by Eric Warren
Evie hated leaving her post in the middle of a crisis but fixing the arm wouldn’t take long and she couldn’t do her job properly with a useless appendage. She locked down her station and with a wince, headed for the hypervator.
“At least allow me to confine him to his quarters,” Page said, indignant. Evie stopped on her way, spinning to face Page.
“He’s the only one on this ship who might even give us a chance of success. Can’t you see that or are you too stupid to get that through your head?” Evie said.
Page, momentarily stunned, only blinked at her.
“Lieutenant, return to your duties. Commander, sickbay. Now,” Greene ordered.
With a huff she finally made it to the hypervator, the doors cutting her off from the tension in the room as they closed.
***
Evie passed two teams extinguishing fires on the corridors and one trying to contain a chemical leak close to Engineering. She thought about heading directly there to assess the situation but they probably didn’t need her getting in the way. Sesster was no doubt in control of everything. Plus, she really needed to get her arm repaired. It was the same one she’d injured rescuing Cas the first time, maybe it hadn’t healed correctly.
The doors to sickbay opened to reveal two people on the examination beds while Xax moved between the two of them, doling out diagnoses as she made her examination. She looked up to Evie, her aquamarine eyes probing.
“Arm,” Evie said, holding it at a slight angle.
“Over here.” Xax pointed with one of her smaller arms to the bed behind her. She crossed the room and sat on the bed, still holding the arm while she waited for treatment. The other two: Ensign Peters and Crewman Ulag’tcha seemed to be in worse shape than she was. They both worked in Engineering; they must be having a hell of a time over there. Once this was over she would pass by just to make sure there was nothing she could do. As she was staring into space the images in front of her eyes suddenly coalesced into a figure she recognized.
“Box?” she asked, staring over at the far wall where he stood, completely still. “What are you doing here?”
“You can’t see me,” Box replied. “I’ve adjusted my colors to completely blend in with the bulkheads.”
“I can see you. The eyes give you away.”
“Damn,” he said, dropping his head. “It’s always the eyes. I need eyelids.”
She hopped down from the bed and approached him. “What’s going on?”
“I…got lost,” he said in the least convincing voice she’d ever heard.
“He’s here to learn,” Xax said from behind her. “Box, come over here.”
Box stepped forward, past Evie over to Ensign Peters. “These are third-degree burns. See how the flesh has charred and necrotized?” Xax asked. “What sort of treatment would you give him?”
“Apply a level three dermal analgesic and monitor the response,” Box replied.
Xax turned to Evie. “He’s a quick study. Box, look at the commander’s injury and report back to me.”
Evie returned to the bed, taking a seat. “Does Cas know you’re down here?” she asked.
His eyes blinked once. “No.”
“I don’t understand; is this some kind of experiment?”
He picked up her arm, probing it with his metal fingers. “Tell me if you feel pain,” he replied, his voice low. “It’s not an experiment. I’ve…found something here.”
“Ow, right there,” she said wincing.
Box turned to Xax. “Clean break of the radius. Check for splintering?” he asked.
Xax nodded without taking her eyes off Ensign Peters. Box turned back to Evie, taking a scanner from the tray of instruments beside him.
“So…is this what you’re doing now?” she asked.
“Beats banging my head against the wall in our room. Without a ship to fly I feel…off.” He ran the scanner over her arm.
“You haven’t seemed like yourself since you came on board.” Gone was the loud-mouthed, rambunctious robot she’d first met. He’d lost some of his oomph. “Is that what Cas thinks you’re doing? Staying in the room all day?”
“I doubt he’d notice if I was gone when he got there. He’s had too much on his mind lately. I’m assuming things didn’t go well up there.” He turned back to Xax. “No splintering.”
“Next steps?” Xax asked.
“Reset the bone and inject two stitchers.”
Xax turned to Evie. “He is excellent. I can’t believe you had him holed up in a room somewhere. With the captain’s permission I’d like to add him to my staff.”
