by J. J. Green
The Head of Nest said, “Welcome. Welcome. See.”
Jas followed the direction of its glowing eyes to a spot on the wall. A tube was fixed there below a tiny crack. The tube was the same color and material as the wall, which was why she’d failed to see it at first.
“That’s it, ma’am,” Trimborn said, arriving at her side.
“That’s it?” Jas asked.
“Yes. Look inside the tube.”
Jas leaned forward until her forehead was nearly resting on the wall. Deep down in the tube, a liquid glinted in the glow from the assembled aliens’ eyes. The liquid was a delicate, pale pink. Jas noticed that at the edge of the crack above the tube, a drop of the liquid had swelled. As she watched, the drop fell. Simultaneously, the collected aliens’ bodies trembled.
“This is it. This is it,” the Head of Nest said. “Mythrin is our world’s main source of income. We do not use it. Our bodies do not metabolize it. We only collect it and sell it. Very valuable. Yes. Yes.”
The color of the mythrin was much paler than the deep scarlet of mythranil, but that made sense. Mythranil was the refined drug and mythrin was only the raw ingredient. Yet seeing the drug in its natural state made Jas shiver. The narcotic sent the user temporarily to the home of the Shadows, the Void, and it was vital for its use in Shadow scanners.
Also, they’d come a distance of kilometers deep underground to witness the collection of a single drop. No wonder the drug cost so much.
As they traveled back through the mythrin mine, Trimborn told Jas what he’d learned about mythrin from the natives of the planet: that only a particular combination of rare factors, including unusual geological formations and eons-long processes, would result in small amounts of the chemical oozing out of the rock.
“They didn’t even know they had mythrin on the planet,” he went on. “A couple of geologists who were scouting around found it. They tried to keep the discovery a secret, but the locals soon figured out what they were mining. Booted the geologists off the planet, or possibly ate them. They were vague about that part. Anyway, the local governments weren’t slow to exploit the new source of income. Now, according to one Head of Nest anyway, no one living on the planet need ever work again. Except for the miners, of course, and they receive double income.”
Trimborn chattered on after Jas had thanked the aliens and said goodbye. He went with her to the shuttle. She barely registered what he was saying, and as she returned to the Thylacine, her mind was deeply occupied.
The sight of the mythrin hadn’t only caused her to feel wonder. Though it had been five years since the one time she’d experienced the effects of mythranil, her memory of the experience remained strong. Her close proximity to its raw ingredient had created in her a deep desire to use it again.
The feeling of need for the illegal drug, together with her alcoholic binge the previous evening, her constant tiredness, and her inability to consider her future, as if she just didn’t care anymore what happened, brought her to another personal truth: she was beginning to fall apart.
Chapter Eight
When Jas arrived at her office aboard the Thylacine, a mail from Pacheco was awaiting her. He was requesting a face-to-face meeting, but this time he would come to her. The time he proposed was soon.
Jas sent her acceptance. The timing wasn’t great—she would have preferred longer to prepare her thoughts—but she was glad that the admiral had taken her concerns about the Shadow ship seriously. She left a note on the general system to say where she could be found, and waited.
The green motes of the gateway appeared in the air in the corner of her office. When the spiral was swirling strongly, the black-uniformed leg of the admiral appeared, soon followed by the rest of his body. He gave her a nod and took off his hat. Behind him, the gateway disappeared like water running down a plug hole.
“Jas,” he said, coming forward.
“Admiral Pacheco,” Jas replied. “Thank you for coming. I guess you must be very busy with the battle coming up. Please take a seat.” Jas sat behind her desk. “I take it that this is about my mail? Did any of the other commanders notice anything similar? What do you think about it? Are you going to modify the battle plans?”
Pacheco was putting his hat down and hitching up his trousers before sitting as Jas spoke. He gave her a quizzical look and an embarrassed half smile. He rested his hands on his knees.
“I read your report, Jas, and I agree that what you saw is odd, but the battle plan is complex, involving thousands of Unity Alliance ships and hundreds of thousands of personnel. We’re too far along to change anything now, even if your observations are correct. What do they mean anyway? That the Shadows have their own ships and very well trained pilots? I’m not sure how that’s going to change anything that we should or could do.”
Jas said, “Of course it should affect what we do. If they’re building their own ships, we could try to find out their specs. We could gather more intelligence in Shadow-controlled planets. If this is our best chance to defeat them, like you said, shouldn’t we make the best preparations we can?”
“Does something make you think we aren’t already gathering intelligence on Shadow-controlled planets?” Pacheco asked. “I can tell you that we’ve received no information about them building their own ships. Why would they need to when they can just take their victims’? It takes years to build new ships. Don’t forget that they only have the knowledge and skills of the people they murder. If they were designing new ships, we would have seen more evidence of it than a couple of vessels in a minor battle. Battleships aren’t exactly easy to hide.”
“But what if they have?” Jas asked. “The technology I observed on one of the ships was much better than ours. If we go ahead without knowing more, the next battle could be suicide for us.”
