Revolution, page 4
“It did not,” Addison confirmed.
The details were in the report he was bringing, so this just made the secret known perhaps a few hours earlier than otherwise. But it needed to come out.
“Where did they go?” the Admiral leaned forward now to ask.
“Innruld Space,” Addison replied simply.
“Why?”
“Lazarus and Eha both felt that this was perhaps as good a chance as they would get to return home and start their mission,” Addison said. “Anything else risked Ajax being detained, either at Vilga’s Stand or here at Brasilia.”
“Start their mission?” da Silva asked. “What mission is that, Commander?”
Addison paused, understanding the immense weight of the words about to come out of his mouth.
He could feel a history book either start or end a chapter with this day. This meal.
These words.
“They’ve started the War of Liberation, Admiral da Silva,” he said simply. “With Ajax, they are going to tear the Innruld down. Forever.”
Ten
Lazarus
He’d been wrong. Looking at the Phraettis Nebula from the Human side hadn’t been coming home.
Lazarus was now inside the nebula. Kuei hadn’t yet found anything like Magellan’s Passage, but she had a course that she could refine, given time. They were approaching the quiet ice giant out in the darkness where he had first parked a badly damaged Ajax, after that first battle.
Where he had put all his crewmates into the freezer until he could come back for them. And the ship. Where he had undocked a pincke and headed inward as he heard radio traffic that had sounded suspiciously like two smugglers handing off an illicit cargo as he got close.
Where he had first met Addison Wolcott and Shiva Zephyr Glaive.
The little treble clef cargorunner hung in orbit not far away as he watched on the main screen.
Now, he was finally home.
“Pilot, what is your status?” he asked Kuei unnecessarily.
Mostly just to get a rise out her, as she glanced back, ears pointed different directions to make her point.
“Anytime you’re ready,” she laughed. “We’ve been parked in a stable orbit for the last ten minutes. It won’t degrade measurably for two years.”
He laughed with her. They were both home.
“All hands, this is your captain,” he announced into the intercom, hearing his voice boom back a moment later. “Stand by to begin transfer to Shiva Zephyr Glaive for operations. Engineering, whoever is in the final load will need to make sure everything is in full sleep mode.”
“Understood, Captain,” Ereshkiki Nisab responded harmoniously, so he presumed the Qooph would be traveling over with him.
Aileen and H’Brige Slani would be taking the original crew over. Aileen had already packed the pincke to the gills with gear. A few crew members and engineers would be crammed in for the short run over, but the rest would have to wait while Aileen and H’Brige got the life support systems back on line and the heat turned up.
Then they would start the process of turning her into a spy ship. Lazarus was just sad that he didn’t have the space or power to dismantle one of the Star Spears and mount it over there. Wybert would have greatly enjoyed having something large to use on any pirates they encountered.
“Flight Deck to bridge, we’re ready to depart as soon as Kuei gets her butt down here,” Aileen announced.
Lazarus nodded to his pilot and watched her move. She stepped out of her station and leapt.
People mostly only saw that shuffling tripod that a Vaadwig was reduced to in crowded rooms with low ceilings. He had built the bridge in here with vaults because space was not at a premium.
So Kuei was able to use the full strength of those thighs and bound. Two long hops got her to the hatch, and then she was gone.
Lazarus wondered if he could keep up with her on the slidewalk, if she was on the deck just bouncing. Might have to race her sometime, because a Vaadwig could move when she wanted to.
He turned to Eha now, quietly seated nearby and taking it all in. She’d never been ship’s crew, let alone navy, so she occasionally complained about being ornamental.
Eha Dunham was anything but.
“What are the chances that all stations have been notified?” he asked.
They’d had the conversation before, but no clean consensus had emerged.
“Zhoonarrim would have notified the rest in that sector,” she confirmed. “Aceanx or Dormell. There is even a small chance that they sent a message to Gowook, my homeworld, but I think we’re safe. If nothing else, they would bring us aboard the station to demand an accounting, not expecting a mob of armed Humans to pour out of the vessel.”
“While Lucas might be looking forward to that, I can assure you that I’m not,” he said sourly. “But hopefully you’re right and we can pull a Trojan Horse on them if we have to.”
She shuddered from her headscales all the way down to an unconscious thump inside her coil, but Lazarus wasn’t surprised. Humans were violent. Much more dangerous than anybody in Innruld Space, the odd Kreeghal who wanted to Greco-Roman wrestle notwithstanding. A combat team of trained Humans probably factored high in a variety of nightmares for station authorities.
But he needed to do this quietly. If anything, Grace would do the damage, rather than Lucas Lam, because it would need to be specific, rather than generic violence.
Shiva Zephyr Glaive was going to be a Q-ship by the time they got to Gowook. A quiet, safe-looking little freighter, politely sailing along, until you uncovered an insane amount of violence, pirates suddenly running at you and taking over your ship when you thought you were about to take theirs.
“You should go get ready,” Lazarus told Eha. “Aileen will have that pincke emptied out and back faster than you are expecting, since she doesn’t need to do anything but have strong backs moving heavy boxes around.”
