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“They were in a hurry,” Vetai explained as she moved from one prisoner to the next, checking each. Some of the Initiates in the hold were stirring. A few even stood and, after the girl’s explanations, looked ready to help.
Almost.
“The servitors must not have administered the sedatives evenly,” the girl went on, “or in some cases missed doing it altogether.”
“Why drug you?” Jaxan asked as she checked the charge on her blaster.
“In the Citadel, the Gray Ring is always present. But on this ship...” Vetai shrugged. “Perhaps they feared in numbers we could mentally overpower the transport crews.”
“Could you?” Varley asked, crouched by the door.
Vetai set a hand upon a wall to control a wobble that went through her gaunt frame. Most of her companions looked similarly unbalanced. “We may be of a little help.”
“Yeah, right,” Jaxan sighed. She met Varley’s gaze. “Looks like it’s going to be mostly you and me.”
“No problem,” he snorted.
Jaxan blinked a command to her augmentations and a diagram of the Skyuza transport lit the corner of her vision, quickly cross-sectioned by decks. Their position highlighted on the second lowest. Another blink shared the view with Varley. “Layout’s pretty simple.” The ship was a lozenge-shaped hull mounting a pair of stubby Void Drives—none of the usual Morevnan artistry for these workhorses, apparently. “These cargo bays are in the middle with the halls on the outsides, running parallel to the flanks. It’s a quick jog to the front and the ladderway to the upper decks.”
“We’re just going to climb right up to the bridge?” Varley asked incredulously. “No way. Someone will be watching, even if they’ve only got a skeleton crew on this thing.”
“You’ve got any other ideas?”
He glanced at the Initiates. “I think we need a distraction.”
Jaxan shook her head. “No way to that, too. Scott, you can’t be—”
“He is right,” Vetai spoke up. “We may not be strong enough to resist in other ways.” She straightened her back. “But we can do this.”
“You don’t have to,” Jaxan insisted, shooting Varley a dirty look.
“Maybe we do,” the girl replied.
She turned to the other conscious Initiates and they stilled, all of them locking gazes and the air growing heavy with silence Jaxan knew contained the traffic of their thoughts. A couple of them shook their heads and sagged once more to the floor. The rest—two adolescent males and a somewhat older female—reached out for Vetai and the four of them linked arms for a moment.
Vetai turned back to Jaxan. “We have the strength. We will help you help all of us.”
Jaxan worked her jaw, disgusted to have this be the plan. But it made a sort of desperate sense; the alternative was she and Varley blasting their way to the bridge. And the crew might just seal off all the critical compartments in reaction. “You’re sure?”
Tears slid from the glowing orbs of her eyes. “I am not certain of anything. I...we had always just assumed all this” she swallowed and winced “hardship was Shala. We believed what we were told, that we deserved what we received because that was the way.” She gulped again and shook her head, shook away the tears. “But now you tell us that that was all a lie.” She sucked in a steadying breath and straightened her back. “And that feels like the truth. So, someone has to answer for that.”
Jaxan tried to hold the girl’s weird, haunted stare, but found she couldn’t. “Alright.” She nodded hastily to have a reason to look away. “I don’t like it. But alright.” She turned to Varley. “Suppose you’ve got some clever plan?”
“Not exactly clever,” he admitted, “but straightforward enough to work.” He gestured at Vetai and her companions. “They take the lead, and wander like they’re lost, still drugged.” He held up his blaster. “We follow right behind and get the drop on whoever they encounter.”
Jaxan made herself look at Vetai again. “You can do that?”
The Morvenan girl held up her chin. “We can.”
“The bridge is three levels up,” Varley told her. “Climb the ladder up the chute. At the third intersection, straight ahead again. Questions?”
Headshakes answered him.
“Can the rest of you follow and start opening all the bays, at least?” Jaxan the frail-looking stay-behinds. She got a nod from one and decided that would have to be good enough. “Alright” she waved her blaster towards the hatch “let’s do it.”
Varley cracked the door and peered out into the corridor with his blaster held out ahead of him. His shoulders relaxed slightly after he panned fore and aft. With his free hand he wiggled a finger out and to the left. Vetai and her comrades crept out past him. Varley and Jaxan followed.
The foursome of Initiates padded ahead of them, down the corridor at a remarkably silent pace. Jaxan had to break into a run to keep up with their inhumanly long strides and both she and Varley were breathing hard by the time they reached the end of the hall, where it curved and merged into the upwards-climbing chute. Vetai was already taking the rungs of the slim ladder in hand, but paused to look at the others.
Jaxan halted and leaned out into the chute, staring straight up its length. Faintly she heard a clank of something, then the echo of a hatch sealing shut. But no voices. That was the strangest thing about these Morvenan ships—so little chatter. She wiggled the muzzle of her blaster upwards, urged the kid on.
The climb was an ordeal of scampers followed by pauses just below each successive level as Vetai halted and looked back and forth. Finding each intersection clear, she’d resume until they reached the next and repeated. Finally, at the third, the bridge level, she stopped and peered down, held up a finger to her pursed lips.
Jaxan and Varley waited as the four Morvenans proceeded to climb up into the passageway before scuttling to the top, themselves. Quick glances in every direction showed empty corridors, except towards the bridge, where a faint rustle of activity emanated. Vetai and the others were already heading that way. Gesturing for Varley to watch their tails, Jaxan followed, hugging the side of the passage, vanishing behind ribbed bulkheads wherever possible.
