by Rachel Ford
“Ships?” one of the MP’s asked. Nik was too distracted to note who it was.
“I think that would be prudent, sir. We don’t know what’s out there.”
“You said they hit a minefield.”
“Yessir. But there were no mines out there two months ago.”
“Lenksha’s been busy. But now that we know there’s mines out there, your men know what to look for.”
“And I’m not sure we can spare the ships,” Davis Telari put in. “Our primary mission is defense of the home world.”
“And the colonies, Minister,” Brek Trigan offered through a frown.
“Of course. All the home worlds. My point is, we cannot afford to have the fleet divided.”
“I believe we may have no choice, sir,” Mercer said. “We can’t afford to lose ships. If there is something going on, a single ship will wind up the same way the Supernova did. And, I can’t emphasize enough, sir, the need to revisit my proposal for patrols.”
“What would you recommend, Captain?” she wondered.
“We need eyes in the sky, at all times.”
“We’ve had this discussion before,” Gretchen Mira sighed. “Our primary duty is to the people of the Empire, Captain. Your primary duty is to them.”
“I know the supply runs are important, ma’am. But we have civilian ships that could be coopted for those duties. The military needs to know what’s happening at our borders.”
“I don’t like the idea of the fleet traveling too far from the central planets. And I’m not comfortable seizing private property for this. The Tribari people already paid for your ship, Mercer – yours, and all of the fleet. I don’t see the need to take more from the empire,” Mira sighed.
“Nor I,” Telari agreed.
“No,” a few voices sounded. And, “We already went over this, didn’t we?”
“And that, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, Ministers, is why the Supernova is lost. That’s why we just lost hundreds of men and women, and one of the best ships in the fleet.
“Because this parliament seems to have lost sight of the fact that the primary function of the military is martial matters. Not grocery runs. Not godsdamned cargo transports. Our job is to keep this empire safe – not to play taxi service, and not to cower back by Central, as parliament’s personal guard.”
Chapter Eighteen
Captain Elgin frowned. He was still alive. Not that he regretted that, of course. His expression was borne of surprise. He’d fully anticipated being dead by now. Thirty seconds had passed, and then a minute.
And they were still alive after a minute. What the hell is that ship up to?
“Sir,” Kerel’s voice reached his ears, “is there anyone else out there?”
“What?”
“Anyone on our side, I mean. Because – I’m seeing…gunfire.”
“Me too,” another of the junior officers put in.
Despite his better judgement, Elgin unfastened his restraints. If they took another hit, he might well be smashed like an egg against the deck. But we’re dead men anyway, right? He moved through the dark. Even the emergency lights were out. If he didn’t know the bridge like the back of his hand, he’d probably have been kissing the grating already. But he reached Kerel’s station without incident.
Her vantage afforded a better angle to see the remaining enemy vessel. And Elgin saw what she did: streams of light, peppering the starship off their port bow.
What in the…? A flitting form, like an insect buzzing around a cat, zipped in front of the ship, and then another, and another, all raining fire down on the enemy.
“It’s Dagir,” he realized. He was at once impressed with the man’s gumption, and fearful of the consequences. The last loyalist ship had been hit badly. It had absorbed as many rockets as the derelict, and almost as many as the Jala. But it still had engines and firing capacity – as evidenced by the hobbled stream of munitions it rained down on the squadron.
Dagir and his fighters might be able to take it out. They might be able to save the Supernova. Then again, they might not. And if they failed, the empire fell. No one warned Central. No one got a message to the fleet.
Lenksha would fly in, crippling the empire’s mighty armadas remotely, and pick them off, one at a time. The planets and colonies would be at his mercy – his, and whatever loyalists he was working with.
Dammit. There was a reason he’d been willing to sacrifice everything – his ship, even his crew. There was a reason they’d gone along with him. This was bigger than any of them. It was bigger than all of them. Dagir knew that. So why the hell was he jeopardizing it all on a rescue that might not work?
He knew the answer, but he asked anyway, “Vor, can you get anyone on the line?”
“Negative, sir. All comms are down.”
“Shit. Vor, I want you to go down to engineering. I want a report as soon as possible.”
“Yessir.”
Now, Elgin did pace, stalking up and down the blackened bridge. He’d catch glimpses of the fire fight, but the starship moved out of his line of sight. No sound traveled across the vacuum of space, and all they saw were the occasional bursts of light in the distance – a flash here, a flare there.
Elgin was a man who had been ready to die a few minutes ago. Now, he hovered on the edge of death. They all hovered on the edge of ruin. The smallest push in either direction would be the difference between life and death, freedom and tyranny.
And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
The minutes turned slowly. A flash of light caught his eye for its brightness, and he halted his pacing, waiting with bated breath. But it was gone without any follow up, and time ticked on.
Vor returned. “Lieutenant Kulari and his team are working on it, sir. But the engines took heavy damage. He’s not sure we’re going to get them back up. Not anytime soon, anyway.”
“I don’t suppose they have an idea in hell what’s going on out there?”
“No sir. Except that the last ship seems to have stopped firing.”
“And our fighters? Did any of them survive?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I have no idea.”
