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Tag: intrepid individuals

“Did you pass along the request to Admiral Garneau?”

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Asks the formally dressed captain of the Jolene Roger without looking up from her computer screen. Tapping away quickly, the clicking a loud steady beat in the silence of the stately ready room just off of the bridge. “Yes – ma’am. I put in our request to stop off at the Mars Six Sub-Orbital Aerial Base for resupply, and to pick up a few new crew members. It was flagged to your attention as an Omega level code Orange personnel transfer for one person in particular. A Ghost crew member, not sure of the name though, as it wasn’t listed in the memo.” Responds the commanding officer firmly. “Yeah – I saw that too. Strange timing. But then again, none of us are privy to the admirals thinking on the matter of war, or the timing of it being advantageous for all parties concerned. We were scheduled to resupply smack dab in the middle of this scrum, so I felt pushing that ahead, and only being six days late for the flotilla rendezvous was acceptable, to me at least. By the time Admiral Garneau signs off on it, and responds we’ll be away from port, and enroute.” A shuffling of papers and the click of a pen. The soft whir of the air scrubbers can be heard purring quietly in the sound proofed office. The captain leans back in her chair to look at her CO. “The Ghost Crew is most unexpected. I didn’t realize we rated one, being the smallest of the vessels heading to battle.” Quips the stern featured captain. “You are correct ma’am, we don’t rate one. He’s to be taken over to the Righteous Chord or any other massive Erlon class battle ship in the fleet. We can’t keep him, I’m afraid.” Answers the CO somberly. “Be that as it may, we can still use – him? Was it. Yes. Nameless as far as I’m concerned. Feed him, get him settled, and then run him through our highest priority matters before we get into position with the rest of the fleet. We’ve got the next nine weeks before we make ‘landfall’ at UB313, so make the best of it please. I trust you and engineering can put together a comprehensive list of tasks he can accomplish given the time crunch, and the impending battle. Lord knows what that fucking doctor has planned. I shudder to think about it.” The captain grimaces, and a slight shiver makes her quiver in her seat. With a flush of goose flesh herself the CO says. “Ugh! Right? If you’re done with those forms I can take them down with me to HR, on my way by the engineering decks.” Says the CO. “Did you perchance pass a rather fat fellow on the way in here? If you see him, send him in.” The captain extends her arm out with some papers clutched in her left hand to the CO. “Yes, I did in fact see him. I think the quat sanitizer we use in the air is giving him grief, as he looked terrible. Common trait among those not used to long haul vessel life. He must be a grounder from Earth proper or Mars.” With a look of disgust the captain says. “Thanks, I’ll take the note under advisement. No hand shakes, and I’ll keep my distance. As you were Austenmire.” Smirks the captain. “Don’t do that ma’am, my older sister is CO Austenmire. I prefer Gonzalez, after my mother – ma’am”. With a chuckle the captain rights her clothes before sitting down again. “Yes – right. Gonzalez then. By my leave.” With a soft ping the doors to the ready room whoosh open and CO Gonzalez leaves soundlessly.

“Hey Gonzalez, what’s hanging ba-bee!” Shouts a grey, hunched older man covered from head to toe in a thick inky grease. Strewn around him are the disassembled parts of a SIP hydroptic-6 jib borer. “Jesus Bennet, respect the rank, you silly toothless old fuck!” She barks tapping the stripes on her shoulder, and then the prominent emblems on her collar. “Yeah – yeah, baby doll. Once you get me some help round here, I’ll show you the respect you deserve.” He rasps like a heavy smoker, with half his throat a cancerous sore. “As a matter of fact, we’ll have a Ghost Crew member for nine weeks, so I need a prioritized list of doable jobs in my inbox asafp!” Gonzalez shouts over the din of the machinery running beside the old man Bennet. The old borer making a hell of a racket in the background. “Sounds like you have a serious chatter issue with that line borer Bennet. You might need a bigger collar, or thicker tooling.” He shouts back. “That’s my girl!” The toothless grin spreads even wider on the dirty old man’s face.

