by C. Gockel
“Volka?” Sixty said.
She turned back to Sixty and met his eyes—familiar warm brown flecked with green and gold. “I need to get some sleep,” she blurted out, and then flushed, remembering him pressed against her in the kitchen.
It seemed to her that Sixty went preternaturally still, and maybe she did, too. She was frozen with thoughts she couldn’t say aloud. It would be so nice to sleep with him. Their relationship had changed too fast, but she desperately needed it to be real. He’d be warm; he’d probably hold her all night. Of course, they wouldn’t just be sleeping all night—which was against The Three Books—but they were engaged, which among weere was just about the same thing as married. Not everyone could make it to church before the Season began. And in the Republic—well, paperwork in the Republic seemed more time consuming and complex than it did on Luddeccea, even though the Republic had computers. Something was bound to come up—a snag in her immigration status, most likely. She didn’t want to wait for every wrinkle to be ironed out…it might take the rest of her life. She blinked and realized Sixty was searching her face.
“I’m very tired,” she said, and then realized how lame that sounded.
“I’m sure you can rest in the Diplomatic Corps’s residence on the station,” James said, and Volka imagined the austere rooms there, with the large beds that were a little harder than she liked, and the scratchy scrub pajamas...but she wouldn’t have to wear those. With Sixty, she was sure to be warm, the warmest she’d been in a very long time.
Sixty’s eyes met hers again. She couldn’t read his mind. But then he said, “Whatever you need,” and her breath caught. He understood.
Her eyes were beginning to burn with lack of sleep, even if her heart rate had picked up. “I need a lot,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. And then she realized that was a lot of innuendo. But, perhaps taking sympathy on her, Sixty didn’t rise to the bait. His lips quirked, and one of his eyebrows rose, but that was all.
Carl snored and whimpered in his sleep.
“Right,” she said, adjusting the werfle in her arms. “Back to Sol.” The bridge was busy, the scientists were staring at the holo device they’d brought, everyone was talking—or maybe just thinking. She handed Carl to Sixty, saying, “I’ll get Time Gate 1 on Bracelet’s holo.”
And then, from directly behind her, she heard, “Ah, Volka. You didn’t get there in time…please don’t have died on me.”
The words had been spoken by Alaric.
29
Across Space and Time
Galactic Republic: Time Gate 5
Captain Ran’s voice crackled through the speakers on the Merkabah’s bridge. “They’re away.”
On the holo, Alaric watched the second group of troops—these from Ran’s ship wearing pressure packs—shoot toward the inner ring of Time Gate 5 and an open airlock there. In the holo, the men and the airlock were clearly visible. If he were to go to a porthole, he’d see only darkness. Their troops were wearing Republic environmental suits and were nearly invisible. The airlock was unlit to make it less of a target. And the whole operation was in the shadow of the Bernadette, protected by her bulk and Mitchel’s uninfected System 5 fighters on either side. Alaric had used the remote EM drives—the same type he’d used to push Volka’s craft into the sun—to push the Bernadette into position. He’d heard that the owner, safe on a tug to the planet’s moon, was issuing threats of legal action if she was damaged—but she was already only fit for scrap. Outside of the Bernadette’s shadow, there was a constant light show of phaser fire, but so far, the Bernadette protected them. They’d knocked out most of the pirates’ heavy guns, and Time Gate 5’s heaviest armaments had been destroyed early in the fighting—thankfully on both sides. As long as no heavy reinforcements arrived on the pirates’ side, they were reasonably safe. Alaric’s fingers drummed on his armrest. It wasn’t at all certain the Dark couldn’t arrive unexpectedly...his eyes met Solomon’s. The werfle was sitting on top of the chair back. The werfle hadn’t confirmed or denied his fears of what the Dark’s true motive had been in this system. A shake of the werfle’s head would be enough. Alaric didn’t need a complicated sign language exchange. But the werfle’s eyes narrowed, and Alaric leaned back slightly, interpreting it as, “Don’t worry about things you cannot change.” Solomon was wise.
