by George Ellis
“Follow me,” Desmond ordered. I fell in behind him as we left his quarters. The hallway was chaotic, with burly men and women rushing to their respective posts.
“So this is the war,” I muttered.
“No,” Desmond corrected as we raced through the galley. “This is you being a fugitive. You’re lucky I don’t want them to have you at the moment.”
“Oh yes, I certainly feel lucky,” I said, trying to rub my aching shoulder as we navigated our way onto the bridge. The chaos there was at least a bit more choreographed than in the rest of the ship, with a core team of Desmond’s finest handling the situation. They didn’t exactly stand to military attention when he arrived, but they definitely gave him a wide berth.
“Status,” he demanded.
“I need to get back to the Stang –” I tried, before he cut me off with eye daggers.
“Federation warbird,” reported a thin woman with jet black hair and a matching black jumpsuit. “It appeared out of nowhere, captain. One second, nothing on the scan. The next second, it’s within firing range.”
“How is that possible?” Desmond asked. For the first time I saw a crack in his cool demeanor.
“Not a damn clue,” the woman responded. “They’ve been hailing us for about a minute now.”
Desmond sat in his captain’s chair and swiveled toward the large screen on the wall. My first thought was, damn, his chair was way nicer than mine. But then I thought of Batista on the Stang. Would she know what to do? She seemed to be a capable engineer and a total mauler when it came to physical confrontations, but I had no idea if she’d be out of her depth at the helm of the Stang at a time like this. Like a punch to the gut, another thought hit me: my brother was alive. Maybe. Ten minutes ago, Avery had been dead. According to Desmond and a giant, he was alive and on board the Rox.
Desmond cleared his throat and was about to answer the beam when he looked back at me. I was standing right behind him. “Probably not a good idea for you to be on screen when I open a dialogue, Denver.”
The man had a point. I sheepishly moved off to the side. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me – they all knew my presence was the reason for this potential fight. A federation warbird was no joke, even for the Golden Bear. What the fed vessel lacked in speed and talent (most federation pilots aren’t worth a damn), it made up for in brute force. While the Bear had rail guns, the bird had twin rail cannons, basically the same weapon with twice the power, thanks to the larger steel projectiles with galvanized cores.
The wild card was this particular ship’s stealth. Most fed vessels this size were bulky and relied on overwhelming force, but this one had somehow snuck past the Bear’s defenses. It either meant someone was asleep at the helm of one of the baddest ships in the galaxy, which was unlikely, or that the blue suits had themselves some kind of new technology. The arrogant face that appeared on the monitor suggested the latter. The sharp-jawed woman was in her 30s. She exuded federation, from her icy demeanor to her buzzcut.
“Hello,” Desmond said, opening the dialogue. He always liked to be the first one to speak, and in my experience, the last. “That’s a sneaky ship you have there. Don’t normally see stealth on a bird that size.”
Right to it, then. The fed captain didn’t bite. Instead, she got right to it as well.
“You’re currently docked with the ship of a known fugitive,” she said. “I assume you have him in your brig and are willing to hand him and his companion over to face justice.”
“One should never assume, Captain…?”
“Slay. Admiral Slay of the DTX Burnett,” she corrected, more for the record than to score points. Her confidence came from somewhere deeper than her rank. I liked that about her. I didn’t like that she wanted me dead or in prison.
“Pardon the mistake. I meant no offense, admiral.”
“Of course not. Mr. Boyd and Mrs. Batista. Do you have them?”
“Jurisdiction, admiral. I think that’s the first part of this discussion, don’t you?”
Slay smiled. It was not a friendly one. “If that’s the case, it’ll be a short conversation. You’re outgunned. Outclassed. And docked with a ship. I have you dead to rights if I want you.”
“Do you want me?” Desmond replied.
I had to admire his old-fashioned wise-assery. I wish I’d been in the chair to deliver that retort. Slay acted as if she was expecting it, but I could tell she was taking a moment to determine the best way to respond. With humor? With derision? Being a good captain was as much about knowing how to deal with adversaries as it was about keeping your own crew in line. Most federation captains didn’t understand that. I suspected Slay did.
