by Taylor Smith
Haley shook her head and turned her attention back to the communications list. There was a lot of random chatting around the time of the explosion at the shop, but it tapered off as dawn approached.
She sat up straight at the sight of one particular wireless communication marked as “highly encrypted.”
“Hello there,” she said, and accessed the record. “Who are you?” She read the details of the record and found the system had taken half an hour to decrypt. That told her that military encryption was being used. It was also intercepted only an hour ago.
She accessed the decrypted message and listened.
“Andy,” a woman’s voice began, and Haley shot upright in her seat. Of all the luck, they’d broken ship-to-shore silence for something and her beautiful, wonderful Strix-9 had caught it.
The transmission was riddled with static and background noise, but clear enough to make the words out. “Andy, come -n!” The voice sounded oddly familiar to her, but she couldn’t place it.
“Whatever it is, it ca- wait,” came the terse response. She could tell it was Andy, and from what she could tell, he sounded groggy. A small grin formed across her lips.
“No it can’t! Jackknife’s ---. We ha-- to get home, now.” Haley recognized the ship name ‘Jackknife’ as a cruiser from Clew. It had been involved in the battle against the Deshi three years ago.
“What are -ou talking about?”
“There’s b--n an accident. I’m leaving.”
There were several seconds of silence from the speakers where she could only hear background noise.
“---s happened?”
“It’s dad. --m breaking orbit. Out.” The record closed.
Haley’s eyes widened, and she listened to the recording again. Afterward, she leaned back in her chair and contemplated what she had just heard.
The Reaper would never leave Andy and Cade behind, so there were at least two Clew ships in orbit: The Reaper and Jackknife. There could be three ships now, if the caller was already on a separate vessel.
Anyone speaking like that to Andy was familiar, and from Clew, so there’s the definition of ‘home.’
The use of the word ‘dad’ was interpersonal between the caller and Andy. So Andy has a sister, and Malian Neese has been hurt. Or had he been killed? Haley’s eyes narrowed at that thought.
Yanna Two, and Jerry’s cover, had to be used as an information hub, Haley was sure of it. Yanna wasn’t a trade hub by any means, so it was the only logical assumption. Just as Jerry had used Stormcall years back, Yanna would be the perfect place to broadcast recalls. That was probably the reason the Jackknife came here in the first place. Clew wouldn’t broadcast a recall order if Malian had been hurt. She nodded to herself. Either Malian was dead, or something so catastrophic had happened at Clew that they would want to send the Jackknife to Jerry, so she could broadcast a message to any ships they had out on operations.
Haley deactivated her surveillance systems and buckled herself into her chair. She was too wired to rest now. She was about to begin her ship’s startup procedures when she paused suddenly. Could it be a trick? Would they abandon the investigation into what had happened to Jerry so quickly?
She decided that it didn’t matter. She had what she wanted. She was done with Yanna, hopefully for good this time. The pirates might catch a glimpse of her ascent into orbit, but their instruments would soon lose her.
“Initiate full startup,” she said. “Flight mode. Retain stealth systems.”
Strix-9 came to life. Its powerful engine’s low thrum ramped up to a noticeable growl. The multitude of surveillance and hacking consoles that surrounded Haley retracted. Some slid completely out of the way, and some recalibrated to allow her access to Strix-9’s flight control, defenses and electronic counter measures.
Haley glanced at her stealth system’s estimates to find they’d dropped from ninety-five percent to sixty. With her reactor warming up, it would be easier to be detected on the ground, obviously away from the colony. Once she was in space, she knew it would rise back to near one hundred percent, as the radiation emitted from Yanna’s sun would wash her signature into what appeared to be ordinary background noise.
The craft lifted slightly from the ground, and then shot away from the colony at an incredible speed. Haley kept her Strix just above the ground for several kilometers before angling upward in a long arc. Once she was out of the planet’s atmosphere, her sensors should detect the pirates’ ships in orbit. But, for now, she hoped they were holding station directly above the colony.
