“Light speed is slow,” Desjani said in a resigned voice. “Look at that mess,” she added, nodding toward the image of the wreck.

  “It’s amazing they were able to jump out of Pele,” Geary said. How had any of the crew survived? His suspicion that this might be an enigma trap designed to lure in human rescuers flared back to life.

  The Marine shuttle swooped over Dauntless, zooming toward the wreck.

  Geary called up a view from the shuttle as it closed on Passguard. The two figures in survival suits were still at the hatch, waving as the shuttle drew closer. Were they truly living survivors? Or puppets set to lure in would-be rescuers?

  The outer access hatch that had once been part of Passguard’s hull was mostly gone, only a shattered fragment still hanging on to the inner hinge. Inside, the edges of torn and broken alloy marked the former air lock, the inner hatch barely visible wedged to one side. Aside from the two figures, no other sign of life could be seen even this close.

  The shuttle matched vector to Passguard, hanging less than a dozen meters from where the two figures waited.

  “Send in the reconnaissance team,” General Carabali ordered.

  Four Marines left the shuttle, individual maneuvering packs on the backs of their battle armor pushing them swiftly across the small remaining gap.

  TWO

  GEARY linked his display to one of the Marine scouts, seeing what the scout was seeing as she reached the side of Passguard. The two figures in survival suits certainly looked human from this close. Their faceplates were partially fogged by condensation, a sign of a suit with its life support on its last legs. But what could be seen were clearly human faces.

  Static interspersed with words came over the circuit. “. . . need . . . all . . . fail . . .”

  “Their suits’ power must be nearly dead,” the scout reported.

  “They’re beckoning us to follow inside the ship.”

  Geary waited. This was General Carabali’s call, unless she asked him for guidance or approval.

  “Wait,” Carabali ordered. “Captain O’Bannon,” she said to the senior officer on the shuttle, “this looks real. Don’t waste time going in slow. Take your whole team in now.”

  “Understood,” O’Bannon said. “Move it,” he told the other Marines on the shuttle. “This is still a potential threat environment until we see what’s inside. Stay frosty. Everyone stay together once we’re inside.”

  As the remaining Marines jumped across the gap, Geary glanced at his display, where a prominent control pulsed red—his control over the weapons on the battle cruisers and heavy cruisers. Right now, they couldn’t fire, but could if he touched that control and shifted it to green. Should he have the warships stand down their weapons?

  Not yet.

  The last of the Marines reached the wreck, seizing onto the edge of a broken bulkhead. “Rodriguez, Udayar,” Captain O’Bannon ordered two of the scouts. “Remain here to relay communications and guard our exit point. Everyone else, follow me.”

  As O’Bannon gestured to them, the two sailors from the Passguard nodded wordlessly before turning to lead the way inside the ship. Geary, now viewing events through the perspective of O’Bannon’s battle armor, saw a nightmarish tangle of wreckage that had once been passageways and compartments in the cruiser. Everyone moved carefully to avoid jagged edges even though the Marine battle armor would have protected them. Geary shivered as symbols popped up on O’Bannon’s face shield to mark lifeless bodies scattered among the broken shards of the ship.

  Finally reaching an intact hatch, the sailors wrestled with it until O’Bannon ordered some of his Marines to help. Inside was a compartment that had been jury-rigged into an air lock. Instead of being brightly lit, it was gloomy, with only a dim glow from emergency lighting that was on the verge of giving out. Once the hatch was again closed, everyone waited as pressure built in the compartment. “That’s a slow pressure build,” Captain Ochs commented. He was in on the link, of course, but knew to remain silent unless he had something important to contribute. “Their pumps aren’t in good shape, or their power is really low.”

  Cracking another hatch, the sailors from Passguard yanked open their survival suits, gasping for breath, sweat streaking their faces. Both were women, and both looked ready to collapse. But they stood watching the Marines, waiting for them to open their faceplates to talk.