“Get out of here,” Alaric said to Ran. Ran’s ship had used up her torpedoes, and her heavy phaser cannons were low on charge.
“We can still be of assistance,” Ran replied.
“We’ll need you and your ship later, Ran,” Alaric replied. “And right now, you’re in our way.” The Merkabah would be the last of the three Luddeccean vessels to drop off Guard troops.
Ran’s ship’s thrusters fired, briefly lighting the scene below. “We will see you on the other side,” Ran promised.
“You know you will,” Alaric said.
Ran’s ship pulled away just far enough to engage her Net-drive without damaging it. For an instant, she was a brilliant blue pearl of light, and then she was gone.
“Ticks coming around the Bernadette from her bow and stern,” one of Alaric’s own men declared.
Alaric’s eyes narrowed on the spider-like vessels crawling along the Bernadette’s surface; their phasers were visibly hot. He thumped his fingers on the armrests but didn’t interrupt his crew. They’d been at this for a while.
“Taking aim at the stern,” said one of his gunners.
“The one on the bow almost in my sights,” said another.
Two neat explosions cleared the ticks. “Adjusting the remote EM to compensate for the blast force,” said his remote operator.
To the weere priest at the ship’s computer, Alaric asked on a whim, “There aren’t any unusual time field fluctuations in the area?”
The weere man looked up at him in alarm, but then peered down at his monitor. “Only our ships, Captain.”
Alaric shot an eye to Solomon. The werfle shook his head in the negative.
“Our turn,” Alaric said. “Take us into position.” The mood on his bridge was confident, alert. No one was happy about sending Luddeccean troops aboard the gate, but everyone knew how important it was. Some of the priests were also confident it would bring more Galacticans into the Godly fold. Alaric wondered if it might work the other way when the Luddecceans saw how bright and exciting the Republic could be.
“Put me on speaker,” he said to his comms officer.
“You’re on, sir,” the comms man said.
Alaric had already given the men their orders to protect the gate, so he didn’t repeat it. Instead he said, “In thirty seconds, we’ll be in position. Luddeccea’s hope lies with you. You are our finest. We’ll be seeing you soon.”
A cheer from below deck went up.
A familiar voice said, “We’re ready, sir.” It was Davies—the man who had saved Volka in the Merkabah’s cellblock when she’d fought one of the infected there.
There was a nod at the helm. “Move out,” Alaric said.
Davies’s voice rang through the comm. “Move out! Move out!”
Alaric watched the jump in the holo—the troops flowed from the Merkabah to the waiting airlock like snowflakes driven by blizzard winds. There’d be some by now who were anchored to the outer wall, phasers ready to take out ticks on this side of the Bernadette as soon as the Merkabah departed. As long as the Bernadette held...
“Sir,” said the weere priest, “I’m…getting some…strange readouts.”
Alaric’s eyes left his snowflakes. The Merkabah was on the Bernadette’s port side. In the holo, off the Bernadette’s opposite side, there was a swathe of emptiness. Mitchel’s fighters were currently engaged off the Merkabah’s bow. The Prydwen itself was off their stern, warding off the heavier pirate ships.
Alaric tapped the small terminal beside him, highlighting the swathe of emptiness. “The Dark will be gating in there—”
“What?” cried the priest.
“Torpedoes—” Ala
ric said and grimaced, knowing they’d do no good. The Bernadette was in the way. “Jackson,” he said to the Bernadette’s remote EM controller. “Take the Bernadette to the coordinates I’m sending you. Now.” He tapped the place he’d highlighted a moment ago...rapidly.
“Yes, sir,” Jackson replied. No one on the crew protested that moving the large vessel would leave them exposed. A detached part of Alaric wondered if that mindless obedience would serve them well in the long run.
The Bernadette was larger than Volka’s little ship, and the EM drives struggled to move her. She veered gracefully, but agonizingly slowly, away. Alaric blinked and saw a flicker in her path. He blinked again and the flicker was a blazing red sphere, larger than the Bernadette. Alaric rarely dreamed, but he had that sensation of being in a dream and running helplessly in place.
“What?” someone asked.
