Christian Writing Contest

Joe Keysor, author of Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible,

is proud to present the 2009

GK Chesterton Award

to

Steve Rzasa

Buffalo, WY

Second Place

(category: 19 and up)

Bio:  Steve Rzasa was born and raised in South Jersey, and fell in love with books – especially science fiction novels and historical volumes – at an early age. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University’s College of Communications in 2000, and then spent seven years as a reporter and assistant editor at weekly newspapers in Maine. Steve moved to Wyoming in 2007 to become the editor of a weekly newspaper there, and now works at the local library. He and his wife Carrie have two boys and live in Buffalo, Wyoming. His favorite authors include Jeffrey A. Carver, C.J. Cherryh, David Drake, Robert Heinlein, and David Weber.  Website: www.steverzasa.com

To contact Steve Rzasa you may request his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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RESCUED

By Steve Rzasa

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Jesus of Nazareth, from the Gospel according to Matthew 5:7

10 AUGUST 2602

LEVESQUE’S STAR SYSTEM

“Target’s separating quickly, Skipper.”

“I can see that, thanks.” Lieutenant Brian Gaudette was floating free in space, feeling relaxed in body but tense in mind. He was actually moving at seven hundred kilometers per second, the same speed as his ship, Sennebec. His sapphire blue eyes squinted at the pale gray hull streaming air and metal beneath him. It was increasing its speed every instant, in the wrong direction.

Brian tried to ignore the gleaming surface of the icy world looming beyond the short, stubby interplanetary vessel. Gravity conspired against him, reaching hungrily for its prey.

“Concentrate on keeping clear of debris, RK, and I’ll worry about making my date,” he muttered into the suit comm.

“You’re the Skipper.”

On Sennebec’s bridge, Ensign RK Palal kept his hands firmly wrapped on the drive controls. The navigation display flashed a red warning at him; he ignored it.

“Shouldn’t you attend to that?” Detective Sergeant Eddington Dupre stood well behind him, pasty face pinched with irritation.

“No. Sound’s turned off.” RK shrugged. “I can tell what she’s doing without looking.”

“Lovely. Perhaps you can tell her to keep us clear of that moon, using soothing words,” Dupre sniped. He deftly plucked a stray hair from his immaculate maroon coat.

RK raised his bushy black eyebrows. “Don’t you Kesek guys have anything better to do than bother helmsmen?”

Dupre scowled, and tapped the flat brass badge on his chest. “The purview of the Royal Stability Force is universal.”

RK didn’t answer. He’d known as soon as he’d seen the name of the target ship why Koninklijke stabiliteitskracht – Kesek – had sent a man tagging along on Sennebec’s last six rescue patrols.

Pushing the thought aside, he breathed a sigh of relief – Brian’s tracking signal on the nav display blinked blue as it merged with the target ship. “He’s touched down,” RK said. He stabbed the intercom switch above his head. “Lucinda! Ready the cradle. Skipper’s aboard and he’s gonna bring back the passengers.”

“Check. My medics are ready.”

Returning his attention to his controls, RK winced. The target ship’s velocity was now two kilometers per second faster than his own. He gave Sennebec a burst of thrust from its chemical rockets, saving the main drive fuel.

Judging by their distance from the moon’s surface, they’d need it.

Brian dragged the space-suited man through the corridor, gritting his teeth as his weight shifted and shoved his arm against a bulkhead. “Skipper!” RK’s voice came across the comm in a panic. “We’re running out of minutes up here! You wait too long, we won’t be climbing out of this gravity well.”

“Thanks, RK, I remembered. Sending out the first.” He unhooked one of four rescue probes from his suit pack. Slipping the limp man’s arms through the probe’s straps, he shoved the activation panel. The probe, a simple thruster operated by a homing device, sputtered to life and tugged the man out the hatch into the void. It dragged him across the distance separating the rescue cutter from the damaged ship, to the medics waiting in the Sennebec’s cradle – the cavernous hangar bay and rescue hold at its center.

“Lucinda?” Brian called.

“We got him. Nice work, Skipper, the drones couldn’t have done it smoother.”

