“I’m fine, Dothin,” Nix said, hands up in surrender. “I’m okay.”
Dothin looked at the doctor. “What’s his status?”
“Minor oxygen deprivation and some bruising due to high-G maneuvers,” Doctor Jens said. “I’ve had him with the oxygen mask for a few minutes to get his O2 levels back up to full and I’ve been monitoring his vitals. He’ll be fine.”
“He’s on Palicept,” Dothin said. “In case you need to know.”
“Dothin,” Nix said, trying not to make it a whine.
“Oh?” Doctor Jens said.
Nix sighed and felt his shoulder slump.
“Nothing to worry about,” the medic said. “He’s okay to go.”
Nix slid down off the gurney. His knees clicked as he landed but he didn’t show any signs of pain. He started out of the medbay. Behind him, Dothin told Gan he was glad he was okay and Gan reciprocated. The door shut behind Nix, leaving him in a thin, white corridor. The only sound was a deep humming he could feel more than hear.
He turned to the right and then to the left. Both directions looked identical. When he had come to the infirmary he was more than a little dazed and led by one of Salazar’s big crewman. Now he didn’t know which way was which. He turned to the left and stepped down the hall passing row after row of curving bulkheads. Then he turned right.
He was aiming for the loading bay, in hopes to find Ashla. Instead he came upon a skinny man about ten years his senior, leaning against a bulkhead outside a heavy doorway, puffing away at some kind of cigarette and wearing an expression that told Nix the contents of the cigarette might not be entirely legal.
“Um, hi,” Nix said once he reached the door.
The man opened his eyes and frowned. His face was covered in a patchy stubble trying to look like a beard. Even Nix could have grown better.
“Hi,” the man repeated, his lips parting around the filter.
“I’m looking for—”
The heavy door opened stealing Nix’s attention. He looked inside, and his eyes widened. The room beyond the door was small, barely wider than the corridor he was in. The walls to the left and right were covered in controls, and screens displaying graphs and diagrams in a hundred colors. A massive cylinder laid on its side made up the back wall of the room. Behind several layers of glass, a row of I-shaped beams spun in alternating directions inside the cylinder, and a steady, yellow-white light pulsed. The ship’s antimatter reactor hummed.
“Wow,” Nix said.
A pretty young woman with smooth skin and long dark hair stood inside the doorway. She wore blue-grey coveralls and a bright red bandana that struggled to keep all that hair restrained. Cold anger filled her eyes but not aimed at Nix.
The second the door opened the skinny man swallowed his cigarette. He grimaced, his eyes watered, and a last puff of smoke wafted from his nostrils. The woman stepped up to him and slapped him up the back of his head so hard Nix could almost feel the sting.
Nix jumped.
“What are you doing out here, Fish?” the woman said.
The man, Fish, coughed. “Nothing, chief,” he said.
“Well why don’t you quit doing nothing and start doing something! I gave you a list of repairs that need doing, so see to it!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Fish turned and headed down the hall, holding the back of his head.
Nix turned to the woman and tried on a nervous smile. She leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. Her glower disappeared and, in its place, an easy smile.
“Um, hi,” Nix said.
“Hi sweetie,” she said back. “You must be one of our new passengers.”
“I am,” Nix said. “My name’s Nix.”
“Chief Engineer Nat Ginsey.” She shrugged. “You can call me Nat.”
“I was wondering if you could direct me to the docking bay...Nat.”
She pointed. “Go back that way, turn right, turn right again at the stairs, go down the stairs, door to your right.”
“Right, right and right,” Nix said. “That should be simple to remember. Thanks.”
“No problem, sweetie.”
Nix turned and started following her directions. He turned right and nearly bumped into Dothin.
“Where’ve you been?” Dothin asked. “I didn’t know you left the infirmary.”
“Exploring,” Nix said. He peaked back over his shoulder to see if the engineer, Nat, was going to rat him out. She was gone, back into the engineering room, Nix figured. “Why?”
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Dothin said.
