Faulkner rolled his eyes. Ardent knew that technically he shouldn’t be disclosing confidences about crew members, but he was also out of his depth with this new team, and he knew it. It would probably do him good to be able to confide in a third party.
“Oh, I don’t know. I was trying so hard to be considerate. We are heading into a combat situation, after all. But now I think I’ve ended up insulting her.”
“Is it to do with the baby?”
Faulkner sat across from her, considered his drink.
“I told her right at the start that it was not my intention to discriminate against anyone.”
“So, what did you do?” she said. “Ask her to step down as XO?”
“Worse! I suggested she abandon ship!”
Ardent sat up straight. “What? You were going to stick her in one of those escape pods?”
“No. Give me at least a little credit. Normally, such a thing wouldn’t be possible but the Renheim comes equipped with its own high velocity shuttle. It’s there to help get critically ill patients out of harm’s way. I’m hoping to get it filled with largely non-essential staff. About fifty in all.”
“Non-essential staff?” Ardent couldn’t contain her smile. “You didn’t say that to her, did you?”
“I didn’t say that she was non-essential. I was hoping she’d take charge of it. Is that such a terrible idea?”
She took a sip of her wine, savoring the peppery taste. “I’m sure you meant well.”
“Here I am with a woman who’s seven months pregnant and we’re going up against an alien battlecruiser! It seemed like the obvious thing to do.”
Ardent studied his hands as they held the wine glass. They looked firmer, stronger somehow and the palsy which had plagued him since his operation now appeared to have completely disappeared.
“It might seem that way to you, Robert, but you have to consider her take on this. She’ll have been working towards this position for years. And if she thinks she can balance her work commitments with the demands of being a mother then it’s really up to her.”
“I should never have said anything. I just had this mad idea that she might like to start her maternity leave a few weeks early.”
“It’s her decision and we just have to respect that.”
“Well, thanks,” he said sourly. “I think I’ve realised that now.”
They sat there for a long minute, but there was no sense of awkwardness. They were surprisingly relaxed in one another’s company.
“I should have come to you, first.”
“What? You want to get rid of me as well?”
Faulkner pulled an awkward face and it took her a moment to realise that he was serious.
Ardent was suddenly serious. “You really think it’s going to be that bad?”
He brought the glass to his lips. Took a sip. “I’m afraid so. A pursuit like this – where the other guy’s desperate with nothing to lose – these things never end well.”
“So, you think I should go. Is that it?”
Faulkner let out a long sigh.
“Sigrid, don’t hate me for saying this but we both know it’s what should happen. There’s no good reason why you should put yourself through this and every reason why you should get on that shuttle. Blackthorn’s in turmoil right now. They desperately need someone to take hold of the situation and that person looks very much like you,” she went to interrupt him but he stilled her by holding up his hand. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, I’m just giving you my opinion. For what it’s worth.”
“It’s odd. The crew have been looking at me oddly for the last few days and I suppose that’s it. They can’t believe that I’m still here, and I sort of see their point. Problem is: how am I going to make it back to Blackthorn in time to make a difference? I mean, we’re way off the space lanes out here.”
“Ah, well, that bit at least I can help you with. In a few hours, we’ll be passing the Botany Bay and she’s currently on-course for Blackthorn. Slower than us, obviously, but I’ve spoken to Milton Darnell and he’s agreed to the transfer. If you should decide to go, that is.”
She nodded numbly. It seemed like he’d thought of everything.
“Besides, you’d be doing me an enormous favor.”
“How’s that?”
“The members of the Mantis crew that Captain Meyer managed to recover. I was told that they’d been transferred to another ship with a view to them being taken over to Blackthorn.”
“Actually, yes. That’s right,” Ardent said. So much had happened in the interim that she’d almost forgotten. “We were having a problem storing them all. It was thought they’d be safest over there.”
“Then, that’s marvellous,” he seemed genuinely thrilled. “If I could impose on you to oversee their rehabilitation, then that would go a long way to easing some of my guilt.”
“Robert, you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people on Blackthorn who wouldn’t be alive right now if you hadn’t done what you did. So, yes. It would give me a great deal of pleasure to make sure that’s all taken care of.”
“Thank you, Sigrid. I knew I could rely on you.”
She touched a hand to her cheek and realised they were burning hot. She must have been sitting too close to the fire.
“And what about you?” she asked, quickly changing the subject. “Are you going to be okay?”
Faulkner rolled up his sleeve to reveal his forearm. He clenched his fingers together to form a fist and then opened his hand again as if testing the action for the first time. He looked fit and strong, almost unrecognisable from the man who’d transferred to the ship just a few weeks ago.
“My physio’s given up on me. Handed me over to this personal trainer woman. At first, I thought she was going to kill me. But I seem to be getting the hang of it now. Just doing what I’m told.”
“That’ll be a first.”
He slowly got to his feet.
“Actually, I’m very good at following orders – when I can see the point of them.”
“I don’t think it actually works that way. Anyway, whatever she’s got you doing it seems to be doing the trick.”
