by S. J. Madill
"Captain," said the Chief, immediately to his right. He hadn't heard her approach, and it startled him. He deliberately paused a moment, letting the adrenalin drain from his system, before casually turning his head toward her.
She had that damned smirk on her face again. "Got you, didn't I, sir?" she said, just loud enough for him to hear.
"Stop that," he said, a grin cracking his face. "What's up?"
"Still no sign. Of course, if they landed on an outer planet, it would take time for us to see it."
"I know," breathed Dillon, studying the wide display that floated in front of the bridge windows. Seven dots orbiting the central star, each in perfectly circular orbits save the one rebellious ellipse. "We've already been to all the planets twice. Listened at each of them, scanned for anything on the surface, or any energy discharges." He glanced back at the Chief, tapping the pen between his molars. "God damn it, Chief. We're at the wrong planet. Fifty-fifty chance, and we screwed it." He shook his head. "Fuck."
"Do we head to the other system now?"
Grabbing the pen from his mouth, he jabbed it toward the display at the front of the bridge. "If they moved at a Juliett's normal speed, they arrived at Twelve-India half an hour ago. If we leave now, at best we'd be there in, what?"
"Three hours from here, sir. We're in the opposite direction."
"So those kids will have been on their own, with some murderous asshole on their trail, for three and a half hours by the time we get there."
The Chief nodded slowly. He knew she was letting him have his rant, just like she always did. As soon as he realised it, he lost enthusiasm for his anger and fell silent, as the Chief pretended to take an interest in the shine of her boots. "Fine," he said quietly. "You're waiting for me to blow off all my steam before you say something. Out with it."
Chief Black was staring down at the deck, her hands clasped behind her back. Her voice was quiet again. "We do have a jump drive, sir."
Dillon waved a hand. "No way. It's sealed, and there's a standing order from the Minister of Defence about it. No one jumps, for any reason, until we get the all clear. They're still nervous about stable wormholes and dimensional rips and all that."
The Chief nodded silently, pursing her lips. She was humouring him again. He knew that look. "Of course, sir," she said. "They'd never give permission." She met eyes with him and gave an insincere smile. "Your orders, sir?"
"Fire up the FTL drive. Take us to each planet in this system, one at a time, as fast as you can. Do a quick scan at each of them. If we don't find anything, we plot a course to Twelve-India and get underway at our best speed."
"Aye aye, sir. I can have us round this system in ten minutes or less, then get us underway."
As the Chief returned to her station, Dillon picked up his mug, only to discover it had somehow become empty. Must've evaporated, he thought. "Chief has the bridge," he said aloud, "I'll be in the wardroom, dosing myself with caffeine." With a shove on the arms of the captain's chair, he propelled himself to his feet and strode toward the hatch at the back of the bridge.
Through the hatch, he made a right turn into the passageway, and then left into the wardroom's open door.
Inside, the galley was on his left, where coffee awaited him. Ahead, along the far wall, stretched a leather bench with a long wooden table in front of it and a row of chairs on the near side. In the far corner on the bench, sat Amba. Among the dark brown wood and leather of the wardroom, she stood out in brilliant white and blue robes than matched her face and hair. One white-gloved hand held a teacup, while the other rested next to a datapad on the table. She looked up as he entered the wardroom, and gave a smile. "Captain," she said, her voice a soothing chord. "Do you have time to join me, or are you merely here for a refuelling?"
"Just here for fuel," said Dillon, though he wished he wasn't. He stepped toward the galley counter, where the young galley's mate had already poured a cup for him and was stirring in a dollop of whitener. Dillon traded his old mug for new, and gave it another stir as the apron-wearing crewmember retreated out the back door to the galley.
"You know what," he said, changing his mind. "I do have a few minutes." Blowing on the top of his coffee, he walked across the small wardroom to the far end of the bench, where Amba sat. Dillon slid onto the curved end of the bench, sitting at the head of the table.
