“Jesus,” Jodi muttered, looking with widened eyes at the surgeon, who only shook his head; he was as shocked as she was. “If there’s no real trauma,” she said shakily, “she can’t die, right?”
One glance at the vital signs monitors would have told her otherwise.
The surgeon shook his graying head. “I wish saying it made it so, but it doesn’t. If I can’t figure out what’s causing her to be like this, I don’t think she’ll make it another two hours. Her body is just shutting down.”
“Take care of her,” she told him decisively before turning to the door. There was a certain Marine first sergeant she needed to see.
Eustus stared at the landing bay portal, as big around as a football field and filled with the stars and vacuum, safely on the other side of the force field.
“Eustus,” Jodi said urgently, “it’s Reza we’re talking about.”
“It’s mutiny,” Eustus snapped back. “More than that, it’s suicide. You weren’t there when the bombardment was coming down. You didn’t see a whole planet get flattened. I did. And the fact that there’s a whole shitload of Kreelan ships coming down our throats doesn’t thrill me, either.” He turned to Jodi, mindful of the blue eyes in her ebony face blazing at him. “Look, Jodi, I loved Reza as much as anybody ever did. I fought for him. I gladly would have died for him. But it’s over. He’s gone, along with the rest of them. He told me himself that he had no intention of coming back.” He looked at Enya, who tended to some of the wounded, most of them Raniers. She was the real reason he did not want to go, he thought, ashamed in a way. Enya was worth more to him now than anything or anyone had ever been, and he was not going to just throw that future away. “I’m sorry, Jodi. But I’m not going. Maybe Hawthorne will–”
“Come on, Eustus!” Jodi nearly shouted, causing a few heads – Enya’s among them – to turn in their direction. She lowered her voice. Slightly. “Hawthorne’s no good for this and you know it. He’s too straight to pull a stunt like this, and besides, he’s too damn big. I couldn’t get both him and Reza into the rear cockpit.” She stared at him, willing him to come. “It’s you or nothing, Eustus. I can’t do it by myself.”
“Can’t do what?” Enya asked from behind them. “What are you up to, Eustus?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.
“Commander?” Enya asked, a look of concern on her face. “What is it?”
“I think Reza’s alive down there,” she told her quietly. “And I need help to bring him back.” She looked pointedly at Eustus.
Enya’s brow furrowed. “How could he be alive? He was going to the Plain of Aragon to fight, I know, but… How do you know this?”
“Captain Carré – she’s in sickbay right now – told me. She and Reza have some kind of special bond, they seem to know things about each other when there doesn’t seem to be any possible way.” She glared again at Eustus. “Nicole’s dying, and the surgeon doesn’t know why. I think it’s because she’s linked to Reza somehow, and is reflecting whatever’s happening to him. I think he’s important in some way that we don’t understand. And if what Nicole said is true, and we don’t do anything about it, we’ll live to regret it. And Nicole will die.”
“Could you make it through all those Kreelan ships?” Enya asked quietly. Eustus opened his mouth, but was smart enough not to say anything.
“We’ll never know if we don’t try.” Jodi looked at Eustus again. “Time’s up, jarhead. What’s it going to be?”
“Eustus,” Enya said quietly, “go with her.”
“But–”
Enya raised a finger to his lips. “You must have faith, Eustus,” she told him. “Our prayers brought your captain to our aid, and my prayers brought your heart to me. We don’t know what has happened to our people. Maybe they are all dead. Maybe none of them have been harmed save those in the cities. But we do know that your Captain Gard is directly responsible for saving anyone who is still alive, and perhaps that kind of power is something worth the risk Commander Mackenzie is asking.”
“Enya, it’s suicide.”
She nodded, biting her lip. This was the hardest thing she had ever done, sending the one man she had ever really loved off to die. “It well may be. But can we afford not to try?”
Eustus closed his eyes, hoping that it would all go away. Instead, he felt Enya’s warmth press against him, her lips gently kissing his. “Go quickly,” she said. “And may the Lord of All watch over you.”
Master Chief Petty Officer Clarence Mahan was enjoying what was, ironically, the quietest period during a war cruise. As chief of the starboard catapults, he was responsible for getting Gneisenau’s fighters and attack ships off the deck. Recovering them was someone else’s job down in Pri-Fly. Now that the fleet was hauling itself around toward its jump point, it was only recovering fighters, not launching them. The standard four-ship alert had already been spotted on the outboard cats, leaving the rest of his watch free of major problems. Or so he had hoped.
“Chief,” one of his assistants called, “we’ve got engine start on the number three alert bird.”
“What?” Mahan said. The alert pilots were not normally kept in the cockpits, but in a ready room a few paces behind the blast shields. “Denkel, if you’re pulling my leg, I’ll–”
“No, chief, I’m not shitting you. Look.” On the big board that made up the main display for the starboard catapult system, one of the alert ships was indeed powering up.
“Goddammit,” Mahan snarled, “somebody’d better have a good explanation for this.” He snapped the intercom circuit open. “This is cat control to Alert Three. Shut down immediately and get your ass out of that cockpit. Respond, over.”
“Chief, this is Commander Mackenzie. I don’t have time to explain, but I’d really appreciate a cat launch. I hate bolting down these tubes on manual.”
“I’m sorry commander, but nobody said anything to me about any launches,” Mahan said, wondering what the hell was going on. “I need to check with Pri-Fly on this one.”
“Don’t bother, chief,” Jodi said as she brought the engines up to ninety-five percent power. The blast shields behind her automatically slid into place to prevent the fighter’s engines from vaporizing the adjoining part of the hangar bay. “Pri-Fly won’t know anything, either. See you later, Mahan.”
“Commander–” He did not bother saying anything else. Her fighter was already gone: Mackenzie had guided it down the catapult tube manually. Goddamn bloody dangerous stunt, Mahan cursed silently. “Get me the bridge,” he said to his assistant. “Somebody’s going to be really pissed over this one.”
“Jodi, this is insane,” Eustus said. He was not qualified to fly as a back-seater on this ship, but he also was not an idiot. The holo display that was projected on the console and on the bubble canopy around him told him enough. There were Kreelan ships everywhere, although none had fired on them. Yet. “Even if we make it down there, how are we supposed to find him?”
“Do you know where this Plain of Aragon is that Enya mentioned?”
“Not exactly,” he said, calling up a map display of Erlang on the computer. “It’s supposed to border the ocean, on the far side of the coastal mountains where that glowing crater thing is. Hmmm… Due east of Mallory City – what’s left of it – looks like that might be the place to start, anyway.”
Jodi quickly evaluated the information that was echoed on her display. “Make you a deal,” she said. “If he’s not there, we’ll split back to the fleet, and I’ll think up some bullshit about bending you to my will.” She grinned to herself. “I’ll tell them I suddenly went straight and just had to have wild sex in the cockpit with you. No one else would do. What do you think?”