by Sean Danker
“Which system are you from, Ensign?”
“Rothgard, sir.”
“Which planet?”
“Bellegard.”
“Nice,” I said. Bellegard was known for white sandy beaches and pretty greenish waves. Of course, those picturesque islands were only one corner of that world, but it was the corner they always seemed keenest to show off.
I’d never been there.
“You’ll have a good story for when you get back, about how you discovered a new planet. Maybe they’ll name this rock after you.” Well, it couldn’t actually be a new planet if it had taken us only two weeks to get here. Why couldn’t I place this place? I tapped my foot on the deck a couple of times, listening to the sound echo through the dead ship.
I had never felt this gravity before. I was sure of it.
If the navigational computers had been tampered with, and we’d boosted longer than we intended, we could theoretically be well into unregulated space. Not exactly unexplored space, but territory that was known only to the most daring surveyors. That wasn’t a comforting thought.
“Watch your step, ma’am. There’s something on the floor here,” Salmagard said to Deilani.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Looks like a maintenance kit. Someone’s been through here,” she said, directing the words at me.
“Not necessarily—it could just be Tremma’s style. He’s not hung up on details,” I told her.
“I noticed,” Salmagard replied. There it was: that flash of disdain in her voice. I smiled. She could trade her class for the uniform, but she couldn’t turn it off completely. What a fascinating girl. “We’ve cleared the third core. Moving into the cylinder. Visibility low,” she added.
“There’s dry ice under that mesh. Just keep your suit powered and dial up your filtration.”
“Do we need to switch to O2?” Deilani asked.
“It should be safe, but watch your monitor just in case. You picking anything up, Private?”
“Negative.”
“Admiral?” The way Deilani said it made me wish she’d call me something else.
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“The ladder here is heavily damaged. It doesn’t look recent.”
“Just make peace with the fact that this ship isn’t up to code. Blame it on Ganraen engineering.”
“This has nothing to do with engineering—this is some kind of combat damage.”
I sighed. Couldn’t these three take a hint and just stop noticing things? For their own sake as much as mine. How could I convince them that they were happier just getting on with their lives?
I didn’t think I could.
“Why would there be a fight on a Ganraen freighter run by the Imperial Service, Admiral?” Deilani asked, and I could picture her fingers opening and closing again, practicing for my neck.
“No one said the Service ran this ship,” I pointed out.
“So Captain Tremma was just the owner? Just a guy with a commercial freighter? You’re saying the academies handed our sleepers to some freelance courier?”
She had a point. That would never happen.
“Er,” I said.
“Go on, Admiral. Don’t be shy.”
“You’re right. That doesn’t seem very likely, does it?”
“Who did this?” I could hear her over the com, tapping on the metal.
“Not a clue,” I replied, meaning it. I hadn’t the faintest idea what had happened to the damn ladder. I could guess, but there was a high probability that with Tremma dead, no one would ever know. There was a pause.
“We’ll have to find another way up, ma’am,” Salmagard said to Deilani.
I still hadn’t seen anything to suggest we weren’t alone.
Something about this didn’t feel right. Something about all of it didn’t feel right. There was strangeness I could explain, even with the trainees’ wild conspiracy theories, and then there was this. I’d have to be careful not to mention that to Deilani.
There was a sharp intake of breath over the com. “What is it?” I looked up at the paneled ceiling. Deilani and Salmagard had to be above us.
“Sir, there’s a hatch up here to the outer corridor—we are completely depressurized on the other side.”
“What?”
“There must be some kind of hull breach.”
I swore, amazed. We hadn’t even suspected a breach.
This was life without computers. We’d been completely oblivious.
“Better check it out,” I said.
“Sir, there is some electronic interference.”
It took a moment for Salmagard’s words to sink in. “To your suit or your scanner?”
“Scanner, sir.”
“But there’s no power,” I said. “What could interfere with a combat scanner? Apart from, like, military jammers?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Salmagard sounded calm. That was reassuring, though it wasn’t a good sign that I was looking to the trainees for reassurance.
“Check it out. We’re going to check the hatch here; if it’s sealed, then we know our friend went your way.”
“Into the depressurized zone?” Deilani asked, baffled.
“No other option. The ducts were all intact, but if he’s got a tech suit and some tools he could be anywhere. Even if there was power, do you think any of the safety locks work down here?”
“Fair enough.”
“Step it up,” I told the ensign, and we hurried forward. We had to be sure we were clear on our end, even if the odds of finding anything were slim.
“Hard to see in this,” Deilani grumbled over the com, though she sounded more curious than annoyed.
“In what?”
“This mist.”
“Can you get a composition on it?” That could potentially tell us where we were.
“With a med scanner?” The contempt in her voice was thick.
“Just asking.”
Deilani gasped. “Oh, Empress,” she breathed.
I straightened up, focusing on the com. I’d heard her angry, but I’d never heard her like this.
