Federation chronicles th.., p.71
Federation Chronicles: The Complete Series, page 71
The aircar emerged into a brightly lit cavern and Maelyn pulled away from him, chest heaving. Quinton had never wished to be back in his human body more so than he did right then. She put her hand on the center of his chest—part caress, part barrier.
“Quinton,” she said gently, softly, but it still felt like an unexpected splash of cold water on his head.
Quinton closed his eyes for a second, nodding a little. “I know… I know,” he said, grudgingly.
The timing was wrong. It was always wrong. He gritted his teeth a little and then tried to cover it up with a small smile.
“We’ll have our time,” Maelyn said. “I promise.”
Quinton swallowed and his chin sank. “I know,” he replied, sounding resigned. “It’s just,” he began, trying not to smile, “you.”
Maelyn smiled, and there was something pleasant in the shape of her mouth when she did. “You, too,” she admitted.
“At least we’re suffering together.”
She laughed.
There was a drag of deceleration as the aircar slowed virtually to a walk and they swerved gently down an intersecting tunnel that was only a little wider than the vehicle itself. It slid alongside an entrance and stopped. The hatch flicked soundlessly open.
Outside the aircar, an older man stood in a black and gold uniform. Creases showed at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and his intelligent gaze did a quick assessment that would have no problems guessing what had transpired.
“Hello, Severin,” Maelyn said.
They walked out of the aircar.
Quinton raised an eyebrow toward Brandt. “Giving us the personal treatment?”
Brandt chuckled. “Sometimes, this old spacer needs to stretch his legs. I figured we could talk while we walked.”
The hatch of the aircar closed, and it silently moved away as they walked down a short corridor that led to one of the Salvation’s many parks. The warm, fresh air of a veritable forest hovered just a few feet away from the entrance. Benches lined the main path, and the artificial sky above was bright, as if it were the middle of the day. Quinton inhaled the scents of the forest, his artificial detectors interpreting the different smells. He glanced at Maelyn, and she smiled.
“It’s almost like being planetside,” she said.
Brandt nodded. “All the varieties of parks on the Salvation are similar to the colony worlds we found.”
“The ones from the starbase?” Quinton asked.
“Yes, the Acheron Confederacy had automated terraforming platforms that made more than a dozen planets livable… more than just livable. They’re like the garden worlds that existed before the Federation Wars.”
“How has settling them gone?” Quinton asked.
“We’ve been moving people there quietly ever since we found them, but the secret has become increasingly difficult to keep,” Brandt replied.
“We can’t afford to let the Sentinels find them,” Quinton said.
“Not just the Sentinels,” Maelyn replied.
Quinton eyed her for a moment. For years, the DUC had taken in refugees throughout the galaxy. However, the galaxy was a dangerous place. He could only imagine how certain groups like the Collective would leverage the colony worlds. Brandt was right. They needed to move cautiously to preserve and protect those worlds.
“We restrict travel to those planets to reduce the risk of them being discovered. The spacers who are there work to build a home for more spacers to come. They go there knowing that leaving isn’t an option,” Brandt said.
“They’re trapped?” Quinton asked.
“Of course not,” Maelyn replied. “If someone really wants to leave, they just need to be kept ignorant of the planet’s location.”
“But they live there.”
“Yes,” Brandt said. “But not everyone can navigate the stars, and the spacers that can are required to go through memory modification to remove the relevant information. Don’t look at me like that. They volunteer for it. Maybe one day we can change things. I don’t like it, but it is necessary.”
Quinton couldn’t fault Brandt’s reasoning. How much of what they were doing now was because it was necessary?
Maelyn walked toward a bench. She was hunched, and her hands pressed against the sides of her head. A painful gasp escaped her lips.
Quinton was there instantly.
She looked at him. “Implants,” she said.
Quinton gathered her into his arms. “I’m taking you to a doctor.”
She winced and then nodded, resting her head on his shoulder as he carried her back to the entrance. Brandt had comlinked ahead, so there were medics waiting to take Maelyn.
Quinton lay her down on the counter-grav stretcher. She looked so small.
“They’ll take good care of her,” Brandt said.
One of the medics began to push the stretcher away, and Quinton walked with it.
“Quinton,” Brandt said.
He clenched his teeth slightly and looked at Maelyn. He wanted to go with her. He knew she’d be all right, but he still wanted to be at her side. They shared a look for a few seconds.
“I’ll check on you later,” Quinton said.
“Send Simon,” Maelyn said.
The medics guided the stretcher away.
Quinton looked at Brandt. “She’s been having trouble with her implants.”
Brandt nodded. “Ah, that can be painful. They probably just need some fine tuning. Why did she ask for Simon?”
Quinton was a little surprised by the question. Brandt had known Maelyn for a lot longer than he had.
“She trusts him.”
Brandt glanced the way the medics had gone. “Ah, she’s always been a bit slow to trust.”
“Why?”
