Far From Home: The Complete Second Series (Far From Home 13-15) (42 page)

48.

Clayton wandered through the ship, hands in his pockets. He'd felt like a spare tire on the Command Deck. Now, without anything to do in a medical capacity, he walked the corridors of the
Defiant
deep in thought. Unhindered by passing crewmen, by the hustle and bustle of the ship when she operated normally. Now it was quiet as a tomb, the perfect environment for considered thought.

But as he knew all too well, sometimes it was better not to think at all.

"Doc?"

Clayton nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, searching for the body to accompany the voice that had spoken out of nowhere. There on the floor, sitting behind bulkhead was the Chief.

"You scared the life out of me!" he said. "A man my age . . . what're you doing, sitting there like that?"

Gunn shrugged. "What's the problem? The ships' empty. Anyway, what're you doing walking around like that? You looked like a zombie."

"I was just . . . walking."

"Yeah I could see that. What, are you bored?" Gunn asked.

He noticed she had a cup of coffee next to her on the floor, and what looked like the remnants of a ration bar.

"You know they're not good for you," Clayton said, pointing to the ration bar wrapper. "They're extremely high in fats and sugars. They're meant for survival, not for snacking with your hourly coffee."

"Don't lecture me right now, Doc. It's the last thing I need. Here, fetch a pew," she said, patting the floor next to her.

Clayton plopped himself down.

"I take it we're kindred spirits," Gunn said. "Wandering the ghost ship, lost in thought."

"Looks like you gave up on the wandering part," Clayton said, indicating her coffee.

"Well, we're both surgeons. I fix ships, you fix people. But without either to tend for, what do we have? Our own thoughts. Our own rubbish," Gunn said with a sigh. "All stuff we'd rather not have to think about."

"Amen to that."

"So what worries you, Doc?"

He sighed. "Jess and I . . . we had words," he said.

"When?" the Chief asked, shocked.

"Before we arrived," he said regrettably. "It wasn't pretty."

"What about?"

"I'd rather not say," Clayton told her. "If you don't mind."

He thought back. Jessica in his face.

"You have kept this secret all these years? Why?"

He stammered. Took a step back from her. "Jess. I was sworn to secrecy. Your Father didn't think you needed the trouble in your life. You'd done fine on your own."

"No, I got through. I managed. There's a difference," she said bitterly.

"Jess, I'm sorry," Clayton said.

"So Doctor Kingston's my Mother, and you spring this news on me now, when we're inches away from knocking on her door," she said. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Jess –"

He tried to touch her. She shrugged him off. "You disgust me."

*

Clayton's heart ached from the memory of it. He'd so wanted to have it all over, to restore what they'd had before. But now she'd never trust him again. Not in the same way. Perhaps she was right. He should have told her the identity of both parents when he diagnosed her MS. But he didn't.

"I'm sure whatever it was, Doc," Gunn said in a soft voice. "It'll all sort itself out. Though I can't say I'm not curious."

Clayton smirked. "You know what it did to the goddamn cat, don't you?"

"All too well."

49.

"He was a good looking man, your father," Dr. Kingston said, her eyes bright as she remembered Andrew Singh as she'd known him. "Of course, we were both very young."

"And you were in love?" Jessica asked. She thought about her own love affair years ago with Will Ardai. How the two of them had bumped into each other, purely by chance, to find that old fire still burning. As if nothing had happened between them, no time had passed. What should have been a gulf felt, in fact, like a hiccup in their relationship with one another.

"Very much so. But he had his work . . . and I had mine, of course," Kingston said.

"So tell me about the
Enigma
."

"What about it?"

Jessica told her the story. How they were sent to dock with it, board it. Make a survey of the interior. And what they found in there. Or didn't find.

"That was years ago," Kingston said. "I've not been in a space suit for a long time."

"Yes I know. But still, you can't have forgotten. Tell me about the first rendezvous with it," Jessica said firmly. "I think you can understand how it would interest me."

Her Mother rubbed the tired corners of her eyes. "Fine, if that's what you want," Kingston said, "I'll tell you."

50.

"I served aboard the
Demeter
as science officer. Kerrick had recently been placed as Captain of the vessel. It was all pretty routine, at least at first. The
Enigma
had been located almost by luck. An anomaly on the readings of a passing probe that prompted Union cartographers to go back through the data to ascertain what had caused it.

"That's when they found the cylinder orbiting the planet. The
Demeter
was secretly assigned to investigate and, if possible, get inside. I voiced my concerns about the mission to Kerrick, but he wouldn't hear any of it.

