Wing Commander Pilgrim Stars Chapter 12

Chapter 12
Book	Wing Commander Pilgrim Stars
Parts	2
Previous	Chapter 11
Next	Chapter 13
Pages	138-148

Dramatis Personae

Part One

• Lieutenant Christopher "Pilgrim" Blair (POV)
• Commodore James "Paladin" Taggart
• Lieutenant Todd "Maniac" Marshall
• Captain Amity Aristee
• Johan McDaniel
• Deck Boss Towers
• Unnamed TCS Olympus Marines (2)
• Ivar Chu McDaniel (mentioned)
• Devi Soulsong (mentioned)

Part Two

• Lieutenant Christopher "Pilgrim" Blair (POV)
• Commodore James "Paladin" Taggart
• Captain Amity Aristee
• Johan McDaniel
• Unnamed TCS Olympus Marines (4)
• Unnamed TCS Olympus Crew Members
• Protur Carver Tsu IOI (mentioned)
• Karista Mullens (mentioned)

Text

VEGA SECTOR, DAY-DOUGLAS BORDER

CS OLYMPUS

EN ROUTE TO ALOY- SIUS SYSTEM ROBERT'S QUADRANT

2654.088

2200 HOURS CONFEDERATION STANDARD TIME

After they had set down on the Olympus's flight deck, Blair and Paladin had remained in their seats while the supercruiser made another jump. During that moment, Blair had once more experienced the indistinct figure that rose from the darkness, calling his name in a feminine voice, stroking his cheek, and reaching for him. However, the image had seemed brighter, the voice clearer--as though with each contact he drew closer to the person.

     With the jump completed, Deck Boss Towers had given them permission to egress. When they had popped the hatch, they had been met by a pair of heavily-armed Pilgrim Marines. The Marines' dress had immediately struck Blair as odd: long, white robes tied at the waist by olive drab sashes and covered by breastplates of armor and conventional ammo belts. Combat boots had been replaced by loose-fitting sandals. Confederation Marines typically wore standard issue C-524 space armor, single piece units donned via an opening on the left side. Equipped with C-532 life support systems, the suits afforded them the ability to operate in a multitude of environments and struck a familiar image with all military personnel. These Pilgrim Marines looked like a pair of monks wielding C-47 ballistic assault rifles instead of the holy books of Ivar Chu. Despite their dress, they did brandish the same badass attitudes as non-Pilgrim Marines, and that characteristic even Ivar Chu McDaniel could not educate or "enlighten" away.

     Hands raised, he and Paladin had shifted down the loading ramp and into supercruiser's aft flight deck, once a meager housing for twenty or thirty fighters and bombers, now a spectacle of recently added runways, aprons, and berths that extended nearly two hundred meters longer than the Tiger Claw's. Rapiers and Broadswords stood in rows that stretched so far into the distance that Blair had blinked to make sure he had not witnessed an illusion. Still, the rows were spread wide apart, and there probably weren't more than sixty or seventy fighters. Even as Paladin continued to scrutinize their enemy's strike potential, Blair had taken note of the dozens of techs who also wore robes and sandals similar to the Marines, though their jobs were identified by different colored sashes rather than by the color-specific coveralls worn by Confed personnel.

     "What's with the costumes?" Blair had asked Paladin. "Looks like a martial arts academy in here."

     "Pilgrims are all about tradition, and this one was obviously adopted from other cultures and religions. The robes are ceremonial reminders of oneness, of purity, of simplicity, and they're made of ko'a'ka. Produces a calming effect similar to tobacco."

     "They don't look calm. Just ridiculous."

     That remark had caused one of the Marines to jam his muzzle between Blair's shoulders. Wincing from the pain, Blair had wisely decided to remain silent for the rest of the trip to the brig. Along the way, they had been met by the scowls and cutting remarks of dozens of robed crew members, and though Blair shared their ancestry, he felt alienated by these people; however, they couldn't know his mother had been a Pilgrim.

     The group had finally reached the brig, a narrow, utilitarian chamber with six cells on each side of the passage. There, Blair and Paladin had sat for hours, highly entertained by the durasteel walls and the buzz of sparse lighting. Blair's only visit to a cap ship brig had been during the standard walking tour. Naval brigs hadn't changed much over the centuries. You had your walls, your bars, your sweet-smelling sink and toilet. You wouldn't find sophisticated energy barriers or hyperlined plumbing in Confederation brigs, just the cheap, effective, old-fashioned discomforts of imprisonment.

