The Anvil of Dust and Stars (Dark Seas Series Book 1)

by Damon Alan

  Sachelle grabbed the bulkhead to pull herself inside, but turned to Sarah and smiled. Her pale lips cracked and bled. “I hope it's good news. I could use some.”

  “You're a survivor, Sachelle. You're alive, so there's your good news. Come find me on the bridge later and we'll talk.”

  Sachelle disappear into the hatch.

  Sarah knew Sachelle would make it.

  Chapter 24 - Alone at the Top

  31 MAI 15319

  The Captain died in his quarters four days later. The XO unexpectedly followed three days after that, dying of a brain aneurysm.

  Sarah was logged by the Chief Medical Officer as acting captain of the Chimera.

  * * *

  AI Marcus8A1 recording, Captain’s personal log, RKV Chimera archive: Galactic Standard Date 04:16:18 Mai 31, 15319

  Personal log entry #1, Acting Captain Sarah Dayson, origin Korvand, Pallus Sector.

  Current Location: Indeterminate

  I wanted to be a starship captain someday, I can't deny it. But not like this. I have lost almost every single person that matters to me in any real way. Vonn and Jac. The crew of One-Eight. Harom Sheffaris, my captain. My parents immigrated, but I don't know where they wound up. They were supposed to get word to Vonn and me… but Korvand died before that happened. Now I don't know where they are, and probably never will. They'll think I'm dead.

  [17 second pause, gentle crying. Inflection of voice indicates considerable emotion.]

  The Queen is dead. I've probably spoken to the woman for less than an hour. But she was a good leader, and those can be so rare. She cared, and that is something… well, the Hive took something not easily replaced.

  So I'm captain now. Less than two hundred of the crew are still alive, and the medbay has run out of drugs to ease the pain of those passing. Life is a nightmare for them, their moans pierce you, change something inside. Some beg to be killed.

  I authorized the Doctor to do what he thinks is right.

  I still have duty, the remaining crew of the Chimera deserve my every effort to get them safely to Mindari. In a sense I feel the living have given more than the dead. Because we have to push on, trying to comfort the dying, trying to honor the dead. I'm hoping none of my functional crew commit suicide. We need every able body right now.

  [a deep sigh]

  We're not even to half the numbers the Navy would call a skeleton crew.

  Fortunately we're in our jump. Crew needs are minimal. How we're going to fly this thing when we drop out of highspace? I have no idea.

  That's my professional opinion for my first personal log as a Captain. I have no fucking idea. Speaking of professional, my hair started falling out in clumps, so I shaved my head. It's high fashion on the Chimera these days.

  Marcus, end the log.

  Chapter 25 - Mindari

  28 HUNI 15319

  Sarah was strapped into the command station of the Chimera as the countdown neared zero for return to highspace.

  “Eight minutes,” Sachelle called from navigation.

  Navigation, weapons, and command were the only functional consoles on the bridge. The Chimera had eight remaining engineers, and five of those were still in medbay hanging on to their lives by a thread. There were precisely three functioning crewmen on board who knew how to fix the equipment so the ship could operate on returning to realspace.

  Sarah put off the order as long as she could. “Deploy the cooling systems, Sachelle.”

  “This is it,” Sachelle said.

  Titanium fins extended from the FTL drive section of the Chimera, ready to pour the heat of the core out into the darkness as the warping of space by the singularity ceased. Sarah didn't understand the physics, but she knew you could power a small city with the heat the core would produce dropping from highspace to realspace.

  “The fins all report locked into place.” Sachelle said.

  “Status report on the pumps?” Sarah asked.

  “Yeah… I got nothing. We can hope it works.”

  Sarah and Sachelle were the only people on the bridge. All of Alpha shift was dead, and Sarah had the two remaining weapons officers from Bravo shift working with damage control.

  Sarah's voice was flat. She had no more emotion to spend on caring about the coolant system. “Did you ever think you would make XO so quickly, Sachelle?”

  “Nobody could have predicted this, Lieutenant.”

  “Probably not.”

  “What are we going to do if we do make it back to realspace?” Sachelle asked. “We don't have the crew to run the ship.”