This seemed to surprise Box as much as it did Evie. The scanner hung limp at the robot’s side as he stared at the Yax-Inax doctor. “I’ll bring it up with him once we’re out of crisis mode,” Evie replied.
“Hold on to the bed, this will sting.” Box set the scanner down. She grabbed the edge of the bed as he held her arm with both hands and made a swift twist. A jolt of pain shot through her, but she bore down and didn’t scream.
One of the other nurses, Menkel if her memory served her correctly, brought Box a small syringe. “Thanks, Jimmy,” Box said. He leaned into Evie. “They treat me so well here, it’s weird.”
She stifled a smile. He put the syringe against her skin and pushed. Evie felt the small prick and had the unnerving sensation of something scurrying through her arm even though technically you weren’t supposed to feel them.
“Give them about ten minutes to repair the bone and try not to put pressure on it for a few hours as they reinforce it. We’ll remove them tomorrow,” Box said.
Xax walked over and inspected Evie’s arm. “I assume you need to return to duty.”
“As soon as possible,” she said.
“Just take it easy. The stitchers have released a localized painkiller in the area, but you may still experience some numbness. Just don’t go punching anyone for a while. And take it easy with that arm. I don’t want to see you in here again.”
Evie smiled, hopping down from the bed. “Thanks…to both of you.” She headed for the door.
“Don’t forget my request,” Xax said.
She waved as the doors closed behind her.
17
Cas grabbed Ronde by the lapel, jerking him forward while he cocked his arm back, fully intending to smash the man’s face in. But before he could execute someone else was on him, pulling him and his arm back. Ronde, for his part, looked half-terrified and half-emboldened, breathing a sigh of relief as Cas was forced to release his lapel.
“I knew you were trouble the minute you stepped on this ship,” Page said from behind him, dragging Cas backward and away from the junior lieutenant.
It hadn’t been the smartest move. But at the same time Cas was tired of all the needling, and after Evie had gone to sickbay and Greene retired to the command room to go over the damage reports, both Page and Ronde had started in on him and hadn’t let up. Ronde placed the full blame for Blackburn’s death squarely on Cas’s shoulders. And it had been the last straw; the ackmel collapsing under the weight. But now he was most likely headed to the brig for threatening an officer. Unless he decided to go all in and shove the back of his elbow into Page’s face.
As the man held him tighter, pulling him to the other side of the bridge, Cas was seriously considering it when the hypervator doors opened, revealing Evie. “What the hell?” she asked.
“He tried to assault Lieutenant Ronde,” Page explained, still holding Cas in some kind of strange chokehold which didn’t allow him much movement.
“Release him,” Evie ordered. “Now.”
“Commander,” Page protested.
“Don’t you have enough to worry about other than playing a bouncer?” Evie said. Page scowled at her, releasing Cas. He took a deep breath; he hadn’t realized the man had had him in such a grip. It must have been the adrenaline. “And you.” Evie shook her head at Cas. “Get down to Engineering. They need all the help they can get down there. Where’s
the captain?”
“Going over the damage reports,” Zaal said, standing beside his station. When the scuffle began everyone had jumped to intervene, but Page had been the quickest.
“Everyone back to your stations, we don’t have time for this,” Evie ordered. Reluctantly Page returned to tactical. She scowled at Cas. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”
Cas shot a look at Page, who eyed him with an intense hatred like he’d never seen before. Why had he gone for the younger officer rather than the man who was determined to make his time on this ship a living hell? He didn’t look at Evie again, instead made his way to the open hypervator and left the bridge.
Cas was lucky to have her on his side. Technically a move like that should have ended with him in the brig, officer or not. He never would have tolerated behavior like that aboard the Achlys or any ship he’d served on. Coalition officers were supposed to be civil and work together for a common good. But then again he wasn’t an officer anymore, and the same rules didn’t apply. Being back on board was harder than he thought, he’d become so used to living by the skin of his teeth, always on guard. If life in the Sargan Commonwealth did anything for him, it made him much more vigilant.