Walking further through the small engineering decks Gonzalez stops to talk with a few other high ranking engineers and technicians, trying to get a sense of how much work they can safely cram into the nine weeks they have with the Ghost before reaching the rendezvous point in system. Likely less time than that, as they have to let him transfer to another vessel prior to reaching battle stations, and active combat duty. Taking her time to make some small talk, and get an inside tack on the largest of the priority projects, she stands idle, and watches the machine shop in full swing. “What’s Bennet’s deal, you don’t look short staffed here?” She enquired to a man of modest size lounging on a bench munching on a sandwich. With a slightly puzzled look the man swallows hard, with an audible gulp. “Wars coming, the old bastard just wants everything 100%, so no body dies cause he missed something that could be of consequence.” He burps mid sentence, then stops himself, realizing he’s talking to the ships CO. “Ma’am!” He stammers suddenly. “Aren’t we all.” She says quietly, more to herself than to the man. His foot slips from his perch on the desk and he sits up straighter. “Gonzalez, ma’am, I’m being buzzed. Someone in HR, is looking for you, ma’am.” He squirms awkwardly under her glare. “If they ping you again tell them I’m on my way presently.” With a last glance around the shop she marches off to the large environmental doors, and walks the ships main artery to find a lift back up to the HR decks nearer the bridge.

The yellow walls in the hall are a stark contrast to the dull matte greys of the rest of the Jolene Roger. “Commanding Officer! Gonzalez!” Shouts a petite woman dressed in a matching yellow jumpsuit. “I thought you’d get here about an hour ago, but I’m now late for my next stop. Walk with me if you would be so kind.” Shrieks the petite woman down the wide yellow hall. “As you well know we have a VIP crew member to deliver to the admiral. I am most excited! Follow me, we’ll take the Express elevators over to the receiving decks to grab him.” She hardly stops talking long enough to draw a breath before she starts in on all the details, gossip and news about the new crew coming aboard. The pressure change in the ears can be felt as the elevator rockets around the ship in a convoluted manner, avoiding major portions of infrastructure inside the guts of the vessel. After several tense seconds as their weight, and gravity swapped positions relative to how they boarded the lift, they came to rest at a wide open floor, with stacks of crates, luggage, and fresh food stuffs in waxed boxes. Standing alone in the center of the room is a man in a beige jumpsuit, with tools and harness glinting in the harsh light of the scanners and sensors that litter the room. “Here he is!” The little woman squeals excitedly. Running off ahead out of the lift towards the man. Gonzalez watches in disbelief as the petite woman runs ahead leaving her standing alone in the lift. Walking over to the two the CO extends a crisp salute, and offers her hand in welcoming. “Welcome aboard Ghost.” She says stiffly. “Oh don’t be silly, let me introduce you!” She vibrates in her excitement. “No need for the fuss.” The man in beige says. “Ma’am.” He salutes back with a rigorous audible snap to his elbow, palm and fingers. “I’m Mark Garneau, at your service.” He bows extravagantly.

Part Thirty One: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Do you honestly believe me to be stupid?”

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Roars doctor Jang furiously into the receiver. His voice reverberates off of the hewn rock walls of the hidden comm’s alcove. “I’m not that fucking dense you bastards. I have ample defenses, both here on the base, with our trained tactical operatives, even the regular administrative staff of UB313 have combat training. I have my private special forces, plus something extra I had been working on concurrently with my genetics program. So no Mr Jones, I am not going to run this operation into the ground. I have The Company right where I expect them to be, and in so doing, am pushing ahead with a rather important expansion that will take us towards my goal of interstellar travel.” He growls through gritted teeth, his tone a seething hiss full of poison and skin rotting venom. To the uninitiated he would look nonplussed, to those who know him well, they would be running for the closest air lock to escape his wrath, and punitive tendencies.

“Well, good doctor, need I not remind you how many billions we have wrapped up in your projects, and our exoplanet colonization goals. Don’t fuck this up, or I’ll have you eating your own body parts in a universally broadcast cooking show, for my pleasure.” With an audible click the line goes dead. Not just disconnected but dead – dead. The thick glass of the orange yellow bulb is fizzling with smoke, as the whole terminal is fried at doctor Jang’s feet. The long range communications terminal now a molten slag pile which is now untraceable, and entirely unusable. Pulling the receiver from his ear he slams it repeatedly against the now blisteringly hot and oozing slag pile. The only thing connecting doctor Jang to his black market sources of credit will now be nearly impossible to recover even if the base becomes over run, or briefly gets taken by the forces of The Company. All of the internal memory, chips and sensors have been scorched beyond recognition. The base, and by extension Doctor Jang and his people are cut off and alone. A simple gesture which says “you’re on your own.”

