43

BEING ABOARD THE UDUKIIN cruiser was uncomfortable for all the pilots, but less so for Cagliari. The rest of Outlaw Squadron—or the three flights of three she'd brought with her—had remained in the hangar with their fighters, but Cagliari had joined Sigurdsson on what passed for the command deck on Her Glorious Vengeance. She was still uncomfortable being surrounded by udukiin, but at least she had one friendly face.

Jaeger looked up at her and wagged his tail.

Make that two friendly faces.

Sigurdsson, despite all appearances and her fearsome reputation, was nervous.

"I've never fought a space battle before," she said quietly. "This is Radko's thing, not mine."

"You're not fighting it," said Cagliari, nodding toward the ship's captain.

His name, she was fairly certain, was Gholl and the way he paced the command deck, checking in on every station, Cagliari doubted anyone could possibly be more prepared for a battle.

"Your crew seems to know what they're doing."

Sigurdsson turned toward her, half-smiling.

"I know. I just don't like being out of my element."

"Imagine being sidelined completely. Knowing you can help, but having the one thing you need in order to help being locked away."

"I'm glad we could get them back for you."

"Fuck, so am I!" she said, laughing. "Have you heard of the Royal Sovereign?"

Sigurdsson nodded.

"Radko mentioned it a couple times. Big battleship, right?"

"That’s the one," said Cagliari. "My father's company designed it, seriously so far ahead of any other designs that had been proposed it was mind-blowing. But after the shit hit the fan and the Commonwealth asked ATC Castle to finish it, I was shut out. I designed a good quarter of its systems, but I wasn't good enough to help finish the damn thing."

She shook her head as much to clear away the anger as to express her disbelief.

"I need to stop getting so worked up about it, I know. It's just really frustrating."

"You are such a walking contradiction, you know that?"

"What?" said Cagliari, genuinely confused.

"Cags, you're a rich kid, a trust fund kid, a legendary party girl... who also designed some of the most sophisticated starfighters ever seen. And designed advanced systems on the most sophisticated warship ever built. And," said Sigurdsson, with a shake of her head. "You're only twenty six."

"Well... I'll be twenty seven in a couple of months."

"Still."

"Yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that it seems like I wasted a lot of time on drinking, fucking and getting stoned. Like I wonder what we could have done... I wonder what the Commonwealth's defenses would have looked like if I'd taken all of that energy and put it into projects at the company, rather than pissing it away clubbing," she said, running both hands through her short, blue hair. "Would we have been better prepared for this? Would we have been able to prevent them from taking Earth if we'd gotten the Argentavis into production sooner? If I'd started working on the Royal Sovereign systems sooner or put more time into it earlier?"

Gently, Sigurdsson placed a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder and offered her a sympathetic smile.

"Congratulations, you've made it to the guilt phase of your leadership role," she said. "Here's the thing: no one person was ever going to prevent this clusterfuck. Honestly, we're an insanely fractured species. We hate each other over the smallest differences, we fight wars over whose invisible friend is the one true invisible friend—hell, we fight over who is worshipping the same invisible friend in the right way. The point is, we're so goddamned factional and so goddamned stubborn about it that we're an easy mark for invasion. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner."

She could see in Cagliari's face there was an argument forming, so Sigurdsson held up a blue finger. It still sometimes surprised her that she had icaran hands.

"Unless your fighters or computers or other crazy inventions were going to change human nature and make us all come together and sing around the fucking campfire, you were not going to change what happened."

"I guess," said Cagliari, crossing her arms in what seemed a very teenager way to disagree without verbally disagreeing.

"Don't sulk. We don't allow sulking here," said Sigurdsson. "The ship is called Her Glorious Vengeance, not Her Unshakable Moodiness."

Thankfully, Cagliari laughed.

An alert began to sound and suddenly Gholl was at their side.

"The enemy ship approaches," he said.

With a nod, Cagliari headed off toward the hangar, calling back to Sigurdsson over her shoulder.

"I'll be back before you know it."

Regardless of the situation she faced, Cagliari always felt so relaxed the moment she was raised into the pitch black of the Argentavis. That moment of calm blackness and then the UHUD kicked in and she smiled. That moment was better than any opiod she'd ever tried, and she'd tried most.

"Okay. Time to fly."

