Jungle (Colony Book 2), page 17
The tour began highlighting other useful areas of the ship, such as the officer’s mess, enlisted mess, and recreation facilities. He noted each one with interest, though he was really looking for one in particular. Then, at last, it showed up, and he nodded in approval.
There. The bridge. The nexus of the entire ship … from a command standpoint, anyway. It was located deep in the center of the forward wedge, nestled among officer’s quarters and other facilities that the tour wasn’t identifying.
Interesting that it isn’t like the Starseeker, Sweets thought. The bridge on that vessel—not that any of them had been allowed on it—had been along the top of the ship, much like traditional ships. Then again, wasn’t the Madero laid out like this? Bridge on the inside?
It did make sense in its own way. It wasn’t as if the crew would need windows to see what was going on outside the ship during combat, and in space, with all the large distances combat would likely entail, a view was probably even less useful. So you stick it right in the middle so a shot has to really be lucky to take it out. Interesting, if a bit different.
The tour jumped through a few more locations, but he was only paying it partial attention now. On his portable, his security programs were compiling a fairly extensive list of functions the map application could perform, but so far none of them had raised red flags. He watched both continue on with their automated work for a moment, then sat up.
Time to see if some of that earlier paranoia pays off, he thought as he lifted his phone into the air. The hard-light display twisted as it moved, trying to stay oriented with his face as he raised it higher and higher.
Until it was sitting squarely in front of the viewscreen, its reddish light reflected in the glass.
Wait for it, Sweets thought, giving the phone a little shake. The image of the Casimir twisted and flipped, trying to stay upright and mostly succeeding. He let it hang there for a few second more, then brought his phone back down, tapping the close icon and killing the program. The reddish image winked out, replaced by a set of icons floating in the air. A moment later they too were gone, his phone locked once more. Wait for it …
There was a soft pop from the ceiling. “Mr. Candy?”
He smiled. Bingo. “Yes?”
“The captain will be ready to see you in a moment.” There was a pause, and then Varus spoke again. “And I must ask, how did you acquire the map? I detected no intrusion attempts into my systems.”
Sweets could feel his smile widen involuntarily. “I’m just good at what I do,” he said, trying to keep his voice from sounding too smug. He bent over and disconnected his portable from the ship’s systems, popping the original cable back into place. “Though I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Ah, I see,” Varus said after a moment. “Hardware access.”
“Are you actually seeing?” Sweets asked, glancing up at the ceiling while he shoved the removed panel back into place. “Or is that a figure of speech?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” the AI replied, his voice flat.
Sweets paused for a moment. “Fair enough.” I guess I deserved that. Though the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that the AI was actually seeing him. More than likely he just analyzed the last request for the program and checked what port it went to. If he’d actually been able to see me do it, I doubt that he would have waited for me to lift the map up in front of the viewscreen’s camera.
Unless, of course, they AI wanted him to believe that the viewscreen camera was the only one in the room. Which brings me back around to we know you know we know.
“In any case, as soon as you’re done putting the wall back together, I will instruct the guards outside your door to escort you to the bridge,” Varus continued.
“Right, well, if that’s all you need to know …” He rose from the floor, dusting his hands off against his jeans. “Then I guess I’m ready to go meet Captain Sokolov.”
“I will inform the guards.” Sweets pocketed his phone, and a moment later there was a knock at the door.
“Sir,” the guard said as Sweets slid the door open. He wasn’t sure if it was the one he’d spoken to earlier, or the silent one—both looked identical in their armor. “I’ve been instructed to take you to Captain Sokolov at the bridge.”
Sweets gave the armored figure a shrug. “Well, I’m ready. Lead on.” The guard nodded, then stepped aside, allowing him to move out of the cabin.
The air outside the cabin felt different now, and it took him a minute to figure out what it was. Tension, he realized as the two guards began making their way down the hall, guiding him along. Or rather, a lack of it. The guards’ bodies weren’t held quite as stiffly as they had been earlier, their bodies looking more relaxed. He recalled what Anna had said about neural skinsuits during his time spent prepping for donning a suit of dive armor on Pisces, about how a skinsuit amplified the body’s movements, good and bad.