“That’s why I don’t trust ‘em.” Brian was still moving, this time reaching for the hand of a woman, her dark eyes wide with fear behind her suit’s faceplate. He switched comm frequencies. “Ma’am, don’t worry. Rescue Corps. You’ll be safe in a moment.”

The woman nodded sharply, gripping the two tiny boys at her side, both looking faintly comic in their child-sized suits. Brian helped her slide a probe across her back, then showed the boys how to hold on to a second. They rose from the hatch on a flaring plume beside their mother.

“Right. One more?”

“Affirmative, Skipper, eight meters aft of your position,” RK said over the comm. “Hurry it up. You got about five minutes.”

The ship lurched, sending Brian toward the ceiling. He pushed off with one hand, grimacing. “RK, you are no good for morale aboard my ship. Remind me to put that in your next evaluation.”

“If you don’t die in a big, hot fireball, you go right ahead, sir.”

Brian smirked. He twisted through a corridor, spinning past a collapsed bulkhead, and spotted the last passenger. The teenager was trapped behind a fallen strut.

Switching back to the citizen’s band on his suit comm, Brian said, “Stay calm. I’ll cut through in a microsec.” He drew the plasma torch from his utility pack. Its blue-white blade of flame flared as it started slicing through the metal.

He was almost through when the ship bucked violently. Brian reached for the stanchion but missed. The movement threw him up against the ceiling, slamming him against the surface and knocking the wind out of him. His vision blurred, and sounds went dull.

When he recovered RK was practically screaming. “… Fifty seconds! Skipper, snap out of it! You got less than fifty until the ship’s at no return!”

“Quit yelling,” Brian groaned. He seized the torch and ripped through the last bit of metal, then put his shoulder to the strut and heaved. The youth, galvanized by the activity, pulled from his side. He managed to slither out in seconds.

“Half a minute!”

“Shut up, RK, that’s an order!” Brian grabbed the youth roughly, shouted, “Hold on!” and thrusted with his suit pack down the corridor to the open hatch.

They spiraled out into space, seemingly free, but Brian knew better – and if he hadn’t, his omnipresent suit sensors told him the facts. They wouldn’t have enough thrust to escape the moon’s gravitational pull, even using Brian’s suit jets combined with the last probe thruster.

Before he could register fear, Brian saw the silver tube hurtling his way, dragging a cord. “Short rocket, Skipper!” Lucinda called over the comm. “Light it!”

“Outstanding.” Brian caught the cord easily, grunting as the projectile yanked on his arm, then affixed it to the magnetic clamps on his suit pack. The rocket was immensely more powerful than the gentler probe thruster. Hesitating, he swiftly made the sign of the cross on his faceplate, then fired off the rocket. The burst of speed kicked him and the youth free of the gravitational pull, but the stress of acceleration proved too much for the boy, who fainted in Brian’s grasp. It didn’t do him much good, either – he fought off the dark growing at the edges of his vision until he saw Lucinda’s space-suited figure reaching for him from a blaze of light.

Then she and the universe spiraled down a drain of stars into blackness.

“You feeling better, Captain?” RK asked.

Brian let Lucinda peel off his white thermal shirt, exposing his chest to the cool sickbay air, as his first officer hovered nearby. Worry etched RK’s face with lines – one look at the bruises across Brian’s back explained his concern and use of the formal rank.

“Don’t get all serious on me. It’s nothing a week’s worth of leave can’t cure,” Brian said. He winced as Lucinda injected something into his side. “A little warning next time.”

“Yes, sir, Skipper.” She ran a med scanner over his chest, brushing past the silver crucifix suspended on a fine chain. Brian grimaced again. “What now?” Lucinda asked.

“Cold. The scanner’s cold,” Brian complained.

Lucinda grinned, the smile lighting up her warm brown face. “Missed me, did ya?”

“Not particularly. I prefer the galley to sickbay, Chief.”

“Now don’t blab that in front of my boys. You’ll hurt their feelings,” Lucinda clucked.

Brian peeked over her shoulder. Two of the ship’s medics were assuring the woman Brian had rescued that her husband would heal, while shepherding her and her children from the sickbay. The gangly teenager refused to budge at first, his face drawn and angry, until the mother whispered something and he allowed himself to be led out.

