The Empty Warrior (21 page)

At present, she did not even have the appearance of a captain about her. Her long chestnut tresses, normally worn pulled back and tightly woven into a bun at the back of her neck, had loosened and unruly strands fell about her temples and cheeks. Her form fitting uniform was soiled by both grime and blood, and the rips in it, split wider by the med tech while he administered his treatments, allowed the cold air of the compartment to flow in next to her skin. As a result she shivered from time to time. The cold was yet another reminder of the clash and the damage they had suffered.
Vigilant’s
climate control systems had been fairly well scorched to near inoperability during their escape, and would not soon be repaired as they were far down on the list of damage control priorities.

Busht sat closest to her; three seats down and to her left. He too wore the gold uniform of a command officer, but his was still pristine. He had never left the confines of the OOD’s chair during their escape. His hands were clasped in front of him and lay motionless on the tabletop. He stared vacantly down at them. Brown as they were, they stood out in stark relief against the polished mahogany. For the first time, Valessanna noticed how lean and bony the Exec’s wrists and fingers had become, like those of a man who had waited too long to exchange his form for a new and younger body. She had not known him for a terribly long time, but it had been long enough to know that he should be nowhere near needing a replacement. The one he was in could scarcely be more than sixty years old. She made a mental note to speak to the doctor about his health.

The chief navigator, Pender Abblehoff, sat at the far end of the table. He was the youngest primary navigator on any ship in the extensive fleet the force maintained, and was considered to be something of a prodigy. He was also considered to be something of a bacchanalian wild child.

Leant far back in his chair, he propped his legs, now crossed at the ankles, atop the table and seemed to be studying the ceiling. He was out of uniform as he had been off duty when the Vazileks had made their appearance and; by the look of his matching, dark blue satin tunic and drawstring trousers; had almost certainly been in the act of seducing his latest conquest at the time. Normally Valessanna would have frowned upon constant debauchery by any member of the command crew, but Pender was so young—less than thirty-five years of age—that sex still had that quality of newness to him that most members of the crew had lost touch with long ago. The navigator seemed more like a wide-eyed moppet confined to a candy store than a predator in a ship teeming with potential game. And as Valessanna could still vaguely remember what it felt like to be that age and feel those feelings, she generally overlooked his satyric escapades, as did most everyone else. She reasoned that as long as it did not affect shipboard discipline, it was none of her business.

That was not to say that the scuttlebutt aboard did not abound with negative gossip concerning his trysts. The reputation as a philanderer that he had so doggedly worked for and so deservedly attained was well known by every female member of the crew, and yet there was never a shortage of willing, even enthusiastic, women ready to offer themselves up as his next prize. Nevertheless, as was the case in any small, tightly knit community, after the deed was done and Abblehoff was off chasing new experiences, each scorned lover had to save face and reputation with stories of how they had been used or misled, so the rumor mill was endlessly supplied with new grist to grind. It was a source of continual amazement to Valessanna how many of the self-proclaimed “victims” among the crew were so easily tricked into assignations with the man, some for a second or third time. Yet none of them ever seemed to be genuinely put out with Abblehoff after the dust had finally settled. The navigator, with his combination of looks, charm, and good nature, was one of those rare individuals whom it was impossible for anyone, even those he discarded, to look on with antipathy for any more than the shortest of time periods.

The third officer in attendance, who also claimed the status as third in command, was Calese Arkhus. Seated at the middle of the table to Valessanna’s right, the black uniform of the engineering staff suited her demeanor inimitably. Normally dour, at present she looked positively dyspeptic. She sat ramrod straight, her thick arms folded tightly over her ample but muscular abdomen, staring past Busht who was seated almost directly across from her. She seemed to be glaring at the bulkhead on the far side of the compartment as if angry with it for existing. Her lips were pressed tightly into thin lines across her wide face, while her strong chin jutted peevishly. At the rear of her jaw, Valessanna could see the muscles rhythmically expanding and contracting as she clenched her teeth. Her closely cropped hair; which seemed to stand out from her scalp at right angles; did nothing to soften the image she projected. Valessanna sighed. The prospect of having to deal with Arkhus only served to lower her already bleak mind-set.

The door at the far end of the compartment slid open, grating slightly along its track as it did so and causing Arkhus to noticeably grimace. The ship’s doctor, Merco Beccassit, stepped through the threshold and into the room. The door ground shut behind him, and Arkhus reacted again, scowling in Valessanna’s general direction before rolling her eyes and looking away. The doctor slid into the chair to Abblehoff’s right and leaned forward, elbows on the table, his gray-bearded chin on his fists, saying nothing. It was most unlike him to offer greetings to no one.

Presently Valessanna broke the silence. “Nice of you to join us, doctor,” she said, reproach lurking just beneath the pleasantry.

Beccassit just shrugged. “My apologies, Mrs. Nelsik,” he replied earnestly. “There was a problem in sick bay.”

As a doctor and a scientist assigned to the force on a strictly temporary basis, Beccassit did not consider himself to be a police officer despite his special commission; therefore, he had an annoying habit of addressing all the members of the crew as if they were civilians. Valessanna had tried to break him of it, unsuccessfully, until it became apparent that his lack of etiquette was not merely a matter of misunderstanding protocol, but rather a stubborn insistence, rooted in his core values, of resisting all forms of authority. She still found it annoying, but as he was more competent than any doctor currently serving in the fleet and was only aboard for this one voyage, she had learned to let it pass without comment. Of more concern was the doctor’s reference to a “problem” in sick bay. The garrulous Beccassit was not given to brief responses, and Valessanna suspected that his lack of expansiveness meant that the problem was of sufficient proportions that he was reluctant to open the meeting with an explanation. A good idea, she thought, considering all the other difficulties now besetting the ship.

