The Commander (27 page)

“Solomon. Good to see you. I hardly know myself. I woke up on one of our shuttles. I think Millie must have pulled me in. Here!” She handed out three of the personal force fields. “The shuttle is waiting. Come on!”

In groups of three the bridge crew levered themselves out of the new ceiling exit and then pushed off into the waiting shuttle. Annie made five trips back and forth, returning each time with the personal force fields, until everyone was aboard the shuttle.

“Solomon,” Annie said, cutting into the subdued euphoria developing among the rescued crew. “I’ve got five more shuttles lined up here. Pick your best pilots. We need to save as many as we can.
Sadie
thinks there are thousands of people still alive.”

“
Sadie
?” he asked.

“This shuttle’s AI.”

“Got it. All right.” Solomon pointed to five individuals, naming them aloud and then explaining what they needed to do.

“Where do we go?” one of the pilots asked.

Annie answered by pointing to the nearest three. “You go to the other section; the rest of us will work this one.”

“I mean where do we go when we fill up the shuttle. Where on the planet?”

Annie looked at Solomon. “Had you selected a landing site?”

Solomon shook his head. “We’ve only just started our survey.” He searched through familiar faces. “Camila. Any ideas?”

The planetary engineer’s face answered the question.

“If I may?”
Sadie
’s voice intruded quietly.

“Go ahead
Sadie
,” Annie said.

“Have the other pilots start retrieving survivors. The captain and I will approach the planet with the rest of the bridge crew and select a location. I can relay the coordinates to the other shuttles.”

“Got it!” Solomon said. “Let’s go with that, people.”

Sadie
maneuvered around to where the open cargo bay was facing the other five shuttles. They were stacked one atop the other, their cargo doors open, ready to receive their pilots.

Annie spoke to
Sadie
. “Tell the other shuttles to replicate barrier force fields and cutters.”

“Acknowledged, Miss Daniels.”

Annie looked at the five bridge crew members. “Remember to put on work gloves; you’ll need them to move around. They are always located in the equipment lockers.”

The pilots stepped to the cargo door and one by one jumped out, silently crossing the gap between the shuttles. Annie watched until all of them were safely aboard.

“Okay,
Sadie
,” Annie said. “Let’s go.”

“Course set, Miss Daniels. However, I have detected several individuals who were thrown free while wearing their personal force fields. Would you like to pick them up along the way?”

“Absolutely! Thanks,
Sadie
.”

The shuttle navigated in and out of the debris field with her cargo door open. Annie and Solomon stood in the doorway and snagged the frantic survivors until the shuttle was packed.

“
Diverting
to the planet,”
Sadie
announced.

“Is that all of them?” Annie asked.

“Negative. But that’s all we can take on. We will return momentarily.”

The shuttle descended toward the planet while Annie and Solomon sat in the cockpit trying to pick out a suitable location for the castaways.

“We’d prefer a beach at the mouth of a river,” Solomon said. “Since we’ve lost most of our equipment, let’s at least have fresh water and a source of food.”

“Acknowledged,”
Sadie
responded. She adjusted her course. “On the nose.”

“Too small,” Solomon said. “That barely qualifies as a continent. I saw some large continents on the initial planet surveys. What about those?”

“Those are on the night side at the moment, Captain.”
Sadie
explained. “Confirm you wish to land all your survivors in darkness?”

Solomon looked at Annie in disgust. “It figures.”

Annie shrugged. “You really shouldn’t leave everyone in the dark. Not right now.”

“This spot is fine,
Sadie
,” Solomon acknowledged. “Take us down.”

Sadie
landed and opened the cargo bay door.

Solomon shouted at his colonists. “All right everyone. Time to get off. I’m going back for more survivors.”

No one moved.

“Let’s go people! I need to get back.”

“They’re all in shock,” Annie observed.

A mother pulled one of her children close, holding him tightly as though someone was going to take the boy and toss him out onto the strange planet and zoom away.

The captain glanced at Annie. “I need to stay here and get people settled. Can you handle the rescue up there for the next trip?”

Annie nodded, her face full of determination.

