Post by Lorpius Prime on Apr 23, 2010 0:28:48 GMT -5
"Thank you, General, Sergeant," Eduard said, "and please give my thanks to your men. Everything looks excellent, and I'm grateful for your hospitality."
"It was our pleasure, Chief Molinas," the Ejército General said. "If you need anything else, we're at your service."
The base commander nodded respectfully and stepped back to a discrete distance, hands folded behind his back. The firing range master did the same, and Eduard returned the gesture.
Eduard would have much preferred to do this at one of the military bases in his own country. Unfortunately, as Senator Cardenas had warned Eduard, returning to Mexico might have been a very bad idea. Nicolao Cardenas was the PAN's Senate leader, the Chairman of the Congressional Permanent Committee, and overall probably the most influential single man in the current Mexican congress. He was also (in theory) Eduard Molinas' political ally, and right now he was reporting that the PRD was looking for another opportunity to deny him exit permission. As President of Mexico, Eduard needed congressional permission whenever he wanted to leave the country and perform minor tasks like showing up at the OES capital in Caracas.
The Chief Executive of the OES position was a tremendously important responsibility which brought global prestige and authority to its occupant and his home country. So it was patently ridiculous for the Mexican congress to attempt to prevent its President from fulfilling the extra duties of that position.
But apparently congress was trying to do just that. Eduard was sure the PRD opposition was mostly just trying to score political points. But his request for extra OES funding to cover the New Mars Company seizure was handing them extra ammunition. Even Eduard's own party members were grumbling, which irked him, though he should have known it wouldn't be excessively popular. PAN liked Earth Fleet well enough, since the Fleet was Humanity's defense against hostile aliens. The OES, however, was a slightly different story. A lot of voters would rather Eduard have spent the money he was using to help the Tadpoles to help them instead. It was petty, shortsighted thinking.
Eduard sighed. However he might deride public opinion, he should have seen it coming. As a politician it was his job to listen and understand the people's concerns, no matter how selfish they might be. Still, it rankled him not to receive more appreciation for the greater good that he was doing for all of Humanity.
No such luck, however, not so far. Which was why Eduard was currently on a Venezuelan Ejército base outside Caracas, rather than one owned by the Mexican National Defense Army.
The Venezuelan military had no shortage of enthusiasm, but they did lack the same… professionalism, Eduard supposed it was, that he was used to. On average, Venezuelan soldiers were better paid and had better equipment than their Mexican peers. But they hadn't fought anything like an actual war in nearly two centuries. The Ejército was a trophy, a national plaything intended mostly for show, but with a bad habit for coups when it became grumpy. The National Defense Army, in contrast, was very much a battle-hardened force that still saw occasional serious combat action against criminal gangs at home and rebels and terrorists abroad.
Still, Eduard's plans for the day were well within the Ejército's capabilities.
"My men will be standing by if you need us as well, Chief Molinas," said a gruff little EPS guardsman.
The Chief Executive knew from his accent that Colonel Ricky Harper had been raised somewhere along the American gulf coast. But Eduard had always been afraid to ask just how his security chief had come to be a citizen of Nigeria. There was probably a story to it, but he suspected it was not the sort one would tell to children.
"Thank you, Colonel," Eduard said politely, "but I don't think you need to worry. I'm confident that if our friends meant to harm me, that they wouldn't need such an elaborate plan."
The EPS man nodded ever so slightly. But though his eyes were concealed behind opaque sunglasses, Eduard was sure they never stopped looking at the two aliens just behind him.
Shrugging, Eduard turned back to them himself, "Am I right, Ambassador?"
"My instinct is to brag about the many ways that I could have you dispatched with very little effort or risk to my own self, Chief Executive. But as I am quite sure that would be undiplomatic of me, I shall instead assure you that I would never sanction anything so despicable as your assassination."
Eduard smiled. He had already decided that Ambassador Goyeharg could have made a successful career as a stand-up comic. His deadpan was perfect.
"There, you see Colonel? You should relax and enjoy the show."
