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“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.

** 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.

“Good morning, and how is my patient today? Hm…”

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“Oh now don’t get up Mimi.” Chuckles the man to himself. “I realize you’re catatonic in your stasis sleeve.” He says walking around her as she is stuck hanging frozen in her pod. He comes to stand face to chest with Mimi as her enormous body hangs several inches in the air, suspended in her metallic egg shaped pod. The biological ingredients of the slurry she’s encased in keep her body clean as well as the cells fed, without having to run a more intrusive feeding tube, or catheters for waste removal. The magazine like structure where she is warehoused during the transit from near Earth to Pluto is one long thin room, lined with hundreds if not thousands of similar stasis pods that extend out away from her into darkness. The long hall sloping upwards like a giant wheel seen from the inside. Each one of the sleeves containing other members of her fire team or tanker unit swinging and swaying gently in the dimly lit room. The closest source of light is a sickly green glow from below the dirty floor grates. The grime covered bulbs burning a small trail of oily smoke upwards leaving a thick dark soot upon the wall opposite her. There is motion in front of her eyes as Mimi stares at the man, his breath begins to fog up her clam shell glass door. Besides the man, and the endless rows of sleeping infantrymen, the two are effectively alone. The man of medium build, and bushy brown hair looks vaguely familiar, but it’s really hard to tell from the distortion of the clam shell doors, and his fogging breath. “Have I got some fun in-store for us today Mimi. Oh baby, you’re a big girl. I’m going to have some fun!” The man shouts as he turns in a circle in front of the pod. His soft moccasins make no noise on the open metal grate floors. The green sickly light of the room sparkles off of all the full stasis pods, catching on angles and all of the beveled curves. The man is clapping and hopping about excitedly. As the fog from his breath begins to recede against the glass Mimi can see the man wheel over a cart full of tools and surgical implements. Her heart rate begins to increase. Inside the stasis pod the paralyzed Mimi begins to panic. “Oh Mimi, we are going to have so – much – fun.” The man grins widely, as he begins to open up her pod. The soft hiss of escaping gas, mixing with the rank smell of his hot breath crawls deeply up inside her nasal cavity, to cling cloyingly in her throat. “Don’t worry baby doll, daddy’s got some new tricks today.” He whispers thickly into her ear.

“Uh doctor Tam, we have increased brain activity with Tanker number four eleven, uh, Mimi. Mimi Waters ma’am. Her synapses are going ape shit again.” Says the hunched over orderly in the medical bay. His desk a mess of papers and charts and data logs. Infront of him is a bank of seven monitors all displaying the brain activity of a full platoon of infantrymen aboard the Righteous Chord. A shuffle of papers, and the rustling of pants is all the man hears in response. A moment later he can feel the warmth of an agitated body beside him at the desk. “Pull her up to the main screen. Can we add in an overlay of the last incident. When was that, can I get a time stamp please?” Barks doctor Tam into the general melee of the room. Someone from nearby shouts out. “According to her helmet camera data from the tanker unit she is in stasis inside reads that she only just finished one about an hour ago ma’am.” The response is quick and to the point. “Christ, an hour? What is the actual? Please. Mr… um… Deakins.” Doctor Tam pauses for a breath to allow the tech at the monitoring station to bring up her data. “Actual official time stamp from central monitoring is fifty seven minutes, and two four seconds ma’am.” He says. “Less than an hour inbetween, Jesus Christ. Is this across the board, or only a few rare cases.” Dr Tam asks into the room, to no one in particular. “Looks to be across the board ma’am.” Says Deakins flatly. “Fuck!” Shouts dr Tam. She leans over Deakins shoulder to turn the monitor towards herself to get a better angle. “Can I get a visual of the patient on screen, and bring up all of the play backs of the brain activity. Over lay them all together at once. Same start times and just let them play over in real time with this new incident please.” She says calmly. “Now we watch and wait, and see if we learn anything new.” The doctor pulls a chair close as her whole teams stops to watch Mimi’s face, a frozen rictus of anguish, fear and absolute terror. “Map any micro expressions, or eye movement. I need something from all this, anything at all!” Barks doctor Tam. As she settles in, and steals herself to watching someone in total paralysis have a waking nightmare, and brain damaging migraine combo, for the thousandth time in just weeks.

With a loud creak the bushy haired man cranks the clam shell door open further than it needs to go. Standing in the open door way the man leers inside. “That’s it honey girl, let me have a good look at you. Oh my, we have so much to work with!” He stamps his feet and dances a silly jig like a toddler. “I just don’t know where to start with you today. So many choices, so many rock hard, throbbing choices! You don’t know what you do to me Mimi. If you only knew!” He chirps in a sing song voice. The man’s eyes gaze over Mimi’s nude figure lingering upon the under hang of her breasts and her flat muscular abdomen. He reaches out with both hands to run his palms over her stomach. “Do you know what I really want to try today Mimi?” He whispers as he rests his face against the cool flesh of her belly. Turning his head to rest an ear and a cheek against her tummy he looks up at the frozen face above. He uses a finger to run lazy circles around her belly button before he places several fingers of his right hand into her belly button. “I had a dream last night about you Mimi. I did something naughty. But it felt – so – good!” He says laughing. “You’ll never guess what it was. Not in a million years. You’ll never guess!” He sings aloud.

