by Randal Sloan
She smiled, a rough smile, but a smile nevertheless that tore at his heart, "I am now, Robert."
Her eyes looked toward the table. "Could you please bring me that little device on the table? He used that to control my movements." she said softly.
When he returned with the little box, holding it up before her, she smiled again. "I'm guessing pressing the on/off button will do it," she told him.
When he did so, Jarra's smile grew bigger and she flexed her arms. The Master Sergeant had knelt beside her once more, so she grabbed him, pulling him into a hug. "Thank you, Robert," she told him, her voice still breaking. "You've no idea how hard that was, not being able to move."
Seeing the haunted look still in her eyes, he had a pretty good idea. The very thought terrified him.
"We need to get you back to the ship," he told her rather emphatically.
"No space suit," she told him, looking thoughtful. "I doubt you could get my un-powered armor onto this little shuttle without a lot of help. How far are we from the Relentless?"
"Not too far, but you're in no shape to pilot this ship," he answered.
"I have to agree with you there, Robert," Jarra told him. She called back over to the Katarina. "Guys, you think you could fly this little ship back to the Relentless, keeping the ships locked together and use your shields to protect us?"
"Piece of cake," the answer came back quickly. Gabo, of course.
So began the trip to the Relentless. Everyone thought their troubles were over. Unfortunately, Mad Dog wasn't through causing trouble.
#
Jarra's team was making short work of the trip back to the Relentless. Gabo had wrapped both ships with Katarina's powerful shields that even at half power were enough to navigate on the edge of the Badlands. For his part, Galen had no trouble navigating the area in the delta band. Because it was the lower delta band, they were moving slower but they were still making good time. He might have been pushing things a little bit too. They were all quite worried about their Princess and needed to see her safe.
Jarra had finally started to relax a little bit. She knew she was still shaken by the whole ordeal, but with the Master Sergeant and two of her Marines she felt quite safe. She still didn't feel that she was in complete control of her body, but she didn't want to stay where she was. At least they had removed Mad Dog's body, so she didn't have to look at him.
"Guys?" she asked, addressing the Master Sergeant and the two Marines. "Could one of you help me into the cockpit so I can at least see what's going on?"
Before she knew what was happening, Private Rick Johnson had scooped her up in his arms, holding her up against his chest. With his armor on, it was ridiculously easy.
Seeing her look of surprise, he told her, "I used to carry my little sister around like this all the time, so I've had lots of practice."
Jarra smiled at him, "Sounds like she was a lucky girl. I bet you miss her."
"Yes, but I guess she's doing alright. She was proudly showing off an engagement ring the last time I visited."
"Good for her. I hope she's happy."
By this time, they'd reached the control station in the cockpit, so Johnson set her carefully down in the seating area.
Jarra laughed. It felt good. "I'm not breakable, you know."
He gave her a smile. "No, ma'am, but you're not quite up to par right now, so you're just going to have to let us baby you for awhile."
He moved over to sit at the station beside her, while his companion took the seat on the other side of her and the Master Sergeant took the seat behind her. Jarra wanted to point out she didn't need that much babying, but she resisted. She still needed to feel safe and having them surround her really helped. Instead she just watched the view as the Relentless drew closer in the view finder.
Galen broke into her reverie with a com call. "We're going to hand you off to the docking control on the Relentless and follow you in. We'll land in the bay beside you and meet up with you shortly."
"Acknowledged," Jarra sent back. "Smooth piloting; thanks for the flight."
Gabo relaxed the shields surrounding the shuttle and the automated landing system started pulling them in. He was still a little preoccupied with his work on the ship's systems so at first he didn't notice anything wrong.
As pilot in charge, Galen had started their ship moving forward behind the shuttle, so he was keeping a close eye on their location in relationship to the ship. But it was Sasha that first realized something was wrong.
"They're moving too fast," she yelled in horror as the shuttle shot forward toward the ship.
It was as if Mad Dog was reaching out from the grave with one more attempt to get his revenge. His little booby trap he'd set up for the shuttle's return was still active and he wasn't there to send the code to deactivate it. Instead of slowing as the shuttle neared the docking bay, it accelerated it to the max speed of the system with the intent of bringing the shuttle crashing in. After all, Mad Dog had wanted quite a spectacular crash. The shuttle would be crushed and he'd expected explosions to finish it off. His idea of making sure they didn't look for the body that wouldn't be there.
On board the Relentless, a group was awaiting the arrival of their Princess. Their spot next to the landing zone was normally within the safety zone, but that safety zone didn't include the actions of a madman. Among those waiting were two very special to Jarra, her new friend Amy and the man that she had already started to come to love, Jason. Luckily for them, they had Jarra's two Marine escorts with them and they were wearing that ceremonial armor that Greg so hated to polish.
Only the fact that the Katarina was right there behind them prevented a total disaster. On Sasha's cry, Gabo had almost instantly realized what was happening and threw the shields back around the shuttle, breaking the control of the landing system. At the same time, Galen threw the Katarina into full reverse, pulling back against the shuttle's forward motion.
