by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
The closer The Wanderlust got to the Dirt Cloud, the more of the starry sky it blotted out on the viewscreen wrapped around the front half of the bridge. By midday, crenellated clouds in shades of dark purple and muddy orange filled their entire view. No stars at all. Even the white dwarf that was their target, deep in the middle of the nebula, was completely hidden by the clouds of thick, dark dust.
“At our current rate of travel, we’ll enter the Dirt Cloud in twenty minutes, Captain,” Mr. Melbourne meowed. “This might be a good time to share some details about what exactly we should expect, and how you want me to deal with it.”
The charming white cat continued to be impertinent. Captain Carroway should have minded, but under these unusual circumstances, she actually appreciated the prodding. She couldn’t keep Melbourne in the dark if she expected him to fly well.
Carroway exchanged a look with her first officer. The Morphican nodded, understanding her request without her having to say anything. Still hooked into The Wanderlust’s computer, he swiveled in his seat until he could see both of the junior officers stationed at their posts — Melbourne in the pilot’s seat at the front of the bridge, and Lee at a monitoring post on the other side of the bridge. There was still a comfortable amount of slack in the mycelial cord between his implant and the computer it plugged into.
“Intel shows that these clouds are crawling with Anti-Ra ships,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said, his tone unfathomably even for someone who knew he only had a matter of hours left to live. And it’s not like they were going to be especially wonderful hours. “Their ships are older and more worn down than The Wanderlust. On a one-by-one basis, we should have no trouble facing them. However, they have an entire fleet. We are one ship. Logically, we must operate through stealth. Ideally, we will make it to the star system at the center of the Dirt Cloud without a single one of the Anti-Ra ships discovering us.”
“Stealth,” Mr. Melbourne repeated. “Got it. I can do that.” The white cat’s blue eyes twinkled as he smiled.
Captain Carroway felt cold. She never felt cold, not with all her thick fluffy fur, but watching Timothy Melbourne smile at the idea of facing a challenge made her feel cold.
“When we reach the white dwarf in the center of the nebula,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie continued tonelessly, “we’ll fire on our target, and then we will need to escape the Dirt Cloud as quickly as possible.”
The two junior officers — who’d had no chance to interact privately so far and knew each other hardly at all — exchanged a meaningful glance. A pretty little butterfly-eared dog, best and brightest of Nexus Nine Base, and a handsome, smooth-talking criminal of a cat. They were both bright young officers. Too bright not to notice that Vossie had neatly side-stepped telling them the nature of their ‘target’ or what to expect after they fired on it. But it wasn’t their place to ask. Not when their commanding officer was making such a clear point of refusing to say.
Timothy Melbourne didn’t seem like a cat who usually stayed in his place, but this time, something stopped him from asking a question that he could tell his superior officers didn’t want him to ask. Maybe he could tell that he wouldn’t like the answer. Maybe he sensed that it wouldn’t help him accomplish his goals: it wouldn’t help him fly better, and right now, flying was all he had to live for.
Ensign Lee opened his muzzle and closed it again several times, seemingly getting up the courage to press Lt. Cmdr. Vossie or the captain for more information. But Mr. Melbourne, with his quick, easy way with words, had set the tone.
Now was a time to obey, not a time to ask.
“Well, then,” Timothy Melbourne meowed, “shall we get underway?” He said it so casually, like they weren’t headed toward their dooms, and yet, somehow, it didn’t sound like Melbourne didn’t know. It just sounded like he refused to care; he refused to let it drag him down.
Captain Carroway was growing very fond of these young officers very quickly. She might have a small crew, but damn her tail if it wasn’t a good one. “Thank you, Mr. Melbourne,” she growled. “Please take us into the Dirt Cloud.”
With a larger crew, it would have been possible for all of them to take a break, leave replacement officers to babysit the bridge and keep an eye on the ship, while they took a final meal in the small multi-purpose room. A real final meal. Of course, that would have meant there was an entire extra shift of officers who’d need to eat a final meal. Twice as many deaths.
As it was, there were barely enough officers on The Wanderlust to fully man the bridge with all four of them working all the time. They couldn’t take shifts for full meals; instead, they took turns ducking off one at a time to synthesize quick snacks that could be eaten at their stations, making sure there were always three officers on the bridge.
