Reformation: Chapter Thirty-Seven

Notes: Shorter chapters as we careen towards THE END of this one! It's been a long haul, but the universe is changing and our darlings must change with it. A few more weeks and then...we'll see!

Title: Reformation: Chapter Thirty-Seven

***

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jezria had settled into her chair to watch the battle play out between Federation and pirate forces with as close to a sense of equanimity as she was capable of. There was nothing she could do to help in any way—apart from keeping the Box’s shields up, which would at least ensure the pirates focused on the fleet and not civilians. Dr. Sims had worked miracles to keep the shield powered for as long as she had, up to and including sacrificing everything powering the city with the exception of the hospital. Over fifty percent of the population had withdrawn to shelters, and those would be self-sustaining for a time, but the people who had stayed were the ones that needed the most help. And there was nothing to be done for them but wait, and hope, and pray that the Federation fleet carried the day.

The fight was tense. More than once, someone else in the control room began to swear, their breath fluttering and their feet skittering nervously against the floor. Jezria dismissed them immediately. She didn’t have time to coddle anyone, least of all anyone on her staff. In the end, it was just her and Steven who stayed to see it out to the bitter finale.

And what a strange finale it was.

The fight had been back and forth, sledgehammer against scalpel, cat versus mouse for so long. Jezria watched as ships flickered out of existence, as pods careened to the surface of the planet, most but not all of them landing safely—not nearly all of them. She watched as the progressively-ferocious remainders of both fleets moved against each other, cold and clear-headed tactics going by the wayside as their captains became more desperate. And then—

There had been at least ten pirate ships less, she was sure of it. Her monitoring system’s designations weren’t as crisp through the shield, but they had done a decent job of tracking who was who. When half of the ships left in the sky suddenly vanished, no lingering flickers of power indicating a drain on their resources, just bam and gone in one brief burst of light, Jezria was initially suspicious.

“What just happened there?”

Steven was already looking into it. “I’m not sure. Our system is working fine, there’s no technical error. It appears as though they’ve been destroyed.”

“By what? What would take that many ships out in such short order? If the Federation had weapons capabilities like that, they should have deployed them before they lost half their fleet!”

Steven spread his hands. “I can’t say, ma’am. They’re just—they’re gone.”

Jeslyn pursed her lips and thought about it for a moment. She thought, and thought, and then all of a sudden she chuckled. “Oh, I never thought that bastard’s paranoia would play so nicely in our favor!”

“Ma’am?”

“What we have just witnessed, Steven, is the sealing of a potential hole in someone’s overarching plan. Of course he did it this way, of course he did. He would never send out a group that could potentially be turned against his interests.” Jezria’s mouth twisted slightly. “I hope the person in charge of those pirates had time to appreciate his master’s betrayal before his ship exploded out from under him.”

“Sabotage?”

“Sabotage.” Jezria nodded decisively. “How delightful.” The communications light was glowing, signaling a call from one of the ships above. Jezria had ignored all attempts at contact between her command and the pirate vessels, but perhaps this was someone with a new song to sing. She answered it. “Jezria Dowd here.”

“Madam, this is Captain Obede of the Federation flagship Endurance. We request permission for our remaining ships to land in your port so we can begin repairs and send out search parties for our surviving crewmembers.”

“The Endurance is a Skyblazer, from what I understand. That’s not a typical flagship,” she noted.

“The Endurance is the biggest ship up here now, madam, and I’ve been in command for the past five hours.” And he sounded it, the poor man, exhaustion underpinning his voice. “We’re holding together, but we need some ground time. Can you accommodate us by lowering your shield?”

Jezria felt Steven tense, and she patted the back of his hand. “Prove to me that you’re on my side and I will.”

“That fight wasn’t proof enough?” Jezria let her silence speak for her. “Listen, I understand that you have reason to be suspicious. None of this has gone off the way it should have. Forces should have arrived to support you sooner, we should have come in greater numbers, and we should have done a better job of identifying ourselves when we first arrived, but we appeared in the middle of a war zone, madam. Our flagship was the Triumph, and her captain was General Miles Caractacus. After he went down—”

“Wait, Miles is here?”

“We think he escaped in a pod after his ship was destroyed, madam. All the more reason for us to get down as soon as possible and mobilize search parties. We’ve got a lot of people to pick up and the weather doesn’t look like it’s getting any better down there.”

