Gabe woke to a blindingly bright light. He tried to bring his right hand up to block it, and for one terrifying second, his arm didn’t respond. Then it moved, sluggishly, and Gabe let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
A half second later, the pain started to kick in. His legs felt like they were on fire, and his head throbbed. The CTR might have taken the real damage, but Gabe’s pain receptors were still very, very unhappy with him. He groaned softly and wondered if things hadn’t been better when he was numb.
He heard someone shift slightly, and Gabe looked over to see Delacourt sitting in a chair nearby. It was hard to read her expression; she had her professional face on again. Gabe tried to smile despite the pain. “Hey. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She smiled back at him. “Visiting an idiot who almost got himself killed.”
“Lucky idiot, then.” Gabe chuckled, then stopped when the motion sent stabs of agony through his ribs. “Did we escape? Or did they get the cascade drive?”
Susan’s smile faded. “We made it out. Most of us.” She looked away for a moment, her expression grim. “We still took casualties, Gabriel. Not among the civilian ships, but the Concord was hit hard.”
Gabe heard the pain in her voice despite her cool, professional tone. He shook his head. “We still saved the rest, Susan. Without you, not even that many would have made it to safety.” She nodded slowly, still avoiding his eyes, and Gabe continued. “We’re in another system now. Are we safe?”
“For now.” She shifted again, this time looking around to see if anyone else was listening. “The Directorate will follow us here. They will trace our resonance cascade to this system eventually, and they won’t stop looking for us now. Sooner or later, they’ll come here. We need to be hidden and secure when they do.”
“Is there a lot out here to hide behind?” Gabe thought of the size of the fleet and shook his head. “Better question. Is there anything we can hide behind?”
Susan nodded. “We’re going to move behind one of the gas giants. This system has four to choose from, so that should put off detection for a little while.” She shrugged. “Perhaps we’ll be able to harvest some of the resources we’ll need there. I suppose anything is possible.”
Gabe watched her. Pain still filled her expression, and she seemed beaten down from her typical, energetic self. He shifted, unhappy that he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t put his arms around her. “Susan, are you all right?”
When she looked up, Susan gave him a reproachful look. “The Directorate is hunting us, Gabriel. How could I be all right?” She wrapped her arms around her torso and stood. “The people I dedicated my life to—the people I swore an oath to—are trying to kill us. How many of my friends are fighting us? How are we going to survive if they don’t give up?”
He felt his fingers clench on his sheets. “We’ll find a way, Susan. The Lord will not abandon us.”
Susan didn’t answer for a moment. She began to pace, and Gabe watched her with something near panic bubbling inside him. The last time they’d faced Directorate forces, he’d nearly lost her when her stubborn sense of honor had compelled her to walk away from the fight. After everything they’d been through together, after everything they’d managed to overcome, was he going to lose her now?
Abruptly, Susan stopped pacing and looked at him. “Are you feeling all right, Gabriel? You look worried.”
Gabe tried to force his concern from his face. He shrugged, and gritted his teeth as the pain shot through him again. “I should be fine. It seems like most of the damage was done to my rig, not me. I’m mostly intact.” Then he forced another chuckle. “Not that I’m planning on a repeat performance. That was a rough landing.”
Susan nodded slowly. “I agree. I would be …very grateful … if you didn’t try anything like that again.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “This journey has been hard enough for me, Gabriel. Facing it alone …”
Her words trailed off, and Gabe laid his own hand across hers. Susan met his gaze, and he smiled from the sheer relief. She wasn’t leaving. “You won’t need to, Susan. I promise.” Then he chuckled. “That is, unless someone cuter comes along. No guarantees.”
Susan gave him an indignant slap on the shoulder, and then looked horrified as he twitched in pain. Then she swatted him again, harder. “Don’t flinch. You deserve that and worse. Never again, you hear me?”
“As ordered, Admiral.” Gabe gave her as much of a salute as he could from the hospital bed, and then settled back into the pillow. Fatigue was already threatening him, and he had to fight to keep his eyes open. “For now, I think I’ll give you a rest. Wouldn’t want … to tire … you out …”
When Susan left, Gabriel was snoring soundly. She had been glad to see him awake—as irritating as he’d managed to be—but it had been hard to see him so battered. Between the battle and crash landing, he’d acquired an impressive series of bruises and fractures. The CTR’s gravity bubble had kept the crash from killing him, but that didn’t mean he’d escaped unscathed. He would need the rest.
