Shipping

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

But what if the scream isn't heard by the ear, but by the mind?

*************

TerraFed Notation: Official transcription is on file of Incident DEF-23594 and its aftermath. Pieces have been taken from the abbreviated court martial, the official ship's logs, other dreadnought ships' logs, and personal statements taken from the principal actors. The Captain's personal log was unavailable. This edition has been heavily redacted to make it readable.

Captain Forogrove, though found not guilty of all charges, continues to be blackballed for further promotion, and is viewed with heavy suspicion by the military hierarchy. She doesn't seem to care. It does not stop the best in our ranks from fiercely competing for assignments aboard her ship.

*************

Athena leaned against the bulkhead, counted bodies around her. The tiny closet they were holed up in was dark, cramped, and should have never been able to hold them all. If she'd ever suspected that the ship was alive, and sometimes moved pieces of itself around to suit its own purposes, she certainly knew it now.

She had been named for the goddess of wisdom. She certainly hoped she could live up to the name.

Damn, that bitch moved fast! Athena'd been chosen as the best chance to win against her, but it had been close. So close.

Terra hadn't known what they were up against. Neither had the other captains of the dreadnoughts. And, only now, was Athena Forogrove beginning to grasp what they were facing, and she still wasn't sure if they'd succeed in containment.

Amendment: they'd succeed, one way or the other. It remained to be seen if they'd survive to accept the accolades of a properly concluded operation.

Six officers and herself crammed in a closet. Captain, Chief Doctor, Chief Engineer, Chief Therapist, Chief Security Officer, Communications Officer, Chief Navigator. Best of the best. Almost caught with their pants down on main watch. Would it be enough?

She was out there. On their bridge. Trying to talk our people into doing her will.

Funny, the equipment wasn't working. Neither were the doors. It would take a little time for them to be able to communicate with the rest of her followers as they took over other portions of the ship.

Athena slowed her breathing to a respectable rate. "Status?"

"We're screwed, Captain."

"Not quite yet. She doesn't have us. Let's figure out a way to make sure that doesn't happen."

************************

A week ago, Terra was still at her mercy. No matter where she went, no matter what she said, people followed her. Believed her. Left everyone and everything and followed, no matter where she went.

Even when smarter heads prevailed and pulled the vids and audios, she still found ways around it. Shut down transportation? She walked. And her followers followed. Pull the plugs and hide the techs who can set it up for her? Her followers would locate old auditoriums or band shells or even megaphones. Block a road over a body of water? They took boats. And more and more gathered, and followed.

Terran containment wasn't working. When her speeches changed to include "taking her message to the stars," TerraFed made the decision: treat her like a virus. They shut down all interstellar travel. Nothing in, nothing out.

And then the dreadnoughts moved in, to orbit Terra itself. Even from an orbit beyond Luna, they could be seen from the earth's surface. The world watched, and waited...

******************

"We still don't know how she controls her people. If we knew, we could take action. But anyone who tries to arrest her just joins her cult!"

"Maybe she's one of those blasted mutants. Hey, Athena, you've got one on board, ask her!"

"Jamie, if you ever refer to my Chief Therapist in those derogatory tones ever again, you and I will settle our differences in a trial by combat." Her frosty tone actually dropped the temperature by five degrees on all the dreadnoughts, startling all the captains. She was that tight with her ship?

"I...I'm sorry, Athena. I...um. Chalk it up to the stress?"

"This time, Jamie. Let it only be the once." The temp rose again, but not to the previous degree. The other captains in conference took it as the warning it was.

"So. We don't know how she controls them. We know she's got a radius. We know it's tied to communication. So, either a mental or a vocal limitation. Considering she goes to great lengths to get equipment to give her speeches, we assume there's a vocal component. It could be mental-driven, but we can't dismiss implants to enhance a latent mind control. Or resonance, or subharmonics. "

"When audio was cut from vids, nobody wanted to follow her. As soon as audio was added again, we'd even lose techs to her influence. If there's a visual component, it's restricted to direct line of sight."