Harper was very nearly a master of the poker face himself, but he could not quite hide all trace of his grimace as he shuffled backwards to a polite distance.
Chuckling softly, Eduard gestured the two Bats forward, "Shall we?"
"Of course, Chief Molinas," Goyeharg said. "I'll admit I had rather been hoping you would let me observe your first test of my gift."
"Yeah, I noticed you didn't include any sort of instruction manual with this thing," Eduard lifted the heavy briefcase containing the golden pistol Goyeharg had given him during their first meeting. He set it gently down onto the little bench in front of the firing range to unlatch it.
"Ah," Goyeharg said breezily, "would you believe that was a simple oversight? I had assumed the operation would be obvious, I did not really consider potential differences in our weapons conventions." He looked at his companion, "I suppose I should have asked you about the matter in advance, as you would probably have known to warn me."
The other Bat, Horexker, had been studiously silent this whole time, and he kept his quiet even now. Eduard had the impression that the Bat military attaché would probably have preferred to be somewhere else today.
"Alas," Goyeharg said once Eduard had gotten the briefcase opened, "I can only attempt to rectify the mistake now. What do you need to know?"
"Well…" Eduard considered the contents of the case. He pointed to the biggest of the three pieces inside, which looked like a gold brick with a handle punched into one end. "I'm pretty sure that's the gun itself. Why don't you tell me which end the bullets come out of?"
Goyeharg's wings twitched slightly, but then he opened his mouth and gave his somewhat barking impression of a Human laugh. "Very well then, Chief, may I?"
He held out a clawed hand toward the case. Eduard waved his own hand, and the Bat snatched up the weapon by the handle.
"You hold it like this," he said, and stretched out his arm straight forward. He held it so that his palm was parallel to the ground, rather than vertically as Eduard would have instinctively done.
"Then this," Goyeharg slipped his other hand into the briefcase to pull out the smallest piece, a little gold tab on a ring, "is the trigger. The weapon is inactive so long as it's removed like this. You merely insert it into the slot here," he pointed to a small hole inside the handle, "and then pull to fire. It's programmed to fire only once, and you'll need to remove pressure on the trigger before firing again. When you're done, the trigger slips back out for safekeeping. I don't recommend leaving it in while you're storing the weapon, or you'll drain the power supply a little faster, as well as risk a misfire."
"I'll remember to keep it out of reach of children, too," Eduard said, but Goyeharg didn't seem to get the joke. The Bat offered the two pieces of the weapon to him, and Eduard took them awkwardly.
Eduard had never fired very many guns; most of his shooting experience was from carefully staged political photo opportunities. Even so, he could tell almost immediately that this weapon was not well balanced. At least, not for a Human hand. It was heavy towards the front, and required a fair amount of wrist strength to hold steady and level. Keeping the trigger in his left hand, Eduard raised and lowered the inert weapon several times, looking down its length.
"So, just point and shoot, I guess?"
"No," Goyeharg said, "you should put on the goggles," he pointed to the pair of what seemed to be plastic safety glasses in the briefcase. "They're linked to the weapon so you can see where you're shooting."
"Ah, makes sense," Eduard slipped the glasses on over his face.
"When you put the trigger in, they'll project a blue dot over your current target. So long as the weapon's pointing at something within your field of view, that is."
"Okay."
Eduard took a couple of deep breaths, then squared his footing in front of the firing line. He slipped the little gold trigger tab into the weapon like Goyeharg had showed him, keeping his index finger inside the little ring.
It took him a few seconds of waving the gun around, but Eduard picked out the little blue dot to which the Bat was referring. His hand wasn't quite as steady as he would have liked, and the dot kept shivering. But slowly and carefully, using both hands to support the weapon now, Eduard brought it to a rest over one of the man-shaped targets which the Ejército had kindly placed at various points along the range. Eduard squeezed the trigger.
Someone swung a sledgehammer with all of his might into the palm of Eduard's hand.
"Ay, fuck! Mierda!" Eduard staggered backward, dropping the gun and clutching his stinging wrist.
