Hell's Reach (Galactic Liberation Series Book 6)

by B. V. Larson

  “That’s the woman I—uh, know.”

  She shook her head, not trusting herself to say more. She’d wanted to make her declaration in a biting, sarcastic tone, but somehow it had come out straight and true.

  “So what do the angels say?” she said.

  Loco scrolled down his comms screen. “I sent them a few words—thank you, we like rocks, stuff like that—and they’ve been talking nonstop ever since. They’re like a pack of kids with a stray dog they just discovered could speak.”

  The door chimed and Chiara unlocked it. Chief Sylvester stuck in his head. “We’ve got the leaks sealed and as much repaired as we can right now. The heat exchanger’s working at about sixty percent. The atmo’s clear. The comms array should be working, more or less, except for the tightbeam laser transceiver. That’s destroyed and we got no replacement. And... ” He turned to Chiara. “What should we do about Lorenzo?”

  Chiara couldn’t find it in her to speak, to decide. Thankfully, Loco eventually said. “For now, put him in a container in the airlock, open to vacuum. We’ll have a service as soon as we can.”

  And space him, she thought. They had no cryo, nowhere to store the body inside.

  “Aye aye, sir.” Sylvester returned to the hold.

  Chiara took a deep breath, let it out, then did it again. “Loco, I want you to take charge.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not cut out for this—being in command of more than just me. I don’t know how to do it, and I don’t have the strength.”

  “Chi, if I thought that was the best thing I’d do it, but I think it would be a mistake.”

  “Why?”

  “Because... because you’d never be yourself again. You’d always have that in your head, that you gave up.”

  “I’m not giving up on the mission, just on being the boss.”

  “You’re a natural boss, Chiara.”

  “No. I’m naturally independent. Actually, I hate authority.”

  “Then I have to say no for sure.” Loco gave her a weak grin. “Because I’d be the authority, and you’d hate me, and I couldn’t handle that. And you’d end up hating yourself.”

  “I already hate myself.”

  “Why?”

  She wanted to reach for the Erb again, to just get it out in the open, her addiction, the crutch propping up the precarious structure of her life, but something held her back. Fear of what he’d think. Fear of losing him. Fear of being thought a failure. “You can’t understand, Loco. Going through what I went through.”

  “I know I can’t. I only know what I see right now, and right now, I see a strong woman who’s been punched in the gut, who’s been knocked down, but who has friends and family around her to help her get back on her feet and be who she was meant to be. Nobody can make it alone, Chiara. That’s something I learned between Academy and now. I’d never have made it without Derek and Carla and Zaxby and other people along the way—and that’s okay to admit. The flip side of that is this: you can make it with the help of the people who love you.”

  “Love me?” she asked bitterly. “What’s that?”

  Loco sighed and stood, defeated. “I’ll check on the crew.”

  Chapter 23

  Hell’s Reach, Homeship Rodolfian.

  Gurung, flat on his back within the battle-circle of the dais. “Cam... ” he gasped.

  “I’m here,” he heard her say.

  “Did I win?”

  “You must stand! There is no draw—if you don’t win, you lose!”

  “I... ” Hell, if that’s what it took, he’d stand even if his guts slipped out. He reached up to the rail and pulled himself to his knees, then to his feet.

  The crowd roared, and suddenly he was surrounded and lifted up in celebration. He’d dropped his kukri, but clutched Dromian’s knife which was still lodged in his guts. It was best to have a surgeon pull that out.

  “Cam... Cam... ”

  She grasped his free hand. “I’m here.”

  “Will Dromian live?”

  “I doubt it. Not in the care of our medics. How are you still on your feet, Husband?”

  “I have biotech in my guts,” he gasped. “Some injuries can seal themselves. Call Straker. Tell him to send doctors. Dromian must survive, or this is all for nothing.”

  “At once.” She let go of his hand and disappeared into the crowd. Praise to the Buddha, Cam was a strong, practical woman. A man could do no better.