"We drew up in front of it, matching velocity and pitch, as you can imagine. Then we exited in EVA flight suits, using our thruster packs to draw slowly closer and closer to the front end.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the rest. We found an opening, dead centre of that huge disc, and used that to gain entry. Inside . . . well, I think you'll agree, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. We trod carefully, not wanting to disturb too much. We were in there days before we arrived at the aft section. That's when we found them. The crew. All in hibernation. All very much alive.

"Captain Kerrick waited for further instructions from command. In the meantime
, we noticed the vessel had activated some kind of response to our entry. One of the pods, in particular, had begun to cycle through a thawing process. Kerrick took it upon himself to order a withdrawal. As we left, we noticed the lights going out behind us. Everything returning to the state it had been before we arrived. We assumed that the occupant of that hibernation pod would remain in stasis with us out of the way.

"Kerrick received word from command that we were to remove specimens. I was outraged, told him it contravened several conventions and directives. But he wouldn't listen. He went over there himself, with six others, and together they removed some of the crew from their pods. Pretty soon I had a station set up
in the sickbay so that I could monitor the Namar as they woke. Kerrick had them chained to the tables, and a good thing too. When they came around, the first thing they did was to try and get up. You could see the fury in their eyes. If they'd got out . . .

"As we left the
Enigma
behind, Captain Kerrick sat us all down. 'This whole mission is now classified at the highest level. D'you understand? If any of you breathe one word of it, you'll find yourselves doing hard time on a penal colony somewhere. I'll make sure of it,' he warned us.

"So we forgot we were ever there. They didn't post a ship to watch over the
Enigma
, because it was so well hidden, out of the way. Let's face it, it'd remained undisturbed for over a thousand years at that point. What were the chances anyone would come find it? So they left it out there. Apparently, at some point, they planned to return and empty it of weaponry. See if they could use the technology to advance our own military. But obviously, the
Defiant
got there before they could get around to it. A good thing too. We don't have a good record when it comes to using Namar technology."

*

Jessica shifted in her seat. "So what became of the specimens?"

"They lived. At least at first. I was brought on as a consultant to Project Prometheus some months later, at which point the Namar had been killed and dissected," Kingston said.

"And Kerrick was in charge of Project Prometheus?"

Kingston nodded. "Professor Dajani ran the project itself. Kerrick oversaw Dajani to ensure he was doing what needed to be done. It was Kerrick who suggested me to Dajani."

"And what was your work there? What did you do?"

"I was tasked with breaking their genome. It took months of work. The most complex genetic code I've ever encountered. But we managed it."

"What was the lure?" Jessica asked.

Kingston folded her arms. "The Namar were ahead of the game in many areas. One of which was the embellishment of the organic with technological advancements. A meld of natural and artificial. It's long been thought that humanity will, eventually, make such adaptations ourselves. We'll have to. So there was lots to learn from them. That, and they were seen as the perfect template for future soldiers. At that point, the Draxx war was still ongoing. And with no end in sight."

"The greater good . . ." Jessica said with a shake of her head.

"I'm not proud. Not one bit. But we did as we were told. The same as you," Kingston said.

"It's easy to see why Cessqa is so angry. Why she wants to destroy us. She wages war against us, because we gave the first shot."

"True enough," Kingston said. "But at the time, it was to serve another purpose. It was to give us whatever edge we could get. Unfortunately, it soon got out of hand. Dajani was tasked with blending human and Namar DNA. That was all Kerrick's plan, though I feel he too answered to someone higher up. They sent the hybrids to different locales to be nurtured, trained, tested. Through the use of incubation chambers they were able to shorten the length of time it would take for them to reach adulthood to a mere nine years. Anyway, later on, the war ended and there was no point in continuing. But Kerrick wouldn't stop the project. It was at that point I left."

"What happened?"

51.

"I went to see him. Walked straight into his office and gave my argument that if the war had ended, why the hell were we continuing to develop a breed of soldier that was ethically and morally questionable, at best. He merely looked at me, waited for me to finish ranting, then cleared his throat.

"I waited for him to start shouting, but it didn't happen. He looked calm, passive. He said, 'What would you like me to do? Terminate our hybrids?' I have to admit, he had me there. I'd not thought about what would happen to the soldiers we'd already created. So I told him we could find a remote location and allow them to colonise it. Call it an extension of the project.

"He wasn't having any of it. He got up, wandered back and forth in front of me, arms folded. Talking calm as a cucumber. 'All this time, and you want me just to stop the project. I'm afraid I live in the real world, Doctor Kingston. This war has ended, but one day there will be another. And we'll need our new, improved army of fighters. Project Prometheus will continue with or without your help.'

