by Kyle, Celia
Unless, of course, we don’t. Live, that is.
The Dart has taken shape, its outer chassis still the color of primer. The electronic components have been largely cannibalized from scraps found in the hangar bay, as well as their sonic degreaser array.
The Crushers have made several attempts to retake the hangar, but with Num standing guard they don’t have a chance. I wonder how they caught the little critter in the first place? Thrase keeps talking about it like it’s intelligent, but it will take more than some random flashes and her own anthropomorphic tendencies to convince me.
“Damn it.”
I pull myself out from under the chassis and wipe my hands on a grease-stained rag, favoring her with a worried frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“The life support module is completely shot.”
“Can you be more specific?”
Thrase glares at me until I wilt under her gaze.
“Ah, I mean, please?”
“Hmph. Well, the power transfer relays have burned out…”
“Try using the ones from the degreaser array.”
“I already used those for the yaw pitch control.”
“Damn. Then what about the…”
“It’s not compatible.”
“How did you know what I was going to—”
“I’m your jalshagar, Zander.” She smiles, dark eyes sparkling, and my heart skips a beat. “Besides, we’ve already established I’m always one step ahead of you.”
I can’t help laughing at that because she’s right. My ego isn’t an issue here. I’m just genuinely glad to have her not inconsiderable intellect at my behest.
“Very well. Then we won’t use the life support.”
“Ah, Zander, I’m fond of breathing, not to mention not freezing to death.”
I point over at the space suits on the wall.
“We can use those.”
“You’ll never fit into a human sized suit.”
“You forget that the Crushers also employ Kreetu and Kraaj. One of their units will suffice.”
Thrase finishes soldering the connections on the circuitry in the yaw control and slams the panel shut.
“Then we’re done.”
“We are?”
“Yes… I just hope that doesn’t also mean we’re done for.”
My lips twitch, and then I go to speak—at exactly the same time she does.
“I need to tell you something,” we say in unison.
After a brief laugh, she gestures at me.
“You go first.”
“Right.” I heave a sigh. “Thrase, if I didn’t think this had an excellent chance of working, I would never let you get on this star fighter. You know that, right?”
“Of course.”
“But there is a slight chance it won’t work, and we’re going to die, horribly. Just in case, I want to tell you that… I love you.”
Her eyes widen, and a tear slips down her cheek.
“Oh god, Zander. I love you too. We deserved so much better than this.”
She throws her arms around my neck, and I feel the warm press of her lips upon my own. The moment is pure bliss, a sublime stitch in time I wish would last forever.
Which, of course, means it won’t.
The ship shudders, overhead light panels flicker, and we pull apart from our clinch.
“It’s time to go.”
“Right.”
I leap into the pilot’s chair while Thrase gets in the rear seat. Engaging only the antigrav drive, I hover the improvised star fighter over the fission torpedo and lower it down.
“Let’s hope my armature works.”
There’s a heavy clunk, and then my HUD flashes with a “payload accepted” signal.
“I never doubted you for an instant, my love.”
“Pessimism is in my blood, Thrase. It’s part of what makes me such a good tactical officer.”
“It also makes you a pain in the ass sometimes.” She chuckles, her voice distorted by her space helmet. “But I love you anyway.”
“For that much I’m glad, at least.”
I taxi the Dart about on its horizontal axis until we’re facing the cargo bay doors. The alarms sound as I remotely open them, using my officer’s lanyard from earlier. Open space appears, and the Queen flashes past. I frown at the sight of the brand-new gamma array on the starboard side, which has been turned into a melted ruin. But she’s still flying, so we still might be able to save her and the crew inside.
“This is it, Thrase. Once I flip this switch, the engines will engage and we’ll either fly out of here safely, or, or…”
“Or we’ll explode. Speaking of which, why did we have to bring the torpedo with us? Couldn’t you have rigged it to go off after we left the ship?”
“I could, but the hangar bay is specially reinforced to contain such an explosion and redirect it out into space. We might hamper them a bit, but the ship would survive.”
“I see. Then we’ll have to put your risky plan into effect.”
“My plan? We both came up with it.”
Thrase chuckles behind me.
“Indeed, but don’t you know how scientific credit goes? If it works, it’s our plan. If it fails, it was exclusively your idea.”
“I can see our union is going to be far from dull.”
“And you wouldn’t have it any other way. To quote Swipt, punch it.”
I engage the thrusters, and we tear out of the hangar bay into space, straining the inertial dampeners to their limit. Even with the dampeners in effect, Thrase and I both cry out with the effort of staying conscious as g-forces pummel our bodies.
But once we’re at top speed, the sensation of acceleration disappears. I take us into a wide, curving bank, intending to position us behind the Mephisto’s massive rear thruster array.
Again my HUD flashes, this time warning me of multiple weapons locks.
“Brace yourself, Thrase. Their point defense cannons have a lock on us.”
“Then let’s hope your piloting skills haven’t gotten rusty.”
