"Complications"
En route to the Montana System
MCS Paul Revere
2698, December 1st
Shame, anger, regret, sorrow, and fear all competed for Igor's attention as he delivered the eulogy for the three sailors who had died in the accident that shouldn't have. The trusty and competent head of engineering, Preskott, whose only crime had been believing the blueprints of the Revere were current, was now languishing in the brig. His charges of failure of carrying out his duty correctly had earned him a demerit to his record as was now Militia/Coalition law.
In the corridors, whispers now spoke of who would be thrown into the brig next and if their ship was unlucky or cursed. Sailors had always been superstitious and Igor privately hoped there'd be a way to soon turn the Revere's luck around.
The eulogy was short and the crowd was small. By the time Igor had finished, most just sat in their seats in the hangar as the coffins were delivered into the deep black void of space. Even the SRS Proxy team hung in the back of the hanger, fully dressed in their Pilot gear incase of another failure.
Despite how handsome Ramirez looked, Igor resented being yelled at by the man, whose team had instigated the need for subterfuge. It was just after Oran had told him about how the accident had gone sideways. Some dockworker made an a mistake and didn't report it, so instead of the malfunction hitting a storage, the bar was struck instead. Shortly after Lance had left, Ramirez nearly kicked down the door furious that his team had been put into danger. At first, Igor was confused what the mercenary was doing there in the first place but then when he said one of his team was trapped inside along with dozens of others, Igor got the message.
"You knew this was going to happen Sargent," Igor had told him, "Bish specifically instructed something like this to happen. So I advise you to reassess this line of inquiry."
"Sir, my team wasn't in some out of the way hole," Ramirez said with controlled fury, "they're in the bar your guy sent to malfunction. What the hell kind of ship do you run here?"
"I am the Captain of this ship, mercenary. If you don't like it, you can walk back to Concord, understood?"
Ramirez's eyes and nostrils flared but he understood that he had no authority to question Igor's command. There was something dangerous in that pause, a familiarity that Igor didn't understand. Not yet, I don't, his face seemed to say.
After the coffins were gone, Igor offered his door to any who wanted to speak to him. Not that he knew what to tell them but he could listen at least. It felt like the right thing to say. No one seemed interested, maybe that was grief, but Igor tried not to take it to heart. Finally, Igor left the ceremony and returned to the bridge, where Lance Oran was awaiting him.
"Sir, we're about ready to jump to Custer-By-The-Belt."
At least seeing Aubrey again would be good. It'd been months since he'd last seen her in person. "Very good Lieutenant. Let's set jump when ready."
"Yes, sir. Comm-O, all decks jump in five mikes." Oran gave the order.
"Aye, Lieutenant." The comm-O began issuing the call.
"How was the service?" Oran asked Igor pensively.
Igor shook his head. "Something I never want to get used to giving."
Lance nodded and returned to looking out the window of the bridge. Igor stifled a sigh. It wouldn't due to project looking torn in a situation like this. Instead, he asked, "What do you make of our passengers?"
The Lieutenant frowned and replied quietly, "Word is they call themselves 'Ram's Rejects', since they all got rejected for Pilot training. Seems like he gave them all a second chance like he got."
"He was ex-IMC wasn't he?" Igor recalled.
"Yes, sir." Lance confirmed than turned to Igor. "Do you think that'll be a problem?"
"No," Igor said hesitantly, "I don't want to stir up trouble where they might not be."
"Yes, sir. Of course." Lance said dutifully.
The Montana System was a vast uninhabited system, populated mostly with asteroids. Only two planets remained bathed in the dying red sun's light. Sho'ko had mentioned it once to him how odd it was for the system to have so many asteroids in it where a planet should be. Igor never really saw the mystery in a system full of rocks. Peter probably would have, maybe even understood what Sho'ko was saying about it too.
Fort Custer-by-the-Belt was the only major station in the system. Back when it was under IMC control, the fort's only function was to patrol the belt for Militia smugglers and pirates to make sure the two abandoned planetary research bases stayed abandoned. The Colonial Marines stationed there were bored, poorly supplied, and mostly forgotten about. When Graves returned under the Militia banner it was an easy flip for the Marines who respected his authority. Now the Militia stationed there were much the same as they were before.
Aubrey's research vessel was around a thousand klicks from them. The Brick ship sat with it's instruments examining an asteroid. Igor had his communications officer ping their vessel that they had arrived.
