Red Survivor Mission Chronicles Box Set Read online

  “A Rutry torpedo hit the starboard side,” Redding said.

  I snapped out of my stupor.

  Starboard?

  I stood up.

  “Switch screen to radar,” I said.

  “Belay that order,” Marchant screamed.

  Cursing, I pulled a screen console out from Redding’s chair, not wanting to go back for my own because of Marchant. A few taps of my fingers confirmed my fears. We hadn’t been attacked by the Rutry ship that had destroyed our comrades.

  I zoomed out and realized all of the other FEDE vessels were gone. Ours was the only remaining FEDE ship. The other Rutry vessels were quickly converging on our position. The torpedo had come from one of them.

  “Send us down five clicks!” I shouted.

  “Fire the torpedoes!” Marchant yelled.

  I swore and knelt beside Redding. “Down, five hundred thousand kilometers, now!” If she fired the torpedoes, we’d be done for. Our only hope was that the Rutry torpedo had been a shot in the dark and that they still didn’t know our exact location or how to track our movements.

  She hesitated. “But, sir—”

  “We’ll be dead if you don’t.”

  She glanced at me, gave a small nod, and then engaged the drive. There must have been something wrong with the ships thrusters because the view screen lurched as we moved.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, as long as we put space between us and the Rutry ships.

  “Status of our engines?” I demanded as we dropped.

  It was Ensign Smith who answered. “One of our thrusters is out, but Ensign Redding was able to compensate, sir.” He paused as the view stabilized. “Our main engines are still online but...” He trailed off, probably because he didn’t need to tell me that we needed to be at least a million kilometers out from any sizable mass.

  Marchant’s little maneuver had brought us smack dab into the systems planetary patterns.

  7

  I froze when I felt the cold feel of a plastic blaster against the back of my neck.

  “You’re just like your father,” Marchant said, apparently without a care for who heard him. Perhaps he thought we were all going to die because he’d never been so brazen as to rip on my old man in front of others. When we were alone he did it all the time. “Always thinking he knows best.” Marchant pointed at the viewscreen and spat with venom. “Did it ever occur to you that I know a little more about what is going on out there? That the ship I was trying to save had somebody important on board? Somebody I was ordered to not let die?”

  I glared at Marchant, sure he was lying but also not willing to take the bait. He wanted to argue about the least important thing right now. Perhaps he had a death wish.

  “Ensign Redding, what are the Rutry doing?” Marchant looked at the viewscreen.

  “They have all converged on our former position, sir.”

  Marchant sneered when he noticed her emphasis. “Prepare torpedoes.”

  “Don’t do it, Ensign,” I said. “If we fire we’re all dead.”

  Marchant jabbed me in the neck with his weapon, but he didn’t fire. Protocol dictated I stand trial. If he were to kill me and somehow survive the situation, he’d have much to answer for.

  I looked into his face, trying to decide if he hoped to survive or if he was ready to die. Demanding we fire our torpedoes was tantamount to suicide.

  He had to see that, right?

  The lines in his face could have been etched in stone. I read no emotion there.

  “What are you going to do, Ensign?” Marchant asked.

  She hesitated for only a moment. “I have engaged the thrusters. We are seven clicks out from being able to travel, sir.”

  Marchant moved his weapon from my neck and looked as though he were going to point it at her, but after several long seconds he walked back to his chair.

  He stood behind it, resting his hands on the back.

  “This is mutiny.”

  “Wrong, sir,” I said. “You were out of line.” I motioned at the fleet personnel on the bridge. “We have a duty to complete our mission and preserve the lives of those on this ship. You had your opportunity to rescue those on the other ship, but it didn’t happen. I am sorry, sir, but we must continue on our way or the only shot we’ve had at peace in the last decade will evaporate.”

  Marchant looked back at me. There were now cracks in his demeanor.

  I ground my teeth. “Sir, we don’t have to report what happened here today. None of us will look good.”

  He stared at the viewscreen, not an inch of him moving, his eyes glued to it like it was the most important thing in the world.

  He nodded and left the bridge of the ship.

  After the doors whisked shut behind him, I heard an audible sigh of relief from Ensign Redding.

  “You did good today,” I said, returning to my own chair. It was customary for the officer in charge to take the Captain’s chair, but at the moment it felt wrong, somehow.

  “Ensign Redding, did you happen to get the name of that ship?”

  “It was the FEDE Javelin.”

  Comprehension spread through my mind like an explosion. Nobody else here knew the significance of that ship.

  I only knew by happenstance.

  Marchant’s estranged son had been assigned to the Javelin. I looked at the doors and felt pity for the man but made no move to get up from my chair.

  He didn’t want sympathy from me.

  The Sawyer Gambit

  1

  The ship shook, threatening to knock me off my feet from where I stood in front of Captain John Marchant to get his attention since he was ignoring me yet again. I grabbed hold of the arm of my seat to remain upright as the whole ship shook again when it was hit by another torpedo.

  “Brace for impact,” Ensign Redding said, her voice high and out of breath as she held the console in front of her for support, “and one more after that.”

