“Damn it.”
“What?” said Pippa.
“Just having a little trouble out here is all…” He wasn’t a trained space technician or anything. Those guys didn’t have stupid troubles like this with their tools.
“Like, what kind of trouble?”
He managed to get the pouch closed. “Nothing. I’m good. What do I do with the wrench?”
“Um, you need to loosen the housing on the Telsan circuit.”
“Right,” he said. He applied the wrench to the housing and managed to pry it free. It floated out too, and he caught it. “Take the old circuit out?”
“Yeah, remove the board,” she said.
“We need this for anything?”
“No, I guess not. Why?”
“Because I don’t have enough hands. I’m going to have to let this thing float off once I pull it out.”
“Um… okay, I guess,” she said.
He tugged on the circuit board. It was stuck.
He was holding the wrench and the housing in his other hand. He needed to grab the circuit board with both hands. He decided to put the wrench and the housing into his pouch. He opened it up and slid them both inside.
The new circuit board floated out of the pouch.
“Damn it,” he said, closing the pouch. It was easy with two hands.
“Captain?”
He ignored her, reaching for the circuit board. His gloved fingers grazed it, but then it floated out of his reach, twirling end over end into the vastness that surrounded them.
“No,” he muttered. “Come on.”
“What happened?” said Pippa.
“I’m losing the new circuit board. I gotta detach from the ship and float out and get it.”
“Captain, no! That’s dangerous. How will you get back down?”
“The magnets are strong. They’ll pull me.”
“Not if you get too far out.”
“I’m doing it, Pippa.” He detached his magnets and felt himself untethered and floating. He was weightless, a pleasant sensation. But he didn’t have time to enjoy it. He needed to get that stupid circuit board.
He reached out for it.
The same thing happened. His fingers brushed it, making it spin, but it was too far away.
Annoyed, he reached again.
He couldn’t reach it.
He wanted to flap his arms or something, but you couldn’t swim in space, it wasn’t like water, and too much movement would just make him start spinning too. He looked down at the ship. It was half a foot below his detached feet. He could use his toe to push off…
He did it.
And it worked.
He floated out, grabbed the circuit board tightly in one hand, and then turned his magnets back on.
Nothing happened.
Oh, no, was he out of range?
His heart leaped into his throat.
But then he felt the tug as they engaged and pulled him back down.
He sighed in relief.
“Captain, please tell me you’re okay,” said Pippa.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”
He surveyed the panel again. He needed to get the old circuit board out, but he had the new one in his hands, and he needed two hands to remove the other one. But he only had one hand. He glared at the panel. He hated this stupid thing.
He took a deep breath, and then tried to pull the circuit board out with one hand again. It was still stuck.
“Sir?” said Pippa. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t get the old board out,” he said. “It’s stuck.”
“Are you pulling out or down?”
“Down?”
“There’s a little catch to keep them in place,” she said. “I remember Saffron talking about it once? You know, when she was really mad because it took her two hours to do those repairs on Ganesh.”
Oh, he did remember that. Right. So, he pulled on the circuit board differently, giving it a little wiggle to detach it, and it came free.
Excellent.
He tossed the old board over his shoulder.
He put the new board in. It didn’t want to fit for a moment, and then he found the right way to move it, and it went in perfectly.
“There!” he said, triumphant.
“It’s in?” said Pippa.
“It’s in,” he said. “Please tell me that’s all we have to do to it.”
“I think so,” said Pippa.
“Great, so I just put the housing back on and the panel back on, and that’s that?”
“Yes,” said Pippa.
“Thank the sun and stars,” he muttered.
* * *
Eve hung back in the cargo bay, where everyone was gathered. She and Pippa had spent all morning moving the boxes into neat stacks along the walls and sweeping out the place so that it didn’t look dirty and awful. But now, with Breccan in his slim, metal coffin, which would incinerate his remains after the ceremony (burying wasn’t possible in space, and having his ashes was preferable to letting him adrift in the void), she felt shy, and she felt guilty. She didn’t belong with this crew, and it felt as if she was responsible for all the agony they’d suffered.
Everyone else stayed close to the coffin.
The captain stood at the head of it, with Saffron beside it. It had a hexaplatform, so that it was raised up above the ground, floating at around waist level. Saffron had her hand on the coffin, but she was still quiet. As far as Eve knew, she hadn’t said a word since Breccan had been declared dead. She was quiet, and her eyes were hollow, and she looked as though her guts had been ripped out and stuffed back inside her and that nothing functioned in her anymore.
Eve could hardly stand looking at her. It was too hard.
Pippa and Calix each stood at the bottom of the coffin, on either side, heads bowed.
Eve stood behind the two of them, back at least five feet. She wished there was something she could hide behind, some way she could disappear, but there wasn’t, so she simply made herself small, hunching her shoulders over and twisting her hands together.
“I ain’t good at funerals,” said the captain suddenly.
Everyone looked at him.
