by Taylor Smith
With the pod now streaking away from the Alliance ship, she dropped the rifle to the floor, sat down and was immediately in tears. Spent adrenaline had her shaking all over, and her sobs came in gusts. Nothing had prepared her for what she’d just done. Never in her entire life had she been so fearful or felt so betrayed. But it was over, if her ruse wasn’t discovered.
Haley gathered herself together and found Saundi sitting next to her. She smiled at her friend. An arm over the shoulder, consoling words or loving pats on the back wasn’t Saundi’s way. She simply sat beside her friend when Haley was upset just to be nearby in case she was needed. She took a deep breath and said, “I filtered out pods at tactical. They won’t see us, and the system won’t alert at our launch.”
“I’m impressed,” replied Saundi, her brow rising. “Now what in all hell happened that made the star cadet shed her unblemished, Alliance issue skin? You must have just broken every rule in the book!”
Haley laughed for the first time in she couldn’t remember when. She had to take another deep breath and shook her head. “That recon ship that’s been feeding us intel was actually a Clew pirate. Torbeck, I think his name was.”
Saundi’s eyes widened. “What?” she shouted a little too loudly for the small metal pod, then cringed. “Sorry. How’d you find this out?”
She leaned back and thought of the battle and the man on the screen. For some reason she felt a connection to him, but she didn’t even know who he was or even if he still lived. They both hated Andrelli, though, and that was something. “Andrelli was talking to the pirate on private comms. Evidently something happened aboard that ship. A man, he looked like he’d been through hell, killed Torbeck, then must have switched the channel to broadcast and spilled everything.”
Saundi laughed. “Oh, I wish I could have seen that bastard’s face knowing his dirty laundry was being aired throughout Valiant.”
Haley couldn’t help but laugh with her remembering Andrelli’s panic. “He went thermal! But then the pirate attacked. He hit us first, hard. We were completely unprepared.”
Saundi nodded and sat back. “Yeah. I remember that first jolt. It threw me to the brig floor.”
“We went a couple rounds with him and scored a pretty decent shot on him. Then suddenly he just… disappeared.” Haley squinted, remembering her confusion and the Captain’s anger. “It didn’t explode, it just vanished.”
“Leap frog,” Saundi whispered, barely audible.
“Leap what?” Haley asked, then shrugged when her friend shook her head in dismissal. “But that man – “ she stopped in thought.
“That man, what?” Saundi asked curiously seeing the look in her friend’s eyes.
“I don’t know. He was hurt. Not only on the outside, but he was in pain, I could tell. He said we’d killed his family. He must have been aboard that ship we caught several weeks back.” She snapped her fingers, coming upright in her chair. “That’s it! The man mentioned Valiant’s crew was being paid off. That’s why they killed the hauler’s crew! If Torbeck was feeding intel to Andrelli on where to find the pirates, the Valiant would catch the target and eliminate everyone.”
Saundi nodded. “Then Torbeck would slither around after the Valiant was gone and loot what was left. Damn, that’s harsh!”
Haley looked out the small window in the side of the pod. The Valiant drifted silently, slowly receding as they moved away. She hated that ship. She hated everything about it. She had to get the data she held to the Admiralty as soon as possible. She dug the two drives from her pocket and held them up to show Saundi. “I got this one from Benley. He’s been gathering data on Andrelli for almost two years. He helped us get off Valiant. But you put this one in my gym locker. How did you know they’d catch you?”
Saundi’s smile widened at seeing the drive. “Benley huh? I would have never guessed.” Then she looked down and shrugged. “I tripped a security trap when I was trying to erase our steps. Dumb luck. I knew better, but I was tired and trying to hurry. I figured they’d see the log within a couple hours and question me.” Her hand went to her still-bruised left eye. “I didn’t think they’d beat the crap out of me, though.”
Haley grabbed her friend in a hug, knowing Saundi wasn’t a hugger but didn’t care.
