Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (21 page)

He ran out of the bridge. Leduc steered the unwieldy craft off the rocks, but they’d still been dashed on the shore. The boat tumbled all of them out into the surf. He’d buried a man in the sand that next morning.

William passed quickly through his wrecked ship and shot through the zero-gravity umbilical. He saw his old friend and grinned widely. The two embraced and William held onto Xavier for a few hard seconds. The Marines stood at ready, still in the cover of the containers. Both of the sailors looked confused and stood with the Benelli shotguns pointed at the ground.

“William!” Leduc said, smiling. “Had I known it was you... Ah, well,
oui?
” He shrugged. He raised a hand up and waved. “We’re clear!”

The shadows in the distance came together and moved forward. Half a dozen men and women with pale skin and sunken faces stepped closer. They held blocky knockoff boarding weapons.

“What happened?” William asked. The last he’d seen Xavier was after arriving back at Earth. He’d assumed the survivors would have stayed in the Army, but he guessed it’d make sense that some wouldn’t.

“Couldn’t do another drop,” Xavier said, leaning against a container. “After that one...” His gaze dropped to the floor.

William nodded. He could understand the fear that came. It still visited him at night when he woke to the smell of burning plastic and snow. To the smells of a world that almost froze him to death.

“So I took an early out and used my preference to get a mining rig.” Xavier beckoned down the long loading pier. “Eduardo told me ‘Drones! They’re the future, everyone uses them now’. So I picked up a contract with Core and came out here. A bunch of mining drones and
voila!
”

“And Core left?”

Xavier smiled and sniffed. “The bastards sent out a notice, said bring it in! We’re leaving! So we come in, they take the ore, and then the transports leave.”

“Without paying?”

“Payable at the corporate office, they say.” Xavier looked away and sighed. “So if I want to get paid, I have to go back to Earth. Problem is, our ship has no Haydn. Instead, I decided to stay, borrow the facilities, and sell direct.” He grinned at William. He looked behind to the others. “My crew, mostly retired Army and Navy.”

William nodded to them and thought they didn’t look half as bad as he and the rest of the survivors of the
Lawrence
did.

“And you?” Xavier asked.

How do I explain this? William wondered. He felt a touch of embarrassment, guilt, sadness, all mixed together in a stew of pride. So instead of trying to embellish it, he laid it out, simple and direct.

Xavier listened in silence. By the end of the story, he looked even more haggard and worn. His crew stood close and glanced among each other.

“So now we’re trying to refit,” William said.

Corporal Vale stepped forward. “Captain, Huron wants to come over.”

William looked to Xavier. “Any objections?”

Xavier chuckled and shrugged a Gallic shrug. “It’s not like I own the place, right?”

Corporal Vale called back to the
Garlic
and the remaining engineers went to work.

“Walk with me,” Xavier said. “I’ll show you our ship.”

The pair walked away from the flickering lights and into the shadow that was flanked by empty containers. The air tasted like dust and burnt steel. Every step brought a rasping hiss. Xavier limped slowly and held one hand to his hip as he walked.

“Are you okay?” William asked.

Xavier stopped and massaged the joint. “I have a few augmentations that are going sour.”

William remembered how Xavier had pulled sleds laden with survivors when everyone else was close to death. “Redmond?”

“Didn’t help, but I didn’t pay top euro for them either.” He shrugged.

They walked through an open bulkhead and the air felt colder. On the other side a robotic mining tender lay askew on the floor. Robotic miners hung like peapods from the sides of the ship. The spine was slender like a needle with a blocky front and back.

“There it is, eh?” Xavier said, smiling.

William had seen so many like it before, the lifeblood of culture as they knew it. Once the mining was automated, those tending the ore had little to do but service the miners. “No Haydn?”

Xavier shook his head. “We came out in a bulk hauler.”

William nodded. “Do you trust your crew?”

Xavier’s eyes flickered back down the bulkhead. “We got an offer to keep mining,” he said in a low voice.

“From who?”

Xavier licked his lips and looked down. “The Hun.”

