Anders was undeterred by their conversation. “Come on to sickbay, Vogel, or the lieutenant will have my hide.”
Elsa made a face. “I’ll catch you later, Marraine.”
A crewman offered to help Louise to sickbay, but Hon refused gruffly. The short, stocky man scooped up the taller woman in his arms without obvious strain. “I’ve got her,” he rumbled. The crewman wisely stepped back.
By the time Elsa reached sickbay—escorted by the inescapable Anders—Karl was already out of his suit and being worked on by several medical staff. One of them shifted enough for Elsa to see the lieutenant, and she sucked in a breath sharply. Two puncture wounds were visible on his chest, and when the medical staff turned him, she caught sight of a third near the center of his back. The owl creature had left its mark where it tried to pick him up with one three-taloned foot.
One of the staff administered a transdermal spray, and Karl’s muscles relaxed as the painkiller did its work. Elsa hadn’t realized how much pain he had been in.
A medic buzzed around Elsa like an irritating snowfly, taking readings of her vital signs, running off to compare them with normal standards, and running back again to see if there were any results out of the ordinary after her time without a helm on the planet. In another section of the sickbay, Hon hovered around Louise as another medic set her leg. The engineer was still unwontedly quiet.
Elsa fidgeted, itching to leave sickbay and find out what was happening outside. She had felt the ship hop in and out of sailspace several times during the span it took the medic to run all of the scans that his overly attentive heart desired.
Suddenly the medic snapped to attention. Elsa followed his gaze to see Captain Jacob Tsarevich stride into the sickbay.
“Hey, Dad,” Karl said from his bed. One of the wounds on his shoulders was still being bandaged with synth-flesh, and the captain had to crane his head to the side to see past the medic to his son.
He crossed the room quickly enough that Elsa’s medic had to scuttle out of his way to avoid being run down. “What happened, Karl?” Without giving his son time to reply, he turned to the doctor working on him. “Is it serious?”
“It’s fine, Dad,” Karl answered for the medic. “Three puncture wounds, which have been duly cleaned and dressed. Some local fauna was reluctant to see us go. Elsa and I got in a scuffle with a giant bird while retrieving one of the skiffs.”
Karl nodded towards Elsa’s bed as he spoke. Elsa resisted the temptation to shrink back. Jacob Tsarevich, King of the Stars, hero of the Battle of Castle Nebula and the Cendrillon Wars, had an intimidating presence. But the captain only flicked a glance her way before returning his attention to his son.
“Any other injuries?” he asked.
“Louise broke a leg when a large mammal attacked her, although you wouldn’t know it; she built her own splint and handled herself extremely well. The only other casualty was the second skiff,” Karl continued. “I’m sorry about that, but there wasn’t much to be done.” The captain waved that aside as Karl shifted uncomfortably on the bed, earning himself a dirty look from the medic. “Now what’s this monster doing to our ship, and why are we lurching in and out of sailspace like a drunken sailor on his first leave?” Karl asked.
The look the captain gave the medic told Elsa that there would be further interrogation on the medical front, but for the moment Tsarevich let his son’s injuries alone. “From what we can tell, the creature is some sort of spaceborne organism that feeds on radiation. It appeared from behind the planet and—we thought—attacked us. The thing is a mess of radiation, and we quickly realized the creature was making an even bigger mess of our commlines. We thought we’d lured it away from the planet, tried to get back here and pick up you folks, but it followed us. A couple riggers were on the sails when that happened, and it got tense for a minute.”
Elsa looked up sharply. The movement caught Tsarevich’s eye, and he glanced her way. “Everyone was fine,” he continued, attention back on Karl. “The riggers thought the thing was just playing with us, so we gave it a toy to chase—lured it all across the star system, popping in and out of sailspace. Turns out it has sails of its own and could move through sailspace too.”
Karl made a disbelieving sound.
