Duty, Honour, Love
Chapter 4

Captain Mark Stillway leaned back in chair his exhaustion mirrored on the faces of the bridge crew around him, a week’s growth of beard on his face. Most women he had acquainted himself with thought him handsome although he himself couldn’t see why. He was taller than average with dark hair cut to regulation but at the moment it was messy. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept. He amended his thoughts not crew, survivors as dishevelled and dirty as he was. Bathing was a distant memory they had to conserve what little water they had. Every time he tried to close his eyes images of the battle and the escape played on his mind. His ship the Orinoco the only one of the squadron to survive the destruction. An alien ship had encountered their squadron patrolling the rim on the border between Imperial and Orsini Commonwealth space. A ship not in their databases, a flattened ovoid surrounded by a number of black spheres. All their hails were met with silence and when the squadron leader’s ship approached the alien ship fired a beam of red light that vaporised the ship. The six remaining ships returned fire to no effect. Mark wanted to stay but the squadron leader’s second in command’s last order before her ship was destroyed was to flee. Mark wasn’t sure if the others made it out. Since then at every jump the alien was there. How it knew where they were, was a mystery. Every jump it was the same they would exit hyperspace and the alien would be there waiting to blast another piece from the ship. It was playing them in a deadly cat and mouse game of which there would be only one ending. If they hadn’t fallen into a hole in space they would have been dead.

Mark regarded the two women standing in front of him. They were a total contrast. Lieutenant Jane Walberg his first officer short, rail thin and brunette her hair cut to regulation length and Chief Engineer Danielle Strong, Strong by name and strong by nature. He had seen her once pick up a man and hurl him across the bar because he had spilled her drink. She was broad shouldered and tall for a woman. She kind of reminded him about the Valkyrie in the Confederacy. She had the size and the quick fire temper but that was where the similarities ended. Danielle had dark spiky hair, her skin a dark tan and her eyes hazel. His eyes flicked to the image on the viewer showing an impossible sight. Orange clouds swirled around the ship as black and purple lightening licked across the ship’s hull. They had been travelling through this for four hours he assumed they were travelling the alternative was too dreadful to contemplate. When he spoke his voice sounded hoarse.

“I want your ideas no matter how crack pot they seem?” he told them his hand automatically reaching for the diamond shaped object with a hole in his pocket. He had covered the sharp edges in a frame and kept it on him at all time. His lucky charm he had found it as a boy while playing in a field. Whatever he believed it had kept them alive. They had been chased for weeks. With no comms they had no way of contacting Central Command or anybody else. He remembered touching it when the hole on space opened up and sucked them in. The alien had been lining itself up to take the fatal shot when they had fallen down the hole. “Well?”

“Sorry captain I’m out of options. This ‘hole’ as you call it has me stumped. The closest example I think of is a wormhole. There have been a lot of rumours and supposition but nothing conclusive. At times like this I wish I had access to the Confederacy database. The T’Arni have been travelling though space longer than we’ve existed as a race.” Jane said.

It wasn’t what he had hoped to hear he had been relying on her and her bookish ways.

Danielle nodded in agreement. “I can only think that’s a logical assumption.”

Mark sighed. “Yeah, great, thanks.” A wave of exhaustion washed over him. “Sorry I shouldn’t have been so sharp with you.” He passed a wearied hand over his face as he apologised.

“Get some rest captain,” Jane told him.

He was tempted to say, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” But it sounded too prophetic. “I would if I could?”

“Please captain we need you at your best,” Jane gestured to the bridge crew, “there’s not much we can do here. We running with a minimum watch as it is. One more sleeping won’t make any difference. If anything happens I’ll wake you.” She nodded to Danielle.

Danielle got the hint her presence would be another excuse for the captain to stay in place. Jane was correct he needed to rest they all did she most of all. She was the only survivor of the engineering team. The rest had died when the alien attacked. She knew full well the bitterness of losing her team she saw it mirrored in the captain’s eyes. “If you don’t mind I’ll get back to the repairs the Ori can’t fix herself. If it did I’ll be out of a job.” Danielle had never been big on protocol and ‘Ori’ was her name for the ship.

Mark gave both women a look. “Alright you win. I want to be alerted the moment anything changes.” With that he dragged himself out of the captain’s chair and headed out.

Jane watched her captain leave he was taking the loss of his crewmembers hard. On a ship this small the numbers counted. She had run the statistics through her mind hundreds of times. Fifty–four dead including her counterpart, nine seriously wounded of those three were critical she didn’t hold out much hope for them if they didn’t replace medical help soon. Out of a compliment of ninety that included the officers only twenty-seven were alive. Jane worried about the mental state of those that remained especially the two youngest members of the crew. There was a good chance the ship would not make it back to base. Even if they did make it back the ship was so badly damaged it would likely be scrapped. The port side of the ship had taken the most damage. Thanks to Danielle’s skill that the bulkheads held and the blast doors worked. They had lost part of the central corridor on all decks. Danielle had to cut through quarters and a storeroom to bypass the damaged sections otherwise the ship would have been divided into two separate halves.

Danielle hadn’t left as she had told the captain.

“Status?” Jane asked her.

“The hyperdrive’s had it not even fit for spare parts. The FTL drive is working but I can’t guarantee for how long.”

“Make comms a priority.”

The comms was the first thing the aliens had destroyed and of course any parts that could have fixed it were in the port storerooms.

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs!” Danielle retorted.

Jane grimaced she could hardly put their only remaining engineer on report for insubordination. “Do the best you can.”

Danielle snorted and stomped out. She could be very testy at times. Like one of those Valkyrie Jane had read about.

Jane slumped into the captain’s chair they were all exhausted. It was to be expected everyone was on edge. Danielle put into words what everyone was thinking Jane just wished she hadn’t done it in that fashion. She regarded the remaining bridge crew seated at their stations as looking as useless as she felt. She sat there for a few minutes before rousing herself. “Anthony I going to check in on the wounded let me know if the situation changes,” she said to the dark skinned middle aged man at the helm.

“Yes sir,” he replied.

Jane hated being called ‘sir’ but that was the regulations. She found it annoying and insulting. She headed out the smell of burnt insulation still lingering in the air mixed with the stench of death. Danielle had welded the blast door in the corridor shut forcing her to take the long way round. She walked through an ensign’s quarters one of those that died, where Danielle had cut through the hull and passed by doors welded shut with panels. Thin metal and welds the only thing between her and the vacuum of space. She shuddered with fear breathing a sigh of relief as she stepped back into the corridor on the other side.