by Britt Ringel
“So you saved Determined,” Twist summarized.
“Well,” Kirkpatrick mused, “maybe not the entire ship but I’m going to suggest that they rename Deck Five, Section Rho after me.” He reached for something out of view and reappeared munching on a crunchy snack. “Are you all packed for tech school?” he asked while chewing.
“No,” Twist answered. “I don’t have to be there for five more days and Lochaber is heading to Lysithea for repairs. When she arrives, I can just take a transport hop to Titan and then Anthe. They’re both instant dives so it won’t take me more than a day to get to Anthe. How about you? All packed?”
Kirkpatrick nodded. He reached toward his datapad, picked it up and panned around the room. Twist saw that Kirkpatrick was in a large, dorm-style compartment shared by dozens of other sailors. “I actually don’t have to pack. The Hollarans took care of that for me when they destroyed my quarters. Now I’m stuck in here with thirty of my closest friends.” He docked the datapad back to its station. “As much fun as it is listening to the symphony of different snores at night, I’m leaving tomorrow so I can get off this ship and get some decent sleep. It’s not like Determined will be operational any time soon, anyway.”
In the waning moments of the missile defense, Determined had taken seven hits. Five of her massive Type-88 drives had been ripped from their mounts and tossed into space. Her port, rear quarter had virtually vanished in the span of seconds. The loss of twenty-seven percent of the ship’s mass resulted in crushing G-forces on the crew as the dreadnaught’s inertial compensators redlined to prevent the ship from tearing itself apart. The damage was extensive.
“I wish my tech school was on Anthe,” Kirkpatrick lamented. The Anthe star system was just two tunnel dives from Narvi, his home system.
“You probably wouldn’t have time to visit, Vix,” Twist said. “With both our ships out of the fight, you know we’ll get new orders before we’ve finished tech school.” He was not eager to reenter the war but he was looking forward to actually being trained to perform his job before his next battle.
Twist’s door chime sounded. “I gotta go, Vix.”
“Wait!” Kirkpatrick bellowed around his snack. He swallowed hard and then grinned. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
“I’m closing the connection now.”
“I want to see her!” Kirkpatrick protested. “Please!”
Twist let loose a sigh of exasperation. “Come in,” he said loudly.
The door retracted and Lieutenant Holt walked in. “Caden, I have to swing by Haze-Two before we go to Escobar’s meeting.” She stopped as she saw Twist’s computer screen. “Who’s that?”
Computer speakers carried Kirkpatrick’s overly deep voice. “Well, hello there—”
“It’s nobody but my stupid friend,” Twist said over him. “Lieutenant Holt, meet Ensign Vix Kirkpatrick. Vix, this is Lieutenant Lucille Holt.”
Undeterred, Kirkpatrick tried again. “Well, hello there.”
“Lieutenant,” Twist emphasized for Kirkpatrick.
Holt bit her lip to stifle a smile at the overt greeting. She tucked a lock of hair behind an ear before asking, “What kind of a name is Vix?”
“Uhhh…”
Holt let her smile loose. “Were your parents in love with Roman numerals?”
Twist broke into a fit of laughter.
Onscreen, Kirkpatrick looked down while clearing his throat. Finally, he looked up to Holt and meekly offered, “They’re going to rename part of Determined after me.”
PART II
Chapter 18
Dry leaves crunched underneath Aoife Covington’s hiking boots. It was the heart of autumn and the sparse trees in Port Crown’s industrial district had lost their foliage, foretelling the coming cold season. She walked down the decaying block with none of the fear experienced her first time here, only two months ago.
It was the middle of the week, midday. Unlike the last time Covington had come to the rundown manufacturing quarter, she knew precisely where her rivals were. Paul Barrington would be in the middle of his Bonds & Contracts class and his sister would be struggling to stay awake in Physics 3.
