.” He said, proceeding cautiously. “Looking out for what they perceive to be the best interests of their crew.”
“As we all know, their perceptions don’t always overlap with reality.” She said. “I know firsthand that they’re a highly utilitarian organization, committed to the Tactical, the Republic, and, honestly, themselves, typically in that order.”
“All very true.” That wasn’t even a lie.
Shan steeled herself. “It’s a commander's duty to complete their mission as best as possible.” Jae was uncertain if that was a statement or a question. “I now understand the choices they make much better-a soldier is not always concerned with what is right in the deontological sense.”
“What’s that?”
“Deontology is, in essence, the belief that people have inalienable rights that nothing can ever cause to be revoked. They believe in moral absolutes. We can’t always do that-we’re forced to make compromises. And in this case, by telling them, I risk mutiny-why should they respect our authority when there’s no consequences for not doing so?”
“That’s the argument of a poor leader, Commander.” Jae said, furrowing his brow. “If they only respect you out of fear of reprisal, you have an ineffective crew,”
Shan nodded. “But there’s also the psychological burden of knowing that we’re the last members of the human race...”
“Are we sure of that?”
“As sure as we can be-I’ve personally reviewed the Ansible data and there’s no Human Ansibles operating, well, anywhere we can read them. Even if they were out of range for purposes of communications, we should be able to at least detect their presence.”
“Do you still want my recommendation, Commander?”
“Please.” She sounded desperate.
“I’ll respect and follow any choice you make, Captain. However, were I in command, I would be frank with the crew.”
Shan nodded. “Understood, and many thanks. On an unrelated note, where did you find the watch?”
“It had been dumped in the starboard storage compartment-it could have belonged to anyone.” He lied.
“Pity. Honestly, I practically want to make contact with our Agent-they’ll probably be better prepared for this situation than any of us.”
Jae left the room, strolling through the ship, trying to take in how the crew was coping. Most were lounging around in the Barracks, several sleeping, a few of the career soldiers playing cards. One man knelt by his bunk, praying. One of the Middies, Sadira, toyed with a strange knife. Jae couldn’t identify it, but it was definitely not fleet-issued.
When the call to the Mess came a few minutes later, Jae was one of the first ones there. The tables were pulled up against the walls, chairs arranged in two concentric semicircles. Commander Shan stood in the center of the room, hands clasped behind her back. A UTF flag was behind her, proudly displayed on its stand. Jae began to have a sinking feeling about the content of the speech.
Kim breathed deeply. It’s not so different from addressing a class, or a group of friends, or even the crew of the Goei was. Calm. The difference was, of course, that she had never lied to those-or at least, nothing so outrageous.
“Greetings, crewmembers of the UTFS Warbler. As several of you are aware, the ship suffered a botched Foldspace jump less than six shipboard hours ago. This jump put us close to the center of Terran Space, somewhere in the area of Kynak, and took two off-ship months. The ship is going to be making its way to Kynak, and will report to the local Commander for duty. The current status of the Species D Crisis is unknown, as we are out of communication with the rest of the universe, due to the same Ansible malfunction that-.”
“That’s a bare-faced lie!” Someone shouted, and Kim whipped her head around to face down Cassidy Freeman, the medic.
“You are out of line, Ensign.” Kimberly said, voice cold, low, and quiet. “Sit down and be silent, or you will be removed from this room and deported when we reach Kynak.”
“You are lying through your teeth to us, Kimberly Shan!” Freeman continued, voice rising in both volume and pitch, disregarding the warning.
Thinking back to the Crew Dossiers, Kim remembered that she had an ex-Marine aboard the ship. “Ensign Hortensia Silver, please remove Ms. Freeman from the Mess Hall and confine her to the Barracks.” Kim ordered, putting all her authority into her voice.
Silver got up, looked around, and sat back down. “No.”
Kim inhaled sharply. “Ensign Silver, you have ten seconds to rethink your actions.”
Silver just leaned back in her seat, as Freeman continued. “You know that the Ansible isn’t offline, you’re just hiding the fact that we’ve already lost the war from them, aren’t you!” She accused. “We’re not receiving any Ansible signals because there aren’t any to pick up!” Freeman glanced around the room, making eye contact with several other members of the crew. “She’s lying to us.” She said, pleading.
“Oh? And what makes you say that?” Kim sneered, the part of her that she hated, and yet now needed, the most coming to the forefront. The part of her that had been groomed by-no, not even that, the part of her that had brought her to the attention of-Julian Shishani. “What shred of evidence do you have for that? Are you an Ancibilicist? Do you have access to any more information than any other member of my crew?”
Freeman made eye contact with Kim. “No. But I am very, very good at detecting a lie.”
Kim curled her lip, drew her sidearm, and fired. The bullet exited the barrel at several thousand feet per second, aimed directly at Freeman’s chest. As the target was less than twenty feet away, it should take a tiny fraction of a second for the bullet to connect, shattering bone, destroying muscle tissue, practically liquefying organs.
