Rogue Galaxy, Episode 1: The Captain and the Werewolf (8 page)

Miller stared at it all in disgusted incredulity, tempted to take over even though he didn't know how to work the airlock. “Seriously?” he said.

***

I
t had taken Dobbler less than five minutes to accomplish what Miller and his whole team had not managed to do all day—the werewolf stood on its hind legs, staring them down, growling. Farraday had always heard that the psychic link that drew the para-ape wranglers toward their prey worked both ways, and attracted the animals to their hunters. Apparently it really did work the same way for werewolves. Maybe para-apes were some odd local mutation of the meta-species?

Not that he had time to speculate about it much right now. In fact, as the werewolf glared at them, hair bristling, its deep growl setting his bones to shake with shuddering vibrations, Farraday wondered if he was ever going to have time to wonder about anything ever again. Impatiently, out of the corner of his eye, he watched Dobbler preparing his lasso-and-pole apparatus for the first cast, a bit slowly and  methodically for the captain's taste.

The werewolf hadn't yet attacked them or run away, both of which were the behaviors one would expect. Was that because the psychic link Dobbler had established held her in some kind of mini-thrall? Or was it because, deep down, despite all the received wisdom of science and wizardry, Jennifer was trapped inside there, a prisoner, gazing out at him, dimly recognizing him and desperately struggling to prevent the werewolf from doing him any harm?

Gazing into her snarling muzzle, her glaring yellow eyes, he could find no other trace of his lover. But then, the longer he stared, the more it began to seem to him that there was in fact some mysterious something there.... Yes, he was certain of it, sure that it wasn't just his imagination....

As he was on the verge of taking a step forward, of reaching out a gentle hand to calm his Jennifer, the werewolf roared and sprang at him.

***

O
ut in the corridors the roars burst out from deep within the Tubes like a physical wave crashing forth. Even the more hardened Security personnel flinched. One of them, Lieutenant Hasegawa, instinctively began running for the entrance, but Miller grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her back.

She looked up at him with a wild appeal, but he only shook his head. “How would we ever find it in the next four minutes, with all those echoes rolling around?” he said. “And besides, captain's orders: we wait it out here.”

***

I
n Engineering, Blaine's fingers fell from the keypad. “Got it,” she murmured. She'd constructed the workaround. Now she stared at the screen as if the program were an unwanted intrusion, as opposed to something she'd been struggling to create.

“Reports of werewolf roars in the Tubes,” Blackmon said tensely. She looked at the new workaround that was displayed on her screen, then slid her eyes uncertainly Blaine's way. “Ma'am?... Shall I initiate this?...”

“It's only two minutes till they get the portable airlocks set up.”

“But ... the captain's orders, ma'am....”

Something in Blackmon's tone suddenly made Blaine realize just how frightened she was. Well, she was right to be frightened; and it really was stupid and irresponsible of Blaine not to order the Tubes blown now, because it would take only an instant for the werewolf to knock something catastrophically out of whack. And if it was in there roaring and rampaging like that, then Dobbler and Farraday were probably dead anyway.

But: “Two minutes, Chief,” she said, and held tight.

***

T
hree minutes later, all personnel on Deck Three had withdrawn behind the portable airlocks, and Lieutenant Storr, standing next to Miller, stood ready to seal off that section of the ship. Miller watched him to see if he would falter, as a way to distract himself from the question of whether he himself would. He thought he saw the glistening hints of some sweat at the man's hairline, but that was all.

Storr raised his wrist to his mouth. “We're ready to seal them off, Commander.”

The moment's silence from Blaine's end was heavy. Miller didn't want to imagine how bitter it must feel to her, to promote herself this way.

But, really, the hesitation was so brief it might have been Miller's imagination after all. Voice firm, Blaine said, “All right, Lieutenant. I hereby....”

But she was cut off by a cry from inside the Tubes: Dobbler's voice, shouting, “Hold it! Hold it!” The sound of racing footsteps became audible, too.

