Commonwealth News Central

  October 3, 2342

  Rumors continue to circulate regarding events on the edge of charted space. The colony of Eve’s Blessing is said to have been completely destroyed in a planetary disaster with no survivors. Administrators Stoic and Serene West, who were attending a conference at Bradbury Station at the time of the incident, are beside themselves with grief at the loss of their only son, who had remained behind. C.N.C. has been unable to reach them for an interview.

  Scuttlebut from sources within Fleet Command is that multiple operations have taken place along the fringe. One of these mysterious operations centers around the news story C.N.C. broke earlier last month regarding the survey ship Journeyman and the deep space rescue vessel Bathurst. Our source says both ships were infested with an unknown xenobiologic virus and were destroyed to prevent the contagion from reaching settled space. When one reviews the footage transmitted by intrepid correspondent James Dawson, this reporter feels there is something more at foot than a simple virus. We will continue to dig in order to bring you the truth.

  Unfortunately, nobody from either the Journeyman or Bathurst is reported to have survived the situation. We mourn for the families of the lost, and will especially miss our dear friend James and his brave search for the truth wherever he went.

  In other news, former Chief of Research for Enigma Osiris Corporation Benson Fisch is still at large. CommSec Intelligence has issued a bounty of one hundred thousand credits for any information which leads to his capture.

  Eight hours of frenzied, exhausting work was what it took Boudya and I to track down and seal up all of the coolant leaks in the conspace propulsion system enough that we could pressurize engineering again. The layman might think that the near absolute zero temperatures in the void of space would make for an ideal heatsink, so that once we vented the atmosphere in the engine compartment, we’d have been home free. But with so few particles present, the only way heat propagates in a vacuum is by radiation, which is highly inefficient, especially when you consider how hard Toftri had been pushing the engines. Still, venting the coolant vapour from the deck had saved the two of us from being broiled alive, which was success enough in my opinion.

  Now, with the engines shut down, and the coolant leaks stopped, engineering was finally safe to be opened to the rest of the ship.

  The two of us were bone tired, hungry, and feeling more than a bit scorched. The moment we stepped out of engineering, we were met by Tratsa and Tindron, who would hear no arguments but for us going straight to MedBay for an examination. Our suit telemetry might give the good doctor enough information to know we weren’t going to keel over dead at any moment, but she was a stickler for details, and even ignoring her possibly developing feelings for me, I knew her professionalism wouldn’t allow her to do anything less than a full physical on the both of us, chop chop.

  Perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising, but after Tratsa hugged me, and ordered us to Medbay, Tindron hugged both of us fiercely, his shoulders arms trembling ever so slightly, and didn’t seem to want to let go, only doing so when Tratsa cleared her throat. Don’t ever think that just because benastians have a reputation as hedonists, that they don’t form intense bonds - not only with their lifemates, but with those their lifemates hold dear.

  Once we got to Medbay, I sat down on one of the Medbeds - the oddness of them being so low to the deck having long since faded after how many times Tratsa had checked up on my implant, and stubbornly fought the desire to just pass out right there and then.

  “How’d Miles handle the chaos?” I asked, and suppressed a yawn, “he still drugged up?”

  Tratsa nodded as she started going over me with a medical scanner, “I had his pod locked down securely, with the internal dampeners set to maximum. When we wake him up, he’s not likely to have any clue we fought a fleet battle. Lucky for him. We’re going to have to wake him up before much longer though. Not good for him to stay anesthetized for this long.”

  “I kind of figured. We’ll likely be getting a visit from the Admiral before they head out, and she’s gonna want to talk to him.”

  “Oh, we’re definitely getting a visit from the Admiral.” came Jophixa’s tired voice from the doorway. She appeared about as exhausted as I felt, but she also was willfully denying it. She took a moment to look at me closely as if to make sure I wasn’t in any dire medical condition, before walking casually to the side of my bed. “The twins are headed over to pick her, her aide, and a couple of marines up from Titan’s Whisper. I’m going to assume they’ll have to give a report first, so we’ll have a couple hours at least until they get here. Enough for you and Boudya over there to get checked out and get a bit of rest.”

  “I’m not doing too badly, Commander.” I said with a smile, “nothing a cup of graptak and a couple ration bars wouldn’t cure. Soon as the Doc clears me, I can get back to work in engineering. The engines aren’t going to fix themselves.”

  She scowled, reached over and grabbed me by the ear. “I will not have either of my engineers fixing the engines when they are exhausted!” she growled out, giving my ear a painful yank, “We have both the benastians, and the admiral’s group here to keep us safe at the moment. They haven’t made any kind of move to seize the ship, so I’m willing to extend some limited trust. Stacy has also informed me she has a foothold in Titan’s Whisper’s systems enough to give us plenty of warning. Elegance isn’t going to blow up or lose life support if you get a couple hours of shuteye. So you will do it, that’s an order.”