It did none of that. Somehow, Kimberly missed.
The bullet ricocheted around the room, the steel hull reflecting it multiple times, driving everyone for cover, before finally coming to rest somewhere in a corner.
Every except Ervin Norton, that was. He stood in the center of the room, the only person brave, confident, or stupid enough to remain there. He strode over to Kimberly, and plucked the gun from her hands with unexpected ease. The look on his face was of complete disgust. “Get out.” He spat, pointing towards the door. “Or at least sit and listen.”
Cowed, she sat on one of the chairs by the edge of the semicircle, avoiding contact with her crew.
“I’m Commander Ervin Norton.” The man began, and Kimberly inhaled sharply. He didn’t actually hold that rank, but had up until several Shipboard days ago-and now, even though her dislike of the man was skyrocketing, she felt a grudging respect grow alongside it. “And you’re all a bunch of pathetic wannabees. Since none of you apparently have an understanding of how the Fleet works, I’m going to tell you. Soldiers, you obey orders from your Commander.” He glanced around, making eye contact with several crewmen. “And, Commander Shan, you repay that obedience with trustworthiness.” Kimberly could feel his eyes boring into her.
“Ensign Freeman is, as we can all tell, correct, and that we are quite possibly the last Humans in the universe.” He paused to let that sink in for a moment. Even Kimberly, who already knew it, was struck by hearing it said so openly.
“That is not, however, necessarily true. There’s a Fleet plan, known as Protocol R, that is to be put into effect after two of the Strike Groups are destroyed. This is how I know about it-part of my duties as a Flight Officer aboard the Warden were getting a signal out that the Group was destroyed, if it ever came to that. Protocol R involves rallying all ships at a location that would be sent to everything connected to the Ansnet right before it was shut down. We missed this signal, as we were in Foldspace at the time. However, there is a method in place for finding the Rally Point. Using an Antimatter Key, such as the ones our Captain, First Officer, and Shipboard Tactical Agent all carry, in Earth Orbit, we can retrieve that data. I think it is safe to assume that this crew now has but one mission?”
A general sound of assent filled the room. Even Kim herself joined in.
“Rest assured that I will continue to work with Captain Shan as she commands this vessel-while she made a questionable choice in withholding this information, she is still the best-no, the only-qualified person to command said ship. Any further disrespect of this magnitude will be treated as mutiny, and, this time, I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Crew of the UTFS Warbler, am I clear?” He asked.
Their tone begrudging yet hopeful, the crew made largely affirmative noises.
“Then all of you, go to your quarters. This will not happen again.” With that Ervin turned and strode towards the door. Silently, he was followed out by the rest of the crew, save for Jae.
“I believe that we’ve just seen why discipline aboard this ship still matters, Commander.” Jae said.
Silently, Kim turned her back to him, and strode off.
And, being the low woman on the totem pole, so to speak, she was the one in the vacsuit, trying to cram into the disaster known as the amidships airlock. It was four, maybe five feet long, two tall, and two wide. At least they had had to empty it before using it as an airlock.
“You ready, Steele?” Ensign Hans Henrick, the Atmospherics Specialist, said, voice muffled over the radio.
“Yes sir.” She said, checking her gravitic tether for the fifth time. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t turned itself off in the ten seconds since she had checked it last.
“We’re beginning to siphon the air out now.” He said, and she almost immediately heard a hiss, growing gradually fainter. It barely took a minute, before the doors slid open.
She thumbed the tether, and fell forward. It used the same maneuvering technology as a fighter, which, from her casual observation during the battle, didn’t reassure her.
Hell though, she would not give them a hard time about that. She, for one, had been absolutely useless-she had been practically lounging around, technically on ‘Damage Control’ duty, but with full knowledge that she wasn’t supposed to be called upon.
Except, well, the other Ensign Henrick had screwed up the Ansible or something, beginning a sequence of events that wound up with Jane on the wrong side of the hull.
“This is Middie Steele, testing comms.” She said as the gravitics in her suit recognized the Warbler and latched onto its hull.
“We hear you loud and clear. This is Deck Officer Abrams, in SENCOM, and I’m going to be talking you through this op.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“First, I need you to find the breach. It could be anything from a massive gash to a pinprick, but if the data from Atmospherics is anywhere near accurate about how fast we lost air, it’ll be at least a few feet in width. Also, if anyone shares his deity of choice, you may want to pray that it is for his sake.”
She scanned the hull, looking for anything that might be the breach. It didn’t take long-a large gash, maybe two by three feet, right at the edge of the bulkhead between the Engine Room and Port Storage Compartment.
“I have a visual on the breach.” She said. “Permission to enter?”
“Granted.”
Handling the gravitational discrepancy created by reentering the ship was nauseating, but not particularly hard.
The compartment wasn’t particularly small, but it still came off as cramped. It was the one part of the ship that wasn’t filled with clean surfaces and smooth lines-rather, it was still unmistakably mechanical. There were computers and whatnot, but even a single wrench was a surprising sight.
