“Possibly,” he said, scratching the tan fur on his chin. “Why did we stop being friends, Dan? I believe kzinti are better off with humans calling them out on their quirks.”
“You grew up too fast. You were out picking off wombadons while I was still picking my nose.”
“Perhaps there’s a harem of foreign kzinretti on that ship waiting to be rescued.”
“You know females aren’t allowed on warships.”
“Unless there’s an Admiral aboard.” Healer dialed up four scarlet meal bricks and demolished them in two gulps. “Hungry?”
“Yes, but I’d rather have a medium-rare steak and a glass of wine.”
Healer and Dan stopped talking a hundred kilometers away from the derelict, their radar bounced back a significant ping. They toggled the screens to video view. The blast-smeared, crimson ship looked like the jagged disc of a crab’s discarded carapace.
Shadow’s Chariot warily approached the drifting ghost ship and matched speeds with it. It was so immense that it could easily swallow their barge whole. A series of blackened commas and dots were emblazoned on its side.
“What is that, the ship’s name? What does it say?”
Healer looked at it for a moment and said, “I have no idea. My written Heroes’ Tongue is horrible. My instruments confirm that there are no life signs. Although, some basic system is still running because I can detect an active power flow.”
“Yeah, I’m not picking up any emotional activity at all.” He felt Healer’s deep disappointment and added, “But I wouldn’t if they were frozen. The good news is that the long-range communications antenna has been destroyed. The bad news is that all that mysterious machinery that seems to be part of their FTL also looks damaged.”
“Look there.” Healer highlighted the area on the screen. “That gash on the starboard side, that’s what killed it. If we can seal it, we can repressurize the whole upper deck and get access to the bridge.”
“Alright, I’m releasing a repair robot now.” Dan typed the instructions into his tablet. A fat robot the size of a pregnant wombadon jetted out from the underbelly of Chariot and proceeded to work on the fissure in a blur of quick and numerous articulate manipulators.
“I’m going to take us in. We can land in the hanger bay and simply walk to the bridge without excursion suits.”
“Is that wise?”
“Perhaps not, but I want to inspect the ship first before I tow it any closer to Sheathclaws.”
Healer sent ancient override codes from Shadow’s Chariot archives until one managed to coax the hanger bay doors open, then they deliberately burrowed into the wrecked craft, like a scavenger digging into a rotting carcass. The Chariot touched down in the cavernous boat deck amid rows of smaller, long dead fighters.
The repair robot finished spraying the gash with epoxy and Healer and Dan waited impatiently for the warship’s resurrected life support systems to slowly refill the chamber with atmosphere.
Righteous Manslaughter
“We have air outside,” Healer reported at last and grabbed a supply pack. “Let’s go. We can move behind the wave of life support activation.”
Dan grabbed a beam gun. It was manufactured for big dexterous paws, but he’d hunted with them extensively in his teens.
“You don’t think any frozen passengers we thaw might find the weapon a bit provocative?”
“Well, I was going to have claws and fangs genetically implanted, but I don’t think I could pull off the look.”
“Point taken.”
It took an arduous hour of trekking through murky, labyrinthine corridors and service tubes. The corpses of kzinti warriors, contorted by explosive decompression, were scattered everywhere. Healer stopped here and there, taking DNA samples from the bodies showing the least amount of cellular damage from space.
“The bridge should be through here. It’ll take a minute for the atmosphere to build up, then-”
A detonation of emotions shook Dan. He bashed the back of his head on the floor repeatedly and his limbs flailed about wildly. He vaguely felt Healer restrain him before he thrashed himself to death. With great effort, Dan pulled himself together and croaked, “There are kzinti here. Alive! It’s like they just sprang into existence, radiating rage, confusion and terror.”
Healer looked at the tablet that was slaved to Chariot’s sensor array and saw that seven individuals had suddenly appeared on the bridge. “Rest. I’m going to talk to them.”
“Talk to them?”
Healer ignored the protestation and punched up the bridge, relaying the signal through Chariot. Instantly, the furious face of a warrior showed on the screen. Three black stripes ran down his face like war paint. “Who is this?” he snarled.
“I am First Medic. Are you in need of medical assistance?”
“I am Tdakar-Commander. Our Captain Fnar-Ritt is a corpse honorably still at his post. There are six of us wounded Heroes and one telepath sheltering on the bridge.”
“And the Admiral?”
“There is no Admiral aboard Righteous Manslaughter. Fnar-Ritt was the highest ranking officer and now that honor falls on me.”
Healer felt a knot tighten in the pit of this stomach. There are no females here. All he could hope to accomplish now was boosting Sheathclaws’ general gene pool, if not his own. He pushed his loneliness aside and asked, “Where were you a second ago? My ship’s sensors failed to pick you up.”
“Obviously in stasis!” The stupid question roused suspicion in the commander. “First Tech tells me you are aboard an outdated Admiral’s Barge. Explain.”
“No, we are outside the bridge, but we’re relaying the transmission from the barge. We lost our ship in battle and this was all that was available to us, but we continue to perform our duty of search and rescue.”
“What are you doing?” Dan whispered. He could feel the velvety footfalls of a powerful alien telepath prowling in his mind. He tried to push it out.
“Lying through my teeth, despite my neurological handicap,” Healer hissed to the side, then continued speaking to Tdakar-Commander. “Permission to enter the bridge and attend the crew?”
The commander scowled at Healer through narrowed blue eyes for a chilling moment, then barked, “Permission granted!”
“The telepath scanned us, but I don’t think he’ll report us. What’s the plan?”
“We go in there and I deal with the injured warriors. Since you’re the only one with any kind of active telepathic ability, you need to appeal to the telepath. Tell him that if everyone is to survive, he needs to mentally persuade all the warriors to cooperate.”
“Failing that?”
“We kill everyone in that room and clone them afterwards.”
When Dan didn’t reply, Healer allowed his ears and fur to sleek over with fear. “If I am permitted a moment of weakness, Dan, I dread these warriors may be too fierce for me. They are truly of the Heroic Race.”
“Trust me, it’s not their ferocity we should fear, it’s their philosophy. I sense nothing but utter contempt for humanity in that room.”
Healer forced his ears to ripple. “A barrel of bloodka would go a long way in pacifying them.”
“You’re a hypocrite.”
The door to the bridge slid open exuding the foul stench of kzinti blood and sweat. Seven badly injured creatures, miraculously still at their stations, all bared slobbering canines like dripping icicles. Dan was acutely aware that he was the only human in the room and reflexively held his heavy gun a little tighter.
“What is this pathetic kz’eerkt doing on my bridge? No filthy monkey slaves are permitted here!” Tdakar-Commander roared at the rude affront to his ship’s honor.
“He is not a slave. Daneel Guthlac is a valued companion. He’s here to help.”