Starship Eternal (War Eternal Book 1) (28 page)

Seven. They had lost seven.

It was another punch in the gut.

"It's a strange place to hold a memorial service," Mitchell said as they entered. Half the crew was already present, standing in small groups or alone using their p-rats.

"It is cleanest place in the ship after showers and medical," Ilanka replied.

"Captain Williams?" A hand tapped his shoulder. Mitchell turned around, finding a small, balding man standing there. He didn't recognize him from the hazing or the briefing.

"Yes?" Mitchell said.

"I'm Ensign Philip Hubble. I'm in charge of supply."

That explained why he hadn't seen him before. "Nice to meet you."

"I heard you really saved our rears. I just wanted to thank you. Death isn't high on my list of priorities."

"Mine, either."

Philip smiled. "Yes, well, if there's anything you need, just knock. I have access to a number of suppliers." He winked as he said it, trying to be subtle, and failing.

"I'll do that." Mitchell shook his hand, and the man wandered off to speak to Ensign Sao.

"Be careful what you ask for," Ilanka said. "The only things that are free are provided without asking."

"I figured as much."

Anderson entered the room with Millie.
 

"Officer on deck," he shouted.

"Riigg-aaah," the crew replied, breaking up and arranging themselves into formation near the center of the room. Ilanka helped Mitchell find his spot near the front-and-center. He glanced back, guessing that they had put themselves in rank order.
 

Mille walked to the center of the room. She was organized, composed, and serious. She paused at the table, running her eyes along each of the images there. She made the sign of the cross in front of them, and then turned around.

"Riggers," she said.

"Riigg-aaah," they replied. Mitchell caught on quick enough to join them.

Millie let a small smile escape.
 

"Sunny, Mouth, Talon, Ahab, Pissface, Lolita, Gremlin. Criminals, yes. Soldiers first. Friends to some. They gave their lives for the Schism. For our mission. For our family."

"Riigg-aaah!"

"I don't need to tell you what their skills have meant to this team. Most of them were good people, too." She let the smile slip then.

"Riigg-aaah!"

"Keeping with tradition, each of you has been given something belonging to one of our fallen comrades." Her eyes fell on Mitchell's chest, to Sunny's medal. "I ask that you keep these things and add them to your footlocker with the rest. Keep them somewhere that you'll see them, that you'll always remember the sacrifices our teammates make for us and for our mission. Gone. Not forgotten."

"Riigg-aaah!"

Mitchell put his hand to the medal, running his fingers along the etched surface. He didn't need to be told of sacrifice. He had seen it first-hand, lost the most important woman in his life. It didn't matter if he had been with the Riggers for two days or twenty years, they were his family now, and he felt the anger over the loss of their teammates. Seven of them. He glanced around the room again. The entire crew was here, close to fifty strong. Fifty. The number was so small to begin with.

"Sunny, Mouth, Talon, Ahab, Pissface, Lolita, Gremlin. Their names will be etched into the bulkhead on the bridge, joining the others who have given their lives for the Alliance. Bow your heads, and offer a prayer to whatever you believe in for the souls of our departed."

They all bowed their heads. Mitchell closed his eyes. The souls were out there, one with the universe. They would reform one day, brought back to their past state, eternally returned to the place and time when they laughed and loved, when they were ambushed and died. Unless their future was changed. The timeline may have locked when M arrived, but what about the next? Or the one after that? Could the so-called eternal engine move infinitely for infinity?

The thought of it kept Mitchell with his head bowed until Ilanka elbowed him in the ribs. He lifted his head, seeing that Millie was watching him curiously.
 

"Are we going to get even with those Federation bastards, Captain?" Cormac asked from his place near the back.

She looked away from him. "I don't know. We're currently headed towards the rendezvous point near Caldera. We'll make our report and wait for our next orders."

"I hope we do," Cormac said.

"Riigg-aaah," the crew shouted in reply.

Millie smiled. "Does anyone have anything they'd like to say about any of our fallen comrades?" she asked.

"I do," Shank said, stepping forward. Millie motioned for him to join them at the front of the room. The big man looked back at the images, lingering on Gremlin, the only member of his team to lose their life. "You all know me. I've been on this ship for three years. I've seen almost a hundred people come and go, either because of the rigors of this job or because they were bigger assholes than Command had guessed when they shipped them here. It doesn't matter. The point is, after a while you start to get numb to it. You start to expect it."

A tear formed at the corner of his eye, and he wiped it away angrily.

"I wasn't expecting this. Gremlin was one of the best. Shit, he was here longer than me. Frigging lucky pot-shot." He paused, gritting his teeth. "Don't let yourselves get numb. Don't forget, and don't forgive. We're the lucky ones to be here, and we have a duty to the people who came before us, who come after us, anyone who died when we didn't. We get even every time we complete a mission. We get our revenge by working together to send a big frig you to our enemies."

"Riigg-aaah!"

Shank returned to his place in the line, the anger still visible in the tension of his body.
 

"Anyone else?" Millie asked.

Cormac started forward.

"Not you, Firedog," Shank said.

"But-"

"Remember the last time?"

"Yeah, but I-"

The grunts started laughing first, followed by the rest of the crew. Mitchell hadn't been there the last time, but he could imagine the Private making any number of inappropriate remarks.

"Well then, if nobody else has anything to say, you're all dismissed. We'll be dropping from FTL on full alert. If the Federation knew we were headed to Calypso, they might know about the rendezvous point as well."

The laughing stopped. They shifted back to full attention, ready to receive new orders.

"Thank you all," Millie said. "Riggers!"

"Riigg-aaah! Riigg-aaah!Riigg-aaah!"