When she broke through Yanna Two’s atmosphere, just above its northern pole, she was pleased to find the two pirate ships were above the planet’s equator. There was no sign of the caller’s ship that had left orbit almost two hours ago, and the Reaper’s heading was toward the edge of the system. The other ship, she assumed to be the Jackknife, was stationary in orbit, possibly to try and gather more information on what happened to Jerry.
Glancing at her stealth system’s console, she found the estimate to be climbing past ninety percent probability that she wouldn’t be detected. If they saw her leaving the planet, they didn’t so much as bat an eye.
There was an opportunity there, she thought. Perhaps she could find a way to tag the Jackknife, or even attach a guidance virus into their shuttle. She decided not to, and entered the course she needed for a subspace jump to Lordell. It was time to leave this damned system behind and try to find out more about who Jerry was and where she came from.
Whatever was happening within the ranks of the pirates, one thing was clear: the caller, his own sister, didn’t wait for Andy before she left. Something very bad had happened at Clew to merit that level of abandonment.
She couldn’t help but smile.
Chapter 7
Cade entered the Reaper’s bridge after an unusually long sleep. The Doctor had told him that with the help of several Yanna Colonists, Criss had been able to cart his unconscious bulk back to the shuttle. Andy’s arm had been broken in two places. Even Criss hadn’t escaped injury. She came away from Yanna sporting multiple bruises and cuts from being railroaded by the door to Jerry’s shop when the explosion had thrown it outward.
When he’d arrived on board, Cade was in a mild coma. He’d sustained head trauma from the fight on the planet, but the damage from his implant surgery was what worried the doctor the most. The implant hadn’t embedded itself properly. There was still some scar tissue where the machine would normally interface with the brain, and it was working around those sites in attempt to find other interlink areas.
During the long sleep while the Reaper moved out of the Yanna System, and then during his stint in the transit tank into Clew space, the implant had seemed as though it finally found what it had needed. Still, Dr. Grant was hesitant to activate it until they got back aboard Clew.
Cade allowed a small, humorless laugh to escape when he saw them. Criss sat half awake at her station and nursed a large cup of coffee. He could tell that a large purple bruise ran across her cheek. Andy scowled like a scorned puppy at the navigation station, wearing a plastic cast on his arm that looked more like a blue fashion statement than a medical apparatus. “You two look horrible,” he said as he made his way to the tactical station.
“Cade!” Criss, suddenly awake, greeted him with smile. “He lives!”
Andy turned to him and produced a weak smile. “Good to see you finally up and about. I haven’t heard a final report from Dr. Grant. What’s the prognosis?”
Cade sat at down and checked the screens. There was nothing out there but empty space. “My headache is gone,” he replied and decidedly changed the subject. “Doc told me we’re already back in Clew space. Why? Did you find Jerry?”
Andy shook his head, outwardly upset. “No. The Jackknife is there to continue the search. Whoever that was back on Yanna, he was quick, and well trained.” Andy let out a deep sigh and said, “I keep going over it in my head. I had him. I should have shot him, but I
wanted answers. He bested me in every way.”
“It was a woman,” Cade said, looking up from his screens. Even through his blurred vision and headache down on Yanna, he’d detected the subtle grace of a female beneath that suit. It didn’t fully register to him until he was awake again, aboard the Reaper. But once he replayed the memory in his head, he was sure of it.
“What?” Andy exclaimed in shock and turned to face him. “How do you figure that?”
Cade shook his head as he unconsciously fingered the empty spot on his coat where the Reaper patch used to be. “I don’t know. How she moved, I guess. There’s a difference, you know?”
Criss suddenly laughed. “So you two big mean pirates just got your butts kicked by a girl?” She burst into more laughter that made Andy and Cade cringe. As quickly as she started, though, she got quiet again and frowned. “Wait. Was it Jerry? And why’d she klepto your patch?”