“All right people,” she said loudly, doing her best to project an air of authority, “let’s get started. First on the agenda, where are we and where are we going. Pender?”

Abblehoff dropped his feet from the table and sat up straight before replying. “The short answer is that we are presently in uncharted space,” he began. “And we are headed deeper into uncharted space. I can say with certainty that we’ll not fly into a star any time soon, but other than that, it’s impossible to know.” Space, for all its emptiness, got remarkably crowded at velocities many times that of light. Small debris could be shunted aside by the far reaching forward deflectors, but a collision with a wayward rock of any appreciable size could easily put an end to
Vigilant.
Unmapped areas of space were not to be traveled lightly, and it was clear that Abblehoff was not pleased that the ship was well out of any established shipping lanes.

“Without doubt we tread a dangerous path, but there are still the Vazileks to consider,” Valessanna countered, slightly defensive in tone. “They are sure to be in pursuit, leapfrogging behind us. How long before we are far enough ahead of them to change course without danger of being detected?”

Abblehoff shrugged, but was prepared for the question. “It is impossible to say definitively, not knowing their top speed, acceleration, or their sensor range and efficiency. But I have calculated, or rather estimated, that if their ships have relatively the same capabilities as
Vigilant,
and their crews are equally proficient to our own, that we would need to hold this course for approximately eight hours from the time we enabled the deep drive. That estimate is based on two Vazilek ships in pursuit; if the third, the one we hit, was not damaged enough to keep it from joining the others, then we would of course have to wait even longer. And there is always the possibility that they are faster than we are, or their sensors are longer ranged, so even more time may be necessary. I doubt that is the case, based on what little we know of Vazilek technology, but it is impossible to be certain. I apologize for the imprecision of my report, but having no known values for many of the variables involved; it’s the best I can give you.”

Eight hours
, Valessanna thought dejectedly, and that merely a conservative estimate. She had expected to have to hold this course for some time, but eight hours or perhaps longer? It was hard to accept. The odds were that they could travel for weeks through uncharted areas and not incur any damage. But that also meant, although the “odds” were very much against it, there was a small chance the ship could be reduced to pulverized bits of speeding wreckage at any moment.

“Why so long Pender?” she asked.

“Well, we are damaged and hardly making our best speed. Two of their ships are not, and as I stated, the third may not have been terribly harmed. We did not, after all, hit their engines. If their acceleration rates are comparable to our own, even though they have to brake and go sublight every so often to scan, they may still be making much better speed than we are for a considerable amount of the time that they are over one point zero. But this is all conjecture. Simply assuming that they are not faster than we are when undamaged could be a disastrous mistake.” Abblehoff shrugged again. “For all I know they could be fast enough to pass us in eight hours. But my recommendation is still, based solely on an educated guess, that we stay on our present vector for eight hours, hope we don’t hit anything, and then make a course change as quickly as we can and get back over the barrier before any of the nasties show up. I think that is the best we can do at this point.” He leaned back his chair, signaling that his report was finished.

“So after we make the change, can you get us somewhere to make repairs?” Valessanna asked. It was not a foolish question. Because of her background in the Cartographic Corps, she was better versed in navigation than any officer aboard, with the exception of Abblehoff and the other navigators, and she was fully aware that this far out on the Union fringe there were very few corridors of charted space available to choose from. Without making a detailed check, she had no idea when or even if they would come close to one.

“Not directly,” Abblehoff replied with surety, confirming Valessanna’s fears. “We could set another course through uncharted space that would take us to somewhere we would want to be, but I would advise against it. It would be better to make two corrections. The first to get us back to the nearest corridor of mapped space, and then another to take us near a system were repairs can be made. It would still be a bit dicey, but better than the alternative.”

“Good enough,” Valessanna said. “That is what we will do.” She paused for a moment, hesitating to address the chief engineer, but then plunged ahead. “Calese, how badly are we damaged?”

For the first time since she had entered the compartment, Arkhus looked directly at Valessanna, still scowling, and spoke in a tone that expressed unmitigated disdain. “I can’t think of a word which would adequately describe how bad the damage is. This ship may have to be scrapped when we get home, that is if she holds together long enough to get us there. She will at the very least need a total refit. In the meantime, we can do very little to repair the worst damage while we are under way. But merely bringing the ship to a halt is not enough. We cannot jury rig damage this extensive using only ships stores, particularly since a substantial portion of those stores have been damaged or destroyed. We
must
put the ship in orbit somewhere while we make emergency repairs, and we
must
do it as soon as possible. This ship is in no condition to be deep driving across half the galaxy in an effort to find charted space or evade phantom pursuers. It is my professional opinion that it would be extraordinarily dangerous to go sub-light and then re-engage the deep drive, particularly if this is to be done on multiple occasions. The ship might literally disintegrate under the stress. Some repairs must be made first. We’ll need a planet, large asteroid, or some other like body that has a gravitational range within the performance specs of the robotic corps and that also has all the raw materials we will require. This cannot wait.

“I also regret being so non-specific, but there are simply too many repairs that need to be made to categorize them all in detail. It is going to take us days if not weeks merely to work up a formal damage report. But the crux of the situation is that we must make some repairs immediately, and we must stop somewhere to make them.”

Arkhus continued to glare at Valessanna as if challenging her to a duel and an uneasy silence again fell over the compartment. Busht and Abblehoff fidgeted uncomfortably. Both of them clearly would have preferred to be somewhere else at this moment. Beccassit stroked his beard and observed expectantly as if the bickering was nothing more than an experiment in psychology. Valessanna leaned forward, crossing her arms neatly on the table before her, and returned Arkhus’ icy stare with one of her own.