Solomon put his arm around a young man. “Help me get these people off.” He shouted to everyone, “We’re home. We’re going to build a city right here and we’re going to call it New Hope. Now, everyone off!” Before anyone could react, the captain scooped up an adolescent girl and jumped out of the shuttle. “Follow me!”

The child’s mother shrieked and followed him out the door. The young man jumped out behind her. It started a movement. Annie cried out encouraging remarks and kept the crowd going.

“
Vincent
is landing,”
Sadie
said, loud enough for Annie to hear.

“I see him. Look everyone!” Annie shouted. “Here comes another shuttle. Go help those people get off. It’s time to start helping each other.”

Solomon saw
Vincent
landing and hurried over. He was waiting when the cargo bay opened. “Welcome home,” Annie heard him shout encouragingly. “That was some ride, wasn’t it?”

The last reluctant colonist disembarked from
Sadie
. Millie was still sitting against the far wall. “You getting off?” Annie asked forcefully.

Millie took a deep breath. “You’ll need some help. Sorry I freaked out there.” She struggled to her feet and Annie saw the panic had faded from her eyes.

“Let’s go,
Sadie
!” Annie said, making her way to the cockpit.

The ship screamed back into space.

“Dead ahead,”
Sadie
said.

A group of thirty people floated together, drifting toward the planet, gesticulating to
Sadie
, trying to let someone know they were alive.
Thank God for the personal force fields
, Annie thought. She felt ridiculous that of all people, she had not been wearing it earlier. Rule number one was that you always wore your PFF aboard ship.
Thank God for Millie, too
.

The cargo bay door opened and Millie jumped into the middle of the crowd.
Using
her gravity gloves, she started pushing people toward the shuttle. Annie stood in the doorway and yanked them inside as they got close. In less than a minute the ship was full.

“Take us down,
Sadie
,” Annie said.

“Course set, Miss Daniels.”

As they approached New Hope, two other shuttles were disgorging survivors. Solomon had gotten a production line established and the ones already on the surface helped empty the shuttles so they could rush back into space.

# # #

Annie lost count of how many trips she made to and from the planet. Once the floaters had all been scooped up,
Sadie
took her to one of the two halves of the
Marco Polo
. Together Annie and Millie entered the ship through one of the exposed corridors and made their way to the interior, cutting through bulkheads, searching for survivors.

On one trip to the surface, Solomon pulled Annie and Millie off the shuttle, assigning two men in their place.

“You two have been at it for almost twenty hours,” he said. “Get some rest.”

Annie had no idea it had been that long. It seemed much less. Too exhausted to argue, she grabbed Millie’s hand and someone led them to an area along the bank where other rescuers were sleeping. She noticed in passing that campfires were lit. She hadn’t even realized it was dark out. Night had fallen on New Hope, but everywhere she looked people were working and caring for each other.

# # #

It took eight more days before Solomon declared that everyone who could be rescued had been found. After that, the problem was what to do with those who had not survived.

It was an emotional question. Many on the planet had left loved ones on the ship. Most of them were separated during the attack, celebrating on different decks of the doomed colony ship. They waited anxiously on the surface, hoping that the next recovery shuttle would reunite their family.

At the end, after the captain declared all those not accounted for as lost, some wanted the remains left in orbit as a tribute to the journey not finished. Others insisted their parents or children or spouse be brought home for burial to memorialize the sacrifice of so many.

It was an all-or-nothing question. Identification was impossible in most cases, the result of explosive decompression. The question was answered when the captain ordered all remains to be recovered and buried in a mass grave two miles from New Hope. It was a hilltop that overlooked the estuary of the Marco Polo River and village of New Hope.

The call for volunteers went out to help with the gruesome job. Annie, already numbed to the grisly sight of so much death, rode with
Sadie
for five more days.

At the end, with thousands of others, she stood on the hilltop. It seemed appropriate the weather that day was gray and drizzly; it hid the flood of tears and muted the sobs. Solomon stood at the edge of freshly turned earth to officiate.

