by Jean Johnson
When the airlock sealed shut behind Rico, the last of the Damned to leave, she unstrapped from the command chair and visited the head. Fixed herself a mug of water with a sipping lid. Brought it and a snack packet back to her station and redonned the safety harness. Tapping in a command manually, she shifted the view on her right secondary screen from blank nothingness to the dorsal view of the slightly oversized OTL courier parked one gantry up from hers.
Like her old Delta-VX from her time on the Blockade, it fell into the Harrier Class of ships, though it was a single vessel, not two mated together. It was also small enough; it could’ve fit into one of the hangar bays on board the Saratoga Jones. The captain had agreed to park it at a gantry instead, in order to make the short trip of her crew from ship to ship as inconspicuous as possible.
As she watched, sipping from her mug, the oversized courier finally detached from the Battle Platform. It drifted away, then gently turned and shimmered, activating its insystem thrusters. The insystem field was more primitive than FTL warp panels, yet more fuel-efficient at speeds below three-quarters Cee. With a pulse that fluttered and rippled the starlight along the Harasser’s polished grey hull, the ship soared away from the Battle Platform.
Ia’s yeomen pilots maneuvered their much larger ship with thrusters. FTL was tricky; milliseconds of misuse could literally translate to kilometers of travel at higher speeds. With her reflexes coupled to the timestreams, using FTL had allowed her to dodge laserfire from both enemy and allied ships. For instances where accuracy was vital, such as that Choya task force sent to Earth, she used the insystem method like a sane pilot would.
A simple maneuver such as leaving the Saratoga Jones was a lot saner than the madness of combat. Finishing her mug, she returned it to the galley, tossed the emptied plexi packet into the recycler—out of habit, not because she expected the material to be recycled—and used the head one more time. When she sat down at her station for the third time, she activated the comms.
“This is TUPSF Hellfire to Battle Platform Saratoga Jones, requesting permission to undock and depart.” This was usually handled by the comm tech, one of the many operations that happened seamlessly, smoothly in the background of a well-run bridge. She waited for a reply, and got one within a few moments.
“Hellfire, this is Docking Control. You have permission to decouple and depart. Godspeed, and go smash some more of the enemy for us,” the unnamed comptroller added. This was the first time they’d docked briefly at this particular Battle Platform. The reputation of the Damned, which she had painstakingly built over the last two years, had preceded them, however.
“Thank you, Saratoga Jones,” Ia acknowledged, smiling slightly. “We’ll do our best. Hellfire out.”
Flying the ship solo required several command overrides. It was an attempt by the Space Force at preventing their ships from being hijacked by their enemies, whether amphibious or criminal. Ia manipulated each one electrokinetically, decoupling the clamps that held them to their gantry. A gentle pulse of the thrusters drifted them away from the oversized hybrid of warship and space station. Another gentle pulse turned her ship onto a vector similar to the courier’s.
Warming up the insystem thrusters, she set the Hellfire on a course that would take it away from the Battle Platform by a good thousand klicks. A slide of her fingertips over the helm controls brought the FTL panels online, trembling them forward by the pulsing of the fields that greased the palms of normal physics, making Newton and Einstein roll in their graves.
The Harrier-Class dropship carrying her crew vanished via OTL before she even reached one-quarter Cee, punching open a hole into hyperspace and sucking itself through. On the far side, Ia knew the ship would arrive somewhere near Dabin’s outermost gas giant. At that point, her entire crew would climb into their mechsuits and await a short hop that would bring them skimming in close to Dabin’s atmosphere. From there, it would be a matter of a short dip down to a low enough altitude to be air-dropped behind friendly lines.
The courier had a ninety percent chance of escaping the ensuing counterattack from the Choyan and Salik warships blockading the planet, if all went well. If it did not, and they were pursued, Helstead had carefully memorized a chunk of Dabin landscape from surveillance images captured a good five klicks up, and would teleport the ship to that zone so they could drop out. It would leave everyone on board nauseated from the jump, and possibly incapacitate the redhead for a few hours from the backlash of overextending herself in moving that much mass, but it was a viable means of ensuring everyone arrived where and when they needed to go.
