The mood on the bridge was somber. Since my conversation with Monica I had learned that our crew was no stranger to Mount Sinai. It might not have been official, and the Empire certainly wouldn’t have approved, but I’m told there was lot of very good people that used to live there.
Exactly how the Halcion had become familiar with this settlement was still a little bit fuzzy to me. It still greatly bothered me, but I wasn’t anywhere near as surprised as I should’ve been when I discovered that some of our enlisted crewmen were actually from Mount Sinai. That by itself would’ve been a court-martial offense for every Citizen on board, but I had nobody to report it to even if I were so inclined. Perhaps Monica was right; maybe I needed to reserve judgement… for a while.
I just wished this headache would go away.
“Captain, we’ve detected some escape capsules.”
“Are they still intact?”
“Some are and some aren’t, but Captain, the undamaged ones that we’re close enough to get decent resolutions on appear to have been opened.”
“Opened? How?”
“Without bringing them onboard there’s no way to know for sure, but the survivors could have been rescued and the empty capsules ejected. That would actually make sense considering their trajectories.”
“Okay, Monica please see that we recover those capsules. I want to know if the survivors actually survived or not. Also, I’m thinking it might help us identify some of the ships that didn’t make it.”
ΔΔΔ
“Captain!” the intercom blared. “You need to get down here. We’ve got us a damaged escape pod that still has some power.”
The Captain glanced at Monica, gave her the bridge, and then walked rapidly towards the hatch. I got up and followed. I mean, I am his aide, right?
We entered the pressurized hanger bay just as the crew chief was prying open a damaged hatch. There was the unmistakable hiss of atmospheric pressures equalizing.
The first crewman stuck his head in and yelled back over his shoulder, “It’s occupied!”
The Captain rushed forward just in time for the crewmen to hand out a small woman. No, as I drew closer I realized it was a young unconscious girl. Then before I knew it the Captain was handing her to me while he reached in and accepted a second girl.
They were disheveled so it took me a moment to realize it; but they were identical twins.
The second one was semiconscious and in a woozy voice I heard her say to the Captain, “You saved us.”
The Captain and I raced down the corridor, each of us carrying a young child. I was having trouble keeping up with him, his long legs and sense of urgency were leaving me in the dust.
He’d already handed off the first girl to the doctor on duty and was pointing me to a second bed.
If I wouldn’t have been so preoccupied with the girls I probably would’ve noted that the Captain was barely breathing hard, while I was almost gasping for breath.
Both of our attentions, however, were focused on the girls. They looked to be about 14 years old and their clothing was torn and sweat stained. The unconscious one had soot covering her face and arms.
The second girl was fading in and out of consciousness but managed to focus her eyes on the Captain long enough to say, “You’re Grand Duke Alyster Acamar. Are you here to save us, or finish us?”
Then she passed out.
ΔΔΔ
It wasn’t long before the doctor assured us that the girls would survive.
It was only then that the Captain would leave the medical Bay. As we made our way to the bridge I asked him, “Who are they?”
After an apparent moment of contemplation he said, “I don’t know them. But from their uniform it looks like they belong to the Trinidad Trade Consortium.”
“That was a uniform?” I said surprised.
The captain glanced at me with the first grin I’d seen on his face in a while, “Yeah, this far out you’re not going to find very many fancy epaulets or striped pants.”
“Captain, who were all these people? What is this place…? Or, was this place? I feel like I’m totally in the dark and I have no idea how to help.”
The last thing I’d meant to do was to give our Captain the impression that I was a whiny Ensign, but the truth is I just blurted it out.
“Did Monica talk to you?” he asked.
“Yes sir, she did. But I still feel lost, and… Unsure.”
The captain was silent for the rest of our walk. Right before he went through the hatch he stopped and turned to me. “I’ll be holding a strategy briefing in my personal quarter’s conference room at 0200 tomorrow morning. Be sure you attend.”
He then walked through the hatch and again took command of the bridge.
ΔΔΔ
0200 hours was an odd time to hold a conference. I just assumed that we must be so preoccupied with search and rescue that no one would be free until about that time - and that the Captain preferred not to wait until the next day.
At any rate, I was there early enough to make sure all the coffee was fresh and that the mess had delivered some finger food.
I was somewhat surprised at who the attendees were.
There were literally no Citizens from the A and B Watches. If I was right these were all the section heads from D Watch. Since 0200 hours was D Watch that might be expected, but from what the Captain said I had assumed this was a briefing of his top Citizens.
