Chapter 3 - If I Only Had A Soul
Hank Evans entered a small ten foot by ten foot room crammed with various pieces of equipment, each with its own flashing display, listing off a never-ending parade of text. He sat in a chair in front of the equipment, operating the controls on the devices. Joining the displays was a loud cacophony of various languages coming from a number of speakers in the room. Hank leaned to one side in the chair to take it all in for several moments.
He made some minor adjustments to a few of the controls and listened again. He walked out of the room. The equipment continued running through a variety of different signals, processing each for later inspection.
***
Jack sat at a table in a large kitchen area with gray metallic walls while Daphne worked on making coffee. Jack couldn't help noticing her nightgown was far too loose fitting to prevent him from gaining the occasional glimpse of parts of her body that he doubted she wanted him looking at. He did his best not to stare.
He folded his hands in front of him on the table.
"You certain you don't want anything, Jack?" she asked him, purposely stepping into his field of view.
"No thank you," he replied. "I'm sure Hank intends for us to leave soon."
Hank walked in and put his arms around Daphne's waist. "How about a couple of steaks, sweetheart?" he asked her.
"Sure," she answered. She walked over to a large counter and went to work.
Jack frowned at Hank. "I thought we didn't have time."
"Unfortunately, it'll take my systems a bit to go through the local comm traffic," Hank said. "We should have some answers in another six to eight hours."
Jack rolled his eyes. "We don't have time for this. Why don't we just go and let the yacht's computer analyze whatever you need?" Jack asked, exasperated.
"First, we're not taking the yacht," Hank said. "Second, you need to rest."
"I can rest on the way there."
"And where is that, Jack?"
"Wherever it is we're going," Jack said.
"That's the problem," Hank told him. "I can narrow things down to about seven possible systems, but the chances are we wouldn't get to the right one for a month or so. By morning I'll know exactly where we need to go."
"How difficult can it be to find a force that could destroy a Sovereign class starship?" Jack asked.
"Understand there are thousands of operators within the Levalum Clans," Hank began. "I'm guessing it was one of the majors. This mission required precise timing and an intimate knowledge of Starfleet. They knew your father's transponder frequency. My guess is he was the target."
"But Mei, she..." Jack started, but was unable to finish.
"She was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jack."
Jack let his head tilt down.
"Though, in one sense she was in the right place," Hank said. "If she'd been in another escape pod she'd have ended up like the rest of the Balthazar's crew."
"What the hell would the Levalum want with my father?" Jack said, looking up at Hank.
"That's what I'm worried about," Hank answered, frowning. "Usually the Levalum wouldn't take on something as well armed as a Sovereign class starship. It just isn't worth it. And if they were to take on a ship that strongly defended they'd certainly capture all the females alive for…" He raised his brow. "Well, for one of their more profitable business interests."
Daphne walked over to them setting a tall glass on the table for Jack and then one for Hank.
"My god, you don't think that's why they..." Jack began.
Hank shook his head. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, Jack. Worrying about what may or may not have happened to Mei won't get us anywhere. We need hard information."
"Then let's go get some!" Jack demanded.
"That's why I've got my system checking the comm traffic," Hank said. "It's sending inquiries that should draw some of the players out into the open."
Jack frowned as Daphne poured golden liquid into each of their glasses.
***
An hour later, Jack sat on a small bed in a roughly twelve foot square room. He wore a T-shirt and pair of shorts, both with the emblem of Starfleet Academy emblazoned proudly upon them. He stared at the gray metal walls of the room.
Hank walked up to his door and peered in. "You doing okay?"
Jack kept staring at the wall. "I don't know if I'll ever be okay again."
Hank opened a closet near the door. "Find yourself three or four changes of clothes in here. I think there's stuff in your size."
"I didn't figure I'd be wearing my Starfleet uniform," Jack said.
Hank considered sitting down and talking with Jack for a while, but he couldn't think of anything he could say that would help his younger friend. "We'll leave after breakfast."
Jack only nodded.
Daphne came up behind Hank. "There you are," she said affectionately.
"Just making sure Jack was set for the night," Hank said.
"He looks a little old to need tucking in," she remarked with a grin. She put her arms around Hank's waist. "How about you tuck me in instead?"
Hank smiled and the two of them left the room.
