“You're different,” said the young red haired woman looking over the top of her coffee mug. She was beautiful, and there was a curiosity about her manner as she shyly considered him.
Without another word she stood and walked to a large transparent bulkhead. Her long white dress had a scooped neckline and flowed smoothly over her curvaceous figure. She was stunning under the gentle blue and white light shed by the stars distorted through the haze of the hyperspace field. Her red hair was curled tightly into ringlets that hung down to a white choker. In the center of that choker was an emblem; a circular blue jewel with a sword through it. Over her shoulders was a white silk shawl.
Under the gentle illumination of hyperspace she turned her head and smiled at him so warmly. “Thank you.”
Her hand extended out to him, she was offering him his long coat, only this one looked much older, the tools he could see inside one of the pockets looked like they had been used far more than anything he'd owned.
Jake took it and put it on.
He was sitting in a chair then, his wrists and ankles were bound, the room was bare of decoration. A tall, wiry man with a long pointed nose was walking around him slowly. “My dear Captain Valent,” he said slowly, annunciating every syllable.
The deep irritation and anger he felt towards his haughty captor were second only to the pain in his head and neck. The rest hurt too, just not as much. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to tear his interrogator to shreds, but the restraints wouldn't give.
“I wonder if your name is shortened from Valentine?” He stooped down and looked Jake in the eye. “From your scans we can see no evidence of inbreeding. I suppose I'll have to have them scan you again,” The man with the irritating, angular face said before breaking into hysterical laughter.
Jake managed to hop in his seat and bite into the man's nose, it burst like ripe fruit.
The pain was gone when he opened his eyes and he was following a very tall blond haired fellow with broad shoulders down an old hallway. It looked like a ship corridor that had seen many, many years, but it was clean and well cared for.
They arrived at a doorway and the placard on the portal came into view; Captain was what it said. The door opened and Jake saw the large blond man again; “Sounds like a Captain. Looks like a Captain. Even acts like a Captain. It's all real, and I bet this trip would already be over if we had a Captain who sailed by the book.”
The lights went out. Darkness weighed heavily, panic rose in his chest, then there was a flash, just for a moment the entire world was alive. His hands gripped the controls of some metal beast. Another flash, and he could see the guns.
The flashes came faster, faster, until he could hear the ammunition being fed in a constant stream into the mini cannons. He could track enemy ships with his eyes and the targeting computer, and he was dead set on killing everything in the black sky. A sign hovered over his targeting reticle; Departures only today! Scheduled arrivals postponed indefinitely!
A large marauder corvette came into view, its tall, smooth vertical bow was topped with a charging beam emitter that glowered at him like a great big yellow eye. He fired, feeling the guns shake his arms, his shoulders, the pod that hung from the bottom of the old ship; there was no way they'd take him alive.
The beam emitter flashed and he was standing in a military port. All around there were young soldiers, getting ready to go off to war. An older man who was so familiar regarded him with a level gaze. There was a lot going on behind those eyes, so much like his own, and as the older, familiar man handed him the old black long coat he said; “I'm proud of you,” and was gone.
As he put the coat on he found himself saying; “The Ancient Americans used to tell a story about a lone wolf.”
“What killed him?” asked a disembodied voice.
“One of his own pups.”
Dawn came, and in all directions fires burned. The sky was blue and grey, factory and refinery complexes had been made into raging infernos during the night and it satisfied him deeply. Something had been taken from him by these people, the man who was so proud of him was gone, and it was all their fault.
“The man who stokes too many fires may set alight that which should not burn,” said a shorter man in combat armour to his left.
“Do you have an expression for everything Minh?” He asked his friend.
The air became thick, he couldn't move. There was some kind of halo around his forehead and shadows lurking outside. “A bird does not sing because it has an answer,” said the shorter fellow from somewhere behind him.
“It sings because it has a song,” Jake finished, though the viscus liquid didn't permit the sound to travel.
A man with a grey beard knocked on the transparent barrier and Jake woke up so utterly furious he twisted his blankets in his hands. He was breathless, sweating, his head felt like it was on fire.
