Prison Ship (2 page)

“Commander,” McKillip said sternly, snapping Steiner back to reality. The captain’s gaze scolded him. “Any sign of the
Excalibur
or the
Cheyenne
on your sensors?”

“No, sir,” Steiner replied.

McKillip gave a short nod.

Steiner cursed himself under his breath. McKillip needed him now more than ever. He had to remain alert. A light appeared on his console, followed by a warning tone. His heart sank as he interpreted the readout.

“How many?” McKillip asked.

“Three enemy battlecruisers are on an intercept course. No sign of the
Excalibur
or the
Cheyenne
.”

“Abort the mission. Lieutenant Riggs, take us back.”

Suzanne dephased the ship, reversed course, and phased again.

Steiner didn’t even feel it this time. His insides were already burning with fury. Another vessel suddenly appeared directly in their path, blocking the way, but it was no ordinary battlecruiser. “Dreadnaught directly ahead,” he said.

McKillip locked gazes with him, his expression hardening.

“Enemy ships are thirty seconds from jamming range,” Riggs announced.

“What’s the nearest U.S.S. outpost on the border?” McKillip asked.

“Falcon two-six is within range,” Riggs replied, her short-cropped red hair spinning with the movement of her head.

“Adjust course to get us as close as possible. Lieutenant Majors, contact the commanding officer and tell him that we will require assistance.”

Steiner fought back the anger, focusing on the multicolored displays before him. “They have already sensed us and have deployed armed drones to help protect us once we are in United Star Systems territory.”

“Good. Put me through to the entire ship.” McKillip paused as Steiner opened the intercom. “We are nearing the border and help is awaiting us on the other side. Four enemy vessels are closing on us. We cannot fight them all single handedly. Our only chance is to run blind until we reach the border.”

Riggs’s hazel eyes met Steiner’s, reflecting something he’d never expected to see in them. Terror. She knew, as well as he, that ships rarely survived a blinded flight at starspeed without colliding with an asteroid or other stellar debris. Without precise navigation, the interdimensional jumps could not be controlled. They would have no idea even of the direction they were traveling in.

“God will protect the just and upright this day,” McKillip continued. “We shall survive.”

Steiner resented any deity that would deny him a future with Mary. God had nothing to do with their current situation—Jamison did. On the tactical display, the gap between the
Valiant
and the intercepting vessels narrowed. His fingers rubbed his wedding ring.

The helm console’s readouts went dark. Riggs pivoted around. “We’re being jammed, sir.”

“Maintain course the best you can.”

Beads of perspiration dotted Riggs’s brow as she continued her succession of jumps blindly.

McKillip’s left hand gripped his patterned sash. His wrinkled cheek twitched.

Steiner kissed his ring.

“We should have crossed into U.S.S. space by now,” Riggs shouted.

Steiner’s breath caught in his chest.

“Dephase,” McKillip ordered.

When the light of the stars reappeared, a collective sigh of relief rose from the back of the command center.

A warning indicator lit up on Steiner’s console. Something was headed straight at them.

“Plasma missile closing in from directly astern,” Steiner said, as the blinking object penetrated their defensive grid.

“Evasive man—” McKillip began, just as the
Valiant
shuddered violently.

Primary powered lights blinked as distant eruptions were heard. Damage reports from all over the ship clogged the communication channels.

Steiner focused on his display. His heart sank when he noticed the unusual pattern of lights on the interior sensor grid. The engine chamber had been decompressed. Franco, Ching, Mac, the shipmates he had grown to know for the last ten years, were gone in a millisecond. Even as he stared, the landing bay went dark. Doc and Miles were probably in there. He fought to keep from thinking about it as his world unraveled around him.

“How bad did they hit us?” McKillip demanded.

“Engine chamber and landing bays have been compromised. Engines inoperative. Primary generators fluctuating.”

“Position report,” McKillip barked.

“We missed our mark, sir.” Riggs triangulated their course on the holographic viewer as she continued. “We are in United Star Systems space, but we are too far from Falcon two-six to get immediate cover from them.”