  “We'll deal with that when the time comes. How long?”

  “Three minutes until spin-out, twenty-seven seconds after that we hit realspace.”

  Sarah put the forward view from the ship on the main screen. The utter blackness of highspace. She could see the bow of one of the destroyers on the right side of the screen.

  She laughed, then started a song. She sang it for Jac when he was a baby. “Time is an illusion, and illusions fool the mind….”

  Sachelle turned and looked at her like she was crazy for a moment. Then joined in. “But I would see through it if it meant time with you…”

  Sarah smiled at Sachelle and sang the next line. “Because unlike time together, love is forever…”

  Sachelle pointed to Sarah as she sang the last line of the first verse. “And forever is what I want with you.”

  Sachelle and Sarah laughed tired laughs, accepting and warm. Sarah stared at Sachelle, looked at the radiation burns on the woman's face, the white patches of scarred skin on her bald head.

  “You're my last friend, Sachelle.”

  Sachelle turned to look at Sarah. Sarah noticed Sachelle's bloodshot eyes, the sunken eye sockets, the projecting cheekbones.

  “And you mine. But if you make me cry I'll beat your ass.” Her voice was raspy, sounding dessicated.

  Sarah chuckled. “As sick as you are? Please…”

  The timer reached zero. The ship groaned as gravity waves coursed through its length, and as huge pumps sent coolant out into the extended radiators.

  “Are the radiators holding?” Sarah asked.

  “Nope. Leaking like sieves. But slow enough we might make it.”

  “Well, at least we know the pumps work.”

  The two sat in silence as the secondary timer reached zero and the Chimera dropped into realspace. A starfield appeared in front of them. One star shone brightly in the center.

  “Any chance that's Mindari?” Sarah asked.

  “Maybe. Let's find out.” Sachelle projected the star charts for Mindari onto the screen, and the AI rotated them until they matched the visual reality. “Looks like we're… right here.” Sachelle said. A three dimensional representation of the Mindari system appeared on the screen, with the Chimera located nearly two hundred AU from the star.

  “That's a long way out. No matter,” Sarah said. “How are the two destroyers we brought along?”

  “I'll ask,” Sachelle answered. She hailed the two escorts. Both ships were in the same dire straights as the Chimera. Dead and wounded outnumbered the living five to one, and neither ship had any idea how they were going to successfully operate.

  Sarah flipped through her command screens until she found what she was looking for, then activated the ship's emergency laser beacon. The signal was powerful, and would reach Mindari IV in just over a day. Help would come. She hoped.

  * * *

  37 HUNI 15319

  Sarah dreamed of a rescue. Of powerful men and women in white ships. The ships called her.“RKV Chimera, this is the Alliance cruiser Invictus. We are responding to your distress call, over.” The call was in Galactic Standard, not Korvandi.

  Sarah woke from her nap with a start when a loud clang rattled the Chimera's hull.

  The radio speaker crackled again. “RKV Chimera, this is the Alliance cruiser Invictus. We are responding to your distress call, over.”

  Oh shit, that's real…

&
nbsp; Sarah grabbed her headset and hoped her Standard was up to par. “Invictus, Chimera. I'm glad to see you.”

  “Chimera, state the nature of your emergency.”

  It's not obvious?

  Sarah looked at Sachelle, asleep in her grav couch. “Staffing. Radiation burns. Tea. We're out of tea.”

  “Chimera, Invictus. Limpets have confirmed you are Hive free. Request permission to send medical staff and Alliance officers aboard.”

  “Granted,” Sarah replied. “There is an airlock labeled 4B. Use that one. I'll meet you there.”

  “Invictus copies.”

  Sarah released the auto-straps on her gravity couch, then pushed toward the bridge exit. She'd let Sachelle sleep. The woman was extremely sick.

  Sarah waited a quarter hour before she heard something seal to the outer airlock. Once the control panel indicated equal pressure on both sides of the lock, Sarah cycled the inner lock open. “Welcome to the RKV Chimera,” Sarah said. “Quite possibly flagship of the Royal Korvand Navy.”

  “Thank you for greeting me,” a man said as he floated toward her. “I'm Lieutenant Nichel Dovane.”