"Sir," the comms-officer said after an exchange with their comms guy, "their Captain wants to talk to you."
Igor tried to hide his smile as he picked up the receiver. "Aubrey!"
"Igor!?" Aubrey's voice sounded surprised. "They sent you? What am I saying? Of course they sent you!"
He was taken aback. Her tone left him wondering if she saw his arrival as a good or bad thing. After a moment, Igor pressed on. "Well, yeah, Lansford thought it would be a good idea..."
Aubrey interrupted him, her voice quick and serious. "Sorry, no it's good to see you, I just thought they would just send someone else. How soon can you come aboard?"
"Soon enough, why?"
"Good. You're definitely going to want to see this." She told him.
He definitely didn't want to see this. Aubrey, Ramirez, Aubrey's Co-Captain Terrance, and himself looked at several readouts that both Sho'ko and Terrance were comfortable chatting about in full jargon. Aubrey looked happy and relaxed. She wore a thick red Kodai vest for miners with her shirt sleeves rolled up over her elbows. A pen held up the bun in her hair and her nails were painted. The sight of Aubrey in her natural element disconnected with the memory of her struggling with her Militia uniform. She really was happy being out of the Navy. Somehow that realization hadn't fully connected with him until now.
"So," She said catching her breath, "when we traced the signal decay back towards it's source we found this."
Aubrey punched a coordinate into their nav-computer. The screen changed to reveal empty space. The place where the signal came from wasn't registered to anything on the star chart. It was just solid black space. Igor furrowed his brow while Ramirez crossed his arm.
"So, what? Did it come from a ship?" The mercenary asked.
"Hah! Well, when we cross referenced it with the Five-Oh-Four..."
"The one you found uranium deposits on Concord with." Igor recalled.
Aubrey smiled wide and pointed at him. "Yes, exactly! We found this..."
Igor smiled to himself, she hadn't even caught their old joke. She really was excited to be doing science again. Terrance loaded in the old 504 module and there it was an outline of a system where the empty space used to be.
"Ta-da!" Terrance waved his hand over the nav-computer as it loaded in the system.
"That doesn't make an sense. How is there not a system there anymore?" Igor said perplexed.
"Well, it actually happens a lot," Terrance answered, "the ISCM started back in the way old days when they used telescopes to chart the stars. Sometimes what looked to be a system wasn't a system at all."
"The decay vector," Ramirez interrupted, "how sure are you it originated from this point."
"Mm!" Sho'ko grinned. "I can show you the math we did."
The readout changed and along side physics math equations was the decay vector of the radio signal. Igor wasn't really clear on what he was seeing but he could tell that where the signal was the strongest was a thick red line and where it was weakest the line became dashed. Besides that, Igor wasn't sure what the equations meant. If Ramirez didn't either, it certainly didn't show.
"You accounted for planetary orbit?"
"Right there," Terrance pointed to a thick batch of readouts in the upper right of the screen.
"So if you caught it here... where was it headed?" The mercenary asked.
"Well, it was sent from a single source, a transmitter with a wide arc. We only caught a part of the wave."
"So not to someone, just to anyone. Like the message says." Ramirez looked unhappy with that confirmation.
"Well," Terrance casted a look at Sho'ko then to both him and Ramirez, "here's the thing. That company in the message, Landstrom Ventures, they worked out of Angel City."
"Okay..."
"Except, when you pull them up on the academic database... nothing." Terrance pulled up a terminal and did a search to show them.
"So it's a trap?" Ramirez guessed.
"Maybe, maybe not." Terrance answered. "I used to hear about the owner, Michael Covingham trying to strike it big before Dionysys could buy out his company. After Demeter, the IMC are looking to find that new place to refuel their fleets."
"You think they found it?" Igor asked. It certainly was an interesting idea.
"Possibly. When Kodai got taken out all over the Frontier, a lot of smaller guys got caught in the crossfire. I think when the IMC scooped up Landstrom, they purged them from every database they could." Terrance said.
"But they haven't claimed this system as their own yet." Igor stated.
Ramirez chuckled. "You think if you found the next Demeter, you'd announce it for the Militia to come and find?"
"Hm, I see what you mean." Igor cleared his throat.
"Which is why," Terrance paused, "we'd like to accompany you."
"What?" Igor felt like his face had suddenly been splashed with ice water.
"Yeah," Terrance grinned, "if there is a new planet, it would be of considerable scientific and monetary value."
