"Mizzu, tu," she returned. "Ghin t"Fyfer sa numcha, eyah?"
"Eyah," he agreed, giving her a pointed look, before affecting a look of remembrance. "Take care, Ia-oh, I don"t know if you heard, but the Power Pick numbers just leaped to the astronomical level. The multipliers are pushing the winnings into the trillions of credits. I think I"ll try buying a ticket myself, even if gambling"s not normally my thing. It"s always been more Fyfer"s thing."
"Well, you know me," Ia quipped dryly. "I don"t like to gamble. Not to mention, the odds are too high for my taste, especially with the Power Pick tickets limited to one per sentient, once it shot past the ten billion mark."
He grinned, enjoying the secret joke embedded beneath her words. "Still, you have to admit, that"s a lot of cold, hard creds. It"s very tempting, even for us straight-laced types. Good luck, and keep your head down, Sis."
"Always," she promised. "Love you. Tell Mom and Ma I"ll call them in nineteen hours Terran Standard."
She watched him reach for the controls and shut off his image, leaving her with a blank blue holding screen. Sighing, she gathered her thoughts and tapped in her account number, preparing to pay for the next call. So much for the free call. Now I need to put one through to the Grandmaster. That"ll cost a pretty tenth chit...as will wishing my mothers happy anniversary.
Her arm unit beeped, startling her. Flicking open the lid, she saw she had a vidletter waiting for her. Downloading it to the commscreen, she opened it with a tap of her finger. Meyun Harper filled the screen. The one Human she still had trouble predicting.
"Umm...h.e.l.lo, Ia," the prerecorded image stated. "I miss you, and I was thinking about you...and they want me to call someone every week, something about improving morale. I"ve already contacted my parents, that was last week. This week, I thought of you. Oh, the Navy wound up stuffing me into Blockade duty midtour. Seventeen percent, I believe it was. Anyway, that"s why it"s mandatory to call someone."
Ia quickly paused the letter. Pressing into the timestreams, she searched for signs of his presence. It took her several minutes of effort, but she located shadows of him about a third of the way around the edge of the ragged bubble outlining the Salik Interdicted Zone. Relief staged a bittersweet, ambivalent war with regret inside of her.
Don"t even pretend the two of you can do otherwise, she admonished herself. You know you"re better off staying far away from this man...
Tapping the screen, she restarted it. Better off or not, she would listen to what he had to say, because she still wanted to hear it. She just couldn"t do anything about it without risking the timestreams.
"It"s gotten a bit chaotic here from time to time, but I"m already getting recognition for my talents-look, see?" he offered, picking up an awards box, tilting it so the silver and bra.s.s flower inside flashed and glittered. "Not two weeks in, and they"ve already given me the Compa.s.s Rose for extraordinary acts of engineering. I"d tell you what it was for, but...well, you know, it"s the Blockade. Everything"s been cla.s.sified down to the last millimeter out here. Or it seems like it.
"Anyway...I just thought I"d drop you a vid, let you know I"m alright. I, um...can"t stop thinking about you," he added carefully, staring into the pickups as if he could see her eyes. "It"s not getting in the way of my work or anything, but...Yeah. Take care of yourself, alright? Remember to duck when going through airlocks, and stuff. Meyun Harper out."
Duck when going through airlocks? Ia repeated to herself. His image gave her a hesitant smile, then the recording ended. She probed the timestreams. Ahhh...right. Duck when going through smuggler ship airlocks, got it. Not bad, Harper, not bad, she silently praised. You"re already getting the hang of this covert message stuff. Luckily for you, I already knew about the potshot in question. I promise you, I"ll duck in plenty of time.
She did not, however, compose an actual response. Ia didn"t have to be a precog to know that it would tempt her into communicating with him on a greater basis. That ran the risk of letting feelings-hers or his, it didn"t really matter-sway her from her task.
Bennie"s going to give me h.e.l.l for this, she realized, wincing. The moment she finds out he called me, and learns I didn"t respond...Compared to everything else, it was a relatively small price to pay. Of course, that didn"t mean it would be comfortable to endure, not when Chaplain Benjamin enjoyed teasing her so much.
FEBRUARY 10, 2494 T.S.
ATTENBOROUGH EPSILON 14 SYSTEM.