“Okay people,” he started. “Let’s put everything we know on the table… Durand, have we picked up any new ship activity?”
“No, Captain. Except for what’s already in system we have detected nothing new.”
“Santiago, talk to us about search and rescue.”
A Citizen I barely knew spoke up, “We have recovered 17 people. Of those only 11 are ambulatory. Two probably won’t make it.”
If the mood in the room wasn’t already somber it turned that way now.
“Where are they from?”
“Differing origins, Captain. The largest group of five came from an escape pod belonging to the Mount Sinai ship Merit. The others were rescued in ones, twos, and threes and were all from various ships. As far as we can tell none of the rest were Meri Acá.”
Meri Acá? What was that?
“Okay everyone, general discussion. What do we know?”
“It was definitely a surprise attack,” said one of the Citizens. “But they had very good Intel. They knew the exact status of the system including planetary orbital positions as well as rotational timing – they had to have accelerated to speed and launched the kinetic missiles long before coming into sensor range of the planet... They had studied the system in detail which means they probably had someone on the inside.”
Another voice spoke up. “From what we’ve been able to piece together using forensics and the survivor’s stories, we believe there were at least 20 ships involved in the attack.”
This caused a stir and there was an uncomfortable rumbling around the table.
“That’s a lot of ships,” somebody said.
“Based on the dispersion of the kinetic slugs and the speed they must been traveling it would take at least 20 ships to blanket that much of the planet. If we were planning an attack like that we would probably consider using 40 ships, but from what the survivors were able to see we don’t think it was that many.”
“Who could bring that many ships to bear?” asked Felix.
“Who would want to?” said Rodriguez.
“Assuming that Captain Kendra was right, that one of the ships was the I.D.F. Tribute, it would imply the Seventh Fleet was involved.”
“The Seventh Fleet?” I asked.
“My sister,” the Captain said.
Up until this point Monica had been very quiet. When she started asking questions I realized I wasn’t the only one that didn’t know everything.
“Why would the Empire, let alone your sister Tauri, be interested in Mount Sinai?” she asked.
Ju
dging by the covert glances the Citizens were giving each other I gathered this wouldn’t be an easy question to answer.
“You’ve met her, Monica. You know that the Grand Duchess Tauri Acamar does pretty much whatever she wants. She’s not known for her compassion.”
With her eyes narrowing slightly Monica continued, “Captain that really doesn’t answer my question.”
Alyster sighed. Except for glancing briefly at me he held Monica’s gaze. “Mount Sinai is… was, one of the gathering spots for the Meri Acá movement.”
“And the Meri Acá is…?” she prodded.
“The name Meri Acá refers to an ancient legend. It talks about a race of freedom loving people that originally settled this portion of the galaxy unknown millions of years ago.”
The room was incredibly quiet.
“So it’s just another origin story,” I couldn’t help but interrupt with – me being the space vid geek and all.
“Perhaps,” the Captain said. “What makes this one somewhat different is how widespread it is. On the rare occasions that the Empire has ventured across the abyss to our adjoining spiral arms we’ve been amazed at the differences and similarities that exist between the many human civilizations. One of the most surprising similarities, however, was that we all have the same legends about the Meri Acá.”
Jumping back in Monica said, “Then what does it have the do with Mount Sinai?”
“Nothing really, except that for a couple of decades now there has been a growing number of outworlders, fringe spacers, and even various pirates that claim allegiance to a living Meri Acá, and as I said mount Sinai had become a meeting place or rallying point for those that were like-minded.”
“You called it a movement,” said Monica. “Are you trying to say they were rebels to the Empire?”
If it was quite around the table before now you could hear a pin drop.
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. But I’m not going to try and pretend that they agreed with everything the Empire stood for. Personally, I sympathize with the Meri Acá and my biggest fear was that the Empire would consider them a threat.”
“So is that what happened here? Did the Empire find out?”
The captain shrugged, “Apparently so.”
Felix spoke up, “Captain, how did they find out?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But we need to figure it out.”
Just then Doctor Atoka walked into the conference room.
“I’m sorry I’m late Captain, but the patients have been through their initial treatments and are starting to become talkative. I’ve learned something I think you will want to know.”
The Captain, apparently knowing the doctor well fixed his green-eyed gaze on her and said, “Tell me.”
