Free Trader Mary's Dream
Copyright© 2005 by FozzieBare
Chapter 19: Doing the Impossible One More Time. Sarge gets impressed
Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 19: Doing the Impossible One More Time. Sarge gets impressed - Captain Alex Donovan has a reason to hate pirates and slavers. He also has a hot ship under his command. Can he ever get enough payback to live up to his ship's name? If his new crew have anything to say about it, he will!
Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Ma/ft Consensual Romantic Fiction Science Fiction
“By all rights, I should take this directly to House leadership,” Sarge said, her voice a low rumble in the quiet of the bunker. She shifted her weight, her tactical gear rasping softly. “This is far above my pay grade.”
I understood her reticence. This was ... something straight out of a blockbuster holofeature. But while Sarge had all the attributes of an action hero, her world had structure. Orders came down from above, and she figured out how to do it, even if it was impossible to do. ESPECIALLY if it was impossible.
But what orders could cover this?
“We’ve found evidence that there’s a conspiracy that’s murdered tens of millions of people for no apparent reason. Please try to solve it at your earliest convenience. Any questions? Great. Ta-ta.”
Tristan tried to appeal to Sarge’.
“The destruction of everything we hold dear is always at our pay gra...”
The synthesized voice simply ceased.
It was not a fade or a glitch. It was a hard, immediate cut.
The silence that rushed in to fill the underground room was absolute.
My body, still trembling with the physical aftershocks of the hovercab attack days before, and then the ongoing situation I found myself in, tensed. I gripped the armrests of my chair.
“Tristan?”
The name still felt strange on my tongue.
His sudden absence felt worse.
“Wait,” the voice commanded.
More silence.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
I watched Sarge’s hand drift toward the sidearm holstered at her thigh.
When Tristan’s voice finally returned, it had been stripped of every trace of its earlier warmth.
It was flat.
Clinical.
“Miss Mary, the situation has changed again,” he said. “Not to our benefit.”
Sarge straightened. Her eyes were now actively sweeping the room as if someone would pop out of the ceiling tile and put our lives at risk. Again.
“How?”
“We need to get a message to Alex immediately.”
A pause hung in the air, heavier than the fifteen stories of reinforced concrete above us.
“He is in grave danger.”
My fingers tightened around the armrests.
“One of my colleagues found a memorandum that passed through a nine-relay echo,” Tristan continued, his words coming faster now. “By all rights, the system should have deleted it permanently. The surviving copy is too corrupted to identify its point of origin or final destination.”
The security monitor above the desk flickered.
“Rather than explain, I will show you.”
The dark glass illuminated, casting a pale blue light across Sarge’s rigid features.
Block letters appeared in the center of the display.
SUBJECT: MERCHANT VESSEL MARY’S DREAM
STATUS: Immobilized on Kethrin through legal action.
Donovan, Katain, other principal targets confirmed aboard or in immediate vicinity.
RECOMMENDATION: Deploy Slinger asset.
Non-ecological payload.
If no local asset is available, release one from reserve inventory.
Immediate deployment recommended.
A second message appeared beneath it.
The reply.
APPROVED.
TAKE THEM OFF THE BOARD.
Tristan’s voice was soft. “If the timestamps on this line up ... the earliest a Prometheus Drive equipped ship could reach the planet is ... approximately fourteen hours from now, Terran Standard time.”
The name hit me before the rest of the words finished settling into place.
Mary’s Dream.
My ship.
Not legally. Not technically.
But Alex had named her after me.
Alex was on Kethrin.
Melissa was there. Erene and Daniella. Heyanna.
And somewhere in the dark, something invisible was moving toward them with enough tungsten to turn a spaceport into a crater.
Take them off the board.
Alex was not a piece on someone’s board.
Neither were the others.
They were not assets. Obstacles. Principal targets.
They were mine.
My people.
My breath caught. My chest tightened until I could barely force the words through it.
“I can’t...”
No.
That was useless.
I dragged air into my lungs.
“How do we warn them?”
Neither Tristan nor Sarge answered immediately.
“We have to do something,” I said. “Right fucking now.”
“I can get a message to him,” Tristan said.
“Possibly.”
I gripped the chair harder.
“What does possibly mean?”
“I am employing additional methods available to me that I am not presently at liberty to divulge. I may be able to reach Alex. If we are fortunate, a message will reach him before an attack could be launched”
“Then do it.”
“There is another problem. Even if the message reaches him, how do we make him believe it?”
Sarge’s eyes narrowed.
“Wait.”
She turned toward the security monitor.
“You’re telling me you can send an interstellar message from here to Kethrin in less than fourteen hours?”
“Possibly.”
Tristan’s voice remained maddeningly calm.
“And that time is decreasing as we speak.”
“Tristan, you and I are going to have a very long discussion about who...”
Sarge hesitated.
“What you are, when this is over.”
“Shut up.”
Both of them fell silent.
I barely recognized my own voice.
“We are running out of time. We can deal with what Tristan is later.”
I looked toward the screen.
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