Millie left the room without another word, Anderson trailing behind.

"What were you thinking?" Ilanka asked. "During moment of silence?"

"This may just be starting," Mitchell said. He paused, feeling sick to his stomach. "This may never end."

Mitchell found himself back in the cockpit of the S-17 when the Schism dropped out of hyperspace. Ilanka was to his left, suited up and ready in the Piranha, able to see him quite clearly from their position on the hanger floor. There hadn't been time to re-mount the fighters to the launchers, and so leaving the ship would mean opening the doors and letting the evacuating air carry them out into space.

It was a tense moment, watching the clock hit the drop point and feeling the slight shift of the change. Then the ship fell dead, the hyperspace engines being replaced with thrusters, a speck of dust drifting in an ocean of nothing.

Not quite nothing.
 

"Shields at full," Millie said, her voice loud in his inner-ear. She had patched him directly into her own comm channel, giving him full access to everything that was happening on the bridge. She wanted him to hear what Command had to say, even if they weren't allowed to know he was on board.

"Shields up," Briggs said. "Forward compartment on G is breached."

"Damn it. It's a mess out here."

She gave him a display then, a view from beyond the cracked carbonate on the bridge. The entire area was littered with debris - bits and pieces of metal, textile, and flesh.

There were bodies out there. Dead bodies, of people dressed as though they had no idea they were about to be exposed to naked space. Some were well-dressed. Some were in uniform. Others had been caught with their pants down. There were a lot of them. Too many. Hundreds. They would float into the web of energy provided by the shields and be reduced to ash.

"What the hell..." Mitchell closed his eyes. It was hard to look at.

"I'm not picking up any readings from the area, Captain," Briggs said. "There's nothing larger than a person out here. No ships, no satellites."

"No ships?" Millie said. "Not one?"

"No, ma'am."

"What about the planet?"

"I'm receiving a communication, Captain."

"Put it on."

"Please," came the voice, deep and haunting and frantic. "If you can hear us. We've lost contact with the Sabertooth. We've lost contact with everyone. What's going on up there?"

There was silence while Mitchell waited for Millie to respond.

"Who is this?" Millie asked.

"Stanis Lem, President of the Dark Side Trading Company. Please, can you tell me what's happening out there?"

"This is Captain Alison Caine of the salvage vessel Pyrite," she replied. "Stanis, I don't know how to tell you this. There's nothing alive up here."

The pause was painful. Mitchell glanced over at Ilanka. He could just make out the tears in her eyes beyond her clear helmet.

"What? I... There were ships. Four ships. They appeared from the shadow of Gusav-3 two days ago. Our sensors picked up huge energy spikes, and then all of our near-surface electronics went out. Even the ones that are EMP shielded. We were lucky our generators survived, or we would all be dead. We just got a communications back online a few hours ago and we've been calling out. No one has answered. Not for me, not for anyone. Not until you."

The dark form of Caldera swung into Mitchell's view on the port side. It was an E-type planet, but only barely. It was dry and rocky, ninety percent mountains and crags, with only a small deposit of water and a small belt where rain would ever fall. It was there that the planet's only city rested, hidden among the dark spires of stone and ore, a bastion of safety for the lawless activity it sheltered. It was a planet known to the Federation, the Alliance, and the New Terrans. Most of the planets of the Rim were. It was allowed to exist because it served as a jump point for the starships who reached out into the galaxy beyond the Rim, searching for new worlds, new resources, anything that could make them rich. It was allowed to exist because it was a known quantity and, in the case of the Schism, it was needed to keep their true mission secret while providing supply.

"I don't know what to tell you, Stanis," Millie said. "We were coming to Caldera to trade. It seems you have nothing for us. We can pass a message along for you, for a price."

"Those are my people that are dead," Stanis screamed back through the comm. "A settlement ship with two thousand souls on board was about to go beyond the Rim when these ships appeared."

"Do you want me to weep for those I never knew?" Millie responded. Mitchell wondered how much of it was and act. "Your misfortune isn't my concern. Feeding my crew is."

"You cold bitch," Stanis said. "If my systems were online, I'd have already fired on you." There was silence, as Millie decided not to respond. "Damn you, Captain Caine. What's your price?"

"Fifty-thousand. I'm transmitting the account id now."

"Fifty? Maybe you aren't completely frozen. Information received. I'm making the transfer."

It was a lot of credit, but not nearly as much as she could have wrung from the desperate man. Then again, Mitchell had no idea if she intended to deliver his message or not.

"What's your message?"

"It's private."

"No, it isn't. I don't need you telling your parent corp to hire mercenaries to hunt me down. I didn't start working the Rim yesterday."

Stanis laughed across the channel. "Sending the transmission codes. The message is simple. Attacked, disabled. Send immediate assistance."

"That's all?"

"Yes."

"Very well. I'll be leaving the area in the next few hours. I'm going to scout the debris for anything of value first."

"What?" The anger returned to Stanis' voice.

"Your misfortune is my gain in more than one dimension," Millie said. There was a soft tone as she closed the communication with the planet. "Ensign Briggs, is there any sign of the drone out there?"

"No, Captain. I don't think it's arrived yet."

"It should be-"

Mitchell's helmet picked up a new ship. It was the only other one out there. It had a different color to it, purple instead of the typical red and green.

"And there it is," Millie finished.
 

"Receiving data," Ensign Sao said.
 

"Transmit across the secure channel."
 

A new tone alerted Mitchell to another communication signal opening up for him. The video of the stream filled into the front of his eye, slightly transparent so he could see the theater grid in front, and the hanger behind.