Jacob's eye was drawn to the love seat in his ready quarters, where he had left his long coat and long white silken scarf. Just seeing them there calmed him down. He got up and picked up the scarf. Jake held it gently in his hand, evoking memories of the petite fiery haired woman standing at the window. “It sings because it has a song,” he said to himself in a whisper.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared out the transparent hull above the loveseat for a time before his subdermal communicator beeped quietly. “Go ahead.”
“This is Andy, I'm on shift in communications tonight. Sorry to contact you so late, Captain.”
“I'm awake, what's this about?”
“Someone's fixed our main transmitter array and we found them sending encrypted messages. Jane Eccleston went town to check the terminal with a squad. There was an explosion, we lost contact.”
“I'm on my way. Tell security not to send anyone in. Just have them seal and guard that section until I arrive.”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh, and did someone assign quarters to Alice?”
There was a delay as the comms crewman looked it up or asked someone else. “Security reports that she's been given temporary quarters, they're listed in the ship manifest.”
“Thank you, Valance out.”
Captain Valance laid the scarf down with care across the loveseat and got dressed. As he made his way to the aft section of deck three he checked the deck blueprints. It was packed with sensitive systems, there was no way he could disable whoever was in there with an electromagnetic grenade. There were maintenance hatches, even a few small access passages, but he couldn't judge how packed in they were with cabling. I need to learn more about this ship. My engineering knowledge gives me an advantage, but before now I've never even seen a Sol carrier.
Jake stepped into an express tube that would take him to the hallway leading directly into that section and nodded at the pair of soldiers there. They both saluted. “Captain.”
“At ease. You're headed aft?”
“Aye sir.”
The express car moved upward then horizontally at great speed, its independent gravity systems protected the occupants from any stress. It was as though they weren't moving at all. The tall windows to their right and left showed the opaque and transparent sections of the express tunnel.
The car came to a halt and its doors opened. Captain Valance stepped out first and looked down the three hallways. There were a pair of soldiers guarding a doorway leading into the section in question, but he didn't see anyone else. “You two will guard this expressway. If the doors open or anything strange happens, fire stun shots in every direction for ten seconds.”
“Sir?” one of them questioned.
“I've boarded a ship in a stealth suit before. If it weren't damaged by an EMP bomb I'd be wearing it now. I want you to assume you're guarding against someone as well or more well equipped than I am. Besides, it's easier to stun first and apologize later.”
“Yes sir,” The soldier said as they took positions in front of the closed express shaft doors.
Captain Valance walked down the center hallway to the pair of soldiers guarding the interior of the locked section.
“This area is off limits. Please move on,” ordered one of them.
“I know, those were my orders. Where did the Chief and her squad get hit?”
“Um, just inside sir,” the other soldier reported. “I'm sorry Captain, we haven't all seen the press on you yet sir. There's been a lot going on.”
“That's all right. I'll be going in alone.”
“Is that wise sir? I mean, pardon me for saying so, but it sounds like whoever is inside is well armed and-” the burly guard managed before he was interrupted.
“You're speaking out of turn soldier. Step aside,” Captain Valance ordered flatly.
The guards moved to the side and Captain Valance motioned for them to move back further. “Get to the end of the corridor. Keep your weapons trained on this hatch until I give the all clear.”
“Yes sir.”
He waited for them to get in position before he stood beside the door and deactivated the lock. The smell of burned flesh filled the corridor and Jake sealed his headpiece. With his arm command unit he turned up the density of the suit, just in case there was an explosion and his suit didn't have time to adjust on its own.
Captain Valance stepped into the hall and carefully moved forward, watching the transparent overlay on his visor as it scanned all wavelengths of light, displayed thermal and electromagnetic profiles and the results of the sonar and motion detection data. It was all stacked up on little squares along the bottom of his visor, just out of his line of sight. If he wanted to enlarge a reading he only had to look directly at it.
He could see the explosion occurred just down to the first four way intersection and to the right. He focused on the electromagnetic sensors and it transparently overlaid everything in sight. There was a small source of electromagnetism just past the intersection that wasn't connected to any ship systems. The computer enhanced its shape in the complete darkness and he verified it was a high intensity proximity mine.
