Chapter 45

Third Mission, inbound in system RKO-289 aboard the FUP Deep Space Exploration vessel Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

“We need to have a talk,” Lieutenant Ashley Shellbee said as the legs of her cammie cargo pants stopped in front of me, breaking into my cogitations about nothing. I noticed she didn’t have her boots on; mine were off as well. I’d been trying to center myself and realized I must look as if I was just staring off into nothing.

I was sitting on the bench next to the maintenance and charging rack holding up my assigned PAEMU suit, which was supported by the middle frame. The frame on either side of my vac suit was empty; Bea got inside of one of the suits and walked off with Anika wearing the other. The hubbub of the Marines around us continued, I got the impression that everyone but me and the Lieutenant were in their vac suits.

I could see Shellbee had her old-fashioned clipboard with her again. The right elbow of her battle blouse was bent forward; the top of the clipboard was held in her right hand and the rest was wedged between her bicep and the right side of the camouflage pattern of her ballistic vest. My inner geek wondered what was on the five or six sheets of paper I saw there.

With my armored, slice-and-dice elbow pads resting on my comfortable knee pads I looked up into her gray eyes, and started to feel grounded with my sock-covered feet on the deck-plating. The Lieutenant didn’t have her POT helmet on, but other than that, Ashley was ready to get into her own vac suit that was down at the end of this group of MC racks, to my left.

The compartment felt cool, even with my duty blues on; thank-goodness, my vest kept me comfortable. The rear access hatch of my designated vac suit was raised and I could see into the back of the PAEMU’s Hard Upper Torso unit. All I had to do was put on my Kilo helmet and climb in—my boots were already stored in their cubbyhole on the suit as were the gear from my belt.

There was a commotion behind me that caused the Lieutenant to shift her gray eyes from mine and focus past my head.

I heard their murmurs of support in my right ear-bud on our assigned comm channel for the coming exercises as each one of the Marines of Fire Team One, Delta Squad, Second Platoon touched the back of my ballistic and beam vest with their left armored-glove units as they trooped by the bench. They were filing toward the hatch opening from the TSB-2 armory, heading for our assigned simulation compartment and the first scenario of the morning.

“We’ll see you in the Sim, MM,” Beatrice’s voice said in my ear as she and Anika followed behind Fire Team One in their vac suits. I felt my younger wife give the back of my vest a pat in passing. Juliet and Melvina had already gone off to their own Sims compartments for their own duty specific training.

My household missed yesterday afternoon’s exercises. Instead, we found out what it was like to experience Break Out while hanging against a passageway bulkhead in a web-net with our coverall sleeves and legs thoroughly damp. My ballistic and beam vest had helped me stay comfortable then as well.

We’d all been inhaling some concoction of oxygen and some therapeutic additives. The mixture had felt slightly effervescent in my bronchial tubes and seemed to expand throughout my lungs each time I’d inhaled. Each exhale had left a funny, metallic, tart taste in the back of my mouth. Our comms weren’t enabled at the time so we hadn’t heard the 10 second countdown to Break Out. When the warp bubble turned inside-out, I hadn’t even realized the translation had put me back into the real world—or universe, as it was until the corpsman informed us they’d be letting us down onto the deck once our inhalation treatment was finished.

At least we have our own air to breathe, my paranoid ass-wipe had told me. However the canned atmo we were sucking into our lungs through cheap face masks was provided to counteract the effects of whatever small amounts of Paraquat 13 we’d been exposed to before the sprinklers washed the fumes out of the passageway atmosphere and off our exposed skin. Hanging up against the bulkhead with our boots off the deck and in damp coveralls wasn’t the best way to relax—it was an adhesive experience all the way around actually.

In addition, we still had our individual debriefings about the ambush to look forward to as we’d hung there in silence. As soon as Mister Curtis had appeared, the Marine without rating or rank insignia anywhere on his uniform, he shut down our Kilos’ comm systems, telling us he preferred that we didn’t talk to each other and contaminate our impressions before we gave our after-action report. With that said he downloaded our helmet cam videos and had us hung up to dry in the web-nets, as my PAW called it. He told us that the Glenndeavor was too close to translation for us to leave for our compartments. But I didn’t see him get into a net.

