A line of white light shot into the room, setting Marshall blinking as his eyes adapted. Sparks were shooting from the control systems where Spinelli had hot-wired the mechanism, but at least there was still a car waiting for them.
Looking around at the bridge, Marshall said, “Let’s get out of here. They’ll need us all elsewhere.”
“No more missile impacts,” Steele said. “That must be a good sign, mustn’t it?”
“For all we know, whoever is in command ended up surrendering,” Prentis said. “We really were on our last legs, sir.”
“Enough of that, Spaceman,” Marshall said. “Thoughts, Deadeye?”
“As far as we know, Auxiliary Control was undamaged. The automatic systems would have transferred control across instantly, so your father is probably running the ship right now. Whether they were able to get that last fireshuttle home is the question.”
“I just hope those switchover worked in time.” Marshall crowded himself into the shuttle, and tapped for Auxiliary Control; when that button failed to respond, he tried the Hangar Deck, and this time the doors obediently closed. “Must be some damage to the shafts. It’s close enough, anyway.”
Slowly, the elevator began its descent, and Marshall pulled his communicator out again, fiddling with the controls in an attempt to pick up a signal from anywhere. No matter what he tried, there was no response. He couldn’t even get a data pickup.
“Thirty missile hits,” Caine said. “I wouldn’t have thought we’d still be in one piece.”
“Don’t underestimate this old girl,” Marshall replied. “She’s taken damage that would have seen any other ship smashed into pieces and still been ready for the fight.”
“Perhaps we could go for a while without proving it again, Danny?”
Sighing, Marshall said, “What the hell is going on out there? Are we winning? Have we lost?”
“We’ll know in a few moments,” Caine said. “Relax.”
Shaking his head, he replied, “I don’t find limbo that relaxing.”
“By now, the battle is over, whatever has happened. There’s no sense worrying. We all did the best we could, the whole crew. You included. And we certainly made a mess of that Cabal fleet.”
The doors finally slid open, disgorging the erstwhile bridge crew into a mostly-abandoned corridor, a couple of dazed technicians sitting in a corner, limply holding onto a rail, looking up at the crew as they approached. Marshall looked at Caine, and drifted past them onto the hangar deck, finding pandemonium reigning as technicians struggled to ready the elevator airlocks.
“What’s going on?” Marshall said to no-one in particular.
One of the technicians turned to him, and said, “Don’t worry, sir, we’ll have the elevator airlocks ready in a minute.”
“Ready for what? Could someone tell me what the hell is happening around here?”
“Got it, Chief,” one of the technicians said, and a loud bang hit the deck, followed by the noise of hardware straining to work long after it should by all rights have given up.
“Hercules Shuttles One, Two, Three, arriving docking bay,” Kibaki's voice announced over the intercom. “Medical teams stand by, servicing teams stand by.”
“Hercules?” Marshall said, kicking off towards the battered shuttles as they rose to the deck. As the first shuttle rose, he brought himself to a stop just short of the airlock, and waited for it to open; Orlova drifted out, slightly dazed, tears streaking down her face, and Marshall, without even thinking twice, took her into a bear hug.
“Damn it, Maggie, I thought you were dead!”
“We thought Alamo had been blown up,” she replied, shaking her head.
“How did you get here?” Caine said.
Glancing across at her friend, Orlova said, “Picked up some intelligence that Alamo was about to be ambushed, so here we are. Good shooting, by the way.”
“When? Good shooting when?” Marshall said.
A familiar voice from the rear said, “About two and a half minutes ago, when the last fireshuttle caught that bastard battlecruiser amidships. It’s going to be a long time before that ship gets back into service.”
“Dad! We won?” Marshall yelled.
“You did, Captain,” he replied with a broad smile. “The gamble paid off. The enemy fleet is either crippled or destroyed, and we’ve got clear space. Makarova’s keeping her nice and stable.”
“The carrier?”
“Standing off. I guess they only had one shot, and they used it.”
Orlova drifted over to the Major, downcast, and said, “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry? What the hell for?”
“You told me to take care of Hercules. I led her into a battle, and rammed her into a ship. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry, Maggie? The old girl went down exactly as she would have wanted to go, wreaking havoc on the enemy that kept her in chains for a decade. She had a glorious death.” More Hercules crew were emerging from the shuttles, several of them right to the medics. Only a few of them had escaped burns, broken burns, or other injuries.
“Alamo, sir?” she said to Marshall.
“She got through, Maggie,” he replied. “When it counted, she got through. Her and her crew.” A smile built up on his face and just kept growing, “Welcome home, Maggie. It’s good to have you back.”
Behind, in the background, a noise was building around the deck. It took Marshall a few moments to realize that it was cheering, applause. Looking across at a beaming Caine, he turned to clasp his father’s hand, holding it aloft as though he’d just won a prize fight. He knew how much still lay before them, how much more work they still had to do, but for the present, he was content to just sit back and enjoy the moment. They could pick up the pieces later, now they knew they would have one.
