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The Meeting - Part Sixteen
Things That Go Bump in the Night
23.03.2268. 0230 GMT
Saltlake Naval Base
Earth Orbit
"Senator Hartwick. What a pleasant surprise. To what
do I owe this honour?" Vice Admiral Wexler said, as he opened the door to his
private suite, blinking at the brightness of the corridor lights.
"Cut the bullshit, Wexler," the senator grumbled, as
he pushed his way past the Vice Admiral into the room. "I'm not in the mood."
"Any time I receive a visit from a senator is an
honour, even if it's." he made a dramatic show of looking at his watch. "Two-thirty
in the morning. I take it this couldn't wait?"
"Damn right it can't wait. We have to talk," Hartwick
was pacing the anteroom nervously. Wexler turned on lights, and gestured toward
the couch in the sitting room, tightened his robe and followed the senator
toward the comfort of soft furniture.
"I just got out of a meeting with the President," Hartwick
proceeded, more composed now that he was sitting. "He's not happy. He's
scheduled to announce our new budget tomorrow afternoon. It's not going to be a
very popular budget, to say the least. The deficit is getting worse by
the minute. He's already down in the polls, and the ratings are heading even
further south as we speak. The public is reacting to this recent military debacle
at Tau Ceti even worse than we'd imagined. Frankly, he's more than a little
pissed that you've organized a little 'fact-finding' mission without consulting
us about the details."
"That mission is more than just a little." the Vice
Admiral started to defend himself.
"He doesn't give the tiniest shit what it is.
What the president wants, and what you will give him, is the name or
names of the people responsible for the intelligence leak in our defence and
security forces," spat Hartwick, with more vehemence than Wexler expected. "You
will provide them to his staff, along with the details of how they were
captured and how they have confessed to their crimes, and how they will be
punished; all by tomorrow at two. Do you understand? He fully intends to lead off
his budget announcement with a nice little heart-warming, confidence-building
victory story.preferably one that has some truth to it. But truth is optional:
You catch yourself a god-damned spy in a very public way, and do it by
tomorrow. Got it?!"
Vice Admiral Wexler leaned back in his chair, with a
smug look, opened his hands, and asked, "Is that all?"
"Don't play games, Wexler," Hartwick was cooling off
again, and started sounding exhausted. "Like I said: I'm not in the mood."
"That's Vice Admiral Wexler to you, senator."
Wexler said with a controlled tone that sent a chill down Hartwick's spine. He
leaned in menacingly close to Hartwick, as he spoke. "Just VICE Admiral.
I will be a full Admiral by the end of this week, and more by the end of the
year. Much more," his voice lost some of the deadly seriousness it had, and
returned to a more cavalier tone. "I can probably give you all that espionage
information right now if you want. I set up that mission to give us what we
want one way or another. I was just waiting to see how things might play out,
hoping we'd be able to kill a few birds with one stone. I was about to finish
telling you that it's a mission with a number of contingencies for just such
changes of political will. Now that I've learned about our President's weak
support for a real spy-catching mission, all I have to do is make a call
or two, and things will proceed in a slightly different way. But they will
still produce the desired results. In fact, I think the results will be
downright spectacular. Just between the two of us, senator, the President and I
differ considerably on this point: I don't think the public is upset enough.
Not yet," Wexler's eyes burned with greater intensity, and looked through Hartwick
for a moment as he expounded. "If you really want to see your shipyards in full
production with lucrative military contracts; if you really want to see this
entire society start screaming for more security and more military strength; if
you really want to see the population crystallize their resolve to eliminate
the Indie threat, then you need to scare the living shit out of them! They need
to be so afraid of that Indie 'boogey man' out there that they'll hand you
their wallets, the keys to their hovercars, hell, even their own children, just
so long as you promise to keep their lives safe, secure, and essentially the
same."
Hartwick grew pale as he realized how dangerously he
had underestimated Wexler's ambition. "What kind of 'spectacular results' are
you talking about?"
"Let's just say that the loss of the strike group at Tau
Ceti was just a taste of the terror to come. A more.significant loss
should really get things moving quickly in the senate. You'll get the funding
bill and the military build-up you want, and I'll get the emergency powers I
want. If King ends up looking weak, or as if he fumbled the ball, well.that's a
pity isn't it," he smiled a rictus grin that sent another chill through the
senator.
