03FEB3309 Callie Nain, Call-Sign CMDR Half-Lock
All Roads Lead To Ruin pt I
I’d taken the time to monitor Cadence’s father’s readjustment to life aboard Nain One (V2L-45B) and he was a citizen of The Empire through-and-through. He was a bit more community and cooperative-oriented than some of the others I’d run into during training and operations, and I chocked it up to the native Cubeo sensibility. Clara took a liking to him and immediately set him up with the maintenance crew whose barracks shared a bulkhead with my Captain’s lounge and she made the jog over every morning to invite him to sit and break the morning in the mess with she and Orion.
“Someone wants to make a movie about Cadence,” she said. I looked upward to the corner of my Captain’s quarters bulkhead, hoping that a thargoid would take that very moment to interdict Nain One (V2L-45B) and destroy every molecule of my existence if it would rid me of the thought of her being a heroine. It was not to be.
“Why?”
The word barely escaped me and she shrugged her shoulders, mentioning something about her being a native of Cubeo who’d shown the Federation’s way of life to be worthy of protecting. My eyes remained at the corner of my quarters and I breathed slowly and deeply for a few moments. It was a relatively good point: The entirety of The Nine Martyrs was the result of a group of Imperial Senators growing a little too big for their britches. It still didn’t make any sense as to why Cadence would be so interesting to them that she’d warrant a movie. I shook off the thought and began wandering from my cabin and Clara grabbed me by the shoulder, her hydraulic grip sending a jolt of lightning through my shoulder and into the base of my skull.
“Please let go of my shoulder,” I asked, doing my best to conceal the constriction in my larynx. I rotated my arm a couple of times before turning toward her and walking backward from my quarters.
“We need to send the intel over to the Office, Callie,” she explained, following me as we remained facing one another, before motioning me toward the briefing room. Archon Delaine’s take-over of the California Nebula had taken even me by surprise. We’d been aware of their presence in the region, which made me the primary choice to provide Carl with carrier support, and we’d long been suspicious of their intentions, at least with regard to what we’d come to believe was a growing partnership with Zachary Rackam. Our last briefing to The Zero about the matter concluded that they’d be likely to take advantage of the Thargoid incursion into governed space to seize territory closer to Sol as Prime Minister Mahon, Emperor Duval, and President Hudson scrambled to secure the battle lines that were etched into their amygdala’s. It hadn’t occurred to us that the Kumo Crew would instead take the initiative to counter the possible Sirius-Alliance coalition and its ability to exploit the Alliance’s easy access to Thargoid xenobiology in a race to prevent humanity’s galactic eradication.
“Three years of work and the Thargoids make themselves at home, Clara,” I mumbled as I pivoted to her side.
“Yeah,” she breathed with a laugh, “its probably Cadence’s fault.”
“Coral mentioned she’s pretty awful at fighting those things.”
Clara rolled her eyes at the thought. “She’s awful at everything,” she coughed out as we passed Carl, who was speaking with Dorothy just outside the shipyard. Carl looked toward us and Clara gave him a nod in the direction of the briefing room. He nodded back, turning again to Dorothy.
Captain Dorothy Green had remained aboard the vessel, very much trapped, after the Kumo Crew’s takeover of the region. As explained by Delaine, it was to combat the xeno-threat; as our briefings informed us, it was the most advantageous seizure of territory they could conduct in the current situation. Her berthing aboard Nain One (V2L-45B) was to remain indefinite, in light of Carl’s request, until we could determine the nature of the threat to merchant vessels posed by the Kumo Crew. She’d never run into problems with them - which I thought was a hoot - and she hadn’t been particularly concerned with their presence, but had no objection to remaining aboard for the time being. She’d been making herself useful, providing further insight into Cadence’s work with the Sol Worker’s Party.
We stepped into the briefing room and Clara submitted our analysis on Delaine’s presence in the nebula to The Zero, and Carl joined us as Orion rounded the corner from the corridor leading to my captain’s chair. Dorothy gave Clara and I a look and we dismissed her with a polite nod, which she accepted with a gentle smile, her face contorting immediately afterward as she turned in the direction of the shipyard. Orion walked toward the center of the room, calling up a holofac image of Coral seated in Ring Mine. Her hair was cropped short and she had a look of childlike wonder on her face. I’d read reports from Cubeo about she and Cadence, released to me as I waited for the refit of Nain One (V2L-45B) to be completed before taking on carrier support duty. The reports offered that she’d offered the same look toward Cadence.
