Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity (9 page)

Operations was as quiet as when she left. The replacement—a fresh-faced lieutenant transferred from the
Madrid
—stepped away from her console. He looked in her eyes and then away, too quickly.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one still having to do some adjustment.

“Any word, Lieutenant?” she asked the man.

“None, Ensign. The system is dead quiet.”

That was exactly what she wanted to hear. “Any thing from third parties? Any communications at all?”

“None.” He stood. “I stand relieved, Ensign.”

Penny took her position at the console. The rest of the shift filed back in, some refreshed by a quick nap, others more tired.
 

“Any contacts, Ensign Williams?” asked Captain Williams, taking the command console. “Especially from our friend?”

She was about to answer no as her console lit up—an incoming jump contact, followed closely by a radio signal. “Incoming transmission,” she said.

“Speak of the devil,” grumbled Captain Williams.

Penny touched a button to open the channel. A voice greeted them, synthetic as though generated by computer, but also rich and feminine, carrying an overdone femme-fatale tone. “Oh Captain Williams, how glad I am to be so close to you again. It warms my body from the tip of my snout to the bottom of my toes. How
are
you, my darling?”

Captain Williams shifted his weight from foot to foot, fiddling with the transmit key. In the past, his nervousness might have worried her, but she was just amused.

“She has a thing for me,” said Williams over his shoulder. “It’s just a way for us to… remain good friends.”

Penny didn’t say anything, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“There’s nothing happening,” said Williams. “I promise. She’s a Kel-Voran.”

Penny still continued to say nothing, smile widening. She tapped a key to transfer the call to the command console but, quite deliberately, left it open for herself.

Williams sighed and slipped on a headset, focused a moment with his eyes closed, took a deep breath, and forced an overly-wide smile. “Good evening, Matron El’vass Helvhara the Stoic! How lovely to hear your voice, as always.”

“Yours is ambrosia to me,” she said, practically purring into the earpiece, a subtle nuance in tone that whatever synthetic vocal translator she was using had obviously been programmed with. “When can I convince you to come and marry me as well, my dear?”

Quiet snickering echoed around Operations, and Penny joined in.

Williams gritted his teeth although his words remained as sweet as ever. “Oh I would, you gorgeous little thing, but I’m
already
married.”

“So you keep saying,” said Helvhara, dismissal creeping in. “You say that as though it were not a problem fixable with a payment to your father. Is your bride so poor she cannot afford such a thing? I have many resources. I can arrange to pay for your freedom… on certain conditions, of course.”

No prizes for guessing what those were. Penny snickered quietly. The reaction around Operations was much the same from the rest of the crew.

“Alas,” said Captain Williams, eyes rolling back in his head. “It just won’t be possible today. We
do
, however, require a little help with something…”

“Work, work, always with work!” Helvhara sighed dramatically over the line. “Why is it always
something else
for you, my dear? We came to your aid against the Toralii bastards and claimed many heads in the great battle above Velsharn, but why are you not happy? Our ships help protect you, our soldiers help you exterminate the remaining Toralii filth, and our jump inhibitors help protect your systems. You are
safe
, safe as anyone can be in this galaxy, and yet you continue to slave away for masters who do not appreciate you!” Her tone became sultry again. “Does Commander Liao not appreciate your ‘masculine service’?”

Captain Williams muted the line. “Not true,” he clarified. “Totally and completely untrue.”

“Oh, of course,” said Penny, barely able to keep a straight face.

Williams unmuted the line. “On occasion,” he said, “when her needs become too great. But for now, my dear Helvhara, we need help with this salvage…”

“Of course, of course.” Defeat saturated her words. “I will send that useless worm Belvarn the Undying, son of Vrald the Blood Soaked, to help you on the surface while we keep the Toralii bastards busy in space. You do remember that lump, don’t you?”

“Vividly,” said Williams. The levity was gone, replaced by something darker. “Are you certain that’s appropriate? He murdered my combat systems officer. Going to be honest with you, my dear, I’d much rather spend time with you than him.”

Penny didn’t doubt that was true at all. Her husband had told her about Gutterball, his crewmember who was murdered by a Kel-Voran. Suddenly, she didn’t find it funny either.

“I tire of his whining,” said Helvhara. “I just want him away from me.”

“Forever?” asked Williams, hopefully.

Penny didn’t like that implication and tried to signal
no murder
to him with her eyes. He deliberately avoided her gaze.

“Alas, my dear, no. Once someone is mine, they never cease to be mine. I will need him back when you’re done.”

“Tragic,” said Williams. “Very well. We will meet you at the crash site shortly.
Rubens
out.”

Williams took off the headset. Penny tried to force some energy back into her voice. “Well,” she said. “I’m glad I married you when I did.”

He swirled his finger near his head making a “cuckoo” gesture. “Yeah. No. She’d be great. Just a little crazy. There’s over a
hundred
other husbands, you know.”

“One’s just enough for me,” Penny said, leaning back in her chair.

“You’re hilarious.”

“Honestly,” said Penny, “I’m glad they’re here. They seem useful.”

Shaba shook her head. “The Kel-Voran are… useful but not that useful. Sure, they’ll keep the Toralii busy, which is good, but honestly, I’d rather they not be here.”

“How do you mean?”

Williams rolled his shoulders, arching his back and stretching out his arms.
Crack, crack, crack.
“It’s hard to explain. They stay to their ships, fight like the devil, and happily provide security escorts for salvage operations and patrols. They hardly need any encouragement to brawl with the Toralii—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s getting them to
stop
shooting that’s the trick. The more we learn about them, though, the more I’m inclined to just leave them be.”

Penny was no military strategist, but as far as she could see, they were in no position to turn away helpful allies. “Why?”

