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  “Yes, sir,” he said softly. I let go of his arm and we walked off the flight deck and into the bowels of the ship.

  Chapter 7– Jonah

  THE COMMAND BRIDGE surrounded me sleekly, convincing me my age would be a hindrance. I try not to get caught in the trap of “in my day,” but I admit to having difficulty once the gleaming command nexus started curving in every direction. Had I really been out of the game long enough for them to redesign the major ships in the fleet - again?

  I knew the answer to that question and also knew better than to ask it. Damn. Still, a bridge is a bridge. So what if I felt like I stood on a kid’s toy? It worked, right?

  “This place works, right?” I asked Mills. I gave him a small shrug to punctuate the question.

  “Uhhh, yes sir?” he answered, hesitating. Great, now the kid was wondering whether senility had set in. Perfect. No, none of it mattered. I shoved everything out and only let Shae in. Focus.

  The General came on deck not long after Mills and I. Hodges looked utterly in control as his men stood and saluted him. I knocked one out for him, too - after all, I stood in his house. He looked me up and down and noted the weapon at my belt with disdain.

  “Captain Madison,” he said, walking quickly over to me.

  “Jonah, General, just Jonah. Now, where’d they take my wife?”

  “Easy there, Captain,” he said, stopping a foot or so away and facing me dead on. Hodges and I didn’t have too much history - I’d heard of him while he came up the ranks but never bothered to really follow the man’s career. I couldn’t keep track of everyone. What I did know boiled down to him being mostly business with the occasional dumb risk to get things done. That all wrapped before he hit General, though. Since then we’d talked once or twice, but nothing critical or even memorable. I just knew I’d never grown warm to the man.

  “Easy my ass. You wanted me here to stop some sort of invasion. Fine. I’m here to get my wife. Let’s not misunderstand each other, General, sir,” I told him. He didn’t faze at all.

  “And we’ll get her back, Captain,” he said, “but we also do have priorities. Yes, of course, getting your wife back is one of them, but working out what we’re up against and then stopping it has to take precedence.”

  Not true, but no point in telling him that just then. Shrugging, I added a quick nod to keep us moving somewhere useful.

  Mills redirected the conversation before I could, putting a hand to his ear and growing pale. “Sir,” he addressed Hodges, “we have reports of the long-rage command group about to engage the invaders.”

  “Already?” Hodges looked surprised.

  “Yes sir, General. Flight leader says that it’s a small recon force.”

  “Perfect. Captain Madison, would you accompany me to the battle deck? This is exactly why I wanted your help.” Hodges wasted no time, starting to move as soon as Mills mentioned the established contact. I liked that.

  “Only if you call me Jonah,” I said, already falling in step behind him.

  “Jonah, then,” he said over his shoulder, “this way.”

  Mills stayed right with us and the three of us left the command bridge, taking a lift down into the battle deck. Battle decks never changed, no matter how sleek they made the bridges. A battle deck was all function.

  One large plotting area sat in the center of the large open space, a big table with a screen embedded in it to display whatever the field of combat happened to be. Markers for us and them sat along the edges, being moved into position silently by deck hands with earpieces, listening to navigation updates. All around the outer rim of the room, other people stood by: on communications, collating data, bringing the field reports in and handing them off to the deck hands who made them come to life on that table. That awful table.

  I hated battle decks, even as I made sure not to blame the men and women who manned them for my distaste. No matter how you measured it, the problem came out the same: I couldn’t deal with anyone who was so removed from what a fight felt like trying to help me fight one. I knew those were their jobs and they were good at them, but battle decks and I didn’t see eye to eye. And now I stood on one, apparently expected to help them, somehow.

  “You’ve had no contact with them before this?” I asked Hodges, who raised an eyebrow at me.

  “We have had limited contact, but nothing definitive enough to consider telling. This is our first engagement.”

  “That’s not what Mills told me.”

