Starship Eternal (War Eternal Book 1) (8 page)

She put her hand to her nose ring. "Yeah. Easy come, easy go. Anyway, I just wanted to see you for real. Thanks for the autograph." She took the packet and extended her hand. He shook it, impressed with her grip. When she took her hand away, he found she'd left him a folded up note.

"Just in case you want to let me try the real thing," she said. She winked at him and left the enclosure.

Mitchell looked down at the e-paper. Not everyone had an ARR, which meant they had to resort to less technically advanced means of passing information. She could have knocked him from her tablet, but he guessed she didn't trust the privacy of it. He unwrapped the paper, expecting to find her signature print.

They're coming. Goliath. Find it.

He felt his heart rate pop. He glanced back at Major Arapo. Her left eye was twitching, but the other one noticed him. She tilted her head in silent question.

He looked back at the paper. Was he losing his mind?

They're coming. Goliath. Find it.

It was still there in a messy print. He started towards the front of the enclosure. He had to find the girl and ask her what the hell this was about. He only made it two steps before Christine's arm was on his shoulder.

"Mitch?"

Her eyes were on the paper. He closed his hand over it. Dr. Drummond had told him his experience was normal. If that were true, why did the word "Goliath" keep forcing itself into his mind?
 

"What is it?" Christine asked.

He opened his hand and gave her the strip. "What does it say?" He held his breath, bracing himself for the answer.

"You're freaking out about her sig print? I didn't take you for being into the grungy type, but as long as she comes to you and it's consensual-"

"That's not it, damn it," he said. "I think I may be having some residual symptoms." He put his hand to his head. The patch had fallen off while he slept, leaving the wound completely healed. "I'm done for today."

"You're done when the day is over, Captain," she replied.

"Christine, I said-"

"Major Arapo. You can call me Christine when you're being cooperative."

"Are you joking?"

She grabbed his arm and pulled his face close to hers. "Property, Captain. That's what you are. Did you ever bitch at your CO that you couldn't make a drop because you had a headache?"

"That was life or death. This is... this is all bullshit."

"Lower your tone, Captain."

"Or what? What can you do? Lock me up? Court-martial me?"

"We made you. We can break you."

"No. You can't. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm already broken." He tapped his skull. "I'm hearing things, seeing things. Something's messed up in there, and it happened after I got shot yesterday. I'm not trying to be a problem, Major, but unless you want to risk me freaking out on World Stream, you need to get me the hell out of here."

She let him go, her face turning rigid. "Okay. I'm bringing you back to Drummond. Whatever happens, whatever he tells you, you're not getting out of the gala. General Cornelius is going to be there to give you the medal himself, and I'll be damned if you're going to miss that."

Cornelius was one of the top ranking officers in the Space Marines and a legend in his own right. The last thing Mitchell wanted was to embarrass himself in front of the man. "Yes, ma'am."

"Wait here. I'll clear the queue. We leave in five minutes."

Mitchell watched her exit the enclosure. He noticed she'd dropped the strip on the floor. He picked it up and looked at it. He could see the sig print clearly now. Why had he seen a message before?

There was something wrong with him, but what?

"Mmmhmmm. I don't see anything wrong with your brain, Captain," Dr. Drummond said. "At least, nothing that wasn't there before." He brought a pair of scans up onto the wall behind him. "The one on the left is your gray matter during your last physical, about eight months ago. The one on the right is today."

Mitchell shifted between the two. They were nearly identical, save for a small spot in his prefrontal cortex. "What about that?" he asked, pointing.

Drummond examined the scan. "That's the wire that connects your brain to your implant. It was damaged yesterday, so the techs replaced it. From what I've been told, it's a standard upgrade. All the new recruits are getting fitted with it by default."

"They didn't change anything else, did they?"

"Let me see." His eye fluttered as he read the data projected onto it. "Minor system updates, three percent improvement in CAP-NN routing. Compatibility with the Carrion, whatever that is."

Mitchell knew what it was. A new mech, still in testing phase. If they were adding the compatibility routines to drive it, that meant it was on the verge of being approved for purchase. That wasn't exactly good news. Greylock had been sent a Carrion to test out. It was a small, thirty ton mech, nimble as anything, but also a brittle piece of shit. They'd brought it down to a training ground on Cestus and disabled it inside of five minutes with standard infantry fire.
 

It was being approved because the cost was as low as its usefulness. Having a hundred of them wandering a theater as peacekeepers would work out just fine, as long as nobody actually attacked it.

"So, nothing that would cause me to be seeing things? Or hearing things?" Mitchell put his hand up to his temple again.
 

"Nothing obvious. Personally, I think it's just stress. You've been getting run ragged the last couple of months. I submitted a request to have you moved to inactive for a few weeks for some R & R, but it was denied. It seems Command doesn't think there's anything difficult with being a celebrity. They aren't accounting for the fact that you watched your entire squad get blown away."

Mitchell winced. It wasn't the most sensitive statement, but his heart was in the right place. "Thanks for trying, doc."

"I'm just doing my job. So you know, Major Arapo requested copies of all the records, as well a full write-up. If you hear or see anything else, just try to ignore it, and definitely don't try to convince her. The more I have to talk to her, the more apropos your praying mantis analogy seems."

Mitchell laughed. "Is that your professional opinion?"

Dr. Drummond got to his feet. "I'm seventy-four years old, seventy-eight in Earth time. It's my experienced opinion."

"I don't suppose you can tell me anything else about her?"

"Like her birthday?"

"Like who she's reporting to? What branch she's out of? I have my hunches, but..."

