Fallout 33

Ronnie "Do you think they bought it?" Tylha asks. "Why not?" I say. "We made it look good, didn't we?" I stand up. I'm feeling restless, I've had enough of the centre seat for the moment, I want to move around. */*endocrine balance unstable---readjust---switch to regenerative mode*/* No thanks, Two of Twelve - like I said to Tylha, sleep is for tortoises. "I just hope he buys the rest of it," Tylha says. Her face is dour and pessimistic on my repeater screen. Behind her, the weird bridge of the King Estmere looks busy. And weird. Shalo's face, on another screen, is in close-up, so I can't see anything going on behind her. Typical KDF paranoia. "It doesn't matter about Klur," I say. "We're never going to get any answers from Klur, are we? And you and big-ears gave us the right way to get the answers." The freighter. Part of the freighter's job is to act as insurance for Klur - proof, if he needs proof, that he was acting on his backer's instructions; a means to drag them down with him if he's caught, so they have to make sure he doesn't get caught. Typical... not just KDF, but specifically Klingon */*species 5008*/* paranoia. */*inefficient---diverts resources to counterproductive ends---share information freely among the collective*/* - yes, and there are worse things than Klingon paranoia. "Do you have anything on scan?" I ask Shalo. Our little staged "tactical error" put her further out from the gate than the rest of us... assuming Klur came from roughly the direction of the freighter, then she should be first to spot it. Of course, when you assume, you... oh, forget it, Ronnie. "I have a contact on sensors," Shalo reports. Funny, really. It should feel weird, working with the enemy - but, so often, the KDF isn't the enemy, anyway. It's like war on alternate days of the week. Tuesdays and Thursdays, fight along side them in Orellius, Gamma Orionis and Tau Dewa; Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, blow their brains out in Pi Canis and Eta Eridani. It's a funny way to run a war. "When you think about it," I find myself musing aloud, "the mere fact that we're having this war means the Klinks have won it. They got what they wanted, honourable combat, an outlet for their warrior classes, a way to obey their martial cultural imperative. But, then, I suppose that means the Federation wins, too, because we're letting them do it, respecting their cultural values within the framework of Federation exploration and expansion. So everyone's a winner. Kind of a shame about all the dead people, but hey, at least the cultural principles win out, and that's what matters." I find a quotation to finish on. "The first thing a principle does is kill somebody." Tylha stares at me, but - unexpectedly - Shalo says, "Curiously enough, I was thinking the same myself only recently." Then her face changes. "I have the freighter. I -" She stops. Her jade-green complexion turns a much lighter shade of jade. "Tayaira told us," she says, "that Klur and Talakh did something on the freighter. And of course -" she swallows audibly "- they would have needed to make sure it did not get away from them." "What did they do?" Tylha asks. "From the readings I have here," Shalo says, "they must have overriden the safeties and turned off the internal radiation shielding." "But that freighter was loaded to the gunwhales with tricobalt," I say. "It still is," says Shalo. "The radiation levels - The crew must have died quickly, there is that, at least. But after such a death, Gre'thor must seem welcome." "All right," says Tylha. "Looks like this is my job, then. Back off to a safe distance and I'll take King Estmere in." "Hold on," I say. "Since when are Andorians immune to radiation?" "Since we got all the hazardous environment gear out for the relief mission to Bercera IV," says Tylha, "remember? I'll take a shuttle in close, space-walk the rest of the way in my EV suit. Don't worry, it's Nukara-rated." */*hazardous environment---recommendation---send disposable drones to secure beachhead---replace with other disposable assets as needed*/* No thank you, Two of Twelve. That's the bad sign. When you start thinking of people as... disposable assets... that's when you lose your soul. Oh, really, Ronnie? another voice in my head says. And how many people did you dispose of at Aznetkur? How many empty berths on the Virtue now, how many died on the Ytsay and the Adderbury and the others? Did they matter to you, Ronnie? Did you say a prayer for each one? I don't like the sound of that other voice. The worst thing is, unlike Two of Twelve, I can't tell it to shut up. Because I have a terrible feeling that it's the real me. --- Tricobalt radiation isn't visible. It's only my imagination that's making the freighter glow. It looms over Tylha's shuttle, a gaunt grey row of massive cargo