Two months ago, Covington had managed to lift herself off the filthy floor in an abandoned warehouse after suffering a thorough beating at Barrington’s hands and an unknown number of other boots and fists. She had carried her battered body out of the district into a friendlier quarter where she entered a store to clean herself in its bathroom.
Horrified looks from patrons she passed had confirmed her fears that she would not recognize the person in the bathroom’s mirror. After stanching the flow of blood from her broken nose and the gash inside her mouth, she had wiped delicately at the scrapes and cuts over the rest of her face. Every part of her ached but her nose had been, by far, the worst of it. After ten minutes of convalescence, she had locked herself into a bathroom stall and cried for nearly half an hour. The strain of the day, the vicious assault, the unmitigated hatred of her attackers combined with her complete inability to defend herself tore at her soul.
When she finally arrived home, her mother had been horrorstruck by her daughter’s condition. Aoife’s only explanation had been “a schoolyard tussle,” even after a trip to the Port Crown Hospital to set her broken nose and two ribs. Her continued refusal to answer her mother’s and father’s questions resulted in an eight-week restriction of her freedom. Beyond attending school, Aoife had seen little of the outside world.
That had suited her just fine. She had no true friends and the rumors of her beating had swirled around the school until she was ostracized even more than before. The truth was, after her encounter, she welcomed the safety of her home, her room. Only after several weeks, when wounds both physical and emotional had begun to heal, did Covington feel the burning need for change. Two weeks ago, she had begged her parents for self-defense instruction. Both initially balked at the idea, especially considering their daughter’s propensity for fighting, but eventually they reached a compromise.
Covington was now enrolled for private instruction in aikido. The martial art focused on developing a harmonious spirit and provided a self-defense method that also protected the attacker from serious injury. Covington knew that her fledgling skills would not be enough to protect her yet and had consequently devised a plan to minimize the chance of another dangerous encounter. She had attended her morning classes today, like all the days before, but had skipped her lunch and the class following it. Her absence would be noticed, certainly by the teacher and probably by the other students, but none of the students would ask her questions when she returned: the single benefit of being a pariah.
The leaves scattered before her feet, blown in a dry, cool wind. Further ahead, she could see the building where she had received the beating of her life. She casually walked up to the dilapidated structure and looked in through the broken window.
As expected, it seemed deserted. She hoisted herself up and through the window, thoughtful not to catch her backpack on the top sill. Once inside, she calmed her breathing and listened intently.
Nothing.
Rallying her vanishing courage, she forced herself to move across the room and down the gloomy, empty hallway. She walked past the scene of the crime, carefully stepping over the dark, brown stain on the floor. She entered the much larger room she had seen once before, dimly lit by light from shattered windows near the ceiling of the two-story chamber. Nestled along one side of the room was an alembic-type alchemical still. Vessels of various sizes were linked together in a distillation chain that processed Paul Barrington’s “Squash” in the proper sequence. Next to the testament to Barrington’s chemistry prowess were nearly a dozen containers filled with a bluish liquid. Opposite the containers were stacks of bottles and boxes of commonly found household items.
This won’t stop them, Covington admitted to herself. But fabricating this equipment and finding a safe place to use it must have taken some time. Maybe Paul will have graduated befor
e he’s up and running again.
She went to work. The delicate flasks and vessels of the distillery went first, followed by the dumping of Barrington’s “juice” over the entire chemical kludge. After ten minutes of pure destruction, no container had been left unturned, no glass unbroken. The hardest work had been shattering the still’s cucurbit itself.
Breathing heavily and side aching, Covington poured a dozen bottles of acetone over the entire, ruined assortment. The noxious vapors were beginning to overwhelm her by the time she finished. She backed away and extracted a two-liter bottle of highly flammable insecticide from her backpack. She added half the liquid to the wreckage and then left a trail with the remainder, leading back to the original window she used to enter the building.
After one final check that the liquid fuse was unbroken, she donned her backpack and pulled out a disposable fire starter. She sat on the broken windowsill and pulled her legs through to the outside.
