Interlude-Crew II

Staying in orbit was unideal for crewed ships. It was almost always in their interest to start accelerating somewhere, and put the crew back under acceleration induced gravity, or to land on whatever the ship was orbiting.

The Jackie Robinson had been orbiting Cammo-Caddo for several days now, with its crew having to put up with zero-G. Unlike asteroids or platform stations, most ships were too small to support artificial gravity systems.

Luckily, that would be changing soon.

Kantar Weith knocked on the infirmary half of the ship’s medical ward. The other half was dedicated to Nerin’s surgical half. There’d been no need for her expertise so far, but that might change imminently.

“Staying upright?” Weith asked the floating medic.

“No worse than you, what can I do for you?”

“Tactical plans,” Weith said, waving a map. “Need you to weigh in.”

“We got a location already?” Dyn asked.

“Five, actually,” Weith said. “Caleb and Nai’s filter worked like a charm though. Five clear hotspots on the map, all of which are tied to known criminal groups. So we’ve still got to narrow down which ones are our Mak supremacists.”

“I’m surprised anyone on the ground shared information with us,” Dyn said. “These aren’t exactly the upstanding and respectable colonies on Cammo-Caddo.”

“It wasn’t anyone from Mistina colony governance,” Weith said. “Detective Loen got us the records from one of the planetary agencies.”

“…Interesting…?” Dyn said. “…It’s just I fail to see why you’ve come to me.”

“Because, my medical mind, you,” Weith said, “I need your help figuring out what our takeoff and landing options are.”

Weith plopped a printout map of Mistina, the largest city on the…well, he didn’t remember which continent this was, and the map wasn’t labeled.

It was either Guni or Nomas. Maybe Spel? Bah, there were too many to keep straight anyway.

“We’ve picked up clusters of psionic minds here, here, here, here, and here,” Weith said, pointing out each spot on the map. “Most of the planet is more than ninety percent Casti, ninety-eight percent around these parts, so non-Adept.”

“And Casti can’t reproduce the intro-module without Adept help,” Dyn noted.

“So these concentrations of psionic minds could only come from Adepts,” Weith confirmed. “Now there’s surely a few wandering around down there, but given that all five of these locations have at least some confirmed ties to different criminal groups, we think the Mak have been selling the Human’s creations…”

“Or worse, the Humans themselves,” Dyn grimaced. “It doesn’t really matter which. The Captain is interested in assaulting whichever location is holding the Humans.”

“Correct,” Weith said. “Locals won’t be friendly, so we might be taking off under fire,” Weith said. “Which is where you come in. I need to figure out how many G’s of acceleration we can take lifting off in a hurry.”

“Can the Jack handle a rapid launch without some form of gravity assistance?” Dyn asked.

“Our engines could launch the ship with no trouble even if it weighed thrice as much,” Weith said. “The problem is the mass. When you accelerate to escape velocities, the ship’s systems need to know the exact mass of the craft in order to properly calibrate thrust and acceleration. Normally takeoffs run a diagnostic test with a predetermined thrust to reverse-calculate the mass of the craft, but if we need to take on an unknown number of Human abductees immediately before launching…”

“We don’t technically know it’s a full ship’s worth of abductees down there,” Dyn said. “One human probably weighs, what, somewhere between thirty to forty kilograms? Or…no, it would depend on their age too. Caleb said a lot of them were younger than him…”

“Depending on age range and headcount, it’s possible we could be looking at a variance as much as a thousand kilograms.”

“The ship weighs a lot more than that,” Dyn noted. “Would that figure really be that significant?”

“If we were just taking off? … I could cover the difference manually,” Weith said. “Trouble is we might be launching under fire. And if a bullet hits the wrong part of the ship, we probably won’t immediately explode, but it could take out an important tube or circuit junction. And the more things that go wrong with the ship, the more likely that thousand-kilogram gap in the math will kill us.”

“Alright, talk me through what our launch conditions will be,” Dyn said. “What are each of these locations?”

On the map, the five hotspots were not uniformly distributed. Mistina colony was a multi-port city—naval and space port—with ocean to the east and north of it with the rest of the continent spanning mostly west from the city.

Three of the hotspots were on the east coast, right on the docks, all within a kilometer or two of each other.

