Waypoint Magellan Read online

  “As a matter of fact, they have given me a task for you.”

  Amberly sighed audibly. Why was Dek making this so hard?

  “Okay, okay, who are they? What would you want me to do?”

  Just then, from behind the restroom curtain, stepped out a man who Amberly immediately recognized as the one who had been tailing her for days. He was holding some sort of weapon, which was trained on Amerbly’s chest.

  Amberly was not a weapons expert. In fact, she knew very little casual information about firearms. But she knew that the gun trained on her shot actual bullets. Most guns on waypoints were some sort of advanced electronic weapons – stun guns and burn rays. Those could bring harm to a flesh-and-blood human, but stray shots were unlikely to damage the waypoint. On the other hand, a stray bullet that hit a window or other weaker part of the waypoint exterior hull, could theoretically create a breach, which could be lethal to both the shooter and his target.

  Amberly was shocked, and only her momentary confusion kept her fight or flight instincts from kicking in. She looked to Dek, expecting him to physically engage this restroom spy, but Dek looked calm and even a bit amused.

  “Joti, put the gun down,” Dek said.

  “Wait, you’re with this guy?” Amberly frowned. Thoughts quickly ran through her head about the life-ending instrument pointed at her, and the obvious threat of imminent death, and she was surprised to find herself more annoyed at Dek than concerned for her life.

  “I am ‘they’,” the man said. “I am the Chasm operation director here on Magellan, and I need you to know how serious our need for secrecy is, hence the weapon.”

  “I said, put the gun down,” Dek repeated, with a little emotion rising in the voice.

  Joti looked at Dek, and smiled. “Please Dek, I am the one who gives orders arou– Oh, you actually like her don’t you? And here I thought it was just an act for your mission.” Joti turned and addressed Amberly, hiding the weapon away back in the folds of his coat.

  “I actually do trust you,” Joti said. “How can I not? You have your father’s hair for sure, but the rest of you is all your mother. I knew her well — we came together on the same deep space ship to Magellan, those decades ago. I was the only person on the station who knew who she truly was —”

  “You! You somehow got her shell and gave it to Dek. Who was she? What was her secret?” Amberly nearly shouted. “Why have you been following me? Tell me what you know.”

  “Impatient, just like Dek,” Joti smirked. “If I told you now, how do I know you would still complete an important mission for us?”

  “Joti, it doesn’t have to be like this. Amberly will help us. She has no love for Earth. She’ll do it. Now cut the games, and let’s get started.”

  “I’m sorry Amberly, you will learn everything in time. For now, we need you to recover something for us that we need. Your friend, the Marine… what’s his name?”

  “North,” Dek interjected, and Amberly detected just a bit of jealousy at the sound of the name.

  “Yes, North,” Joti continued. “What a silly name, to be named after a cardinal and live on a waypoint. Back on Arara, north means something. It’s cold in the north, where strong women and men go to test their mettle. Back on Earth, centuries ago, people used to cross vast oceans — you do know what an ocean is don’t you Amberly?”

  Amberly nodded her head, growing more annoyed and frustrated with Joti.

  “Right… well true explorers, like Ferdinand Magellan, no doubt, used the North Star to guide their way. But I don’t suppose this North of yours is any special guide to you?”

  “North doesn’t mean anything to me, if that is what you are getting at,” Amberly lied to herself more than to Joti. “I mean, were friends and all, but nothing more.”

  “Well, I’ve noticed that he is keen on engaging your affections,” Joti countered. “We need you to take advantage of that little fact to get something of his, something relatively worthless, and then I swear on Arara herself, I will tell you everything I know about your beloved mother.” He spoke of Kimberly not sarcastically, and Amberly realized that he was almost reverent toward Mrs. Macready.

  “What do you need me to get? And why do you need it?”

  Dek jumped in. “His corvette access pass, the one he won in a game of poker.”

