The Legend of Corinair

by Ryk Brown

  He braced himself as he made his way through the treatment area, expecting to be overcome with nausea just as before, but it didn’t come. That’s when he realized that, while he felt guilty for what had happened to them, he didn’t feel responsible for their deaths. He hadn’t known that he was putting them into harm’s way. Tobin knew; it was he who was responsible for the fate that befell them. Suddenly, Nathan was no longer troubled by Jalea’s execution of the skinny little shit—as Jessica had referred to him.

  He reached the utility room on the far side of the treatment area, half expecting to find Doctor Chen sitting in the corner nibbling on dried fruit and nuts as usual. But the room was empty—a mess, but empty.

  “Captain?” A woman’s voice came from behind. Nathan turned to see a familiar face. She was a good four or five years younger than him, with short brown hair and hazel eyes. She looked tired, but determined. But as the young woman approached, he couldn’t quite remember where he knew her from. She wasn’t a member of his crew—or at least she wasn’t wearing a uniform. Then he noticed the partially healed scar on her forehead, and he remembered. He had helped her in the corridor after the battle with the first Ta’Akar ship on his way to see Captain Roberts right before he died. She had been injured herself, the gash on her forehead, and had been trying to help a badly injured man more than twice her size, despite her weakened state. And he had seen her later, running around the treatment area with a data pad, taking treatment notes for Doctor Chen.

  “Yes?” Nathan answered as the woman approached.

  “You probably don’t remember me,” she started.

  “The corridor,” he said. “You were helping an injured man to medical. You called for help. Yes, I remember.”

  “That’s right,” she said, surprised that he remembered her. “My name’s Cassandra. Cassandra Evans,” she told him, holding out her hand.

  “Nathan Scott,” he said as he shook her hand. “You’re on the jump drive project, right?”

  “The what?”

  “Oh, sorry. The superluminal transition something.”

  “Yeah, I guess jump drive is easier to say.”

  “What are you doing in medical?”

  “I’ve been helping out Doctor Chen. My job on the project was to study how the jump drive might affect human physiology. But with all that’s happened, it made more sense for me to help out here for now.”

  “That’s good of you. I’m sure Doctor Chen appreciates it.” Nathan looked around for the doctor. “Where is the doctor?”

  “She’s in surgery. She’ll probably be in there for quite some time. She said to yell at you for ‘bringing a bunch of unscreened foreign humans on board without prescreening them for pathogens.’” Cassandra’s face pulled into a slight frown. “I don’t have to yell at you, do I?”

  “I’ll consider myself properly scolded.”

  Relief washed across her face. “She also said to tell you that everyone needs to undergo a full physical as soon as possible. That means anyone who went down to the surface and anyone new to the ship.”

  “I’ll see to it, but it may be awhile,” he explained. “Things are still a little hectic right now.”

  “Of course, I understand. I’ll let her know when she gets out of surgery.”

  “Great, then I guess I’ll leave you to your work then,” he said as he prepared to leave. “It was nice meeting you, Cassandra.”

  “You too, sir.” Nathan started to head back toward the entrance, when she called to him. “Captain?” Nathan turned back to her to see what she wanted. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

  Nathan looked a bit puzzled. “For what?”

  “Doctor Sorenson told us how you stepped up and took over when Captain Roberts and Commander Montero were killed. She says you probably saved us more than once already.” Cassandra looked a little embarrassed by her statement. “So, I just thought someone should thank you; that’s all.”

  Nathan was surprised, and at a loss for words, which was something that didn’t happen to him very often. “You’re quite welcome, Cassandra.” Nathan looked at her for a moment. “And thank you for saying so.”

  The young woman suddenly felt awkward. “I’d better get back to work now,” she said, taking a few steps backward before turning and disappearing into the utility room.

  Nathan turned and continued out the door into the corridor, thinking Sometimes this ‘captain’ gig isn’t too bad.

  * * *

  The musky, overpowering aroma of the molo struck Nathan long before he reached the hatch to the mess hall. If there was one thing he had learned from his dinner at Tug’s farmhouse, it was that molo smelled far worse during cooking than it did when you ate it. As he approached the hatch, he made a mental note to himself to make sure that all future molo cooking was done with the galley doors closed.

  Nathan was unprepared for what he saw when he stepped through the mess hall hatch. The entire room, which was large enough to sit at least two hundred at once, was covered with sheets of raw molo. There were stacks of it, each piece about a meter square and ten centimeters thick. Tug was leading the workers from the harvesting crew, along with two of the Aurora’s crew, as they removed the outer skin from each piece. After skinning it, they would quarter it and then move it into the galley for cleaning.

  Across the serving counter, Nathan could see several large pots with steam pouring out of them as one of the female workers dumped bowls full of diced molo, as well as some sort of fresh herbs into the pots of boiling water. While there was nothing appetizing about the smell, Nathan knew from experience that when prepared properly, molo was a tasty and nutritious meal. He was just thankful that they had someone on board who knew how to cook it.

  Nathan made his way over to one of his crew, a young technician who was showing one of the workers from Haven how to use the comm-set he was being assigned. “How’s it going?”

