by Becky Black
"He'll certainly die if he stays." Maiga stepped into a lift. "Fetch him now."
The lift doors closed and Wixa hammered her fist into them. Then she turned and ran to catch a train.
~o~
In the room where Maiga and Jaff had printed the special edition of the Chronicle, Chervaz crouched behind the big printer, watching the door. His communicator chirped.
"How is she?" Maiga asked when he answered.
Chervaz glanced at the floor beside him. Bara lay there, unmoving, on a couple of blankets, another blanket covering her. Sheni knelt beside her and moved a medical instrument back and forth around her head. Her medical kit and several discarded syringes lay scattered around.
"Sheni thinks she'll live, but some kind of brain damage is likely. Impossible to say until she regains consciousness."
"Okay. Stand by for my signal."
"Right. Maiga, I heard the announcement."
"It's what I expected."
"This is getting pretty tricky." He'd decided to have faith in her, but even so, this was nerve-wracking. "Are you sure it's going to work out?"
"It's newsworthy for you either way."
He gave a short laugh. "Damn, my hands are shaking too much to take notes."
"I'll give you an exclusive interview later. Stand by. And tell the doc. Keep Bara alive."
Chapter 45
Wixa found Gry sitting in the dark.
His lights were still on, but the banks of screens that surrounded him were dark and dead. He sat slumped in his chair, tears streaking his face. Glyph lay curled on his lap.
"What happened?" Wixa gasped.
"After the station was secured a destructive program attacked my systems," he said. "Destroyed everything. I'm blind and deaf."
"Maiga." Wixa whispered it.
"It has to be. She has the technical skill. All my software, wiped out. Hardware fried. The work of years."
"I can't believe she's turned on us like this!" Wixa smashed a fist down on a console.
"It's not that," Gry said, standing up, making Glyph climb onto his shoulder. "She just wants to make sure we have no choice but to do what she wants."
"She said she's leading. That she's doing what we chose her to do."
"A leader sometimes has to be ruthless." Gry's voice was bleak as he looked up at his screens. "I do still have the station-wide comms. I heard the announcement."
Wixa took a deep breath. Could she do this? Drag him out into the light? Before she could speak, Gry plucked Glyph from his shoulder and handed him to Wixa.
"I only have one choice, Wixa. I can't leave."
"If you're still here when they scan the station--"
"I'll be here. I just won't be alive."
Wixa froze. Did he have a weapon? She'd never seen one down here. He'd have some means of doing it though. Something quick and painless.
"Gry, you know I can't let you do that." Tears welled in her eyes.
"I appreciate your feelings about it, my dear." He said it with a soft smile, which reminded her of the man he used to be. The genius she'd learnt so much from. The man she'd thought she loved for a while. The man whose smile she'd seen on the face of her little boy. Something she never told him.
Then the past went away and he was once again a crazy old man in a cave. And she'd let it happen. She should have brought Sheni down here long ago.
"No, Gry. You're coming with me. If you don't leave, then I won't. I'll sit here even if you die and I'll let them attack or board the station when they scan my life signs."
"Wixa, you can't do that. The station… Jimmy must survive."
"It's just a place. And Gry, you have it all in here." She reached out to touch the side of his head. "You say you are part of the station, but it's the other way around. The station is part of you. Nobody else knows as much about it as you. If you die then all that dies too. The heart of Hollow Jimmy will die."
He frowned. "That is a good point. And, though all my surveillance software was wiped, my data, my notes, everything about the station is still intact. If I took all that with me…"
"You could write the definitive history of the station."
"You know, I always did want to see my name on a book." He laughed. "Hell's bells, girl, you always could talk me into anything."
"And don't you want to see what the hell Maiga has planned?" Wixa grinned now. His sudden mood shift should be disturbing, but if it got him out of here she'd take it.
"I certainly do. She's smart. You said it yourself. We thought we could control her, but she's moved beyond us. Far beyond. Now!" He clapped his hands, making Wixa jump. "I have data to download!"
