Black Box (3 page)

Interestingly enough, Boone tried suicide.
He failed at that, too. Spectacularly. He swallowed a bottle of
pills, called no one for help because he was serious about it, and
lay down to sleep forever. He did manage to doze, then woke up as
his body rejected the pills. In the end, he spent two days at home,
dizzy and throwing up. No one checked on him in that time. No one
cared. So he joined the military.

Now he was back aboard the
Valor
. He
had arrived eighteen hours early when the only people on board were
the base technicians and the crew chief. The chief had greeted him
perfunctorily and then left him to himself. To not be noticed by
the chief of the
Valor
was the crowning achievement in
Boone's career of anonymity. Rumple Hardy had a reputation for
knowing things about the crew that they didn’t even know about
themselves. It was rumored that he would stake out the home of a
person who had been transferred to the
Valor
. Boone
remembered nothing of the sort when he’d gotten his transfer,
though he’d undergone an extensive interview. Now he was part of
the scenery. So much the better. He knew what he had to do in order
to get himself off of that tub and he didn’t need the chief
breathing down his neck while he did it.

Detouring only long enough to drop his stuff
off in the quarters he shared with two other officers, he headed
straight for the hangar deck.

Despite her reputation and all of the things
she did to perpetuate that reputation, Lara Tedesco was a bundle of
nerves in the hours before she needed to board the
Valor
.
She was barely twenty four years old. By all standards she was a
baby, nothing more than a rookie with a family history protecting
her. But she had made lieutenant, the stepping stone to officer, in
record time. The papers that detailed her career in the service
were spotless and impressive. Yet the truth was well known.

Tedesco had never wanted to join the
service. As a child she had been distracted, known to escape to a
world of fantasy at every opportunity. Since the age of six, she
had been putting a finger to the keyboard, writing stories and
poems and even a few songs, though her ability to weave a tune was
awful. She continued this way right up through high school. At
fourteen she was without direction. Her grades were poor, some
failing. She had few friends and the ones she had were questionable
both as people and as loyal friends. She had experimented with a
few light drugs and successfully battled and hidden an alcohol
problem before her sixteenth birthday.

She was a mess.

Her mother, the late Mrs. Admiral Champion
Tedesco (yes, her father’s given name was Champion), had buried her
head in the sand. In her eyes, Lara was always a perfect little
girl and if she had a bit of Alice in her that was okay. The
Admiral was often absent and always disinterested. She was
reasonably sure that he’d given his wife a child just so that she
would have something to do while he pursued his career. Lara was
never sure why he had even married in the first place. Her mother
had died when she was eighteen, a senior in high school. At that
point, the Admiral had stepped in to take stock of the situation.
The outlook was bleak. Lara was failing some classes. She was clean
of narcotics, mostly, but she was still without direction. She had
three hard drives filled with literature and poetry that she
herself had written. The better part of it was nonsense, but there
was some good stuff in there as well and it was representative of
her creative spirit.

It was all useless in the eyes of her
father. College wasn’t on the horizon. In fact, she would have to
take three more summer school classes at the end of her senior year
just to graduate high school. He wanted her to have that degree so
he allowed it. Beyond that, her life was no longer her own. He
forced her to enlist in the Space Force, telling her that she was
on her own otherwise. Initially the argument was a week long
marathon. Even afterwards, throughout that last summer, it came up
now and again. She insisted that forcing her into the military was
a bad idea. She’d wind up in infantry and flunk out of that, too.
Or worse. But Champion Tedesco had assured her that her future in
the service would be set from the get go. She would get the right
teachers, receive the right grades, and climb the ladder of
promotion quickly. It was their shared goal to get her out of space
and behind a desk where she could coast through her career. That
meant promotions. It also meant the fast track specialty, which was
Navigation.

As it turns out, Tedesco was a fair pilot.
She’d found a niche in programming the machines. There was a
creative angle to it that appealed to her. If only that had been
all she needed. Her work in many of her classes was as poor as or
worse than high school. Most of her instructors owed the Admiral a
favor and so inflated her grades but there were a couple who
wouldn’t. The Admiral had chosen to move her to different classes
or have her retake them in that case. It actually took her an extra
semester to graduate, but no one noticed because she went at night
so that she wouldn’t fall behind her peers.

Her father had had her placed on a ship
immediately. She was put on the
Courage
as a noncom
navigator. It should have been an easy gig. With a doctor as the
captain, the
Courage
was never sent on military missions. It
was all about helping people so her job consisted entirely of
orbits, landings, takeoffs, and wormhole jumps. Basic stuff. But
the captain didn’t like her. She served for a year under Abigail
Ventana, trying to do her job, but failing just the same. Still
Captain Ventana knew better than to rock the boat. Admiral Tedesco
had asked that his daughter’s service record show exemplary work
and point in the direction of quick promotion to lieutenant. In
exchange, he promised that Lara would be lieutenant for someone
else. That was good enough for Ventana.

As relieved as Lara was to be off the
Courage,
she knew that the
Valor
was no place for
her. It did not fit into the plan her father and she had laid out.
But plans change. When her father had come to her and told her that
she would be transferred and where, she wondered if she had finally
screwed up enough to be consigned to the depths of the Force. She
considered quitting. But the Admiral had assured her that this was
not a reflection on her performance. It was a temporary side trip.
He explained to her her duty and she had accepted it because there
was nothing else she could do. Perhaps when she had completed her
way into the upper ranks of the military and secured a planetside
position she could go back to writing. It gave her career a
purpose.

Sometimes, to Lara Tedesco, life seemed
pretty empty.

