Jaq heard a smile in Bruno’s voice. “You two get to the Sovereign, quick as you can. Fay or not, I want you to get checked out, Marraine.”
“If she won’t go, I’ll carry her,” Jaq proclaimed. He was barely able to hold his own head up, but that was beside the point.
Marraine laughed at him again, a sound like silvery bells, as she pulled him to the safety of the Sovereign.
Out of the corner of her eye, Elsa saw the two coaches disappear into the Sovereign’s shuttle bay. She released a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. They would be well taken care of now, at least. There was nothing more the cinders could do for them.
Except hold the shield wall, of course.
There was a noticeable thin spot where Marraine and Jaq had been, and Bruno ordered the cinders to spread out to compensate.
“Any idea how long this will last?” Gus asked.
Priscilla (or Camilla) broke in. “Solar weather reports indicate the worst of the cloud will have passed in the next few hours.”
Gus chuckled. “Is everyone and his brother still on this comm line?”
A readout on Elsa’s display caught her attention. Her eyes widened in dismay. “Bruno?” she said tentatively. “We have a problem. Check the readouts on your emitters’ power grid.”
Bruno swore. “I see it. I bet all of the other coaches are in the same shape. The grid is already showing stress—no way it’ll last another couple of hours.”
“Bruno,” Gus said, “if we lose just one more coach, the wall won’t—”
“I know. Give me a minute.”
There was silence over the comm lines as the cinders focused on maintaining their positions, now an even more tenuous balance without Jaq’s and Marraine’s coaches.
“Okay,” Bruno said a few moments later, his voice definitive. “I’ve temporarily muted our comm lines to the clones and to the Sovereign. Fall back from the mining hub. We’re going to let the storm take it. There are enough of us to protect the main station if we’re not spread out so far, trying to encompass the hub as well. The mining supervisor just confirmed that no one is on the hub right now; the full contingent of cinders is out here.”
Elsa’s brows shot up. “The mining supervisor told you to sacrifice the mining hub?”
“Nope,” Bruno said tersely. “But that’s what we’re going to do. I’m sending you new navigational data now to synchronize our withdrawal to a tighter perimeter around the station, and I’m sending it to the Sovereign as well. They won’t know it’s not station-authorized.”
“You do realize you could get fired for overriding the station’s orders, right?” Gus asked. “Not that I’m against this plan,” he clarified, “but I just want to make sure we’re all on the same screen.”
Bruno was undisturbed. “I’m aware. I didn’t disobey once when I should have done. I’m not making that mistake twice. People’s lives are worth a lot more than a pile of molten slag from the armpit of a hell-planet. The cendrillon in the hub can vaporize, for all I care. Ready?”
Elsa grinned. “Ready.”
In perfect synchronization, the cinders withdrew from in front of the mining hub, and the Sovereign slowly drifted backwards, keeping her dorsal shields in contact with the wall.
Elsa watched as the stress display on her power grid went from orange to yellow. “It’s working,” she said. “That should buy us some time.”
The storm broke against the relatively unshielded mining hub, instantly searing all of the circuitry aboard. With its own minimal shielding stripped away, the hub was laid bare by the plasma as portions of the outer hull were peeled back by lashing tongues of energy. Elsa saw chunks of cendrillon, solid in the cold of space, explode silently out of the ore processors. So much for our quota, she thought, and found that she didn’t care at all.
Two hours later, Lieutenant Tsarevich’s voice came back on the line. “I just received a report from sickbay. Marraine is experiencing some nausea but didn’t suffer any lasting damage. She’s being treated and should be fine in a few hours.”
“And Jaq?” Bruno interrupted.
“Jaq has suffered more extensive damage, but our doctor tells me he will make a full recovery in time. We have him in treatment, and he’ll need to stay in a medical facility for at least a week.” Karl paused. “The doctor reports that he is quite upset over the possibility of losing his hair and is running a fever, but is otherwise doing well.”
Elsa laughed in relief as the comm lines exploded in cheers.
“Thank you for your help, Sovereign,” Bruno said. To Elsa, he sounded as though he were holding back tears.
