With all the strength he could muster, he launched himself toward the board. When he crashed against it, his left hand moved the control bar to its maximum setting.
Brilliance exploded from behind him. Covering his ears, he slumped to the base of the distribution board and watched the masterpiece of his creation. The entire generating station had come alive with electricity. Lightning streaked all about the ceiling, darting from one conductor to another. One of the pods sitting on top of the cylindrical posts ignited in a shower of sparks, followed by another deeper in the interior. The sight stung his vision, leaving white spots dancing in its wake. He breathed in the charged scent. The most beautiful storm he had ever witnessed played about him. Relief flooded through him, overflowing into a chuckle.
Quinn stared out at the fierce display for a few seconds, then turned back. His lips curled up.
A cold feeling invaded Steiner. Something wasn’t right. Quinn reached into his shirt pocket and retracted a silver wafer.
Steiner cried out hopelessly. After all he had tried to do, he had still failed.
The Marauder jolted to one side, almost knocking Quinn off-balance. Several pods overloaded. An alarm rang out. Quinn glanced about in confusion.
Whatever ship they had fired upon must have responded. The floor rocked violently again. This time, Quinn toppled backward.
Without hesitation, Steiner lunged at him.
MASON straightened up, rubbing his bruised head where it had hit the console. Their defensive shields had withstood two direct hits. A yellow warning indicator lit up, informing him that they couldn’t hold up under another. One more well-placed shot should destroy their outdated vessel. The Warlord hovered in the front viewer, obviously awaiting the desired response from its victims—one that Mason would never give.
Bricket lifted himself into the chair at the communication station. Blood flowed from a gash in his forehead. “Why didn’t they just finish us off?”
“My father isn’t about to risk losing the chance to obtain U.S.S. military information. He’s trying to intimidate us.” Mason bared his teeth at the Warlord. “He’ll never get that pleasure from me.”
“Is anyone in the command center?” The head engineer’s voice sounded from the intercom.
Mason sprang from behind the weapons console and responded to the call. “Daniels? Are you in control of the engine room?”
“Yes. What’s happening up there?”
“A Separatist battlecruiser is staring us down. How long before we can have starspeed capability?”
There was a short pause. “We’ll do the best we can, but it doesn’t look good.”
Bricket’s face whitened. “They’ll be jamming our navigational sensors. We can’t run blind.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Mason replied.
“I might. Give me a second.” The bartender hurried to the security station and began typing keypads.
“Enemy ship, this is your last chance to surrender before we destroy you,” Richina shouted.
Memories of his mother’s arrest came back to haunt Mason, reinforcing his undying hatred for her murderer. He activated the intercom again. “Daniels, we need to leave now.”
“The engines are off-line, the reactor chamber sealed up,” Daniels replied. “It’ll take us more than a day to get it operational.”
Mason knew that his father never made empty threats. He would follow through if they didn’t signal him immediately.
Mason turned toward Bricket, who rifled through camera images on one of the surviving monitors, apparently searching for something. Whatever the bartender had planned wouldn’t make any difference. There was no time left.
Mason stepped to the weapons console and retargeted the automatic turret. With his gaze riveted to the Warlord, he pressed the firing keypad.
Streaks of red, intensified energy, lanced out, raking into the shields of the battlecruiser without any effect.
STEINER rolled across the floor with Quinn, struggling for control of the rifle. Only sheer determination kept him going. His muscles ached from growing fatigue. It would not be long before they gave out completely, leaving him at Quinn’s mercy.
He put all of his strength into a punch to Quinn’s gut. While Quinn was winded, Steiner yanked the rifle away but lost hold of it. It flew far out of reach and skidded under an assembly.
Quinn’s countenance darkened into a crazed expression. He threw Steiner back, then broke into a frenzied assault.
Steiner tried desperately to escape as fists pounded against him. A kick into his bruised side curled him up. Nerves shrieked in agony. He couldn’t hold off the attack any longer. His energy was spent. His resistance gone.
