Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga
Varadah System
I guess I’m in trouble again.
Connolly felt as if he’d been called into the commandant’s office at the Academy. Kormagan sat high on a platform surrounded by the nearer parts of the Pergamum nebula, or at least that was how the background appeared in Connolly’s interface. He had heard from Baladon of the existence of such a staging area aboard the lead carrier, but he had never been inside. He had no idea what he’d done wrong, but life had lost its ability to surprise him.
“Enter, Bluesub.” Kormagan turned her chair. “Would you like to hear a little of what you’ve done?”
Not really, Connolly thought. But he stared upward and saw a familiar sight.
“The Dandy, a ship of escapees from a penal facility called Thionoga,” Kormagan said. The images shifted to display moments from the Boundless boarding party’s assault. “Desperate characters. They’d booby-trapped an entire wing to explode when our people entered—but you not only disabled the mechanism, you convinced them further resistance was pointless.”
I was scared out of my wits, he did not say.
The picture changed again. “Then there was the ground exfiltration of those short blue things that had set up a colony inside the nebular boundary. They went underground and would have suffocated when their scurry hole collapsed—but you were able to get the troop module’s sensors to figure out where they were in time to reach them all.”
“It’s the actual thing I was trained for,” he said, choking on all the irony that entailed.
The image changed again. “Then another group of prisoners—you people outside the nebula are big on prisons. They were being transferred by someone called the Enolians. Their guards decided your ship had been hired to set the convicts free—and released poison gas into the detention area.” An image flashed past of an armored Connolly carrying convicts, one over each armored shoulder. “You located and destroyed the gas jets, hauled out half the unconscious on your own, and administered aid aboard the troop module before the exfils even got to Processing.”
“These things are problems?”
Kormagan laughed, and the stars and clouds returned. “Since you started doing exfiltrations, Krall-Three Blue Squad has seen a zero casualty rate for exfils. And the other squads’ rates have gone down to zero, too, due to your example.”
“We’re all competitive. I just suggested something else to compete over.” He began to think this was what he was being called on the carpet for. “Baladon says unless we break a skull now and again he’ll get a bad name, but I just can’t do that.”
“Well, he’s not getting a bad name. In fact, he’s getting a commission. I’m naming him captain of Carrier Urdoh.”
“Captain?”
“Recruit to captain in less than a year. I wouldn’t have believed it either. It turns out that all Baladon needed to be an ‘exemplary pirate,’ as he put it, was a crew that knew what it was doing.”
Connolly nodded. The Boundless as an organization might be many things, mostly bad—but Connolly had to admit that it was an unparalleled engine for recognizing and rewarding merit. Even better than Starfleet, where he had nearly died of boredom in Academy classes he hadn’t really needed, and on officer details that didn’t put his talents fully to use. He knew the reason, of course: the frenetic churn rate of personnel. War was the great organizational accelerator, and constant war was the defining feature of Boundless life.
He wondered if the conflict with the Klingons had changed anything at home.
“There wouldn’t have been an opening on Urdoh,” Kormagan said, “but Gallous is getting past his prime, and they’re trying to launch the Six-Ohs.”
That puzzled Connolly. “I’d heard that new waves never had anything to trade. What would you get for a captain?”
“Mmm. That’s your doing too. You remember the talk we had on your return to Varadah III?”
I remember I was terrified to be back there. “Refresh my memory.”
“That we could commoditize prospective recruits, making them into assets for trading.”
“Draft picks. What are you getting for Captain Gallous?”
“The second, third, and fourth ability-test scorers from their first five exfiltrations. Fifteen soldiers for an old campaigner!”
Connolly remembered what he had been babbling nervously about that day. “Remind me to speak to you about free agency some time.”
“You’ve turned yourself around, Bluesub—or Connolly, if you prefer.” She’d never called him by his name before. “I don’t think it’s just because you hate the smell of burning Rengru.”
It wasn’t. He had not fully accepted that Enterprise had been destroyed, of course; unlike the Boundless, he knew what saucer separation was. His fellow Starfleet officers apparently hadn’t let the cat out of the bag about that capability either, given how Kormagan and Baladon were acting. But he had seen the Rengru tearing at both halves of the starship, and the creatures still controlled Little Hope. If either part of Enterprise yet existed, the chances for anyone aboard either section were poor.
It baffled Connolly that so many starships wandered into the Pergamum, given the reputation of the place—but the phenomenon was familiar. People still wandered into the Delphic Expanse even though they knew better. He had concluded the Boundless were the lesser of the evils awaiting such travelers—and that humane treatment could go a long way toward keeping the army’s victims from harm, at least in the beginning. As the only human on Krall-Three, he’d appointed himself director of the concept.
It was, of course, a dodge, an attempt to live with his conscience amid an intolerable situation. “Gently enslaving” was no different from enslaving; those he captured were still sent off to face possible death. But they had a better chance than if the Rengru had found them.
His efforts had made him a subaltern two months earlier—and now, he learned, something else.
“Baladon is going to Urdoh,” Kormagan said, “and so are you. I’m appointing you opmaster of troop module Urdoh-Two, strictly in charge of recruiting. No more stops back here to fight the Rengies—barring the unexpected, of course.”
Connolly was glad she couldn’t see his face within his headgear. “You’re giving me a ship?”
“I’m not worried about your past. Opmasters can’t run off with the troop modules—they’re just barely warp capable, and as you know, the modules have their own flight crews. But you’ll run a platoon of twenty-five—and get me some of those ‘future draft picks’ I need. I’m bartering for the resources to get the new Aloga-One into service faster.”
Connolly stared at the projections of stars, bewildered. He’d been in the Boundless the better part of a year, and in that time had made more progress through the ranks than he had in his whole Starfleet career. It was just in a service he’d never intended to join—and doing something that offended him. “Can I say no?”
“Of course,” she said. “You’ve faced the Rengru—you’ve earned that right. But I would be disappointed if—”
“I have two conditions.”
Kormagan laughed. “What is it with you Starfleet people and bargains? Spock didn’t keep to his. Why should I accept yours?”
“Hear me out,” Connolly said. “One, my ship won’t attack any Federation vessels. Period.”
“I thought you were going to say ‘Starfleet’ vessels. Is there a difference?”
“It’s hard to explain. Kind of military versus civilian.”
It was clear Kormagan didn’t understand that difference either, which was no wonder. But she considered the offer. “You wouldn’t have been sent after any Starfleet vessels. I trust you, but not that much.” She leaned over in her chair. “You do realize I would simply send other units against such ships?”
“Yes, I expect that.” They’ll just do it anyway, Connolly thought.
“Agreed, then. Your other?”
“I want to know exactly what the hell this whole war has been about. I think Baladon knows more than he did, but he’s not saying anything.”
“Ah! As opmaster, you’re entitled to that.” Kormagan waved her hand—and Connolly’s jetpack activated, lifting him up to her platform. She rose and walked to the railing. “Listen well, brother-in-arms, for it is a story handed down by the generations. Why we fight . . .”