"You don't need to worry about the President. You'll
get your announcement. And you'll get it on time," the Vice Admiral regained
his composure, but some of the menace stayed in his voice. "If I were you, I'd
be more worried about how well you can serve me. I didn't get this far without
knowing a thing or two about tactics. I always have a backup plan or two. Or
three. King will get what he wants in time for his little announcement. More
importantly, I will get what I want. As far as everyone else is concerned?
Well, almost everyone will get what they need." He leaned back again, tenting
his fingers in a gesture of supreme confidence, as he scrutinized the senator.
"Almost.
"Now get the hell out of my sight, senator.I've got some calls to make."
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23.03.2268
Jovian Orbit
Sol System CNV 676 Niagara
The Niagara orbited Jupiter
at a comfortable distance for the third straight hour. Iwamasa slid out from
under one of the processor subunits serving the ENG workstation on the bridge,
and sat up on the floor, a collection of tools and parts scattered between his
feet. The shakedown patrol mission was serving its purpose by revealing a few
glitches in the ship's data control systems.
"Captain, I've almost got this problem fixed." Iwamasa
said to his new Captain, Emile Lejeunne, who sat watching from the command
workstation. "I'll need a little more time to test it once I get things back
together.maybe another hour."
"Very well, Lieutenant Iwamasa," Lejeunne replied
casually, his French accent was already less obvious to Kenji, now that he was
getting used to it. "Proceed. This mission has been full of delays of this
sort. Better to have them happen now than in combat."
Their new pilot, Ensign Rennie North, appeared to be
born at the helm. He was newly graduated from the academy, but was made for the
NAV station, training or not. He was barely able to contain his excitement
since they left Saltlake for a tour of the Sol system, exclaiming that the Niagara
had even better responses than the simulator, and the training ship from
which he'd transferred. Iwamasa could tell already, even after a few hours,
that North was a gentler soul than McMichael had been. In fact, Kenji observed
that North, an African Brit with a thick east end London accent, was downright
optimistic about almost everything so far. He was friendly and respectful to Iwamasa,
and seemed to appreciate Kenji's wit. Come to think of it, Kenji thought, maybe
North was being a little too nice to Kenji, which made him oddly miss
Mac's relentless teasing. At least no one was calling him "the kid" on this
ship, where he was one of the more experienced crew on the bridge.
Iwamasa had found that the Niagara was
identical to the Redoubt, in most ways, only she smelled newer. Fresh
paint, unmarred labels, and clean handholds were the most noticeable
differences. Looking around, he could see that there were fewer scratches on
the floors, fewer stains in the upholstery, and fewer taped up bundles of
cables than the Redoubt had. There was also a distinct absence of any
personal touches anywhere. As much as he had hated them, Kenji had to admit to
himself that he missed the fuzzy dice and the rear view mirror on the Redoubt's
bridge.
Lejeunne was from someplace in the south of France. He
came from a wealthy family and long line of ship captains. At times Iwamasa
could see the spoiled rich kid in him, but he was growing to like him anyway. Iwamasa
could also tell that Lejeunne was still uncomfortable in his new role as the
ship's Captain. At one point during the first leg of their shakedown mission, Lejeunne
completely forgot to issue an order, so they sat there for a few moments, until
he realized his error. They'd been able to laugh about it then, but if it
happened at a more critical moment, no one would be laughing.
Their WEPs officer was Edwina Bates. There was no
telling what her original hair colour had been, but her short-cropped mop was
dyed an almost blinding white. It peeked out in scintillating flashes as unruly
locks of it seemed to escape from under her flight helmet. She introduced
herself to Kenji as Eddie. She was older than Rav, about a foot taller, longer
limbed, and lean. She looked like the kind of gunner that was happiest when the
shooting was at its most intense. Her service record seemed to bear that
impression out, as she had a number of confirmed kills.
She caught Kenji looking at her, earlier in the day,
as they were preparing to launch. He wasn't ogling or anything, he was just
trying to figure her out, when she looked right at him from her workstation,
gave him an exaggerated wink, and blew him a kiss. He felt embarrassed, but she
just laughed out loud and returned to her gum chewing. She clearly enjoyed
getting the attention of men.
