by Juno Wells
The security officer raised an eyebrow. "Now tell me what's really bothering you?"
Isla couldn't quite meet her gaze, and instead began to study the room for its possible suitability as a long-term hiding place. "I don't know what you're talking about. Isn't that enough?"
"Come on." Griggs rubbed her mouth, trying to hide a smile. "What about that big chunk of alien you spent most of last night getting to know so well?"
Isla's cheeks burned more. "That's not —"
"What, you think he's rejected you? That he kicked you off the ship once he got what he wanted?" Griggs shook her head and pulled open the door, peeking into the hall to make sure it was clear. "I don't think that's it, babe. There's something else going on there, too."
"The ship left." It felt too final to say aloud, and Isla nearly choked on the words. "They left us. He left me. What else could it be?"
Griggs eased into the hall and continued to the next room down, glancing inside before shaking her head and moving to the next room down. "Jess said something last night that you might want to ask her for more details about. Apparently the Xaravians only turn purple when they're in love. Or lust. Something like that. It means something when they're blue and purple. So if that happened when you were with him, it's not just a fling."
Isla started to ask her more, but shouting came from the end of the hall, an angry voice giving orders. An angry Earther voice, speaking in the name of the Fleet. Isla grabbed Griggs to keep her from going ahead to kick the man's ass, and dragged her back down to the control room where Jess waited. They slipped through the door just as the Fleet officer turned the corner, and surprised all four of the other women.
Maisy lit up when she saw Isla, about to shout with joy, but Griggs shook her head and Isla motioned violently for silence. They waited, holding their breath, and retreated into dark corners and behind the heavy equipment and generators. Rowan's eyes widened when they finally heard the Fleet officer shouting at people to clear the way, and Isla's heart raced. Maybe they wouldn't have time to figure out what to do next.
Rowan held up a bulky bag, slightly darker than the dark room, and started handing out clothes. At least they wouldn't get caught by the Fleet while wearing Fleet uniforms. Unfortunately, the clothes smelled quite a bit and definitely didn't fit well, but they could at least play the part of down-on-their-luck refugees hiding out at a space port and looking for work. They fumbled around in the dark, periodically pausing to listen as running feet tracked up and down the hall, and someone shouted.
Isla tried to belt her borrowed trousers and failed, then searched for her Xaravian pants to figure out how to keep from looking like a pile of dirty laundry. She was still struggling to keep the pants from dragging at her ankles when Griggs peered into the hallway. She kept her voice low. "It's all clear. But we can't stay here long. We didn't see much down this hall, but there might be somewhere we can hide out to the other side."
"There's no telling when the Hawking officers will come back," Rowan said. "Are you sure you want to risk it?"
Griggs took a deep breath, her lips disappearing in a thin line as she stared at the ceiling and thought. "I don't know."
"What are we going to do?" Maisy asked. She sounded suddenly very, very young, and afraid. She was a brilliant doctor, Isla knew, but it was her first deployment and she hadn't seen much of the universe before she joined the Fleet. Isla shuffled over to her, almost tripping on her pants, to pull Maisy close to her side.
Jess crouched, sitting on her heels, and dug through the bag for something else. "Isla thinks the Fleet is here to destroy the Xaravians and blame them for the attack on the port and the squids. Maybe we can start with figuring out what's true and what isn't."
Griggs leaned against the wall, her eyes flashing in the dark room. "Between what I heard from Witz, what happened with the squids, and what I heard from Vrix... I believe Isla. I think we've all been greatly mistaken about the Fleet and the Alliance. We've been lied to."
Maisy looked up at Isla. "What is she talking about?"
"I was wrong when I said that Vaant threatened Witz unless he gave us up." Isla rubbed her temples. "With all the chaos and different languages, I got confused. Witz sold us, to get the Xaravians to not turn him in or follow the Argo. Vaant said he took us in order to keep Witz from trying to sell us to someone worse down the road."
Violet stared at her. "You can't be serious."
