Wilco twirled his knife some more. “Then what the hell is your problem? So broody all the time. What do you have to complain about?”
Hep’s face was easy to read now, twisted with surprise. “Are you kidding me? We’re fugitives.”
“We’ve been fugitives all our lives,” Wilco said.
“But for once, we had a chance to be something else. We got out of the pirate life. Bayne let us stay on the ship. We could have—”
“What?” Wilco interrupted. “Joined the Navy? Become sailors?” He laughed.
Hep looked like a child again. The naïve kid that Wilco was always protecting. The kid who was always staring off at the stars and hoping that fantasy would become real life. “I don’t know. Why not?”
“Because we aren’t like them,” Wilco said. “They march around like robots, doing what they’re told when they’re told. They’d walk out into the Black if they were ordered to. Mindless sheep. Not us. We’re alive because we’ve always done what we needed to, not what we’re told to.” Wilco’s eyes narrowed, and his face turned dark. “You remember the orphanage?”
Hep froze. His lower lip quivered.
“All the kids there,” Wilco continued. “The ones who did what they were told, you remember what happened to them?”
Hep squirmed. “This isn’t like that.”
“The hell it isn’t,” Wilco said. “They all ended up working on the street, giving themselves over to whatever the bosses wanted. They’re slaves. We find ways to be free in a system designed to put us in chains. That’s what we’ve always done. That’s what we got here with Bayne. The chance for it, at least. Bayne broke the chains the Navy put on him. We stick with him, we never get put in chains again.”
Wilco’s chest heaved. He twirled his knife and paced the floor, muttering and cursing under his breath.
“Bayne is going to get us killed,” Hep finally said.
“And the Navy wouldn’t?” Wilco shot back. “Or working the mines on some Byers-owned moon? Or just starving in an alley? People like us don’t have options.”
Time stretched on in silence for half an hour. Hep tightened into a ball the way he did as a kid, sitting in the corner of the broom closet of the orphanage before the bedtime bell. Wrapped up like an armadillo sensing the coming danger.
“How long we supposed to be in lockdown?” Wilco said.
Hep looked at him like he just remembered he was there. “Until the target’s in sight. We’re hiding behind a gravity well. Messes up sensors. They can’t see us on radar, but we can’t see them coming either. Need to rely on manual confirmation.”
“Eyeballs,” Wilco said. “Just say eyeballs. Maybe you should join the Navy.”
That brought a slight smile to Hep’s face.
But that smile disappeared at the sudden tearing of metal and the scream of alarms as a chunk of the hull was ripped away.
10
“What the hell just happened?” Bayne shouted.
“Hull breach,” Tech Officer Menard answered. “The shuttle bay.”
“Were we attacked?” Mao asked.
“No, sir,” Menard said. “No signs of any ships. It looks like a portion of the hull was ripped off. Most likely a surge from the gravity well. Sudden burst of hyper-focused gravity.”
“Anyone in the shuttle bay?” Bayne asked.
“Shouldn’t be,” Menard answered. “The shuttle bay isn’t a designated lockdown site.”
“All hands report in,” Mao ordered over the general comm.
Lights began flashing on the personnel monitor as each crew member activated a beacon alerting the bridge as to their status. Flashing light meant they were alive enough to activate it when ordered to. No light meant the opposite. Within seconds, all the beacons had been activated.
All but two.
“Sigurd, with me,” Bayne yelled as he ran off the bridge. “Mao, find a way to keep the ship together.”
Bayne and Sigurd sprinted down the corridor, stopping at each lockdown barricade. Bayne swiped his card, granting him executive access to override the protocol. The barricades lowered, then raised as soon as the men passed through.
They stopped at an emergency station just outside the shuttle bay and grabbed four oxygen masks. They put theirs on, nodding an acknowledgement of readiness to each other, then opened the door.
The sucking vacuum greeted them. Had they the time, they would have put on spacewalk suits and used the accompanying magboots to secure themselves to the floor. As it was, Hep and Wilco had been locked in the shuttle bay for more than two minutes. Assuming backup protocols kicked in, secondary oxygen supplies would have begun pumping into the room at the moment of breach.
