And All The Stars A Grave.

by Greg Curtis

  Once at the cross way he risked getting run over in the stampede, but he still hopped out into the corridor and faced the oncoming hordes. At least twenty officers were heading his way at a run, something that shouldn’t be done on a spaceship, and none of them looked like stopping. But eventually, with a mixture of wild hand waving and incoherent screaming he managed to get a couple of them to stop, and then with an assortment of wild gestures and more screaming brought them back to Halco, who was still lying there, bleeding and unconscious.

  Happily the two newcomers seemed to know the appropriate first aid, as they began to feel for a pulse - at least that was what he thought they were doing - somewhere in his armpit, and then tried to straighten his leg. One of them also had the presence of mind to call for help on his com unit.

  A couple of minutes later two medics with a floating stretcher arrived, and the four of them managed to get Halco on board. His friend was large even for his people, and Daryl would have guessed his weight at over two hundred kilos. Well over. Once on board the stretcher quickly lifted to waist height and the two medics started ferrying his friend away at a run.

  Then the two Xetans he’d flagged down, started speaking rapidly to him and gesturing wildly. He couldn’t understand a word they said, his translator apparently having taken a blow during his fall, but he guessed they were indicating that he should follow the others, something he was loath to do. An alien hospital wasn’t likely to be of much use to him. The sick bay on the Sparrow was his best option.

  “My ship. I have a medical bay on my ship, designed for humans.” He repeated it any number of times to them, but it didn’t seem to make any difference with them. Either their translators were also broken, which didn’t seem likely as they didn’t look injured, or they just weren’t willing to let him go to his ship. After all he was still wearing his prisoner’s garb, and was human to boot.

  He kept asking them to get him to his ship, and they kept indicating that he should follow the others, who had long since disappeared. It was an impasse, which they quickly decided to break. Without warning he found arms, lots of them, suddenly grabbing at his shoulders and arms, and then was roughly hoisted up between them until he found himself staring at them both at eye level, while his legs dangled loosely several feet off the ground.

  From there it was a controlled sprint as the two Xetans ferried him quickly to the sick bay. But not unfortunately, the one on his ship. Instead they raced after the others towards the alien clinic.

  It was a strange way to ride, and he had an unparalleled view of the way the Xetan’s four legs worked in combination. First the two inner ones striding forwards, then the two outer ones, as they devoured the ground underneath. Yet it was a very smooth gait, much like that of a man, and also he realised, incredibly stable. With two legs on the ground at all times, they could surely never fall. Similarly with each of them holding him with three arms, one around his waist, another his armpit and the third holding his hand firmly against its own neck, he wouldn’t be dropped either.

  In short order they had carried him to the ship’s sick bay a walk of nearly half a kilometre, which they had managed in only a couple of minutes, and more aliens were waiting to take him in. From the second he saw the sliding door open and the floating chair and medics waiting, he knew they’d been expecting him. His two rescuers had obviously called ahead.

  A few seconds later he was seated and being steered towards the treatment area by an orderly and he knew that at least his troubles were over. His two rescuers were leaving at high speed, no doubt to their posts, and he hurriedly called his thanks at their retreating backs, hoping they heard and understood. He didn’t even know their names, but he was determined to make sure they knew how grateful he was for their help. Even if he still wanted to use the Sparrow’s sickbay. He decided then and there that later, when he could walk again, he’d track them down and thank them properly.

  Meanwhile, despite the relative comfort of the floating chair, he was still in a lot of pain, and very worried for his friend. But in among the queue of patients he found himself mixed up with, he could see no sign of Halco, even though he’d surely only arrived a minute or so ahead of him. Daryl could only hope that it was because he was with the doctors. Certainly none of the others looked in as bad a shape as his friend had. They were all conscious, and all holding arms or legs or their heads as they too had taken some knocks in the explosion. But none were obviously bleeding, or looking like they were at death’s door, so he figured they like himself, had been put in the less serious queue. Triage the doctors called it, and that surely meant the most urgent would have been seen first. There was hope.

  “Here, this will help.” Without warning a pad was placed on his knee, and a hand grabbed his and placed it firmly on top of the pad.

  “Oh stars!” The relief was instant, and Daryl almost fainted from the sudden shock as his pain vanished. But he didn’t. Instead he tried to make sense of the impossible.

  The voice, a woman’s voice, had spoken perfect English, and not through his broken translator. Its remains were still sitting in his hand, well beyond repair. In fact he’d heard nothing but screeches, cackles, and other guttural sounds from everyone around him, ever since the accident. He looked down, unsure if he even wanted to. The hand that had held his knee was human.

  He turned, unsure whether he could have really heard what he had heard, to see a woman, an honest to god human woman, running some sort of instrument over him. A medical scanner he realised slowly as his jaw dropped in more shock. For a while he just sat there, unable to believe anything he saw. He didn’t even have the wits left to him to ask the questions he needed to.

