This Starry Deep (5 page)

Chapter
6
– Jonah

AFTER A WHILE I thought better of just standing there and went back into the house to grab a few things. Not much: a decent-sized bag of personal items and clothes, a few equipment boxes, and the like. I got it all outside and locked the house down. I put all of its systems into sleep mode and rerouted the phone to my personal communicator. By the time I was finished, there was a ship landing on my front lawn.

Wide and solid, the thing was built like a brick. Extraction and personnel ships never did have style. Still, it shone in the night, gleaming like a dark promise. The thing settled down, lowering itself the last few feet on air jets.  Running lights flashed from warning red to approachable green and the pilot hatch opened.

“Captain Madison?” the pilot asked, climbing down to greet me.

“Jonah,” I said, and nodded.

“Spaceman first class Malik, sir. I—” he looked at the stack of boxes next to me, “well, sir, I’m not sure that all of that is allowable cargo.”

“Malik? All of that has to go with me.”

He nodded, caught between his conflicting duties, “No, I understand that, sir, but those three boxes were reading as high-grade cargo from the air. Regulations state—”

“That you can’t transport them without proper paperwork, security, and authorization, right?” I asked.

He nodded. And there was his problem. His first job was to get me up to the command ship as soon as possible. His second job was to fly correctly, where “correctly” meant that he followed the rules and didn’t endanger anyone through neglect. Letting my cargo onboard could constitute neglect if something went wrong, and that could cost him his flight status. I felt bad for him.

“Well Malik, I do understand your situation,” I said, swallowing my impatience, “but you need to see the bigger picture. You were told this was a high priority recall, yes?”

“Yes, sir, Captain Madison—”

“Jonah,” I corrected him.

“Jonah,” he corrected smoothly, if uneasily, “but if my sweep readings were right, I can’t take those crates.”

“Look,” I said, feeling the annoyance threaten to creep into my voice, “nothing is going to go wrong with these crates.” I pulled out my blaster. “These things are built to withstand more firepower than either of us have. Hell, you could drop them from orbit and they wouldn’t crack.” I fired directly at one of the black crates and the surface shrugged it off, not even marring.

“Uhm,” Malik said, raising an eyebrow, “is that an Acadian blaster?”

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. I holstered the gun and kicked a crate, “and see, the crates are fine. So why don’t we load them up and go already?”

“Sir, Jonah, Acadian blasters are illegal. I can’t transport that, either.”

Which is when I lost my temper for a second. “Damn it all, you have your orders and you’ll fulfill them! This stuff goes or I don’t. Is that clear, Spaceman First Class?”

“Yes sir, sir!” he barked, on instinct. I outranked him and there was only so much he could push. “But we’ll have to wait for—”

“I’ll authorize it, and take full responsibility. I’m sure there are recorders on your ship that are picking this up, so there’s your certified auth. Let’s get this stuff on board.”

Malik took a deep breath and held it, as if waiting for lighting to strike him down. None came, and he started to help me load the three matching crates into the ship, keeping silent. We finished quickly enough and I started for the passenger hatch. As much as I wanted to sit in the copilot seat, I knew it wouldn’t be allowed and I didn’t want to push my luck forcing the poor guy to break too many regulations.

“Sir,” Malik said, in a tone of voice I was already familiar with. He had a problem.

“Yeah?” I asked, knowing what it was before I asked.

“The blaster, sir, Jonah, I can’t. An illegal weapon, in a side holster? It isn’t even locked down.”

“The gun stays.”

“On board, sir, you’ll have to put it in a passenger safe lock.”

“We’ll see. Let’s get going, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

He climbed back into the cockpit and I trundled up into the passenger area. This being a military transport ship, it wasn’t exactly lush. Acceleration couches sat lining the walls, each one with a secure storage area under the seat.

The storage boxes were big enough for rifles, and really only designed for larger munitions then a handgun. My blaster would have rattled around in there, possibly doing some surface damage to it. Not that I would notice a few more scratches along the grip, but I saw no reason to bother.

So I thumbed the box open and then closed, knowing Malik couldn’t see me but would register the lock cycle on his panel. As long as he thought I locked down the gun, he would be fine with it. What he didn’t know wouldn’t force me to consider hurting him.

The engines cycled on, lifting via air jet for the first few feet. Then the thrusters cut in, softly, and we rumbled to life. The ship vibrated and tilted as Malik changed our angle of attack, nosing up against the pull of gravity. I had no windows, no way to see what was going on outside, but I didn’t need to. I knew takeoff like I knew the back of my hand.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, enjoying every second of it. The engines picked up and roared to full life. My body felt like it compressed, becoming paper thin as the vibrations increased, shattering my sense of self for an instant.

We broke clear of atmosphere cleanly. The engines settled for a minute, and I felt the lurch to weightlessness. I kept count in my head and ended up only a few seconds off. The engines cut back in and internal gravity settled over my body, dragging me back down.