“I didn’t come out all this fucking way, so some oligarch prick could second guess my every move and question my genius. Fuck you Jones!, and fuck you good.” Jang bellows. “When everything comes together you shall not get anything from me. Cock sucking fucking mother-fucker!” He shouts, adding emphasis with finger pointing and fist pumps in the air. Straightening his clothes, and fixing his glasses in place on his face, he readies himself to leave the sound proof alcove hidden on the UB313 bridge facility. Stepping out of the alcove with a whisper of smoke and the smell of burnt wiring doctor Jang walks along a short hall that is obscured from the bridge by a cut through made from hewn rock. If you were to look right at it from the center of the bridge, it appears to be an unbroken wall of grey yellow rock. But once you step through it you briefly interrupt the illusion of a straight wall.

Much of UB313 is built this way. With twists and turns, dead ends, and stairs that lead nowhere. Unless you are well worn being aboard you don’t venture out to no places without planning on dying. It helps to curtail snooping, spying and people generally being nosy. On more than one occasion the doctor has gone on a walk about only to stumble over a dehydrated and mostly frozen corpse of someone who likely got turned around and lost in the maze of tunnels, stair walls and hidden passages. Orientation here leads through the medical bay and directly to where you will work. Being an untrusting sociopath with psychotic tendencies he likes his staff to remain silo’d into separate cells. No one knows everything, and there are few friends intermingled between departments. Life here is full on tension and suffering, just the way he likes it. People give him their best work or they disappear. Very few threads left behind in the black ops insurgency that doctor Jang heads up on UB313.

“One can only surmise from the flurry of activity from our benefactors that something, or someone is on there way here. This is it, ladies and gentlemen of UB313. The fight has come to us, as expected. Though we do not, as of yet have the asset under our control, I assume it will only be a matter of time before it is. So sound the alarm! We are to move to pre-battle ready schedules. No exterior sorties unless authorized, no R&R leaves, and turn up the sensitivity on all of our sensor arrays, antennas and scopes. They should be about two to three weeks of high velocity travel distance from us by now. Turn on the sentries if you would, please.” Croons the now giddy and flushed red doctor. “Uh, sir? The sentries? What are those sir?” Asks a man whose face is obscured by a low hanging monitor. “Oh right! I forget just how much I do around here myself. It’s a bit of a surprise really.” Laughs the doctor heartily.

Part Thirty: Ghost of the Dirty Starling

** Query – internal logs/ time stamp corruption – files not lost. No longer able to maintain chronological order**.

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Racquelle is half buried in a deep freezer before she becomes aware of the audio recording playing over the ship wide PA system. Having found her way through the vaguely human, mostly antique inspired vessel to what was a great candidate for the canteen. Racquelle found an unlocked standing freezer box and decided to go rifling through it in search of sustenance. The ice build up and oddly plastic wrapped packaging had her excited at first, but after pulling half of the deep freezers contents out into the open to find mostly powders and frozen black brown sludge which tasted awful, she was becoming increasingly agitated. Which made her stomach rumble, alerted her to a growing head ache, and a general sense of anger and frustration, chased by fatigue and the now constant belly ache. Pushing the lid open from the inside, and throwing out the last handful of bags to the floor, she stepped over the rim of the ice cold box and took a moment to listen to the message. The first thing she registered was that the ship ‘K’ and the humanoid AI Katayna had come out of their deep data dive long enough to compose a message and play it on repeat for her to hear it. Sort of a good sign, after nearly a full week of dead silence. The second thing she realized was that if the ship had no access to chronologically stored data, it would have to expend a far greater amount of time and energy to find whatever the fuck it was it went looking for in the first place. And, that she could potentially communicate with ‘K’ vocally again. “Glad to hear you’re alive and well K!” She said into the dimness of the canteen. “Good evening Racquelle. Apologies for our, my, prolonged disappearance.” Barked the PA system in response, justice little too loudly. “Motion tracking has you placed near our make shift morgue. I required certain molecular elements which we are unable to synthesize in bulk. Do you have an interest in the vitamins and minerals left over from breaking down the former crew?” Asks the ship flatly. Feeling rather taken aback Racquelle says “I need to eat and drink something quickly, or else I’m going to faint and likely never wake up again.” She rasps wryly. “I will light the way to the nearest cafeteria. Hold tight. Actually on second thought I will provide you with transportation. Your vitals are greatly diminished from when we first met.” With a horrendous screech a wall panel pulls open to reveal a small people mover with fat black wheels, a canopy of beige Formica, and plush yellowed off white leather looking seats. No visible steering wheel though, or breaks nor foot pedals. “Climb aboard Ms. Your chariot awaits.” Murmurs the tinny voice from the PA system.

