by Lisa Lace
The bed was cold and alien. She turned on the heating, not because she was cold, but because she desperately needed comfort.
A hand on her shoulder made her jerk awake suddenly. Bethany’s eyes focused on Klowix.
His voice was soft. “It’s been four hours. We need to leave. You can’t stay here while we travel. You can come back to the passenger chair, or I can put you in one of the secure sleeping chambers, if you’re still tired.”
“Secure sleeping chambers?”
Klowix opened yet another panel in the wall. It looked like a coffin, just big enough to hold a human body, with foam on all sides.
“The foam molds to your body to keep you still and safe, rather like the straps on the chair do. There are oxygen vents here and here.”
“I’ll take the chair, thanks.” Bethany eyed the coffin-like device mistrustfully.
“You’ll get used to it eventually.” Klowix closed the panel. “There will be times when we can’t stop moving for days at a time, and we’ll both have to sleep. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I’ll take my chances trying to sleep in the chair.”
Klowix shrugged. “Well, that won’t be a problem today. We’ll be stopping and starting until we’re a better distance from the planet. If it helps, I can sedate you the first time.”
“Is that supposed to be making me feel better?”
“Well, it always helps with new recruits.”
Bethany rolled her eyes and led the way to the control room.
Klowix stepped up to the controls. “This is the critical stage. The farther we get from Telion, the wider the area they’ll have to search to find us. The positions are right. We have the best chance of slipping away now.”
“Did you talk to Culip?”
“She’s helped me do as much as I can to increase the shields in the limited time before our window. While we’re travelling, she’s going to find out as much as she can about engineering the shields to hide us better. Once we’ve arrived somewhere safe, I’ll contact her again.”
Klowix went quiet, focusing on the ship. Bethany could hear the ship’s engines revving up to go. She hoped Klowix was right about being able to slip away. She didn’t know much about spaceships, but even she realized that being outnumbered by multiple warships was not a position they wanted to find themselves in.
At first, her nerves were on edge, expecting every second to hear alarms blaring and shots firing. Nothing happened.
“Is everything ok?”
Klowix only murmured a response, his eyes fixed on the screens. “So far.”
Bethany fidgeted. She wanted to do something helpful, but she had no knowledge of space travel. She wished Culip were there to teach her.
The minutes seemed to drag by; soon they turned into hours. Bethany didn’t want to break Klowix’s concentration, but the nervousness was fading into boredom.
“We’ve been travelling for ages; we must be nearly there.”
Klowix burst out laughing. “You really don’t know much about interplanetary travel, do you? Space is enormous. With the warp drive, we could get where we wanted to relatively quickly, but at sub-light speeds, the distance we’ve covered is like an acorn to an oak tree.”
Bethany felt her face going red and didn’t say anything.
“Don’t worry, all new recruits struggle with the concept.”
“I’m not a new recruit, though.”
He sounded serious now. “You’re going to have to be. This is a difficult path we’ve chosen. We’re both going to have to work hard and learn fast.”
Bethany knew well the dangers, but despite that, she couldn’t bring herself to regret her choice. Somehow, she’d rather be here than back home in the backlands, living the same dull cycle over and over again.
After what seemed like forever, Klowix motioned her to the controls.
“I need you to watch everything. I’m going to get us something to eat. If there are any red blinking lights, call me at once. See here, the trajectory line? That should always be green. If we stray off it, it will go yellow, then red. You can correct it with this control stick here.”
Bethany eyed the controls as though they might bite her. “Is that likely to happen?”
“Only if we encounter interference of some kind. It’s unusual, but there are many things in space. Fortunately, they are spread so far apart that they mostly aren’t a concern to us. Here, you can monitor life support. The optimal numbers are on the right, and the operating numbers are on the left. If the numbers deviate, you can run a diagnostic like this.”
Bethany nodded, trying to remember it all.
“That’s enough for now. I’ll teach you some more tomorrow. By the time we’ve arrived, you’ll be a pilot.”
Bethany smiled; she liked that idea.
As Klowix went in search of food, she carefully watched the numbers, colors and lines. For everything Klowix had explained to her, there were a dozen that meant nothing to her. She tried to focus only on what she was meant to be watching and ignore the rest.
After they ate, Klowix said he was going to get some rest, and she should keep monitoring the ship. Everything was quiet. Bethany was beginning to get hopeful. Maybe they’d gotten away after all.
It was the fifth day of flying when something out of the ordinary finally happened. Klowix was in the back working on the shield, but the connection to Culip was patchy from this area, so it was slow going. Bethany’s eyes roamed the control panel. She understood a lot more of it now.
She did a double take as a flash of red replaced the mass of green. She looked at the section, and her heart seemed to stop.
“Klowix!”
Not trusting that he’d heard her, she took off running. “Klowix!”
He came out of the engine room on a dead run, a spanner still in his hand.
Bethany gasped. “Red lights.”
Klowix didn’t ask any questions, but dropped the spanner and went for the control room at full speed.
