I was sitting comfortably with my feet propped up against the Q-Pod that held our young visitor. Stacy had loaded the poor kid into it with the droid while we were still on Void’s Cutlass, returning to The Elegance. It was part of the plan to make sure we were taking as few risks of the contagion getting on board as possible. I felt pretty shitty about the fact he was likely going to be terrified when he woke up, locked in a space little bigger than a rack in a coffin motel. Especially after whatever he’d gone through down there.

  That’s why I was sitting there with the specs for the Sagittarius Missile system open on a data tablet in my lap. I’d signed the damned paperwork Admiral LeBeau had insisted on, and Gertrude had immediately fired it off through a secure hypercomm channel while we were drifting about a million kilometers from Eve’s Landing running passive scans. She didn’t even wait for a reply, just handed me the data tablet without a word.

  I’d spoken with Tratsa and Boudya about the situation and we’d all come up with a rotation to make sure someone was right beside the Q-Pod at all times. When Miles woke up, there’d be someone here to walk him through what happened and hopefully calm him down. He wouldn’t be alone and terrified, trapped in a small box and not knowing what was going on. Someone would be there to sooth his fears right away.

  Even Jophixa had popped down to the shuttle bay to take a turn for a bit, a cup of graptak in her hand, and a tablet linked into the sensor readouts so she could continue to obsess over watching for signs of the ktonshi leaving the planet. Even though Stacy could easily monitor those data and free up both Jophixa and Jesse for other duties, Jo still insisted that regs called them both to be monitoring in this case. The ktonshi were too dangerous to let slip away, and it didn’t matter if Stacy was far less likely to miss something. Regs were regs.

  The twins had come out and were checking over the Cutlass for any damage that hadn’t shown up on damage control readouts. It was making for a rather amusing bit of background chatter while I was reading. They’d changed out of their skin tight ship suits, and were wearing sensible mechanics overalls - though Gertrude had hers unzipped and the sleeves tied around her waist. I was studiously not glancing in her direction to catch sight of her gravity defying sports bra. No matter what Stacy said.

  And right at that moment, Gertrude was in the middle of grilling her sister about some of the comments she’d made over comms.

  “Alright Giselle, what the hell was with all that ‘Operation: Night Rider’ bullshit? There’d never been any kind of codenames assigned to the plan. Did you just pull that out of your ass or something?”

  Giselle shook her head while waving a structural integrity scanner across a section of the Cutlass’ hull. “You never did pay any attention to any of the stuff I did in my spare time, did you?” she said, then echoed her sister’s reply of “‘But you were into all that ancient crap from the 19th century!’ It was the 20th century ‘Trude, and that stuff is awesome!”

  “It was ancient, it was corny as fuck, and I had better things to pay attention to.” She retorted, while marking a spot on the Cutlass’ hull with a grease pencil, “That still doesn’t explain anything. What the hell is ‘Knight Rider’, and what did it have to do with catching that droid during high velocity combat maneuvers?”

  The next half hour ended up being a blur of Giselle fangirling over some guy she called ‘The Hoff’ and a snarky AI built into an old Earth land vehicle called a sports car. Which led to her suggesting they modify Void’s Cutlass so having an array of red lights on the front that scanned back and forth ominously, and it absolutely had to make this wooshing noise (which she demonstrated) as it did so. Gertrude - “Trude” - put her foot down on any modifications to the hull without clearance from Fleet R&D, since it might compromise its stealth abilities.

  At which point Giselle tried to drag me into the argument saying she was sure I could come up with some way to preserve the stealth factors; I was learning all this sweet alien tech after all.

  “Don’t drag me into this!” I told her, silently knowing exactly how I’d do it, “I only just got off CommSec’s shit list. I’m not tampering with their super secret ship for a cosmetic bit of geegaw, even if it would look cool.”

  “But you do think it’d look cool, right?”

  I glanced over to see Gertrude’s storm gray eyes glaring at me and shrugged, “It might. But anyone close enough to register the coolness factor would be too damn close, especially in combat! Also, do you want genocidal AI warriors? Cause that sounds like you’re trying to get them.”

  Gertrude hrumphed, pointedly ignoring the latter half of my reply, and turned back to her sister, “See? Totally useless effort. Like painting silhouettes on the hull to count out your kills.”

  “That is a time honoured fighter pilot tradition-” Giselle retorted, while giving me a bit of a side eye, but I tuned them out and went back to reading.

