Conflict (2176)

By B.B. Irvine

Conflict (2176) Book 02: Lieutenant Chen
Xiu-Li is nearly killed in a science experiment, but Wolf Lobo is along and he resets the fuse delay: she survives the test blast. It was sabotage, so staying on IWG-SS JOHN A. WHEELER is now dangerous for Xiu-Li. On a sector inspection tour, Admiral Custer Beria himself promotes her.
May 2175: Conflict duty on blockade ship IWG-SS/B ISAAC NEWTON; “Jool’s” 25th birthday. Friend Priti Fareyes almost dies in an intercept attempt, (as told by Ensign Ecurba himself). Priti has a crush on the ensign yet she doesn’t even know his name as she talks about events.
Life at the “desert” of Van Maanen’s star has certain ups: Xiu-Li meets Taceo Lacerna and they have a whirlwind affair. Training duty takes a deadly turn on 29 Feb 2176 when the first major deep space battle humans have ever fought occurs as the O.P.P. attacks the IWG training fleet at the posting known as Hellhole.
Small scale “intercepts” of one or two ships against one have been the norm, but at Hellhole, giant tractical cruisers oppose each other at ultra high velocities that can shatter targets – and ships.
Xiu-Li must first rescue injured on a trainer ship she is docked to, then she must enter NEWTON, which has been targeted by an O.P.P. strike team for “coring” of data units. Xiu-Li must lead a team she has never worked with into her badly hit platform ship and attack the O.P.P. strike team, then rescue Taceo (he had similar orders but entered seperately). She gets her team clear before being cut off from them. As she makes her own way clear, her vac-suit signal fails, indicating her death. Xiu-Li still takes a P.O.W., and gets free of NEWTON before it’s destroyed.
December, 2176. Dr.Sara Catsmile and her daughter Ania rescue a survivor from the Battle of Hellhole. Young Ania risks her life, entering an unstable – and boobytrapped – spacehulk to coax “Lucis Nusquam” back to civilization after 8 months in deep space.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.B. Irvine
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476122113

B.B. Irvine

B.B. Irvine was born in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the High School of Music and Art N.Y. (1976 music), New York State University at Stony Brook (1980 B.A. liberal arts), and in 1982 received a certificate as a Physician Assistant from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina. He has worked in settings including emergency medicine, AIDS research, and addiction treatment in New York City where he lives. In 1994 he earned a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Grandmaster Richard Chun. His novels and screenplays evidence his knowledge of people and frequently weave medicine, science, history, romance, and martial arts into the action.

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Conflict (2176)

Spacer Series Book 02: Lieutenant Chen

by B. B. Irvine

Copyright 2022 B. B. Irvine

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Chapter 01 - Sector Inspector

IWG-SS JOHN A. WHEELER

Cape Of Velvet, Beta Hyphi System

30 December 2174 - Saturday

XIU-LI

Now what the fekk is he doing? Wolf. Wolf!

Inna second!

We’re cutting it to nanoseconds here!

On it. On it...

Lieutenant (j.g.) Xiu-Li Chen struggled to keep her mouth shut. If Wolf says he’s on it, he is, and whatever he’s doing must be top critical –

Lieutenant Wolfredo Lobo popped through the hatch. GO! He hit the hatch cycle pad and crawled to the right side seat as Xiu-Li hit the release and the ScoutRunner moved free. As he strapped in, he said, Hey, you weren’t worried, were you? She lasered a scowl at him (dumb question), went back to flying. Sorry, Jool. The phase delay unit depowered and I had to do a ‘warelink patch reboot.

Hunh... That’s... Wow. She looked over. Amazing. He was smiling at her, and Xiu-Li took a deep breath. I figured it was critical. Her eyes swept the arrays in front of her. "E.T.A. to WHEELER twelve minutes."

"WHEELER, Scout One, E.T.A. twelve minutes, he said into the comm. He looked at his array. Got it. They shot glances at each other; her nanoseconds comment had been an exact report, he saw, and there was nothing much to say. Except: Well, I’m glad it’s you at the controls, at least." She had started to outclass him in their VirtuSim sessions for nearly six weeks now, which (as one of her teachers) he was proud of. Since a piloting error could now engulf them in the white hot expanding edge of a large implosion/explosion sphere, their lives depended on her.

