Warpath (27 page)

Governor Tate woke from
a deep sleep. He could swear he was dreaming of his childhood, his
time with his family at the lakeside in Dol-Ne, when he was still
innocent and the order of the day was play.

He had his arms around
a new companion robot he’d ordered that evening. It was a mild
consolation, made sweeter because it looked so much like Eve. There
was something about using that image that made it easier for him to
quiet his mind before falling asleep.

The artificial
companion’s warmth felt real, the sounds and motions of her
breathing were perfect. Normally high quality a companion provided
such comfort that he slept through the night. He started looking
around the room and was startled by the weight of someone sitting on
the bed. “Don’t panic, Ansel, or should I call you Governor? No
one has called you by your first name in a long time, have they?” a
soothing voice asked him. He couldn’t quite figure out if it was
male or female. “That restoration system they replaced your
appendix with is really good, it’s going to take a minute or so for
you to fade.”

Governor Tate tried to
fumble his way out of bed but found that he couldn’t move. “What’s
going on? What have you done?”

“I’ve killed you,”
said the figure sitting at the foot of his bed. “You can’t feel
it, but your organs are shutting down. I’m just keeping you company
so you don’t have to die alone beside that thing. The rest of my
trio thought it was fitting, but I guess I have a little more
sympathy for you. You’re a living being, even if not for much
longer.”

“Why?” was all
Governor Tate could think to say. His vision was getting blurry.
“Help me!” he tried to shout, not at his assassin, but to anyone,
even the useless bot who feigned sleep at his side. It came out as a
whisper. He was having trouble breathing.

“We’re replacing
you with someone who is going to look just like you, but they’re
going to work for Citadel. Wheeler gave you up the instant we
cornered him, provided all the information we needed to infiltrate
your home and a great record of your private life to save his own.
We’ll have no problem inserting an imposter. In fact, I guarantee
that, after you die of that poison in about nine seconds, he’ll
enjoy your life more than you ever did. We’ll even get that
approval rating up, maybe put some low cost life improvement measures
in place so your legacy is a good one. Don’t worry, we’ll do a
better job of running things, you’ll look pretty good in the end.”

Governor Tate tried to
breathe, but his body remained still. The world was fading, and all
he could think of was how much he wanted Eve and especially Wheeler
dead.

Finn was in full
armour. He still wasn’t used to the bulkier, heavier suit. The
practice of putting technicians and engineers in full armour was
proven many times over though, so he wouldn’t argue with it. He
interrupted Remmy mid-yawn with his thought. “Did you see what
David did yesterday?” he asked.

“Yeah, saw it in the
mission report. Took me three hours to go through the mandatory
sections, but I couldn’t stop watching,” he said. “I’m sorry
you lost your engineering team.”

Finn said; “thank
you,” then tried to change the topic as quickly as possible. “I
knocked myself out using the recommended sleeping dose last night,
but I still feel like I didn’t sleep a wink.”

“Stress,” Remmy
said, suppressing another yawn. “Followed by waiting.” He
gestured at the busy launch bay aboard the Blessed Mission. They were
waiting in the rear section, where ships were moving on and off with
regularity as interior repairs were getting underway. Every uniform
they could think of was on display as they carried kits and supplies
aboard. Crews from the Triton, British Alliance, Haven Shore and the
Rangers were boarding, all dedicated to getting the Blessed Mission
into shape as quickly as possible.

A shuttle from Haven
Shore dropped its hatch open and a wave of skitters, too many for
Finn to count, surged forth. A tall, older man in a loose Haven Shore
construction uniform followed them out. “Remember, you’re just
pulling unsalvageable systems, no building, no improving, and
absolutely no improvising!” he shouted after them.

“Lee!” Remmy called
out to him. “How’d they get you off the ground?”

“Wait at the lift!”
he barked at the skitters before turning towards Remmy and
approaching with a surprised smile. “I haven’t seen you in two
months, how’s it going?” he said, extending a long hand.

“Ups and downs, lost
the Warlord, lost Kambis,” Remmy replied casually. “But I found a
collection of ancient animated shows last week, so I’m pretending
it all balances out. This is Lieutenant Billy Finn. Engineering
branch of,” Remmy hesitated, looking at the Warlord marking on his
armour.

