And to Steele’s confounded silence, Farragut guessed, “
Merrimack
’s receivers aren’t functional?” Still trying to stay within the realm of the possible.
“Mack’s res chambers are functional. All of them.”
“Then?” Farragut waited for answers. None came. Steele’s iceberg eyes bulged with impossibility. Farragut argued at him, “But we didn’t receive their res pulses!”
“Sir. The Swifts didn’t even receive
each other
as long as they were in the . . . that place. They
weren’t
anywhere. Wherever they were between here and where they went, they did not exist.”
Farragut was a moment absorbing that one. Murmured at last: “So where did they
go?
”
MEMORANDUM
To: J.A. Farragut
From: C.H. Wells / Astrogation
Re: Preliminary Summary
Recorders from all five Swifts are functionally normal.
Recordings from all five Swifts are consistent with one another.
Recordings are remarkable for their lack of data.
Of the transit zone, provisionally called “wormhole,” the Swifts’ recorders register nothing. Data recorders registered only the internal functions of the individual craft. There is no other direct data to be had on the nature of the “wormhole.” Of indirect data, it is significant that the Swifts’ power output varied widely, yet all five Swifts arrived at the same destination at the same time.
Journey to destination (elapsed time by Swifts’ chronometers): 61 hours 18 minutes.
Return journey (Swifts’ chronometers): 64 minutes. Total time elapsed on Swifts’ chronometers: 71 hr 22 m.
Total elapsed time R/T (
Merrimack
chronometer): 149 hours.
Of the destination at the far side of the “wormhole,” the location cannot be placed. The destination is, without a doubt, extragalactic. The recordings describe an irregular galaxy which has no match in astrogation files. It is a young galaxy, possibly so young and so far away that no light from it has had time to reach the Milky Way. This theory does great violence to our current understanding of the formation of the universe. Astrogation Department requests a drone be sent through the wormhole to gather more data. [Denied. JF]
Merrimack
’s data bank contains a partial match for the Swifts’ destination. Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue acquired a stellar recording from the planet Arra, purported to be a recording of the night sky of a planet outside the Myriad. Allowing for the Arran recording’s inferior quality, it presents a 94% match with the Swifts’ recordings taken at the far side of the wormhole.
The Swifts’ recordings of destination are noisy. Background radiation is remarkably elevated beyond ambient 2.7 degrees Kelvin. Source of background radiation still under investigation. (See Technical Report, attached).
The foreground star is population I, one of the few such stars in the recordings. K type, singly formed, with planets in regular orbit.
Preliminary identification of destination: Origin.
Farragut passed the memo to his XO. “Send the full report to the Joint Chiefs.” Then, with a resigned sigh: “Copy the LEN at Arra. Warn them to stay off the
kzachin
.”
“Copy to Palatine?” Calli asked.
“I don’t report to Rome.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Calli,” Farragut said after a moment, prelude to a question just thought of.
“Sir.” Calli waited.
“Augustus’ Striker wears Flavian colors. Why isn’t he called Augustus Flavius or Flavius Augustus, whichever?”
“I asked him that,” said Calli thoughtfully. She parked her gracefully-shaped rear end on the edge of a console and crossed one very long leg over the other. When she cocked her head, her long braid fell forward over her shoulder. Her brow was creased, perplexed. “Augustus said . . . he was Flavian once removed.”
Farragut pulled his chin back. “What does
that
mean?”
Calli was the expert in things Roman.
Her braid swayed with the shaking of her head. “John, I haven’t an Earthly clue.”
Captain Farragut got rowdy that evening, in the first watch. You could hear him singing—roaring really—from the officers’ mess. The Marines took their cue from that and started drumming. And soon they were all trying to rock the ship within its inertial field.
Kerry Blue stood watch in the depths of the lower sail. First watch was the only time the whole ship was awake at one time. Parties, when they happened, happened in the first watch.
The rest of Alpha Flight partied as if returned from the dead. Kerry recognized Dak’s lag beat clanging against the bulkhead. Uffing baboon could
not
keep a tempo.
She beat on the bulkhead with the butt of her splinter gun, yelling up, “Step it up, you
boon
!” But no one could hear her.
Kerry was not sure what she had done to deserve separation and exile from her mates. The laughter rolled down here to the bowels of the ship. Anger leaked out her eyes.
When she was spelled at middle watch, she took the ladder rungs at a ringing stomp. Stalked to Steele’s quarters, requested permission to enter, stormed in before he could answer.
She demanded to know the reason for this reprimand, and don’t pretend it’s not a rep.
She
hadn’t hit the res sender. Why was
she
stationed under the ship while someone else who shall go unnamed is partying her brains out? Demanded she be restored to rotation with her flight mates, or you can just damn well show cause,
sir
.
TR Steele turned to her quite slowly, ominously. Eyes narrowed at her. Had not been sleeping, but was undressed, ready for the rack. Barefoot, in boxers and tank top. A dauntingly big man. Boulder-muscled. Looked like something tossed up from a volcano and still smoldering.
His voice, always a bark, came out disturbingly soft. “Flight Sergeant, I don’t need my orders questioned by the company joyride.”
Aborted words stuck in her throat. Her fists closed, opened, arms searching for somewhere to be. “And just
how
do you get off calling me that?”
“Flight Sergeant, where are you and what time is it?”
“It’s the middle of bloody middle watch—Don’t I know it! I’m awake and fragging nobody else is!”
She didn’t get it.
He felt absolutely naked. Just the two of them in the dim light of his cabin. Would feel more naked still grabbing for clothes. It was nothing she hadn’t seen in the gym. Didn’t bother her. Bothered him.
And her carrying on like an idiot down damnation road. Her small breasts lifting with each angry breath.
“So what did I do to deserve the Hamster watch with the screwups?”
