Sol Shall Rise (The Pike Chronicles Book 1) (19 page)

Standing in front of the entrance to the Captain’s ready room, Commander Wolfe took a deep breath. She felt like roots had grown out of the soles of her feet, planting her firmly in place. She knew the eyes of the bridge crew were on her. They had witnessed everything. Her actions against Tallos. Her disobeying a direct order from the Captain. All of it. Now they knew it was time to answer for her actions. She knew that hesitating now wouldn’t look good, so she pushed herself to get it over with.

The doors slid open and she walked in. The Captain was working on something and stared at his display, not acknowledging her. She walked up to his desk, stood at attention, and waited. The Captain didn’t look up. Didn’t let her off the hook. So she stood, back rigid, eyes forward. Seconds passed, then minutes, and still nothing. Soon she began to lose track of time entirely. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to stand at attention this long. Perhaps it was boot camp. How long ago was that?

She remembered one particularly hellish experience during their orbital training. She and the other officer candidates were ordered to stand at attention and not move a muscle no matter what happened.

Then they turned off the gravity.

She and all the other candidates started floating and bumping into each other. Then they hit the bulkheads. There was equipment in there with them and it struck them as well. Still they had to stay ramrod straight, eyes forward, unflinching. Most couldn’t do it. At least not the first time out. But she made it. She was determined. Dedicated. Nothing was going to stand in her way, especially not a few bumps and bruises.

Standing at attention was almost like meditation for her. Rather than fight it and focus on all the things that made it difficult, she tried instead to find her center. She let the little things go and simply focused on her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. She imagined arrows sailing down into her diaphragm, gently filling it like a balloon, and then leaving, rising back up through her airways and escaping.

Still nothing. How much time had passed? It had to be at least a half hour now and still the Captain hadn’t even looked at her. He was good. It had to require a considerable amount of effort to ignore her so perfectly. She wondered what else was in store for her. This had to be a prelude to something worse. A warm up exercise. Things didn’t look good.

Why should they? She disobeyed a direct order. She didn’t think he would throw her in the brig with the Diakans, otherwise he would have done it already. No, her punishment wouldn’t be that harsh. He could demote her though. That was entirely possible. She could lose her position as XO. Surely he couldn’t trust her anymore. How could he? Could she trust someone who disobeyed her orders?

No.

So that was it. She would be demoted. Who would become the new XO then? Maybe Chief St. Clair. Yes, it had to be St. Clair. They were friends after all. The Chief wouldn’t disobey his orders. The Captain could trust him. But what would happen to her? Which post would she be assigned to? And what of the person already at that post?

After about an hour the Captain spoke. “Why haven’t you moved, Commander?” he asked, still not looking up from his display.

He still called her Commander. That was a good sign. “It is my duty to stand at attention, until you tell me otherwise, Sir.”

“You’ve been standing there for over an hour. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then why are you standing there? Surely you could be doing something more productive.”

She still looked straight ahead, but could tell that he was looking up at her now.

“I have not been dismissed, Sir.”

“Does that make any sense?”

“It is not for me to say, Sir.”

“But it was for you to say earlier, when you disobeyed my direct orders.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I am not obligated to follow your orders if those orders are given under duress.”

“But Tallos had an official command chip. You didn’t just disobey me, you disobeyed Space Force Command.”

“Tallos’s actions were illegal. The mission had not been compromised and the command chip certainly did not give him authority to take hostages.”

“Was that your decision to make?”

“Yes, Sir, I believe it was.”

“At ease Commander.”

She relaxed and looked at the Captain for the first time since she walked in. To her surprise he was smiling at her. She didn’t remember seeing the Captain smile before. This day just kept getting stranger.

“Tell me, Commander, did you aspire to becoming a fugitive?”

“I beg your pardon, Sir?”

“A fugitive. You know, a criminal. Did you aspire to becoming one?”

“No, Sir.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so. You might as well get used to the idea, though, because that is what you are now. That is what we all are.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, I don’t understand. The only fugitives on board are the Diakans. They’re the ones who acted illegally.”

“Don’t be naive, Commander. Do you honestly think that Space Force will stand up to Diakus to save our asses? Had you allowed them to take me into custody it would be only my head on the chopping block. But now… now all our asses are on the line.”

