by Ryk Brown
“How’s it going, Neli?” Josh asked over the comms.
“Everyone’s off. We’re closing up now,” she replied.
“You already do the separation checklist?” Loki asked.
“Yes, I did the separation checklist,” Josh moaned. “You’re as bad as Connor with all your checklists. Real pilots don’t need checklists.”
“Perhaps,” Loki replied. “But real pilots use them anyway.”
Josh laughed again. “You should fly with Connor. You two would get along great.”
“Glendanon, Seiiki. Ready to disconnect,” Loki called over the comms.
“Seiiki, Glendanon. Disconnect in three……two……one……”
There was a clang of metal, followed by the hiss of escaping air, as the docking clamps that held the Seiiki against the Glendanon’s docking collar released their hold on the smaller ship.
“Pushing off,” Josh reported as he fired the separation thrusters.
“How is he?” Loki wondered, as he scanned the Seiiki’s systems, checking for any anomalies.
“Nervous, unsure, freaked out,” Josh replied. “Wouldn’t you be?”
“Seiiki, Glendanon. Clean release.”
“See you on the next one,” Loki replied.
Josh fired the separation thrusters again, increasing their rate of separation from the much larger cargo ship.
“Why did he change his mind?” Loki wondered.
“Not sure he did,” Josh replied as he twisted his flight control stick to swing the Seiiki’s nose away from the Glendanon.
“Then why did he decide to come back?”
“I don’t know, to be honest,” Josh replied. “He just suddenly changed his mind. You got the jump down ready?”
“We’re jumping down?” Loki asked, surprised.
“Connor likes to save every drop of propellant we can, since we never know where the next drop is coming from.”
“I guess I’ve been spoiled flying corporate.”
“Give me fifteen down, and reduce your forward speed to fifteen hundred,” Loki instructed.
“Fifteen hundred? We’ll drop like a rock.”
“We’ll burn less fuel slowing vertically because of the forward lift fan,” Loki explained.
“You sure?”
“It’s just math, Josh.”
“Never did like math much,” Josh mumbled. “Setting her up to fall from the sky.”
Loki finished entering the jump back down to Lawrence Spaceport into the jump-nav computer. “So, is he going to do it?”
“Become Nathan?”
“What else?”
Josh sighed. “I really don’t know.” He looked at Loki. “I sure hope so. Think of all the new adventures we’ll have.”
Loki rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure Lael will love that.”
* * *
Connor walked into the Ghatazhak medical ward, but was unprepared for what he saw. What had probably been a clean, orderly, efficient facility, was now in complete chaos. The wounded were everywhere. Ghatazhak soldiers and civilian medical technicians scrambled to administer booster doses of Corinairan nanites to aid in the healing. Those who were beyond the capabilities of nanite therapy were given pain killers and sedatives, to ease them peacefully into an eternal sleep.
An image flashed in his mind. A medical bay. A young doctor, struggling to tend an overwhelming number of the wounded. A dying man. Someone important to him. His father? His brother?
His captain.
Connor exchanged glances with both Doctor Sato and Doctor Megel, both doing their best to lend aid, despite the fact that neither of them were even remotely qualified.
From a connected room, the only true doctor the Ghatazhak had stepped forth, calling for the next patient. He too was covered with blood, unable to take even a moment to clean himself from the previous patients.
Connor turned to General Telles, whom he had followed inside. “Why isn’t anyone helping them?” he wondered, pointing to the people lying nearest to the entrance.
“Priorities,” the general stated in hushed tones. “We must first treat those who are salvageable, those who may yet still be of service.”
“Still be of service?” Connor couldn’t believe what he was hearing, or what he was seeing. “How can you…”
“What you see here is but a fraction of those dead and dying, and of those soon to join them. This world is doomed. We cannot save them.”
“But most of these people are still alive,” Connor said, being careful to keep his voice as low as the general’s.
“For now.” General Telles could see the horror in Connor’s eyes. “Our effectiveness, our ability to adapt, react, to fight… It would be adversely affected if we tried to evacuate these people and care for them. We barely have the ability to care for our own, let alone the tens of thousands scattered all over Lawrence.”
Connor looked around again. “It’s not fair.”
“Life rarely is.” General Telles looked at Connor again. “You are angry.”
Connor thought for a moment, biting his lip. “Yeah, I’m angry.”
“How angry?” the general asked.
Connor looked at him, a puzzled expression on his face.
“How angry are you?” the general repeated.
“Very angry,” Connor replied, sounding uncertain.
“Who are you angry at?”
“At the Dusahn, of course.”
“Angry enough to kill one of them, if he walked through the door right now?”
Connor stared at the general. He could feel his anger and frustration welling up inside him, and he felt like he was about to explode. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah.”
