Chapter 15
Carmen leaned back in the command chair.
On the viewscreen, the swirling, impossible colors of hyperspace flowed past, hypnotic and strangely calming after the chaos.
Relief, cold and sharp, washed over her, leaving her trembling fingers clenched on the armrests.
They’d made it. For now. The pirate ship, whoever they were, was light-years behind them, lost in the dust clouds near the gas giant or nursing their thruster burns.
The silence on the bridge, punctuated only by the ship’s systems and Sark’s shaky exhale, felt fragile, precious.
“Status?” she said
“Hyperspace vector stable, Captain,” Sark reported, his orange skin still pale beneath the mottling, the large red fin on his head twitching.
His webbed fingers danced over the nav console, double-checking readings.
“Carina Nebula fringe, like I plotted. ETA: forty-seven standard hours. Plenty of dust and debris for cover when we drop out.”
“Zed?” Carmen prompted, her mind already turning inward, cataloging the ship’s groans and shudders during the jump.
“Jump-drive integrity nominal post-transition,” Zed answered.
“Theta-7 instability persists at fluctuating amplitude between 0.007% and 0.009% above tolerance. Structural monitoring indicates no new microfracture propagation from the jump stress. Hull temperature returning to baseline. Passive sensors detect no pursuit signatures within detectable range.”
Nominal. Barely. Carmen unclenched her jaw.
“And the damage from the fight? Before the jump?”
“Compiling preliminary damage assessment now, Captain,” Zed replied.
“Primary casualty: sub-light maneuvering thrusters. Port and starboard clusters sustained direct hits and subsequent thermal overload during atmospheric ingress and egress. Efficiency currently estimated at 18% of nominal output. Rerouting auxiliary power is impractical; the thruster control conduits are fused.”
Carmen closed her eyes for a second, seeing the pirate ship’s sleek agility, the way it had danced around their sluggish attempts to evade.
With thrusters that crippled, the Antilles wouldn’t dance.
She’d barely crawl. A sitting duck if anything else found them.
The Forbidden Zone patrols wouldn’t be kind to a crippled smuggler.
“Shields? Weapons?” she asked, forcing her voice level.
“Forward shield emitter suffered harmonic feedback during the dive but remains functional at sixty-two-percent efficiency,” Letitia reported. “Starboard emitter array is non-responsive; repair requires EVA and replacement parts I assume we do not possess. Zed?”
“Confirmed.”
“Point-defense turret Alpha is operational but suffered targeting sensor degradation,” Letitia continued. “Accuracy reduced by approximately forty percent. Turret Beta is inoperative.”
At least they still had some weaponry. The thrusters, on the other hand, were a death sentence if they had to run or dodge again.
Carmen pushed herself out of the chair, the movement sharp. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a hollow ache in her muscles and a familiar, grinding weight in her chest. Responsibility. Always responsibility.
“All right. Sark, hold her steady; maintain course. Minimal systems.
“Zed, pipe your full damage assessment to the viewscreen.”
Unable to stop herself, she paced the tiny bridge while she waited.
Her boots echoed too loudly in the sudden quiet.
The air felt thicker, carrying the lingering tang of scorched metal, and something else – that faint, maddeningly sweet musk.
Mila. Was she still wet from her shower?
Was the memory of the scent in her quarters just refusing to dissipate?
Carmen gritted her teeth, forcing her focus onto the flickering viewscreen in front of her, the slight vibration in the deck plates. She couldn’t afford distractions. Not now. Not with the ship hanging by a thread and her crew’s lives depending on her next call.
The memory of Mila’s calm voice identifying the pirate ship’s weakness flashed in her mind – sharp, intelligent, unexpected. Respect warred with the low, persistent thirst of unwanted attraction.
Focus, Díaz.
Zed’s voice crackled from the speaker, pulling everyone’s attention.
“Full damage assessment summary available on viewscreen, Captain.”
The image of hyperspace vanished, replaced with a complex schematic of the Antilles, sections highlighted in angry-red and cautionary-yellow.
Zed’s calm narration began, detailing the thruster damage with clinical precision, the shield emitter failures, the weapons degradation, the microfractures stressed by the gas-giant dive and the jump.
The numbers were stark. The prognosis grim.
Seeing it on-screen gave it a more visceral reality than just hearing the report.
Antilles wasn’t just wounded; she was crippled.