This became necessary as the hatch at the end of the corridor, opening to the bridge, hissed open and a Morvenan in the plain gray pants and shirt of a Gray Ring servitor stepped through. He froze, eyes widening to fiery globes. In the same moment that he reached for the pistol holstered at his hip, the Initiates simply froze in place, feigning disorientation, one of them sagging against a wall.
Jaxan pinched as far back behind the bulkhead to her left as physically possible. The Initiates blocked any shot she’d attempt. Glancing at Varley, behind the opposite side, she saw he had the same problem.
But the servitor wasn’t going for his weapon, still. His eyes fixated upon Vetai and Jaxan could feel the connection the girl was forcing upon him. One of the other Initiates tried wobbling past the distracted guard. He had enough sense to stiff-arm him backwards, but Vetai’s gaze caught his attention once more. She drifted close, held up a hand, touched his face. The others started moving again, for the hatch.
It was working.
Then the hatch slid open again and another servitor emerged. This one’s face instantly deformed in rage as he saw what was happening. His left fist shot past his comrade to grip Vetai by the throat, force her back from him as he went for his weapon.
Recovering from the trance, the first servitor gave himself a shake, saw the young Morvenan he’d shoved trying to rise, and struck him a back-handed blow. Growling out loud, he drew his weapon and lashed its barrel across the face of the third of Vetai’s party, the older teenager, sent her flying back in a spray of dark purple blood.
Feeling the warm speckle of that, even meters away, galvanized Jaxan into motion. Launching from behind the bulkhead, she was on top of the servitor in a stride. He barely had time to look up before Jaxan swung the butt of her pistol crosswise, dashing it into the Morvenan’s temple. He dropped like a sack of bones, nearly tangling up her feet as she spun to the servitor choking Vetai.
She had no time to reach him. The hatch to the bridge sprang open again and another came out, pistol already aimed.
Reflex saved her, sent her gun arm slashing down over his wrists. The weapon discharged, a ruby beam carving air and hissing across the sleeve of one of the Initiates before dashing slag from the floor. Jaxan ignored the warble of the boy as he tried to beat out flames, slammed the servitor in the throat, and followed him through as he staggered backwards into the bridge.
Servitors sprang from their stations in the oval-shaped chamber. One had his weapon out in blurring speed. Jaxan spared no thought for this one, fired instantly. Blue-white brilliance thundered in the tight space and fire enveloped the Morvenan’s chest. He flew backwards onto a console that exploded in sparks at the impact.
A second one with markings on his tunic that made him some sort of officer howled incoherently as he ducked behind a chair. Two more servitors bum-rushed Jaxan as this one drew his weapon. She triggered a second blast coldly, dropped the first unarmed servitor fanatic without remorse and pivoted into a sidekick as the next one loomed close. The blow slammed breath from his chest that became a shriek as his tumble carried him into the path of the ruby blast from his commander.
Jaxan dropped to one knee as the commander’s next wildly-fired bolt crackled over her head, took aim at the seat back behind which he hid, fired. Her blaster bolt went through the padding and frame, expending much of its energy turning those into a brief fireball. The rest sliced through the servitor’s midsection, sent him crumpling back in sparks and smoke.
She started to rise, panning her blaster over the fallen, smoldering servitors. Another ruby bolt chopped past her ear—from behind—and slammed into the bridge main screen, blowing it out in a shower of sparks. She ducked and lunged right, spun on the ball of her right foot. Cyan flashes and shrieks told of Varley firing in response. She streaked back to the bridge door—propped open, she saw, by one of the fallen servitors.
A pair of the ship’s crew were coming up the passage from behind the stair chute, firing as they came. The Initiates had hit the floor while Varley pressed against a wall, returning fire. He caught one of these as they stepped too far out, dropped the squalling servitor in a flail of limbs and fire. The second took aim, seeing advantage as Varley exposed himself. Jaxan sent a one-two-three burst screaming down the corridor. Flying slag and white fire obscured the effect, but the following blasts from Varley ensured their effectiveness, cutting down the last one.
Vetai was wailing something as she stooped over one of the Morvenan boys, whose Initiate robes glowed from a neatly-sliced slag line and smoked foully into the air. Jaxan started forward, but Varley held up a hand to her as he knelt at their side. “Go! Check the controls!”
Reluctantly, Jaxan turned back into the bridge, rushed to what looked like the helmsman’s station. The main screen pixelated wildly around the melted dimple in its holo-wafer array. Some imagery squirmed into being; damage warnings, but also a star map. She couldn’t make complete sense of the Morvenan console or equipment, but the map she could read.
“How are we doing?” Varley huffed, coming up to her side.
She looked at him, then back at the corridor. “The kid?”
He shook his head. Vetai’s weird warbling sob filled the air, was joined by the moaning and sniffling of the others.
“Damn...” Jaxan swallowed back a knot in her throat, focused on his question and the task before them. “I-I don’t know. I’m not bridge crew, so I—”
“Let me see,” Varley said, almost savagely, though Jaxan could tell it was just to force down other emotions. His fingers pattered across the unfamiliar keys and icons. Something blatted back, flashed yellow at him. “Damn it!”
“What?”
“I think we’re locked out,” he replied, then slammed the console with a fist. “I think it’s on autopilot.” He pointed at the star map. “We’re heading wherever that says, whether we like it or not.”
“Zadomir,” she replied, eyeing the display again.
