Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (26 page)

The display showed a wide yellow box with a red flashing ring.

He paused with a fork full of noodles halfway to his mouth. The message didn’t flash, or blare, or do anything beside inform him that in four weeks the UCS-1134 would disassemble. It instructed him to return to the nearest UC shipyard for urgent maintenance. He reread it and set the noodles back down. Urgent maintenance, he liked the way it was phrased. As if disassembling a ship in the vacuum of space wasn’t urgent.

He sighed and found his appetite gone. Four weeks. In four weeks they could hit the shipyard on Epsilon Eridani. His plans suddenly stumbled and he was struck with doubt. Could they stay? He felt foolish—prisoners, monks, an orbital assault? Really?

“Captain?” Shay’s voice called in his ear.

“Just hold on, Shay,” William replied. He stared down at the maintenance alert.

“You need to get up here, Captain.”

“What is it?” William replied, annoyed. He wanted to be left in his cloud of doubt.

“A message, sir.”

He looked up from the tablet. “Emilie?”

“The Hun,” she said. “They’ve issued an ultimatum.”

*

H
e stared down at his console and read through it again. They gave him an out, offered to let him leave. They could just go. No pursuit. “If we stay, they start shooting civilians,” he said flatly.

The star system was broad in one screen with a simulated exit path illuminated across it. The orbit of the planets was plotted out showing various intercept points and priority Haydn routes.

Huron filed in with Corporal Vale. The bridge was now about as tight as it could get.

“I received a command priority maintenance alert,” William said. “We have four weeks to get to a UC shipyard.”

He felt sunk, like the ship was about to steer itself. He could return, salvage a few careers, and go to fight another day. “This isn’t our fight anymore.”

Lieutenant Shay clambered over her chair and grasped the seatback with white knuckles. She glared at William. “You listen to me, goddammit. We followed you this far—not because of you, but because it was the right thing. And now what? They open a door and you walk?”

William stared down at his XO and felt both anger and regret. “We’ve got a duty to the UC, we have our orders,” he said weakly. His heart wasn’t behind the words.

“Bullshit,” she spat again. “We took an oath to the Covenant, just like you said. We can do this! We can make a damn difference here. You of all people should know that.”

The words stung and William felt it in his heart. The memory of his father, the last commander of Farshore, fighting for the freedom of the planet. Fighting the UN Navies, an enemy he couldn’t beat. When he finally did win, they burned the planet. Which brought him full circle to the Covenant and the United Colonies, that noble document they all swore to. Not to a nation, or a state, but to rights common to all.

He looked to Shay and then down to Bryce. His eyes swung over to Huron, the man who’d stood with him on another ship. Another disaster. Finally over to Corporal Vale, a woman who’d have to tame a den of lions, and then make them fight.

What about me? he thought. All I have to do is kill that ship.

Shay opened her mouth and swelled up again. William raised a hand and silenced her.

“You’re right,” William said.

The words caught in her mouth and she pulled back. Huron nodded and nudged Vale. The atmosphere on the bridge shifted and the confidence crept back in. William sat slowly and erased the nav plot leading out and instead changed it to lead directly to Winterthur.

“Get the monastery on the horn. Same with the warden of that prison ship. Shay, will everyone fit?”

Shay glanced over at a set of schematics rolling across her console. “Yes, sir!”

“This needs to happen quick like. Once they see us blink it’s game on.” He looked up at the narrow white line that burned straight for Winterthur. “Run the plots, we’ve got to cover that dropship.”

Huron glanced over at Vale. “Additive cells are producing. But we’re going to run out of binders.”

“Not enough weapons?” Shay asked.

“There’s enough,” Vale said. “They’ll just pick ‘em up from the dead ones.”

“Anything from the ground?” Bryce asked.

“Don’t count on it until we’ve heard from Emilie,” William said. “Now I’ve got to convince an Abbot to lend us his ship.”

“What about the prisoners?” Bryce asked.

“I’m not worried about that conversation. We’ll offer the one thing they want.”

“Freedom,” Bryce replied with a smile.

