Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (22 page)

He could see that there were twenty one
messages from Ashley waiting on his personal account, but couldn’t
open them. There was no telling who would see the activity, and he
couldn’t afford to reveal that he was on Crewcast at all.

He watched as people came out of their
worker suits, revealing themselves for the first time in weeks and
rejoined with friends. He focused in on Agameg, Finn, Ashley, and
Oz, specifically. They were who he missed most. Unfortunately,
Ashley and Oz activated privacy mode during almost every
conversation, and Larry wasn’t foolish enough to use Frost’s
clearance to see what was going on; that was a sure way to get
caught.

Agameg and Finn didn’t seem to care. They
supervised the reconstruction of the Samson and did a great deal of
work personally. The progress was fantastic. Power generation, the
main structure, the exterior systems and interior control systems
were almost finished. The interior was what required the most work.
Living spaces were cramped for the officers, and the main cargo bay
served as both berthing area and galley.

Most of the people in the settlement took
their night off, but many who worked on the Samson worked through
it, still riding the high of being able to do so without anonymity.
It was the project people were most excited about.

He watched most of it from the quarters he’d
secured for himself, wishing he could be among them. Larry did his
best not to get too settled in. Ashley had already made contact
with the Triton, and the main computer had quietly begun rousing
from stasis. Higher functions that were only briefly used in the
ship’s history would become available, and he would have decisions
to make.

Larry was watching Agameg and Finn run tests
on the bridge of the Samson when his command and control unit
screen went completely blank, something that he’d never seen happen
before. The Triton skull appeared on screen with a rotating Q at
the bottom left corner. He was so excited that he rolled off the
bed onto his feet.

The two-tone symbol for citadel appeared
then, white towers flanking a wall against black, and the scanners
on his command unit activated. It was procedure: all Citadel
transmissions were preceded by an area scan to ensure that no one
was listening in. None of the Triton’s security systems were active
outside of the inner sanctum of the main computer core.

The scan completed and an asexual,
nondescript voice was projected from the unit to his ears, the
Freeground version of privacy mode. To someone sitting right beside
him, anything the unit vocalized would sound like a faint whisper.
The voice he was hearing could belong to anyone as the person
transmitting it was using an anonymizer.

“Sol Defence has released the Triton. She is
a free ship,” said the person on the other end. “They are closing
their borders, there will be no return to your home on Mars for at
least a generation. Citadel sees this as a mistake. You must
determine the disposition of the Triton’s main computer core and
confirm that Sol Defence has not included any sensitive information
with the update they just transmitted.”

“They’re annexing themselves,” Larry
said.

“Yes. No returns to the Sol System,” replied
the person on the other end. “Do you understand my
instructions?”

“If I open the sanctum to access the core,
I’ll be detected by security here. This assignment has become
complicated.”

“We have been actively tracking you from a
distance and are aware of your circumstances.” There was a pause
before his superior continued. “Citadel has engaged a new enemy,
but rest assured that we will still download the contents of your
bio-recorder regularly. You should be proud of your success so far.
We could not have wished for a better overseer on the Triton.”

“Are you giving me a new assignment?” Larry
asked. He wanted to see the Triton rebuilt, to make amends with the
people he respected when they returned. The crew that infested the
ship until recently won him over, and he wanted to see the lights
on, the ship full of life again. He wanted to be surrounded by the
broad diversity of the people he’d come to know while he was
undercover. Larry didn’t want to leave, or pursue another
assignment, but if Citadel gave him an order, he would have no
choice. Duty was his life.

“We are fighting far from the cradle of
humanity, and it is our hope that no one ever knows it. The war we
wage is one that should never be brought to Sol system or the core
worlds.”

“Who are you fighting?” Larry asked. “What
are your chances?” He was suddenly torn. Being aboard Triton would
be good for him, but he couldn’t do so with a clear conscience if
he knew his comrades were fighting and dying somewhere else.

“I can’t share that information with you,”
replied the anonymous voice. “But you will be leaving the Rega Gain
system. You will critically damage the Triton’s computer core, the
quantum entanglement communications system right now, and, if
possible, destroy the Triton itself. Once you are finished you will
board a craft with faster than light capabilities and report to
point ninety three. You will need a stasis system – the journey
will take over two years.”

“The Triton could be home to thousands, it
could be an asset to the entire region and major rallying point for
the war. I’ll assume command, reveal myself with the codes I
carry,” Larry said with determination. “I can make sure that the
Triton reflects the excellence we strive for in the Sol System, and
humanity will see that Sol Defence hasn’t abandoned them.”

“No. You do not have the strategic mind nor
the disposition to assume command of a Zhàn Class Carrier in combat
or peacetime. People have always been tools to you, pawns, and the
task requires a better balance between sensitivity and
practicality. This is not a debate. Sol Defence may believe that
it’s time for people to learn about the technology hidden at the
heart of the Triton, and they may have faith in the crew that found
her, but Citadel knows that they are engaging in some dangerous
wishful thinking. This comes from the highest level. Destroy the
Triton. Join us once it’s done. Our cause makes the conflict with
the Order of Eden look petty and meaningless.”

It was the last thing Larry wanted to do,
but he’d seen Citadel’s judgment calls lead to positive outcomes
before. They did see a bigger picture, who was he to argue? The
former crew of the Triton would get along without him, and without
the ship. It was terrible, but he was duty-bound. “I understand. It
will be done.”

“You know what failure means.”

“I do,” Larry said.

“I’m sorry.”

The transmission ended, and the command and
control unit returned to its previous state, watching Agameg as he
finished his inspection of the bridge controls. Larry turned it off
and sealed his vacsuit. He activated his suit’s cloaking systems
and left his quarters.