"Chief! Chief Molinas!"
Pascual grimaced as he watched EPS guards swarm around his uncle and the two Bats. One of them actually shoved the barrel of his weapon under Goyeharg's chin as the Bat Ambassador tried to take a step towards the injured Chief Executive.
"Oh my God…" Pascual muttered.
"Don't worry," Eduard Molinas said as his upper body replaced the video of the firing range, "we managed to avoid any sort of serious diplomatic incident. Goyeharg was quite apologetic once we figured out what happened."
Eduard held up his right arm to the camera, showing off the pink plastic brace which encased his wrist. "Apparently the Bats' skeletons are designed to let them lock their joints in place, so they're rather more shock-resistant than ours." He thumped the brace with the knuckles of his left hand. "Didn't actually break anything, thank God, but they still had to do surgery to repair some tissue damage. Anyway, I'll get to wear this for a week or two."
The Chief sighed, "Really, I'm more upset about that video I showed you. It was online before I even got out of the hospital. Ricky says he's trying to find out for sure, but that it was most likely recorded by one of the Venezuelan soldiers. I'd still like to strangle the guy if that's the case, but… politics, eh?
"Anyway, sorry for the video message. I've just hit one of those weird moments in which I have nothing to do," Eduard shrugged. "Bernardo's back in Mexico cracking skulls for me since I can't be there. And Lavrentiy, that bastard, is up in space right now. He planned a whole review of Quito Station without me, can you believe it? I'll get him back after he returns though. Willy and I are having dinner with President Gómez this evening—I think he wants to apologize for the video. But Willy's bringing this pretty little Puerto Rican chica he met on a plane flight—and do you believe that? So that means I have to go down my list and pick out an even prettier girl. I fear my flirting with Mrs. Gómez just won't be credible."
On the screen, Pascual's uncle rubbed his temple with his good hand, as if to show just how much stress these troubles were causing. "Okay, I'll let you go, Pascual. Thanks for putting up with my senile rambling. Stay well."
The video clicked off, and it was Pascual's turn to sigh. He pushed himself back from the computer desk—gently in the low gravity. Even though Pascual had been awake for less than an hour now, a part of him wanted just to climb back into his bed. His empty bed.
It wasn't fair to his uncle to get angry just for mentioning his or Willy's girlfriends. Eduard was just casually gossiping, letting off steam after a stressful day. Still, the comment made him think about Sonia, which Pascual really didn't want to think about just now. Or ever again, if he could help it. And that admission just made Pascual feel even worse.
"Enough," Pascual muttered. He took two deep breaths, and forced himself to stand up from his chair. Pascual focused his thoughts on the moment at hand; he could sort out his emotional worries another time.
Forty minutes later, Pascual was in the Barn Swallow's mess eating lunch with Captain Sykes. They hadn't arranged the meeting, Pascual had just wandered into the mess after Sykes had filled a tray, and the freighter captain had waved him over.
Right now Sykes was tapping lazily at a PDA while drinking something up through a straw—whether an actual beverage or some sort of nutrient soup, Pascual wasn't sure. For himself, Pascual had a cold turkey sandwich and a packet of apple juice, but was finding his appetite smaller than he'd hoped.
"So," Pascual made the first stab at conversation, "I know the paperwork never ends in a job like yours, but what is it that you actually need to do when you're not, um, captaining."
Sykes raised the unoccupied corner of his mouth in a smile, then set his drink aside.
"Actually right now I'm just reading the ship bulletin," he indicated the PDA. "One of our cargo handlers likes to pretend he's a gossip columnist, so he gets to edit the thing." Sykes chuckled. "After that though, I've still a got a stack of performance reviews to go through. Including his, actually, though I probably shouldn't do that right after reading this."
He flashed the PDA screen at Pascual, who recognized a small picture of Sykes, but his attention was caught more by the headline of a story next to it: "The Modern Space Swashbuckler, an interview with the Barn Swallow's special guest Hyongyaheek."
