Petr's Mate (2 page)

Chapter One

The clearing of a throat pulled
Petr’s attention away from the reply he was working on in return for the latest
vid his sister,
Adira
, had sent. Ensuring his
personal data pad was locked, Petr lifted his chin to pin a look on the young
officer hovering at the end of the table.

He had figured the dining hall
at that hour in the midst of a shift was the best place for privacy. It had
worked until now. The young sub-lieutenant looked nervous. “Lieutenant?”

“Apologies, Fleet Admiral van
Jahnsen
,” he said. A tremor ran through him even though he
snapped a salute.

“On board a cruiser or in
informal settings it is Admiral, Lieutenant.”

“Of course, sir. Apologies,
sir.” The young man was getting more nervous by the minute.

Petr
did not like the effect his rank had on the young, impressionable officers.
Petr wasn’t one to use his
position
often, only when someone overstepped the boundaries of their society in ways
that truly pissed him off.

To
that
end,
he waited patiently while the
young man gathered up his courage. “First Admiral
Chevon
requests your presence on the bridge, sir. We received a transmission of
unknown origin. It was
weak
and distorted. Moments later an unidentified craft crossed our outer border.”

Frowning at that, Petr pushed to
his feet. He waved the young lieutenant out ahead of him, tucking his data pad
carefully away in a pocket. “Do we have any other information on the craft or
potential occupants?”

“Not
at this time, sir. The admiral has ordered us to investigate but we are not yet
in range for a full scan of the craft. It p
assed
the sensors lining the border, which
gave us what little we now have.”

He rode the lift with the young
man, his mind spinning in concern and curiosity. Striding onto the command deck
of the cruiser, he nodded to the commanding officer. “Time to intercept?” he
asked.

Chevon
,
apparently
having instructed the
lieutenant to pass along all pertinent details, didn’t appear surprised by
Petr’s pointed question. “Within the hour, sir. We should have it on radar
shortly prior. From what we could discern from the data coming in
from
the sensors on the border it has a
small radar profile. Likely why it slipped through.”

The
man moved to a
console
and nodded to the woman working at it. “Bring it up.”

The
screen above her head, eye level for Petr, lit up with data and some grainy
images.
Chevon
put a finger to the small object tumbling lazily through space. “The sensors
read it as debris. There was a blip of something that potentially could be a
life sign
, but it was too quick and
faint for the sensors to accurately interpret, would be my guess. Per standard
protocol, a notification was sent to the closest available vessel, us.”

Petr
nodded slowly, narrowing his eyes on the images. “Play it again,” he requested
absently. The images were reset, and he again watched the
little
oddly shaped item tumble on a
wobbly axis while it passed through the sensor ring. Twice more he asked it to
be replayed before having the crew member send it to his work data pad.

He
wanted to see if he could clean up the images a little more. He could have
asked
the crew to do so, but he had the
time. Beyond that,
Chevon
had many crew members on
board who were fresh out of officers’ school. This flight was a training
mission of sorts. “Alert me when we are within radar range. I will be in my
quarters.”

“As
you wish, Admiral.”
Chevon
saluted briskly before
moving on to pass instructions
to
the crew.

Pausing
briefly to watch the interaction, he felt a hint of a smile tug at his lips.
Chevon
might be gruff, but he was
an
exceptional
and patient instructor. One of the best still on active
duty. It was why so many that came through officers’ school fought to gain a
position on his cruiser for the mandatory two years of in-field training. Those
that came
from
Chevon’s
cruiser were better officers for it. The man
put his crew through every conceivable scenario. And
Chevon
had many experiences with which to draw from to make sure they were ready for
whatever their next posting might be.

The
crew listened when
Chevon
spoke, not merely out of
respect for his rank but also for the knowledge they knew he had to share with
them. Petr stood for another moment, watching the interaction between the crew
and their leader since it was part of the reason he was on board the cruiser.
He was there to evaluate how the new officers were integrating into their roles
before he’d return to his own vessel, which he’d left in the
skillful
hands of his second.

Satisfied that everything was
well in hand, Petr left
Chevon
to the situation that
presented itself, and what he could teach his young crew. His mind turned
instantly to the sensor video once he cleared the bridge.

In
his
quarters,
Petr settled in at the
workstation
and slotted the data pad into the
port of
the station. Once it queued
up,
he pulled the file
off
and got to work on getting some clarity. He could have waited for them to
arrive, and intercept, but Petr was not feeling all that patient.

Odd
for him. He had patience out every orifice even on the worst days. Unless it
involved his
sister
or something that piqued his interest. Like this mysterious and unusual craft.
While the programs began their work to
remove
some of the noise of space
that often distorted the sensor feeds, Petr collected a snack and beverage. His
original plan was to go to the dining hall and eat there, but he’d been drawn
into the video his sister had
compiled
and lost himself
in
it. Seeing his niece and nephew, who had grown so much since his last visit,
was well worth skipping a meal.