“It was our pleasure,” the lieutenant said.
“Not to cut this short, ladies and gents,” Gus said, “but it looks as though the fun isn’t over yet.”
Elsa looked at her sensors. A second cloud was hard on the heels of the first. The coaches all checked their positions and hunkered down to weather the blast.
The second cloud wasn’t as dense as the first, but it was dispersed over a wide area. The shields all held, but the interminable fire outside was wearing everyone down. As the hours passed, the ache in Elsa’s shoulders increased. They were all feeling the strain of holding the formation after wrestling with their vehicles for so long.
At last the storm passed, and whatever other debris Aschen’s sun hurled was minor enough that the station’s own shielding could handle it. Finally, blessedly, they all received the recall order from the station.
The Sovereign gently disentangled her shields and moved back into her station-side dock.
“Thank you again, Lieutenant,” Elsa said softly, not sure he was still listening.
“You’re welcome,” Karl replied. “I hope all of you can get some rest.”
Elsa fervently hoped so too. She withdrew her coach from the wall, wincing as she rolled her shoulders and finally took her hands from the controls. Her eyes stung from squinting against the brilliant light of the plasma for so many hours. She stared uncomprehendingly at the chronometer, too tired to figure out how long they had been battling the storm.
“Too long,” Gus said when she voiced that question over the comms. “I don’t want to see the inside of a coach again for a week, at least. How will we get home? We can’t dock at the hub, obviously.”
“Fly into the main station’s shuttle bay,” Bruno told them all, his voice blank with exhaustion. “If anyone dares give you trouble for entering without authorization, tell them to take it up with me. They can only fire me once.”
The coaches swarmed inside the shuttle bay, parking anywhere they could find a space, and the cinders stumbled out, shaky but unharmed.
8
Whatever feelings of triumph the cinders felt about surviving the storm and protecting the station had completely dimmed by the time they disembarked. Most of them were silent, bone-weary.
It was Gus, surprisingly, who pulled everyone into another hug before they all left, the other cinders streaming past them on their way to their quarters.
“I’m sorry,” he told Bruno. “I said I’d look after them.”
Bruno thumped him on the back. “Nothing you could have done. And it all ended well.”
And yet Elsa seemed unable to shake the sense of gloom as the cinders went to their quarters. She fell across her bed, still in her undersuit and not caring in the least how much soot she got on her sheets. She was asleep in moments.
The cinders slept the entire day, exhausted beyond measure, but they dragged themselves out of bed to visit Jaq that evening. Marraine had stayed aboard the Sovereign with him.
Elsa and Gus boarded the shuttle to the ship. Bruno messaged to tell them he would catch a shuttle ride a bit later; the mining supervisor had requested a meeting with him. No one expected that to go well.
Elsa and Gus found themselves fidgeting on the ride over to the frigate. Elsa twisted her fingers in her lap. “Have you ever been aboard one?” she asked Gus.
He snorted. “A
cinder, gallivanting aboard a ship of the line? Not likely.” He craned his neck to look out the window. “Never even seen one this close up before.”
Wing-like, the graceful, glittering lines of the Sovereign filled their view as they docked with a gentle nudge. Elsa and Gus exchanged glances and braced themselves before stepping through the airlock. Unaccountably, Elsa’s heart was hammering in her chest.
A crewman was waiting for them. He saluted cautiously, unsure what to do with them since they had no official rank, before escorting them to the sickbay.
Elsa caught herself glancing down every hallway, looking for something. For what, she wouldn’t admit, not even to herself.
The halls were brightly lit and spacious, more like a station than a ship. It didn’t feel claustrophobic at all, though Elsa realized this may have been due to the fact that there were so few people. She commented on this to the crewman.
“Aye,” he said, “we’re flying scarce, I’ll admit. It was a volunteer-only mission, and volunteers were a little thin on the ground once folks heard how long it would be before we put back into port. Still, we’re managing.”
Elsa was quiet, thinking, and Gus silently drank in the sights.
