RECAPTURED RHYNO COMMONWEALTH SHIP ‘Hound’ REACTOR CONTROL
/ / SO8_v-korb · Somari Eight / /
“Just let containment cascade, take us all with them,” Oskar muttered, finally sagging onto a slab of scorched debris.
The air had turned foul. An acrid, metallic taste coating the tongue, clinging to the back of the throat. The carbon scrubbers were done for. The life-support must have switched to full chemical isolation, sealing them inside a bubble of chemicals while the poison was barely kept at bay.
“Volm’s order wasn’t a suggestion, crewman,” Jea snapped. Her heart ached for the boy’s raw inexperience, but his voice, thin with fear, was a rasp against her already frayed nerves.
“We don’t even know what the orders were.”
Jea’s lungs burned as she exhaled, a long, tight breath meant to silence him with nothing but her eyes. “They were our Commodore’s orders.”
“He’s dead.”
The rebuttal struck like shrapnel. Anger surged up her spine; hot, instantaneous, like a light racer banking hard to avoid a wall. Her small Eukary frame seemed to sharpen with the motion as she closed the gap between them. “His orders stand until we’ve completed them.”
He was terrified. She could see it in the tremor of his hands, the way his pupils darted. He was probably a boy born into incarceration on Somari Prime, knowing nothing of a world outside crumbling walls and constant hunger.
Jea turned back to the makeshift magnetic bottle, forcing her voice into something like command. “Oskar, I need you to rebuild a flow-restrictor matrix.” She offered him a quick, fierce grin, the kind you give someone teetering on the brink. “Layer the framework so it collapses as it flows. That’ll buy us the time we need to get clear, and still blow these bastards to pieces.”
“Aye, sir.”
COMMONWEALTH DESTROYER ‘Antler’ BRIDGE
/ / SO8_v-korb · Somari Eight / /
Goddard stepped in through the rear hatch of the bridge, eyes flicking toward Captain Arsnetti’s vacant ready station.
“Where’s the Captain?” he asked the sentry on duty.
“In a meeting with Flag,” the sentry replied, barely glancing up. “Someone tried to assassinate the Admiral; he’s moved his flag to Iridium.”
Goddard froze for half a breath. He’d served aboard the battlecruiser Iridium in his younger years; he knew every deckplate, but he also knew it didn’t have a flag bridge. If Fisker had abandoned his precious Snow, something serious had rattled him.
“I’ll need to brief her,” Goddard said, already moving toward the Captain’s cabin.
The sentry tapped something into his wrist-mounted terminal, gave a short nod, and keyed the hatch without ceremony.
Fisker’s voice spilled from the cabin the moment the seal broke – smooth, smug, every syllable sharpened to cut. “…yes, I understand, ugh. I don’t care what your people’s burial rights are.”
Arsnetti glanced up, met Goddard’s eyes, and waved him toward a chair. Fisker’s voice kept rolling, blind to the new audience. “Bring me the body. I want the fleet to see what happens when your kind overreaches.”
Arsnetti’s jaw flexed. Overreach? The Declanian had taken six of her marines before falling – that wasn’t overreach, that was precision. That was steel in the blood.
“Understood, sir,” she said flatly. The channel cut, the screen folding away into the desk. “So much for him pinning a medal on a Declanian,” she muttered.
“That,” Goddard said, “was a veiled insult at your success.”
A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Not that veiled.” She slid her tablet across the desk. “Speaking of veiled threats, you’ve been reassigned to Iridium.”
Before he could answer, an alert scream split the cabin, the comm board flaring red.
“Captain,” came the voice from Scanwell One, tense and tight, “we have an unidentified escape vessel that just left the Hound at high-G.”
Arsnetti’s gaze sharpened. “Was anyone left alive?”
Goddard shook his head. “We didn’t have a crew count, and my team was down to five people…” His voice trailed, the excuses hollow even to his ears. “I don’t know.”
ESCAPE VESSEL ‘tf.x.16’
/ / SO8_v-hgsp · Somari Eight / /
The gravitational crush bore down on Jea’s nanite-stitched lungs, each breath a labor. Pressure suits bit into her legs as the pump bags throbbed, shoving blood back toward her heart and brain against the pull of high-g.
Oskar sat beside her in silence. Eight of the pod’s seats were empty, the flat octagon tumbling away from the gutted, reclaimed Hound. Commanding her first department aboard that ship had been a taste she’d savored. Now it was ash in her mouth.
She caught the faint murmur of Oskar’s prayers; stones, stars, or whatever kept his mind from breaking. Jea’s faith had always been in things she could touch, weld, and fix with her own hands.
The comm unit on her belt vibrated. She’d grabbed the box on her way into the escape pod more out of habit than hope – rescue was always the flip of a coin.
Every muscle protested as she reached for it, thumbing the receiver.
The signal clicked through a digital handshake. It was flagged as friendly by the original encryption codes under Admiral Maxwell, who had perished over Somari 6 over a week earlier. Jea almost closed the channel, expecting it was an enemy trick to track her escape. She was about to dismiss the message when a voice she recognized, ragged but alive, spilled into her ears: “Mayday! This is Anton Kask, I’m on a stolen pinnace, and I have a wounded crewman with me!”
