Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

Jabobs said, moving closer. “Your father’s ship was discovered almost a year ago, long before you heard about it. The Navy wasn’t too eager to get it back at first; the guys holding it were asking far too much for a civilian craft. Lucin pushed as hard as he could, but there was a lot of resistance. He just didn’t want to get your hopes up before he had the craft in hand. He asked me to tell you that.

“When Saunders realized what was going on, he blew his top. He thought Lucin’s past was destroying his focus, his ability to do his job. He wanted you gone and he… he promised Cole a major promotion to Special Assignments if he helped him out. After the Tchung simulation, he had you expelled, and he thought that’d be the end of it.”

Jakobs shook his head. “But Lucin thinks the world of you. He kept fighting for the Parsona and doting on you during weekends and breaks. When he went over the replays from the Tchung simulation, he suspected Saunders was up to something. The problem was, he went to Cole to help uncover it. He was trusting Saunders’s own agent to uncover his plans. Since then, Cole has been doing everything he can to keep you away from the Navy while he tries to get in touch with his boss. We don’t know what his next move would’ve been. Fortunately for us, when an arms dealer called to report someone traveling with a Glemot, he gave us the name of the ship and someone high up recognized the name Parsona, called the Academy, and luckily, Lucin heard about it first. We’ve been trying to keep all this in-house, of course. Cadets that know you and that Lucin can trust.

“So here we are. And everything’s gonna to be fine, now. We’ll get the prisoners secured aboard Parsona—in your staterooms or the escape pods—and then you and I will follow the Firehawk to Canopus. There, the Navy can take over.”

 Molly understood the words, but it didn’t feel as if she heard them. They just appeared, like mysterious wounds after a long battle.

“I know it’s a lot to absorb, but think about this: Lucin will be able to get you back in the Academy once Saunders has been exposed and put on trial. You might even get to fly again. And I know me and some of the cadets were hard on you, but we were all hard on each other, it’s part of the toughening-up process…”

Molly locked her eyes on his. Jakobs paused, but seemed to take the look the wrong way. He moved closer. “…and I don’t know about you, but I always thought there was something between us. Something physical that we never—”

She slapped the next words out of Jakobs’s head. As hard as she could. Pain lanced out of her tender wrist and shot up to her shoulder. It felt like electricity. It felt great.

She turned away from him and marched back to the hangar, ready to go wherever they were taking her. As long as it was away from here.

When she entered the hangar, Molly saw Dinks hovering in his Firehawk outside the forcefield. He waved at her through the carboglass; she ignored him and stomped into the cargo bay. Walter sat at the workbench; he looked up from his game.

“Cole iss a bad guy?”

“I don’t know, pal. And I don’t wanna talk about it.” She glanced around. “Where’s Edison?”

“They took him into hiss room. He iss chained up. Awake and very angry.”

“Angry is better than dead.” She hesitated. “And Cole?”

“Locked up too. But I am not in trouble, they ssaid. Navy reward.”

“I’m sure they’ll give you a big reward. Now don’t worry about this Navy stuff, okay?”

“Okay, Molly.” He bent back over his game.

Molly wanted to go and talk to Cole, but she knew her voice wouldn’t work, even to ask him to explain himself. The raw hurt and sense of betrayal she felt at that moment—the ability to be completely crushed by another human being—made her realize something. She had, indeed, been in love with Cole.

And now she hated him for it.

••••

“You sure you don’t want to fly us out of here? It is your ship.”

Molly looked over from Cole’s seat where she was nestled in the depression he’d made. She shook her head, her helmet twisting with the momentum.

“Okay,” Jakobs said as the shimmer of light ahead of them vanished. Parsona lifted unevenly from the floor, one of her landing struts scraping loudly across the deck for a few meters, then they punched through the boundary of the hangar and into space.

Dinks took the lead in the Firehawk while Jakobs followed. When both vessels were clear of the asteroid they turned and started out to a safe hyperjump point.

Molly turned to Jakobs, “Are Cole and Edison going to be okay in the staterooms?”

He glanced over, then jerked his head back forward, concentrating on flying. “They’ll be fine. I told Dinks to take it nice and easy out to the jump point. From there it’ll be two short hops to the Orbital Station at Canopus.”

“And then to Earth, right?”

Jakobs looked at her again, longer this time. “Eventually, yeah. But you do realize they’re gonna court- martial Cole, right? The Navy should be able to put a panel together at Canopus in a few days. We’ll probably be there a week or more. You’ll have to testify, of course.”

Testify? Against Cole? The thought had never occurred to her. And testify to what? Sabotaging their simulator, playing dead, and then kidnapping her? Or for saving her life several times since?

Jakobs kept turning to study her face through their open visors. She noticed Parsona’s nose drift down and to the right whenever he did this. The fact that this clown had graduated early and been put on Special Assignments irked her.

“If he was a civilian, he might get life in prison,” said Jakobs. “But he’s Navy. Ship theft and going AWOL are capital crimes. Hell, even if the murders of the Navy men don’t stick, he’s just purchased illegal arms. This is just the stuff we know about. There’s no telling what will come to light once we get you and your crew on the stand.”

Her crew. Walter. The nuke on Glemot. Molly felt sick to her stomach. And Jakobs wasn’t through.

“They’ll airlock him for this, Molly. I hope you realize how serious this is.”

She spun on him. “Airlock him?! Kill him?! Those guys on Palan died in the rains. They were trying to kill us! The jail we broke out of? They were going to kill Cole that very day without a trial! And we bought guns because everywhere we go, the boys in black seem eager to do us harm. Your little ambush is what we’ve been running from.”

Jakobs’ face turned red. “Ambush? This is a rescue mission. The Navy said I could shoot Cole on sight if I needed to. It turns out your hero has a shady past, and now he has a service record to match. So stop defending the guy. He’s the one that screwed you during the Tchung simulation and got you kicked out of school.” Jakobs pointed to the scars on his face. “Look what he did to me!” He took a deep breath and looked ahead, correcting his course.

“You saw the video yourself,” he went on. “And when the Navy Panel sees that and the evidence brought in from Palan, your friend is gonna get what’s coming to him. Now get on the right side of the law before I consider cuffing you up in your stateroom.”

Molly looked down at her palms, resting in her lap. “I need to use the bathroom before we jump,” she said meekly.

What she really needed was to get away from Jakobs and that conversation. But also, a small part of her hoped that just being nearer to Cole would provide some answers. She had so many questions welling up. If she could be wrong about him, she didn’t think her brain could ever again be trusted to draw a correct conclusion.

Walter hissed at her as she entered the cargo bay, trying once more to show her his videogame. It had become a little contest between them: him eager to show off his work and her hunting for an excuse. Right now, she didn’t have the energy to play, so she leaned over and pretended to be interested in his computer.

Even in her funk, she had to admit: the game was impressive. She’d seen enough of them around the