Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) (25 page)

Hero looked doubtful, “I don’t know, Lisa….”

“I…apologize, Hero,” Klarpf said via his vocalizer as he
splayed his pincer-esque appendages to either side. “I am unaccustomed to life
on this ship.”

“Klarpf was one of the deep-core miners on H.E. One,” Lisa
explained after making eye contact with Masozi. “They didn’t have any doors
down there, either.”

“Really?”
Masozi asked, uncertain
if the prolonged dialogue would be beneficial or harmful to her chances for a
safe exit from the scene but knowing she had little choice but to play along.

Lisa nodded as her eyes began to mist. “I…” she began, but
her voice caught and Hero placed his long arm around her narrow shoulders. Lisa
took Hero’s hand in her own and shook her head, as though it would banish the
rising surge of emotion she clearly felt after mentioning H.E. One. “I need to
get back to the Comm. center,” she said hastily before meeting Hero’s gaze, “go
easy on the big guy, ok?”

Hero’s visage softened and he nodded. “Ok, Leese…I’ll let
him off—this time,” he added with a warning look to Klarpf.

Klarpf made another display of what Masozi took to be
prostration. “Thank you, Crewman Hero.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hero rolled his eyes before planting a short
kiss on Lisa’s lips. “See you after shift?”

“You bet,” she said as she wiped her eyes dry and gestured
for Masozi to accompany her. Masozi would have preferred exit on her own, but
she didn’t want to attract suspicion so she followed the diminutive woman to
the lift. When they had both entered, Lisa said, “Deck two, right?”

“Yes,” Masozi said in surprise, but Lisa gave her what
looked to be a wholly genuine smile.

“
It’s
part of my job to coordinate
the berthing assignments for unranked personnel,” she explained before
thrusting out her hand. “My name’s Lisa Steiner, Comm. Technician—among other
things,” she added with a roll of her eyes.

Masozi accepted her hand and nodded. “Masozi…a month ago I
was an Investigator but the truth is I don’t know
what
I am now.”

Lisa leaned in conspiratorially after their hands had
separated and said, “You’re still an investigator, you just might not get to
capitalize it any more.” The little woman sighed as she added, “We are what we
are, Masozi-the-still-investigator. Nobody can take that from us, and we should
all learn to be happy with what that is.”

The door to the lift opened and Masozi saw that they were at
Deck Two. She exited the lift and turned before awkwardly saying, “Thank you.”

Steiner waved dismissively, “On a ship this small,
everyone’s got to look out for each other—especially us girls.” She winked just
before the lift closed, and Masozi made a bee-line for the cabin she had been
assigned.

Once inside she exhaled deeply, but was acutely aware that
her quarters might have been bugged. So she turned off the lights and did her
best to go to sleep.

In spite of what she had discovered in the shuttle bay, that
turned out to be a less-than-challenging task.

“I don’t like it, Jericho,” Captain Jeffrey Charles said
darkly. “You’re putting too much faith in her.”

Jericho shrugged, knowing that from a given perspective the
Captain’s comment would seem reasonable. But he had put in too much work, made
too many preparations, and set too many events in motion to back out over what
he considered to be an acceptable risk. “When have I ever been wrong about this
kind of thing?” he asked with cold certainty.

The
Zhuge Liang
’s Captain snorted as he waggled a
finger remonstratively, “That’s what
everyone
says until they’ve broken
their cherry.”

Jericho chuckled. “True enough,” he admitted. “But the
Director had enough faith in this plan to put your ship and crew at my disposal
for the foreseeable future…when has
he
ever been wrong about this kind
of thing?”

“When
had
he ever been wrong?” Captain Charles
riposted pointedly. “With the old man gone, it’s anyone’s guess as to how
things are going to turn out. The gears are already turning…and before long the
Sector might be thrown into a full-blown civil war.”

“That’s right,” Jericho said fiercely as he leaned forward
in his chair, which was situated opposite the Captain’s, “the time for doubt is
over. We have to see this thing through or thousands—maybe even
millions
—of
people are going to be crushed by those gears.” He forced himself back into his
chair and held the Captain’s blue-eyed gaze for several moments before
continuing, “I’ve done too much…seen too much…I can’t—no, I
won’t
—believe
that it was all for nothing!”

Captain Charles set his jaw and the two engaged in a silent
battle of wills until the Captain finally shook his head and sighed. “I already
voiced my objections to this plan in the hours before the Director gave me my
orders,” he said in bitter resignation before straightening in his chair. “For
better or worse, you’re right: we are committed.” The Captain quirked a grin
before adding, “At least you’ll get to see home one last time. I just pray to
God your plan goes off like you hope it will.”

Jericho relaxed in his own chair and released a pent-up
breath. “You and me both, Jeff,” he said hollowly as he looked out the lone
window in the Captain’s Office, “you and me both.”

Charles hesitated before asking, “If you see her, will you
give Valeria my regards?”