Cade shook his head and replied, “It wasn’t Jerry. I remember her being taller, bigger, and I guess she wanted a trophy.” He glanced once more at his screen and asked, “So what’s the rush to get –.“ His console began chirping angrily at him as the sensors registered thousands of new potential contacts. “Whoa,” he muttered and made a few adjustments to the tactical station to clean up the readings. “I’m picking up massive amounts of debris.”
Andy turned back to the main view screen and used the panel on his chair to bring the image up. “Oh, no,” he whispered.
The image wasn’t very clear, but Cade could make out Clew Station in the distance. What was clear, however, was the cloud of debris that both surrounded and trailed the station as it made its way through the emptiness between the stars.
The three watched in horror, unable to look away from the screen as they neared their home. Clew Station was cylindrical, and sported a large disc-shaped command structure that rose above one flat end to overlook the upper half of the station. Down the same, long upper half sat the immense warship Leviathan, forever embedded in the station and used to alter Clew’s course through space when needed.
The once proud battleship sat awkward in its cradle. Massive rents, akin to claw marks, ran from its anchor points on the station and up its hull, exposing more than half its decks to space. Cade could plainly see structural bulkheads and framing protruding from one side of the ship, and even one of its massive main engines had shaken loose from its housing. Large chunks of metal, plastic and other smaller debris floated lazily about its mangled hull.
Clew was also damaged, but not to the same degree. Plates of armor and sheets of metal had been sheared, twisted and bent across the outer hull of the station where the battleship had ground across. Several repair ships floated nearby as if not knowing where to start.
“We received word from Jackknife that there’d been an accident at the station,” Andy said with his eyes glued to the screen in disbelief. “Saundi had mentioned that Dad was in trouble.”
Cade felt his chest tighten in worry at Andy’s words. Mallian had adopted Cade after his own parents were killed by the Alliance. It was at Andy’s request, but that didn’t stop Mallian from whole-heartedly accepting Cade as a son. In fact, Cade had learned quickly that the situation had helped heal some pains in both of their lives. To lose Mallian would be like losing his birth-parents all over again.
“Criss, hail the station,” Andy said in almost a whisper.
Cade still couldn’t tear his eyes from the screen, and a dreadful realization crept slowly into his mind. The damage was catastrophic, and the Leviathan would never be able to move the station again. The ability to change course was their saving grace. If anyone were to learn the course and speed of their home now, there would be no escape.
“Criss…” Andy repeated a little louder this time.
As if waking from a dream, Criss shook her head and said, “Right.” She activated the channel, outwardly shaken. “Clew control, Reaper.”
Only a few seconds passed before the response came. “Reaper! Are we glad to see you,” the voice across the comms seemed relieved. “There’s no good flight plan that I can give you. Just come in slowly and avoid the trash. Dock ASAP, Reaper.”
“Roger, control,” Andy acknowledged, and then turned to Cade. “I need you at the helm, Cade.”
Cade nodded and abandoned the tactical station for the pilot’s seat. The station seemed comfortingly familiar for him, but still didn’t calm his nerves upon seeing his home in such bad shape.
“Captain Neese,” a new voice spilled from the speakers. “This is Ronald Wade. We need you in the Command Center the moment you dock.”
Andy nodded to himself before he replied, “Acknowledged, Captain Wade.” The connection was cut, and he sat heavily in his command chair before he said, “My father is dead.”
As he carefully piloted the cruiser around the floating rubble, Cade turned to glance at his best friend and brother. He’d experienced massive loss before, and as much as it pained him to go through it again, he knew that Andy would need him now more than ever.
***
“We found the damage too late,” Ronald Borden said with a grim look.
The moment the Reaper was docked in its cradle, Cade and Andy had made their way to the station’s command center. It was utter chaos in the main thoroughfare of Clew. The accident must have thrown everything and everyone in the station around, and repairs and cleanup were ongoing. Cade promised himself to check on his parents’ old restaurant. Surely no one had been in there to check for damage, but it would have to wait.
