Page 20 of Star Cruise Captain's Story

Satisfied, Daveed rejoined Gil. “The stim your doctor gave me is wearing off,” he said quietly. “How close are we to pickup? Has there been any pursuit?”

“I’m calling Theo, our pilot, on the subaural com now,” Gil said. “His orders were to wait until the whole group was here so he only had to make one trip in and out of the hot zone. Maeve reported a few minutes ago her drones weren’t finding any tangoes on our tail yet but we need to keep a lookout.”

“Maeve’s your girl?”

“Yes but it’s…complicated.” Gil didn’t want to get into the details about her being his ship’s AI, not in front of the other people. He had no qualms about explaining all of it to his brother but not now. There was no need to know at the moment.

Daveed studied his face and then nodded. “We can talk later.” He strolled to where the three women had thrown themselves onto the ground and knelt to talk to the youngest one. Gil found it interesting how her face lit up despite the situation they were in and how tired and scared she must be. Daveed set his hand on her shoulder on a comforting manner as he talked and then he rose and addressed Gil again. “I’ll watch our backtrail. Might be a good idea to find cover for the group and set a guard.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Gil was chagrinned he hadn’t already done as his brother was suggesting but wasted no time now in identifying the most defensible spot in the clearing and moving the former hostages to the dubious corner of safety. Everyone with a weapon was detailed to stand guard. Nerves running ragged, Gil eyed the sky where the biggest moon was beginning to set and hoped Jake would hurry up. Until he and the others were off this planet he couldn’t relax and consider the rescue a success.

He went to offer Midorri a drink, pouring water from his canteen into a curved leaf. While she drank with enthusiasm he petted her back and thanked her again for her help.

The planet’s surface rocked under his feet again and he could barely keep his balance. The angry deity was amping up his efforts, which was another reason Gil wanted to be safely in the sky. Who knew what the insulted entity would do, once he really got going?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Maeve didn’t like remaining behind while Gil and Daveed left the prison room with the first group but she could see Dr. Shane needed her help to process the freed hostages as quickly as possible. In the interests of getting them all out of the ancient temple as expeditiously as she could, Maeve forced herself to stay. The tremors underfoot were getting worse and the deity’s rage was pushing against her consciousness harder and harder. She glanced at Baxtir’s corpse across the room and wished she could tell the alien god his nemesis who’d taken over the temple was dead. No need for all these dramatic upheavals. Unfortunately, as she’d told the others previously, there was no way to communicate with the god. Either the many thousands of years of slumber after the temple was abandoned had affected his consciousness or perhaps he’d never possessed much sentience in the first place. According to her research, some gods and goddesses were elemental beings, close to the primeval. At any rate, she had no way to open a conversation.

“Done,” Emily said, packing her medkit with practiced efficiency. She picked up her blaster and faced Jake. “Can we get out of here now?”

The strain in her voice was clear to Maeve and Jake obviously heard it as well because he drew his wife to him for a quick kiss. “You did great, doc.” Glancing at Jayna, across the room, he raised his voice and said, “Go ahead of us, take point. Make sure we’re clear at the outer door.”

She saluted and ducked into the narrow corridor where Gil and the first group had exited the grim scene earlier. Jake and Emily herded the ex-prisoners together and got the men moving into the tunnel, with Jake as rearguard. Red took point as soon as the first civilian entered the tunnel and set a fast pace. From the rear, Jake reinforced the necessity to hurry, with more quakes emphasizing his urgency. This group of people were in pretty good shape, comparatively, despite their various ordeals as captives of terrorists and Maeve was pleased at how quickly they were evacuating. She was at the end of the column, next to Emily.

There was a violent sideways shift in the ground under her feet and a massive rumble. Maeve lost her balance and fell, bumping into Emily as she toppled over. The sound of the quake was so loud she couldn’t hear herself think and dust filled the air. After two more massive tremors almost as big as the first, the shaking stopped and Maeve sat up gingerly to find herself at the edge of a massive pile of debris where the temple walls had fallen in. Any closer and she’d have been crushed by the falling rocks.

“You okay?” Emily asked, coughing from the dust in the air stirred up by the quakes.

“I’m fine, just shaky.” Maeve hung onto her form grimly. This was certainly a test of her ability to remain an embodied person. The thought made her wince.

“Help me check the others then.” The doctor scrambled over debris to get to the rest of their group, Maeve on her heels.

Jake and Red were fine, although both bore scrapes and bruises. The two security officers were engaged in trying to free one of the former prisoners from a pile of rocks where he was pinned by the leg. “We’ve got this,” Jake said impatiently as Emily and Maeve ran up. “Go check the others.”