Brandt regarded him for a second. “Perhaps that’s a question you should ask her.”
Quinton chuckled. “Point taken.”
“I’ve had a chance to review some of the PMCs we were able to recover,” Brandt said.
They walked away from the park entrance, instead taking the corridor that led to the meeting rooms they’d be using.
“So have I,” Quinton replied.
“There’s something I don’t understand about them. Most of the PMCs that we’ve recovered seem to be junior officers. There’s the occasional commander, but no one higher in rank,” Brandt said.
“Most PMCs are from the Federation Wars. It could be that Browning did this purposefully.”
Brandt pursed his lips in thought. “I’d considered that, but I can’t find records to support it.”
At last, Quinton understood what Brandt was getting at. “I’ll check and let you know what I find.”
“I appreciate it. I find it curious.”
“I’m not sure if it’s as big a mystery as you believe it to be. At least when I was recruited, there were age limits to becoming a PMC.”
“Age limits, huh?”
Quinton shrugged. “I didn’t make the rules. I was hoping we’d find some senior officers too, but until we do, I’m all you’ve got.”
Brandt peered at him in a way only someone with a lifetime of experience could. It made Quinton want to stand up straighter, even though his avatar already had perfect posture.
“I wish I could access Browning's logs. Not just the mission reports, but his personal logs,” Brandt said.
This had always been a point of contention. Quinton was the only one able to access Browning’s personal logs. He’d tried to find a way to share them, but there were so many security blocks in place that even Radek couldn’t find a way through them all.
“I’m sure he had his reasons for putting in those restrictions,” Quinton said.
“Maybe, or he was worried about something in them. Something that could affect how we fight the Sentinels.”
Quinton had spent a lot of time reviewing Browning’s personal logs, and he’d also spent a lot of time learning all he could about the Salvation. Even with his frame rate increased to maximum, he still hadn’t learned all there was to know.
“I’ll make time to keep searching. If I learn something of use, I’ll let you know,” Quinton said and then added, “Don’t have your people try to override the security. Browning didn’t do anything without carefully thinking it through. We need to trust his judgment.”
Brandt looked at him and sighed. “Yes, sir.”
13
Maelyn lay in bed at the medical center.
“Has the pain lessened?” Dr. Corday asked. She peered at her while holding a palm-scanner.
Maelyn nodded. “Yeah, that’s better.”
“Good. How long have you been experiencing these headaches?” she asked and looked at the holoscreen above the bed.
“About a month. They’ve been getting worse the more I use them, but the medical VI on the ship advised me to keep using them,” Maelyn replied.
Dr. Corday nodded. “Normally that’s fine, but in your case, your body was rejecting the implants. The onboard VI should have adjusted for this.”
Maelyn frowned. “Are they malfunctioning?”
“That’s the interesting part. I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“These implants can stimulate parts of your brain. It’s like suddenly having an extra limb. Your brain adapts to the additional input, but like I said earlier, your body was rejecting them.”
Maelyn considered it for a few moments. “I can’t get them removed. I need them.”
“You can still function without them. We could downgrade to the basic implant package.”
Maelyn shook her head. “I can’t.”
Dr. Corday frowned. “You’re seeking a command role.”
“I’m already in a command role, but we need more. The requirement is the use of the more enhanced implants so I can work better with PMCs.”
The door to the room opened and Simon walked in.
“I came as soon as I could,” Simon said. He glanced at the holoscreen above her head and then looked at the doctor. “Is this about the implants?”
Maelyn nodded.
Simon walked to the side of the bed. “I think I know what it is.”
Dr. Corday’s eyes widened. “You do?”
Simon nodded and brought up his personal holoscreen. “This is the configuration of Maelyn’s implants. It looks like they were stuck in a learning mode, which can overtax the brain-to-machine interface.”
He tapped a few settings and the pressure Maelyn had been feeling went away. She blinked several times and looked up at him.
Dr. Corday tilted her head to the side. “Your stress levels have lowered. Are you feeling better?”
Maelyn blew out a breath and nodded. “Yes, the pain is completely gone.”
Dr. Corday sucked in her bottom lip in thought. Then she looked at Simon. “This is the first I’ve heard of a configuration getting stuck.”
“Yeah, the same thing happened to me. Also, it was happening with Captain Martinez on the Fortitude. I helped him figure it out. The medical VIs think it’s just first-run protocols.”
“Okay,” she said and looked at Maelyn. “Well, just monitor for it. If you start having pain again, come back here and we’ll run some more diagnostics.”
Maelyn sat up. “Thank you.”
Dr. Corday left the room.
Simon smiled a little. “How you doing?”
Maelyn swung her legs off the bed, her feet dangling, and shook her head. “Better now.”
“Yeah, those headaches can be brutal.”
She gave him a sidelong look. “You don’t say.”
Simon offered to help her stand, but she waved him off.
“You know, maybe I should run a few diagnostics on the implants.”
