Captain Hodge chose her next words carefully, speaking slowly in order to emphasize her points. “If Eminent Merric did not leave the ship, as we are now forced to believe, that only leaves the option that he is still on board. With him failing to arrive to his shift this morning and his transponder being destroyed, we can only assume that something malicious has occurred, something that is keeping the Eminent from responding.
“I do not wish to make accusations to anyone in this room. I am forced to believe that the Officers and Warrants under my command are above reproach and above the scandalous accusations of which I am forced to make. Unfortunately, I do not have that luxury. Until my Tactic Officer is found, I have to assume that everyone, including those in this room, is suspect.”
The assembled crowd broke out in insulted outcries, rallying against such accusations. Yen listened to their cries of indignation, nodding slowly as though in approval, though it was unclear as to whether he approved of the Captain’s decision or that of the Officers and Warrants. After a few moments had passed, Yen stood slowly, gesturing for the members in the War Room to settle.
Though his voice was soft, it carried clearly across the wide room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice barely calling over the outraged defiance of some of the more outspoken members. “Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated.” As the din in the room lessened, even the louder members of the War Room turned to the new speaker and, hesitantly, took their seats.
“I can clearly understand your frustrations,” Yen proclaimed as all eyes turned to him. “What the Captain is proposing is that someone within this very room, someone who has received the blessing and commission from High Council itself, is guilty of a crime, a crime that could be as horrific as murder.”
With the mention of murder, the crowd erupted once again into protest. Though she remained silent, Captain Hodge glared at Yen with eyes that pierced him like daggers. Motioning once more, Yen regained control of the crowd.
“To make these accusations,” he continued, trying to ignore the looks he received from the Captain, “is to accuse the High Council of having poor judgment in its nominations for every one of us assembled. When stated as such, it’s very easy to see why you’re all frustrated and indignant.”
“However, there is, as there always will be, two sides to this story. If something has happened to Eminent Merric and it was not someone within this very room, than it only leaves us to assume that it was a Crewman who committed a violent act against an Officer aboard the Revolution. I, for one, do not know the last time a Crewman so blatantly committed a crime against an Officer of the Fleet. But that is not what truly bothers me. To make an accusation against a Crewman aboard this ship means that one of us gathered in this room has someone working under their command that’s both treasonous and violently dangerous. Who among us is willing to admit that they have such little control over their Crewman that one could act out in this way and we don’t know the danger they pose to all those around them? I know my Crewmen well enough to know that no one in the Squadron could have committed this crime. Can every one of you say the same?”
Yen paused, allowing his assault on their pride to spread throughout the room. Though obviously infuriated, no one spoke out against his claims. “My point is this: before we go making objections to the Captain’s accusations, that we realize the precarious position in which she has been placed. Something as of yet unknown has happened to a ranking Officer on this ship. If something violent has happened, then we cannot, in good conscious, rule out a single person as innocent. To do so invites this sort of crime to be committed again and again.”
He turned toward Captain Hodge, who seemed gratified that Yen had regained control over this meeting. “Captain, I understand you position and support you in whatever you need to do completely. In fact, I volunteer my quarters to be the first to be searched for evidence of a purported crime.”
Captain Hodge nodded to Yen as he took his seat. Yen had, in one motion, placed every other Officer and Warrant in the room into a difficult decision. They could remain proud and oppose an inspection of their quarters and, subsequently, the common areas of the ship. Should they choose that route, however, they would be proclaiming that their own rank and privilege surpasses that of Yen who, in the absence of Merric, now stood as second-in-command of the Revolution. The only option Yen had really left them was to follow his lead and submit to being searched. The blatant hatred splayed across their faces was evident, but Yen showed little interest in their attitudes.
“Thank you, Squadron Commander,” Captain Hodge said as she stood. “I appreciate your proposal and, therefore, your quarters will be the first to be searched.”
Yen smiled softly to himself, happy that the Captain had understood his gambit and followed his lead. He knew, better than anyone, that there would be no evidence found within his quarters. And, should he have overlooked anything, it would be too simple to rewrite the memories of anyone looking through his quarters. By the time the search party left, Squadron Commander Xiao would be completely above any suspicion and would, instead, be leading the searches through the living quarters of everyone else on board.
The Captain gestured across the table to where a large Oterian sat, his furry arms crossed over his barrel chest. “Prestige Horace, the Security Officer for the Revolution, will be joining me during these initial inspections. Once we have cleared the ranking members of this crew, they will, in turn, take control of the inspections for their respective sections. I expect every inch of this ship to be searched. If something has happened to my Tactical Officer, I will not rest until I find someone who I can jettison through a very small airlock for this crime!”
She turned to Yen. “Squadron Commander, if you could please stay behind. Everyone else,” she said, raising her voice with clear anger ringing through her musical words, “your rooms’ accesses have all been locked by my command, rendering it impossible for you to enter before you are inspected. I have also declared an alert on board, so all your Crewmen are standing by their battle stations and will not be in their quarters either. Return to your quarters immediately and stand by outside your rooms for your inspection. You are dismissed.”