The third medic was frowning over the readouts above one of the sickbay beds. Brian was pleased to see almost all the indicators were green or blue, with just a few yellow – none were dangerous red. A med-robot craned its giraffe-like neck over the injured man’s body, scanners playing shimmering light over his serene olive complexion framed by a curly black beard. He was sleeping soundly, courtesy of Lucinda’s sedatives, while microscopic nanosurgeons crawled throughout his body, repairing damage.

“He’s mending well,” the medic called out. “Should be able to wake him and check reflexes in a half hour or so. Got nerve damage though – not something we can fix.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Lucinda said.

Brian returned his attention to his helmsman and first officer. “Where are we off to now?”

“The nearest hospital ship, HMMC Relief,” RK said. At Brian’s questioning look, he added, “Not my fault. Leduc has Esperanza laid up at Port Mignery for a main drive overhaul.”

“Hmm. Relief’ll do. They’re not as skilled as Leduc’s bunch, but close.”

“Well, I’m not picky. We should rendezvous in ten hours. Stefan has the bridge.”

“Good.”

During the exchange, Detective Sergeant Dupre had entered sickbay. He stood just inside the hatch, eyes narrowed as he took note of every detail. “Who let him in?” Brian muttered, loud enough for the Kesek officer to hear.

Dupre let the comment pass. “That was quite a risk you took, Lieutenant. Doubtless your drones could have done it just as well, without the unnecessary endangerment of your own life,” he said smoothly.

Brian bristled at the officer’s refusal to call him “Captain,” even though Dupre was not a part of the crew and was not required to do so. There were few laws, and fewer traditions, which bound Kesek. “Since our annual operating budget was cut by four percent for two years in a row, I decided to spend what I had on better pay for my people, and on much needed engine maintenance. No fancier drones this year; the ones that broke down stayed broken, and the ones that work can’t do the job better than a person anyway,” Brian countered. “Don’t expect your sympathy, though – your local Kesek office budget increased six and a half percent this year, right?”

“Hardly relevant,” Dupre said with a sniff. Turning his attention to Lucinda, he continued, “Chief Wainwright, is the patient fit for interrogation?”

RK’s jaw dropped. “Interrogation? Are you nuts?”

Dupre regarded him coolly.

“He’ll be talking in a half hour. I figure you already knew that,” Lucinda snapped. She applied a patch to a particularly ugly bruise on Brian’s left shoulder blade, then stowed her instruments in a drawer. “As for questioning, I won’t allow it, not today at least. The man needs a rest.”

“That is not possible. His information is vital to solving an ongoing case in the Corazon-Levesque region,” Dupre said sternly.

Brian rose, his crucifix sparkling in the bright sickbay lights. Dupre noticed it and scowled. “What kind of information, if you don’t mind my asking?” Brian inquired as he pulled his thermal shirt back on. He tapped the white fabric. “Remember? This means I’m the captain.”

Lucinda snickered. Dupre shook his head. “It is not your concern, Lieutenant,” Dupre said, stressing the rank. “Suffice it to say, it is a matter of a text-in-violation.”

That brought a hush over the sickbay. The young medic looked up from his instrument panel. RK muttered something under his breath, balling his fists at his side, but Brian cautioned him with a tiny wave of his little finger. “Why don’t you join me in the corridor, Detective Sergeant,” Brian said. It was not an invitation.

They ducked through an open hatchway, stepping out into the pale blue-white corridor. RK followed. “Take the bridge, Ensign,” Brian said firmly.

RK’s jaw muscles worked as he considered Dupre, but he muttered, “Aye, Skipper,” and departed.

Brian ran a hand through his close-cropped red hair and sighed deeply. “You mind telling me how you think we’re going to recover a text-in-violation when that guy’s ship got torn to little pieces over Pembroke’s moon?” he asked wearily.

“If it was on the ship, then it is destroyed,” Dupre said. “The fact still remains that he willing and knowingly transported that text. He also acquired it from someone. I want to know from whom.”

“How do you know he knew?”