Giving a quick glance in the direction of the empty galley counter, Amba turned her face toward him, those cobalt-blue eyes finding his. "Feda," she said, "are you well? You seem worried."
"I am," he said, taking a sip. He smacked his lips while he collected his thoughts. Those blue eyes of hers had a way of derailing his train of thought. "I'm convinced we came to the wrong system. We're leaving shortly for the other one." He pulled his eyes away from her, down into his mug. "Three hours, Amba. Three damned hours before we get there."
Amba's robe rustled as she leaned forward, putting her elbow on the table and resting her chin in the palm of her hand. When he turned back toward her, her gaze was across the room, toward the door and beyond. "Oh," she said, her mouth hidden behind her knuckles. He'd never seen her sit like that before. He wondered if she'd picked it up from him. "So," she began, "the Elanasal Palani, and his friend, will be on their own until we get there." Her eyes darted up to meet his. "Are there other, friendly ships that could get there sooner?"
Dillon slowly put down his mug, shaking his head. "No," he said. He'd already asked Admiral Clarke about that, shortly after they'd left Alpha Bravo station. The fleet commander's answer had chilled him; it wasn't even a matter of who could be trusted, it was worse than that. "No," said Dillon, repeating the admiral's words: "All available ships are headed to the frontier systems, toward their start positions."
She didn't entirely understand, he could see that on her face. "Start positions, Feda?"
"Yeah," he said, looking into her eyes. "In case of war with the Palani." Restless fingers tapped on the handle of his mug. "The political situation isn't going well. Fleets are on the move… on both sides."
A delicate white-gloved hand reached across the table to touch his. "We'll get through this, Feda."
He forced a smile to his lips. He wished he believed that, but he didn't. In her eyes he could see the same uncertainty.
Dillon squeezed her hand in his, and his eyes wandered toward the doorway. This wasn't going to work. The kids were going to die, and millions more would follow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
"Elan, wake up!"
Something was pushing against his face. His left eye saw all red, from a bright light that glowed through his eyelid. There was a poking, a constant pressure, against his side, and his right leg was lodged at an awkward angle. He took a deep breath, and a sharp knife of pain ran up his side, forcing him wide awake with an abbreviated gasp. When he moved his head, he saw dirty blonde hair in front of him, wet and tangled.
"Come on, Elan!" said Heather, her hand pulling at his shoulder. "We have to get out of here."
"Um," he said, after much consideration. Every part of him ached, if it wasn't in actual pain. Water dripped down — or up — from somewhere, landing on his face. Cold air, like the dead of a Palani winter, blew his hair in front of his eyes. He took another breath, and winced from another stab of pain.
Heather's head turned, and he could see her face. Water was dripping from her bright red nose. "Are you hurt? Come on, let me help you out of there."
Elan still didn't understand where he was. Twisting his torso resulted in another dagger of pain, but it freed his arm enough to reach up toward Heather. He grabbed the edge of a flat surface — the cockpit console, he thought — and pulled, swallowing a yelp that rose up his throat. With the weight off his legs, he was able to move them, slowly disentangling them from the console below.
Beyond Heather's face, he could see the back of the ship. The ramp was torn away, the jagged edges of the ship's skin swaying in the buffeting winds, and wisps of snow were drifting in. Far bey
ond, he could see a brilliant blue sky.
The ship had stopped nose down, he realised. He placed his feet on the cockpit window below him, and pushed up past the pilot's console. Save for a few individual lights that still shone with a feeble red glow, the console had gone dark.
Another gust of wind roared, rocking the ship from side to side and waving the torn ends of hull plates.
Frost was forming in Heather's hair, fixing it in its tangled place with a delicate rime of ice. She leaned down over the front of the console, her hands grabbing at his clothes and coldsuit underneath. He winced again as she tugged at his sleeve. "Where are you hurt, Elan? Are you bleeding?"