Then, she saw Hudson’s body-no, not Hudson’s body, Hudson. The man was floating, uniform jumpsuit glowing slightly-the thermal elements were apparently operating correctly.
“I’ve got a visual on him!” She practically shouted, grabbing a Rescue Wrap from her belt. The Wraps were the single greatest innovation in wreck-recovery in the past twenty years. They resembled rolled-up tarp, with reflective coating, and a few valves spaced at regular intervals. You, well, wrapped the victim in the Wrap, layering it on as thick as you could, then hooked it into the ship’s HVAC and Electric systems.
She had, perhaps, thirty seconds to do it-and, considering that she was essentially packing a lunch sandwich, that would be more than enough.
And I thought nothing I learned in school would ever help me. She thought, as she twisted an air tube into the wall.
“Ensign Hudson is secure, SENCOM.” She said, suddenly aware that she was breathing heavily. “From my assessment of the damage to the hull, it’ll take maybe ten minutes for me to apply Sealant.”
“Copy that, Ensign. Buzz someone if you run into any difficulties.”
Sighing, Jane took the canister of Sealant off her belt, and began applying it, and hoping that she wasn’t sharing a room with a Hud-sicle.
“No, Captain, I don’t mean that the Ansible is offline. I mean that, as far as we can tell, no other ansible within a dozen lightyears of here is online, and there’s nothing higher than a Class Three within four or five times that.” Elise said, repeating that particular snippet of information for the third time.
Commander Shan tapped her foot, then said, “And remind me where we are, Ensign.”
Coming from almost anyone else, that might have come off as deliberately obtuse. From Commander Kimberly Shan, it was scathing instead.
“We’re in an uninhabited system near Kynak, Commander. That puts us, at most, thirty-six lightyears from Saray or Tantaline, and thirty from Bernan. In other words, we’re well within the Ansible network, and shouldn’t be having these difficulties.”
“So what do you find as the most likely cause of this?”
“I don’t know, Ma’am.”
“Is it interference? We experienced some of that at Saray-the Species D fleet appeared to have some way of blocking out Ansible signals.”
Elise shook her head. “No, ma’am. I’ve glanced over the records from the battle, and background Ansibilic fluctuations were damped by that also. We’re still able to read those now, however.”
“So then you’re clearly doing something wrong, Ensign. I want you to go over the entire Ansible, and find whatever’s causing the Arrhythmia.”
Behind the mask that a decade in the military cultivated, Elise seethed. The Ansible was working, and Elise had thought that Kimberly Shan of all people would understand that. “Yes, Ma’am.” She said, managing to keep her voice calm.
The Skipper nodded, then turned sharply, stalking out of the room.
Elise had heard of Kimberly Shan-about five or so years ago, that name had popped up in conjunction with a few highly innovative techniques for calculating Ansibilic paths, including one revolutionary paper that had been immediately sent to every Ansibilics Specialist in the fleet on how to calculate a Tactical Fold with an astonishing ten percent likelihood of success.
That didn’t sound like much, which was why very few commanders still used them. Previously, however, Tactical Folds had a fraction of that efficacy-fractions of a percent of them wound up within a thousand miles of their intended endpoint. They were still risky, but certain elements of the Coven insisted that they could be used with devastating effect in skilled hands, so they were still included in the Fleet School training for Ansible Specialists.
Of course, they typically didn’t go this wrong. When they failed, they typically dropped the ship into orbit around the nearest planet. An Arrhythmia complicated things, but thirty lightyears...
That shouldn’t happen.
Elise slid out a tray, filled with electronic circuitry, and a few esoteric chemicals and structures. The equipment that monitored Ansibles was complex, operating it almost as much so. But the Ansibles themselves were, essentially, simple.
They weren’t made, but discovered. The first Ansible had been found in deep space, by one of the early Generation Ships. The ship’s Commander had been perplexed by what his instruments had indicated was a naked singularity, something that wasn’t really supposed to exist. Yet there it was, sitting in space, spitting out radiation like nobody’s business.
They still were ironing out how the hell Ansibles were allowed to exist by the laws of the universe, but they clearly did. Early experimentation had indicated that they could be split, and that these smaller singularities emitted radiation in a rhythmic manner. Initially this had been dismissed as a curiosity, and it was assumed that they were merely synchronized.
Eventually, however, it was realized that`the Ansibles weren’t just attuned to each other, they were, quite literally, the same. The same thing, but in two different points in space. What went in one came out of both.
Instantly.
Not ‘very, very fast’. Instantly.
True, faster-than-light communication. It had taken a few decades for one of those first Ansibles to make it back to the technological haven that was Earth, but once it got there, the field of Ansibilics was born. Ansibles opened the way to all sorts of technology-Foldspace was only accessible via an ansible, as were the techniques used to generate artificial gravity aboard ships.
