The Better Part of Valor (21 page)

Expressions changed as the assembled company considered new possibilities. Finally, brows knitted into a deep vee over the bridge of her nose, Dursinski shook her head. “It won’t know we need to go out an air lock.”

“It knows we came in an air lock,” Torin said flatly.

“You’re making this up as you go along, aren’t you, Staff?”

“You got a better suggestion, Lance Corporal? Because if you do, I’ll listen to it.” Tsui ruefully shook his head and, arms folded, Torin watched the twelve Marines consider all that had been said. Heer and Johnston, the two engineers, looked intrigued. Nivry, Harrop, Frii, and Huilin looked reluctantly convinced. Dursinski looked worried and Werst pissed
off, but both, Torin had come to realize, were pretty much a given regardless. Tsui, Orla, and Jynett seemed doubtful, but as long as they had no better ideas, they could do as much doubting as they liked. Guimond was smiling broadly. Torin decided she’d rather not speculate about the reason.

“Orla, you’ll be staying with the captain. He regains consciousness, try and get him to contact the
Berganitan
.”

“Why me?” the di’Taykan protested.

“Because if I remember correctly, which I do, you’re pretty much the only one left who hasn’t done something to piss him off. Heer, Johnston, you start scanning the cases. Mr. Ryder didn’t know what was in them in the original storehouse so there could be anything in them now. Squad One, check the perimeter for anything resembling an access panel. Squad Two, sweep the room looking for anything that doesn’t seem to fit. You find something, you check it against Mr. Ryder’s memory.” She stepped back and half turned, gesturing dramatically into the room. “Let’s move, people; you really don’t want to be around me when we run out of coffee.”

She was surprised to find the three non-Human civilians beside her when the rush ended.

“We have very little equipment,”
Harveer
Niirantapajee began without preamble, “but what we have we will use in an attempt to communicate directly with the ship.” She held up a slate about half again as large as the military version. “I suspect that by your standards, I’m carrying nothing of practical value in here, but I do have a large memory and a great deal of processing ability as well as about half of the data I’d collected before the explosion.”

“You said, we?”

Gytha leaned forward, muzzle wrinkled in what Torin assumed was a smile. “I are carrying a second degree in fractal communications. Presit are being a professional communicator.”

“And the three of you can work together?”

Presit looked dubious, but the Katrien scientist patted
Harveer
Niirantapajee on the shoulder. “I are working with her many times before. She are having—how are you Humans saying?—worse bark than her bite?”

“Close enough. Communicating with the ship would be very helpful, thank you.” Torin watched them walk away, the Katrien keeping up a running commentary in their own language.
As far as being stuck with civilians went, she supposed it could have been worse.

On cue, she turned to find Ryder standing behind her. “You walk too damn quietly.”

“Sorry.”

“Listen, I want to thank you for the support.”

“Craig.”

“What?”

“Thank you for the support,
Craig.
”

“Don’t push it.” But she was smiling, and with the smile some of the muscles in her back relaxed.

“You know, I hate to put a damper on things, but we could be wrong. There could be no puzzle to solve in this room.”

Torin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. At just past 1740 it had already been a very, very long day. “There has to be, because the alternative is trying to find a way to that air lock by wandering around inside an enormous ship that can change its configuration at will while carrying a wounded officer, escorting three civilians, with only three field rations and a little over a liter of water each.”

“Four.”

“What?”

“Four civilians.” He smiled broadly and his eyes twinkled. “Although I’m flattered that you seem to be counting me among your people.”

She had. And if he hadn’t been so damned amused by it, she’d have let it go.

“I wouldn’t be flattered,” she told him, pulling her slate to check Captain Travik’s vitals. “I’d forgotten to count you entirely.”

“Ouch.”

But a half glance toward him showed he was still smiling, and still twinkling. Annoying son of a bitch.

“W
e plan to attach this comm unit directly to the side of the ship…” The science officer touched the screen and the image rotated one hundred and eighty degrees on the X-axis and ninety on the Y. “…with these pads here. Once attached, it will, in essence, act in the same manner as the shuttle’s comm unit, boosting the signals of the Marines’ PCUs and enabling us to communicate with your people.”

