“I have a plan.”
“I always get a bit tingly when you say that, Cap’n. Give me five, and I’ll have the railgun loaded, and the power drain contained. Can’t pull any more power outta my ass, but we won’t lose anymore either.”
“You’re a genius.”
“Yes.”
I cut the comms, smiling. And then looked down at Zyla on the med bed.
“Can you wake her?” I asked the Basic.
“The patient requires forty-eight to seventy-two hours of rest.”
“I’m not going to ask her to fight a legion of Mutts. I just want to talk to her.”
“Waking the patient on your request.”
I got the feeling; the AI wanted Zy to blame me when she gained full consciousness.
“And what role have you assigned to me, Basic?” I asked as I watched the vid-screens and Zyla’s vitals with keen interest.
“You have guest status on this vessel, Kael Jameson of New Earth.”
“How far will guest status get me?”
“You have unlimited access to the medical bay, mess and ship’s head. A suitable berth has been assigned to you. You may interact with the ship’s basic artificial intelligence, but some interactions have been limited. You may not send or receive external communications. However, you may communicate with anyone on board the ship; your communications will be recorded.”
“What about the bridge?” Wait for it…
“You have been locked out of the bridge.”
I huffed out an unamused laugh.
“And engineering?”
“Negative. Guest Odo Carlsson of New Earth, however, has access to engineering under observation from the bridge.”
I looked up at the gel ceiling and smiled.
“Paranoid, aren’t you?”
“I have no wish to die in this system, Jameson,” the Mutt said over the ship’s speakers. “But that does not mean your stay on board has to be restricted to a berth.”
“Odo’s a good ship’s engineer,” I pointed out. “He could do a lot of damage with access to engineering.”
“He is being watched, and there is only so much air on this ship. I’ll reassign it elsewhere if I have to. It would be wise not to test my resolve on this.”
Son of a bitch.
Zyla chose that moment to surface from the depths of unconsciousness; the pharmas the Basic had used finally doing their thing.
“Hey,” I said as she blinked open bruised looking eyes. Her left looked a little unfocused, but I thought perhaps it was still working.
“Captain,” she said, her voice weak.
I didn’t correct her. “How are you feeling?” I asked, instead.
“Like I’ve gone a round or two in the ring at 24 Sextantis.”
I chuckled. “You survived, Nav. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, sir.” She looked around the med bay, her focus growing sharper. “What vessel are we on?”
“It’s a corvette. New Earth design. I traded your cousins’ racing pinnace for it with a Mutt pirate running Chi Virginis.”
She stared at me for a long time.
“I see,” she finally managed.
I smiled. “Currently, it’s in the control of a Mutt we rescued from the same facility you were being held inside. I’m pretty sure, we’re heading back to the Chi system to be shot in the head, but I could be wrong. They might just send us out an airlock instead.”
“You are full of surprises.”
“Can you get up?”
“Of course.” Zyla tried to sit but ended up grimacing. I offered her my hand, and she took it reluctantly. Zeniths were proud beings and liked to do things for themselves.
I held onto her hand for longer than was necessary. It was Zyla who withdrew her hand from mine.
I cleared my throat. “You need food. I need a drink. And Odo is meeting us in the mess.”
“You have a plan,” she guessed.
“When have I not?”
“Do I have to answer that, Captain?”
I smiled at her; it wasn’t wide. “I’m not a captain anymore.”
“When has that stopped you from bossing everyone around?”
“Cute,” I said and followed her slow progress out of the med bay.
She shuffled, and I wanted with every fibre of my being to reach out and pick her up, carry her to the mess hall, and feed her every dish she liked until she was completely sated. Instead, I held back and pretended I didn’t see how incapacitated she was.
Zeniths and their pride. You had to tread carefully. Even incapacitated, Zyla could hit me.
We made the mess hall and found it empty. Odo was clearly still tied up with the power issue and weapons down in engineering. I hoped the Mutt hadn’t locked him up in there.
“We’re still in the Zenthia system?” Zyla asked.
“Yes. Under stealth. Armed but with limited power for the camo. We’re making best speed with caution toward the jump point.”
“Will we make it?”
She didn’t mean past the battleships and frigates and patrol ships out there; the camo failing was our primary concern right now, and she knew it.
“It’s going to be tight. We’re having to swing around obstacles, and those obstacles are shifting. Our ETA to the jump point will be lengthening, and we only have a small window of time with the power supply.”
“How much access to the ship’s systems do we have?”
“Bridge is out. We’re being watched and conversations recorded. I think the only reason the Mutt brought us with him was for Odo’s expertise in the engine room.”
Zyla sat down at the table with a relieved sigh.
“What’s he like?”
“Sneaky. And covered in tattoos.”
“No armour.”
“No.”
“That’s something, at least.”
“He has the ship, Zy.”
She nodded.
I went across the mess to the food fabricator and started entering in commands for her meal. I knew exactly what Zyla liked. Serving on a small cargo ship for three years together meant limited space for hiding your desires. Well, some desires were kept to ourselves. But others, like what we chose to eat more than once, were not.