The remedy we were breathing during Break Out was mixed in the passageway by one of the three Fleet corpsmen first on the scene. We were each given a small cylinder holding eight minutes worth and we threaded that onto the simple regulator feeding our recyclable masks. The other two medics rendered further care to stabilize Adiosha before they secured our attacker to a stretcher and she was taken away. Our corpsman had tested three of the puddles near the compartment hatchway before she confirmed G3 Henderson’s professional assessment. The efficient G3 had told the Fleet Lieutenant earlier that by the color and odor of the blue fog, as well as the fact that G4 Adiosha had used the herbicide before, the gas used in the attack was a vaporized version of Paraquat 13.

So we were stuck up on the bulkhead breathing canned atmo waiting for the Glenndeavor to return to normal space. We watched as an investigation team videoed the scene and then carefully cleared the bodies and the mess. Next a team of Marines in gas suits opened the hatch of the compartment Adiosha used to stage her attack. Under the legend 7D-S14-C051, I could read the words 7 Deck Section 14 CGPS Switching Space stenciled on the hatch when it closed. I knew that CGPS stood for Communications, Gravity, Power, and Sensors.

I figured the sprinklers had flushed the Paraquat out of the air inside the Switching Space by then. It wasn’t until we’d finished our inhalation therapy, had gotten out of the nets, and each of us gave our after-action report to an S-and-I member with a recorder, that we saw the investigators bring out two body bags from the compartment.

We were excused from the afternoon Sims session and from attending PT, but all of us wanted to go to the Firing Range. We went back to our quarters to shower and put on dry uniforms, then each of us ate one of the contraband Dehydrated Ration Meals, Premium Grade, we had in our suite, which were actually quite good. Beatrice called down to the Firing Range and discovered there weren’t many of the crew and few of the Marines scheduled over the next few hours. The Glenndeavor had just made the transition back into normal space and all Departments were already busy gearing up to begin the survey of the system; and they’d stay busy for more than the next few days. So it was easy for Bea to reserve firing lanes for us.

Halfway through the range ammo I’d been issued, I had to stop firing. I kept seeing Mister Leslie’s eager eyes when I first explained why my team had our data visors deployed. Gunny Moanauer was on the firing line and saw my distress. He called for another Range Master to come up and take his place and took me down to a storage compartment. We had a long talk. Actually, I did most of the talking. I felt a little better afterward and thanked Gunny for listening.

Now, sitting here looking at Lieutenant Shellbee’s knee pads, I was listening again.

“It’s a bitter experience—” she said now that the armory was quiet, looking down at me on the bench, “—when people under your command die, especially right in front of you. But that’s one of the prices you pay, Sitz. When you’re in charge, it’s your prerogative to assign responsibilities to crew members in your group as you see fit whenever you’re on patrol or escorting unarmed crew. The gentlemen from Echo Team were qualified, armed, and should not have been assigned to you as walk-alongs. They should’ve been assigned escort duty for other unarmed crew on their way back from the Range.

“Besides that,” she added in a no-nonsense-sounding tone of voice, “I’ve seen the vids; you did what you could with that huge guy in your line of fire. G4 Mindenhall-Sitwell protected our Communications asset with her body, G2 Blaugelt-Sitwell deployed to the other side of the passageway looking for a clear firing angle while presenting the smallest target possible. G3 Henderson—once again—took the money shot. The threat was neutralized and we have someone alive to interrogate. Thread closed.”

When she puts it that way, my paranoid ass-wipe spoke up, we did what we could.

“It is a good thing,” the Lieutenant told me, “that you talked to Gunny Moanauer and then went back and finished your range rounds. There was a remarkable improvement in your shooting; that says a lot about how good of a listener he is and how well that talk helped you.

“Also Sitz,” she said with a grin as I refocused on her gray eyes, “you’re a good talker ... when you’re not spouting your high-grade shinola to officers and browning up your nose.”

All I could do was shrug and keep looking into her gray eyes. I didn’t even try to connect with Ashley; for one reason, at the moment, it didn’t seem right. In addition, she was acting not only as my friend, but also as my immediate commanding officer, lame joke and all.

