by Tim Marquitz
At least she had the memory of punching Vort in his face to cheer her up.
While she’d been gone, the crew had moved a chair over for S’thlor so he could be near Lina and strapped him in to be safe, letting the two confer back and forth, a constant, muttered chatter filling the room. To her credit, Lina was a quick study, and she picked up much of what S’thlor taught her as they went along, but there was no substituting true knowledge for the bandage that was the alien’s technical and linguistic advice.
He barely knew anything as it was, and the fact that he was passing that basic information on to Lina wasn’t much of a confidence builder as far as Taj was concerned. They were flying through the middle of nowhere, in a ship packed with way more people than it was designed to hold or support. If they ran into trouble before they reached a safe location, it was a certainty that people would be hurt because there was simply no way to avoid it.
They couldn’t secure everyone in reinforced areas, and Taj had begun to realize that that had been part of Captain Vort’s plans when he’d tricked them onto the Discordant and blasted the Paradigm out from under them.
He meant for them to be cramped aboard this tiny craft, uncomfortable, awkward, all of which helped to sow her people’s frustration with Taj, the supposed leader who convinced them all that this was what they needed to do to survive. And though no one had yet to approach her about it, she could see it in the eyes of her crew and the people crowded in the hallways, and that was pissing her off.
They were beginning to doubt her already, to question her decisions in their heads, and she wondered how long it would take before they started to voice their concerns. She didn’t figure it would be long given how uncomfortable everyone was already.
She snarled, not looking forward to that moment but seeing it approach ever-faster as the bridge door hissed open and Torbon walked inside, shaking his head in a way that could only mean bad news. She’d known it would be before she’d sent him off to scour the ship’s resources.
He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder and waited until the door sealed before saying anything. “It’s like you thought, Taj. The stores onboard are sparse to the point of ridiculousness. This ship wasn’t designed to support its people for long. There’s barely enough food to last until the end of the week, if we ration strictly. A lot of people are gonna go hungry if this journey takes any longer than that.” He glanced around surreptitiously, finally looking back at Taj. “And don’t tell Cabe, but there’s not a hint of nip anywhere to be found on this tub.” He chuckled. “Nor is there any contraband. These lizards might as well be hermits.”
Taj let her head loll back and thump against the headrest of her seat. In her rush to get her people to safety, she hadn’t even thought about the supplies she’d left behind on the Paradigm. Her concern had been bodies, getting them onboard and getting them out of danger, keeping them from being gunned down. She hadn’t once remembered the food or fuel stores or the stash of Toradium-42 she’d packed aboard the freighter in case the Wyyvans did something she hadn’t predicted.
And they had done exactly that, only it was something even more unexpected than Taj could have imagined. Leveling the planet started the cascade of surprises.
She had underestimated their ruthlessness and lack of concern for their fellow soldiers, and the fleeing Furlorians were paying for it now.
Worse still, she had let the chaos and terror dictate her decisions. She’d given in and allowed Vort to direct her actions, and though they’d been right in the end, in the general scheme of things, she’d let him manipulate her into being a fool.
And that was all on her, which only pissed her off more.
Her people now faced a real threat of starvation and no guarantees of finding a source of food or the means to procure it.
She needed to rectify that immediately.
“Gack!” she shouted, slamming her fists into the armrests. “We need a populated planet or space station if we hope to resupply.” She spun her chair to face Lina. “Can you find us one closer than S’thlor’s estimated coordinates?”
“I can try, but we’ve already got issues,” Lina answered, and Taj could see the uncertainty etched into the engineer’s features. “Neither me nor S’thlor know exactly where we are in reference to Wyyvan space currently, the Monger’s crash and subsequent panic having disoriented him, and we have no clue what’s between here and the border where the Federation first appeared.” She shrugged, her tail wiggling over her shoulder in irritation. “Scanners are picking up the gate the Monger used to get to Krawlas, but I can’t read anything beyond it because of the limited scope of this ship’s functions.”
“It’s likely the only chance we have of finding a populated planet is to use the gate,” S’thlor told the crew. “This sector, as you well know, is mostly barren, Krawlas being the exception, apparently the only habitable planet. It leaves us little in the way of navigational beacons, making it nigh impossible to set an accurate course no matter what coordinates I recall.”
Taj ground her teeth together, tightening her grip on her seat. Beaux and the others had chosen the galaxy for exactly those reasons: its sparseness and distance from populated neighbors. It had kept them alive all this time. Now, that same distance was going to kill them if they let it.
Taj would face Rowl before she let that happen.
“Make for the gate, and let’s see what the gack is waiting for us out there,” Taj ordered, believing there to be no other option. We can figure things out from there, she thought, refusing to voice her concerns aloud. The crew had enough disappointments to deal with already.
There was no certainty of what lay ahead, but she knew exactly what lay behind so there would be no turning around. As such, there was nothing she could do but trust they were doing the right thing and hope things worked out for the best.
She’d sent her people into space with her decisions, and now there was nothing left to do but carry on and see what opportunities presented themselves to fix everything before it was too late.
