Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (8 page)

“I give you credit for knowing you’re one of
the pilots I was talking about,” Minh-Chu said. “We’ll rig a
computer to host simulations for you and the other greens. You’re
going to spend some time in sims, and you’ll spend as much time
with the physical training group.”

“What?” Quiz replied. “Physical
training?”

Ronin sighed and looked at Slick.

“If you want to fly,” Slick said. “You’re
going to have to train our way. It’s our fault for putting you up
here too early. Enjoy flying your ship back to Tamber, it could be
the last time you see the inside of a cockpit for a while.”

“Hell, no!” Quiz shouted. “I get my first
kill and you pull me? Is this your way of telling us you want all
the kill pay for yourselves? We’re just goddamn decoys?”

“Don’t get me started on what’s wrong with
your kill,” Ronin replied. “If we keep you in the pilot’s seat,
you’re going to get yourself or others killed. I’ll prevent that
however I can, so you’re grounded. If you can’t live with that,
then maybe you can qualify for transit, I hear we’re low on shuttle
pilots,” Minh-Chu finished with an upraised eyebrow.

Slick stepped in just as Quiz was about to
forcefully retort. “Cool off on your way to the launch bay,” he
said. “You’re dismissed.”

“Let’s make that trip,” Joyboy said to the
pilots. “Come on.”

Ronin and Slick waited for the group to
leave via the elevator. “I hope that’s the last pilot we take in
from Patrizia Salustri. That’s one thing checked off your list,”
Slick said. “What else is bothering you?”

“I think what we have to do next won’t help
our popularity with the Carthans, Nathan,” Minh-Chu replied. “We
can’t come back to Skydock.”

“You’re thinking this is a target now,”
Slick said.

Minh-Chu nodded. They started walking to the
elevator and pushed the call button. “The next time Skydock comes
under attack, it’ll be from long range. There won’t be anything we
can do about it except get killed in the crossfire.”

“That’s what I’d do if I were the Order,”
Slick said. “Or they’ll avoid the base until they could come at it
from planet side, from behind. Either way, we won’t be any use to
them patrolling these sectors.”

“Exactly,” Minh-Chu said. “So, we launch and
return to our own slips, take the lower rate of pay.”

“Commander McPatrick won’t like it, that’s a
big hit and a lot of busy work on the ground.”

“Don’t worry about Oz, I’ll talk to him,”
Minh-Chu said. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. There
were two maintenance workers within. They looked and smelled like
they had just finished crawling through a sewer line.

Minh-Chu did his best not to retch as the
fragrance made itself at home in his mouth and nose before he had a
chance to seal the hood of his vacsuit.

“I’m just finding it hard to swallow that
we’re going to war on a galactic scale,” Slick said.

“Knowing much of the history myself, I can’t
see how it can be prevented. I only hope it’s short,” Minh-Chu
said.

“Any words of comfort, Confucius?” asked
Slick.

Minh-Chu chuckled then sighed. “About war?
Nothing comforting.”

“But something,” Slick pressed.

“Something.”

“So?”

“You don’t want to hear it,” Minh-Chu
said.

Slick nodded and let the silence grow as
thick as the smell. The man knew Minh-Chu too well. He couldn’t
keep the thought he tried to keep from airing to himself after
being called to share. Not for more than a few minutes, anyway.
“War calls many, and rewards few.”

The doors opened, and Slick said, “You’re
right, that’s no comfort at all.”

There was no supervision by the Carthan
government aboard Enforcer 1109 as the ship was pillaged for
essential components. There was no need. The second most
frustrating thing to Jake about the operation was that they were
incapable of taking many of the larger, more important systems from
the ship and installing them into their settlement below.

The most frustrating thing was that he had
to spend several days as a normal worker, unable to issue commands
or directions to other crewmembers while he was mixing in aboard.
The effort to hide amongst the crew was working; no one had been
attacked in all the weeks since they landed on Tamber, but it was
getting harder by the day.

The half-lit, hundreds of meters long main
hangar was busy. Over half of the available manpower from their
settlement was working there, and Jake had been watching, making
sure that there were no surveillance devices or crewmembers he
couldn’t account for. Someone was dragging half a self-contained
shield generator, trailing cables behind and letting one end scrape
along the deck. Before he could jump to their aid, another
crewmember picked up the rear end.

