Galactic Search and Rescue: A Scifi Space Opera with Adventure, Romance, and Pets: A Central Galactic Concordance Novella Read online

  From what she gathered, the breeder sold Otak to Rylando for half price, thinking the rat’s nose was defective. Rylando’s talent told him that Otak’s sense of smell was fine, he was just confused by the number of scents he could distinguish. So far, Rylando had trained him to alert on eleven distinct scents and was working on a twelfth. He’d named the rat for a famous polymath from the First Wave of human expansion into the galaxy.

  A tone sounded in her earwire. “Either of you free to bring me a mealpack? I missed morning food service, and the cupboard in Comms is bare again.” Jumper Captain Hatya Wa’ara exaggerated her musical Islander accent. “If I have to gnaw on the upholstery, I’m claiming Lerox did it.”

  Rylando tapped his earwire but spoke aloud rather than subvocalizing. “I’ll bring you three, just to be safe. Lerox is still on the stink-eye list for chewing holes in Soong’s home-brew beer pouch.” A big head bumped into Rylando’s hip hard enough to knock him sideways a step, making him chuckle. “Moyo wants to come, too.”

  Ordinarily, the job of monitoring status and answering staff pings fell to the unit’s six comms techs, but they’d all deployed to the emergency with the rest of the teams. In the GSAR, comms techs were even rarer than rescuers, and transferred out even faster. Silver Team only had a designated pilot because Hatya was on loan from the CPS’s elite-force Jumper Corps. Bhayrip would need half a dozen CPS approvals to get her officially reassigned to a different team.

  Taz caught Rylando’s eye. “Tell her I’ll take a four-hour shift at twelve hundred after I grab a few hours of sleep. She’ll listen to you. She’s supposed to be training for her upcoming physical-fitness test, not stuck sitting on her ass in Comms because farkin’ Red Team commandeered our whole bin of secure-net earwires.”

  Hatya was great with people and command, but she had the typical Jumper habit of thumping misbehaving equipment. Since everything in the GSAR section of the space station misbehaved, it got a lot of thumping.

  In her random off-hours, Taz put her mech-maintenance experience to good use, repairing and improving Silver Team’s tech. She spent too much of her own money on parts, but it gave her something better to do than brooding about the bed she’d made for herself.

  “Good idea,” said Rylando. “I’ll take a shift after that.”

  He wove his way through the jumble and left, Moyo capering excitedly at his side. Most hellhounds lumbered.

  Captain Bhayrip couldn’t send Silver Team out until they got replacement rescuers. He skirted GSAR policy and temporarily lent her and Rylando to other teams. She’d just got back from a Blue Team response to a downed sky skimmer with mass casualties on Floris Delta. When Rylando wasn’t deploying to disasters with his animals, he trained dogs and birds for the regular military.

  It wasn’t her business, but she worried that Rylando hadn’t had a downtime shift in several ten-days, or even the opportunity to visit the CPS’s post-trauma therapist. GSAR rescuers sometimes needed help dealing with horrific experiences, or the stress would eat them up inside. He’d worked five back-to-back disaster deployments and just got back from a dog-and-handler training session on Alyphorux, another one of the planets their unit covered. Captain Bhayrip seemed to think Rylando’s training trips were a twisty scam he’d cooked up to get free vacation time.

  Bhayrip wasn't the worst unit leader Taz ever had, but he was a close second. She avoided him as much as possible. One unfinished year at a CPS Minder Academy in his youth seventy years ago had apparently made him an expert on everything related to minders and talents. His idea of management was jumping in with gravity boots, causing chaos, then blaming everyone else when it blew up in his face. He couldn’t be bothered to pay attention past the first thirty words of anything. Unfortunately for disaster victims everywhere, he was determined to stay on active duty and deploying for rescues until the mandatory retirement age of one hundred thirty.

  Shen barked at her and nipped at a leg pocket flap on her loose uniform pants.

  Taz laughed. “You’re quite right, Shen. I’m supposed to be working, not star-gathering. You’re a good dog to remind me.” Unlike the other teams’ dogs, Shen didn’t appear to have a functioning controller in her head, so Taz had to speak to her in human language. Even if Shen’s controller worked, Rylando probably wouldn’t let Taz connect to it, any more than he’d let the other team members do so.

