27


“Which ship do you think has the Lady Faith?” I asked.
“I believe it must be the Nightmare,” Jelly answered. “The raw data suggest as much, but I will defer to X-37 on all matters of political intrigue and espionage.”
“I believe you are correct,” X-37 said. “While you were gallivanting below the surface of Wallach, Jelly and I discussed many theories about the location of Henshaw and his ship. I put forward a hypothesis that Nebs might keep his prisoners on a different carrier to prevent complications or mutiny.”
“You’re overthinking it, X,” I said.
“I always do. It’s my programming,” X-37 said not a bit defensively. “However, you might be interested that our discussion led to a further analysis of what we know about the Union stealth carriers. The UFS Nightmare is slightly bigger than the other two carriers.”
I snorted a laugh. “Does our vice admiral have an ego complex?”
“Most assuredly,” X-37 said.
Tom reported in, advising me that the fuel stores were more than adequate for our needs and secured in our cargo hold. “For a primitive society, the fuel they use is similar to ours and even more efficient. A little will go a long way. Are you sure they haven’t had contact with any other advanced civilizations?”
“Well, Tom, that didn’t come up in the course of our conversation,” I said.
“It might be something we should look into,” Tom said. “I’ll sign off now. There are a thousand little things I need to do befor we begin this journey.”
“I’ve logged Tom’s question for future study,” X-37 said.
“Thanks. But to be honest, I’d rather not stumble into any more lost civilizations,” I said.
“Where is your sense of adventure, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked a bit snarkily.
“I’m a simple man,” I said.
Elise, who had been drinking from a ship bottle, snorted liquid out of her nose.
“Do you require medical assistance, Elise?” Jelly asked.
“I’m fine,” Elise said, tears still in her eyes from laughing and choking at the same time.
“Very well,” Jelly said. “I am detecting a strange snippet of maintenance code from the probable location of the Nightmare.”
“Tell me more, Jelly. X, get in on this. Sounds like we need some code hacking,” I said.
“It would be my pleasure, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.
Several minutes passed. I lit my homemade cigar, gagged briefly, and took a sip of water from my own ship bottle, wishing it were liquor.
“Don’t die on me now, Reaper,” Elise said.
“The transmission is a simple maintenance code, meant for internal components to monitor and improve the ship’s functioning. Someone has managed to boost it and direct a portion of the binary code outward. Essentially, two repair bots are talking about things we would be more interested in than they would. Since they are mindless machines, it makes no difference to them what the messages say when not directing them to function one way or another,” X-37 explained.
“Sounds like Henshaw is reaching out,” I said and attempted to blow a smoke ring.
“We are unpacking the full message now,” Jelly advised.
“It appears to be a schematic rendering of the Nightmare,” X-37 said. He paused a bit too long. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was being dramatic. “There is a rather dire message included as well. It seems that Henshaw is advising us to leave the system immediately and that this is not a good place to attempt a rescue.”
I lowered my cigar, staring at the ceiling, since there wasn’t a holo display to look at. “I can’t say I disagree with him. We need to get the Nightmare alone. And we’re pretty banged up from the power plant mission on Wallach.”
X-37, Elise, and the ship AI discussed several variations of the decision. No one liked it, but we were running out of time.
I enjoyed the rest of my cigar in all of its raw raunchiness, saving the Wallach Presidentials in a humidor next to my dwindling collection of Starbrands. Despite my recent acquisitions, I was growing fond of my creations.
My memories were also coming more frequently and weren’t bad. Maybe this was how a normal man looked back on his life.
By contrast, dreams and nightmares had always been a plague. Thinking of the woman I had dropped from the bridge to Jeppa on Carson’s World haunted me always. It usually came with a flare of phantom pain through my cybernetic left arm.
But after Wallach, my memory of the incident was different. It seemed like a dark blessing if such a thing were possible. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not a million, would be suffering a post-apocalyptic nuclear holocaust right now if not for Elise and me.
“We did good, X,” I said.
“Of course, Reaper Cain.” X-37’s tone was hard to read, but I pretended he wasn’t busting my chops this time.
My imagination wandered, taking me back to the tunnels of the power plant, then to Roxo III, Greendale, and finally Dreadmax. Which brought me back to our desperate need to get fuel to the Bold Freedom before Bug and all the others died horribly.
I thought about the schematics to the Nightmare—imagining scenario after scenario. Rescuing Henshaw grew more impossible with every delay. Was I doing the right thing? Could I do both?
“You cannot, in fact, save everyone, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.
“That was really creepy, X. How did you know what I was thinking?” I muttered, not really caring at this point. Exhaustion stalked me like an assassin.
“Your body language and biometrics are very informative,” X-37 explained. “The last time you were a mess like this, you had stated several times that saving the people of Dreadmax was impossible. You went after the slip drive regulator even though there was no chance of finding it and the mission clock had expired hours prior. The world was ending, and you were in one of your moods.”
“I wasn’t in a mood,” I snapped, sitting up and putting out my cigar.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point,” X-37 said.
“Whatever, X. I’m going to the observation deck.” Clearly, I deserved some R&R, even if it was only for a few minutes.
“I cannot advise that,” X-37 said. “Jelly is receiving a transmission from the UFS Nightmare. Vice Admiral Nebs is hailing us.”