The other two hotspots were past the western outskirts of the colony, where the city roads were quickly overshadowed by jungle. Only one of the western locations was visible through the jungle canopy at all, and if not for their psionic-sensitive filter, they’d never know the second had even been there.

“They’re all defunct factories or warehouse structures, either abandoned or condemned. All five of them are in areas that we were told aren’t very developed. High desperation areas without much stability by way of local governance or even local crime groups,” Weith reported.

“Jungle then, in every sense,” Dyn commented.

“Correct.”

“Explain our launch conditions,” the medic asked. “Our launch thrust will be the most significant concern for anyone launching, Human or otherwise.”

“I don’t know how much thrust,” Weith explained. “How much can Humans take?”

“Hard to say,” Dyn said. “Caleb is a bit of an outlier, but we know the majority of abductees will be younger than him, and children might handle high Gs far worse than adults.”

“Might?” Weith asked.

“Young Farnata muscles are smaller and weaker,” Dyn explained. “So the exercises one uses to maintain bloodflow to the brain aren’t as effective. So high Gs are more dangerous to Faranta children than adults. But Vorak young actually handle Gs better than adults because of their lower blood volume. I have no idea if either, both, or neither would apply to Humans.”

“Then…we can’t figure out more without knowing exactly who we’re getting off the surface,” Weith concluded. “That’s…inconvenient.”

“Maybe we can still figure out where then,” Dyn said turning his attention back to the map.

“We might as well head down to the cargo bay then,” Weith said. “Tasser and Shinshay are going over exactly that problem. Maybe we can put our heads together…so to speak. Not that I mean Caleb’s Coalescence trick, but…oh you know what I mean.”

They would find the Humans. It was only a matter of time.

·····

In the ship cabin they shared, two sisters sat down in front of a microphone. They had to shove Toe off to the side so he wouldn’t try crawling over to and licking the device.

One of them pressed the ‘record’ button.

‘Hi mom!’

‘Your last letter said you were missing the sound of our voices, so Nai and I decided to record you something. Say ‘hi’, sister.’

‘Hi mom. Little Nai, here. Nerin’s still ‘littler’, though.’

‘Rude. But don’t let her fool you, mom, we’ve been getting along great. I’m still not Adept, but Caleb’s psionics are really cool. You were worried about me getting along with Tasser, but he’s actually been unexpectedly good company. I feel pretty bad about before. But he and Nai have both done some cool psionic projects with me.’

‘We’ve got a lot to talk about if or when we find time to visit Dar. I know it sounds like Nerin’s bouncing off the walls about psionics, but they really are everything she’s described them as. To clarify what you were asking about in your last letter, Caleb scattered a psionic tutorial for them all over the…cosmos? Sector? What’s the word in Speropi?’

‘Sector? I’m…not sure either.’

‘Whatever. Not relevant now. The point is you probably have a few people on station who wound up with one of those psionic tutorials, mom. If you get one into the mind of an Adept on station, the tutorial can be reproduced and more people can benefit from it.’

‘Mom, it’s unbelievable. We made something that could plug into the ship’s medical machinery, and I’ve got a psionic readout for it in my head! I don’t have to look at a blood pressure readout, I don’t have to check a pulse or oximeter, the numbers are just right there in my head in real time. And that’s just afternoon fiddling we’ve done. Nai’s been working on something even crazier—’

‘Don’t snatch my attention; let me explain it!’

‘—it’s this temporary construct that degenerates over time, so you can—okay, I’ll let Nai explain it.’

‘The technical stuff isn’t that important, mom. But Nerin’s right that it’s the kind of thing that could make someone famous even more famous. So please keep my name out of it if you hear anything about ‘candle constructs’.’

‘Bah, you’re so skittish about the Warlock stuff—well okay, no. You have a good reason for that.’

‘See mom? She and I really are getting along better.’

‘Ahaha! It’s true though. We’ve gotten to spend real time that doesn’t revolve around fighting Vorak or sewing wounds. Plus we’ve gotten to help some poor lost people in the process. Kids even.’

‘Caleb’s older than you, though.’

‘By like three weeks…we did the math and everything! Human years are shorter than ours anyway, it barely counts.’

‘Don’t get distracted, mom’s going to hear all of this.’

‘Right, what were we talking about?’

‘Nerin and I are getting along great, mom. She’s handling ship life better than most, but I’d forgotten she mumbles in her sleep.’