Without waiting for orders, the crew started to pour through the still-unsealed airlock, till Miller furiously hollered, “Hey! Where the hell are you going?! Who the hell told you to go anywhere?!” Cowed, they rushed back onto the safe side, while he shoved past them through the airlock door. As he crossed the threshold, he called over his shoulder, “Stay ready to blow this goddam thing!,” then continued on alone to the Tubes entry.

He reached it just in time to nearly get knocked over as Dobbler came running out, gulping for air. “The captain got it!” he gasped. “He got the werewolf!”

“'Got' it?” demanded Miller. “'Got' it,
how
?”

But Dobbler only shook his head. “He got it under control!”

***

I
n Engineering, Blackmon was spinning in her chair, hands overhead, cheering. Blaine was relieved, too, but not quite ready to celebrate so whole-heartedly.

Like Lieutenant-Commander Miller, she had to wonder: how could the merely human captain have “gotten” the wild, savage werewolf?

She didn't order her team to start taking down the portable airlock until Miller confirmed that, yes, Captain Farraday really was leading out the amazingly docile werewolf, and that Miller and his Security people had safely bound it in titanium restraints.

W
ith the werewolf out of the airlock and tied down in Sickbay, Blaine was able to take a team into the Tubes to track down the damage Beach had wrought. Compared to the madness of recent events, it felt like an easy, straightforward task, and after about a day they had the helm operational. Blaine staggered out of the Tubes, reported to Farraday on the bridge and then, even though she hadn't slept in more than forty hours and was longing for bed, called Miller for an update. He was in Sickbay, with Eban. She listened to him on her communicator as she made her way to her quarters.

By the time she was halfway to her room the helmsman had already begun taking them out of the system, and Miller was able to confirm that the werewolf had reverted back to Jennifer Summers, once they were an AU or so away from those moons. Happy ending.

Curiously, the werewolf had stayed docile for nearly two hours after Captain Farraday had led it out of the Tubes. Miller, wonderstruck, had started to wonder if maybe Jennifer Summers really was still there inside the werewolf, since the only new variable he could see that might affect its behavior was the captain's presence. But then, after about two hours, the werewolf had gone savage again, and begun roaring loudly, violently, and constantly enough to make everyone in Sickbay nuts. Anyway, it was over now, and Lieutenant Summers was sleeping deeply and peacefully.

The only other big news was that the
Galaxy
had postponed its exploration mission here and was heading back to Kimball. Supposedly Carlson and Walsh had some theories about possible uses of the Weed of Wonder, as a werewolf tranquilizer—word was that Fiquet had contributed some ideas of her own.

“But listen, Val,” said Miller, over the communicator (there must have been no one nearby, otherwise he wouldn't have used her first name), “all that can wait. You did a great job, but you must be exhausted. Why don't you lie down before you fall down?”

“Mm.” What Miller didn't know was that while he'd been talking she'd reached her quarters and now was sprawled on her bed. “Sage advice. Blaine out.” The next moment she'd fallen asleep, without ever taking off her uniform.

Hours later she awoke, with a head full of questions.

She mulled them over and sorted them in her mind while she showered. Once she was out she hailed the bridge; the captain was there and got on the horn when he heard who it was.

“All is well, Commander.” He sounded warm and cheerful. “You've done incredible things the last few days, and there's no way you've caught up on your sleep. Take it easy today, while things are still quiet.”

“I'll take you up on that—thank you, sir,” she said, and signed off. Then she sat and thought a while.

The captain sounded happy. The truth was, she genuinely would prefer not to disturb him—at least for the moment. She might not personally approve of the way he'd handled things, but he'd had a rough couple days—almost died, almost had to kill the woman he loved—and she preferred to leave him alone, at least until she knew for sure he'd acted improperly enough to warrant talking about it.

Anyway, if she did talk to the captain, and her suspicions were correct, there was no reason to expect him to tell the truth. But she knew someone she could put the squeeze on.

Ten minutes later, she was heading to the garden. She'd asked the computer to discreetly locate Fiquet, and that's where it had sent her. Blaine was relieved the girl wasn't on-duty—her time sense was so addled from the long stretch of work and then having slept at odd hours, that she had to keep checking the chronometer to see whether it was ship's daytime or ship's night.

