Star Wolf (Shattered Galaxy)

by David G. Johnson

  Molon took a deep breath and bit back his desire to snap at the doctor. John was a civilian and not used to following orders or respecting the chain of command. Molon had no idea if John would even consider sticking around after this trip, but if so, Molon would have to have some of the military crew run John through a makeshift basic training camp. A civilian on board was a breath of fresh air, but too much of anything could kill you.

  “I said I am inclined to cut our losses, but I will leave it to a vote from the senior officers. It may be my ship, but it will be each of you putting your and your team’s lives on the line, so I won’t make this decision unilaterally. What will it be—forward to Ratuen, or back to Tede?”

  “Forward,” John exclaimed without hesitation.

  “He’s the patron,” Voide objected. “He doesn’t get a vote.”

  “He’s also our acting Chief Medical Officer,” Molon replied. “So as a senior officer, his vote is counted.”

  “And countered,” Voide said. “Back. I told you this was a trap from the beginning, and moving further into Dawnstar territory with two different enemy forces pursuing us is insanity.”

  “Since when is doing something insane an issue for you?” John riposted.

  “Look,” Voide said, locking her yellow eyes firmly on John. “I’m all for a good fight, but Star Wolf one-on-one is not a match for Revenge or Hornet’s Nest. That’s not bravery, it is suicide.”

  “I’ve got to agree with Voide on this one, Molon,” Twitch said, her voice more emphatic than normal. Clearly she was still a bit steamed at being cut off earlier.

  “I’m sorry, John,” Twitch continued, softening her tone toward the doctor. “I know you want to do all you can to hope against hope your wife is still somehow alive, but this stinks to high heaven as a setup. You’ve been duped, and the wisest course is to get back to Theocracy space and regroup. Once things cool down there may be a way to investigate further, but now is not the time.”

  “Sorry, XO,” Dub chimed in, shaking his head at Twitch’s assessment. “I gotta go with John on this. Dr. Elena Salzmann was one of the few people in the galaxy that cared enough about malmorphs to even look for a cure. You all may be used to me just being a little different, but I’m telling you, I’ve got it good. Having been to malmorph colonies on several worlds, many are barely even recognizable as sophonts. They are in constant pain, and their enhancements aren’t even useable given the severity of their physical deformities. If there is even a sliver of a chance at recovering Dr. Elena Salzmann and having her continue her work, we gotta give it a shot. This is bigger than John or even Star Wolf.”

  “That’s two and two,” Molon said, folding his furry hands in front of him and rocking back in his chair. “Looks like the deciding vote is yours, Mel.”

  The waifish, blue-skinned comms officer looked as if she might wilt beneath the sweltering gazes of her crewmates. She cleared her throat and spoke out in her normal, soft voice.

  “I have no desire to die or to see any more crewmates give their lives.”

  John exhaled and slumped in his chair.

  “However,” Mel continued, “whether or not there is any hope of recovering Elena, John deserves the chance for that closure. He has hired Star Wolf for a difficult job, but heading into Ratuen beneath the noses of the Provisional Imperium, Dawnstar, and the Brothers of the Lion is no more dangerous than flying into an Alpha Pack garrison and liberating a Fei terraforming colony. Had Star Wolf second-guessed that job, I would not be here today.”

  Twitch and Voide, both of whom had been part of the crew when Molon led the raid on Tetoyl where they had liberated Mel and Bob, exchanged knowing glances. They might have voted against going forward, but Mel’s argument hit home. Molon could see it on their faces. Nay votes notwithstanding, Molon felt Mel had united the command crew on the decision. He only hoped the change of heart was their own and not “assisted” by Mel in any way beyond her persuasive appeal.

  “I have never known this crew or its captain to give up on doing the right thing just because the odds were against us,” Mel continued. “Let us give John and Elena that chance if we can.”

  John jumped from his seat, pulled Mel out of her chair, and picked her up in an engulfing hug, twirling her around in a circle. Mel’s powder blue complexion flushed a bright violet.