Again the shudder. Humans could also lift over their heads two to five times the weight of what most other species could handle. The Yithadreph Loadmaster would be ruthless in exploiting that. He could speak from experience.
Still, Eha slithered away finally and left them.
“Wybert, you, too,” Lazarus said. “Cormac and I can handle things from here.”
Quickly, it was just him and the NavCrawler.
“I could remain behind, Director,” Cormac volunteered. “Ajax would run much more smoothly if I was here to handle things.”
“You’re as much crew and family as the rest, Cormac,” Lazarus said. “Remahle was right that he’d always been left behind when Aileen went off for adventures. You should not just be a footnote, either.”
A camera came up and studied him.
“What secondary plans should I thus be preparing for, Director?” Cormac asked.
Lazarus laughed, but it was just the two of them. And the NavCrawler was the only one who had figured out that he was up to no good.
“Part of what we’ll need for a successful rebellion will be ships, Cormac,” he informed his quietest crew member. “I’m planning on having you roll right aboard one and steal it.”
“Steal one, Director?”
“Would anybody suspect a NavCrawler, my friend?” Lazarus asked.
“They would not,” Cormac observed. “It would be an utter violation of my primary programming to do such a thing.”
Before Lazarus could reply, the little bot continued.
“Good thing Addison Wolcott already reprogrammed me as a criminal.”
Lazarus laughed.
Good thing, indeed.
Eleven
Aileen
Home.
Ajax was nice, but Aileen wanted to be home. Shiva Zephyr Glaive. Old, run-down, badly organized.
Also the ship she’d served on for the last several years.
She just wished she trusted things enough to open her faceplate and smell the weird funk of the ship. But they’d left it alone for too long. Too great a risk of something leaking out or in and poisoning things. At least they had atmospheric pressure, but she could tell that they were going to have to tweak things up for the Humans.
She’d be back to breathing swamp. And maybe trudging, if they turned the gravity up for Humans as well.
Aileen checked the readout on the inside of her helmet and walked forward. H’Brige could have done this better, but she didn’t know what to look for, and they didn’t have a Qooph rolling sphere. That left it up to her.
Into the side airlock where they had once—no twice—pulled Lazarus in during emergency situations.
Aileen chuckled at that. The glue her cargo harpoon used had left the faintest discoloration on the emergency suit Lazarus had been wearing at Zhoonarrim. He still gave her crap about that to the point she’d considered having Thadrakho quietly, suddenly repaint the whole thing over and put the beer logo on his chest.
After all, the Innruld thought it was his family crest or something. Might as well screw with them as well.
Into the ship, she crossed the main cargo space, aghast that it was mostly empty, but they’d looted the place clean and put everything aboard Ajax that first time.
Engineering hadn’t changed. A few dials were at the low end. Pressure and temperature were both dangerous, but easily fixed. And why she was fully suited up right now. Aileen stepped close to the controls and confirmed that there was enough water left in the tanks to crack for oxygen and dialed things up a notch. The engineers coming later behind her could fix everything once it was safe and they could do it without suits sealed up all the time.
Shiva Zephyr Glaive was old and worn, but had carried them to a lot of adventures. One more big one, maybe, and then the ship could go back to just running cargo. It would be a nice retirement, but she sure as hell wasn’t about to buy all those maintenance headaches. Let the next sucker deal.
Aileen tweaked the gravity settings down significantly, once she checked the battery power. Might as well make this easy. Fuel tanks were still at three-quarters, so she brought another generator on line and let it start powering the heaters.
“Cargo One, this is Aileen,” she said finally, after talking inside her head for the last five minutes.
“Go ahead,” H’Brige replied.
She was in charge over there right now. Kuei was just flying for them.
“Everything seems solid over here,” Aileen said. “Air is cold and light, but that’s going to change over the next hour. Gravity is coming down for cargo handling. How’s the bridge holding?”
H’Brige and Ereshkiki Nisab had built themselves a semi-rigid tube to connect a Human pincke to a Innruld airlock so that cargo and people could be moved quickly. On this first trip, everyone was still in a suit, just in case, and bottled up tight. Next time, they’d get a little more relaxed.
Maybe.
“We’re doing well here, Aileen,” H’Brige replied.
Aileen grunted, mostly to herself.
Returning to the main cargo bay, she visualized everything and where it should go. No true cargo on this run. Instead, food for a bigger crew. Human equipment to maybe refit stuff over here to better tech. Gonna be a mess.
She couldn’t help licking her lips in anticipation, though. Possibly the most complicated packing job she’d ever been handed, to fill Shiva Zephyr Glaive to the underside of the balcony with stuff. And she had Human backs and legs to do it.
At least all the damned storks in her life were going to be useful here.
Aileen reached into an outside pouch on her suit and pulled out a roll of colored tape. She paced the space off and put down a corner for the first box, along with an arrow indicating to the loading crew what they were supposed to be doing, because even Humans had no clue how to stack boxes correctly into the smallest cubic volume.
She surveyed it with a critical eye one last time. Good enough.
