Blood Impulse

Part 22.1 - NIGHT DEMON

Wilkerson Sector, CT Badger

Over 550 ships had taken flight from Sagittarion hoping to run the blockade, but even with the Gargantia's help, only 216 had been successful. Roughly 27,000 refugees had attempted to flee the oppression on surface of the manufacturing world, and more than half had died in orbit.

The Gargantia herself was little more than mangled remains, twisted and crushed by the evils of subspace. Captain Dean Merlyn tried not to look at it. The wreckage resembled nothing like the ship that had been. Survivors were... unlikely. And even if, against the odds, some were found, no ship in the refugee fleet had the resources to rescue them. Anyone remaining alive would die a slow, slow death.

He never ordered a scan for life signatures. In this case, it was better to wonder. Merlyn wanted to believe that crew, their saviors, had died quickly in the instant their ship's structure had collapsed in subspace.

The other civilian ships, damaged to various extents, hung visibly on the opposite side of the bridge windows, silhouetted against the bright swirling colors of the nebula. Merlyn only halfway listened to their irksome radio chatter as they squabbled among themselves.

The reality of the situation was that none of them knew what to do. Running that blockade made every ship in the fleet an enemy of the state. If they approached port without falsifying their citizenship and ship registration, which none of them had the means to do, they'd be killed. Worse, most ships had taken off with holds full of products or people. None of them had food, or if they did, they were unwilling to share. That left thousands people stranded who would be on the brink of starvation within ten days.

As a cargo hauler, the Badger was no better off than most. She'd taken a shrapnel hit on one of her engines. It had been shut down, leaving them to rely on the remaining two, which rendered the ship slow and sluggish. There had been enough food for the crew's return trip – a few weeks' supply. But with the children, the matron and the police officer, it would last only a few days, even with severe rationing.

"I'm sorry, Captain." The orphanage matron said, looking at his gaunt face. "If we'd stayed on Sagittarion, maybe it would have been better.

The supporting arm of the display creaked when Merlyn pushed the supply manifest away from his face. "We won't starve, Miss Delleora." That would take time. "The UCSC fleet will find us long before then."

He looked out to the blocky shapes of the nearby ships, "Considering the racket, I'd be surprised if they aren't already closing in." It would be easy for the battle fleet's powerful equipment to intercept and trace these transmissions.

"Was there ever any hope of escape?" If it was impossible to escape the fleet in even the vastness of the void, had there ever been a chance to get away from Sagittarion's violence?

"No." He'd known that fleeing Sagittarion and surviving was likely impossible. "But often, it is worth it just to try." He wasn't the type of person to sit passively, to simply wait for death. "What you did was noble, Miss Delleora." She had sought a better life for the twenty-seven orphans now aboard.

The matron swallowed, wishing she could believe that. Right now, all she could feel was that she'd led these children to die in the cold void of space, so very far from home.

"Captain," the police officer called, his eyes widening at his displays, "there's something out there."

Merlyn flicked one of his screens over to the sensor outputs. There was a return, spotty and indistinctive. "Where?" he asked, racing to correlate the location data.