  “John,” Molon interrupted the doctor’s display of exhuberance. “Protocol prohibits hugging and spinning senior officers. Could you kindly return my comms officer to the deck?”

  John placed Mel back on her feet in front of her chair, but the smile those two shared was echoed by a grisly grin from Dub.

  “Well, it’s settled then. Dub, get us out of voidspace as soon as possible and Twitch, once you get our bearings, if we are indeed in Hatacks, lay in a course for the rabbit hole to Ratuen, best speed.”

  “Aye, sir,” came the replies from both officers.

  “Dismissed,” Molon announced before anyone had a chance to extend the discussion.

  He knew the right of it likely rested in Voide and Twitch’s assessments, but was glad the decision had gone the way it had. He liked John, and he had never been one to shy away from a good fight. If it was blaze of glory time, so be it.

  There was also clearly more of a mystery to unravel here. Someone had sent that message to John, either Elena or someone pretending to be her. The answer to that riddle lay on Ratuen. Ideally, with Molon’s instincts and the experience of the crew, they could get to the bottom of it all with Star Wolf’s hull intact.

  At least, after all that had happened, pushing on to Ratuen should be the last thing the Brothers of the Lion or GalSec would expect. The element of surprise wasn’t much, but it was something.

  Twenty-One – Back to Ratuen

  Molon sat nervously on Star Wolf’s bridge as they drifted into a low orbit around Ratuen. The flash of lights marking the status and communication readouts coming across his screen at the captain’s chair, and the buzz of bridge officers about their duties, as all felt distant as if he were viewing them through a dense fog. He was mentally engulfed, intent on digging out the root of his unease.

  Things had gone smoothly, far too smoothly, since they had effected their escape from Hornet’s Nest. They had emerged from voidspace back into the Hatacks system as Twitch had predicted. No sign of Revenge or of the VDE-equipped Dawnstar fighters had greeted their emergence.

  Not even Hatacks system defense forces had been able to scramble before they left the system. The mapped jump point to Osvec which the Brothers of the Lion had dragged Star Wolf into was mere minutes away from the rabbit hole to Ratuen. With luck, their brief appearance and disappearance had looked like nothing more than a shadow or sensor glitch to the Hatacks system defense satellites. It was unlikely anyone had expected them to return to Hatacks, much less to be on an excursion deeper into Dawnstar space. Madness had its advantages.

  A question still plagued Molon. If Revenge had not stayed in Hatacks, where had she gone? Had she somehow tracked and pursued Hornet’s Nest into voidspace headed for the Osvec system? As far as Molon knew, the technology that could track a ship through voidspace didn’t exist, but he understood GalSec well enough not to underestimate their capabilities. Would a lone Provisional Imperium cruiser really risk an incursion that deep into Theocracy space just to chase them? Doubtful.

  Mark Russel had many qualities, but neither bravery nor foolishness made that list. He might have risked going to Tede if he thought he could intercept Hornet’s Nest before Tede could scramble system defenses, but he was surely not reckless enough to take a lone cruiser against the Theocracy Naval base at Osvec.

  It was far more likely Mark would have taken Revenge to the Dawnstar base on Hececcrir or pulled back across PI lines to their base on Corespoun. However, if Russel had anticipated Star Wolf returning to Ratuen, then they were in trouble.

  So far, however, there had been no sign of the cruiser since they entered Ratuen. From previous visits, Molon knew th
ere were no system defense forces stationed here. Why should there be? Dawnstar had located this prison facility on a tiny, desert world, the only even remotely habitable one out of the eight planets in this system. No gas giants, no asteroid belts, just seven balls of caustic seas, corrosive atmospheres, extreme temperatures, and general inhospitality, plus this one nearly waterless chunk of desert rock roughly half the size of Old Earth’s moon. Ratuen’s mainworld contained the Ratuen prison complex and, two-hundred kilometers away and across an impassably deep canyon that stretched for thousands of kilometers in both directions, there was a single city of fewer than a million people, built around the only freshwater lake on the planet. There was nothing here to defend, and very few places to hide in this system. If this was an ambush, Russel was going through a lot of effort at disguising it, and taking his time about springing it.