It was difficult to focus on her meal. It was a good meal, too, roasted chicken, garlic potatoes, fresh V"Dan vegetables acquired from the Mad Jack"s multiple hydroponics bays, and greens from their own smaller pair of lifesupport gardens. The problem was that others had the Winter Olympics playing on both of the big primary screens lining either side of the room. Between the roar of the crowd, the action calls of the commentators, and the cheers or boos of her crewmates, it was hard for Ia to think.
"Turn the channel! Turn it!" Knorssen urged after looking at the chrono on her military wrist unit. She was almost dancing in her seat. "Turn it to the Nebula Network, channel 2! It"s almost time!"
"Shakk that, Knorssen," Kipple joked. "You"d think you had a shot at winning the Power Pick. Besides, the rest of us are still watching the hockey game."
"Oh, right, like your home team has any more shot at winning the gold than she has at winning two and a half trillion creds," Yeoman Weavers called out from her position inside the galley kitchen. "I vote for the Power Pick. I bought a ticket, too."
Several of the others broke into argument. Two were with Kipple in keeping the North American Terrans versus the Southstream Solaricans hockey game going; the rest were with Weavers and Knorssen, wanting to see the Power Pick drawing. Someone turned and jabbed at the controls on their screen, someone else tried turning it back, the volume for the hockey game was turned up, the news network was turned up, and a small scuffle broke out.
Giving up, Ia picked up her mug and cracked the heavy ceramic onto the metal dining table. Not hard enough to break it by any means, but loudly enough to cut through their fighting. "Enough."
They sobered and quelled, returning to their seats. Flipping open her arm unit, Ia typed in the command that linked her to the Nets...and used her authority override to shut them off.
"You will stop acting like squabbling little children, and start behaving with the decorum expected of s.p.a.ce Force personnel. Is that clear?" she asked them in the sudden quiet filling the galley cabins.
"Commander Salish to Lieutenant Ia," the ship"s intercom stated. "Is there a particular reason why you cut off the news Nets? I was about to watch the Power Pick Lottery drawing."
Ia"s level glare kept anything greater than the slightest twitch of their mouths from quirking up. She activated her arm unit in reply. "Just enacting a temporary point of discipline, sir." Closing the line, she reprogrammed the monitors and removed the block. The news Nets blossomed on both screens, albeit with the sound muted. "In honor of our Commanding Officer, we will now watch the Power Pick Lottery. The hockey game is being stored in the Net archives. You can watch the play-by-play later, Private Kipple."
"Aye, sir," he mumbled.
Tapping her unit, she cycled up the sound to a decorous, tolerable level, and returned to eating her dinner.
"...ion storms continue to rage in these sectors. Please consult your travel agency or local System Control Center for more details on any stellar-based delays," the announcer stated. Briefly, the vid pickups displayed him giving his viewers a species-neutral, closed-mouth smile. Sergei Hasmapana was a familiar face for most of the Terran news-Net viewers, having held his job for the last nine years. "For your local weather, should your homeworld have any, please consult your local planetary news; just touch one of our affiliate channels listed at the bottom of your screen for more details."
He turned his attention to the woman at his side. Unlike the male Human, who had tanned skin and dark hair reminiscent of Tamaganej, the woman had golden blonde hair, pale golden skin, and bluish-green stripes angling down over her face and the visible portions of her hands and forearms. Not many of the V"Dan still bore the old jungen marks; Kellena Var-D"junn, news anchor for Nebula News, was one of those that still did, playing on her visual distinctiveness to make a name and a face-pun freely admitted-for herself. Ia preferred the previous coanchor, but that woman had finally retired two years before.
"Coming up next," Kellena stated, "the results and highlights from the Meioa-o"s Short Program, Freestyle Figure Skating."
"Don"t tease them, Kellena," Sergei joked. He turned serious once again "Yes, meioas, it"s the moment you"ve all been waiting for. This is an unprecedented benchmark in the history of the Alliance Lottery, which was instigated one hundred seventy-six years ago last month. This month, the Power Pick Lottery has broken records left and right, with an unprecedented jackpot. We"ve had an unfortunate string of winner tragedies, compounded by a surprising number of non-winning tickets even among the Standard Draw, which is any ticket with the correct numbers for the lottery, but not selected in the correct order. These events have multiplied the jackpot winnings to an astounding 2.3 trillion credits."