"They don't tell me much. What I can tell you is that I was surprised to find out someone like her was already stationed on Liberty. I'm pretty confident you're the reason for that."

It wasn't anything Mitchell didn't already know, but it was nice to have confirmation. "Thanks again, doc. I hope I don't see you again too soon."

"Me, too, Captain. Me, too."

Major Arapo was waiting for him outside, her flat expression betraying her tense posture.
 

"I know," Mitchell said, cutting her off before she could speak. "Nothing on the scan. No abnormalities anywhere. Dr. Drummond seems to think I'm stressed."

"We're all stressed. It's part of what we do."

"I don't suppose I could get a week off sometime?"

"I'll bring it up with Command. Right now, we have to get you ready for the gala tonight."

"Get me ready?"

"There's a new dress uniform waiting in your room. You need to try it on. We used the measurements from your scan this morning, but when you're going to be meeting with General Cornelius and the Prime Minister of Delta, you take extra precaution."

Mitchell stopped walking. "Wait. Did you say the Prime Minister?"

"Yes."

"Of the entire quadrant?"

 
"Yes. Why do you think there was such a rush to put this thing together? It's going to be great for publicity to have you up there getting awarded by the Prime Minister."

"And I'm not supposed to be stressed?"

She stopped a dozen feet ahead of him and spun around. "I thought you were a Space Marine?"
 

"I'd rather drop into the middle of a nuke field than make small talk with the Prime Minister."

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Captain. He pisses the same as you do."

"Just into a nicer bowl?"

"Yes. Come on."

Mitchell caught up to her, and they continued walking.

"So, after I try on the uniform, then what?"

"Don't you ever check your ARR? We canceled everything else today ahead of time, in case your scan came back problematic. Command didn't want to take chances on this one. You have a whole seven hours to yourself." She smiled sideways at him. "Of course, you're locked down to your room until then."

"I figured as much. Are you going to be standing guard outside my door?"

"I have better things to do than babysit you all the time."

"Like what?"

They reached the officer's barracks. Mitchell followed her to his room near the center of the long, flat building. There were two MPs already waiting outside, ready to ensure he stayed put. They were both larger than him, with square jaws and thick muscles. They came to attention when they approached. Maybe she wouldn't be standing guard. Someone would.

"This is for your protection, Mitch," she said, ignoring his question. "Since you're not sure about your own stability. It's only until after the gala."

"Not taking chances. I get it. Howdy, boys."

"Captain Williams," one of them said in greeting.

His hatch opened and he stepped into the room. "I'll see you later then, Major," he said, turning around. She was already on her way back out.

Mitchell closed the hatch and went into the bedroom. The uniform was laid out on it, and he ran his hand over the decorations pinned to the chest, and the space that had been left for the new one. He considered trying the uniform on right away, and then decided against it. It had taken almost a full day for him to get a minute alone.

He retreated to the living room, dropping down onto the gel sofa and leaning his head back on one of the arms. A thought brought up the p-rat interface, and a second started a query for "Goliath." The voices in his medically cleared head kept telling him to find it. He figured it couldn't hurt to learn what
it
actually was.

The first result was called
The History of XENO-1
. Aldus had mentioned the name, and he had a feeling that somehow it had been what set him off. He scrolled the table of contents, skimming through the menu, with titles like The Arrival, The Discovery, First to Antarctica, The Beginning of the Xeno War, The Xeno War: Year 2, The Xeno War: Year 3, The Xeno War: Year 4, A Time of Peace, and The Goliath.
 

He stopped when he saw it, moving into that section with a thought. It was mixed media: video, imagery, and text all floating in the center of his left eye with enough transparency that he could see the ceiling behind it. He closed his eyes and spread the p-rat display across both of his retinas, finding himself immersed in a three-dimensional space, surrounded by floating boxes containing the content, all neatly organized. He held his hands out and reached for a section labeled "Construction."

The rest of the contents shrank away, while the photos in the Construction section flew out and expanded into a giant wall of imagery. He pulled the first image, and it shrunk down into a stack he could flick through.
 

The first picture was nothing but a shell, a frame of what appeared to be an earlier form of poly-alloy - a nano-scale material based on carbon, graphite, and iron. It was an extremely durable and light metal that along with carbonates, aerogels, and ultralight cement was used in just about everything these days. The caption beneath the photo read "A skeleton ship. First successful application of new alloy."

A starship? He checked the date on the image. September, 2043. Over four hundred years ago. He turned off the display for a moment, leaving himself in darkness.
 

Goliath. He tried to remember his history lessons. He had never been a particularly attentive student, preferring to watch the girls in his class rather than attune himself to the droning of his professor. Now he wished he had at least listened a little bit. He smiled, wondering if that was the day Keely Masterson had worn that skin suit with the dynamic patterns that flowed across it, the one that had been banned a couple of months later due to a glitch that would cause parts of it to randomly turn transparent. He didn't know if anyone else had seen it when the chest had gone clear. If his professor had, he didn't say anything. A sly pervert. Who could blame him for not paying attention that day?
 

He turned the display back on and flicked the graphic away. The next image was a few months later. More of the frame was completed, revealing the massive size of the ship. It wasn't quite as large as the Frontier Federation's dreadnought, but it was bigger than anything in the Alliance's stable. Two kilometers long, and half as wide. It was bulky for a starship. Not that aerodynamics mattered in the vacuum of space, but it would be an awfully big target, and impossible to lay shield coverage over. Mitchell wasn't sure they even had shields back then.