Caspian's Fortune

by Eric Warren

  “Dismissed, Lieutenant,” Greene shouted at the man seething in front of him. “Take care of the bridge. I’ll be back out there in a moment.”

  Page took a deep breath and straightened his uniform. He then turned and exited the room.

  Greene spun on Cas whom Evie still had in a hold. “It’s a damn good thing you aren’t an officer anymore or I’d have you demoted for that,” Greene scolded. Cas relaxed his body and felt Evie ease her hold on him. “Now if you really think you can destroy that ship I’m all for it, but I want a backup. Commander Diazal goes with you.”

  “Sir—”

  “This is not up for debate, Robeaux. You either do it my way or we call the admiral.”

  Cas shut up. Evie let him go, standing beside him.

  “We know where the Sargans are at the moment, so we need to be fast. I don’t want them moving on us. We’ll move closer, launch your ship and then return to their position at regular undercurrent speed. Once you’re away, we’ll use our full resources to get out of their weapons range. You’ll be on your own.”

  “Understood,” Cas said.

  “You try anything funny, or you abscond with my officer, I’ll hunt you down and destroy you myself, is that clear?” Greene stared at him with an intensity Cas rarely had seen from another human. He had a deep desire not to disappoint the man.

  “I won’t let you down,” Cas said.

  “We don’t have long. Get down there quick and let me know as soon as you’re ready to launch,” Greene said. “Dismissed.”

  Cas nodded and turned, exiting the command room. Evie remained a moment and the doors closed, leaving the captain with his XO. Cas took a moment to survey the bridge again. The medics had managed to remove Blackburn and her destroyed controls had been transferred to the specialist’s station, manned by a new Ensign Cas didn’t know. Page sat in the captain’s chair barking orders and reviewing reports. He ignored Cas as he made his way around the outside of the bridge.

  Box sidled up to him. “Principal’s office, huh? Did you get detention?”

  “More like a bunch of extra homework,” Cas replied. The command room doors opened again and Evie came out with Greene, who took the captain’s chair from Page.

  Cas led Box over to the main hypervator doors where Evie met them. “Your captain is uncommonly fair,” Cas whispered.

  “Why do you think I wanted this assignment so bad?” Evie replied.

  The doors to the hypervator opened and the three got inside. “Bye bridge!” Box called. “Nice seeing you!”

  Once the doors were closed Cas turned to Evie. “I wanted to thank you for standing up for me back there, but you didn’t need to do that. I can handle myself,” he said, remembering a similar conversation with her earlier.

  “No, you couldn’t.” She smirked. “Your ass would have been grass if I hadn’t been in there to back you up.”

  “Ass would have been grass?” Box asked, his eyes blinking confusion.

  “An old colloquialism. It means he would have been in deep shit,” Evie said.

  “Now wait a second, I can hold my—”

  “He’s good at doing that,” Box spouted, pointing at him. “It’s an apt metaphor.”

  Cas turned to Box. “Would you please, for once, shut up? I’m trying to relay some real emotions here.”

  Evie scoffed. “Are you even sure you know what those are?”

  “See? This is why I wanted to go alone. The two of you are going to drive me to an early grave.”

  “That’s the idea,” Box sing-songed. “Cause I get the ship!”

  “Robots can’t own ships!” Cas yelled.

  Evie turned to him, getting into his personal space. “You need to tell me everything you’re going to do. And you need to instruct me on how to do it too.”

  “Holy crap, Cas, she’s close enough to kiss,” Box said.

  Without taking his eyes off Evie, whose face was impassive as stone, Cas pushed Box toward the wall, the clink of metal meeting metal echoing through the hypervator as he bounced off and righted himself. “Sorry about him. Are you saying you don’t trust me to get the job done?”

  “No,” Evie said. “But if something happens to you over there we need a backup. I need to know everything you know.”

  “It doesn’t hurt that it prevents me from springing any surprises on you,” Cas added.

