Dreadnaught: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Omega Taskforce Book 5) Read online

  Sterling stopped dead and spun around. “What do you mean you haven’t been able to reach her?” He realized he also hadn’t seen or heard from Commander Banks for the last hour.

  “Her neural interface is deactivated, Captain,” Graves replied, though he sounded unconcerned by this fact. “I asked the computer to inform Commander Banks of my request, but so far I have not had a reply.”

  “Thank you, Commander, I’ll convey your request to her personally,” Sterling said, resuming his progress toward the exit.

  Reaching the door, Sterling suddenly paused and hesitated. He wasn’t good at giving praise, unless it was sporadic and in the moment. He found it even more uncomfortable conveying his regards to Evan Graves, considering how his medical officer continued to creep him out. However, without his doctor’s unique expertise, not only would he himself be incapacitated and unable to perform his duties, but many more of his crew would be too. And on top of this, he had assisted in creating a vital new defense against the Sa’Nerra. For too long, the aliens had brandished the advantage of neural control against Fleet and humanity to devastating effect. Arguably, the discovery of the neural firewall had come too late to be a change-maker in the battle for Earth. Even so, it had not come too late to affect the outcome of the battles that were yet to be fought. For that, Commander Evan Graves deserved commendation.

  “Commander Graves,” Sterling called out. His medical officer had already gone back to his duties caring for the wounded and appeared surprised that Sterling was still in the room.

  “Yes, Captain, was there something more?” Graves inquired.

  “I know we may not always see eye-to-eye, Commander, but I want you to know that you’ve made a difference today,” Sterling said, pulling himself to his full height. “Without your work, we wouldn’t be here. I just wanted you to know that.”

  Commander Graves returned a respectful nod. “I appreciate you saying so, Captain.”

  Sterling returned the nod. Then for some reason, Crewman Clay popped back into his mind. The medical officer had explained that her death was unrelated to the neural firewall, but he hadn’t explained how.

  “Out of interest, how did Crewman Clay die?” he asked.

  “She died of her existing injuries,” the medical officer replied, calmly. “Remarkably, she actually survived the crash, but the impact reopened her wounds and she died a few minutes later.”

  Sterling nodded then turned to leave. However, Commander Graves voice followed him out, like the haunting whisper of ghoul.

  “It wasn’t a total loss, however,” Graves said, seemingly talking to himself. “I was able to harvest several of her organs to transplant to other causalities, and what blood she had left was valuable in replenishing my stocks.”

  Chapter 8

  The missing crewman

  Sterling paused just outside the medical section, tapped his neural interface and tried to reach out to Banks. However, just as Commander Graves had said, the link couldn’t be formed; Banks’ interface had been manually deactivated. Frowning, Sterling walked over to a computer terminal built into the wall of the corridor.

  “Computer, locate Commander Mercedes Banks,” Sterling said.

  Sterling wasn’t concerned that his first officer had been suddenly swallowed by a miniature black hole, or met some other grisly end. However, it was unlike her to be out of contact, and even more unusual for her to disable her neural link. This alone told Sterling that something was wrong.

  “Commander Banks is in her quarters, Captain,” the computer replied, cheerfully. “Would you like me to alert her that you are looking for her?”

  “No, no, I’ll pay her a visit directly,” Sterling said, holding the palm of his hand up the computer terminal, as if he was trying to halt traffic.

  “As you wish, Captain,” the computer replied. Then the screen on the terminal faded to black.

  “The plot thickens…” Sterling said out loud to himself before altering his course along the corridor to head for the officer’s quarters.

  Sterling was used to his progress through the ship being hampered by the need to greet fellow members of the crew and return their salutes. However, the fact most of his crew were dead meant that his journey to Commander Banks’ quarters went unimpeded. He idly wondered if being thankful for the lack of interruptions made him a bad person, considering the reason why this had been the case. However, Sterling concluded that being glad he was spared the need to engage in idle chit-chat was not the same as being glad that his crew was dead, so he dismissed any feelings of guilt out of hand.