The tall Foreman didn’t
wait for the rest of the introduction, but extended his hand. “I’m
Lee Romita, one of the Senior Foremen on Haven Shore. Well, guess I’m
a general builder now, just got an enlistment invitation from the
Triton and the first place the commander sends me is here. Nice that
it was an invitation and not a draft, but if they knew my wife,
they’d know she would force me to go, if I didn’t want to go
already.”

Finn shook his hand and
nodded. “That’s Triton Fleet. Not enough highly skilled people to
go around. How is Haven Shore?”

“Well, people are
talking about what happened to Kambis. A lot of people are thinking
of leaving, but no one’s sure they would be much safer in any other
solar system. Besides, most of the well armed ships have joined
Triton Fleet, so chartering a lift out of this solar system is
expensive. Doesn’t much matter to me anymore though, the family and
I are going to be aboard the Triton, I think. One of the Fleet ships,
anyway. When I enlisted this morning, everyone else signed up. I’ll
never forget the fireworks when Kambis went up in flames, anyone who
does that is worth fighting. Felt like the world was ending last
night, but they say Tamber’s atmosphere’s so thick that there’s
not going to be any noticeable difference with Kambis burning. Your
military bases down there are all back online, in case word hasn’t
reached you.”

“I heard,” Finn
said. “Do think we’re going to have more supply problems with the
trade from Kambis gone?” he asked.

“I think so, but you
wouldn’t be able to tell from the supply barge that’s docked
along the starboard side. I’d say the British Alliance are putting
their backs into getting this bird back together,” Lee said.

“Yeah, you hear
anything about what they expect in trade?” Remmy asked.

“Sure, it was in this
morning’s briefing when I went up to the Triton. New Admiral in
charge and Governor Anderson has given them a little chunk of land
for them to build a military base on Tamber. I’m sure we’re
getting more than supplies and people to fix that ship in trade for
the land, but I’d say this is a good start to an alliance we can
all see working. Big trading going on last night, I hear your Captain
Valent and Ayan have been making deals too. I’m guessing we’ll
see more cooperation, now that the Order has made an impression that
we won’t soon forget. They say fires will burn on Kambis for a
hundred years. Makes me wonder what chemicals they had in storage on
that planet.”

“Guess we’ll never
know,” Remmy said.

“Unless we test the
air, I’d imagine the atmosphere’s pretty thin there now though,”
Finn added.

“That’s just the
thing,” Lee said. “It’s going to build up and thicken again
with the ash and smoke. That planet will probably look black from
orbit in a week.”

“I should have
thought of that,” Finn said. “Must be tired.”

“Don’t talk about
tired,” Remmy said, fighting a yawn. “You’ll keep me tired, and
we’ll yawn all morning.”

“So, what are you two
doing here, waiting for a ride?” Lee asked with a chuckle.

“A shuttle from the
Triton’s picking us up,” Remmy replied. “Has a comms expert and
a commander who is going to take us to the Fallen Star. It took a
heavy hit during the fighting, most everyone was killed, including
Doctor Messana and all but one of her technicians. There’s an old
vault they need us to get into. Last night something inside activated
and killed the entire crew with some kind of radiation blast.”

“What? I didn’t
hear about that,” Lee said. “That’s terrible.”

“I know,” Remmy
said. “I’m going because I’ve been through that ship before.
They say there’s no harmful radiation left, but we’ll be sealed
up, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I volunteered,”
Finn said, fighting a yawn. “But now I don’t know why. I could
have stayed here and been just as useful.”

“You’re off shift,
Lieutenant’s orders,” Remmy said. “If the engineer we’re
meeting on the shuttle is any good, we won’t need you. You could go
get some rack time.”

“As soon as my head
touches the pillow I’ll be wide awake, I’ll bet any amount of
leisure cred I wouldn’t get any sleep and I’d be bored out of my
mind,” Finn replied.

