After that, it was just a simple question of detonation.
Stephen had done an excellent job.
She hoped that he was proud of himself.
But her anger had since moved on.
Now it was now focussed on Admiral Julius Winterson.
She was trying to work out how he had the nerve to throw them all in jeopardy with a simple flick of his pen?
After everything she and the rest of the team had been through.
Had their sacrifice counted for so little?
“I’m going to have a drink, Katherine,” Faulkner said, rising to his feet. “Would you like me to get you anything?”
“Yes, actually, captain, I would,” she said, resting both hands on her stomach. “I’d like you to line up a row of tequila shots so I can get good and wasted. But, unfortunately, I can’t. Seems I’ve got to be good. Have you got anything non-alcoholic?”
“I’ve got some non-alcoholic cocktails back here, if you’d like.”
“You’re going to mix me a cocktail?”
“They come pre-mixed. All I have to do is pour.”
“Sorry, no. There’s a reason why you mix your cocktails. I’ll have to settle for a soda, if that’s alright?”
“Fine by me,” Faulkner said, setting off to find some.
The last time she’d been in this room, he’d been suggesting that she might want to join the rest of the non-essential crew on board the shuttle. At the time she’d been furious with him. Now, however, she could see that he only had her best interests at heart. He’d known what was coming.
She found herself wondering if that opportunity were to be offered again to her now, how she’d react.
Would she take him up on it?
Probably not. Because, whatever happened to her, she could never forgive herself if she were to abandon Stephen. Although he’d just spent the last two hours trying to persuade her otherwise. Trying to get her away in one of their executive escape pods.
No, she had to stay, if only to act as a conduit between Faulkner and the rest of the crew. For, while she considered him an excellent commander, certainly the best she’d served under, he wasn’t the greatest communicator. He tended to assume that everyone knew why they were going about something a certain way. And she could see why he operated in this way. It was assumed that he had the best interests of all his crew at heart and that the crew all knew that. Except they didn’t. They’d been used to Klaus Meyer’s more fatherly approach. They all had to follow his lead, simple as that. But then, Meyer had never placed his people in harm’s way. So, this was different. These people were trusting Faulkner with their lives.
And that was a big ask.
At the same time, she had the baby to consider. Which was why she was still angry with herself. If she hadn’t been quite so quick to step into the role of First Officer then things would have been different. Someone else would be in her shoes right now and she’d have boarded the first shuttle without a backward glance. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
No, the role of First officer had been something she’d coveted for most of her adult life. It would have been wrong of her not to have accepted it.
Faulkner came over with a glass of plain soda, though he’d taken the time to find her some ice and a colourful straw to go with it.
“Best I could do under the circumstances,” he said before returning to the bar to reclaim his whiskey.
Then, he sat in his chair, rubbing his glass between his palms.
He waited until after she’d taken her first sip before speaking.
“I was wondering how we stand with the question of crew morale,” he began, stiffly.
“What are we talking? Bridge crew, NCOs, auxiliary staff?”
“All of the above, I guess. I’m just eager to know what the general mood is. Can I count on everyone going forward?”
“As far as the bridge crew is concerned, I think that’s a given but, as far as the rest of the crew are concerned: I’m not so sure. They took a hell of beating back there with the Loki and I guess they were hoping that that would be an end to it. You know, take a few weeks off to re-supply, perhaps enjoy a little R and R. It’s not like they haven’t earned it.”
“That was my take on it, too. They’ve performed admirably over the last couple of weeks and now we’re going to ask them to go through it all over again.”
“Or worse. Do we have a positive trace on Thor’s whereabouts?”
He leaned across and slipped a print-out off his desk. Then he handed it to her.
“That came in about an hour ago. Came in from Donald Resnik on The Sundowner.”
The Sundowner was one of the massive transport ships which had narrowly escaped being destroyed back at Laxx. It was now in the process of ferrying refugees back to Blackthorn.
“We’d put the word out asking for any help with the trace and Resnick came up with this. He’s teamed up with the captains of The Botany Bay and The Galaxian and together, they’ve been able to triangulate Thor’s current position.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” she said handing the print-out back, though her tone didn’t match her words.
With Renheim’s long range sensors effectively scrambled by their encounter with Loki, even if they could have detected Thor they couldn’t have moved to pursue her without fear of losing the trace. After all, they were looking at intercepting a ship, at speed, from several million miles away. This way, they didn’t have to worry about the intricacies of tracking her, they just had to concentrate on getting there.
“I should have thought about this before,” he said. “These cruise ships have always had top-of-the-range comms set-ups, and three of those working together…”
“Like I said, sir. They’ve done a great job.”
Faulkner folded the paper neatly in half.
“You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t feel that you’re being completely honest with me here.”
Schwartz put her drink down on the coffee table.
“Sir, I knew what I was doing when I accepted the role of First Officer and, God-willing, I will give it my all, baby or no baby. I would just say that the crew have had a particularly hard time of it lately but we can’t pick and choose our assignments, can we? It’s not ideal but we’re just going to have to make the best of it.”