  Reaching the door to Commander Banks’ quarters, Sterling found himself straightening his tunic and checking his appearance reflected in the shiny metal door. He abruptly stopped. What the hell are you doing, Lucas? he asked himself, shaking his head at his own reflection. You’re checking on your first officer’s wellbeing, not picking her up for a date, you damned fool. Still shaking his head, he hit the call buzzer. Moments later the door swished open.

  “Computer, I said who is at the door, not open the damned door!” snapped Mercedes Banks from inside the room. His first officer then appeared in the threshold wearing a dark scowl on her face. Her tunic was scrunched up on the bed and she appeared slightly out of breath. Banks’ flustered expression persisted until she realized it was Sterling who had called on her. “Oh, it’s you, Captain.” She stepped back and waved him inside.

  “Well, don’t sound so happy to see me,” said Sterling, cautiously moving into the room. It felt like he was willingly entering a tiger’s cage at a zoo.

  “I’m sorry, Lucas, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” said Banks, sitting down on her bed. Sterling frowned; his first officer looked and sounded despondent, as if she’d just received some terrible news.

  “What’s wrong, Mercedes?” Sterling asked, perching himself on the edge of Banks’ desk and folding his arms. The computer console that normally occupied the space had been smashed to pieces. Chunks of it littered the floor around his feet.

  Banks drew in a deep breath then let it out slowly before locking eyes with Sterling. Now, instead of looking downcast, she looked angry.

  “Promise you won’t laugh if I tell you?”

  “Of course not,” Sterling replied. Then he wished he’d taken more time to consider his answer. If what his first officer was about to say did make him laugh, then not only would he have broken his promise, but he’d be on the receiving end of her formidable wrath too.

  “I can’t find Jinx,” Banks said, shaking her head. “I’ve looked all over the ship, at least in the parts I can get to, but she’s nowhere to be found.”

  Sterling certainly didn’t feel like laughing – he knew how much the Beagle meant to his first officer. However, he was a little annoyed that the reason she’d gone AWOL was because she was searching for a dog.

  “I’m sure she’ll turn up, Mercedes,” Sterling replied, working hard to conceal his irritation and convey a suitable amount of sympathy instead. “Right now, we have more pressing matters, though, including getting your neural firewall chip installed.”

  Banks pushed herself off the bed and stormed across to the other side of her quarters. “I can’t concentrate on a damned thing until I know if she’s alive or dead,” she said, practically bouncing off the walls. “I know it’s not important, and I know that in that head of yours, you’re probably cursing me for wasting my time, but it matters to me, Lucas.”

  Sterling remained silent. As much as anything, he knew that Banks just needed to voice her frustrations. And while he freely admitted to being one of the least empathetic people in the galaxy, he did at least know when to talk and when to just listen.

  “But you’re right, we need to get on with the mission,” Banks continued, snapping herself out of her self-induced funk. Grabbing her tunic off the bed, she pulled it on and headed toward the door. “I’d give you my initial report on the condition of the Vanguard, but as you can see, my console is smashed.”

>   Sterling slid off the desk and hit the button to open the door. “We can use the one in the briefing room,” he said, stepping outside.

  “That’s smashed to hell too,” Banks replied, shaking her head.

  Sterling cursed then wondered where else they could go to review the initial findings. He remembered that there was an active console in the medical bay. Going there would kill two birds with one stone, allowing Graves to fit the neural firewall chip to Banks while she was there. However, he’d seen enough of his creepy medical officer for the moment and didn’t want to voluntarily place himself back in his presence so soon.

  “We’ll use the one in my quarters,” Sterling announced, taking the lead and heading off toward his own living space. “Assuming that isn’t also smashed, of course,” he added, realizing he hadn’t actually set foot in his quarters since the crash.

  “If not, then maybe the science lab still has a working console,” Banks suggested. “Initially, it’s best if you and I go through the report, before we brief the rest of the bridge staff.”

