Wreck of the Nebula Dream

by Scott, Veronica

  “Khevan?” Mara asked anxiously, catching him by the elbow.

  “Don’t know. I’m going to see. You try and rouse Twilka, all right? Drag her into the shuttle bay if you have to, but make it quick. Have Paolo help. Get inside as fast as you can and shut this behind you, got it?”

  Squeezing through the steadily enlarging opening, Nick sprinted across the shuttle landing deck, in search of Khevan.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nick ran to the lip of the shuttle bay, relieved to see the crumpled figure of the D’nvannae Brother lying safely inside the Dream, behind the protection of the massive doors. A few more inches in the other direction and he would have been crushed as they closed.

  Groaning, Khevan stirred, slowly sitting up as Nick got closer, shaking hand rubbing his forehead.

  “You okay?” Nick knelt. “You’re sunburned or something. Your face is peeling.”

  Khevan stared at Nick for a minute, then examined his hands, spreading them wide and turning them slowly over. Every inch of the Brother’s exposed skin was red.

  “The embrace of the Lady takes a toll,” he said, struggling to get the words out, past chapped and dry lips. “She’s all heat, light, and fire.”

  “Yeah, I know. We saw her at the final moments.” Nick hooked both hands under Khevan’s shoulders and helped him get to his feet, boots slipping on the slick deck. “Impressive.”

  “She permitted you to see her?” Khevan was astounded.

  “We had a small disagreement, in fact,” Nick said, getting Khevan’s arm over his shoulder and supporting the Brother’s weight. “She wanted to send you off on a tour of Sector Seventeen without us. Or a shuttle.”

  “She wasn’t pleased to be summoned, to have tazlin used for such a purpose,” Khevan admitted as they trudged slowly toward the waiting shuttles, Nick supporting him, trying yet again to ignore the pain radiating from his damaged shoulder. Probably a broken bone or three, not much I can do about it.

  “You can’t argue with the Lady – what am I saying – you shouldn’t even have seen a glimpse of her.” Khevan sounded outraged, insulted. “She never shows herself to those who haven’t earned the right through trial and sacrifice. You aren’t of the Brotherhood, not even a novice Brother.”

  “Not ever going to be either, let me tell you,” Nick said. “Not after this encounter. Although I appreciate the risk you took to get her assistance.”

  “She demanded a sacrifice for my impudence in calling on her for this service.” Khevan was matter of fact about it, but Nick heard a subtle tremor in the man’s voice. “I don’t know why she relented.”

  “The children said they saw her sister –”

  “The Lady in White?” Khevan stopped in his tracks.

  Nick had to stop, too, which he did with an impatient curse. Khevan directed a searching look at him. “She came as well to our aid?”

  “Paolo described her pretty clearly.” Nick urged Khevan to take another step and they proceeded. “Mara and I were all eyes for your Lady in Red. Maybe it’s not as odd as you’re thinking,” he said. “After all, Lady Damais did say you’d made a choice between the two, which one to serve, right?”

  “Yes, I did. A long time ago, for reasons that – seemed correct. Then.”

  Nick clapped him gently on the shoulder. “Well, then, maybe the White Lady hasn’t given up on you yet. Some connection still exists between you. Whatever, I suggest we get the hell out of this deathtrap. You can rethink your vocation and your allegiances another time.”

  “How is Twilka?” Khevan asked anxiously as Nick got him walking again. “I should have inquired after her first,” he berated himself. “She took no hurt? The Lady wasn’t angry toward her for assisting me?”

  “See for yourself in a minute or two,” Nick said. He was the one who had stopped walking now, gazing off to the port side of the shuttle bay. “Maybe the Lords of Space have thrown a new chip on the board for us.”

  Craning his head, Khevan assessed conditions in the shuttle bay, eyebrows raised. “What are you talking about?”

  “Behind the second shuttle, to the left. Is that the captain’s personal flier, or am I dreaming?” Not waiting for an answer, Nick headed to investigate, urging Khevan along somewhat faster than the Brother wanted to move. Nick could tell he was pushing Khevan too hard, but he was impatient to check out his discovery.