“Good. I’m glad that’s sorted. I wish there was another ship that could pitch in and help here but there isn’t. Someone has to stop this thing and it looks like we’ve just drawn the short straw. Having said that, what state are we in?”
“Pretty poor, if I’m honest, sir. Aside from the damage to our long-range scanners, we have seven compartments which are currently exposed to space.”
“Seven?”
“That’s right, sir. Some of which we can patch up, some of which we can’t. But my main concern is the forward engine.”
Faulkner gave her a guilty look.
“I know, I’ve been concerned about that too.”
“Technically, we should shut it down. You do realise that sir?”
“I do but if that goes offline we may as well turn around and go home. Can’t we find some way of lagging it, to keep the radiation in check.”
“Not without shutting it down first. Even then, whoever we sent in there to do the work, we’d be giving them a death sentence. It’s just too far gone. Luckily, because of where it is in the ship, it is fairly isolated.”
Faulkner’s head dropped to his chest. There was a lot more that could be said about the matter but neither of them wanted to go there.
“Alright,” he said. “Now we’ve got that out the way, what about our armaments? Have you spoken to Whaites?”
“He’s currently surveying the damage done to our laser arrays.”
“How’s he doing that? He’s not gone outside has he?”
“’Fraid so, sir. Out of the eight batteries we had against the Loki, only three are currently operational.”
“Okay,”
Faulkner was trying to make sense of all this. “And what about the others? Are they repairable?”
“That’s what Whaites is looking at. Seems that a lot of the circuitry’s been burnt out so he’s trying to see if some of it can be replaced, though I’m not holding out much hope, if I’m honest.”
“I know, but we have to do something. There’s no way we can go up against something like Thor with only three batteries operational.”
“And, what about our other armaments,” she said. “We can’t be far off needing a complete re-supply.”
“I know,” he conceded. “I’ve been talking to Lieutenant Kirby and it’s not looking good. Eighty-seven missiles of various types and descriptions. Granted that some of them carry multiple war heads but some of the others are very uninspiring, to say the least.”
She blew out her cheeks and drummed on her knees.
“Not exactly what you want to hear when you’re going up against a battle cruiser.”
“I’d have to agree but, go up against her, we must.”
Schwartz felt her spirits drop. Could he not see that their position was hopeless? Even if the Renheim was in perfect working order and fully resourced they’d struggle to make headway against Thor. It was enormous, bigger even than Loki and markedly faster to boot. She could only guess what her armaments would look like. How could they press ahead with this when they had no chance of stopping her?
It didn’t make sense.
She said, “Any thoughts about how you might approach this?”
She doubted very much that he’d want to get involved in another pursuit, though looking at him, she couldn’t rule it out. He seemed to have been buoyed up by this new intelligence from The Sundowner and that worried her.
When would this all end? When would they be able to sit back and say that it was over?
When would Faulkner draw the line and say enough is enough?
Despite what their orders were, she couldn’t believe that Faulkner would seriously consider sanctioning Priority Balthasar. She didn’t think that he had it in him, despite what others might think.
Simply because it would seem like the ultimate betrayal of the crew.
But might that be it? The only way that Faulkner could find peace with himself?
A glorious death in battle.
She certainly hoped that that wouldn’t be the case.
“We haven’t got the means for a head-on attack,” he said. “For one thing we lack the necessary firepower and, for another, it would all be over far too quickly. We wouldn’t be able to inflict the necessary damage to slow her down, let alone stop her.”
Schwartz had come to much the same conclusion herself. Even if conditions had been ideal, such a strategy would be extremely difficult to pull off. And then there was the issue that once they’d passed one another, Renheim would be traveling much too fast to be able to slow down quickly enough to be able to attempt a second pass.
“So, what have you decided to go with?” she asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.
“Currently, we have them at a disadvantage. We might have located them but there’s very little chance that they know we even exist.”
“True, but surely they must be expecting some opposition.”
“Yes, but they’ll be looking in the direction of Blackthorn for that. They certainly won’t be expecting someone to come at them from out of nowhere.”
Using his left hand, he moved her soda along the table’s mid-line. With his right, he moved his whiskey glass up from the bottom of the table sweeping it around in the shape of a reverse C before bringing it in alongside Schwartz’s drink.
She turned her head to consider this from a variety of angles.
“You’re sure we’ll be able to match her for speed?”
“Khan seems to think so. At least in the short term and, really, that’s all we can hope for.”
Schwartz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wanted to close her eyes in the hope that this whole nightmare would just go away. But she didn’t. She was too busy recalling her naval history.
In Nelson’s day, such a maneuver would have been known as a simple broadsides. Two equally matched ships pounding each other with canon fire until one of them was destroyed. But with the Renheim in her weakened state, there was no question what the outcome of this engagement would be.
