She glanced at her screen, saw that a short queue of requests had amassed while she listened to the conversation behind her. Focusing her attention on her duty, she pushed thoughts of the devotees aside, and got on with her work.
* * * * *
John had discovered that there was a definite rhythm to the crew halls. They were busiest the hour before and after shift change, as crewmembers came to relax or fortify themselves before heading to work. This left a relatively slow period right in the middle of John’s own work shift.
It was during this lull, when the hall was largely empty, that the twin devotees appeared. The girls were young, perhaps two or three years past their lifechange. They were pale and pretty, with matching red hair that fell to their shoulders. Neither wore any eyepaint. They approached the bar tentatively, and John flashed on an image of skittish deer, ready to bolt at the first hint of danger.
The girls settled themselves at the bar. Their eyes were lowered, their heads bent close together as they murmured to one another.
John put down the PIN he had been reading and smiled at them. “Welcome, ladies. What can I get for you?”
The girls looked up and stared at him. The one on the right blurted out, “Merciful pantheon!”
John’s smile never slipped. He had gotten this reaction more than a few times in the past. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?”
The girl who had spoken looked down, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sorry. I’ve just. . .”
“Never seen anyone with black hair before. I get that a lot. If it makes you feel better, it’s totally natural. Your reaction and the hair.”
“You’re not Junian.” The girl on the left said it slowly, as if testing the shape of the words.
“Nope,” said John, grinning. “Now, what can I get you ladies?”
They glanced at each other.
“Do you have bubble water?” asked the one on the right.
A child’s drink, thought John. “Sure. What color?”
“Green. Please.”
John nodded, turned to the other one. “And you, miss?”
The girl was looking at him, forehead wrinkled with thought. “Are you Zerraxi?”
“Nope. Human.”
Her frown grew deeper. “Human? I’ve never heard of that before?”
John’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well, that’s different. Where are you ladies from?”
“Tanis Siv.”
“Never heard of it,” said John, cheerfully. “So I suppose that makes us even. Now, what can I get for you? Bubble water, like your friend?”
“I’ll have a legbreaker.”
John nodded, but the girl’s sister gasped. “Oja!”
“This is probably the last place I’ll be able to get a proper drink, Efi,” said Oja, glowering at her twin. “And I’ve always wanted to try a real drink.”
Efi looked uncomfortable. “If Proctor Sio finds out. . . .”
“What will he do? Expel me?” She turned back to John, a wicked grin on her face. “A legbreaker, please.”
“The lady gets what the lady wants,” said John. Turning to his synthesizer, he dialed up the drinks and deposited them on the bar with a little flourish.
Efi picked up her bubble water, but did not drink it. Rather, she watched Oja pick up the legbreaker and down it in one gulp. Oja blinked, very carefully put the empty glass back on the bar, and said, “Oh my.”
Then the legbreaker came back up.
* * * * *
In John’s experience, nothing cleared an area faster than the presence of vomit. The crew hall was empty now. His fellow servers approached, but John waved them away.
Efi was frantic. “Oh! Proctor Sio is going to be furious!”
John had avoided Oja’s vomit, but the bar was a disaster. Pulling on a pair of gloves, he sluiced the vomit into a bucket. He turned the nano-scrubbers in the bar up to maximum, to sanitize the area and remove the sick stench from the air. The gloves, the bucket and its contents went down a recycler port.
Oja was slumped in a chair, white-faced and red-fingered with embarrassment. Her sister stood beside her, almost dancing in place with nerves. John dialed up two glasses of cold water and walked them over to the girls.
“Here.” He pressed a glass into Oja’s hand. “Drink this. It’ll get rid of the taste.”
The girl nodded and took a tentative sip.
“Oja, we should go,” said Efi. Her hands were clenched into fists, but John could see that her fingers were scarlet with blood past the second knuckle. “We’re so sorry!” she said to John. “We should never have left the guest quarters! Proctor Sio is going to be livid when he finds out!”
