The Star Carrier Series Books 1-3: Earth Strike, Centre of Gravity, Singularity

“‘You would serve time in prison.’”

“No.”

“‘You would be reconditioned.’”

“Damn it, Doctor!” Gray was shouting now. “What does any of this have to do with—”

“It’s okay, Lieutenant. Just relax. Deep breath …”

Gray’s heart was pounding in his chest. He wanted to leave, wanted to run. …

“You see, Trevor, as I told you at the beginning of these sessions, we’re recording everything as we proceed with the session. I can call up any part of our conversation, read it on my in-head display. And we can match each phrase with your emotional output. I notice an extremely strong response on your part to the idea of reconditioning. Is that true?”

“You can also tell when I’m lying,” Gray said, the words close to a snarl.

“Yes, but that’s beside the point.”

“I don’t like the idea of … of reconditioning. No.”

“And what is it that bothers you about it?”

“What is it that—” Gray broke off his reply. “Having my brains scrambled, my memories stolen … shouldn’t that bother anybody?”

“There are a lot of public misconceptions about the neural reconfiguration, Lieutenant. It’s not what you think.”

“No? Then explain that to my wife.”

Gray didn’t know that the docbots at the Columbia Arcology had planted new memories in Angela’s brain. The medtechs hadn’t told him much of anything. But he’d known that the Angela he’d spoken to after her stroke treatment had not been the Angela he’d married. Oh, she’d looked the same, had the same body, the same face … but when she’d looked at him she’d been … different. The love he’d always seen in her eyes was gone, and her conversation seemed … distant. As though she were speaking to a stranger.

The Angela he’d married never would have turned him away, never would have told him she never wanted to see him again.

Fifer had a faraway look on his face as he reviewed records he was calling up within his mind. “Angela Gray,” he said. “I see. A serious stroke. Partial paralysis.”

“And she changed,” Gray said. The words were hard. Bitter. “She changed toward me.”

“That can happen. A stroke can destroy established neural pathways. Those that control movement in muscles. And also those that govern memory, recognition, even attitude and belief.”

“They told me they had to adjust her,” Gray said.

“Adjustment isn’t the same as neural reconfiguration,” Fifer told him. “It’s not reconditioning.”

“No? It made Angela different. It changed her.”

Fifer sighed. “Without direct access to Columbia Arcology’s medcenter, I can’t really say this for sure, but I suspect that what changed her was the delay in getting her to competent treatment. It says here it was almost twenty-four hours before you got her to a medcenter.”

“It took that long to get them to look at her.”

“Yes, well … there were social considerations.”

“Yeah. To them I was a damned filthy primitive, a squattie, with a wife, of all obscene things.”

“That might have been part of it. So was the lack of med insurance, though. That’s how you came to join the Navy, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Fifer nodded. “Lieutenant … I think we may have identified a key focus of your embitterment disorder.”

“Oh, really?” Gray’s tone was biting and sarcastic. “Do you think. Maybe? Damn it, of course I’m bitter about what happened!”

“And I don’t blame you. What happened had a serious, a terrible impact on your life. But you don’t have to let what happened at the Columbia Arcology control you, control your thoughts and actions, for the rest of your life.

“As with everything else in life, Lieutenant Gray, you have a choice—to be done to, or to do. And we’re here to determine which it’s going to be.”

CIC, TC/USNA CVS America

Mars Synchorbit, Sol System

0916 hours, TFT

Koenig felt the faint shudder as America finally nestled into the docking facility gantry, the boarding tubes nestling against the access hatchways in the zero-G sections of her spine. Magnetic clamps locked and nanoseals formed impenetrable, airtight connections. Buchanan had already passed orders that the first off the ship would be the Mufrid passengers. The transports that would take them to Earth were already moving toward America’s berth.

They were home.

He could hear the steady stream of orders from the bridge as some of the ship’s systems were shut down. The hab modules would continue their rotation for a time, providing artificial gravity, at least until the Mufrids were off. And wasn’t that going to be fun … herding more than a thousand people down to the zero-G regions of the ship and floating them out through the boarding tubes? America’s Marine contingent and the Master-at-Arms Division were going to be busy for the next several hours, keeping the civilians moving, keeping them from panicking and thrashing about and possibly hurting themselves. Ship’s crew would be responsible for cleaning up after those who got sick in the passageways, though at least they would have robotic help in that unpleasant task. The ship’s quartermaster’s department was already deploying cleanerbots to the ship’s zero-gravity hab areas.

With America back in spacedock, Admiral Koenig now was technically off duty. Other ships in the carrier battlegroup were still arriving—though a few had been redirected to Earth Synchorbital—but they were now under the individual commands of their respective commanding officers, no longer maneuvering or fighting as a fleet. Now, he thought, might be a good time to go back to his quarters and try to catch some sleep. He’d been awake through much of the inbound passage from Sol’s Kuiper Belt, and dead tired. He already knew he would have to appear in person before a review board of the Senate Military Directorate early tomorrow, ship’s time … and likely face a Board of Inquiry shortly after that.

It might be his last appearance before his peers as a flag-rank officer, and he wanted to be sharp for that meeting.

“I have an incoming communication from Dr. Brandt,” his personal AI informed him. “It is flagged ‘urgent.’”

“Put it through.”

“Admiral Koenig? Brandt, down in med-research!”

“Yes, Doctor. What can I—”

“We’ve got a problem here! The Turusch are killing each other!”

“Damn it! Separate them!”

“It’s … too late for that. You might want to link down here and see for yourself.”

“Stand by. I’m coming down.”

He connected directly with the NTE robots hanging from the ship’s overhead in the compartment holding the two Turusch. The two aliens appeared locked in a deadly embrace, heads split wide open, the harpoons and feeding tubes within imbedded in each other’s bodies. Several medtecs in red e-suits were there, trying to separate the two, but the aliens continued to thrash about weakly, pushing the humans away with flailing black tentacles. A pair of white Noters suspended from the overhead were trying to help, but were knocked away with ease.

Shit! “Get them apart!” he barked.