Ship's Log: November 2

Thompson turned away, but kept Fear in the corner of his gaze. He knew she would be not be fooled, but it seemed safer than signaling his interest. She remained standing there, unmoving. After several moments, Thompson lost interest and began his patrol of the small bridge. He enjoyed watching as the crew tensed at his approach. He said nothing to any of them, giving them only a quick, dark glance as he passed by their station. It always gave him a warm glow of satisfaction.

Although he should be off-duty soon, he doubted that Fear would let him rest until the captain had been found. His mind wandered, returning to his earlier images of an evening spent with a willing crewmember. He felt a vague anger grow at the thought that such pleasures might be delayed. He abruptly shut it away, casting a quick glance in Fear's direction. Although there had never been any proof that Aerians were telepathic, circumstantial evidence suggested otherwise. Fear had carefully neither confirmed nor denied the theory. Not surprising, he realized. Keeping it a mystery only added to her mystique and power.

#

Second Lieutenant Elizabeth Banks finished the adjustments to her hand, checking the readouts again, and then reattached it to the connections on the end of her arm. She flexed the fingers. They moved a bit more smoothly than before. She was still a ways from capturing much of the fine motor control her original fingers had possessed, but with continual upgrades, it would come in time.

She had received the news of the captain's escape with mixed emotions. She looked down at the cybernetic arm, a steady reminder of the captain's merciless tendencies. Its creation, though, had sent Elizabeth down a path of exploration into cybernetics. She had always been fascinated by technology, but had always before focused on more general uses, such as power systems or FTL drive mechanics. A new, personal need had driven her into new areas of technical exploration.

Rolling down the sleeve of her duty uniform, she pulled on the glove that covered the circuitry and other inner workings of her artificial hand. Someday, she thought, it would be nice to have more than just a glove. For now, though, it was more convenient for her to effect her frequent upgrades and repairs this way.

She ran a final set of diagnostics on the optical implant that covered the exterior of her right eye. It checked out within specifications. Gathering her equipment belt, she fastened it around her waist as she left her quarters. The Chief would be expecting her.

As she moved through the corridors of the ship, and climbed through the passageways, she read through her assignments for the day as they were projected directly onto the optical relay. Most of the tasks were routine maintenance work, but there was an item that caught her attention. One of the data junctions near the shuttle dock—the one the captain had used to escape—was experiencing intermittent interference, causing it to send random data noise through the internal network. The effect was more annoying than destructive, as the individual stations each had systems to filter out erroneous noise. Yet, the malfunction was interesting. Sabotage? she wondered. The captain? Or someone else?

She decided to keep her suspicions to herself until she could check the components herself. It could be a regular malfunction, with nothing extraordinary about its cause. Claiming otherwise without substantial evidence to contrary would most likely lead to unfortunate consequences. Without realizing it, Elizabeth flexed the fingers of her cybernetic hand again. As unforgiving as Captain Kristina Devereux could be, she had no desire to face the displeasure of Fear's Victory. She had long since ceased to concern herself with Thompson; he preferred his women whole and completely human.

Following another crewman through the hatchway, she entered the main engineering section. She paused, visually scanning the area for signs of the Chief. Seeing no immediate sign of him, she had only taken one step forward before hearing his familiar deep tones emitting mild, if loud, profanity. She was certain that she heard some alien terms mixed in with the human colloquial ones. The tenor of his voice told her that his colorful remarks were more likely directed at a disobedient piece of equipment than a maladroit crewmember.

"Something wrong, Chief?" she asked as she approached him. Although her face could no longer form a smile because of the patchwork of neuroelectric implants, her voice managed a somewhat cheerful and welcome tone.

He paused in his profanity to look up at her. His snarling grimace transformed into a rough smile. He wore only a work vest, eschewing his duty tunic, leaving his chest bare. She could not help but look; she admired the definition of the thick muscles there. More than once, she had imagined . . . "Hey, Lizzie," he said, interrupting her thoughts. "Finally decided to report for duty?"

She silently checked the chronometer display on her implant. "I'm actually three minutes early, Chief."

"Hmph," was his only response. He waved the tool clutched in his large hand in her direction. "You have your assignments. Get to work."

She gave a small chuckle. "Yes, Chief." She checked her duty assignments again. "I'll be Deck Two, Section B if you need me."

"Okay," he responded, nodding absently. Ducking back behind the casing of the generator, he returned to work.

Picking up a case of additional tools from the one of the secured storage cabinets, she left the main engineering deck and headed for Deck Two.

