Chapter 26

An explosive bang cracked as the barricade blew apart and a gust of smoke filled the air. "LOOK AWAY!" Pellew shouted.

Shen raised his arm to shield his eyes but too slowly. A bright white flash burned his retinas and a shrill whine filled his ears, blocking out all sound. He stumbled backwards and crashed to the ground. He rubbed at his eyes and slowly his vision returned. He saw blurry images of soldiers exchanging fire, and smoke filtering through the room. People were coughing and hiding behind cover, many plugged their ears. Shen still couldn't hear anything.

He felt a hand grip his shoulder and looked up to see Pellew shouting at him. Shen couldn't make out a word and pointed to his ear, which was still ringing. Pellew seemed to understand and he pointed to a terminal nearby. He wanted Shen to move to better cover. Before he could, several bursts of energy flashed their way. Pellew knelt down and returned fire while Shen, unable to find his stunner, rolled to a prone position and made himself as small as possible.

Everything was clearer now; most of the smoke had been blown away by the vents. Several people were on the ground but it wasn't clear to Shen how many or who. With a pop his hearing returned.

The Major’s soldiers advanced further into engineering.

***

The Major took the news without expression. But deep inside he felt a wave of shame. He’d failed to defend the ship and now the rightful commander was a prisoner on the bridge and the ship was in illegitimate hands. And there was nothing he could do about it.

He had attacked engineering, of course. But it proved better defended than he’d anticipated. He’d thought he’d sent an overwhelming force, smaller numbers but superior training and equipment. His soldiers even reported initial success—they’d breached engineering. But at the most inconvenient moment his force was caught unaware from behind, by a force Pellew—the traitor—had hidden in the corridors. The pincer movement was so successful that the Major’s soldiers had been forced to withdraw. Now, with many of the men unconscious or unarmed—since Pellew had stolen or destroyed most of the weapons stockpile—the Major lacked the resources to try another attack.

The ship was lost.

He tried to think of another way. He even sent forces to the bridge to begin cutting the defense walls with a laser drill. But it would take hours, maybe even days, before they could break through.

So now he waited. Quiet as usual. Wondering. Would the Andromeda’s flotilla find them? Surely Calvin couldn’t keep his hold on the ship forever…

And yet there was something else bothering him. Seeing the unquestioning loyalty several of the crew and some of the soldiers gave Calvin, despite clear orders to the contrary, it made the Major wonder—could Calvin be onto something? He still doubted it. He still believed the crew had been deceived and that Calvin had no right to command anymore. But he wasn’t as certain as he’d once been. And decided that, as bad as the situation was, there was still one benefit. Once they arrived at Abia, as they surely would, they could all see what—if anything—was there. And then, and only then, would they know if they’d made the right decision.

***

With both the bridge and engineering secure, Calvin gave the order to go to Abia. It felt good to have his command again, even illegitimately, and he was able to ignore the consequences of his actions by guessing what he might find in Abia.

"ETA?" he asked for what must have been the twentieth time.

"Two hours and fifty-three minutes," said Sarah. With the Major’s force in ruins, Calvin had ordered his White Shift officers to the bridge and relieved the Red Shift, which was sent below. Fortunately the exchange of personnel had happened before more Special Forces soldiers appeared—who were now drilling futilely into the defense walls.

Only Summers had been kept against her will, she was cable-tied in the CO’s office where, presumably, she could do no further harm. Miles had taken a break earlier to go and surprise her with a beanbag round from a shotgun—enough to knock her unconscious. Only he would think to do such a thing to an unarmed prisoner. Calvin scolded him and forced him to resume his station, but deep inside he was a little bit pleased. Not enough to condone the action, but he also hadn’t forgotten the jagged wound she’d given him earlier. How she’d slipped into his heart and crushed it from the inside.

“Is everything still fine in engineering?"

"As of last report... one minute ago," said Sarah.

"Good, good," said Calvin. He stood up and started pacing around the bridge.

"Are you okay?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He hovered over Miles' screen and examined the defense systems.

"All's good here, Cal," said Miles.

Calvin nodded and wound his way over to Shen's station.

"Everything's fine over here too," said Shen.

"And is the Andromeda and its flotilla in sight?" he asked.

"Negative. Nothing on our scopes bigger than random space debris."

He breathed a sigh of relief. His biggest concern now, aside from the perpetual threat that he'd somehow lose control of the ship... again, was that the Fleet would overtake him. The Nighthawk had spent a lot of fuel and taxed its engines heavily; as a result, they couldn't do as deep of a jump as Calvin wanted. Their present depth still translated into a fast speed, but whether it was fast enough was difficult to say. Not without Andre's input, and the poor guy was still locked away in HQ.

***

Summers was in a confused state. She was sitting on the ground, it was cold, and her hands were tightly restrained, cinching her wrists. She felt a throbbing localized pain and her muscles were tight.

She wiggled, trying to get comfortable, and looked through foggy eyes at the vaguely familiar shapes of the CO's office. She held out hope the Major would retake the ship, and restore proper order, but as the time went by, her hopes dimmed. But not her zeal to fight.

She tried to curse under her gag, despite her self-discipline. She was no longer able to contain the swirl of boiling frustration eating her insides. She let out a string of swears with the word Calvin tossed in intermittently. It sounded incoherent with the gag in place. Eventually she calmed down but couldn’t hold back a stream of silent tears as she waited for what felt like an interminable amount of time.