gracefully and find new people.”
Ayan couldn't help but shed a tear at the sight of herself so ill, longing for another chance and chuckled at the memory despite her sympathy. “Miss Albinson, I remember.”
“Good, now go out there and follow a dream. I know for a fact that Galaxy hasn't had enough of you yet,” the hologram winked and disappeared. It was replaced by a pass code request.
“Alcove four.” Ayan whispered to the command and control unit. A holographic directory appeared and began to slowly rotate, showing the hundreds of entries. There were incomplete projects, discovered technologies from Vindyne, Gai-Ian and other databases, and completed technologies ready to be put into use. The amount of data was staggering and Ayan just shook her head and whispered; “wow.”
Minh entered the cockpit quietly, his classic electric guitar slung behind his back, and looked at her. “Hey, are you okay?”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Fine, just watched a message from myself before I ran off to find Jonas.”
“I heard about that. It was the big news item before I was discovered. There was a big security leak and the media was all over it. Between her stealing the Silkstream Four, me being found by Lorander and then you being born out of a time compression wormhole, I think we've been the top story for a month.”
“Did the media get access to you when you came back at all?”
Minh sat down and absent mindedly checked if his strings were in tune. “Only when I first landed. Veteran Services took me from there though and no one could get through them. Having all those people right there when I landed was more of a shock than I thought it would be.”
“I could just imagine.”
“How about you?”
“The media? Oh, they wanted in, but the section of Freedom Tower the Doctor had me set up in was like a fortress.”
“Oh? I didn't notice. They let me just walk right in.”
“You were on the accepted visitor's list,” Ayan said with a smile as she took a meal replacement bar from a box wedged into a crevice in the dashboard. It was brown, thick, and chewy. He had only brought the chocolate fudge flavour, but she didn't mind.
Lalonde, Randolph
Spinward Fringe Frontline
“Aw, you're making me feel all melty inside.”
Ayan laughed then shrugged. “It was more of a wish list. I even had Jonas' name on it. When I wrote it I hadn't seen the Newsnet, I didn't even know they had recovered you.”
“Still, feeling melty over here,” Minh teased. He looked at the directory listing projected above Ayan's bracelet command unit. “What's that?”
“It's only everything Special Projects ever touched. It came with the personal data my mother gave me.”
“Wow, they were busy.”
“Freeground gave Laura and the Ayan before me a whole staff and from what I'm seeing they kept on applying for more people. They took on everything but backwards time travel from the looks of it.”
“Well, no one bothers with backwards time travel. Something to do with the radiation and exploding.”
“That would do it. Nature doesn't much like people going back and changing things.”
“So, what are we doing today?”
Ayan turned the display off and smiled at Minh. “I'm starting with yoga and moving on to infantry fitness training. I want to try to get in shape without the regeneration and fitness meds Doc Anderson gave me. They're non-genetic treatments, but I want to see how I do without them.”
“Well, I'll help as long as you don't try to keep up. I'm pretty pumped,” Minh said as he posed and flexed, making exaggerated strained faces to match.
Frost's Morning After
Cold drool had pooled on the brig bunk and Frost groaned at the sensations of dry mouth and his throbbing head. He was still tired, wished he was still drunk, and knew by the bright lights that it was five in the morning, time for the inmates to wake up for morning inspection.
“Good morning.” Captain Valance's amusement couldn't be missed.
In that instant Frost hated Jacob Valance more than anything or anyone he'd ever met. He sat up, wiped his cheek and mouth then glared at the Captain. “For some, aye.”
Jake burst out laughing at the dirty look Frost shot him and handed him a spill proof mug of black coffee with a recovery agent additive. “This'll get you feeling steady enough for the gunnery deck.”
He took the tall silver mug and smelled it. “Strong enough ta clear rust. Thank ye sir.” As he took the first long drink of the strong coffee his irritation at being awakened by the Captain began to fade.
“Hard night last night, I can't tell you I don't know how you feel. It's gotten around the ship though.”
“Has it?”
“It won't harm your reputation much, your men are behind you more than ever. Alice had to break up a brawl between off duty security and gunnery personnel.”
Frost's eyebrows raised and he sat back on his bunk. “Oi, that's a mess. How many?”
“Close to three hundred were involved.”
“Three hundred! How did Alice break it up?”
“She and Stephanie's lieutenants turned the lights on and started stunning people from on top of the bar. Nothing breaks up a brawl like gunfire, stunned or dead, doesn't matter much when people don't have time to see the difference. A few other senior officers joined her on top of the bar and club night was called off.”
“Crew can't be happy 'bout that. I've never been much for dance clubs, more a pub crawler myself, but people were lookin' forward to it.”
Captain Valance nodded. “Now Security personnel are blaming Gunnery and Maintenance crews and vice versa.”
“I'd have have never thought.”
“It's not because of last night, though it didn't help. There's a growing environment of mistrust between the departments.”
“On account of Burke.”
“No, because of the way you handled it. You didn't trust Stephanie's people to do their jobs and everyone knows it. The whole brawl started over someone in the Gunnery crew telling someone in Security that your people handle their own business, they don't need security 'in their faces.'”
Frost ran a hand down his face. “Bloody politics. I'll give up the deck for a while if that'll fix it.”
Jake laughed and shook his head. “Sorry, no easy way out on this one Chief. If you try to back out of the position it'll look like you were forced into it from the top and if you think that brawl was something…”
“Aye, you're right. Then there's only one thing for it.”
“Make peace, whether you and Steph are off for good and you just have to put a good face on it or you make amends, it doesn't matter. Your people have to see that something is working, otherwise this'll go on.”
“Aye, and I'll have to be real hard on 'em for this.”
“And make sure they know they need the Security Department as much as anyone else. It's going to be hard, especially considering the history behind all this.”
“Well, I'm sure if Steph won't take me back she'll at least be willin' ta make nice for the crew.”
“I'm not talking about that; she shot Grace, remember? That's come up all over again. The rumours about Steph orchestrating her death to get her out of the way are all back.”
“Oi, that business again. I'll get this all put right Captain, won't be easy, but it'll get done.”
“Good, I'm headed to the Bridge, Steph's just outside.”
Frost put down the mug and hurriedly tried to sort his hair out while looking into a small mirror built into the
