The channel closed. Jake stood and accessed the emergency message. The header noted that it was sent from a ship called the Palamo, registered with the Royal Acquisition and Distribution Salvage Company. The rest of the usual information was missing. There was no Captain or First Officer listed, no port of call, and no government flag. Jake couldn't help but think about how closely the Triton’s status matched what he was seeing. They didn't run under a flag, weren't registered with any company and their port of call was so out of date it wouldn't show up on most navigational networks.
He started for the bathroom, the governor program in control of the environment in his quarters increased the light level just enough for him to see. Grabbing a denta tab from the dispenser and popping it into his mouth, he played the message.
The agonized, high pitched scream of a young woman filled his quarters. Jake flinched, bit his cheek and dropped his comm unit into the shower. He shook off the initial shock and muttered; “If I wasn't awake before…” Jake snatched the arm command unit from the floor and strapped it on. It covered from wrist to the middle of his forearm.
Emitters vibrated the air, scrubbing his skin free of dirt and debris. Fans pulled the air through the stall. The screaming message stopped and a passive male voice assigned to read his text messages replaced it. “This is a scanning officer on the Palamo. The Palamo is a carrier crewed by slaves. We are about to raid Ossimi Ring Station. The scream you just heard was recorded moments ago as the Captain tortured his Cabin Girl. It is a routine event here. I am told you have saved slaves before and we appeal for your help. We are all implanted with control devices. I don't know much about the Ossimi raid, only that the crew have been forced to jury rig their enviro suits so they're ready for heavy gravity. Please help.”
Jake scrolled through the message from one end to the other, viewed the raw code version and even replayed the scream at a lesser volume. There was no more information.
The cleansing chamber fell silent. All this time and I haven't had time to have a proper wet shower. Some day I'll take advantage of the finer things Triton has to offer. Jake thought as he looked at the bone dry shower nozzles in the walls of the stall. He stepped out and made his way to the bedroom, replaying the transmission, scream included as he pulled his control unit off.
The cabin girl sounded young, small. He'd heard someone scream just like that before when they were caught in a highly charged field and electrocuted. It was years ago when they had landed the Samson for repairs. No one was watching James, one of their new repair people. He had gotten under the main mass reactor, thinking it was completely powered down. While he was making fine adjustments inside the machine his aligner bridged two connections and he was burned bone deep. It took over a minute, he was alive for most of the incident. They couldn't get to his body until the mass reactor's capacitors had finished discharging. All James left behind was a charred husk. James' screams were so piercing, so loud that people came running from eight docks down.
That's what the cabin girl's screams sounded like, someone who was in so much pain they weren't conscious of the sounds they were making. Jake's mood darkened, his temper started to rise. He shook it off as best he could as he closed the front of his new, heavily armoured vacsuit and transferred all activity and access to the command and control unit built into it. The unit he had tossed onto the bed locked and deactivated.
Jake brought up the status screen. Minh was still asleep, due to wake in half an hour, he'd gone to sleep six hours beforehand. His last report indicated that his fighter wing was ready for combat. A squadron was on standby, ready to launch as soon as the Triton arrived on the edge of the Ossimi Ring.
Jake checked the load and safety on his side arm and locked it into his thigh holster then snatched his black long coat off the hanger. He was out the door and down the private hallway for the Officer's ready quarters before the lights finished coming on. The command level concourse was quiet, only a few security guards passed by as he made his way to the main lifts. It was rare to ride the express car alone, especially all the way to medical. On the way he checked on Alice's status. Still unconscious. Not quite a coma, not quite dreaming.
Instead of visiting her he turned in the other direction and stopped in the largest of the family rooms. They were comfortable spaces reserved for friends and family waiting on news from the infirmary. They were all empty, a good sign.
Jake looked at the broad two dimensional screen. The image was so high quality that it was indistinguishable from a transparent section of hull. It was even laid out the same way as many of the observation points, starting half way up the wall and stretching the entire length of the room. The warped view of space outside, with stretched stars and light gossamer haze of the wormhole they were traversing filled his view. The countdown clock on his command and control unit told him that they were to emerge from the wormhole in seconds.
Crewcast, the new personnel tracking and networking software Jason had installed told him that everyone was waking up early, even Minh, who had somehow managed to get ready for duty in the time he'd spent in the lift.
The field of distorted stars became clear as they emerged from the wormhole. A few larger, wayward asteroids hung in the space outside of the Ossimi ring's rapidly rotating perimeter, catching the sun's light on their icy surface.
It's decision time. Jake mused. He played the scream back in his subdermal earpiece as he looked out over the rapidly moving field of asteroids. Triton was turning and accelerating along the edge of the field so it could keep pace with the whirling expanse of rock and ice. It stretched on like a horizon of blue, black and white with no visible end.
Jake closed his eyes and listened one more time as the wail played back in his ears. For over five years he operated under the assumption that Alice was his biological daughter. He looked for her as he made his way across entire sectors on the Samson, earning his way across the stars with bounty hunting and retrieval work. When he discovered that they weren't blood relations, that she was actually his personal artificial intelligence made flesh, it changed very little. If that cabin girl was her, if it was his daughter being tortured, he would go to any length to get her back, make her safe and punish the ones responsible.
There was nothing he hated more than slavery. In some cases it was worse than murder. He remembered being a captive himself. The result of some personality bending, information retrieval experiment. The playback ended. This isn't how good decisions are made. I don't have a clear head on this and I'm making it worse. He deleted the playback of the scream and looked at the broad display. On the left side was the edge of the asteroid field, so large it looked like a straight line stretching out into space. On the right was the open blackness of the universe.
There were other ports. Busy solar systems with dozens of planets and asteroid belts to hide in while they made repairs. They could disappear into another wormhole and limp their way to another hiding place where they could activate their new hypertransmitter and try to find an ally. There had to be someone in reach who opposed the Order of Eden or would at least buy ill gotten cargo if they started raiding supply routes and capturing ships.
Slave ship. The term conjured images of filthy accommodations, barely edible food, brutal discipline and the stripping of one's identity. It took a special type of person to Captain such a ship. He had run into people with implants before. Neutralized them before. He knew how to deal with them. I've never had the chance to take on an entire ship until now. Triton might not be fast or manoeuvrable right now, but she's powerful, and we've got fighter squadrons ready to go. I have five commanders I trust. Two weeks of solid practice and preparation for multi aspect engagements. We're ready, the crew is burning to get into some kind of action. If I leave these people on that ship without trying I'll never live it down.
“Busiest two weeks of my life,” Oz said as he stepped into the family room. He stepped up beside him to take in the view offered by the faux family room window.
'Good morning.'
'You look like you've got something on your mind.'
'Straight to it. You've been in the military too long.'
Oz shrugged. 'Guilty as charged. You can take the malcontent out of the military but you'll never get the military out of the malcontent. '
The pair watched as seven two seater Uriel starfighters flew ahead of the Triton in formation along the edge of the asteroid field. They were impressive ships, with eight engine pods and two main bidirectional thrusters. Small gunships in their own right, capable of carrying a vast array of weaponry as well as modules specialized for extra power, wormhole generation, rescue, troop delivery and many other purposes. They looked on silently as they disappeared from sight. 'What do you think of Triton?' Jake asked as he used his command unit to cancel all
