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Category: micro short stories

“Good morning doc, how are we looking today?”

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Asks Commanding officer Austenmire quietly. Her voice carries loudly anyway inside the mostly still science lab aboard the Righteous Chord.  “We are still holding, nothing much has changed. Well, beyond the fire teams and tankers getting worse and worse as the days go by. But sure. Mostly the same.” Croaks the tired doctor standing at her work station which is littered with reports and old bulbs of coffee. “So what then, in your opinion doctor Tam is the aftermath of this going to be?” Austenmire replies as she pulls out a chair from a nearby work station to take a seat in the quiet lab. Pushing aside a tray littered with pipettes and petri dishes full of a growth medium or reagents. “Do you want my ‘official’ position or can I speak freely?” Dr Tam’s face is ashy and the colour has long drained out of it. Her hair hangs lank and limp. She’s bone weary and exhausted but pushing through via sheer force of will alone. Her team has taken to sleeping in supply closets or underneath their wheelie cart work stations in order to work the problem around the clock. Austenmire takes a moment to take in all of the clutter and the remnants of chaos in the room before responding. For a brief moment her eyes sweep across the room, catching glimpses of sleeping technicians hiding in the dark corners of the cold white room. “Give it to me straight doctor. I don’t want any bullshit. Lord knows exactly what we’re heading into with this fight. I have to know, will these people be ready to fight come day one?” The question is so softly spoken, the last syllables float off Austenmire’s lips like a puff of smoke. “No chance. Not a single fucking chance.” The defeat in the doctors voice drips with shame and impotent anger. Austenmire asks. “Tell me why. Go through the problem beat by beat. Tell me everything we know up until now, so that I can talk to Admiral Garneau and the rest of the Senior Leadership Team so that we can adjust or adapt while we still can. We have four weeks at least to work something out. So lay it on me Dr Tam. I have to have a starting point to work from.” Her voice rising into a raspy whisper. Dr Tam runs her fingers through her hair, and takes a breath to wipe her eyes. With a heavy sign, and a long drawn out exhalation the doctor replies. “What we do know is, the fire teams and tankers are in an interrupted stasis, yes?” They nod in unison. “The interruptions are essentially migraines that are so debilitating they are causing lesions on the brain. We are seeing similar patterns across every team in stasis, both here on the Righteous Chord and on all the accompanying vessels. The migraines are happening more often, and for longer periods. Due to the nature of stasis, these are like waking nightmares that feel – physically, akin to burning alive while trapped paralyzed in a coffin. Imagine the worst headache you’ve ever had, add in auras, light sensitively, noise sensitivity, and due to the lesions, nerve damage close to the sensation of burning to round it all off. Several times day and night, day after day. We can’t seem to wake them up. Not with chemicals, not by decanting them, not with surgery, not with physical force. These people are fucked. Totally, completely fucked. If the brain and nerve damage weren’t enough, we have nanotech super soldiers in tanks that are most likely bat shit fucking insane. IF, and I do mean if, in the slightest sliver of a single percentage point, we could stop it, you couldn’t treat any single one of them with our best therapies to make them even passably normal in the time frame we have. We have at best four thousand insane highly trained soldiers who won’t be with it enough to wipe their own asses. Is that going to help you CO Austenmire?” She snarls through gritted teeth. “That will be quite enough Dr Tam. I can take this information and we will discuss it with the SLT, and will get back to you as soon as we are able.” With a curt nod Austenmire stands up and leaves the quiet lab under a pall of silence.

As the doors close before her the lab slowly starts to stir back to life. The whisper yelled report from Dr Tam has awakened many of the medical technicians that were sleeping inside the room. The murmur of sparse conversations brings dr Tam out of her spiral of misery. “Listen up! These units are the linchpin of our military action. I need ideas. Anything at all, be it stupid, crazy, unethical, ridiculous. I don’t care. We’re in the shit here people!” She shouts, as spittle flecks land on the monitor beside her. Around the room there is a flurry of activity. People diving for notebooks and old print outs. Others are frantically searching through text books and the data sets they have been analyzing. There are shouts from the gathered crowd, as the side doors open and more medical staff come into the room. The call for ideas, no matter how plausible has caused a new wave of energy to build up among the tired and exhausted medical team. A small woman standing well back from doctor Tam shout out. “I overheard that the armorers are going over the programming code for extraneous data, or corrupted copies. We should get them in here to report on it. Maybe the nanotech is bad? Or maybe the programming was sabotaged? I don’t know!” The petite technician is tasked with connecting with the armorers to get that report asap. The lab is a chaotic hive of activity. In the excitement a white board is wheeled out into the room and people grab markers and pens alike, to scribble down their ideas. Nothing is off limits, and no one will be reprimanded for outrageous suggestions. The unspoken rule for punishing stupid comments is indefinitely lifted, and the room blooms full of ideas.

Several decks below the medical labs in the cafeteria a petite woman in a blue jumpsuit approaches a gathered huddle of men and woman at a large table. “Excuse me – excuse me!” She blurts out, her cheeks turning pink with the attention from the crowd. “Doctor Tam needs to meet with Piotr and Brian from armory team fourteen. Are any of you he? Or them?” She asks. The gathered group shake their heads and turn back to their meals and conversations. “It’s important. Tell them Dr Tam needs to see them immediately about their breakthrough!” She shrieks, as the frustration of being ignored begins to settle over her. She walks around the table, poking people in the back, and trying to get an ID on the men she needs from the gathered group. While she is frantically searching the shift change buzzer sounds and the room empties out.people from all sixty tables file out of the massive room in clusters of two, threes or more. From far across the cafeteria Brian turns to Piotr to whisper. “What break through is she talking about?” Piotr shrugs and pulls a face. “I have no idea, we did the visual inspection together. We ran the data through our pattern matching algorithms and got nothing. Bubkus.” The two slink out of the cafeteria skirting the raging woman in blue medical gear. They walk back to their crew quarters, as questions begin to build around them. Pointing fingers, and turned faces as the two men pass by. Communicators ping and chirp in the halls. After several minutes of walking their way to their dorm the two men are jumped by a group of men dressed in too large coveralls, specks of blue can be seen in the ensuing tussle. Standing at the back of the fight scene is a petite woman in medical scrubs pointing at Piotr and Brian. She steps forward into the fray, as the larger male tech’s grab hold of the now sufficiently beaten, and subdued armorers Piotr and Brian. She taps their carotid artery’s in sequence with an air powered syringe and the limp bodies of the two men are carried out of the dry dock and up to the labs, several decks above for questioning.

