by Nick Webb
He peeked into the temporary morgue and stared at the rows of bodies. They seemed asleep, no more. Just asleep. But the blue faces and hands told the grim reality. Jake was nearly ready to summon Ben to sickbay and pin the captain’s bars on his collar. That would make at least one of them happy.
“Friend!” a voice called out to him. He focused on the man being carried into the crowded room and finally recognized him through the caked-on blood in his hair and face.
“Alessandro! You’re injured! Did this just happen?” He ran over to the man and helped lift him onto an examination table.
“No, of course not! I was injured during the first few minutes of combat. They found Commander Xi, you know.” His voice grew more subdued. “He’s still down there—we laid his body in a storage room.”
“One hundred seventeen,” Doc Nichols said, glancing up at Jake with a dark look.
“But friend! You should know, I’ve figured something out about those new engines. I thought I knew them inside and out at CERN where we developed them. Where we came up with the Milan approximation. But opening them up and realigning the field under bombardment from Imperial warships, well, Jake, you can imagine what invigorating effect that has on this gray matter up here,” he poked his blood-encrusted forehead.
“All in good time, buddy. Let’s get you some treatment and rest, and then I’ll come down to your quarters and you can tell me all about it on that chalkboard of yours. Over a game of chess, of course.”
He patted the man’s shoulder and started to walk away, before looking back at him. “Why did you say we?”
“We?”
“You know, we came up with the Milan approximation? So you knew the guy that came up with it?”
Alessandro hesitated. Jake had not seen Alessandro hesitate before. He didn’t know that the man knew how to hesitate. “Well, Jake, after a fashion. You see—”
“Bernoulli, where are you from?”
“Italy. You know this.”
“But where? Where in Italy?”
Alessandro shrugged. “Milan.”
Jake finally put the pieces together. How the man seemed to know so much about the engines. The Milan approximation—why hadn’t the inventor just used his own name?
He began walking away again. “Uh huh. Get some rest, Bernoulli.”
***
Captain Titus waited outside the door of the ready room, trying to build up the gumption to enter. Music drifted through the slit between the double doors—music he didn’t immediately recognize, but that wasn’t what kept him waiting. The thing holding him back was the memory of the chief engineer, and the two young technicians who’d been assigned to help him.
He wasn’t sure why he was thinking of them—there’d been a hundred other deaths that day from the collision with the Phoenix and the subsequent blasts from being caught in its gravitic wake. There was nothing particularly special about those three versus the rest of them. And yet he still couldn’t shake the image of the man staring out at him with cold, dead eyes immersed in the pool of blood spreading onto the deck.
“Captain, if you’re going to come in, come in,” the Admiral’s voice called from the room. Titus gulped. He approached the door, which opened of its own accord.
“Do you have your final damage report, Captain?” Trajan was seated, his one eye was closed, and it wasn’t until that moment that Titus realized that it wasn’t just his eye that was missing, it was his eyelid. Somehow that made it worse. On one side, that face looked almost peaceful with its eye closed, contemplating the music sounding from the speakers. But the other half looked like the face of a dead man, especially now with the gash across his cheek and forehead that Trajan for some reason had not seen fit to bandage.
“I do, sir, but shouldn’t you go to sickbay? Your face looks like it is causing you pain.”
The eye stayed closed, and Titus thought he saw the barest hint of a smile, but on closer inspection, the Admiral’s face maintained its contemplative aura. “I feel no such thing, Captain. All I feel is resolve. The damage report?”
Titus approached with the data pad and set it on the desk next to the Admiral. “I have it here sir.”
“What’s the summary?”
“One hundred and two dead, fifty-six missing—”
“The ship, Captain, tell me about the ship,” Trajan said with impatience.
“Crews are still repairing the breaches in the hull—they were too much for the hull-patch drones. Anti-matter engines are fully repaired, though the gravitic drive will take another week at least. Weapons systems are normal, except for the forward railgun turrets and ion beam cannon. Oh, and the collision destroyed half our assortment of nuclear warheads.” Titus watched as Admiral Trajan absorbed the news, his eye slowly opening to stare at him.
“Excellent. Wonderful job, Captain. Please extend my personal thanks to the repair crews.” He closed his eye again. “The music. Do you like it?”
Titus listened to the power chords sounding out in rapid succession, oddly interspersed with what sounded like a banjo. An odd combination, but somehow it worked, even if the music was not to his tastes. “Interesting, sir.”
