by Nick Webb
“We can, Ben. We can, and we will. It’s time to move on and prepare for the next battle—don’t worry buddy, we’ll hit them where it hurts. But for now, we need peace. Half those kids down there are probably conscripts anyway. If it comes down to it, try to take out their commander, and maybe the fresh-faced recruits will change their minds. For now, though, stop firing and see if the Imperials follow suit.”
Ben didn’t like it. He thought back two hours ago to when he was momentarily in charge of the bridge, how he gave the surrender order. He’d done it to save all their hides, to at least let them fight another day. But then Jake had gone and somehow evaded Admiral Trajan, and now they finally had a chance against the last few that still fired at them. Why give up now? He motioned to Anya and the rest of the marines nearby to hold fire.
“Cease fire,” he said into his headset. He made sure it was on a channel that the imperials could hear. “Cease fire. All Resistance units cease fire. We’re offering a dialogue.”
Anya sidled up to him. Enemy assault rifle fire still blasted away in the hallway. “Is this a good idea? If we let our guard down, they could very well get up to the bridge or engineering or something, and then all those heroics were a waste.”
“Bad idea or no, the Captain ordered it. Stand down,” said Ben. “For now.”
Moments later the enemy fire ceased as well. Ben heard a crackle over his headset comm. “This is Sergeant Tomaga of the fifty-first storm brigades, to the commander of Resistance fighters. Meet me in the hallway of deck ten, section five for a parlay. Come unarmed.”
Ben glowered at Anya. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Unarmed?”
She shrugged. “Sounds like a trap to me.”
The headset crackled back on, this time with Jake’s voice. “Your call, Ben. Seems like it’s now or never to put an end to this thing and save a few lives.”
He’d studied for this moment his entire life. Trained under the most storied hand-to-hand and firearms experts in North America since he was a teenager. He was ready to lead this assault and finish the Imperials off. This was his chance to shine.
No. My chance to shine was back on the bridge, but now I’m down here holding an assault rifle.
Watson had tapped him to be the XO. He was sure the old man would have chosen Ben to command the Phoenix in his place. Absolutely sure of it. So what the hell was he doing down here commanding a bunch of grunts?
He checked the oxygen sensor, and, seeing that atmospheric pressure had been restored to the deck, he removed his helmet and rubbed his head. The effects of the concussion were starting to resurface, despite the drugs they’d given him in sickbay. His mind felt like a scattered puzzle, but he grit his teeth and tried to focus.
“Sergeant Tomaga, this is Lieutenant Commander Jemez, commanding the marine contingent you are currently engaged with. Agreed. No weapons. I’m just down the hall—I’ll meet you there in one minute. Jemez out.”
Anya removed her helmet and studied his face. “You want me to come with you?”
“No. He said come alone. Jake’s right. If we can end this thing now, we save lives.”
She let out a puff of air. “Yeah, their lives.”
“Yes. And maybe ours too.”
“Ben,” came Jake’s voice, “it looks like the auxiliary bulkheads have kicked in. You should have air now.”
“Acknowledged, Captain.” The word grated on his lips, but he swallowed his pride, momentarily at least, and took a step out into the hallway with his open hands raised halfway into the air. He peered down the dimly-lit hallway whose lights flickered with a particular foreboding—those that hadn’t been shot out, at least.
At any moment, Ben expected the enemy to burst out from their cover and shoot him up, but remarkably, the only movement at the end of the hallway was that of another man. An Imperial soldier, holding his hands up, mirroring Ben. Slowly, with great trepidation, Ben advanced.
The soldier took off his helmet, revealing the black haired, vaguely Japanese-looking face of Sergeant Tomaga. After a moment spent regarding Ben, he approached the intersection of two hallways that Ben had already reached.
“Sergeant,” said Ben.
“Commander,” said Tomaga.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Neither did I.”
Ben tried to keep any emotion, and expression off his face. Try to hold all the cards, he told himself. “I’m glad you did. You heard the Captain. We’re offering safe passage back to whatever world you see fit. No conditions.”