“Ok, ok,” Saundi said, squirming away with a scoff. “Don’t get all handsy.” She pointed to Haley’s eye that started showing a slight bruise. “We match now, anyway. So what’s the plan?”
“We wait for a day, then light off the beacon,” Haley said with a shrug. “I’ve seen the traffic report for the system, there’s a lot going on. Someone will see it and pick us up. Then we get this to Allied Fleet Command.” She patted the drives.
“What about Tyrant McDreadful?” Saundi asked with a worried look and a nod toward the window.
Haley snickered and shook her head. “The Valiant needs yard time, though I don’t think they’d go back to Adara. Even so, they’ll need a berth and there’s not one here big enough for a heavy cruiser. She’ll be long gone by the time we light the emergency beacon off. I hope.”
Saundi nodded in thought and then sat up straight. “Oh, look,” she said suddenly and pointed out the window.
“There she goes,” Haley said as the Valiant’s engines flared and moved away. “What a bitch.”
Chapter 11
Cade was furious. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and coughed at the smoke that remained after putting out the small fire under the navigation station. During the fight, the Valiant had somehow anticipated his move and hit them full-force. That volley had crippled several systems on the Reaper, but Cade knew he still held the winning hand. It was Andy that had panicked, dashed over to Cade’s station and activated the leap-frog system.
“Dorian! I need you back here!” shouted Andy from the corridor, sporting a fresh black eye.
“My name is Cade!” he spat back, wishing Andy would quit whining about the power conduits and repair the systems that they needed to fight the Valiant. The leap-frog had thrown them out of combat range of the Valiant and crippled the ship more than the Alliance warship had. Everything was down and the Reaper now ran on emergency power. Cade’s console had erupted in flame and from what little they knew, there were several fires raging unchecked aboard the pirate ship.
Andy huffed and ran back onto the bridge. “Fine. Cade. If we don’t repair the power linkages and put the fires out, we’re going to lose the rest of the tanks. Or worse!” He leaned down closer to Cade, who was sprawled on the floor under his station. “The helm can wait! We can’t even get the engines back to full power. We have to save what’s left of the crew!”
Cade continued his work, and with one good arm, it made things seem to take forever. “Andrelli is still out there,” he said matter-of-factly. “We can still get back there and destroy the Valiant if you would just shut up and help me!”
Before he realized what had happened, Cade was upended and flew several feet away from the console. He crashed against the command chair in a hail of pain. Dazed, a strong arm pinned his right arm to his side and another wrapped around his neck. He tried to struggle, but he didn’t have the strength. “What the hell? Get off me!”
“Dorian,” Andy said calmly in his ear. “I get it, ok? I understand – “
“You get jack!” Cade’s anger exploded. How could Andy possibly understand what Cade felt, what he’d lost? “We have to get back there! If you hadn’t run away, we could have taken him!”
“Your family is dead, Dorian,” Andy continued. “Your girl, Asaya, is dead. Torbeck and Andrelli killed them. And you ran Torbeck through.”
Cade froze at the mention of his parents and Asaya, his breathing heavy and his heart pounding.
“You’re not finished, I get that. But you’re going to kill yourself and everyone else around you before you can kill Andrelli if you keep this up.”
“I don’t care,” Cade said in a whisper among the trails of smoke that still hung in the air of the bridg
e. The claxons had been silenced but the dim light of the bridge, highlighted by a slow pulsing red light, seemed to darken around him.
“I know you don’t care, but I do, Dorian,” Andy said then released the chokehold on his friend and sat down beside him. “And you need to start.”
Cade sat against the command chair staring into the dim bridge, feeling helpless. He knew in the back of his mind that they were about to die when Andy activated the escape system, but he needed an outlet for his anger and Andy just happened to be there.
“I promise you that we’ll kill Andrelli,” Andy said.
Cade looked curiously at his friend at that. “Why would you say that? This is my fight.”
“The hell it is, Cade!” Andy said incredulously. “Andrelli and Torbeck have murdered hundreds of our people. Remember them? Our people? Clew, ring a bell? You’re so hell bent on this lone crusade that you can’t see that you’re not the only person they’ve hurt!”