The ship accelerated, providing that funny feeling that always accompanies travelers in artificial gravity. The pitch of the engines told me we were moving, speeding up, but inside the ship I could feel no actual sign of it. The gravity field cancelled out and kept us all at one Earth standard.

Maybe it was because I had spent so much time dealing with them, but artificial gravity fields
felt
artificial. There were subtle clues, if you knew what to look for. The fields just felt off, and it took me a second to settle into myself again.

Gravity fields, engines and all, had helped us expand out through space. But the bigger the ship, the less they could use them. You couldn’t use gravity as a raw engine for anything bigger than the smallest of crafts, or the forces when you turned would rip a ship apart.

So medium-sized ships like this, able to carry twenty or less, only used them as environmental fields to keep passengers safe, and to help with higher acceleration. Bigger ships, like the command-class cruiser we headed toward, would use the fields the same way, not able to really let the engines incorporate the fields to push more than a smidge. Smaller, single-person fighters could engage gravity engines for a short push, but normally kept the interior gravity off unless the ship was making such a hard velocity shift that you needed the field to stay alive.

The command ship wasn’t far beyond the moon and we made good time, Malik being a good pilot and keeping us on the closest course possible. Before I grew fidgety we were docking, our gravity field snapping off so it wouldn’t interfere with the larger ship’s own doings.

Malik hit the doors and managed to meet me before I could climb out. He was good. I made a note of him in my head and gave him a nod as I passed. Normally I would’ve stopped and chatted, talked about the flight plan and whatnot. Not this time. Malik seemed to understand, at least, nodding back and standing at attention with his helmet under his arm.

There was a young kid waiting for me as I walked off the ship. Had to be Mills. He had the look, that nervous glance, the underlying steel just starting to form with experience.

“Captain Madison—” Mills started, but I cut him off with a shake of my head.

“Jonah.”

“Jonah,” he corrected, “we should go talk to the General.”

“We should. Where is she? Where’d they take her?”

“The General can discuss that with you,” Mills told me, turning sharply and starting to walk away.

I grabbed him arm and turned him back to me, being none too polite about it. I wasn’t in the mood for games, protocol, or niceties.

“Mills,” I told him, staring hard into his eyes, “you’ll tell me what you know - what
you
know,” I repeated clearly, “as we walk. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” he said softly. I let go of his arm and we walked off the flight deck and into the bowels of the ship.

Chapter
7
– Jonah

THE COMMAND BRIDGE surrounded me sleekly, convincing me my age would be a hindrance. I try not to get caught in the trap of “in my day,” but I admit to having difficulty once the gleaming command nexus started curving in every direction. Had I really been out of the game long enough for them to redesign the major ships in the fleet - again?

I knew the answer to that question and also knew better than to ask it. Damn. Still, a bridge is a bridge. So what if I felt like I stood on a kid’s toy? It worked, right?

“This place works, right?” I asked Mills. I gave him a small shrug to punctuate the question.

“Uhhh, yes sir?” he answered, hesitating. Great, now the kid was wondering whether senility had set in. Perfect. No, none of it mattered. I shoved everything out and only let Shae in. Focus.

The General came on deck not long after Mills and I. Hodges looked utterly in control as his men stood and saluted him. I knocked one out for him, too - after all, I stood in his house. He looked me up and down and noted the weapon at my belt with disdain.

“Captain Madison,” he said, walking quickly over to me.

“Jonah, General, just Jonah. Now, where’d they take my wife?”

“Easy there, Captain,” he said, stopping a foot or so away and facing me dead on. Hodges and I didn’t have too much history - I’d heard of him while he came up the ranks but never bothered to really follow the man’s career. I couldn’t keep track of everyone. What I did know boiled down to him being mostly business with the occasional dumb risk to get things done. That all wrapped before he hit General, though. Since then we’d talked once or twice, but nothing critical or even memorable. I just knew I’d never grown warm to the man.

“Easy my ass. You wanted me here to stop some sort of invasion. Fine. I’m here to get my wife. Let’s not misunderstand each other, General, sir,” I told him. He didn’t faze at all.

“And we’ll get her back, Captain,” he said, “but we also do have priorities. Yes, of course, getting your wife back is one of them, but working out what we’re up against and then
stopping it
has to take precedence.”

Not true, but no point in telling him that just then. Shrugging, I added a quick nod to keep us moving somewhere useful.

Mills redirected the conversation before I could, putting a hand to his ear and growing pale. “Sir,” he addressed Hodges, “we have reports of the long-rage command group about to engage the invaders.”

“Already?” Hodges looked surprised.

“Yes sir, General. Flight leader says that it’s a small recon force.”

“Perfect. Captain Madison, would you accompany me to the battle deck? This is exactly why I wanted your help.” Hodges wasted no time, starting to move as soon as Mills mentioned the established contact. I liked that.

“Only if you call me Jonah,” I said, already falling in step behind him.

