The Empty Warrior

by J. D. McCartney

  “All right people,” she said loudly, doing her best to project an air of authority, “let’s get started. First on the agenda, where are we and where are we going. Pender?”

  Abblehoff dropped his feet from the table and sat up straight before replying. “The short answer is that we are presently in uncharted space,” he began. “And we are headed deeper into uncharted space. I can say with certainty that we’ll not fly into a star any time soon, but other than that, it’s impossible to know.” Space, for all its emptiness, got remarkably crowded at velocities many times that of light. Small debris could be shunted aside by the far reaching forward deflectors, but a collision with a wayward rock of any appreciable size could easily put an end to Vigilant. Unmapped areas of space were not to be traveled lightly, and it was clear that Abblehoff was not pleased that the ship was well out of any established shipping lanes.

  “Without doubt we tread a dangerous path, but there are still the Vazileks to consider,” Valessanna countered, slightly defensive in tone. “They are sure to be in pursuit, leapfrogging behind us. How long before we are far enough ahead of them to change course without danger of being detected?”

  Abblehoff shrugged, but was prepared for the question. “It is impossible to say definitively, not knowing their top speed, acceleration, or their sensor range and efficiency. But I have calculated, or rather estimated, that if their ships have relatively the same capabilities as Vigilant, and their crews are equally proficient to our own, that we would need to hold this course for approximately eight hours from the time we enabled the deep drive. That estimate is based on two Vazilek ships in pursuit; if the third, the one we hit, was not damaged enough to keep it from joining the others, then we would of course have to wait even longer. And there is always the possibility that they are faster than we are, or their sensors are longer ranged, so even more time may be necessary. I doubt that is the case, based on what little we know of Vazilek technology, but it is impossible to be certain. I apologize for the imprecision of my report, but having no known values for many of the variables involved; it’s the best I can give you.”

  Eight hours, Valessanna thought dejectedly, and that merely a conservative estimate. She had expected to have to hold this course for some time, but eight hours or perhaps longer? It was hard to accept. The odds were that they could travel for weeks through uncharted areas and not incur any damage. But that also meant, although the “odds” were very much against it, there was a small chance the ship could be reduced to pulverized bits of speeding wreckage at any moment.

  “Why so long Pender?” she asked.

  “Well, we are damaged and hardly making our best speed. Two of their ships are not, and as I stated, the third may not have been terribly harmed. We did not, after all, hit their engines. If their acceleration rates are comparable to our own, even though they have to brake and go sublight every so often to scan, they may still be making much better speed than we are for a considerable amount of the time that they are over one point zero. But this is all conjecture. Simply assuming that they are not faster than we are when undamaged could be a disastrous mistake.” Abblehoff shrugged again. “For all I know they could be fast enough to pass us in eight hours. But my recommendation is still, based solely on an educated guess, that we stay on our present vector for eight hours, hope we don’t hit anything, and then make a course change as quickly as we can and get back over the barrier before any of the nasties show up. I think that is the best we can do at this point.” He leaned back his chair, signaling that his report was finished.

  “So after we make the change, can you get us somewhere to make repairs?” Valessanna asked. It was not a foolish question. Because of her background in the Cartographic Corps, she was better versed in navigation than any officer aboard, with the exception of Abblehoff and the other navigators, and she was fully aware that this far out on the Union fringe there were very few corridors of charted space available to choose from. Without making a detailed check, she had no idea when or even if they would come close to one.

  “Not directly,” Abblehoff replied with surety, confirming Valessanna’s fears. “We could set another course through uncharted space that would take us to somewhere we would want to be, but I would advise against it. It would be better to make two corrections. The first to get us back to the nearest corridor of mapped space, and then another to take us near a system were repairs can be made. It would still be a bit dicey, but better than the alternative.”

  “Good enough,” Valessanna said. “That is what we will do.” She paused for a moment, hesitating to address the chief engineer, but then plunged ahead. “Calese, how badly are we damaged?”

  For the first time since she had entered the compartment, Arkhus looked directly at Valessanna, still scowling, and spoke in a tone that expressed unmitigated disdain. “I can’t think of a word which would adequately describe how bad the damage is. This ship may have to be scrapped when we get home, that is if she holds together long enough to get us there. She will at the very least need a total refit. In the meantime, we can do very little to repair the worst damage while we are under way. But merely bringing the ship to a halt is not enough. We cannot jury rig damage this extensive using only ships stores, particularly since a substantial portion of those stores have been damaged or destroyed. We must put the ship in orbit somewhere while we make emergency repairs, and we must do it as soon as possible. This ship is in no condition to be deep driving across half the galaxy in an effort to find charted space or evade phantom pursuers. It is my professional opinion that it would be extraordinarily dangerous to go sub-light and then re-engage the deep drive, particularly if this is to be done on multiple occasions. The ship might literally disintegrate under the stress. Some repairs must be made first. We’ll need a planet, large asteroid, or some other like body that has a gravitational range within the performance specs of the robotic corps and that also has all the raw materials we will require. This cannot wait.