“Those terms are not agreeable to us,” Tomaga said, his eyes inscrutable.
Uh oh. Ben took a step backward.
“I’m afraid those are the only terms we can offer. Other than to return back to our cover and resume firing at one another.”
Tomaga’s face was like a steel deck plate, revealing nothing that moved behind it. “I propose an alternate path, Commander. If we return to the Empire, our lives are forfeit, as the Admiral will suspect treachery on our part. Who would believe that the bloodthirsty Earth Resistance had simply let a squad of brave Imperial marines just walk away? For now, our paths are aligned. We will remain aboard your ship, until we can arrange a more suitable destination, and until we can be assured our families will not face reprisal.”
Ben’s mouth hung open momentarily, before he had the mind to close it. “So you’re saying you’re going to join us? At least until you find somewhere to hide from the Empire?” It sounded suspicious, to say the least.
“Join you? Not exactly. But we will not fight you, and those of our ranks who wish to join you may do so. Nearly all of our men are conscripted soldiers, Commander, who would rather be back home with their families. If what your Captain says is true, and the Caligula opened fire on your ship while we were still aboard, then I say, to hell with them.”
Ben stoically maintained his steely expression. It sounded too good to be true. Just moments ago, the soldiers were all in a frenzy, charging and firing at his men, and now, all of the sudden, they were declaring themselves personas non grata of the Empire? His eyes narrowed in a suspicious gaze.
“How can I trust you, Sergeant?”
Sergeant Tomaga’s face didn’t betray any of his thoughts. “How can I trust you, Commander? If we lay down our arms, how can I trust that you won’t execute us, or return us to the next Imperial world you stop at?”
The man had a point. Neither of them could trust each other, and yet both had to, if they wanted their men to live. What would Captain Watson have said? The temptation to rub his pounding head was almost overwhelming.
“Very well, Sergeant. I give you my word that your men will be left alone. We will assign them quarters, and will give them free access to the galley, and to the common areas for entertainment and such. But they will relinquish their weapons, their comm devices, and their uniforms. In return, we will work with you to find a place to take you that is satisfactory to you and your men. Agreed?”
The barest hint of a smile pulled at Tomaga’s stoic lips. “Agreed, Commander.” He turned around. “Fifty-first storm brigade! Lay down your arms and present yourselves. Move! We are not surrendering, and will not be harmed, but make no provocative actions or you will answer to me.”
Slowly, the soldiers holed up in the various rooms scattered down the hall began to poke their heads out of the doors, looking to make sure there were no guns aimed at them. Ben tapped his comm. “Phoenix security teams, stand down. Be prepared to collect weapons and escort the fifty-first brigade to …” he trailed off, unsure of their immediate destination.
“To the common area on deck fifteen, aft of engineering,” said Po, her voice sounding out from the speaker on his ASA suit. “Sergeant, the Captain welcomes you aboard. And Ben,” she continued, with a smile in her voice, “congratulations.”
***
Captain Jacob Mercer peered through the glass wall of the surgical unit in sickbay, marveling that the thing had stayed intact during the battle. H
e watched as Doc Nichols, in white and assisted by a nurse, worked frantically on an ensign from engineering. Mercer didn’t even know the man’s name. He’d sent the boy there. An order of his had sent that kid flying down an emergency hatch and ruptured half a dozen of his organs.
He didn’t know if he could live with this. The ensign from engineering, the dozen souls that perished in the forward section as the Phoenix smashed into the Caligula. The dozens of injuries and fatalities that happened during the ensuing bombardment and firefight. The fighter deck crew. The pilots. Even the galley crew hadn’t been spared from the carnage of that day.
All told, as Jake scrolled down the list of dead and the times of their deaths, he could ascribe well over half those deaths to himself. Eighty-six. Eighty-six people died after he looked Ben Jemez in the eye and told him the Captain had not chosen him to take command, but had chosen Jake instead. Eighty-six people since he’d told the biggest lie of his life.