“If they do have a few starships that are better than ours, the sooner we annihilate them, the better.” Pacheco tutted and shook his head. “Jas, you’re not getting it. It’s too late to do anything now. The countdown’s begun and the wheels are turning. A little under three days from now, every available ship in the Unity Alliance fleet will jump into strategically decided coordinates, and the battle will commence. The last battle, I hope.”
Jas’ tension deflated with disappointment. She was sure there was something to be learned from what she’d seen, something important and worth acting upon, but it was clear that she wouldn’t persuade the admiral of it.
“Then,” she said with a frown, “why are you here?”
Pacheco picked up his hat and began turning it in his hands. He looked down at it as he seemed to think about how to answer her.
“Let’s forget about me being an admiral and you being a commander for a moment, okay?” he said at last. “We go back a long way, Jas, don’t we? Do you remember when we first met?”
Her heart sank. So this was why he’d come. Couldn’t the man take a hint?
“Yes,” she replied, “of course I do. You were serving on the Infineon, and I’d been sent there in command of a team of defense units. Some of the ship’s pilots died rescuing us when our transport was attacked.”
Pacheco nodded. “I was quite upset about that. We were short of pilots as it was, and to lose some over a handful of defense units and a single greenhorn, well, it didn’t seem worth it. Not that it was your fault.”
Jas replied. “I don’t think it was my fault either, but I felt bad about those pilots too. And all those who have died since.”
“I know you do. I know,” Pacheco said softly. His gaze returned to his hat.
Jas was squirming with embarrassment on the man’s behalf, though she didn’t know what she could do to avert him from the course he’d set upon.
“When the Shadows in the Infineon’s crew revealed themselves, and the fight erupted on the bridge,” he continued, “and Commander Torbin was killed, you and I were pinned down in one spot together...do you remember?”
“Yes, you got that horrible burn on your side fr
om metal heated by laser fire.”
“That wasn’t so bad.” He paused. “I changed my mind about you during that fight. I saw how hard and how bravely you fought. I knew that the effort to save you had been worth it.”
Jas sighed. She wasn’t so sure about that.
“And since then,” Pacheco said, “we’ve served together most of the time. How many of us are left who have been in the war since the start, do you think? Not many, I guess.”
He gave a huff of frustration and put his hat down on the seat next to him.
Here it comes. Jas looked with sympathy into the man’s dark, troubled eyes.
“What I’m trying say is,” Pacheco said, “over the years, I’ve grown to care about you. Probably more than you think. And I wanted to come here and tell you so because in a few days’ time we’ll both be involved in something that’s going to decide the fate of the galaxy. Who knows if either of us will survive?
“It seemed important that I tell you how I feel,” he continued as Jas was wishing she could disappear into the floor. “I guess I’m here to find out if there’s anything I can hope for when it’s all over. I’m not sure exactly what I mean to you, Jas, but I don’t think you feel the same way about me as I do about you. That’s what’s always stopped me from saying something. But I believe that it’s wrong to sit on these things forever. So here I am.”
He looked up, all the dignity and demeanor of his office and rank stripped away.
Jas’ heart ached for him, but not in the way he clearly hoped. She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted her, her expression apparently telling him everything he needed to know.
“It’s someone from your past, isn’t it,” he said heavily. “Someone from before we met. I noticed that you’ve never gotten together with anyone in all this time. I saw how eagerly you scanned your new recruits after I told you an old acquaintance was among them, and how your face fell when you didn’t see whoever it was you were hoping to find.”
“My private life is my own concern,” Jas said quietly.
The admiral’s disappointed features became hard and set. He stood and picked up his hat. “So you are clinging to the past, like I thought. In that case, you’re a fool. You’re wasting away your life on a memory when you could be happy. If you would just give someone else a chance, you could be loved. Did you ever consider that?”
Her hands clenching into fists at his attack, Jas also moved to stand but in her haste she banged her knees on her desk. She gave a gasp of pain and sat down again, her hands on her lower thighs. “Krat, Pacheco. Things aren’t that simple. I don’t get to choose how I feel.”
The admiral stepped toward her and stood over her, his black-suited figure shading out the overhead light. “You’re living in the past, Jas. Living on dreams.” He squatted down, looked up into her eyes, and continued in a more conciliatory tone, “When we win this battle, things will go back to normal. People will return home and pick up the pieces. Build new lives. Start anew. We always worked well together, Jas. You can’t deny it. We think alike. We have a good rapport. When all this is over, you and I would make a good team. And I know you don’t hate me. If you would just stop shutting me out, we could have something good going for us, don’t you think?”
Jas looked down and didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. In some ways, he was right, but so was she when she’d said she didn’t have a choice about how she felt.
Pacheco gave a sigh of exasperation and stood up. “So that’s it, is it? We go into battle with no hope for a future? You’re content with that? What’s the point then? Who is it that you’re fighting for?”
Still, Jas had no words of reply, but the response that popped into her mind was, not me.
