Vansen wasn’t happy to have Marcy on board the transport
with McQueen and herself, but she could see that there seemed to
be an understanding between the two of them. Keeping her promise
to McQueen, she forced herself to study their companion with an
unprejudiced eye. And, as the hours passed, she realized that
McQueen had been right. Marcy was different from every Stranahan
AI that Vansen had ever met. And there was, she was certain, a
similarity between Marcy and Handsome Alvin ... though she had no
idea what it was!
Damphousse’ reaction to the AI was the clincher. McQueen
went up front to take the navigator's station and serve as
another set of hands up there, so she and Coop could each take a
short break. Vanessa came back through to the head, then on her
way back, stopped for a cup of coffee. She fixed one for Shane
while she was at it, but as she was reaching for a cup for Marcy,
she stopped, and gave the AI a look that Shane couldn’t
fathom. She put the cup back, then gave Marcy another of her
looks ... and finally smiled, making small talk that included
both Marcy and Shane, before she went back up front to let Coop
get his break.
Vanessa had timed her exit to get a conversation started between
Shane and Marcy. Shane knew Vanessa was the squadron’s peace
maker. She had a good “people sense” that would make
her a fine administrator one of these days. Shane relied on her
-- and Nathan -- for that, because she was too intense to have
much of it herself. Of course, Vanessa had noticed that Shane was
wary around Marcy. But this was more than that.
McQueen trusted Marcy, the AI had put herself in harm’s way
to save his life. That, Shane told herself, ought to be enough
for her. But if she was paranoid enough that it wasn’t --
now Marcy had Vanessa’s endorsement as well. So when Marcy
shyly asked Shane what they could expect on the JFK,
Shane said, “I’ve only been there once. You’d
really have to ask the Colonel, he’s served aboard the Kennedy
and he knows people there. But we’re going into a bad
situation here.”
“Aerotech?”
“Yes. Our testimony is going to be very damaging to them,
besides John Waite we’re the only eyewitnesses to what
happened on Vesta. We can’t prove it -- or there’d be
hell to pay -- but we think the spy that stabbed me in the back
and set off the bomb on the flight deck was Aerotech. So far he
isn’t talking, we think he’s covering his bets in case
the company sends people to rescue him like Danny Wolfe did Bad
John.”
“So someone might try to make sure you never get the chance
to testify?”
Shane pulled absently at the strap of her sling, she hated having
her arm restrained. “I think they’ll wait until
we’re on the JFK. But it will surprise me if there
isn’t some kind of attempt. I wouldn’t stand too close,
if I were you.”
Marcy said, “The General was right about one thing, this is
going to be an interesting assignment! I do wish she hadn’t
been talking about Chinese curses at the time.”
From the hatch, Hawkes asked, “What does that mean?”
McQueen said, “I think the curse that General Jeffords
referenced is, ‘May you live in interesting
times.’”
Hawkes thought it over and laughed. “I’d like to get
hold of whoever wished that one on us,” he grinned.
*****
Their first sight of the Kennedy and her entourage
affected the rest of the squadron just as it had Vansen. She let
them comment for a few moments before she put a stop to the
skipchatter, and got them into the docking queue.
McQueen heard Marcy make a little surprised noise back in the
bay, and looked back there. She had her head cocked to one side,
listening for some sound that only she could hear. He went back
there. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought I heard -- yes. Colonel McQueen, there are
another two AI’s very close by here, I’m picking up
their communications. I can’t tell what they’re saying,
it seems to be encrypted somehow and if I tried to decode it,
I’d be exposing myself to the Stranahan virus.” She
looked up at him, suddenly frightened. “I just thought of
something. Aerotech knows about me, that geek who was with the
General and Col. Penderson when they picked me up from
Groombridge--!”
“That explains the encryption. Can you get a fix?”
“If I can access the transport’s sensors,
probably.” She was whispering to keep from being heard in
the cockpit.
He glanced around. They were in line near a couple of grain
barges -- and a little too near a Ganelon transport. He could see
a group of school kids ganged up near the rear view port,
pointing excitedly at the Hammerheads. “Do it. Hawkes, put
some room between us and that school bus, we could have a problem
here.”
“Sir.” He edged them off a little to port, nearer the
second grain hauler.
Vanessa said quietly, “She can tie into the sensors at the
midline junctions.”
Everyone else in the transport turned to stare at her. Unruffled,
she just gave a tight little smile and adjusted the range on the
LIDAR. “I don’t know what you expected, I was an
electrical engineer for a long time before I was a psychic.”
