Shadows of Golstar (30 page)

He was not in any immediate danger, yet she worried
about him. She wondered where the sudden protective instinct had come from. She
knew Owens for only a few hours. Yes, he had shown tremendous courage and stamina;
she still marveled at his ability to walk after the amount of blood he had
lost. And yes, she had to admit she was personally grateful. Had he not taken
it upon himself to carry her to safety, she doubted her ability to have made it
on her own. Without Owens, it was very likely that she would have shared in the
fate of the
Saber’s
captain and crew. As she thought it through, she
concluded her inclinations toward Owens must stem from feelings of gratitude;
that, and her duty to safeguard Golstar’s savior.

Oblivious to her self-analysis, Owens left the bridge
and Sharné absently watched his broad, retreating back without saying another
word. She suddenly remembered the solid mass still resting in her hands and
carefully put the mini-doc in its case and replaced it in its rack. Then, after
a further moment of thought, she asked in a quiet voice, “Hec? Who exactly are
you?”

Aboard the
Righteous Fist
and
Light Avenger
,
there was boisterous
jubilation at the
Saber’s
destruction and more importantly, the
destruction of the man from Confederated Planets. Amidst the din of the
celebrating crew members, the two leaders of the twin mutinies conferred over
the ship-to-ship com.

Linden, the lead mutineer aboard the
Light Avenger,
shared the victory with his counterpart. “This day was too long in coming.
However, a key battle in our holy war has finally been won. The loss of his
foul tool will surely weaken the Grand Patriarch. A new, brighter path cannot
be far away. I feel it.”

The mutineer leader aboard the
Righteous Fist
agreed with Linden. “Yes, it is truly a momentous day for our people. The
Founder has indeed smiled upon us. What little is left of the dark-bringer’s
tainted conveyance, the
Light Saber
, is now slowly dispersing in all
directions.”

“It is doubtful any could have survived.”

“True, but I do regret the loss of innocent life.”

“As do I. It is unfortunate to lose good men and women
who were only doing their duty. But temper your regret with the knowledge that it
is ultimately the Grand Patriarch’s responsibility so many have died. Had he
not embarked on his blasphemous path, none of those lives would have been
forfeited.”

“Yes, of course you are right. The Grand Patriarch
holds the ultimate responsibility. Without his ruinous scheme, none of this
would have been warranted. The loss of fellow Golstar citizens, though
regrettable, was absolutely necessary to prevent a far greater evil. Again, I
rejoice in that the attack was successful.”

“Which leads us to our final task,” Linden said
heavily. “While I admit I do not relish it, any existing piece of the
Light
Saber
that remains large enough to harbor survivors must be systematically
tracked down and thoroughly destroyed. There must be no uncertainty as to the
dark-bringer’s fate.”

“I concur,” the other agreed. “A final cleansing must
be undertaken before we leave.”

Linden continued, “However, I believe we will need to
make an accommodation in order to achieve that cleansing.”

The other asked, “Accommodation?”

 “Yes,” Linden replied. “The
Light Avenger
has
expended most of its limited resources in destroying the
Light Saber
and
as much as I am loath to admit, the
Light Saber
was able to return fire
with some effectiveness. As a result, we incurred damage beyond this small,
make-shift crew’s ability to repair.”

The other mutineer asked, “How bad is the damage?”

“They hit our long range targeting scanner emitters
and some areas of the hull have been breached,” Linden replied.

“I confess we too sustained some damage.”

“Then I believe it is appropriate to evaluate each
ship. After that evaluation, I suggest we rejoin, concentrating all remaining
resources on the ship that remains most capable of carrying out our last duty.
Furthermore, by combining the two crews, we will be able to operate one ship
far more efficiently than the two separately.”

“Agreed,” the other mutineer responded. “One moment, I
will determine our own status.” The transmission muted. A minute later the
mutineer came back on-line and said with chagrin in her voice, “We too have
exhausted most of our hard munitions. In our understandable zeal and lack of
experience, much was squandered.”

“What is your assessment?”

