The next day, the assignment that Rayne had mentioned did indeed come down to them. An order from the Deterrence to present themselves at Z-wing’s docking bay at 1100 hours for transportation to wing Fox. “I don’t suppose it would be too much for us just to walk there,” Neil said, zipping closed a pack. “Especially if they’re so keen on us getting more miles under our feet. Those of us that need them actually.” He said to Valentine, who shrugged.

“Lotta station between us and there. Can’t say I’d be too enthused about it, if I’m being honest.”

“There’s wheeled transport to most of it.” Rivers said.

“Would kind of defeat you and me getting our reps in.” Neil said. Rolling his right shoulder. The cybernetics always felt like they took longer to wake up than the rest of him, though he knew that they would synch up more seamlessly to his sleep sooner rather than later. At least, that’s what Natalie had told him.

“1030. Let’s go.” Valentine said.

Together they three and Triss set out for the docking bay’s waiting area, and after a short break a transport landed. Five minutes later they were onboard and circling the station on the brief approach to wing Fox. It had an awkward, lopsided view from the outside, Neil thought as they came up on it.

They filed off the ship and Triss’s ears went up as the cockpit opened. “Ain’t you lookin like a bucket of shiny new parts.” A voice called down.”

Valentine’s head whipped up and his face split into a beaming smile. “I thought the flight seemed bumpy and unprofessional.” He called as Benson climbed down. “As shitty piloting as I’ve ever had.”

Benson nodded and stopped some paced away from Valentine, looking at him with a somewhat appraising look, taking in the legs and the arm. Valentine’s smile faded. “Sir? It’s me.” new legs, not new brain.”

“Yeah.” Benson said, grinning. “Guess you are.” Then he closed the distance and the two men hugged, each looking as though they were trying to snap the other’s spine. When they separated, Benson reached his hand out to Neil. “Sergeant Ziggenbor. Glad you pulled through.”

“Sir,” Neil shook his hand. “Wouldn’t have without your fancy flying. I’m told you swung it for us.”

A shadow crossed Benson’s face. “I did all I could.”

“I know.” Neil said. “I won’t forget it.

“You must be Sergeant Rivers.” He held out his hand. “I’m told you’re number three in my flight crew.”

“I’ll do what I can to help, sir.” She shook his hand too, and then Benson gestured down one of the hallways.

“What the hell is this place?” Valentine asked as they walked through the halls.

“Biggest fucking flight test facility I’ve ever seen, you’ll see.” Benson brought them into the main, expansive room and stopped for a moment as they all took the sight in.

“You’re right about that.” Valentine said in a low voice. “You could test fly a couple in here at the same time.”

“Looks that way, but there’s not much except spare parts and one very interesting ship.”

He took them to the maintenance bay and once again stopped to let them take the scene in. They were not as taken in as he had been at first, but for the time being Benson thought it might be better that way.

“Given the fact that we collectively probably have about as much understanding of spacecraft mechanics as you’ve got under your fingernails,” Valentine said. “What is it exactly that you want us to be doing?”

“Mostly listen for if something heavy falls on me.” Benson said. “I’m going to be getting into the guts of the beast pretty soon and don’t want my death to be something stupid like ‘he got pinned down by a part he wasn’t supposed to unbolt and no one came to help him’.”

“So we’re going to sit around?”

“Nah, follow me.” He led them out of the maintenance bay and some distance away to another room, connected to what looked like a very long hallway, which in its turn connected to a standard living sized network of rooms. The first they went into at the entrance of the hallway was a bay full of benches and racks, one ball lined with electronic charges with a blue stripe painted across it. The racks were full of weapons of all assortments, ranging from handguns to some of the more lethal looking heavy weaponry.

Now Valentine nodded his appreciation, picking up a carbine. “These all look brand new.”

“I certainly haven’t touched them.” Benson said. “Thought you could hang out in here while you lot get the hang of mooving and shooting again. All dummy charges, doesn’t look like there’s any full charge or hard ammunition.”

“Just as well.” Valentine shrugged. “I don’t what my death to be anything stupid like ‘got shot during training with a bunch of people who are supposed to know what they’re doing’. But if we’re in here zapping each other, how are we going to know if something heavy falls on you?”