“Why?” Maelyn asked.
Simon shrugged. “Just in case. Better to figure out if something is faulty here than out there on a mission.”
“You’re right about that,” Maelyn said.
She stood up and walked to the door. “How long is this going to take?”
“Do you have somewhere you need to be?”
Maelyn nodded, and for a moment she thought about Quinton in the aircar. She felt her face flush and quickly turned away from Simon.
“If you don’t need to use your implants, I can just have them run the diagnostic now. It can take a few hours to complete. The data will be uploaded to the ship’s computer system,” Simon said.
Maelyn looked at him. “Who will have access to it?”
Simon pressed his lips together for a second. “I can restrict access to just you and me.”
She nodded. “Do that. I don’t want anyone… I just don’t want anyone to know, okay?”
“Of course. When it’s done, we’ll both be notified.”
Maelyn smiled. “Thank you, Simon. I really appreciate it.”
Simon returned the smile, revealing the adorable little dimple in his cheek. “What are friends for?”
She gave him a playful shove. “You’re more than a friend. You’re family. We might not be on the Nebulon, but we still have each other’s backs. Right?”
Simon chuckled. “Of course.”
They left the medical center and Simon said he had to return to a lab where he was working on something for Quinton.
She watched him go and then went her own way. She’d intended to head straight to the briefing where Quinton and Brandt were but then decided not to. She needed to clear her head, so she returned to the park and headed inside. She walked along the paths far enough where she could almost fool herself into believing that she stood in a real forest surrounded by tall trees with broad, green leaves. The soil on the ground was soft under her feet. She inhaled deeply and sighed. The tension left her body with each passing breath.
She started thinking about the aircar again. It wasn’t the first time they’d had a moment like that. Quinton had a way of reaching her like no one else had. He could be frustrating to deal with sometimes, but over the months, he was getting harder to resist. They’d decided not to complicate things. Instead, they needed to focus on fighting the Sentinels. She wouldn’t be a distraction to him. No matter how much he assured her that she wouldn’t be, Maelyn knew better. There had been other men in her life, some of whom she’d served with on DUC missions. They all believed they could remain objective, but they’d been wrong. Sometimes the costs of those relationships were too high, and with stakes as high as there were now, she wouldn’t take any chances. Her time with Quinton would simply have to wait until after the war was over, even if it meant that they would never be together. What they were trying to accomplish was much too important.
14
Quinton strode down the long corridor leading to the Salvation’s primary bridge. The black walls were covered in thin, pale, glowing lines that traveled the length of the corridor. Quinton peered at the lines of flowing white script, a monument to honor all those who’d given their lives during the Federation Wars—spacers from multiple militaries representing federations that had been vanquished by the Sentinels long ago. Grand Admiral Elias Browning had united the remnant navies of multiple federations to fight against Harding Prime and the Sentinels, and the corridor was a monument to the fallen.
Quinton always felt an odd sort of stillness when he walked this corridor alone, which he thought had probably been Browning’s intention when he’d instructed the autofactories to build the ship. It was a ship Browning had been meant to command, but he never got the chance. Now the responsibility had fallen to Quinton as the only Galactic PMC to answer the Salvation’s call. The PMC activation signals were to be the rallying cry to unite all those who were left so they could free the galaxy of the Sentinels forever. The survivors of the Federation Wars believed Browning was a monster, largely to blame for the Federation Wars, but why would so many spacers fight alongside him if that were the case?
His footsteps echoed through the long corridor until they ended at a hatch that was large enough for a shuttle to fly through. The middle of the entrance bore the black and gold emblem of the ACN in stunning clarity. The ACN motto was written in an elegant cursive script that surrounded the planet’s likeness, and beneath it was the word Salvation.
The hatch had been constructed of a thick metallic alloy that formed an immensely strong barrier. However, the door slipped silently to the side, revealing a brightly lit spherical chamber, and Quinton walked toward a transparent platform. Dozens of couch-like chairs were located on either side. Spacers and CDAs occupied the control consoles.
Quinton opened a connection to the Salvation’s computing core and entered a virtualized interface that transported his perspective into another environment. Galactic leaders throughout several sectors had been invited to a summit that had been organized by Sherilyn Cantos of the Dholeren United Coalition.
He withdrew from the virtual interface and instead routed the specialized comlink to the main holoscreen. A silver orb appeared in front of him as a representation of his own VI.
“Summit communication protocols are for a virtual interface,” Radek said.
“I know,” Quinton replied.
“I’m unable to connect you to the summit unless these conditions are met,” Radek replied.
The communication protocols were in place to protect the summit attendees, but Quinton wanted them all to see the bridge of the Salvation. They needed to see it so they could believe that the ship actually existed.
Quinton reviewed the security protocols, looking for a way to supplant them, but they were ironclad—simple and not subject to interpretation.
A few of the spacers working at their consoles looked in his direction, but Quinton ignored them.
