by Geoff North
Sheratan wiped the sweat away from his forehead with the back of her hand. “The meaning of it all will become apparent soon enough, I’m sure of it. But for now, you’re going to have to rely on your other senses.”
“Other senses? How will my senses save any of us?”
“What do you hear right now?”
One sound was obvious. “Tor Emin snoring. Surprised I was able to fall asleep at all.”
She leaned in closer. Her lips brushed against his ear. “Beyond the snoring. Listen carefully.”
Sulafat concentrated harder, forcing his ears to hear beyond the ripping snorts literally shaking the entire bunk frame. And then he caught it. There was something. A slow tapping sound. It got slightly louder, and then receded. Louder again. Receding. Very soft, tapping… scraping. “Someone is walking out in the corridor, back and forth. Pacing.”
Sheratan gave him a small push. “Don’t just lie there, old man. Go see what it is.”
He lowered himself from the top bunk to the cold floor. Tor Emin made an exceptionally loud snort, almost woke, then rolled over, casting his large back towards the captain. Sulafat crept towards the open doorway. He looked back at the bunk bed once more and saw Sheratan’s ghostly face glowing in the shadows near the ceiling. She shooed him on from the shadows with a silent wave of her hand. The living quarters the Hunn-ephei had provided Sulafat’s people were cramped and dark. It was only slightly brighter in the corridor.
Sulafat saw someone moving away from him—one of his men. He continued for another half dozen steps or so, and then turned, began making his way back. Sulafat rapped his knuckles softly against the doorway’s edge to get his attention. “Wez?” The captain whispered. “What the hell are you doing?”
The burly squadron boss jogged the last few steps toward him. “Captain… I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Wez Canis glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Nothing, sir. Well, not exactly nothing. I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow… I’m worried what our first shift as slave laborers will be like.”
“I imagine it will be difficult without any sleep. Go back to bed.”
“Yes, sir. I just need a few more minutes… You know, to clear my head.”
Sulafat could relate. “Very well, boss. Be quick about it.” He turned back for his quarters, but Sheratan was blocking the way.
“You’re not listening hard enough, Sully.” She grabbed his shoulders and turned him back out into the corridor. “Wez Canis isn’t the kind of man that worries about anything.”
Wez watched his captain stumble towards him. “Sir? Are you all right?”
Sulafat put a finger to his lips and silenced him. He listened. And then he heard what Sheratan wanted him to hear. A soft rubbing sound. Cloth brushing over skin. Quickened breathing. “Is that coming from your room, Canis?”
“It’s not what you think, Captain.” The big man’s shoulders slumped. “Well it is, I guess, but it’s not like the rest of us didn’t know. It’s been going on for some time now.”
“How long?”
“Maybe a month after our captivity on Pega began.”
Sulafat went to the open doorway of the squadron boss’s room and peered in. He could barely make out the forms of two bodies joined together on the bottom bunk. A female on top of a male, a man and woman making love, attempting to remain completely silent but not entirely succeeding.
“He loves her, Captain,” Wez whispered. “Don’t be too mad at him.”
Sheratan giggled somewhere behind him. “You’re not mad at Hadar Cen, are you Sully? You’re furious with yourself for being the last one to find out.”
Sulafat cleared his throat loudly. “Get off him.”
Jule Adeen jumped, bumped her head into the bunk above, and slid out of the bed, wrapping the single sheet around her body. Hadar followed quickly after her, covering his nakedness with cupped hands. “Captain,” he paused, searching for the most appropriate words. “We, uum… couldn’t sleep.”
“Obviously.”
Jule gathered her clothes from the floor and slipped past Sulafat and Wez without saying a word. She disappeared down the corridor into darkness beyond. Hadar was sitting on the bed again, pulling his underwear up past his knees. “I know how bad this looks, sir. I should’ve told you, sooner.”