  “I also regret being so non-specific, but there are simply too many repairs that need to be made to categorize them all in detail. It is going to take us days if not weeks merely to work up a formal damage report. But the crux of the situation is that we must make some repairs immediately, and we must stop somewhere to make them.”

  Arkhus continued to glare at Valessanna as if challenging her to a duel and an uneasy silence again fell over the compartment. Busht and Abblehoff fidgeted uncomfortably. Both of them clearly would have preferred to be somewhere else at this moment. Beccassit stroked his beard and observed expectantly as if the bickering was nothing more than an experiment in psychology. Valessanna leaned forward, crossing her arms neatly on the table before her, and returned Arkhus’ icy stare with one of her own.

  “Calese”, she said carefully, “we cannot simply stop somewhere and trust to luck. We have had enough dealings with the Vazileks to know that they will not allow a wounded ship to slip from their grasp without pursuit. They are almost certainly following behind us. They are back there, checking every centimeter of space along our path, hoping that we will go sub-light or pause for repairs, just as you have suggested. If we do, they will detect us, and they will destroy us. Thus our options are extremely limited. You will have to hold the ship together until we put some distance between ourselves and the Vazileks, enough distance to enable us to change our course without detection. We are going to have to use the deep drive, and we are going to have to use it more than once. If we are to survive, this must be done. I understand that you are upset, but you are not alone. The fate of this ship and the lives of all her crew depend on you and your staff. Can Vigilant rely on you?”

  It was hardly fair, Valessanna thought, invoking the name of the ship. Arkhus might have been able to gainsay her captain or heedlessly risk everyone’s life to make repairs, but the one thing she would not do was forsake her responsibilities to her beloved ship. The engineer had been left with only one possible answer.

  She continued to glare at V
alessanna for a moment before finally bowing to the inevitable. “Of course Vigilant can rely on me,” she said, putting special emphasis on the word me in a clear indication that in her opinion the same could not be said of the captain. “My people will hold her together. I don’t know how, but we’ll do it.” She paused to raise a forefinger and shake it at Valessanna before continuing. “But I must have at least twenty-four hours, perhaps more, before we attempt this course change. Some repairs must be made or the ship will not survive reengaging the deep drive. Not only must we make structural repairs, we will have to shut down each reactor in turn and make what repairs as we are able to the drive before even braking maneuvers can commence. If we attempt to go sub-light before these repairs are made, you will have no drive at all as I will shut it down entirely and keep it off-line until it can, in my estimation as chief engineer, be used without blowing us all to space dust.” With that she averted her gaze, again staring past Busht as if he did not exist.

  “All right,” Valessanna said slowly, “twenty-four hours it is, but no longer.” She quickly resigned herself to the new time frame, inwardly heaved a sigh of relief that the confrontation with Arkhus was over, and turned her attention to Beccassit. “Do you have a casualty report, doctor?” she asked.

  “Yes I do,” he replied, leafing through the print-outs he had placed on the table before him. “The crew fared rather well, considering. There’s a great deal of work to do, but nothing we can’t handle, nothing life threatening, just lots of burns, cuts, lacerations, contusions, broken bones, internal injuries, things of that nature. We should have most everyone back up to speed in fairly short order, and the rest in at most a couple of weeks.

  “Then there are the missing. When I left sick bay, there were seventy-eight people unaccounted for, not including those lost on the barge. They are all almost certainly deceased, barring some miraculous discovery. There are, as I’m sure you’re aware, only a few whose remains are left for us to care for.”

  The spirits of everyone in the room plummeted a bit further as Beccassit announced the news they had all already been contemplating. It was too much for Arkhus. “Wonderful,” she said sarcastically, still staring at the opposite bulkhead. “To save four members of the crew, we lost seventyeight, and very nearly the whole ship. That’s competent leadership.”

  Valessanna had no answer to the accusation, but the barb opened an emotional wound that oozed fury into her breast—fury at Arkhus, fury at the Vazileks, and fury at herself. But before the anger could swell to a level that would have spilled over her inner containment and turned the meeting into a cursing catfight between herself and the chief engineer, the doctor spoke up softly.

  “It was, uh, actually three,” he said, his voice barely audible at the far end of the table.

  “Excuse me?” Valessanna asked loudly, vehemently.

  “I said we saved three crew members, not four,” Beccassit said in a slightly louder voice.

  “There were three on the cutter,” Valessanna stated as her anger ebbed away in the face of morbid curiosity. “What happened to the survivor from the barge?”

  “The survivor… wasn’t actually from the barge.” The doctor looked down at the table, clearly not wanting to meet his captain’s gaze.

  “Lindy captured a Vazilek?” Valessanna asked incredulously. The Vazileks were well known to universally prefer suicide to arrest. None had ever been taken alive. It seemed impossible that the cutter crew had somehow collared one of them.

  “Well no, the survivor is, um,” Beccassit paused and looked directly at Valessanna before continuing, “one of the indigenous population of Sol Three.” The doctor’s whisker-bordered lips curled into an ever so slight and ironic smile, while he shrugged with both his eyebrows.

