Edge of Solace (A Star Too Far) (18 page)

One entire side of his face was a gnarled red mass of burns.

Avi opened his eyes and tried to focus. His face was unsmiling, but his eyes looked relieved.

It was the same across the room. Burns. Impact wounds. Concussions. In the corner lay the dead.

The moment came where he faced the Captain. He thought her dead after seeing the ship struck. Looking at her face was even more shocking.

“Grace,” Captain Khan croaked. Her lips were raw. Her neck burnt.

“Captain.” William took note that she didn’t use his rank.

She cast her eyes away from him and looked to the rest of the room. She looked back to William and away again.

William stood slowly and turned.

“Wait,” Khan said.

“Yes Captain?”

Her eyes darted around and lost focus. William knelt down on the floor and felt the crunching of something under his knees.

“Do you have any water?”

William called for water.

She took the offered flask. Streams of clear water ran down the corner of her mouth and washed away some of the soot. She let out a sigh and rested the flask on her lap.

While she was drinking
, William took in her injuries. Burns. Cuts. Her left arm was at an odd angle. She was shifted oddly with her legs askew.

Mullins came over and dropped his kit. “Third degree burns, contusions, broken left arm, probable spinal injury, gangrene in the left leg, group alpha.”

She looked up at the medic. The patch seemed to be working. Her body relaxed and sunk slightly. “I’m not leaving my ship.”

“Then you’ll die,” Mullins replied. He stood and walked to a man with black burns on both hands.

“Ma’am, the
Malta
is pretty rough. The fleet is coming in. It’s going to be fine,” William said.

“You just want my ship. Like the bastards did.” She looked up at William with a defiant face. “The
Malta
is mine.”

William stood and walked to Lebeau. He wasn’t going to argue, not now.

The Midshipman was battered, but not nearly as bad as some. The patch had relaxed her to the point that she was almost knocked out.

“What happened
, Lebeau?” William asked.

“They hit us once we cleared the station. Just bam, pinpoint, right through engineering. Lost all power. Zippo. Totally gone. Reactor is still there but they vaporized the main conduit. The slugs must have been nanite coated. We had little surface fires flare up all over the ship. Nanite alarms going off everywhere.”

William wondered how the burns had spread like they did. The entire ship seemed blackened, even parts that should have been sealed.

“Then the striders came in. Zinkov led the
Marines but they couldn’t do much. I saw ‘em wrap one up with the bolo, but they were all over. They towed us to the station after that.” Her eyes unfocused and glazed for a moment.

“How many survived?”

“About a dozen of us left, unless they’ve got more people elsewhere.”

“We’ll get you taken care of,” William replied.

“You know why they left?” Lebeau asked with a smile.

William shook his head.

“The smell.”

“The smell?” It came back to him
—the musty, old cheese smell.

“They asked what it was, where it was, how to stop it. They couldn’t deal with it.”

“It’s worse now.”

“I know
—amazing isn’t it?”

William watched the nanite narcotics firmly lock into Lebeau. He left her in that induced bliss.

“Grace,” Yamaguchi said. A man in power armor stood behind Yamaguchi at attention.

“What’s up LT?” William felt tired now. The wounds of the day and the intensity were draining from him fast.

“Kowalski?” Yamaguchi turned to the man behind him. “Tell him.”

Kowalski dropped the facemask. Perspiration ran down his cheeks and his nose was wrinkled tight.

“We uh, we left a surprise for the Marines when we left the
Malta,
sir.”

A surprise, for the
Marines? William looked quizzically at the soldier.

Kowalski
squirmed with a layer of sweat on his brow.

“Tell him Private,” Yamaguchi snapped.

Kowalski looked to Yamaguchi with wide eyes.

“It’s a stinkbomb
, Mr. Grace.”

“Stinkbomb?” William asked.

Kowalski sighed. “I wanted to play a joke on them, sir, I didn’t think it’d smell like this.”

“You’re telling me that the smell is something you did to play a joke?” William asked.

Kowalski nodded.

“Go,” Yamaguchi ordered.
He turned back to William with a slim smile across his lips. “Oh, Kowalski?”

“Sir?”

“Turn it off.”

“Yes
, sir!” Kowalski made a hasty exit.

“Hmm, well, that explains why we never found a leak.” William remembered the maintenance bots crawling
all over the piping.

“He says it releases a nanite pheromone. But gah, that smell.”

William nodded and looked around. The survivors were relaxing and allowing the nanite patches to take hold. Only Captain Khan looked defiant.