She tapped on the holographic display to go through her quick pre-flight check and then cycled up her engines.

"Outlaw One to Outlaw Squadron—all wings check in."

"Outlaw Ten, Eleven and Twelve confirm ready," said Bozon, checking in for his flight.

"Outlaw Seven, Eight and Nine confirm same," said Daxma.

Glancing at the UHUD, Cagliari saw her own wingmen, Outlaw Two—Tverdovsky—and Outlaw Three—whose name was Jacobs, but whom everyone referred to as Snake—checking in with their readiness.

"All right," she said. "This is a hit and run, the goal is to disable. They can't see us on LiDAR, but don't get complacent—we need to get this done before Her Glorious Vengeance takes too much fire."

With that, she gave the launch command and her fighter, with her two wingmen at her side, rocketed out of the udukiin ship and into space. The black wings of her Argentavis spread wide as she accelerated toward the target

"This is what I was born to do," she murmured.

"Attack ATC Castle vessels?" asked the tinny, disembodied voice of Daxma.

"Fly," said Cagliari, chuckling. "Fly, Daxma."

"Understood."

"Adirondack weapon emplacements are active, Outlaw Squadron."

It was Sigurdsson, her voice piped through the direct line from Her Glorious Vengeance to the whole squadron.

As Cagliari watched, the Adirondack launched two missiles, both at Her Glorious Vengeance. A warning shot, no doubt hoping to scare off the udukiin—an absurd hope, as far as Cags was concerned, but she wasn't going to complain about Vossek using up his ammunition. Besides, it meant that however they'd tracked the Azrael's Tear, the same methods were ineffective against the Argentavis fighter. With the udukiin warship appearing, the ATC Castle ship had given up its pursuit of the Azrael's Tear and Captain Singh was taking full advantage, his pilot steering the pirate ship over and behind Her Glorious Vengeance before rocketing off away from the engagement.

"Mission at least part-way accomplished," murmured Cags.

In Cagliari's estimation, the Adirondack was an ugly ship. It simply had no style. A rounded wedge-shape, the craft had three conical engines positioned at the end of three short, articulated arms. It was almost painfully typical in design, a real-world counterpart of the "rocket ship" look popularized in early science fiction.

But it did have teeth, she had to admit.

She and her flight wheeled to avoid a rail gun round that whizzed safely past its real target—the udukiin cruiser.

"Outlaw Squadron," she said, the built-in systems of the Argentavis automatically connecting her through to the whole group. "Priority targets as follows—Blue Flight rail guns; Orange Flight engines; Black Flight, comm relays."

Orange was the flight led by Daxma, while Black belonged to Bozon. Blue, of course, was Cagliari.

"Priority target confirmed Outlaw One," said Daxma.

"Confirmed," said Bozon. "Comm relays targeted."

The three flights split off, each wheeling and diving and swooping toward their targets.

Bozon's group was the first to open fire and Cags could only imagine the confusion aboard the Adirondack as they began to take damage without having seen anyone fire at them. A second later, Cags had a rail gun emplacement in her sights and unloaded a barrage of her own. The hull around the rail gun ruptured and bloomed in a brief fireball and then the Adirondack began listing to one side—an engine had just been knocked offline thanks to Daxma's flight.

Aboard Her Glorious Vengeance, Sigurdsson stood nervously beside Gholl, hands clasped behind her back and Jaeger, as always, standing stock still and alert at her side. His tail was straight up, the dog clearly sensing her anxiety.

A small shudder ran through the ship.

"Missile impact," said one of the udukiin.

"Negligible damage," said another.

"Enemy ship has taken damage," chimed in a third.

Gholl simply nodded at each update, never taking his eyes from the large, pentagonal viewport in front of which he and Sigurdsson stood, watching the battle unfold.

"She's lost an engine," said Sigurdsson, her fingers twitching nervously. Being an observer rather than a participant in the battle was more difficult than she'd imagined.

"And weaponry," said Gholl, calmly inclining his head.

He was right. Plumes of debris and vented gas erupted from several points on the Adirondack and their rate of fire had dropped to less than half.

Sigurdsson tapped the device on the bulkhead that connected her to the fighters.

"Outlaw One, status report."