“Each journey has a beginning and an end. Each destination entails sacrifice. Those of us standing here will never forget the…”

His words droned on, but Annie had stopped listening. She thought only of Luke, the lover she’d left behind in a fit of unexplainable anger. How could she have been so foolish? All of the principles that fueled her rage at the time were gone; they meant nothing compared to the colony’s loss. Would it have been that impossible to forget George’s machinations and stay with Luke?

The people around her had made a bold step in boarding the colony ship, knowing it was a dangerous journey. No one had dreamed it would end this way but at least they had struggled together, right up until the end.

She, on the other hand, had cut and run. She’d fled, leaving Luke to face the advancing Bakkui alone. She never thought “coward” would be a word to describe herself. The bravery of those around her filled her with humiliation. Their grief over lost loved ones filled her with guilt. Her tears were an equal measure of shame and sorrow.

Millie squeezed her hand, offering encouragement. “You saved so many people,” she whispered. “Don’t be hard on yourself.” Millie’s innocent misinterpretation of Annie’s sobs drove the knife of self-disgust even deeper.

When the service was over Annie made her way back to the tent that was now home. She fell on the ground and prayed that she would sleep for a month.

It started the first day out from Jigu. Luke instructed George to create a battle simulation of their previous engagement with the Bakkui. He thought it would be a good exercise for Carrie to get a feel for the intensity on the bridge during combat. He had her sit in the first officer’s chair while he commanded
Lulubelle
for the exercise.

During the debriefing after the initial simulation, she confessed she could not remember most of what happened. Luke explained the first experience in combat could be overwhelming. As a young fighter pilot, his first missions at Red Flag in Nevada had left him feeling the same way.

He told her the U.S. military poured millions of dollars into realistic training centers. They had learned the hard way that it took ten missions for new pilots to reach the point of having situational awareness in combat, of knowing where they were in relation to the entire battle. It was the same for anyone, whether you were a pilot in single seat fighter or the captain of
Lulubelle.
On the bridge, they were learning to fight with a new type of warship in a new arena for space combat.

Carrie had asked if they could run the exercise again. After the first simulation, Luke put her in the captain’s chair and watched from the sidelines. As the scenario unfolded he pointed out options she might take and offered on-the-spot guidance. After a couple more exercises, she asked to modify the engagement. In hindsight, Luke realized that was where he had created the monster.

# # #

“Fire!” Carrie shouted as
Lulubelle
closed on the last Bakkui ship. It dissolved in a sea of pixels.

Luke slumped in the first officer’s chair, totally exhausted. He was simply trying to hang on and fill his duties as a first officer. Carrie, on the other hand, was full of energy.

A week earlier, she instructed George to take over exercise planning so each step of the battle would be a surprise for her and the crew. For the rest of the journey Carrie and her bridge crew had worked Luke almost to death.

George’s voice broke into the ensuing silence. “Simulation complete. Time of engagement two hours and thirteen minutes. Enemy killed, five hundred forty. Alliance warships lost, seventeen. Fighters destroyed, seventy-eight.”

“Damn!” Carrie said with feeling. “I thought we did better than that. Sorry, Zach. I know I left Green Squadron hanging out to dry, but…you know.”

“Not a problem, Captain. I saw it coming and did what I could to offset.”

“Good job. Thanks for backing me up.” Carrie looked at Luke. “Want to run it again, Commander?”

Luke tried to look dignified as he turned down her suggestion. He was afraid he would have a heart attack if they did. “Tomorrow’s for real,” he explained. “Let’s save a little energy for that one. You have the con.” He struggled to his feet and made it back to his room before collapsing onto the couch.

He felt that Carrie had proven herself during the last two weeks. She was more than ready to take the ship into combat. Whereas Luke and Tyler tended to rely on their experience to handle whatever situations might arise, Carrie worked nonstop to improve her skills. Luke got more than he bargained for with her training.

Nevertheless, when they arrived at J97 and faced the possibility of real combat, Luke would sit in the captain’s chair. He owed that to the crew. But afterward, he was seriously considering putting his young firebrand in the hot seat on a permanent basis.

Chief Rogers came into the room and examined the sweat-stained uniform his boss was still wearing. “I see Lieutenant Faulkner’s been giving you warlord training again,” he said with a sigh.