  “But he’s already used it. The codes are authenticated and only work one time. It’s worthless, what do you want it for?” Amberly pressed.

  “Does it matter?” Joti asked.

  “Obviously, it does. I mean why would you go through all this trouble, all this cloak and dagger, to get a worthless code chip? It has to have some use,” Amberly said.

  “You are quite insightful, just like your mother. But don’t trouble yourself with that detail,” Joti said. “Bring us the chip by this afternoon, and before you go to sleep tonight I promise you will know things about your mother that will be joyous to your young heart.”

  “I am not really planning to see North anytime soon. Are we in a hurry?”

  “You ask too many questions, young Miss Macready. The American Sprit will not be here forever, so we are on a timeline. Do you have a problem with that?” Joti was getting annoyed and started fingering the weapon concealed under his coat absentmindedly.

  Dek jumped in again, standing up and squaring off shoulder to shoulder. “Quit patronizing Amberly. Do you think you can win her over with the stick or the carrot? She’s not just beautiful, she’s brilliant. To anyone with half a brain, what we are fighting for is obviously right and the best path for humanity. She’ll see that if you’ll just quit trying to manipulate her.”

  Joti grew red. “Dek, you impotent little snot. Why I ought to —”

  “Don’t threaten me, Joti,” Dek said, suddenly filling the room with a powerful, charismatic presence Amberly hadn’t seen before, as if he had been holding back. “I know we have rank and file in Chasm, but that is a necessary evil to get the job done. And right now, it’s you and your heavy-handed ways that is threatening our mission. You go ahead and report my impudence to the Chairman. I’ll report your incompetence.”

  Amberly was somewhat surprised that the two Chasm operatives were so openly combative in front of her. She believed Dek did trust her and had faith that because of her intellect, she would reason things the way he did. Dek is probably right, Amberly thought, once I have a chance to process all this, I probably will side with him.

  Everything he did up to this point seemed planned, rational, methodical. Dek’s new stand up performance also attracted Amberly. Something primal about Dek challenging the alpha male made her heart beat a little faster.

  “Three years from now, when you are back on Arara, do you want to be standing in glory for a mission accomplished? Or do you want me to massage your ego now, and you can go home a failure,” Dek said with a calm power in his voice.

  “You are just saying these things because you think you love her, don’t you?” Joti said, slightly diminished and sounding defensive. “You think you are the only person here who … I loved K–”

  Dek reached up quickly and put his hand over his mouth, encouraging Joti to be silent. Amberly expected Joti would respond with some sort of violent or emotional display to being physically silenced, but instead the older man just relaxed, gave Dek a knowing look, and a wry smile curled on Joti’s lips as Dek slowly removed his hand.

  “She’ll get it done,” Dek said slowly and deliberately to Joti, then turned to Amberly. “Right?”

  Amberly, tiring of the conversation and being in tight quarters with a cryptic guy welding a lethal weapon, followed Dek’s cue. “I’ll get it done. Back here by 16:00.”

  “Excellent! Amberly the things I will show you, it’s going to disintegrate your paradigms of everything,” Joti promised, his smile almost expanding into a happy laugh.

  Amberly smiled tightly in return and said nothing else as she exited the stuffed apartment with Dek in tow. She remained silent as they passed out of t
he hotel and by the commons. Amberly was headed straight for the tube, walking at an impressive pace. Dek had trouble keeping up without breaking into a mild sprint.

  There was a line at the tube. Amberly grunted something barely audible in disappointment. She tugged on Dek’s shirt and pulled him toward a hallway that ran in a concentric circle next to the tube.

  This hallway connected to a private storage area where a little extra space could be purchased for a significant price. Dek and Amberly passed by several banks of these storage units toward the back of the facility. Amberly saw a few people accessing units toward the front door, but the back area was presently deserted.

  The pair was alone in a back corridor. Amberly pushed Dek up against a storage unit door. She reached up and kissed Dek. He was a little surprised, but he quickly transformed from a passive receiver into a full participant. He started to drape his arms around Amberly’s back, but she broke the kiss and took a step back.