  “This is the last one, sir,” the technician answered as he indicated to the worker that he was free to go. “I made a list of all their names, skill sets, and their comm-set ID’s, just like Commander Taylor asked.”

  “Very good. Do me a favor, and make sure they all know that our doctor will be calling them in for physicals at some point over the next few days—if they’re here that long.”

  “Yes, sir,” the technician answered, looking somewhat dejected.

  Nathan was sure that the smell of the molo was getting to the young man. “Don’t worry, it tastes a lot better than it smells.”

  “It would have to, sir.”

  Nathan made his way across the room to where Tug was working. On one of the tables he passed there were several boxes full of some type of prepackaged foods, labeled in a language he didn’t understand. “What’s all that?” he asked Tug as he approached, pointing back toward the boxes.

  “They were on the shuttles,” Tug explained. “It was meant to feed the workers for at least a few days. We thought it might be useful. We might be able to combine some of it with the molo to stretch it a bit further.”

  Nathan looked around at the stacks of molo. “It looks like you’ve already prepped most of it. That was pretty fast.”

  “Actually, about half of the original shipment was ruined during the battle in the hangar bay. I guess a few of your men took cover behind one of the stacks, and it got pretty cooked by energy weapons fire.”

  Nathan grimaced. “So how long will what we have last us?”

  “Including the extra people you took on board today, maybe two weeks. But I understand you have some emergency rations that you pulled from the escape pods?”

  “Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up,” Nathan told him, remembering the noodle and mystery meat that he and Vladimir had been forced to eat just before their trip to Haven. “Most of that stuff is barely edible.” Nathan looked around the room. “Where are the fly boys?”

  “Your new shuttle crew? They’re down in the hangar bay, going over the shuttles to check for damage. I don’t th
ink they were comfortable rubbing elbows with the workers.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that,” Nathan said. “I think I’ll go check on them,” he added as he turned to walk away. “We’re going to have another strategy meeting in about an hour or so,” he called back to him.

  “I’ll be there, Captain.”

  As he headed out the door, one of the female workers stopped him and offered a sample of a type of prepared molo that he had not seen before. They were small, round balls, brownish in color, and covered with a finely ground cracker or cookie of some sort.

  “Would you like to try some, Captain?” the woman asked, holding out the plate in offering.

  “Sure.” Nathan picked up one of the small brown balls and popped it into his mouth. It was still warm, having recently come out of the oven. The outside was firm, almost crispy, with a slightly sweet taste. As he bit down, the outer crust broke open and the silky, creamy center spilled into his mouth. “Oh, wow! That’s amazing,” Nathan exclaimed. The woman beamed at his praise. “This is made with molo?” he asked as he grabbed a few more to take with him.

  “Indeed it is,” she assured him, pleased that he enjoyed them.

  “Thank you. Be sure to give one to that guy over there,” Nathan told her, pointing to the technician who was dying to get away from the putrid smell emanating from the galley. Nathan popped another one into his mouth as he left the mess hall, his eyes rolling at the wonderful taste in his mouth.

  * * *

  “What were you planning on doing,” Josh asked, “stay on Haven forever? Maybe marry some dirt farmer’s daughter and pop out a bunch of dirt babies?” Josh had to laugh, at least to himself. Loki had always been so starry-eyed every time an even moderately attractive woman smiled at him. He could easily see his friend surrounded by a wife and a bunch of grimy, screaming little kids.

  “Don’t be such a smart-ass, Josh,” Loki snapped, as he continued entering commands into the shuttle’s diagnostics system. “You know I have no intention of staying on Haven for any longer than I have to. I’m just not so sure that this ship is the best way off Haven. I mean, have you taken a close look at her? Sure, she’s new and all, but the tech on her seems kind of outdated, even by Haven standards.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’ve never heard of anyone with a jump drive, or anything remotely like it. Besides, it’s not so much the ship that interests me as where it’s from.”

  Loki shook his head. “You’ve always been the dreamer.”

  “Come on,” Josh exclaimed. “You can’t tell me you’re not at least a little bit curious. I mean, these people came from Earth. That’s where we’re all supposed to be from. Surely you find that at least a little bit exciting.”

  “Just maybe next time you could ask before you volunteer us for something.”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

  “No, I don’t.” The diagnostics computer made an angry sounding beep at him, causing Loki to toss his data pad on the console beside him in frustration. “Damn, I can’t even get the diagnostics system to work properly.”

  “Yeah, for low-tech projectile weapons, they sure do a lot of damage, don’t they? Half the console is full of holes up here.” Josh turned around from his seat at the front of the shuttle to Loki. “I say we scrap her. The electronics and flight controls are just too shot up to be repaired, especially since we don’t really have any spare parts.”

  “But the engines and the power plant are fine,” Loki argued, “as are most of the actual flight systems.”

  “Then we can use them for spare parts for the other shuttle, if needed. But his one’s not worth the effort.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Loki confessed, running his hands over his face and through his hair. It had been a long two days of nonstop work with nothing more than intermittent meal breaks. And the exhaustion was really starting to get to him.

