by Z D Dean
The bay she had landed in for the delivery was relatively unharmed by the mercenary attack, but the farther she strayed the more damage she saw. The only miners she saw along her journey were workers, diligently working to repair the surrounding structure. By the time she got to the bay in which Max made his last stand, she was alone. Caution markers were stretched across the hatch leading to the section where Zade had been hit by the orbital strike. She knew better than to try and open the hatch, but she leaned against the bulkhead and looked out the viewing window.
The area was covered by darkness, but as the colony rotated, the area was lit by the rays of the smaller star in the system. All that remained from the strike was devastation and a large patch of red ice. Alone and away from her crew, she let tears fill her eyes. The string of what if’s began to roll through her mind. What if she had been faster returning to her ground team? What if she had gone with them instead of returning to Axis’s ship? What if the men had stayed together? What if she had insisted on being on the ground with them?
None of the questions made her feel any better. They couldn’t be answered, so they only served to fuel her doubt and sadness.
“I thought I’d find you here,” said a voice from behind her.
She turned to find Max leaning against the far bulkhead.
“I just wanted to see where it all went so wrong,” she replied, numbly.
“My advice, as someone who has been knee-deep in combat since I came of age, is that second-guessing what happened isn’t helpful. It only makes you feel bad and uncertain of yourself. Things happened the way they did and beating yourself up isn’t going to change that. All you can do is drive on,” he said, walking towards her.
“I know,” she said, putting her hand on the window. “I just thought that seeing where everything went to shit would help or give me some perspective.”
“Come on. I was sent here to find you. You disappeared before Sam’s parents could thank you,” he said as he nodded back the way from which she came.
“But I didn’t do anything. The real hero is laid up in medical, fighting for his life.”
“They don’t need to know that right now. Right now, they need a symbol of hope, not the truth. Telling them the truth would only complicate things. What they do know is this: someone in scary black armor saved their young, an act that no one else in the Unity would have done. Besides, what does it matter? In a couple of days, if all goes the way we want it to, Zade will be back on his feet and we will be gone.”
“That doesn’t seem right, but I guess it makes sense,” she said as she started walking back towards the ship.
The corridors were just as quiet as when she had headed towards the damaged section of the colony, occupied only by workers. When she stepped into the bay, the gathered crowd erupted in cheering and applause. Little Sam’s parents pushed their way to the front of the crowd and wrapped Samix in a hug. She could tell they were thanking her, but their words were drowned out by the mother’s sobs and crowds cheering. After an a few minutes of being out of her comfort zone, Sam was freed from the throng and back on the ship, which was mercifully quiet.
Chapter 17
The world materialized out of darkness. Zade let out a groan as his eyes adjusted to the light of the medical bay. He felt extremely groggy, and there was a shooting pain around his left forearm. He tried to lift his head to see what was hurting him, but the effort was too much.
“You’re awake!” someone exclaimed from just outside his field of view.
He worked his dry throat for a few seconds before croaking out that he needed water. Almost miraculously, a cup of water was put into his hand. After a few small sips, he felt good enough to try to speak again.
“How long was I out?” He asked.
“Almost a week,” the small Settler said softly. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes,” he said. “Can I sit up?”
After putting the cup of water to the side, the medic helped him sit up. He found himself staring into the worried face of his pilot and first mate.
“Did Max get the girl to safety?” he asked, indicating that he had memories of the fight. The medic quietly excused himself from view, busying himself with something on the other side of the room.
“He did and now she’s safely back with her family,” Samix said. “You’re a hero to these people after everything that happened.”
With the burning questions out of the way, he took a second to take in his surroundings. He was covered from the waist down with a sheet. All he could see was his upper body. There were small bandages plastered all over the flesh he could see. His arm, however, was heavily bandaged from the elbow down. He lifted the wounded limb which felt heavier than it should have. Some of his concerns dissipated when he tried to move his fingers and saw the bandages shift.
“What happened?” he asked, turning his attention back to Sam.
“You were hurt badly in a gunfight, and you lost a hand, broke both of your legs, and most of your ribs during an airstrike a while later,” Sam replied quietly. “Can we take off the bandages?”
The statement was directed toward him; the question was directed to the medic near them.
“Yes,” the settler said as he moved to the injury side and began unwrapping Zade’s arm.
He could only watch with morbid fascination as his arm was revealed. The idea that he wouldn’t see anything below the wrapping didn’t bother him as much as it should have. The idea of losing a limb, although not ideal, had always been a realistic possibility for a warrior like him. Repeat combat shifted it from a possibility to a probability for every engagement he survived.
“This is the best prosthetic in Unity space, but it will take time for you to get used to it and for it to become optimized,” the Settler said, as he continued to unwrap the arm and as flesh yielded to metal under the bandages.
