“We’re in comm range,” Nuko whispered. The view seemed to be having the same impact on her emotions that he was feeling.
“Open a channel,” he said.
“Ethan Walker to whoever is in command of the Blackwing. Is anyone receiving me?”
“Come to finish the job, Walker?” Jetaar hissed. He sounded like he was half-submerged in water.
“Negative,” he said. “I’m willing to render aid. What do you need?”
“A new ship,” he said, laughing and then groaning. “I think we’re beyond help at this point.”
“He may be right,” Rene said.
“I’m sure you can tell we’re tanked,” he said, coughing hideously. “We don’t even have comm.”
Ethan muted the channel. “What would keep them alive until they could get help?”
“A lot of batteries. Maybe a small reactor,” the engineer said.
“We’ve got that don’t we?” he asked.
“Sure, if you’re willing to give them a shuttle,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be enough to power their weapons or engines?” Ammo asked.
“Not even close, but it would get their air supply and comm up,” he said.
Tapping back into the comm Ethan said, “We can get you power and some extra EVA suit power packs would that keep you alive until you can get help?”
“We’ve got two blown power transfer couplings too,” he said. “First time we crossed paths you cost us our only spare. Without that we’ve got no way to hook anything up.”
The captain muted the channel again. “We’ve got a spare. Would it fit?”
“Not even close,” Rene said, shaking his head and biting his lip before he shrugged. “Well, maybe, if they’ve got a good engineer.”
Ethan nodded, releasing the button. “Is your engineer still alive?”
“For now,” Jetaar said, hissing out another slow cough.
“Is he any good?”
“Yah. He’s one of the best. Why?”
“We’re going load up a shuttle with a couple dozen suit packs and one of our spare power transfer couplings. My engineer says it will take some clever rigging, but you can keep the shuttle and use its reactor for emergency power to get your life support back up,” Ethan said. “Once you do that, you can get help.”
“Why the frak would you do that?”
“To paraphrase what you said to me, ‘it gives me no pleasure to let you die.’”
“Walker, you’re either an idiot or a hero,” Jetaar said.
“I’ve heard that a couple times in the recent past,” Ethan said. “Stand by. We’ll get this all loaded up and over to you. Walker out.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ammo asked. “Jetaar is a known pirate lord. He’s the head of a criminal syndicate, and he’s got to be wanted in a dozen places across the Coalition. Technically, even talking to him might be prosecutable in court.”
“You’re right of course, but you know, somehow I feel less dirty helping him than I did working for Makhbar,” Ethan said. “At least he plays square.”
She opened her mouth but stopped then nodded.
“Rene, pull a spare coupler from stores and get it loaded on shuttle two.”
The engineer jumped up and took off.
Tapping into the commlink he said, “Angel you can stand down for now. I need you to go to the EVA ops locker and pull two dozen suit power packs.”
“Suit batteries?” she asked.
“Affirmative. Meet Rene on the hangar deck and get them loaded into shuttle two.”
“Cando, but whyfor?”
“We’re answering a distress call. Just get on it.”
“Excuse me? Did you say a distress call?” Kaycee asked. Ethan could hear her eyeballs stretched to the limits of shock in the tone of her voice.
“Yah, we’re helping Jetaar.”
“WHAT!”
“Hush, I’ll explain it later,” he said, closing the link before she exploded on him.
Toggling over to his command channel, he opened a private link to Quintan.
“Aye, Cap’n, what can I do for you?” the handler asked.
“You’re in with the window washer right now, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice shifting to a more formal demeanor under the assumption that he was about to get instructions regarding the prisoner.
“I hate to do this, but we’re sending your squeeze buddy back to where we got him,” Ethan said.
“Cap’n, I never…” he said, trying to sound indignant. And failing.
“Doesn’t matter, he’s a small fish so we’re sending him back,” he said. “I want you to take him down to the hangar deck and get him back in his suit. Once Angel and Rene, get everything else loaded into the shuttle, you’re to shackle him in the back seat where he can’t reach anything. Marti’s going to be driving him over to the Blackwing and they can deal with him.”
“No problem, Cap’n, but is it legal that we’re doing this?”
“Probably not,” Ethan said. “But it is the right thing to do.”
“What’re we going to tell FleetCom when they ask us to hand him over?” he asked.
“I was thinking we could tell them he overpowered you, stole a shuttle, and escaped,” Ethan suggested.
“Now that is funny,” the handler said.
“I know isn’t it?” he said. “We’ll worry about it later. Just get it done.”
He tapped out of his command comm, leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head, and felt less stress than he had in months.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Nuko asked, turning to face him.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“But you are helping pirates,” she said.
“I’m saving lives. Sorry, but it’s my nature, remember?”
Chapter Thirty
“It’s been eight days since she’s been at breakfast,” Quinn said as he dished up a plate of food for the doctor. “I made her favorites this morning too.”
