"Were there casualties?"
"Negative. Damned if I know how, but the cruiser jumped out again within minutes. Asp Alpha did secure the raft, though."
"Was Red Sun alone?"
"Negative. She has a cavalry trooper with her, Drop Kick. Both are in low berths, though, and I'd rather have you wake them up inside Hornets cargo bay."
"Don't any of the ships out there have a small craft bay?"
"Apollo has an appropriate module, but diplomacy requires us to stay in orbit as long as there's a chance of hostile vessels in the area. The SDBs and Schalli Victrix have no small craft facilities."
"So it's our show, huh?"
"As soon as possible, yes."
"Stand by, Apollo."
Physic turned in her seat to look at Florence and Dina, "I am better, doctor," Dina said.
"All vitals nominal," Florence said. "Manipulator Dina is out of danger."
Physic nodded, the expression on her face lost somewhere between a grin and a grimace, and turned back to the radio.
"I'm back, Apollo."
"Roger, Seabridge. Can you do it?"
"Affirmative. We'll be there ASAP. Seabridge out."
Physic then pulled out her personal communicator.
"Gyro, this is Physic. Come in please."
"Gyro here, Doc. Go ahead."
In the background. Physic heard a local beverage can crumpling.
"You with the ship?"
"Negative, Doc. Snapper and I have taken the Marines fishing on Lake Kolima."
"Well, you aren't now. Meet me at Hornet in 30 minutes—less if possible."
"What's the emergency, Doc?"
"The captain's back. We're going to get her,"
Suddenly, Snapshot hopped on the line.
"Is Drop Kick with her?"
"Affirmative, Snapper. They're in a lifeboat, out by Guldan IV."
"We're on our way, skipper," Gyro said.
Physic shut off the radio and stood up.
"Do you think you can handle the rest of the program, Florence?"
"Affirmative, doctor. The remainder of Dina's five associates will be inoculated first, then additional quantities of vaccine will be produced for distribution to the surviving personnel in the outlying stations, and for transport elsewhere by Schalli Victrix. Last, the survivors in low berths will be treated, and revived if possible."
'That would be the plan, yes."
"Good luck, doctor," Florence said.
"And safe travel," Dina added.
'Thanks," Physic said, crossing to the elevator. "I'll be back."
After a quick ride down the elevator, Physic exited on the ground level of the hospital. It, of course, was empty of bodies now, but human MPs acknowledged her passage.
"Mind if I use your jeep?" she said, "Going back to your ship?" a corporal asked. "Here, I'll drive you."
Physic accepted the offer, dropping into the passenger seat and taking in the vista of a too long abandoned facility. Winter rainstorms had pelted the domes of the nest during the four months while Hornet was away, and without the intervention of the robots of the nest, its buildings had taken on a worn, weather-beaten appearance.
A ghost town, Physic observed, pulling her arms close across the chest of her body sleeve, in Seabridge it was not quite spring, and the afternoon was chilly and gray.
"There you are," the soldier said, driving up to the edge of the landing tarmac. Crowbar waved from the forward landing gear strut of Hornet.
"Thank you, soldier," Physic said, stepping out of the jeep. "Crowbar, we'll need to power up as soon as possible."
"Taking off?"
"Affirmative. The skipper's arrived."
"Well, hot damn! I'll flag Deep Six..."
But Crowbar halted in his turn toward the starboard air lock. Physic, whom he expected to follow close behind, was standing in place at the edge of the tarmac, looking north.
Most of the mass graves were clustered there—as far away from the nest as possible while remaining inside the perimeter sensors—but another sat closer to the tarmac, a single grave just off the end of the landing field.
"Physic," Crowbar said, "it wasn't your fault. You said yourself, there was nothing you could do."
"I know that, Crowbar, It just gets me."
"Why, because he was one of us?"
Physic turned back to face the engineer, who had moved close enough to speak softly and still be understood.
"No, Crowbar. It's because he said he understood. He said he understood that I couldn't synthesize the vaccine in time."
"Good Gaia...you never told us that."
"They're not supposed to have emotions. Crowbar, but I'll be damned if he didn't know exactly what to say when the end came."