As a child, Anabelle Rodrigo had been one of
those beautiful little girls that mothers fawn over. She wore
pretty dresses and makeup and had the boys going wild as early as
primary school. She remembered liking the girly girl phase. She had
always enjoyed being beautiful. It instilled confidence in her and
the attention was flattering. When she got to high school she began
to date, picking and choosing her boys at will. There was no one
who didn’t want a date with Anabelle Rodrigo.

Rodrigo wasn’t a particularly smart girl, at
least not from an academic standpoint. Her grades were low. She had
little interest in school. She always had a knack for assessing a
physical situation, though. She was athletic, excelling in physical
education. There was almost nothing she couldn’t do on the first
try. She could also strategize as well as anyone she knew. She was
a marvel at chess. Like Lara Tedesco, however, she had little
direction. She always assumed she’d eventually choose the richest,
most handsome man and marry him. She would be comfortable and set
up and being married wouldn’t do anything to dull her social life.
It was her intention to take advantage of those who wished it. And
there were plenty of those out there.

But at age sixteen, something happened to
change her whole outlook. There was a boy who pursued her
relentlessly. He was cute and he was smart and she liked him, but
she didn’t feel that he was deferential enough in his approach so
she gave him a hard time. Ultimately, he got the picture and gave
her what she wanted. Smiling ear to ear, she gave him a date.

She couldn’t even remember his name.

They went out one Saturday night. He took
her to a nice dinner and then a fancy place for dessert. He spent a
lot of money that night, money she didn’t know he had. At sixteen,
she was wondering if she had stumbled upon her rich husband
prematurely. But there was that underlying attitude, the attitude
that bespoke of confidence, even in the presence of great beauty.
She didn’t like it and he didn’t care for hers. It put them right
at odds.

As the night wore on, they became more and
more antagonistic toward each other until she told him that he
needed to take her home. He growled a response and they drove off.
But he didn’t take her home. She knew then what he was about and
steeled herself against it. She was not afraid. The scenery around
them went from suburban to secluded to desolate. She wondered if he
had brought girls out there before. Once or twice, she tried to
question him, but he said it was a
shortcut
.

When he finally pulled the car over, they
were miles from anywhere. Inside the car it was cramped and the air
was stale. He turned to her with that look in his eye and told her
in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t as great as she thought she
was and he intended to see to it that she understood it. Rodrigo
let her eyes go wide, allowed her pupils to dilate. There may have
even been a tear. It was a poor act. If the boy (she really
couldn’t remember his name) had had any sense of his own, he would
have realized it. But he outweighed her and he had about four
inches on her so he was pretty confident. There also wasn’t a drop
of blood left in his brain so he wasn’t thinking particularly
clearly.

Anabelle Rodrigo was as much a girl as any
one person could be. She’d never had a physical confrontation,
never had to defend herself against another person. But her
tactical skills went into play as he moved in. She assessed the
situation expertly and made her move without hesitation. Before his
fingertips could touch her he was gagging and gasping for air. A
second blow to his nose, delivered with the palm, brought blood.
Calmly, she got out on her side of the car and walked around to his
side. She opened the door and grabbed him by his well combed hair.
She didn’t have to pull hard; she could never have forced him out
of the car. He came on his own because he knew that she’d yank out
his hair if he didn’t. At that point, he tried to grab an advantage
but she was ready for him. First she scarred his face, a small
reminder of what happens to a man when he tries to rape Anabelle
Rodriguez. Then she’d made him less of a man, a grand reminder that
would remain with him throughout his life. When she was done with
him, he was not the same boy. Not physically. Not emotionally. And
he never would be.

She left him moaning on the pavement, his
pants soaked with his own blood, and drove his car back into the
suburbs and back to her home. What she didn’t realize at the time
was that she had changed as well. It was almost as if she had been
preprogrammed and all it took was that one event to trigger the
programming. Suddenly she was no longer interested in dressing
nicely or looking good. She began studying military strategy and
combat tactics. Her one small taste of violence had awakened an
obsession. Her hair got in the way so she cut it short. At sixteen
years old, she left herself behind. She dropped out of high school
and joined the military service. She signed up for infantry because
being a soldier would teach her everything she ever wanted to know.
And she excelled. She was dangerous, unstoppable. She made sergeant
before her twenty third birthday. She was the youngest sergeant in
the history of the Space Force.

And the oldest.

Rodrigo was now fifty eight years old. She
was as tough as ever. The beautiful girl had long since
disappeared. Her features had grown hard. She kept her hair short.
What had once been a thin and shapely body had been reshaped
through diet and exercise. She packed close to one hundred and
seventy pounds onto her small frame, all of it muscle. She had
never been tall, but now she looked stocky. Still and all, she was
as agile as a cat and as strong as an ox. She was trained in over
twenty firearms and more hand to hand weapons than she could count.
She could take stock of a situation in an instant and direct a
squad of soldiers as if they were pawns in a game. In short, she
was the best sergeant anyone had ever seen.

But now, in the twilight of her career, she
could see the end. Keeping herself fit and strong grew harder and
harder as the years piled on. Fighting in the dirt and blood was a
game for young people. It was time she was granted the leadership
status she deserved. Everyone looked up to her.
Everyone
.
She had trained her captain when he had been a cadet. She had
trained cadets for almost forty years. And they had all passed her
by.

It was because of the machines. Those
fucking machines. She just didn’t have a head for it. Anabelle
Rodrigo wasn’t about writing programs for the ship’s computers. She
was about blowing people away or telling others how to do it. But
that didn’t matter to the
Admiralty
. That fossilized group
of ball busters would never give her a promotion because she
couldn’t sit at a station in the control room. They made it seem as
if they tolerated her presence because of her venerable status. The
truth was that she was the best soldier anyone was ever going to
see. The trouble was that that just wasn’t good enough.