Ekatya stepped out of the sky grip’s lift and strode along the length of its horizontal arm. The first time she’d done this, walking on a narrow metal floor with only the open cross braces of the grip’s arm between her and an eighty-five-meter drop to the ground, she’d been a little nervous. It certainly wasn’t her usual method of reaching the bridge. But it was faster than climbing through brace shafts and easier than being lowered from a transport. That was four days ago; now she enjoyed the walk. There was something exhilarating about approaching her ship from the outside, walking to the bridge from a great height, and seeing the skirt of her ship spread out below.
But it was also a little sad. Every time she entered her ship this way, she saw the damage. Not just from the nanoscrubbers, which was bad enough, but from what they’d had to do to free up the missile launch tubes, rail gun frames, and laser cannons. The openings of the launch tubes were flush with the hull, covered by a thin door and the hullskin, and the rail gun frames and laser cannons were normally tucked inside the hull as well. Only half of the launch tubes would open, due to the damaged hullskin, and the rail gun frames and laser cannons were hopeless. They’d had to send Alseans in with welding torches to cut away sections of the Caphenon’s hull, manually freeing the weaponry, and the end result was hard to look at.
The other side of that was knowing that the Voloth fighters would have the same problem. Their weaponry was also carried internally, allowing for atmospheric descent, and was only activated when needed. By the time the Voloth tried to bring their weapons outside and online, they’d find them locked in by nanoscrubber damage. And they wouldn’t have friendly, efficient Alsean builders hanging off safety lines, cutting their hulls open for them.
She reached the end of the arm, securely fastened to the airlock, and stepped through. It was always a little startling going from the open air and height of the sky grip to the close, dark airlock access shaft. From here it was a crawl. The access shaft was an emergency exit and hadn’t been designed for repetitive use. But the Alseans had cleaned it and put down some sort of spongy material, making it more comfortable to crawl through. Still, there was nothing dignified about pulling oneself out of an access hatch. One of these days, she was just going to do a forward somersault out of it.
She’d barely straightened up and brushed off her uniform when Commander Baldassar said, “Captain on the bridge!”
It had become a private joke between them. These days the bridge was nearly empty, with only the weapons boards being staffed by Alsean warriors. Her own team was down in the port-side weapons rooms, running their new Alsean shipmates through more drills. Every operable weapons room on that side of the ship was now staffed, as well as the few working rooms on the starboard side. Roris had been very impressed with the speed at which the Alseans had picked up the basics. Ekatya never told her that they’d already known half of it before they started.
She and Baldassar had managed to recover a working relationship, and while it wasn’t the same, it was more than she’d expected. When the Protectorate learned about the nanoscrubbers and decided that Alsea was at the very top of the list of planets to be protected, Baldassar had come to her and apologized, mortified that his instincts had been so wrong. He’d been looking for a sign from the Seeders and thought her concealment of her relationship with Lhyn was it. A decision built on deception had to be the wrong one. His real error, he said, had been in not waiting long enough to learn about the deception of their own government.
He’d done what he thought was right, and she couldn’t blame him for the fact that she’d given him a reason to take her command. So they forgave each other and here they were, commanding an alien crew from a nearly empty bridge and preparing for a battle her ship was never designed to fight.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said. “What’s our status?”
“Would you believe we have shields?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Commander Kameha finished this morning. I can’t believe it either, but he said that Fleet needs to make an immediate offer to those Alsean engineers. Apparently, they’re quick on the uptake.”
“That part doesn’t surprise me. I’d like to recruit a few of their pilots as well. Speaking of which, I have good news. Remember the pilot that took on the ground pounder? He’s out of the healing center and ready to fly.”
Baldassar shook his head with a smile. “Definitely a warrior. Bounces out of the medbay bed and wants to get back in the fight.”
She looked at his relaxed expression and wished once again that they had never been forced to opposite sides. “If there is a fight, I’m going to miss you on the bridge when the fireworks start.”
“It’ll be strange. I’ve never been outside the Caphenon during a battle before. But they need me more out there than you do in here.”
“I just wish we had a few more pilots to help out. And fighters that will fly for longer than forty-five minutes.”
“Forty-five minutes might be enough.”
“For here, yes. Not anywhere else.”
With such a short limitation on flight time, it had been impossible to train any of the Alsean pilots on their fighters. Candini and Baldassar would be the only ones with decent weaponry, and they’d be shooting down as many Voloth fighters as they could. Nobody thought for a moment that the Voloth pilots, finding themselves in uncontrollable craft, would make the slightest effort to avoid crashing into villages or cities. Quite the opposite, in fact: Ekatya expected that they’d make their last seconds of life a suicide run. A fighter crashing into a village could wipe it out if the fusion core blew. But if they were targeted in the air, the explosion would be harmless and the only damage would come from falling debris.
Blacksun and the surrounding villages could be protected, to some degree. The rest of Alsea would not. The Alsean fighters couldn’t shoot them down because the nanoscrubbers didn’t affect shield generators. Which was good for the Caphenon, or they’d have no shields at all. For the Alseans, it would be a disaster.
Baldassar took her through the list of repairs and updates, and just for a moment it felt like a normal day. Then Kameha called in about testing the shields and Ekatya realized they would have to back the sky grip away. The braces holding the ship in place would be inside the shielding, but the sky grip was too large and too distant.
“Well, I guess I’m sleeping in my duty cabin,” she said. “I’m not going to be caught outside with no easy way in if the Voloth come.”
“Just like old times, eh? I remember you coming onto the bridge from your duty cabin more than once.”
“It was never by preference, believe me. The bed in my own quarters is a lot more comfortable.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for you. I’ll be sleeping with Candini in the fighter bay.”
She grinned at him, and his eyes widened as he realized what he’d said.
Every Alsean on the bridge turned to stare when they burst into laughter.