Tales from the Inbox: The Pilgrim’s Wager

2952-09-11 – Tales from the Inbox: The Pilgrim’s Wager 

Emilio B. drummed his fingers on the side of his command chair and watched the sensor plot in the middle of the bridge. Fey Wanderer being in hostile territory, their sensors were all on passive mode and every feature intended to conceal the ship’s presence from unfriendly eyes was active; this did wonders for their chances of survival, but didn’t have any good effect on her ability to see what was going on more than a few hundred kilometers away. 

The gravimetric sensors had picked up a few drive signatures, but not nearly as many as he had been expecting. Margaux, in Confederated hands, had been a fortress and an industrial powerhouse, at least by Coreward Frontier standards. Surely the invading power, with no such worlds of its own before the war, would have to make use of the ones it had taken, and that meant there had to be far more ships in the system than currently showed as visible on the plot. 

Most likely, the majority of the ships he couldn’t see would be parked in orbit around the planet for which so much blood had been spilled, and Wanderer wouldn’t be going close enough to be threatened by them. If there were some parked elsewhere, though, Emilio had to guess where before he committed his ship to any particular course through the system; no amount of stealth features in the world would help him if he blundered within a few hundred klicks of an Incarnation cruiser while setting up a gravitational slingshot around one of the outer gas giants. 

Wanderer had the legs that made such a mishap escapable in all but the worst circumstances but it would mean either abandoning the delivery or dropping poor Rawlins so far out that her chances of making planetfall were miniscule. She’d paid in advance, but Emilio didn’t like taking money and only delivering on half of what she’d promised. It wasn’t good business, because it didn’t encourage repeat customers, and it would bring rise to the idea that when the Fey Wanderer and its crew agreed to do something, they didn’t see it through. 

“Captain?” Miss Vargas turned away from the helm controls. “What’s our course?” 

“No course yet.” Emilio shook his head. “We need more information, and there’s nothing in our neighborhood to find us.” 

“Aye.” Vargas reluctantly turned back to her controls. She clearly didn’t like loitering in a hostile system, and Emilio could hardly blame her. The sooner they were out, the safer they’d be. 

The soles of hard dirtside boots clicked on the deck in the corridor behind Emilio, and his blood ran cold.  

“Can I help you, Miss Rowlins?” Emilio didn’t turn around; he was still focused on the data plot. Miss Rawlins might be a client, but after their last meeting, when she’d made it only too clear what she was and what her business was, he wanted as little of her company as possible. 

“Just observing.” Rowlins fell silent for a long moment, probably looking at the same holographic readout Emilio was. “The view is better here than in the hangar.” 

Most clients got bored or got themselves kicked off the bridge within minutes of trying to “observe” Wanderer’s operations, so Emilio didn’t expect her to remain long. He waved a hand of assent, then went back to watching every minute development on the display. Passive sensors had just detected a pair of small craft moving in from one of the outer systems without a gravitic signature; most likely those were cheap-fabbed industrial barges using ion propulsion. If so, the moon they’d departed from was an active industral base; several potential courses were no longer viable. 

For her part, Rawlins remained silent, but her presence loomed over Emilio like a cloud. He wished he had some excuse to send her away. 

Signal scatter suggested some sort of Incarnation military activity near the fifth planet, a md-sized gas giant, making another set of courses inviable. The list of low-risk courses was shrinking by the minute. No course was without risk, of course, not in an Incarnation system. 

“There.” Rawlins stepped up beside Emilio’s chair and pointed. “The fifth planet.” 

Emilio frowned and turned to his client. “I’m sorry?” 

“Make our course there.” Rowlins stepped back. “That signal scatter is from a strike patrol. They’ll have moved on hours before we get there.” 

Emilio raised one eyebrow. “How can you be sure?“ 

Rowlins shrugged. “Nothing’s certain. But with no drive signature, it’s either strike units or a garrison. They wouldn’t park a cruiser out there with a cold drive.” 

Emilio considered this. Odds favored this wager, but to go that way instead of to use another planet as a slingshot with no traffic detected there at all? 

Rawlins was, of course, the client, and the major risk was to her. Given her background, perhaps it was more than a simple wager. “Miss Vargas, start preparing for course... nineteen or twenty-two.” He looked up at the woman standing next to his chair. “We won’t be past the no return point for at least half an hour, so let's see if anything else comes up before then.” 

Ayaka Rowlins going rogue on a supposed vengeance mission is an interesting development, but it is sadly one which I don’t have any expectation of learning more about in the near future, or ever. Emilio (not his real name of course) sent in what he could, but the only person who could tell the whole tale is Rawlins herself, and I do not expect that she will ever tell it to us or anyone. 