“What is it?”
“Uh—substantial structural damage. The hull is . . . very breached.”
“How bad?”
“It looks like something just ripped us open.” She sounded as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. She wasn’t thinking; she was completely absorbed in what she was seeing, and I heard a hint of her accent creep through.
Maybe that was why Deilani didn’t like Salmagard; she was from Cohengard. She’d done a nice job hiding it, but now that I knew where she grew up, it was easy to understand where she was coming from.
Salmagard came from a privileged background. Deilani came from the one city in the entire Empire where people were seriously disadvantaged. I should’ve picked up on it sooner, but she’d been doing a passable Marragardian accent earlier. “There’s something here—not rock. Tremendously dense material. Not much of it, though. Admiral, we’ll need to decon. In fact, I’m not sure about this door,” Deilani went on.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure the computers were still up when we were hit. If there was a contamination hazard, that section would have sealed.”
“I’m releasing precautionary nanomachines anyway.”
“Why? Because it’s green out there? Didn’t you already do that, back at the airlock?”
“This isn’t a debate.”
I let her overrule me. The voice of caution was sometimes tiresome, but usually correct.
It took longer than I liked to leave engineering and join Deilani and Salmagard.
They were only faint outlines in the green mist that had filled the curved space that housed the radiation shield. The shield itself was shattered, of course—that
was much easier to do than to tear open the side of an armored freighter. And this freighter was armored. Unfortunately, that was now evident to the trainees, and they were free to wonder why a boat like this needed armor.
“How?” I said stupidly, gazing at the damage. “How?”
“Weapons fire?” Deilani suggested.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Meteor?” Nils wondered aloud.
“Impossible,” I said.
“Why?”
“The repulsors would’ve stopped it.”
“This tub has repulsors?” He sounded disbelieving.
“Why not?” Deilani said, and I looked over at her blurry form. “It’s got military armor.”
“What? Why?” Nils was bewildered.
“Look for yourself.”
Irked, I joined them at the tear in the bulkhead. Outside was nothing but swirling green mist. We couldn’t see anything at all. No landscape whatsoever. We were about halfway up the ship, which meant it was quite a long way to the ground. I pulled Deilani back from the edge. “Show me what you found.”
She did. The stuff was black and heavy. It seemed like rock, but it was definitely new to me. It wasn’t as though I’d visited every developed planet in the galaxy, and I was no geologist—but this stuff was strange.
“I don’t suppose you’re good with geology,” I said.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to explain that armor.” I couldn’t see her face, but her voice told the whole story.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to lighten up.”
“A disguised freighter with armor? And you want to tell us you’re not a spy?”
“Hey,” I said. “This isn’t my ship. And I don’t think this happened in zero-g.”
“It didn’t.”
“Then it can’t be the reason we landed. Is there a lot of this?”
“A couple of kilograms’ worth. That’s the biggest piece I saw; I can’t see much. It’s mostly like gravel.”
“Uniform?” I asked curiously.
“No, not at all. It’s a mineral, or something like one. These are broken pieces—see the smoother side?” She seemed impressed. When she was busy accusing me of espionage every five minutes, it was easy to forget that she was a scientist. I’d have to trust her on this one.
“I do now.” So Deilani and I could get along; we just had to be totally preoccupied. “How’d it get in here?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe better.”
“It’s not,” I assured her. Salmagard was standing by the tear in the bulkhead, gazing out. “What is it?” I asked. She couldn’t possibly see much out there.
“My readings, Admiral. I think the interference is coming from outside.”
“Just don’t fall.” I’d worry about readings and interference later. “You want to take a closer look at this?” I asked Deilani.
“Might as well; the nanomachines are already live.”
“Fair enough. What could have done this to the ship?”
“Are you actually asking me?”
“Why shouldn’t I? I don’t know.”
“You don’t even want to know what all of this looks like to me,” Deilani said. She’d gone through suspicion and into disgust, then come out on the other side. Maybe now she’d understand that this was as bizarre to me as it was to her, and calm down a little.
“Admiral?”
“Go ahead, Private.”
“Sir, these anomalous readings could account for what I picked up earlier.”
“How sure are you?”
“In light of the plausibility of it . . .” She trailed off, sounding embarrassed.
Bad readings were strange, but they were a lot more believable than some kind of phantom stowaway. I hoped she was right.
“Are you picking up movement out there too?”
“Yes. But there’s also something interfering with the sensors. I’m trying different optics to penetrate this mist. It’s not normal mist, sir.”
“Clearly. If it was, it wouldn’t be able to exist in no atmosphere.” I stepped up to the tear and looked up. The mist above was paler than the mist below. “Is anything working, Private?” I asked.
“No, sir. My scanner could be malfunctioning.”
I’d always envied those imperial combat scanners. It was like having an entire support team attached to your head, a support team I could’ve used once or twice. It wasn’t doing us any good here, though.
