Fragments

Zoe looked up at Ashley, her eyes conveying a request for permission.

'You wanna play?' She asked, feigning excitement and surprise.

Zoe nodded emphatically.

'Okay, here we go,' Ashley said as she lifted her up and put her on the table across from her.

The little girl made a gesture as though she were picking up the game display and it disappeared, sounds of muffled protests and comical panic seemed to come from her closed hand until she threw it into the air above the floor beside Ashley. The game image appeared there and Zoe got down from the table with Ashley’s help. Within minutes she settled in to play her game, changing the shape of the virtual walls so the characters, each in the form of a different number, so they collided into each other. The black numbers added together to become one larger number when the collided, and were reduced by red numbers. 'She's really good with the computer,' Ashley commented quietly as she watched the comically frantic numerical characters rush around the changing virtual space.

'It's a Sol System model, completely intuitive. She doesn't know how inconvenient most computers are, so she assumes it works like the rest of the world.'

'I've only ever moved something from my comm unit to a display and back, never even tried what she's doing. Then, I s'pose you know all about what Triton can do,' Ashley commented as she checked the status of the ship and started figuring out where they were.

'I trained on this model for three years. The hardest part has been pretending I don't know much more than anyone else.'

'You're going to have to teach me a few things sometime.'

'Only if you show me more about Crewcast. I haven't been able to ask questions since its designer is also the best investigator on the ship. If I used it heavily I know he'd figure me out.'

'Really? How?'

'Crewcast builds a behavioural profile of all its users. It's an intelligence man's wet dream. Most of the crew use it so much that it probably already knows who everyone knows, how long they've known them, what kind of relationships people typically have and anything else. Ever notice how the old Freeground crew don’t have complete public profiles? It's a trap. If you have nothing to hide, there's no problem, but if you do, it takes discipline not to reveal anything important.'

'Huh. Good thing I don't have anyone to talk to about your secret. Unless someone else knows.'

'No one else knows.'

'If they did, would you tell me?'

'No.'

'God, one more secret, especially a doozy like yours, and I'll explode.'

'That's my fault. I shouldn't have let you rest so long.'

'Or let a skeevy soldier into my room.'

Larry nodded.

They worked in silence for a moment longer, and Ashley tried not to look at her navigator. He'd sat beside her for many shifts on the bridge, they'd spent time together after work, and she wouldn't have guessed at his true purpose on Triton. If she'd known how dangerous he was, things would have been different. She felt uneasy enough with him sitting across the table from her, and hoped that her attempts at casual jibing didn't go too far. A distressing thought fought its way to the fore; that he'd dispose of her after he'd completed some goal, and she did her best to suppress her fear.

Larry brought up a security status display, partially in two dimensions on his side of the table, and partially in three, where two dozen red spots flashed on a holographic representation of the Triton. Ashley finished her calculations and confirmed that they were just outside the planetary nebula, then started an emergency course calculation in the navigational computer before taking a closer look at it. 'What are the yellow areas?'

'Parts of the ship that have been recently contested or are between enemy contacts,' he said as he focused in on the upper command deck. All the corridors, most of the crew quarters and all the offices were marked in yellow. Ashley caught a glimpse of the concourse outside the main bridge, and a chill ran through her. The enemy soldiers were lining bodies up along the wall, at least a third of them were in Triton uniforms.

Before she could get a really good look Larry deactivated the live feeds, and all but the structural and bare tactical information remained. It was enough. There was a collection of red markers on both levels of the bridge. 'We've lost the ship,' she whispered, trying to keep calm.

'No, you're sitting there at the pilot's controls. In case you haven't noticed, you're the only one with direct access to the helm. Engineering was cut off a while ago, it was the first thing the soldiers did. Chief Grady suppressed several soldiers from the first boarding party and locked them in a decontamination chamber without their gear after almost crushing them to death with a gravity fluctuation, but he eventually had to weld the emergency bulkheads shut. Communications with him and his people has been spotty ever since.'

'But, the bridge.'

'Is nothing but a collection of dead terminals.' Larry sighed and nodded to himself, as though digging deep for more patience. With a few gestures he zoomed out and shifted the three dimensional display of the Triton so they could get a better look. 'It's bad; I won't lie to you when you can see it all for yourself. The enemy has taken the hangars, command levels and half the interior outside of the Botanical Gallery. On the other hand, they can't take this half of medical without cutting for days, and the same goes for the Gallery. There's also a fight going on aboard their own command carrier, and Frost's people have fused the mooring clamps onto their ship, so they're not going anywhere.'

'Wait, so you want me to pilot this ship while hauling another one riding piggyback?' Ashley exclaimed.

Zoe looked at her wide eyed, reacting to her tone more than anything.

Ashley turned, smiled and stroked the youngster's back. 'S'okay, play your game hon,' she soothed.

'Jason has a plan, that's why I like him despite the fact that if anyone is going to catch me eventually, it'll be him. I think I know what it is, too.'

'Wouldn't it be helpful if they knew I was here?'

'No, I'm listening to the enemy's communications and it's pretty obvious that whatever our Intelligence Officer has planned hasn't kicked in yet. If we try to use internal comms, we'll probably be discovered. That's why there's no comm traffic right now, and why Agameg has been waging his own war all along.'

'Right, so you're saying that I shouldn't worry about all the fighting going on right now and just get ready.'

'Exactly.'

'Fine, in that case, I have a heck of a lot of nav data to get through and some calculations to make. New weight distributions, mass considerations, shear estimates, not to mention we're down to one operating engine,' she said sweetly for Zoe's benefit. Her attention had turned back to her favourite game, where she controlled a running number three that became a six, nine, and twelve as it gobbled up other threes.

'I'll give you a hand. Just be ready for anything, I don't know when Jason will be putting the next phase of his plan into motion.'

A sinking feeling started to overwhelm Ashley, and she couldn't help but ask; 'D'you think they might leave us behind?'

Larry looked up from the conference table display and caught her eye. 'No. There's no way they can capture the command carrier, even this relatively small one, even if they could get to engineering or the control centre. That, and Jason wouldn't leave the people in the Botanical Gallery behind. He wouldn't dishonour Oz that way.'

'Dishonour Oz?'

'Something Oz told me the other night. He'd die to protect the civilians at the centre of this ship,' Larry said almost mournfully.

'Oh,' Ashley returned her attention to her work, trying to use the limited data at hand to create a control profile that would allow her to safely pilot the ship.

The pair worked in silence for a time, the sounds of Zoe's game providing background noise that was so cheery that it seemed inappropriate for how Ashley felt.

'There it is, that fighter the Command Centre's been trying to pin down,' Larry said, bringing it up on the main holographic display. The signal was coming from the inner edge of the nebula, tracking with the path of one of the smaller meteor clusters within.