A ragged chuckle rose unbidden in her throat, the inner voice of logic and reason sneaking out and scoffing at her. It was just one more thing tugging at her fur.
They needed food and fuel and maybe even a larger ship, but Taj knew all that was yet another challenge given their lack of resources. They had no money and nothing to barter with. The truth was, wherever they ended up, she suspected it would be their final destination.
They would have to sell the Discordant for a pittance, since it’d be clear it was stolen, and wouldn’t get its full value. She couldn’t hope to make much more from the sale than barely enough to set her people up someplace on the planet and maybe start new lives.
But life was life. As long as a Furlorian survived, then the Wyyvans failed.
Taj straightened in her seat, spinning back around to face the view screen. She met the eyes of her crew as she did, offering each a nod in turn.
They would make it. They had to.
Bloody Rowl! Mama Merr and Beaux had led their people across the vastness of space in their escape from Felinus 4, and Taj was sure she could do the same.
The Grans hadn’t let their emotions get in the way of what needed to be done, and Taj swore right then to follow their examples. She would see her people to safety if it was the last thing she ever did.
She hopped up and headed for the exit, feeling her adrenaline finally tapering off. The bridge door eased open as she waved her hand over the control pad—Taj was glad S’thlor could accommodate that, at least—and she paused at its threshold, feeling the stares of her crew on her back.
She knew she needed to tell them something, that she couldn’t storm off and leave them to wonder what she was thinking or they’d feed into despair and maybe think she was abandoning them.
That wasn’t the case at all.
“Let me know as soon as we pass through the gate and scanners pick up a suitable planet for us to stop off at,” she told them.
>
“What are you gonna do until then?” Cabe asked, his gaze seeking hers.
“I’m gonna try to get some sleep,” she answered, stifling a yawn. “After that, we’ll find us a new home.” Taj offered him a genuine smile, glad that, despite it all, she could still find some happiness to project after all the anger and frustration.
“Maybe you can join me later,” she said quietly, not giving him a chance to reply before she swept out the door.
Her grin beamed even brighter.
Chapter Seven
The shriek of alarms tore Taj from her slumber.
She bolted upright, eyes wide, heart pounding against her ribs, unsure how much of her swirling brain was due to the dream and how much was reality. The tiny room she’d curled up in was bathed in crimson, casting ugly shadows over the walls.
She rubbed her temples, causing the shadows to dance in her bleary vision. The communicator on the bedside table barked static, and Taj snatched it up, slipping it into her ear. Lina’s mechanical-sounding voice cut through a moment later.
“Need you on the bridge, Taj,” Lina said. “We’ve got trouble.”
“Of course we do,” Taj muttered, crawling out of bed and wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Be right there.” She muted the comm and growled. “Gack, gacking, gackity-gack,” she spit out, stuffing her feet into her boots as quickly as she could manage. “So much for sleep.”
She’d slept fully clothed, expectant of trouble, and she regretted it now. Her uniform was twisted and damp from sweat, her tiny cabin uncomfortable since the life support hadn’t been adjusted to accommodate the Furlorians yet.
She imagined she stunk nicely, but she couldn’t be bothered to check, though she was half-tempted to pay Vort a visit and force her stench upon him.
Maybe even give the gackpuddle a big hug.
She chuckled at the image and fought the urge to do exactly that.
Instead, she finished getting her boots on and stomped from the room, ignoring the pins and needles assailing her right foot. She’d apparently slept on it funny, but there wasn’t time to worry about it now.
“At least one of us slept well,” she complained, wrangling her foot in line as she marched on, offering it no respite.
She stepped out into the hall and had to immediately dodge a number of Furlorians who’d made their home outside the door. “Sorry,” she muttered, adjusting her awkward movement to keep from stepping on anyone. Once she was through the obstacle course of survivors and had a clear path where no one could overhear her, she triggered her comm.
“Shut that gacking alarm off, will you, Lina? I can’t hear myself think.”
The sound reverberated in her ears until her brain rattled, then it went mercifully silent. She breathed a grateful sigh and followed the gleaming red lights down the corridor, once more dodging wide-eyed Furlorians until she reached the bridge. The door was already open when she got there.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her mind struggling to parse the images flashing across the view screen. “Is that—” Bursts of blue and green seared her vision, mixing with the strobing red coloring the bridge.
Cabe cut her off as he ushered her to her seat. She plopped into it as he answered, a little out of breath, his excitement clear in the wrinkled lines of his face, his pinned whiskers. “We received a distress call moments ago,” he said, pointing a clawed finger at the screen. “Those two ships are assaulting that battered freighter. Doesn’t look like it’s gonna last much longer at this rate. It doesn’t even look armed.”
“Pirates?” Taj asked, leaning toward the view screen to get a better look.
“Not sure it matters,” Cabe replied with a shrug.
No, I guess it doesn’t, she thought.
Regardless what they were, it wasn’t like she was prepared to go to war against a random enemy whose capabilities were a complete mystery to her. Gack, for that matter, her own capabilities were nearly as unclear.
