by D. M. Pruden
How many other places in the once vast empire faced the same thing, or worse?
Perhaps it was ill-spent effort attempting to make amends for the harm he’d caused, but that didn’t mean it was wrong to try.
Derry’s implied threat gnawed at him. Did he suspect? Was he biding his time, gathering enough evidence that there would be no outcry when one of his goons blew a hole in the back of Hayden’s skull?
He did not intend to wait to find out.
There was no more debating. It was time to get off this dust bowl.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Escape
HAYDEN FIRED THE manoeuvring thrusters prematurely, sending his ship into an unintended spin.
Cursing, he halted his rotation and slowed the ship’s drift before it could slam into the side of the derelict. He paused to collect himself. His thoughts drifted to what he recalled of the previous week. Shutting his eyes against the throbbing in his head, he reconsidered the wisdom of his plan. His hare-brained idea had seemed much simpler and brilliant under the influence of alcohol.
He’d decided he would build a relativistic drive and set off to the nearest inhabited star system. He didn’t know what he might find, but it had to be better than here.
Some plan, he thought. It had sounded far more sensible when he was drunk.
Most still-operational ships were converted drop shuttles or short-range transit vessels. None of them had the drives to push a ship to near the speed of light. That was largely because there was nowhere to go within ten light years, but mostly because hardly anyone knew anything about maintaining them.
With his academy training, and more so from his time spent helping Cora repair Scimitar, Hayden was one of the few who could pass for an expert in the technology.
The result of it all was that nobody found much value in the components or nuclear fuel for the near light-speed engines, so they generally were ignored by salvagers.
This was the fourth ship visited since leaving Katox...or was it the fifth? Sixth?
The others were pretty much picked clean, yielding only a quarter of the parts to make his stupid idea work. The one he now floated in front of was his last chance to find anything. If it proved empty, his only recourse was to set out for deep space to look for undiscovered wrecks.
If he were honest with himself, he was still hung over and should be nowhere near the helm of a ship. But self-assessment was not his strength. He needed to work, even if it was toward a ridiculous goal. Besides, he found it far easier to face the morning-after than the demons that hounded him.
Closing his eyes, he sat back and inhaled. When he opened them, he held a nearly empty bottle of cheap rum. Incredulous, he couldn’t recall retrieving it from his jacket. He shoved it back in his pocket. “Pull yourself together, Kaine.”
For almost a standard year, he drank almost nothing but tea. Sure, he bought the odd drink at Moira’s but always marshalled his will to keep his consumption to respectable social drinking. Two at the most; no getting blind drunk. It was not easy. The emergency stash always lurked in the back of his mind when things got tough.
Things always seemed that way since Stella left.
He stared stupidly at the burned-out hulk drifting in front of him. Without thinking, he pulled out the rum and drained the contents.
Immediately disgusted by his weakness, he hurled the emptied bottle to the back of his ship and heard it shatter against a bulkhead. Shards of broken glass drifted, weightless, about the cabin. They would remind him of his impulsive stupidity for days to come.
Perhaps it was a good thing he was out of booze. Drinking himself to oblivion out in the deep of space would not end well.
A flashing light on his console attracted his attention. A faint radiation signature registered from somewhere inside the wreck.
He smiled at his good fortune and played his searchlights across the scarred derelict in the hope he might locate an undamaged docking port.
Finding one, he manoeuvred his vessel into position and slowly approached until the hatches were aligned. Since the freighter had no power, it couldn’t deploy locking clamps. Hayden activated his own magnetic seals and felt a brief shake as the two vessels came into contact.
Donning his EVA suit, he opened his hatch to reveal the carbon-scored exterior of his newly claimed salvage. Five minutes later, his cutting laser breached the door, and he stood inside its airlock.
Prying open the interior door, there was no indication of pressure on the other side. Entering the corridor, his magnetic boots snapped to the deck. He shone his light about to assess his situation.
Like every other ship scavenged over the previous ten years, this one was littered with floating debris. Occasionally, he came across the remains of a crewman who wasn’t sucked out into the void when the hull was breached.
This time, some of the bodies wore pressure suits and showed clear damage from energy weapons. The poor bastards had tried to defend themselves. Hayden knew far too well how futile that effort was. In his experience, even seasoned rangers were no match for the Malliac.
Locating the engineering section took him little time. Within forty minutes, he retrieved his prize. As he herded the weightless canisters back, his earpiece crackled with static, and he froze in place.
“Ship, did you just try to contact me?” He shook his head, reminding himself he should give the AI a name.
“Negative, sir.”
Sir? What the hell is going on?
“Check the proximity sensor logs. Is there anyone nearby?” It was the only reason he could think of for a random burst on a private channel.
“Yes.”
“Is it Malliac?”
“No, but it docked with this wreck twenty minutes ago.”
“What? Why didn’t you alert me?”
A sickening silence was the response.
“Ship? Answer me. Are you still there?”
Cautiously, he magnetically secured his toolkit and reached for the mauler pistol at his thigh. His heart skipped a beat at the realization the gun was aboard his vessel.