Glenn Hamilton commanded the ship in the quiet hours.
“Hamster is not a screwup,” said Steele. That was beside any point, but he didn’t have a good reason for the exile. He simply could not bear to be near her anymore. Afraid of touching her hair in an unguarded moment, or smiling at the sound of her laughter, or gazing at her too long.
And he didn’t want her loose at first watch to party and fall into the rack with any target of opportunity who caught her drunken eye. He wished her stray-cat ways would disgust him. It only made him ache not to be the one.
“Yeah, but Hamster’s only got the graveyard watch because Farragut’s sweet on her and he’s keeping her out of his sight. Everybody knows that.”
“Oh,
really
?” blistering irony. Might have laughed at her, but he was too terrified that she was about to connect the dots. Hamster is on night watch because Farragut likes her too much. And Kerry Blue is on night watch
why?
Felt himself turning color. Steele blushed like a flare. Hoped the lights were too dim for her to see it.
“I will not be thrown
under
the ship just because you think you’re too good for me.”
“If that’s what you think, Blue, you’re a box of rocks.” She was yelling at a man in his skivvies in his cabin. Did it ever cross her randy little mind that he was even male? She was talking to him like he was her father or a gelding.
And—oh, hell—it sure wasn’t dim enough for her not to see
that
.
Never more afraid than he was in this moment. She was going to notice. Laughter or horror. Either would hollow him right out.
But she was oblivious. Completely.
“Sir, can I go on the record—”
“No.” He cut her off. “Because none of this is being recorded.”
His big hand closed round the back of her neck, drew her in. His other arm crushed her to him, and he covered her mouth with his, kissed her, rude, deep, and out of control.
Then, just as suddenly, he wrenched her away from him so she stood on her own two feet, swaying, one hand floundering to catch the bulk as if the deck were pitching. It wasn’t. He thrust her at the hatch. “You have four seconds to go if you’re going.”
She hesitated, and he grabbed her back on the count of two. Made the mistake last time of giving her too much time. Needed her—hot, hard, and now.
She squeaked against his teeth. His tongue bludgeoned its way into her mouth. Her next squeak came muffled. This could not feel like love from her end. His either. Felt like drowning.
Then, miraculously, the rigid tree in his arms transformed into a woman. Her stiff muscles relaxed, body softened to him. Her arms draped round his shoulders, and she yielded to everything.
Women could forgive a lot if you needed them. Kerry Blue had forgiven a lot of men. He felt a primitive need to replace them all.
He pulled the band out of her hair and let it tumble.
Kerry Blue with her hair down.
Sleepy voice mumbled against his chest in the dark hours, as slender fingers toyed at the damp, springy hairs there, “Been in space a long time, soldier?”
He growled. “I have been in space longer than this—younger—and have
never
mauled a girl like you just got.” He stopped short of an apology, because he was not truly sorry. He was not even done.
Kerry slunk back to her pod, a scant stroke before eight bells. The usual graffiti defacing her place in the rack: 0010 0101
She didn’t know binary, but she thought those ones and zeros said 69 somehow. Boffin humor.
She climbed unsteadily onto the rack, snapped up the netting. Stupid reg, that. Made you feel like a baby in a crib. But any grunt injured on account of falling out of the rack would be brought up on charges. Destruction of government property.
Secured, she curled into her pod. From below came a hiss. Reg: “Where have you
been
? Are you okay?”
Kerry nodded on her pillow, even though Reg couldn’t see. Kerry sniffled. Whispered back, “Had it out with the colonel for reassigning me.” That was close to true.
“Prick.”
“Well. Yeah.”
Kerry snugged her covers around her, her body singing aftershocks. Sorted a torrent of thoughts.
His name. She didn’t know his name! Ran through the possibilities of TR. Better not be Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore? Gak. Teddy? Toooo cute. She would laugh. Thomas? Tom? Terrence? Terry? Oh, Kerry and Terry. Oh, no, no, no, no. Trent? Gag. Tiberius? Utter retching. Travis?
Beginning to panic. Did
not
want to know. Had to know. Whispered, “Reg?”
“Yo, babe.”
“What’s the colonel’s name?”
“TR.”
Opened the netting to flap her pillow over the side. Hissed, “What’s it
stand
for?”
“Tyrannosaurus Rex?”
Reg was no help.
“Fits.”
Kerry remembered all the times she had caught him scowling at her. Hot, black looks. She had to go back and rethink those glares. And there had been a holy lot of them. She had assumed he thought her an uf.
Oh, yeah, that’s what he’d been thinking. How wrong could a woman be?
She rolled over, hugging her pillow, reliving moments too hot to think on. Flinched at a remembered touch. Sensations and
emotions
too intense. Sex which was not a game. That was new. The sense of a soul breaking over her, pouring out naked. He had touched her.
Touched
her.
“Yows, Blue, your weed is singing up a blue streak!”
Kerry became guiltily aware that her lizard plant, perched at the end of her pod, was humming to the tune of her madly gyrating emotions.
“Uh. Maybe it needs some light,” Kerry mumbled. She scooped up her pet and gently hustled it out of the forecastle.
Barefoot, in her skivvies, she padded to hydroponics, there to deposit her jubilantly singing weed with the lettuce under the lights.
She crept back to the rack in the half-light of middle watch. The ship was quiet, as quiet as it ever got. There were always the rhythmic footfalls of joggers circling the outer belt. And the thwapping of a squash ball at any hour. Tough to get court time, and it was a popular sport, to practice wielding a hard object in close quarters without cracking your partner—before you had to do it in anger with a honed edge.
She returned to the rack, reality setting in. This was a career ender. And it would be
her
career, for sure. Him, they would frown at indulgently, slap his broad wrists with a secret wink and a nudge, and out she goes.
