apparent. “Aye, Aye, sir.” was his only reply.
As Kas’ suit’s headlights swept the inside of the lock, they revealed what he’d been expecting; a suited figure drifting tethered near the lock’s inner door. He took a deep breath and approached it. The figure was frozen in a vaguely sitting position. Kas could easily imagine the man, having done all he could to preserve his ship, shutting off his suit’s air and power and simply sitting down to look at the stars until he fell “asleep”.
Frost inside the faceplate of the corpse’s helmet prevented Kas getting a look at its face; but it also indicated that the suit still held atmosphere of a sort. That indicated in turn that the body encased in the suit was probably intact. The man had died, but before decomposition could begin the body would have frozen.
Kas turned off his suit transmitter, then stiffened to attention and rendered a crisp salute to the suited figure. “Permission to come aboard, sir,” he murmured. Surely it was his imagination, but he was sure he heard a whispered “granted…”
He shivered but remained in his formal posture. “I relieve you, sir. You can stand down now,” he continued softly. After a moment he relaxed and stepped forward. He unclipped the line tethering the suited figure to the inside of the lock. He gently maneuvered the corpse out of the lock, and reclipped the tether to a ring outside the lock where the body would no longer impede access to the lock. Then he flicked his transmitter back on and waved at Rom, who jumped across.
Rom looked at Kas oddly. “What was that all about?” He asked.
Kas looked irritated. “It was about me being a sentimental old fool,” he replied. “That is, or was, Lieutenant Rog Fan-Jertril, formerly Third Lieutenant of Vir Rekesh, and her last Captain. The Emperor is looking forward to presenting him a posthumous Empire Star, unless we find evidence contradicting the Lieutenant’s account of events aboard.”
He shrugged, though the motion wasn’t evident through his suit. “Lieutenant Fan-Jertril recorded a diary covering the last six months of the Rekesh ’s mission. I have a copy of the log crystal in my stateroom if you’re interested. It’s a long and not very pleasant story. I’ll be summarizing it at a crew meeting later. For now,” he continued, “Let’s get up to her bridge and collect her official log. Lieutenant Fan-Jertril left it untouched so he couldn’t be accused of possibly tampering with it.”
They began maneuvering through total darkness pierced only by their suit lights and the hand torches that they carried. Kas was familiar with the layout of a battle cruiser and had no difficulty threading his way through the maze of passages. The more they progressed, the more evidence of violence they found. Bulkheads were blackened or bloodstained. Weapons, tools and other impedimenta drifted lazily.
As they approached the bridge they encountered an improvised barrier of furniture and equipment. Black smudges nearly covered the bulkheads. A variety of improvised weapons were scattered about — crude knives, hatchets and even what appeared to be a spear improvised from tubing. There’d been a battle here.
Rom bent to examine the spear, but Kas said, “We’ll be investigating later, Rom. For now let’s get to the bridge.” Rom’s suited figure straightened, and they continued to the bridge, some twenty meters down the passageway.
If there had been bodies on the bridge, they’d been removed; but signs of violence remained. The black smears of dried blood on bulkheads gave mute testimony that a fight had taken place here and people had died. Blaster bolts had also blackened consoles and stations. The Astrogator’s console was completely destroyed, evidently by laser and blaster fire. The complete destruction was obviously purposeful. Other consoles and stations revealed much less damage but all had suffered to some extent.
Kas moved to the command chair and console. It was here that Vir Rekesh ’s captain had given the orders to first maroon his ship, and then defend her. Kas carefully examined the log recorder and pressed the release button. The log crystal popped free. He put it in a pouch at his waist then turned to Rom. “Let’s get out of here,” he said grimly. “I want to view this log crystal.”
Rom nodded clumsily. “Did you expect this? I mean… all this?”
Kas sighed. “Something like it. The Lieutenant described the fighting, but that’s not the same as seeing the aftermath. And I want to hear the various captains’ versions of events.”
