The Knife's Edge (War Eternal Book 3)

by M. R. Forbes

  He flipped the S-17 over, watching the friendly fire ignite shields across the battle line. He dove back down towards the mix, hitting another fighter and launching an amoebic into the weakened side of the cruiser. It pierced the shields, digging into the hull and exploding. Debris fell away from the cruiser, but it shook off the damage without slowing its own attack.

  "Four, evasive maneuvers," Steven shouted.

  Mitchell checked the grid, watching as the Tetron plasma stream belched out towards Squadron Four. The ships were well spaced, and they managed to turn aside, letting the stream go silently past.

  The Tetron immediately began powering up again, while at the same time a thousand small projectiles launched from its frame.

  "Stay alert," Mitchell shouted, even though they couldn't hear him. The amoebic missiles tore into the battle group like a nest of angry wasps, connecting with the hulls of the ships. A massive explosion, and most of the group was gone.

  "Damn it," Mitchell said, opening a channel to Steven. "You need to keep them moving!"

  "I'm doing my best," Steven said.

  "Do better," Mitchell replied. He threw the S-17 into a tight roll, firing amoebics towards the cruiser's bridge. Shields caught the first few before failing. The bridge vanished beneath the onslaught, and the cruiser stopped firing.

  It wasn't enough. It wasn't even close to enough.

  "We need to close the gap. Come on." He continued maneuvering and firing, picking off fighters and scratching wounds into the larger starships. The Tetron released its second stream, aiming it towards the Carver.

  "Evasive," Steven said. "Keep moving, don't stop."

  The Carver began to sink fast, it and the rest of its group also managing to slip away from the plasma stream. The Tetron repeated its attack a second time, sending a salvo of missiles at the targeted ships.

  They were expecting it this time, vectoring their ships to provide a smaller profile and at the same time bolstering shields. The missiles vanished into the group, blue sparks and momentary flame signifying the strikes.

  Two more ships vanished from the grid.

  "We need to get into position," Mitchell shouted.

  "Are you sure you don't want to be on the bridge instead, Mitch?" Steven asked, his own temper rising. "It's easy to second-guess when you're flying the most maneuverable thing on the field."

  Mitchell closed the channel, angry at himself for losing it. He vectored around the back of an Alliance ship, launching amoebics towards, and into, its rear engines and taking it out of the fight.

  If the Goliath had been captured, at least it was just sitting there.

  64

  There was no hint of the battle raging outside from deep within the core of the Goliath where Tio was hanging. To him, there was no indication that anything had changed at all.

  His body burned, his arms especially, and the smell of his own excrement would have overwhelmed him if he had possessed the energy to notice.

  Instead, he continued to stare downward towards his feet, even as a trickle of urine escaped from his wounded penis, running down his leg and dripping onto the floor. He had fought as long and as hard as he could, steeling himself against Watson's torture, maintaining his resolve against all logic or reason or strength.

  He couldn't do it anymore. He had tried to hold out, and he had failed. He knew the next time Watson entered, the next time the Tetron put the shock stick against his body, he would devolve into nothingness. He would think the thought that kept the data stream locked and beg for a quick death.

  He was only human, after all.

  Watson did appear again. How much later, Tio didn't know. He had no concept of one moment to the next. Each was forgotten as soon as it passed. One second the Tetron wasn't there. The next, he was.

  "I thought you'd want to know that Mitchell is here," Watson said, nothing about his voice or posture suggesting he was the least bit concerned.

  Tio grunted without lifting his head. The defiance was gone, stolen from him by the pain.

  "Oh, I'm glad you asked." Watson bent down to pick up the shock stick. "Yes, he's following our data models fairly closely. He has more ships with him than I was expecting, including his brother, believe it or not. I still can't believe that idea worked out for him. I calculated the success rate of the transmission at less than point-zero-zero-four. It doesn't matter. It isn't enough to change the significance. We will kill Mitchell Williams, and in his death secure our future."

  Tio grunted again. He heard the words. He barely understood their meaning. Not now.

  "The data stream? It's at ninety-seven percent. We'll be done within the hour, and then we can move on." He held the stick up in front of Tio's face. "As for you, I'm afraid we'll have to continue our earlier work. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. I was-"

  Tio cringed, ready for the final charged touch to crack him open. Instead, the Tetron paused. He took a step back, staring at Tio.

  "I don't believe it," Watson said. "Damn her. Damn her, damn her, damn her!" His eyes shifted, and a slight hum suggested the Goliath was beginning to move. The Tetron's human configuration rushed from the core.

  Tio felt the tears spring to his eyes. He had come so close to giving up, to giving in. Whatever was happening, he had been granted a stay from his complete insanity.

  He would savor it for as long as it lasted.

  65

  "Nine, you're too close, spread out," Steven shouted into the comm.

  Mitchell checked the overlay. Squadron Nine was bunched up in a bad way, the decoys clustering around the launch vehicle to protect it from incoming fire. They had managed to evade the Tetron's defensive and get fairly close to the intelligence, but now it wouldn't matter.

