The Expendable Few: A Spinward Fringe Novel (28 page)

“A bird in the hand?” asked his comm.

“Is worth two in the bush,” he answered. “Next.”

“Friend?” it asked.

He thought a moment, not recalling what the computer was talking about. He could guess the expression, but it was a memory test, and guessing wrong could be worse than not guessing at all.

“Friend?” it repeated.

Then he remembered. “One old friend is better than two new ones.” The door opened as he said it, and Wheeler stepped inside.

“That’s good, never heard it before,” Wheeler said. “Where’s it from?”

“These God damned tests Oversight has me taking. I don’t know the original context of the saying,” Captain McPatrick said. “Sorry.”

“Electives,” Wheeler said. “I’ve been doing them ever since I came aboard. Trying to get that crap out of the way so they can check me back into service the moment I deliver.”

“I don’t think you have a shot, doesn’t matter what you’re offering. Freeground won’t take you back, they’re exiling, not recruiting. But that’s just my thoughts on it.”

“Want to put your credits where your opinion is?” Wheeler replied, smiling. It was impossible to put the smug man off. McPatrick liked him less with every passing moment. “If you bet a thousand I’ll tell you what I’m trading.”

“Testing me,” Captain McPatrick scoffed. “Presenting me with a decision that Oversight will review - whether or not I take the opportunity to pay an informant for information.”

“What’s the right decision according to the regulations, old horse?”

“Commander’s choice if it doesn’t directly pertain to the mission, essential if it does,” Captain McPatrick looked Wheeler in the eye with a stare that normally made seasoned officers’ palms sweat. The aggravating traitor didn’t flinch. “I’ll take your bet. What are you trading?”

“Information straight from Order of Eden Command,” Wheeler replied.

“What about Regent Galactic?” asked McPatrick.

“Regent Galactic was completely taken over by the Order a month ago, when a freak called Meunez got himself jacked into their primary network. It’s all one incestuous organization now, most call it a religion.”

“I can’t say that was worth the bet,” Captain McPatrick said.

“Oh, that’s not all,” Wheeler said. “As a sign that I’m really dedicated to rejoining the upper ranks of Freeground Intelligence, I’ve signed my claim on the Triton over to Fleet Command.”

“Jacob Valent’s ship?” Captain McPatrick said, knowing that it would get a rise out of the other man. The guards behind him were loving the exchange, but kept quiet. “I heard about that. Don’t believe you’ll go through with it though.”

“My ship,” Wheeler snapped. “Taken directly from Sol Defence about thirty years ago. They let it go then, that makes it mine.”

“I’m sure if we had a Sol Defence officer aboard, they would have something to say about that.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Wheeler replied. “Sol Defence has been out of the picture for centuries, keeping to their own small part of the galaxy. I’d say that makes anything taken across their boarders free and clear. When the Carthans fail to get in touch with anyone there, and realize that they have a token that will earn them an ally in Freeground thanks to yours truly.”

“The Carthans, or you, or Valent, someone will derail that deal,” Captain McPatrick said. “It’ll never happen.”

“Ah, it’s Valance now, Valent is dead and his replacement is rotting on a moon a couple of sectors over. You really should try to keep up, your age is showing,” Wheeler said. “Getting back to the point, it doesn’t matter if the deal doesn’t go through because it’s all Freeground Intelligence’s problem now. I’ve signed on the dotted line, as they used to say.”

Captain McPatrick decided that the conversation had gone on long enough. If Wheeler was tethered to Freeground Intelligence, then McPatrick had to weigh everything he said around him carefully.

“Cat got your tongue?” Wheeler pressed.

To the Captain’s relief, the lift doors opened. “Damn thing’s running too slow,” he muttered as he exited. Observation One was only a few metres down the broad, polished silver and grey hallway. The double doors opened to the largest leisure space on the ship. He had ordered it turned into a galley. The bar had been split in half. One part was converted into a matter recycling station, the other was rebuilt as a row of ration dispensers. The attached lounges had been turned into Officer’s Mess compartments. He couldn’t abide the playground mentality of the previous design, and the new version of the observation section still pleased him to no end. It said something about the Sunspire: this is not the ship Jonas Valent abandoned. This is a ship of duty and honour. There was no more important message, as far as Captain McPatrick was concerned, especially since they were forced to ferry traitors and exiles around.

