Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

Guiltily, Sela sank further into the bench and rested her head against the torn cushion. The curling of light in the conduit was the only illumination from the forward viewer. Around them the Cass plowed on in its familiar uncertain rhythm.

  “The Storm King ,” she said quietly, watching the undulating light. “That’s where I’d go.”

  Jon’s forehead wrinkled. He turned to her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Everything made sense there.”

  Realistically, Sela knew that returning was impossible. It was foolish to even fantasize about it. But it held the comfort of the familiar and predictable. The Storm King ’s world made sense. Her niche there had been plain. Her duties were clear.

  Yet she also knew that she could not for a moment squeeze back into that life. It would be two sizes too small and its view of the Known Worlds too narrow. It was an impossibility, even if her honor was miraculously restored and she was no longer considered renegade.

  “I know,” Jon whispered.

  Cautiously, as if fearful he might frighten her away, he inched closer. His hand rested atop hers on the arm of the bench. She did not shrink away.

  It still hurt, the untidy mass of emotions wedged beneath her ribs. She had wounded him, yet he still cared, and for some inexplicable reason, still tried. No doubt there were more hurts on the horizon for them. More things to overshadow the last and make these seem common and petty by comparison.

  Later. I’ll think about it later.

  Her eyelids grew heavy as she watched the nearly hypnotic light show on the viewer. She understood the phenomenon in vague terms. It was simply the light of stars pinioned to normal space when viewed through the veil of the vessel’s present course in the conduit.

  There had been few areas to watch it on a carrier like the Storm King , and not many of her comrades would have wasted the time to witness it. It was stuff for techs or, at best, a fleeting distraction. Well before her promotion, when Jonvenlish Veradin was still a life-upending storm on the horizon, Valen had smuggled scorch rum back onship. They had stolen into a forward section of the Storm King and lounged against crates, laughing at their own brazen action as they watched the dancing lights of the conduits from the slender portal.

  Sela drifted into the less-solid realm between memory and dreams, head tucked into her chest. Exhaustion claimed her.

  It was the vicious buck of the deck that jarred her awake. A metal purring mingled with a new protesting whine from the Cass’s engines.

  Hard stop.

  She righted herself on the bench, realizing that she had been resting against Jon’s shoulder.

  As she watched the viewers the tapestry of conduit lights evaporated, to be replaced by the stagnant star field of normal space.

  Jon cursed under his breath. “Lost the mains. Very lucky we were near a flex point.”

  Very lucky, indeed. The violent forces of popping lose from a conduit without a flex point could shred a vessel into metal scrap.

  Sela blinked away sleep and pulled down the interface from its perch on the mounted arm. The navsys screen was still up where she had left it. What she saw there was less than ideal.

  “Dead FP,” she muttered, taking in their coordinates. Although there was a naturally-occurring flex point, there was nothing of value nearby: no ports, no trading stations. Not even a meteor belt with modestly useful ores for processing. It was a good place to hide. But not the best place to be a distressed ship. Sela doubted that any official Regime nav charts would have even bothered to include this dead FP. Considering the chart’s source, it would be exactly the sort of place used by Phex’s customary level of clientele.

  “Maybe we were too close to the horizon when we passed a flex point?” Sela ventured.

  Jon shook his head. “Unless the guidance is off calibration, I don’t see how. And it doesn’t explain the shut down.”

  The Cass was essentially adrift. A quick glance told her that they were working off battery reserves, which was why they still had atmo and a-grav.

  “Pull up a diagnostic,” Jon ordered. He unbuckled his harness and climbed over the back of the grav bench. “I’ll check on Erelah on my way to the engineering loft.”

  Sela nodded distractedly, her attention riveted to the program lines. An unsettled sensation grew. For a second, she thought of the strange dream with Atilio seated beside her, thumbing through nav charts.