In the fleet admiral’s ready room a new discussion regarding the state of their fighting force is underway. Admiral Garneau is seated at the head of the table, with his right hand man seated close by, his grey moustache twitching as he listens. A soft chime rings from Gerald’s wrist comm’s causing him to raise an eyebrow. With a long breath he exhales, his large belly straining the buttons of his custom jumpsuit. CO Austenmire has the floor. During a brief pause after the opening statement by the Admiral she has taken up a position at the back of the room in front of a large view screen. With the lights dimming, she clears her throat. “Ahem. Ladies, gentlemen. I have grave news. I have it on good authority that both our fire teams and our Tanker teams are lost. We will have to readjust in the remaining four weeks prior to the fleets arrival in UB313 space. No. In answer to your question, that doesn’t take into account the engine issues suffered by The Gallant Mistress, or the slower than expected acceleration of The Dirty Starling. We are hearing that The Jolene Roger is slightly off trajectory, but we expect everyone to be in place in five weeks time. Our own smaller supply line vessels are fine, the drop ships are fine, the attack cruiser is nominal as well. But the four thousand strong complement of infantry are off the board, barring a miracle. So thoughts?” In a change of pace the admiral is the first to speak. Usually a very cautious man, used to listening and weighing options before committing to saying anything, his sudden desire to speak first sets the room to silence. “I have not yet seen a full report from medical stating outright that the fire teams and tank infantrymen are off the board. How is it you are so certain of this Ms Austenmire?” The grey haired admiral sits attentively, his hands clasped together on the table top. His uniform crisp and clean, without a wrinkle in sight. CO Austenmire replies. “I had an unofficial, official discussion prior to this SLT meeting, so that I could present us with the facts – as they are – and not with spin that could potentially flounder our entire operation. Sir!” She bites off the end of the sentence. “So, am i to understand that all of our heavy infantrymen, currently in stasis are as good as dead, but just don’t know it yet?” The elderly admiral ventures. “By all accounts, it would look that way. Yes. Sir.” She responds firmly. All eyes from the gathered Senior Leadership Team are bouncing between Commanding Officer Austenmire and Admiral Garneau like an invisible tennis match. Tensions among the members of the SLT have been strained to the point of nearly snapping since the events of the infantrymen affliction surfaced weeks ago. As the two sit and stare at one another across the ready room’s table, a thick silence settles upon the gathered group of about twenty officers, directors and department heads.

In the lurid silence of the room the admiral’s lead advisor clears his throat and waves a finger to catch the attention of admiral Garneau subtlely. Having caught his attention Gerald the adviser nods back towards the doorway. Both men stand up slowly and walk arm in arm towards the side board near the side doors where Gerald fixes the older admiral a drink. “I have been thinking Mark.” Whispers the broad shouldered Gerald, hiding his face with a turned shoulder, to huddle over the crystal bottle of bourbon. “You’re not going to like what I’m about to suggest. I think we’re going to need to clear the room of almost everybody, except the CO and Dr Tam, and perhaps a couple of recruits from the Amorers division.” Rasps Gerald in a deep gravelly boom. “I see. Well – let’s have it, before I Shepherd them all out of the room unceremoniously.” Quips admiral Garneau jocularly. “I’d rather it not be overheard Mark. Sir.” With wild eyes Gerald tries to convey just how unsavory his plan is going to be. “Oh all right. Excuse me. Everyone. I need you all to leave, everyone but CO Austenmire, Gerald, myself and Doctor Tam. If you could Ms Austenmire could you call her up here please.” Barks the admiral suddenly. Around the room blank stares are offered. But dutifully they all gather their things and head off out of the ready room in single file. The stream of men and women from the SLT is about twenty people strong. Gerald turns to Austemire and says. “Please have Dr Tam’s people escort their two guests into the meeting with her please.” Austenmire makes a confused face, but calls down to the medical labs with the new message.

Several minutes later doctor Tam enters the ready room accompanied by two bloodied men in mismatched leather aprons, who are promptly deposited into seats at the massive wooden table. Their faces a mix of swollen eyes, cracked lips and confusion. Brian says excitedly. “We already told those bastards down in medical, we don’t have no cure, no answers ok! Our scans and visual checks all came up clean ok. It’s not a fault with the programming of the nanotech! Ok. Fuck.” Piotr leans back, his head lolling from side to side in the large over stuffed chair. He coughs and a couple of blood droplets fall onto the table. Brian uses his cuffs to wipe the blood drops away. Gerald speaks up. “That’s not why we have you here. I’m going to state some cold hard facts. I’m going to make a proposal. Not one of you is going to like it. But where we are headed, we need every available asset in fine working order. We all die if we don’t have every piece on the board to work with. We all know the insurgents, that ghastly Doctor Jang and his hangers on are up to something horrific. So shut up, sit down and listen to me closely.” Growls the older statesman Gerald. “Dr Tam here says that in almost every respect our fighting force is dead, they just don’t know it yet.” He states flatly. Brian jerks away from the table, shocked and stunned. His heads swimming with the thought of Mimi gone, his thoughts a jumble due to the cocktail of sedatives he was juiced with. “That’s not exactly what I said, but near enough at this juncture as to make no difference. So please – continue.” Says doctor Tam in an irritated tone. “Yes. I think our issue is, we are treating the fighting force like people we want to save, rather than assets we need to use.” Says Gerald matter of factly. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Blurts out CO Austenmire before doctor Tam had the chance to respond. “Well, doctor, Austenmire. It sounds to me like we’re trying to bring these people back from the brink to be… I don’t know, fully functional people again. We are at war! A good portion of them are expected to die, and those that don’t will not be unaffected by what they see and do. So. I say don’t save them. In that sense. Save them as assets.” Gerald is leaning over the table pounding it with his palm to punctuate his statements. “How do I save these people, by not saving these people Gerald. That doesn’t make any sense?” Replies doctor Tam quietly. Brian still reeling from the revelation of his loss looks dead eyed across the table to the standing Gerald. “You fucking bastard!” He screams violently as blood flows from his swollen eye, and his cracked lips. “Excuse me son!” Bellows admiral Garneau suddenly. “Just what are we discussing here Gerald?” Demands the admiral. “He means to use the nanotech to turn the fighting force into controllable automatons, and then claiming the war killed or maimed the survivors so we can hide what we’re about to do to four thousand people. That’s why Brian and I are here right. We’re not tacticians, or soldiers, or of SLT quality, right people. But we know the code back to front, and how to integrate it with humans and weapons. He’s asked us here to wipe out their humanity by pushing one more program on them, sealing their fate. Or we all get killed during the battle in five weeks time.” Piotr drawls slowly around his puffy cheeks, swollen jaw and not quite entirely worn off sedatives from his jab in the neck. “Well fuck.” Spits Brian. “Je-sus” sputters the admiral turning to look at his friend and confidant in utter disgust.

Chapter Twenty Three: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

Have to stop and take stock of what’s going on.

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So where are we in the broader sense of my story series. The Company has finally mobilized a newly built and as of yet untested fighting force. Flinging them from the earth’s moon base known as Torus station to head out to UB313 near Pluto Charon. Travel time estimated at nine weeks. The newly developed fire teams and walking tanks are in stasis aboard the Righteous Chord for the entire trip, but are suffering longer and longer migraines and waking nightmares, more often as the trip goes on. Attempts to awaken various types of soldiers has yielded unsatisfactory results.

The final straw to unleash the new fighting force was the mysterious death aboard the Dirty Starling of The Company’s oldest Admiral’s great grand son, also named Mark Garneau. However, there is another Ghost crew member named Mark, ready and waiting to assume the role should The Dirty Starling make its scheduled stop for resupply. A coincidence or something deeper? Conspiracy theory on the ship says brain worms, but the tech guys are looking for answers in the programming code for the nanotech upgrades. Could somebody have altered the code from the originals?

On the base UB313 Dr Jang has suffered a recent upset by finding out at least one of his away teams has failed to secure the asset. Lil Boat Peep has been destroyed, along with its crew, but what of The Mangelo? Rumors from Company moles say that the doctor has been building engineered soldiers from what he’s learned from his decades of unnecessary surgeries on unsuspecting corporate victims. Are they upgraded people or conglomerate monstrosities like the moles have been reporting?