General Telles could see Connor’s emotions swelling in his eyes. He reached down and drew his sidearm from its mount on his hip, and held it up, handle-first, offering it to Connor. “So you could use this, to take the life of another man, simply because of the uniform he wore?”
“If it’s the uniform of the Jung… Easily.”
“You mean, of the Dusahn,” the general corrected.
“Jung, Dusahn… Same thing, right?”
“Nothing is ever that black and white. As I am sure you are well aware.” He again offered the weapon to Connor. “Take it. I suspect you’ll need it.”
“Thanks, but I have one,” Connor replied.
“Consider this a needed upgrade, Captain.”
“Very well,” Connor replied. He checked that the weapon was powered down, then tucked it in his belt, pulling his jacket down over it. “Where is she?”
“Through that door,” the general said, pointing.
Connor turned to head in the direction the general had pointed.
General Telles put his hand on Connor’s shoulder to stop him. “The anger that you feel is a potent weapon… If you can control it. If you cannot, then it is best that you walk away now, lest you take many others down with you.”
Connor looked at him. “You’re not much of a salesman, are you?”
“I will not lie to you, Captain. Not as Connor, or as Nathan. Should you choose to assume the role of Na-Tan, you will carry great responsibilities, ones that will change you forever.” General Telles looked deeper into Connor’s eyes. “But, I suspect that you are well aware of this fact.”
Connor did not respond. He merely pulled away and continued to the door that the general had pointed toward.
He opened the door slowly, peeking inside to find Jessica sitting in a chair, her leg wrapped from hip to mid-calf in a bloody, makeshift bandage. The room was littered with more soiled bandages, and on the table next to her was a tray filled with bloody surgical instruments. On the floor next to her were the remnants of the body armor that
had previously been fused with her own tissues. “Jesus,” he muttered, half to himself.
“Yeah, the housekeeping here sucks,” Jessica replied jokingly.
“Are you okay?” Connor asked. “You look really pale.”
“Yeah, they don’t have enough SPR to go around, so I passed on it. I guess I’ll just have to wait for my body to make its own blood.”
“Shouldn’t you lie down, or something?”
“Where?” she asked, looking around the blood-spattered room. “I’m fine here. Besides, they gave me a whopper of a nanite booster. Doc says I should be ready to go in a couple days.”
Connor looked at her leg, remembering what it had looked like when they carried her off his ship only an hour ago. “Doesn’t seem possible.”
“Yeah, well, those fifth-gen nanites are pretty remarkable. Better yet, they don’t hurt at all, which is a big improvement, let me tell you. How is my family doing?”
“Fine, I suppose. General Telles sent them to the Glendanon. Something about not wanting you to be distracted.”
“How’s your ship?” she asked.
“Remarkably, still in one piece. Josh and Loki are shuttling people up to the Glendanon as we speak.”
Jessica smiled, wincing as she adjusted herself in her seat. “It’s good that they’re flying together again. They’re a hell of a team.”
“So Josh tells me.”
After an awkward silence, Jessica asked, “Why did you come back?”
“Telles asked me the same thing.”
“Great minds, I suppose,” she joked. “And what did you tell him?”
“That it just felt like the right thing to do.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Jessica noticed the Ghatazhak weapon tucked into Connor’s belt. “Nice gun.”
“Yeah. Telles gave it to me. Said I was going to need it.”
“He’s right,” Jessica agreed. “Whether you stay or go, you’re still going to need it, sooner or later.”
“I’m thinking I’m going to need it soon,” Connor told her, a smile creeping out from behind his beard. “Real soon.”
Jessica reached out and took Connor’s hand, smiling back at him. “Finally.”
CHAPTER SIX
“We have moved all our cargo forward, and are in the process of casting the containers adrift in orbit over Burgess, as ordered,” the Glendanon’s cargo master reported.
“Damn, that’s a lot of credits being tossed out into space, Captain,” the Glendanon’s first officer pointed out.
“With any luck, we can come back and retrieve most of it later.”
“We stacked the empty pods up against the aft bulkhead of the cargo bay, and joined them together with connector tunnels,” the cargo master continued. “The first two class one pods full of evacuees have already been loaded and joined.”
“Are we going to have enough connector tunnels?” Captain Gullen wondered.
“No, sir,” the chief engineer replied. “There were only four more on Burgess. But I’ve got my men taking apart one of the empty class three pods and cutting it up. We can use the panels to weld together pass-through tunnels and connect the pods vertically.”
“Why can’t we do that to connect them side to side as well?” the first officer asked.
“The stacks can move as much as five centimeters from side to side under way, depending on how we’re maneuvering. That’s enough to break the welds. The pods don’t move in relation to other pods in the stack, though. That cuts down on the number of connector tunnels we need.”
“Just use the tunnels to connect the uppermost pods,” the captain instructed.
“That’s what I was thinking,” his chief engineer assured him. “People in the lower pods will have to go up to move to another stack, but that’s a lot better than being completely sealed in.”
