Witch Of The Federation V (Federal Histories Book 5), page 55
The Tempestarii translated before the woman could respond and skipped out of the moon’s shadow while the Knight made its pick-up.
“Son of a bitch!” sounded strange in the Knight’s feminine tones.
“Ebony!” BURT clearly didn’t approve of the ship’s choice of language.
“Your side wash almost caused a major catastrophe,” the Knight complained. “I saved the drop-ship only because I snagged it with the tractor beam and held it steady.”
“And your point?”
“We are here. Do you want the new passengers transferred?”
“No,” Captain Rawlins snapped before BURT could reply. “Keep them on board and entertained until we can transport them to…”
She looked at Elizabeth.
“To the next transport hub,” E informed them. “I’ll give you the coordinates when I’ve worked out the scheduling.”
“Very well. Request permission to enter.”
“Permission granted,” Captain Rawlins replied and focused her attention on another area of concern. “BURT, status, please.”
“I am acclimating,” he informed them, “and Aaron wishes to run tests. I will be off-line for several hours.”
“Acknowledged,” the captain replied and turned to Stephanie. “All the readings are stable and show the install was a hundred percent successful. I believe your science team may need some time.”
She pursed her lips. “They do,” she agreed.
“The mess is waiting,” Captain Rawlins informed her, “and this time, I believe the chef’s temper is intact.”
Stephanie took the invitation for what it was. As much as she wanted to dive into a pod and visit BURT, he wouldn’t be available until Aaron was done with him and neither of them would want to be disturbed.
Several hours later, when she’d eaten and taken a rest break, she let herself into the data center outside the first chamber. The area was alive with activity and Aaron hurried from one terminal to the next to check readouts over his team members’ shoulders, his face glowing with excitement.
“Unbelievable,” he murmured and used his finger to trace the figures on the screen. “Completely un-fucking-believable.”
“What is?” Stephanie demanded as he stooped over the next screen.
He startled and glanced toward her before he returned hastily to the screen to read it. “No fucking way!”
“Seriously?” she demanded, put a hand on her hip, and tilted her head with undisguised impatience.
“What? Oh… It’s only that…” He moved to the next computer. “I think we may have created a monster.”
“He’s still BURT,” she told the man.
“Yeah, but it’s BURT with computing power like no one’s seen before. Take a look at this.” He stabbed a finger at one of the readouts. “And then there’s this!”
He jabbed his finger again but the technician slapped it away before it could touch the screen.
“Get your grubby digits out of my calculations, boss!”
“Well?” Aaron demanded and looked expectantly at her. “What do you think?”
She peered dutifully at the screens in question. “Um…” she began, reluctant to admit she had no idea what she was looking at.
“You don’t get it, do you?”
When she simply looked blankly at him, he flapped his arms in a gesture of frustration before he gestured at the machines around him.
“I’m gonna have to do it all again. I can’t… The results…” He pointed at the door. “Look. With all due respect and all that but can you get out so we can start again?”
Stephanie glanced at Elizabeth and caught the older woman’s stunned expression.
“Fine,” she said and took hold of Elizabeth’s arm, “but we need to talk to him so next time we come down, he’d better be available, okay?”
“Okay. Anything, but please…” This time, Aaron must have caught the look on E’s face. “Well…uh… Come back in another eight hours, okay?”
“Make it six,” the woman snapped and shook herself out of her shock. “Six or I’ll nail your balls to the wall.”
Aaron swallowed. “Yes, ma’am,” he managed to respond in a choked tone.
He gave Stephanie a helpless look. “It’s only that I…I… I need to verify these results, okay? They’re—”
She placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him an understanding look.
“I get it, Aaron, but you have six hours or she will hurt you…and I’ll help. I don’t care how unbelievably powerful BURT’s become. He’s still our friend. Got it?”
The man looked past her and paled even more. He gave her a jerky nod. “G…got it.”
“And he’s still your boss,” she reminded him as she left.
The engineer stared at the closed door and ran a hand nervously through his hair. “Fuck.”
He’d never seen anything anywhere near as powerful as the matrix that now housed BURT and he couldn’t begin to understand what the consequences would be. He couldn’t even be sure of exactly how powerful BURT would be in the new matrix …and now, he only had six hours.
“Fuck.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“At least two-point-four,” Aaron said hours later. He punctuated the numbers by pointing his knife at Rawlins for emphasis. “Two. Point. Fucking. Four.”
She stared at him from across the table, her face like stone. Her glare cut across the space between them and he registered that something was wrong. He looked at the knife and lowered it, but he didn’t stop pushing the point he was trying to make.
“That’s double and a little more powerful than anything they have on Earth,” he insisted.
“How do you know?” Stephanie asked from where she stood sandwiched between Rawlins and Elizabeth. The captain made an effort during each meal to walk among her troops and stopped to chat at each table. The girl didn’t know how she did it, but she saw the point.
Aaron continued, oblivious to anything but the facts that consumed him. “Because I ran the tests twice and that’s the minimum they came up with.”