“Captain Mercer, I think you forget who you are talking to,” Presider Grik fumed. “This body is elected by the people, for the people. We answer to them. And you answer to us.”
“The days of military supremacy are behind us,” another minister put in.
“There would be no Tribari Empire – no free Tribari Empire – if not for Captain Elgin,” Mercer shot back.
“My gods,” Davis Telari said, “we are all devastated over the loss of Captain Elgin. But the man himself would be the first to say he did not deserve accolades for refusing to fire on his own people.”
“He did not deserve being sent to his death by a parliament too focused on trivialities to care about defense, either.”
Brek shifted in his seat, trying to parse the exchange. He understood the military man’s perspective. Parliament had not attended his concerns, or the military’s concerns. But he understood the ministers’ too. A civilian government had to weigh the interests of civilians in its decision making.
“You’re right, Captain,” Nikia Idan said, getting to her feet now. “He didn’t. But it’s not because this body doesn’t care about defense. There were people starving all over the empire. Starving, freezing, dying. The fleet saved thousands, much quicker than we could have mobilized any civilian entourage. That’s part of Captain Elgin’s legacy, too.”
Mercer fixed her with a stony gaze. “My point, Minister, is that we are in a war. And parliament does not seem to realize it.”
“We realize it,” she nodded. “Look around you, Captain. There’s no one here who does not realize it.”
“It shouldn’t have taken losing the Supernova,” he persisted.
“No. It shouldn’t have. But right now, we need to get to any survivors, and figure out what Lenksha’s up to.”
He loosed a breath, th
en nodded. “Yes ma’am, we do.”
“How many ships will you need?”
“All of them. I recommend we deploy vessels to all the colonies. If Lenksha strikes one of the border worlds, we need ships there to protect them – and to get word back to us.”
Hisses of disapprobation sounded throughout the House of Commons. “Good gods,” someone declared. “Are we going back to the days where military interests decided the empire’s policy?”
“Minister,” Nikia spoke, “our policy needs to be formed around the safety of the empire.”
“You’re absolutely right, Nik,” Davis Telari nodded, and she frowned at this familiarity. “Which is why I cannot abide the idea of splitting our fleet. Central is Lenksha’s target. We all know that: he will be coming for the world that started the revolution. He’ll be coming for this city, and this parliament; for our citizens. Scattering our ships all over the sector is practically an invitation to show up at our door.”
“We have more ships than Lenksha,” Mercer said. “I did not say we would leave Central defenseless, Minister; just that we must defend the rest of the empire too.”
An eyebrow crept up Telari’s forehead. “I fail to see how thinning the line and starving the people does that. No. I say we give Mercer a few ships to investigate the Supernova’s disappearance, but otherwise…we stay the course.”
“A reasonable compromise, Minister,” Gretchen Mira nodded.
Nikia frowned, but Captain Mercer spoke before she could. “It’s not reasonable, ministers. You think Central will be the target? They don’t have the ships to hit Central. They will wage a war of attrition, picking off our colonies and our ships one at a time. They’ll hit where our defenses are weakest. And, right now, that’s everywhere outside the central planets.”
Gretchen Mira sighed long and loud into her microphone. “Captain, your concerns have been noted. However, the decision rests with the council. We will discuss it, and let you know our decision by the turn of the-.”
She cut off as a voice broke in, “Presider Grik?”
It was muffled and urgent, and though he couldn’t at once pinpoint the source, he detected a lot of background noise.
Grik, meanwhile, glanced around the chamber, apparently as much at a loss as Brek. “Hello?”
“Presider, it’s Captain Elgin, of the TS-Supernova.”
Brek saw Nikia Idan’s eyes widen, and she beamed. Her relief was palpable, even across the aisle as they sat now. “Captain Elgin!”
He wasn’t sure if the military man recognized the voice addressing him, but he did acknowledge it. “Minister.”
“What happened, Elgin?” Mercer demanded.
“We were ambushed. Lenksha – he sent three ships to intercept us.”
Mercer threw a poisonous glance in Ministers Telari and Mira’s directions. “Lenksha? Your sure it was him?”
“Yes. He radioed in first. But it’s worse than that. Before the ships appeared, he hit us with a cyberattack.”
“What about the mines?”
“They were a smokescreen, so we wouldn’t realize what had actually happened. He was able to hit our engines, comms and weapons. And he’s coming for the rest of the fleet.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Governor,” Tal greeted with a nod of his head. She was back sooner than he’d expected.
The fact was, once she and Tig had gone, he rather doubted he’d see them for the rest of the day. Not if Tig has his way, anyway.
And not if Nees had hers, either. In their short acquaintance, nothing about her had ever indicated she would be the head-over-heels type. But, dammit, if she hadn’t turned into as much of a lovesick, simpering fool as his friend.
He was happy for them, of course. Tig had been through hell on Zeta, and the governor’s life certainly hadn’t been a walk in the park. They deserved happiness. It did occur that things were moving very fast. He hoped, for both of their sakes, that their hearts – and other parts – weren’t moving faster than their brains could keep up.