  With a watchful eye for wandering weasels and shepherding dogs, she quickly cleared the rest of the large items that didn’t belong to Silver Team and added them to the outside stack.

  The rest of the storeroom mess wouldn’t need the assist frame, so she marched it to the corner, disconnected, and stepped down to the floor.

  Out of habit, she used the manual controls to power it down instead of her implanted headjack and controller. In rescues, having military-grade implants that could wirelessly interact with chatty military and civilian AIs was just as handy as her teke talent. They were legacies of her military days, but she’d only met one or two other CPS minders who had them. She’d styled her straight dark hair short over her forehead and long enough on the sides to cover the jack. Out of prudence, she avoided mentioning the implants, in case having them broke some obscure CPS regulation. Rylando knew, but no one else in the unit seemed to have noticed.

  Both cats now sat on top of the skimmer’s control pod canopy, as if surveying their empire and finding it wanting. Mariposa the owl was excavating the jumble in the corner, intent on eating every insect she uncovered. When Lerox lumbered over to nose through the pile, she screeched and flew up to the top of the cabinet. Lerox’s pawing made a bigger mess but did cause more insects to move, making them easy prey for Mariposa to swoop in for the catch.

  Taz couldn’t tell if Lerox’s actions were meant to help the little owl or coincidental. She’d have to ask Rylando. She’d often seen him encourage them to use their skills and superior senses to uncover hidden contamination and damage, so maybe that explained it.

  Thankfully, he never used his minder talent to march them around like brain-wiped automatons, like she'd seen one previous team member do several years ago. Most animal-affinity minders were better with animals than people, but that miserable excuse for a rescuer had hated both the job and anything living. Rylando was the exact opposite.

  And once again, her thoughts wandered without her permission to her teammate. Apparently, her stupid heart learned nothing from her epic record of failed relationships. Especially the last disaster that had caused her to request an immediate transfer, even though it meant agreeing to an extra year of CPS service. Her lover from regular military Space Division had turned out to be a cheating thief, and she hadn’t seen it coming.

  With this new assignment, she'd vowed to be professionally friendly with everyone but wear extra flexin armor around her heart. Easy enough with the rest of the misbegotten unit. She hadn’t counted on Rylando being so sexy, funny, and clever. Or how much she enjoyed being around his animals.

  She picked up the chair Lerox had been trying to eat and carried it to the wall where it belonged.

  Null chance of anything happening between her and Rylando. Even if he hinted that he returned her interest—which he hadn’t—they’d have to go stealth mode with their relationship. She wasn’t doing that ever again.

  Besides, it was unwritten but well-known GSAR policy to break up any such unions—even cohab contracts and marriages—by transferring the parties as far apart as possible. Just like GSAR to make a service-wide blanket policy instead of dealing with occasional individual problems. With her rotten luck, they’d assign her to her dysfunctional family’s home planet, or even worse, back to the duty station she’d just escaped from.

  Blowing out an exasperated sigh, she got back to work. Keeping busy was the best thing to keep her from the same spiral of thoughts she’d been spinning for the last hundred days. She cleared a path to the skimmer and made two piles, one for undamaged goods and one for potentially repairable items. GSAR units ra
rely threw anything away and weren’t above trading or scavenging. Lately, new supplies from headquarters came just about as often as having the only winning numbers in the Hundred-Planet Lottery.

  Shen sat and looked up expectantly, as if waiting for something to do. Taz tried one of the few commands she knew. “Shen, find the exit.”

  The moment Taz raised her hand, palm forward, Shen took off like a rocket around the bulk of the skimmer to the far-right end of the storeroom. Stymied by the jumble of bins blocking the door, she nosed and squeezed her way through them. Once she touched her nose to the door, she backed up, sat and barked twice, paused, then barked twice again.

  The two cats watched Shen’s actions like they were spectators at a grav-ball match, making Taz laugh.

  “Good job, Shen!” Taz showed the dog her flat hand, then lowered it to her thigh. Shen trotted back to Taz’s side and sat, looking up.