"As you know," Kellena continued, picking up the story from her coanchor, "in order to quell ticket riots, false claims, and even murder, the Alliance Lottery Commission has instigated a "one sentient, one ticket" policy for all jackpots exceeding ten billion credits. If you are not the genetically and legally provable purchaser of the winning ticket, you will not be able to claim your prize."
"Even worse, as a reminder to everyone out there, not even a deceased person"s heirs can inherit a winning ticket, nor can they be transferred to an inheritor for a minimum of ten Alliance Standard years, or approximately eight Terran Standard years. That is, if there is a winning ticket," Sergei warned her. "There might not be."
Kellena mock-touched her chest, clad in a grey suit that didn"t go badly with her jungen marks. "Oh, please, Sergei, don"t even suggest that. My nerves wouldn"t be able to handle it a fourth time. I don"t think anyone could. Again, our condolences to the relatives of Trrrgul the White Tail of the Family Hwarrenn, L"Oolou of Green-Happy-Green Clan, and Mrs. Nettie Attewell. If you have a health condition that could be triggered by sudden shock or stress, the Alliance Health Organization strongly suggests that you refrain from playing the Power Pick at times like this."
"For the rest of us with good hearts and other circulatory organs," Sergei told his viewers, "let"s just hope someone gets the numbers right. The Alliance Lottery Commission has declared a temporary cap of 2.5 trillion credits to comply with the Lottery"s current maximum cap of eighty percent of lottery income, and will be reworking the jackpot progression levels to comply with the new, upcoming cap of fifty percent," he reported. "Please remember that non-distributed Lottery earnings are used to help fund infrastructure and education systems for new colonyworlds across all the member governments of the Alliance for their first one hundred Standard years. What you don"t win does go to support a very good cause-know your limits, and contact the Alliance Gambling Helpnet if you think you may have a problem."
"Enough with the suspense, Sergei. Tonight"s numbers will be drawn and verified by the certified examiners of the D"marid-Hastings Investment Group, as overseen by His Eternal Majesty"s Royal Guard," Kellena stated. "We go now, live, to the Alliance Lottery Headquarters at K"Seddua, Summer Capital of the V"Dan Empire."
The image shifted, revealing the brightly lit, tastefully appointed lottery drawing chamber. The opening speech was interrupted by Commander Salish"s voice. "This is Commander Salish. All stop for the Lottery numbers. Keep your eyes to the boards, but you can keep your ears open for this. Good luck, meioas."
"And the first number is...13!" the unseen announcer stated as the V"Dan lottery workers fetched the first number from the tumbling b.a.l.l.s in the archaic machine, drawn physically rather than electronically so that no accusations of code-fixing could be made.
Eight of the ten bodies in the galley groaned, though three of them looked vaguely hopeful. Knorssen shouted in glee, rising from her seat so fast, she thumped the edge of the table with her thighs. Given it was solid metal and firmly welded to the floor, she dropped back down with a grunt.
"Ow, dammit!"
"Shhh!" The ma.s.s of hushing didn"t quite cover up the next number.
"The second number is...74."
"WOOOO!" Again, Knorssen leaped up-and again whacked her thighs. She dropped back with a twisted expression that was half grimace, half grin. Higatsu and Schumacher, seated on either side of her, quickly grabbed her by the arms and shoulders, pinning her in her seat.
The third number was announced. Tensed to cheer, Knorssen let out a wail instead. "Noooo! Noooooooo! Dammit, that was my fifth numberrrrr!"
"SHHH!"
As the others hissed, Schumacher clapped his hand over her mouth, careful not to cover her nose so that Knorssen could still breathe. Higatsu gave her shoulder a consoling squeeze. One by one, the ten numbers were drawn from the pool of one hundred possible. When the last one came up, Knorssen had only the three numbers, which wasn"t enough to qualify for even the minimum winnings. From the mutterings of the others, three numbers were the most that they had, too.
"This is the Commander to all awake hands. Do we have any Power Pick or Standard Draw winners on board? And no, I do not want to hear from those who did not win. We can hold a little pity party later. For now, I just want to know if anybody actually won anything."
"Captain, this is Corporal Benaroya, down in Engineering. I, ah, just won four thousand credits. Or I will have won, once we get back to the Mad Jack."
