Tales from the Service: A Knife in the Dark

2947-09-03 – Tales from the Service: A Knife in the Dark

As you might imagine, learning that the enemy in this conflict is a Terran offshoot culture two weeks ago has led to a bit of civil unrest here on the Coreward Frontier. Most worlds have initiated a crackdown on counterhuman underground groups, believing them to be a vector of enemy infiltration. Up to this point, dubiously-legal counterhuman groups on Frontier worlds have been largely ignored or even tolerated – the culture out here seems to favor a “live and let live” approach to odd neighbors, even the worst degenerates.

On some worlds, I am even seeing reports that the crackdown has devolved into crude mob justice, which of course should be condemned. Almost all of the counterhumans on the Frontier are neither Ladeonist insurgents nor spies for the Sagittarian “Incarnation,” and extra-legal persecution is not an appropriate reaction.

I’ve seen many local datasphere commentators suggesting that the Yaxkin City blast yesterday (which I am still unable to find proper casualty figures or a suspected cause for as of this writing) is a result of lax security and a lack of war footing in the Core Worlds, and I fear that they have a point. Because of the asymmetric way this war is being fought, with the Navy fending off a series of increasingly sophisticated probes and raids in the Frontier, I doubt most of the population centers have increased their security. Perhaps this incident was not related to Incarnation efforts, but I fear it’s only a matter of time before the Incarnation finds a way to hurt populations in the Core Worlds.

Though the over-zealous populations of Frontier worlds likely are not chasing real enemy agents, I have no doubt such agents exist. In particular, I suspect Paz from Tales from the Service: A Stowaway Saboteur was an Incarnation agent – the focus on disabling mercenary patrol forces is at odds with usual Ladeonist behavior. I have been sent several other stories of odd agents sabotaging or infiltrating rear-echelon and mercenary forces in the same manner, and this week I received an account of one such agent attempting a similar feat on a Fifth Fleet cruiser on patrol near Margaux.

Rozalie U. crouched behind a pile of crated parts, listening to the soft pad of feet as someone crossed the maintenance bay beyond. As she checked the battery and magazine of her side-arm, Rozalie knew that despite all wartime security measures, Johan Origen had intruders aboard.

Rozalie had wandered down to her beloved maintenance bay after battling insomnia for four hours, determined to start her shift early by pulling the drive out of a Hookscale sensor-picket launch which had come down just before she’d clocked out the previous day. In theory, she would have had the bay to herself until the remainder of the first shift arrived; Origen had no third-shift strike maintenance crew.

At first, Rozalie had thought the intruder might be another insomnia-affected tech or officer, but a query on her wrist unit had dispelled that wishful thinking. According to the computer, there was nobody in the maintenance bay except Rozalie herself, which also accounted for the fact that the compartment remained at minimum illumination. Somehow, someone had boarded the ship and dodged the security systems, and she couldn’t speculate as to how.

Tapping out a quick, silent message to the third-shift security chief, Rozalie wondered how much damage the intruder could do in the minutes it would take to muster a proper response. The Hookscale picket and two gunships sat unguarded in the bay, and each would be called upon to take three brave Navy strike personnel out into the void the next time the captain called for a strike-craft sweep or Origen tangled with a Sagittarian raider. A skilled saboteur could render each a death-trap in ways it would take the maintenance personnel weeks to undo, if they discovered it at all.

Taking a deep breath, Rozalie peeked around her cover, and spotted a shadow moving between the fabricator work-benches and the boxy Hookscale picket. The possibilities were, she realized, far more dire than sabotaging the launches. The engine reactors of the craft in the bay had been bled dry of phased-matter fuel for safety, but the means to refuel one were lying all around. It would be a simple matter to turn one of the launches into a bomb, then instruct it to begin a pre-flight warm-up. The resulting explosion might not destroy Johan Origen outright, but it could easily cripple the cruiser and kill dozens.

Rozalie knew she couldn’t wait. Switching off her side-arm’s safety, she watched the shadow disappear behind the Hookscale, then crept out into the open middle of the bay.

A clatter and a clank told her she had been right – the intruder had removed the access cowling from the Hookscale’s dodgy drive system, just as she herself would have done to begin servicing it. The apparatus to pull the drive core out of the launch, however, remained inert.

