You see it but you don’t understand it, the Flying Doctor had said.
Maybe he just had to see things for himself.
He went to find Cappaletto.
Jodenny declined an escort back to her cabin after dinner. She could find it just fine, she told Commander Endicott.
“It’s my honor,” he said. “Really.”
“If you insist,” she replied, and let him walk her through the Confident’s quiet passageways.
“I hope Chief Myell’s not too upset,” he said.
“Chief Myell will be fine,” she assured him. It had taken all she had not to follow him, but she thought he needed some time alone. “I shouldn’t have pressured him into coming. I was surprised that Lieutenant Ling didn’t come.”
“It’s a little difficult for her,” Endicott said. “With her father and all. Captain McNaughton holds it against her.”
Jodenny gave him a puzzled look.
“You didn’t know?” He frowned. “Sorry.”
“Know what?”
“Adryn’s father is in jail, convicted of being an agent for the Colonial Forces Project.”
“She didn’t mention it,” Jodenny said. Maybe because admitting your father was a terrorist wasn’t easy, or even advisable.
“Captain McNaughton, he means well. Hates the CFP, but most people do, right? He’ll do anything to defeat the Roon. Do you really think—I mean, do we have a chance?”
She thought carefully about her answer. “There’s always a chance.”
It was a relief to leave him at the hatch, a relief to not carry hope for him. Jodenny didn’t turn up the lights. Instead she sat on the edge of the bed in the darkness, with only the small light in the head for illumination. She listened to the hum of the Confident’s engines and thought about all the sailors onboard, and how they were spending what was probably the last twelve hours of their lives. Making love, fighting, gambling, drinking. She pressed her hand against Junior’s bump and wondered how she was going to save little Lisa, how she could possibly protect her. The outside and inside world shaded into one, filling her with regret and anger that everything had come to this one battle, the impossible showdown with the Roon.
The hatch beeped. She opened it to see Haines outside.
“Your husband,” he said, furious. “Where is he going?”
Jodenny blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“He just hijacked a Team Space birdie.” Haines nodded to the two security guards behind him. “Put her under arrest.”
“Let me get this straight,” Cappaletto had said, a short time earlier. “You want me to steal a shuttle and fly you over to a chunk of lifeless ice because some guy from the future told you to save mankind at Kultana, and you’re taking him seriously?”
Myell nodded. They were alone in the cramped quarters that Cappaletto shared with Ovadia, who was nowhere in sight. Myell was grateful for that. He didn’t know how Ovadia felt about helping out the Hero of Burringurrah, and didn’t really have time to find out.
“What about Commander Scott?” Cappaletto asked.
Myell was trying not to think about Jodenny. “I can’t put her and the baby in more jeopardy. I won’t. This probably won’t end well.”
Cappaletto rose off his bunk. “I’d planned to spend the next few hours getting drunk and making illicit love to Ensign Voight before we all die in a fiery battle tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll understand if I send my regrets.”
The Confident hadn’t been built with secret passages, but there were shortcuts through Flight Ops that Cappaletto navigated with ease. They cut through the pilots’ ready room without being seen and came out at the starboard end of the flight bay behind a line of Eagles. The bay was heavily guarded, which was no surprise, but Cappaletto pointed out a Team Space passenger birdie parked in the less secure end.
“Some bigwig must have used it to come to dinner,” Cappaletto said. “That’s our best bet. She’s got the range and the speed, and can go cammie.”
“Cammie?”
“Invisible to ACF sensors. Little bit of technology Team Space picked up and didn’t share with us until we twisted their arms. Our sensors aren’t compatible.”
“How are we going to get over there without alerting Security?”
“See those cameras up there? They’ve got a blind spot. It’s how you and your friends got onboard and no one saw how. Stay on this side of the launch line and we’ll be fine.”
It took thirty seconds to traverse the bay. Myell was sure that at any minute an alarm was going to start shrieking over his head. Cappaletto seemed to be having a fine time of it, skulking along until they reached the birdie and he palmed open the hatch.
