by Dan Decker
He usually responded well to flattery, but it only served to further agitate him. He moved to take a swing. I stepped back and brought up my arms to protect myself.
The blow never landed.
His fist stopped midair.
“You’re relieved of duty, Commander,” Marchant said, his voice bristling with emotion like a hot blade thrust into a cold bath.
“Sir, I recommend against that. You were about to strike me.” I nodded toward Ensign Redding. “And who knows what you might have done to her. We could both press charges against you. I will refrain from doing so, should you countermand your order relieving me of duty.”
His eyes bulged. He opened his mouth and for a long moment I thought he was going to do it anyway. Ensign Smith let out a small cough.
At first, I thought he did it to get our attention, but a glance showed he had his hand to his mouth and was avoiding eye contact with either the Captain or myself.
Marchant’s lips moved, but no words came out. The color slowly returned to his face. The moment of crazy started to subside and rational thought regained control. It was evident on his face that this was a significant struggle.
I lowered my arms and stood with my back ramrod straight while refusing to break off eye contact, though it was a difficult thing to do.
“As you were, Commander.”
Relief flooded into me, but I kept my face still. After a small nod of my head in his direction, I turned to the viewscreen.
“We are at a complete halt, sir.” Ensign Redding’s voice was calm and certain, though I knew her well enough to know it was an act. She didn’t handle Marchant’s outbursts well. They sometimes left her in knots for days. “Orders, sir?”
2
Marchant didn’t move as he looked at the viewscreen that showed the carnage before us. I too was unable to turn away from the wreckage. Even though we were many kilometers away, I was glad the Rutry had no idea we were here.
“Engage cloaking,” Marchant said. “Move us to within ten thousand kilometers of the first FEDE ship.”
I bit my tongue. If it hadn't been for our little standoff, I would have spoken up and recommended we stay where we were.
“How far out are the alien contacts from that ship?” I asked.
“Ten thousand kilometers.”
If I didn’t challenge Marchant’s orders, we’d shortly be within striking distance of the Rutry. That was hardly breathing room. A million kilometers wasn’t enough.
Heavens above, half the known universe wasn’t enough.
Marchant glared at me with a raised eyebrow. “Do you have a problem with that, Commander Williams?”
I hesitated but sensed a trap. “Sir. Perhaps you should reconsider.”
He gave a small shake of his head. “We’re safe enough with the cloaking device engaged. Those are our comrades dying out there.”
“Please reconsider, sir. Our mission to deliver the ambassador is paramount. We aren’t armed for protracted battle. The best we can do is die with them.”
I had chosen every word with care, hoping to not say the wrong thing and send him over the edge. His thorny pride was going to prove the death of us all if I wasn’t careful. For a moment I believed I might have convinced him but then I saw his face.
“Ensign, you have your orders.”
Ensign Redding glanced over her shoulder at me, but only after she’d engaged the thrusters to move us closer to the battle at hand. When our eyes made contact my heart leaped in my chest, but I quickly stamped down the emotion. It was never to be and I knew it. There was a pleading look on her face and while I shared her feelings, I did my best to keep it from my mind.
Let your emotion inform your thoughts, my father’s voice said, but let logic be your reason.
“Commander,” Marchant asked, “what is your assessment of the situation. Should we engage?”
I hesitated, but only for a moment. “Our mission objectives will be endangered if we do.”
Assuming nobody saw us enter the system.
“Excellent, Commander.” His voice reminded me of the way an adult might speak to a child, but I pretended to not notice. The withering disdain was typical, and something he had a difficult time disguising. He’d made it clear my first day on the ship that if it were up to him, he’d never have let me on. Sometimes it paid to have a father as an admiral. Other times it was only a pain.
Marchant had served under my father years ago. My father could be something of an acquired taste. I had sometimes wondered if my old man had assigned me to this ship as a test. He wasn’t blind to Marchant’s problems or his bias.
“But you are wrong.” Marchant’s words stopped me cold. “Given like a true textbook answer without consideration for a real-world scenario.”
“Sir?”
“Half of those ships are sending out distress calls. We are under obligation to help if we can.”
“We’ll get murdered if we do.”
“You’d leave all of those people to die, would you?”
“Many more people will die if we don’t successfully carry out our mission. Our orders from the Admiral were clear.”
“But he didn’t know we’d run into this little conflagration, did he?”
I ground my teeth, trying to decide what Marchant was hoping to accomplish with all this. Was he just playing games or did he have another reason?
While it was a bloodbath out there, we were a light ship, without much armor and few weapons. If we ventured into that mess, we’d be goners for sure.
Marchant knew that too, so what was he doing? Why the sudden outburst of emotion and then a return to rock-hard calm? I returned to my seat. Marchant followed me. As he sat I examined his face, looking for any clue as to what was going through his mind.
“We are now ten thousand kilometers away from the closest FEDE ship, Captain,” Ensign Redding said.
“Move us forward until we are five thousand kilometers out, Ensign.”