As Rozalie crept closer, she heard the beeping and hissing of a phased-matter bottle being hooked up to the launch. Even a barely-fueled drive unit could create a terrific explosion if its containment vessel were to fail during warm-up, before the safety interlocks and scram system had engaged. Worse still, such a blast would flood nearby space with all manner of strange-particle and phased-particle emissions, condemning any initial survivors to an agonizing few hours of life as their cells misfired and eventually died. She couldn’t risk leaving the intruder to his own devices any longer. With a pair of long strides, she rounded the prow of the picket launch, bringing her gun up to point at the intruder.

Whoever he was, he moved fast. In a blur of motion, the figure leapt over the phased-matter bottle between them and sprung at Rozalie. Something gleamed wickedly in each of his hands as the white-hot gout of plasma from her coilgun reached out to meet him in mid-air.

“Hells, Lieutenant, you’re alive?”

Rozalie opened her eyes through the throbbing pain of a headache to see the third-shift head of security bending over her, a gun in his hand pointed half-heartedly at something. She was lying prone under the Hookscale’s nose antenna, with the smell of burning flesh and the beeping of weapons-fire alarms filling the maintenance bay. “He was fueling the-” She struggled to get up, only for the security chief to push her back down. “What happened?” A lump in her throat made her voice sound funny in her own ears.

“Better stay down. Medics are on the way.”

The burnt-flesh smell told Rozalie that her one shot had been accurate. A coil-gun rarely killed its victims, but the agonizing skin burns it inflicted usually took all the fight out of them. Apparently, the saboteur had overpowered her despite being hurt badly enough to fill the compartment with the smell of his cooked flesh. “Where is he?”

“Gone. We’re still looking for him.”

Rozalie tried to anyway, and the movement nearly cost her what consciousness she’d recovered. The pain was incredible; it was as if someone had wedged a knife between the bones of her neck. “How bad am I hurt?”

The look on the security officer’s face was enough for Rozalie to know her wounds were serious. “As long as you stay still, you’ll be fine.”

“How bad?” Rozalie lifted her hands and started patting her torso, looking for wounds she couldn’t feel. She found nothing on her groin, stomach, or chest, but a warm, wet feeling against the back of her head suggested blood pooling on the deck below her. When she tried to feel her neck and head, the security officer stopped her. “Don’t do that.” He forced her hands down onto her chest. “Leave it for the medics.”

Rozalie closed her eyes and focused on breathing slowly until a team of medics clattered into the bay and hurriredly set up their treatment kits at her side. The first one started dabbing around her throat with a clotting pad. “Stars around, what a mess. Get me-”

Rozalie opened her eyes to see three more concerned looks, like the one on the security officer. “How bad is it?”

Her voice caused the man to jump back in surprise. “Conscious? How-”

One of the other medics injected something into Rozalie’s arm, and immediately her body felt fuzzy and distant. “Must have missed the jugular by a millimeter. Leave it until we can get back to medical. Going to need…”

As her consciousness began to fade under the pressure of strong sedatives, Rozalie’s eyes fell shut. “Check… Make sure…” She tried to tell them to check the Hookscale picket, to verify that the saboteur had not completed his work, but the world slipped away too quickly.

Rozalie U. sent in this story from her bed in a Maribelan infirmary, to which she was transferred after an encounter with what can only be an Incarnation agent. She stumbled on the saboteur in the act and interrupted his activities, but barely survived the encounter. The saboteur was eventually cornered and killed after he injured two other personnel aboard Johan Origen. Oddly, he remained capable of fighting and great mobility despite being badly burned across his chest and face; I would guess that the implant use seen in all captured Incarnation personnel gives them some ability to ignore pain and physical injury, perhaps through the automatic application of pain-killers and stimulants.

Though Rozalie survived, she told me in her message that she expects a medical discharge; the damage to her cervical vertebrae will probably never fully heal. I hope her commander has recommended her actions to the Fifth Fleet’s board of merit; this support-department officer singlehandedly took on a deadly enemy agent armed only with a coilgun, and may have saved many of her crewmates from horrific death.

Details

Tales from the Service: The Incarnation Plantation

2947-08-27 - Tales from the Service: The Incarnation Plantation

The implications of the news we helped Naval Intelligence break on Cosmic Background’s various datasphere domains and outlets are still being worked out, but the fact that the so-called Sagittarians are in fact Terran stock is at this point beyond doubt. The Navy claims that the Fifth Fleet has captured twelve prisoners alive, most of them following strike sorties on the far side of the Gap. They claim to be members of a formal military (not surprising given the sophisticated, standardized warships used) fighting for something called the Incarnation. Apparently, this is either a religious or governmental organization, and I don’t think even Naval Intelligence has figured out which. 

