Her eyes swiveled up to meet his. He’d said it as gently as he could, but now was not the time he could tolerate any of his people falling over and becoming nonfunctional. From the way this disaster appeared to be shaping up, he’d have enough wounded doing that.

  She muttered, “Yes, sir,” under her breath and got to her feet. He moved on, but he kept an eye on her long enough to see her square her shoulders, shake herself, and start to survey the landscape with a much more critical eye.

  Aaron approached the thick-set man who had rescued Lieutenant Fyfe. He, too, appeared uninjured, but he kept pacing back and forth and shooting terrified glances at her unconscious body.

  Aaron stopped in one place and watched Commander Silas Bozeman pace back and forth for a minute. Bozeman wore the distinctive uniform of the battery commander. He had been in charge of Gargoyle’s weapons, and he had earned the respect of the whole crew.

  “Juliette will be all right, Silas,” Aaron told him. “Wynnie will take care of her and then she’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  Aaron couldn’t explain to himself why he said this. He didn’t really know that Lieutenant Fyfe would be okay.

  Something told him that her condition wouldn’t be the worst thing that happened to the crew on this planet—wherever it was.

  Bozeman nodded out at the landscape without looking at Aaron. “I know, sir. I don’t know why I’m so worked up about this.”

  Bozeman came pacing back and would have walked right past Aaron. Aaron grabbed him by the shoulders, turned Bozeman to face him, squeezed both his shoulders, and forced Bozeman to look him in the eye.

  “It will be all right,” Aaron repeated. “You’ll see.”

  Bozeman nodded again and cast a single glance to the left before he looked down at the ground. “I know, sir, but it sure would be nice if we had some rifles.”

  Aaron took his hands down. “I feel the same way, but we don’t actually know the people here are hostile. If we find any help on this planet, it will come from them, so give them the benefit of the doubt first.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bozeman murmured.

  “Here comes Wynnie. Come on. Let’s go see what’s going on with Juliette.”

  Aaron and Bozeman went over to Lieutenant Fyfe just as Dr. Connolley showed up. She’d gotten Hofstetter on his feet and checked on Foley’s arm.

  She smiled at Bozeman and squatted down next to Fyfe. “She’s breathing easily, and she has good color.” She pointed her sensor at Fyfe’s head and then scanned down her body. “She has a concussion. It looks like blunt force trauma to the back of her skull. Other than that, she looks fine.”

  “How bad is it?” Bozeman quavered. “Is she going to recover?”

  “She’ll be fine. Just give me a second and she’ll be back on her feet.”

  Bozeman picked up Fyfe’s limp hand, pressed it between both of his, and watched Dr. Connolley fix a cerebral calibrator to the side of Fyfe’s head.

  Dr. Connolley activated it and Fyfe’s eyes floated open. She blinked, smiled up at Bozeman, and then her expression drained away into a grimace of horror when she saw where she was.

  “Silas… Wynnie…” Fyfe gasped when she saw Aaron standing there. “Captain! Where are we?”

  “Lie still, Lieutenant,” Dr. Connolley ordered. “I need to finish working on your head. Then you can spend all the time you want obsessing about where we are.”

  Fyfe paid no attention. She picked up her head and tried to look around again. She groaned when she saw the smoking wreckage of the Gargoyle and the plains of rugged, rocky terrain separating the crew from the city in the distance.

  Her gaze swiveled upward to the star overhead, and her eyes hardened. “That should not be possible.”

  “I know,” Aaron replied. “We’re going to try making it to that city, so I need you on your game and ready to handle whatever comes our way.”

  “Yes, sir,” she clipped in a much more businesslike tone. Then she glanced at Dr. Connolley. “Can I get up now?”

  Dr. Connolley smiled at her again. “Yes. You’re all set.”

  She removed the calibrator, and Bozeman helped Fyfe stand up. Fyfe scrutinized her crewmates. “Don’t we at least have some weapons?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Aaron replied. “A plasma fire destroyed the Gargoyle. It looks like Wynnie’s first aid kit is the only piece of emergency equipment we have.”

  Fyfe made a sour face. “Wonderful.”

  Aaron had to smile at her. She held the position of ground commander in charge of ISC troops posted to the Gargoyle. If the Gargoyle ever got assigned to any operations involving ground maneuvers, Fyfe commanded the troops once they deployed on the ground.

  On board the ship, she took charge of their training to keep them in combat readiness. She’d proven herself one of the toughest soldiers Aaron had ever met and he’d met plenty. He wouldn’t have to worry about her.

  The last man in their group was the broad-shouldered officer who’d escaped the Gargoyle with Dr. Connolley’s group. His name was Saul Massey, and he was the Gargoyle’s chief of IT.

  He spent his workday sitting at a desk, but in his free time, he trained as an extreme athlete and martial artist. Aaron put Massey in the category of people he wouldn’t have to worry about on this…

  It wasn’t exactly a mission. Aaron didn’t know what it was, except that it was one of the most dangerous survival situations he’d ever faced in his career.

  He didn’t have time to even think about that. He gathered everyone together and waved toward the city. “Let’s move out. The sooner we get to some civilized location, the better our options will be.”

