A Galaxy Unknown (30 page)

"Uh— we'll see what we can do. You were fortunate to have been rescued by Space Command, young lady."

"Yes sir, I was
very
lucky," Jenetta said, with a small grin.

The doctor spent the next hour with Jenetta, performing a myriad of tests, before giving her a hospital gown and slippers to wear. The Velcro sealed gown fully covered the imprint on her chest. A nurse showed her to her room and arranged for dinner, while the two marine guards followed along and posted themselves outside her door. Jenetta spent the evening catching up on the news.

When she was taken back to the examination room again the following morning, Doctor Freidlander greeted Jenetta with, "We have to perform some of the tests over again. The results were inconclusive."

Jenetta spent the early part of the morning in the examination room, then was escorted to a conference room where Commander Kanes and six other grim-faced officers wearing SCI insignia were waiting.

"Good morning, Ensign," Commander Kanes said. "Take a seat. We have a few thousand questions for you."

Commander Kanes and the others looked exhausted. They had in fact spent every minute since the Prometheus and Chiron docked, examining the ship's logs and the data Jenetta had brought back. Space Command Headquarters expected them to forward a report with their preliminary analysis by midnight tonight and they were pushing themselves hard to have as complete a picture as possible before then.

Jenetta spent the rest of the morning answering the questions thrown at her by the officers; sometimes several at once as they tried to trip her up. Kanes hadn't been kidding about them having a few thousand. At lunchtime, she was given a fifteen-minute break to have a sandwich and cup of soup, before Commander Kanes resumed the questioning. Jenetta answered every question openly and honestly, except that she chose not to volunteer Mikel Arneu's statement about her possible longevity. It was after 2100 hours when Commander Kanes and the other officers finally completed their questioning, packed up their recording equipment, and allowed her to return to her room. Her vid-screen, and the holo-magazine cylinders containing current newspapers, had been removed while she was out and the marine guard told Jenetta that she was now limited to news that occurred prior to her arrival at the base.

* * *

"Our next topic concerns the ensign that arrived at Higgins after being missing for eleven years," Admiral Moore said to the other nine admirals sitting around the large horseshoe shaped table in the great hall where the Admiralty Board held their regular sessions. Aboard ship, a captain was the ultimate authority on all matters, but his power was infinitesimal compared to the power wielded by the ten officers around this table.

The nameplate on the table in front of the speaker identified him as Richard E. Moore, Admiral of the Fleet, but it was hardly necessary. A long and distinguished career as a battleship captain and then as Earth Forces Commander preceded his ascension to one of the ten most powerful positions in Space Command. After years of dedicated service on the Admiralty Board, he'd received his fifth star, and as Admiral of the Fleet, his face was well known. If anyone needed reminding, they had merely to visit the office of any ship's captain or base commander in the service to see his image. At seventy-nine-years, Admiral Moore was still fit and trim, without a spare ounce of fat on his five-foot ten-inch frame. Straight silver-grey hair of regulation length still covered his head. He had always been a little vain about his hair, and hated the color and texture that it had adopted over the past decade, but he steadfastly refused to dye it to its original color of dark auburn, or partake of the legal drugs that would accomplish the task internally. He had the rare ability to make people understand that he wasn't to be trifled with, while projecting the kindly look of a loving grandfather. The aides and clerks of the ten admirals sat dutifully behind them, while the galley seating was empty for this session.

Admiral Moore's voice was soft and calm as he looked over his notes. "Normally, a matter such as this wouldn't concern this board, but she claims to have destroyed a Raider base while effecting her escape, which resulted in the deaths of over 18,000 people. She also located and commandeered our two stolen battleships during her escape and returned them to our forces at Higgins."

"That was a damn sloppy business," Admiral Donald Hubera, the Director of Academy Curricula, grumbled. "Those Raider infiltrators should never have made it within a million kilometers of the Mars facility." Now in his late-seventies, the permanent scowl developed while an instructor at the Academy still defined the face beneath a mat of silver-white hair. Crow's feet lines tugged mightily at his eyes, and the flesh at his jowls had begun to sag slightly.