That’s what I’m seeing now, he thought as he followed the guards through the ship. The “test” is over, and they were super serious for it. But now that Varus has given them the okay—
His thoughts were interrupted by one of the pair speaking. “So you’re a hacker, que?”
The voice was unfamiliar, even setting aside the distortion provided by the armor’s helmet, which meant that it was the guard he hadn’t spoken with before. “I’m sorry?”
“You,” the guard said, his visor slightly tilted in Sweets’ direction. “You’re a hacker, que?”
It took him a moment to parse the man’s question. “Oh, yeah. I am.”
“Supremo,” the guard said, nodding. “I’ve hacked a little myself. Well,” he corrected with a quick shrug. “I don’t know if you’d call it hacking, que?”
“Oh? Why not?”
The guard shrugged. “It’s just little stuff. Suit hacks, mostly.” He tapped the side of his helmet with one armored finger. “Interface tweaks, that kind of thing.”
“Ah,” Sweets said, nodding. Depending on the program, it was hacking of a sort. Others might just call it tweaking. Or customization.
“So,” the guard said as they came to a stop by a set of elevators, one of them summoning one of the cars. “You from Earth, que?”
“Me?” Sweets nodded again. “Yeah. I was just getting back.”
“Back?”
“I was on—” He caught himself before he could mention Pisces. “—another planet,” he finished. “Off-world.”
“Oh, work?”
He nodded. “Something like that.”
“Can’t say, que? I get that.” The guard laughed. “Been there, done that.”
“You a marine?” Sweets asked.
“Me?” The guard shook his head. “No. Soli.”
“Soli?”
“It’s a nickname.” It was the first time the other guard had spoken since he’d urged Sweets out of his cabin at the door. “United Nations Space Exploration and Colonization Interstellar Peacekeeping Navy. Technically shortens to UNSEC IPN, but names vary on the colony worlds. A common nickname is ‘Solar Soldiers.’ Hence—”
“Soli,” Sweets said, nodding. “So I take it neither of you are from Earth?”
“I am,” said the guard who’d just given him the rundown. The elevator door opened without a sound, and the stepped in. “He’s not.” The guard jerked his thumb in the direction of his counterpart.
“Where are you guys from, then?” Sweets asked. “And how does being a soli differ from the marines?”
“I grew up in the Dragon Bloc,” the guard said, and Sweets nodded. Asia, then. He turned his gaze toward the more chatty of the pair as the elevator doors slid shut.
“Harmony,” the other guard said, bringing an open hand up and slapping his fingers against his armored bicep. “Wanted to see the stars.” The elevator jerked beneath them, almost hard enough for Sweets to wonder if something about it was in disrepair, but neither of his escorts seemed concerned.
“To answer your question, though,” the guard continued. “Interstellar Marines are their own crowd. Barrus and I—” he motioned to the other guard, “—joined the navy. That means we’re just privates. Who today, happen to be on security detail.”
Sweets frowned. Something the man had said didn’t quite mesh with what he knew about navies. “Privates?”
The guard nodded. “Yeah, privates. Navy. I know, it’s weird.”
“It’s a holdover from the early days of UNSEC,” the other guard said as the elevator came to a stop, the doors opening once more. The man stepped out without missing a beat, and Sweets followed.
“When UNSEC first started putting together the IPN,” the guard continued, “it was a joint exercise between a number of nations. Anyway, it was decided that the IPN would carry on the ‘N’ bit of its name. Which meant naval rank. But then they balked.” The segment of the ship they’d entered was far busier now, other “Solis” moving past them from time to time. All were clad in simple uniforms, with little flash or décor to them.
