| Author's Note: This story is rated PG-13 for language. It refers
to characters and situations introduced in my previous fanfic, "The
Box." If you haven't seen it, please read it first! Marcy, Jimmy Avery, Anita Moore, Lisa Yamauchi, Kenneth Martin Lucas, Georgeanne Jeffords and all other characters not belonging to Glen Morgan and James Wong, Fox Broadcasting and Hard Eight Productions, are my creations and property. Permission is hereby granted to use them in fan fiction, providing that the author acknowledge my rights to them. Thanks to Patrice and Claudia for all their help. |
| Part Three By the time they finished their meal, they had been assigned quarters. Ordinarily Ty and Marcy would both have been assigned private quarters, but there apparently wasn't room for that. It wasn't an unusual situation for the JFK to be crowded. What with the timing, though, McQueen and Vansen only had to exchange a glance to confirm that they both smelled a rat. She mouthed, "Trap." He nodded. They had a short list of options, though. Complaining about it would only alert whoever was setting them up that they were ready for another attempt, and wouldn't have any other results. It would be impossible to completely avoid their assigned quarters for the length of their stay here. "Spring it," he replied. Once there had been another attempt, not even Admiral Booth could argue their justification in taking steps to protect themselves. She nodded once. McQueen looked around the table. This kind of political gaming wasn't what any of them had signed on for, and it certainly shouldn't have included the new kids. Well, they were in it now, and he couldn't change that. The first thing they did when they got to the barracks was give it a thorough search, nothing out of the ordinary was discovered. Lisa said, "What do you think they'll do -- set off another bomb?" Lucas said, "Nah ... I'd pump some kind of gas through the air vents." "Too complicated," Hawkes objected. Vansen realized they were going to speculate like that, and she'd might as well channel the energy to a useful purpose. "Think, people! Those things are both obviously murder. They want us out of the way to help cover up a scandal, not create a whole new one." Avery caught the ball and replied calmly, "Yes, ma'am. They want it to look like an accident. Possibly hole the bay? Does anyone know if they could do that without depressurizing anything else?" Phousse took that up. "No, there are pressure doors at intervals but not that close. It would take out about three bays on either side of us. They might start a fire ... but there would be a good chance it would be put out by the sprinklers, or that we'd put it out ourselves. I don't know .. Kenny, your poison gas idea ... they could cause a coolant leak in here. There are only three vents, though, in through the ceiling there, and out through the baseboard behind that bunk and in the head. The vent covers make a positive seal." She checked them to make sure they hadn't been tampered with. As Vansen had hoped, that started them brainstorming instead of speculating pointlessly, which would have just made everyone nervous. Every time someone came up with a workable plan, someone else came up with an idea to counter it. She sat down at the table with McQueen. "Who would've guessed we could come up with so many creative ways to commit murder," she wisecracked softly. "I do believe we have criminal minds." McQueen said, "You've never been in a situation where you had to make something look like an accident, have you?" Vansen shook her head. "No, I can't say I have. You ... the mines, Ty?" He nodded, but didn't elaborate. Vansen found herself wondering just what had happened. She knew for sure that, under the circumstances, a plea of self-defense would have fallen on deaf ears. "What do you think?" "I don't know.... No one would suspect Aerotech if they believed someone else was responsible.... That's the only way I can think of that they could avoid suspicion under the circumstances." McQueen noticed Vansen trying to ease her shoulder to a better position, as she did when she was tired. Today had been hard on her and things weren't going to get any better. "Get some rest, Shane, I'll wake you later." Damphousse had been sitting quietly on her rack, McQueen noticed her rubbing her temple and caught her gaze. She shook her head and shrugged, nothing. She dropped down from her rack and walked over. Cooper had a deck of cards, a poker game involving the three of them as well as Nathan and Lisa helped pass the time. Anita and Kenny were getting some rest, but neither of them was asleep. Jimmy had staked out the bottom bunk nearest the hatch, he had his computer out but he was paying a lot more attention to sounds in the corridor than to the code he was writing. Marcy was staying out of the way in the back of the bunkroom. Jimmy heard noise in the hall