“That is the first decent idea I have heard from you, Matthews.” Rebecca smiled, though her voice sounded weaker than she liked. “Take someone with you and find a window or a hull breach”—she stopped to breathe—“Then report back to me.”
Jackson was back. He pulled out the morphine injector but she stopped him.
“No morphine. Just bandage the bloody wound.”
The boy complied and helped her move to the holographic display. Rebecca sent him away and then looked at the broken display. She summoned up her last strength to bark, “Where is my display, people!”
***
“Ah, so you woke up.”
“Are we dead?”
The ship’s doctor laughed. “No, but you certainly tried to kill us all.” She pulled out a penlight to check Rebecca’s pupils.
Rebecca noticed the working screens. Most were cracked and flickering, but they were working. “The power is back.”
“Well, they fixed it two days ago.”
“Two days!” She tried to stand up but the doctor stopped her.
“I will not let you open your stitches. I already have too many injured to attend and half of my staff is either dead or missing. If you need to know anything, an officer can brief you here.” She waved her assistant to let Matthews into the med bay. “You will stay in bed. Doctor’s orders.” She turned to face Matthews. “Five minutes, no more,” she warned the commander before leaving the two alone.
Matthews approached her bed and saluted Rebecca. “Ma’am.” His face looked like a zombie. He’d probably been awake the last two days.
Two days! “Just tell me what happened.”
“The nukes worked.” He allowed a smile. “The alien ship has been destroyed, taking down almost all of their forces.”
“Remaining forces?”
“Radar shows nothing. They disappeared together with the black hole, like being sucked into a vacuum cleaner.”
“What about that gate?”
“The glowing signs died right after the explosion. We found a huge crack near one of the junctions on the structure and made sure to exploit it.”
Rebecca observed Matthews. He’d grown stubble. The bags under his eyes were as dark as that swirling black hole, but he stood straight, his shoulders firm. It looked as if Commander Matthews had found the courage he needed. Maybe he has what it takes, after all.
“…If those two dreadnoughts hadn’t been behind us during the explosion, we would be the only survivors,” Matthews continued.
Apparently, the nuclear electromagnetic pulse following the blast had worked in their favor, shutting down the alien gate after the reaction in the huge spider’s engine. She hadn’t expected this outcome, and she was glad to see their luck turn. But the rest of the report was morbid. They had managed to stop the alien force but only the Deviator, Shanghai and Beijing survived the explosion. The patching had already started, but it would take months and a huge workforce to finish the repairs in full, let alone replace the personnel killed in action. According to the preliminary reports, they’d have to tow the Beijing to the nearest shipyard, in Fomalhaut, not risking turning on the engines as she had severe reactor damage. The Shanghai had extensive hull breaches, limiting the life support to three decks out of eighteen, confining the remaining crew into the gym deck and the water treatment system.
“We also have new orders. All surviving ships are to move to Pendar. We will meet with back up forces and repair crews there.”
“Why Pendar?”
“The orders were not detailed ma’am. Perhaps this encounter was not the only one.”
“Thank you Commander, I want a full report as soon as possible, after you rest.” Rebecca sent Matthews away, trying not to think about the Shanghai or the Beijing’s losses. She was dead sure she wasn’t ready for another battle in Pendar either.
It is over, no matter how costly. She rolled slowly to her right, facing the wall as much as her pain allowed. It is over. Rebecca seized her pillow and cried for the lives she’d sent to their deaths. She cried for the body bags stacked at the end of the medical storage bay. She cried for Lieutenant Junior Grade Jessica, trying to remember the young girl’s lively face before her demise.
And she cried for Francis. She cried for all the times she’d had with him and for all that she wouldn’t have.
***
“I feel like I can sleep for a week.”
“I know what you mean, Commander.”
“Lieutenant Jong, you have the bridge. I will be in my quarters if you need me.”
“Yes, Commander Matthews.”
Matthews smiled at Lieutenant Jong and left the bridge. His legs ached all over and he suspected he was running a fever. He thought of going back to the med bay but quickly waved away the idea. With the current number of wounded, the medical personnel had their hands tied. He was tired, that’s all.
Matthews couldn’t help but notice the damage the Deviator sustained. He had to change his way back to his quarters more than a few times because of a blocked corridor or a hull breach. The following days would be all about repairing the ship and as the newly assigned executive officer, it would be his responsibility to oversee the process. Something he wasn’t looking forward to.
“Here we are,” he mumbled, rubbing his chest. He didn’t realize he had a bruise there before and it hurt. “Nothing a good, long sleep can’t handle.”
The tired commander arrived at his quarters and reached for the keypad but stopped short.
“Now, what is this?” Matthews raised his fingers to look closer. Something sticky, like glue, was all over his hand. “Great.” He tried to see where the substance had come from. “Well, whatever you are, you will have to wait.” The thing was working and Matthews had more pressing matters to attend to. Like a rest. The keypad could be repaired after the real damage was taken care of.
