Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Series Page 2

  “It’s a masterpiece. The Concord have really outdone themselves this time,” he told her.

  “Have you been to the boiler room yet?” she asked.

  Tom paused, unsure what she was talking about. “The boiler room?”

  “Engineering. That’s what my previous captain called the guts of the ship.” Reeve grinned, and Tom felt his walls lower slightly. He had only met select members of the crew, and most of those occasions had been fairly formal. One of the downsides of becoming a new captain: the Concord chose your crew for you.

  On paper, Tom was pleased, and he knew the list of applicants for Constantine had been lengthy. The Concord used a mixture of statistics and personal interviews to find the most skilled and compatible crews; at least, that was what the admiral had told him. Tom thought there was more to it. There always was when politics became involved.

  “Engineering. Of course. Lead the way,” Tom said.

  Reeve wasn’t in uniform, and he found the sight abnormal. He was used to spending every waking moment in the black pants and long-sleeved slate-gray shirt, with the Concord’s logo of their first vessel hovering over a full moon etched on the breast. His own uniform sported a red collar, the captain’s color. It still felt odd, after so many years wearing orange as commander.

  “Have you found your quarters yet?” he asked, trying to sound conversational.

  “Not yet. I wasn’t supposed to be on board for three hours, but I just got the call from the top. The engines were sending out some abnormal readings, so they asked me to run some diagnostics,” Reeve told him.

  “That can’t be good. We haven’t even left dock,” Tom said, wondering if he should worry yet.

  “Better to find out any issues now. Believe me, we’ve been over this ship a million times. Constantine is regularly running scans, internally and externally. If there’s an issue, we’ll find it and deal with it.” Reeve led him through the well-lit corridor in the ship’s center.

  They stepped onto the pedway, the glass rails allowing them to see the greenery below.

  “Can you imagine?” Reeve asked, not elaborating, and Tom only nodded.

  “It’s all quite elaborate,” he told her, and she stopped in the center of the pedway to lean her elbows on the railing. Thick strands of her hair hung over her face, and she brushed them away, revealing the brightest red eyes he’d ever seen. Even for a Tekol, her eye color was unique.

  “Gardens on a Concord cruise ship, with water and greenhouses. This is next-level stuff, Captain.” Her eyes danced before she looked away from Tom, staring at the misting water spraying from under the pedway. The entire room was comfortable, the perfect balance of temperature and humidity.

  He’d spent so much time aboard starships that the only green space he saw was when he headed to other Class Zero-Nine planets. Only then, the trees were usually bizarre, the wildlife different from Earth’s in some innocuous way. Since Constantine was the flagship of a new era, the Concord hadn’t held back on their long-awaited additions. It was a far cry from his previous posting, where you were more likely to see a patched-up wall or loose wires dangling in the bathrooms.

  From the pedway, he glanced above, seeing each of Constantine’s ten levels opening into the center of the ship. The main officers’ residences would overlook the topiary: another benefit of being stationed on the flagship.

  Reeve appeared deep in thought, but a second later, she readjusted her stance and kept walking.

  “Reeve, you were on Vox last, right?” he asked the chief engineer. He was unfamiliar with a lot of the crew, but he had attempted to study as many of the executive crew’s files as possible. On paper, Reeve Daak was the smartest person assigned to Constantine, himself included.

  “That’s right. I spent the last ten years tinkering on that rust-bucket,” she told him.

  “This must be a big change,” Tom told her.

  She shrugged as they moved through the halls. “It’s a big change for all of us. Three hundred crew; half of them are newly graduated from the Academy, and the other half were spread across twenty vessels in the Concord Fleet.”

  Tom had to laugh. “You know more about it than I do.”

  Reeve stopped, the lightness to her voice lingering as she briefly set a hand on his forearm. “Captain, I promise to keep the ship running smoothly on a functional level. It’s your job to make sure the crew does the same.”

  A younger Tom might have resented the comment, but he was working on his attitude. The Concord had chosen him out of nearly one hundred thousand officers around their network, and he wasn’t going to mess this up.

