Dark Space (26 page)

   She rolled her eyes.
“Doesn’t the passage of time mean anything to you?”

   “Depends on what I’m doing
at that moment, I suppose.”

   She held her watch up,
which was when Shawn noticed that it had been set up as a timer.

   “Eighteen hours,
thirty-seven minutes until your discharge gets automatically updated in the
Unified computers,” she said as she turned the device back toward her own eyes.

   “Oh, that,” he said with a
cocked smile, and took a seat on the bed beside her. “I guess I haven’t been
keeping track of the time as well as you’ve been.”

   “It doesn’t bother you at
all?” she asked.

   “We’re knee-deep in Kafaran
space, with every intention of flying right into Meltranian territory. I guess
you could say I’ve had other things on my mind.”

   Melissa took a deep breath,
then turned her eyes to the dark ceiling above. “What are you going to do about
it?”

   Likewise, Shawn looked at
their surroundings. “I don’t see that I can do anything about it right now.”

   “So, if you lose your
commission while we’re away from the fleet, do you think …” Her words trailed
off, time enough for Shawn to pick up the meaning.

   “You’re wondering that, if
we
do
make it back, will I
ask
to get reinstated?”

   “Yes.”

   Pivoting, Shawn slipped
onto the bed beside her. Without hesitation, Melissa scooted over, then draped
her arm over his chest when he was comfortable. He leaned down to kiss the top
of her head. “If you’re thinking I’m going to leave you alone out here, you’re
sorely mistaken.”

   “The thought
had
crossed my mind.”

   “There’s no guarantee
they’ll take me back, you know,” he said after a quiet moment. “If you recall,
Fleet Admiral Hansen isn’t all that pleased with me.”

   She sighed, her breathing
becoming shallow as she began to fall asleep. “I guess we’ll cross that jump
gate when we get to it.” Her embrace became tighter, then slackened. “I just
want you to know, Commander or no Commander, I’ve no intention of letting you
out of my sight. You’ve become quite the good luck charm.”

   “And yet you say that
knowing exactly where we are and where we’re going,” he grinned, not wanting to
disturb her more than necessary.

   For a moment he thought she
had fallen completely asleep. Then she took a slow breath before speaking. “For
what it’s worth … I’m sorry.”

   Shawn nodded, then kissed
her head lightly. After a moment’s contemplation he wondered just exactly what
she was sorry for.  Asking her as much, he was greeted by her soft snoring.
Letting his head fall back to his pillow, Shawn’s thoughts drifted back to the
combined Unified fleet.
How was Trent getting along? What was Drake’s
condition? Was Raven taking to her new command as well as he’d hoped she would?
As he began formulating possible scenarios in his mind to answer those
questions, he drifted out of consciousness.

   “Commander Kestrel,” the
insistent voice said, rousing Shawn from his slumber. Shawn’s eyes opened
slowly to focus on the uniform of a junior officer standing in the doorway.
Melissa, still sound asleep and snoring in diminutive puffs, had turned her
back to him and faced the wall.

   “What is it?”

   “Captain Litto sent me to
retrieve you. We’re approaching the Kafaran outpost, and the captain would like
you and Miss Graves to accompany him on the bridge.”

   Ten minutes later,
refreshed and mostly awake, Shawn and Melissa approached the double doors
leading into the ship’s control compartment. Armed guards posted on either side
of the door gave no notice as Shawn and Melissa approached. It wasn’t until
Shawn was within a few feet that the guard on the left turned, entered a
security code, and allowed the two passengers entrance to the bridge. What
Shawn saw out the forward view port was almost beyond definition. Stepping
between the bridge stations on either side of the small compartment, Shawn
joined Litto as the two stared out at what lay beyond.