Alarms began going off as his fingers flew over the controls. Bethany recognized the shield controls as he put shields on full strength.
“Strap yourself in!”
She was already ahead of him, buckling the last of the straps in the passenger seat.
“How did they find us?”
Klowix shook his head but didn’t say anything, his entire focus on evading the enemy ships. He’d told Bethany that it would be weeks before they were truly safe, but after five days of nothing, she’d begun to get hopeful. The ship lurched violently as Klowix dodged a blast.
“Klowix? What’s happening?”
“They’ve managed to override the primary system.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that they have control of the ship. They’re bringing us in.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Your ship is disabled. Prepare to surrender.”
Bethany glanced at Klowix in terror. “What are they going to do with us?”
He still had a fierce expression that clearly showed he hadn’t given up. “If I have anything to say about it, nothing.”
“Tolo, Commander Klowix coming in. We’re unarmed and prepared to receive you.”
The ship jolted slightly, and through the glass screen in front, Bethany could see what looked like a short metal tube joining their ship to a significantly larger one.
Men rushed in, faster than Bethany’s eye could track, training weapons on the two of them.
Klowix snapped at them. “Put your gun down, soldier.”
The man in the lead hesitated, clearly not comfortable going against Klowix’s orders, despite his treachery against the king.
“Now!”
Slowly, the guns lowered.
Tolo spoke hesitantly. “You… you have to come with us, Commander. The king demands it.”
“Understood. Come, Bethany.”
Under the pretense of helping her unstrap herself from the chair, Klowix leaned
down close to her and whispered in her ear. “Break the warp drive.”
She felt him pushing something cold and hard into her hands. Quickly hiding it inside her jacket, Bethany glanced down to see that it was the T-screen he’d been using to communicate with Culip. Her mind spun, trying to work out what he wanted her to do. Break the warp drive. That would mean they’d take just as long getting back as they had getting here.
By the way he was handling the soldiers, she expected he was going to try to convince them to let them go. She didn’t know if that would work, but it certainly wouldn’t if she didn’t buy them some time.
She followed Klowix quietly through the metal tube. As they reached the other ship, she quickened her breathing and began to bring a slight tremor into her hands. Tolo glanced at her, but didn’t say anything. They were led to what Bethany assumed would be the control room. With a final loud gasp, she let her legs collapse.
“Bethany!”
To the soldiers, Klowix would sound shocked and worried. She knew him better than that, though; she could detect the hint of pride in his voice.
Klowix spoke quickly. “She’s fragile, easily upset. She needs to rest, to lie down somewhere.”
“Yentri, take her to one of the bunks. Post a guard outside. I’m sorry, Commander, but we’ll have to search you.”
Bethany cracked her eyes open enough to see Klowix spreading his arms, submitting to the search. They didn’t think to search her, a fragile human who couldn’t even handle walking from one ship to the next. She was lifted by one of the soldiers – Yentri, she assumed – and forced herself to remain limp.
She hated to separate from Klowix, but she knew that the scrutiny on him would be too tight to do anything. She felt herself being laid down on a narrow bed and heard a door closing.
Bethany opened her eyes to find herself in a room with ten bunks, though she was thankfully alone for the moment. Creeping to the door, she pressed her ear to it. She couldn’t hear anything, but she knew the guard must be close by.
Trying to remain as quiet as possible, she wriggled under the blankets and turned away from the door. If anyone saw her, hopefully they’d assume she was still asleep.
Easing the T-screen out, Bethany carefully hid it under the blankets and turned off the volume. She sent a text message.
Culip, I need your help. Are you there?
The answer came immediately. I’m here.
It’s Bethany here. Klowix and I have been captured. I pretended to faint; they took me to a bunk room. I’m alone, but there’s a guard outside the door. Klowix says I need to break the warp engine. Can you help me?
Yes. Culip’s next message was a few minutes in coming.
First, you need to find the engine room. That’ll be at the bottom of the ship. Keep going down stairs until you can’t go any farther, then follow the loudest noise you can hear. If you don’t want them to fix it, you can’t just pull out some wires in the drive – they could replace those. You need to break the interior core regulator. They won’t have another of those on the ship; they’ll have to fly back to Telion at normal speeds to get a replacement.
Without the interior core regulator, the warp drive can’t regulate its heat; because of the danger involved, it won’t even start. There will be panels somewhere in the engine room. The blue ones are the warp drive panels. You need to open them up and get the core regulator out. It’ll be labelled with a barcode including the numbers 23075. You may need to push some wires aside to find it.
It’ll be hot – you can’t take it out with your bare hands. You’ll need to smash it. It’s pretty tough, so you’ll need something heavy to smash it with. One of the panels should work.
Bethany read through the message a few times, trying to memorize it.
What happens if we’re already in hyperspace when I disable the regulator?
The ship will explode.
Bethany swallowed. She quickly thanked Culip and got out of bed. Clearly, she had no time to waste. Rummaging around the room, she managed to lay her hands on a large piece of metal equipment. She had no idea what it was, but it was heavy. Before she could lose her nerve, Bethany opened the door.