The Captain’s words hit her like an avalanche. She hadn’t considered the politics of the situation, but she knew he was right. Diakans had been killed. The rest imprisoned. By humans. They couldn’t let something like that go. They wouldn’t turn on their own. How would it look to the other members of the Galactic Accord?

It didn’t matter who was right. If they went back to Sol they would all be brought up on charges and convicted of treason. They would all be executed. What had she done? Her career with Space Force meant everything to her, and now, with one decision, she had destroyed it all.

Her thoughts seemed to float in front of her, unanchored and unreal. It was all adrift now. Everything cut loose. They were alone in the blackness, with nothing to ground them.

“Why don’t you sit down, Commander.”

The Captain must have noticed her uneasiness. She dropped into one of the chairs still trying to come to terms with her new situation.

“I know this is going to be difficult, especially for a career officer like yourself, but I believe this is an opportunity.”

His words stunned her. “How is this an opportunity, Sir? If we return home we will be court martialed. Our careers are over. Not to mention our lives.”

“I have no intention of returning to Sol, Commander. As far as I’m concerned we have a mission to complete. We are still looking for the lost colonies. And from what I’ve seen there could be many lost human colonies out here. They may need our help. We still have the Hermes, and we still have the jump system. So let’s carry out our mission.”

“But Sir, if we are fugitives we have no mission.”

“Nonsense, we still need a purpose. We can’t very well become pirates, can we? Regardless, the crew needs a purpose more than we do. We can’t just tell them that we’re all fucked, now can we? If we continue with the mission nothing changes for the crew. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of watching aliens beat up on humans. We can make a change out here without having to worry about what the bloody Diakans think.”

She let the Captain’s words sink in. He did have a point. The mission they were on could take years to complete. They knew that going in. The Captain was right. There was no Space Force or Diakus out here. They were in the wilderness looking for humans. That was their mission, and they would carry it out. The Captain would lead them. She looked up at the Captain and saw that he was waiting for her response, so she gave it to him.

“Yes, Sir. Let’s carry out our mission.”

The Captain smiled for a second time, and she sank back into her chair, wondering where she was headed.

Kevin listened to the Captain’s words. The idea of not returning to Sol didn’t bother him much. He had nobody left on Earth. All he had was memories, and he could take those with him. More importantly, the Diakans had betrayed his trust.

He had never bought into all the ‘Sol shall rise’ bullshit he heard every now and then. He always thought that humanity should be grateful for all the Diakans had done for them. As part of the Galactic Accord, Sol had much needed security. It is more important to be a small part of something big than a big part of something small. Romantic ideas of a human empire were nothing more than dreams. Why mess with something that worked?

Sure, humans had to take direction from the Diakans from time to time, but wasn’t it to be expected? They were slaves not too long ago. Why not be thankful and happy to be alive? At least that was how he had thought before. Now, things had changed. The Diakans had attacked him, and did so unprovoked. They took civilian hostages. They tried to take over the ship and throw the Captain, his friend, in the brig. They were going to kill the little girl. The end result being several Diakans dead, and the rest in the brig.

The Captain was right. If they returned to Sol, Diakus would come after all of them. Most back home believed the same as he had, that Sol was lucky that the Diakans had helped them. If Diakus wanted their heads, nobody would argue.

He looked over at Commander Wolfe. She was leaning forward in her chair, elbows rested on her knees, blue eyes studying him, looking for a clue as to whether he would be on board. He knew without her saying so that she had already heard the Captain’s speech and agreed. He saw it in her face, and posture. Under normal circumstances that would’ve surprised him, but after what he heard about her drawing on Tallos, he figured it was probably her only option. Was it his only option?

The Captain looked relaxed. He went over the details calmly, explaining how he saw things and what he thought their next move should be. He wanted Kevin’s support. Kevin knew the Captain took it for granted. He knew it should have pissed him off, and with anybody else it would have, but they had been through too much together. He was his commanding officer, but he was also a fellow brother, and Kevin wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet for him. He knew the Captain would do the same in return.

“I’m in,” he said, not wanting to prolong things any more than needed.

Commander Wolfe smiled, took her elbows off her knees and sat back in her chair. The Captain smiled as well and gave him a ‘thanks buddy’ nod.

“So where do we go from here?” he asked.