There was a long pause.
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you propose we rescue the survivors, Commander?” Marchant’s voice practically dripped with venom.
I studied the situation, trying to find a solution. Was he hoping to blame this on me when things went wrong? Was that why he was doing what he was doing?
I saw no way out of my predicament because what he was asking me to do put our entire ship in unnecessary risk. Our mission directive was paramount. The Admiral had made it clear. I had been with Marchant when we’d received our orders. We couldn’t throw everything away to help out the survivors, particularly with the Rutry currently firing on them.
If Marchant really were determined to go down this path, I had to stop him.
“Sir, there isn’t a way to accomplish what you ask. The ambassador must be delivered on time, or the Rutry will be offended, and this war might never end.”
“Let’s ask him.” Marchant punched a button. “Ambassador Vellur.” He gave me a smile, and my heart sunk. The ambassador was a kind man who would unwittingly sacrifice his mission.
“This is Ambassador Vellur.”
“Ambassador, we have a situation. We’ve encountered survivors of a battle, can we spare some time to pick them up?”
“Why, of course.”
“Marchant out.” He turned to me. “Problem solved, is it not?”
3
I inhaled sharply, uncertain about my next best play. Vellur might have had a different opinion if Marchant had bothered to tell him the survivors were currently being fired upon by the Rutry. Marchant and I both looked at the viewscreen, which was getting worse by the minute. A FEDE ship exploded while we watched.
“What are your orders, Commander?” Marchant asked.
“Leave, immediately. Resume course and increase speed to make up for lost time.”
“Belay that order,” Marchant said. “Come now, Williams. Those people need our help. If not us, who can they turn to?”
“If the ambassador
is killed, the peace talks will be set back for months, possibly years. We have a chance for peace that we can’t squander. While I feel for those men and women losing their lives, there is precious little we can do to help them. If we were in an armored vessel, I might feel differently.”
“Ensign, move us so we are within video hailing distance of the closest fleet vessel.”
“Yes, sir.” Redding’s voice cracked, but she followed the Captain’s order.
Marchant gave me a challenging look while I hesitated.
Would the crew support me? I wondered. He is baiting me into insurrection so he can remove me from duty.
“Belay that order, Ensign.” I turned to Marchant. “You will kill us all. You are unnecessarily putting the ship in harm’s way.”
I had chosen those words on purpose. And their exact use wasn’t lost on Marchant.
“We are charged with helping those in need. Forward, Ensign.”
I walked to the Ensign’s consul, stopping the ship myself, instead of keeping her in the middle of all this.
“You challenge my authority.”
“No, sir. I don’t. I am saving our lives.” I took a deep breath. “Sir, by Article Seven, Section Thirty-Eight of the FEDE code of conduct, I am relieving you—”
“No, you’re not. For you see, I am not putting the ship in harm’s way.”
“Your orders should they—”
“We are cloaked, are we not? The Rutry won’t know we are there.”
“The moment you hail a ship, they will.”
“Ensign, prepare to communicate with laser transmission.” Marchant looked at me. “Does this satisfy your concerns?”
This would have been less risky if we were trying to remain undetected from one of our own ships, but we knew little about the Rutry race.
We didn’t know if our cloaking technology actually worked on them. The evidence indicated that it did but it had been in the field for less than six months. That was barely the equivalent of a minute in the grand scheme of things.
“Once we’re within range,” Marchant said without looking up, “please open a channel so we can communicate.”
4
A knot formed in my stomach as the seconds passed. A Rutry ship fired upon one of our vessels. I gripped the arm of my chair, expecting at any moment to feel the impact of the cloaked Rutry torpedoes.
The war had lasted for more than ten years, and during that time, we hadn’t made the slightest progress in detecting those infernal things.
“Captain,” Ensign Redding said, “we have made contact and have opened a channel.”
“On screen.” Marchant stood. “This is Captain Marchant of the FEDE Red Survivor. What is your situation?”
The screen in front of us flickered. Several faces appeared and disappeared, but not before giving us a solid look at the turmoil on the bridge of the ship. Wires hung down. Crew people bled. Fires burned.
I pulled up my own screen from the side of my chair’s consul. A few clicks showed me an outer view of their ship. I didn’t need to be told the hull had been breached. They had minutes left if they continued to sustain fire.
“Captain,” Redding said, “we have lost visual contact with them and most audio. What came through was garbled past the point of comprehension.”
“Play it.”
We sat in silence listening to the audio. I was at a loss to pick out a single word. By the expressions I saw from the others, I wasn't alone.
“Hail them again. Tell them we—”
The explosion filled the screen and I was glad we weren’t looking through a window. The display could only be so bright.
“They’re gone, Captain.”
“I know that!” Marchant yelled. “Are there any survivors?”
Redding shook her head. “No, sir.”
“Ensign,” I said. “Get us out of here. Captain, stand down. I am taking command of the ship.”
5
“You are, huh?” Marchant shook his head, his voice cold and somehow red-hot at the same time. “I don’t think you are, actually. Lieutenant Jarvis, take the Commander to the brig.”
