The Renegat

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  It made Crowe wonder what else Preemas had lied about. Probably everything, in one way or another.

  Preemas might still be captain, but that didn’t mean that Crowe had to trust him. Crowe would verify everything from now on.

  And he would keep an eye on Preemas—until Crowe could convince Gāo that she needed to issue an order to make the captain step aside.

  The Renegat

  By the time Crowe reached Engineering, he had contained his fury behind a very calm exterior. He couldn’t achieve anything when he was deeply angry.

  However, he could use that anger as a fuel to drive every single action he made from now on.

  He had a mental list of things he needed to do. He needed to contact Vice Admiral Gāo. He needed to check the attitude control. And he needed to slowly disable the perks of Preemas’s command.

  Gāo first.

  As Crowe walked into Engineering, he instructed everyone inside to take a fifteen-minute break, effective immediately.

  He stood near the door, and watched his crew filter out of the various towers and alcoves, a handful of them giving him sideways looks. The crew clearly didn’t understand what he was doing. They were probably as unnerved as he had been by that sudden trip into foldspace.

  They probably wanted to investigate whatever had happened to the ship. Some of them probably were investigating what had happened to the ship.

  But, in the spirit of the captain, who believed ignoring problems was the same as solving them, the crew could wait until Crowe was ready to have them work the issues.

  The last person left. Crowe checked to make sure his was the only life sign in Engineering. Then he closed the doors and sealed them.

  He needed ten minutes, not fifteen. Ten. Just long enough that he could send a message to Vice Admiral Gāo.

  He whirled and headed to the communications alcove. He opened the panel that hid the communications anacapa, but didn’t open the container, since no one was here to monitor it. So, he checked to make sure that the foldspace channel still looked active.

  It did.

  Then he closed the panels, and set up a communications window, coded to Vice Admiral Gāo. He started recording, making sure that he made several backups as he went.

  “Vice Admiral,” he said as the recording started. “The situation on the Renegat has become dire. I waited to hear from you after our last contact, and heard nothing. I consulted with Captain Preemas, who told me that you had convinced him to forge on to the Scrapheap. Later, I discovered that he had completely disabled our foldspace communications channel. If you have been trying to reach us, and cannot, that is why. In the meantime, he continued to tell me about the various conversations that you have had with him, conversations that I now know could not and did not happen….”

  He outlined what he had found. Then he told her about the unplanned trip into foldspace, done without his knowledge. He lifted his arm as high as he could, showing her the purpling knuckles, the broken skin that he had yet to fix. He told her there were other injuries, and that Preemas was becoming more reckless rather than less.

  Then Crowe said, “Vice Admiral Gāo, I humbly request that you relieve Captain Preemas of duty. I ask that you do so by patching into our entire communications system shipwide. I would prefer not to do that myself, so that I will be less compromised than I already am.”

  He shifted a little. His arm ached from trying to lift it over his head. He might have to go to the med bay after all.

  “If you do not want me to run the ship, that is fine. You have a few other candidates who might be able to do a good job. I will assist whoever you choose.”

  Crowe was pleased that his voice remained calm. He was feeling a tad breathless, but it wasn’t obvious in the way he spoke.

  He had never asked to have a captain relieved of duty before.

  “I am contacting you because I believe in the Fleet, in her rules and regulations, and in the proper way of doing things,” he said. “Captain Preemas is guaranteeing that the mission you sent us on—discovering what happened to that Scrapheap—will not succeed. I don’t think the Renegat will be able to handle the foldspace journey. I am not certain we can make the journey back to you, either, but we have a chance of that, if I can inspect the ship.”

  His heart rate had increased. On top of the anger, he was frightened. He had never done anything like this before.

  “I suspect you tried to send me the rest of the information that I requested, and that it did not arrive because of the captain’s perfidy. I am assuming that you also believe the communications anacapa might be causing some of our lag. I have no idea if the lag remains, because of what Captain Preemas did. We are also two trips through foldspace past our last contact, so our data gathering isn’t as clear as I would like it. That’s why I am sending you this message on all channels that I possibly can, in as many ways as I can. It’s not worth even trying to talk at the moment.”

  She probably understood that. If he wasn’t careful, he would start repeating himself. Some of this one-sided conversation felt like him trying to get something off his chest, rather than informing a superior officer.

  “Vice Admiral,” he said, “I hope you see fit to follow my advice. Please do let me know if I am overstepping.”

  Hell, he was overstepping by any measure. He knew it, and so would she.

  But this wasn’t a normal circumstance. He had to remember that.

  “I hope you consider my proposal. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you for your time.”

  He stood very still for a moment, then ended the recording. His knees wobbled, and he caught himself against the edge of the communications alcove.

  He was tired, he was banged up, but that hadn’t caused his body to nearly collapse.

  He was trying not to break rules, trying not to revert to the kid who had cost fifty lives because he thought he knew better than everyone else.

