“I still have control over the ship,” the Mutt pointed out.
“A ship that’s out of juice and behind enemy lines,” I countered. “Can you get yourself out of this mess without our help?”
He slowly shook his head.
“Then spill the beans.” I might have been going overboard with the colloquialisms, but I was having too much fun messing with him. “Let’s start with handing over control back to me and then follow it up with why you don’t want to go back to Chi.”
He stared at me for a while and then turned back to the console and reset the ship’s settings.
“Zy,” I said softly.
“On it.”
She started entering lockout commands and layered encryption written by Cass for the original Harpy. Within five minutes, she had it ship-shape again.
Or as ship-shape as she could make it, considering Malcolm had left a few surprises behind.
“That’s the best I can do, Captain.”
“Thank you,” I said, keeping my eyes on the Mutt. “Well? What’s the problem with Chi Virginis?”
“You would not understand.”
“Try me.”
He glared back, and I got the distinct impression he wished for my painful death. I smiled, showing teeth. Not as impressive as a Mutt’s grin, but he got the message finally.
“I disagree with my father’s outlook.”
I let out a burst of laughter. “Malcolm’s your dad?”
“Yes,” he said tightly.
“How old are you?”
“Fully matured,” he snapped, holding himself upright.
“Fully matured can mean you’re not long out of whatever constitutes nappies on Malee.”
“What are nappies?”
I waved his question away with my hand.
“What outlook does your father have that you disagree with?”
“I will not betray his confidence.”
“He’s a pirate. You don’t want to follow in his footsteps?”
He said nothing.
“Last time I was on Chi Virginis, it was being run by a Rhodian. Were you there for the takeover? Is that when you two fell out? Did you run away from Daddy?”
He stared at me.
I stared back.
It was clear he was done talking. I scrubbed a hand over my face. We didn’t have time for this shit.
“Odo,” I said over comms.
“Yeah, Cap?”
“What’s our power situation look like?”
“Bad.”
“Can you elaborate?”
“Short answer: we’re gonna be stuck here for a while. I’m stealing power from unused systems and boosting those that’ll keep us alive. Meanwhile, we’re getting a hit from the local star; our solar panels are slowly recharging. Bottom line: five to six hours before we can even consider firing up the engines. And plasma weapons will still be offline.”
“Shit,” I said.
“That about covers it.”
“Zyla,” I said, turning to my navigator. “How’s it looking out there. Can we stay hidden long enough?”
“It’s possible. This is a big asteroid field. But sooner or later, they could get lucky. We’ve lost camouflage capabilities, but we are hidden. And everything else that can give us away has been shut down.”
“It’s the best we can do for now,” I said. “Take a break. Grab some rack time. And we’ll meet in the mess in four hours.”
“Yes, Captain.”
She got up and walked off the bridge without a backward glance. If I didn’t know she’d been nearly killed in that Zenith prison, I wouldn’t have thought her injured at all. Damn Zeniths could hide their pain well.
I turned to look back at the Mutt.
“Are we going to have a problem?” I asked.
“No.”
I stared at him for a bit, then asked, “What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Mutt.”
“No, you can’t.” As if he’d kill me in my sleep if I did it. “Marvin.”
“Marvin?” I said, trying not to laugh. “Malcolm’s son is called Marvin?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Nothing at all.”
He glowered at me.
“What’s your training, Marvin? What can you do?”
He glanced away.
“Anything that’d help us get out of this mess?” I pressed.
“I can fight. I’m a good fighter.”
All Mutts were good fighters. Put a plasma rifle in their hands, and they could shoot up a storm. But there was no way I was letting him anywhere near our armoury.
“Can you cook?” I asked.
“What?”
“Can you cook? Are you good in a galley?”
“It’s automated.”
“Then that settles it. You’re in charge of the mess and keeping us fed.”
“I’m a warrior! Not a kitchenmaid!”
I leaned forward and stared him down.
“What part of being fluxed do you not get?” I growled. “Odo’s going to be working his arse off trying to get this ship running. Zyla’s just escaped a fate worse than death and needs to be ready to navigate a path out of here. And I’m going to be reading every single line of code on this damn ship to make sure your father hasn’t left any more surprises for us. That leaves you. It’d be an easy thing just to push you out an airlock…”
“Try it!”
“…but I’m not going to do that. Why? Who knows? It might be because I’ve got daddy issues too, but don’t bet on it. I’ve just had enough of killing people lately, and I can do without one more death on my conscience.”
He stared at me and then let his shoulders slump.
“I’ll organise something to eat,” he said. He sounded so defeated. I really didn’t think he was that long out of nappies. No wonder he got himself into trouble with the Zeniths.
I had questions — a lot of them. But gaining insight into this Mutt’s past wasn’t top of the list. Orbital drones were bombing planets, and my navigator might have been part of it. A Zenith hitman had been sent to Delphini B to take me out, and I still hadn’t figured out why I’d warranted that kind of treatment.