He blew out a breath, then chuckled. “Well, we’d better see about freeing and rousing as many of the others we can, I guess.”
She looked at him, frowning. “Huh?”
“Don’t you see? The South Solace cop’s daughter doesn’t get?” Varley grinned impishly. “What we’ve got on our hands, here, is a jailbreak!”
***
THE SHUTTLE SET DOWN on the landing pad outside the House Green complex and Ylura stepped out of it into a brilliant Morvena morning. A breeze tickled into her face, carrying with it the smell of the sea. It all felt too perfect, too beautiful to witness the crime she was about to be a part of.
She will be moved the south-arctic district, Arrakka was saying as he emerged from the shuttle behind her. The Tai’ahann Institute for the Spiritually Damaged is actually underwritten by funds from House Orange. We can secure Tahna there for a time. We can also make certain she’s not talkative.
“Spiritually Damaged,” Ylura sneered out loud. The Morvenan turn of phrase wasn’t really euphemistic; they considering insanity a profound tragedy, not just a clouding of mental clarity, but a stunting of the soul. But it felt foul as she said to her uncle, “it’s just another Citadel; like the Gray Ring’s.”
It is nothing of the sort, he snapped back, gripping her arm, the hand trembling with his fury. She will be treated there.
“She will be tucked away,” Ylura retorted. She thought of the horrid cells of the Citadel, the torture chambers, and winced. “Sedated out of her mind, left drooling in a padded room...” She shook her head. “You were right; she’d have been better off killed.”
Arrakka hissed out loud and yanked his hand away, strode down the shuttle ramp.
“But you didn’t have the courage of your convictions, did you, Uncle?” she called after him.
He froze at the bottom of the ramp, on the landing pad. Early day heat gave it a shimmer around him as her turned to her, scowling, but not answering.
“You sent the Republic to do your dirty work,” she grated at him as she took the last few steps down the ramp to stare into his face. “Sent me to do it.”
He remained eye-to-eye with her, locked, vision ablaze, but no thoughts leaving his mind to glance off hers, only the cold wall of his rage.
Footsteps from behind Ylura broke the deadlock and he blinked, looked past her. A pair of Chrome Guards stood behind them, waiting to proceed. Count Avla and a trio of Guards had exited ahead of them, was crossing the pad already to the cluster of domes forming the House’s barracks and whatever detention facilities they’d improvised there.
You will accompany us to Tai’ahann, Arrakka said at last, you and your Security detachment. He turned and strode for the domed buildings. Tahna’s been very well-behaved to them, at the least. Count Avla’s people, much less so.
With Chrome Guards subliminally pressing from behind, Ylura grudgingly followed him. At the same time, she thought about what he’d just revealed. Cho and the rest of Jaxan’s Security detachment remained free of Tahna’s mind power, even if that was not the case for Avla’s household. Their blasters, more than the prowess of any Shala Masters retained by Green or Orange, kept her contained.
And Ylura could faintly sense some of that tension as the dome slitted open before Avla and his escorts and she and Arrakka picked up the pace to follow. In the darkness beyond, with the curve of the structure sliding shut behind them, that tension became a chill in the air, as though its very particles had been slowed by some invisible force, some struggle.
They passed down a long, arched corridor, made a right, clattered down a flight of steps and into a dimly-lit antechamber illuminated by worms of light that played behind glassy-surfaced walls. Iciness bit Ylura’s skin as they entered and she reflexively wrapped her arms around her—yet noted no frostiness of breath, no real signs of the cold. Cold of the mind, she thought.
At the heart of the chamber, a single Morvenan male in the white robes of a Shala Master sat cross-legged on a rug before a sealed door. He would be Green’s household priest, likely drafted to Tahna’s detention. Features stretched over bony features and eyes pinched shut while beads of sweat formed at his hairlines to runnel down to his chin and drip-drip.
Ylura stiffened to a halt and looked again at the door, knowing instantly what—and who—the Master labored to keep locked in.
Cho leaned against the wall near the door, fidgeting with a long knife he hastily sheathed at the sight of her and others. Scooping up the blaster rifle he’d left propped nearby, he hissed something to Ghath and the other Fleet toughs, all of whom scampered to gather their kits—the Korthan and one of his teammates fumbling to pocket the cards they’d been playing with.
“Lieutenant Aval,” Cho called, settling his helmet on his head, “we about done here?”
She glanced at her uncle who gestured impatiently at her. “One more trip,” she told Cho. “Get ready to secure the prisoner.”
“Handing her over, huh?” he replied with a frown, but followed it with a shrug. “Got it. That’s the job.” He waved to the others who formed a semicircle around the door. Ghath stepped over to it and waited near its control panel. Cho glanced at her again, then nodded at the sweating Master. “Been hard on these poor guys. That’s the third one they’ve had to bring down. Had to carry the other ones away.”
Ylura recalled how the shockwave of Tahna’s mind power had nearly cleared her a way out of Farside Station—at least through Morvenans. She turned to her uncle. “You’re certain you want to stay here?”
I am a Master of the Second Circle, as is Avla, Arrakka replied. With the Master, we will be sufficient to resist her. You, on the other hand, will make certain she is pliant.
“Excuse me?”
Arrakka snapped to one of the Chrome Guards, who brought over a case and held it out. He popped open the top. Within its padded interior lay a set of vials and a syringe-gun. He primed the latter with one of the former and held it out to her. You will administer the sedative for her trip. She will not resist you, even with her telekinesis.