Gabriel had not been the only thing to take damage. The entire topside of the Concord had taken a terrific beating from the missile barrage. Despite the concentrated efforts of the fleet, forty percent of the enemy missiles had gotten through. Thanks to Gabriel’s attack on the spotters, another half of those had wandered off target, exploding when they were uselessly out of range.
That left only one-fifth of the original salvo, but the blasts had been more than enough. The Concord’s screens had failed after absorbing the majority of the first and second blasts; the third wave had struck the armor. Her engineers had been working to reinforce their protection and repair the weak spots from the battle with the mercenaries. In a series of titanic blasts, all their hard work had been undone.
Susan sighed. Already her thoughts had brought her back to what she should have been doing in the first place. She located a wall terminal and pulled up the communications system. It took only a moment to locate Commander Mesic. “Commander. What is the progress on our repairs?”
Mesic’s voice was deliberately neutral. “The repairs are going ahead. We have ninety percent of the breeches in the hull repaired, and the engineers have started to clear the debris.” He paused. “Casualty totals have increased to ninety-three dead, one hundred and forty injured, and twenty-seven missing.”
The numbers were cold, but Susan knew they could have been worse. It would not make the deaths any harder to face, nor would it lessen her determination to find every last one of the people who were missing. There were always some who disappeared in every large battle. Perhaps they had been trapped by ruined compartments and remained alive. Others might have been killed and their bodies not yet recovered.
Yet the worst fate would have been those who were in compartments breeched by enemy fire and swept out into space. Those unfortunate souls were often never found, and their families would be left with the doubt and uncertainty. Susan pushed those thoughts aside. “Keep searching, Commander. Are there any other problems?”
“Not yet, Admiral.” Mesic’s voice was more brisk now, as if the casualty report had been a burden he’d needed to be rid of. “The tetherdrive system is no longer fluctuating; we have full acceleration capability restored. The engineers have assured me that we will not tear apart our superstructure if we maneuver, which is reassuring.”
Susan winced at his dour tone. “Were they able to salvage the topside plasma cannon?”
Mesic was quiet for a moment. “No, sir. The engineers have not started on that yet; apparently damage to the topside weaponry was labeled as ‘external’ and was considered to have a lower priority than internal repairs.” He paused. “Shall I have them change their schedule, Admiral?”
She thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No. I’m sure they still have enough to do inside. Have they managed to clear the starboard recovery bay, or did Captain Miller manage to create a big enough mess to prevent that this time?”
Susan heard Mesic sigh, and could easily picture the former Directorate officer shaking his head. “With all due respect to Captain Miller’s ability to create disaster zones, I believe our engineering staff has outmatched him this time. They reported that the bay would be marginally clear a half hour ago, and that in another hour, it would be completely ready for service. I have not received any reports of a delay as of yet.”
“Excellent.” Susan allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. “Congratulate the engineering teams on my behalf, Commander. Their work has been a credit to our Defense Forces. I would not have expected such efficiency from most crews—especially outside the Directorate.”
“I’m sure they will be glad to hear of your approval, sir.” Mesic seemed to hesitate, and when he spoke, he sounded concerned. “Admiral, may I ask what our course of action will be if the Directorate attacks us again?”
The question brought a sense of unease to Susan’s mind. She worded her response carefully. “We have a clear responsibility to protect this fleet, Commander Mesic. If the Directorate continues to pursue and attack us, I will have no choice but to stop them by any means possible.” There was a long silence, and Susan could imagine the uncertainty in her fellow officer on the other end of the line. Finally, she spoke up. “Do you see any other option, Commander?”
Mesic released a long, resigned sigh. “No, sir. I wish I did.” His voice turned even more grim. “There is no pleasure in a victory over former comrades, but I almost wish it were victory I was worried about. The size of the task force they’ve sent leaves us with very few options.”
Susan felt some of her inner tension ease; she had worried about the allegiance of Mesic and his fellow officers. The decision to fight the military of the Known Worlds was not an easy one, and she herself had struggled with it for a long time. As Mesic had said, if there were any other way, she would have leaped at it. However, the Directorate would not accept the surrender of people the Council had labeled as traitors, no matter what they said.
She firmed her jaw. “We will have to find a way, Commander. We have no other choice.”