Triss woofed happily, waggin her tail, and Benson gave her a smile and pat on the head. Then he reached to where something circular was hanging from a chord around his neck and pressed it. After a few seconds, alarms blared throughout the facility, making everyone wince. Benson released the pressure token and tucked it back inside his jumpsuit. “Not perfect, I’d still check in from time to time, but it’s better than nothing.”

Valentine looked down to the carbine in his hand and back to Benson. “This the real reason you brought us down here, sir?”

Sighing, Benson shook his head. “Look, you three, how much have you been around the Admiral?”

The three of the Sergeants exchanged some looks. “Enough to know he’s got his shit straight.” Neil said.

“His shit, your shit, my shit, and a whole bunch of other shit we haven’t smelled the stink of yet.” Benson said. “I said that I needed a few hands to come be around, for my own peace of mind and to help out when I needed it. He sent you three. Coulda been anyone, but here you are. I’m not gonna push the pieces together for you where Neerson is concerned, I’m too busy trying to do that for myself.” Benson’s gaze lingered over Rivers for a moment. “But at some point I’d take a good hard look around you. Where you’re standing, what’s around, and start asking yourself questions about it. Whatever you come up with might not be gospel, but it’ll get you closer than if you stand around waiting for other people to answer your questions for you. Oh, one other thing.” Benson reached into his jumpsuit pocket and drew out a bag, and tossed it to Rivers.

She looked inside. “Cards?”

“Admiral Neerson wants you playing at least ten hands before you turn in at night. Come on, gotta head back for now. Right now I do actually need your help with something.”

They returned and stood by as Benson mounted the ladder he had set near the front of the ship leading to the side of the ship. The hatch there looked like it had been opened before, but Neil noted how Benson reach out and took the latch, then took a steeling breath, and opened it.

With a remarkably undramatic thump, the hatch fell open, and Benson relaxed but seemed to notice the extra interest in their eyes. “For my next trick,” he said, wiggling the fingers on one of his hands. “I will vanish entirely. Observe.” And he hauled himself up into the hatch and into the ship.

Triss whined softly, bumping Valentine’s hand with agitation until Benson’s head popped up over the side. “Ta da.” He said in a deadpan voice. “Now go away.”

“Yes sir.” Valentine said, and the three sergeants departed.

Neil looked offside as they went back to the arms room. “Always been that interesting?”

“You gotta have a thick skin around Captain Benson.” Valentine nodded. “Yeah. We’ve shared some times, good and bad, but he’s… a friend. A pilot. Hard times we’ve shared or no, I’ve always got the feeling that he’s always kept everyone at a bit of an arms length.”

“Even you?”

Valentine thought back to when the Captain had come to see him after waking up, thought of the tears they had shared. It had all been there, but it was an outlier in the rest. “Yeah.” He said. “Even me.”

“I can deal.” Neil said, opening the door.

“Sure.” Valentine said, and tossed Rivers a carbine. “Pull it apart, put it back together.”

For a moment, Rivers just stood there holding the weapon. “You gonna make me do it blindfold next, Sergeant?”

“Why?”

“Cause that’s some Private shit.”

“Yeah?” Valentine’s face darkened. “Maybe you need some of that.”

With blinding speed and a series of click clacks, Rivers disassembled the weapon and put it back together. If Neil hadn’t been watching very closely he wouldn’t have been able to see that she had put the pieces in order ascending from smallest to largest. She tossed the weapon to Valentine, who mirrored her at once. Neil couldn’t help but notice that there had not been any such organization of the pieces.

Going to one of the work benches, Valentine found a cleaning rag. It was spotlessly clean and longer than it needed to be. He threw it at Rivers, who caught it and deftly tied it around her eyes, pulling it low to completely obscure her vision. Then she repeated her feat, the weapon coming apart and going back together almost as quickly as it had before.

She pulled it off, and without so much as a smirk, tossed the rag to Valentine. He held it for a moment, glaring, and then tied it around his eyes. He disassembled the weapon and reassembled it, albeit notably slower than he had before. But when the weapon was together again, he ripped the blindfold off and tossed the carbine to Rivers. She looked at Neil.