  I gotta agree on the coolness thing Tommy-bear! Stacy said in my mind, And an AI controlled car? With Snark? I’m already hunting for sources!

  I just shook my head and went back to reading.

  I had just finished reading through the documentation on the missiles two hours later when the kid woke up screaming. Yeah, I wish I’d been wrong about how it would likely go. But some things you just know.

  “Miles? Hey kid, it’s okay, you’re safe.” I told him through the Holocomm unit, “My name’s Thomas, and I was the one that spoke with you down there. We got you out, and you’re safe.”

  The screaming cut off, but there was still panic colouring his voice when he said, “Where am I? Why am I locked up?” The medical readouts on the Q-Pod were going insane, displaying his heartrate and bloodpressure badly elevated. Thankfully that meant I wouldn’t need to notify Tratsa that Miles was awake, she’d be here in moments.

  “You’re in what’s called a Q-Pod - a quarantine pod - aboard the Elegance of Light.” I explained with the gentlest voice I could muster, “We just need to keep you in there for a short time, it’s just a precaution. Once the Doc is sure you’re clear of any nasty germs, you’ll be out of there and I can give you a tour of the ship ok? This place ship is nothing like anything you’ve seen before.”

  The sound of his breathing slowed slightly, and I could see his vitals lower just a tick. I could also see Tratsa burst into the shuttle bay and hurry her way over, “You’re also going to be one of the first humans to meet a new species face to face, Miles!” I said enthusiastically, then whispered, “just don’t call them goblins okay? They’re really friendly, and won't bite unless badly irritated. They’re super cute too!”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  By that time, the Doc was right beside me and giving me a raised eyebrow, “Or unless you ask.” She said quietly, “and what the hell is a goblin?”

  “I’ll tell you later, if you promise not to blame me for it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Miles, this is Tsaki Tratsa.” I said, looking back at the holocomm terminal. “Tsaki is what her people, the giobhioni, call doctors. She’s here to talk to you now that you’re awake, and do some tests she needs you to be awake for, okay?”

  “What kinds of tests?” Miles asked, sounding suspicious, “I’ve got all my medical history here in my Medalert band. Will that keep her from having to run those tests?”

  Tratsa gently shoved at my shoulder, and I took the hint to stand up and move away so she could steal my seat. “The medical history will help a lot Miles,” she explained, “but I’m still going to have to run some tests. I promise I’ll talk to you before we do anything that would be uncomfortable, okay? Mostly I’ll be running some non-invasive scans with the equipment built into the pod, but I’ll need to get a blood and urine sample from you to compare to your records. Is that okay?”

  Watching the monitor from behind Tratsa, I could see the kid hesitate for a moment then nod. “Alright, as long as it’s not going to involve probes.”

  Tratsa and I glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. What medical tests had this kid been forced to go through?

  “Nothing involving probes in my plans, I promise.” Tratsa explained. “How is the information on your MedAlert transmitted? Does it need a cable?”

  “Yeah!” he explained, “They used to have a wireless function, but there were too many hacks! But it’s got a built-in opti-cable. Does this Q-Pod thing have an OIP?”

  Before she could turn to look at me, I knelt down so I could get my face beside Tratsa’s, once again in range of the holocomm. “Yeah, I made sure to put one in after I had to go through all of this a while back. It’s on the ceiling, about 12 centimeters to the side of the holocomm display. Can you see it?”

  “One sec…” they heard some rustling noises, then, “yeah, found it. I got it plugged in. You guys are the good guys right? I’m not giving my information over to slavers or something right?”

  The look on Tratsa’s face was both aghast and fierce, but her voice was soft and assuring when she replied, “My people don’t hold by slavery , young man. I swear on my mother’s ears. We’re here to see you safe, so let me just take a look at those records.”

  “I’m going to go take care of a few things while you talk to the Doc, okay Miles? I’m the chief engineer on this beautiful ship, so I need to do a bit of work. The Q-Pod is set up with a Holoset and AudioBox if you need some distraction. Tsaki Tratsa will let me know when she’s finished and either myself or one of my friends onboard will come check in on you, okay?”

  “Sure. Can I get on the ‘Net from in here? I’d like to call my parents.”

  “The signal is kind of weak at the moment I’m afraid,” I lied, “but as soon as we can clear it up, we’ll make sure to get a call through. The lag might still be something fierce though. Remember that.”