~o~
The Plaza was havoc, with people running around, carrying their belongings in carts, and crates, on trolleys, or just hauling them along by hand. The Klaff station security guards showing up had persuaded the humans that this was no joke. They weren't dreaming this. They really did have to leave.
They may tear me apart, Maiga thought, as she stepped out of a lift and started to walk down the steps to the Plaza. Half-way down, she stopped and waited.
Gradually more people noticed her standing there, and stopped and looked up at her expectantly. The noise level dropped. Maiga looked around. Up on the circuit, looking down over the rail, stood Wixa and Gry. She smiled; glad Wixa had brought him out. They'd need people as smart as him.
She saw Jaff and Major Jax and her girls, helping the doctors, evacuating the clinic patients. She saw Chullan stripping his shop of what he could take away. Fine. They'd need good coffee. Jasini, there with her husband, a trolley piled high with luggage, a cat carrier on top. She saw other familiar faces, surprising herself how with many she recognised. Friends, and enemies too. Watchmen, organising and helping, were trying to keep it all from descending into chaos and panic.
I have to speak now, Maiga thought. She was afraid of this part, she'd admit it. Bara would have had the crowd eating out of her hand in moments, but Maiga didn't have that gift, that charisma. But she had a message and she had to convey it.
"I know this is frightening," Maiga called out, over the heads of the crowd. A couple of babies cried, and some insulting words came her way. "But please trust me that I know what I'm doing. When we leave, I want you to follow me. Follow me and I will lead you home."
They stirred, baffled. Home? What could she mean? Maiga wondered if some of them guessed it though.
"If you mean this New Earth, we'll never make it!" someone yelled from the crowd. "The Alliance ships will destroy us before we get out of the sector!"
"They won't. Trust me. Follow me. Follow the Trebuchet and you will be safe. And from this moment, forget your differences. Lifers and Drifties, Bara's people and…" She almost said ‘mine' but changed it at the last second. "Jimmy's people. We must stand together. It's the only way for humans to be strong. Stand together and follow me. That's all I ask." She glanced at her watch. "Continue the evacuation and make it orderly." She pointed at a Klaff security man. "Show them that we still have discipline. Help each other. Don't panic. There's enough space and supplies for everyone. The ships are waiting."
No cheering. Bara would have expected cheering. Good. Maiga didn't want them excited, but instead calm and determined. She spoke up once more.
"We leave in one hour."
~o~
When the signal came, Chervaz knew what he had to do. He scooped Bara up into his arms, Sheni hastily gathering her medical kit and following him.
"I hope Maiga's stowed our gear for us, like she said she would," Sheni said. "I have some shoes I'm very attached to."
Chervaz didn't think he had any personal belongings he'd mind leaving behind. His Snapper and various memory chips, containing copies of everything he'd ever written, were nestled in his pocket. He needed nothing else.
They had an electric cart, scrounged from Jaff, identical to the one he'd used for the mercy dash to the Free Clinic. That seemed like a hundred years ago, Chervaz thought, as h
e put Bara into its trailer. Sheni climbed in beside her and Chervaz took the controls.
They had to pass through the human sector on the way.
"Eerie," Sheni said, from behind him as they crossed the deserted Plaza, which was littered with dropped belongings. Different from night, this was a sucking, gaping emptiness.
Chervaz pulled a cover over the trailer as they left the human sector and moved towards the docks. As far as the Klaff security men knew, he was the last man out. They didn't care; they just wanted to see the back of the damn humans before the damn Big Four arrived and either started blasting the stuffing out of the station or boarded and started blasting the stuffing out of them. One of them swore at him and told him to hurry up.
Chervaz obliged and put his foot down, moving fast through to the docks. How strange, to see only aliens and no humans. All the humans were aboard ships most of them holding position orbiting the station. Waiting for the Trebuchet, the last ship to leave.
It was docked this time, to take on the refugees. A tube locked the ship to the station. A couple of Klaff guarded the station end of it. When Chervaz pulled the cover off the cart's trailer and Sheni popped up, they jumped forward. Chervaz picked Bara up.
"Hey, that's her!" one cried.