She chuckled. Oh, yes, and thank you very much. But she was already starting to hit new inputs, concentrating on speed, distance and energy curves. It was working out well enough so far. I’m glad it was you in the blastpackage pod. I’d either of missed it, or botched that kind of reboot. She laughed. I’m the Tac officer, after all. You’re the engineer.

Lobo sighed. I know... but now you won’t get that Tactical Engineer upgrade this round.

Xiu-Li laughed again, feeling the ScoutRunner moving with her now. You know me, Wolf. I want things to work. I’m just happy we decided to switch tasks.

I know you like to fly.

She looked over at him. He was looking straight ahead, then he looked over at her. His eyes were challenging but warm... and so were hers. There was a definite positive correlation between flying and making love, they had noticed. Thanks, Wolf. For everything.

He nodded, looked back at his arrays.

So did she. "E.T.A. WHEELER six minutes." Not far enough yet.

"WHEELER, Scout One E.T.A. six minutes."

"Scout One, WHEELER, the coffee’s waiting." Tania Manda, watching the clock as well.

Getting caught inside of the blast radius or debris cloud... there wasn’t much to say. It would be one of those accidents from a failure in cutting edge advanced technology, used to wrest secrets from the Universe. Ninety seconds was the optimal point, then it was a question of exact firing time, speed of explosion and sizes of the blast and debris clouds. Would they have time to get back?

Hiding in JOHN A. WHEELER’s shadow would even do it – there might not be time to get inside of the ship’s hull and shields, if either the blast or debris areas exceeded experimental test limits… In fact, that was safest for the ship. She keyed her comm. "WHEELER, Scout One, Lieutenant Chen to Captain Matisou."

Lobo looked over at her, surprised and intrigued.

Matisou.

Sir, permission to hide in ship’s shadow if safe docking cycle time exceeded.

Lobo nodded at her. ‘Nice,’ he mouthed.

Granted for problems at eighty sec, otherwise I think you can tolerably get in. Matisou’s voice became drier. Hear you’ve run into a little techno snag here. Sail steady, Lieutenant.

Uhh... Eighty seconds, check. Thank you, sir. Clear. She gave Lobo a startled look. "Wow. He must think I’m good."

He nodded, and smiled. "You are. And great idea. That’ll work fine, and then we don’t risk changes in WHEELER’s hull integrity."

Provided we outrun the blast shell and get there.

Lobo looked puzzled. "We outrun the realspace stuff by five seconds at full docking into WHEELER, which is just too close, but –"

Her eyes broke away for a second to look at his rank badge and then his dark black eyes. Eyes black as mine... "And the neutrinos, Lieutenant Tactical Engineer Lobo? The tachyon and graviton packets specifically built into the blast?"

He frowned. Those... aren’t rated as dangerous to humans.

She laughed. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to avoid that crap going directly through us, so to speak.

"Whoa!" shouted Lobo. The dark brown furry sausage with legs and a cat-like face (a Corvel’s Ceti Tube Cat) just stared at him a second (one of those puzzled looks – and you are?) It was standing on the rail padding for the console between their seats. Sorry, he automatically said to the cat, then twitched – why am I talking to a cat?

See? said Xiu-Li. That’s a Corvel’s Tube Cat. It came here because I’m in danger. The Cat looked at her, tail twitching. Hello, little one. Thanks. She swept her arrays, the windows, and Lobo. She smiled at Lobo. They’re good luck.

He nodded weakly and looked back at his screens. How close are we, Jool?

Shadow option gives us plenty of cushion.

I recall better safety margins than this.

Xiu-Li shook her head. "The last three varied by fifteen percent. I know the Captain hopes we can just cycle in, but I think Science’ll get all sorts of weird smidged data bits and no one will be able to say what the fekk is really going on. Certainly not enough to risk WHEELER for a couple of lieutenants left hung out by a unit failure."

"Why don’t I recall that? He scowled. Fifteen percent?"

Because you were working on ship shields, not deployment, and wouldn’t be here if Ion Deepshell hadn’t gotten a sinus infection so he couldn’t fly today! She shot him a grin. "Let’s see – if you hadn’t come to keep me company, the mission would have failed for sure, I’d already be dead, and then we’d have missed all this fun – E.T.A. to WHEELER is one hundred seconds in five seconds for your mark."

"WHEELER, Scout One, E.T.A. one hundred seconds... mark. He clicked off the comm and took a deep breath. Well, sweetheart, here we go."

Behind them, the package detonated.

