“How is everyone?” Casillo asked. The shuttle pilot’s response began with a burst of high-pitched static that made Polk wince, but a few adjustments by the comm officer soon produced intelligible speech.
“We’ve got three wounded,” the pilot said in between quick, shallow breaths. “Two severely. We’re gonna need a medical team in the docking bay. Clearing the atmosphere in ten seconds.”
“Copy that lander,” the captain acknowledged, reaching to his hover chair and pulling out a small cylinder. Attached to it was a facemask, which the captain held up to his mouth and inhaled from before setting it down next to him. Reasonable, Polk thought, considering he’d had lung surgery earlier. However, he knew from experience that those sorts of respirators tended to make people go a bit loopy. He’d keep an eye on the captain, just in case.
After the pilot fed him their current course and speed, Polk maneuvered the Galaxie so the lander could fly straight into the shuttlebay without any excess maneuvering. In the meantime, he performed what felt like the millionth systems check in the past few days. Ion engines and shrouds were fine, maneuvering jets looked solid… then he noticed something.
“Hey comm,” Polk called. “Can you ask engineering for an update on superluminal?”
The azure-skinned officer gave him a thumbs up, then picked up his headset.
“Engineering,” he said in a silky smooth voice that reminded Polk of a subspace broadcaster. “Helmsman Polk wants to know the status of the warp drive…uh huh. Okay, I understand. I’ll let him know, over.”
He set his headset down and shrugged at Polk.
“Says that none of the critical components were breached when we got hit, but that they need to run more tests to make sure,” he explained. “They said they’ll report once it’s ready to use.”
“Perfect,” Polk said, running a hand through his hair, now oily and disgusting after spending far too long awake and overstressed. Not for the first time, he wondered whether the Star Navy was the right choice of career. Certainly the recruiter had thought it was.
“Captain, the lander has entered the shuttlebay,” someone reported. Casillo took another breath from the oxygen tank, then nodded acknowledgement. Then his face set with a hard determination Polk knew all too well.
“Good,” he said. “Seal the shuttlebay doors, go to red alert. All hands to battle stations. Tactical,” he called, swiveling to face the officer. “Load torpedo tubes one and two, stand by for further orders.”
“Sir?” Polk asked, swiveling around in his chair. As Casillo drew breath to reply, the helmsman could sense the answer but was afraid to hear it. Luckily, he didn’t have to. Either because of impeccable timing or sheer coincidence, the comm officer interrupted whatever the captain was about to say.
“Captain, transmission from the planet.”
His resolve broke for a moment, Polk saw, the hard set in his jaw relaxing and his eyes flicking back to the present instead of wherever they’d been a moment before. The clenched jaw returned, but the eyes stayed in the moment.
“Put it through,” he said, taking a deep breath and leaning back in his chair. He was careful to hide the respirator, Polk noticed.
This time it wasn’t audio only; the viewscreen shifted to what Polk assumed was one of the locals Asadi had described. The mottled green skin and feathery, deep scarlet external gills made it look like one of earth’s salamanders. However, it had a remarkably human face, with bright intelligent eyes and high cheekbones.
“Captain… Leonarcas-Illo,” it said, its expression guarded. “I speak for Honraxi. Warning you, to leave…never return.”
“I may not know your planet’s customs,” Casillo replied icily. “But attempting to kill my crewmen is not tolerated up here. Especially since our intent was peaceful.”
“You came for Cor-Adi,” Xerkara replied, its voice accusing. “He… destroyed my people. You… were coming to finish his work. Return Cor-Adi… so we can deal with him.”
“Mark stays with us,” Casillo shot back. “You’re in no position to be making demands.”
“Then you will share his guilt,” Xerkara said, giving a small shrug. “The lives of innocents are on your hands. My culture, gone… You, murderers…”
“Cut the transmission,” Casillo snapped. The comm officer obeyed; the image of Xerkara snapped to black, soon replaced by the jade-green planet below. The captain then took a few deep breaths, before turning to the tactical officer.
“Are the torpedoes loaded?” he asked. Ignoring the wariness on the officer’s face when he nodded affirmation, the captain continued.
“Target the area the shuttle landed in and fire when I give the order,” he said. Glancing around the bridge, Polk noticed tension in nearly everyone’s shoulders, and some sidelong glances at both him and the captain. As tactical began inputting the coordinates, a memory began to tickle at the back of Polk’s mind. After a minute of searching, he had it: Denys’s pep talk. But that’s not how we do things, he’d said. Was it?
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“Captain,” Polk interjected, trying to improvise a story to get them off the bridge. “Engineering reports that they, ah, have something we need to take a look at. Has to do with the helm controls I think.”
Casillo’s brown eyes narrowed in confusion, but a raised eyebrow from Polk seemed to convey the message. The captain nodded, then slid into his hover-chair and led the way off the bridge. After receiving a reassuring nod from the comm officer, Polk followed.
They went to the captain’s ready room, a place that bore more resemblance to an office cubicle than the luxurious bookshelves and hardwood of sailing ships. A computer terminal sat at one corner, propped up on a wide aluminum desk that was stacked high with data pads. The singular bookshelf, tucked into the opposite wall, lay empty save for a few dusty volumes that Polk didn’t recognize. While it was cramped like everywhere else on the ship, the ready room had just enough space so that Polk could put some distance between him and the captain.