Sulafat sat next to him. “It isn’t a crime to fall in love.” He looked up and saw Sheratan leaning her head against Wez Canis’s shoulder. She winked at him. “As far as I’m aware, you’re the first human to… become intimate with an extra-terrestrial.”
Wez tried to put a more humorous spin on it. “The rest of us have been calling it second contact.”
Sheratan laughed. “I like that.”
“It isn’t funny,” Sulafat snapped. The three men sat and stood in uncomfortable silence for a few more moments. Sheratan Ries had vanished. “I wonder what the High Council back on Pega would make of it.”
“Please, Captain,” Hadar urged. “Her people can never know. She said that if anyone found out, her career would be over. It could even cost Jule her life.”
“I don’t care about Jule Adeen’s career. What I want is to get us off this planet.” He glared at Hadar through the shadows. “Remain close to her. Closer even. If this puts her life in danger, she may be willing to provide us information we need to steal a ship.”
“We have to be very careful, sir.” Hadar paused. “Jule wants to help us, sir, but she can’t… not directly.”
“Not directly. What does that mean?”
“The Hunn can read our minds, but they can’t get in very deep. It’s different with the Pegans. After thousands of years, the Hunn have complete access to them, their most inner thoughts, their very subconscious. They haven’t been able to get that far with us yet. I was told that’s the main reason we were brought here. We’re not going to be put to physical work—not all of us, anyway. They’re going to begin conditioning our minds, preparing us for… something else.”
Sulafat recalled what the Hunn Prime had said to him during their first encounter. I’m so looking forward to knowing you… every little bit of you. He stood up, began pacing in the small area between Hadar and Canis. “How long have you known all this?”
“Quite some time,” Hadar said apologetically. “I wanted to tell you earlier, before we left Pega, but I didn’t think you’d understand.”
“Did Jule tell you all of this?”
“No, sir. Somebody else did.”
“Who?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Hadar lowered his head. “Kraz Corvus told me.”
Sulafat stopped moving. “Kraz is dead.”
“I know. He disintegrated before my eyes in the weapons turret of Bite almost a year ago.”
“You’re not crazy, or at least you’re not the only one.” Wez Canis said. “Laris Bear has been speaking to me for days now.”
Laris Bear. The captain remembered him well. He had been the only soldier to survive the destruction of fighter garage 1 when the Pegans had first attacked Ambition. Sulafat had tried to talk the pilot down when he stole a fighter from garage 2 and sacrificed his life by creating a collapse event with his ship’s fold drive, taking ten enemy vessels with him.
“Neither one of you have lost your minds.” Sulafat didn’t tell them about his recent encounters with Command Second Ries. “It would seem that the ghosts of Ambition’s past have come to help us.”
Chapter 19
“How’s your patient handling the trip, doctor?” Edmund called over his shoulder.
Penelope Strong hovered over the sleeping form of Shain Agle strapped to the transport gurney. “He’s fine. In fact, his vitals are strengthening every hour. I’m not surprised. Considering he’d spent months on this shuttle before we found him, the ride should feel like coming home.”
“Ambition external door opening. Atmospheric shielding ac
tivated,” Ada spoke out in a tinny, muffled voice. Retribution’s computer had installed a smaller version of itself within the Exodus shuttle to assist during the transport. “Automatic landing procedures initiated.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Edmund leaned forward in the cockpit seat and toggled a switch off on the control board. “I want to bring her in on my own.” He took hold of the control stick and began guiding Exodus towards the massive opening.
Bennoit Gertsen, seated next to his commander in the co-pilot section, adjusted the view on the screen in front of them. Ambition’s ancient, pitted hull passed by on the monitor slowly, settling finally on an immense rectangle of shimmering energy. It grew larger, becoming a perfect green square as the last bit of exterior hull door lifted away. “That is Agle’s home, Dr. Strong.”
Penelope came and stood in the open hatchway separating the cockpit from the travel cabin. She watched as Edmund guided the ship through the atmospheric shield. “Some offer gifts when they meet people for the first time. I’m not sure how they’ll react to ours.”