As he is a familiar name on this feed, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Captain Bosch and his relatively light squadron are specifically credited with two of these prisoners. Congratulations to the good captain for his successes in the field, and I hope he and his officers are well. 

Though the Law of the Spacelanes is clear about what is to be done with combatant prisoners, but the Navy has not publicly announced the names or conditions of the persons in custody. This either means that the Law is not being applied to this conflict (I shudder to think of the reasons this might be the case), or that the Navy has a direct line of communication to this Sagittarian faction. If it does have such a connection, I would guess it is through a cooperative Ladeonist cell, which would explain why they are not advertising this fact. 

Hopefully the Navy will reveal to us in the future their theory as to the origins of a Terran breakaway society as far from Sol as Sagittarius. Though they are counterhumans like the Ladeonist sect and seem to have determined to preserve their independence by leading raids and minor offensives into the Coreward Frontier, their nature so similar to our own probably improves our chance of reaching an understanding to end the fighting. The hard-line traditionalists might disagree, but I would rather try to negotiate peace with a mostly-human opponent than with a total unknown. 

This week’s story comes to me from an interrogator who claims to have engaged in lengthy discussions with a somewhat cooperative (though haughty) Sagittarian pilot, captured after the minor raid at Margaux three weeks ago. I cannot verify his claims, but as it is as plausible a window into the lives of citizens (or adherents) of this Sagittarius "Incarnation.” 

The prisoner who this story allegedly comes from is not named; the name given is an alias chosen by my source. She named their home-world only as “Prospero”, and according to my source reacted with confusion when asked for its location. Even so, she apparently provided several anecdotes about what life on Prospero was like in her youth (probably because they seem to be of little military value, and take a long time to tell), and it is one of these which my source has apparently elected to share.

Selima straightened and hefted her agri-tool to her shoulder the moment her implant software switched from labor-focus mode to leisure-mode, signaling the end of her final work day on the plantation. As she and the other dozen-odd members of the day’s work party headed toward the equipment shed at the center of the field, she noticed that the blue-white disk of the stellar primary had not yet touched distant Lux Ridge. The Incarnation would be well pleased, and the thought filled her with joy. Her cadre had finished their three months of work on time – more than that, they had finished with hours to spare.

Carefully stepping around the hexagonal, shiny growths of the plantation’s burgeoning crop, Selima imagined the second sunlight of the Cause's approval falling on her and the other members of the cadre. Together, they had done well, and the fruits of their labor would build a better future. The Incarnation would use what they had nurtured to preserve humanity a little while longer from oblivion.

Uri reached the tool-shed first, its iris door opened automatically. One by one, each of the others handed him their agri-tools, which he flicked into storage mode and stacked in the rack within the sturdy little structure. No words were exchanged – none were needed. All were tired, but not bone-tired as they would be after the usual dawn-to-dark field shift, and all were basking in the same exuberance that rewarded a job well done. The next morning, a skilled harvester party would arrive to carry away their crop for processing, and the next work party would be selected to plant and tend anew. Selima, Uri, and the rest of the party would be taken back to their homes, to resume the lives which their selection for field service had put on hold. 

As the group left the field which they had worked every day for three months, Selima turned around to examine the neat pattern of well-tended, uniform crops they were leaving behind. She would never know what their work would build, but she wasn't curious. They were obviously not a food crop, but only a tech specialist could guess what purpose they served once processed.

The first half of the three-kilometer walk back to the workers’ burrows was completed silently, but the excitement and nervous energy of the group could not be constrained for long, even by the calming efforts of implant leisure-mode. Selima remembered how many nights she had staggered back to her bunk in the dark under Prospero’s gorgeous canopy of stars, and thanked the implant's guidance system for helping her reach the burrows safely every time. The crops of the Incarnation field were demanding and prone to many forms of loss, but her work-party, guided by the Incarnation’s implant software, had guided the transformation of seven hundred glistening jewel-like cuttings into mature crops, losing only two to the many forms of loss which bioengineered flora were prone.