modules, strung together, engines at one distant end, command module here at the other. "All right," Tylha says over the comms link. "Radiation levels within tolerances. Decon gear ready. Depressurizing shuttle and opening cargo doors. And I'm patching through my helmet camera now." Another screen comes alive, showing Tylha's viewpoint. "Good luck," I say. The side of the freighter looks even more enormous in this view. Then it expands, suddenly, vertiginously, as Tylha cuts in her suit's thrusters. "Aiming for the starboard side personnel lock," Tylha says. "You're on target," Shalo answers. She, of course, is the expert in Klingon freighter designs. Or the best we have to hand, at least. The airlock door is just another slab of grey metal; the picture bobs and wavers as Tylha finds the external control panel. "Standing by with security code overrides," Shalo says. "No need." Tylha's voice. "No security lockdown. Klur must have reckoned the radiation was enough of a 'keep out' sign. Opening the lock." Inside, the personnel lock is large enough to house a regiment. Tylha moves through it with what seems to me a nightmarish carefulness, scanning and checking as she goes. Well, of course, she's the one risking her blue hide in there.... "Cycling lock," she says, finally. I think I hear the air hissing into the chamber - but, of course, that's my imagination again. "Radiation levels... within my suit's tolerances. Nothing on volatiles scan." "Tricobalt isn't volatile," I say. "Tricobalt wasn't all they used at Bercera," says Tylha, and I decide to shut up. The inner airlock door opens, on an interior corridor of blocky metal and exposed pipes and dim reddish light. There is no one in sight. On a comms panel nearby, an alert light is flashing on and off, constant, repetitive, and futile. "Bridge is two levels up and four bulkheads forward of your current position," Shalo says. "I don't want the bridge, first," says Tylha. "For what we're looking for, the place to be is the quartermaster's or the supercargo's office." "I'm not sure I follow," says Shalo. I'm not sure I follow, either, but I'm damned if I'm admitting it. "Records," says Tylha. "Records of loading, handling, transshipment.... With the sort of stuff they're using, here, you have to know everything about it. Not just what it is - when it was made, how it was made, how it's been handled since. You have to have all the details, or it just isn't safe to touch it. This ship has got to have all the records we need, and they don't dare edit them. That is all the proof you need to take to the High Council - and that I need to take to the Federation." "I see," says Shalo. "In which case... supercargo office is ahead some fifty meters, one level down, one bulkhead aft." The view changes as Tylha plods forward. She reaches a door, opens it, goes through and turns... and there is a dark shape lying on the deck before her. The first body. There will be others, probably many others. "Klingon," Tylha says. "Looks like standard issue uniform... there's some insignia here, I don't recognize it." "House badge," says Shalo. "House of T'llan.... It may mean nothing, of course." "Might confirm with biometric ID," says Tylha. The view changes again, as she bends closer to the shrivelled face. "Might not be easy... I'll take a scan." By now, the radiation will have unravelled all that poor devil's DNA, leaving only gross physical characteristics - height, body mass, length of bone - for checking. Inconclusive, yes. Anyone could put a House badge on.... Tylha continues on, down the passageway, clambering down a ladder rather than taking any risks with a turbolift. Once more, she comes to a doorway; once more, she opens it. Beyond is a small, sparse office, with a single Klingon seated behind a desk. Tylha takes one look at his face and turns the camera away. "Terminal here," she says. "Going to need some override codes now...." "Downloading to your tricorder," says Shalo. "Get ready for a data uplink, too," says Tylha. "If I can, I'll capture all this stuff and transfer it for analysis." Red-orange tlhIngan Hol characters glow on a display screen before her; I see her gloved hands at the edge of the frame, tapping in commands with infinite care. Do your stuff, I say inside my head to Two of Twelve. */*working--- prepared for visual data capture--- translation routines online--- datarecord parsing and analysis routines on standby---*/* And nothing more to do but wait, as Tylha finishes the laborious process of accessing the records - and they scroll up the screen, to be captured instantly by the pitiless implant that covers my left eye - and Two of Twelve reads them, and digests them, and serves up their meaning to me - I tell the others. Shalo has already had time to gather some of it, to confirm it. "So," she says, "now, we know."