  “Lieutenant Sarah Dayson, acting captain.”

  “I have a dozen doctors and another dozen medics on my shuttle, Captain. I'd like to offer you their services. We have a lot of medicine as well.”

  “Please help.” Sarah tried not to beg, but begged anyway. “Do you have the means to transport one hundred and forty-seven souls to a military hospital?”

  “I do.”

  “And will you?”

  “Of course we will.”

  “Then, Lieutenant Nichel Dovane, I surrender the Chimera, as well as the destroyers Prince Allond and Malfeasance into the hands of the Alliance Navy. Please take care of my people.”

  “I accept on behalf of the Alliance Navy, Lieutenant Dayson,” Lieutenant Dovane said.

  Sarah was no longer acting captain. Her watch was over.

  Dovane gestured toward the airlock. “If you would, Lieutenant, board this shuttle. I have the capacity to remove twenty-four of your crew and another shuttle is waiting behind me.”

  “No, not yet.”

  Lieutenant Dovane looked at Sarah as if he didn't hear her right.

  “Follow me,” Sarah asked. “With one of your doctors.”

  Dovane followed her, dragging a doctor with him.

  Sarah pulled herself through the hatch back into the bridge. She floated to Sachelle. Switching back to Korvandi, she gently prodded Sachelle awake. “Sachelle, wake up.”

  Sachelle didn't open her eyes. “Damn you, I'm sleeping.”

  “You'll want to wake up for this.”

  “Pancakes?”

  Sarah laughed. “Guests.”

  “Oh. Oh!” Sachelle opened her eyes and twisted her head. “I'm damned glad to see you,” Sachelle said.

  Lieutenant Dovane looked at Sarah puzzled.

  “She's glad to see you,” Sarah translated, then turned back to Sachelle. “A doctor is going to look at you.”

  Sachelle looked past Sarah and Lieutenant Dovane at the doctor. “Tell her if she likes what she sees I'm single. My Mom told me to get a doctor.”

  Sarah smiled at the doctor, who looked to Sarah for the translation. “She wants to know if you're single.”

  The doctor smiled. “Let me get to work, Lieutenant. We can worry about her love prospects later.”

  Lieutenant Dovane tugged Sarah's sleeve. “Let's go. Your shuttle awaits.”

  Sarah looked around the bridge. Dried blood stains. Burnt equipment. Broken lighting, cracked bulkheads, and a slight smell of burning and death. “No. I'll be last. I was her last captain, I'll be the last Korvandi citizen to walk from her decks.”

  Dovane smiled. “Inconvenient, but understandable. I'll wait with you, if you don't mind.”

  Sarah nodded. “Let's get this ship abandoned. The Alliance can do whatever they want with it once my people are off.”

  It took time, but six days later the remaining crews of the Chimera, Prince Allond, and Malfeasance were inbound to Mindari for medical treatment and a much needed rest from the trials of war.

  Chapter 26 - Renewed

  33 JUNI 15319

  Sarah lay propped up in a hospital bed, watching a holovid. The room blinds were closed, the holovid and hospital equipment provided the only light in the room. She looked at the tubes sticking in her arm. Self-disgust filled her. Her teeth hurt as she clenched them.

  My life is a mess and I'm in bed.

  She'd been conscious for nearly two days, in the final stages of recovery from nanite regeneration to repair radiation damage. To Sarah's substantial displeasure, simple nanites coursed through her bloodstream erasing any cell necrosis from her body. On the bright side any sign of blisters or scarring from the radiation sickness was gone. As was the scarring on her face from impacting the Chimera's nav console.

  She heard voices in the hall outside her room. Not the usual quiet urgency of hospital staff, but loud, boisterous voices.

  Military voices.

  The door to her room opened and three men walked in. One walked to the only chair and sat down, another stood by the door smiling neutrally. The third walked over and stood beside her bed.

  “Good, you're awake,” he boomed. His Galactic Standard was spoken clearly and with precision.

  Definitely a military voice.

  “No thanks to the quality of holos you call entertainment here,” Sarah replied. She pushed a button on her bed to turn off the holovid and the room lights rose simultaneously.