  “What was that about?” Dek said.

  “Research,” Amberly said, already turning from Dek and walking back toward the tube.

  “And?” Dek asked, already two paces behind her and trying to catch up.

  “Inconclusive,” she called over her shoulder.

  “That’s it? Nothing else to sa—”

  “So many questions, old one,” Amberly said. “You must be patient. Besides, I’ve got a mission to do.”

  She turned her back to Dek and walked away. The secrets of her late mother, which Amberly had sought desperately but had escaped her, were at hand. She felt alive and excited.

  Dek stood bewildered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sitting at her lab station, Amberly’s excitement from hours earlier had decomposed into confusion. Deep in thought, she absentmindedly clicked through stellar reports from the American Spirit. Normally, Amberly would be judgmental of colleagues who went through the motions without engaging with their work. What if they missed a key detail? Some bit of information that would foretell a coming radiation storm or the discovery of extraterrestrial life? But the redhead was so gripped by recent events that even her own work ethic could not keep her from getting lost in thought.

  She was hoping that somehow a spontaneous kiss with Dek would create some sort of chemical-biological imperative, that she would know she could trust that Dek did care for her and had her best interest in mind, and that whatever this Chasm business was about was in everyone’s best interest.

  Amberly knew the hope was irrational, and she was starting to regret she had given that irrational kiss. She was a woman of science, and her worldview was based on the tangible and knowable and rational.

  Kora would not approve of kissing Dek, Amberly thought. In many ways, though Kora had taken care of Amberly after their parents disappeared, Amberly was, she thought, the more mature of the two. Amberly valued Kora’s love as a sister, but didn't really value her approval or her wisdom.

  What she desperately wanted, but could never have, was her mother’s approval. It was another irrational desire; one she didn’t realize was so important to her until this opportunity to understand her mother in a new way appeared. If only I knew more about this Operation Chasm, and what mom was doing, Amberly thought. Am I going to steal from North? Steal?

  The clandestine nature of Operation Chasm didn’t bother Amberly. She was old enough to realize that sometimes you need to keep secrets from others to protect the people you love. The gun waving was a new experience for her, and she didn’t like it. She had seen plenty of gunplay in the various movies and other vids, and the real thing didn’t seem much different than she would have imagined. Dek’s step-up move in the shadow of Joti’s gun was still strangely attractive.

  “AMBERLY!”

  Amberly was so lost in her own thought, Lydia had to shout at Amberly to get her attention.

  “I’m sorry,” Amberly smiled sheepishly at the tall blonde. “Did you need something? I was just focused on finishing these stellar —”

  “Sure. You’ve gone from zero to too many men in your life, and now you can’t think straight. It’s unlike you.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  “Oh don’t be sorry,” Lydia smiled. “I’m just jealous. I wish I had guys chasing me that I could daydream about.”

  “Whatever. Need something?”

  “Skip is here to see you,” Lydia said. “I was pretty sure that you didn’t like him, but you seem to be taking in all kinds of new territory these days.”

  “Skip? Give me a break,” Amberly said. “I don’t want to see him. Did he say what he wanted?”

  “Well I figured you didn’t want to see him, so I told him that you were busy adjusting some very sensitive radiation receptors and couldn’t be bothered,” Lydia seemed to be taking a perverse joy in deceiving on Amberly’s behalf. “But he was insistent. He’s waiting in the observation lobby.”

  “Why didn’t he just send a message?”

  Amberly’s info pad beeped to life.

  “He did send eight messages,” Verne said. “You just weren’t paying any attention to me.” If Amberly didn’t know better, she would have thought her infopad had a hint of exasperation in its synthesized voice.

  Lydia shrugged, Amberly sighed, and Verne spoke, “Do you want me to read them to you now?”