  Suddenly, the celebration died and the people drew back. Gurung was set on his feet, though he still leaned heavily on the rail. He saw a younger woman and two boys weeping at Dromian’s side. Dromian was unconscious, and the woman was pressing the man’s folded jacket to his wounds, but that was only delaying the inevitable. Dromian was bleeding out.

  Melikian stepped up to Gurung, gravely handing him his kukri. “This is an unusual situation... Senior. The few times an alien has taken leadership among us, he was intimately familiar with our ways. I offer myself as your advisor.”

  Gurung wiped the kukri and sheathed it. “Gladly, sir. Where are your medics?”

  “Few survived the attack, but... there.” Two women with medical bags pushed through the crowd to attend to both men. “They’ll do what they can for Dromian.”

  “I sent Cam to contact my ship.”

  “The Rodolfian is your ship now, Senior... and you are hers. For today, anyway.” He gestured at Dromian to make his meaning clear.

  “Yes... I mean my former ship. We have skilled doctors. Will you make sure they get here as quickly as possible?”

  “Of course.” The distinguished Furmian spoke into a handcomm. When he’d finished speaking, he addressed Gurung again. “Tell me, human, do you really want to be Senior?”

  Gurung sat slowly on the edge of the dais, his feet on the deck, and considered. “It was a way out of a bad situation for my people. We Breakers are a family, like you Furmians. I was willing. Am willing... but I’m not ambitious in that way. Why do you ask?”

  Melikian stared at Dromian dying on the deck. The medics had administered drugs, slid a drip into his arm, and were now in the process of stitching his wound closed—but even Gurung’s rudimentary medical knowledge told him he’d probably drown as his lungs filled with blood if he couldn’t get to an autodoc or a competent surgeon, fast. “It occurs to me that I should delay your doctor a few minutes... ”

  “To make sure he dies?”

  “Yes. I kill two rats with one trap that way. Dromian is no more, and should you live, you will be outcast. I will be appointed Senior, and I’d be a good one.”

  Gurung looked down at his side. There was no way the knife had reached his heart, or cut open his largest blood vessels. He would have been dead if it had. Still, it was uncomfortable lodged there under his ribs.

  Internally, the Bug was doing its work. The bleeding had slowed already. Soon, the wound around the knife would seal and the skin would even try to grow over it.

  “You could’ve kept that to yourself and let it happen,” Gurung said. “The fact you’re telling me this means...?”

  “I’m happy to have status and family, but like you, I never was ambitious for Senior. And I’m old.”

  “The paradox of power. Only those who don’t want it deserve it.”

  “And neither of us particularly want it.”

  “I know I don’t. But I’ve supervised people most of my adult life. I can do it, and I’m willing to take the position, if necessary. Is there nobody else to lead you?”

  Melikian grimaced. “We’re a broken ship filled with beaten old men and angry boys. The boys are deeply ashamed they didn’t die defending their Homeship. Soon they’ll marry and will carry their rage and shame into their new families. They will drink fermented milk and chew Erbaccia. They will beat their wives and children. Or, perhaps we will return to the Middle Reach, meet another Homeship, and they will send a levy of young men to marry our women and thus replenish us. This would be better, but then our boys will
feel usurped, and they will still have the rage and the shame festering inside. The Rodolfian will remain sick for years, and I am too old to cure it.”

  “But your people defended your Homeship. They fought off the Korven at great cost. They should be proud of that.”

  Melikian grasped Gurung’s arm. Gurung felt a surge of pain from the knife in his side, but all he did was show his teeth.

  “They need someone to tell them so,” Melikian said. “Someone they can respect. A warrior, a hero, unlike Dromian, who is rumored to have avoided the fighting. Most of our heroes are dead, and Dromian never praised the courage of those who died—or those who lived.”