  Geary, seeing the red warning signs on the Marines’ faceplates, wasn’t surprised by Captain O’Bannon’s next words. “The air in here is pretty bad. Can I get a safety call on this?”

  A doctor monitoring them from aboard Tsunami replied. “The atmosphere has a lot of volatized chemical compounds, the carbon dioxide level is higher than it should be, and the oxygen level is barely adequate. Nothing immediately hazardous, though. It’s okay to breathe for short periods, but no more than half an hour, tops.”

  “Okay,” Captain O’Bannon said. “I’m unsealing.”

  Geary heard O’Bannon cough in a way that sounded like he was gagging. “Volatized chemical compounds,” O’Bannon said. “Doc, next time just tell us it stinks in here.” He looked at the sailors, both of whom did their best to straighten to attention as they saluted.

  “We ur . . . urgently,” one of the sailors said as if she was having trouble getting words out. “Need assistance. Life support is . . . nearly gone.”

  “What’s working on this ship?” O’Bannon asked.

  “Life support,” the other sailor said. “We’ve . . . shut down . . . jump drive. Backup power . . . almost exhausted. Using . . . for life support.”

  “Every . . . thing else . . . gone,” the first sailor said.

  The doctor on Tsunami called in again. “Remote readings of those two indicate severe dehydration. They look like they haven’t had much to eat for a while as well. We need to get them to medical as fast as possible.”

  “Understood, Doc,” Captain O’Bannon said before addressing the two sailors again. “Who’s in command?”

  “Lieutenant Velez. He put us . . . on watch. These are . . . last working suits. Told us . . . stay out . . . flash distress . . . until someone came.”

  “Smart move,” O’Bannon said. “Can you take me to him?”

  Both sailors nodded and, stumbling, led the way deeper into the ship. The amount of emergency lighting still glowing varied by compartment, creating a strange tableau of shifting levels of light and shade as the Marines followed. Geary saw other survivors sprawled about the compartments, trying to conserve energy but attempting to rise as they saw the Marines. He realized that his right fist was clenched very tightly as he saw how bad those sailors looked. “General Carabali,” he called. “I’ve seen enough to be sure this isn’t a trap. Get the rest of Tsunami’s birds scrambled along with the mobile medical teams. I want to evacuate the surviving crew as fast as we can safely do it.”

  “Understood, Admiral,” Carabali said.

  Captain O’Bannon had reached a compartment that had once been an office, but now held haphazard piles of expired emergency gear and a single officer slumped at the desk.

  “Lieutenant?” one of the sailors called. “Lieutenant, we’ve got help.”

  “You’re in charge, Lieutenant?” Captain O’Bannon asked, his voice firm but not sharp.

  The lieutenant jerked himself erect, staring as if unsure whether this was really happening. His eyes grew a little more alert as he struggled to his feet. “I . . . yes. I’m in command.” He paused, wavering slightly on his feet. “Lieutenant Velez.”

  “How many of you are left, Lieutenant Velez?”

  “I . . .”

  “How many of your crew are left, Lieutenant?”

  “Seven . . . seventy . . . three,” Velez said. “Request . . . aid.”

  “You’ve got it. More is on the way. But we need to know something, Lieutenant. Did the enigmas ever board your ship? Could they have placed anything, any device, on your ship?”

  Velez appeared confused for a long moment, then shook his head several times. “No. They never . . . never boarded us. They just . . . wanted to kill us. Destroy . . . the ship.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Captain O’Bannon turned to his Marines. “Lopez, Tanaka,” he ordered the corpsmen, “start triaging so the medical teams coming from Tsunami know who to start with.”

  “They should search the whole ship,” Desjani said to Geary. “Both to ensure the enigmas didn’t plant any surprises and to get ID data from every body they can find. They can also make sure no one else is alive in some separate portion of the ship.”

  He nodded. “General, get some more Marines over there and search that ship from bow to stern. Assume there may be enigma devices present until we absolutely know there aren’t. We want to get DNA from all bodies and ensure there are no other survivors.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Carabali said. “I assume I should still prioritize shuttle runs for medical evacuations.”

