Infinity's End: Books 4-6, page 8
“Sorry, yes, that’s why we’re here. I’m to escort you. He’s just here to be annoying.” Cas stepped to the side to allow the commander to pass.
“No, I’m here because you’re a danger to others,” Box replied. Cas grimaced at him behind the commander’s back and motioned with his hand for him to cut it out. As expected, Box ignored him. “Did you know he almost killed a fellow crewmember with a shuttle a few weeks back? I was the one who fixed her.”
Cas rubbed his temple and stepped into stride behind them as the three made their way out of the Bay.
“I like your robot,” Volf said as they rode the hypervator to the bridge level.
“He’s not my robot, he’s his own person these days. He just gets a kick out of getting under my skin. He’s remarkably good at it.” They’d left Box back down on fourteen; he said he trusted Cas not to punch anyone while escorting their new crewmate to the bridge. Sometimes he really could get on Cas’s nerves.
“He reminds me of my husband. He’s always making a crack about something or other. Drives me up the wall.”
Cas glanced at her. “You’re married?”
She straightened the front of her uniform. “Six years. Stupid right? Both of us being in the service means we’re never on the same ship so we see each other maybe three weeks out of the year when we’re on leave together. I dunno, maybe I’m old-fashioned. Or maybe I didn’t like the idea of that man hopping all over the galaxy without being tied down. Trust me, I’m doing everyone a public service.”
“It’s not unheard of. Both my parents were in at the same time, but Dad stayed on Earth. Mom was off in the stars most of the time.”
“It can be a real kick in the nuts, but man…for those three weeks, the sex is unbelievable.” She gave him a wink. “So what happened to your last engineer?” Her entire body seemed to radiate energy. She was probably Cas’s age, maybe a little older but acted like she was in her early twenties.
“Mission gone bad,” Cas said, all the humor draining from his voice.
Volf lifted her chin. “You knew her? The last one?”
“Yeah,” Cas said, not liking how flippant Volf was being with Suzanna’s memory. “I knew her well.”
“Sorry to hear. It’s never easy. I’ve lost more friends than I want to count. And usually it’s for something stupid like a survey team missed an indigenous species on a planet, or because someone hadn’t programmed an anti-grav properly. Humans can be real fuck-ups, you know?”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Cas said. The walls of the hypervator seemed a lot closer. He drew a deep breath, then another.
“Hey, are you okay?” Volf bent over so she could look him in the eye. “You’ve gone really pale.”
The doors opened on the bridge and Cas took another breath as he exited, happy to be out of that small space. Volf followed behind, and he could still feel her eyes on him as they entered the larger space.
“Ah, Mr. Robeaux, this is our new bridge engineer I presume?” Greene stood from his chair. He didn’t seem put off by the hair at all, instead came over and offered a hand to Volf, who took it, smiling. Cas glanced at Evie, who looked about how he felt. Still, she stood as well and introduced herself to the new engineer, then proceeded to show her to her new station. Cas wasn’t sure if they’d explained to her this wasn’t a regular assignment and she wasn’t technically going to be the chief engineer.
“You’ve got who on board?” Volf asked, her voice animated. “Holy shit!” She turned to Greene, a sheepish look on her face. “Sorry sir, I’ve only ever met one Claxian before.”
Evie seemed bemused and shot Cas a look. Was he supposed to tell her? He didn’t think so; no one had mentioned it. All the captain said was to meet her in the Bay and escort her to the bridge.
“This I gotta see,” she said, heading back toward the hypervator.
“Cas, will you show her around Engineering? Introduce her to Sesster and the others, just to make this transition easy?” Evie asked.
The last thing Cas wanted to do was get back in that hypervator and endure more questions about Suzanna or Sesster or anything for that matter. All he really wanted to do was go lie down. But then he remembered what had happened down on the planet and he wasn’t about to start arguing with Evie after that spectacle. She was still probably on edge, even though it had been over a day now. “Sure,” he said.
