The False Admiral (19 page)

“I'm already on mine,” Deilani said. Nils was putting his in as we spoke. A look at Salmagard told me she had already done the same.

Then this was it.

We started to walk again.

“Ensign,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I'll bite. How far have we come?”

“We're there. I mean we're here,” he said.

“What?”

“We are. We should be well inside their perimeter. We should have seen probes. They should have picked us up on their scanners. We should be able to see the colony, and they should have come out to get us long ago.”

“Why didn't you say anything?” Deilani asked.

I knew the answer.

There was, of course, nothing here.

“Have we passed the reception point?” I asked.

“No, but we're close.”

“You're sure?”

“There are a lot of things I'm not good at, Admiral. But I know math.” The ensign just sounded tired.

“You do. I'm sorry.”

He was right. There should have been a visible perimeter, and lights. There were none.

It was small consolation that if there
had
been a colony, my plan would've gotten us to it. We had come a very long way.

“There's nothing here,” Nils said. “How long are you going to keep going?”

“Until I run out of air, I guess,” I said without looking back.

Deilani collapsed first. Her breathing had been getting increasingly ragged. I looked back and saw her white form sprawled on the black stone. I jogged back and turned her over. I pulled the cartridge from her neckpiece and took a deep breath.

“What are you doing?” Nils shouted, grabbing my shoulder.

I locked my cartridge to Deilani's and equalized it, halving what I had left. I plugged her back in, then myself. She started to breathe after only two pumps to her chest.

She couldn't walk, so I picked her up.

“Looks like you two have to put the chairs on the tables and turn off the lights,” I told Nils and Salmagard.

They didn't say anything to that.

“Either of you have any theist beliefs? Any spiritualism?” I asked, trying to keep the strain out of my voice. Deilani was as tall I was, and I wasn't even close to being at full strength. And full strength for me wasn't anything to brag about.

“No,” Nils replied.

“Judeo-Christian,” Salmagard said quietly.

“You want to rethink that, Ensign?” We were approaching the edge of a cliff.

“I already am. What about you?”

“I try not to worry about the afterlife. I have enough problems in this one. And I know exactly where I'm going.”

“Where?”

“Down there.”

I had stopped. Nils and Salmagard caught up, also halting. We were at the edge of the most breathtaking chasm yet.

At the bottom was the colony.

THE Ganraen colony ship was twice the size of an imperial destroyer, and twice as heavy. It had met the same fate as our freighter; of
course
it had.

The ship was the shape of a shallow dome, and substantially larger than Tremma's freighter. The hull of the colony was dull gray and rusty brown in typical, unattractive Ganraen style. There were viewports and bay doors, landing pads and vehicle launch exits with steeply sloping ramps leading up to the surface.

The planet had tried to swallow all of it. This was why we hadn't seen the lights, though we could see them now.

There were temporary structures on the surface, and vehicles. Work lights and power cells—everything that we should have passed on the way. It was all down there, a hundred meters below us.

Yet there weren't
enough
lights. The plastic survey tents were
all dark, and they didn't look sealed. None of the vehicles was moving, and only the ship's visibility lights were glowing.

It looked as if the colonists were on emergency power, but that was still enough. We didn't need a luxury resort; we just needed life support.

I had fallen in with the trainees' way of thinking. Once I put in that last cartridge, I was just running down the clock. That had just changed. My calm resignation turned to something like panic. I resisted the urge to look at my O
2
readout. We had to get down there, and it wasn't going to be easy—especially not with Deilani.

“By the Founder,” she breathed. I set her down, and she leaned on me. “It's really here.”

“Can you climb?” That was a long way down.

“Yes.” She wasn't as sure as she sounded, but we had to try. I grabbed her wrist and ran a line to her, connecting us. She didn't protest. That was all I could do; I'd be lucky to make this climb myself, so I couldn't carry her.

“Nothing to say here, guys—go.”

We started down, not even knowing if it was a feasible climb.

I went first, with Deilani just above me. I would be the safety net, and Deilani wouldn't risk taking Salmagard or Nils down with her if she made a mistake.

The gravity was light, but not so light that a fall from this distance was survivable.

The silent world of our helmet coms, broken only when one of us breathed particularly loudly, had been our universe since we left the Avenger. It was just me and my withdrawal. I wished I'd asked Deilani exactly what she had given me. My limbs had started to feel like lead.

Time had stretched and twisted as we walked. I hadn't kept track. It had been hours, but I didn't know how many. Walking had seemed unbearably slow, but climbing was even slower.

There had been a time when humans on Earth climbed rocks just like this. Like the fabled drive in the countryside, it had been a form of recreation. I smiled behind my face mask. Those people had some peculiar ideas about what was fun.

