Wanderer

Chapter 1-2

Jess slipped out of the bedroom as quietly as he could, taking care not to wake Ali again. He'd managed to grab nearly three hours of sleep but now his mind was working overtime once more. He headed for the living area and grabbed a hot chocolate, then curled up on one of the sofas and pulled a blanket around him. He could just have had the Wanderer warm the room, but he enjoyed snuggling into the soft material.

His eyes glanced around the room, and as they crossed the door to the shuttle bay the Wanderer fed him an image of the room beyond. The Wanderer’s main shuttle was in there, but nothing else. Jess had got used to it being crowded. Clay's fighter, which had barely fit alongside the shuttle, was gone for the moment.

Clay had only been gone for a day and a half, yet Jess was already missing the fighter pilot's good humour and ready smile. Clay had been with him during some of the darkest times. Times when Ali had been lost. Times when it seemed that nothing Jess could do would save her and their attempt to keep the universe being destroyed seemed doomed to failure as well.

After being saved Ali had quickly taken to Clay too, but Jess found he felt no jealousy. His link to Ali through the Wanderer was so close that he could tell he had nothing to worry about. Her implants weren't as advanced as his, they let her interact with the ship rather than actually being part of it as Jess was, but they still allowed for an incredible level of closeness between her and Jess.

Clay had left the Wanderer temporarily, to train the most promising fighter pilots in Captain… no, Admiral North's fleet.

Admiral North. Jess shook his head slightly. That was still taking some getting used to. When Jess had first met him he'd been just Captain North, a pirate captain who had turned his hand first to protecting a refugee fleet from the remains of the Empire, and then to protecting the refugees against the rapidly spreading Tainted forces.

Parts of Captain North’s forces had also been pirates until not long before, and at first Jess had expected them to turn on the refugees. But Captain North had stuck to his promise and so had those who followed him. Pirates who would once have preyed on the refugees had given their lives to defend them.

Captain North and the core of his forces had been instrumental in keeping Jess and the Wanderer safe for long enough to save the universe. Captain North's ship, the Spindrift, had seemed to be destroyed in the final moments of that fight. Instead Jess had returned to find Captain North was now Admiral North and had added many Imperial ships freed from the Taint to his force.

That was also when Jess discovered that Captain North had been Admiral North before, Admiral North of the Imperial Navy. Once that would have been a problem for Jess. In fact it would have been an issue not long ago at all, but to Jess it felt like several lifetimes had passed.

He'd grown up a slave, had been freed from slavery when he boarded the Wanderer and for some time afterwards had wanted to do everything he could to destroy any Imperial forces. Now, though, it was hard to tell who that meant. When those on Imperial ships who had fallen to the Taint had tried to return to their comrade's they’d been attacked.

And terrible as the Empire had been before, the part that remained to resist the Taint had become far worse. The ships were now piloted by the Limited, humans far worse off than slaves and arguably worse off even than those taken by the Taint. The Limited had no humanity left. It had been literally torn from their minds, replaced by chips where necessary but simply torn away everywhere else. The Limited had nothing left, and no choice other than to obey whoever gave them their orders.

So those who had been hated Imperials were now fighting for Admiral North. From what Jess had heard there was more to it than simply having no option. Being part of the Taint had affected people in different ways when they recovered, if they did recover.

Some remembered the sensation of being joined to hundreds, thousands, millions of other minds, while others remembered the horror of having their personalities smothered by the Taint. Some remembered details of other peoples’ lives, in some cases lives of those who had been slaves, and for those who experienced such memories the ways of the Empire quickly lost their appeal.

Now Clay was helping to train the best pilots in Admiral North’s fleet while Jess and the Wanderer… well, what were they doing? Waiting, mostly. Acting as a figurehead. All those who had been controlled by the Taint were aware of the Wanderer, and many of the things it had done. Those who hadn't been Tainted had heard the tales by now, heard the tales and seen the recordings.

Whether people loved or loathed Jess, the presence of the Wanderer was a powerful signal, and one Admiral North was certain was helping to hold the coalition together. Jess had no idea just what the coalition was going to do.

Not that he couldn't find out. In fact Admiral North continued to request Jess’s presence at planning meetings, but Jess refused to go. He'd done enough. He'd done more than enough! He'd never signed on to be a hero, to do any of this, and he didn't want to get dragged into anything more. Against all the odds, against even what he had secretly believed, he'd managed to find and save Ali. The cost had been high, far too high, but the alternative had been even worse.

He'd had his fill now. He didn't want to be making those sorts of decisions again. As far as he was concerned the coalition in general, and Admiral North in particular, could take things from here. He was just waiting for the right time to leave, the chance to slip away and slide into obscurity. Ali was more than happy to do the same.

As for the others… well, Clay would have to make his own mind up, and as for Sal… Jess shook his head and put that out of his mind. He wasn't ready to deal with that yet. Maybe he never would be.