Icy fingers weaved themselves around his neck, tightening until no air could be forced through.
Steiner saw a hope. A sparking pod had toppled over against the top of a nearby fence. If he could grab ahold of the electrified mesh, he could take Quinn with him.
He reached out, then froze when he heard something. His ears rang so loudly that they had nearly muffled it. Had it been his imagination, a delusion brought about by his weakened conscious state?
Quinn went rigid, his hands loosening their hold. His gaze rose, widening in surprise—maybe even terror.
Steiner turned his head and saw the impossible. There, twenty feet away, sprawled on the ground, lay Tramer. Steiner blinked hard to see if it was a dream of some kind. It wasn’t. Energy burns marred most of the damaged metallic body. One of his legs stuck in the air, frozen at an angle. Charred wires and severed mechanisms protruded from the stub, where his right arm had once been. His left hand propped up the assault rifle that had been lost during the fight, its barrel aimed at Quinn. Even though the pale face seemed distorted by pain, the single human eye held the fire of vengeance.
Quinn climbed to his feet. “You’re supposed to be dead, Cyborg.” His voice revealed his shock and apparent disbelief. Steiner shared it.
“My creators made me better than even I had expected,” Tramer answered back, his synthesized voice crackling badly.
For a split second, Quinn was expressionless, then he broke out in a sly smile. “So you’ve come back from the grave to kill me, have you?” He held up his left wrist, flaunting a small black instrument secured to it. “Remember this, Cyborg? It has a fail-safe feature programmed into it. If my pulse stops, the explosives in your head automatically ignite.”
The rifle remained poised to shoot. “Then we’ll die together,” Tramer said. His mechanical fingers fumbled with the trigger. The barrel tipped forward. The energy blast erupted into the floor.
Quinn laughed. “It seems you take this trip solo.” He reached for a button on the black device.
Steiner coiled his legs in and kicked Quinn into the electrified fence. In that instant, the cold eyes widened in fear. Sparks sprayed as his body made contact. Thousands of volts ripped through him for a second before he bounced off the fence and landed on top of Steiner. His flesh sizzled. The device on his wrist began beeping rapidly in succession.
Steiner crawled up from under the smoking body, stretching his fingers toward the small transmitter. He had to stop it, break it, anything to save his friend.
The beeping turned into a shrill whine.
Tramer lowered his head, willing to accept his fate.
“Maxwell,” Steiner uttered in terror.
Steiner wanted to look away so he wouldn’t have to see his friend die again, but he couldn’t force himself to.
One second passed.
Two.
Three.
Nothing happened.
Perhaps the transmitter had been a phony? No, Quinn would have discarded it after he thought the weapons officer had died. It had to be real, but why hadn’t it worked?
A bright flash from above gave Steiner his answer. He watched the lightning arcs playing all about the roof. The strong electrical fields must have interfered with the transmitter’s signal.
Without a second
thought, Steiner ripped the device off Quinn’s smoking wrist and beat it against the ground until it shattered into useless pieces. The Orders disk stuck out of a nearby shirt pocket, the overhead storm reflecting off its exposed surface. Steiner pulled it free, then crawled over to where Tramer lay.
“Maxwell?” he asked.
A low whine sounded as the weapons officer raised his head. “I am alive?”
“Yes,” Steiner answered, unable to suppress a smile.
“Is the ship secure?”
Steiner looked down at the disk in his palm, then threw it into the toppled conductor over the electrified fence. The intense heat of the lightning arches melted the silver wafer on contact.
“It doesn’t matter now, my friend,” Steiner said.
MASON was expecting the Warlord to unleash a violent assault. His body quivered in anticipation of his impending death.
“What are you waiting for?” Mason shouted. “Get it over with.”
Almost in reply to his plea, the battlecruiser began reversing away, probably preparing to swing about to destroy them. Surprisingly, it pivoted around and sped across the border into the New Order Empire.
