Was Once a Hero

chapter Seven





Mourner and medics greeted them at the gantry to Sidhe and rushed them to the sickbay. The brightly lit bay looked more like a hospital suite now then the rudimentary space it had been only days ago. Medics checked everyone, but Mourner herself examined Duna.

Fenaday was glad for her expertise. Mandela would take any harm to Duna out of his hide. Fortunately, the old scholar had taken little injury, thanks to Telisan. Mourner decided to keep him in sickbay for observation, assigning a medtech to watch over him. The old Enshari spent from the fight dropped off to sleep almost immediately.

With the adrenaline rush of the fight over, Fenaday’s bruises and cuts asserted themselves. In some cases, the bruises went to the bone. Telisan’s cuts looked deep and painful, but well within the skills of Doctors Mourner and N’deba. The transformation in his sickbay amazed Fenaday. He had a full medical staff of a quality a regular navy vessel might well envy. Mourner’s skill with a tissue regenerator awed anyone watching. She fluttered about them like a small, active bird.

“Your injuries barely need attention, Commander Rainhell,” Mourner said, clearly fascinated by the Olympian. “They already look days old and are well on their way to healing. I’d love to do some lab studies of your—”

“No,” Shasti growled.

Mourner looked as if she might press the point, but Shasti fixed her cold, empty, jade-eyed stare on her. The doctor found herself suddenly without words, something Fenaday suspected seldom happened to her. Shasti stood, slipping her jacket back over her shoulders.

Fenaday looked past the two of them toward Mmok. Fatigue weighed on him like a sodden blanket. “We have a few hours to sunrise. See that the ship is secure, Mr. Mmok.”

Mmok grunted, his chief form of communication.

“I’ll be in my cabin,” said Fenaday, standing and barely suppressing a groan. “Wake me only if the Conchirri attack Mars.”

*****

Sunrise came but the Port Police didn’t. Shasti woke him, bringing a message that appeared on Sidhe’s computer, untraceable, though they had no doubt of its origin. “Press getting wind of the mission, get off Mars.”

“What now?” asked Shasti.

“We move up the clock for liftoff,” he replied. “Call everyone to the ship after sunrise. Order them to come in groups of ten or more. Once aboard, everyone but you stays aboard.

“I want you to scout the area of last night’s fight. Don’t take any risks. If you see anything suspicious, pull out. Use our private channel.” He hesitated for a second, “Take a weapon, screw the regs.”

She nodded with her usual economy of speech.

Two hours later Fenaday stood on the bridge, working through the prelaunch checklist with Katrina Micetich when his private com beeped. He walked into his ready cabin off the bridge and clicked on the com.

“All evidence of the attack,” Shasti said without preamble, “including the blood, has disappeared. Mandela cleaned up our mess very professionally.”

A chill ran down his spine as he wondered what’d happened to the unconscious and dead they’d left behind. “Okay. Get back here as soon as you can.”

The next twenty-four hours became feverish as Fenaday made one day do the work of two. The crew came aboard, resigned it seemed, to blasting off into the unknown. Dobera and the stores crew finished loading at 2 A.M. local time. Fenaday ordered the last connections to the docking cradle severed with relief. Sidhe’s own power came completely on line. The ship sealed for space.

On the bridge of the former Conchirri frigate, Fenaday sat in the center seat. Shasti stood beside him. She had no flight duties, but a monitor gave her details of the ship’s security functions. Liftoff was her favorite part of space flight. She always watched from the bridge.

Fenaday clicked on the monitor in the arm of his chair. Perez’s face appeared. He and the ship’s engineers, the so-called “black gang” manned the reactors far aft in the ship.

“All engines ready for all power settings,” said Perez.

“Excellent,” Fenaday replied. “Standard Mars launch settings then.”

He looked over at Micetich and a new crewman seated at the ship’s controls. The gunnery stations remained unmanned. Mmok appropriated a seat there, a chill and unwelcome presence. Fenaday forbade him to bring an HCR to the control center. The cyborg was bad enough.

He turned to the radar and communications specialist, Sharon Hafel, a gray-haired, stocky woman, one of Mandela’s people. “Keep scanning and stay alert for any out of pattern traffic.”

“Aye, sir,” she replied without taking her eyes from the instruments.

He noted Shasti’s curious gaze. “Be a bad thing if we were hit by a conveniently out of control aircar.”

“Not much we can do,” she shrugged. “Mandela is not going to allow us to arm weapons anywhere near Marsport.”

“Captain,” Telisan called from the companionway entrance behind them. “The port pilot is here. We are cleared for lift.” The port pilot, a rotund fellow, followed him in. His arms were full of forms and a portable com. The pilot would unlock Fenaday’s weaponry and leave in his little cutter after Sidhe cleared atmosphere. The port pilot walked over to Micetich’s station and gave Fenaday a questioning look.

