Bringing Stella Home (37 page)

More than half her crew had been
killed or critically wounded. Abu Kariym, their sole medical
specialist, was working overtime to save as many as possible, but
there was no way he could save all of them. Even among those he
could treat, many needed prosthetics and rejuvenations—medical
supplies that they simply didn’t have.

In a few moments, Danica arrived at
the ship’s medical facility. Abu Kariym was too busy with surgery
to greet her, so she made her way to the patients’ quarters alone.
When she reached the door to Roman’s room, she hesitated for a
moment before keying the access panel. The door hissed open, and
she forced herself to step inside.

Roman lay shirtless on his bed, wires
and tubes sticking out of his chest. A respirator covered his mouth
and nose, connected by a long clear tube to an enormous oxygen tank
in the corner of the room. Various IVs fed into his right arm—his
only surviving arm. The left side of his torso had practically been
blown away. His face was horribly disfigured, his cheek charred,
with holes burned through the skin in places. A makeshift plastic
graft covered the worst of it, but still revealed the teeth and
jawbone underneath. Fearing infection, Abu Kariym had surgically
removed his left eye; an ugly black patch covered the empty
socket.

God, he must be in
pain,
Danica thought in dismay.
Why didn’t I stock up on medical supplies when we
were at Kardunash IV?
I should have at
least bought some decent prosthetics.

“
Captain?” came Abu
Kariym’s voice. Danica spun around quickly; the short old man had
slipped in without her noticing. Despite the bags under his eyes,
he had a kind, almost fatherly expression on his face.

“
Doctor,” she said in a low
voice, soft enough that Roman couldn’t hear. “Are you sure your
prognosis wasn’t too optimistic? He looks bad—real bad.”

The old man smiled wearily. “Don’t
worry; his situation is not critical. I expect he’ll make a
satisfactory recovery.”

Satisfactory?
What kind of recovery was ‘satisfactory’ when half
your body was blown away?

The old man laid a hand on Danica’s
shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself, Captain,” he said. “You didn’t
pull the trigger.”

“
Maybe not, but it’s still
my fault he’s lying in that bed.”

“
Roman wouldn’t say so. He
knew the risk he was taking. Praise God, he saved almost a dozen
men with his sacrifice—it’s a miracle he’s still alive.”

Some
miracle
,
Danica
thought, staring at her disfigured master sergeant.

“
Is there anything I can do
for you, Captain?” Abu Kariym asked. “Anything at all?”

“
Nothing more than you
already are, Doctor,” said Danica. “Keep trying to save my men.
That’s all I ask.”

“
Yes, Captain.” Abu Kariym
bowed and stepped out of the room, leaving her and Roman
alone.

Danica took a deep breath and walked
to the side of her old friend’s bed. His good eye opened slightly,
and with great effort, he glanced up at her. Slowly, painstakingly,
he lifted his right arm to a salute and opened his
mouth.

“
Good—day, Captain,” he
croaked. “Good day to be alive.”

“
At ease,” Danica
murmured.

Roman lowered his arm. Something half
resembling a grin spread across the good half of his
face.

“
The men are safe,
yes?”

“
Yes,” said Danica. She bit
her lip.

“
Good.” He blinked, eye
closed for a couple of seconds. “I think—I think the bastards got
me.”

Danica gently ran her hand along his
bald forehead. His skin felt unnervingly warm. “I heard you saved
the lives of a dozen men back there.”

He grunted. “So many? I am glad to
hear it.”

“
Don’t sacrifice yourself
like that again,” she said without thinking. “The men need you,
Roman—I need you.”

The grin evaporated from his face.
With his good arm, he reached out and took her hand.

“
Danica,” he said,
squeezing her wrist with his rough, calloused fingers. “Do not
blame yourself for this. You did good—damn good. Better than
me.”

She opened her mouth but caught
herself before she could argue with him. That wasn’t what he needed
right now.

“
Your father would be
proud,” he continued. “Because of you, we are alive today. You are
first captain to defeat the Hameji.”

It wasn’t me,
she wanted to say
.
I don’t deserve the credit.
Why the Hameji had frozen in mid-battle like dead robots,
Danica didn’t know. She didn’t think she ever would.

“
Even so,” said Danica,
“I’m terminating our contract with the boy before any more of us
get killed.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed. “You are
quitting the mission?”

“
I’m pulling out while
we’re still ahead. We’ve got the captured Hameji transport—we can
use that to pay off Balthazar. If we can arrange to
meet—”

“
Captain,” Roman groaned.
Danica grew silent.

“
Yes, Sergeant?”

With titanic effort, he closed his eye
and leaned back, letting go of her hand.

“
You are not thinking
straight. Do not decide now. Sleep on it.”

“
I have to do what’s best
for my crew,” she said. “This contract is no longer in our
interest.”

“
Was it ever?” He opened
his good eye again and stared at her. “It is not only about money,
Captain. It never was. You are not mercenary at heart—you are too
much like your father.”

Danica’s face tightened. She stood up
straight.

“
Thank you for your
counsel, Roman,” she said. “Get well soon. That’s an
order.”

He nodded, his chin moving only a
fraction of an inch. “Yes, Captain.”

She left the room without another
word.

* * * * *

James stood at attention,
surrounded by the entire surviving crew of the
Tajji Flame.
Several of them wore the
olive green fatigues of the now defunct Tajji rebels, while others
wore dress uniforms unfamiliar to him. In his civilian clothes,
James felt decidedly out of place, but no one seemed to notice or
care. They stood as still as statues, as silent as
ghosts.