“See, in a traditional navy, basic enlisted are known as ‘seamen,’” the guard continued. “Which made sense, if being a low-hanging fruit for plenty of jokes. But in space, que? No sea. And the brass wasn’t too fond of simply calling them ‘spacemen,’ for obvious reason. So, until they could decide on something official, they just defaulted to old habits and started calling them privates.”
“And it stuck,” Sweets ventured.
The guard confirmed his guess with a small nod. “Yeah, it stuck. Other than that, the ranks are the same. By the time whatever group was supposed to make the decision back in the day finally made one, it was too ingrained.”
“Right,” he said, filing the information away. He’d have to watch himself, to make sure he used the proper rank, at least at first. “So you’re naval enlisted, and the marines are … ?”
“Interstellar marines are a different branch,” the first guard said, taking up the speaking role once more. “We’re both under UNSEC, but we’re under different chains of command.”
“So Captain Indiel …?”
“Answers to her own superiors,” the guard said. “And to Captain Sokolov when she and her marines are aboard the ship, but her marines answer to her, and us solis answer to our command chain.”
“So why have the marines at all?” Either I missed something on Pisces, or their command structure didn’t have this kind of split.
“Because we don’t pound ground,” came the reply. “We’re solis. We do space. Interstellar Marines are for ground operations.”
“Ah,” he said. On Pisces they didn’t have that distinction, so they merged the two somehow, I guess. Out here … “Got it.”
The ship was showing more and more signs of activity around them now. Either they’d moved into one of the more commonly used hallways, or they were nearing a nexus of activity, but it seemed to Sweets that they were passing more and more crew as they moved toward the front of the ship.
“So,” he said, glancing at his escorts. “So you’re both solis. How long have you been on this ship?”
“The Casimir, que? About six years. I almost got transferred to the Bekker a year ago, but I turned it down.”
“Really? Why?”
“I like the Casimir,” the guard said. “Captain Sokolov keeps everything tight, and Varus actually cares about us.”
“He cares about the ship,” the other guard interjected.
“Which we serve on, and by association are part of,” the first replied.
“What about you?” Sweets asked, looking to the other guard.
He shrugged, the plates of his armor lifting and falling. “Almost two years,” he said. “It’s my third posting. After that, I’ll go where they send me.”
Sweets nodded, but the guard didn’t expound further. No wonder he did all the talking when I tried to get out of my cabin, he thought. The other guy knew it wouldn’t be much.
The amount of activity ahead of them continued to grow, soldiers—though he wasn’t sure of the correctness of the term, it was the most fitting one he could think of—passing by or being passed. Most of them had their eyes on datapads, and a few carried specialty equipment. He spotted one group sitting by an open panel in the hall, a large toolbox beside them. One of them was lying in their back, their legs sticking out of the opening alongside an open hand, gesturing for some tool. As they passed the trio, he could hear a familiar, analytical tones of Varus instructing the team as to what to look for.
Routine maintenance? Sweets wondered. But then they were past the group, moving on down the long hallway.
We must be nearing the end of the central shaft, now, he thought. Sure enough, ahead of them the hallway split, offshoots breaking left and right while they continued onward.
”So …” A voice said, and it took Sweets a moment to associate it with the talkative guard. “This your first time aboard a warship?”
“No,” Sweets replied with a slight shake of his head. “I’ve been on a few off-world.” Sort of. And how recently is another question.
“Oh,” the guard said, then let out a low whistle that reverberated from his helmet. “Dang. No wonder you beat Varus’s test so fast.”
“I—” He hesitated. He thinks I was going off world because I’m such a good hacker? Well … it’s kind of true … Except for the part where he’d fallen right into SoulComp’s sweet spot of talented enough to maybe be useful, but not visible enough that his disappearance would raise questions.
Like that’s going to be the story now, he thought, barely keeping a frown from marring his face. Then again, you’re on this ship because of your talents as a hacker, so …
He answered the guard with a shrug. “I’m not bad,” he said. “I’m tenacious more than anything else.” His escort nodded, but said nothing in reply, and once again conversation fell silent.