Using a combination of detection technologies the hall soon looked perfectly lit with extra information over top through his blackened visor, and he stepped around the corner. The remains of Chief Eccleston and her team were scattered everywhere for the next twelve meters. They didn't see what hit them. Their vacsuits were well beneath the quality that he wore, and the mine had a brain intelligent enough to let them get right next to it before it blew. It also fit right against the wall, only three millimetres thick and ten centimetres by ten centimetres. Its colour changed to match whatever surface it was attached to, expensive technology. The physically small explosive was enough to do incredible damage. There was nothing intact to save, and the medical readings confirmed it. There wasn't a single snapping synapse in the charred hallway.
He continued on, double checking everything. If I were the one setting traps, the first thing I would have done is gone back and put a mine right in the middle of this mess. Jake thought to himself. Something caught his eye and he stopped.
A smaller proximity mine was rolled up and tucked into the remains of one soldier, almost completely shielded from his sensor suite. He shook his head and carefully stepped back.
Staring at the remains harbouring the deadly surprise, he thought about what he had brought with him and anything he could pull out of the walls or use in his surroundings to deactivate the device. I can't believe I have absolutely nothing that can deal with this discreetly. He thought to himself, shaking his head. While I consider the problem this saboteur is trying just as hard to find a way out or coming closer to their endgame.
Jake drew his sidearm and stepped back to the corner. He took aim and fired, setting the mine off. The hall was filled with debris instantly, the deck shook and he heard a secondary explosion further off. He hadn't come to any harm, and he checked the active blueprint of the deck to ensure the corridors hadn't been breached. It marked minor damage on two parts of the deck and some tearing at the next corner, but other than that the damage was superficial. “They don't make 'em like this anymore,” he said to himself.
“What was that sir?” asked someone on the security channel.
“Those detonations were intentional. Make no entry,” he ordered. “Keep the channel clear please.”
“Yes sir.”
The hallway had settled and he picked his way through carefully, looking at the meter wide indentation where the second mine had gone off. Chief Grady's not going to be happy about that, he thought to himself as he looked down the hall where the secondary explosion had occurred.
The blueprints marked the room at the end as the transmitter hub and he scanned the way to it thoroughly. Before moving ahead he looked the other way, and found what he was looking for. There was a proximity trigger pointing at the door from the other end of the hall. If he had stepped inside it may have triggered an explosive somewhere else. He estimated the mechanical eye's field of vision and moved down the hall, pressed against one side so it wouldn't detect him.
Holding his sidearm at the ready he activated the door control. The secure forty centimetre thick door slid to the side in a quarter second. A woman in a sealed vacsuit was working at a terminal inside. It looked like one of the crew Regent Galactic assigned to Wheeler. She entered the send command before Jake could do anything and turned to face him with her hands up. There was a proximity bomb right between them.
“It's too bad you didn't let the Minister take over Captain. He could have shown you the way into trust, into salvation from the guardians of Eden.” she said, he could hear her smiling behind that vacsuit mask.
“No one has to die here. If you have the code for that mine-”
“I don't. If either of us move any closer to it that will be the end.”
“I can promise you fair treatment and safe delivery to the nearest port. All you have to do is show me what you sent,” Jake said in a soothing voice.
“I know what you do to your enemies, Captain.”
“I've never broken my word, you can get out of this, whatever it is with your skin intact.”
“It's too late for that.” She shook her head slowly. “The West Keepers know all about their shiny black pawn. They've been very interested in what you've been up to, even though you're such a small thing to them.”
“Take your time, explain it to me.” Jake invited calmly as he worked to think of any peaceful conclusion to the situation. Whatever information she had been sending had to have been important.
“You really don't know, do you? The new plague approaches and you're just like everyone else. Oblivious, attached to your material things and the need for wealth, power.” The young woman pulled her headpiece off. Her long white hair fell down her shoulders, and she was positively radiant, beaming with a broad grin. “Enjoy these final days Captain. My death in service sends my spirit to the garden, to the promised territory of the confessed and reformed.” she said in celebration as she stood and leapt towards the proximity mine.
Jake barely had time to duck and cover himself with his long coat. Even through the armour it and his vacsuit provided, he was rocked by the explosion hard. After a moment he looked up and saw very little of her was left, the explosion had caught her fully.