Gaea

Chapter 11

by Baybelletrist

Series Five Rangers' office

7/31/2098, 0932

Zach frowned and glanced at his chrono again.

"What's keeping Gooseman?" he grumbled. "We need to keep moving on this investigation. The commander's fit to be tied."

Yeah, Zach, and you're not much better, Doc thought.

The door to the office hissed open and Goose passed through. From the corner of his eye Doc saw Niko twitch as if someone had pinched her. But he was too occupied himself with staring at Goose to think much about it.

What's wrong with him?

The signs were there, if less than obvious. He wasn't quite haggard, but his face was too pale, perhaps even a little drawn. His eyes—Doc flinched away, thinking, That's way too close to how Cousin Robbie looked the night his team walked into a house and found three dead kids in the basement. Goose caught Doc's glance, and his face went set and unreadable. He seated himself at the conference table.

"Sorry I'm late, Captain," Goose said stiffly.

"Gooseman, what's—"

"Any new developments?" Goose cut in. Zach's eyebrows lowered in annoyance and he started to speak.

Niko shifted her weight suddenly, and Zach jumped slightly and broke off in the middle of opening his mouth to glare at her. She gave him a meaningful look, the meaning of which Doc nevertheless failed to catch. But the look in Zach's eye—that, he could interpret just fine.

"Uh... nothing yet," Doc put in, hoping to defuse the tension rising in the room. "I did get a little more out of the image from Gaea's room, though." He snatched the CDU from his belt and powered it up, touching his badge. Come on, guys, he thought. Get out here before these three kill one another.

"Searchlight, grab me that audio you pulled from the recording earlier," he requested.

"Okay, Doc!" the program squeaked. The holofield circled once, twice, and then a staticky recording began to play.

At first they heard only vague thumping sounds: footfalls, perhaps, or objects being moved. Then a muffled voice, clearly a man's, muttered, "Move it. Countermeasures cut ou—" Goose's head jerked around at the sound. The audio cut out and resumed a moment later with more footfalls and what sounded to Doc like a grunt of exertion. Then faintly they heard the rumble of wheels over a hard floor.

"That's it, Boss," Pathfinder said.

"Play that voice again, Doc," Goose said. He listened intently. "Again." On the third repetition he sat back, face grim. "That's the man from Mars City," he said. "The black-haired one. He seemed to be in charge."

Zach spoke into the brief silence. "How did he get back to Earth so fast?" he asked slowly. "We lifted off barely three and a half hours after their attempt at the police station."

"Pathfinder, run a records request from Traffic Control," Doc said. He glanced at his captain. "There are only a couple ways they could have beat Ranger One back here, and most folks don't have access to those methods." He glanced at his CDU screen—and frowned in disbelief at the information. "Whaddaya mean, restricted?" he demanded, and wheeled his chair over to his desk to open a comm link.

Zach sat up straighter. "Doc?"

"Traffic Control," answered a bored male voice. The video clicked on almost as an afterthought. On seeing his caller's face, the operative, a portly man with graying hair, jerked out of his slouch. "Yes, sir!"

"This is Galaxy Ranger Walter Hartford requesting data on Traffic Control record number A259-663," Doc said crisply.

The operative touched several keys and frowned down at his screen. "I'm sorry, sir, but that information is restricted."

"I see the Restricted flag," Doc answered coolly. "Maybe you don't get it. I'm a Galaxy Ranger investigating a crime, and this ship may have something to do with it. I need that information."

The operative, visibly flustered, gulped. "Uh, sir, I'm, uh..."

Zachary rose and stepped into pickup range. The man blanched.

"This is Captain Zachary Foxx," Zach snapped. "What do you mean, restricted, mister? On whose authority?"

"Uh—sir—a-all it says is OPS, sir," the operative stuttered, breaking out in a sweat. "I—uh—"

Doc stared at the screen, a sinking feeling in his gut. "Forget it," he said in a gentler voice. "We never called you, got it?"

The operative stammered to a halt, staring at him.

"Got it?" Doc repeated patiently.

"Yes... sir."