"We all miss him, Doc, but you gotta understand: you did good."
"Yeah," Physic said, "i did good. Come on, let's get that ship ready before the others show up,"
The reason few people dream in cold sleep is fairly obvious—the brain is taken so low in temperature that even the most minimal activity of thought is arrested. Yet emergence from low suspension is often a lengthy process, and the dreams we remember from cold sleep most often happen then, when the brain is revived but the body and senses lag behind.
This time I dreamt before I awoke, remembering something that seemed quite vivid in my recent memory. Without guards or escort, Vega Zorn and her surgeon, Hacksaw, led Drop Kick and myself—already dressed down for immersion—to the liferaft in her hold. Fairly friendly with us after our travels together, Zorn seemed almost comfortable in our company, so I felt a certain discomfort with what I was about to do.
Right at the threshold of the liferaft hatch, as the doctor was checking us over with his pocket scanner, I watched Zorn carefully, waiting for her to let her guard down and turn her head away from me, and then slugged her in the jaw as she turned bock.
The blow snapped Zorn's head bock oand shocked both Drop Kick and the doctor, prompting the latter to step back and draw a pistol. Zorn's jaw was tougher than my Fist, however, and she didn't appear seriously hurt—just confused.
"That was for nuking Ra," I said.
"Seen saving that one up, huh, Red?"
I grimaced.
"Put away the gun, Hacksaw," Zorn said, rubbing her jaw. "I had that coming."
Reluctantly, the doctor did as ordered, and induction to cold sleep carried on as normal. The last thing I remembered hearing, though, was Drop Kick's wry comment as the berth lids came down.
"Nice punch, skipper. It's just to bad we'll probably never wake up now."
If I replied I can't remember. The dream ended with the awareness that I was coming out from under the haze of low suspension. A head was hovering near my face (I sensed it cutting off light from an overhead source behind my eyelids), and its familiar female voice spoke to another person nearby.
"Blood pressure 120 over 75. Vitals nominal. "
"She conscious?"
"Oh yes. She can probably hear us."
I opened my eyes, and beheld the low berth deck of ISS AInitak.
"Dr. Chang."
"Good to see you're all right, captain."
"I'll second that," her companion said, stepping closer.
"Darien."
"We woke you up first, " the engineer said, "because we thought you'd want to hear the news: the war is over, and the Imperium has been restored."
"What?"
"I could hardly believe it myself," Hayes said. "Apparently, it wasn't the emperor who was killed, but a clone he used for state functions. Eventually he convinced the Moot he was actually alive, ond that was the end of the Rebellion."
"But...how did you learn all this? We were years away from Gresham."
Chang interrupted Hayes' answer, commenting that she was going off to awoken the other survivors. Hayes nodded, and then sat down on the lip of my low berth, where I was presently pulling myself up to a sitting position.
"Apparently," he said, "we were a
lot closer to Gresham than we thought. The computer woke the doctor and me automatically when an Imperial cruiser came into the vicinity, and they explained the situation by radio. Be in range to dock with us in a few hours."
"How long were we out?"
"just a year, skipper."
lust a year, I repeated, silently mouthing the words.
"You look sad," Hayes said. "I hadn't expected that."
"I'm sorry," I answered, "i was just thinking about the dream I hod. That the world was destroyed, and decades passed before I woke up."
"Sounds swell. Was I in it?"
I spoke around a lump in my throat.
"Yes. You gave your life for me."
Hayes' eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Is that why you're sad?"
"Actually, no. I'm sad because the Imperium is still alive,"
"Coeur, it is our home."
"I know that. But like every other empire, it was built on war and conquest and killing. "
"And the destruction of the world was better?'
"In my dream, "I said, "beings were starting to treat each other as equals. Democracy."
"You'd better be careful with talk like that. Lucan may have been executed, but I'm sure his INI is still plenty intolerant.
"Maybe I should have stayed asleep."
Hayes laid a hand on my wrist.
"I'm glad you didn't."
