🚀 go-pugleaf

[Continued From Part One]

     Lieutenant Granite swirled around his coffee mug and watched the milk
dance and change pattern before his eyes. The sight didn't fascinate him
so much as keep him mildly amused while he stood another shift on the
station's 'bridge'. Blessed peace and silence... it had been so long since
he'd experienced any that he'd forgotten how almighty boring it could be.
     Fortunately for his sanity, a young ensign manning communications and
contact turned in his seat, looking somewhat shocked. "Lieutenant?" asked
the young officer, somehow finding his voice.
     "Go ahead, Ensign," replied Granite, knocking back another draught of
his coffee.
     "There's a priority message coming in for the Captain's eyes only...
encryption code number three-ought-seven."
     Granite nodded, quaffing the last of his coffee. "Probably just
another warning about privateers in the area," he replied. "If the head
honchos don't send us an 'urgent' communique every two days, they're
afraid that we'll forget about them."
     "It's origin isn't from home, sir," replied the Ensign. "They just
bounced it to us, encoded-by-request."
     "Oh? Who else would be sending us an encrypted message?"
     "The sender's name is listed as Sandra McLeod of the Clan McLeod. No
explanation of content or motivation for sending."
     Granite sighed. "Pipe it through to the Captain, and let's hope she's
relaxed enough to just file it away until she's ready to deal with it,
instead of hunting down the senders. Because if she comes after us, she'll
shake the place apart until she finds us."
***
     Commodore Wavelength stared at the emptiness of Netherspace,
exploring its dull regularity with her eyes. She found this pursuit
somehow comforting. In no way did she find her current executive officer
Impulse's interruption of her routine comforting. Nevertheless, the woman
knew her duty as commander, and refused to shirk it.
     "What is it, Impulse?" asked Wavelength, tearing her gaze from the
depths of Wraithspace.
     "I'm sorry, Commodore, I don't know how this happened..." began
Impulse, looking visibly perplexed. "But one of our escape pods is
missing."
     "Missing?" asked Wavelength, suppressing a thrill of rage at the
news. "How could it be missing?"
     "She means that it's not currently aboard," said Benjadi, as he and
Genevieve Tombolo strode onto the bridge of the Menelaus. Wavelength's
first impulse of turning away from her daughter was immediately countered
by a need to retain at least some control of herself in a command
situation. Instead, she settled for a cool, dispassionate stare at both
while Benjadi continued. "I was giving Genevieve a tour of the ship and we
noticed that one pod hatch was blackened and warped, as though its
explosive bolts had been triggered. This ship really isn't big enough to
hide something like that for long."
     "I see," said Wavelength, taking a breath of cool ship's air. "For
what reason did the escape craft launch?"
     "I don't know," admitted Impulse, sighing as she scanned her console,
looking there for answers. "A practical joke is the best I can think of,
because it couldn't possibly have been an accident. Those things have more
safety interlocks than--"
     "Practical joke," echoed Wavelength quietly. "Oh god no. Ki--Benjadi,
did you check on the status of our prisoner during your tour?"
     "No, we didn't hit that part of the ship yet," replied Benjadi,
shaking his head.
     "You don't think that he took the escape pod, do you?" asked Impulse.
     "Of course I do," spat Wavelength, turning to her bank of controls.
"It fits. It fits everything that Nixaen would do. Why couldn't he just
sit in his comfortable cabin and enjoy the ride? Why couldn't he see that
he didn't have a choice?"
     "Easy, Antonia," whispered Impulse from the station next to her. At
the mention of her name, Wavelength allowed her hard exterior to crack for
just a moment before devoting the sum total of her attention to the
readouts in front of her.
     "Oxygen consumption in his quarters: minimal," she intoned, not
wanting to believe what cold, luminous readings told her. "Motion within
room: none. Bioelectric signature: plant life only. Consign him to the
void, he's gone!"
     "She's taking this rather personally," whispered Genevieve to
Benjadi, who nodded slightly and held up a finger for silence. The golden
woman sighed lightly and held her peace, for the moment.
     "He could only have launched in and around Round Robin space," said
Benjadi. Wavelength nodded, frowning in intense concentration at the
formlessness of Wraithspace again, as though trying to pry some sense of
her situation from its mysterious colourlessness.
     "Which leaves us with the question of where did he go?" she said,
mostly to herself. "Impulse, call up the escape craft's performance
specifics. I want to determine where it could have gone on a Wraithpulse
drive of its size."
     Impulse nodded, complying, then displaying a list of inhabited worlds
that were within the drive's sphere. Wavelength examined the list, running
a finger across her chin as she pondered.
     "I just need to determine which of these would be most attractive to
Nixaen," she muttered, staring at the manifest of worlds.
     "Commodore Wavelength," interjected Genevieve, somewhat dryly, as
though trying to drive home the fact that she was using her mother's
codename and rank rather than expressing their true relationship. "But
you're not precisely the person who should be attempting that."
     "I beg your pardon?" shot back Wavelength, fighting down a tremor of
rage at her daughter. "Are you calling my competence into question?"
     "Of course I'm not," replied Genevieve, smoothly. "I am, however,
pointing out that your attempts to think like Nixaen will ultimately be
futile. You'd realise this if you'd only think about it for a moment."
     "I'm sure I don't see your point," replied Wavelength, with a slight
scowl. "Now please keep quiet on my bridge while I work on this."
     "Commodore Wavelength, I really feel that I could be of help if you'd
only list--"
     "I said keep QUIET!" yelled Wavelength, feeling her body beginning to
shake. "One more interruption and I will bar you from any kind of bridge
privileges that you seem to think you have. Benjadi, though I know you're
no longer Earthguard, please do those of us who are all a favour and keep
her still."
