Was Once a Hero (42 page)

After
the celebration, Fenaday walked out to the
Pooka
to check with Fury on the message he’d ordered sent to the
Sidhe
.
 
Passing a half-open
door near the ambassador’s quarters, he saw a reflection in a mirror.
 
The room was lit only by starlight, but he
could see Shasti sitting on the floor, holding on to Risky, her face buried in
his fur.
 
The dog tried to nuzzle her as
his tail beat slowly.
 
Fenaday heard a
sound that might be crying.
 
Might
be.
 
He hesitated, then fearing to make a
mistake either way, he gently closed the door and padded away.

Fenaday
found Fury just outside the shuttle
Pooka
,
the incarnate personification of her name.
 
She kept her voice low, but venom sang in it.
 

“I
called to the ship,” she said.
 
“That
cowardly bitch Micetich and her crew think it’s a trick.
 
They won’t bring the ship in.”

Fenaday
leaned against a tree, too tired to be angry.
 
After a few seconds in deep thought, he keyed his new communications
unit.
 
A vague, half-formed suspicion had
just clarified in his mind.
 
“Cobalt,” he
said, “report to Fenaday.”

The
damaged machine still proved quick, arriving in less than a minute.
 
Its delicate, doll-like features were
scratched and battered.
 
With Mmok down,
no one had the knowledge to work on the machines.
 
They left them to their self-repair
mechanisms.

“Cobalt,”
he said, “your HCR controller is comatose.
 
To whom do you default on command?”

“Fenaday,
Robert F,” replied the machine, “within guidelines and restrictions.”

“Identify
any Confederation forces in the Enshar system, other than ourselves,” he asked.

“Information
classified,” stated Cobalt.

“Proof
enough for me,” said Fenaday.
 
“Angie,
begin broadcasting on all Confed frequencies.
 
Request assistance.
 
Explain that
we’ve destroyed the force investing Enshar and it’s safe to land.
 
Better yet, have Dr. Mourner do it.

“My
bet is your bastard boss has a warship in-system, waiting to see what
happened.
 
What do you think?”

Fury
smiled wickedly at him.
 
“Bet you’re
right.
 
That’ll fix Micetich’s ass.”
 
She stepped out onto the lawn, heading for
the surgery to get Dr. Mourner.

*****

Fenaday’s
guess proved true.
 
Fury’s message drew
an answer within four hours.
 
Mandela had
covered his bet with a small Confederate task force.
 
The next morning the heavy cruiser
Challenger
and the marine attack
transport
Io
arrived from the far
side of Mur’s fourth planet.
 
The
high-speed courier accompanying them headed out to jump space to relay news of
the success.
 
Captain Altermatt, of the
Challenger
, had orders to stand off,
unless called in by Mmok, or unless he had reason to believe the expedition had
succeeded.
 
Fortunately, the cruiser captain
didn’t care for skulking and followed his orders with the greatest of latitude.

With
the
Challenger
and the attack
transport closing in, Micetich’s band of mutineers found the passive support of
the crew vanishing.
 
They couldn’t break
orbit.
 
Despite the best efforts of the
hackers among the mutineers, Fenaday’s security programs kept the main engines
locked.
 
Sidhe
stood no chance against a heavy cruiser even if they could
maneuver.
 
Figuring it was now only a
question of being killed by her own crew or a marine boarding party, Micetich
surrendered to Perez.
 
The mutineers went
to the brig, and the frigate began the delicate task of lining up for
atmospheric entry.
 
She landed in the
bay, just north of Barjan port, carefully making her way to an anchorage in the
harbor itself.

The
marine transport
Io
landed on her
jacks at the spaceport.
 
Challenger
, far too large for
atmospheric entry, assumed orbit above Barjan.
 
Io’s
marines arrived at the
embassy, raising the Confederacy’s green and yellow flag.
 

Mmok,
Cobalt and many of Mandela’s specials disappeared into the attack transport for
debriefing.
 
Fenaday and Shasti exchanged
warm farewells with Rigg, Rask, Mourner and the others who had fought alongside
them.
 
To Fenaday’s surprise, Telisan
declared he would remain with the
Sidhe
.
 
Before returning to the star-frigate
,
Fenaday sent the mutineers to the
Io
.
 
He couldn’t muster the energy to feel any hate toward them.
 
Fenaday just wanted them off his ship and
away from Shasti.
 
Mandela had promised
Fenaday and Shasti pardons and clean records, and he saw no point in taking
risks.

At
Fenaday’s insistence, a ceremony was held at the embassy to honor Belwin
Duna.
 
The captains of the
Io
and
Challenger
attended.
 
Crews
from all three ships stood at attention as Enshar’s flag climbed alongside that
of the Confederacy, to the sound of rifle volleys.
 
Fenaday added his own touch.
 
From the bay,
Sidhe
loosed a three-second barrage of chain guns and lasers.
 
The sky lit up in coruscating colors as the
lasers, changing frequencies, struck the clouds.
 
Telisan looked over at Fenaday, smiling.

The
next day, Shasti and Fenaday accompanied Telisan on his mission to recover the
fighter pilots from his squadron from the
Earhart.
 
They buried them with honors at the embassy
compound.
 
The
Wolverine
shuttles from the first expedition, they left untouched
and sealed for all time.

The
courier returned two weeks later.
 
Captain Altermatt relayed the news to them from the
Challenger
.
 