Fenaday nodded, “Take her up.” He hit the klaxon, which hooted three times. “All hands, this is the bridge. Take hold, take hold, take hold. Stand by for artificial gravity to cut in at ninety seconds after liftoff.”

Around the bridge people buckled into seats or belted themselves to takeholds mounted in consoles and walls. After the ship’s AG came on, the precaution would be unnecessary.

The port pilot displaced Micetich, who moved to stand behind him, a slightly disgusted look on her heavy-featured Slavic face. Fenaday understood her feelings. He hated the arcane port procedure. Fenaday believed it existed to give the Confederacy an excuse to implement fees.

The red frigate shuddered in her cradle as the power came on. Slowly, she began to lift against Mars’ still formidable gravity. The pilot put her into a forward ascent. Sidhe derived lift from her wings and aerodynamic hull to save on reaction mass. The starship reached high Mach numbers quickly, flying into orbit like the space planes of the 21st century. After they reached orbit, Fenaday thanked the port pilot and put him off in his cutter.

Once free of the drag of Mars’ atmosphere, Sidhe rendezvoused with an automated tanker platform, replacing fuel used in lifting out of the gravity well. After that Fenaday set course for the system’s edge where the FTL drive could work. The inner system was far too dense to allow the FTL drive to be effective. Fenaday enjoyed the freedom that came from Mandela’s checkbook and burned fuel at military levels to speed them on their way. Another tanker station awaited them at Sol system’s edge.

“Radar contact,” Hafel announced calmly, “bearing, two hundred seventy degrees and zero degrees relative. Distance, thirty thousand kilometers, relative speed... dropping to zero.”

“Let me guess,” Fenaday replied, “a Confederation cruiser, Battle or Nova class.”

“Good guess,” Hafel said with a sidelong glance of her almond shaped eyes. “IFF shows Confederation Battle class cruiser, Rourke’s Drift. Shall I raise them?”

“Negative. If you start to transmit, she’ll jam us.” Fenaday replied. He turned a sour look on Telisan. “Your friend Mandela doesn’t want you to get lonely or talkative.”

“I am no more convinced he is my friend than that he is yours,” the Denlenn said. “People like him fly whatever flag suits them. I saw my fill of them during the war. Killers, not warriors. They use us like the clip of a tri-auto.”

“True enough,” murmured Fenaday, a little surprised. Telisan was regular Confed military. “Is it different among your kind?”

Telisan made an odd gesture that Fenaday felt might be a sigh. “Yes, or rather it was. A Denlenn leader is expected to lead from the front. To be bravest. So we were when this war began. Our methods cost us many of our best fighters and leaders. Your kind told us this was foolish, but we would not listen. These ways served us during our wars with Dua-Denlenn. Our cousins have no honor but at least fight with civilized restraint. Why lay waste to a world and lose the value of it for all time?

“Nothing prepared us for the Conchirri. Honor and restraint were unknown to them. We lost many battles, even some worlds, before we resigned ourselves to changing to your methods, as the Moroks already had. Your kind makes war almost into a business, a matter of calculation.”

“It had been a long time since we’d had to fight,” said Fenaday distantly, thinking on the long history of humanity’s wars. “The big ones ended centuries ago, as the stellar Diaspora allowed many of earth’s adversaries to gain sufficient distance from each other.”

“It came back to you quickly,” Telisan said.

Unable to decide if this was an accusation or a compliment, Fenaday opted for silence.

*****

Three days out from Mars, Fenaday decided to break the news of their wild venture to the crew. First, he filled all critical stations with either Mandela’s people, or the few reliable members of his own crew. He ordered Shasti, Gunnar, Li, Mmok and his HCRs into the central shuttle bay, where the rest of the crew gathered. Rigg dispersed his Air Space Assault Team troops throughout the ship to provide security.

Fenaday met the others outside the bay. Shasti had put her port clothes away. She wore the same loose, sage-green, fatigue uniform as the ASAT troops. Simple and functional, it hid her fascinating curves, making it easier to concentrate around her. She carried a baton as well as a short-barreled riot gun. He assumed she’d loaded it with plastic bullets. Connery, Gunnar and Li carried similar arms. Telisan, an expert shot, carried a laser, as did Fenaday. Mmok wore no obvious weapon, though Fenaday felt sure the cyborg had something secreted on him. His four HCRs stood around him. Magenta wore a plastic flower in her hair, more of Mmok’s sardonic humor.

I would hate to believe he sleeps with the damn things, Fenaday thought.

Shasti raised an eyebrow at him. She did not smile, but again, her quirky way of looking at him made him suspect she knew what he was thinking and that it amused her.