  Mara and the children, all three of them supporting Twilka to one degree or another, changed their laboriously slow course across the shuttle bay to intercept Nick and Khevan at the trim little ship. With a resounding bang, the airtight door once again sealed the bay from the corridor.

  Glancing behind him distractedly, Nick barely registered the change in status. “Oh, good, the door will keep the pirates out for a brief time, if they get this far into the ship,” was all he said, although the sudden noise had been deafening and echoes were still bouncing through the bay.

  “I heard some noise at the far end of the corridor, by the grav lift,” Mara said nervously. “I thought the damn door would never close. We have to hurry, whatever we’re going to do.”

  “What we’re going to do is get ourselves on board this beauty.” Nick gestured at the small ship they were standing in front of. It was rakish, the design suggestive of speed and maneuverability. “The Sigrid” was inscribed in black under the nose. Even the crisp Basic lettering was slanted, as if it had been written under acceleration.

  Mara’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. She checked out the rest of the shuttle bay, then stared at Nick. “But it’s blocked in by the two shuttles. Wasn’t the plan to take one of them? What happened to simple?”

  He shook his head, grinning with pleasure. He was the happiest he’d been since this whole series of misadventures kicked off. He actually had some hope they might survive, now. The captain’s private ship could make a huge difference. “This is a much better plan, trust me. More chance we’ll actually get away intact. Okay, let’s get all of you safely aboard. Then I’ve got some work to do before we make our run.”

  Going to the access panel on The Sigrid’s flank, he keyed in his all-purpose SF code. “I’ll get you settled, warm her engines up, then I’m going to go to each of the shuttles and set their autopilots. I’m hoping we can activate the bay doors from inside The Sigrid’s cockpit, which would be a fairly standard enhancement for the captain’s own ship to have installed.”

  “And then?” Khevan closed his eyes, leaned heavily against The Sigrid, a man literally on his last legs.

  “Then the two shuttles blast out of here, full power, going in opposite directions, drawing off any waiting Shemdylann. While they’re busy shooting at empty ships, we hit the straight line and we’re outta here, free and clear.” Nick made the classic flying gesture with his left hand.

  “Good plan,” Khevan concurred wearily. “I wish I could be of more help, but I can barely stand at the moment.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ve done your part today and then some. Come on.” Nick helped the exhausted Brother up the ramp, inside The Sigrid and into one of the six seats inside the cutter. “I can do this myself, no problem,” Nick assured Khevan as the D’nvannae sank into the plush seat.

  “Nick,” Mara called, her voice carrying a mix of exasperation and worry. “Can you help me? Twilka’s collapsed again.”

  “She has taken harm?” Khevan made as if to rise, although plainly he was a man at the outer limits of his endurance.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Nick was reassuring, already moving down the short aisle to the hatch in response to Mara’s summons, dodging the two children as they came inside.

  “Where do you want us to sit, sir?” Paolo asked, politely.

  “Take these two seats here, trooper. Then stay put and make sure your sister does the same, okay? And Huntington.” Nick checked out the bedraggled, one-eared bear. “Not long now and we’ll be off this damn cruise ship, okay?”

  “And go find my father?” the boy requested hopeful
ly.

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know if we can, but we’ll sure try.”

  He moved into the shuttle bay.

  “Thank goodness.” Mara was kneeling on the deck next to an unconscious Twilka. “She passed out. I was lucky to keep her from slamming her head on The Sigrid as she pitched forward. All I could do was break her fall.” She watched as Nick picked the younger woman up and adjusted her weight in his arms, getting his balance before attempting the sloping ramp up into the cutter. “Do you think she’s going to be all right?” Mara stood up, dusting her knees off briskly.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. All I want right now is to see clear space in my vids and Sector Sixteen border beacons on my readouts, okay?” His shoulder ached. Thank goodness Twilka hardly weighs more than Gianna.

  Trailing after him, Mara said, “Sorry.”

  Nick was already regretting the sharpness of his reply. “No, I apologize, Mara. Between Paolo asking me if we were going to find his dad on the lifeboats out there, and Khevan half dead, not to mention Twilka in who knows what kind of state, I’m running out of good answers to questions.”