  “It’s what Mills knew,” Hodges said, resting his hands on the edges of the plotting area. “Let’s get this board live!” he barked, and our discussion of how much anyone knew ended with a snap.

  The plotting area flickered to life, stars and planets fuzzing into view. Deck hands quickly pushed markers into position. I looked around for Hodges’ other battle advisors and realized that the three of us were the only ones who didn’t live in this space.

  “Hodges,” I asked, ignoring chain of command and all of that. I didn’t care and was sick of pretending. “Where’s the rest of your battle crew?”

  “That’s General, Jonah,” he corrected me, but not unkindly, “and we are the battle crew. This whole thing is being kept hush-hush, orders from above. It’s why we needed you.”

  “Because you can’t trust your own men? That doesn’t wash, General.”

  “It’s the truth, Jonah,” he lied to me.

  “Yeah, sure. It still doesn’t wash.”

  “Listen, Captain Madison,” he said, spitting out the words, “this whole operation is classified. We don’t want to leak that we’ve had contact until we know more.”

  “No dice yet, General.” I turned and looked around the room. We were still crewed, just not with actual advisors. Which meant that Hodges didn’t want to hear anything other than his input, and mine.

  It brought up a question of why he would want that: what was he trying to keep away from me? I could’ve assumed he wanted to keep information from his advisors, but really the variable in the room was me, which shifted things in my direction. I bit back a wave of old-standing paranoia and brushed away the feeling that the events unfolding were being faked for my benefit. The expense, uselessness, and sheer audacity of someone trying that didn’t hold water. No, Hodges kept something from me, possibly multiple somethings, though I couldn’t begin to tell what they were, and found himself willing to put his own men at risk for it. That pissed me off.

  Shae still held the top spot in my focus, but if Hodges tossed his own men, good men, to the wolves just to play games…bile rose in my throat. Those men and women were all a Shae to someone waiting back home. The operation stood live, regardless, and my anger wouldn’t do any good – and neither would leaving. All I could do was win this.

  I gripped the edge of the table tight and took a deep breath. Hodges watched me, uncertain as to what thoughts roiled across my brain. Good. Let him wonder. I’d do my job and then explain to him exactly why he was a damned fool. Probably teaching him the lesson at the end of my fist.

  The board sat, lit and waiting. Techs stood back, only reaching in when they found a marker to shift. I watched the angles unfold in front of me and turned, looking behind me.

  “Get these markers off the board,” I demanded.

  The techs gaped at me and when I turned back, Hodges had the same look on his face. They were thinking like a battle group, which may have been right for what they normally did, but I couldn’t think that way. I had no training, not in this state of the game, I keyed off of being in the battle, not watching it from afar and calling plays.

  “Get me more star markers. Color code them for battle groups,” I said quickly, “and throw them in the holographic field. I need all three dimensions, damn it!”

  How anyone ever helped run a battle operation on a flat table when we piloted across an entire extra angle baffled me. I’d seen it done - I knew it could be done, obviously, otherwise no one would still do it - but it felt wrong.

  The s
tar field shifted and grew in size. Colors changed, mimicking the marker colors used previously. The board techs stayed away from the table, their job changing before their eyes. No markers to move meant no reason for them to stand there and help out. Instead they moved to the walls, shifting placement of the new “stars,” my makeshift markers. I nodded at Hodges and watched tiny dots move around a field. Our men were outnumbered, but not too drastically.

  “What’s the goal, here, General?” I asked him, fighting to regain full composure, at least verbally.

  “Take them out, but grab at least two prisoners in the process. We need to know more.”

  “Fair enough.” I glanced behind me again. “Hey, can you rig up call signs to show with the battle group?” The techs nodded at me, and a short while later names popped into place.

  The two groups closed toward visual range. We tensed in the room as, I’m sure, they did in the ships themselves.

  Chapter 8– Mud

  I APPROACHED A CLOUD of debris and considered my options: around or through. Around would take longer, though not much, but going through could prove interesting. Harder to fly through, of course, but you didn’t become a good pilot without learning how to fly through the hard stuff. Or a crazy pilot, for that matter. But being good and sometimes crazy had saved my life a few times. Through it would be.