  “XO, take us into tight proximity to the backside of that large planetary comms-satellite array. I want you close enough to swap paint with that thing, but don’t touch it or set off any alarms.”

  “Aye, captain,” Twitch replied and began maneuvering Star Wolf into the shadow of the satellite.

  Twitch had her helm control interface plugged into the CID at the base of her skull, but its slow, sporadic flashing showed it was only providing her basic telemetry at the moment. She was not using her interface for piloting. In tense, time-critical situations Twitch could do so much more via the interface, when her sole focus was piloting the ship, but when the situation was unclear, Molon much preferred her full and interactive attention on the physical world. Flying into the unknown, Molon wanted every pair of eyes he could get focused on their situation. Twitch had an intuition and ability to read situations that even he couldn’t match.

  The starboard door to the bridge, closest to the sickbay and doctor’s quarters, opened, and in strode John Salzmann. The doctor looked paler than usual, and may even have faded another shade or two as he observed the digitally created rendering of the Ratuen prison world on the bridge display screen.

  “So here we are again,” John said, flashing Molon an uncertain look.

  “Home sweet home,” Molon remarked with a grin. “I wasn’t sure you would even recognize it from orbit. You were napping when we left last time.”

  “I haven’t seen it,” John replied, “other than poring over all your logs and everything I could find in Star Wolf’s database about it, trying to get any idea where they might hide Elena.”

  “So, did you miss it?” Voide teased.

  John scowled and his brow furrowed deeply.

  “That is not even close to funny.”

  “Well, it was a little funny,” Voide said, through an impish grin which exposed just the tips of her elongated canines.

  Molon mused at how Voide could make even a playful smile look menacing. Given all that John had been through during his time here, joking about it probably wasn’t the best idea. Molon knew Voide was just trying to lighten the mood and take away some of John’s trepidation. Prophane empathy was a prickly thing for most humans to adapt to, but Molon knew Voide was actually trying to be positive, in her own, Pariah-esque style. Hopefully John would take it that way.

  “So,” John said to Molon, not responding to Voide’s taunt. “How are we going to do this?”

  Molon winced. John wasn’t using “we” figuratively. There were downsides to having overly-enthusiastic civilians in the crew. With civvies, orders meant as much as a bucket of spit. On top of that, humans were the most stubborn race in the galaxy. Still, he had to run this mission in a manner that gave the best chance for success.

  “As quickly and quietly as possible, I hope,” Molon answered. “If they are running heavy, we haven’t the manpower to storm the facility anyway. Voide and I will go in under disguise and stealth. I still have the Dawnstar guard vac-suit. We will give the place the once-over, scan for any signs of Elena, and get out, ideally while attracting as little attention as possible.”

  John spun to face Molon. The paleness that had hallmarked his features had vanished, to be replaced with a rising reddish hue. His face was a twisted grimace and his raised voice filled with the emphatic passion so endemic to heightened human emotions.

  “You aren’t seriously under the impression I am staying behind on this, are you?”

  There it was. Molon had expected this, but that didn’t make dealing with the question any easier. John was a dilettante physician from a hermit-world—not a soldier, spy, or even trained scout. Babysitting him on this mission could change the outcome from in-and-out to dead-and-gone.

  “John, listen—

  “No, you listen,” John snapped with uncustomary intensity. “I appreciate everything you have all risked to bring me here. Moreover, I know you are professionals who are very good at what you do. But there is no one in the universe more determined to get to the bottom of this than I am, and I won’t risk anything being missed because the person most motivated to turn over every pebble on this planet in hopes of finding Elena was sitting in orbit.”

  Molon had been raised among humans. He’d seen them when they got like this. It was time to cut his losses. He wouldn’t win this.

  “Fine,” Molon said, shaking his head. “But you have to know things could get ugly. There won’t be any room for pacifists on this mission, Doc. Either you are willing to do whatever it takes, or you stay here. End of discussion.”

  John stood up straight, stuck out his chest, smoothed the front of his shirt, and looked Molon square in the eye as he responded.