Ahead of them a large, closed door that almost looked like an internal airlock loomed. A guard clad in the same grey armor as his escort was standing outside it, resting at ease with their weapon slung across their back. Sweets wasn’t sure what kind of gun it was or what it did, but the positioning—plus common sense—said that it would probably be fairly effective if it was ever needed.
The door slid open at their approach, and Sweets stepped through it onto the bridge.
It was smaller than he’d expected it to be, given the size of the ship. Rather than the more fantastical look of many entertainment dramas, the design was clean and spartan. Utilitarian … which he had to admit, did fit the general design aesthetic the rest of the ship, and the one that UNSEC in general seemed to share.
Actually, he realized as he slowed, running his eyes across the bridge. I’ve seen this layout before. Why does it look so familiar …?
Then it hit him, and he almost stopped and let out a laugh of pure surprise at how obvious it was. Of course. UNSEC designs. No wonder.
The room he was looking at was almost a reverse mirror of the command and control center he’d seen in North Shore on Pisces. Except where there that had been a sunken ring, each of its multiple levels lowering as they had moved inward, the bridge of the Casimir was laid out in an inverse design with only two levels, as well as having an elongated bend to the room. The result was a roughly oval shape with a raised dais in the center. Sweets could see two sets of stairs leading up the side of the raised section, each at roughly equal, diagonal points around the room—which meant that there were likely two more he couldn’t see on the other side.
Interesting, he thought as his escort nodded in the direction of the dais. Consoles were scattered at equal distances around the outer edge of the room, each one large and incorporating what appeared to be hard-light controls. All of them were facing inward, despite the oversized hard-light displays—At their backs?
No, wait, that actually makes sense. Those aren’t for them, they’re for the central section. He could envision it now, each of the displays showing only the most relevant information so that the captain could gather it at a glance. Or one of the four outward facing consoles on the dais.
Substations? There wasn’t much time to wonder further. Or to ask why their orientation didn’t match the outer ring. Or why quite a few of the stations didn’t seem to be manned. Maybe they’re for a combat scenario? But there wasn’t time to ask, because now he was at the top of the dais, the occupants behind two of the consoles looking up at him as he slowed and then turning their attention back down to their work.
And standing in the center of the dais, hands clasped behind his back, in front of a large hard-light emitter, was a figure that had to be the captain.
“Captain Sokolov.” His escorts snapped sharp salutes, their armored hands making soft clangs against their helms.
Sloppy, Sweets thought, though his reaction surprised him. Anna wouldn’t have made a sound. Neither, he suspected, would any of Captain Indiel’s marines, if he was any judge of character.
Then the captain turned, and Sweets got his first good look at him.
His impression was one of iron, or perhaps steel, that had somehow been molded into human form. Sokolov’s face was almost as hard and angular as the armored form of the ship he commanded. The firm set of his jaw was matched only by the utterly calculating nature of his eyes—eyes that seemed to bore right into Sweets, then through him and into the rest of the ship. Not in a way that made him feel as though the captain was stripping away his surface and reading his innermost secrets, but rather in a manner that made it clear the man had barreled right past them without even caring.
I see why he’s the captain, Sweets thought as Sokolov returned the two guards’ salutes with one of his own. He looks like captain material.
It was hard to guess at the man’s age, but it likely had to be somewhere close to where Admiral West’s had been, judging by the amount of gray peppering his hair and the few wrinkles visible across his face. Or were those scars? It was hard to tell.
“Dismissed,” the Captain said, his eyes darting away from Sweets momentarily to dwell on the pair. His voice carried a heavy Slavic accent, clearly untarnished by however much time he’d spent in space. “As for you, Mr. Candy,” he said, and Sweets tried not to stiffen as the man’s attention fell upon him once more. It wasn’t that his eyes were cold … quite the opposite, in fact. If steel was what the captain had been molded from, than his eyes were the one part of him that was still molten, alive and aware.