  “Right about what?” Nathan asked as he walked up the damaged shuttle’s aft boarding ramp.

  “That this crate should be scrapped for parts,” Josh announced.

  “Really? It didn’t look too bad from the outside.”

  “That’s because all the damage is in here,” Loki added.

  “Yeah, your guys shot the inside of her up pretty good. If it wasn’t for their armor, I doubt any of those troops would’ve made it out alive.”

  “So it can’t be fixed?”

  “Maybe, if we were back on Haven and could pick up some parts. But aside from that rock, I doubt you’ll find parts for this old bucket elsewhere.”

  Nathan felt a little embarrassed, as ‘this old bucket’ had a lot of systems that looked like they were far more advanced than anything the Aurora had on board. “So I take it she’s not ‘state-of-the-art’ around these parts?”

  “Nothing on Haven is state-of-the-art, Captain,” Loki explained.

  “Yeah,” Josh added with a grin. “Haven is pretty much where old spaceships go to die.”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan disagreed. “Your harvester seemed to perform quite well.”

  “That’s because Marcus took care of her. He’s really a much better mechanic than he lets on.”

  Nathan nodded, acknowledging Josh’s claims. “How about the other shuttle?”

  “Oh she’s fine,” Loki promised. “She was pretty much buttoned up when the fight broke out. So other than a few nicks and scorch marks to her hull, she’s ready to go.”

  “Well, at least there’s that. Speaking of Marcus, where is he? I thought he’d be here with you.”

  “He’s pulling the computer core and a few other usable odds and ends outta the harvester. He says the reactor is not looking good. He’s afraid it’ll get unstable and he wants to jettison the whole mess and be rid of her.”

  “Too bad,” Nathan said. “I’m sure my chief engineer would like to get a look at some of its systems. You sure there’s no way to make it safe to store? I mean, we’ve got lots of room.”

  “Naw, I suspect Marcus is right. Last thing you want is a core breach in the middle of your hangar bay,” Loki told him.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Nathan said. “And Tug’s fighter? How’s it?”

  “You’d have to ask Tug about that,” Loki told him. “I expect he wouldn’t want anyone coming near it. Least I wouldn’t if it were mine.”

  “What do you think of her?” Nathan asked. He had no knowledge of local spacecraft, and thus had no idea how well Tug’s fighter would match up against others in the area.

  “She’s an older model, to be sure. But she’s a beauty, that one,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, they don’t make them like that anymore,” Loki agreed.

  “How do you mean?”

  Josh may have been the natural-born pilot, but Loki knew the ins and outs of spacecraft, having studied them since he first learned to read. No one knew more about spacecraft than Loki. “The newer ones are smaller and more maneuverable, but they don’t have the range, the speed, or the punch. They’re harder to hit, for sure, but you usually only need a single hit to kill them. And the newer ones don’t have FTL either. These were the last ones built for deep space patrol and intercept. The newer ones all have to operate from carrier ships.”

  “Captain,” Josh began, “I was meaning to ask you something. Why is it you’ve got so much room in this bay but no ships? It was obviously built for flight ops, but the only things in here besides our shuttles are a bunch of crates and junk.”

  Nathan took a seat on the bench running along the starboard side of the shuttle. “Well, that’s kind of a long story. But the short version is we were just out on a test cruise, and things went wrong. Way wrong, in fact. We didn’t have any of our flight wing on board at the time, as we were just supposed to be testing the jump drive. In fact, this ship isn’t even completely finished yet. That’s what all the crates are—more equipment that has yet to be installed.”

  “A thousand light year test cruise?” Josh wondered aloud. “If that’s
your idea of a test cruise, where the hell did you plan on going on a real cruise, another galaxy?”

  “Actually, we weren’t planning on going much more than about thirty or forty light years.”

  “Well I’d say you over shot your mark just a wee bit there, Captain,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, just a bit,” Nathan agreed with a smile. Nathan knew where the conversation was headed. They had to be curious about the ship, and the Earth in general, just as Tug had been the night before. But Nathan still had a lot to do before he could call it a day, and that was a conversation he didn’t have time to get into right now. “Listen, I’ve got another guest I need to talk to. You guys get checked in to your quarters and get some chow and a good night’s rest. I have a feeling you’ll be doing some more flying soon enough.”

  * * *

  Jalea stared through the one-way window at the Ta’Akar assault trooper as he sat in a metal chair, at a metal table, in the small, plain interrogation room. He had been stripped of his body armor and was dressed only in a plain jumpsuit from the Aurora’s laundry. He wore a pair of thick, wide, metal bracelets that were locked around his wrists, but was free to move about the small room as he desired.

  Jalea’s gaze contained a seething hatred for the man before her, for all he stood for, and for the many atrocities he had probably committed and still had yet to commit—all no doubt in the name of Caius the Great, the leader of the Ta’Akar. Jalea despised that name almost as much as the man himself, for he was the one she held responsible for the deaths of her mother, her father, and her husband. He may not have done the deeds himself, but his legions had, and in his name—which as far as she was concerned made him just as responsible for their deaths as if he had pulled the trigger himself.