“I know that
feeling,” Lee said. “Well, good catching up, but I have to be
going, otherwise my new team here is going to get started without
me.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder, where the crowd of
skitters were waiting in a stacked box formation. Some of the little
round domed, multi-legged droids were flashing red and quietly
whooping at not being given permission to go through the ship’s
interior door. Lee started walking towards them, some of the whoops
got louder at the sight of him approaching. “Oh, hold on.”

“Are you really okay
to do this?” Remmy asked Finn quietly.

He slept like the dead
the night before, but woke up thinking that he’d be seeing half the
people on his engineering team. In the short time he slumbered on
that Regent Galactic manufactured bunk, on a mattress that had been
softened by who knew how many enemy soldiers, he’d managed to
forget that his team were almost all dead. The last thing he wanted
to do was see that bunk again. “I’d rather do something than sit
around and look at pictures of an engineering team that took months
to get together on the Warlord. I wasn’t friends with most of them,
a lot of them thought I was too young to be their boss, but I still
can’t believe they’re gone. I can’t believe the Warlord’s
gone.” Finn’s command and control unit sent a tiny buzz through
his vacsuit and he glanced at it without thinking. “Why did I look?
I knew it could only be bad news,” he said, holding his arm unit up
so Remmy could see that he just got a notification from Crewcast that
the Warlord crew were officially unassigned from that ship. “It’s
going to be like this for weeks, I’ll be reminded that I was just
lucky the bridge wasn’t hit instead.”

Remmy put a hand on his
shoulder and looked him in the eye as though visors didn’t separate
them. “Hey, I know exactly what you’re going through. The guy I
followed into space, I guess you’d call him my first Captain
Valent, is leading half the Order of Eden military. The woman he
loved and, well, I never told her, but she was a sister to me, got
smeared right in front of us. Shitloads of other people I cared about
got killed, and I don’t forget them. I don’t keep them in my
public Crewcast file, it’s an encrypted thing I don’t look at
every day, but I remember them, I crack that file more often than I
like people to see.”

“Yeah, one-up me,”
Finn said. “My loss isn’t as big as your loss.”

“That’s not what
I’m saying,” Remmy said. “I’m telling you that there isn’t
a person anywhere that hasn’t lost someone, whether it’s to some
seriously screwed up adventures like me, or because of the Holocaust,
so many people are finding a way to keep going. I think that’s half
of what keeps us on our feet, that there are other people who refuse
to fall down. What’s on the other half of that equation? Well, I’m
just too annoying to die. You’ll have to find your own reason to
make that balance. Maybe it’s because so many people do respect
you. Hell, you have the Admiral and the most feared Captain in at
least two sectors fighting over you and Agameg.”

“Yeah, about that,”
Finn said, catching a glimpse of the Clever Dream drifting into the
launch bay. A crew list came up with Agameg in second command behind
Lieutenant Garrison.

Remmy turned in time to
see the ship gracefully set down on the deck. “My comm is telling
me that’s our mission transport,” he said. “I didn’t think we
were expecting trouble.”

“Neither did I,”
Finn said. “Maybe a stubborn door, but nothing more serious than
that.”

“Well, it is a
vault,” Remmy said, attaching his rifle to a short line on his
chest and starting towards the Clever Dream’s port side ramp. “Are
you going to be okay for this, whatever it is?”

“Yeah, like I said,
I’d rather be busy,” Finn replied.

Agameg greeted them
with a smile that was a little wide to be human, something Finn was
used to. The bounds of the human shape weren’t always keenly
adhered to by his best friend, but he was getting better at imitating
the general shape. The cilia that Agameg once let dangle loose from
his cheekbones were replaced with solid cheeks. The colour of his
skin overall was still a little off, on the pink side so he looked
like he was about to blush, and his eyes were still true issyrian
size, green ovals that took up nearly half of his face, but they
always seemed friendly. His nose was a little more than a bump on his
face, with slightly larger, rounder holes than before, and his mouth
was much more detailed, starting to look like slim human lips. Too
much time had passed since he last served with Agameg, the better
part of two months, and he could see his friend was very happy to see
him. “I have found a pheromone match for you,” he whispered. “I
have only once noticed such a perfect fit, and that was after Captain
Valent was rebuilt last time. She is sitting in the cargo hold with
the rest of the people who want to transfer here.”