Black Box (11 page)

“MacDonald’s an asshole,” Beckett
replied.

“He may be,” she agreed. “But he’s got good
instincts.”

“Anabelle...”

She waved a hand at him. “It’s okay with me.
Everyone has a weakness. If mine has to be someone as strong as you
are, then I’m okay with that.”

He didn’t know what to say. He could hardly
even look at her. This was a Ted Beckett whose potential far
outweighed his skill. He had yet to develop the experience
necessary to turn him into someone strong.

“What’s your weakness, Ted?” she asked.

“I...” he stopped. He was going to say that
he didn’t have one. That was the proper response, right? But, no.
She had just told him that everyone has one.”

She smiled. It was something she did so
rarely.

“Maria Hengewood is the captain of the
Courage,”
she said, completely dropping their conversation.
This was something Anabelle did when she felt she’d made her point.
“Watch your step with her. From what I hear, she has a taste for
young male officers. They call her the
Black Widow.”

Very few people had the temerity to approach
Captain Beckett personally. Even fewer would do so in his
stateroom. If he was needed in Control, he would be summoned
electronically. So when his door chimed, waking him from a less
than pleasant doze, he grew immediately irritated. It had been
barely two hours since the conference. He knew he should be in
consultation with the crew chief, trying to size up the new
officers, but instead he had chosen to brood alone in his bunk.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected when he
opened his door, surely another disgruntled officer with a
complaint about the way he ran his ship. Samantha Cabrera, however,
was someone he had not expected to see. She often shied away from
him. Duty had infrequently brought them close together, but those
incidents had been too filled with work for anything awkward. After
their last encounter, he’d hoped that she would do her best to keep
her distance. Apparently, he had underestimated her. It wasn’t that
he didn’t find her attractive. With her short hair, slim, almost
shapeless body, and hawkish nose, she was just his type. But she
was also a woman wondering when her future was going to become her
present. There were smoldering embers inside of her but the flame
had yet to ignite. When it did, he did not want to be the man
standing inside the flames. He was too old for that.

“May I come in, Captain?” Cabrera asked.

He stepped aside, keying the switch that
folded up his bunk. Cabrera stepped in, looking around the room
with curiosity. He noticed that the fingers of her left hand shook
a bit. Was she nervous?

“What can I do for you, Doctor?”

She gave him a sharp look. He wasn’t sure if
the look was meant to reprimand him because he didn’t know why she
was there or because he had felt it necessary to address her by her
title instead of by her name.

She indicated the picture of the baby on the
desk. “Cute kid,” she said. “Is he yours?”

Beckett looked at it as he often did and was
saddened a bit. “He’s me.”

“You keep a baby picture of yourself?”

He nodded. “When I have the time, I like to
look at him and wonder where it all went wrong.”

That was a serious lowering of his guard and
he regretted saying it almost immediately. He regretted it even
more when Cabrera used it as an opportunity.

“That’s kind of what I’m here about,
Captain. Things going wrong. Do you think this delay is wise? I
mean, Ghost attacks all
are
random.”

There was a slight hesitation on Beckett’s
part as he put the two pieces together. Was she trying to give him
career advice? Hardy suspected her of being on the other side of
the political block and maybe she was just trying to tell him his
job. Either way, it infuriated him. “
Doctor
Cabrera, what is
the sum total of your tactical experience?”

“Well, not much…”

“Then I don’t really understand how you
might think it appropriate to come in here and question mine?”

She panicked for a minute and began
searching desperately for a way out.
What the hell am I doing
here?
But in the end she steeled herself against his rebuttal
and continued. “I don’t think it’s really a question of tactics,
Captain. It’s a
Ghost
attack.”

He smiled, actually smiled. “There’s a first
time for everything, Doctor. One day, the Ghosts are going to
realize that we don’t take them seriously anymore and they’re going
to use that to their advantage. Then they’re going to slam into us
with everything they’ve got.”

“And you think that day is today?”

He shook his head. “It’s not likely.”

“Then what are you doing? Applegate is
beside himself and Ukpere is taking notes.”

He faced her down. Her mention of the two
new officers put him off his guard. If there was a conspiracy,
those two were surely part of it. Did she know something?
“Samantha, why are you here?”

Beckett was nothing if not strategic. By
using her first name, he hoped to lower her guard. Unfortunately,
she didn’t rise to the bait.

“I’m here because you’re delaying out of
spite. I don’t know why you’re doing it but I can tell that you
are. You don’t like this assignment for some reason. So why don’t
you just get it over with?”

He switch back to formal. “I’ll make my own
decisions, thank you, doctor.”

“You know, Ted, one day they’re going to
find a reason to get rid of you and they are going to make it
stick.”

“And you think that day is today?”

“Yes,” she said finally looking him squarely
in the eye. “I really do.”

Sadly enough, so did he.

Boone had a quick rest and a shower and then
took the opportunity afforded him by the shifted schedule to head
down to the hangar bay and inspect the vehicles. He may have backed
down to the captain (actually, he had turned and run) but he had
set himself a course and he was damned well going to fly it.

The
Valor
was equipped with four
vehicles. Of those four, three were lightweight air bikes. Each
bike could elevate to a height of eighteen feet and carried up to
two people and some supplies. They were great if you needed to get
somewhere quickly. The military vehicle was called a rumbler. A
rumbler was an off road vehicle with self inflating tires and
multiple robotic arms which could clear terrain from its path. Each
of the arms had a different type of “hand” so that different types
of terrain could be tossed aside. The rumbler on the
Valor
had the capacity to uproot small trees if it came to that. The
pilot box held two people, one to steer and the other to navigate.
Along the sides were four gunner cubbies, two on each side, and
there was an armored hatch in the center which could sit four
passengers comfortably. It was a bulky vehicle that couldn’t move
very fast, but it came in handy when you needed to get some very
mean people into a place where others didn’t want them.

