“Your lack of professionalism is simply unacceptable.” McLure accompanied the insult with a sneer.
Kostas wanted to throw his knife at the man's throat and be done with him, but he controlled the impulse.
Trixie sighed. “Do you have a valid, positive suggestion, Professor?”
“I will need to study this planet before making any decision.”
“Of course. We have ample time to decide.” Trixie nodded. “We have plenty of rations and fuel to stay in orbit as long as we need to. Our shuttles can take trips dirt-side and study the planet surface. But we have to consider the possibility that this might be our only option. If we truly are in unchartered space, returning to our solar system may not be possible.”
Another murmur rose from the representatives.
Trixie's last words triggered the survivor gene in Kostas. He didn't want to go back, couldn't afford to. He sheathed the knife in his boot and rose then stepped toward the center of the circle and cleared his voice to call attention. “You folks have to realize that if we traveled so far that we can't get our bearings, we are on our own, pretty much as we would have been at our planned destination. I suggest we study and explore this planet and consider it our best chance of survival... until proven otherwise.”
McLure rose, his face puffed and red with outrage. “My hard-earned credits financed this entire expedition. Only I can decide on this important matter.”
“'Fraid not.” Kostas raised his voice just enough to shut up the peacock. “We are on a ship and space regulations are clear on who's in charge.” Kostas nodded to Trixie. “Captain? Care to explain?”
Trixie looked as if she tried hard not to grin. “The lives of the twenty-five hundred settlers aboard this ship are at stake. As captain, I, and only I am responsible for their welfare. I propose the representatives report to their various tribes on this issue. We'll reconvene in four hours, hopefully by then we'll have more information, and possibly other options.”
McLure stepped forward. “This riffraff shouldn't have a say in decisions affecting my scientific experiment. A project of this magnitude…”
The equine leader, rose, hand on his sword hilt. “My name is Tabor, leader of the equine tribe. I strongly suggest Professor McLure shut up. In my tribe, we have ways of getting rid of scientists who talk too much.”
McLure's eyes widened and his face froze.
“Thank you, Tabor.” The captain's eyebrows furrowed prettily. “If you prefer, Professor McLure, I can scrap your scientific experiment altogether and jettison your precious cargo. Your credits have no sway here. My foremost concern at this juncture is the survival and welfare of the passengers and crew in my charge.”
A mumbled approval floated over the representatives. Heads bobbed in agreement.
Kostas couldn't refrain from grinning at the sour expression on the arrogant professor's face. Well spoken, Trixie.
“Listen.” Trixie paused and the bay quieted. “Instruct your people about the situation. When we reconvene, we'll have more information about the planet itself. Let's hope it's all good news. Dismissed.”
The captain jumped lightly off her crate. Kostas straightened, heart beating like a drum.
Tabor approached her. Trixie offered a handshake. Tabor kissed her fingers. How dare he?
Then Trixie sashayed up to Kostas. She held out her hand, flashing a winning smile on a row of perfect white teeth. “Thank you for your support, soldier.”
“Don't mention it. I hate pompous asses.” He shook her smooth hand, surprised by her healthy grip, trying to ignore the heat infusing his body and the subtle scent that sweetened the air around her. “Kostas... my name is Kostas.”
“Kostas.” She looked him up and down. “Greek ancestry? You'll have to tell me all about Greece sometime. I've never been there but the holovids are beautiful.” Her smile widened, then she turned on her heel and strode toward the exit.
By the Halls of Montezuma! Frozen in place, Kostas admired the motions of her womanly curves as she walked away. Was that an open invitation? He came from the Mars Colony, and he'd fought on many worlds, but he'd never seen Greece either. “Damn!”
Like an automaton, he exited the bay through the chatting representatives, and directed his steps toward the hold assigned to the group of settlers he represented.
When the door opened, still under the spell of the lovely Trixie, he almost tripped over a flock of chickens. The poultry cackled and jumped and fluttered as they scattered and white feathers flew. The dusty smell of straw made him sneeze, but the hot rancid stench of wooly sheep and goats soon filled his nostrils, erasing the sweet scent of Trixie's perfume.
