That thought made him calmer. Maybe he had been right: maybe he was ready for this mission, counselor be damned.
He tapped a closed fist on the back of Turris’s chair.
“Let the team know we’re going to the bridge of that ship,” Zarges said. “I’ll meet them in Staging. We leave in five.”
“Got it,” Turris said.
Zarges headed out of the cockpit. He grabbed his hood, pulled it over his head, and sealed it. Then he activated the suit’s environmental controls.
As he hurried to Staging, he let the team know what he was thinking.
“We have to get to the bridge of that ship,” he said.
“We?” Khusru asked through the comm. She sounded surprised.
Apparently she had thought that he wasn’t going with the team. He didn’t blame her. He hadn’t gone on a mission in six months.
“We,” he said, and set the hookup in motion.
The Aizsargs
The crew on the Aizsargs’s bridge was quiet. All they could do right now was watch the rescue unfold.
They needed to be ready to spring into action the moment Rescue One left the Renegat. And that wouldn’t happen for some time.
Dauber paced around the floating screens. She had the main rescue set up as a hologram in front of the closed portal. Everything looked frozen to her, waiting, just like she was.
The half-dozen fighters she had deployed to protect Rescue One should the Renegat attack hovered just out of the Renegat’s sensor range. The fighters could reach Rescue One in a matter of minutes. Their weapons could arrive even faster, and, judging from the information Dauber currently had, would destroy the unshielded ship.
Almadi monitored a variety of readings in the space around the rescue. She was watching for another opening into foldspace, in case more ships arrived, maybe ships that had been stolen alongside the Renegat (if the Renegat had been stolen, which Dauber wasn’t sure of).
She was also monitoring the space around the rescue. She was deeply worried that more ships would appear from foldspace. The Aizsargs was a little more vulnerable than she would like.
If the Aizsargs was vulnerable, Rescue One was extremely vulnerable, particularly if the Renegat had been traveling in a tight formation with other ships. Those other ships might arrive out of foldspace an hour or two later, but still close to the Renegat. Which meant that the new ships could easily hit Rescue One.
The entire crew of this ship, and of Rescue One, were aware of that problem, and so far, no one had mentioned it. If it happened, they would deal with it.
Until then, all they could do was monitor.
Ornitz had stopped trying to hail the Renegat. That responsibility now fell on Rescue One. They had been trying to contact the ship during their entire trip to the Renegat’s side. If they couldn’t contact it from without, they would try once they got inside.
If they got inside.
Dauber hated this part of an unexpected rescue mission. Because she had no idea how the Renegat got here, where it had come from, and what it had been trying to do before it arrived.
She had no idea if the Renegat’s 200 souls would be happy to find out about the team from Rescue One or if they would immediately go to war.
And she liked knowing things.
Ribisi was monitoring the Renegat’s systems. He kept reporting on their continued decay.
Dauber could see that. The atmosphere still leaked out of one side, trailing like a cloud of smoke in a nonexistent wind.
“Anything?” Dauber asked as her pacing brought her beside Ullman. He was searching records, looking to see where the Renegat had last served and why it had come to this sector.
“Not yet,” he said without looking up. His fingers moved quickly. He could go through data faster than anyone else on her bridge, faster than anyone else on the ship, almost faster than parts of the computer itself.
She paced past him, examining every console as she passed.
Her entire bridge crew was keeping busy, doing things that would help if the 200 people got rescued, things that would probably be a waste of time if they did not.
The Aizsargs’s medical staff had activated their triage teams, and expanded sick bay. Protocols for dealing with non-Fleet personnel had been put into place on every deck. On some decks, only people with clearance could even touch the ship’s computer system.
Rescue One had deployed two grapplers, and was extending a spacebridge. The bridge would attach to a door, provide a small environment just in case that door opened directly into a ship without airlocks, and then her team could go inside.
The spacebridge wasn’t designed for Fleet-to-Fleet rescues. In theory, a Fleet ship could easily tow another Fleet ship or bring that ship into the docking bay (if the larger rescuing vehicle was a DV-Class vessel).
Dauber had decided to treat this SC-Class vessel—this outmoded SC-Class vessel—as a non-Fleet ship. She hadn’t even had to tell Zarges that. He had understood when she had mentioned the ship might have been stolen.
But he clearly understood why she was doing this. The methods they were using were going to be tough on the ship. Grapplers sometimes damaged an already crippled ship, and they weren’t the only problem Rescue One now faced.
Because sometimes even the most experienced crews reacted badly to a rescue. They were oxygen deprived or battle-scarred and they didn’t always recognize a rescue as a rescue.
Dauber gripped her hands behind her back, trying to run scenarios through her mind, hoping none of them would come true.
Because, if this rescue turned into a disaster, she had fewer resources than usual at her disposal.
Most of the Fleet ships had left the sector, since almost everyone from Sector Base Z was gone. There were no large ships left at Sector Base Z, either.
Dauber could send for assistance, and it would arrive within the hour.