Mullins walked up to the two Lieutenants. “Gentlem
en, I need stretchers and bearers, I’ve got to get these people on the ground.”

“Done,” William replied. He called out for his remaining crew to scramble and find stretchers.

“I’m headed to the bridge, LT. The fleet needs to know.” William turned to the room and thought of saying something inspiring. Nothing came to mind.

The bridge was almost as rough as the rest of the ship. A section of pipe had burst through one wall
, splintering like a ragged pineapple. Ash coated every surface in the room. The displays were lifeless and cold, a cool carbon black on every screen.

William sat in his old chair. His eyes glanced at the Captain
’s chair. It didn’t feel right, not yet. “Reed, Huron, give me something.”

“Oh wow
. This is a mess, LT,” Reed replied over the comms. Clanging and banging sounded in the background.

“A mess, well, shit, once we get that conduit up we can get power, but not
‘til then,” Huron added.

“I need comms. Ten minutes ago
.” William rubbed his temples. The pain was edging through the nanite patches.

“Five minutes
, LT,” Huron said. His voice sounded like he was running.

Three minutes later the lights flickered in pulses before remaining on. The screens displayed a single cursor and began a slow boot. William leaned forward and watched the systems come alive.

Diagnostics showed nothing but alarm after alarm. The entire ship registered critical damage. Strain-stress sensors showed core structural damage from bow to stern. The
Malta
was barely keeping atmosphere in.

Two icons blinked incessantly
: “COMM REQUEST” and “NANITE REPAIR”.

“Can we do a full repair yet?” William asked over the comms.

Huron and Reed replied at the same time. “No!”

William called up the comms request. First he entered in his signal code and waited.

Huron and Reed led the beginnings of the recovery operations. William listened as the Engineers directed the few remaining crew. The plan was to online the reactor and provide the additive cell with enough juice to make a new piece of conduit. After that it would go much smoother.

Twenty
-four minutes later William saw the reply: “STAND BY AND WAIT FOR THE ARRIVAL OF THE
ALEUTIAN.
”

Mullins cleared his throat. The medic stood on the edge of the bridge. “LT, Captain Khan is requesting to see you.”

William nodded slowly and made his way through the ship.

He found her at the edge of the airlock laying on a stretcher. A pair of militia stood uncomfortably fore and aft of her stretcher.

“As you ordered, ma’am,” Mullins said.

Captain Khan looked up and found William with dark eyes. “I demand to remain on my ship Grace. You’re running me out with your colonist agenda.” Her eyes looked drunk and wavered as she spoke.

William looked to Mullins. “What happens if she stays?”

Mullins shrugged and looked annoyed. “She’ll die.”

“Take her away,” William said. He bore the full brunt of her gaze as she was carried through the hatch and into the zero-g connecting tube.

“I couldn’t legally order her off
, Mr. Grace,” Mullins said. He looked worn through.

William nodded. “I’m not sure I can either.”

The air stunk of burnt plastic and the hard tint of vacuum. Apples were the only pleasant smell, and at that it was too sweet, too close, too concentrated. The hold was quiet except for the ripping sound of a proper weld being laid down.

William Grace stood at the airlock and waited.

The bulk of the dropship,
Aleutian,
came to a rest. Behind it the shape of a missile cruiser hovered like a watchful hen. Further out a slender slice of light showed the location of the Heavy Assault Cruiser Erebus.

The umbilical snaked out from the
Aleutian
. It locked with a loud mechanical sound. Lights flickered and changed, showing that the vacuum was gone.

The hatch burst open and
Marines spread out in full boarding armor. Face shields were dropped with boarding shields lowered like knights of old. Each shield bore a notch with the barrel of a weapon protruding from it.

William raised his chin slightly and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He knew enough to not offer the
Marines an excuse for violence.

They were all business as they spread throughout the hold and secured it.

“Lieutenant Grace?” a Marine with skin as black as coal asked.

William nodded. His throat felt dry and parched.

“With me, sir,” the man said, turning towards the airlock.

The
Marine was as much escort as he was guard. The halls were empty in the
Aleutian
. William found himself in a conference room with cream colored walls. The Marine stood at the door at attention.

The door popped open and three men walked through. One with the silver pip marking him as a Commodore.
The second a strangely tall man with the rank of Captain. The third was stout like a brick and wore the rank of an Army Colonel.

