Running With Argentine (5 page)

An
Obscure Uninhabited

Star
System

The situation
on the bridge was tense.

Political officer Bloomington was standing in front of the
Captain’s bench, hands clasped behind his back. His expression was defiant; his
jaw was jutted and his posture was leaning slightly forward as he slowly rose
up and down on the balls of his feet.

“Captain, you have your orders.”

Captain Kerry looked like a man that had swallowed too many
goldfish. His complexion was pale and as he sat in his accustomed place he
could only stare at the floor.

“Captain…” The political officer prodded him quietly.

“Astrogation,” he finally said. “Plot us a course back to
base. Best possible speed.”

Everyone on the bridge turned to look at the Captain.

“
Mister
Parker you have your orders,” the Political
Officer said, the derogatory title now a habit.

It took a moment, but Political Officer Bloomington finally
realized that everyone was still looking at him.

Just then the bridge door opened and Security Officer Stark
walked in.

“Where have you been, Stark?” Bloomington asked.

“Sorry Sir, there was a situation I needed to attend to.
I’ve also received a communication. Eyes only. I suggest that you, the Captain,
and I should conference in the day cabin, Sir.”

“Very well,” Bloomington said quickly. Argentine got the
idea that the political officer was relieved to have the distraction. The
bridge crew certainly hadn’t been responding the way he was used to.

The three of them quickly retreated behind the day cabin
hatch that was located to the port-side rear of the bridge.

“Everyone man your stations,” Argentine said once they had
left the bridge. He walked over to stand in his usual place, with his back to
the day cabin door. “Sami? What’s the status of the enemy ships?”

“Unchanged,” she immediately replied.

Argentine really didn’t know what to do next. Should he tell
the bridge crew what was going on? Should he just let it play out? What if the
security officer didn’t keep his word and go through with it?

He took the time to study the bridge. With everyone’s back
to him he could observe them and their idiosyncrasies without distraction.
Jordan had a habit of keeping time to some hidden beat with the heal of his
left foot. Sami was absently chewing on a stylus…

It wasn’t hard to see everyone; the bridge was one of the
better lit rooms on the ship.

Like the corridors, the ceilings of most rooms were covered
with conduits and piping. That meant that the lighting was primarily wall
mounted. Serving on a People’s Republic ship took some getting used to; shadows
were always falling at crazy angles and depression was a real problem for the
navy.

At any rate, the bridge did have overhead lighting, but was
about as cramped as possible while still being able to seat seven people.

The back wall of the boxy bridge was taken up by the
Captain’s Bench.

It was actually a plush faux leather sofa that would seat
three. The adjustable armrests divided the sofa into three sections: the middle
(for the captain), the portside (for the political officer), and the starboard
for the first officer.

Flanking the Captain’s Bench on one side was the door to the
day cabin, while the other side was filled with the corridor hatchway.

Immediately in front of the Captain’s Bench was a low
console that contained the largest viewing screen on the bridge, which wasn’t
saying much. The crew stations, all located in front of the console, faced the
forward bulkhead which was covered with charts, diagrams, or whatever
propaganda the P.O. decided to post that week.

There were no windows.

Argentine hated the Captain’s Bench.

He would sit in the middle position when he had the watch,
but he couldn’t remember that last time he’d sat on the First Officer’s side.
There was something egalitarian about it that just left him with a weird
feeling.

So, he chose to stand when the Captain or P.O. were on the
bridge.

Argentine wasn’t a small man and the ceiling would be
considered uncomfortably low for anyone, but he ignored it.

To any observer, his presence dominated the room.

Just then, a small thud emanated from behind the door. It
was quickly followed by a muted scream.

By now, the entire bridge crew was turned around and staring
at him.

“Man your stations!” Argentine repeated forcefully.

No one so much as glanced back at their boards.

At that moment a loud crash was heard, and within a few
seconds Argentine heard the door behind him open.

He turned to find Lieutenant Stark there. Argentine raised
an eyebrow and the lieutenant nodded sharply.

He stepped aside to let him pass. The lieutenant walked
directly to his weapons station.

The silence was unbearable and it was a relief when
Lieutenant Stark finally spoke…

“What are your orders, Sir?” he asked.