and went to investigate. "Colonel, there's three guys out here, it looks like trouble. It is, they've got rifles!" That warning probably saved everyone's lives, as everyone hit the deck. The three gunmen barged through the hatch firing. But McQueen, Hawkes and West had taken cover against the bulkhead by the hatch, and once the three were inside they jumped them from behind. The one McQueen had hold of had the good sense to freeze when he felt a sharp knife at his throat, Vanessa grabbed his rifle. That took the fight out of the other two, they were quickly disarmed as well. Marcy's scream was all the warning they got of further danger. McQueen turned around to get a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of someone in the hatch holding something that was on fire. He flung what turned out to be an old-fashioned Molotov cocktail at the floor right in the middle of all of them. By then McQueen was already jumping at a second figure he'd seen behind that one, cut his throat an instant before his hand could close on his rifle grip. Lisa was caught right in the middle of the fire, Nathan tackled her and rolled her on the deck to smother the flames. Anita and Shane wrestled down the guy who'd thrown the fire bomb, while Kenny and Marcy grabbed blankets to beat out the flaming pool of gasoline in the middle of the deck. The sprinklers came on, for all the good that did against burning gas. McQueen slammed his hand down on the fire alarm in the corridor, then he rounded on the assassin that Baker had pinned. Before he could carry through on his intention to beat a few answers out of him, though, the corridor was flooded with security personnel. McQueen told him, "We're not finished yet!" Shane had gone back inside to check on Yamauchi. She was very lucky that flight suits were fire resistant. She had some bad burns on her hands but other than that she was okay -- other than a severe scare. Five mikes later, Admiral Booth was down there, having been hauled out of bed. Nathan got a look at the expression on McQueen's face and whistled softly at Shane. "Incoming!" Shane stepped to the hatch. Whatever was going on, it hadn't started in this corridor, and it wasn't going to end up here either. Booth demanded of McQueen, "What the hell is going on here?" "That would be a good question to ask these ... gentlemen, sir." "I'm asking you." The corridor went dead silent. "Sir. Those three came through the hatch firing. While we were busy subduing them the fourth one threw a firebomb which injured Lieutenant Yamauchi. That last one was preparing to fire into the room when I killed him, sir." McQueen's voice was as cold as Vansen had ever heard it, and the hatred that burned in Booth's eyes terrified her. She could feel an electric tension between the two men, but the veneer of military decorum didn't slip a millimeter out of place. Booth ordered the master at arms, "Get these men to the brig. Major Vansen." "Sir!" "You're C.O. here, correct?" "Yes, sir!" "I'll expect full reports from you and your squadron immediately, as soon as you arrange for medical care for the lieutenant." "Yes, sir." Booth looked into the barracks, his eyes settled on Yamauchi for a moment. Still trying to control her fright from her close call, she looked much younger than her twenty-one years. Jimmy was beside her, keeping her company and trying to calm her down a little. Booth's eyes widened in shock when he recognized the young man. "Avery? Jimmy?" He swung around and snapped to attention. "Sir!" "You're a member of this squadron?" "Sir! Yes, sir!" "Since when?" Booth asked, startled. "I reported for duty yesterday, sir." "Did you request to be assigned to the 58th Squadron, son?" Vansen realized suddenly that Admiral Booth was silently offering his influence to get Jimmy reassigned. "No, sir. But I was proud to have been selected for this assignment, sir." Avery's eyes blazed with anger as he realized the same thing, and threw the offer right back in Booth's face. For a fleeting moment, Vansen was sure she saw Jim Senior standing there. Lisa had turned dead white and only sheer pride was keeping her on her feet. Booth snapped, "Get that woman to sickbay on the double." He spun on his heel and left, without waiting for replies. Hawkes and West escorted Yamauchi to sickbay, there was no way of knowing who might have been bought off by Aerotech. Vansen didn't relax until they got back. It was after colors before the master at arms got done with them. Officially, the motive for the attack had been racism. The five would-be assassins were found to be members of the Patriotic Nation, a splinter group of the Klan. The Klan had indeed proven to be just as bigoted against In Vitroes as it was against their more traditional targets. There was no indication that the four survivors had been acting on Aerotech's behalf. Lucas said, "The damn Klan -- I didn't know there