  “Yes,” Geary said. “Also have your people download any data that survives on the systems aboard the wreck. Every bit of existing data from every system, whether it’s knocked out or not. We’re going to need that for reconstructing what happened to that ship.” He reached over to his controls, shutting off the weapons release command. “All units, stand down weapons,” he ordered. “Captain Desjani, assemble a damage control team and send them over to the wreck with everything needed to rig a temporary new air lock on Passguard’s hull and connect it to the spaces that still have atmosphere.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Desjani said. “Lieutenant Castries, notify Master Chief Gioninni that he’s to lead that team. I want them over there and setting up that temporary air lock so fast even the Marines will be impressed.”

  Geary, frustrated and wanting to do more, but having done all he could, watched more shuttles launching from Tsunami, leaping outward on their way to the wreck that had once been the heavy cruiser Passguard.

  “Do we have an estimated arrival time for medical teams?” Captain O’Bannon called. “I’m worried some of these space squids might not make it even a few more minutes. The air in here is horrible and from the looks of things they ran out of food and water a while back.”

  “Five minutes, Captain O’Bannon,” General Carabali replied. “We’ve got wonder water and portable life support gear coming as well,” she added, using the Marine slang for emergency hydration fluid. “Tell those squids to hang on.”

  “Will do, General.”

  Geary sat back, closing his eyes to block out the views from the Marines already inside Passguard. “Seventy-three survivors. Out of what? Four hundred?”

  “If the Rift Federation brought the crew up to full strength while they were home,” Desjani said. She glared angrily at her own display where the same images were visible. “We should make sure this footage is sent back to the Rift Federation, to the people who sent that ship out on a suicide mission. Let them see what happened to the ones who followed their orders.”

  “Yeah,” Geary said. “We should definitely do that.”

  The other shuttles were coming close to the wreck, disgorging more Marines hauling equipment, all of them moving with as much haste as possible under these conditions.

  “Master Chief Gioninni reports he’s launching,” Lieutenant Castries said. “He estimates twenty minutes to get the temporary air lock rigged.”

  “Tell him if he can do it in less than twenty I’ll give him a chance to fix the ship’s liquor inventory before I check it again.”

  Geary gave Desjani a questioning look. “Gioninni has been skimming the official liquor supply?”

  “Of course he has,” she replied. “But he’ll get that air lock rigged faster than anyone else could. Which may save some lives hanging in the balance.”

  One thing the long war had done was perfect the fleet’s ability to provide emergency medical support. Geary just had to sit and watch while the medical teams boarded Passguard and went to work with skills and procedures honed over a century of dealing with wounded comrades. The Marine combat engineers were just as efficient with rigging up portable life support that began clearing the nearly toxic atmosphere inside the still-pressurized area inside the wreck. Nonetheless, Geary felt the common urge to issue an unnecessary order just for the sake of appearing to contribute something to the situation. But he fought it down, remembering similar “helpful” interventions by his own superiors in the past. “It’s funny how hard it is to not interfere with well-trained people who are doing their jobs well,” he commented to Desjani.

  She nodded. “Everyone wants to feel important at a time like this. You already made the important decisions, Admiral.”

  But after watching most of the survivors from Passguard evacuated to Tsunami it turned out he was still needed.

  “Admiral? We have a problem.” General Carabali looked as if she wasn’t sure whether to be angry or not. “There’s only one survivor left aboard. Lieutenant Velez. He won’t leave the wreck.”

  “Give me a relay to talk to him,” Geary said, guessing what was keeping Velez from leaving.

  The link came through Captain O’Bannon’s battle armor. Geary could see Lieutenant Velez, more alert after receiving some emergency care and rations, standing stubbornly inside the temporary air lock. “This is Admiral Geary,” he said, trying to sound as if this were a routine situation. “What’s the problem, Lieutenant?”