The inside of Ambition was nothing like her battered and scarred exterior. Fighter garage 2 appeared almost pristine in comparison; its walls and deck plating were clean white and unblemished. Dozens of centuries-old fighter ships were lined down either side of the bay, their sharp noses pointed diagonally towards the massive opening Edmund and his two officers had just cleared.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Edmund said. A ring of red lights set into the deck floor flashed on directly ahead of them. The commander set the shuttle down in the center of it.
Gertsen opened a line to Retribution. “We made it, SIC. Safe and sound.”
Corwin Barret replied a moment later. “Good to hear, lieutenant. Tell that son-in-law of mine not to blow this. Ambition’s been gone for seven centuries. I wouldn’t want that jackass to say something stupid and scare them off for another seven.”
Edmund grinned. “That’s why I left you behind, SIC.”
Strong pointed to the screen. “Here they come.” An elevator built into the bay wall was descending behind one of the parked fighters. There were three people inside, and one larger figure standing behind them. “Is that an android?” She asked.
Gertsen rose enthusiastically from the co-pilot’s seat. “Robotic aid. Many ships from that age were equipped with physical mechanical assistants. I can’t believe there’s one still functioning after so long.”
Edmund grabbed Gertsen before he could rush out through the shuttle’s already open doorway. “Slow down, lieutenant. There’ll be time to satisfy your historical curiosity.” The commander started down the steps ahead of him. “Remain here with Agle, doctor, until I’ve explained… the situation.”
Captain Rastaban Drac met the two men as they walked out onto the bay floor. He held his hand before him. Edmund grasped it firmly, noting the cool, rough feel beneath his fingers. He didn’t need to glance down to see if it matched the scarred side of Drac’s face.
“Commander Edmund,” Drac said. “Welcome aboard Ambition.”
“It is a pleasure, Captain. And on behalf of myself, and the entire crew of Retribution, thank you for the timely rescue. Those Pegan ships turned out to be a little more than we could handle.”
Drac pulled his hand back and introduced the man and woman standing to either side of him. “This is Vin Vir, my command second, and Hal Gulum, Ambition’s chief medical officer. The monstrosity standing behind us is Nash.”
Edmund nodded at each of them. “This is my weapons officer, Lieutenant Bennoit Gertsen.”
Gertsen shook their hands. “You can’t believe what an honor this is for me. I used to dream about what became of this ship… and now here I am, actually onboard her, meeting the descendants of those original brave officers that set out so long ago.”
The plump doctor grunted. “Yeah, those officers were something.” He shoved between the two men and headed for the shuttle. “Nash, come give me a hand with Agle.”
“About Shain Agle,” Edmund started.
“We know what the General did,” Drac said. “Before setting away, he’d acquired the shuttle security codes from our military command second, a man named Seginus Boo. Seginus was one of only a handful of crew members never found after our encounter with the Pegans. It didn’t take Dr. Gulum long to figure out how he survived those months in space after the Exodus shuttle rations ran out.”
Vin Vir muttered her thoughts out loud. “It would’ve been better if he’d died out in space. What’re we supposed to do with him now?”
Drac didn’t look at his friend. He provided an answer to Commander Edmund instead. “We’ll see that Agle recovers fully. Then he can rot the rest of his life away in an Ambition prison cell.”
Chapter 20
Ambition’s main forward mess hall was filled to capacity and then some. Her remaining crew of just over six thousand men and women had almost all filtered through the gigantic eating area during the last two hours to catch a glimpse of the three humans from Earth. Those that could get close enough to the officers’ table touched the faces of Commander Edmund, Dr. Strong, and Lt. Gertsen. Very few had much to say beyond obligatory greetings and generalized questions.
