04:15 Doctor’s Office

John was switching between jogging and walking on the treadmill. He simply couldn’t maintain a consistent pace anymore. It was very labored as well. He was struggling to get enough oxygen into his lungs to feed his system.

It only got worse as the test went on. Towards the end, there was more walking than running. John was disgusted with himself for injuring him as deeply as he had. For forty-five long and excruciating minutes, this test went on.

“You’re not cleared for full duty yet. That run on the treadmill was pathetic by your standards,” Dr. Olson said, “But it is improved from yesterday. When we get to Pluto you will report immediately to their medical facilities, with me, to run a full suite on you again. We need to make sure you’re healing correctly.”

John was leaning back in the chair trying to catch his breath, “Understood. When do you want to do this test again?”

“Let’s do this in a week again. You are still on half duty. After you do two hours of studying, I want you to walk or lift weights within reason for thirty minutes. Send me the data and I’ll modify your physical therapy plan. You’re going to need to be doing PT every day to rebuild that core strength.”

“Fuck me, total rebuild plan, eh?”

“Yes sir, that happens when you almost kill yourself from overstress and weird radiation.”

“Thanks, doc. It doesn’t look like it, but I do feel better.”

“I won’t beat you up any more than you already have. You know what you did wrong. Get some grub.”

05:05 Mess Hall

John sat down at the table, “Oof, legs hurt.”

“Still hurt from the fight?” Alice asked.

“Yay, you’re talking to me.”

“You don’t get to be a smartass. I’m still pissed with you. It is possible for me to both love and be angry with you at the same time.”

“Yeah, you are right to be both. Nah, I had a checkup. Doc made me run a lot. Well, a lot for me now. Still on reduced duty. When we get to Pluto, the first thing I get to do is head to their medical facilities and get another deep scan.”

“How long will that take?” Alice asked as she poured some syrup on her French toast.

“Not sure, probably as long as the last one I had on Manchester,” John shrugged as he ate some bacon, “The good news is it appears I have more energy. The downside is I have no fucking stamina.”

“That is a shame,” Alice grinned.

“Oh behave,” John said laughing.

“I’m trying to be mad at you, but you do make it difficult to stay mad at you. So, anything exciting happening today?”

“Not on our shift,” John checked his watch, “We translate out from slip space in just under three hours, then we’ll head out from the designated entrance waypoint. From there figure out what ships we’ll check or barring that just fly around to let them know about some military presence in the cloud. But the nearest ship is like ten or more hours away. Not like we’re going to be burning hard and fast for anything out here.”

“What about you?”

“I doubt it’ll be busy for more than twenty or thirty minutes. You know how it is. Hurry up and wait.”

“I suppose you have as much paperwork as I do.”

John smiled, “How are you liking the psych stuff. Is it what you expected?”

“I had my doubts here and there during classes. But the actual on-the-job experience has been largely refreshing and enjoyable,” Alice paused, “Except the paperwork. Honestly, that part sucks.”

“Well yeah, feels like we need a bloody paper trail for everything. Paperwork is honestly the suck.”

The couple enjoyed a quiet breakfast. Eventually, they got up and headed out of the mess. Kevin had come in after John and Alice and had breakfast with his crew in engineering that morning. He knew that John hadn’t talked to Alice and felt that the couple should get some together time on the ship. Kevin grinned as he thought, that’s two John owes him now.

08:30 Bridge

“Captain, exiting slip space in three… two… one… mark,” Nathan said.

A portal opened in front of the ship that led to the corresponding point in real space. It wasn’t a particularly accurate jump. There was a drift of almost fifty thousand kilometers.

“Nathan, are these readings accurate?” John asked.

“Yeah, it seems the computer didn’t calculate for the slip storms between here and Proxima Centauri. Couple that with a seriously old jump engine onboard.”

“Jessica, check with engineering. I want that tightened up if possible.”

“Roger sir.”

