Defiance, Chapter 2

The tears did flow as she stared at one of the displays inside the Raptor she rode in, on her way back to the ship. Shaking her head, she cursed herself for not saying more. Clearly he still loved her. And she loved him. What had gone wrong, so horribly wrong that it couldn't simply be patched up? Love was supposed to fix all that, with enough love, anything could be fixed, right?

Except that they could only stand each other in small doses. When they were apart, the desire was strong, the love was there, but when they were together for any length of time, sooner or later, sooner THAN later, one or the other would have to leave.

She hardly noticed that the Raptor had landed, and the co-pilot had opened the hatch and was waiting patiently for her to leave.

"It wasn't you, Jojo... it was me." she said to herself, wiping the tears off on the cuff of her jacket embarassedly as she climbed out. She exchanged some quick salutes and walked quickly to her quarters.

Gallieni entered the central computer bank, relieved the tech on duty. He waited until the ensign had left and shut the door behind him.

It was quiet except for the sounds of machines running, hard drives running, and cooling fans. He felt a chill, then noticed his hands were trembling.

"You can do this..." he told himself, as it seemed that almost every part of him wanted to stop, and simply do as he had done before. Almost every part of him, that was. Something in the back of his mind goaded him to go on. He unbuttoned his jacket, drew a chain with two keys hanging from it. Quickly, he strode over to a blue grey locker on which a warning was emblazoned, "RESTRICTED ACCESS". He hit several buttons on the keypad, inserted the key, then punched in the second part of the access code. A light turned green on the key pad, and he turned the handle, swung the door open.

A stack of discs, looking very much like CD's, each in an individual plastic case, each painted a bright blue, with the Colonial government symbol in gold. Each was clearly marked with the specific system each was intended for... and there were many.

He trembled. This would take a long time, and the longer it took, the likelihood of being caught increased. He quickly calculated that likelihood, it frightened him. At once he drew his hands back from that stack, grabbed the handle, and started to swing the door shut again...

Then he stopped, and breathing deeply, he reached in, took them out, set them down on the counter. Then he reached under his open jacket and took out another small stack of discs.

He sat down, looked about apprehensively, then punched in his access code, and went to work.

Crew Chief Olivos beamed with satisfaction as pallet after pallet of spares started offloading from the heavy lifter that had just arrived. Plexisteel panes, thruster nozzles, replacement tanks, barrels, nuts, bolts, plating already cut and shaped into various sizes, printed circuit boards in blue grey bags, DRADIS display screens, spare helmets and flight gear, even seat cushions. He ordered, barked, cursed and berated his crew until every pallet was where it was supposed to be, and then offloaded at once to respective lockers. He knew them all by heart, every place for every item, and every item in it's place.

The Chief was the only member of the crew that had served on only one ship, Defiance, and he had served aboard her for thirty five years. This was his home, his ship, his wife and his life. There would be no other.

"Careful with that you gods-damned slackers!" he bellowed as a forklift listed to one side only to be stopped just in time from tipping over by a couple of the hands.

"Fracking kids...! Hurry up, we've got a munitions lighter waiting to land!"

Valeria set the parcels down on her desk, before taking off her uniform and stepping into the shower. As she felt the warm water run through her hair, down her body, she thought about Jojo. "we had good times..." she thought aloud, as she lathered up then rinsed off the dust of the past day. There were some bad fights, hard words were said, tears... then making up again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It got to be too much, and one day, they both sat down, and agreed that they could really only stand each other in small doses, and that it was simply time to face that reality. The love was there, only not the slow, steady burning kind, but the kind that burned like a Tylium explosion. Hot, short, out of control... then nothing.

Nothing but steady nit-picking afterward.

The divorce was simple, straightforward, no contest, no property issues... irreconcilable differences.

So, every once in a while, when she arrived, she'd look him up, her "ex". They'd rent a room planetside, someplace functional, inexpensive, she usually paid, after dinner, she usually paid for that too... rank having it's privileges, and they'd spend the weekend making up for past fights.

Only this time... she forgot.

Valerie shut off the water, towelled off and put on something comfortable for bed. She walked over to her desk and reached for the bag containing her books, only the parcel from her ex-husband was on top. She picked it up, there was nothing written on the wrapper. From the weight and feel of it, it had to be a book. She almost opened it, but set it down instead, then took the books she had ordered, picked "Operation Raptor Talon", and lay down to get in some light reading.

The sound of footsteps against metal deck plating spurred Gallieni to move quickly. He had just put the last of the discs back into the locker, shut and locked it when the door opened and Lira stepped in. She stared intently at him, her smile gone.