  Something about the display danced on the edge of memory. Frustrating, unfocused. If there was one thing Sela could always rely on, it was a faultless memory. She thumbed out of the navsys with the intent of looking for what passed for a diagnostic program on this bucket. A series of unfamiliar commands caught her eye, followed by the red-bordered screen with captions in Commonspeak.

  Command lockout.

  The unsettled sensation blossomed into an electric jolt.

  “Jon!” she shouted, slapping the vox line open.

  She scrambled over the bench, headed to the engineering loft.

  “It’s not the engines,” she called.

  Ignoring the ladder, she jumped down to the common passage and nearly collided with his back. He remained frozen in place, hands out at his sides.

  “The ship was programmed to dump us out here,” Sela continued, confusion mounting. “We’re locked out.”

  Dressed in the same baggy flight suit in which they had found her, Erelah stood at the opposite end of the corridor with the plasma rifle trained on them.

  “You’ve done this.”

  “I did,” said Erelah. “You left me no choice.”

  The look of betrayal on Tyron’s face was as Erelah had expected. On Jon, it was enough to crush her heart. She nearly lost her nerve.

  This is how it must be. Better to have him live in hurt and anguish than have him die. Both of them.

  There was no time for second-guessing.

  They were well clear of Tasemar. Their course would have drawn Tristic here. Right where she had intended.

  When Erelah had found the dead FP node on the Cassandra’s nav charts, it was perfect. She needed a large sector of uninhabited space. The fewer innocents to impact, the better. It was as if Miri herself had answered her prayers.

  Of course, Tyron’s rage would be astronomical when she realized Erelah had essentially sight-jacked her while she slept to input the new coordinates. She had little choice. The soldier was nearly impossible for Erelah to influence while conscious. At least she had tried to disguise it as a pleasant dream for Tyron. There were few pleasant things in the soldier’s memory. It was pretty dark in there.

  The seconds were ticking away. And there was still so much to do. By now Tristic would have detected the new course. Erelah had been as careful as she could be. In tiny sips, she had allowed the images to seep through that soft scar within her mind. It was easy to picture some gruesome black animal at the other side of that delicate membrane, hungrily lapping at the fissures and trying to claw its way back in. She counted on Tristic being so bent on her designs, so set on her recapture, that she would not question this new destination.

  The Questic was on the way. This had to work.

  As if Miri heard her silent prayers, the proximity alert beacon chimed self-importantly from the command loft. Another vessel was exiting the flex point.

  “What are you doing ?” Tyron challenged. She took a menacing stride forward, placing her body in front of Jon. The brave shield maiden still.

  Jon seized her by the shoulder. “Ty, don’t.”

  His gaze never left Erelah.

  “She did this. Locked us out from the com-sys,” Tyron said. She knew she was marked a traitor in the soldier’s eyes forever, despite the brief period of acceptance she had afforded her.

  “Actually, you did,” Erelah corrected.

  Tyron’s eyes widened as realization sank in. She lunged. Jon grabbed her by the collar, barely restraining her.

  He wedged himself between them. “Erelah, what are you doing? Think about this.”

&n
bsp; The alert continued to bleat, an insistent tempo.

  “This is how it has to be. I’m so sorry.” Tears prickled the corners of her vision.

  “You’re surrendering to Tristic?” His face folded.

  “She will pursue us until there is nothing left.”

  “We can figure something out.”

  “No.” Her courage threatened to lag once more. “It has to end here.”

  “Tristic won’t stop with just you. You know that.”

  Erelah nodded but did not correct him. True, if she had planned on simple surrender, Tristic would capture the Cassandra or just have it destroyed in a grand and menacing gesture.

  No, that is why I must make a grand and menacing gesture of my own.

  “When this is over, you’ll regain control of the ship. But don’t linger. Just in case.” She saw the expression of anger on Tyron’s face change to realization. Although the bull-headed soldier had refused to hear her plan, she had become a part of it.

  “I can’t let you do this.” Jon took a stride forward, decisive.