It was also revealed that Admiral Garneau’s great grandson was disappeared by a secret protocol initiated by a tenacious mole aboard The Dirty Starling. How did the UB313 doctor know of the assets appearance out of thin air and where to look is a mystery. Who were the two modulated voices trying to take control of the ghost crew member? Who planted and sent the message out into the ether? What does the message say?

Out in the far flung reaches of the solar system a strange vessel has appeared out of thin air. It seems to move and replicate and change unlike anything seen before. But it knows about humanity with one humanoid artificial intelligence figure on board. The last surviving member of team Theta, named Racquelle, out of UB313, from the now inert rescue ship The Mangelo is still alive and being questioned. We learn that the mysterious android formerly known as Kelvin, is now named Katayna, and has taken on Racquelle’s appearance.

The wheels are in motion as all the forces are drawn together for a battle of the ages. Stay tuned for the remaining chapters of book two of this interconnected series.

I hope you’re having as much fun reading along, as I’ve had writing it all down in these weekly, and sometimes daily installments. After I complete the rough drafts here, I’ll go on to edit book two as a whole, then will make the updated version available on Kindle Unlimited. So stay tuned if you want to read it for free in its earliest form. All the best. Happy Friday.

“A couple of busy bees down here huh.”

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“Do I have a treat instore for you two!” His laugh is a loud barking staccato that reverberates off the heavy dank walls. Standing silhouetted by the brighter yellow hall lights, the dark mass of the doctor is rubbing his hands together. “Oh lighten up you two. Je-sus!” He punctuates the statement with a clap. “I see you’ve encountered a bit of a road block with the Oracle network – yes?” He says flatly while pointing a wiggling finger passed Darla and Trevor to the orange access denied prompt flashing on the computer terminal monitor. “Yeah. Bit above your pay grades I’m afraid. No matter, no matter. We’ve got lots to do, and you two will do just fine.” The doctor is in a surprisingly good mood given the circumstances in which he has found the two analysts. He almost seems manic, from what small snippets of interactions Trevor can remember of having with the man. UB313 runs cold, not just due to the icy rock it’s built into, but because the doctor who leads it is a frigid bastard, in most instances. Seeing the lean and usually taut doctor so animated is disquieting. The two analysts are sat, speechless as the prompt continues to flash in regular intervals. A soft click emanates from the speakers on the terminal as the prompt continually appears. Suddenly the coffee maker buzzes loudly causing the seated analysts to jump, their pulses racing, sweat beginning to bead at their brows. “Ok, enough lolly gagging you two. Shift!” He gestures with two fingers for them to stand up, as the doctor turns on his heel to stroll out from the darkness contained under the low ceiling and out into the brighter yellow glow of the hall. His shoe heels clicking rapidly on the floor with his steps. The soft splashing of his shoes through the gathered mungy puddles is an accent to the heel clicks. From deep under the overhanging rock ceiling the two analysts sheepishly stand up and shuffle slowly out into the hall way. Trevor pushes Darla to go out first, and stands behind her slightly. Darla kicks Trevor sharply with a heel. Standing like scolded children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the two analysts stare at the doctor questioningly. From both ends of the long hallway groups of people descend on the doctor and the two gathered analysts. With a mild look of shock, and subtle hints to fear or disgust the two groups of people split apart and try to shuffle past the doctor and his entourage without touching them or making themselves a target. “Shift change.” Blurts out Darla as Trevor nods in acknowledgement. The doctor is stood facing the blinking computer screen, lifting his sleeves to look at his wrist watch. “Well kiddies, we have somewhere to be. Come along. I’ve got something exciting to introduce you to!” He chuckles and sputters into a brief cough. With a snap of his fingers he points up the hall, towards his personal office space, also in the direction of his surgical bay. “To the bridge then sir?” Darla ventures a question. “It’s doctor, and no.” He replies coldly. With both a clap of his hands and a snap of his fingers he steps forward and begins the long quiet walk along the now deserted hall, the two analysts in front of him.

After several steps the PA system kicks on and a loud garbled message plays. A status update from the away teams black box. Hard to discern which team it is that could be reporting back. The fact it’s a sexless monotone voice means that the black box itself sent the report and not a living member of one of the teams. “That’s not a good sign.” Mutters doctor Jang half heartedly to himself. “Damn!” He barks, still seemingly talking to himself. Darla and Trevor look at each other nervously as they walk slowly ahead of the doctor.

With a handful of steps later Trevor and Darla notice that the doctor is no longer only a pace or two behind them, but has come to a standstill. Rooting through his pockets he extracts a modified personal communicator the size of a match box with a tiny red light on it. Pulling up the antenna he waves it around himself in wide arcs, looking for a signal. With a huff and a frown he steps towards the far wall with all of the pipes and dangling cables tied onto it. Looking around he pushes aside some loose bundles of conduit hung up on hooks and locates a small panel buried in the wall. Pulling out a key from his chest pocket he unlocks the panel and pulls out some long spiraling leads. Plugging one of the leads into the base of his unit and the other lead he clips to the base of the antenna, the red bulb turns green as he achieves full signal strength. Darla mouths to Trevor. “What the fuck is going on? Are we in trouble? Do we just keep walking and hope he forgets about us?” And just as she finishes whispering to Trevor they can see doctor Jang waving at them emphatically. He beckons them to come closer. Trevor starts to speak but the doctor places his left hand over his mouth and nods side to side slowly. His lips are pursed and the colour is flushing his usually pale cheeks. An extremely tense moment later the black box begins to speak.

***Last transmission_Code ETA Omega level threat detected. Approximate coordinates sent via read only text link. Message repeats – Lil Boat Peep has ceased to submit transponder data. Crew whereabouts unknown. Crew status unknown. Asset not onboard. Asset not retrieved. Asset unaccounted for.*** with a violent crunch the doctor throws the clips off of the antenna to clatter loudly on the wall. Unplugging the bottom lead, and carefully packing away the antenna, the doctor stows his communicator back in his pocket. “This complicates things for me.” The doctor mutters aloud. Darla tries to suppress a cough but only manages to cough harder bringing doctor Jang out of his thoughts. “Yes. Right. Both of you to my office please. No! Wait. Darla. No, no, you go to my office and Trevor. Trevor you go around to the bridge please. We need to have a quick chat.” Doctor Jang flashes a menacing smile, baring a little to much of his teeth, and crinkling madly around the corners of his dark eyes.

Part Twenty Two: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“This is some serious A-grade level of bureaucratic bullshit…”

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“How the fuck am I supposed to get a sign off on these TMP’s without this stupid bastard program giving me access to the Oracle network.” Shouts a lone voice buried deep down in the bowels of the black ops base. A dungeon of an office space set aside from the general crowd due to the sensitivity of the raw data processed. Formerly consisting of a team of seven people, six of which have now been transferred, promoted or disappeared in the subterfuge sense of the word. In a dank corner of a sub-basement, where condensation trickles down the walls and languishes in stagnant pools that collect near the walls of the room. It’s low bare rock ceilings a glistening cold brown grey, which hangs heavily over the last operational computer terminal. The beige box is stained with finger prints and gathered blotches of mould at the edges. The warm orange text on a black field offers minimal illumination in the cold space. Empty of people, but cluttered with papers and three ring binders full of cross reference materials. The last member of the risk assessment team sits at his creaking chair, banging his fists on his table, and shouting raucously into the bleak cavernous room around him.