Protein bars and cups of coffee, that would be Captain Carroway’s final meal. And none of them would be sleeping again. Four officers was not enough to set up stable shifts, so they’d all serve on the bridge until this was over. Which should be soon.
The Wanderlust shot like an arrow into the Dirt Cloud’s dusty gloom. Mr. Melbourne steered her with a deft paw, and as soon as the gloom closed around them, he began wefting and weaving the ship between especially dense clusters of dust, large space rocks, and electro-magnetic field phenomena. He was every bit as skilled as Lt. Cmdr. Vossie had said he would be. His skills couldn’t have deteriorated hardly at all during his incarceration, in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t have had his paws on a starship’s controls for three years.
The dust ahead of them began to glow as their sensors showed they were approaching the white dwarf. The glowing intensified, lightening the gloomy dark purple and muddy orange clouds to twilight violet and the warm orange of a campfire.
“It’s almost pretty,” Mr. Melbourne observed.
“It’s crawling with Anti-Ra ships,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie countered, admonishing the young feline. “Remain vigilant, Mr. Melbourne.”
“Will do,” Melbourne meowed, unconcerned by Vossie’s light rebuke. Compared to years in jail, the displeasure of one Morphican was nothing. But then, the white cat swore, “Dammit,” at exactly the same time as Ensign Lee announced grimly from the back of the bridge, “We’re being hailed.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. I’ve been dodging ships all morning without a problem,” Mr. Melbourne meowed defensively. “I swear that ship was entirely powered down and didn’t show up on our sensors until we were practically on top of it.”
“I believe you, Mr. Melbourne,” Captain Carroway said, leaning back in her seat and placing one paw against her brow as if the advent of an Anti-Ra ship spotting and hailing them was a literal headache for her. “Regardless, we now have to deal with this complication.”
“Their ship is small,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said. “We should be able to take it down with relative ease.”
“Show the Anti-Ra ship on the viewscreen, please,” Captain Carroway ordered, and instantly, the view shifted. Instead of the empty expanse of clouds in front of them, the viewscreen showed a darker segment of the nebula’s clouds to their side. Silhouetted against the gentle purple-orange glow of the clouds was a small vessel. Smaller than The Wanderlust. Less well armed. It looked old and like it had seen heavy fire in its time.
Captain Carroway knew the Anti-Ra ship would be swallowed up by a black hole soon enough, even if The Wanderlust did find a way to take mercy on it. Unless, of course, the Anti-Ra ship summoned a bunch of other Anti-Ra ships, and they managed to take The Wanderlust down together.
There was an idea. She could fail. If she failed, she might live.
As a traitor…
As a prisoner…
Even having these thoughts was treasonous.
“Should I answer the hail?” Ensign Lee asked.
“Orders, Captain?” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie asked pointedly.
And yet, even knowing that their mission was to destroy the entire nebula — which would destroy all the ships inside it — Captain Carroway couldn’t bring herself to order Lt. Cmdr. Vossie to fire on a vessel whose greatest act of aggression so far was to hail them. She had been ordered to fire a vacuum bomb on a white dwarf, not to fire upon less-armed vessels.
“Answer the hail,” Captain Carroway rumbled through gritted fangs. “Put them on the main viewscreen.”
Within moments, the view of the glowing nebula clouds, silhouetting the Anti-Ra ship, was replaced by the face of a golden-mantled squirrel with bright eyes and round ears decorated with tiny gold and silver hoop earrings along their edges. This squirrel’s features were a little broader and plainer than the flirty gray squirrel doctor at Nexus Nine Base, but in his own way, he was just as pretty. Captain Carroway had bigger concerns right now than how pretty a squirrel man was… but he was, nonetheless, nice to look at, and this would likely be the last time she got to enjoy looking at a pretty squirrel man.
The squirrel was seated on a bridge that looked as rundown and battle-torn as the outside of the Anti-Ra vessel he was hailing them from looked. Around him, manning the other stations, were another squirrel, a Morphican who didn’t seem to have the usual computer implants, and an individual who looked to be half-Avioran, half-Reptassan with feathered plumes framing her otherwise scaly, beaked face.
“Greetings, Tri-Galactic Union vessel,” the squirrel said. “I’m Captain Chestnut of The Last Chance. My vessel has been patrolling this nebula, and we wondered if you would be so kind as to inform us of what you’re up to here.”