"Back off." Maiga. She'd appeared from down the docking tube. A couple of the Trebuchet's marines at her back, carrying rifles. "Back off and allow them through. Let's not end this with bloodshed."
"You people are all going to die," one of the security men said. His companion flushed, and snarled something in their own language, apparently less happy about it than his friend.
"Go on," he said. "Get out of here."
Chervaz and Sheni edged past Maiga and the marines and walked down the tube, into the Trebuchet's airlock. When Maiga and the marines boarded, she closed the airlock, and went on the comms line.
"Bridge, disengage the docking tube and get us out of here."
"Yes, Captain."
"Captain?" Chervaz said.
"It's my rank."
"And position?"
She shrugged. "Temporarily. How's Bara?"
"Stable," Sheni said. "But I have to get her to the sickbay right away."
"Go ahead. Chervaz, take her there and then, please, join me on the bridge."
Chapter 46
Chervaz had never been a very enthusiastic military man, but still, to be back on a starship, a warship; it got the old adrenaline surging. He dropped Bara off with Sheni in the crowded sickbay and headed for the bridge. This might be a warship, but it was a very strange one right now. The voices of children came out of open doors as he passed. Babies cried.
One section stayed quiet though. He frowned at it as he passed. A dark corridor, and a temporary barrier erected across it, the type engineers put up when they were busy in an area. But there was no sign of any engineering work. Oh well, he'd ask later. He found a lift and a moment later stepped onto the bridge.
"Vaz!" Jaff grabbed him into a backslapping hug. "Where the hell have you been?" He broke the hug and punched Chervaz on the arm. "I was worried about you, you big fool."
"Been doing a little job for Maiga."
"Ah well, when the missus gives you your orders." He lost the smile, and frowned at the captain's chair, where Maiga sat. "I hope she knows what she's doing, or we're screwed.
"I think she does. Are we underway?"
"Yes. And the rest of our ships are following. Seems her speech worked."
"Speech?"
"You missed the speech? Oh, man, and you call yourself a reporter!"
"Told you I was busy. Tell you about it later."
He surveyed the rest of the bridge. Wixa sat at a station, a sulky look on her face. A very strange looking man stood beside her. That must be Gry, Chervaz guessed. He had to get an interview with him at some point. Alex, rather battered looking, stood talking to Maiga. When he moved away, Chervaz and Jaff approached the captain's chair.
"The Alliance ships have changed course away from the station," Maiga told them. "They're heading for us."
"They'll catch us eventually," Jaff said. "Some of the transport ships and the small ships can only reach half our speed."
"Do you plan to defend the flotilla with the Trebuchet?" Chervaz asked.
"I'm hoping I don't need to," Maiga said.
"I'm hoping you're right," Jaff said.
"She'd better be," Wixa muttered.
Chervaz didn't speak, but despite his faith in Maiga, even he echoed the words in his head.
She'd better be right.
~o~
Maiga paced the bridge, getting reports every couple of minutes about how far behind the pursuing ships were. Not far enough. Her ships were close to the co-ordinates, but the forward scanners weren't picking anything up yet.
"Only fifteen minutes behind us," Wixa reported, looking over the shoulder of the officer at the scanning station.
"Should I call for battle stations?" Alex asked.
Maiga considered it for a moment. The Trebuchet and a couple of the other ships could engage the pursuers and give the unarmed ships a chance to escape. But they'd almost certainly lose and be destroyed; leaving the scattered, helpless transport ships to be hunted down and finished off one by one.
It couldn't end that way. Not after all this, it couldn't.
"Perhaps as a…" she began to say to Alex.
"Captain!" The scanning station officer called suddenly. "Multiple contacts ahead, at the coordinates you gave. Dropping into normal space." Everyone on the bridge tensed, waiting for the ID. "Several dozen ships, various classes, getting the identification now… Human!" She yelled the word. "They're ours, Captain! They're ours!"
Relief flooded the bridge, eliciting gasps from many people. Jaff even punched the air.
"It's the High Committee, isn't it?" Alex said. "It's the Committee fleet."
Maiga nodded her confirmation and spoke to the scanning station officer again. "What are the aliens doing?"
