“I am… I am sorry if I offended you, Lohil,” the boy said, still trying to fix his breathing, blood slowly rushing back to his face.
Ray’s look was blank. He lowered his stare, not having the courage to meet with Elaine’s. “I—“
“Just leave us, Lohil,” Elaine hissed, trembling.
***
Sim’Ra watched the exchange with a smirk from a dark corner of the library, playing idly with one of his earrings.
“Do you find this funny?” Brother Cavil’s voice came from his right. The priest gestured to Ray and Elaine, arguing on one of the book platforms in the distance.
Sim’Ra looked at the old priest slowly. “Funny would not be the word to express my sentiment, priest.” But he couldn’t help laughing in his deep, layered voice.
“Mockery then.” Brother Cavil snorted. “I do not like you one bit, creature of the dark.”
Sim’Ra smiled and left the old man in his fury. Amusement, old man. Amusement. Witnessing the deconstruction of a man, piece by piece.
ONE LAST VOYAGE
“Report,” Rebecca barked. “Mr. Jong, what the hell is happening to my ship?”
Lieutenant Commander Jong’s fingers were whitened from the force of his grip on the console. “One of the charges ruptured the power line to the second bow mortar.” He fell on his knee, cursing and yelling in pain.
“Can we separate the ship?” Rebecca held the main tactical display console with all her power, trying to stay balanced.
“The separation is complete, ma’am.” He was back on his feet, deep lines on his face from the effort. “The problem is; that power line is unstable, and we cannot clear in time to avoid a blast.”
“Damn it! Just give everything to the thrusters and put as much distance as you can between us and that husk.” The superdreadnought’s command section had separated from the main body, hovering over the huge engine section now adrift. Over a dozen red dots blinked on the ship damage panel, marking the clamps' blast points. More than half of the locks had to be freed manually by task teams as the remote controls were unresponsive, and some needed explosives.
Rebecca switched the display to show the thruster section of the now-separated main body. “What is that?”
“I cannot say, Admiral. It looks like a type of web,” Lieutenant Commander Jong replied over his station.
Rebecca touched her communicator. “Mr. Ga’an, what is your status?”
“We—” Static interrupted the communication. “—two levels below. They—co—”
Rebecca slammed her free hand on the console. “Somebody, clean this signal,” she hissed.
“Ma’am,” an officer acknowledged and nodded at the admiral after a moment of tweaking his console.
“Mr. Ga’an?”
“Admiral Conway, we are on our way, two levels below the command deck. We managed to separate the stern section from this end,” Ga’an’s voice was tired, and he was panting. “We will join with task force Iota and help them clean the remaining bugs.”
“There are bugs on our end?”
“The woman, Vengeance, and her forces are left behind, but two of the checkpoints were breached before the separation.”
“Acknowledged,” Rebecca said, cutting the connection. “Mr. Jong,” she turned to her tactical officer, still wincing at each rattle of the ship, or what was left of it. “What is our situation?”
Lieutenant Commander Jong dropped on his knees again from the secondary thrusters' sudden kick while he switched screens, but he pulled himself together as fast as he fell, reading the sensor data. “We are close to a hundred kilometers and moving apart three kilometers per second with constant acceleration.”
“The blast radius?”
“I prefer to be at least three hundred kilometers away without our main shield batteries, Ma’am. I do not believe we have more than twenty seconds left before that line explodes.”
Rebecca leaned on the tactical display for a second, collecting her thoughts. “All right, halt the engines but do not engage the stabilizer brakes. We will kite away from the main hull, but I want this ship turned around to face the explosion head-on.”
“Ma’am?”
“We have separated the ship, Mr. Jong. We are lacking the luxury of having armor to protect our belly. The hull is strongest around the bridge section. Now, I do not want to reduce our acceleration. Let us put as much distance between us and the blast as possible. But I also want to face that blast with the strongest part of this command section.”
Lieutenant Commander Jong nodded, understanding the maneuver.