“Nathan, three quarters ahead, get us to a safe distance from the entry waypoint.”

“Aye aye.”

The Marcinko’s core distributed power to its real-space engines. The normal humming that everyone onboard had got accustomed to returned. The engines grew a bright blue, and eventually, the ship began being propelled toward the sun.

“Andy, contact Pluto Control and get us vectors toward waypoint Oort-Proxima.”

Andy sent a communication to Pluto Control. Despite there being very little traffic compared to the inner part of the solar system, Pluto Control was notorious for being slow to respond and difficult to work with. They also had a tendency to be less than professional compared to other flight controllers.

“Pluto here, what do you want?” a controller said.

“CNS Marcinko, returning from Proxima Centauri. Requesting vectors to Oort-Proxima.”

“Yeah, ok.”

Andy pressed the mute button, “I swear to Christ, these guys should be fired. It’s like pulling teeth.”

The bridge crew chuckled and waited a few minutes. No follow-up came. Andy looked annoyed. Nathan let everyone know they were clear of the entry waypoint. John asked Andy to try again.

“CNS Marcinko, requesting those vectors.”

“Ok.”

More silence. Andy swung his chair to the side and looked at John. He then flung his arms up and was shaking his head.

“I got it, Andy please open the coms to them again,” John said as he pointed at Andy, “Pluto Control, this is acting Captain Lief. You’re going to give us those vectors now. Answers of yeah and ok are not acceptable.”

“Ugh, fine, why don’t you come to heading eighty-two, two degrees negative inclination, speed is your choice.”

“Roger Pluto Control, following relayed vectors, traveling at three-quarters speed,” Nathan said

“Ok, Pluto Control out.”

“Andy, you needn’t say anything, I’ll file the complaint myself,” John said to his clearly exasperated communication officer.

Andy was swearing at them under his breath. John grinned as he began writing up a complaint to Naval Command and Sol Traffic Control. He was interrupted by Nathan.

“Any particular course sir?”

“Let me finish the paperwork first before figuring out our course. We’re not going to ask control for any more vectors by the way. We can let them know where we’re going.”

“Understood sir,” Nathan responded as he charted his own course.

Shortly after that Andy relayed their new course back to Pluto control. He received no callback nor acknowledgment that they had received their new course. John had to calm Andy down again and added more to his complaint.

Twenty minutes later John stood up and walked to the rear of the bridge, “Jessica, bring up the independent mining or freight vessels out here.”

“Here they are captain.”

John turned and looked at the main view screen, “Can you overlay the last time when any of them were visited by the military.”

Dates and times were then overlayed, “Thanks, exclude anyone from the last three months.”

John walked back to his chair and sat down, “Estimate the most efficient pattern to visit all and return back to Pluto. Oh, and how long that would take, estimate three hours per inspection.”

“Forty-two days.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t work for me. Trim that down to ten ships, the oldest ten to have interacted with the military.”

“Thirteen days,” Jessica was very relieved when she said that.

John sat down and checked their updated schedule. He messaged Lieutenant Page if arriving at Pluto a day behind schedule was acceptable. She responded almost immediately and asked him how he’d adjust the rest of their deployment. She agreed with his recommendation to just shave a day off before they had their final leave at Titan.

“We have our marching orders. Nathan, most direct route to the IMS Big Bertha.”

John wanted to work longer than three hours, but he could feel himself getting tired. He called Kevin to the bridge after he had worked for three and a half hours. After Kevin took the bridge, he headed to the primary study room and began working on his classes.

Five Days Later, 08:25 Bridge

“CNS Marcinko to IMS Wellington, respond please,” Andy said.

“Freighters are cool, mining ships never answer,” Jessica said from the rear of the bridge.

“Par for the course. Bring up their crew complement please,” John asked.

“Eight people sir.”