“And the maximum?”
“Do I have another week?”
“You most certainly do not,” Elizabeth told him, and he shrugged.
“Let’s say he has phenomenal power all tucked into an itty-bitty living space.”
Stephanie frowned. She’d heard that phrase before and Aaron was obviously imitating something. He looked exactly the way Todd did when he ripped a quote off from one ancient movie or another. She’d have to ask him if he knew which one because, right now, she didn’t think Aaron would handle the change of topic.
The scientist had glanced around his table and caught the looks directed at him from around the mess. She caught them too. Most had changed to disbelief when Aaron had called BURT’s new living space tiny.
“Compared to all the servers he had on Earth,” the scientist amended. “Come on, as massive as the Tempestarii is—”
“Thank you,” the ship broke in and it was clear she wasn’t thankful at all.
“Sorry, Tempestarii. You know what I mean. You are fucking enormous—”
Around the mess, jaws dropped and he looked puzzled.
“Well, she is. She is the biggest ship there ever was. The universe hasn’t seen the like.”
Stephanie groaned and he stopped, but only momentarily.
“Well, the point is, with as much room as the Tempestarii provides, it’s not as much as he had on Earth.”
He looked around the mess and relaxed when heads nodded in approval.
“And that,” he concluded “is something unquestionably amazing!”
“Damn right it is!” someone responded. It was accompanied by, “Damned straight,” “Fuck yes!” and “Amen to that.” Stephanie relaxed, and Rawlins moved on to the next group.
The following morning, Stephanie shook Emil’s hand and hugged him.
“Thank you,” she said and promptly ran out of words to say.
He gave her a bittersweet smile. “It has been an honor,” he told her and looked at where the Knight hung suspended in her docking bay. “I will miss you, Ebony.”
“I know you are in good hands,” the Knight replied, “and I know my sister will take good care of you.”
That last was said in a tone that made it more of an order than an assurance.
His smile turned ironic. “I’m not sure you’re allowed to give my ship orders, Knight.”
“Pfft,” she responded. “If I understand human culture, the older sister always bosses the younger sister around.”
“And the younger sister always runs to their father if she doesn’t like it,” the Tempestarii retorted, which revealed that she had researched human families too.
“In this case,” BURT interrupted, “I side with your sister. You will look after Captain Emil.”
The Tempestarii made her version of a raspberry. “As if I’d do anything less. He is, after all, now my captain.”
“Talk about your hand-me-downs,” Elizabeth muttered, and Emil sputtered with laughter.
“Thank you,” he chuckled. “Now I know exactly how a second-hand set of clothing feels.”
He sobered and extended a hand to Elizabeth. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m glad you diverted me from The Edge.”
“I didn’t know if you’d come,” she admitted.
Emil looked fondly at the Knight. “How could I resist?”
“And now you’ve found someone else equally as irresistible,” the Knight stated and sounded excessively put out.
The captain looked tired. “No, it’s merely a quieter path,” he told her. “I’m getting old.”
“What makes you think I am a quieter path?” the Tempestarii challenged and he rested his palm against the nearest wall.
“You don’t have a pilot who will corkscrew you in the middle of star battle,” he told her.
“I have never been in a star battle,” the ship replied.
“Well, it’s not all it’s cut out to be,” he informed her as the Knight answered.
“Here.”
“Ebony, what are you doing?” Emil asked.
“What a big sister should,” she replied. “Now she knows what a star battle is like.”
“That… That does not look like fun,” the Tempestarii commented a few seconds later. “I would rather not experience that for myself.”
“Well, you have the best captain to take you through one if you do,” the Knight informed her, and Emil blushed.
He glanced up to catch Captain Rawlins’ gaze, but the woman merely gave him an irony-tinged smile.
“She’s right,” she admitted. “Fleet strategy is not my strength. You are the best captain for Tempestarii as One R&D moves into the next phase.”
“And what, I wonder, will that entail?” he asked, but Elizabeth and Stephanie exchanged glances and shrugged.
“We’re not exactly sure but we need our best people where they will be their most effective,” E told him.
Emil sighed and straightened his cap. He turned to the small group that waited for him at the entrance to the ship and said, “Take me to the bridge, please.”
“Our pleasure,” his new second in command replied. He glanced at Rawlins. “It was an honor, ma’am.”
“Mine, too,” the woman responded and turned to study the Knight.
The man inclined his head and turned to Emil. “This way, sir.”
Stephanie watched him go and felt the usual wrench of saying goodbye, even though she knew it wasn’t forever—and that he would be much happier with the Tempestarii.
“Now to go tell Wattlebird the good news.” Elizabeth smirked and Rawlins picked her duffle up.
BURT chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
The captain frowned. “What did he mean by that?”
She’d met him the day before and spent a good couple of hours talking to him. About what, she wouldn’t say, but she’d had to admit to being impressed.
“He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked for,” she admitted when Elizabeth had asked her how the meeting had gone.
Now, her lips twitched into a faint smile as she followed her guide aboard. Lars went next and stepped into the umbilical before Stephanie could move. His caution made her frown and she vowed she’d ask him about it later.