  Instead he simply stared, mouth hanging open and tried to take in everything about her.

  She was human, very human. And it had been so long since he had seen another human being that he couldn’t quite believe she was real. He felt an incredible urge to reach out and poke her, just to make sure she was really there, or maybe to slap himself just in case he was imagining her.

  In time, while she started fiddling with the brace, he realised she was also the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, though maybe that was partly the effect of having been in space for so long. Or the pain relief. Then again, maybe not. She had long, dark, wavy hair, and a slight darkness to her skin that spoke of Asian origin. But only a little. Her eyes could have been very slightly slanted, but that could also have been his imagination. Her stature though, could be nothing other than Caucasian. She was a good height, one seventy or so, and with it both lithe and strong. Even under her white hospital uniform he could tell she had a nice figure, not so stacked as to be awkward, but still with plenty to fire his imagination. Add to that her thin waist and long graceful legs and she was a goddess.

  But it was her eyes that truly caught his. Her green eyes. They weren’t just green, they were light sparkling green, almost like emeralds. A colour that simply wasn’t natural for any human iris. He knew that a lot of woman, and men too, often had their eye colour changed for cosmetic reasons, but for some reason he didn’t believe that she had. It was her natural colour. And deep within his battered thoughts, he had a memory somewhere, of that eye colour. He couldn’t quite recall where he’d seen it before, or read about it, but sooner or later he knew it would return to him.

  “Who -, how, - what?” His tongue, finally returning to some sort of function, didn’t even know what questions to ask, or at least which ones to ask first.

  “Later. The Captain wants you on the bridge in five, so you’ve been pushed up the queue.” Without warning she straightened his leg, and despite his worst fears, it didn’t hurt at all. Then some slight pressure with her thumb as she rotated his leg slightly, and he heard something clicking in the joint. He realised she’d put whatever had been dislocated back in its proper place. Whatever the pad was he was still absently holding against his knee, it was definitely working as it removed his pain. All of it. And he’d wanted to use the Sparrow’s
med bay? He had nothing to compare.

  Then she placed something that looked like a steel framed, glass test tube against his knee and then pushed a red button on its side. Immediately the white fluid that he could see through the glass panels, started being injected directly into his inflamed joint, and he still couldn’t feel a thing. Nor when she removed it, could he see any sign of a needle mark, or any indication of how so much white fluid had passed through his skin.

  Even as he was still sitting there, staring, there was a sound, sort of like a throat clearing, though not a human one, and he looked to see two Myran officers standing beside them. His doctor didn’t even bother looking at them. Quick as lightning, she began fastening some sort of brace around his injured knee, one with glowing diodes all over it.

  “Okay. You’ve cracked your patella quite nicely, but at least it’s back in place now, and the growth gel I’ve injected should repair the damage in a day or two. The brace will keep the patella in place and promote the healing process. It’ll also block the pain and limit your movement for a couple of days. But after that you won’t need it any more. Even so I want you to take it easy for a few days. Plenty of rest and fluids etcetera. And I’ve got some protein, vitamin and mineral supplements I want you to take for the next few days. I’ll also want you back to check on your progress tomorrow.”

  “Uhh, thank you. But who -”

  “Later. These people are here to take you to the bridge.” And without any more than that he found himself suddenly pushed across the room in his chair into the waiting arms of two more officers. They didn’t waste any time, as they suddenly turned him round and started running, pushing him down the corridor like a race car. They were both oversized even for Myrans and yet despite their round physiques, he guessed that they could probably out sprint him. Evolution had designed their bodies to be rather more efficient than they looked.

  He had just time to swivel in his floating chair, and get one last fleeting look of his raven haired saviour as the doors closed behind them, and then she was gone, and he had to wonder if he’d truly seen her. He knew he had and yet he knew he also couldn’t have. There were no humans in the Community, surely least of all working on a Force battleship as a doctor. And she was a doctor he belatedly realised. Her uniform had the twin jagged lines of a doctor. The nurses’ uniforms had only one.

  He wasn’t given the opportunity to wonder about it for much longer as the front of the ship came up on them far faster than he would have thought possible. In spite of their bulk, when they wanted to the Myrans could really motor. They passed the captain’s meeting room at blinding speed, and then the double doors further up the corridor were opening and they were entering the bridge.

  His first time on a Force bridge, and as far as he knew, the first time for any human being. Even as he was brought to a stop directly in front of the captain, he was looking around and realising that it wasn’t a bridge so much as a simulation room. People sat at consoles all around in front of large displays, most of which meant nothing to him, while the captain and by the looks of things, his two first officers occupied three chairs on a raised platform in the centre. From there he realised they could oversee everything their officers could and bark orders to whoever they needed to.