Still, that moment of hesitation was all Desmond needed. He motioned to Edgar, now hulking over his station. The big man pressed a series of buttons. On the monitor, Slay’s eyes went wide as her ship shook with the force of a contained blast.
“As I was saying, stealth is much more common on smaller craft, like unmanned transports,” Desmond noted, taking a bite of an apple he suddenly had in his hand. He must have kept it somewhere close for just such a gloating occasion.
What he was referring to was the small drone ship he’d deployed the second the Burnett came on radar. It had covered the distance between the Bear and Slay’s ship during their respective captains’ lively conversation. The moment Slay showed the slightest hesitation, Desmond ordered the drone to land and detonate itself.
Slay’s cool demeanor evaporated as she turned to her weapons tech and barked her disapproval. “Why haven’t we returned fire!”
“I can answer that, captain,” Desmond offered cheerily, still chomping his apple. “Your ship may well be stealthy, but it seems those blue suit engineers put the weapons drive in the same old spot again. Good luck and godspeed!”
And with that, he cut the feed. He whirled his chair to face me. “You have 30 seconds to get back to your ship and disengage.”
“Done!” I yelled as I broke for the corridor to the airlock. Edgar moved into my path. “Hey, you heard the man,” I complained.
“He’s going with you,” Desmond said, referring to the 7-foot-tall mass of humanity standing between me and the Stang.
Chapter 7
The look on Batista’s face when she saw who I brought back with me was kinda how I imagined it must have been for ancient humans when they were surprised by a grizzly bear in the woods.
“What is that?” she asked, loudly and with no regard for whether he heard her.
“Name’s Edgar,” I said, pointing at him as he walked past a shocked Batista. “He’s not as nice as he looks.”
I was about to follow it up with another sarcastic remark when I bit my tongue. Seeing Batista reminded me that she may have been closer to my brother than I ever was – and she still thought he was dead. The breaking of that news would have to wait until we were clear of the federation warbird.
“Lot to explain, but right now we have to get the hell out of here.” I hustled toward the cabin, a bit unnerved by Edgar already acquainting himself with the Stang’s weapons systems.
“Don’t touch anything,” I ordered. The big man gave me a wilting glare, but paused what he was doing. One of the conditions Desmond had set was that Edgar would be under my command. I didn’t really know how long that would last or what kind of “command” I was going to have – part of me thought Edgar would just decide when to treat me as a captain and when to tear my head off – but for the moment, he stood fast.
“You make friends with all the best people,” Gary chided. “And since when did federation ships that big have stealth capabilities?”
“Seriously,” Batista agreed, a wary eye still on Edgar. “One minute I’ve got nothing on the scan and then that shiny bastard is right on top of us.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but we have no time to worry about it. Its weapons drive is crippled for maybe two or three more minutes, and I’m sure they can do some auxiliary damage if they decide to turn
their focus on us. Luckily the Bear is keeping their attention.”
I plunked down in my chair and disengaged Gary’s navigation control.
“Hey!” he complained.
“Nothing personal, but it’s better if I fly us out of here without logging a course,” I said, assuming full control of the Stang. Despite the conditions, it felt good. I didn’t go manual as often as I used to. Of all the issues I had with Gary, his flying skills weren’t one of them. As an AI, he was basically a perfect navigator. He’d also learned a few improvisational maneuvers from me and my uncle over the years. I kicked all four turbines into gear and hoped the Burnett didn’t follow us.
“At least tell me where we’re headed,” Batista demanded, monitoring the battle brewing between the Bear and the Burnett. They were engaged in a close-range weapons battle.
“No change in destination,” I reassured her. “We’ll just be taking the scenic route. It seems the Tracers also have an interest in us making an appearance at Jasper Station.”
“That’s convenient,” she replied, shooting a glance at Edgar. “You wanna share any insight on the matter?”
He stepped toward Batista and looked down his crooked nose at her. “As a matter of fact, honey, I don’t.”
