Shifting Infinity

Chapter 1

1

THE FLIGHT DECK of the Starship Felicity operated in slumber mode. The main lights were switched off, rows of chairs that faced consoles were empty and screens idled in power-saving mode. Up at the front, near the central command module, a skeleton crew attended to the basic ship functions, but most of those were automated, so they had plenty of time to gawk at the newcomers on the deck.

Melati walked across the soft carpet between the rows of workstations, feeling very visible under their stares. She was following the broad back of the private who had come to see her in the Lab & Research rec room with a message that contained words such as need to come immediately and Captain wants to see you.

The private—second class—was Force and his presence this high up in the ship caused a few raised eyebrows. Force personnel needed a pass to come to the flight deck, and those passes weren’t given out lightly. Melati wore her new shiny Fleet badge but since she worked in Research three levels down, she never came here either. The captain was very strict on that.

For that matter, the captain wasn’t on the flight deck at the moment. The entire central command module was powered down. Only a few lights, blinking occasionally, proved that the ship wasn’t dead. Lazy text scrolled over a strip of screen near the ceiling, detailing in green letters which docking tube, which entry, which weapons access, which airlock and hatch were open or in use, but no one was there to see that information.

Everything said, We’re a dangerous warship, but right now we’re not doing anything.

The Felicity hadn’t done anything, in fact, for about ten months.

Parked in orbit was the term.

Dangerous. Waiting. Watching.

Servicing weapons. Taking them apart and putting them back together again. Checking the nuclear heads. Counting them. Putting them back. Servicing the engines. Checking the life rafts. Cleaning the ship. Mucking out the recycling plant. The list went on. Anything that wasn’t engaging in active conflict.

Currently the ship drifted in the ink-black shade of the gas giant Sarasvati. The main projector screen at the very front of the room showed sharp-edged backlit curves that were part of the planet’s ice rings. Out there in a wider planetary orbit would be New Jakarta Station, which had been the subject of the Felicity’s shadowing since the occupation of the station by Allion.

Watching. Waiting. Ready to pounce.

The flight deck of the Felicity followed the basic ISF ship layout: there were command meeting rooms at the flight deck’s back wall, and it was here that the private led Melati.

He stopped at one such door, knocked and opened it.

Melati followed him inside.

The soft threatening silence and dimmed light of the flight deck were replaced by luxurious surroundings and a warm glow. And the ubiquitous smell of hot chocolate.

Seated around the oval table in the centre of the room were a good number of the ship’s resident top brass, both Fleet and Force. Some, like her, had just arrived, still finding seats and taking off jackets. A Fleet private second class was distributing cups from a tray—the source of the smell.

The Felicity’s captain, Polina Dolchova, sat at the head of the table in her utilitarian everyday Fleet uniform. Next to her, Major Song Chevanchy of Fleet Special & Tech Services sat ramrod straight, with a comm pad on the table in front of him, which he held, in perfectly symmetrical fashion, in both hands. Next to him sat Force Base Commander—now without a base—Sandy Cocaro, who greeted Melati with a nod. “Lieutenant Rudiyanto.”

That sounded new and strange and made her heart jump a little. Better than just Melati. She had acquired the rank two ship days ago when she completed her officer training and she was a Lieutenant Second Class in the Research Division. It came with a shiny white uniform and a badge that said SS Felicity. She had been assigned to Fleet, because she needed to be based somewhere and there was no more ISF base on New Jakarta Station, so they couldn’t allocate staff to it. Word was that Cocaro hadn’t liked this development.

On the other side of the Captain sat Force Major Alan Dixon, former head of Communication and Information Technology at New Jakarta, and speaking to him in a low voice was Fleet Major Pippa Fujimoto, of Artillery and Ordnance, SS Felicity.

Wow. The room was almost too bright for the stars.

Melati pulled back a chair while Commander Cocaro dismissed the private. Right. So she had sent him.

“Chocolate?” the Fleet private asked Melati, while holding a thermos jar in front of her.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He poured and passed her a cup of the frothing liquid. Melati clamped her hands around the cup. She was probably just nervous, but her hands were cold.

There was a techie in the room. His toolbox, on the floor against the wall, said Flight Electronics Officer Second Class Parson, but the owner of the box was crawling under the table to—Melati thought—prod a misbehaving router into action. Dolchova had a comm pad in front of her, and the nozzles of the holo-projector on the table glowed with light.

