Carol Jennings

  Carol Jennings, often referred to as “Number One” was the first non-founder employee of QFeed. She served as executive assistant to the first three CEO’s and eventually was promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO) before retiring after a thirty-year career at QFeed.

  Excerpted With Permission

  QFeed Incorporated, “New Employee Handbook”

  Copyright 3260, QFeed Incorporated

  Leo, filled with determination, walked back up to the main QFeed offices, thankful it was during working hours. Carol was there at her post as usual. “Carol, I need a favor please.”

  “It’s all sorted Mr. Timur. Doctor Timur called, and the corporate yacht will be at your disposal for as long as necessary.”

  “Doctor Timur?”

  “Yes, according to his official biography, your father has a PHD in economics. It seems easier to refer to him that way to prevent any confusion.”

  “Right.”

  Carol smiled. “I blipped your tablet with the docking codes for the yacht. Your father said that you didn’t need a pilot?”

  Leo smiled. “Yes, thanks. I’ve spent most of my life in space, I’m fully rated.”

  Leo looked down, not sure how to proceed. Then decided he had to ensure Carol would be happy. “Carol, I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for us. There is no way we could have gotten this far without you. How can we thank you? What would you like to do next?”

  Carol smiled and placed a thin hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Actually, if anything you’ve done more for me and for Bohemia than we can ever repay. Before Craig showed up, I was unemployed, and the station was close to bankruptcy. Now, I have a great job that I love, and the station is alive. I am right where I want to be.”

  Leo smiled and finally reached in for a hug, which Carol returned warmly.

  “Have a good journey, sir.”

  “Thank you, Carol.”

  Leo didn’t really register the term “corporate yacht” until he was halfway down to the docking bay. It was a smaller bay that Leo had never been in. Once he got there, he realized why, the ship inside nearly filled the bay. Entering the bay, he stared to laugh. What he saw sitting in the bay was a BR. “Corporate Yacht” indeed. Then he opened the hatch on the side of the small spacecraft.

  “Jesus Christ, Craig.”

  The inside looked nothing like the utilitarian BR that Leo had flown in so many times. Instead, he was greeted with what looked like a handmade wool carpet and brass fittings. Walking deeper into the craft, the interior had been modified to carry two or three people in extreme comfort. There were now two cabins with real beds and a proper lounge with leather couches. Up front, the pilot seats were basically unchanged, but the entire interior looked like it had been polished by hand. Perhaps it has been. Still laughing, Leo pulled up the pre-flight checklist and prepared to get into space once again.

  The trip to Raeburn was surprisingly short. Leo was used to the acceleration curves followed by large ships like the Theo. He had only rarely traveled on smaller ships system to system. Because the yacht still had the BR’s overrated power systems, it was extremely fast and made it to the e-limit in half the time that it would have taken on the Theo. Similarly, coming down well into Raeburn was extremely fast. All in all, it only took a week for the whole trip. That was a long time for a single pilot in a small ship, but the automation made it possible.

  Coming down well, he crossed the magical million klicks line and called Raeburn orbital control. “Raeburn orbital, this is Quebec Yankee One with you at one million klicks.”

  Leo waited the six seconds for propagation delay. Waited another six seconds. He was about to repeat his hail when they replied. “Quebec Yankee, standby for priority routing.”

  Priority routing? WTF? Then he realized. Carol had called ahead.

  “Quebec Yankee One, acknowledged, standing by.”

  In a few seconds, the course appeared on his screen. It showed him landing on a pad that looked suspiciously familiar. “Raeburn Orbital, please confirm destination. I wanted to land at General Eddington’s home on the far side of the planet.”

  This time the answer came back almost as fast as the propagation delay allowed. “Negative Quebec Yankee, The General requests you meet him at the airfield specified. Please acknowledge.”

  Well, requests is better than orders, I suppose. “Acknowledged. Locking course in.”

  All the way down well to the planet, he wondered what was going on. He messaged Ramona several times only to receive a terse text message back. “I’ll see you when you land.” What the hell was going on?

  Getting down through the atmosphere was the usual horrific, bumpy ride. Leo decided he REALLY didn’t like planets at all. Finally, it was over, and the converted BR settled on its landing gear in the indicated location. He had been focused on the descent before but now he looked out the windows and noticed what looked like a huge crowd surrounding the airfield. Looking, up, he could see several aircraft circling the field. They appeared to be armed.

  Oh shit, here we go again.