"I didn't know what to say. I asked him if he was kicking me off the project, and he simply shrugged and said, 'Take it to mean whatever you like.' So I left. Contacted a few friends I had in the science division, and got assigned as head of this facility. I vowed to do some good. To reverse the devastation wreaked by the Sun Hammer all those years ago, and the affront to mother nature we'd developed through Project Prometheus.
That's why I started work on Renewal. I never heard from either Kerrick or Dajani again."

52.

She concluded her reverie then watched as Jessica got up. "Where are you going?"

"I have to think," Jessica said, hand to her mouth.

So, it was Kerrick all along. The whole reason for Grimshaw's new appointment elsewhere, most probably. To stop their investigation. They shouldn't have been assigned to the
Enigma
in the first place, but because the operation had been so top secret, Clarke and Grimshaw simply weren't aware of the Union having dealings with the
Enigma
prior to the
Defiant
's assignment.

It all made sense now.

"What will you do?" Kingston asked.

Jessica turned around. "Can I use your communication relay?"

"Of course, this way," her Mother said. She led her from the room.

*

Admiral Grimshaw rubbed his eyes as he shuffled to his own personal communication station. The beeper continued to drill in his brain. The alert sign flashed up on the screen, winking in and out.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION, it read. Grimshaw authorised the connection.

"Admiral?"
Jessica asked. He hadn't expected to find himself looking straight at her again. Not so soon, and not at such a late hour either.

"Jessica . . . I hope this is good. It's the middle of the night here."

"Oh. Sorry sir. I thought you'd want to know we have discovered the culprit behind Project Prometheus, and our own current predicament. It's none other than Admiral Kerrick himself."

"I'd like to say this comes as a surprise, Captain King . . . but it only confirms my suspicions. I have a good instinct for things like this, and I smelled a rat the moment Kerrick was assigned to replace me," Grimshaw told her. "But what proof do you have?"

"Doctor Kingston is willing to put herself forward as an expert witness into the events surrounding the first clandestine mission to the Enigma,"
Jessica said. She glanced to the side, registering Kingston's shocked expression.

"Good news," Grimshaw said. "I will head to Station 6 immediately to arrest Kerrick myself. Please ensure you get a recorded statement from Kingston, detailing specifically Kerrick's role in all of this. I want it to be airtight."

"I will sir."

*

Across the gulfs of space, Grimshaw smiled at her.
"Good work, Captain. You've done me proud. Rest assured I will see that all charges against yourself, and your crew, are squashed. In fact, I will demand an official commendation for your efforts. You've done me proud, kid. I know if your Father were still here . . ."

Jessica looked down. Suddenly her eyes felt as if they might fill with tears. "Thank you Admiral."

He cut the signal from his end. Jessica moved away from the console. To her complete surprise, she felt Kingston's hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Jessica said.

"I'm sure Andrew would have been very proud of you," the Doctor said. "I cannot tell you how much I regret not being a part of your life. I hope it's something you'll let me rectify from now on. Because I do want to be in your life, Jessica. If you'll let me."

She looked up at her Mother. The tears were there now. She moved in, embraced her, felt it all gush out. They stood holding each other like that for what seemed the longest of moments.

Kingston chuckled through her own tears. "I take it this is a yes then?"

Jessica nodded. They parted, she had a little laugh of her own as she dried her eyes. "By the way, I know you didn't say beforehand, but I need you to do this."

"I know," Kingston said. "I was a little surprised you offered me up as a witness, but what the hell. The man should answer for his actions, correct? There's no way I could deny my daughter this, when it obviously means so much."

"Thank you again," Jessica said. "And you're right, it does mean a lot. I came here angry. Bitter. Wondering how my life could've got turned upside down like it. But now, it feels like something's fallen into place. A part of me that seemed incomplete for so, so long."

"Don't mention it."

"Anyway, what am I going to call you?"

Kingston chuckled. "What d'you mean?"

"Do I call you Mother, Doctor . . . what?" Jessica asked.

Her Mother studied her for a moment. "Call me Ivy."

"Ivy. That's an old name," Jessica said.

"So's yours."

The door burst open. Doctor Caise stormed in, followed by both Hawk and Gentry, with two other staff members behind them. The two at the rear both held weapons.

"What is this?" Kingston demanded.

"We found these two wandering about Testing Bay Three," Caise said. "I told them to stay put, but they obviously didn't listen to a word I said."

"We did nothing of the sort. Treating us as if we are sneak thieves." Gentry snapped.

Kingston stepped forward, put a hand on Gentry's shoulder as she addressed Caise. "I've known this man a long while. I can assure you, he's not the type. I'm sure all of this is completely innocent."

Hawk turned to Jessica. "Cap, seriously, you gotta see what's in there. It'll blow yer mind," he said.

"What's he going on about?" Jessica asked Kingston.

"Come on, I'll show you. I've had enough of keeping secrets."