It wasn’t hard to see the confusion spreading across everyone’s
face. Chief West, as usual, wasn’t bashful.

“Is it done?” he asked.

He also got a sharp nod in response.

“Okay everyone, listen up,” he continued. “Political Officer
Bloomington and Captain Kerry have been relieved of command.”

The bridge was still deathly silent.

“They were about to sacrifice the ship on a suicide
mission,” he continued. “First officer Argentine was brave enough to insist
that your lives not be thrown away. I agree with him. So we’re going to wait
for those ships to leave the system and then we’re going to quietly slip away.”

“We’ll be branded as traitors!” the pilot exclaimed.
“They’ll come after us.”

“Son,” the lieutenant said. “There’s no one left to come
after us. The People’s Republic has fallen. If you want to go down in flames
with it be my guest, but the rest of us are getting out of here.”

They couldn’t have been too surprised. When you’re not
getting paid or resupplied, when no messages come through from home, it’s
pretty obvious that something is terribly wrong. But it was still a lot to
absorb and the bridge was undecidedly quiet as everyone thought it through.

Finally, Sami said, “Thank God! I wasn’t looking forward to
my next performance review anyway. First, what are your orders? Where do you
want me to plot a course for?”

It was like a dam breaking. Suddenly everyone was talking at
once. One thing was clear though, they were all looking at First Officer
Argentine to lead them… Somewhere.

ΔΔΔ

Eighteen hours
later Sami announced, “First! The enemy ships are powering up.”

“Have they seen us?” Argentine asked.

“I don’t know. They don’t… Wait a minute. It looks like
they’re increasing speed to leave the system. They’d be dropping further in if
they were coming for us, so… I think we’re safe.”

“Okay Sami, start plotting us a course to take us out of
here and let me know as soon as they’ve left the gravity well and are out of
sensor range.”

“Where am I plotting a course to?” she asked.

That was the question wasn’t it?

ΔΔΔ

Argentine had
spent the time waiting for the enemy ships to leave in trying to assess his
situation.

Lieutenant Stark had found an ingenious way to distract his
security troops – at least for a while. He’d assigned them to the cargo bay and
ordered them to guard the rare metal supply that had just been harvested. He’d
indicated that
rare metals
was just a cover and that they didn’t need to
know what they were really guarding. He also intimated that it was the highest
priority of the People’s Republic that the cargo be transported safely.
Therefore, they weren’t to open the cargo door for anybody but him. It might be
a few hours or it might be a few days before he came back to relieve them, but
until then they were to stay put and be vigilant.

“They’ll do that?” Argentine had asked.

“It’s what they do; they follow orders,” the lieutenant had
responded.

The captain and the political officer called for a somewhat
less elegant solution. There was no way to trick them or hide what was
happening, so he’d had just tied them up and gagged them.

The ship was too small to have a brig so they were currently
being held in Argentine’s cabin. Lieutenant Stark had, of course, isolated the
cabin from the communications grid.

The four of them were now sitting in the captain’s day cabin
trying to decide where to go.

“Look,” said the chief. “The one thing we know for sure is
that we can’t stay here.”

“Why would we stay here?” asked Sami. “There’s nothing in
this system.”

“No, I mean we can’t stay anywhere in the People’s Republic
territory. It’s too dangerous. We’ll have enemies gunning for us from both
sides of the conflict.”

“Who knows anything about what’s beyond our borders?”
Argentine asked.

“The only groups we’re ever told about are the ones worth
fighting,” said Chief West. “And I learned not to trust half of that.”

“The rumors all say that the spiral arm is heavily populated
but I don’t know if it’s true or not,” added Argentine.

“Oh, I do,” said Sami.

“You do what?” asked the chief.

“I know all about what’s beyond our borders.”

After a moment Argentine said, “Well, spill it. Tell us.”

“Basically the further down spiral we go the less advanced
are the technology levels we’ll run into. The further up spiral, the more
advanced it gets.”

“How do you know this?” asked Argentine.

“Who travels more than astrogators? And we like to stay in
touch with each other. We have secret codes and everything.”

“Really?”

Sami returned his gaze without comment… leaving Argentine
still not quite sure if she was serious or not.