As the others filed out, Yen moved beside Captain Hodge. Though her steely eyes never left the departing Officers and Warrants, her words carried clearly to Yen as he, too, stood impassively. “I would like to thank you for your support, Yen,” she said, dropping the formality with which he had grown accustomed. “However, I don’t want you to think that this makes you above suspicion.”
“Of course not, Captain,” Yen replied.
As everyone finally left the room, Yen followed the Captain and Security Officer to his quarters. Entering the access code, Horace entered the main room, his large Oterian bulk stooping to fit through the shallow doorways. The search was conducted thoroughly, but quickly. As Yen surmised, nothing incriminating was found within his quarters. In fact, Captain Hodge congratulated him on the immaculate upkeep in his living area. As Horace turned to begin the next search, Captain Hodge paused, placing a cool hand on Yen’s arm.
“Commander,” she began, pausing as she gathered her thoughts. “I cannot stress to you how important it is that we find whatever happened to Merric. This blatant affront to my command endangers this entire crew, especially in a time of war. Rest assured, I find someone committing so potentially lethal a crime an affront to my command, as this type of insurgency undermines the good order and discipline I have strove to establish aboard the Revolution. While Horace and I conduct the rest of the searches for the Officers, I want you to begin inspections on your own Squadron. When you are done, I need you to search Merric’s sections as well, to include the weapons bays and the bridge itself.” She turned to face Yen, her deceptively shorter stature not hindering her piercing glare. “I want Merric found and I want someone to blame for whatever has happened to him. Find me something!”
“I will not fail you,” Yen replied, releasing his br
eath only when the Captain had turned the corner at the end of the hall. Though he had maintained a cool demeanor throughout the search and the conversation afterward with Captain Hodge, Yen’s heart pounded in his chest. Alone in the hall, he slumped against the wall, relieving his body weight from his dangerously shaky legs. He had earned the trust of the Captain, but his work was far from done. The Captain was absolutely right: someone needed to be held responsible for Merric’s death. Yen had a pretty good idea of how to find someone to blame.
Yen made his way into the hangar and was almost immediately confronted by confused and probing pilots. Pushing her way to the front, Iana led the questioning.
“What’s going on, Commander?” she asked straight forward, placing her hands impatiently on her hips. “We’re woken up and told to report to battle stations. We all assume that we’ve found a rogue Terran ship. Instead, we’re held in the hangar for hours with no information whatsoever.”
“Settle down, Warrant Morven,” Yen said, knowing that would only spark her ire.
“I need to do an inspection of the hangar.”
“Settle down? Sir, I’ve got dozens of pilots who are now eager to blow something up.”
“Do me a favor, Iana,” Yen said, leaning toward his irritated second-in-command. “Take me on an inspection of the hangar bay. Afterward, I don’t care if you set up a fighting ring in the middle of the hangar and beat each other senseless. But right now, I’m conducting an investigation.”
Immediately, Yen cursed himself for his choice of words. Iana’s eyes lit up at the opportunity for gossip.
“Investigation?” she said loudly, drawing the attention of the other pilots. “What are you investigating? What happened?”
Yen grabbed her firmly by the arm and pulled her away from the prying eyes of the others. “I can’t tell you anything. If I could, believe me, I would. If you ever want to hear what’s going on, though, you’ll stay quiet now and just help me with the inspection.”
Iana pouted, her dejected look a practiced and professional appearance. “Fine, but you owe me,” she said coyly.
Iana led Yen around the bay in a haphazard inspection. Yen wasn’t wholly committed to his search, having known the results ahead of time. He already knew the body wouldn’t be found here, so instead he found himself day dreaming instead of diligently searching the dark corners of the hangar. Though the hangar bay was cavernous, the search took less than an hour.
He shared his appreciation for the pilots’ cooperation as he finished the search. Though he didn’t turn around, he heard Iana yell after him.
“Don’t forget, you owe me.”
The search of the weapons bays, while equally uneventful, did not go nearly as smoothly. Scyant was openly hostile at all turns, cutting him to ribbons with her dagger-like stares and equally sharp retorts to his accusations. Yen had expected little else after she suffered such painful rejections while sharing his bed, but it made his work difficult and uncomfortable. As quickly as possible, Yen finished his mandatory inspection and left, finding solace in the bridge of the Revolution.
On the bridge, the two crewmembers looked to Yen with inquisitive looks, but kept their questions to themselves. Taking the Captain’s chair behind Vangore and Tylgar, he reveled in the quiet and lost himself in the deep darkness of space as it was projected on the front screen. Soon, he would have to start the second part of his plan, sending suspicion spiraling even further away from him, but for the time, he stared at the screen. They moved at half the speed of light, having slowed to provide ample time for the searches. Though Yen knew that the Fleet moved at exceptional speeds, the distant stars remained far beyond their reach. Yen had found the tranquility within the stars long ago, as a fighter pilot. Soundless in the void of space, with the horizon of stars indefinitely beyond your reach, a pilot can lose himself, finding an inner peace as his vessel drifted between the stars. With the war so far away from their current position in known space, Yen let his eyes slip out of focus, as he stared into the distant nothing. Though time passed as he sunk lower into the Captain’s chair, time froze within his mind. He thought of a place and time light years away, when he had met a brash young Wyndgaart pilot, one who saved his life. His heart still raced at the thought of Keryn and he found himself, not for the first time, wondering what happened to her. She left before the invasion of Earth, before the Terrans unleashed their frozen hell upon Alliance space. He didn’t know if she still survived, but his heart ached at the thought of her lying dead or dying, buried in the darkness and the snow. Reality crept back into Yen’s thoughts. If he hoped to find Keryn, the Alliance would need to win the war. That could only be done if a culprit was accused in the death of Merric.