But if backup protocols had enacted properly, then shield patches would have spread over the breach and they wouldn’t be fighting against the vacuum at all right now.
Bayne gripped the edge of the doorway, squeezing so tight he felt the joints in his fingers pop. Sig used the momentum of the pull, launching himself like a missile toward a stack of metal crates halfway between the door and the breach. He slammed into the crates then grasped at the straps securing them to the floor to keep from being sucked out.
Once they were inside the bay, Bayne raised the lockdown barrier, sealing them inside. “Any sign of them?” Bayne said to Sig through comms.
“No,” Sig answered. “But I can’t—” He tried to inch toward the edge of the crates to get a view of the rest of the room.
Bayne climbed to the left edge of the room, along the netting that secured smaller containers to the wall. Once he reached the far wall, he caught sight of them. One of them, at least. His view was obstructed by a wall panel torn loose.
“I have eyes on them,” Bayne said. “Left wall.”
“On my way,” Sig said.
“No,” Bayne said. He looked past the boy to the hole in the hull. The shield patch had deployed, but shrapnel had lodged into a section of it, leaving a gap in its cover. “I’ll get to him. You see what you can do about that shield patch.”
“Aye,” Sig said.
Bayne scanned the area for suitable stepping stones. A stack of crates a few yards away. Another a few yards from that. Then the netting to which the boy clung. He aimed himself like a missile at the crates and pushed off the wall.
He didn’t anticipate the speed at which he shot through the air, so he wasn’t ready when he slammed into the crates. The impact forced the breath from his lungs. His vision darkened along the edges, but he forced the threat of unconsciousness back. He flattened his body against the flat metal surface and felt the pull of the vast emptiness on his insides.
He gripped the edge of the crates and pulled himself along like a snake. He curved his body over the corner and pressed off the crate just as the pull became too strong to resist. The next stack of crates seemed to come at him like a speeding truck. It crashed into him, and everything went dark.
He gasped as consciousness came screaming back, adrenaline spiking his heartrate. From his new position, he could see the boy clearly. Boys. Hep had his arm laced through the netting on the wall. It looked ready to tear off, and he looked near unconscious. His head hung forward. His eyes closed. Face red from the strain. In his other arm, he clutched onto Wilco, who was limp and bleeding from the head.
He yelled to the boys but knew they couldn’t hear him over the sucking sound of life being dragged out into the vacuum. One last leap lay between Bayne and the boys. The most impossible leap yet. He needed to get straight across the gap between the crates and the netting. He needed to fight the pull, in the open space, without losing any ground. If he moved too far toward the breach, he risked crashing into the boys. Then they would all get sucked out into the void.
An idea flashed in his head. One he knew he shouldn’t have. The kind of idea that should be pushed down the moment it crops up.
The straps that secured the crates could be undone easily enough. And one of them was long enough that he could use it as a grappl
ing hook to reach the netting. Only, once he undid one of them, one of the crates would hurtle toward the breach—where Sigurd was currently working on restoring the patch.
Risk Sig to save Hep and Wilco. The math was simple and straightforward. Two for one. But math didn’t matter with people. It never added up right.
As he reached for the strap, his hand brushed the handle of his sword. A new idea flashed in his head. Maybe not a more efficient one, but the numbers were better. He drew the blue blade and stabbed it into the side of the crate. He inched around the edge and placed his feet on the blade, using it to brace against the pull. Then he drew the black blade.
Before the force of the vacuum could pull him off his perch, Bayne dove toward the wall. He stabbed the black blade into it. The pull was such that, after the blade pierced the wall, it still pulled Bayne backward, dragging the blade through solid metal. The blade came to a steel beam, a seam in the wall, and stopped. Bayne was only feet from the boys now, close enough to reach out and grab them.
“Hep!” He yelled the boy’s name to no response. He grabbed the netting with his free hand, then released the sword. Bayne wove his legs through the netting, ensuring he would not be pulled free. He leaned back, and the vacuum pulled his upper body around the side of the boys.
