A Brother's Debt (15 page)

“I’m guessing there’s nothing in there that tells us if Zialla’s family got away in any of the escape pods.”

Step shook his head. “No way for us to know who got into the pods, though the ship did track the directions they took. Her family might be in the pods, but we know from what she told me that one of them was used by the crewman who helped her. That leaves three pods, and seventeen crewmembers, plus three members of Zialla’s family, as possible occupants.

“And to judge by these tracks, the pods have gone in all directions. It will take us days, probably longer, to find them all, assuming we can.”

“We don’t have the fuel for that,” Jay said, “and we can’t syphon any from the tanks on this thing,” he slapped his hand on the console beside him, “there isn’t any left. The pirates must have taken it all, along with just about everything else they could use, or make some money from.”

“Is the engine room as bad as this?” Step asked, looking around the bridge, which had almost been stripped bare by the pirates, who, as far as he could see, had taken just about every piece of electronic equipment they could. He was surprised they had left one console in a usable condition.

Jay glanced around him for a moment, not that he needed to since he had noted the state of the bridge when he entered it. “Yeah, pretty much. From what I saw they took everything they could strip from the ship. Chances are they went through all of the cabins and took whatever they fancied from them as well.”

“Including about five million credits of assorted cargo.”

The former engineer whistled. “Almost makes you want to take up piracy yourself, doesn’t it,” he joked, before turning serious again. “I can probably manage to salvage something from around here, but it will take some work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well we came all this way, we might as well see if we can make some kind of profit out of this detour.”

“We came here to see if we can find out about Zialla’s family, not to loot the remains of this ship,” Step said disapprovingly. “We’re not pirates.”

“I know that, Step, and we’ve done what we can. Her mum and brother definitely aren’t here, which means they were either taken by the pirates, or they managed to get away on two of the other three escape pods. As for her dad, well he might be one of the three crewmembers we’ve found, but I can’t see how we can be sure without having Zialla take a look at them.”

“I can.” Step’s fingers flashed across the keyboard in front of him. “Here’s the crew roster, take a look and see if you recognise the two crewmembers you found. We know Zialla’s family name is Cenart, and the man I found goes by the name Davi Yew. If you can identify the men you found we’ll know if her dad is one of the dead, or if he left the ship.”

Jay crossed to where his friend was, and began looking through the crew roster, blowing up each image in turn. It wasn’t easy for him to be certain; one of the two men had been shot in the face, making him almost unrecognisable. “Well one of them is definitely this guy, Graigh Hunter, but I can’t be sure about the other one. He might be Cody Derwent; on the other hand he could be about half a dozen of these guys. He took a shot in the face; I doubt even his mother could be sure who he is now without a DNA check.”

“So all of her family is off the ship, we just don’t know if they were taken by the pirates or managed to get to the escape pods.”

Jay shook his head. “And there’s no way for us to know without chasing down all of the escape pods and retrieving whoever is in them, which, as I said, we can’t do. With a bit of luck, and some careful calculations, we might be able to get to one pod and still be able to get to Onegal 3.

“That’s one reason for seeing what, if anything, we can salvage from this bitch. The systems on this ship are much newer, not to mention faster and more efficient, than those on Gambler’s Luck. The pirates clearly took everything they could, and by the looks of it they weren’t too careful about how they stripped the systems away. Despite that I might be able to retrieve a few parts from here and the engine room, providing we have enough time.

“If I can get a few parts, even just a few processing chips to boost your nav computer or something from the engine room to improve the fuel efficiency, that will make it easier for us to chase down one of the pods and still make it to Onegal 3.

“It doesn’t make us pirates,” he said, correctly interpreting the look on Step’s face. “Neither of us would attack a ship, kill the crew or take them prisoner, and then steal the cargo and rip the ship apart. That’s not the kind of people we are.

“We wouldn’t have retrieved the escape pod if we were anything like the pirates who attacked this ship, and we sure as hell wouldn’t have detoured so far out of our way to come and see if there were any survivors.

“Salvaging what we can doesn’t make us pirates. The ship has been left derelict and is free to be salvaged by anyone who finds her, which in this instance is us.

“If I thought we could manage it I’d suggest we take her in tow and bring her to Onegal 3 with us, full salvage rights on this bitch would set us up for life, the girl as well. She must be worth at least twenty five million credits, that’s almost a million apiece for the three of us.”

“I doubt any amount of money can make up for the loss of her family.”

“I don’t imagine it could, and we couldn’t tow a ship this size anyway. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t salvage what we can, especially if it will help us to track down at least one of the other escape pods that were released. If we can find even one member of Zialla’s family, that will be something.”

Step wasn’t entirely convinced that it was okay for them to take what they could from the ship, even under the guise of salvage. He allowed himself to be persuaded by his friend however.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Leaving Jay to what he was doing on the bridge of The Green Star, Step returned to Gambler’s Luck, where he made his way up to his own bridge. He stopped in the galley briefly to grab an energy bar before re-joining Zialla, who jumped to her feet and rushed up to him the moment she heard his approach. “Did you find them?” she asked eagerly, looking past him for some sign of her family. “Were they there?” her eagerness faded when she saw he was alone.

“I’m afraid not,” Step answered, wishing he had better news to give her. “Your family isn’t on board. We did discover that five escape pods were launched, including your own. I assume one of them was used by the crewman who helped you, but that still leaves three. It’s possible your family managed to get away, perhaps even all three of them.”

“Do you think they did?”

“It’s impossible to say, Zi, the ship didn’t record who made use of the pods it launched.” Zialla’s face dropped when she heard that. “It did record the directions the pods were launched in however.”