Captain Sykes pulled the PDA back to himself before Pascual could attempt to read the article. The Ambassador experienced a rising dread in the pit of his stomach.
Deciding to change the subject, he gestured at one of the video monitors which lined the outer wall like portals, showing a view of the space outside the Barn Swallow.
"So when do we start getting into the asteroid belt?" he asked.
Sykes glanced at Pascual and blinked.
"We're almost past it now."
Pascual frowned, "So… when do I get to see the asteroids?"
A muscle in the captain's face twitched, "You w—it's not like Star Wars, Ambassador. The whole belt masses less than the moon, and it's scattered all over a solar orbit."
Pascual nodded, "I didn't think we'd be having to dodge tons of rocks, but I was kind of hoping to see a few."
Sykes' expression was sympathetic, "There's video footage of a lot of the bigger ones that you can get. But we're staying well clear of them on this trip. Uruguay's point defenses have shot a few that were going to come within a few hundred kilometers, but the biggest of those was maybe the size of your thumb." The captain waggled his for emphasis.
"Well I'm disappointed, Captain," Pascual shook his head solemnly. "I came out here for an adventure, and now you've gone and ruined space for me."
This was worth a full laugh. "Well if that's done it, I hope you never find out that our lasers don't actually—"
His revelation about the lasers was cut off by the loud buzz of an alarm and the strobe of a crimson light overhead.
Pascual was still blinking when the buzzing was overridden by a calm female voice that he recognized as belonging to the Barn Swallow's Executive Officer.
"This is a general alarm. Captain Sykes, your presence is requested on the bridge. All other personnel to combat stations, please. I repeat, general alarm, all hands to combat stations."
The buzzing resumed, but with less intensity. Or so Pascual felt, anyway, as he rubbed his bruised ears.
"I'm sorry, Captain," he said, "I think this might be the Commodore punishing me."
Sykes was already on his feet, "She didn't tell me there was another exercise in the works."
He shuffled out of the mess before Pascual could ask anything else. A handful of the Barn Swallow's crew squeezed against walls to let him by, then followed him out the door, leaving Pascual alone in the mess.
"Once again, this is a general alarm, all personnel report to your combat stations…"
"It was our pleasure, Chief Molinas," the Ejército General said. "If you need anything else, we're at your service."
The base commander nodded respectfully and stepped back to a discrete distance, hands folded behind his back. The firing range master did the same, and Eduard returned the gesture.
Eduard would have much preferred to do this at one of the military bases in his own country. Unfortunately, as Senator Cardenas had warned Eduard, returning to Mexico might have been a very bad idea. Nicolao Cardenas was the PAN's Senate leader, the Chairman of the Congressional Permanent Committee, and overall probably the most influential single man in the current Mexican congress. He was also (in theory) Eduard Molinas' political ally, and right now he was reporting that the PRD was looking for another opportunity to deny him exit permission. As President of Mexico, Eduard needed congressional permission whenever he wanted to leave the country and perform minor tasks like showing up at the OES capital in Caracas.
The Chief Executive of the OES position was a tremendously important responsibility which brought global prestige and authority to its occupant and his home country. So it was patently ridiculous for the Mexican congress to attempt to prevent its President from fulfilling the extra duties of that position.
But apparently congress was trying to do just that. Eduard was sure the PRD opposition was mostly just trying to score political points. But his request for extra OES funding to cover the New Mars Company seizure was handing them extra ammunition. Even Eduard's own party members were grumbling, which irked him, though he should have known it wouldn't be excessively popular. PAN liked Earth Fleet well enough, since the Fleet was Humanity's defense against hostile aliens. The OES, however, was a slightly different story. A lot of voters would rather Eduard have spent the money he was using to help the Tadpoles to help them instead. It was petty, shortsighted thinking.
Eduard sighed. However he might deride public opinion, he should have seen it coming. As a politician it was his job to listen and understand the people's concerns, no matter how selfish they might be. Still, it rankled him not to receive more appreciation for the greater good that he was doing for all of Humanity.