“Our current task is to do little more than confirm her departure from Ring Mine. The Office has confirmed Deep Space Mining is unrelated to us, but there is intelligence indicating that our pilots have been through the station before. The Office has requested we determine the degree to which our presence along The Run has provided the residents of the station with potentially exploitable information on our operations and organization, but nothing more than that. Coral’s our main concern, at the moment.”
I noticed Carl look upward, toward the top of the image, before dropping his chin through his collarbone. I slowly turned my head toward him and I caught his eye. We stared at one another for a moment and I nodded toward Orion. As Carl began to speak, Orion shifted his gaze away from infinity and Carl’s words came fumbling out,
“I’m… a little concerned about the current operational contingencies, Orion.”
Orion looked away, briefly, before looking back to Carl and nodding… probing.
“… We’re,” Carl scratched his chin, biting his upper lip before continuing, “We’re sure that Coral has gone AWOL and there’s a NOS pilot that has been given the authority to take over Keystone for the remainder of Coral’s Realignment, but we’re not going to look for Keystone and interrogate the pilot?”
Orion’s face hardened and I could feel Clara bristling to my side. I turned my eyes toward Carl and I saw his lip tighten at the corner. He grit his teeth for a moment and his calm was restored. The same could not be said for the KN’s in the room.
“No, Carl,” Orion’s stone-cold look remained, and I could have sworn the words came directly into my mind, “we will not be pursuing and interrogating a KN with full-authorization from The Zero to conduct the remainder of the operation. Callie will be heading to Ring Mine to determine the nature of Coral’s occasioning the station and our exposure to its residents and visitors.”
I turned to Clara and her lip had curled. Her eyes were locked on Carl with a coldness only matched by her silence. I excused myself to Orion, who paid me no heed, and stepped backward and away from the three, my eyes turning to each in turn as I rounded the corner and out of sight before making my way to the viewing deck for a short breather.
03FEB3309 Carl Narragansett, Order of Primis Aseptus
All Roads Lead To Ruin pt II
It hadn’t occurred to me that The Office might have continued with the project. Much less that they’d have conducted the final substitution while Coral was on The Run. As I exited Ring Mine, I wasn’t sure what I’d say to Orion when I returned to Nain One (V2L-45B) and I mulled it over on the trip back. If we had people in Winters’ space with intel on The Office’s decision to move forward with The Nain Project, I’d have to make the trip over to Rhea to confirm and consult with someone in Ordo Unius with regard to my PA status with Coral, from this point forward. I’d never liked dealing with the OU people. They seemed to have a way to make the most simple of situations into complexes and multiplexes.
As I landed on Nain One (V2L-45B) I was mulling over the decision to have to report to Orion and Clara that the status update was bogus. I was chewing on my lip as I made my way through the corridor toward the command deck. I noticed Dorothy approach from my kitchen window and I reached for a cigarette. I’d barely made it a quarter of the way through before it was snuffed out by a gale-force wind and a searing pain in my left shoulder, followed by slashing at my ribs and abdomen. I turned toward Clara and Dorothy smiled, lowering her head as she made her way to the shipyard to work on her “special project.”
I followed Clara toward the briefing room as lacerations opened along my back and my shoulders, to the sight of Orion inches from Callie’s face. Callie had gone straight to Orion with the news of Coral’s ship being boarded by another pilot and he’d asked her to wait while Clara returned to the briefing room. Callie’s left cheekbone was speckled with what looked like grease and shone a ruby red underneath. I looked at Clara, who looked away from me and opened her invisible box as another searing cut opened across my chest. I looked back at Orion, and Callie - who’d remained at attention - was grinding her teeth. Orion turned his back to her, glancing at Clara and nodding toward Callie, before turning his attention to me.
“Carl, are you aware of what Callie’s claiming she found out?”