No, not the biggest lie. The biggest bluff. The most dangerous gambit. And it was to win. He was convinced, absolutely without a doubt convinced that if he hadn’t done what he did, they would all be dead. Every last one of them. He knew Ben. Since the man had joined the Viper crew at Eglin, he knew that the man was not capable of command—of being able to take the risks and make the necessary difficult calls.
But that knowledge didn’t make the weight of the lie any lighter.
“Hey. You ok?” Po rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah, Grizzly.”
She stepped forward to stand next to him, watching the surgery on the young ensign. The vital signs on the monitors over his head held steady, but looked terribly weak. “What’s with the Grizzly? I thought I was Mama?”
Jake chuckled. “I thought you didn’t like that callsign.”
“It suits me, I guess.” She reached a hand up to a stray, graying curl that had fallen out of the tight grandmotherly bun on the back of her head and encouraged it back into place.
“Yeah. The crew really looks up to you. Well, the bridge crew, at least. Back there, in the heat of things, when you were calm, they were calm. When you seemed agitated, they looked at you and became agitated. I saw it in their eyes. You were like the cool, steady hand.” He looked over at her, breaking contact with the closed eyes of the ensign. “I’m glad you were there. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you.”
She sighed. “Give yourself some credit, Jake. You were incredible up there. When Ben signaled our surrender, I thought we were lost. I’d given up hope. But then you blustered your way in there and took charge. I guess Captain Watson saw the real Jake and not the incredibly foolish, daredevil jackass Jake.” She turned to face him. “I’m glad he changed his mind.”
She knew. How could she not know? She was toying with him, he was sure. Making him feel guilty about his charade in the hopes he’d toss his hands up and surrender, giving Ben the command he should rightfully have. The way she was looking at him—the gleam in her eye, the slight squint. Was that squint just old age creeping up on her? No, no. Of course she knew. She had to. She seemed to know everything people were thinking.
“Po,” Jake began, trying to find words, any words to redirect the conversation. “I need you as my XO.”
“Me? What about Ben? Jake, I think you need me more at tactical than at—”
“No, I’ve decided I want Ben as head of ship security, and will man tactical otherwise. But you—I need you with me in command. The crew responds to you. What do you say?”
“Yeah, they like me now. Just wait and see if they like me as their XO barking orders at them,” she said, her squint and glimmer and faint smile all deepening.
He smiled and grabbed her hand, holding it between his own. “Thanks.”
Jake watched Doc Nichols wipe his sweaty brow with his sleeve, apparently forgetting to ask the nurse to dab it for him, and glance up at the window. He said something to the nurse, who stepped into his place as he went to clean up at the wash basin.
“So, Commander Po, what the hell are we going to do? We’ve got a badly damaged ship, half the Imperial fleet on our tail, a supposedly genius Admiral out for blood, and the rest of the Resistance basically wiped out. I’d say not bad for a day’s work, you know?” He tried humor, but it fell flat. It was too early, the consequences of his decisions still staring him, literally, in the face through the glass wall of the operating room.
“The Imperials will be looking for us, that much is sure. We can’t just pop into any old Imperial star system, or even most of the ones on its periphery without getting shot at,” said Po.
Jake grunted his agreement. “We’re going to need supplies. And food. We’re good on water as long as we have power, but we’re going to need a source of anti-matter. And we need a place to drop those Imperial soldiers—we can’t just have them traipsing about the ship for months on end. Ben doesn’t trust Tomaga anyway. Says he’s going to double-cross us. Kill us in our sleep or something.”
“He’s right to be concerned, Jake. If Tomaga had half a brain as a soldier he’d know that waiting to fight another day, possibly in a much more advantageous position, was a far better strategy than just dying there in the forward section today.”
Jake’s eyes followed Doc Nichols as the man stripped off his surgical gear and recorded some notes on a data pad at his desk.
“You know what we should do? We should track down Admiral Pritchard. We’d be less vulnerable traveling around together as backup for each other. And technically he’s probably the highest ranking Resistance Space Fleet officer in existence right now. Admiral Bates died on the Firebird.”