“Now then,” Casillo said, leaning forward in an attempt to close some of that distance. “Let’s get to the point since you’re not a good liar. Why are we here?”
“We got Sadaf back,” Pol pointed out. “And that other guy, Corradi. What we need to do now is fix the spacetime drive and leave; hell, we could leave right now under impulse--
“Absolutely not,” Casillo snapped. “And if you want a reason, I can give you thirteen of them, plus almost thirty wounded. Need I say more? They need to learn not to kill our people.”
“I think they’re learning,” Polk retorted. “We’ve destroyed a good chunk of their planetary defenses in addition to killing who knows how many during the extraction. This isn’t that… besides,” he added, not sure where his train of thought was leading. “Whatever the truth, that Xerkara seemed pretty convinced that we helped destroy them, even before we got here.”
“Obviously we didn’t,” Casillo said. “And I have no doubt that they’ll try to shoot us down while we’re stuck here fixing the drive. We need to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“I’m saying there’s more to this than we know,” Polk explained. “Get Sadaf up here, get Corradi up here. They probably know more about this than we do. She did say that there were ones in stasis down there. There could be a lot more innocent casualties than hostile ones.”
That seemed to do the trick. The captain drew himself up for another response, then let out his breath in a long sigh and tapped his communicator.
“Tell Commander Asadi to report to my ready room. Yes, it’s urgent. Captain out,” he said, clicking the small device off once he finished. They waited in tense silence for the next few minutes, the captain sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed and Polk standing at attention. Some primal part of Polk’s brain advised him not to move, out of a fear that Casillo would leap up at him. While the more reasonable part of him pointed out that the captain was stuck in a hover-chair, he couldn’t quite shake his unease.
Then the door hissed open and Sadaf strode in, stopping dead in her tracks when she noticed the standoff between him and the captain. After a moment, the tension between him and the captain broke, and Polk turned towards her and extended a hand.
She considered it for a moment, then grabbed hold and pulled Polk in for a hug. It was over before he could process what had happened, Sadaf moving over to shake the captain’s hand a few moments later. Then she composed herself, taking a deep breath before settling back into what Polk called her ‘work face’, which was enough to scare everyone but Denys.
“So,” she said. “What’s the situation?”
“What’s your assessment of the locals?” Casillo asked before Polk could give his own answer. Asadi chewed her lip in thought for a moment, then made a so-so gesture with her hand.
“They’re dangerous,” she began, earning Polk a raised eyebrow from the captain.
“But,” she continued. “They have plenty of reason to fear outsiders… I’ll type it up in my full report of course, but suffice it to say that Corradi unintentionally corrupted them in a way that’s hard to reverse. The Honraxi are bitter, and in all honesty we should just let them be.”
Casillo sat back with another sigh, running a hand through his hair and taking a breath from his respirator. Sadaf raised an eyebrow at Polk as he did, which Polk responded with a small shake of the head. Another time.
“This isn’t how we do things,” he added, his voice just above a whisper. Casillo took another deep breath, his eyes fixing on a point in space between Sadaf and the door. Polk saw a variety of emotions play across the captain’s face: a strange mix of grief, anger, and pensiveness. After a moment, Casillo gave a slow nod, his eyes returning to the present and swiveling to a point on the bookshelf. He seemed to nod at it in confirmation, then turned back to Polk.
“The last time I overrode your instincts,” he said slowly, holding eye contact. “I regretted it. You win… provided they don’t attack us again, of course.”
“I don’t see them trying that sir,” Sadaf said, trying to keep the grin off her face. “They thought that barrage would reduce the ship to atoms. I’d imagine that their next move is a bluff.”
“Already happened,” Polk explained. “He cut them off. Not that I disagree with that,” he added quickly, looking back at the captain. Casillo curled his lip into a rueful smile at that.
“Relax Polk, you’ve convinced me,” Casillo said, giving a halfhearted chuckle. Still, better than none. “You can get off the eggshells now. Let’s go.”
The captain threw on a smile, then maneuvered his hover-chair out of the ready room, Sadaf falling into step behind him as he did. Polk stayed in the office a little longer, casting a final glance around the space to find what the captain had seen before relenting. A moment later he spotted it, a thick paperback book that sat alone on the dust-covered shelf like a gargoyle protecting its shelf from… whatever it was that gargoyles were supposed to do. Polk walked over to the shelf, rubbing some of the dust off of the title. Once he saw what it was, his lips curled into a smile.
“Of course,” he murmured to himself. Obsession was always an issue with captains, and Polk had heard rumors that the book in question was required reading for command training.
Shaking his head, he stepped out of the ready room and headed back to his place at the helm. While he knew that he hadn’t liked his time in command, he wasn’t so certain about whether he’d be drawn to it again, like a moth to a flame, reaching for it despite the danger. Maybe that’s how it started for everyone.
“Captain,” the comm officer reported. “Engineering says the spacetime drive is ready for use. Shall I give them the go ahead?”
“Yes, please ensign,” Casillo said, his shoulders relaxed and a contented smile on his face. “Tell them not to push it too hard; it’s our ticket out of here.”
In a few moments, the cold glow of the planet was replaced by the zebra-stripes of starlight that indicated superluminal speeds. Polk glanced around the bridge and nodded to himself. Whatever had happened on that planet… was over now.