by Ward Wagher
Kane thought for a few moments before selecting the safe reply. “Aye, aye, Sir. Mr. Simmons is feeding me tracking data from CIC. He's massaging it through the computers back there.”
Franklin pulled a keyboard from its retracting slot below the tactical display. He worked for a while displaying the recent summaries Ensign Kane had compiled. He frowned at the paucity of data points on the map. The hard, clear event signaling the pirate’s transition to FTL showed a bright red. The uniform gray of the rest of the points on the map signified nothing to him. He then selected the enhancements Kane had applied to the data. There seemed to be a broad path where the mass of gray points tinged a slight pink. Those indicated a microscopic change in background energy states which might indicate the presence of another ship. They also reflected Kane’s and Simmons' best guesses. If they were correct, the pirate ship was gradually closing on Canopus.
“Mr. Kane, if we effected a course and speed change, would that help you to triangulate on whatever it is we are tracking?”
Kane pondered the question for what seemed like two minutes to Franklin. Finally he turned with a helpless look. “Sir, I don’t know.”
“But it wouldn’t hurt, right?”
“It’s just, Sir, that I’m not sure what I’ve got.”
“I understand, Ensign. Okay, Helmsman, come port five degrees and take us to eight-five percent on the drives.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Five degrees port and eighty-five percent on the drives.”
Franklin pushed a comm button on his chair.
“Engineering, Ensign Chaplin.”
“This is the Skipper, Ensign. What’s the engineering status?”
“Nominal, Sir. Things have settled down.”
“That’s good, Ensign. I bumped us up to eighty-five percent on the drives. Is that a problem?”
“No, Sir. The instrumentation is all within norms. I would suggest having a conversation with the CHENG if you want to redline the drives, though.”
“Why do you say that, Ensign?”
“Sir, the drives look fine to me, but the CHENG seems very nervous. He told me to call him if there was the slightest status change. In fact I need to call him about the speed change.”
“Very well, Ensign. Ask the CHENG to call me after you speak with him.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
As he disconnected, Daphne slipped into her chair next to him. “How are we looking, Skipper?”
“Very quiet, Exec. Mr. Kane may or may not be tracking our friend. I just ordered a course and velocity change to see if we can triangulate. What’s DC status?”
“We have the affected part of the hull sealed off. The weapons are not repairable from shipboard resources.”
“So we need a shipyard then?”
“If we can hit one of the repair shops at Harcourt, we could probably be on our way again within twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t suppose we have a choice but to spend the funds. How does this affect our combat capability?”
“We lost one of four starboard mounts. Our tracking capabilities are unimpaired. If we tangle with a single ship again, we can just roll ship and use the port mounts. It would be a problem, however in a complex engagement.”
“I’m awaiting a call from Louie. Ensign Chaplin thinks the drives are in good shape, but said our resident Woogie is nervous.”
“I don’t know, Skip, but if Louie is nervous, I think I am too.”
“I pay you to be nervous, Exec. On the other hand, we are probably wise to listen to Louie.”
The comm chose to chime at that moment.
Franklin punched the button. “Bridge, Captain.”
“Chief Engineer Louie, Skipper. You called said?”
“Ummm. Yes. Can you give me an honest appraisal of the drive systems?”
“Woogie always honest, Skipper. Drives may be lying.”
“What?”
“Woogie always honest, Skip...”
“I heard you, Louie. What do you mean about the drives being dishonest?”
“Not know. No reason for control runs to fail. Repaired. Work. No source for failure found.”
“But the telemetry is okay?”
Louie gurgled. “Telemetry okay now. Telemetry okay when control runs failed.”
“These things happen, Louie,” Franklin said. “You probably are worrying too much.”
“These things not happen! Always a cause. Still looking.”
“Okay, but we are trying to track that pirate in FTL. If things get exciting I may need to redline the drives.”
Louie was quiet.
“Are you there, Louie?”
“Woogie thinking.”
