"Commander Thomas?" he asked.
"Captain Thomas," he replied.
"That remains to be seen, Commander. Under the articles of war, I relieve you of command."
"Very well, Commander. When will I be able to speak to the commodore?"
"Just as soon as we have secured your ship," Nadir answered. "You will be transported over to the Agamemnon for debriefing."
"Commander," Christopher said.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"The marine responsible for this... disgrace is in Medical. I shot him myself."
Nadir raised an eyebrow at that. He didn't know all the details of what was going on, but an officer shooting someone under their command was unusual, to say the least. "I'd like you to accompany the commander to talk to the commodore."
"Of course, sir."
"Commander?" Thomas asked. "We were about to launch a shuttle to see if there were any survivors. Please..."
Nadir relaxed a little. "It's already taken care of. Three rescue shuttles launched at the same time we did. If there are any survivors, we'll find them. It would help if you could tell me how many people were aboard."
"Just two," said Thomas.
Commodore Rhys Ffoulkes listened to the terse reports of the two officers from the Loridell. It seemed like a simple case of attempted murder by this
Private Johnson. When his marines had searched the personal belongings of the accused marine private, they had found a small hand-written diary that clearly showed the man's descent into madness. It remained to be seen why his commanding officer hadn't seen it coming.
The doctor on the Loridell said the private would live. Ffoulkes would have an opportunity to interview him later. The security footage clearly showed him initiating the attack and the lieutenant shooting him in self-defense.
It had been two hours since the attack on the shuttle. The rescue teams he sent out still hadn't found any trace of the pilot or the special operative. The man's animal was under sedation aboard the Loridell. He would have to make arrangements to have it put down.
He was considering calling off the search, and told them so.
"Sir, if I may?" asked Lieutenant Christopher.
He nodded for her to go ahead.
"I would ask that you not call off the search just yet, sir. The pilot is undoubtedly dead. On the data recording, you can see it was a direct hit. The front of the shuttle was vaporized."
"Which suggests that Lt. Commander Tebrey was as well, wouldn't you agree?"
"No, sir. I don't know if it was in your report, but the commander was wearing his battle armor when the shuttle lifted off the planet, sir. If so, he would have been in the aft section of the ship. The acceleration couches on the Loridell's shuttles are meant for civilians; they wouldn't hold an armored man."
"Is that all, Lieutenant?"
"No, sir. We don't leave our people behind, sir."
"That is the most compelling argument I've heard so far," he said with a grim smile. "I'll order the shuttles to sweep for four more hours, but no longer. If they haven't found him by then, they aren't going to. If he is alive, he'll activated his beacon."
"Sir," she acknowledged. She was unsure from his tone of voice if he was serious or being sarcastic, but she didn't care as long as he continued to look for the commander. She knew he wouldn't have given up on her.
"As for you, Commander," he said, "there will no doubt be a formal inquiry later. However, as far as I am concerned, this was out of anyone's control. You may return to the Loridell and resume command. I'm sorry that this action was necessary."
"As am I, Commodore. I lost a good crewman today, maybe two."
The commodore nodded. "Dismissed."
Chapter Twenty
Lt. Commander Hrothgar Tebrey regained consciousness slowly.
Several icons flashing in his visual field demanded his attention. One said that his suit had been holed in two places. He reached for those places and felt the pressure of sticky patches over the holes, one on his leg and another on his lower abdomen. Of course, he thought. I'd be dead otherwise. He didn't remember putting them on. He was having trouble thinking clearly.
He had lost a few liters of blood, but the suit was working to replace that. More nagging was his growing awareness of the fact that he was in a microgravity field. He started to turn up the intensification on his display, and then remembered that he had lights on his suit for that sort of thing.
The sudden light was painful.
He was floating in a tumbling cloud of metallic debris and blackened, frozen blood. His blood. There should have been a huge hole where the front of the shuttle had been. That would mean that he was in the debris of the rest of the shuttle. No hole; no shuttle, either. The chronometer in his suit said it had been just over an hour since he was wounded. He must have gotten separated from the rest of the wreckage.
He was behind the planet at the moment, in relation to the sun. He could see the faint lights on the surface that were the hallmark of an inhabited planet. Some of those are probably just campfires, he thought to himself dreamily.
"Right," he muttered, tasting blood. "I need to focus. How about suit com, then?" He tried it, but only received a hissing noise.
"So either no one's there, or my com suite was damaged."
An icon blinked brighter.
He activated it mentally, and it expanded to show areas where he was hemorrhaging internally. That wasn't so good. He followed the directions on the screen and activated his emergency medical protocols. Miniature valves placed in his blood vessels cut off blood supply to the ruptured areas. Unfortunately, he needed blood in those areas. Most of his internal organs on his right side had been pulped by shrapnel, pieces of the shuttle. They were still inside him, under the patches.
He tried to think of what could have happened. He had been talking to the pilot. Something about a problem on the Loridell. A weapons malfunction? Not likely. He'd never heard of a ship accidentally firing on another one.
That meant someone had fired on him purposely.
And that meant he had to start being careful.