Nam was onboard, settled into the pilot’s chair. He didn’t look surprised to see them at all.
“I thought you might show up,” Nam said. “Chief Cappaletto, you’re dismissed.”
Cappaletto slid his hands into his pockets. Casual and firm.
“Begging your pardon, Admiral,” Cappaletto said. “But I wouldn’t miss this even if you doubled my salary.”
Nam stared at him hard. Cappaletto didn’t flinch. With the barest of nods, Nam motioned toward the copilot’s chair.
“I figured you’d want to talk to the Roon yourself,” Nam said to Myell as Cappaletto went through the launch sequence. “Good to see old age hasn’t addled my brain.”
Nam wasn’t that old, but he’d gotten it wrong. “I don’t want to talk to the Roon,” Myell said. “I want to visit Kultana.”
“You want to visit a lifeless, airless planetoid?” Nam asked.
Myell nodded.
Cappaletto added, helpfully, “Because it’s his destiny to save mankind.”
Nam stared at them both. Myell was acutely aware of movement on the flight deck. Nam was their only hope of getting off the ship and anywhere near Kultana, and he didn’t look convinced.
“You followed me once,” Myell said. “To Burringurrah. I don’t remember why or how. But you had faith then. I’m asking for it again.”
Slowly Nam said, “It’s a damn good thing I don’t have anything better to do.”
Cappaletto added, “That’s what I said, sir.”
It was no problem for Nam to get permission to launch. Takeoff was smoother than Myell expected. He undid his safety belt and joined them behind the controls. The Americanadian and Team Space fleet was all around them, evening traffic darting between the ships, running lights blinking everywhere. Myell clutched the back of Nam’s seat as they passed the underbellies of carriers and transports. Fourteen ships, armed and ready to fire. Thousands of people ready to risk their lives. They all measured nothing against the Roon.
“This might be a one-way trip,” Myell said, trying very hard not to think about Jodenny and the baby.
“Better to go out in a blaze of heroic stupidity than a slow death doing nothing,” Cappaletto said cheerfully.
They broke free of the fleet and headed into open space. Kultana appeared ahead, as lifeless a chunk of ice as Myell had been told.
“Cammie’s on,” Cappaletto reported. “Team Space can see us, but my people can’t.”
“Can anyone stop us?” Myell asked.
“I’ve disabled the remote functions, so they can’t control our flight. But they can always blow us out of the sky.”
Nam said, “Probably not going to, though. Unless Captain McNaughton convinces Admiral Taylor that you’re some kind of Roon spy out to deliver the goods to your lizard masters.”
Myell was appalled. “McNaughton thinks that?”
“It’s one of the theories,” Nam said.
And he’d left Jodenny back there. Myell hadn’t been letting himself think of her, her fury, or the odds he’d see her in this eddy again. He wasn’t willing to watch her die, though. To stand by and do nothing.
“Tell me more about your so-called mission to save mankind,” Nam said. “Especially why you didn’t mention it before.”
“I didn’t think you’d
believe me,” Myell admitted.
The comm clicked on. Captain McNaughton’s image flickered on the main screen. “This is the Confident. State your course and heading.”
“So much for a stealthy trip,” Cappaletto muttered.
Nam flicked on their radio. McNaughton was visibly surprised by Nam’s appearance but he recovered quickly. Starship captains usually did.
“Admiral Nam,” McNaughton said. “What’s going on out there?”
“Chief Myell wanted to see the planetoid,” Nam replied, as if it was a perfectly normal request. “I decided to oblige him. I have Admiral Su’s permission.”
That was news to Myell. He wondered if it was really true. If anything, it was a delaying tactic while the ACF tried to get information out of Team Space.
A click, a pause, on the other end. Then Jodenny’s voice came clear through the cockpit.
“What do you think you can accomplish, Terry?” she asked.
Her voice was remarkably steady. More steady than his would have been, if their situations had been reversed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But this planetoid’s original names was Kultana. Anything’s better than what’s going to happen if I don’t at least try. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you with me. You’re safer back there.”