Oz cringed inwardly as he saw a red-faced
man, full of self-importance, striding towards him. He had
shoulder-length bleached hair and a pronounced chin. He pressed
through the line of civilians who were getting paid before they
left the space rented by the former Triton crew. "My favourite
commander," he announced sarcastically.

People lined up between the wires that had
been strung to indicate the double line all paid attention. Being
in a queue was boring, and to most of them someone like this man
was a welcome diversion. Oz was happy that most of the civilians
who wanted to leave to seek out family or return home for their
property had already passed through. There were fewer than twenty
left.

Oz looked him up on his command and control
unit; his name was Chazick Tweed, and he was a manual fabricator
aboard the Triton. He had less than two days of work logged since.
“Have we met?” Oz asked, allowing himself an amused smile. He’d
faced so many entitled people over the course of his career, he had
started to find them amusing instead of frustrating long ago.

“No, not face to face. I’ve just gotten
orders from you and your under-thugs every day for the last two
months,” replied the fellow as he stopped to stand within arm’s
reach. “You’d think wearing that wrapper of a uniform was bad
enough.”

Oz nodded, hoping that it would be enough of
an acknowledgement to get to the point. “You must be in a hurry to
leave, we’ll process you out right away.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Chazwick.

“You cut in front of all these people here,”
Oz said, gesturing to the more patient people behind him. Some of
them smiled at him, others were busy listening to or watching
something on their comm units.

"Sorry? I'm not going anywhere. I just want
to make sure that I'm getting paid for my time," Chazwick replied
with exaggerated offence as he was scanned by one of the
guards.

"According to this we owe you three hundred
twenty GC," Oz replied.

"I saw that, and it doesn't match my
calculations. You owe me over twenty eight hundred for my time, and
that's at a quarter of someone with my skill makes at a
minimum."

"We pay for working hours minus billet and
board," Oz explained, leaning on the edge of a crate filled with
reclaimed comm units. "The only exception we make is for people who
take care of children, who get a small additional allowance to
assist with their care."

"I can't help it if you haven't put me to
work on something useful.”

“My sergeants assigned you to three
different fabrication shops and you only showed up at the first one
for twenty three minutes. We needed you there, and it was the same
thing you were doing aboard the Triton.”

“It wasn’t exactly the same thing,” Chazwick
said, waving his hands. “You had us making parts that any heavy
materialiser could do using scrap and water.”

“All our heavy materialisers have been down
for about six weeks, because there are too few people with the
expertise to make replacement parts in the fabrication shop,” Oz
said. Several people in line behind him shook their heads or
groaned or both.

“If someone told me that, I would have
gotten to work instead of sitting around. I thought the parts I was
assigned to make were for one of your junk heaps.”

“It’s not up to you to decide!” shouted a
short man further back in line. “The Shop Manager puts the priority
list together, then we get to work. I thought you worked in a shop
before.”

Oz put his hand up and made eye contact with
the gentleman. “Thanks for the reminder,” he replied. With a glance
at his command and control unit he saw his name was Ross Sherman,
and he was standing beside his wife, Anna. They were both
experienced fitters and fabricators, highly prized on any crew.

“I’m just here to ask if we can get my
cousin to bring my kids and his family here. She’s in the Sonsarru
system, just a few days away,” Ross asked.

“There’s a line here for a reason,” Chazwick
said.

Oz’s temper flared momentarily. “You’ve been
sitting on your ass doing nothing for weeks, what’s another few
minutes?” he said to Chazwick. He looked back to Ross and his
slightly taller wife. “Later today we’re making an announcement
about that. I won’t go into great detail, but soon we’ll have room
for people with a good work record to invite their families to live
with them. If you have friends out there who need a place, they’ll
be welcome to apply or pay their way here.”

“How are you going to manage that?” asked
Anna. “We’re bunking on top of each other as it is.”

Oz pointed across the busy, cluttered
settlement, to a two storey tall stack of large crates. “You see
those? We’ve found some flat, safe ground to lay them out and put
them together. When we’re done, we’ll have a real settlement
shelter. I can’t tell you where they’re going yet, but it’s going
to be better than this.”

Ross looked to his wife, who nodded at him.
“Thank you, Sir,” he said and the pair turned and walked away. More
than half of the people in line, in red, yellow, and blue vacsuits
marking them for what part of the work force they were from, turned
and followed. Oz was left with only four people leaving, far fewer
than he expected.

Chazwick turned to leave as well, and Oz
caught his shoulder. “You know, I dealt with someone a lot like you
on the Triton,” he said. “I was happy when he left, and I’ll be
happier to see you go.”

“What?” Chazwick said, turning on Oz with
outrage. “You can’t do that!”

“Let’s look at this in closer detail,” Oz
said, glancing at the three others in line to make sure they
weren’t growing impatient. They seemed to like the idea of the
impending show. “You sat around for nearly two months, wanted to
get paid for it, and now you’ve changed your mind since discovering
that you can invite your lazy family to stay with us and eat our
food.”

“I have more training than that guy and his
wife put together,” Chazwick said. “Look it up on your thing, if
you don’t believe me. You need me.”

“Okay, you’re not getting the point, and I
really do want you to get it because you’re about to get punted to
Port Rush, where people will hear your story about this,” Oz said.
He wasn’t really concerned about Chazwick spreading the word about
his work or depart policy, but knew that the other people leaving
might. "Let's use Xander here as an example," he said, waving to
one of the money counters. "He's getting paid to help us pay people
and make sure that they have the leave code so they can get transit
off Tamber. Before he was given that job, he and his two sons have
been working in a cleaning crew they started. No one told them to
start one, they just saw that the one we put together was having
trouble keeping up and made themselves useful."

Chazwick was obviously offended. "Picking up
garbage on the tarmac? That's what you expect-"