Shadow War (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 10)

by J. J. Green

Chapter Twenty-Seven

  In the days that followed the Unity Alliance’s victory in the Shadow War, Sayen had little to do. She spent most of her time worrying about Jas. The Thylacine remained at the scene of the battle, in orbit around K.67092d. The ship’s defense units and troops were planetside destroying the Shadow traps. There were many, including a large number on the ocean beds of the planet, so the task was a long and difficult one.

  The rebuilding of galactic civilization had yet to begin, but the preceding mopping up process after the war was underway. The Unity Alliance ships set out to find and destroy the remaining Shadow ships and free the planets in the sector that remained under their control. The UA had to be sure the galaxy was free of the Shadow menace. After that, all sentient species would have to remain in constant vigilance to prevent them from returning from the Void and establishing strongholds again.

  Jas remained in her quarters most of the time, delegating whatever tasks she could, refusing to talk to anyone. The first couple of times that Sayen had visited, Jas had been polite, saying that she was too busy or tired to talk. The third time she’d been more abrupt.

  Sayen had been standing outside Jas’ cabin, speaking into her comm—her friend wouldn’t even open the door. “Jas, please let me in. I just want to talk. It helps, you know. It might not seem like it, but it does.”

  “I can’t see you now,” came Jas’ reply, “as I’ve already said. Stop bothering me, Navigator. That’s an order.”

  There was something in her friend’s tone that didn’t sound quite right. It wasn’t that she sounded unhappy—that was to be expected. It was something else.

  “Don’t be like that,” Sayen said. “I thought we were friends. Why are you talking to me about orders?”

  “Because I’m your kratting commander. Now do as you’re told.”

  Sayen could hardly believe what she was hearing.

  “Jas, open the door. I’m really worried about you. If you don’t open up, I’ll tell the doctor you’re sick and he’ll override your door security.”

  There was no reply, but thirty seconds later, the door opened. Jas stood on the other side, fury written on her features. “What will it take to get you to leave me alone?” she spat.

  Sayen reeled back, and not only from her friend’s venom. She reeked of alcohol.

  “You’re drunk,” Sayen exclaimed.

  “What I do in my private time is none of your business,” Jas said. “Now, will you go away?”

  “No,” Sayen replied. “No, I’m not going anywhere. You need help. You can’t deal with this by yourself.”

  “Oh right. What kind of help do you think you’re going to get me? What do you think is going to make me feel better?”

  “Jas, don’t forget that I’ve been through this. I know how you feel.”

  “You...you know how I feel? Is that some kind of joke? You think this is like you and Erielle?” She swallowed. “He’s dead, Sayen. Carl’s gone, and it’s my fault. I sent him out there to die. So unless you killed the person you loved, you have no idea how I feel, and you have no idea what’s going to put things right. Nothing can bring him back and nothing can change what I did.”

  “What? You didn’t send him to—”

  The door slid closed. Sayen called Jas through the comm a few more times, but her friend wouldn’t answer.

  Sayen wasn’t sure what to do. If Jas wouldn’t talk to her, she didn’t know who she would talk to. She didn’t want to tell the admiral what was going on—he would probably relieve Jas of her duties and her duties might be the only thing keeping her going.

  In search of advice and someone to share her worries with, she went to see the only other person aboard who really knew Jas. Maybe together they could figure out how to help her.

  Toirien MacAdam was working in the jump engines, running point by point diagnostics, the second engineer said. Sayen went to an engine access hatch and climbed down the narrow ladder. As she went, she was strongly reminded of the time that she, Jas, and Carl had hidden from Shadows in the engine of the Galathea. It seemed like another lifetime.

  Her vision blurred, and she blinked to clear it as she remembered Carl. She hadn’t even had a chance to see him when he came aboard the Thylacine. Though it had been five years since they’d parted at Ganymede Station, her affection toward him hadn’t lessened. He’d been like a brother to her. Jas wasn’t the only one grieving over his loss.