“I’m fine,” Nix said. He lifted his hands in a shrug. “What’s the big fuss?”
“Oxygen deprivation,” Dothin said, his words a ghostly repetition of Dr. Jens’s. “Why?”
“Partially,” Nix said, “because we were under heavy burn trying to get here.”
“Aylie said that would cause a lack of air to the brain, but not a general deprivation.”
“Well—Aylie?”
“Dr. Jens,” Dothin said.
How did he always get to first-names so quickly with everyone? Dothin called everyone by first name unless asked not to. It was part of his natural people skills that Nix would never have.
Nix sighed. The irony of sighing in a discussion of oxygen deprivation wasn’t lost on him, but he didn’t think it was funny. He took one look at Dothin’s face and knew he wasn’t getting out of an explanation.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he started. “In order for us to leave the storage silo I had to vent and open the container, then vent and open the control cage. Ashla had a spare helmet but not a portable air supply, so I had to hold my breath for a little while.”
There was more. Dothin’s right eye narrowed slightly, a sure sign that he knew there was more. Nix went on.
“Well the door to the container malfunctioned and didn’t open all the way. I had to crawl out and I couldn’t do it and Ashla had to come and help me.”
Dothin hugged him. “That was brave, Niko.” He let go. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about having to vent the container. I guess I figured Gan would be with you but—”
“It’s not your fault,” Nix said. “We ran into a snag and had to improvise. It all worked out.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
Nix nodded. “I’m positive.”
Dothin nodded, sighed. “Okay.”
Dothin put a hand out to Nix, palm up and fingers open. Nix looked in his eyes and his heart sunk. He pulled the pistol from the waistband of his pants and set it in Dothin’s open hand.
Dothin looked around but no one was visible in the corridor. He thumbed the safety then dropped the magazine and looked at it. Then he looked up at Nix.
“You fired this,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Nix nodded. “I did, but not at anyone.”
Dothin didn’t move. He was in what Pattie would call full lie-detection mode. He was good at it too.
“These marines caught us. We ran but they were catching up. I shot the control console for one of the emergency doors to gain some time.” He didn’t say, “they caught me ready to fire and nearly blew my head off.”
Dothin nodded. Nix had passed the test.
Dothin snapped the clip back into the weapon. To Nix’s chagrin, he didn’t hand it back. “I’m going to return this to the Captain.”
Nix nodded. “Okay.”
Dothin grabbed Nix’s shoulder one more time, almost as if he wasn’t sure he was real. Then he messed up his hair and passed him by.
“It’s good to see you too,” Nix said, mostly to himself.
He went back to following Nat’s instructions. After a few wrong turns he found his way.
The Jessamine’s docking bay was bigger than Dothin’s flat on Lodebar, but only slightly. The floor was made up of flat decking that, Nix figured, would fold up accordion-style to reveal the belly of the ship. A control station sat closed and sealed in the rear corner. A few nondescript barrels stoo
d in the opposite corner. The Lunar Seed dominated the bay. Nix figured that if Ashla’s ship had been any bigger they would have had a difficult time fitting it in here.
Luna hung low from the Jessamine’s claw as it had done when they arrived.
Nix could hear the click and clank of metal tools. The smell of alcohol and oil were sharp in his nostrils. Nix walked around the little ship nestled inside the big ship. Lunar Seed’s skin was blackened near the big main engines. There were also charred holes in places. Nix didn’t remember any of the enemy fighters’ shots hitting, but they must have.
He came to the ship’s nose and found a mobile tool rack sitting nearby, it’s wheels raised so it could sit on its magnetic feet.
A pair of white-booted feet kicked gently from underneath the ship. Ashla hummed as she worked.
“Uh, hi,” Nix said.
The humming stopped. The kicking stopped. Ashla rolled out from underneath her ship on a creeper. Her flightsuit was covered by baggy coveralls everywhere except her feet, hands and head. She had a dark smudge of something on her cheek that failed to diminish her smile.
“Hi,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Great,” Nix said with a shrug.
