An Officer’s Duty (61 page)

The door to the cockpit slid open. Two K’katta scuttled inside and climbed up the back wall, using both the freefall handholds and the projecting corners of the various instruments to cling to the surface. Their multilegged knees projected past the edges of two of the three seats, with their torsos not quite wedged in place.

The V’Dan, strapped back into his seat, winced and lifted a hand to his metal-wrapped brow. “
Sh’kathek v’shakk!
It’s coming back—that machine is coming back online. I’m not even plugged into it, and it’s getting to me!”

She could feel her control starting to waver, her sphere of influence slipping at the farthest edges. Ia flicked on the comm again.
“Viega, you have
three
seconds to launch,
mark!”

The other ship disengaged from its docking pylons. So did Ia’s. Unlike the V’Dan vessel, which dropped down onto the launch cradle on automatic, Ia piloted her ship manually. Or rather, in a mix of telekinetics and electrokinetics. Positioning it right behind the V’Dan vessel, she fired the forward pair of grapples, clamping onto the back of the other ship. That caused both ships to jolt, but the launch cradle holding the V’Dan ship didn’t show any signs of strain.

“Lieutenant, what the
hell
are you doing?”
Viega demanded over the comm.
“You are
not
the reincarnation of Shikoku Yama!
”

“No time, Admiral,”
Ia shot back, warming the thrusters. The edges of effective range on her psychic abilities slipped further, contracting abruptly. She pushed as hard as she could to
the front, striving to hold off the enemy long enough for them to escape.
“Launch!”

Light flared beyond the observation windows. Both ships finished descending into the launch tunnel and started moving forward, one by machinery, the other by tow and by thruster fields. The
ping-ting-tang
vibrating back down the cables to the Salik vessel rose in volume, an eerie aural counterpoint to the thrumming of the engines. If those cables snapped at the wrong moment up ahead, what she had done to the Salik capital ship would be done to them. Yet if she accelerated too much at the wrong moment, she would drive the nose of this ship up the backside of the other, cracking both vessels wide open. The probabilities were not all that good.

Surrendering to the racing flow of Time, Ia let her precognition pull her under. The cradle snapped forward, launching the V’Dan vessel. The Salik ship roared with the pulse of attitude jets as well as thruster fields, the twin cables jerking the ship that much father. A frantic corner of her mind programmed the controls with autopilot instructions, but most of the rest was focused on holding back the explosions brightening the windows of the observation bays.

Behind them, the windows exploded, billowing atmosphere and fire into the launch tunnel they had just left. Giving up, Ia released her hold on the self-destruct mechanisms; it was too late to stop their escape. They launched into the great chamber, thrust so hard at the end by the cradle that the edges of Ia’s physical vision blackened and drained.

“Opening the rift!”
Viega shouted over the comm, her voice showing the strain of her fight to stay conscious under the heavy pull of their velocity. Sparks shot forward from the lead ship, arrowing in and impacting together in a collision of spinning, exotic, highly charged particles. Both ships, one flying right behind the other, cables ever so slightly slack, vanished into the swirling maw that opened in the middle of the vast, vacuum-drained chamber.

Time warped and jolted. Nausea and fever flushed through Ia’s body, forcing blood out through her teeth-punctured wounds, weakening her in a head-spinning rush. It wasn’t a lengthy jump; maybe five seconds at most, just far enough to get them to the next star system.

Ia had implanted the exact coordinates for one of the nearest Blockade Fleet stations in Viega’s mind, one that had the facilities to treat all the races of the Alliance. She had also programmed her ship to reverse its thrusters the moment they emerged, slowing both vessels before they could race past the giant, spine-covered, ceristeel-plated egg. Thankfully, the cables held; they creaked and groaned, the strain vibrating palpably between the two vessels, but they held.

She knew they had to get the ships docked. The problem was that the cabin spun every time she opened her eyes, making it difficult for Ia to concentrate. Waves of heat flushed through her body, leaving behind contracting muscles that shuddered and ached. Spots studded her skin, and her shoulder was visibly swollen and red. Everything hurt so much, she wanted to cry. But there were over three dozen sentients crammed into this ship, many of them suffering from OTL-shocked injuries of their own.