Salmagard was light, but not light enough. We were halfway down when she chose a foothold that immediately gave. The rock crumbled, striking Nils, who slipped as well. Salmagard caught herself, but Nils fell free with a cry, knocking Deilani loose even as he secured himself. I reached out and grabbed, catching her neckpiece, but the weight and the sudden jerk were too much for my remaining handhold, which broke away. For a moment I was in free fall.

Nils' glove closed around my wrist. He couldn't have held us both, but it bought me the time I needed to shift Deilani and jam my arm into a crevice.

It wasn't the same elbow that I'd bashed on the landing strut, at least. The bruises I would have after this would not be flattering.

We were all still there. Somehow.

It took precious minutes to get Deilani back to climbing, and now she was below me for better or worse.

It took a long time. No one spoke.

Deilani finally detached her line from mine and dropped the final few meters to land on the rubble, falling to her hands and knees. I touched down next.

We'd done it. We'd done it with minutes to spare, too. If Nils hadn't believed in a power higher than the Empress before, he did now. Together, we made for the nearest airlock.

The colonists were in for a shock. We all waved at the camera mounted over the blast shield.

“Open channels,” I said.

“We're on it,” Nils told me.

“Then we should've heard something, shouldn't we?” Deilani's voice was weak, but high.

“Yeah.” Nils started to fidget.

“Something's wrong.” I didn't understand. Why wouldn't they open up? And where was everybody? This wasn't a planet where everyone would be strolling about, but there still should've been some movement.

“We don't have all day for them to notice us,” Deilani pointed out, still sounding feeble.

That was true. Especially for Deilani and myself, as we were on half rations.

“They're obviously conserving power. They could've disabled their security if they're having reactor issues,” Nils suggested. “Could explain it. I mean—why watch the surface of a planet like this? They're not exactly expecting visitors. Maybe sensors are so bad here that they just don't bother.”

That was a good point.

“Then what do we do? Knock?” Deilani asked.

“You guys are too polite.” I walked up to the emergency access, smashed the safety shield with my elbow, and jerked down the lever. I got ready to get into character, mentally rehearsing my story. I put on my smile, and adjusted my posture. I worked my jaw, ready to slip into the right voice.

The blast shield lifted, and the outer airlock opened.

“They're not going to like us for this,” Nils fretted as we jogged
up the ramp and into the blinking red light of the small personnel airlock.

We all froze. The inner door of the airlock was jammed halfway open, and horribly mangled. There were some dark smears on the bulkhead, and peculiar burns. Against all odds, the colonists had found a way to surprise me. I stared.

“What in the Empire,” Deilani said.

I didn't say anything. I just slipped through the doors and into the ship. The outer doors closed behind us. Nils reached for his helmet control, and I caught his wrist. “There's no atmosphere in here.”

He blinked at me through his faceplate. Then he groaned. Nils was the last person to make such a mistake; it just showed how frayed we were. We were exhausted and dehydrated.

“Then we're still dead,” he sighed.

“The hell we are,” I said. “Emergency power's on. We just have to get this place to autoseal and restart life support.”

“The whole ship can't be depressurized,” Deilani cut in. “That's ridiculous.”

“This corridor's an artery. If there's no air here, there's none on this deck. We have to get to engineering, or find the colonists.”

I didn't wonder why the outer door was intact and the inner one wasn't. I didn't care why life support was down, or why no one had picked us up on sensors, why no one seemed to be bothered by us breaking into their ship. I wanted air. Everything else could wait.

“You saw the size of this ship,” Nils said. “How much have you got left?”

“A few minutes.”

“We have to move.”

“I know. Think fast.”

“What?”

“Ensign! We're on a ship. Life support's down, but there's still air. We just have to find it. Deilani and I need it
now
.”

“Oh, Founder.” Nils stepped back, rapping on his faceplate with gloved knuckles. “I don't know anything about Ganraen colony ships . . . This is a lower deck . . . We might be near the reserves, but I don't know how to find them.”

“What about emergency masks?”

“The temperature's equalized. It'd buy you a few minutes at most, but it wouldn't help us solve anything. The exposed skin would freeze. I don't know if your suit could maintain your core temperature. You'd lose half your face.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, turning around. “We just came through an airlock. There have to be pressure suits.”

“Oh!” Deilani understood.

The life of a colonist inevitably involved the occasional trip outside. On a planet without atmosphere, most of the colonists would have their own suits, but there still had to be something for general use. There were large lockers for emergencies in an alcove just to the left of the airlock's inner door. Two of them. Perfect.

Deilani and I wrenched them open and pulled the suits out.

“A suit in a suit,” Nils said, but the relief in his voice was evident. He'd been afraid we were going to drop right in front of him.