John took the nervous girl by the hand and pushed her down into another chair. He grinned at her. “Calm down before you burst a blood vessel. Who says the proctor’s going to find out?”
“He’ll find out,” said Efi. “He always finds out when we do things we shouldn’t!”
“Well, he won’t find out about this from me,” said John.
“Efi’s right,” said Oja. She sounded better and some color had returned to her face. “We should head back before we make things worse.”
“Are you sure you can walk okay?” asked John.
Oja nodded and stood. She swayed a little, and offered a sickly smile. “At least now I know why they call them legbreakers.”
“You’ll feel better in a bit,” said John. He grinned at her. “It’s not like you actually managed to drink much of it. Right?”
“We should hurry,” urged Efi. “If we’re lucky, the proctor will still be in the infirmary. Come on, Oja!”
They were hurrying toward the exit when a soft tone sounded. It was echoed, quietly, in the comm attached to John’s ear. The door to the crew hall slid shut. Efi stared at the blocked entrance, as if she had never seen such a thing before.
“What’s going on?” asked Oja.
“We’re getting ready to return to homespace,” explained John. “This is completely normal. As soon as it’s done, the doors will open and you can head back to guest quarters.”
“But the Proctor . . . !”
“Is stuck wherever he is, just like you,” said John.
He took a seat in one of the plush chairs scattered across the hall. His fellow servers were drifting over to join him. Some were giving the two devotees curious looks. John waved the girls at a couch.
“Have a seat. This won’t take long.”
Reluctantly, the two obeyed.
* * * * *
“Shunt complete, First,” announced Pilot Specialist Tujeso.
Nutip Fe grinned. “Well done, guardsman. I barely felt a thing.”
Tujeso grinned at the compliment. “Thank you, sir.”
Fe touched his panel. The command’s dull gray wallscreens rippled, darkened, relaying a real-time image of the space beyond the Harmonious Maiden.
“Komi, what’s our position?”
The navigator studied her workstation. “I’d estimate we’re about ninety minutes from Napiso, sir.”
Zunova frowned. “Estimate, guardsman? Can’t you be exact?”
“Not without positional beacons, ma’am,” said Komi. She turned in her seat, frowning herself. “And I’m not detecting any beacons in the system.”
Fe frowned, glanced at his First Scientist. “Explanation, Val.”
The white-haired scientist was crouched over his workstation, his fingers gliding over the screen, caressing it. “I have none, First. It’s possible that a solar storm could be interfering with the signal beacons, but the star appears to be quite placid.”
“Could it be some kind of system fault?”
“All the beacons?” said Zunova. “At the same time? Unlikely.”
“I agree,” said Jusip Val.
“First!” Nojulu Osori, the Comms Specialist, turned from her workstation. “We’re getting a distress signal from Napiso!”
“Details,” snapped Fe.
Osori touched
the comm behind her ear. “The colony is under attack by the Sewkari!”
Fe’s eyes blazed, but his voice was like ice. “Tujeso. Komi. Plot a course to Napiso. Full power. Take us to first alert. All personnel to combat stations.” He turned to Zunova. “First Defender.”
Zunova’s hands were flying over her screen. “Luja, deploy the sensor web at max. Osori, prep a danger-beacon and launch it.” She glanced at Fe. “Sewkari raid in packs, First. We might need back-up.”
Fe nodded, touched his screen. “The nearest Guard ships should be the Crimson Star and the Helpful Friend.”
Jusip Val frowned. “Should we wait for them?”
“No,” said Fe. “Pilot, do you have a course to Napiso?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Take us in,” growled Nutip Fe. “Hard and fast.”
* * * * *
The walls of the crew hall had turned piss yellow, as soon as the Harmonious Maiden was placed on first alert. Efi and Oja sat, trembling, clasping hands, visibly frightened. John thought most of his fellow guardsmen were probably feeling the same.