*

T
he Abbot was slender in the cheeks with the posture of an accountant. His hair was a subtle tint of gray that blended in the edges into a frizzy white. The hair seemed even whiter in contrast to his almost soot black skin. One eye was missing in a shiny tuft of scar tissue and the other was milky and round like a potato. He stared into the screen and was silent like a sentinel.

William sat and waited for his message to reach the monk. The light lag was just long enough to make conversation awkward, but not so long that it could be put off. So he spoke, and watched a face that was a few minutes old. Three minutes there, and three minutes for the reaction to get back.

He wanted to address the Abbot as Captain, a rank the man once held, but instead stuck to the current title. The Abbot had a steady Naval career that ended, abruptly, in solemn retirement. The records didn’t say how he lost his vision. After retiring, William assumed.

The Abbot nodded slowly into the camera and listened attentively. His face slid away from curious and merged firmly into stern. Eyebrows knotted and his mouth moved slightly, but no sounds came out. He sucked in a deep breath of air through his nose and nodded slowly.

William watched and waited for the reply. He felt a knot in his stomach but also a hope, the majority of the monks and nuns were ex-military. But even if his appeal to their sense of duty worked, the thought of a few hundred convicts...

“Captain Grace,” Abbot Kyenge said slowly and deliberately. “You ask of us something that pains me deeply.”

William kept his face still, tried not to show any emotion. He knew how easy it was to scrutinize and pick apart someone when the light lag was so long.

“I am the voice of this order, and this is my decision.” The Abbot paused and looked conflicted.

William wanted to speak, to argue his case, and caught himself before his excitement got the better of him. The feed was over three minutes old.

“We will help you,” the Abbot said in a strained voice. “But we will do no violence. After the capsules are launched, we will depart. And we will depart with any who wish to come.”

He tried not to smile, did everything he could to look as serious as possible, but a little crook edged up on the corner of his mouth. “Thank you, Abbot Kyenge. My XO Lieutenant Ali Shay and my Engineer Ebenezer Huron will coordinate. We will transfer over my Marines to command the drop. We are indebted to you and your order.” He finished his words and waited as professionally as he could manage for the reply.

Six minutes later the feed came and the Abbot smiled. “You’re welcome, Captain, but I risk much, I trust you can keep us safe.” The Abbot looked hard into the camera and let the words sink in. “Sister Dandalaza asked about the woman she dropped off. If you know anything, could you inform us? God Bless.”

The feed dropped out and the screen turned to black.

“You heard the man!” William said. “Shay, Huron, lay it out, make sure those capsules will launch. They must have a few retired engineers in the mix.”

*

T
he face of Shin Xin wasn’t nearly as regal to stare at for three minutes. The space behind the Warden was a shabby wall with the curling growth of a whitish gray bacteria. Shin raised a dirty finger and scratched the side of his nose. He had the look of someone who walked into a conversation without knowing the beginning or end.

William sat as rigidly as he had with the Abbot and watched for a reaction. Any reaction. The legal situation with the prisoners was a bit unusual. On one hand, they were wards of the Core Corporation, but the web of ownership made it unclear who exactly had legal authority. William believed that he, the sole UC officer in the system, could authorize the release.

Shin squinted and his mouth opened, showing a row of yellow stained teeth. He nodded slowly without ever closing his mouth. “Uh.” He raised a finger and stepped away from the desk.

Shin called from off camera. “Well, if you say you’re the boss, then you’re the boss. But you should ask the inmates. Lemme feed it to the screen inside.”

A grime stained security camera dangled into view. A little red light poked on.

“Hi guys. This here is Captain Grace, he has something to ask,” Shin said.

Is this for real? he wondered. Prisoners. No use laying it on thick, time to make it count. “The Hun attacked Winterthur. I need people who can fight. You’ll earn your freedom when it’s all done. Full pardon.”

Shin walked across the view of the camera and a bulkhead opened and closed. Then he came back and gave a grimy thumbs up. He smiled. “They’ll do it. I think you had ‘em at fight. You mind if I come, too?”

William laughed a little. “Of course Mr. Xin, we’ll take anyone we can get. We’ll have the monastery move and dock.
Garlic
out.”