As Deilani and I clambered into the emergency pressure suits, I knew this was yet another temporary fix. Salmagard and Nils would need air next. I got the helmet settled in place, pressurized the suit, and disengaged my EV helmet. There. I was safe for the moment, and a look at Deilani told me she'd managed as well. The
Ganraen suits were primitive compared to Evagardian ones, but we weren't complaining.

Besides, playing dress-up was my specialty.

“Now what?” Nils asked, looking around at the bleak Ganraen bulkheads and ceiling.

The interior of the colony ship was more inviting than Captain Tremma's freighter. There were fewer sharp edges, padding on the bulkheads, and the deck was solid plastic instead of metal grating that rattled underfoot. It still wasn't as elegant and comfortable as an Evagardian vessel, but after the freighter it felt like unspeakable luxury. And there was power
.

“Something's obviously wrong here. Security should be all over us. The damage in the airlock looked serious, but if we've still got power, we've got options. Do the guide paths work?” I asked Nils.

“Do Ganraen ships even have them?” He sounded dubious.

“A colony ship would. It's too big. People couldn't get around without them. There's a console— Nils, you do it. I can't with all these gloves.”

“Will it still work on emergency power?”

“If you want to live, you better find out.”

Nils fiddled with the Ganraen console. “I don't know these systems,” he muttered. “This is stupid. Why would they make their emergency systems so counterintuitive? And why's it so slow?” He prodded the screen and swiped through menus, making his selections.

In time he was able to make a blue line light up on the deck. We followed it. The bulkheads were light gray, which wasn't very cheery, but it was all clean and new.

“This is starting to really bother me,” Deilani said.

“Wearing two suits?”

“That there's no one here,” she snapped. “Reckon they abandoned this unit when it sank?”

“I didn't see the others,” I said.

“Probably because of the mist,” Nils said. “Maybe they all sank.”

“What others?” Deilani asked.

“A Ganraen colony is actually four ships; they split apart on the planet's surface. The manufacturing ship, the mining ship, the science ship, and the executive ship.” I paused in a junction, looking in either direction. Deserted corridors stretched away, littered with debris. This didn't look right. It couldn't be good.

“Which one is this?” Deilani's voice was small, almost hesitant. She was trying to stay in the game, but she couldn't forget that she'd been only minutes from suffocation. I felt the same way. Detached. The empty ship couldn't mean anything good for us, but I hardly felt worried. I was just glad to be breathing.

I was looking at this situation as if it was someone else's problem.

“I don't know. This is a weapon burn. What are these marks?” I ran gloved fingers over the blemishes on the bulkhead, lit up by soft glow panels on the ceiling.

“Something's corroded the plastic,” Nils noted. “What did they build this ship out of? Are the Ganraens really that broke? Kind of sad. They better hope the cease-fire holds.”

The trainees had been expecting, in the best-case scenario, a cool welcome from the Ganraen colonists.

But finding no one at all—this was unthinkable. The damage to the ship and occasional bloodstains weren't helping.

“Looks like there was some civil disobedience,” Nils said,
nudging some shredded and bloody clothes with his foot. There were signs of violence and mayhem everywhere, but no bodies. Grav carts were overturned in the corridors, hatches were left open, and the carbon shields over emergency Klaxon releases were broken. We were looking at the aftermath of some kind of major incident, but for the life of me, I couldn't guess what kind.

“These people are animals,” Nils said.

“The colonist life isn't easy,” I told him distractedly. His theory wasn't crazy, but I didn't think he was right.

Nils looked through an open hatchway, then back at me. “You think the people on this ship got out of hand, and leadership depressurized it to get them in line?”

“To get them in line they'd have needed to
re
pressurize it at some point,” I said.

Nils swallowed. “I guess so. What is this stuff?”

“It looks like ash,” I said, kneeling on the deck. My joints ached from the withdrawal. Grimacing, I ran a gloved finger through the stuff on the floor. “Or something like it.”

“What were they burning?”

“How could they burn anything? Where's the fire-suppression foam? None of this makes sense.” I got up, shaking my head. I turned and looked back down the long corridor. It was a mess—a mess like you'd expect to see in a loss of gravity. But we were on a planet. This gravity couldn't be switched off.

“Where's security?” Nils demanded suddenly. “I
want
to be detained.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy.”

“I just want to see another person,” Deilani said. “I keep thinking about how Tremma ended up.”

I was thinking the same.

“I've got a weapon on the deck,” Salmagard reported, and I turned to look. A pistol from a Commonwealth maker lay beside two heavy plastic impact cases, probably containing survey tools. It was a compact handgun, not the kind that the ship's security would've carried. It was something a civilian would have for self-defense.