Mimi is frozen in place as the man before her rests his head upon her belly, she can feel his long bony fingers tracing lazy circles around her belly. With a pinch she can feel him push several fingers into her belly button, as he plays at his version of pillow talk. She is angry, she is violated, she is totally unable to move, blink, talk or do anything while in stasis, and she screams internally for what feels like days on end. With the removal of tension from her belly she can see the doctor pull back. He’s reaching over to the wheely cart behind him, the selection of tools just out of focus from her field of vision. He is talking quietly, Mimi can’t make out what he’s saying to himself.

“The thing is my lovely, we’ve been doing this for years now, and we’ll just keep on doing this for years to come. But the fact is I need something more. I need something new. Variety, my lovely Mimi, is the spice of life. We’ve tried every thing of a natural sort, but now I think we need to get creative Hmm. Yes, yes we do. Ah here it is, you were hiding from me!” The man sneers at his tray of tools. “Trusty scalpel was being sneaky.” He reaches down to pick up the instrument. The sharp edges glint in the oozy green light. The man’s bushy brown hair is now damp, as though he is sweating from exertion or from heightened arousal. “Here’s my plan my lovely, I’m going to cut a one inch hole in your belly, and then I’m going to penetrate you until I spackle your guts from the inside! How’s that for something new!” He squeals in delight as he leans forward to his sloppy work.

Mimi catches the glint of a scalpel in the putrid light of the room. The man is so excited he jolts about animatedly. Did he just say spackle my guts? She thinks. Oh what the fuck is this. With a hideous jab she feels the blade glide through the tissue and muscle of her abdomen, pain blooms from the deep wound. If she weren’t paralyzed she’d have crushed this man’s skull several times over, since he began to visit her in stasis weeks ago. Through glassy eyes she can make out the shape of the man as he moves his cart closer to the open clamshell doors of her pod. Clumsily he climbs up, and begins to pull himself out of his pants and shuffles forward towards her. Pain explodes in her abdomen, as the brown haired man hunches to his work.

“Oh Mimi, oh, oh Mimi, do you know what this needs?” The man giggles as he splashes onto her exposed intestine. “Tomorrow, we use fire!” He laughs, and laughs, and laughs as he wipes himself off and retreats down the hallway into the distance.

Over the video screens doctor Tam can see Mimi’s face scrunch and pulse as her brain waves skyrocket. In the middle of taking a note her wrist communicator pings a notification from both admiral Garneau and his lead advisor Gerald. An emergency meeting has just been booked for the admirals ready room in a few minutes time.

A commotion at the lab doors breaks out as a team of six technicians drag two badly beaten men into the room by their arm pits. Doctor Tam looks at the message from the CO and shouts over the din inside the lab. “Excuse me, Ladies and Gents, we are working here. These two men are to accompany me to my next meeting, so do be kind, yes?” She shouts menacingly. The gathered technicians slowly settle down into a more subdued state. The obvious adrenaline rush gives way to the shakes, and a few of them sit down as they succumb to the feeling. Turning away from the younger portion of her team doctor Tam goes back to standing watch over the monitors, quietly.

“What was that! Did you see that? Was that a spike, report to me people. Did we catch that? Is it distortion from the camera, is it parallax?” Shouts doctor Tam to her room full of medical staff and technicians. “We have it ma’am!” Chimes in Deakins. “She spiked her neural load so high it was off the charts, she nearly had an out of body experience. I can’t imagine what she’s thinking in there. Whatever it is, it’s fucking awful, ma’am” Deakins says quietly to the doctor seated behind him. “That Mr Deakins is the under statement of the fucking century!” Scoffs doctor Tam. “I need a report of this to take with me to the SLT meeting.” As she walks toward the doors out to the lifts a petite woman hands her the print out of the case studies and has the two semi conscious men in tow.

Chapter Twenty Five: 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.

The NEW 52 – It’s like Area 51 but with a 2 instead.

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Which means it’s probably full of interesting military tech and has an awful lot of misinformation floating around about it – so not much unless you really like aviation history, and things like the A-12 Oxcart or the SR-71 Blackbird. Both fantastical pieces of machinery, but not aliens though – sadly.

So what’s on the horizon for today you might ask? More snow shoveling to be precise. Not much, only three inches or so. A quick glide over the property and that’ll be sorted out without issue. However, the bigger issue is storage of all this gods be damned snow. I have banks of it three, almost four feet tall. The space between our drive way and our neighbours is perilously close to full. We’ve both had to give up a couple of feet of driveway itself, to be able to hold the stuff. Our drive which could usually hold four large vehicles without concern would be down to three, and the third would need to be a sedan or smaller. Once you’ve gone skiing, and snowshoeing and tobogganing and skating, and maybe snowmobiling, the draw of the snow diminishes greatly by every single passing day. Plus the cold makes me itch, and I generally hate being house bound 24/7. The wind/air here hurts the face – intentionally. BAH!

Closing out the busiest work week I’ve had in a while, so I look forward to cuddling up with a book, or perhaps being able to dabble in some creative writing. Slow week on that front I’m afraid. The paid work takes precedence over the hobby stuff. Gotta keep the internet flowing somehow!

Speaking of internet, are you guys watching The Book of Boba Fett at all? The last two episodes were weird. Like surely this could have been saved for Mandolorian Season Three, right? Not that I don’t love Grogu and Mando mind you. Just seems out of place, or a weird tie in, and Ashoka & Luke too. I know we’re about to head into SpinOff madness but that seems ill conceived. But if you’ve read my writing you know I’m not one who should complain about the state of someone else’s writing – Ha!

“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.