“The enemy vessels must have projected our exit point for the jump and fired a missile early,” McKillip said, moving to the tactical display.

A new alarm sounded as a red object appeared in the display, next to the dreadnaught.

McKillip frowned. “They must be determined to destroy us.”

Steiner glanced at the readout. “Countermeasures are barely operative.”

“Signal all hands to abandon ship,” McKillip said.

Steiner activated the alarm on his console. The tones echoed throughout the ship.

“Lieutenant Riggs,” McKillip said, “oversee the evacuation.”

“Yes, sir.” She bolted up from her chair and helped the rest of the command crew to file down the outside corridor.

Before the second missile reached midpoint, a third was launched.

“Go, sir,” Steiner said. “I’ll stay to the last moment.”

“Not yet.” McKillip went to the communication console and unlocked the panel’s hood. He lifted the instrument panel, exposing the brightly lit interior.

“What are you doing, sir?”

“We need the communication logs. It’s the only evidence that we were ordered on that suicide mission.”

The readout on the tactical display flickered a few times. Steiner had resigned himself to joining Mary, but now he wanted only to give McKillip enough time to obtain the evidence against the admiral. When the missile closed within forty thousand meters, Steiner fired the countermeasures. The missile evaporated harmlessly into a flash in the darkness outside the viewports. Within the flash, he saw Mary. He blinked back the tears starting to form. On his readout he saw twelve lifepods departing the ship just like Mary’s shuttle had departed the depot that fateful day.

Mary waved to him as she embarked on the shuttle. He watched himself press his hands against the transparency in the guest lounge in reply. The craft lifted into the air, trailing liquid across the launching pad. When he realized it was fuel leaking out, he beat against the window, shouting in vain for the craft to return.

Sparks erupted from the open communication console. McKillip jumped back, then immediately put his hands back in.

Two more warning tones sounded, indicating two more objects had been launched from the dreadnaught. “Hurry if you can, sir. We now have three incoming missiles.”

“I have it.” McKillip said, lifting a small object from the inside of the console. “Our insurance policy.”

Steiner readied his hand to activate countermeasures for the first missile.

The tactical display went dark. All the lighting in the room dimmed to emergency levels. McKillip met Steiner’s gaze for an instant. A bright flash erupted from the exterior viewports, a wave of disorientation, then blackness. The sound of groaning metal made Steiner open his eyes. Smoke hovered in the room. He lay sprawled on the floor. When he tried to climb to his feet, a sharp pain ran through his right leg. Then he remembered the two missiles en route. They had about thirty seconds before impact. He forced himself to his feet, searching the haze for the captain. His body lay across the tactical console, facedown. Blood dripped from the console. Steiner raised McKillip’s head; his face looked peaceful. When Steiner felt for a pulse, McKillip’s eyes opened, and he coughed. Steiner tried to lift him and found a piece of communication equipment embedded in his abdomen. McKillip’s dark eyes flickered, then met Steiner’s. “Get out while there’s still time.”

“I was supposed to die, not you.”

McKillip shook his bloodstained beard. “One of us must survive,” he barely managed.

Steiner felt frozen. Within his mind, Steiner saw Mary’s shuttle hover above the depot just outside the window of the lounge where he stood. Fire ignited from the rear of the craft, spreading to engulf the entire vessel. The flaming wreckage crashed against the pad, bursting into a blossom of fiery debris that pelted the transparency of the lounge.

Then he remembered the incoming missiles.

Eyes tearing, he threw himself away from the captain and stumbled to the door of the command center. He looked back at the man, who stared blankly into nothingness.

He limped into the smoke ahead of him, trying to keep his bearings. His fingers found a control panel for a lifepod. A shining red light indicated it had already been launched. The next one was still green. He stumbled inside, pulled down the emergency release lever, and fell into the first seat. The automatic harness closed about his body. He felt the thrust of the lifepod as it propelled itself from the
Valiant
. Then he closed his eyes.

MARY’S hair flowed like a silk sheet in the breeze. Eyes glistening, she smiled, then turned and ran playfully down the street, beckoning him to follow.

“No,” Steiner pleaded. “Stay for a while.”