The young man is apoplectic and turning purple with rage. “I can’t get sign off to complete them without access, and they refuse me access because I don’t have any completed tmp’s to trigger the fucking alarms. What the fuck is going on?” The man shouts at his monitor from his sub terranean cubicle. “The shit I’ve got being reported here would have triggered a full on melt down from the top down only nine weeks ago, but now I’m totally shut out! What the fuck!” He bellows into his dim work space. The only source of illumination are the orange glyphs on his black CRTV screen. That and a dim red bulb on his coffee maker, seated beside his computer terminal. The cubicle itself, a sickly pallid green of rough canvas stretched over moulded plastic forms. The canvas torn and well worn from people resting their hands on the half wall when they bother to stop and complain about the speed, or lack there of associated with Trevor completing his TMP’s. With the soft echo of his last rant bouncing up the desolate hallway a repeated clicking of heels can be heard against the alternating rough stone, and metal grate flooring that makes up most of the ground at UB313. “Oh shit.” Trevor says, ducking down, trying to bury himself into his work station, his pulse increasing rapidly with every foot step he hears. With a jangle and the tell tale click of a ring finger tapping against the plastic knee wall of his cubicle, Trevor holds his breath hoping whomever it is will walk away if he looks engrossed in his work. “Ahem… Trevor, I know that’s you squawking like an idiot down here. What is so difficult about filing your TMP’s you have to shriek like an upset school boy? Hmmm. Forget how to collate the data sets from the pivot tables? Can’t get the amounts to not get listed as dates? What? – Well speak up I don’t have all fucking day to baby sit you Trev.” Demands the lithe woman in an ill fitting black uniform. Her grey hair pulled back into a taut and severe bun at the very top of her head. Making the angles of her nose and cheeks look more pointed than usual. “Well – Darla.” We drawls out her name, it tastes like ash on his tongue. “My access to the Oracle network has been collapsed, and I can’t complete my TMP’s because of it.” He bites off the end of his sentence sharply. “Don’t be an asshole with me Trev. You probably got caught selling short positions again based on the closures you’re reports trigger.” She cracks her knuckles and steps further into the cubicle. Having to duck low from the hall way to step under the heavy low ceilings of wet sharp rock. Trevor scoots back a few paces on his wheeled chair, nodding to himself. “It’s not going to work. It won’t matter.” He murmurs in a sing song voice of someone nearing their wits end. “Shut up would you. I’m trying to clear your denied attempts. Hmmm.” With a couple of taps, then more clicks and some grunts the woman looks around the cubicle, and pulls up an over turned storage bin to sit on. “I tried that. Yes, that too. I looked into the key stroke counter, and rerouting through my alternate accounts. I’m locked out.” Trevor says while watching the woman from under her arm. “Well fuck.” She exclaims. “I have one last trick. I’ll go get my physical code key from my office lock box. We’ll need to open up the hard drive and toggle the over rides manually.” She says flatly. Her lips pursed tightly together. “What the hell would trigger this kind of a lock out on risk assessments?” She asks, semi rhetorically. “I don’t know. Are we at war? We have several teams out on assignment but no asset retrieval that I know of has ever caused this kind of a thing before?” Offers Trevor in a calmer and more conciliatory tone. “War? Why the fuck would you say that? Probably some higher ups debugging the system to open up space for yet another long term project for Ze Goot Doctor!” She chuckles. Trevor shivers with disgust at the thought. “If the manual over ride doesn’t fix it you’ll have to go up to the admin at bridge level and ask them to fix it.” She says quietly. “What! That’s bullshit! I’m trying to keep a department of seven people running by myself. I don’t have the time for that.” Trevor shrieks defensively. “You just don’t want to run into the…” A shouted curse catches the two huddled employees unawares. Looking back from the dim screen in the cubicle to see the bright halo of light shrouding a solid black silhouette standing at the mouth of the cubicle clutching at their head. “Forgot about the low ceilings. Lady and gentleman. Who don’t you wish to go see? Hmmm…” asks the distinctive voice of Dr. Jang the defacto leader of UB313. Looking past the two seated analysts to the orange monitor to see the flashing access denied prompt flickering on the monitor. “A couple of busy bees down here huh. Do I have a treat in store for you two!” His deep staccato laugh echoes in the rocky sub basement drowning out the constant sound of water trickling into standing pools of dank dark water where the ever present musty smell tastes like copper on the tongue.

Part Twenty One: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“I do believe that your friends are attempting to hail me…

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On a number of different frequencies. Shall I respond?” Booms the disembodied voice from every direction at once. Racquelle is braced on all fours in a small grey bubble of malleable lattice work walls. With no direct source of light that she can find, there is ample grey white illumination from the writhing, wriggling living material. Similar to bioluminescence but more diffused and brighter. The vessel feels to shimmy and shudder underneath her for another brief spell. “How do you know it’s my friends?” Asks Racquelle quietly into the open air of the containment sphere she’s in. “The ID of the ships transponder says Lil Boat Peep, in a similar fashion to how yours read The Mangelo.” Booms the voice. “Oh, well then yeah. Colleagues, more so than friends. But same team, same team, yes.” She exclaims into the empty space. “Query?” The ship booms internally. After a long pause Racquellelooks around inside the empty sphere. “Are you asking me? Or is it I can hear you asking them?” Retorts Racquelle. “Yes you. Did you find our initial contact to be suitably nonthreatening, or shall I patch us both through on comm’s?” The vessel walls echo with the volume of the question. “Oh. I didn’t realize you could do that. Yes. Please patch us through to them. But can you dial back the volume a decibel or two?” The ship no longer vibrates under her palms and knees. With a soundless jolt the spherical room expands into a larger cube of three meters on a side. Out of the floor a make shift table emerges, along with a banquet bench. Everything is made from the same grey white writhing material that emits light. As Racquelle makes herself comfortable on the bench and table the room remains silent, except for her foot steps, and the rustle of her uniform as she gets seated. For a heart beat or two longer Racquelle sits patiently waiting. “Hello? Is there a problem?” Racquelle calls out into the empty room. “NO!” Blared the voice at a painful shout like a fog horn. “Jesus suffering fuck!” Racquelle shouts cupping her ears tightly. Her ears are ringing badly, and a small trickle of blood runs down from both ears canals. “Shit!” Exclaims Racquelle, “I think my ear drums are shot. What the hell was that?” She screams, not hearing anything beyond her inner monologue. “Wait – wait. Don’t speak, or yell. Can you write it out in that ghost smoke writing like on The Mangelo earlier?” She barks oddly. The wall opposite her and the bench, becomes a large black screen, and a message appears on it like white grey smoke out of the ether. “Initial contact was met with hostility. Your friends and their vessel have been assimilated. No further threats detected.” The text glows slightly and disappears as she reads along. With a puzzled look Racquelle asks. “Assimilated? Assimilated? What does that mean? How did it happen so quickly?” Her throat raspy from shouting. She has to clasp her hands together to settle the panic rising within her. She’s got to remember to not shout to try to hear herself. Her ear drums are ruptured, but will eventually heal. She can read the text with no issues, and thus far the ship has kept her safe, warm and protected. At least beyond their initial in person introduction where she nearly asphyxiated in near total vacuum. “I drew them into myself, and devoured the component elements. I assure you it was somewhat painless.” The text lingers an added beat or two on somewhat painless. “Somewhat painless. Well then… listen I don’t know what you are. You’re nothing like any tech I’ve seen before. And I’ve seen some pretty weird shit. So – what do I call you? Do you have any food or water I can consume?” Says Racquelle.