 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Pilgrim’s Task

2952-09-04 – Tales from the Inbox: The Pilgrim’s Task 

Some of you might remember that years ago, we featured the account of one Thomas Nyilvas as to the redemption of a Confederated Worlds youth turned Immortal saboteur. Nyilvas himself would go on to his storied end on Margaux, but up until this point we have had no further account of the doings of the Immortal who he sought to redeem at great personal risk, at least until today. 

The vessel name and the name of its skipper are not genuine (as is prudent on the part of the submitter), but I have heard through other channels that one Ayaka Rowlins did indeed go rogue from the place the Navy had assigned her some months ago. 

“Are you sure about this, Miss Rowlins?“ Emilio B. leaned on the railing of the elevated catwalk at the bow end of Fey Wanderer’s small hangar. 

The woman below didn’t look up; she continued to work at the module she’d pulled out of the launch craft berthed there. Emilio hadn’t seen anything like this launch before; it bore a slight resemblance to that long-time favorite of mercenary service, the Savitri Seax, but it was a bit larger and had clearly seen a lot of use and heavy modification. If present evidence was to be believed, Rowlins herself had been the author of at least some of these changes. 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, Wanderer can get you there, but you aren’t paying us for a pickup. Just a drop off. In enemy territory.” 

Ayaka Rowlins paused and looked up. “Would it buy your silence if I paid for you to return in a few weeks?” 

Emilio frowned. “Would you be here for us to pick up?” 

Rowlins turned her attention back to her work without answering. 

“We’ve run people into occupied worlds like this before, but usually they at least plan to come back." Emilio gestured to the craft she was working on. “You’ve got a fancy ride all prepared. You’ve clearly thought all this through.” 

Rowlins hunched her shoulders, then slowly set her tools down and stood up, scowling. “If you would please come to the point, Captain?” 

Emilio shuddered as her cold eyes met his. “Well... I just mean, I’m happy to take your credits, but the crew and I need some assurances that this isn’t-” 

“That this isn’t something that’ll get you branded as traitors?” Rowlins’s face softened, and she shook her head. “You need not worry on that account.” 

“If you don’t intend on returning, then why should we not worry?” Emilio countered. “Self-directed suicide mission is a pretty thin story.” 

Rowlins smiled. “I see. You think that if I am not scheduling a return, that suicide or treason are my most probable intents.” She glanced back at her craft for a moment. “Will a brief explanation buy your silence until we have arrived? I have many things to finish before I launch.” 

Emilio nodded. “I suppose so.” 

Rowlins arched one eyebrow, then bent her knees and, without any apparent difficulty, leapt three meters up to the catwalk and landed lightly beside him. Emilio staggered back in terror and reached for his sidearm; even in shipboard half-gee, even if she was acclimated to the gravity of the heaviest world in the Reach, such a jump shouldn’t be possible. 

His fingers, however, found the holster already empty, and the gun, now with the magazine removed, was in the girl’s hands. “I’ve already tried treason, once. I was young and stupid, and I failed at it, like I’d failed at everything else I’d done to that point.” She held the weapon back to Emilio. “Only one person believed I might still be worth a damn.” 

Emilio took the gun with trembling hands, wondering where the magazine had gone. He had plenty of spares, of course, but the meaning of this demonstration was obvious – if Ayaka Rowlins had intended him and his crew any harm, she could have easily accomplished it by now. 

“Despite what I let Nate do to my body, that man still did what he could for my soul, and he helped me find that I had another chance in this life as well as the next.” Rawlins bowed her head. “And then he and I parted ways. His route led to Margaux.”  

Emilio nodded. “You think he’s still down there?” 

“I know he is. I spoke to one who was with him at the end and was evacuated.” She bowed her head. “He was in a group of captives processed by the Incarnate Inquisition, and they made a martyr of him.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Emilio didn’t know what else to say. “If he’s dead, what do you think you can do?” 

Rowlins shook her head. “For him? Nothing. He has crossed over. But I will visit his grave nonetheless.” 

“And then?” This plan of course, did not preclude a return trip. 

“Once I have done this, I intend to find out what has become of the Inquisition team responsible.” Rawlins smiled, and this time it was a very unkind smile indeed. “And perhaps I will pay them a visit.” 

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Tales from the Service: A Pilot’s Narrow Escape

2952-08-28 – Tales from the Service: A Pilot’s Narrow Escape 

[2952-08-30: I must confess that the delay in this item reaching feed ingest is entirely my own fault. I thought I had it scheduled properly, and Nojus and I went away from our quarters aboard Ashkelon for several days on an errand which I will perhaps be discussing in this space in the near future, and we were quite out of datasphere contact for most of that time. I returned to a very full inbox complaining about the lack of this week’s Tales from the Service.]

