Chapter 23
TASK
SFS POLARIS
It feels as though he’d just fallen asleep after hanging up a call with an agitated Draven, when he’s awoken to his Chronogram buzzing insistently against his wrist. He jolts out of bed, hearing a siren blaring.
He stumbles to find his trousers and shoes as he flicks through the screen, trying to pull up the call from Voss.
“Voss,” Task answers, trying to shake the sleep from his voice. Voss was on duty tonight. He should be at the bridge deck now with Claiborne.
“Solar storm twenty minutes out,” Voss replies. “Came out of nowhere. Too quick to change course, so we’re going to have to hunker down and weather it.”
Fuck. This is not good. Larger ships are built to withstand a lot, but a solar storm is one of the more extreme weather events in space, and he anticipates that the alarms are about to create chaos on board.
There is protocol for this kind of thing, rooms to shelter in near the center of the ship, but he assumes most of the Lumarian citizens on board have not been through a solar storm.
They’re likely unprepared for the shaking of the ship, the way radiation can sometimes pierce through the shields.
“Be there in five,” Task says, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame the unruly blonde strands and shoving his feet into his boots. He finds his uniform top and buttons it quickly, fingers fumbling as he tries to fasten the square collar at his neck.
His eyes sting, probably because he stayed up far too late thinking about Kit, about why she’d asked him about the Eight Great.
Who had actually told her about the missing Great, information that Draven was careful to keep hidden?
He’d wanted to go to the sundome, but her questions made him uneasy, had him wondering if she was catching onto what she was.
Or if there was an opportunity he could leverage.
He taps orders into his Prism, sending a message to the part of his unit on night duty to begin guiding citizens toward secured locations and to communicate what is happening. Nothing stokes fear like the unknown.
He grabs his surge-saber from where it rests by his bed, sheathing it at his back as he exits into the hallway, walking rapidly towards the bridge.
He places his palm on the reader and the door slides open, revealing Claiborne and Voss, standing in front of a map and a sonar diagram with an enormous splotch of purple moving across one side.
Dobbs stumbles in after Task, his mustache slightly askew and his shirt misbuttoned, clearly pulled from the depths of sleep himself.
“No way out but through,” Claiborne calls.
“You’re absolutely certain we can’t rechart?” Dobbs says, hustling over to his seat beside Claiborne, plugging new coordinates into the map to investigate himself.
“Not with a ship this big. If it was a Hopper, we’d be able to reroute, but it’ll take twenty minutes to set the Polaris on a new path. We’re going to have to go through.”
“Walther,” Claiborne calls, “we need to get the shields up, now.”
Voss nods. “I’ll wake Caelinus.”
“We need them up now,” Claiborne reiterates.
“I can do it,” Task cuts in, already at the control panel.
He’s not an engineer, but he’s been on enough ships to put the damn shields up.
Especially when they don’t have time to spare.
If they don’t get them up, they’ll all fry.
He taps in the command to raise the energy shields on portside, a green light flashing to indicate their ascent.
He taps for starboard and is momentarily puzzled as nothing happens. “Shit,” he mutters under his breath.
Voss is behind him in a second, peering over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“The starboard shields aren’t lifting,” Task says, tapping again at the control panel.
Voss looks over his shoulder to Claiborne. “How much time do we have until impact?”
“Approximately twelve minutes. What’s going on back there?” Claiborne’s fingers are tapping away at the map in front of him, zooming in on the purple mass approaching them.
“Starboard shields won’t rise,” Voss says, matter-of-factly. He turns and barks several orders at the officers in the bridge. “Canmore, get your men and move the citizens away from starboard. Dobbs, stay and attempt to reboot starboard energy shield from here. I’m calling Caelinus now.”
Task stands rooted to the spot, glancing out the viewport before Voss’ voice cuts in. “Canmore, what are you waiting for?”
“Roger that,” Task replies, making his way back into the corridor, currently bathed in amber light and packed with citizens running in different directions.
He raises his voice, booming instructions, and begins to usher them toward the staterooms on the port side of the ship.
He pulls up a map of the Polaris on his Chronogram as he leads a pack of Lumarians down the corridor.
Fuck. Of course, the medical bay and research facilities are on the starboard side of the ship.