“I can’t fuckin’ believe it,” Volf said, her eyes alight with excitement. “An actual Claxian! You guys have been holding out.”
Cas took one last glance at Evie and the captain before boarding the hypervator again. The captain seemed completely pleased with the encounter which Cas couldn’t help but find odd. He was a man of few words and zero nonsense, and yet he’d taken to this brash new engineer like she was a relative. Maybe Greene was one of those few humans who’d been able to relinquish all his prejudices. Cas had almost been like that once, until he’d gone back to the Sargan Commonwealth where discrimination was alive and kicking with no signs of slowing down.
But when he saw Evie’s eyes he swore there was something else there. Gratitude maybe? He couldn’t be sure.
He got back in the hypervator as Volf started up on another line of questioning.
The door to Cas’s quarters slid open, revealing the sparse room. It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen all day. He wished he could shed his skin along with all his clothes and sleep for about a week in nothing but his pure essence.
The trip down to Engineering had been another Q&A session only this time he was the subject. Volf had heard of him but thought he was dead or still in prison somewhere. Cas had to explain what he could, leaving out the bits about Rutledge and how he headed a group of people intent on betraying the Coalition’s ideals in the name of security. Only it turned out Rutledge had been right, which was probably why no one else had suffered the same fate yet. Without the crew of the Achlys all the evidence Evie presented could be contained to him and him alone, so they threw him under the shuttle and went along with figuring out a way to keep this new threat at bay. But Volf didn’t need to know any of that and he hadn’t seen fit to tell her. When they got to Engineering she’d been too enamored by Sesster to question Cas further. Fortunately it looked like she couldn’t understand the commander like Cas and a few others could. And Cas was happy to let Ensign Tyler relay Sesster’s thoughts to her verbally. After a few minutes he’d managed to excuse himself without anyone but Sesster noticing and made his way back to his room. He was exhausted.
As he pulled off his shirt, he noticed he had an incoming message waiting. He went over to the small desk and tapped on the incoming notice icon on his display. An image of Macha popped up on the holoscreen in front of him.
“Mr. Robeaux, I hope you don’t find this too forward, but I was worried about the commander. This business with her father seems to have put her on edge and after…well, I’ll just go ahead and tell you. Mr. Diazal passed away a few hours ago. It wasn’t too long after you left. We’re still waiting on the autopsy, but the coroner seems to think it was due to his degenerative disease, though she said there were a few strange things about his body. Perhaps the commander is right, and he was on something.” She glanced behind her as if she thought someone might catch her sending the comm, though Cas wasn’t sure why that would matter. It wasn’t a secret.
“Anyway, I wanted to let you know because I sent word to the commander but never heard anything back. I’m worried about her. The attack may have affected her more than she realizes and as her friend I thought you should know what was going on, even though I’m technically breaking protocol by giving out medical information to a non-family member. But Mr. Diazal doesn’t have much family who will talk to him so I’m reaching out to you. Just…just make sure she’s okay. You won’t be hearing from me again.”
The screen went blank and Cas slumped down on the bed. No wonder she’d looked so strained on the bridge. This entire thing must be torture for her, but at least now it was over. She could take solace knowing he was dead and couldn’t hurt her anymore. Cas made a mental note to ask her to lunch the following day. He didn’t need to bring it up, but at least he could be there for her.
But all that could wait. He pulled his pants off and crawled into bed, falling asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Chapter Thirteen
Evie jolted out of bed, a cold sweat enveloping her. She couldn’t get enough air, it was too thick, too hot in here. She jumped from the bed and ran to her washroom, turning the shower all the way to cold and putting it on full blast. She got underneath the water still fully clothed, allowing the cold water to course over her until her teeth were chattering. She turned the water off and wrapped herself in a thermal towel, though it couldn’t do its job with her clothes sopping wet. She didn’t care. She trudged back into her main quarters leaving a trail of water behind her.