Neil, in his turn, picked up the firing pin and tossed it to Valentine, who caught it and swore vehemently before slamming it down, stalking off.

“What,” Rivers said. “Is his fucking problem?”

“It’s the Task Forces.” Neil sighed. “Everything’s a measuring contest to them.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Rivers said, popping the weapon open and reinserting the firing pin. “I was Task Force Hydra before it was disbanded and we always found other ways of competing rather than making it a ‘who is better than who’ race.”

Neil nodded. “Never was interested in the Forces myself. Tapped once, but turned it down.”

“Really, Sergeant?” Rivers was surprised. “That’s not usual, is it?”

“I was a corporal trying to figure out if I wanted the shield or the second chevron.”

“What would you have specialized in?”

“I wanted to go heavy weapons, like my brother, but that’s always been more of a navy thing. Ground artillery was never my style. Too stationary.”

“There’s always mortars.”

“That’s what I thought about before my team leader time. After that, it was over. Second crack at the NCO academy and I never looked back.” He glanced over at Rivers. “I got a problem, though.”

“What’s that, Sergeant?”

“Task Force Hydra was disbanded almost ten years ago.” His voice grew an edge, but he tried to keep it level as Rivers stiffened. “Got an explanation for that?”

She turned to look at him, and shook her head. Triss was suddenly at her side, eyes on Neil with her ears up. But her tail wasn’t wagging. Sighing, Neil nodded. “Might want to think of one before too much longer.”

--

The state of the battery was fine, Martin reflected as he walked the inventory with Ridgewater. “It’s that some of these technologies have been obsolete for longer than we’ve been in service.”

“It’s a matter I was going to bring up with you, sir.” Ridgewater said. “I was initially going to decommission them, but Hightower recommended we keep them on till you had heard her opinion on them.”

“Where is she?”

“Somewhere down here. In a nutshell she was saying how even though some of the weapons systems are outdated, some of the defenses meant to combat them have also been retired. A few of these wouldn’t be stopped by the newer, more efficient designs of shielding, especially electronic ones. The fields wouldn’t trigger the firing mechanics, or would simply let them pass through. She thought it could be useful to have on board.”

“Useful, yes, but also inefficient for the rest of the payload.” He grappled with the desire to heed Hightower’s recommendation, which was usually good, but also with the desire to have a useful heavy weapons battery that could fully combat anything they encountered. What she was talking about was circumstances that existed in a very small part of very unlikely circumstances. There were ways around the problems she was describing, even without the older weaponry.

Stopping at one of the systems in question, he made a show of examining it while he tried to think of what Neerson might say. With frustration, he thought about the leading questions Neerson would ask in an attempt to make Martin get to whatever point he was trying to make for himself. He thought about his brother, always trying to connect the dots. Then about Neerson again, explaining the line between the dots being more important… so on and so forth.

Then a thought distracted him, about why it seemed that Neerson acted at time that he knew Martin’s older brother better than he did. They had never spent any great amount of time together… to his knowledge.

Martin dismissed the thought and continued walking, Ridgewater silently joining him again. It was here that Martin turned his mind to Benson. What would he say in this situation after he was done making snide, witty comments about Martin being the king on chessboard, operating from a position of immense power, but stationary position. Martin entertained the thought as well that Hightower might have a larger view of the picture than he did.

“You’re quite sure she’s down here?”

“I… yes there she is.” Ridgewater’s voice trailed off as they came around a corner to see Hightower standing at a rigid position of attention. The man to whom she was speaking turned as her eyes shifted, and Neerson smiled. “Ah, Commander Ziggenbor.” He greeted Martin. “I was just speaking to your chief weapon’s officer, gaining insight to these older designs that we are carrying on the Deterrence. She’s done you proud with her insights.”

“I’ve never had a reason to doubt Lieutenant Hightower’s judgment on much, sir.” He said honestly. “Forgive me, I didn’t know you were coming aboard, or I would have greeted you personally.”

“I was unannounced, Commander, so I am operating on your time, and I’m sure you had other more important matters to attend to. But these systems,” Neerson turned to the older weapons. “What are your thoughts on them?”