You can’t be serious, she thought directly now, forcing her horror and shame and disgust with the man she thought she’d known. Uncle, how can you ask this? How can you be a part of this?
He flinched but she felt no crumpling of his aura, only force. He snapped again and clattering echoed from the stairs they’d come down. A dozen Chrome Guards pattered down, fully-armed and armored, and settled into ranks with weapons close at hand. Cho and the other toughs fingered their blasters uneasily, exchanging looks, then looking to her for a sign of something amiss.
Help us, Arrakka sounded almost pleading for an instant. The note changed to demanding. Help or your crewmates may have to pay the price.
She sucked in a breath. Madness! That would be an intergalactic incident!
Every bit as much as slipping Republic operatives into the Citadel, no? He offered her an ugly grin. We are under House Green’s complex, unseen, unmonitored. And Tenacity is light years from here.
She glared at the Morvenan before her and saw only a stranger. Snapping the syringe-gun from Arrakka’s hand, she turned to Cho. “Stand ready, should the prisoner attempt resistance,” she said harshly.
The toughs tensed with weapons at hand. Behind and around them, the Chrome Guards did likewise—and more than a few of their sites seemed aimed more at the Republic troops than the cell door. Faceless helms reflected the scene. Those might protect faces, but not minds from the presence within. Only Arrakka, Avla, and the seated Master could provide that, and the former two were taking up spots at the flanks of the latter, spread-legged and hands fanned out before them.
“Bring out the prisoner,” Arrakka ordered out loud.
Ghath looked to Ylura for confirmation and got it in the form of a nod before pressing the control key. The half-circle cell door divided down the middle and slid apart in halves. Behind these, standing as though expecting their open, waiting Tahna.
The kneeling Master sucked in his breath and his robes darkened at the collar and down the chest with his perspiration. Avla and Arrakka wobbled on their feet, as though buffeted by a great wind, both grunting with effort. Sounds of shuffling feet and scraping armor plates filled the chamber with the Chrome Guards’ fidgeting, some looking as though itching or prodded at. Cho and his toughs glanced at them all in confusion.
“Enough,” Arrakka grated out loud and through grinding teeth. He pressed his hand out before him. “You cannot overpower us all.”
Tahna regarded him with a pitying expression. Strain rippled at the corners of her clenching jaw, though, despite her otherwise relaxed movements as she stepped from the cell. “You are right,” she replied. “Not all of you.” She met Ylura’s gaze. “And not you.”
Ylura aimed the syringe-gun at her. “It’s time to go.”
She smiled through the strain, almost brilliantly, was for a moment that imp, dancing in the fountain. “It is.”
Pressure like water in the ears clenched Ylura’s skull and she knew her cousin probed. But she pressed it back with the human part of her psyche, the part no Morvenan could pierce without permission. “There’s no need for that,” she told her.
The smile collapsed, and Tahna seemed to age decades in a moment. Hardship lines darkened her bruised face and the glow of her eyes dimmed to a melancholy late-sunset red. “So, you have made your choice, cousin?”
“I have.”
Ylura released her resistance, then, and let her cousin in completely, like a great wave crashing over the breakers. And Tahna flooded the entirety of her, seeing in her mind all the time since they’d been together, seeing her pains, her loves.
Her plans.
Tahna’s eyes widened and brightened to twin sun flares.
Ylura spun and fired the syringe-gun at the kneeling Master. The Morvenan’s eyes popped open and a breath spluttered out, sounded like the beginning of a protest. But the words trailed off into a moan as he sagged backwards with the syringe protruding from his shoulder.
Screams rent the air. Every Chrome Guard crumpled where they were standing, some tearing off their helmets as they pawed at their faces or hair. Cho and his toughs watched dumbfounded. More wails could be heard echoing from up the stairs. Avla joined these, yowling, hands fluttering to either side of his face like startled birds. He hit the ground with a meaty thud and went silent.
Knocking the Master out of commission had broken the carefully-woven net of control around Tahna.
But Arrakka remained on his feet, one hand held out before him, shaking. Sweat cascaded down his face and lips peeled back from his teeth as he held his ground and tremors built throughout his frame. Knees shook and began to buckle as his niece advanced upon him. But, still, he would not relent.
“Oh, Uncle,” Tahna said out loud, stepping close, one hand rising before her to match his, “With your misguided altruism, you were the greatest disappointment of them all.”
Arrakka fell to one knee, but kept his palm up, even as he seemed to shrink before his niece. He panted with effort and muscles stood out along his face and neck. The exhalations became little shrieks, then a drawn-out screech as Tahna stepped right up to him, holding her hand over him as he folded down.
“Tahna...” Ylura warned.
She pulled her hand back just shy of touching Arrakka’s forehead. His voice trailed off at that and he crumpled to the floor, as though he’d been a puppet and she’d just cut the strings.
Ylura and Tahna were the only Morvena-kind left standing and conscious.
Cho, looking around in shock and fingered his blaster impotently, released a breath. “The hell, Lieutenant?”
Ylura smiled at him. “One more trip, like I said.”
“Yes,” Tahna purred, “to the nearest transmitter. All the Unity will now hear from the T’Sona!”
“No,” Ylura cut her off. “To the shuttle pad. You can clear our way?”
She blinked. “I...can. But we are here. We can get the message out here!”
“And they’ll just block it,” Ylura snapped, “like they did when you held Farside. We’ve got to get back to Tenacity!”