There were complicated rules governing what ansibles could talk to what other ansibles, too. ‘Parent’ Ansibles could talk to their ‘Children’ at any distance, ‘Siblings’ were able to communicate at greater range... There were complex diagrams and formulas for the interactions between any two given Ansibles, and how to relay communications throughout the network.
That was assuming that one had a network, which, at the moment, they appeared not to. As Elise found more and more pieces of equipment operating perfectly-although there were several warning lights telling her about the Arrhythmia-she felt that her earlier conclusion was becoming more and more likely.
For whatever reason, they were the only ones using their Ansible within dozens of light years-and while it was less than seventy from Tantaline to Bernan, they were squarely in the mile of that. In other words, while they had been out of sync with the rest of the universe-for two whole months of normal time, though due to how Foldspace worked, they hadn’t perceived any of that onboard the ship-something major had happened, and anything that resulted in the Ansnet being shut down was going to be bad.
When the pressurization sequence for the Engine Room finally started, Cassidy Freeman had already been outside with a medkit for ten minutes. When it was finally safe to enter, she wasted no time getting inside, and sizing up the Rescue Wrap that had been quite amateurishly applied to Ensign Hudson.
The man was conscious, though clearly hypothermic, floating off to one side of the room-apparently, they hadn’t turned the gravity back on yet. He was also probably in shock-he had been subjected to freezing temperatures in the decompression, followed by something significantly above body heat as his suit’s thermal elements had kicked in. Not to mention the fact that they’d have to check for brain damage-when he had been been recovered, he had been deprived of oxygen for well over two minutes, so it was entirely possible that he had sustained loss of mental capacity. The fact that he had been subjected to such cold, ironically, actually helped his chances, as exposure to vacuum was known to trigger the Mammalian Diving Reflex, an evolutionary adaptation that optimized the body for resistance to drowning. Having said that, the effects of hard vacuum weren’t well understood-during the Xon War, warships had been designed to be large enough that they could sustain combat damage, so there had been periodic exposure, but, since that had been before the Republic-Imperiata war, many of those hadn’t been mainline Terrans.
She kicked herself off the ground, heading towards Hudson, unsheathed her rigging knife, and started cutting through the Rescue Wrap. Hudson was, rather disturbingly, awake, and although she had been trained to expect that in a situation like this, it still complicated things.
She had brought a man from Weapons named Makoro Karazwaki to assist with bringing Hudson back to the Warbler’s medbay, up in the bow of the ship. He had felt like a decent person to her-someone who had already been through troubles in life, and found himself, so to speak. “Open the stretcher, Makoro.” She said, grabbing Hudson as she cut the last of the Wrap off of him, sheathing her knife again.
Makoro-still in the 1g environment of the Port Storage Compartment-already had the stretcher assembled, and its Antigrav module turned on.
“Push that in here please, Makoro.” She said, grabbing a wall to stabilize herself. Hudson was, unfortunately, not speaking up at all, which meant that he was definitely in shock.
It wasn’t hard to strap Hudson onto the stretcher, or pass it through the gravity discontinuity between the engine and storage rooms. Traversing it herself was harder, but it felt good to be back in 1g. First day of my new assignment, Cassie thought, and we’ve already broken one. Typical.
Kimberly had, after long and careful consideration, come to a conclusion-she hated Julian Shishani with all her soul. The man had clearly gone to great lengths to set up some sort of elaborate game for her, in the middle of a war. Manipulation and games were acceptable training methods, but the amount of stupidity necessary to think that, though the Warbler was admittedly not a high-value ship, randomly removing it from the fight was a good plan was mind-boggling.
In short, she thought Julian Shishani, First Citizen of the United Terran Republic, the man who had destroyed several worlds and won more wars in his lifetime than most ever had the chance to die in, was a jackass.
She glanced around the bridge, waiting for Jae to get the final Damage Report together, and Celia Abrams to get off the comm with Elise Henrick. In the meantime, however, there were dozens of other things to attend to-permanently sealing the breach in the Engine Room, having someone go over the outside of the hull in a vacsuit to check for damage, running diagnostics on all electronics, triple-checking the Ansible to make sure that it wasn’t going arrhythmic again... The list went on and on.
One by one though, the red warning lights were replaced with yellow alerts, a few even going back to being completely green before Celia Abrams entered the room, tablet in hand.
Abrams saluted, albeit poorly, although that could have as much to do with coming down off the adrenaline high that they had all felt as insubordination. “Ansibilics report.” Abrams said, voice confirming Kim’s suspicion of exhaustion.
Kim held out her own tablet, tapping it against Abrams’s. “Thank you, Deck Officer. Is your Section restored to readiness?”
Abrams nodded. “Yes-although not if you count Ansibilics as part of SENCOM.”
“Appoint someone to keep track of the department then, and the rest of you are dismissed to your quarters. I’ll handle Ansibilics for the moment.”
Abrams actually smiled slightly, before returning to the SENCOM room.