Ghosts,
James thought to himself. That’s what he felt
like—a ghost.

The windows of the
observation deck revealed a stunning view of the starfield, only a
little dimmed by Karduna Prime in the distance. Set like an amber
gemstone on a shimmering velvet pillow,
the
star of James’s home shone like
an island
of light, a pocket of humanity in the midst of a cold, empty
abyss.

Danica paced at the head of the room,
in front of the window. The lights in the room had been dimmed so
that James could only make out her silhouette. Even so, her
presence was no less commanding.

“
Men,” she began, “We have
gathered together to honor our comrades in arms who died in battle.
Many of them were close friends, yours as well as mine. They may
have died to save us, but that knowledge does little to dull the
edge of our grief.

“
There are some who would
say these men died for nothing—that they gambled with their lives
and lost. After all, what cause does a mercenary fight for? For
country? No. For freedom? No. For some grand idea or truth? No.
Then why?”

She paused. The tension in the room
was electric.

“
Take a good, hard look at
yourselves,” Danica continued, emotion rising in her voice. “Why
are you here? Why did you put your lives in danger by joining this
mercenary outfit? You there, soldier—you fought in the revolution,
didn’t you? You had a cause back then—something to fight for. Why
aren’t you fighting for it now?”

Silence.

“
I’ll tell you why. You’re
here because you have nowhere else to go. The occupation took
everything you’d ever fought for—they would have killed you, too,
but you ran away. And then, when you ran, you realized you had no
place to go. Am I right?

“
I’ll tell you why you’re
here, men,” she said, addressing the whole room. “You’re here
because the rest of civilized society has thrown you out. You don’t
belong with them. They fear you because of what you can do—because
of what you’ve done. You’ll never have a home with them.

“
So where is our home?
Where do we belong? Right here on this ship, that’s
where.”

James felt a thrill go down his spine.
Even though he couldn’t see her eyes, he felt as if she were
looking him square in the face.

“
When we fight,” Danica
continued, “we fight to defend each other. This ship is our society
now, and we share a bond deeper than death. Those who died at the
hands of the Hameji died so that you could live. Never forget that,
men—never forget it.”

Danica stood for a second, framed by
the stars, before joining the ranks with the others to face the
window. Sergeant Maria stepped forward.

“
I will read out the names
as their bodies are released,” Maria said. “We will hold salute
until the reading of the names is complete.”

She paused and took in a deep breath.
“Company, salute!”

All the men and woman on the deck
brought up their hands in one perfectly unified motion.

“
Private Brian
Esteb.”

The floor rocked slightly under
James’s feet, and a black shape flew out of the mass accelerator
cannon, hurtling towards Karduna Prime. The hum of the engines
reverberated through the floor and walls.

“
Private Agripina Dutko.”
The floor rocked again, and another body bag shot out towards the
distant star.

“
Private Dane Moldonado.”

“
Private Sadye Mermis.”

“
Private Kendrick Kilchner.”

“
Private Madalene Grandin.”

“
Private Bassilia Zadroga.”

“
Private Clarinda Yeubanks.”

“
Corporal Cyrus
Virani.”

“
Corporal Aaron
Venture.”

“
Corporal Lincoln
Oherron.”

“
Corporal Erin
Dubyk.”

“
Corporal Meda
Ardry.”

“
Sergeant Artyom
Romonov.”

One by one, their bodies fell toward
the star, vanishing into the void of eternal night.

“
Ben McCoy,” Maria read.
One last body shot outward.

James felt his eyes burn with tears.
He squinted to keep his vision clear, struggling to keep sight of
the black body bag for a few more seconds. All too soon, it
disappeared from his view.

Ben’s physical remains were gone now,
tumbling through the infinite vacuum of space. One day, hundreds of
years in the future, his body would reach Karduna Prime and plunge
into its fiery surface. The star would consume his mortal
tabernacle, purging his remains with its nuclear fire until every
atom in his body was reduced to formless plasma. The hydrogen would
gradually migrate to the stellar core, fueling the reaction that
dispensed life-giving warmth throughout the system. The denser
elements, however—carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and other
trace elements—would churn about the fiery sphere for over a
billion years, until the last of the star’s fuel was spent and the
once-proud sun collapsed in on itself.

There, long after the end of human
history, Ben’s remains would finally come to rest. A neutron star
would make a fitting tombstone, lasting almost to
eternity.

But before all of that, Ben’s body
would spend the next few centuries falling through the icy cold
depths of space. James would live out his entire mortal life long
before his brother reached his final destination.

The soldiers let down their
salutes and silently left the room one by one. James stayed behind,
however, still staring out the window. When he was finally alone,
he pressed his face against the glass and mentally traced the
orbits of the planets, with
Kardunash
III
on the opposite side of
Karduna
Prime from
Kardunash IV
. There, on
the K-4 side, the main Hameji fleet sat at the third Lagrangian
point.

And Stella was with them.

He brought his hand up to
the window as if to reach out to her. Ben might be gone, but Stella
was still out there. N
o matter what it
took, he would find her and bring her home.

Part III:
Stella

Chapter 19

Stella closed her eyes as the hot
pressurized water ran over her skin, washing away the stench of her
marriage night. Almost immediately, she picked up the shower sponge
and started scrubbing herself. The wedding night was over, but her
body still remembered it vividly. She felt as if her own flesh was
rebelling against her, swooning with sensations that she didn’t
fully understand. In some ways, the scrubbing was a punishment for
that—punishment for allowing Qasar to violate her.