Doc cut the link and turned his head to look at Goose. Sadness settled over him. Ah, Goose... I'm sorry, man.

"Doc, what the—" Zach burst out.

"OPS," Doc said quietly. "Goose, my friend, your little cousin there is mixed up in some really heavy trouble."

That shut Zach up, at least. They all stared at him. Doc saw a muscle in Goose's jaw flex as the rangy Supertrooper clenched his teeth.

"Doc?" Niko said calmly. "You said there were only a couple of ways they could have gotten here before us. What did you mean?"

He looked at her, then at his screen. "Give me a minute," he said, and bent over his keyboard. "Pathfinder, get in there and find a way around that damn tag."

"Right, Boss!"

Vaguely Doc heard Zach's protest, heard Niko's murmur as she counseled patience, but for Doc it made a distant second to the data stream. He kept typing as Pathfinder worked, the two of them coming at the problem from different directions. In the back of his mind, the Series Five implant linked him and his construct in a web of data. Inquiries refused, passwords denied—and then Pathfinder handed him root on a Traffic Control machine and he hacked his way to an account that could unlock the Restricted tag.

Bonus.

Descending from his data high and back into the world, Doc turned back to his teammates.

"This morning at 0743 a high-speed courier ship entered Earthspace," he said. "Think big honkin' Andorian hyperdrive with a dinky little cabin strapped on it. They're usually used on long interstellar trips because they beat most anything on long jumps. The records don't say where it warped out, and its point of origin doesn't appear in Traffic Control's records—but I've been able to confirm that it came from Mars. Regular inquiries about registry just get a Restricted flag. OPS people are sneaky bastards, and they don't like people poking into their business. In fact, that guy at Traffic Control probably bought himself a one-way ticket to Pluto Base if his boss ever finds out he even mentioned OPS."

"Doc!" demanded Zach. "What on earth is OPS?"

Doc sat back and rubbed one hand over his eyes. "Office of Planetary Security."

Zachary frowned. "I've never heard of it."

Doc smiled grimly. "Yeah, me neither." Almost as an afterthought he pushed off with his heels to move his chair back to the conference table.

"You said 0743," Niko said slowly. "We got clearance from Mars Spaceport just before 0700. How—?" Her eyes widened. "Are you saying—"

"You warped out where?" Doc said, grimacing. "The only way for that ship to have beat us is if they warped from way too close to Mars and came in way too close to Earth. That's the other reason people use those courier ships: they can jump much closer to gravity wells than your average Andorian drive–based ship because they're so tiny. That's how Mr. Suit and his buddies got back here so fast: they're crazy as loons and they have the clearances to override the usual Traffic Control rules. You all know that anybody else who tried it would find his butt arrested the second he set foot anywhere on a League world."

"Doc, what do you mean, you've never heard of OPS?" Zach cut in. Doc looked over at him, knowing his face looked unwontedly serious.

"I'm not even supposed to know OPS exists," Doc told him, "and neither are you. Every so often while I'm looking something up I run into a record tagged 'Restricted'—and if I can't even find out who restricted it, dollars to donuts it's OPS. I did a little sniffing around—" he saw Zachary wince slightly, the too-familiar I-don't-want-to-know expression crossing his face "—and from what I can find they're very highly placed. Data on them is danged hard to come by." He turned his eyes to Goose.

"I'm sorry, my Goose man," he said as gently as he could. "I'm gonna give you and Gaea everything I've got, but..." he shook his head. "Even with the Doctor on your side, the odds are not good."

"That's our specialty," Niko said firmly. She reached across the conference table and touched her fingertips to the back of Goose's hand. "When you want the impossible, call on the Galaxy Rangers."

His face bleak, Goose stared at the wall and did not answer.

Shane Gooseman's quarters

8/1/2098, 0002

Goose stirred in his sleep but did not wake.

Gaea, get up. He wants you. Get up! Rough hands tugged her up, shook her awake and out of dream.

Again the cold floor, the cold chair under bright lights, the prick of a needle.

Gaea... Your mother died because of you. It's your fault Mira's dead.