The Ansibilics report was an absolute mess. Apparently there was a small Ansible on several of those Species D drones-a disaster waiting to happen if they drew too close. That meant that literally all other sensor data was suspect, as spacetime had a tendency to warp in the presence of multiple Ansibles. However, none of the ansible-equipped drones had come close enough to cause the sort of interference that should have interfered with the fold this badly.
No, the computer’s data reported something entirely different, namely, that there was another Ansible aboard the Warbler. That was patently ridiculous-the Ansibles would have entered an Interchange state and begun to seriously mess with the basic structure of spacetime long before either had entered the craft. Therefore, she plugged several of the sets of numbers into the Warbler’s main computer. It didn’t have the specialization of the one over in Ansibilics, but it had more raw power. The computer still claimed that it would take at least fifteen minutes to process the data, so she let it run on its own, and left for the medbay.
She had been expecting a dingy, barely-sanitary closet to serve as the Warbler’s medbay. Instead, she found a miniature hospital that would have put some planetary specialty centers to shame. She swiped a card for access to the room, and was denied. The words ‘MEDBAY IN USE’ flashed across the monitor of the lock.
“Just a minute!” Someone shouted from inside, voice muffled but feminine. Cassidy Freeman then-Medical Officer for the Warbler. Freeman was a rookie, with practically no service record, although her dossier indicated that she was a more than competent medic.
Kim pulled up her tablet, and opened the crew statuses. She tabbed over to Hudson’s biosign entry, and began to absorb information.
The man didn’t have a Neuronic, which was unsurprising, as, like the majority of the Republic’s population, he was an Ecumenical Christian. That meant that they were limited to external biosensors, as well as whatever had been manually entered into the database. The most current entry was over fifteen minutes old, indicating that he was in shock, but would likely survive. Kim breathed a sigh of relief-she didn’t want to ever lose a crewmember, but on the first full day of command would be far more unfortunate.
The medbay was set into an alcove between the HVAC and Berths sections, which meant that one could spend a few minutes sitting around waiting for the bay to become unoccupied once again.
It took more like twenty minutes for the door to slide open, and Cassidy Freeman stepped out, clad in a ruffled Fleet jumpsuit with an even messier set of medical scrubs over them. The look was quite comical, actually, a state which was not helped when Freeman clicked her booted heels together and saluted. “Ensign Freeman reporting for duty, Ma’am!” She said.
Kim stood and returned the salute, before saying, “At ease, soldier. How is Ensign Hudson?”
“Ensign Hudson is remarkably well, considering his near-death in vacuum earlier. He’s badly coordinated, and likely will have some level of permanent brain damage. However, some level of Morton therapy should be able to greatly minimize said damage, but, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Captain’s Antimatter Key is required to unlock the Morton storage.”
Kim frowned. Morton, named for the man renowned as the father of anesthesiology, was an incredibly potent memory-fixation drug. She wasn’t aware of any high-profile medical studies of the drug in the past twenty years, though she had a sneaking feeling that she was forgetting something, and it was commonly used as part of a cocktail with hallucinogenic street drugs. Regardless, it had the rather unpleasant side effect of random memory deletion. Or at least, it was random, unless one specifically targeted certain ones.
“Your assessment, Ensign?” Kim asked.
Freeman hesitated. “Do you foresee this being an extended tour, Ma’am?”
Kim didn’t even have to think. Regardless of whether Julian was messing with them or if there had legitimately been some sort of horrible malfunction aboard the ship, they were going to be away from the Fleet for a long time. “Yes.”
Freeman was silent for a full thirty seconds. “Commander, I personally am more than a bit of a pacifist. I joined the Fleet because, at the time, it was largely a peacekeeping organization, and I joined it explicitly in a role to help people. I will say that I would personally never condone the use of Morton in any situation, as the risk of entirely rewriting a personality is far too great to tolerate. However, from a purely strategic standpoint, I would also say that the use of Morton will greatly increase the odds of the recovery of the skills of Ensign Hudson, even with the possibility of some personality loss.”
“So in other words, we’re weighing the rights of an individual against the potential loss of the lives of the crew of this starship?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And once we know if he’s recovered naturally it will be too late to administer Morton?”
“Almost definitely. All neurochemistry is highly complicated, but I can say with high confidence that it will be too late at that time.”
“If I give you an order that goes against your personal conscience, will you obey it, Ms. Freeman?”
There was a long pause. “Ma’am, under this circumstance, you can have anyone administer a shot of Morton to Mr. Hudson. Therefore, while I personally may find such an action repugnant, it will minimize the likelihood of major neural damage if I am the one to administer such a treatment.”
Kim nodded. “If you would then make preparations for a Morton injection, Ms. Freeman.”
Cassidy’s face hardened slightly, her stance shifting, but, true to her word, she answered with “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll need you to unlock it from your Antimatter Key.”
As the door to the medbay slid shut behind Freeman, Kim sighed. It was an ethical gray area to order a soldier to do something against their conscience like this, however, Hudson was unlikely to recover adequately to be useful unless given Morton.