  Gurung thought about heroes, and Cam, and the other Furmian women he’d seen. Too bad these people couldn’t see their women as heroes too. No doubt there were heroes among them. Yet Melikian was right. This Homeship needed leadership and hope, and he, Master Chief Petty Officer Vedayan Gurung, formerly of the Hundred Worlds navy, soon to be formerly of Straker’s Breakers, was in a position to supply it. His own wants didn’t matter. Dharma—duty, obligation, responsibility, self-sacrifice—was the Gurkha way.

  “Ayo Gorkhali,” Gurung said with a tired smile. This expression was rueful, but good cheer was the Gurkha way.

  “That’s not Earthan. What does it mean?”

  “It means the Gurkhas are upon you. And God help you when they come, the British would add, according to my honored ancestors. Very well, Mister Melikian. If I live to see the morning, I’ll take charge. I’ll learn your ways, and perhaps introduce one or two of my own.”

  Melikian nodded. “That’s as it should be. We Furmians are an eclectic people, and each Homeship has its quirks.”

  “I won’t be your puppet, be warned.”

  “That is also as it should be.”

  The crowd parted and Doctor Mara Straker strode into the ring at the head of a medical team. She eyed Gurung critically, injecting him with something vile near the wound. “We’ll take that out later. Try not to bend over or anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  She then dropped to her knees and immediately injected something into Dromian’s drip. Then she checked his vitals with her fingertips and attached sensors to his body. Her medical scanner made her shake her head. “We need to get him to our ship if he’s to live.” She signaled for her team to open a stretcher.

  Melikian gestured to her. “Take him.” Turning to Gurung, he spoke with new deference. “With your permission, Senior?”

  “Yes, take him,” Gurung said in a louder voice. “Doctor, he must live for a day, no matter what.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Mara replied.

  “No matter what, Doctor, if you please,” Gurung said with a significant look. “For a day.”

  Mara’s brows furrowed in puzzlement, but she nodded. “No matter what, he’ll live at least a day. And you’re coming with us as well.”

  The team lifted Dromian and hustled him out of the control center toward the Furmian flight deck. Gurung followed, trying not to limp and move with great pain, but he couldn’t hide his wound entirely. The crowd watched with interest, but none of them offered to help. They didn’t want to shame their new Senior.

  When they reached the ship, Gurung collapsed onto a waiting gurney. It floated him away to surgery, where the knife was carefully removed.

  A day later, Gurung officially became the Senior of the Homeship Rodolfian.

  * * *

  Straker forced himself to keep a straight face as he sat behind his desk and listened to Chief Gurung’s report. He was “Senior” Gurung, now, and resigned from the Breakers. Technically, anyway.

  What a strange turn of events, Straker thought. To me, he’ll always be one of us. The best of the best, and welcome back any time. Or maybe now we’ve got ourselves a Furmian Homeship. We’ll see.

  “Mara,” he comlinked once he’d signed off with Gurung, “How’s your patient?”

  “Stable. He’ll be fine, physically—I gave him the Bug and opened him up myself to repair his lungs and arteries. Psychologically, he’s pretty low, of course. He wants to join the Breakers, with his family, he says.”

  Straker pondered. “Your recommendation?”

  “I’d say no. He’s not the type we need—he’s selfish, domineering, political—and I think he’s trying to run from his problems in his own society. From my studies of Furmians, deposed leaders have a rough time, but they eventually fit in—or they move to a different Homeship. There’s also his family to consider.”

  “Agreed. Send him back as soon as you can. Gurung made his bed and he can lie in it, the crazy little bastard. If we ever get a chance, I’d like to find some more Gurkhas and recruit them.”

  “For sure. I’ll have Dromian back to the Furmians in about an hour.”

  “Good. Straker out.” Another hour... the hours were piling up. Almost eight lost to help the Furmians, and no good deed went unpunished in Murphy’s galaxy. Once more, his mind shied away from the compartment where he kept his feelings for Carla. He couldn’t think about that now. Only the mission.

  An hour later, after hasty goodbyes, Trollheim moved off, heading deeper into the nebula and toward the hidden Predator base their intelligence predicted. What were they doing at that base? Data from many sources had hinted at some tremendous secret, something significant because of its size or technology—or its approach to the gathering of power. The Axis of Predators was preparing something there, something that used what Hell’s Reach had to offer.

