Act Three

Adrift

Part III

It was a few hours later that the medical staff finally identified the man: his dental records had finally come through the Imperial registry net.

“Captain Uriel Locke,” Dyjar said, looking at the tablet with a small frown on her face. The same image of the blue-eyed, dark haired man that she had seen when they had first arrived stared out at her now.

“The Captain of the Babel,” Omar-3 said quietly. He had his hands behind his back, his expression studiously neutral. “He must have been one of those abandoning the ship before it vanished.”

Part of Dyjar felt a sudden wave of revulsion. He abandoned his ship instead of dying with it. He left his crew to die. Cowardice. Nyl vany cal daryka -

She calmed herself and did her best to push the wave of Vydallic insults out of her mind. Of course the ideal, in the old fashioned romantic sense, was that a Captain died with their ship. Almost every story in the history books when one studied at the officer academy was about heroic commanders going down with their ships, often in blazes of glory against overwhelming odds.

Realistically, though, despite the old traditions and despite the old sayings, everyone knew that a starship captain was too valuable a resource to simply let die in some misguided attempt to demonstrate nobility or honour. A captain was a decades long commitment by Imperial resources – their training, their

And even if he had wanted to go down with his ship – and his injuries did suggest certain tribulations on the way to the escape pod, despite his survival – his crew would have been obligated to get him the hells out of there. It was their duty, as much as staying until the last possible moment was his duty.

For all I know, Dyjar thought to herself, his crew were the ones who bundled him onto that pod, even in the state he’s in, trying to save him. And in her heart, she couldn’t fault even the potential that Locke’s crew’s loyalty to their CO had saved him. In all the stories, those heroic captains were as loved by their crews as the crews were by them. If he really had been saved by them… well, Dyjar prayed her crew cared as much for her as this man’s crew had clearly done for him.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Whatever happened, we don’t know. We can’t judge yet. Perhaps not ever.

“He’s currently undergoing skin-repair treatment,” Omar-3 said quietly. “The medical staff assure me that whatever the radiation poisoning he’s suffering is, it isn’t interfering with their gear.”

“Small mercies,” Dyjar said, shaking her head. “And the purge program?”

“Dr Thaan tells me that it’s progressing,” Omar-3 replied, frowning softly. “For a given value of ‘progressing’. I suspect there is still a long way to go.”

“Still, at least we have a name,” Dyjar said, “a name to report back to command. And if it’s the Captain, maybe he’ll be able to shed light on precisely what happened to the Babel.”

“Indeed,” Omar-3 said, nodding once. “An entire ship does not simply vanish into the emptiness of space, not even into the Desolation.”

Dyjar nodded, though privately she thought that if there was anywhere in space that such things would happen, it would be the Desolation. She didn’t know enough to say for certain (and she was glad of it)… but she could guess enough to not want to find out.

“Have any of the stations reported anything?” she asked instead.

“We contacted Desolation Stations Twenty One through Twenty Five, the nearest to our position,” Omar-3 replied. “All report no disturbances… though Commander Van Dyne on Twenty Three did ask how we got their number.”

Dyjar rolled her eyes. Paranoia. Fantastic trait for an officer on a D-station.

“Well, until Captain Locke recovers enough to tell us what in the hells happened out there,” she said quietly, “we won’t be able to do anything more for him.” She sighed. “We won’t even be able to report precisely what happened to the Babel.”

“I hate ‘Missing In Action’ tags,” Omar-3 said, his tone a studiously neutral one.

“Me, too,” Dyjar said, letting a soft growl into her voice. She shook her head. “Alright, Commander. Back to the bridge. I’ll be out presently.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Omar-3 said quietly.

Dyjar was left alone in her office. With a sigh, she opened her computer and began typing up a message to command. She was fairly certain they would be interested to know precisely who it was who they had found.

***