“Going to chance it today, Captain?” Frost
asked over a secure proximity radio channel.

Jake finished loading a crate aboard one of
the Enforcer’s nine armoured shuttles and descended the embarkation
ramp. “The crew's slowing down, getting sloppier - it might be a
good time.”

“Ayan will have your head if she finds out,
though,” Frost replied. “And she will find out.”

Frost was in a loader suit,
undistinguishable from the other suits they had operating on the
massive hangar. The software in the machine was set to correct for
his limp so it was the only way he could reasonably hide.

They managed to get two emergency generators
running aboard the Command Enforcer 1109, but it wasn’t enough to
make it useful. However, it was more than they needed for the five
weeks they would spend stripping the vessel of much needed
machinery, essential comforts, personal weaponry, and housing.
There was enough portable living space for three thousand.

There were also intact ships – fighters, two
forty two meter long patrol craft, nine heavy shuttles, and several
smaller repair and personnel shuttles that the old Enforcer crew
called ‘Mice’ that could carry six people.

The eighteen meter long armoured transport
behind Jake lifted off, on its way down to their settlement on
Tamber. “I’m getting tired of hiding,” he told Frost. “But I’m not
so pissed at this situation that I’m ready to kill the plan. We’re
hidden because we’re protecting the people who might get caught in
the crossfire if someone tries to make a capture.”

“Yeah,” Frost replied with a sigh. “So
you’ve said more times n’ I can count, lad. It doesn’t bother you
at all that the Samson’s hull is getting her finishing touches
tomorrow? Whole new hull on a redesign you and your old crew
hammered out.”

Jake picked up a crate ready to be loaded
into a small shuttle behind him and began walking it up the rear
ramp. The standard muscle augmentation in his suit creaked. He’d
used that suit so much that the enhancement systems were showing
real wear and tear. “You had a hand in it too,” Jake told Frost.
The sealed hood and darkened faceplate kept anyone from overhearing
what he was saying. “Ever see a hybrid-organic hull grown onto a
ship before?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Then maybe we should both take a day and
work down there instead of up here,” Jake said. “This scavenger
duty is busy work, Leland March could probably do it. I want to get
back down there today if I can. Besides, your old gunnery deck crew
has this all set.”

“I hear ya,” Frost replied. “Not like
there’s any complicated work left to do aboard this gutted beast.
Your old friend Everin is going to have a problem with us shirking
his big plan to keep us scattered and hidden.”

Jake bristled at the mention of Jason Everin
- the man had changed, and it wasn’t to his liking. “Between you
and me, Jason's head is too big. Ayan’s given him too much
control.”

“Can’t disagree,” Frost replied. “I’m
waiting for him to screw up, because it’ll be in grand fashion, and
we’ll have to pick up the pieces.” He paused a moment before
adding, “Between you and me.”

“How do you think that’ll go down?” Jake
asked. “His big screw up.”

“Not sure, but he’s moving us around like
we’re pieces on an old game board, drawing up new petitions for the
Carthans every couple days, and trying to run this operation too
clean,” Frost said. “If he doesn’t screw one of us over by mistake,
or get the Carthans irritated enough to kick us off their rock, or
insult a crime lord by being snobbish, then I’ll be surprised.”

“You’re thinking you’d do better?” Jake
asked.

“No, I think
you’d
do better,” Frost
replied. “That’s why I keep askin’ when you’re going to go
bare-faced and start running the show again. Ayan’s fine, got all
the right training, but her team’s got holes. Seems to me, she’s
the only one with the stones to go nose to nose with a Carthan
Fleet Warden and not flinch. Everyone else in her little diplomatic
party are just thinkers. You have to get something she doesn’t have
to watch over running, maybe get a couple crews organised so we can
start pirating and earning, like you were saying the other
night.”

“We’ll see,” Jake replied. He watched the
loading crew on the expansive, dimly lit hangar going about the
business of moving the bundled and crated salvage to the shuttles.
It looked like a leisurely pace to him, and it wasn’t what he
wanted to see. “We’ve got six hours to finish flying everything we
want from this boat down to Tamber before the Carthans take
possession. Pass the word to your old gunnery crew; there’s extra
liberty for them if they finish on time. If they don’t, I’ll make
sure they lose a week’s pay.”