“And it takes ten to twelve for a ship that size to work optimally. Assuming of course they aren’t lying about their complement,” John paused, “Fire a worm at the ship, then when it connects shut down their processor. Leave the furnaces online though. Don’t want to slug their operations.”

Jessica prepared a worm to fire. Nathan maneuvered the ship closer to the mining ship. Once they got to about four hundred meters away John gave her permission to fire it at the mining ship. The worm magnetically locked to the enemy ship, then began to attack and force itself through the electronic countermeasures.

Two short minutes later the worm had the results the crew desired. The mining ship was locked out of loading any additional material. The hails continued to be ignored.

“Andy, pull up past records for this ship. I want to know how many warnings and or fines have been issued,” John turned, “Jessica, activate their emergency lights, shut down their lights, and direct them to their bridge.”

“Sir, scans on the ship are complete, they weren’t lying about their complement,” Nathan said as he was accessing the worm’s data and comparing it to their sensor data.

John sat back down on his chair. He was scratching something on the armrest. Andy was complaining about the lack of protocol. He did determine that this seemed to be out of the ordinary for the ship. Five minutes passed by before the crew finally received a hail.

“This is acting Captain John Leif of the CNS Marcinko. So nice of you to respond to our hails,” John said sarcastically to the minors.

“Apologies Captain, appreciate you leaving the furnace on. Name is Royce Williams.”

“Jessica, release the worm,” John said, “Captain Williams, please transmit your permit, flight plan, and contents of your hold. If all checks out, we’ll get on our way.”

“Transmitting now.”

John turned and pointed to Jessica. She nodded and swung back to her workstation and began cross-checking everything. She transferred the flight plan to Nathan to review.

John smiled, “Captain, while my crew reviews your info. I am requesting that at least two workstations in your working area are tuned to communications and at least two on-duty personnel are linked into coms to prevent a repeat of today’s actions should you be understaffed.”

“Understood, you have our apologies.”

John sat down in his chair, and temporarily suspended the image, and muted the sound, “Everything checking out?”

“They are at an asteroid that they are having mining rights too. The flight plan was not followed but given their course I can chalk that up to Pluto control being a bunch of fucktards,” Nathan said.

“Language, you’re not wrong but let's keep it professional here, cadet,” John reprimanded Nathan.

“No warrants on the crew. Everything else checks out,”

“Alright, verbal warning it is,” John said as he turned the image on and unmuted their line, “Consider this a verbal warning. I can your undermanned and tunnel vision is a thing. Remember to be more aware of your surroundings Captain. Happy mining. Marcinko out.”

The captain on the other end smiled and saluted. Jessica ended the communication with the mining vessel.

“Nathan, why don’t you maneuver us gently away from this ship. Please plot in a direct course to the next ship.”

“Aye aye, it’s going to be about ten minutes before we can use the main engines, don’t want to drill that ship with our engine plume.”

“Go well beyond minimum range. We don’t need to give them any extra radiation above and beyond what they are already getting.”

“Understood sir, it’ll be eighteen minutes then.”

John finished some paperwork and filed it away. He stayed on the bridge for an hour longer than normal. Eventually, he called Kevin and retired to the study room. John would go on to finish one of his three classes required lectures.

13:15 Main Hangar

John was lying on the hangar floor covered in sweat. He was breathing hard, harder than he had in a long time. The downside to John’s reaction was the workout wasn’t that particularly challenging. Or at least it wouldn’t have been a couple of weeks ago. There were some positive signs though, his strength was returning.

“Jesus Christ that was pathetic,” Andern said as he sat down on the bench.

“Love you too man, toss me a towel please.”

Andern snorted, leaned back, and threw the towel at his friend’s face, “Did they tell you about what happened once you got to the hospital?”

John pulled himself up and was leaning against a stack of fifty-pound weights, “No, what happened?”

“Damn, they seriously didn’t say anything?”

“I heard it was touch and go and that Alice was in my room.”