Hawkes said, “’Phousse, with you around, I think
I’m just going to have to get used to being the last one to
know everything. Is this something I ought to know about?”
Vansen had taken the navigator’s station that McQueen had
just left, it was starting to look like things might get hairy.
If they did, she didn’t want to try to balance in here with
just one arm to hold on with. “Sorry, Coop, orders. We
can’t confirm or deny anything right now. ‘Phousse,
that goes for you, too.”
“Roger that,” she replied.
McQueen showed Marcy where the junction box that Damphousse had
mentioned was located. He wanted to look away when she uncapped
the interface in her fingertip, he had a number of memories
concerning the pair of needle-like contacts located there. He
reminded himself that Marcy had nothing to do with any of that.
Marcy noticed his momentary hesitation, as well as his control
over it. Most people didn’t bother to disassociate her from
the actions of the Stranahan AIs. She wished there was a way she
could tell him how much it meant to her that he was trying to do
that, in the face of everything he’d been through. But there
wasn’t -- at least not in the middle of whatever this
situation was -- so she just let it pass. It took her a moment to
decode the stream of data from the transport’s sensors, but
when she did she was easily able to triangulate the position of
the two AIs. It was a simple matter to cross-reference her own
position with that of the transport’s sensor array, about
six meters forward.
“They’re in the other grain barge, Colonel. And
there’s some other kind of a radio source in there,
it’s transmitting a tight beam of data but I don’t know
that programming language. I think it’s being received by
that transport full of kids!”
Hawkes said, “Wait a minute. That transport just yawed a
couple degrees to starboard, it looks like the pilot’s
having trouble controlling her.”
McQueen jumped straight to the right conclusion, but he knew as
he did so that he was probably too late to affect the outcome.
“’Phousse! Move us into a position that’s going to
block radio contact between that first grain hauler and the
Ganelon transport!”
“Sir!” Damphousse moved quickly to obey orders.
The transport pilot yelled into his mike, “Mayday, mayday! I
can’t control her, she’s not responding!”
McQueen got up there. “Ganelon transport, this is Queen Six.
Kill all thrusters -- emergency shutdown!”
There was a pause. The pilot said, “Nothing’s
happening! Rick, get clear, get clear! I need a clear trajectory
here to drop my passenger box!” McQueen realized the voice
was that of a teenager.
A big red ore hauler got out of the Ganelon passenger
transport’s way. Five seconds later, the transport
jettisoned its passenger compartment, before the young
pilot’s fears could come true and the engines started to
fire.
The engine section of the transport spun out towards the
ISSCV’s former position. The pilot was yelling at everyone
to get out of range, and it was easy to see why. The engines were
burning far beyond any capacity for which they were rated safe.
It was only a matter of seconds before they overheated and
exploded, taking the fuel reserves with them ... but West brought
his SA-43 about and rippled off two missiles. Both of them were
dead on target, disabling the transport’s engines without
doing any further damage. “Hooyah! That was some good
shooting, King!” Kenny yelled, amid cheers from everyone
else on that channel.
McQueen advised the transport’s pilot, “You’re
okay now, son. Put your maneuvering thrusters over on manual and
get your spin under control.”
It took the civilian pilot a little while to manage that. By
then, rescue teams from the Kennedy had arrived to bring
in the transport and its frightened passengers.
The grain barge containing the AIs suddenly lit out for the
wormhole. McQueen advised the Kennedy to pursue, and a
couple of mikes later one of her patrols did so. Rather than be
captured, however, the AIs destroyed the ship.
Shaken, Marcy said, “Shane, I thought you said they’d
wait until we got aboard the Kennedy.”
“I’ve been known to be wrong before,” she replied
quietly, and the look she gave Ty told him she was referring to
more than the timing of the attempt on them. “You saved that
boatload of kids, Marcy.”
“We did,” Marcy said. “I can’t
believe anyone could make that shot--! And Nathan hit both
engines--!”
They were ordered to the head of the queue. Admiral Booth wanted
to know what was going on. McQueen cautioned everyone again not
to draw attention to Marcy or to answer any questions about how
they had known about the AI saboteurs.
He had two reasons for wanting to keep Marcy’s nature from
Admiral David Booth. The first was the obvious, that they were
under orders not to discuss it. But the second went back to the
AI war, to the three days in April when the UN forces and the AIs
had fought for control of Miami. McQueen had been there, and so
had Admiral Booth’s son, though as far as McQueen knew he
had never laid eyes on the young man.
