Ghost of Mind Episode One (22 page)

‘
Of course I thought of that,’ Parka
managed, her voice terse, ‘but John wouldn't have had any salt on
him. He'd worn his armor the entire time down there, and when he
got back to the ship, the computer broke it down. Any salt traces
in his bedroom didn't come from him. They came from our little
visitor.’

It was Evelyn's turn to cross her own
arms, but it was an elegant, somewhat softer move. ‘What exactly
are you saying? I read the report from Orion Minor. Though this
woman seems intriguing, are you suggesting that she managed to
steal aboard the Pegasus, somehow outsmart your security systems,
find her way to the Commander's own quarters, and then get off the
ship undetected? Because that sounds impossible.’

John put his hand up quickly, a cold and even
sweat picking up across his brow. It didn’t just sound impossible,
if it was true it was very, very bad. The Pegasus was one of the
most advanced vessels in the fleet. Along with its crew, it had
been entrusted with one of the most important missions in the Union
for the year, possibly even the century. And yet here it was unable
to defend itself from a simple woman in a blue hood.

‘
I’m going to go up to my own quarters and
scan them myself,’ John suddenly decided, figuring that it was
better to do whatever he could now and deal with the consequences
and the Admiral’s ire later. ‘Parka, keep checking through the ICN,
I want to be damn sure that whoever messed with it didn’t leave us
any surprises.’

John half turned on his foot, getting ready
to storm out of the engineering room, through the corridors, up to
the lift, and finally clap eyes on his room.

Evelyn stepped forward quickly, bringing
her hands behind her back as she did, looking exactly like a new
recruit. ‘If you’ll allow me access to the ICN, I’ll double-check
through the records of what occurred on Orion Minor to see if I can
help. I read your personal log,’ she said, and maybe her cheeks
blushed a little at the admission, ‘and I know you mentioned the
suspicion that the hood that woman wore may be Old Tech. I could
help you try to find out.’

John was about to tell Evelyn to relax and
leave this to his crew, but he couldn’t, could he? Because in
several hours Evelyn would be his crew, and he had to start relying
on her at some point.

So with a short nod he agreed. Then he
whirled on his foot and headed for the door. ‘Get to work, people,’
he added just as the metallic doors shut with a hiss behind
him.

Then, within half a minute, John was standing
in his own quarters. All it took was a short walk down the corridor
to the closest elevator, and then within a second it arrived at its
destination.

As soon as the doors pinged open and John
walked out onto the soft carpet of his own room, his eyes
narrowed.

Immediately he darted his gaze over
everything, from the junk littered over the table to his bed in the
far corner.

Ostensibly nothing had changed; there were no
holes, the windows weren’t broken, and as far as he could tell,
nobody had been sleeping in his bed.

Still, John was on guard as he moved slowly
through the room, and maybe for a second his hand hesitated towards
the holster on his side. Even though there wasn’t even a gun in it;
there had been no point to arming himself when he had walked around
the promenade with Evelyn.

But nothing jumped out of the shadows and
gobbled John down; his room was abandoned.

Eventually stopping when he was in the
center, a good few meters from his bed, John looked up to see the
startling view from his bedroom windows. It was one of the best
perks of being the commander; having the top room of the ship meant
that John saw the galaxy in a way few others would ever have the
opportunity to do. As he lay in his bed after a shift, with his
hands tucked neatly behind his head, he could stare up at the stars
rushing past, the galaxies, the gas clouds, the planets, and right
now the thin atmosphere leading up to space above.

‘
Don’t get distracted, buddy,’ John said
under his breath. And with that he returned his vision back
down.

And that’s when he saw it. Out of the corner
of his eye.

It was missing.

John launched himself forward, his footfall
frantic, until he reached a hand out and grabbed up the empty stand
on his bedside table.

It was missing.

His orb.

John’s hand actually gave a shake, and he
knew that his expression would be a completely shocked one.

He’d had it for years. Ever since he had
found it in the slums of earth, it had never left John’s side. It
had been a constant companion. Regardless of the fact it was a
small chunk of smooth metal, John had been attached to it just like
you might a pet or a friend.

And now it was bloody gone.

Breathing harshly through his teeth, John
took several steps back, not caring that his stance was wobbly, his
legs feeling jellylike.

Now this was personal, wasn’t it?

Gritting his teeth, locking his jaw, shifting
back several more steps, John shook his head harshly.

Eventually he whirled on his foot and headed
back to the elevator. If he had been determined before to find this
woman, it was nothing compared to what John felt now. As he opened
his eyes, settling his gaze on the electronic panel of the
elevator, he tried to compose himself.

It wasn’t often that you were handed a second
chance in life. John was going to grab this one. He was going to
track her down, find out her secret, pull the hood from her head,
and bloody demand his orb back all at the same time.

Straightening up, John snapped out of the
elevator as soon as it landed on the command deck. Patting down on
his uniform, he got ready to rally the troops.

Chapter 33

John Doe

With the fires of determination burning deep
within, John had gotten to work. He often had a reputation for
being merciless, obstinate, and incapable of letting go. John liked
to think his actual personality went deeper than that. He was only
merciless when he knew what the costs of standing by and doing
nothing would be. He believed in compassion; even if he had
forgotten that lesson during his life in the slums, it was one he
constantly reminded himself of as an adult. But that did not mean
he stood by and watched as pirates assailed transports, as factions
ripped into colony worlds. John acted when he had to. If the
difference between someone living and someone dying was shooting
the pirate in the middle, then you did it. You didn’t hesitate,
because hesitating cost lives. Yes, not having blood on your hands
sure did feel good, but it was no indication of moral superiority.
If you lived in an ivory tower, never went outside, and never had
to get your hands dirty, then you could convince yourself that an
ethical life was one free of violence. If you were thrown into a
war, and someone had pressed a gun into your hand and told you to
go and protect people, then the reality became gritty. Because
killing a man surely was just as bad as letting another man
die.