  “You have a deal,” Tom assured her.

  “Are you nervous?” she asked.

  “I’d be lying if I said otherwise,” he admitted.

  “Good. I’d be worried if you weren’t. I’ve followed your career,” Reeve told him, and Tom raised an eyebrow.

  “Is that so?”

  “Sure. I mean, the grandson of the famed Constantine Baldwin. Who wouldn’t be interested?” she asked.

  Tom sighed. It always came to this, and he’d tried to mentally prepare himself for it again. The luster had worn off quickly on his last posting, but here, with all the attention the ship was garnering, he’d be in the spotlight again: not for his own accolades, but for those of his grandfather.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sure you get that all the time. I can’t imagine. If it helps, my grandfather never did anything but pick rocks from fields in the wastelands of Nolix,” Reeve said jokingly.

  He was going to like this one. “I’m don’t think that helps, but I’m glad you found your way out.”

  “Me too.”

  “I see another Daak on the crew manifest. Relative?” Tom asked.

  “My brother,” she said. “He’s a bit of a stick in the mud, but he’s loyal as a guard dog.”

  “That’s a good thing in a chief of security,” Tom said, smiling at her.

  They arrived at the main elevator, of which there were five side-by-side, and Reeve chose the center one.

  “Engineering,” she told the computer, and the lift lowered to the bowels of the ship. Tom had never worried about the ship’s drive much on his previous charge, mostly because it was always damp and musty in the room. When the elevators opened, he was half-expecting the same conditions.

  Tom couldn’t hold back his impressed whistle, and Reeve glanced at him, smiling wide to reveal a mouth full of sharp teeth. “I told you this was next level. You should have seen my last ship. It was like a bathroom in a bar on Reepa.”

  Tom knew exactly what she meant, having frequented enough of the dives himself. “I’ve seen the schematics so many times, but this…” He ran a hand along the beige composite walls, and noticed the lights flashing brighter as they walked through the open room toward the glowing sphere. Blue energy crackled and flickered as they neared it, and Tom searched for the center, where the black ball of Bentom floated weightlessly.

  “It’s so… beautiful,” Reeve said, and Tom didn’t argue with her. While it was aesthetically appealing and was the basis for the ship’s star drive, the black mass of energy always made Tom feel slightly uneasy. The chief engineer remained smiling as she crossed the room to the wall, which was lined with countless screens. They projected out holograms, and her fingers moved deftly across them. Even from here, Tom could tell she was running duplicate and triplicate scans on the system’s drive, seeking out the anomaly with depth they couldn’t achieve remotely.

  “Is Constantine activated?” Tom asked nervously, wondering if he should get the introduction out of the way before he was surrounded by hundreds of other crew members and Concord officials.

  Reeve shook her head. “Not yet. He’s ready, but they want to make an impression at the soft launch.”

  The soft launch. Tom almost laughed at the title. Essentially, Constantine’s maiden voyage was a cushy diplomatic assignment that would only take a week or so. It was as good a test run as one could hope for,
but Tom would rather be out there along the Border, ensuring the Concord’s safety.

  “What could be so different with this ship’s AI?” he asked, not sure he was ready for the answer yet.

  She wiggled her pencil-thin eyebrows and grinned again. “We’ll have to wait to find that out.” The computer screens went dark, and Reeve wiped the holograms away with a flick of her wrist. “Everything checks out from here. Must have been a glitch.”

  Reeve showed Tom her office, and he noticed there was a bed in the corner. “Planning on some late nights?” he asked.

  “This job can be strenuous, especially when there’s an issue. I was stranded on the Pliatese for a week with no engines, and life support dipping every hour. We slept on the floor, two hours at a time, until we figured it out,” she said.

  Tom had read a similar account in her records. “You mean when you figured it out.”

  “We were a team,” Reeve admitted, and Tom liked her more for it. She was smart, but her ego was in check. He couldn’t say the same for the rest of the crew.

  They walked away from the Star Drive’s core, and Tom glanced at it as the lights flicked off.