I found the item sitting waiting for final confirmation on my terminal when I got back to Ashkelon; it really is as simple as me failing to hit the final button. 

Though Lieutenant Livian Vega’s account is not official proof that our foe is taking captive stranded pilots, even on battlefields they are actively retreating from, it is strong evidence of such efforts. The numbers appear to be small; few enough pilots go missing after ejecting that equipment failure and other causes can explain their disappearance. What they mean to achieve by capturing pilots in this way, I cannot imagine. 

Livian Vega scanned the status panel on her wrist with a frown. There was no problem indicator for her recovery transponder, or for any other system. The only amber light was the one indicating that the power and atmospherics linkage to her Puma interceptor had been severed, but given that the Puma had exploded shortly after she’d ejected, this was no cause for concern. 

She switched the transponder off and on again several times, but it still refused to transmit the recovery signal. This meant that either there was no recovery ship in range, or that it was broken. She could activate it manually, but the transponder would drain her battery quickly. If no recovery ship was nearby to hear it, she would be down to emergency reserve power in less than an hour. 

Lilian decided to switch on the transponder anyway, but only for a minute. Sure enough, when she did, she heard a bright ping in her ears. As she watched the chrono count up to thirty seconds, she didn’t expect to hear a second chime, but sure enough, one sounded. The transponder now seemed to be working perfectly. 

Frowning, Lilian went over what she knew about the transponder. Fortunately, since she’d found herself ejected and waiting for recovery several times throughout her service with Seventh Fleet, she had been given more opportunity than most pilots to observe the device’s functionality. In theory, when a recovery craft came into range, the transponder would respond to a coded signal by activating automatically. It could always be enabled and disabled manually, but before now she’d never had to do this. 

Reaching over her shoulder, Livian verified that the suit’s comms antenna was fully extended. If this was broken off or still stowed in its spool, that would explain weird behavior of both transmission and reception. She found it locked in the deployed position, and the portion of it she could feel with her gloves was intact and undamaged. 

The transponder chirped a third time, indicating that a minute had elapsed. Livian shut it back off to save power. The recovery craft had much more powerful comms gear, so she doubted it was near enough to hear her, if her systems were not receiving its signal. As she did, a shiver started at the base of her spine and worked its way up to her head. She lacked any ability to diagnose the problem further, and in any case, it might be too late; if a glitch had kept the recovery ship from noticing her, it would be far out of range now. 

“They won’t leave me out here.” Livian’s voice sounded hollow inside her helmet. “They’ve got time to do a full sweep after the fighting dies down.” 

As she rotated back toward the local star and her faceplate began to dim, Livian thought she spotted something moving in the corner of her vision. She turned to look at it, but already the smart-glass was nearly opaque to protect her vision from the local star. Probably it was nothing more than a piece of shrapnel from her Puma catching the light, but she couldn’t be sure, and the last thing she needed was more uncertainty. 

When the faceplate cleared a little while later, Livian scanned what she could see of her surroundings without turning her face into the light again. There was nothing visible but empty space; no sign of a piece of glinting shrapnel. Livian felt a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead. What had she seen? 

Once again, her transponder emitted a bright ping, indicating that it had received the recovery signal. Maybe what she’d seen was the recovery vehicle doubling back? 

“Recovery tug, my transponder might not be working right. Do you read?” Livian tried to keep the nervous tension out of her voice. 

“We’ve locked onto your position, Lieutenant Vega.” The faint, unfamiliar voice was all too welcome. “Your biometrics are out. Are you injured?” 

“I’m fine. Having some tech issues with my suit, I think.” Livian chuckled. “Nothing serious. In fact-” 

A dark shape moved in the darkness ahead of Livian, and she broke off. The recovery tug would come in with its lights all ablaze; what was this? 

Using a little bit of her limited thruster capacity to slow her spin, Livian tried to pick out the shape in the darkness. Whatever it was didn’t reflect much starlight, and she could only estimate its size and shape by the faint stars it occluded. She could tell it was getting slowly closer; its path and hers were converging. 

Shivering, Livian wondered whether she should call the recovery ship and announce what she was seeing. Would they believe her? Could they do anything? Would raising the alarm by radio only serve to draw its attention further? 

The transponder chirped again, and Livian, already nervous, nearly jumped out of her skin. She was already transmitting for anyone to see. What if this skulker was using the signal to intercept her? The ready-room rumors of Incarnation ships spiriting away stranded pilots once again came to mind. 