"I think that we've rattled enough cages in Earth Defense Command to insure that it will never happen again, Donald," Admiral Roger Bradlee, the Director of Intelligence, said. At seventy-six, keeping in shape was getting more difficult with each passing year. He wished that keeping his slowly spreading waistline under control was as easy as keeping the grey from consuming his hair. He had no preconceptions against taking the pharmaceuticals that kept his dark brown hair looking as full and vibrant as it had when he was twenty. "Admiral Elersey has been censured and dismissed from the service for incompetence. Captain Dumona, his flag secretary, has been charged with treason and imprisoned, along with the two other senior officers that we were able to prove accepted bribes or payments from the Raiders. We've re-commissioned two destroyers from our mothballed fleet and permanently stationed them at the shipyard with orders to immediately fire a full spread of torpedoes into any ship attempting to leave the yard without proper authorization and clearance. A company of Marines will be stationed aboard any new warship once the propulsion systems are active. And all of the automated satellite platforms have been programmed to target any un-cleared ship just as they would an intruder. No one is going to steal any more ships and get away with them. The matter before us now is what to do about this young ensign."

"I know her," Admiral Hubera said, running a hand over a scalp still thickly populated with short white hair as every eye in the room turned in his direction. Never one to toss away an opportunity to be center stage, Hubera sat up a little straighter and assumed a scholarly pose. "She was a student of mine when I taught at the Academy. She was bright, extremely bright, but I knew that she would be a poor officer." Hubera's mouth magnified the usual scowl as he said, "She had a predilection for practical jokes. There was this one time when she…"

"So many deaths necessitate an open investigation," Admiral Shana Ressler, the Director of Budget & Accounting, said, interrupting Hubera's reminisces before he became mired in trivia. "We'll have to convene an MIB." The seventy-two-year-old matron had begun to let her hair assume its natural grey color after the birth of her first great-great-grandchild the previous year. The new look was actually an improvement over the strawberry blonde color she had maintained for the prior seven years.

"But the ensign was operating on her own initiative," Admiral Bradlee said, "and having been officially declared dead ten years ago, she was technically separated from the service. I don't believe the regulations permit the convention of a Military Inquiry Board in this case."

"There must be an investigation of some sort," Admiral Evelyn Platt, the Director of Fleet Operations, said. "Where has she been for the past eleven years while we believed her to be dead?" The second most powerful member of the Board, Admiral Platt had a reputation for fairness and a passion for opera. She had just celebrated her seventy-eighth birthday by flying to Rome to attend an opening night performance of Giacomo Puccini's
La Bohème,
based on the novel by impoverished writer Henry Murger.

"She claims to have been adrift in an escape pod," Admiral Moore said. "That will have to be confirmed, of course."

"Perhaps it might be best to refer this matter to Admiral Komisky in the Judge Advocate General's office before making any decisions," Admiral Bradlee suggested.

"Yes, that might be best," Admiral Moore said. "We'll discuss it again after he's had a chance to look into it and advise us of options and precedents."

* * *

The following morning, Jenetta was escorted back to the examination room.

"Some of the tests are still not conclusive," Doctor Freidlander said. "We'll have to run them again."

"What's the problem, doctor?"

"It seems that your retinal scans, fingerprints, and DNA don't match what we have on file for Ensign Jenetta Carver; or anyone else for that matter."

"I knew about the DNA problem, but I didn't realize that the others would be altered."

"What do you mean you knew about the DNA problem?"

"I was told, while at the Raider prison, that I was given some kind of new treatment that would, ultimately, completely alter my Deoxyribonucleic Acid. They wanted to change my body to make it more appealing to men. Arneu said that I would grow six or more inches, and that I would have the body of a goddess. His words, not mine."

"And this Doctor Arneu performed this experimental DNA testing on you?"

"No, he wasn't a doctor. He was the commandant of the base. I didn't actually see the people who performed the procedure because I was kept sedated for a week while it was done. Arneu said that at the outset the procedure was extremely painful, but he also said that the procedure had been fully tested and was now proven. All I know is that when I awoke following the procedure, I felt like I had been dropped off a five-story building on Earth."