I had a bad feeling that none of this was over yet and it all paled in comparison to the fact that we were currently being hunted down by a full battalion of Zenthian battleships and hiding out in the most obvious place in the system.
I stepped aside and waved a hand toward the door to the bridge. The Mutt stomped out, shoulders hunched, and head bowed. I almost felt sorry for him.
I sighed and threw myself into the command chair and then checked all the settings. The system recognised me and opened up like a sunflower seeking UV rays.
The hours ticked by relentlessly. I kept one eye on the external vid-screens and the other on the lines of code I was reading. By hour two, I was almost cross-eyed. By the third hour, a headache had dug in. By the time we were meant to meet in the mess, I was famished, and I could smell whatever Marvin had been cooking.
I stood up, stretched, and ordered the Basic to lock down the bridge. Then I made my way to the mess with a quick stop at the med bay for analgesics.
Marvin had cooked enough to feed a Mutt army, but Odo wasn’t complaining. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to turn down the offering. The Mutt had made a selection of choices that would please every appetite on the ship; I was impressed by his consideration. I sat down just as Zy walked in, dressed in a clean flight suit and looking almost whole again.
Whatever your opinion of Zeniths, you had to admit their biotech was amazing. Little nanites had been hard at work within her body, boosted by whatever the med bed had done. Her fractures were, no doubt, healed. Her soft tissue injuries had vanished. From the way she moved, she must have been able to see out of both eyes again. I was relieved at the difference a few hours made but equally saddened by it.
Because it meant that they had tortured her again and again and a
gain. The reminder of her self-healing abilities left a sour taste on my palate; I almost pushed my plate away.
We ate in silence, too hungry and weary to make conversation, but by the time we’d finished, I knew we needed some answers. I could have made the Mutt leave, but he’d done a fine job of preparing the meal, and I would have felt like a heel doing that.
Besides, he had answers I needed too and could take some of the heat when the others began to fry under my interrogation.
“So,” I said, pushing my empty plate away, “let’s start with a sitrep, shall we?”
“We’re a little less fluxed than we were four hours ago, Cap’n,” Odo said.
I nodded. “ETA to engine restart?”
“Within the hour should do it. We’ll have enough juice to get out of here and use camo, but plasmas will still be out and overtaxing the engines with evasive manoeuvres won’t be a good idea either.”
“So, we can sneak but not run as long as we don’t get caught,” I said.
“Yep. That about does it.”
“Zy?”
“I’m ready for lift-off, Captain.”
“Five by five?”
She hesitated. Damn it! They’d really done a number on her, hadn’t they?
“Five by five,” she finally said.
I realised my hands were fisted beneath the table. I worked on releasing the tension before I did something stupid. Zy had been my navigator for three years. Part of the crew; my family. But all of a sudden, her wellbeing seemed to mean so much more to me than before. As if losing Doc and Cass had made Zyla’s survival that much more important to me.
I looked at Odo. I still felt the same way about him as I did before the shit had hit the fan on Ceres Alpha. He was family, and I wanted to do everything in my power to keep him alive.
But when I looked back at Zyla, I could tell my feelings had shifted.
Flux! This was going to be awkward as hell.
I scrubbed a hand over my face.
“And the systems, Captain?” Zyla asked.
I reached for the lifeline greedily.
“Two programmes that could come in handy if we get in trouble,” I said. “But which, considering our current power levels, shouldn’t be used at all. So, they’ve been locked out. There is still the data stack.”
“Data stack?” Odo enquired.
“Right. I forgot. You don’t know about that. Malcolm,” — we all looked at Marvin — “left a little spy in the system which I can’t eradicate. Every time we exit a jump point, it’ll send a data stack of our external comms back to Chi Virginis.”
Marvin swore in Mal.
“You got something to say, Marv?”
Odo sniggered at the Mutt’s nickname.
“It’s Marvin,” the Mutt in question growled threateningly.
“Or Marv,” I said, shrugging. “Take your pick.”
More swearwords in Mal.
“You wanna chime in on the data stack issue?” I asked, ignoring his language.
“I know how to block it,” he said.
I smiled slowly. “I knew there was a reason why I didn’t turf you out an airlock.”
He glowered at me.
“So, with that attended to,” I said to the table at large, “the systems look good. We just need to get out of here in one piece. Any suggestions?”
“I can hack the jump point, but it means going back toward Zenthia and Zenthia Actual,” Zyla said.
“Have we got enough power to use a jump point farther away?” I asked Odo.
“I wouldn’t recommend it. If we need any type of evasive manoeuvres, it’ll strain our batteries.”
“Then avoiding trouble makes sense,” I countered.
“The longer we’re in flight,” Odo stressed, “the worse our situation gets.”
That was bad.
“OK,” I said. “Zenthia Alpha-1 Jump Point it is. How far can we get once we jump?”
“We need a major overhaul,” Odo said. “The batteries are fluxed. Whoever integrated the camouflage into the ship’s systems made one hell of a mess. I’ve stopped the drain and enabled the camo without any adverse effects, but the batteries won’t store power for long.”
“Engines can’t keep them topped up?”