Bayne grabbed Wilco’s shirt collar. “I got him,” he said to Hep. “You can let him go.”
Hep didn’t seem to hear him. His eyes were closed. Every vein in his face and neck bulged. His skin was a deep red, nearing purple. He did not let go.
Bayne touched Hep’s shoulder and got closer to his ear. “Let go.”
Hep heard him that time. His grip slackened, and Bayne took the full weight of Wilco’s limp body. As soon Hep let go, he too went limp.
Bayne grabbed Hep with his other arm and pulled the boy toward him, sandwiching both boys against him. He reached over Wilco and grabbed the netting on the other side, securing them all in one big bear hug.
He felt the ligaments in his knees stretch and tear. His joints popped. Pain screamed through his body until his vision began to cloud over. Sweat pooled in his eyes. His grip on the netting began to slip.
“I could…” He could barely force the words out. “Could…use…”
Everything stopped, like time had frozen. He guessed this was what death would be like. Everything just stopping. Ceasing. Consciousness floating in the last moment it experienced, an endless purgatory.
“Patch applied,” Sigurd said.
When Bayne opened his eyes, he was on the floor of the bay, still wrapped in the netting. Hep lay next to him, pale and unconscious. Wilco was motionless as Sigurd pressed on his chest then breathed into his mouth, trying to force his lungs to work.
Bayne tried to speak, to ask Sig if Wilco was alive, if Hep was alive, if he was alive and not looking down on this, if this was the moment his ghost would be frozen in.
“Sir.” Mao’s voice echoed like God through the room. “We need you on the bridge. Immediately.”
Sig said, “Go,” through broken breaths.
Bayne shook free from his purgatory. “Get a medic to the shuttle bay ASAP. I’m on my way.”
11
The frigate passed only kilometers away from the Royal Blue, but, thanks to the interference from the gravity well, it was unaware of the Blue’s presence. At least for now. All it took was an eagle-eyed nav officer and they were blown.
Mao’s instinct told him to scrap the operation. Put the ship in a slow burn in the opposite direction, get out of the Rickard Sea, and find some place to rest and repair. And that was how he knew that Bayne would order the exact opposite.
“Sir?” Graeme said. “The Burning Sun will pass us by in two minutes and thirteen seconds. Twelve seconds. Eleven.”
Mao cleared his throat.
“What is our course of action, sir?” Graeme said.
“Maintain position,” Mao ordered.
“Belay that,” Bayne said, stepping onto the bridge. “Pursue the Burning Sun.”
The order didn’t surprise Mao, it was the plan, but he’d hoped the massive damage to the ship and near-death experience of the last two minutes might have changed Bayne’s mind. “Sir, I would like to suggest an alternative.”
“We aren’t leaving,” Bayne said.
“We can’t continue with the plan as is,” Mao said. “Not with the breach in the hull. We’ve lost significant maneuverability. We won’t be able to disable the Burning Sun before it detects us. If we engage, we risk a head-on fight, and we will not win.”
Instead of flat-out refusal, Bayne considered Mao’s point. The longer he was silent, the higher Mao’s hopes of actually getting through to the captain rose.
Mao felt like a fool for hoping.
“Hail the Burning Sun,” Bayne said. “And patch the call through to the shuttle.”
“Sir,” Mao said, beginning an objection. He realized the futility of it immediately and let it drop. “What of the Blue?”
“Once the shuttle launches, maintain a safe distance from the Burning Sun. I may need cover for the exfil.”
“Exfil?”
Bayne left the bridge, leaving Mao with a headful of questions and a knot in his gut.
Sigurd was standing outside the shuttle bay when Bayne arrived. He was pale and trembling, sweat on his brow, staring at his feet. Seeing the man so shaken was enough to shake Bayne. Of all the members of his crew, Sigurd was the most steadfast. He was young and eager, but never questioned, always gave everything he had, never wavered in a fight.