Startled at Andy’s outburst, a veil seemed to drop from Cade’s thoughts. He had been so determined to bury the knife in Andrelli’s heart that he had forgotten how many lives the man had upended. All of Andrelli’s victims were someone’s brothers, sisters, parents and loved ones. He wasn’t the only one. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I guess I just didn’t think of it that way.”
“Understandable, from what you just went through. But you have to trust me, Cade. We have to work together if we’re going to get Andrelli. No more crazy half-cocked, full-bore attacks. We do this smart. A lot of people had a feeling Torbeck was dirty, we just didn’t know how dirty until now.”
Cade looked at Andy and saw him a bit differently now. “How many people?”
Andy let out a humorless laugh and said, “Look at me, Cade. I’m what? A year older than you, maybe two? How do you think the Reaper gained a twenty-two year old second in command?”
He’d never thought of it before, but now that Cade noticed, it did seem odd. “How?”
“We’ve been looking into the Valiant situation for a while. Torbeck was assigned to track Andrelli and try to catch him, but in all that time he was always one step behind him. His bank account was suddenly getting bigger, too. So either Torbeck was incompetent or,” Andy paused and pointed at the corridor outside the bridge where the body had been hastily dragged out of the way. “You know the rest. The council sent me aboard the Reaper six months ago to vet Torbeck. I didn’t like what I found. When we got back to Clew, I was going to get all the information I collected to the council, and they would have dealt with him.”
Cade shook his head. It was good to know other people were involved, and he knew at once that he’d been selfish to believe he was the only person hurt by Andrelli and Torbeck. He sat upright suddenly, his eyes wide. “The tanks!”
“About time!” Andy said and helped Cade stand. “Let’s get to work.”
***
The next morning, Cade sat at the powerless navigation station. They’d worked tirelessly through the night, repairing power lines and other systems, and he felt every grueling minute pushing down upon him. Sleep was not in his immediate future, however, so he took another sip of coffee. He was glad that he couldn’t taste it through his weariness.
“Finn is about ready to bring the reactor back online, Captain,” Criss Hulbert announced from the comms station.
Cade glanced in her direction and decided that if he looked half as tired as Criss did, he must look like the walking dead with all his bandages.
“Here goes nothin’” Andy said from the command chair. “Ok, Fin. Hit it.”
Cade hoped it worked this time. Their emergency power was running out quickly, and they’d found themselves in quite the paradox. The damage to the Reaper demanded that they wake up more crew to fix it. The more people they woke up, the more strain on life support, thus more power needed. Each crew member they woke up would drain an extra five percent from the power they had to work with, so they found themselves having to pick and choose who they woke up. Hubert Finnegan was Andy’s first choice since he knew the reactor like the back of his hand and that had been the priority. Once they had power, they could start work on the other crucial systems.
The lights suddenly went out on the bridge, leaving them in complete darkness.
“That’s not good,” Andy said.
Cade was about to reply when the lights flared through the room, causing them both to squint. The sounds of consoles booting up and computer chimes filled the bridge. “Whew,” he said smiling. The air circulation also kicked back into full, pulling the remnants of smoke and the smell of sweat away.
“Finally,” Criss said and collapsed back in her chair.
Andy smiled and said, “That did it, Finn. Power’s back. See what you can do about the main engines, just don’t bring any system up to full, or we’ll be spotted.”
“Aye, Captain,” came the response from the speaker.
Andy stood and walked to Cade’s station. “Now. Where are we?”
Cade was already running a system check, trying to figure that out. “It looks like the Reaper jumped us less than an A.U. away. We’re still close to where we were.” He rose, wincing at his leg, which had steadily become more painful to use, and limped toward the sensors console. Working through several screens, he nodded and said, “The computer is picking up a stardrive trail at the outer range of our passive scans. We aren’t far from where we fought. Do you think he’s gone?”