Everyone except Ia. She had to get there the hard way.
The transition to faster-than-light happened smoothly. Dots burst as grey bubbles and collapsed into streaks of prismatic light. Setting the ship to fly on automatic, and for the onboard sensors to beep at her if anything went wrong—less than one-hundredth of a percent in probability, but still a possibility—she twisted a little in her seat, slouched, hooked her legs up over the left-hand console in as much comfort as the harness would allow, and settled in for a nap.
With the ship fully fueled, the trip from CS 47 to the edge of the Dabinae System wasn’t going to tax the engines. It would just take her twenty hours to get there. Twenty hours of head-aching boredom. Her datapads had been packed up along with her other belongings and shipped off earlier. Some of the more time-sensitive stuff had been packed into Harper’s last-minute kitbag, with the rest shipped off to meet up with their next ship.
Without even so much as her prophecies for distraction, and no interest in watching anything from the entertainment databanks, there was nothing for Ia to do but nap and wait, nap and wait. Mostly nap. All those long, long days were beginning to catch up to her. Awkward as her perch was, as much as the device back in engineering made her skull throb, at least everything was secure enough that she could nap, for now.
JUNE 1, 2498 T.S.
ONE LIGHT-MONTH OUT FROM THE DABINAE SYSTEM
The ship’s shields fluttered. Cracking open an eyelid at the first warning beep, Ia studied the screens. The navicomp had her main screen lit up, a tiny green-circled dot insisting that the approaching ship was an allied Terran vessel. She knew better. The signature codes were all fake, inserted into the Space Force’s registry by clever electrokinetic programming.
The other vessel slowed as it approached. It also hailed the Hellfire. Activating the comm system, Ia gave them a pingback, waited for a response, and opened the requested link.
“TUPSF Zizka to TUPSF Hellfire, boy are we glad to find you out here.”
Ia didn’t bother to activate the vid half of the link. Adjusting her headset, which had slipped while she had caught up on far too many months of shorted sleep, she stretched, rubbed the bridge of her nose where that persistent behind-the-sinuses ache from the anti-psi machine continued to throb, and replied. “Greetings, Zizka, this is the Hellfire. What brings you all the way out here?”
“We have an urgent message from Vice Commodore William Quan of the Special Forces Psi Division. The vice commodore is a registered precog. He swears he’s had a vision running contrary to what you told the Command Staff about the upcoming battle on Dabin and wishes to board so he can personally compare your version versus his. Do we have permission to dock?”
“TUPSF Zizka, you have permission to grapple to the portside amidships airlock. The Captain says she looks forward to chatting with your vice commodore,” Ia added, suppressing the urge to smile. She didn’t want it showing up in the tone of her voice. Apparently these criminals hadn’t yet realized that they needed the Admiral-General’s permission to board this ship legitimately. Myang had reluctantly permitted Ia’s request to destroy the ship rather than let it fall into enemy hands, though the head of the Space Force undoubtedly thought this moment would come violently. Not peacefully. “Let me ping you the navicomp link for a smooth docking.”
“Thank you, Hellfire.”
Unbuckling—since they were s
till at least five minutes away—Ia visited the head one last time. She could do nothing about the fact she was still clad in yesterday’s clothes, just a plain, rumpled grey shirt and darker grey slacks, but she did finger-comb her white locks more or less straight in the mirror over the sink, rinsed her mouth with a plexi cup to get the fuzzy taste out, and took a few moments to close her eyes, center her mind, and calm herself. Her head still ached, but it was bearable.
Tossing the cup in the recycler, she visited her quarters. With that brief task handled, Ia returned to the bridge and resumed her seat. She did not reattach the harness. She did, however, flip up the little door built into the side of her console and grasped the two electrodes hidden within the little alcove.
As the two ships’ navicomps chatted at each other, guiding the smaller courier-class Zizka into docking with the elongated needle of the Hellfire, Ia pulled on that conduit’s juice. Pulled and pulled and pulled, balling it up inside her body. Every time her hair threatened to fluff, she sucked it in tighter, clamping down on the external signs. By the time the telltales for the portside airlock greenlit with a viable seal, the lines and angles of the bridge’s stations were starting to glow.