"They're scanning ahead of us. Slowing down, some have stopped."
"They're taking a good look," Maiga said. "Seeing if they fancy the fight." She doubted they would. The Committee fleet outnumbered them three to one. Not all warships, but enough armed ships to make a fight of it.
"They've all stopped now," Alex reported, standing at the scanner station. "Several of the Committee fleet ships have accelerated past us and taken up position between the flotilla and the aliens."
Protecting. Challenging. Maiga imagined how Wixa would put it. The ancient call to battle.
Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.
"They're withdrawing!" Wixa shouted. But they could all see it. Alex had put the scanning station's readouts up in the main viewer. The alien ships had started setting course out of the sector at high speed.
They cheered. A ragged sound of triumph with a lot of relief mixed into it. Alex flopped back into his chair beside Maiga's, as if his knees had given out.
Maiga just stood beside her chair and watched the forward view screen. Dozens of ships surrounded the Trebuchet and the rest of the flotilla. She could hear the communications officer having a busy time of it, fielding messages from all those ships.
"Captain," the comms officer managed to put everybody on hold for a moment, and turned to Maiga. "I have a message requesting permission to board for a small ship. It's from… Oh!" He looked amazed, but Maiga cut him off before he said the name, enjoying herself.
"I know who it's from. Permission granted." She turned away, to her friends and said, "I'm sure you're all quite nosy enough to want to come down to the shuttle bay with me, so I won't try to stop you. Alex--"
"I'll take the con, ma'am."
"Oh no, I want you there too." She smiled at him. "I especially want you there."
~o~
"It's the Friss!" Jaff gasped as the doors to the shuttle bay opened, revealing the small ship.
"The rest of us guessed that five minutes ago," Wixa s
aid, rolling her eyes. "Try to keep up.
A few marines followed Maiga's group into the shuttle bay, mostly for the look of it. Military protocol. As they crossed the bay, a man stepped out of the passenger hatch of the Friss and raised a hand in greeting. Alex made a choking sound and flashed past Maiga. He almost knocked Sev down when he reached him, charging into him at full tilt and lifting him fully off his feet. Sev laughed with delight and clung on to Alex as the other man kissed him and then buried his face in Sev's shoulder.
"Well someone's happy," Wixa said, grinning. "I wish I got welcomed home like that."
"Maybe you should get a robot dog?" Jaff suggested, provoking her to elbow him in the ribs.
"Good work, Lieutenant," Maiga said to Sev, as she walked past the embracing Alex and Sev. Sev looked at her, smiling.
"You too, Captain. I'll give you details later. Bit busy now." He turned his face back to Alex.
Several more people disembarked from the Friss, and one, an older man, walked forward, offering his hand to Maiga.
"Captain. I'm Admiral Rand. Chair of the ruling Committee."
Maiga, adrenaline still rushing, resisted the urge to call him Randy.
"Pleased to meet you, sir."
He waved at hand at his companions, seven of them, and introduced them to Maiga, mostly Admirals and Generals, a few lower ranks. Maiga recalled that this was an elected Committee. Anyone could stand for election they said.
"The full Committee numbers thirty," Rand said. "But that would have been rather a tight squeeze on your little ship."
"Little, but tough."
"Indeed. Welcome to the fleet, Captain. I have to say I'm still amazed. When the Lieutenant found us and said if we came to these coordinates that the entire human population of Hollow Jimmy would join us I found it hard to believe."
"Naturally we had planned to try to persuade the humans of the station to come with us." A man whose name Maiga had already forgotten spoke up. "But we thought we'd never persuade the long term residents to leave."
"I thought nothing would get them out of there," Rand said. "I'm looking forward to hearing how you accomplished it."
"You might not approve," Maiga said.
"We approve of success, Captain."
"I can't take all the credit." Maiga looked around at her friends, most of them clustered around Sev, getting the story from him. Chervaz had his notebook out and stood part way between the two groups, trying to hear both. She thought about all the others who'd helped her against Bara. And she thought about Bara too. Who in the end had given Maiga exactly what she wanted.