What were the odds that Salmagard would have a defective one?
“So there was never anyone to begin with?” Nils asked.
“Who would it have been?” I shrugged. “And we’ve got bigger problems. This tear might go all the way down the hull. I don’t think it’s likely, but we could be bleeding air without realizing it. We need to start collecting O2 tanks, and we need to find a water supply and stockpile some just in case.”
The plan hadn’t changed; we’d just gotten distracted. We had to stay focused on the essentials.
“I can collect O2 reserves,” Salmagard volunteered. I wondered what her family back on Earth would think of their little princess doing this kind of manual labor.
“Nils, go back to Medical. Take a look around and figure out whatever we’re going to need power for—then you need to find power sources.”
“Like what?”
“A latrine isn’t much good without power, and we’d better keep one med table juiced, just in case. Think about hygiene, convenience. Comfort. We have to try to get ready for the long haul. Use your imagination. Ask Deilani if you have to. Just make it work, and stock it up. Private, give the lieutenant my weapon so she won’t feel uncomfortable being alone with me.”
Salmagard produced my sidearm and held it out to Deilani, who hesitated for only a moment before taking it. I couldn’t read the trainees with their helmets deployed.
“What about us?” Deilani asked, watching them go.
“We’re going to break into Tremma’s quarters. I need a terminal that hasn’t been affected by whatever put the ship out of commission.”
“The captain’s personal reader,” she said.
“Right. I don’t want to set up in Medical until we know more about what happened here. We might just be digging our own graves. Follow me.”
“Cheery.”
“You have a better idea?”
“No, I agree. Let’s do it if we can.”
We left engineering. I was tired of climbing ladders.
“How are you going to access his secure terminal?” Deilani asked.
“We’ll think of something.”
“And you’re trying to convince me you’re not some kind of criminal.”
“I haven’t been trying to convince you of anything,” I told her. “Except maybe that it’s not in your best interests to fixate on me when we might be in serious trouble. You want to know my secret?”
“Please,” she said dryly.
“Fine. I don’t like to tell people this because sometimes it makes them insecure,” I told her. “But I’m a pretty great guy. Like, to the point that it’s disruptive to the people around me.”
“Oh, Empress. Just shut up.”
“No, really,” I said, shrugging. “That’s why they made me an admiral. Because I’m such a catch.” I looked back at her. “You can tell, can’t you?”
“And I’ve got first-tier genes.” She wanted to hit me.
“You might, for all I know.” She didn’t. Genes could gain value through deeds and accomplishments, but that value could also be lost. In Cohengard, it had been.
“I don’t. I’ve been tested.” There was a clatter, and Deilani let out a little cry, stumbling. I made a grab for her, but I was too slow. It wasn’t a serious fall; she caught herself with her hands easily enough. I pointed my li
ght at the deck. Her foot had gone straight through a corroded grate.
“This bloody ship,” she swore, whacking the grating with her fist. It rattled loudly.
“I know.” I put my hand out. She stared at it, then gave me an incredulous look.
“Are you helping me up or inviting me to dance?” she asked.
That stung a little. I adjusted my posture and folded my arms.
“Which do you prefer?” I asked. She groaned and pushed past me.
Tremma’s quarters were easy to find; Evagardian ship layouts are elegant and efficient, and they don’t vary much. This was a Ganraen ship, but in some ways it had been rearranged for the convenience of its imperial crew.
“At least we don’t have to worry about security.” I was looking on the bright side; having no power had its perks. On the other hand, having no power also meant there was nothing to physically move the door aside but us, and this one was less cooperative than the last few we’d encountered.
I put my hands on the metal and pushed with all my strength. “Shoot the seal,” I told Deilani.
“What?”
“Hurry up. Just compromise it a little bit—that’s all we need. Then we can open it.”
“I don’t believe this. The ship’s falling apart and you want to break it even more.” She positioned my pistol, activated her helmet, and looked away. We both flinched at the shot, though we couldn’t possibly feel the sparks through our suits. I felt the seal break, and heaved on the handle. The heavy Ganraen door didn’t slide easily in its track, and I needed Deilani’s help to move it enough for us to get inside.
“Are you even up to physical standards?” she asked, annoyed.
“Whose standards?”
“You’re not even trying anymore.”
“It should be proof I’m not a bad guy,” I said. “A bad guy would be in better shape. Go easy on me; I’m detoxing.”
Tremma’s cabin held no surprises for us. It wasn’t as ugly as the rest of the ship, but he spent most of his time in a sleeper. There were a few mementos, touches of home—and Tremma’s home appeared to be the Tressgard system, though I couldn’t determine which planet from just these trinkets.
There was a commemorative statuette from a recent event at the Baykara Games at New Brittia, suggesting that Tremma had been in Free Trade space not long ago.