I smiled, but something was wrong. Before me. Hayes was slipping away, and I fell back into my berth. He reached for me, but his hands fell short and I felt myself falling, as if my low berth hod slipped through the deck of Alnitak. Dizzy, I closed my eyes and registered a chorus of concerned voices.
"it's the electrolyte balance."
"Is it critical?"
"No, but somebody must've monkeyed with it to give her a rough time waking up. Stand clear, I'm going to give her a shot."
I felt something nudge my arm, and the dizziness stopped.
"That got it. She's stabilized."
"Funny. Why didn't that happen to Drop Kick?"
"Probably because I didn't slug Zorn before we went under, Snapper."
With on effort, I opened my eyes.
"Oh, thank God," Physic said. "She's conscious."
Before me was arrayed almost the entire complement of RCS Hornet—Physic and Crowbar kneeling at either side of the emergency low berth f shored with Drop Kick, and Gyro, Snapshot, Bonzo, Mercy, and Whiz Bang clustered around the hatch of Zorn's tiny liferaft. Drop Kick, already risen to a sitting position, hod a red flush of blood in his cheeks, suggesting he'd already been conscious a few minutes.
"You all right, skipper? " Physic asked, helping me to sit up as well.
"A little dizzy and thirsty," I said, "but alive, I guess. Are we on the ground?"
"Er...no," Physic said, "we're alongside Asp Alpha at Guidon IV."
I gave Physic a stern look, and the doctor grasped my concern.
"All right, people," she said, looking over her shoulder, "this isn't a sideshow. Duty stations immediately."
"Yes, sir," the crowd in the doorway answered, withdrawing.
"Me too?" Crowbar asked.
"You too."
"Yes, sir."
"You talk like a captain," Drop Kick said, stretching his arms as the sound as echoing footsteps receded outside the liferaft.
"Yeah, well, I'm not the skipper anymore," Physic said, handing me a water bottle. "As soon as I check you out in sick bay, I'm certifying you fit for command."
I took a drink from the bottle, careful not to take too much and make myself sick.
"Thanks. But really, I'd rather wait until I know more about the situation here. I assume we're at Ra..."
"We are indeed."
"We weren't quite positive," Drop Kick said. "Zorn said she jumped post Ra to Enkidu, then fueled up there so she could do a one-parsec jump to Ra and jump again immediately if she had to. "
"Ah," Physic said.
"So what happened with the viral data? Could you make anything of it?"
"Eventually, yes. Manipulator Dina was treated two days ago, and the rest of the Hiver survivors are being treated as quickly as possible."
"So how is Scissor doing?"
"Scissor didn't make it, Red."
"Oh no," I said.
"Fikken," Drop Kick added, "When?"
"A couple of weeks before I synthesized a vaccine—just after we left Bwan Hurr. "
We didn't say anything, so Physic went on.
"We thought you were deed, actually. When we got back first, and you never showed up, we figured Zorn or Raglan's Raiders must hove got you."
"They might have," I said, "except that your missiles Cleared a path for us off Sauler. After that, we jumped away from Sauler—coreward—to draw off anyone who might have searched for us in the direction you were going."
"I didn't think of that," Physic said. "I guess I wouldn't make a very good captain after ali."
I put my bruised hand on Physic's—the hand I'd bruised slugging Zorn. "I disagree. You're here, aren't you?"
"I'm ail right, skipper. Besides, word came through from Aubaine."
"What word?"
'"No prosecution is envisioned in relation to the breach of security at Aubaine Medlab.' That's the way it read—the document that Coalition Intelligence sent me."
"I knew it," I said.
"I worried about that ala the way from Aubaine to Sauler, though. Now it's over, and all I have is this empty feeling inside. All those Hivers...those scientists...my husband... Scissor—Gaia, whot have I lost on this trip?"
"But what did you give us, doctor?" I said. "You and Scissor gave us the future."
"Yes, I suppose we did. Based on the rate at which we can distribute the vaccine, it'll stop the syndrome cold inside a month."
"Well, it's not going to get distributed by us talking about it, " Drop Kick said.
"He has a point," I agreed. "Care to go bock to work, doctor?"
"I believe I would, captain," Physic said, helping us to our feet. "We have to make good the sacrifice of an absent friend."
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