"What did you think of her?" Wixa asked.
"Bara?" Maiga frowned. Why did Wixa care what Maiga thought of her? Don't say she was caught up in the mystique of the legendary Captain Bara, fighting to gain revenge on humanity's enemies? Maiga engaged the star drive and turned back to Wixa to answer. "Seemed quite polite and friendly."
"Oh yes. And seemed, well, ever so slightly mad."
"Mad?"
"Well that whole ‘lizard skin' thing."
"She was probably kidding." Maiga shrugged. "Playing up to the legend."
"If you say so." Wixa didn't sound convinced.
"She can't be mad," Maiga said. "People would notice if she was mad."
"Well I'm people, and I noticed."
"Her crew I mean, they'd… object."
Wixa grinned. "Maybe they're all mad too."
~o~
A few hours later, Maiga sat in the cockpit, monitoring the sensors. The door to the living area stood open and she could hear Wixa listening to music and singing along, as she prepared food for the two of them.
The sensor alarm began to beep, showing something near the edge of sensor range, but coming closer. Maiga leaned forward. The music and singing in the other room fell silent and she heard Wixa's footsteps in the doorway.
"Oh don't tell me," Wixa groaned. "Don't tell me he's been waiting for us."
"Yes," Maiga said, as she increased speed. "The lizards are back. Strap in. This time he's not going to be nearly as polite."
They piled on all the speed they could muster, but couldn't escape in a straight race. When the Qacian ship got close enough, it quickly confirmed Maiga's assumption that the captain would not be polite.
"He's powering weapons," Wixa reported.
"Engaging evasive manoeuvres," Maiga said.
"They're hailing. Think they want to say goodbye?"
"Tell them to sling their hooks," Maiga said, with a grim smile, making Wixa grin.
"Aye-aye, Captain."
The Qacian ship fired, but the Friss's erratic evasion course easily let it dodge the energy bolt. Maiga smiled again, grim satisfaction starting to give way to excitement.
Cool down, she told herself. This isn't a game, keep that adrenaline under control. Keep your head. All her experience in combat had taught her to channel the excitement and skate over the panic-thrill to stay in control. She might be out of practice now, but so much training had turned it into instincts she'd be able to call on for the rest of her life.
At this point, the rest of her life might be a rather short time.
Wixa had opened a channel and the Muaan Qacian's hissing voice came through.
"Hello again, humansss."
No sense in making any official protest this time. Maiga heard the cockpit door close behind her as she started to isolate the rest of the ship, to divert all power to the engines.
"Hello again, scalie," Wixa said. "You got nothing better to do? Why don't you go back to polishing your tail?"
"Wixa!" Maiga said, rather shocked at the insults, the kind of thing you'd hear some grunt saying.
"That was my captain," Wixa said, still talking to the Qacian. "She says you should come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."
His growl cut off when Maiga cut the channel. "On the other hand, maybe I should do the talking to the people shooting at us from now on."
The ship jerked and shuddered. The panel displays cut out entirely for a moment, before coming back, most of them now red or flashing. Or red and flashing. Alarms told them what they already knew.
"We're hit!" Wixa called. "Engine damage. I'm rerouting systems now." Her hands flew over the controls.
Maiga tried the same, rerouting power, but the engine was failing. Damn.
"Dropping to sub light," Wixa said. "Lizards still with us."
The ship juddered and shook as they fell back into normal space, the star drive field collapsing. Both women gasped and instinctively ducked as the Qacian ship followed, and seemed to appear from nowhere, only a few hundred meters away. It swept past and vanished from visual range. But the sensors were still working.
"Turning," Maiga reported. "Coming back towards us."
"Can we manoeuvre? Have we got anything left?" Wixa's eyes were huge in the dim light, the ghostly white and blood red light from the panels flickering over her skin.
"The engine's dead," Maiga said. "There's power in the reserves, but too much damage to propulsion to use it."
"Oh. Shit."
That about summed it up. "Yeah."
