Battle Cruiser

by B. V. Larson

  “What’s that?” Yamada asked. “It looks like a code. May I?”

  She lifted her tablet and snapped a quick shot of the password before it could disappear.

  Zye laughed. “You think ahead. Now you have the chief biologist’s password.”

  “What,” I asked Zye, “are you doing with the chief biologist’s password?”

  “Making good use of old knowledge,” she said. As she talked, menus came up and she tapped her way through them with the speed of an expert. “But I assume you’re asking how I came to have an officer’s password. I told you I was found to be of unacceptable type. Most aberrations such as myself are killed before adulthood. But I managed to survive. I did so by altering my own test results in the data core. It was this deception that eventually caught up to me and got me convicted of genetic variance.”

  “I see,” I said, and I thought I was beginning to understand Zye. She was a criminal on Beta Cygnus, but to us she was a woman who’d learned to survive a harsh world. She’d done what she had to.

  As a man dedicated to upholding the law, I found her a troubling person. She’d obviously broken the laws of her people. But, if those laws were unjust, should breaking them be a crime to someone like myself? My laws were different—utterly different, in this instance. It wasn’t a crime to be unlike your parents. In fact, Earth had gone the other way. It was a crime to erase any kind of individuality.

  Watching her work alongside Yamada, I came to a decision: I would do my best to protect Zye. As long as she served me as she’d sworn to do, I would serve her interests as well, being her commander and her guide among my people.

  I could already tell that although the Betas might be physically imposing and militarily strong, Earthlings clearly had an advantage in sophistication. We were subtle diplomats and politicians. How could a race of clones compete with an infinitely varied race in negotiations? They would all think the same, and thus once we figured out their weaknesses, they could be collectively manipulated.

  “We’re ready, sir,” Yamada said, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Have you located them?”

  “Yes, the ship’s sensors are counting heartbeats. Twenty crewmen, armed presumably. They appear to be taking the bait now.”

  “Wait until they’re all in the section to be depressurized,” Rumbold said. “Get them all at once, the bastards! Once blasted out into space, with any luck, they’ll achieve escape velocity and be tossed into deep space. Altair can have fun tracking each man down individually.”

  “We can only hope Captain Singh himself is among them,” Yamada said.

  “He won’t be,” I said, studying the screen. “Here they are. They’re passing through the last bulkhead into the trapped area now.”

  “Yes, I see that.”

  We watched tensely. The group paused when they entered the pressurized region. I had no doubt they were trying to figure out where they were and what was going on.

  “Come on, come on…” Rumbold muttered.

  More of them entered, but one seemed to be lingering at the entrance. Several of them were almost out of the trap, moving ahead.

  “Captain,” Zye said, “some of the enemy troops are about to exit the trap area.”

  I stared at the screen for a second longer. It was more difficult to order Zye to spring the trap than I’d realized. It seemed like trickery rather than battle. I knew some of these men might be killed. Violently hurled out into space by the pressure-release, suits might rip, faceplates might crack.

  In the Star Guard Academy, they’d drilled home the goals of clean ethics and fair play. I wouldn’t have had second thoughts against an alien menace, but these people weren’t really the enemy. I knew them. I’d served with them. They were Singh’s crewmen, guardsmen like myself following orders.

  Rumbold caught my eye. “It’s them or us, sir,” he said, as if reading my mind.

  “Seal the chamber,” I ordered.

  Zye’s fingers were poised over the screen, waiting for this order. She tapped instantly.

  “Done,” she said.

  “Open the external hatch,” I said.

  Everyone’s eyes were glued on the imagery as it rapidly shifted. The contacts slid toward the exit at first—then with sudden speed they were ejected through the open hatch.

  “Flushed into space!” Rumbold said. “It worked!”

  My eyes crawled over the screen. “Not for that one.”

  We all focused on the lingering individual at the back of the line. He was very near the spot where the bulkhead had closed, sealing the trapped area.