As his eyes slowly slid back to the present, Yen opened his hand and a blue filament coalesced in his palm. Someone needed to be blamed, Yen knew, even if they weren’t truly guilty. The psychic serpent in his hand responded to his thoughts, coiling around his fingers and darting in mock strikes into the open air near his arm. Yes, Yen had a plan and he knew it would ruin someone’s life, but it was inevitable if he ever hoped to find Keryn again.
“Keryn,” Yen whispered into the bridge.
The serpent leapt from his hand, elongating as it stretched beyond his reach. The blue psychic snake bared its fangs and sunk their power into the base of Vangore’s spine. The Wyndgaart Communications Officer jerked as the serpent’s head disappeared under the skin and reached into his subconscious mind. Vangore flinched as his mind became alight with psychic fire and whispered suggestions. Words flittered through his subconscious mind, filling it with thoughts not his own.
Merric, the voice whispered. Code. Engine room.
Vangore convulsed quietly while the mental dams in his mind broke free, flooding his synapses with an overload of information. Images fluttered through his mind, like triggered memories rising to the surface after being long forgotten. Only Yen knew that the memories running through his mind were not his own. The power coursed through Yen, pulsing down the length of the filament that ran between the two.
Stealing a glance at Tylgar sitting in the navigator’s chair, Yen debated sending a second filament in his direction. Instead, he showed impressive restraint by reeling in another blue filament that began to coalesce in response to his pondering. While Yen feared Tylgar turning around and seeing what he was doing, he was more concerned with the perception of the entire bridge being involved in a conspiracy against Merric. People were quick to accept a single man plotting bodily harm against another. But when it reached a point of multiple people working in an intricate, interwoven conspiracy, skeptics quickly arose in the ranks. One person is a fluke. Multiple people lends itself to a leadership failure and blatant mutiny against the established command. No, he wouldn’t do this to Tylgar unless the Lithid turned around.
As Yen’s thoughts wandered between Tylgar and Vangore, the Wyndgaart stopped his subtle convulsions. With its work done, the serpent slipped free from Vangore’s mind, coiling once again around Yen’s wrist. It flicked its tongue once toward the Communications Officer before turning and plunging into Yen’s open palm, disappearing from view with a final toss of its transparent blue tail.
In front of the Captain’s chair, Vangore began typing furiously on his overhead display, alternating between inputting and erasing new data. Sinking into the Captain’s chair once more, Yen let his eyes lose their focus once more as he stared out beyond the stars.
CHAPTER 17:
Keryn stumbled through the snow, the freezing wind tearing through her wet pants, biting into her skin. The numbing cold had spread from her feet and legs into her fingers and hands. She staggered forward, her hands tucked under her arms as a minimal protection from the stinging wind and her filth-caked hair blowing in chunks of frozen strands. When she had last made the three-mile walk from the Cair Ilmun into Miller’s Glen, she had been fresh faced after a deep space journey. The time had passed quickly for the trio as they walked and joked amongst them
selves. This time, however, the journey seemed to last an eternity
Without the sun as a guide and with all her jungle landmarks now decaying, the world seemed entirely foreign. The cold still clouded her mind and allowed doubt to creep into her thoughts. For all she knew, she had been wandering in circles for the past half hour and would, quite soon, come across her own beaten path through the snow. Still, she trudged on, knowing that movement was all that kept her from collapsing into the snowdrifts, never to rise again.
She staggered for another ten minutes, certain that she was completely lost in the woods. The walk to Miller’s Glen over two weeks ago had been quick, taking less time to transverse the entire distance than what she’d been walking since her escape, yet she still had seen no sign of the stream in which they had washed a few weeks earlier. She was panicked and disoriented, turning back and forth, her only guide being the straight trail behind her as she broke through the deep snow. Shivering now both from the cold and her own fear, Keryn drove forward hoping and praying to Gods she didn’t believe in that she would find something familiar soon before the threatening cold overtook her.
Her foot catching on a buried root of a recently deceased jungle tree, Keryn stumbled and dropped to a knee. Tears streamed down her face, cutting clean tracks down her dirty face. Her energy was quickly leaving her; she feared now that she didn’t even have the strength to get back to her feet.
Get up, Keryn, the Voice called, closer now than it had been in some time. You have to keep moving.
“What do you care?” she moaned through her chocking tears.
You may view me as your enemy, it said, soothingly, but I can’t exist without you. If you die, buried out here in the snow, I die with you. And I don’t want to die.
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