Chapter Nine
The pilots had assembled in the launch bay as Jas had requested prior to what she hoped would be the final battle. The old hands would know what was coming, but she made them attend anyway. Her words were just as important however often they heard them.
Jas always spoke to the pilots on the eve of every battle. Though it tortured her to look into the eyes of the men and women standing before her, knowing that many of them would be dead within a few short hours, she felt that they were owed this personal address. It was the very least that someone like her, who would be within relative safety behind the force field and heavy hull plating of a starship, could do.
They deserved acknowledgment of the risk they were taking, and for many, of the sacrifice they would make, so that others could live in peace and safety.
For Jas, it meant more than that. She forced herself to look into the eyes of the people she was effectively sending out to die because she didn’t want to become hardened to their fate. She wanted to be sure that those women and men were real to her, so that she would never deploy them unless it was absolutely necessary.
The pilots were dressed in their flight suits and standing to attention. The fresh recruits’ uniforms were new and colored a deep, rich gray. Older pilots were identifiable by their lighter gray suits, faded a little with time.
“At ease, pilots,” Jas said. “This won’t take long.” She put her hands in her pockets. “As you know, tomorrow we begin a new battle. I can’t emphasize to you enough how important it is that you have one hundred percent confidence in your ships. Before you go to bed tonight, I want each and every one of you to be absolutely certain that your ship and all your equipment is in perfect working order.”
Her comm button bleeped, but Jas ignored it.
“If you’re uncertain about anything, or if you want to run another diagnostic, ask a technician. If any of them complain that they’re too busy or not on duty, report them to me. Have you got that?” She stopped her pacing and glared at the pilots, who gave a few hesitant replies of Yes, Commander.
Her comm button bleeped again.
“Krat it,” she muttered under her breath. Lifting the button to her lips, she barked, “What?”
It was Trimborn. “Commander, Navigator Curlio’s violently ill. I’ve sent her to the sick bay.”
“What?” Jas repeated. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. She keeled over at her station. She’s running a fever and delirious. The doctor’s assessing her at the moment.”
Jas hoped that the woman’s illness wasn’t serious and that, whatever it was, it wasn’t contagious. The ship’s crew coming down with a virus just before going into battle was the last thing she needed. As it was, the best-case scenario was that her navigator would be out of commission for the next few, crucial, hours.
Jas ran through her mental list of the ship’s company, trying to think of a replacement. She didn’t know of anyone aboard with recent experience of navigating a destroyer, and when she asked Trimborn, neither did he. They could use someone who had out-of-practice navigation skills, but there might still be time to find a better solution.
“Direct comm Admiral Pacheco, Trimborn,” Jas said, “and explain the situation. Maybe someone’s available who can replace Curlio at short notice. It’s worth asking.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jas closed her eyes for a moment to refocus on her speech to the pilots.
“You’ve got the hardest, most dangerous job of all to do tomorrow,” she continued. “I’m sure you realize that, but you’re still here, and that says a lot. You chose to join this war, and you chose the riskiest way to serve. Every one of you standing in this bay is already a hero. I want you to understand that I and everyone else aboard this ship knows it and that we appreciate what you’re doing.
“I also want to thank you, now, for your service, and to tell you that I will do everything in my power to bring every single one of you home again to your families and loved ones. Good luck, everyone. Dismissed.”
At her command, the pilots broke formation. Some began to walk away, but a few came over to her. The first held out his hand. He was a short, slightly tubby man with silvered stubble. He was wearing the fresh uniform of
a recruit, yet he looked too old to enlist. Jas guessed the recruiting officers made exceptions for those with flying experience.
Jas shook the man’s hand. The woman who was with him also held out her hand, and the next pilot, and the next. The ones who were leaving noticed what was happening, and they came back to also shake Jas’ hand.
She was so moved, she couldn’t speak. Her lips drawn to a thin line, she shook each pilot’s hand. When they were all done, she waited where she was and watched the courageous women and men leave the launch bay. She hoped they would spend the next few hours as well as they could before they began the fight of their lives.
Chapter Ten
Sayen Lee was deep in concentration when her comm sounded. She was sitting at her cabin’s interface screen manually calculating starjumps. It was an old habit from the days when she worked aboard prospecting starships. The mental exercise calmed her and distracted her from excessive worrying about her brother, Phelan, who was heavily involved in rooting out the remaining Shadows on Earth.
She’d been figuratively kicking her heels aboard the Camaradon for the last two weeks, and she’d gotten increasingly bored. Admiral Pacheco had assigned her the role of second navigator after the frigate she’d served aboard last had been incapacitated in a skirmish. But the Camaradon’s first navigator was entirely competent at his job as well as irritated by her hanging around. Effectively, she had krat all to do.
“Navigator Lee,” came the admiral’s voice over her comm. “You’re being reassigned. Get ready to ship out. You’ll be leaving by gateway in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Sayen replied. “Permission to ask where I’m going, Admiral?”
“The Thylacine. Their navigator’s taken ill and they don’t have a suitable replacement.”