Fenaday took a few deep breaths and led them into the shuttle bay. The buzz of conversation lowered as he mounted the hastily erected dais. Shasti stood on the deck before him, her head still level with his. The HCRs fell in on the corners of the dais. Mmok and Telisan joined him on it. Shasti’s best Landing Force troops took up strategic spots in the bay.

“Not like the old days, when you could have taken the bay by yourself,” he murmured, just softly enough for Shasti to hear. The barest hint of a smile touched her lips, then her face returned to its usual mask-like calm.

He looked at the crew, as unusual a collection as had ever flown space. They ran from dedicated professionals from the shadow side of the military, to adventurers to the desperate. They all stood staring at him.

Fenaday keyed his throat mike. “You’re gathered here to find out the destination of our mission. All of you signed up for the voyage knowing this was a high-risk mission. It is for this reason that the least ranked of you will make most of a lifetime’s earnings on this one voyage.

“You know we are government sanctioned and sponsored. Government people are onboard. They won’t admit it. Their bosses don’t carry them on official rosters. The point is—we are legitimate. We are doing something the government wants done, but does not want to risk regular forces to do.”

He drew a deep breath. “We are on our way to Enshar.”

The reaction was as bad as he expected. One female crewmember screamed and others cursed. Fenaday looked at them, seeing wide eyes, open mouths, terror stamped on every face.

“Silence,” Telisan roared in his best parade ground voice. As if to emphasize his point, the HCRs snapped from parade rest to attention in absolute unison.

“We’re dead,” one crewman sobbed into the wary silence.

“We are not,” said Fenaday sharply. “The command staff has no more desire to die than you do. We have brilliant doctors and scientists on board, the best robots and equipment the Confeds have and an ASAT team. They did not come here to die.”

“They had a whole planetary military on Enshar,” called one man. “They were wiped out. Just like the fleet that came after.”

Fenaday recognized the man after a second, Greywold, a bar tough hired by Shasti to pad out the landing force. She’d been unhappy about him afterward, but they needed the gun.

“The fleet was not wiped out,” Telisan replied. “I was with it. The attack on us ceased as we drew away from the planet. I will also tell you something now declassified. I took a scout below the so-called line of death. I descended to the height of the Flamme’s orbit. The zone of death is not there.”

“Sidhe,” Fenaday said, “will not approach the planet closer than the point at which the attack on the fleet ceased. I’ll take a single fighter on an atmospheric entry. If I’m not attacked, the three Dakota shuttles will come in for a planet landing. I’ll ask for volunteers, but if I nominate you as necessary for the mission, you go.

“Understand this, Sidhe is a military vessel. We are under Letters of Marque and Reprisal on a military mission. This means military discipline. I will brook no dispute with our mission. I will shoot space lawyers, plain and simple.”

The crisis point seemed past. Many in the crew relaxed at the news that the starship herself would not land. Others, whose specialties meant possible inclusion in the landing, stood tense, their eyes flickering around the bay as if seeking escape.

“We didn’t sign up for this,” Greywold called out from the back.

“You are here, you signed, you go,” Fenaday stated. “That is also the last outburst I will tolerate." Behind him, Shasti brought her riot gun up; its butt rode comfortably on her hip.

“While I command the mission,” Fenaday continued, waving toward Duna. “I want you to meet the sponsor of it.”

Belwin Duna entered from the passageway door where he stood waiting with Li. He walked with apparent ease to the dais and stood on a box Fenaday set up for him.

“Greetings, crew of the Sidhe,” said Belwin. “Though you do not believe it now, in times to come, each of you will be venerated as heroes among my people for participating in this great cause.”

Duna delivered an impressive collection of indirection and platitudes. He acquainted them with the facts of the disaster and reminded them that in the time since the attack on the fleet, there had been no sign of any hostility on the planet. All this glossed over the fact that nothing remained on the planet to attack. The little scholar’s speech calmed the crew at least for now.

Duna made much of Telisan’s flight. The scholar had only learned of it after liftoff, one of Mandela’s conditions on Telisan’s pardon for stealing the stealth programs. When Duna learned of Telisan’s flight, the hope that shone in the old scholar’s eyes was painful to see. Fenaday realized that Telisan had been right to keep the information secret.

“Let me guess,” Fenaday whispered to Telisan, “that sometime in his long life, he was a politician.”

Telisan did not nettle as expected. “It has been a long life, as you say. He has been many things in it. Here, I think he means just to comfort. They must go to Enshar. Perhaps they go less afraid now. I tell you that he believes there is a chance, or he would not do this.”

“A leader can deceive others,” Fenaday replied, “but he should not deceive himself.”