A high-pitched chirp shattered Covington’s deep concentration. Behind her, a Port Crown law enforcement aircar hovered a meter above the cracked and pitted street.
A stern voice from the car’s public address interrogated, “What are you doing in there?”
Lighter in hand, she froze. They’ll never believe me, she told herself. At best, I’m an arsonist. At worst, I’m a drug dealer. Resigned to the outcome, she raised her hands in compliance.
“Come on out of there,” commanded the disembodied voice as a second officer exited from the passenger-side of the vehicle.
Covington smiled at the request and dropped her hands to the windowsill, ostensibly to help herself down. Instead, she activated the fire starter, dropped it at the start of the insecticide track and ran.
The police did not react immediately and as she tore past the officer outside of the vehicle, she grabbed his arm and screamed a warning. “It’s going to blow up... Run!”
The aircar rocketed skyward even as the on-foot patrolman raced with Covington. After dozens of seconds without an explosion, the officer slowed his pace while maintaining a firm hold on his suspect. Both came to a gradual stop at the street corner and looked back at the abandoned warehouse.
“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” the officer asked. Overhead, the aircar was circling to land.
Covington grimaced slightly and shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t know if it would blow up or not and I didn’t want anyone to be hurt.”
“Blow what up?”
A tremendous blast punctuated the officer’s question as the front windows of the warehouse exploded outward.
* * *
Caden Twist felt his ears pop as the shuttle’s atmosphere equalized with the primary orbital in the Anthe star system. He stepped out to the gravity of the landing platform. It had been two months since he had arrived on Pallene, the planet below and home to the Weapons Employment and Procedure Technical School.
Free of the cast on his right arm and now a fully qualified weapons officer, Twist looked forward to a week of leave before taking a transport back to Lysithea and Lochaber. He had yet to receive a fresh assignment although the Brevic Personnel Center had informed him to expect one in the near future. As the war raged on, there were always positions needing replacements. Indeed, given Lochaber’s ravaged starboard beam, most of her crew were finding employment elsewhere.
Twist accessed the messages on his datapad with a nervous excitement. An hour ago, he had received word to rush to the nearest spaceport and shuttle up to the orbital. His mother was in-system briefly with time to visit. His inbox was empty. He then searched the terminal, spotting two government officials walking briskly toward him. Neither was his mother.
“Ensign Twist,” one of the men called out while waving. The other man, wearing a recording device that started at his right ear and wrapped around to his left eye, reached out to Twist. “Take this, Ensign.” He handed him a pre-constructed rack of naval ribbons. The assortment contained all of Twist’s prior awards but also a Military Merit Badge and a Navy Commendation Medal.
“What’s this?” he asked, gazing at the valor device affixed to the medal’s center.
“Your mother pushed your awards for the action in Sponde through,” the man explained. “Congratulations.” He reached toward Twist’s chest to unpin his old rack of ribbons.
Twist continued to stare at the valor device. “Are you sure I’m allowed to wear this?”
The man nodded while snatching the new rack from Twist’s hands. He bent over slightly, judging with a keen eye to place the rows of ribbons expertly. “Yeah, I’ll flash you the two citations that go with the awards and you’ve been authorized to pick up the actual medals at any military base.” He frowned slightly and readjusted the ribbons until they were perfectly level. “The Assistant Secretary wants these on your chest when you meet with her.” He backed away from Twist and evaluated his work. Satisfied, he lowered a miniature mic from his headgear. “We’re ready, Madam Assistant Secretary.”
The official turned toward the terminal’s entrance expectantly and Twist felt his pulse quicken.
Sabrina Twist entered the shuttle terminal in radiant fashion. With an immaculately tailored suit emphasizing her feminine physique and perfectly coiffed hair, the woman’s persona filled the large compartment. Heads of travelers turned and excited whispers were left in her wake as she moved. Behind her, a third official recorded her entrance.
Caden rushed toward his mother with a wide smile.
