[LEGACY VERSION] The Enemy of Time (Book 2 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 1 - Damon

PART ONE: KAIREYEH

Damon watched on the cockpit console screens as their shuttle slowly backed to the airlock of the Resistance ship. In the pilot's seat beside him, Narya Campa kept steady hands on the yoke, cursing a litany of how much she hated to dock manually. Damon watched the numbers she'd told him to, and called out whenever their trajectory edged toward a red zone--which it did often. Campa probably hated manual docking because she wasn't very good at it. That didn't help the tight knot in Damon's stomach.

The Resistance ship hardly had a power signature, and hadn't responded to any of their hails. But Campa had said there was enough power signature for life support. They had to hope for that much. Damon didn't want to think they'd gone through hell at Andavar Station only to come home to a dead ship.

They'd been gone a day longer than the maximum limit of the ship's power supply. The transit lanes out of Andavar system had been clogged, and then Campa and the Armada officer Talina had bent over the shuttle's console and argued over star systems that were or weren't there, and the best transit routes for translight, and just where by God and Void the Resistance ship actually was. Neither of them were a trained pilot or navigator, and no one had thought that they'd be coming back on an enemy shuttle without their navigation logs.

The shuttle's back lights flared the docking hatch white-gold. There was a bump, then a scrape, and a shudder.

"Docking clamps," Campa said, her hands white-knuckled on the yoke. She hissed out breath through her teeth.

Damon jabbed at the controls she'd shown him earlier. The clamps latched, sending another thunk through the shuttle. Damon was bounced forward in his chair then back again before settling.

The shuttle fell silent.

He licked his lips and tried to focus on the controls and what Campa had taught him about them in the short time they'd had. "I think the docking clamps show green."

Campa scanned her console, and then let out a long breath.

Behind them, Luc and Talina rustled. Luc, who had slept most of the trip back, levered himself up from one of the bunks tucked into the back of the shuttle. He wiped at his eyes, bloodshot in his dark face. He failed to hide a grimace of pain.

Talina, who'd been sitting on the opposite bunk, pushed up as well. As someone more familiar with the controls of an Armada ship, she could have helped Campa with the piloting, but Campa had told Damon in a hoarse whisper that she didn't trust Talina to stay focused right now. Damon had mutely agreed.

When Talina stood, it was with a haunted look. She'd only cried once on the three day trip back from Andavar. Most of the time, she'd just stared at the bulkheads. Damon almost wished she'd had more of a reaction--that would have been easier for him to handle then her lifeless presence tightening the air.

And then there was Alexi. Cold as marble and just as white, not breathing where he lay on the fold-out cot. He had a heartbeat, once every few minutes. Campa had said there was some, if not much, brain activity. She thought he was in some sort of stasis, though she hadn't known the how or why or it.

Damon had avoided Luc and mostly ignored Talina--and in their conditions, that had been easy enough--but he had not been able to avoid Alexi. He had to step around the cot whenever he went to the washroom or to take his turn at sleep.

Campa locked the shuttle's controls in docking standby, and levered up from the pilot's seat. She hopped a step on her injured leg before steadying into a more stable limp.

"Alright," she said. "Grab what things you have." Which wasn't much for any of them, but as they all unfolded, they took blankets and some of the shuttle's hard rations they'd claimed for themselves. Those things, for these few days, had been their own. Something tangible and controllable.

Damon went to Luc without a word and let Luc lean on his good shoulder. Luc clutched at the pocket of his shirt that held the small black case with the orium seed molecules, the reason they had made this desperate trip to the Miravec station.

Had they only left the Resistance ship a week ago? It felt like it had been years.

"I'll go first," Campa said. "I know the tap-codes, and if Oji has things in hand, there will be an armed squad to meet us. If they can see the shuttle, we'll look damned Miravec from the outside." She shot a glance at Talina, who was still in Armada uniform.

Talina didn't seem to notice the emphasis. She hovered behind Luc, not looking at anything.

Damon's gut twisted. She'd shot her husband. Not her fault--the officer who'd pulled the trigger around her hand had been stronger. And her mother had ordered it.

Damon shook his head to clear the too-recent memories. He tried to retreat into the dullness of his thoughts, something he had always been able to do when needed, but he was losing that buffer. Alexi was no longer in his mind, but the space in his head didn't feel the same as it had always had been. He didn't feel safe in his head.

Campa shot a longing look at the two emergency suits they'd brought out of the lockers and stacked against the bulkhead. Both were hard-shelled battle armor, too large for Campa's stooped form, too small for Luc's bulk. Damon couldn't wear one with his broken arm, and Talina had flatly refused.

"There'd better be air on the other side," Campa growled. She keyed the inner airlock hatch, pulled her pistol, and then stepped into the tiny airlock at the back of the shuttle. When the hatch closed behind her, she turned and hammered the butt of her pistol on the outer hatch in a sharp, complex rhythm.

Damon held his breath. After a moment, there came the dull ringing of a similar rhythm from the other side. The outer hatch opened.

Damon squinted through the inner hatch window. He caught a glimpse of an orange and white pressure suit. Campa stood rigid, and spoke and gestured rapidly. After a moment, she turned to wave them on.

Damon looked around at Luc beside him, and Talina behind. Luc's eyes were dull and wandering.

"Going in?" he slurred. The heat of fever radiated off of him, though Campa had done all she could with the shuttle's med kit to keep it down. He needed surgery.

"Yeah," Damon said. His gut twisted again. He shouldn't have avoided Luc on the trip back. He should have spent all his time with Luc. Campa had said Luc would survive, but that never meant anything, did it? People died all the time. He'd seen too many people die.

"Come on," Damon said, and pulled Luc forward. Talina, tense but still vacant, followed. Damon opened the inner hatch, and they all crammed into the airlock.

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