But she’d been in battles that had lasted less than fifteen minutes, and had more casualties than fights that had lasted for days. Everything was unpredictable, particularly when there was a surprise attack.
This had many of the hallmarks of a surprise attack. Not all of the hallmarks, but enough to make her nervous. Strangely, she was taking the most comfort from the age of that ship, even though the age had taken the rescue from routine to strange right from the start.
And she was going to be prepared for anything. Because, out here, anything could happen, and often did.
The spacebridge was now locked into place. The grapplers hadn’t moved. The Renegat looked like a gigantic bug trapped by a smaller, more deadly bug. The gray cloud continued off its side.
And no ships appeared out of foldspace.
Yet.
The Aizsargs Rescue One
Staging was the most organized part of Rescue One. It had to be: Teams often deployed from this part of the ship very quickly.
Today’s team wasn’t moving quickly now, even though there was an urgency to dealing with the Renegat. There were procedures to follow, plans to figure out.
And the spacebridge needed to be double-checked.
Zarges arrived last. The other six members of the team were waiting, suited up, with small tool and medical kits attached to their belts. Given the number of people in the Renegat, the best thing the rescue team could do was get everyone off the ship. The medical kits were for triage, for injuries that might prevent movement.
Zarges grabbed his supply belt and slipped it over his waist. Then he grabbed glove lights, and a few other supplies from the nearest supply closet.
Sufia Khusru joined him. She was small, thin, and strong, perfect for this kind of work. She wasn’t wearing her hood yet. Her dark hair was shorn close to her head, making her black eyes seem even larger than they were. She leaned into him, and spoke away from the comm on the edge of her hood.
“Do you really think you should be going on this mission?” she asked quietly.
They didn’t stand on any kind of ceremony on Rescue One.
Remaining silent about orders could cause a cascade of deaths.
“Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at Morris Ogden, who was checking the seal on his gloves. Ogden was the second most senior person on the teams, after Khusru. “Ogden’s good, but he’s never handled a situation like this. Only rescues of known Fleet ships.”
“I’ve done this kind of rescue before,” Khusru said.
“Yes, I know,” Zarges said. “But there are people scattered all over that ship. Usually when things go wrong, people cluster.”
“You’re worried that they’ll, what, attack us?” Khusru asked. “This isn’t a setup. That ship is in trouble.”
“Clearly,” Zarges said. “But how much of that trouble did they cause? We might have to make some decisions that…”
He paused. He didn’t quite know how to say what he needed to say. They were a rescue vehicle, and what he was about to suggest went against all of their training.
“I know,” Khusru said. “We might have to leave some people behind, and not due to their injuries. I already gave the team weapons.”
“That’s the thing,” Zarges said. “I think we split into two teams, one to see if we can slow down whatever is causing the atmosphere leak so we can buy more time, and the other to get people off the ship.”
Khusru’s gaze moved from him to the team, and then back. She nodded. “You’re right. That would be a better use of our resources.”
“I want you to do a standard rescue,” he said. “I’ll handle engineering.”
“Take Palmer and Iqbar,” Khusru said.
He had just been about to ask for them. They were both fast workers and unflappable, and both could jury-rig on the fly.
“I’ll take Cayden and Niane,” Khusru said, and Zarges had to suppress a smile. She didn’t want Ogden, mostly because she didn’t want someone else trying to take over command. Ogden had been known to do that if he didn’t like how a rescue was progressing.
“We’ll leave Ogden here to handle the spacebridge,” Zarges said.
Khusru gave him a tight smile, as if she understood completely. She probably did. Then the smile faded.
“One last time,” she said. “I’ll be happy to partner with Ogden and split teams, if you’re not up for this.”
Zarges felt a thread of anger, which wasn’t like him at all. Which probably meant he wasn’t quite up for this. Her question was a legitimate one.
But this mission would go much better with him than without him. He had handled non-Fleet systems before, and part of him was afraid this old ship, with a design none of them knew, would have other parts from other cultures grafted onto Fleet equipment.
He wasn’t the best engineer in the universe, but he could sometimes see how certain systems worked at odds with each other.
He made himself breathe. “I’m up for it,” he said, and hoped he was telling the truth.
Part Four
The Journey Backwards
100 Years Ago
The Renegat
Acting Chief Engineer Nadim Crowe crossed the bridge of the Renegat on his way to Captain Preemas’s ready room. Crowe had only been on the bridge itself a handful of times since the Renegat left on its mission, and each time left him more and more uncomfortable.
Captain Ivan “Call Me Pre” Preemas liked to keep the bridge dark and uncomfortable. He kept the wall screens off, but had them set at black and reflective, so everyone on the bridge could see each other’s movements. The portholes were closed not just on the bridge, but on all of the public levels, which made Crowe want to fling them open so he could see the beauty of space.
And then there was the crew itself.
Collectively, they were the worst crew he had ever worked with. When he had received his assignment to move to the Renegat, he had done what he had always done. He had requested that some of his trusted allies join him on the ship, and for the first time ever, that request had been denied. Not by Preemas, but by Vice Admiral Gāo who was actually in charge of this mission.
