Warpath (3 page)

“Don’t worry, I
could dead lift him,” Alice said, immediately cringing as the words
were heard. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”

Jake laughed a little.
“Time to get me on my feet,” he said.

“Now, take it one
motion at a time, relax and let your muscles tell you how it’s
done,” Doctor Messana said, “that’s what the muscle memory
treatment is for.”

Jake pulled himself up
off the bed and onto his feet. His legs felt strong, but the deck
seemed to sway a little. “Sure the dampers are working here?” he
managed to say before he lost his balance and began to fall to his
right. Alice caught him under his arm and propped him up.

“Relax, Jake,”
Doctor Messana said.

“Just put your feet
under you,” Alice whispered, helping him by gently pushing his foot
back into place. She was a short pillar of strength and stability
under his shoulder, unyielding and strong. “Now put your weight on
it slowly.”

Jake did so, and,
slowly he found his stance. He leaned on Alice less and less, until
he could feel himself starting to fall backwards. Alice supported him
in time, her arm reaching as far across his broad back as it could.
“I got you,” she said. He leaned on her for stability and she
practically held him up herself. He could move his legs, but his feet
weren’t listening nearly as well. He needed the support of his
daughter and Doctor Messana to walk.

“That’s a lot of
progress for the first ten minutes,” Doctor Messana said. “How
about a first step?”

“No,” Jake said,
laughing nervously, then he instinctively stepped forward with one
foot, and the other. He felt as though he were about to fall
backwards, but leaned on Alice briefly to compensate.

“Well done,” Doctor
Messana said. “You’ll be jogging in no time. There are a few
people waiting for you in the next room, do you feel up to it?”

Jake nodded, slowly
sitting back down on the bed with Alice’s help.

“Good, the sooner we
get you back to normal activities – moving, socializing – the
sooner you’ll be in shape. I’ll go brief them.”

Jake waited for her to
leave. “Someone should tell her I wasn’t the most social creature
before all this.”

Alice gave a short
laugh. She pulled a regular vacsuit out from a box at the foot of the
bed. It was already black with the markings of a captain, and WARLORD
printed in white across the shoulders. “I don’t feel like I’ve
earned that back yet,” he told her quietly.

She looked at it for a
moment then used her command and control unit to change its colour to
navy blue and remove the markings. “Better?”

“Looks right,” he
replied.

The suit did most of
the work of dressing him, creeping across his skin as he put his feet
in, but Alice helped him lean the right way so it could get access.
It was a little demeaning, but Jake pushed his pride away. “I never
thought about what it was like for you when you were first born as a
human,” he said to her.

“I’d almost
forgotten that,” Alice said, “I guess it’s one of those things
the framework is suppressing, it’s all foggy. I sort of remember
learning how to walk, talk. I was lucky, I had people there to help,
mostly from pity I guess.”

“I wish I was there
for you,” Jake said. “You didn’t waste too much time waiting
for me to hatch again.”

“I visited,” Alice
said, looking a little guilty. “But, no, I didn’t waste much
time. Remmy convinced me to re-enter the Rangers when Anderson
invited me back in. They’ve gotten better now that the standards
are higher, I’m almost finished with the advanced tactical and
encounter analysis training.”

“So you’re going
back to the Rangers?” Jake asked.

“Yes, but Governor
Anderson tells me that I’ll be leading another team of rangers
aboard the Warlord when it’s back in full service, with your
approval, of course. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll leave again
and join your crew.”

He was glad to see that
she’d been busy while he was practically dead, and he would have to
thank Remmy later for getting his daughter back into the Rangers.
They would be a good option for her, since he didn’t want her on
the Warlord any longer.

“You okay, Dad?”
Alice asked.

“Just wish I could
have been there for you way back when you were taking your first
steps,” he lied.

“Ancient history,
besides, you didn’t even know,” she said as he positioned his
left arm so the vacsuit could close around him. “Ready to go?”

Jake took a deep breath
and let it out. “Time for the great unveiling. I feel like I owe
this to Doctor Messana. I’m her big success.”

“Just concentrate on
yourself,” Alice said as she helped him up.

