“At the time the message was sent, they were still orchestrating their attack. The message goes on to say that they believe they’ll catch us off-guard, so they don’t seem to be in any hurry.”
“Good. If all goes well, all they’ll find is an empty planet.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Dani asked.
“If they beat us there, then I may need you to jump in a fighter and show them what’s what.”
Dani nodded but felt uneasy about the situation. It was one thing to attack the Vaerians, but attacking the very people she’d served with and defended for all these years made her uncomfortable. She couldn’t be sure those she was firing on were as corrupt as the officials who coordinated the destruction of PS683 or if they were in the dark as Dani had been.
As she stood there, watching her father run through scans and give orders to his crew, he suddenly seemed so very different from the loving father she grew up with. His playful eyes were now cold and calculating, his soothing voice commanding and harsh. Even his posture changed as soon as he heard the news of the impending attack.
Dani recognized many of same traits in herself when things went sideways, but her ire had always been directed toward the Vaerians, not those serving for or under the protection of the GC. This was a side she hadn’t seen in her father until this moment. Growing up, she had been obsessed with his tales of war and the news reports hailing him as a hero. But she hadn’t thought of what being a hero actually demanded of him, or of herself.
A brilliant streak of white split across the ship’s display as they dropped out of hyperspace a good distance from the rebel planet.
“Scan the system for GC and Vaerian ships. I don’t want any surprises,” he grumbled as he gave the orders.
Ahead of them lay the rebel home planet, looking just the way they left it. Bob fired up the engines and rapidly approached before falling into orbit.
“How’s the evacuation coming?” he asked through the communications link.
A voice echoed through the bridge, “We could use a hand down here. We’ve got the elderly as well as the children and their mothers on their way to the beta site. We’re tearing down as much as we can to load into the transports, but it hasn’t been easy.”
“Dani.” Bob turned to her. “Go get Roni, David, and Jag and get down to the surface to help in any way that you can.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied instinctively before hurrying out of the bridge as it occurred to her that it felt more natural to call her father ‘sir’ rather than ‘dad.’
Dani found Roni and David in the hall on their way to the bridge. Roni rolled her eyes as she spotted Dani and turned the other way.
“Hey, wait.” Dani jogged to catch up to her. “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” Roni groaned as she turned to face her.
“The GC is on their way to the rebel planet. Bob wants us to get down there and help out.”
Roni exhaled audibly and turned on her heel. “Fine, come on.”
“Are they coming because of us?” David whispered as they chased behind Roni.
“Yeah, we really screwed up.”
“Shit, if Bob wasn’t mad before…”
“I really think that’s the last thing you need to worry about right now. Do you know where Jag is? I haven’t seen him since they picked us up.”
“I think he’s in the kitchen. I’ll go with Roni, you meet us at the ships,” David said as he turned a corner.
Dani changed directions and headed back toward the kitchen. Sure enough, Jag was sitting inside, arms resting on the circular table before him, head drooped down and staring in his lap.
“Jag,” Dani said as she entered. The sound of her voice made him jump and flail. His hand swept up onto the table, knocking a glass bottle over, causing the tawny-colored contents to spill out. Dani gasped as she snatched the bottle from the air right as it rolled off the table. “Jag… you didn’t.”
Jag had to drag his gaze upward at Dani, an effort evident in the way he moved not only his head, but his eyes. “Whatchu doing in here?”
Dani grabbed Jag by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Why? Why now? I need you.”
His squinty eyes opened up wide. “You need me?” He went to point at his chest but missed and hit his shoulder instead.
Dani grabbed a cup and filled it with water before thrusting it at him. “Drink this. I don’t have time to take you to medbay for another detox,” she said before turning to look for coffee.
Jag spilled most of the water on his uniform but ultimately managed to drink a bit. The moment he finished, Dani handed him a cup of coffee. After also spilling a fair amount of that on himself, he frowned and passed it back, shaking his head. “No, I don’t want that. It’s cold. Cold coffee is digrusting.”
Dani sighed and set the coffee cup down before squaring up to Jag and slapping him across the cheek. A flush of red rushed to the area where she made contact.
“Oww,” he whined, putting his hand up to is face and looking at her like he was a beat puppy. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because I need you sober right now, dammit. The GC is coming for the rebel planet and we need to get down there and help. How are you going to help like this?”
“I’m fine,” he declared before stumbling over the leg of the chair and adding, “mostly.”
“Whatever, let’s go.” Dani left the kitchen, almost hoping Jag would stay behind, but for as intoxicated as he was, he made pretty good time.
Roni and David were already loading into fighters when Roni stopped and stared at Jag. “Take the cruiser. There’s no way he should be flying like that.”
Dani pursed her lips but couldn’t argue with Roni. She grabbed Jag’s arm once more and pointed him in the direction of the cruiser. They climbed in and Jag started to take a seat at the controls before Dani grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and pulled him back.
“You know,” Jag said as he fell back into the copilot’s seat, “you almost died.”
She glanced at him but didn’t say anything and instead focused on running the rest of her pre-flight checks.