"I see. If it's true that they did something to alter your DNA, that could explain the inconsistencies. You're an inch taller than the height recorded in Jenetta Carver's medical file. And while your retinal scan is ninety-seven percent accurate, and your fingerprints are a ninety-two percent match, the skin sample used for the DNA test is only a fifty-six percent match."

"Don't outer skin cells reproduce rather quickly?"

"Yes."

"So then perhaps you could take a sample from someplace where they
don't
change as quickly. Arneu said that it would take a long time, years, for all my cells to be changed."

"Bone cells renew at the slowest rate. I can make a small incision in your scalp and take a minute chip from your skull. It will only take a few minutes and the pain will be minimal with the use of a local anesthetic spray."

"Please do it, Doctor."

Informed by the doctor that the incision would heal in a few days, Jenetta was allowed to return to her room after the procedure. Again, she had dinner and then read old newspapers as two Marine guards stood outside her door all night.

Doctor Freidlander, accompanied by Major Schoonmaker, visited Jenetta in her room the next morning.

"I have news," the doctor said. "You've been positively identified as Ensign Jenetta Carver."

"Well, it's nice to be recognized at last."

"Perhaps not," the Major said. He raised an electronic clipboard and read, "Ensign Jenetta Alicia Carver, serial number 3974A32, by order of the base commander I arrest you for being AWOL from your unit."

"
What?
" Jenetta shouted, jumping off the bed. "My unit was destroyed in an explosion in 2256. I spent more than ten years floating around in an escape pod stasis chamber."

"You'll have a chance to defend yourself at your hearing, Ensign. My orders are only to bring you to the brig."

"The brig? Why? Officers are normally just restricted to quarters for a minor charge like AWOL."

"I don't write the orders, Ensign. I do know that other charges are pending. The JAG attorney appointed to represent you will visit you at the detention center."

Jenetta made a face, then calmed and said, "May I have some privacy to get dressed. There aren't any other exits to this room."

"Before you leave I want to change the dressing on the incision that I made yesterday," Doctor Freidlander said. "Turn around please, Ensign."

After removing the bandage on her scalp, Doctor Freidlander squinted at the area where he had made the incision. He then maneuvered Jenetta closer to the bright lights over the bed to get a better look.

"I don't understand this. The incision is healed. In fact, there's no mark to even show where I made it. It's as if I never performed the procedure."

"I'm a fast healer, Doctor."

"
Nobody
is that fast of a healer, Ensign. I need to look into this further."

"Not today, Doctor," Major Schoonmaker said. "I have orders to bring the Ensign to the brig and that's where she'll be if you wish to examine her."

"As the attending physician, I decide when a patient can be released from my care, Major."

"You forget, Doctor, you've already declared her fit for duty and released her into my custody."

"This situation supersedes that release."

"Take it up with Commander Kanes if you have a problem, Doctor. Get dressed, Ensign."

"Yes sir, Major."

The doctor stormed out and the Major left calmly without saying another word, the door closing behind them. Jenetta dressed quickly into the uniform she had worn when entering the hospital and brushed her hair. When she was ready to leave, she opened the door. Four armed guards stood there; one of them holding a set of prisoner transport restraints.

"You're kidding, right?" Jenetta said apprehensively as she stared at the restraints.

"Sorry, ma'am," the sergeant in charge of the detail said. "Orders."

As a captive of the Raiders, Jenetta had felt like a prisoner of war, and the restraints they'd used to control her had been almost like badges of courage. But to be treated like this by her own military inflicted a sense of shame and degradation that the Raiders would never have been able to impose. Her face reflected her feelings as the guard placed the belt around her waist, locked it on, and then attached her wrists to the belt. Another guard bent down and attached the composite material ‘leg irons' to her ankles. With a guard holding each arm, she was escorted out of the hospital. The twenty-centimeter length of chain between the leg irons caused her stumble constantly as the guards pulled her along faster than she could possibly move her feet, and they were half dragging her and half carrying her by the time they reached the waiting gp. A news photographer in the hospital lobby observed the action and recorded the entire event on video for posterity.