Captain's Away! Chapter Fourteen
The Bridge
Captain’s Away! is a long form, weekly serial. New chapters come out every week (more or less). Comments and suggestions welcome as we go along.
You can find the master index of all the chapters by clicking the orange Captain’s Away Index button below:
Previously in Captain’s Away!
Marie-Josée’s parents, Yolande and Bertrand Doucette, are trapped in an emergency bunker floating aimlessly in space with thirty-five other survivors. Her brother, Alain, is missing and presumed dead. But although Marie-Josée’s body is unconscious and in the emergency bunker with her parents, another part of her is having an entirely different experience.
Unaware of the tragedy that has befallen the space station Northumberland and her parents and brother, Marie-Josée’s mind, it seems, has awoken elsewhere: on board a starship called the Beausoleil, where she is being addressed as “Captain.”
Chapter Fourteen
“The Bridge”
Outside the cabin, Saito leaned his head against the bulkhead.
The captain was not well.
If she even was the captain anymore. Saito could not completely discount the possibility that she was who she said she was.
He didn’t want to believe it. Not with Javad lost and unable to fix it. The captain would get her memory back. She had to.
She might not want her memory back.
Their orders were clear, and not comforting. There was a very good chance that none of them would survive. Had Khiboda—the strong, capable woman Saito had known since boarding the Beausoleil—fled to escape the dangers of what was to come? Was she claiming to be a seventeen-year old to escape to some idyllic, teen-aged version of herself? If so, Saito almost couldn’t blame her.
Except that he did blame her. She was the captain. Captains were supposed to transcend such fears. Contain them. Control them. Make everything better again.
Without Javad it was impossible to know what had happened for sure. Whatever the case, Saito could not afford to flee himself. The Beausoleil needed to complete her mission. No part of Saito believed that he could carry out that mission alone.
He needed the captain.
The Beausoleil briefed Saito on his way to the Bridge. The Atul had made short work of the paltry Akkadian defenses. No surprise there. The Beausoleil expected the Realm battleship to begin its attack on the Northumberland shortly. Akkadian Central Command on Miscouche had long since been notified but the Northumberland could not expect help from that quarter any time soon. Ships had been deployed immediately following the first attack on the Nouvelle-Écosse and the subsequent declaration of war, but it would take a long time for them to get to the Northumberland. Although Akkadian ships could traverse the aether relatively quickly, such travel was not instantaneous, and travel became agonizingly slow once ships re-entered normal space.
Since the arrival of the Atul, Saito had taken advantage of the vastness of space to avoid a confrontation with the enemy ship. The Beausoleil remained in motion while maintaining a healthy distance from the Atul. Saito could engage the Atul if he so chose—he had no appetite to simply stand by and watch the Realm destroy yet another Akkadian space station. Nor was he expected to: Central Command expected line officers to be aggressive. It was his duty to do all he could to save the Northumberland.
Unfortunately, “all he could” did not encompass much. Although the Beausoleil was a good, solid Marauder class vessel, she was no match for a monstrous, technologically advanced battleship like the Atul. Like a chess grand master, the Beausoleil had long since worked out every possible move and countermove in any confrontation with the Atul. Utilizing her vast computing resources, she had determined every possible angle of attack and the likely response, constantly updating her calculations as new data rolled in. Long before Saito reached the Bridge the Beausoleil informed him of her conclusions; that in any confrontation with the Atul, both the Beausoleil and her entire crew would be destroyed without saving a single life on the Northumberland.
Saito didn’t like it. It went against his grain. But like most Akkadian officers Saito was well trained and disciplined. The Beausoleil was far too valuable to sacrifice needlessly, and he would not have his crew die in vain. They could much better contribute to the war effort elsewhere.
Shortly after Saito reached the Bridge the Beausoleil shuddered perceptibly. Saito gripped the back of his chair in case it got worse. “Status please.”
Officers on board ships like the Beausoleil frequently performed multiple functions. Lieutenant Pineault was a good example of this. Lieutenant Pineault was a tall, big-boned woman with auburn hair and bright blue eyes; in her mid-twenties, Saito guessed. She had come on board recently as an expert on the aethercom, the convergent communications system that leveraged the unique properties of the aether to permit communication throughout this part of the galaxy. When Pineault wasn’t working on that, she was the Beausoleil’s weapons officer.