‘Your stupid worm is the worst part about rooming with you! But maybe that’s a good thing. If the worst part is that mild, right?’

‘You’re just lucky this ship isn’t a combat deployment. The galley on those ships is pathetic; the kitchen gear doesn’t work half the time. And even if it did, the rations those ships get is one step removed from wood chips.’

‘We haven’t made it to a town-hall mixer since we left Lakandt, so that’s a little lame. But the rest of the crew has been great. We’ve been tracking down these Humans and we’re finally making some progress.’

‘There might be some dangerous stages to the mission in the near future, but I don’t want you worrying. We can take care of ourselves.’

‘WE don’t want you worrying…’

‘We know you will worry anyway, but thank you for thinking of us. We’re thinking of you too, and we’re both going to make sure we’re both okay. So worry all you want. But we don’t want to just talk about ourselves. What about you? How’s the station doing? Have you made any progress on those poems? Are you thinking about–never mind, actually.’

‘Oh, yes! Mom, you aren’t the only one thinking about someone nice. Nai had a crush on this Farnata we met on Sidar. Get this: he’s a detective!’

‘Shut up, you brat. Mom doesn’t need to hear about that.’

‘Yeah, she does.’

‘Well, she doesn’t want to.’

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‘No, mom definitely wants to hear this.’

‘Nerin!’

“I know you’re all embarrassed to have a crush on someone, but let mom be happy for you!’

‘He’s too old. He’s practically Tiv’s age.’

‘Tiv’s not that old…just saying.’

‘You’re just loving this, aren’t you?’

‘Nai’s got a CRUSH, how can I not be?’

‘You little imp!’

The recording was drowned out by incomprehensible scuffle between the sisters. No real hostility could be heard across the recording. Just offended gasps and energetic clamor.

‘Hey, cheater! Adeptry is no fair!’

‘Sorry to end it like this mom, but we’ll send you some written letters too. Love you.’

‘Love you too!’

·····

Dustin stared at Caleb’s message. The newest one was less ‘informing’ and more ‘pleading’ though. He hadn’t expected to get a call for help, even humble as this one was.

The Jackie Robinson was certainly having interesting times. Then again, so were Nora’s crew on Archo.

Officially, they were recognized as the ‘Terran Enclave’.

But its many residents had taken to calling it ‘the Mission’. It had started when the majority of campers learned they were living in a defunct Casti church. There were no stucco walls or southwestern architecture, but there were several canopied walkways, pavilions, a wall surrounding the place, and slanted roofs despite no rain. It wasn’t exactly Spanish architecture, but it served as a recognizable enough alien analogue. Plus, with the original four ships’ abductees all hailed from California, so the name ‘Mission’ had stuck.

It was probably the only thing they’d agreed on as a group for months.

When all the abductees had been in Vorak custody, they’d banded together a bit more easily. There had been a clear enemy, if a complicated one.

But the initial group of seventy abductees had been joined by another quartet of A-ships from another system. Ninety-six more abductees had thrown their group dynamic for a loop.

Getting to know new people like Ken and Josie was great, but more people quickly led to some infighting, not all of it important.

If Dustin had to listen to one more middle schooler spout something political this far away from Earth, he was going to lose it.

When Savannah and Nick had tracked down another quartet of A-ships, Dustin had thought the Mission really would turn into a bomb.

But so far, Nora was uncontested in her role as den-mother, big cheese, and queen bitch of the block. Conflicts were ongoing, but not vicious. Resources were thinning, but not hemorrhaging.

Occasionally, he thought it was weird no one seemed to notice how good Nora was at her job.

No one thought she was bad, certainly, but Dustin couldn’t help but feel like he was watching someone perform a task so well that onlookers failed to recognize how impressive it actually was.

She was only nineteen—scratch that, she had to be twenty by now—but she was handling regular meetings with alien colony officials, diplomats from systems, scientific queries, and more. The list was exhaustive, and she made sure they were prepared for all of them.

She had help, sure, but Dustin couldn’t help but be unnerved by how good she was at adapting to the demands placed upon her. Things still went wrong all the time. But the whole group had grown, and they were coordinating better and better to weather each crisis.

But it was specifically Nora who kept disasters from repeating themselves.

The first Vorak to visit the Mission outside the Red Sails had actually pulled a gun when a passing camper did some casual Adeptry without thinking. Dustin had been proud of everyone when they’d immediately tackled the Vorak the second the weapon cleared its holster. It had still been a very tense moment.