The two met roughly halfway and he pushed himself into his mother’s safe embrace. She hugged him tightly as the camera panned around them, capturing Sabrina’s face resting against Caden’s shoulder. As the official continued to circle around to face Caden, his mother held him out slightly to get a good look at him. The cameraman made certain he was recording from Twist’s left side to get the best angle to the modest stack of ribbons on his uniform.
Spontaneous applause erupted around the mother and her war-hero son. Flashes from datapads strobed the terminal as civilians captured the tender moment. The cameraman quickly moved behind the assistant secretary for the next shot.
“You look good, my son,” Sabrina said in a voice that could speak for every mother who saw her progeny return from war. She raised a tender hand to Caden’s face and lightly traced the course of the six-centimeter line running down his right cheek. Republic-blue eyes glistened. “You’ve been hurt.”
Caden blushed. “I’m okay, Mom.” Enduring the fear of letting down his subsection, the terror of battle and its gruesome consequences, it was all worth it now. He did not want the moment to end.
Sabrina took a step back and made a cutting motion toward her assistants with her hand. She turned back to the terminal exit and said, “Walk with me, Caden.”
The pair strolled side by side while the assistants walked dutifully behind. “How are you?” she asked while pulling out her datapad.
“I’m good, Mom. How’s Dad?”
“On Thalassa, as usual,” she answered dismissively. She scanned her screen and shook her head. A moment later, she tapped in commands to move an appointment.
“This is a wonderful surprise,” Caden said with a heartfelt smile. “What brings you all the way to Anthe?”
“My job,” she said simply. “No rest for the weary. This war is an incredible opportunity for both of us. Every day you work in a war is like three days in peacetime. We both need to seize these moments, Caden.” She finished tapping and looked up from her calendar. “How was tech school? Did you DG?”
“They don’t have that at tech schools,” Caden informed.
Sabrina stopped walking. After a moment’s silent reflection, she said to herself, “I thought I DG’ed at Nav-Tech.”
“You did, Mom,” Caden replied. “The navy did away with distinguished graduates in tech schools a few years ago. They wanted people more focused on learning than the accolade.”
“We’re getting so soft,” Sabrina muttered. “Well, you did as well as the
navy would allow.” A dazzling smile played over her lips, a genuine one. “I really am proud of you, Caden. You intercepted seven missiles with heavy lasers,” she praised. “You saved your ship.”
The open approval made his chest swell. “Mom,” he said while blushing deeply, “I didn’t shoot them down. The gunners did.”
“You led them, Caden,” she insisted. “You deserve the credit so accept it. You’re a real hero.”
The words made him shudder. “Now watch how real heroes protect…” The desperate, furious Hollaran komandor’s voice echoed in his mind. Inexplicably, her tortured words haunted him. His thoughts turned to William Falk, working stoically, alone, in the fire control room right before it was destroyed. “I think there were a lot of heroes that night, Mom.”
Sabrina nodded with approval but raised a hand in caution. “Keep hold of that humility, Caden, but never let another steal a spotlight you deserve. You are right though. In fact, I’m in Anthe because of another hero born in that battle.”
“Lieutenant Commander Heskan?” Caden asked excitedly.
Sabrina nodded with a smile. The destroyer escort captain had not only defended the Brevic carriers in Sponde with innovative tactics but weeks later preserved two ships in his CortRon and Avenger during an ill-fated counterattack inside Hollaran space. Furthermore, the dashing ship captain had later captured a Hollaran heavy cruiser as he escaped Hollaran space and returned with it as a prize ship. It was a superhuman accomplishment that had thrust his name into the headlines of every news-vid in the Republic. The coverage was especially extensive in Anthe, where Heskan’s prize ship, HCS Phoenix, had been delivered.
“He’s a full commander now,” Sabrina corrected.
“I watched his CortRon in Sponde, you know,” Caden reminisced. “I thought he was crazy when he changed positions inside his formation during the attack but it worked. Then he violated the fire control regulations by taking shots that could have easily hit Avenger… but that worked too.”