He strode toward the group of seated settlers sharing a meal on top of bales of hay. Time to remember his job.
* * *
Trixie entered the small lift reserved for the crew, glad no one joined her inside before the door closed. “Bridge.”
As the cabin climbed the few decks, she couldn't erase the silly grin from her face. Now she had a name to match the dark, brooding face of that handsome soldier.
Kostas. The very sound sent shivers to her spine. Tall and broad-shouldered, with the cutest dimple in his chin. She admired the fact he showed up smooth-shaven on a minute's notice. She also had no doubt he'd been genetically enhanced. Most soldiers were. How else could they fight and survive on inhospitable worlds?
But this soldier had a singular attitude. He thought on his feet and took initiative. He didn't sound like Fleet, more like an army officer or a Space Marine who'd climbed through the ranks. A terrific physique, a sharp mind... his intervention also showed he cared about the passengers. A rare specimen indeed. How did such a treasure end up on this dead-end expedition?
Kostas had given her the support she needed, exactly when she needed it. Not that she couldn't have handled the situation on her own, of course. But his commanding presence had set everyone straight. And Tabor's threat had shut up McLure. She smiled at the thought.
Still. Kostas had made an impression. Stop it, girl. She couldn't let herself nurture silly romantic notions. She hadn't escaped the clutches of a controlling father to fall under the spell of another strong man... no matter how attractive.
The ship lurched as the door opened. Trixie steadied herself and stepped onto the command bridge. A battery of alarms screamed. She recognized the familiar jolt.
“Battle stations! Damage report!” She turned to the bearded Viking at the weapon's console. “Bjorg? Who's shooting at us?”
“The smaller moon! There is a defense station with a battery of ion cannons there.”
“Evasive maneuvers! How are the shields?” she shouted over the blaring alarms.
“Seventy percent and holding, Captain,” Tom called, all excited, dreadlocks flying.
“Bjorg, Target that moon station.” An uninhabited planet with defensive space weapons? The stone city and roads only indicated a primitive society. Nothing made sense. “Somebody shut down these alarms!”
The ambient noise dropped to a tolerable level.
“No effect on their cannon battery, Captain,” Bjorg said. “The moon station is heavily shielded.”
“Why didn't we detect it before?” Trixie hated surprises.
“Probably deep underground.” Kenny’s face glistened with sweat.
“Put the planet between us and that moon!” Trixie wondered if there were more surprises, deep underground on the planet itself.
Another salvo shook the bridge. Trixie held on to the armrests with a white-knuckled grip.
“Shields at forty percent. We can't afford another hit, Captain.” Kenny's lisp increased when he was scared. The man didn't perform well under pressure.
“Cheng! Get us out of range! Now!”
A salvo swallowed Trixie's words. The entire ship shuddered and moaned like a high-rise in an earthquake. An explosion on the starboard side sent the ceiling tiles down on the bridge, along with cables roped together in thick bundles. The lights flic
kered and died. The emergency bulbs came on. Smoke filled the bridge. White foam sprayed the sparking consoles.
“Damage report?”
“Two propulsion engines down. The third is intact. Cargo Bay Six was jettisoned. We are venting air… falling fast.” Tom sounded professional despite his pirate looks. He'd done this before.
Trixie closed her mind to the remembered faces of the people in Cargo Bay Six, imagining their bodies floating in space, suffocating, their blood freezing and splitting their veins in the cold, dark void of space.
“Skimming the atmosphere,” Cheng announced, unfazed. “We are burning bulkhead. Going for a crash landing.”
“Helm!” Trixie turned to Cheng. “Give me the controls.”
Cheng's face tensed. “Nobody can fly this ship in heavy air with only one engine, Captain.” His clipped standard betrayed a trace of lilting Mandarin accent when under pressure. Noted.
“Don't be so sure.” Trixie switched on the ship-wide com. “This is your captain. Brace for a rough landing.” She turned to Kenny at Nav. “Show me that patch of warmer land.”
