by Homer Hickam
Truvia was studying Crescent. “I sense something unusual about you. I wish to study you in the lab. You have no objection?”
When Crescent didn’t answer, Truvia smiled. “Yes, there’s something about you I must know.” She glanced at Maria. “One last chance, Maria. Will you be our queen?”
Maria snarled, “Never!”
“Bring her along. I have an idea.”
“Trainer Truvia,” Camponitas said, “should we not be working to restore the station?”
Truvia turned toward Camponitas. “Our remaining warpod is docking with the station, and its cockpit will act as our temporary bridge. The central station puter was unharmed. We will be up and running normally within a few minutes. Does this satisfy your concerns, Camponitas?”
“I ask permission to kill myself for being impertinent, Trainer Truvia,” Camponitas replied.
“Permission denied for the present,” Truvia said. “But I may reconsider.”
“Yes, Trainer Truvia.”
FORTY-SIX
It’s cold in here, brother,” Petro said. Frost was forming on his helmet from his breath. He wiped at it with his gloved hand but was frustrated by the frost being on the inside.
“It would really be cold if those internal hatches hadn’t held,” Crater replied. “Or maybe we wouldn’t have been cold at all. Does heaven have a temperature, I wonder?”
“Heaven is never anything I’ve worried about,” Petro replied and then cocked his head at Crater. “You go off on strange tangents at times.”
Crater shrugged. “Well, it’s not much of a tangent to think about heaven since we seem to be so close to seeing it.”
“Or the other place,” Petro agreed without agreeing.
“You need to dial up your helmet vent,” Crater said, then reached over and did it for him.
Petro breathed in and out a couple of times. The helmet cleared and stayed clear. “Thanks. So what do we do next? Breathe down our air while singing hymns?”
Crater grimly smiled. “A hymn might help, but we probably need to first figure a way out of this situation and continue our rescue.”
Petro laughed. “Well if that isn’t typical Crater Trueblood. Figure a way out of this situation and continue. Haw! In case you haven’t noticed, brother, we are scragged, bagged, and tagged. Our fuser is mortally wounded, we have neither internal air or pressure in the truncated section we find ourselves floating through space in, we don’t have a taxi for a lifeboat, and we don’t have communications, not that it would help, seeing as how there’s not a friendly ear to listen within ninety thousand miles.”
“Crescent’s still out there in the taxi.”
“Doubtful. How could she escape?”
“And another fuser is flying toward L5.”
“I think the missile that hit us came from that fuser, so I don’t think it’s going to be any help.”
Crater couldn’t explain his optimism to Petro, but he felt it all the same. He was certain that sacrifice to a good cause was never in vain. All he needed to do was calculate the situation and figure out a course of action. The biolastic suits, backpacks, and helmets would last two days without recharging. That was good. They were inside a powerless hulk adrift along the rim of L5. That was bad. His conclusion was inevitable. “We’ll call for help,” he said.
“Are you kidding? Who around here would help us?”
“Maybe the L5 station would like to take us prisoners. For all we know, Crescent and Maria are prisoners too. Better to be a live prisoner with some chance to complete our mission than dead. Gillie, give a call out to all stations.”
When the gillie didn’t reply, he saw that it wasn’t on his shoulder or in his pocket. He began to search for it. When he found the gillie, adrift near the aft bulkhead, he saw it had a shard of litesteel through it. “Are you dead?” he asked.
Sick, it replied. Regenerating. Remove the litesteel. Thank you.
Crater pulled the litesteel shard from the mass of slime mold and then put the gillie in his pocket. “Get well, little buddy.”
“No gillie? We are well and truly scragged this time,” Petro said, shaking his head.
Crater thought some more. “We can communicate with our do4us. They normally don’t have much range, but if we route them through the external antenna, someone might hear us.”
“Might work. I never worked on the comm cabling before. It’s somewhere in here, I guess,” Petro said, touching the silent, dark console.