Jack stood and closed the door and shut off the lights.
He got into bed and wept quietly in the darkness for more than ten minutes before finally falling asleep.
***
The next morning Jack walked down the narrow hallway toward the kitchen area wearing a set of dark pants, dark gray shirt, and a tight fitting jacket. He had showered and gotten dressed, but hadn't fully awakened until he made his way into the hall where his nose came to life taking in the smells filling the air.
Jack succumbed to it and stopped. He closed his eyes and inhaled the delightful smells into his nostrils in one large breath. The warm aroma of fresh baked bread hit him first with a longing to sink his teeth into the lightly browned outside and delicate fluff inside.
Next, the smoke from crisp bacon frying in an open pan made his mouth water as he heard it sizzling away. It had been some time since he'd had fresh bacon and this he could tell wasn't some concoction out of a replicator. There wasn't much else Jack preferred for breakfast over bacon.
He also caught the delicious smell of eggs, hash browns, steaming fresh coffee, and was that cinnamon? By god, it most certainly was! If he wasn't mistaken it had just the faintest touch of sugar to it.
He walked into the kitchen just as Daphne placed a tray of steaming cinnamon rolls on the counter. She looked up and smiled at Jack.
"Good morning," she said as he continued to stare at the rolls. "You sleep okay?"
Jack tore his gaze away from the rolls and saw the bacon, eggs, hash browns, and brewing coffee nearby. He felt as if he'd fallen into some time warp and ended up several hundred years in the past when a morning meal like this was commonplace. Despite those simpler times, human beings knew how to enjoy things like a good breakfast.
Mei would love this, he thought. She'd enjoy the... he stopped. The twenty-fourth century slammed into his chest like a ton of bricks. He forced a smile.
"I slept fine," he said.
Daphne placed numerous strips of bacon on a plate. "Well, sit down," she urged him. "You like hash browns?"
He sat. "Yes please."
She placed a full serving of the steaming potatoes on the plate along with a hot cinnamon roll.
"The bread should be done in another few minutes," she told him as she set his plate in front of him on the table.
"Daphne, you're worth your weight in gold," Jack said with a smile, sniffing the warm air off his plate.
"I certainly cost a hell of a lot more than that," she responded, serving up his scrambled eggs.
"What?" Jack said, giving her a puzzled look.
"Didn't Hank tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
She shook her head and walked back to the counter. She picked up a glass of orange juice for Jack.
Jack's eyes widened the next moment as Daphne evaporated away. The glass of juice fell to the floor, shattering with a loud crack.
Three seconds later, Daphne reappeared. She looked down at the floor now covered in orange juice and pieces of broken glass.
"Damn it!" she yelled.
Hank walked in. "What's wrong?"
Jack stood to his feet pointing at Daphne. "She just vanished!"
She frowned. "Of course I did," she remarked, turning to Hank. "That damn emitter is going out again. The stupid thing has gone bad three times since you left."
"Did you replace it?" Hank asked, getting a vacuum unit to clean up the mess.
"Yeah," she said. "Three times!"
"She's a holographic projection?" Jack asked, surprised.
Hank smiled. "I thought you knew."
"How the hell was I supposed to know that?"
Daphne grinned and walked past them. "I'll get another emitter and you two can replace it. I need to do a diagnostic of the system. I'd hate to give you food poisoning."
She left the room.
"You slept with her last night, didn't you?" Jack asked.
Hank finished the cleaning and got his own plate from the counter. "Daphne's a hell of a lot of fun, Jack."
"She's just a phantom of energy fields and computer patterns... from a machine!"
"So she's mechanical," Hank said as he sat down next to Jack. "She's great to come home to after a long trip."
Hank ate a strip of bacon while Jack continued to stare at him.
"You act like she's real," Jack pointed out.
"She is," Hank said with a sly grin. "In more ways than one."
"But she's a computer program and..." Jack began.
"What do you call that collection of neurons up in your head?" Hank asked.
"That's completely different," Jack answered, turning to look at his plate. "She's just a bunch of energy fields."
"And your body is given the appearance of solid material from the interactions of electromagnetic fields in your atoms."
"I don't disappear if the power goes out, Hank."
"But if I alter the probabilities of the collection of particles we refer to as Jack McCall, you'd wink out of existence too," Hank returned.