“Do you usually patrol with all your systems powered down?” Captain Carroway countered in a purring tone.
The squirrel smiled warmly; his eyes sparkled with kindness. Captain Carroway would think of his face sadly if she survived this mission. It would be a shame, knowing he’d perished due to her actions. But, hey, maybe if The Wanderlust could dodge its way out of the nebula ahead of the crashing wave of gravity sucking everything into an unnatural singularity, maybe this Anti-Ra vessel would manage to ride out the danger by chasing after their tail. It was a long shot. Such a long shot.
“Touché,” the squirrel eventually conceded. “Regardless of what my vessel was up to, we’re both here now, and I have to ask you to turn around and head back out of the nebula for your own good.”
“Our own good?” Captain Carroway meowed archly. “I don’t think your vessel is a match for mine.” She didn’t need to out-argue this squirrel, just keep him talking long enough to complete her mission and high-tail it out of here.
“Perhaps not,” the squirrel admitted. “But the Tri-Galactic Union has ceded control of this area of space, and I don’t think you really want to be here.”
“You’re right,” Captain Carroway agreed. “We don’t, and we’ll be out of your fur shortly, if you leave us be.”
As the two captains — large cat and small squirrel — traded quips, both of their ships continued barreling toward the brightest part of the nebula, the center where the white dwarf lay waiting for them. Waiting for its destiny.
A destiny none of the animals on either ship could possibly anticipate.
“This really isn’t a safe region of space for a Tri-Galactic Union ship,” the squirrel said, his thin brush of a tail flicking behind him like a marsh reed whipping in the wind. “If you’d like, my ship would be happy to escort you back out of the Dirt Cloud.”
“How generous,” Captain Carroway meowed, gesturing with a paw for Ensign Lee to cut the sound on their transmission.
“Sound is off,” Ensign Lee announced.
Captain Carroway immediately turned to her first officer and asked the Morphican: “Are you ready to fire on our target as soon as we’re in range?”
The rabbit-like alien nodded solemnly, lights twinkling on his computer implant that was still plugged into the ship’s computer.
“Excellent,” Carroway said. “Consider the order already given.” Then addressing her pilot, she said, “Mr. Melbourne, I want you to alter our trajectory to take us within firing range of the white dwarf star; then as soon as Lt. Cmdr. Vossie has fired on our target, you will sling-shot The Wanderlust off of the star’s gravity well in whichever direction will get us out of this nebula fastest. I’m talking faster than you’ve ever flown or even imagined flying before. Understood?”
“Exciting,” the white tomcat said sardonically; except underneath the cynicism, he really did sound excited. “And yes, Captain, understood,” he added more formally.
“Correction,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie interjected, “please sling shot us in whichever direction the nebula’s dust clouds are least dense. I’ve patched a course through to your console.”
“Perfect,” Mr. Melbourne said. This time, he sounded too focused on his flying to play at sardonic tones. “The new course is laid in, and adjustments are being made…”
On the other side of her bridge, Captain Carroway heard paws shuffling and glanced over to see Ensign Lee looking uncertain. “Is there an Anti-Ra base in close orbit of the star?” the Papillon woofed, sounding like he was getting a little too close to figuring out there was something wrong with this mission, something more than he’d already seen.
On the viewscreen, the golden-mantled squirrel was still chittering away, looking extremely irritable, but the sound was off and none of his words were coming through. Instead of answering her junior officer’s question, Captain Carroway said, “Please turn the sound back on, and I’ll see if I can keep this Anti-Ra captain arguing with me until it’s too late for him to interfere with our mission.
Out of the corner of her eye, Captain Carroway saw Ensign Lee stiffen at receiving an order instead of an answer. The Papillon looked like he felt slighted and a little angry about being actively excluded from understanding what to expect when The Wanderlust reached the white dwarf. But it wouldn’t help for him to know. He followed his order and said crisply, “Sound will be on again in three, two, one…” And Ensign Lee went silent.
“I’m sorry, Captain Chestnut,” Carroway purred smoothly. “Our systems lost sound for a minute there, but I believe we have it fixed now.”
The golden-mantled squirrel sputtered, but then he regained his composure, tail stilling behind him. “If you don’t leave this nebula at once, I’ll be forced to call for reinforcements.” The other officers around him — the rabbit, other squirrel, and reptilian-bird — were looking increasingly tense and nervous.