“And?”
“Woogie going back to Engineering.” And he disconnected.
Franklin looked up at Daphne. “That, Exec, was not a very heartwarming conversation.”
She scraped her upper lip with her lower teeth, then shook her head. “I can’t argue with that, Skipper. Things are quiet right now. Why don’t you try to get a little sleep.”
The incipient exhaustion kept worrying at the back of his mind. “Okay, Exec. But call me if there’s any status change. I think Kane is on to something.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
chapter twenty-six
Lieutenant Edmund Tracy Riggs was sitting at the desk when Captain Franklin Nyman walked into the sick bay.
"How are they doing?" Franklin asked.
"Physically or spiritually?" Riggs asked in return.
"How are they doing, Lieutenant?" Franklin asked again. "I see you are not terribly concerned about somebody putting you in the sick bay."
“Right. Anyway I sent Strange to get some sleep. He was getting shaky. I guess I'm holding the fort.”
“I wish we had a real doctor.”
“You and me both, Skipper. My praying is more effective than my medicine, I think.”
“We may have to fire you, then.”
Riggs snorted. "I am pretty secure in my job, I think. Anyway, no change in Mrs. Foxworth. She is not getting any better, but on the other hand, she's not getting any worse. Considering the medical resources on board ship, I think that is good news. The Prime Minister is awake and has been talking some, but he is in considerable pain. The younger woman is in a coma and we have the child sedated."
“Sedated?”
Riggs grimaced. “I can't understand the things these vermin did to that little girl. I gave serious thought to urging you to go back and pop a nuke on their dungheap of a town.”
“That would have killed a lot of Woogies too,” Franklin said.
“Honestly Franklin, I am becoming a firm believer in guilt by association.”
“Tell me about it. I'm not much better.”
“There are degrees of sinfulness, Franklin, but we're all sinners.”
“I had to knife somebody back there on Victor. That makes me as much a murderer as those pirates.”
“No it doesn't. You need to understand that there is a difference between killing and murder.”
“Yeah, well it doesn't feel like it. Can I see Glenn?”
Riggs leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "I don't see why not. I think you will be able to tell when you need to get out of there."
Franklin nodded. "Thanks, Father." He stepped past the desk and walked into the infirmary.
The small sick bay contained only six beds. Four of them were occupied. Franklin glanced in at Monica Foxworth, and grimaced. She was wired up to numerous machines, which appeared to be doing her breathing for her, among other things. What little he could see of her face looked like one large bruise. He sighed and moved on. The younger woman was in similar condition. The little girl was the most difficult to see. She was bandaged up and wired to the machines. She looked like a battered doll to Franklin.
Glenn Foxworth was propped up slightly in his bed and did not seem to have nearly the extensive medical support his wife required. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be breath
ing deeply. Franklin walked over and stood next to the bed. If anything Foxworth had been beaten worse than his wife, judging from the condition of his face. He opened his eyes and looked at Franklin.
"How's it going, Glenn?"
"How do you think it's going?" The sound came out as a croak, rather than Foxworth's normal melodious baritone voice. "How is Monica doing?"
"The doctor said she seems to be holding her own right now," Franklin said. "She is not getting any worse, anyway."
Foxworth closed his eyes and then opened them again. "She was right on the edge of death. She cannot get any worse."
"We will get her back together, Glenn. I promise you that."
"I tried to help her....” He broke into a sob. “They went after her. She fought them, Franklin. Oh, how she fought them."
"Take it easy, Glenn. You are safe now."
"Like hell! God help me if she dies. But, what will she be like if she lives?" He sobbed again. "Two of them were holding me. I broke loose... and went after them. That is when they beat me up. Then they went to work on her. I couldn't help her. They kept on. They didn’t stop."
Franklin stepped from behind the bed. "Father?"
Riggs looked up from his desk, then quickly walked over to Foxworth's bed.
"You are going to need to talk to him," Franklin said quietly. "He's blaming himself."