“I know, it sounds wild,” Tsarevich admitted, “but it’s true. We thought we’d lost it for long enough to get the skiffs back, which is when we were able to communicate with you. But this creature is so fast, it was back far sooner than it had a right to be. I’ve been on Fleet ships that were slower,” he grumbled. “We nearly stayed too long, waiting for you and your crew to return. The ship got badly battered—the creature has a mouth on it like you wouldn’t believe, and a tail to slap us silly. Our sails have been damaged such that we can’t use them for long trips without burning them out. Hence all the short hops in and out.”
Karl frowned. “But where are we heading?”
The uninjured Tsarevich squirmed more uncomfortably than the wounded one. “Back to the star bell,” he admitted. “It burns my engines to backtrack so soon on this expedition, and there’s clearly a lot worth investigating in that star system. But the damage to the sails is more than we can fix on our own, and Alvolus told me plainly that I wouldn’t have a ship left to sail if I didn’t provide him with replacement parts.” Tsarevich scowled.
Elsa exhaled in an almost-whistle. She could only imagine that conversation. Must’ve been like two ore barges smashing into each other.
“I’ve already sent a long-range message to the Strelka asking them to bring some specialists and supplies on their return trip. We’ll rendezvous at the bell and get patched up before heading back out again.” His mouth twisted again. “Alvolus tells me it could take weeks. I’m not best pleased.”
Karl’s expression made it clear that he felt the same. “No help for it, it seems.” He tucked his chin to look down at his bandages. “What a mess of a first expedition. Returning with our tail between our legs so soon.”
If Elsa had to describe the captain’s expression, she would’ve called it rueful—which didn’t seem to fit his personality at all. “A bit longer than that, I’m afraid,” he said. “Getting back to the star bell will take longer this time due to the state of the sails.”
Karl exhaled in frustration, an exasperation that Elsa shared. Leaving the planet largely unstudied and unexplored rankled, even if it was a temporary abandonment. “I guess that’s how it has to be,” he finally murmured.
The Sovereign limped up to the star bell two and a half weeks later in considerably sorrier condition than she had been in when she departed from it.
Almost immediately, the rigger crews were sent out to overhaul the sails. The Strelka and the new parts she brought weren’t due at the bell for another day, but before the new components could be installed, the old ones had to be stripped away anyway.
Jaq, Gus, and Marraine worked together on the upper reaches of the fore topsail, which had taken heavy damage from the creature. The Sovereign was tucked up close to the star bell, and being on the furthermost tip of the sail gave them a vantage point that looked down on the bell. Though, as Marraine was constantly reminding them, there was no down in space.
The light from the bell pulsed distractingly bright, and Jaq found himself squinting as he worked on extracting burnt-out cendrillon filaments. The beginning of a headache sent a twinge between his eyes.
The headache was only in part due to the tedious work and the flashing light. The mindless labor allowed him entirely too much time to think.
Jaq was loyal to his friends with an intensity usually only reserved for blood relations, and he loved them, but he knew they viewed him as the irresponsible one of the bunch. He admitted, memory was not his strongest trait—he would never acquire Gus’ encyclopedic knowledge of everything he encountered—but he was aware of more than they realized.
He had suspected Marraine’s longevity for weeks, his suspicions gleaned from comments she had made in conversatio
n that didn’t otherwise make sense. They had talked enough of her life back on Hayzeltry for him to figure out that fay skin was much tougher than human skin. He had encouraged her to keep any fay biological differences secret; the galaxy was an exploitative place. The peace accords had kept the fay safe so far; no one had been permitted to study them, so no one knew for certain whether they were adapted humans or something different. Marraine was among the first handful of fay to ever leave the planet, so opportunities to observe them were rare.
Until Elsa had come to him with the story of what happened on the planet, he believed he was the only one who knew beyond a doubt that his girlfriend was an alien.
Jaq hammered at a particularly stubborn piece of filament, giving it a wrench with his pliers to unjam it. My girlfriend is an alien. There weren’t any dating handbooks on how to handle that particular situation. He shook his head at his own thoughts. He hadn’t even told his family that he was dating, much less that he was dating Marraine.
