by Ryan Krauter
"Oh, we are, Loren," Garrett said with a grin. "I provided the senator with a ship. I also might have hard wired a course that would fly it right into the sun. I might have accidentally disabled and locked every door, hatch, and escape pod on the vessel. Oops."
Loren just looked at Garrett, while Dennix and Shae started yelling at the tops of their lungs. Garrett gave them an annoyed look and muted their feed.
"Much as I hate to admit it, Garrett, we should probably capture them and have a trial."
"Do you know what a trial will do the the Confederation? You have bigger worries right now: a civil war to end, peace to make among your own people, Primans to negotiate with, an entire economy to spool down from a war footing and millions of service members to send back to civilian life. Do you know what a badly managed trial would do to your standing with the rest of the galaxy? Plus, the spectacle would have to include the Primans. They'll get dragged into this as well. They just need to drop off the radar and disappear for a few, well, decades. People need to move on, and putting Dennix on trial is the last thing that will actually help that process. Maybe you think you'll see justice served, people will see the system working, but it's not that easy.
"I saw the ring data, you know, just like everyone else." Garrett just stared at Loren, as if daring him to say that things weren't as bad as they really were.
"But don't you think we need closure?"
"You'll get closure, Loren. You can see the whole thing. But here's the deal, in a nutshell. I didn't want you to have to shoulder another decision like this and feel like it was all your burden to decide what to do. You've done that enough these last couple years. So I'm making this one for you. And for what it's worth," Garrett seemed to go back to his normal, upbeat self for a minute, "you ever want to retire from Confed and be a Fixer, look me up. Offer still stands."
The connection dropped and the screen went black, replaced a few seconds later by a standard diagnostic scroll of Avenger's ravaged systems.
Loren turned his chair to look at his captain. "Is there any way to stop that ship, should we want to?"
Elco looked at the display on the table's surface, then back up at the holo field in the middle of the room, and shook his head. "They're accelerating. They have less than two minutes, and there's nothing between the sun and them that could possibly intercept."
Loren didn't know if he was happy that he hadn't needed to make that sort of decision as Garrett had suggested, or disappointed that he wasn't there in person to watch Zek Dennix and Enric Shae get what they deserved.
Loren and Elco made themselves watch the external feed until the bitter end. The Senator's ship closed the distance to the sun rapidly. Soon, the rudimentary navigational shields were stripped away and the hull began to glow. Radiation superheated the exterior, and Avenger lost telemetry as the ship began to come apart. It was over seconds after that.
That night, Avenger was more quiet than she'd been in a long time.
With negotiations underway and hostilities at a standstill for real, both sides were standing down and licking their wounds. Avenger hung in orbit above Delos with dozens of other returning warships to have their chance to be part of the assembled fleet, to see the Primans at the table to negotiate, before heading off to a berth in the dry docks at Confed Navy HQ further out-system in the asteroid belt.
Captain Elco had been hosting a running department head meeting over the course of the evening, with officers dropping by for briefs or orders and then heading off on their way.
Currently, only Elco, Loren, and Web were in the captain's day cabin, empty cups of stim-caf covering the small table they sat around.
"... and Cory and Merritt have essentially disappeared as well," continued Loren. "They've filed seats on a military transport bound for Lavarra, where she's from and Pair of Aces is hangared. I told them to not come back for a while."
Elco nodded in acknowledgement, having approved the order earlier in the day when Loren had approached him about it.
"Web? What have you got?" Loren asked.
Web looked startled, pulled from whatever thoughts were occupying him. "Aaah, could you repeat everything after 'Here's the Briefing'?" he asked.
Loren gave him what he hoped was a convincing stink eye, but knew where his subordinate's mind was.
"So what of you and Halley?"
"Well, she's burned as far as covert ops go, of course. Probably out of time for detached SAR duty anyway. Still a lot of things she could do in active duty, though I suppose they might have her move up the food chain in clandestine ops as well. She needs a vacation."
"Any plans?" asked Loren with a smile.
"I told her I plan to kidnap her and steal us away somewhere quiet for a while where we could pretend to be normal people until we got tired of that. After then, who knows?"
"You'd never get the drop on her."
"She gave me permission to try. She encouraged it, in fact."
"She's going to beat you down, Web, and kidnap you instead."
"And I'll like it."
Loren and Elco both chuckled and stood up, shaking hands with Web before he turned to go.
Finally, it was done, Loren realized. Paperwork was caught up, every box was checked, and it was time to bring it down a gear and try to remember what it was like to plan for a relatively normal future. Maybe a bit of time doing something that didn't require him to wear a Confed uniform for a while?
"I'm glad as captain that I can do things like down-check the whole ship and crew for some time off," he said with a conspiratorial eye at Loren. "Everybody has their plans. What about you?"
"Cassie's wrapping up a few things; she'll be here in a couple days. I don't know what comes after that, really. Don't know if Confed will want me, what I'd do anyway. Maybe we'll move, find me a desk job if I stay in. Maybe I'll leave and we'll go move to a cabin in the woods and get away from it all for a while."
"You'd be bored in a week," Elco said with a laugh.
"And you?" asked Loren.
"Lots of personnel shuffling around the system," Elco replied. "Admiral Bak managed to get a lot of people that I think were on his 'trustworthy' list put in important places. Probably hoped to keep a steady eye on things and some stable hands at the helm by choosing people he trusted. My name even turned up as a selection to Admiral Second Rank."
Loren smiled broadly. "Congratulations! That's great news."
"Despite my amazing people skills and expansive vocabulary, they wouldn't send me right to full Admiral, dammit. Oh well, I can keep an eye on things as well. My problem right now is that I can send everyone else on this ship for some forced R&R except myself. Only another captain grade officer can forcibly tell me to take a vacation, so you and your gang have that advantage on me, at least."
"Wish I could help, but those are the breaks," Loren said with a smile as his mind already shifted gears.
"Oh, you can help," Elco said with a broad grin. He tossed Loren a small box. Loren opened it, and inside on the velvet-lined interior sat captain's rank insignia. "Can you down-check me, Captain Stone? You're going to take command of Avenger for me, but maybe we should all spend a little time off first, eh? I’m not an admiral yet, after all."
Loren couldn't believe his eyes. He had no idea what to say, actually. He'd never thought this far ahead, not before the war and not in the dark days inside it when his only hope was to live to see the next operation.
"So, does this mean I can't retire anymore and be a Fixer for Garrett?"
"Hey, you remember when you were on Tash's flagship running the beacon for Resilience and I said I'd get you your own ship if we lived through that whole mess? I am a man of my word."
Loren and Elco both stood up and shook hands, genuine, relieved smiles on their faces. For the first time in perhaps years, they didn't feel the constant, fatiguing stress of the unknown.
"Care to head to the Aft Quarter for a late meal?"
"MidRats," Loren said with a sigh. "Have
n't done that in ages." He walked to the hatch and gestured broadly with a sweep of his arm to Elco.
"Admiral," he said as Elco stepped through the hatch and once in the corridor turned to look at Loren.
"Captain," Elco said, returning the gesture to Loren.
They took their time walking the length of what was now Captain Loren Stone's starship.
Ryan is a lifelong sci-fi fan and lives in Wisconsin. He has a blog at:
http://rekroom.wordpress.com/
Stop by to see what’s currently intriguing or distracting him, updates on his books, as well as photo renders of ships and weapons from the books he’s written.
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Ryan
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen