Imposition (6 page)

"I can't even remember the last time we were all together."

Gen pursed his lips. “A reception to celebrate Mal's brother's engagement, if I recall correctly."

"Oh! That's right, the one with all the punch."

"Yes,” Gen grimaced, tipping his head back. “The one with all the punch."

"I'd never fished anyone out of a fountain before; that was a unique experience."

"Shut up. It's not my fault her parents are stupid-rich."

"No, but it
was
your fault that you drank too much, ingratiated yourself with the new bride-to-be, and vomited all over their shrubbery of prize argonias."

Gen groaned. “Oh god, why the hell do you always remember this shit?"

"Why do you think I always stay within the realms of sobriety when I'm around you? It's because you need a minder to stop you doing the
really
stupid stuff. Well, I lie. It's partly that and partly because it means I get to store these things for posterity.” He tapped the side of his head and smirked.

Gen looked less than impressed. “One day the tables will be turned, you'll see."

Therse wasn't convinced. “So have you decided what you're going to do when we're in port?” he asked.

"I'm going to head to the shopping district first thing, buy some stuff that doesn't have ‘property of UGA Navy’ printed on it. And then I'm going to eat some proper fucking food and find the woman of my dreams for nights of unbridled passion before we head out to Carbera."

"And call your mom."

"And call my mom...” Gen smirked and shook his head. “I can't wait to get out there though, it's going to be great. Gravity of the situation aside, obviously.” He wafted a hand in front of his face. “For the first time in ages, we'll actually have proper missions."

Therse picked up a piece to move it, then put it back down again.

"I don't think that's the object of the game."

He paused, looking across at Gen. “I need to tell you something."

"Conceding already?"

But Therse wasn't in the mood for joking anymore. He fished his pocket-screen out and opened it, fingertips flicking over the display. He passed it to Gen. “I've been offered a position in Command,” he said, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible. He still wasn't sure how he felt about it himself.

He watched Gen's expression carefully as his words sank in; as the words in the letter hit home. “Congratulations!” Gen told him, but his smile was a little forced. “That's what you've always wanted, right? That's great!” He looked down at the screen again. “When did you find out?"

"The letter came through this morning."

"Great!” He nodded, offering Therse a tight-lipped smile and handing the little screen back. “I didn't even know you'd put in..."

"Yeah, I didn't tell anybody, sorry. I didn't think my application would come to anything, so I didn't want to announce it if I was just going to end up getting refused anyway."

Gen shrugged. “It's worked out nicely, really. You can step up after Carbera —"

"Gen,” Therse interrupted, “if I accept this, I won't be able to go to Carbera. I'll have my week of leave, and then I'll be off. I won't be going with you. It's Navy Central Command—I'll need to travel all the way back to Earth-Lunar Orbital.” He pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I don't know when I'll get to see any of you again."

Gen just looked at him. “So you've accepted?"

"Not yet, no."

Gen's expression seemed to soften. “Then what the hell are you waiting for?"

Therse was about to make a stab at an answer that wouldn't have betrayed his feelings when the lights flickered and then went out altogether, plunging them into absolute darkness. An odd noise, like a curtailed screech, sounded over the intercom. A second later, the lights came back on.

They were both looking upwards, as though that would reveal the mystery.

"What was that?” Therse wondered out loud.

"Dunno."

"Ship?” he ventured.

"Apologies,” it said. The ship's voice seemed...different, somehow. He was probably just imagining things. “I was re-booting power in a number of sectors. Should have warned you first...there should be no further interruptions.” The apparent courtesy in its speech pattern certainly sounded off. Unless it had been rebooting some politeness subroutines.

"Maybe we should go and see what that was,” Gen said.

Aside from the obvious problem of how and why, exactly, they should investigate something the ship was already aware of, Therse saw an opportunity. “Running away from defeat?"

"Fuck you,” Gen said, focus renewed.

The next day, and after two weeks of running around the same route since they'd first boarded, Therse decided he needed a bit of a change in scenery and had started his jog on one of the lower floors instead, hoping it might be invigoratingly different. It wasn't. Even the cleaning drone looked the same.

He had hoped a shift in routine might break him free of a couple of things, but it was obviously too much to ask for.

The dreams were still coming; he'd woken up sweating and tangled in the sheets again that morning, stuck through with that deep guilt he wished so hard he could forget. He wanted to swallow it down, to push it back under and never think about it again, but things weren't that simple. He couldn't understand why it was haunting him now, after nearly four years had passed.

He thought about Gen, about the shadow of disappointment that had registered on his face when he'd learned about the Command post, and how quickly he'd managed to hide it away. Therse hated the fact he knew Gen wanted him to stay. Of course he did; they'd been best friends for over three years and been posted together ever since they left military school. It just made it so much harder to leave Gen behind. At least he seemed to have taken it pretty well.

Therse thought of his best friend's face again—those strong boyish features and brown eyes framed by soft, mid-length blond hair.

What are you waiting for?

What indeed...

Something caught his attention and pulled him out of his depressed reverie.

There was a cup sitting on the windowsill just up ahead.

That wasn't unusual in itself. What was unusual was that it was on a level neither he nor, to his knowledge, Gen ever used. And even if Gen had taken a wander, it was unlike him to leave a cup behind rather than tidy it away. He frowned, making a mental note of its location so he could nag Gen later.

His footsteps slowed to a trot and then stilled altogether. His mouth hung slack as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

The cold silver of fear and adrenaline coursed through him.

Out of the window, a couple of floors up and a little way along the dull gray hull, a smaller, dark vessel was stuck knife-like into the flank of the ship. He'd never seen anything like it before: long and pure black, all angles and threat. It certainly wasn't Navy, and it certainly hadn't been there before.

There's someone else here.

"Ship, how many people are onboard?” he asked, staring out of the window.

"Counting two persons,” the ship replied. “One: Therse Bodan, Navy Lieutenant. Two: Genham Drisjic, Navy Lieutenant."

"That can't be true. There's another ship docked to one of your ports!"

"Ah, you caught me, that was a lie. Sorry."

Something was definitely wrong with the ship. In all his limited conversations with it it had been rude, evasive, and disinterested, but it had never actually outright lied to him before. “What are you talking about?"

It was almost as though he was talking to a different AI altogether.

"Who the fuck are you?” Gen shouted, reaching instinctively for his bootknife. It wasn't there. It was back in his quarters where he'd left it, under a bunch of other things.

"Oh, looks like you've been relaxing a bit too much here,” the man said, hands clasped behind his back.

Gen knew he was someone not to be trusted, regardless of the fact he'd just appeared out of nowhere. Gen did the only other thing he could think of and raised his fists.

The man just laughed.

Gen took the opportunity to make first strike and launched at him, arm raised and ready to deliver one of the hard punches he was so well-known for in bar brawls.

The man was fast, moving only at the last second as Gen's fist met with empty air. He felt himself caught and twisted, rammed face-first against the wall with his arm behind him at an awkward angle. He tried to brute-strength out of it, but the man's hold on him was impressively tight. He protested as his arm was moved another painful fraction of a degree.

The comms unit in the wall in front of his face lit up. Someone was dialing through.

Therse.

"What's that?” the man said. At first Gen thought he was being spoken to and was about to respond with something abrasively vitriolic, but the ship got there first.

"That's the other one. He's figured it out too. Shall I connect it?"

"Eh, sure, why not."

"What the hell,” Gen strained, the man's grip on him still unrelenting.

Therse's face came up on the screen. “Gen! Gen, I think there's someone else...” he trailed off.

"On the ship?” the man finished for him. “Yes, I think he already knows,” he said, releasing Gen to rub furiously at his almost-broken arm. At least, it felt that way.

"Nice to meet you both. I'll be staying with you for a little while."

[Back to Table of Contents]

Meitou seated himself calmly into one of the mess hall chairs, ankle of one boot resting over the knee of his other leg, fingers of both hands interlocked in his lap, and waited for them to begin their questions.

The blond one was pacing, looking like he was trying to decide where to begin. Almost territorial, Meitou noted. His own ship, the Imperial Heavy-class Interceptor
Weapons Grade
, had given him a short briefing of what to expect aboard the
Terminal Regret
. He'd been surprised (and rather disappointed) to learn that such a huge stellar cruiser only had two passengers on board. There wasn't even so much as a captain. But two men was better than no men at all.

Meitou was trying to remember the fidgeting man's name from the files he'd glanced at before losing interest and deciding to go see for himself.
Something beginning with a harsh ‘G'. Gorin? Gangor?
No, something that was smoother on the tongue. Gimran? Not it either...
He wished he'd paid the ship's briefing more attention now. The blond glared at him firmly and it came to him at last.
Genham

Meitou watched Genham a little longer, getting a measure of him. His presence was an incursion that challenged Genham's status, even aboard an empty ship carrying no women. Meitou studied him carefully, scrutinizing his every move, reading his give-away micro-expressions. Genham was a firecracker; an immature, impatient and insecure alpha male prone to impulse. None-too-interesting, from Meitou's point of view. Not many points of intrigue. Too easy to read, too easy to toy with.

Not that it wouldn't be fun to toy with him, admittedly.

It looked like Genham had finally chosen his starting point.

"So how about you begin by telling us who you are and what you're doing here."

"Is your arm okay?” Meitou asked, faking concern.

"It's fine!"

He lowered his voice to a deeper baritone, leaning his head to the side. “You seem to be rubbing at it still is all. Sorry if I hurt you."

"You didn't! Answer the question."

Too easy. Just too easy. He smiled thinly and said nothing.

Genham was already aggravated and Meitou was barely even having to do anything.

"You can't expect to just sidle aboard and stick around when we don't even know anything about you, where you've come from, what you're doing here..."

Again, Meitou said nothing.

"Fine, don't tell us anything. We'll just have the ship kick you off —"

"The ship?” he interrupted, smiling inwardly that his interruption was instantly accepted. “You mean you haven't noticed the change in AI?"

Genham scowled back at him, doing his best not to nurse his arm but keeping it still by his side.

"That AI is
your
ship?” This time it was the other one who responded.

Meitou suddenly found himself wondering why he'd been wasting so much attention on Genham. On screen the second man had seemed flat and uninteresting, but in the flesh it was a different matter entirely. The name wasn't a problem to recall this time.
Therse Bodan.
Therse was tall, like Genham, and obviously toned even beneath his Navy fatigues. He was handsome to the point Meitou actually had to stop himself from looking him over. “Yes,” Meitou replied, allowing himself a small smile.

Therse's brown eyes flicked away then back, perhaps the hint of a blush forming on his cheeks, if that wasn't too much wishful thinking.

"The hell! You can't do that —"

Therse held out a hand and Genham silenced himself. “What's happened to ours?” Therse asked.

"It's fine, still there, just...sidelined...for now."

"'Sidelined'?"

"That's right."

"So that's what the power outage was,” Therse muttered to Genham. “When will it be brought back online?"

"When my ship no longer requires control of your vessel."

"And why exactly does it need control of our vessel?” This was good, he decided. Better than expected. Therse was cool-headed, thoughtful and deliberate; a tactician. Exactly the kind of man it was fun to see lose control.

Exactly the kind of man Meitou liked to make lose control.

He smiled and said nothing. There was definitely a blush there, he was sure of it.

"What the hell are you?” Genham asked, straightening, broadening his chest and shoulders. “I've never seen that kind of uniform before."

"Meitou."

Genham looked shocked to have received a straight answer, even if it was to a previous question. “Surname?"

"Not something you need to know."

"Rank?” Genham spat, apparently determined to continue his winning streak and establish his superiority.