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure what we’d be hoping to achieve here.”
“It’s very simple. We have to use the element of surprise to try and get in a significant attack. I’m not suggesting that we’ll be able to stop them in their tracks but the least we can do is slow them down.”
Schwartz had to ignore the fact that this would inevitably lead to their own destruction.
“And then what?”
Faulkner threw up his hands. “That’s not for us to decide. Admiral Winterson assures me that fresh reinforcements are currently on their way.”
Schwartz stared at him with barely disguised disbelief. “But, surely, that’s not true?”
“Now, you wouldn’t be questioning the admiral’s motives, would you?”
“No, sir. But I just find that very hard to believe.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Faulkner said. “Best not put that in your report though.”
*
While Bayas set about re-building the cryo-pod, Morton did her best to keep a low profile. When Tanziat returned to collect her dresses, the pair chatted amiably with the Yakutian woman probing her about their dinner date. Morton was quite happy to share some of the details though she was careful to make no mention of the ‘surprise’ Bayas had shown her. Tanziat was glad for her and even a little jealous when Morton mentioned the name of the restaurant they’d dined at.
Morton had toyed with the idea that the woman might be spying on her but if that were indeed the case why did she never ask about Bayas’ work? She never mentioned it, in much the same way she never mentioned what her husband did even though, as commander, he had a much higher status than Bayas.
Before she left, Tanziat lifted the lime and gold dress to her nose and sniffed it.
“Oh, so you decided to go with the other one?”
Morton nodded but said nothing, keen for her guest to be gone.
Tanziat held the dress up against herself. She had an enviably trim figure.
“Then, I guess I might wear it myself, tomorrow night.”
She looked at Morton, as if to cue her in.
Morton sighed and said, “What’s happening tomorrow night?”
“Oh, I don’t know whether I’m meant to say.”
“That’s okay,” Morton said. “I know it must be difficult, being married to such an important figure. Lots of things you can’t talk about. I get it.”
Tanziat slipped her arm around the waist of the dress and pulled it tight against her.
“Only, they’re having some big shindig, that’s all. All the top people are invited. The captain’s organised it all. A very exclusive event.”
At the mention of Sunderam, Morton’s ears perked up.
“What? Is he going to make some kind of announcement?”
“That was my first thought, but no. Seems he’s eager to show something off. And, whatever it is, it’s big.”
“What sort of thing?”
Tanziat leaned forward and lowered her voice. “No one else is supposed to know, but I think it’s something to do with the ship’s engines. They’ve been working day and night to overhaul them. That’s what my husband says, anyway.”
She gave Morton a conspiratorial wink and slipped out the front door.
Once she was sure that Tanziat was gone, Morton put on her coat and headed out to the market. She just needed to get out of the house. She was browsing at one of the food stalls when she looked up to see Hermendal. He was wearing a long brocade coat in three shades of green matched with a bright orange scarf. His penchant for color was a far cry from the dull uniforms worn by the majori
ty of the crew. Not that anyone seemed to hold it against him, in the few minutes they stood together, he must have been stopped by at least three people all of whom he seemed to know intimately. Morton’s Coptic skills were improving by the day and she was taken aback when one of the men, a young lieutenant asked Hermendal who his ‘ghost faced’ friend was. She tried to tell herself that she must have been mistaken, that something had been lost in translation, but the jibe still hurt.
Hermendal, similarly, seemed concerned about her welfare and even asked if she was getting enough to eat. When she said that she was getting plenty to eat, he challenged her to meet up with him for lunch just to prove it. She agreed though was careful to leave the arrangements suitably vague.
It wasn’t that she distrusted Hermendal, but she was acutely aware that she and Bayas were being closely monitored. That was one of the reasons Bayas had waited until they were out on the boating lake before revealing his plans for the cryo-pod. He was concerned that their apartment might be under surveillance. With that in mind, the only time they were able to discuss his progress with the pod was if they were both in the bathroom with the shower running, though there were times when even they broke their own rules. Usually, at bedtime.
Morton was keen to get things up and running because she was cognizant of the fact that Bertran and Yamada, the two surviving members of the Mantis’s bridge crew, had been held in stasis in now for quite some time. Her concern was that the longer this went on the more likely it was that something untoward might happen to one, or both, of them. Previously, where she had been reticent about getting the whole re-animation process started, now she felt that they had no other choice. They had to risk resuscitating or be prepared to watch them slowly fade away.
This was, in part, why she was so desperate to be involved in repairing the pod. Even though she couldn’t be in attendance at the lab, she still felt that she had something to offer. So, while the shower ran she used the opportunity to question Bayas at length about what was happening. In order to placate her he had printed out one of the cryo-pods technical manuals for her to pore over.
And, if he thought that was enough to keep her quiet, he was wrong. She’d quickly absorbed the whole document and was now keen for Bayas to run a series of diagnostic tests which she wanted him to film so that she could help with any possible trouble shooting that might be required.
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