Escape
 

"Comms, signal our surrender."

"Sir?" Even over the alarms, Chervaz heard the horror in his own voice.

"You heard me, Lieutenant!" The captain yelled it, rage and humiliation in his voice and on his face. "Now!"

Chervaz turned to the board and started sending the signal. Couldn't be sure the communications array still functioned. Most of his panels had gone black. But he sent the signal, a signal he'd never sent before.

"We surrender."

Afraid to rely on the computer translation, he spoke the words himself, in the Chiamajan's standard language.

"We surrender."

The words made him want to vomit. Never surrendered before. Never. They had no choice. The weapons dead, the engines dead, the crew... how many dead? He'd lost internal comms ten minutes ago, so no more casualty and damage reports.

"We surrender."

The bridge shuddered under another weapons strike and Chervaz's knuckles went white where he gripped the board. Can't they hear me? Am I talking to myself? Still he said it again.

"We surrender."

And still no reply. He turned from the board, to report no acknowledgement of the message, but at the last second, he saw the display change. Incoming message. It sounded in his ear, through the earpiece he wore. Chia voice, but speaking in Earth standard as he had spoken in their language. A courtesy, or a mockery, he didn't know.

The message was plain and Chervaz chilled at the direct, deadly simplicity of it. His hands flew over the panel and he rerouted it to the bridge speakers.

"Captain."

The voice came through, cutting through the noise of the dying ship.

"No prisoners. No prisoners. No prisoners."

Same intonation exactly, over and over, loops of one piece of audio. The bridge crew froze in their seats. In Chervaz's mind, the only sound was that voice coming from the comms speakers.

"No prisoners. No prisoners. No prisoners."

The captain rose from his chair and spoke again. Words less shaming, but hardly more palatable.

"Abandon ship."

~~~~

Jaff grabbed a crewman, already diving as he did so, bringing the man with him, diving and sliding, under the descending bulkhead door. Never make it. Never make it.

With lethal gas escaping into the engine room, the door wouldn't freeze when it touched an obstruction, the way it would under normal operations. It would crush him; cut him in two, protecting the ship, whatever the cost to any poor bastard who didn't quite make it out in time.

But he heard the door close and seal and he was still sliding, nothing pulled him up. He'd made it. The crewman slid with him, coughing horribly, but not trapped by the door.

Someone grabbed the crewman's other arm. An ensign, he saw, new girl, only transferred in a few months back. Tara, Kara, Lara, Sara, fucked if he could recall now. She dragged the coughing crewman up while Jaff staggered up too, helping the man on the other side.

"Sir, the engine room..."

Jaff shook his head at her. The door showed the red "sealed" light, and under it, the yellow one, that indicated bad air or gas. Gas this time, Jaff knew, seeing it again in his head, the explosion catching most of the senior engineering crew, the thick cloud of gas billowing out. Backroom boys infused it with some shit to make it red, he knew, to make it detectable even without sensors. Of course, the way people dropped to the floor, coughing up blood when it drifted their way was a giveaway too.

Blood. He tasted some in his mouth, felt it drip from his nose, but he hadn't taken any into his lungs. Too experienced for that. The young crewman he'd dragged out wasn't so experienced. And that abandon ship alarm meant they weren't taking the poor bastard to sickbay. With luck, he'd end up in an escape pod with a medic and get treatment quick enough. If not, he'd need new lungs sometime soon.

"Sir!" The ensign protested as Jaff led the two youngsters away. "The chief, the others..."

"They're all dead!" Jaff almost snarled the words at her. "Forget them and move! Escape pods now!" They ran, dragging the coughing, bleeding crewman.

Abandon ship. No duty station now. Nothing to do but get your ass off this boat before it goes down. The ship shook under the barrage of enemy fire, making them stagger, killing the lights, making water, steam and fuck knows what else blast from ruptured pipes. Terrible noise. The terrible noises of a dying ship. Shrieking, tortured metal and alarms. The last alarm you heard before you got the hell out.

Abandon ship. Abandon ship. Abandon ship.

Jaff fancied he heard the actual words in the klaxon sound. He thought of Chervaz, on the bridge. Don't stay too long, you big fool. Bridge crew heard the Abandon Ship before any one else, heard it right from the captain. So move yourself and I'll meet you for a cold beer later.

The stench of burning plastic and electronics was everywhere, blue tinged smoke catching at Jaff's throat and stinging his eyes, making them stream. But through the tears, he saw the deck markings, knew he lead his survivors in the right direction.

To the escape pods.

~~~~

"Bridge crew," the captain said, "get to escape pods and supervise evacuation." He stood behind the chair of the bridge engineering officer, whose hands flew over her board as she frantically rerouted power to keep the shields alive just a bit longer.

None of the officers protested, but they knew they'd probably never see the captain and the engineer again. A small escape pod was accessible right from the bridge, but the chances of them getting into it once the shields fell were slim.

So nobody argued. They had no time. Chervaz and the other four officers stood from their chairs and as one, they gave a last salute. The captain returned it.

Then they ran.

Outside the bridge, they split up. The ship had several banks of escape pods - lifeboats, as Chervaz liked to call them. He claimed starboard aft as the bank he'd supervise and ran for it. Starboard aft. The nearest to the Engineering section, where Jaff would be heading.

If Jaff was still alive.

~~~~

Good thing he knew the ship so well, Jaff thought, because they must have been diverted about ten times on their way to the bank of starboard aft escape pods. Sections closed off ahead of them, sealing in fires, gas and crew alike.

But he found a route, and now he stumbled through the door, to the launch area. He and the ensign still supported the now unconscious crewman, both of them close to exhausted collapse. Not used to all this running. Only adrenaline kept him going, and only the sight of Chervaz kept him on his feet while the ensign dropped to the deck, panting.

The weight of the crewman would have dragged Jaff down, but Chervaz came, grabbed the man's arm, and helped Jaff manoeuvre him into a pod. Jaff handed him off to those already inside and ran back for the ensign. He picked up the girl - no more than that really, so damn young - by the back of her shirt and pretty much flung her into the pod.

"Jaff, get in," Chervaz said, grabbing his arm and trying to push him into the pod.

Nine of them in there, Jaff saw, one spare seat harness. There were plenty of pods left, more than enough, with the casualties they'd already taken, so Chervaz wasn't playing the hero here. But Jaff shook his head anyway, despite all his instincts telling him to get off the dying ship right now. Instincts were useful, but primitive feelings. Other feelings, more evolved ones, told him to stay with his friend.

Before Chervaz could protest, Jaff closed the pod door and threw the launch switch. Chervaz scowled as Jaff stepped back from the bulkhead that covered a launch tube that was now open to space. Jaff only grinned back and punched him on the arm.

"We stick together, Vaz. Someone has to keep you out of trouble."

"Engineering?" Chervaz asked. "Are you the only ones who got out?"

"That I saw. Bridge?

"Captain and engineering officer still there," Chervaz reported. "There's a pod up there, they'll get out in that, if they can."

"How many crew left aboard?"

The ship's internal sensors had failed now, but Chervaz carried a portable scanner, that gave basic and rather indistinct life readings.

"Thirty five, in various sections."

Jaff looked at the portable scanner too. Some of the readings did indeed show life signs, some moving, some not. Injured or trapped probably. None of the unmoving ones was close enough to dare a rescue attempt.

"Got three, maybe four heading for us," Jaff said. Were they close enough? Would they make it before the shields fell and ship began to break up? They waited, hanging on when the ship bucked and shuddered around them.

~~~~

Chervaz watched the life signs on his scanner. Close now. Close. Come on. Come on.

The klaxon sound changed abruptly and even above the shaking and groaning of the ship, they heard the rumble as bulkhead doors slammed down at the entrance to the section.

"Decompression." Even a hardened vet like Jaff whispered it. The spacer's nightmare. But a second later, he shook off the terror and turned to grab Chervaz's arm.

"Time to go."

"But, there's still..."

"Nobody can get in!" Jaff cried, pointing at the door, the red light glowing beside it. A blinking white light underneath, that meant hull breach. "We're breaking up! Let's go while we still can!" The noise became deafening now. The shields must be down, the Chia weapons striking the armoured hull, battering it, buckling it.

Chervaz looked at the portable scanner, with a groan of anguish. Crew, so close. But they couldn't get here. Compartments exposed to vacuum blocked their way to this one.

"Now!" Jaff shouted. Chervaz tossed the scanner aside, hustled Jaff ahead of him into a pod and dived in after him. Quickly, he strapped himself into the seat harness nearest the launch controls.

"Ready!" Jaff called. The many hundreds of drills they'd both participated in making them able to strap in fast, without conscious thought.

Chervaz's hand slapped down on the launch button.

~~~~

Jaff had been in a few pod launches before, some drills, some for real. You never got used to the Gs you pulled as the pod launched like a missile, flung far from the ship, into space.

And you never got used to the peace that came after, with the noise of the dying ship gone. Sometimes, someone would be crying, or yelling in pain, people would be breathing hard, hell, sweating so hard you could hear it.

But this time, with just the two of them, not hurt, so no yelling; too seasoned to cry from fear, there really was peace. The pod streaked away through space, its momentum carrying it far from its parent ship. Its dying mother. He tried to block such sentimental thoughts. Never get attached to a machine. Ship's just a machine.

But when the brilliant light of the ship's final death poured through the view ports, Jaff turned his face away, as if only to keep from being dazzled, but really, to hide the tears. He wiped them away quickly. Foolish. Ship's just a machine. He'd never wept for one before. But this time... His last ship. He knew that, the war already lost.

When he looked back, he saw Chervaz scrubbing a hand across his eyes too. Did he weep for the ship, or the crew? But Jaff only wondered that for a second. Of course it was both. He had a heart big enough for both.

The pod streaked on into space. After a moment, Jaff held out his hand to Chervaz for a shake

"We made it," Jaff said.

Chervaz nodded, serious. "For how long? Who'll come and rescue us?"

"We'll think of something," Jaff said. He winked. "You and me, Vaz. As long as we stick together, we'll always be okay."

~~~~

Minutes passed before they spoke again, recovering breath and wits, feeling the grief, feeling the pain. At last, Chervaz broke the silence.

"Jaff," he said, his voice quiet. "We surrendered."

"Fuck."

"Quite." Chervaz shook his head. "Never had to send that signal before. Humans don't surrender."

"Think that's all changing now, Vaz. A lot's changing."

Chervaz nodded miserably in acknowledgement of that.

"If we surrendered, why were they still firing on us?" Jaff asked.

"They replied to the surrender. No prisoners."

Jaff didn't answer that. They both knew it probably meant that they'd be picked off after the battle ended. Gunners loved some target practice on small objects. And everything was changing, as Jaff said. This fight had no rules now.

"Right, inventory," Chervaz said, in a brisk tone, taking charge now, and working on keeping them alive. Checking how much food they had might be a waste of time. The battle raged on. The pod's momentum still carried them away from their destroyed ship, but many ships still fought all around them. They wouldn't even notice the tiny pod if it got between them and a target. But it distracted him from the terror of that.

"Rations for ten people for five days, so that's twenty-five days for the two of us. Power cells at 98%. We'll run out of food before we lose power."

"Chervaz, if we have to stay in this tiny boat for twenty-five days, believe me, neither food nor power will be the biggest problem. Not killing each other will be the tricky part."

"Humans don't fight humans." Chervaz said it like a mantra. It was. The instructors drilled it into you from your earliest days. They broke up schoolyard fights with those words. Save it for the Okis, lads. Humans don't fight humans. The name of the enemy changed. The mantra didn't.

Would it change now? Everything else had.

~~~~

Rescue came before they ran out of food or got any further than snapping at each other. It took almost sixty hours, but a passing freighter picked up their distress beacon. Not a human ship, but friendly aliens, from a neutral planet. Full of news about the defeats the humans were still suffering, of the last desperate stands spread across the galaxy.

Earth gone. Their ships, gone. Their armies gone. Nothing left but scattered pockets of humanity. Some stood and fought. And died.

Others found places to hide.

A week after pickup the freighter arrived at its destination. Jaff and Chervaz disembarked after final thanks to their rescuers.

They'd be safe here, they knew. Neutral territory. Protected. With no possessions, no jobs and no place to sleep, Chervaz and Jaff arrived on Hollow Jimmy.

They still had their bank accounts, but their savings wouldn't last forever. They needed work. Jaff guessed that with his engineering background, he could find a job in maintenance. Chervaz might be harder to place.

No time to waste, Jaff found a public terminal for the station network even before they left the docks. Last time he'd been here, he'd used one of these to check out the drinking and dining facilities. This time he started looking up jobs and accommodation.

"So have you come up with an idea for a job you'd like?" Jaff asked Chervaz.

"What?" Chervaz had that look in his eyes. The one that usually meant he was about to lose a whole load of money falling for big eyes and a sob story. "Oh, yes, I have an idea of what I want to do."

"Well don't keep me in suspense."

Chervaz smiled, but still wore the dreamy look.

"Have you ever heard of something called a 'newspaper'?"