  “He’s not moving,” Rumbold said. “He might be hanging on by his fingertips.”

  “Or,” Yamada said, looking at me, “he might have a hand or a foot trapped in the hatchway we shut. These doors don’t have safety sensors. If you stand in the way when they close—they just close anyway.”

  I felt slightly sick at the thought. Had I severed a crewman’s limb, or pinned him?

  “Close the external hatch,” I said. “Repressurize. Yamada, you’re in charge here. Hold this post. Rumbold, Zye, come with me. Let’s find out what happened.”

  They followed my orders quietly. The crew seemed as troubled as I was—all except for Zye. Her eyes were steel. She didn’t seem to suffer from empathy for her fellow man’s pain. Maybe that was because she didn’t consider us to be her people. Or maybe, she hadn’t been engineered to be the caring type.

  Either way, she followed my lead and so far she’d never argued with one of my commands. She’d said she would follow me as her captain, and I was beginning to believe her.

  Moving at a bouncing trot, we made our way to the trapped corridor. Zye led the way as she knew the layout of the ship best. She didn’t have a weapon, but she never hesitated to plunge ahead, regardless.

  Keeping up with the woman was a challenge. Each of her sweeping strides seemed to carry her forward a distance that took me nearly two paces to match. I marveled that her long stay in captivity hadn’t weakened her. Was that due to rigorous calisthenics while imprisoned, or sheer vitality? I didn’t know the answer, but nonetheless, it was impressive.

  She opened the final bulkhead with a touch and threw herself against the wall of the passage. I barely reacted in time, myself. A power bolt sizzled through the door and melted a spot of metal on the ceiling. The three of us sought cover, huddling to either side of the open doorway.

  “Ceasefire!” I shouted. “I’m Captain Sparhawk of Cutlass.”

  The man laughed and coughed. “You’re captain of a slag-heap, then.”

  “You’re outnumbered, and we’re not here to harm you at any rate.”

  “You killed my men!” he shouted. “Let me out of here!”

  I drew my pistol and fired three bolts around the edge of the doorway. I was shooting blind, and I purposefully aimed high. I wanted him to know we were armed and serious, but I didn’t want to kill him in cold blood.

  “I repeat,” I said, “we’re not here to kill you, but if you insist on shooting at us we may have to change our minds. We’re guardsmen, the same as you.”

  “You’re a traitor,” he answered.

  “Not I. This situation is a gross misunderstanding. Altair fired on our ship without warning, a mystifying act. We’re still not sure how this all started, but we’re determined to find out.”

  The man fell silent. “You should just let me out of here, Sparhawk. Open the hatch. I’ll climb out to the surface, and I won’t even tell them I talked to you, I swear.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Marine Lieutenant Morris,” he said with a twinge of pride in his voice.

  Marines weren’t common in the Guard, but each of our six destroyers carried a squad of them. They had rough reputations.

  “What did Singh tell you, Morris? Why are you here chasing fellow guardsmen?”

  “You should drop this game, Sparhawk. I’m getting tired of it. Either finish me or let me go.”

 
“Are you injured?”

  “Fuck you,” he said tiredly.

  I nodded to myself thoughtfully. No marine would admit he was injured in a situation like this.

  “He’s hurt,” he said. “I can hear it in his voice.”

  Zye leaned close. “He’s probably got a foot caught in the far doorway.”

  I contacted Yamada. “Has the target moved?”

  “No sir, he’s exactly where he was when the trap was sprung. I think he’s probably pinned there.”

  “Come down here and join us, please.”‘

  “On my way.”

  I edged up to the open hatch and called through using my external speakers. “Morris, we’ve no wish to harm you further. I know you’re hurt. If we open that hatch behind you, the blood will begin to flow. You’ll probably die before Altair can pick you up.”

  “Wicked bastard,” Morris muttered. “I’m not going to become your prisoner.”

  “All right then, we’ll call you an honored guest. I’m coming out into the open now to check on your condition. If you kill me, you’ll have dishonored yourself and my men will promptly shoot you in return. It’s your choice.”