Gabe slowly made his way along the corridor, careful to use the cane his father had lent him. As humbling as it was to borrow something from his father just to be able to get around, it would have been much, much worse to fall on his face in front of the rest of the rig corps. While most of his actual injuries were light, the phantom pains caused by the damage his CTR had taken were still echoing through his legs on a regular basis. At the very least, he could walk on his own; it was easy to imagine circumstances where he wouldn’t have managed that much ever again.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He managed to reach the rig bays without anyone pestering him, but Derek saw him the moment he stepped through the doorway. Gabe heard his friend shouting from all the way across the bay. “Hey! It’s the late arrival!” The other rig pilot waved at him. “Come on over, Gabe!”
Gabe rolled his eyes and hobbled forward. “Hey, Derek. Glad to see my noble efforts got you home safely.”
Derek snorted. “Yep. We’ve been wanting to thank you for that. Now if only we could launch our rigs, we might be able to put on a parade for you.”
The comment brought Gabe’s attention into focus. “We can’t launch?”
“Well, we can, as long as we don’t try to land again.” Derek shook his head. “The missiles messed up the transport rail from the port recovery bay, and as for the starboard one …” He trailed off meaningfully and gestured to Gabe’s cane.
“Thanks for the reminder.” Gabe shifted to put a bit more weight on his cane. He glanced around the rig bay. “Next you’ll tell me they can’t salvage my rig.”
“Oh, no—they can still manage to save that poor old thing. Last I heard, they were just getting ready to tow it off to the Foundry for repairs.” Derek gestured toward another part of the rig bay, and Gabe looked over to see his CTR. The rig was utterly in shambles. Both of the lower legs were missing—they likely hadn’t made it onto the Concord for the resonance cascade and were probably still drifting in the last star system. Its left arm looked undamaged, but the right hung loosely at the shoulder and the elbow, as if it had been nearly ripped loose from both of those sockets.
Worst of all, the head lolled to one side, and Gabe could see that the faceplate had been smashed by the impact with the recovery bay floor. He winced, thinking of the delicate circuits and connections inside. The head was usually where most of the BCI computers were located; if it was too damaged, the Foundry would have to replace the thing entirely and Gabe would have to recalibrate for the new interface. It would be a long time for him to sit on the carrier instead of flying in defense of the fleet.
He prayed fervently that the Lord would grant him a different fate. “So when will the shuttle be taking it over? Maybe I’ll be able to hitch a ride and see what they say about it.”
Derek laughed. “Shuttle? No, not this time. This time the fleet’s come up with a much better idea.” He pointed. “That’s what will take your rig over now.”
Gabe looked in the direction Derek was pointing, and his jaw dropped. An MSSR crouched on the deck of the rig bay, its malevolent features at once clear and familiar. After the past months of trading fire with the mercenary rigs, he could have identified that grilled faceplate and hulking form anywhere. Just seeing one, even motionless in the rig bay, was setting off a flood of alarms in his head.
Yet this time, there was something different about it. Gabe looked closer and realized the rig wasn’t armed. The missiles that had been mounted on each MSSR’s shoulders were gone, and the rig did not hold the repeating heavy plasma rifle that had been its main weapon. In its place, both shoulders appeared to have auxiliary tetherdrive units installed—substantial ones, like something Gabe would have expected to see on cargo lifters or construction rigs. The cylinder in its hands was not a rifle. Instead, it looked like an auxiliary sensor unit, something more suited to an RSR instead of a heavy combat rig.
Even the coloring had been altered, and Gabe’s eyes widened in surprise as he recognized the blue and red paint job. “They actually converted some of those into search and rescue platforms? I was wondering if they would …”
Another thought struck him. “Who’s flying it over? I want to make sure they take good care of my—”
“So that’s your rig, is it?”
Gabe turned to see a woman striding across the rig bay, flanked by two guards. She had a tracking bracelet fastened around one of her wrists, with blinking lights showing that it remained active. Her clothing matched what Gabe had seen the former mercenary prisoners wear, though she seemed unaware of the glares it attracted as she passed the Wayfarer pilots standing nearby. There was a scar on her face, though it hid none of the ferocity in her expression. The mercenary stopped in front of Gabe, placing her hands on her hips as if the guards on either side of her were escorts rather than jailers.