Value? Igor couldn't believe what he was hearing. What was Terrance going on about? There wasn't any way that Aubrey would actually go along with this would she? He looked at her. To his surprise, she seemed intent on hearing an answer. Her eyes big and hopeful. Could she actually be okay with this? Going into enemy territory? No way. Even it wasn't Aubrey, having civilians along wasn't going to fly. Too many risks.
Igor opened his mouth to say as much but Ramirez spoke first. "That's a good idea. A ship like this could be useful."
"You can't be serious." Igor turned towards the mercenary. "We're going into enemy territory, having along a civilian ship is a liability."
He felt a twinge of guilt saying it and looked over at Aubrey and Terrance. Terrance nodded but Aubrey was looking down at the deck with a twisted lip. Was she seriously mad at him right now? How could she think he'd be okay with this idea? They sent you? Her words flashed to his mind. So this is what she meant.
"We understand," Terrance said diplomatically, "and we're willing to follow any restrictions you lay out. However, we, the crew that is, believe that this could be an extraordinary find that will be in everyone's interest."
Igor shook his head.
"Captain," Ramirez said, "despite the risks, I think the Explorer Two would be an asset. They have instruments that the Revere just doesn't have. Utilizing them could beneficial to our recon capacity. Maybe even capture better data from a safer distance."
Igor felt himself agree personally with Ramirez and yet couldn't bring himself to put Aubrey in possible danger. His crew was just barely holding together, having another ship to worry about was more than he was ready to deal with. Still, something about Ramirez's words was appealing. Safe distance. Could they really do that?
"Could you... capture the data you need from long distance?" Igor asked.
"Hah!" Aubrey's face beamed. "You kiddin'? We could could get great data from as far away as eight AU away!"
One Astronomical Unit was at least 150 million km, roughly the distance between Earth and Sol. So that would place Aubrey way past Jupiter, if his math was good. Which was a good distance away from where the center of the action could be.
"Sargent," Igor addressed Ramirez, "all you need is a visual confirmation of the IMC. That technology already exists on the Revere."
"That it does, sir." Ramirez agreed.
"So then, why risk civilians getting involved?" he asked.
Ramirez took a moment to consider the question then chuckled. "Sir, no tengo problema de ninguna manera. Figured, we might as well use it while we have it."
"Uh-huh," Igor mulled his answer, "considering the nature of the mission. It's best that we minimize our possibility of detection."
"But," Aubrey protested.
"If the system's clear, we can contact you to stake your claim."
She angrily sighed. "Fine."
Igor wanted to explain to her that this was for her own good. Keeping her safe was important to him as her friend. Aubrey had hated being apart of the Militia Navy. Now that she was out she wanted to tag along? Things didn't work like that in the Navy. Besides, even if this data came from somewhere it was probably just abandoned buildings and corpses if the IMC got there. There probably wouldn't be anything to worry about. Best to play it safe for now.
"Captain Sho'ko," Ramirez chimed in, "how many jumps could this ship do?"
"I'm sorry?" Aubrey said surprised but then answered. "Um, our downtime is around ten hours or less. Why?"
"This system you think exists, could you jump to it?"
Don't. Igor glared at Sargent Ramirez. "Sargent..."
"One moment, sir. Could you jump to it?" Ramirez asked again.
"It does exist and yes." Aubrey answered confidently.
"Then as acting authority..." Ramirez began.
"Sargent, this is a direct violation..." Igor tried to talk over him.
"... for SRS Special Operation Twenty Three..."
"... of my orders and you cannot do this!"
"... and on my authority transfer my team..."
"Sargent!" Igor barked.
"... to the CFRV Explorer Two." Ramirez finnished.
Igor's face was warm with rage and disrespect. He had the urge to strangle the Sargent until his face turned blue. The room went still with awkward silence. Igor exhaled a breath through his nose, he didn't know he was holding.
"This is a direct violation of a direct order given to you by a superior officer."
"Disculpe," Ramirez's voice was cocky and pleasant, "but you are not my superior officer, sir. I report to Captain Droz of the SRS. And since, this is an SRS operation – if you don't like it you can walk on back to Concord."
Throwing his own words back in his face! Igor couldn't believe how petty this mercenary was. Not only did not respect authority but the first chance he gets he takes his revenge. "This isn't over, Sargent."
"This isn't your ship, sir. With respect, until we arrive at the unknown system and complete the operation's objective. Please escort the CFRV Explorer Two."