I flip the control sphere to the left, twisting us so that in relative terms we’re sideways in respect to the capital class ship. This presents a smaller profile to the point defense cannons, which light up the blackness of space with their intense emissions. We avoid contact, but the temperature rises well over forty degrees inside the cockpit in mere seconds.
“Are you well, Thrase?”
“I’m sweating into my suit, but I can manage.”
The Dart shakes as we get a bit too close to one of the blazing beams of green light. My HUD flashes with a damage report. Hull integrity is at sixty percent. Another hit, and we’ll be dead in the air.
Or just plain dead.
But I can’t stop our attack. If I do, the Queen and her badly damaged squid-like ally ship are doomed. And they we would be dead anyway because this tiny star fighter doesn’t stand a chance of escaping a capital class ship.
So I hit the afterburners and we are pressed into our seats hard. The massive, circular thrusters loom large in my view, soon growing to take up my entire field of vision. I blink sweat out of my eyes as the heat intensifies. At least when we’re this close to the thruster array their point defense cannons can’t target us…
With fading vision, I pull the trigger stud to release the fission torpedo. The armature works to perfection, releasing the missile and engaging its insanely powerful thruster drive. I pull off, “diving” sharply in relation to the Mephisto’s horizontal plane but I continue to track the torpedo with my sensor array.
It disappears into the halo of the event horizon of the thrusters… and then explodes. Sound doesn’t travel in the vacuum of space, so an eerily silent ever-expanding globe of fire and debris signals our success.
One by one, the thrusters go dark, and the Mephisto begins to list hard to starboard. Thrase and I shout in jubilation, cheering like fans at a BBL game.
“Nice shot, love.”
“My thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you, of course.”
“Indeed.” She gasps suddenly. “What about Num?”
I notice a purple streak flashing faster than a beam of light toward the strange squid ship, and I grin.
“I think he’s found his way home. Shall we do the same?”
“Yes, most definitely… but we never got the comms working on this jalopy. How will we tell the Queen to open her cargo bay and let us in?”
“I have an idea about that.”
I kick in the afterburners and speed toward the damaged vessel. Then I engage in a little bit of fun, “buzzing” the Queen’s bridge and coming to a halt long enough to wave at a very perplexed Swipt. Then a wide grin spreads over his face, and he points toward the aft deck where the Queen’s hangar bay lies.
“I can’t wait to tell everyone this story.”
I grin in response to Thrase’s declaration.
“I second that motion, most emphatically.”
Bereft of her engines, the Mephisto is reduced to using her superluminal drive to jump and escape. And not a moment too soon, either. The strange squid ship—which I remember seeing from a holovid presentation as belonging to the Contras—was coming in hard on an attack vector.
Victory. How sweet it is…
Though not nearly as sweet as the love of my jalshagar.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thrase
“Will you be still?”
Dr. Nicari once again attempts to use the dermal regenerator on my bruised face and scabbed lip, and I try to be still. I really do. But the raucous gathering in our cargo hold keeps distracting me.
Zander stands right by my side, fiddling with the new tooth implant Nicari gave him. He keeps touching it with his finger and then using his tongue as a probe. Across the golden deck plating from us, Solair and Brax, the leader of the Coalition Contras, are cracking each other up with jokes. Swipt and Tur, the apparent “partner” of Num, are patting each other on the back, figuratively speaking, about what awesome pilots they are.
Kintar and the Shorcu known as Gyn seem to be kindred spirits and speak to each other in low tones near the bay doors. Meanwhile, Phyn’Ro and his mate Lucy are telling the story of how they faced off with the dreaded Warlord Gorn, a scarred Vakutan who has turned his mind to a path of peace.
Marion pushes through the milling throng of Kilgari, humans, and the Contras to reach me, her gentle face drawn into an expression of sheer pathos.
“Oh my god, what did they do to you?” she touches my face, getting right in the good doctor’s way. Dr. Nicari once again grumbles and takes my chin, forcing me back into the correct position so he can continue to heal my wound.
“It was just an open-hand slap, Marion.” I hate to see sadness in her azure gaze. “I’m fine.”
“A murder puppy struck her.” Zander’s lips pull back in a sneer. “Their hands are like stone. She might as well have been struck with a brickbat.”
Marion arches an eyebrow and shakes her curly black locks.
“A… murder puppy?”
“A Kreetu. An offshoot of Pi’rell, which…”
“I know the term, Zander. It’s a slur. I would have thought you were better than that, or are you as much a bigot as the Earth First people?”
Before he can answer, she turns back to me and squeezes my shoulder gently.
“I’m just glad you made it back safely. We missed you.”
That takes me by surprise. I’m normally considered anathema to polite conversation due to my penchant for correcting people and my somewhat limited social skills.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Don’t sound so surprised. You’re one of us, Thrase. Never forget that.”
She takes her leave, and Dr. Nicari heaves a sigh of relief as he finally regenerates the last of the damage to my face.
“There. You’re free to wriggle about like a worm on a hook all you wish now.”
“Thank you, Doctor. I’m glad you’ve learned more about human anatomy.”