Surprisingly, Jesot emerged from her workspace, bellowing orders like an Institute drill instructor. The floaters scrambled, securing stations, checking and double-checking that the area was sealed, pulling emergency equipment out of storage bins.
John had just finished powering down the last of the synthesizers, when Jesot bellowed. “Status!”
“We’re ice-blue, ma’am,” shouted John.
Around the hall, the other servers were nodding in agreement. Jesot grinned, and tapped her comm, relaying their readiness. Afterwards, she marched over to the seating area and collapsed into one of the overstuffed chairs.
“Sweet pantheon, I hope this is just a drill,” she said, to no one in particular.
There were murmurs and nervous laughter from the floaters.
“Is that . . . possible?” asked Efi, clutching her sister.
Jesot blinked at the girl, as if suddenly seeing her for the first time. She shrugged. “I can count the number of battles the Maiden’s been in on one finger, miss.”
“You really think this is just another drill, Anu?” One of the floaters, a young woman named Pimuqi Ese, asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past the First Defender,” admitted Jesot.
John perched on the arm of a chair. “Would the First authorize a combat drill with civilians on board?”
Glancing at the two devotees, Jesot frowned.
* * * * *
The Harmonious Maiden dove into the Napiso system at a ninety-degree angle, its impellers blazing white. From the surface of Napiso, the ship was soon visible as a falling star, growing brighter with each passing second as it raced toward the planet.
* * * * *
Nosa Gev sat at her station, her pulse throbbing with excitement and fear. Her hands were moving, almost of their own accord. Their status, being on first alert, had altered the approval protocols. Defense was getting unlimited resources, automatically approved by a system agent. Engineering and Medical vied for secondary importance, still requiring her approval. Everyone else was automatically denied.
It was a streamlined process, duplicated in various ways all over the ship. Gev glanced around, saw Comm Specialist Osori seated at her station, one hand pressed to her ear, the other dancing across her workstation. At the front of the command, Tujeso and Komi, Pilot and Navigator, were crouched over their displays. Tujeso’s back was taught, and Gev thought she could see sweat trickling down his neck.
“First, I have a contact!” Luja, the Sensor Specialist, announced. “Emerging from the planet’s surface! Moving fast toward the dayside!”
“Identify it,” snapped Zunova.
Luja shook his head. “The vessel does not match any Sewkari profile on record, ma’am!”
“That doesn’t mean much,” offered Jusip Val. “Sewkari vessels are junkers. Cobbled together and maintained by whatever they can find.”
“Follow it, Tujeso,” ordered the First.
“I advise caution, sir,” said Zunova. “We don’t know if the Sewkari are leading us into an ambush. There could be a dozen ships waiting for us on the dayside.”
“First.” Osori turned in her chair. “We’re getting commed by the colony. They’re requesting assistance.” The Comm Specialist fidgeted. “It sounds like things are pretty bad, sir.”
Fe took a breath, glanced at his officers. “Input?”
“We should assist the colonists,” said Jusip Val.
“I agree,” said Zunova. “But the best way to do that is to get rid of the Sewkari.”
Nutip Fe frowned. He took a breath, held it, and exhaled. “Osori, comm the colony. Advise them we’re engaging the Sewkari, but that we’ve summoned additional help.”
Jusip Val frowned. “First, Guard protocol clearly states that. . . .”
Whatever Val was going to say was lost as Luja bellowed, “Tujeso! I have a contact! Straight ahead!”
Navigator Komi peered at her panel. “Calm down, Luja. It’s a debris field.” She glanced behind her, at the officers. “It looks like wreckage from one of the colony beacons, First.”
Luja shook his head. “No! I’m detecting a power signature inside the field!”
Zunova studied the sensor readouts being routed to her station. She felt the icy hand of fear grip her spine. “Ripper!”
“Evasive!” roared Fe.
But it was too late.
* * * * *
The ripper was a mine, designed by Dilatan military scientists to overwhelm the defenses of Junian Guard vessels. An electro-kinetic bomb triggered by proximity, the ripper would generate a massive burst of electromagnetic energy. Capable of overloading the defensive shields of Guard vessels, it left them vulnerable to the kinetic blast from the ripper’s exploding impeller core.