was a real Klan anymore. I thought they were shut down for good back in my Grandpa's day! He was an Atlanta cop, he helped raid some of their places when the Justice Department finally went after them back in the 30's." McQueen replied, "The Klan is an idea. You can't shut down an idea, not as long as there are people willing to believe in it. They keep the Klan and other outfits like that hiding in the shadows, waiting for the chance to grow." West said, "I can't believe this wasn't connected with Aerotech." "Neither does anyone else, but unless we have some proof it's still conspiracy theory," McQueen said. Vansen looked around. "Where's Avery?" Moore said, "He went to the head, ma'am." Avery had actually not done any such thing. He ducked into an empty office and jacked his computer into an open port, input his father's codes and downloaded the files he found. He waited until the corridor outside was clear, and ducked out to rejoin the others. McQueen met him before he got there. Quietly he asked, "Lieutenant, are you aware of the consequences if you get caught making an unauthorized access to the JFK's computer systems?" Avery didn't bat an eyelash. "Yes, sir. I could be shot as a spy, sir." "Was it worth the risk?" "I don't know yet, sir, my father had some files in a hidden directory. I haven't had a chance to decrypt them yet." "The next time you feel that it's necessary to pull a stunt like this, you run it by me first instead of going loose cannon, is that understood?" "Yes, sir." McQueen and Avery caught up with the others. Court proceedings started up precisely at 1400 hours ship's time, which was 9:00 am in civilian time in New York. They waited to testify one by one concerning what they had seen on Vesta, the lawyers on both sides asked a lot of detailed questions. But with only that to go on, it was hard to gauge what was really going on in the hearing. They spent most of the time sitting in a nearby conference room waiting to be called to the stand. The rest of them waited in their new quarters. Lisa was napping, Kenny had taken the pillow off his rack for her to rest her hands on. Her gelskin mittens kept her from doing just about everything, but the doctors said she should have them off before they left the JFK. Kenny, Marcy and Anita were watching television. Jimmy was working on decoding the files he had found. He had most of his father's decryption codes, so getting into the first two was easy. One had his name as its filename, and the other was for his mother. He hesitated before decrypting the one his father had left him. "Dear Jimmy, Son, if you're reading this, then you've had occasion to use those codes I gave you just in case. It's February of '64 when I'm writing this. In just a few months you'll graduate, and you'll be visiting your recruiter not too long after that, I'm sure. If this war goes on that long, and I'm cynic enough to expect that it probably will. I don't know what happened that I'm telling you how proud I am of you in this letter instead of face to face. Whatever it was, I hope you're as proud of me. I hope I went out like a Marine." Jimmy's eyes swam with tears, he blinked until he could see the screen again. "Whatever went wrong, if you're using these codes, then you had to break a few regs to get access, and that must mean you're in a mess of your own. Without knowing what that is, there isn't a lot of specific advice I can give you, except this: if you haven't already told your Uncle TC and your Uncle Glen what kind of trouble you're in, do it now. They're the best friends I ever had in my life, and you can trust them if you can't trust anyone else. Don't trust anyone aboard the Kennedy, there's something rotten in Denmark and I don't want you to get mixed up in it if you can help it. Jimmy couldn't keep the wracking sobs inside any longer. A moment later, he felt a strong arm around his shoulders and looked up into Anita's eyes. She held him close. "God, it's hard, Nita. I can't believe he's gone." "I'll never know what it is to lose a parent, Jimmy, and all I can do right now is thank God for that. I don't know if I could stand the pain that I see in your eyes right now. But I know what it is to lose people that you love. I know that somehow you go on -- don't ask me if that's a blessing or a curse, but you do." "Thanks for being here, Nita." "Shit. I wanted to fly, Jimmy. I don't go around expecting things to break my way very often. After Halleston ... I never thought I'd fit in anyplace. I sure never thought I'd find a bunch of people like you and Lisa and Kenny ... like the Wild Cards. In the middle of a war, already." She shook her head. "Hell, I don't know what I'm saying." Jimmy hugged her, and felt a warmth that started to ease the loss and the pain. "My dad said the people he served with were the best friends he ever had in his life. I guess I understand that now, Nita." He