The night before, Juliet, Anika, Bea, and I had talked about what we’d experienced and what we’d felt during the attack and afterward; that had helped. I’d also discovered a secret. Going through three sets of stretches and forms after I got back from the Barracks Block Range, and then again doing two more sets before going to bed very early relaxed me. Once in bed, my brains were fucked out of orbit by all three of my loves, and that helped my state of mind as well. There is nothing like the very recent threat of being dead that made being alive and being troop-trained by three beautiful women all that more vital and satisfying.

I had the feeling that our red-headed neighbor was having a much more difficult time dealing with the experience than any of us were, but when we asked her if she wanted to come over and talk about it as we returned from eating supper at the Enlisted Mess she’d declined.

This morning, after more stretches and forms and before we left our suite to pick Bimini up on our way to eat and then go on to TSB-2, we’d all talked more about our experiences. Juliet said she was going to make the time to get Melvina alone and ‘have a talk’. Anika suggested that soon after ‘the talk’, we invite the red-head over for supper and then troop-train her—in a loving way, of course. My younger wife said it had worked for me the night before, after all. I pointed out that her bionic Jamison Junior hadn’t been involved during my therapy session before we went to sleep. Anika countered that I was much more willing to share my inner self with them after my experience. If Melvina Bimini were truth told going to become our name-friend and enjoy spending time with us, she needed to let us in. Anika said she thought a good troop-training would help get our neighbor talking to all of us after she had several shattering orgasms.

Which SHE is Anika talking about having the shattering orgasms? my PAW had asked with a snort at Anika’s words.

What about why? Why did this happen? my inner geek demanded in the here and now.

“What can you tell me about that bitch Bea ventilated,” I asked Shellbee, and sat up, remembering the first time I saw G4 Adiosha and the look on the woman’s face when she realized Anika was coming out of the lift as we headed toward the Hydroponics Department. “Any idea what the attack was about? I’m sure you’ve had at least one of your special interviews with Adiosha, Lieutenant; I mean—she survived—right?”

And don’t download for me, I addressed my inner geek, any of that, ‘Because it happened, ‘ gowno.

“Certainly,” Shellbee replied, “you deserve to know. And I’m going to talk to Anika, Juliet, and Bea individually throughout the rest of the day as well.

“To answer your questions,” Shellbee said. “Yes, Adiosha did survive; and we now have her safely under lock and key down here in the Block’s Sick Bay,” she told me, her gray eyes looking like cold steel. “I’m glad you gave her first aid instead of executing her on the spot; the woman was trying to get one of you to kill her. She failed, so I’ve had two somewhat productive discussions with her, although she just cusses at me,” said the Lieutenant and she shrugged her shoulders under her vest.

“It happens that Adiosha is a very visual person,” said the Lieutenant, “and she, at least, doesn’t believe in witches in the same sense that Levinsky did—which turns out to be a good thing.”

I remembered witnessing the ending to Levinsky’s interrogation.

“Unfortunately,” added the buzz-cut Marine who was also my name-friend, “I’ve only learned of Adiosha’s burning hatred for Anika—actually, anyone from Nowe Gniezno—and nothing about any other Belagaussian Revenge Front cells still on the Glenndeavor, or even any specifics about how she was recruited by the BRF.”

“Did you at least discover who’s in her cell?” I asked, hoping with a second BRF agent in custody, Shellbee would have more memories to pick through for information about the group that might lead to capturing other BRF members aboard. As all kinds of questions bubbled up in my mind, my inner geek figured I wasn’t needed out in the Sim for whatever scenario was running or Shellbee would have insisted that I suit up and would have sent me on my way by now.

“I have learned since Adiosha became a ghost, her BRF cellmate, Engineering Systems Technician G4 Niccolo, was sometimes moving her from hiding place to hiding place inside the small cargo compartment of whatever walk-behind maintenance donk Niccolo was using at the time. But that was before the spider attacks totally locked the Ship down. Unfortunately,” said Shellbee, “Adiosha’s cellmate was in one of the body bags taken out of the Switching Space.”

With surprise coming over me, I felt the hope in my heart of finding more BRF cells on the Ship collapse.