"Last I checked most 'real' people don't have that happening to them," Jack said eating one his own strips of bacon.
Hank chuckled. "If you ever got a look into some of the secret archives of the Federation, especially those ghouls in Temporal Investigations, you'd change your tune on that, young captain."
Jack took a bite of his cinnamon roll. He quickly forgot their discussion of Daphne's existence as the warm sweetness of the roll melted in his mouth. "Damn," he whispered.
"Great stuff isn't it?" Hank asked. "And you want to argue about whether she's real or not?"
Jack smelled the rest of his food. For now he'd forego any further complaints about Hank's "friend."
Daphne strolled back into the kitchen carrying a small box with labels in a language Jack didn't recognize. "Here's the emitter," she said to Hank. "Please fix it before you leave."
"Not to worry sweetheart," Hank replied.
"Sorry I gave you a fright," Daphne said to Jack as she poured him another glass of juice. "I just assumed someone had mentioned that I was a holographic person."
She brought the glass over and set it down next to Jack's plate.
"Thank you," he responded.
She brought her own plate of food over and sat across from the two men.
"You eat?" Jack asked.
"Blame that on Hank," she smirked as she began eating. "He decided to make some modifications to the program."
"A good meal isn't worth much if there's no one to enjoy it with," Hank remarked as he took a bite of eggs.
"How does that work exactly?" Jack asked with a grin.
"The computer could probably tell you," she said. "I can access the information if you want."
"I thought you were the computer," Jack said.
"No, I'm Daphne," she responded with a wide smile.
"Her personality is a separate system," Hank said. "She's connected to the main computer, but she's definitely her own... person." Hank stared at her for a moment while she smiled at him.
"If you hadn't seen her fade away for a second you'd never have known, Jack," Hank said.
"Is she the holographic system you had to finish paying those two Levalum individuals we met last year?"
"Yeah," Hank said. "They expect I'll have to come up with the money soon, but they don't know I deactivated their little payment insurance system."
"Payment insurance?" Jack inquired.
"They had it set up so that if I don't pay them by a certain date, Daphne will try to kill me... in bed," Hank explained.
"We couldn't let that happen, now could we?" Daphne said with a grin.
Jack looked at her wondering if Hank was really as clever as he thought. "Are you certain about that?"
Hank laughed. "Yes, I'm certain. Trulfulsa and Galfalda may be ruthless as hell, but they're cheap. They wouldn't pay anyone to do a really good job securing their merchandise. I know those guys."
Jack went back to work on his food. Despite his reservations about who fixed it, he wasn't going to let it get cold.
***
An hour later, Jack stood inside the small communication center as Hank studied various displays and lists of information.
"How much exactly did this whole setup, the asteroid, the hangers, the life support system, all cost you, Hank?" Jack asked.
"Plenty," Hank answered. "But I've got money to burn."
"You must have kept busy."
"It's a good life, Jack. If you hadn't gotten married I was going to ask you to join me," Hank said.
Jack's jovial attitude faded as Hank's comment brought Mei-Wan back to his mind. The food and all the rest had actually allowed him a brief moment away from the pain.
Hank leaned back in his seat with a frown. "This isn't good."
"What?"
"From what I can tell it was someone based in the Antenora system," Hank answered. "This is going to be rougher than I thought."
"I've never heard of it," Jack said.
"The wealthiest of the clans live there. They also happen to be the nastiest," Hank explained. "We're going to have to be very careful or we'll end up worse than dead."
He turned in his chair to face Jack. "We may need some help."
"You want me to contact the Chamberlain?" Jack asked.
Hank rolled his eyes. "I said help, not cannon fodder."
"What's with the attitude?" Jack asked.
"What attitude?"
"The one you've got about Starfleet and the Federation," Jack pointed out.
"Starfleet is good at exploring, not at what we have to do," Hank contended. "We do this Starfleet's way and you'll never see Mei or your father again."
Jack stared at him. "That's the attitude."
"You can call it what you want, Jack. I've done this enough times to know what does and doesn't work."
"How about we just get going?" Jack asked.
Hank stood to his feet. "After we get some supplies."
After going through a series of corridors, Jack followed Hank to a large door that required a series of codes to open it. Once they entered, Jack understood the reason for all the security.