She knew the Discordant had weaponry, as she’d watched Vort light up the Paradigm with them, but how effective they’d be in a fight, she had no clue. Even more concerning was her uncertainty as to her and the crew’s effectiveness in combat like this. Despite all they’d been through on Krawlas, all the simulations they’d been made to run by Beaux, none of them had ever been in a space battle.
“What do you want us to do?” Lina asked. The engineer hunched over her console, and S’thlor clasped his seat arms, the ragged scars about his eyes stretching as she imagined him trying to see what was going on.
“Run away?” Torbon volunteered from his seat, offering a shrug when they glanced his way. “What? I’m only saying what everyone is thinking.”
Taj grunted. “That’s actually not what I was thinking,” she answered.
“I kind of was,” S’thlor admitted.
“Oh, gack,” Torbon mumbled. “You’re not thinking about engaging them, are you?”
“We’ve been looking for some kind of opportunity, right?” She gestured toward the view screen. “Here’s one right before us.”
“An opportunity to die?” Torbon countered.
“Rowl, Torbon, everything we’d done since the Wyyvans showed up has put us at a risk of dying. This...this right here could be the key to the door of our future.”
“Affirmation much?” he asked, shaking his head. “You sound like a gacking propaganda poster. See the stars, battle aliens, live a life of adventure...and die miserably.”
Lina chuckled. “Not that that isn’t an excellent recruitment slogan, I don’t think you’re looking at this the right way.”
“Two enemy ships on one?” he replied. “I’m thinking I’m looking at it the only way we should be.”
“Is there anyone alive on that freighter?” Taj asked, waving Torbon to silence.
“Can’t tell,” Lina replied. “Scanners are detecting living beings in the area, but with the closeness of the pirates, or whatever those little ships are, it’s distorting the Discordant’s readings.”
“These leech crafts suffer from both clarity and power when it comes to their scanning systems,” S’thlor volunteered. “They rely on the supporting fleet for intel and tactical advice and are used largely as battering rams after all the command decisions have been made. None of the systems aboard are overly advanced, though they are quite fast and resilient. It’s a reasonable trade-off given what they’re meant to do: be cannon fodder.”
“How wonderfully convenient,” Taj said, imagining Captain Vort snickering in his makeshift cell as his plan to limit Taj’s options played out perfectly.
Gack him! She’d prove him wrong.
She contemplated their options. The smart thing would be to turn tail and run as Torbon suggested, leave the distressed freighter to its unfortunate fate.
But she wouldn’t do that.
“Raise shields and ready the weapons,” she commanded. “We fought off a gacking army of Wyyvans back on Krawlas, so I’m sure we can blast a few pirates into space dust.”
Cabe caught her eye and winked, and Taj bit back the flush of excitement that washed over as she made ready to charge into battle.
“Want me to get Vort?” Torbon asked.
“Not unless you plan to load him in a torpedo tube and fire him at the enemy ships,” Taj told him.
“That’s an option? Would have been nice to know that earlier,” Cabe said.
Taj actually considered it a moment before shaking her head. “I wish it was,” she replied, doing her best to wipe the image of Captain Vort hurtling through space out of her mind.
She was already smiling.
“Torbon, get everyone settled somewhere safe, then hunker down with them until this is over.”
Torbon unsnapped his restraints and leapt to his feet. “You sure about this?”
“I hate that question,” she barked, baring her teeth. “Just do it…please.” She added the last to soothe the hurt look on his face that appeared after she had snapped at him, his whiskers
laid back against his cheeks.
She was determined to see this through to the end. There was no way she could sit back and watch more people die, especially after all her people had endured. If she could save a few lives on the way toward their new ones, that was what she was going to do.
“Go, please. Do as I said,” she repeated, and Torbon nodded. He shot through the door, his voice echoing down the halls as he shouted for the assembled Furlorians to follow him.
“Another distress signal coming through,” Lina called out. “This one’s clearer.”
“Put it through.” Taj growled as soon as the voice came across the speakers. The worry, the fear of the assaulted ship’s crew member came echoed clearly through the comm.
It only reinforced Taj’s decision to lash out at the pirates.
“This is the NVS Prospect! We are under attack by two unknown hostile crafts. We are an unarmed science vessel on a mission of peace on our way to the Voloran Galaxy under a flag of—” A rumbling explosion sounded in the background, cutting the desperate woman off, followed by a burst of screeching static. The signal dropped right after.
“Rowl!” Knuckles popped as Taj clenched her hands into fists. “We need to stop this, now. Are the weapon systems ready?”
“The guns are raring to go, but I’m not so sure about the gunner,” Lina answered. Her voice was ragged, forced, sounding much like the occupant of the imperiled freighter than her usual self. The distress signal had clearly flagged her confidence.
Taj glanced to the engineer’s station to see her trembling hands hovering over the console. Taj offered her a confident nod, hoping it conveyed her understanding of Lina’s situation, but they had to act.
S’thlor offered quiet reassurances to Lina at the same time.
They were all nervous. It made sense. They’d only recently escaped their home planet, and now they found themselves about to engage in a fight for no reason other than it seemed the right thing to do.
Gacking morals. Thanks, Mama.