“The Dark has gateless travel now,” Alaric whispered under his breath. “Ah, Volka. You didn’t get there in time.” Volka and her miraculous, unreliable, eccentric starship would have been sent to find any vessels the Republic thought would be capable of faster-than-light travel. Volka’s little ship was the only gateless vessel they had. Why hadn’t they called in the Luddecceans for that assignment? Why did they let the burden fall on her small shoulders? “Please don’t have died on me.”
The Bernadette was meters from the fiery warp in time. For a moment, Alaric hoped…but then a blast exploded outward from the sphere, the Bernadette erupted into shards, and seconds after, Alaric was slammed against his seat, and alarms were screaming.
6T9’s hands were on Volka’s arms when she turned from him and inexplicably looked over her shoulder as though she heard a sound. There was nothing behind her but the hull, and that had become transparent when the bridge closed. All that was outside was the system’s sun. At this distance, just a large star. Gasping, she whispered, “Alaric…he’s there.”
6T9’s hands slid from her.
Carl squeaked from the floor. “Yes, yes! Solomon’s with him. They were at Time Gate 5, launching Luddeccean troops into the gate.”
In the periphery of his vision, 6T9 saw James look sharply at the werfle. All of 6T9’s attention was focused on Volka. She turned full around and lifted her hand to the wall as though reaching for something. His circuits darkened. “I’m right here,” he wanted to say, but didn’t.
Carl squeaked. “Fleet couldn’t get troops there fast enough. The Luddecceans were able to send troops aboard three of their faster-than-light ships. Weere Guard are with them. Non-infected troops will still be outnumbered, but hopefully they can hold the gate until Fleet arrives. They’re sending smaller ships through the same small gate the Nightingale came through. But they’re hours away at lightspeed.”
“What?” said Young, coming over, Rhinehart, Jerome, and Ramirez close behind. Volka turned around, met 6T9’s eyes, and put her hand on his forearm. Despite his suit, his touch receptors fired, and his skin warmed beneath her fingers. She turned her focus to Carl, but her hand drifted to his. For a moment, 6T9 believed everything would be well.
Dr. Patrick Shore had been hovering over the holo, but he stopped whatever he had been doing and turned his attention to Carl.
6T9’s Q-comm fired, finally realizing the momentous nature of what the werfle had just said. It was one thing for Luddecceans and Fleet to fight together in System 33; it was only nominally part of Republic space. It was another thing for Luddeccean troops to be landing on Time Gate 5—one of the oldest gates of one of the oldest settlements in the Republic.
“You didn’t know?” Carl’s visor was up, his snout pointed in James’s direction.
James sighed. “I did, but it was supposed to be secret, Carl.”
Carl’s whiskers twitched. “How can I be discreet if I can’t read your mind?” It came out rather indignant.
Volka turned back to the group, but her eyes were focused on nothing. “He’s…Alaric’s…in trouble…they all are. The Merkabah is lost.”
Carl shivered. “Yes.”
“We have to help,” Volka whispered, her expression blank, eyes glowing in the dim light of the holo.
6T9’s hand tightened around hers. His Q-comm flashed bright white. Volka could read the emotions of the people close by, but she could feel Captain Darmadi’s from billions of kilometers away. His jaw got hard. Because she loved Darmadi. Some lovers expressed their affection with chocolates, flowers, and blowjobs. Alaric and Volka expressed their love by defying orders, by swooping in to rescue one another from danger, and, in Volka’s case, by rescuing a woman who reviled her because she was the mother of Alaric’s children. They knew each other in all ways. Alaric had saved Volka by stepping in when 6T9 had failed her, comforting her in her darkest moments when she was near suicidal with grief. Of course, Volka would return the favor. They would never stop defending one another; they would never be able to. They were bound by something more penetrating than the ether, something that defied space and time. Something only death could come between.
Dr. Shore said, “We don’t have orders to go there.”
Young growled, “We owe Darmadi and the Merkabah.” 6T9 couldn’t see the Marines crowding around him, or even Volka—his Q-comm was blinding him. In the same offhand way 6T9 had watched himself crush a man’s skull, he heard himself say, “We should go. We should rescue the captain.”