“I think everything is her favorite,” Angel said, trying to reassure the upset handler.
“You don’t think she’s still scared of Captain Jetaar do you?” he asked.
Ethan shook his head. “No, it’s me.”
“She’s scared of you?” Quinn asked, stopping with a spoon full of grits hanging over her plate.
He laughed. “She’s angry with me, or maybe she feels like I let her down.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think she understands why I helped Jetaar,” he said.
“I’m fuzzy on that one myself,” he said. “I just figure I trust you, so I don’t need to know.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” the captain said.
“She’ll come around,” Nuko said.
“Maybe,” Ammo said, shaking her head. “She’s pretty good at not turning loose of things.”
“Have you tried explaining it to her?” Quinn asked.
Ethan shook his head again. “She’s made it very clear she doesn’t want to talk to me about it. Otherwise she’d be coming out of her room.”
Quinn laughed. “Momma told me a story about a guy named Mohammed and a mountain. Sometimes, it’s just easier to move the mountain than the person.”
He set the plate down on the tray and slid a biscuit in beside the massive pile of grits.
The captain stared at the plate for several seconds as Quinn poured gravy over the whole serving and put a lid over it. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Can I borrow your mountain of grits?”
“What? Oh, yah,” he said, his face splitting into a huge grin. “Let me pour her coffee right away and you can go talk to Mohammed.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said as he stood and picked the tray up off the table.
“She also likes orange juice,” he said, dropping a sealed bottle into the captain’s pocket. “Good luck.”
“Yah. If I don’t make it out of there in a reasonable amount of t
ime send a rescue party,” he said as he walked away.
Behind him, Quinn asked, “How long is a reasonable amount of time?”
Nuko giggled. “Not long. He’s pretty quick.”
“I heard that,” he hollered back over his shoulder as he stepped onto the lift and headed up a deck to try to make peace.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy, but the tone of voice he got when he knocked on her door almost made him turn around.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I brought your breakfast,” he said. “Biscuits, grits and gravy. Bacon and eggs. With coffee and orange juice to wash it down. I think there’s a muffin here too with strawberry jam, maybe.”
The door opened and she reached out and grabbed the tray out of his hand. “Where’s the orange juice?”
“Here,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket. He stepped forward and set his shoulder into the jamb so she couldn’t close it on him.
She stepped back and spun toward her table to set the tray down.
“We need to talk,” he said, following her across the room.
“I don’t have anything to talk with you about,” she said, sitting down, taking the lid off the plate, and grabbing her utensils. “I just have to get over things.”
“Get over what? The fact that I saved a crew that would have otherwise died?”
“They are pirates Ethan. Worse than that, they are pirates that tried to kill us all several times,” she slammed her fork down on the table and glared at him.
“They would have been dead in a few hours,” he said.
“And the Coalition would be better off if they were,” she hissed.
He sat down on the arm of her sofa and stared at her for several seconds. “Don’t doctors still take that oath about doing no harm?”
Her eyes flashed fire and he flinched. He expected her to fling her food at him as she sputtered incoherently in his direction. “Get the frak out and leave me alone!” She stabbed a finger toward the door.
“Sorry, I’m not leaving until we talk this out,” he said, trying to dispense calm with his tone. “I want you to understand why I did what I did. Then we can go from there.”
“I don’t care why you did it. You let them live,” she said. “No. It’s worse than that. You saved them from dying. You went out of your way to keep the universe from killing them. If you’d just left them alone…”
“You’re right. I did, but I had reasons if you want to know.”
She shook her head, but her eyes told him she was listening. “I saved them, to keep us alive, if we ever run across Jetaar again.”
“That’s a thin excuse and you know it,” she said.
“It’s really not.” He slid off the arm and down onto the seat, trying to look like he was relaxing. He wasn’t, but he wanted her to unbend and he hoped it would help.
“Here is my thinking,” he said. “If we killed one pirate captain, it would make enemies out of them all. The next upstart to take his place might not be as smart as Jetaar, and that would make him a lot more dangerous.”
“If they knew we did it,” she said.
“True but saving his ass might make a friend that will let us slide by next time.”
He shrugged and smiled hoping she’d meet him somewhere, but it wasn’t looking encouraging as she shook her head again.
“As long as you’re on this ship, I have to do anything I can to reduce the odds of him sticking his nose up our ass too seriously,” he said.
“You’re trying to say you did it for me?” she asked.
“Where is the flaw in my logic?” he challenged. “You can’t argue that what I did makes it less likely that he’ll take you next time we cross paths.”
“That’s pure shit and you know it. Nothing says he has even the slightest scrap of honor,” she said.
“Really? You know he thinks he’s a freedom fighter and not a criminal?” he said. “He’s recruiting believers in a cause. You don’t do that unless you’ve got a code that people can see and feel. That they can understand. That is who Jetaar is.”