The Harmonious Maiden was almost touching the ripper when the mine detonated. Defensive emitters burned out and the forward batteries, dorsal and ventral, exploded. The ripper’s kinetic payload had already ripped through the outer hull of the Maiden. The command was obliterated, the guardsmen stationed there killed instantly. The secondary explosions, from the forward dorsal and ventral batteries, cracked the ship’s hull like an eggshell. First and third decks, forward of the ship’s core, were compromised beyond recovery. Any crewmembers who survived the initial explosions were killed by explosive decompression.
The core itself, site of the shunt drive and the ship’s power generators, was partially compromised. Forward bulkheads buckled. Power conduits were severed. The shunt containment field collapsed, and the shunt itself, a brick of exotic otherspace material, vanished in a burst of toxic radiation. Instantly, the core became a hot zone. The guardsman stationed there who had survived the initial disaster, were killed by the radiation burst. Fortunately, the heavily shielded core contained most of the radiation.
The aft sections of the Harmonious Maiden fared better. The aft weapons batteries had not exploded, and although first and third decks were compromised in some sections, there were still some survivors. The aft sections of the second deck remained largely uncompromised. Crew quarters and recreation halls survived, most of their occupants finding themselves suddenly trapped in free-fall conditions.
* * * * *
John woke, disoriented, floating in the dark. For a moment, he thought he was back on the Thunderbolt, waking to one of First Officer Emiz’s unscheduled disaster drills. He groaned and felt his head throb. Gingerly, he wiggled his fingers and toes, but besides the ache in his head, he felt all right.
As he assessed himself, he became more aware of his surroundings. People were weeping. He blinked into the darkness.
“What happened?”
“John? Is that you?”
He recognized Pimuqi’s voice. “Yes.”
“Merciful pantheon! I thought you were dead!”
Carefully, John oriented himself toward Pimuqi’s voice. “What happened, Pim?”
“I don’t
know,” said the young woman. She sounded on the edge of hysteria. “It felt like something exploded and then everything was dark and. . . .”
She broke down into muted sobbing.
“It’s okay, Pim,” said John. “Where are you? And where are the emergency lights?”
Her weeping grew louder. Shutting his eyes, he carefully kicked toward her voice, his arms extended before him.
“Pim, where’s Jesot?”
She didn’t answer and John felt a sudden surge of anger. “Pimuqi Ese, where is Jesot?”
“I don’t know!” shouted the woman.
He was closer to her than he had expected. His fingers touched a warm body. Hands were gripping his.
“John! John, is that you?”
“It’s me,” said John. They drifted together, in the dark. Pim wrapped herself around him. She was shaking.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” Her voice was small. She had her fingers dug into the tight weave of his shipsuit.
“All right. I’ve got you. Stay close. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He raised his voice. “Who else is here?”
There was still someone weeping nearby. John remembered the devotees and struggled for their names. “Oja? Efi?”
“We’re here!”
“Oja? Is that you?”
“Yes! Yes! Sweet, merciful gods! Yes, I’m here!”
“Is anyone with you?”
“I’m here,” said a soft voice.
“Efi?” Oja called to her sister. “Efi, where are you?”
“Here.” Efi spoke louder. “I . . . I don’t feel well.”
“It’s probably just gravity sickness,” said John. “Keep talking, girls.”
“Why is it so dark?” asked Oja.
“I don’t know,” said John. “I just woke up.”
“Gods,” whispered Pim. “I wish I could see!”
“Oh!” John hesitated. “Hang on a second!”
He reached for his PIN, found it still stuck to his hip. Grabbing it, he found the power switch and touched it. Instantly, the small screen lit. In its wan light, John could see Pimuqi, still wrapped around him. Her eyes looked enormous.
Dawnwind 1: Last Man Standing Page 14