The muttering of conversation ahead carried on a cool breeze as the others grouped up ahead of Selima speculated about the Incarnation’s plans for the next planting seasons, but she did not join in the speculation. It would be a joy to be selected for another plantation cycle – the implant software saw to that – but she knew she would not be. She would be twenty T-years of age in five local days, and the Incarnation had long since marked her to be conditioned as a starship pilot. Her above-average genetic disposition toward fast reflexes and quick thinking would carry her away from peaceful, pastoral life on Prospero before the next planting season began - perhaps even to the front lines of the unfortunate but necessary conflict the news-feeds spoke of - the war instigated by humanity's more primitive majority.

The path underfoot joined others, and other work parties leaving other fields in the plantation began to join Selima's. In the distance, a few flood-lights glowed, revealing plots where a work-party still labored, as their harvest was not ready. Selima pitied those few, who would toil and pamper the specially chosen floral buds until they were fit for the Incarnation’s purpose.

“I am going to miss this.” Uri appeared at Selima’s shoulder, turning his head to watch the spectacular colors of a Prospero sunset. “Not the work. The walk back in the cool evening with you, under the stars.” He seemed to want to say more, but fell silent.

Selima frowned. “Uri, surely you will also miss the work.” How could he not? The implants saw to that.

The young man sighed. He was half a year younger than Selima, but several centimeters taller, both muscular and ruggedly picturesque. He was even from a village only ten kilometers from her own home. Were she not destined for service away from Prospero, Selima might have considered him a likely breeding partner, but as things were she had settled for a few lights-out liasons when the work schedule left them the energy to enjoy each others’ company. “Of course... how could I forget the work? But I will miss these cool evenings most of all.”

Selima shrugged. The plantation compound, like hundreds more like it, was far from the population-centers, but the remoteness did not inspire her appreciation. “It was a joy to serve, but I welcome the return.” The stars, for her, were not a backdrop, but a destination and a promise. The stars were a ticking clock: they had seen the beginnings and ends of the Xenarchs and many other species greater than humanity. Someday, when she was long gone, the Incarnation would at last fail to preserve Terran-kind from its own extinction.

They were silent for several seconds, as an excitedly-chattering group from another work party passed by. When they had passed, Uri spoke again. “When do you ship out for the academy?”

“When the Incarnation wills. If the Grand Plan remains unchanged, I expect to depart within thirty local days.” Twenty was the age beyond which Prospero’s settlers were released from their local burden to take up greater burdens beyond their relatively young world. The day after she came of that age, Selima suspected, her implant’s software would change modes, and guide her where she needed to be. The prospect filled her with vastly more anticipation than fear.

“Then it is likely tomorrow will be good-bye.” Uri nodded at the distant horizon. “The burden given to me will be far lighter.”

Selima put her hand on his arm. “You are strong and capable. Your burden will be like my mother’s, to help build the foundations of the future here on Prospero.”

“If that is what it takes.” Uri turned to face Selima, searching her eyes. What did he want? Surely he knew he could not go with her, and she could not stay. To do so would be to risk the salvation of all Terran-kind. “I won’t forget you, Selima.”

“Nor I you, Uri.” Selima’s smile faltered in confusion for only a moment. How could she forget? The implants would ensure that all facts serviceable to the Incarnation would remain as long as she lived.

Momentary though it was, Uri picked up on Selima’s uncertainty. With a heavy sigh, he put an arm around her, hugged her close for several seconds, then loped ahead, vanishing into the press of a large group of animatedly-talking plantation laborers.

Details

Tales from the Service: Benedictine Bonds of Blood

2947-08-20 – Tales from the Service: Benedictine Bonds of Blood 

Last week I mentioned in this space rumors surrounding the “Benedict Dispatch” - an intelligence payload making its way through the Fifth Fleet. Repeated queries to Naval Intelligence were met with silence on this issue, but two days ago, a small team of NI agents visited Nojus and myself on Saint-Lô to discuss our coverage of the Benedict rumors, or rather, our lack thereof. 

Because we avoided covering any of the rumors, Cosmic Background has been given permission to reveal the contents of the dispatch to the public, now that Naval Intelligence has determined its revalation will not compromise the military situation. I have seen much of the contents of the report filed as NIFR-1-0801, which was shown to our team in Captain Liao’s quarters, on his high-security terminal. 

Though the contents of this report will be the topic of several segments on the vidcast program in the upcoming week (the first being set for tomorrow, though I’ve already recorded my part), I received permission to reveal the dossier’s key finding in a novel way – though today’s Tales from the Service. 