William felt it in his chest, a nervous tightness with the edge of adrenaline rising. He reached down to pat his sidearm and patted nothing. He’d left his sidearm back on the
Garlic.
The moment was rich with a question of where Xavier stood, and William feared he knew it. “And?”

The answer came, a gunshot.

Xavier pushed William back with the force of a mule and brought his rifle up to bear. William fell backward and skidded to a halt. A second shot erupted in the distance, followed by a pair of booming blasts. Xavier stepped out of view of the bulkhead and crouched down with his weapon laid over his knee.

William felt a betrayal that ran even deeper than the one the Admirals laid upon him. He had a bond of kinship and survival with Xavier. He raised a hand and rubbed his chest where Xavier had hit him. “Why?”

Xavier shook his head and looked away. “I can’t do it again—we need to get out.”

“Tell your crew to leave the ship, you can have ours,” Xavier said.

William stared at the man who was once his friend and stood slowly. He kept his eyes locked on the muzzle of the rifle and had a feeling that Xavier would shoot him if given a chance. The memory of Redmond weighed heavy on both, but the weight must have broken him. “I can’t do that.”

Xavier glanced out the bulkhead. “No more shooting. Come on, lead the way.”

William felt a pit in his heart. He should’ve seen it coming. Bastards, he thought. No, no. I’m the bastard. I’m the stupid son of a bitch. He knew that if he’d gone by the books none of this would have happened, at the worst he’d have lost his boarding crew, but now they could lose everything. He walked stiffly and glanced behind him.

“Non,” Xavier said as he raised the barrel and slowed his pace.

The men walked through the portal into the warmer air. The taste of grit and steel returned. William stopped when ordered and felt his anger seething—anger mixed with helplessness. He scanned and saw nothing, no one, only the flickering lights of the airlock in the distance and empty containers.

“Manuel?” Xavier called out into the silence. His voice echoed and all was still.

William debated keying up his comms, but couldn’t speak, so didn’t see much point.

Xavier sidestepped behind an ore container and crouched slightly. His eyes were wide and white as they took in the darkness around him. “Manuel? Paul? Consuela?”

William turned and faced Xavier. He could taste the fear in his mouth along the itching on his augmetic hand. A sense of tension filled him. If he was going to get shot, he’d face Xavier, make the bastard look him in the eyes.

Xavier opened his mouth to call once more when a single gunshot rang out. It was the loud crack of a nanite propelled round. His head snapped back, a ragged hole in his cheek. The blocky knockoff rifle clattered to the floor and landed with Xavier.

William turned slowly, his heart booming in his ears. Corporal Vale rose two dozen meters away. “Well done, Corporal. Who did we lose?”

He’d dreaded asking the question ever since he heard the gunshots. They needed every single crewmember, and any thoughts of pressing the miners into service went away when the gunfire started.

Vale peeled her faceshield up. “Igor took a round. They tried to hit us once you’d walked away. Kyong saw it first and blasted a group of ‘em.”

“Igor?”

“He’ll live,” Vale said. She scanned the room with her weapon.

“I’m sorry,” William said to her. “He was once a friend.”

Vale scanned her eyes past William without really seeing him. “I’m taking Kyong and we’re going to secure the rest, sir.”

“Carry on,” William said, and returned to the airlock alone. But not totally alone—the feeling of guilt walked with him as an unwelcome companion.

*

T
he repairs moved from basic triage to that of a rough refit. The station held an additive cell specialized in refitting mining drones and orbital facilities. Huron worked incessantly interfacing the systems and laying out the repair plan. In a matter of a few short hours, the scent of a foundry permeated the air. The
Garlic
was being reborn.

William watched the chaos of the firefight and saw what a lucky affair it had been. Had Kyong not been as jumpy, the miners would have taken them. An overriding sense of guilt spread in him. Guilt that he’d almost cost them the ship, and this spilled into guilt about the mission. He’d asked so much, to go beyond direct orders and right into the realm of prison time. By rights, Shay should have taken his command and confined him to his quarters.

Even if they hit the troopship and finished off the
Gallipoli,
the planet was still occupied. He couldn’t save anyone. Worst of all, he could hardly save himself. He shook his head and stared at the dried blood mixed with the grit on the floor.