A scent of skin, of hair, barely perceptible but wrenching in the memories it invoked.

Gaea, sweetheart...

Goose woke with the feel in his throat of screams that were not his.

BETA Mountain

0838

"Zach, wait up!" Zachary turned and waited as Doc trotted up to him. "You seen Gooseman yet this morning?"

Zachary frowned. "No," he answered slowly, and glanced at his chrono with furrowed brows.

Doc shook his head. "Captain, I think something's going on with him," he said quietly. "He's usually up with the dawn, but this is the second morning I've been in to breakfast with no sign of him."

"Maybe he's eating in his quarters."

"Maybe," Doc answered, "but I saw Niko in the commissary. She looked mighty worried about something, and she'd barely touched her breakfast."

The two men exchanged troubled looks.

Zach dropped his voice. "Anything new?"

"Not a thing, Captain. Believe me, you'll be the second to know."

Series Five Rangers' office

0906

"Something's been bothering me."

Doc and Niko turned to look at Zach. Goose kept his eyes on his screen, but Zach could see that he was paying attention.

"Only one, Zach?" Doc said lightly.

Zach snorted. "One thing among many. But this is serious. Doc, you were able to find out that OPS got here before we did because they used a courier ship—so clearly they can call on material resources as they need to. Then they got access to BETA Mountain in short order. Obviously they either have access codes of their own, possibly under fake IDs, or they were able to get hold of codes that belonged to someone else."

"That's not that hard to do," Doc noted. "It's all just part of a big database, and databases do what you tell them to do. But yeah, that's been bugging me too, 'cause that would argue that our system's compromised at a very high level, and I just haven't been seeing the signs. And—"

"And," Zach said, "in spite of all the precautions we took—not telling anyone but the commander and Dr. Nagata she was here, putting her down in the entry logs as a visiting scientist from Andor—they knew exactly where to find her."

There was a brief, loaded silence. Zach's team looked at him, waiting for him to say what they were all thinking.

"I think we have a mole."

Commander Walsh's office

0947

"What?!"

Zach suppressed a twitch as his bionic ear picked up Walsh's shout a little too well.

"I think there's a mole in BETA," he repeated. "Someone who's working for OPS."

"Pull up a chair, Captain." Walsh pinched the bridge of his nose. "Letting aside the fact that you're officially not supposed to know OPS exists, do you realize the sheer size of the political hot potato you've just dropped in my lap?"

"With all due respect, Commander, I didn't drop it," Zach said stiffly. "I just pointed it out."

Walsh blew out his breath in frustration. "Come down off that high horse before you fall off, Zach," he said, his voice tart. "I know it was a loaded question." His face relaxed somewhat. "What do you need from me?"

"Well, as you said, sir, it's a hot potato. We can't do a thing about it—officially. But we're going to need to ferret the person out sooner or later. We can't have confidential League law enforcement information being leaked to an Earth-centered partisan agency like OPS." Zach leaned forward and held out a chip.

"What's this?" Walsh asked, accepting it.

"I had Doc do a preliminary data sort for people whose security codes were used at any checkpoint or secured door inside the mountain on the night Gaea was taken," Zachary explained. "Then he did some cross checks to eliminate people with airtight alibis, and to be sure that nobody's codes were used at points that didn't match the person's known location." He made a wry face. "We did catch Private Salo's daughter using his door code to sneak out and see her boyfriend, but nothing else so far. The list of persons of interest is still fairly extensive. Doc recommends doing in-depth security audits on everyone at BETA who could have even the vaguest reason for being in the area of the secure guest quarters, or anywhere on Level 8, but that's a very wide net to cast and he'd be working alone. We're going to have to keep careful watch to catch this person, sir, and of course we can't let on that we know about him—or her—or OPS will just find someone else."

Walsh's face was grim. "I hate to believe that anyone who works for BETA would willingly spy for OPS, but unfortunately history is full of prime examples of moles, spies, and traitors."

"Yes, sir. Doc's got routines set up to catch anything the least bit unusual. He said he's 'sifting the Gibson with a teaspoon,' but I know if anyone can find traces, it's him. We're telling absolutely no one about this, of course—not even Commander Nagata—to keep the chances for accidental leaks to an absolute minimum."