  “Sepaq, Commander.” I sighed, relieved that I wouldn’t have to keep working, even though I would have if needed. I closed my eyes and laid back on the medbed, letting myself relax a bit.

  “Good.” She said, stepped closer to the head of the medbed, and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, the look of concern for me obvious in her eyes at such a close distance. She straightened up and turned to the tzaki before saying, “As for Miles, yes, see if you can’t have him awake for when the Admiral arrives Tratsa. We’re going to need to inform her of his unique physiology and decide where he’s going to be kept safe. My preference would be to package him up and drop him off at the station where he’ll be the safest possible. We’ll see what the admiral thinks of that idea when I suggest it.”

  Tratsa had merely nodded, being in the middle of smearing some sort of ointment on some of the areas of my body that had gotten some mild burns.

  After that, Jophixa left to give Toftri a break from bridge duty, and once Tratsa cleared the two of us, Boudya and I headed back to my quarters, leaning heavily on Tindron in our exhaustion, him not seeming to take some comfort in the physical contact.

  It was the first time Tindron asked, silently, to join the two of us when we had a night together, and I had no heart, nor energy to say no. He was Boudya’s lifemate, and he had as much need to be close to her after what could have been a horrible disaster in engineering as I did. All three of us were mentally, if not physically exhausted, and were asleep as soon as we were under the covers. Blessedly, there were no nightmares waiting for me in dreamland.

  Void’s Cutlass glided smoothly into the shuttle bay with the practiced grace of a seasoned pilot and settled down onto her landing gear like a kestrel settling into its nest to roost. There were definitely some new scorch marks and no few punctures her armor from projectile round hits, but she wasn’t flying as if wounded. And while the poor girl was going to need some patching up to get her armor back in fighting shape again, if you considered the odds we’d held out against, she was virtually untouched cosmetically. I’d need to get a look at the damage control reports for the rest of it, but it seemed like Elegance took the lion’s share of the damage.

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  I wonder if the Admiral will insist on her own people doing the work on her? I thought to myself. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I didn’t have clearance to get eyes on bleeding edge military technology, I wasn’t even CommFleet personnel. I had to admit I was kind of curious about all the new tech Fleet R&D had put into her, especially the systems that had allowed her to outflank Fisch’s fleet, but it wasn’t likely the admiral would grant me clearance to go poking about in the ship's secrets.

  The long range fighter’s boarding ramp slowly lowered to the deck with the quiet hiss of hydraulic actuators, revealing the Kintzels standing at the top, along with a pair of very stern looking Commonwealth Marines dressed in spit polished battle dress, their coilgun rifles held deceptively idle against their shoulders, combat visors shielding their eyes from view. When the twins started down the ramp, the marines followed close behind, boots striking hard against the ramp in a formal march. I’d been half expecting them to storm down the ramp in holovid battle crouch to analyze their surroundings before shouting “all clear.”

  Instead, they seemed to be behaving more like an honour guard than seriously considering there might be danger aboard Elegance.

  As they marched forward, they revealed two new feminine forms behind them. One, I could only assume was the admiral - garbed in a fleet dress uniform, golden braid looped through her tunic’s epaulet and service decorations over her left breast. The other, also in dress uniform but without the fine regalia, I guessed was her aide. When they got to the bottom of the ramp, the marines stepped to either side, came to attention and let the admiral step forward.

  “Permission to come aboard, Commander?” She asked in an official tone, her voice a steady contralto with just the barest hint of smokiness to it.

  Seeing the woman in person was a big change from the view of her in the holocomms. Yes, her face carried with it the maturity and gravitas of a woman who had risen to the rank of admiral in the commonwealth fleet, and her steel gray hair fit right alongside the gravitas I could clearly see in her eyes, but that’s where any sign of age seemed to stop. Despite the crow’s feet and frown lines, her skin still held a glow of youth that attempted to confuse any attempt to place her age. If it wasn’t for the admiral’s insignia on her epaulets, I might have pegged her as closer to my own age, but I knew that nobody rose to that rank without a long career in the service. She had to be at least ten years my senior.

  Her figure was taut and athletic, similar to that of the twins, though she had less curves, and the way she walked reminded me of the same confidence I saw in Boudya when it came to dealing with unfamiliar situations that held the potential for violence. I guessed she was no slouch when it came to defending herself.

  Jophixa stepped forward and held out her tiny green hand, “Permission granted Admiral. Welcome aboard Elegance of Light.”

  “Thank you. I apologize for the presence of the marines, Fleet protocol. Can’t go anywhere off base or off ship without at least two of them tagging along. I made sure they were instructed that this was a friendly visit. Wouldn’t have wanted any misunderstandings if they stormed down the ramp with their rifles at the ready.”

