“Where are they headed?”
“Out into space, apparently.”
“What the-”
“Uh oh,” Jessica interrupted. “I’m detecting multiple missile launches on the surface.”
“From Corinair?”
“Yes, sir,” Jessica answered, just as confused as Nathan.
“Are they targeting us?”
“I don’t think so. At least I’m not detecting any weapons locks on us.”
“Incoming message from the Yamaro, sir,” the comm-officer reported.
Nathan looked at Tug, another puzzled look on his face.
“Put him on,” Nathan told him.
The image of a different man came onto the screen. He was standing on the bridge of the Yamaro. He was younger and not as spit and polished as Captain de Winter had been. Although Nathan did not understand the Ta’Akar rank insignias, it seemed obvious that this man was of a subordinate rank.
“To whom am I speaking?” Nathan asked.
“I am Ensign Willard. I offer our immediate surrender.”
Nathan had to fight to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. “I thought noblemen didn’t surrender,” he said. He knew it was probably not the best response as it left his lips.
“The nobles who previously commanded this vessel have been forcibly detained. I am now in command of the Yamaro. Again, I offer it to you in unconditional surrender.”
Nathan could tell that the man was very nervous about something. “Very well. We accept your surrender. Power down everything except your flight deck and life support. A boarding crew will be on its way to you shortly.”
The Ta’Akar ensign on the screen nodded respectfully just before the transmission ended.
“Now what do you think prompted that?” Nathan asked.
“It could have something to do with the dozen or so nuclear missiles that are currently locked onto them,” Jessica smiled. “Impact in three minutes.”
“Comm, contact the Corinair leadership, and ask them to abort those missiles. Let them know we are taking possession of the Yamaro, and we will be delivering her captain to them to face whatever charges they deem fit.
“Yes, sir.”
“Jess, prepare a boarding team.”
“You want us to fly them over, Captain?” Josh asked.
“If you guys leave, who the hell’s going to fly this ship?” Nathan said with a smile. “Tug, can you fly the shuttle?”
“Of course.”
“Kaylah? Are they complying?”
“Yes, sir, I’m showing systems shutting down all across their ship. Weapons were first.”
“Very well. Jess, collect their command staff. We’ll hold them in our brig for now. Once you get that ship secure in orbit, lock their crew up on their ship until we can figure out how to get them to the surface.”
“Yes, sir,” Jessica said. A smile started to creep onto her face as she left the bridge. She finally felt like she had a captain.
“She is seriously injured.” Doctor Chen paused to check the readings on the monitor display above Cameron’s bed. Nathan looked down at his friend. She was still unconscious. Her face was swollen, her head bandaged, and she was intubated, her breathing controlled by machines. She had a multitude of tubes and wires coming out of her, and there was a considerable amount of padding around her pelvis to stabilize her. Despite the fact that she was stable for now, she looked a hell of a lot worse than Captain Roberts had right before he had died.
“She has fractures of the pelvis and ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. She may also have some brain damage. There was quite a lot of intracranial pressure that had to be relieved in a hurry. And we’re still draining blood from her peritoneum, so there’s still some unresolved bleeding that we didn’t catch the first time around.”
“Why not?” Nathan asked, realizing too late that it might have sounded accusatory.
“She was just too unstable. It was better to close her up and let her stabilize a bit. We can keep giving her blood-there’s no shortage of donors on board-and we can keep draining the blood out of her abdomen. But eventually, we have to go back in and find the bleeders.”
“But you can find them, right?”
“Probably. But you have to remember, Captain; I came on board this ship to start my residency. I am not a trauma surgeon, not by any stretch of the imagination.”
“You’re all we’ve got, Doc.”
“Maybe not. Have you considered seeking medical assistance from- What was it called? Corinair? I mean, didn’t we just save their world? Surely that’s got to be worth something. And if they’re as advanced as I suspect, they could probably take considerably better care of her down there, in a real hospital, than I can up here.”
“It’s complicated,” Nathan said softly, as he stared at Cameron.
“Well you need to find a way to un-complicate it, Captain, before she dies.”
Nathan stood at her bedside for several minutes, thinking about what the doctor had said.
“How is she?” Jessica asked as she entered the room.
“Not good,” Nathan said. “Get everything squared away?”
“Yup. Got all the noblemen locked up on our brig. The rest of their crew is locked up in one of their cargo holds for now.”
“How many?”
“Only a couple hundred.”
“For a ship that size?”
“Seems a lot of it is automated.”
“What about the fighters that were still out?” Nathan asked.
“Most of them tried to bail out over Corinair. Most were captured from what I could tell. But a few may have gotten away. If they did, I suspect they’ll try to just blend in and disappear-ride it all out, so to speak.”
“Yeah.”
Jessica paused to look at Cameron. As tough as she was, she couldn’t help but feel something at seeing her friend and commanding officer in such condition.
“Listen, Nathan, there’s another problem. Enrique caught me on my way over here. He showed me some news footage he collected over the last day or so. It’s pretty crazy.” She handed him her data pad, activating it and showing him the video footage she had spoken off.
Nathan watched for several minutes before speaking. “This is not good,” he admitted, a chill washing over him.
“Yeah. I had a feeling something like this was going to happen after that little incident in the interrogation room the other day.”
Nathan sat in the cargo area of the shuttle. Captain de Winter sat next to Nathan, and the twelve members of his command staff sat along each side of the cargo bay, chained together in rows of six.
Jessica, Enrique, and two marines, all of them armed, had accompanied them on the way down to Corinair, as had Tug and Jalea. All were dressed in the best attire they could muster, which wasn’t much considering the circumstances.
“You know, Captain, the Ta’Akar will never stand for this,” Captain de Winter said to Nathan.
“What? The imprisonment of a few arrogant noblemen?” Nathan asked. “I doubt there is a shortage.”
“No, of course not,” the captain admitted. “I speak of the civil war you have sparked.”
“If anyone sparked a civil war, Captain, it was you. Did you really think you could bomb an entire planet, and the people on it would just lie down and die?”
“While that may be true, Captain, it is you the Ta’Akar will hunt down, not I.”
“No. I suspect you’ll meet your fate far sooner,” Nathan told him as he rose to move to another seat.