She threw him a kiss as she danced into the chapel at the end of the block.

“Don’t go in there,” he yelled, running to catch her.

The chapel shimmered in the light. The steeple sank into the distorting mass as it morphed into a shuttle sitting on a landing pad.

Steiner forced himself awake before the dream could steal her from him again. In the darkness of the early morning, he sobbed silently. Someday to hold her again so that she would never leave.

A cough sounded from behind the wall next to his cot, reminding him of where he was. In the faint light, he could make out the toilet in the corner and his prison-issued orange jumpsuit hanging over the back of his chair. He climbed out of bed, picked up the green marker next to his cot, and checked off another day from hand-drawn calendar on the metallic white wall. It had been six months since the destruction of the
Valiant
and the series of events that occurred afterward. As he took a shower in the corner of his cell, he reminded himself of why he needed to keep living. He recalled going to McKillip’s home the day after the tragedy and finding that Judith had been murdered the previous night by a prowler, who had conveniently stolen all the computer records within the house. His pulse began to race. Dressing in his prison jumpsuit, he remembered the news services blaming the destruction of the
Valiant
and the loss of half its crew on the captain’s dismissal of counterorders that Jamison had sent, but Steiner knew they had never received any counterorders. Someone had falsified the computer records. His breathing became rapid. His hands trembled from rage as he shaved. He thought of the face of Admiral Jamison, expressing fake pity for the great loss Steiner had suffered. Steiner threw the disposable razor on the floor. He closed his eyes, imagining Jamison smugly sitting behind his desk, just as he had when Steiner confronted him that fateful day. When Jamison had the gall to blame McKillip for the incident, Steiner had decided if the Cyrian Defense had installed the admiral in power, then it seemed right that one of the last surviving members should take him out. That was when Steiner had jumped over the man’s desk and punched him with all his might. His fist hit the concrete wall of his cell, and pain shot up his arm.

Footsteps sounded outside his cell. Steiner licked the blood from his knuckles, relishing the sting of his wound. The door slid aside. Two guards stepped through, both armed with stun guns.

“You have a visitor,” one of them announced.

Steiner laughed to himself, enjoying the irony. It had been two MPs who had kept him from killing Jamison that day in the admiral’s office. He had subsequently been court-martialed for attempted murder and incarcerated.

After the guards frisked him, Steiner exited the cell, with both guards trailing behind him half a step. He marched with pride, as if he were on his way to meet an admiral. The only visits he had were when his lawyer needed to update him on the military tribunal he had called regarding Jamison’s connections to the pirating ring within U.S.S. space. The judge had agreed to the investigation on behalf of McKillip and his wife. The coincidental timing of both of their deaths had raised suspicions among the other admirals, but they were hesitant to believe any accusations of treason against the Chief Military Officer of the U.S.S. Fleet. Steiner wanted to live to try to change their minds, or at least cast enough doubt to put a stop to Jamison’s illegal activities.

Steiner entered the vacant visitation chamber, where the guards proceeded to shackle his legs to the single chair on his side of the table. The cool air chilled his body and his rage. Freshly used cleanser burned his nostrils. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the laminated surface of the table in front of him. Within the glint of his determined gaze, he could still see the shadow of the officer he once was. With his fingers, he combed out the tangles of sandy hair. His bare face looked pale and weak without a beard covering it. The warden expected all his inmates to be clean-shaven, or he would have the barbers do it for them, painfully.

A knock stole his attention away. When the door opened, a businesslike woman clad in a power suit entered, her flame red hair tied up in a bun.

Steiner could not believe his eyes. “Suzanne?”

“It’s a long story, Jake—one best told in private.”

As both guards exited, Steiner stared at his old shipmate in utter disbelief. He hadn’t seen Riggs since their rescue from the
Valiant
. Even though he felt a small measure of joy at seeing her again, it was overwhelmed by shame because of his appearance.

She guided her slender figure into the chair sitting on the opposite side of the table, her perfume competing with the acidic odor surrounding them. She eyed him as if pitying an injured pet. “You don’t look so good, Ja—”