“Seems simple enough,” General Morris grunted, glaring at the three-dimensional rendering. “What’s taking so long?”

Captain Carveg waved the science officer back and answered herself. “We don’t just pick one of these off the shelf and slap it onto an RC drone, General. I’ve had engineers working since the explosion to adapt both the comm unit and the delivery system. We’re talking about only a matter of hours here, so you’ve got little to complain about.”

“I’ve got an officer in there who represents the entire Krai vote in Parliament, Captain. You’ll excuse me if I’m impatient.”

“You’ve got fourteen Marines in there, General. Not one.”

He turned slowly, broad face flushed nearly maroon. “I don’t much like your tone, Captain Carveg.”

Her upper lip lifted. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

The tension in the room rose to near palpable levels. Four Naval officers and Lieutenant Stedrin froze in place—eyes locked on their respective leaders, Lieutenant Stedrin, at least, willing to shield his CO with his own body.

“Captain Carveg, we’re picking up Susumi leakage at that portal we spotted earlier. Educated guess says it’s about to reopen.”

The voice of the watch officer over the ship’s internal comm snapped the captain’s attention off the general as though he no longer existed. “On screen in here, Commander Versahche.”

The modified comm unit disappeared to be replaced by a familiar star field. The only thing missing was the alien ship usually hanging motionless in front of it.

“This is coming in from the buoy we set on the other side of the ship, Captain. When I emphasize the aurora…”

Soft green rays spread out against the stars. At their center was a shimmering green circle.

“I see it, Commander.” Carveg stepped closer to the screen, facial ridges spread. “How far back behind the ship is that thing?”

“About one hundred and thirty-six thousand kilometers.”

“Dangerously close.”

“Yes, ma’am. Given the estimated size of the portal, there’s no way the vessel coming through will be able to decelerate in time.”

“Which means?” the general snapped.

“Which means,” Captain Carveg repeated grimly, “that the vessel coming through is going to smack into the other side of the alien ship at a high speed, blowing themselves and very likely the alien ship, as well, into fragments. Commander Versahche, do we have any fighters out?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Get us to a safe distance and ready defense systems.” With a last look at the screen, she pivoted on one heel and moved quickly toward the nearer of the room’s two exits, bare feet slapping purposefully against the deck. “Yellow alert. I’m on my way to Combat Command Center.”

After a stunned moment spent staring at the rapidly retreating back of the captain’s head, General Morris charged after her, Lieutenant Stedrin at his heels. They caught up outside the conference room, the moving clump of three officers sending ship’s personnel on their way to duty stations hard up against the bulkheads. “Captain! I will not allow you to abandon my Marines.”

“General, one of two things is about to happen.” Without breaking stride, or removing her gaze from the link station at the end of the passageway, Captain Carveg lifted her left hand
into the air, first finger extended. “Either that ship is made of stronger stuff than anything in the Confederation and the incomer will bounce off its hide, in which case, we’ll go back for your Marines because I assure you I am not abandoning anyone. Or…” A second finger joined the first, the three joints allowing it to snap erect with an emphasis a Human finger could never achieve. “…your Marines are about to become part of a large debris field traveling toward us at high velocity and as much as I have no intention of abandoning those Marines, neither do I have any intention of joining them in death.” Reaching the link station, she slapped her hand over the call pad. “Captain’s override,
car sanute di halertai.
” With her back against the access hatch, she looked up at the general, her expression carefully neutral. “You’ll be able to watch the whole thing from the Marine attachment, which is where I respectfully suggest you go. Now.”

“And do what?” General Morris snarled as the link arrived.

“Try prayer,” she suggested, stepping back through the hatch. “Because that portal’s going to open, and there’s not a
serley
thing we can do about it.”

*   *   *

Crimson hair keeping up a steady sweep from side to side, Commander Versahche fell into step beside the captain as she stepped off the link and onto C3. “We’ve got a problem, Captain.”