The
Galaxy
's garden really wasn't a big affair—only a few hundred cubic meters, but its landscaped earth was stuffed full with enough profusions of bursting plant life to create plenty of places to hide. Blaine marched through all the bushes and low-hanging palms and flowerbeds and ivy curtains, exasperated, trying not to show it so as not to make the other loungers think anything was up, unwilling to put Fiquet on alert by hailing her.

Blaine finally found her, tucked away in a corner that Blaine had never even noticed before, a patch of grassy earth in a pocket of stunted low-hanging trees, their leafy green branches hanging around her like curtains. She was sitting in the lotus position, eyes closed, a barely perceptible smile on her lips. Her eyes opened when Blaine pulled back that wooden curtain, and the gentle smile faltered, as she no doubt wondered why the XO should be seeking out a lowly ensign.

Or maybe she didn't need to wonder why at all, and that was why she was worried.

Blaine sat on the ground in front of Fiquet. Now they were both enclosed in the leaves. Fiquet's gaze was like that of a cornered animal, as she waited to hear what Blaine wanted.

“Don't speak yet, Ensign,” said Blaine, casually enough. “Just let me think a moment, first.”

Fiquet nodded once, slowly. She took a deep breath and seemed to re-center herself, then waited.

Blaine played out various scenarios in her head. If she leaned on the young ensign, she could probably get her to crack a lot sooner than Dobbler would, even if the captain had given her a direct order to lie. For example, she could ask if Farraday had asked her if she had heard the doctor and the witch speculate that the Weed of Wonder might be an effective drug to use on the werewolf. And he might have asked her if she had her own secret stash, that she could donate to the cause. With no fear of censure for possession of a forbidden substance, naturally.

Maybe she'd even been privy to certain conversations between Dobbler and the captain, and might be in a position to say whether, for example, the captain had asked their resident computer genius and juvenile delinquent Dobbler to hack into the AI and sabotage the seals, so as to buy Farraday some time to go in and risk his life and the whole crew's in a crazy quest to administer the Weed to the werewolf, probably as a quick injection. That dose would have had to have been donated by someone like Ensign Fiquet: they'd gone through all Dobbler's possessions, and she was certain there wasn't any left in his quarters or duty station, at least.

Farraday wouldn't have been able to tell anyone that was how he'd gotten the werewolf under control—it wasn't like he could broadcast that he was borrowing illicit drugs from the ensigns who'd smuggled them aboard, then pardoning them for the favor. Instead, he'd have to make up a story about how the werewolf had suddenly recognized him, thanks to the submerged but present spirit of Jennifer Summers: an inspiring story that could set were-studies back for years, if it became widely believed.

Just thinking about it made her want to go grab the fraudulent bastard and toss him in the brig herself. She realized she was grinding her teeth and forced herself to stop. It was hardly in keeping with the bucolic setting.

She looked again at Ensign Fiquet, who was nervous but managing to stay still and collected, and she kept thinking.

The ensign was not merely an ensign but an ensign-adept, one of those awkward combinations that had become common ever since the Thaumaturgic Revolution. She had to stick close to the doctor and the witch, and at times they needed her help in order to function together for certain spells and so forth. Magic was largely a state of mind, and if Blaine put Fiquet in the middle of something as psychologically grueling as the overthrow of the captain, it could hinder her performance in Sickbay. Considering that they were cruising through largely unknown space and could at any moment face an attack by the Provisional, that might have dire consequences.

As for Dobbler, now that they knew about the Provisional's sabotage of their astronav databanks, it looked like they had an immediate need of his computer expertise after all.

If she voiced these things out loud, she'd have to act on them. If she explicitly aired her suspicions to Fiquet and others, it would be unthinkable not to then investigate them and take whatever action the findings warranted. Sick as it made her, that might not be worth it.

And if she spoke to the captain about it face-to-face, she'd lose it. She knew she would. She'd wind up saying something that would make it well-nigh impossible for them to relate the way a captain and his XO should.

But he ought to know she knew. And that she'd be watching him. Otherwise, who knew when he might pull another such stunt?