Sitting at the round white table with a veritable feast laid out before her Racquelle listens intently while Katayna goes over what remarkable things they’ve discovered buried in the disrupted internal data logs. “We are as of yet unable to verify when, where or how any of these things happened. We would need to correlate the logs with the findings from all of the various antenna arrays located around us – which as you might suspect, will take some time. Things of note are as follows. We’ve made two outbound calls, to whom and what about, or why are a mystery as of yet. Also we have a near steady stream of incoming calls as of a few days ago. That’s not from the logs, by the by. It’s what caused our jolt out of the frozen processing cycle. We received a significant processing power bump of unknown origin. Seemed friendly though, which is odd.” Katayna tilts her head a little too far to one side in an imitation of a human expression towards looking puzzled. The act is rather comical in how over zealous it is.

Crunching on her vitamin and mineral porridge Racquelle takes a moment to stop eating and stare at Katayna. She points down at her bowl and says “This isn’t made from your old crew though right? No matter. I burned that bridge when I crossed it an hour ago.” With a loud and dry swallow she goes on. “Outbound messages huh? That does seem odd. But you guys have said you think you crossed both time, space and possibly dimensions too. Could it be a logging error, or some type of electrical distortion that looks like a message?” Ponders Racquelle. “Well, no. The first one had a lengthy set of technical diagrams attached to it, for a type of dimensional jumping engine, called a For E’s engine. Don’t know if we found that and sent it along, or designed it ourselves. The second one is far harder to decipher and has been put on hold. Though with the available processing bump in capabilities, we could tackle that in the background if we wanted to.” Katayna says in a chipper tone, at odds with the stillness of her face and metallic features.

Looking at the messy remains of her feast Racquelle leans back in her seat as a wave of nausea washes over from eating too much after days of going hungry. “Rookie mistake.” She mutters. “So – what’s next up on the horizon. I assume we’re here alone right? You consumed my other sortie partners and their ship, and we are weeks away from UB313. I don’t suppose I could talk you all into taking me back there? I have a few folks who really want to talk to you.” Quips Racquelle. “No – no. We are not alone. Our long range scanners have located a flotilla of approximately twelve fast moving vessels headed here, as far as we can tell from their roughshod trajectories. Some look as though they’ll arrive a few days after the majority, but I assure you we are most decidedly not alone. Well – short term yes, long term, not even close.” Says Katayna and K both simultaneously.

Racquelle’s face loses its colour and she turns a sort of ashen grey green, with flecks of blue purple around her eyes and mouth. The smirk fades just as quickly as it appeared. “Wait these are coming from UB313?” She croaks. “Uh no. These look to have originated from Earth’s orbit, possibly Mars too.” Says Katayna flatly. “Well, fuck me sideways.” Says Racquelle.

Part Twenty Nine: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Admiral Garneau?, we have the solution in hand, sir”

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Stammers the small man from behind his mangled and abused clipboard. “The programming team have released the program to medical and they are about to disseminate it among the afflicted fire teams and their associated heavy artillery and infantrymen, sir.” The nervous young man barely takes a breath before diving further into his diatribe. “Doctor Tam, Commanding Officer Austenmire and several other members of the SLT are all ready and waiting in the sleeve halls, and tanker magazines, sir. Ready when you are to depart from your ready room, sir.” Finishes the young man with the last fading vestiges of breath. Sweat is gathering at his brow, his nerves are frazzled. It isn’t often a new recruit gets foisted upon the Valet role for an SLT status officer, and here he is, first run out beyond Mars and he is talking to, interacting with, and leading the fleets oldest and most distinguished admiral from appointment to appointment for the day. “Your lapels are sloppy this morning Jimmy, my boy. Here let me straighten you out before we depart” the old admiral barks from just inside the ready room double doors. A crisply starched arm reaches across the threshold to pop and refit the young man’s collar. “I recall when our jumpsuits were farm more utilitarian and less formal, these seem like a dress uniform. Utterly useless against the harsh vacuum of space, my boy.” The old man chuckles. “Oh I assure you Admiral, we are even more protected in these new issue, than the old ones, why I read in the academy about the updated specifications and it’s really just a marvel the first Mark VIO’s and their earlier crews didn’t all die with how stripped down and bare their suits were sir. The improvements, and integration with our Nanotech is mind boggling!” The young valet beams. “Hmm, yes I’m sure they are, sonny Jim. I’m sure they are.” The sparkle in the old man’s eye quickly disappears, as the knowledge of what he is about to preside over makes it’s way back into the forefront of his thoughts. “Well, no need for delay my boy, lead on, lead on!” Barks the admiral gruffly. With a woosh the double doors to the ready room close, and the young valet Jimmy links his arm into the admitals arm and walks him towards the lower personnel decks, where the sleeved soldiers are stored for transport to UB313.