During the days, the city had been for the most part as silent as
a graveyard. The civilians were either dead at the hands of the
AIs or refugees living in makeshift camps north of the city, what
they had left behind were kilometers of empty streets and
abandoned buildings. By the sunlight, the AIs had stayed dormant
and silent. Gunfire only broke the silence when a patrol stumbled
upon one of their nests. By night, though, the gangs of AIs had
roamed the dark streets and alleys, as the hunter had become the
hunted.
Nothing McQueen could have told the Admiral about the reality of
that house to house battle would ever have convinced him of the
truth ... that for the length of those hellish nights, there
hadn’t been NBs and IVs out there ... only humans and
silicates. All anyone had looked at were the eyes, to know who
was friend and who was foe.
McQueen had done his share of damage ... until he’d found
himself in a blind alley with an empty clip and half a dozen AIs
between him and the street. Why they hadn’t shot him, he
would never know ... and there had been more than once he had
wished they had during the days to follow.
All that mattered to Booth where McQueen was concerned was that,
sometime during the battle, his son had taken a bullet because of
some damn tank, and there had never been any love lost between
them because of that. McQueen knew Booth to be cunning and
resourceful as well as vengeful, there had been more than once he
had found himself in highly dangerous situations that he had
never been able to prove the Admiral had engineered.
Booth had never had a personal grievance against McQueen. Marcy
would be a different story. If Admiral Booth was willing to go to
those lengths to carry out a vendetta that had its basis only in
bigotry, McQueen could very well imagine his reaction to an AI
like Marcy. She wouldn’t survive five mikes aboard the Kennedy
if the Admiral found out about her. Before the docking bay doors
had time to close behind them, he made sure the junction box that
she had been using was secure.
They hadn’t any more than stepped onto the deck when they
were mobbed by a crowd of cheering kids. The transport pilot
pushed his way through the children to thank them. Marcy kept
quiet and to the back, she used her civilian status as protective
coloration to blend into the background and let the Marines
attract all the attention. As soon as they could, they escaped
the crowded disembarking area.
It was fortunate that they had got their story straight aboard
the transport, because they were hurried immediately off into
debriefing. That lasted an hour, and all of them stuck firmly to
their story that just how they’d known about the attack was
classified. Marcy found herself wishing she had learned how to
pray. AIs could pass for human under most circumstances, but the
most rudimentary medical tests would certainly give her away --
if anyone decided to subject her to a lie-detector test, her true
nature would be revealed immediately.
She remembered the General’s advice about staying in cover:
keep it simple, tell as much of the truth as she could, and play
dumb whenever possible! She claimed to have been nothing more
than a passenger, and said she hadn’t been sure what was
happening until the incident was over and the Marines had
explained it to her.
Finally, she was let go, and taken to a conference room where the
rest of the Wild Cards were waiting, except for McQueen and
Vansen. Hawkes and West were treating it like the usual hassles
they had come to expect. Moore was just waiting to see what
happened next. Damphousse looked upset about something, but she
wasn’t saying what. Avery was mad, someone had insinuated
that he was a liar and he didn’t take kindly to that.
Yamauchi was counseling him to take it easy, since his cockpit
recorder would confirm that he was telling the truth about what
he’d seen out there. Lucas was hiding his apprehension under
a layer of tough-guy bravado.
The hatch opened, and Shane came in. She stared daggers for a
moment at the Lieutenant Commander who had brought her in, he
left them. She looked around, her gaze settled on West.
“Where’s the Colonel?”
He shook his head. “I thought he was with you.”
Hawkes said, “He’s with the Admiral. I saw them
together.”
That initiated a tense wait of nearly half an hour, before
McQueen joined them. He passed his computer to Marcy. “Log
us into the ship’s system and find out what our orders
are,” he told her. He turned to the rest of them.
“Damphousse, what is it?”
She swallowed. Aloud she said, “Nothing, sir.” But she
was staring directly at the intercom unit on the wall. McQueen
nodded slowly.
Marcy returned his computer and said, “We’re all
supposed to report to Conference Room 14B to meet with Commander
Baumgarten. He’s in charge of the trial on this end.”
He tucked the computer in his pocket. “We don’t want to
keep the commander waiting,” he replied. Conference Room 14B
was at the other end of the ship, they walked down there in a
tight group with Marcy in the center.
Baumgarten was already there. He looked to be in his early
fifties, and he wore a JAG insignia. After they were seated, he
made sure all the witnesses were present and then briefed them
about the nature of the hearing, and what would be expected of
them.