     Surprisingly enough, Blair had discovered that the mattress on the cot was actually thicker and more comfortable than the one in his quarters back on the Claw --an illustration of military prioritizing at its finest, with thugs sleeping more comfortably than officers.

     Paladin hadn't paid much attention to Blair's comments regarding the bunk. In fact, he had grown more restless, and the color had all but faded from his cheeks.

     Noting that, Blair now mustered the courage to confront his mentor. "Are you all right, sir?"

     "What?"

     "Are you all right?"

     Paladin blinked off the cobwebs of his introspection and faced Blair. "Yeah. It's just this wait."

     "How long has it been since you've seen her?"

     "I'm not sure. We bumped into each other a few times since she left. It's probably been five years. I guess I can wait another hour."

     "With all due respect, sir, you look pretty nervous."

     The commodore chuckled under his breath. "It shows that much?"

     A sudden commotion at the far end of the brig drew Blair's attention.

     "Watch it!" came a familiar voice. "You do that again, you'll be deep-throating that muzzle. Do we understand each other?"

     "Shut up!" another man cried.

     "Maniac?" Blair called, rushing to the bars. He glimpsed down the corridor and spotted his bunkmate being ushered toward them by their friendly neighborhood Pilgrim Marines.

     "Hey, that you, Blair?" Maniac squinted to spot him.

     "Yeah. I'm with the commodore. What are you doing here?"

     "I'm on the free tour."

     The Marines keyed open the cell beside Blair's and thrust Maniac inside. A solid wall stood between their cells, so Blair could only hear his wingman. "Thanks, guys," he told his escorts. "I'm looking at your hairy legs, and I gotta tell you, I'm feeling somewhat aroused."

     "Close that hole, human" one of the guards retorted before he and his comrade beat a quick exit.

     "You say it like a curse," Maniac cried after them. "At least I ain't a fanatic and a freak!" Suddenly aware of his company, he added, "No offense, guys."

     Paladin arrived beside Blair, his once sallow face now aglow. "Lieutenant?" he called out to Maniac. "Explain your presence."

     "You know it's actually good to see you two locked up. At least I know what side you're on."

     "Lieutenant, answer my--"

     "Sir, I took a hit, lost control, and came in close to the carrier as she was about to jump," Maniac began, sounding bored with having to relate the tale. "I drifted into some kind of neutral field that surrounded the ship. I fired a tow beam, just hung on, and figured I'd be wasted by the jump. On the other side, they sent out a couple Rapiers and tractored me back to the flight deck. Got interrogated by a few people. Don't know if they were officers, they wore those nutty robes with the symbols along the cuffs. One of them gave the order to have me executed."

     Paladin snorted. "So why am I still talking to you?"

     "Well, sir, I kind of dropped your name." Maniac's voice grew more tentative. "Told 'em I was a friend and that they should check with you first before they did anything. And son of a bitch, it worked. At least for now."

     "That's pretty clever, Lieutenant."

     "Why, thank you, sir."

     "You idiot!" Paladin suddenly roared. "Aristee will bait me with your life."

     "What was I supposed to do? Let 'em kill me? I don't think so. And why can't she do the same thing with Blair?"

     "She won't kill him--he's half Pilgrim. Your presence may have already compromised this mission."

     "And what mission is that, sir ?"

     Paladin sighed disgustedly and shambled back toward the cot. He flipped back a stray lock of hair and sat, his expression returning to a tight mask of thought.

     "Hey, I didn't ask to be here," Maniac added. "You guys did. Mind telling me why?"

     Blair looked to Paladin, who shook his head.

     "Hey, you guys eat yet?" Maniac continued. "The food any good? Or do these Pilgrims eat only holy rice or some other bullshit?"

     "Think you'd better sit down and find your own religion," Blair retorted. "You'll need it now."

     Voices echoed faintly in the distance, then wore off into the sound of approaching footsteps.

     "What now?" Paladin muttered.