When Crowe saw that, he looked over the crew manifest, and hurriedly picked the most capable officers for engineering. Sometimes that meant moving them from some other part of the ship, but no one seemed to notice or care.
Which bothered him as well.
Preemas should have blocked him or Gāo should have complained. Neither of them had. Crowe wasn’t even sure they had noticed.
Then, on the second day of the journey, Preemas had given the entire crew some kind of pep talk about the mission. He made the mission sound exciting and heroic—they were going to investigate thefts of a Scrapheap so far back that the Fleet couldn’t send a lot of ships. And oh, yeah, they were going to experiment with foldspace travel too.
And because of that, you folks—all of you—you wonderful crew members you—were specifically chosen as the absolute best people in the Fleet to execute this mission.
Crowe hadn’t believed any of that, particularly the “absolute best people” part. Unless the “absolute best people” were absolutely the most expendable people with a handful of passable skills in the entire Fleet.
Some of those people stood on the bridge now. Titus M’Ghan sat as he piloted the Renegat, or rather, as he let it run on automatic pilot, because Preemas wasn’t on the bridge at the moment. Crowe had worked with M’Ghan on a scouting mission years ago, and found M’Ghan to be lazy and the kind of crew member who cut whatever corners he could.
His bald head reflected the lights above almost as much as the screens reflected the entire bridge. He didn’t even have any floating screens in front of him so he could monitor the autopilot, or maybe he was doing so from the navigation console where his hands rested.
It was everything Crowe could do to keep from shaking his head.
He didn’t dare show his displeasure too much. He wasn’t well liked on this—or any—crew. People watched him warily from the moment they met him.
He was taller than the average Fleet member, with broader shoulders and actual muscles. He spent the first nine years of his life landbound, and that had given him height and strong bones, and a sense that he did not belong. He wore his straight black hair too long for regulation, but refused to cut it unless ordered to do so.
Most captains ordered it, but Preemas had simply looked at him, sighed, and shaken his head, then moved on to something else.
So Crowe’s quiet rebellion, and his private reaffirmation of his own sense of self, remained, even though he had to pull his hair into a ponytail, and, when he worked on delicate things, tuck it inside the back of his shirt.
At least he wore his uniform like the crew of an SC-Class ship was supposed to do. Half of the bridge crew had already discarded that regulation, including the first officer, Danika Newark.
Newark also had long black hair, which Crowe always thought was vanity, not rebellion, and she kept it loose most of the time. This afternoon, it fell like a waterfall down her back, accenting her black-and-white shirt, and matching pants. The outfit looked like loungewear, not something someone wore on duty.
But apparently Preemas didn’t care about such things, or he would have stopped her from dressing like she had just gotten up.
Newark glanced at Crowe as he came down the center of the bridge, skirting some of the consoles that were stuck haphazardly on the floor behind Preemas’s chair.
Her gaze was flat, her skin sallow. She never went into the exercise areas, which had sunlamps, and it showed. Even though her skin was naturally darker than Crowe’s, he made a point of exercising every day, which added just a bit of color to his skin, color hers would probably never have.
He tipped an imaginary hat to her. She curled her lower lip and looked away. She didn’t like him any more than he liked her.
They had served together on three different vessels. He thought her incompetent, and she thought him disloyal. But somehow their opinions of each other didn’t seem to matter with their superiors, because both of them had been promoted in the years si
nce.
The promotions had often been lateral, moving to a lesser ship while gaining a higher rank, but they were promotions nonetheless.
Besides, Newark wasn’t the most dangerous incompetent on the bridge. That award went to Yusef Kabac, who thought himself a specialist at anything he touched.
Currently, he worked navigation, which startled Crowe. He had demoted Kabac years ago when Kabac had nearly destroyed an engineering department on a training ship by trying to rebuild a blown drive.
The drive was ruined and needed to be discarded, but Kabac had done something even worse to it, something Crowe hadn’t had time to investigate, because he’d had to jettison the drive from the ship.
The nearby explosion had dented the ship’s sides. Crowe had taken the blame for the entire thing because Kabac had been in his department, but Crowe wouldn’t take any punishment unless Kabac had been demoted and forbidden to work in engineering ever again.
Apparently, Kabac was the kind of man who landed on his feet, though, because he was on the bridge on the Renegat, and he was handling navigation.
Given the poor math skills Kabac had shown in his engineering work, Crowe doubted Kabac could plot any kind of course anywhere. Crowe hoped Kabac was as lazy as M’Ghan, and let the computers do the work for him.
Crowe didn’t know the rest of the bridge crew, and he wondered what the difference was between them, why some of them continued to wear their uniforms and the others didn’t. Maybe it was personal preference, or maybe the crew had already split into factions.
After all, they’d been on this mission for a full week now, traveling across a known sector, following some travel plan that had been approved by the admirals. Crowe hadn’t seen the plan, and he should have, since he was the one who would be maintaining the various drives and coaxing the anacapa to do things it probably wasn’t designed to do.
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