by David Ryker
Things did not look good.
The fleet remained in orbit around the ocean world, seemingly unaffected by the battle we had fought. When we had left, there had been great scars in the side of one of the whaleships and debris from the Centaurian fighters floating everywhere. All that had been cleaned up. It was as if there had been no battle at all.
Only on closer count could we see the damage we’d inflicted. There were fewer of the fighters, and the whaleships had clustered closer together, hoping for safety in numbers. They had not been reinforced as we had feared and they had obviously realized that conquering the Orion Arm was not going to be a cakewalk.
We also got the reassurance that none of the ships had gone off to destroy another planet or to hunt us. We weren’t ready for another battle yet.
Things got more serious when we looked at the planet. The six balloons we had destroyed had disappeared without a trace. Of the six remaining, only three were still on the surface, boiling the water around them. At first we hoped that maybe we had gotten more than we thought, but then we noticed one rising in the atmosphere. Another was in orbit approaching a whaleship. The third was adhering to the side of another whaleship like a giant goiter. Scans showed a massive transfer of energy going on from the balloon to the ship.
They were powering up … for what? To fight us when we came back or to go off somewhere else?
One of the probes got underwater to navigate through the empty cities and deeper reaches of the World Ocean. It took three whole days to find any living Chordatids, and those they found looked even feebler than before. Those poor people were on the brink of extinction.
But the probe saw something even worse. Great stretches of some algae-like substance the color of dirty rust floated on the seas. There were patches in several spots all over the equatorial region, some as wide as a hundred kilometers. Beneath these ran tendrils in which were caught various fish. The ends of the tendrils stuck into their flesh like IV tubes. The probe wasn’t capable of determining exactly what was going on, but it was clear enough. The Centaurians were beginning to experiment with changing the biology of the local creatures. They were searching for new weapons for their living arsenal.
The Chordatid commander with our fleet called a meeting. All the representatives of the different races stood, as before, in that cramped hall on the freighter. The strange dolphin-like alien turned slowly in its tank.
“The Chordatid commander is making a body gesture indicative of extreme sadness,” my translator told me.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I kind of figured that.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that place. Everyone waited, tense, to hear the Chordatids’ decision. Even Foyle kept quiet.
At last the Chordatid spoke.
“Our next step is as obvious as it is terrible,” it said. “The invaders have taken an ocean world that they need to refuel and resupply their fleet. Once they are done resting after their long journey, they will move on to more worlds, conquering and destroying until they control the entire Orion Arm. They have not tried to trade. They have not tried to negotiate. They haven’t even demanded our surrender. They have only one purpose in mind—our total annihilation.
“But this is their weakness. Because we have the choice of winning or dying, it makes us bold in our decisions, and because they have utterly destroyed my people and corrupted our world, they have given us an option.”
The Chordatid commander whipped around the tank twice and came to a stop.
“We must send every missile in our nuclear arsenal at the Chordatid home world and make it uninhabitable both to the Centaurians, and all other forms of life for millennia to come.”
A low groan and shuffling passed through the crowd. I couldn’t tell if it was despair, sadness, or relief at having had a momentous decision taken off our shoulders. Probably it was all three emotions at once.
“Yes, we must destroy our homeworld. Attacking the giant creatures that serve as their power supply was not enough. Now they are using our world to create more monstrosities. They must be stopped. We will refine the uranium into plutonium and fit it into warheads. This will only take a few days”—I blinked at the short time span. With Earth technology, it would have taken months—“and then we will be ready to strike. It is the only way to stop this invasion. The Chordatid home world must be sacrificed.”
Once again the Chordatid’s statements were met with silence. No one filled it. At last the Chordatid spoke once more.
“That is all. Let us get to work.”
Without a word, all the various intelligent beings of the Orion Arm shuffled out of the meeting hall and back to their respective vessels.
31
The casts came off, and I finally got to take some feeble steps on my own. The wheelchair got replaced with a cane for a couple of hours a day. Yeah, a fucking cane. Dr. Stark said the nanites and the calcium injections had almost finished knitting my bones back together and within a couple of days I could use the cane all day, and then a couple of days after that not at all. The eye surgery went fine and after a few days I could see again, although I noticed there was a bit of nearsightedness and light sensitivity that I didn’t have before. My good eye mostly adjusted for that. The doctor said I should be combat ready by the end of the week.
But before I flew on another mission, I needed to clear the air. I needed to know where I stood.
It was time to have an honest talk with Commander Loftsdóttir.
Well, sort of an honest talk. I needed to clear the air, at least.
I sent her a message asking for a private meeting. She took a couple of hours to respond and told me to meet her after dinner. It wasn’t clear if she was delaying because she was busy or delaying because she wanted to put me in my place.
I wasn’t even sure what my place was. That was one of the reasons I asked for this meeting.
Zipping into to the command deck in a wheelchair didn’t exactly help my confidence. I was a bit unsteady with the cane and I decided this was the less humiliating approach. She ushered me into the usual meeting room, the place where we had made so many hard decisions. Now I had to make another one.