“I’ve never had to officiate one in my time as a captain,” he said. “But in the war, I saw my fair share of death, and there wasn’t always time to do anything more than say a few words over the bodies.” He paused, as if he expected someone else to jump in and begin to speak.
But no one did.
The captain drew in a long, slow breath. “Well, here’s the thing. Ain’t nobody knows what happens after a person dies, but I know I speak for everyone when I say that I hope something good has happened to Breccan. If there’s some life after, I hope he’s got it, and I hope it’s pleasant. Because Breccan was a good man, and a good friend, and this hand fate dealt him, it’s not a bit fair. He didn’t deserve this.”
Suddenly, Saffron burst into tears.
The captain turned to her. “Saffron?”
She shook her head. She sobbed. There were no words.
“Look,” Gunner said to her in a quiet voice, “if there is something that you believe that you want me to say, some belief that brings you comfort at a time like this, please speak up.” He turned to Calix. “I tried to talk to her about it earlier, but…”
Pippa went to Saffron and gathered her in her arms. She was crying too.
Calix turned away, and his face twisted as if he were struggling with tears.
No one spoke. The only sounds were Saffron’s agonized sobs, which sounded as if they had been wrenched from the depths of her soul.
Eve wished even more that she could disappear.
The captain cleared his throat. “I had, uh, thought that we could spend some time sharing stories about Breccan and what he meant to us, all take our time to grieve together. But… we don’t have to do that.”
Saffron’s sobs quieted, but she still let Pippa hold her. The two of them, arm in arm, looked at the
captain.
He licked his lips. “I’ll never forget the first time I met him.”
More silence.
“Shall I tell that?” The captain looked at Saffron.
She nodded, her breath hitching.
The captain squared his shoulders. “We were both prisoners of war on a Xerkabah ship. Half of my squadron had been captured, and the other half had gotten away, so Calix and I were separated for the only time in the war.”
Calix nodded.
“Breccan wasn’t part of my squadron. He was an engineer on a ship that had been taken over by the Xerkabah. He’d been a prisoner on the ship for months. He watched, every day, as they took groups of humans out into the cargo bay and exposed them to space. Killed them and dumped the bodies as if it was nothing. He’d been lucky enough to stay alive thus far, but he knew his luck wasn’t going to hold out forever. He had an idea, a way to create a distraction so that the prisoners could steal a ship and get free. He knew all kinds of things about engines, and he knew how to mess up the one on the Xerkabah ship pretty bad. He even knew how to get there. There were air ducts that were accessible from the place the prisoners were held. It was a tight squeeze, but it was doable. From there, we could get all over the ship.”
The captain paused, and then continued. “But Breccan couldn’t do what he wanted to do without a pilot, and every time he’d found one and tried to make it work, the pilot had gotten fresh on him, and jumped the gun. Instead of waiting for the right moment, when the distraction could allow Breccan to free all the prisoners, so that they could all get aboard a ship and get away, the pilots would squeeze through the ducts themselves and try to make a break all on their own. They’d be out for themselves, screw everyone else. Breccan could have done that too. He could have used his skills for his own gain, and no one else’s. But that wasn’t the kind of man he was. Breccan said that we were all getting off that ship, and he made it happen.”
“You helped,” said Calix. “You flew that Xerkabah ship out of there with seventy-five prisoners on board.”
“I did what I could,” said the captain. “But Breccan’s distraction was what made it all possible. Once that engine blew, it was pandemonium. I’d gotten out of the ducts, and I had no problem getting a key to let out the rest of the prisoners. We all made it to the landing bay without incident. Breccan was waiting for us, and we took off.” The captain sighed. “After the war, when he told me he was looking for a job, I knew I had to have him on my ship. And then, when he and Saffron met, it was like…”
The captain’s voice continued on, but it sounded garbled to Eve.
“…there was a ray of hope in all this—”
No. Oh, no, not right now—
Eve was disembarking from the Swallow on Hoder. She could recognize the planet by the signs that were posted in the terminal. Like Ceymia 4, it had once been colonized by humans, and it had its own spaceport. The captain was beside her, pointing out something to her.
And then a vidya leaped out from behind them, attacking the captain and thrusting its spiky clawed hand through the captain’s chest.
Blood spurted everywhere—onto Eve—onto the captain’s stunned face—onto passersby.
Eve screamed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eve was still screaming when she came back to herself, but she was no longer in the cargo bay. She’d been taken upstairs to the medic bay, and she was lying on a cot.
The captain was in there with her, pacing at the foot of the cot, his expression steely.
Eve sat up. “We can’t go to Hoder. There’s a vidya waiting for us there. It kills you.”
The captain stopped pacing and glared at her. “That’s a nice touch. Putting my safety in question. Very good.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “You’ve got to be the most stubborn man in the galaxy if you still don’t believe my visions are real.”
“No, I believe,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t fake one.”
Her jaw dropped.
He raised his eyebrows, challenging her to say something.