“Does it have to do with the main engines being off-line?” she snarled.

“You noticed.”

“Inertial dampers aren’t that good, Commander. What’s happening?”

“We don’t know. For no apparent reason, we’re as dead in space as our big yellow friend.”

“We can’t move?”

“Not a centimeter. Engineering’s working on it, but there’s nothing to actually work
on.
All available data indicates the engines should be working.”

“But they aren’t.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Wonderful.” She took her place behind the captain’s station, one hand resting over the communications touch pad. Each finger opened a channel to a specific area of the ship,
pressure from her palm opened a channel shipwide. Her thumb dipped, then lifted. No need to urge engineering to work faster; if anyone knew the result of a vessel exiting Susumi space too close to another solid object, they did. The three screens in front of the commander showed five-second sections of the surrounding star field, the alien ship, and the portal. Its aurora had brightened. “All right; any idea of what’s coming through?”

“No ma’am. Only thing we can tell for certain is that it’s not one of ours.”

“Not Navy.”

“Not from the Confederation at all unless someone’s put something new in vacuum and no one gave us the specs for it.”

“Like that’s never happened before,” Carveg snorted. “You’d think we weren’t involved in a shooting war out here. What about the Methane Alliance?”

“Again, if it is, it’s something new. They use essentially the same Susumi drive we do, and this is subtly different.”

The captain froze in place. “In what way?”

Before he could answer, another member of the C3 crew broke in.

“Captain Carveg, we just picked up a signal from the alien ship.”

“From the ship or from the Marines, Ensign?”

“It was very brief, ma’am.” Scalp darkly mottled, the young Krai had hands and feet both working his board. “I’m analyzing the little we got.”

The aurora had grown so bright, the
Berganitan
’s screens dimmed automatically.

“Engineering?” Asking, not urging. Because she knew engineering was already busting their collective asses.

“Still nothing, Captain.”

“Captain, we have a seventy percent probability that the signal came from Captain Travik’s implant.”

“And the message?”

“What little there was, was completely scrambled.”

“Unscramble it.”

The lieutenant monitoring the buoy cut off the ensign’s reply. “Portal opening, Captain!”

“Engineering!”

“Engines are still off-line!”

“Vessel emerging from Susumi space! Speed registering as fifty-one thousand, four hundred and three point seven seven kilometers per second.”

Screens flared, then went blank almost immediately.

“Buoy’s fried. Vessel’s bow wave has reached the alien ship.”

Captain Carveg slapped her palm down on the touch pad. “All hands! Brace for impact!”

Except that at those speeds, impact should have happened before the words left her mouth. When it still hadn’t happened a heartbeat later, she took a moment to breathe. “Anyone know why we’re still alive?”

“Ma’am, last data from the buoy indicates that the alien vessel was absorbing the energy from the incomer.”

All eyes turned to the lieutenant.

“You think the alien ship—what did you call it, Commander?—Big Yellow?—absorbed the incomer?”

“No, ma’am.” Eyes on her screen, the lieutenant’s voice held equal parts disbelief and awe. “I think it stopped it.”

“Stopped it?”

“Yes, ma’am. Data fragments support the theory that the incomer’s just sitting there, on the other side of the alien ship.”

“All right.” Palm back on the touch pad, a little more gently this time. “All hands, stand down from impact!” Palm up. “Lieutenant, let’s get some unfragmented data; launch another buoy. Stealth mode.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am, buoy away.”

“Commander Versahche, have General Morris informed that his votes in Parliament are alive.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And until we know what’s out there…” Palm down once again. “All hands, red alert!”

*   *   *

“…heading for nearest air lock and…son of a bitch. He’s gone again.”

“You think they heard you, Staff?”

“No way to tell.” Torin straightened and pushed Captain Travik’s mouth carefully closed. “We don’t know if his implant’s
strong enough to breach the hull. We don’t know if he actually turned the damned thing on.”

Orla’s eyes lightened. “If you’d told me to activate
my
implant in that tone, I’d have come back from the dead to do it.”