I still hadn’t figured out exactly what to say to her. I knew, though, that we had to get on a better footing if I was to remain commander of security and if I was going to have any chance to protect myself from Foyle.
She sat at the head of the table. I wheeled into my usual place, having to awkwardly move a chair away to do so.
She folded her hands on the table, gave me an inscrutable look, and asked, “How may I help you?”
Oh, this was starting badly. She hadn’t addressed me by my rank. Commander Loftsdóttir wasn’t the kind of officer who forgot protocol, except if she wanted to forget it on purpose to send a message.
That decided me. Time to roll the dice.
Just then my heart decided to do a tap dance inside my chest.
I coughed to clear my throat and get a bit of bass in my voice—anytime my heart goes its own way my voice breaks like an adolescent’s—and said, “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely forthcoming with you, Commander.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Oh, yes you do. Or maybe you don’t realize I’m about to be honest for the first time in far too long.
“I cheated my way on to the Nansen,” I blurted.
There, it was out.
She didn’t say anything for a second. I tried to read her expression but found I couldn’t focus on it. I was too distracted by something else.
My heart had started to beat normally again.
What the hell?
“I don’t understand,” she said again.
Good. She doesn’t know that I know that she knows. Yes, that pretzel of a sentence actually applies to me.
Wow, my life is getting too fucking complicated.
Time to make it simpler.
“I cheated my way on board, like the Biospherists. Well, not like the Biospheris
ts. I bought my way on board. I’m not the only one, as you know. That probe told you of some. They missed me, though.”
Now that I was speaking, it all came out in a rush. “I changed my fingerprints, changed my retinas, got a fake ID from someone who had died young. I spent a fortune on it. A fortune I stole from my boss. I used to work for the mob as an enforcer. I worked a dirty job and stole dirty money so I could take someone else’s place for another shot at life. But now that I’m here I’m committed. You want to demote me, fine. Qiang, I mean Major Li, would make a fine commander of security. But don’t put me in the brig. Let me fly a Dri’kai Shadow Fighter in the next fight. I’m useful to the Nansen’s mission. I’ll work in any capacity. Hell, I’ll even work in the kitchen if you want me to, but I want to be a part of this. It’s the first job I’ve ever believed in.”
I realized I was babbling and forced myself to stop. But my mouth wasn’t done yet.
“Please don’t tell Valeria.”
Oh fuck, that was a good ending, Mitch!
Commander Loftsdóttir let out a long, slow breath and leaned back in her chair. After a long moment that seemed to stretch out half a lifetime, she said, “I appreciate your honesty, Commander Ayers.”
“Thank you. You deserve to know the truth.”
It took me a second to realize she had addressed me by my rank again.
And that made me feel horribly guilty. She had just shown me a bit of good faith, and in reality I was still lying to her. I was confessing to something she already knew in order to look good.
And yet, what choice did I have? I couldn’t exactly tell her I knew the contents of the probe from Earth. That would expose Foyle, and I had a feeling he could do me a world of hurt before he saw any sort of trouble. To be perfectly honest, I was afraid of the piece of shit.
“So tell me exactly what you did and how you got onto the Nansen.”
So I did. I told her everything, with brutal honesty and sparing no detail. I started with my disaffection with the army, my feeling of being lost after my second tour of duty, the fight with the drunks that caught Leo Franzetti’s eye, and my quick descent into the world of organized crime. I told her about how I broke kneecaps, how I firebombed businesses, how I made men kneel down at the ends of dark alleys so I could put a bullet through their head. I told her everything.
And through it all, my heart kept as steady as a clock.
Her expression didn’t change the entire time. She just fixed me with those hard blue eyes and listened to my confession.
I went on to explain the process for getting on board illegally, how I had to outbid so many others and actually take physical and psychological tests to make the deal since the guys supplying me with the ID didn’t want to risk having someone who couldn’t make the cut. And I told her, even though I didn’t have to, just how bad my heart was. I suppose Dr. Stark had filled her in with the medical details, but I wanted her to know just how fragile my health was, and how unreliable I was outside of a Shadow Fighter.
I wanted to be as honest with her as I could.
That still didn’t take away the guilt over the craven dishonesty that was at the core of this conversation.
I wanted to come clean with her. I wanted her to respect me like I respected her. I wanted her to trust me. And I was forced to do this through deceit.
At last I ran out of words. I sat there, mouth dry, as those words hung in the air between us.
“Thank you for coming to me with this, Commander Ayers. I’m curious as to why you’re telling me this now?”
I squirmed, trying to think of an excuse.
“It’s been weighing on me,” I said. That was true enough. “And I figured you had a right to know.”
“But Dr. Sanchez doesn’t.”
Oh right, I had mentioned Valeria, hadn’t I?
“This is more a matter of ship’s security and the command structure,” I countered.
“It’s a matter of trust,” she said, her voice carrying a keen edge.