"Doing just fine, Freyja," came Cagliari's reply. She sounded like she was smiling. "Looks like we have another engine out and no fire being taken by any Outlaws to this point."

Sigurdsson nodded to herself and hoped it would stay that way.

"Enemy ship has lost a second engine," said an udukiin.

"And have now lost propulsion," said Gholl as the third and final engine on the Adirondack flared in a bright flash and tore itself apart. "I would recommend we have the fighters withdraw, Kaigor Kai Rii. Her Glorious Vengeance can finish this."

"Disable only," she said firmly.

"As you wish."

"Outlaw Squadron," she said, activating the link once more. "Bring the birds back to the nest—we're about to show ATC Castle how this ship gets its name."

"Understood, Freyja."

After a few moments, Sigurdsson saw the flash of light on black wings as the Outlaws returned to the hangar almost directly below the command deck. She nodded to Gholl, who rubbed his chin and stared at the Adirondack a moment before issuing his order.

"Preliminary barrage," he said. "Fifty percent capacity."

There was no acknowledgement of the order, it was simply and efficiently carried out. The weapon emplacements along the upper parts of Her Glorious Vengeance's X-shaped hull erupted and hundreds of projectiles slammed into the Adirondack. Pieces broke off its hull and something exploded in its nose cone, but the ship remained intact and Sigurdsson couldn't see any venting oxygen.

"Do you wish to speak with them, Kaigor Kai Rii?" asked Gholl.

She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. Vossek might recognize her voice, which would connect this whole encounter to Radko, which would defeat the purpose of her bringing the udukiin ship out as the interceptor.

"You can speak on my behalf, Gholl."

At a snap of his fingers a channel was opened.

"Human vessel, this is Gholl Kai Rendrek, steward of Her Glorious Vengeance. Respond."

When the reply came, it was Vossek. His voice was tight, but Sigurdsson couldn't tell if it was fear or fury or both.

"Rendrek," he said, making the typical human mistake with udukiin names. "You have launched an unprovoked attack on-"

"Cease speaking, shithead," said Gholl, and Sigurdsson could see the twinkle in his eyes as he said it—she'd taught him the term specifically for this purpose and the normally stoic Gholl had seemed delighted to employ it. "You violated the Udukiin Priex. You brought violence to the Shattered World. This will be your only warning—should your vessel approach the Priex again, you will be destroyed."

There was a pause and Sigurdsson had little doubt that Vossek was consulting with someone.

"Rendrek, we were in pursuit of a fugitive, a traitor who-"

"You were in pursuit of the one who returned our Matriarch," said Gholl and it seemed the temperature on the command deck dropped several degrees. "You represent those who stole her from us. That you are not currently being tortured to death is but for the grace and compassion of the Kaigor Kai Rii. Do not waste her compassion."

Gholl glanced up at Sigurdsson.

"For I do not believe it to be limitless."

And he immediately closed the channel.

"Fire again," he said. "Ten percent capacity."

The udukiin cannons peppered the Adirondack again, an exclamation point of sorts on Gholl's statement to Vossek.

"All fighters have returned," said one of the crew.

"Enemy ship is disabled. No activity in engine systems or weapon systems," announced another.

Sigurdsson nodded, staring for a moment at the drifting Adirondack. As long as people like Vossek were around to put their own interests first, humanity would always be an easy mark for invaders. She sighed, then turned to Gholl.

"Take us back to Carncastle Gate, Captain."

The trip was quick and had been quick all around—intercepting the Adirondack, dealing with it and getting back—but it still felt like too long. Sigurdsson had paced the deck the entire time and once they'd arrived back at the rendezvous and Outlaw Squadron had returned to the Vimy Ridge, Sigurdsson herself took the first available shuttle over. The udukiin weren't pleased about it, but she took a pair of guards, which allayed their fears somewhat.

"How are we going to do this?" she asked, once she'd dismissed her guards and she and Radko were alone in the crew lounge.

He poured two cups of tea and handed one of them to her.

"Do what?"

"Keep it all together. I was thinking about it while we were disabling the Adirondack," said Sigurdsson, blowing on her tea to cool it. "People like Vossek are never going to be on board with the kind of cooperation we're trying to build here. And there are a lot more people like Vossek than I think either of us wants to admit."