He entered his quarters and unbuttoned his uniform, easing his tensed neck muscles. He made his way to the small liquor cabinet near the window and prepared himself a shot of scotch. He couldn’t help but smile. These small luxuries came with being a commanding officer and he was starting to like it, albeit his promotion was very new and under dire circumstances.
He raised his glass and looked out at the stars. “May you rest in peace, Commander Francis Leclair.” He hit the bottom of the glass but a clinking sound caught his attention before he could pour another round.
He looked around and listened. There, again. It came from the bedroom. Matthews sighed and put down his glass.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PRISON
His room was dark and cold. Corners of the stone walls were covered in mold spreading all the way up to the ceiling. The air was heavy in the block, making it hard to breathe. “Better a chilly draft than a hot one.” Ray tried to relax his cramped shoulders.
He was still recovering from his wounds and the conditions were far from ideal but it was better than he’d hoped for when they first brought him here. Except for the bell that chimed every few hours, announcing something. “Well, clean sheets. Soft bed,” he murmured, “almost like home.”
The Children had arrested him after his confession to the guard captain. It had felt right at the time and he still didn’t regret it. The guards had released Brother Cavil when they realized he was a priest of the Light and Ray hadn’t seen him since. Ray now “rested” in a guest room obviously converted from a prison cell. His cell had bars that looked old, very old, but the gate was unlocked. Ray would stay in his quarters until the Bunarian government decided his fate. “All right, it’s a prison.”
Ray tried to guess the time without success. He sat on his bed and looked at the carvings on the wall instead. They were all worn out and looked as if no one had stayed here for some time. The ones he could see went on for several lines. “I hope those are days and not years.”
He wondered about the fates of his cell’s earlier residents. He wondered about his fate, whether he would be keeping a calendar this
long for himself. He’d been alone for four days—five, maybe—except for the guards waiting outside his room, and in Ray’s book, stones had better conversation. In all his time here, he hadn’t heard the men say a single word. Not to him, not to each other. A stool outside the bars for visitors, not that I expect many. A bed, a room full of moist and two guards carved out of stone. And the bucket for my needs. Not bad, like a three star hotel in lower Shanghai. Brother Cavil had stopped visiting after a while, telling Ray that he needed to discover more about his fate and talk to the Elder Council. Ray didn’t guess it would take this long to talk to these men.
The shadows of his cell—Room. Cell…All right, this is a cell—were shattered by a bright light from the end of the hallway, followed by footsteps. It took him awhile to adjust to the gleam before recognizing his savior’s face.
“Brother Cavil.” Ray stood up, wincing with each aching muscle.
“Hello, son. How are you holding up?”
“Peachy. What—” A cough interrupted, one of many spasms he’d had since he’d been thrown in jail. “What’s going on?” His throat burned when he spoke.
“I do not know, Raymond.” Brother Cavil gave Ray a waterskin he’d brought with him. As Ray gladly let the cold fluid flow down his throat, the old man eyed him worriedly. “I tried to present your plea to the Elders. I told them what we found on the black box footage.”
“Not went well? So, what do they say?”
“Some seem willing to give you a chance to defend yourself,” Brother Cavil said, pulling the visitor stool to rest his body. “But they are wary. There are too many unknowns.”
“I can’t blame them.” Ray closed his eyes and grimaced.
The huge, orange pit sat where once the glamorous city of Bunari had stood. The crater glowed with lava. The fuel the Canaar carried had been the real blow. It was a glimpse of the apocalypse and his ship had been the cause. “What a journey this has become,” he whispered.
“They need answers, son.” Brother Cavil’s voice pulled him out of the dark corners of his mind. “They need someone to take the fall. It is a mess.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? What else is there to discuss?”
“A religious mess.”
Ray raised a brow.
“This is not a place of the dark ages but most of the civilians saw a blazing comet riding through the sky, destroying their holy temple.” Brother Cavil wiped sweat from his temples. “This is a religious world driven with religious politics. The implications of such an event can easily get out of hand if people start to question their beliefs and their god.”
“They never saw a ship crashing?”
“They never saw your ship. The average folk will not question the ship fuel, but the Light and the followers. People died, their sacred symbols razed and the sharks within these walls will surely see this as a chance to remove the Grandmaster and the current council. In his reign, a most sacred symbol is razed to the ground.”
“Politics sucks no matter where you are.” Ray gave an understanding nod and whispered, “My ship, my responsibility.” His eyes were watered and distant. “How…” He couldn’t finish. Suddenly the cell felt a lot smaller and he punched one of the cold metal bars as hard as he could.
“I think you just broke a finger.”
“I don’t care. H-How many?” he asked, trembling. He was soaking with sweat no matter how chilly the jail was.
“Too many, son,” Brother Cavil replied gently.
“Tell me, damn it!”
Brother Cavil gave a tormented sigh. “I have not seen the reports, Raymond.” The priest seemed even older and Ray saw a battered soul, not a crazy one, behind those eyes. Brother Cavil looked in agony, trying to pick his words.
“Just tell it.” Ray intervened.
“The estimation is close to a hundred,” he finished, raising his eyes to meet Ray’s.
“Hundred?”
“Thousand, son. Most have perished the moment your ship hit the towers. I am sorry.”