Kimberly made her way back towards her own office and quarters, where she unlocked her safe and removed her Antimatter Key. A silver pendant, shaped like a teardrop, with a single button in the center.
Kim pushed it. “Commander Kimberly Shan of the UTFS Warbler.”
“Activated.” The key replied, voice highly computerized. It was a deliberately inhuman sound-the key was used for controlling such vital, and potentially disastrous items such as the ship’s antimatter and Morton supplies, so their holders were supposed to minimize interaction with them.
“Unlock one dose of Morton.”
A pause, then, “Accomplished.”
Kim pressed the button a second time, then placed the key back in the safe. It was the single most valuable item on the ship, apart from, obviously, the substances it controlled. The Warbler carried enough antimatter to destroy cities, and regulation required that they have at least one dose of Morton for each member of the crew.
Her comm buzzed. “First Officer to Skipper.”
“Go for Skipper.” She replied.
“Sitrep is ready on the bridge. The mainframe computer’s also indicating that it’s done with something, and won’t tell me what.”
“Apologies-it was running some Ansible data for me.”
“Ah. In that case... Just get down here, Commander. There’s something you’ll need to see.”
Cassy took the scalpel out of the bag cautiously, making sure that the chip was still lying on the table where she had left it.
She made a cut into Hudson’s skin, above the ear, and immediately clamped a cloth against it to stop the bleeding. With her free hand, she took the chip, and pushed it into the cut, letting the nanoconnectors inside of it do their work. After a few minutes, she put down the cloth-she could already feel the chip doing its work inside of Victor.
She placed one hand on his forehead, the other on his chest. She could feel him breathe, in and out, in and out, rhythmic. It wasn’t strictly necessary, and likely had no effect whatsoever, but she liked to be in tune with people when she read them.
She reached out, connecting to the neuronic she had just implanted into Victor’s head, tracing it back up the nerves, into his brain. The connection was horrible-it had been in for perhaps five minutes, and the brain wasn’t supposed to transmit data through a microchip, after all-but it would do.
She let Hudson’s memories flow through her, everything from his parents to his school to his boot camp to his first assignment. She pinpointed everything to do with his Fleet School training, pulling it to the front.
She concentrated on those memories, those skills, making sure that the areas around them were free of any confusion or damage. When she found some, she instructed the neurons how to rebuild, how to work around these problems, how to recover lost memories.
There was very little, if anything, complicated about it. Like the scalpel she had used to cut his skin, she was precise, efficient, and gone practically before anyone could notice. She broke the link between them, and removed the chip from Victor’s flesh, tossing it into a biohazard bin, and then ejecting it into space. There was no room aboard the Warbler for any sort of trash, and the sort that might cause the members of its crew to sicken or be injured was doubly unwelcome.
Sighing, she injected Victor with the antidote to the anesthetic/paralytic/sedative she had given him barely a few minutes earlier, then gave the now-empty syringe the same treatment that she had given to the chip.
Morton’s a sledgehammer. She thought, thinking back to the times she had felt a mind that remembered experiencing it. No, her own Neuronics were far superior-entirely free of side effects.
The PA system sounded, calling all crew to the Mess. Cassidy shrugged-Hudson wouldn’t wake up for another fifteen or so minutes, more than enough for a typical crew meeting to go by, and he was peacefully in a bed.
Sighing, she stood, and headed for the door, removing her bloodstained gloves and scrubs, changing into an actual uniform.
She wasn’t looking forward to this meeting-she already knew it was going to end badly.
The Sitrep, or Situation Report, was uninteresting-breach in the Engine Room, not much else. That was typical for a smaller ship like the Warbler, which left more time to deal with less routine things.
Like the fact that the Mainframe had just confirmed the calculations of the Ansibilic Department’s computer, apparently.
Jae wasn’t an Ansibilicist. He couldn’t calculate a fold to save his life-and there had been times in his life where it would have been more or less that useful. He was a warrior though-not a scientist.
Commander Shan though... She was both. He had seen the way she handled the ship in combat-she was more than capable of fulfilling her duties, even if she had joined rather... Reluctantly. He had seen her dossier, he knew how she had joined. It didn’t seem to make a difference in her dedication to the Fleet.
She looked up from the table she had the various printouts displayed on.
“These numbers don’t make any sense, Jae.” She said, flipping through the stacks of papers. “Or rather, they do-and that’s a problem. It keeps saying that we jumped with another Ansible onboard, and that’s what forced us dozens of lightyears away, but then it says that we experienced none of the spatial distortion that a second Ansible should have caused.”
Jae hesitated for a moment, then said, “Would you like to see what I found, ma’am?”
The Commander glanced up from her papers, towards Jae. “Yes, apologies. You said over the Comm that you found something you thought was relevant to the jump?”