She donned the piloting helmet and lowered the visor. Closing her mind to the chaos around her, Trixie stared at the planet coming up at her, and the red lined area at the foot of the mountain range. Hands on the controls, she became the ship, feeling its stumbling heartbeat matching hers.
Like an albatross, she glided on air currents, descending in a graceful sweep despite the vertiginous speed, down toward the flat plain at the foot of the mountain range. Tall trees would be a hazard. Could she push that barge far enough to land it on the bare fields in the shadow of the citadel?
She was coming down way too fast. How much of an angle could she manage before contact? She hoped the flat surface wasn't a frozen lake, or they would be swallowed by frigid waters. The viewer confirmed soft dirt under that fat blanket of snow. Good, but she couldn't help the acceleration as the ship approached the surface.
Wraith! She'd softened the angle as much as she could, but not enough for a good landing.
The ground came at her like a wall. Pain exploded through her body. For a moment she heard the alarms, then all the sounds around her vanished. She smelled smoke, then she plummeted into a bottomless black pit.
Chapter Two
The cold stiffened Trixie's joints as she stirred. Who'd left a window open on such a cold night? She reached for a blanket but found none. Her head pounded, and every muscle in her body ached. An attempt to change position failed. Something hard wedged her back. Opening her eyes, she blinked a few times to focus.
Gray light filtering in from long fissures in the fractured bulkhead revealed the cataclysmic state of the command bridge. Noah’s Ark! The crash landing... She became aware of the moans of twisting metal beams as the wreckage settled, and the faint grunts of her wounded crewmen.
Trixie lay on her side on the deck, still strapped into her captain's chair, ripped from its supports. Releasing the harness that gouged her ribs, she extricated herself from the contraption and took a free breath, regretting it immediately. Cold air seared her lungs, and her ribcage protested. Gingerly, she climbed to her feet, unable to suppress a groan at the jabbing pain in her chest... probably cracked ribs. Wraith!
The bridge had crinkled like an accordion from the nose. At least the ship hadn't exploded on impact, and she smelled no smoke.
“Report in!” she shouted as loud as she could over the noise, left hand bracing her sore ribs.
“I'm all right, Captain,” came Tom's low voice as he rose, shaken but unhurt.
Kenny emerged from the Nav console. “A little banged up but in one piece, Captain.”
Cheng rose behind Kenny, made eye contact and nodded, lips pressed together, face tense, in obvious pain.
“Si, Captain, I'm okay,” said Dolores, the com officer.
At her feet lay a young man Trixie recognized as Bjorg, the weapons officer. From the lack of color in his face, the stillness of his open eyes, and the wide pool of blood spread around him, she could tell he'd died from hemorrhage... Dolores crouched and felt for a pulse, then glanced at Trixie and shook her head sadly.
Trixie must concentrate on the living. She hoped the passengers had fared better.
They also needed warm clothes, or they would all die of hypothermia. She flipped on the intraship com but no lights came on. Wraith! She tapped her badge. No success. Finally, she reached for the emergency hand-held radio at her belt and activated it. “To all crew. Please report! Damages? Do you require assistance?”
Her radio chirped. “Major damage in the engine room, Captain,” came a masculine voice on the radio wave. “Containment is failing. Plasma leak expected in less than an hour. No way to seal it. The blast doors won't close.”
“Wraith! We have to evacuate... now!” She pressed the radio button again. “Shuttle bay, how are the shuttles?”
A beep. “Sorry, Captain, the moorings broke, and the two shuttles crashed into each other on impact. Both are severely damaged. Unable to fly.”
“Wraith!” Trixie turned to her crew and spoke into her handheld at the same time. “We have to start moving toward the citadel immediately. I landed as close as I could, but it's still over a mile away. This is a slow-moving bunch, and we want to get there before dark. I bet the nights are frigid in these parts.”
She rubbed her arms to get her blood flowing and turned to Tom, the engineer with the dreadlocks. “Check out the other decks. Make sure everyone wears insulated clothes before getting out.” She scanned the other stern faces. “That goes for all of you... then gather the passengers who can walk, take them outside, and get them and their livestock moving toward the gate tower of that citadel.”
