Impulse (37 page)

I set the sequencer to auto with a twenty-second delay, then placed myself in the launch tray as it queued up, deactivating my grav boots again. I looked at my watch. Three minutes to impact with the dreadnought.

I gripped the edges of the tray and lay as flat as I could as the system auto-loaded me into the launch tube. I closed my eyes as the sequencer counted down, praying the HD singularity would hold off long enough for me to get off of
Impulse
, and hoping there was no debris for me to slam into right outside the missile port.

Then the launcher fired, and I was propelled down the length of the launch tube in a flash of seconds. It felt like my EVA suit would come apart at the acceleration as I passed through the missile port and then out into open space. I dared to open my eyes again, kicked away the launch tray, then rotated myself using the last of the propellant from my cone jets to try and get a view of the battle.

Impulse
was already a fast-receding dot from my point of view, while
Starbound
was downward to my left. The yacht and Serosian were nowhere in sight.

Starbound
had stopped firing completely and was backing away from the dreadnought, the purple glow of her forward Hoagland Field taking the pounding of the multiple coil cannon fire. I wondered if her field would be strong enough to hold off both the onslaught of the dreadnought and the HD singularity detonation.

As I watched, the dreadnought continued firing at
Starbound
but began the process of turning to face the menace of
Impulse
closing on her flank. It was already too late, though—the dreadnought would never be able to hold her off now. I'd done my job.
Impulse
would have her revenge. The only question now was whether it would be good enough to save
Starbound
too.

I watched the scene in near silence, accompanied only by the sound of my breathing, amplified a thousand times inside my helmet.
Impulse
crawled along her preset course, her midships emanating an orange glow as she tried to contain the HD singularity inside her. It wasn't enough.

Impulse
slammed into the dreadnought.

The orange glow vanished in an instant as the containment field collapsed, releasing the HD singularity. It flared to life like a burst of sunlight in the middle of the darkest night. I tried to close my eyes, but too late.

I screamed in the deafening silence of my own universe, fully contained now in the EVA suit that clung to my body. I grabbed for my eyes, hitting the plastic shield of my helmet visor instead, clawing at something I couldn't reach. I took in six deep breaths to calm myself, then opened my eyes to utter blackness. I waved my hand in front of my visor—nothing. I fumbled for the switch to my LED on the outside of the helmet. It was in the on position. If the suit was functioning at all it would have given me an alarm if the LED had gone out, but it didn't, it hadn't.

I was blind.

“
Starbound
, this is Cochrane, can you hear me?” I called into my com. There was silence in return. Unless she had been damaged or destroyed by the dreadnought or the HD singularity pulse she should have responded. The EVA suit had a transponder sending out a location signal. If
Starbound
was there, she should have called for me.

I tried again to raise her, to no avail. I calmed myself. I was blind and drifting away from my only hope of rescue, lost in Imperial space on a rescue mission. I decided it wouldn't be a bad epitaph, but I regretted that my father would have to read it.

I closed my eyes and pulled myself into a small ball, almost a fetal position, trying in vain to stay warm. The cold I was feeling could mean only one thing: my EVA suit was failing. I was going to die not knowing if I had rescued my shipmates or destroyed them. Not knowing anything. In the cold of space.

Alone.

I spoke into the com one last time.

“Forgive me, if you can,” I said to my lost shipmates. To Babayan and Layton and Marker, to Dobrina and Natalie and Claus Poulsen and Lucius Zander. To Derrick.

Then I embraced the cold, and faded into blackness.

Dénouement

T
here were sounds of confusion and frantic voices, some familiar, some not. I tried to answer them but I couldn't speak, couldn't raise my voice. It felt like I was floating in a warm bath, much more pleasant than the cold and loneliness I last remembered. I wondered if I were dead, or in some sort of transition from one life to the next, and when I would know for sure. Then it seemed I drifted away into a peaceful sleep, until suddenly I found myself here again, wherever
here
was.

I felt something warm on my cheek. It was soft and gentle and very pleasant in every way. I couldn't help myself. I smiled.

“Peter, are you awake?” I heard the words but didn't really comprehend them or who was speaking. I struggled in darkness, trying to determine if I was in this world or the next. I decided it didn't really matter. I raised an arm, or what I thought was an arm. It felt like lead. I decided that having a body was overrated.

“I think,” I said aloud in a croaky voice that sounded nothing like my own to me, “that I might be dead.”

“You should be so lucky,” said the voice again. I even thought I recognized it. Then I felt the same pleasant warmth on my other cheek, and I decided that I must still have a body, or something similar anyway.

“Are you kissing me?” I croaked out. There was a small giggle, as if it were only meant for my unknown angel and me. Then the warmth touched my lips.