The reaction had actually begun with injection (which had started just before Lobo found the depowered unit) of a liquid carbon-carbon compound which would imprint on the blast. Once that started, the explosion could not be stopped – an unfortunate design limit in this case.

The fusion blast was right on time.

Now the various energy and pressure waves were being shaped by phase delay unit electromagnetic effects, causing them to focus at great intensity on a single point target. The explosion drove implosion, which then released explosively – as did the rest of the initial blast. Everything was made of Rare Earth Alloys and REA composites, while the central target was made of some of the rarest, most exotic combination alloy of all – some sort of liquid. It had been energized in pre-trigger as it was compressively exploded. It was all very exciting and interesting – but the high energy physics of highly ordered target materials being highly stressed were actually unknown (hence the experiment – to learn more).

Matisou. Shadow option, Lieutenant Chen, make haste slowly.

Aye, sir! Freed from having to line up with the bay and the slow approach, she instantly altered their course track and increased speed. Lobo looked over at her. Vac suits, she said. He unbuckled himself. She nodded. I’ll change soon as I can. The Captain sounded cool enough, but had dispensed with comms protocol. If they were hit by debris that took a skipped path to them or got slammed around into the hull of JOHN A. WHEELER, their hull might be compromised.

Ninety sec, she called out.

He came back with their vac-suits. He started putting his on as he looked at WHEELER, then their position, and whistled an appreciation. She got them around the rear of JOHN A. WHEELER and into the blast shadow the huge ship cast with forty-five seconds to spare. She had just sealed up her vac-suit when she noticed the Cat was asleep in her seat, and it was time for the blast wave to hit. Well, this can’t be too bad then. Or do all cats face destruction by curling up on a warm seat and going to sleep –

"WHEELER to Scout One, effects encountered."

Lobo gulped. "Aye, WHEELER."

She nodded at him. "Between our shields and WHEELER’s we’re covered." She knelt down next to him and they looked out the ScoutRunner’s front windows.

Filaments of plasma laced with energy fields flashed past the ship. Through the front window they could see it stream past them, like an aurora curtain, and it seemed like JOHN A. WHEELER moved closer a few meters through Lobo’s right side window, but then stopped.

More and more aurora streamed by – the contents of the bomb pod, turned to a gas plasma and dispersed by the great double/triple explosions, providing a medium to conduct their energies (the same gas and high energies that JOHN A. WHEELER’s shields were deflecting away from them, just as Earth’s magnetic field did with the Sun). Quite beautiful, really; nothing else seemed to happen (no alerts, alarms, pings or thuds, no gasps or gurgles or pops or hisses).

Looking out of Xiu-Li’s left side window, enough substance to the gas debris remained to let them actually see the deflections made by JOHN A. WHEELER’s magnetic shield field, causing the streams on all sides to arc around the ship until converging into a teardrop of opalescent fire.

"Space!" whispered Lobo.

"Keon Tao," Xiu-Li murmured quietly.

Both of them sighed.

"ScoutRunner, WHEELER. Over." Tania sounded afraid to ask.

"Ahh, WHEELER, ScoutRunner, said Lobo, turning startlement into a Classic Right Stuff Drawl. We’re, ahh... Awaiting instructions."

Whew! Okay! Stand by, guys!

They exchanged a look and laughed in relief. That was Tania Manda for you! There had been a few cheers in the background as her relief was echoed on the bridge (and with plain silent relief by many throughout the ship).

One person did not feel relief; the failure of a complex but elegant plan caused them considerable anger. Promotions would be coming sooner than expected, with likely transfers putting Xiu-Li out of range... but X-L Chen was someone else’s problem now; with two bosses to satisfy, there was always twice as much still to be done...

In the ScoutRunner the Cat awoke, stood up, and stretched. It gave her gloved hand the most pitying look, so Xiu-Li unsealed her suit. It then submitted to her petting it, giving Lobo a superior look all the while as Xiu-Li scratched its ears. Then it hopped off the seat and walked toward the rear. Xiu-Li smiled at Lobo and got in her seat.

Lobo looked around. Where did it go?

Back. She shrugged. Back to Priti Fareyes, somewhere out there... maybe even on Earth already, if she was able...

"Back where?"

She shrugged again. It was not something Xiu-Li would speculate on. Where did it go? she said. She caught his eye and grinned. "Not here. Let’s get set for docking."

