Dark Space (18 page)

   Melissa stepped back around
to stand beside Shawn at the hatch. Holding up her computer once more, she
began to enter a series of access codes.

   “What are you doing now?”

   “Trying to pick the lock on
the door.”

   “Breaking and entering is a
serious offense,” Shawn muttered, then looked around quickly to see if their
presence had drawn any attention.

   “So is terrorism,
subversion, and any other numerous offenses that have been done to the Unified
government lately.”

   Shawn’s head bobbed as he
considered her words. “True, but we don’t have any evidence that the person who
owns this shuttle has anything to do with that.”

   “If I can open this door,
maybe we’ll find some.”
   He couldn’t argue with her reasoning, nor would he have if he’d thought of anything.
“Just hurry up, okay?”

   “I would,” she began in
frustration, “but the lock has a pretty sophisticated cypher code.”

   That’s when Shawn caught
sight of something on the upper rim of the docking area. Squinting his eyes, he
was sure it was the two Temkorians returning. “We’ve run out of time.”

   “I’ve almost got it, I
think—”

   “I think I don’t care. We
can come back tomorrow after we visit the mining complex.”

   “This ship and its owner
might not be here.”

   Reaching into a pocket on
his coat, he withdrew a small disk and affixed it to the craft. “If it goes
anywhere, we’ll be able to track it within two parsecs.” He then put a hand on
her forearm and lowered her computer. “No time to worry about anything else,
honey. We’ve got company.”

   She followed his gaze and saw
two heavily armed and armored Temkorians approaching the lift. She cursed in
frustration, then flipped the computer off. “Now what?” she asked as the aliens
entered the lift.

   Shawn pointed his gun at
the open hatch a few dozen yards distant. “We’re going to have to run for it.”

   When she nodded, Shawn
grabbed her hand and took off for the doorway. Just as they exited, he could
hear the lift doors open and the two slithering aliens make their way into the
bay. Running as quickly as they could, neither of them looked back until they
were safely nestled into the back of a taxi and bound for the administration
building and their own ship.

%%%

   As the twin suns broke the
far mountain ranges, Shawn and Melissa’s transport ship—which he’d decided to
christen
Nautilus
the night before, was bathed in orange light filtered
through a dusty haze. On the landing pad, a small army of maintenance droids
were fast at work disconnecting the umbilical lines to the ship, setting off a
series of alarms in the vessel that woke Shawn from his peaceful slumber.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he experienced a wave of confusion as he awoke
in unfamiliar surroundings. The food processor was on the wrong side of the
compartment, and there was a door where he’d expected a bookshelf to be. The
colors were all wrong, and the bed was far more comfortable than he remembered.
All at once it hit him, and a surge of remorse washed over him as he recalled
that he was not, in fact, on board
Sylvia’s Delight
.

   “Computer?” he called
groggily into the air.

   “Yes, Commander Kestrel?”
the astute, butler-like voice returned.

   “Status report,” Shawn
slurred as his head fell back on his pillow. He swung his left arm out to
discover that, once again, he’d gone to bed alone. Sighing in regret
nonetheless, he took comfort in knowing that Melissa was in the cabin beside
his. At least, he
hoped
she still was. With that woman there was no
telling for sure.

   “Mooring and umbilical
lines have been retracted, Commander,” the computer said. “Jump core warm-up
sequence has been initiated. Atmospheric maneuvering thrusters are on standby.
Shall I make you breakfast?”

   “Coffee. Toast.”

   Shawn heard a series of
beeps as the computer assimilated the information, which was quickly followed
by a buzzing sound of denial. “I’m sorry, Commander. Producing a coffee toast
is outside my technical capabilities. Perhaps you would like them separated?”

   Why couldn’t he escape
dimwitted computers? He brought his hands to his face and began rubbing slowly.
“Of course I want them separated, you mindless hunk of—” he muttered, but was
cut off by another beep from the computer.

   “Understood, Commander.
Your meal will be ready shortly. External atmospheric sensors have calculated
extreme heat conditions will be present today. Might I suggest light clothing
and a cranial covering of some sort?”

   “No, you may
not
,”
he snapped. “I can dress myself, thank you very much.” 

   “As you wish, Commander,”
the computer drawled, seemingly exasperated.

   “Is Agent Graves awake?”

   “Yes, Commander.” Now it
sounded almost bored. “She’s in the forward dining area.”

   “Will you inform her that
I’ll be joining her shortly?”

   “Very good, sir.” The words
were slowly drawn out. Instead of arguing, Shawn decided it was time to get up.
Opening the locker on the far wall, he withdrew a thermal suit and put it on.
Strapping his holster around his hip, he reluctantly grabbed a dark gray cap with
the words ‘
USCS Duchess of York
’ emblazoned across it. Placing it on his
head, he half expected the computer to say something about his cranial
covering. When it remained pleasantly silent, he left his cabin and headed for
the dining area.

   “I see you took the cranial
covering advice to heart, too,” Melissa said with a smile, looking up from her
plate of eggs and bacon. “I am, however, disappointed to not see you in shorts.
I was looking forward to seeing those landing struts of yours.”

   “Very funny,” Shawn replied
as he pulled his reconstituted breakfast from a slot in the wall. “When will
these computers ever learn that we can take care of ourselves?”

   “It’s just trying to be
helpful,” she said as she took a bite of her bacon. “That’s what it’s
programmed to do.”

   “All I need is a
navigational computer that won’t plot a jump right through the center of a
star. I don’t need one to talk back at me or tell me how to get dressed.”
Taking his tray, he sat beside her. She was wearing a dark gray, short-sleeved
utility shirt, shorts, and a hat similar to his own. She looked every bit the
part of a Sector Command crewman … and a really cute one at that.