“You’ll have to forgive our people,” Rastaban Drac apologized once again. “Every single one of them can’t believe this day has actually come.” He turned in his chair at the head of the table and looked at the line of expectant faces still coming in through the entryway. The numbers were finally beginning to dwindle. “Generations of us have prayed that we would re-establish some kind of link with the home system… this has been so much more than most ever expected.”
“Believe me,” Gertsen said, “the pleasure has been all ours.”
“Indeed, it has been.” Commander Edmund dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, taking a second to shake the hand of a pregnant woman standing behind him. He placed the napkin on his empty plate, and pushed away from the table. “But now that Agle is receiving care, and with the majority of introductions put aside, we really need to find a place more private to discuss our situation, Captain.”
Drac stood with him, and addressed the crew still gathered in the queue. “It’s been a long day for all of us, especially our new friends from Earth.” The crowd started to groan disapprovingly. He held his hands up to settle them. “We’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know each other better. You will all meet the crew of Retribution eventually, I’m sure. Please report back to duty if you aren’t already finished your shifts.”
His announcement was met with a few more groaning mumbles, but the line began to disperse. The mess hall was still full, but Drac, along with Vin Vir and their guests from Retribution, now had room to move through it. They exited out into a corridor where a few dozen more Ambition crew waited. Gertsen shook each of their hands heartily. Even after hours of pressing flesh, the young lieutenant was greeting each person with as much enthusiasm as he had Captain Drac. Edmund pushed him along.
“This way,” CS Vir said. She led them inside an elevator. “Captain’s quarters, Ras?”
Drac shook his head. “Too informal, and the window still hasn’t been replaced. Let’s try some place with a view.”
Vin nodded. “Main observation deck, level one.” The elevator door whisked shut silently, and the lift began to move upwards.
“Your ship has endured the rigors of interstellar space for hundreds of years,” Dr. Strong said. “But it seems most of the damage to its exterior was sustained during your run in with the Pegans.”
“They would’ve destroyed Ambition completely if it wasn’t for the resourcefulness of her crew,” Vin said.
“And for their sacrifices,” Drac added. “We lost too many good men and wom—”
Edmund held a hand up. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Captain. Your crew fought valiantly. You lost thousands of people, we get it. But if my people can’t get Retribution functioning fully again, billions more may die. The
entire Sol system could be lost, and your ship will have been the cause.”
No one else said a word as the elevator ascended Ambition’s forward levels, up, up, until the highest section of the ship was reached. The door opened, revealing a large, mostly empty area framed within domed glass and reinforced columns of curved steel. The black cosmos stretched off in all directions.
This was Captain Sulafat’s place, Vin thought. She hadn’t known him for long on a personal level, but others had shared stories. This is where he used to come to be alone… to look out at the stars, to read his old books. She didn’t share this with Commander Edmund and his two officers—not after that last accusation had been levelled at them.
Drac directed the group to the only set of furniture located in the center of the room. It consisted of a low table, two short settees and one comfortable looking chair. Vin pictured Sulafat sitting there, reading one of his ancient novels. There was a small stack of books still sitting on the table’s surface. No one had touched them in months. Very few had even set foot in the observation deck during the last year. Vin looked at the worn cover of the one on top—One Hundred Years of Solitude. The spine of the one underneath it read Heart of Darkness.
Edmund pushed them aside and dropped a cylindrical device resembling a coffee coaster in their place. A three-dimensional holographic image sprung up from it showing the interior cockpit of a shuttle. Vin instantly recognized the man in the pilot’s seat. He was a historical figure from Ambition’s past. Lieutenant Commander Jacob Artemus—leader of the failed Turnback Uprising of 2369. Edmund settled back in the chair. “Play Artemus transmission.”
Vin and Drac watched in horror as the final fate of the exiled mutineers played out before them in less than a minute. It ended abruptly, with Artemus’s face frozen above the table; his eyes terror-filled, the black substance oozing into his mouth and nostrils, his throat bulging.
Rastaban Drac finally broke the silence. “What… What the hell was that?”