Foxworth heard Franklin speak. "It is my fault. I should have been able to stop it. But, I couldn't."
Riggs stepped over to a wall cabinet and pulled out an ampoule. He then attached it to the IV line running to Foxworth's arm. "You need to rest right now, Glenn. I promise you we can talk about this later."
"But we can never make it better," he said. "We will never feel safe again."
Riggs put his hand on Foxworth's forehead. "Just relax, Glenn."
Riggs stood there and watched as Foxworth's eyes slowly closed and his breathing slowed. "They are both going to need a lot of help once we get them home. Neither of them have any kind of religious faith to hold on to." He nodded with his head for Franklin to follow him as he stepped back to his desk.
"You are the minister; you can help them, right?"
Riggs raised an eyebrow. "I cannot give them anything. If they are not willing to receive succor from God, then there is little I can do."
"Well, you can do something, can't you? Seeing them like this is tearing me apart." Franklin just then realized what else he was missing. "Where is Signe?"
"I had to give her a sedative and put her down. If anything, she was in worse shape than her parents."
"I just don't understand how people can be so vile. I mean, piracy is bad enough, but this goes beyond the pale. I am pretty well convinced that once we get these people in a hospital, Canopus is going pirate hunting."
Riggs stepped up close to Franklin. "As I said earlier, Franklin, I've been thinking about it too. But, is this in the best interest of Hepplewhite? It is beginning to sound to me like a grudge match."
"I hear ya, Father. I'm pretty mad right now. In fact, I am beyond angry. But I believe that I am thinking more clearly now than I ever have in my life. The only way to keep these vermin away from our planet is to go back and stomp them into the ground."
"Franklin, I know you've mortgaged everything to Charles Steelmaker. Can we afford to shoot off all of our ordnance right now?"
"You have asked the right question, Father, and the answer is no. We can't afford to do this. On the other hand, we can't afford not to do it. I feel like I’ve sold my soul to the devil."
Riggs stuck his hands in his pockets and walked slowly across the room. He turned and leaned against the wall, folding his arms in front of his chest. "You still haven't answered the most important question."
Franklin grinned. "Oh, I think I have covered most of it. I also seem to be doing fairly well at making things up as I go along."
Riggs just looked at him.
"Okay, Father, what did I miss?"
"What about your soul?"
"Come on, Lieutenant! I am delighted to have you along as Chaplain, and you make a pretty fair cook and SBA. But, let's remember what our jobs are, okay? You take care of your job, okay? I'll take care of mine, okay? Two of my best friends, plus two other people back there have been screwed over in every sense of the word. God didn't do that; neither did He try to stop it, apparently. So, please keep God where He belongs, okay?"
"He belongs in your heart, Franklin. You understand what it means to be a margrave. He simply desires to be your master."
"Give me a break, Tracy!" Franklin spun around and strode from the sick bay. Riggs shook his head with a sad smile then turned to check on his patients.
# # #
"I thought you were going to get some sleep," Daphne said as Franklin walked onto the bridge and slid into his chair.
"I'm so mad right now I don't think I could sleep."
"I saw the Foxworths and the other two. I cannot believe what those animals did to them."
"That too," Franklin said.
Daphne looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Lieutenant Father Edmund Tracy Officious Buttinski Riggs decided it was a great time to tackle me about my soul."
"I'll talk to him, Sir," Daphne said. "I think he crossed a line there."
Franklin looked down at the deck and slowly shook his head. "No. I don't think we want to slap him for doing his job."
"You're not going to get religious on us, are you Skipper?"
"Ha! You know better than that, Daff. I'll just stay away from him for a while."
Daphne scratched her head as she considered what he said. "Might be pretty hard to do, Skipper."
Franklin snorted. "Well, regardless of what the good Father says, religion is not my big problem right now. Manfred Higginbotham is actually at the top of the list. Speaking of which," he looked over at the tactical station where Simmons was once again working the controls. "Mr. Simmons, what news on our pirate?"