Brother Cavil’s voice morphed into a lullaby and Ray heard no more words. Brother Cavil’s tired voice echoed in the emptiness of Ray’s heart, slowly dying in the night of his soul.
A hundred thousand people…
Some part of him knew, too, if it hadn’t been for the spaceport’s barrier shield to slow down Canaar’s descent, Bunari would be the name of a mass graveyard for some millions of people. Still, knowing almost four percent of the capital’s inhabitants had perished because of his failure to do something didn’t help.
“Raymond!”
“I-I’m sorry…” Ray blinked.
“Do not be hard on yourself, son.” Brother Cavil reached for his hand but he himself sounded doubtful. Everything had changed when they’d come back to the City of Light. That tender priest who’d saved Ray was gone, buried deep within his own sorrow. “Light shapes things the way they should be.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Brother Cavil looked at him without saying a word.
“How are you holding up?” Ray at last found the strength to ask. In his selfish sadness, how the old man was coping hadn’t crossed his mind.
“Well, it was not the pilgrimage I had in mind,” the priest said. “And the guards took my tent!” He muttered a few words about the fate of his tent that Ray couldn’t understand.
“Will they do anything?”
Brother Cavil took a deep breath and sighed again, “They will probably burn it.”
“No, I mean to you, Brother.” Ray somehow felt relieved to see the crazy man was still somewhere within.
The priest rubbed his temples.
“I pulled you into this mess.” Brother Cavil had harbored the captain of a ship that crashed on top of their capital city and killed a hundred thousand. No matter how things transpired, the old man was on the spot as much as Ray was in the eye of Bunarian law. His savior was free to roam inside the Inquisition Compound and talk to the Government Elders, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also a prisoner.
“I sincerely do not know what they will do to me, Raymond.” Brother Cavil pursed his lips and shrugged, “I am not sure our laws have anything specific written about a ship destroying our cultural monuments and people. My fate, it will be a delicate matter. Do not worry yourself with me now.”
“I’m sorry,” Ray’s shoulders sank. “Maybe I should’ve crashed with my ship.”
“Perhaps, but you did not! And I saved you and that is all there is to it, so stop pitying!” The light from the hallway glistened in the old priest’s reddened, wet eyes. “It is not helping!”
Ray felt slapped. “I-I’m sorry…”
“You already said that, boy.”
The old man didn’t want to linger in grief and Ray had no objection to handling things the priest’s way. He gave a curt nod. The priest was right—his mood wasn’t helping.
“I managed to learn bits and pieces about your situation,” Brother Cavil continued. “They are not willing to let you go, but they are also unsure about what to do with you,” he said grimly. “They are afraid of the consequences if they execute you,” the old man said, taking a kumat from his pocket and biting it nervously.
“Exe—”Another cough spasm hit Ray’s body, bending him into a crouch until he managed to fix his breath in a rhythm. The eyeball-shaped kumat right in front of him wasn’t helping, and Ray had to close his eyes to calm down.
“Seven of the thirteen Elders have voted for you to be executed publicly,” Brother Cavil explained, taking another bite of his fruit. “The vote is enough to carry the motion, but Grand Master Ellok overruled the decision.”
“Why?”
Brother Cavil knit his brows hard, trying to find an answer. “Perhaps he believed your plea,” he said, shrugging again, “or it may be something else.”
“Why am I being executed? I turned myself in to tell what happened! The truth!” Ray felt dizzy trying to swallow what Brother Cavil had said. He only realized he was
squeezing the metal bars when he felt the blood slipping through his palms. He stared at the pool of red forming beneath his feet.
“You crashed your ship on top of a city, son.” Brother Cavil threw the remains of his fruit to the nearby bucket inside the cell. “And on top of the most sacred symbol of this planet.”
“But you saw the footage! There was nothing I could do!” I should’ve tried harder.
“Me seeing the footage does not mean anything before the eyes of the Light,” Brother Cavil said. “And the truth is a tool in the hands of power when necessary. Neither you nor I have that power here. The Elders are the voice of the Light and Grandmaster Ellok is the law bringer. You are on Bunari and no matter how foolish it may seem, it is the Bunarian law that will decide your fate.”
“All right, they will hang me,” said Ray, giving himself over to indifference.
“I believe they can also leave you deep in the jungle naked and let nature deal with you.” Brother Cavil took out another kumat from one of his pockets and took a bite.
“That’s the exile option? I don’t remember you saying it was naked.”
“The idea is to let the Light decide your fate and before the Light, we are all naked.”
Ray wanted to shake the old man until he came back to dire reality. “Why are they keeping me alive?” he managed to ask instead, through gritted teeth.
“I just told you. It is about letting nature decide your fate as it is the vessel of Light.”
“Why are they keeping me alive now?”
“Ah, it is something to do with your Consortium,” Brother Cavil answered. “They sent someone called an agent to handle your situation. Raymond,” the man continued, now focused on the pieces of kumat on his robe. “The flight recorders have been sealed until this agent arrives,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes, still looking at his clothing.
“An agent?”
Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) Page 10