I returned to the table with a Zenthian stew for Zyla and a New Earth burger for me, and three glasses of synthesised Rhodian whiskies; not the real stuff. Even Malcolm had limits, it seemed.
I sat down and was just digging in when Odo entered.
“Hey, Zy! Good to see you up and about.”
They shared a smile and a few words, and then Odo went to place his order with the fabricator. Mac and cheese again. He must have been missing home. He sat down in front of the third whisky.
I lifted my glass up for a toast.
“To the original Harpy,” I said. “And to Doc and Cassi.”
Mentioning them was a risk. It brought it all back, and not just for me. But not mentioning them felt like a black cloud hanging over my head. We were trapped on a warship being taken to our potential executions, but this needed to be addressed and quickly. The longer I avoided the elephant in the room, the bigger that fluxing thing would seem.
Zyla slowly lowered her spork and stared at her meal. Odo sat still and barely breathed.
“Have a drink,” I said. “They were our friends.”
They both reached for their whiskies and swallowed half of them without comment. For Doc and Cass; not because I asked them to.
The silence was deafening. The guilt felt tangible. I downed the rest of my glass and stared at the ceiling. Tears filled my eyes, but I blinked them back. Then I rested the glass carefully back on the table and sat still, waiting.
When no one said a thing, I started the ball rolling.
“There are things about Cass you didn’t know.”
They both looked up at me sharply.
“I can’t discuss them here for obvious reasons.”
“I don’t see a good enough
reason to keep any more secrets,” Odo growled.
“The Mutt,” I started.
“The Mutt can go to hell too, Cap’n.”
I looked at Zyla.
“You feel the same way, Nav?”
She stared at me for a long time and then said, softly, “There were other options, Kael.”
I shook my head. “I had my reasons. And they still stand. I killed Doc, and I will always carry that with me.”
“Doc was already dead,” Zy said just as Odo yelled, “Cass was a living being!”
I looked away from Zyla and blinked at Odo.
“Cass was an artificial intelligence,” I corrected.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he snarled. “You just said it yourself; there were things about Cass we didn’t know. Do you honestly believe I wouldn’t have checked out her code? What sort of engineer do you take me for, Captain?”
I hadn’t even considered that. Odo might have been a little rough around the edges, but he was a damn fine engineer. And all those hours Cass and he had spent together, locked away in engineering. They’d formed a bond, and if Cassiopeia had felt she could trust Odo explicitly, she would have divulged more than she should have.
They were evolving, self-learning AIs. They had a certain amount of autonomy. It’s what made them so good at what they did and what other species failed to realise. Yes, they could make mistakes when given a long enough leash. But what they learned from their mistakes was worth far more to their development and ultimate abilities.
That’s why our third-gens were a cut above all the rest. Better even than the Rhodian synths. Sure, they had size going for them; the fact that they could resemble a bipedal being. But they were far more restricted in their thought processes than our AIs were.
Cass had been alive in a manner of speaking. And I’d ordered the self-destruct as if she’d still been just a machine.
I stood up from the table and turned away from my crew. My hands fisted at my sides, my chest heaving.
“Kael,” Zyla said.
Odo pushed himself up from his seat and headed toward the exit.
“We’re not finished here,” I growled.
“I am.”
“Jump Point Zenthia Alpha-1 has acknowledged and denied our request for entry.”
We all stopped dead in our tracks and stared at the gel ceiling.
“What the flux was he thinking?” I muttered.
“I’ll check on our power reserves,” Odo said, running out of the mess and toward engineering.
“I need access to a nav panel,” Zyla announced.
“Let’s hope he’s open to suggestions.”
We left our food on the table and headed out of the mess. Zyla moved more freely now, but Zeniths were good at hiding their weaknesses. I didn’t wait for her; she wouldn’t have thanked me.
I flew up the ladder to the bridge and banged on the gel door.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Have you got a death wish or something? We needed to hack the Jump Point, not announce ourselves on its doorstep!”
The door opened just as Zyla made my side.
A plasma pistol was pointed directly at me.
Zyla ignored it completely and shot around my side, slipping into the navigator’s chair. The screen wouldn’t activate for her when she tried to enter a command, and the Mutt was having trouble deciding who to aim his pistol at.
“If you want to live,” Zy said calmly, “then allow me access before they trace our transponder signal and blow us out of the Black.”
I loved it when she talked dirty like that.
The Mutt hesitated for a moment longer and then hit a button on his command console.
“If we’re lucky,” Zy said, entering commands into her vid-screen in lightning-fast fashion, “it’s a standard lockdown, and they’ll think we’re a civilian vessel trying to make a run for it.”
I stared at the Mutt, arms crossed over my chest, and said nothing. He hadn’t lowered his pistol, and he’d decided I was the greater threat.
“Power’s down to 7%,” Odo said over the comms. “We’ll lose camo in two minutes before the safeties kick in.”
The system was designed to preserve life, so it wouldn’t allow the camouflage to use up all our power and leave us without life support.
“Override it,” I instructed.
“Are you mad?” the Mutt exclaimed.