“I am indeed, Peter Cochrane. And you are still very much alive.” I held up my lead-weighted hand and she took it gently.

“Dobrina?” I said.

“Yes, it's me.”

“Where are we?” Again the giggle.

“We're in sickbay, on
Starbound
, docked at Artemis Station. You've been in and out of consciousness for the last three days, but this is the first time you've said anything remotely coherent. So far, though, you have managed to kiss me, Colonel Babayan, and Princess Janaan.” Then she laughed again, louder this time.

“But not Captain Maclintock, I hope?” I said.

“No! Nor Serosian or Layton or Marker either, thankfully. Nothing so scandalous as that!” I shifted a bit in my bed, regaining feeling in my extremities.

“I can't open my eyes,” I said.

“They're sealed shut. It will wear off naturally in another day or so. It's to allow your optic nerves to heal properly. Doc said you must have been looking right at the singularity when it went, without a filter.”

“I was trying to see if we succeeded,” I said.

“Succeeded? Peter, you blew that dreadnought into another dimension!” Then she kissed me again.

“So, Serosian's plan worked?” I said, after our lips parted.

“Serosian's plan? He said it was yours,” she said.

“He's lying. What about
Starbound
?” I asked.

“She came through with some heavy systems damage, but minimal casualties, mostly burns. They've all been in and out of sickbay already. Serosian was true to his word, the Hoagland Field held. The only serious loss was communications for about a day.”

“My com was out too, and my locator. How did you find me?” I asked.

“Well, that's a story,” she said. “We didn't. Serosian did. The yacht was nearly blind from the singularity blast, but he just started a methodical grid search. Said he picked up a ping from your medical transponder and when he saw you drifting in a ball he swung in and pulled you into the airlock. You had five minutes of environment left.”

“A close run thing, then,” I said. I shifted my hand and she grasped it, our fingers entangling together.

“Very,” she replied. “I'm glad we got you back.” Then she kissed me on the lips, with more than a hint of passion this time.

The visits came quickly after that: Babayan, Maclintock, Marker, Layton, and even Janaan, who was polite but distant. I felt that I had good friends as well as comrades. Being blind wasn't so bad. I could get used to just smelling and touching the women instead of nodding and saluting. It was a pleasant compensation for being unable to see for a few days.

The last to visit me was Serosian, and I didn't have to see him to hear the concern in his voice. Something was brewing all right, something big.

He told me that this incident was merely the first act in a coming, much larger, conflict.

“It's now apparent that the old empire is still out there in some form and unwilling to concede its historical place in favor of a new Union of Known Worlds. And an empire under the influence of the Sri would be formidable,” he said.

“Can we rely on you Historians, on your order, to provide us with the . . . resources we'll need to counter a resurgent Corporate Empire?” I asked. He didn't respond right away, then:

“You can count on us to help the Union in any way we can, and for me to be at your side, young lad.”

That satisfied me for the moment. Then I had another thought. “Did Jenny Hogan say anything about the battle aboard
Impulse
?” I asked.

“We've tried all kinds of advanced techniques on her, but she remembers nothing after the jump through the membrane. We did find traces of expended nanites in her system though, and that is a certain sign of the Sri at work,” he said. “Likely they wiped her memory for their own security reasons.”

The conversation went quiet then, until I blurted out the biggest thing on my mind.

“Are they coming for us?” I asked. He sighed, loud enough for me to hear the strain that he was carrying.

“If
Starbound
had been destroyed by the dreadnought, probably,” he said. “But your work with
Impulse
will likely give them pause, for now. They saw the destruction of their dreadnought, the flare of the singularity. One thing about the Sri and creatures like them, they are cautious. I expect them to be doubly so the next time they face off against Commander Peter Cochrane and
H.M.S. Starbound
,” he finished.

That didn't really reassure me. I raised my hand to my friend and he clasped it.

“Thank you, Serosian,” I said.

“Thank you, Peter,” he said back. “You've done exceedingly well. Now heal quickly. I fear there will be much work to do in the near future and precious little time to do it in.” Then he tapped me once again on the shoulder and was gone.

A few minutes later, I felt someone lie down next to me on the bed.

“You need to sleep now,” Dobrina's voice said in my ear. I shook my head no.

“There's no time for rest,” I replied.

She kissed my cheek, then snuggled down next to me. I found myself growing tired despite my best efforts, and I realized she must have been regularly dosing me with a sedative to help me heal. I felt consciousness begin to slip away as she leaned in close and whispered in my ear.

“There's time enough, Peter Cochrane. Just time enough,” she said. Then the sweet scent of her faded as a last thought crept into my mind before it all went black.

Just time enough to rest before the next battle.

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