“Kask!?” Her heart jolted. Anton had been sent to the supply station to patch up the Crescent. He was one of only a few certified to handle the dangerous repair work in zero gravity.
“Commander Jea!?” His voice cracked with disbelief, relief bleeding through every syllable. “Oh, thank the Eleven!”
Jea grinned despite the lead weight in her chest. The wiry little Eukary – expert thief, hopeless card player – was alive.
“I’m in an escape vessel, Kask. I need you to swing around and pick us up. Volm ordered us back to Prime.”
It took more than an hour for Kask’s stolen pinnace to run down the escape pod, but when it finally closed the gap, the two vessels eased into matched velocity and locked together with a muted clang.
In the hush of zero gravity, the docking clamps engaged and the hatches began their slow pressurization cycle. The air wasn’t perfect. Jea’s ears popped sharply as mismatched systems fought to equalize.
The hatch rolled aside, and Kask drifted through, face pale, dark eyes tired but alive. Jea spread her arms and pulled him into a weightless embrace. “Kask!” she exclaimed, genuine relief softening her voice. “How are you?”
Pain shadowed his features. “Et’oj didn’t make it.”
“Your injured crewmember?” Jea asked, already certain of the answer.
“Yeah. He was from the Crescent.”
Kask’s gaze slid past her to the lanky figure by the bulkhead. His expression lit for the first time. “Kid!” he called, pushing forward to wrap Oskar in a rough, floating hug. “I’m glad you made it out, kid.”
“Anton,” Jea said gently, drawing the reunion back to the moment. “Volm sacrificed his life, and others, to get us clear. They need us back home.”
Kask’s jaw set. “Then let’s not waste another minute.”
COMMONWEALTH BATTLECRUISER ‘Iridium’ OFFICER’S COUNTRY
/ / SO8_v-korb · Somari Eight / /
By the time Goddard stepped aboard the Iridium, the rebels were long gone. Fisker’s new battlecruiser gleamed like it had never seen war. Signals intelligence was still buzzing over an intercepted transmission from a pinnace thought lost aboard the Snow. Goddard almost smiled at the thought of Fisker losing prisoners, too, but that was a truth no one would voice.
Goddard’s re-assignment from the Antler to the Iridium was whiplash. The Iridum’s decks shone under polish, the air was triple-filtered and crisp, untouched by coolant or blood. No scorch marks, no lingering smell of burned composites, only the faint aroma of brewed tea and hot meals, as if the battle outside had been a rumor.
Orders in hand, Goddard approached the Admiral’s day cabin. The Marine sentry scanned the file, gave a curt nod, and keyed the hatch.
“Six dead,” Fisker said without looking up from his desk, voice smooth but bladed. “Against another Declanian. And a rebel one at that.”
Goddard’s jaw locked. “With respect, sir, he was –”
“He was what?” Fisker’s gaze lifted, cold amusement glinting. “A hero? A worthy opponent? Don’t dress this up, Lieutenant. You lost half your squad to a crippled Declanian insurgent. That’s incompetence. That’s court-martial material.”
Heat prickled behind Goddard’s ears. “Sir, the man fought with precision and refused to surrender. We were breaching a fortified position under –”
“Enough.” The word cracked like a snapped wire. “I already know there was no we.” Fisker sneered, leaning forward, “I expect more from my officers, especially when they face their own kind. You are sworn to your nation, your navy, your rank – not to your race.” His lip curled. “Instead, you got other, superior races killed with your reckless foolishness.”
Goddard’s tongue burned with answers he couldn’t give.
Fisker leaned back, fingers steepled. “Consider yourself fortunate that your captain took the blame for losing the escape shuttle.” He let the silence stretch before adding, “Your armor logs show incompetence, heading the wrong way – not negligence. Not that there’s much distinction between the two for a Declanian.”
Goddard’s breath caught. Arsnetti had given herself up… for him? He felt his jaw tighten as signals from his lattice caught the unfiltered, toxic emotions flowing around Fisker. It was an imperfect facsimile, but he could see the haughty rage behind Fisker’s furrowed brow. The admiral’s eyes fluttered for a moment, and the signal stopped.
“Therefore,” Fisker sighed at last, “I’m inclined to give you the chance to prove me wrong, at a lower rank, obviously."
Goddard stood, unmoving, at attention.
“Dismissed, Mister.”
Goddard turned for the hatch, the weight of the dead, the sacrifices, and the shame pressing at his back. Volm, his captain, both Declanian, both already rewritten as footnotes in Fisker’s propaganda.
The Admiral, untouched by the real fight, would wave the flag of his near-death experience, adorn his uniform with whatever medals and accolades he saw fit, and style himself the hero of the Battle of Somari Eight.
Goddard decided, in that moment, he would never forget Volm’s or Arsnetti’s face – and when the day came, neither would Fisker.
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