“The Kel-Voran sometimes go on something which Commander Wolfe, from the
Washington
,
called a redneck road trip. They drive down the road with a shotgun, laughing and blasting street signs. Only these are planet-sized, spherical street signs teeming with developing life forms, and the shotguns are worldshatter devices.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, everyone’s got to have a hobby, I suppose.”

“That’s not really the problem, to be honest,” said Shaba. “It’s more… what happens when they get bored of driving around?”

“Or the car runs out of gas,” said Williams.

“Or we run out of shotgun shells, and they rip off our arms and beat us with the soggy ends,” said Mace.

Penny wanted to contribute something equally silly. “Maybe we need better friends,” she said.

Nobody laughed. There was too much truth in her joke. Penny refocused on her work.

The closer the
Rubens
sailed toward the planet—a blue frozen hunk of ice floating in a sea of void—the more agitated her husband became. Penny reminded herself that Mike was a well-trained career officer and a pilot. His kind had to remain calm under all kinds of pressure.
 

He was far from calm.

The others noticed it too. Penny could see them exchanging concerned glances. Soon they started talking—informally, casually, without regard to rank. Worse than usual.

They were trying to make him feel better.

“Vrald the Blood-Soaked, huh,” said Shaba. “I guess they didn’t mention that it was probably his own blood from all those knife wounds he carved all over himself. What a fucking
idiot
.”

Mace laughed. “Well, that’s how they do things, apparently. They cut themselves up, carve things into their own skin to prove their strength. Prove how much pain they can tolerate. It’s a display of their manliness.”

“I say again: what a fucking idiot.”

“Hey,” said Mace, “Kel-Voran chicks dig scars, I guess.”

Shaba snorted. “From what we’ve seen of their mating habits, they tend to like guys in weird dresses or whatever. Right?”

Everyone was waiting for the captain to join in. He didn’t. Every little gap where there was a chance for him to jump in but he stayed silent, the growing doubt inside her gained strength.

When she worried, he was less Captain Mike “Magnet” Williams and more Mike, her husband, whom she loved and wanted to be with forever. Away from war. Away from death. Away from whatever turned him from a nice, gentle, soft man into this hard, shaken parody of himself.

A lovely dream—not something she could make happen unless she joined in too, sharing the burden, the pain, the stress. Helping make him feel better.

She
was
making him feel better by being here, right?

Finally, Shaba maneuvered the ship into orbit. “We are geostationary above the
Scarecrow
crash site,” she said. “Shall we send down a team?”

Mike—
Captain Williams
, Penny forced herself to ignore the instincts screaming in her mind—hadn’t said a single thing in hours. He just stood there, staring down at the panel, watching the planet get closer and closer.

God, if you’re really out there, Mike could use some help right now. Don’t be stingy, Lord.

God didn’t say anything. Neither did Captain Williams.

“Mags? Magnet?” Shaba snapped her fingers in an entirely unprofessional manner. “Hey! Captain?”

He seemed to break out of whatever spell held him. “What?” And then, “Oh. Right. Good. Send down a team. I’ll meet them in the hangar bay.”

Wait—he was going down there? Penny shook her head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Have our reptilian buddies said anything?”

“No transmissions from the Kel-Voran or anyone else,” said Penny. “But they’re a long way away. The two are exchanging fire, but the Kel-Voran are dodging pretty good. Did you want me to talk to them?”

“No.” He stepped down off the command dais. “Shaba, you have Operations. Ensign Williams, come down with me.”

A knot formed in Penny’s gut, clenching tightly. “Me? Why me? I’m barely qualified to be a communications officer, let alone a field agent or whatever.”

For a moment, Penny thought he was going to say something
really
stupid. Although Mike preferred a much more relaxed atmosphere than most other commands, there were lines that could not be crossed. Everyone else evidently thought the same—a hushed, unspoken awkwardness swept over Operations.

“Field agents are spies,” he said. “As it happens, I technically only need your eyes. They can record things, right?”

She felt a little relief—not much, just a bit. “That’s right. Saeed said it’s about twenty minutes worth of footage per eye at half the theoretical max resolution, which is pretty good, from what I’ve heard. Half that if you want me to get everything. Half again if you want 3D footage for some reason. You’ll have to give me some time to figure out how they work. I’ve never switched them on before.”

“Can’t you pack a fucking camera?” said Mace. Penny wasn’t sure if that was directed to her or not.

“Ten minutes it is,” said Captain Williams, ignoring Mace’s jab. “Walk with me to the hangar bay.”

Keeping her eyes away from anyone else—she felt a churning unease in her belly, knowing she was receiving special treatment—Penny said nothing and fell into step with him as they left.

The moment the door to Operations closed, he became Mike and nothing else. Penny gripped his hand.

“Hey,” she said. “What the heck?”

He squeezed her hand pretty hard. “I need
you
right now,” said Mike. “Not any stupid camera eyes you might have.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I figured that. Me and the whole crew.” There wasn’t any point denying it. “Pretty sure they’re worried about you.”

“They’re right to be worried,” he said. “I’m a mess.”

“We’ll get through it.” Penny squeezed tighter. “Show me this
Scarecrow
. I promise you, it’s really not scary.”

“I changed my mind,” she said. Air hissed as it circled through her space suit. The frozen-over field of scorched debris—she could recognise no part of the Broadsword it had once been—was littered with body parts frozen by howling winds. The frigid conditions had prevented decomposition, but the impact had torn them to pieces. There must have been twenty people’s worth, all things told, now only icy bones and scorched meat. Some light source near the edge painted the whole scene in Technicolour—lurid greens and purples and reds. “This
is
scary.”