“The trial is taking place in New York City. Due to the time
differential, those of you under subpoena will be expected back
here at 1400 hours tomorrow.” With that, they were free to
go.
They headed for the O-club to get something to eat. It had been a
safe place to talk before when they had met with Jimmy’s
father here. McQueen asked Damphousse, “What was it you
didn’t want to say back there?”
She leaned forward, as if to stir her drink, and answered softly.
“When Cooper and I saw you and Admiral Booth together, I had
one of my visions. I saw the Admiral murder a man. One of the
ship's junior engineers was working on a panel. Admiral Booth
turned the breaker back on, and the man was electrocuted. He
deliberately waited several minutes before he pretended to find
the body and call for a medical team. When they investigated,
what it would have looked like was that the engineer forgot to
turn off the breaker. It’s stupid, but we’ve all done
it. I’ve been thrown across a room once myself, I’d
have been dead if it had been direct current.”
McQueen silenced the rest of the squadron with a look. He reined
in his first impulse to warn Damphousse against making that
accusation where anyone else could hear her. She certainly
realized that if Booth knew she was onto him, but couldn’t
prove it yet, she would be next.
Jimmy looked saddened, but not surprised. He met McQueen’s
eyes for a moment and then looked down. “The last time I saw
Dad, he mentioned being concerned about the Admiral, sir.”
“Jim always was caught in the middle between the Admiral and
myself, son. I don’t believe either one of us ever
consciously allowed our differences to affect your father.”
“Yes, sir, and I know that my father had a lot of respect
for both of you because of that, sir. But after Mrs. Booth passed
away last year, Dad said the Admiral changed. Dad didn’t
want to let it turn into a falling out at a time like that, but
... I don’t think they had a lot in common any more.”
“Changed in what way?”
“I can’t be sure. All he said was that he was afraid
he’d find a bottle of vodka and two glasses on the
admiral’s desk. Dad never explained what he meant by that,
and I never saw him again face to face after the war started. The
subject never came up again.”
That made sense, it wouldn’t have. Jim might have mentioned
concerns about a superior officer to his son in private, but not
in an email or a possibly monitored vidphone call. As for the
bottle of vodka -- McQueen knew the reference. Years ago, right
before he had first come to Loxley, the base commander had
committed suicide. It had still been the most common topic of
gossip. The usual version of the story was that there had been no
note, only a bottle of vodka and two glasses on the
general’s desk. Jim Avery had said that he must have
committed suicide to avoid some sort of scandal. The first glass
of vodka had been a toast to whoever had given him the option to
take the honorable way out. The second had been to Lady Death.
McQueen had commented at that time that he couldn’t imagine
a circumstance in which he would raise a glass to the Lady and
put a gun in his mouth. Having survived Omicron Draconis, and the
IV Platoons, and four months in solitary, he’d thought he
had known it all. It had seemed the coward’s way out, then.
Jim had agreed with him, at the time. A few years’
experience had made a hell of a lot of difference, he wasn’t
as inclined to judge ... but he sure wondered what Jim had known
about Admiral Booth that led him to suspect he might be
considering something like that. Whatever it was, maybe that
junior engineer had found out about it as well.
Anita asked, “Are these visions a sure thing, Vanessa? Have
you ever been wrong about one?”
She shook her head. “Never. Not about things that already
have happened. I understand your concern, and I wouldn’t
have taken a chance on making a false accusation if I
weren’t completely sure.”
West took a drink of his beer. “The question is now, are we
going to do anything about it?” His tone was completely
neutral, but he was obviously looking to McQueen and Vansen to
make a decision now one way or the other. And he was right about
that. They were on very dangerous ground here, the squadron had a
right to expect an objective and a clear plan to achieve it.
Even if they did know that a murder had been committed, and how
it had been accomplished, they still had no proof. McQueen knew
Booth well enough to doubt that, if he had made the
engineer’s death look like an accident, they could ever
prove otherwise.
It wasn’t their job to investigate murders, in any case.
They were here to testify and that was all. He couldn’t
justify putting the lives of his kids at further risk by getting
involved in it. “We don’t have a dog in that
fight,” he replied. “When we get back to the Sara,
there are channels to go through. In the meanwhile, we’ve
got plenty of trouble from Aerotech already without looking for
more.” He glanced at Shane, and she took her cue.
“Damn straight, I don’t want anyone playing Sherlock
Holmes and giving an Admiral any ideas about us, is that
clear?” She looked around at everyone, but especially at the
new kids. She got an immediate chorus of “Yes,
ma’am.”
<End Part Four>