The ambassador is on that side of the ship. Kit is on that side of the ship.
He flags down one of his men, ordering him to continue guiding citizens to the port side as he runs for the medical bay, convincing himself that he is panicking only because he cannot let his mission be compromised.
He winds down two corridors, running as fast as his legs will carry him, skidding to a halt just outside the medical bay, sirens blaring and lights flickering red.
He presses his hand to the door, and it slides open.
Wynstann and Amaltheia stand in the vestibule, Wynstann shoving supplies into a satchel, Amaltheia panicking.
“Task!” she half-shouts, half-gasps. “What’s happening?”
“Solar storm,” he replies, scanning behind her. “Where’s the ambassador? Kit?”
“What is —?”
“Still in the ward,” Wynstann cuts her off, zipping the top of his satchel.
“I need you to move Grayson,” Task orders. “Now.”
“He’s not well,” Amaltheia tries.
“Don’t care,” Task replies. “Move him.”
He doesn’t wait for either of them to respond, pulling up the black mask from around his neck, covering his mouth and nose as he pushes through the door to the quarantine ward.
He hears footsteps behind him, raised voices, but he ignores it all, singularly focused on getting to Kit and the ambassador.
Kit is bent over Remulus, working to insert another needle into his hand.
She looks up as she hears Task enter, nodding her head in his direction, as if she knew it was him before he walked through the doors.
She is the picture of calm, despite the sirens blaring, Task panting in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“Can he be moved?” Task ignores her, eyes on the ambassador. He looks like death itself, ghostly white and near skeletal. A deep purple rash covers his neck. He’s entirely comatose, a leftover diagnostic hovering over him.
“Moved?” Kit asks, flicking her finger against the man’s hand, trying to get a vein to pop.
“It’s not safe here,” Task says smoothly, despite the anxiety building within him. “Incoming solar storm. The starboard shield is malfunctioning.”
At that moment, the ship shudders, the entire right flank groaning. Kit loses her balance, putting a hand out on the wall behind her to steady herself. Task carefully steps around the ambassador’s bed as the ship shudders again, tossing them both against the metal wall.
“Kit.” She looks up at him, body thrown off-balance again as the ship drops in free fall.
She shouts, and Task shoots out an arm to grab her and try to keep her upright until the floor evens out again.
Task is used to the turbulence, but it’s particularly rough on this side of the ship, where the energy shields are down.
“It’s okay,” he says, holding on to her bicep as the ship continues to lurch, trying to ignore the pricks of pain that shoot into him where he touches her. “Now answer me. Can he be moved?”
Kit looks up at him with wide eyes, chest heaving. “He’s too fragile. I can’t even get a new line started right now. If we move him, I can’t make any guarantees that he’ll survive.”
The alarm blares again, and finally there’s a voice over the intercom, telling all passengers to move port side and follow all Guardian directives.
About time, Task thinks. His mind is racing, trying to figure out a plan.
If they stay here, they’re in the direct path of the storm.
If the ambassador can’t be moved, can he at least get Kit to safety?
“I also can’t make any guarantees if you stay here, Kit. Without shields, the radiation from the storm could blast right through this wall. You just felt the energy.” He moves to stand between her and the metal wall, as if his body can block the incoming weather.
“My job is to care for these patients,” Kit replies, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Task looks at his Chronogram. They’ve less than three minutes until impact. “You’re not safe here. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
“I won’t leave him,” Kit says, finally getting the needle to stick in the Ambassador’s hand. She tapes it down, standing up and glaring at Task. “And since when is it your job to keep me safe?”
“Kit, don’t be stupid,” Task pleads, ignoring her. Now is decidedly not the time for questions. “We have less than a minute. You’re the best Luminary aboard this ship. If something happens to you, what happens to the antidote?”
A voice blares over the Polaris’ comm system. “Fifty-five seconds until impact.”
Kit looks at him, her gaze hard. “I will not leave him.”
Task curses under his breath, frustration building inside his chest. She needs to move.
“Fifty seconds.”
The ship rolls again, and Kit loses her footing entirely, sprawling to the floor. “Fuck,” Task says under his breath. He drops to his knees next to her. He knows time is running out. Still, he pauses, unsure whether to invoke what he’s about to.
Screw it. Desperate times. “Your father?”