The airbikes were easy to prepare. On each
side was a convertible holster. It wasn’t good for hand guns or
other small weapons, but you could put anything long into them from
a sword to a
Kippens .991
. Every bike was to be equipped
with a weapon and a
walking stick.
The walking sticks were
long metal rods with insulated handles. On the handle were three
controls. The first sent a jolt of electricity through the stick.
If used properly it could be lethal, but it was really meant as a
means of stunning an opponent. The second button caused the rod to
heat. It took some time to get to full temperature, but made for a
useful survival tool. The last button ejected a blade off of the
end. If the first and last buttons were used in concert you could
stop a man’s heart with a flesh wound. The pack on the rear of the
bike was stuffed with first aid, water, and survival rations. These
were standard. For particular missions, the contents of the packs
were adjusted depending on situational circumstances.

Though Boone had inspected the bikes before
launch, it was the job of his staff to prep them in-flight. His
purpose beforehand had been to make sure they were mechanically
sound. Only one of them had been used on their last flight out but
it had been cleaned and maintained on the way back. All three were
in excellent shape.

The rumbler was meant to be far more
equipped than any of the bikes. There were four compartments
concealed on its body for weapons and supplies and each compartment
was meant to be stocked. Though it wasn’t technically a combat
vehicle, it was treated like one on smaller ships.

Boone was glad to see that all of his orders
had been carried out. Each vehicle was well equipped and ready for
use. In fact, they were over equipped. There were a few extra
weapons and
a lot
of extra ammunition. Depending on where
they set the
Valor
down, they might need the vehicles to
reach the landing site of the
Einstein,
but Boone wasn’t
aware that they were expecting combat
.
Only one person could
have ordered the vehicles overstocked the way they were.

“Boone?”

He turned, startled. It was Rodrigo.

“Sergeant,” he greeted. “What are you doing
down here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

It was none of her business what he was
doing. It was his job to be wherever he felt he needed to be. “I
was inspecting the vehicles to make sure all the preparations had
been carried out properly.”

“Really?” she said in a mildly patronizing
tone. She began to saunter forward, taunting him with her
movements. “Me, too.”

He swallowed hard. This had already been a
rough trip, what with the incident on the bridge and then having to
confront the captain about it. Rodrigo was about four hundred times
as intimidating as Beckett
and
his immediate subordinate
rather than a superior officer. By all rights, he should be able to
put her in her place at any moment, but he knew she’d never
tolerate it, turn it around on him, and then get Beckett’s seal of
approval. What Boone needed to do was focus on the goal of
improving his efficiency and his reputation so he could get the
hell off the
Valor
.

“Thank you, sergeant,” he said stolidly.

She stopped up short, her face showing
confusion for just a moment. He guessed that she didn’t understand
why she hadn’t gotten a rise out of him with her attitude.

“Is everything to your satisfaction?” she
asked. Her tone was still patronizing but now she was probing,
suspicious. The truth was that Boone never conducted inspections.
He relied heavily on Rodrigo to get the job done. Of course, that’s
what the captain expected since she was unofficially his Infantry
Officer and Boone was unofficially nobody, just a warm body in a
uniform. It wasn’t right that he was trying to exercise
authority.

He said, “Everything looks good to me. By
all means, carry out your own inspection.” Right there he could
have ordered her to conduct the inspection and file a report, but
that would have been an attempt to get one over on her and he was
loath to do so. The last thing he needed was a battle of spite with
Anabelle Rodrigo.

As expected, twenty four hours passed with
no new developments. Mr. Ukpere reported that the wormhole left
behind by the Ghost ship was shrinking at a typical rate and wasn’t
even large enough to admit a ship by the time the day had passed.
Beckett ordered that it be monitored round the clock until it was
gone. As ordered, the officers all took their duty posts at the end
of the twenty four hours. Beckett stepped down into Control to see
Boone at the weapons station and Jack Tunsley at the Engineering
station. Allison Dorian sat in the pilot’s chair, which was a
relief. She could very easily have assigned Tedesco as the pilot
and been well within the bounds of his orders. He would have rather
seen someone else in the weapons chair besides Boone, but the truth
is that there was no one else. Rodrigo couldn’t do it. For just
that one moment, Beckett understood the
Admiralty’s
frustration with her.

Connected by voice and computer
communications, Sam Ukpere was in the science lab. Rollins was in
Computer Control and Applegate was at the analysis station. Cabrera
reported all secure in medical. Rumple Hardy was absent from
Control, which was not unusual. He said that he always felt
claustrophobic in a room cramped with officers. Their heads were
way too big for the breathing space.

Though he desperately wanted to order a
withdrawal, Beckett could see no good reason to do so. Despite
Tunsley’s off handed comment during the conference, even Beckett
had to follow some rules. So, with serious misgivings, he ordered
another attempt at a landing. Dorian deftly moved the ship into
position, requiring neither reports from Boone or Tunsley, nor
orders from her captain. Boone kept an eye on the radar.

As the scene beyond the portholes and
cameras turned from space black to sky blue, Beckett felt his
stomach sink. It wasn’t just the normal “sea sickness” that hit
many astronauts as a ship adjusted from artificial gravity to
natural gravity. Beckett hated leaving space. There was something
about the cold and black that appealed to him. It didn’t hide
anything. You could look out the window of a boat and see a bright
blue sky when the environment outside could burn your lungs or
freeze the skin to your bones. But in outer space, you knew what
you were dealing with. There was no room for man out there. He had
made room. And space had stepped aside to allow it, but there was a
limit even to that allowance. No matter how bright and beautiful
the star off the bow, space would kill a man if he dared to take it
on naked.