Crater flew back to the supply cabin where he selected a tool kit, then flew back to the cockpit and got to work. An hour later, he plugged his do4u into the ship’s comm circuit. “Confirm external antenna,” he said.
External antenna connected, the do4u said in the voice Crater had selected years ago.
“Whose voice is that?” Petro asked.
Crater blushed. “Maria’s.”
Petro chuckled. “You’re sick, Crater, truly sick.”
Crater dialed up the frequencies that warpods typically used because he thought the L5 station probably used them too. “Any station, any station. This is a mayday from the fuser Linda Terry. I say again this is a mayday from the fuser Linda Terry. We are disabled and adrift. Standing by for your response.”
After Crater repeated the message several times, he said, “I’ll repeat it every ten minutes until my do4u battery dies. Then we’ll use yours.”
A voice crackled from Crater’s do4u. “Linda Terry, we need help too!”
Crater and Petro looked at each other in astonishment. “This is the Linda Terry. Who’s this?”
“I am Captain Valence of warpod 6982. We are adrift. My crew is dying. We were attacked with kinetic weapons.”
“I know. We’re the ship that attacked you. What kind of damage did you sustain?”
“We lost our engines and environmental systems. How about you?”
“A missile hit us and we broke into two pieces. Listen, what have you done to restart your engines?”
“Everything we can think of. There doesn’t seem to be anything we can do.”
“Do you know your position?”
“Yes. We’ve called for help but no response. We heard the station bridge was struck by a female warrior of the Phoenix Legion. She has been captured.”
“Has anybody on the station said they would come out and save you?”
“No. I suppose they’ve decided since we lost, why rescue us?”
“How about if you rescued yourself?”
“With what?”
“Your cold nitrogen control system.”
“That system is for stability control and orientation.”
“It can also be used to move along a trajectory. It’ll be slow, but you can still move.”
“Where would we move?”
“Over to us.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because I can fix your engines.”
FORTY-SEVEN
This is where Truvia fixes broken bones,” Maria said as she and Crescent were shoved into the transformation lab. “Of course, first she orders them broken.”
“Maria, I must reiterate that you have been most unhelpful from the moment you joined us.” Truvia clucked. “And I really had such high hopes for you.”
Maria resisted the urge to spit in the Trainer’s face. “Sorry to spoil your plans.”
“They’re hardly spoiled. Nearly everything I’ve wanted will yet occur. Realistically, there’s no one who can stop what I’ve begun.”
Maria turned a verbal knife. “How about the fellow who gave you that shiner? Let me guess. You walked into a cabinet? Or maybe my father’s fist?”
“He didn’t mean it,” Truvia said, touching her eye. “He’s lately been under a lot of pressure.”
Maria hooted. “Spoken like every woman who’s enabled a woman beater. But why are we getting this guided tour? Shouldn’t you be out enjoying the destruction of the Earth or something? Oh, yeah. Crescent knocked out your bridge, so you c
an’t see it so well.”
“Not to worry. We will soon have another functioning bridge. But while that’s being accomplished, I really would love to study Crescent. She is both the last of her kind and the only of her kind. Crescent, this is a direct order from a Trainer. Remove your clothes and climb on that table.”
When Crescent didn’t comply, her arms were taken by the two crowhopper guards, and piece by piece her armor and biolastic suit were removed. Truvia tossed her a smock. “Put this on and lie down on the table.”
Crescent tilted her chin defiantly. “Go jump in a pile of scrag.”
At Truvia’s nod, the guards grabbed Crescent and held her while Truvia dressed her in the smock. She was then forced on the table and strapped down.
Truvia made a rectangle in the air and a blue screen appeared. She tapped on it and the table with Crescent began to move inside the instrument. An outline of Crescent’s body appeared with all of her internal organs revealed. Something else was revealed that was so evident even Maria gasped.
“A baby!” Truvia cocked her head toward Crescent. “But who’s the father? Male crowhoppers are sterile.”
“A human donor,” Crescent said quickly. “I don’t know his name.”