  I began to move forward, but a massive hand flew out to bar my progress. It was Zye, and her face loomed near me. She didn’t want me to step into harm’s way.

  “Step aside,” I told her evenly. “That’s an order.”

  Reluctantly, her long arm retreated.

  Holstering my pistol, I stepped boldly down the passageway.

  What I saw there at the other end of it made me wince. Marine Lieutenant Morris was in a bad way. Not just his foot, but his entire left leg was clamped in the unforgiving jaws of the hatchway.

  He had his rifle aimed at me, but I could tell he was struggling to keep a bead on me. His aim wavered with each ragged breath he drew.

  With even steps that never faltered or appeared rushed, I walked toward him. He kept the gun on me until we were close enough that our eyes could meet through our faceplates. I could see he was younger than most guardsmen. His skin was bathed in sweat.

  “You marines really are the toughest the Guard has, aren’t you?” I asked conversationally.

  This comment elicited a grin. “That’s right, Sparhawk.”

  With an offhanded gesture, I suggested he lower his weapon. The muzzle drooped, and he finally set the rifle down and rolled onto his back. He lay there, stricken, staring up at the ceiling of the passageway.

  “Rumbold, have you got your medical kit? We need it here. Yamada, bring your tablet. We’ve got to download his vitals from his suit.”

  “What about me, Captain?” asked Zye.

  At the sound of her voice, the marine perked up. There was something different about it. A timbre that was not quite like any that earthlings were familiar with.

  “Just stay there and watch for reinforcements, will you Zye?” I asked as if she were one more member of my crew. This seemed like a bad time to introduce this poor man to his first Beta.

  My people advanced and we went to work on the lieutenant.

  Yamada’s equipment helped when it came time to open the door that was pinning his leg. She’d reprogrammed the nanites to close tightly in Morris’ suit, clamping the blood flow off to his leg. We didn’t want him to bleed to death.

  Rumbold, during this procedure, managed to gently disarm the marine. Morris’ numb fingers slipped off the trigger of his weapon reluctantly.

  At that point, Zye disobeyed me and trudged forward. The marine’s eyes widened, but he didn’t speak. He was already in shock, I could tell.

  “You want the prisoner to live?” Zye asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If we take him to detention, my automated cell will attempt to repair him. It might not work on an Earthling, but there’s no power in the medical section.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  I reached down to pick up the marine, but found he was already cradled in Zye’s massive arms. His face wore an expression of disbelief. I hoped to be there when he recovered and had to face his rescuer. Zye trotted down the passages with the marine held effortlessly aloft. The gravity aboard the ship was low, of course, but I was still impressed.

  -21-

  Before we reached the detention center, the lieutenant we’d captured passed out. His leg hung limply at an impossible angle. I felt responsible for his condition as I’d been the one who had ordered the hatch to be closed on him.

  Pushing that thought away, I reminded myself that Singh had started this showdown, not me. I was only trying to keep my crew alive, which was my duty as an officer of the Guard.

  “Open the cell door for me,” Zye said, and Yamada quickly complied.

  Zye placed the dying marine on a bed that was far too big for him. He wasn’t a small man, but he looked like a child in her arms as she placed him on the featureless bunk.

  “We have to strip off his suit and let the chamber do its work.”

  “How fast does this cell function?” Yamada asked. “If we take off the suit, he’ll bleed out.”

  “You’re right…not fast enough.” Zye reached for a strap that circled her waist. There were several that hung from various cinch spots on her spacesuit. It was the first time I’d really taken the opportunity to examine her equipment.

  “That’s not a smart suit, is it?” I asked.

  “No. Betas don’t have such things,” Zye said, tying the strap around the lieutenant’s leg to form a tourniquet. “Now we can take his suit off. The medical bot won’t operate if blocked by thick clothing.”

