The Renegat

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Crowe wasn’t sleeping much. He was juggling his two jobs, trying to pay attention to the crew and also to all of the engineering challenges on board the Renegat.

  The ship had been upgraded, but it was beginning to show some wear. It had been two days since their last foldspace journey—their seventh. Crowe had spent the last two like he had spent the previous two, in engineering, monitoring the communications anacapa. The little foldspace window had opened each time, and on the sixth trip through foldspace, he had sent in a tiny probe—and instantly lost it.

  He spent the last journey seeing if he could recover that probe, and of course, he couldn’t. He and Stephanos had figured out that something in that open foldspace window had blocked the channel he was working on.

  He had made modifications to the probes, so that the next one he sent in would be sending telemetry on multiple channels as it entered, rather than just one.

  He had been so focused on sending probes through that foldspace window—probes that worked and sent information back to him—that he didn’t consider why that one channel had been blocked.

  That was odd. And it bothered him. There shouldn’t have been any blocks at all.

  Those were the kinds of thoughts that came to him in the handful of hours of sleep that he managed to get. He would wake up thinking about what he missed, or what he should have noticed.

  Or, worse, how they were all going to die.

  The other reason he didn’t sleep much was that he kept seeing the Scrapheap explosion he had caused as a stupid young man. The way that explosion spiraled out from a handful of ships, heading backwards, igniting the space between the ships, where there should have been nothing, and there was something.

  There had been something.

  This on-edge feeling he had had ever since he had discovered that tiny foldspace opening—hell, ever since Preemas had told him about the time lag—that feeling was coming from Crowe’s desire to save lives, not cost them.

  And he was beginning to realize that by joining this crew, by accepting this potential suicide mission, he would be complicit in costing lives rather than actively saving them.

  That fear, which made him sit bolt upright in the narrow bed of his officer’s quarters, was like a thrum underneath his skin, part of him, every minute of every day.

  And when he had the nightmare, when he saw that Scrapheap exploding again and again, just like he had seen it in life, the fear changed from a thrum to a drumbeat, consistent with his heartbeat.

  Which was why he found himself in Engineering in the middle of the night, trying to track down whatever was causing the block on the probe.

  The night crew in Engineering wasn’t his best crew. Two of them—both young men—had half-assed training. They’d been pulled from their engineering internships after the engineer who trained them nearly destroyed the ancient DV-Class vessel he served on. That it had been a training vessel was an irony lost on no one. But the interns who trained with him were given a choice: return to school and repeat two years of study or move to less important technical jobs.

  Both of these young men had moved, rather than return to school, something Crowe couldn’t respect at all.

  They had glanced at him as he entered Engineering, but hadn’t spoken to him. They were clearly scared of him, which didn’t surprise him; he didn’t like them much, and that was probably obvious.

  The other person on the night crew was Daria Willoughby. Crowe had chosen her for the crew himself after looking at her record. She had been an engineer longer than he had, and had served on small vessels. She had gotten tangled up in some kind of criminal activity with a lover on a vacation at a sector base. The details were sealed, but the Fleet hadn’t stripped her of her rank or pulled her out of the Fleet altogether. Nor had she been charged with anything.

  Which led Crowe to believe, with his own experiences with Fleet-designed justice, that she hadn’t initiated anything. She might not have even done anything wrong. She had probably been in the wrong place at the wrong time, involved with the wrong person.

  He had never asked. Nor had he told her what he had done.

  She stepped out of her work area. He had assigned her the task of monitoring the equipment during the trips across the sector, making sure everything worked as it had in the previous sector.

  “Sir?” she said.

  She was a large woman, with a round face. The roundness hid her age, filling out the wrinkles, except for the ones near her mouth. Her hair didn’t hide it, though. It was threaded with gray, something that she either allowed or was proud of. He wasn’t sure which.

  “Had a thought I need to check.” he said.

  He hadn’t cleared her to work on the communications anacapa. He still hadn’t told half of his team that the anacapa existed.

  Old habits died hard.

  “Let me know if I can help,” she said.

  He nodded, and headed to the communications array. Then he stopped, and peered around it.

  She was looking at him, a small frown on her face. He had been coming to Engineering late at night for weeks now, and he had thought it didn’t bother her. But maybe it did. Maybe she thought it was about her, and not about the work.

  “Have you noticed a channel being blocked?” he asked.

  “Sir?” She had resorted to that verbal trick, just like other long-time Fleet crew, because Preemas had said that the crew should ignore rank whenever possible.

  “I sent out a probe a week or so ago, and didn’t get any telemetry. I was using the usual channel to filter it back to me…” and then he paused, realizing the “usual” channel he had used was the usual channel for foldspace communications.

  “Sir?” she asked.

  He held up a finger, then headed toward the communications array, walking fast. He didn’t like what he was thinking. He didn’t like it at all.