"Well, it was nice while it--what the hell?"
It came literally from nowhere, popping out into normal space. There was no mistaking the Trebuchet, with the alien guns distorting its lines. It made a tight turn, manoeuvring between the Friss and the oncoming Muaan Qacia ship.
The Friss's sensors showed that ship begin to slow and turn into a better position. But too late, much too late. The Trebuchet's guns fired, spitting energy bolts. They sliced into the Qacian's shields, weakening them. The second volley slammed into the hull.
The Qacian ship smashed apart, dazzling light pouring from its dying engines, making Maiga and Wixa shield their eyes. Pieces of wreckage spun away into space. Thankfully they weren't close enough to make out the bodies that must be part of that debris. After a moment, Wixa spoke quietly.
"Hell of a lot of radiation coming off the Trebuchet's guns. Dissipating now, I hope they've got good internal shielding." She paused, and then reported what Maiga could see anyway. "She's coming around."
The Trebuchet turned from the wreckage, and moved towards the Friss. A moment later the comms system chimed. Maiga answered and a panel in front of her lit up, showing Bara's smiling face.
"Well, hello. It's good to see you again."
"I think that's my line," Maiga said. She smiled and knew the adrenaline was still at work, as much from relief now. "Though I'd add a ‘very' before the ‘good'."
"And a good thing we were in the area," Bara said.
"Yeah, that was lucky," Wixa muttered.
"Are you hurt at all?" Bara asked.
"No," Maiga said. "We're both fine. The ship though…"
"Yes, our sensors are showing severe damage to your engine." Bara looked around as she spoke, then back into the camera. "With your permission, we'll tractor you into our shuttle bay and my engineers can make repairs."
Maiga and Wixa exchanged a look. Possibly they could do the repairs themselves, but it would likely take days, while they sat here unprotected and paralysed. They didn't have much choice. Wixa shrugged.
"I still have power and manoeuvring thrusters," Maiga said to Bara. "I'll bring her into the shuttle bay myself, if that's okay with you."
"Of course. No captain likes to give up control of her ship, however small. Stand by."
The panel went dark and Maiga looked at Wixa again. Well, at least she hadn't got this one killed. Yet. Wixa looked excited and grinned at Maiga.
"Now we're really going to have something to tell your newspaper man."
~o~
Maiga and Wixa stepped onto the deck of the Trebuchet's shuttle bay. Two small shuttles stood far back in the bay, allowing room for the Friss, a rather larger ship than it would usually hold.
Manoeuvring in through the doors had been a tight squeeze and Maiga knew an operator would be standing by to use tractor beams and force fields to freeze the ship in place, if she strayed too close to the edges. But she'd glided in slow and smooth, thrusters pushing them gently, until they touched the deck, with barely a bump.
Bara herself strode across the floor to meet them. "Very impressive manoeuvring," she said, "I doubt my own pilot could have done better." She shook their hands. "Welcome to the Trebuchet, my friends."
"Thank you for helping us," Maiga said, "and for offering your engineer's services for repairs." Two men she recognised from the bar approached, the dark-skinned one and the long-haired one.
"This is Alex, my first officer and chief e
ngineer," Bara said, introducing the black man. "And his colleague, Sev."
Chief engineer and first officer in one surprised Maiga. Engineers rarely became first officers while still remaining engineers. The senior officers have died here, she thought. These people were too young to have commanded this ship back before the war.
"Why don't I give you a tour of the ship while they are working on the repairs?" Bara offered.
Maiga felt suddenly nervous of leaving the Friss unguarded. Bara seemed friendly, but still…
"Can I stay here?" Wixa said. She looked at the engineers. "I just love to watch men work." The two men gave each other nervous glances. Bara raised her eyebrows, but then nodded.
"Of course. Maiga, will you join me?"
Maiga saw Wixa's tiny nod, a small signal that told her to go ahead, she'd be fine here.
"Thank you. Yes."
