by JP Raymond
“Assuming the genius here didn’t send him into cardiac arrest with that thing,” Rischa said.
“Hey,” Alan replied, “I came into the cargo hold and saw the new guy holding my captain and two shipmates at gunpoint, so I blasted his ass.”
“Good work,” Kitekh said.
“Thank you,” he replied, shooting Rischa a look.
Kitekh put her ear to Brody’s chest. His heartbeat was fast but regular.
“He’ll survive,” she said. “Shinzaa, treat his wounds and confine him somewhere. I’m not done with him.”
“Where?” she asked. “This isn’t a military ship. We don’t have a brig.”
“I don’t care,” Kitekh said, rounding on her. “Find an empty closet or somewhere else we can lock him up until we sort this out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
“Alan, did you know anything about this?” Kitekh asked, indicating the stasis chamber with her thumb.
He looked over her shoulder. Confusion spread over his face. Either he was a fantastic actor, or he hadn’t been Brody’s accomplice.
“No,” he said. “What is it?”
“Some sort of cryo-stasis device,” Rischa said.
“What? You mean someone’s asleep in there?” he said.
“Yes,” Kitekh said. “Stay here and keep an eye on this asshole until Shinzaa finds a place to lock him up. Rischa, make sure he didn’t smuggle anything else aboard.”
Kitekh got up and headed for the bridge.
“Where are you going?” Rischa asked.
“To have a discussion with JaQuan Jones,” she said, not bothering to look back.
Kitekh’s blood boiled in her veins. If JaQuan had set her up, his maiden flight as Cataan’s Claw’s pilot would be his last.
“CAPTAIN,” LOS SAID.
Horay crossed the bridge. He stood over him as Los turned in his chair.
“Yes?” Horay said.
“I have a wealth of information from Station Control,” he said.
“Report.”
“First of all, Cataan’s Claw filed a spaceflight destination of Rijan IV,” Los said. “They were allegedly shipping mining supplies. Station records do show them taking on gas-mining equipment. Their last-known trajectory on our scanners would be consistent with a hyperspace jump to the Rijan System.
“Now here is where things become interesting. Station Control reports Cataan’s Claw was indeed struck by one of our beamer cannon shots just as she made the jump to hyperspace. Her deflector screens had collapsed, so the beam penetrated the hull, striking the engine core. Then the ship disappeared.”
Horay digested the information carefully. What did it mean? Had the freighter been destroyed, pulled into hyperspace as her stardrive exploded? If she had been damaged, would she be able to make the entire journey to Rijan?
“What is the average travel time to the Rijan System?” he asked.
“For a ship that size?” Zin said. “At least a week. She can’t have a hyperdrive large enough to go any faster than that.”
“And if it were damaged, it might take them longer,” Horay mused.
“Assuming they were able to make the journey at all,” Zin said. “Navigating hyperspace without a fully functional drive is suicide. They would be lucky to come out near a habitable system.”
“Let us not think like that,” Horay said. “If they were knocked off course or their hyperdrive was destroyed, we have killed the senator’s daughter as surely as if we had slit her throat.”
There was a grim silence. No one wanted to think what the consequences for that might be.
“Los, order Magnificent Glory to leave a garrison here in case they return,” Horay said. “Then send a message to Imperial High Command, informing them we are pursuing the terrorists to Rijan IV.”
“Yes, sir,” Los said.
He turned back to his board and began tapping out commands. Horay looked at Zin.
“Get us to the Rijan System, best possible speed,” he said.
“Yes, Captain.”
Horay left the bridge. As the lift descended towards his quarters, he prayed they would find Cataan’s Claw limping towards Rijan IV. He had no doubt with his larger, undamaged ship, he could beat them there. The question was whether the terrorists could get there at all.
JAQUAN TAPPED KEYS ON HIS BOARD and waited while the diagnostic ran. After only ten seconds, the same prompt came back:
NO DATA. HYPERDRIVE UNAVAILABLE.