  As he tried to decide what to do, a group of armed Raeburn Guard came marching stiffly out of the main building. They were not dressed in the combat gear Leo had gotten used to seeing. He wasn’t sure, but they looked very spiffy. Perhaps these were dress uniforms? There were six of them, walking in precise lock step. As they came closer, he recognized the man in front. Sargent Ramirez looked right at Leo through the cockpit window and gave him a big wink. Leo started to relax. He walked back to his bedroom and strapped on his pistol regardless. Going unarmed just didn’t feel right.

  Leo opened the door and stepped down onto the tarmac. Ramirez faced him and issued a crisp salute. “General Eddington’s compliments and would you please accompany my squad, sir?”

  “What the hell Ramirez?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Well, word might have gotten out that the man who pushed the button on Epsilon was in town. Folks are right excited to see you, sir.”

  “Oh Jesus. I just wanted to see Ramona.”

  “Sir, the Hammer is with the General. If you would accompany me sir?”

  Leo sighed. This was not going the way he expected. How was he going to talk to Ramona with all these people around? Well, best get it over with so I can talk to her. “Lead on Sargent.”

  “Sir.” With another crisp salute he turned and barked a few orders to the rest of the squad who formed up around Leo. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do. It quickly became obvious as the squad started walking back to the main building. He either walked along with them or the guy in back was going to walk into him. Right.

  Finally getting to the main building, the squad loosened up a bit, but still basically frog marched him into a conference room where Ramona and her father were waiting.

  “Sir, your guest.” Another crisp salute from Ramirez. This time it seemed more genuine for some reason.

  “Thank you, Sargent. Please take position outside and ensure we are not disturbed.”

  “SIR!” Within seconds Ramirez and the squad were outside. Leo fully believed that it would take a full-on attack, possibly with orbital weapons, to get into that room. He looked around, it seemed government issued. Fairly plain, with a dull beige carpet that looked to be designed for wear rather than beauty and a plastic table that had seen better days. Ramona was sitting at one end of the table smiling at him. He wanted to give her a hug but wasn’t sure how she would feel about that in front of her father, so he kept his place.

  The general got up with a smile and extended a hand to Leo. “Thanks for coming over, Leo. Sorry for the hoo-ha. Apparently, someone on my staff talked to the press. My apologies for that, everyone here is so excited about Epsilon that your arrival is something of an event.”

  Leo was still catching up. “How does everyone know about Epsilon?”

  The general waved at Ramona. “When Ramona came back with the SpecOps team there was a government investigation. Those are public, so all the details came out. The remaining Seeker loyalists tried to smear you and Ramona, but once all the evidence came out, the tide of public opinion was firmly on your side. I’m afraid you’re a bit of a celebrity here.”

  Ramona laughed. “Ya, your nickname is worse than mine.”

  “Wait, nickname?”

  The General rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit of a tradition here with the press. They give public figures nicknames. I’m sure you have heard people refer to Ramona as ‘The Hammer’ for example.”

  “Oh yes, I wondered about that.” Leo sat down. “So, what is it?”

  The General just looked at Ramona. She smiled again. “Deadeye.”

  “Deadeye? What the hell? Why on earth would anyone call me that?”

  Ramona looked back to her father. “Well, it may be the case that someone on my staff released the body cam footage of you waxing that asshole Gunny with a single shot to the head.”

  “Oh, fuck.” Leo started laughing. He put his head down on the table and laughed harder. After a moment, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to stop. After a few moments, Ramona came over and put her hand on his back.

  “Leo, are you OK?”

  Finally sobering, he nodded, tears in his eyes. “I was just thinking about what my father said to me before I decided to come to Raeburn.”

  The general cleared his throat. “Leo, I am very sorry to ask you this, but would you mind making a public statement and taking a few questions from the press? I know that you are not interested in Raeburn politics but the recent treason by the Seeker has brought old animosities to the surface and the Guard is trying to keep things calm. Having you confirm that the Guild is really done would help us out quite a bit. It’s an imposition I know, but it would be a great favor to me personally if you would do it.”

  Put like that, Leo couldn’t really refuse. Which is how he found himself in a small auditorium, flanked by Ramona and her father facing a couple hundred reporters, all of them who seemed to be screaming at him at once. Just as Leo started to wonder if this was a good idea, Ramirez and his squad moved to the front of the stage and stepped down into the isle between the seats and stage. “ATTENTION! TAKE YOUR SEATS!! THE PRESS CONFERENCE WILL NOT START UNTIL YOU ARE ALL SEATED!” Ramiriz’s bellow was loud enough to cut through the hubbub and the menacing look of him and the squad was enough to convince the reporters to behave. As things quieted down, Ramirez turned and winked at Leo again.