Idiot!
He retrieved the cutting torch from the toolbox. It was a shitty substitute and would only be of use at close quarters but was better than nothing. It was not uncommon for pirates to leave salvagers stranded when they stole their ships; that was, of course, if they didn’t kill them.
Switching off his mag-boots, he floated above the deck for a moment to orient himself. Hand over hand, he guided himself along the wall.
Halting at the last junction, he shut off his helmet lights. One by one, he deployed three marble-sized surveillance modules in the direction of the derelict’s breached hull. Instantly, three separate views from around the corner came up on his HUD as the units floated past the only access to his ship.
The cutaway opening glowed faintly from the dim light of his ship’s airlock. He switched to the infrared band and stared anxiously at the passing scene. None of the cameras showed anything. He had no idea how many pirates were aboard.
Hayden tried to swallow past his dry throat. His comm link dead, the rapid swish-bump of his pulse filled his ears. With no other choice available, he gripped the cutting torch and pushed himself forward. Gracefully bounding from the walls, he arrived at the opening.
After a moment to slow his breathing and bolster his flagging courage, he pulled himself in.
Now, he was faced with two risky courses of action. He could pressurize the airlock, making enough noise to alert whomever was inside. There was an incredibly small chance he might be able to strike a deal with them.
Or he could leave the outer door open and blow the inner one. Explosive decompression might do all the work for him.
If, as he suspected was the case, the pirates had kept their EVA suits on, the tactic might only buy him brief seconds of advantage.
Before he understood what happened, the decision was made for him. The panel on the wall lit up. Either they were on to him, or else they planned
to leave and were in for a shock.
Eyes glued to the door, he raised the cutting torch and held his finger over the activator, prepared to charge the opening. Timing his rush, he pushed off toward it. Too late, he realized it had only opened a few centimetres before stopping. He rebounded off the door, and the cutter flew from his hand.
Twisting in the zero gravity, he contorted himself in a hopeless effort to recover his lost weapon.
His element of surprise spent, he was completely vulnerable. The hatch resumed opening, revealing the interior of the cabin. He only caught a glimpse of one of the pirates, a big man seated at the ship’s control console.
A familiar voice came over his helmet speaker, sending a chill down his spine.
“Welcome aboard, Mister Kaine.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ghosts
“PAVLOVICH?”
Hayden grabbed at the bulkhead to stop his weightless rotation.
He stared, incredulous, at the ghost in the pilot’s chair.
Behind his helmet’s visor smiled the weathered face of a man in his mid-fifties, with a wild, grey-flecked black beard. Deep brown eyes shone beneath bushy eyebrows.
Open-mouthed, Hayden could not take his eyes from the giant of a man. At two metres, Pavlovich’s presence dominated the cramped ship.
“Holy shit, you’re alive.”
“Astute as always, Kaine.” Pavlovich waited for Hayden to enter before he threw a switch on the console to close the door and begin pressurizing the cabin.
“Wha...what...how?”
“Take it easy, you’re not going crazy.”
Hayden’s former captain released the seat harness and floated toward him, right hand extended in greeting.
Still stunned, he stared at it to assure himself his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. Then he pushed the arm aside and embraced the big man.
Pavlovich awkwardly patted him on the back. “Yeah, I’m here, and glad to see you too.”
Assured he wasn’t hallucinating, he disengaged and removed his helmet. As his wits returned, he studied the face of a man he long believed dead.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, dummy. We tracked you here, but when you didn’t answer, I drew the short straw to check out your ship to see if you were okay.”
As Hayden shook off the last of his disorientation, the meaning of the words registered.
“We? You’re not alone?”
“Hell, no. The others are scouring the wreck for you as we speak.”
In an abrupt change of topic, Pavlovich pointed to the console. Half of it was torn apart, and components dangled from jerry-rigged wires like an unruly shrubbery. “I can’t believe you risked your life in this poor excuse for a ship.”
“What the hell did you do?”
“Your AI was not very helpful in telling me where to find you.”
“That was you screwing around with it?”
“Yeah, I think it might be broken.”
Hayden regarded the destroyed helm panel. He frowned at Pavlovich.
“It was an outdated model, anyway, Kaine. Cora would be seriously pissed at you for risking your life in this thing.”
“She’s alive? How is she?”
“There is a lot to explain. Why don’t you come to Scimitar and find out for yourself?”
“It was destroyed. How...?”
Pavlovich chuckled. “What the hell do you think brought me here?”
“No idea. I’m not entirely sure I’m not crazy.”
“Well, come to the ship and give me a chance to prove that you’re as sane as I am.”
Hayden smiled. “I always doubted that.”
“Hardy-har.” The big man retrieved his helmet from the console. “Are you coming or not?”
“What do you think?” Hayden said as he grabbed his own.
When the doors to the airlock opened, Hayden’s mouth dropped open and his feet refused to move. He blinked and shook his head.
“Is that the Scimitar?” he asked, not taking his eyes off it.