“We intercepted his transmissions when he entered this system from Corazon,” Dupre said with a smirk. “He thought they were coded, but with Kesek having access to all Marktel communications networks and MarkIntech-manufactured computers, it was a futile hope at best. His message indicated he had the text in hand and was to meet with someone at the sundoor to Giachetto later this week, to hand it off.”

Brian frowned. “So you didn’t want to hang around the sundoors and wait for him to make the tract shift, afraid he’d spot your own patrol ships.”

“Exactly.”

Another thought, more sinister, blew coldly across Brian’s mind. “Why’d you pick a Rescue Corps cutter?”

Dupre smiled thinly. “We perceived that he might need assistance.”

Brian shoved the officer up against the bulkhead, heart suddenly pounding with anger. “You wrecked his ship?”

“Did I say that?” Dupre grabbed Brian’s wrists in his own iron grip, and slowly but surely forced the other’s hands loose. “I would not go making such accusations of Kesek personnel, Lieutenant, if I were you.”

Brian stepped back, putting his hands on his hips, and glared at him. “I won’t help you in your witch hunt,” he growled.

“You are bound to follow the Charter of Religious Tolerance, and the guidelines of the Convocation on Spiritual Unity, as administered by Kesek,” Dupre snapped. “This man’s possession of the Koran …”

“Oh, so now we get particulars!”

“ … Is a blatant and direct violation of that law, which is meant to preserve the stability of the Realm of Five from religious strife,” Dupre finished, his voicing rising a notch in volume. “Islam is particularly annoying to Kesek, especially the brand practiced by this man and his ilk, with their insistence on a sole prophet’s exclusive revelation from God.”

“Maybe your intelligence was wrong.”

Dupre shook his head. “The name of his ship is Abdun Nur.”

“So?”

“It is an Arabic term. It translates roughly as ‘follower of the light.’”

“Still not following you.”

“In the Muslim tradition, the Koran gives ninety-nine names for God. An-Nur, or ‘the light,’ is one of them.”

Brian shrugged. “Even so, that Koran has to be burned to crispy atoms by now, if it were a book. They’re all illegal, and no one around here’s even seen a printer, so what’s the problem?”

“The problem, Lieutenant, is that I am not convinced it was a physical copy, but a hidden electronic one, which means that man could still have it.”

“And what makes you think you have any right to dictate his beliefs?” Brian countered, jabbing a finger down the corridor toward sickbay.

“Do not think I am blind to your sympathies, Lieutenant.” Dupre poked Brian in the chest. “You wear them plainly enough.”

“I and my family are members of the Union Synoptic Church,” Brian said evenly. “We all have been for years. Monitored and approved by Kesek, isn’t it?”

“But your allegiance lies elsewhere, though you hide it well,” Dupre hissed. “One would think you are ashamed of your true faith.”

Brian clenched his teeth. “I have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, “As God is my witness.”

Dupre waggled a finger at him. “Be careful, Lieutenant. Be very careful indeed.”

Lucinda was alone in sickbay with the patient when Brian sought them out later. She was puzzling over the readouts from her nanosurgeon control system on her delver. Everyone in the Realm owned one of the handheld devices. They used delvers to access newsgrids on the Reach network, write notes, contact loved ones, file reports, store data, display holograms, play music, and do anything else required. Their society was totally paperless – with the exception of money – thanks to the King’s monopoly over information technology.

“Problem, Chief?”

“Oh, hey, Skipper.” Lucinda shrugged. “Sort of. The nanosurgeons turned up an implant in this guy, so tiny our initial scans missed it. I didn’t remove it – some of those prescription implants release medicine directly into the patient’s bloodstream and can pose health hazards if taken out without proper surgical facilities, you know.”

“Yeah. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that his is way too small and isn’t leaking any medicine.” Lucinda called up an image on her delver, then projected it in a shimmering blue hologram a hand’s width from one end of the device. Brian squinted at the hazy image of a cylinder with rounded ends, magnified thousands of times. “You can see the microcircuitry here, and here,” Lucinda continued, pointing at two sections.

“Hmm. What is it, then?”

“Dunno. Might be a neuro-enhancer, but it’s kind of small. Doesn’t make sense to only leave one – you need dozens to provide neural strengthening. Nah, I bet it’s a storage device of some kind. Let me get the scanners pinpointed on it, now that I know where it is.”