drew a deep breath, and she felt a shudder run all the way through him. But he looked up with renewed determination. "I guess I'd better get this other file cracked before the big kids get back from court and take over the playground, huh?" Nita laughed. "I guess so." Jimmy got back to work. The encryption on the third file was different, he had to work on it for quite a while before he got it decoded. When he did, he sat back staring. It was a file of excerpts from the ship's communications logs, showing a series of classified transmissions sent every couple of weeks or so. Cross referenced with that was a list of staff meetings that the Admiral had participated in. The last entry was on the same day that his father had left with McQueen and Vansen for the Groombridge system. And every one of the classified transmissions had been sent with Admiral Booth's authorization code. Jimmy closed his eyes for a moment. He could imagine how his father had felt upon making the discovery that his old friend the Admiral was a traitor. Only the greater threat of the Golem's escape from Sylurra had caused him to put this investigation aside ... and Jim Avery had never planned on dying there. Jimmy got a chip from his pocket and copied the file to it. After a moment's thought, he also copied his father's message to his mother. When he was finished, he put the chip in an envelope and waited until no one was looking to put it on McQueen's pillow. "I'm going to the library while this program runs," he announced. "Anyone else?" Just as he had expected, no one else had any desire to go to the library. McQueen saw the envelope on his rack and slotted the chip inside. "I know where he's gone. I'll take care of it." He put the chip in Shane's hand. "Don't let anything happen to this." "Be careful." He nodded, and closed her fingers around the chip. Then he went through the hatch. Shane sat down on her rack and looked at the chip for a long moment before she put it safely in her pocket. "In war, a few deaths are inevitable." "Begging the Admiral's pardon, sir, I understand why you killed the engineer. He found out about you. He was working down in comms, wasn't he? And discovered that the actual number of priority transmissions made disagreed with the logs?" "Yes." "What I don't understand, sir, is why you were working with these people in the first place." "Because governing our society is a serious business, Jimmy. Your dad would have understood that. Some people are meant to lead, others to follow. Democracy is an excellent theory, but in practice ... in practice, son, the reins of power ended up in the hands of Diane Hayden. We can't have that in the middle of a war, don't you see that? The control should be in the hands of people best able to wield it, a popularity contest can't determine who that is!" "Maybe not, sir, but it isn't Aerotech. Who do you think put Secretary Hayden in power in the first place, sir?" "Jimmy, I really wish you hadn't got involved in this." "Admiral Booth, I grew up respecting you. You were one of my father's best friends. But you betrayed him when you went over to Aerotech. Their treason twelve years ago got him killed. Do you really think I could stand down knowing that, sir?" "No, I suppose you couldn't." Booth reached into his desk drawer for his sidearm. Avery said, "It won't do you any good to kill me, sir. I took precautions that you can't avoid." "You haven't left me with any choice, have you, son?" "Yes, sir. You have a choice," he replied. "Turn yourself in. Tell the truth and set right the things you've done. After what happened to your son, how could you work with the AIs?" Booth said, "I didn't know they were using AIs!" He raised the gun. "I'll make this as quick as I can, Jimmy. I'm sorry." Avery realized he had miscalculated, probably fatally. He had taken into account that the Admiral was a traitor and a cold-blooded killer, but not that he was a madman. Booth was giving him the chance to come at him, giving credibility to a plea of self-defense. Instead, Avery stood at attention, cool gray eyes never wavering from Booth's. "I believe I'll decline that invitation, sir. If you want to fire, go ahead, but I'll leave it to you to explain why you shot an unarmed man who was standing still, all the way across the room from you." "I will arrive at an explanation," Booth replied. There was an honest regret in his voice. Two regrets of his own found their way to the front of Avery's mind. One was that he hadn't left his mother a goodbye letter. The other was that he had not kissed Lisa on graduation night, even though he had wanted to do that. The hatch whispered open, framing McQueen as he stepped into the office. "Admiral, put the gun down. I know what you did. You won't take us both down before one of us gets to you." Booth said, "I can take you with me. That idea has its attractions." "You've been trying