The large room--- it was more like a cavern--- stretched half a mile into the asteroid Hank Evans called home. Everywhere Jack turned, large crates stood stacked one upon the other up to the fifty foot high ceiling. In the more than twelve years Hank had been an independent trader he had amassed quite a collection of treasures.
"What is all of this?" Jack asked as Hank opened a large metal locker.
"Some of it's things I bought with the money I made, others are objects I found on worlds you've never heard of," Hank said as he pulled out several items handed one to Jack. "Here, take this."
Jack noticed it felt a lot heavier than a standard issue phaser. "I assume this is a weapon."
"Be careful with that," Hank said. "Don't release the safety unless there's someone you want dead."
"No stun setting?" Jack asked.
Hank shook his head. "Where we're going people don't believe in stun settings."
"Wonderful," Jack remarked as he checked the safety. He attached the holster that held the weapon to his belt.
Hank handed him another object. This was about the size of a poker chip, but square instead of round.
"What is it? Jack asked. "A bomb?"
"No, it's a dimensional displacement device," Hank explained.
"Like the thing that brought the yacht into this asteroid?"
"Yeah," Hank said. "But much shorter range."
Jack flipped it over in his hand and noticed several small controls on the unit. "How do you set the destination?"
"You don't exactly," Hank answered. "It seeks out the area of lowest density within a set distance. Try not to use it down in a deep hole or inside a ship. You’re likely to end up buried alive in solid rock or metal."
Jack wasn't certain he wanted to keep something like that anywhere near him.
"Don't worry, it's got several safety features," Hank said with a smile. "It's not gonna go off on its own." Hank closed the locker after placing one of the displacement devices in a pocket of his jacket. "Oh, the density is adjustable, but never set it to zero. Some folks like to keep vacuum containers around to catch idiots who don't know any better."
"Don't tell me you use this to kill people with."
"I use them to get my ass out of nasty situations, Captain," Hank said. He turned to walk out of the large vault. "My guess is we'll find ourselves in a few of those on this trip."
***
A half hour later, Hank and Jack walked with Daphne toward a large hanger next to the small one the yacht Bucephalus sat berthed in. At the end of a thirty foot length of gantry sat a hundred meter long ship that looked as if it had left its best days behind some time ago. It was longer than it was wide and had warp nacelles that extended only a short distance away from the sides of the hull. Emblazoned on the port side of the craft was the name...
"Gladys?" Jack inquired with a grin.
"Hey, what's the matter with it?" Hank asked. "It's a good name."
Jack shook his head as Hank went to Daphne and gave her a kiss.
"Take care of yourself," Hank told her.
"Try to get back before another two years passes," she said with a frown.
"I will," he said.
Hank made his way across the gantry toward the ship. "Come on, Jack."
Jack McCall started to go when Daphne caught the edge of his jacket and stopped him.
"Please keep an eye on Hank," she said with pleading eyes. "He's not as young as he likes to think he is."
Jack found himself more than a little surprised that a computer simulation was worried about Hank, but then he thought she was probably programmed that way. Or was there something more here?
"I will," he said.
She smiled. "Oh, about the name," she whispered. "Gladys was his mother's name."
Jack returned Daphne's smile.
***
Inside the Gladys, Hank Evans was busy turning on power systems as Jack entered the cramped pilot's cabin.
"Not very roomy, is it?" Jack remarked as he squeezed sideways past a panel of equipment.
"She's a good ship," Hank replied. "You take the pilot's seat this time. I'll take navigation."
"I've never flown a ship like this, Hank."
"You'll figure it out along the way," Hank said getting up from the seat and sitting in the chair behind it and to the right.
Jack made his way to the vacated seat and shoehorned himself into it. He looked down at the control panel and got lost in the hundreds of indicators and switches. "You're sure about me flying this thing?"
"Yeah, there's nothing to it."
"Okay, but don't blame me if I break it," Jack said.
Hank laughed out loud at his friend. He got up from his chair and started taking Jack through the basics of operating the craft that would be their home for the next several weeks.
***
Ten minutes later, the Gladys appeared in a bright flash in orbit of the asteroid and soon after soared away as its reactors came to life, leaving the Jykasda system behind.