Do you put the Cats in your action reports?

She paused. "Good question, Wolf... mm... So far, only when it was central to a final outcome. Like the kids we rescued on 19373, it was a critical point. Mere meetings, no. Xiu-Li laughed. What would we say? ‘At a critical moment a Corvel’s Tau Ceti Tube Cat appeared, submitted to some petting, took a nap in the pilot’s seat, woke up and left after the danger passed.’ She laughed harder. It’s an Encounter of the C-T Cat Kind."

He nodded seriously. "Yes, Jool, but it submitted twice." He grinned.

Report as corrected, then. In a moment she’d be busy as hell here... Xiu-Li looked over at him.

They’re cute. Lobo smiled at her. You looked good with it.

It was an awkward statement, yet she felt oddly flattered for the rest of the dock cycle.

Enronn Debbits kept the ship stable but yawed it (rotated it sideways) until the docking bay lined up – this kept the Runner in the shadow and was safer than flying the Runner around the ship. Once they lined up, it was back to routine, except for the Engineering Quick Response Team called to make certain the ScoutRunner was as undamaged and non-toxic as the on-board instruments and dock scanning units all indicated – and a reception committee of engineering crew to marvel at Lobo’s rebooting feat, stealing him away.

Xiu-Li smiled as she watched him go, heading off to the Ordnance and Engineering shop to begin the clearcheck of every remaining unit. Her reception was her boss, Commander Jason Takaguchi, the first officer and Tactical officer on IWG-SS JOHN A. WHEELER, and he was waiting on the other side of the docking bay door altogether (as if trying to give her hope she might not have a reception at all – but it wasn’t the first time this had happened since she joined JOHN A. WHEELER in December 2172... Exactly two years ago on December 15, just two weeks past).

Takaguchi smiled pleasantly. That was too fekking close all around, but you’ve become one hell of a flyer. Agreed?

Yes, sir, she said, with a quick grin. I agree all around.

He motioned with his head. When did Deepshell get sick?

She looked at him. Doctor Truhart put him off flight status at 1015. Xiu-Li was puzzled by his question, but saw nothing in his face except the quizzical amusement he seemed to save for her returns after surviving yet another mission – the same look Matisou saved for her. Great to see you back! How the hell did you do that? it seemed to say (or even, once or twice, What are you still doing here alive?)

Takaguchi nodded. "SST COPERNICUS came into system while you were out, and our little technical problem was on the comm net."

Am I in trouble, sir?

He sighed. That depends... You’ve been ‘noticed,’ and your excellence may be rewarded. It was hard to say Takaguchi looked happy.

She looked serious. I’m ready to help, sir.

Of course... You’ve been a junior grade Lieutenant for six months now. If the Captain or I had heard of a slot for you...

She looked unhappy. I’m not saying I – Xiu-Li broke off, really thinking about it – about leaving JOHN A. WHEELER, her home for two years – and Wolf, and Aria, her closest friends. Do you think I’m ready, sir?

You’d better be. We’ve told people you are. He looked at her. You’ll miss us? We’ll miss you. I’ve seen and done a lot in my career, but I’ve spent most of it with the same people, especially the Captain. Takaguchi arched a brow. "Do you ever think we’re responsible for your flight touch? Or anything other than seasoning you with the experiences needed to get all your skills clearchecked and make some personal connections for use in the future? He smiled. We were all here, but it’s always up to you. You came here at Crewper rank, when you should have been an ensign; you had training in the martial art of Wu-Wei Do, and saved a lot of lives even before you decided to transfer to Tactical Division. They reached the shiplift. Space knows how you keep on managing to save your own."

Getting no hint from his voice, she studied him a moment. Takaguchi looked worried. His dark eyes were as intense as ever, but... It’s mostly luck, sir, she admitted.

"Good, hard training makes luck."

She smiled. Sir, Deepshell getting sick and having Lobo along was luck, sir. Xiu-Li laughed once. "Fekk, when you can hear a magslug zing past you, and it was purely poor set-up by the shooter, that’s luck. Sir."

Takaguchi relaxed and chuckled. Yes, true; but in any blade or barehand encounter you’ve been in, you have survived. He took a deep breath. Even the Qet one. Suddenly he laughed. Hell, you’ve survived against the O.P.P. already as well. You’ve come up against the two primary threats you’ll be up against, and you’ve come out on top. He laughed again. Oh, fekk, we’re out of our minds to give you up... but... The shiplift arrived. Sooner or later.