“I have no idea what stupid stunt put your machine in such bad shape, but I’m surprised you survived. My name’s Nakani. Anna Nakani.” She stuck out a hand.
There was nothing he wanted to do less than shake her hand, but Gabe knew that upsetting the woman who would be transporting his fragile CTR was a bad idea. He shook it quickly. “Ms. Nakani. I’m surprised you managed to get your rig in through the recovery bays. I’ve heard they were quite a mess.”
“No thanks to you, you stupid bastard.” The casual tone of her voice made the curse seem almost a compliment, but she gave him no time to respond. “Your techs already have the starboard bay mostly clear. They made a path for me to fit through, though I had to come in at reduced speed. Probably nothing like the speed you were doing when you hit the deck.” Nakani slugged him in one shoulder. “Am I right?”
Both guards had stepped forward as if to restrain her, but Gabe stopped them with a small gesture. He studied Nakani, half curious and half amused. “I did come in a little fast, but I didn’t have much choice. You know how it is.” It dawned on him that he’d never actually spoken with one of the former mercenaries. Just as quickly, he remembered that only a week or two ago, this woman had probably been doing her best to kill him.
That realization went to war with his more friendly side as she smiled. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes you just have to do the best with what you’re dealt.”
Before Gabe could reply, Nakani gestured to the waiting rigs. “I’ll have your CTR over to the repair ship within the hour. Don’t worry, I won’t lose any of the pieces.” She looked at the severed stumps of the CTR’s legs and sighed. “At least, any more of the pieces. I’ll see you around, Captain.”
“Okay.” Still somewhat off balance, Gabe watched the mercenary walk away, escorted by the security forces. She seemed utterly and completely unaware of their presence, to the point where she looked surprised when one of them moved to block her path. Gabe shook his head.
Derek had moved over to stand beside him. There was a hopeful look on his face. “So, uh, do you think that I—”
Gabe grinned. “Not a chance, Derek.”
The other rig pilot glared. “Oh come on. Why not?”
“Because you’d never have a chance, that’s why.” His friend grunted sourly, and Gabe laughed. He flung an arm around Derek’s shoulder and used the gesture to support some of his weight. “Now let’s see about getting me to the nearest cafeteria. If I’m going to be grounded on the carrier for the next little while, I might as well enjoy the food while I’m at it.”
Susan had just opened the door to her quarters—the prelude to taking a well-earned rest from her duties—when her communications link beeped. She sighed, wondering if she could justify ignoring it. Then her sense of duty won out, and Susan answered the call. Perhaps it would just be a brief interruption. “Admiral Delacourt.”
“Admiral, this is Chief Kowalski from the Engineering staff.”
The introduction was so far not realizing her hopes. “And what can I do for you at the moment, Chief?”
A note of embarrassment colored the engineer’s response. “I’m sorry to bother you, Admiral, but you had a priority alert set up if anyone found any information regarding a specific area of the ship. Section Beta, Frame Five-Thirty?”
The engineer’s prompting brought Susan’s head up. She recognized the location; it was the section of the ship she had been investigating. “Yes, Chief, I did. Have we found out anything else about that area, or are you simply acknowledging the order?”
“Neither, ma’am. Even better than that.” Kowalski’s voice had now filled with that peculiar kind of eagerness that engineers experience when presented with a puzzle. “Are you near a secure console, Admiral?”
“One moment.” Susan entered her quarters and activated the console to one side of the doorway. As the computer linked up to the rest of the ship’s information network, she nodded. “What should I be looking for, Chief Kowalski?”
“Bring up a schematic of the section, Admiral. Not the official one, mind you, but the one on the unofficial subnet. I’m already logged in and able to modify it on the fly, so I’ll be able to show you what I’m talking about.” He continued to speak as she searched for the file. “You see, when we took that last set of hits in the fight, it shook something loose in the section and we’ve had to come down here to work on it. That, and Commander Mesic has been asking us to look at the structural integrity of the ship, and some of the critical parts of the superstructure run through that area.”
Susan nodded. The file appeared on her screen, with the structural supports highlighted. “I can see that, Chief, but I don’t understand why …” She blinked, and leaned forward. “Chief, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
“I believe you are, Admiral.” Kowalski magnified a particular area of the section on his screen, pulling up more details as he did so. “The structural elements running through this section are spaced in a way to support a combat nest of some kind.”
