Zero (54 page)

“
Good.” Hugo straightened up off Harvey but then leant heavily against the nearest bulkhead. “Webb?”

Webb was still stood where he had stepped out of the pod, staring around the
docking bay. Damaged fighters were crushed in at every available berth and more were arriving. Medics were swarming over the scene, pushing lifter-gurneys and helping pilots down from cockpits. There was blood and burns and bones jutting out of flesh and the air was filled with gasps and cries. The battle could still be seen raging in the distance out of the docking bay’s drift shield and viewscreens. The silent dance of flashes, bursts of flame and the starlight glinting off wreckage seemed to fill all space.

“
Hugo,” Harvey muttered in his ear. “If I were you I'd get yourself patched up by a medic here and get the hell away. Command is after your blood. Both of you.”

“
Oh good,” Hugo murmured. “Glad we're going to get the credit.”

“
I'm serious, Hugo. I could get you out on the
Phoenix
-”

“
Captain?”

Hugo turned to see Rami and Bolt approaching. Their flightsuits were rumpled and blackened in patches. Rami's hair was plastered to her forehead and her eyes were red but otherwise she was deathly pale. Bolt looked exhausted and angry.

“What?” Hugo asked, so sharply that Webb snapped his attention back.

Rami glanced between them all.

“What is it, Anita?” Harvey said, voice low.

“
The
Zero
...” Bolt started, then stopped.

“
What's happened?” Webb said, voice cracking.

Rami swallowed, glanced at the floor and took a breath.
“We lost her.”

“
How?” Hugo breathed after a silence like stone.

“
During the attack on the
Resolution
,” Bolt intoned. “She went in for the communications matrix just as the stern blew.”

“
More? Sub?” Hugo croaked.

Rami just shook her head, lips a thin line and hands clenched at her sides.

“No,” Webb mumbled, looking dazed. He brought his hands up and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. “No...”

Hugo couldn
’t seem to get his breath. Heat surged behind his eyes and he could no longer see the docking bay or anyone in it. The pain from his injuries drifted away like smoke on the wind and all he knew then was a blackness opening inside him that threatened to suck him in.

He was only vaguely aware of Harvey cursing and stepping in front of him just as armed Service security men hurried up to them, weapons drawn.

“Don't fucking touch them,” she hissed. “I'm warning you.”

“
Marilyn...” Hugo pulled himself back together enough to stand up straight and lay her hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. “It's okay.”

“
It's not fucking okay,” she cried. “In what way is any of this okay?” She gestured wide with her arm, taking in all the twisted metal, wreckage and the people who were burnt, broken and bleeding.

“
Ma'am” the largest of the security men muttered. “Please step aside. These men are under arrest.”

Harvey stood shaking a moment longer.
“This isn't over,” she whispered.

“
No,” Rami put in, hard eyes on the security men. “No it's not.”

As the lights never went off in the brig and he'd had everything, including his wrist panel, confiscated, Hugo had no idea how long he was there. He lay on the bench and stared at the ceiling for hours. He imagined he could hear the flesh knitting over his shrapnel cuts. He spent hours concentrating on the itch and sting of the cut on his face healing, sinking into the feeling of it so that he wouldn't snap and pound his fists bloody on the white walls.

Every time he closed his eyes there were explosions and blood. More’s and Sub’s faces flashed in front of him, frozen in drift-rictus or with fire eating flesh from the bone. Sometimes he saw Webb’s face, still and grey with rain running down it like tears as soil was shovelled over the closed eyes. Sometimes it was Kinjo’s, ash-pale with empty, angry eyes.

In the end he kept his eyes open.

Undetermined days passed, marked only by his visits from the brig medic and a guard with ration bars and water flasks. Sometimes he overheard the conversations of the Servicemen as they changed shifts outside his cell. LIL was overthrown. Eventually. But it was a long and bitter process. All the loyal Service troopers had been killed or evacuated from the Lunar Strip in the first hours of the revolution. The thousands that were left were Pharos's soldiers and, just as Harvey said, fought to the end. It didn't matter that the Lunar Strip colonists rose up and denounced them. It didn't matter that citizens took up arms and joined the Service in taking down the revolutionists' strongholds. They fought on.

Lunar 1,
the only colony with little Service presence to begin with, was the only colony unaffected, although Hugo heard later that thousands of its colonists went to the aid of the rest of the strip.

It was drawn out and angry and bloody. And so utterly, utterly pointless that occasionally Hugo was racked with bouts of laughter that made his throat burn and his ribs ache and his eyes stream. Then he would scratch at his healing cuts to bring him back into his body and he would gradually calm and lie and stare at the ceiling again.

Hugo had a feeling the Service had never intended for his arrest to stand. Even the best efforts of Rami and Harvey wouldn't have got a mutiny charge expunged and yet there came a day when the medic came to scold him again for undoing his stitches and she wasn't alone.

“
Kale,” Giles said once the medic had left. “It's over.”

Hugo wasn't sure what
aspect of his life his brother was referring to, but he felt something shake out of him all the same. With it went a lot of his anger, his fear and his pain until all that was left was a spreading numbness.

ɵ

He was back in his uniform and wondered how he had ever come to miss it. It felt restrictive. He stared at the wall over the commanders' heads until someone ordered him to be at ease.

“
Where's Webb?” was the first thing he asked.