“The La Familia Unida was damaged but still able to break orbit. Unfortunately, she was surrounded and boarded. There were a large number of shuttles going back and forth between the Imperial ships and the Unida so it’s assumed they took prisoners. But you need to know, when the Imperial ships were leaving they scuttled the Unida and destroyed her.”
A number of times during my Academy days I had witnessed the look of hatred. On IS 417 I had seen what desperation and fear looks like on a man’s face. I knew the look of jealousy and the look of spite, but now I was seeing something I’d never seen before. On the Captain’s face was a look of pure vengeance.
Chapter eighteen
ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY
Out of My League
It seems that Monica and I had the same idea because when the meeting broke up we both cornered Felix in the corridor outside.
“Okay Felix, spit it out. What’s so special about that ship, the La Familia Unida?”
“Well, it’s not the ship per se,” he said glancing back and forth between us. “It’s the ship’s captain he’s probably worried about.”
“And who was the ship’s captain?” I asked.
“Jac, don’t you dare let anybody hear you talking about her in the past tense.”
I began a strong reply when I realized he was dead serious.
“Okay, who is the ship’s captain?”
“Her name is Consuelo.”
“And…” Monica said.
“And she’s more or less one of the leaders of the Meri Acá,” he said.
Monica and I shared a glance before she said, “Just how deeply is our Captain involved with this movement?”
“Oh, I really don’t think that’s a big concern. Our Captain has a big heart, he cares about all the people that he has responsibilities to. I just think he sees the Meri Acá as another group of good people.”
“Technically he’s not responsible for those people,” I said. “They’re outside of Imperial territory.”
“Well, there is that. I just follow his orders; you’ll have to ask him if you want his reasoning. I really need to be getting back to my station…”
Felix walked off and left Monica and I standing there, sharing a bewildered look. She was pursing her lips, lost in thought.
Lord... Why did she have to look so cute doing it?
ΔΔΔ
Just then the alarm sounded.
The intercom called the alert, once again calling D Watch to the bridge. I swear that someday I’m going to have the time to get to the bottom of that.
Monica and I entered the bridge together to find the Captain already in his chair.
“Status?” Monica asked.
“We have contact with three ships accelerating down the gravity well towards us,” said Citizen Durand.
“Have we identified them yet?”
“That information is coming up… Now.”
“Put a schematic on the screen and give us a description.”
“They’re not Imperial,” the sensors operator said. You could feel the tension on the bridge ease up a bit. “They fit the profile of raiders.”
“I can confirm that, Captain,” said another voice. We have signatures on file for two of those ships. They are the Broken Sword and Fist of God.”
“Where do they get those names?” murmured the Captain. Apparently his mood had again changed, this time back to his normal irreverent self.
“Are they coming for us, or just to the planet itself?” asked the Captain.
“They’re too far out to know for sure, Captain. But from what we know about them they’re probably here to scavenge.”
I could tell the Captain was mulling it over. Finally he said, “Well, there’s no sense in ruining their fun. Helm, break orbit. Get us out of here.”
Felix at the astrogation station asked, “Where to Captain?”
“Where to indeed…”
ΔΔΔ
The Landry twins didn’t remain unconscious for long. As a matter of fact, they didn’t remain injured, in bed, quiet, or shy.
They were nothing like what I’d expected.
Actually, I don’t think they were like what anybody expected them to be.
They started each day bright and early with their constant touring of the ship, talking to everybody they met, and constantly being underfoot. No, actually that wasn’t fair. You could find them peeking into every nook and cranny of the ship but it wouldn’t be right to say they ever got in the way. As a matter of fact, they became instantly popular with most of the crew. If a ship could ever be said to have a mascot they would be it. That made it all the more shocking for me when I discovered where they were sleeping.
Everyone knew that they both had a crush on the Captain. It was natural, I suppose. His was the first face that Jenna had seen upon being rescued. She, by the way, insisted she was the oldest and most mature, while Kenna seemed focused on being the most mischievous.
I had even started thinking of them like I would little sisters, which made my realization that they were sleeping in the Captain’s bed all the harder to take.
What kind of man takes advantage of a traumatized woman, let alone two 14-year-old girls?
Every time I thought I
had this ship figured out I was let down. Every time I found myself wanting to believe in someone it got knocked down. Every time I found myself tempted to admire the Captain I discovered more reasons to despise him.
My Friend the Emperor Page 16