Silence hung heavy when Zed finished. Letitia stared at the schematic, her jaw tight. Norvik remained impassive, but his fingers tapped a silent rhythm on his console. Sark ran a webbed hand over his face.
“Eighteen percent thrust,” Sark said with a sigh. “We’re a brick, Cap. A slow, fat brick. Forget dodging pirates. A determined tow-vessel could outmaneuver us.”
He looked up, desperation in his large, brown eyes.
“We can’t fight; we can’t run. What’s the play?” he asked.
“The play hasn’t changed,” Carmen stated, her voice firm, cutting through the despair.
She met each of their gazes in turn – Letitia’s worried but steady, Norvik’s analytical, Sark’s fearful. Mila watched her, those green eyes unreadable.
“We take Mila home,” she continued. “To the Forbidden Zone.”
“Captain, the operational parameters have shifted drastically,” Norvik said, leaning forward.
“Our projected survival probability for reaching the Forbidden Zone perimeter, let alone penetrating it and locating the XenX homeworld, has decreased significantly. The Antilles lacks the maneuverability to evade interdiction satellites or patrol craft. Engaging in combat is not a viable option.”
“We don’t need combat,” Carmen shot back, the frustration bubbling up. “We need stealth. We need to be smart. We slip through the perimeter, find her people, drop her off, and slip back out.”
“With thrusters at eighteen percent?” Sark cried. “Cap, it only takes one COPS interdictor to come across us, one spy probe to spot us and call in interceptors. We need to be nimble as hell to survive an encounter with ships like that! We barely made it out of the gas giant!”
“Mila knows the approaches,” Carmen countered, gesturing towards the Xena. “She can navigate us through.”
“I possess general knowledge of common transit corridors and sensor blind spots utilized by Kovoid freighters entering and exiting the so-called Forbidden Zone,” she confirmed.
“See?” Carmen pressed. “We’ve got an edge.”
“But my knowledge is confined to the non-UPA side of the perimeter,” Mila went on. “I cannot account for all the variables we may encounter.”
“Who the hell’s side are you on?” Carmen snapped.
“I was not aware there were ‘sides,’ Captain,” Mila said, looking shocked. “Nor that I was required to take one.”
“Liquidation remains the most economically sound option, Captain,” Norvik put in, “despite the elevated risk profile.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Letitia swore. “Not this shit again.”
“However,” Norvik went on, “my primary concern is the unknown variable of the Forbidden Zone itself. Beyond the UPA interdiction, we possess minimal intelligence. Mila has told us that the Kovoids rule her planet with an iron fist. Their defensive capabilities, territorial claims, and cultural view of the UPA are all unknowns. Presenting ourselves, damaged and carrying one of their Harimi under ambiguous circumstances invites unpredictable and potentially hostile responses.”
“The alternative is what, exactly?” Carmen’s voice sharpened. “Sell her? After what just happened? You think whoever jumped us wasn’t connected to Maltese or whoever the hell wants her?
“Even if they weren’t, even if they just saw a damaged vessel hiding behind a moon and decided to jump it in hopes there was something worth getting, we’re fucked.
That was a Kestrel-class ship, a tiny-ass blockade runner.
And she kicked our ass. We’re more damaged now.
You think we can take on a real pirate ship?
Who the hell do you think is going to respect us enough not to just take Mila from us by force and space us afterward? ”
She let her gaze sweep across the bridge. Letitia and Sark looked shocked at her frank assessment. Norvik studied her dispassionately as always.
And Mila? She bored that green-eyed gaze into Carmen as confusion danced across her vaguely feline features. She seemed to be studying Carmen, looking for an answer Carmen herself didn’t know to a question that had never been asked.
“Trying to sell her now is walking into another trap, guaranteed,” she went on. “And we don’t have the teeth or the legs to fight our way out of it this time.
“I’m sorry, everyone, but the choice has been made for us. Our only option is sneaking into the Forbidden Zone and taking Mila home. With luck, we can make repairs there, so when we come back here, we’ve got a fighting chance, can be back in business.”
She sighed. Sometimes complete honesty was necessary to get people to follow.
“And practical concerns aside, it is the right thing to do,” she said. “Trafficking sentient beings is wrong. I don’t give a damn how voluntary your slavery is, Mila. It’s wrong. I hope I can make you realize that.
“But if you want to go straight back into slavery when you get home instead of resuming your career as a starship engineer, that’s your business. In the meantime, while you’re aboard my ship, you are no one’s property.”