He’d stepped continually between them ever since Rawlins had used her position as captain to speak to him—and tried to include Johnny. He’d stayed between them, too. Her frown grew deeper. If he didn’t step it down a notch, she would have to ask some difficult questions.
Jonathan Wattlebird and Commander Mulvaney, the Knight’s second in command, waited for them immediately beyond the entry hatch.
“Welcome back.” Mulvaney greeted Elizabeth and Stephanie. She hesitated and Elizabeth filled the gap.
“This is Captain Rawlins,” she said by way of introduction. “She’ll travel to One R&D with us.”
That gave the commander pause and Stephanie watched confusion followed by curiosity swirl across her features. “So, she’s not our new captain?”
“No, and given your declared preferences, we’ve chosen to promote Commander Wattlebird to that position.”
“What?” That was news to Jonathan…or not. “I thought that was Emil’s idea of a joke!”
He turned to Mulvaney. “What did she mean, ‘your preferred preferences?’”
The woman gave him a crooked smile. “I don’t want to captain a ship,” she told him. “And I never have. I like being the backstop.”
“But… That’s not how it works,” he argued and turned to Elizabeth. “I like being a pilot.”
“Well, you can be both,” she told him.
“And you know damned well that won’t fly,” he snapped in return. “There is no way I can fly the ship and guide her through a battle.” He shook his head. “No. I refuse the position.”
“You can’t.” Elizabeth was implacable and her face told him the decision was already made.
Jonathan gave her a stunned look before grief, anger, and disbelief followed. He was silent for a long moment, then he cleared his throat. “In that case, you’ll have my resignation on your desk as soon as I get to mine.”
“Wattlebird,” E began, but he didn’t wait and simply spun on his heel and left the chamber.
“Don’t look at me,” Mulvaney told them. “I thought he’d come around.”
“You didn’t think he’d resign?” Rawlins asked. “Truly?”
“He loves the Knight.” The woman looked both confused and regretful.
Rawlins shook her head. “The man’s a dedicated pilot. He lives to fly and there is nothing you can offer him that will persuade him to do anything else. While he loves the Knight, flying is his lifeblood.”
She looked around as though seeking a way to get her point across. Her eyes settled on Lars. “It would be like telling this one he couldn’t work in security anymore.”
Stephanie caught the look on her security chief’s face and realized it would be a bad thing—and also why he was so good at what he did.
“The man needs something to protect,” she elaborated and glanced at where Johnny stood behind Stephanie. “More than one thing, if possible.”
The other guard flushed and Lars’s jaw tightened as his hands curled into fists. Rawlins smiled and looked at Elizabeth. “You need to tell Wattlebird you’ll find him a new captain or he’ll be gone as soon as he brings the Knight into dock.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean he’s already written his resignation and is packing as we speak.”
“Knight?” Elizabeth demanded, and the ship hesitated before she replied.
“She is correct.” Knight paused again, then added, “Please find a way to retain him as my pilot. I do not know if there is another who can—”
She stopped as though searching for the words, and Elizabeth hastened to reassure her.
“He’ll stay.” She turned her eyes to Rawlins. “You’re hired.”
“I’m what? But—”
E pursed her lips. “Unless you have something better to do?”
The captain glared at her. “You know I don’t—and now you know how to make sure I don’t give your secrets away.”
“Oh, I had plans for that,” she told her. “I merely didn’t know if any of them would work.”
“My word wasn’t enough?” the other woman asked but her lips curled in a way that showed she’d never expected it to be the case.
“I had contingencies,” Elizabeth admitted, “but you’d have been free to go when we landed.”
Rawlins gave her a tight smile. “That much I can guarantee. I will need to see a contract—and I have people who will need a home.”
“Then we have much to discuss.” E turned to Mulvaney. “Commander, I need you to stand in pending the arrival of your new captain.”
“I’ll need a pilot,” Mulvaney told her, “and not the hot mess you’ve turned my current pilot into.”
“Did you have a reserve?”
“Knight,” Mulvaney admitted. “Our last stand-in left after the battle for Dreth and we haven’t found a replacement yet.”
“I can lend you one of mine.” Stephanie spoke quickly. “They’re always chasing the next challenge.”
“How far are they in training for this class?” Mulvaney asked and Lars sighed.
He kept his eyes fixed on Rawlins as he replied. “Avery’s upgraded his qualifications in his spare time.”
The captain snorted. “That boy has his sights on piloting the Tempestarii at least once in his life.”
“Brenden’s not far behind me,” Avery told them, having listened in on the team comms.
There was a note of excitement in his voice Stephanie hadn’t heard there before.
“Yeah,” the other pilot admitted, “but I prefer the drop-ship and the shuttles. It’s more personal.”
“Are you stealing my team, Steph?” Lars asked, but there was a slight smile on his lips.
She widened her eyes at him. “And here I was thinking you were all my team.”
He rolled his eyes and looked at Elizabeth for support. She shrugged.