It also didn't take Kenji long to figure out that she
and Lejeunne had something going on, probably for a long time now. Kenji knew
the signs to look for from personal experience, and there was no mistaking the
comfort of their physical closeness, or how they spoke to one another. They
must've been bed partners from when Lejeunne was the NAV officer of the Corrigedor.
He wondered how they would manage, now that Lejeunne was in the Captain's
chair. At least they got to be together on the same ship. At moments like this,
it seemed like Rav was a million miles away. In fact, she was a good deal
further away than that.
Lejeunne instructed North to take a break, and sent
Eddie to assist the second engineering repair team in the C.R.A.C. room. The
bridge seemed much quieter for a time. After a period of silence, during which
Kenji worked on his back under his console, his new Captain broke the silence
with a surprising question.
"Lieutenant Iwamasa," Lejeunne
said. "Have you ever seen anything out there in deep space that simply defied.I
mean, that you could not explain in any way?"
Iwamasa almost bumped his head as he slid back out from
under the console. He sat up and thought for a moment, recalling of some of
the spectacularly beautiful vistas of space he had witnessed, none of which
seemed out of the realm of the natural universe. "I don't think so, sir. I
recently saw a 'visible man' but I don't think that's what you mean. Do you
mind if I ask why?"
By way of answering, Lejeunne asked him another
question. "Were you always interested in serving as Chief Engineer aboard a starship?"
"Umm.I hadn't really thought about it like that," replied
Iwamasa. "I mean, I've always wanted to be on a starship since I was a kid, and
the Navy was my best chance at getting something better than a mate's or a
deckhand's position. Once I joined up, they told me my strengths were in
engineering and managing the onboard teams.so here I am. From what I've learned
so far, I'd say they were right; it's been a pretty good fit."
Lejeunne answered this with a nod. He seemed lost in
thought.
"Do you mind if I ask what you're trying to get at,
Captain?" Iwamasa ventured.
"Mm? Oh, no not at all," Lejeunne answered. "I was
thinking out loud, really. I was wondering about some of the things that go
beyond explanation. I was wondering if my own path to this position as Captain
aboard the Niagara might be one of them. I can't help feeling that, no
matter how we try to evade our destiny, it seems to find us somehow."
There was another pause during which Iwamasa wondered
if there were more questions coming, more of an explanation, or if he should
return to his almost completed work under the console, no more enlightened than
he was a moment ago.
"Did you know that I come from a family of ship
captains?" Lejeunne continued. Without waiting for Iwamasa to reply, he
explained further. "My great grandfather owned a very successful ocean going
commercial shipping company based in France. Some of my family still operate
those container ships, but some of us went into commercial shipping in space.
My grandfather was the Captain of the Walter Sisulu."
This got Iwamasa's attention. "That was one of the
first Powell-class mega-freighters ever commissioned wasn't it? That ship is in
every kid's history book these days. I had no idea that was your grandfather. I
remember learning about how she was destroyed. That must have been very difficult."
"I wasn't even born when it happened," Lejeunne
offered. "He was not the first in my family to die in the Captain's seat. The
real tragedy was that the Navy rescuers could not reach them in time. It seems
that being rescued by the Navy is also in my blood, somehow."
"Just because we picked you up last week doesn't mean
you have that in your blood," Iwamasa said. "Besides, unlike your
grandfather, the Redoubt found you in time, and you weren't Captain of
that ship when things went wrong."
"True," Lejeunne conceded, "but I
still feel like I was somehow fated to find myself sitting here. My father is
also Captain of a freighter, based in Ross 128. He was furious when I announced
my decision to break with tradition and join the Commonwealth Navy. I was
young, and I wanted to fly C-fighters. It didn't take me long to realize that
the life expectancy of fighter pilots was very brief for a reason. After a
friend of mine died in training, I didn't want any part of it. So I trained to
pilot these things.
"As I said, this decision broke my
father's heart," Lejeunne continued. "He told me I would never make Captain if
I went into the Navy."
"So, he was wrong," Iwamasa stated. "There you sit,
Captain of your own Commonwealth Navy corvette. So what if you got rescued
once. It's better than the alternative."