“First we need to patch up the ship and then we jump back in and finish the job we started.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“We have more of an advantage now. We know they can separate, but now that we’ve taken out two of their ships, can they connect into a larger ship again? If not then we only have four ships to deal with.”

“That still makes us the underdog, Sir.”

“Yes, it does. It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise, would it? Were you able to analyze the data you retrieved from the captured Kemmar ship yet?”

“The AI has been analyzing it and we’ve gained a lot of intelligence as a result. We’ve learned a fair bit about the Kemmar Empire and their capabilities.”

“Good, that will help when we cross the gate into Kemmar space. Was there anything else of strategic value there?”

“Not too much. We’ve taken their ammunition and any weapons that might be useful. There are still engineers on board looking over their systems and retrieving any equipment and materials that they might be able to use.”

“Good. Commander, where are we with repairs?”

“Propulsion and weapon systems are ready to go. The reality is the Kemmar gave us a good pounding and on top of the hull breach, the armor plating throughout the ship has been weakened substantially. We need to reinforce it before we jump back in and fight the Kemmar.”

“How long will that take?”

“We will need a few days at least.”

The Captain was quiet for a few moments. He seemed to be calculating his options. “Ok, you have forty-eight hours. The Kemmar will hopefully need more time than that to find the colonists.”

Breeah was already feeling better. She couldn’t believe how fast the biobots worked. They not only repaired the damage inside her body, but also administered internal medicine directly onto the injury, greatly accelerating the healing process. Back home, even when proper medicine was available, a torn ligament would take weeks to recover from. The biobots had done the same in a fraction of the time.

She had sat up on the side of the bed and rotated her leg to test the knee joint. No pain. She opened and closed her mouth. No pain there either. So far so good. She wondered how much weight her knee could support. Looking down at the ground she contemplated stepping down from the bed to test it out. Anki was up and watching her intently. When Breeah looked over at her Anki nodded her head with a mischievous smile, telling her mother to go ahead and give it a try.

Not wanting to show weakness in front of her daughter she stepped down onto her good leg and then brought the other down as well. Slowly, gingerly, she transferred weight from her good leg to the injured one. Still no pain. Soon she had shifted all her weight onto her bad leg. It held. Amazing. Anki smiled and started clapping.

Breeah gave her daughter a relieved smile in return. Time to see how well she could walk. She started moving slowly, holding the side of the bed with her right hand for support. Here she noticed a little weakness that hadn’t been there before the injury. The joint still wasn’t one hundred percent, but the amount of healing that had occurred was impressive nonetheless.

“You’ll still need a couple days to completely heal, but as you can see most of your mobility has returned,” said Doctor Ellerbeck from behind Breeah, surprising her. She turned to face the Doctor.

“These biobots, as you call them, are impressive. I would never have imagined healing in such a short time.”

“They are extremely versatile. This technology has virtually eliminated the need for invasive procedures such as surgery. In essence, the surgery is conducted on the inside without collateral damage to healthy tissue.”

Breeah just shook her head. The wonders on board this ship seemed limitless. “Did the Diakans give you the biobots too?”

“Most of our technology is Diakan based, although much of it has been altered to suit our needs. Much of our technology base had been destroyed when the Juttari conquered us. Our infrastructure has been built around whatever technology we managed to keep from the occupation, and the technology the Diakans gave us. But we are an inventive species. Once we understood the technology we began making our own advances in all areas of science. The alien technology is a good foundation, but we had to learn how to adapt and customize it to serve our needs.”

Breeah knew something about adapting to a situation. She was starting to realize that these people, even with all their miracles, were not much different from her and her people. The real difference between the two was that these people had subjected themselves to alien rule, first as slaves, and now as citizens of an alien empire.

Her people, however, had always chosen freedom. Even though that meant living under difficult conditions, it was better than submitting to alien masters. No amount of comfort or luxury can replace your freedom. This was something she had been taught since she was a child. It was something taught to all Reiver children. Your freedom is sacred.

Breeah’s thoughts returned to the Diakans and their attempted takeover. She again wondered what would happen now that the Diakans on board had been defeated. The question would have to wait, though. “Doctor, when can Anki and I return to our quarters?”

“Right now, if you want. Just take it easy and I will follow up with you in a couple of days.”