Tom nodded and rushed out of the bridge through the open back door leading to the hallway and the stairs. Trixie hoped the rest of the ship was in better shape. Noah’s Ark may be an old barge, but the strength of its hull had protected her crew... most of them.
“Kenny, go to sick bay and help the medics get to the wounded. Tell them to patch them up for immediate transport and pack up the medical supplies.”
“Cheng, get a medic to look at you. Priority one. Then help move the settlers if you can.”
Cheng only nodded, his face tense. He hadn't spoken yet, and she hoped he wasn't too seriously injured. Misplaced bravery and pride could cost lives in this kind of situation.
“Dolores.” She flashed a quick smile at the young woman's eager face. “Recruit a few helpers and go to Cargo Bay Four. Load food, tools and supplies on antigravity pallets. We need to get as much as possible to the citadel before dark.”
“Si, Captain.”
Trixie hoped the abandoned city would be as empty and welcoming as it looked.
* * *
Opening his locker, Kostas grabbed his tactical rucksack, always ready to go. He opened the locker drawer and snatched his small weapons and equipment then snapped them on his utility belt. His combat sense told him they may not have the luxury of coming back to the wreck.
He had no problem with the orders the captain had relayed through her subordinates. Moving the settlers to the empty citadel. That's what he would have done in her place. Shelter from the cold, and defendable grounds. Although the passengers may not know why Noah’s Ark had crashed, Kostas understood they'd been shot down, and whoever attacked them might keep hunting them dirt-side.
The group of settlers he represented all lived, with minor cuts and bruises, thanks to the thick bales of hay that cushioned the impact. They had to slaughter severely injured animals, now loaded on floating pallets for their next meal.
Since the orders didn't mention weapons, Kostas took it upon himself to stop by the cargo bay where he'd recognized the names of weapon suppliers on the manifest by the door. Once there, he forced open a few titanium crates. He made sure to locate pulse rifles, explosives, grenades, with launchers and battery packs. Thanks to his military training, he was able to use the robotic arms to pile up a full truc
kload on each of the two large floating pallets stored in the bay.
He manually released the lock of the outer bay door, grateful when it hissed and lifted smoothly. A draft of brisk winter air rushed into the hold. His breath formed a white plume in front of his face. On a normal landing, the cargo bay doors would open level with the loading docks. Since the ship lay cockeyed, listing to port, the threshold now stood ten feet off the ground.
From the edge of the opening, Kostas had an unobstructed view of the exodus. A heavy caterpillar plow crawled at the head of the column, shoving the snow to the sides and smoothing a path for the civilians wrapped up in fur-lined overcoats and blankets. Such a deployment of materiel seemed an overkill just to travel the two klicks to the imposing gate tower of the looming citadel, but unlike him, civilians were fragile creatures.
A rough head count told Kostas only two thirds of the twenty-five hundred passengers had survived the crash. It seemed a heavy toll. Directly below him, a few groups led horned cattle.
He recognized Tabor with his mounted tribe on sturdy horses covered with colorful blankets and streaming with ribbons. He wondered how many horses had died. The riders yelled as they galloped up and down the line to warm up the horses, dislodging clods of snow under their hooves. Dogs barked, running along the column. The pedestrians scrambled out of their way and coaxed unwilling flocks and herds to march despite the chaos and the cold.
From his perch, using the remote, Kostas floated the two heavy loads out of the bay and lowered them down, slowly, to hover a foot above ground. Then he pulled on his thermal Anorak and secured the rucksack on his back. Unlike the passengers, he needed no ramp to exit the wrecked craft. He easily jumped down and landed smoothly on his feet in fluffy snow.
Looking up, he realized how large Noah’s Ark truly was. It towered over him like a covered stadium uprooted on one side after a landslide, dark and forbidding against the virgin snow. Deep black grooves in the snow behind the stern attested to the pilot's skills. Not too many could land a crippled bird, especially one as large and unwieldy as Noah’s Ark.
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