"Understood, Zachary." The commander leaned back and folded his hands on his chest. "It strikes me we're about due for one of our periodic unannounced security audits anyway. Tell Doc he can work with Q-Ball and Buzzwang on those; have him work with files on anyone of interest in this case and leave the rest to the others. I'm sure he's more than capable of writing code that will 'randomly' assign the appropriate people to his desktop."

"Yes, sir."

"Good work on this, Zach. Keep me posted."

Too little, too late, thought Zach, but he stood and saluted, saying only, "Yes, sir."

He rather thought Walsh knew what he wasn't saying anyway.

Goose's quarters, BETA Mountain

8/2/2098, 1620

Goose emerged from the bathroom, toweling his hair dry—and yawned. He snarled in useless fury and flung the towel violently at the laundry hamper before sinking onto the bed, his head in his hands. Three nights in a row of someone else's hell had left him exhausted, pale, and irritable.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit...

Gaea, I'm sorry... I should never have let them bring you here.

He sat still for a time, fighting drowsiness, but at last his eyelids drifted shut. Drooping and exhausted, Shane curled onto his side and fell into sleep.

A bright light glared through her eyelids, rousing her from the first stages of dream sleep.

Gaea, wake up. It's time to get up now.

She curled tighter, whimpering in protest, and was wakened fully by a stinging slap to the cheek.

Goose twitched, feeling tears on skin that didn't belong to him.

Darkened hallway, cold floor. The sting of an injection in the side of her neck. A woman's gentle, husky voice.

Gaea, sweetheart. You know you mustn't ever tell anyone who you really are. You must never leave a trace of your presence.

Can you do that for Mama?

A touch on his face. "Shane!"

Goose twisted to his feet, still half-asleep. Niko's cry of pain woke him fully.

"Shane!"

He stared stupidly at her, turned his eyes to the slender wrist he held so cruelly tight in his clenched fist.

With a strangled gasp, he let go and spun away from her, striding toward the bathroom as he retied the belt of his bathrobe. Her voice stopped him in his tracks.

"You can't keep going like this, Shane."

He kept his back to her, heard her approach from behind and hastily scrubbed at the tears with the sleeve of his robe. Why am I crying?

"I don't know what you're talking about, Niko," he said with all the coldness he could muster. Even he wasn't convinced.

She stepped in front of him, her face determined.

"Did you let her scan you?" she asked, searching his face and eyes. He looked away—and was shocked when she reached up to turn his face firmly back toward her. "Did she scan you?" she demanded.

He stared at her.

"Answer me!" Niko shouted, and he nearly jumped. Niko had never before lost her temper with him. "Did she scan you?"

It was the fear he caught in her voice that made him nod slowly. Her shoulders slumped.

"Shane, I think she... Gaea's not very well trained. I think there's a residual link between the two of you. You're having nightmares, aren't you?"

He looked away, filled suddenly with a shame that puzzled him even as it made him want to hide from her scrutiny. Her hand came up again and touched his cheek very gently. She closed her eyes and cocked her head, touching her badge. He felt the touch of her mind then, diffuse, peaceful, and not at all like Gaea's. She sighed and opened her eyes.

"There is a bond there. It's not your fault, Shane," she told him gently. "I can help you. It shouldn't be hard to dissolve the link—"

He stepped back, away from her. "No."

"What?" Niko looked up at him, shocked.

He turned, moved slowly back to the bed and sat, feeling suddenly, terribly weary. "I said no."

"Goose... you can't help her this way," she said. The kindness in her voice pierced him through. "There's no use exhausting yourself. She probably isn't even consciously aware of the link. It only happens when you're asleep, doesn't it?"

"That doesn't matter, Niko. She—I feel responsible, can you understand that? And if this is the only way I can help her, to—to be there and witness what's happening to her, I have to do it. Can you understand?" he repeated.

She stared down at him, stricken.