  Jophixa gave the order that Miles shouldn’t be allowed contact with his parents right away. I’d been all set to argue with her on it, especially after what I heard him say down there. It sounded like every single person he knew from the colony had been taken by the ktonshi, and he could really use the reassurance of talking to his parents. But Jo’d grabbed me by the shoulders, and demanded a chance to explain.

  It turned out to be a very valid reason.

  We needed to make sure we alerted Admiral LeBeau before any civilians got wind of this, to prevent a panic. The information needed to be dispersed, but simply letting the ghouls on CNC throw sensationalized stories out there wouldn’t get people properly prepared.

  Hopefully she and the Admiral could get the Prime Minister and Parliament lined up with a plan to point the populace in a useful direction.

  “You’re hoping for a long shot there Tommy-buns,” Stacy said quietly through my commlink, “This kinda thing tends to go tits up when the truth gets out there, and the longer you lie, the worse the result! Whole governments collapsed back pre-sleep.”

  I wasn’t surprised at all. Politicians tended to play hide the truth and delay action whenever they possibly could; especially if the action in question meant a huge outlay of resources that they, and their donors, could take for themselves. The Commonwealth might have wrangled the worst of capitalism under control using things like basic income programs and outlawing profiteering on basic needs like housing, but that didn’t stop those on top from still trying to hoard as much as they could for themselves. Corporates and Politicians were still mostly joined at the hip.

  “Let’s just hope Jo can talk sense into them.” I grumbled finally, “Or failing that, can think of some way to work around them.”

  Three hours later, I’d done an intensive scanner sweep of one of the Sagittarius missiles the Cutlass was carrying. Part of me itched to pull the thing apart right down to the smallest component to ensure there was no fuckery with some sort of sensor spoofing to hide nuclear components, but if I did, I’d also have to put the whole thing back together again. And while, just a couple months ago such a task would have been an enjoyable way to spend a quiet weekend, the fact it would take at least two days of solid, focused effort, was not appealing in the current scenario.

  There were other things to get done, after all.

  Discounting two lovely women that liked to join me in off time when they could, there was that database the Keeper had given me. I really wanted to start tearing into it, since it didn’t seem like I’d get any farther studying the sensor data from their space folding to parts unknown. Who knew, there might be technology in there that would help us in dealing with the ktonshi as well.

  The Sagittarius Missiles seemed clear of anything that would cause a conventional nuclear reaction, and if Stacy’s checks on my math were right, there didn’t seem to be enough space in the casing to hold the gear needed to spoof the sensors from picking those things up, not unless the military had some drastically advanced miniaturization tech.

  I did get some sensor hits on some unidentified exotic matter, however, so I had Stacy running theoreticals on what we could get from the sensor readings. The data sheets had said it was something called Blumintum, an incredibly rare but natural substance they were in the process of trying to synthesize. Otherwise this weapons system would be relegated to very rare use cases.

  The fact that ‘Trude had gone ahead and used it against the ktonshi might tell you how much of a threat the Admiral classified them as. Or at least, that’s my guess.

  Not that you can blame either the Admiral or the Twins for that thinking, oh short circuiter of my core. Stacy chimed into my thoughts, The ktonshi are a menace none of the alliances you know of are ready for.

  “No blaming them at all,” I muttered back, “just thinking that it was a limited-benefit use of the materials. You said the chemical data provided for Blumintum made it seem as likely to be natural as antimatter! For them to use even a gram of it to take out a handful of ktonshi on a world out here in the sticks, just to save a kid - well, it seems like the kind of waste the Fleet doesn’t usually go for.”

  But 5,000Cr for a 10 millimeter spanner isn’t considered wasteful?

  I let out a guffaw, “Sweety, you know that’s just their way of hiding black ops spending. I know you do.”

  They’ve been doing it for almost four hundred years! She replied in disbelief, how the hell are they allowed to keep doing it? Can’t they just put it in the budget as special operations money?

  “Oh sweet siren of circuits, that’s not the way humans work,” I told her, still smiling and I carefully packaged up the various scanners I’d used, “If they just flat out say its for ‘special ops’ or whatever, it seems to become way more likely it’ll get taken serious by the media, and the press will dig into it like flies on shit. Saying it's for 10 millimeter spanners, you’ll always have the mechanics and engineers out there saying ‘hey, that tracks! You know how hard it is to find one of those when you need it!?’”

  You’re lucky you’re so damned adorable, sweet-cheeks, or I’d tell the Commander humanity just isn’t worth saving.

  “Trust me Babe, there have been whole swathes of humanity who have been saying that since we climbed down out of the trees.”

  The Salvager’s Plague

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