Strolling through the halls of the Righteous Chord crowds of people have gathered to watch the admiral make his way to the soldiers in stasis. Word of their medical plight has made the rounds, and all seven of the shipboard psyops officers had put out many different stories. One officer, known to be rather unsavory was given the real story, and she passed it along to her cadre of friends whom occupied the fringe, along with twist elements of the ‘brain worms’ story to help muddy the waters. While the other six psyops officers put out sanitized versions of one thing or another. All the people really knew was that a solution had been found that would save strongest portion of the fighting force from the brink of annihilation, and little else regarding their state seemed to matter to anyone beyond that. The news that in two weeks time when they finally entered Pluto air space they would not be without their fire teams or walking tanks had boosted morale among the currently awake staff, that nobody asked any substantive questions regarding exactly what was meant by saving the fighting force. The truth of the matter would hopefully die with the SLT, after the return trip once the battle was over, and the remaining affected soldiers stasis sleeves went offline effectively killing, and hiding the truth of what they were about to do to about four thousand soldiers from their own ranks. It was not something the old admiral relished having to oversee, but with a decision this grave, no one but Admiral Mark Garneau could give the go ahead. The decision was eating him up inside, but it was ultimately for the greater good of humanity, and The Company.

Stepping out of the power lift the admiral waves subtly at Jimmy the valet to pause for a brief moment before entering the room where the newest ad hoc sleeved soldiers monitoring station was. Doctor Tam had felt it best to remove the squad from her medical facilities and place it closer to the armory and the maintenance decks. A soft jab at how the Admiral was now relegating the fighting force into mere assets, and no longer people worthy of the full length and breadth of her medical care. It didn’t raise any eye brows, and he took the jab on the chin like a pro. The old man stood motionless, staring at the doors before nodding once, and striding through the door as though he weren’t a three hundred year old man in the midst of an existential crisis, about to murder four thousand people in order to have the military assets he needed to kill the man whom killed his great, great, great grand son, and then some. Feeling the weight of the decision, the old man puffed up and played the part of the hero, in order to make the tough decision.

“Are the programmers present with us today” asks the admiral. A brief scuffle near the center of the room as two shabby and disheveled men step away from the circular bank of monitors and computer terminals. They mumble quietly, with eyes down turned, that yes, they are in fact present and accounted for. “No need to wait on ceremony. Press upload, enter, Go or what have you and let’s get the healing started.” Growls the admiral. A shuffle of tired steps and the bushy brown haired man named Bryan steps over to his terminal, leans down and taps a single button. A blue progress bar appears on all the monitors in the central column and around the outer walls of the modest room. The exposed cables pick up the glare of the new blue light from the screens. Rapidly the flashing zero starts to increase upwards to hang momentarily at ninety eight percent, before a large 100% flashes repeatedly in a brilliant green.

“Sir! We have movement across the board, the fire teams are waking up sir! It looks like it worked!” A chorus of shouts and whoops explodes from inside the room. Admiral turns away from the jubilant crowd catching a glance from doctor Tam. Their eyes met and linger for a brief moment, when doctor Tam looks down at her feet and the admiral exits the room followed by a very lively young man in a valet uniform.

Part twenty eight: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Even now as I stand here with you…”

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I feel off, somehow. I was drawn here, like a moth to a flame. I know this place, in an off-hand, buried in my former Gene’s kind of way.” Murmurs Katayna quietly.