“They can. For a while. But it’s as if there’s a negative feedback loop in the system. Use the engines. Drain the power. Which forces you to use the batteries and we all know what happens when we drain those while in flight.”
Exactly what got us into this predicament.
“Could it be sabotage?” Zyla asked.
“Could be,” Odo admitted.
We all looked at Marvin.
He stared impassively back at us.
“Is this how your father works?” I asked.
Odo and Zyla said nothing. Maybe they’d put it together on their own. They certain knew how to wear poker faces. We waited for Marvin’s answer.
“Yes,” he said gruffly.
“He wants you back,” I mused. The closest exit jump point to the Zenthian system was Chi Virginis. Making it the obvious place to return to for repairs.
I let out a long breath and stared at the detritus of our meal. I would have liked to know why Marvin was hellbent on not going back there. I knew why I didn’t want to. But Marvin’s reasons would have been insightful.
And Malcolm’s reasons for making his son’s return a done deal would have helped out as well.
I reached forward and tapped the table in the right spot to bring up a vid-screen. I navigated the ship’s computer to show the Zenthian system and the closest systems to it on a star map.
I shook my head and slowly began to smile.
“You have a plan,” Zyla guessed.
“Maybe.” It was a bad idea. Going backwards never did anyone any good. But what choice did we have?
Return to Chi Virginis and hand a reluctant Marvin off to his father and then get thrown out an airlock for our efforts?
Or go somewhere else — somewhere I knew was off the beaten track and forgotten about — where we could hide out while Odo worked on the ship and we got some answers?
I looked up from the screen, my eyes meeting Zyla’s.
So many questions and not enough answers.
And now was not the time to seek them. We needed to escape, regroup, and plan from there.
I was good at planning. Very good. But something told me this plan needed to be the best I had ever come up with. Something was up with Zenthia, and it was spilling over into my world.
I leaned forward and pressed a finger to the vid-screen, highlighting where we should go.
“Here,” I said.
“There’s nothing there,” Zy replied, narrowing her eyes at the location on the star map.
“As far as anyone out there knows,” I said, “you’d be right.”
“But you know otherwise, Captain?”
It was a part of my past I’d left behind me a long time ago. But I’d left it intact, part of me knowing that it might come in handy again. Well, that time had come.
I was going home.
Or, to a part of it, in any case.
“Can we make it there, Odo?” I asked, not answering Zyla.
Odo scratched his big afro head and nodded.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “We’ll make it there, alright.”
I checked my chrono. Our final hour was up.
“OK, then,” I said. “Zyla, Odo, this is Marvin,” I indicated the Mutt. “The newest member of our crew.”
The Mutt blinked at me. “You’re not taking me back to Chi Virginis?” he asked. Then, “You’re letting me join your crew?”
He sounded desperate as if the idea appealed and he was worried I was joking.
I was, in a way. But his response made me question why I’d even suggested it.
I didn’t trust him. How could I, after what he and his father had done? But I also wasn’t too sure of Zyla’s involvement in the drone bombings. And I would lay down my l
ife for my nav.
So, why not?
“No to the first and yes to the second,” I said.
It took him a moment to parse that and then he smiled. Mutts are not attractive when they smile, but I had to hand it to him; he was trying.
“Welcome aboard,” Odo said, sounding reserved.
“Congratulations,” Zy added, sounding exactly like she always did. Zeniths could hide a lot of things, including their emotions.
They were both still pissed at me, but Odo and Zyla still let me call the shots.
For now, it was the most I could ask for.
And more than I deserved.
Chapter Thirteen
The engines started without complaint. But the power drained alarmingly.
“We still good for our destination?” I asked Odo over the comm.
“Just don’t make any detours,” he replied, his voice echoing in the larger space of engineering.
“Take us out, then, Nav,” I said to Zyla.
Marvin was sitting in the spare jump seat, I was at the command console, and Zyla was in her usual spot; navigation. From there, she could pilot the vessel as well as navigate.
Without Cassi to act as pilot, the job fell to either the Basic or one of us. I’d opted to give Zyla the reins. My nav needed to get her feet wet again.
And I didn’t completely trust the Basic.
It was a problem I would eventually have to address, but we had bigger hurdles ahead of us.
“There’s more of them,” Zyla said, registering the increase in the number of battleships in our vicinity.
I checked our camouflage; so far, so good.
“Easy as she goes,” I murmured.
We were running as silent as we could, which meant if we had to fire the railguns, Odo would fire them almost blind. He’d done it before, so I was pretty sure he’d hit something. And there were a hell of a lot of somethings out there to hit.
But the moment we opened up on the railguns, we’d be dead meat.
So, slow and steady and sneaky like a little field mouse was the order of the day.
Sweat started to make an appearance even before we’d made it completely out of the asteroid field. I sat as relaxed as I could manage in my seat. We weren’t a big crew, but seeing their captain panic would have had the same effect on the two beings on the bridge with me as it would on a bigger ship’s crew.
Absolute Zero (The Sector Wars, Book 1) Page 14