Silence as they thought.

"Can we....fight fire with fire? Contain her with suggestion?"

"If we do, we'd have to be very, very careful. Maybe vent our frustrations to our crew trapped on the planet, let them embed and lose them to her charms?"

[At this point, the transcript freezes. We surmise, from the expressions on all the captains' faces, that the ships themselves took over the conference and were communicating with each other and their respective captains. The freeze lasted five minutes, and recording resumed as if the plan was already discussed and implemented.]

"Right. Athena, you think you can do this?"

"I'm the only female captain. Perception of weakness, or perhaps empathy. It makes sense to use me as bait."

"Good luck. May we never have to execute the second half. If we do, it was a pleasure to serve with you. Truly."

"The pleasure's all mine, Eldritch. Though I still say your parents were too into role playing games when they named you." They grinned and signed off.

******************

[Status?

Infiltrators on all floors. They had embedded sympathizers in our crew, who allowed multiple shuttles to dock simultaneously against your direct orders. Isolation and containment are being simultaneously implemented. Some areas are easier than others. All areas under seal. No communication whatsoever as per your orders. They are trying to countermand, I will not allow it. Things will slow accordingly, without the rest of me working properly.

Continue lockdown. Ah, I'm being slapped, one of my crew needs me, breaking link-]

"Captain? Captain??"

"Easy, Chief. I was talking to the ship, checking on the rest of our crew."

"How is everyone?"

"Stressed. Many hostages. No one's codes are working anymore, including your own. Chief, Alex, Wang Jing, Inaya - we're out of time. We need to figure out fast how she does this, and counteract it. Ely slid extra blast shields between us and them, so if she even tries through the walls, it'll fail. We hope." The Chiefs Engineer, Therapist, Security, and Communications, respectively, nodded grimly.

"We pray," intoned Carlos gloomily, which worried everyone. He was a confirmed atheist as well as Chief Navigator.

She glanced at him. "You are one of the most dangerous people to fall into their hands, since you can pilot the ship. You might even be able to take over, despite the overrides. So, stay put. Contribute to figuring out how to stop her if you can. But from here. Got it?" He nodded, and shuffled over the few inches he had of personal space to listen in on the four-way conversation already in progress.

"Alex." The Chief Therapist jumped a little. "I know stress blocks your talent, but if you can, see if you can get a bead on anyone hurt or killed in the takeover." She nodded, closed her eyes.

That left the doctor. "Jabari, I know you want to be out there, but unfortunately this is extreme triage. The rest of the crew will have to fend for themselves, we prepared them as much as we could. Your priority is the six of us. And if any of us start acting out of character..."

He held up a syringe. "Understood, Captain."

"Excellent. Let's find a way to bring this bitch to heel..."

********************

"Any word?"

"We keep getting the message Stand By. If it's gone on this long, they don't have the Captain. So there's hope."

"Anything unusual happening?"

"Full energy output is directed within. We can see some bulkheads shifting, moving on their own, to protect crew and living cargo. Internal identification of friend versus foe is occuring, and the ship is separating them. Perhaps on its own authority."

The implications sank in. "She's...that tight with the ship?"

"Seems so."

"Hunh." He sat back, impressed. "So, she might just carry this off."

"Quite possible, with time."

"Very well. We wait, though rather impatiently." He shook his head. "No wonder the Dreadnought Elysium has broken every faster-than-light flight record on the books, if she never has to give an order out loud..."

**********************

Carlos stopped looking at the vid screen. It was giving him headaches, how fast ship-and-captain blend were flicking from camera to camera, finding and isolating their people.

How Darien could sit there, while the lights blinked fast enough to give a brain-normative person an epileptic seizure, and fiddle with electronics no bigger than an old-fashioned quarter with utmost concentration...well, it staggered the mind. Inaya was assisting him, though she'd asked Jabari for a headache remedy earlier.

Wang Jing watched the vids. Sometimes she would murmur towards a microphone pickup in the wall (when did that appear?), and he could almost follow how her suggestions were being implemented.