“Good. Say could you hand me that solder gun?” She pointed at a gun-shaped tool on top of the rack.
“Sure,” Nix said, and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” Ashla scooted the creeper back under the ship. Nix heard little clinks and smelled the hot smell of melted metal.
Nix dropped to a crouch to be more level with Ashla. He could see the big hole in the ship she was working in. The panel was sitting to the side, in a neat curve like the rest of Luna’s belly.
“So,” Nix said, stretching the word, “whatcha doing?”
“Well,” Ashla said, “I found out why my controls felt so floaty in space compared to the simulations.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I had a loose power manifold. Whenever I sent power to the inertials the circuit would bleed energy here and I would get limited control.”
“Is that hard to fix?” Nix didn’t understand half the words she had used. His brain parsed her monolog into ‘my ship’s not working well but I found out why and I’m now fixing it.’
“Nope,” Ashla said. “Just need to tighten these leads.” Another sharp tang of molten metal. “Then I, um...” She scooted back out and held out the soldering gun back to him.
Nix took it.
“Pass me the hydraulic fluid.”
Nix only knew it from any other tool because Ashla pointed. He picked up what looked like a long-needle syringe with a heavy, green fluid inside. Then he passed it to her. She scooted her creeper back under Luna.
“Then I need to make sure the servos are full of fluid,” Ashla said, drawing out the last syllable. She scooted back out and handed him the syringe again. She pointed and Nix grabbed her next tool, a hand drill. Nix felt a swell of pride that he knew what that was called. He handed it to her and she scooted back.
“Then I need to re-mount the manifold housing,” she said. A series of high-pitched whines accompanied her words. “Luna, please run a diagnostic on the inertial control manifold system.”
Nix smiled. This was the first time anyone had said please to a machine.
“Commencing diagnostic,” Luna replied. The professionally friendly voice emanated from Ashla’s link which sat on her tool shelf.
“Is it normal for space ships to have...” Nix started but didn’t quite know how to finish.
Ashla rolled herself out from under the ship, a quizzical expression on her face. “To have what?”
Nix shrugged. His confidence faded, and he wished he hadn’t started asking. He toyed with the word ‘personality’ in his head but decided against it. “You know...a voice.”
“Well,” Ashla said, affecting a thoughtful, distant expression, “most ships have some level of voice command and feedback.”
“But you talk to...to Luna like...”
Ashla’s eyebrows raised. Her face looked half ready to be amused, half offended. “Go on.”
“You know,” Nix said, running his hand through his hair. “I think I don’t have enough experience with starships to ask questions.”
“Luna’s not a starship.”
Nix frowned, felt his eyebrows drop. He surveyed the Lunar Seed, feeling as if it might change before his eyes.
“A starship is an interstellar vehicle. Luna is interplanetary.”
“Oh,” Nix said.
“Diagnostic complete,” Luna said. Nix silently thanked the ship for saving him from the awkward conversation. “The inertial control manifold system is operating at 136% capacity.”
“Hm,” Ashla said. The sound was pleased. Her smile agreed. “Luna set the current rating as baseline.”
“Acknowledged.”
Ashla lifted the electric drill to Nix. He took it and put it back.
“I need the binder,” Ashla said, pointing to a gun-shaped tool with a flat square of black metal on one end and a cylindrical projection on the other. Nix handed it to her. She scooted back under the ship, grabbed the matte grey piece of Luna’s underbelly and fitted it back in place. Then she flicked a switch on the binder and the black square of metal seemed to shimmer.
She moved the binder along the seam between the hull piece and the rest of the ship’s skin. The black square bent to follow the sleek curve of the ship and as it passed along the seam disappeared.
Ashla moved her hand and shut the binder off and Nix could no longer find the piece of hull that had once been removed.
“Wow,” he said. Ashla rolled herself out from underneath the ship and handed Nix the binder. He put it away then helped her stand. “Where did you learn to do this?” he asked.
“The palace, of course,” she said.
“Well yeah, but, I mean, this isn’t something your average heiress learns to do.”
