Dremiks (41 page)

Outside, Fortunas capped off vial number thirty seven of scrapings from the hull. He handed a long swab to Swede and waited while the lieutenant reached into the damaged engine casing and swished the cotton across a few surfaces. Swede grimaced at the dirt and grease caking his flight-suit sleeve. Fortunas broke the business end of the swab off in vial number thirty-eight. He looked up, and his breath hissed out between his teeth.

Swede turned and saw the captain holding a flight helmet at an angle in the bright light outside the lander. The name “O’Connell” was clearly etched on the front of the headgear, just above the faceplate and neck connectors. A long crack extended from just above the first “l” to the back neck connector. The exterior protective coating bubbled and puckered beneath the captain’s touch. He looked up and caught the two other men staring.

“Are we finished here?”

Guttmann felt like his jaw broke when he spoke, so tightly had he clenched his teeth. “Yes, sir. Let’s get out of here.”

***

The flight back to the base passed in silence. Each of the three men in the lander spent the short trip considering the ramifications of what they’d found at the crash site. Their faces were identical studies in grim determination.

“What are you going to do?” Swede asked his question quietly as the captain slipped the lander onto the landing strip. He watched the captain from the corner of his eye while performing the co-pilot shut-down sequences.

Captain Hill flipped switches and tapped a few commands into the keypad. Before answering his lieutenant, he turned to look over his shoulder. Fortunas looked back at him from the jumpseat. The two men locked eyes, nodded. The captain turned his head back to Swede while unlatching his shoulder restraints.

“We’ll return to the
Hudson
as scheduled at 1400. Then, I think it is time the commander got some rest, in her quarters—under guard.”

“Someone stationed outside her door will be a rather obvious tell to the saboteur, as well as to the commander herself.”

The captain remained in his seat, thinking.

The cockpit of the lander wasn’t large enough for Swede to turn comfortably in his seat. He shifted so he could trade glances with Fortunas as well as the captain. He felt like he’d missed some valuable part of the conversation. “Well, ignoring the obviously juvenile temper tantrum she’ll throw at being guarded, why wouldn’t you want Maggie knowing?” The look he received in response to that question reinforced the feeling that he was missing a piece of the puzzle.

“Think, for just a moment, what will happen when O’Connell finds out she didn’t crash her lander, but that someone blew up the engine while she was flying.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed,” was the sardonic response from the jumpseat. “Though she will certainly be more focused on finding the would-be assassin in our midst, I fear her approach would be more bull-in-china-shop than stealthy–precision.”

Swede knew that was an understatement. He winced. “That means we’re keeping this a secret from her, for awhile. She’ll find out eventually and when she does it’s going to be, uh,
unpleasant
.”

The captain stood and waved the doctor to the slowly opening lander door. He laid a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “When that happens, as it inevitably will, I’ll try to deflect her anger from you as much as possible.”

“That really doesn’t make me feel any better, sir.” His gloomy words drifted out into the dusty air of Dremiks.

***

At 1400 hours, Dr. Ruger blinked in surprise at the request she received over a secure two-way link. She checked a personnel record, then, walked to the locked pharmacy room. Punching in her personal code she withdrew a pressurized syringe. Checking her notes again, she dialed the syringe to the correct setting and slid it into her coat pocket. She returned to her desk to record her actions in the pharmacy and crew logs.

Captain Hill un-strapped himself from the lander’s pilot’s seat for the fourth time that day. He calmly waited while three colonists and Swede filed out the door. Once he was out the door himself, he worked methodically through the post-flight checklist before signing the log on his tablet and submitting it to the pilots’ master log. He also sent a message to the bridge ordering Chief Turner to relieve the commander. He timed his message almost perfectly.

Maggie stepped into the tube and failed miserably to hide her grimace of pain. The captain was leaning against the wall. She thought of several uncomplimentary things to say to him but settled on a terse “Sir,” as a greeting. To her surprise, he walked across the small space to stand very close to her—so close that she had to tip her head back slightly to look at him. She did so with confusion. He was watching her very closely. It was more than a little disconcerting.