  She followed, probably worried that she had done something wrong. He didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to calm her down.

  He reached the array, then accessed one of the back panels. He fumbled through the small pockets, cursing the size of his fingers. Finally he accessed the side array, pulling up a screen and magnifying it thousands of times.

  “May I help, sir?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

  It was the right question. It was even the right time for that question. But he didn’t answer. Because he was looking at a part of the array he never looked at.

  The foldspace communications channel.

  It wasn’t just dormant. It was completely disconnected. There was no way that the Fleet could use any bit of equipment that communicated quickly across a long distance, and reach the Renegat. Any communications that came from the Fleet to the Renegat would have to go outside of the foldspace channel—and a communication like that could take months, years. Decades.

  An oath escaped his lips.

  “Sir?” Willoughby said again.

  He started to whirl toward her, then caught himself. He wasn’t angry at her, and she would think he was, if he wasn’t careful.

  He willed himself to be calm, then turned around slowly, monitoring his expression as best he could so that he didn’t look fierce.

  But he knew his eyes were filled with fury. He could do nothing about that.

  To her credit, she didn’t step away from him. She held her ground.

  “I haven’t checked the logs yet,” he said, his voice so much calmer than he had even been trying for. Apparently, his body knew how to do this, no matter how angry he was. “But did anyone come down here and shut down foldspace communications?”

  He wasn’t really asking about anyone because only one person could make that order without him being present. Only one person had the power to direct people to do whatever he wanted.

  She inclined her head just a little sideways, as if about to nod, and then rethinking it.

  “Y-yes, sir,” she said. “The captain. A while ago now. I thought you knew. He said you did. He said you trus
ted me to help him.”

  It took all of Crowe’s self-control to hold back an epithet—or maybe a string of them. The bastard. What the hell had he been thinking?

  “So, you helped him shut down that channel,” Crowe said. “It took both of you, right?”

  She nodded this time, looking terrified. Poor woman. Her entire career had been about following orders from people she shouldn’t have listened to.

  “I thought you knew,” she said in a small voice.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I knew or not,” Crowe said. “He is the captain and you were following his orders.”

  She bit her upper lip, winced, and then looked determined. Every thought was written across her face. Every single one. She hadn’t wanted to tell Crowe something, then she had imagined telling him, and finally she had decided to tell him.

  It was quick and not at all surprising.

  “He—um—he may be the captain, sir,” she said quietly. “But we all listen to you.”

  That last was surprising. Crowe hadn’t expected to hear that “we all” listened to him.

  “We all?” he asked. “Engineering?”

  Which made sense. Of course everyone in engineering would trust him over the captain. That had happened on several ships Crowe had served on. Engineering was its own enclave, and the captain gave the orders, but the chief engineer made those orders happen—or belayed them, if the orders were difficult or impossible to carry out.

  “No, sir,” she said quietly. “Everyone who—I don’t know how to say it. Everyone who knows what they’re doing, sir.”

  He felt a little cold. They trusted him, and he had led them this deep into some unknown territory, on a ship that might not have been working properly.

  He didn’t really want to know this at all. If they all died because of this journey, it was apparently now on him, not on Preemas.

  Five hundred souls. Not fifty. Five hundred. If they died, it would all be because they trusted him.

  His knees wobbled. He knew better than to put out a hand to catch himself on the array. He might dislodge something. But for a moment, it felt like he would crumple if he didn’t brace himself.

  She reached toward him, then seemed to think the better of it. That small movement of hers steeled his spine.

  He remained upright, cursing himself now for being such a damn fool.

  “All right then,” he said when he was sure he had control over his voice. “We need to re-engage that system, you and I. Are you up for it?”

  She nodded. “Wasn’t he supposed to do that, sir?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that, Willoughby?” Crowe asked.

  She bit her upper lip again, then shook her head. She knew the answer to that question. So did he.

  “If the captain comes down here again and wants something,” she said, “what do you want me to do?”

  Crowe almost didn’t respond. Because if he didn’t respond, he was leaving it up to her discretion. But was that fair? He needed to decide if he was going to fight Preemas’s crazy orders or if he was going to let the crew take all of the risks.

  A decision that wasn’t a decision at all.

  “If he wants you to do something,” Crowe said, “you contact me. Stall him, whatever it takes. But get me in here.”

  She smiled. She actually seemed relieved.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I will, sir. That makes things so much easier, sir.”

  For her, maybe. But not for him. Or for the ship.

  He didn’t like the direction this was going in.

  But he had waited too long.

  And now he was going to have to figure out how it would all play out.

  Part Seventeen

  Rescue

  Now

  The Renegat

  A dozen people were already in Cargo Bay One when Serpell and Kabac arrived. Everyone wore regulation environmental suits, and most had their knuckle lights on. Most were standing on the floor, which meant the gravity in their boots was working.