"I think I bruised something," he whispered, not wanting to take a deep breath. "Don't think I'm bleeding," he added, though he wasn't entirely certain.
With Heather's help, he pulled himself upward, his stomach dragging against the pilot's console. He could feel ripping in his clothes and coldsuit; the metal of the console was cold and sharp against his skin.
Carefully leaning to his right, he pulled his left leg up to the edge of the console, swinging his body around until he was sitting upright, facing the former floor of the ship in front of him. Across from him, Heather leaned back against the now-vertical floor.
Elan knew there weren't too many ways for this day to end. Where they'd landed was cold, far too cold for a human, though maybe not too cold for him. Depending on how cold it was on this part of the planet — there wouldn't be any night, at least — he might survive for days or even weeks. Long enough to die from starvation. He watched Heather, who had craned her head around to look up at the gaping end of the ship, and the gusts of blowing snow beyond. She wasn't going to starve to death. She wouldn't live long enough for that. Heather gave a quick shiver and stood up.
"This is the only shelter, I'll bet," she said. "But that asshole is probably coming to finish the job."
"Yes," said Elan. "We need to get going right away."
"Maybe there's a survival kit," said Heather, scanning the smashed and cluttered interior of the ship.
"Don't spend too much time searching," he said, standing up on the edge of the pilot's console. He tried to ignore the pain in his side as he reached up toward the cargo shelves beside him. Placing one foot on the back of the pilot's chair, he grabbed at the remains of the netting, and pulled himself upward. Every time he tried to lift his left arm his side throbbed with pain.
Another step, another pull on the cargo netting, and Elan was able to climb high enough to poke his head out the top of the ship where its stern ramp had once been.
A blast of winter air blew in his face, stinging his eyes with snow and flecks of ice. It blew in waves like an endless tide, always blowing toward the sun. The massive blue sphere hung above, one edge touching the horizon while the other end was nearly overhead.
There were no trees or vegetation of any kind. They appeared to be in a river valley, its edges a smoothly-sculpted furrow of snow, with scoured rock faces visible beneath. A river ran nearby, its water rolling over the scar in the riverbed where the ship had tumbled through.
And always the wind. It must be far below freezing, Elan thought. At this temperature, the brine lakes on Palani Yaal La would probably have frozen as well.
His eye was caught by a single line of white, tracing its way across the brilliant blue sky, below the sparse, high clouds. The thin line was curving, gently turning toward them.
Elan peered down into the ship. Heather saw his head move, and looked up toward him, a frown on her face.
"A ship is coming," said Elan. "I think that assassin is coming in to land, or at least to scan us. We need to go now." He pursed his lips. "It's going to be very cold, Heather," he said.
She nodded at him. There were tight lines around the eyes on her upturned face. Her hair was covered in a thin layer of frost, and small crystals had begun to form on her eyelashes. "I know, Elan." She held up a small packet in one hand. "Survival kit is almost empty. Found a foil blanket, though." She held up her other hand. "And some chicken soup. You know," she said, a grim smile forming on her lips, "for when we get a pot of boiling water." The grin dissolved. "Elan…" she shook her head.
Elan felt a lump in his throat, preventing him from speaking. It was in her eyes, he could see it. She was losing. Her anger, her sputtering frustration, all draining away. All she had left was thinly-hidden despair and, beyond that, surrender.
It was the math of it he hated the most. The damnable calculus of survival. He'd been taught enough of the impossible decisions forced upon Palani leaders in the past. The heartless logic of staying alive, of sacrificing the few for the many. If they left the shelter of this ship, Heather would probably freeze to death within a few hours. But if they stayed, the assassin would definitely kill them both, possibly within minutes. Elan knew it, and from the look in her eyes, so did Heather. He gave a nod, forcing words to his mouth. "Come on," he said. "Bring it, especially the blanket."
