Terminus (Fringe Worlds #1) (9 page)

Chapter 10

Taking the bus from the gym to the VOQ, Maker made it back to his room without incident. His one pit stop consisted of popping into the gift shop to purchase some meal bars for himself and Erlen, since he hadn’t really given any thought to breakfast.

He ate two of the bars on the way up to the room. Once inside, he tossed two of them to Erlen, who had been patiently staring at the door when he came in.

“There you go,” Maker said. “A full meal, including all the necessary vitamins and nutrients, in one tiny package.”

The bars were still wrapped, but he knew that the Niotan would have fun getting the covering off. With his companion eating, Maker went into the bedroom and began to change clothes.

He grimaced slightly as he pulled off his PT shirt, grunting softly in pain. He looked at the spot where Bear had hit him. The area was red and angry, but the skin wasn’t broken, thankfully.

A mewling from the door caught his attention, and he looked up to find Erlen there.

“I’m fine,” Maker said as the Niotan padded over to him. “I said I’m fine. I’ll be good as new by the end of the day.”

Erlen ignored him, instead rearing up and inspecting the injury like a doctor. A second later, he pressed his muzzle to the area.

“Hey!” Maker shouted. “Either your nose is cold and wet or you just licked me!”

Erlen, seemingly deaf to anything being said to him, stalked back into the living room and, from the sound of it, began working on the bar wrapping again.

Maker looked at his injury once more, touching it gingerly. A moment later, he went back to getting dressed.

*****************************************

Adames was sitting at a table, looking at his p-comp, when Maker came in, Erlen right beside him. He was far less than happy with what he’d been viewing and it showed on his face.

“Your first day on the job as an el-tee and you show up late,” he said, suddenly smiling and coming to his feet. “I’d say you’re getting the hang of being an officer just fine.”

“Well, if officers actually did any work, NCOs would be out of a job,” Maker replied with a grin. “Now, I saw that look on your face when I came in. What’s the problem? My requisition list?”

“I told you that’s fine,” Adames said dismissively. “I’ve got that under control.”

“Then what – the facilities?”

Maker glanced around. They’d been given the use of some deserted buildings in a little-used training area on the base. They were in the main structure now, which housed about a dozen rooms, most of which had previously been used as offices. In fact, the room they were in now was part of the former commander’s suite, with a couple of well-used desks and chairs.

“No,” Adames said, shaking his head. “It’s fairly run-down – nobody’s probably been out here in a decade – but considering we’ll only be here for a few days, it should be fine.”

“Well, there’s only one thing left,” Maker said, taking a seat at one of the desks. “You don’t like my roster.”

“Bingo.” Adames went back to looking at his p-comp, scanning the information. “Look, Gant, if I’m being honest, I just don’t know what you’re thinking. I was so thrown off by the first few that I didn’t even finish reading all of them. I mean, we can have any crew we want according to you, and you pick
these
guys?”

“Well, tell me what’s wrong with them.”

“What’s wrong with them? Well, for starters, one of them sounds like a total psycho, another one seems completely unstable – and that’s on a good day. And this guy…” Adames stared at the screen in almost disbelief. “It says that he’s an Augman. What the hell’s an Augmented Man doing in the military?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“You bet I will,” Adames said matter-of-factly. He tapped the p-comp monitor and the screen went dark. He looked at Maker. “Well, they’re all supposed to be in the briefing room at the other end of the building. How do you want to play it?”

“I don’t know,” Maker said, drumming his fingers. “Let’s just try it the way we always wished officers did it with us.”

“What, straight?” Adames asked, a little surprised. Then he shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. How long?”

“Give me five or ten minutes.”

“Sounds fine,” Adames said. He turned and left the room.

Once in the hallway, Adames quickly walked the thirty yards to the other end of the building where the briefing room was located. En route, he thought about the briefing Maker was going to give to their new recruits in just a few minutes.

Commanders often selected a theme when addressing the troops on a new mission. Some might appeal to your patriotism. Others might try to make you feel special for being selected. Still more might lay claim to your sense of loyalty by telling you that your fellow soldiers were counting on you. Playing it “straight,” however, meant being honest and direct, with little embellishment.

Adames was still thinking about that when he found himself nearing the entrance to the briefing room. The door slid open automatically as he approached, and he stepped in.

The room was about ten by twenty feet in size, with most of the space occupied by a huge conference room table. There were four people inside – two men and two women. Adames frowned in distaste; there should have been five of them. Top of the morning on Day 1, and somebody was already AWOL.

Three of the room’s occupants, the two women and one of the men, were seated at the table. They all came to their feet as Adames entered.

“Carry on,” Adames said, and the three sat back down. Looking them over quickly, he saw that the first woman was a petite sergeant who had her brown hair done up in a ponytail. She had a slightly pinched nose and high cheeks that, in combination, would probably have been quite appealing. However, Adams couldn’t tell because the most prominent feature on her face was a pair of goggles comprised of a tinted circular lens set in a metal frame over each eye.