The hairs on the back of my neck went rigid as I watched Batista match his step forward. They were now less than a foot from each other. If I was going on sheer size and power, Edgar would be my bet. But having seen Batista dispatch half a dozen feds with relative ease, it felt more like even odds, regardless of the fact she was 150 pounds lighter than him.
“Call me honey again and see what happens, Shrek,” she replied. I stifled a laugh. Edgar just stared at her, clearly not understanding the obscure reference. The only reason Batista knew it was thanks to the Stang’s vast collection of 21st century movies and TV shows. On a long trip like this, a person could plow through three or four movies a day. I knew that Batista had watched Shrek a couple days earlier, as she and Gary had debated whether Donkey was more funny or annoying. The argument itself was the latter, if you asked me. Just as I worried the confrontation might turn to blows, we had a bigger fish to fry. Klaxons sounded and red lights lit up my dash.
“We’ve got heat,” Gary said, referring to the new blip on the screen that was headed our way. The Burnett had begun firing on us, even as the Bear engaged her with its own rail guns.
“Alright, take over and evade…are those nukes?” I asked, seeing the purple signature of the blip as it homed in on us. “Damnit.”
I turned to Edgar and Batista. “Knock that off. Edgar, you wanna give it a go?” I motioned toward the weapons panel. The big man didn’t move. He just kept staring at Batista.
“What the hell is a Shrek?” he asked.
“Later!” I yelled, hoping to instill enough confidence in the command for him to listen. “I will explain all about the big green ogre –”
Edgar snapped his attention to me.
“– big green and extremely heroic ogre known as Shrek. I’ll even make you popcorn as you watch the movie!”
Edgar grunted and turned around toward his station. “This hunk of junk got any missile busters?”
I ignored the insult, knowing the question was rhetorical. “Batista, when you’re done trying to start fights, you may want to strap in.”
She moved to the co-pilot seat and did just that. I kept one eye on the monitor, where I watched the Bear and warbird attempting to strafe each other into oblivion. My other eye was on the camera in my quarters. “Gary, make sure Pirate gets tucked in.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do realize I’m a supercomputer, right? I don’t forget things like that,” he replied.
On the camera, I could see Pirate scurry into my quarters and through the open door of the padded cubby I’d designed for him. It had taken nearly six months, but I’d trained him to hide in the cubby whenever klaxons sounded, meaning whenever we were about to do some unpredictable maneuvers. Once he was in the cubby, it was Gary’s job to shut the gate and set the foam to expand based on Pirate’s position. It basically was like putting the cat in bubble wrap. Not perfect, but better than him being flung against the walls in the corner of whatever room he happened to be hiding in. Batista had teased me about the cubby when she first learned about it, but I could see that she too had a micro-sigh of relief when Pirate was safely foamed into place. He’d grown on her.
“How we doing on that nuke?” I asked, noting the blip was getting closer and closer. We had maybe 45 seconds until impact.
“Worry about your own problems,” Edgar said, preparing his counter-strike. Okay, then. I hoped the guy was as good as Desmond claimed when he forced me to take him on board.
Following Edgar’s advice, I continued plotting a course to take the Stang the long way to Jasper. That meant a looping route through pretty dense federation territory, but the prospect of being disintegrated by a future ship was an easy trade for actually being blown up by a current one.
“Last warning, we’re about to go to 15 g’s,” I told him.
He snorted, not even bothering to sit in his chair. I did see him flex his legs a bit though. Hey, his funeral.
I hit the gas, as they used to say, going to 90% of the Stang’s capacity.
The force came down like an anvil on my chest. An anvil that weighed a few hundred pounds. For a moment, it knocked the wind out of me and I saw stars. I could hear Batista grunt in the seat next to me. The speed probably bought us another 15 seconds or so to deal with that nuke. I strained to tilt my head and saw Edgar still standing in place, though he was now in a powerful crouch, all his muscles tense, holding him in place. He could have sat in the chair, but he was making a point.
“Loose,” he announced.