He activated the stealth circuits on his suit. It wouldn't be perfect, since the sticky patches didn't share the same circuits, but it was still good. He'd be nearly impossible to locate.
Tebrey knew that they had been making their final approach to the Loridell when they were fired upon. That meant that the ship had to be around some place close. He should be in the same orbit and roughly the same relative speed.
He could sense Hunter somewhere near him.
They must have drugged him and taken him up to the ship, he thought.
Time was becoming critical. With half his suit's systems malfunctioning, he only had a limited air supply, maybe enough for a few more hours. Normally his armor would scrub the CO2 from the air and then run it through the processor to liberate even more oxygen. That wasn't working right, either.
His thruster pack was working fine, though.
He had turned off his suit lights and emergency beacon. He didn't want to be a target. The ship was ahead of him, and he was going to find it. And when he did, someone was going to be very sorry they had hurt him.
Very sorry, indeed.
"Captain, sir? I've got a problem." Olavson said, sounding tired. It had been a long and stressful day, and it didn't look like it was going to get any better.
Captain Thomas was glad to be back on the bridge of his ship. He sighed. "What's the problem?"
"I keep getting an intermittent blip on my tracking console, sir. Something is trailing the ship and closing at a very slow rate."
"Probably just a piece of the shuttle wreckage."
"Yes, sir." He didn't sound convinced.
"You think it's something else?"
"I don't know, Captain, I can't get a good lock on it."
"Were the sensors damaged?"
"I didn't think so, sir."
"Run a diagnostic and let me know."
Dr. R
odriguez gently caressed the head of her latest patient.
His fur was shockingly soft.
She had sedated Hunter and confined him to the isolation room when they brought him up from the planet. He had seemed like he was in shock at the time. The room might not hold him if he decided he wanted out, but it was better than having him in the main med bay.
Her datalink activated suddenly, and a message dumped into her inbox.
She jerked, startled. It had been years since she had received a message that way, and no one aboard knew her file access code. She opened the message. It lacked an origin signature.
'He is alive,' it said.
Some subtle change in the posture of the head under her hand alerted her. She looked down into Hunter's open green eyes.
'He is coming soon,' another message opened in her head.
"They're still looking for him, Hunter. No one has found him yet," she said.
'They will not find him. He is here.'
She shivered and stepped back from the table.
He raised his head to look at her again. 'He will need you.'
Tebrey clung to a stanchion on the hull of the Loridell.
His thrusters had finally given out a few meters too short. He'd had to use the recoil from his positron pistol to propel himself the final distance. Now he held on with both hands and tried to remember where the emergency egress ports were. He didn't know the Loridell as well as he did the other vessels he'd served on. He'd had too many things to distract him.
He could feel Hunter somewhere nearby. Hang on, my friend. I'm coming.
You need to see the doctor, Hunter thought to him. You're hurt.
I'll make it. I don't know who to trust. Tebrey felt like crying.
Trust me. Trust the doctor. She will fix your pain.
I hurt so badly.
You can do it. Start now. You don't have much time.
It took all his willpower, reinforced by Hunter, to begin crawling painfully forward. He now noticed the small light near the port he was looking for. It was only the work of a few seconds to force the lock codes with his suit's cryptography suite. This was what he was trained for. They weren't going to be able to keep him out.
He entered the port and cycled the lock.
Soon he would be among them. Let them try to stop him.
"Sir! Our starboard aft emergency entry port just cycled!"
"What?" the captain asked, incredulous. "Pahlavi, the alert!"
"Yes, sir!" She hit the alert icon on her screen, and the now-familiar sound of the klaxon filled the ship.
"Communications, notify the commodore of our situation!"
"Sir!"
A different alarm sounded on the bridge. "Weapons alarm, sir," Lieutenant Christopher said in response to the captain's query. She was on the bridge to talk to him about Private Johnson. She ran over to the unmanned security console. "Antimatter, sir. Someone down there has an armed positron weapon."
"One of your people?"
"No, sir. We don't have that kind of ordinance aboard."
"Get down there!"
"Sir!" She was already running out the door.
"What the hell is going on?" he demanded of no one in particular.
Tebrey was in agony.
He couldn't breathe right. Each breath gurgled in his chest. Sometimes he would cough wetly. His neural shunts were overloaded. He was simply in too much pain to block it all out. The shunts stopped some of the pain from getting to him, but it still affected his body, and his body was ready to quit. Yet he stumbled on.
You are close. Hunter's thoughts kept him going.
He wouldn't stop.
He couldn't let himself stop.
There was a limit to what any person could do. His body was shutting down. He stumbled a few more steps, and his world went away, taking the pain with it.
Lieutenant Christopher found the blood first, small patches here and there on the deck. She followed them at a jog, her pistol held tight.
Tebrey was collapsed in a corridor only fifty meters from Medical. When she first saw him, she couldn't believe her eyes; it had been three hours since the attack. But here was the lieutenant commander; with the suit's chameleon circuits shut down, she could see his name stenciled lightly over his left breast. He was half propped against a wall. The blood trail ended with him. His pistol was a meter down the hall, where he had dropped it. She shuddered as she picked it up and deactivated the arming sequence.