Chapter 7
Wixa sat cross-legged in the open doorway between the Friss's living area and cockpit, looking down into the hatch that led to the engine room. The two engineers from the Trebuchet were down there, and despite two grown men occupying such a tiny space they never swore at each other. Perhaps they enjoyed being so close. Wixa smirked.
"You boys must be amazing engineers," she called down into the hatch. "To get those Chia guns working."
"The old chief did a lot of it," Alex said.
"Oh, you weren't the chief?"
"Me? No. I'm only a first lieutenant."
"And now you're first officer too."
No answer for a moment, then the other one, Sev, spoke. "We lost several senior officers."
"Including the captain." Silence again. Hmm, time to pull that thread. "During the war?"
They still didn't answer. She heard them talking to each other, voices low. Maybe just discussing how to get some system back on line. Sure.
"So, was Bara the first officer then? Became the captain."
"That's right." Sev again. The long-hair. Everyone else looked as if they were waiting for an inspection visit from an admiral, but not him. Wixa wondered what Bara made of that?
"Did you make it back to Earth in time for the last stand?"
Alex suddenly popped his head up out of the hatch, standing on the ladder, reaching for a tool from an equipment box.
"We made it back. Too late." He paused, tapping the tool he'd picked up on the edge of the box. "That was… a difficult time." Pain in his eyes told her he carried horrible memories. Wixa thought of the pictures she'd seen of the Earth after the attack. Just a smoking cinder. To see it for real… She couldn't imagine that.
"You must have been a long way out," she said, in a soft voice. "It wasn't your fault you didn't get back in time."
He gave her an agonised look. "We wanted to. We wanted to go long before--"
"Alex." Sev's voice came from below. "I need that probe."
"Yeah, sorry." Alex vanished from sight again.
Wixa knew many ships had started heading back to Earth before the recall order came. Those whose officers believed Ilyan's so-called prophecy. But if the erstwhile captain of this ship hadn't been one of them, and if the ship had been a long way from home, then the recall order would have come too late.
How hard must it be to live with the guilt of that?
Perhaps the captain hadn't been able to live with the guilt? Or perhaps he hadn't been allowed to live with it? And if he'd also been the one who allowed the enemy to disarm the ship… That had to be later, after the ceasefire, Wixa thought. Before that, the Chiamajan would have just destroyed the ship.
But the captain had supposedly died in the war hadn't he? Before the ceasefire. Right… Wixa needed to get the timing figured out. Time to be oblique. She smiled when Alex popped up again, and rummaged in the tool box.
"It must have been very hard for you to give up your weapons like that. Very bad for morale. But I suppose the captain had no choice."
"No," Alex said, voice cold and formal.
"He had a choice." Sev's voice was so quiet, that Wixa could only be grateful her service career had involved listening to whispers more than to explosions. Her hearing might not be as good as it had been, but she caught Sev's words. And she caught the warning tone in Alex's voice.
"Sev."
"He shouldn't have given up the guns," Sev said. "If he hadn't--"
Alex jumped back down into the engine room, his feet slapping onto the deck and some fierce whispering began down there.
So it was the old captain, not Bara, who let the Chiamajan de-claw the ship. Which meant he had still been alive after the fighting ended. Interesting. She waited a while, until the boys stopped their whispering, then, tried a couple more oblique questions. But they had clammed up, and gave her only grunts in reply.
~o~
Maiga's tour ended in the captain's ready room off the bridge and Bara called the galley to bring them tea.
She loved showing the ship off, Maiga thought. The vessel had clearly suffered damage in combat and some areas were closed off. But the rest of it was as neat and clean as it must have been back in the old days. The crew wore their uniforms and worked efficiently. The engine room had some odd looking components, rigged up to the ship's existing equipment, probably for the Chiamajan guns, but otherwise you might not notice anything amiss about the whole thing.
"It's an impressive ship," Maiga said, as a crewman served their tea and left. "How long have you commanded her?"
"A few months only. I was the first officer, but our captain was killed in the war."
"Other senior officers too? You mentioned your marine commander was killed."
