A New Mission
Episode 2
By the time Marcus made it back onto the Endeavor, everything was in full and frantic motion. Soldiers, mechanics, and officers ran up and down the halls, and there was a life and energy in the air he had never experienced.
The Endeavor was an M-Class warship, built for strength and utility at the complete expense of anything that could be described as ‘luxury’. The hallways were narrow and jagged, with pipes and steam running through them. They were barely wide enough for two people to move past each other, which meant there was a lot of frenetic shoving as people rushed to their destinations.
Rylee disappeared to the bridge as soon as their shuttle landed. She was late for a briefing with the other officers, something he knew would infuriate her. She hated to be late for anything, much less a briefing from her commanding officers.
The rest of the team split off to their various tasks. Since Nigel couldn’t remotely upload the logs he recovered, Marcus had to personally deliver the terminal he recovered from the wreck to an annoyed and disinterested quartermaster. After that, he decided to drop his kit off in his quarters.
No sooner had he stepped inside his five-by-eight quarters when the speakers clicked to life and an announcement filled the entire ship:
“Attention all crew members and civilians aboard the Endeavor: All enlisted officers of rank Lance Corporal or higher please assemble on the main deck. All other crew members assemble in your respective mess halls for a ship wide brief. ETA ten minutes.”
Marcus found himself holding his breath as the announcement clicked off and his room fell silent again. He had never heard of a ship wide briefing before but knew that it must be something important. He hesitated a moment longer and then rushed back out into the hallway. It normally took him ten minutes to reach the mess hall, so he would have to hurry.
The hallway jumbled was worse as the entire crew streamed to their designated locations. Marcus ducked and weaved through the halls, sliding sideways past everyone else and squeezing through any gap he could find. It earned him more than a few angry looks, but right now he couldn't care less.
The anxiety and anticipation in the air were palpable. The threat of war with the outer planets always loomed in the background; he had been hearing about such a war since he was a child, but the idea that it might finally be a reality put everything into stark focus and made Marcus a little sick to his stomach. He had known when signing up how dangerous this job could be, but the actual chance of being in a Warzone had also seemed so small.
Don’t jump to conclusions, he chastised himself. The brief could be about anything. It doesn’t mean there was an attack, and it certainly doesn’t mean war.
Yeah. Right.
Telling himself that did nothing to keep his palms from sweating.
He stumbled into the mess hall along with a stream of latecomers. It was packed to the brim with boisterous soldiers, more than he had ever seen gathered in one place. He recognized most of them, but there were a fair number he had never seen who worked opposite shifts.
His team was there waiting for him: Nigel, Lucas, and Chelsea. The only one missing was Rylee, who was still up with the other officers on the main deck. Marcus slipped into the seat next to Chelsea and exchanged glances with the others.
“Any word?”
“Nothing yet,” Lucas said.
“I have gotten no solid details from sleuthing, either,” Nigel added, shaking his head. “Half the crew thinks it’s an attack from the outer planets, and the other half think it’s a direct order from the First Citizen. No one knows what’s going on.”
“Which just means more panic,” Chelsea added.
Marcus frowned. “The First Citizen?”
Everyone stared at him, and then Lucas burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s right. Sometimes we forget you grew up in such a sheltered life.”
Marcus squirmed in his seat. He hated when they called him out about his upbringing. He came from a wealthy family on the planet Dresbon, which was famous for its utter disdain for Core world politics and history. Marcus could list of all thirty of the last Lords of Dartmuth and describe the local geography of outside Dresbon’s capital, but for any details from the wider galaxy, he was out of the loop.
“The Core World leader,” Chelsea explained with a shrug. “Core World Emperor would be a better descriptor, but they deemed millennia ago such a title to have too much baggage and changed it to First Citizen.”
“He doesn’t give orders to specific ships,” Nigel added. “Like, ever. He doesn’t give orders at all, as far as I’m aware, which means if he is giving an order to us, it would have to be something important. That would explain the pomp and circumstance.”
“Not likely,” Lucas objected, shaking his head. “It’s definitely an attack.”
A hush fell over the crowed as the viewscreen at the front of the mess flicked on and the lights dimmed.
“Looks like we’re about to find out,” Chelsea said.
After a few seconds of a blank white background, the view screen shifted into focus on the captain of the ship: an elderly stateswoman named Captain Blythe Jessup. She had gray hair, piercing eyes, and never smiled.
“I know you are all wondering what is happening,” she began without formality, “but I will strongly caution everyone against the rampant speculation that has been pervading the ship over the last several hours. It is unbecoming for a crew of this nature and such fear-mongering will not be tolerated.”
She paused, staring at the screen with a disapproving frown. Finally, she began speaking again.
“The update, as it pertains to all of you, is this: we have been tasked with joining the rest of the fleet in this region outside an anomaly to assist in a rescue and recovery mission. It will take us outside our pre-planned route and delay our port arrival by an indeterminate amount of time. There has been no attack, and these orders come from the fleet commander of this region. Your immediate commanders will fully brief you on a need-to-know basis.
“Anyone caught engaging in further untoward speculation regarding our orders over the next few hours will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
And with that, the connection terminated. Everyone in the room sat in shocked silence for a full thirty seconds before suddenly Lucas burst out laughing. Suddenly, everyone in the room started talking in their own little clusters.
“I guess our Captain doesn’t like gossip.”
“Guess not,” Chelsea agreed, leaning back in her chair. She was a diminutive woman who kept her blonde hair in a tight bun. She had green eyes and a quick wit and was one of Marcus’s closest friends.
“She’s good at giving us information without telling us anything,” Nigel added. “Rescue mission? Anomaly? I feel like I know less about what is going on now than I did before.”
Marcus just shook his head. The entire situation felt odd, and he knew there had to be more going on than what the captain had just delivered. She basically just gave them a warning to stop making up stories, but of course, that was going to have the opposite effect: they would have been better off getting some actual information from her.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now we wait for Rylee,” Chelsea said. “She’ll have a real update, hopefully.”
“Unless we’re not important enough to be included,” Nigel added. “And in that case, we just need to accept that we will probably never know what’s really going on and that our leave was delayed for an unspecified reason.”
“We better be getting paid for this,” Lucas said.
Nigel just laughed. “Not a chance. You think they are going to compensate us for our time off being delayed by a few days or weeks? You’d be better off trying to wring the money out of a lemon.”
“What does that even mean?”
Nigel shrugged in response. “Just something my grandma used to say.”