  Within the access tunnels to the huge jump engines, the ship’s noises were cut off. Sayen heard Toirien’s footsteps in the quietness as she walked the steel mesh floor. By following their sound and calling her name, Sayen soon found the engineer.

  Toirien listened carefully to Sayen as she explained the situation. She turned to the control panel she was working at and pressed some keys before answering.

  “Well, it’s certainly strange how things turn around,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “The last time Jas Harrington and I were working aboard the same ship, it was me who was getting drunk, and worse.”

  “Seriously?” Sayen said. Toirien had told her of her former addictions, but she hadn’t said she’d continued them aboard ship. “Did Jas or Carl know?”

  “Oh yeah. Jas knew. She found me off my legs in my bunk one time. Outraged, she was, and rightly so. Everyone was relying on me to get the Galathea’s engines working again. The only problem was, I knew it. I couldn’t take the pressure. And I missed my girls. I...well, it’s a long story. It just strikes me as an odd coincidence that mine and Jas’ circumstances are the other way around now.”

  “So...what changed?” Sayen asked. “What helped you give it up?”

  “Ha.” Toirien smiled wryly. “I don’t think what helped me is going to be of any use to poor Jas.” She returned her attention to the control panel.

  After Sayen had waited expectantly for a moment or so, Toirien relented and said, her face reddening, “It was a myth run.”

  Sayen’s eyes widened. “You were a myth addict?”

  “Not exactly. That takes serious creds. But old Loba was, and after he died, his stash was found and distributed around the ship. I got a hold of a dose. I was as low as I could go. And...” Her face went redder still. “You know, now that I come to think of it, I’ve never told anyone this.

  “I went on my myth run, and I had a strange dream. I was floating in bliss, when some beautiful creatures came to me. They took me to my daughters, who were much younger in my dream than they were at the time. They were the same ages they had been when I’d last seen them. I was so happy to be with them again. Then, the strangest part of the dream occurred. My eldest told me my fears were stupid. She said there was nothing wrong with the engines, and that it was only my doubting myself that was holding me back.”

  Sayen’s eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped. “And was it true?”

  “It was true. I hadn’t trusted myself to interpret the readings I was getting from the engines. They were fine. I hadn’t believed the evidence of my eyes. When we tried them, they worked. Carl got us off the planet, and we were saved.”

  “I remember,” Sayen exclaimed. “Carl told me you thought the engines wouldn’t start because we were on emergency power after the crash. But as far as I can remember, Jas only said that you finally figured out that the engines were okay.”

  “I don’t think she knew any more than that. It wasn’t like I went around advertising what I’d done.”

  Sayen sighed. “It’s an interesting story, but I think you’re right. A myth run isn’t gonna help Jas. That isn’t going to help her forgive herself.”

  “No. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to suggest. Maybe with time she’ll start to get over it. It’s early days. The wound’s still raw.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sayen said, but from what she knew of Jas, she wasn’t sure that was likely to happen.

  Sayen thanked Toirien for her time and climbed out of the access tunnels. She decided she would try one more time to talk to
Jas and persuade her to see the doctor. If she refused, Sayen would tell the doctor herself. Jas needed help, whether she realized it or not. She headed toward her friend’s quarters once again.

  But she found Jas before she reached her destination. Her friend was standing in a corridor with her back to a wall. Now that Sayen could see her under the bright overhead lights, she saw that Jas looked worse than she’d ever seen her. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. Her facial bones jutted out of her skin and her clothes were loose on her body. Her hair was a mess. Her lips were pale, and her eyes were sunken in their orbits. They had a strange, faraway look.

  “Jas?” Sayen said. “Did you change your mind? Are you going to see the doc? Do you want to talk?”

  Her friend didn’t reply. She was looking at her as though she didn’t know who Sayen was. Then her gaze shifted straight ahead of her to the opposite wall of the corridor.

  Except it wasn’t a wall. It was an airlock.