"Yes," Bara said. "Several officers died. It's been a difficult time. But we are fighting back." She laughed. "As you saw. And that job commanding my marine unit is still available."
"Why do you need marines?" Maiga asked, ignoring the obvious hint. marines had one purpose on a ship; to leave it and launch an attack.
"You don't strike me as a fool, Maiga," Bara said, her tone low, harsher than before. "Why do you think?"
"I think you're conducting your own private war out here." Foolish to challenge her, perhaps, but Maiga got the feeling she had some latitude.
"I make no apology for defending humans against their enemies."
"Defending? Or avenging?"
"Then I make no apology for avenging an unprovoked attack. An attempt at genocide that is continuing every day." Her voice rose. "You saw that. Those lizards tried to kill you! Two more dead humans to cross off the list."
"We may have provoked them."
Bara frowned, not sure for a moment if Maiga meant the Qacians that tried to destroy the Friss today, or the aliens in general.
"Captain," Maiga said, "I am grateful for your help, and I'm flattered by your job offer, but I can't join your crew. The war is over. We lost. Accept that."
"Never!" Not quite a shout, but she did push her chair back, and stand up. Maiga stayed in her seat, but tensed. Bara's face flushed, and a lock of hair came loose. She pushed it back behind her ear. "It is not over until we have back everything we lost."
"We lost our home. We can't get that back."
"I know that!" Bara gave her a glare, then started to pace. "Believe me, I know that! We will find a new home. We will take one if we must. We will take whatever we want."
Ah… Maiga's hand unconsciously strayed close to her sidearm. Wixa's diagnosis just may be right.
"People should have listened," Bara said. "They should have listened to the prophet."
Maiga looked up startled and fought to control her reaction. Bara didn't notice, still pacing up and down, arms folded across her chest.
"We should fight for our own interests, our own glory."
Glory? Oh, she had it so exactly wrong.
"He never intended for us to be conquerors." The words left Maiga too quickly, making Bara look at her wide-eyed, then lean across her desk.
"Did you hear him speak?" A look of awe came into her eyes. "I despera
tely wanted to. When I heard the prophecy, I wanted to find him and hear it from him. I wanted to obey his call, and head back to Earth at once, but the captain… and then the recall order came and… did you hear him speak?"
Her face had become like a child's. How could she worship him like this and misunderstand him so completely?
"Yes, I heard him speak."
Bara sat down, with a sigh. "Oh, you are so lucky, you must treasure the memory."
Time to change the subject, Maiga decided.
"You talk of taking a new home, you're talking of conquest, but haven't you heard about the fleet, the one collecting up humans? From what I've heard they've found a planet--"
Bara looked disgusted. "Of course I've heard of them. The Committee." She gave a mocking laugh and then an exaggerated salute. "The High Committee!"
Maiga ignored the sarcasm. "Then why not join them? What you're doing now, attacking Big Four ships, you know as well as I do how that will end. Why not become part of something constructive? Go to the new home planet--"
"And do what?" Bara demanded. "I've heard all about this planet they've found. It's nothing but a mud ball. What are we supposed to do there?"
"We can start over. We can be the things humans used to be. Farmers--"
Bara snorted. "Peasants!"
"Builders," Maiga went on.
"Labourers!"
"Parents."
Bara stared at her, and then spoke more quietly.
"Cattle."
Silence conquered the room for a while, until Bara spoke again, sounding resigned.
"I'm a warrior, Maiga. We all are. Fighting is what humans are for."
"And who taught us that?"
"Who…?" Bara didn't seem to understand and Maiga couldn't blame her. It barely felt like something ‘taught'. More like programmed.
"Wasn't it High Command who taught us that?" These were Ilyan's ideas, Maiga knew, but she hadn't followed him blindly. She had her own views. Like him, she'd read old books, about the strange world of the past, where people had families. Loving Ilyan, and thinking for the first time about having a child, had made her see there were other ways for people to live. "And High Command betrayed us all."