Zade watched his hand intently as he lifted his arm and flexed his new metal appendage. It amazed him that the machine functioned like his normal hand without any extra exertion on his part. He examined it from every angle, his focus being interrupted by the Settler once again.
“This is just the substructure. There is a synthetic covering that will give you all of your feeling back. We needed you to be awake before we connected it.”
Zade wasn’t sure how to feel. There was a struggle between the shock and trauma of a lost limb and a sense of gratitude that it was already being repaired. His subconscious mind was rebelling against his new hand, and he felt it throbbing with pain. His rational mind, however, realized that he was extremely lucky to have been injured at the time he was. If his injury would have happened back on Earth, he would be a single amputee, with a markedly longer recovery time.
“Let’s do it,” he said to the Settler next to his bed. “I need to be back on my feet so I can get home.”
The process was quick. A synthetic cover that looked like an oversized glove was slid over the prosthetic. As soon as the ports on the upper rim of the glove met the ports on the metal ring that connected the prosthetic to his body, he could feel stimuli. The synthetic skin tightened up to more closely resemble his arm’s natural shape, and then shifted in color to match his natural skin tone. His prosthetic arm was indistinguishable from his real arm unless someone was examining it closely.
Shortly after being released from the ward, he was headed back to his ship for a shower and a new under suit. The one he had worn for the mission had been cut off his body so the medics could treat him. Sam followed him, oddly quiet.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I’m just happy. I thought we had lost you.”
“You can’t kill me that easy,” he said with a chuckle. He turned to look at Sam, and when he noticed the concerned look on her face, he quickly added, “in no small part, I’m sure, due to rescue from you.”
“How the hell can you be laughing?” Samix snapped, unable to control the upwelling of emotions she felt. “You died. You liter
ally died. I thought you were gone forever.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning to wrap her in a hug, realizing he was being more cavalier than was appropriate. “I’m so sorry, Sam. It’s just a coping mechanism. You’re right. That one was too close for comfort. With you behind me, I feel like I can do anything. I will be more careful next time, I promise.”
He let go of her after a long moment. He thought she was reluctant to let him go, too. She followed him into his quarters and sat on his bed while he grabbed a clean under suit and headed for the shower.
“What happened while I was down?” he asked, just before he stepped into the welcoming water.
Sam explained how there was a space battle that corresponded with the ground assault. The Settlers fought them off, and she mounted the recovery effort for him and Max. She also told him that Axis had found out that the Brax Corporation had no official claim on the system, so Axis’s clan purchased it and was evicting them from the system. Axis hadn’t told her how he was getting rid of them, but he had assured her that he was working to make it so.
“So, we are almost done here?” Zade called from the shower.
“It looks like it.”
“Why don’t you go get cleaned up,” he said. “I’ll meet you in a few minutes, and we can go see what Axis is up to.”
She agreed and he peeked out to watch the door close behind her. He enjoyed the hot water for a few minutes before he got out, dried off, and put on a fresh under suit. He stepped out of the bathroom, and before he could turn his attention to the armor that had been laid out on his bunk, Ann appeared.
“It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back. We are almost ready to leave. Any idea where we should stop on our way to Earth?”
“I have the location of a Groz colony, just inside the contested zone. It won’t add to our trip, but it could pay off if we find more useful Groz tech.”
“How long will it add to the trip back to Earth?”
“It is hard to tell without knowing Earth’s exact location. We may, however, be able to find the resources to add an exploration kit to the ship, which will make it much easier to find your home.”
He thought for a minute before answering. He was flying blindly towards the portion of space in which Earth was located, but it was a huge area. He could spend lifetimes searching the contested area without finding Earth. If the colony gave him a better chance of actually finding his home, it was worth visiting.
“Sounds like a plan. Let’s be ready to head that way when I get back.”
He walked out of his room to find Sam waiting for him. Back in their armor, they headed back into the larger ship. After a couple of questions, they learned that Axis was on the viewing deck, watching the operations that were happening on the planet below.
Sometime after Sam returned from her supply drop, Karn had been invited to another meeting with Axis. With the confirmation to evict the corporations from the system, he wanted to offer the planet to the miners. Karn declined the offer, content with the colony’s proximity to the mining sites. The Settler fleet finished repairing and supplying the colony before they headed to the planet to remove the terraforming equipment the corporations had installed. As a wronged party, the Settlers and the Baast had the right to exterminate the aggressors but chose instead to drive them off.
Sam and Zade made their way to the viewing deck, located just above the bridge, where they found the fleet commander.
“It’s good to hear you’re back on your feet,” Axis said without taking his attention away from the work being done outside the window.
Zade walked up to the window with Sam at his side, and after observing the work for a few minutes he still couldn’t decipher what was going on. There were small clusters of ships, darting across the landscape, and some looked like they were headed back towards the fleet.
“What are you doing down there?”
