46
V as swore. Gosta was right, he couldn’t risk jettisoning the decon chamber with Wilthuny nearby. If she fired, the chamber could explode and engulf the Warrior Wench.
“Ragkor, are you done?”
The comm was open, but she only heard yelling for a few seconds. Then Ragkor came on. “Aye, but there was a second group of black suits. They attacked us once we started drilling. We’ve just gotten the drill and the bomb down to the level we need, but we’ve taken some injuries.”
Vas motioned for Deven as he and his team finished making sure that all of the black suits were dead. Head removal seemed to be the surest way. “I’m sending Deven and more help your way, but head toward the shuttles immediately.”
Gosta had figured they would have about ten minutes to a half hour before the shaking would increase enough to hurt them. But he couldn’t pin it down narrower than that.
At Ragkor’s affirmative, Vas lead her people back to the shuttles, picking up the dropped blasters along the way. There were no black suits on any of the streets and they were within eyesight of the shuttles when blaster shots rang out over their heads. Vas and her people ducked behind a building. Whoever was firing hadn’t been down here when the pulse weapons went off and had an advantage. Vas used her scope to scout for their attackers, then started swearing when she spotted movement near their shuttles. Not black suits, but she couldn’t tell who it was. She didn’t see another shuttle in the area, but Wilthuny could have gotten one down while Gosta had been focusing on securing the silver material.
“Captain, the Scurrilous Monk is here, and they’re firing on us!” Gosta yelled through the comms. He rarely yelled but being attacked by a friendly while only maintaining a crew of six was enough to unnerve anyone.
“Down here too, and they've got us pinned.” Damn it. Why in the hell would Marli be attacking them? They were on the same side. Vas and her crew needed to get everyone off this world—before it blew up. Not to mention get rid of that damn silver stuff sitting in a decon chamber right now.
“Marli! Stand down—you know us, what the hell are you doing?” Vas hadn’t seen her yet, but she was betting she’d be here.
“Sorry, Captain, but I can’t let you trigger the transformation. I will kill you all if I have to.” There was no remorse in Marli’s voice. Nor any doubt she would kill every single person on both ships if she needed to.
Vas looked at the shuttles—just ten feet away but they might have been miles away for all the help they did.
“We’re destroying it.”
“You’re going to let them through.” More weapons’ fire, but less than before now that no one was trying to get to the shuttles.
Vas had one more of Gosta’s pulse weapons, but it was one of the unfinished ones. There really weren’t any other options. Neither of their ships in orbit could lend support since they were trying to keep both Wilthuny’s ship and Marli’s ship at bay. Vas knew once things were resolved here that Marli could easily destroy not only the Warrior Wench and Victorious Dead, but Wilthuny’s Flaxen Gusset as well.
“Do you trust me?” Deven's voice was steady and raised just loud enough to be heard by anyone firing at them. He slowly rose from behind the rocks that he and the rest of the crew were behind. With exaggerated movements, he put down his blaster rifle. Of course, Marli probably had no clue it didn’t work. But the effect was good.
“Damn you. How could you let them do this?” Another volley of shots went off, but none of them came near Deven.
“This is the only thing that will work. Vas’s nuns left a way to stop the transformation from happening. I’ve studied the specs—there won’t be enough of this place left to fill your hand once this finishes. Even they can’t come through that.”
Vas pulled out the final pulse weapon, they were out of time. Deven looked over and shook his head, then took a step toward where the blaster fire had come from.
“Kill us now, or don’t. But we are out of time if we’re going to live. And I will not give you a chance to stop the explosion.” He kept moving forward.
Considering that at this point no one, except possibly the goddess the nuns followed, could have stopped the explosion, he was playing a little loose with the facts.
“I trust you,” Marli said as she, Savan, and three of her people came out of hiding. “But you’d better be right, boyo.” She nodded and her people came up to help get the injured into the shuttles. Marli stepped in front of Vas as she helped Marwin limp forward.