But it was defused when Halax and Trakin had a rare moment of agreement. The two had laughed at the visitor for being so unprofessional and disassembled the pistol on the spot. They hadn’t even returned the weapon’s pieces.

After that, Nora had talked with Jacob, Michelle, Dustin, Tox, Halax, Trakin, and a bunch of other people and gotten feedback on what could be done to avoid similar situations in the future.

A simple disarmament policy had been implemented for visiting military personnel. According to the technical terms of Tox and Nora’s agreement with the colony, the Mission grounds were to be treated as sovereign soil. So it was fun watching the Deep Coils and Glittering Abyss visitors surrender their weapons. The rule couldn’t be enforced for visiting Adepts, but they got extra scrutiny anyway—primarily from Dustin himself.

It was an obvious solution, surely, but it was just one of many. The more he thought about it, Nora’s skills might truly lie in crafting permanent solutions again and again. When she landed on a solution, it stuck.

The plumbing problem they’d run into two months ago? Temporary Adept pipes, while she tracked down other buildings and institutions in the Asrin-Dane colony that had problems with their water. Sharing problems meant sharing solutions, and those locals had been eager to cooperate if it meant getting their own similar chronic problem fixed.

The low oxygen content of standard Casti atmospheres had been fixed by a fruitful trip to the Organic Authority. The whole mission enclave was covered by a redundant air barrier now, and the humans’ increased oxygen needs were being neatly covered by some engineered plants the Org had cultivated previously, now cleared for human safety.

Dustin didn’t even want to think about the headache that feeding this many abductees had to entail. But Nora had talked to every Organic Authority office on the moon and several on the planet below. Food drives were apparently something aliens took in stride, and every abductee had been enjoying human-compatible food for months now.

No matter what life threw at them, Nora made sure they were ready to tackle it. It felt a bit like playing rock-paper-scissors against an opponent who wasn’t allowed to repeat a throw. Any crisis they withstood could be put behind them, and they still won a few hands too. Eventually, life would run out of things they weren’t already prepared for.

But even with Nora’s wizardry, there was one problem that had proved to be truly chronic: skittish locals.

No more than four consecutive days had passed without someone in the surrounding colony raising some complaint. The colony police force had rolled up to the Mission gates five times in the last two weeks, armed and ready for a confrontation with the abductees inside.

Word had gotten out that more than thirty Adepts were all living in the same place, and that had a lot of local Casti spooked. Rumors were flying through their colony at lightspeed, and certain Casti circles perceived too many Adepts in one place as something like a WMD.

After the second time, the police seemed to catch on, but they were still obligated to respond to the calls because it wasn’t just one or two crank callers.

Annoying as the pattern was, it wasn’t unexpected. Nora had Dustin organize rudimentary and develop some practice drills within the first two weeks. It had been a recurring opportunity to make themselves known to local police and preempt paranoia.

The Mission was prepared for anything short of an organized assault.

So Caleb’s message was making Dustin’s brain itch.

His first instinct was to stomp up to Halax or Tox and consult them about Caleb’s situation, the pirates, Askior system, and figure out what information he could track down to help.

No part of that plan involved talking to Nora. She’d put communicating with Caleb firmly in his hands. And while he shared Caleb’s messages with all the camp counselors and leaders of the new ships of abductees, Dustin was really the one in charge of managing the Mission’s relationship with Caleb. It was his responsibility to solve the problem. So he would solve it.

…But he was also trying to cultivate more cooperative relationships. Fact was, he didn’t have a clue where to start and asking for help was a bit like pulling his own teeth.

Dustin fought that reaction and resolved to do things properly. That meant showing Tox or Nora, and Tox was a slimy furball.

“[I’m leery to ask widely about a potential military target,]” Nora said.”[Just asking about this ‘Kemon’ could put him in the crosshairs of fleets we aren’t so friendly with.]”

“[There’s fleets we’re friendly with?]” Dustin deadpanned. The Red Sails were technically their closest allies right now, but it hadn’t been that long ago they were detaining humans too.

“[Ha. Ha,]” she deadpanned right back. “[…But seriously Dustin, I don’t know how much help we can be to him in another system. It sounds like their situation is unfolding rapidly.]”

“[I know, I don’t think we can offer any backup before things hit the fan,]” he said.

