By the time Vigilant finished picking through flotsam, she’d rescued fewer than twenty survivors, these protected in undamaged, airlocked sections of the ship. Because the ship had split right down the central hold, the only Hroom among the survivors were crew. The cargo had all vented into space. These few Hroom survivors were still raving eaters, demanding their sugar rations the instant they came on board.
And of course, Ajax had vanished. Cloaked, fleeing toward some distant jump point. The Barsa system was full of them.
Vigilant made a course for Hot Barsa with the two largest bits of wreckage in tow. Long before she arrived, the first of many recriminating messages had begun to arrive from the Admiralty.
Chapter Eight
After Tolvern had brought Captain Drake back from the slaver and broken free, she’d turned over the bridge with a flood of relief. Drake would save them. She didn’t know how, but he would.
But for the next hour, things had seemed excessively grim. Vigilant had kept pace beneath them only a few hundred miles away. She’d rolled onto her side to present a broadside to Ajax’s belly. They’d already taken several shots underneath, but the truth was that nowhere on the shields could take a sustained bombardment. Tolvern was itching to return fire, but that would mean lowering their own shields. The instant that happened, Rutherford would tear them apart.
“Come on, Nigel,” Drake muttered after he’d spoken to Rutherford about Henry Upton’s desperate situation. “Do the right thing.” His face was pale and his jaw rigid. Blood seeped out from beneath the bandage Tolvern had sprayed on his forehead.
The terrifying thing was that Drake had told Tolvern if Rutherford did not, in fact, give up the pursuit, then he’d surrender. He wouldn’t sacrifice all those humans and Hroom left on Henry Upton. She didn’t relish the thought of being responsible for the death of all souls on the slaver, but if it were up to her, she would keep running. Any number of things might happen to give them a chance to reach the jump point.
Jane’s cool voice came over the com system. “Thirty-seven hours to jump point at current trajectory and acceleration.”
Capp was sitting in the pilot’s chair. She had her eyes closed, her nav chip in communication with the nav computer. But she opened her eyes at Jane’s voice. “We know that, you stupid cow.”
Drake let out his breath. Tolvern looked up to see Vigilant peeling away, cannons retracting. She scarcely dared hope.
A feint? Would more naval vessels come tearing in from their flanks? When none appeared, she finally stopped holding her breath.
Drake slumped in his chair, and Tolvern hurried over to catch him in case he fell. He looked up with a dazed expression. He should be in sick bay for a concussion. Nyb Pim had apparently struck him on the temple with a closed fist before they’d subdued the alien and dragged him through the breach to Ajax. The Hroom was currently locked in an isolation cell.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is my fault.”
“Rubbish. You executed perfectly.”
She used her sleeve to mop at the blood now trickling down his temple. “You should go to the sick bay, sir.”
Drake grimaced and glanced back at the screen. “Yes, perhaps you’re right. Keep us on course. If Rutherford turns around and gives pursuit, hail me at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Otherwise, see to our pilot.” A quick glance at Capp, who looked like she was half dozing in the pilot’s chair. “We need Nyb Pim here as soon as possible.”
Tolvern watched Drake rise to his feet and go for the door. He was moving like an old man, his arms wrapped around himself as though he’d cracked a rib. She wanted to go to him, urge him to lean his weight into her, but was afraid that gesture would be misinterpreted.
The captain was a tall man with a strong, handsome jaw. He had dark hair and piercing hazel eyes with flecks of gold in them. When she’d first been assigned to Ajax, nearly five years earlier, she’d been in awe of him, so much so that a fellow ensign had joked that she was in love with the young captain. That had left Tolvern so flushed and angry that she’d challenged the accuser to a duel, which had been laughingly declined, at which point she calmed.
She wasn’t in love with him. That was rubbish, and anyway, it would have been pointless. Drake was of noble blood, and she was a commoner. Even if she had been so inclined (and she was not, she insisted to herself), she may as well fall in love with the crown prince, for all the good it would do.