“We are removing the atmospheric generators. The planet will become uninhabitable after a few years without them, and the corporations will be forced to move. They will lose everything.”
“Seems like a harsh punishment for a little squabble.”
“Not at all. It will give them years to remove themselves. The law says we could exterminate them outright for what they did. As a matter of fact, you could take your fill without recourse because they attacked you.”
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Ann chimed into the conversation in Sam and Zade’s helmets. “The amount of Rua you could harvest would surely be enough to supply the exploration module along with an almost entire upgrade for both me and you.”
He entertained the idea before berating himself for doing so. As brutal as colonized space could be and as desperate as he was to find Earth, he couldn’t let himself start thinking like a Groz. He knew for a fact that there were innocents on the surface that would soon be scrambling for their lives. If he took advantage of their disarray to benefit himself, he would be no better than the mercenaries that indiscriminately slaughtered the Baast colonists.
Just as he was about to reject the offer, the thought of Earth being destroyed or enslaved flew through his mind. What if he didn’t do everything he could to return? Would maintaining his morality justify the harm to his home world? Were the people fleeing the planet innocent if they were complicit in the treatment of the colony? The questions ripped through his mind before a squeeze of his hand brought him back to reality.
“Even if it were justified, I don’t think it would be right to take out my anger on people who are just trying to make a living. Is there any way to distinguish between the decision-makers and the minions?”
“Sadly, no. They have all intermingled in their frantic desire to escape the planet before they are burned alive.”
“This is probably the best course of action then. Removing their foothold from the system and access to the resources will damage the guilty enough.”
As soon as he finished, Sam released his hand and wrapped her arm around his waist.
“That’s why I was willing to follow you into the unknown,” she said quietly.
It was a small sign of support but bolstered his resolve.
“On a different note, Axis, you promised me some killer wine the last time we met.”
“You’re absolutely right,” the Settler said before turning and giving his aide some instructions.
Within minutes a fresh bottle was brought to them and they were enjoying drinks while they watched a planet being dismantled. Seats were brought to them so they could relax, and the conversation quickly shifted from business to friendlier topics.
“So where do you guys go from here?”
“You have this system and the miners well in hand, so it’s time for us to continue towards my home planet.”
“You’ve found its location then?”
“Ann has a general idea, but we have to make at least one more stop before we can lock it down. It’s a system just inside the contested zone,” Zade wanted to tell his friend more, but wasn’t willing to risk the safety of his whole planet on it.
“I will be busy growing the clan with the profits from this system, but if you need anything please remember you are a friend of the Settlers. Not only did you save me personally, but this system is a huge benefit for my people. We don’t forget our friends.”
“Thanks, Axis. I’m sure when I find my people again, I will need your help. Hell, before I got pulled onto your ship, we were working on getting a manned flight to our system neighbor.”
“Whatever you need, as long as it doesn’t go directly against the good of the clan.”
“Thank you, my friend. I have to get the ship ready to travel. I’m going to leave you here to catch up with Sam.”
He embraced the diminutive alien before heading back to the docking bay. Before he left the viewing deck, Axis informed him that he would authorize any supplies or equipment needed. All Zade would have to do is send him the request.
&
nbsp; He got back to the bay to find the medical equipment they had discussed before the mercenary attack waiting to be loaded into the ship. It all looked brand new, and he said a quick thank you to Axis for coming through on his promise to help.
His attention turned to finding a crew member to be the ship’s medical officer. As he thought about making Max a full member of the crew by crafting him a set of the Groz armor, he toyed with the idea of reclassing Max or his sister as a medic. It sounded like a good idea, but she was currently occupying positions that were just as valuable to the operations of the ship.
One thought and the cargo lift opened, after which he found a Settler crewmember to load the medical equipment. As the crates were being moved, he jumped into the ship and headed for his forge. On his way, he stopped in engineering to have Mara start uncrating the new equipment and moving it into the bay adjacent to his forge. After speaking to her he found Max in the armory inventorying and cleaning their stock of small arms.
“Good to see you back. That was a close one,” Max said when he saw Zade standing in the hatch.
“From what Sam said, I owe you my life.”
“Don’t worry about it. You would have done the same thing.”
“I have to check and see if we have the resources, but if so, are you ready to become a full member of the last remaining Groz crew?”
“I’ve been waiting for that question since Mara told me what her armor has allowed her to accomplish.”
“You know you just gave her up, right? She wasn’t supposed to talk about our capabilities until you were committed to us.”
Realizing his mistake, the man looked embarrassed.
“She didn’t tell me much,” he said, backtracking and trying to cover for her.
“Don’t worry about it. When you’re finished here, meet me in the forge room.”
“Give me a second. All I have to do is put this rifle away. I’ll walk with you,” he said as he stood and put the weapon he was examining back into the rack.