His concern for Marraine battled with his concern for his family. He had been sending home a lot of money when he was a cinder, but the Fleet didn’t pay much to those starting out in its service. He had mined for a little less than a year, which wasn’t long enough to support his family on his earnings for long. If he thought about it too long, he felt guilty for leaving the mining company. But when he imagined leaving his friends and Marraine, he felt bereft.
He glanced up at the fay, who was working farther up on the sail. She worked deftly and with the same grace that characterized all of her movements. He felt a pang. No, he couldn’t leave her.
“Jaq. Are you even listening to me?”
Jaq looked at Gus, who had his boots magnetized to the halyard and was standing in front of him at an impossible angle with his hands on his hips.
Jaq was vaguely aware that his friend had been talking for a while. “Nope. Not even a little bit. Sorry.”
“I was talking about the creature; we still don’t know what it—” Gus broke off.
Jaq wrestled some more with the filament. “What it what?”
Gus still didn’t respond, making Jaq look over at him. His friend had an indecipherable look on his face. “What is it?”
“Do you hear that?” Gus asked quietly.
Jaq left the filament alone for the moment and listened. “No—yes.” A faint murmur whispered in his ear through his helm commline.
Marraine zipped down the halyard to land next to Jaq. “Can you hear her?” she asked, worry etching a frown into her forehead.
“Is it one of the other riggers?” Jaq asked doubtfully.
Gus shook his head. “I think it’s a recording. It loops after a few seconds.”
Marraine gave him a strange look. “Of course it’s a recording. It’s coming from the star bell. Someone is stranded there.”
“I can’t hear the words,” Jaq complained, giving his head a shake. “What does she say?”
Marraine cocked her head to listen. “ ‘Attention, all ships within range. Marooned aboard star bell; please send transport as soon as possible.’ Then she lists her coordinates.”
Jaq looked sharply up at Gus. His friend’s face was white. “We need to get a shuttle,” Gus said. “Now.”
“How long do you think she was stuck on the bell?” Elsa asked before taking another bite of pancake. Bruno was on duty, but the rest of the ex-cinders had managed to sync up their schedules for a breakfast together in the galley.
Jaq sorted through his fruit helping, picking out the strawberries and putting them one by one on Marraine’s plate as he did every morning. She adored strawberries with a passion bordering on obsession.
Marraine was too excited to notice. “She couldn’t say; she was half out of her brain!”
Jaq cracked a smile at the incorrect idiom. He could swear she did those on purpose sometimes; he’d heard her use some of them correctly often enough.
“The poor woman was on a cinder transport that was attacked by pirates,” Marraine continued. “She was captured to be ransomed along with the rest of the crew, but she has no family that she knew how to contact.”
“She wasn’t worth anything to the pirates,” Gus added, finally looking up from his own meal, “so they marooned her here.”
Marraine couldn’t stay quiet enough for Gus to get more than a few words in edgewise. “They left her some protein rations and water, and fortunately the star bell has life support systems that engage whenever it detects that technicians are brought aboard, but she must have had a horrible time. She’s terribly lucky that our helm commlines picked up her transmission. Those star bells broadcast so much, we could easily have missed it.”
“By the way,” Gus commented, “she says she’s from Anser.”
Elsa’s curiosity sat up and pricked its ears. Her eyebrows rose. “I’ll have to meet her.”
“She wants to meet you,” Marraine said. “When she mentioned where she was from, I told her we had another Anser-born on board.”
Gus shifted, a gesture of subtle unease that caught both Jaq’s and Elsa’s gaze. “Something wrong?” Elsa asked.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
Jaq leaned back from the table to eye his friend. Gus had only eaten a few bites of his pancakes, and the rest were mashed into an unidentifiable mess. Clearly, something was bothering him.
Evidently it was clear to Elsa too. She continued to look at Gus, waiting.
He caved remarkably quickly. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something about her feels wrong.”
Jaq raised an eyebrow. He had yet to meet the woman himself; Gus and Marraine had been there when the shuttle retrieving her docked, unable to contain their curiosity. He had been trying to compose a letter home with little success. The message sat uncompleted in his cabin, and he fought the urge to squirm every time he thought about it. He’d been unable to bring himself to tell his family that he had left mining.