  “And we do all keep asking them, don’t we?” Mara shook her head ever so slightly. “We trust you to have the answers, save the day –”

  “Yeah, well, damn flattering, but I’m operating strictly on luck and instinct here.”

  Exchanging rueful smiles, they entered The Sigrid single file.

  Awkwardly twisted in his seat, the D’nvannae Brother was anxiously watching for their arrival. He gestured with both hands. “Put her here, next to me, and I’ll watch over her.”

  “No problem.” Nick complied willingly. Twilka wasn’t exactly heavy, but he was aching and exhausted from the stint on the Shemdylann torture rack. Periodic trickles of excruciating electric pain kept working their way through his spine and peripheral nervous system. He could only imagine what kind of state he’d be in had Lady Damais not protected him so thoroughly.

  Well, I’d be dead.

  Leaving Khevan to get Twilka settled in her seat, he headed forward to the small cockpit, Mara right on his heels. Impatiently, Nick tried to direct her to a passenger seat, but her next words forestalled him.

  “I have an intra system pilot’s license,” she said matter of factly. “You go deal with the shuttles and the air lock, and I’ll get this baby revving.”

  He stared at her, evaluating this suggestion.

  “Go on,” she urged him, impatient now herself, but good-naturedly. “You have a lot to learn about me. I tried to tell you once before, up on the Observation Deck, but you were in too big a hurry to listen. Trust me – I can pilot this class of ship, okay? We’re inside, so I won’t need your magic access code to activate the controls, right?”

  “Right.” He shook his head, assimilating this unexpected piece of luck – a qualified co-pilot. “Right, yes, on a civilian vessel like this, the hatch access grants all access. Okay, I’m gone, then. She’s all yours. Get the engines hot, stay below redline.”

  Glancing at her wrist chrono, Mara marked the time. “How long –?”

  “Give me ten minutes, then start the outer bay doors cycling open. I’ll be here, don’t worry. And don’t delay.”

  “Good luck.” She was gone, stepping confidently past him, through the hatch to the cockpit.

  Amazing how calm and no-nonsense the woman is, no matter how dire the circumstances. Running from The Sigrid, Nick headed for the nearest shuttle. Slapping the Special Forces access code into the hatch so rapidly he nearly got it wrong, he was in the ship in the blink of an eye. It took him two or three minutes to start the engines and lay in the course he wanted this doomed decoy to take. Another two minutes to program a time delay into the AI. Then he was out and running across the bay to the other shuttle, casting an anxious glance at the blast doors blocking access to the main body of the Dream as he sprinted. There didn’t appear to be any activity there, no one trying to gain entry.

  Blinking red indicator lights gave him pause when he powered up the second shuttle. It was low on fuel, which somehow didn’t surprise him. The crew being too lazy to keep it topped off fit right in with the rest of the SMT Line’s lax approach to the fundamentals of space travel. Probably planning to attend to refueling when they arrived at Sector Hub, never remotely envisioning an in-flight emergency, much less the need for an evacuation.

  Nick spared a second to hope The Sigrid was fully fuelled. He only needed this shuttle to fly a limited distance anyway, as he expected the pirates to blast it out of space in short order. But The Sigrid was going to have to take them a lot farther, at high speed.

  Out in the bay, he could hardly hear himself think over the whining of the three sets of engines. He was on the ramp, taking the first steps into The Sigrid, when he heard the klaxons go off, signaling the imminent reopening of the outer space doors.

  Hastily, Nick bounded up into the cutter, bringing the ramp and door to a closed position.

  “Cutting it a bit fine,” he said to no one in particular, taking a deep breath as he dogged the hatch. Running down the aisle, he flashed the children a confident grin, squeezing Paolo’s shoulder as he went by, taking note of Khevan and Twilka, who both appeared to be unconscious now. The couple were slumped in their seats, eyes closed, heads together.

  Nick had no time to check on them further, not to mention nothing he could do for them, so he hoped they were still breathing and entered the cockpit.