I turned toward Clara, who glanced toward me with another gash opening in my cheek, and turned my head slightly to the side without shifting my gaze.
“No… No, I am not. Care to provide me with the information I require, as Coral’s Primis Aseptus?”
Orion tilted his head with a cold look in my direction before turning to Clara and waving his hand toward me. Clara began and, from inside my home as I dressed continually reopening gashes, she explained how Callie had reported on the commandeering of Coral’s ship by a woman from Ring Mine, in direct contradiction to the status update provided by The Zero. I glanced toward Callie, who remained at attention but grew increasingly agitated, her jaw clenching tightly and the muscles around her eyes flexing with timed precision in sync with Clara’s recounting of the report. Orion’s glare at Callie remained hard and penetrating and, when he finally turned to me, I saw Callie’s lip curl in his direction. Her arm flinched, as Clara turned toward her, and I was glad it remained at her side.
“Why would you go to Mic Turner’s right now, Carl?”
My eyes remained on Callie, to Clara’s growing attention.
“Callie, head to your quarters, please. I’d like to address Carl from within our place in The Office of The Order.”
She turned to Orion as Callie turned away from her. As Callie made her way toward the command deck lift, her eyes glared over her shoulder toward Clara and I could feel the welts rising along my arm and across my back, following her path.
“Orion,” Clara began, “…please excuse us.”
Orion looked coldly in my direction and stiffly made his way toward the lift, waiting until Callie had already boarded and exited on the lower level. Clara turned her attention back to me and I considered what I’d been told by our woman at Ring Mine.
“She can’t have this kind of idiocy floating around in her head, Carl. A Novus Ordo Siderum pilot’s vessel was commandeered by some ordinary pilot!?”
I held in a gut laugh and I felt my intestines spill onto my magboots. Clara continued, “First, she tells me that The Office is lying to us about the pilot aboard Keystone being anyone but Coral, and now she’s telling me there’s another random pilot aboard Keystone and Coral’s just nowhere to be found?”
I wasn’t sure how to approach the conversation and, as I felt my sternum being cracked open, I raised a finger, “How is it that she came by this information?”
Clara rolled her eyes and took a few steps away from me, “She said some woman at the bar in Ring Mine confirmed seeing her and reported that this mysterious other woman climbed aboard.”
“What did she say about this woman at the bar?”
Clara turned to look at me, her eyes squinting. As the two halves of my ribcage waggled about, she opened an invisible box and almost shrieked out at me,
“What do you mean ‘what did she say about this woman?’ She didn’t say anything about her. She asked a few more folks who mentioned that they’d seen her but beyond that she was adamant about the fact that The Office is wrong, Carl, and she went straight to Orion!”
I might have winced as my ribcage tore loose from my spinal column and began closing themselves around my throat. Clara gave no indication that I’d reacted at all and, through increasingly difficult breaths I managed to speak,
“Well, The Office hasn’t confirmed where it is that the NOS pilot operating under inverse time dilation effects boarded Keystone has it? And… well… Callie is… a bit headstrong, Clara.”
Clara’s eyes crossed as she looked at the tip of her own nose before refocusing her eyes on me. I could sense her rage building and, as my ribcage cracked under the pressure of its attempt to throttle me, it dissipated almost as soon as I’d noticed it. She looked away from me and the corner of her lip rose, slightly, in a half-smile.
“She really is, isn’t she?”
I nodded and a snort escaped her lips. We locked eyes and she turned toward the nebula, visible from the viewing deck.
“I’ll go talk to her.”
I watched her leave, waiting a few moments before calling up the OU information on The Nain Project made available to The Office of the Order. The holofac exploded into a spectacle of charts dancing before my eyes. As my tattered flesh slowly began to close itself around my newly rejoined mid-section, I read through the OU analysis of The Nain Project’s operations in Cubeo. Heavily redacted, there was little to make of what The Office had determined, but the OU found increasing successes under the experimental conditions culled and devised from the methods we deployed in our previous failure.
After shutting down the holofac, I considered whether or not to reveal what I’d just read to Callie, if only to ease her burden, and lit a cigarette upon entering the shipyard. I breathed in slowly and deeply, savoring the slight tingle of the smoke as I took one long, slow draw after another.
