sprung to life and grabbed a huge canister of junk. "And don't think I wasn't watching you, you soulless hunk of tin."
Metal. Plastic. Chairs. Part of a table. Ceiling tiles. Carpet. And lots of burned, melted pieces of unrecognizable junk. He didn't know what exactly he hoped to find. Murdering Telli would be difficult enough. Hiding the evidence would be virtually impossible. Still, doing it in the equivalent of broad daylight with a ton of witnesses, who would possibly suspect anything? He took out his scanner. A real one not the homemade device Telli had used. There was a torn conduit. It had ruptured and showered down hot plasma onto the ceiling tiles then onto where Telli was sitting. She always sat in the same place so targeting would not have been a problem. But how to get the conduit to rupture on schedule? And how would you place a device? The ceiling tiles weren't easy to get to, were difficult to move, were plainly in sight, and were monitored. It just didn't seem likely. The scanner showed nothing out of the ordinary around the conduits. No residue of explosives or any kind of material that shouldn't have been there. At least as far as he could tell. Security would detect something he'd think though the plasma would destroy almost everything. An assassin, if there was one, would know that. There was nothing here.
He'd convinced Telli to start randomizing some of her more well known patterns of behavior. She was renowned for her reliability. Rhythm was her friend. She had at least started to change patterns. Different times at the gym, the mess hall, at worship. Different routes. She'd been reluctant, at first, but seen the sense of it finally. She would never feel safer though than in the Squad Ops Briefing Room. How could she be vulnerable there?
DreadNoughts had one unique feature. The whole Bridge complex could move through the length of the core via a long tunnel. More than hundred-thousand feet along the length of the ship. Should some part of the ship become damaged, the Bridge could move away from the affected area. The system was complex. With the shields, heavy armor, along with not knowing exactly where the Bridge was, destroying Command was difficult if not impossible. An enemy would have to take out the entire ship.
The plasma conduit was one of many delivering power to the giant engines which could move the Bridge. How could anybody have planted a device to rupture it precisely at the right time? He looked at what might have been the chair she had been sitting in. It was barely recognizable. The plasma would have almost instantly cut off with a pressure drop but nothing could stop the instantaneous damage. He picked through the charred remains. She would have died instantly. Had she screamed though?
The next day, Diego called a First Shift meeting. As usual, all the Squad Leaders were there except for those on patrol who were connected by comm.
"Good morning, Squad Leaders," he began. He was nervous. That was bad. He was also trying to hide it. That was worse. "I think I can say that we all share the same sentiment. We're going to miss Telli. She was an excellent Chief. But we have to move on. We've hit a streak of bad luck, but we're not going to let it stop us. I'm going to continue on with her fine leadership. There are going to be some changes though. Everybody has their own style and I think there can be some improvements, some changes that will improve things as it were."
He paused as if expecting the pilots to speak up. But none did.
"Alright then," Diego seemed disappointed, though for what reason Mak couldn't discern. "Let's get down to business about how things are going to run from here on."
Silver Shark interrupted. "What do we know about what happened here?"
"Here?" Diego asked, looking up suddenly as Silver Shark nodded. "It was an accident. These things happen. Ship maintenance believes one of the conduits just burst."
Mak was glad Silver Shark was asking. "Just burst? How the hell did that happen? The X just went through maintenance."
"I'm sure the crews are investigating and will make sure it doesn't happen again." But he glanced up once more. His chair was right where Telli's chair used to be. The one with the best view of the Squad Ops Room.The place where she had died. There was no sign anything had happened other than the newness of the interior and an odor of something slightly burned.
"Sounds sloppy to me. We could've all been sitting here."
"Just goes to show there wasn't anything nefarious about it. They didn't take out the entire squad leadership structure, did they? It was just an accident."
Silver Shark grunted.
Mak wondered who "they" were.