The sickbay brought them back to reality. Though it, too, was gracefully designed, it still smelled like an infirmary and no mistake: antiseptic and that indefinable hospital smell. But Jaq was there, looking very pale but like himself, and his grin when he saw them lit up the room. Marraine was seated at his bedside, looking less alien in the already-alien environment of the frigate.
“How are you feeling?” asked Elsa when the initial round of greetings was past.
“Not too bad,” Jaq replied, “but they tell me I’ll be stuck here—or in the station infirmary, more like—for some time. The Sovereign will be departing in a couple days, so I’ll be dumped on the mercies of the Tremaine doctors.”
“So soon?” Elsa murmured. “I didn’t realize she would be sailing so quickly.” Now why did that make her stomach plummet so?
“I’m sorry too,” Jaq said. “I’d hoped to see more than just the sickbay while I’m here, though perhaps I still might. Lieutenant Tsarevich sent me a get-well message and said he hoped to give me a tour before I left.”
“Have you, ah, seen him then?” asked Elsa, looking carefully at the bulkhead as she spoke.
Jaq shook his head. “He sent his apologies, but he’s been busy overseeing the repairs.”
“What repairs? Was the Sovereign damaged?” Gus asked.
“Only minor damage, he assured us,” said Marraine. “Still, they want to make sure all is well before shipping out, and this is their last chance to get spare parts for some time.” She turned to Elsa. “Just think of it! They’re to be gone a whole year, travelling to places no one has been—or at least, no one for a very long time.” She paused, flexing her long fingers absent-mindedly. “It is a tempting prospect, is it not?”
“Tempting indeed,” Elsa said, doing a fair job of keeping the wistfulness out of her voice. She watched Marraine work her fingers again. “Are you cold?” she asked the fay suddenly. She realized that the ship was noticeably cooler than the station; suddenly those long uniform coats favored by the fleet seemed less of a fashion statement and more of a necessity.
Marraine rubbed her arms. “A little. Our resistance to radiation may be higher than yours, but evidently our resistance to the cold is lower.”
Jaq moved as though to whisk the blanket off his bed, but Elsa beat him to it, shrugging out of her jacket. “Here,” she said, handing it to Marraine with a smile. “This is the equivalent of a warm day for someone Anser-born.” Her smile fell suddenly as a thought struck her. “Oh, Marraine! Your dress was aboard the mining hub. I’m so sorry . . .” Elsa winced, imagining that beautiful gown torn apart by the plasma storm.
But Marraine wasn’t concerned. She waved a jacket-covered arm. “It’s just a dress, dear. We saved everything of importance.” Her eyes flickered to Jaq, but he didn’t notice.
“So where’s Bruno?” the patient asked. “I thought the old codger would have come along.”
“Oh, he will,” Elsa said. “The supervisor called a meeting, but he said he would be here as soon as it was over.”
“And so I am,” said Bruno from the doorway. He walked in, stopping to ruffle Jaq’s hair. “This still seems to be attached, for the moment,” he said.
Jaq batted his hand away. “Not if you keep messing with it.”
Elsa watched Bruno. “Well?” she asked. “That meeting was awfully short.”
Bruno took a deep breath. “The hub is inoperable, not that that’s a surprise to anyone,” he said, sitting on the edge of Jaq’s bed. “It’ll take months to rebuild. The company wants to pursue mining here—Tremaine Station is too large an investment just to let Aschen go—but mining won’t be back in operation for six months at least. They’ll be sending the official announcement tonight, and they said they’d let us go over to the hub in our suits tomorrow to collect any belongings that may have survived.”
“What will we do for six months with no work?” Jaq asked.
“Most of the cinders are being reassigned, at least temporarily, to other mining stations. No single location needs this many cinders—there are almost one hundred of us, all total—so they’re dividing everyone up based on how much experience they have. They’re sending a few veterans and a few newbies to each station, so you’ll likely end up in different places.” Bruno ran a hand over his face, looking older than his years. “That’s assuming you all want to continue mining, of course. They’re prepared to offer a severance package.”
“Did they offer you a transfer too?” Elsa asked carefully.