The events described are not isolated. Throughout Fifth Fleet’s elements, similar scenes have been playing out for weeks. That Naval Intelligence suppressed the rumors until it was certain is a testament to the discipline of fleet personnel – most of all, its hard-working datasphere mail censors. At first, the nature of the dozens of captured strike and scout crews was thought to be a ruse or a trick to sap Navy discipline, but our visitors assured us that they have good evidence that the captured entities were the standards stock of the sapients we have been calling Sagittarians. 

 

“There must be some mistake.” Katarin tossed the data-reader onto the table in the direction of her chief medical officer. She had been expecting to learn interesting things from the autopsy of the charred body – apparently a Sagittarian, as her own strike squadron hadn’t lost any personnel – picked up by the recovery tug after the most recent skirmish. They hadn’t expected bodies, given that the vehicles launched by the encroaching Tyrant cruiser had been identified as semi-autonomous drones rather than crewed strike launches, but one had tumbled into visual range of her own stranded strike-jocks. It was a one in ten million chance – or so she’d thought. 

The medical chief fidgeted, but eventually slid the reader back across the table, all eyes on him. “I assure you there is not, Captain. The body was only vac-frozen for a few hours, and shrapnel in the torso matches the scrap shards we’ve picked up after other run-ins with those tiny launches. They aren’t drones. This sapient was a pilot.” 

“That is not what I meant by a mistake, Chief.” Katarin glared. “This shows that the body is-” 

“Human, yes.” 

Confirmation drew murmurs from the other officers in the briefing. The medical personnel had gossiped, of course, but it seemed nobody had totally believed the rumors until Chief Kraemer said it aloud. 

“Are you sure it wasn’t a third party that got caught in the tangle?” Roydon, the gunnery chief, seemed to know his objection was almost absurd, but it seemed less unbelievable than what the autopsy report claimed. “Maybe one of those Ladeonist espionage ships the intel boys are always screaming about?” 

The chief of strike operations cleared his throat to signal that he would take the question. “Nothing reported by any of the crews, visual or on the scopes. That body came from one of the five bogies we slagged.” He didn’t mention the loss of two Magpies in the engagement, though the loss ratio weighed heavily on everyone. The crews had ejected safely, but replacing state-of-the-art gunships all the way out on the Frontier was no easy task. 

“I can find nothing to suggest otherwise, Captain.” Chief Kraemer stood up to point at a certain section of his report. “Human, but not entirely human. In addition to implanted picocircuitry in the head, back, and arms, this pilot was just about swimming in resident nanomachinery. We’re still working on the function.” 

Katarin’s skin crawled at the idea. Macro-scale implants were bad enough, but surrendering one’s bloodstream and tissues as a hive for insidious nanites on a long-term basis nauseated her more than the idea of tearing out an eye and replacing it with a machine. “Counterhuman. Maybe the Ladeonist angle isn’t too far off. We’ve gotten reports that they’re operating in the same systems as-” 

“I thought of that, too.” Kraemer swiped down to another section of findings, and flicked it off the reader onto the table’s main holo-projector. “So we dug through the contents of the stomach. We found several food proteins which match no processor recipe or organism in the database, but we found something else.” Another flick, and an image of several teardrop-shaped black motes appeared. “These are seeds from an unidentified floral specimen. It was cooked and eaten. There’s nothing in this being’s diet to suggest a food-processor provided his diet. Even the Ladeonists don’t do that aboard ship.” 

“They carry their foodstores whole?” Quartermaster Matos shook his head in amazement. “The supply chain for that must be-” 

“What?” The strike chief cupped one hand to his ear, then looked up in alarm. “Captain, one of our recovery tugs is returning at emergency speed. They found one of the bogies out there in the debris field, almost intact.” 

“Intact. That might mean-” Katarin jumped to her feet, tapping her own comm earpiece. “Sergeant Beatty, round up a squad of Marines and meet me in the strike bay.” Looking at the officers clustered around the briefing-room table, she pointed to the Chief Kraemer. “With me. Everyone else, dismissed.” 

In the moment of shocked silence which the other officers spent digesting the implications of the news, Katarin was already out the door. To his credit, Kraemer caught up as she reached the lift. “I’ve called ahead for a medical isolation team.” 

“Excellent.” Katarin keyed in the destination, and the lift hurtled through her ship to the strike bay, at the aft end of the uppermost pressure decks. 