“And to think, just a couple of weeks ago, I was at death’s door.” He offered her his hand and she took it. Then he gently pulled her to her feet. “It’s all down to you of course.”
“Nothing to do with the medics, then?”
“No, I mean it,” he said. “Without your intervention, I’m not sure I’d even be up and about. And I’ll always be grateful for that.”
“In the same way that I’m grateful for what you did for Blackthorn. So that makes us equal then. Two ordinary people with no responsibilities either way.”
“Yes,” Faulkner said as if he’d just stumbled across some universal truth. “That would be nice.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” she said, mimicking his deep voice.
He looked at her long and hard.
“Governor Ardent.”
“Yes.”
He moved closer. “I was just thinking.”
“Yes, and so was I,” she gave him a wan smile. “I was thinking I’d best be on my way.”
Faulkner released her hand and stepped back as if conceding defeat.
“You didn’t hear what I had to say,” he said.
“I know. But now is not the time. How long have I got? I mean, if I do decide to take this shuttle.”
“Just over two hours,” he said soberly. “Your name’s on the manifest so they’ll be expecting you.”
When she was almost at the door, she stopped and turned.
“I really would like to hear what you’ve got to say,” she said. “But not now. Perhaps when all this is over.”
“Perhaps.”
“Why don’t you come out to Blackthorn?”
“Last time I did that they tried to kill me.”
“But this time things’ll be different,” she indicated the walls of his
cabin. “Leave all this behind. Come out as my personal guest.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’d like that.”
*
Webster and Dalbiri stood in the ghost ship’s central corridor. The observation light mounted on the shoulder of Webster’s suit showing a solid wall of debris was blocking his route forward at about chest height, ragged sections of torn metal marking the point where the Da’al missile had impacted against the hull. Everywhere he turned, stark shadows danced along the walls.
There was something oddly reassuring about the fact that the ghost ship they were stranded aboard could be damaged in this way. He’d been starting to think that the whole vessel might be in some way impervious to attack, so it was nice to find evidence to the contrary. And yet, the longer he studied the damage the more suspicious the whole thing appeared. It was strange in itself that they could get so close to the impact site without having to resort to wearing hard suits. Normally, in such an instance, the whole compartment would be sealed off to avoid the rest of the ship de-pressurising but it looked as though the ship had repaired the breach itself without any significant loss of atmosphere.
This spoke of a technology well advanced of their own which was, in itself, deeply worrying. He had a sense that Dalbiri had reached a similar conclusion though neither of them had voiced their suspicions. It was as if to do so would be to give credence to the idea that mankind was no longer the pre-eminent power in the universe.
Dalbiri had grown restless and kept looking around them, as if expecting something to leap out at them at any moment. But Webster thought he might have a point. It had been unsettling enough moving around the ship when they were back on Tigris. Now that they were in space, there was a very real sense of another intelligence being at work here. The sense of being watched was almost palpable.
In a bid to break the silence, Webster said, “What’s the deal with the lights around here? You walk into one room and they come on automatically but you walk into another and nothing happens. What gives?”
“I’m guessing that the ship’s not set up for carbon-based life forms. It’s just doing its best to try and accommodate us. Having said that, I’d much prefer for the lights to be playing up so long as we still have a breathable atmosphere.”
Webster frowned at that. If the ship’s previous owners weren’t carbon-based then what the hell were they? There was still so much about this ship that they didn’t understand.
“There’s also the issue of food,” he said in an attempt to change the subject. “A box full of energy bars is only going to get us so far.”
“Yeah, we’re just going to have to find a way of communicating with the other ships out there. Supposing that they haven’t left already.”
Webster hadn’t thought about that. If the Confederation ships had departed then that would make their situation even more precarious. And there was no way of checking as they didn’t have access to the ship’s comms system.
Dalbiri, who had been scrutinising a section of torn metal, suddenly turned in his direction.
“It’s not as though we know what their version of a comms suite would even look like. There’s no suggesting that their comms would be anything like ours. We don’t even know if they use verbal communication or not.”
Dalbiri was right, of course. If this wasn’t a Da’al ship, as the evidence was increasingly starting to suggest, then there was no telling how they might communicate. Someone had once likened the difficulties of communicating with an alien life form as being similar to trying to communicate with a creature on the bottom of their deepest ocean. How might you convey even a basic concept such as ‘light’ to creatures who lived their lives in perpetual darkness? Their frame of reference would be completely different to anything we would be used to. And that was with creatures who humankind had shared a planet with. It would potentially be much more complex with something that was truly alien.
“We’re just going to have to keep looking until we find something,” Webster paused while he used his light to illuminate the ceiling. “If I’m honest, I’ve always had my misgivings about this thing. It’s never felt ‘real.’ It’s like some clever kind of mock-up. The sort of thing you’d find on a holo shoot, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Dalbiri moved in so that he could look at the monitor on Webster’s wrist. “Switch it to infra-red for a second, will you?”