  Sayen’s heart froze. “Jas, hun. What’re you fixing to do?” She took a step toward her friend. Jas slid an equal distance away along the wall. She was looking longingly at the airlock door. Sayen’s throat was constricting. Could she stop her friend from going into the airlock if it came to it? She probably could, but she didn’t want to take that risk.

  Her heart sinking, Sayen lifted her comm button to her lips and, not taking her eyes from Jas, she called Admiral Pacheco.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “You can remain in your quarters for the time being,” Pacheco said. “Unless you’d rather stay in the sick bay? There would be people around you, and you wouldn’t be alone. The doctor could monitor you better.”

  Jas was on her bunk. Her feet were on the floor and her head was down. She barely heard what the man was saying. She was in civilian clothes, having been relieved of duties for an undefined length of time.

  “I really think it would be a good idea for you to stay in the sick bay,” Pacheco said.

  Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? She wished they would all leave her alone. She couldn’t be around people. It hurt too much. Everything hurt too much.

  “Jas?”

  She shook her head. “M’okay.” The sedation was making it hard to speak, and she could hardly think. But then again, maybe that was a good thing.

  “Right,” said Pacheco. “As long as you’re sure. You are sure you’re feeling better?” 'Better’ meant that she wasn’t going to airlock herself. Everyone wanted her to be 'better’. Jas didn’t want to be better. All she wanted was Carl back, or to never have sent him to his death.

  She mustered her concentration. “I’m okay. Really.” Anything to make the man go away.

  Pacheco moved toward the door. “I’ll leave you for a while, then. Navigator Lee will be along to see you soon, in case you need anything.” He paused. “Jas, I’m sorry. You waited for your pilot for so long, he must have meant a lot to you. When I saw him coming out of your cabin, I could have put him in the brig. That would have kept him out of the battle. It would have been easy enough to think up a charge. I could have protected him for you, but I didn’t. I didn’t even think of it. I guess I was just too wrapped up in myself.”

  At the edge of her vision, Jas saw Pacheco’s legs and feet at the door. She wished he would leave. Didn’t he understand that she had enough of her own what ifs to occupy her forever? She didn’t need his too.

  Finally, he left.

  Jas lay down on her bunk and curled up on her side. After a long time, during which Sayen arrived to check on her, she slept.

  When she woke up, she felt terrible. Slivers of pain stabbed behind her eyes, her tongue was thick in her mouth, and her throat ached. She wondered if it was a side-effect of the sedation. She sat up, wincing as the movement caused more pain to dance behind her eyes. Her eyelids squeezed to slits, she checked the time. She’d been asleep around four hours. It was the quiet shift aboard the ship. Most everyone would be asleep.

  She pulled up her sleeve to where the sedation dispenser was taped to the underside of her arm, and picked at the edges of the tape until she could peel it off. The dispenser was a lozenge of plastic with a fine mesh opening, through which the sedative was forced into her bloodstream at regular intervals.

  Now that the tape was gone, the dispenser was only lightly stuck to her skin. She removed it and put it in the trash, then she went to her wash basin and doused her face with water.

  Not really knowing what she was going to do, Jas left her cabin. Though the doctor had infused calories into her system to make up for her days of self-starvation, taking away her dizziness, her legs remained unsteady from the doses of sedation. To help keep her balance, she pressed her hand against the corridor wall as she went along.

  She was drawing close to an airlock. She thought she knew the code to open it. It was to access a sensor array for external repair.

  If she went through the lock, it would mean a quick end to her pain. To die like that, frozen and floating among the stars, seemed kind of fitting. On the other hand, maybe she didn’t deserve a quick end. It seemed too easy after what she’d done.

  She passed the airlock by, saving the option for another time.

  Wandering aimlessly through the quiet corridors, she realized that she was making her way to the crew living sections. These were the dirtier, noisier parts of the ship, where the lowest-ranking crew bunked four to a cabin, and quiet and privacy were scarce. It had been a long time since Jas had lived in those conditions, when she’d been a plain security officer. Young and lonely. Had anything much changed? Now she was older and lonely, that was all.