Jae nodded, and pulled the watch out of his pocket. It was black, with a touchscreen like any other Truekeeper watch. He turned it over, exposing the lettering on the back. ‘Class Sixteen Ansible. DEACTIVATE BEFORE JUMP!’ Below it was a logo Jae knew all too well-that of the United Terran Republic’s Tactical Services.
Commander Shan swore. “Our Agent is apparently an idiot, I see.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“Don’t underestimate them, Jae-there’s a reason we hate them so badly. This one made a mistake, but...” Shan took the watch and turned it over in her hands. “What is this? A communication device of some kind? Why wouldn’t they just route it through the ships primary ansible as background noise?”
“Maybe it’s a backup? Or perhaps designed for a situation such as this one where there’s widespread damage to the network?” Jae knew the answer of course-and had, in fact, just given it to her. He had used these before, after all.
“Possibly.” Shan looked Jae straight in the eyes, intensity shining through. “Jae, as my First Officer, and the single most experienced man on this ship, what is your assessment of our current situation?”
“With the fact that we just lost two months to foldspace, and can no longer find any other Ansibles operating in Terran space? I’d assume that we lost the war, Captain.” Jae knew they had both been thinking it. That didn’t mean that he was necessarily supposed to say it, but Shan didn’t seem the type to punish people for speaking the truth.
She did, however, wait a moment before speaking. “Agreed, unfortunately. Who knows?”
“The two of us, Elise Henrick, and Celia Abrams are the only ones that know the details. All of SENCOM will have some sort of idea that something’s up, and they’ll likely be pretty close-also, there’s no telling what, if anything, the rumor mill is saying.”
“Then we need to tell them something, obviously.” Shan sat down at one of the chairs she had brought onto the bridge, burying her face in her hands. The bridge was supposed to be clear of all objects, to help facilitate the holographic displays that filled it in battle. Commander Shan, apparently, liked to have paper in front of her sometimes. “Does it have to be the truth?” She asked, voice muffled.
Jae hesitated. As Shan had said, she respected him, and, well, it was mutual. He had a job to do aboard the ship, and it was explicitly to put her in impossible situations, but no-one had foreseen this situation. “That sounds like a choice a Tactical Agent would make, commander.” He said, proceeding cautiously. “Looking out for what they perceive to be the best interests of their crew.”
“As we all know, their perceptions don’t always overlap with reality.” She said. “I know firsthand that they’re a highly utilitarian organization, committed to the Tactical, the Republic, and, honestly, themselves, typically in that order.”
“All very true.” That wasn’t even a lie.
Shan steeled herself. “It’s a commander's duty to complete their mission as best as possible.” Jae was uncertain if that was a statement or a question. “I now understand the choices they make much better-a soldier is not always concerned with what is right in the deontological sense.”
“What’s that?”
“Deontology is, in essence, the belief that people have inalienable rights that nothing can ever cause to be revoked. They believe in moral absolutes. We can’t always do that-we’re forced to make compromises. And in this case, by telling them, I risk mutiny-why should they respect our authority when there’s no consequences for not doing so?”
“That’s the argument of a poor leader, Commander.” Jae said, furrowing his brow. “If they only respect you out of fear of reprisal, you have an ineffective crew,”
Shan nodded. “But there’s also the psychological burden of knowing that we’re the last members of the human race...”
“Are we sure of that?”
“As sure as we can be-I’ve personally reviewed the Ansible data and there’s no Human Ansibles operating, well, anywhere we can read them. Even if they were out of range for purposes of communications, we should be able to at least detect their presence.”
“Do you still want my recommendation, Commander?”
“Please.” She sounded desperate.
“I’ll respect and follow any choice you make, Captain. However, were I in command, I would be frank with the crew.”
Shan nodded. “Understood, and many thanks. On an unrelated note, where did you find the watch?”
“It had been dumped in the starboard storage compartment-it could have belonged to anyone.” He lied.
“Pity. Honestly, I practically want to make contact with our Agent-they’ll probably be better prepared for this situation than any of us.”
Jae left the room, strolling through the ship, trying to take in how the crew was coping. Most were lounging around in the Barracks, several sleeping, a few of the career soldiers playing cards. One man knelt by his bunk, praying. One of the Middies, Sadira, toyed with a strange knife. Jae couldn’t identify it, but it was definitely not fleet-issued.
When the call to the Mess came a few minutes later, Jae was one of the first ones there. The tables were pulled up against the walls, chairs arranged in two concentric semicircles. Commander Shan stood in the center of the room, hands clasped behind her back. A UTF flag was behind her, proudly displayed on its stand. Jae began to have a sinking feeling about the content of the speech.
Kim breathed deeply. It’s not so different from addressing a class, or a group of friends, or even the crew of the Goei was. Calm. The difference was, of course, that she had never lied to those-or at least, nothing so outrageous.
