Earth Song: Etude to War (49 page)

Chapter 55

May 14th, 534 AE

Unidentified Star System, Contested Territory, Galactic Frontier

The Rangers largely left Minu to herself as their improvised lifeboat silently slid away from the place where one of her oldest friends had died. None of them had directly witnessed the event, but when the shockwave slammed into the cargo module a few seconds later, bringing ringing impacts of debris and a small push from the energy wave, everyone knew. The sergeant had glanced at Minu and looked away, knowing. They all knew.

Someone, probably the sergeant, went around the labyrinth of storage areas against the bulkhead and fixed a few leaks from impacts of debris as well. Some part of her mind filed that away to note in their records. Even wracked with guilt with how she’d treated Pip and remorse that she’d been unable to stop the boarding and counter attack, she was still doing her job.

Minu had communicated briefly with her daughter after the explosion. “Mother, I registered a high order detonation, are you alive?”

“We’re here, Lilith.” There was a pause while the girl waited for more information. “Pip ejected our cargo module and then self-destructed the engines to destroy the T’Chillen cruiser.”

“I see. How is your situation?”

That was the sum of her daughter’s reaction to Pip’s death. Minu looked around the center of the cargo module, noting the Rangers working and tending their wounded without any sense of panic or concern.

“We are stable for now.” She checked her tablet. “Atmosphere is sufficient with our re-breathers for a couple days. Finish assisting the rescue efforts there before coming for us. Do you have our location?”

“The explosion was sufficient to lock your details. I can be there within forty-eight hours. Lilith out.”

With that done, she’d found a quiet corner of the module and fell into herself. The problem was she couldn’t grieve. It was always her problem. Her brain compartmentalized any situation and prioritized needs. Fighting and surviving got top billing followed by the needs of any under her command, eating and sleeping, and only then, finally, emotional concerns. With the Rangers still in danger, grief over the loss of Pip didn’t rate high enough on the radar.

After an unknown number of hours she gave up and set to work with her tablet. She went over the data on the Rangers losses (as much as she knew) taking care to note what worked and what didn’t, and then began writing the after action report.

She split it in two; one for internal command and control dissemination, the other would go to the Chosen council. It was there she was able to finally feel some emotion: a white hot rage that burned like the exploding star of Planet K.

If she was back on Bellatrix and the Chosen leader Jacob within her grasp, she would have ripped his head off with her bare hands. Three thousand men and women left to die a horrible lonely death halfway across the galaxy when there were soldiers available she’d specifically trained in relief missions of just this kind. She steamed with the need to hurt him, or break something.

Across the room, the sergeant and two corporals watched the woman who’d trained them write her reports, correctly reading the fury of her body language. They were relatively certain none of it was directed against them. Though she was a stern, unforgiving taskmaster of a trainer, often too miserly in doling out approval or compliments, she likewise never failed to say what she meant. Many knew it was one of her few faults, that she couldn’t keep her mouth shut and the Chosen Council hated her for it. That, of course, was one of the things that endeared her to the troops.

No, the sergeant knew she wasn’t mad or disappointed at her beloved Rangers. He also knew it wouldn’t be her friend Pip who’d just sacrificed himself. He might have cost many lives and put himself in that situation in a moment of cowardice, but the warrior’s creed provided infinite opportunities for redemption.

And in that final act, he had redeemed himself honorably. The only thing a soldier could really hope for in a no-win situation was to at least be allowed to have their death count for
something, anything.

The sergeant decided it must be someone else who’d drawn Chosen Groves’ infamous fury, and that had to be the First among the Chosen. They’d been stuck fighting on Planet K, unsupported and against superior forces for days.

As an NCO, he was fully aware of the special cross training certain companies of Rangers received in penetrating hot Portals either as relief or breaching for assault and he’d waited day after day for that to come, only to be disappointed.

As their commander, Chosen Larson, become more and more desperate to break out near the end, the other leaders of the Rangers also came to realize that no-one was coming. They’d assumed it was because it wasn’t possible.

But when Chosen Groves showed up with the starship (a surprise to almost all of them, few shared that secret) and began laying into the Mok-Tok, the cheers also brought curses. They’d been abandoned by the Chosen.

It wasn’t sitting well with them as they were evacuated. He was more relieved than he knew how to express that she was just as mad as they were. He also wondered exactly why this woman of singular ability and heart was not in charge instead of the sniveling political coward that was.

As they went about the business of life, the sergeant began talking with the more senior of the men present about the situation. Both what he’d seen, and what he thought should be done about it.

* * *

When Lilith’s sensors finally picked up the telltale signature of the Ibeen cargo module she actually sighed with relief. She’d been floating in the debris field of the ship for many hours, her sensors turned up to maximum and sweeping in all directions for any signs of life.

Several large sections of the shattered T’Chillen cruiser, each on different courses, first drew her attention because of their power signatures. They held atmosphere and life. If she hadn’t been critically low on consumables, each piece would have gotten a ship-killer; she was finding a special place in her being to hate the T’Chillen.

Despite her lack of apparent reaction from Minu’s perspective, when she’d found out Pip was dead a surprising thing had happened: she’d begun to cry. She’d wiped at the tears in confusion. Where had they come from?

Pip was as disagreeable a human as she’d ever encountered with the possible exception of Jacob Bentley. She should have no more noticed his passing than she would eject into space an unsalvageable used component of her Kaatan. A regrettable loss, but of no real meaning to her. Instead she was saddened and found herself crying for no reason.

“You are being foolish,” she berated herself. “He was a jerk, as mother would say.”