  He gave Dr. Dobbs a pointed look, turned his back on her, and walked away. If she really planned to replace him as commander of this crew, she’d better do it now.

  The rest of the crew glared at her as each person walked past her to follow Aaron. Of course no one went with her.

  One person after another filed after Aaron as he made his way over the treacherous terrain. After a few minutes of walking, he looked over his shoulder to make sure everyone was keeping up.

  They walked single file behind him, except for Dr. Connolley, who kept checking on Hofstetter, Fyfe, and Foley.

  Dr. Dobbs stayed where she was for a long time. She waited several minutes before she left the Gargoyle wreck, took her place at the end of the line, and followed the rest of the crew away.

  8

  Commander Bozeman hustled up next to Aaron, drew level to walk beside him, and squinted up at the sky. “What do you think about those planets up there?”

  Aaron didn’t look. He’d already seen enough of the solar system the crew was in. “They look like planets to me.”

  “That one over there looks like it has a lot of vegetation,” Bozeman remarked.

  “Uh-huh,” Aaron replied. “I saw that.”

  “Why do you think these people populated the less hospitable planet?” Bozeman asked.

  “I don’t know,” Aaron replied. “Maybe when we get to the city you can ask them.”

  Bozeman lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. “So you don’t know where we are? You don’t have any idea at all? You didn’t see anything on the sensors when we entered this system?”

  “Nope,” Aaron replied. “Like Keegan said, the anomaly shut down all our sensors. We went through some kind of anomaly field with a bunch of them on either side, and then we wound up here. We flew out into space around the star and had to make an emergency landing. Now you know as much as I do.”

  Bozeman snarled under his breath. “Shit! That isn’t good.”

  “Keep your chin up, Commander,” Aaron replied over his shoulder. “We’re all still alive, so there’s always hope.”

  “But if you’re right, then no one in Anadeia knows where we are, either. No one even knows if we’re alive. We might have traveled halfway across the sector…or to a completely different sector.”

  “You’re right,” Aaron replied. “We might have traveled through time or to another dimension. I couldn’t tell you.”

  Bozeman stopped in his tracks and then rushed to catch up. “Don’t say that, Captain!”

  “Does it make a difference?” Aaron asked. “We’d be in exactly the same situation whether we did or didn’t.”

  “But if we find some communications equipment in the city, we might be able to contact the ISC and call in a rescue.”

  Aaron bit back the urge to laugh. He shouldn’t have found this amusing, because their situation wasn’t funny at all.

  “Let’s concentrate on the matter at hand first, okay?” he replied. “We have to get to the city and somehow find a way to communicate with these people. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves by worrying about what happens after that.”

  Bozeman started to say, “But…” and then cut himself off by muttering, “Yes, sir.”

  Aaron made a point of looking behind him at everyone. “How about you make it your job to whip these people into shape the way you do your battery crews? You’re good at that.”

  Bozeman wrinkled his nose at his crewmates. “This is no battery crew.”

  “No, they aren’t, but some of them are just as good if not better. You could work your magic on Hyne and…”

  Aaron broke off and Bozeman gave him a very different look. His lips twitched and his dark eyes twinkled. “And? You weren’t going to say Dr. Dobbs, were you?”

  Aaron couldn’t help but chuckle. “Just leave her alone.”

  “She’s a threat to all of us,” Bozeman muttered, but just then, Dr. Connolley strode up to them from the back of the group.

  Bozeman vanished and left her in place at Aaron’s side. “How are you, Aaron?” she asked.

  “I’m good. How are you?”

  She smiled up at him. She had the warmest smile and the kindest, gentlest eyes of anyone he’d ever met. He’d had a soft spot for her, and vice versa, for as long as they’d known each other.

  She raised her sensor and pointed it at his head. “What are you doing?” he asked. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “You have blood on your face. It’s coming out of your nose.”

  “I do?” He raised his hand and touched his upper lip. “Oh. I do.”

  “Did you get hit during the crash?”

  “I guess I did. I didn’t really think about it. I was too busy getting Keegan and Hewitt off the bridge…and then getting Hyne, Clay, and Joplin out of engineering.”

  “Your face is swollen. It looks like you got hit a lot harder than you realize.”

  “Oh.” Aaron touched his face again and faced forward. “How is everyone else?”

  “So far so good.” She looked behind her, too. He didn’t have to wonder who she was looking at.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me earlier,” he murmured.

  “She’s a barnacle,” Dr. Connolley snarled. “She’s gonna cause us some serious problems.”

  Aaron lowered his voice, too. “What do you think I should do about that? It isn’t like I can leave her behind out here.”

  “I couldn’t tell you. It sure would be nice if you could.”

  He laughed. “Don’t let the rest of the crew hear you saying that.”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re all thinking it.”

  He chuckled and finally allowed himself to squint down the line to Dr. Dobbs bringing up the rear. She trailed far behind the rest of the group, but none of them slowed down to accommodate her.

  He faced front and did his best to put her out of his mind, but that didn’t work out too well. “What do you know about her?”

  “Not much, except that she’s Command’s celebrity favorite at the moment because she came up with the cure for Bovorian Plague.”