  ____________

  Brax waited in line to step foot on the already-famous Constantine. He peered at his shirt, smoothing an invisible crease. You’re going to be fine. You deserve this. His sister had pinged him earlier, informing him that she was already on board. Leave it to Reeve to arrive before everyone else. Apparently, she’d taken a tour with Captain Thomas Baldwin. What a brown-noser.

  They were twins, but that was where their similarities ended. Brax touched the Concord symbol on his breast with pride as he stepped through the glass corridor leading from the Lunar Station to his new home for the next few years – hopefully. He refused to glance up, excruciatingly aware that the millions of stars gleaming down at him would send him swaying.

  Brax wondered if there had ever been a chief of security on a cruise ship that was afraid of space. Surely there must have been, but the assumption granted him little comfort.

  Someone stopped in front of him, and he bumped into the stranger as they gawked at the immense size of the ship’s hangar. Brax was larger than the man, and they stumbled forward together.

  “Sorry about that,” Brax said, reaching out to tap the man on the shoulder.

  The uniformed man spun, grinning wide at Brax. “Lieutenant Commander Brax Daak!” He was nearly six feet tall, his Concord uniform pure white. His hands were gloved, and Brax saw the tight collar around the doctor’s neck.

  “You must be Doctor Nee?” Brax tried his luck. He’d read the files, but to him, it was hard to tell the Kwants apart, if only because he hadn’t spent any real time with them, for good reasons.

  The doctor must have noticed Brax backing away a step, because he nodded. “Don’t be alarmed. We Kwants are only deadly if you’re exposed to prolonged skin contact,” Nee said with a smile, and Brax could only nod along, pretending not to be terrified. “Plus, I wear gloves and carry the antidote. Nothing to be concerned about.”

  “If you say so,” Brax told the man, and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. Nice to meet you, Doctor.”

  “Likewise.” The doctor’s skin was a light shade of green, his hair white-blond, making his slotted yellow eyes appear even brighter.

  The hangar was filling up as newly-arriving shuttles let the crew members out. Brax stood out of the way, the doctor coming to lean on the wall beside him. “Quite the sight, isn’t it? Brand new ship, captain with a famous lineage. This is the stuff legends are made of.”

  Brax bit his tongue. He was only here because of his sister, Reeve. He wanted nothing to do with making history. His job was to keep the crew safe, to protect his twin from harm.

  A familiar elderly man at the end of the hangar climbed up a few steps and raised a hand in the air. “If I could have your attention. The entire crew is now aboard, and many are milling about, taking a brief tour of the ship. You will be split into groups of fifty, and a special guide will walk you through the levels, showcasing your new station, the Constantine, in its splendor. We’ll reconvene in the courtyard at twenty-one hundred.” Admiral Hudson stepped down and the doctor turned to Brax, his yellow eyes staring hard at the security officer.

  “Buddy up?” Doctor Nee asked, and Brax ran a hand over his bald scalp.

  “Sure. Have you seen your medical bay?” Brax asked, wondering if he was the only one who hadn’t been on the ship yet.

  The doctor shook his head. “No, I haven’t been on board before now. You?”

  “No, but I’ve been through the simulators a dozen times. I was supposed to have a walkthrough before anyone else came aboard. I’m the chief of security, and I wanted the lay of the land without crowded halls,” Brax told his new friend.

  Nee threw him a wink. “Expecting trouble?”

  Brax leaned closer, his voice low. “Should I be?”

  “I’m only kidding around with you. Are security officers always so stiff?” Nee asked.

  Brax’s tense shoulders loosened. “It’s kind of a required disposition for the trade. That, and we all drink too much coffee.”

  “I find it comforting that our muscle won’t fall asleep on duty,” Nee said with a laugh.

  The doctor was growing on Brax. “Shall we?”

  They were separated into groups, and Brax and Nee were pushed to the front, being the senior ranking officers in their group of fifty. “Shouldn’t we wait for our tour guide?”

  A hologram flickered on near the hangar’s entrance to the ship, and a young face stared into Brax’s eyes. “It would appear that your tour guide is already here, Lieutenant Commander Daak,” the hologram said.