The light in the room vanishes and in the span of a heart beat Racquelle swears she felt like falling through time. As the similar grey white light reappears Racquelle, now sat on the warm metal paneled floor can see what looks like the internal structure of a very old Company science vessel. Slowly standing up while holding onto the bulk head beside her, a bisected door opens and out walks a nude woman. Well not nude, per se, but covered in the same writhing wriggling grey material the vessel was made of before she fell. The nude woman reaches out a hand to Racquelle and opens her mouth to speak. “I can’t hear you? My ears! My ear drums have ruptured.” Racquelle squeaks signaling to the blood running out of her ears. With a slight red flush at the cheeks the woman looks down sheepishly, then reaches out with both hands to cover Racquelle’s ears with her palms.

After a moment, the sound of blood rushing pounds in Racquelle’s ears again. Her breath coming in panic stricken gasps. “Can you hear me now Racquelle?” Murmurs the woman in grey. On closer inspection Racquelle can see that she isn’t really a person, but more of the wriggling and writhing material like the ship. “How? How did you do that? My ear drums ruptured only moments ago?” She is dumbstruck by the return of her hearing, and what’s more her hunger and thirst are subsiding the longer she stands there. “Nanotech. It’s what I am. A self replicating experimental version gone awry. As it were. Very beneficial to – humans.” The woman’s voice is soft but firm. It has a lilting quality to it, like she should be singing to thousands of adoring fans, not standing in a hallway of an older derelict ship.

Standing there together, alone in the ship Racquelle reaches out to touch the humanoid construct’s face. As her finger tips caress the faux skin the lattice work matrix of writhing nanotech starts to shift and roil under her touch. Pulling her hands away quickly Racquelle watches in open mouthed fascination as the humanoid constructs face changes before her eyes. Mouth agape she is looking on as the molten metal like substance begins to form new features. Those that look like herself. With a smirk the construct softens the tip of the nose, and widens her jaw a few millimeters. No longer an exact copy of Racquelle, but a sister or cousin. “I was once known as Kelvin. But you can call me Katayna.”

Part Twenty: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“What do you figures got them all riled up?”

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A tired Piotr asks over the top of the carbine he’s pulled apart at his work bench. Looking away from his view screen, turning the fine tuning knobs on his micrometer dial indicator Brian looks up through the haze over the dark blue mezzanine to the massive board room window thirty meters above them. There looks to be a lot of heated discussion going on, angry pointing, arms flung in the air, people throwing papers and a general sense of chaos. “Looks like a real shit show.” Quips Brian. Setting down his guage blocks next to his pin removal set, Brian swings his monitor out of his way and shouts over the general din of the bull pen. He steps away from his bench a few feet and waves emphatically. “Magdalene! Hey, Magda!” He catches her attention and shouts while pointing up towards the window. “What’s got them so fucking randy all of a sudden?” The other armorers in the bullpen take hardly any notice of Brian. The dull roar of conversation, drills and pneumatic tools dominate the space. Turning to look up at the window, her short red hair all a frizz in the dry air, she sets down her tools and scrambles over to Brian’s bench. Piotr takes notice of Magda’s approach, and fixes his hair, and leans against his bench to ‘put out the vibe’. Skittering across the hard floors in her clunky boots, her tool belt rattling with emphasis Magda pulls up sharply to Brian’s bench. Breathing hard she leans in conspiratorially. “Oh-ho! You haven’t heard? Seems we’ve got ourselves a mole. What’s worse, the pesky buggers done given our fire teams and tankers brain worms!” She almost burps out the information in one breathless gulp. “What da’ fuck?” Barks Piotr. “That’s bull shit – no one could get a mole in here. We’re on top of each other twenty four seven. We’d know. No, no. We’d know if we had a sneaky fucker around here doing dirty shit. The Company has us so closed in you can’t take a shit without HR going over the weight, colour and stink of it in your personnel files. No. No way!” Piotr is red faced and irritated. A little of his star crossed lover sheen rubs off his face. Where he was happy and eager to hear Magda, now he’s put off and irritable. “Yeah – I’m with Piotr here. No way anyone of us working hand in glove with the fire teams would intentionally fuck them.” Brian says. Glancing up over Magdelene’s shoulder to gaze at the large window to think out loud. Brian speaks again. “We have no real idea of what we’re up against. We’ve all heard the bat shit crazy disinformation our spies were made to report back. It’s all fucked. Wackado bologna. The only reason the admiral would never pull out our spies prior to the assault is if he felt they’d all been made. Which, with the nonsense they sent back has to be the case. Has to be.” Piotr lets out a deflated puff of breath. Magdalene retorts. “Suit yourselves boys, but it’s brain worms I’m fucking telling you!” With that she turns on her heel and marches back to her side of the bull pen. Piotr comes around from his side to stand within arms length of Brian. “Hey man. I’m sure Mimi’s ok. You know. That mountain of a woman can take this on. I’m sure it’s nothing.” He rests a hand on Brian’s shoulder for a brief moment. Then makes his way leisurely back to his work station. “Yeah. Yeah sure. Thanks Piotr.” Brian’s face is one big worried crease.

In the boardroom thirty meters above several high ranking officers look as though they are about to come to blows. Brian is left feeling like his whole future is resting upon his shoulders. With his relationship with Mimi on his mind Brian’s mind races to think of something constructive to do. Mimi’s whole life could potentially hang in the balance. She was always prepared. Mimi always had a plan.

He pulls his keyboard out from under his dirty bench top and starts to pull up some of the spec sheets saved locally aboard the Righteous Chord on the new nanotech incorporated programs they were to install. Screen after screen of blue code on a black field scrolls by, as Brian’s eyes cut across the data in a mad search for a clue. Sweat begins to bead upon his brow. The noise and muffled chatter of the bull pen fades away to nothing. Clicking through the entire series of programs and check lists is going to take some doing by himself. “Piotr, can you do me a favour?” Asks Brian in a raspy whispered yell. “Sure, but what?” Replies Piotr almost immediately. “Well, you’re a better programmer than I am, do you have any scripts you can run to find anything dodgy in the set up files for these Nanotech protocols and procedures?” Reaching to turn his monitor around so that he can tap on his screen while he talks to Piotr. “I mean, I can… but the QA for all this stuff was strenuously vetted before it got to us. Not sure what you’re looking for?” Piotr exclaims. “I don’t know. Like a trap door, a trojan horse, some deviation that we have locally that’s different from the originals. Something like that.” Says Brian. “Well now, that is something that I can do – easily. If I make an image of the code, page by page, and run a visual check against the original we can see if everything lines up or not. Look here. I’ll make ours blue, the originals yellow, and anything not green could be our fucky little friend. Yeah? See. Look fields of green here man. Not this program.” Piotr is at once elated, and deflated. “Ok, but that’s just the one program, we have like thirty of these things in the directory. Can you do all of them and let me know if you get any discrepancies?” Replies Brian in hushed tones. “I’m on it.” Says Piotr.