“Okay.” Brian rolled his shoulder, working out an ache. “Can you work on it while I talk to this guy?”

Lucinda nodded. “He’s conscious, but resting. You can wake him if you like.”

Brian straddled the stool beside the bed, planting his hands on the rail. “Sir?”

The man’s eyelids fluttered open. He scanned the ceiling, then turned sideways to stare at Brian, anxiety creasing his face. “Where am I?”

“Rescue cutter HMRC Sennebec. I’m Captain Brian Gaudette. And you must be …” Brian drew his own delver and tapped it. “… Abu Saif Zayd al-Faraj, captain and owner of the merchant skipjack Abdun Nur, according to your ship’s manifest.”

“Yes.” Zayd frowned. “Where is my family?”

“They’re safe. We put them up in a pair of cabins down the corridor.”

“My ship. It was damaged. We had a thruster malfunction …”

“We know.” Brian read from the report. “Blew a nice hole in your starboard side, contributing to catastrophic but not immediate decompression. You got your family into their suits and did your best to alter course, but got snagged by the gravity of Pembroke’s moon, the nearest body along your trajectory.”

“My wife told you this?”

“She did, and so did your oldest boy.”

“Saif.” Zayd nodded, relaxing. “He was brave. He tried to go back and help our robots with repairs, but he became trapped.”

Brian smiled as the memory flashed through him. “Yeah. It took a bit to get him out.”

Zayd pushed up with his arms, trying to sit up in bed, but groaned in pain. Brian reached for the bed controls. “Let me.”

The bed whined and whirred, easing Zayd into a sitting position. “Thank you,” he said. A pause, and then, “My ship is lost?”

“Yes. Our cutter doesn’t have the mass or drive capacity to haul a ship of that size out of a gravity well. All we could do was pull you folks off.”

“And we are grateful for that. Ana mamnoon.”

Brian scratched the back of his neck, face reddening. “Yeah. No problem.”

“Skipper?” Lucinda gestured from her scanning station. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Okay.” Brian tensed. “Abu Saif Zayd, we’re going to conduct a scan of a foreign object implanted in your body, as allowed under Section Twenty-Two of the Corps’ Hazard Regulation Ordinance,” he said formally. “Do you wish to file an objection?”

Zayd sighed and closed his eyes. “May I opt out of having the scan?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I file no objection.”

Brian gave Lucinda a curt nod. She activated the scanner, watching as the slender device descended from the ceiling, its glassy scanning orb rotating into position. It projected a wide, glittering beam across Zayd’s body, panning up until it reached his chest. The beam stopped there, focused into a narrow stream of light, and stayed put for half a minute.

A series of beeps drew Brian’s attention away from Zayd’s rigid face. “Got something?”

Lucinda frowned at the results on her monitor. “Yeah. It’s not data storage – the circuitry’s a fake.”

“Fake?”

“False. Counterfeit. Phony. Bogus. Need more synonyms?”

“Ha, ha.”

Lucinda waved her hand at the screen. “Scanner says it’s covered with writing. I can project it if you want.”

Brian eyed Zayd curiously, but the man continued to stare up at the scanning device. “Go ahead.”

Lucinda punched a control, and the blank panel above her scanning equipment lit up. Flowing black script swirled across a golden background. She stared at Zayd, then looked back at the screen. “Empty my fuel tanks,” she muttered. “Ion etching. That’s an old trick, but the camouflage circuitry makes it harder to detect.”

Brian found the curving letters mesmerizing, but he didn’t recognize the writing. He came to her side and idly ran a finger across one line. “Can you translate it?” he asked her.

Even as she shook her head in the negative, Zayd began almost whispering, “Allahu la ilaha illa huwa lahu alasmao alhusna.”

Brian flinched.

“’Allah! There is no God save Him’,” Zayd said, his voice stronger. “’His are the most beautiful names.’ It is verse eight of the twentieth surah.”

“The Koran,” Brian said.

Zayd nodded.

“Blast,” Brian spat.