"I was there," Griggs said. "That shitty medical officer zapped me with tranquilizers so everything was a little blurry, but the Xaravians weren't the ones who demanded us."
The lawyer shook her head. "Witz is a career captain of the Fleet, he wouldn't —"
"He offered them food, then fuel, then us." Griggs's expression hardened. "In that order. We were just cargo to him, something he could sell for an advantage later on."
They sat in silence for a long moment, each woman lost in her own thoughts, and Isla debated whether to go on. She didn't know how much more Maisy could take, since she shivered and shook already. But they needed to know the truth. Isla cleared her throat and hoped no one freaked out too badly, otherwise they might be found by the Fleet officers searching the port. "In the control room of the port, we heard the hailing call from the Hawking. They blamed the Galaxos for attacking the squid ship and the port, and are going to destroy the Galaxos if they catch it."
Rowan covered her face and groaned. "But that's impossible. We were with the Xaravians. They didn't do either of those. Why the hell would the Fleet want to destroy a minor Xaravian ship?"
"They're rebels," Griggs said, when Isla couldn't come up with a reason. The security officer didn't quite meet her gaze as Isla stared at her. "Vrix mentioned something along those lines. They're scouts for one faction of the rebels, and they run weapons and supplies to some of the ship that have bounties on them."
Isla folded her arms over her chest. "Oh really. Vrix told you this? How interesting."
"No judgment, Lennox." The security officer studied her fingernails. "Now we have to figure out whether we want to challenge the Fleet and report what Witz did, risking the Hawking captain being aligned with Witz — which could put us in serious danger, or we can help out the rebels. Go completely to the other side."
"Or we could go our own way," Isla said, looking around at her friends. "Find our own ship. Help people and planets like we all wanted to by being Fleet officers. Now we can choose our own path."
Rowan's eyebrows rose, and a sudden light sparked in her expression. "Our own ship. We could go anywhere. Everywhere."
Isla nodded. "We don't have to join the rebels, but we can still… we can still make a difference. Make things better for people, and maybe keep the Fleet on warning for what they've done."
"They'll never let us get away with it, not for long." Violet rubbed her jaw and sat on a grimy toolbox, shaking her head as she stared at the floor. "They've broken so many laws... If we managed to get to the Allied Court and levy charges against them, or even hint that we considered that option, they'd come after us. A man like Witz would chase us to the edge of the universe to keep us from ruining his reputation and sending him to jail. And he's got far better connections in the Alliance than any of us. We have to be very, very careful."
Griggs sighed as she played with a pocket knife, cutting a ragged hem on her over-long sleeves. "Do any of you remember who the Hawking's captain is? If he's one of the many officers who hate Witz's guts, he might be willing to help us."
"How do we find out without getting caught?" Maisy asked.
"We go to the control room," Isla said. She straightened and looked at Rowan. "Do you think you can find a way through the vents to get to that part of the ship? The Hawking is going to board the port and speak with the captain, or at least get the tracking information from the last couple of days. He'll have to go to the control room. If we can observe him, we'll know enough to make a decision."
"And if he's aligned with Witz, we need to have an escape pl
an." Something about the twinkle in Griggs's eyes had Isla believing the security officer already had a plan.
For the first time in a long time, Isla's heart lifted and she wanted to smile. "I know that look. What kind of trouble are you thinking of?"
Griggs raised her hands in a wide-eyed innocent impersonation. "Who, me?"
The other five women groaned — quietly — and Violet pretended to cover her ears. "If it's really illegal, I probably don't want to know."
"We cause a diversion," Griggs said. "A major diversion here on the port, to draw all the Hawking officers off their ship and onto the port. Then we take the Hawking."
"You can't be serious," Rowan said. "A ship that size — there are six of us. We can't operate a Fleet battleship that size."
"Sure we can," Isla said, warming to the idea. "We can at least get away from the port. Maybe we can sell the Hawking for something smaller, more agile. It's a start, at least. It's a fresh start for all of us."
"As criminals," Violet added. "It's a fresh start as criminals and enemies of the Alliance. We can't steal a Fleet ship."