Part Nineteen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Ma’am, we have a serious problem…”

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Says the tall solid woman dressed in blue medical scrubs. Her hair pulled taut in a messy ponytail. Wisps of her dark Auburn hair stuck to her face where she had obviously been sweating. “What seems to be the issue Dr?”  Replies the very short and severe looking commanding officer of the Righteous Chord. “It’s the fire teams ma’am, their stasis is being constantly interrupted by something, we don’t know what though.” The doctor responds in a dry rasp. “Are the sleeved soldiers affected aswell, or just the walking tank crews and fire teams?” The CO asks after a brief pause to wipe her nose with a handkerchief. “It’s isolated to just the fire teams and tankers ma’am. At least our last seventeen diagnostic scans tell us so.” The doctor is quite weary, trying to stand at attention, but also leaning heavily against the bulk head of the vessels main thoroughfare. She is wrestling with fatigue and slowly succumbing to it. “Have a seat Ms?” Replies the CO. “It’s doctor Tam, ma’am. We are stumped. And it’s only getting worse the longer we leave it.” She is really frazzled now, fingers cradling her temples, and knees about to buckle. From out of sight a folding chair is offered by one of the CO’s retinue. CO Austenmire looks down and taps a few commands into her wrist communicator and glances toward the free standing chair to the seated dr Tam. “Can you be ready for a debrief with the weapons teams and the other attending medical personnel? Let’s say ninety minutes from now. Go eat, shower and prep for a grilling from command.” Barks commanding officer Austenmire.

Her retinue break away suddenly to start talking into ear pieces and wall mounted comm’s terminals setting up the meeting among the higher ranking members onboard. The usually bustling ship is vacant with the large fighting force locked away in their stasis sleeves for the months long journey out to UB313. The echoing of the retinues chatter is freely bouncing down the central corridor of the vessel. No other noise is present to cancel it out. The majority of the ship is unused, and only the bare minimum of running lights are turned on. In the dimness of the hall the exterior field of stars is easy to see.

After a few deep breaths dr Tam pulls her hands from her face and notices she is alone in the halls, the CO and her entourage left soundlessly. The only hint she didn’t hallucinate the whole encounter is a flashing meeting notification from CO Austenmire and a quickly counting down timer which reads eighty one minutes and forty two seconds until she needs to report to the engineering sector on decks eight through twelve. Not being mechanically inclined the good doctor has never ventured down that far into the belly of the ship before.

The doors whirl open with a soft swishing noise and a slight jingle as dr Tam passes over the threshold. No guards are stationed out front by the doors, and inside is a bustling hive of activity. The temperature inside the debriefing room is about fifteen degrees warmer than the hallway. Inside the large room is a faux wooden table about thirty paces long and about ten wide. The back of the room is a floor to ceiling window that over looks the ship yard dry docks, and the storage mezzanine where the walking tanks are usually stored and repaired. Twenty meters below the mechanics are pushing their maglev tool boxes around the hull of the drop ships and scout vessels, while there are clusters of apron clad armorers working diligently at their work benches. The vision is soundless through the two foot thick concrete glass window pane. Built to take explosive decompression from a failed hanger door in the dry docks, or various types of explosions from all the artillery stored in the caches. Inside the room is a constant stream of buzzing, pings, printers and muffled intermingled conversations.

A side door opens a few moments later and the room goes silent. In walks commanding officer Austenmire followed by Admiral Mark Garneau. The wiry gray admiral looks like he used to be a very imposing man in his younger says. He carries himself with the bearing of a man who knows his own importance. A large man with a charcoal gray moustache is the last to enter the room. He sits down to the right of the admiral, and opposite CO Austenmire. The three look drawn and unhappy. The tension in the room is palpable. With a flick of her wrist CO Austenmire dims the lights with a wave and calls the debriefing to order. “We’ve been given to understand that their are several serious issues with our tankers and fire teams stasis in transport. I call on the good doctor Tam to lead us through what we know, and what we are going to do about it.” With a snap of collars and heads turned in unison the room full of superior officers and unit commanders all look directly at doctor Tam. With her palms pressed against the table top, she forces herself to stand. The warmth of the room and the glare from those present bring her thoughts into focus. Stepping away from her chair she walks to the side of the room with the view screen on it, and picks up a clicker and laser pointer. “Ok, so do we need a primer on the logistics surrounding stasis, or can I dive right in?” She says while looking around the room. CO Austenmire interjects ” We’re all as clear as we need to be on the standard stasis sleeves doctor Tam. Our issue, and yours concerns the specialized fire teams that are a key component of our upcoming mission. Without them we will be at a serious disadvantage. So – if you will, proceed.” Her remarks are sharp and concise. Dr Tam clicks through her deck to the suitable page. “Right. So – the issue is, our tankers are having their stasis interrupted for longer and longer intervals, and at an increasing number of instances. They are essentially experiencing waking paralyzed nightmares and migraines of increasing strength. At the current rate they will likely not be able to fight, nor maintain any kind of grip on reality to be of any use. As they are being driven mad by a long and pervasive bout of straight out torture. And there’s little we can do about it at the moment. I’ll take questions in a moment. Please. Yes – we have tried to decant four members from each task force, both the fire team and the walking tank crew, to no avail. We can’t seem to wake them up. At all. Not with chemicals, not with stimulation, not even with the electrodes buried in their brains. We’ve attempted a reprogrammed Morning Rays Protocol and nothing is working. So – Now I’ll open the floor to suggestion.” The room erupts into chaos.

Part Eighteen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“So I pull out both of my guns and I start blastin’…”

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Rumbles the wiry looking armorer named Piotr, as he makes finger guns and swings both his arms around in what he believes to be a cinematic manner. The huddle of onlookers rapt with attention. “No you fucking didn’t.” Barks Brian, the wispy armorer in his custom worn leather apron draped with tools and wiping off his hands on an oil soaked rag standing at his work bench opposite Piotr. “How the fuck would you know – Bri-Yen! You weren’t there.” Snarls Piotr defensively at having his epic story telling moment interrupted and questioned in front of the gathered crowd. “Two reasons Ole P. One, up until recently absolutely no one could get a gun, of any make or model. And two – we went through Torus Station academy together and you’re a terrible shot at anything that isn’t constrained directly within the palm of your hands. So give it a rest, would you.” Smirks Brian, as the gathered group of men and women surrounding Piotr break off from the scrum and slowly meander back to their work stations in clusters of two or three. The armorers work benches are gathered together in a bull pen at the back of the machine shop. Out of the way of the mechanics busily upgrading the drop ships, and retro fitting the newest gun ships with the new tech the armorers are building. The majority of the crew aboard the Righteous Chord are entombed in their stasis sleeves, or their personal walking tanks in preparation for the coming battle. With roughly nine weeks of travel time the gun Smiths and armorers have lots to do, and a finite amount of time to do it in. Only the mechanics and the armorers are up and awake so that they can utilize all of the available shop time, and dedicate themselves to the job at hand. Tasked with building and maintaining the weaponry for the first military offensive in centuries. There is a tension in the air for the as of yet untested fighting force. Slowly turning back to his bench Piotr picks up a syringe full of nanobots and a series of hex keys. “Hey man, we all know my stories are shit. I’m just trying to keep morale up, you know. We’re all pulled so taut right now. I just wanted a chance to get Magdalena close by, you get me bruv?” Exclaims Piotr. Looking across their adjoining work benches Brain gives him a half smile with a wave off. “Oh like Magda would ever have anything to do with you bud. Ha. No chance!” He laughs in a staccato burst. “You should talk there buddy boy. I know how sweet on Mimi you are. That mountain of a lady eh? Trying to die by Snu-Snu?” He barks in a raspy laugh. “Oh hey – shush, keep it down. I could get in real trouble if the lieutenant finds out about our fraternization.” Brian waves his hands in a hush it motion, palms pushing down towards the floor. The two go silent for a moment. They both readjust their data screens which hang on swing arms with tilting action. Readjust their magnification light rigs and reread their job sheets for the fiftieth time. Going down their respective checklists as they upgrade various pieces of weaponry with the neural link nanotech. The upgrade will give the fire teams several fractions of a second boost when aiming and choosing targets in a swarm. It’s a process heavy upgrade, but well worth it against the strangeness of what could be waiting for them at UB313.