Aye, sir. Xiu-Li grinned. At least you got Weyrik.

Thank Space! Their new ensign seemed sharp enough so far.

The bridge buzzed with activity related to the still ongoing blast experiment and tuning for inspection routines they had begun the moment IWG-SST COPERNICUS was detected in system (along with a YELLOWFIN Class Tender Ship, and a JUPITER Class ship converted into a heavy cruiser, eliciting raised brows from all on the bridge).

Captain Bert Matisou was cool as usual in the command chair. He nodded to her as he saw them walk to the Tactical station. Xiu-Li saw Tania and nodded; Harmony Speeter half-waved from Science, intent on the ongoing data stream. Tactical was quiet, and Ensign Forbben was glad to see her and take a quick rotation over to help the Science teams (and the beautiful Harmony Speeter).

As it turned out, the unexpected observational platform (and obstacle) that the ScoutRunner provided had led to additional results.

The total energy (particles, debris, pressure waves) acting on JOHN A. WHEELER moved it two meters before stationkeeping thrusters went on. The ScoutRunner moved a quarter centimeter, without being hit by any direct debris. No added thrust or residual movement was imparted; spacetime itself had been moved – space expanded, in this case, but the effects took longer to find in the usual large ship observations, where it was speculated upon as a residual. This accidental experiment yielded a ScoutRunner moved one quarter centimeter without either visible force applied to it or any residual thrust vector imparted by its interaction with the smaller ship (JOHN A. WHEELER had enough hull area to have sailed the blast just slightly, but enough so that stationkeeping thrusters had to be fired).

Very interesting, Matisou said drily. As a Command Division officer, he had no particular declared interests; he supported all of the Divisions, but got angry when crew were put at risk, especially when it was avoidable (like any predictable accidents; even in these experiment ops there were supposed to be think throughs regarding blast size and safety tolerances, at least). Matisou looked over at Xiu-Li. Nice flying.

Thank you, sir.

Good idea about the ship’s shadow.

"Thank you, sir. What was the blast variance in this design?"

Matisou looked over at Speeter. Twenty four percent, sir, she said.

He looked back at Xiu-Li. Would you wait in my office?

Aye, sir. As she took the short ramp off the bridge to the captain’s office, Xiu-Li thought about the blast. It was the largest one yet, but they would need several days to calculate how much might have come from the initiated reaction itself – which would be a natural reason for the blast exceeding theoretical limits by twenty four percent. The whole point of experimental testing was to find out more about it; and the extra packets may have played a greater role than thought.

Matisou seemed ticked, but probably not at her. Her swapping ops jobs in this situation put a senior officer at the fuse end, and was not subject to a rebuke of any kind (she would never have swapped jobs with Deepshell, who was a moderately decent pilot but a better fabricating engineer than an ordnance/tactical engineer).

Xiu-Li just hoped he wasn’t upset with her.

MATISOU

To Matisou, as supportive as he was to Science Division and its missions, higher risks meant greater margins of safety. They were not going to shirk, but there would be no deadlines to be met except those of safety which balanced the risks of science (or any other Division’s ops or mission activity plans) to acceptable levels. Once margins to protect crew had been established, then missions went forward.

He would be on Science to explain the role of the packets and whether greater time margins should have been built into the mission plan, but that analysis would take time. He would wait to press them on that.

The blast variance troubled him immediately.

To her credit, Lieutenant Speeter looked distressed as well. "It’s right here, sir, but I can’t believe we didn’t ‘distrust’ them on this one. The mission profile specs up on the array did indicate everything as clearchecked by everybody who was supposed to sign off. We must’ve just gone with it. I’m sorry, sir, it looks like we missed it."

He looked at the profile and specs (and the sign-offs), looked at Speeter, thought about the whole science division on board. I’m a little disappointed at present, he said, mildly. "This is an operation that’s supposed to be sort of routine work for us, but never when it comes to safety. Safe operations are never routine, and we work hard so safe return reports afterward are."

She looked down. Yes, sir.

I await further analysis with interest, Lieutenant. That was one hell of a bang for that buck.

Speeter brightened slightly. Aye, sir. Everyone’s been on it.

Tell everyone I am impressed with anything moving the fabric of space time around, and let’s not be afraid to plan larger next time. Matisou grinned. That was really something, Harmony.