  Evie shrugged. “We’ll just call that a bonus. Now, tell me how to enable the self-destruct.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later they were all aboard the Reasonable Excuse helping the maintenance crew put the comm system back together.

  “I don’t know why we didn’t have one of these before,” Box yelled from the back compartment.

  “What? A maintenance crew?” Cas sat up in the cockpit with Evie, going over their plan of attack.

  “Yeah! They’re so much faster than you in every way conceivable,” the robot yelled back.

  “Maybe if someone had gotten off his metal ass and done something other than watch net dramas all day we might have had some extra money for one!”

  “I need those dramas! They help my stress level!”

  Cas rolled his eyes.

  “Has he always been like that?” Evie asked.

  “Like what? A royal pain?” Cas smiled.

  “No. He’s so….un-robot-like.”

  Cas tapped the nav panel in front of him showing them the course. “We didn’t meet under ideal circumstances, but I always knew there was something…off about him. The first words out of his mouth to me were a lie, only it took me some time to figure that out. But at the time I needed a pilot and wasn’t asking questions. Later on I became curious, and started investigating his internal systems. Someone programmed him very differently than any other machine I’ve met before. So I figured why not take him to the next level? I opened up his learning centers, increased his memory and emotional capacities. The problem is I never knew when to stop. Before I knew it, he’d kinda…”

  “Come alive?” Evie suggested.

  “If you want to think of it that way. I tend to think of it more as just a very complex interaction between millions of programs in his cortex. It led to some…interesting results.”

  “I’ll say,” Evie said. Box’s humming reached them even all the way down here.

  “They’re not that different from non-artificial life forms,” Cas said. “I guess I was curious to see how much his systems could handle.” He tapped the screen again, confirming the course. “He hasn’t hit the limit yet.”

  “It’s amazing if you think about it. He’s like your offspring,” Evie smiled.

  “Don’t say that. You’re making it weird.” Evie chuckled. Cas stood, checking the rest of the systems in the cockpit. “How are we doing down there?” he called down the hall.

  “They’re just finishing now,” Box called back. “Ready to go in five minutes.”

  Cas turned to Evie. “Okay. I think we’re good. Call the captain.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, tapping the back of her hand.

  “Go ahead,” Greene said through the system.

  “Five minutes,” Evie replied. “And we’re good for launch.”

  “Understood,” Greene said. “Good luck out there, Commander.” He cut the comm.

  For the first time in a long time Cas was nervous. It had been a while since people had counted on him for something. Something other than money that was. But not only would his plan get rid of the Achlys, it would show Veena he wasn’t anyone’s property. No matter what she did. She’d wanted a fight and losing Rasp had probably only enraged her further. But he didn’t care. She wasn’t getting this weapon and neither was Rutledge. He’d have to start all over again. Sure Cas would probably go to jail for the rest of his life but at least his conscience would be clear.

  “Coming up on undercurrent jump,” Evie said as Box entered the cockpit, taking the pilot’s seat.

  “Thanks for keeping it warm grass ass,” he said, settli
ng in.

  Cas ignored him. “Is the maintenance crew off?”

  “Affirmative, boss.”

  “Retract the landing ramp and prepare to launch,” he said, taking the co-pilot’s seat. Evie stood behind them, monitoring the Excuse’s systems.

  “You act like I’ve never done this before. No need to spout orders to impress the lady.”

  Cas felt heat rushing up his cheeks but he stamped it down as best he could, keeping his focus on Bay One’s opening. He made a mental note to thank Sesster for fixing the dampeners so quickly; he’d barely felt the jolt into the undercurrent this time.

  “Approaching jettison point,” Evie said.

  They exited the undercurrent, coming back into normal space. “Launch!” Cas said.