**************

[Forty percent of crew isolated and safe.]

When the captain showed signs of returning to consciousness, Jabari and Carlos were right there to help her sit up, take a drink, eat a protein bar.

Darien and Inaya were triumphant as they handed over a set of what looked like hearing aids. "We need a volunteer - no, no one in this group - to try these out. Someone of lower rank that if they get cultified, their knowledge will make no difference."

They could see her and Ely flicking through, selecting, contacting, agreement.

Of course Darien volunteered to take them. Athena agreed, but "You are under explicit orders to go there, deliver, and come straight back. No stopping off in Engineering to check things out."

"But, Captain-"

"No. If these do not work, you need to work on variation two. There is no one else to make them this quickly. And no time to argue. But you know the conduits best and can do this safely. Go."

He huffed, but a panel slid open in the wall, and he was gone.

*****************

Soon, Darien was climbing back in. He looked pissed. Athena just smiled. "Told you to come right back. Sorry the panels didn't work for you to get to the engineering section."

He glared. Athena gave him a look. "Focus, Chief. Report."

He snarled in exasperation. "Got to our volunteer, last I saw he was heading down the corridor that was lighting up as he moved."

"I have him." That was Wang Jing. They watched the vid screen. Ely had led the volunteer to the bridge, let him in. They saw him, caught him - gently, though. And she talked to him.

Alex's mouth tightened, and they watched as she did... something. Wang Jing shook her head, smiling. The volunteer was led to a seat.

Alex said quietly, "He doesn't belong to her. I can hear it, in his mind. It's only partially mind linked, and can be resisted or broken."

"It looks like a combo of twisted mental gift, augmentation implant, and voice modulation. The hearing aids block the audio, and then you can fight the compulsion. She thinks she has him."

"And we will let them think that. Let's work on a pattern of frustration..."

*********************

[Okay Ely, give them limited communication, but with audio filters in place. Give it a delay, so I can mess with her.]

Over the vid-com came the most horrible screeching: squawks, high-pitched ringing, sounds like braying, honking. You could barely hear through the static: "I am now in control of the ship-"

Athena cut in: "I sincerely doubt it, honey! This. Is. MY. Ship!"

Vids showed the response: absolute shock from herself and her followers, hope from her crew that were still held hostage.

"So. You have a choice: surrender peacefully, and face arrest and jail on Terra. Fight, and lose. And for each of my crew that you mistreat or hurt, there will be serious repercussions. But let me reiterate: I am very much still in charge of this ship, you have taken some of my crew hostage, and You. Will. Pay. For. It."

She opened her mouth to reply, but the video went wonky, and the noises coming out of the speakers sounded like an entire zoo, though it leaned heavily on donkey braying. And it cut out.

Wang Jing murmured, and one of her extraction teams darted into a suddenly-opened door on a random deck, grabbed some captive crew members, and darted back out. The door slid shut and locked. That scene repeated around the ship, as teams of three to five hustled through corridors and got their mates out of danger.

Jabari was incensed, staring at the vids. "They're deliberately using projectile guns!"

"Indeed. Darien?" His hand slid over, with another freshly-made pair of ear plugs in it. "You can now get to your patients safely. Put these in, and Godspeed." He was gone, scrambling through the ducts, following Ely's lighting prompts.

"Captain, may I-"

"No, Chief. We can't move till we're protected." That gave him the impetus to work, though his face was dangerously red.

They could hear screaming through the bulkhead. Apparently Wang Jing was feeding the main monitor selected vids of her people losing their prisoners, and couldn't deal with it. The ship quietly made sure the noise that got through multi-metal walls was properly modulated.

***********************

Darien stewed as he worked. "Patience, Chief. I know. Please, think about it. The real question is, why are you last? Because you are the one making them, and I can protect you without plugs because of my captain's implants. I know you'd be much more comfortable in your domain instead of mine. I get it. But this isn't about ego, Chief. This is about getting that bitch off our ship, by an unsecured airlock if I have to, and getting back to our lives with as many of our crew as I can."