But still the feelings persisted. He had indeed been a friend, perhaps the only one even close to her technical prowess. Even the ethereal Weavers only talked to him, a problem that would no doubt haunt them now.

Instead of trying to make the feelings go away, she let herself feel them. It was a radical tactic for the young space-born girl. For a few minutes she let the ship work on automatic as she curled into a ball in zero gravity.

Her brain was flooded with only good images of Pip, the fun they had on occasion enjoyed while playing games or making light of something. He had an enjoyable smile and when he was not trying to be moronic on purpose, was very engaging to converse with.

And he had felt for her as well. The pain grew until it engulfed her and her tiny body shook with sobs. She cried out loud, a visceral scream against the universe for its injustice against her.

After a time, the crying lessened. The hurt place in her heart was still there, like an emptiness that could not be filled. But she sensed, in time, the pain would continue to diminish. She wiped her eyes and nose with a forcefield, heaved a coughing sigh, and returned to work.

“Pip died as he had wished to live, on his own terms,” she spoke into the darkness of the CIC.

Lilith Groves, in a small way, had taken an important step to being human.

The ship located the cargo module and she swept in to examine it. The dualloy sphere was badly damaged and surprisingly intact at the same time. The People had made things to last, and this was no exception. It only took a minute to match course and dock with the main coupling point that had once been hooked to the rest of the ship.

As the ragtag platoon of Rangers moved onto the Kaatan, Lilith floated out to meet them, a rare act for her. She easily manipulated the artificial gravity fields within the ship when she wanted to so she merely swam down the halls to greet them at the docking bay.

“I am sorry I was not there,” she said, her eyes still red from tears over Pip as the first of them, a battered sergeant, floated from zero gravity to land in the hallway.

He looked at her in surprise for a minute, the tiny girl in the black as space Chosen uniform, five golden pips on her sleeve, only a meter and a half tall and so thin as to be almost skeletal.

She floated in the hallway next to where he stood in full gravity and looked both vulnerable and powerful at the same time. There was no doubt this was her ship, and that she was in charge. Then he saw those angular cheekbones, and bright red hair held in a short pony tail. So like her mother.

“Chosen,” he said and nodded, “nothing went well in this fight. I speak for my entire platoon when I say thank you for what you did.”

She gave a little smile, one that seemed almost unpracticed and nodded in reply. “There are quarters made ready for your men. Please take the wounded to medical immediately. The ships medical intelligence is prepared to begin treating them.

“A couple are critically injured, ma’am.”

That same smile, but this time a little condescending? “Have no concern, Sergeant. They will survive.”

The injured were quickly moved through by stretcher-bearers, all of them surprised at how light their burdens were in the gravity of the ship. None of them realized that Lilith controlled the gravity to make the stretchers weigh only a quarter their normal weight.

Soon after they were past a slow stream of soldiers followed. Like the sergeant they could be best described as beaten by not broken. Many had bandages or wounds that were less severe. Lilith knew the ship would tend to them all in short order.

And then her mother appeared, turning back to look through the main area of the cargo module one last time to be sure that none of her men were left behind, before nodding and floating into the Kaatan.

“Permission to come aboard, Chosen Groves.”

“Granted, Chosen Groves.” Lilith let out a little coughing laugh and instantly Minu shared one of her own. She stepped closer and Lilith floated to the ground and her body sagged a little as she activated some gravity for herself. “I am sorry about Pip.”

Minu got a strange look on her face, as if she was fighting a battle within herself, and then glanced over Lilith’s shoulder. “It is okay mother; they are all down the hall.”

A single sob escaped Minu’s lips; almost a hiccup and Lilith could see the battle was one she herself had fought a couple days ago. She made an intuitive leap and did something she rarely did: she moved forward and embraced her mother.

“It is okay,” she whispered into her mother’s ear, “I feel the same pain.”

“Oh Lilith,” Minu cried and disintegrated. There on the Kaatan, her men safe and everyone out of danger, including herself, Minu finally allowed herself to grieve. “Pip is gone, and so many of my men, those young b-boys and girls, dead! And I c-couldn’t save them!” She nearly screamed in almost a whisper as she lost control of herself.

Lilith nodded and carefully ran her hand through her mother’s long, dirty hair, carefully avoiding the bloody gash on her forehead. She did the only thing she could; she shared the loss and cried with her mother.

Just around the corner, the sergeant could hear the hard as nails Chosen weeping uncontrollably. He heard her words, about the loss of her men. Without being seen, he turned to face her and came to attention, then saluted before spinning crisply on his toes and marching to see to his men, her men.

From that moment on, Minu Groves was as tall as a giant.

Interlude

May 14th, 534 AE

Unidentified Star System, Contested Territory, Galactic Frontier

A Kaatan ship of the line docked with the remnants of an Ibeen class transport, gently nudging the savaged hulk into a stable orbit as the two fell around the dim massiveness of the systems brown dwarf, its emissions feeble but enough to hide it from prying eyes.

Asa-Oto was the captain of a T’Chillen warship. He’d had no training in this endeavor, being raised from an egg to be a warrior and lead swarms into battle. That mattered little though because most of the ship was shattered junk flying away at varying speeds. He only commanded because the bridge had been near the exploding ship and the true captain thus vaporized.

He’d commanded the surviving crew and technical females to evaluate their condition and see what was possible immediately. They were in no danger of imminent death, the fragment of the cruiser he led had life support and consumables enough for weeks. He was also informed that through a strange quirk of fate the ship’s star drive was attached to his section and the leading female technician optimistic she could get it functional.