  Box pushed the throttle forward and the ship shot out of the Bay, entering the inky darkness of space. He turned the ship immediately to come alongside Tempest as it opened another undercurrent. The Excuse used its own emitters and followed along, keeping pace with the ship now that it was moving at a normal undercurrent speed. Cas wished he’d had more time down in engineering to examine the systems that made Tempest so fast, but there just hadn’t been time. He would have liked to use some of those upgrades on his own ship if possible.

  “ETA, ten minutes,” Evie said. “Here we go.”

  33

  The Tempest pulled ahead in the undercurrent, far enough they could no longer see her through the windows though she was still visible on the viewscreen.

  “Ready, Box?” Cas asked.

  “I want my own quarters,” Box replied, his concentration still on the controls.

  “What?”

  “As payment for this. You owe me quarters,” he replied.

  “You’re asking for this now?” Cas glanced at Evie then back at his pilot. “Fine. Whatever. You get one of the hab suites. Are we on course or not?”

  “Sure. Now we are.”

  “Box, were you going to jeopardize this mission for quarters?” Cas asked, his words strained.

  Box turned his head to him. “No. Of course not,” he said with sarcasm dripping from his voice. He continued to stare at Cas as he dropped out of the undercurrent.

  “Heads up!” Cas yelled. Ahead of them Tempest had already exited and performed the strafing maneuvers. Three of the smaller Sargan ships were in pursuit, apparently having broken formation around Veena’s dreadnought. They’d come out of the undercurrent closer than Cas had anticipated.

  “Whoa!” Box jerked the throttle to the right, sending the ship spinning. The dampeners kept them from feeling the effects as the ship cartwheeled over itself three times before he righted them again.

  “Are we good? Can we get in without getting spotted?” Evie yelled.

  The Achlys sat below Veena’s dreadnought, held in place by a green tractor, despite the fact neither ship was moving at the moment. She wasn’t about to take her hands off that ship no matter what happened.

  “We’re close!” Box yelled, punching the normal engines sending them rocketing forward. The Achlys only had one docking bay located on the rear of the ship. But like Tempest it didn’t have a retractable door, instead relied on force fields to keep the vacuum of space out.

  “Have we been spotted?” Evie asked.

  Cas checked the equipment. As far as he could tell all the Sargan’s attention was on Tempest who was still performing strafing runs, and getting hit in the process.

  “We need to get in there now,” she yelled. “Give Tempest time to get away.”

  “Twenty seconds,” Box said, pushing the engines to their max. Cas prayed they weren’t big enough to register on Veena’s scanners. Her dreadnought was huge; at least two thousand meters long. It dwarfed the Achlys not to mention Cas’s ship.

  “Hurry,” Evie said. “Tempest is going back into the undercurrent.”

  “Ten seconds,” Box said.

  “They’re gone,” Evie replied.

  Cas glanced out the main window to see Achlys’s bay approaching with disturbing speed. “Box. Slow down.” He turned to his pilot. “Box?”

  “Three seconds,” Box replied.

  “Evie, hang on to something!” Cas yelled.

  They breached the bay’s force field only for Box to throw the thrusters into full reverse as the Excuse came dangerously close to slamming into the wall of the bay. They all jerked forward, the dampeners unable to compensate for such a move, but the ship came to a floating halt.

  “We’re in,” Box said, smugness in his voice. He lowered the Excuse to settle on the deck of the bay.

  Cas turned to Evie. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Let’s get in there and finish this.” She reached down to a small case she’d brought on board, opening it. She grabbed the weapon inside and handed it to Cas. It was his boomcannon. “You might need this. Just don’t shoot me in the back with it, okay?” She holstered her own weapon: a standard Coalition pistol.

  Cas beamed at her, taking the weapon and holstering it inside his jacket. “You’re alright, Diazal. After everything I’ve done…I’m not sure I’d trust me with this if I were in your shoes.”

  “I guess that’s the difference between us,” she said, straightening her uniform shirt. “Let’s move.”

  Cas turned to Box. “Keep it on hot standby, okay? We might need a quick exit.”