The slightest nudge of her mind cracked a miniature bolt of lightning by mistake. Thankfully, the various bridge consoles had been built with capacitors; they functioned properly, absorbing the extra energy without overloading the command station. Using her hands instead of her gifts, Ia activated the interior surveillance pickups the old-fashioned way.
The courier had already disgorged several passengers. They looked like TUPSF troops, were armed and lightly armored like Terran troops, but she knew each one was a career criminal who specialized in pirating and pilfering Terran military supplies. And it was the tall scowling woman in their midst who was really in charge, not the short Asiatic man pretending to be the vice commodore in question.
She rubbed at her brow as Ia watched, and snapped something to the dozen men and women accompanying her. Ia had to manually replay the scene to hear what she said. When she heard it, she activated the intercom. “Attention, Zizka personnel. The nearest door into the main engineering compartment is located on Deck 8, aft-sector port side. The actual deck containing what you are looking for is in main engineering, Deck 8 starboard side…and once you get over there, you can’t miss it. You are currently on Deck 12, amidships-sector port side. The nearest crossover point to starboard from your location is Deck 6.”
The tall blonde checked her stride. Still scowling in pain, she squinted up at the ceiling until she spotted the closest active camera. “So you know why we’re here?”
“Who you are and why you’re here…though I’m surprised you agreed to risk your sparks with this little trip, Janeal,” Ia added. The Feyori blinked twice, but otherwise didn’t react. “Whatever Miklinn offered you, it won’t be enough. I’m sorry.”
“You are nothing more than a pawn,” Janeal stated, moving forward. “You always have been, and you always will be. Prepare to be removed from the Game.”
Smirking, Ia quipped quietly into her headset pickup, “‘I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that…’ Only in my case, I’m definitely not Hal, and you’re not the hero of this little vidshow. The bridge is located in the middle of amidships-sector Deck 6. I look forward to your arrival. Ia’nn sud-dha.”
Rubbing again at her aching head, the tall, blonde Meddler strode forward. Her accomplices accompanied her.
“Oh, one more thing. You might want to tell the others to head back to the Zizka right now and start running for the stars within the next minute,” Ia added. “I realize you’re willing to sacrifice at least three of them to find and shut off the anti-psi machine sitting in Engineering, Deck 8 starboard, but the others don’t have to die. This is between you and me, after all.”
The back door slid open. An annoyed-looking, red-clad pixie padded onto the bridge. Her frown deepened as she looked around the almost empty cabin. “What the…? Where did everyone go?”
Her trip to her quarters to trigger Belini’s summoning spot had once again worked. Her cofaction partner didn’t look particularly happy to be here, but at least she had come when called. Ia lifted her bootheels back up onto the console.
“Welcome aboard, Belini. You’re just in time,” she greeted the petite Feyori, her tone light and cheerful. Mockingly so. Gesturing at the empty duty stations, Ia extended her meager hospitality. “Feel free to have a seat. I’d offer you something to eat, physical or otherwise, but I’m afraid we’re almost out of time. Janeal and her thugs will be joining us in about a minute or so.”
Blinking, Belini twisted to face her. “Janeal? The Feyori who plucks the puppet strings of the local undergalaxy?”
“The Queen of Predators and Piracy,” Ia agreed. She fluttered her hand vaguely at the other stations. “Have a seat and enjoy the show.”
“If you’re expecting high tension and danger to tip you over the energy-to-matter barrier, I’m afraid Janeal isn’t going to give you the time to build up that sort of momentum,” Belini warned her. “The moment she steps inside, her thugs will shoot you dead, and that will be that. Not even you can dodge laserfire, half-breed. She also comes with too many cross-factions for me to counteract directly, if you were expecting me to save your hide. Since I now hold a very low and tenuous ranking, in case you forgot?”
Ia rolled her eyes and pointed at the pilot’s seat. “She is not going to shoot me right away. She’ll want to monologue first. You are here to observe my manifestation, and to stand witness to all that will follow. You won’t have to lift a finger. My debt to you, in exchange for all your trust and faith in me, is about to come due. Have a seat; I’d hate for you to miss a single millisecond of it.”