  The area wasn’t very familiar to Jas. She rarely came this way. She’d hated the way all the lowest ranks would leap to attention when she appeared. She’d felt like she was invading the one place they had where they could relax. But now she was no longer a commander. She wasn’t anything. She had no doubts that she would be retired on health grounds as soon as the sweep of the Shadow trap planet was complete and the Thylacine returned to Unity docking.

  Jas came across a door that she vaguely remembered was the entrance to a lounge. She was tired, and she wanted to sit down. Thinking that the place would probably be empty at that hour, she opened the door. Four pairs of eyes turned to her. Four crew members were huddled together over something on a low table.

  For a second, Jas and the men and women stared at each other, then one of them shouted, “It’s the commander.” They all bolted, pushing Jas down in their rush to leave the room. Dazed, she looked behind her into the corridor, but they were gone.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet and went over to the spot where the crew members had been huddled. A small opaque bottle was on the table, along with some drug-taking paraphernalia. She sat down and picked up the bottle, an idea of what might be in it already forming. The bottle was tiny. After unscrewing the lid, she peered inside. She had to put her head close to the bottle to look through the small hole, and as she did so, a whiff of vapor from the contents confirmed her suspicion. Just a breath of the substance made her head spin.

  It was myth.

  Someone had smuggled myth aboard. Her attempts to weed out the addicts hadn’t been entirely successful. Automatically, she reached for her comm button to inform Pacheco, but it wasn’t there. She’d forgotten to transfer it from her uniform. She looked up at the door. Next to it was a comm console that would also allow her to do the right thing and tell someone what she’d found.

  But that small barrier to action had given her time to think. She’d only experienced the effects of myth once—on Ganymede Station when the Council managers had wanted a volunteer to try to communicate with the Paths. But since that time Jas had never lost the hankering to try it again. The visit to the mythrin mine had concentrated the feeling.

  Up until that moment, she’d always managed to resist the temptation.

  Jas put the lid back on the bottle. She held it in her palm, cool and smooth. It was so small, it probably only held o
ne or at most two doses, yet aboard the ship it would sell for a month’s wages. Jas recalled the experience of her myth run. She remembered how all concerns and fears had fallen away, and she had basked in perfect, seemingly endless bliss.

  The prospect of escaping from the hell she was in—real escape, not the dulling of every emotion that the sedative gave—was tantalizing. The idea that she could forget that Carl was gone, if only for a few hours, grew stronger in her mind.

  Jas picked up the paraphernalia, slipped it with the bottle of myth into her pocket and left the lounge.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  As soon as she’d closed her door, Jas took out the bottle of myth and box of needles and swabs from her pocket and quickly stripped off her clothes. She wanted to start the myth run soon or she might be discovered before it was over. She had the feeling that she was standing on the precipice of a vast, black abyss, yet she didn’t care.

  Before lying down in her bunk, Jas unscrewed the bottle, plunged the needle into the crimson liquid and drew it all up into the syringe. The myth was a deep, dark carmine in the dimmed cabin light, like blood. Her heart raced at the thought of the escape that it held. She’d been right when she told Carl that she wasn’t brave. There were some things she couldn’t face, and this precious drug was her way out, for a few hours at least.

  She lay down, holding up the hypodermic syringe in one hand. Closing her eyes, she brought back the memory of when Sparks had injected the drug into her. The site of the injection was important, she’d heard. She bit her lip. The memory of the bolt of pain that had shot through her when the myth entered her system was still vivid, but it was worth it for what happened after.

  She traced the fingers of her other hand down one side of her belly, trying to recall the exact spot. Her action reminded her of her night with Carl, and she whimpered from a hurt more painful than any she’d ever felt in all her years of fighting. She clenched her teeth. Just a few more moments, and the terrible ache would be gone. Her fingers probed farther south until she located the spot where she was certain she’d received her last shot of myth. She opened her eyes and lifted her head from her pillow, gazing down at the area.