"What are you doing?" she asked bluntly.

"Stretching my legs." he answered quickly, "I'm tired of sitting down." and he leaned against the bulkhead and stretched, to make his point.

"You look flushed" Lira said, approaching him. "I hope I didn't interrupt you".

Gallieni swallowed hard, stepped around her. "Not at all." he said with a halfhearted smile.

"There you are, still awake, I see." Gage said, greeting Gallieni as he entered the room. Lira turned to look at Gage, puzzled. "I thought that this was Tim.. I mean, the lieutenant's watch."

"Oh no, we switched watches, Timon here had some important issues with the syetem to iron out." said Gage. Lira switched her glance back to Gallieni at once.

"Like what?"

"Upgrades, compatibility checks, and so on." Gallieni answered.

"Show me what you were working on so I can pick up where you left off then." Lira asked.

"Already done". Gallieni said, smiling.

Lira did not answer, from her expression, she did not like that answer.

"And you were just leaving, weren't you, Timon?"

"As a matter of fact, yes... have to go to the head, feeling a little under pressure, if you know what I mean."

Gage chuckled and stepped aside. "catch you on the other side, bud!" he said as Gallieni left the room.

Lira waited until the door was shut before turning to Gage.

"What was that all about?" she asked him.

Gage shrugged. "He had to go".

"That's not what I mean?"

"Oh?" Gage asked as he stepped over to a console, typed in his access code, and started reading the status report.

Lira stepped close to Gage, glanced back toward the door and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "He's acting suspiciously. How long have you known him?"

"A few weeks now..." he answered absently, focused on something, then he looked up with a start. "What are you saying?"

"Oh... nothing. Nothing at all."

"Like...?" Gage turned his attention back to the screen.

"He's very secretive, like he's hiding something..." Lira went on, getting closer to Gage, closer. "He wouldn't let me help him with whatever he was doing."

Gage looked up, into her eyes, then downward. The low neckline of her uniform top got his attention.

"Uh, hmmm..." he cleared his throat. "He's just like that, that's all. He is due to retire after this cruise."

"Oh?"

"He's been with the fleet a long time. I'm to serve as his replacement." he said with a hint of pride.

Lira's interest perked up. "Really, then perhaps I should serve as your assistant instead." she said. She sat down in the next chair, fixing her gaze into his eyes. The skirt of her uniform had hiked up, getting Gage's attention. She noticed it and smiled.

"Okay... he started to say, then suddenly the phone buzzed, demanding his attention. "Systems" he said testily into the phone.

He took a deep breath as he listened.

"Have you tried signing out and re-logging?" he asked "of course you did..." he glanced back to see Lira still sitting in the chair, her legs crossed, rocking gently.

"Try running the self diagnostic..."

A pause.

"What's it say?"

a disgusted sigh "run it again and tell me what error message comes up."

another pause...

"error 420 in line 15502 null set?" he looked puzzled. "that's not right, I'll be over."

With that he hung up the phone and walked back over to his console. "Now let's find the bug, probably nothing at all..."

"You know... I do have a master's in computer science, don't let the blonde fool you... I can search for the problem here while you find out what the glitch is at the other terminal?"

Gage looked embarassed. "Of course you can." he said. He thought a moment. "Allright. I can't give you my access code, but..." he stepped over to the terminal where Lira sat, punched in a general access code, and as Lira moved closer, he showed her what path to take to access the troublesome program.

"I'll be back. Just don't try to change anything, okay? Show me what you've found when I get back."

"Yes, sir..." she answered with a smile.

"Yes, sir..." she repeated, her smile gone, after the hatch slammed shut. And shooting a glance at the shut hatch, she reached under her tunic. The flash drive was small, easy to hide. She plugged it into the console, and quickly went to work.

Valeria found herself in the CIC... out of uniform.

There was blood everywhere, several of the bridge crew were dead or badly injured. The ship shook from another impact, and a data screen broke free of it's mountings and fell to the floor, shattering on impact.

Valeria turned to see another woman standing nearby, she was laughing, a deep, harsh laugh. "It is God's will! God's will!"

Then she turned again and saw lieutenant Gallieni, the computer tech, holding a neatly folded stack of clothing.

"Sir, your uniform is ready." he said calmly, oblivious to the carnage.

Jojo stood further off. He looked pale, gaunt, a walking corpse. He was silent, staring coldly down his nose at her, he raised a hand pointing a finger directly at her.

Suddenly, the entire wall crumbled and broke off in great chunks, flying out into vacuum, and Jojo with it all.

And with that she suddenly felt herself flying out of the CIC, sucked out into the void...