   The Kafaran outpost, as far
as Shawn was concerned, was anything but. It was composed of a series of small
asteroid-shaped structures, each equal in size to a pair of Unified cruisers
strapped side by side or greater.  They were connected to one another by tubes
and support beams in a loose ring configuration, and further connected to an
even larger structure at the center of the cluster. Atop the half-mile-wide
metal boulder were communications spires, and outgrowths that bristled with
pinpoints of light that were likely windows. In the center was a wide mouth,
large enough to swallow several warships—likely a pressurized bay.

   Affixed to the center
structure, jutting toward the
Honor Guard
, was a vast L-shaped docking
facility. There were ten small bays, with two large ones on either endpoint of
the L. The smaller bays were filled with cruisers and frigates, while the
larger two were filled with Kafaran battle wagons—each packing enough firepower
to level a small city. Orbiting the entire station was an additional twenty or
so similar vessels and, beyond them, what looked like a collection of
shipbuilding facilities, each filled to capacity. Buzzing like flies around the
entire collection were shuttles and cargo ships of nearly every size.

   This was no small
outpost—this was a battle station.

   “I certainly hope we’re at
the wrong place,” Shawn said as he continued to take in the sight before him.

   Beside him, Litto chuckled.
“No, Commander. This is precisely where we’re supposed to be.”

   Melissa walked up beside
Shawn. “And we’re going in there?”

   “If you think that’s
exciting,” Litto began as he nodded toward the station, “you should have been up
on the bridge an hour ago.”

   Shawn pointed at the battle
station as they approached the mouth-like opening. “That’s not exciting enough
for you?”

   Litto harrumphed. “We were
stopped by a Kafaran patrol ship. After a few tense moments of negotiations,
they threatened to board us and take everyone prisoner.”

   “Not very successful
negotiations,” Melissa chided.

   “On the contrary, Agent
Graves. I managed to talk them out of blowing us from the sector completely.
I’d say that qualifies as a success.”

   “So much for Savath’s
assurance that we’d be unmolested,” Shawn quipped.

   “Indeed, it seemed that way
at the time,” Litto said as he continued to examine the station outside with
utter fascination. “I sent the patrol ship a coded communication packet supplied
to us by Commodore Savath himself, which was provided for just such unforeseen
encounters. Within a few moments of the Kafarans receiving the packet, we were
allowed to continue on our journey.”

   “What was in the packet?”
Melissa asked.

   Litto shrugged. “I have no
idea. It was a locked file. Any attempt to decipher it beforehand would have
alerted the patrol ship.”

   Melissa nodded. “Then it’s
fortunate that you left well enough alone.”

   “Quite right, Miss Graves.”

   As the
Honor Guard
came closer to the station, the ship’s communication officer spoke up from his
console. “Captain Litto, message coming in from the station. They’re requesting
our authorization documentation … if I read the translation correctly.”

   Litto reached into the folds
of his uniform and withdrew a transparent blue memory storage module and handed
it to the young man. “Send this over as our reply; nothing else.”

   “Yes, sir.”

   “Another present from
Savath?” Shawn asked the captain. 

   “Either himself or Colonel
Tausan. I wasn’t given to a conclusion either way.”

   Two minutes of silence
later, the communications officer again spoke up. “We’ve been given clearance
to land in bay two, Captain.”

   Litto took a long look at
the station before turning to his sensor officer. “Do you have any idea where
that might be?”

   “Based on the diagrams
provided by Commodore Savath, I’d say it was the third one from the right, just
inside the … well, inside the mouth.”

   “An educated guess,
Lieutenant?”

   The young woman pursed her
lips. “It’s the only bay unoccupied that’s also large enough to hold our ship.”

   Litto nodded his approval.
“Very well. Navigation, make for that port, but tread slowly. If we’re wrong, I
don’t want to alarm them.”

   “Yes, sir.”

   The communications officer
spoke up once more. “Additional information coming in from the station,
Captain.”

   “Go ahead.”

   The lieutenant looked down
to the computer screen and read the translation as it was presented to him.
“Once docked, you are to … immediately proceed on foot to bay six. You are
authorized to be armed, but all weapons must be secured on your bones …
bodies
,”
he corrected. “Sorry, sir. The computer’s a little slow on the translation.”