She has been delivering an intensely personal and fractured monologue since shortly after taking on the appearance of the only living thing aboard the strangely familiar, yet alien vessel. From what Racquelle can gather from the repeating diatribe from the AI humanoid figure that erupted suddenly out of a room after a rather drastic interior design shift, is that ‘K’ or Kelvin whomever that is, was once a human, and a man at that.

Of approximately forty odd years of age, unmarried and worked mostly in isolation doing routine tasks between the external hull plates. On one of his three day duty rotations he went in between the hull plates to do a task, and all was well, came out on the other side and every single person, and many ship systems were dead or severely damaged.

His only option was to turn to the Edu Bots stored on the science and engineering decks so that K was to become knowledgeable enough to be able to fix many of the issues, but the ships course and trajectory were permanently fubar’d. He spent a life time alone here with only a few bots for company, until several decades later his body began to deteriorate and he was sequestered into a med pod, where K’s body had all the organic materials slowly swapped out for some of humanities earliest Nanotech. For reasons unknown K suspects the ship passed through worm holes and galaxy spanning electrical storms, where K awoke, realized he was now a sentient hive mind of nanobots, integrated itself into the vessel, and began consuming raw materials to expand and grow and rebuild the ship into a kind of living, breathing, machine-organic cyborg monstrosity.

Finally partitioning off a portion of itself to become an able bodied humanoid named Katayna. It is all very surreal, and more than a tad insane.

But what K can’t figure out is how it got back into Sol system. Katayna is trying to determine whether they were summoned here, or resolved into human space by chance. The resulting internal scans of logged data has taken a few days, and Katayna doesn’t seem to have been spared from the data processing power drain. Which is why she’s stuck in the monologue loop, while swaying gently in the hallway. Racquelle was faced with a decision, wait it out, try to trigger a loop ending response, search force hard restart button on the figure or die of thirst and/or starvation why K searched through petabytes of internal data, from the time and multi-dimensional travel it seems to have undergone after running screaming full tilt through the star systems.

Walking around the gently swaying silver white humanoid body Racquelle notices that Katayna isn’t exactly naked, but nor is she clothed. Her bodies exterior looks to be made up of all kinds of panels, some with specular differences, and variations of the writhing, and wriggling nanotech lace that covers the ship itself, both internally and externally. The look is akin to a body suit with seams and waist accentuated by piping and oblique panels that soften the metallic hardness of her skin texture. It’s all very strange. As though a long lost man was trying to recapture what he felt femininity was via fashion. It’s not half bad, but it’s just a little off. At least she isn’t sporting a peekaboo bra, or breast armor plating. Racquelle smirks at the thought.

Speaking into the air Racquelle repeats herself for the thousandth time. “Katayna, can you hear me?” She waves a hand before the lolling eyes of the humanoid ai. “Are we being hailed by any other vessels or star bases?” She clicks her fingers by Katayna’s ear. “Are you receiving any broadcasts from UB313 or – I can’t believe I’m going to say this Torus Station or Earth?” She claps several times loudly. “Hello? Anybody else home?” She shouts, her voice echoing loudly down the long central hallway. “Well, if you need me I’m going in search of food and potable water!” She stands taking a long look at the swaying form of Katayna. Turning around in her spot she decides to tear a strip off of the hem of her shirt and places it on the floor, folded in the shape of an arrow. “I don’t have paper or a pen, and my communicator seems to be jammed, by you, so hopefully you’ll notice the sign here, or can hear me as I make my way around looking for food. Ok? I don’t know why I’m talking to you. I don’t know why I’m talking to myself. I can’t stop. Food. Food or water that’s the plan.” Was an angry wave Racquelle sets off on foot down the long central hall towards the center of the unknown vessel.

Part Twenty Seven: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“Do you know why I asked you come here Ms. Darla?”

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“Hm. Do you have some terrible inkling for what I might have in store you for?” The doctor asks through his surgical mask. He isn’t facing Darla whom is strapped down onto an icy cold metallic gurney. His attention elsewhere as he is looking over his personal hand written notes and diagrams tapped up to a wall in his private surgical bay. The drawings are gruesome but are also the product of someone with artistic talent, and more than a little flair.