Still scowling, Belini studied her for a long moment, then padded over to the indicated chair and plopped herself into it. Only the narrowing of her eyes made her look dangerous; the rest of her looked like a pouting pixie. Squirming a little in her own seat, Ia slouched a little more comfortably and once again stuck her hand in the conduit hole. Some of her built-up energy had bled off during the miniature jolt. She replaced that and more, lounging in the command chair.
The portside door slid open. Janeal stepped through, projecting an air of command more successfully than the look-alike Human tapped to imitate the real-life Vice Commodore Quan. He in turn kind of looked like her old Drill Instructor, Sergeant Tae, Ia decided, looking him over. Except he’s in no way related to Harper. I should probably find a spare minute or two in the future to give the real Tae a call and see how he’s doing. I know Meyun keeps in touch with him, but I haven’t had a chat with the man since the third time he dropped by the Academy…A pity this fellow isn’t going to survive this little encounter.
“What, too lazy to meet your own fate, half-breed?” Janeal mocked. Her look of contempt was an excellent study of Human emotions. It also summed up the general Feyori mind-set toward the short-lived matter races succinctly, and she gave it to Ia with an added sneer of derision.
“Oh, I’m meeting it,” Ia said—and kicked, shoving her bootheel hard against the plexi lockbox encasing the main cannon’s switch.
That broke it with a crack, and an immediate flash of red lights. They flared every second, accompanied by an unnerving, atonal buzzing. Bright white numbers appeared on every screen, starting at 60 and counting their way down. The hyperrelay telltales over at the communications station lit up, hard-dumping the black-box recordings for the last hour in an encrypted broadband stream. It would continue to stream its previous reams of data to the Command Staff, too, all the way through to the last second of the Hellfire’s existence. Ia didn’t bother to stop it.
“If your thugs ran right now, they might make it from the bridge to the airlock in forty-nine seconds,” she stated, sitting up. Her mind snapped out, stabbing at the Humans on board her ship. They dropped with sighs and thumps to the deck, mercifully knocked unconscious, half-drawn weapons clattering to the deck. �
��But they’d only have a handful left to get through the airlocks, and would not escape in time. Unconsciousness is the only mercy I can give them.”
“I can stop this!” Jeneal snapped, lifting her hand.
Ia shook her head, pushing to her feet. She could feel the woman probing electrokinetically at the controls, and knew better. “It’s too late. It’s chemistry, not electronics. The hydrocatalysts have already been released into every tank on this ship, and you won’t stop more than a fraction of it. You have maybe thirty seconds to shift shape and survive.”
“Shakk!” Grabbing the pilot’s console, Belini ripped electricity out of it, popping from pixie to bubble in three seconds flat.
Ia planted her hand on her own station, drawing out the energy she needed more gently, but with the same result. In a flash, she floated instead of stood before the other two. Belini swirled in agitation, then clamped down hard on herself, blocking out all forms of radiation, turning a shining shade of mirror white.
Janeal grabbed for the gunner’s station, changing as well. Between Belini’s and Ia’s efforts, there wasn’t a large flow of energy available. It took the other Meddler ten full seconds to manifest. Even as she shifted, Ia noted to herself that Feyori in matter-forms stood out to their energy-form fellows like a glowing-hot iron on an infrared scanner. I’ll have to keep that in mind for when I’m on Dabin.
For one moment, the pirate Meddler hung there in a swirl of confusion, then she turned brilliant white like Belini, the Feyori equivalent of holding one’s breath by blocking out all incoming radiation.
So did the rest of the ship, when the countdown reached zero and the tanks exploded, turning the Hellfire, and by collateral damage the Zizka, into a tiny, bright nova. Forewarned by her trips onto the timeplains, Ia did not block off the inferno, like the other two. Instead, she embraced it, swelling outward as the energy rushed through her, using the part of her mind that dealt with, that comprehended, that controlled and manipulated Time itself to withstand the overwhelming flows.