  “About time!” Mara greeted him from the co-pilot’s seat. “You’re not leaving much margin for error.”

  “Better this way,” Nick said, sliding into the pilot’s chair and shoving the throttle up past redline in the same motion. Working together, he and Mara held the small vessel steady, as it strained against the controls.

  “How are we for fuel?” He held his breath for her answer.

  “Fine. They must have refueled right after she came aboard from Glideon.” Mara eyed him, head tilted. “Why?”

  Checking gauges, laying in some instructions for the AI, Nick explained. “The port shuttle is running on fumes. I was hoping we weren’t going to be in the same state.”

  “The first shuttle is moving out.” Pointing at the vid screen in front of them, Mara frowned and shifted in the co-pilot’s seat. “Are the outer bay doors open wide enough yet?”

  “Better be, or we’re not going anywhere either.” Nick let out his breath in a whoosh as the first shuttle cleared the still-opening access panels. The second shuttle was already moving, as he had programmed its AI to do.

  “Now or never, Mara, let’s do it!” Unleashing the power of the straining engines, he allowed The Sigrid to shoot across the shuttle bay, arrowing out into free space before blasting along a trajectory away and down from the Nebula Dream.

  Hardly had they emerged from the shuttle bay, when an explosion in near space rocked the ship, as the first shuttle succumbed to a savage assault from three Shemdylann kite fighters. Nick concentrated on flying the cutter, going for speed versus evasive action at the moment. Mara monitored the action on the vid screen. There was another brilliant flash of light.

  “The pirates got the second shuttle, maybe a lifeboat, too.” Mara recoiled, hands clenching in her lap. “Those poor people.”

  Nick wrenched The Sigrid into a violent change of course, zigzagging off toward a cluster of irregular asteroids. “Damn, I tried to program the shuttles as far away from the LB pod as I could, but there was only so much I could do about it. No room for maneuvers. Pursuit?”

  “Not yet.” Peering closely at the screens, Mara fiddled with the display to show the rapidly receding Dream more clearly.

  Threading a course through the asteroids, so keyed up with adrenaline his reflexes were hair trigger, Nick never reduced speed, which was their best ally at this point, going up, over, around and between them. The Sigrid burst past the last fringe of jagged asteroids and accelerated even further under Nick’s firm control. Mara cast an anxious eye at the en
gine readouts, bit her lip, but said nothing. She scrutinized the rearview screen. “Lords of Space!”

  “What?” Nick didn’t take his eyes off the course he was running. “Let me guess – the pirate ship is coming?”

  “Oh yeah,” Mara confirmed, her voice a bit awed. “Didn’t you tell me it was a small ship?”

  Sparing one split second to check out the image, Nick put total concentration on navigating. “It is a small ship, for a pirate, but fast. Pray we got enough of a head start and they don’t want us that badly.” He sent the cutter off on a tangent and then came to his main heading again, holding steady for a second before jinking the opposite direction.

  A concentrated blast of energy lanced past the portside.

  “Seven Hells, they have the range already. Gunner’s damn good, for a pirate,” Nick paid reluctant tribute, even as he sent The Sigrid into a violent upward spiral.

  The enemy’s next two shots missed by a wide margin.

  Reverting to the straight course, Nick coaxed a fraction more speed from the straining engines. “Can you operate the com?”

  “You want to talk to them?” Mara was astounded.

  “No, I’m hoping maybe the freighter’s in range by now. I want to warn her about the Shemdylann.”

  “Good idea.” Mara made a grab for the com, almost thrown from her seat by Nick’s next set of evasive maneuvers. “What was the incoming freighter’s name?”

  “Space Dragon, Captain Rafferty.” Dredging the names from his memory required conscious effort. Making the fastlink connection from the observatory seemed amazingly long ago.

  “Calling the Space Dragon, Nebula Dream survivors calling the Dragon, please respond,” Mara repeated the message, reeling it off without drawing breath, bracing herself against the gyrations of The Sigrid. After a few sets of repetitions, she clicked the circuit closed and threw Nick a despairing look. “There’s no answer.”