“I’m not on the Confident,” Jodenny said. “I’m in the shuttle behind you.”
Cappaletto hit a control. The overhead display showed an ACF shuttle intercepting their course. Another vid flickered and rolled on, depicting Jodenny in the ship with Commander Haines and a pilot Myell didn’t recognize. Security techs sat in the seats behind them.
“Go back, Kay,” Myell said.
“It’s not exactly up to me,” she replied.
Myell cursed Haines under his breath.
“They put a tracker in you,” Jodenny said. Her expression was furious. “And in me. When you left the ship, it went off.”
“That’s enough, Commander,” Haines said. “Why Kultana, Chief Myell? Who’s out there?”
Cappaletto said, “Big hunk of ice, dead ahead. Any place special you want to visit? North Pole, South Pole, equator?”
Myell turned his attention to the scanners. The planetoid had a methane atmosphere and frozen methane surface, with no signs of life or civilization. Even if they landed and started strolling around in spacesuits, there was no place to go and nothing to see.
It would be awfully nice if Homer showed up and explained everything. Right about now. Right now.
Nam said, “You really don’t have a plan, do you?”
“I’ve got something on the sensors,” Cappaletto said. “Coming over the horizon. Dark side, out of Fleet range.”
Myell leaned closer to the controls. He tried not to think about Jodenny or Junior, or Adryn and Osherman back on the Confident, or any of the thousands of ACF and Team Space sailors whose lives might hinge on what he was able to do here.
“What is it?” he asked.
Nam recognized it first. “Son of a bitch,” he said.
An enormous Roon carrier, bulbous and grotesque, rose up from behind Kultana’s backside. Myell did a double check. The main alien fleet was still far off on the scanners, on schedule to arrive tomorrow. Either this was an advance scout of some kind—
Another carrier rose up behind the first one.
“Ambush,” Cappaletto said. “Jesus Christ. They must have been out here for months, just waiting for us.”
The vid connection to Jodenny’s shuttle and McNaughton on the bridge both went dark. Instead the visage of a Roon rolled into view. A Roon that Myell recognized instantly from its silver headdress. The Flying Doctor.
And beside him, beautiful and terrible in her own feather cloak, stood the traitorous Anna Gayle.
“Chief Myell,” the Flying Doctor said. “The end meets us both.”
Cappaletto said, “We are so dead.”
The Roon carrier opened fire.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Jodenny!” someone was saying, sternly. “Wake up.”
She opened two blurry eyes, saw whitewashed walls and antique furniture, and promptly closed her lids again. Something soft and lumpy was beneath her, some kind of bed that smelled like lemons. A pillow had been wedged beneath her head. Her body was heavy and full of pins and needles, as if she’d been sleeping for a long time. Her belly felt dull and weighted down with lead.
Fear had her bolting upright, or at least trying to.
“Easy!” Osherman caught her by the shoulders. “It’s okay.”
She slapped at his hands but didn’t dislodge them. He forced her down and she acquiesced, for the time being, only because her head pounded terribly and all the strength had run out of her body. The world swam with unbearable heat.
He said, “The baby’s fine. You hear me? She’s okay. So are you.”
Slowly her vision focused on Osherman. He was dressed in a formal white shirt and dark pants, and there was a strange caterpillar of a mustache sitting on his upper lip. Of all things, a mustache. The bed she was on had tall wooden posters at each corner, and the room had two square windows brilliant with sunshine.
“You talked.” Her voice came out rusty and she coughed. “Sam, you talked.”
He nodded. He looked thinner and older than she thought he should, and his face was sunburned.
Suspicion made her look down at her own clothes. She was dressed in a ridiculously long white nightshirt that belonged to someone twice her size. Junior’s bump was a solid presence underneath, and she rubbed her belly with both hands. Junior kicked out a hello and then kicked again, for good measure.
“Where are we?” Jodenny demanded.
Osherman scratched his neck. “Not where we were.”
“Terry?”
“Not here.”
“Where is he?” She started to swing her legs out of bed, but Osherman wouldn’t move out of her way. “Get off. Where is he?”
