Buoyed by the success of her bloodless coup, Boll looks Garver in the eye, ignoring Donnelly’s snark. “Heading back to Kerenza IV is our only option.”
Kady speaks up, one hand raking through that fading pink hair. “There may be survivors left on the surface. We never really had the option to consider them before—we were too busy running for our lives. But there were still people alive when we evacuated. My cousin Asha—”
“With all due respect,” Garver snaps, “**** your cousin Asha. There are thousands of people aboard this ship, and most of them never asked to be here.”
“Speaking of which,” Donnelly asks, “where are Mantis and DJ?”
Garver blinks. “Who?”
“The two BeiTech auditors I took prisoner in Heimdall C & C.”
“You mean the two *******s who helped attack the station?” Garver growls. “They’re locked in the brig until I find a spare minute to flush them out an airlock.”
“Mantis and DJ helped us during the attack,” Hanna says. “They warned us about the booby traps Falk set on the civilian fleet. The incoming drone fleet. Without them, we’d be dead.”
“Without them, none of this would’ve happened!” Garver cries. “We should space the ****ing pair of them!”
Donnelly’s voice belies the anger in her eyes. “I gave them my word.”
Garver looks back and forth between Grant and Donnelly, then turns to Boll.
“Captain, the universe might have flipped on its head in the last forty-eight hours, but I know we’re not taking orders from a couple of teenagers.”
“As captain of this ship,” Boll replies, “I’m taking advice from anyone I think can provide it, and I’ll thank you to treat everyone present with respect, Chief Garver. Ms. Grant and I do not always see eye to eye, but she is responsible for saving the lives of the nearly three thousand people on Hypatia. Chief Grant tells me Ms. Donnelly and the Malikovs saved the lives of the five hundred–odd Heimdall residents aboard.”
Kady Grant leans forward to catch Garver’s attention, lashes batting. “What have you done today, Mr. Garver?”
His response is a kind of gargling noise, and if I zoom in, I can actually see a vein in his temple start pulsing. Voices are about to be raised again when Isaac Grant groans.
“Dad?” Kady squeezes his hand.
“Damn, that hurts,” he mutters. “I think the dust is wearing off.”
“Dust?!” Garver’s temple vein goes to DEFCON 1.
“I’m all out,” Hanna Donnelly says sweetly. “You’ll have to ask around.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Boll interjects. “The facts are these: Hypatia’s current damage levels mean she’d take at least seven months to return to Kerenza IV, even if she had the fuel to get there. The Mao’s engines appear entirely intact, so it seems we have no choice but to leave Hypatia behind. Once we transfer her population to the Mao, we’re going to have nearly thirty-four hundred people aboard a freighter designed for what I suspect is a thousand at best. Our life support will be working overtime; we’ll have limited H2O, limited food. Presuming we even make it back to Kerenza IV, we have no idea what’s gone on planetside while we’ve been away. The best we can hope for is that the colony is still somehow intact, and that we don’t starve to death or suffocate on our way back there. Do I need to go on?”
It’s enough for Garver to forget his outrage, and he’s quieter when he speaks again. “Is there any good news at all, Captain?”
Hanna pipes up from by the wall. “BeiTech thinks we’re all dead?”
“Hooooraayyyyy,” Kady adds helpfully, shooting Hanna a wink.
“And so does WUC!” Garver points out. “Our employers aren’t even going to be looking for us! We’re millions of light-years from the Core without any hope of rescue!”
Kady wrinkles her nose. “Is this guy always such a downer, Dad?”
“Yes,” Isaac Grant groans. He looks ready to list Garver’s particular faults and failings, but he’s interrupted when the door flies open, revealing a wild-eyed Heimdall comms officer (Garber, Stephanie, not having a great day).
“Um…” The woman looks back and forth between Chief Garver and the captain’s pips on Boll’s collar, confusion in her eyes.
“Report,” Boll prompts.
Garber pulls herself together, offers a small salute. “Ma’am, the Mao’s communications array is online. We were scanning for any signal from Heimdall Station.” She straightens, now trying for professionalism, unaware nobody else in the room has been bothering. “We just received a transmission.”
The room goes still.
“From Heimdall?” Garver asks, bewildered.
“Negative, Chief,” Garber replies. “It’s from Kerenza IV.”
“…Survivors,” Kady breathes.
“They’re sending a distress call?” Boll asks.
Garber slowly shakes her head. “No ma’am. It’s not a civilian transmission.”
Hanna Donnelly’s the first to understand, the first to break the silence.
“BeiTech…,” she whispers.
—PRIORITY ONE TRANSMISSION—
AUTHORIZATION: SŪN 7802-024-BTN
Location: 101:421:082 (Kerenza system)
To: BEITECH HEADQUARTERS, JIA III, 587:331:908 N 71°22'01", W 38°50'31"
Incept: 08/16/75
Secure Ident: 08uǂʭ00wtu-32u&*ʑBBt764#Ξ-redsys-cypher
Director Taylor,
Given the nearly seven months of silence since my last report, I imagine I am the last man in the universe you expected a transmission from. However, my TechEng crews assure me our communication capabilities are now restored and that—should he still be in place—Operative Rapier on Heimdall Station will be able to pass this transmission on to headquarters.
To be brief: Mobile Jump Platform Magellan was badly damaged by UTA battlecarrier Alexander in the attack on Kerenza IV. On February 1, barely three sols after our arrival in orbit, a hermium containment breach aboard Magellan resulted in a localized warp storm that encircled Kerenza IV’s gravity well. The Magellan was saved, but damage to the propulsion systems of my remaining ships meant we were unable to travel past the storm’s periphery, effectively cutting off all intersystem communication from Kerenza IV until the particulate hermium was dispersed by solar winds. If you are receiving this transmission, the storm has abated enough to allow us to restore comms.