I turned to the scan and saw a green dot heading to intercept the federation nuke.
“How many?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he replied. “One.”
I stared at the dot. One? What the hell was this psycho thinking? The Stang had a dozen nuke busters – and this guy had only sent one? I could see if he only fired like five or six in an arrow formation, but one?
“Got a little confidence, do we?” Gary chirped. “This Shrek guy is ballsy.”
“He’s gonna get us all killed,” Batista said, straining under the g-force. “Can you fire any more from there?”
“Working on it,” I answered.
Suddenly I felt two vice grips on my upper arms, holding them in place. They belonged to Edgar, who had somehow crossed the cabin despite 15 g’s. “How is that possible –”
“Watch and learn,” he said, cutting me off. I didn’t really have a choice. Although Gary did. “Gary, send a second salvo.”
“Uh, slight problem there, Denver…”
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, which was already somewhere around my knees thanks to the g’s.
“I disabled his weapons access,” Edgar explained. “Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.”
Who did this guy think he was, I thought to myself. I watched the monitor as the green dot approached the purple blip…and sailed by as the blip evaded it. Not good. Batista was right. The big moron had just got us all killed.
“Wait for it,” he said, enjoying the look of fear on my face. Once the buster was past the nuke, it somehow swung back around and was on its tail, picking up speed. “Missiles are all the same. Good at avoiding head-on countermeasures, but terrible at watching their back.”
A second later, both the dot and the blip were gone. Just like that. I had given us maybe one chance in five, but Edgar had made a joke of the whole encounter. I eased the throttle and felt my lungs begin to function more normally.
I stared at the screen in disbelief for a few moments. I had obviously misjudged the man. Or, more specifically, underestimated him. He not only possessed superhuman strength — being able to stand in 15 g’s wasn’t supposed to be possible — he also was some kind of genius. To program a heat-sinker to actual
ly trick a high-tech nuke also shouldn’t have been possible, definitely not in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee. Batista must have been thinking the same thing, because she looked over and whispered “What just happened?”
“My bunk?” Edgar asked, holding his duffel bag, standing near the exit that led to the Stang’s main corridor.
“Uh, um take a right and third door on the left,” I managed, trying to suppress the adrenaline from the last five minutes. Edgar walked out.
I no longer had a visual on the two other ships, and the scan was clear. We weren’t being followed, for the time being anyway.
“Well, I like him,” Gary declared.
Batista swiveled her seat to face me. “So that just happened.”
“Which part?” I wondered aloud. “When he walked across the cabin in high-g? Or when he reprogrammed a nuke buster in like 30 seconds to do something they aren’t supposed to be able to do?”
“And the fact he’s even on the ship in the first place,” she added. “You gonna tell me what’s going on now?”
I wanted to tell her about Avery. She was a strong person, but there was no predicting what kind of emotions it would bring up. To be honest, I was a little troubled by my own lack of emotions about the revelation. Oh, I was surprised. But deep down, I was disappointed it didn’t bring me more hope or happiness. Maybe it would if I was able to see him.
“Crew meeting in ten minutes. Kitchen,” I said, buying myself some time. I rose to my feet, my bones and muscles aching from the stress of the high-g run. “I’m gonna check on our new crewmate.”
Chapter 8
As I approached the door to Edgar’s quarters, I realized he’d overridden my security permissions that allowed me to access any area of the ship. I was forced to knock loudly on the silver-grey graphite.
“Who is it?” he asked with an innocent tone.
Seriously? This guy was gonna drive me crazy. “Open up.”
I stood there, waiting. I was about to punch the door when it slid open. I stepped into the room. These weren’t the fanciest digs in the verse, but compared to the cramped crew quarters I saw on the Golden Bear, it was a total upgrade for Edgar. Privacy. A hundred fifty square feet. He even had his own bathroom. The room was steamy and smelled of lavender. Edgar had taken a shower and he apparently used the same soap as Desmond. Many ships had standard supplies like soaps and other toiletries. I was just surprised the baddest ship in the Tracer fleet had chosen lavender as its signature scent.