“I would have killed you. All of you, including every last person on your base planet to stop them from coming through if that was needed.” Marli was still wearing her glamour but managed to channel her Asarlaí fierceness into it. There still were no apologies. No regrets.
Vas gave a tight nod. “So would I.”
Marli stepped aside and let Vas try to get her people on the shuttle. It was going to be difficult to get the injured into such tight quarters. Vas stood with Deven, Mac, Walvento, and Gon as adjustments were made.
Finally, Marli started pushing them away from the shuttle door. “Tell your people to take off. You won’t fit. You can get home via our ship. If you’re correct, this planet is about to obliterate itself in a very short period of time.”
“Marwin, can you fly?” Vas yelled into the shuttle. Gosta was right, she felt the tremors in her boots now. The inside of the planet was shaking apart as the former buoy increased its vibrations.
“Aye, Captain, don’t need two feet for that.”
“Then go now.” Vas hit her comm to Ragkor. “Get your ship out of here, we’ll follow.”
Marli grinned then held up her hand and pointed toward the sky. “Get us the hell out of here, Savan.”
47
N oise and light enveloped Vas as she felt herself slam into the command deck of her ship. There had to be a better way to travel. The heavy pressure on her legs ended up being Deven, but he was unconscious. Mac, Gon, and Walvento all landed nearby.
“Are the shuttles on board?”
“Aye, Captain, they were pulled in through the Scurrilous Monk’s particle mover. Everyone on both ships is rattled but as intact as when they started.” Gosta said with more than a little awe in his voice.
Vas didn’t blame him, the power to do what Marli’s ship just did was so far off anything the Warrior Wench could do, they might as well be flying a survival pod.
“Then get us the hell out of here, and someone move Deven off my legs. If your predictions are right this thing should blow up any second now.”
Divee was at the pilot’s console. He nodded once and the ship took off through the gate. The Victorious Dead hadn’t listened to Vas’s admonishments to leave before and was right behind them. It looked like the Scurrilous Monk was also.
Gon pulled Deven off her legs and Vas ran to her command chair. The image of Mayhira was still on the main screen. Knowing it was going to happen and watching it implode were two different things. Vas practically felt the pull as everything the planet had been was sucked in, then exploded out in massive amounts of space dust. Unfortunately, the gate had been near the planet and the gate stream was becoming unstable.
“Get us out of this,” Vas yelled to Divee and the open comm to Ragkor.
Divee didn’t respond, but all three ships exited the gate stream. Rather, four. Empress Wilthuny wasn’t letting them get away that easily.
“Captain! The empress is attacking! The Flaxen Gusset is firing on us.” Gosta yelled. “And there appear to be new attempts at creating interdimensional breaches on the side of our ship.”
The ship rolled with a deflected impact. The other ship’s hit didn’t get through their shields.
“Captain Vas,” Savan’s call came from the Scurrilous Monk. “We have an urgent call that cannot be ignored. We have to leave you.”
Before Vas could respond, the Monk fired a volley to push back the empress’s ship and vanished back through the gate.
“Damn them
,” Vas said as she scrambled to her feet. “Since Marli’s the one that nearly blew everything to hell down there the least she could do is help us deal with this stupid empress.”
“I will keep that in mind, next time. However, I think we might have another problem.”
Vas was almost to her seat when the soft voice stopped her. Marli. But faint and vaguely confused—neither of which Vas had ever heard from her.
Vas looked around, but she was nowhere to be seen. Not to mention she should be on her ship that just tore out of here.
Finally, a ghostlike Marli appeared to come from the bulkhead—right where the breaches were.
“Why are you here? And how?” In her previous incarnations as a hologram she appeared almost solid. This time Vas could see completely through her.
Marli shrugged. “Damn good question. I seem to be a hologram trapped here. I made it to my ship, ordered our departure, then this. Did you know you have attempted breaches going on outside again?” Her brief visit into confusion was over and she moved closer to Vas.
“So I’ve heard. Did you see how many?”