Ashla shrugged. She lifted the creeper, collapsed it to half its size, then mounted it onto a set of brackets on the back of the tool shelf. “My father brought in tutors. I spent hours in dream-time simulations, and...” she shrugged again. “It’s my chosen profession. Ever since I can remember I wanted to build and fly ships.”
Nix nodded. He looked at Luna, an actual working spaceship that she built. And it couldn’t have taken her long. She was about his age. It wasn’t like she had decades to work on it. It made him feel sad. A twinge of self-pity struck him and he knew he ought to have fought it.
“What do you want to do?” Ashla asked.
Nix looked her in the eyes and knew his expression betrayed him. Her face went sad. Her eyes got bigger and her lips turned down.
A bell toned from unseen overhead speakers and Salazar Kol’s voice boomed like the voice of the Benefactors. “I need all guests and available officers to the galley immediately. All guests and available officers to the galley.” The speaker made a thunderous screech and then went silent.
“Do you know where the galley is?” Nix asked.
Ashla shrugged. “Nope.”
“Guess we’ll have to find it.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight:
Broke the Everlasting Covenant
Soma stood surrounded by six MPs in a lift cage designed for four. It was getting hot inside, the air stifling. He could see sweat forming on the neck of the man in front of him. He could feel sweat forming on his own, hampered only by the breath of the MP behind him.
A bell chimed. The lift doors opened. The first few MPs filed out of the cage. Soma felt a shove and stepped out too.
Soma found himself in a part of the complex he wasn’t familiar with. He was in a massive hangar. The floor was concrete. The ceiling was naked rock some ten meters above his head and crisscrossed with heavy steel support frames. The far wall was broken by a series of wide doorways. Ground vehicles of various sizes, some wheeled, some c-lifted filled the space.
The MPs led Soma to a wheeled truck with a covered bed
made for human transport. One hopped into the driver’s seat. A second dropped the tailgate, climbed into the bed and started helping others in. One of the MPs, a squat, burley man with sunburnt skin undid Soma’s binders. Soma accepted the hand of another man and climbed into the bed. Once everyone was in, the sunburned guy rebound Soma’s manacles and he rested his hands on his lap. Another MP closed the tailgate. The engine made no sound.
Soma watched the rows of vehicles pass by and then the view out the back was filled with warm morning sky.
The MPs were professional. No one talked to him. Occasionally there was some random slack between them, but nothing aimed at Soma, which was fine. It gave him time to think.
His mind was full of Remnant’s words. The things she said, the things she knew, were impossible. Soma scoured his memories for times his team might have used his name while they were in the governor’s suite of the Elpizio. They might have, but he didn’t think so. Furthermore even if they had, it wouldn’t have been over speakers. Could Remnant have had some kind of device that had hacked into their comms? He supposed it was possible that she had been listening in on their channel, heard his and Axelin’s names and then hid the listening device before they came in.
Possible but improbable. For one thing marine squad chatter was highly encrypted. Had any of the men on the Elpizio been able to crack it, Soma’s mission would have failed. They would have known his every move, him and every other Alliance marine. But she had the Shaumri bodyguard. Shaumri were notorious for cutting through encryption at break-neck speed. Maybe he gave her something that was hacked into their channel?
Soma doubted it. But the alternative was impossible.
And how could she have known about his thoughts when leaving the Elpizio? Maybe he did say something in his report about wishing the Meritine marines would stop pushing. Maybe? Again he scrubbed through his memories, searching for the one of him typing out his experience or telling Lieutenant Garin about it. Even if he did, how would it get to her?
No answer came. But, again, the alternative was impossible.
What about the way she saw him through cameras or two-sided windows? He could do nothing but throw his hands up on that one. It was impossible. Maybe she had good eyesight and could see through 2-way glass, but he remembered being in the cell with her. There were no visible cameras. Cameras, certainly. He himself had seen the feeds from them in Bixley’s station. But they were tiny and invisible. She couldn’t have found them. And even if she had, how did she know how to look at the right one at exactly the right time?
Remnant Page 39