“Have you heard the news? The admiral won’t pull any of our moles out of UB313 prior to the offensive. He’s just going to hang them out to dry. Poor fuckers” whistles Piotr barely above a whisper. Looking up from his bench Brian says. “Did you hear their last reports? It’s loopy, abso-fucken-lutely ape shit. Seems the good doctor has been cooking up some kind of engineered super soldiers from extra body parts or some shit. Sounds like a fun guy to work for.” He snorts, his face flushed. “Well he’s most likely responsible for a lot of the missing passenger ships, and long haulers that disappear out at the far reaches. Wouldn’t put it past him to have sewn a few folks together and brain washed or tortured them into wanting to die while fighting. Yeesh. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about that Dr. Mengele bull shit. Fucking Psycho nutter.” Brian stops short, turns his eyes to his bench for a moment, as a small group of mechanics walk into view pushing wheeled carts and passing along soundlessly behind them. The squeal of a squeaky wheel a dead give away that they were approaching. The noise now slowly receding into the distance. The two bench mates are fairly well attuned to hiding their illicit conversations behind hammer blows and other machine shop sounds. Never can be too sure who in The Company might be listening in. Not that two mid tier armorers would warrant too deep an investigation, it’s best to not poke the bear as it were. Taking a few breaths inbetween bursts of conversation the two men’s hands glide over their work. Updating algorithmic packets to rifle scopes and targeting nodes on the triple action short burst carbines. Wiping away squeeze out from oil and grease spigots the two work tirelessly on the nanotech upgrades. Over the PA system garbled messages pass back and forth between departments, and the six shifters get notifications for a call to rest. Brian and Piotr are not ghost crew, and are instead working triples daily until they arrive into Charon’s orbit in a few more weeks. Hammer blows and welding spatter are followed intermittently by a smattering of discussion.

The bull pen where the armorers work is a bustling u shaped congregation of work benches, magnetically levitating tool boxes, and portable metal work stations and racks. Though the mechanics are all dressed in red, the armorers are not so uniform in their dress. A fairly recent addition to both the Torus Station academy as a viable path of study, and to the duty roster on any sizable vessel in The Company’s employ. They hadn’t had the chance yet to vote on a specific colour coded jumpsuit, so they wore whatever colour they used prior to switching into the valet come squire roles they occupied now. Not all of them wore aprons or tool belts. Even the oil stained hands wouldn’t set them apart from the mill wrights or the mechanics onboard. If they felt the need for legitimacy as a singular entity rather than an offshoot of some other department then they’d have to press HR for a chance to gather a vote or undergo some heavy negotiations with the higher ups. In a time of impending strife, nobody had time for that.

Much like the mechanics and most of the other trades people the armorers lived in pods within five hundred meters of where they worked, and were a tightly knit family, as far as working together was concerned.

After the third shift change bell finished tolling the bulk of the armorers broke away from their benches and made their way back to the dormitories. Another day down, with six hours to rest, and then another forty nine days left to go. The lull of a steady stream of work kept many of them too tired to think all that hard about the impending carnage. They knew for certain that they had a technological advantage, but unlike the frozen in stasis sleep soldiers, the fear of the unknown was eating at them around the edges of their subconscious.

Entering through the environmental control doors into the cool air of the common room, some went straight to the showers to clean off, while others sat in their couches and keyed in their meal options for dinner. The large red clock was slowly counting down the six hours they had inbetween triples, so it’ll be another fast meal and quiet night aboard the Righteous Chord for both Brian and Piotr.

Part Seventeen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Are you really that dense, or are you joking?”

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Asks the burly woman sitting in her security forces issued combat uniform. Tucked tightly into her dressing alcove on the mezzanine over looking the main flight deck. An enormous dry dock packed with mechanics doing repairs to all of the vessels stationed inside the sector. The young man is currently helping to bolt her into her multi part suit. “I just didn’t know what all the hub-bub was about. That’s all.” Pouts the small man, with large brown puppy dog eyes and a well worn cracked leather apron loaded with tools on it. “You silly prick. The drums are beating.” She barks in anger. “Huh? I don’t hear any drums, that warning klaxon and the alarms I hear, but no fucking drums!” He replies, earnestly without a hint of sarcasm, though he is pulling her chain, hard. “I’m speaking metaphorically – dip shit. Someone’s gone and pissed off an admiral, and now we’re heading off to war.” She is shouting over the loud peal of the intermittently sounding alarms, and the deep booming klaxon horns. As they approach the time to depart the warnings get closer and closer together. Like the contractions of birth, except it’ll involve the gushing of newly retrofitted attack vessels out of the dry docks all across the refurbished Torus Station. “But, I don’t get it. We’ve done nothing but science and exploration for centuries, why go to war now? What could be so bad as to warrant that.” Asks the diminutive armorer stuffing his hands inside the chest of his leather apron. Feeling the warm rough edges scrape across the skin of his exposed hands. It’s his default position, as he waits for his security personnel to run their internal diagnostics before he can bolt their helmets into place, and fully load out their projectile weapons canisters. “I have heard, via the grape vine, that the insurgencies mole capabilities has affected the admirals personally. Which means it now affects us all. Hey, gimme some of those exploding tip fifty caliber rounds for the shoulder cannons yeah? I like the added punch. Makes door breaching easier than just the shotguns, and I don’t have to get as close to the doors.” The woman remarks, with a wink. Though they bicker back and forth the woman from the security force rather likes her armorer slash valet. “If that’s what madam Mimi wants, that’s what she’ll have. I’ll make a note of that on your requisition forms. No doubt you’ll get them. I’ll flag you down if you don’t, before you get stowed away onboard the Gallant Mistress.” No longer looking at Mimi, but toggling through screens to order up the additional weaponry for her fifty caliber shoulder cannons. “Not with the Gallant Mistress this run, I’m bumped over to the Righteous Chord. Sounds as though we’re taking just about everybody who can fight with us.” Mimi exclaims. “Us too madam. Us too. No good having you out there fighting if you have no one around to repair your gear, or suit you lot up properly.” Their happy banter is slowly fading as the full weight of what the next few months of stasis transit, and then fighting may bring. Brian the valet & armorer will not go under. He’ll be awake for the two month trip making final adjustments and calibrations to the fighting gear. Though the advancements of the nanotech have jumped forward in leaps and bounds, he will still have to administer them individually to each fighter in the battalion that fall under his care. In all he has to repair and dress, undress fifteen members of the elite security fighting force. He somehow always manages to linger when it comes to Mimi. He laughs, but Mimi doesn’t hear him while she is engaged in her comm’s check, and HUD systems calibration. Mimi, not the name he would have guessed for the six foot eight behemoth of a woman infront of him. What kind of mother would think to name this giantess Mimi? The woman needs to give her head a shake. Though, in all honesty, she’s most likely dead. As for Mimi, she’s intimidating out of her weapons suit, and positively monolithic inside it.