Dupre sat back in his chair, smiling in the shadows of his cramped cabin. It was barely big enough for a bunk, storage bins, and bathroom, and was the furthest accommodations from the bridge. Sennebec’s engine noise and vibration made it uncomfortable, but with his headphones firmly in place, Dupre didn’t care. He took great pleasure in Zayd’s recitation of the surah, as delivered to him from sickbay by the listening device Dupre had placed under a stool.

He saved a copy of the recording to his delver, then opened up the warrant file. There were a few blanks left to fill in.

Brian wasn’t surprised when the Kesek sergeant turned up on the bridge with an arrest warrant for Zayd. “I expect you to remand him to my custody immediately,” Dupre said.

RK snorted. Brian gave him a warning look, then asked, “And where would you like him incarcerated, Detective Sergeant?”

“You have a brig, don’t you?”

“No, we don’t. This isn’t a law enforcement vessel,” Brian said. He handed the delver back to Dupre, who snatched it away. “Sickbay should do for now. He’s still recovering.”

“Very well. He must be placed in restraints, as per Kesek protocol.”

“Oh, come on!” RK snapped. “Where’s he gonna …”

“Enough, Ensign.” Brian’s tone was steely.

RK met his glare with his own disgruntled expression. “Skipper, how can you let this guy …”

“I said, enough,” Brain cut in. “This is Kesek’s jurisdiction. Their rules apply. Understood?”

“Yessir.” RK hunched over his console, turning his back to them.

Brian rounded on Dupre, catching the smirk growing on his face. “No restraints, Detective Sergeant,” Brian stated flatly, and when Dupre protested, he added, “Lucinda and her staff are more than adequate to keep track of him. The guy is not a ship thief or a pirate. We can handle him. You can have him when we dock with Relief. Got it?”

“I thought we would continue on to Levesque for transshipment of the prisoner,” Dupre said.

“Which part of our rendezvous with a hospital ship did you not understand?” Brian said angrily. “The man is in stable condition, but he needs recovery time in a better facility than I can offer, and I don’t want him to wait three days until we get to Levesque.”

“The only reason those people were out this far in the system is that they were attempting a clandestine transfer of a text-in-violation.” Dupre smiled. “You did an excellent job proving that case.”

“Listen to me.” Brian brought himself nose to nose with the Kesek man. “You stay the hell away from Zayd and you stay the hell away from his family, or you’ll be sorry.”

“Interesting choice of words, for a Contritionist traitor.”

Brian sucked in a breath.

“Yes, you see I know a great deal about you, Lieutenant,” Dupre hissed. “Our budget allows us to employ efficient informants. So do not presume to level threats against me, or there can be great trouble for you. The Corps will not always protect you.” He indicated the double golden arrowheads on his collar, the symbols of his rank. “I will interrogate the prisoner as I see fit.”

He stalked off the bridge.

That night, alone in his cabin, Brian knelt on the metal grating of the deck. Hands clasped to his chin, face raised to the small, round porthole in his cabin bulkhead, he gazed out at the stars. Making the sign of the cross on his forehead, chest and shoulders, he murmured, “Au nom du Père, du Fils, et du Saint Espirit, amen. Lord God, I confess my sins to you and ask your forgiveness. Christ give me strength to do what is right. Show me your will.”

He continued on for twenty minutes. By then his knees hurt.

Zayd was talking softly with his wife when Brian came in early the next morning. Lucinda was busily prodding at her patient’s ribs, asking every second or third poke if something hurt. Most of Zayd’s answers were in the affirmative.

“Mornin’, Skipper,” Lucinda called.

“You missed breakfast,” Brian said with a smile.

“Yeah, well, Jimmy promised to set aside some chow for me. Freeze-dried deliciousness… yum.”

Brian snickered.

Zayd nodded in his direction. “Good morning, Captain. Do we need to talk?”

“I think so,” Brian said. He handed over his delver. The screen bore Dupre’s warrant.

Zayd sighed. His face looked more pale and drawn than the previous day. “I’m sorry to say, the detective sergeant was already here,” Zayd said.

Brian shoved the delver into his pocket, turned and kicked a cabinet. Lucinda watched him warily. “Easy on the hardware, Skipper,” she cautioned.