  “But Bovorian Plague is so rare in Anadeia,” Aaron pointed out. “It isn’t what you’d call a public health emergency.”

  “Not at all. If this outbreak on Iopra didn’t conveniently happen to strike at the exact moment the ISC was trying to quell the Iopra rebellion, Command never would have known Dr. Marianne Dobbs existed.”

  “So she’s a nobody,” Aaron concluded.

  “A nobody who thinks she’s somebody.”

  “Does she have any training—any clinical training outside the lab?” he asked.

  “No,” Dr. Connolley replied. “I don’t think she’s treated a patient even once since she left medical school.”

  “Great,” he growled. “So she’s useless.”

  “Useless for everything except throwing attitude.”

  He glanced over at her, and he had to smile at her. “I’m sure glad you’re here.”

  She beamed up at him with obvious affection. “You, too. I meant what I said earlier. If we get out of here, it will be because of you. Everyone here knows it. You don’t have to worry about any of the rest of the crew.”

  He mumbled, “Thanks,” and faced front again when, at that moment, some kind of spacecraft buzzed overhead.

  It flew from far out in the desert, passed over the crew, and continued toward the city.

  Aaron noticed a lot more activity as he got nearer. Aircraft swooped all over the city, landed on buildings, and the tiny figures of people swarmed through all the streets. Aaron couldn’t see what species they were from here.

  After another hour of walking, the air traffic got so thick that he could hear engine noise and the steady tide of voices, engines, and industrial noise rolling out of the city.

  He stopped walking and turned around. The rest of the group gathered around him, and he made another assessment of the crew he had left.

  “Okay, we’re going in there,” he began. “We won’t be able to communicate with anyone, so stick together and don’t get involved with any of the locals.”

  “How are we gonna find some help, sir?” Clay asked.

  “I honestly couldn’t tell you. We don’t know anything about these people’s society, their leadership, or their customs. Our first task is going to be to find someone we can communicate with.” He scanned the group and settled on Foley. “You’re good at languages, Zack. Maybe you can help us out.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir, but whoever these people are, their language won’t be related to anything we’ve encountered in Anadeia.”

  “Just do your best. We’ll try to find some kind of trade or business center. If these people are used to dealing with foreigners from different species, they’ll congregate there. We’ll be more likely to find people who speak multiple languages.”

  “But not any languages we speak,” Hewitt pointed out.

  “Well, if we’re stuck here long enough, maybe we’ll learn some of them—enough to communicate with someone and find out how we can get out of here. Now stay alert and stick together. Don’t get separated.”

  The crew tightened into a close knot on their way into the city. A beaten pathway appeared between the boulders. It twined toward the city, got wider, and eventually turned into a dirt road that joined up with a paved highway.

  The crew merged with dozens of different alien species going into and coming out of the city. Aaron didn’t recognize any of those species or any of the combination of dozens of different kinds of vehicles, conveyances, and buildings surrounding the crew.

  The road crossed a river and the city itself began on the other side. These aliens hadn’t constructed any buildings or other infrastructure on this side apart from the road and the one bridge entering the city. The other side teemed with life, business, activity, vehicle noise, shouts, and every other sign of a thriving metropolis.

  The crew stayed so close together that they kept bumping into each other. The crowd got thicker as it approached the river and crossed the bridge leading under a towering stone archway.

  Two armed aliens stood guard on either side of the arch. The aliens themselves looked like giant insects with multiple jointed limbs, armored exoskeletons, feelers sticking out of their heads, and their mandibles undulated in and out near their mouths even when the guards just stood there doing nothing.

  Each guard held some kind of large weapon in their angular limbs. Aaron couldn’t tell from here what kind of weapons they were, but the sight actually gave him a little more hope. He would be able to get weapons somewhere on this planet. He just needed to figure out how.

  The next minute, the crowd swept him and the Gargoyle crew under the arch and into the city. The guards didn’t interfere with anyone entering nor did the guards search or question anyone. The guards showed no sign that they cared if some new, strange creatures from off the planet just showed up without permission.

  The crush of bodies jostled the crew even more tightly together. Dr. Connolley wound up right next to Aaron and he put his arm up to protect her from the commotion. Bozeman and Clay shunted Hyne to the center of their group. Everyone held onto each other to stop the swirl of bodies from breaking the crew apart.

  Aaron’s idea of finding some kind of business center went out the window as soon as the crew crossed the bridge. None of the Gargoyle crew could go anywhere except where the rest of the crowd was already going.

  The crew got swept along with the herd until everyone burst out into a square fifty yards across. All the surrounding aliens split off in different directions and the crew could finally come to a stop.

  9

  Stalls, booths, tables, and covered pavilions filled the square with hundreds of aliens doing business everywhere. Voices rose and fell on every side. Aaron couldn’t even hear them with so many people talking at once.

  More of the armed insect guards patrolled the area. They walked upright on their hind legs and carried their weapons in their forelimbs, but they didn’t seem to be bothering anyone or interfering in anyone’s business. Different aliens did business with each other, so they must be able to understand each other’s language.

  Foley shouldered his way to Aaron’s side. “What exactly do you want me to do, Captain?”

 

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