He
could not believe how big they both were getting. Once he returned to his own
vessel,
he would have to see about
arranging another trip to visit with them all. Even that rogue
Fintan
,
who had actually dared to entice
Adira
into falling in love with him. While it was now
mostly the principle of being the older brother that kept him harassing the
other man, Petr did actually respect him. And
Fintan
treated
Adira
like the jewel she was. Good thing,
too, or Petr would have personally shoved him out an airlock when they had
first met in person.

Easing
back into the chair before the workstation, Petr watched the program work at
scrubbing out all the unnecessary background noise that translated into white
spots or garbage on an image. He set it to working on the one image where the
craft was at the closest point to the
camera
sensor
array. It was still quite small, but if he could get rid of
the excess items clogging up the picture he could blow it up more.

He
stared at the monitor while eating his snack. The soft
beep
from the
workstation pulled him out of the
trance-like
state he had fallen into. Shaking his
head,
Petr set aside his cup. The program was now analyzing the image, filling in
what it could, and slowly it was clearing up. The final image was crisp in
comparison to where it had been.

Petr
clicked on it to enlarge it. What he found had confusion sliding through him. A
few more clicks, and he got it as large as it would go while remaining clear
enough to see it. The writing on the outside hull was unusual. There was also
an image in primary colors marking the exterior. Neither were familiar to
him,
nor was the shape of the craft. And it
was definitely some kind of spacecraft. Approximately twice as large as one of
the
Imarian
crawlers, it had
a
unusual shape to it. Narrowing his
eyes,
he leaned in, knowing it wouldn’t help
him to see it more clearly and yet unable to stop himself.

His communication device chimed
softly. Leaning back in his chair, he pressed the side to activate it with his
touch. “Yes?”

“Admiral, the craft is now in
radar range,”
Chevon
told him.

“On
my way.” After locking down the
workstation,
Petr quickly returned to the bridge. Stepping onto
it, he
nodded to the officers who
saluted, making his way to
Chevon’s
side. “What do we
know?”

“Not much more than we did, sir.
We will be in range soon to bring it on board. Now that we have a bearing,
we’ve increased our speed slightly to scoop it up.”

“I’m reading two life signs,
sir.”

Petr turned his attention to the
young female officer. “Anything more?”

“Their
life-support system appears to be failing. Based on the computer models, they
have perhaps a day’s worth available. The last hours would be
thin,
though.”

“That
makes boarding easier,”
Chevon
muttered
. “I’ll have the boarding party
readied. Once it’s in the cargo
hold,
they can sweep through.”

Petr made the decision
immediately. “I will go with them.”
Chevon’s
sharp
look said he wanted to argue but was hesitating. “I
’
ll remain behind the first men
in, but I
’m
intrigued by this craft.” He was also highly trained in close-quarters combat,
more so than even the highest ranking of the security personnel that
Chevon
would be sending in. Petr knew what it was like to
have to fight for his life every moment of every day.

The commanding officer gave a
slow nod. “As you wish, sir.”

One of the other officers called
out the time to intercept. Giving
Chevon
a nod, Petr
headed through the cruiser for the large cargo hold that would be the unusual
craft’s home for the time being.

It
seemed to take much too long for them to pull the
ship
into the hold. The first four from
security began their sweep. From his vantage point at the
area
they had managed to open on the
craft,
Petr watched the men pause to
look around now and again before moving on.

The
interior of the
ship
was oddly cluttered. Very inefficient, to his thinking. The stench of death
permeated the air. Never a good sign. Two more from security went in to do the
follow-up
sweep behind the other team,
which is when Petr stepped into the craft. He had to keep his head bent
slightly while moving. At the joints between
sections,
he practically had to fold
himself in half to get through.

A
very inefficient design, indeed. He shook his head, only to freeze a moment
later at the sound of blaster fire. But what rocked him to his core was the
feminine scream. It cut straight to the
protective
center of his
being
and had him racing through the craft
in the direction it continued to come from.

Two
of the first security team were down, dead. One of the men Petr had followed in
was holding a blaster pointed at the head of a hysterical woman. Pushing the
weapon down, Petr ordered him to move into a position to watch the one
direction and had the other man
look at
the direction
they had come from.

He
then crouched down before the woman. She still cried, the tears pouring freely
over her
cheeks,
but her screams had calmed to whimpers of an emotional agony that had her arms
locked around her chest while she rocked back and forth.
“We are not here to harm you,”
he said in his most gentle voice.

She
flinched, and the whimpering grew louder. The rocking movement had
ceased,
but now she shivered as if
freezing.

Going
with instinct, Petr undid his uniform jacket and shrugged it off. In slow,
smooth
movements he wrapped it around
her shoulders, keeping a watchful eye on her should she feel the need to strike
out at the unknown. Then he held out a hand to her, palm
up,
and waited.