"Also true," said Lejeunne. "But there is more. My
sister, she stayed with the family tradition. She is Captain of a family
freighter, the Conspiracy Theory. She spends most of her time running neutronium
from Xi Bootis. On a recent run, just a few weeks ago, she was in transit on a
new route they've started using because too many freighters have been seeing
strange things in FX-2978. While travelling through the Gulatos system, near
the Lemuel LaGrange point, she came into contact with something she'd never
seen before.it came up too fast to see clearly, but it was small and bright,
and it knocked out all their systems for several hours. Their engineer was also
rendered unconscious. She told me they were completely powerless and adrift
until they were rescued by a Navy ship; I believe it was the Dreadnaught.
It was another one of those totally inexplicable things."
"So, she got rescued by the Navy, too. The Navy does a
lot of that, I suppose. Any idea what that thing was?" Iwamasa asked.
"None," replied Lejeunne. "No one had any idea and no
one was willing to talk about it. Even my own sister was reluctant to discuss
this with me. I think she finally did tell me because she knew we were going to
go out there again, and she wanted me to be careful."
Iwamasa replaced the cover to the access panel he had
removed, gathered his tools and said, "I guess that would be one of those
stories of things that go bump in the night. I've listened to spacers tell all
kinds of tales of unexplained things they've seen out there, but I figured they
were mostly made up, or embellished. You know, to keep everyone in that spooked
mood, or to keep them buying rounds of beer or something like that."
"Perhaps," Lejeunne said. "But if my sister says she
saw something, and her ship was affected by it, then I believe her."
Iwamasa returned to his seat at the ENG controls and
started calling up command screens. "I guess there's a lot more out there than
we've encountered, or can explain. I just haven't seen any of it yet.
"Anyway, speaking of seeing stuff," Kenji continued,
"the optics targeting system is working again, so you can use the scopes to
confirm targets and contacts out to a good distance, if you want to. Most
vessels don't use optics that much these days, not with sensors the way they
are. But I can tell you from experience that we found it to be very useful
during a recent mission, when the Redoubt was doing some recon."
"Yes I heard about this mission," Lejeunne said.
"Let's try it now, while we wait for the others to get back, shall we? Let's
see if we can see Pluto from Jupiter orbit."
"Alright," Iwamasa said as he complied with the order.
"Calculating Pluto's position, targeting and recording. We should be able
to.Holy CRAP!"
"What is it?" Lejeunne demanded.
"Did you see that?" he replied
excitedly. "That was one huge burst of X ray output. I think we might have
caught it on the recording. It was definitely from the vicinity of Pluto
space."
Iwamasa confirmed the recording and the location.
"It's confirmed. It was a massive X ray burst from the location of FTL
Communications relay number 307, Captain. We managed to record most of it. What
do you think we should do?"
"Report it to HQ immediately," Lejeunne said. "Send a
copy of the recording with a priority message to base immediately, and request
permission to investigate."
"Sending," Iwamasa confirmed. "Talk about things that
go bump in the night. It looks like we've got our own strange occurrence to
tell stories about, now."
"Maybe it was destiny that we look at the right place
at the right time, eh?" Lejeunne mused.
North and Bates returned to the bridge quickly after
receiving the Captain's orders to prepare for departure to Pluto space. They
were strapped in and ready for action filled with a sense of excited
anticipation, and then waited what seemed like an eternity for the reply to
come from Saltlake base. They chatted excitedly about the possible explanations
for the event they witnessed, and they speculated about the kind of new mission
orders they would get in response to it. What they received was even stranger
than what they had reported.
The new orders they received made no mention of the
strange burst of radiation they had recorded. Instead, they received a hastily
recorded voice-only briefing from Vice Admiral Wexler describing disturbing
developments about a Navy corvette gone rogue. The Vice Admiral indicated that
his fleet was mobilizing to pursue the traitor vessel as soon as they could
launch the Purdue, and her escort. The Niagara was active and
ready to respond to this crisis faster than any other vessels in the area. They
were to proceed at best possible speed to the Toliman jump point at Alpha
Centauri B and engage the fleeing Naval vessel commanded by spies with extreme
hostility. Vice Admiral Wexler's direct orders were to engage and destroy the CNV
534 Redoubt at all costs, and by any means necessary.
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