Captain Valance took a left once he exited the bridge instead of going straight on to the main lift. As soon as he passed through the security and intelligence office doors everyone was on their feet. “At ease,” he found himself saying reflexively. That's Jonas's military training. It's becoming instinct to me as much as it ever was to him. He thought to himself as he walked between the five rows of communications and ship monitoring stations.
The last time he'd been through most of them were seated, this time only the deck watchman was behind a desk. Above it's surface were holograms displaying three dimentional information management charts and on the desk itself was a status display of each intelligence team member's efficiency, whereabouts and health status.
Cynthia was behind the desk, prioritizing files in preparation for Laura to assume command of the intelligence department. Behind her were three doors. One led to the internal security office, the other to a large meeting room and the final one to the right was specifically reserved for the head of intelligence.
“Captain,” Cynthia said with a nod, barely looking away from the maelstrom of data in front of her.
“Is Stephanie in her office?”
“She headed straight in after the meeting like her heels were on fire.”
“Thanks,” Jake acknowledged as he opened the armoured door. Stephanie was sitting on the desk at the far end of the darkened office, looking over training simulation statistics on one hologram while a playback of one security guard's perspective was displayed on the other. From the time indexes they were both from the night before.
There were over a dozen chairs lining the walls of the long office and a transparent section of hull behind Stephanie's desk. Jake knew that with a command a meeting table would lower from the ceiling, but she never used it, preferring to have everyone on their feet during staff meetings. She looked up from a cup of hot tea she was blowing on when he came through the door. “Everything all right?” she asked.
“I was about to ask the same question,” Jake answered quietly as the heavy hatchway closed behind him.
She was wearing a heavy vacsuit, combat boots, sidearm, along with her duty belt which included a basic door hacking kit, restraints, a survival cylinder and and two extra clips for her sidearm. She had draped her long coat across the back of her desk chair. Stephanie put her steaming cup down on her desk carefully before answering. “I'm sorry I left the way I did. Last night was a surprise.”
“For both of us,” Jake said quietly as he crossed the room slowly.
Her smile was mild, wistful. “I want to see where things go with Frost.”
He caught her gaze as he finished crossing the room. His vacsuit covered black hand caught hers on her thigh. “I know. I need you to be all right.”
A nod and a hug was his answer.
The embrace lasted the better part of a minute, a comfortable eternity for them both until she drew back and he let her go.
In one smooth motion she picked up her cup and took a drink of tea, it was still a little too hot but kept her eyes from welling up. She put the mug down again and cleared her throat. “If we can't get through this after a couple dozen firefights, then there's something seriously wrong.”
Jake smiled at her and squeezed her free hand. “I have something for you,”
Her eyes widened as he pulled a silvered chain strung through a fortified, rounded gold chip out of his deep coat pocket.
He opened her hand and pressed it into her palm. “Of everyone on the Samson crew I trust you the most. I found this in Wheeler's quarters, in his safe. It's the override code chip for the Triton. I need you to watch things. You'll know if and when you have to use it.”
“But I thought the command security systems were all vocal and biometric.”
“This is the override chip made to reset the systems in case the ship is captured and hacked. Wheeler never got a chance to use it. All you have to do is get to a secure terminal, pop the interface plate open and put it in. After that you can tell the ship to make you the commander and it'll take your biometric scan and whatever passwords you give it. You're already in the system as a senior officer so it makes things even easier.”
She looked down at the chip for a moment then put the chain around her neck, opened her vacsuit enough to drop the chip itself down the front and settle the chain under her collar before
closing up again. It was hidden under her uniform, no one would see it. “ Triton'll be here when you get back, don't worry Jake,” she said quietly. “So will I.”
He nodded and turned away, crossing the distance between her and the door in long strides.
Arrival and Departure
Over the entire black and crimson vacsuit were stretched flexible two centimetre horizontal emitter blades. They fit to form but made Captain Valance feel like he wore something with more substance than the old vacsuits nonetheless. There was a black long coat set up with the same systems and extra armour as well, and as he took the lift down he ran through the systems checklist. The new display system actually projected images to the brain through nerve manipulation, routing information through different parts of his nervous system so they were collected and understood as colour images. There were no cybernetics involved and the technology was only a few years old, refined by Freeground Special Projects. He knew Laura was breaking laws by sharing it and several other technologies added to the command vacsuits, but it was fairly apparent that she didn't care.
Other crewmembers in the lift looked at him quietly, he pretended not to notice. He hoped everyone would have a similarly featured suit eventually. Perhaps not with all the improvements, but there was a great deal of life saving technology that would be useful to most of the crew under dire circumstances.
The lift arrived in Hangar two and he caught sight of Ashley and Stephanie. He shouldn't have been surprised that Stephanie had taken a lift down to the hanger deck to meet her best friend while he was getting familiar with the new command vacsuits. He still held back so he could listen in on their conversation before he was noticed.
“How did it go?” Stephanie asked, looking at the Cold Reaver wide eyed.
“Pretty well, easiest breakup ever.” Ashley replied with a shrug. “Finn isn't the dramatic type.”
“No, with the recruitment run! It looks like you tore half the front end off the ship,” Stephanie exclaimed, shaking her head, arms spread wide to encompass the view of the shredded front end of the ship.
Captain Valance quietly strode around the pile of crates and saw the condition of the Cold Reaver. The front landing gear, debarkation ramp, one rocket launcher, the long range sensor package, two small emergency escape pods as well as a large section of the fore port hull were torn to shreds. The nose had taken substantial damage as well, but its thicker armour had prevented full on decompression.
“Your boy Leland nearly blew the front of the ship off when he fired our entire load of missiles at once.” Ashley replied, gesturing over her shoulder to where Leland March, the wiry security team member was overseeing the unloading of a number of new recruits. Several dozen were already lined up on the deck, their satchels and luggage in front of them. Most of them didn't have many possessions with them, which was the norm.
“Why did you put him at tactical?” Stephanie asked more quietly.
Captain Valance leaned up against the three meter high stack of secured crates and continued to listen in on the exchange. Ashley caught sight of him and started to turn red. “Yates didn't show in time for departure and Leland's file says he's qualified for tactical.”
Stephanie checked and nodded. “You're right. I don't remember screening him. Don't worry, it's not the first time he's screwed up. I'll take care of it, assign him to the quartermaster for inventory until he requalifies on all things security.”