"Tebrey, sir." She tapped his helmet, but he didn't move.
His armor was smeared with blood.
She activated her com. "Lieutenant Christopher here. Medical emergency in corridor C-19 Level 3! Repeat, medical emergency. All available security personnel please respond."
She then notified the bridge about the identity of the intruder.
While waiting for the medics to arrive, she sat and talked to him, not knowing if he could hear her words but hoping a human voice would help keep him from slipping away. She had no way of knowing that he was listening to a different voice, saying much the same things.
It took ten of them to lift and carry him to Medical.
Dr. Rodriguez couldn't have been more surprised when the security team came in staggering under the weight of the armor.
"Put him down here!" She gestured to the floor. "We don't have any table that would hold him." She ran her hands over his suit, finding the sticky patches, long since hardened, the smeared blood around them. "Commander!" She rapped on his helmet and then looked at Lieutenant Christopher. "How do we get him out of the armor?"
"I don't know!" She looked stricken.
"Let me through!" shouted Master Sergeant Black Eagle. He knelt next to Tebrey's head and fumbled with the helmet under the jaw. Something clicked, and he was able to carefully pull off Tebrey's helmet.
Tebrey's head lolled to the side, eyes open but unfocused. He had dried blood in rivulets around his eyes and nose. It looked like he had vomited a fair amount of blood at some point; it was dried around his mouth and throat. His skin was pale, hot, and sticky to the touch.
Dr. Rodriguez bent her head over his mouth.
"He's breathing, at least. Can you get the rest of this thing off of him?"
"I tried. He's got it locked."
They all started as something heavy slammed against the door to the isolation room.
"Is that...?" the sergeant began.
"His neo-panther," the doctor finished. "Let him out!" she ordered.
"Are you mad?"
"Do it!"
Sigurd Black Eagle prided himself on his courage, but he had seen what a neo-panther could do to a person. It took every bit of willpower he had to key open the door.
Hunter raced out of the room and slide to a halt next to Tebrey, his claws scoring deep, long tracks in the deck.
Tebrey was drifting in and out of awareness when the thoughts intruded into the blackness and pain again.
Go away, he thought with irritation.
I will not. The doctor needs to help you. You need to take off your armor.
NO! I'll die.
The doctor will fix you. If you don't take off your armor, you will die.
Hunter continued to argue with him, trying to make him understand.
Dr. Rodriguez gasped as Tebrey's eyes fluttered and focused. Hunter had been staring at him for over a minute. She had begun to wonder if he was actually doing anything.
Tebrey tried to get up, but Hunter placed a firm paw on his chest.
"You need to let us get you out of the suit, Commander. Do you understand me?"
He looked at her wildly for a moment, and then jerked his head, indicating his accord.
A second later the suit popped open, and he passed out again.
A hot fetid stink hit Rodriguez, and rotten blood poured out onto the deck.
"His immunity implant must have been hit. He may be septic. He's got severe abdominal injuries; the bottoms of both lungs may be crushed, intestines pulped. T
he femur is shattered. Okay, people, let's get him up and into surgery. We have work to do."
She deftly reached into the suit and unhooked him from the internal plumbing. The strong hands of her assistants and of her doctors reached into the suit and gently lifted him out.
"You have to stay out here," she told Hunter. "He'll be okay now." Then she rushed into surgery to perform another miracle.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dr. Maria Rodriguez smiled tolerantly at her patient.
"Hrothgar, you can eat or I can feed you. I think it would be best for both our dignities if you feed yourself," she said. She called up the diagnostic air screens and studied the progress of her patient's recovery.
She'll do it, Hunter thought with a mental chuckle. He was lying on the floor in the far corner of the ward, keeping a discreet eye on the door.
Tebrey sighed and took a bite of the grey, nutrient-rich goo they were insisting he eat five times a day. He had finally had his last surgery that morning. He still had the disassociated feeling that was the lingering aftereffect of anesthesia. There had been some kind of complication with the regrowth programs on one of his lungs. His body was trying to produce tissue on its own. The doctors had said something about Tebrey having used medical nanotech packages too often.
"What a face! It doesn't taste that bad, does it?" she asked mockingly. She updated the muscle stimulation protocols and adjusted his prescribed vitamin intake. He had a fast metabolism and was healing at an extraordinary rate, even taking the nanotechnology into consideration.
"It's not the taste, Doctor. It's the texture. I swear it wiggles as I swallow it. It reminds me of when I was a junior officer aboard the Phoenix."
Tebrey was momentarily lost in his thoughts. It was his first year in the military after training. The ship had been patrolling along the edge of the Federation Frontier when they detected raiding vessels from the Loacree Empire in orbit around a mining planet. They had come in fast and attacked, but the Homndruu raiders had fought fiercely. The destroyer's hull was breached in six places, and the food processors were destroyed. Many of the crew had been killed. Tebrey had helped Environmental reseed both of the algal growth vats. Then they had to eat the stuff raw and unprocessed. It had been beyond disgusting.
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