  Velez looked toward O’Bannon, his eyes wide, his mouth twitching. “I am acting commanding officer of the Rift Federation warship Passguard,” he said, the words coming out slowly but forcefully. “I will not abandon my ship.”

  Geary sighed, understanding the lieutenant. Ground forces soldiers wouldn’t have. They didn’t have any equivalent to the powerful symbolism of a captain leaving his or her ship. But the Marines spent enough time around the fleet to know how strong the compulsion was for a captain not to leave their ship, and so had called for help rather than force Velez off the wreck. “Lieutenant Velez, it is the duty of a commanding officer to decide when it is appropriate and necessary to abandon a crippled vessel. You know the state of your ship. Passguard has been destroyed. There is no duty, no obligation, to remain aboard a ship that is no longer livable or capable of any action.”

  “My duty is to remain with my ship,” Velez said, his voice stubborn even though it wavered because of his physical state.

  “Your ship is dead. Your duty,” Geary said, “is to your surviving crew. If you stay aboard what remains of Passguard, who will look after your crew? Those sailors need you, Lieutenant. You can do nothing for that ship. But your crew needs you. You’ve brought them this far. Don’t abandon them now.”

  Velez blinked in confusion, shaking. Finally, he nodded. “Yes. I . . . I need to see to the crew.”

  The medical personnel near Velez, sensing their moment, gently guided him through the air lock.

  “That’s the last of them,” Captain O’Bannon said as Velez left.

  “Stay in place for now,” General Carabali ordered. “Have your people record everything they can. No one has spotted any enigma souvenirs, but stay alert. Medical is sending over survey bots to go over the entire structure of the wreck looking for DNA fragments. We want to account for as many of the crew as possible.”

  A half hour later, Dr. Nasr, Dauntless’s chief medical officer, called Geary. “Admiral, I’ve been able to get an update,” he said, his voice heavy. “Five of those aboard Passguard were already dead when our medical teams reached them. That leaves sixty-eight survivors. The doctors aboard Tsunami are confident they won’t lose any more.”

  “How long had those five been dead?” Geary asked, dreading to hear it might have been a matter of hours or even minutes.

  “Three had died more than a day ago,” Nasr said. “The other two perhaps half a day. Dehydration, malnutrition, foul air, and in the case of four of them injuries sustained during combat against the enigmas. We could not have gotten to any of the five in time to save them.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Geary said. Was Dr. Nasr telling him the truth, or telling him things that would spare his feelings? Either way, those sailors had died before their ship could arrive at Midway and before help could reach them.

  He went back to his stateroom, wanting to be alone for a little while, so he could be without everyone looking to him for guidance and example. Slumping back in his seat, he rubbed his eyes as if that would help calm his thoughts. Why did some live and others die? Why couldn’t he have saved those five? But he hadn’t even had a chance to do that. They’d been doomed before they escaped from the enigmas.

  At least he’d saved the other sixty-eight.

  His door alarm sounded, creating an answering burst of irritation in him. Couldn’t he have five minutes to himself? But he knew whoever had come must have an important reason, and so pressed the entry approval.

  Captain Desjani came in. She left the door open behind her, as she always did when visiting his stateroom. “How are you doing, Admiral?”

  “I’ve been worse.” He looked away from her and found his gaze on an image of the battered interior of Passguard, which did nothing for his mood. He realized that one fist was tightly clenched, as if ready to throw a punch, but at what he didn’t know. “What’s up?”

  “We need to discuss something. I know we had agreed to alter the vector of Passguard so it’d leave the star system, but you can’t send that wreck into the big dark,” Desjani said. “There are a lot of remains of her crew aboard, even if some of those remains might be only a patch of dead cells. They need a proper burial.”

  “I don’t—” Geary rubbed his face with both hands, wondering why her words rattled him so badly. Why this whole thing was rattling him the way it was. He’d seen so many ships destroyed in the last few years. It still hurt, but it was a hurt he’d grown miserably accustomed to.