"Congratulations, Corporal. It"s not the grand jackpot, but it is still significant. Alright, meioas. Let"s make sure he gets back in one piece, so he can collect his winnings. Resuming course. Commander Salish out."
"Oh, G.o.d," Knorssen muttered, rubbing at her thighs. "I have deep bruises on my legs, and nothing to show for-"
"Shhh!" Kipple hushed her as the vid view switched back to the Nebula Newsroom. "They"re going to announce if anyone won!"
Higatsu rubbed his hands together, grinning. "With any luck, it"ll be someone who owes me money, and I"ll get to charge them interest for not having paid it off right away!"
Another shhh hushed him. On the monitor screens, Kellena Var-D"junn blinked, nodded at the teleprompter screen beyond the pickup cameras, and stated, "Yes...yes, we do have a Power Pick winner. I repeat, we have a Power Pick winner!"
Sergei squinted a little. "The winning ticket was registered on the Independent Colonyworld of...Sanctuary?"
Ia buried her smirk in her mug of milk, then dug into the last of her roasted chicken.
"-Which I believe lies approximately seven hundred lightyears from Earth," Kellena quickly filled in, covering for him. "If I remember correctly, it is the heaviest inhabited M-cla.s.s heavyworld, though the exact gravity escapes me at the moment. Rest a.s.sured, we"ll be running a special series of info-news programs on the winner"s homeworld later on this week."
"Yes. The winning ticket was purchased in the city of...Our Blessed Mother? Is that right?" he asked, glancing first at his coanchor, who shrugged, then off camera for a brief moment. He gave his audience another close-mouthed smile, this time an apologetic one. "With so many worlds to keep track of in the known galaxy, please forgive us if we get any of this information wrong."
Kellena lifted her hand. "Remember, viewers: The winning numbers will have to be verified by examinations conducted by the Royal Guard of the V"Dan Emperor and by the D"marid-Hastings Investment Group, but...yes...we do have a confirmation on the ident.i.ty of the winning Power Pick Lottery ticket holder."
"But first, the Standard Draw winners," Sergei stated, drawing out the suspense. "Sharing the Standard Draw jackpot of twenty-three billion credits are the following five meioas-"
"Oh, for star"s sake! Get to the Power Pick winner"s name already!" Petty Officer Michaelson growled, his voice drowning out the start of the five winners" names. Knorssen was the first one to crumple up her napkin and toss it at him. Kipple, Schumacher, and two others followed suit.
"Meioas," Ia stated crisply, cutting through their a.s.sault. "However much he does deserve that, I do have to agree with him. Now let us...Shhh!" She cut herself off, since the female news anchor was speaking again.
"Our deepest congratulations, and our sincerest wishes of continuing good health, go out to the Human winner of the Power Pick grand jackpot, Meioa-o Fyfer Quentin-Jones of Our Blessed Mother, which is apparently the capital city of I.C. Sanctuary. May you spend it wisely...and may you share some of your newfound, astronomical wealth with your fellow sentients out there," the news anchor stated wryly. "Because I certainly didn"t win any of it."
"Yes, good luck, Meioa Quentin-Jones, and congratulations," Sergei stated. "I"m told it will take six days at the bare minimum to get the nearest branch of the Alliance Lottery Commission"s Power Pick Prize Team all the way out to Sanctuary, due to the great distance that must be traveled and the inherent risks of stringing that many OTL jumps in a row. Nebula News and others from among our fellow news agencies across the Nets will be accompanying them to bring you the action live...or as live as anything streaming from the far edge of the known galaxy can get."
"Off," Knorssen muttered, rubbing her face. Her palms half m.u.f.fled her words. "Turn it off. Put it back to hockey, or whatever. I can"t stand to hear anything more about a meioa I have no hope in h.e.l.l of getting to know."
Leaning over, Kipple jabbed the controls, programming it back to the Terran/Solarican game. On the other side of the table, Nguyen did the same. The excitement of the Winter Olympics had paled a little, however.
"Wait a second," Nguyen muttered, swiveling in his seat. He frowned at Ia. "Lieutenant, aren"t you from Sanctuary? Heaviest heavyworld in the known galaxy?"