“Still nothing,” he said into the comm link.
“That is illogical,” Lanaliel replied from the engine room. “Even if the drive is inoperable, the computer should be able to tell us why.”
“Unless the comm system was also damaged,” JaQuan said.
Lanaliel didn’t reply right away. JaQuan wasn’t surprised. The big Mandran was contemplative. He often considered his thoughts carefully before expressing them.
JaQuan’s mind raced at his own suggestion. He was no expert on hyperspace technology. He didn’t really understand how the whole thing worked. It enabled faster-than-light travel at speeds that shouldn’t be possible for a physical object, and hyperspace itself existed outside what he thought of as reality. So far as JaQuan was concerned, it was all Elohiman magic.
But however it actually worked, the effects were achieved with hard tech. The ship had a drive that catapulted it through hyperspace, and that drive was operated in the same way as the space-normal stardrive – through commands from the pilot’s board.
So if the hyperdrive was not only inoperative but not communicating with the rest of the ship, the damage to it was alarmingly extensive.
“JaQuan, if that is true, then we have two problems,” Lanaliel said, echoing JaQuan’s thoughts. “Something is wrong with the comms system and something is wrong with the hyperdrive. This creates a complication. Without the comms system to guide us, we will have to manually inspect the entire drive, looking for the problem.”
“And even if we can fix it, we can’t go to hyperspace until we figure out what’s wrong with the comms system and repair it too.”
“Correct.”
JaQuan swore quietly. He wasn’t a fatalist, but he was finding it harder and harder to believe there was a way out of this predicament.
“All right, you start working on the drive,” he said. “I’ll have Cooressa run diagnostics on the comms system. She knows it better than me.”
“There is one problem with that, my friend.”
“What’s that?”
“I am too large to access the entire drive space. This ship was not built with Mandra in mind.”
“So have Brody climb up in the tight spaces. That’s why you have an engineer’s mate.”
“I would do that if I knew where he was.”
JaQuan’s heart stopped. Brody was missing?
“He’s not with you?” JaQuan said.
“No. After our meeting in the mess hall, he said he needed to check on something. I have not seen him since.”
Alarms as loud as the ship’s emergency klaxons went off in JaQuan’s mind. He had no idea what they meant. He had no reason not to trust Brody. But his attitude at the meeting and his absence now told JaQuan something was wrong.
“All right,” he said. “Start with the parts of the drive you can see. I’ll tell Cooressa to run diagnostics, then see if I can find out where Brody is.”
“Very good, my friend.”
JaQuan stood and rubbed his eyes. He could feel some kind of noose tightening around his neck. Imperial battlecruisers showed up without warning and demanded to board them? The brand new engineer’s mate went missing after they got stranded in deep space with their hyperdrive out of commission? Something was very wrong here. JaQuan couldn’t fathom what it was, but he suspected Cataan’s Claw was in over her head.
“Cooressa,” he said crossing the bridge, “the comms system can’t seem to communicate with the hyperdrive. Can you run a diagnostic to find out what’s wrong?�
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“I can,” she replied. “But it will take some time. I have the system busy finding all the cracks on the hull, and it is also running your nav search to try to determine where we are.”
“Well, we’re not going anywhere if the ship can’t talk to the hyperdrive, so we better get it going.”
“Good point,” she said. “I will see what I can learn.”
“Thanks. Rorgun, do you know where Kitekh is?”
“I am right here,” she said.
JaQuan turned to the hatch. Kitekh stood hulking in it. There was a dangerous glint in her green eyes.
“Hey,” he said, facing her. “Lanaliel needs Brody’s help and can’t find him. Do you know where he is?”
“I do,” she said.
She advanced on him slowly. Her lips curled in a snarl. JaQuan started sweating. He’d never seen her like this.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Kitekh?” Rorgun said.
“He’s in custody,” she replied, ignoring Rorgun.
“What?” Rorgun said.
Custody? She’d arrested him? What had he done?