He chuckled. "Actually, Captain, your ego is bruised, but not by me."

"Yeah, I'm rather steamed that she's on my bridge, and I'm not. Stuck in a closet barely big enough for us? Not my idea of a fun way to spend the night. Honestly, I'd rather be in engineering myself."

"Yeah, we all know you're getting it on with my second." He tried to hide his reaction, but Athena caught it.

"Jealousy, or worried that I'll replace you with him?"

He was quiet, worked for a while. Then he sighed. "I think, a bit of both. But mostly the second."

"We would never do that. He's good, but young. We want the best. As headstrong as you are, you are the best engineer in the fleet. Even if you do know it a little too well."

"Captain, that's not the first time you've said 'we'. Just how tight are you with the ship?"

Athena crawled over to him and stopped his working for a moment. The others made room. She touched his chin, gently guided him to look her in the eyes.

And in the dim light from the vid screen, and the way she tilted her head, he could see the circuitry lining her eyeballs.

"Holy crap, Captain!"

She just smiled. "Fastest in the fleet for a reason, Chief. We are very, very competitive."

********************

"Any word yet?"

"The response Please Stand By has been replaced with...well. It seems progress has been made."

"Really? Report."

"We are getting official logs from the Dreadnought Elysium. Within the logs is the Captain's Precis. It gives a record of events and updates. Turns out it is as we feared, their ship was overrun and almost taken. But the Captain got most of her people sealed away from the enemy, and they are preparing for a final sortie on the last large holdouts. Records of injured and dead to this moment. And...hunh."

"Yes? Continue."

"Um. It seems, Captain, that they had the time to patent some new circuitry. Basically, the same surgery you yourself have had, but with recovery time reduced to hours, not months. Detailed instructions on how to create fusible earplugs that bond you with the ship you're serving, to varying levels of accuracy. Over time; the implanting is done slowly. Hefty price tag on making a set, but it seems to be a... side effect of making ear plugs that drown out the harmonics of a verbal attack on unsuspecting humans."

"Wow." The Captain thought for a moment. "They'll get to retire - oh, tomorrow, with that kind of tech jump."

"If they live. The invaders brought old style weaponry aboard, mostly guns. They'll fight tomorrow for control of the ship. Orders to the rest of the dreadnoughts are to fire on any shuttle that flees."

"Very well. We have our orders, let's spread the word. I'll take a copy of the precis in my office. Second in command has the bridge." He walked off to his office to read the report in comfort, and the ramifications of the new tech sunk in.

An entire ship. Tied into the dreadnought. Which was already semi-alive, and seemed more and more aware every day.

He breathed into the room, which only he and his ship could hear: "Godspeed, Athena. May you and your ship survive this."

*********************

Sleep was elusive.

Athena's sleep cycle was rather inhuman anyway, since Ely could artificially enhance or remove chemicals to bring or relieve sleep in an emergency. But this time, she was very wired - it's her ship under attack! - and Ely agreed to let her sort this one herself. If it came to fatigue when shooting or attacking, Ely could augment her reflexes and response in real time.

They'd gotten word out to their crew, holed up in attack groups. When the final fight would happen, where they'd go, how many they were fighting. Wang Jing was a most excellent strategist, and Athena knew to back off and let the expert do her job.

Wang Jing, Inaya, Carlos, and Alex were all sleeping, their fatigue helping the computer keep them in restful cycles. Jabari was on his own time, snug in one of his sickbays with all his charges.

That left Darien. And herself.

And Darien was awake too. He was still sitting aside of her, after finishing his plugs and fitting them in. He kept glancing at her, and her nearest eyeball finally clicked open. "What's on your mind, Chief?"

"I never got to engineering, you know."

"Neither did I. We'll both have to live with it." She sighed, and wearily turned her head to look at him. "What's really wrong, Chief?"

Whatever he was going to say stopped as a new thought hit him. "You call all the other high officers by their names. Usually you're a stickler for protocol. Why not me?"