   “It’s probably as nervous
as we are,” Shawn muttered.

   “Do not acknowledge the
transmission,” Litto said calmly.

   “Why not?” Melissa asked.
“Won’t they become suspicious?”

   “Their transmission is an
order, Miss Graves,
not
a request. They do not require our
acknowledgment of it. If, for whatever reason, we do not heed it, they’ll
simply kill us on the spot the moment we depart the ship.”

   “Comforting,” she said
dryly. “And I thought we were all friends out here.”

   “Perhaps on the front
lines, we are,” Litto said with a tinge of sorrow. “But out here … old fires
still burn very bright.”

   As the ship entered the
approved bay, the large exterior door behind the
Honor Guard
slid into
place with a groan. Once the bay was pressurized for Kafaran normal atmosphere,
Shawn and the rest departed the ship. On Doctor Uudon’s instance, Melissa had
reactivated his droid before leaving the ship. With Litto in the lead, the team
had to communicate through filtered oxygen masks—necessary in order to function
in the heavier, oxygen-rich air.

   “What’s the deal with your
robot?” Shawn asked as he shot a glance in the direction of the gawky android.

   “M-9 is an Augustine
Industries maintenance model automaton,” the doctor said with obvious pride.
Looking at the dented and rusted bot, Shawn had no idea what there was could be
so lofty about it. “He’s been converted to act as my assistant.”

   “Who did the conversion?”
Melissa asked.

   “When you want something
done, Agent Graves, it’s been my experience that it’s something best done
yourself.”

   “You have experience in
robotics?”

   For the first time, Uudon
seemed unsure of his answer. “I’m capable, Miss Graves. That is all that was
required.”

   Melissa and Shawn shared a
concerned glance. Droids in general were complicated machines. Out of the box,
they usually worked flawlessly. When tinkered with by untrained hands, the
results could be both disastrous and deadly. The doctor’s explanation did much
to reinforce why M-9 had been described by the barkeep on Torval as being
clumsy.

   “You also said it was your
‘protector,’” Shawn said. “What does that mean?”

   “M-9 makes sure that
nothing happens to me.”

   “Like a bodyguard?” Melissa
asked.

   “In a manner of speaking.
However, I’m still in the process of programming that particular skillset. It’s
not yet …
perfected
.”

   “Still think it was okay to
bring the droid along?” Shawn asked Melissa under his breath.

   “There wasn’t much of a
choice. I didn’t want this thing left on the
Honor Guard
out of sight.
If the doctor has any malicious intent, he’ll likely use the droid for it. I’d
hate to see Litto or anyone on the ship harmed.”

   “But you’re perfectly safe
with one of
us
being harmed, is that it?”

   “I’ll keep an eye on the
droid,” she said sternly. “Don’t worry about it.”

   “Don’t worry?” Shawn
repeated as he scanned the inside of the Kafaran station. “Easy for you to
say.”

   The interior was no less
fantastic than the outside, and from the balcony they now found themselves,
Shawn surveyed the surroundings with awe. The station was hollowed, and every
square inch of space seeming to be dedicated to a specific function. There were
weapons everywhere, packed in crates and stacked a hundred feet high. Several
sections had been dedicated to mobile accelerator cannons and fusion blasters,
while other whole bays had been sanctioned off for squads of Kafaran hover tanks
and light artillery equipment.

   Hundreds, possible
thousands of Kafaran warriors were present. Some were lined up evenly in
battalions of a hundred, while dozens of others were boarding large assault
carriers. Occasionally, the voice of a Kafaran would boom through the bay on
unseen speakers, giving some piece of information that was likely valuable to
someone. Shawn only hoped that he would be provided a translation computer at
some point. As far as he knew, Melissa was the only one present who was remotely
fluent in the clicks, beeps, and chirps of the Kafaran tongue, and she wasn’t
currently repeating any of it.