All Roads Lead To Ruin pt I
I’d taken the time to monitor Cadence’s father’s readjustment to life aboard Nain One (V2L-45B) and he was a citizen of The Empire through-and-through. He was a bit more community and cooperative-oriented than some of the others I’d run into during training and operations, and I chocked it up to the native Cubeo sensibility. Clara took a liking to him and immediately set him up with the maintenance crew whose barracks shared a bulkhead with my Captain’s lounge and she made the jog over every morning to invite him to sit and break the morning in the mess with she and Orion.
“Someone wants to make a movie about Cadence,” she said. I looked upward to the corner of my Captain’s quarters bulkhead, hoping that a thargoid would take that very moment to interdict Nain One (V2L-45B) and destroy every molecule of my existence if it would rid me of the thought of her being a heroine. It was not to be.
“Why?”
The word barely escaped me and she shrugged her shoulders, mentioning something about her being a native of Cubeo who’d shown the Federation’s way of life to be worthy of protecting. My eyes remained at the corner of my quarters and I breathed slowly and deeply for a few moments. It was a relatively good point: The entirety of The Nine Martyrs was the result of a group of Imperial Senators growing a little too big for their britches. It still didn’t make any sense as to why Cadence would be so interesting to them that she’d warrant a movie. I shook off the thought and began wandering from my cabin and Clara grabbed me by the shoulder, her hydraulic grip sending a jolt of lightning through my shoulder and into the base of my skull.
“Please let go of my shoulder,” I asked, doing my best to conceal the constriction in my larynx. I rotated my arm a couple of times before turning toward her and walking backward from my quarters.
“We need to send the intel over to the Office, Callie,” she explained, following me as we remained facing one another, before motioning me toward the briefing room. Archon Delaine’s take-over of the California Nebula had taken even me by surprise. We’d been aware of their presence in the region, which made me the primary choice to provide Carl with carrier support, and we’d long been suspicious of their intentions, at least with regard to what we’d come to believe was a growing partnership with Zachary Rackam. Our last briefing to The Zero about the matter concluded that they’d be likely to take advantage of the Thargoid incursion into governed space to seize territory closer to Sol as Prime Minister Mahon, Emperor Duval, and President Hudson scrambled to secure the battle lines that were etched into their amygdala’s. It hadn’t occurred to us that the Kumo Crew would instead take the initiative to counter the possible Sirius-Alliance coalition and its ability to exploit the Alliance’s easy access to Thargoid xenobiology in a race to prevent humanity’s galactic eradication.
“Three years of work and the Thargoids make themselves at home, Clara,” I mumbled as I pivoted to her side.
“Yeah,” she breathed with a laugh, “its probably Cadence’s fault.”
“Coral mentioned she’s pretty awful at fighting those things.”
Clara rolled her eyes at the thought. “She’s awful at everything,” she coughed out as we passed Carl, who was speaking with Dorothy just outside the shipyard. Carl looked toward us and Clara gave him a nod in the direction of the briefing room. He nodded back, turning again to Dorothy.
Captain Dorothy Green had remained aboard the vessel, very much trapped, after the Kumo Crew’s takeover of the region. As explained by Delaine, it was to combat the xeno-threat; as our briefings informed us, it was the most advantageous seizure of territory they could conduct in the current situation. Her berthing aboard Nain One (V2L-45B) was to remain indefinite, in light of Carl’s request, until we could determine the nature of the threat to merchant vessels posed by the Kumo Crew. She’d never run into problems with them - which I thought was a hoot - and she hadn’t been particularly concerned with their presence, but had no objection to remaining aboard for the time being. She’d been making herself useful, providing further insight into Cadence’s work with the Sol Worker’s Party.
We stepped into the briefing room and Clara submitted our analysis on Delaine’s presence in the nebula to The Zero, and Carl joined us as Orion rounded the corner from the corridor leading to my captain’s chair. Dorothy gave Clara and I a look and we dismissed her with a polite nod, which she accepted with a gentle smile, her face contorting immediately afterward as she turned in the direction of the shipyard. Orion walked toward the center of the room, calling up a holofac image of Coral seated in Ring Mine. Her hair was cropped short and she had a look of childlike wonder on her face. I’d read reports from Cubeo about she and Cadence, released to me as I waited for the refit of Nain One (V2L-45B) to be completed before taking on carrier support duty. The reports offered that she’d offered the same look toward Cadence.