  Straker was sipping caff in the flag chair when the sensor officer began her report. “Captain Salishan, I’m getting an off-the-scale EM surge six thousand kilometers off the port bow, inclination nineteen.”

  “Shields. Put it on the holotank.” Salishan stood to push her face close to the 3D display. Straker stood as well and drifted to her elbow.

  The tank showed a twisting whirl of energy, like a cyclone, slowly tightening. “A storm?” Straker murmured. “In space?”

  “Is this anything like the energy vortex?” Salishan asked her crew.

  “No, ma’am. The EM readings are bounded by the eye of the storm, but seem to be an effect, not a cause.”

  “What’s the cause?”

  “Gravitic waves indicate a singularity, but... it’s something more. It’s only a guess, but... ”

  “Guess ahead.”

  “It looks like a wormhole in the process of formation.”

  Salishan turned to stare at the sensors officer, an ensign who to Straker’s eye seemed far too young to be on the bridge. Probably a brainiac. “Is that even possible?” she asked the man.

  He ran his fingers over his board. “Before now I’d have said no. Wormholes usually come and go within microseconds. The few stable ones we’ve identified have been part of known black holes, and they’re inaccessible. This one... this one almost looks accessible, a pathway to somewhere.”

  “Helm, keep us well away from it.”

  “Ah... trying, ma’am.” In the holotank, the phenomenon accelerated toward them. The range fell to five thousand kilometers. Straker felt the engines surge as Trollheim swung ponderously and ran directly away from the wormhole. Power generation and consumption rose in balance until the capacitors began to drain with the strain on the shields as the big ship smashed her way through dirty space.

  “Rocks are getting through,” Gurung’s replacement called from the damage control station. “Armor’s taking it fine for now, but... ”

  But it would only get worse as they accelerated, Straker knew. And the wormhole was gaining on them.

  “Sensors, could it be attracted to our energy, like the vortex was?” Salishan asked.

  “Possibly, ma’am.”

  Straker comlinked Zaxby. “You on this?”

  “If you mean the wormhole, of course I am. And before you ask, Roentgen has focused his neutrino vision on the phenomenon and has no insight, other than to say there seems to be a singularity generating it, a fact I have already co
nfirmed via my instruments.”

  “All very interesting, but I need answers. What if it catches the ship?”

  “Damage or destruction. No known substance can withstand impact with a singularity.”

  “What about the shields?”

  “We would need Crystal-level shields powered by a singularity of our own to resist it.”

  “And I bet you can’t create one.”

  “I’m working on that—for the long term. And by long term, I mean years of research.”

  “What about our grav-blocker?”

  Zaxby paused. “Possible... possible... let me run some simulations. Zaxby out.”

  “Dammit. Time to intercept?”

  Salishan turned to the helmsman, Tomlinson, who said, “About twenty-two minutes, give or take. By that time something’s got to give—our shield power, the stuff we’re smashing through, or the wormhole itself.”

  Straker walked to stand behind the sensors officer, “The wormhole and the singularity are in exactly the same place?”

  “No, sir. The singularity is following the wormhole. Look at the holotank, please.”

  The holotank zoomed in to show a red pinpoint: the singularity. From this icon a diffuse beam sprang, widening and connecting with a transparent yellow sphere running ahead of the tiny black hole. A dotted-line course projection for these two connected objects speared Trollheim.

  Salishan’s eyes narrowed under furrowed brows. “Helm, alter course ninety degrees full.”

  “Ninety degrees full aye. Ma’am... ”

  “I know. It’ll catch up faster. I need to know something. Sensors, give me a raw course projection update in real time for the phenomenon, no data smoothing or interpolation.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  The ship swung until it was pointed perpendicular to its former course, now blasting sideways through space. Straker tried to figure out what Salishan was observing. The projected course line followed Trollheim as she crabbed sideways, and then began to lead her.