So, she did. “You really think I would fake a vision?”
“It’s awfully convenient for you, isn’t it? I’m about to get rid of you, and you tell me that I can’t. Even make it so that I’m in personal danger.”
“I would never do that.”
“You say that, but I don’t really know you, princess. You were raised by some weird cult who lives underground like insects, and you’ve brought nothing but pain and suffering since you arrived. I can’t handle having you around anymore.”
“Fine,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “But you can’t get rid of me on Hoder.”
“You tell me what you saw in the vision, maybe we can avoid it. Where did you see this vidya? Was it in a populated place?”
“Actually, yes, the spaceport.”
“Okay, so we don’t land at the spaceport.”
“What? You drop me off in the middle of nowhere and leave me to starve?”
His nostrils flared. “No, damn it, I’ll escort you to the spaceport myself after we land—”
“And you’ll still die, because I didn’t see us land. I saw you and me moving through people at the spaceport, and the vidya came up behind you and punched through your chest, and—” She found that her eyes were filling with tears. “It was awful. It went on and on. You didn’t die right away. You were struggling and gasping, and there was blood. There was a lot of blood. It was everywhere and—”
“Stop.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“Oh, you care so much about me?”
“I…” She hugged herself. “You saved my life. You’re very brave. Sure, you have some rough edges, but deep down, I think you’re a good man, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Her feelings for the captain certainly hadn’t attained any level of romantic infatuation or anything, but she respected him and she thought he was attractive, and she thought that was probably enough. She could do what she needed to do with him to bring forth the champion. But she couldn’t if he was dead.
The captain looked down at his feet. His voice was quiet. “You’re not making this easy for me.”
“What? Getting rid of me?”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “You understand this isn’t personal, don’t you? I don’t want anything to happen to you either.”
She gave him a small smile. “You can leave me somewhere else, right?”
“How many human outposts you think are hidden in the galaxy?”
She thought about it. “Twenty?”
“No,” he said. “Not nearly that many. Hell, we didn’t have that many colony planets.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling confused.
“Didn’t they teach you anything in that Cloister place?”
“Not about… planets and outposts.”
“Well, look, I’m running real low on places to go, you understand? I have to think about this.” He started for the door to the medic bay.
She called after him in a soft voice. “Captain?”
He turned, raising his eyebrows in expectation.
“There isn’t any way that I could… stay on the ship?”
He sighed heavily. “Listen, Eve, it’s like I said, this isn’t personal.”
“No,” said another voice, a voice behind the captain.
He turned in surprise.
Saffron stepped inside the doorway and addressed the captain. “She can’t stay on the ship. We’ve had nothing but bad luck since she came aboard. Get her off.”
* * *
“Wait, go back,” said Calix. “You said she’s has visions that she’s going to give birth to a champion who defeats the aliens? She’s seen visions of the aliens’ defeat? Really?”
Gunner rested his head against the wall. He and Calix were in his cabin, and Gunner was sitting on his bed. Calix was sitti
ng opposite him on a crate that contained some of Gunner’s clothes.
“Gunner?” prompted Calix.
“That’s what she told me,” he said. “Her Cloister place had visions that she had to get on my ship to get to wherever it is she’s supposed to go, which I thought was Hoder, but now apparently isn’t, because it’s not safe, and I’m just not even quite sure what to do next.”
They were sitting still at the moment. They’d stopped to repair the communications panel and to have the funeral and now they weren’t going anywhere until Gunner figured out where to set a course for.
“You still want to drop her off somewhere?”
“Yes, that’s what made me want to drop her off somewhere. The Xerkabah are looking for her. Everywhere we go with her in tow, we’re in danger. We’ve already lost one man, and you’ve been wounded, and I’ve been wounded, and it’s just a matter of time until they kill us all.”
“We have to protect her,” said Calix.
“Oh? How do you figure we have to do that?”
“Her visions are real,” said Calix. “We’ve had that proved to us already. She sees the future. So, that means she’s the key to ending this conflict once and for all. We have to protect her.”
Gunner sat up on his bed. “No, we don’t have to do anything except survive. This is not our problem. We need to get shut of her and be on our way.” He rubbed his forehead. “And eventually, we’re going to need another engineer, and I haven’t got the capital to pay someone anything at the moment. Breccan was happy to work when funds were lean, but not everyone is.”
Calix stood up, folding his arms over his chest. “Gunner, why are we flying this ship at all?”
“To be free,” said Gunner, standing up too, facing him.
“No, to be a thorn in the Xerkabah’s side,” said Calix. “To do whatever we can to destabilize them and help the humans on other planets.”
Gunner shook his head. “We do the jobs to stay in the sky. Not the other way around.”
“I know you don’t believe that.”
“You think I’m still that starry-eyed kid that signed up for the war, don’t you? I thought we’d be heroes. I didn’t know anything back then. You know what happens to heroes? They die, that’s what. I plan to stay alive.”
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