As soon as the hypervator doors opened he jogged down the hallway to Engineering. The massive room was in chaos as soon as he stepped inside.
Most of the Engineering teams were working on securing the large conduits that ran from the back wall through the space and out toward the generators that kept the undercurrents open and wide enough for the ship to pass through. Two of them had cracked from the strain. Cas had seen a similar problem when the Achlys had burned her engines for too long, but the Achlys hadn’t had the advantage of Claxian-assisted speed.
In the middle of the room Commander Sesster, the only Claxian on board, moved three of his five identical-sized “arms” around, attempting to monitor and fix problems before they arose. Watching him work was mesmerizing. But it wasn’t just his physical capabilities which made him unique among the Engineering crew. Sesster was the only being on board who had the capability to calculate the undercurrent parameters on the spot, which was what allowed the ship to move so fast. Even assisted by a computer any other ship would lose its vector once the speed reached a certain threshold. Cas thought he caught the commander make a slight pause before Ensign Tyler came running up. Tyler was Sesster’s human counterpart, the one who performed the jobs Sesster couldn’t due to his imposing size.
“He says you can help over here,” Tyler said, out of breath. “We’re having trouble containing the plasma. What the hell happened up there?”
Cas followed him over to the right side of the room where teams were working on building a sleeve to cover one of the cracked conduits. “We encountered the Sil. It didn’t go to plan.”
That’s an understatement, Mr. Robeaux. Cas shuddered. Feeling Sesster’s words flow through him was like water soaking into the ground. He wasn’t used to the sensation.
“How long have we got?” Tyler asked. Cas wasn’t sure if it was Tyler or Sesster asking the question. He glanced over to the Claxian still making the repairs. Without any eyes it was difficult to tell if a Claxian was ever paying attention to him or not.
I am always paying attention. Please answer the ensign’s question.
“Not long. We’re outside their territory right now, but if they come looking for us we won’t be able to hide. Not long anyway. We need to do everything we can to get the engines back up to full capacity.”
“Are we returning to Coalition space?” Tyler attached a piece of the sleeve to the conduit as another crewman held it in place.
Cas glanced to the units feeding the conduit and bent down, checking each connection one-by-one. The third one was bad and he yanked it out. “I don’t know. It depends on what the captain decides. But I’d doubt we’d come all this way just to turn around and go back empty-handed.” In fact, he knew they weren’t leaving empty-handed.
Guard your thoughts, Mr. Robeaux. I don’t want to inadvertently pick up classified orders.
Cas attempted to empty his mind. Maybe if Sesster didn’t want to know he shouldn’t go probing. But then again he might not have a choice; maybe it was like someone shouting in an empty room and unless your ears were covered, you were going to hear what they said whether you wanted to or not.
An apt analogy. And thank you for finding the defective connection.
“You’re welcome,” Cas said. Tyler glanced over, apparently having been alerted by Sesster.
“Bad connection? Any others?” he asked.
“Not that I see,” Cas replied.
“Okay, let’s finish getting this on to reinforce the conduit.” He and the rest of the Engineering team finished attaching the sleeve, covering the cracks that had formed. “Captain pushed us too hard; when we got thrown from the undercurrent it strained the system. Then when we had to make a jump without a cooldown it pushed everything past their limits. When you get back up there do me a favor and remind him this is still an experimental system. We don’t have all the safeguards and redundancies a normal Coalition ship would have.”
“Is that coming from you or the commander?” Cas asked.
Tyler took once glance at Sesster then turned back to Cas, puffing out his chest. “Both,” he said.