“Dude, all of us were there when you were initially admitted,” Andern paused as he began choking up a bit, “a doctor came out looking pale as ever. He said that your organs were shutting down, brain waves were nearly undetectable, and that soft tissue damage you received was immense.”

“So, I was dying.”

“You weren’t just dying, dude. You were an ant’s ass away from dying. You were literally banging on death’s door.”

“Well fuck me.”

“Does that clue you in on why Alice is a bit more pissed with you than normal?”

John leaned back and looked at the ceiling, “Fuck. Obviously, it does now, yeah.”

“I suppose you already heard about the simulations the Senior Chief ran about the attack. I helped with that by the way.”

“Yeah, that we’d have a pair of dead twins right now instead of one dead and one wounded along with a self-inflicted crippled Naval officer. Nice work, most of your assumptions were correct.”

“I’ve been wondering this for a long ass time, what the hell drives you? I don’t get how you can willingly jump into a no-win situation.”

John chuckled and sighed, “Your family loves you right?”

“Well duh. I mean we don’t like each other from time to time and we argue a lot. Standard family stuff.”

John smiled, “I never knew that feeling. My father adopted me without asking his wife. She never openly displayed hostility to me, I suppose hers was an apathetic response. She always made sure I had just enough clothes and food. But not an inch more. My siblings resented me in the beginning. That resentment turned to hate by the time they were late in their teens.”

“Why didn’t your dad fix that?”

“How could he? He was never home,” John let out a pained laugh, “Being stationed on a ship he was deployed for three to six months and home for a month. He tried but, in the end, he was the only one that seemed to give a damn.”

“I can see how that would warp your worldview.”

“When I was four years old, I had to learn to manage my telepathy actively. Luckily for me, I was reading at an eighth-grade level and was absolutely fascinated by telepaths in general.”

Andern was howling with laughter, “Dude, you self-helped yourself to block out voices at four years old? No wonder why you’re such a fucking alien.”

“That was when I truly understood the feelings my ‘family’ had for me. My dad did legitimately love me like he did his other kids. I felt nothing from my mom. Resentment and loathing were the only things I got from the three siblings.”

“Man, I can’t imagine being forced to basically be an adult to fend for myself when I was a little kid. Does explain a lot.”

“No one should be able to relate to my fucked-up childhood,” John said as he pushed himself off the ground, “then again, calling it a childhood isn’t exactly accurate.”

“Yeah, you never had one. But I can see why you ran off to Intelligence. Gets you out of that mostly shitty home situation and puts you on a path to success.”

John chuckled to himself, “I’m not sure I’d call it a path to success. I ran away from a bad situation to an opportunity. But then I let the new opportunity damage me. I suppose technically the Navy has too.”

“I’d argue you were responsible for most of that damage,” Andern said sarcastically, “But what I don’t get is your fighting calculations. You seemed to make the right calls with the ship. But when it's individually your calculations are all fucked up.”

John sighed, “I need to work on that. I mean that I really do.”

“The important part is you understand that. I hope for your sake that you actually do figure that out. I’d rather not see you on your deathbed again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah again, what about the station incident?”

“Oh, come on, I wasn’t that close to death that time.”

“Says the guy who got hit with a fucking umbilical. That was a close call.”

“Yeah, but not death bed close call.”

The two friends would continue this banter for a few more minutes. Andern would not relent and eventually got John to admit that it qualified as a possible death bed incident. Eventually, the pair realized they needed showers badly and agreed to meet up in the mess hall after they got cleaned up.

Before they walked out of the hangar, John grabbed Andern’s towel and walked over to the container, and tossed in the used towels. This was right next to where the power armor was stored. His suit was still in pieces and being slowly repaired. The psychic channeler was sitting upright along the mesh divider.

John brushed up against it as he turned around. When he did, unbeknownst to John and everyone else in the hangar, the psychic channeler activated and its light blue crystal at the center shone briefly. The device quickly depowered and returned to its dormant state.