  She crouched and stroked just under Shen’s ear, praising her cleverness. Recently, when Rylando had been away for a couple of days with Moyo and left Shen behind, Taz had awakened to discover the smaller dog sleeping on the foot of her bed. Probably missing Rylando and wanting some company. Taz pretended to herself that she hadn’t been feeling the same thing.

  Shen licked Taz’s chin, then stood, tail wagging.

  Though it was probably silly, Taz had made a habit of explaining what she was doing to the animals when Rylando wasn’t around. “We need to move more of this so the cleaning bots can do their job.” Taz turned a mock glare and a wagging finger toward the two cats. “And leave them alone, you delinquents.”

  Lerox, apparently bored with the pile of debris, jumped up on one of the few undamaged crates and started grooming his belly, hind leg in the air.

  “Come on, Shen, let’s clear more paths while we don’t have a weasel underfoot.” She snapped open a few crates for collecting the smaller items. Handing some of the items to Shen to carry was fun, and the smart dog quickly figured out which crate Taz pointed to. The sooner they made a dent in the cleanup, the sooner Taz could sneak off for a nap before taking the comms shift.

  Not that anyone would thank her or Rylando for taking care of the mess. As near as she could tell, Unit 1051 had become the short-term detention pen for screw-ups and the permanent punishment post for unredeemable assholes. If only she’d known that when she’d looked for the unit with the most vacancies, presuming they’d take her immediately—which they had. She should have asked around for recommendations, but all she could think of at the time was getting away.

  Her best guess as to why clever and highly competent Rylando stayed in the unit was his unusual team. He knew the regs backward and forward, and easily stymied Bhayrip’s petty machinations. A more effective commander in a better unit might outmaneuver Rylando into giving up his animals.

  At least she’d had the good instinct to let Bhayrip and the others think she was on punishment detail for a previous colossal clusterfuck she'd been ordered not to disclose. Much safer to be dismissed as just another fly-by fool than resented for being Ensign Excellent.

  Thirty minutes later, just as she was closing the center cabinet, Rylando and Moyo strode into the storeroom.

  He looked around with a grin. “This is ace. You’ve made impressive progress.” Crossing to the now-accessible skimmer, he slid the crate he carried onto its floor. “Sorry I took so long. I had to clear the debris off the food-storage unit, and Hatya needed time with Moyo. The uncertainty about GSAR is stressing her, so when even a Jumper admits she needs comfort...” He shrugged apologetically.

  “It’s stressing everyone out.” Taz made a disdainful noise. “Except Bhayrip, because he refuses to believe the CPS would disband us.”

  Rylando shook his head in disgust. “He thinks because Concordance Foundation law requires the CPS to provide search and rescue, GSAR is untouchable.”

  “He really thinks that?” She rolled her eyes. “I suppose I shouldn’t mention the Minder Corps base consolidation, or the rumor that Minder Corps personnel are disappearing every day? Or anything about Ayorinn’s Legacy?”

  “Not unless you enjoy twenty-minute tirades.” He fished in his thigh pocket and brought out a water pouch. “According to him, bases get realigned all the time. Desertion rumors are scurrilous attempts by anarchists to destabilize the government.”

  Taz hooked a thumb into her belt. “I’m almost afraid to ask what he thinks about Ayorinn’s Legacy.” Even hermits living on wandering asteroids had heard of the legendary forecast that would free all minders and change the course of human civilization to save it.

  Rylando snorted. “No such thing, according to the Captain, Ayorinn wasn’t a genius forecaster, he was a genius twist artist, and the CPS leaders fell for it.”

  “Oh, right, because that explains forty years of mysteriously published poetic quatrains. And resurging memes powerful enough to cause riots. And the fact that the CPS has failed at every attempt to stamp them out.”

  Even in her respected position as a skilled rescuer, Taz and everyone else in GSAR had faced raw, naked hate for using their mental talents to save lives. Sometimes, it felt like Ayorinn’s legendary forecast was the only thing that gave minders hope of better days ahead.