“Who was in the other bag?” I asked Shellbee as questions started rushing up at me past my PAW down in my brainstem. “Why were they in that compartment so close to Break Out? Why did Adiosha risk getting caught like that, as well as kill her cellmate—that’s what she did isn’t it?” I ran out of immediate questions and just shook my head at the seemingly inherent violence and stupidity of the BRF members I’d run into.

“The other body bag contained G2 Pasternak, the other member of Niccolo’s maintenance team, and the Switching Space was their duty station at the time. The two of them were there to monitor the CGPS systems in case of an emergency during transition,” Shellbee told me with another shrug of her vest shoulders. “I’ve learned deck assignments for that duty are decided by the monitoring teams. Adiosha knew the drill and whispered in her cellmate’s ear. Apparently, Niccolo was easily suggestible when it came to some things. Niccolo, Pasternak, and their walk-behind donk containing Adiosha were escorted to their duty station by security.

“As to the why,” Ashley said to me, “that’s convoluted. The need for revenge against the Federation was the bond between Niccolo and Adiosha. That was why they both were recruited by the BRF—I was able to get that much about the organization from her memories.

“This was their second mission aboard,” she told me, “and being in the same cell together, they’d shared their hatreds of what they each saw as the insults, the injustices, and also what they believed was the murders of loved ones at the hands of the Federation—as well as by the armed forces of the Nowe Gniezno Commonwealth, in Adiosha’s case—so they knew some of each others’ background. And those backgrounds, I discovered, included being related to low-level members of different organized crime families; families who were behind the Beaujanonce Incident. Their family connections were distant enough that Federation background checks when they enlisted didn’t turn up any red flags on Adiosha and Niccolo.

“Adiosha started fixating on Anika,” said Ashley Shellbee with a frown on her striking features, “when your wife first showed up aboard the Glenndeavor at the start of this Mission. Adiosha heard the rumors that NG Blaugelt was from Neuholm’s Planet, which she knew was somewhere in one of the two star systems controlled by the Nowe Gniezno Commonwealth. Seems Adiosha had an Aunt and Uncle, as well as a passel of older teenaged cousins she’d grown up with who were part of a large raiding party of five ships that descended on one of the planets in the second system. It appears the leaders of the raid were thinking to get in, get loot, get slaves, and get out before any organized opposition showed up. But they didn’t do their homework, I guess; or they believed someone else who didn’t do their homework on the planet. Could be that someone wanted that group to come to harm for some past deed or deeds—or was paid by another party who did.

“I looked it up from what I learned from her memories,” Shellbee told me. “Adiosha’s relatives were unfortunate enough to run into a joint military response coordinated between Federation Marine elements and Nowe Gniezno Commonwealth forces already dirt-side. The forces were under the direction of Anika’s father and were there to put down increasing incursions by raiders on that particular planet in the NGC’s second star system. The lowest common denominator—Adiosha’s relatives made landfall with evil intentions in the wrong place at the wrong time and found themselves under the karmic wheel as it turned.

“Two of her cousins, both young women, were captured,” Ashley said, the muscles in her jaw line flexing, “a male cousin was among the survivors who escaped off planet and brought back word of what happened. The rest of the family all were killed when the raiders’ temporary command compound on the planet was attacked. Adiosha has never learned anything about the young women’s fate, and from her memories I gather that her cousin who returned painted what might be a pretty damning picture of the Commonwealth and Federation troops with his version of things; although my research turned up captured home videos that show the raiders were the ones with a taste for rape, pillage, torture, murder, and mayhem.

“Adiosha should really have focused her hate,” said Shellbee, “on the people who convinced the raiders that particular world in the system was poorly equipped to deal with a quick-hitting attack that made planet-fall under the guise of normal trading traffic. The reports I saw seemed to point to Brotherhood agents as the source of the intelligence the raiders used to formulate their attack plans.”

“The Brotherhood?” I asked as my inner geek started up his factoid generator on the organization again. My paranoid ass-wipe nodded his head at the conspiracy issues involved, as if he’d known them all along.

“They’ve had their eyes on the two systems that make up the Nowe Gniezno Commonwealth,” Shellbee informed me, “for quite some time. Not only for the water, but also because of the amazing tech and manufacturing capabilities, as you’ve already figured out.”