Emily kissed his cheek and rushed to do as he ordered. Maeve had other priorities and forced her way through the group to the other side, anxious to determine if the corridor was clear enough for them to pass. She found out the answer immediately, making only a few yards of progress into the tunnel before discovering the way forward was completely blocked by fallen stones. Maeve was afraid the entire temple might have collapsed in this area and there was obviously no escape in this direction. They were blocked on the other side too and the prison chamber was a dead end, thanks to the collapse of the doorway in the first quakes.

She took a deep breath and briefed Jake. “We’re trapped,” she said quietly. “The corridor is completely blocked.”

“Figured as much. Damn!” Jake was calm, obviously ready to work the problem. Not much fazed him..

“Can Owen and Jayna get us out?” Emily asked. “Blow a path through the debris?”

“We used up our explosives,” Red said. “And we don’t know the situation outside either. I’m sure our friends will try everything they can, if anyone survived out there.”

“Is the subaural com working for anyone?” Jake tapped his ear and frowned. “Maeve, are you getting anything?”

She tried reaching out to Gil and then to Theo. “Nothing. The signal must be blocked.” She tried to access her remaining drones outside the temple and again got no response. She had a few in here with her but they were useless in the current situation. Nonetheless, she ordered three of them to try to make a way through the jumbled debris and get themselves outside.She hoped the tiny robos could report back and at least there’d be fresh information and possibly communication with the rest of their team.

“We need to conserve the oxygen,” Emily said. Turning to the group, who was watching the attempt to rescue the man caught by the falling wall, she said, “Sit down, control your breathing and don’t talk. Our friends outside won’t desert us, I give you my word, so do your best to relax. It’ll slow your breathing. I’ll be around in a few minutes to take care of any wounds, after we free this guy.”

Maeve picked a relatively clear spot and sat cross legged, watching the continuing efforts by Jake and Red to free the trapped individual. There was nothing she could do to help and only so much room to work in the narrow space. She was torn. She could get herself out of this place immediately. All she had to do was dissolve her corporeal form and teleport to the portion of her mind which had become associated with theValkyrie Revenge, in orbit above. Gil was safe, and his brother with him, so her job was done. On the other hand, Jake, Red and Emily were her crew and the safety of the men and women who flew on her ship was paramount. Even though they weren’t on theNebula Zephyrright now, Maeve found her loyalty unwavering. She couldn’t abandon her crew. The rescued hostages had a more tenuous link to her and while Maeve admitted it was cold on her part, she wasn’t motivated by the same driving need to save them. They weren’t and had never been her passengers. As she studied the tired, strained faces, she reached hard for the emotions she ‘ought’ to feel. She couldn’t leave the freed prisoners behind either.

There was also the issue that if she had managed to become pregnant during her quick liaison with Gil at his hotel, Maeve was sure giving up the corporeal form would mean loss of the embryo. She was 99% positive she hadn’t conceived,however. She might be in a humanoid body but she had an unusual depth of knowledge about every inch of it and all the biological subsystems which made up the form, much more comprehensive than humans could claim without elaborate sensors and scans, and there’d been no sign whatsoever she’d been quickening with a new life. The knowledge made her sad but she refused to believe she and Gil wouldn’t have more opportunities to become parents. They hadn’t even discussed the possibility and she had no idea if he would welcome becoming a father again after the tragedy of losing his only child years ago. He’d be a wonderful father, she was sure, but now wasn’t the time to have the conversation.One more thing we really have to talk about once all this adventuring is done..

The last time she’d seen Lady V’terre, on Level 10 of theNebula Zephyr,the Mellurean had been characteristically blunt. “We’ve done all we could to give you the body you and Gil requested, to experience life as a humanoid—it’s up to you now. You have a driving need for perfection, Maeve, and you must accept the fact human life isn’t perfect. There’s no scriptwriter as there is for your beloved soap operas, no one to ensure the outcomes are exactly as you want them to be. You’ve got to accept that reality, and you have to expand your perspectives if you ever want to be stable enough in the corporeal form to maintain it. Humans are by their nature imperfect beings, which doesn’t make them lesser—their emotions and decisions make them who they are. They’re an energetic, worthy species with many admirable qualities. You want to be able to be with Gil Fleming, to be in essence human yourself, so you have to achieve the mental balance to carry the role off. Life has its ups and downs and situations don’t always resolve the way we might prefer. You have to learn to work with change and lack of control over your environment and events. Otherwise you willbe an AI in a humanoid body but still an AI, not a person as you wish to be.”

“I can fix anything,” Maeve had said rebelliously.

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