Bruno snorted. “They offered me the door. They thanked me for my service, for what that’s worth, but they can’t afford a cinder who doesn’t follow orders.”
“That’s unfair,” Jaq said, hauling himself up to sit straighter in the bed. “You’re the best leader they’ve ever had, and they know it. What else could you have done? They could’ve lost the whole station if not for you.”
Bruno shook his head. “They admitted that, but they need a scapegoat for this whole affair. I’m expendable.”
“I suppose there’s no use in us hunting for jobs around the station,” Gus reflected, “since fewer staff will be needed to run the commerce center as it is, without the cendrillon buyers coming through for several months. I guess we’ll have to leave.” His expression was that of a lost child.
“There’s always ice mining on Europa,” Bruno said doubtfully. “Maybe they would take the five of us on as a complete crew.”
“Are their mines still open?” Jaq asked. “I heard a rumor they were thinking about closing.”
Bruno shrugged. “We can check.”
Marraine shook her head, getting the gesture just right this time. “I don’t understand you people,” she said, her voice brisk. “We just saved the station. We’re all alive and safe, and we’re together for the time being. We should be celebrating, not sitting around looking like someone kicked our frog.”
“Dog,” Jaq said absently.
“Close enough,” Marraine said dismissively. She reached down and pulled a bottle from her bag tucked away behind Jaq’s bed. “I popped back to the station earlier for some wisp wine I brought from my homeworld. I was saving it for a special occasion, and today is it.” She poured servings for all of them in the disposable cups from the infirmary’s water dispenser. “No more gloom,” she commanded.
Soon after, the sickbay was ringing with laughter, and word got around the Sovereign that those cinders certainly knew how to have a good time.
9
A few hours later, Karl slipped into a much quieter sickbay. Marraine was still sitting near Jaq’s bed. Jaq himself was asleep, curled on his side, hair disheveled.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” Karl said softly so as not to wake the patient. “I heard there was a group of cinders visiting. I wan
ted to thank them for their service, but I couldn’t break away from my duties until just now.”
Marraine smiled. “They were sorry not to have seen you, I think. It did Jaq good to visit with them, though now the doctor says he’ll probably sleep for hours.” She looked at the sleeping cinder fondly. “It’s just as well. If he were awake he’d only be worrying.”
Karl raised an eyebrow. “Worrying? What about? Is his condition more serious than we initially thought?”
Marraine shook her head, silver hair swishing. She liked the action. “There will be no mining on Aschen for months. We’re all to be reassigned to other mining worlds, but our crew won’t be able to stay together.”
Karl frowned. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Where will you go?”
She sighed. “You’ll think it silly of me, maybe, to grow attached so quickly, but I’ve felt at home here with this crew, and I’m very sorry to leave them so soon. But, truth be told, I’m not sure mining is right for me anyway. I’d like to continue to explore. Maybe I’ll try my hand at a different job—perhaps at Charger 751.” She reached out to brush Jaq’s hair from his face. “But we shall see. We’re all rather adrift for the present. Bruno’s mined for years; it might be too late to teach that particular wolf new tricks. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Elsa decided to try something other than mining. Maybe I can convince her and Jaq to come along with me.”
Karl hid a smile at Marraine’s idiom. “Bruno and Elsa,” he repeated the names. “Were they on the comm line during the storm?”
“Yes,” Marraine said proudly. “Bruno watches over us like a father, and no one thinks on her feet faster than Elsa.”
“They were extremely capable, and when it was all over, I regretted not asking their names. So much was happening so quickly, and there was no opportunity to thank them.”
“Oh, you’ve already met them,” Marraine said. “You danced with Elsa at the party.”
Karl blinked in surprise. “Of course, she said you had given her the dress! I was an idiot for not asking her name, but I thought there would be time—and then the alarm sounded, and there wasn’t any time at all. I’ve been racking my brains to come up with a way to find her ever since. Once I thought about it, I realized she had to be a cinder. Even if she hadn’t torn across the atrium at the sound of the alarm, I noticed a smudge of soot on her jaw while we were dancing.”
Five Glass Slippers: A Collection of Cinderella Stories Page 28