She frowned. “Combat nest?”
Kowalski cleared his throat. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t know the Directorate’s term for it. That’s what we call areas like Auxiliary Damage Control stations, infirmaries, or other areas of the ship that need to be shielded from damage during combat or isolated successfully from the rest of the ship in the event of major systems failures. They are typically crucial to some aspect of the combat, command, or repair systems.”
“Of course, Chief Kowalski.” Susan smiled. “And for future reference, the Directorate term for that particular type of area is an FC-IZ, if it comes up again.”
The chief on the other end of the line paused. “I … see, ma’am. In any case, there seems to be one of them built here, but the schematics and other information we have available don’t list it anywhere. There aren’t any critical systems pathways that pass through the section, and we haven’t found much to suggest that it’s some kind of abandoned medical area either.”
“Interesting.” Some of her fatigue began to fade as she considered the problem. “Have you traced the power feeds to the section? Perhaps by locating the source of the power …”
“I’m afraid we have, ma’am.” Kowalski’s voice became a bit more frustrated. “The power coming through the local stations isn’t anything more than a background level, so whatever is in there is either inactive or just doesn’t need a lot of energy to work. The other possibility is that it has an independent power supply, though I don’t think that’s likely.”
Susan frowned. “I imagine not, Chief.” Then a thought occurred to her. “Are there any corridors that lead into the center of the area? Whatever purpose these modifications might have, they could be explained there.”
“I suppose that is possible, ma’am.” The engineer shifted the view of the display to focus on a few other areas before he spoke again. “I think you might have more success along this corridor, ma’am. From what we can tell, a lot of the basic energy supply comes through here, and there would have needed to be regular access for personnel up to a certain point if this area was ever consistently used.” Kowalski chuckled. “The fact that we’ve been reading a lot of damage reports from that area means it may have cleared any obstructions for you as well. Apparently some of the objects were loose in that part of the section, and there was a lot of shaking during those attacks.”
She studied the corridor. It was the same one that Elder Miller had persuaded her to avoid and it remained an indistinct line on the schematic, showing that it hadn’t been explored or officially mapped yet. Despite the many other concerns demanding her attention, she immediately felt the urge to fill in that line herself. If the makers of the Concord had taken such great pains not only to conceal, but also fortify the mysterious area, odds were that it was indeed more than a simple storage closet in a forgotten corner.
Perhaps the engineer had anticipated that reaction. Kowalski’s next words were full of caution. “Admiral, I would recommend that you wait until our work teams have cleared that corridor before you go down it. There may be a lot of debris or damaged systems that would need to be repaired before the area is safe—especially for command personnel.”
Susan grinned a little, glad that the engineer couldn’t see the expression. She supposed that what the chief didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “Of course, Chief. Please let me know the moment the area is clear.” By then, she planned to already have the entire corridor mapped out, but it would be nice to know when the engineers got to the area, if only so she could explore without running into work crews.
Oblivious to the undertones, the chief seemed to accept her statement at face value. “That’s good. We’ll get over to that section just as soon as we’ve locked down the other problems caused by the attack. We may need to delay it until we’ve refitted the outer armor and everything, though.”
“I understand perfectly, Chief. Don’t let me keep you from your duty.” As the engineer signed off and ended the call, she flipped through the schematic on her console a little while longer, planning the route she would take to explore the area. She had no intention of diverting work crews from their more critical tasks repairing battle damage, and there was no way she would wait to satiate her curiosity until then. With such rationalizations in hand, it was much easier to enjoy the distraction—and she might as well enjoy herself. After all, it wasn’t as if the rest of her situation was all that pleasant.
Her thoughts brought the reality of her circumstances back to her mind, with the myriad troubles her command now faced. Susan studied the schematic a moment longer, and then sighed. She switched the console off with a firm twist of her hand. It was a nice fantasy to play out in her head, but in reality, things were different. As admiral, she had responsibilities, especially now. There was no way that an officer in charge of a fleet—especially one in such dire circumstances—would ever have an opportunity to waste time on idle exploration. The very fact that she’d considered it in the first place meant that she was too tired to make proper decisions—and that more of Gabriel had rubbed off on her than she would ever like to admit.
Still shaking her head, Susan stood and headed for her bed. Maybe by the time duty dragged her back to work once more, things would have changed for the better.