“Commodore Cain.” The Commodore stuck out a hand and sat across from William. “This is my XO, Captain Andropov and Colonel Viljoen.”

“Lieutenant Grace
.” William returned the handshake. His hand felt cool, raspy, mechanical.

“What’s that smell?”
The Colonel wrinkled his nose.

William had replayed what he would say while he waited for the
Aleutian
to arrive. The truth was the simplest, even if he didn’t like how it all came together.

Captain Khan would take a fall, of that he was sure. There was no legal reasoning for her paranoia. He had disobeyed her order, but it was an illegal order at that.

The men across from him were professionals. The Commodore wore enough tabs to show a lifetime of service. The Colonel had the same look as all Colonels he had met, manufactured, not promoted. Like there was a factory churning them out.

The big question to William was the sentiment regarding colonial or
Earth-born.

“Gentlem
en, if you don’t mind, where are you from?” William asked.

Cain raised an eyebrow and glance
d to the other men. “Luna, Lieutenant.”

“Ukraine,” the Captain replied.

“New Cape,” the Colonel said in a curious tone.

William nodded and began his story. He started from the point where he was assigned to the
Malta.
They listened in silence until he reached the point where Captain Khan ordered the Earth born onto the bridge.

T
his was most likely all being recorded. The room felt a bit warmer and his collar a bit tighter.
Relax,
he thought,
I’m in the clear.

“What did you do?” Cain asked.

“I left the bridge for a time. Then I ordered everyone back to battle stations.”

“Even though she ordered you not to?” the Captain asked.

“That’s correct.”

The men exchanged a glance.

“Please continue,” Cain said.

He was interrupted again when he reached the part of the story where he was shot.

“She shot you?” Cain asked. His palms were flat on the table.

“Yes
, sir.”

“In the chest?” Andropov asked.

“Frangible rounds I assume?” the Colonel said.

William nodded.

The rest of the story went quickly. When he reached the part about the ground troops, the Colonel waved his hand. “I’ll watch the feed and ask Lieutenant Yamaguchi.”

“Well done
, Lieutenant.” Cain tapped the screen and showed the tablet to Andropov. The Captain nodded.

“Admiral Xan is taking the rest of the fleet through to pursue the Sa’Ami. There’s been hell behind us. That container you found contained hunter-striders. They’ve been assaulting mining operations all across our space.” Cain propped up the tablet and showed William. “Get the
Malta
online and secure that Sa’Ami dropship. We’ll have a missile cruiser, the
Scylla,
escort you out there.”

“Why not have the missile cruiser do it
, sir?” William asked. He knew it’d be quicker to have them do it.

“The crew of the
Scylla
is about a dozen—we could hardly get a full compliment. Plus she’s not designed for boarding actions.”

William nodded. “Can we have the assistance of your crew?”

“We’re here for three days while the Colonel offloads the garrison. You can have my entire engineering staff if it will help.” Cain set the tablet down and cleared his throat. He glanced to the men on either side. “That was some nasty business that happened with Captain Khan. There will be an inquiry.”

“I assumed as much
, sir,” William said softly. The fatigue was weighing his mind down. The nanite patch was beginning to wear thin.

“The UC Navy has been walking on a tightrope. One half wants to institute a Colonial Navy, paid for by Colonial funds, with Earth maintaining its own fleet, while the other side wants it like it is.”

Andropov spoke next. “It is a hard thing to do. You must forget your roots and cast off with the whole.” He shook his head and clicked his lips. “We shall see, eh?”

“Oh and Lieutenant, if you can’t secure that ship
, have the
Scylla
blast it.”

William nodded. “After that?”

“You will rendezvous with the fleet, the Admiral is making a push. One hell of a fleet, too. They’ve got two carriers, the
Lyons
and
Nantucket.
Four heavy battlecruisers, six heavy assault cruisers and enough support to dance with the devil.” Cain rolled up the tablet and tucked it under his arm like a baton.

“Send Lieutenant Yamaguchi my way please,” Colonel Viljoen said to William.

“Very well Mr. Grace, carry out your orders,” Commodore Cain said.

William stood and nodded tiredly. “What of Captain Khan?”

“When she stabilizes she’ll be sent back to Earth to recover,” Cain said. His tone said he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Very well
, sir.”

William was escorted by the
Marine back through the ship. The hallways had erupted with movement. Trails of soldiers, sailors, civilians, and Marines flowed around him. It was like he was a slow moving log in a river of activity.

