Bringing Stella Home (43 page)

“
I’m sorry it had to come
to this, Ensign,” Danica said, forcing out the words. “We’ll hold
you in the brig only until we put into port. There, we’ll release
you with fifty percent of the proceeds from the sale of your ship,
as we agreed.”

“
Fifty percent?” said
Vaclav.

“
I didn’t ask for your
opinion on this matter, Nicholson.” Vaclav stared at her as if she
were crazy, but thankfully kept his comments to himself.

James squirmed under the flight
lieutenant’s grasp. “You can’t do this to me!”

“
On the contrary,” said
Danica. “I can, and I am.”

“
But—please! I already
talked with Anya, and she—”

The door hissed open, and Peter and
Nicholas stepped through, stunner prods in their hands. Danica
nodded.

“
Take the ensign to the
brig,” she ordered. “He’s to remain there until I see fit to
release him.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

Vaclav stood up, and the two privates
lifted James bodily to his feet.

“
Try not to be too rough
with him,” Danica added.

“
Captain!” James shouted
after her. Before he could say anything else, the soldiers dragged
him out the door.

* * * * *

Anya cracked open the sim unit and
glanced down at her blinking wrist console. Sure enough, it was a
summons to the bridge. She stretched, then rose to her feet,
leaving the sim unit open behind her.

As she walked down the hallway, three
men turned the corner ahead of her: Peter, Nicholas, and a third
between them whose face she couldn’t quite see. Both privates
carried stunners in their hands, and as they turned to let her
pass, she recognized the one they were escorting.

It was James.

His eyes lit up immediately. “Anya?”
he said. “Anya! Please, you have to help me—”

A prod from one of the stunners made
him scream out in pain. The unexpected act of violence made Anya
jump.

“
What’s going on?” she
asked.

“
We’re throwing the ensign
in the brig,” said Peter. “Captain’s orders.”

Without another word, they marched
off. James turned around to say something, but another prod from
the stunner caught him before he could speak. He cried out in pain
as the privates muscled him around the next corner.

What the hell is going
on?

Danica was the only one on the bridge
when Anya arrived. She sat in her command chair facing the
starfield, staring at nothing at all.

“
Captain,” said Anya,
saluting.

“
Sikorsky,” said Danica,
still facing the starfield. “I need you to dock with the
Catriona
and set a course
for Kardunash VII.”

Anya frowned. The only
reason to take the
Catriona
to port was to sell it. A cold feeling grew in her
stomach, and her palms started to feel sweaty.

“
Kardunash VII?”

“
Yes,” said Danica.
“Kardunash VII.”

“
What about the rescue
mission?”

Danica sighed. “Did the ensign tell
you I was putting together a commando team?”

“
Yes.”

“
He lied. I never gave any
command of the sort.”

“
Oh.”

Anya took her seat at the
pilot’s chair, completely at a loss from the sudden turn of events.
With a shaky hand, she activated her terminal and plugged in the
coordinates for K-7. While the nav-comp ran the calculations for
the jump, she gripped the joystick and made ready to dock with
the
Catriona.

“
Are you sure about this,
Captain?” she asked abruptly, surprising herself with the sound of
her voice. “The Hameji transport is outfitted and ready to go. We
don’t have to—”

“
I gave you an order,
Sikorsky. Do you have a problem with it?”

“
No—but what’s going on? I
don’t understand.”

Danica sighed. “Our contract with the
boy is over. We’re selling his ship and taking half the proceeds
from the sale. The rest go to him.”

“
But Peter and
Nicholas—”

“
For security reasons, I
found it necessary to hold the boy in the brig until we reach port.
Don’t worry, Sikorsky—I’ll release him once we arrive.”

Anya swallowed. “So that’s it? No more
mission?”

“
Correct.”

Then it’s over,
Anya thought to herself, a lump welling up in her
throat. In only a couple of days, James would be gone, and life
would return to the way it had always been—hopping from port to
port, taking on this job or that, eating and sleeping and working
with the same dozen or so people she’d lived with day in and day
out for the last five years. And Ilya—she would be his girl again.
After all, who else on the ship would have her? Except it wouldn’t
be the same, because she knew his secret—she knew what he really
was.

You’re worthless,
the voices said.
You
don’t deserve a real man. Worthless, worthless.

The computer finished its
calculations—all that remained was to dock with the
Catriona
and make the
jump. With a growing feeling of numbness, she eased down on the
joystick. The thrusters engaged, nudging them forward. Her finger
hesitated above the keyboard, ready to start the docking
sequence.

No,
she told herself, taking a deep breath.
I can’t.

Instead of docking with
the
Catriona,
she
commanded the computer to begin the docking sequence with the
Hameji transport. At the same time, she activated the remote access
for the captured ship. As the transport grew larger in the main
window, she slaved the pilot’s station to her wrist console and
brought up the Hameji transport’s weapon controls.

Here goes
nothing.

“
Captain,” she said, “I’m
taking command of the Hameji transport. I want you to release
Ensign McCoy and give us the supplies we need to complete our
mission. If you don’t—”

“
What?” Danica said,
completely dumbstruck.

“
If you don’t comply,” Anya
continued, “I have all of the transport’s guns locked onto
the
Tajji Flame.
Try to stop me, and I’ll blow up the ship.”

Danica slowly rose to her feet.
“Anya,” she said, “what are you doing? Have you lost your
mind?”

Yes. Yes, I
have.