“Hmph.” Nicari wanders off, heading for his office. Out of all the Kilgari on board, he’s probably the least social. There’s been a lot of talk regarding hopes that he finds a mate soon so he’ll mellow out a bit, but I can’t imagine there’s a soul in the galaxy he’d be compatible with. Then again, I suppose the same could have been said for me a short time ago.
Tur and Swipt approach me and Zander. The tall Grolgath and the Kilgari pilot seem quite similar to each other, even in the way they carry themselves, though between you and me Tur is a bit more arrogant. But his eyes are full of humility as he bows his head toward me.
“I wanted to thank you personally for taking care of Num. I know he’s a handful.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He seems to be the sweetest creature I’ve ever met—if it is a he.”
“Wait… you think Num might be a girl?”
I laugh and shake my head.
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that perhaps classifying Num’s sex is murky territory at best given that I know so little about his species.”
“Yeah, Priestess Alru gets tight lipped every time I try to ask here where he came from. Sometimes I get the feeling she doesn’t know.”
“He’s a courageous creature, no matter if he sits or stands to pee.”
We both glance at Zander, who frowns in response.
“What?”
“Anyway,” I say, rolling my eyes at my own fated mate, “I hope he does well. In order to help him recover I had to inundate him with a large amount of energy at once, perhaps more than his physiology can handle.”
“He’s back on the PN2 right now, napping with my mate, Dotty. I think he’s going to be fine, really. He’s pretty much indestructible.”
“I would that were true. I’m still not sure what means Dr. Mal used to drain his energy and force him into a pure matter state, and his genome determination factors and paired alleles are nothing short of discombobulating. Perhaps if I could have a tissue sample…”
I realize everyone is staring at me with either bored or confused expressions, and I close my mouth.
“At any rate, I’m happy he’s all right.”
“He is, thanks to you.”
We shake hands, and then he goes back to speak with Brax. They will likely return to their ship soon enough; it seems they are in high demand these days, with so many galactic factors at play.
Solair moves over to me and Zander and puts his arms akimbo, favoring us with his famous easy smile.
“I could not be prouder of the two of you. It’s not often we owe our victory to a haphazardly constructed star fighter and its intrepid crew.”
Zander puffs up his chest a bit, though his words belie his plain-to-see pride.
“It was nothing, Captain. I’m sure anyone else with an extensive background in the battle sciences would have done the same.”
He turns and favors me with a wide grin.
“Truth to tell, Thrase is the real hero here. If not for her cleverness and resurrection of the Num creature, victory would have almost assuredly been impossible.”
“Almost?” I arch a brow at him until he wilts. But I let him off the hook soon enough. “Relax, Zander. It took both of us, or should I say all of us.”
I gesture at the combined Kilgari and Contra crew.
“It’s a reminder that when good folk of all races stand together, there’s no limits to what we can achieve. That’s why we’re going to win against Project Blue Dawn and the Earth First movement behind them. While they seek to divide, we seek to unite.”
Solair’s mouth gapes open.
“I’m totally stealing that.” He jabs a finger at me and grins. “Well said, Thrase.”
Solair turns to Zander and his brows come low over his eyes.
“You’d better treat your jalshagar right, Zander. Or else you’ll have a lot of people to answer to.”
My heart soars at
his words. For the first time, I really feel like I’m a part of this crew… no, a part of this family.
Solair’s comm crackles and he glances down at where it hangs on his belt.
“Solair?”
He snatches it up and speaks into it.
“I’m here, Doctor Nicari. What’s up?”
“It concerns Lokyer.”
Solair’s grin fades, and his eyes grow dark with worry.
“I thought you said he would fully recover.”
“And he will. I only meant to tell you I deem him able to accept visitors now, though I must insist you don’t overtax him.”
“Copy that, Doctor.”
Solair raises his gaze to encompass the entire cargo bay.
“Who wants to go with me to visit Lokyer in the sick bay?”
Literally the entire crew, it turns out. Solair has to insist we form a line because Dr. Nicari refuses more than a handful of people entry at a time. On the way to the sick bay, Zander reaches out for my hand. I place it in his grasp and smile warmly. I’m no longer afraid of what people might think of me.
I’m in love with my fated mate, and that’s nothing to fear or be embarrassed about. Though I do feel a little bit of shame for going on for so many months about hormones and biochemical reactions. If this adventure has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t always break things down into understandable components. Some things that happen in the galaxy are both surreal and sublime, and for the first time I think I can enjoy simply being wonderstruck by that.
We wait our turn to see Lokyer, and when we finally get in to stand by his bunk, the nav officer seems in good spirits. There’s still a tube feeding nutrients into his arm—the damned Project Blue Dawn miscreants starved him almost to death—but he seems much stronger than he was back in his cell on the Mephisto.
His face lights up when he sees me.
“There she is. My savior.” He turns to Zander. “And my other savior. I don’t think I can thank you enough for rescuing me. There were times I was ready to give up hope… but I never did. I knew you guys would move the stars themselves if that’s what it took.”