  “Was holovision any better on Korvand?”

  “No, same shit. Mindless drivel to keep the masses titillated. What do you want?”

  “One place is like another sometimes.” The man pulled out a card and spun it into her lap. “I'm Colonel Drevon Anmick. If this is the right room you're Lieutenant Sarah Dayson.”

  Sarah snorted dismissively. “Former Lieutenant Dayson. Now I'm civilian Dayson, on Mindari without any traveling papers.”

  “Fair enough. I think we can take care of any document problems you might have. When you were rescued you were acting captain of the Chimera?”

  “Yes. I'm getting tired, Colonel. I've got nanites, something I utterly despise, flowing through my body like microscopic potential traitors ready to consume me at any moment. I'm going to ask again. What do you want?”

  “I read the logs of the Chimera. That ship was held together with double sided tape and hope when you got here.” The Colonel paused to drop a holostick on Sarah's bedside table. “Here's a copy of the logs. From the crew roster I see you lost over nine hundred crew members.”

  “I lost? You mean were lost.” Sarah's voice lowered in agitation. “Colonel. What do you want?”

  “My apologies,” Anmick said. “Your former Captain… Sheffaris… am I saying that right?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “He spoke very highly of you. Left you a reference in his log. Said you were tough as nails and smart as they come. Do you agree with him?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Tough maybe. Not that smart.”

  Anmick smiled, his eyes twinkled in the light of the lamp next to Sarah's bed. “I'd like you to offer you a chance at a job in the Alliance Navy. That is, if you're interested.”

  Sarah pushed herself up a bit in bed. “Based on a reference from my captain? Sure, I'm in.”

  “First, young lady, I said a chance, not a sure thing. Second, most of our ship captains are men and women like yourself who've lost their homes to the Hive.”

  Sarah stared at him, not sure if she heard him right. “Why in the galaxy would you do that? I can't imagine a more disgruntled group. And I've lost two homes to those bastards.”

  The man smirked. “You're right. But, regardless of that, usually professional. Which is the combination I'm looking for in you.” The man gestured toward the foot of Sarah's bed. “Would you be terribly upset if I sat down?”

  Sarah grunted and moved her le
gs. “Help yourself.”

  The Colonel sat. “I work for a man named Admiral Heyden. Jerna Heyden.”

  Sarah thought a moment about the emphasis placed on the name. “Should I be impressed?”

  Colonel Anmick smiled again. Sarah decided it was a formulaic move, one calculated to elicit a certain response. “Well, not by me, certainly. Maybe the admiral will liven up the room for you a bit more when you meet him.”

  “The answer is yes, I'd jump at that chance.”

  “I figured you would. I also read your XO's report, regarding the incident on the bridge of the Chimera when you were about to go to highspace at Korvand.”

  Sarah sighed. “So you know I lost my mind. Captain Sheffaris said he'd ordered the XO not to speak of it.

  “We found no record of that.”

  “I guess I'm not the only officer who doesn't follow every order… but why would you offer me a job then?”

  “A chance at a job,” he corrected. “It was actually your XO's report that sealed the deal. He logged everything you did, of course, and honestly, Lieutenant, I'm not sure how you navy types live with the horrors you face, but those were… well, let's just call them extraordinary circumstances.”

  “I broke discipline,” Sarah spat out. She hated the memory of it.

  “Yes, but you should playback your XO's personal log about that moment. His words might make you feel better.” Anmick gestured toward the holostick. “In fact, let's listen to it.”

  The Colonel produced a digital player from his overcoat pocket. He inserted the holostick, entered a digital time, then hit play. A familiar voice burst forth into the room.

  “— I thought the captain was going to shoot her for a moment, but then it seemed like her… well, it seemed like her raw emotion made us all more human in that moment. Reminded us what we were laying down our lives for. After the captain gave into her demands and I protested I saw something I didn't expect at all. I looked into her eyes and saw Sarah Dayson become an officer in the Korvand Navy. Not just in name, she was already that. But she became navy. She put everything she had on the table, then swept it to the side for the sake of making the best military decision. And Ensign Sachelle? Marika Sachelle… another hero—”