“Indeed. You are listening to a band called the Tiny Titans. They were popular on Old Earth about two hundred years ago. Twenty-fifth century. They started out as a heavy-metal crew, but as the story goes, they went backpacking in the Smokey Mountains one weekend, got lost, and didn’t emerge from the wilderness for a month, during which time they holed up with a Shinto Shaman who lived alone in the woods. When they returned to the music scene, they all claimed spiritual enlightenment, and completely changed their style of music. This is the result.”
“How very … interesting, sir,” said Titus, unable to think of any other adjectives he’d like to use in the Admiral’s presence. In truth, he hated the music. Hated most of the music that the Admiral played in his vain attempt to understand their adversaries. For all the good it had done him, he thought sarcastically.
Trajan swiveled toward the viewscreen. “You don’t need to play dumb with me, Captain. You may speak your mind. If you are wondering, you will never end up like the Chief Engineer or like his assistants. You are far too valuable to me. So please. Tell me your thoughts.”
Too valuable? It suddenly struck Titus that Trajan almost never referred to someone by their name, or even by their rank. He always used their position, or their assigned station. Chief Engineer. Comm. Tactical. Captain—that last one the Admiral used often, but it could be a position, not just a rank. People only mattered to the man insofar as they were useful to him.
“It’s atrocious, sir. Musically, I suppose it works, but it sounds like the result of mastiff mating with a poodle,” said Titus, momentarily nervous that the Admiral had been lying about his ability to speak freely.
The chair swiveled back, and the eye opened in surprise. “Such vulgar thoughts, Captain. I’m surprised.” He held up a hand when he saw Titus’s mortified expression. “But thank you, Captain, for finally speaking your mind. I will require that of you in the coming weeks and months as we exterminate the rest of the Resistance.”
“So, our work is not finished? Our sources say over ninety-five percent of all registered Resistance fighters were on those nine ships.”
“Captain, we may have lost this battle, but the war is nearly won.”
“Lost, sir?”
“Yes. Lost.” For a moment the Admiral looked incredibly annoyed. “Mercer and the Phoenix got away. And the Heron, inexplicably. We captured only one. The Roc. The plan was for every ship to be either destroyed or the crew captured and put to death. We lost two times today, and if we don’t track down those ships … let’s just say there are too many loose ends hanging out of the cloth. We need to finish this task once and for all. The Emperor demands it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Titus. “What do you have in mind?”
“Nothing yet, Captain. That is why I am studying this music. It is one of Mercer’s favorite
musical groups, after all.”
Titus noticed that Admiral Trajan used the Rebel captain’s name, and wondered why only that man had earned the honor so far.
“And you think studying it will give you insight into his character? His strategy?”
“I do. It already has.” He stood up and walked over to the Panreh pipe hanging in its customary position on the wall. Titus’s back went tense. The Admiral took it off its mount and wiped a smudge with his sleeve. “Really, Captain, you needn’t be so antsy.”
Titus swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Please get on the comm and get in touch with Imperial intelligence services on Earth. I need the ranking operative on board within two hours. Dismissed.”
As Titus nodded and turned away, he looked at the deck plate and saw the vague outline of the stain of blood. Trajan had only carelessly wiped it away. As Titus left through the sliding doors, he vowed to let that be the last needless pool of blood carelessly spread by the madman. He’d find a way to protect his men.
Somehow.
***
Ensign Ayala hurried down the corridor, weaving through the debris still scattered on the floor, avoiding eye contact with the crew members as they rushed past her, only occasionally nodding a vague greeting to someone that recognized her. It was easy to recognize her, she knew. She was used to it. Being from Belen meant being a constant celebrity. Almost like a mascot. And it rankled her.
But he didn’t treat her like a mascot. He was different.
“Hello, Willow, coming to the memorial tonight?” Ayala froze. She forced a smile onto her face and turned to face Commander Po. Would the woman see through her? Discern her secret?
“Hello, Commander. Blessings.” She took a step forward, but crossed her arms, which, after a moment, she decided looked too defensive and she lowered them to her side. “I will. I just need some rest. I’ve been on duty for so long …”
Po smiled, and reached out a hand to her shoulder. “Of course, Willow. Get some rest. You deserve it. Great job on the bridge today. I don’t know if we would have made it out without you there.”