  The lights illuminated the space where the dozen people were standing. The light was focused and small, rather than the bright lights that usually revealed every part of the cargo bay.

  Beyond that cluster of people, the bay was dark and a lot more dangerous than it usually was. All of the cargo that didn’t have artificial gravity built in or hadn’t been tied down in one way or another floated. Serpell had to be careful as she moved past boxes and round metal containers. As she floated in closer to the group of people illuminating the center of the bay, she saw another group huddled near the extra-wide bay doors. A few of them had helmet lights trained on the bay doors.

  The light formed competing circles that barely overlapped, leaving parts of the doors in darkness.

  She had no idea if standing so close to the bay doors was a good idea. There was no airlock in this bay. If those doors opened, then everyone could be sucked into space.

  If the doors opened, in theory, the door to the corridor would seal shut, and the rest of the ship would be protected. But she had no idea if that would work now that everything else had failed.

  Both groups were eerily quiet. There was no chatter like there had been when the Renegat left the Scrapheap, or even in the aftermath of the most recent attack.

  Maybe everyone knew this was their last chance at survival.

  Or maybe they had already given up.

  At least there was one blessing in these weird little gatherings of people. At least they couldn’t see each other through the helmets. No one would recognize her if she didn’t identify herself. If everyone inside the cargo bay knew Serpell had arrived, they would start peppering her with questions she couldn’t answer.

  Now she wished she had told Kabac not to mention her name.

  He hadn’t said anything so far, but he was the kind of man who would screw something up just because he touched it.

  Which made her wonder about the anacapa comments the rescuers had made. Was the problem the drive? Had it been hit like Kabac had said? Shouldn’t it have exploded if it had?

  Or had he screwed it up by trying to fix it?

  Her stomach hurt. She didn’t know if that was because of the slowly leaking oxygen or because her entire body knew Kabac had screwed up, and she simply didn’t want to admit it to herself.

  This is the bridge: Evacuate the Renegat immediately. Head to both cargo bays. Follow instructions once you arrive.

  Third announcement. This was serious.

  And then she realized: she had arrived in the cargo bay. Where were the extra instructions?

  She glanced at Kabac, an unsettled feeling making her cold.

  Were there only three intruders, not three rescuers? Space pirates, come to kill everyone on the Renegat by leaving them in the bay, hoping for rescue?

  Somehow that would be so much worse than actually killing everyone.

  Serpell glanced at the closed bay doors. The rest of the rescuers just weren’t here yet, that was all.

  She was going to be fine.

  They were going to be fine.

  She had to believe it, because if she didn’t, she would go completely mad.

  Part Eighteen

  Betrayal

  100 Years Ago

  The Renegat

  They went into foldspace unexpectedly. At least, it was unexpected to Crowe. He had just awoken from that short nap he took after working with Willoughby to fix the foldspace communications system, and was heading to the mess to grab something to eat before heading back to Engineering, when the ship bumped and stuttered and lost attitude control long enough for Crowe to slide into a corridor wall with some force.

  The contact sent a shudder of pain down his right side. He scraped the knuckles on his right hand, banged his elbow, and felt a jar along his shoulder strong enough to make him accidentally bite down, narrowly missing his tongue.

  He grabbed the edge of a doorway just as the ship righted itself and smoothed. He stayed in place for a mom
ent, letting the pain echo through him. New aches identified themselves, including a wrenched knee. He must have twisted it on the way down.

  He stood slowly, shaking off the pain, and feeling a fury the likes of which he hadn’t felt in years.

  What the hell was Preemas doing?

  Crowe tried to hail Preemas, but didn’t get any response at all. That made the anger dissipate. Maybe this was an accidental trip into foldspace. Maybe the bridge crew was in worse shape than Crowe had been.

  He changed direction, hurrying down the corridor to the ladders between decks. He knew better than to take the elevator, particularly since the attitude controls had blinked for a half second.

  That wasn’t ever supposed to happen. He had never felt it happen when the ship had gone through foldspace. At least, not to him.

  He reached the ladders. No one else was on them, so he was the only one heading up to the bridge. His right hand ached as he gripped the rungs, and his right hip hurt as he climbed. The pain in his knee was getting better, though, so he had that, at least.

  He climbed quickly. Each time he passed a deck, he heard voices, many of them loud or in distress. A few sounded frightened.

  Apparently, Preemas hadn’t warned anyone. Or there had been no way to warn people.

  Crowe climbed faster, letting the worry propel him.

  But part of him was well aware that if he thought this was a real emergency, he would have gone to Engineering first. He could have seen what was happening with the command controls while he was there; he could have done something to augment or fix any problem that had originated on the bridge—except a problem with the anacapa itself, since it and its container were on the bridge.

  He reached bridge level and wasn’t surprised to find the corridor nearby empty. He stopped for a moment, rubbed his sore elbow, and gathered himself.