She blushed. It’s the Hensridge Shop Package.

Ahh. I’ll have to tell Mr.Hensridge my thoughts about cascade design triggering systems that can’t be stopped. Hmmm. This whole experimental package was weaponlike... Matisou smiled at Speeter. "Next time, I’d feel more comfortable if we brought Tactical in; these are blast effects, after all. Commander Takaguchi will assist in future blast size and safety radius planning."

Aye, sir, she said, nodding brightly.

Good. Well, keep me text posted until Divisions.

Harmony Speeter looked determined now. Aye, sir. We’ll figure it out.

Good. That took care of the Science aspect; he was not going to conclude anyone knew the blast alone would have killed them had there been any delay at all in re-docking the Runner, even under a normal run. At twenty four percent, only the starship had the mass and shielding to have tolerated the realspace blast effects, and those had pushed it two meters and continued to apply thrust for twenty seconds more until the sail effect had stopped. It must have been amazing to see from out there...

Despite all the tensions, Matisou chuckled. Once again, I almost envy Xiu-Li for having seen that, while I was stuck in the big seat... He wasn’t sure what to make of the phase unit problem; it was something he was going to learn more about shortly. Commander Takaguchi, you have the bridge. I am looking into various matters. They had known each other more than twenty years, since University in 2150 – in fact, they met the year Xiu-Li Chen was born – so one look confirmed that his own concerns were mirrored there (and most likely seen in a more sinister light by the generally suspicious and usually pessimistic Tactical officer).

Aye, sir, said Takaguchi, standing up to change his seat (there was a mission still concluding).

Matisou went no further than the Captain’s Gallery, the small curlicue built off to the left side of the bridge. It had an actual crysglas window for views in realspace, combined with some visual and aural screening from the bridge for quick private discussions, consolations, clutches, whatever. He now used the comm there. Matisou to Threnody.

Sir. The Chief Engineer’s face was composed on the tiny screen but he saw right away she was also keyed up. For the record, this was going to be called a near accident of science, but two of his three senior officers were already acting as if aware it was not.

I’d like to borrow Mister Lobo a few moments. My office.

She nodded. I haven’t spoken to him myself. He went straight to the O and E Shop and started clearchecking. She wanted him to know that she had not influenced Lobo’s perception of the engineering on the blast package or science of it.

Very good. If you think of anything, speak with me. Matisou pointed to his eyes. See me in person. Or text it.

Even on the small screen, Aria Threnody looked sad; not one bit less keyed up, just – sad. Aye, Captain Matisou. She rubbed her cheek – on the same side he had pointed to. The finger signal meant she had understood his, while the sadness... He felt it too.

Someone on board had just tried to kill Xiu-Li Chen.

JOHN A. WHEELER was no longer a happy ship.

He walked back onto the bridge. Tania, call the O and E Shop and send Mister Lobo to my office. Matisou headed there, wondering if it was anyone senior. Wondering if he had to be concerned about the use of ship systems, especially the security and monitors systems, against the ship or its officers... simply, was he being ‘monitored’? If they spoke openly of their suspicions, would that tip their hand?

Threnody herself would conduct sweeps, and she had just about built the JOHN A. WHEELER, but feeds from legitimate units could be subverted on both technical levels and by misuse of information. If someone clever and with access to latest Gem Isles R + D techno was determined to bug the captain’s office and other areas, they could do it. This was an open field science survey ship, not a military one with harder to access hard/soft ware, or even ‘warelinks; JOHN A. WHEELER was a soft target for any sort of serious internal technical espionage. As to the other possibility, there were a limited number of people who could legitimately access the monitoring systems, and they would be reviewed.

He sighed as he walked down the ramp. So now we’re acting in mutiny mode, able to rely on only immediately affected personnel and the core four senior officers, forced to distrust all non-core officers and other personnel until... when? Chen is dead? Or just leaves the ship and becomes some other killer’s problem? And since trying to kill a crew member took a particular frame of mind and mission skillset, could they afford to relax if such a person were still on board even after Chen’s departure? Threnody was a possible next target (if she stayed;) perhaps even he and Takaguchi, at this point (they weren’t leaving WHEELER, far as he knew). And although Matisou knew Admiral Beria was doing a sector inspection, long planned, this was unfortunate convergence, at minimum.