“Make sure the first pod in every stack is an empty one,” the captain added. “That will guarantee them a little room to spread out, at least.”
“We’re rigging up some makeshift heads, as well,” his engineer explained. “They won’t be pretty, but they’ll work for now.”
“How long are we expecting to have all these people on board?” the first officer wondered.
“I have no idea,” Captain Gullen admitted. “No more than a few days, I hope. Just long enough to find a world to safely put them on, I imagine.”
“Who’s going to want them?” the first officer asked.
Captain Gullen looked at him with reproach. “They’re refugees, Masel.”
“They’re fugitives in the eyes of the Dusahn,” Masel argued. “Ones who are attempting to escape punishment for aiding and abetting those against the Dusahn. They might be afraid of suffering the same punishment. That is why the Dusahn do such things, isn’t it? Wiping out entire worlds just to scare the shit out of everyone, to make people think twice about opposing them?”
“He’s got a point, Captain,” the engineer agreed. “They might even turn them over just to prove their loyalty.”
“The two of you sure paint a bleak picture of humanity in the Pentaurus sector, don’t you?” Captain Gullen commented.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but I’m inclined to believe that it’s going to be every world for itself…at least in the foreseeable future.”
Captain Gullen sighed. “Do what you can, gentlemen. And pray that we don’t have to set them off on an uninhabited world.”
* * *
Connor stepped out of the medical facility and into the cool night air. The area around the building was still littered with the bodies of the wounded, mixed in with those of the dead. The smell of blood and flesh, mixed with the scent of nearby fires, created an acrid aroma that seemed as if it were burning the very soul with each breath.
The medical staffing had been low inside. Out here, it was practically nonexistent. Those caring for the wounded were obviously civilians, each doing what they could to help one another. Connor wondered why they were even trying. Surely they realized they were doomed? Surely they realized that the Dusahn would return and finish what they had started?
Connor tried to avoid witnessing the suffering, instead looking out across the battle-scarred tarmac at the chaos outside the medical facility. There were now four boxcars being loaded, and at least a dozen class one cargo pods nearby that people were fighting to enter. Such a dichotomy.
Connor spotted General Telles, standing next to a small ground vehicle, guarded by two Ghatazhak. Next to the general was a Ghatazhak officer holding a full-immersion camera. The general signaled Connor, and he welcomed the reason not to stay and help.
“What are you doing?” Connor asked, pointing at the cameraman as he approached.
“Documenting. Propaganda is a powerful weapon,” he explained. “There is something that we must do”.
“What’s that?” Connor asked, coming to stand in front of the general.
“There was a woman, one you probably do not remember. Jalea Torren. She was a member of the Karuzari.”
“The rebels who opposed the Ta’Akar Empire,” Connor said, recognizing the name. “I remember reading about them.”
“She was a vile creature. Manipulative and deceitful, willing to do whatever was necessary to accomplish her goals.”
“Isn’t that what was needed at the time?”
“Yes, but she cared nothing for the people they were trying to liberate, nor any who fought beside her. Vengeance was her sole motivation. Vengeance for the death of her husband and child.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Connor asked, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of a combat jump shuttle landing nearby.
“It was she who conjured the legend of Na-Tan to rally support fo
r the final push that defeated the empire.”
“I have read that legend as well, General,” Connor said. “It says he led a fleet from the decks of a great and powerful ship. The Seiiki’s a nice ship, but she’s hardly great and powerful. And as for a fleet? Two cargo ships, a half dozen boxcars, and a few jump shuttles aren’t going to cut it.”
“I have an idea,” the general said, his voice lowering in volume now that the combat jump shuttle was spooling its engines back down to idle. “But it does present some risk.”
“To who?”
“To you, and to those who will care greatly about you, once you become Nathan again.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Come, I will explain on the way. We must get someplace more quiet.”
* * *
Cameron sat in her ready room aboard the Aurora, studying the latest readiness reports. “Any word on the next resupply?” she asked her executive officer.
“Command promises later today,” Commander Kaplan replied. “They’re finishing loading her as we speak.”
“Are we getting jump missiles this time?”
“Yup. And spreaders, anti-FTL, sensor drones, comm-drones… Everything we need except crew.”
Cameron sighed.
“I talked to a friend of mine from the academy. He said that command is trying to crew two more destroyers that are coming off the line in a couple days.”
“Those ships haven’t even been through flight trials,” Cameron protested.
“Trial by fire, I suppose. Anyway, he said they’re pulling ten percent of the crew from each ship in the fleet in order to crew them. Bottom line is, we’re lucky they’re not pulling any of our crew.”
“So, we’re stuck at seventy-five percent staffing levels then,” Cameron stated irritably.
“Probably for a few more weeks, at least. My friend said he might be able to get me some new recruits who just finished basic, but we’d have to train them from the ground up.”