  Marchant swore. “No response to our hail?”

  “None, sir,” Redding said. “I will keep trying, it appears they want to rattle—” She broke off. “Another Plethki ship has decloaked, bringing the total to three.”

  “If they were trying to get our attention,” Marchant said, “they have it! How are we coming on loading the torpedo bays?”

  “Still a couple minutes out,” Redding said. “I am keeping them up to speed on when to expect impact. The explosions are making it difficult to load the bays, sir.”

  “Damage report?”

  “Minimal. Your assessment is probably correct, sir. They just want to get our attention.”

  “Captain,” I said, “none of this makes any sense. The Plethki are a peacekeeping people, why would they fire torpedoes at us? We shouldn’t return fire until we know more. What if their ships have been commandeered and their people taken hostage?”

  “Get those torpedoes loaded,” Marchant yelled without looking at me.

  How can I do my job as a commanding officer if he won’t even acknowledge me?

  I wanted to hit them back as good as they were hitting us too, but the facts of this situation weren’t adding up.

  If it had been somebody else, I might’ve reached out and grabbed hold of the Captain’s arms, but I knew exactly how that would go and that it would be a horrible idea for me to do so.

  “This is the Plethki we are talking about.” I kept my voice calm, hoping it might have an effect on the situation. It appeared all that did was allow the captain to ignore me more easily because the others on the bridge had not noticed I was trying to talk to him.

  “First torpedo bay is loaded, sir.”

  I got right in Marchant’s face. “Captain—”

  “Get out of the way so I can do my job.” The captain looked at me for the first time since this had started. “Or I will have you escorted off the bridge.”

  Things had been tense since an incident that had occurred several weeks earlier while delivering an ambassador on a critical peacekeep
ing mission. The captain had not been himself since he had lost his son in a battle with the Rutry, a fact that he had withheld from the crew, so nobody here other than me understood his more erratic than usual mood swings. Before everything that had happened he had been cold with me, perhaps regarding me as a spy for my father, but we had still had a working relationship. I would not describe what we had now as anything but outright hostility. He had all but said that he wanted me to leave the Red Survivor, something I was never going to do until I receive transfer orders I had not requested.

  I could just imagine how the conversation would go with my father if I told him I wanted to transfer.

  He’d been explicit that he needed me here. Captain Marchant’s fears that I might be a spy were unfounded, my father hadn’t asked after him once in any of our regular communications.

  No, I could not request a transfer. That would be bad, I was never going to do it. I would let the captain kill me first.

  Something he comes closer to doing with every passing day.

  Captain Marchant lost his footing when a Plethki torpedo hit us again and we went down in a heap in the middle of the floor; unfortunately, I went down too. As I picked myself up, I thought of how in another situation I might have offered to help up the captain of a ship, but I knew Captain Marchant wanted no such help from me.

  “Report?” Captain Marchant asked his voice sharp.

  “Minimal damage still, sir. The Plethki are still firing on us with torpedoes that appear to do little more than rock the boat,” Ensign Redding said, pushing several buttons while she continued to speak. “Several additional ships have just uncloaked, I’m counting five—no wait another just appeared—so that makes it six in total. What are your orders, Captain?”

  I expected the captain to give an order to fire which could quickly escalate the situation. Their torpedoes weren’t armed. They were doing the equivalent of chucking rocks at us.

  My instincts told me that we should withdraw, but I knew how Marchant would interpret that suggestion, so I dared not offer it.

  Nothing about this situation made any sense, the Plethki appeared to only be trying to get our attention and so far they had not responded to our hail.

  “This is the Plethki,” I said to the Captain in a voice that was so low I hoped only he could hear, hoping that might increase the chances of him listening to me. “We need to talk to them before we return fire. At the very least we must try.”

  “Hail them, again Ensign Redding,” Marchant paused. “If they don’t answer, prepare to fire the torpedo on my mark.”

  While the captain had been talking, Ensign Redding had changed the screen so we could see the ships coming up behind us. There were now seven, another must have appeared since Ensign Redding had done her count. The Plethki ship that had fired on us was smaller than our own, but it was one of their warrior class ships and would be armed to the teeth—their political philosophy was to be well armed so that they didn’t need to use their weapons. With our light armament and nominal weapons, we were no match for them in an all-out fight.

  We could either run or die.

  I hated not responding to a direct attack on the ship, but we were in no position to do so, something Marchant knew deep down but probably had trouble admitting to himself because it angered him that somebody was trying to harm his ship.

  We were not at war with the Plethki, at least last I heard. Perhaps things had changed or maybe they had decided to come out and start one.

  If they wanted to start a war, they would’ve done so in a much more grandiose way than hitting an insignificant ship in the middle of nowhere on a peacekeeping mission to Palata 2.

  “They are accepting our communication,” Engisn Redding said while holding up three fingers, “it will be on screen in three seconds, two seconds, one.”

  When the screen materialized, I was surprised that we were looking at the face of a human man.