He found Xiu-Li looking at the viewscreen view of the blast. She looked embarrassed and came to attention. She always tried to pretend she wasn’t interested or even paying attention to science and engineering projects, but she was, and while getting her own jobs done at the same time. Naturally, this particular science mission would forever have a particular significance. You’re okay, of course.

Uhh... Yes, sir. She sounded puzzled, as if that was even a concern.

Good. Matisou went to his desk. Was it pretty?

It was magnificent, sir. We definitely need to resurrect the old MapRunner model the next time we do it, park it there with a pilot’bot and make some field observations. Her cheeks had reddened with her rising intensity, and she abruptly stopped. Sir.

Matisou laughed. At ease, Xiu-Li, please. Relax. He shook his head. An eventful enough two years for anyone I’ve ever met, and you’ve always managed to turn disaster into a learning experience.

She grinned. "You’ve made certain I have, Captain Matisou. You and Commander Takaguchi. You’re both like the best Sensei I’ve ever had."

Matisou smiled. Thank you. That’s quite a compliment.

The door chirped and Wolf Lobo walked in. Everybody came to attention and saluted, back to business. Matisou looked at him. Any other phase unit problems?

No, sir. We’re two thirds done.

Not a technical problem that occurs often, is it?

...No, sir. Lobo hadn’t thought about the problem once he’d fixed it; he’d been thinking about the technical mechanics of checking all of the other units (just every now and then imagining causes – a stray wave false detonation signal before the shell bombs had been turned on to receive it, a Rare Earth Alloy inclusion decay event, a cosmic ray strike...) Now he thought about the problem in more general terms, and Lobo looked disturbed. Those units are built quadruple rugged, expected to fail only under a novel science or environmental condition, or maybe direct battle damage. He licked his lips. I do not think we have been subjected to any of the causes I’ve mentioned since we added these phase delay units to our inventory. Although his voice was steady and face was still, Lobo’s dark eyes were angry now.

Matisou looked troubled. We’ve got problems, then. He shook his head. Fekk! Yes, avoidable risk preventable ‘predictable’ crew injuries or deaths made Matisou angry, but ever since someone had taken a sniper shot at Chen during her debriefing on Heart in 2173 after the Qet mess, he had discovered a new level of reaction: furious. Someone actually trying to kill one of his crew made Matisou furious.

Furious!

XIU-LI

They stood there, scowling together, which is what Xiu-Li would always recall. Lobo and Matisou were both angry at the Universe, on her behalf. It was pointless, but so manly: flashing eyes, bunched muscles, creased brows, curses, and jerky, twitchy, anger-adrenaline movements... It was... flattering.

Hmmm... maybe not so pointless then. Xiu-Li sighed. Men. She also hadn’t thought much about the big picture until now, either. This was a more subtle move than outright shooting at her again, although why, after a year and a half, made no sense... On the other hand, almost half of the crew had changed over that time, rotated on to other postings or had been replaced (eleven had died, eight of them in the May 2173 Qet Encounter at HD-19373, three in later accidents), giving eleven new crew as potential suspects there alone (she just could not imagine anyone from the original crew trying to kill her).

The men suddenly looked at each other, and then at her. Matisou looked concerned as usual, Lobo looked... pained.

He’s getting anxious about protecting me, as if that was truly possible. Xiu-Li took a deep breath. "Captain? It seems WHEELER is no longer the only safe place left for me. He had said that to her after a sniper tried to kill her on Heart. She laughed. I’m back to pure, generic, non-anthropic reasoning that everywhere in the universe is unsafe for me again... sorry, sir."

Matisou was struggling to keep his face encouraging, but she realized she’d just said he couldn’t keep his own crew safe on his own ship. She looked down, really sorry she’d said anything at all.

He gripped her shoulder. Well put, Xiu-Li. We all thought just putting us out on the fringe would be enough, and we stopped thinking cautiously. And if Deepshell hadn’t gotten sick, you’d be dead.

Lobo looked away. He hadn’t told her something.

She gave Matisou a look. He nodded. "An undelayed blast has a shorter rebound phase. It would have absolutely caught you."

She looked at Lobo again. He would not look back. She could see he was very upset by the stiffness in his shoulders.

Lobo had saved both of them; if Deepshell had been mission pilot, then both Deepshell and Chen would have needed replacing, because there was no way in Space she could have rebooted that unit, and it sounded like they’d had no chance, even if they’d tried to just run. It was purely luck that Lobo wasn’t asleep or