  Erelah pushed out at him. That now-familiar prickling sensation rushed through her and focused on Jon. Feelings and images flooded from him. She ignored them. They were a distraction. Instead, she delved into the deeper place under his waking mind, the bedrock.

  Erelah uttered a single word, focused as a command: “Sleep.”

  Jon folded mid-stride. Tyron caught him on his way down, guiding his limp body to the deck. She righted Jon’s head, checked his pulse.

  Erelah lowered her arm, allowed the weapon to clatter to the deck. She was glad to be free of its cold, sinister weight. Tyron saw, but did not take this as an invitation to move in on her.

  Now that she knew what Erelah could do.

  “This was your plan?” She hissed. “To do this to your own brother?”

  “He would have tried to stop me.”

  The question was plain on the woman’s face.

  “I can’t make you sleep like that. Like I said, you’re all sharp edges, hard to get underneath,” Erelah replied. “Besides, you have to watch over him.”

  Tyron’s face churned. The anguish in her voice like nothing a soldier would ever reveal. “Just do what you’re going to do. You’ve already done enough damage here.”

  Erelah wanted to tell her how much her brother saw in her: the potential he believed dwelled beneath that hard surface. She wanted to say how right Jon was and to beg her not to destroy that tender faith he still held. Because she deserved it.

  Instead, she retreated to the cargo bay and sealed the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  That crazy skew bitch!

  Sela glared at Erelah but was reluctant to leave Jon’s side. He was vulnerable.

  The proximity alert chattered on. Although the tempo had not increased, it sounded more insistent. Sela knew what she would find if she were to access the sens-con: a Ravstar carrier.

  Suddenly, the deck bucked. Metal creaked somewhere to her left and overhead. It felt like the fist of a giant pounding the tired old Cass. It was the signature turbulence of disrupted ions pushing forth in a tremendous wave that could be created only by a massive vessel exiting the conduit. The Cass, still adrift, had been too close to the flex point when the Ravstar vessel emerged and as a consequence had borne the brunt of the ion displacement of a far larger vessel.

  Any moment now, they’ll destroy us.

  Sela folded over Jon, trying to keep his head from smacking the bulkhead as they were rocked in the fading backwash signature. His breathing seemed fine. He was essentially asleep. She exhaled a shaking breath.

  Her fury blossomed. Erelah. I will take this out on her pallid hide if I live through this.

  Sela turned in time to see the closing cargo bay door and the girl’s pale face just before it shut. The lights on the magseal flipped to red. Locked.

  She sprang to her feet and raced to the door.

  Her plan. Her stupid Fates-damned plan!

  She used me to bring us here.

  The dream about Atilio, watching him flip through nav charts. It had been her own hands entering the coordinates of this destination. Somehow, the girl had slipped inside of her sleeping mind and used her to program the nav like some puppet.

  In futile rage, Sela kicked the door. Even if she managed to wake the Cass’s engines back up, they could not spool up the velo drives in time. They were locked out, adrift. Erelah had wanted to be sure that Jon did not intervene.

  Sela ran back to the command loft, leaping over Jon’s sprawled form.

  The ion wake of the Questic had sent the Cass into a slow spin, but the external vid feeds still tracked the newly arrived vessel. She regarded its image on the screen. It was not the same raptor class vessel that had attacked Merx. This was a deacon class carrier as large as the Storm King . Now it lumbered like a spiny, coiled monstrosity. The black hull gleamed in muted starlight. Her velo drive glowed in a sinister cool yellow.

  It was a ship meant to inspire fear and awe. All it evoked from Sela was unadulterated fury.

  “Oh, you’re an ugly bitch, aren’t you?”

  Sela jabbed off the proximity alert. The Cass drifted in silence now. The occasional hiss of fried circuits sounded under the uncertain flicker of the lights. Coolant dripped from unseen leaks to bubble and pop, releasing a sickly burnt smell. At least nothing was on fire yet.

  There was nothing she could do here.

  She rushed back down into the companionway to Jon. He’d not stirred.

  We’re not going out like this. Think, Sela, think!

