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SOJOURNER
Chief Athena opened her door and gestured for me to come inside.
“Sit down, Weapons Sojourner,” she said, offering me a seat. It was bolted to the floor. I always hated how seats on ships couldn’t slide around. This one was much too close to Chief Athena’s desk, and her big blue eyes were much too close to me as well.
I had something I wanted to ask her about the alien men, but I was worried she’d scold me if I asked it.
No, I came in here to ask it. I was going to ask. “Chief Athena,” I said, making my voice as confident as I could manage, “in order to outfit our women with the proper weapons, I would like to request biometric data on the alien men.”
Chief Athena smiled wide. She had an annoying way of doing that when she felt like she knew something better than you, which shealwaysdid because she was part of High Command.
“You’d like photographs? Weapons Sojourner? You’re asking me for photographs of naked alien men?”
My cheeks and ears started burning, and I lost my cool composure. “I…I…I didn’t say they had to be naked.”
“They are naked,” Chief said. “They don’t seem to wear any armor, so armor-piercing ordnance won’t be required.”
Naked.Naked.The alien men were naked. Like, all the time? Did that mean we’d be able to see their dingdongs? I didn’t know what a dingdong even looked like, but I was pretty sure I’d be able to see one if the men were actually naked. It was dangerous to see a dingdong. Eden was a planet founded by women. High Command protected us from the male taint. The taint of sexual subservience and ultimate rule under a patriarchy. All of that started by looking—however innocently—at a man’s dingdong. Or so High Command implied.
“You won’t see the aliens,” Chief Athena said. “We’re working on minimizing exposure.”
“Screening software?”
She nodded. “We’ll try it, but the main line of defense is that probably only two women on the crew will have to meet with one of the Khetar face-to-face.”
Khetar. That’s what the alien men were called? Their ship had been orbiting Eden for a while now. They’d probably been in contact with High Command the entire time, while High Command kept us in the dark as usual.
“Chief Athena,” I said, “that ship is larger than anything we could ever build. It’s beyond any human technology. Do you really think our weapons will do anything?”
“To be frank,” Chief Athena said, “I don’t think our weapons will even work anywhere near the Khetar. They have a field of some kind that shuts off all technology that is foreign to them. Our probes we sent to get a closer look at their ship all failed before they could get any detailed information.
“So what is my job? Am I not Weapons on this crew?”
I was almost always Weapons. It was the role I was best at, and so it was usually attached to my name. It was about as permanent a name as a woman on Eden could have.
“This falls under compartmentalization,” Chief Athena said, flicking her hand up and activating a screen to the side of us.
Compartmentalization meant I shouldn’t tell anyone else about this. Mostly so that other women didn’t have to worry about whatever Chief was going to show me. High Command believed each woman could do her role best if she had less to worry about.
On the screen, I saw what looked like battle formations of hundreds of ships. They were clearly human ships, but from out of our system.
“Are those—” I started, but she cut me off.
“They are pirates. They’ve been gathering in the Oort cloud, using it to mask their movements. They must have seen the Khetar ship too, and seeing a big alien ship bigger than anything any humans could ever build has sent them scurrying out of the Oort cloud.
“They’re running away?” I asked.
Chief Athena laughed. She rarely did that. “Of course not. They’re coming right for us.”
* * *
I was distractedduring the briefing. Not as distracted as Airlock Eve had been though, as she’d been staring out the window and had caught all of Chief Athena’s wrath.
Chief went through all the rules. They were rules we were all well aware of, as we’d grown up with them, but since there was a real possibility that aman—Khetar or not—was going to be on our ship, High Command must have felt it was necessary to pointedly remind us of each and every rule. Probably so that when some idiot carelessly broke one, High Command would have no reason to feel guilty about exiling her from Eden.
“No touching,” I said. We were supposed to repeat all the rules in unison, our voices droning together as one.
