Earth Song: Twilight Serenade (23 page)

Chapter 22

March 28th, 535 AE

Deep Space, Ghost Fleet #2, The Frontier

The meeting of two Ibeen was much easier, especially when they were both under power and command. It didn’t hurt that the ships were designed to dock in deep space. Each ball section had large cargo transfer docks designed to link with another Ibeen, or a space station. Unfortunately, not a Fiisk or a Kiile.

The two ships, both many thousands of tons of metal and plastic, delicately moved in like uncertain lovers sharing a first caress.

“Hard dock,” announced Bakook, Gamma’s captain, over the intercom. Minu was with Kal’at and Aaron, and a dozen Beezer were standing on the deck nearby waiting as well. Mindy had been too wound up to put her daughter down when she’d come aboard the Gamma from their shuttle.

Minu carried the girl on her hip, the baby’s legs straddling her own; she had an arm down the girl’s back and cradled around her bottom. It was an amazingly natural way to carry a child. Mindy was only six weeks old but she was already starting to hold her head up better and she always looked around with ever inquisitive bright green eyes.

“The lock is cycling,” one of the Beezer chuffed through his translator. The huge metallic splines of the ancient iris valve began to silently rotate and retract. As always Minu marveled at how a machine untold hundreds of thousands of years old worked so well.

As the splines finished retracting a party standing on the other side came into view and Minu smiled big. A tall lean black woman broke free and flew down the ramp in two long legged strides and slammed into Aaron, nearly sending him sprawling. Minu was glad she’d taken the baby.

“Oh we’re so glad you’re okay!” Cherise cried on his shoulder. “I couldn’t handle loosing another friend!”

“It’s okay,” he said and hugged her close. “I’m pretty glad I’m okay too!”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it!” Cherise made him promise.

As others approached Cherise turned to Minu, looked down at the baby on her hip, and completely disintegrated. Minu did her best not to cry, and failed utterly. Too many hormones still in my system, she told herself as the two awkwardly embraced and cried. “I’m sorry,” she told Cherise, “I tried to make it back.”

Cherise sniffled and looked down that baby who’d also decided that crying was a good idea. She cupped the little one’s pale skinned face with her chocolate tinted hand, leaned close and hummed a tune Minu remembered from her time in Naomi. “Say hello to your aunt Cherise,” Minu said to her daughter.

Cherise looked up in surprise. “Please don’t kid. For my people, that is serious thing!”

“You are a sister to me in all but blood,” Minu told her. “We’ve bled together, cried together, and shared all we have. Will you be an aunt to my daughter?” Cherise managed to nod and more tears were shared.

Beezer crew and humans began to come across but left the little group alone out of respect. After a few minutes Minu was enough in control of her emotions to recognize the slightly squat but powerful figure of the leader of her bodyguards.

“Welcome aboard, Sergeant Selain,” she said.

The man nodded and saluted. “Glad to be here, ma’am. You’ve been hiding out here too long.”

Minu gave a little chuckle and shook her head. The rest of his squad was waiting nearby.

“Did you bring the soldiers?”

Selain nodded and gestured. A man dressed in the standard tiger stripe camo of the Rangers but with the epaulette tab of the Chosen and four black stars of a scout came forward, two other officers behind him. “First,” he said, “I’m Captain Tyler Pape, Three-First, Alpha Company.”

Minu nodded back. “Summit Tribe?” The man gave her a thumbs-up. She remembered the young scout from a few occasions, and the name from a transfer to Ranger duty. “And I see Gregg has implemented the rank structure. Three Regiment, you said?”

“Yes, ma’am. Three Regiment went operational a week ago. We’re to begin rotating units through space for orientation, as you instructed. My company is to be the first.”

“Congratulation.” Behind them a large group of Beezer were coming over the lock’s low threshold. Many were exchanging greetings with the crew already there.

“Thank you, ma’am. Please meet my lieutenants, Melissa Grace of Second Platoon and Travis Beck of Third.”

Minu acknowledged both equally, but she had a hard time suppressing a huge smile at seeing Melissa Grace. The raven haired Plateau tribe five star had come through the most recent trials. One of almost forty women to make it. Just three short of half. She felt tears threatening again. Her trails group had had four women. Only four.

Melissa was a classically beautiful woman, her hair in a single tail of the same style now common (because it was how Minu wore her hair). She was not much less than two meters tall and about 40 kilos of lean muscle mass.

“Glad to be here, ma’am.”

“Glad to have you, Lieutenant.”

Travis Beck was bald, tall, and of indeterminate ancestry. He looked chiseled from the same mold as her husband. Born for the Chosen. He had eyes of ice blue and a jaw that could cut diamonds. “Ready to serve, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” Minu said. “Beck, I remember you were a late request.”

“I didn’t really want to be a Ranger,” he admitted.

“Then why come over?”

“Two reasons.” Minu gestured and he continued. “One, I saw the writing on the wall. You’ll either be integrating the Chosen or phasing them out.”

“Reasonable observation. But for the record, I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Noted.”

“And the other reason?” she prompted.

“I want to go into space. I had a sister.” Those hard eyes lost a little of their edge. A memory teased the edge of his awareness. And then it was gone just as quickly. “She was a few years older. Didn’t make the trials, couldn’t pass the mental test. So she joined up with the Rangers. She didn’t come back from Planet K.”

Minu looked down. “That was a tough battle. We lost a lot of good Rangers.”

“Yes, ma’am. We need to learn new tactics if we want to lose fewer people.”

“Very astute, and very right. Whatever the reason, I’m glad you are here. Please transfer your personnel to the Kaatan. Lilith is making quarters available. We’ll have to triple bunk, but we can make it work.”