   “The uniform suits you,” he
said, smiling at her.

   She shook her head and
continued chewing on her bacon. “That’s the same thing you said when you saw me
wearing one of Raven’s flight suits. I’m starting to think you have a thing for
women in uniform.”

   “Maybe I just have a thing
for
you
in a uniform.”

   “You know, if I didn’t know
you as anything more than the rascal you are at heart, I might take offense to
that.”

   He leaned in close to her.
“But, that’s why you love me, isn’t it?” He gave her a kiss, which she didn’t
hesitate to accept.

   “I do love you,” she said
quietly. “Very much. Which is all the more reason why I’m concerned about you
losing your commission.”

  
Oh, brother.
He
sighed heavily, then leaned away from her. “You sure do know how to kill the
moment.”

   “Don’t play games, Shawn.
This is serious. I have no intention of letting you—”

   “Resign?”

   “Get thrown out for no good
reason,” she corrected. “You’re better than that, and you know it.”

   “So, now that you have me,
you’ve got no intention of letting me leave. Is that what you’re saying?”

   “I don’t
have
you.
Not all of you, anyway.” She smiled coyly, then sipped at her drink. “Not yet.”

   This elicited a raised
eyebrow from Shawn.

   “Besides,” she continued,
“this has to do with the safety of the Unified government. We need to find out
what Santorum transmitted here and get that information back to the fleet.
Their safety could very likely depend on it. And …” she let her words trail off
as she fumbled with her glass.

   “And?” Shawn asked, almost
playfully.

   “And I can’t do it without
you. Oh, sure, I could investigate the mining operations, and the old man that
Grib described. But with your help I could get it done twice as fast. I won’t
deny that I feel, with every fiber of my being, that you and I are a good team,
Shawn … and I mean that both in and out of the cockpit.”

   Shawn could tell by the
seriousness of her tone that playtime was indeed over. She felt very strongly
about their mission and their objectives, including clearing Shawn’s name. He
cared for her even more for it. He reached out and stroked her cheek gently.
“Don’t worry, Angel. We’ll get this done and get back to the fleet before you
know it.”

   She took his hand in her
own and kissed it. “I hope so. This war needs to be over.”

   Finishing the rest of their
meal in silence, Shawn put the dishes in the recycle slot and the two headed
for the cockpit. Halfway down the long corridor that would bring them to their
destination, Shawn reached for Melissa’s hand, and she grasped his gratefully.

   In the cockpit, the two sat
in their respective chairs, and Shawn woke the direction thrusters from their
standby condition.

   “The computer shows that
all sandstorm activity at the mining site has abated,” Melissa said as she
peered at the scanners.

   “Good. I’m looking forward
to sunny, carefree skies and smooth sailing,” he replied as he took hold of the
control stick. “Can you get a lock on the Special Services transmitter?”

   She shook her head. “We’ll
need to be in line of sight to the terminal. Right now, any signal they’re
sending would be blocked by those dark mountains,” she said, nodding out to the
vista beyond the wide view port.

   “Well, let’s go see what we
can see, then.” Shawn pulled back on the stick slowly, and the newly christened
Nautilus
rose from the landing pad without so much as a shudder. Kicking
up a small cloud of red dust in her wake, Shawn moved the throttle lever slowly
forward as he pointed the transport to the distant horizon.

%%%

   The journey across the
harsh desert landscape was thankfully uneventful. The
Nautilus
was
cruising at an altitude of only a few hundred feet as it came to the edge of
what the navigational computer was calling the Ruthenium Mountains. The black,
obsidian-like peaks gleamed sunlight off nearly every faceted surface. Shawn
had to adjust the filters on the forward view ports to stop the glare from
affecting his piloting. A few minutes later, the ship was over the rim, and
Shawn got his first glimpse of the mining establishment that was their final
destination.

   There was a central tower-like
structure that dominated the camp, with smaller outbuildings fanned out around
it. A flattened square building had a landing pad painted on its surface, and
looked to be in somewhat good repair. There were several long structures
attached to it, spreading out like great fingers across the desert, the other
ends attached to bullet-shaped structures protruding from the desert floor.

   “That’s the ore processing
station,” Melissa said as she followed Shawn’s gaze to the flattened building.

   Shawn nodded. That meant
the finger structures were likely the conveyors, and the bullet buildings
housed the lifts that brought the ore up from deep within the crust. Shawn was
about to ask Melissa if she’d gotten ahold of the Special Services team when he
saw her at work on her terminal.

   “I’ve got a lock on the SS
transmitter,” she said in relief.

   “Are they responding?”

   Melissa nodded, but didn’t
reply. She pressed the controls that would open a communications channel and
began speaking. “This is the Unified Sector Command transport
Nautilus
on approach. Requesting permission to land.”

   “
Nautilus
, this is
Lieutenant Halverson, Sector Command Special Services command. Request you
provide identity code.”

   Melissa keyed in her
sequence in the panel and awaited confirmation. It wasn’t long in coming. “Code
received and verified,
Nautilus
. You’re cleared to set down on landing
pad one. The pad boundaries are being uploaded into your navigation computer
now.”

   A series of lights on
Shawn’s panel blinked in unison as the ship’s computer interfaced with the SS
terminal. A moment later, the
Nautilus
’s computer’s voice came over the
loudspeakers. “Special landing instructions received. The ship is now on auto
pilot. Please, do not attempt to deviate from our current course under manual
control, or we will be fired upon.”

   Like he’d just touched a
steaming hot surface, Shawn’s hands flew off the controls. “They don’t mess
around, those SS teams, do they?”