“If they spot us, we’re dead anyway. We can’t fight this many.”
“It didn’t work,” Zy said, sounding frustrated. “They know we’re here somewhere and we’re not one of theirs. They’ll start a grid pattern search and be shooting at shadows any minute.”
“Get us out of here, Nav,” I instructed.
“I need the helm.”
I arched an eyebrow at the Mutt. “You know your way ‘round the Zenthian system? Think you can do better than her?”
He scowled at me and then hit another button on the command console.
“I have control of the helm,” Zy announced.
“Steady as she goes, Nav,” I said. “We’ve still got time.”
“Override was successful,” Odo announced over the comm. “That’s given us another ten minutes before we start to feel it.”
“How far can you get us, Zy?”
“Far enough, but Zenthia Actual will be facing our way before we make cover.”
“Can they see us?”
“When the camo fails, every fluxing ship in the system will see us. They’ve gone active on all scans.”
The Mutt said nothing, just watched us in stony silence.
“What’s our weapons situation like, Odo?” I asked.
“We’ve got a thousand rounds in the railgun and zip on plasma. And if we use active targeting, it’ll shorten our lifespan. I’ll have to fire manually if it comes to a shootout.”
“We won’t survive a shootout,” I said. “I was thinking of a distraction.”
“Any shot fired by us will give away our position,” Zy warned.
“Then we need to time it right,” I said, leaning over her shoulder and getting an idea of where she was taking us. “That one,” I said, pointing to a battleship orbiting Zenthia.
“I like the way you think,” Zy said, voice a little strained as she dodged the not so small orbital fleet.
“Why are you flying back toward the planet and the orbital defence network?” the Mutt finally asked.
“To hide in amongst the chaff,” I said quietly, watching our progress. “It’s gonna be tight. You ready, Odo?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Five pulses on my word.”
“Copy.”
“Easy, Zy. Just kiss him.”
Zyla brought the corvette up under the battleship and hugged its underbelly. When we were right beside its railgun batteries, I gave the order.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Odo fired five pulses away from the battleship, and then Zyla punched it, using up precious reserves to get us out from under the beast. The shadow the battleship created simply by existing provided just enough of a distraction for us to make it out from the bulk of the orbital defences. And the chaos of having one of their own battleships seemingly fire at them at random made the orbital patrol vessels scatter and squawk loudly.
We ducked around the planet using its gravity to gain more speed, and keeping as much of Zenthia Actual from seeing us as we could, and then shot out the other side, racing toward an asteroid field Zyla had marked on her vid-screen; almost as fast as the pinnace could have done it.
No one said a word. We all stared at the screens, hardly breathing.
And then the little corvette slipped into a gap in the asteroid field, and Zyla brought it to rest on an asteroid big enough to shield us.
I let out a rush of breath in relief. I think we all felt a little weak-kneed.
“They’ll guess we came here eventually,” Zyla said, checking the crevice she’d managed to squeeze us inside of and powering down the sh
ip to conserve energy.
“And they’ll come searching,” I finished for her and then turned toward the Mutt.
He stared daggers at me.
“It’s like this,” I said. “You need us. You’re not equipped to fix this vessel and deal with a bunch of Zenthians on the warpath. But we might be. You want to live to see Chi Virginis again, you’ll hand over control of the ship to me. We’ve got nothing to lose,” I said, shaking my head resolutely. “One way or another, we’re fluxed. I’d rather go out on my terms than have a sanctimonious Mutt hold my and my crew’s lives over my head. So, what’s it gonna be?”
He stared at me, and if looks could kill, I’d be paste against the bulkhead.
Then he sighed, stood up, towering over me.
I held my ground. Zyla held very still in her seat.
“I never said,” the Mutt growled, slowly, “that we were going back to Chi.”
Chapter Twelve
“Huh,” I murmured, looking at Zyla, “I did not see that coming, did you?”
Zy arched a brow at me and then shrugged her shoulders. I guess she wanted me to field this one.
I looked back at the Mutt.
He stared down at me; an enormous, immovable object throwing a hissy fit.
“Why don’t you tell us,” I finally drawled, “where exactly you planned to take the ship.”
He said nothing for a long moment and then let out a burst of air.
“Anywhere but Chi Virginis.”
“Strange,” I said, “because our instructions were to bring you back to Malcolm, preferably in one piece. At least, in no more pieces than we found you.”
“You should not have made that deal.”
“Didn’t have much of a choice, Big Guy. Have you met Malcolm? He’s not the sort of Mutt you double-cross.”
“Mal.”
“Mal. Mutt. Does it really matter? You’re up shit creek without a paddle, and it’s time to come clean.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
Zy chuckled. She’d long ago got used to my colloquiums.
“It’s like this,” I said slowly. “The ship is mine. I’ve got a deal with Malcolm to bring you back in exchange for the upgrades he fitted the Harpy II with. There will be consequences; I’ve been told if I don’t do this. But I’m a reasonable kind of guy. Convince me to risk my life and that of my crew for you.”
Absolute Zero (The Sector Wars, Book 1) Page 13