“Jonah, then,” he said over his shoulder, “this way.”

Mills stayed right with us and the three of us left the command bridge, taking a lift down into the battle deck. Battle decks never changed, no matter how sleek they made the bridges. A battle deck was all function.

One large plotting area sat in the center of the large open space, a big table with a screen embedded in it to display whatever the field of combat happened to be. Markers for us and them sat along the edges, being moved into position silently by deck hands with earpieces, listening to navigation updates. All around the outer rim of the room, other people stood by: on communications, collating data, bringing the field reports in and handing them off to the deck hands who made them come to life on that table. That awful table.

I hated battle decks, even as I made sure not to blame the men and women who manned them for my distaste. No matter how you measured it, the problem came out the same: I couldn’t deal with anyone who was so removed from what a fight felt like trying to help me fight one. I knew those were their jobs and they were good at them, but battle decks and I didn’t see eye to eye. And now I stood on one, apparently expected to help them, somehow.

“You’ve had no contact with them before this?” I asked Hodges, who raised an eyebrow at me.

“We have had limited contact, but nothing definitive enough to consider telling. This is our first engagement.”

“That’s not what Mills told me.”

“It’s what Mills knew,” Hodges said, resting his hands on the edges of the plotting area. “Let’s get this board live!” he barked, and our discussion of how much anyone knew ended with a snap.

The plotting area flickered to life, stars and planets fuzzing into view. Deck hands quickly pushed markers into position. I looked around for Hodges’ other battle advisors and realized that the three of us were the only ones who didn’t live in this space.

“Hodges,” I asked, ignoring chain of command and all of that. I didn’t care and was sick of pretending. “Where’s the rest of your battle crew?”

“That’s General, Jonah,” he corrected me, but not unkindly, “and we are the battle crew. This whole thing is being kept hush-hush, orders from above. It’s why we needed you.”

“Because you can’t trust your own men? That doesn’t wash, General.”

“It’s the truth, Jonah,” he lied to me.

“Yeah, sure. It still doesn’t wash.”

“Listen, Captain Madison,” he said, spitting out the words, “this whole operation is classified. We don’t want to leak that we’ve had contact until we know more.”

“No dice yet, General.” I turned and looked around the room. We were still crewed, just not with actual advisors. Which meant that Hodges didn’t want to hear anything other than his input, and mine.

It brought up a question of why he would want that: what was he trying to keep away from me? I could’ve assumed he wanted to keep information from his advisors, but really the variable in the room was me, which shifted things in my direction. I bit back a wave of old-standing paranoia and brushed away the feeling that the events unfolding were being faked for my benefit. The expense, uselessness, and sheer audacity of someone trying that didn’t hold water. No, Hodges kept something from me, possibly multiple somethings, though I couldn’t begin to tell what they were, and found himself willing to put his own men at risk for it. That pissed me off.

Shae still held the top spot in my focus, but if Hodges tossed his own men, good men, to the wolves just to play games…bile rose in my throat. Those men and women were all a Shae to someone waiting back home. The operation stood live, regardless, and my anger wouldn’t do any good – and neither would leaving. All I could do was win this.

I gripped the edge of the table tight and took a deep breath. Hodges watched me, uncertain as to what thoughts roiled across my brain. Good. Let him wonder. I’d do my job and then explain to him exactly why he was a damned fool. Probably teaching him the lesson at the end of my fist.

The board sat, lit and waiting. Techs stood back, only reaching in when they found a marker to shift. I watched the angles unfold in front of me and turned, looking behind me.

“Get these markers off the board,” I demanded.

The techs gaped at me and when I turned back, Hodges had the same look on his face. They were thinking like a battle group, which may have been right for what they normally did, but I couldn’t think that way. I had no training, not in this state of the game, I keyed off of being in the battle, not watching it from afar and calling plays.

“Get me more star markers. Color code them for battle groups,” I said quickly, “and throw them in the holographic field. I need all three dimensions, damn it!”

How anyone ever helped run a battle operation on a flat table when we piloted across an entire extra angle baffled me. I’d seen it done - I knew it could be done, obviously, otherwise no one would still do it - but it felt wrong.

The star field shifted and grew in size. Colors changed, mimicking the marker colors used previously. The board techs stayed away from the table, their job changing before their eyes. No markers to move meant no reason for them to stand there and help out. Instead they moved to the walls, shifting placement of the new “stars,” my makeshift markers. I nodded at Hodges and watched tiny dots move around a field. Our men were outnumbered, but not too drastically.

“What’s the goal, here, General?” I asked him, fighting to regain full composure, at least verbally.

“Take them out, but grab at least two prisoners in the process. We need to know more.”

“Fair enough.” I glanced behind me again. “Hey, can you rig up call signs to show with the battle group?” The techs nodded at me, and a short while later names popped into place.

The two groups closed toward visual range. We tensed in the room as, I’m sure, they did in the ships themselves.