🚀 go-pugleaf

[[Continued from Part Two]]


     Jackson ran his card along the reader. His account balance was reduced
the amount of the fine.  He slipped his card back into his jacket pocket,
pausing to adjust his Captain's Star a hair.
     "All right," the Proctor said.  "Though the Westland Merchant
Corporation's indicated they're considering several suits.  She's lucky a
probe showed she didn't actually kill anyone."
     "Very lucky," Jackson agreed sincerely.  "And luckier I'm not willing
to pay the fine associated with killing *her.*"
     "Right."  The Proctor smiled slightly. "Do you intend to vary from
your normal route?"
     "No... we'll be back on Dali Lama within four months."
     "Good.  We should have the brouhaha worked out by then."
     Jackson stepped over to the holding cell.  The hermetic seal opened.
     Molly was sulking like an eight year old covered in illicit cookie
crumbs.  Her battered pilot's jacket was around her shoulders, her jumper
was torn in several places and bloody in one.  The dark skin under the
tears seemed healthy though.
     Perhaps too healthy.  Jackson shied away from that thought.  That he
knew she'd jump at it shied him away even more.
     "Evening," he said quietly.
     "Where the Hell were you?" Molly groused in reply.
     "Coming up with the bail money.  Where else?"
     "Right."
     "C'mon.  We're behind schedule thanks to a pilot whose name escapes me
right now.  Todd and Percy're loading right now."
     "I'm comin', I'm comin'."  She pushed to her feet, and walked over to
the reception's counter.  The proctor had already set her things out for
her, and she angrily tallied them.
     The first proctor leaned over to Jackson.  "She ever *not* have an
attitude?"
     "Sure," Jackson murmured back.  "I have it on good authority she
sleeps every so often."
     "Cut it," Molly snapped.  "Let's go."  She stormed out of the Center
for Public Order, pausing only to glare at the proctors coming in.  Jackson
followed quietly.
     "What the Hell is *wrong* with you?" she demanded as soon as they were
ten meters out.  "Do you know how much money Westland's cheated us out of?
Huh?"
     "Shut up," Jackson snapped.  "We have bigger problems than a
dime-store Merchant who thinks he's a Multisystem Corporation."
     "Thirty-five *thousand* crowns.  Thirty-five *thousand.*  Which means
five thousand crowns apiece for me and the Bobbsy Twins.  I don't care if
you can burn your share or no--"
     "Molly, we have to be up-ship within three hours.  If you want to
spend two of those hours complaining, let me know and I'll pay you off and
you can do it in a nice hotel until the next time we touch here."  Jackson
stepped up his pace.
     "What wrong with you?  This thing's nothing -- they got nothing in the
probe and they know it -- and so do I.  Damn it, feels like they scrubbed
my skull with sand--"
     "We have a charter to Plantagenat," Jackson said.
     "That's not our usual route!"
     "Why don't you say it a little louder," Jackson hissed.  "I don't
think *every* damn proctor in three hundred blocks heard we're varying our
flight plan when I told them we aren't."
     "Why?"
     "Because we've been offered eighty-five hundred talents to take her."
     "Eighty-fi-- wait.  That's... geez... three hundred thousand crowns?"
     "Three hundred and fifty seven thousand, by today's exchange."
Jackson sped up a little more.
     "Whoooooa.  And in talents, so we can't spend it or exchange it
anywhere but on Plantagenat.  Cuuuuuute.  Okay, so you've got a point.  Why
is she burning that much money to charter a Free Trader?  Why not take a
passenger liner?"
     "Because last time I checked, passenger liners didn't let Abyssian
Mystics travel on them."  Jackson ducked around a corner, and started
north, towards the Landing Field.
     Molly froze.  "What?" she asked.
     Jackson stopped and turned.  "You heard me."
     "Jackson, I'm no patriot.  God knows that.  But I like my neck,
particularly when it connects my head to my shoulders.  Do you know what
they do to people who aid and abet spies?"
     "This is different."
     "The Hell it is.  The Abyssians don't give a damn if we die or not --
they'll lie through their--"
     "Molly -- she knew I had been in the military."
     "So?  Jacks, you still make your damn bunk in the morning.  Any idiot
could see you were in the military.  I guessed that the minute I laid eyes
on you, remem--"
     "She knew the branch."
     Molly blinked.  "I don't even know--"
     "That's right, you don't.  Molly, she knew my *name.*  I have to see
what she's up to.  If she wants to pay me a fortune in the meantime -- no
problem."  Jackson turned and started back to the ship again.
     Molly followed.  "Jackson -- this smells like `trap' eight ways from
Sunday.  What's this bitch want with you -- Mystic you said?  How do you
know?"
     "Color of her clothes.  Abyssia's organized into castes, which moved
out into their colonies as well.  That's why the vids always have the
soldiers wearing white and the leaders wearing red.  Hers are green -- so
she's a Mystic."
     "Oh.  And they have those funky pins, right."
     "Those `funky pins' are gems that indicate status.  Rank.  Social
Class.  The words aren't really there."  Jackson, passed through the
forward gates and walked down the long concourse towards the main dockyard,
Molly next to him.
     "So what's her gem?"
     "Amber."
     "So what does that make her?"
     Jackson paused, thinking.  "You know anything about the Catholic
Church?" he asked.
     "Some.  A nun taught me astrogation."
     "Well -- what's above a Cardinal in rank?"
     Molly shrugged.  "Um... a Pope?"
     "Mmm -- not quite that.  Somewhere between Cardinal and Pope.  And
Mystics tend to be Aware."
     "Aware of what?"
     Jackson sighed, and started back down the corridor.  "Telepathically
aware," he replied.
     Molly paused.  "Wait... you're telling me some kind of psi witch alien
Abyssian killer religious nut showed up, called you by name, asked you to
break the law and carry her to another Confederation world and you said
yes?"
     "Yes."
     "Damn.  Is it too late to call the Grey Legion?  Fight fire with fire,
I always say."
     Jackson increased his pace, and didn't answer.