“I think I can vouch for some of that,” said the lieutenant.
The commissars know a lot more about what’s going on in the spiral arm than
they tell anybody. What she’s saying is true, but it’s very gradual and it’s
not uniform.”

This was something Argentine had never thought about. The
People’s Republic of Chezden occupied a very small spot about two thirds of the
way down the arm of a barred spiral galaxy. Traveling
down spiral
meant
moving further away from the galactic center whereas traveling
up spiral
meant moving further in.

“Well that settles it then,” said the chief. “We go down
spiral. We’ve got enough trouble and I don’t want to have to go up against
superior technology.”

“Not smart,” Sami said while shaking her head.

Everyone looked at her and she continued…

“If the Republic really is collapsing then everyone will be
migrating that direction. We won’t be running away from anybody, we’ll be
running with them. Besides, all the Republic’s enemies are from down spiral. We
are not going to find a lot of friends in that direction.”

“That settles it then,” said Argentine. “Sami, plot us a
course up spiral.”

“That gives me a direction; it doesn’t give me a
destination.”

“We’ll worry about that later. For now, let’s just get out
of here.”

“What do we tell the crew?” asked the chief.

“Tell them the truth, or at least part of it. Let them know
that once we get clear of Republic space we’ll find a nice populated planet.
They’ll be free to make their own decision - anyone that wants to leave can do
so then.”

“Some of them have families. They’re going to head back to
Republic space.”

“That’s fine. Tell them we’ll drop everybody off at the
first opportunity and from there they can go anywhere they want. For now,
though, we need to work together to get there.”

“Not everyone’s going to see it that way,” the lieutenant
said.

“Well, we’ve got more cabins we can tie people up in,”
responded Argentine.

Earth
2027 A.D.

Cris set the
next box on his workbench.

He considered himself fortunate to have the job with the
University, but he was really beginning to hate this field trip.

At first, Cairo had been interesting enough. There was so
much history here and being able to work with the team that was finally getting
to catalog the newest discoveries from the Valley of the Kings was rad enough,
but he was more than ready to get back to the States and rejoin his family.

Cairo was hot and dirty, and after years of war and military
control there was nothing here to hold the interest of a twenty-four-year-old
man…

He put on his thin latex gloves and started carefully
emptying the contents of the box onto his workbench.

The scholars and trained archaeologists had done all the
preliminary examinations of the objects. Later, those same experts would
carefully clean, categorize, and study them.

He didn't have that kind of background. He was simply the
hired help. Not that he minded… The job paid well and he'd been happy to take
it when his uncle had offered to get him an interview.

Spending weeks away from his wife and little girl, however,
was starting to wear on him…

Eleven years ago a Japanese archaeologist, using specially
modified ground radar, had announced that he had evidence of hidden chambers
behind the north and west walls of King Tutankhamen's burial chamber.

The issue had quickly become confused when a team,
ostensibly funded by National Geographic Media, had run their own scans and
announced to the world that there was nothing there.

What everyone now knew, of course, was that the new scans
had in fact
confirmed
the existence of additional chambers. The negative
announcements were made to deter interference by the prominent theocratic
regime of the region, as well as Egypt's military government.

It hadn't worked.

So what should have been the greatest archaeological
discovery in modern Egyptian history, the discovery of Queen Nefertiti's tomb,
became mired in politics.

Over the next several years many of the original objects had
been sold off or destroyed; it was a miracle that this much had survived. It
was only now, a little over a decade later, that scholars were finally getting
a chance to closely examine the remaining artifacts.

Cris dutifully recorded and then carefully packed each
object from the box.

Most of them were fragments or relatively common clay works
of art. Anything made of gold was long gone.

The next piece he picked up was a small clay figurine.

That was odd
, he thought to himself. This piece
seemed heavier than it should.
Maybe it was made out of a different type of
clay?

He knew that the items had already been inspected by people
with much more knowledge than what he possessed, but that did nothing to
diminish his own curiosity.

As he turned it over in his gloved hands the object started
slipping from his fingers. In an attempt not to crush or damage it he tried to
quickly re-grasp… to no avail.

The figurine crashed to the floor and shattered into many…
pieces…

What the hell?