“Our current task is to do little more than confirm her departure from Ring Mine. The Office has confirmed Deep Space Mining is unrelated to us, but there is intelligence indicating that our pilots have been through the station before. The Office has requested we determine the degree to which our presence along The Run has provided the residents of the station with potentially exploitable information on our operations and organization, but nothing more than that. Coral’s our main concern, at the moment.”
I noticed Carl look upward, toward the top of the image, before dropping his chin through his collarbone. I slowly turned my head toward him and I caught his eye. We stared at one another for a moment and I nodded toward Orion. As Carl began to speak, Orion shifted his gaze away from infinity and Carl’s words came fumbling out,
“I’m… a little concerned about the current operational contingencies, Orion.”
Orion looked away, briefly, before looking back to Carl and nodding… probing.
“… We’re,” Carl scratched his chin, biting his upper lip before continuing, “We’re sure that Coral has gone AWOL and there’s a NOS pilot that has been given the authority to take over Keystone for the remainder of Coral’s Realignment, but we’re not going to look for Keystone and interrogate the pilot?”
Orion’s face hardened and I could feel Clara bristling to my side. I turned my eyes toward Carl and I saw his lip tighten at the corner. He grit his teeth for a moment and his calm was restored. The same could not be said for the KN’s in the room.
“No, Carl,” Orion’s stone-cold look remained, and I could have sworn the words came directly into my mind, “we will not be pursuing and interrogating a KN with full-authorization from The Zero to conduct the remainder of the operation. Callie will be heading to Ring Mine to determine the nature of Coral’s occasioning the station and our exposure to its residents and visitors.”
I turned to Clara and her lip had curled. Her eyes were locked on Carl with a coldness only matched by her silence. I excused myself to Orion, who paid me no heed, and stepped backward and away from the three, my eyes turning to each in turn as I rounded the corner and out of sight before making my way to the viewing deck for a short breather.
03FEB3309 Carl Narragansett, Order of Primis Aseptus
All Roads Lead To Ruin pt II
It hadn’t occurred to me that The Office might have continued with the project. Much less that they’d have conducted the final substitution while Coral was on The Run. As I exited Ring Mine, I wasn’t sure what I’d say to Orion when I returned to Nain One (V2L-45B) and I mulled it over on the trip back. If we had people in Winters’ space with intel on The Office’s decision to move forward with The Nain Project, I’d have to make the trip over to Rhea to confirm and consult with someone in Ordo Unius with regard to my PA status with Coral, from this point forward. I’d never liked dealing with the OU people. They seemed to have a way to make the most simple of situations into complexes and multiplexes.
As I landed on Nain One (V2L-45B) I was mulling over the decision to have to report to Orion and Clara that the status update was bogus. I was chewing on my lip as I made my way through the corridor toward the command deck. I noticed Dorothy approach from my kitchen window and I reached for a cigarette. I’d barely made it a quarter of the way through before it was snuffed out by a gale-force wind and a searing pain in my left shoulder, followed by slashing at my ribs and abdomen. I turned toward Clara and Dorothy smiled, lowering her head as she made her way to the shipyard to work on her “special project.”
I followed Clara toward the briefing room as lacerations opened along my back and my shoulders, to the sight of Orion inches from Callie’s face. Callie had gone straight to Orion with the news of Coral’s ship being boarded by another pilot and he’d asked her to wait while Clara returned to the briefing room. Callie’s left cheekbone was speckled with what looked like grease and shone a ruby red underneath. I looked at Clara, who looked away from me and opened her invisible box as another searing cut opened across my chest. I looked back at Orion, and Callie - who’d remained at attention - was grinding her teeth. Orion turned his back to her, glancing at Clara and nodding toward Callie, before turning his attention to me.
“Carl, are you aware of what Callie’s claiming she found out?”
I turned toward Clara, who glanced toward me with another gash opening in my cheek, and turned my head slightly to the side without shifting my gaze.