So yes, at times John was merciless, but he
never lost the heart behind his decisions.

‘
I really don’t like it when you get that
look in your eyes,’ Foster said as he turned around in his chair,
grinning wildly, ‘it tends to mean we get shot at a
lot.’

John was sitting in the command chair, his
elbow rested on his knee, one hand idly playing with his chin as
his eyes locked onto the holographic feed before him.

He’d heard Foster, but he wasn’t going to
bother answering.

He was fixated, completely concentrating on
the scene before him.

It was a replay of that woman falling into
the snow and salt of Orion Minor. The exact moment where she had
pushed herself up only for the holographic feed to cut out. It was
playing on a loop.

Occasionally he would progress the recording,
watch her walking through the snow with her body huddled into
itself, that hood of hers never moving.

‘
It must be Old Tech, you’re absolutely
correct,’ Evelyn said from his side.

It almost made John want to jump. Again he’d
completely forgotten about her. The specter of that woman walking
through the snow had closed off his senses and mind to everything
else.

Evelyn walked forward slowly, bringing up her
hand carefully as she touched the hologram. Without telling the
computer to make the light darting around solid, Evelyn’s fingers
rushed straight through it.

She had such an incredible look of
concentration on her face as she assessed the hood that just for a
second it made John forget the situation. He straightened up, maybe
he allowed himself a short smile, but it was one he quickly stifled
when Chado caught his gaze. His XO was standing beside him, hands
tucked behind his back as he relayed commands to Parka.

‘
I’ve never seen anything like this, but I
have heard of them,’ Evelyn said as she turned sharply to
John.

‘
We checked the databases,’ Foster turned
around in his chair again, ‘there’s no mention about magical hoods
in the Old Tech catalogue.’

Evelyn clasped her hands together demurely,
and offered him a nod. John noticed as Foster’s cheeks grew hot at
the move.

‘
I have access to a slightly enlarged
database,’ she said softly.

That was the nice way of saying that her
privileges went way beyond Foster and that he was out of his league
lecturing an Aurora Project member about Old Tech.

‘
What can they do?’ John straightened up,
dropping his hand from his chin and facing Evelyn in
full.

‘
They allow the wearer perfect vision, but
they stop anything, including recorders or scanners, from
penetrating under the cloak.’

‘
So she could see out of it,’ John
confirmed.

Evelyn nodded. ‘But Commander, you must
understand that while these cloaks are mentioned in the database,
no one has ever seen one. We have only inferred their capabilities
based on cross-referencing with other sources.’

John’s eyes narrowed so far, his eyebrows
plunging down against them, that they practically closed. ‘So how
would a woman from the slums of Orion Minor get her hands on
one?’

‘
Precisely. I think it is evidence enough
that she is not from Orion Minor. Have you considered the fact she
is a pirate assassin?’

John had considered every fact, every
bloody possibility. Because the lists of incredible things about
this woman didn’t just include her hood, after all. The number of
attacks that she had survived, the fall, even what had occurred to
the transport beams the two times she had been stuck by
them . . . John had no idea what he was dealing
with. But he very much doubted a simple explanation like a pirate
assassin was going to cut it.

The secrets here drew much deeper than
that.

Straightening up in his chair, the fabric
creaking underneath him, John rested his hands on the armrests.
‘What else can you tell me about this cloak?’

‘
Not much more than I’ve already told you.
Commander,’ she began.

‘
You can call me John, like everybody else
on the ship,’ he said with a smile.

She looked uncomfortable, but in another
second she smiled too. John was starting to get used to that smile,
used to it in the kind of way where it would send a particular kind
of tingle through his stomach.

‘
Thank you. I was going to suggest that if
you allow me access to your ICN, I will download the specs on that
cloak from the Aurora Project Database.’

John nodded, typing something on his personal
panel just as he did.

Out of the corner of his eye John saw Foster
make a face. And John could appreciate the expression. Here they
were in one of the most advanced vessels in the fleet, meant to be
going on one of the most important missions in history, and
apparently they didn’t have full access to the database they were
meant to be researching for. Because the Rim mission was all about
Old Tech, and John had been forcing himself to trawl through the
Union Old Tech Database in preparation. But if Evelyn was to be
believed, then there were still aspects of it that even John was
locked out of.

But right now that was not his priority.
Finding out as much about that cloak and about the woman was.

Leaning forward in his chair and waiting for
Evelyn to finish, John eventually cleared his throat.

In seconds Evelyn waved her hands towards the
holo emitter, and the sophisticated machine picked up on the
movement, immediately getting rid of the image of the hooded woman
and replacing it with a direct feed from the Aurora Database.

A hood similar to, but not exactly the same
as, the one John had seen, floated over the floor as information
about its specifications played along the sides.

‘
It seems to suggest this is very ancient
Old Technology, dating from the earlier periods of the Old Ones,’
John spoke aloud as he figured that out for himself. ‘So how does
it still work?’

There was a pause, and all attention on the
bridge focused in on Evelyn.

She looked embarrassed for a moment, but
she never lost the length to her back, or that particular,
beautiful angle to her neck. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was somehow
shielded from energy loss. It all depends on where that woman found
it.’

John nodded. It sounded plausible, but
something about it didn’t sit well with him.

Forcing himself to stand, patting down his
uniform as he did, he walked up and straight towards the cloak. He
lifted a finger, making the exact motion the holo emitters would
require to solidify the image before him.