  I slid into the field, cutting the ship around what looked to be someone’s cockpit. They didn’t seem to need it anymore, at least. I slowed down, pinging out for any signs of life, electronic or otherwise. Nothing came back. A ship’s central banks should be protected enough to survive the level of destruction I saw around me. But I got nothing back to let me know the banks were floating out there. That made me curious.

  I slowed down, nudging closer to the wrecked cockpit. No blood stains on the seating, so whoever had flown her had also gotten out. No bodies floating nearby, so that theory held. For now.

  The ship’s data bank was normally kept in the back of the cockpit. Easily reachable for emergency measures, but not up front where it could be hit by simple crashes. Kept in a secure box, radiation blocked, extra thick, all the standards: each one was supposed to be able to withstand the destruction of the ship and keep pinging out for recovery.

  Here I had a cockpit with nothing. No ping, no extraneous destruction. The thing hung there, spinning slowly in space, while I looked it over. The edges weren’t especially scorched or melted, which tended toward a no-explosion explanation. So what had happened here? Was it calmly torn apart?

  There was no good way to find out from inside my ship. Scans weren’t telling me enough. I reset my goggles and slid on a helmet, locking it into place on my thinsuit. As a last thought before I cycled through the airlock, I routed all ship messages back to the ship instead of my suit. Distractions could mess with me out there, and I wanted the silence to think.

  I leapt out into open space, harnessing a small compressed-gas backpack in place as I did, firing it to angle me toward the bulk of the wreckage. I came to a stop, bumping against a section of what seemed to be landing gear, and set myself into a slow spin along all three axes. I relaxed my neck and my eyes and just drank in the sights.

  I often found that, though it could be time consuming, just letting the sights slide into my mind worked best for me. Problems would have answers, but sometimes I needed to let them come to me. The wreckage came into and out of view with an easy regularity. Part of my local scenery now, I let it become natural.

  No visible burn marks, nothing notable at all about the ship. Except the fact that it was in pieces and the data banks seemed to be missing, as were any crew. So what did that leave me with? Not much.

  Except. What could take a ship apart like this and not leave a trace of its work? Lasers, sonics, missiles, and disruptors all, well, disrupted. Brute force, on the other hand, wouldn’t. I grabbed a section of hull about as large as my leg as I spun by and turned it around in my hands. The motion set my gentle spin into a warble, but I fought the urge to correct myself to something resembling normalized.

  The hull section had a nice ragged lip to it. I peered at the edges, running a finger carefully over the hills and valleys of the rough metal. A gravity wave could do this, if aimed right. So could pinpoint magnetics. Modern ship hulls tended to be nonferrous, but what ship designers normally meant by “tended” only went as far as the engine blocks. Ships still needed to be docked, and there were enough magwebs in use that a fully resistant hull made no sense.

  So all right, I assumed a magnetic weapon with incredible accuracy. Gravity bubbles would have scattered the ship far more than I saw. Magnetics won out by a nose. The problem was, no one had magnetic weaponry that could do this. I didn’t like it. I shot myself back to my ship, grabbing another smaller hull section as I went.

  Using the communications array would be one of the dumbest things I could do. Chances were that the Hurkz Reclaimer’s beacon had gone out already, putting nearby landing points on alert for me.

  I sat there, playing with two now-heavy pieces of metal, considering my options. Broadcasting this in to authorities would almost certainly give away my position, and I would need to state a name and shoot an ID beacon wave to get anyone to listen for a tic. Sitting on the whole affair left a bad taste in my mouth.

  I thought, quickly, about calling the parents in. The idea found itself tossed away twice as fast as it came up, though. Keeping my wanted status from them for now meant no running to them with odd problems. Still, some sort of cavalry needed calling and I had to do it. My own problems loomed, but I couldn’t just ignore this sort of thing because of a few personal issues.