Ayala couldn’t tell if the praise was genuine, or if the commander was just trying to be a good XO. Apparently Po didn’t know that XOs were supposed to be gruff, fearsome, no-nonsense. Not grandmotherly. The XO was never your friend.
“Thank you, sir.” She took a step away before finishing with her usual Belenite farewell. “Blessings be upon you, Commander.”
She arrived in her cramped quarters sweating, having broken into a run after she left Po in the corridor, and she hadn’t stopped until the door slid shut behind her. Why had she run? She swore at herself, wondering why anyone would want to be with such a wreck—her hair was both fizzy from static and wet with sweat. One of her earrings had ripped free during the battle, and dried, crusted blood covered her ear and part of her neck. What a sight, indeed.
“You finally made it. I’ve been wondering when you’d return.”
She turned to face him. And smiled. “I couldn’t wait to get back.”
“What’s the status? Are we out of danger? How’s the ship?”
Ayala approached the bed and sat next to him. “We’re fine. We made it out. The ship’s in a bad way, but we’ll muddle through somehow. Mercer seems capable enough.”
“Mercer? Who’s that?”
“The new Captain. Watson is dead, you know.”
“Well you Rebels had it coming. Fighting us like this? And all my work for nothing? You all ought to be ashamed.”
She turned to him, and pressed her chest into his. “Sorry, Senator. It’s just, it’s just you’re so sexy when you chastise …”
Senator Galba pulled off Ayala’s uniform top and squeezed her breasts. “And you’re … you’re simply irresistible.” He kissed her, and she tingled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way. Except she did remember. Five months ago, on Corsica. He’d noticed her, and winked at her, and for three nights they’d somehow had their tryst unseen by his aides and by her roommates. How had his aides not known about her? Maybe they did. She didn’t care.
But at the thought of the senator’s aides, she pulled away. “Are you sure you’re ok with this? You just lost your staff. And that man on the Fidelius? Was that your double?”
He nuzzled her ear. “One of them. I have two. Jaques was the best, though. I’ll miss him, poor bastard. Now come here, my Belenite goddess.”
She hadn’t heard that one before, but let him press down on her. Was she betraying her friends? Was this wrong? No. It couldn’t be. The man was the head of the Reconciliation committee, after all. He wanted good relations with the Resistance. And isn’t that what she was doing right now? Forging good relations?
Their time together flew past, and after an hour Ayala looked up at the old-fashioned clock hanging above her bed—a miniature grandfather clock that her mother had given her. An actual relic from Belen, before it was destroyed.
“I’ve got to be at this memorial in four hours. I need to sleep, Harrison.” She cocked her head towards him, resting on the pillow next to her. “Or is it Demetrius? Or Senator? I’m still never sure what to call you.”
He kissed her forehead. “Call me what you want.” He pulled the blanket over his bare chest and turned over. “So Willow, tell me. What’s our next destination? Anywhere you can arrange to drop me off? I need to get back to the Senate.”
“Really? They have no idea you’re here. And if they did, well, I have no idea what Mercer would do with you.”
“Take me hostage?”
Ayala rolled her eyes. “Please. That’s not what the Resistance does.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard stories, my dear, that would curdle your blood. But no matter. I need to get off this ship.”
She looked him in the eye. “And I’m telling you that it’s not going to happen for awhile. There’s no way to get you off right away without someone seeing you.”
His eyes narrowed, as if he were about to protest, or to yell—she still didn’t have a good handle of what kind of man he was—but he set his head down and put on a thin smile. “Very well. I’m sure you know best, my dear.”
She noticed his brow still furrowed, as if he were still lost in thought, planning or plotting his escape, but she let it be.
For now, though, she was in heaven, though the ship had nearly been blown to hell.
***
The story continues in
CHAINS OF DESTINY (EPISODE #2)
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Other books by Nick Webb
THE PAX HUMANA SAGA
Episode 1: The Terran Gambit
Episode 2: Chains of Destiny
Episode 3: Into the Void
THE LEGACY FLEET TRILOGY
Book 1: Constitution
Book 2: Warrior
Book 3: Victory
THE ROHVIM CHRONICLES
Book 1: Metal and Flesh
Book 2: Water and Blood
MASKS OF TERREMAR
Book 1: The Maskmaker’s Apprentice
SHORT STORY CONTRIBUTIONS
The Robot Chronicles
The Telepath Chronicles
The Galaxy Chronicles
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