  Sterling frowned. “That sounds ominous,” he said, reaching the door to his quarters and pressing his hand to the ID reader. The damaged door began to slowly grind back into its housing, like it was a slab of rock being moved to reveal an ancient tomb.

  “No, nothing like that,” Banks said, giving Sterling some reassurance. Then she shrugged. “Or at least not that we know of. We can’t get any internal scans of the Vanguard until we gain control of its computer.”

  Sterling nodded then entered his quarters. However, he’d only managed to make it a couple of paces inside before he was forced to stop.

  “It looks like a damned bomb has gone off in here,” he said, brushing broken ceiling light tiles out of his path with the side of his boot.

  Banks squeezed past then let out a long, low whistle. “This is actually worse than my quarters,” she said. Sterling thought that his first officer sounded annoyingly pleased by this fact. Then Banks raised her eyebrows and pointed to Sterling’s desk. “At least your computer console survived though.”

  Sterling examined his desk. The drawers were smashed and their contents had been strewn over the deck, but the console was intact, as Banks had stated. Sterling fought through the wreckage to reach the console then righted his desk chair and maneuvered it into position in front of the computer. As he did so, he noticed that the stash of emergency ration bars he kept in his quarters to quell the midnight munchies were spread out all over the floor. He bent down, picked one up and held it out to Banks.

  “Here, take this,” Sterling said, offering his first officer the high-calorie energy bar. “You need to keep your strength up.”

  To his astonishment, Banks shook her head. “I know you might find this hard to believe, but I’m not hungry,” she replied.

  Sterling was so stunned by his first officer’s refusal that he was struck dumb. He wasn’t so insensitive that he hadn’t immediately understood the cause of her lack of appetite. Even so, for Banks to refuse food was unheard of and this, more than anything else, told Sterling she was hurting.

  “Look, perhaps the computer can find out what happened to Jinx,” Sterling said, brushing the sharper-looking shards of the light tiles off his chair before sitting down. “Internal scanners were down after the crash, but the computer is resourceful, especially now that I’ve basically allowed it to program itself…”

  “A decision I hope we don’t live to regret…” Banks added, folding her arms across her chest.

  Sterling frowned at her. Banks’ foul mood was already spilling over into other aspects of her personality. Ordinarily, she’d never question Sterling’s decisions, and certainly not in a churlish manner that was bordering on insubordinate. However, his first officer appeared to immediately recognize her error and quickly atoned for it.

  “Shit, I’m sorry again, Lucas,” Banks said, resting a hand on Sterling’s shoulder. “This is hardly how a hard-ass Omega officer should act. I’ll make sure to keep it stowed from now on.”

  “It’s okay, I get it, Mercedes,” Sterling replied, deciding to grant his first officer some leeway. “We might be Omega officers, but we’re still human beings.”

  “Some of us are, anyway,” Banks said, raising an eyebrow at Sterling.

  Sterling frowned at Banks then activated his computer, which took far longer than usual to power on. The screen was cracked, though not badly enough to obscure the information displayed on it.

  “Computer, in the time that partial scanners have been online, have you detected any small life signs?” Sterling said.

  “The rats already left, Captain,” the computer replied, causing Sterling to frown again. He’d frowned so often since crash-landing on the Vanguard that the act of doing so now made his face ache.

  “What rats?” Sterling hit back, already getting frustrated with his increasingly eccentric AI.

  “Rats from a sinking ship, Captain,” the computer clarified. “They all jumped overboard before we crashed. It is an amusing nautical metaphor that I thought was fitting given the circumstances.”

  “How about you just answer my damned question instead?” said Sterling, shaking his head at the smashed light tiles in the ceiling, where the computer’s voice had emanated from.

  “Very well, Captain,” the computer replied. This time, Sterling was certain he detected a slight whiff of outrage in the computer’s synthesized voice. “Assuming you are in search of the canine that goes by the designation, ‘Ensign Jinx’ then yes, I believe I have located her.”