He almost told the
Marine that he could find his own way but didn’t want to be rude. The
Aleutian
was almost a clone of his first duty assignment, the
Lawrence.
It even smelled the same.

*

The
Malta
was, in a few short hours, completely different. The full bulk of the
Aleutian’s
maintenance drones swarmed
on everything
. Lights were still off in places and soot was tucked into every corner and crevice. But most importantly the smell was going away.

William inserted himself into the routine and helped where he could. The ship was bursting with activity. On the outside the hull glowed with nanite energy. Larger repairs were done with welding robots. The conduit was placed, tenderly, into position.

They discovered the dead while sweeping through the ship. The Commodore came across the umbilical with a full honor guard of Marines and gave a proper a burial. They did not bury the dead, but instead launched them into space.

William would miss Zinkov. The stuttering Lieutenant was an oddity,
but he was still a friend.

The packet of orders came in the hands of a Naval lawyer. He had never received orders before but assumed it would be a basic packet or list of instructions. This was a good bit more complex. Every manner of contingency was noted
, ranging from asteroid labor disputes to salvage rights.

He was now legally in command. It took him a moment for it to finally set in. On Redmond it was a stroke of luck, or fate. As the only Commisioned Officer alive
, command fell to him, on this occasion the Commodore could have assigned someone else and he knew it

*

William, for the second time in his career, claimed a cabin filled with the debris of someone else's life.

The door opened with a crunch and jammed. The outer office had a mass of plastic tubing spilled out like animal intestines. He pushed them aside and continued to the Captain’s chamber. The atmosphere light glowed bright green. Safe.

The light flickered as he entered. One entire wall of cabinets was spilled open with the contents laying on the floor. A bed was tucked against one wall with a small wooden desk against the other.

He stood a slender legged wooden chair upright and sat. Ribs still ached and the wound felt raw, even through the narcotic painkillers in the nanite patches.

Across the room lay the accumulation of a career. A pic frame flickered between shots of promotions, handshakes, crews, and ships. An alloy model of the
Malta
lay on the floor with the nose cracked off.

He felt like a voyeur. His eyes watched the photos as they flickered past one by one. A family portrait caught his eye. A happy family stood over a little girl. Behind was a hut and fields of green. He looked away
—that was too personal.

“Mr. Reed, add a task for someone to package up Captain Khan’s cabin and offload it
, please,” William said.

“Aye
, aye, Captain,” Reed replied.

He tapped his fingers against the wooden desk as fatigue set in
, and nodded off.

*

With the repairs nearly finished and the compliment loaded William made his way to the galley.

He found most of the crew waiting for the shift meal.

Avi, with his blunt nose and chopped ears, was manning the galley window. “Captain, what’ll it be?”

William smiled back at his old friend. “Funny,” he said. There was only one menu item today. He waited as Avi slid a giant spoonful of reddish pasta
into his mouth. Calling it spaghetti would be a crime against the Italian provinces. He saw Reed sitting with Yamaguchi and dropped his plate down next to them.

“Gentlem
en,” William said.

The tone of the table changed. William realized that he was no longer just the XO, or an Officer, but he was
it.
The Old Man.

“Captain
.” The two nodded.

“Still on track Mr. Reed?”

“Close enough, you’ll have most of the critical systems by the deadline,” Reed glanced around the room as if looking for something he missed.

William looked to Yamaguchi. “And you?”

Yamaguchi nodded and sighed. “For the most part. I could use a full platoon, as it is I’ve got a jumbo sized squad. Sons-of-bitches didn’t want to part.”

William liked Yamaguchi. The Army Lieutenant was perpetually angry
.

The elephant in the room was the Anabaptist giant. Everyone had taken a shine to the cast-off. At first it seemed like he would get in the way but after a very short time he proved himself skilled with tools. After that his hands, large enough to palm a pumpkin, were called in for delicate welds.

“How is Mr. Yoder getting along?” William asked.

“He wants to stay,” Reed said.

“What do you think, Gooch?” William said as he took a mouthful of food in.

“Not my responsibility. Though I could find a
recruiter who could sell him ice cubes for an arctic deployment.” Yamaguchi looked around the table and stood with a half filled plate. “I’m off, I’ll be ready. Let’s see if Abe can cook, this shit is horrible. ”

William wanted to agree but ate placidly. He saw Avi hunched, watching proudly through the galley window. William raised his fork in a mock salute and forced more down.

“Can you use him, Mr. Reed?”

Reed sat back and bulged out his stomach. “Hmm, no.”