“Not good I am afraid. Our complement of skip-missiles
has been exhausted. The bio-scanners on the
Righteous Fist
were not
operational even before the attack, so we cannot scan the debris for
life-signs. A number of our main energy weapons are off-line. Even more
troubling, is the damage to steering control. We have yet to determine if it
can be repaired.”

Linden nodded to himself, although the
Light
Avenger’s
energy weapons were operational. The scanners were limited, only
the short range and tactical arrays appeared to be still functional. The two
small crews were sufficient in number to control and fire the ships’ weapons
from stable, station-keeping positions. Even so, for this last task, it would
be better to combine the two crews into one ship in order to operate navigation
and flight controls more efficiently.

It was quickly determined that
Light
Avenger
was in the best condition to continue
.
The
Righteous
Fist
would first be cannibalized. Regrettably, the remaining prisoners
would be executed, then the mutineers would be transferred to the
Light
Avenger
and the
Righteous Fist
abandoned. This would necessarily
take some time but it wasn’t believed to be a major factor in light of the
Light
Saber’s
dissolution.

Once they consolidated their personnel and munitions
on the one ship, they would perform necessary flight system checks. With that completed
they could then, at their relative leisure, begin the final clean-up operation
on what little remained of the
Light Saber.
There was no urgency in the
minds of the two leaders of the mutineers. It should be an easy task to destroy
any of the remaining wreckage they deemed large enough to harbor survivors.
Very soon, it would finally be over.

● ● ●

Owens fidgeted in the confined space of the medical
recovery capsule. He looked at the small glowing display in the capsule that
counted down the time remaining to complete the transfusion. He ignored the
other indicators that reported on his various bio-signs. He wasn’t interested
in any more bad news. He received doses of speed-heal and anti-shock from the
mini-doc to combat his body’s reaction to the loss of blood. With the
transfusion and additional medications from the medical recovery capsule, he
was beginning to feel a lot better and was now growing more anxious to be
outside, shedding the wreckage from
Holmes’
hull.

“Hec,” he called. “What’s the status of those ships?”

“Same as it was two minutes ago. No change, they’re
holding their positions and we are continuing to extend our distance from them.
If anything changes, you’ll know immediately.”

The medical recovery capsule took that moment to signal
that the transfusion was complete. Tubes that were attached to each of his arms
were retracted and disappeared back into the capsule’s inner housing. He waited
impatiently as the needle punctures were sprayed and sealed. At last, the
padded bands holding his arms immobile during the procedure released and the
clear canopy opened. Owens quickly exited.

He slowly stretched and carefully rotated his
shoulder. He winced. It still hurt like hell, but it was manageable. All in
all, though still a little weak, he felt closer to normal than he had any right
to expect. He walked down the corridor and reached the locker embedded in the
bulkhead next to the inner airlock hatch. He paused, again taking stock of his
condition. He was relieved his head was clear, with the dizziness gone. His
shoulder pain subsided to a dull ache. He nodded to himself in satisfaction; he
seemed good to go.

He quickly stripped down to his underwear, dropping
his torn clothes in an untidy heap. He then opened the locker and began to don the
tight-suit it contained. After he finished closing the suit’s torso seals, he
put on the helmet. It immediately self-sealed and initiated the routine safety
checks. It took only a minute to verify all suit systems were working properly.
He did a final test on the suit com.

Owens chinned the com toggle, “Hec, I’m suited up; my
indicators look good, how do you read?

 “I read you green. Suit telemetry looks good.
Let me know when you want me to cycle the lock.”

Owens put on flexible re-enforced work gauntlets for
added protection. He shifted some loose containers, found the plasma cutter,
removed it from the locker and said, “I’m ready. You can start cycling the
locks now.”

Owens soon found himself standing just inside the
outer airlock, the hatch-door wide open. The inner lock was sealed behind him.
He had moved outside the
Holmes’
gravity field and felt a slight
queasiness as he transitioned to weightlessness. He gripped a convenient
handhold and looked out through the tattered framework of the
Light Saber’s
docking rig, into raw vacuum. He saw the stars beyond as jumbled streaks of
light; a result of the ship’s tumbling. The view momentarily mesmerized him. He
blinked away the hypnotic image and concentrated on the task at hand. Now was
not the time to become disoriented.