     "This isn't a good time," said Benjadi quietly to Genevieve. He could
sense that she was testing her mother's limitations, trying to figure out
where she could be pushed and where she couldn't. In a way, the man could
understand and even appreciate the effort. In Rialto society, it was
essential to know where each person with whom you came into contact with
stood. But she was, in the end, still a child and though she seemed to
have a vast storehouse of knowledge and not a little wisdom, there were
some areas about which she knew little to nothing. Apparently, command
structure and bridge etiquette were two of them.
     "She simply chooses not to understand," replied Genevieve, smiling
sadly. "And until this is over, I choose not to waste my time with her any
further."
     "Please, wait," whispered Benjadi.
     "Why?" asked Genevieve. "I would have thought you'd be happy to
witness yet more severing of any hope of understanding between myself and
'Commodore Wavelength'. Destruction being your purview, after all."
      The golden woman turned and strode gracefully towards the bridge's
exit, while Wavelength mulled over the list of choices, her child
forgotten for the moment.
     "Iskandar seems most likely," said Impulse, after a few moments.
"He'd need a place that wasn't controlled by the UCP, Inc, and the local
Nin activity would've been attractive to him."
     "But not enough," countered Wavelength, smoothly. "He could only
guess that the Ninites would still be there when he arrived. For all he
knew when he launched, the planet could be firmly loyal to our side, with
only a long detention and then a short trip back to Earth to look forward
to. No, the only conceivable choice which he could make is a jump to
Brodermause."
     "Why there?" asked Impulse.
     "It's neutral, or as near as any planet this close to both the UCP
and the Nin can get. He could lose himself in that den of thieves and
never be found again. That's what he'd want, isn't it? It's the only
logical choice."
     "I don't think so," said Benjadi, turning back to the others as the
bridge door slid shut behind Genevieve. "Brodermause isn't anywhere near
as lawless and untamed as the party line would have us believe. It's..."
     "I beg your pardon," began Wavelength, slowly. "But are you still a
member of Earthguard?"
     Benjadi said nothing for a moment, before shaking his head. "No. You
know that I resigned."
     "But maybe you don't. You are a civilian on this trip, Benjadi, don't
forget that," she turned back to Impulse, feeling all dissenting voices
silenced. "Plot a dropout into normal space and then recompute a course to
Brodermause."
     "Are you suggesting that we not go to Earth?" asked Impulse, staring
at Wavelength.
     "No... we just need to intercept Nixaen before he can get away from
us. We were going to make a stop along the way, remember."
     "But Commodore," then, more quietly. "Antonia, Delphi needs what
Earth's got. Brodermause is going to delay us by at least a day, possibly
more depending on how fast Nixaen's capsule is. How can you do this, when
Delphi's depending on us?"
     Wavelength bit her lip, worrying it as she felt her stomach roil.
Everything was slipping apart in her grasp. Sheen - a bright, beautiful
wall that she had always known she could put her back against during times
of trouble - had renounced Earthguard entirely. Her plans to unite the
Serfs... no, the Seeds, she reminded herself... had failed. Delphi...
sweet, strong Delphi who once would take all of her problems in his
powerful arms and hug them away.. seemed so lost and dead to her. Her body
was no longer inviolable... she edged away from that thought as quickly as
it surfaced. The final insult - the thing which drove home just how much
had slipped out of her normally tight grasp - was that the damnable Black
Seed had escaped from her own ship. How dare he do this? There was no
possible way for him to have gotten past the security measures that she'd
taken, and yet...
     Wavelength did not know what her reply to Impulse would have been had
she been allowed to speak. There was simply no way to articulate the
aching need that she felt deep within herself to bring Nixaen back and
restore even a tiny portion of her world to its proper configuration. She
couldn't make her lover understand... there was simply no way.
     But she did not speak, as fate chose to intervene. From the hallway
came a shriek, followed by a thump, as something hit the deck.
     "Genevieve!" shouted Benjadi, shattering the silence while racing for
the door. He found the golden woman lying on the hard deck plating just
outside the bridge access. Perhaps she had returned to say something else,
or had simply lingered there, waiting for the others to finish. Benjadi
knelt down next to her and supported the woman's head, turning it to look
up at him.
     "I'm... oh gods," she moaned, her melodious voice fragile and small.
     "What's wrong?" asked Benjadi, staring at the woman in concern.
     "I feel as though... I'm shaking apart," she whispered back, tossing
her head as though to fling away some of the pain that she felt. "But.. I
am resonating to something... I don't know to what..." suddenly, her eyes
shot open. "Captain Sheen... Captain Michelle Sheen Not-Tom-Tom-Tombolo
Log--aaaaaan... I'm experiencing... counter vibrations..."
     "Counter vibrations?" asked Benjadi, shaking his head in confusion.
"How do you know? Counter to what? What's happening, Genevieve?"
     But his questions fell on deaf ears as the woman passed out from
pain. Picking the slick woman up in his arms, he carried her to the bridge
door. "Wavelength... Impulse... Genevieve needs Sheen. I think. Damn it,
I'm not sure, but she seems to think that she does!"
     "Sheen's back on Round Robin," said Wavelength, unnecessarily.
"Genevieve can get help on Earth, after we... I mean..."
     Impulse looked at Wavelength, always sure of herself and filled with
confidence. The sight of her waffling over a simple decision like this one
was frightening, shaking all that she believe in to the core.
      "Earth? Brodermause? Or Round Robin?" asked Impulse, trying to
prompt a decision. "Which one?"
      Wavelength bit her lip again, staring first at Genevieve, then to
the blazing eyes of Benjadi, and finally at Impulse. For the first time
since her career had begun, she did not know what to tell them.
***

[Continued In Part Three]