  Brax stepped away in shock and reached a hand out to the lifelike apparition. His hand passed through it, the man’s chest glowing a light blue.

  “Please refrain from touching me,” the man said, turning to their group. “I am Constantine Baldwin, this vessel’s AI.”

  “But you’re… young,” a uniformed woman said quietly from beside Nee.

  “Yes. Constantine was young once, just as you will eventually be old. The Concord elected to personify me with a young avatar, a version of Constantine before he saved the Concord at the Yollox Incursion fifty years ago. Does anyone recall that from their studies?” the AI asked.

  Everyone raised their hands, including Brax. They’d heard the stories about this man; he was a legend in the Fleet. Hell, he was a legend outside the Fleet. Every last living person in the known galaxy knew who Constantine Baldwin was.

  Brax wasn’t sure how much of the real man was in this AI, but if it had an ounce of Baldwin, they were in for a treat. All of their ships had an AI, mostly the hero their vessel was named after. But this… Constantine Baldwin looked so real, like he was a living man talking to them. Brax shuddered, the hair raising on his forearms.

  “If we’re done gawking at me, let me show you around your new home,” Constantine said, motioning Brax and Nee forward. They took the lead and entered the ship. The halls were immaculate, and everything smelled… so new. There was no other way to explain it. Brax found his hands shaking in anticipation as they advanced through the corridors, the AI telling them about the ship along the way.

  “The ship took three years to manufacture, the longest of any standing Fleet starship. Construction was done twenty-four hours a day and utilized over ten thousand drones and separate robotic units to assemble the parts. Once the frame was complete, pressurized, and sealed, humans and other Concord allies worked together to bring different cultural elements to the technology and aesthetics,” Constantine told them.

  Brax had taken some ribbing from humans back in his Academy days, but for the most part, the Concord had changed over the years. Other than his dark green eyes and pointed teeth, he was basically the same as a human. Only… stronger and smarter.

  Nee watched everything with interest and tugged at Brax’s uniform sleeve when he wanted to show his new friend som
ething. Brax soaked it all in, anxious to find his sister and meet his new captain. He hadn’t heard who the first officer was, but he’d met most of the crew briefly during a training exercise a few weeks prior. The commander hadn’t been in attendance because of a scheduling conflict, and Brax had been waiting to find out who was Captain Thomas Baldwin’s second-in-command.

  They continued the tour, and a lot of the crew nodded to him or approached him upon seeing his violet collar, denoting his high rank. On this starship, there were only three Executive Lieutenants, and he was one of them. His sister was the chief engineer. He was chief of security, and from what Brax had read, a Zilph’i man named Ven finished off the leadership roles, unofficially the crew chief.

  “Glorified babysitter, if you ask me,” Nee said, as if reading Brax’s mind.

  Brax glanced at the doctor, wondering why he’d suddenly spoken about the other executive, and then he spotted the man across the corridor. The two groups were being funneled into a surprise area, and Brax could already feel a difference in the air as they walked slowly toward the doorways.

  “Is that… Ven?” he whispered to the doctor.

  “The one and only. Can you believe they succeeded in finding an Ugna?” the doctor asked him, but Brax hardly heard the question. He’d never seen one up close, and he was learning how important this posting was to the Concord: from the high-tech AI of the Concord’s most decorated captain, to that man’s grandson leading the new flagship, to somehow finding a fabled Ugna as a crew member. All the pieces were coming together, and Brax wondered why he’d been included in this all-star cast.

  People were filing in through the double doors at the end of the corridor, and Brax noted the gasps coming from each of them as they walked inside the courtyard. He could only stare at his new counterpart, Ven.

  The doctor walked past the gaping Tekol officer and stuck his hand out toward the albino alien. “Pleasure to meet you, Executive Lieutenant Ven. I’m Constantine’s doctor. You can call me Nee.”

  Ven blinked bloodshot eyes and stared at the gloved hand before shaking it. “What an archaic form of greeting. Is that commonplace among the Concord Fleet crew?”