  The General stepped up to the platform. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a short statement and then I will hand things over to Mr. Timur here. Please be aware that Mr. Timur is not a Raeburn citizen and has no obligation to this planet. His assistance to Raeburn has been incredible and we all him an immense amount of gratitude. It should be noted, however that he IS NOT a public figure and is thus afforded a right to privacy and protection from libel. I will take it personally and will prosecute to the full extent of the law any violations of his rights as a guest on our planet.” He paused and glared at the crowd for a moment. “Thank you. Mr. Timur?”

  Leo stepped up and pulled the cards he had been given from his pocket. He glanced at them briefly. Man the fuck up Leo. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Leo Timur. Until a few months ago, I was a member of the Data Trader’s Guild. I was happy to be a member of the guild and had no ambition beyond getting ridiculously rich. I am not a hero, I’m just a regular guy. I was lucky that Ramona Eddington agreed to be a member of my crew and she has saved my life several times. She’s the hero here. Once it was clear that the Guild was bound and determined to do whatever it took to stop knowledge of Quantum Communications from spreading, we took the hard choice of releasing the Epsilon virus into the Guild data system. I can personally attest that Epsilon is real and we did release Epsilon. I am not a computer security expert so I have no idea how it works or even if it will work. What I can say is that Epsilon has been released and I believe that the Guild is fundamentally finished. Regardless of Epsilon, the reality of QFeed means that the Guild’s stranglehold is finished. Today, Raeburn is directly connected to ten other systems as you already know. This technology cannot be un-discovered and therefore the isolation of Raeburn is at an end. I will take a few questions.”

  There was a moment of complete silence. Then pandemonium. The hundred or so journalists were all on their feet and they were all screaming at him. “Deadeye!!! Deadeye!!” It took a moment to realize they were calling his name.

  Leo randomly pointed at one in the front row. “Yes, you.”

  The woman in the grey blazer looked like he had handed her a thousand guilders. “Deadeye, how can citizens of Raeburn be sure that you, a trader, aren’t lying to us?”

  Ramona took a step forward, only to be stopped by her father’s hand on her arm. Leo answered for himself. “You can’t. You don’t know me. There is no reason to believe me at all. However, it’s all true and the facts are the facts.”

  He pointed at random again, this time at an older gentleman in a chartreuse shirt and matching hat. “Deadeye, do you prefer rail guns or plasma riles?”

  “Personally, I prefer rail guns. I know a shit hot shooter who uses the same pistol I do, but I’m sentimental that way. NEXT!” Leo pointed again.

  “Deadeye, do you plan to emigrate to Raeburn?”

  “Dunno. Next.”

  “Deadeye, are you planning to run for office?”

  “No. Next.”

  And so it went. Most of the questions were trivial, obvious or downright insulting. Leo was actually having fun until the final question.

  “Deadeye, we all know you are engaged to the Hammer, when’s the wedding?”

  Ramona had been quietly fuming at the press’ treatment of Leo, but this was too much. “That’s IT! I see you Jessica Fordly. You will hear from my attorney.”

  “We have it from sources.”

  “Well, your sources are wrong.” She turned to Leo and took his arm. “I’m sorry Leo, this has gone on too long, they presume too much.”

  Leo came to a decision. Go big or go home. “Ladies and gentlemen, the sources are completely incorrect. Ramona and I are not engaged, I’m afraid to say.” There was a murmur in the room and not a few hostile glances at the reporter who asked the question. “She’s a remarkable woman who any man would be honored to marry but we are not engaged.” He looked down. “Yet.”

  He turned to Ramona, took both of her hands in his and knelt down on one knee.

  “Leo, what are you doing?”

  “What I should have done months ago. I let you go once; I won’t make that mistake again.” He pulled a small box from his pocket. “This was my grandmother’s ring. It has been in my family for six generations.” He pulled out the small diamond ring. “Ramona Eddington, will you marry me?”

  The room was completely silent as Ramona just looked at him. OH SHIT, DID I FUCK THIS UP? Ramona looked down. When she looked up, she was crying. Leo was stunned, he had never seen her cry even after she was shot. “Leo, are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes. For the first time in my life, I am doing what I want, not what I’m supposed to do.”

  Ramona smiled. “Then yes. Yes, I will marry you.” Leo lept to his feet and kissed Ramona.

  The room erupted in pandemonium.