“Everybody,” Rebecca pressed the ship announcement button, “brace for impact.”
As if to complement her words, a bright, light blue star dawned in the near distance, and the shockwave struck the command section moments later. Rebecca was sure she saw two officers flying over her head, landing behind one of the navigation consoles rather hard. She somehow held on to the main display console at the expense of hurting her wrist. She screamed but couldn’t hear her own voice in the chaos on the bridge. The lights died after a few flickers, and in the dark, the fire suppression system began pumping foam on them.
“Report,” she half-coughed, half-screamed after the rumbling—or an earthquake, depending on one’s definition of a rumble—had passed.
“Ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Jong replied. He looked uninjured except for a bruise on his left cheek. “It was the shockwave.”
“No kidding, Mr. Jong.”
“We are clear of it, but we are adrift. Thrusters are down.”
Rebecca nodded, “Can you fix it?”
“Probably. The capacitors must have overloaded with the force of the blast. We may be able to get them back online in a few minutes.”
“Do it.”
Rebecca touched her communicator with her strong hand. “Mr. Ga’an? Come in.”
“We are all right, Admiral Conway,” Ga’an replied. “We lost three men to one of those mantis creatures, and a beam fell on a marine’s head after the explosion.”
“Any sign of bugs?”
“The scans are negative. I believe we are clear of the invaders.”
“Good. Regroup and return to the bridge. Conway out.” Rebecca sighed. They had averted a disaster, but the cost was high. Most of her ship was now space junk. We are pushing the limits of survival with our tenacity.
***
Observer, Vengeance connected through the bond as she opened her eyes inside the cocoon covering her body, hanging in space afloat, a few kilometers away from the dead ship’s debris.
I am here, sister. What will you report?
The woman, Rebecca, and her kin escaped, but I crippled their vessel. I will continue the hunt. She looked at the small ship disappearing into the dark of space. I will form a nest here and rally the forces.
I will relay your word to the Mother. She will not be pleased to hear the human has escaped. We felt many of our family fall in agony.
Vengeance tensed, her right eye twitching. I will deliver her message. I will avenge their lives.
That is all that was asked of you.
ONE MAN’S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE
The command section of Deviator approached the ship graveyard slowly. Rebecca and her crew watched the debris and bodies of long-dead ships grow bigger on the central display.
“What is our status?” Rebecca said, squinting to make out the details of the junkyard.
Ga’an looked at his datapad, his jaw tightened, and he mumbled something about spirits and blood. Then more clearly, “We have five Avengers and one Marauder bomber parked in the forward hangar bay. The rest were docked at the main hull hangars. We still have all the remaining mechs and close to two hundred defense drones.” Ga’an’s eyes twitched. “We lost thirty-three able men and woman in the defense, Admiral Conway. Another eleven are missing in action.”
Rebecca sighed. “How many total?”
Ga’an moved his eyes away f
rom the datapad, looking at Rebecca directly. “We have yet to do a precise headcount, but the preliminary reports suggest we lost close to half of our people in the initial attack.”
“Half the colony…” Rebecca stared at her right hand. It shuddered as if someone suddenly turned off the heaters on the bridge. She put a lot of effort into stopping it from trembling again, feeling the muscles around her eyes tensing. “That is almost five thousand people.”
Ga’an didn’t say anything, watching Rebecca in silence.
“We have arrived at our destination. Be ready,” the computer announced in Ga’an’s recorded voice, and Rebecca was content with the announcements for a change. Right on time.
“Admiral Conway,” Lieutenant Commander Jong called over his station. “Faint energy signatures are emitting from the field.”
“Utility tugs?” Ga’an suggested.
“Probably salvaging metal from the husks,” Rebecca said and turned back to navigation. “Helm, take us closer to the field. Mr. Jong,” she waved at her tactical officer, “see if you can locate a base or an active ship. I want to talk to the owner of this junkyard.”
“No need to, Ma’am. We are being hailed.”
“Hmm. That was fast.” Rebecca signaled the feed to be put on the main screen.