Chapter 28
The wounded were stacked out into the corridor; Marshall shared a few smiles and nods with those who were conscious as he walked into sickbay, looking around for Duquesne. She was over by a corner, drinking a cup of coffee, bleary-eyed and pale, while her staff moved from patient to patient, trying to do what they could for the more serious cases. At the far end of the room, nestled in a bed, Marshall found the man he was looking for, and he walked over to sit beside Cooper.
“How are you doing, Corporal?”
“Can’t complain, sir,” he rasped. “Sir, Lieutenant Lane.”
“What about her?”
“She gave her life to save the ship. We wouldn’t have stopped those troopers without her. She did it willingly, she knew what she was doing.” He stopped with a cacophony of coughing, and slumped back down, trying to breathe.
“Easy, Cooper. I’ll see she is honored. The others too.”
“Thank you, sir.” He looked around, down at his bandaged hand, “I’ll be back on duty as soon as I can.”
“You get some rest, Corporal. That’s all you need to do right now. We’ll manage until you get back on your feet.”
“Aye, sir,” he said, his voice trailing away as he relaxed into unconsciousness. Duquesne walked over to the bed, shaking her head as she looked down at him.
“I hope he’ll let himself rest now. He wouldn’t let go until you’d seen him.”
Looking up at the doctor, he replied, “He’s a brave man.”
“That much is obvious.”
“Will he recover?”
Sighing, she said, “That depends on your point of view. He’s out of the Espatiers, that much I know.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t take people with a prosthetic hand. I couldn’t save it.” She slumped down into a chair. “If he’d been my only patient today, I might have. All I could do was save his life, and that was hard enough. I didn’t have time for anything else.”
Nodding, Marshall said, “What’s the count right now?
”
“Fifteen dead, including six from Hercules. Most of them in the Battle of Engineering.” Looking up at him with empty eyes, she said, “And sixty-one wounded.”
“That’s more than half the crew…”
“Burns, broken bones, shrapnel damage, exposure to vacuum, you name it. About twenty of them are clear for light duty, about a dozen of them...well, we’ll see if I can work a few more miracles. I’m going back into surgery in a minute.”
“You’re doing everything you can, Doc.”
“Yes,” she said. “Was this really necessary?”
“Those fifteen people might have saved fifteen thousand if we’ve managed to prevent the next war. We did a hell of a lot of damage to those devils, Doc.”
Nodding, she said, “I’ll try and hold onto that, then. Until I can crash out myself in a while. I’m getting too old for this.”
“We all are.”
Clapping him on the shoulder, she walked over to the operating room, running her hands through the sterilizer as the door closed behind her. He looked around the ward for a moment, shaking his head. A few of them looked up and smiled, one even managed a salute; it was all he could do not to break down himself. He walked out of the room, almost colliding with a figure at the threshold.
“Sorry, sir.”
“That’s fine, Bradley, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Is Cooper in there, sir? I heard he was wounded in the battle.”
“Back of the room. He’s not conscious, but I think you’d do worse than to sit with him for a while. By the way, that was damn fine work out there.”
“I failed, sir,” she replied, looking down at the deck.
“Half the enemy force was destroyed before it could get to Alamo, and you were flying improvised craft thrown together at the last minute. You did good. Who the hell turned you down for fighter pilot training?”
“I had an attitude problem, sir. So I was told.”
“If you still want to try for it, I’ll have a word with a couple of people when we get back, see if I can get you in. Whatever happens there is definitely a promotion in your near future.” He glanced across at Cooper, “His too. When it dawns on him that he can’t stay in the Espatiers, you tell him that they’ll always be a place for him in the crew of any ship I command.”
“Thank you, Captain. I will.”
Nodding his head back towards the ward, he said, “Go. Consider yourself on leave for the rest of the day. I think you’ve earned it after being locked in a cockpit with the Hook for that long.”
Walking out into the corridor, he gratefully stepped into the elevator, walking past a technician working on the control circuits. Reaching past her, he tapped for the bridge, scanning his datapad to look at the catalog of damage. He turned with a start as he realized it was one of the Neander, a survivor from Hercules.
“Are you Captain Marshall?” she said, eliciting a surprised nod. “I have heard many things about you from Captain Orlova.”
“Captain Orlova?” he replied with a smile. “I deny everything.”
“You should not. Her comments were more than favorable.”
The elevator jerked to a halt at the bridge, and Marshall tapped the override to open it. The room was still dark when the doors opened; Quinn was in the gloom, directing a repair gang.
“Sorry, sir, we’re running a bit behind schedule. We should have everything here running again by tomorrow, and I’ll try and take steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“I was impressed enough that it happened this time.” He tapped the bulkhead, then said, “How’s our girl?”
“Battered and bruised, but we’ll put her back together again. Might take a little while, but it’s nothing we can’t fix. The superstructure is intact, no hits got that deep.” With a smile on his face, he looked around the deck, “She took more damage than I thought possible and still kept flying. You ought to give Tyler a commendation, by the way; I don’t think I could have kept a straight heading under those conditions.”
“Way ahead of you, Lieutenant. Can I use my office?”