No such luck, however, not so far. Which was why Eduard was currently on a Venezuelan Ejército base outside Caracas, rather than one owned by the Mexican National Defense Army.
The Venezuelan military had no shortage of enthusiasm, but they did lack the same… professionalism, Eduard supposed it was, that he was used to. On average, Venezuelan soldiers were better paid and had better equipment than their Mexican peers. But they hadn't fought anything like an actual war in nearly two centuries. The Ejército was a trophy, a national plaything intended mostly for show, but with a bad habit for coups when it became grumpy. The National Defense Army, in contrast, was very much a battle-hardened force that still saw occasional serious combat action against criminal gangs at home and rebels and terrorists abroad.
Still, Eduard's plans for the day were well within the Ejército's capabilities.
"My men will be standing by if you need us as well, Chief Molinas," said a gruff little EPS guardsman.
The Chief Executive knew from his accent that Colonel Ricky Harper had been raised somewhere along the American gulf coast. But Eduard had always been afraid to ask just how his security chief had come to be a citizen of Nigeria. There was probably a story to it, but he suspected it was not the sort one would tell to children.
"Thank you, Colonel," Eduard said politely, "but I don't think you need to worry. I'm confident that if our friends meant to harm me, that they wouldn't need such an elaborate plan."
The EPS man nodded ever so slightly. But though his eyes were concealed behind opaque sunglasses, Eduard was sure they never stopped looking at the two aliens just behind him.
Shrugging, Eduard turned back to them himself, "Am I right, Ambassador?"
"My instinct is to brag about the many ways that I could have you dispatched with very little effort or risk to my own self, Chief Executive. But as I am quite sure that would be undiplomatic of me, I shall instead assure you that I would never sanction anything so despicable as your assassination."
Eduard smiled. He had already decided that Ambassador Goyeharg could have made a successful career as a stand-up comic. His deadpan was perfect.
"There, you see Colonel? You should relax and enjoy the show."
Harper was very nearly a master of the poker face himself, but he could not quite hide all trace of his grimace as he shuffled backwards to a polite distance.
Chuckling softly, Eduard gestured the two Bats forward, "Shall we?"
"Of course, Chief Molinas," Goyeharg said. "I'll admit I had rather been hoping you would let me observe your first test of my gift."
"Yeah, I noticed you didn't include any sort of instruction manual with this thing," Eduard lifted the heavy briefcase containing the golden pistol Goyeharg had given him during their first meeting. He set it gently down onto the little bench in front of the firing range to unlatch it.
"Ah," Goyeharg said breezily, "would you believe that was a simple oversight? I had assumed the operation would be obvious, I did not really consider potential differences in our weapons conventions." He looked at his companion, "I suppose I should have asked you about the matter in advance, as you would probably have known to warn me."
The other Bat, Horexker, had been studiously silent this whole time, and he kept his quiet even now. Eduard had the impression that the Bat military attaché would probably have preferred to be somewhere else today.
"Alas," Goyeharg said once Eduard had gotten the briefcase opened, "I can only attempt to rectify the mistake now. What do you need to know?"
"Well…" Eduard considered the contents of the case. He pointed to the biggest of the three pieces inside, which looked like a gold brick with a handle punched into one end. "I'm pretty sure that's the gun itself. Why don't you tell me which end the bullets come out of?"
Goyeharg's wings twitched slightly, but then he opened his mouth and gave his somewhat barking impression of a Human laugh. "Very well then, Chief, may I?"
He held out a clawed hand toward the case. Eduard waved his own hand, and the Bat snatched up the weapon by the handle.
"You hold it like this," he said, and stretched out his arm straight forward. He held it so that his palm was parallel to the ground, rather than vertically as Eduard would have instinctively done.
"Then this," Goyeharg slipped his other hand into the briefcase to pull out the smallest piece, a little gold tab on a ring, "is the trigger. The weapon is inactive so long as it's removed like this. You merely insert it into the slot here," he pointed to a small hole inside the handle, "and then pull to fire. It's programmed to fire only once, and you'll need to remove pressure on the trigger before firing again. When you're done, the trigger slips back out for safekeeping. I don't recommend leaving it in while you're storing the weapon, or you'll drain the power supply a little faster, as well as risk a misfire."