“Check temperature,” she commanded the local computer. On the display beside her desk it flashed twenty degrees Celsius. Then why was it so Kor-forsaken hot in here? She threw the towel off and felt a fresh wave of cool air as her wet clothes clung to her skin. Without turning the lights to full luminosity, she could already see there was a dark spot on the bed where she’d been sweating for probably hours. This was getting ridiculous. Every single night since she’d come back from Cypaxia and it was only getting worse. She wished they’d just leave orbit already, how many more repairs were required? The captain thought they had plenty of time thanks to Zenfor’s advanced drive systems but being in orbit of this planet was slowly driving her insane and just the fact that she thought her mental state could be affected by staying in orbit of a planet was enough of an argument for her sanity. It didn’t matter if he was dead. It was still his place. She should feel better. She should be happy she didn’t have to deal with him anymore, but the truth was it wasn’t over. Macha had sent four different messages. The first informing her of his passing and the subsequent three about the results of his autopsy, the distribution of his belongings and the matter of what to do with his remains. Evie wanted nothing to do with any of it. She’d been clear back on the planet, the Coalition could take responsibility for him from now on, but Macha seemed determined to keep Evie involved.
She grabbed the thermal and returned to the washroom, she wasn’t about to go to sleep again tonight. Not after the horrid stream of images that wouldn’t leave her alone. Her father’s bloody, decaying face inches from hers, spouting nonsense as parts of his skin dripped down on to her, each landing with their own little squelch. She shuddered and stripped, returning to the shower again and this time giving herself a proper scrub down. So maybe she’d been taking two or three per day, so what? Was her skin almost raw at this point? She didn’t care. All that mattered was she got clean.
She dried quickly and got back into uniform, though when she did she had to stifle a yawn. That was not good, she would not be out there yawning while trying to do her job. She opened a small compartment in the washroom and retrieved some stims from a tiny bottle. They weren’t illegal, though use of any kind of neurological stimulant was typically only administered by a Coalition doctor. Or at least with their knowledge. But not this time. She didn’t use them often, but she kept a small supply on hand just in case her performance ever began to suffer. She’d managed to refill this batch on her last jaunt to Sargan space to collect Cas.
Ugh, Cas. As she downed the stims and took a handful of water she tried not to think about what she was going to tell him. Should she even mention that her father had died? Or would he even care? Maybe it was better to just keep it to herself, though after what happened down on the planet he would inevitably bring it up, if for no other reason than to brag about knocking the man off her.
No, that was unfair. Cas wasn’t like that; he wouldn’t brag. At least she didn’t think he would. But he would want to talk about it at some point and she needed to decide just how much she wanted to tell him.
Forgoing another look in the mirror Evie made sure her hair was bound then headed for the door. She’d just get to her shift a couple hours early; nothing wrong with putting a little extra time in. Maybe she could get an updated repair schedule, so she’d at least know when they were scheduled to depart this wretched system. But before reaching the door her eyes caught and hung on her sword, mounted to the wall like some great trophy. Despite her love for Grandma Adeline she had still birthed that monstrosity of a father and the last thing she needed was any more visual reminders of the man. She grabbed the sword, locked the sheath, and wrapped it in a blanket from her bed. She then tossed it in the back of her closet behind her spare uniforms and strode out the door.
“Commander?” As Evie entered the bridge, she glanced over to see the new engineer, Volf at Blohm’s old station, staring at her. “You’re not due for another few hours.” Volf was the highest ranked person on the bridge and should have been in charge before Evie arrived, but since she was still new that authority hadn’t been granted by the captain yet. Instead, Lieutenant Uuma at tactical was overseeing third-shift. Navigation was empty, while Olguin was at the helm and Handel manned Ops. Third-shift was always a skeleton crew except in times of emergency.
“You’re here early yourself,” Evie replied.
Volf smiled sheepishly. “I needed to get some more time in on your systems. These Dragon-class ships are unlike anything else in the Coalition. It’ll be strange not working in Engineering.”