The guard outside turned to her politely, about to ask a question – probably if she was recovered. Bethany didn’t give him a chance. She hit him on the head as hard as she could. Not expecting an attack from her, he crumpled without a word.
Mentally thanking Klowix for everything he’d taught her, Bethany crept out. At the end of the corridor was a flight of stairs. She took it down, then took the next one, and the one after that.
She supposed everyone was up at the control center guarding Klowix, thinking she was harmlessly asleep. Finally, it seemed she was as low on the ship as she would be able to go. She cast around, listening. There seemed to be noise coming from all over. Hoping she was going in the right direction, Bethany set off.
The noise grew louder and louder until it was uncomfortable in her ears. The engine room was hot. Glancing around, Bethany saw no one. It didn’t take long to realize that she had a problem. There were a number of panels and at least three of them were glowing different shades of blue.
She pulled up the T-screen and called Culip, hoping the noise all around her would be enough to mask the sound of their conversation.
Culip answered at once, her face pinched with worry. “Bethany?”
“Which one is it?” Bethany turned the screen to face the panels.
She could only just make out Culip’s voice over the sound of the engines. “The one on the left. Be careful…”
Bethany propped the T-screen up against a wall and tried to dislodge the panel. It didn’t want to come off, and she resorted to using what she assumed was valuable equipment as a prybar. The panel came off with a clang. Bethany froze, waiting for people to come running, but the noise was absorbed by the roaring of the engines. The blue of the panel started to glow brighter.
“Bethany! Hurry – they’re about to fire up the warp engine.”
In a panic, Bethany pulled at the wires, trying to see the numbers etched on the various parts. Finally, she saw it – 4569230752.
“Bethany, now!”
She had planned to find gloves or something to protect her hands, but the urgency in Culip’s voice spurred her on. Bethany thrust her hands into the panel and grabbed the regulator. She screamed as the hot metal seared her flesh, but she hung on. She yanked it out and let it drop to the floor.
Not sparing the time to comfort her aching hands, she grabbed the panel and started smashing. She couldn’t hear if Culip was saying anything over the noise of her destruction. All she could think about was the burning agony in her palms, agony that twisted with every movement.
Bethany stopped only when someone grabbed her middle and pulled her roughly away.
“Don’t you touch her!”
The hands let go of her and she felt herself enfolded in Klowix’s arms. “What have you done?” He turned her hands gently so that he could see them.
“Bought us time.”
Klowix yelled to one of the guards. “We need the medical kit here!” And when Klowix yelled, people ran; this was certainly no exception. Klowix lowered her to the floor and held her wrists, keeping her palms from touching anything else in the grimy engine room.
Bethany recognized the device that had been used to heal her before and eagerly held her hands out. There was a flash of heat, and the pain dissipated. When Klowix released her wrists, she saw that the skin was smooth and unharmed.
“Commander, what is the meaning of this!” Tolo looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be furious or impressed.
“Come. Let’s get Bethany lying down, and I will explain.”
Even though these soldiers were their captors, a lifetime of habits was hard to break, and they followed Klowix’s orders. Getting them to disobey a direct order from the king, though, that would be a little more difficult.
Bethany lay down on the bunk, even though she was s
till too full of adrenaline to be tired. Klowix pulled up a chair and gestured for the other soldiers to sit down. She expected a whole moving speech that would in the end convince them to let her and Klowix go. There was no speech. He gave them only four simple words.
“Bethany is my secrena.”
The silence was so complete that Bethany thought she could have heard a pin drop.
“But… but does the king know this?” Tolo stammered.
“I suspect he does. Even if he doesn’t, I doubt telling him would change anything.”
“It would have to. You can’t separate a citizen from his secrena; it’s one of our highest laws. Even the king wouldn’t dare.”
Klowix snapped at him now and seemed to become bigger as the men around him diminished. “Tolo, use your head. Is the king acting rationally right now? Look at his actions and evaluate them. Come to a conclusion, like I have taught you.”
Tolo looked uncomfortable. “Commander, I have done as you taught me and arrived at the same conclusions you have, but disobeying the king…”
“You are afraid of throwing our planet into civil war. You should be; civil war is never an acceptable consequence. Look at the facts, though. The king has thrown us into civil war himself. What you do here won’t change that. There are already portions of the army working against him, for the people. You must know this.”
Tolo didn’t say anything, and didn’t meet Klowix’s gaze. Klowix didn’t press his case. He simply observed Tolo like he was observing a pupil trying to learn a difficult lesson.
“What would you have us do?”
Klowix looked at him. “If you need to ask me, then you are no Commander. You are a good leader, Tolo. In my absence, you will be called upon to lead either the troops of the king, or the free people. You will choose which. You cannot ask me what to do. Tell me what you are going to do.”
Their gazes met with an intensity that Bethany thought might draw sparks. Finally, Tolo straightened.
“Stop our course to Telion. Get some men to escort Commander Klowix and his secrena back to their ship. Radio silence and shields at full. We want to intercept any others who come this way.”