Po regarded him skeptically. “You even think he’s alive? Everything I’ve heard says the November Clan got him out in the Capella system. Blasted the Fury out of orbit.”
Jake shrugged. “It’s as good a place to start as any. The Novembers aren’t exactly friends with the Empire.”
“Nor friends with us. They’re pirates, Jake. Criminals, pure and simple.”
“Yeah, but the enemy of my enemy is …” he paused, trying to find the right word.
“Our friend? You’ve got to be joking Jake,”
“Actually, I was going to say our temporary ally. I don’t intend on becoming friends with the pirates and thugs of the nether regions of the galaxy. But, if they can help us defeat the Empire, well, it’s something we have to consider,” said Jake.
Po pursed her lips, considering his words, before she apparently remembered something else she was going to ask him. “And Ensign Smith? The one who fired that quantum field torpedo and started the whole mess? Did you have time to look him up in the computer?”
“No. Haven’t had time.”
“Well I did. Turns out he’s from Corsica. I dug around and saw that his family lives in an impoverished neighborhood at the outskirts of one of the bigger cities. He joined the Imperial fleet just a few years ago.”
“So he was an Imperial plant, then?”
Po nodded. “I’m sure of it. I searched some recent records, and his family has moved to a swanky apartment on New Kyoto. Seems their bank account has swelled recently. I think Trajan promised the kid that he’d take care of his family if he did what he did.”
The door to the operating room slid open and Doc Nichols plodded out, puffing on his ever-present cigar. At least he didn’t bring it out during surgery.
“Well, I’ve got good news, and bad news.”
“What’s the good news, Doc?” Jake stroked the five o’clock shadow forming on his chin.
“Ensign Chen is going to make it. Barely,” the doctor said, closing his eyes with another pull on the cigar.
Jake waved the smoky haze in front of his face. He’d never liked cigarette or cigar smoke. It reminded him too much of his father.
“And the bad news?”
“The bad news is that I can’t say the same for over a hundred of his fellow crew members. One hundred and sixteen bodies have passed through these doors today, Capta
in,” he said, waving the cigar at the door to sickbay, “we’re using the quarters across the hall as a temporary morgue. My question to you is, Captain, how many more bodies can I expect over the upcoming weeks?”
Jake pressed his lips together, not trusting his temperament to give a diplomatic reply. Nichols seemed to notice his frustration and continued.
“Look, Captain. The hard decisions have to be made. That’s why Dick chose you, I suppose,” he said, looking Jake squarely in the eye. He thought for a moment that his secret was about to be revealed to Po.
But Nichols continued. “But hard decisions or no, they have consequences that affect this crew, and affect my work. You did a fine job getting us out of this embarrassment of a situation that the Resistance High Council got us into, but don’t think I’m going to come kissing your ass for it. People died today because of you, hero or no.”
Po interrupted, speaking with a quiet intensity that surprised Jake. “No, Doctor. People didn’t die because of Jake. They died because of the Empire.” Her eyes flashed with the barest hint of anger, though the flash was more a smoldering burn, piercing Doc Nichols’s lined, tired face. “The empire took my husband, they took my children, they took my freedom, and now they’ve nearly taken my ship and dearest friends. This man saved us today, and don’t you forget it.”
She spun on her heel and marched out of sickbay without another word, pausing only to briefly touch the shoulder of one of the harried nurses rushing around to the moaning injured.
“Well, Doc. Let that be a lesson to you. Don’t cross the Captain in front of the XO. Especially not that XO.” He felt like smiling but couldn’t bring himself to with the bloodied men and women laying on tables and against walls all around him, many staring at their new, young Captain.
“Yeah, wipe that smug look off your face, Mercer. You and I both know what happened, and I stand by my choice. Just try to be a hero next time without losing half the ship in the process. If I wanted that, I could have chosen Commander Tight-ass.” He puffed a ring of smoke into Jake’s face before turning away to tend to another wounded man that two marines carried through the sickbay doors.