Thursday, November 02, 2006

2395 words

Posted by: Greg @ 10:21 PM.

Previously

"Ma'am."

That was Staley, a surprisingly able fighter and leader for a common ship's cook. She assumed he had some experience in the military, though there was no sign of it in his personnel file. Even on a luxury yacht like this one, there were undoubtably members of the crew with a criminal past. Or a history that they were trying to forget.

"All right, Staley," she said. Turning to face him, she saw him standing in a vague semblance of military attention, his rifle slung on a strap across his back. At some point he had found a chance to switch into clean clothes. A luxury she envied him. But his tangles brown hair and the grease and faded bloodstains on his hands from the fighting and defensive construction and repair work suggested that he hadn't showered.

She continued, "You know as well as I do that without control of the engine room, we're going to just keep drifting here until we all die of starvation. You said that you think the robots fused all the blast doors to their frames to seal off the rear of the ship. We need to get through, and the only way I can see for us to do so is this. Set up a rotation of men with FCP guns focus firing at the door and melting their way through."

He nodded, "It's risky, those guns are damned dangerous, but sounds like a good plan ma'am. Will probably take a few hours though." Hesitating, he asked, "Aren't you worried that they disabled the engines like the did the comm room? If they did, we're going to lose a lot of people for nothing."

Kiroshi shook her head. "First, we're not going to lose any more people if we can help it. You've handled things well, but I want you to take as many precautions as you can to ensure the safety of the rest of the crew and the passengers who are helping us. And, no, I doubt that they'll disable the engines. We know they've cut the connection from the bridge to the engine room, but they aren't going to disable the ship entirely. They aren't just trying to kill us, they want something else. And they need the ship functional to get it. Whatever it is."

She paused, looking thoughtfully at the cook. Even though this was a fairly small ship, she had rarely encountered him since as an officer she ate with the passengers not in the crew's mess. But over the past year that she had been on board, she had developed a respect for the man for his reported calmness and influence with the other crew members and his continual good behavior. And that respect had grown greatly over the past few days.

"Look, I'll be honest with you, Staley. You have been risking a lot for everyone on board so far, and I know I'm asking a lot more out of you now, so you deserve to know everything. When the robots had control of the bridge, they changed our course." She raised a hand to cut him off as he opened his mouth to respond. "No, I don't know where we are headed now, but it doesn't matter. When we took the bridge back and they sealed themselves in back there, they cut the engines, so we are drifting, but not toward any place we ought to be. Best as I could tell just from a quick look out the view screen, they moved us into a wider orbit, I don't think we'll ever pass through the asteroids as we are. And we're definitely not on any of the standard shipping courses, so no one is just going to happen upon us out here."

The initial look of surprise on his face had quickly turned into one of worry.

"I don't like it ma'am. Robots going crazy and trying to kill everyone is one thing. I'm not trained for it, no one is, but that's something that you can deal with fairly easily. But the idea that they have a plan and a goal outside the ship is no good at all. You can't let the passengers know. Or most of the crew." His mouth twisted bitterly. "No offense ma'am but I'm getting tired of all the moaning and complaining from the passengers. If this got out, it wouldn't get them to shut up any sooner."

Grinning at him and picking up the FCP gun she had set on a table by the door, she replied, "Well, let's go make sure they don't have anything except your cooking to complain about."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Cooper Staley was watching as a squad of men were focusing their FCP guns on a series of points which he had marked out on the blast door leading to the engine room and docking bay. As he watched the men, each kneeling behind cargo containers and resting their guns on top of them, he summed up his instructions one last time.

"Remember, focus on your spot. Keep the gun on continuous, and don't cross the streams."

The last part came out a bit harsher than he had intended. The men all knew what would happen if they slipped and the field-contained plasma beams encountered and disrupted each other. His description, which had spared only the details of why he had first hand knowledge of the result, had left several of the men looking sick to their stomachs. And remembering how he got that knowledge hadn't left him feeling much better.

"Miss Kiroshi wants us all to make it back to Earth. She says we've lost enough people to these damn robots, lets not fuck up and kill each other."

He looked over his shoulder at the two other squads of men sitting and standing in the corridor with their own guns. Some were toying with their weapons, others appeared to be napping or praying. Most of the crewmen had never used an FCP gun outside of their earliest training, and the passengers had probably never held one before being pressed into service over the past few days. But they were all essentially combat veterans now. None-the-less, Staley couldn't help but wish for someone else who had real combat experience and training. He knew some of the crew had been living on the fringes of society and lived a rough and tumble life in the back rooms and cantinas before the Outer Alliance of Planets had cleaned out the pirates and gangs which had infested the asteroid belt and moons of the gas giants, but a fully trained and battle tested soldier was worth the lot of them. Even an ex-Core Alliance Fleet pilot like Kiroshi supposedly was would have been great, but she was the last of the officers left and needed to stay alive as a sign of leadership. The last thing they needed was some arrogant asshole vacationer thinking he knew how to lead combat operations and trying to give the crew orders.

He was honestly surprised when she'd wanted to lead one of the squads. Maybe he'd underestimated fighter jocks. He snorted. More likely, he had just misjudged her. As the crew cook, he rarely encountered her outside of full crew gatherings and she'd always been very reserved, but she had eyes that took in every detail that they saw. He had been sure she was a smart woman, that's for sure. And having seen her take control and heard the way she issued orders since the executive officer had been killed, he was beginning to think that she could handle herself in pretty much any situation.

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