The sage green tiles of the operating room glisten with moisture as the large overhead drum lights buzz loudly in the quiet theater. The quality of the light is a brilliant, nearly pristine blue white. Darla has to squint to make out the shape of the doctor across the room from her. But the starkness of the paper stands out against the darkness of the rough hewn rock walls above the green tiles. Massive double doors swing gently as the air circulates constantly through some whisper quiet hepa filter units. The air tastes astringent, like bleach residue and quat sanitizer spray mixed together. It tastes thickly on her tongue and sticks cloyingly in her throat. The center of the floor, directly under Darla and her gurney is a sloped polished cement floor that terminates in a large drain grill that occasionally gurgles and burps as the base UB313 tilts and rotates under its orbital stresses.

A panicked and afraid Darla can’t turn her head more than a few inches or move any of her limbs at all, the tight straps are biting into her flesh sharply with every twitch and tug. Her heart is thumping in her chest, and her breaths come in ragged bursts. “Well aren’t you the excitable type.” Quips the doctor as he turns away from his notes, pushing his glasses up his nose with a single finger. “Not to worry Darla. I’m not going to operate, but you see I have other needs of you. No- no, not those kind either, I’m afraid.” He chuckles leering over Darla’s nude figure writhing on the gurney. Leaning towards her he picks up a needle from a tray covered by a blue cloth. “No, even I have my limits. Apparently I can’t just kill all of my Risk Assessors in one fell swoop. Your friend Trevor is quite right, I do need the processing power which the Oracle network soaks up.” He says jovially. With a quick and practiced motion he swabs her arm and plunges in a syringe attached to a tube and collection bag. ” I need it to feed my babies. I know everyone thinks I’m mental and that I don’t believe it Nanobots or Nanotech, but the truth is, those are artificial. More machine dependencies. No!” He shouts angrily.”Here, with what I’ve learned, with the experiments I’ve cultivated. I have harnessed uniquely natural energies to power my beasties. My darlings, my lovelies. No-no, for you I just need plasma, some platelets, and various other minor ingredients which my standing army has trouble processing in abundance. I had hoped i would have the time to help them so that they could synthesize the remaining items better, but not to worry! A little prick, a pinch and a squeeze and you’ll be back to your desk in no time.” Laughs doctor Jang heartily. Pulling his mask down around his chin, he circles the gurney to stand at Darla’s head. Bending at the hip he Whispers into her ears, so softly she can barely hear him. “Do you want to know why I’ve exposed you? Left you nothing to hide behind? Showing me just how afraid of me you are?” His breath a soft caress of her cheek. “Because I get off on it.”

“Come on Darla, are you being serious right now? We’ve all had to take turns donating blood, why would he put you in the surgical bay naked for what amounts to a blood drive. That’s insane. Just tell us where you were, and why you’re three hours late for your shift?” Quips the short, fat man with a ridiculous moustache. “I just fucking told you why, Ricky!” Screams Darla as she shakes and trembles at her desk. “Yeah, well… un-fucking-likely, am I right!?” Snivels Ricky in response. “Oh, your buddy Trevor left you a note on your desk. He wouldn’t let me read it, said it was for your eyes only. Technically I’m not your boss per se, but I’ve been here like three weeks more than you, so… you know. I kinda am.” He trills weakly turning back to his own work station, leaving a very upset Darla sitting alone in her cramped office. Slamming the door shut after Ricky leaves, Darla crumples into her chair with hot salty tears streaming down her cheeks. After a brief period of tremors she sniffles, rubs her eyes with her palms and finds a small envelope sealed with black wax tucked in beside her computer terminal. “Where does he get all this shit?” Darla mumbles to herself, looking over the black wax seal, and the rough off white paper envelope. Using her finger nail to pick the wax seal off whole, she pulls out the slip of folded paper and unfurls it. The rough hand made paper smells like lavender, and is rough to the touch under her fingers. Her fingers make an audible scrape as she runs her nail over the textured paper. Two words are scribbled in the center of the slip of paper, along with a red blob. Pulling her desk lamp over towards her, she flips on the dim bulb to reveal what it says.

The blob at the center looks like a bloody finger print, and the note reads “We’re fucked!”.

Part Twenty Six: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“They are absolutely going to crucify us if word of this ever gets out.”

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Groans Piotr to Brian through the partition between their computer terminals. “Oh, I have no illusions that we aren’t going to wind up with bullets in our heads after we complete the upload of this program. Believe you, me.” Barks Brian in response. “You didn’t list crimes against humanity on your CV I see.” Laughs Piotr in a strained voice. “Oh it says here you were convicted of War Crimes, care to tell us more about that?” Mocks Brian with a twinge of pain in his voice.