“He’s a terrorist!” Kitekh roared.
Before JaQuan could even think to be scared, Kitekh leaped for him. He barely moved, could hardly even get his arms up before she was on top of him, one strong right hand gripping his throat, squeezing the breath from him as her claws dug into his neck.
“Kitekh, what are you doing?” Rorgun shouted.
“You vouched for him,” she growled. “I hired him on your recommendation. Now I’m involved in a kidnapping plot engineered by terrorists!”
JaQuan struggled to pry the Graur’s fingers from his throat, but her grip was iron-tight. Spots danced in his vision. It became hard to think.
“Why, JaQuan? Why would you do this to me? I’ve been good to you!”
“Kitekh, you’re choking him to death,” Rorgun said from somewhere far away. “Let him go if you want answers.”
The world faded into black. All the strength left JaQuan’s muscles.
Then suddenly, he was falling. He hit the deck, and air found its way back into his lungs. He coughed heavily. His vision returned.
Kitekh and Rorgun stood over him. The captain looked furious. Her first mate was confused.
“Rorgun has persuaded me to let you live a little longer,” Kitekh said. “So start talking. I better like the answers.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” JaQuan wheezed.
“Down in my cargo hold in cryo-stasis is the daughter of an Imperial Senator,” Kitekh said.
“What!” Cooressa and Rorgun said in unison.
“She was smuggled aboard by our new engineer’s mate, Jim Brody,” Kitekh went on. “Brody is a member of the human terrorist organization, Manifest Destiny.
“All this explains why we were jumped by two Imperial battlecruisers and fired upon for refusing to allow them to board us. It explains why we are currently stranded in outer space, possibly forever.
“But it does not explain why you vouched for this madman when he applied to be a member of my crew. So explain, JaQuan. Tell me why you would betray me like this.”
JaQuan coughed again. His mind reeled. Brody was with Manifest Destiny? They’d kidnapped a senator’s daughter? Why would he do something that stupid?
“I didn’t betray you, Kitekh,” he said. “I had no idea he was a terrorist.”
“You knew him!” she shouted. “How could you not?”
“Look, we were in the same acclimation class; that’s it!” JaQuan said.
“Acclimation class?” Rorgun asked.
JaQuan sighed. Did he really not know about this? He supposed it was possible. The Empire was a big place, and the Elohim probably didn’t give out all the details of what had happened after they found the Santa Maria.
“Yes,” JaQuan said. “When humanity first arrived in the Empire ten years ago, there was a big stink. Were we the Fourth Race? Did this mean the end of everything? Did it mean the dawn of the new golden age? All that bullshit.
“Since we were accepted conditionally, the Emperor ordered all humans to go through Imperial acclimation training. We had to spend months studying Imperial history, culture, and politics before we could take jobs.
“Brody and I were in the same class. They divided us up into groups of a hundred, and he was in my group. I didn’t know him that well. We were on the Santa Maria for different jobs. He was a tech whose assignment was terraforming. I was on the crew of the ship. But none of that mattered to the Empire. They just divided us up randomly and threw us together for acclimation.
“I hadn’t seen him since we graduated. I ran into him on Daxal. He was looking for work, and we were looking for a new engineer’s mate. He had the relevant experience, so I said I’d put in a word for him. That’s it.”
“And you remembered this man, whom you had not known before acclimation, after ten years?” Cooressa said.
“Most definitely. We were together night and day for months,” JaQuan said. “I remember everyone who was in my class.”
Kitekh’s face had softened. The orange fur was no longer glowing with fury. The green eyes looked inward instead of burning with angry fire.
“I swear, Kitekh, I had no idea this guy was with those assholes in Manifest Destiny,” JaQuan said. “I certainly wouldn’t have been party to a kidnapping plot that would put you or the rest of the crew in danger.”
She refocused her gaze on him, searching, attempting to pry away any shields that might reveal he was lying to her.