“
Don’t bother calling for
Ilya,” she said. “He’s with us.”

“
Would you really kill us
all over this?” Danica asked.

Anya hesitated, but only for a
moment.

“
Yes, Captain. I
would.”

For a long time, Danica said nothing.
The expression on her face wasn’t one of fear or anger, but of
hurt—deep, personal hurt. Anya didn’t know what to make of
it.

“
All right,” said Danica.
She lifted her wrist and activated the intercom. “Peter, Nicholas,
release the ensign from the brig.”

Anya’s hands trembled with nervous
energy. With her hand on her wrist console like the trigger of a
gun, she wondered if she looked as desperate as she felt. Probably,
for the captain to give in so quickly.

“
McCoy is on his way,” said
Danica. “He’ll meet you at the airlock.” As if in answer, the
distant groan of metal on metal sounded through the bulkheads as
they docked.

“
And supplies,” said Anya.
“We’ll need supplies.”

“
I’ll have Mikhail take
care of it,” said Danica. She gave Anya a confused look, like a
mother whose child was running away.

“
Why are you doing
this?”

“
It’s—it’s nothing
personal,” said Anya, realizing the full magnitude of her betrayal.
“Nothing personal at all. I’ve—I’ve enjoyed working with you,
Captain.”

Danica said nothing—she only
stared.

“
I’m sorry it came to this.
I really am.”

“
So am I, Lieutenant. So am
I.”

Before Danica could do anything else
to detain her, Anya turned on her heel and headed for the
airlock.

* * * * *

“
Hello, Captain,” said Abu
Kariym as Danica entered the medical deck. “How may I help
you?”

“
I need to see
Roman.”

“
Ah, yes. Go right
ahead—you know where he is.”

She found Roman sitting up in his bed,
watching an old holovid. At the sound of the door, he turned his
face to see who it was. His face slowly lit up as he recognized
her.

“
Welcome, Captain,” he
said, his voice slurred.

“
Roman,” she said, all but
collapsing into the seat next to the wall. “I’m in trouble, and I
need your help.”

Roman nodded. “What is it?”

“
Anya and James have gone
AWOL—Ilya too. They’re running away on the Hameji
transport.”

“
Why?”

Danica sighed in exasperation. “James
went behind my back to put together a commando team. When I learned
about it, I threw him in the brig, but Anya turned on me when she
found out.” She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know why, but
she and Ilya have agreed to help James on this suicide run. She’s
got the Hameji transport slaved to her wrist console, and she
threatened to blow up the ship if I didn’t let the three of them
go.”

Roman said nothing for several
moments. While she waited, Danica clasped her hands in her lap and
struggled to bring her breathing under control.

“
Does the crew know of this
yet?”

“
No—only Vaclav, but he
doesn’t know about Anya.”

“
Vaclav will not talk if
you do not involve him. As for Anya, I do not think she will be
opposed to you joining her.”

Danica frowned. “Joining
her?”

Roman nodded, head barely moving.
“Isn’t that what you want, Captain?”

“
No,” she said quickly.
“Well, maybe. I’d hate to let the ensign go without more backup,
but this mission’s too dangerous. We’ve already lost half the crew,
and—”

“
Danica, they are
volunteering. Can you not see?”

All I see is a
mutiny,
thought Danica—and it scared her
like nothing else. In all her years as a captain, her own crew had
never turned on her.

“
I wouldn’t exactly call it
‘volunteering,’“ she said. “I’d—”

“
No, Captain,” said Roman.
He coughed. “Think back. Why did you take the boy’s
contract?”

“
Because there was nothing
else,” she said. “Because—”

“
No, Danica. You decided to
help him for same reason that I chose to join with you.”

Danica paused. “Why?”

“
To help him become
something greater. To save him from destroying himself. To stop
running from your own demons and to face them.”

Danica thought back to the time when
she’d first met Roman. It was on Belarius III, before the Hameji
campaigns had begun. She’d recently washed out of a local militia
and was looking to get into the private military business, mostly
to fight against the Empire. Roman, one of her father’s former
high-ranking NCOs, had been bouncing around from job to job. When
she’d found him in one of the spaceport’s many cantinas, he was a
complete and utter wreck.

“
Is that why you joined up
with me?” she asked. “To turn me into something?”

Roman laughed—a low, throaty chuckle
that soon turned in a cough. “Yes,” he said. “And it worked,
no?”

“
Yes,” she said softly. “It
did.”

“
Then why do you hesitate?
Go!”

Danica shook her head. “It’s not that
easy, Roman. I have a crew to take care of—mouths to feed, people
to pay.”

“
But this mission does not
require all of them—only a few. Can you not do it with Anya and
Ilya both?”

“
Maybe,” she said,
“but—it’s just too risky.”

“
No,” said Roman, “not
true. That is only excuse.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
The boy is one of us now,
no? He is more than friend—he is family to you. But his demons—they
are your demons. He wishes to save his sister, as you failed to
save your brother. And now, because the danger is so great, you
cannot bear to see him fail. Protecting the crew is only
excuse.”

“
An excuse for
what?”

Roman leaned forward and looked her in
the face with his good eye. “Can you not see?” he said. “Saving him
will save yourself, also. If you do not help, you will both be
destroyed.”

Something about his words rang true to
her in a way that nothing else ever had. She thought of how much
James reminded her of her brother, and realized that he reminded
her of herself even more. James wanted to save his sister the same
way Danica wished she could have saved her brother—the difference
was that James actually stood a chance.