I felt a little nudge at the back of my brain from what would be our connection if I allowed the rapport to open. I didn’t take the bait and release my control, she wasn’t getting in. And even if I did want to ask her to become my mentor so I could learn about my own abilities and improve on my skills; I was not going to ask her that now. I felt the telepathic bump again, as if Ashley used her psychic elbow against my mental ribs. She stood there in front of me and sighed, making an almost have it your way kind of noise.

“Did you have something you wanted to inquire of me?” asked the black-haired, buzz-cut beauty who could be an annoying pain-in-my-ass as well as my direct supervisor now that I was on detached duty.

I just shrugged my shoulders and said nothing, not wanting to give her any possible opening to get her psychic hack into my brainpan.

“You know, Mister Sitwell,” Lieutenant Shellbee said, looking down at me while turning her head slightly to her right as if to drill her eyes into my own, “you’ve developed the ability to block my, shall I say... penetration ... into your mind, when you don’t want me there. Of course I know when you’re doing it, but I don’t know how you’re doing it. And although some little snippets leak out, there’s not enough recognizable visual or emotional content for me to gather more than the vaguest hints about what is going on in that interesting noggin of yours.”

While my inner geek felt proud at what she’d just said, my paranoid ass-wipe felt even more exposed on hearing that Shellbee knew I had developed that ability.

“For your information,” Shellbee announced as she squared her shoulders and looked all military again, “I am officially, and personally, impressed Mister Sitwell. Perhaps we should get together and talk about this development in detail—if you want.”

“Perhaps we could do that,” I said, trying to think as if I was selling a poker bluff when I considered the offer Shellbee had just dealt me was a royal flush. While we were talking about my ability to block our connection, I could get around to asking her to become my mentor on a less than official basis.

“So—is my ability to keep you out of my noggin enough of a surprise to bring out that previously mentioned, but not elaborated on, personal kink of yours? The kink you told me you were having some trouble managing?” I asked Shellbee, wanting to see if I could get her off balance just to keep her from thinking about finding a way into my head.

“Hah!“ she barked out.

Looking up, I saw actual amusement warming her gray eyes for a few heartbeats before they turned back to steel again.

“No—and speaking as name-friend to name-friend,” Ashley Shellbee told me, “your entire household doesn’t come close to having the level of repressed sexual memories needed to even get my kink’s attention, let alone cause her to strain to get free and seize the day.”

“Really,” I replied, suddenly tantalized by her wording but realizing that was all I was going to get—tantalized.

“Don’t you wish now,” she said in a low, sexy-sounding voice, “that you’d have let me in a moment ago when you had the chance? You’d have been able to see some of those memories perhaps.”

Gazing up at her standing there right in front of me I could see that unfortunately her eyes were back to being cold as gray steel again. As we focused on each other, me down on the bench and her in front of the rack holding my vac suit, I could tell that our moment had passed.

“And speaking of memories, Mister Sitwell, during my little talks with her I could clearly see Adiosha’s memories,” Lieutenant Shellbee told me. “When your household ran into her right after she’d planted that spiked ball of poison in the irrigations system, Adiosha allowed her burning hatred for any person from Nowe Gniezno in general—and Anika in particular—to start deciding her moves. After all, her cell was cut off from her handlers, she was starting to despair that she’d not get to enjoy her revenge because whatever the BRF had in store for the Glenndeavor might not come about, and Adiosha was feeling powerless again. Then three days ago, Niccolo accidently discovered Fireball’s training schedule in Sims Bay Two and she told Adiosha about it.”

Another vision of the black woman’s face after seeing Anika in the lift car that day sent a shiver up my spine that my cushy protective vest didn’t impede.

“This—” said Shellbee as she stepped over and put her clipboard down on the bench to the left of our helmets, and I realized I hadn’t even been aware that she’d put her POT down on the bench before she stepped in front of me, “—was Adiosha’s second attempt to ambush Anika.

“The first was the spider attacks,” the Lieutenant told me. I’d heard the black woman make that claim when she was trying to goad us into killing her, so I wasn’t dumbstruck as I watched Shellbee’s gray eyes. “She set them up hoping to lure your wife from your quarters on Seven Deck into the compartment containing the IED that was also on Seven Deck. She doesn’t know how close that attempt came to actually getting you guys inside before the bomb detonated.”