  But here, he did know better—at least, better than Preemas. And Crowe needed to remember that.

  He was trying to save lives now. Trying to save a ship.

  He hoped he wasn’t too late.

  Part Nineteen

  Rescue

  Now

  The Renegat

  Zarges had nearly reached Cargo Bay One. The emergency lighting here worked better than the lighting anywhere else on the ship. The walls of the corridor glistened in the lights from his suit.

  New black nanobit coating. This part of the ship had been repaired and recently. Automatically repaired, judging by the way that the shiny part had a jagged connection to the older section.

  His breath caught. Surely someone would have told him if Cargo Bay One had been compromised.

  He forced himself forward. Iqbar was already at Cargo Bay Two. They only had about fifteen minutes left to manage a rapid evacuation.

  People in environmental suits pushed past him, in a hurry to get inside the cargo bay. He glanced down the darkened corridor and saw more movement.

  Well, none of the Renegat’s crew seemed to think there would be a problem with Cargo Bay One. Which relieved him and worried him at the same time.

  This ship had been through a lot, and he wasn’t sure how much the crew had simply accepted the damage, and no longer thought about it.

  But he couldn’t worry about that. He had more than enough to think about right now.

  He hoped that Palmer’s time estimate was off, because, judging by the number of people in the corridor, nowhere near 200 people had reached the cargo bays yet.

  “Sufia,” he said to Khusru through the suit’s comm link, “you need to change the announcement. Tell everyone they have less than five minutes to get here.”

  “Or what?” she asked. “We leave them behind?”

  “If we have to put it that way, yes,” he said.

  Then he pushed himself inside Cargo Bay One. His suit lights illuminated floating cargo, some right in front of his face. He saw no obvious damage here, which relieved him even
more.

  Two groups of people looked like beacons in the darkness. One group stood a little too close to the cargo bay doors.

  He had to get to them first.

  “You’ve got forty to fifty people inside that bay,” Palmer said. He was still in Engineering, still trying to see if he could buy them all more time. “You want me to contact one of the life rafts?”

  Zarges felt a surge of irritation. Why was Palmer looking at the number of people in the bay, rather than working on stopping the upcoming explosion?

  “I’ve got this,” Zarges said. “You finish up.”

  “I have,” Palmer said. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m heading to your bay now. You’re the one with the crowd.”

  Zarges didn’t respond. Instead, he threaded his way through the floating cargo to the cargo bay doors. He illuminated his face ever so slightly so that the group of people could see him, and toggled his communications link so that it broadcasted on all frequencies.

  “My name is Raul Zarges,” he said. “I am with the Fleet.”

  Someone moved their hands together, and then everyone did. White gloves slapped against white gloves, but of course, he couldn’t hear anything.

  For a half second, he wondered if this was some strange custom that he had never heard of, and then he realized they were applauding him. Even though they knew he couldn’t hear them.

  He felt a small rush of relief. He had been wondering if the people on board this ship had stolen it or if they even knew what the Fleet was.

  Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were just applauding the fact that he was an outsider.

  Those details didn’t matter, though. What mattered was getting these people off this ship.

  “I need the group nearest the bay doors to move to the middle of the bay. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Fleet’s rescue technology, but in case you aren’t, we’re attaching ships we call ‘life rafts’ to the side of the ship. In a few minutes, you’ll be able to step through the doors onto the life raft.”

  Everyone was facing him. He couldn’t see through their helmets. All he could see were images of his face, illuminated in pale brown light, reflected back at him.

  “The raft can only hold fifty people.”

  He paused there, and he shouldn’t have, because they stirred, as if they were afraid a large number of people would be left behind.

  “Our scans show that there are about two hundred people on this ship,” he said. “Is that right?”

  No one answered him. On the far end of the bay, he saw more lighted figures entering.

  And then another announcement:

  You have less than five minutes to get to the cargo bays. We are beginning evacuations, and we are on a clock. The ship is falling apart. You have to hurry.

  The group in front of him stirred again. He was beginning to think they were Fleet, because if they weren’t they would have already started pushing and shoving to get as close to the door as possible.

  “I need to know,” he said as the announcement ended. “Are there 200 people on this ship? Or are there more in some area that my scans can’t reach? The brig, maybe, or some kind of container in one of the medical bays?”

  Again, no one answered him. He was beginning to wonder if they could communicate through the comm links.

  “I’m not starting the evacuation until someone answers me,” he said, even though that wasn’t true.

  “We have 199 people on board,” said a woman’s voice. She sounded like an authority. The farthest group parted slightly, as she used the shoulders and helmets of her colleagues to propel herself forward. “No one is in the brig, and there’s nothing in the medical bay that should block a Fleet scan.”

  “Good,” Zarges said. “Thank you. Then we’re starting the evacuation.”

  The woman was only a few feet from him. He reached up, grabbed her arm, and pulled her closer.