“She’s gone, ma’am,” Cho pointed out, waving for his toughs watch the exit.
“I know that,” she told him as she accessed her augmentations, searched the local Morvenan comm networks.
With some of the boosted capabilities the SRA had uploaded into her implants, she could access higher-level communications—notably Morvenan Orbital Control. A desperate hope lodged in her brain as she hacked into the chatter of that department, then brought up a local scan. Part of her vision subdivided to show the dull, businesslike prowl of icons over the planet; satellites, commerce vessels, ships of the Home Fleet, visitors.
There.
She nearly collapsed in relief as the icon of the Grakan free trader, Rrudalor, winked from its spot, parked in roughly geosynchronous over Prysma City. They’re still there—we have a chance. She turned to Tahna. “I don’t suppose in your time as a public enemy you learned to fly a Morvenan short-ranged shuttle?”
The girl smiled back. “It was one of the few benefits of a life of crime.”
***
DATH SQUIRMED IN HIS seat, as much to relieve the itching of his sling as out of nerves. At least his augmentations’ pain blockers had kicked in now; he could move without wanting to scream. “Alright, Tom. Are we ready to try this?”
“Number Two is responding, Captain,” Rougan replied through the intercom. “You’ll have full Void Power.”
And not a moment too damned soon. Eyeing the tactical display, Dath watched as three blips descended for the atmosphere of MEU-1279. The angles of their approach suggested that the pirates had at least a vague sense of Tenacity’s position; forming a triangle, each one was placed that, should it be attacked, it would allow the others to hone in on its attacker. And so it would be for the other ships, now clustering high overhead with the Devourer at their center.
“Heath’s getting cocky,” Dath growled. “He thinks they can corner us against the planet when they find us.” He turned to Alvarez. “We got a spot we can punch through before they catch us?”
The younger man nodded and typed. At his prompt, a dotted line drew itself out from Tenacity on the tactical display, crossing through one of the approaching ships and lancing out into space. “This will be the way, sir. But it’ll still be running the gauntlet.” He pivoted his seat to face him. “But we’ll be coming out from a cold start. We’ve charged the battery from the Number One, but we’ll only have enough for life support, propulsion, and shields until we’ve had some room to run and both the Drives are fully spun-up.” He frowned. “No energy weapons and no torpedoes, sir.”
“Full missile spread, then,” Dath replied and pointed at the ship Alvarez had crossed through with his projected course. “That’s a Widow-series?”
“Museum piece, aye sir,” Alvarez replied. “But heavily-modified. A missile salvo might not be enough to finish her.”
“As long as it’s enough to distract her,” Dath said and leaned forward, raising his voice encouragingly. “By then we’ll be running right by her, isn’t that right, Zovga?”
“We’ll leave them in our tachyon wake, sir,” the Korthan answered eagerly.
“That’s right,” Dath rumbled and turned to the Communications station. “Clemens, have you improvised a way to break through all that jamming? We’ve got to get a signal out, one way or another.”
“I do, sir,” she said tentatively and turned to him, “but you’re not going to like it.”
“Go on.”
“I’m going to need to repurpose one of the particle cannon batteries,” she explained. “Rather than firing its usual stream, I can alter the harmonic of the energy emission to mimic a subspace pulse.”
Dath frowned. “You’re going to turn one of our guns into an antenna?”
She chuckled nervously. “It will literally blast through the jamming, sir.
“Won’t that be line-of-sight though?” Dath asked. “Won’t someone have to be right where you point it to receive it?”
She shook her head. “We’ll ‘fire’ at open-aperture, a cone, towards Morvena. As it expands outward, the cone widens exponentially.”
“It’ll also lose potency and begin to break up, the further it goes,” Dath pointed at. Seeing the sudden doubt on her face, he forced a grin. “Gah, don’t listen to me. Good thinking, Clemens! Key it up!”
“Like the guns,” Alvarez noted, “that will require the Drives to be at full, sir.”
“Then, like everything else, we’ve got to get clear of this place to make it work. Which we’ve got to do, anyways.” Dath leaned back in his seat, pattering his left set of fingers on the armrest once. A glance to the right showed him Regal at the Ops Station and Ensign Yi drafted to sit at Systems. The absence of Ylura ached momentarily. Shaking it off, he called, “Regal, all departments have checked in?”
“All hands at battle stations, aye sir,” she replied.
Dath blew out a long, whistling breath through pursed lips. “Alright, let’s do it. Zovga, take us out!”
Tenacity thrummed as the Void Drives drank from the singularities captured in their cores, speeds increasing, system displays greening as full power fed through the frame of the battlecruiser. She swept up, out of the rusty red-brown of MEU-1279’s cloud cover, stirring a wild, storm-trough in her wake as she nosed for the open skies. The blue of the stratosphere opened up, then darkened as they clawed for the lower orbits. The protective nimbus of the shields materialized around her and targeting halos appeared over their descending foes.
And hostile targeting alarms blared.
And the heavens lacerated with blaster bolts.
Splatter-patterns of white fire dashed across Tenacity’s dorsal shields as cyan streaks rained into her. She climbed up through the maelstrom, flickering like a dying light bulb, quivering like a wounded animal. Only the suddenness of her appearance and her building speed kept a lethal concentration of the bolts from converging upon her.
Gripping his armrest as the deck bucked beneath him, Dath hollered, “Don’t stop! Keep going!”