“As you wish,” Telisan said. Manners forbade him to argue with his captain.

The meeting broke up and the crew went back to their stations. For the rest of the ship’s day, Fenaday worked the crew as hard as possible. Maintenance, fire drills, everything else he could think of to keep them busy.

That evening, Quartermaster Dobera made sure dinner was the best food Sidhe could boast. Fenaday met Duna and Shasti at the entrance to the mess, leaving Telisan on the bridge standing watch.

Sidhe didn’t have an officer’s wardroom, but Fenaday sometimes used a large table on a raised area in the back for official functions. A steward greeted them, rushing out drinks.

“The condemned will eat a hearty meal,” Johan Gunnar said.

Duna overheard the comment and looked over at Fenaday. “Your cook is good?”

“My cook,” Fenaday said as they seated themselves, “insists on being referred to as Chef Marcel. He affects a terrible French accent, but he’s no more French than Shasti. He’s a deserter from the War. He is also a trained chef, so naturally the Confederacy drafted him for the infantry, the service arm with the highest rate of casualties.”

“Yes,” Shasti added. “Claiming he’d trained to prepare meals, not risk becoming one for the Conchirri, he deserted. We were refueling on Morokat when he tried to sneak aboard Sidhe. I caught him immediately.”

“She brought him to the bridge,” Fenaday said as plates were set about him. “I was reaching for the com to call MPs when he asked me if I was a betting man. He made a wager that if he could serve me one meal, I would never turn him over to the MPs. He won.”





Duna laughed, his small, furry body shaking.

“The chocolate soufflé garnered him Shasti’s support,” Fenaday continued, reaching for a glass. “I figured hiring him was a good chance to bank a favor with my formidable new security chief. Food on Sidhe had been miserable.”

“Good thinking,” Shasti said, with a causal wave of her knife.

“At times like this,” Fenaday said, “when I need to pump morale in, I’m glad to have him. Terrible accent notwithstanding.”

Normally Fenaday didn’t eat with the crew, but tonight it seemed best to see and be seen. Marcel, crowned with his pleated, white chef’s hat, brought their food, too busy with the special meal to subject them to much of his fake French.

Fenaday scanned the room. He frowned at a group of crewman clustered around an animated Greywold. Katrina Micetich caught his look and slunk sheepishly away. Greywold held his eye for a second. He felt Shasti shift beside him. The man’s eyes dropped as he suddenly discovered an interest in his meal. Fenaday turned to look at Shasti. She nodded, and he knew she would keep an eye on him.

“Captain,” Duna asked, missing the by-play. “How long will it be to Enshar? I keep forgetting to ask Telisan.”

“Always an interesting question,” Fenaday replied. “Hyperspace itself has no analog with normal space, so distances in jump don’t mirror those of the normal universe. A voyage between two relatively close stars can take months of objective time. Yet, others separated by hundreds of light years, take only weeks. Hyperspace is ‘thicker’ or “thinner’ between certain stars. Even in those jumps, the currents of hyperspace can change the length of the trip, depending on where you enter. Between some stars there is an express pipeline, as if a river’s raging current helps the ship’s drive. The jump to Enshar is one of these, shorter than many jumps, for all that it’s over six hundred lights to your system.”

“Which means?” prompted Duna.

Fenaday laughed. “Forgive the lecture, Professor. The voyage will take four weeks of actual time. We will be in hyperspace for thirty-eight days universal time.”

“Not that we will experience that,” Duna mused. “It never fails to amaze me how one experiences nothing in hyperjump, not even dreams. I think that thirty-eight days will bring us to the city of Gigor in the spring.”

“Yes,” Fenaday replied, butterflies hitting his stomach at the thought. In Gigor sat the dead Confederation shuttles. They lay there now, awaiting him.

*****

Sidhe accelerated outward from Sol system. Onboard, Fenaday and Telisan continued working up the crew. Belwin Duna did all he could to restore the crew’s morale. Always available, he spoke to everyone and answered every question. Fenaday’s instinct proved correct, the old scholar had once been a politician. He worked the crowd. Before long many of the crew began to see themselves as heroes on a quest.

Wherever the little scholar went, an HCR, or Mmok himself, followed. Clearly the cyborg had orders to keep Duna safe. Fenaday worried about the Enshari’s safety as well, but there was no one better suited to protect Duna than Mmok and his unsleeping watchdogs. Mmok’s sentry duty also freed up Shasti’s limited number of reliables to watch Mmok, Telisan and everyone else.

Sidhe reached the edge of Terra’s system and the FTL drive began its buildup. The small quantum singularity that provided the ship’s artificial gravity now bent the fabric of space time. Sidhe breached that fabric and leapt into hyperspace, heading outward to Enshar.