#
Relv floated slowly and clumsily along the corridor with Ibek close behind. The ship was completely silent and all he could hear was his own laboured breathing through the respirator mask. It was so cold that his goggles fogged momentarily with every breath. He was not used to having to navigate without both feet firmly planted on the ground and it was not made any easier by the heavy thermal environmental suit.
They had managed to survive the battle, but the Abarath and her crew was in a bad way. It wasn't just the artificial gravity system that was shot to hell. The Abarath had sustained various sizeable hull breaches which meant that the only places onboard that were habitable were the command node and the jump core. Both the damage control crew nodes had been hit during the battle. One had been wiped out and the other had sustained heavy casualties.
He'd been down to see both area's first hand and the results of explosive decompression were not pretty. He drove the image from his mind quickly lest he bring up his stomach contents into the mask. The two reached the airlock and he anchored himself next to it.
"How are you doing Glax?" he queried via his neck communicator.
"Doing my best sir, but we have lost just about all standard propulsion now so it's like trying to park and asteroid by blowing on it. Give me another minute and we should be ready to engage the magnetic couplers."
Relv and Ibek waited patiently until Glax gave them the ok and they pulled on the large manual levers either side of the airlock in unison. There was a resounding metallic clang as the Abarath physically connected with the fleet's hospital ship. The airlock light went green on their side and Relv hit the door controls.
They were greeted by an emergency team.
"The wounded are in the command node. We have six wounded and five dead."
The lead doctor acknowledged him and pushed past them and floated at speed towards the command node.
"Glax the medical team is on its way. As soon as the wounded are out and the deceased remains are dealt with see if you can limp the Abarath to the maintenance array."
"Aye sir!"
Relv then turned to Ibek. "Do everything you can to get her operational again and get back into the fight as soon as you can."
"You're not staying onboard sir?" asked Ibek incredulously.
"No."
"But our orders are to get the Abarath back into operation to provide orbital bombardment support for the ground forces as soon as possible."
"That's exactly what you are going to do Ibek. I have other orders I need to carry out that supersede those."
Relv started to exit through the airlock into the hospital ship, but Ibek reached out and grabbed him firmly by the arm.
"Commander wait. I think I should go with you."
Relv turned back to him and glared at Ibek and snatched his arm free.
"You have your orders Lieutenant, this is one of those times were you just have to trust me that I know what I am doing and that I need to do it alone."
Ibek reached into the depths of his environmental suit and pulled out a security chip.
"Not even if I have one of these?" asked Ibek. It looked identical just like the one Mira had given him before the fleet shipped out.
"You're kidding me! You are the one that Mira planted. Now I understand what the whole song and dance about trusting you was for. Why the hell didn't you just tell me?"
"I am one of many in the fleet sir. I thought it better you did not know in case you treated me differently. I was worried that the crew might suspect something and I don't know who in the crew was planted by the Admiralty. There are circles within circles in our government sir and two very different philosophies on how we should fight this war. Some like Mira support bringing it to a fast end through peace, but there are others that feel our only course of action is complete annihilation."
"That may all be true, but it does not change the fact that I need you covering for me by commanding this ship in my absence."
"I respectfully disagree Commander. I know about the Prominence and I know what you need to do. You are going to need me covering you back. I am also the only one who knows who our allies are onboard the flag ship and we are going to need them too. How do you think you got that direct channel to the Fleet Admiral during the middle of a fight?"
"You know that if this goes badly you and I both are going to be shoved into the nearest airlock and ejected into space for mutiny."
"I was ready to risk my life in battle for my people and I'll risk it again if it helps us stop this war."
"Fine...let's get this over and done with then."