Damnation, page 22
part #3 of Forgotten Vengeance Series
Hayden continued staring at the rig. “So you’re saying the ship is part of the rig?” He started running his eyes along the profile of the station, looking for anything that might be part of a starship.
“Yes and no,” Haeri replied.
“The ship is the rig?”
“Good thought, but not quite.”
Hayden might have enjoyed a game like this under other circumstances. “Okay, General. I give up. Where is it?”
“Look at the rig,” Caleb said. “And then look at the negative space inside it.”
Hayden glanced at Caleb and then did as he said. He traced the connecting corridors to their stations, his eyes darting around the rig. Then he turned his attention closer to the center, beginning to notice how the open space between the passages and modules began to take on a shape of their own. A vaguely familiar shape.
He smiled as he began to recognize the general shape of a starship in the blank space, similar enough to the generation ships to match the pattern, but different enough he could tell they hadn’t merely retrofit one of them. This ship was longer and more narrow, with only a few bulges rising from what he assumed was the top, though some of them might have been actual empty space.
“You have invisibility tech?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” Haeri replied. “It’s a projection of the space behind it, corrected for angle of approach. Fairly rudimentary tech, in reality. Every ship coming from Proxima has to take the same vector into the rig. As long as they stay on the path, the ship is invisible to anyone approaching.”
“What about sensors?”
“We control all of the sensors on Proxima. All of them have a small defect that makes them unable to see any of the warships on the rigs.”
“And nobody has ever discovered the defect?”
“Nobody who has stayed alive long enough to tell anyone about it.”
The way the general said it made Hayden’s skin crawl. The Organization kills anyone who figures out what they’re doing? “For the good of everyone, I suppose,” he said.
“I don’t expect you to agree with it, Sheriff. That’s not in your nature. But yes.”
“What about from the inside? You have an awful lot of windows. And there must be a few hatches that don’t go anywhere.”
“There are no windows on that side of the rig. As a Sheriff, I’m sure you understand people don’t question what they have no reason to question. No one expects there to be a warship here, so they think nothing of the placement of the windows, the layout of the corridors or hatches in places where they shouldn’t be. They just don’t notice.”
“They’re going to notice soon enough.”
Haeri smiled. “Yes, they are. But right now, the only people left on the rig are my people. I cleared everyone else off when we first detected the Relyeh ship. They all know about the Invincible.”
“So why not turn off the projectors?”
“There was no need. Cena, how long until we land?”
“Five minutes,” the AI replied.
“We’ll be down in five minutes. Doctor Rush is already waiting for you in medical. We’ll get your arm replaced while our engineers work to unpack Caleb’s brain. Sound good?”
“Pozz,” Hayden said.
“Try to relax, Sheriff,” Haeri said. “This might be your last opportunity for a while.”
50
Hayden
An entire entourage of people were waiting when Hayden and the others stepped through the hatch of Flint’s starship and into a short umbilical connecting the spacecraft to the mining rig. It was one of nearly a dozen tentacle-like appendages floating like xaxkluth arms in the vacuum of space. Guided by the rig’s computers, the umbilicals came alive with electrical charges, firming and straightening as they were needed for ingress or egress to and from the rig.
A man came forward, entering the umbilical, coming to attention and offering a firm salute. “General Haeri,” he said. “It’s good to see you, sir. I just wish it was under better circumstances.”
Haeri was at the head of the group, Tora beside him. He returned the salute. “You and me both, Colonel Barth. At ease. I want you to meet my newest recruit, Colonel Caleb Card.”
Caleb moved forward at the mention of his name. “Colonel Barth,” he said, offering his hand.
“Colonel Card,” Barth replied, smiling as he shook Caleb’s hand. “It’s a pleasure. I hope we have a chance to get to know one another during your stay here.”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Caleb replied. “But I don’t expect to be here long.”
“Colonel Card has another mission,” Haeri explained. “Is everything as I ordered?”
“Of course, General,” Barth replied. “Rush is standing by in medical for your patient.” His eyes swept over the group. “Which one of them is injured?”
Hayden spoke up. “Sheriff Hayden Duke,” he said. “I’d wave, but my augment is busted.”
Barth’s smile extended again. “Sheriff? General, I have to admit, my curiosity is killing me. If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what’s all this about?”
“If I had more time to explain, I would,” Haeri replied. “Sheriff, those two nurses will take you to medical. Caleb, we’ll follow Colonel Barth and Lieutenant Yamasaki to engineering. Tora, Nova, Jason—I want you to head to the armory with Lieutenant Hamsa. Hamsa, outfit them with the latest and greatest.”
“Aeron?” Tora said. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking two things,” Haeri replied. “One, once we’ve unpacked Caleb’s brain, we’ll need to turn that information into something actionable. If they’re right about the interlink, Caleb and the Sheriff will need to get back to Earth to make use of it. To do that, we’ll need the portal on the Ziyou. If the enemy knows that, they’ll try to stop us. You’re my Code Nineteen. You’ll get them to the portal.”
“I will,” Tora said, no hint of doubt in her reply.
“Two, once they’re through, they’ll likely be walking into a bad situation. They’ll need backup.”