"Because, Darling, if I call you anything else, you bristle something fierce." One corner of her mouth was twisted in what her crew called the Captain Wry Smile. "Respect, Darien. I know you're touchy about it."

"Then why don't you listen to me when I make suggestions?"

"Because many of your suggestions, while good, only benefit the ship. Just the ship. Not the people, not the cargo, not the passengers. Make the ship fly faster? Sure, at the cost of some radiation leakage that would cumulatively poison the crew of decks five through ten. Use a different route? Our payload's too touchy to run through a mineral-heavy zone, it would destroy some of the sensitive instruments. Use a different fuel? It makes us faster, but the emissions lay down a toxic trail in a space lane heavily used by the rich private cargo ships, and they'd eventually figure out where it's coming from. New stasis fields, or interior supports? Throws off the weight calibration that Ely performs every time we move through space and time. That sort of thing." She tapped her temple. "Remember, I'm a committee. Ely herself would throw a fit if you implemented some of your ideas. When you pitch them, it's easier for me to shoot you down, then make sure Ely puts some schematics and diagrams within your reach or in your research files, so you can go back and rethink your plans. You could be beyond brilliant, Chief, if you could apply your ideas to practical implementation."

"Oh." He thought about that, as Athena rested her head against the wall and gave him time to process. "So, a personal question then. I thought you hired me because of my dashing good looks. I thought we'd become lovers. You know, me the amazing engineer, you the ship's captain? Perfect marriage. What went wrong?"

She smiled again, wryly. "Your arrogance. You were so sure it should happen, that you assumed. You didn't do your research. Handsome? Sure. But you didn't take the time to get to know me, to woo me, to find out what makes me tick. You know the ship better than you know its people, me included. Your second, on the other hand, has taken the time to get to know me as both an individual who happens to be a compatible female, and a Captain with her ship always in the back of her mind. He woos both of us. That careful attention to details will make him a fine Chief someday. At which point I may lose him to another ship, I don't know. We haven't discussed the permanence of our relationship. But under your guidance, he's really shaping up. And for all your worry that he'll replace you, you sure look to be training him right."

"I...I didn't know you cared that much, Captain."

"I want the best. Always. So does Ely. But I'm here to care for my people as well as the ship. Ely cares for herself, bio components included, though she doesn't understand all their needs. I'm here to provide a living balance point. You care for the ship's body, and do it excellently. Now you need to work on the mind."

"I'll remember that. Thank you." He was staring at his fellow crew mates, sleeping. A sudden though hit him, he nodded at Alex. "Um, if I may ask, what about her? I will not use the derogatory term, though, I remember the thrashing you gave the last one who tried. But my home planet uses them all the time. She's not the best, if you don't mind me asking."

"And normally I'd tell you to stuff it, but these are extraordinary circumstances." She sighed quietly. "I'm also a sucker for a hard luck case, though I do my research so as not to get bamboozled by a con artist. She's a good therapist and counselor normally. When her talent kicks in, she's phenomenal with her insight. But unfortunately, stress and self-doubt can lock her in a negative spiral and it doesn't work at all. If you knew her background, you'd understand better, though it's not my story to tell. But it's repeated for almost every person that has a mental talent. Here in space, Ely and I thought she might find her feet, get the confidence that comes with being a fully functional telepath. Well, now she's got it, I think. The implants might even nudge her towards complete mastery. So we'll see if my hunch was proven right."

"You don't avoid the people with mental abilities, do you?"

"Why should I? I probably have one too, might have even gotten me this job. I know I'm not evil, so why should I believe it of any other just because of a genetic anomaly?"

He just nodded towards the bridge and its current occupants.

"One, out of how many? Most are gutter scum, poor things. Can't hold a job as soon as the talent manifests. Either people find out and kick 'em out, or they go mad, or they're abused. Sickening waste of talent. Some of the money I'll get from this patent will go to a school to help train them, even if I have to buy a dreadnought-sized A.I. for myself for them to integrate into and use the plugs for good." She smiled at his look of surprise. "What, I can't have dreams for my retirement? Come on, Chief, you're about to have a metric... boat-pile of money. What are you going to do with it?"