  “Unrelated and exaggerated, per the captain.” He twitched a shoulder toward the cabinets she’d just closed. “Did any of the bowls survive?” He leaned down to pet Shen’s head. “She’s thirsty.”

  “Oh, yes, one did. Sorry I didn’t think of it.” She turned quickly back to the cabinet to hide her embarrassment. She’d hoped the dog liked her company and was accepting her as a teammate. Instead, she’d just wanted water. Clearly, the sooner Taz transferred out of the unit, the better, even if it tacked on yet another year to her CPS contract.

  She pulled out the bowl and crossed with it to where Rylando stood. “Before I forget, I think Red Team also took our last set of flying-camera eyes when they took our comms. You might want to inventory the rest of our gear to see what else they ‘requisitioned.’ I’m going offline for a nap.”

  “Wait,” said Rylando. “Hatya said not to relieve her until fourteen hundred. She’s still on light duty, so she said she may as well take advantage of the enforced rest. Her hip is acting up.”

  Only Jumper Command would regard urgent, high stress, dangerous search-and-rescue missions as “light duty.” Hatya groused that her new cybernetic leg and hip hadn’t worked right from the start, which was why GSAR and Silver Team had lucked into the temporary assignment of an expert-level pilot.

  “Good for her.” Taz was afraid it was something worse than slow healing. The whole galaxy had heard rumors of the pernicious waster’s disease that afflicted too many retired Jumpers, but it wasn’t something active-duty Jumpers ever talked about. “That’ll give me time to finish recalibrating the animal autodoc. The other teams might need it if their dogs get hurt.”

  As Rylando crouched down to place the bowl on the floor, he looked up at her. “After all the repairs you’ve done for GSAR, you could get a job on any planet as a tech specialist once you term out of your contract.”

  Taz laughed. “Only if they don’t care that I only follow the official instructions as a last resort.”

  Plans for a life after the military topped the list of favorite discussion topics in GSAR. Hardly anyone in the organization had a surviving relationship with partners or family, or even outside friends. A lot of retirement dreams centered around changing that.

  A longing for rest pulled at her like high gravity. “I love the rescue mission, but most planetary response teams rely on volunteers. Sadly, grateful thank-yous from the rescued don’t pay the rent.” She tilted her head toward the ship-loader assist frame in the corner. “I’d have a better chance as a construction-equipment operator. Some companies like hiring telekinetics. What about you?”

  His head dropped as he poured water in the bowl. “Haven’t given it much thought, really. I’ll see what presents itself when my contract terms out in thre
e years.”

  Taz knew he was shading the truth, but she couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep secrets. She had plenty of her own.

  Not the least of which was that she was eligible for self-initiated transfer in six more days, which was coincidentally her thirty-ninth birthday, per standard Galactic Date and Time. If she stayed, he’d probably come to trust her more, but he’d break her heart. He’d be happier with another animal-affinity minder, not a people-loving tech-tinkerer with a historic record of epically bad relationships.

  She planned to make the transfer a birthday present to herself, since no one else cared enough to celebrate it. Her heart wouldn’t survive being crushed again.

  He stood and rolled up the empty pouch. “Hatya thinks the CPS might invoke the ‘extraordinary need’ clause for the regular Minder Corps staff who are left to keep them past their contract termination dates. Show the galaxy that Ayorinn’s Legacy isn’t real.” Turning, he tossed the pouch toward the recycling crate, but it overshot and landed on the floor. “Maybe they’ll do that to us, too.”

  Since she was closer, she scooped up the pouch and dropped it in. “The Legacy always warps the CPS’s judgment, but I can’t believe they’d be that stupid.” She shook her head. “Even a hydroponic moss plant would realize it'd cause even more Minder Corps staff to self-exit.”

  Shen, having made a splashy mess on the floor with her enthusiastic lapping, nudged Rylando’s thigh with her wet muzzle. He absently caressed her ear. “Yeah, probably. How do you weigh duty versus family?”

  “I’m glad I don’t have to make that choice.” She pointed to the totally innocent-looking cats, who were now sprawled across the flat top of the skimmer, grooming each other. “Don’t let them kill any more cleaning bots. The station’s civilian facility manager is starting to notice theirs are going missing.”