With her under his
right arm, Jake took ponderous steps towards the door. When he
finally made it across the room it opened to a hallway, where Ayan,
Minh-Chu and Ashley all watched from a door on the other side.

Ayan was across the
space and pressed into his arms in a moment. Minh-Chu put himself
under his other arm. “Did they have to make the new model bigger
than the last? I felt short before, but now I feel like a ten year
old.”

“Don’t knock it, I
hear it was the only model on the lot,” Jake replied.

The room across the
hall was filled with senior staff from the Warlord, the Triton and a
pair of people who aided Doctor Messana while he was being rebuilt
and his muscles were reprogrammed. He didn’t remember them, but
they spoke to him as though they’d known him all his life.

They brought him to a
plush seat in the middle of a social room. There were several sofas
and seats in a rough oval, and he could see imitation wood tables
folded up and stacked in one corner. Everything looked relatively
new, and he couldn’t help but ask; “Where am I?” with a
chuckle, amused that he couldn’t piece it together himself.

“Oh, you’re aboard
the Solar Forge,” Alice said.

Jake had never heard of
the ship. His expression – a mix between bewilderment and mild
irritation – must have indicated that to Ayan, who was sitting on
the arm of his chair. “It’s the ship construction and repair
facility Lordander Corporation traded to Triton fleet.”

“What did they trade
for?” Jake asked.

A little of Ayan’s
joviality visibly drained, “we agreed to give refuge to a group of
issyrian exiles who were escaping Clark Patterson and the Order of
Eden.”

“Did they know
anything about them that we can use?” Jake asked.

“Part of the deal was
that we wouldn’t involve them in the fighting,” Ayan explained
quietly, “We’ve invited them to share what they want with us, but
we haven’t heard anything back about that yet. They’re good
people though, it seems like they really only want peace.”

“Defectors from the
other side’s inner circle get to live in and near Haven Shore, but
the people there won’t have them. Those spoiled civilians
protested, so you’ll find most of them up here, learning how to run
this place and going about their business while we figure out if
they’re really out of the war,” Frost said as he entered the room
with Stephanie and a few newer Warlord crewmembers in tow. He didn’t
let his irritation with the situation spoil the occasion. His grin
could have lit up that side of the room as he took Jake’s hand in
both of his and shook it. “Still made of miracles, Captain,” he
said, and Jake could have sworn that there was a tear in the older
man’s eye.

“Not anymore, Frost.
Looks like I’m just human now,” Jake replied.

“Not to me,” Frost
replied, “Welcome back, lad. The Warlord’s waiting, repaired and
tested.”

“Tested?”

“Acting Captain Vega
has us on long range patrols, dropping sensor buoys. I’ll admit,
being able to come back to Tamber near every night has been good for
the crew, restful, but the room fees are piling up. Makes me wish
Stephanie, oops, sorry, Acting Captain Vega and I could have a little
flat of our own down there.”

“Frost,” Ayan said,
an edge to her voice that caught the attention of everyone on that
side of the room. “I’m forgiving that entire tab for the
Warlord’s crew.”

“But I just paid in
full,” Finn said, burying his forehead in his hand. He was just
entering the room.

“I’ll make sure you
get a refund,” Ayan said.

“Your little council
won’t like that,” Frost said.

“Triton Fleet owns
Haven Shore now, so I won’t hear about it,” Ayan replied, putting
the order through on her arm unit, a thick transparent blue bracelet.
It matched her dress, which was loosely fitted from hips to knee, and
a tight scoop-neck design from the waist up. “And I was going to
wait to announce this, but I just got word today. The Core World
Authority has sent the final verdict down about ownership of the Rega
Gain system. I technically own Tamber, while Triton Fleet has been
acknowledged as the rightful victors over the Carthans, making this
solar system our property. I’ll give up Tamber to Triton Fleet
again when I get the chance to do the paperwork. Owning a moon the
size of Earth is a little too much for me to take on.”

The room erupted in a
wave of applause that made Ayan raise an eyebrow and smile. “So no
more of this ‘Queen’ or ‘Your Highness’ business,” she
shouted over the din. “You call me ‘Commodore’ or ‘Ma’am’.”