  Banks sprang forward. “Where?” she said, leaning forward on Sterling’s desk and peering at the screen. “Can you show me?”

  The console screen updated to show a schematic of the Fleet Marauder Invictus. The image then zoomed in at speed, and Sterling found himself flying through the virtual corridors of the ship until the three-dimensional simulation reached a door and paused. Sterling’s frown deepened even further.

  “But those are my quarters, computer,” he said, again glancing at the ceiling. He was seriously considering the possibility that his AI had gone mad.

  “That is correct, Captain,” the computer replied. “Ensign Jinx is asleep under the pile of bedding at the far end of the room.”

  “What?” Sterling blurted out. He spun around in his chair, but Banks had already darted over to where Sterling’s sheets and pillows had been hurled into the corner by the impact of the crash. Banks quickly but carefully sifted through the pile of bedding. Then her mouth curled into a wide smile. Sterling got out of the chair and edged around the side of his bed before spotting the beagle hound curled up on his pillow. “How the hell did it get in here?” Sterling yelled, throwing his arms out wide.

  However, Banks had already stopped listening. She had dropped down onto her knees beside the dog, who had now awoken and was wagging her tail vigorously.

  “Your bedding must have cushioned her when we crashed,” Banks said, energetically petting the dog. She looked into the hound’s large brown eyes. “Who’s a clever girl then?” she continued, using the twee-sounding voice she reserved exclusively for Jinx. “She used the captain’s bedsheets as a safety net, didn’t you?” The dog let out a high-pitched yip, wagging her tail so fast it was a blur. “Yes, you did, clever girl!” Banks said, as if the dog had actually confirmed her suggestion.

  Sterling shook his head, realizing that there was no hope of getting through to his first officer for a least the next few seconds. However, as much as he considered himself to be a cold-hearted bastard, he couldn’t help but feel his chest swell at the sight of Mercedes Banks reunited with her familiar. He wondered whether this feeling diminished him in any way, and made him less effective as an Omega Captain. His job was to make decisions that were disconnected from sentiment and emotion. Then he huffed a laugh and shook his head again, dismissing the notion. It wasn’t weak to care. It was only weak to allow compassion to get in the way of doing what was necessary.

  Pull
ing the ration bar out of his pocket, he called out to Banks. “Here, feed the damned hound,” he said, tossing the snack to his first officer. She caught it one-handed and smiled back at Sterling before tearing open the wrapper.

  A link formed in Sterling’s mind from Lieutenant Razor. He turned his attention away from Commander Banks and Ensign Jinx and allowed the connection to take hold.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant,” he said, allowing himself a smile as Banks tore a chunk off the ration bar and fed it to the dog.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Shade and I have established a command post just outside the ship,” Razor began. She again sounded full of vim and confidence. No doubt, his unorthodox medical officer had something to do with the speed of her recovery. “We’re attempting to tap into the Vanguard’s systems to get a condition report on the ship, but it looks like we’re not the only ones trying.”

  Sterling’s smile fell away and the room suddenly felt like it had chilled by several degrees. “McQueen? She’s trying to access the Vanguard’s AI directly?” Sterling asked.

  “Aye, Captain, that’s what it looks like,” Razor replied. “And since the Vanguard has been adrift for over a year, its AI won’t know that McQueen is now an Emissary of the Sa’Nerra. Captain McQueen’s command override codes will still be valid.”

  Sterling cursed, realizing that they’d already wasted too much time. While he’d been searching for a dog, McQueen had been busy working out how to capture the Vanguard before they did.

  “I’ll meet you outside with Commander Banks in five minutes,” Sterling said. “I’ll want a full report and a range of options.”

  “Aye, sir, I’m on it,” Razor replied. Then the link went dead.

  Sterling turned his attention back to Commander Banks, but his first officer was already looking at him, muscles taut through the fabric of her uniform. She looked like a different woman, Sterling realized – she was poised, sharp-eyed and focused once again. Perhaps finding Jinx had been for the best after all, he considered.