  2

  “Captain Marchant,” the man said with a broad, toothy smile. There were several Plethki in the background, including one who was dressed as the captain of the ship. I was surprised we were not being greeted by him. He stood behind the man with a barely concealed scowl on his face. This wasn’t saying much, the Plethki always scowled, they were not the cheeriest race in the galaxy. “I promised I would catch up to you.”

  The man spread his arms wide as if taking in the whole ship and everybody behind him as well as the other six Plethki ships.

  “This is me making good on my promise.”

  “Why are you on a Plethki ship, Sawyer?” Marchant demanded, the legendary temper of his just below the surface threatening to burst forward in a roar. “If word of this attack gets out you risk starting a war while we are in the middle of one with the Rutry that we cannot afford to be distracted from, unless you’re trying to destroy humanity?” Marchant leaned forward. “Is that what you’re doing? Who will you bilk for money once we’re all gone?”

  “Come now, Captain, don’t be absurd. I have no interest in war, and I am as loyal to our race as any other human, more loyal than you, in fact. You know I don’t pay much attention to politics. Who’s in charge, barely makes a difference these days. It’s all pretty much all the same.”

  “War affects everybody, you of all people should know that Sawyer.” Marchant scowled. “Or was it a lie that you lost a brother in the battle of Euros-17? I did research on that one and it appeared to check out.”

  “The past is in the past, Captain, and it might as well just stay there. Your debts, though, those are present and future. You did me wrong and now it is time for you to settle your debts.”

  Captain Marchant scowled. “I owe you nothing.”

  “You stole from me. Money that was rightfully mine.”

  “I am no thief. I suggest you leave before this goes to a place you can’t control.”

  “No, Captain. We’re not going to be backing off so easily. You see, the Plethki have a debt to me as well. I have agreed to discharge their debt once you have paid yours, they are very interested in today’s outcome as evidenced by our show of force.”

  “What a strange connivance you’ve built,” Captain Marchant muttered. “I shouldn’t be surprised.” In a louder voice he went on. “Captain of the Plethki vessel, I invite you to meet with me. I would like a chance—”

  “Captain.” Sawyer motioned back toward the aliens and the Plethki Captain approached.

  “Sawyer speaks the truth, Captain.”

  The Plethki’s voice, like all Plethki, was deep and gravelly. While I did not have much experience with them I suspected there was a note of embarrassment there as well. Several of the newer cadets on board looked as if they were having a hard time figuring out what he was saying. That’s how it had been for me the first time I had participated in a conversation with the Plethki. They were a difficult people to understand, to be sure. Their tonal register, added to their habit of speaking slowly, made them hard to follow.

  “What does he have on you, Captain?” Marchant persisted. “Whatever it is, I’m sure we would be able to—”

  “That is private information between the captain and me,” Sawyer said with a roguish smile, “and the Plethki.”

  “When you say the Plethki, do you just mean the Captain here or are you—”

  “Yes, Marchant. All of the Plethki owe me a big debt, it will be completely forgiven once they help me recoup what you owe me. I have made them a most generous offer.”

  “Captain,” Marchant said, “who can I speak to among the Plethki about this debt?”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Sawyer said leaning forward until it seemed as if his eyes were going to pop out of the screen. “The Plethki are going to do what I say to be forgiven of their debt. It is sizable. They don’t have another choice, there is no way to discharge it otherwise. You can talk to the captain as much as you want, but you’re going to have better success convincing a rock to jump then convince him to give in. His orders come
from their Highest Council.”

  The captain of the Plethki vessel looked embarrassed now. I squinted, at least that’s what I thought his facial features were communicating, I’d have to brush up on my Plethki body language to say for sure.

  Sawyer, I thought. Who is this man?

  I brought up my screen and entered his name into the search bar, but it came back with way too many hits for me to quickly identify him even when I scrolled through the images. I tried the name again with the word ‘conman,’ but still got nothing.

  “Sawyer, perhaps it would be best if you and I were to meet,” Marchant said. “How about you take a Plethki transport over here. We’ll meet in our conference—”

  “Do you think I would trust my person with you while onboard your ship, a ship for which you have total command? Unthinkable.” Sawyer shook his head. “No, we’re not going to handle things in that fashion. We’ve been spending too much time talking, time to get back to shooting, it’s entertaining to lob these things at you and watch them explode.”

  The screen went blank.

  3

  “Can you get them back on the viewscreen?” Captain Marchant demanded, clutching a fist against his side and avoiding eye contact with me. It must have felt to him like Sawyer had aired some of his dirty laundry.

  Why did Marchant steal from Sawyer? I wondered.

  “Negative, they have cloaked again.” Ensign Redding paused as if things were still in flux. “Captain, an additional four Plethki vessels have uncloaked.”

  “The Plethki vessel with Sawyer has cloaked, but all the other ships have remained while adding four more? Is this correct?”

  “Affirmative, Captain.”

  I had not been about to speak while the captain was conversing with the Plethki ship, but I could restrain myself no longer.

  “What is he talking about, Captain? What did you take from him?”

  “He’s a liar, don’t trust a word he says, Commander Williams. You just do your job and I’ll do mine.”