Well, that was different then. “Transmit the frequency for your escape pods’ emergency beacons and I’ll begin sending out rescue shuttles immediately while you coordinate your landing, Captain.” After a deep breath, Jezria entered the code that would turn off the shields. “Welcome to Pandora.”

“Thank you, madam. I’ll be seeing you shortly. Obede out.” The connection broke, and Jezria turned to look at Steven, whose eyes were wide and curious.

“What does it mean, that Miles was leading the fleet?”

“It means that Garrett was out-maneuvered back on Olympus. He would never have approved his retired father leading an expedition like this.”

“Well, then what does it mean that the pirate ships were destroyed by someone on the inside?”

Jezria let herself smile now. “It means,” she said with a calm she didn’t really feel, “that Garrett got his revenge in some way. I can only hope that whatever our foe has planned next, he’s doing it a long way away from Garrett Helms.”

“Do you really think he’d abandon his position on Olympus, where he’s consolidated all of his power?” It was a bit foolish, discussing Raymond Alexander in such oblique terms when both of them knew exactly who was behind the attack on Pandora at this point, but Jezria knew that it paid to be safe.

“I think he probably doesn’t have a choice, at this point. Otherwise he would have rendezvoused with his protection. No, I imagine some very interesting things are happening back on Olympus. See what you can find out.” She pressed up from her chair with a low groan—lord, how long had she been sitting? “I’ve got to get ready to meet Captain Obede. Let Dr. Reynaud know we’re going to need emergency procedures at the hospital, and get everyone with a hint of medical training there to assist.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

Reformation: Chapter Eight

Notes: Sooo, my extensive experiment with multiple 3rd person POV continues! This story is going o be a who's who of the people who've showed up in my stories before. I had no idea I'd need this chapter until I suddenly needed it. So! Have some Jezria Dowd! And stay tuned today, I've got a contest announcement and a flash fic for you later.

Title: Reformation: Chapter Eight

***

Chapter Eight

The attack on Pandora was not, unfortunately, the first time Jezria Dowd had come under fire.

No, that honor belonged to her youth on Olympus, when her school transport had been attacked by anarchists on a field trip. No one had died, and honestly Jezria had scarcely believed they were under fire until she’d exited the transport shuttle and seen the pockmarks where the projectiles had hit.

The second time had been far more serious; on her second appointment as a diplomatic aide, she’d been part of the Federation’s first—and last—convoy to Pexc’l’R. The planet was inhabited by a sentient, independent and incredibly unfriendly species. Rather than leave them alone, the president at the time had prepared a series of ultimatums in the form of increasingly angry diplomatic meetings, finally followed by an invasion force. The beings of Pexc’l’R had responded by luring them into a meeting held in their capitol city under the pretext of treating with them, and then blowing up the entire city. Jezria was one of eighty-seven people to survive out of an original convoy of nearly five hundred. It had been an educational experience, to say the least.

The Pexc’l’R were wiped out twenty-three years ago, by President Alexander, under the pretense of interstellar security. No one had fought him on it too hard. At least, no one who wanted their career to survive.

Jezria was no longer an interstellar politician. She had hung up her senatorial status long ago, and hadn’t regretted that transition for the past decade. She currently served as Pandora City’s de-facto mayor, but before now it had been a largely ceremonial position, with little required other than organizing shipments of goods, transports of people and welcoming the new arrivals. It wasn’t until death began to rain down on The Box that Jezria had realized she was one of the few people in the entire colony with any form of combat experience. Now here she was, playing at being a commander when all they could do without spaceside support was endure. For how long, she didn’t know. “Shield status.”

“Seventy-four percent, Ma’am.”

“It’s draining faster,” her aide, Steven Miyakawa, noted. “There’s been an increase in the rate of energy loss of two-point-seven percent over the past four hours.”

“And how are we addressing that?”

“Doctor Sims is increasing power to the fusion reactor. It’ll dim the lights, but she says it should reinforce the electromagnetic field.” For now, went the unstated ending to that sentence, clear as a bell nonetheless.

“We can live without lights,” Jezria said calmly. “What’s the status on the evacuations?”

“Fifteen percent of the population is currently evacuated, Ma’am.”

“Unacceptable.” Jezria turned her gimlet eyes on the unfortunate bearer of bad news. “We should be up to at least thirty percent by now.”