“[But maybe we can help with the fallout. Right now, they’re picking up humans the ‘Kemon’-fucker left behind, all the while he’s got more abductees God knows where.]”

“[Rescuing those kids slows down rescuing the rest,]” Nora nodded.

“[We are prepared to keep taking extra mouths,]” he pointed out. “[If Caleb doesn’t have to slow down to help whoever he finds, they can be hot on Kemon’s heels.]”

“[We are not prepared to take in forty-eight more abductees all at once,]” Nora said. She was trying not to let any worry creep into her voice, but she largely failed.

What did you do with dozens more mouths to feed all at once? Who had to starve? Would they even starve? Even if the mission had enjoyed bizarre and lively alien food recently, they could still resort to more nutrient block rations if they had to.

He recognized some of the same thoughts playing across Nora’s face.

“[Can we not pay for food?]” he asked.

“[…It’s not that bad yet,]” Nora said.”[But it will be unless we find better income.]”

“[I know you hate this idea,]” Dustin said slowly. “[But we have a bunch of Adepts. Caleb’s crew has been monetizing the shit out of just two of them to stay afloat. Everyone here is ready to pitch in however they’re needed.]”

“[I don’t want us selling ourselves,]” Nora said.

“[But we might have to sell our skills. Or at least labor. We’ve already got internal assignments, chores, study groups, that kind of thing. Ask anyone if they’re prepared to work for alien money to keep us all fed.”

“[Yeah, you’re right; I know how everyone would answer that,]” she said. “[It would free up some resources…]”

“[Like a ship?]” Dustin asked.

“[Why a ship?]”

“[I want to take one to help Caleb,]” Dustin said earnestly. “[We can take abductees off his hands and let him keep going after the rest, especially if you solve this cash problem.]”

“[He won’t come back with you,]” Nora said.

“[Yeah. I know,]” Dustin nodded. “[But his differences with you be damned; he’s still one of us, isn’t he?]”

Nora eyed him suspiciously, trying to find his angle. But he was taking Jacob’s advice to heart: permission instead of forgiveness.

He could see in her eyes she wasn’t going to go for it. It would take crucial resources away from other demands, not to mention people to fly the ship.

Think, Dustin, think! There had to be something to convince her. Something to—

“[…The Ares],” Nora said. “[But strictly for this. You cannot dilly-dally, take the scenic route, or wander down any detours. You meet up with Caleb, take whoever he gives you, and you come right back, understood?]”

“[Y-yeah! Understood,]” Dustin nodded, too stunned to say anything else.

Nora stared at his face, catching his surprise.

“[…Is this that out of character for me?]”

“[No, no I just didn’t think we actually had the people to spare.]”

She grimaced at that.

“[We don’t. You’re going to have to fly with Vorak mostly. They’ve been hounding me about taking another look at the A-ships since…well, you know.]”

“[Kind of weird they bothered to ask],” Dustin observed.

“[You forget what Caleb said on his way out of the system? I think, at the very least, the Marshal believed him. They’ve been giving us a wide berth since then.]”

“[Who knew they’d respond to threats so well?]” he chuckled.

She eyed him coolly, and Dustin felt his skin crawl. She hadn’t been too happy to learn of his recklessness in her absence.

“[Take Michelle and Caroline with you,]” Nora instructed.

Dustin raised his eyebrow. Why Michelle would benefit from meeting Caleb was obvious. But…

“[Why send Caroline?]” he asked, getting a smarmy grin. “[She in the doghouse; you need some space?]”

“[We’re not dating,]” Nora said easily. “[But I do want her to meet him, for…complicated reasons. And someone has to keep you from getting any fights while you’re gone.]”

“[Sure],” he said, not pressing her. Jabbing at the boss could be fun, but there was still a line. “[I didn’t think you’d let me go at all, so I’ll take whoever you send with me.]”

“[You’re on your own stockpiling supplies,]” she said. “[Talk to Tox and Halax to actually get crew for the ship. I’m marking the Ares for departure thirty-eight hours from now, so get moving.]”

“[Yes, ma’am,]” Dustin nodded, turning to leave. No sense delaying preparations.

“[And make sure you catch Caleb up properly!]” Nora called after him. “[No more of this pen-pal pussyfooting! He needs to know what happened with ENVY.]”

“[Yes, mom,]” he drawled.