"They deserve it," Rowan said under her breath. "Let's figure out who's in charge of the Hawking and what they plan to do with the port first. Griggs, keep using that devious fucking brain to plot out the diversion and how the hell we'll be able to pilot that size ship out of here, and I'll try to get the blueprints for the ventilation system."
"Be careful," Maisy said as Rowan slipped out the door.
Isla crouched near Griggs, trying to help her plan, when Violet held a small cylinder out to her. "Here. This is for you."
"What do you mean?" Isla studied the small thing, curious about the buttons. "What is it?"
"We made it back to the Galaxos," Violet said. "Maisy and me. But that big captain, the one you like, was there. When he saw us, he told us to stay on the port and find you guys, so we could all stay together. And that, if we needed help, to trigger that beacon and they would come back for us."
Isla stared at the cylinder, even though she couldn't really see it as tears blurred her vision. Vaant wanted her to call him for help if she needed it. Maybe he did care.
Griggs grumbled under her breath about sentimental fools, and Isla elbowed her to get her to knock it off. She thanked Violet and kept a tight hold of the beacon, already feeling better to know that the Xaravians would come back if things went really wrong with Griggs's crazy plan.
Chapter 26
Vaant
Vaant woke up in the infirmary as the Galaxos shuddered and shook, and he immediately jumped out of the bed so he could get to the bridge. Alarms blared and the lights flashed. He got halfway there when Vrix almost tackled him. "You're not supposed to be up."
"We're under attack," Vaant said, though his vision swam from the pain in his head. It felt like someone took an axe to his skull and ripped out his spikes at the same time. He couldn't breathe. "Who is it? The Hawking? Argo? Who?"
"Everyone," Vrix said, turning orange with irritation. "But you're no good if you can't —"
"Get out of my way," Vaant said, and shouldered past the taller man. "I'm needed on the bridge."
He staggered as the Galaxos shook and a new level of urgency raced through the alarms. Vrix cursed and said, "That's the fire alarm. I'll deal with it," before he ran down a hall and disappeared around the corner.
Vaant dragged himself to the bridge, where Trazzak held onto the back of the captain's chair and shouted orders through the chaos of the alarms and lasers battering against their weakening shields. The second-in-command pointed him toward the map display, too busy orchestrating the attacks against what looked like two Alliance ships. "We've got to find some place to go, to hide. We can't take much more of this."
Vaant searched the maps and outlying space in that quadrant, desperate for anywhere the ship could limp so they could recover and refit. Trazzak and Adhz coordinated the feints and attacks against two smaller Fleet ships, neither of which was the Hawking, so at least they didn't face a true battleship. Vaant gripped the display as one of the Fleet ships fired again and the shield cracked, on the verge of breaking completely. They ran out of time. They wouldn't survive another hit like that.
Vaant bellowed out coordinates to the navigator. "Half speed to port."
"But sir —"
"To port," he shouted.
"That's directly into the cruiser," Trazzak said, looking back with swirls of gray panic in his skin. "We'll be heading right at them. Right into their range."
"We don't have time to evade them here," Vaant said. "Head to those coordinates. There's an asteroid belt. We can maneuver through there to the gaseous clouds around a planet in this sector, and lose them there. Maybe. But we can't just sit here and let them chase us until our shields are destroyed and we're sitting rabbits, waiting for the sandsnake to swallow us whole."
Trazzak shook his head. "Aye aye, Captain."
Adhz took a shaky breath and piloted the Galaxos where Vaant indicated, ramping up the generators so they gained enough speed to blow by the small Fleet ship and knock it off its trajectory. That bought them a little time as the second ship stopped firing so they didn't damage their sister ship. Vaant roared down to the engineers through the communicator. "We need more power. Everything we've got. Now. Burn it all."
"Aye aye," came through the communicator, then the Galaxos jolted and blasted forward. Vaant nearly fell a second time, barely bracing himself against the navigation screen before he embarrassed himself in front of more of his crew.