“No… No, I am not. Care to provide me with the information I require, as Coral’s Primis Aseptus?”
Orion tilted his head with a cold look in my direction before turning to Clara and waving his hand toward me. Clara began and, from inside my home as I dressed continually reopening gashes, she explained how Callie had reported on the commandeering of Coral’s ship by a woman from Ring Mine, in direct contradiction to the status update provided by The Zero. I glanced toward Callie, who remained at attention but grew increasingly agitated, her jaw clenching tightly and the muscles around her eyes flexing with timed precision in sync with Clara’s recounting of the report. Orion’s glare at Callie remained hard and penetrating and, when he finally turned to me, I saw Callie’s lip curl in his direction. Her arm flinched, as Clara turned toward her, and I was glad it remained at her side.
“Why would you go to Mic Turner’s right now, Carl?”
My eyes remained on Callie, to Clara’s growing attention.
“Callie, head to your quarters, please. I’d like to address Carl from within our place in The Office of The Order.”
She turned to Orion as Callie turned away from her. As Callie made her way toward the command deck lift, her eyes glared over her shoulder toward Clara and I could feel the welts rising along my arm and across my back, following her path.
“Orion,” Clara began, “…please excuse us.”
Orion looked coldly in my direction and stiffly made his way toward the lift, waiting until Callie had already boarded and exited on the lower level. Clara turned her attention back to me and I considered what I’d been told by our woman at Ring Mine.
“She can’t have this kind of idiocy floating around in her head, Carl. A Novus Ordo Siderum pilot’s vessel was commandeered by some ordinary pilot!?”
I held in a gut laugh and I felt my intestines spill onto my magboots. Clara continued, “First, she tells me that The Office is lying to us about the pilot aboard Keystone being anyone but Coral, and now she’s telling me there’s another random pilot aboard Keystone and Coral’s just nowhere to be found?”
I wasn’t sure how to approach the conversation and, as I felt my sternum being cracked open, I raised a finger, “How is it that she came by this information?”
Clara rolled her eyes and took a few steps away from me, “She said some woman at the bar in Ring Mine confirmed seeing her and reported that this mysterious other woman climbed aboard.”
“What did she say about this woman at the bar?”
Clara turned to look at me, her eyes squinting. As the two halves of my ribcage waggled about, she opened an invisible box and almost shrieked out at me,
“What do you mean ‘what did she say about this woman?’ She didn’t say anything about her. She asked a few more folks who mentioned that they’d seen her but beyond that she was adamant about the fact that The Office is wrong, Carl, and she went straight to Orion!”
I might have winced as my ribcage tore loose from my spinal column and began closing themselves around my throat. Clara gave no indication that I’d reacted at all and, through increasingly difficult breaths I managed to speak,
“Well, The Office hasn’t confirmed where it is that the NOS pilot operating under inverse time dilation effects boarded Keystone has it? And… well… Callie is… a bit headstrong, Clara.”
Clara’s eyes crossed as she looked at the tip of her own nose before refocusing her eyes on me. I could sense her rage building and, as my ribcage cracked under the pressure of its attempt to throttle me, it dissipated almost as soon as I’d noticed it. She looked away from me and the corner of her lip rose, slightly, in a half-smile.
“She really is, isn’t she?”
I nodded and a snort escaped her lips. We locked eyes and she turned toward the nebula, visible from the viewing deck.
“I’ll go talk to her.”
I watched her leave, waiting a few moments before calling up the OU information on The Nain Project made available to The Office of the Order. The holofac exploded into a spectacle of charts dancing before my eyes. As my tattered flesh slowly began to close itself around my newly rejoined mid-section, I read through the OU analysis of The Nain Project’s operations in Cubeo. Heavily redacted, there was little to make of what The Office had determined, but the OU found increasing successes under the experimental conditions culled and devised from the methods we deployed in our previous failure.
After shutting down the holofac, I considered whether or not to reveal what I’d just read to Callie, if only to ease her burden, and lit a cigarette upon entering the shipyard. I breathed in slowly and deeply, savoring the slight tingle of the smoke as I took one long, slow draw after another.
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