Webster did as he was asked, bringing up the heat signature in the surrounding area. While some surfaces remained cold and black others emitted a vibrant white glow.
“See those two sections there?” Dalbiri said. “It’s pretty clear that those are the engines. Some kind of fusion power source, I’m guessing.”
Webster nodded, though this was nothing new. They’d had a decent idea about the make-up of the engines while they were still back on Tigris.
“Okay, I’ll give you that, but what about these walls. What are they even made of?”
That was a question they’d both been struggling with. The two of them strained to see one of the imploded shards, Webster angling the light so that they could get a better look.
“What is that?” Dalbiri pointed to one of the sections. “On one side it looks like some kind of alloy but what’s on this other side?”
The torn section of wall appeared to be made up of several thin sections and, sandwiched in the middle was something red, fibrous and dripping.
The two men regarded one another.
“Some kind of living tissue?” Webster said. “And look over here, on this edge. This bit’s different. What would you say that was? Sort of a grey color.”
Dalbiri got as close as he dared.
“Some kind of necrosis? Looks like something’s died.”
“Anyone ever tell you, you have the most vivid imagination?”
“I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid. Anyway, why not? Anything’s possible.”
“Really? You’re suggesting that this is some kind of bio-mechanical tissue? Is that what this is?”
Webster had used the word ‘tissue’ when what he really wanted to say was: ‘flesh.’ Only, that sounded even more bizarre. Yet, what they were looking at here was, to all intents and purposes, a wound. Which would mean that the ship was alive in some sense. Which was impossible.
Dalbiri seemed fascinated by the torn sections and couldn’t resist running his finger along one of the edges.
Just as quickly, he snatched his hand back.
“Hell, that’s sharp.”
“I could have told you that.”
“No. I mean, like really sharp!”
He was clasping his damaged finger, doing a little dance where he stood.
“Here, let me take a look at that.”
Webster grabbed his wrist and pulled Dalbiri’s hand closer.
“Is it bad?” Dalbiri asked, not daring to look.
Webster couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The tip of Dalbiri’s finger was virtually hanging off. He kept a firm hold of the other man’s wrist while searching for the neuraliser on his belt.
“Just let me spray it. I think we’re going to need to stick this back together.”
The neuraliser worked primarily to anaesthetise the wound but it also contained a sanitising element as Webster was concerned about possible infections. He felt slightly freaked out just looking at the finger but, since there was no one else around, he didn’t have much choice but to deal with it. He worked quickly, applying the dermal solvent before gently ‘gluing’ the tip of the finger back in place.
All the while, Dalbiri kept his eyes averted.
“Okay, that should do it,” Webster said. “There’s a little first aid kit on my belt. Can you reach down and get it?”
Dalbiri found the kit with his free hand and handed it to Webster.
Webster had to lift it high enough so that he could get the shoulder light on it. He searched through the kit’s contents before finding what he needed: a fibrous shea
th which, when rolled over the end of the finger, would harden to protect it.
He was in the process of rolling it on when he caught something in the corner of his eye.
Further along the corridor, about ten metres beyond Dalbiri, he got a sense of movement.
“You finished?”
“Just a second. Now, when I let go, try not to make any sudden moves.”
“Finger’s going to be alright, isn’t it?”
“Your finger’s fine,” Webster said, unconvincingly. “Only, I think we’re being watched.”
Dalbiri’s eyes went wide. “By whom?”
“They’re right behind you,” Webster angled his eyes in their direction.
It came up to about knee height, its body long and thin with a head which reminded him of a broad sunflower. He couldn’t make out its eyes but the sense that he was being scrutinised was inescapable.
“I just want a quick look,” Dalbiri said as he slowly started to turn.
His movements must have alarmed the creature because when Webster looked again, the thing was gone.
“I don’t see anything,” Dalbiri was peering into the gloom. “Where’d it go?”
“I’m not sure.”
Webster ducked beneath the torn metal skin and went off in pursuit, taking the light with him. Dalbiri had to scurry to keep up.
Thirty metres further on, the corridor split into two separate sections and Webster stopped. Dalbiri clapped him on the shoulder.
“Are we really going to do this?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Isn’t this the part where you say we’re going to have to split up.”
“I don’t know. What else would you suggest?”
For all his bravado, Webster’s heart was fluttering in his chest.
Dalbiri indicated the two separate corridors with his newly dressed finger. “You want to go right or left?”
“Left. I trust you’ve got a light?”
“Yeah, got one here somewhere.” There was a pause before the beam came on. In comparison to Webster’s light it was painfully weak, but it did the job. “I’ll shout if I see something, okay?”
“Okay.”
The pair of them moved off in their separate directions. Webster hadn’t gone very far when he stopped to consult the ship’s schematic. He could see the section he was in but little else. There was precious little detail and when he passed through a short intersection, he found that it appeared to be completely missing from the read-out in front of him. He tried coming at it from a different direction, hoping that it would suddenly pop into being but nothing helped.
Cry of War: A Military Space Adventure Series Page 3