“You can, and Maggie’s waiting in there for you right now.”
Nodding, Marshall stepped into his office, slipping sideways through the stuck door, to see Orlova already waiting for him, standing at parade rest in a corner of the room, looking at the flickering viewscreen. He moved around her to take his seat, and gestured for her to do likewise.
“First of all, Maggie, I’d like to apologize.”
“That’s quite all right, sir. I was expecting censure.”
“Censure?”
“I lost Hercules, sir.”
Shaking his head, he replied, “I was apologizing for putting you into that situation in the first place. It wasn’t fair to leave you in command, but you performed magnificently, Maggie. Better than I could have ever expected, ever hoped.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve read your report, and a bigger piece of self-flagellation I’ve never read. Fortunately I’ve also looked at the ones submitted by Carpenter, Race and Nelyubov, and all of them sing your praises like the Callistan State Choir. It is they I am choosing to believe. Why were you so hard on yourself?”
“I was in command, sir,” she said, quietly, “and therefore I was responsible for everything. I took excessive risks, and I not only lost the ship but six of her crewmen with it.”
“Good answer,” Marshall said. “You’ve learned the hardest lesson of all, that when you are in command you must hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else will ever set for you. It’s something that no-one can really understand unless they have been there.”
“Exactly, sir,” she replied, nodding.
“Except I have been there, Maggie. Exactly where you have been. At twenty-four the last war put me in command of a wing, ten years before I should have had to do that job. I know exactly what it means to be catapulted into a position of responsibility that you aren’t ready for.”
“Then you understand, sir. It was...the greatest burden I’ve ever known.” She looked down at the floor, “I wasn’t ready. I may never be.”
With a smile, Marshall leaned back, “If someone said that they were ready when they sat in that chair for the first time, I’d kick them out of it. No-one is ever ready to take command, Maggie, not in their own mind. There’s always that little voice in the back of your head, the one that longs for someone else to arrive, that tries to think of ways to get out of it.” He paused, then said, “You need that little voice. That’s what stops you getting overconfident, what keeps you grounded.”
“Even you, sir? I’ve never…”
“You want to talk to Deadeye some time on this subject. I’ve sat in this office more than once, longing for someone else to take this job, to make a big decision for me. It’s something we all go through, no matter how long we’ve been in the chair.” With another smile, he said, “You realize, of course, that nothing will ever be the same again.”
Frowning, she replied, “Sir?”
“You’ve commanded a ship, Maggie. It might have only been for a few weeks, but you had an independent command, and what is more you executed it magnificently. It changes you; I know it changed me. It made me look at the big picture a lot more, made me less focused on my own department and more on how it affected the ship. Take that, use it properly, and it will make you a better officer in the long run.”
“I’ll try, sir.”
“That, and based on this performance, Commodore Tramiel will be on first-name terms with you when we get back. You may have noticed that only ship commanders – or prospective ones – exist in his universe.”
“You’ve been using my first name as well, sir.”
“Have I?” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine, sir.”
“I
think you’ve probably earned the right to use my first name as well. In private, at any rate.” Leaning back, he continued, “This won’t be the only time you command a ship, you know. Give it five, ten years, and you’ll have your own bridge again. It was always on the cards, but this has probably sealed the deal if you don’t mess it up.” Shaking his head, she said, “First contact with a long-lost branch of humanity, discovery of another habitable planet, securing a strategic outpost in the heart of the Cabal and a secret supply route back to our space...you really hit the jackpot this time.”
“I was lucky.”
“Luck favors the prepared. You used that luck well.”
“You didn’t do badly yourself.”
“Alamo would have been destroyed if you hadn’t arrived, Maggie. We’d have smashed that fleet, but we’d have left only a few escape pods and some wreckage to tell the tale. If we were lucky. Now we can capitalize on the victory; I’m taking us to Hydra Station.”
“Price will be glad for that, sir. I told him relief was on the way, but I didn’t expect it this soon.”
“Now comes you, Maggie.”
“Sir?”
“Your future on this ship.”
“I was hoping to return to my position at Security, sir.”
“Lieutenant Bailey is doing an excellent job there. I don’t like the idea of moving her.”
“Perhaps the Beta Watch Shift, then; I was sorry to hear about Matsumoto.”
“Based on your reports, I actually thought that Mr. Nelyubov would be a good fit there. And when we get back, I intend to see he gets that promotion he was expecting.”
“Thank you, sir, but what about me?”
“I’ve still got one vacancy to fill. What do you think about taking over as Operations Officer?”
Her eyes widened, and she said, “Operations Officer? Sir, I’m only a Sub-Lieutenant.”
Passing a datapad across the table, Marshall replied, “Actually, you’re a full Lieutenant. With seniority dating back to your assumption of command of Hercules. I signed the paperwork for a field promotion this morning.” Raising a hand, he continued, “It’s the least I could do. You saved my ship, Maggie, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have in this job.”
Battlecruiser Alamo - 7 - Battlecruiser Alamo: Sacred Honor Page 22