Ascent of Lies

Chapter 14

FUJITA FELT ALL EYES fall on her as she exited the stolen shuttle. After escaping from Anderson and the metal hand, she had managed to exit the tunnel and had found her way to the shuttle hangar, where she had rigged one of the crafts and had flown in over to where they had parked the Salaminia.

Valentino ran outside to greet her. "You're back!"

Fujita got straight to business. "Divide them over the shuttles, let's get out of here." Ten people in each shuttle would be crowded, but it was doable.

"Fujita", Valentino fell in, "You better come with me."

"What's going on?"

Fujita walked into the cave with the Ensign. The ex-slaves were scattered about, resting against the wall of the shaft and tending to the few who had minor injuries.

A man in the back turned his head toward the Admiral. "Captain", his strained voice said.

It was Anderson. Her Anderson.

Fujita felt a wave of worry rush through her and sprinted toward her first officer. "What the hell are you doing here?" As she kneeled next to him, her eye fell on his blood-soaked uniform. "You're injured!"

"It's fine, Owen tended to it." He drew a ragged breath and lay one of his hands on that of Fujita. "It's good to see you again."

Fujita did not pull back but looked over her shoulder to Owen. The woman shook her head. Anderson was not fine.

"Let's get you into a shuttle", Fujita said. She took his hand in hers and let his arm rest over her shoulder. Together, they stood up; she slowly, he with a groan. They limped to the shuttle which Fujita had stolen and went inside. The Admiral put her first officer down on the second pilot seat and sat down on the other seat herself while the crew of the Green streamed in.

Once everyone was inside, Fujita ordered for the door to be closed and switched on the craft's engines. She turned on the communicators and hailed the Salaminia.

After a few seconds, Commander Owen's mechanical voice came through. "We're ready, sir."

"Engage engines, let's get out of here."

The plan was to fly the two shuttles to a forest a few kilometres away from the mines. The place was in the middle of nowhere and it should take Anderson a while to track them down. While they were there, they had to find a way to get out of this dimension and back into their own.

The flight to the forest was uneventful. Both ships, despite their ripe age, were in a good state and were easy to fly. It only took the Starfleet officers a few minutes to get to the spot where they would set themselves down again.

Once they had arrived, Owen and Valentino exited their shuttle and walked over to Fujita and Anderson. The Admiral ordered her passengers to leave for the time being. The four engineers – officially Anderson was a science officer, but he had enough experience, considering that he had been able to create his own AI Athena among other gadgets – needed some quit to work.

"What's the plan?" Valentino asked.

Fujita looked around the group. "Multidimensional transporter devices exist, we know they do, we just don't have any. You all know Starfleet's banned them; they're dangerous, we shouldn't have any. But we need them now. I've seen one aboard Deep Space 9, Captain Sisko got it when Mirror Miles O'Brien got onboard. I managed to sneak a quick look at it, I hope long enough to be able to rebuild one." The Admiral was known for having a near infallible photographic memory – when she taught at Starfleet Academy, she could draw engine designs on the board in a matter of seconds – yet no one could be expected to remember something without having had a proper look at it.