“One last time then,”
Frost said, grinning as he stepped directly in front of her and bowed
so low that his nose nearly touched the floor. “Greetings, your
Majesty,” he said with a flourish. Finn shook his head and Agameg
cocked his. The majority of the room was tickled by the display, as
was Jake.

Ashley broke through
the semicircle of people that had gathered around Jake and nearly
smothered him with an enthusiastic hug. “You look better than
ever!” she said. “And you’re smiling, a lot!”

“I swear she was
picturing you in stitches and braces the whole time you were in
recovery,” Minh-Chu said. “I kept telling her; ‘he’s being
remade, not stapled back together.’”

“How do you feel? I
didn’t hurt you, did I?” she asked, ignoring Minh-Chu.

“Better than before,”
Jake replied, conscious that his daughter, who was still a framework
construct, was sitting to his right.

“Really? Wow, the Doc
does great work,” Ashley said. Zoe landed on her shoulder, jumping
or falling from such a distance that Jake couldn’t figure out where
she’d come from. “This one spent the whole morning begging to
visit you because I told her you were sick when she saw you wheeled
by,” Ashley said, holding one of Zoe’s tiny hands.

“Better now,” Zoe
protested at full volume into Ashley’s ear.

“Yes, we know,” she
replied, “Thank you Zoe.”

“Thank you for your
help,” Jake said, capturing the Nafalli child’s attention. “I
don’t know if I would have ever woken up if it weren’t for you.”

Zoe bounced onto Jake’s
chest, hugged his head, kissed him on the forehead then bounded off
again. She used Ashley’s shoulder as a post to look from then leap
from when she spotted Panloo. “Off she goes, to tell everyone that
she saved you,” Ashley chuckled. “She’ll be telling that story
all week.”

“She’s growing
faster now,” Ayan said. “Last time I saw her she was five
centimetres shorter. Are you sure it’s all right for her to jump
around like that though?”

“Panloo tells me Zoe
is from a tree tribe,” Ashley said. “You can’t stop them from
doing it at this age. She’s broken her arm once though, so Panloo
put a few rules in play, and Zoe’s listening so far. I can’t
imagine what she’ll be like when she’s full grown.”

“Beautiful, I’m
sure,” Ayan said with a smile that seemed a little too sure.

The rest of the night
continued with a similar jovial feeling. Jacob never thought his
survival would make so many people happy. He believed he had a core
group of friends, and allies that would be relieved, but the room was
full for hours, and when he was brought back to his bed, he couldn’t
recall how many people had stopped in front of where he sat all night
to congratulate him on his recovery.

Alice was quiet for
most of the evening, fetching non-inebriating drinks and listening to
everyone who wanted a moment of Jacob’s time. She left him with a
kiss on the cheek as she said; “love you, Dad.”

Ayan fixed him with an
affectionate gaze, her big blue eyes unflinchingly staring into his
as he looked up from his bed. “Thought I was about to lose you
forever,” she said.

“I’m here, more
than ever,” he replied, a question he refused to ask while he was
so tired nagging at him. He aired another thought he’d been hiding
all night instead. “It’s as though I was experiencing everything
from the opposite end of a long hallway, or through a thick filter
before, and now that’s gone. The framework was in the way before.”

Ayan glanced to the
doorway, where Jacob’s daughter had passed a minute ago, then back
at him. “You think she’s having the same problem?”

“I don’t know, but
she’s talked about suppressed memories, the framework won’t allow
her to age more than a few months, and I’m sure there are other
things going on,” Jake said, keeping a yawn from interrupting the
last few words.

“Something we can
talk more about tomorrow,” Ayan said, sweeping Jacob’s hair out
of his face.

He caught her hand and
squeezed it. “I’m still surprised you came back to me, if that’s
what this is,” again, the denied question repeated itself in his
head;
why did you leave in the
first place? Was it for Liam?

“That’s what this
is, if you want me back,” Ayan said.

She had to know that he
checked on her status, read her public reports and had pictures of
her in his Crewcast profile. She was asking a question he was sure
she knew the answer to already, but he didn’t mind. “Yes,” was
all he said.