#

Tactical Officer Gregor Hawkes stood as his station and watched silently as Fear tortured the young woman at the helm. He watched with complete detachment, having long since become inured to the brutality of the ship's senior officers. After Fear had walked away, leaving the ensign slumped at her station, Hawkes returned to the readouts at his station.

They had managed to hit the captain's shuttle with only one glancing shot before she had escaped into slipstream. He was running a complete set of diagnostics and requesting operational status from his team. He had overheard Thompson's instructions to the crewman at the scanner station and wanted to be prepared to answer for his section's part in allowing Devereux to escape. So far, the weapons and targeting systems appeared to have performed according to specifications.

It was only Captain Devereux's expert piloting skills that had saved her and the shuttle from becoming a floating cloud of debris—that, and the element of surprise that had been in her favor. By the time anyone realized what was happening, Devereux had managed to put a fair amount of distance between herself and the ship. Between having to pursue her, and the range of their weapons, there had been really little that the crew could have done differently. Even a lucky, on-target shot, Hawkes suspected, would probably not been enough to prevent her escape. The issue really was, he knew, whether Fear and Thompson believed that.

He looked up with a bland expression as Thompson strolled by his station. He held little concern about the First Officer. Although Thompson had several centimeters—and an equal number of kilos—over him, he was confident in his fighting skills against such an opponent. He also knew that Thompson's training in hand-to-hand combat was limited. Fear, on the other hand, was an entirely different sort of adversary.

Slight and petite, he knew she was no challenge to him physically. As he had witnessed most recently with her handling of the helmsman, her abilities were far more dangerous—largely so because he did not completely understand them. He certain that there was a physiological explanation, but what research he had done had resulted in few specifics. The Aerians kept their biology a closely-guarded secret. For a race purported to be artificially constructed, surprisingly little was known about their makeup. Someone, somewhere, whoever their Creators were, had the knowledge. Although it was equally possible, Hawkes mused, that the Aerians had destroyed their Creators in order to keep their secrets. From what he had seen of Fear and the few other Aerians he had encountered, it was a distinct possibility.

He straightened as Fear returned to the bridge. It was an unconscious action, but one that he suspected had preserved him from possibly retribution on more than one occasion. She moved toward the command deck, never looking in his direction. He was mildly surprised at the relief he felt at her lack of attention. He did not know if she judged him as a loyal officer, but as far as he could determine, he had done nothing that could be interpreted otherwise. Of course, he also knew that such perceptions could be easily shaped. His lips moved just slightly at the memory of the execution of his predecessor for treason. Both Fear and the captain could be most . . . creative when it came to retribution.

The final status reports came in from the crewmembers checking the weapons and targeting systems. Other than one minor anomaly reported by the targeting sensors, everything checked out well within specifications. Even the variance was within the acceptable range, but Hawkes did not want to rule out any possibility that he had missed a crucial clue to have the captain had managed to elude them.

He requested a comparison to other recorded sensor readings, hoping to find an explanation. After a few moments, the computer responded: no match found. A small frown worked Hawke’s lips. He did not like mysteries, particularly ones which could result in him being subjected to one of Fear’s disciplinary measures. He would have preferred to have resolved the puzzle himself, but his specialty was weapons and tactical systems, not science. He instructed the computer to send a copy of the readings to the sensor technician’s console.

Hawkes glanced toward the crewman, not at all surprised that the man did not look away from his station. Actually, Hawkes thought with faint amusement, the crewman appeared particularly tense: he probably was having equally bad luck with his results. His work completed, Hawkes considered his next task. Fear’s primary focus would be to locate the captain and complete what she had started. She would need the command codes before she could take full command of the Sapphire Night. Until that was accomplished, Hawkes suspected that many crewmembers would suffer Fear’s displeasure. He had no intention of being one of them. When the captain’s accomplice had been discovered—and whoever it was had remained on board, for all members of the crew had been accounted for—Hawkes had little doubt that individual’s punishment would be both public and severe. The sooner that crewman was found—or at least one implicated—the safer the remainder of them would be.

Stepping away from the console, Hawkes motioned for the ensign monitoring the life support systems to assume his station.

“Where are you going?” Thompson’s voice carried a hint of annoyance.

Hawkes ignored the implied challenge. “I’m going to check the docking hatch,” he answered. “There might be clues there as to who aided the captain.”

Thompson glanced toward Fear, whose head tilted slightly in approval.

“Go,” Thompson said, as if dismissing a minor subject. “You’ll let us know immediately what you find.”

“Yes, sir,” Hawkes responded, his voice empty of almost all inflection. Without looking back, he left the bridge.