Bayne stood in front of him, rested his hands on Sig’s shoulders. “You saved our lives in there. Not just me and Hep, but the entire ship. The entire crew. You did more than any man could do in that situation.”
Sig looked up, his expression morphing from shock to something else—a mix of anger and confusion. “He’s alive.”
Bayne cocked his head.
Sig’s expression solidified in disbelief. “Wilco. He’s not dead.”
Bayne understood Sig’s response. He thought Bayne didn’t care about the boy. He thought Bayne assumed Wilco was dead and was ready to move on. And he was right. Bayne wanted to slap Sig for faulting him the response any captain had when losing a sailor in the heat of battle, but he didn’t have the time.
“Then you saved everyone,” Bayne said, his voice lacking a tone of congratulations. “Well done.” He nodded toward the shuttle bay door behind Sig. “Now, with me.”
Sig’s expression didn’t change, but he followed Bayne without question. Without outward question, at least. Bayne was not so blind as to not see it in Sig’s eyes of late. He saw it in everyone’s eyes.
The medics had both Hep and Wilco on stretchers when Bayne and Sig entered the bay. The boys were breathing deep from oxygen masks, color yet to return to their faces. Bayne cast a glance at them as he passed, knowing that more would invest time that he didn’t have. Their eyes were unfocused. They looked to have only just recovered from their unconscious states.
Bayne didn’t allow himself to focus on how young they both looked. Young and scared.
He and Sig both put on spacewalk suits and armed themselves. Sig took his trusty blaster rifle, Bayne, his swords and a pair of blaster pistols. They entered the shuttle and, once the bay had been cleared, exited the ship.
“You mind letting me in on the plan, sir?” Sig’s voice was tight.
Bayne missed the jovial tone, the excitement. He thought Sigurd would have appreciated the freedom from the oversight of Central, the freedom to move and do as they liked, engage the enemy without restriction. But, as he had quickly learned, Bayne didn’t know his crew as well as he thought.
He didn’t have the time to run the new plan by the crew. The old plan was to outmaneuver the Burning Sun, disable it, and board. Their ship was more powerful than the Blue, but its crew was not more formidable. A large portion was administrative staff. Those that could fight were corporate security—highly paid, highly trained, but inexperien
ced. Most had probably never seen a fight.
But with the damage to the ship, they lost the ability to outmaneuver the Burning Sun. The frigate had stronger armor and more guns. It would have blown them apart. The shuttle could still outmaneuver the frigate, but not disable it. They needed to board. And to do that, they needed help.
“Where’s my hail to the Burning Sun?” Bayne said to the bridge.
“Open,” Mao said. “And ready. You’ve got a general comm connection.”
“This is Captain Drummond Bayne of the Royal Blue. No doubt you’ve heard of me.” He wanted some ego to shine through, but he told himself it was an intentional ruse, part of the persona that Central had created for him. They made him the most wanted man in the system, so why not use that reputation? Though it would have been a lie to say he didn’t enjoy it.
“I have your ship in my sights,” Bayne said. “But I have no desire to destroy it. I only desire one thing: Jaxwell Byers.”
A moment of static filled the shuttle. Bayne’s breath froze in his chest as he imagined all the ways this plan could go bad in the flash of a blaster. Then the static died as someone on the opposite end of the comm answered.
“Did you think you’d incite mutiny by addressing that to the whole ship?” The voice was full of bravado, though it sounded forced, as much a persona as what Bayne had adopted. “Have you any idea what I pay these people? The lowest grade employee on my administrative staff makes more than you do in two years.” He laughed. “Should I say, more than what a captain makes, as I understand you no longer are one?”
“Tell that to the ship I got pointed at you right now.” He felt his ego creep up on him. No sense embracing the persona if it got him killed. “Anyway, that’s not why I called. I have no need to incite a ship-wide mutiny. I only need a mutiny of one. This message is for that one person. Proceed with the Lemire Protocol.”
Silence again. Followed by a slow-building laugh. Deep, the kind that stems from shock and disbelief.
Captain Bayne Boxed Set Page 23