Dalshon

Chapter 15

Carla leaned against a wall in a room full of Minbari. Her crew packed together tightly around her, and the worker caste filled the rest of the room. Comac stood as far from her people as he could get, doing a good impression of cowering.

The sight of him made her itch. She reached to scratch her arm and encountered the bandages. She had forgotten about the shrapnel. Well, they were minor wounds. Nothing like the wounds in her soul.

Comac edged over to the door. He checked outside for the people-sorter in the yellow vest, and snuck out. Off to find the raiders, no doubt.

"Captain?" one of the young Windswords asked. "What do you think is happening out there?"

Carla shook her head. "They'll be back soon, I'm sure. They know better than to try to follow a spiderdrive ship off the beacon."

Her voice was confident, but inside she wondered too. Her ship could be lost in hyperspace, or destroyed by more Shadow vessels. There always seemed to be more of them popping up. Shadow technology and Shadow servants were everywhere, even though the Shadows themselves had left.

Well, was she really sure they had left? Just because they said they were going to? Wasn't trickery their way?

But surely they could not fool Lorien. But that was putting an awful lot of trust in someone just for being old.

Carla let out a sigh. Even if the Shadows were really gone, their servants were bad enough without them.

She was worried about her ship too. About the people on it, of course, but also about the ship itself. If her ship did not come back, would they give her another one? How many times could she have her horse shot out from under her before they decided they had no more obligation to send her another one? Before they decided she was not cut out to be an officer?

What would happen to Firuun if the ship never came back? The crew was largely his own relatives now. He would be heartbroken. And it was a sure bet he would not get another chance to be a first officer. Perhaps a chief engineer, but no higher. Reduced in rank, and having brought the youth of his clan together on a venture that resulted in half of them dying somewhere out in space without him. He would be seen as a failure, shamed before his clan and his caste.

When had Firuun's career become more important to her than her own?

But it was not just his career. He might decide to give up the Wind Sword, give the chieftanship of his clan to someone else. He might fall on the Wind Sword, as his son had.

If he tried, Carla would stop him. Somehow.

Her link beeped. "Whitestar 97 calling Captain Punch."

"Captain here!" Carla practically cheered. "Are you alright?"

"No casualties, Captain. We lost them. They went off the beacon and we did not engage."

"Good. That was the right choice. Come lock onto the station and pick us up."

It was not quite that simple, since that section of Untika was still locked down under pressure emergency conditions. But about a day later, they were finally able to go back to their ship.

"By the way," Carla said, addressing her crew generally as they trooped back aboard Whitestar 97. "Thank you, whoever beat up Comac. Now that we're onboard, and safe from listening devices, I wanted to let you all know that he was seen leaving Untika with a known raider, so it appears that our campaign of harassment against him bore fruit. Good work."

Carla went to the bridge and considered where to go next. She was not going to give up the hunt for Lennier. So until the Fleet was summoned for some other duty, she was going to try to find him. But following a spiderdrive vessel was futile, and she did not know about him to guess where he would go. She needed to ask someone who did know him.

Carla gave the order to jump to an uninhabited system, where her wounded could recover while she consulted. When the Whitestar was ensconced in orbit around an unimpressive white dwarf, Carla called Anla'shok headquarters in Tuzanor. And left a message asking to speak to Entilza.

End of Chapter 15