Igor was so enraged that he was worried he'd make a fool of himself. "I'll send a Crow with your remaining team." He seethed and walked out of the room.
He should of never taken this mission. The only reason he'd done it in the first place was as a favor to Lansford and to help Aubrey. Now both of them weren't around and what semblance of plan they'd had, had been thrown into the wind. His heart ached for some of Peter's tea and the smell of herbs in their kitchen. He'd almost gotten back to the Brick ship's hanger before Aubrey caught up to him.
"Igor! Wait!"
He didn't want to. Every fiber of his body wanted to stomp and shout. Igor wanted to scream and curse the Militia. To pour out his anger in a childish display in front of everyone. Of course, he couldn't. He had responsibilities to the Militia Navy, as a Captain to demonstrate a calm and collected demeanor under pressure. He'd been outwitted by of all people a turncoat silverback mercenary. Igor wasn't sure if he hated himself or Ramirez more at this moment.
"Igor, goddamn it, wait!" She shouted.
He stopped and turned around. Aubrey had placed her hands on her waist and rested her weight onto one hip. She looked like a teacher about to scorn a small child.
"Yes, Captain..."
"Stop that!" She interrupted him then frowned. "Look, I know I ambushed you, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to get involved."
"Why wouldn't I, Aubrey?"
"I know you've watched over me when we were on the Montana but things are different now. I have a scientific responsibility. My team and I want this."
"What's wrong with playing it safe then, Aubrey? Do you even know whats in that system? Do you have any idea?" He pointed back down the hall.
"Do you?" She raised her eyebrow.
"Better then you do – which is why I don't want you in that system."
"What then?"
Twenty IMC Super-carriers from the Demeter Fleet ready to kill us to protect their new planet. Instead he said, "You heard the Sargent in there. Could be a new Demeter."
Aubrey looked away and a smile played on her lips. "Come on, the IMC aren't the threat they used to be..."
Igor's laugh was sharp and rueful. "You're not that naive are you?"
"And you're a prick!" She lashed back then sighed. "Sorry, I don't mean that."
Igor scoffed.
"I don't. Listen, you're a Captain now. Your career is going places. I... I'm worried that if I don't make another discovery soon mine won't."
"Is that what this is really about or something else?" He pointed to the Kodai logo on her vest.
"Can you imagine what the commission would be on finding a new untapped fuel reserve for the Coalition? Any funding I'd ever want would be mine. All I ever wanted to do was science, Igor. You know that! Better than anyone else probably."
He did. Igor licked his lips. His mouth and throat felt dry. "Yeah," he managed.
"Besides after this," she said gently, "we're all going back to Concord anyways. So win-win?"
"Yeah," Was all he could manage to say.
"Great! So let's find us a system that doesn't exist, okay?" She made a playful punch against his arm.
She was still in there, the dorky, awkward, nervous Captain he'd served under months ago. Now in her element and passionate about science again, she had changed or was changing. Something, he didn't want to do.
"Okay," he replied, "but Aubrey do me a favor."
"Sure, Igor." Her smile returned to her face now that the argument was over with.
"Keep an eye on Ramirez. There's something about him that doesn't seem right. If he does something out of line, tell me about it."
"Uh, yeah alright." She shrugged. "Anything I should know about?"
He thought about Ramirez's words to him in his quarters. Igor was still unwilling to let Aubrey shoulder his suspicions. "He's a mercenary, Sho'ko. They're unpredictable. Especially him."
She nodded. "Right."
"If you need me to clean him off your ship, just say the word and MARDET will sweep him up."
"Got it Igor."
"Okay, good luck Captain. I'll see you in space."
"Aye aye." Aubrey smirked.
"Captain on deck!" The Boatswain announced.
"Captain has the con." Oran sat up from the Captain's chair and saluted.
"I have the con." Igor saluted back and took the seat.
"Sir, system coordinates received from the Explorer Two." The Navigator informed him.
"Understood. Plot course and prep engines. Lieutenant, inform Fairwyn that Los Mejores will need transport to the Explorer."
One of Oran's eyebrows arched. Igor mouthed later. Oran silently nodded that he understood and began relaying Igor's order to Fairwyn. Sitting back in the chair had a different edge to it now. The stakes for the operation had changed in a way Igor hadn't anticipated. Ramirez was playing a dangerous game that could get Aubrey killed. He wasn't about to let that happen.