Pavlovich puffed his chest and smiled proudly. “The one and only.”
“How? She was derelict, gutted by fire, her reactor damaged beyond repair. She exploded! How is this possible?”
“Did you see her blow up, Kaine?”
Hayden tried to recall the details of the last seconds of the ship, recorded and watched by him a thousand times. He’d relived the memory twice as often, vividly recalling the scream of his ship’s engines almost burning out to push him away from the black hole that had its grips on the wreck of Scimitar. His last glimpse of the doomed vessel was of it vanishing in a flash.
Pavlovich gently rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a long story. Why don’t you come inside? I promise to explain everything.”
Kaine nodded and allowed himself to be led through the hatchway. From within the airlock, he peered into the interior of the battlecruiser but made no move to enter.
“What’s the matter?” said Pavlovich. “There are no ghosts here.”
Smiling at his own foolishness, Hayden stepped onto the deck. Pausing just inside, he surveyed the familiar corridors. “She doesn’t smell any better,” he said with a wink.
The captain sneered. “I’m having difficulty finding good cleaning staff.”
Their trade in barbs was interrupted by a voice over the speakers.
“Is that you, Lieutenant?”
“Cora? It’s so good to hear you.”
“I was so excited when the cap’n said we were coming to find you.”
“Are you ready to see Kaine again?” asked Pavlovich.
“Umm, sure. That would be great.”
“We’ll meet you in the briefing room in a few minutes.”
“Not using your quarters for meetings any longer?” said Hayden. “That’s different.”
“Yeah, well, some things didn’t fit in my old cabin. C’mon, let’s not keep her waiting.”
He followed Pavlovich down the corridor. “Is something wrong with her? She didn’t sound like herself.”
“The last few years changed us a lot—some of us more than others. Cora’s not quite the same girl you knew.”
Kaine stopped walking. “What’s happened?”
“I should let her explain.”
“Why are you so evasive? Who else is on this ship?”
Pavlovich sighed. “Of the original crew, only me, Cora, and Gunney. The rest aboard are strays we picked up along the way.”
“Only the three of you? Shit.”
“Yeah, well, we all knew the risks when we joined the service.” The captain extended his hand to indicate they should continue walking.
As they entered the next section, Hayden became confused about where they were going. “This part of the ship is different.”
“Necessary modifications.” Pavlovich directed him to an open doorway.
Skeptical, Hayden eyed him for a moment before proceeding inside.
The briefing room was a large chamber that encompassed three decks. A holographic star map floated above a circular conference table in the centre of the room. Embedded in its middle was a translucent white hemisphere, pulsing with energy from within.
He whistled and nodded approval. “This is very impressive, Captain.”
Pavlovich smiled and invited him to sit. Placing his helmet and gloves on the table, Hayden took a seat.
“What’s going on? None of this is standard tech.”
The white semisphere pulsed with light as Cora’s voice filled the room. “No, it isn’t.”
He searched about the room before his eyes settled on the object. “Cora?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“What the...?” He stared, wide-eyed, at Pavlovich.
“She was injured in the battle. When our jump reactor overloaded as we fell across the black hole’s event horizon, the ship jumped...” He shook his head. “Well, we’re still not sure where we ended up, but we were lost. Scim
itar was damaged beyond repair. Gravity was out, life support failing, and we had hull breaches on half the decks. Almost everyone was dead, and Cora was in bad shape when I found her in what was left of the engineering deck.”
“What happened? How did...?” He gestured toward the sphere.
“The Glenatat robot was the only still functioning tech. She and it were quite close, as you know. I think the damned thing was actually in love with her—”
“My body couldn’t be repaired,” she said, sounding annoyed, “so Alcon came up with a plan to save me.”
“I underestimated it. The Glenatat gave it to us to do more than help fight the Malliac. It modified our surviving systems to keep us alive. Then, somehow, it got us to a habitable planet—don’t ask me where, because I still haven’t figured that out. Anyway, the machine used the planet’s resources to repair Scimitar and keep Cora from dying.”
“Alcon constructed and transferred me into this.” The half globe flashed briefly.
“What...what is it? What did it transfer? Your brain?”
“No, he melded my personality, my knowledge—my essence, you might say, with...I suppose it’s best described as a bio-computer.”
“It copied you into a machine?”
“No, Alcon modified himself to join with me—oh, Hayden, this is so hard to describe. After a decade, I still can’t find the right words, but it is beyond anything human experience can appreciate.”
“She exists throughout the ship,” said Pavlovich. “She’s a part of Scimitar.”
Tears ran down Hayden’s cheeks. “Oh, Cora, I did this to you. I’m so, so very sorry—”
“Oh, you did nothing of the kind. Stop that right now. I’m not here against my wishes. I chose this.”
Hayden wiped his face and turned to his former captain. “What else?”
Pavlovich grinned. “The robot revealed a lot of Glenatat technology to us. We were forced to build everything from scratch, though. It took time, but between Cora and Alcon, we came up with a way to rebuild our engines. We are the only ship in human space with faster-than-light capability.”
