What May Come

Please see chapter 1 for author's notes.

Chapter 12: Rumor Has It

Goddard glanced around the Spung command center, and then reached out and moved one of the helm controls. Nothing happened—the engines had been powered down as soon as the ship was in the Rockhopper's holding bay—but it was nice to be on a ship that he could pilot if he chose. Harlan and Radu were back in the bunkroom, looking through more of the Spungs' things. After hauling the two unconscious Spung back to the Rockhopper—and engaging in a short argument with Aslinn about whether they should be killed outright or just locked up—they and the other unconscious Spung had been taken on a short spacewalk to one of the escape pods inside the cargo bay where it would be impossible for them to escape anywhere but into a depressurized bay. Goddard originally thought they'd then be ejected and left to drift, but as Aslinn pointed out, as soon as the Spung recovered them word about the stolen scout ship would be spread and it wouldn't be much use anymore. So for now the three of them were prisoners. The air supply was still coming from the Rockhopper's filters, so they'd survive, it just wouldn't be a pleasant trip. Then had come the discussion about how to use the scout ship. They'd all agreed that it needed a crew just in case a fast escape was necessary, and since Jacie and Aslinn weren't going to leave their own ship, the three from the Christa had moved what little they had over to it. Goddard had considered leaving Harlan on the Rockhopper—the scout ship really only needed a pilot and a navigator and while the burn on his shoulder wasn't bad, he was in some pain—but aside from the objections he knew the human teenager would have, he didn't like the idea of splitting up his crew. And of the two of them, Harlan was the better pilot. He could have stayed on the Rockhopper himself, but the idea of sending students into battle alone…better they stay together. So they'd disconnected the spaceway between the Rockhopper and the scout, and Harlan had flown the little ship into the holding bay. It had been a close fit, but they'd made it. Now the only way to travel between the two ships was a spacewalk through the bay, but the communications array hadn't been difficult to figure out. In fact, on the main screen he could see Aslinn doing something complicated to the panel in front of him. Probably playing a game.

"Dahlkresh to Rockhopper, do you read me, Rockhopper?"

"Cleo?" Aslinn's head turned sharply toward one of the side screens. "Is this a secure frequency?"

An Andromedan—well, probably Ashrach—girl's image was transferred to the main screen. "It is on my end…at least the best I can mana—" She broke off with a nasty snarl.

"Easy, Cleo, we know it's a Spung ship. It's sitting in our cargo hold. Long story. Why the heck are you risking yourself calling us so far outside you're secure zone?"

"Emergency…we're heading out in less than an hour, and we've heard a rumor we thought you might want to hear. Where's Jacie?"

"Napping. We had a little run-in with a Spung scout group. They had an Ashrach with them."

"He didn't…"

"Yeah. I killed her controller, but she was too far gone. And when she went after me his training took over."

"Damn. Is he going to be all right?"

"Yeah, he's just shook." Aslinn shook his head. "Commander, why don't you get Harlan and Radu, and Cleo can tell us all at once?"

Goddard nodded, keying the intercom with a last glace at Cleo's image. He had a bad feeling that the entire resistance was organized and run by children. "Gentlemen, report to command, we may have some information."

Harlan and Radu appeared a moment later. "Who're you?" the human blurted.

"Name's Cleo. In'Tssai, and partners with Ty and Chaya. You don't know who they are, and if it's all the same to you, we'll keep it that way."

"Do you know something about the others?" Radu asked.

"The Spung have captured a telepath of unknown origin and are taking her to Vartris." She glanced down at something in her hand. "She's looks like a human in her late teens, and has dark hair with streaks dyed into it. Doesn't say how they actually got their hands on her, but she apparently takes control of her victims by projecting something… purple?...into them." She made a face. "I'm blaming that one on Chaya's notetaking skills."

"No, that's right," Goddard assured her. "It's how she projects her consciousness."

"Huh. If you say so." She shook her head. "According to this, so far she's taken over the commander of the ship they took her on and made him shoot up their command post—that's a neat trick—and then when they finally got her into a cell she got the guard to look her in the eye and then…he beat himself unconscious with a dinner bowl? Chaya, am I reading this correctly?"

"All right, Suzee," Harlan said with a grin. "At least she's okay. So where's Vartris, and how soon can we get there?"

"Don't get happy just yet. Technically Vartris is a quarantine station, but it's got seriously bad reputation. And after the last stunt she pulled—they caught her on her way to the engine room—they taped up her eyes so she wouldn't be able to do anything like that again." Cleo glanced offscreen. "That's all I have, and Ty's signaling it's time for us to move out. Good luck. Tell Jacie we all say hello."

"Luck to you too, and hello to the others." The connection was cut, and Aslinn nodded to Goddard and the others. "All right, we've got a target. Assuming this is one of your crewmembers."

"The description fits," Goddard said with a nod, "and I don't think they'd have found two people who use that form of telepathy, at least not within the last day."

"What did she mean, about Vartris?" Radu asked.

"People go in and don't come back out, and a couple of the nastier bioweapons have been traced to that sector. I'll check with Jacie when he wakes up…I don't think we've ever gotten anyone inside to confirm their origin, but there might be someone."

"Where is it?" Harlan asked again, this time with considerably more urgency.

Aslinn pulled a starchart onto the viewscreen. "Not far…several hours' travel if we push it. Looks like we'll miss our window with the Centauri though. Make it damn difficult to get into the empire."

"We can't just leave her there!" Harlan objected.

"And we won't, Mr. Band. What route are the Centauri taking? Could we meet up with them later?"

"Why would we do that?" Jacie slipped into the second command chair, smacking Aslinn lightly on the back of his head as he passed. "You were supposed to wake me up an hour ago."