     Captain Amity Aristee emerged from the shadows like a dark-skinned archangel, cast out from the Confederation and ruling now in her own private hell. She did, indeed, possess that torturous beauty of which Paladin had so often spoke, and Blair found himself drawn to the forest in her eyes and the mysteries coiled through her black, shoulder-length hair. Aristee carried herself with a rhythm that seemed at once primordial and musical, though in no way did it appear forced. Full, round breasts tented up her robe, with more than a hint of cleavage forming a warm home at her V-neck. She stood tall on firm legs, the calves smooth and well-defined, and her small feet with toenails painted white fit perfectly in her leather sandals. Blair amused himself by speculating on her undergarments--or lack thereof--before he noticed another man coming forward, a man he immediately recognized, though he had first seen as part of the continuum, part of something universal, elemental, and baffling.

     Frotur Johan McDaniel regarded Blair with warm recognition. "Brotur Christopher." Then he eyed Paladin with a slight though detectable sneer. "And Brotur James. I never thought we'd meet again."

     "For a Pilgrim with a perfect sense of direction, you seem to keep crossing my path," the commodore said coldly.

     "Oh, but that's not my will. It's destiny tugging on your elbow. You've lived in denial long enough, haven't you?"

     "All right, gentlemen," Aristee interjected. "We'll finish the debate later." With several rapid keystrokes on the cell's control panel, she opened the door. "Let's go."

     Blair noticed how Aristee and Paladin would not look at each other. He had expected an awkward moment between them, a moment in which they painfully uttered each other's names followed by mawkish cliches like "It's been a long time."

     "Whoa. Where are you going?" Maniac asked as they stepped into the corridor. "Hey, you leave me here, you're gonna have a major problem on your hands."

     "Lieutenant," Paladin snapped, then added a glare to silence Maniac. The reprimand worked.

     "I understand he's a friend," Aristee said, though she barely met Paladin's gaze.

     "No, he's not."

     "Sir?" Maniac cried.

     "He's a good friend and one of most aggressive junior pilots in the fleet," the commodore added. "But he's still a human. I suggest you jettison him ASAP."

     Blair turned to Paladin, mouth agape both eyes bulging.

     "James, you know why I let him live," Aristee began. "Don't insult my intelligence again. You're not here to defect, and you don't want me to kill him. You're here to talk me into surrendering, but Ivar Chu himself couldn't do that now."

     "At least hear me out," Paladin said.

     "Oh, I will. We'll have plenty of time to talk. But first I want to show you something." She suddenly turned to Blair, scrutinized him for a second, then blurted out, "You look like your mother."

     "Did you know her, ma'am?"

     "I knew of her. I was pretty young back then and was only visiting Peron. I remember everyone being jealous of her good looks. Then when she married your father, that jealousy turned to hate." She moved away. "So it goes."

     They followed her toward the hatch at the far end of the corridor, with Johan McDaniel bringing up the rear. "Broturs James and Christopher, many people scarified their lives for what you're about to witness. We shall honor them by remaining silent until we arrive," the frotur instructed.

     Paladin looked askance at Blair and made a face. Blair nodded as the two Marines joined them at the hatch.

     "Bring back some food," Maniac shouted.

Amity led them down several decks, toward the supercruiser's stern. They passed several torpedo launch bays, pilots' quarters, environmental controls, and a long storage area fenced off by polymeric bars. Crew members snapped to as they neared them, bowing instead of saluting.

     It took all of fifteen minutes for them to reach the engineering deck. Two more Pilgrim Marines stood guard outside the oval-shaped hatch. As they drew near, one of the guards briskly keyed open the door. The drone of cooling units and air recyclers grew louder as they stepped onto a catwalk that encompassed a circular room. The catwalk permitted full view of the ship's drive system, a great metallic organ centered below. From a distance, the place resembled an amphitheater, with the drive at center stage and emitting a solid bass note so deep that Blair felt it pass through him as they crossed toward a staircase that dropped fifteen meters to the drive deck. He gripped the rail and descended, his gaze riveted to the hopper drive itself.

     Mounted on a two-meter-high, rectangular durasteel base, the drive extended about fifteen meters, bearing the exotic curves of some black, incandescent melon. It tapered at the tail end to form a curving hose with the girth of two men. The hose arced back to the center of the drive, where it grew wider by a third and attached to a dome on the system's back. A conduit at least five meters across jutted from the forward end and curved up ninety degrees to reach the overhead. Blair assumed that the four robed men who had risen from their control stations along the perimeter were drive officers; they bowed as Aristee entered the room.

     "As you were," she said.

     "Jesus," Paladin mumbled, gaping at the drive. "Must've taken months to install this system."