"I'll remember to keep it out of reach of children, too," Eduard said, but Goyeharg didn't seem to get the joke. The Bat offered the two pieces of the weapon to him, and Eduard took them awkwardly.
Eduard had never fired very many guns; most of his shooting experience was from carefully staged political photo opportunities. Even so, he could tell almost immediately that this weapon was not well balanced. At least, not for a Human hand. It was heavy towards the front, and required a fair amount of wrist strength to hold steady and level. Keeping the trigger in his left hand, Eduard raised and lowered the inert weapon several times, looking down its length.
"So, just point and shoot, I guess?"
"No," Goyeharg said, "you should put on the goggles," he pointed to the pair of what seemed to be plastic safety glasses in the briefcase. "They're linked to the weapon so you can see where you're shooting."
"Ah, makes sense," Eduard slipped the glasses on over his face.
"When you put the trigger in, they'll project a blue dot over your current target. So long as the weapon's pointing at something within your field of view, that is."
"Okay."
Eduard took a couple of deep breaths, then squared his footing in front of the firing line. He slipped the little gold trigger tab into the weapon like Goyeharg had showed him, keeping his index finger inside the little ring.
It took him a few seconds of waving the gun around, but Eduard picked out the little blue dot to which the Bat was referring. His hand wasn't quite as steady as he would have liked, and the dot kept shivering. But slowly and carefully, using both hands to support the weapon now, Eduard brought it to a rest over one of the man-shaped targets which the Ejército had kindly placed at various points along the range. Eduard squeezed the trigger.
Someone swung a sledgehammer with all of his might into the palm of Eduard's hand.
"Ay, fuck! Mierda!" Eduard staggered backward, dropping the gun and clutching his stinging wrist.
* * *
"Chief! Chief Molinas!"
Pascual grimaced as he watched EPS guards swarm around his uncle and the two Bats. One of them actually shoved the barrel of his weapon under Goyeharg's chin as the Bat Ambassador tried to take a step towards the injured Chief Executive.
"Oh my God…" Pascual muttered.
"Don't worry," Eduard Molinas said as his upper body replaced the video of the firing range, "we managed to avoid any sort of serious diplomatic incident. Goyeharg was quite apologetic once we figured out what happened."
Eduard held up his right arm to the camera, showing off the pink plastic brace which encased his wrist. "Apparently the Bats' skeletons are designed to let them lock their joints in place, so they're rather more shock-resistant than ours." He thumped the brace with the knuckles of his left hand. "Didn't actually break anything, thank God, but they still had to do surgery to repair some tissue damage. Anyway, I'll get to wear this for a week or two."
The Chief sighed, "Really, I'm more upset about that video I showed you. It was online before I even got out of the hospital. Ricky says he's trying to find out for sure, but that it was most likely recorded by one of the Venezuelan soldiers. I'd still like to strangle the guy if that's the case, but… politics, eh?
"Anyway, sorry for the video message. I've just hit one of those weird moments in which I have nothing to do," Eduard shrugged. "Bernardo's back in Mexico cracking skulls for me since I can't be there. And Lavrentiy, that bastard, is up in space right now. He planned a whole review of Quito Station without me, can you believe it? I'll get him back after he returns though. Willy and I are having dinner with President Gómez this evening—I think he wants to apologize for the video. But Willy's bringing this pretty little Puerto Rican chica he met on a plane flight—and do you believe that? So that means I have to go down my list and pick out an even prettier girl. I fear my flirting with Mrs. Gómez just won't be credible."
On the screen, Pascual's uncle rubbed his temple with his good hand, as if to show just how much stress these troubles were causing. "Okay, I'll let you go, Pascual. Thanks for putting up with my senile rambling. Stay well."
The video clicked off, and it was Pascual's turn to sigh. He pushed himself back from the computer desk—gently in the low gravity. Even though Pascual had been awake for less than an hour now, a part of him wanted just to climb back into his bed. His empty bed.