“Aye, aye,” Frost said. “I still think
things would move along faster if they saw your lovely face,
Captain.”

“Frost…” Jake said, a warning in his
tone.

“Hail, mighty Captain Valance,” Minh
announced over a private channel as his fighter was lifted into the
hangar by an elevation pad.

“It’s more like knuckle-dragger number
twenty eight, right now,” Jake replied. “What brings you to
vulture-town?”

“Ah, Ronin’s here,” Frost discerned from
Jake’s side of the conversation. He couldn’t hear Minh, thanks to
the private channel communication protocol instated by Jason. They
were only able to speak to one person at a time unless they were
using their disguiser. “He’s probably bearing another message from
your lady below. Ask him if he’s got anything from Steph.”

“I will, but he won’t,” Jake replied. He
didn’t understand Frost and Stephanie Vega’s relationship, but he
didn’t think about it much. It was as if they were taking a
vacation from each other, especially over the last two weeks when
Frost and Jake were living aboard the Enforcer.

“What’s that, Jake?” Minh asked, unable to
hear Frost’s side of the conversation.

“Just Frost, asking if you’ve got something
for him from Steph,” Jake replied.

“I do!” Minh declared. “She says; ‘hurry
up.’”

“He’s got a message from her,” Jake told
Frost.

“Oh-ho!” he replied.

“She says, ‘hurry up.’” Jake relayed.

“Ah, she misses me, just the right time to
wrap this up and head home,” Frost said.

“You old softie,” Jake teased. “I’m going to
talk to Minh here, catch up with you later.”

“Aye,” Frost said, closing his private
channel.

“So, he’s happy,” Jake told Minh-Chu.

“I bet,” Minh said with a chuckle. “As far
as I can tell, Steph’s itching to get social. She’s feeling a bit
isolated. So are Finn, Agameg, and probably everyone else, except
for Ashley.”

“Really?” Jake said. It was strange; he’d
think that Ashley would be the most eager to stop hiding and start
socialising again.

“Steph says she’s been really quiet,” Minh
said. He sounded worried. “Like, depressed quiet.”

“Any idea what the problem is?”

“Stephanie figures that between the
isolation and not being able to see Zoe, that orphan she rescued,
it’s getting to her.”

“Another reason why Jason’s plan isn’t
working out,” Jake said. “I’m going a little crazy myself.”

“Well, Ayan says ‘hi.’ She says she’s
cleared her schedule tonight,” Minh said. “And if that’s code, I
want details later.”

“I think it is,” Jake said. “But I won’t be
over-sharing on the details.” He was eager to see Ayan again. They
had just started getting to know each other, and they were becoming
closer in all respects when Jason Everin came up with his plan for
the Samson crew to go into hiding.

“But my vicarious life will be missing a
chapter,” Minh replied.

“I thought I was living vicariously through
you
,” Jake replied. “If you think what I’m doing right now
is more exciting, then you’re in real trouble. Besides, don’t you
have someone waiting on your every landing?”

“Funny thing, I just broke it off with
Paula,” Minh said.

“How did that go?” Jake asked. “God, I must
be bored, I’m becoming a gossip.”

“Welcome to the human race,” Minh teased.
“We’re all gossips here, even if we deny it.”

“So, what happened with Paula?” Jake asked
with a resigning sigh.

“Oh, yeah. I told her we had to break things
off and she said; ‘I don’t believe you,’ gave me a kiss on the
cheek and walked away.”

Jake laughed. “So you’re making a stop here
to avoid her. You could have bounced that off our receiver as you
did your usual flyby.”

“I wish that were the only reason,” Minh-Chu
said. “The armour plate under my seat is cracked and I have to fix
so I can go atmospheric.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Jake said as he
started heading towards Minh’s fighter. “I’m surprised there’s no
backup for that.”

“That is the backup,” Minh replied. “The
energy and hard shielding is all right, so I should be fine to
enter atmo - and even our vacsuits can take the heat - but I’d
rather have all systems go for reentry. Just call me paranoid.
Safe, but paranoid.”