It had been a short trip, and Captain McPatrick only had four months with the new crew of the Sunspire, but they had shown him their dedication and a high level of competence. That’s why, when a squad of soldiers escorted Omira, the thing that Doctor Marcelles had become, Remmy, Isabel, Mary, Davi, and Kipley into the main Observation Deck shortly after he arrived there, his mood soured even more.

As Captain McPatrick wordlessly followed the large group into one of the two dimmer, more well furnished Officer’s Messes, he looked them up and down. It looked like they had just been in a fire fight. They were all battered and ragged, even Isabel, who he guessed only found herself on the front lines by bad luck or force. He tried not to stare at Doctor Marcelles; his dark amber armour and dark skin gave him a sleek appearance, but he still looked like an error in genetics to McPatrick. He was a walking mess of a hybrid, a freak with no business being alive.

“It is good to finally meet you, Captain,” Doctor Marcelles said, starting to approach from across the room.

Captain McPatrick only held up his hand in response, and two of his soldiers stepped between him and the doctor as though they were an extension of his arm. “We’re waiting for someone.”

“Ah,” replied Doctor Marcelles. “It’s like that, then.”

Wheeler didn’t waste time. He walked around the soldiers and offered his hand. “Welcome, Doctor Marcelles.”

“Thank you, mister Wheeler,” Marcelles said, shaking the man’s hand with a smile.

Obviously surprised, Wheeler took a step back, looked Doctor Marcelles up and down, then nodded to himself and rejoined Captain McPatrick. Doctor Anderson entered and nodded at Remmy first, then took everyone else in. “Lieutenant Davi, report,” he ordered.

Davi stepped towards Doctor Anderson and snapped to attention. “In brief, Doctor Marcelles would not return with us unless we assisted him in contaminating the planet’s atmosphere with a compound that would destroy the Order of Eden’s ecosystem transforming forests. Since our orders were to retrieve the target using any means necessary, we proceeded. After the mission was complete, the doctor would not return with us unless we brought the rest of his people with him. I was sure the Order of Eden were looking for us, and I did not have much time to debate the finer points of the target’s extraction, so I decided more was better than none at all, and have brought the issyrian refugees aboard with Doctor Marcelles.”

Captain McPatrick watched Davi as he rendered his report and, without the assistance of a comm unit scan, decided the lieutenant was telling the truth. Davi had a habit of delivering, of completing objectives, and it was good to see he didn’t disappoint.

“I’m not sure you’ve brought us Doctor Marcelles, Lieutenant,” Wheeler said with a grin that Captain McPatrick would love to wipe off his face. “The first time I met Doctor Marcelles, I had him practically dissected alive aboard the Triton.” He looked around the room for a moment before going on. “How did it happen, Clark? And where is the good doctor?”

For a moment Captain McPatrick couldn’t believe what Wheeler was saying, but a glance at Remmy, who was turning deep red, and Mary, whose hand was in search of a sidearm that was taken from her when she boarded told him that Wheeler’s judgement was spot on. While it was useful to have someone there who was so astute, it was frustrating that it was Wheeler, the ultimate traitor. “Out with it,” Captain McPatrick said. “I need to hear this.”

“Marcelles was found dead aboard the Fallen Star,” the human-issyrian thing replied. His face slowly shifted, the features becoming that of Clark Patterson as he spoke. “When we entered the vault the ship tried to connect with the framework circuitry Intelligence put in my head, and if it weren’t for Omira, the neural circuit would have killed me. She used technology in the ship’s lab to implant the last version of the framework technology. It took days, but the upgrades stuck, and I came out feeling like myself again.”

“But not looking like yourself,” Captain McPatrick added.

“I looked perfectly human at first. After we returned to Trest, I swam in the spawning pool as an initiation into the issyrian House there, and the framework technology adapted so I could communicate with them.” To Captain McPatrick’s surprise, Clark Patterson seemed almost overcome with emotion, and found it difficult to continue. There was something going on that could change the course of the future forever if they let it. How things would shift would be up to whoever was allowed to leave that room alive.