“Are we almost done, Parson?” The captain was not known for her patience.

“Almost, Ma’am.” His voice sounded muffled under the table.

Melati eyed the pad facing the captain, but there was nothing on the screen. What was this meeting about?

The atmosphere had an ominous feeling. Melati was seriously outranked by every single person in the room save for the techie under the table, and the request for her presence could mean only one thing: there was important news from the station that had come from the barang-barang, expat Indonesian, tier 2 section and needed a native speaker for interpretation.

And since the Allion annexation of the station, such news had been scant.

She met Commander Cocaro’s eyes. Her former superior had bags under her eyes and lines on her face that Melati hadn’t seen before. Did she imagine it or had she lost a lot of weight?

“Well, let’s start anyway,” Dolchova said and met Melati’s eyes. The captain’s eyes were light grey and each time Melati saw her, she noticed yet again how far apart they were. “We have a dilemma, Lieutenant. A dilemma, of which, as the only representative of the native tier 2 of New Jakarta, you can possibly give us some insight. Are you and your cousin in regular contact with your fellows?”

“I wouldn’t call it regular, ma’am. My cousin Ari fiddles with radios—” Ari fiddled with everything to the point of worrying her, but that aside. “—and sometimes picks up communication from the station. He doesn’t want to go much further than ask about our relatives. The loyalty of the people who provide the radio contact is dubious.”

Those who owned the radios were hypertechs, and they were the ones who had allowed Allion operatives to establish themselves on the station by buying technology from Allion spies. Melati would love to think that the hypertechs were loyal to the tier 2 people, but unfortunately, the hypertechs were secretive and loyal only to themselves. They might well be passing information to the Allion station management. Melati had warned ISF communicators of that possibility.

“The dilemma is this.” Captain Dolchova let a silence lapse as if for effect. “Two days ago, one of our regular scouting operations intercepted a small commercial vessel inside the exclusion zone. When our patrol asked the ship for identification, it took off. Our people gave chase and managed to capture and bring the ship in. Its movement vector showed the vessel’s likely origin as New Jakarta. There were no logs on board and no flight plan had been submitted to the Sector Authority.”

“A commercial ship? Which business is still operating in the war zone?”

“None. We first considered that the ship had accidentally deviated from the commercial route to New Hyderabad, and got spooked when our people turned up, but the vessel’s single male occupant is a bit of an enigma. He carries no ID, is not chipped and refuses to answer any of our questions regarding his presence in a restricted zone and his reason for leaving the station and indeed his ability to do so without attracting hostilities from Allion’s forces in charge of the station.” Dolchova glanced at Base Commander Cocaro, whose face remained blank.

“While he refuses to answer any of our questions, he does appear to be fairly talkative, albeit not in a language we can understand. Commander Cocaro suggested that, before we subject him to more intense questioning, we show you a sample of this man’s ramblings.” A look passed between the two women hinting that “suggested” did not quite cover the nature of that conversation.

Melati said, “He might simply not speak Standard.” Treading carefully here, until she understood the hooks and barbs of this issue.

The captain snorted, as if she couldn’t imagine anyone not speaking Standard.

Melati knew a good number of people who didn’t speak Standard. The B sector of the station was full of them. Would it be possible that one of the tier 2 people had escaped?

“Well, I guess that’s why we want you to check this.” She bent to look under the table. “Parson?”

The tech crawled out from under the table. “It should work now.”

“Good.” Captain Dolchova hit the corner of her pad and an image of the ISF logo sprang up in the air. She gave the tech the thumbs-up and he collected his tools and scurried out of the room.

The logo made way for a grainy image from a security cam. Taken from near the ceiling of an empty white room, it showed a dark-skinned man tied to a chair by his ankles, with his arms behind his back. Melati flooded with disappointment. This was not a barang-barang man. His skin was too dark, his eyebrows too heavy, his nose too straight, his eyes too deep-set. And besides, he had a short beard. This looked like someone from New Hyderabad.

He wore a tattered suit bearing the New Jakarta maintenance logo. The tier 1 enforcers used to wear those, but the man was not an enforcer either.