“Greetings, crewmembers of the UTFS Warbler. As several of you are aware, the ship suffered a botched Foldspace jump less than six shipboard hours ago. This jump put us close to the center of Terran Space, somewhere in the area of Kynak, and took two off-ship months. The ship is going to be making its way to Kynak, and will report to the local Commander for duty. The current status of the Species D Crisis is unknown, as we are out of communication with the rest of the universe, due to the same Ansible malfunction that-.”
“That’s a bare-faced lie!” Someone shouted, and Kim whipped her head around to face down Cassidy Freeman, the medic.
“You are out of line, Ensign.” Kimberly said, voice cold, low, and quiet. “Sit down and be silent, or you will be removed from this room and deported when we reach Kynak.”
“You are lying through your teeth to us, Kimberly Shan!” Freeman continued, voice rising in both volume and pitch, disregarding the warning.
Thinking back to the Crew Dossiers, Kim remembered that she had an ex-Marine aboard the ship. “Ensign Hortensia Silver, please remove Ms. Freeman from the Mess Hall and confine her to the Barracks.” Kim ordered, putting all her authority into her voice.
Silver got up, looked around, and sat back down. “No.”
Kim inhaled sharply. “Ensign Silver, you have ten seconds to rethink your actions.”
Silver just leaned back in her seat, as Freeman continued. “You know that the Ansible isn’t offline, you’re just hiding the fact that we’ve already lost the war from them, aren’t you!” She accused. “We’re not receiving any Ansible signals because there aren’t any to pick up!” Freeman glanced around the room, making eye contact with several other members of the crew. “She’s lying to us.” She said, pleading.
“Oh? And what makes you say that?” Kim sneered, the part of her that she hated, and yet now needed, the most coming to the forefront. The part of her that had been groomed by-no, not even that, the part of her that had brought her to the attention of-Julian Shishani. “What shred of evidence do you have for that? Are you an Ancibilicist? Do you have access to any more information than any other member of my crew?”
Freeman made eye contact with Kim. “No. But I am very, very good at detecting a lie.”
Kim curled her lip, drew her sidearm, and fired. The bullet exited the barrel at several thousand feet per second, aimed directly at Freeman’s chest. As the target was less than twenty feet away, it should take a tiny fraction of a second for the bullet to connect, shattering bone, destroying muscle tissue, practically liquefying organs.
It did none of that. Somehow, Kimberly missed.
The bullet ricocheted around the room, the steel hull reflecting it multiple times, driving everyone for cover, before finally coming to rest somewhere in a corner.
Every except Ervin Norton, that was. He stood in the center of the room, the only person brave, confident, or stupid enough to remain there. He strode over to Kimberly, and plucked the gun from her hands with unexpected ease. The look on his face was of complete disgust. “Get out.” He spat, pointing towards the door. “Or at least sit and listen.”
Cowed, she sat on one of the chairs by the edge of the semicircle, avoiding contact with her crew.
“I’m Commander Ervin Norton.” The man began, and Kimberly inhaled sharply. He didn’t actually hold that rank, but had up until several Shipboard days ago-and now, even though her dislike of the man was skyrocketing, she felt a grudging respect grow alongside it. “And you’re all a bunch of pathetic wannabees. Since none of you apparently have an understanding of how the Fleet works, I’m going to tell you. Soldiers, you obey orders from your Commander.” He glanced around, making eye contact with several crewmen. “And, Commander Shan, you repay that obedience with trustworthiness.” Kimberly could feel his eyes boring into her.
“Ensign Freeman is, as we can all tell, correct, and that we are quite possibly the last Humans in the universe.” He paused to let that sink in for a moment. Even Kimberly, who already knew it, was struck by hearing it said so openly.
“That is not, however, necessarily true. There’s a Fleet plan, known as Protocol R, that is to be put into effect after two of the Strike Groups are destroyed. This is how I know about it-part of my duties as a Flight Officer aboard the Warden were getting a signal out that the Group was destroyed, if it ever came to that. Protocol R involves rallying all ships at a location that would be sent to everything connected to the Ansnet right before it was shut down. We missed this signal, as we were in Foldspace at the time. However, there is a method in place for finding the Rally Point. Using an Antimatter Key, such as the ones our Captain, First Officer, and Shipboard Tactical Agent all carry, in Earth Orbit, we can retrieve that data. I think it is safe to assume that this crew now has but one mission?”
A general sound of assent filled the room. Even Kim herself joined in.
“Rest assured that I will continue to work with Captain Shan as she commands this vessel-while she made a questionable choice in withholding this information, she is still the best-no, the only-qualified person to command said ship. Any further disrespect of this magnitude will be treated as mutiny, and, this time, I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Crew of the UTFS Warbler, am I clear?” He asked.
Their tone begrudging yet hopeful, the crew made largely affirmative noises.
“Then all of you, go to your quarters. This will not happen again.” With that Ervin turned and strode towards the door. Silently, he was followed out by the rest of the crew, save for Jae.
“I believe that we’ve just seen why discipline aboard this ship still matters, Commander.” Jae said.
Silently, Kim turned her back to him, and strode off.