  And this he realised was only one part of the bridge. For in many of the displays he could see the backs of other officers as they manned their posts elsewhere in the ship, and there were still more displays in front of them in turn.

  His first real thought as he took it all in was that it was a massive structure. There were easily twenty stations in the part of the bridge they were on, and at least twice as many more in the screens in front of those stations. His second was that he didn’t have time to wonder about it or anything else as he saw the central display, or more accurately what it was showing. Computer enhanced blobs of blue green fire that were coming at them like bullets from a machine gun. Except these were coming from a planet, and given the distances involved, they had to be travelling at close to light speed. But they weren’t the continuous laser beams he’d expected. They were discreet packages of energy or mass. A rail gun? Some sort of plasma cannon? Disrupter bolts?

  Another display to the right showed fire raging out of control in part of the ship, somewhere towards the stern, where his own ship was docked, and he didn’t need to ask if that was the source of the continuing shaking. Fortunately, whatever other damage the green blobs that seemed to hit them could do, was obviously being soaked up by the shields. The impacts of the blobs on the shields, he guessed were the source of the ongoing thunder all around, but at least it wasn’t critical, provided the shields had enough power. At least nobody seemed to be panicking, so he figured that whatever else this was, it was no longer an emergency.

  “Bxxcgrh chrsjin …” It sounded most like a chainsaw hitting a patch of concrete under water, but he realised the captain was speaking to him. No doubt asking him for his opinion, which at that point wasn’t a lot of use. He was already moving into some sort of shock, overloaded by what he’d already been through. Still, he knew, if he wanted to survive this fire fight, he had to find some way around their predicament, fast. Although the ship seemed to be holding together, and no one else seemed particularly alarmed. Obviously the ship had moved far enough away that the blue green blobs couldn’t hurt them any longer, and the shields were up to the challenge.

  “My translator’s broken.” Which was the truth but not really important. He didn’t need a translator to understand what they were asking. But he did need some time to sort out a plan.

  The thing attacking them had to be one of the geo-stationary satellites that they’d worried about. The ones Helos and the others had blindly promised them could no longer function even if they still existed. Another example of their brilliant scientific smugness. But this wasn’t the time to curse their undying arrogance. It was time to beat one. It wouldn’t be easy, even for the Targ. He’d studied them in the older reports, and while the information they contained was sketchy as none were functioning properly then, he knew enough to know they were tough. The last one encountered had required a small fleet to destroy it, despite the fact it was only in partial working order. Calderon Six’s one had been long gone by the time he’d arrived or the Sparrow would never have survived the first few seconds.

  This one was not only present and in perfect working order despite the scientists’ bland assurances, it was clearly an advance over the others that the Community had faced. It obviously had a newer weapon and much longer range. They’d still been a couple of hours out when the explosion had hit. But on the positive side it did tell them exactly where the base was. It was directly beneath the satellite.

  The previous plan to deal with them had been essentially one of brute force. The captain and his people clearly believed they had a technological advantage over the Calderonians of ten thousand years prior. Enough they’d thought to simply arrive and destroy whatever attacked them. And why wouldn’t they? The scientists had told them so often enough. Even if the satellite survived, it would surely be damaged by the passing of ten thousand years. And even if it wasn’t it would be no match for them. But clearly none of that was the case. Their weapons couldn’t even reach the satellite before it could do them some horrendous damage, assuming it didn’t destroy them. And as with all weapons, the closer they got the worse the impact would be. Two hours out, assuming that’s still where they were, it was bad enough.

  They needed a shield so they could get close and destroy the thing, or a better weapon. Which reminded him of an idea he’d toyed with before. One he’d considered a few times over the previous weeks, but given that there seemed to be no wish for another approach, never advanced any further. Now there clearly was a need.

  “Can someone show me the system please.” Obediently one of the officers in front of him punched a couple of buttons and a small holo of the system appeared before him, proof at least that their translators were working. He’d seen it before
of course, only the day before when they’d been approaching the star and looking for their quarry. But then the data on it had been rather more sketchy. What lay in front of him was a full map of everything in it, down to the small rocks that occasionally passed through it. The rocks he suddenly wanted.

  Their target was the fourth planet out from the sun. But between the sixth and seventh planets out, there were some major asteroid fields. The result of the gravitational fields of the two gas giants tearing their respective moons apart as they passed too close to one another.

  “How good are your grapplers?”

  “Very. We can tow a ship of equal mass to the Targ without trouble.” The answer was in English, again and he turned to see another human being on the bridge. This one was a man, with dark brown hair and dark skin. But he too had emerald eyes. And, Daryl slowly realised, he was wearing a Force uniform. One that fitted him perfectly, as it should. He was a Force officer. A human Force officer. On a Force battleship’s bridge.