The young woman bit her lip. “Two of the four exits through the Wall have suffered severe damage, Ma’am. We’re working to clear them, but in the meantime that leaves only two exits deemed safe enough to move people through.”

“What about the safe houses themselves? Are they intact? What’s their status?”

“Secure and so far undiscovered, Ma’am.” The safe houses were actually caverns carved out of the cliffs that surrounded The Box and extending out toward the ocean. They were equipped with rudimentary generators and amenities, and were large enough to hold up to ninety percent of the current population of Pandora for a short period of time. Once they’d been big enough for everyone, with room to spare, but their growth had outpaced their security measures. Jezria shook her head. Foolish. Foolish, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Now they had to focus on surviving long enough for the cavalry to get here.

Ha.

“Push the evacuees, Miriam, we need them to move faster.”

“Doctor Reynard is overseeing the transport of the mobile hospital unit, so once that’s done she’ll be—”

“Belay that. Move the people first, the machines later.” The room quieted as people glanced at Jezria, shock and anger on their faces.

Steven was the one to bring it up, of course. “Forty-two percent of the population requires at least bi-weekly medical treatments from the hospital. We need to move the machines to help keep people alive.”

“It won’t do us any good to be surrounded by machines if we haven’t saved the people who are meant to be using them. And I can’t guarantee that a rescue effort will be mounted in time to spare us the effort.”

“Of—of course it will be!” Glory be, she’d actually struck her imperturbable aide dumb. “The Federation must have put together a fleet response to this by now. At top speeds, they should be here in thirteen standard days. It’s fast, but surely they won’t waste time arguing about procedure when we’re under attack.”

Jezria shook her head. “This is no ordinary attack. Plasma cannons? A literal rain of fire? No. This is meant to be a punishment, to make an example for others in the Fringe to fear. Our colony is a thorn in the sides of many of those in power. I can easily imagine them taking advantage of our current state of affairs.”

“But Garrett Helms is on Olympus!” Miriam protested. “He’s one of us, his son is a natural. Surely he’ll make them send ships to help.”

“Garrett is only one man, and one man with many weaknesses. I have no doubt that he’s doing as much as he can to help us, but.” Jezria turned compassionate eyes on the hopeful young woman. “I don’t think we can count on any assistance reaching us in time to prevent Pandora City from falling. Medical supplies are certainly a necessity, but they come second to moving inhabitants out of the direct line of fire and into a place where their life signs will be undetectable to the enemy. Understood?”

Miriam nodded, subdued. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good. Get the generators working, and have one of the engineers do a power assessment. If it looks like we’ve got a surplus to work with, then they can begin moving the smallest and most portable emergency medical supplies in there. I want all signals on low for now, though. Having a secret underground base does us no good if we don’t keep it secret. Now.” She turned to another tech. “What are the numbers on killed or missing colonists?”

“Twenty-eight on the Eye assumed KIA,” the young person—Zane? Zare? Jezria was too tired to remember—said grimly. “Three shuttles in orbit there, all non-responsive. Crews of nine total, also assumed KIA. One shuttle in transit down, non-responsive, crew of four missing but presumed dead. One shuttle outside The Box doing a training run, two crew, verified ion impact. I think we’re getting a ping from that one, but it’s just the emergency transponder. There’s no proof that anyone on the shuttle is alive.”

“A training run?”

“Pilot training. It’s—oh.”

Steven took a look at the data, then sighed heavily. “It was Jonah Helms. He logged a session with Lacey Chambers in, an easy run. They never even went out of visual range of land.”

“But there’s a ping?” Jezria pushed. “You’re sure?”

“We can’t prove he was shot down, but the shuttle has definitely run into trouble out there. There’s a ping, though.”

“Hmm. Keep an eye on that.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Jezria folded her hands and tried to look inscrutable, but her mind was racing. This…Jonah…it changed things. Garrett Helms, née Caractacus, was certifiably incapable of leaving things alone where his husband was concerned. If there were a way for him to be alerted to Jonah’s status, then he was. It was now possible—just slightly more possible, but Jezria would take any edge she could get—that Garrett had had a fire lit under him with the clear and present peril to his husband. How that would change things, Jezria couldn’t say, but the deep grief it felt like she’d been carrying inside of her ever since the attack began seemed to ease a little bit. Garrett was a wild card.

Wild cards could change everything.