I could only nod my head as my mind’s eye replayed the explosion blasting Corporal Grievous out into the passageway.

“Adiosha told Niccolo they’d been tasked with setting up the spiders as a diversion for some other operation by another cell or cells,” Ashley said, putting her right sock-covered foot up on the bench beyond her clipboard and resting her right hand on her raised knee pad as she continued to hold my gaze with her eyes. “That actually was an assignment they’d both been told to arrangee and await a signal from their handler to set the plan into motion.

“It turns out,” Shellbee said, absentmindedly bringing her left hand up and scratching her nose, “that a member from one of the BRF cells found several containers of spiders well before we even knew about any contraband being aboard and told their handler. It seems that whoever’s in command of the cells worked the find into their plans. However, according to Adiosha’s memories, she knew that creating a ship-wide diversion was supposed to happen after the Glenndeavor broke out of warp and on a signal from their handler, and that is something that Niccolo didn’t know.

“After their handler was killed, Adiosha figured her cell was offline and without any further outside direction. Adiosha’s hate wouldn’t accept that. Attempting to poison part of the irrigation system was outside of her orders, but she didn’t care anymore. It was her attempt to strike out at the crew of the Glenndeavor and generate as much confusion and fear as she could. She also wanted to help any of the other cells still under direction to possibly take advantage of the situation—similar to the disinformation campaign claiming that the firefight in CSB-Three never happened. We’ve been trying to run those rumors back to the source but haven’t had any luck so far.

“Then,” said Ashley Shellbee, “Adiosha saw Anika right as she was leaving the scene of her poisoning attempt; and that reminded her she still had a focus for her buried rage and hatred even if she didn’t have a handler to guide her cell anymore.

“She dropped out of sight,” the Lieutenant told me, “which you know. She placed her ID stick between two pieces of lead foil that would eventually come apart in the donk where she’d hidden the necklace. Adiosha knew she’d be somewhere else with one of the toys Iceman Cotroni provided their handler when her ID stick eventually slipped out and was pinged the next time the donk went through a threshold. She used Cotroni’s gizmo to find her med chips, and then she cut them out and smashed them to become a ghost.

“We couldn’t find her. While there was a way for the BRF commander aboard to contact her with a code sentence after her intermediary cell handler was killed in CSB-Three, she hadn’t been contacted,” my Marine name-friend told me as she dropped her right sock-covered foot back on the deck and shrugged the shoulders of her vest and battle blouse. “She was getting desperate being out of touch, and thinking her cell’s mission compromised, she decided the only thing left for her to do that was worthwhile would be going after Anika to get revenge. She used her cell’s last known mission as an excuse to get Niccolo to help her. The IED was Niccolo’s idea to improve the diversionary mission of the original attack scenario and she built the timer to set off a tiny charge of Star-plex. Thank the stars they didn’t use a bigger charge from the box they’d found.”

“Seems like the spider plan had a very low probability of getting Anika,” I said as my inner geek tried to come up with an actual guesstimate value before giving up. I was glad that G4 Adiosha wasn’t as good of a strategist as she was a tactician.

“Yesterday, Niccolo didn’t even know about Adiosha’s plan to try for Anika when she took Adiosha inside the donk to the switching space,” Shellbee informed me, and I realized I missed the musical way her vocal inflections ran up and down the scale when she was relaxed. She hadn’t been relaxed for some time. “Niccolo was moving Adiosha to keep her free of the final stages of the ship-wide compartment searches.

“Once they were safely inside the compartment,” the Lieutenant said, and then turned around and sat down on the other side of her clipboard and our helmets to my left, “Adiosha knew she’d be able to monitor the passageway security scanners from the control screens in there. She’s had Anika’s ID ping sequence for several months, according to what I’ve learned from her mind. There were a number of crew members from the Engineering Department with huge grudges when Null Grade Anika Blaugelt, looking like somebody’s kid sister and butchering FedEnglish, was assigned to the Glenndeavor. All the rest of the members of the Department were required to be at least G2s to even apply for duty aboard. I don’t have to tell you that Glenndeavor is a very prestigious assignment, and some of them really didn’t like that Blaugelt was placed on the Glenndeavor seemingly right before we left, when it was the height of their careers so far to make it aboard.