The three offices acknowledged and went to work shepherding almost a hundred Rangers through the Ibeen into the Kaatan. Despite being on Ibeen Beta for a close to a month, clearly they were still getting used to the experience of being inside a spaceship the size of a small hill. She turned to Selain.

“I’ll transmit a couple files to you on suggested training,” he told the man. “Since your unit has the most experience in space, it makes the most sense that you spearhead this operation.”

“Consider it done, ma’am.” He took his squad and followed the Rangers inboard.

The captain of Gamma, Bakook, whom she’d learned to recognize, stood next to a new Beezer she guessed to be Beta’s captain. Minu had finally caught clues of rank among their merchant caste. Unlike other high ranking types, the merchants didn’t decorate their horns with scrimshaw. That appeared to be a permanent marking of a family. Instead the merchants had piercings on their floppy ears that held rings of precious metal. The more and fancier the rings, the higher ranked. Seeing the two Beezer captains she could see a particularly fancy silver ring decorated with a spray of golden stars.

“First,” Bakook chuffed, “this is Gilsook, captain of Ibeen Beta.”

The new Beezer had that same earring with golden stars. She filed it away as she bowed in acknowledgement.

“Please to meet you, and I am in debt for coming so quickly.”

“It is my pleasure to meet the First of humans, and leader of their military,” he said and returned the bow as equals.

“Bakook, are all captains to be heads of their clans?”

Bakook looked at her quickly, his nostrils flaring and head weaving from side to side. “To command a ship is a great honor,” he said, “and heads of the great merchant families have considerable prowess in trading and business.”

Minu nodded politely. “This only makes sense. However, may I make a suggestion?”

“You are of course welcome,” Bakook replied.

“Consider choosing your second officers or tactical officers from your military branch. Allow them a nearly equal say in operating of the ship. Not necessarily in deciding where it goes and deals to pursue, but in how you get there and how you deal with possible conflict.”

“Are you suggesting the head of a clan cannot handle conflict?” the newcomer, Gilsook demanded. Humans had worked with Beezer long enough that their translators were well programmed to deal with their Beezer’s language, and as such conveyed emotions well.

“Show due respect to Minu Groves,” Bakook reprimanded the other captain, “we would have no ships without her generosity.

“Generosity she only offered after nearly destroying our capital city,” Gilsook retorted.

“Are we still having problems with that?” Minu asked. “I’m beginning to regret saving your asses.”

“Many of our people still hold grudges after that incident,” Bakook said, reluctantly. “I completely understand what you did now. Time and operating these fine starships have… sculpted my understanding.”

“Sounds like you are saying my generosity changed your opinion,” Minu said.

“I did not say that, only that it has helped give me new perspective. Of the thousands of species within the Concordia a bare handful have any ships at all. A few one or two, perhaps. It isn’t completely unheard of. Now the Beezer have five ships!”

“Six in a few days,” Minu said, reminding him of Ibeen Zeta nearly operational.

Bakook bowed in acknowledgement.

“All I’ve ever asked is your help when called.” She turned to look at Gilsook. Despite being a dozen centimeters shorter and fifty kilos lighter she less than a meter away. “If that’s going to be a problem, I know I can find another species that will happily take your place for every transport I find from now on.”

Gilsook made a deep angry growl in his throat and began to lean forward, only Bakook was there sliding between them.

“This is merely a disagreement between captains,” he tried to assure him.

“See that it is cleared up,” Minu said, trying to sound as deadly serious as possible. “There may come a time when all our lives depend on there being no hesitation on either of our parts. The last thing I want is one of your captains deciding to delay a few hours to make some political point.”

“We’ll work it out,” Bakook assured her, turning and not so gently pushed Gilsook away. Minu listened to them growl and chuff at each other for a minute, her translator unable to pick up their words, before turning to the work that continued.

From inside the other Ibeen came a group she’d been expecting. Almost two dozen humans, mostly Chosen wearing the silver stars of the science branch. “Welcome, Bran.”

Bran Esterosa had been in science when Minu first became Chosen. He’d made the trials his last year of eligibility, after completing several masters degrees in various sciences and engineering. Even though he was several years older than Minu he wore just three silver stars. She’d worked with him a dozen times and was at the top of the recommended technology specialists by Ted Hurt and Bjorn both. The service had always been more important to him than rank. Minu also knew he’d been Bjorn’s preferred choice as a successor over Jasmine Osgood.

“Glad to help. I’ve been reviewing the details of your project and have some ideas.” All those with him were young Chosen, some much younger, and a few were civilian employees. All carried cases of equipment, tools, and parts.

“Great, I have space set up here already aboard this Ibeen for your labs and work rooms. I’ve set a tentative date to get this fleet mobile in seventy-two hours.”

“That’s not much time to work with,” Bran said, looking thoughtful but not discouraged.

“I’m sure you can get something going. It’s not a hard wall, but it is important we move as quickly as possible. We’re generating a lot of power and the chances of being noticed by a passing ship go up every hour we delay.

“As I mentioned in my briefing, there were six ghost fleets we know about and three of them are easy marks. We want to get to the other two ASAP.”

“We’ve been working all the way here, and once our gear is moved we’ll pick up where we left off.”

“Great,” Minu said and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

A moment later he took charge of his personnel and started moving them along. Back in the lock Beezer were now operating massive bots and using powered suits to move cargo aboard the newly arrived Ibeen. Salvage, their share of the goods so far located, would be taken home to be sold for profit. Once again she found herself grateful the Beezer weren’t interested in military hardware.

A few hours later aboard the Kaatan, Lilith hosted a dinner of senior staff, friends, and family. Her CIC was the largest space aboard the ship, not counting the three cargo holds that were now all nearly full or ordinance, and the shuttle decks. Since the latter really weren’t suitable, she’d tasked her CIC.