Clarke closed his eyes and let the tension abandon his body. The bridge’s cheers erupted in a full-blown celebration around him.
“We did it,” said Pascari. “I’ll be damned. We killed so many of those Tal-Kader assholes, people will talk about this victory for years!”
Funny how you have to call them Tal-Kader instead of Defense Fleet, Clarke thought. He realized he had done the same many times before. He had no idea how much was left of the old Defense Fleet.
How many innocent sailors had Clarke killed?
He didn’t dare mention his thoughts aloud. Task Force Sierra had survived a battle with all their lives on the line and had come out on top. They deserved their celebration.
But it was his duty, as their commander, to carry the price of victory on his shoulders.
While the bridge crew celebrated, patted each other’s backs and commented on their performances, some of them shared Clarke’s gloomy appearance, including Commander Alicante. They were thinking, probably, the same as him.
Commander Mather and the Eagle.
The price of victory.
A single connection entered a private line with him. It was Rehman. “Congratulations on your victory, Captain. For what it is worth…Remember, while you were the one making speeches about nobility and sacrifice, it was others who did the actual dying. Never forget that, sir.” The connection closed.
“Trust me,” Clarke said, to no one in particular, “I won’t.”
His eyes drifted on the VCR display to the part, far away from the combat zone, that showed the approaching symbol of Sentinel fleet. It’d take Admiral Wentraub another day to reach Sierra’s current position. By then, they’d be long gone. With or without Reiner.
You don’t get to forget, either, Wentraub. Clarke recorded a message. He’d send it to Communications to transmit later. The message said:
“Defense Fleet Sentinel, this is Captain Joseph A. Clarke, commander of Task Force Sierra of the EIF Independent. For the use of unmanned combat vessels, and the attempted application of kinetics against a civilian population, you’ve become war criminals. We will hunt you. We will bring you to justice. Your unlawful hold on the Edge will end. I swear this on my life. Clarke out.”
He sighed. He needed a drink. But he wasn’t on leave. Not yet.
“Commander Alicante, contact Sierra-2. We need to know if Reiner and Hirsen made it,” he said.
32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
DELAGARZA
“Fucking wake up,” Lotti’s voice called to him. “I need you to pilot this thing, you can’t die yet!”
Nothing.
“No!” Lotti roared. She slapped him. “Hirsen, wake up! There are more enforcers coming, we need to fucking leave!”
Lotti’s voice came fainter and fainter.
Must I always be the one doing all the work around here? Delagarza thought.
He opened his eyes. “Hey there, Lotti-doll,” he said weakly. He looked around. A cabin, controls that he didn’t recognize. A holo next to the control board showed the real-time security footage of an enforcer team trying their best to open the airlock doors.
“Finally!” said Lotti. “Get us out of here, Hirsen.”
Delagarza glanced at the controls. He recognized one. The radio. That one he could use. He took the instructions from Hirsen’s subconscious, punched them into the console with blood-soaked fingers. Used Hirsen’s special encryption for the EIF.
“Can anyone hear me? This is special agent Daneel Hirsen,” Delagarza said. “Got the package. Need extraction. Repeat, got the package. Is anyone up there? Over.”
Silence. Outside, the enforcers had brought blow torches to bear against the hatch.
The radio crackled, and then, a distorted voice said, “Copy, Hirsen. This is Dove of Task Force Sierra, EIF Independent. We got your ship’s ID and we’re sending you our coordinates. You’ll have safe passage, we own the skies. You copy?”
“Dove, I’m badly hurt,” Delagarza said. “Can’t fly this tin can. You must guide my copilot through the process of giving you remote control of the ship. Fly it yourselves. She’s a civilian, so use descriptive instructions, no jargon. You got that?”
“Hirsen,” Lotti said, “you can’t expect me to do that, I’ve no idea what I’m looking at here!”
“Copy, Hirsen,” the radio cracked. “Let me patch you to Navigation; they’ll guide her.”
Delagarza flashed Lotti his best grin. “Sorry, doll, but Hirsen couldn’t fly this can. Never could. He lied. He always planned on using the remote control.”
He wondered if he’d have time to call Jamilia before passing out again. He decided not to. Unless they bled out, Hirsen would regain control. Best to let Charleton forget all about poor old Samuel Delagarza. Better if she, in the long run, pretended he never existed.
She was too good for him anyway.
33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CLARKE
The funerary services were held in deep space, far away from the reach of Sentinel.
Since they lacked bodies for the caskets, Sierra’s crew launched empty coffins carrying the picture and ID of the fallen.
Clarke watched as the caskets drifted out of view of the window. The coffins would reach the Alcubierre energy-density ring in a couple hours. He hoped that the ring would reduce the caskets to their sub-atomic components, so those could be spread across the vastness of space, and perhaps time.
One by one, the sailors standing to his sides left. The ceremony had been short and sweet, led by Eagle’s quartermaster, who was trained as a priest of her religion before enlisting with the EIF. After her farewell speech to Captain Mather (who earned a promotion after her passing), Clarke’s own seemed, to him, dry and irrelevant. He had barely known Mather.
A woman dressed in the same white uniform he wore approached him. It was Navathe. “Captain. I was hoping to talk with you if you have time.”
Clarke nodded. There’d been little chance to talk since Sierra had left Elus Star System in a hurry. The funeral procession was the first time he and Navathe had met since the Elus battle. In truth, he had missed Navathe. The older woman wasn’t a member of Sierra’s hierarchy, so he could talk to her without his position weighing on his shoulders. He could’ve talked with Pascari, true, but neither man appreciated the company of the other and fighting and winning against Tal-Kader hadn’t changed that.
Navathe was Clarke’s only friend.
“Walk with me, Captain,” he said. “I’d like to hear your opinion on something.”
They reached a part of the deck where a black tungsten sheet filled most of the wall. The names of the fallen danced in Clarke’s eyes as he read. Most of the names, he didn’t recognize. They were the Eagle’s crewmen who hadn’t made it to the escape pods or had died during combat. The escort crews who gave their life to defend their fellow sailors. Julia Fillon. Antonov. Mann and the other crewmen of the Beowulf. At the very end, the names Nick Cooke, Samuel Delagarza, and Nerd claimed his attention. Hirsen had asked for the first two to be added. The last one, Isabella Reiner added it herself. Her sloppy handwriting contrasted with the sober elegance of the machine engraving.
Just like the name and the image of the girl clashed every time he thought of her.
“I wish that avenging Beowulf hadn’t carried such a price,” Navathe muttered as she read the long list.