  “Just don’t forget you promised,” Box replied, initializing the main coolant tanks.

  “I won’t,” Cas replied, following Evie out of the cockpit. As he reached the main door lock he heard Box call “Be careful!” from the front.

  “Awww,” Evie said, hitting the main lock door to open.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Cas replied, following her. He pulled his comm out, thankful they’d taken the time to fix the system before leaving. “Box, give me a scan of the immediate area. Anything we need to worry about?”

  “No life signs, boss,” he replied as they walked down the ramp. “No one on this ship anywhere as far as I can see, but all the power systems are still active.”

  “We need to find that weapon,” Evie said. “Disabling it should be our first priority.”

  “Blowing up the ship will disable the weapon,” Cas replied. “And to do that we need to make it to the bridge.”

  She pursed her lips. “Indulge me,” she said. “Backups, remember? If we for some reason can’t blow up the ship I want to make sure they can’t use the weapon.”

  Cas relented. “Fine. It will probably be in main engineering. But we’ll have to take the long way. If we use the hypervators it might register as power spikes in the system. And if anyone on Veena’s ship is monitoring, it will look suspicious.”

  “You mean we have to use the access corridors.”

  Cas forced a smile. “Yep.”

  She sighed. “Lead the way.”

  ***

  Twelve minutes later they were crawling on their bellies through the access corridors that connected deck eleven with main engineering. They’d already been through seven of the things and Cas’s arms and legs ached in a way he hadn’t felt in some time. The access corridors weren’t more than a meter in any direction, mostly made for maintenance bots and the occasional worker to reach sensitive systems. They certainly hadn’t been designed for comfort or ease of access for the crew to get to certain parts of the ship.

  “What do you think happened to the crew?” Evie asked as they crawled.

  “Probably in holding cells on Veena’s ship. She wouldn’t kill anyone she couldn’t sell or use later,” he replied.

  “That’s comforting. How much further?”

  “Another three meters in this corridor. Then another ladder, then another short corridor and we’ll be there,” Cas replied. Stepping back on the ship had been like being home again, only it was a home he’d been kicked out of. He’d heard the saying you could never go home again but he wasn’t so sure. It all felt familiar to him. He’d even remembered being in this particular corridor before; back when Mason had needed a powe
r realignment and had been too wide to fit. The man spent most of his off-time at the ship’s gymnasium and his shoulders were as wide as Cas was tall. Cas smiled at the memory. Mason couldn’t have crawled through these things if he’d wanted to.

  “Almost,” Cas said, exiting the main corridor into the junction with the last ladder they needed to climb. Engineering would be only a few steps away. Evie grunted along behind him and he was glad she decided not to bring her sword. It would have been a tough fit getting that thing down the tubes. As he reached the top of the ladder it occurred to him they would have to come back this way as well. He groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing, just thinking about the return trip.” The last corridor was wider than the others, enough so that he could crouch-walk to the engineering access door. But when he approached the doors they wouldn’t open for him.

  “I’m locked out,” he said.

  “Let me try,” she replied. “Only one of us isn’t a known criminal. Your organic ID is in the system. Prevents you from accessing any sensitive areas of the ship.” She stood in front of the door and it opened for her.

  “Did you revoke that restriction on Tempest?” he asked. “I didn’t have any trouble accessing the bridge there.”

  She winked. “I might have had something to do with it. Plus, it pisses Page off and that makes me just the slightest bit happy.”

  “That guy needs to learn how to control his temper,” Cas said.

  “He wasn’t the one who struck first.”

  She had a point. They entered main engineering. It was similar in layout to Tempest’s engineering department, except without the giant cradle for the Claxian engineer. Cas wondered if all Coalition ships would eventually be outfitted with Claxians from now on, since it seemed to help with the ship’s speed and efficiency. Would a bunch of Claxians even want to serve on ships? From what Cas knew about them, most preferred to stay on their homeworld. Though Commander Sesster had obviously been an exception.