But the shuttle had already gained a lot of forward momentum and there just wasn't enough time. It came crashing into the bay, sliding out of control across the floor, but headed right for the welcoming committee. Without a second thought, Greg and Maze threw themselves in front of the others, shielding them with their bodies and that atrocious ceremonial armor.
On board the shuttle, Jarra's Marine companions threw their bodies across hers, locking their arms so that she was cocooned inside their grasps. Their armor was not ceremonial so they were able to project a limited shield surrounding themselves and the one underneath them.
As the shuttle slid across that deck, it reached the limit of the distance that even Katarina's shields could reach, so the shields snapped off and it began to tumble as the landing skids caught on protrusions from the deck, causing the nose to pitch forward to the deck. But it was finally losing momentum and that tip helped increase its drag, so mercifully it began to slow. Finally it came to a stop, just outside the always before assumed safety zone.
The whole catastrophe had taken only mere seconds, leaving everyone in total shock. Just to make everything worse, in the last moment the shuttle ripped a power conduit from the wall, causing a huge explosion of sparks but leaving everything in total darkness.
#
On board the Relentless, the whole landing bay was in total disarray. A fire had broken out where the power cable had been severed and the automated fire system kicked in, spraying the area with smothering foam. Emergency lighting finally came on, leaving the bay with a dim, almost eerie appearance.
Chief Petty Officer Jose Calhoun managed the crew that did the maintenance on the shuttles and served the bay. "Get in there, now!" he yelled at his crew, leading the way, but letting a firefighting crew pass.
They had been lucky he knew. As a chief petty officer, he'd seen a lot worse. If the Katarina hadn't been there to break the shuttle free from the control system, and slowing it down somewhat, the crash might not have been survivable for anyone in the bay or aboard the shuttle.
At first
, Jose thought everyone had gotten off without injury. Then he saw the two Marines. It appeared that they'd been caught up in the crash right there at the end and they were both under the material the shuttle had been pushing right in front of itself.
"Oh, no! Over here, quick!" he yelled. Several men rushed over and together they started lifting the large chunks of debris off the top of them. By the time they had the worst lifted, several of the medics had made their way over and quickly started to work on their patients. Somehow, they were both alive, but it still didn't look good.
Inside the shuttle, Master Sergeant Dobbins had been knocked unconscious as they all had been thrown forward violently with the final jolt of their landing, but worry for himself was the least of his thoughts. He looked around in the semi-darkness of the shuttle, the limited amount of emergency lighting that was undamaged providing the only light. The cabin of the shuttle had partially collapsed, but it had been designed to hold its shape as much as possible, and the design did its job.
Even as he was picking his way over to his Princess, he was pinging her implants. She was alive, thank God! Still, it didn't look good; she had to have internal injuries and one of her legs looked broken. He made sure there wasn't anything endangering her further, but he didn't try to move her.
By this time Private Johnson had joined him and the telemetry from Private Rothwell was reading green, just out cold, so the two of them made their way to the hatch of the shuttle. It was damaged but it looked serviceable.
"Help me get this open, Rick," he said, and together they worked on the damaged hatch, using their powered armor to force it past the damaged areas even as metal ground against metal. Although a Marine's armor wasn't designed specifically for such a task, it got the job done.
"Medic!" they both yelled, using the amplified speakers of their armor. That brought several men running, including a handful of medics they waved on toward the Princess. They immediately went about their work, quickly stabilizing her in a stasis field and before he knew it, they were rushing her off on an anti-grav emergency cart.
They had all survived, but what was the cost?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It Gets Worse
On the bridge of the Relentless, Captain Nicholas Arkwright paced across the area in front of his command station. He was not having a good day. First, he'd been locked in the Admiral's Ready Room, unable to reach anyone and helpless to even check on his ship. That same renegade Admiral that had ambushed him had left the ship along with the Marine Sergeant Mad Dog and Lieutenant Carsean, who somehow had gotten caught up in the middle of it all.
Finally released, he learned the young lieutenant he'd been unable to protect was really the Crown Princess and he knew there would be consequences if they couldn't rescue her. Just when everything was looking upbeat, with the Princess' shuttle found and her on her way back in, they had that horrible shuttle crash, undoubtedly set up by that madman when he took her.
It just kept getting worse. He knew the Princess was alive, but he didn't know how bad it was yet. Everyone was demanding to know her status, from Lieutenant Commander Cauldwell, who'd temporarily commandeered his ship with Imperial command codes, to the crew of the Katarina, who had their own set of Imperial command codes, to the Crown Prince, who was on his way to their location. He had no idea that the Dauntless carrying the Crown Prince was even in the district and now he found out they were only a few hours away.
Something serious was going on here, and he didn't think they were at the end of it. Just as the realization set in, the com officer interrupted his thoughts.
"Sir, I'm receiving a message from Admiral Janson. Somehow he's contacting us from another ship, although the IDent does not match any Imperial Ship known."
Nick knew he wasn't going to like what the Admiral had to say. He was right.