The young girl immediately brightened. “So we can find them and see if my family is in them?”

Step took Zialla’s hand and led her back into the bridge, where he pushed her gently down into the co-pilot’s seat, while he took the pilot’s. “I know you’re still young, and this will not be easy for you, but you have to be prepared to accept the worst.

“The data from the ship’s computer tells us what direction the pods were sent in, but there is no guarantee they remained on those courses. They could have been knocked off course by almost anything, making it impossible for us to find them. Even if they are somewhere close to their original course we don’t have the fuel to track down all four pods.

“Based on the rough calculations Jay and I made while over there, we only have enough fuel to follow the course that one of the pods took, and we can only make a brief search along that course before we will have to continue on to Onegal 3.”

“But my family wouldn’t all fit in one pod. Why can’t we get them all?”

“We don’t have the fuel to spare. Even if we had a full tank it would be pushing it to chase down all four pods and get to Onegal.”

“You have to get them all! I want my family!”

“I know you do, but if we try to get all four pods we will run out of fuel before we could get to Onegal. There is every chance we would run out of fuel before we could retrieve all the pods, especially if we had to do a lot of searching. It wouldn’t do us any good to get the pods if we then got stuck out here ourselves.”

Zialla looked at Step for a moment, and then she burst into tears and ran from the bridge. Her sobs and footsteps echoed along the corridor, until they were cut off by the door of the cabin he had cleared out for her during the flight.

With a sigh Step got to his feet and left the bridge, stopping when he reached Zialla’s cabin. “Zi,” he called out. “Zialla.” He tried again, raising his voice to be sure she heard him. When he failed to get a response he used his override as the ship’s captain to open the door and stepped through.

“Go away!” Zialla told him the moment the door slid open.

“Zialla…” Step began.

“I SAID GO AWAY!” Zialla yelled, throwing the pillow she had been sobbing into.

Step caught the pillow with ease, not that he would have been hurt if it had hit him. “No, Zialla!” He said firmly, moving forward so the door could close behind him. “This is my ship and you’re going to listen to me.” He didn’t like speaking so forcefully to the young girl, but suspected it was the only way he would get her to listen to him. “There is absolutely no point in us chasing after all four escape pods if doing so will leave us just as stranded as they are. We have only enough fuel to go after one of the pods, and nothing me or Jay can do will change that.

“I regret that that is the case, but it is. The fuel issue aside, I have a delivery to make, and the gentleman I am making it for is not the sort to take it lightly should I fail to arrive with his package. I very much doubt he will consider stopping to rescue you, and detouring to check out the freighter you were on, good reasons for missing his delivery.” He couldn’t be certain Zialla was paying attention to him since her face was buried in the pillow she hadn’t thrown at him. Her sobs had ceased however, and he took that to mean she was at the least listening to what he said, even if she wasn’t taking it in. “I can spare the time, and the fuel, to go after one pod, just about, and that is what I am going to do.

“I can only hope we’ll be able to catch up to the pod before we have to give up the chase and head for Onegal.”

“What about the rest of my family?!” Zialla suddenly demanded, lifting her head. “You’re going to rescue one of them, what about the other two? Are you just going to forget about them?”

“Not forget, I won’t forget about them, Zialla, but there is nothing I can do. We can’t even be certain that if we catch up to the pod we go after we will find one of your family in it. It might contain one of the ship’s crew. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it is a possibility, and one you have to prepare yourself for.

“The best thing you can do right now is to not think about it. You should head over and grab your things.”

“What?”

“We’re not going to be here forever. Just long enough for Jay to salvage what he can from the bridge and the engine room, and for me to calculate an intercept course for one of the pods. Once that’s done we’ll be off. Surely you don’t want to leave your stuff behind.

“You should go over to the ship and grab it while you can, both your stuff, and your family’s. I imagine the majority of it is still there, I doubt the pirates will have been interested in personal stuff, not enough value in it.” Step could see he had distracted the young girl from the way she suddenly rolled over on the bed and sat up. “While you’re over there I think you should check the galley, in case any food was left. It would be silly to leave it behind to go to waste, and we could do with the extra food over here. I didn’t plan on having an extra mouth to feed on this trip, or on making detours.

“And while you’re over there, if you see anything you think might be worth salvaging, let me or Jay know,” he called after her as she hurried from the cabin.

He still wasn’t convinced about taking anything from the ship; it just didn’t feel entirely right to him. Nonetheless he figured having Zialla keep an eye out for anything that might be of use would help to distract her from thinking about her family, at least for a while.

Chapter Twenty Eight

While Jay put the hover dolly away, and Zialla waited impatiently just behind him, Step entered the command to open the pod, whose retrieval had mirrored that of the pod Zialla had been rescued from, right down to it sitting in almost exactly the same spot in the cargo bay.

“It’s not them!” Zialla wailed when the pod opened and she saw who was inside. “You were supposed to be my family!” She cried, turning and running from the cargo bay.

Step looked from the man in the escape pod, to Zialla’s fleeing back, then over at Jay. “You look after this guy; I’ll go and see to Zialla.” With that he hurried after the young girl.

He didn’t catch up to her until he reached her cabin. “Zi,” he called. “Come on, open up.” Step could hear the young girl’s sobs through the door, but was reluctant to invade her privacy, especially when he didn’t know how to comfort her. He had done his best to prepare her for the possibility the escape pod they were chasing might not contain someone from her family, he had also kept her as occupied as he could during the two days of the search, going so far as to enlist her help in cleaning and tidying the ship.