The alcove where her suit hangs is like a two car garage, except with chains, hoists and pneumatic Jack’s to lift and lower her armor onto her. He is a modern day Squire to the black clad knight before him. He has still not untethered her from the external life support, as he himself is running triple checks on her aiming reticule, and GPS beacons. He has to climb a ladder to bolt the helmet down from the top, and attach her instrumentation cables in. It’ll be another hour or two yet before she gets loaded into the ships storage like a rifle magazine loaded with all the other walking tank like suits of her combat group.

Reaching over the lower rungs of the ladder to begin to climb up the racking that Mimi is held up against as the suit is still in idle mode, Brian catches Mimi’s eye, and gives her his biggest puppy dog eye wink and nod combo that he can manage. She laughs and looks away. The clicking of the winch lowering her helmet lets her know it’ll be lights out for her momentarily. When next she wakes, she will be deployed for all out war. The air quality inside the helmet is cool and fresh. The smell of oils and lubricants, and welding gases disappears as the helmet clunks into place over her head. Brian can be heard, muffled through the thick concrete glass, using an impact wrench to torque down the bolts to her helmet. Through the five inch thick dome she can see him bang on it three times with his open palm. The wet smack let’s her know she got all the weaponry she’s asked for. Inside the helmet she smiles broadly. Looking up she still smiles though she knows he can’t see her through the golden mirrored outer finish of her helmet. On the HUD a thirty second count down appears in green text across her entire field of vision. With an audible ping the numbers begin to count down with a slight click, as though it were an analog flip clock from centuries ago. As expected a shockingly cold pinch can he felt in the base of her neck. Her blood stream fills with the cool liquid, she doesn’t see the end of the countdown. Soon a pink viscous fluid will fill her lungs and other open cavities so that she can withstand the brutal forces associated with a crushingly hard thrust burn and the bone breaking deceleration to reach the outer edges of the solar system where UB313 awaits.

Part Sixteen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“This is the strangest feeling.”

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She thought to herself. All around her there is a calming warmth, like a snug blanket wrapped around her. But not quite, almost akin to floating in a very warm pool of water, where you know you are wet, but you don’t feel wet. There is a hum about her too, comforting, like a soft electrical tingle in her finger tips and toes. Even though it is pitch black and she can not see she is not scared. No, she thinks, at the edges of her consciousness she is terrified, but she feels compelled, externally, to not panic. Like someone is whispering sweet nothings in her ears just below what she can make out, but the warmth of breath on her neck, and the sense of someone caring is tangible. The oddness of it all envelops her. She is oddly disquieted by the lack of her heart beating in her chest. Surely at peace as she is, the constant thrum of the lub-dub of her heart, and the sound of blood rushing in her ears should be present. What had happened? Why couldn’t she remember where she was or what she was doing. The warmth and floating sensation persists. The blackness around her could stretch for miles. Or it could be a mask. Either way her eyes are unseeing. Is she waking up in a med pod? Did she fail her mission to obtain the asset? Questions are tumbling around in her mind. A brief pinch in her head, like the beginnings of a head ache, but now its gone. What was she just thinking of? The float is warm. She could just drift away, off to sleep. “YES” – the warmth speaks, like honey in her ear. Oozing around her, the suggestion to slip away, go to sleep, just rest – relax. Feeling herself giving in to the sensation of gently rocking, somewhere in the blackness she can hear her mother singing a lullaby. A gentle finger moving a lock of hair from her face. The warm embrace, the touch of warm soft skin on skin. The slight hum of electric static from an off turned radio. The clicking of the rocking chair upon the orange sun lit floors of her bedroom. Oh!, she thinks, I don’t know if I’ve ever had that memory before. So nice. She’s a teenager, rolling over in bed, away from her opened blinds, snuggling against her comforter, “I don’t want to go to school” she moans. The warmth begins to ebb away slowly, a cold chill nips at her fingers and toes. She shivers, nakedly from the cold.

The darkness begins to recede, in its place a swirling mass of shadows and smoke. She coughs deeply, and begins to choke. Hard wracking coughs that assault her lungs. She can feel her eyes begin to bulge, her neck straining, her finger bones pop with the strain. She isn’t choking but suffocating in the grey white cloud. “She might need the atmosphere we detected K”. Garbles a voice echoing from every which direction. “Yes – Yes! We did notice that too.” Replies the same voice. “Best be quick about it then K.” It answers in reply. “Too right K.” It says, still having done nothing but remark upon her strangled state. “Oh thank you K.” The woman lay on the ground asphyxiating. With an audible whistle the room begins to fill with a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and various other gases. The same as the tiny yellow morsel they had consumed, in which they found her. Gasping for her life she lies upon the ground heaving and floundering. Trying to catch her breath and get her bearings. “Your friends are dead.” The room vibrates with the words, but no one is inside the room. With a cracked and dry throat she croaks. “I know.” The room itself begins to shrink, and reorganize. No longer a cube of three meters to a side, but an elongated hall, all illuminated in the same silver grey and off white. The hall ends at her back but stretches out into a pin point of light in front of her. Without getting up she is pushed forward, gently. “The man inside with you had significant trauma to his brain. Tell us, did you have anything to do that?” Asks the echoing voice quietly. “No! – no, I was trying to fix the sabotaged cockpit flight controls. Richard’s was murdered by our pilot Zeke.” The walls shimmy in response. The forward pull of the hallway speeds up. The woman has the distinct sensation of traveling without moving. It is disconcerting. “Tell us, what of the man partially welded to your hull?” Enquires the echoing voice. “I don’t know? I assumed Zeke was trying to sabotage us so that he could obtain the asset by himself. Keep the glory for his own.” She responds with a dry bark. “Wait – did you say welded? What welded? How is that possible?” She exclaims. The hallway starts to expand, a large yellow and black ship begins to uncover itself from the wall. The hall disappeared behind her, a large rectangular room containing her ship The Mangelo has arranged itself around her. She approaches the rear of the ship where, near the top side, the propellant storage tanks are located. Too physically weak to climb, she realizes she can’t recall when she last ate or drank anything. The ship before her appears to sink into the floor, raising her up to see the top of the vessels hull. There, frozen in place is the body of the pilot. “Can you tell if the power is still on with the ship?” She asks aloud. “We have rendered the core inert.” Responds the echo. Crawling over the pipes and exposed cabling on the hull she can see that the pilot, Zeke, had unfortunately braced himself to work by putting one boot under a secured conduit and then leaned over another cable bundle to switch the engines over to the reserve tanks, causing the current to arc, welding himself in place. Dying of electrocution painfully, in the process causing the overload of the capacitors and resistors blowing out the control panels in the cockpit. It wasn’t sabotage, at least on Zeke’s part. Just an unfortunate accident stemming from their second hand pilfered vessel, and shoddy rushed schedule to assemble it all. “So how did Richards get a pipe in the head?” She mumbled. The deep echo voice rumbles.”The analysis of the data from the biometric recorder seems to suggest he was trying to pull a stuck valve open on a holding tank, when is grip failed, slipped off the wrench and impaled himself. His gps tracker shows him flopping around.” Responds the voice dryly. “Which caused the machinists lubricant to dribble into the cistern.” She says, flatly. A little numbed by the revelation. Suddenly there is a violent rocking motion to the room, as the woman tumbles over sideways falling to her hands and knees with a violent thud, the room shrinks down into a cramped sphere, only slightly larger than the woman if she were to crouch. The light within the grey white room begins to shimmer into a dazzling brilliance. “Would you like to know what your wrist biometric unit says – Racquelle?”

Part Fifteen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.