Jericho snorted derisively, remember that his cousin had
long held an unrequited affection for a woman they had both known while growing
up. “I can do that,” he said as he stood from his chair and made for the door.
He stopped after a few steps and, without turning, said, “But you’re wrong
about one thing, Cousin.”

“Oh?” Captain Charles said with a quirked brow.

Jericho nodded solemnly as his eyes went back to the stars
outside the Captain’s office. “The old man’s dead…but he’s not gone,” he said
before tearing his eyes from the star field outside the window and locking
gazes with the
Zhuge Liang
’s Captain, “men like him never are.”

Mazosi struggled with the controls and the
Neil deGrasse
Tyson
slewed hard to the left after she overcompensated for the initial
bump against the colony’s atmosphere. She cursed under her breath at having to
perform her very first atmospheric entry with such a valuable craft—especially
when her own well-being depended on that performance!

“You’re doing fine,” Jericho said patiently as the
Tyson
arced toward the moon colony of Philippa. “I’ll take over if you get in
trouble; this ship doesn’t register on the world’s sensor net so the only
obstacles you have to worry about are the atmosphere and the ground.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Masozi snapped as the
Tyson
gently lowered itself through the upper atmosphere. It was actually fairly simple
to navigate the craft into an approach which didn’t create much in the way of
heat—unlike the egg pod, which had used friction as its primary braking method.
The
Tyson
had powerful engines which allowed her to essentially dictate
the craft’s behavior completely independent of the moon’s gravity.

“This atmosphere’s as thin as it gets while still being
considered breathable,” Jericho reminded her for at least the fifth time during
the trip after leaving the
Zhuge Liang
’s shuttle bay.

Jericho had decided that after only one more day of intense
training in the VR simulator—during which she only crashed twice in over two
hundred separate missions—Masozi had proven her ability with the shuttle
sufficiently to warrant moving forward with the next leg of his mission.

Masozi couldn’t take her mind off the device hidden in the
cabin behind them—a device which she was increasingly convinced was a
thermonuclear warhead that had been lost during the infamous collapse of
Virgin’s Southern Bloc some two decades earlier.

Is he going to detonate that weapon here?!
she
wondered silently.
Why? The Governor’s security
detail can’t be
that
tight.

“Concentrate, Investigator,” Jericho snapped, and Masozi’s
attention snapped back into focus as she guided the craft through a patch of
upper atmosphere turbulence which had been indicated on her instruments. Her
thoughts had only strayed for a moment, but that was all it had taken for her
to stray to the outer boundary of their approach vector.

After correcting their course, she realized her pulse had
quickened and she was sweating. She knew some of that was due to the stressful
act of piloting a genuine starship for the first time, and every muscle in her
lower half had been flexed tightly for nearly five continuous minutes. But she
also knew that part of her anxiety was the knowledge of the device in the cabin
behind them.

“Good,” Jericho said approvingly after she had brought the
vessel back into the designated approach path. “This ship has stealth systems
that only a handful of grids in the Sector could overcome, but that doesn’t
mean we shouldn’t be cautious.”

“If you know so much about it,” Masozi said through gritted
teeth, “why aren’t you flying it?”

“Everyone needs practice,” he replied evenly before unfastening
his harness and making his way into the cabin. “I’ve got to check on something;
I’ll be just a minute.”

She was tempted to ask what he meant to investigate, but
Masozi thought better of it and instead focused on the task at hand. She knew
that she could ill-afford a mishap, even though they were well within the
atmosphere of the colony and only a few minutes from touchdown. She risked a
glance over her shoulder into the cabin just in time to see Jericho close the
hidden compartment, zip up a duffle bag which had been set beside it, and stow
that bag in the craft’s tiny, locker-like closet. Before he turned back toward
the cockpit, she returned her full attention to the task of flying.

When he reached the cockpit and re-fastened his harness,
Masozi asked tensely, “What was it?”

“One of the capacitors was acting up,” he replied
offhandedly. “But it was just a glitch in the readouts; nothing to worry
about.”

“That’s good,” Masozi said hollowly as they made their final
approach, having gone beneath the colony’s primary detection grid. “How far is
the nearest settlement?” she asked as the landing zone was highlighted.

“Twenty three kilometers,” Jericho replied. “Philippa’s
gravity isn’t much more than two thirds that of Virgin’s, so it might take some
getting used to. Still, it will make the hike that much easier.”

“What are the colony’s rules regarding weapons?” Masozi
asked, hoping to segue into whether or not they would be carrying said weapons.

“They’re tight,” Jericho replied bitterly as he began to
transfer several of the
Tyson
’s controls to the craft’s computer, “so we
won’t be armed during this first excursion—we’re just here to pick up some of
the resources we’ll need later. Go ahead and let off the controls,
Investigator; we’ll let the auto-landing program take over from here.”

Genuinely relieved that she would not be attempting to land
the incredibly expensive-looking craft, Masozi slowly relaxed her grip on the
controls as the computer assumed command. Their trajectory evened out
considerably from
her own
directed path, and after
less than a minute the
Neil deGrasse Tyson
touched down inside a rocky
crater lined with some sort of green, mossy plant.