“You want us to go back to Earth with them, sir?” Gray asked.
“That’s right. If all goes well and the interlink does what we want, we’ll have access to a portal between Earth and Proxima. You’ll be able to walk right back when it’s over.”
“Sounds good to me, sir,” Stacker said.
“I can’t wait to see the expression on Nate’s face when you show up,” Hayden told Jason.
“All right, time is wasting,” Haeri said. “Sheriff, we’ll meet up with you when the work with Caleb is complete. Doctor Rush will keep you comfortable until then.”
“Pozz,” Hayden said. He turned to the nurses to introduce himself. “I’m Sheriff Hayden Duke.” He tipped his hat to them.
They were both younger women dressed in light blue uniforms with a red cross over their chests. They were similar in appearance. Sisters maybe? Both had round faces and light brown hair, though one kept hers short while the other had hair down past her shoulders. They seemed intimidated by his appearance, faces red and eyes shifting past him. One of them finally looked him in the eye. “Nurse Turi. That’s Nurse Alsop. If you’ll follow us, sir...”
“Pozz,” Hayden said. He glanced at Caleb. “See you on the other side, Card.”
“Pozz,” Caleb replied. “Good luck with the arm, Sheriff.”
The two groups split up, heading in opposite directions inside the rig.
“How far to medical?” Hayden asked.
“Not far,” Turi replied. “Half a kilometer in a straight line.”
“Is this your first time to a mining rig?” Alsop asked.
“This is my first time off Earth,” Hayden replied.
“What do you think?”
“Of what?”
The answer caused Alsop’s face to flush even more. “Everything, I guess.”
“It’s a little overwhelming.”
“You don’t look like the kind of person who drowns in a big ocean,” Turi said.
“Right now, I feel like I’m just holding my breath.”
She nodded, changing the subject. “This corridor leads to medical, which connects on the other side with berthing, and from the bottom to the loading cords. That’s the heart of the rig if you don’t count the Invincible.”
“What about the other direction?”
“That’s the military side of the rig. Engineering, barracks, training facilities, research and development—that kind of thing.”
“The miners and the soldiers are kept separated?”
“Yes and no. Everyone on this rig is part of the Organization. We’re all in on the joke, as they say. But we do try to keep up appearances when we have visitors. This place is owned by Yamato Corporation, whose head is on top of the food chain at the Trust. Every once in awhile they’ll send an auditor or veep over to check on operations. We bring them to the left, show them the facilities, get them drunk and send them home happy.”
“And they have no idea the Invincible even exists.”
Both nurses smiled. “None,” Turi said.
“What’s the headcount on board?”
“Four thousand,” Alsop replied. “But we’ve had as many as six at one point.”
“That’s a lot of people keeping a secret. It’s never slipped out?”
“That’s above our pay grade. But General Haeri runs a tight ship, and we believe in what we’re doing. Nobody wants to be the one with loose lips.”
They kept walking, chatting about the rig as they went. Hayden discovered Turi and Alsop were indeed sisters, though Alsop was married to one of the engineers. Her term on the platform was due to end in two duty cycles, at which point she would go back to Proxima to work in one of the hospitals and have babies. Turi wanted the same life, but her prospects for a husband weren’t as promising.
“Here we are, Sheriff,” Turi said as they rounded a bend. A wide hatch with a red cross painted on it made it very clear they had reached medical. The door opened to an intake area where a man sat behind a simple desk, an Oracle over his right eye.
“Boston, this is—”
“Sheriff Duke,” the man finished for Turi. “Doctor Rush is already waiting in the OR. Number three. Welcome to Rig Six.”
“Thank you,” Hayden said.
“This way,” Turi said, leading Hayden across the intake area to another door.
The sisters led him down a few more corridors, passing a handful of nurses and another doctor before reaching the OR. Turi swiped her wrist over the security pad to open the door and Alsop led Hayden in.
Doctor Rush was younger than Hayden expected, likely in his twenties, average height and build with intelligent eyes and a mop of curly black hair spreading out from beneath a light blue cap. He smiled as Hayden entered the room. “Sheriff Duke. It’s an honor.”
“It is?” Hayden replied.
“I’ve heard stories,” Rush said. ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s underground stuff. Rumors and tall tales. But we know better, don’t we.” He winked.
Hayden eyed Rush for a moment, and then looked over at the augment on a table to his left. It was resting on a stand beside a terminal, a single thin wire connecting them. While his current arm was crude and powerful, with obvious links and joints, the new one appeared as one single piece, covered in a layer of what looked like real skin complete with hair follicles.
“It’s one of our newest models,” Rush said. “Don’t worry about the skin color, we can adjust that once we have it on you. It’ll look just like a real arm.”
Hayden stared at it. “What kind of force can it generate?”
“I’m sorry?”
Hayden looked at Rush. “Force? Power. Strength. I don’t need pretty, doc. I need functional.” He tapped his broken arm. “This was functional.”
“We don’t make them like that up here,” Rush replied. “We haven’t needed functional for a long time. Am I right to guess that a working pretty arm is better than a broken, strong one?”