“I believe you, JaQuan,” she said at last. “You’ve been with us for three years. You’ve never done anything to make me believe you are a terrorist or a traitor. Forgive my suspicion and my assault on your person.”
“Don’t mention it,” JaQuan said, rubbing his neck.
She extended a hand to help him up. He took it and found himself pulled quickly to his feet.
“I’ll say this: That Graur reputation for speed and quickness in combat is well-earned.”
“Only a fool would doubt it,” Kitekh replied. “What is the status of your repair diagnostics?”
“We’ve hit a snag,” JaQuan said. “The comms system isn’t talking to the hyperdrive, so we need to hand-inspect the whole fucking thing.”
“Damn Brody,” Kitekh said. “Speaking of whom, why were you looking for him?”
“Lanaliel is too big to climb into part of the drive space. He needs a human.”
“With Mr. Brody compromised and in custody, I believe you’ll need to take his place,” Rorgun said.
“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that,” JaQuan said. “I’ve got Cooressa running diagnostics on the comms system to find out what the issue is there. Guess I’ll head down to engineering to help Lanaliel.”
“Very good,” Kitekh said. “Dismissed.”
JaQuan rubbed his neck one more time. Then he moved past the Graur and headed for the hatch.
“JaQuan,” Kitekh said. “Try to keep gossip on this matter to a minimum.”
He suppressed a laugh. He couldn’t avoid smiling, though.
“Lanaliel’s gonna want to know why I’m assisting him instead of Brody,” he said.
“Who else knows about this?” Rorgun asked.
Kitekh frowned.
“Everyone,” she said. “All right, go ahead and tell him. But if he has questions you don’t know the answer to, send him to me. Understand?”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” JaQuan said with a smirk.
He disappeared through the hatch before Kitekh could decide to get mad at him again. Inwardly, he seethed. Brody had fucked them badly.
THREE HOURS LATER, JAQUAN WAS COVERED in grease and wedged in a narrow gap between the bulkhead and the hyperdrive. He had to twist his body to stay on the rungs while examining the engine for damage. He held a flashlight in his left hand and ran the beam over the surface of the strange device.
“See anything?” Lanaliel called up
.
“A lot of metal and crystals,” JaQuan said. “None of which I understand.”
“But do you see any sign of damage?” Lanaliel asked, not getting the joke.
JaQuan sighed. He studied the drive as carefully as he could. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. It was entirely possible the thing was broken eight ways from Sunday, and he’d have no idea. It looked fine. He didn’t see any torn metal or corrosion or chemical leaks.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Well, that’s six of the seven contact points,” Lanaliel said. “Come down so we can check the last.”
JaQuan sighed again. He felt like he was looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Only he didn’t know what a needle was and had never heard of a farm. He might have seen what he was looking for already and not known it.
Wincing as he clipped the flashlight back to his belt, he turned back to the bulkhead and descended as quickly as he could manage. When he at last made it to the deck, he stretched his back and shuddered as several vertebrae popped.
“I do not understand this,” Lanaliel said.
“You don’t understand? Aren’t you supposed to be the expert on this thing?”
“Not the hyperdrive,” Lanaliel said. “That is a simple problem. Something was damaged in our flight from the Imperials. We need to discover what it was so it can be repaired.
“No, it is your friend Brody I do not understand.”
“He’s not my friend,” JaQuan said, grabbing his water canister from the console.
“And yet you vouched for him to join the crew, to take your place as engineer’s mate.”
“That doesn’t make him my friend. So far as I knew, he was qualified. We needed the crewman. I let Kitekh know.”
Lanaliel contemplated JaQuan’s words. When he concentrated, the stripe on his bovine face narrowed. The effect was vaguely comical.
JaQuan took a long drink of water. It wasn’t cool anymore, but it tasted so much better than the stale, oil-scented air of the tube he’d been in. He wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his ship suit.
“You humans are strange,” Lanaliel said at last. “I cannot imagine recommending someone for a job if I were not intimately familiar with their qualifications.”