The man seated next to her was an imposing figure. Noting his stature when the man had stood, Adames pegged him at well over seven feet in height. He wore military fatigues, like everyone else in the room, but they appeared stretched to the limit by the man’s incredibly muscular body.

This, then, was the Augman. Like everyone else in his genetically-engineered strain, his face was a horror: mad, bushy eyebrows; round, bulging eyes; a nose like an overripe banana; and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that looked like they’d be better-suited for a jaguar. Upon closer inspection, Adames noticed that the man wore a caduceus symbol on his uniform shirt, prompting a recollection that the Augman was actually a medical doctor.

Sitting on the other side of the table, across from the first two, was the second woman. She had incredibly pale skin, with onyx nails and ebony eyes. Her hair, cropped closely on the sides but long and flowing in the middle, was as dark as a starless night. All in all, the remarkable contrast in her countenance – between light and dark, black and white – gave her an almost exotic appearance. She would probably have been considered beautiful, were it not for a perpetual scowl that seemed frozen on her face.

The second man was a slim, boyish-looking fellow of average height and looks. He was already on his feet when Adames entered, so intent on looking through a trash can at the back of the room that he almost missed the fact that someone had come in.

“What are you doing?” Adames asked him. “Looking for something to eat?”

“No, Sergeant,” the man replied, apparently struggling not to grin.

Adames gave him a harsh stare before finally saying, “Take your seat.”

The man headed to the conference table, plainly intent on taking a seat next to the pale woman. An intense glare from her froze him in his tracks. He almost seemed to wilt under her gaze. A second later, he seemed to change his mind with respect to the seat he preferred, instead choosing to move down one spot, leaving an empty chair between them.

“Sound off,” Adames commanded a moment later.

“E-4 Edison Wayne,” said the young man who had been looking in the trash can. “Engineering.”

As Adames had suspected, the fellow was young. Based on his rank, E-4, he’d only been in the service a few years.

There was a time in the distant past when ranks below that of sergeant actually had names – things like airman, corporal, and such, depending of the branch of military service you were in. However, when human beings finally decided to stop squabbling among themselves and show one face to the universe as they ventured farther into space, they had merged their various fighting forces.

That said, some military traditions (including the rank structure) went back thousands of years, and no service was willing to readily give that up. Thus, it was decided that enlisted members would only be ranked by letter and number until promoted to sergeant (E-5). It wasn’t a perfect system, but it beat trying to incorporate a hundred different names for the same position.

“Sergeant Isis Bronwyn Diviana,” said the woman with the exotic countenance, cutting off Adames’ thoughts. “Intel.”

Everyone looked at her, expecting more detail. “Intel” was a catchall phrase that was used to encompass a number of disciplines, both open and clandestine. It covered everything from analysis to spying to assassination.

After a few seconds, it became clear that Diviana was not going to offer any more information about her expertise. That being the case, the woman in the goggles spoke next. “Staff Sergeant Luna Loyola,” she announced.

“Hold on,” Adames ordered before Loyola could state her specialty. “Take that eyewear off. I want to see who I’m talking to.”

Adames couldn’t read her expression, but the woman’s demeanor seemed to change. She suddenly seemed to be unsure of herself in some way, nervous. However, the feeling apparently passed, because the next second she reached up, grabbed her goggles, and lifted them up so they rested on her forehead. There was a harsh intake of breath from Diviana, who was sitting across from her; Wayne, also on the other side of the table, looked as though he was about to lose his lunch.

Loyola turned her face directly towards Adames, whose jaw almost fell open. Sitting where her eyes should have been were two dark, sunken cavities. It was as if her eyeballs had simply dissolved.

The sockets were not totally empty, however. In each was a circular piece of reflective material – some weird amalgam of metal and glass – that seemed to be held in place by almost invisible bits of metal thread that connected to the holes where her eyes should have been.

“Holy
caca
!” Adames screamed, practically in shock. “What the hell happened to your eyes?!”

“Premature detonation of a shaped charge,” the woman replied. “It destroyed a good chunk of my face, not just my eyes. They were able to reconstruct almost everything, although a large portion of my skull is metal – as well as some other hardware – and a lot of the skin on my face was grown and grafted.”

“But…your eyes,” Wayne said, still looking sick but no longer on the verge of heaving his guts out. “Why didn’t you get new ones?”

It was the Augman who answered, his voice a deep baritone. “In a very small percentage of the population,” he said, “new organs are occasionally rejected by the host body – even when grown from cultures of the host’s tissue.”

“And I was lucky enough to be in that small pool of lottery winners,” Loyola said.

“So, you’re blind?” Adames asked.

Loyola pulled her goggles back down over her eyes. “Yes and no,” she answered. “I can’t see the way you do, but the synthetic alloy in my sockets acts as a kind of artificial oculus.”

“How does it work?” Wayne asked.