When they did, they would bring Captain Alaric Darmadi aboard, and 6T9 would kill him.
The Merkabah’s hull groaned. Somewhere metal screamed.
“Sir, we have ticks on the hull,” one of his men told him unnecessarily. Alaric could see that on the holo—one was very close to the conference room and just meters from the bridge. He could also see that the Dark’s faster-than-light ship that had targeted the Bernadette was gone. It had sent the Bernadette—or pieces of her—careening into the Merkabah and then immediately escaped. That told him a lot. The Dark had faster-than-light ships, but not a true fleet. They had only dared send one ship but hadn’t dared to lose it.
The voice of his Chief of Engineering cracked over the bridge. “The piece of her hull that hit us damaged the Net-drive. It is repairable, but we’ll need time.”
Alaric’s fingers pounded on his armrest. Time was something they didn’t have.
“Sir,” one of his weere priests said. “The impact damaged our electricals. I don’t have system controls.”
Translation: the priest could not set the self-destruct, and the Dark was going to get a faster-than-light, Luddeccean LCS. Alaric’s jaw ground. Like hell they would.
Facing near certain death, he felt the same way he had when he’d stared down the barrel of a phaser in prison. He was livid. He tapped his inter-ship comm. “Crew, this is your captain. Get to the jump lock immediately. Aid our troops in the liberation of the gate.”
On the bridge, no one moved. Unfastening himself, Alaric said, “You heard me. Get going.”
Men scrambled from their seats. There was a whoosh of the airlock door that led from the bridge, and Alaric turned to see Davies flanked by two regular Guardsmen and a weere. The sergeant saluted. “Martin can handle the evac, sir. Thought you might need help blowing up the ship.”
There was another screech and groan on the hull. Alaric suspected they were minutes from being boarded.
“I would appreciate that, Mr. Davies.”
Turning around, he saw that although his crew had all risen, they were not leaving. Of all the times not to follow orders. “Dismissed!”
The crew filed out, all except the oldest of the priests. “You’ll need me to help you with the self-destruct.”
A screech sounded from the direction of the conference room—saws cutting through the hull. It was exactly where Alaric wanted to go. They’d had trouble with their electricals aft of the Net-drive outriggers, but the terminal on the far side of the conference room would still work.
Davies handed him a pistol. Checking its charge, Alaric growled at the priest, “You’ll
be in the way.” He leveled his eyes at the weere. “You know I can handle the code.” He knew his way around the Merkabah’s systems—more than he was supposed to know. Solomon leaped from the back of the chair onto Alaric’s shoulder. Alaric scratched the werfle behind the ear. “Solomon, you’ll go with him.”
But the weere priest was backing toward the door, eyes on the werfle. “He’ll bite me if I take him away from you.”
“You’ll become infected, Solomon!” Alaric protested.
“He’ll die first,” the weere priest said. “But you won’t.”
The werfle purred. With a bow to Alaric, the weere priest backed out the door.
Alaric glanced at the werfle. Solomon had made his decision. “Right,” Alaric said, heading toward the conference room, putting his helmet on and snapping his visor in place. A green light where the pane of plastic met the helmet proper told him his suit was sealed from infection, and despite its thinness, would keep him alive in vacuum, whether in the heat of the sun’s light or in the chill of the gate’s shadow…if he got that far. Solomon was a snake-like ghost in the corner of his eye. Davies and one of the Guardsmen was ahead of him. The two other guards followed.
They passed into the narrow airlock between the conference room and the bridge, and Alaric couldn’t help asking, “How did you know I’d need help?”
“You didn’t give us a countdown for when the ship was going to blow,” Davies replied. “Knew you wouldn’t let ‘em have her, sir.”
Alaric almost smiled. “Well surmised, Shipman.”
The door to the conference room slid ten centis and stopped. Through it, Alaric saw darkness relieved only by falling sparks. The pirates were drilling in from above. Metal was screaming, but in his helmet’s speaker he heard Davies swear. “The door’s jammed.”