“Really? Let’s run a genealogical test.”
Truvia sat down at a puter, her fingers flying across the keyboard. Within seconds, the results came on screen. “The DNA mitochondrial test of the fetus shows your Siberian heritage, of course, but the father”—her fingers tapped more keys—“the father is a bit of a mongrel. Interesting. I see indicators of Northern European subgroup, Southeastern European subgroup, South Asian subgroup—that would be from the Indian subcontinent—Western African and—a very interesting haplogroup—American native, specifically of the Cherokee tribe.”
At the mention of the Cherokee connection, Maria raised her eyebrows. Truvia took notice. “Someone you know, Maria?” She tapped the keys, and the table holding Crescent slid back from the instrument.
“He doesn’t know,” Crescent whispered, looking at Maria. “When he broke his leg, my doctor gathered from him what was needed.”
Truvia smiled. “Crater Trueblood? The audacious fellow I keep hearing about? Too bad he’s dead.” She turned to Maria. “But I think I see it all now. The eternal triangle! Crater loved you. Crescent loved Crater. And you . . . well, you loved yourself.”
The puter sounded a tone. Truvia studied the screen. “Do you know why you were in the Phoenix Legion, Crescent? No? Well, it wasn’t because of what you thought. You don’t have the Phoenix gene. You were an experiment in another way. We wanted females with easy eggs to harvest. Otherwise we had to either hunt human females down or buy them and take their eggs. It was a nasty and very expensive business.”
Truvia walked up to the table where Crescent was strapped. “Is this not good news? You’re not going to die because of the Phoenix gene. Maybe from something else, but not that!”
Crescent looked in disbelief at Truvia even as she tried to understand the implications of the Trainer’s revelation. “Why did you allow me to think I was going to die young?”
Truvia shrugged. “The entire Phoenix Legion was under my scientific study. It was convenient to put you there. What you knew or didn’t know wasn’t part of my research.”
“You are more evil than I could possibly imagine,” Crescent hissed.
“Am I? But I want only your happiness.” She touched Crescent’s face, then looked into her eyes. “Why didn’t Crater love you instead of Maria? Of course, we both know the answer to that. Men are shallow creatures, aren’t they? He couldn’t see your inner beauty.”
Crescent said nothing, but the ache inside her heart was a painful reminder of the truth of the Trainer’s words.
“But I can fix that for you, Crescent,” Truvia went on. “I have Maria’s form in the 3DCP. In eight hours, I can change you to look and sound like her, and no one will be able to tell the difference. Do you want this?”
Crescent took a deep breath, then looked up at the ceiling where something caught her eye. Quickly, so it wouldn’t be noticed, she turned her head toward Maria. “What about her?” she asked.
“We’ll flush her into the station waste receptacle and expel her and the rest of the garbage into space.”
“And my baby?”
“It would be destroyed in the process of restructuring you, but you could have another. Men would be lining up to mate with you if you looked like Maria. Shall we get started?”
Crescent worked her lips into a greedy smile. “Don’t kill her yet. I want her to see me. I will make a much better Maria Medaris than she ever could.”
“Did I mention that we were going to make her our queen? This is so perfect. Now you can be our queen!”
“I will be pleased to be your queen,” Crescent replied gracefully.
Truvia turned on the 3DCP puter. “It will take about an hour to load in Maria’s data. Be patient.”
“Do you mind if I use for one last time the body design you gave me?” Crescent asked. “I’d like to show Dr. Medaris some of the fighting moves you Trainers taught me.”
“Ah, revenge. It is something I understand. Just as long as you don’t get hurt. That would slow the program down.”
“Oh, I won’t get hurt.”
Truvia unstrapped Crescent and then stepped back. Crescent walked across the room and slammed her fist into Maria’s stomach. Maria doubled over, choking, and then Crescent pounded her in the back with both fists. Maria sprawled onto the deck.