In the room with him were two ISF personnel one of whom Melati recognised as Lieutenant Kool, who was in charge of the Correctional Department. He was a tall muscular man, with a head bald and shiny as a billiard ball and skin black as the night.

“You’re going to regret playing games with us,” he was saying in the recording. “I’m asking you for the last time: who are you? Answer clearly.”

The man spat at them. “You’re dogs!”

Now Melati took in a sharp breath. He spoke B3, albeit heavily accented.

“Stop talking rubbish.” Lieutenant Kool hit him in the face with a slap that made Melati wince. The man’s left eye was already gummed shut with blood. “Speak in a language we can understand.”

“You’re dogs,” said the man in B3. “I don’t know what you’re saying blah, blah, blah. You want me to tell you everything, huh? I don’t need to understand your filthy language to know that.”

Lieutenant Kool repeated, hovering over the prisoner and spitting the words into his face, “What is your name and what were you doing in a restricted zone? How did you get a commercial craft that was not yours and how did you manage to leave the station without being blasted to pieces? Who are your masters?”

“Why are you treating me like this? I’ve done nothing. I’m a merchant. I’m asking for help. But I should have remembered that dogs like you don’t help people in need. You sit and watch, like cowards.”

“Don’t talk rubbish!” The Lieutenant hit his face again. The prisoner’s head jerked to the side with the force of the blow.

And so it went on for a while. Both ISF officers took turns at shouting at the man and the man replied in B3. Melati fidgeted in her chair. Each slap in the prisoner’s face made her cringe; each time he called ISF cowards, she wanted to scream that he was right. They were cowards. They’d shadowed the station and watched, and, for ten long months, done nothing.

Eventually, Captain Dolchova turned the projection off, looking at Melati. “This goes on for a while. It’s not the prettiest of interrogations. He flatly refuses to speak to us in Standard.”

“He’s not a member of the New Jakarta tier 2,” Melati said. “But he does attempt to converse with the interrogators in B3.”

That earned her a few frowns.

“B3?” asked Pippa Fujimoto.

“Bahasa barang-barang.” The words sounded odd in this sterile room in this environment that Melati’s fellow tier 2 people would consider hostile.

“Isn’t that just Indonesian?” Major Fujimoto asked.

“Not anymore.” The ignorance of the Major’s question just about summed up the ISF’s involvement and concern for the station. “B3 sort-of resembles Indonesian, but the meanings of most of the words have migrated, and sentence structures have changed.” Why were these people even here, guarding the station, when they didn’t know any of this? Why did ISF not have a training module for incoming rotation crew that told them about the kind of place and people they were meant to protect?

“Why would this stranger speak your language and not Standard?” Captain Dolchova asked.

“There could be lots of reasons, ma’am. At the station there are lots of people who don’t speak Standard. Their births were never registered, and they never went to school.”

“Those types of people never had a pilot’s licence either.”

True, but by God, she had to do her best not to let her frustration show. Clearly, Standard was the be all and end all of languages. “Does this man have a pilot’s licence?” If so, why were they asking for his name? It would be in the register.

“That is the question we can’t answer without knowing who he is. I’m not ruling out that he never obtained a formal licence, but his proficiency makes it hard for me to believe otherwise. I have no idea how he came not to be chipped, but he clearly made an attempt to hide his identity.”

“How about the registration of the craft?”

“He is not the owner. The vessel belongs to a commercial operation called Lagota Enterprises and is registered in the name of one Socrates Finlay. I’ve been informed that he used to run several businesses at the station.” Another sideways look at Cocaro.

Melati nodded. “Socrates Finlay is one of the people who escaped the station with us. He disembarked when we docked at New Hyderabad.”

“I am aware of that. He’s the shady fellow who used to operate the mindbase exchange, too. Rest assured that he is on our watch list. Our people have asked him about the ship. He confirms ownership, but insists that he knows nothing more of it. He says that the business was run by a manager, but that business and everything related to it was left behind in the siege. He has no idea who this man is. He says he’s probably just ‘borrowed’ the ship. But anything that Mr Finlay says is highly questionable.”

“Well . . .” Melati eyed Sandy Cocaro, who gave her a small nod. “Socrates Finlay is a fairly colourful character.”

Dolchova snorted. “That would be understating the truth. He was the one who allowed Allion agents to obtain sensitive data within the station.”