  “Quite alright Admiral, I used to work security, I understand the protocols.” Jo responded, flashing a friendly grin that sent the young woman standing just behind the admiral back a step. “Let me introduce you to my crew. My helmsman, Toftri Prexiu. One of the youngest pilots in giobhioni history to earn the title be’tsar, for his skill at the helm.”

  An exchange of handshakes followed, “Captain Har’sholi sent me her logs of the situation from before my arrival. My compliments be’tsar,” she said, pronouncing the unfamiliar giobhioni word with only a minor error in inflection, “that was some outstanding flying, if we ever get the chance, I’d love to have you give some pointers to some of my people.”

  “Thank you admiral, maybe once the ktonshi are no longer a threat.”

  “Indeed.”

  Jo continued introducing the rest of us one by one, with the admiral making friendly comments towards each of us. When Tindron and Boudya were introduced, she raised her eyebrow. “Two benastians on board. Interesting.”

  “We’ve had no issues. I’ve heard of the Commonwealth’s standard policy regarding personnel assigned to their sector, but everything has been working well here. I’m sure Tindron likely has some theories about that, he seems to have no small amount of training in psychology.”

  At that, Tindron bowed humbly, “Just part of designing better computer interfaces. I just kept my hand in a bit more than my colleagues.”

  While the Admiral gave him a simple friendly smile, I caught her aide giving him more than a polite once over, her eyes glistening with obvious interest. Gonna want to keep an eye on the aide while she’s aboard, I said to Stacy through my implant, it wouldn’t do to have an incident there.

  I caught her heart rate spike, Tomminoms, she replied, I’ve sent the commander a memo on it, as well as Tindron himself, though knowing him, he caught her look as well. I wonder if he’ll take her up on a casual romp while they’re here, she is rather cute after all.

  I had no time to reply to that as Jo had stepped over to Jesse and I.

  “And I’m assuming you already know our human siblings,” Jo said finally, “ Thomas and Jessica Aacen. Thomas has proven himself time and again as our chief of engineering, and Jessica has entered into training at the comms station on the bridge.”

  “Ah,” and the grin Admiral LeBeau leveled at my sister and I was somehow at once malicious and friendly. “The siblings who have driven Benson Fisch absolutely batty for the past few weeks. I do believe I owe the two of you a bottle of something expensive for the enjoyment that has caused me. I understand why he is so annoyed with you, Jessica, but I have yet to figure out why he has a burr up his ass about you, Thomas. As far as I’m aware, the two of you have never interacted, is that right?”

  I shook my head, “Not as far as I know Ma’am. The only thing I’ve been able to figure out is it has something to do with Jonathan Barstol.”

  “Ah, yes.” She nodded, “that sideways bit of flotsam. I hope we’ve seen the last of him. Not entirely sure why Barstol’s ire regarding the incident ten years ago would have carried over to Fisch getting a hate on for you. Even if Fisch was bankrolling that contract, just as he bankrolled that unsanctioned one that landed you here. Do you know he’s put a bounty on your head?”

  I blinked, stunned. “What?”

  “Oh yes, a hundred thousand Tics. for concrete proof of your death. A high sum for the man that was, according to certain reports, serving as the Commander’s cabin boy. Even given that the man is insanely wealthy, once doesn’t issue a bounty of that size because your underling has a beef with someone so seemingly inconsequential. There’s something more going on here, and not knowing what it is makes my teeth itch. I was hoping you’d have answers.”

  I scratched at the back of my head, still flabbergasted that there was such a large bounty on me. “Sorry Ma’am, I really haven’t the foggiest. I’d really like to know the whys about this deal myself. I mean, if Barstol had put the bounty on me, I’d understand, but Fisch? What the hell?”

  “I’ll make a point of keeping you up to date if I find anything out.” She smiled again, “I’d appreciate it if you keep me in the loop too. Now that we have that lovely bit of communications gear, we can easily keep in touch. Which reminds me…” she turned to look at Jophixa, “On behalf of the Terran Commonwealth, I’m offering to open negotiations for access to the means to create more of those devices. It would revolutionize our communications network.”

  “We’ll have to discuss that over some grapnak.” Jo said, smiling. “But for now, how about I give you a tour of the Elegance and let my people get back to work. Thomas and Boudya, especially, have a lot of work to do in engineering.”

  “Yes, a tour of this beautiful ship would be lovely. Oh, and I didn’t forget my promise of assistance in getting your repairs sorted out. There is a shipment of some supplies on board Void’s Cutlass, the twins will be more than happy to help unload it. There will also be a cargo shuttle coming over in an hour or two with the rest of what you requested.”

  “Thank you admiral, that will be an immense help. There’s so much to get done, and we can’t count on the enemy sitting idle while we putter around with repairs. Now, shall we start the tour in Medical?”

  The Salvager’s Plague

  Ko-Fi or on