  “No, I’ll just go see Skip myself,” Amberly said, clearly annoyed to have to deal with the imp.

  “Hey, Amberly, what is the big deal?” Lydia put her hand on Amberly’s shoulder. “Don’t you think you are being a bit snobbish? Skip is annoying, but he is a person. Where is this animosity coming from?”

  “You’re right,” Amberly said. “I’m just tired of boys right now, and Skip has the great misfortune of being the wrong gender.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” Lydia joked. “Skip would make a horrible girl.”

  Amberly walked down into the reception area of the Science Corps laboratories, and found Skip pacing, impatiently. Lydia was in tow.

  “Amberly! Didn’t you get my messages?” Skip said. “This is important.”

  “What’s so important?” Amberly said ungraciously.

  “Hi Lydia,” Skip acknowledged the woman who towered over them both.

  “Hi Skip. How’s life down in Communications?”

  “Fine. Fine. Listen, Amberly, I think this Dek guy is trouble and …”

  “That’s the hot tip that had you interrupt my —”

  “Just listen. I was monitoring inter-waypoint traffic, and, well, the message sent to Dek didn’t sit right—”

  Lydia interrupted Skip. “You were spying on Dek?”

  “Yes. Yes. So anyways I was decoding the message and —”

  “Wait,” now Amberly was interrupting Skip. “You were spying on Dek? Why? Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Wait. What? No. Well, maybe a little. That’s not the point. The point is—”

  “Why were you spying on Dek?” Amberly projected a demanding tone.

  “Um… well… hell, you are probably going to find out anyway. North asked me to keep an eye on his transmissions.”

  Amberly burned. “When I find North, I am going to rip him a —”

  Now Lydia was interrupting Amberly. “Wait. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Maybe North didn’t have Skip spying on Dek because he was jealous that you liked Dek’s brain better than his brawn… But now that I think about it, probably he did.”

  Lydia turned to Skip. “Why did North have you spying on Dek?”

  “Would you two stop it?! I think this could be … you know… maybe a matter of life and death.” Skip had grown flush.

  “Come on Skip, don’t be so dramatic,” Lydia started to chastise the scrawny man. But Amberly held up her hand to silence Lydia. She didn't know what Dek was up to, but she did know that Dek’s associate, Joti, threatened to use lethal force, even if it was just masculine bravado posturing. The thought that Operation Chasm might be more of an existential threat to her and Magellan entered he
r mind for the first time.

  “What did the message say?”

  “Well, if you would quit interrupting me,” Skip said indignantly. He pulled out his infopad. “I actually couldn’t read the message, which is what I thought was weird. It was encrypted with a manual key that probably only Dek has.”

  “So what?” Lydia said. “Maybe it’s an intimate message from a secret lover?”

  Amberly grew flush at that thought. Partially because she had a natural jealous reaction, partially because she was embarrassed that she had a jealous reaction.

  “I doubt it. This was top-secret type encoding that we only get from Earth brass,” Skip said. “Why would a run-of-the-mill glorified star librarian like Dek be using military grade encodings?”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Lydia said, thinking Amberly must be explosively furious with both Skip and North over this snooping.

  Amberly looked out the Magellan window at the Stars and Stripes painted on the exterior of the docked American Spirit. She spoke plainly, “We have to find out what is in that message.”

  “We do?” Lydia said, surprised. Amberly realized that her sudden interest probably seemed to be driven by some hormonally-influenced reasoning. It would seem that way to her as well, had she not had the strange interaction with Dek and Joti earlier.

  “Trust me, we do,” Amberly said. “I think Skip might be right. This might be serious. How can we break this encryption?”

  Skip was ready to answer this question. “It depends on how fast you want it. My computers down in Communications are decades old and it would take years to break this security level. You guys have much better stuff here in the Science Corps. You could probably hack it in a week or so. Maybe a few months.”

  “We might not have a few months,” said Amberly quietly.

  “What? Why?” Skip asked.