Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (2 page)

Chapter 1

Petty Officer Third Class Kelsea Travere slowed her pace and cocked her head as she noted the skipper was at the navigational station. She frowned thoughtfully. “Something wrong, Skipper?”

The captain didn't look her way, just kept working at the console. When she was finished, she plugged a chip in and then turned. “No, nothing is wrong.”

“Um …”

“Captain, something's going on with the computer,” PO Blake Hale said from his post manning the ship's sensors. “I just lost all the log files … there is a script going on … do we have another virus?”

“Indeed we do,” the captain said as she noted the 100 percent mark on the screen in front of her. She pulled the flash chip and then placed it on a chain. The chain went around her neck. “I just deleted our navigational data,” she said.

“Um …”

“The only record I've kept is with me. And I've encrypted it,” she said.

“We're only going to exit in Nightingale, ma'am.”

“That's not the only reason I'm doing it.”

Blake frowned thoughtfully as Kelsea came over to relieve him. He rose from the chair, and she slipped in his place.

“We're exiting hyper in a few minutes, ma'am. Why did you do that? It might throw our heading off a bit since we no longer have the way markers behind us to compare to,” Blake said carefully.

“My business,” the captain said tightly, eyes narrowing.

Kelsea frowned as she put the arm of the chair down and then logged into the computer. She checked the status board and nodded.

“Paranoid much, ma'am?” Blake asked, not ready to let the subject go.

“Just being careful. I don't want our find to be taken from us,” she stated.

“I like the sound of the 'us' there, ma'am,” Chief Faver stated as he came in to the compartment behind them.

Captain Bellerose eyed him, sizing up his loyalty. She wasn't certain if the chief or anyone else had made a copy of their log. She hadn't seen a copy mark in the file, but then again that was easy to delete. He hesitated then seemed to ignore her look as he went over to the electronic box connected to the helm station.

“A problem, Chief?” Kelsea asked.

“Some signal noise we're trying to run down and clean up. The software filters keep pointing to a hardware issue.”

“Okay,” Kelsea replied thoughtfully. The chief was hopefully on to something.
Marengo
had the occasional filter issue from time to time that haunted the crew—more so now with their new additions to the ship's bridge network. She watched out of the corner of her eye as the chief hooked up his gear to test the data lines. It sucked that they'd run electrical lines not ODN. They hadn't had any spare ODN lines long enough for the project.

It also sucked that the lines ran through the ship's hatches. At least the chief had been smart enough to drape it rather than have it as a trip point. Only the tall people had to watch out for it.

But what interested her the most about his temporary distraction was that he was watching the skipper intently. And from the occasional look she managed to sneak to the skipper, she was also aware of the subterfuge going on.

“As you were people,” the captain said. “I'll be in my wardroom,” she said as she stalked out of the compartment without a backwards glance.

The chief seemed to exhale like air coming out of a balloon. Kelsea shook her head and then went back to refining the sensor data for the transition out of hyper.

:::{)(}:::

Kelsea's day wasn't quite over when she got off shift. She picked up her dinner and then went to the compartment where the aliens were. She had a stable stomach, but the stench hit her right when she came through the airlock Doctor Cloutier had set up to prevent it from fumigating the ship.

“Your turn? Thank the gods,” Maevus said, shaking her head as she got off the stool. She handed Kelsea a tablet and darted through the hatch before the other woman could say anything.

She juggled the tablet, her drink and plate until she got to the stool. She heard a soft moan but ignored it. She took a seat and started to read out loud in-between bites.

It was all a part of the service apparently; the boss lady wanted everyone to get familiar with their prizes and to read to them. It wasn't quite out of a mommy complex; the doc insisted seeing humans in a nonthreatening light would help them with their interactions. And tone mattered apparently so, hence, the reading. It was also an attempt to keep the aliens sane; something that was a worry of the doctor.

They knew the aliens couldn't understand them, nor vice versa. The skipper had thought to set up the life support, harvested from a Gashg habitat, but she hadn't factored on the need to communicate with a species that didn't understand them in return. Doctor Cloutier had also overlooked the problem, and he kept muttering about their universal translators.

Whatever. It didn't matter. An order was an order, so Kelsea stood her shift like everyone else. She refused to barter to cover other shifts for other people though, no matter what they offered her in return. She wasn't
that
much of a masochist, thank you very much, she thought acidly. She glanced at the clock and then took a sip of tepid water. There was a sputter in the tank. She glanced at it, then back down to the tablet.

She was so not amused when she realized she was reading
Moby Dick
.

:::{)(}:::

Sputtersque noted the new human but ignored her. She and Brrfrak had long since given up attempting to communicate with the two-legs … humans. Whatever.

She'd almost given up talking to her partner. She'd been sullen for weeks blaming him for their sordid state. She hadn't let go of the matter, but she'd come to miss talking to someone. Besides, if she had to endure hell at least he was along with her.

He deserved that much.

She glanced at the human again with an eye stalk as she fluttered a fin. The last human had been like this one with globs of fat tissue on its chest below the shoulders. She wasn't certain what to make of it, nor of the thin strand like tentacles they had on the top of their heads where a blow hole rightly should be.

:::{)(}:::

Sputtersque refused to eat. When that caught the attention of their captors, the two-leg who attended to them used rigid structures to force her beak open, then some sort of clear tube was fed into her mouth and deep into her guts. She was fed like that until she felt bloated and heavy.

She thrashed in her tank but to no avail. When she soiled herself, she flicked her flukes and flippers to move the waste to her beak and then sucked it in in an attempt to clog the tube or dislodge it. She bashed her body against the tank in discontent whenever a two-leg came into their squalid compartment. Her keening seemed to deafen her partner.