Brian rubbed his jaw, saying nothing. “I knew what to expect as soon as I woke up here,” Zayd offered. “Shepherding the prophet’s writings is a dangerous task in these times.”

Brian looked at the slender woman seated by his side. Dressed in flowing, emerald and gold silks draped over a tan shipsuit, her deep, dark eyes watched him carefully. “You endanger your family by doing this,” he said.

Zayd looked to his wife, who smiled at him and gripped his hand. “Soraya knew the risk.”

“I would not let my children grow up seeing their parents abandon their beliefs to fear,” she said softly but firmly.

Brian shook his head. “I can’t stop him, you know.”

“But you want to,” Zayd said.

“Is it that obvious?” Brian dug into the front of his slate gray coveralls. The crucifix dangled between his fingers. “My faith demands I face injustice. Too bad injustice is entrenched in law.”

Zayd nodded. “Your kindness will be remembered.”

“A lot of good that will do you,” Brian grumbled. He dropped the chain, rubbing his face with the heel of his other hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d rather we’d not found you alive.”

“I understand your difficulty,” Zayd said, smiling wryly. “A dead body causes fewer problems.”

“Yeah. Just sealed up in a bag …” Brian stopped. A curious look crossed over his face.

“Captain?” Zayd asked. “Are you well?”

Brian didn’t answer. He stared off above Zayd’s head. Lucinda finally reached across the bed and shook his arm. “Skipper!” she said. “Wake up!”

“Huh? Oh, I’m okay.” Brian smiled a small, amused smile. “Just fine.”

He walked out of sickbay, reaching for his comm. “RK? Get down to my cabin.”

The hospital ship HMMC Relief dwarfed the cutter. Two kilometers long, bulbous at the center and tapering to a knife edge at the bow and gaping anti-matter engines at the stern, it cast a shadow over the 120-meter Sennebec as RK eased the cutter alongside a row of docking ports.

Dupre stood at the main airlock, rocking back and forth on his heels. He tapped the delver against his free hand, humming a merchantmen’s tune he’d picked up on Corazon. This arrest was a fine addition to his record, he was sure.

His smile dimmed a bit when a visibly upset Brian strode toward him, followed by Jimmy pushing a stabilizer capsule on a hoversled. “What is this?” Dupre demanded. “Where is the prisoner?”

Brian rapped the smooth, curved container. “Stasis, thanks to you,” he snapped. “You have any idea the stress you caused with your stunt?”

“What are you babbling about?”

“He had a massive and potentially fatal heart attack after you served the warrant. Lucinda – Chief Wainwright barely had time to restart him and get him in the capsule before he died.” Brian folded his arms across his chest.

Dupre snorted in disdain. “I trust you have some proof of that.”

Brian waved a hand at the capsule.

The readout gave a record of Zayd’s body temperature, brain function and heartbeat, among other vital signs. “They look acceptable,” Dupre said, squinting.

“Yeah, for someone operating at near death. Chief Wainwright has the nanosurgeons repairing the valve damage his heart suffered, and the capsule won’t release him until their work is done. Problem?”

“Not at all. Bring him this way.” He pointed a finger beyond Brian. “But make sure his family …”

“We’ll take them back to Levesque, don’t worry. Your boys can track them from there.”

“Good.” Dupre drew himself up into a dignified pose. “Inquiry.”

Brian stiffened at the command. But he drew his delver, as instructed. Jimmy scrambled about in his pockets for his own. Dupre produced a black rod from his belt. Its multicolored lights flashed and strobed as the device accessed the contents of both men’s delvers, sifting through private communications, data and notes. It raised no alarms.

“Were you hoping for damning evidence?” Brian asked coolly.

“I consider you too clever to put your own spiritual musings down in writing,” Dupre said. “Besides, I wanted my own copy of your medic’s report on the prisoner’s condition – which I just copied. Good day, Lieutenant.”

Brian simply nodded.

Jimmy obediently pushed the capsule through the link tube to the Relief’s airlock, Dupre in the lead. Captain Thomas Renquist waited for them at the hatch. “Detective Sergeant,” he boomed, throaty voice a match to his tall, barrel-chested build. “Welcome.”