He was no seasoned spacewalker. The only other times
he had been in a spacesuit was for the periodic exams he took as a requirement
to renew his pilot’s license. Those spacewalks were limited to one-hour,
closely supervised exercises. He knew he would have to be extra careful with
his heavy gravity reflexes in this weightless environment.

He focused on what he needed to do and ignored the
light show. He pulled the retractable safety tether from its receptacle built
into the airlock’s threshold. When the tether was deployed, the hatch’s safety
mechanism was engaged and the hatch could not be closed without a coded
override. He snapped the end of the tether into the D-ring on his suit’s waist.
It would play out from a spool mounted inside the hatch’s frame as he needed
it. Then he hesitated.

The past events of the last five months unexpectedly
resurfaced and he was momentarily distracted from the task at hand. He
reflected back on the two direct attempts on his life and this most-recent
attack on the
Light Saber
. He didn’t believe in coincidence. All of
these events were obviously linked, but how exactly? Why was it so important
that he be eliminated? It was easy to surmise someone didn’t want him to reach
Golstar. He just couldn’t fathom the reason behind it.

Just as confusing were the other observations he had
made while aboard the
Light Saber.
He sensed that part of the answer was
in what he saw while aboard the Golstar ship. He needed some down-time to sift
through what he had witnessed. And not in the least, he wanted to talk to
Sharné. He needed more information and she was his only source. Perhaps she
could provide the connection he was looking for. All of these recent events
were the result of something far beyond a request for a private investigator,
of that he was sure. Perhaps, he thought, even beyond the possibilities
expressed by Reynaud and Neven back on Denbus.

“Hey Boss, it looks like one of the ships is just
beginning to move.” The intrusion of Hec’s voice over his suit’s com startled
him out of his reverie.

Owens asked, “Is it coming toward us?”

“No, they’re moving away from us, at least for now.
I’m using the lowest level of passive monitoring I can manage, so it’s hard to
tell exactly, but it appears they’re heading for a particularly large piece of
debris drifting in the opposite direction that we are traveling. The other ship
is remaining stationary.”

Owens had squandered precious seconds. He cursed
himself mentally. He immediately clambered out of the hatch and grabbed a
twisted support of the still-attached framework. “Okay Hec, I’m outside now. It
looks like we’re dragging a little less than half of the docking rig; the rest
was torn away when we escaped.”  

He looked at the four anchor cleats where the dock was
attached. Three of them were secured to the rig. The fourth was bare. The
portion of the dock that it had been attached to it had been ripped completely
away. He looked at it closer and found only a small scuff at the base of the
cleat; the hull had barely been scratched. Good.

“Hec, you can retract number two docking-cleat.” Owens
watched as it sank back into the hull becoming only a faint circular outline on
the ship’s ceramic alloy surface. Satisfied the cleat mechanism was working;
Owens then pointed the plasma cutter at the next nearest cleat and started to
cut through the docking clamp. The clamp was quickly removed, and Owens was
surprised by the relative ease in cutting through the metal. He immediately
went on to the next clamp, and it parted as easily as the first. Another
pattern was emerging. As he was starting on the final clamp, Hec’s voice
suddenly filled his helmet.  

“You about finished out there, Boss? From what I can
glean from the limited data, it looks like only the one ship is moving. It’s
systematically destroying everything that’s left of the
Saber
. I figure
after they finish the last big piece of debris in their vicinity, they’ll
probably head out toward us and blow up what looks like another significant
chunk of wreckage… and that chunk just happens to be the
Holmes
.”

Owens quickly finished with the last clamp and said,
“Retract the rest of the cleats. He waited and watched as they all disappeared
back into the hull. “I’m heading in. Are we ready for a fast getaway?”

“By the time you make it back to the bridge, the
reaction drives will be on-line.”

Owens re-entered the outer hatchway, disconnected the
tether, and cycled the airlock. As soon as the airlock was re-pressurized, he
entered the inner hatch and not waiting for Hec, manually dogged it shut behind
him. As he jogged towards the bridge, he dropped his gauntlets on the deck and
began fumbling with the release on his helmet. The discarded helmet was still
bouncing on the deck when he entered the bridge.