Drake had never treated her like a commoner, but with exacting correctness according to their comparative naval ranks. He consulted, but never deferred. And since he had always put his weight in favor of her various promotions, he must hold her in some esteem. If only she were as confident in herself.
Tolvern stayed on the bridge for another hour to be sure that Rutherford had let them escape. No word from Drake; she figured he was sleeping off a concussion. She told Capp to maintain their current course except on override from herself or the captain, then went down to the sick bay. She resisted the urge to check in with Dr. Lee to see about the captain’s concussion, and instead went to the isolation cells. It was here they kept people quarantined who’d been exposed to a xeno-virus or who were receiving treatment for severe radiation exposure. There were only five cells, enough for a contaminated away team, but not enough to contain a major outbreak. Right now, only one cell had a green light above the door.
Two men stood in front of the cell block. Tolvern’s thoughts were elsewhere as she arrived, and she supposed they’d been posted as guards. Only when they looked up, their low voices abruptly ceasing, did she fully take in the scene.
One of them was Carvalho, the Ladino she and the captain had spotted in the mess cozied up to Corporal Capp, and the other was one of the older criminals freed at the same time Tolvern had rescued Drake. He had an ugly scar across his right cheek, but it was almost obscured by gray and black whiskers, since the man hadn’t shaved in what, ten days now? Tolvern couldn’t remember his name at the moment. The men were standing too close to each other, as if they’d been sharing a secret or swapping something between them.
She swore she caught a guilty look on the bearded fellow’s face, and he shoved his hands so quickly into his pockets that she figured he was hiding something. Carvalho, however, leaned back against the wall with such a cool look on his face that she questioned her growing suspicion.
“What are you doing here?” Her hand wanted to go to her side arm, even though she told herself that was ridiculous.
“Nothing,” Carvalho said. “Quiet place to shoot the breeze, that’s all.”
“Is one of you on guard duty?”
“Huh?”
“The guard,” she said. “Who is it?”
The second, older man looked at her as if this were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “Ain’t no guard. Can’t hardly spare one, now can we?”
“You two seem idle enough. Don’t you have somewhere better to go? Engineering could put you to work. Assisting the boatswain or some such. We’ve got all sorts of trouble and no use for idleness.”
“Not our shift,” Carvalho said sullenly. “We’re off until twenty-two hundred.”
“I’m pretty sure this is all hands on deck, so unless you’re asleep or eating, I suggest you find something useful to do.”
They slouched off from the isolation cells, and she stared hard at their backs until they’d disappeared. She turned her gaze back to the empty corridor. What the hell were those men doing here, anyway?
Tolvern stepped up to the window of the cell with the green light above the door. Captain had said Nyb Pim was in a bad way; she didn’t want to open the door and find him crouched, ready to fling himself at her.
The cell was about eight feet by four feet, with a bunk along the wall and a stainless steel toilet. Some shelves for personal belongings. A tight-weave carpet covered floors, walls, and ceiling. The cell had an entertainment screen, but no keyboard or other computer equipment.
The pilot wasn’t lying on the bunk, and he wasn’t watching or doing something on the screen. Instead, he’d squeezed himself into the far corner and drawn his bony knees against his chest. His high, bald head was tucked between his knees. He was still dressed in the rags Drake had found him in, when he’d been squeezed into the hold of the slaver with hundreds of other Hroom. A uniform lay in one corner, tossed in apparently, then ignored.
Tolvern checked her side arm. It was loaded, but she wished she’d swapped it at the armory for a stun gun. If Nyb Pim tried anything funny, she didn’t want to kill him protecting herself. She put her hand against the reader.
“Commander Jess Tolvern,” she told it. “Open the door.”
The door slid open. The Hroom didn’t look up.
“It’s me. Tolvern. How are you doing, mate?”
Nyb Pim lifted his head slowly, like a turtle emerging from its shell. He looked at her through large, watering eyes. “Did you bring my ration?”