“We are miserable. They can see it. They tend to us but love …”

“This is your fault!” she lashed out at Brrfrak. He had no defense and knew it. He hung his head in shame.

She lashed out each time the two-legs attempted to force feed her. When she knocked a few of them and cut one up with her tentacles, they retaliated. Brrfrak was forced to watch in horror as they cut off her fins and tentacles one by one.

In shock Sputtersque dropped to the bottom of the tank and tried to die by sucking water into her blowhole. The two-legs used straps to force her to the surface as they drained the water and flushed it. She hung there limp in the straps as the two-leg who cared for them used another tube to suck as much of the dirty water out of her lungs as he could. He then listened to her flank with another tube.

Brrfrak was distressed by the whole situation. He knew he was watching his future mate die. There was nothing he could do about it. His impotence made him angry, not just at the two-legs who he now considered a mortal enemy but also at himself.

:::{)(}:::

“Doctor …”

“I'm sorry, Captain, but she is suicidal and there is nothing we can do to get her out of it. Worse, her lungs still have fluids in them. We can't get them out. She's developing some sort of pneumonia. The infections are spreading.”

“Give her antibiotics! Something!” Captain Bellerose raged.

“Don't you think I haven't tried?” the doctor replied in despair. “We can only hope at this point that she'll pull through. That some spark will remain. But since she's giving up, I find it highly doubtful.”

“Don't you give up,” the captain said, suddenly realizing he was serious. “I want you to be in there with them, every moment.” She pointed at the door. “Every moment, Doctor. Piss in a bottle, shit in a bucket, whatever it takes. Neither one of them expire on your watch or mine. Got it?”

“I'll certainly do my best,” the doctor replied with a nod.

She eyed him coldly. “Do better.” He winced as she stalked off seething. But at least he didn't have to endure her presence anymore.

No, he'd get it later when the inevitable happened.

:::{)(}:::

Kelsea did her best to be on hand with Doc Cloutier, help him with whatever he needed to do, but she knew despair and inevitability when she saw it. She'd seen it when her gram had slowly died in the hospital years ago. When her uncle had been crushed in an accident and left to die in a hospital bed, withering away. There was nothing they could do but accept it.

She was the only one who came into the compartment on a regular basis—well, her, Bruno, and Mackey. The others only stayed when duty required, and they lit out as fast as they could when that duty was filled.

She couldn't blame them.

:::{)(}:::

Sputtersque's hearts couldn't take the stress; she was pushed past her limits. Brrfrak watched them flutter, watched her dorsal blowhole gasp in and out in harsh rasps. He wasn't sure why he lived on, what drove him to meekly accept their shared fate while she rebelled so strongly against it.

Finally, in the night as the two-legs dozed, her hearts stopped. Alarms sounded and the two-legs tried to revive her. A part of him wanted them to succeed but another didn't. Another wanted her to succeed in her final wish. Her final curse to him, to live alone with their tormentors. His penance he realized, his final punishment for bringing them to that fate. His eyes closed in pain as the two-legs gave up their efforts. After a long moment, they turned to look at him, expecting him to give up on life as well.

:::{)(}:::

More care was taken with the male once the female died. “We need to keep him engaged,” Doctor Cloutier stated.

“And how do you propose you do that, Doctor?” Chief Faver asked.

“We can't talk to him,” D' Angelo stated. “So …”

“We need games. Something to get him curious and out of his shell. Something to focus his mind and get him to not worry about himself.”

“A renewed purpose. You said will is important, Doctor,” Kelsea said, wrapping her arms around her chest.

“Yes. I know we're talking about stopping in Nightingale for supplies.”

“We have to. We won't have enough fuel or fish paste to go further, Doc,” Mackey said. “It's the one golden moment out of this mess, the death of one of them has freed up enough fish paste to make sure the other has enough to eat to get there.”

“Okay, so … what if we tried to train him? To be useful?” Kelsea said.

Chief Faver wrinkled his nose at her. “Like?” he asked dubiously.

“I don't know; I'm just throwing the idea out there and seeing if it sticks,” Kelsea admitted.

“It won't. Like we could get him to do anything,” Mackey said. “Do what, bob in the tank?”

“No, she's right,” the doctor said slowly. The others turned to stare at him. “Chief, I think I've got an idea, but it's going to take your people and some sacrifices from the crew if we're going to pull it off.”

“Okay.”

“The good news is, if it works we'll shave our transit time down a lot,” the doctor mused, thinking hard and fast. “We'll need to tie into the ship's systems—the computers of course, but the helm as well.”

“You're thinking about communicating? Wait, why the helm?” Chief Faver demanded, eying the doctor with a grim look.

“You'll see,” the doctor said.

“I think we'll all see, but you'd better run it past the skipper first,” the Chief replied ominously.

“Plan to stop in Nightingale and along the way to get fish paste.”

:::{)(}:::

To their surprise the captain bought into the plan and gave it her blessings. They had to try something, and she knew it might be a Hail Mary, but it was the only thing they could try. It wasn't like they could turn around and drop the thing off! Not that she would. She'd get a token reward if and when they brought a body back, but a living specimen was far more important.

Doctor Cloutier's plan was for the crew to hack a VR headset. While he worked on the body of the female Ssilli, the engineers rigged the convoluted device to the Ssilli's eyes stalks. The device fed basic image data to communicate with the alien in rudimentary terms as well as a simulation of helming a ship in hyperspace. The computer and attempt to communicate sparked a withered bit of curiosity in Brrfrak, though he couldn't wear the device for long without the need of lubrication for his eyes.