"Yes," she whispered. "I understand." She closed her eyes for a moment. "But, Goose... two things. If you're going to do this, you're going to need help. Elma—" she raised her voice, and Goose's personal AI bobbed up on the screen of his terminal. Niko turned toward the screen.

"Yes, Niko?" replied Elma in her soft voice.

"Until I tell you otherwise, please monitor Goose's sleep and contact me when he enters dream state."

"Yes, Niko."

Goose uttered a wordless sound of protest, and Niko rounded on him. "You're asking me to watch you self-destruct, Shane! Well, it's your mind and your decision, but I don't have to like it—and I don't have to let you do it on your own. We're a team, the four of us, and we take care of each other."

She turned away.

"Niko... please don't say anything about this to anyone."

Back still to him, she raised one hand to her face.

"Niko?"

"All right, Goose. I won't say anything. But... I said there were two things." She turned back to him, eyes determined.

Goose fought back wariness. This is Niko, he told himself. She's on your side. "Yeah?"

"I want to try using the link to find Gaea."

"You think we can?" He stared at her, trying not to hope.

"I think it's worth a try." She stepped toward him again. At the touch of her fingers on his forehead, Goose was suddenly, terribly conscious of his state of dress. Or rather, undress.

I am sitting on my bed. A woman—no, scratch that, the sexiest woman I've ever met—is touching my face. I am wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

With tremendous effort, Goose kept the blush off his face.

"Uh, Niko, why don't you give me a couple minutes to get dressed."

She blinked, looked down at him, and blushed.

God, that's... No, Gooseman, you ass, don't go there. She's your friend, idiot. Your friend.

"Of course," she said, and turned to retreat to the living room.

He stood hastily. "I'll just use the bathroom. No need to go anywhere. I'll be right back." He grabbed his uniform and took two quick steps into the other room.

He couldn't remember ever having dressed so fast in his life.

"All right, Goose," Niko said. "You need to concentrate on Gaea."

She's so calm. How does she do it?

Niko laid one gentle hand on his cheek and the other on her badge. "Let's begin, then."

Goose watched, fascinated, as she blinked, her blue-green irises shifting to deep violet before she closed her eyes in concentration. Under the pale skin of her closed eyelids he saw the delicate tracery of veins and the shiver of movement as her eyes twitched in response to some unseen stimulus.

"Concentrate, Shane," she gently rebuked him.

"Sorry," he muttered, and closed his eyes in sheer self-defense, the better to hold an image of Gaea in his mind.

Goose felt nothing at first but the sense of Niko's presence—that touch, deft and sure, which he had felt on other occasions, in other places.

"Ah," she murmured. "I'm getting a sense of—" Her words broke off in a gasp.

Goose felt his head jerk back as if someone had punched him between the eyes, and he saw with blurred vision that Niko had curled over, holding her head in her hands.

Gradually she straightened, the muscles around her eyes tight with pain. "Are you all right, Goose?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," he answered, gritting his teeth against a pounding headache.

She pressed her fingertips to her temples. "I think," she said carefully, avoiding his eyes, "that we should probably wait until later to try that again."

"Yeah," he repeated.

Niko's eyes closed for a moment. "I understand now why you woke up—that way, Shane," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

She rose and laid one gentle hand on his shoulder before she turned and left the room.

Niko stepped quickly down the corridor, still holding one hand to her forehead against the throbbing pain that filled her skull. Her mind whirled with emotions and memories that weren't hers: terror, confusion, snatches of thought and sensation.

Sweetheart, you mustn't ever tell anyone where you came from.

NO

Gaea, my little one... You were made to be special. You're the only one who can do the things you do.

NO... that's not my mother, not Mira

Niko shook her head. "That poor girl," she whispered to herself. They're trying to twist all the memories that make her who she is. She paused to let her door slide open and winced as an especially piercing pain stabbed through her head.

A light, flowery scent, warm arms around her. Just a little peek, sweetheart. No one will ever know...

Can you do that for Mama?

...Mama?

Niko's throat ached with sorrow. I'm sorry, Goose...

Gaea - Chapter 11

From Betamountain.org

Gaea

Chapter 11

by Baybelletrist