I looked at Jarvis. “Don’t do it. We all die if you do.”
“Captain,” Redding broke in. “The Rutry ship isn’t moving.”
“So, what?” Marchant snapped. “Who gives a frick?”
“I think they know we are here, sir, even though they can’t see us.”
“That’s impossible.”
The ship shook.
“Ensign,” I said, grabbing my chair to keep steady. “Report? Were we just hit?”
“Not sure, sir,” she said while typing busily at her console. “I believe we hit an asteroid, but I’ll need more time to know for certain.”
I stood, balancing my weight against the bucking of the ship as something hit us again. “Another asteroid?”
“So it would seem, sir.”
My head exploded in pain. I turned. Marchant was beside me. He held his console screen in one hand.
“Get off my bridge!” He swung again. This time I managed to dodge the blow as I stepped back. The ship rocked, reminding me of a time I’d taken a boat on the sea back on earth. It was like the gentle break of waves against the hull.
Marchant charged, bringing his screen up over his head, but he tripped when the ship was hit by another asteroid.
“Ensign,” I said while stepping past the downed captain. “Were these asteroids here when we entered the system?”
“No, sir,” she yelled, as a particularly large one slammed into the ship, rocking it more than anything previous. I grabbed onto the back of the Redding’s chair at the same moment a hand grabbed onto me.
I spun, intending to break Marchant’s nose, regardless of the rule against striking a senior officer. It was Jarvis. I pulled back in time to keep from hitting the man.
“Sir,” he said, “you’ll have to come with me.”
“No.” I pointed at Marchant. “He’s out of his mind. It was foolish to bring us here and I’m beginning to suspect—”
Redding cut me off. “Sir, these are not asteroids at all. In fact, they appear to be man-made. Well, not by us. I believe they were discharged by the Rutry to detect our position. You see—”
A large explosion rocked the ship and I lost my footing.
6
Alarms blared as I picked myself up off the floor. My right-hand hurt and my side felt like I had cracked a rib.
“Report!” Marchant was back in his chair. He must have been there before the torpedo had hit.
“A Rutry torpedo hit the starboard side,” Redding said.
I snapped out of my stupor.
Starboard?
I stood up.
“Switch screen to radar,” I said.
“Belay that order,” Marchant screamed.
Cursing, I pulled a screen console out from Redding’s chair, not wanting to go back for my own because of Marchant. A few taps of my fingers confirmed my fears. We hadn’t been attacked by the Rutry ship that had destroyed our comrades.
I zoomed out and realized all of the other FEDE vessels were gone. Ours was the only remaining FEDE ship. The other Rutry vessels were quickly converging on our position. The torpedo had come from one of them.
“Send us down five clicks!” I shouted.
“Fire the torpedoes!” Marchant yelled.
I swore and knelt beside Redding. “Down, five hundred thousand kilometers, now!” If she fired the torpedoes, we’d be done for. Our only hope was that the Rutry torpedo had been a shot in the dark and that they still didn’t know our exact location or how to track our movements.
She hesitated. “But, sir—”
“We’ll be dead if you don’t.”
She glanced at me, gave a small nod, and then engaged the drive. There must have been something wrong with the ships thrusters because the view screen lurched as we moved.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, as long as we put space between us and the
Rutry ships.
“Status of our engines?” I demanded as we dropped.
It was Ensign Smith who answered. “One of our thrusters is out, but Ensign Redding was able to compensate, sir.” He paused as the view stabilized. “Our main engines are still online but…” He trailed off, probably because he didn’t need to tell me that we needed to be at least a million kilometers out from any sizable mass.
Marchant’s little maneuver had brought us smack dab into the systems planetary patterns.
7
I froze when I felt the cold feel of a plastic blaster against the back of my neck.
“You’re just like your father,” Marchant said, apparently without a care for who heard him. Perhaps he thought we were all going to die because he’d never been so brazen as to rip on my old man in front of others. When we were alone he did it all the time. “Always thinking he knows best.” Marchant pointed at the viewscreen and spat with venom. “Did it ever occur to you that I know a little more about what is going on out there? That the ship I was trying to save had somebody important on board? Somebody I was ordered to not let die?”
I glared at Marchant, sure he was lying but also not willing to take the bait. He wanted to argue about the least important thing right now. Perhaps he had a death wish.
“Ensign Redding, what are the Rutry doing?” Marchant looked at the viewscreen.
“They have all converged on our former position, sir.”
Marchant sneered when he noticed her emphasis. “Prepare torpedoes.”
“Don’t do it, Ensign,” I said. “If we fire we’re all dead.”
Marchant jabbed me in the neck with his weapon, but he didn’t fire. Protocol dictated I stand trial. If he were to kill me and somehow survive the situation, he’d have much to answer for.
I looked into his face, trying to decide if he hoped to survive or if he was ready to die. Demanding we fire our torpedoes was tantamount to suicide.