  I recalled that Zye had been naked in the cell, I now understood why. We stripped off Morris’s suit and stepped out of the chamber. The exposed wound was grotesque. Really, his leg had been severed. It was hanging by skin and tendons alone.

  As soon as we closed up the cell, it began to whir and hum. “The bot is going to work,” Zye said, peering through the porthole. “He might live. We’ll see.”

  “We did what we could,” I said. “Is it all right to leave him in there?”

  Zye nodded. “If he survives his injury, he’ll be kept alive for years. The cell is merciless in this regard.”

  I glanced at her sharply as her tone had a hint of bitterness in it. Had she attempted suicide in her cell? I wouldn’t have been surprised. Trapped for years in an automated cell, without companionship or hope of rescue…it was a wonder, as I thought about it, that Zye was sane at all. Perhaps her resilience was a feature of her genetic design, and by inference, part of the personality of all Betas.

  We moved back to the life support section. The crew there was glad to see us return alive.

  “Any new developments?” I asked them.

  My hydraulic engineering mate showed me that something had changed: more of the ship had come awake in our absence.

  “Hmm,” I said, studying the ship’s diagram. “It’s following some kind of script.”

  “The ship is programmed to add vital systems one at a time when the generators are running again,” Zye explained.

  Eyeing her thoughtfully, I asked her a question: “What were your duties aboard Defiant before you were arrested?”

  “Maintenance,” she said vaguely. “I kept things running. That’s why I know how many of the subsystems operate.”

  “I see. It would seem to be in our best interest, then, to get more power flowing around the vessel. Given sufficient feed, can the ship repair itself?”

  “We have no nanites,” Zye said. “No smart metals that fold themselves back into shape. We never developed that technology. But we do have robotic repair units. If you can get power to the lower aft deck, you’ll find the units running all over the ship, rebuilding her.”

  Rumbold perked up. “That should give Singh’s men something to chew on!”

  “Right,” I said. “Yamada, stay here with an assistant to man life support and watch the screens for infiltration. We don’t know how long we have before Captain Singh decides to visit us again
. The rest of us will head for the power-coupling deck.”

  It took nearly an hour to reach the center of the power-coupling deck. In a damaged spacecraft, the going can be treacherous. Cold vacuum alone is deadly enough, but jagged twists of metal, poisonous corrosives and radioactive substances are frequent elements in any large ship’s construction. We had to wind our way past these hazards and into the damaged region carefully, like a party of cave spelunkers.

  When we’d reached the power couplings themselves, we found them remarkably intact. It was the massive cables that were severed, rather than the critical switching equipment that routed the power.

  Rumbold and his team proved themselves to be instrumental over the following hour of hard labor. With Zye’s help, they shunted and reconnected the massive cables, repairing them. I was relegated to the role of an observer, and spent most of my time tapping on various control screens.

  I learned that the ship’s interface, although strange, wasn’t unfathomable. With Zye’s help, I managed to breach many security elements and access the data core.

  Fascinated, I paged through the information I found there. The ship had been commissioned two decades earlier, if my understanding of their dating system was accurate. She was one of several identical massive vessels. Her class was indeed referred to as a battle cruiser, meaning she was an independent capital ship capable of performing missions in remote star systems without supporting vessels.

  As I paged through star charts and saw various colonies mapped there, I became increasingly excited. My heart pounded in my temples. This ship was a treasure trove of critical information. Earth had been asleep for so long…

  How could this have happened to us, I wondered? How could we have been so blind? We’d assumed that because our own pathways to other star systems had vanished, that the pathways between other star systems had also been destroyed. Even more foolish, we’d believed new pathways could not be found. But why?

  On the surface of it, when confronted with the physical evidence, I was dumbfounded at the shortsighted nature of Earth’s rulers. How could we have assumed so much, so wrongly, for so long?

  Then, unbidden, darker thoughts came to my mind. Perhaps we weren’t so stupid after all. Perhaps at some level, government officials knew the truth, or at least they suspected it. How could they not have done so?