“I think it would have killed me to lose you again.”
She froze momentarily and looked at him once more. His fight with his harness was almost as awkward as the conversation.
“I think you should stay away from David. He seems like he is not a good decision makerer. Plus, I’m pretty sure he’s dating Roni and…”
Dani disengaged the cruiser from the ship and began calculating for their landing. “And?” she asked automatically, regretting it almost immediately.
“And if anything happened to you, I would die.”
“You said that already, McDrunkard.”
“Oh… well, it bears repeating.” Jag laid his head back against the seat’s headrest.
Dani shook her head and focused on taking them in for a landing. As they drew closer, she could see the rebels below packing up anything that wasn’t attached. It wasn’t hard to pick Cruz out of the crowd. He carried twice as much as anyone else. Dani landed the cruiser as close as she safely could and unstrapped.
Jag had since passed out in the copilot’s seat and, after giving him a pitiful glance, Dani decided to leave him there.
She hurried out of the cruiser and ran over to Cruz. “Where’s Cassia?”
Cruz loaded the crates into the cargo ship before turning to face her. “They took her on the first transport to the beta site. I stayed to help.”
“Okay—I want to get Osirion in the air. I can’t leave it behind.”
“Howard and Z have been working on it since we got the news.”
“Great!” Dani turned toward Osirion but stopped after a few steps, pointing at the cruiser. “Can you get Jag out of there and toss him in bed?”
Cruz gave her a confused look but with one perked eyebrow he nodded and started for the cruiser with long, steady strides.
Dani rushed into Osirion’s loading bay and quickly searched the ship to find Howard and Zadria in the captain’s quarters. “Hey, think we can take off?”
“Well, I’ve patched up as much of this as I can but we’ll still have to seal off your quarters until the glowshard can repair itself,” Howard explained.
Zadria added, “Everything else is in working order.”
“Great, let’s see how we can help pack up and we’ll get out of here.” Dani sped back outside to find Roni giving orders to the rebels.
“Load up the cruiser with what you can and the same with Osirion,” Roni said to a group of men carrying crates of food.
“Doesn’t the beta site have supplies?” Dani asked as the men scuttled off toward the cruiser.
“Well, it does,” Roni said with a sigh, “but I don’t think it’d be very nice to show up and eat all their food in a matter of a week. We only just established the colony recently and they haven’t been able to get their food production up enough to support our numbers.”
“Oh, alright. That makes sense.”
“Why don’t you take your crew and go see if they need any help loading the supplies from the hospital?”
“Of course.” Dani turned and waved Zadria and Howard over to her. Cruz was just stepping out of Osirion after dumping Jag into bed and joined them.
The hospital was a mess on its own. The patients were among the first evacuees, as Cruz mentioned, but it was clear they’d left in a hurry. Supplies were scattered on the floor, and chairs and gurneys were on their sides. It was such a mess, Dani wasn’t sure where to start. Thankfully, Cruz took point and led the group to a supply closet.
Dani looked around until she found some empty boxes, and they made quick work of filling the boxes. Zadria and Cruz took the first set of boxes back to Osirion while Dani and Howard continued working.
“All this time and you never told me about any of this,” she said, annoyed.
Howard chuckled. “I was wondering when you’d call me on that.”
Dani glared at him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It was never the right time.”
“Oh, that’s a pathetic excuse and you know it,” she said with a huff as she started filling a new box.
Howard gave her one of his grandfatherly smiles that made her feel as though he knew something she didn’t. “What do you suppose would have happened had I told you that your father was alive?”
“For starters, I would have known how corrupt the GC was sooner.”
“But would you have believed it?”
Dani paused in her packing to think about his question. She wanted to think that she’d believe her father the way she did now, but she had been fiercely loyal to the GC before they hung her out to dry.
“Keep thinking about it.” Howard smirked. “You were still a rookie when his ship went down. Sure, you were good even back then, but you needed that time in the GC, and we needed you to be there.”
“You were feeding the rebels intel, weren’t you?”
Howard gave a quick nod. “That was part of it.”
Cruz and Zadria returned to grab the next load of boxes, and Dani searched the nearby rooms for more. The hospital wasn’t huge, but it was big enough that Dani knew there was no way they’d get everything out. She spotted a medicine locker and fiddled with the lock for a moment before looking for a key in a nearby desk.
“What’s taking so long?” Roni asked as she stuck her head in the room.
“I was going to grab that medicine, but it’s locked,” Dani explained, shuffling through the drawers.
Roni walked over to the cabinet and smashed the glass with her gloved fist. “There.”
The two of them worked in silence to carefully remove the vials, which were miraculously still intact despite Roni’s brutish approach. Dani wanted to talk to Roni about things, but decided to wait until the situation wasn’t so urgent.
They carried out the last load of supplies and stacked them inside Osirion next to some weapons and food. David was loading boxes, along with a few other men.
“Alright, that looks good.” Roni slapped Osirion’s hull with her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Dani and her crew boarded Osirion, stepping over Jag, who was snoring in the hall with Carl sleeping on the small of his back. “I thought you put him in bed, Cruz.”