“Captain, what’s going to happen when the crew realizes we’re fighting humans?” 

“They’re going to do their duty, Chief. It changes nothing.” 

“But-” 

The lift reached its destination and Katarin hurried out, reaching the reinforced hatchway into the strike hangar just ahead of a tromping column of bulky-suited Navy Marines. Though their combat helmets covered their faces, the gold stripes on the leading suit’s shoulders and chest identified Sergeant Beatty. As a unit, the Marines stopped and saluted snappily, their armored gauntlets clicking neatly against their helmet brows. 

Katarin returned the salute, then waved them at ease. “The recovery tug is bringing in a mostly-intact enemy strike ship, Sergeant. The Chief here found foreign nanotech on the body we brought in earlier, so keep your environment seals on. If the pilot threatens the medical team, shoot to kill.” 

“Aye, Captain.” Beatty formed up his men in front of the hatch, then keyed it open. Just as the last rank tromped through, a trio of medics in far lighter vacsuits jogged up behind them. They saluted, but did not break pace; Kraemer had already told them what to do. 

As soon as the medics had entered the hangar, Katarin followed, though she was without a protective suit. The tug was still several minutes away, so she took her time finding a personnel shuttle whose cockpit viewpanel faced the correct berth, and let herself and the medical chief inside. 

“Are you sure this is wise, Captain?” Kraemer hovered behind the two crash-padded pilots’ couches in the shuttle cockpit long after Katarin had taken a seat. “We can watch just as easily from the ready-room.” 

Katarin ignored him; the vast cylinder of the strike recovery airlock had begun to turn its open side outward to space. Tuning her comm to the strike operations channel, she listened idly to the chatter of the excited tug pilot and the futile attempts by the operations crew to calm him. 

At last, the giant lock turned full circle, and the tug eased into the a-grav of the pads with exaggerated care. Clamped against its port side was a little wisp of a ship that Katarin still couldn’t believe supported a pilot. Barely six meters long and two across, the vessel’s outer hull had been cracked and punctured by several railshot strikes, but the central body – where the pilot surely resided – appeared intact. 

Technicians in heavy-lift suits scrambled forward to detach the captured strike-ship and lower it to the deck while some of Beatty’s Marines leveled their oversized weapons. Though the hangar atmosphere was quite breathable, Katarin had no doubt every person assigned to the task was keeping their environment seals safely on. Infection by hostile nanomachinery could easily be one of the most agonizing ways to die. 

Failing to find a catch to open the central pod of the little ship, the technicians resorted to cutting. Though they used mechanical rather than thermal tools, sparks flew across the landing pad as the tiny ship’s thin armor resisted. Katarin’s breath caught in her throat as the workmen tore free a meter-long chunk of its frame, then jumped back without looking inside. 

Sergeant Beatty, not one to order others to take risks for him, stepped forward and jabbed his weapon into the opening. After a few seconds, he stepped back, and a humanoid figure sat up in the opening, sweeping the hangar with the gaze of an oversized, featureless helmet. A mess of cables and wires connected the being’s flight suit – and perhaps biological functions – to the crippled ship, but even as the captain watched, these umbilicals fell away of their own accord. 

“Pilot appears uninjured.” Beatty reported. “No visible weapons. Isolation team forward.” 

The medics hurried forward as the pilot extracted the last few tethers and climbed slowly out of his ship. With his oversized, reflective helmet above a slim build accentuated by his tight-fitting flight suit, the Sagittarian pilot resembled an insect more than a human – even so, Katarin counted five fingers on his gloved hands. 

At a gesture from Beatty, the pilot reached up slowly to disengage the catches on his helmet and lift it off his head. Katarin held her breath, as did Kraemer and, she suspected, half the flight ops personnel. When a shock of reddish hair spilled out of the confines of the helmet, and a shockingly young, vividly human face glared defiantly at the armored Marines, Katarin could doubt no longer. “They are human.” Even as she said it, she saw that it was not entirely true – a serpentine projection of bright metal hugged the pilot’s left brow, alive with status indicators. He was counterhuman, at best. 

The medics wasted no time deploying a collapsible isolation unit around the young pilot. Confusion replaced defiance, and alarm replaced that just before the tent-like apparatus swallowed him whole. The medics would spend hours examining him for resident pathogens and nanotech, but Katarin intended to wait. 