  There was no warning of the EMP the Tetron fired towards the ships. The only evidence was that they all fell dark at once, their momentum carrying them. The loss of vectoring thrusters was catastrophic, and within seconds they each began to collide into the other.

  Mitchell cursed. The battle was going poorly. Tio's forces were well trained for small fleet maneuvers or sneak attacks, but their inexperience in pitched battles was showing, and it was killing them.

  Already they had lost four of the ten squadrons and enough of the launch vehicles that Mitchell wasn't sure they could survive losing another. They were getting closer to closing the net, and with the help of his advanced weaponry they had done major damage to the fleet under the Tetron's control.

  It still wasn't enough.

  And now the Goliath was moving.

  There was still no indication of shields, or of an imminent attack. Instead, the massive ship changed course and began to accelerate towards Asimov.

  Why?

  "Squadron two in position," he heard Germaine say through the open channel.

  "Squadron eight in position."

  Mitchell vectored around, putting himself on the same heading as Goliath.

  "Squadron five in position."

  "Mitch," Steven said. "Where are you going? We've got three squadrons ready to fire. I'll be in position in five."

  Mitchell swung the S-17 back around. The Goliath's movement had proven it was still operational, the Tetron configuration controlling it still alive. Why was it moving towards Asimov? It could have been positioned near the asteroid the entire time, and hadn't. What had changed?

  "We're only going to get one shot at this," Steven said. "Keep the cover fire hot and heavy. Launchers prepare to fire."

  The Carver was cutting across the space in front of Mitchell, turning itself broadside to the Tetron to launch its payload. It was a dangerous position to be in, leaving it wide open to a counterattack that would cut it to ribbons.

  "Ares, are you in position?" Steven asked over the general channel.

  "Roger," Mitchell said.

  "On my mark," Steven said.

  Mitchell checked the overlay. The Tetron energy readings were rising again, only this time there was no spear to indicate an attack. He could see t
he underside of it from his position behind and below the Carver. It was concentrating its energy on its shields, understanding the attack they were about to launch.

  It wasn't going to work, he realized. The Tetron was prepared. It had predetermined this strategy. If it had believed they were a threat, it would have done more to stay out of the net.

  He felt his body turn to ice. It wasn't only not going to work.

  It was a trap.

  "Abort, abort, abort," Mitchell screamed into the general channel, his shouts drowning out Steven's order to fire. "Evasive maneuvers. Full reverse. Back the frig away."

  He punched the throttle on the S-17, flipping it over and racing away from the Tetron.

  The energy readings went so high the sensors couldn't measure it.

  A blue ball of plasma burst out from the Tetron, a giant globe of superheated energy that expanded like a massive bubble, tearing into the ships that had been too slow to move away. In a single instant almost half of their remaining force vanished, entire starships engulfed and melted, others sliced open too far and wide for airlocks to seal.

  The Carver barely cleared the attack, its need to turn horizontal to the Tetron the only thing that saved it.

  The Tetron's power readings dropped near to nothing.

  "Steven, fire. Fire now," Mitchell yelled, reversing course yet again.

  He had plugged into Goliath. He understood how the advanced intelligence's systems worked. It had pushed out all of the energy that it was able to gather along the millions of branches that composed it like a massive nervous system. It would need time, maybe only seconds, to send more power from its core out into its appendages.

  They couldn't give it the time.

  Mitchell exploded past the Carver, firing amoebic after amoebic towards the Tetron. It had been so sure they were safely in its trap that it had let its guard down. It was another foolish mistake of overconfidence, another example of reliance on logic. Mitchell had known in his gut that something was off and had gotten them to back away just in time.

  The Tetron had committed to its course, and now it was stuck.

  Now it would die.

  Three launchers remained, and three nukes lit up Mitchell's overlay as they streaked away from their respective ships, headed for the Tetron's core. Mitchell slowed his approach, watching the energy pooling in the Tetron's center and spreading outward.

  Too slow. It would be much too slow.

  The missiles bypassed the branching shell, crashing through unprotected liquid metallic dendrites on their way to the core. A silent detonation followed, the blast reaching into the unshielded Tetron, electromagnetic radiation tearing through the framework at the same time dozens of amoebics exploded along with them.

  Mitchell continued his approach, sinking into the rapidly decaying structure, his own shields sizzling. There was only one way to destroy a Tetron. You had to obliterate the core.

  He saw it in front of him now, still pulsing with energy, still trying to recover from the damage. He smiled as he neared it, wishing that it had a face so he could see its expression.

  He released the amoebics, firing vectoring thrusters and spinning off and away without slowing.

  The core exploded behind him.

  66

  Mitchell spun the S-17 away from the shattered Tetron, turning it back towards the Goliath. It was still headed for Asimov, moving deliberately in the direction of the asteroid.

  He hit the thrusters again, launching back onto the starship's course. He heard the cheering in his head, the remaining captains patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

  It wasn't over yet.

  "Steven," he shouted. "We aren't done here."

  "Roger," his brother replied. "I see it. I'm coming about, but this thing doesn't exactly turn on a dime, and the Knife's crew is too busy whooping it up over the first one."

  "Bunch of idiots," Mitchell said. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he was going to have to do it alone.