“The Atul just discharged a weapon against the Northumberland,” she told Saito. Turning away from her elevated console to face him, she said, “I’m sorry sir, I can’t tell you much about the nature of the weapon other than that it’s energy based. But—”
Saito could see that she lacked the confidence to say what was on her mind. “Spit it out, Lieutenant.”
“Even at this distance I think we’re too vulnerable. I recommend we withdraw further to avoid contact with possible debris.”
Saito considered. The Thornton Shields—matrixed fields of energy surrounding the ship—would protect them from any small impacts but anything larger would exact a price. “Navigation, review the probabilities with the Beausoleil and put us someplace safe.”
The pilot responded instantly to the order. The Northumberland began to shrink in the viewscreen.
Then the Bridge crew gasped as one as the space station began to come apart.
At first Saito couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It didn’t seem like real life, more like something he would see in popular entertainment. Knowing that it was real was awful. Horrific. Worse than that—the most devastating sight he had ever seen. The third Akkadian space station to be destroyed in two days—it put Saito’s heart right in his throat. The loss of life would be staggering. He wished he’d taken a run at the Atul after all, to hell with the Beausoleil’s calculations.
Unable to bear it, he tore his eyes away from the screen and forced himself to think. When he was able to speak, he said, “Communicate this to Akkadian Command.” He meant footage and all related data.
“Already done,” Lieutenant Pineault said.
Always one step ahead. So good to have a competent officer like her in that chair.
“If we weren’t at war before we sure are now,” the pilot observed.
Saito finally remembered the pilot’s name: Raizada. Raizada’s blithe observation infuriated Saito. “This is far more than an act of war,” he said heatedly. “It’s a war crime. A crime against humanity. An act of pure evil. And not the first. We need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So I’m going to need you people to concentrate and do your jobs.”
Although true in every respect, Saito realized that his little speech had kind of gone off the rails at the end. Not quite as motivational as he would have liked. The Bridge crew responded with silence. No one even looked at him. Saito wasted little time worrying about it. He was already weighing the impact of what had just happened.
This was bad for Akkadia—certainly tragic for those on the Northumberland who had perished. Unfortunate that he hadn’t at least tried to rescue Javad. The crew would have appreciated that. Still— played properly, the loss of the ship’s corpsman could serve to motivate the crew.
Saito pressed the palm of one hand against his forehead, trying unsuccessfully to stave off a headache. One thing he knew for sure: they were done here. “Shift to the aether as soon as possible.”
Pineault spoke up. “Commander, I’m receiving a call from Corpsman Javad on one of our encrypted channels.”
Stunned, Saito straightened up, the headache forgotten. “On speaker.”
Immediately he questioned the wisdom of that order. What if Doc was dying? This could be excruciating. But it was too late. The aethercom crackled on the Bridge for everyone to hear.
“Commander?”
To Saito’s relief, Javad sounded fine. “Doc, is it really you?”
“It’s me.”
“Are you okay?”
“More or less. I’m in the emergency bunker. There are about thirty of us here.”
Pineault punched a key. The main screen switched to a close-up of Javad. The picture was grainy, lo res, almost black and white. The background tilted behind Javad, suggesting that he was floating in zero-G. He looked rumpled and tired but fine. Several other survivors drifted behind him in the crowded environment.
Saito had known about the Northumberland’s emergency bunker. While planning the captain’s retrieval with Javad they’d reviewed the station’s schematics. But not for an instant had he thought that it could survive the sort of concentrated destruction the Realm had just brought to bear.
“We have enough power, oxygen, food and water for now,” Javad said. “No manoeuverability, though. I suggest you wait until the Atul clears out then come and get us.”
Saito had no problem being told what to do when it made sense. It made his job easier. “Understood. We’ll come back for you as soon as the enemy’s left the field. Don’t go getting everyone else’s hopes up, though. We’re only coming back for you. Okay? Saito out.”
Saito mimed slicing his throat with his finger. Pineault closed the channel before Javad could respond, which was what Saito had wanted. He had known what Javad’s response was likely to be and hadn’t wanted to hear it.
Help me make this chapter better! What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
This has been an installment of the ongoing serial Captain’s Away! A Strange Dimensions book.
Also by Joe Mahoney: A Time and a Place
An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic.
Follow Joe Mahoney and Donovan Street Press Inc. on: Goodreads, Bluesky, Threads, Mastadon, Facebook, and Instagram