They returned to Starhopper in silence. Kas had listened to Lieutenant Fan-Jertril’s diary several times. But hearing his dry, simple descriptions had not prepared Kas for the actuality — the damage, the black smears that proclaimed that here people had died.
Kas called a crew meeting immediately. He had to prepare them for what they would encounter aboard the Rekesh.
“We’ve been so busy trying to make it out here that we haven’t talked much about what we’d find,” he began. He told them about Lieutenant Fan-Jertril and the diary he’d recorded.
He summarized the story of the death of Vir Rekesh and her crew. He described the horror of the plague, the desperation, the mutinies, the loss of hope following the destruction of the Astrogator's station and files. He did not spare any of the captains involved, nor did he sugar-coat or soften the narrative. His crew would soon enough see for themselves the remains of the story. He told of Fan-Jertril, of his efforts to re-establish order, and his efforts to make certain that the future would know that the crew of the Rekesh 'died Fleet'
'It was an amazing feat for any officer, and even more so for one only twenty years old,' Kas concluded.
Rom had tilted his chair backward. Now there was a thump as the front legs hit the deck. “Twenty!” He exclaimed.
Kas nodded. “He’d been out of the academy less than three years.”
Rom shook his head. “Twenty or no, he was a helluva lot more officer than those other cretins. And that includes that fool To-Ruffin!” He paused. “I think I understand all that when you first went aboard, now.”
“All what?” Lady Jane asked. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
Kas reddened. “Nothing!” he growled.
Tears were streaming openly down Tera’s face. She made no effort to wipe them away. “I think it’s the most beautiful story I’ve ever heard. That poor boy! That poor, wonderful boy!”
Toj snorted. “Not ‘boy’. ‘Man’. A man by any definition.”
Kas nodded. “All right. Now I’ve told you this story to prepare you for what you’re going to encounter over there. And also to warn you. At least early on, we’ll be assisting the medical and technical teams. Once we get medical clearance, if we do, we’ll begin waking the crew that’ll actually man the Rekesh.”
“Now, they’ve been hand-picked for this mission. The problem is that they were picked for their technical expertise, not their military attributes.”
Rom snorted. “You mean innerworld airheads.”
Kas shook his head. “Not exactly. Airheads wouldn’t be technically competent enough to be selected. But a man can be an outstanding gunner, say, and still be an innerworld bigot.” He shifted his gaze to Tera. “Or a chauvinist pig. After seeing Rekesh I’m concerned. Oh, we won’t be telling them the whole story. But there’ll be no concealing the blaster marks on the bulkheads or the blood stains.”
He shrugged. “Mutiny can breed mutiny. Don’t let your guard down. Remember, Fan-Jertril and his people didn’t bother picking up weapons — they’re probably scattered all over that ship. And also remember that Fan-Jertril reported at least two dozen stills over there, and he hints that there may have been drug labs. Alcohol, drugs and weapons are a deadly combination.”
Rom shrugged. “So we search her for stills and labs and pick up loose weapons. Even if we have to wait a bit to begin reviving the crew it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Kas grinned sourly. “What’s the volume of a sphere five hundred meters in diameter?”
Edro chimed in immediately. “Sixty five and a half million cubic meters.”
Kas nodded. “How long do you think it would take you to search that volume, Rom? Think it might take more than a few hours?”
Rom grinned sheepishly. “I keep forgetting what a big bitch she is.”
Kas answered his grin before resuming. “All right. Now to the nuts and bolts. That ship is dead. Completely dead. No atmosphere, no lights, no gravs. Any work that gets done over there will have to be done in suits. Only Rom, Toj and I have current suit quals. You others will have to begin practicing immediately. You've all been using suits recently, but I want you to complete the formal qualifications.
“Once Toj gets that portable bio lab set up we’ll be depressurizing Starhopper ’s hold and we can use it for practice. Rom will oversee the training, and Toj will help once the bio lab’s set up. Since this is just a refresher, it