to pull that one off for several years now. You can't accomplish anything with that gun except to make things worse for yourself. Put it down. Nobody has to die today." Avery said, "He's right, sir. You can't kill us both. Someone's going to be left to tell the truth." Booth's eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them. "The next time you're in the O-club, do me a favor. Drink a toast to the Lady for me." Both McQueen and Avery tried to stop him, but neither of them was near enough to prevent the Admiral from putting the automatic to his temple and pulling the trigger. Avery called for a medic while McQueen checked for signs of life, but the Admiral had carried out his intent. Jimmy said, "Sir, do we have to tell them what he did?" "Explain that one, Jimmy." McQueen said. "He was Dad's friend, and he was a good man once. I don't know if he had any family left, but if he did -- Well, I just don't see anything to be gained by having the whole world find out what he did when he probably wasn't in his right mind. I think it's what Dad would have done, sir." McQueen looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "All right, son, in the official reports we'll just say we heard the shot from outside. Unofficially, we'll let someone a lot higher up decide what gets out to the press." "Thank you, sir." "Thank me after your C.O. gets done chewing your ass," McQueen snapped. "You're not out on your own any more, Jimmy. Everything you do has consequences to the rest of your unit as well as to yourself. You'd better decide right now if you can play on a team, because if you can't, you don't belong in the 58th!" Jimmy said, "It won't happen again, sir. I screwed up. If I hadn't acted on my own, the Admiral might not have got the chance to commit suicide." McQueen replied after a moment, "You weren't responsible for that, son. The man made his own decision, he'd have found a way." He shook his head. "He's had that gun to his head for a lot of years, it just took him until now to fire it. You see, you asked him why he went over, but you never really got an answer. He blamed all In Vitroes for what happened to his son, and me in particular because I was handy ... and he blamed the liberal government." McQueen could see that Avery still didn't understand. "Jimmy, I think the fact was, the person he blamed for his son's death was really David Booth. If he owned up to the spying, he'd have had to finally face the guilt he felt over that, and he couldn't do it. That had a lot more to do with why he killed himself than facing the consequences of his crimes." McQueen hadn't been kidding about the dressing down Avery got from Major Vansen as soon as she got her hands on him. Avery felt really bad that Moore, Lucas and Yamauchi got a good dose of it too on general principles, even though he'd gone out of his way to keep them out of it. "Ma'am, it was my fault, not anyone else's." Vansen said, "Avery, you try telling that to the rest of the squadron if you pull something like this out on a patrol and get them killed! Do you understand me?" He turned pale under the Alabama tan that still hadn't had time to fade. "Yes, ma'am!" "You had better, because chiggy won't give you people the chance to screw up twice." This time the "Yes, ma'am" came from all four of them, and Vansen could see they really meant it. With the lesson learned, she let it go at that. She'd been mad as hell at Jimmy Avery for putting Ty in a situation where he had to face a nut with a gun. But she'd done things that had been just as stupid. They all had. They were the lucky ones, the ones whose stupidity hadn't got them killed. Maybe some of that luck could rub off on these new kids. She got herself a cup of coffee and took it to the table, gave the chip back to McQueen. "Were we that much trouble?" " 'Were'?" He replied, giving her that wry little half-smile of his as he pocketed the chip. "What makes you think you still aren't?" "My condolences," was her ascerbic reply, but there was laughter in her eyes as she looked at him over her coffee cup. They were aboard the JFK for three more days, between the hearing and the investigation into the Admiral's death. When Admiral Langdon arrived to take command of the ship, McQueen and Avery told her what had really happened. She listened, angry and saddened at the news. She turned to the port for a long moment, but had her emotions under control by the time she turned back to face them. "You did the right thing by keeping this quiet. Let the other side wonder just how much, if anything, we know about it. In the meanwhile, we can determine how much damage has been done, and deal with it. Consider the whole incident classified until further notice." Her gaze traveled to McQueen. "You served under Admiral Booth when you were with the 127th, didn't you?" "Yes, ma'am, the Angry Angels flew pirate suppression off the Kennedy