Through a din of alarms, one pierced with a particularly harsh note. On the tactical display, the Widow coming down for them, almost dead-on now, erupted into a six-tailed pattern of missiles. Targeting halos circled each as they lurched for them.
“Fire missile spread!” Dath ordered. “Target that salvo!”
Alvarez was already doing it. Tenacity’s flanks spumed with momentary smears of propellant as her volley left its rack. Each missile’s miniaturized Void Drive lit a fraction of a second later and they darted forth on bluey tails of Cherenkov radiation. Some met the incoming volley at what seemed hardly a moment later—with the ranges relatively so close—pummeling into the Golgothan’s fusillade in a cluster of blasts powerful enough to hammer back into Tenacity’s forward shields.
Again, Dath held on to his chair, the strain of doing so sending a lance of pain into his shoulder as the tension overcame his pain suppressants. The bridge shuddered and displays flickered on and off. But the tactical display remained clear enough to follow the action.
The remaining warheads of Tenacity’s volley sprinted past the slaughter of their kin and sped for the Widow. The cruiser flung out a spasm of blaster fire at these, claiming half in a rash of globe-lightning strobes. The rest, however, dodged through to slam into her shields. Roiling glare obscured the extent of the damage, but the sudden cut-out of its point-defense fire spoke volumes.
“Second volley!” Dath called. “Fire!”
The Widow was veering off to port, trailing ember sprays that signaled hull damage and crippled shields. More Republic missiles screamed out of Tenacity’s racks to chase her. But more alarms than Dath could make sense of merged in his ears as the tactical painted a dizzying pattern of missiles worming out from the other ships above and behind. And blaster bolts quested after Tenacity’s accelerating silhouette, smacking off her tail and flanks.
“Shields are taking a pounding, sir!” Yi cried from the Systems Station. “Aft quarter struggling at forty percent!”
“Do we have energy weapons, yet?” Dath asked Alvarez.
“Coming up now!” he replied over the din of another hit on the shields. “But shields are getting priority. We’ll have point-defenses in a couple seconds!”
“Get working on those missiles!” Dath couldn’t begin to count the trails looping after them. “Zovga, are we far enough out of the gravity well for full Void Speed?”
“Still clearing the atmosphere, Captain,” the Korthan replied through gritting fangs. “Almost there!”
Fire wreathed the closest Widow, her blasters savaging the skies around her frantically as Tenacity’s second volley enveloped her. Antimatter blooms converged till they were nearly one. Something found its way through, found a hull no longer protected by shields. A stab of white caught the ship’s outline in freeze frame, then thermonuclear orange-red followed as its Reflex Furnace blew. The outdated cruiser suddenly wasn’t there, was expanding across the horizon in a splash of superheated gases and speeding slag.
Tenacity jolted as the shockwave passed through the thin film of MEU-1279’s stratosphere. Someone on the bridge started to let out a cheer—but was cut off as a second, doubly-violent jolt hammered through the deck. The overheads flickered and went out, only came on after a couple seconds. The air grayed with smoke and the stink of scorched electronics.
“Aft shields gone!” Yi squeaked from her station.
A third, gutting blast wrenched the ship and Dath knew it was bad from the shredding roar that rippled up from her guts. A new, perilous note of alarm warbled in amongst all the others and a Systems display popped up on the main screen automatically. One of the plasma torpedo tubes pulsed red. As Dath watched, that crimson scar lengthened towards the Void Drives.
“Blow-back from the Number Six tube!” Alvarez hollered. “Chain reaction from that last hit as she was charging up!”
“Power fluctuations in the Number Two Hypernaught!” Zovga yelled over him.
“What?” Dath squawked. “Again?”
A ripple of secondary explosions trembling along Tenacity’s port ventral flank, spewing black fumes and debris. A flash carried away an intact peel of warped ablative plate, left it spinning out behind them in the smoke bleeding aft.
“Hull breach!” Yi half-wailed. “Working to seal! Bleeding atmosphere!”
“Rotate shields to aft quarter with all power not already dedicated,” Dath roared. “Take from the weapons, if you have to! Zovga?”
“Aye sir?”
“I’d really like to be leaving now. Are the Drives holding? Ready?”
“They’re coming up, sir, but...” The Korthan trailed off.
“What?”
“Sir,” Alvarez said now, pointing at the main screen. Tenacity had risen high enough from the gas giant to clear its interference and obstruction for a full scan.
“Oh, shit.”
Tenacity’s sensors revealed a starfield littered with over a dozen fresh icons.
“Where did they all come from?” Regal gasped.
Dath started to say multiple things at once, mouth working like that of fish cast on a deck an allowed to flop. He clamped it shut, fought through the panicky spasm of his thoughts. One impulse shot through the rest.
“Clemens, transmit your signal! Transmit now!”
His shout jolted her from the stunned fugue that had gripped her—was gripping them all. “Aye sir!”
“Zovga, take us back down!”
“Sir?”
“Down, Ensign!” he bellowed. “Back down as deep in that soup as you can safely go.” He glanced at the tactical, saw the missile swarm streaking for them. “We’re going to get pulverized up here!”
The main screen wobbled as their perspective shifted, the great, shark-like mass of Tenacity suddenly dipping her nose back for the muddy swirl of MEU-1279. Her blasters ripped out across her flanks, spewing the void with cyan blades. Missiles dived into this buzzsaw recklessly, exploding, but still chasing, each immolation climbing closer, closer to Tenacity’s tail.
