“Thank you Mischa. I'll make sure to include you in group discussions like this in the future. How are things going in the Botanical Gallery?”
She smiled at him. “It's starting to look like a home already. Many of your crew have volunteered in their off hours to help clean and plant in trade for services some of us can offer. You should pay us a visit some time.”
“I will, some time after this rendezvous is all over.”
She stood and extended her hand. “Thank you for letting me in Captain.”
He shook it. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make it up to you.”
Mischa flashed him a grin; “Oh, you haven't made it up to me just yet. You still owe me dinner.” She didn't give him a chance to reply but made her way out of his ready room and through the bridge with her head held high.
A Poor Reckoning
Most of her patients were pliant and easy going over the few days the Triton spent in empty space training the crew and getting the ship in order. The soldier sitting on her table undergoing an eye strain treatment was no different. Like many of the crew members, he took his training a little too far.
He had spent a shift on patrol then entered a series of training simulations lasting hours. Some of them went as far as to simulate conditions on the Triton during hull breeches while aggressive boarders were invading. They were intense, demanding, and caused a great deal of strain if they were over used. Her patient had not only stayed in the simulations for over eight hours, but he followed it up by engaging in an optional simulation. 'Break and Burn Flight,' he'd called it. She'd heard of it before, it was a simulation focusing on flying one of the heavily armed, vastly manoeuvrable Sol Defence Space Superiority Uriel Fighters and it was rumoured that the Captain had entered the simulation as one of the enemy pilots more than once to wipe out the participants.
Grace smiled as the soldier went on about his simulated experiences on patrol in the Kuiper asteroid belt. It was the Sol system perimeter, and as he mentioned his entire wing getting wiped out she smiled a little wider. She knew it wasn't the Captain flying. Alice and Ashley, who enjoyed simulations as much as anyone else, had started jumping into sims as a duo under the handles Flare and Minx. They took over for what they called 'game pilots' or computer AI's that weren't effected by the Eden virus simply because they were contained within a simulated system. They made much more dangerous opponents, using ambush and misdirection tactics along with quick reflexes.
She looked up from the soldier's scan results and caught sight of Stephanie with four soldiers behind her. Her hand calmly reached down to the table at her side, picked up a beam scalpel and set it to maximum width and power before touching it to the back of the soldier's neck. “Now don't move an inch sweetie,” Grace said to him with a warm smile. Unaware of what was going on, the younger soldier, no more than twenty she was sure, just smiled back.
Stephanie walked into medical, eyeing the scalpel, then turned around and left with her soldiers right on her heels. That was unexpected.
Grace picked up a mild pain suppressant and sprayed it onto the side of the soldier's neck. “All right, now go get eight hours of rack time. If I see you in here again I'll sedate you and keep you for observation.”
“Yes Ma'am,” he said with a grin as he hopped down from the examination table.
She looked around the infirmary for a moment and saw a couple people were looking in her direction. They may have known why Stephanie was there, but there was no way to be sure.
What do I do? She saw what I was prepared to do to get myself out of being taken in and just left. She's probably waiting just around the corner, or getting more men to cover a larger area, increase her options and improve her advantage.
She walked down the length of the infirmary, passing a few recently cleaned beds and casually exited via an emergency side door. It lead into a narrow hallway that provided easy access to escape crafts and the lifts. As she rounded the corner she heard footsteps and sealed the head piece of her vacsuit for extra protection.
Grace closed the four meters between her and the corner just in time to see the tip of a rifle. She grabbed it behind the sight and pulled hard, yanking it out of the soldier's hands. The strap that held it to him afforded just enough slack to turn it on him and open fire, pulling the trigger and holding it down for a long burst.
The first few shots from the pulse rifle were resisted by his vacsuit, but he could only take so many hits to the chest before the heat built up and he started to fall away, limp. Shots rang out and she drew his body around the corner, unclipping the rifle strap. She opened fire just as another soldier came around the bend.
She fired wildly, scoring hits up his chest and in the head. Grace listened for anyone else after he fell to the floor. The sounds of boots on the deck or people running were absent, so she ran around the corner and on to the lift doors, planting her hand on the control. Nothing happened, the small display of the available paths around the ship used to request and track express cars was darkened, deactivated.
The sounds of rushing boots from behind filled the hallway. She looked in the other direction and started to walk backwards with her rifle pointed at the sound. As soon as she saw the first soldier Grace opened fire.
Grace hit her once, but the soldier rolled and came up firing, shooting first her rifle then her arm. Grace threw the damaged weapon at her assailant and ran in the other direction. Soldiers were running towards her from up the hall, trying to cut her off before she could take the next corridor to the left. She rushed them.
A few of them opened fire on full automatic, filling the air with blue bolts of energy. Grace was struck twice, but in the protection of her vacsuit they didn't affect her at all. Stun shots! I killed two of them and they're still using stun shots, she thought to herself as she ducked into the broader hallway.
Grace ran headlong into a maintenance worker, bowling him over and nearly losing her balance. She snatched his sidearm and jammed the barrel into his open mouth cruelly, activating it with a flick of her thumb. Stephanie and several members of her team came around the corner and stopped. “Give me an escape shuttle with a faster than light system or I start killing people!” she called out.
Stephanie stopped in the middle of the hallway intersection and levelled her disintegration sidearm at her forehead. Grace knew exactly what it could do to someone if it struck a vacsuit too many times, and judging from the lights running up the energy clip, it was set to its maximum setting, on full automatic. “Don't make me do this Grace. We know you're transmitting to Regent Galactic and you'll live as long as you cooperate.”
“You can't seriously expect me to believe you. Neither you or Valance are known for your mercy.”
“I give you my word. We'll talk, you'll tell us what information they were interested in, what they got and if there are any others aboard. Then we'll let you go when we get to Enreega.”
“What is this? Some kind of jealousy play? You and I both know I'm innocent, and if you want Frost you can have him. He's just a bed warmer anyway. I can have my pick of the crew,” she hoped embarrassing the woman, creating the wrong impression for the crew members in the busy hallway behind her would weaken Stephanie's resolve.
“It has nothing to do with that Grace, now just put the gun down and we'll talk this out. Like I said, we can send you out in a shuttle when we get to Enreega or drop you off at a neutral port.”
Her stolen sidearm beeped twice, and at a glance she saw the safety had automatically reactivated. Everyone in the hall heard it.