Clark finally went on. “The sadness I found there was as deep as my own for the murder of my sister. The difference between us was simply that they didn’t feel the outrage I did. That was, until they were exposed to me. I didn’t know it at first, but issyrians don’t feel what we call anger often. Persistant disruptive emotions are enough to get you exiled from your House, sent out of the clutch. So, even in the worst cases, there are normally limits to how far an issyrian will take revenge, if they bother at all. Their instincts are to rebuild, reinvent themselves. When they felt my anger towards Freeground Intelligence for killing my sister, and for what the Order of Eden were doing to their world, at how trapped I felt in our missions, they began to learn what it was to be furious.”

“That is why I didn’t tell you what would happen when you entered the pool,” Omira said. “The aggression and other negative emotions that normally lead to disharmony in a clutch are too mild to affect the change you’ve brought to the issyrian people here. Normally, exposing them to human anger would be a tragedy, but not here, not where they are dying and defenceless. They needed that outrage to survive.”

“The youngest became almost feral,” Clark went on. “The elders in the spawning pool were able to calm them, but the fighting instinct will always be there. As for the rest, well, they became warriors, and more issyrians joined me over the next week. I learned from them too, and since I have full control over this version of the framework tech, I was able to adapt, to create a warrior class of issyrian. For the first time in thousands of years, the issyrians have a warrior caste, and from the ashes of Trest they will rise and found a Great House.”

“Ashes?” Wheeler asked, alarmed for the first time. “I thought you were looking to restore Uumen so issyrians could rebuild their colonies.”

“The Order of Eden will enact a scorched earth policy, reducing Uumen to barren rock, but not before they have analyzed the canister used to deliver the toxins into their atmosphere. It’s of Freeground design,” Clark said. “It’s time for Freeground to get involved with the war, whether they like it or not.”

“You son of a bitch!” screamed one of the soldiers. Captain McPatrick gestured towards the lunging soldier and two more held him back. If he gave the order to blast Clark Patterson to pieces, Captain McPatrick was sure it would be followed without hesitation. That wasn’t the wise course, but it was the one he’d rather see followed.

“Freeground has been on the galactic sidelines for too long,” Clark said. “It’s time for the Freeground Nation to wake up and see everything humanity and the other races have done out here, the good and the bad. If they don’t open their borders and their minds, Freeground will descend from stagnation to extinction. Whatever good we have to offer the universe will simply disappear. Freeground will be just one of a hundred lost civilizations that are a minor footnote in history.”

“This isn’t about progress, it’s about revenge,” Doctor Anderson said.

“No, leading the Order of Eden to this ship was about revenge. The Sunspire, and everything it’s come to represent under the oversight of the Puritan Party is an insult to the legacy of this vessel. A legacy your nephew was an important part of,” Clark said to Captain McPatrick, who bristled at being singled out. “Terry Ozark McPatrick won’t welcome you with open arms if you survive to see him, not after discovering that you’re letting Freeground Intelligence Oversight tell you how to run your ship. A trap he didn’t let himself wither in.”

Captain McPatrick had heard enough. “Take him and everyone else into custody. Signal the helm to execute a retreat course.”

With inhuman speed and power, Clark Patterson struck the guards nearest to him, driving them back into the soldiers holding position at their rear. Isabel, Mary, and Remmy were ready. They sprinted for the lifts just down the hall. Captain McPatrick stepped over a recovering soldier and drew his sidearm.

“Stun!” Doctor Anderson shouted.

With Remmy dead in his sights, he flipped his weapon’s switch from kill to stun and downed the former Intelligence Officer. He took a shot at Mary, but she made it into the lift just in time.

“Disable the lifts,” Captain McPatrick ordered.

“Too late, the express lift has already activated. They’re already in the launch bay,” replied an officer from the bridge. “And we’re-”

“Then vent the atmosphere, lock the ships and emergency vacsuit stations down,” McPatrick replied.

“Yes, Sir. There’s something else, Sir; we’re picking up incoming signals. At least four squadrons of fighters and several gunships. They’re blocking our retreat course.”

“Here we go,” Captain McPatrick said to himself. “Launch alert fighters from the aft bay, and send security down to the auxiliary launch bay. I want those traitors taken, dead or alive.”