“And that makes him even more dangerous,” she said. “Fanatics can sound reasonable, but they never are once you tear off the veneer.”
“I don’t believe that he will be capable of coming after us after we gave him a chance to live,” he said. “We’re safer because of that.”
“Space is big and you yourself said this was the first scrape you’ve had. We may never see him again,” she said. “All you did was let a mass murderer live so he can keep on killing people. Other people.”
“Fine, let’s look at this another way,” he said, studying her face as she struggled to hold something in that was stronger than her. Fear of something that she couldn’t express.
He waited until she nodded before he went on. “You are worried that he could use you to weaponize this technology he’s sitting on. If that’s true, then the only other option that would give you better odds of not falling into his hands is for you to stay home.”
She closed her eyes and he pressed on to make his point. “If you want to bail for the sake of your own security, then go for it. I’ll drop you off at Armstrong with the cargo.”
“We had a deal to work together out here, Ethan,” she said.
“You’re right. And it included you never questioning my orders,” he said flatly.
“But it didn’t include you breaking the law to let a criminal go free,” she hissed.
“A criminal? You’re right, in some circles he’s all that and then some,” he said, nodding. “God knows I probably think he is too, but in some places he’s a crusader for freedom and rights. You and I just don’t see it that way.”
“Are you serious? You can’t possibly believe that!”
“You’re right, I don’t, but I do see that some of what he believes might be true.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs as he watched her. “Maybe you can hide with your Shan Takhu Institute colleagues and lie to yourself about being the moral judges for the Coalition, but he doesn’t see that as your right.”
“That’s not how it is,” she said.
“Probably not. Nothing is ever that black or white, especially out here in the deep.” He stood up. “But it really doesn’t matter to me. The bottom line is, I did what’s right for the ship, both now and in the future.”
“You did what is right for your misguided paladin nature,” she said.
“Maybe that’s true, and if so, I win twice.” He shrugged as he turned to leave. “The question is, do you take it as a win, too? You’ve got about nine days to figure that out for yourself.”
He pulled the door closed behind him and taking a deep breath leaned his head back against the wall.
“Damn you, Ethan Walker!” she snarled after him.
He smiled.
She’ll be staying aboard.
THE END
Chains
of
Dawn
Wings of Earth: Book Three
ERIC MICHAEL CRAIG
Chapter One
Mir’ah akCha’nee squatted on the low hill, staring down through the narrow pass toward the open grass covered ela’rah. She could see the girls of the Ar’ah tribe spreading the glowing zo’mar utel and she knew Ekan would soon slip his way up to their usual camp. Since they first met three seasons ago, he snuck out every night when his tribe reached the northern end of their migration. They loved each other, and now that they were old enough to lay claim to the right of coupling, they would be bound.
She waited on the edge of her own zo’mar and stared into the darkening sky. Tonight, she changed her stars.
Walking back over to the center of the ring, she sat down on the damp grass and pulled out her scribe-stick and a fresh piece of hide-sheet. She’d thought about what she would say to the Tuula. Not all children became Tuula, but her grandmother had always favored her as special. It had been a long tradition that the Tuula picked a chosen one to follow. To lead.
Except that she wasn’t.
She planned to join the Ar’ah and would leave with them at the next dawn when they moved off to encamp at their next kana’shee. It would break her grandmother’s heart, but she could not bring herself to give up her love, as she must, to be the Tuula herself.
Elkan’s tribe would welcome her, as all tribes welcome those who are lost from their homes. The world was full of enough dangers, and it was only together that they survived above the beasts of the sharrah. They had once forgotten this and almost vanished to dust. The tribes of Ut’ar lived in peace now because they knew they must, although the reason was long into the darkness.
Before she could join her new tribe, she had to tell Tuula that she was never returning home. It would be hard for her to accept, since no chosen one had ever left the Cha’nee tribe in all the remembered generations.
Moktoh, her wakat companion, shuffled up beside her and pressed his head under her arm, waiting for her to rub behind his ears. He knew she was leaving, and even though she would take him along, he needed reassurance. He was nervous about carrying the message back to her home and leaving it for Tuula to find in the morning.
“Gramma no happy Mir’ah go,” he said.
“Tuula no happy,” she said, speaking to the wakat in his language. “Mir’ah must.”
“Mir’ah love Ekan more big than Tuula?”
“No. Gramma first love,” she said.
“Moktoh first love,” he said, pushing a big ear against her breast and listening to her heartbeat. He was trying to hear the truth in her thoughts.
“Moktoh more big love,” she said, laughing. “Always big love.”
“Why you leave to Ekan?” he asked, still listening to her heart.” You stay. Make Gramma happy. Make Moktoh happy.”
“Ekan makes Mir’ah happy,” she said. “Moktoh go too, we both happy.”
He leaned away from her and held his eyes closed for a long time. I trust you.
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 38