I tried to think of something to say and found nothing. I found myself looking at the joystick on my electric wheelchair, fiddling with it like a scolded child.
“You drop this bombshell on me and you expect me to keep it secret from the rest of the high command?”
I looked up, astonished. That was exactly what she had been doing all this time, and now she was using it to guilt trip me?
So she was playing a game as well. Anger rose up in me, and just as quickly ebbed away. Sure, she was playing a game, but an honest game. She wanted me to come clean to everyone. Part of that was to shift the burden from herself, but part of that was out of her innate sense of fairness. This wasn’t just a career officer I was talking to, someone who had been thrust into a responsibility far above her pay scale. This was also a woman, and she didn’t want to see some shifty guy lying to a fellow woman who she worked with and respected.
“Do I have to tell everyone?”
She shifted in her seat, suddenly put on the spot.
“No. I don’t think that would be prudent. But it would be fair to tell the two people you are closest to on the ship.”
Valeria and Qiang. Fucking hell.
“But not before the battle,” she added. “We don’t need any distractions.”
I indicated the wheelchair. “I’m not sure I’ll be ready for the next battle.”
“They need to be.”
I nodded. I really did need to be reminded every now and then that it wasn’t all about me.
“All right.”
Commander Loftsdóttir leaned forward. “I want you to understand that in any other situation I would have you in the brig and up for a court marshal. But you saved the crew, not once but several times, and your personal friendship with the Dri’kai general is invaluable. You saved your position, Commander Ayers, now it’s time to save your self-respect.”
32
Saving my self-respect would have to wait for another day. First I had to save my ass from Executive Officer Foyle. He collared me a few days later as I was coming back from Security.
I was limping along the hallway, having finally dispensed with the fucking cane, when he came around the corner surrounded by a gaggle of technicians and lower-grade scientists.
“ … and then I pulled up hard to get beneath one of those clam fighters and gave it a—Mitch, old buddy! How’s the leg?”
I managed a smile. “Getting better. Looking forward to blowing some more of those Centaurian fighters out of the sky.”
“You’ve done pretty good. Guys, I need to talk to Mitch for a while. Give him some tips. See you later.”
They all said goodbye, fawning over him. As one female technician passed him, he smacked her on the ass. She squealed with delight.
“Not a bad piece of tail,” he said in a low voice as he walked me down the corridor. “When are you seeing that giant blob of warts and fangs?”
“You mean General R’kk’kar, the leader of this fleet?”
“Yeah. Him.”
“I don’t know. We’re all pretty busy.”
“Make time, and I’m not going to take any excuses from a con like you. I want you to set up a meeting.”
“What for?”
He glared at me. “Don’t use that tone with me. Know your place. I want command of the Shadow Fighters.”
I thought quickly. “General R’kk’kar and I already discussed that.”
Foyle cocked his head. “Really?”
“Yeah. In fact, he brought it up. He watched the video of the last battle and saw how well you fought.”
“Did he really?” Foyle’s eyes narrowed, and I worried that my play might have been too obvious.
“The Dri’kai admire fighting ability above all else. They can overlook a lot for that. But he told me in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t trust you yet.”
Foyle stopped walking and glared at me. “What do you mean?”
I glared back. “You know what I mean. After what you
pulled, and what you said, you think he’s going to just hand you a command? He said you had to prove yourself more before he let you command the Shadow Fighters. And trust me, I tried to talk him out of it.”
He stepped forward, getting into my space. “Watch it, Ayers. You work for me, don’t forget that.”
“I want to live, and I don’t think my chances would improve with an arrogant hotshot like you in command.”
I tensed, thinking he was about to punch me. Foyle’s hands had balled into fists, but approaching voices down the corridor made him pull back.
“You’re going to change your tune with that sack of shit,” he whispered. “I’ll give him a show like he’s never seen, and after that he’s going to give me command. Make it happen, or I’ll spread word about your past all over this damn ship.”
He stalked away.
I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath.
“You all right, sir?”
I looked up. A technician had stopped and was looking at me with concern.
“Yeah. Um, just catching my breath.”
I hobbled away, cursing myself for showing weakness in front of that crew member, and cursing myself ten times more for getting cowed by an asshole like Foyle.
What made it worse was the fact that I overreacted. I had stalled him with some quick thinking. He’d have to do even better in the next battle to supposedly get General R’kk’kar’s approval and the promotion he so obviously craved. If he did well—and I knew he would—then I’d have to think of another excuse.
Or maybe not. Commander Loftsdóttir had all but ordered me to tell Qiang and Valeria. So what if everyone else knew?
Because it would destroy my position, that’s why. I wouldn’t be able to remain commander of security even if she wanted me to.
And telling my lover and best friend … it made me sick just thinking about it.
Then I had an idea.
What if I went to Commnader Loftsdóttir, acting all angry, saying that I thought my secret was safe with her and here she was telling Foyle. She’d realize he had snuck a peek at her files. She’d can him for sure. I’d be safe. Even if he spread the truth about me, no one would believe it.