"Power to the rear shields," he said, trying to focus his breathing. "Ahead full, then hard to starboard. On my count. Three, two... One. Turn!"
Trazzak growled as he gripped the controls and wrenched the ship around, momentum carrying the Galaxos through a gaseous cloud and then smack into the middle of an asteroid belt. He kept up the noise as he tried to guide the Galaxos at its breakneck pace through the asteroids, grumbling and snarling as he narrowly avoided a giant chunk of rock that would have torn the ship in two.
"Status report," Vaant said. "Where are the Alliance ships?"
"The little one is falling back. They won't enter the asteroid belt." Vrix appeared on the bridge, covered in soot and reeking of chemical smoke. "The other one is trying to navigate around the belt to catch us on the other side. What do you think, Vaant?"
"Use the net." Vaant didn't normally deploy his secret weapon, since he didn't want the Alliance knowing too much about it, but when the survival of the ship and his crew was on the line, there wasn't another choice. The laser net weapon locked onto the ship as Vrix maneuvered the weapon controls, then the Galaxos jumped as he fired it off.
Vaant watched in the screen, holding his breath, as the immense laser net spread out and chased after the larger Fleet ship. Just as he feared the Alliance had found a defense against the rebel-created weapon, the ship stopped with a jerk and the net surrounded it and a nearby asteroid. He exhaled in relief as the Fleet ship remained tangled, the asteroid like an anchor in the net, and he glanced over at Vrix. "Good aim."
The security officer brushed his knuckles against his chest, as if shining them up for Vaant to kiss, but frowned at the soot covering nearly every inch of him. "It's my calling. Now, if we've got a moment to breathe before those bastards come after us again, I'm going to get a fresh uniform."
Vaant started to tease him for his vanity, since that prickly Earther woman wasn't on board, but he stopped short as it all came rushing back — losing Isla in the crowd, abandoning her on the port, sending her friends back into the chaos in the off chance they'd be able to reach her. He cleared his throat and searched for words, though he knew he might suggest turning around and heading back to the space port whether the Fleet pursued them or not. Before he could get a word out, the open frequency for distress calls blared into the bridge.
He gripped the edges of the screen as the Fleet's three-tone hailing call came first, followed by a message in the universal languages. "This is the Fl
eet ship Clerk Maxwell, with a message to all peace-loving vessels in space. Be advised of a criminal ship in the vicinity of the Ardema sector. The rebel ship Galaxos is crewed by murderers and thieves; they have attacked a civilian transporter and a neutral space port, and murdered all aboard. The Alliance beseeches all allied and neutral vessels to beware and to apprehend these monsters if given the opportunity. The Alliance offers a significant bounty for the location of the rebel ship Galaxos and for the heads of its captain and crew. End transmission."
It repeated, but they stood there in silence as the Galaxos drifted through the rest of the asteroid belt and disappeared into the gaseous clouds they could use for camouflage. As the gases enveloped the ship, the frequencies crackled and then disappeared, and the hailing call faded to nothing. Vaant took a deep breath. "Well, that's it. We're marked."
"Every ending is another beginning," Vrix said. But it sounded too somber.
Their previous way of life ended. It was over. They could no longer act as if they weren't rebels and expect to get away with it. Vaant leaned against the screen and stared down at the floor. A new life. They had to find a new life, a new way to support the rebellion and fight the Alliance. Stuck in a gaseous cloud surrounded by an asteroid field, and half a galaxy away from the complicated Earther woman he wanted in his life.
Vaant took a deep breath and straightened. They could always just go back to Xarav and wander in the desert. "Okay. We need another status check across all systems. Engineering, I need an update on what our power looks like and how much thrust we can expect to get if we need to run again. What happened with that fire?"
Vrix filled him in on the details, and as the security officer headed for his room to change, Vaant glanced over at Trazzak. "Any sign of the Argo?"
"Not in this quadrant," the second-in-command said. "We have her in our radars, so if she pops up within range, we'll know."
"Good." Vaant looked around the bridge, trying to remember what else he wanted to do, then looked up as Trazzak approached.