Marli floated out the hull then back. “At least six.” She held up one faint hand. “This is unheard of—my hologram transmitter has never malfunctioned like this. I’m not supposed to be here at all.” She looked around as if trying to see something past the bulkhead. “I can’t see where my body is.”
Vas was sure Marli’s separation from her body and ship was important, especially since the hologram should have been tied to her ship—but another rocking of the ship reminded her they had other problems.
“Captain, we’re taking some damage through our shielding. Gosta notified us of the activity in your breaches. Is there an ETA on shutting them down?” Ragkor was too much a Marine to sound freaked out, but it had to be disturbing to possibly lose your first command less than a week after you got it.
“Nothing yet. Hold your ground, we’re working on it.” Vas called down to the med lab. “Hrrru? Any ideas?” His heroic action to try to save both Vas and Deven earned him some down time—but Vas knew they didn’t have that option.
“Not yet, Captain.” His voice was tired but also excited. Those breaches were a puzzle in his eyes.
“Incoming ships,” Deven said from Hrrru’s console.
Vas turned back to her console. Had the empress brought in backup? Three gray cruisers, massive, but not the same bulk as the planet killers, had come through the gate and started firing.
The only thing good about the gray ships’ arrival was that they went after the Flaxen Gusset first. Ragkor had been holding his own but with the Warrior Wench out for the moment, he was slowly losing the fight against the empress’s ship.
Whatever secret tech Empress Wilthuny had been able to get in her ship, one that looked an awful lot like the Warrior Wench minus the ornate tats, Vas would love to know about.
One more volley from the lead gray ship and Vas knew she’d just have to imagine about that tech. The Flaxen Gusset didn’t blow up, but explosions all over the hull told her that the fight was over. Her shielding had been destroyed.
“The Flaxen Gusset is dead in space. All power gone, no weapons, life support is fading,” Gosta reported. The screen showed the ship listing to one side, but a number of small pods escaped.
“Warrior Wench and Victorious Dead.” The woman commander of the gray ships forced her image to come through their screens. Not a hologram, but a definite override of the communications system. The woman wore a gray cloak with hood and nothing of her features showed. “You will surrender your ships, or you will follow the betrayer in death. Your empress is no more.”
Marli looked up from the screen she’d been watching on Gosta’s console. Being a stranded hologram had its disadvantages and Vas could see she kept reaching out for things she couldn’t touch.
“We were taking her down quite nicely if you don’t mind,” Marli said. “And do take off that ridiculous garment. Are you truly that hideous?” She muttered a few things to Gosta and his hands flew over the console.
“You are not the captain. I only speak to her. Stand down now, and we will allow you to serve us.”
Gosta and Marli hadn’t been able to get the power to stay steady, but they were able to cut the image on the screen.
“I hate pushy people,” Marli said. “I think we can get a few shots off before we drop power again. Shall we?”
“Not yet. We need to find out how those breaches are coming through first,” Vas answered.
The gray ship took a shot at the Victorious Dead, but nothing against the Warrior Wench.
Vas looked at her screen and the stats again. There were tiny flashes of energy coming off the hull, Gosta was right about that. They were everywhere on the right side except the smudge where Vas had blown shut that breach.
Another small flurry of flashes and Vas knew what was drawing the breaches to her ship.
48
“The tats. The damn breaches are connected to those horrible, ostentatious tats on the hull,” Vas said as she pulled up more specs. “No. They are the breach. Somehow, those tats are the gateway for those ships to come through.” She called to Marli. “Tell me I’m reading this wrong. Please.”
Marli had been coaching the update to Gosta’s tracking system for the breaches, as a hologram there wasn’t a lot she could do, but she came over. She was freaked out about the breaches too, but in Vas’s opinion, not enough.
“There is no way for some slightly tasteless artwork to be a conduit to another dimension. Even my people wouldn’t have been able to do…that.” Marli’s voice dropped and she pulled back as if struck. Then she shook her head and re-ran everything Vas had in the air in front of her—only in about one-tenth the time.