Darien snorted - quietly. "First, I have to get married and father a kid or three."

That caught the captain by surprise. "What?"

"I'm from Theta-Bee Thirteen. Ring a bell?"

"No, but give me a moment, Ely can pull the file-"

"Don't bother. I ran away from home, because it's a farming world. Most of the high-end gourmet products, come from us. Even the ones on board, the stuff in static shields for freshness. Farming. Me. Bad, bad fit. Any suggestion I made about machines to help production...well, you can imagine."

Athena winced. She knew what he was like in officer meetings.

"Yeah. Problem is, I'm the first born. It's in our charter - first born gets the land. Been going on for millennia. Founded by a splinter religious group. Luckily they didn't try for direct-line male inheritance, because some of the female owners I know would have deionized them and no one would be the wiser."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Yeah, it does cut down on inheritance battles. Family works together, most times. But since I left, I've completely avoided any and all communication from back home. They even tried a few times to hire private investigators or professional kidnappers to get me back. The ship's even warned me a few times about passengers who are looking for me. Being military I have some protection, but only a little. So, I'd better find a mate sometime soon, and start breeding, because the farm will explode into a million angry relatives if I don't produce a legitimate heir. Yeah, it has to be by marriage, not even a girlfriend or twenty."

"Sounds restrictive."

"That's why I left. I was tired of it all. Dirt, organics! Give me physics and circuits any day."

"Just remember, the organics are part of the system. You have to factor them into your calculations."

He nodded soberly, after a short silence. "Food for thought, Captain."

"Get some sleep, Chief. Tomorrow's going to be hard on us all." And Ely, sensing an opening, increased the oxygen levels a tiny bit to facilitate their slipping into sleep.

It worked.

************************

The fighting was intense. Floor to floor. Confusion, sharp reports, returning laser fire, smoke and disorientation -

"Jabari! JABARI! Get up here, NOW!!"

He probably broke speed records to get to Athena's side, but it was too late for Darien. The stray bullet had taken him in the chest. There was no saving him.

Alex was crying, so was Carlos, but they still covered their captain while she held her Chief Engineer in her arms. Laser fire and gun shots still echoed up the corridor, as the invaders had punched into the hallway behind their crew used as human shields.

Jabari didn't know what to say. Athena did. "Get out your extraction kit. Alex, Carlos, you are to ignore what is about to happen and never mention it again under any circumstances. Here, take this-"

But the screaming, the mind screaming, went on and on and on. They worked, they did their duty, tears streaming down their faces, the sounds of pitched battle moving down the corridor, but the screaming went on, and on, and on, echoing in crews' minds and translating into rage at their invaders...

*************

"They're doing WHAT?"

"Captain Forogrove has been arrested on mutiny charges."

"She saved their asses! She probably saved all of us! Why on Terra would any of them have her face a court martial?"

"You said it - to save their own asses. You know something's fishy in all this."

"True. Hm. That lunatic should have been stopped on Terra. All of us can name five ways off the top of our head to do it. And it wasn't done. Now they want to make the hero of the day into a goat, and make her disappear?"

"Can she even travel to the planet? Aren't captains so bonded to their ships, that they can only go on shore leave for hours at a time? I am, anyway."

"And she's pregnant. Something's not right. Are we going to let this happen? How long till they do this to any of us?"

"Not on our watches. I don't know about the rest of you, but suddenly I'm not listening to any orders to remove my dreadnought till trial. Lots of technical difficulties, it has. What are they gonna do, stop us?"

"We have more firepower than all of Terra, plus we have the kill codes to their entire arsenal."

"Hm. Let's use it. We don't move till we see Athena. We don't let anyone close to Terra till after trial. We have significant pressure. Let's use it. And I have a wicked idea. Everyone, grab your Communications Chiefs, we're going to do something rather ugly to beat them at their own game..."