“Captain. I will maintain a constant watch over this prisoner during his recovery. A Kesek patrol craft is on its way to take us both in two days, you understand.”

“Yes, that was all in your commnote,” Renquist said.

Dupre smiled. “Excellent.” He waved a hand dismissively to Jimmy. “That will be all.”

Stabilizer capsules were timed units. They were preset to gradually awaken their occupants and then unseal themselves, unless medical staff sensed a problem in the readouts and overrode the timer. Dupre saw that, according to the medic’s report, Zayd’s capsule was programmed in concert with the nanosurgeons and would indeed remain sealed until they signaled successful internal repairs.

He was content to wait the four hours, preparing his own reports, giving instructions to the pair of Kesek constables based on Relief, and generally basking in the glow of his own satisfaction. But when the time expired, he made sure he was present in the small cubicle of hospital ship’s cavernous main sickbay where they’d stored Zayd’s capsule.

Captain Renquist joined him. “A momentous capture?”

“Text-in-violation,” Dupre said proudly.

“Ah.”

The capsule’s control panel beeped, its indicators all flashing. A hiss escaped its edges as it unsealed itself and equalized air pressure with the sickbay. A medic reached down and heaved open the lid …

To reveal a battered rescue drone.

All the color drained from Dupre’s face. His delver clattered to the deck, shattering the silence.

Renquist had difficulty smothering his smile. “Oh my. He looks in rough shape.”

Dupre rounded on him, nostrils flaring. “Get after them!” he snapped.

“Who?”

“The cutter! Lieutenant Gaudette! You must pursue!”

Renquist shook his head. “I’m afraid you overestimate this ship’s capabilities. Sennebec can out-accelerate us and cruise circles around my ship any day.”

“Then get on the comm and get my patrol ship!” Dupre demanded.

“Sorry, did I forget to mention?” At Dupre’s blank look, Renquist put on a fairly poor attempt at a sorrowful expression. “Our comms are down for regular reprogramming. It will be at least two hours. My apologies.”

Renquist walked away whistling, as Dupre stared down at the drone and watched his career disappear.

He missed when Renquist’s whistle became a murmured song.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face …”

RK chuckled into his hands. “You think it worked?”

Brian grinned. “Thomas was only too willing to assist. Kesek locked his uncle up for proselytizing last year, and his oldest sister disappeared at their hands when he was a boy.”

They were in sickbay, sharing canisters of orange spice tea with Zayd and Lucinda. Brian raised a canister in her direction. “Here’s to my chief surgeon and her skill with falsifying medical records.”

Lucinda clinked canisters with him. “What falsification? Must have been some kind of mistake,” she grinned.

“But I still need to go to a hospital, yes?” Zayd asked. “I thought that was necessary.”

“Of course, but your injuries aren’t nearly as critical as I made them out to be to the dear detective sergeant,” Brian explained. “We’ll get you to Levesque and get you healed up. I know some people who can help you disappear.”

“Your bravery astonishes me, Captain,” Zayd said warmly. “In what situation have you placed yourself for my sake?”

“I couldn’t let them haul you off,” Brian said firmly. “Kesek destroys a little more freedom every time we let them arrest someone for what they believe. We don’t need a religious police. Don’t worry about me – the Corps looks out for its own.”

“Yeah, and it does help that you’re something of a local hero on Levesque,” RK pointed out.

“True.”

Zayd raised an eyebrow as he sipped his tea. Lucinda laughed. “Something of a hero? The man saved the prime minister’s boy from a wrecked star-sailer, and is the humble recipient of three Emerald Coil medallions!”

Brian blushed. “C’mon, guys.”

Zayd laughed. “Ah, Captain, Allah has put me in great hands, I see. He truly is As-Salam, the source of peace and safety, the Most Perfect,” he said.

“Zayd, you know all of your Ninety-Nine names for God, don’t you?”

“Proudly.”

Brian nodded. “Well, there is a name for God that you don’t know, and to me, it is the most important.”

“And it is …?”

“Father.”

Tags: GK Chesterton, Islam, science fiction, Steve Rzasa
Filed under: 19 and up Award Winners