After her third re-run through, Vas waved her hand through Marli’s hologram. “It’s true. Someone painted access to another dimension on my ship?”
“I think we all agree this wasn’t supposed to be your ship,” Marli said as she continued to look at the screen. “But yes, somehow the markings are allowing the ships to come through—the tats are creating the breaches. And those bastards in the gray ships knew it. Possibly the empress as well.”
Deven nodded. “That would explain her firing patterns. She knew we had more than enough firepower between the two ships to take her out, yet she still came after us. She was hoping to destroy the Victorious Dead and knew we were partially disabled because of the breaches.”
Vas stomped back to her chair, ignoring that Marli faded out after she passed her. “Which makes no sense. Empress Wilthuny is a vicious beast, but she doesn’t want the fake Asarlaí here anymore than we do. She wants to control the Commonwealth, not hand it over.”
“Unless she was tricked into doing it.” Mac looked over from his pilot sling. If anyone knew about being tricked to help the wrong people, it was he.
Deven nodded. “That’s possible. Like the Asarlaí themselves, the empress has shown that her drive for power could lead her to rash actions. Destroying the compound on Mayhira, for instance.”
“Captain, I’m not sure how we can shut those breaches down,” Hrrru said from the med lab.
“Actually, what if we had a way to bypass the entire breach system?” Gosta’s hands were flying as he sent more information to Hrrru. He then took over the main screen with an angled shot of the tats. Even though they covered both sides of the ship, the weird activity only came from the side Vas had tried to blow up with the Fury a few days ago.
Vas swore as another jolt rocked the Warrior Wench. The monitor on the tats showed them flash once, but nothing came through. The Victorious Dead pulled away a bit. Ragkor and Therlian saw the flash as well and were rethinking their close flank position.
“Ragkor, we might not be able to stop this. I need you to blow us out of the sky if those things start coming through.” Vas watched her command crew as she spoke, but all of them nodded in agreement. They couldn’t let that invasion fleet come through.
“Captain, there must be another way.” Ragkor wasn’t squeamish but from his tone that was not an order he liked.
“There might not be and I need to know you will obey my orders,” Vas said.
“Understood,” he said—softly, but he said it.
The gray ship closest to them took that moment to fire at the Victorious Dead. It wasn’t a killing shot, and nothing was aimed at the Warrior Wench.
Vas looked down, their power was holding. “Fire full forward missiles at the closest ship.” Her commands were linked to the Victorious Dead as well, and Ragkor echoed the firing. That ship didn’t have the same level of weapons as the Warrior Wench, but the combination was enough to do some serious damage to the gray ship.
The empress’s flagship blew up. It was surprising it took so long considering the amount of damage it had taken. Vas hated to see loss of innocent life, but having dealt with the woman, she doubted there had been any innocents on board. Unfortunately, she also doubted the empress herself had been on there. She was most likely with the group that escaped to the hauler.
“Thank the abyss I’m back in one piece. Now, did someone call for assistance?” Marli’s voice echoed through the command deck a moment before her ship was seen on the screen.
Vas hadn’t even noticed the ghostly hologram vanish, but she admitted the Scurrilous Monk was a welcome sight. The Warrior Wench was impressive, but the Monk was deadly.
Before Vas could respond, the Monk fired upon the first gray ship and pulled away as it exploded.
There were too many dead and dying ships here. Their debris was a danger to all three groups—or two if the empress’s people were actually out of the fight.
“Why aren’t they sending out fighters?” Mac asked. His pilot sling was rocking with his movements to steer away from debris, and he seemed calm, but his voice gave away his tension.
“I’d ask the same thing,” Ragkor cut in just as if he was on the bridge with them. A small image of the Victorious Dead command deck appeared in the lower left of the front screen. Therlian stood behind him in the nun’s version of attention, arms behind her and legs locked. “There’s no benefit to keeping the fighters back.”
Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2) Page 33