  She struggled.

  “My suit…” she said. “Please.”

  “This won’t hurt your suit,” he said. “Stand near me.”

  “My suit is failing,” she said. “Please let go of it.”

  Instead of letting go, he pulled her with him toward the bay doors. If her suit was failing that meant others probably were as well.

  “Rescue One,” he said on a private channel, “prepare the life rafts. I will be opening the bay door and sending evacuees to you.”

  “Copy that,” came the response.

  “Do you know how to operate the bay doors manually?” he asked the woman he was holding.

  “No,” she said. “And please, let me go.”

  He did, since it was causing her so much distress. “Does anyone know how to manually operate the bay doors?”

  Someone toward the back raised a hand, with palm light on, nearly blinding him. He turned away because he had to.

  “You, then,” he said, sounding as authoritarian as he could. “Help me open the doors. The rest of you step through them in a calm and orderly fashion. I will be informed when we reach the fifty-person limit. At that moment, I will close the bay doors while the first life raft leaves and a second takes its place.”

  He couldn’t ask them if they understood. He wouldn’t be able to see their responses and he didn’t want the comm links filled with chatter.

  The person who had raised his—her?—hand was already heading to the wall nearest the doors. Zarges followed, just as another announcement resounded through the comm links.

  You have less than three minutes to get to the cargo bays. We are beginning evacuations, and we are on a clock. The ship is falling apart. You have to hurry.

  The person who knew how to work the doors was hanging on to a handle near an open panel.

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Zarges said.

  The panel looked familiar, but Zarges was glad he had asked for help. His new assistant hit two different buttons, then pulled a small lever. If this panel worked the way similar manual controls worked, the lever activated some pulleys and the doors would slide on the built-in rails as smoothly as if the computers had guided them.

  For a half second, the doors remained closed, and Zarges’s heart started hammering. He didn’t know if he could wedge open doors that large, and he didn’t want to fire on them, not with people this close, and not with the life raft attached to the outside of the ship.

  Then the doors wobbled. They opened unevenly—the door closest to him moving faster than the door on the other side.

  Light from the life raft poured into the bay. The life raft looked surprisingly small compared to the bay, but it didn’t matter. Evacuees poured onto the life raft before he could even give the order.

  He hadn’t even set up his counting system.

  On the private channel, he asked, “You’re monitoring the numbers?”

  “We have it,” came the reply.

  Which was good, because he didn’t.

  In less than a minute, the evacuees closest to the life raft had already entered it. A handful more stepped across the threshold when a voice said, “That’s it. Make them stand back.”

  “That’s it,” he repeated on the comms. “That raft is at maximum capacity. We have another waiting. Step back and we’ll set up.”

  Those who had started into the raft continued forward as if he hadn’t spoken, but the next group of people did stop, thank heavens. He’d conducted rescues where he’d had to hold off the evacuees with weapons, just to keep things orderly.

  He was glad that wasn’t happening here.

  He looked, saw that no one stood in the actual doors, and he said to his helper, “Close the doors.”

  The helper hit another button that Zarges hadn’t seen, and then pushed up on the lever. The doors closed much more easily than they had opened.

  More people lined up, some leaving their head and shoulder lights on. The junk floating around the bay seemed like it was aiming at the lights, when he knew it wasn’t.

  The evacuees
shifted again. He recognized their movements. They were on the edge of panic. It wouldn’t take much to tip them over.

  The last thing he wanted was another announcement. That would frighten them worse, particularly since they had probably passed the time deadline that Khusru had set.

  He switched to the private Rescue One channel. “Sufia, no more announcements. We need to finish the evacuation.”

  “Already ahead of you,” she said. “We left the bridge a few minutes ago. There was no way to make that announcement automated. Do we know if everyone has arrived at the cargo bays?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “Rescue One, do you have the figures?”

  “There are 68 people in Cargo Bay One, and 23 remaining in Cargo Bay Two.”

  Great, he thought but didn’t say, they would have to move people from this bay to the next one over.

  “Can we make three stops here?” he asked.

  “We can, but that doesn’t solve one issue. Nine people have not yet arrived at either bay.”

  He felt cold. Either he could send some team members to find the remaining evacuees or he could abandon them. He’d never abandoned people in a rescue before, although with this kind of emergency, the Fleet policy was to abandon those who hadn’t arrived before the time limit.

  “Are they on their way?” Zarges asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Then I’ll wait for them,” he said. “I’ll get them off this ship.”

  Somehow. After he evacuated 91 more people.

  Before the exploding ship killed them all.

  Part Twenty

  Decisions

  100 Years Ago

  The Renegat

  Thirty-six hours later. Thirty-six hours after Crowe had sent the message to Vice Admiral Gāo and still no word. No response at all.

  He had started compulsively checking the communications array about 24 hours in, expecting some kind of contact. He even thought that perhaps a message she had sent got caught up in the equipment.