Hayden nodded. “Pozz. Not ideal, but I’ll take it.”
“Turi, help Sheriff Duke with his jacket and shirt. We need him stripped to the waist.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Turi said. She helped Hayden shrug out of the scaley and the clothes underneath until he was naked from the waist up. He noticed her gasp when she saw the scars that lined his back and wrapped around his torso.
“Be glad you don’t live on Earth,” Hayden said.
“Scars can be sexy, Sheriff,” she replied. “Especially on Proxima. What woman doesn’t want someone who wrestles aliens?”
Hayden lowered his head in response, thoughts turning to Natalia.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” Turi said. “I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. I have a bad tendency of saying the wrong thing.”
“It’s why she’s single,” Alsop said.
“It’s okay,” Hayden said, lifting his head. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Take a seat,” Rush said, pointing to the chair in the center of the room. It was white and modern, with all kinds of lights and robot arms arranged around it.
Hayden sat in it. He thought Rush would come over, but instead he went behind a terminal and started pressing buttons. That put the arms in motion, and they rotated around to his augment. Red lasers scanned the length of the arm before retreating.
“Give it a minute to process,” Rush said.
Hayden rested his head against the seat and waited impatiently. The processing time seemed to stretch forever when in reality less than a minute passed.
Then Rush came out from behind the machine holding a tablet. He had a flat look on his face that Hayden knew meant bad news.
“Sheriff,” Rush started to say.
“Let me guess. You can’t swap out the augment for a new one,” Hayden said.
Rush held up the tablet, showing the results of the scan. “Honestly, Sheriff. If this were my arm, I would be in so much pain I’d be begging someone to cut the damn thing off.”
“I never said it didn’t hurt.”
He ran his finger along the scan. “This is your shoulder where it meets the control ring. You have extensive nerve damage here, as well as an abundance of scar tissue. You haven’t just replaced the augment, you’ve replaced the ring.”
“A couple of times.”
“The rings weren’t designed to be replaced. They’re supposed to be permanent. I can pull that one off, but I can’t install a new one. The connections will never take.”
“I figured there might be a problem. What are the options?”
“There’s really only one option, Sheriff. We pull the control ring. We can cauterize the nerves. Your pain will diminish significantly as soon as we do.”
“But I’ll only have one arm.”
“You only have one functional arm right now.”
“With the potential to replace this one as long as it matches with the ring.”
“We don’t have anything like that here.”
“I understand that.”
Rush thought for a few seconds. “We could disconnect the arm and leave the ring. But honestly Sheriff, that’s a lot of pain to go through for nothing.”
“That’s for me to decide. “What about repairing this augment?”
“We don’t typically repair them. Nowadays, they're lifetime installs. They don’t break down from normal use. Of course, your use is anything but normal.”
“So you’re saying there’s nothing you can do?”
“I didn’t say that. I gave you a couple of options.”
Hayden shook his head. “Look, doc. I don’t know if you’re keeping up with current events, but Earth and Proxima are both under siege. I need to get back out there, and I need to fight. I can do it with one arm if I have to, but I’m a much better asset with two. Do you understand?”
Rush sighed. “Okay. Right. We should have someone in engineering take a look at that arm. They might have an answer I don’t. Turi, can you bring Sheriff Duke to engineering? Alsop, can you inform them he’s on his way?”
“Yes, Doctor,” they replied.
Hayden moved to stand. Rush put his hand up. “Sheriff, I get what you’re saying, but you really should have the ring removed.”
“I can deal with the pain.”
“It’s not just the pain. The risk of infection is through the roof. If you get the right bacteria in that, it’ll kill you within hours.”
“I’ve got a good immune system.”
“Sheriff, this isn’t a joke.”
“No, it isn’t,” Hayden said, getting to his feet. “And helping stop the enemy is a hell of a lot more important than my life.”
“This way, Sheriff,” Turi said, handing him his shirt and coat.
“Thanks for your help, doc,” Hayden said, following her from the room.
51
Hayden
“Sheriff, you should reconsider Doctor Rush’s recommendation,” Turi said as they crossed back the way they had come, headed for the engineering department on the military side of the rig. “I know he looks young, but he graduated top of his class and he’s done some amazing work with injured miners.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Hayden replied. “I have nothing against Rush or his opinion, but I want two working arms. I need to do whatever it takes to get that.”
“But you’re in pain.”
Hayden nodded. When people didn’t keep reminding him of it, he could almost force the throbbing ache to the back of his mind. “All the time. I’ve learned to deal with it.”
“You’re a stronger man than most, Sheriff.”
Hayden shook his head. “No. Just motivated.”
Engineering was in a similar position as medical on the rig, nearly equidistant from the docking umbilicals where they had entered the rig. A pair of guards tried to stop them at a secure door ahead of the section, but a quick call to Haeri got them through without delay.
Engineering wasn’t a single open space, but rather a series of rooms that served different purposes. There was a workshop to fix parts, a replicator to make them, terminals to monitor the rig’s mechanical status, full living quarters for the engineers—including racks, a galley and a head—and the lead engineer’s office, which had been hastily reorganized into a combination medical facility and tech lab.