“Well done, Investigator,” Jericho said as he unfastened his
harness once again and stood from the cramped quarters of the co-pilot’s chair.
“We should get moving; we’ve only got two days to set this thing up. Our window
will close after that and, following the VSDF’s attack on H.E. One, we likely
won’t get another chance.”

“I understand,” Masozi said as she followed Jericho to the
cabin, where he opened the closet into which he had just stuffed the duffel.
The truth was she had no idea why such a window existed, but she didn’t want to
voice her ignorance.

She was relieved when Jericho failed to retrieve the duffel
from the closet, instead opting for a pair of wide-brimmed hats and long, thick
overcoats before closing the closet. He handed one of each to her and she
accepted before he explained, “Philippa’s thin atmosphere and weak
magnetosphere make solar radiation more dangerous here than any other habitable
location in the Virgin System. We have to protect ourselves at all times.”

They donned the protective equipment, which included a
goggled mask attached to the hat that sealed neatly around her neck just above
the collarbones. The mask was remarkably easy to breathe through, and the
goggles likewise did very little to alter visible light which made wearing them
less inconvenient than it likely appeared.

“Ready?” Jericho asked as he placed a hand on the glyph
which would open the lone door into the craft’s cabin.

“Yes,” she replied, still feeling a massive wave of relief
wash over her at his decision to leave the as-yet unexplained device—which she
suspected was a nuclear bomb.

“The
Tyson
’s systems, including the door’s locking
mechanism, are coded to our bio-patterns and no one else’s. If you we get
separated and you need to launch, just swipe your hand across the door panel
and it will open for you,” he explained before donning his own hat-and-mask,
“anyone else’s attempt to access the vessel will result in the ship’s nuclear
plant overloading, taking out the nearby settlement in the process.”

Masozi’s heart skipped a beat at his mention that the vessel
would explode, and her thoughts turned to the nuclear bomb stowed in the ship’s
closet.
If the ship’s power plant will take out the nearby settlement
,
she wondered with mounting concern,
how much worse would it be if the hidden
bomb’s power is added to it?

Jericho secured the mask attached to his hat as though doing
so required less than a thought, but Masozi had struggled for several attempts
to get her own unit to fit properly. “Log the ship’s location on your link,” he
reminded her, and she was actually grateful for the mask in that moment since
it hid her red-faced embarrassment while she did so. There had been several,
sleek, wrist-mounted data links in the
Tyson
and Jericho had given her
one as soon as they had boarded the sleek craft. “If we run into any problems
you need to be able to return here,” he said as he pressed the glyph, and the
cabin depressurized gently as the ramp descended to the rocky ground below.
“Let’s go.”

Two hours later Masozi’s legs burned in a wholly unfamiliar
way and her lungs felt simultaneously tight with effort and short of air.

“Philippa barely has enough atmospheric pressure to support
strenuous human activity,” Jericho explained. “There are several alien species
that fare just fine here but humans aren’t one of them, so I suggest that you
pace yourself, Investigator.”

“How much further?”
Masozi asked
between long, empty-feeling breaths.

“Not far,” Jericho said, gesturing ahead, “
the
large crater ahead houses around six thousand colonists.
It’s the largest settlement on this side of the moon.”

Masozi looked up for at least the hundredth time at the sky.
Suspended high above them, looming impossibly large in the night sky, was the
planet Pacifica. Its blue-green orb might have been mistaken for one like
Virgin, if not for the distinct striations marking its many-layered appearance.

Pacifica was the second largest gas giant in the Virgin
System, behind only Chambliss, and of Pacifica’s seventeen moons three had been
colonized at one time or another. But Philippa had proven to be the only moon
capable of sustaining an atmosphere due to its position jut within Pacifica’s
electromagnetic field. That field was barely strong enough to create an
acceptable degree of protection from Virgin’s primary to qualify Philippa as a
habitable world.

Using technologies long-since forgotten—or possibly even
lost to antiquity—the Imperium’s terraforming teams had extracted the requisite
gases from Pacifica and transferred them to Pacifica at the earliest stages of
the colony’s transformative process.

No one knew how long it had taken to terraform Philippa to
its current state, but the process had apparently been interrupted when the
wormhole had collapsed. The engineers responsible for the moon’s completed
transformation abandoned their efforts in favor of fleeing to their precious
Imperium—an undertaking which no one could confirm had succeeded or failed.

Of course, ‘Philippa’ was only the moon’s
original
astronomical designation. Since the re-naming of most life-sustaining bodies
had taken place some two centuries earlier, Philippa had been re-designated
‘South Virginia’ due to its outermost position in the Virgin system. But Masozi
had learned both names for the tiny world during primary school and had always
preferred ‘Philippa’ to ‘South Virginia,’ so that is how she thought of the
rocky moon where she now tread.