Andy leaned over Cade’s shoulder, taking a look for himself. He studied the data for a moment, then nodded and said, “Looks like Andrelli has left the system. Probably for repairs.”
“Limping home,” Cade whispered. He so badly wanted to pounce on the Valiant again, to force a decisive end for one or both of them. Andy had been right, though. He wasn’t alone, and they needed help. He reached down and rubbed his left leg that was still throbbing uncomfortably. “Both of us are limping home,” he said in finality.
The Reaper shuddered slightly, the tell-tale hum of its powerful engines coming online was a relief to them both.
Criss turned to face them and said, “Finn’s on the comm for you, Captain. Patching him through.”
“The mains are back online,” Finn announced from the intercom. “I could only bring up two, though. The dorsal engine housings are too damaged to balance out. They’ll make it through transit, but their repair will have to wait until we get home.”
Andy’s shoulders slumped as he said, “Well, two engines are better than none. Good work, Finn. How’s the drive? Can we even get home?” he asked, worried about the interstellar drive the ship used to cross the vastness of space between solar systems.
“The ISD isn’t the problem,” came Finn’s response. “We’ll have to reinforce the bulkheads that were damaged in the fight before she can take any sort of turbulence the drive will dish out. It’ll take another day if we’re lucky.”
Cade nodded his understanding as he thought back to the buffeting he went through with George on the Grim Shoals during transit. If the ship wasn’t solid, they’d surely break apart trying to get into subspace.
“Get some rest, Finn,” Andy replied. “Now that the main systems are back up, we could all use a break. We’ll get started on the bulkheads when everyone has had a chance to rest.”
Finns voice sounded relieved. “Thanks, Cap.” The connection terminated.
“Another day,” Cade said, then turned back to his console.
A soft chirping sound filled the bridge. Criss stirred and then sat upright. “Huh. There’s a distress beacon out there.”
Andy brought the comms screen up at the command chair and replied, “That’s an Alliance signal. Looks like it’s coming from an escape pod near the debris left from earlier.”
“An escape pod?” Cade asked, wondering what a pod could be doing out there. “It didn’t launch during combat or the helm would have flagged it as a navigational hazard.”
Andy straightened and crossed his arm
s. “If it’s from Valiant, then we should avoid it. There’s no telling what Andrelli could have done to it.”
Criss perked up and turned toward them. “You think it could be rigged? A booby trap?”
Andy shrugged. “Let’s find out,” he said as he walked back to the command chair and sat down. “Ms. Hulbert, open a channel to that pod.” He waited until she nodded and then said, “This is,” he paused for a split second before saying, “the merchant vessel Kray responding to the Alliance distress beacon we’re detecting. Are you receiving?” He looked to Cade and shrugged.
Cade shrugged back and looked toward the main view screen. The view was of the stars outside the ship. He couldn’t see the pod, but he imagined the small contraption floating free in the void and was curious if anyone would respond.
After a moment Andy shook his head and depressed a button to mute his comms. “No answer. I’ll try again in a moment, but if we don’t get a response I’m not going near it. It could be – “.
“Kray, this is Ensign Marks of the Allied Fleet,” the response came over the loud speaker. “We’re in need of assistance. Can you comply?”
All three on the bridge were silent, staring at one another after hearing the woman’s voice. Andy depressed the mute. “Affirmative, Ensign Marks. This is Captain Johns” he lied and paused again, shaking his head trying to think of what to say. Finally he continued , “What’s your situation?” He looked to Cade, who was staring wide-eyed at him. He threw his hands in the air and mouthed the words ‘I don’t know’.
“Thank you, Captain Johns,” the voice responded. “We have no injuries to report and another three days of life support left. With that said, I’d really like to get out of this thing sooner rather than later.”
“Understood. We’re on our way,” Andy said and walked to the navigation console. “Our ETA is six hours.”
Cade knew that was a lie. Even with only two engines the Reaper could be there in less than two hours, but he understood why Andy lied. If they’d told the truth, whoever Ensign Marks was would know they were way too close to the scene of the battle, and that could spook her.