  He started gaining on the Goliath, drawing closer and closer to it. The tendrils along its frame were pulsing, the frequency increasing. The tip of a blue spear began to grow along its bow.

  Whoever was in control of Goliath, they were going to use it to destroy Asimov. If the Tetron were in control of the ship, why hadn't they blown the asteroid up already?

  He was caught by surprise when a tone sounded in his helmet. A familiar knock from a p-rat.

  "Mitchell," Millie's voice was weak and broken up by static.

  "Millie? Where are you? What the hell-"

  "Asimov. I'm on Asimov. Mitch, there are others with me."

  She sounded awful.

  "We've lost Goliath," Mitchell said. "It's about to fire on your position."

  "Oh, God. Mitch. It's Watson. It's frigging Watson. He's one of them. Kathleen Amway. Remember the name. Kathleen Amway."

  Mitchell's breath caught in his throat. Watson? Of all the people who might have been a Tetron. He couldn't believe he had been so stupid. He couldn't believe he had kept that frigger alive.

  "You aren't going to die," he said. He had to do something. What?

  He pushed the throttle to max, continuing to gain on the Goliath. There were no engines to blow and no amount of damage he could do that would stop the ship before Watson took his shot. What else was there?

  His mind raced, trying to work through possibilities.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing.

  He had already thought he'd lost her once. He didn't want to lose her again. She was one of the good ones, one of the allies that he needed more than he ever wanted to admit.

  "I know we've done this before," Millie said. "I'm sorry to have to do this again. I should have been dead already. Anyway, it's been great knowing you, Colonel."

  "Shut up," Mitchell replied. "Just shut the frig up. You can't die. Not again. This is bullshit." Was he destined to lose everyone he had cared about before he lost the war?

  "Life isn't fair, Mitch. And war is hell. Give it to them for me, okay?"

  Mitchell screamed into the cockpit, cursing out his frustration. He wasn't going to tell her that wasn't going to happen. He wasn't going to ruin her last moments not letting her think they might actually win. The Goliath would destroy Asimov, and then it would destroy the remainder of their fleet. Sure, they could run, but then what? Where would they go? They were worse off now than when they started. No. Either he would win here, or he would die here. That was his decision to make.

  The spike continued to build along Goliath's bow. It wouldn't be long before it fired, and all he could do was watch.

  "I love you," he said, the words escaping him before he could reconsider them.

  "I love you, too, Mitch," Millie replied.

  The spike began to expand, the plasma stream spreading. It was supposed to be the end, but somehow it wasn't.

  Somehow, in an instant, everything changed.

  "What the frig?" Mitchell whispered.

  67

  Tio didn't know what was happening. His eyes had fallen closed, his body finally succumbing to exhaustion, unable to remain alert despite the uncomfortable position of his imprisonment.

  Then the ship had started screaming.

  It had woken him in an instant, the ethereal, horrific moaning seeming to rise like smoke off every tendril-like surface of the Tetron configuration. It was a cry of pain and sadness. A cry that expressed everything he was feeling. It pierced his soul and caused his heart to race, his hair to stand on end, and his body to shake in fear.

  It was completely inhuman, and yet it was almost too human.

  A moment later, it had passed. Something had changed, though. Something was different. He could feel an electric charge growing from the thick trunks that spread away from the core, and they began to pulse faster and faster.

  Something bad had happened to the Tetron, he was sure of that much.

  Mitchell.

  He remembered Watson telling him
the Marine had come. Somehow the charmed pilot had outmaneuvered whatever simulations and statistical analysis the Tetron had done. Somehow he had risen to the occasion and scored a hit of some kind against the intelligence.

  The knowledge breathed new life into him. He forced his head to rise. He looked up at his wrists, bound and holding him six inches from the floor. The metal had wrapped around him like a tentacle, keeping him suspended. Now he shook his wrists, trying to wiggle his way free.

  "You can't get out like that," a voice said from the shadows.

  Tio looked over, continuing to try to free his hands. If he could get loose, he could do... he wasn't sure what. Something to help. At the very least, he would kill himself before Watson could touch him with the stick again.

  "That isn't going to work. The tendrils will tighten the more you shift."

  Tio could feel it was true.

  "Are you going to help me?" he asked, his voice raspy.

  Kathy climbed over the hump of a pulsing dendrite, approaching the Knife. "If you help him."

  "Mitchell?"

  "Yes. He destroyed one of the Tetron. Now Watson is angry. He'll use Goliath against Mitchell, and Mitchell will die."

  "How do you know this?"

  "I've been paying attention," she replied. "You haven't."

  "You were watching him torture me?" Tio asked.

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you help me?"

  "It was too soon. We needed to give Mitchell a chance."

  "A chance? Did you see what he was doing to me?"

  "Yes. The strong protect the weak. You are strong. You'll survive."

  Kathy reached him, jumping easily and grabbing onto the crossbeam he was lashed to with one hand. She used the other to touch each tendril in turn. They shriveled away.

  Tio dropped to the floor, his legs exploding in fiery agony. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay upright.

  "You're one of them, aren't you?" he asked, rubbing at his wrists.

  She ignored the question, pointing to the core. "You know what you need to do."