“I suppose you already hate me, so we’ll just add this to the list of my sins.”

If she was off balance before, his cryptic comment completely floored her. Her head pounded from the waning stimulants in her bloodstream, her stomach roiled as the tube lurched into motion, and she wasn’t entirely sure what the hell he was talking about. She
was
sure that she was too tired to engage in a verbal sparring match.

“Hate’s a strong term, sir. Perhaps just strong disli … OW!”

Maggie glared down at her arm as if the limb itself had caused the offending pain. Then she saw the syringe in the captain’s hand. She barely noticed the hand he had wrapped around her elbow.

“Really? Crap’s sake, sir, you don’t have to jab those things that hard! Why the hell does Cass have you doing her dirty work anyway?”

“It’s time you got some rest, Commander. Starting the moment this tube hits the officers’ deck. Consider yourself on medical stand-down until further notice.”

She was too tired to argue, and her eyes were suddenly very heavy. “I would ha’ gone quietly ya know. No need to resort to drugs...” Her large green eyes blinked in confusion as her words slurred to a stop. He blinked right back, then, glared at her.

“You stupid, idiotic, brainless, twit! When was the last time you ate?”

“First you stab me, then you insult me.” She tried to lean away from him and against the wall. “Think you screwed up dosage, sir.”

“I’m going to strangle you and your damn roommate. Don’t you dare pass-out!” He should have saved his breath. The second the words were out she started sliding toward the floor. He had to drop to one knee to catch her. He barely kept her head from bouncing off the floor. He was kneeling, staring down in bemusement at the unconscious woman, when the tube doors snapped open.

Cassie Ruger looked at her roommate, then at the captain. She sighed. “I should have adjusted that dosage for her blood sugar, not her weight.”

“A bit late for that thought now, Doctor.” With a grunt the captain stood, swinging the commander up into his arms. “If you’ll get the door to your quarters, please?”

He laid her on her bunk before turning to Cassie. With his index finger pointed at her face, he declared, “Breathe a word of this to anyone, and you’ll regret it.” He stalked out, muttering under his breath and sincerely wishing he’d never read Fortunas’ damned report.

Chapter 24

Captain Hill found Dwax flitting through a storage bay. Civilians and military crew bustled around moving crates of supplies from the large holding area to the lander bay. The captain knew that Dwax’s mysterious crate had been moved from the
Hudson
soon after their arrival at Rhyse station. So, the alien’s presence in the storage area was probably benign.

Probably. But I have to know if he was behind the engine malfunction and O’Connell’s wreck. Is it possible that the incidents aren’t linked?

The captain shuddered at his own thoughts.

The last thing I need is two murderous conspirators trying to abort this mission.

“Honored One. How are you, this morning?”

Dwax turned and bobbed his head from side to side in greeting. “I am well, Honored Captain. You are having wellness?”

“I am. I wondered if I might speak with you, privately?”

Dwax peered myopically at their busy surroundings. “This is not a very private place, Honored Captain.”

“No, it is not. My office, however, is. If you could meet me there in fifteen minutes time?” He tried not to read human emotions on the alien’s face. What looked like worry might, for a Dremikian, be a simple expression of assent.

When Dwax’s leg tentacles carried him into the captain’s office fifteen minutes later, the Dremikian was trying very hard not to worry. He knew Captain Hill was still very upset about Commander O’Connell’s accident. There was also, still, tension between the High Council and the humans on the
Hudson
.

“Please be seated, Honored One.”

Dwax sat gracefully, arranging his tentacles neatly around his rather thin form. Hill wasn’t sure, but he thought Dwax looked paler than he had when they’d departed Earth.

“I will beg your pardon in advance, Honored One, for my questions today will be quite blunt.” The captain tried to memorize the expression the Dremikian was currently showing—he was quite certain that it denoted panicked concern. “You said that, since O’Connell and Mangoda are guests of your people, and crew on a ship you’d traveled on, that you had a debt to us.”

“That is correct.”