The two have been sequestered in a private work room on the command decks only accessible by the admiral of the Company fleet himself. The spacious room, meant for tactical weapons strategy teams to develop firing solutions in the event of an or ital ship to ship battle, has become their adhoc work station, and prison cell. Meant to take a staff of twelve the room is broad but low ceilinged. With twelve combat terminals and high powered integrated computers built to process millions of points of data near instantaneously. They have matching cots, and a portable head bolted into the floor so that they can sleep, bathe and relieve themselves without ever having to leave the room. The only interruptions coming from the meal service that swings by three times a day. Bringing in trays of food and removing used utensils, and empty bulbs of fluids. The meal bots surreptitiously runs full body scans on both men to maintain a medical record of their health while sequestered under duress.

A massive portable sensor array is stored in the room along with them. At once monitoring their every move as well as prepping itself to broadcast the final solution program code out to every nanobot in the fleet associated with the heavy infantrymen currently in stasis aboard The Righteous Chord and other vessels in the fleet. Sleeves of people who are technically still alive, but are stored away – dead in the water.

Brian is seated behind his side of the partition with his monitor obscured by a blanket. An added step to make sure both men were not observing each others code, so that they can in turn review the others product knowing it is entirely different from their own. They both opted to write their own version of the programming code for the nanotech update, and then swap it out daily between themselves to review it. In doing so they could check for errors, and find the most robust solution to their problems without influencing each other in the process of problem solving. One who tended towards brute force and the other on finesse and subtlety. Sometimes talking through it line by line, rubber ducking each other to make sure it all makes sense in the review stage. A constant pull between wanting to stay alive through the impending battle, and anger and hatred towards having to wipe out the humanity of four thousand people trapped in stasis hell. It was almost an elegant way of killing four thousand of your closest friends, team mates and colleagues. Or so the SLT was trying to make them believe.

The clicking and clacking of the keyboards was a steady cacophony most days. There were just so many variables to content with. Several times the two men had threatened to mutiny in order to obtain some outside help from the original authors of the nanotech coding which they were so familiar with. Piotr was by far more proficient in small edits, but Brian was able to distill broad ideas down into concise if- then, and/or statements.

“How do we account for the replication process? Not all of the fire teams nor tankers are the same size. Hell their BMI’s are different. So are their metabolisms. I’m not even certain at what percentage we need to reach for this to be effective? How do we tell it to stop at a nearly unlimited set of upper limits for four thousand individual cases?” Shouts Brian frustratedly, after slapping his desk hard, causing his palm to go numb. Piotr leans back in his chair, cracking his vertebrae and shoulders in the process. “What do you mean? We go the full 100%. Right? We’re killing them once spiritually, no need to kill them physically too by adding in errors or gaps in service or response time, right? Right?” Says Piotr flatly, beads of sweat forming on his brow. He hated these asides, and pow wows that Brian insisted on every time he had a surge of remorse. It was slowing them down, and was adding fodder to the ‘put a bullet in their head’ camp that held their lives in their hands just outside the room doors twenty feet away. “I know you want to go the full 100%, I do, and I understand why. But we have to leave some room for their humanity. Don’t we? Give us a chance to bring them back from the brink?” Garbles Brian as his head rests in his arms on the table. “I couldn’t agree with anything less than 98%, if I’m being honest. That’s about the 2% +/- margin of error in the replication rates of our nanobots. Anything less and you’re dooming them all, and us to physical death.” Says Piotr from his reclined position. He stands up, groaning with the strain. And walks somberly over to the singular window that spans one wall of the room. The vast empty blackness of space staring back at him. The dim glow reflecting his own haunted visage back at him, only with a blue-green tint from the concrete glass.

“I know that Piotr, I do. But I have to hold out hope that I can get Mimi back. She deserves the chance, even if it’s a small one.” Moans Brian, overwhelmed with grief – again. “We have no idea what will happen to them with a one hundred percent nanobot take over anyway. It’s never been tried. We have strict rules regulating this stuff. It took a war to allow us to boost the regular dose at orientation into the Company up from two to five percent. That level of integration with the weapons systems has not exactly been field tested rigorously. We’re all just experimental monkeys here man. Fuck.”

Chapter Twenty Four: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

“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.