Tolvern took a deep breath. She was still in the hallway and could shut the doors without moving backward, in case he decided to come after her. Nyb Pim had always been such a calm, measured sort that it felt like pure fancy to be expecting such a reaction. And yet.
He struck the captain. Don’t forget that.
“I have to tell you something. It’s going to be hard to hear. I need you to stay calm.”
“I want my ration. It is late.”
“We need to detox you. I’m afraid there aren’t going to be any rations.”
Nyb Pim had scarcely moved except to lift his head, but now he unfolded himself like a giant insect and sprang for the door. He loomed above her, nearly seven and a half feet tall to her five feet seven, and his arms were so long that his fingers were practically at her throat before she could so much as take a step backward.
She was so startled she didn’t have a chance to speak, but slammed her hand on the pad. The doors zipped shut, and not with the cautious glide of the doors on the lift, but with all the urgency of a breached airlock sealing itself. Nyb Pim slammed against the other side with an incoherent scream. He shoved his face against the tiny, three-inch-thick window.
“GIVE ME MY SUGAR!”
Nyb Pim beat and thrashed against the door as Tolvern backed away. She came out of the cell block and called down to engineering. Barker came on.
“Hey, Barker. It’s Tolvern. I’m short-handed—got anyone you can spare?” Her calm words belied her pounding heart and dry mouth.
“What do you think?” he grumbled. The gunner sounded exhausted and ready to bite her head off.
“I really need someone. Nothing difficult, guard duty.”
“Oh, you do, huh? You got any idea what we’re dealing with down here? The engines are status yellow, and that’s the best of what I’ve got. Shields damaged, and we’re still leaking air. You don’t even want to know what the waste system is like at the moment. Let’s just say I wouldn’t drink the water until further notice.”
“I’m not messing around,” she said. “You must have someone. I need a guard, and it’s urgent.”
“Hah. Okay, then, fine. I’ve got a couple of freed prisoners down here. More trouble than they’re worth. How about I give you one of them?”
She thought about the two men she’d caught in the cell block when she’d arrived. “No good. I need someone I can trust. Captain is in the sick bay with a concussion, and I need to stay on the bridge until he comes back. I can’t be trusting smugglers and pirates.” When he was silent on the other end, she said. “I’m in command, Barker, and I’m telling you what I need. Do I need to make it an order?”
He sighed. “Fine, but you’ve got to give me more than that.”
She told him how Nyb Pim had nearly attacked her. “Doesn’t seem to be anyone here keeping an eye on him. I need someone with a gun and some discipline. Someone who isn’t so dumb as to open the door or to stand outside pouring sugar into his coffee, know what I mean?”
“All right. I’ve got someone. Wouldn’t say he’s the brightest fellow I’ve got, but he obeys orders. You know Harrison?”
“Yeah, he’ll do. Send him up.”
Tolvern cut the link and made her way back up to the bridge. She passed Harrison in the hallway, and then she shared the lift with Carvalho. No sign of the second man. She stared straight ahead, but the big Ladino’s eyes ranged up and down her body. Blasted criminal types—she couldn’t wait until they could all be dumped in some backwater, and Drake could get a real crew. She endured his visual groping until he got off, then continued up to the bridge.
No sign of the captain yet. Capp was lounging in the pilot’s chair, smoking a cigar as if it were the crew lounge. Tolvern ordered her to put it out. Capp grunted, took a final puff, and ground it out in an ash tray. A trail of smoke drifted into the air, as lazy and sullen as the corporal herself.
“Where do you want to go, anyway?” Capp asked. “Back to the jump we came in on?”
“No, that’s where they’ll look for us.”
“I could take us to Fantalus. It’s closer.”
“Hmm.” As far as Tolvern could remember, the Fantalus system was the gateway to nowhere useful. “And where do we go from Fantalus?”
Capp looked sheepish. “Back to Gryphon Shoals.”
“Do you know any other jumps from this system?”
“No, just those two.”