"Skipper, after the course and speed change, whatever it was we were watching slowly drifted off the plot. That is assuming, of course, there was anything out there in the first place."
"Oh, Ensign Kane convinced me he was watching something."
Simmons nodded in acknowledgment. "I was convinced too. The big question is whether our pursuer is going to follow us all the way to Vance."
"If he does, it will be his last mistake," Franklin said. "I want you to prepare a data package to dump to the Navy patrol as soon as we drop out of FTL at Harcourt's World. And, if he doesn't, I am planning to go looking for him."
Simmons and Daphne both turned to stare at Franklin.
"I can assure you, people, I am not going bonkers. If we don't take him out, sooner or later he is going to show up at Hepplewhite again. Judging from what he did to those people, I don't think he is quite sane. He should have known Carlo Roma would have paid handsomely for the hostages’ release. What he did instead will ensure his holograph is tacked to the wall of every post office and naval legate’s office in the known universe."
Daphne's frown went on and on. "A word with you, Skipper?" She said.
Franklin nodded toward the ready room door, and then walked towards it without another word. Daphne followed him through the door and waited as he turned to face her after the door slid closed.
"What is it, Daphne?"
"I just want to make sure you know what you're doing, Skipper."
"You mean my little grudge match against Mad Manfred, as Father Riggs called it?"
"That's exactly what I mean, Sir. We accomplished what we set out to do. And while two deaths are bad, we got off lightly. If that pirate cruiser had gotten its teeth into us, it would have pounded us to scrap. Don't tell me it wouldn't have."
Franklin put his hands on his hips and stared at Daphne. Then he rolled his eyes, threw his hands in the air and walked over, and flopped down into his chair behind the desk. "I figured you would be with me on this, Daff. If anything, you're more bloodt
hirsty than I am."
"Oh, I am. But, I try to stay rational enough not to go charging in where the numbers are against us. With all due respect, sir, you're not being very smart about this. Higginbotham could be heading to Hepplewhite as we speak."
Franklin looked down at the desk without seeing it. There wasn't any doubt he was considering what Daphne had just said.
"I hate to admit it, but that thought occurred to me too...." He sat there pondering further.
"Well?"
"Okay, okay. We will stop long enough at Harcourt's World to get the hostages into the hospital, and file the necessary paperwork, and then we will skedaddle for home. And work on plan B."
"And what, pray tell, is plan B, Sir?"
He shrugged. "How should I know at this point? You did get me thinking, though. We don't have the strength to pull off a brute force solution. We are going to simply have to get smarter than yon Manfred."
"If Hai Ciera ever shows up, I'm sure he could point us in the right direction," she said.
"Dad always told me Hai was smarter than anybody else he knew."
"Just keep thinking those thoughts, Sir. Your father was right."
Franklin continued to sit, staring at the desktop.
"What is it, Franklin?" She asked.
He began chuckling. "I don't know how to tell you this, Daphne, but we couldn't have done this without you. You make a great executive officer."
She stared at him for a moment. "Okay, Franklin. Drop the other shoe."
He grinned at her. "Your personality is very well suited to the job. By definition, the crew has to hate you, and love me."
"Franklin! Sometimes I think that inside of that boorish, overbearing, selfish lout there is a decent person trying to escape. He has clearly failed again!" She spun around and left the room.
Franklin's communicator chimed. “Ready Room, Captain Speaking.”
“This is the Chaplain, Skipper. The young woman just died.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Father.”
Franklin pushed the button to disconnect, then laid his head down on the desk and wept.
chapter twenty-seven
Nineteen days later Canopus eased into orbit around Harcourt's World. Glenn and Monica Foxworth along with the little girl were transported to the surface of the planet and admitted to the hospital in Braxton. Signe went with her parents. Franklin and the crew remained aboard ship for two days watching for Manfred Higginbotham, who never showed.