“You’ll be
pleased to know that the government of the Exiles has declared every member of
the
Sidhe
crew, including, by
accident, the mutineers, to be heroes and citizens of Enshar.
 
I have a veritable heap of medals and orders
being awarded you and your crew by transmission.
 
It looks like you could spend the next few
years traveling world to world for ceremonies.”

“Excellent,”
Fenaday said, feigning an enthusiasm he didn’t feel.
 
He hadn't given a thought to what would
follow.
 
“Any word on Mr. Mmok?”

“No
change,” Altermatt replied.
 
“He and Dr.
Mourner are heading back to Earth on the courier.
 
Maybe they can do something for him
there.
 
You can follow up with his boss
when you return to Mars.”

“Not
in this lifetime,” Fenaday said.
 
“Thank
you, Captain.”
 
He switched off the
screen.
 
Return to Mars,
Fenaday wondered.
 
Is that what I do next?
 
He pushed away thoughts of a future that he
hadn’t expected to live to see.
 
Shasti
waited for him outside.
 
For now it was
enough just to take a walk by the seaside with a pretty girl.
 
No
plans today,
he promised himself.
 
I’ll decide tomorrow.

He
found Shasti by the
Sidhe’s
dock,
waiting.
 

*****

The
next evening Fenaday, Telisan, Shasti and the ever-present Risky returned to
the ship after yet another dinner with
Io’s
officers.
 
They settled into Fenaday’s quarters
with a bottle of Denebian flowerwine, a gift from
Io’s
captain.

“I’ve
been thinking about heading back to Marsport, then on to New Eire,” Fenaday
said after pouring the wine into a motley mix of glasses he’d scrounged.
 
“Our job is done.
 
There’s no reason to stay longer.
 
We’re all well off now, and there are things,
I’m sure, that we all want to do.”

“What
will you do?” asked Shasti.
 
“Does the
search go on?”

It
took him a few seconds to reply.
 
“I
think…” he started, then stopped, as if the words themselves hurt.
 
“I think,” he repeated, “that she is… that
she must be… dead after all this time.”
 
Now the words came easier, as the wall in his mind finally
collapsed.
 
“Maybe I always knew.
 
As I look back now, maybe that’s all it
was.
 
Only my desire to hurt the
Conchirri for taking her from me.
 
Nothing nobler than that.
 
I’ve
killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of Conchirri with this ship.
 
Now, there are none left.
 
It still hurts as badly as ever.

“Duna
said that he would forgo revenge for a home.
 
Maybe he was right.
 
I broke my home, many friendships and my
family when I started this.
 
What do I
have to show for it?

“I’m
going back to New Eire to buy back my old home.
 
I would like to put the Shamrock line together again.
 
With the contract money and the exclusive
trading rights to a resettled Enshar, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Will
you keep the
Sidhe
?” asked Shasti.

“Yes,”
he said, patting the table affectionately.
 
“She’ll be the flagship.
 
The old
girl will have to work for a living, but I can afford her now.”

“For
me,” said Telisan, “it is back to my world, to see my family and a young lady
or two of my own kind.
 
There are plans
that have been on hold for far too long.”

Fenaday
looked at Shasti, the question lodged in his throat.
 
Is it
right to ask,
he wondered.
 
There’s so much between us, but is it
something that can last?
 
She’ll live
probably fifty years longer than I will.
 
She’s young, beautiful and now rich.
 
I’ll never entirely get over Lisa.
 
Shasti deserves someone of her own, without such unfinished business
hanging on him.
 
It was selfish to
ask, or to offer, but he found himself speaking anyway.
 
“What about you, Shasti?
 
What do you want?”

Shasti
looked over at him, her eyes shuttered, seeming to weigh something.
 
“I have debts owed and owing,” she
replied.
 
“I wish to deal with those.”

Well, there it is,
he thought.

“There
is something I want to ask you,” she continued unexpectedly.

“Like
I said before, the answer is yes,” he replied.

“I
want you to keep Risky for me while I’m gone.
 
I’d also like to keep my cabin on the
Sidhe
.
 
It’s the closest
thing I have to a home.”

He
felt the knot in his chest loosen, glad she wouldn’t vanish from his life.

“You’ll
always find Risky and your cabin safe with me,” Fenaday said.
 
“I’ll go you one better.
 
If I can get the old family home back, there
will always be a place for you there for so long as you live.”

“That
sounds good,” she said.
 
Her eyes held
his, the slightest of smiles played on her lips.
 
“A rest, a time of safety, might be a good
idea, before I attend to my other business.
 
Perhaps it would be as well to let those matters wait a while longer.”

“If it’s
the business I think it is, then you’ll need my help,” Fenaday said, unable to
find more words.

Telisan
looked at his two friends with more understanding than either would have been
comfortable with.
 
He sighed
internally.
 
He saw them caught between
pasts they could not let go of and futures they wouldn’t seize.
 
Telisan feared for them both, but now was not
the time to speak of it.

“Then
we are decided,” said Fenaday.
 
“Homeward
bound.”

A day
later,
Sidhe
pulled out of the
harbor, painfully gathering enough speed to break free of the sea.
 
With a roar of engines, the blood-red frigate
shrugged free of the ocean, heading upward.
  
She pierced the atmosphere of Enshar, returning to the icy embrace of
space, bathed by the unblinking light of the stars.

On
her bridge, side by side, Telisan, Shasti and Fenaday looked into the
brilliance of the stars and saw their paths.

The End