The rest of the meeting meandered on from topic to topic without resolution or clear direction. Mak fought hard to stay awake. And to cut Diego some slack. He told himself he was trying to be sympathetic to the new Chief's plight. Diego had been thrust into this role without any warning or preparation and if anyone knew what that felt like, it was Mak. But what would have taken Telli five minutes to say, took Diego fifteen. What should have been an easy exchange of information, became a tug of war between different viewpoints. It would've been different with her. But she wasn't here anymore. He bit his lip against the resentment burning inside of him.
The other squad leaders all seemed much older than him. Wiser. Experienced. These men and women had been Leaders far longer than he had. He hardly ever spoke in these meetings. Telli used to elicit comments from everybody even him. Now it seemed like he had nothing to offer. Except for him, they were all Academy grads. All were either D'ha'ren or Human. There were Hellborne squad leaders on other DN's but none in this entire Battle Group. The Unity was made up of many species, but none were represented in great numbers on board. Matter of life support more than anything else. The X had one Hammer and one Raptor manned by other Unity species. He didn't know about the other DreadNoughts. His eyes started to close.
Little Mak's mom was so sick and he was scared more than he'd ever been. Usually, he could shake her enough to get her up from even the deepest sleep. Those kinds of sleep came from the junk she shot into her arms and legs and whatever else was handy. He usually didn't need to wake her up. He was big enough to take care of himself. There was usually some sort of stuff to eat lying around the tiny room. His mom's bed took up one side. He slept in the closet which was big enough for him right now. And he didn't care it didn't have a door.
This time, her sleep was different. She was hot and just moaned softly on the thin mattress on the floor. He knew now that it wasn't because of all the junk inside of her. He'd heard other grownups whispering about how bad it was this year. The Flu. It was worst than it'd ever been. People needed medicine. And there wasn't any to be had for the worms. That's what they called the people living in the lower levels. The lower levels of LA. Worms. His mom told him not to worry about those kinds of people. She told him he was a good kid. Don't listen to the people from up there. He was a good kid. Her kid.
Some people said he was like a little clone of her. He didn't know what that meant except they thought he and his mom looked like each other. He didn't think so. She was thin, her face pinched and pale. His face was Chinese like hers. She used heavy makeup when she went out to get money. She was bony too. She had big eyes though, bigger than his. They always seemed sad to him. Too sad. Her hair was black and long and she tried to keep it washed and clean using the small sink next to the toilet which was next to her bed. Men liked her long black hair she'd say, laughing. Most of the time, she would park him some place so he could watch some TV when she went out. Sometimes she brought men home when he was there. He'd have to be real quiet in his closet so they wouldn't know he was there and "freak out" as she'd say. She slept an awful lot. Usually, it wasn't hard to wake her up.
But now she was so sick. His tears made it hard to see. What should he do? He'd already put a wet cloth on her head. It didn't seem to cool her off. And then she shivered real bad. He'd cover her up. Then she'd throw the covers off. There wasn't much else in the apartment. He'd thrown most of the trash out. It didn't smell too badly. He wished there was a window. Somebody told him that up on the Upper Levels, everybody had at least one window where they lived. There wer
e windows down here, but they only looked out on walls. This apartment didn't even have that.
He pulled on his shoes, using pieces of sticky tape to keep them on his feet. He tried not to wear his clothes too much in the apartment, hoping to keep them in good shape. This was important though. His mom didn't like him going out alone even though she sent him out all the time for her special junk.
"Five is too young, Mak," she'd say, stuffing money into a secret hiding spot in his torn up jacket. The lowers were always cold. Everybody bundled up down here. Nobody would think a kid would have any money; so he was never bothered.
He dipped into her secret stash of money. He didn't know how much he'd need so he took most. It didn't look like much. It'd have to do. He gave her a quick peck on her cheek and told her that he wouldn't be long and that things would be okay.
He cracked open the door and peered out carefully just like his mom did before sending him on his way. He was never sure what she was looking out for. There was always somebody sleeping in the hallway. Once, he thought one of the bodies was dead. It smelled bad and stayed in one position for a long time before somebody dragged it up into the street. It could've