  I keyed the communicator array and pinged out a general distress. Leaving my ID in the ping would bring the Hurkz, but would also ensure that someone responded. Even they could be of some use here.

  The array chirped with incoming and I thumbed the mic open. No video request with the incoming signal, which was nice, and I pushed up my goggles, relaxing back as I did.

  “Signal received,” the message loop started, “please stand by for connection. Your request for assistance is important to us.” Well, good to know. I waited a while longer, probably less than five minutes, though it felt closer to fifty.

  They came on the line and were all business. “Registered craft MA19-2, this is Emergency Response, how can we help?” I sighed in relief, quietly enough that they didn’t hear it. First hurdle leapt clear, they didn’t feel the need to bring up my status first thing.

  “Emergency Response, this is MA19-2, I have a wreck out here. Location was in the ping.”

  “MA19-2, what is the nature of the wreckage?” Did you cause it, son?

  “Emergency Response, craft MA19-2 was not involved, repeat not involved. No damage here, guys, just passing through and found a wreck. No recorder, no crew, this is a strange one. Sending scan and hull camera data supplemental. Request investigation and retrieval of other craft.” I bundled up the extra data as promised and shot it to them. They would get it fast enough but take a few to sort through all of the information.

  “MA19-2, supplemental data received. We will dispatch to your location. Can you hold for meet and brief? Records show MA19-2 as registered response-capable craft,” yeah guys, I know, I’m licensed to help you, “and, ahhh, further questioning may be needed.” The Hurkz.

  “Negative Emergency Response, on another call,” I lied to them, “and cannot remain in area. Will deploy markers around current state of wreckage for ease, and you guys have my data, all right?” I gave up on the formal patter and hoped they would, too. “Just send someone out to have a look and deal with it, I’m out-system bound.”

  “MA19-2 we may need to question you…regarding the wreckage.” Her slight pause told me everything I needed to know.

  “Negative, E.R., repeat negative. Look, like I said, I’m out-system bound, and I’m already late.”

  “Hey, MA19-2, we don’t write this stuff, we just do what they tell us. Response ship h
as already deployed and will be at your location within an hour. Still, you need to remain—”

  “Thanks, E.R.,” I cut her off, “I’m sure they’ll be fine. If you have any questions that can’t be answered by the data I sent, leave me a message and I’ll get back to you quick, promise.”

  “MA19-2! I am authorized to warn you that failure to remain on site will jeopardize your flight status.”

  “So will staying, E.R., but thanks for the warning. MA19-2 out.”

  And so much for staying off the radar. Still, something hit that ship, and whatever did it needed to be bundled up and found. Doing my duty, now don’t mind me while I leave town right quick.

  I plotted a course fast and hard, not really paying too much attention to where I ended up so long as it really would be close to out-system holdings. I thumbed the engines to life and shot away from the problem in the opposite direction from the incoming Emergency Response crew.

  Banking, already a fair distance away, my internal gravity hit a tiny lag and I glanced down at the odd clanging sound from near my feet. The two pieces of wreckage I’d brought on board with me. Whoops.

  Chapter 9– Jonah

  HODGES STOOD with his scowl aimed directly at me. I met and held his gaze. Most people, when they meet my gaze when I’m stressed, angry, and working, can’t hold it. To his credit, Hodges could and did.

  Wasn’t a time for pissing contests, though. I wouldn’t forget that Hodges was playing me. No, not at all. The flight group, showing up as tiny marked stars moving in a holographic field, needed my attention more. They were, even if they weren’t aware of it, counting on me to help save their lives.

  “Flight group, this is Jo…Captain Madison, requesting full group status,” I said to the room. Mics picked up my speech and relayed it to the helmet of each pilot in the group.

  “Acknowledged, Captain. This is Strike Leader, group status clean.” As she spoke, her name flashed on the display. Captain Sarah Bushfield, call sign “Deep Water.”