  “Then I suggest we get me fitted for body armor. I may not be much with firearms, but I can use a bow. If I’m not mistaken, Voide should be able to accommodate that request.”

  A choked scoff came from the security station. Molon and John broke their staring deadlock and turned toward Voide.

  “Do you have something to say, Lieutenant Commander?” Molon probed.

  “Yeah,” Voide replied. “I say let him come. If everything goes haywire down there, we can use him as a body shield. Just make sure you pre-sign that payment authorization before we go dirtside, Doc. Hard to collect from a corpse.”

  “Yeah, and give you an excuse to put a bullet in my brain, psycho?” John replied, grinning at Voide’s verbal sparring. “I don’t think so. Just consider it extra incentive to get me out of there alive.”

  Molon rolled his eyes. At least they weren’t trying to kill each other. Maybe John would be able to fit in with this crew of roughnecks after all. He was already adjusting to Voide’s acerbic wit. If he could master that, the rest would be easy.

  “If you two are done,” Molon said, bringing the focus back to the task at hand, “then let’s get this over with. Hoot, keep those sensors tuned for max range and let me know if so much as a particle of space dust moves in a way it shouldn’t. Twitch, keep the engines hot and be ready to get us out of here in a hurry if this thing goes all catawampus. Voide, John, you two with me.”

  “Aye, captain,” came the replies.

  Molon stood from his chair and strode off the bridge with Voide and John in tow. They took the lift to the second deck in silence. Instead of making the left turn toward the shuttle bay, he turned right toward the weapons locker.

  “John, you probably didn’t notice it before, because Dawnstar had artificial gravity operating in their facility, but Ratuen’s gravity is very low. We’re likely going to have to put down on the planet away from the complex and make our way on the surface. Using a bow and arrow in ultra-low-G is going to be challenging.”

  “Tede is a low-G world, Molon.”

  “Ratuen has only about one-quarter of even Tede’s gravity. This place is more like a large asteroid than a planet.”

  “We also have asteroid bases and small inhabited moons in the Tede system. I’ve fired a bow on all of them. I assure you I am well-equipped to handle adjustments for variable gravity.”

  With this last, John flashed an odd smirk in Voide’s direction. Her scowl in response showed
she got the message. Molon assumed the exchange had something to do with their excursion on Tede, but whatever it was didn’t seem to be an impediment to working together.

  “Okay, then,” Molon replied. “Voide, grab your bow and arrows and meet us in the shuttle bay. I’m going to get John into some body armor. You’re planning on wearing your cat-suit I suppose?”

  “Yep. You said quick and quiet, right?”

  “I did.”

  “Okay, but this pale better not lose my bow. It’s worth ten of him.”

  There was the barest hint of a smile on Voide’s face. Was she being playful with John? The doctor’s return smirk was less subtle.

  “Don’t sweat your gray brow, Princess Pick-a-fight,” John remarked. “I’m rich, remember. We find Elena and I’ll buy you a matching set of six.”

  Molon decided it was time to throw come cold water on their banter. The task ahead was serious and dangerous. Unlike himself and Voide, John was ill-equipped for mercenary work, so they all needed to be on their A-game if they were going to come out of this in one piece.

  “Knock it off you two,” Molon chided, “or just kiss and get it over with,”

  He took perverse pleasure in the look of horror that flooded the faces of both his officers. Molon knew there were no romantic feelings between these two, but just planting the seed that their constant squabbling, playful as it might be, could be misconstrued should be enough to keep them quiet for a while and give him time to think. Voide jumped back into the lift to head for her quarters after firing a fuming look at Molon.

  Punching his access code into the security panel by the armory, Molon led John inside. A large locker at the back was marked Cpt. M. Hawkins, whilst row upon row of lockers filled the middle section of the room. Along the rest of the walls were secured cages filled with all manner of weapons.

  “Try that second locker on the left, John,” Molon said, pointing to a locker with the label Cpl. A. McGintis. “We lost McGintis during Revenge’s boarding action. He was just about your size, so his body armor should fit well enough.”