It wasn't fair to his uncle to get angry just for mentioning his or Willy's girlfriends. Eduard was just casually gossiping, letting off steam after a stressful day. Still, the comment made him think about Sonia, which Pascual really didn't want to think about just now. Or ever again, if he could help it. And that admission just made Pascual feel even worse.
"Enough," Pascual muttered. He took two deep breaths, and forced himself to stand up from his chair. Pascual focused his thoughts on the moment at hand; he could sort out his emotional worries another time.
* * *
Forty minutes later, Pascual was in the Barn Swallow's mess eating lunch with Captain Sykes. They hadn't arranged the meeting, Pascual had just wandered into the mess after Sykes had filled a tray, and the freighter captain had waved him over.
Right now Sykes was tapping lazily at a PDA while drinking something up through a straw—whether an actual beverage or some sort of nutrient soup, Pascual wasn't sure. For himself, Pascual had a cold turkey sandwich and a packet of apple juice, but was finding his appetite smaller than he'd hoped.
"So," Pascual made the first stab at conversation, "I know the paperwork never ends in a job like yours, but what is it that you actually need to do when you're not, um, captaining."
Sykes raised the unoccupied corner of his mouth in a smile, then set his drink aside.
"Actually right now I'm just reading the ship bulletin," he indicated the PDA. "One of our cargo handlers likes to pretend he's a gossip columnist, so he gets to edit the thing." Sykes chuckled. "After that though, I've still a got a stack of performance reviews to go through. Including his, actually, though I probably shouldn't do that right after reading this."
He flashed the PDA screen at Pascual, who recognized a small picture of Sykes, but his attention was caught more by the headline of a story next to it: "The Modern Space Swashbuckler, an interview with the Barn Swallow's special guest Hyongyaheek."
Captain Sykes pulled the PDA back to himself before Pascual could attempt to read the article. The Ambassador experienced a rising dread in the pit of his stomach.
Deciding to change the subject, he gestured at one of the video monitors which lined the outer wall like portals, showing a view of the space outside the Barn Swallow.
"So when do we start getting into the asteroid belt?" he asked.
Sykes glanced at Pascual and blinked.
"We're almost past it now."
Pascual frowned, "So… when do I get to see the asteroids?"
A muscle in the captain's face twitched, "You w—it's not like Star Wars, Ambassador. The whole belt masses less than the moon, and it's scattered all over a solar orbit."
Pascual nodded, "I didn't think we'd be having to dodge tons of rocks, but I was kind of hoping to see a few."
Sykes' expression was sympathetic, "There's video footage of a lot of the bigger ones that you can get. But we're staying well clear of them on this trip. Uruguay's point defenses have shot a few that were going to come within a few hundred kilometers, but the biggest of those was maybe the size of your thumb." The captain waggled his for emphasis.
"Well I'm disappointed, Captain," Pascual shook his head solemnly. "I came out here for an adventure, and now you've gone and ruined space for me."
This was worth a full laugh. "Well if that's done it, I hope you never find out that our lasers don't actually—"
His revelation about the lasers was cut off by the loud buzz of an alarm and the strobe of a crimson light overhead.
Pascual was still blinking when the buzzing was overridden by a calm female voice that he recognized as belonging to the Barn Swallow's Executive Officer.
"This is a general alarm. Captain Sykes, your presence is requested on the bridge. All other personnel to combat stations, please. I repeat, general alarm, all hands to combat stations."
The buzzing resumed, but with less intensity. Or so Pascual felt, anyway, as he rubbed his bruised ears.
"I'm sorry, Captain," he said, "I think this might be the Commodore punishing me."
Sykes was already on his feet, "She didn't tell me there was another exercise in the works."
He shuffled out of the mess before Pascual could ask anything else. A handful of the Barn Swallow's crew squeezed against walls to let him by, then followed him out the door, leaving Pascual alone in the mess.
"Once again, this is a general alarm, all personnel report to your combat stations…"