***
Keeping his mind clear was harder than he’d anticipated. Cas went from odd job to odd job in Engineering, struggling to keep his mind on his work. He kept wanting his thoughts to drift back to the situation with Rutledge but every time they moved in that direction he would pull them away, thinking instead about the ship, its design, or anything else. He even tried humming a few times but it did him no good. And the more he tried not to think about it the worse it got. By the time most of the repairs were done his hands shook.
“I think you have everything under control down here,” Cas said, extricating himself from beneath a coolant unit. “You guys don’t need me anymore.”
“There’s still a lot to be done,” Tyler said from the control seat beside him. He was in the process of rebooting the coolant acceptance protocols which allowed the plasma conduits to run twice as hot with half the ambient heat.
“I’m sure you can take care of it.” Cas threw a wave behind him as he headed for the doors, wanting nothing more than some mental relief.
Thank you for working so hard to safeguard your knowledge. Sesster said. I know it isn’t easy.
“That’s the truth,” Cas uttered, leaving Engineering and getting halfway down the hall before he relaxed his mind. It was the most soothing relief and he felt better. As if bags of sand had been lifted from his shoulders.
In all the madness he hadn’t had a good chance to process what had happened. The Sil obviously didn’t want to talk, that much was clear. So how was he going to get them to listen? Was it even possible? This was what he’d predicted when he’d first started lessons with Laska. Fat lot of good those had done him. Maybe she should have been the one to initiate contact, though the Sil had barely allowed them to get a word in edgewise. If this was going to have any chance of working he had to find some way of reaching them. Something that they wanted.
Cas pulled his comm out, tapping it. “Box?”
“Here, boss,” his voice was muffled.
“What’s going on? Where are you?”
“In the room, why?”
“I was just checking to make sure everything was okay. We had some trouble with the Sil.”
“You don’t say,” he replied, his voice emotionless.
Cas ground his teeth together. Why was this so hard? “But you’re…okay? No damage?”
There was a pause on the other side. “No damage. I’m fine.”
His voice was still muffled and Cas thought he heard another voice coming through the comm. “Are you sure?” Cas asked. “You sound…odd.”
“Yep, everything’s fine. Go save the ship.”
Cas stopped in the hallway, furrowing his brow. S
omething was definitely off. “Okay, I’ll see you—”
“I have to go,” Box said, cutting the connection. Cas stood there staring at the device for a moment before taking a deep breath. He was just pissed at being left in that room all day. He really needed to remember to request Box get his own quarters but he’d have to go through Evie since Page had apparently set up some kind of requisition net against him. And now wasn’t the time.
He considered sending a comm to the bridge to ask if they needed his help anymore but decided against it, putting the comm away again. If they needed him they’d call. He needed to figure out how to get the Sil’s attention without them destroying the ship. And as much as he hated to admit it, he needed to start taking Laska’s words seriously. Which meant he’d have to go back to her. “Damn,” he said under his breath. He didn’t even want to know how much pleasure she’d gather from him crawling back.
Might as well get it over with.
18
Cas stood in front of the door to the classroom, gathering his courage to face her after his failure on the bridge. He tapped the button beside the door. No answer.
He pushed it again, holding longer this time. Still no answer. Running one hand through his hair he leaned down to the panel and tapped in a simple override code he’d had memorized from his days on the Achlys. Most low-security protocol doors worked on the same system and needed a little ingenuity to get past them. The high-security doors were another matter and Box was the one to take care of those for him.
The doors slid open to reveal an empty room. Of course. Why would she be in here if there was no one to teach? He tapped his comm unit. “Locate Negotiator Laska,” he said.
“Primary lounge,” the computer replied.
Cas raised an eyebrow. What was she doing in there? And during a ship-wide emergency? Weren’t all the entertainment facilities automatically closed during ship-wide emergencies? He broke into a trot down a couple of hallways until he reached the hypervator, taking it to level twelve. He then broke into a full-blown sprint down to the lounge, thinking something must be wrong if she was in there while everything was shut down. As soon as he reached the large oak doors with glass circles embedded in them he stopped.