As the medics got to work, Katarin saw a face framed by red hair appear in one of the isolation unit’s windows, brow marred by shiny metal. Her blood ran cold for an instant when she realized that he was looking directly at her. Through the crowd of Marines, technicians, and medics, he had picked out the two figures sitting idly in a cockpit halfway across the hangar, and he seemed to know who he was looking at.  

Katarin, at a loss as to how to react, waved at her new prisoner, trying to look bored. 

With a sneering smile, the prisoner waved back, unafraid.  

Details

Tales from the Service: The Cursed Callahar

Tales from the Service: The Cursed Callahar 

Saint-Lô is going to be a far more comfortable place to watch this war than either Nojus or myself expected. It has more pressure hull volume than Anselmi spaceport in Håkøya, and a similar crew compliment.  

Nojus and I will be sharing a cabin, and our techs will be sharing a second cabin. Our team is the only media presence aboard the ship, as the other media outfits who have sent embed teams have been distributed somewhat evenly throughout the heavy elements of the Fifth Fleet. The ship's skipper, Captain Jayendra Liao, is an occasional Cosmic Background media consumer, mostly of the vidcast series, and he has been quite welcoming. 

While he can't tell us (or this audience) anything about the fleet's plans for security reasons, the captain wanted me to assure this audience that he means to provide us with a very good view of the action. I'm not sure if I like the sound of that, but Nojus is pleased that we have landed on a "fighting ship" - as if there's another kind of battleship. 

I suppose Dawnglider is another kind of battleship. The museum kind, which stays parked in orbit back at Centauri and never fires its weapons except as part of memorial ceremonies. It wouldn't be much good to cover the war from a cabin there, though. 

Today’s entry is a story I can’t confirm; Naval Intelligence is not treating it as credible, but Nojus was convinced enough to shuttle over to one of the fleet’s support ships to interview the story’s source. Having seen the interview (portions of which will be featured on the main vidcast later this week), I can only say I am convinced that the source, a junior logistics officer named Qillak Falk, believes his story to be truth. He has no images to back it up, but one of his crew-mates (who features in his account) asserts that she saw the imagery, if only briefly. The accident aboard the tanker ship which claimed the life of the skipper is very real, but it was attributed to an orbital debris collision, not to any form of attack or sabotage.

“Mister Falk, would you please explain to me what this is?” 

Qillak Falk studied his shoes for a moment, before looking up at his skipper. “Battle trophy, sir.” 

“Lieutenant, this is a victuals ship. We don’t take battle trophies.” The skipper tossed the offending object dismissively onto his desk, where it clattered to a stop just short of the edge. “Where did you get it?” 

Qillak studied his prize carefully. He had analyzed its composition the day he’d acquired it; the object was made of a rather complex titanium alloy with an odd crystalline structure. He’d proved it was safe; no nanoparticles, no circuitry on any scale, no power sources. As far as he could tell, his battle trophy was nothing but an alien ornament, scorched on one side by the fiery death of its owner. “Delaney and I found it while we were servicing Brook Montana, skipper. There was some other stuff as well, but I think he bartered all his bits already.” 

“Montana... That was a week ago.” The skipper winced. “You idiots had time to go all the way to the battle-site and sift the debris without anyone noticing?” 

“Well...” Qillak returned his gaze to his shoes. “We were out catching a tank of nutrient slurry that got loose.” It had been Qillak’s fault the tank had snapped its lines and tumbled free, but nobody had noticed. 

The look of utter disdain with which the skipper fixed Qillak informed him that his fault for the incident would be duly recorded. “Get out of my office. This gets offloaded to Intelligence the moment we get back to Maribel. If you ever go on another unauthorized salvage expedition, you will be scrubbing the bio-waste tanks with a dental pick for the rest of the tour.” 

“Aye, Skipper.” Qillak saluted and retreated into the corridor, still cringing. The ornament had no intelligence value, of course; it would be used as a paperweight on some Naval Intelligence paper-pusher's desk. He wanted something to take home, something to set next to the Taixha knife his great grandfather had claimed as a ground-pounder in the Terran-Rattanai War, and the tattered tapestry-like ornament his father had collected from a dead ship after Cold Refuge. Consigned to the logistics service, he knew the ornament had been his only chance to place a new heirloom in the family reliquary, and he’d blown it by bragging to the wrong people. 