“Did the rain…” he trailed off, catching sight of Nees’ expression. It wasn’t the look of a woman who had just returned from an amorous tryst. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she was embarrassed, but there was a melancholy in her eyes, a crease to her forehead, that surprised him.
She said, “Oh, it’s coming down like mad out there. Just as well. I have so much to do. I’ll be in my office, Tal.”
“Understood.”
She scurried past, avoiding his gaze. He watched her go, frowning to himself. What in the hell…
He waited for a few minutes, to see if Tig shuffled in after her, in some attempt at discretion. He did not.
He wondered at that. He wondered at Nees’s expression, at her return and his absence.
Still, he didn’t spend too much time on it. Maybe one – or both – of them had put the brakes on things before they got out of hand. Who am I kidding? Maybe Nees put the brakes on. He couldn’t imagine it being Tig. He’d been smitten since he met the governor.
But, he’d find out from his friend, sooner or later, he supposed. In the meantime, he gave Nees the space she clearly wanted, going about the remaining hours of his shift without checking in on her.
The day had brought a vicious storm, and the wind shrieked and howled outside the governor’s mansion, flinging great droplets of water against the windowpanes so violently he mistook the sounds for hail more than once.
Tal didn’t care for storms here. They weren’t like the gentle rains on Central. They were better than the brutal blizzards of Zeta, of course. But that was a very low standard, and he imagined that there weren’t many inhabited worlds that could not meet the criteria of being less unpleasant than Zeta. Trapper’s wasn’t a friendly world, though, and as the day progressed, he found himself considering what had ever possessed people to settle here in the first place.
It was the weather, he supposed. It put his teeth on edge. He found himself pacing the halls, jumping at shadows. There were a lot of shadows, as the day ran long. Somehow, they made him think of Zeta, and the tunnels he’d worked in there. Probably because they’d been dark, and cold, and subject to the shrieking winds beyond.
He thought of those long, long months he’d spent on the prison planet, of the beatings he’d endured – of the worse things he’d almost endured, that last day of his captivity. Tal wasn’t a man who frightened easily.
But some fears were not easily forgotten. Some fears…
He shook his head, to rid his mind of the memories. That was a lifetime ago, now. He was free. The prison planets were closing. Tal Imari was a free man. He didn’t need to think about Zeta. He didn’t need to think of his home on Central, of the men, his fellow officers, who had framed him.
That was another life. He was head of security for Trapper’s Colony, now. And, yes, the wind might shriek and the roads flood more readily than on Central. But he didn’t have to worry about being sold out or sent to a frozen world, either. He was free here: he could live free, he would die free, here.
He went back to his own office about forty-five minutes before his shift wrapped up, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He wasn’t sure it’s what his nerves needed, but the darkness outside had him yawning. And he still had three quarters of an hour left to his workday, plus a drive home in this rain.
A knock at the door sounded, and he started so violently he almost wound up with a fresh cup of coffee in his lap. Nees was standing in his doorway, seeming as surprised by his reaction as he was to see her. Clearing his throat and affecting an easy air – he had to preserve some semblance of dignity, after all – he said, “Governor. What can I do for you?”
“Can I…talk to you, Tal?”
“Uh…of course.” She was his boss, after all. Remembering his manners, he pointed to a chair. “Please, have a seat.”
She did, crossing her legs a few times before she settled. If not for the fidgeting of her fingers, he might have missed the uneasiness in her p
osture now. “Governor? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. That is…can I ask you a favor?”
“Sure. You’re the boss.” He grinned, hoping to put her a little more at ease.
“Not as governor. This is…personal.”
“Oh.” He was nonplussed by this. Nonplussed, but unworried. Nees wasn’t one to make unreasonable demands of people. “Sure. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you’d…that is, maybe on your way home…” She shook her head. “It’s stupid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
She was on her feet in a moment, and he stood too. “Governor, please. Whatever it is…just say it.” It was clearly bothering her, and if he could help, he would.
She turned back to him, her cheeks very red. “I’m sorry, Tal. I’m sorry to drag you into this. If-if I knew of another way…”
“What is it, Nees?”
“Tig.”
He blinked. It was the obvious answer, considering the strange sequence of events earlier. But he hadn’t expected it all the same. “Tig?”
“Yes. I just – could you look in on him? On your way home? Just to make sure he got home alright?”
“Uh…” This surprised him even more. “Sure. But, wasn’t he with you?”
Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of crimson. It was a color he’d never seen on her. Hell, he’d never imagined it possible to ruffle her that much. “No. Something…happened.”
“What?”
She turned confused eyes to him. “I don’t know, Tal. I…I got things wrong, I suppose. Very wrong. He walked home. I drove.”
“Oh.” She could have, as the saying went, knocked him over with a feather at that. “Oh.”
“I didn’t see him, on the road home. So I figured he must have got home safe. But…he didn’t pick up his comm, either. And I just…I just want someone to check in on him. To make sure he’s not out there, in this.”
Her face was a canvass of emotions now. But the lines that creased her forehead, the tension in her tone, spoke to one, prevailing feeling, stronger than the embarrassment and hurt: worry. “Of course, Nees. I’ll check in as soon as I’m done here.”