  Valessanna was dumbstruck. Her mouth fell open and she stared down the table at Beccassit. “Willet Lindy has brought an aberrant on board my ship?” she asked deliberately, addressing the question more to herself than any of the officers in attendance. Momentarily she slammed a fist down on the tabletop and stood, glaring at the doctor. “On whose authority?” she thundered.

  “His own, I would imagine,” Beccassit said meekly.

  “I take it this was the problem that made you late for the meeting?”

  The doctor fiddled with his whiskered chin while nodding in agreement, gazing over his spectacles rather than through them.

  “All right, meeting adjourned,” Valessanna ordered. “Colvan, get Lindy up here. Calese, get back to work. Pender, go make your calculations and then get some rest. I’ll need you in top form later. Doctor, you stay here. And not a word of this leaves this room, understood?”

  “I’m afraid it may be a little late for that,” Beccassit said in the mildest of tones. “Everyone in the docking bay knows, and all the staff in sick bay. Plus the cutter crew. I’m afraid news of the most recent addition to our complement has spread through the entirety of our crew by now.”

  “You’re telling me I’m the last to know?” Valessanna’s posture drooped, her eyes widening with disbelief. “Well, what’s done is done,” she said resignedly. “Out you two,” she continued, motioning to Arkhus and Abblehoff. Both of them readily obliged, hurrying out of the compartment. Even a personality as curmudgeonly as Arkhus’ was clearly reluctant to further goad the captain now that her blood was up. Busht, up from his chair, stood facing into a corner, mumbling into his com link, while Beccassit still sat placidly at the conference table, seemingly unconcerned by the whole affair.

  Valessanna was pacing again, four steps one way and four steps back, across the narrow width of the compartment, speaking loudly to both the doctor and herself. “I don’t believe it. I didn’t think that it was possible for us to bungle this mission any more than we already have, but I was wrong. The one overriding, absolute, and unshakeable order we were given was that no person outside the mission crew was to break the statutes against contact with the aberrants, and Willet Lindy not only has done that, he has brought one back with him. He has brought an aberrant aboard my ship. What am I to do with him? I can’t take him back.” She stopped her marching pace for a moment and turned to the doctor. “I’m assuming it’s a he, is it?” Beccassit nodded assent, and Valessanna resumed her rant and her tread. “I can’t even hide him since the whole crew already knows he’s here. How could this happen? Before two minutes ago I would not have believed that even Lindy could show such arrogant disregard for regulations.”

  “Mrs. Nelkris,” the Doctor interjected gently and sincerely, “this episode occurred under unforeseen and very difficult circumstances. The aberrant was near death.”

  Valessanna turned to face Beccassit, placing her palms flat on the table and leaning forward toward him on rigid arms. “I don’t care,” she hissed deliberately through clenched teeth. “Those people kill each other every day. The man he brought aboard may be a mass murderer for all you know. I trust that at the very least you have him restrained?”

  “Mrs. Nelsik,” the Doctor continued in his patronizing tone, “try not to overreact. The man is much too badly injured to be any threat whatsoever. He is not even conscious; he is not going to hurt anyone.”

  “But he is going to wake up, doctor,” Valessanna said as if explaining the obvious to a small child. “For the love of the Rock, the man is an aberrant. Just having him on the ship, conscious or not, is a criminal act. We’ll all spend a hundred years in a rehabilitation clinic for this.”

  Her tirade was interrupted by the grinding sound of the damaged hatch opening. She looked toward it to see Willet Lindy standing in the corridor beyond. He stepped confidently into the room and stood at the far end of the table, his legs slightly spread, his hands clasped behind his back. His azure uniform was heavily soiled with blood and gore. His long hair, now loosed, fell carelessly from his scalp, framing his narrow face between blonde locks. His intense blue eyes held Valessanna steadily in their gaze.

  “Are you injured?” she asked, her voice matter of fact and
betraying no real concern.

  “No,” he answered simply.

  “He assisted in the rescue of the aberrant and later in sick bay,” Beccassit put in, addressing the unspoken question of the soiled uniform.

  “Commendable,” Valessanna said, her eyes still locked with the pilot’s. There was a long pause that continued until she looked away and started her pacing anew. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of what you have done in bringing an aberrant aboard this ship, Willet. You have committed a horrendous crime. You have violated one of the strictest sanctions of our society. You have…”

  “Captain,” Lindy said, interrupting. “I did not simply travel to the aberrant world of my own accord and kidnap an unsuspecting barbarian. I was ordered there on a mission. In the course of executing that mission, I came across a dying man, a fellow human being. I rendered aid, saving a life in the only way available to me. If the Union Police wish to charge me for this offense, they may do so at their discretion. That is, if they wish to explain in a public forum exactly why they chose to violate the laws against contact, and if they further wish to explain in a public forum why a human being should have been left to die of injuries that were inflicted upon him as a direct result of our presence on a world we are forbidden to visit. We both know that credible explanations for these events will be difficult if not impossible to construct and will inevitably demand accountability from people in high places, something that those same people will do everything in their power to forestall. I would also remind you that my wife is daughter to a High Councilor. In the light of these facts, is it still your opinion that I do not comprehend my situation?”