"You needed the rest. Just got word from Cleo—think we know where their telepath is. Unfortunately, getting to Vartris is going to make us miss the deckship unless the Centuari don't mind us joining up with them inside the empire."

"They won't like tha—Vartris?"

"Afraid so. She's got a new variant on telepathy…you know they'd want to study her. Besides which, she's given them a rough time. Do we have anyone in there?"

"Not anymore, I don't think…that's where they took Kimat."

Aslinn winced. "Damn, I forgotten. Don't think we can count on him for help."

"His spirit, maybe." Jacie looked at the starchart. "Another place to meet the Centauri., assuming we survive that long…."

"There," Radu said, gesturing. "It gives us a planet to shield us from the Spung if we need it, and it's not far out of their way."

"Short window, though…less than thirty-six hours for travel and rescue." Aslinn shrugged, glancing at his partner. "We're game if you are."

Goddard nodded. "Then let's go. Should we launch the scout now, or wait until we're closer?"

"We've got the fuel to haul you…probably better not to raise any questions."

"Are we going to use the engine trouble excuse to dock?" Harlan asked.

"I think it's our best bet, although…Aslinn, Jacie, how much firepower does this ship have?"

Jacie gaped at him. "What? You can't open fire on a station, they'd obliterate you!"

"I don't plan on opening fire on them, but we'd need weapons if we were escorting a suspicious ship…"

"You want to use us to get onto the station?" Aslinn shook his head. "The second we dock, they'll board and arrest us. Well, arrest me, kill Jacie."

"So don't dock," Harlan said. "We'll tell them we're taking your ship to…some military base in that direction, and we've started having engine trouble. Hopefully they'll keep their guns focused on you and we can sneak onto the station and grab Suzee before they notice something is wrong. And then…fly really fast?"

"Well, I'll go with the first part of the plan. If you claim the repairs you're doing on the engines are urgent no one will comment about no one from the ship taking leave time on station. Or even exiting the ship. But the last part…" Jacie shook his head. "We might—might—be able to outrun a light cruiser, if we get a head start. Speed is about the only thing our ship has. But if they've got multiple ships shooting at us, someone is bound to get lucky. And with the added mass of the scoutship…"

"So we won't reenter the bay until we get to safety. The engines here are huge…we should be able to keep up."

Harlan nodded at Radu's comment, gesturing at a blurred mass on the starchart. "This is an asteroid belt, right? If we get there, we should be able to hide the ships."

"It can't be an asteroid belt," Goddard said with a frown. "It's huge."

"Up until half-a-dozen years ago it was a binary planet system," Aslinn said with a shrug. "The first planet-buster tests were done there."

Goddard blanched. "The Spung have ships that can destroy planets!"

"Yeah. You didn't know that?" Aslinn shrugged. "They take a huge amount of energy and they aren't what I'd call stable—the one that took out the second planet apparently exploded right after it fired—but there are a couple of them flying around."

"This—the UPP needs to know about this! This could be a major threat!"

"Tell them when you see them," he replied. "Our information nets don't go that far."

Radu was still studying the starcharts. "If you can get the Centauri to pick us up here…"

Jacie nodded. "I'll pass along the message…hopefully they'll be willing to alter course. Definitely canceling our debt with them though." He made a face. "And all we have to do is make it to the asteroid belt, lose Spung pursuit, and then cross the belt and rendezvous without being noticed. After a daring rescue form one of their nastier stations. Radu, think you and me better talk."

"Why?"

"Because I'm over here…you know, one of the prisoners you'll be escorting? And someone on that ship is going to have to pass as a Spung commander. Unless one of your crewmates is hiding their fluency in the language…."

Radu nodded at that. "I…there's a screen in the galley, I'll try opening a communication channel from there."

Goddard nodded, dismissing him. "Mr. Band, I suggest making yourself as familiar as possible with the capabilities of this ship. You and I will attempt a weapons simulation as soon as I figure out how."

"If you give me direct access to your computers, I'll keep looking for access codes," Aslinn said. "The Spung don't generally use them—they tend to rely on ship numbers for identification and judge the legitimacy of a mission by the arrogance of the commander—but you're going to have to claim this is covert ops to get around the lack of a flight plan and that we might need codes for."

"Of course." Goddard glanced down at the panel in front of them. They'd found several indelible markers in one of the Spung cabinets—apparently one of them had an artistic bent—and had been using them to label the controls as they figured them out. It wasn't that difficult…checking the control manuals in the computer was more helpful than asking Thelma usually was, and like the UPP the Spung had a universal translation program. "All right, I think that does it." Radu had apparently managed to connect from the terminal in the galley—Jacie was holding a hissed conversation with one of the smaller screens. "How long until we reach the station?"

"Jacie just laid in the course…four hours before we reach the point where you'll need to launch the scout ship and start 'escorting' us, two more before we actually reach the station."

"All right. At some point in the next four hours, I'd like you, Radu, and Harlan to get some sleep. Jacie and I have both napped, but we all need to be at our best when we start this charade."

Aslinn nodded. "Understood. You could stand to rest again also…you were in battle not that long ago and your last nap only lasted a couple hours."

"I'll consider it if I've gotten accustomed to the weapons systems here." He could use the sleep too, and he knew it, but things were coming to a head. Harlan and Radu had plenty of up-to-date flight experience, but he hadn't fired a laser cannon since the war, and the only simulations he'd done since being demoted and sent to the StarAcademy were ones designed to teach students the basics, not mimic actual battle conditions. And the fact that he was going to be dealing with an alien weapons system rather than one he still had some reflexive abilities on wasn't going to help.