“I will ask you to remember that debt before you answer. Also, please look over these reports.” The captain passed a tablet across his desk. His blue eyes stared, barely blinking, at Dwax while the alien read the proffered information.

I wonder what
that
facial gesture means? Horror, resignation, psychopathic glee?

“Honored Captain, this is saying that your engine strut did not fail because of the metal? That it was deliberate?”

“Deliberate sabotage, yes.”

“I am sorry, I am not knowing this word. Let me check my databases.” Dwax pulled a small round device from his tunic pocket. He bent his head over it and was quiet for more than a minute. When he raised his head again, the same look the captain had wondered about previously was on his face. “A deliberate act meant to cause destruction or disruption? This was done to this ship? To our ship, the craft we shared on our journey?”

“That is correct.”

Dwax was horrified. He clicked and chirped in his native tongue, talking out loud and momentarily oblivious to the fact that Captain Hill had no idea what he was saying. “You kept this a secret? From me? Who else was being not knowing?” In his distress, Dwax’s English verb conjugation was forgotten.

“Only a handful of my officers know. The Chancellor and Vice Chancellor still do not know. I must ask you to keep this information to yourself—to not tell anyone else—for that reason.”

Dwax clicked again. “You think I did this. This is what you wish to know?”

“Yes.”

“No! This is madness! To destruct an engine while in a jump conduit is bad! Very, very, bad! We should have died! Exploded!”

Hill winced. “That we didn’t seems to be a matter of luck. Do you think another of your people, perhaps one of the ship designers at Orion Station, could have done this?”

“No! I tell you that no Dremikian is stupid enough to do this. We should be dead, Honored Captain! Why would my people want that? We wanted you here!”

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Did you? What changed that? Was it a message you sent from your secret box in the aft storage bay?”

Dwax surged out of his seat in a tangle of flailing tentacles. “No! I mean to say is that I am not knowing. I had to report without telling you. In private, yes, secret. I was ordered.”

Speaking softly, but firmly, the captain asked: “Please sit down, Honored One.” He waited until the agitated alien resumed his seat. “The High Council ordered you to report to them on our journey, without my knowledge.”

“Without any human knowing, yes.”

“And something happened during our journey that caused the Council to change their minds about letting us settle on Dremiks—even if it meant letting Najif destroy the planet?”

“Yes.” Dwax made the admission with his head bowed in shame. “They do not tell me why this is. They still worry, Captain. The Council meets daily now, is always watching and asking questions. They are very worried, Honored Captain, and this is making me to worry.”

“There’s another report there, Dwax. I need you to read it as well.”

Dwax was even more shocked by Dr. Fortunas’ report on the lander crash. His coloring darkened. His leg tentacles began twitching again. “Someone made the engine explode? This was done to stop the landing?”

“That is what our findings indicate, yes.”

“I would never do this. You must know this. You know that to spill the blood of a crew member is a great wrong—a bad thing. What you call a sin.”

“I actually do know that. What I need to know is if you have any idea why a human, and I’m fairly sure a human had some part in this, would want to stop us from landing on Dremiks.”

“Why are you thinking this was human work?”

“The composition and placement of the explosives. Even if something sentient was living on Dremiks, the explosion pattern does not indicate a missile or mine explosion that would have brought the lander down. Someone aboard the
Hudson
placed those explosives. Only humans have had access to the landers.”

“This is very bad, Captain. I must think on this.”

“Do it privately, Dwax. I do not want the High Council, or anyone on my ship, knowing about this information. O’Connell herself does not know the details of her crash. Whatever information you can find must be gathered with the greatest discretion. The person or persons working to prevent our colonization of Dremiks are very smart and very determined.”

***

Deciding that he would stop in and see how O’Connell was faring, Guttmann headed for the medical bay. He knew she was itching to escape Dr. Ruger’s constant supervision and would be happy for the company. Seven days of enforced rest in quarters or sick bay would have driven him mad, and he knew he had greater patience than his superior officer. In fact, he wasn’t sure who to pity more: Dr. Ruger or O’Connell. His feelings were quickly confirmed when he entered the patient area of the medical bay.