“I did. He must have gotten up,” Cruz signed then shrugged.
Dani triple-checked the doors and the seal on her own personal quarters before engaging the engines and initiating the take-off sequence.
“Shouldn’t we do something about Jag?” Zadria piped up.
Dani paused just shy of taking off and sighed. She knew Zadria was right but was still annoyed at Jag for drinking himself stupid yet again.
Cruz must have sensed her hesitation, because he quickly unclipped from his harness and left the bridge. A moment later, he returned with Jag slung over his shoulder and Carl on his heels, protesting loudly. Cruz dropped Jag into his chair, strapping him in before returning to his own seat. Carl hopped up on his lap and Cruz patted the cat on the head. Once everyone was seated, Dani checked things over once more and then lifted Osirion into the air.
The cruiser and fighters, along with a few other ships, also rose from the planet below and shot up toward her father’s rebel ship.
“Incoming communication,” Zadria alerted.
“Half-screen,” Dani answered as Bob’s ship came into view.
Her father appeared on the screen, standing tall with his shoulders back. “I’d like to take this time to officially welcome Osirion to the rebel fleet. We’re also broadcasting the coordinates of the beta site to each of your ships. Stay safe.”
Just as quickly as he appeared, her father blipped off the screen. The ships around them began to jump into hyperspace, and a horrible thought occurred to Dani in regard to their own jump capabilities.
“Uh, Howard?” Dani asked, her voice full of worry.
“It’ll work this time, I promise.”
Dani inhaled deeply and slowly as she entered the coordinates into the system and hit the button. A rush of relief greeted her as they successfully jumped into hyperspace. “Thanks, Howard.”
“Z was quite the little worker bee too,” Howard replied.
Zadria beamed at her mention.
“Thank you too, Zadria.” Dani gave her a smile and a quick nod.
“Whaddabout me?” Jag slurred from his seat. “I helped rescue Dani.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks for that too,” Dani responded, unsure if he even heard her, as he appeared to be sleeping again.
“Drunk ass,” Howard mumbled from his seat.
The rest of the hyperspace jump was relatively uneventful, which was a welcome relief for Dani. However, she had gotten so used to things going wrong that the quietness almost seemed unnatural.
“Dani, what’s the name of your father’s ship? I am updating our database,” Zadria asked from her seat, head down over her console as she typed away.
“I… am not actually sure. Howard?”
“Evelynn’s Revenge,” Howard called out with pride and a touch of melancholy.
Dani couldn’t help but smile as she was overcome by intense sadness at the mention of her mother’s name. “I should have guessed.”
“Your mother?” Zadria asked.
Dani nodded but couldn’t speak around the lump in her throat.
“And before anyone worries, I already disconnected our system from the central GC database. So they’ll no longer be able to track us or any of our ship’s logs,” Zadria said, boasting a satisfied smile.
“Great job.” Dani was impressed with Zadria’s progress in such a short time. Her initiative took Dani by surprise and she was thankful to have her.
It wasn’t much longer before the stars around them transformed from streaks of white back into the glittering pinpricks against the black sea of space. Many of the other rebel ships had already arrived and wer
e descending on a small blue moon orbiting a fiery red planet.
“Is that it?” Dani scanned the moon in confusion. “There’s no land, at least not enough to host a good sized settlement.”
“That’s why they chose it,” Howard replied, the ever present twinkle in his eye even more prominent. “But first, we should allow Osirion a moment to repair herself.”
“Z, open a line to Evelynn’s Revenge,” Dani ordered.
Zadria complied quickly, clearly happy to receive commands.
Bob appeared on half of the screen, looking curious. “Yes?”
“We’re going to jaunt over to the star for a bit and allow Osirion to repair her hull, then we’ll return.”
“Very well,” Bob said, reaching for a button on his console but stopping short. “Dani, be careful.”
He blipped off the screen before she had a chance to reply. She wrinkled her forehead, still not quite understanding their new dynamic. Dani chose not to linger on the subtext for now and instead navigated Osirion to the gentle red star at the center of the planetary system. Planets were sparse in this system; most of the objects in orbit were large asteroids with the exception of the fiery planet and its moon, along with two other planets, which were small and barren with no atmosphere to speak of.
“Cruz, where are we? I don’t recall any systems that would match this description.” Dani frowned.
“Wait!” Zadria chirped from her corner of the bridge. “Isn’t it…”
Dani raised an eyebrow, waiting for her guess.
“No, it can’t be PS035… right?”
Cruz shook his head and Zadria’s shoulders slumped in defeat as she sat back in her chair to pout.
“Howard, would you care to guess?” Dani asked.
“Well that just wouldn’t be fair, would it? I know exactly where we are. I reckon Cruz does, too.”
Dani looked back at Cruz, who grinned in response. He projected the entire planetary system, what little of it there was, on the holographic display. Dani pursed her lips, still not recognizing it. “Is this even in the database?”
The Complete First Season - Episodes 1-5 Page 42