“Down,” Dath repeated as the great, striated floor of the gas giant rushed up for them, once more. Blaster streaks from their pursuers lashed by, all around, a cyan shower sometimes glancing off Tenacity’s shield in ripping crashes, sometimes punching into the dirty clouds below to be lost with all the other random lighting phenomena.
“Dive!”
***
TENACITY PLUNGED BACK into MEU-1279’s atmosphere on Devourer’s main screen, shields aflutter and a smear of cinders and fumes in her wake. But as Heath watched, the deck plates quivering under him as his ship’s guns belched hell down after her, her silhouette began to fade into the gas giant’s recesses, the witch’s brew of static discharge and excited vapor clouding the sensors.
“We’re losing her!” Mueller squawked.
“Keep firing!” Heath demanded as the targeting icons began to flutter and wander, losing sensor lock. “Ready another Death Web!”
“Sir,” Keitel turned at his station to face him, “missile telemetry will function poorly down there, if at all.”
“Keep firing!” Heath balled up his right fist and smote the armrest of his chair. “Follow her!”
“Brother-Captain,” Mueller said and stepped over to his side, “with respect, if we do that, it will be a blind-fight down there.” He set his hand upon the back of the command chair, a breach of Heath’s space and station he would not attempt lightly. “Devourer’s advantages will be nullified.”
And Heath could see his First Officer was right, but raged against it anyway. They couldn’t lose Raker, not now! If that damned ship disappeared back into that ball of gas, it would be back to a waiting game—and they could only wait them out so long.
“KR-97 and -99 will follow, then,” he ordered. “We will maintain position, here, and monitor their progress.” He settled back in his seat as Bauer at Comms relayed his message. “Ready all weapons for when they flush her out.”
The pair of Widows flanking Devourer began to descend for the gas giant without her. Targeting schemata fluttered fitfully below them, searching vainly for the sparkle of Tenacity’s few residual emissions. But they were catching the nervous flutter of natural lightning now, as much as hints of engine signatures.
Madness, he seethed inwardly. We’ve tracked them across parsecs, before. That planet’s barely a hundred-and-fifty-thousand kilometers in diameter and not even solid. But Mueller was right. Down there, it was far too close to an even fight.
“Sir,” Bauer announced, “transmission from the House Red cruiser.”
Heath snorted and glanced over the swarm of the secret House Red fleet, who’d arrived just in time to frighten Tenacity back into her hiding spot. “I’m sure this will be helpful input.” We waved at the main screen annoyedly. “Put it up.”
Krazymb’s hateful purple face materialized in the hologram, darkened with rage that seemed to be his only real emotion—just in varying intensities. “Captain Heath, where do those vessels go?”
“I think that should be obvious, Count.”
“Recall them, at once!” the Morvenan demanded. “You are risking our ships in your botched chase.” He scowled, leaning further in to the holocamera pickup. “And it appears you’ve already cost us dearly with it.”
“Count Krazmyb,” Heath began hotly before noting Mueller’s eyebrows arched in warning “respectfully, what is it you expect to accomplish with that?” He stood and tugged his uniform straight. “Do you intend to finish the exchange of ships, right here, right now? Tenacity has seen us; they’ve seen our operations on Zadomir.” He pointed at the image. “By now, they’ve seen you. We are committed. All of us. We must finish her.”
Krazmyb opened his mouth for a retort but paused, held in whatever else he had in mind. Perhaps seeing the wisdom of Heath’s words, he relented. “Risk no additional vessels on this operation, Heath.” The Morvenan pointed back at him in the hologram. “You will go down there, if it comes to that.”
Heath smiled coldly. “Of course, Count.”
Krazmyb’s connection cut out with a staticky squall. In its place, Heath noticed the icon of the Count’s cruiser, lingering back from the repurposed warships Golgotha had provided him, but easily in range of Devourer’s Death Web. A single command could turn that ship into a fireball.
“Brother-Captain,” Bauer interrupted his rumination, “I did monitor a harmonic spike in subspace, consistent with a high-energy pulse transmission.” He frowned. “It may have been strong enough to pierce our jamming.”
Heath’s gut twinged. “You recorded it?
“Aye sir.”
“Try to decrypt it and let me know.”
“Distress call?” Mueller asked stepping to his side.
“Likely,” Harlander rumbled, appearing from the rear of the bridge at Heath’s other one. “We’re running out of time. And this thing is coming apart.” The Magus was suddenly intolerably close, at Heath’s ear. “Time to leave.”
And his will wasn’t the only one Heath felt pressing upon him. “Agreed,” he replied, glaring at the other man. “As soon as we finish off Tenacity.”
“Brother-Ensign,” Harlander looked at Bauer without acknowledging Heath’s words, “have we received word from Zadomir? Has the supply been delivered?”
“Nothing, yet” Bauer glanced at Heath uncertainly “Magus.”
“You have till then,” Harlander snapped, turning back to Heath. “Once we know the supply is passed on, we no longer have any real reason to be here.” He folded his arms before him and squared his jaw. “Are we in agreement?”
Heath’s gaze flicked momentary to the long knife at the Magus’ hip, the symbol of his authority, so like one of the dripping fangs of the Mistress he now saw clearly in his mind. Her will and Harlander’s together could not be resisted.
“We are.”