“You have to calm down,” he said. “He’s not here.”
“Where’s here?”
“Sydney, New South Wales,” he said.
She stared at him. “Sydney. As in Earth?”
“And it’s the year 1855,” Osherman added. “January. Summertime in this part of the world. And damn hot.”
She didn’t believe any of it. “How did we get here?”
“What do you remember?”
Bile rose up in her throat. The next thing she knew, she was vomiting into a ceramic pot that Osherman held for her. When she finally sagged back against the pillows, he held a wet cloth to her forehead.
“You’ve been sick,” he said. “But you’re getting better.”
Slowly her senses came back to her. She remembered the Roon ambush at Kultana and seeing the carrier open fire—first at the Fleet, then at Myell’s fragile little shuttle. She had screamed at that. In the terrifying moments afterward she seen the Confident on fire, the Melbourne splitting amidships. Then nothing.
Myell wasn’t dead. Couldn’t be dead. Not now, not then. She squinted at the room and at the open windows, took a deep breath. The sky outside was blue, and the air was sweltering.
“You’re talking,” she repeated, as if he didn’t realize how momentous that was.
“I’ve had practice.” He stood up and paced to the window. His leather shoes made the wooden floorboards squeak. “I’ve been here about eight months. Homer brought me here. I was in the infirmary on the Confident when he showed up and introduced himself. He said he was taking me away ‘for safekeeping.’ Next thing I knew, we were here. I haven’t seen him since, not until yesterday, when he brought you.”
“But we were on the Confident just a little while ago.”
“It’s been eight months for me,” he said. “Alone here, with no idea what happened to you or anyone else.”
Jodenny eased back on the pillows. They smelled strange, and she suspected they were stuffed with real feathers. She tried to imagine how lonely he must have been, how isolated, but
her brain was still busy with denial. “Whose house is this?”
“Lady Elizabeth Scott.”
“Say that again.”
He peered out the windows at the street. “Lady Elizabeth Scott. Your great-great-great-something-grandmother, according to Homer. She’s out shopping with her friends right now, but you’ll meet her later. She doesn’t know you’re her whatever-granddaughter, of course. She thinks you’re my wife. Are you hungry?”
Jodenny stared at him.
The tips of his ears blushed.
“This is the nineteenth century,” he said defensively. “We’re in the respectable house of an English noblewoman. I couldn’t very well tell her you’re a lieutenant in Team Space.”
“Lieutenant commander,” Jodenny said. Might as well set the record straight.
He grimaced.
She studied the room further. “Homer didn’t say anything about Terry?”
“No. I swear. Where did you last see him?”
“He was in a birdie,” she said. “The Roon attacked.”
Silence for a moment. Osherman said, “Well, then. How about something to eat?”
“Sure.” Jodenny heard the brittleness in her own voice but couldn’t stop it. “We’re hundreds of years in the past and I’m starving. Coffee and pancakes?”
“I can do tea and biscuits. Maybe some eggs.”
He went out the door, down a hall, then down some stairs. She heard the solid thump-thump of his retreat. Left alone, she swung her feet to the floor, tested her weight, and looked for a bathroom. She spied only a blue-and-white chamber pot.
“Homer, I’m going to kill you,” she said.
She waddled into the hallway, which was wallpapered with a pink-and-gray floral motif. Sunlight poured through a lace-curtained window. Three ajar doors led into dim bedrooms but no rooms with indoor plumbing. From downstairs she heard murmuring voices and the sound of water being poured. Standing on the landing above the stairs, clad only in the nightshirt with her bare feet on a handmade rug, she felt like an eavesdropper on a conversation she couldn’t quite hear.
Sydney, 1855.
By the time Osherman returned, Jodenny had used the pot and was studying the cobblestoned street below. The houses along the narrow, sloping street were small mansions of sandstone brick and wood, congruent with the era. There were no power or telephone lines, or signs of any modern technology. The smell of sewage was strong in the air, and some kind of meat was burning nearby. How did people live like this? She was afraid to find out.
The Stars Blue Yonder Page 18