Cocaro said, “His involvement with the New Hyderabad mafia was a one-off deal that—”

“He compromised the station’s systems.”

Melati added, “He told a couple of Allion agents where a person they were looking for was. He did not allow them to access the system.” Socrates was odd and no friend of hers, but she could not abide untruths.

“So you believe that he knew nothing of this escapee?”

“I don’t think he did. My other cousin used to work for him. He’s a bit odd, but he is quite wealthy. He owns a good number of commercial ships on the station. It’s likely that if someone stole a random ship from the station, it would be one of his.”

Sandy Cocaro nodded. “That’s what I’ve been saying. I strenuously object to a civilian from my station being subjected to—”

“He worked for Allion. He is an enemy.”

“Socrates Finlay operated the mindbase exchange for many years with no problems . . .”

Captain Dolchova cut her off. “That’s because you didn’t see any problems. Now there are problems, and what do I get? Complaints about his treatment! For f**k’s sake. We’re running an army here.”

Sandy Cocaro took a deep breath, and pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring.

Ooo-er. Somebody had been putting Socrates Finlay under stress, and he, in true flamboyant Socrates fashion, had complained about it, and Dolchova had received that complaint dished up by her supervisor. Well, at least that explained her bad mood.

“Let’s get back to the reason we’re here. Lieutenant Rudiyanto. What would you make of this escapee?” She nodded at the screen.

Melati spoke carefully. “By his looks, I would judge this man to be from New Hyderabad. There is a fair bit of trade between the New Jakarta and New Hyderabad tier 2 sections. The New Hyderabad merchants often learn B3.” Most of them for illegal or vile reasons, and it surprised her how much anger she still possessed for these predators who ruined so many lives by trading in babies.

“But then riddle me this: all merchants coming to the station would speak Standard. In order to become a pilot, he would have to speak Standard. Why doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know.” It was frustrating that they hammered on about this, as if they couldn’t believe that there were people who didn’t speak their language. But because she thought she sounded belligerent, she added, “I’ve never heard any of those merchants speak Standard, so I couldn’t tell you if they speak it or not.”

Major Fujimoto said, “All of New Hyderabad speaks Standard. The schooling rate is a lot higher than in New Jakarta. Standard is the main language spoken at the station.”

Melati heard unlike this backward station. She got very tired of their underhand stabs at the tier 2 natives of New Jakarta.

“As far as I’m concerned, this guy is lying,” Captain Dolchova said. “He’s an Allion agent. He speaks Standard, and he’s putting on a show.”

“You can’t draw conclusions like that without proper questioning,” Sandy Cocaro said. “And it’s certainly not a reason to treat him like a criminal. We have the International Convention of Human Rights to consider.”

“I have the safety of my ship to consider. If somehow, Allion pulls with us what they pulled with your base, then we’re gone.”

“Can I remind you that the Mindbase Exchange uses Fleet hardware, so who was at fault?”

“If you had been more vigilant about what you allowed to come into the base perimeter—”

Major Chevanchy interrupted. “Please, Ladies, can we keep to the matter at hand?”

Dolchova breathed in through flaring nostrils. Cocaro glared at her across the table. Yes, she had lost a lot of weight, but her expression had also hardened considerably.

There was a short and tense silence.

Major Fujimoto turned to Melati. “Lieutenant Rudiyanto, please go through the recorded section and translate for us, to the best of your ability, what this man is saying.”

She replayed the recording. Melati translated and everyone listened silently until she got to the part where the man asked for help.

Major Dixon said, “Help? What with?”

“He doesn’t say. Probably because he knows he’s not being understood.”

Dolchova snorted. “He’s just talking rubbish because he knows we can’t understand him, trying to play the sympathy card. It’s clear to me: he tried to escape the station to contact Allion ships. He ran when our patrol found him. Now he pretends he can’t understand us.”

“You don’t know that,” Cocaro said.

Dolchova spread her hands. “All right, all right. I said I’d let her talk to him. But it’s pretty clear to me what’s going on. But never mind. Let’s get this circus on the road.”

She pressed a button and a moment later a Fleet private came through the door. “You wanted me, ma’am?”

“Take Lieutenant Rudiyanto to Lieutenant Kool. He knows she’s coming.”

Melati rose, but Cocaro met her eyes. “Before you go, can I have a word with you, please, Melati?”