     "Nine-point-three," Aristee qualified. "The Confederation could never maintain security as tight as mine or create a better campaign of misinformation. Your friends at Intell thought they had us figured out. I wonder what they think now. Even my own command staff didn't know what was going on down here. Some said it would be impossible." She sniggered. "Gentlemen, I present to you the impossible."

     Paladin pointed at the tube extending to the ceiling. "Well field integrator?"

     "Very good. The matter-antimatter reactor is housed in the dome. The reaction containment field is located below. Problems with the old hopper drive occurred there. We used a Kilrathi alloy inside the drive to foster containment, control the reaction, and account for gravitic distortions from nearby objects. At least the cats are good for something else besides killing."

     "What's the range? If I recall, the old sloships were limited to twenty or thirty percent of a light year."

     "We're still experimenting with that, but our last jump took us nearly halfway across Vega sector. You do the math."

     "But isn't the field localized?"

     "There's a relationship between the number of antigravitons created by the field and the range. I don't pretend to understand it, but the more we generate, the farther we go."

     "Yeah, but as you generate more antigravitons, the well becomes more unstable."

     The commodore's fact left Aristee unmoved. "We're working on that, too. But no matter how unstable the well becomes, we can still navigate it, either through conventional NAVCOM AI or a Pilgrim navigator. Frotur McDaniel is responsible for our success in that area."

     "I'm just an old man," McDaniel said with a smile.

     Paladin shook his head. "I wish you were."

     "Ma'am, what you've done here is nothing short of remarkable," Blair said. "But for what? Why show us this? And how do you justify killing millions on Mylon? What do you want? Most terrorists have some sort of demands."

     She stepped toward him, her fruity perfume beginning to sap away his anger. "I'm not a terrorist, Brotur Christopher. I'm a victim, same as you. We were chosen for the stars. The Confederation took them from us." She grinned wistfully. "I don't expect to get them back. But I will start a revolution the likes of which the Confederation has never seen. Even the Kilrathi will cower in our presence. I'm not some insane fanatic who's hijacked her own ship with the intention to kill as many humans as I can before I die a fiery death. You think I'm that reckless? I know what's right for my people. And I'm going to give it to them with the help of this drive. I show it to you because it's yours ."

     "No." Paladin's eyes narrowed in disgust.

     "You can't strike and run forever," Blair said, his tone complementing the commodore's expression. "This is just one ship, and the fleet will eventually catch up with you."

     "Of course it will, but not before I create a symbol of our renewed strength. Gentlemen, in approximately sixty days further modifications to this drive will be completed. They will allow us to generate a space-time well large enough to be placed near planetary bodies. At such time we will proceed to Earth and complete Brotur Wilson's mission. If we're not destroyed there, our next targets will include Sol system military installations." She focused her attention on Paladin. "You'll be supplying us with more specific data on bringing down their defense nets."

     "Interesting the way you stand there and tell us you're not insane," Blair began. "Then you tell us your plans to take out Earth and the Confederation. Am I the only one who recognizes the irony? And if this is what being a Pilgrim is all about, then--"

     "You're still naive, Brotur. You'll come to understand," she assured him with a nod. "I don't like killing, but I will no longer tolerate the persecution of my people."

     "I suppose you went to McDaniel for the protur's blessing," Paladin interjected. "You don't have it, and without it you can't succeed."

     "On the contrary, James, I not only have the protur's blessing, but he's aboard this ship."

     Paladin shifted his gaze to Johan McDaniel. "So you figured out where his retreat is. Did he come willingly?"

     "Later on, I'll take you to see him," Aristee offered. "You can ask him yourself."

     "I don't believe you've met the protur," McDaniel said, gripping Paladin's shoulder. "You must talk to him."

     The commodore twisted out of McDaniel's hold, then scanned the drive room for effect. "All of this

     what a waste."

     "Oh, come down off your pulpit," Aristee shot back. "You wouldn't have said that ten years ago. We joined the Navy for the same reasons. You've just forgotten them."

     As the commodore stood in silent consideration, McDaniel slid up behind Blair and whispered, "Haven't seen her yet, have you? Oh, you've heard her, but you haven't really seen her."

     A bolt of chills impaled Blair's spine as he turned back to the old man. "No, I haven't. She knows my name."

     "She knows more than that."

     "Who is she?"

     "It's not who but what she is," he said with a wink. "And that's not for me to answer, but for you to discover."