Volf struck Evie as someone who was very comfortable with change, except when it came to her authority. Though she couldn’t blame her. Blohm had expressed similar issues when Evie had first come aboard. It would be like Evie trying to share the Executive Officer position with someone else; two people trying to occupy one spot. The situation was further complicated by the fact Sesster needed a translator for his thoughts. Another reason she’d wished Cas had been able to take the position in some way, at least he could understand Sesster.
“You came to us from—”
“The Hiawatha,” Volf finished. “That fucker is a monster. And it’s old. But it’s durable. Never seen another ship that could withstand four ion storms without so much as one ruptured conduit. They didn’t build that ship, they poured it.”
Evie could feel the stims kicking in, forcing her brain to work despite the early hour. “She’s a reclaimed warship, right?”
Volf nodded. “Yep. One of the last. Turned her into a cargo frigate. The Coalition had us going all over the place. And it’s mostly just the shipping lanes, nothing new. So when I saw the chance to get on another ship I jumped. I just didn’t know what I’d be jumping into.”
Evie forced a smile. “You’ll get used to it. It takes time with everyone.”
“Is it true only certain members of the crew can hear Commander Sesster?”
Evie swallowed, not wanting to reveal something she shouldn’t. “It’s only a select few, some with a genetic anomaly that makes them receptive to hearing the Claxian’s thoughts.”
Volf put her hands on her hips and surveyed the bridge. “Damn. Wish I could do that. It’d make things a lot easier.” She took a breath. “But I’m not complaining. Just venting I guess. I don’t mean to keep you, Commander, sometimes I just find myself talking aloud.”
Evie waved her off. “It’s part of my job to make sure you’re well acclimated. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”
“Thanks.” Volf returned to her station, her mohawk shaking slightly as she sat. Evie liked the new engineer, even if she was unconventional. That seemed to be what this ship needed.
She walked over to one of the system displays and pulled up her own personal access, looking through any of the ship statuses to see if there were any notes from Greene about a departure time. She didn’t see anything in any of the logs, though it looked like the route to Omicron Terminus had already been plotted. Amazingly they’d be there in only five days. It was a trip that should take two hundred or more. If the Sil had this kind of technology on all their ships it was a wonder they hadn’t conquered the entire galaxy by now. But apparently that wasn’t their goal; all they wanted was to be left alone. And Evie would be happy to oblige as soon as this threat was neutralized.
She scrolled further and found the repairs were due to be complete within the next hour. Which meant they shouldn’t be here for more than another two before departure, right in time for first shift to start again. All she had to do was keep herself busy until then.
She stifled another yawn.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is the last time I’m doing this for you.” Box stormed into Cas’s room. Cas had been half-asleep, nodding off while reclining on his bed before he was startled awake by the robot bursting into his personal space causing him to shoot up off the bed. It had been five days since they’d left Cypaxia and they weren’t getting any easier.
“Doing what?” he said, his heart racing.
Box tossed a bottle of liquid in Cas’s direction and he barely caught it before it hit him in the stomach. “Your McDoughys,” he said. “Three bottles in as many days. We’re due to reach Omicron Terminus this afternoon and you’re going to be smashed.”
“It’s McDooleys,” Cas said, not bothering to glance at the familiar bottle. “And thanks.”
“That’s it, no more,” Box replied. “I had to hide it in one of my leg compartments to get it out of the bar. Martial knows it’s me. If he catches me—”
“I’ll make this one last, I promise,” Cas said, cracking the cap on top and allowing the liquid’s smell to permeate his nose. It was earthy, with a hint of vanilla and wood. Perfect.
“I don’t need this kind of heat, I’m a solid citizen now,” Box continued, oblivious to Cas. He’d begun pacing the room, throwing his hands up at random intervals. “Who’s the first person they’ll blame? The robot. ‘Um, yeah, I saw him go into the bar just the other day.’” Box said in a perfect imitation of Ensign Tyler’s voice. “That robot has been nothing but a menace since he came aboard the ship. I’m surprised it took him this long to get caught.” Lt. Ronde. “He’s been stealing my wares for months. But I finally got him on visual.” Martial, a perfect imitation.