Heather shoved the packets into the pockets of her jacket, which she then pulled tight around her. Reaching hand over hand, she hauled herself up beside him, sticking her head out through the top of the ship. Elan heard her loud gasp as the wind hit her face, blowing the frost from her hair. "Oh my god," she mouthed.
Favouring his left arm, Elan pulled himself clear of the hole in the ship's upturned stern. Heather carefully followed him, and together they climbed down the hull, away from the wind, its howling fingers tugging at them as they gingerly stepped onto the still-warm engine pod, then the bent remnant of a wing, then the ground. As Heather clambered down behind him, he began to remove his clothes. The pants, the jacket, the bandages wound around his hands and arms, and the cloth helmet and goggles; everything except his coldsuit. The tight white suit was tattered and torn, his white skin underneath stained blue with bruises and the smears of dried blood.
"What the fuck are you doing?" asked Heather, incredulity on her face. "Get dressed. Are you—"
Elan handed her the coat. "Put these on. You need more clothes."
"But," she began to protest. "You'll—"
He smiled, but it felt like a lie. "I'm a Palani, remember? I come from a place like this."
She reluctantly accepted the coat, and was trying to put it on over her jacket. "But it's not this cold on your homeworld, is it?"
He wanted to lie again, but couldn't. "Almost. But the coldsuit is enough for now."
"Bullshit," she protested. He could see that her fingers were fumbling to fasten the jacket.
"Just for now" he said. "Until we find shelter, and you can warm up."
Elan could tell she didn't believe him. She knew as well as he did, that finding shelter was unlikely. "Come on," he said, over the sound of gusting wind. He held out the rest of the clothes for her.
As Heather jammed the hat onto her head and started wrapping her face and neck in the bandage cloth, Elan leaned to peek out from behind the shelter of the ship. The wind had intensified, curling waves of powdered snow around the ship's hull and into new drifts. If they could find a sunny spot out of the wind they might have a chance. For a little while, anyway.
He stepped out into the wind, which staggered him sideways. "Let's go," he yelled to the thickly-bundled Heather, who watched him from behind dirty goggles and a mass of wrapped cloth.
The wind bit at his bare skin where the coldsuit had torn, its tattered ends slapping against his skin. He'd never been so cold in his entire life.
CHAPTER FORTY
It had been all of ten minutes, and already the pen was taking a hell of a beating. The end of it, clamped between his grinding molars, was now misshapen and pitted by dozens of teeth marks.
Dillon looked again at the countdown timer on the bridge's displays. Two hours, forty-three minutes to Survey Twelve-India. During which time, the young Palani prophet and his human girlfriend would be stranded, their life support exhausted, while an assassin hunted them. And the assassin's ship was armed, which was more than
Dillon could say about Borealis at the moment.
He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, a barely-rhythmic tapping that was making his fingertips numb. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Chief glance at his fingers before refocusing on her supervisory console.
Tremblay had gone for coffee; Dillon thought he should've asked the Sub-Lieutenant to get him a refill too. As he reached down and pulled his ceramic mug from the cupholder, it slipped from his fingers, dropping back down and splashing lukewarm coffee everywhere.
With a sharp intake of breath, Dillon jumped to his feet. He snatched the mug and hauled his arm back to throw it; a long line of obscenities immediately formed a line in his throat.
Dillon sputtered, coffee dripping from his hand and sleeve. He froze in place, mug held back ready to throw, and closed his eyes. This wasn't helping. Having a tantrum on his own bridge wasn't going to do a damn thing to help anyone, least of all those kids. He took a deep breath, letting the words on his lips fade away. Opening his eyes, he slowly and deliberately replaced the mug in its cupholder, and began wiping himself off.
He knew perfectly well that everyone on the bridge was staring at him. All eyes would be on the captain, who was stressed and frustrated to the point of lashing out at a ceramic mug. They had no idea how much was at stake, but they'd be able to guess. And they'd guess that the stakes were getting higher.