Captains Ronald Borden and Kyle Wade, the most senior members of the Clew Council, were there waiting for them when they arrived, and had ushered them to a large conference room. The air had been thick with little room for pleasantries as they sat and began the briefing.
“The Deshi strike from the grave,” Kyle Wade said grimly. “During the attack three years ago, there was some minor structural damage done to the station.”
“I remember,” Andy said. “We performed a quick check after the fight, but not a thorough one, because we had to move the station before the Alliance showed back up.”
“Right,” Kyle replied. “If we didn’t execute the move soon enough, we wouldn’t have put enough distance between us and our old course to be out of their scan’s ranges. We wouldn’t have been on the same course, but they would have easily tracked us down.”
Cade nodded and added, “The sound the station made during that course alteration was a dead giveaway that something was wrong. They found the damage to one of the upper supports, but it was minor and repaired quickly afterward. What caused this?” he asked and waved his hand upward.
“From what we can gather, that same structural failure, although minor to the station, torqued the Leviathan’s cradle. The cradle held, but we found hairline fractures deep throughout the structure that weren’t identified simply because they weren’t checked or monitored.”
Andy leaned forward with a darkened expression. “What do you mean they weren’t even checked? How could something like that be missed?”
Ronald Borden answered, “Because they weren’t part of the system that anchored the ship to the station.” He wore an anxious expression as he continued, obviously flustered in trying to explain. “The damage was in a section of the cradle that just bore the ship herself, not the anchored infrastructure that runs from the station and into the Leviathan’s frame.”
Kyle held his hand up to interrupt and said, “Basically, what happened is a damaged portion of the cradle came loose during the last course change, and collided with one of the main anchor points. When that was damaged, it caused the ship to tear away from the rest of the anchors.”
Cade thought back to the vision of the station outside and leaned back. “So the engines pushed the unanchored half of the Leviathan away from the anchored half and ripped it in two.” He looked at Andy and tried to gauge his reaction, but he was just staring blindly at the table in front of him. “And Mallian?”
>
Ron nodded and said, “Mallian was on the bridge as he always was during a move. It was opened to space. I’m so sorry, Andy.” Only a moment later, the man seemed to suddenly remember that Cade was part of the family as well and said, “You also, Dorian.”
Silence hung in the air until Andy seemed to get a grip. “Where’s my sister?”
“Saundi arrived several hours ago. She’s been briefed,” Ron replied. “I don’t know where she is right now.”
Cade waited respectfully for Andy while he dealt with the confirmation of the loss of his father. Only a few minutes later, Andy rose from his chair, and Cade followed suit.
“I need to be alone,” Andy whispered.
Cade nodded and stayed behind as Andy turned to leave, but Ronald Borden stopped him. “I understand your needs, Andy, but there’s something else we need to discuss.”
“It can wait,” Andy replied.
“No. It can’t.”
Andy turned back to face Ronald and narrowed his eyes.
“Kyle and Cade, please excuse us?” Ron asked.
“Cade stays,” Andy interjected before Cade had a chance to leave.
Ron’s eyes widened. He hesitated for a moment and seemed as if he were about to argue the point, but something in Andy’s eyes must have told him not to. He simply lowered his head in a single nod.
When the door closed, and only the three remained, Ronald sat back down and said, “Several things can’t wait, Andy. I’m sorry, but you have some decisions to make concerning the wellbeing of Clew.”
Cade looked to Andy and kicked himself for not realizing it. Andy was now in overall command of Clew Station.
Andy seemed to realize the same. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Ok,” he said. “What is it?”
Ron looked to Cade before telling Andy, “First, there’s the matter of burying your Father.”
“At the old Bonnell Colony,” Andy replied, indicating the colony that started it all for Clew.