“Not me.” Livian, trembling, switched off her transponder once more. “Better to be lost out here.” With a few strong bursts of her thrusters, she changed her trajectory drastically, and the dark shape began to recede once more. 

“Lieutenant Vega, we lost your transponder signal.” The recovery ship pilot sounded concerned. “Is everything all right?” 

Livian didn’t dare transmit a reply; she simply watched the dark shape slowly dwindling into the void as the increasingly urgent trasmissions from her rescuer echoed dully in her ears. 

 

 

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Tales from the Service: A Pilot’s Last Words

2952-08-21 – Tales from the Service: A Pilot’s Last Words 

There are plenty of stories from Operation HELLESPONT that are worth featuring, but the war marches on, and we cannot spend too much time on an event nearly a month past now. 

That being said, we could not pass this tale up, and will be devoting today’s entry and next week’s to it. 

Though this was hardly Livian Vega’s first brush with death, she reflected that perhaps the first time she hadn’t done it right. After all, maybe if she had, she might have had something more fitting prepared for her potential last words than an undignified squeak of terror on the squadron comms channel. 

Livian had plenty of time to consider for the next time. After the ejection booster separated from her back, she drifted free in zero-gee, watching seconds of her atmospheric reserve trickle away. There wasn’t much else to watch; the skirmish which had claimed her Puma interceptor was over before her booster had even finished its run, and the squadron had moved forward toward the objective planet far ahead. Any further fighting would be invisible to her without some serious magnification that her flight-suit helmet didn’t provide. 

Eventually, someone in one of the rescue tugs would come by and broadcast the signal that would activate her recovery transponder, and Livian would be hauled back to Frostbill for a good-natured ribbing about losing another interceptor. There was some talk in the ready room that Incarnation ships sometimes spoofed the transponder signal in order to scoop up stranded pilots, but with the action moving away and a friendly force of heavy ships coming up from behind, that didn’t seem much of a risk here. 

One of these times, the ejection system would fail, or the plasma lance that bit into her craft would catch the cockpit and cut her into two scorched pieces. She knew the risks; everyone did, and death was something she prepared for on every launch. Still, buying the plot with the last thing anyone heard from her being a terrified whimper was unacceptable. 

Among strike pilots, there was a canonical set of famous, effective last words that communicated that the doomed pilot was taking their fate with heroic aplomb, but none of these seemed to fit her situation. She had no lover or spouse to think of in her last moments, nor a relative in the service who she could pass the proverbial torch to. There was no directory of embarrassing files her compatriots would need to delete. 

Going out silently was respectable, but it was hardly memorable, and Livian wanted to be memorable enough that the squadron would tell stories about her for the rest of the war after she bought her plot. Normally, she was the queen of snappy one-liners, especially in combat, and they almost always came to her spontaneously; it would be a let-down to her compatriots if she went out in silence. 

There were referential options, of course. Nobody really remembered anymore which holo-drama first used the phrase “They came from behind-” as last words for a strike-jock but it was in enough of them that everyone knew it from somewhere. There were others in the same vein, but Livian didn’t like any of them. 

Going into this battle, she’d drilled herself on the phrase “See you on the other side” as her potential last words, but when the shot had drilled her Puma’s engine and all the indicators had gone red, the phrase had fled her mind. True, there had been precious little time before the ejection system kicked in, but there had been just enough. 

“Should have gone with something shorter.” Livian grumbled to herself. “Later, suckers? Pah, that’s terrible.” 

Normally, Livia kept a few audio dramas on her personal network for situations such as this, but this time, she preferred the silent company of the green orb which all this fighting contested. The glimmering crescent appeared in front of her for about two minutes out of every five, and when it vanished in the lower right corner of her faceplate, she knew the local star would soon rotate into view and the smart-glass panel would become almost totally opaque for two more minutes to keep its blinding light out of her eyes. Did Earth look half so pretty from space, she wondered? It hardly seemed possible that it could. 

“Looks like I’m going home.” Livian muttered. “Hey, that’s not bad...” 

The transponder emitted a bright chime that indicated that it was transmitting. Normally, this sound would recur every thirty seconds or so, but to Livian’s surprise, there was no second chime. 

“Damnation.” Livian switched on her comms transmitter. “Recovery tug, please respond. I think my transponder just shorted out.” 

Livia waited until the planet reappeared in front of her, but there was no response on any band. 

“Recovery tug, can you hear me?” Livia could hear the worry in her voice this time, and she didn’t like how it sounded. If her transponder was broken, how could anyone ever find her? The range of a suit transmitter was horribly small. 

As the planet crept out of view once more, and the faceplate dimmed in preparation for the direct assault of the local star, there was still no response. 

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