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Carroway purred. She was almost enjoying toying with this squirrel man who thought he had any sort of upper hand.
“If you don’t allow us to escort you out of this nebula at once,” the squirrel said, “then I think it will be.”
“Is that a threat?” Carroway asked, her own tail was lashing beside her in the captain’s seat now, almost taking on a life of its own with the rush of feelings that could barely stay contained in her body. Adrenaline, excitement, fear, and perversely, a strong attraction to the squirrel captain, which was probably just a weird side-effect of all the other emotions. Too many emotions for a cat — even a big, scary, intimidating Norwegian Forest cat — to handle at one time. But this would all be over soon. Too soon. Carroway just had to hold on a little longer. She lifted her mug of coffee, hoping to steady herself, and tried to take a sip, only to be startled by finding it empty.
No more cups of coffee…
Too late for cups of coffee…
That was it. Her last cup of coffee. Ever.
The murky purple-orange clouds on the viewscreen suddenly melted to nothing in the middle, and the bright white light of a dwarf star shone like an angel of doom and destruction.
“Look,” Carroway said, trying to buy her crew the last few minutes they needed, “we’re just here on a scientific mission. We’re going to fire a research probe into the heart of that dwarf star. We’ll leave immediately afterward. We don’t even need to stick around for the results. The data will be transmitted directly to us when it’s ready.” The lies came easily. It hardly mattered what she said anymore, not with the end this close.
And yet, to her side, Captain Carroway heard her ensign gasp. The Papillon couldn’t help himself from saying aloud, “We’re firing on the star itself?”
Captain Carroway had made a miscalculation. Ensign Lee knew they weren’t going to be firing a research probe. This ship didn’t even have any probes suitable for such a mission. And despite his exemplary record, he was young and untested. With this first test… He’d just failed and revealed information Captain Carroway didn’t want revealed.
“Why are you firing on a white dwarf star?” the squirrel captain asked, bright eyes narrowing.
“Anything less than a vacuum bomb would have minimal effect on a full-fledged star,” the reptile-bird on the Anti-Ra bridge hissed at her squirrel captain. “Are they firing a vacuum bomb?”
“Are you?” the squirrel captain asked pleasantly, passing along his underling’s question. “That would be a war crime.”
“We’re firing a scientific probe,” Captain Carroway growled, repeating her lie. Then turning to her own underling, she snapped at the stunned-looking Papillon, “Turn off that viewscreen. I’m done with this conversation.”
Ensign Lee disengaged the comms, and a peaceful view of the orange-purple nebula clouds glowing around a shining white dwarf returned to the viewscreen.
Captain Carroway didn’t like the way that reptile-bird had asked about the vacuum bomb. Something in her hissed tone had implied to the Norwegian Forest cat that she knew exactly how deadly a vacuum bomb would be in this situation, and the idea of their enemy knowing their secret plans — plans that half of her own crew didn’t know about — made every nerve in Captain Carroway’s body sizzle.
But it didn’t matter, she told herself, looking at the size of the white dwarf star on the viewscreen. It was too late for the Anti-Ra ship to stop them.
“The Anti-Ra ship is keeping pace with us, continuing to follow us toward the white dwarf star,” Ensign Lee woofed. Then he added, softly, “I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn earlier.”
When Captain Carroway turned to look at him, she saw the Papillon’s butterfly-like ears were splayed, hanging low. Her heart melted. He shouldn’t die feeling ashamed and guilty. He deserved better than that. She said to him, “Ensign Lee, you have performed beautifully on this mission.” Raising her voice to speak to the rest of her crew — all three of them — she added, “You all have. You should all be proud.”
Only moments later, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie announced, “We have fired on the target.”
On the viewscreen, a streak of light zoomed toward the white dwarf. It looked like a shooting star. Instinctively, Captain Carroway muttered under her breath, wishing on the star like she would have as a kitten: “Live, please, let us live.” Then speaking up to be heard, she said, “Ensign Lee, please keep the viewscreen centered on the white dwarf, and Mr. Melbourne, I hope you’re flying faster than a cheetah on caffeine can run.”
The white tomcat didn’t answer. He was too focused on flying.
Continue on to Chapter 7…