A plump, white-bearded man appeared before them. He wore simple leather clothing as dirty as his face, covered in smears. “Well, well,” he said, smiling in a way that disturbed Rebecca down to her bones. “Welcome to our humble establishment.”
Rebecca looked at the holographic display, weighing the size of the field. “Humble would not be my word of choice. It seems you have quite the collection.”
“My team works hard to keep our inventory stocked,” the man said, a grin showing his yellowed teeth. “I am Borjan Lero, the owner of this fine establishment.”
“Admiral Rebecca Conway, Consortium Fleet First Banner.”
“Consortium, eh?” Borjan nodded. “You are a long way from home, missus.”
“Admiral.”
“Of course,” the man broadened his sly smile, “Admiral.” He let himself relax in his chair and scratched his belly. “You are a long way from Consortium space. I wonder how you ended up here, Admiral.”
Rebecca smiled coldly. “We need repairs and extra parts.”
Borjan reached toward a screen on his left, touching a few buttons. “It seems you need more than a few parts to fix that superdreadnought of yours, Admiral.”
“I do not believe I like this man, Admiral Conway,” Ga’an whispered.
Rebecca ignored Ga’an’s comment. “Mr. Lero, can you provide us with what we need or not?”
“We have an older superdreadnought husk lying about somewhere here. And a carrier husk even from the first expedition times. The question is,” Borjan came closer to the screen, his smile fading off from his face, “how will you pay?”
“The Consortium will compensate you in full.”
“Ah, yes,” the man smirked, “the Consortium. Perhaps you haven’t heard the news, missus, but your precious Consortium is gone. It’s every planet for themselves back at the core worlds, from what I’ve heard. Total chaos. That war with the invading aliens, what was their name…” he paused, itching his dirty beard, “…Baeal, yes! That war with Baeal really crippled the Consortium. They are no longer the big player they were.”
Rebecca licked her lips, sharing a sidelong glance with Ga’an. This is going nowhere.
“I don’t think you have a few billion credits lying around to buy yourself a husk. That command section of yours,” Borjan knit his brows. “It saw serious battle, I’d say. Two hundred million credits for the repairs. The drones and the engineering team can do it in two weeks’ standard time.”
Rebecca shook her head at the communications officer to mute the signal and turned away from the screen. “Mr. Ga’an, what do you think?”
“We do not have enough credits,” the Nucteel said in disgust.
“I am aware of that, Mr. Ga’an. I am not about to put a donation box in front of the bridge elevator.”
“If this was the Empire, this man would have been executed for extortion.” Ga’an stopped to think for a moment. “Not that we had any money in the Empire.”
“Well,” Rebecca opened her hands, “this is not your Empire.”
“We can offer the fighters and the drones,” suggested Lieutenant Commander Jong, but Rebecca shook her head.
“None of them are worth a fraction of that cost,” she tapped her left index finger on the console. “All right, turn it back on,” she said.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’re serious about your needs, Admiral,” the man, Borjan said, still grinning with that awful smile of his.
“Four hundred million credits plus our damaged superdreadnought husk in return for your first generation carrier hull and your navigation charts to the core systems.”
The man’s smile faded, “I don’t see this husk of yours, Admiral.”
“It’s close by. A day’s distance with thrusters. It’s the newest generation, siege variant.”
Borjan seemed unconvinced. “Why are you trading a superior hull for worse? What’s the catch?”
“The catch is, Mr. Lero, I do not have the resources to fix its damages. I prefer a vessel that I can use as a ship and be on my way. You can salvage at least four billion credits worth of materials from that hull. If you can repair the plating, double that price.”
Borjan narrowed his eyes for a few seconds, his forehead wrinkling as he inspected Rebecca. “I want the credits now,” he said finally.
“No,” Rebecca shook her head, clasping her hands behind her back. “First, we connect to the husk. My engineering team inspects the status of your husk while you salvage the one we left behind. If everything is in working order, we finalize the payment. No ifs, no ands, no buts. You are already laying your hands on superior technology.” Rebecca glowered. “This deal is as good as it gets, Mr. Lero.”