“What?” Mason exclaimed. “He’s leaving?”
A massive shape passed overhead and pursued the Warlord . It was a U.S.S. destroyer.
“The cavalry,” Bricket exclaimed.
Another vessel shot by on the starboard side and followed behind the first. The Magellan. The two ships chased the battlecruiser until they all disappeared into the distance.
Mason couldn’t believe what had happened. “My father should have annihilated us first before retreating.”
“You can thank me that he didn’t,” Bricket said from the security station.
“Why? What did you do?”
The bartender grinned, showing his teeth. “What every good gambler would have done—I raised the stakes.” He slapped the console in front of him. “I interconnected the security monitors to what was left of the communications array and sent a low-powered visual transmission.”
“Of what?”
“What do you mean ‘of what’? Of you.”
“Me?”
Mason noticed one of the screens depicting himself at the weapons console.
“I showed your daddy who he was about to kill, betting that he wouldn’t be able to do it.” Bricket laughed. “What do you know—I was right.”
Mason was stunned. If his father had been so quick to execute his wife, why had he spared his renegade son?
“Why do you look so glum?” Bricket asked. “We survived.”
“I can’t believe he let me live after all I’ve done to him.”
Bricket smiled. “Someday, when you have a child, you’ll understand why.”
The Magellan approached them again, looking as if it might attack.
“Marauder, this is Commodore Cole.” A voice sounded over the speakers. “We are receiving your visual transmission. Is Captain Steiner alive?”
Mason exchanged an uneasy look with Bricket. “What do we do now?”
“Nothing,” Steiner said.
Mason smiled as he watched Daniels helping Steiner up the stairway to the command deck, into view of the camera.
Bricket chuckled.
“Nice to see you again, Captain,” Commodore Cole said over the speakers. “Prepare to receive our assistance.”
CHAPTER 27
THE man in Earthstation’s holding cell was barely a skeleton of the man Steiner remembered. Jamison’s mere presence would no longer command respect from all the other military personnel around him. Troops would never again seek his guidance. His status had been reduced to that of a traitor, a betrayer of the United Star Systems. He deserved nothing less.
Two high-ranking officials sat outside the invisible energy barrier, taking turns at grilling the fallen admiral, trying to learn the scope of the damage his treason had caused. The man who had once been the mighty Ralph Jamison sat wordlessly, his hateful stare riveted on Steiner, who stood back behind the interrogators.
Before exiting the detention area, Steiner gave a wink of farewell to his former arch nemesis. A moment later, he was navigating through the bustling hallways on his way to find Suzanne.
He had seen her briefly when, along with all the crew members who had fought against Quinn’s mutiny, he had disembarked from the Magellan earlier that morning. Cole had brought them here to be honored, while the Marauder and the rest of its surviving crew had been escorted to the Tycus System for debriefing. Because of all the news reporters swarming them, Suzanne hadn’t been able to get within five feet. However, now that everything had died down, he could find out from her what the verdict was concerning his future.
His search began in the medical center, in the section marked CYBERNETICS RESEARCH. Bricket and Daniels worked inside, testing a mechanical arm hooked up to a terminal. Tramer lay stretched out on a table on the far side of the room. Cole sat next to him, talking casually, probably reliving old times. During their return voyage, Cole seemed to have put aside his prejudice and fear and had begun daily conversations with the weapons officer. Perhaps he had discovered an old shipmate.
“Just the man I wished to speak to,” Cole said, rising to his feet to greet Steiner with a handshake. “The Council has adjourned regarding the matter of Jamison. President Lindsey has taken credit for his exposure; however, I’m still pushing for you and your loyal officers to receive recognition for preventing the U.S.S. strategic plans being compromised.”
Steiner’s neck ached at the threat of another award. “I’ve had my fill of medals. Try to get Tramer and the others one.”