Given the minor skirmish which had left the debris field, it was a wonder they’d found anything bigger than metal splinters. Qillak had pulled the records after he’d returned with his prize – Brook Montana and three other light cruisers had chased off a single Tyrant before it could raid a backwater colony’s orbital installations. A few drone-sized launches had been destroyed, and the Tyrant had slugged it out with one of the cruisers inconclusively before retreating. Short of a miraculous hull breach evacuating an officer’s quarters, there was no reason for an odd, decorative paperweight and a few other curios to be left behind, floating in space. 

Grumbling, Qillak boarded the lift and headed down to his quarters. He’d bragged about his prize to everyone, and now his off-shift activities would be ruined by inability to back up the tale. He had stills of the object and the odd markings on its surface, but not the hard evidence of his little expedition. Delaney would back him up, but his word was not entirely useful; the manipulator arm operator was a notorious exaggerator. 

“Gee, for a guy who’s got me waiting outside his cabin, you look pretty glum.” 

Qillak looked up at his visitor. “Good to see you, Lisbet.” The smile on her face was infectious. Petty Officer Lisbet Akiyama had occupied a place of honor in Qillak’s daydreams since the ship had left the Core Worlds, and it had taken the mostly-true tale of recovering a miraculous find for him to finally catch her attention. Now, she would never believe him. “Sorry, the skipper just got finished chewing me out.” 

“For what?” Lisbet stepped aside and let Qillak key open his cabin door. “Oh wait, let me guess. Your battle trophy.” 

“Yeah.” Qillak held the door open. “I still have still shots in the computer, but the real thing is on his desk right now, and I’m not getting it back.” 

Lisbet sighed, but followed him inside the cabin. “I told you to keep it to yourself. Still, I’m curious what it looks like.” 

She had, of course, but by the time she had, it was far too late. Humoring his promise of images was likely little more than a polite gesture. Qillak had promised an alien curio, and he had failed to deliver. His chances with Lisbet had collapsed, and he knew it. Waving her to the cabin’s tiny desk, he called up his personal archive. “Here you go.” 

The image that appeared above the desk, rendered in life-size holo-imagery, proved that Qillak had not completely made the story up, but Lisbet had no proof of the image’s unaltered state. The object looked something like a knife, though its double-curved handle resembled no functional knife he had ever seen, and its blade was a squared-off peg with no point or sharp edges. An ellipsoidal disk sat between these two parts like a guard, and its false-blade bore a complex pattern of triangular impressions, and the inside of each impression had been darkened to set them apart from the otherwise shiny metal. A severe scorch-mark marred the pattern, likely caused by whatever catastrophe had set the object adrift in space. 

Lisbet leaned in to examine the image eagerly, then drew back in alarm. “Qillak, this... This isn’t an alien curio.” 

“What?” He frowned at the image, then turned to face his guest. “What do you mean?” 

“This is a callahar. A Ladeonist calling-card. There’s a code to those tick-marks...” 

Qillak looked back at the image. He saw no trace of human markings on it, only triangular impressions in an oblong dome of alloy which the computer had not matched to any human make. “How do you know that?” 

“Listen, we need to warn the skipper. Whoever holds a callahar is marked for death, whether or not they are the intended target.” 

“Unless you think there are Ladeonists on the crew, I don’t think-” 

Lisbet grabbed Qillak’s shoulder. “We need to go warn the-” 

The hologram vanished, interrupting her terrified insistence. A moment later, the lights went out as well. Before either could react, the lights came back on, and Qillak’s desk console began to reboot. When it did come back up, it displayed a rotating error indicator rather than the image. 

The overhead speakers came to life immediately as well. “Damage control to deck three, forward!” 

Lisbet shook her head, stunned. “Officer’s quarters. We’re too late.” 

Qillak took her arm and rushed to the lift, taking it back up to deck three. Sure enough, they found the damage control team standing by a sealed emergency bulkhead halfway down the corridor, each of them pale as a sheet. 

“Was anyone in there?” Qillak knew the answer, but he still hoped he was wrong. 

One of them turned to acknowledge the newcomers. “Aye. The skipper, Mr. Falk. We don’t know anything yet. Let us handle this.” 

Lisbet seized Qillak’s wrist and dragged him back toward the lift. “Whoever holds a callahar is marked for death.” She kept her voice low, to keep her reminder from distracting the damage control team. “Hopefully it’s out in the void again, where it belongs.” 

Qillak, despite losing his imagery as well as his trophy, couldn’t help but agree. 

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