Inside pressure was coming up. Air had been about six degrees above freezing, but was warming up slowly. She’d be setting the heat regulator on her tub up a few extra degrees before she went to sleep, but Oh My God having her sleeping pool back was the single greatest thing she’d been looking forward to for a month.
Aileen looked down the maw of the airlock now and sighed quietly.
“Go ahead and open from your end, H’Brige,” she said. “Box one and I’ve marked a spot on the deck over here.”
The outer hatch began to beep as it opened, which was a good sign. It would only allow both doors open with sufficient pressure. And if something happened to the seal, it would slam both shut. Hopefully nobody would be in the way at the time.
H’Brige waved from the other end, and then stepped back. Atomarsk had no greater upper body strength or reach than a Yithadreph, all told. This was a Human job.
She knew all the Humans left on the crew, but they were faceless in suits today, with the exception of Lucas, who had added a gold stripe all the way around his helmet as an officer and security goon. It was apparently a Human military thing she didn’t get, but she was back on her own deck now. Loadmaster of Shiva Zephyr Glaive, and they were going to be doing things her way.
She simply stepped to one side and gestured as the first Human came through, carrying a box too big for her to even lift. They’d take her old sled on the return trip, because the one from Ajax had been just a shade too wide to fit through the airlock over here.
The first figure moved quickly, setting the box down and aligning it with her lines. Looked male, so she guessed it was Afolayan, the one Battery Commander Wybert had left, with the rest of the gunner teams back at Vilga. He nodded at her and turned as the next person in line came through and tossed (TOSSED!!!) over a box.
Aileen smiled. Strong Human backs, working in a chain. All she had to do was keep them on line as the boxes and stuff came over and got stacked. And that pincke held a LOT of stuff. But that was why gravity was set so low in here that she had to be careful not to leap in the air, after so long at Human norms. One quarter of that would hold everything but the Humans could move fast.
Didn’t even take that long, but folks had told her that smaller Human vessels frequently did it this way, so Aileen just stayed out of their way.
H’Brige and an engineering Petty Officer Four named Ishani Singh emerged as the gunners got everything emptied. With the pincke clear, they got to take a long break and eat, with the hatches sealed up.
Now, the fun part began. Both Navy women were in suits. Aileen would be hauling Ereshkiki Nisab’s rolling suit back with her on the sled, but he wanted these two to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the systems over here. The physics and mechanics weren’t significantly different.
Aileen escorted the women to engineering and showed off. A little. It was grungy and badly-lit compared to Ajax. Tiny, too, but you could almost put all of Shiva Zephyr Glaive in Ajax’s Engineering Bay, if you could move walls and generators out of the way.
“So, life support are these two,” Aileen touched the systems currently putting out heat and air, and double-checked that nothing toxic had leaked.
She wasn’t ready to open up and sniff just yet, but that was normal paranoia on a ship that had been cold for several months. Let the HVAC flush things and stir it all up. She probably had the least sensitive nose here as an amphibious mammal, and Aileen was just fine with that.
“Grav controls,” she continued. “Currently set to about a quarter of what Humans are used to, so we can move things around.”
“Fuel tanks are behind this wall and underneath about half this deck,” Aileen gestured. “Generators are these three, and yes, I know that they are from three different manufacturers. The one on the right is original from when the ship was built. The other two are replacements for ones that died of old age or embarrassment.”
Both Navy women snickered at her, but nodded.
“If you ran on different fuel sources, we could probably take two of them out and pull a spare from Ajax,” H’Brige offered.
“Trust me, the thought has crossed my mind,” Aileen chuckled. “And it would work all the time without leaking nearly as much.”
Aileen found the toolbox right where Thadrakho had said he’d left it. Opening the top, she gestured the two engineers close.
“Feel free to inspect everything, but I’d suggest you not touch until Ereshkiki Nisab gets back,” Aileen reminded them. Just in case.
“You’re safe,” Ishani laughed. “It would take longer than that to have it completely dismantled for cleaning anyway.”
Aileen had to double-take to make sure the woman was kidding. She knew how unsupervised engineers could be.
But they could fix all this, if they could handle the more complicated stuff on Ajax. Only so many ways to do certain things. The trans-space drives were the only thing here really new to the women, and they’d get their chance to play with those after the ship was settled.
She headed aft to grab the sled and rolling sphere for the run back to Ajax, leaving the women here to do whatever they needed. Not too many trips and Shiva Zephyr Glaive would swap places with Ajax again.
Then the fun began.
Twelve
Addison
Addison had gotten detailed descriptions from Eha of all the High Council members of the Rio Alliance, as well as the woman/spy that was living a somewhat public relationship with Oluchi. All of them were gathered up as he emerged from the rear of the aircar that had transported him and Remahle south of Greenbriar, just as they had done with Eha before.
Hells, he hadn’t had grass under his keel in more than a decade. So long that it felt wrong, which just told him that he needed to spend less time on a ship and more time on the ground. Maybe when this was all done, it would be time to sell the ship to Kuei for a beer and move on with his life?