“I’ll do my best.” Cole glanced down at the weapons officer. “I’ve been trying to convince Tramer to inform Candice and Veronica of his part in preserving the Union, but he has refused.”
“I will not attempt to contact them,” Tramer said. “If Veronica ever becomes strong enough to accept my appearance, she will seek me out.”
“That may never happen,” Cole pointed out.
“Whatever she wishes.”
Steiner knew it was the best decision. Tramer would only hurt worse if they spurned him again. “Would either of you know where Suzanne is?” Steiner asked, changing the subject.
Cole was the one who answered. “The last time I saw her, she was listening to your pilot’s recounting of the mutiny. He has an entire audience in the arboretum, glued to every word he says.”
Memories of the exaggerated tales Mason used to spin in prison came back to Steiner, bringing a smile with them. A showman to the last.
Once Steiner left the medical center, it took him ten minutes to reach the garden sanctuary. It was housed in a cavernous chamber overgrown with brightly colored plants and trees. A glistening stream flowed down the center, murmuring a relaxing tune. The upper portion of the high ceiling was made up of a transparent material that allowed the stars to show through. At both ends of the room, giant luminescent elements had been suspended from the roof, providing artificial sunlight.
A winding path, twisting through budding flowers and blossoming saplings, led him deeper into the interior. The strong scent of pollen rode the soft man-made breeze. He stopped on top of a wooden bridge spanning a pond dotted with lily pads and encompassed by weeping willows that stretched down to grasp the liquid surface.
J.R. and Spider sat on a far shore, practicing their harmonies. They were scheduled to sing at the station’s chapel that night. It was a performance Steiner wasn’t going to miss.
In the crystal world below, fish swam idly by. He stared at the wedding band on his finger. Slipping it off, he relinquished it to the water. The ring sparkled as it sank to the sandy bottom.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” he whispered.
He stepped off the bridge onto a new path. It guided him into a grove of evergreens. A lieutenant in full-dress uniform approached from the opposite direction. His face lit up in recognition, and he saluted before passing by.
Oh
, great,Steiner thought. Who knows what kind of superhuman picture Mason must have woven of me? If this continues, I won’t be able to walk anywhere without drawing attention.
Farther up the path, in the center of a tree-lined clearing, people of all ranks occupied benches set in a semicircle. Everyone seemed to be listening intently to Mason, who stood in front, most likely telling an exaggerated version of what had really happened.
“You’ve already missed the best parts,” someone said behind him. “The parts with me in them.”
Steiner smiled as he turned around to see Pattie step out of the shadows of a tree, gingerly trying not to lose his balance.
Isaac Steele stepped forward and handed the Saint a cane. “You really need to use this. I will not catch you if you fall.”
“I’ll be fine. Let me be.”
“Fine by me.”
Pattie looked back at Steiner. “I may not be able to fight today, but soon.” The Saint laughed, lost his balance, and Steiner caught him. “Thanks, Slugger. If you don’t mind taking me over to one of those chairs so I can hear the rest of the story.”
He helped Pattie into one of the chairs in the outer circle.
“Suddenly, I turned around and saw a Separatist battlecruiser approaching.” Mason framed his hands around the imaginary ship. “We knew we were outgunned ten to one, but as you remember, we’ve been in that situation before.” A few cheers erupted. He imitated a very stern, pompous face. “Some hotshot admiral demanded that I surrender, but I wasn’t about to do anything of the sort.” He waved his fist, and shouted, “I opened fire on him.” The gathering went wild.
Suzanne waved to Steiner from one of the back rows. She slid over, beckoning him to join her.
He gave a faint shake of his head and pointed toward the fringe. Just as he was about to escape in that direction, Mason introduced him to the crowd. Suddenly, he had fans surrounding him. After several handshakes and bows, he pried himself away to where Suzanne waited at the edge of the grove. It wasn’t until Mason continued the tale that they were finally left alone.
Prison Ship Page 34