Truvia clapped her hands. “Oh, well done,” she said, just as a bolt of blue lightning arced from the ceiling into her head. Her eyes turned into green saucers, smoke escaped from her mouth and ears, and she slumped down.
Crescent helped Maria up. “Sorry, I needed to create a distraction while the gillie moved into position.”
“I can take it,” Maria replied. She looked up at the ceiling and spied the gray blob stuck there. “Is that my gillie?”
“It’s mine now,” Crescent said. She turned to the guards, who seemed paralyzed at the sight of their Trainer lying on the floor, smoke still coming from her head. “You know who I am. Whether I have the gene or not, I am from the Phoenix Legion. I require your loyalty.”
The guards looked at one another and shrugged. “Sounds good,” one of them said, and the others nodded their agreement.
FORTY-EIGHT
Crater and Petro stood at the hatch and looked across to the wing of the warpod, which had bumped against their fuser remnant. “Well, brother,” Petro said, “we’re going to have to cross over to that wing and hang on, but it looks pretty smooth. What happens if we bounce right off and sail into space? Think they’ll come after us?”
“Maybe not you, but I think they might come after me. After all, I told them I could fix their engines.” Crater elbowed Petro playfully in the ribs.
Petro remained serious. “And can you fix them?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll give it a shot. You see the engine nacelles? Aim for those.”
Petro judged the distance, then said, “You first.”
Crater shrugged and launched himself, his flight carrying him to the nacelle cover of the port engine exhaust. He grabbed it and held on. “Your turn,” he said to Petro. “Come on, you can do it.”
Despite his many weeks in space, Petro discovered standing outside on the skin of the fuser remnant frightened him. It was like being on the top of a mountain with nothing between him and an endless drop. His knees knocking, his hands trembling, he launched.
He nearly missed because he aimed too high. Crater caught him by the boot. “Got you, brother,” he said, and pulled him in.
A bay door on the warpod opened and a crowhopper reached up and grabbed their legs and pulled them both inside. “If our salvation is in the hands of you two,” he said, “I think we should go ahead and invoke our suicide pact.”
Another crowhopper was at an airlock at the front end of the bay and
gathered them in. “Pressurize,” he said as he pulled the hatch shut behind him. Fifteen minutes later, with their helmets off, Crater and Petro were pushed onto the warpod bridge where four more crowhoppers waited for them. “I am Captain Valence,” one of them said. He was a crowhopper with a vivid scar across his forehead.
“Crater Trueblood,” Crater said.
“Petro Mountbatten-Jones,” Petro said.
Valence frowned. “I must tell you the opinion of my crew is I should have left you in your fuser. For us, the honorable thing that remains is to commit suicide. In fact, it’s in our contract that we should kill ourselves if we find ourselves either prisoners unable to escape or in a hopeless situation.”
“Captain Valence,” Crater said firmly, “this isn’t a hopeless situation at all. After I fix one of your engines, you’ll be able to go anywhere you like.”
Valence seemed unconvinced. “By contract we shouldn’t go anywhere. By contract we should die.”
“What’s a contract?” Petro said. “Just words and signatures. Things sometimes change that aren’t covered by any contract. Life! Death! The pursuit of happiness!”
Valence stared at Petro. “Is he deranged?”
“A little. But listen, just give me a chance at your engines.”
“Captain Valence,” one of the crowhoppers said, “sir, with all due respect and whatnot, we should commit suicide.”
Valence pondered the earnest crewman, then said, “You go ahead and kill yourself, Agate. I will stay alive to see if we can get this ship running again. If we do, we can fulfill the other part of our contract, protecting the station. There’s another fuser out there that should be arriving soon.”
“While Crater is futzing with the engine,” Petro said, “how about I take a look at your contract? Maybe I can spot a loophole.”
“Be my guest,” Valence said. “Agate? You’re our sea lawyer, so put off your suicide for now. Show this human what we agreed to do as honorable mercenaries.”
Crater said, “I’ll need some tools and someone to help me open up the engine hatches.”