about five years ago." "With some of the revelations that have come to light in the past couple of days, that can't have been easy." "Professionally, Admiral Booth was a fine officer when I knew him," McQueen replied quietly. Admiral Langdon nodded. "That's the way I'd prefer to remember him as well ... but I have the job of unraveling the mess he's left. I never would have suspected that David was our mole." "Nor would I, ma'am, not if I hadn't seen the evidence that Colonel Avery collected." Langdon turned to Jimmy. "Son, your father did his country a great service, one which I doubt will ever be properly honored. His actions have stopped a leak that cost who knows how many of our boys and girls their lives. The information that David Booth fed to Aerotech was finding its way into the hands of the enemy. We have you to thank as well, and I for one won't forget it. Though I won't go into that too much, son, I'm sure you've heard a lot different opinion from your C.O. about the way you pulled it off." "Yes, ma'am!" She shook her head. "Any landing you walk away from, right, Colonel?" "Yes, ma'am." She caught McQueen's fleeting smile, and returned it. There was a comradeship in having in common that they had both once been the "new kid" ... such a very long time ago. It wouldn't do to have today's new kid realize that. A few days after their return to the Saratoga, Shane watched Cooper and Christy leave the barracks together. He was telling her about all the excitement aboard the Kennedy -- or at least as much of it as they were allowed to talk about. She cleaned up a little because she had an appointment with Dr. O'Leary, after that she went by the office for a little while, and later dropped by Tun's. She saw McQueen and Avery drinking some private toast, and wondered if she would ever know what all that was about. She took the bar stool that Avery vacated when he joined several of the others at the 58th's table. McQueen asked, "When did you get rid of your sling?" "When I saw Dr. O'Leary today," she grinned. "I was so glad to get rid of that thing!" "Maybe now we can leave the damn spies to Intelligence." "No arguments here," she answered. Seeing that McQueen had barely started on his drink, she waved her card at the tap, and the bartender brought her a beer. They joined the people at the table, about the same time as Cooper and Christy came in. Marcy finished her report on her observations aboard the Kennedy. She wasn't sure if there was anything in there that General Jeffords would find useful, at least she had a transcript of the conversation she'd overheard between the two AI saboteurs aboard the grain barge. She encrypted everything before she went on-line. General Jeffords wasn't at her desk, Penderson got her. "How did it go?" "The Stranahan AIs tried to wreck us, we were shot at a few times, and someone threw a gasoline bomb -- I think that's about average," Marcy said wryly. Jeffords laughed. "Do you have something for me?" "Well, maybe. It's a little outside the scope of my assignment, but it may be useful." "Okay, I'm ready to receive the file now." Marcy started the file uploading, hoping the spacenet file monster wasn't hungry. While it was going, the general asked, "Is everything okay?" "I think so. They're good people, General. All of them. I don't want to -- be trouble, just by being around." Jeffords gave her a long, measuring look and finally advised, "They're giving you a chance, give them one." Marcy nodded. "Yes, ma'am." After the general signed off, Marcy sat down on her bunk. She had an inside cabin, nothing to look at but the four walls and the underside of the top rack. She was free to go anywhere the other civilian employees could go, and there was the whole world of the spacenet as near as her terminal. Interaction with others meant more time spent living the lie, passing as human when she wasn't. How long until she slipped up? There was a tap at the hatch. "Who's there?" "Vanessa Damphousse." Marcy glanced at the computer to double-check that she'd cleared everything. "Yes, come in!" Vanessa was dressed in civilian clothes, jeans and a sweater. "Marcy, I thought I'd find you here. I was wondering if you'd like to come down to the Tun with me." "I don't know if that would be a good idea--" Marcy hedged, although the truth was, she found that she would like very much to go. Vanessa said kindly, "It was Shane's idea, she sent me to look for you." "Shane did?!" Vanessa nodded. "It's one step. Let's take another." Marcy smiled. Give them a chance, the general had just said. All right. She'd wished for a friend or two to share her secret, well now ... just maybe ... she had found one. She quickly changed out of her duty uniform to jeans and a silky blouse, and the two of them walked down the corridor together. The End Previous : Part Two Next : Degrees Of Guilt Miles To Go ... Book 7 © Becky Ratliff 10/96 |