“Well, then. Fantalus, I suppose. It’s a different route, so there is that much.”
“Guess it’s better than sitting around scratching our balls,” Capp said.
Not that either woman possessed such a thing, but why speak properly when a vulgarity was at hand? Again, Tolvern was counting the hours until they could dump Capp, Carvalho, and the lot of them.
She thought briefly about calling the sick bay to see if she could get advice from the captain, but she knew what he would tell her. Until they had Nyb Pim back in the pilot’s chair, they didn’t have much choice but to backtrack toward the Gryphon Shoals. Seemed to be the only place Capp could reliably get them that wasn’t swarming with Royal Navy.
About an hour later, Tolvern got word from medical that Drake was under light sedation in his own quarters, sleeping off his concussion. Tolvern had been awake for almost twenty hours now. Under normal rotation, she’d be midway through her sleep shift. In fact, getting herself some rest would be not only desirable, but expedient. Hard to say how long until the captain returned, and they needed someone fresh at the helm. Maybe she could grab a few hours as they made a straight line toward the jump point.
But who could she leave the bridge to? Smythe was fresher, only midway into his shift, but he was a tech officer in every sense of the word; if it wasn’t computer related, he didn’t know what to make of it. She could call Barker again, see if he had anyone else to spare, but she could only imagine his tone of voice.
She turned her gaze to Capp, who had picked up the cigar and was chewing on the end while she thumbed through the nav computer with her eyes half-closed. No, don’t even think of it.
So Tolvern settled into the captain’s chair with a suppressed sigh. Nothing was happening on the viewscreen, so she queried Jane to ask about the shields. The answer was not pretty.
She was running through scenarios in her head of what they would do if they approached the jump point to find a couple of navy corvettes lurking, when Jane picked up a message sent via the coded Royal Navy subspace channel.
Supposedly, Jane always spoke in the same tone whether she was relaying what was for supper in the mess or warning of pending core meltdown, but Tolvern swore she could hear all manner of emotions in the computer’s voice. This time, Jane sounded skeptical as she relayed the message.
“Captain and crew of HMS Ajax, return to Albion and surrender and you will be granted a full pardon.”
Chapter Nine
Drake woke to his com link chiming from the bedside table. At first, it seemed like a part of his dream, in which he was on
the deck of Ajax, giving battle orders. Only at the same time, in that strange way of dreams, the ship wasn’t Ajax, it was a seagoing vessel, a quaint Old Earth-style aircraft carrier. They were being attacked by war planes of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and Jane’s computerized voice kept warning him that a wave of kamikazes was inbound.
“Captain? Are you there? Captain?”
Only gradually did he come awake, and even more gradually did he realize it wasn’t Jane’s voice he was hearing, but Commander Tolvern’s. Why was he so groggy? Oh, yes. The concussion, the sedation.
He reached for the com link. “Yeah, what is it?”
“Can I come in?”
As soon as he sat up, the room sensed his movement, and a cool blue light suffused his cabin, just bright enough to see its general outlines. During the bombardment, the doors to his cupboards had been knocked open, and his books had come spilling out. He hadn’t bothered to pick them up; he’d barely managed to strip out of his clothes and toss them to the floor as he collapsed into bed.
“Open,” he said.
The door to his room slid open, and a blinding light came in from the hall. He squinted until the door had closed. Tolvern stood silhouetted near the doorway.
“Problem?”
“Many problems,” she said. “But mainly, you’d been asleep for some time, and Doc told me to check on you.”
The wall display read 0412 hours. Good heavens, how long had he slept? Eleven hours? He hadn’t set an alarm, but couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed to. He kept his body under the same discipline as the ship, and normally found himself waking between six and seven hours after he crawled into bed, regardless of how tired he was. That must have been strong stuff the doctor had given him.
He tossed off the blanket and grabbed for his trousers, which were located at the foot of his bed where he’d tossed them. By the time the lights finished coming up, he had an undershirt on, too.
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