  She looked overhead at the meshwork of conduits and exposed junction nodes. It was a tech’s nightmare of patches, and creative bypasses. Even if she started pulling wires at random to override the computer, she would likely make it worse.

  “Damn it all!” She pounded a fist against the cold metal wall.

  “Ty?”

  She looked down. Jon shakily pushed up onto an elbow. He shook his head as if to clear it.

  “You’re alright?” It came out as a breathless sob as she knelt at his side.

  “What’s happened?” His voice soggy and dazed. “Am I dreaming?”

  “No. It’s real. She did this.” Sela helped him to sit up.

  “Erelah?” His face folded with lingering confusion. “Where is she?”

  She jerked her chin toward the bay. “Cargo bay. With that bloody stryker.”

  His voice sharpened. “What did you do?”

  Sela felt the blood rush to her face. The plan. Erelah’s stupid plan. Had I only bothered to listen, could I have prevented this?

  “She planned this. I never thought—”

  Jon climbed to his feet. Weaving from wall to wall, he approached the cargo bay hatch. In a replay of Sela’s actions moments before, he beat and kicked ineffectually at the metal.

  “Erelah, damn it! Open this door!”

  “There’s no time,” Sela said. “Ravstar is here. Their carrier just exited the flex point behind us. There has to be a way around the command lockout.”

  He looked back at the hatch, laying a final dull smack against it with the palm of his hand. Grudgingly he allowed Sela to pull him toward the command loft.

  Sela opened the only operational system they could access: Sensory horizon .

  Of course, the viewers still worked. She wants us to see, to witness this.

  “Still in command lockout.” She tapped ineffectively at the interface to her right.

  “There has to be something…” Jon frantically tabbed through a flurry of screens. Each new command settled on the same override lockout.

  “Even if we could move, we burned out the nodes when we left Merx.” Sela tapped at the reads. “The carrier will be on us before we can reach full spool-up.”

  “We have to do something.”

  “There’s nothing left!” she said with sudden fury. “Erelah has seen to that! We’re dead.”

  A new, excited pinging sounded.r />
  “She’s prepping to vent the bay.” Sela snapped off the strident warning. The Cass’s androgynous voice echoed her observation in Commonspeak.

  Jon tried to open the vox link. Only dull static answered. He turned to Sela.

  “You knew .” He glared.

  “Only that she had a plan. But not this—”

  “You knew something . And you didn’t say a thing.”

  Sela turned away, unable to answer. The guilt twisted in her gut. Erelah had tried to tell her, and she had refused to listen.

  “She knew you wouldn’t go along with it, so she came to me and asked me to help.”

  “And so you did.”

  “No. Jon, I refused. Because it meant betraying you.”

  He slapped the console away. The screen flew back, striking the bulkhead.

  “Just go. Try to talk to her.” Her voice simmered with defeat.

  Jon watched her in the warning glow of the useless tell-tales.

  “There’s nothing for you to do here anyway.”

  “Erelah! Open this door right now!”

  Jon’s voice issued from the speaker on the wall and came muffled through the thick bay door. Erelah’s spine stiffened with the impulse to obey.

  “Whatever it is you’re planning, you don’t have to do this!”

  Hands trembling, she grabbed the last of the environmental scrubbers and sprinted back to the Jocosta . The ruined components clattered to the floor as she exchanged them for the fully charged ones. She kept her back turned to the hatch. She knew what she would see there: her brother’s distraught face hovering at the other side of the thick glass.

  “Don’t do this!”

  There was a hollow tug in her chest. She paused halfway up the side of the Jocosta to look at the door. Jon pressed his open palm to the glass. She could see the pale curve of his face beyond. He took this as a hesitation. His pounding on the glass renewed. She forced herself to look away.

  A weakness. A momentary weakness. Nothing more.

  There was no time. She willed her limbs back into motion. Sliding down into the cockpit that still smelled of charred filaments and ozone, Erelah donned the headgear.