Mila held her gaze, her expression baffled, but her green eyes thoughtful. Carmen turned her attention to the rest of the crew.
“Any questions?” she said.
No one spoke. Letitia and Sark shook their heads. Norvik only stared.
“Yes,” Mila said. “I have a question.”
Carmen’s head snapped towards her. She put a feral look on her face to let the other woman know this was not okay.
“What?” Carmen growled.
“If I am to be aboard your vessel, I would like to be of use, Captain,” she said.
Carmen bristled. She couldn’t be offering that. She wouldn’t.
“My engineering knowledge includes Kovoid vessel schematics,” Mila went on.
“While the Antilles is different, the principles of thruster efficiency modulation are universal. With Zed’s assistance and access to the engineering bay, I may be able to improve the current thruster output beyond the eighteen-percent estimate.
Not to full capacity, but perhaps significantly enough to improve maneuverability in the event of a conflict. ”
Hope, fragile and unexpected, flickered in Carmen’s chest. This woman kept surprising her. The worry that she would propose being concubine to the crew vanished. Carmen’s respect for this strange, unintentional stowaway deepened.
“How significantly?” Carmen asked, her voice tight.
“Without diagnostics, it is impossible to quantify precisely,” Mila admitted. “But potentially thirty- to forty-percent efficiency.”
Thirty to forty. Not great. But better. A lifeline. Carmen looked around the bridge. Letitia was watching Mila with a new, appraising look. Sark seemed marginally less despondent. Norvik’s expression remained unreadable, but he gave a slight, considering nod.
“Do it,” Carmen ordered, the decision solidifying. “Zed, give Mila full access to Engineering, all diagnostics, whatever tools she needs. Assist her. Priority one: get those thrusters breathing a little easier.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” Zed responded instantly. “Mila, please proceed to Engineering Bay Alpha at your convenience. Full system access granted.”
Mila turned toward the hatch smoothly.
“Thank you, Captain. I will begin immediately.”
She gave a slight nod to the others and walked out, her movements purposeful. That distracting scent lingered in her wake. Carmen watched her go, then turned back to the crew, bracing her hands on the back of the command chair.
“Right. Sark, adjust our course. Take us directly to the nearest estimated entry point for the Forbidden Zone. Best speed Zed says the drive can handle without blowing us to scrap. We’re not waiting around.”
Sark swallowed, then nodded. He turned back to his station.
“Aye, Captain. Calculating the course adjustment now.”
“Norvik, Letitia,” Carmen continued, locking eyes with each of them.
“I need intel. Everything we have, everything you can dig up, scrape, or steal about the Forbidden Zone. Patrol patterns near the perimeter, known hazards, comm frequencies, cultural protocols for the XenX, the Kovoids, or any other major species in there. Anything. We don’t walk in blind. Understand?”
“On it, Captain,” Letitia said. “I’ll scour the public nets, see if I can slice into any low-level corp archives, maybe some old smuggler logs.”
“I will access the Collective’s restricted cultural exchange databases,” Norvik said. “While direct data on the Forbidden Zone is limited, peripheral information on neighboring systems and intercepted comm traffic may yield useful patterns.”
“Good.” Carmen straightened, the weight on her shoulders feeling marginally lighter, replaced by the sharp focus of a plan, however tenuous. “Move. We’ve got forty-seven hours till drop-out. Use them.”
Letitia and Norvik left quickly, their footsteps fading down the corridor. The bridge was suddenly quiet, empty except for Sark entering commands on his console and the lingering ghosts of stress and that faint, sweet musk.
Carmen sank back into her command chair, the adrenaline finally fully drained, leaving a hollow exhaustion.
She stared at the schematic still glowing on the screen – the crippled thrusters highlighted in pulsing red.
Thirty to forty percent. If Mila could work some magic, if they slipped through the perimeter, if the Kovoids didn’t blast them on sight… .
So many if’s. So many ways for it all to go catastrophically wrong. The fear, cold and sharp, coiled in her gut. She’d made the call. Committed them all. For Mila. Because it was right. Because she couldn’t see another path that didn’t end in moral ruin or a slow death in a UPA penal colony.
She closed her eyes, listening to the ship’s heartbeat – the rumble of the engines, the creak of stressed metal, the faint whine of the damaged jump-drive. Her ship. Her crew. Her responsibility.
And now, hurtling towards the unknown on a wing and a prayer, gambling all their lives on the word of an alien concubine who smelled like temptation and thought like an engineer.
Mierda, what had she done?