Ah, d.a.m.n. I lost that gamble. The odds hadn"t been more than 20 percent that one of them would"ve remembered that much of her background. Opening the compartment that held her dessert, a whipped pudding, Ia picked up her spoon. "That would be correct."
"Oh, c"mon, Mike," Kipple admonished Nguyen. "There"s bound to be a million people on her homeworld."
"There"s barely even a couple hundred thousand, yet," Ia corrected mildly, dipping her spoon slowly, carefully into her dessert. "It was settled less than sixty years ago, and even though the wombpods have been popping babies like mad, we don"t have that many people there, yet. We"re only just now starting on our third native-born generation-I don"t know the population numbers anymore. I didn"t exactly stop to count heads, the last time I was there."
"But, with only a couple hundred thousand, that means there"s a chance you actually know the guy!" Knorssen crowed. "Or at least know someone who knows him!"
The hard look Ia shot Knorssen silenced the other woman. "If I say I know him, you will press and press and press in the hopes that I"ll somehow connect you to the lucky meioa, and get you a handout, Private. If I say I do not know him, you will think me a liar, and still you will press, and press, and press. Telling the truth, or telling a lie, it does not matter. My answer will be the same: silence. This subject is closed, because it has nothing to do with our mission, here on Blockade Patrol...not to mention, it could be considered a potential violation of Fatality Forty-Nine.
"The only gambling I am interested in is the gamble that I can lead the lot of you effectively enough that all of us get back home alive. But in order to do that," Ia warned the men and women seated around her at the table, "I need you to put your minds back onto our job. Is that clear? Because if it isn"t, you need to get your heads out of your daydream-stuffed asteroids." Her crude statement made them blink, but Ia figured it was more from the tone of her delivery than its actually content. "You cannot spend money you will not have, if you get shipped back home in a coffin."
She swept her gaze around the table, pinning each soldier with a stern look. Half of them looked down or away just before she got to them, and the rest lowered their gazes within a second or two. Lifting her spoonful of pudding, Ia mock-saluted them with it.
"Now that we have that settled, I suggest you remind your crewmates on both sides of the Audie-Murphy that this is not only a closed subject, it is also not one I"d care to have discussed outside of our ships. I"ll remind you that the Salik get some of the same news Nets that we do, and they"ll be looking for any signs of distraction among the crews serving on the Blockade. Eyes to the boards, thoughts on your tasks, and diligence in your vigilance...though I"ll grant you that since our duty shift is over, the Audie half doesn"t have to look at the boards for the next...eleven hours, unless and until we get called to action. But the moment we do, Commander Salish and I need you to be at your best.
"In the meantime," Ia finished briskly, "I have pudding to eat, Kipple has a hockey game to watch, and all of you will need your rest."
Popping the spoon into her mouth, she took her time savoring the treat, deliberately showing by actions as well as lack of words that the subject was indeed firmly closed. Sighing, the others turned away, either murmuring among themselves their mutual condolences, wistfully suggesting what they would"ve done with all that money, or speculating idly on the outcome of the now closely matched hockey game.
A couple of her crew snuck glances Ia"s way, but she pointedly ignored them, calmly sc.r.a.ping up every last sc.r.a.p of her dessert. No one was going to weasel one sc.r.a.p of information out of her, particularly not regarding one Meioa-o Fyfer Quentin-Jones.
CHAPTER 16.
Did I lie about not knowing Meioa Quentin-Jones, the biggest Power Pick winner in Alliance history? Of course I lied. Wouldn"t you? Ah-let me rephrase that. Knowing that if you admitted it, you"d be pestered to death, literally to the point where it would interfere with everything you were trying to do and thus risk the safety of your crew and your missions...wouldn"t you lie, too? No, I had far bigger problems to deal with than dwelling on the fact I was related to someone who was now suddenly and rather astronomically wealthy.
The Salik did try to push through the Blockade. I"m not sure just how many slipped through the Lottery-distracted cracks, but I don"t think it was all that many. Luckily for us, it was a hastily planned event. Luckily for us, the Salik weren"t quite ready for the Big Push that would break the Blockade. And most crews pulled it back together fast enough to survive.
Eyes to the boards, thoughts on your tasks. That was the Navy"s motto on Blockade Patrol. Wise words for any situation, if you ask me.
~Ia FEBRUARY 13, 2494 T.S.
BATTLE PLATFORM MAD JACK.