There was no way the others on board could dock this ship; it would be too dangerous for them to try. Struggling against the disorientation, the fever and exhaustion, Ia focused her thoughts down onto the exact sequence of steps needed. The first step was closing her eyes to block out the distraction of sight. She could hear Viega broadcasting on the comms that they were two ships full of escapees in need of immediate medical aid, so that was one of her other concerns handled.

The next step was to release the grappling clamps; if things went sour, and there was too high a probability that they would, the last thing Viega would need was a deadheaded ship right on her tail, not if it had been fifteen years since the other woman had last piloted anything. A flick of Ia’s mind managed that much, leaving the cables trailing ahead of them, but the effort increased the dizziness in her head. Belatedly, Ia realized most of her kinetic inergy, the fuel for her gifts, was pouring into her biokinesis, trying to keep her septic infection at bay.

Slag…this is going to cost me
…Focusing tighter, she opened the comm, broadcasting to the Solarican Battle Platform.
“This is Lieutenant First Grade Ia…TUPSF-Navy, requesting emergency sentientarian aid. I am…I am piloting the Salik vessel. I am going to attempt to dock at Krrim Rau…gantry 17, but I will need help. I am injured and suffering…
from OTL-accelerated septic shock. Some sort of…Sallha-native bacteria.”

Her concentration wavered. Every time she shuddered, the force of her contracting muscles ground the teeth of that lower jaw deeper into her shoulder blade. Ia struggled to remember what she was supposed to be doing.

“We have…thirty-eight injured on board this vessel. I repeat, I am…dock at Krrim Rau 17, and…need grappling.”
Nausea welled up, threatening to escape her throat in a most unpleasant manner. She swallowed, panting.
“I…don’t feel so good…”

“Lieutenant, hang in there!”
she heard Viega order.
“You dock that ship, Lieutenant Ia! You hear me? That’s an order, sailor!”

A hand cupped her forehead. It was the V’Dan male, offering her a very precious, very intimate gift. (
Take my energy; I offer it freely. If you’re strong enough to do everything you just did for us,
) he told her, (
then I
know
you can take it and use it—take it! I’m Pathic, not Kinetic. It’s a Saints-damned Salik ship. I can’t fly this thing for you!
)

“Lieutenant, you are deadheading past the Solarican Warstation! Don’t you
dare
give up on me, Bloody Mary, not here, not now! Stop your drifting and dock that goddamn ship!”

Ia latched onto the KI of her fellow psychic. Vaguely aware of his unrestrained state, she flexed the dregs of her third strongest gift, her electrokinesis. The thrusters hummed in a faint, pulsing rumble, altering their drift.

“Sallik Courrrier, this is Warstation
Nnying Yanh.
Corrrect yourr course to Krrim Rau 22,”
the Battle Platform instructed her, naming a different docking gantry.
“We have salllvage crew already in place for that gantrry. Slow speed and preparrre for grappling.”

Another nudge of her mind swayed them in that direction. It took most of her strength—hers and the inner energy donated from the V’Dan at her side—to slow the courier. The moment everything lined up, Ia poured all of her spare energy into her mental walls. The V’Dan took that as his signal to let go of her forehead, moving back to his chair.

He grunted as the grapple pods struck the courier, jolting it hard enough to knock him into the waiting alien seat. The blow
also dug the teeth into Ia’s upper back a little harder. Teeth clenched tight, muffling her groan, Ia forced her body to stop trying to heal itself. As life-threatening as septic shock might be, leaving her precognitive gifts unlocked and unguarded was the far greater threat. Physicians and paraphysicians would have to physically touch her to treat her injuries and cleanse the bacteria infecting her blood. She could not, dared not allow the timeplains to drag them under, not while she wasn’t coherent.

Even with modern medicine throttling the death rate down to a fraction of a percent, it still would take weeks to recover from sepsis. Knowing the Solaricans would reel in her ship, that she and the others would receive enough medical care to survive, Ia focused on wrapping her mind into a tight, protective little shell. It took the last dregs of her strength, but that was alright. She had successfully saved all the lives that she could, and that was all that mattered.