"And some of them are really highly placed," said Radko, nodding and sipping. "But we did get Zhang on board and he's one of the last people I'd have expected to be allied with."

"True. Still, we're so entrenched in our factionalism... holy fuck Finn, I'm starting to talk like you."

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked with a chuckle.

"No, it's just I'm supposed to be the blunt instrument of this arrangement and you're the philosopher."

"Philosopher, huh?"

"You know what I mean. You're the one who's all about setting aside differences for the greater good. I guess you're rubbing off on me more than I thought."

"Or maybe being Kaigor Kai Rii is bringing out your sense of purpose?"

Sigurdsson paused mid-sip and looked at him over the rim of her mug. The thought hadn't occurred to her that by taking on this role with the udukiin, her perspective on the war would change. She had always been responsible for the lives of others, but always in small, manageable groups and usually, aside from a handful of soldiers directly under her command, her responsibility was for the protection of the group. Now she wielded the kind of power and influence she'd never even dreamed of. She could send an entire species to war.

Their lives were in her hands.

Their future was in her hands.

Maybe Radko was right and she'd subconsciously adapted to her new role. She briefly wondered if her passenger was altering her thought processes at all, but she immediately felt—both on her own and through a feeling that came from the Matriarch—that such alteration of minds was beyond her capabilities even if it had been within her desires. Which Sigurdsson felt fairly strongly it was not.

"I do feel the weight of responsibility, that's for sure," she said finally. "Seriously Finn, on a scale of one to ten how fucking crazy are we?"

"I'd say a solid thirteen."

"That's about what I was thinking," she said, downing the rest of her tea in a single gulp, then leaning on the bulkhead beside Radko. "We've talked a lot about me, given... given I'm now an alien warlord. What about you? How are you holding up with all this shit?"

"I'm fine," Radko said, taking another sip of tea.

"Yeah, my bullshit detector is going haywire."

He forced a smile and set his mug on the nearby table and when he leaned back against the bulkhead, he shifted over slightly so his shoulder pressed against hers.

"I don't know. That's the honest truth, Freyja—I don't know. I haven't had time to be anything but Finn Radko, CO of the Vimy Ridge. I haven't had time. And I just lied to you, because I know I'm not holding up well."

Frowning, Sigurdsson rested her head against his, but didn't speak.

"I'm terrified this isn't going to work. That I'm just going to lead all these ships, all these resources—all these amazing, courageous people—into oblivion and in doing so kneecap any future defense against the enemy," he said. "I'm worried about what's happening on Thor's Hammer. Are those assholes going to just keep picking off my friends one by one with these sham trials? And if they run out of friends are they just going to start rounding up people who I had lunch with once, or talked to at a party?"

He felt her fingers intertwine with his and he smiled slightly, squeezing gently.

"And there's Cortez. Anna Cortez who deserved a nice, long, happy life. I was already blaming myself for her cancer and now she's been executed for no other reason than that she supported me. How do I even start to process that?"

"I wish I had some answers for you. All I really have for you is that I believe in this mission. I believe that this is our best shot at breaking the ril-galas hold on us. And I believe in you," she said, squeezing his hand. "Not just Commander Radko the Invincible, but Finn. The guy. The guy who was there for me at Fort Hathaway when I needed a friendly voice. The guy who, when he couldn't come help me himself, sent me enough troops and gear to get us through. The guy who barely missed a beat when I showed up with alien arms."

They both chuckled at that.

"That guy?" she said. "Fuck, man. That's the guy I'm following, not this Commander Radko asshole people treat like a superhero."

"You're such a sweet-talker," he said, laughing.

"I'm a leader now, I need to be all speechy and shit," she said. "But I'm also being serious. No one is here at Carncastle Gate out of boredom, we're all here because we know your plan and recognize it as a good plan. And all of you—the Vimy Ridge, Outlaw Squadron, the three icaran ships, the Tianlong—thought you had a good enough chance at victory to justify the risk before you added two udukiin cruisers to the team."

She stood up straight, stretched, then turned to face Radko, putting a hand on each shoulder.

"And while I may be biased," she said. "I think we're a pretty major addition."

"You'll get no argument from me," he said. "And thank you. Really. It's just... it's nice to have someone I can talk to. Someone I can talk to as Finn, not as that asshole superhero guy."

"I'm here for whatever you need."