The screen turned to dark and the bridge returned to life. The crew was silent throughout the exchange. Now the taps of fingertips and the shuffling of feet proved that they were working.

“Ping the Abbot, tell him it’s a go.” William glanced up at the simulated plots and saw one choice after another play through. The statistical process drummed on through every possibility.

He liked the dance of numbers. He liked how sometimes the simulation proved everyone wrong and found a very unique solution. But mostly he liked that when you ran a program like this, you were going to get into a fight.

Mustafa. He looked up at the system plot and saw the data pulsing in from his orbital. Every time it orbited away from the scrutiny of the elevator complex and the
Gallipoli
,it sent out a burst of data. It was choppy, rough, but it told him that the
Gallipoli
was there. Not docked, but waiting.

“Captain?” Huron asked over the comms.

“Go ahead,” William replied.

“Two things. One, the cell is done. We’re plum out of iridium binder. The other thing is, uh, we’re seeing some small scale delaminations in the hull armor.”

William licked his lips. The thought of the vacuum coming in sat with him right in his gut. “Get the weapons on board, I’ll come give a hand. Anything we can do about the hull?”

“Nope,” Huron replied with a pop. “But we should keep suits close.”

“Great,” Shay said.

“Finish the plots,” William said to Shay and Bryce, as he scanned the walls of the bridge.

The weapons rolled through in heavy carts normally used to shift minerals. They brought the carts to the edge of the airlock and passed each weapon through individually. One Marine stood at the edge of the grav field and tossed the weapons into the umbilical.

They sailed through the zero-g and were caught on the opposite side. Weapons lined every hall, door, and space where they would fit. In the zero gravity areas they were strapped to ceilings and floors. Even the meager crew quarters took on the look of an armory. Bulk bags of caseless ammunition slabs sat askew in every corner. “Enough ammo here for a helluva party,” Huron said to William.

The bridge crew settled on a course and they began a slow burn away from the asteroid station and farther into the debris field.

William stared at the course and traced the line with his eyes. A nudge around a sizable asteroid and then into the center of the system. He paused where two lines met. “How long after the monastery blinks will they know?”

Shay answered without looking up. “Seventeen minutes.”

Bryce whistled through the gap in his teeth. “Think they’ll know it’s not us?”

“Most likely, the signatures will be too different. Once they see that blink, they’ll come and chase. By that point, we’ll blink ahead of the monastery.”

Shay smiled. “And then we can finish this.”

Bryce darted his tongue through the gap in his teeth and looked to William. “Captain, what if they don’t chase?”

William was afraid of that. If they hung close to the gravity well, they’d have the ability to use his velocity against him. “Well, then we’ll get in close and give ‘em hell.”

“All right, Captain, two hours and we’ll meet the dropship,” Shay said.

The bridge crew watched as the icons glowed with acceleration markers. The meager fleet was slipping off to war.

––––––––

N
atyasha sat and listened to the sound of footsteps in the hall. She didn’t much care who, or what, it was. The pace told her it wasn’t Bark. The weight of it told her it wasn’t Malic. The tempo told her it wasn’t the Governor. She felt afraid for a moment and focused on the tap, tap, tap.

Mahindra stepped into the doorway and drew away her shawl with a frail hand. “Natyasha,” she said in a voice surprisingly strong for her physique. Her eyes wore the look of someone with a burden.

“Councilor Mahindra,” Natyasha said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Mahindra waved a hand and stepped inside the meager office. “I’m too old to be bothered.” She sat in a chair of sculpted wood and ran her palm up and down the armrest. Her eyes rose to Natyasha and the creases spread on her face into a comforting smile.

“But you bothered to come see me?” Natyasha said. She felt a touch of something, a real connection that she hadn’t felt in a long time. A part of her wanted to reach forward and grasp the hand but instead she savored the feeling.

“Things are going poorly.”

Natyasha looked away and nodded.

“More people are being rounded up. They are sending them out to the immigration district.”

“Are they?” Natyasha asked. She’d heard they were being interned with the immigrants, but saw no reason to debate. The feeling of helplessness sucked the fight right out of her.