***
THE BRIDGE OF THE GRAKAN Free Trader, Rrudalor, was a lozenge of transparent durasteel allowing a wide view of the curve of Morvena and the wink of other ships in orbit around her—including at least one Ayaza-class cruiser of the Home Fleet. Backgrounded by this, Captain Garrasta turned his command chair around to face Ylura and Tahna as they were led to him by a pair of Grakan guards whose body armor was unnecessary to make them huge.
“It would be well,” the Grakan merchant officer growled, “if you explained yourself, Sanctuarian. And quickly. Already we receive transmissions from planet-side.”
“Captain,” Ylura replied quickly—no sense hiding it, “we need immediate passage from this system and from Unity space.”
Garrasta’s small, yellowy eyes slitted, almost disappeared under the furry ridges of his brow. He looked very much like a scarred, old dog startled by a slap to the muzzle. “I understood Republic to be guests here?”
Ylura glanced at Tahna—wondering if she had any telepathic ability over a Grakan mind. But the girl looked wrung-out from the ordeal of resisting the combined powers of Arrakka and the others. “The nature of our visit has changed,” she answered.
“Not for the better, it sounds.”
Ylura held up her chin stoically. “That would be accurate. Regardless, we request help of long-time friends of the Republic.”
“Against long-time friends, it sounds,” the Grak snorted. He pointed a clawed thumb over his shoulder, towards the one of his crew at his station, listening to their headset. “Orbital Control is asking why a shuttle left House Green complex, why it goes to Rrudalor” he leaned forward in his seat “and what we plan to do about it.”
“Have they told you to detain us?” Tahna blurted out.
Garrasta’s eyes widened slightly and the velvety flaps of his nostrils flared. “I have seen holo-broadcasts. Of you. And I wonder if we should, even if they haven’t asked.” He raised a single clawed finger and the guards at their flanks were shifting, drawing their blasters.
“That is your right,” Ylura pressed on, ignoring the sensation of an energy weapon aimed at her kidneys. “But I can assure you, as an officer of the Republic Fleet, that it will be a greater service to us and the galaxy to get us out of here. The Grak have no alliance with the Unity.”
“I am not the Pack,” Garrasta rumbled back. “I am a single captain, trading across the stars. Reputation is my protection. Without it, we starve.” He pointed a finger at her. “If I do not at least throw them that morsel” the finger twitched towards Tahna “we will never find work in the Unity again.”
“The Republic will make it worth your time,” Ylura replied.
Garrasta guffawed, thrown back in his seat by the force of it. Members of his bridge crew grinned toothily from their stations at his mirth, as he shook and gripped his ample belly with one hand. “Worth my time!” he wheezed between breaths. It took another couple seconds for him to master himself again. “You are Lieutenant of the Fleet, and not even really a full one, are you?” His eyes went suddenly ugly. “Surprises me you go against your own.”
Ylura grimaced at that, remembering the bite of Arrakka’s accusations; you rejected the Unity. “I go with what is right.”
Garrasta chortled. “First you capture terrorist” we gestured disdainfully at Tahna “then you bring her back here, then you want to smuggle her out again?” He shook his furry-maned head. “Maybe I don’t understand what is right to Sanctuary.”
Ylura sighed. “I think a lot of people no longer understand right, Captain.”
The Grak at the Communications station growled something to Garrasta—something too laden with slang for the universal translator in Ylura’s augmentations to fully interpret. Garrasta grunted and nodded over his shoulder in acknowledgement before turning back to her. “Now Orbital Control is demanding we remain in place and requesting that we submit to search.”
Ylura stiffened. “You said before Captain Raker was honored among the Pack, for blooding our shared enemies, and for long friendship before then.”
“That’s so.” The Grak leaned forward. “But you are not him.”
“I was with Raker at Crossroads,” Ylura declared. “I was part of the crew that fought alongside the Arrgalor, bled alongside her, and mourned her glorious end!”
Garrasta’s eyes went very cold as he leaned back in his chair, visibly digesting the morsel she’d thrown to him. “If you lie to me, now, half-human—”
“It is true!” Ylura declared. “You can check the records!”
“If you lie,” Garrasta resumed icily, lips stripping back from fangs flecked with sudden rage-foam, “I would be in my rights to claw your eyes out.”
Ylura stood her ground, glowering back at him, even as the pair of guards stepped back from her, left clearance, should their chief choose to leap. In that instant, partially bent-forward in his seat and his dark brown, white-streaked mane bristling out, he looked very much like he would. Ylura suddenly knew how a small mammal felt, moments before a predator’s strike.
“Sanctuary for all,” she proclaimed. “That is the credo of the Republic. I understood the Pack to have a similar philosophy.”
Garrasta’s hair flattened slightly against his skull and he eased back in his seat a centimeter. “No pup, even a rival’s, goes unfed.” He shrugged. “Loses something in translation.”
“Help us, Captain,” Ylura plead now. “We have uncovered something monstrous, here, in Unity space. To fix it, to help the Morvena help themselves, we have to do a little wrong.”
A blat sounded from another station and the Grak there snarled something to Garrasta, whose whiskers rippled into a scowl. “Orbital Control demands we hold in place. And the Home Fleet is powering up Drives and weapons.”
“Help us,” Ylura repeated.
Claws tap-tapped on an armrest and Garrasta worked his furry jaw. Finally, raising a hand to fidget with one of the stubby horns running back along his skull from his brow, he offered an impish grin.
“Tell me a little more about how the Republic might compensate a friend who did them a very great favor...”