For the moment, the timestreams were safe. For the moment, she could rest.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2495 T.S.
SOLARICAN WARSTATION
NNYING YANH
SALHAIT SYSTEM

“What the
hell
is that infernal racket, Lieutenant?”

Expecting his arrival, Ia looked up to see Rear Admiral Duj, commanding officer of Battle Platform
Mad Jack
, standing in the doorway of her infirmary room. Behind him were two aides, plus the Solarican doctor treating Ia’s condition.
The noise he referred to was not the faint hum of the dialysis machine, nor the rhythmic beeping of the scanners monitoring her condition. The yowling he referred to came from the radio commchannel built into the frame of her infirmary bed.

“It’s Solarican singing, sir.” Arm somewhat hampered by the intravenous tubing strapped to it, Ia politely turned off the broadcast she had been enjoying.

Between the feeds for the dialysis machine on her right arm and the regen-packs strapped to her left, she didn’t have much mobility at the moment. At least the cuff of her crysium bracelet-and-sword was back down around her right ankle once more. Ia lifted her burdened arm a little higher in indication before lowering it back to her gown-covered lap.

“Please forgive me for not saluting, Admiral. I’m a little tied up at the moment. Or rather, tied down,” Ia quipped. “Unfortunately, modern medicine can’t cure everything immediately.”

“You’re forgiven,” he stated crisply, approaching her bed. “But only for that much. After reviewing all the reports we’ve collected over the last five days regarding your little escapade, you are in so much
trouble
, soldier, that I cannot…even…Doctor, why are you growling at me?”

“You arrre about to strrress my patient, Humann,” the Solarican answered, his voice low, his mane half fluffed. “I have finnally contrrolled her blood prrressure. You will
nnot
aggravate it.”

“It’s okay, Doctor Miian,” Ia reassured the alien. She didn’t pretend ignorance as to the purpose of the admiral’s visit. The time for pretending was finally over, even if there was still some need for discretion on certain subjects. “He’s just posturing. He can’t actually do anything to me.”

That earned her a hard look from her superior. “You are
perilously
—”

“Perilously close to insubordination,” Ia interrupted him. “Yes, sir, I’ve heard that before. Specifically while rescuing
your
superior, Admiral Viega. Would you like to know what that song was about?” she asked, changing the subject. From the blink Duj gave her, it threw him out of his plans to half threaten her. She forged ahead while he was still trying to shift mental gears to keep up with her. “That was a war song. In specific,
a war song about
me
. It’s one of the highest points of praise a Solarican can bestow upon another, to compose and perform a song praising their deeds.

“In specific, it was the fifth brand-new song I’ve heard about me since I woke up today, Admiral,” she stated dryly. “That’s not counting the three from yesterday, and the three the day before that. I don’t know if there were any others before that point, since I was still a bit out of it from the sepsis-fever. But that still makes eleven songs, and the day is barely half over. What that
means
, Admiral, is that I am a war hero to these people.

“In the face of such open and widespread admiration, not to mention the doctor’s legitimately expressed concerns,” Ia told him, nodding briefly at the waiting, ginger-colored physician, “perhaps it would be more diplomatically useful if you dropped the posturing and spoke only of what really brought you all the way out here from your post, sir?”

For a moment, it looked as if the rear admiral’s blood pressure would be a concern, rather than hers. He drew in a deep breath after a few seconds, letting it out slowly before he spoke.

“Very well. If you insist on playing it
that
way, Lieutenant, I am here to interrogate you on exactly what you did on Sallha, and how you did it. You are charged with Fatality One, Committing a Civilian Crime, via the failure to register your abilities as a psychic, and…Why are you laughing, Lieutenant?” he asked her, dark brown eyes narrowing. “Do you think these accusations are a
joke
?”

Chuckling, Ia shook her head, rustling the synthetic fibers stuffed into the Solarican-style pillow supporting her head. This wasn’t the best time for her sense of humor to rear itself, but she did find it amusing. Sobering slightly, she smiled wryly. “Oh, but I
am
registered, Admiral. I have been registered as a psychic since I was a young child. And that registry
is
listed in my military records. I listed it the day I joined the Space Force as a recruit in the Marines. It’s hardly
my
fault that the
details
behind that listing have been overlooked for so long.”