        <-< Star System LM23321B, Terran Space >->



     The woman stormed up the metal corridors.  When she had first boarded
the Terran Confederacy Starcruiser "Prometheus," she had been stunned at
its size -- there was little of the cramped feeling you got on most navel
ships.  It had been the first vessel large enough to mount artificial
gravity that she had ever been on.  She thought she would enjoy the trip.
     The alerts echoing through the halls had changed that, considerably.
     *Damn* O'Toole.  Why hadn't he called her to the Bridge?  Who did he
think he was.
     The blue-uniformed regulars of the Terran Confederate Naval Force
fairly dove out of her way.  The grey uniform did that.  The grey beret
perfectly set on her military-cut blond hair.  The rank and file
Confederate citizen loved the Grey Legion.  They believed the television
shows and the press releases.
     The rest of the armed forces had a different view of the Legion.  And
she couldn't care less.  They were making her late with this alert --
there'd best be a damn good reason for it.
     She marched onto the bridge, glancing at the indicators as she walked
in. Star System LM23321B -- the Hell?  It was coded as a Military Recon
system, which meant it was worthless except as a staging ground by
Abyssians.
     There better be Abyssians then.  If there were wargames interrupting
her timetable...
     The deck was filled with activity -- officers and crew, agitated.
They were trying to figure out a puzzle, which made them nervous, but not
unconfident.  It didn't feel like Abyssians.  That's a different
perception.
     And O'Toole was concerned.  She could feel that very clearly.  But he
was hardly a complex man.  Disappointing in a Captain, but you had to get
used to those little disappointments in life.  She made her way over to
him.
     O'Toole glanced up, turning towards her slightly. "Major Hawk," he
said.  She felt his resentment, his anger.  No fear.  She respected his
naivete.
     "What is the meaning of this?  By altering the Prometheus's schedule,
you've delayed my delivery to the Legionnaire base on Elektra by days or
weeks.  These delays are unaccep--"
     "We're not a liner," O'Toole said curtly.  "Our schedule suited you.
It's subject to change as the Confederacy needs.  If you don't understand
the concept of military priority, I truly doubt you deserve to wear that
uniform."
     Hawk let the jibe slide.  "What is the situation?  It seems unlikely
that the Abyssians--"
     "It's not the Abyssians," O'Toole said, smoothing his uniform and
stepping towards the tactical.
     "What?"
     He glanced back at Hawk.  "I thought the Grey Legion knew everything
before anyone else did."
     Hawk arched her eyebrow.  "If you'd prefer, I can.  Where should I
start looking, or should I just sift and pick until I find what I need."
     O'Toole's eyes hooded.  He turned back to the display.  "Approximately
five hours ago, a repeater station in LM23321B detected Transitions into
the system, and transmitted that incursion over the Hyperwave.  A task
force was dispatched out of Halcyon to investigate.  They sent back a
Hyperwave telemetry and requested additional assistance.  We were what was
available."
     "A telemetry of what?"
     "That," O'Toole said, bringing up a schematic of a ship.  "Masses five
thousand tons.  Materials specifications and spectral analysis not
recognized. They haven't responded to communications attempts via the
Hyperwave as a carrier.  The task force is within a few minutes of
engagement distance."
     Hawk looked at the ship -- two saucer shaped disks joined in the
center by four cylinders, with two smaller saucers at the juncture point of
each of the larger saucer.  "I... haven't ever seen anything like it."
     "Neither's the Naval Archives on Halcyon," O'Toole said.  "We're
considering this First Contact."
     "First Contact?  From where?  What systems haven't been explored that
have a Transition Point here?"
     "From the tack they came in on?  You don't want to know."
     "I rather think I do."
     "There's a twenty-eighth level point not far from where the Contact
ship made Transition," Commander Weiss said, walking over to the two.  The
executive officer was attracted to Hawk -- she could sense where his eyes
lingered.  That was useful -- he wasn't afraid of her and he'd be simple to
manipulate or blackmail -- if they *were* going into a First Contact, she
needed people she could work with easily, to accomplish the Legion's
mission.  "It could have been from there, theoretically."
     "Twenty-eighth level," Hawk said skeptically.  "No ship's ever gone
past twelfth.  Nothing massing five thousand tons has ever gone past ten.
You're telling me that ship came in from twenty thousand light years away?"
     "It gets better," O'Toole said.  "On the tack they came in, they'd
have to have come from the core of the Galaxy.  The stars are so close
together there that radiation would have cooked any protolife *long* before
it could have evolved to this point.


[[Continued in Part Three]]


--
Beta-Cit Eric Alfred Burns    | "You're Persky the Great?" Kugelmass said.
<sabre@awenet.com>            | "The Great Persky. You want a tea?"
(sabre@eyrie.org>             | "No, I want romance, I want music,
Writer Type, Poet Boy         |  I want love and beauty."
Maine Expatriate              | "But not tea, eh? Amazing. O.K., sit down."
Gadfly-for-Hire               |    --Woody Allen, "The Kugelmass Episode"