His mother looked to Luscombe who sighed.
“Gone. Vanished as soon as we gave him his pardon.”

Hugo swallowed.

“Have you been discharged from the medbay?” the special commander asked, frowning at the angry cut on his face.

“
Why am I here?” Hugo said.

“
Sit down, Captain,” she said. Hugo took one of the straight-backed seats in front of the panel of commanders. Luscombe looked tired but a little wary. Wilson sat up straight with his hands clasped on the desk, looking determined. His mother, as usual, he couldn't read at all.

“
We have something important to discuss with you,” she said. Hugo didn’t answer. His mother’s face didn’t change though Luscombe frowned. “The colonel has been going over the history of the
Zero
project with me,” Special Commander Hugo continued. “It is extensive. And complex. Probably even more so than your time with it allowed you to know.”

Hugo still didn
’t say anything. Part of him wondered where she was going with this but the larger part of him didn’t care and wished they’d send him back to his cell.

“
Captain?” her voice hardened as his silence lengthened.

“
Ma’am?”

“
Are you paying attention?”

“
You’re telling me things I already know,” he said, adding a muttered ‘Ma’am’ when her eyes hardened.

“
Whatever has happened, you’re still an officer, Kaleb Hugo. Please act like it.”

“
I’m still an officer?”

“
Just,” Luscombe grumbled. “Now listen up, will you?”

Hugo inclined his head slightly, though the numbness making his chest tight did not shift.

His mother regarded him for a moment longer whilst Wilson looked amongst them all, uncertainty showing in the lines of his face.

Special Commander Hugo straightened in her chair and continued.
“Now, whilst Admiral Pharos concocted the
Zero
project for her own wayward means -”

“
To keep her own son an unwitting political prisoner.”

His interruption barely caused his mother to pause,
“The principle is still sound,” she said. “In the aftermath of this uprising, the Orbit is only going to get more fractured. We need the
Zero -
”

“
It's gone,” Hugo said, the numbness in his chest flaring for an instant then dissipating again as quickly as a fireball in a vacuum. “Most of its crew, too.”

His mother pursed her lips but did not blink. Luscombe fidgeted in his seat
, once again shooting him a I-stuck-my-neck-out-for-you glare.

“
I am aware of the losses,” the special commander continued. “But those that remain…you, Lieutenant Rami, Crewman Bolt. Even Dr. Spinn…” She held up her hand. He hadn't been about to say anything but what he thought must have shown on his face. “Between you all, you have years of experience, contacts and... an alternative way of thinking. We need to assimilate the practices of the
Zero
into the essential functions of the Service. But above-board. Well funded. With proper back up and support.”

“
An official level of the service for undercover operations?” Hugo asked

“
Yes,” replied the special commander.

“
It's a way forward, Hugo,” Luscombe said. “And we want you to to run the show.”

“
It won't work.”

“
Why not?”

“
The only reason the
Zero
managed what it did is because it wasn't Service. It was in drift. Underground. The crew, the ship. None of them were ever entirely yours.”

Wilson and Luscombe exchanged glances. His mother kept her heavy gaze on him.

“So show us,” she said. “Help us understand. We need proper investigation and processes to bring every level of offender to justice. No more loose operatives dealing out death and judgement under the guise of vengeance.”

“
If you're talking about the Splinters -”

“
Hugo,” Luscombe growled, leaning forward. “The Orbit's fucked up. We're fucked up,” the other commanders stiffened but Luscombe bulled on. “I know this probably better than you. But this is the first time the Service has been given a big enough kick up the arse to consider that maybe, yeah, better measures should be in place to monitor and resolve it all. You have a chance to make a real difference here.”

Hugo stood.
“It's not that simple.”

“
Captain Hugo,” Admiral Wilson called just as he reached the door. Hugo turned. The admiral was stood, hands behind his back, eyes open and measured. “I understand you have lost a lot. You may even feel that you have lost your faith.” Hugo looked away, his hand on the door panel, but just stared at the metal. “You don't have to believe me,” Wilson continued, “but I will tell you that I understand. I will also tell you that what you’ve lived through makes you special. It makes you strong.”

“
I don’t feel strong,” Hugo murmured.

“
Those with strength rarely do,” Special Commander Hugo said. “It is something they live with. Carry. It makes them bigger than themselves and gives them reasons not to be defeated, but they don’t always know why.”

Hugo turned. His mother was looking right at him, as were the other commanders. He finally felt something stir inside him.
“My ship and two of my crew are gone. Those that are left have been arrested and re-hired too many times already. My commander…” he swallowed, held Erica Hugo’s gaze and tried again when he could trust his voice. “My commander was betrayed and killed then betrayed again. And all for nothing. This isn’t my fight any more. I don’t know that it ever was.”

“
Kaleb,” his mother stood. Luscombe and Wilson watched her come round the table to stand in front of him. He met her eyes as they searched his, not recognising the look in them. “Fighting for a better future is
everyone
’s fight.”

Hugo felt a trembling start to take him from the feet up. He couldn
’t find any more words. But his mother never looked away and when she put a hand on his shoulder it was warm. His trembling stilled.

“
I believe in you, son,” she said.

“
The time for taking orders is over for you, Captain Hugo,” Luscombe said after a pause. “Time to start building your own destiny. It’s up to you if you build it just for yourself, or for everyone.”