“Gus, how can you say that? She’s been alone on that bell for no one knows how long, after her ordeal with the pirates,” Marraine scolded. “I feel very sorry for her.” She paused long enough to wolf down the strawberries Jaq had given her, adroitly avoiding every other piece of fruit on the plate. Jaq held back a smile. He knew the others were sick of him saying that Marraine was adorable, but he could barely help it when she did things like that.
Marraine looked past Elsa’s shoulder towards the galley entrance and sat up straighter. “Now hush, Gus,” she said, even though the ex-cinder hadn’t said anything more, “you must be nice. Here she comes.”
Jaq turned to see Karl escorting a black-haired woman over to their table. She was wearing nondescript Fleet-issue clothes, and her straight hair hung in sheets on either side of her face.
Karl steered her to the ex-cinders’ table, probably hoping she would feel more comfortable around colleagues who had done the same line of work. “Hello, everyone. This is Cilla. I believe a few of you have met?” He quickly introduced the crew.
Marraine stood up and hugged the woman before she could even sit down. Cilla hugged her back without hesitation, and Jaq saw tears well up in her eyes at the unexpected sympathetic gesture. Jaq felt a pang of sympathy; she had probably gone through terrible things aboard the pirate ship.
Marraine immediately tugged Cilla over to sit beside her. “I’m gladdened to see you again, my dear. Would you like a strawberry?” She pushed her plate of fruit over towards Cilla.
Cilla finally raised her head, and Jaq was surprised to see lines in her face. She looked to be almost forty, yet she had moved like a much younger woman, and her hair was without any silver. “Thank you,” she said in a birdlike voice so softly that Jaq could hardly hear her. She took one of the berries and quickly ate it.
The speedy disappearance of the fruit seemed to remind Elsa that their guest hadn’t had regular meals in some time. “Can I get you something else?” she asked. She lifted her fork in salute. “I can vouch for the pancakes.” She gav
e the woman a friendly smile.
“Oh yes please,” Cilla said, turning toward her in relief. “Are you Elsa?” She looked timidly at Gus. “Your friend—was it Gus?” she asked. He nodded. “Your friend said you are from Anser too?”
Elsa smiled widely. “Born and raised, though I haven’t been there in many years.”
The woman relaxed visibly. “I’m so glad to meet someone else from home.” She looked down at her plate. The fervency of the reply seemed unusual to Jaq.
“Of course,” Elsa said. “What region of Anser are you from?”
Cilla’s eyes welled up again, and tears splashed onto her plate. Jaq froze with his forkful of pineapple halfway to his mouth. He never knew what to do when people started crying. He locked eyes with Karl, who looked similarly baffled. Jaq turned a beseeching gaze on Marraine.
The fay rose to the occasion and moved to put her arm around the woman. “I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. But you’re among friends now, and we’ll—”
Cilla sobbed harder. Elsa put a comforting hand on her arm, and Cilla moved closer to her, burying her face in Elsa’s shoulder. Elsa’s face wore a startled expression, but she hugged the older woman close until her sobs quieted.
“Why don’t we get you those pancakes?” she asked. “You must be hungry.”
Cilla nodded a tear-stained face, and the two stood to go through the food line.
Karl stood with them. “I should say goodbye now before you go, then. I have to leave; we’ll be meeting with the Strelka soon to coordinate the repair work.”
“How long do you think it will take before we can ship out again?” Gus asked.
Karl heaved a frustrated sigh. “Weeks. We have to replace so many of the cendrillon filaments that we’ve wiped out the inventory in this area of space. More will have to be shipped in, and that’ll take time. We’re stuck here for now. The Strelka can’t stay long to help either. She’s bound for the Avis system, actually.” He nodded his head toward Elsa and Cilla, and Jaq dimly recalled that Anser was in the Avis system, or close to it. “She’ll be back out this way in a month, but we should be almost done with the repair work by then.”
The Star Bell (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 3) Page 16