He passed through the airlock and made his way back to the
Garlic
. He glanced out the viewport and saw the first of the repair drones settling into position and laminating a new layer onto the rocky hull. He stopped and hovered in the zero gravity and watched, then spread his focus to the rest of the ship. His ship. No, the United Colonies’ ship.

They’d sacrificed so much to get here, to throw it all away now would be spitting in the face of those who trusted him. He knew it, and pushed the guilt away. His mind opened up and felt disappointed in himself that he’d let the moment get away from him. They had a job to do and he was going to see to it. At the very least he’d deprive the Hun troops on the ground of a ride home. And he had a score to settle with the
Gallipoli
.

“Huron,” William called. “How long?”

“Uh, Captain, we’re just getting rolling,” Huron replied. The sounds of machinery rattled behind him.

“Estimate? And can you get me another Haydn?”

“
What?
What in the Sam Hill do you need another Haydn for?”

William smiled and pushed back towards the station. He had a ship to refit. It was time to level the playing field.

*

T
he sun burned through the void of space with no regard of the time. It was a harsh light, an alkaline light, tinted with a hue of yellow. But it was light.

William shielded his eyes from the glare as he watched the multijointed arm sway out from the alloy pier and apply layer after layer of nanite aggregate. It was like a peanut butter mixture that was an intense bond of simple nanites and asteroid. He knew it wasn’t as strong as the original material. But he didn’t have much choice.

While the arm swayed back and forth he looked down to his tablet and saw another plot finished. He tapped it and watched the results play out. Icons danced in and around the planet. He swiped it away and let it continue without watching. The outcome was plain enough: two on one, and he wasn’t the winner.

Huron’s footsteps echoed through the hall. The pace was slow, with a slight tap of the toe. William glanced over and nodded to the Engineer.

“They always said that robots would take our jobs,” he said, stifling a yawn. “I could use a robot with a big kettle head and rubber jointed arms.”

William smiled and nodded. The tickle and itch of the nanite patch reminded him that he too hadn’t slept nearly enough. “Is it done?”

Huron looked to William. “Think they’ll chase it?”

“I think so.”

Huron rubbed his chin, the rasp of the stubble loud under his fingers. “If they don’t?”

William shrugged. “Then we go after both.”

A breath of air brushed against his face as the ventilation system kicked on. He tasted the grit of nanite powder in his mouth.

Huron smacked his lips. “That taste...”

William looked out at the ship. The arm was retracting. “Railgun?”

Huron shook his head. “The equipment here is too rough to make something that large and keep it in spec. Gotta keep the rail within three lightbands of flatness.”

William nodded. He’d been told as much earlier but asked again just in case his Engineer worked up a new solution. He didn’t feel good about any of the options.

“And it’ll blink?” William asked Huron.

Huron nodded and stared out into space. “Yup.”

“You don’t really know do you?” William asked.

“Nope.”

The pair broke into a smile and watched as the arm spread out another layer onto the ship.

“Kyong should be done,” Huron said, nodding towards the mining tender.

They walked in silence and entered the launch bay of the station. The mining tender was crouched in the same place with a gantry additive cell perched over the top. The gusseted arms shook and hummed as the head whirred from side to side. A steady hiss pulsed out with a whistle and crunching sound. Farther below, cables snaked out and were piped into a console that sat squarely on Kyong’s lap. She didn’t look up when the pair walked in.

Her fingers flew over the keys. She glanced up quickly and back to the screen and shook her head slowly. Her mouth moved but no sounds came out. It was like she was whispering a prayer.

“Almost,” she said. Her fingers paused and hovered, quivering.

“Two hours?” William asked.

Kyong turned her head slowly and looked at William with bloodshot eyes.

“Captain!” Bryce’s voice rang in his ear.

“One moment, please,” William said. “Go ahead, Bryce.”

Huron squatted down and looked over Kyong’s shoulder. She tucked the screen to the side and gave Huron an offended look.

“They’re moving,” Bryce said. “Troopship just pulled away from the dock with the
Gallipoli
a few kilometers away.”