#
Lieutenant Commander Jason Cauldwell had commandeered a conference room in the Admiral's suite. After all, the Admiral wasn't going to be using it. There he'd gathered the friends and teammates of the Princess as they waited to hear her status. To complicate matters for the team, two of their own were down too.
"She should be coming out of surgery any moment now," he told Prince John, who was on live feed even as he rushed toward their location. "From what Master Sergeant Dobbins observed, we're pretty sure it's bad enough but not life threatening."
"I should never have let her talk me into this insanity," the Master Sergeant growled. "If I'd been doing my job, she'd never have been on that shuttle."
"It sounds to me like you did your job as well as you could, Robert," Prince John told him. "If you hadn't been there, she wouldn't have survived the crash. And I don't know anyone, including my Uncle, who's supposed to be in charge of the Empire, who could talk that girl out of doing whatever she set her mind to do."
Jason had to agree with that. "None of us did what we should have done to keep her safe, but you're right. She even let that madman go because she said he'd be needed when we got here."
Their conversation was interrupted by a page from the ship's medical bay. Jason quickly switched it live so all could hear, bringing up a view of the ship's chief medical officer.
"Go on, please," he told him. "How is our Princess?"
"She's out of surgery and awake now, but she's got a long recovery ahead of her. A broken leg, which we had to surgically repair, severe bruising and other internal injuries, and burns from what looks like a power surge transmitted through the hull of the ship. Something's going on with her implants, but they appear to have stabilized in the last few minutes, so we're leaving them alone for now. If I had to guess, that's some kind of side effect from those nanites that madman injected her with. Hopefully it will fade with time."
"When can we see her?" Jason asked.
"She's already asking for you and some of the others. Now will be fine if you keep it down to two or three at a time and only a few minutes total."
"Thank you, Doctor. We'll be right down; I promise we'll keep it to a minimum."
Disconnecting the call, Jason didn't even have to ask.
"Go!" John told him. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Together we're going to figure out how to find that rogue Admiral and make him pay. No one messes with my cousin and walks away."
"You got that right," Jason said. He felt the whole group's agreement. The Admiral didn't know it yet, but he'd just kicked over a Caruthain ant's nest. They never let up till either they were dead or the attacker was. Neither would this team.
#
Admiral Janson was quite pleased with his new toy, despite the fact the aliens he had for his crew members were rather disturbing. They just didn't look natural, especially their heads, some sort of alloy composite sporting a disconcerting red "eye" that seemed to look right through him. That's going to have to be my first priority, he thought. I've got to get a crew in here and get them trained. Then I can send this bunch of monsters home.
The Admiral had put the ship through its paces as best he could within the messed-up space that made up the Badlands. Somehow the aliens had been able to map the Badlands so that their ships could traverse the area, but it made for a difficult ride. He wouldn't have wanted to be the helmsman, but the alien at that position seemed unconcerned.
In order to test the ship's beam system, he'd had them navigate to an area with a large number of rogue asteroids and they had used the small rocks to test the beam weapon. That was another thing. The aliens unerringly seemed to make their shots, never missing, and the weapon itself was quite impressive. All but the biggest of the rocks were completely destroyed by the weapon and the alien sub-commander told him they could have destroyed them too if they'd been able to hold the beam on the asteroid for more than a fraction of a second.
The ship's shields had been put to the test too, flying through the asteroid field unscathed where he knew even the Relentless would have been forced to slow down. They'd even test-fired several Imperial missiles, taking a number of deliberate
hits against the ship's shields. Those shields had performed admirably, not even flickering at the strike.
Finally, Janson felt he was ready to put the ship to the real test. He directed the alien helmsman to set course back to rendezvous with his old ship. He was looking forward to seeing the results of that beam against the shields of the super-dreadnought.
On the way back, he couldn't resist giving the Relentless a call. His mood turned a bit sour when he saw who answered the call. Captain Arkwright! That man was supposed to be locked up, out of the way. He just shook his head. It didn't matter; after seeing his new ship in action, he didn't think even the very competent Captain and XO could manage to stop him. He couldn't resist a little jibe at the Captain.
"Who let you out of your cage?" Janson asked the man. "I was hoping you'd have to watch without being able to do anything about it while I tore your ship apart. That would have been quite fun."
He didn't wait for an answer. "No matter. I'm on my way to meet you and with a little help from my friends here, I'm going to use your ship for target practice."
He smiled a rather evil smile. "Unless you want to just surrender now." His smile grew bigger at the Captain's rather emphatic response. "Just as well. I really want to test the ship against you."
He glanced up at the plot. "We should be there in just over an hour. Don't go anywhere."
#
Jarra was not happy. She was grateful to be alive, but now she was stuck in this hospital bed when she had so much that needed to be done. Something big was about to happen, she knew it. Unfortunately, there didn't appear to be anything she could do about it. It was all entirely something she was not used to dealing with,
Her thoughts were interrupted when visitors walked into the room. At the sight, she forgot all her troubles, her face breaking out in a huge smile.
"I'm not breakable, despite what all this looks like," she pointed to all the medical apparatus surrounding her. "Get over here and give me a hug, all of you."