Borjan Lero laughed. “You drive a hard bargain, missus.” He visibly relaxed. “You can start your approach. I’ll have a few of my boys to help you with the maneuvers, overseeing things.”
Rebecca nodded, signaling for the communication to be cut.
Ga’an spoke the moment the screen was dead. “We do not have the necessary credits, Admiral Conway. And the husk we left behind was destroyed in the explosion.”
Rebecca turned to face Ga’an. “They do not need to know that Mr. Ga’an.”
“So… we are stealing their ship?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said, walking away from the console. “Mr. Jong, prepare for the docking procedures. Coordinate with the engineering team. I want you to check the drive core as fast as you can and make a jump to a safe zone outside of this system the moment we are done with the clamps.”
“What about the salvage team coming on board?” Ga’an asked.
“You will detain them, put them in the escape pods and fire their pods a few seconds before the jump. Make sure they are stripped of any communication devices.”
Ga’an frowned. “I do not like this, Admiral Conway. It is not honorable.”
“Mr. Ga’an, it is all about survival now.”
The first officer didn’t say anything, but his growl was an expression as deep and colorful as words. Rebecca wasn’t proud of herself, but she didn’t need to feel proud. They were adrift in space without a jump drive and with no jump gates around. Even if Rebecca knew where they were exactly, their journey to civilization would take centuries to complete with the impulse drive only. Rebecca wondered if there was a civilization left to return to. The man’s words weighed heavily on her shoulders, but she refused to let her concerns seize control of her thoughts. Weird bugs were still chasing them, and unless this mess with Raymond Harris was resolved, she was sure sooner or later, another galactic catastrophe would find its way to their backyard.
“Prepare your team, Mr. Ga’an.”
***
&nbs
p; “Gentlemen,” Ga’an saluted the seven men as they got off their shuttle in the hangar bay. They all looked like scoundrels to the Nucteel’s eyes, but he kept that to himself.
One of Borjan’s men, a short, chubby one, whistled. “You’re one giant man. Name’s Kirby. These are my boys.”
“Welcome aboard Deviator. Please follow me,” Ga’an said, waving the escorts to follow.
Kirby looked at the escort detail, clicking his tongue. “Some welcome party.” He grinned nervously. “Expecting trouble?”
Ga’an stopped and turned. “Yes.”
Kirby nodded slowly. “All right, easy.” His eyes met one of the engineers from Borjan’s team, and he winked.
Then it was pure chaos.
The supposed engineering team jumped on the nearby guards, two of them pulling out wrist guns hidden in their coats, shooting at the unsuspecting marines. The escort detail—the ones alert enough to react—returned fire, but the assailants were too close to give justice to an assault rifle’s effective range. One shredded the leg of one of Borjan’s men, his screams filling the hangar bay. The one who called himself Kirby stabbed a young officer, Alex Atkins, right under his ribs several times, dropping the poor kid.
Ga’an growled and pulled out his pistol, shooting down a redheaded goon with a blind right eye. “Taskforce, engage the hostiles,” he barked at his communicator, and twenty more soldiers waiting at the ready rushed into the hangar from behind one of the service doors at Ga’an’s order. “Take them out!”
In less than a minute, the whole conflict had ended with four casualties on Ga’an’s end and three of Borjan’s men lying dead, and two critically wounded.
“So, this was a ruse,” Kirby said, licking the blood dripping from his lips.
“On both ends, it seems,” Ga’an said. “You will be sent back to your ship when the maneuver is over.”
“Yeah, in body bags?” Kirby nodded at his men lying dead.
Ga’an looked at the dead bodies, “You started the violence, Mr. Kirby. You should have known better than to assault a military vessel with seven men.”
Kirby grinned. “Who said we are seven?”
Balance of Power: The Blackened Prophecy Book 2 Page 16
