With that, she left the unlikely intelligence operation's headquarters and presumably made her way to whatever transport would convey her to Senator Cornwallis' goons.
For the first time since they had collaborated—including their first 'collaboration' in the escape pod which Jason Montagne had dropped them into prior to their being collected by Murphy-blasted droids—Bethany turned to him with something approaching deference as she demanded, “Well, what do we do?”
Tremblay cocked his head, quirked a grin, met Fisher's intent gaze and shrugged, “We keep his mouth shut—and pay someone else to do the talking.”
If Bethany's short-lived moment of deference to his judgment had been a rewarding experience, the exasperation as she literally threw her hands into the air and rolled her eyes was probably a life-changing one.
Fisher shrugged emphatically, flashing a grin that was eerily reminiscent of the man whose surgically-reproduced face he now wore, “Works for me.”
Chapter XXXVI: Conduction, Pt. II
“We've arrived within the Conduit's conduction zone,” Shiyuan reported.
“Link established with the Conduit's control system,” Waldo added.
“Send the packet,” McKnight said tightly.
“Packet sent; receipt confirmed,” Waldo said a few seconds later.
“Sensors?” she asked of Jarrett.
“Nothing on passive or active scans,” Shiyuan replied.
“We won't know about a potential welcoming party on the other side until we reach it,” Spalding said grimly.
“The fixed assets would be assigned to this side of the Conduit,” McKnight said confidently. “Mobile assets, on the other hand, are likely already engaged deep in the Gorgon Sectors—reallocation of military hardware to this battle front was a primary cited reason for the Imperial Withdrawal from the Spine, after all. I doubt they'd leave a battle fleet on the other side just in case someone tried to sneak out of the Empire; most of the time, governments are more concerned with keeping people from sneaking in.”
“It's a big risk,” Spalding said flatly.
“Which puts it right up our alley,” she finished, drawing a muted look of approval from her XO. “Time to conduction?”
“Best estimate: eight minutes forty seconds,” Shiyuan reported.
“So soon?” Spalding asked with a note of concern. “The specs Bellucci provided suggested it should take close to an hour for the Conduit to target and conduct us to the other side.”
“Thank Murphy for small miracles,” McKnight interjected, hoping to cut that particular line of inquiry well short of its logical conclusion: that either Bellucci gave them bad information, deliberately deceived them, or that someone nearby had recently used the Conduit. None of those was a desirable outcome, but it did her no good to have her people engage in an anxiety feedback loop just now.
“Set Condition One throughout the ship,” Spalding barked, prompting the Rainbow's interior lighting to switch over to the newly-fashioned deep blue color code the droids had inexplicably installed.
In truth, McKnight approved of the color schemes presently assigned to the ship's various condition levels—what she disapproved of was the alarming degree of accuracy displayed by the droids in predicting what she would or would not approve of. She sliced a glance over at her newest 'Tactical Officer'—a post she had reluctantly created following the addition of the extra weaponry to the Rainbow's arsenal—and felt more than trace discomfort at his, or its, appearance.
“Shields powered to maximum,” its growling, reverberating vocal synthesizer declared in a tone that was decidedly mechanical but also intentionally human to a degree, “secondary weapons array online; main cannon charging; all systems online.”
The spider-looking droid, which stood five feet at the 'shoulder' and was nearly half again as long as it was tall, was directly connected to the newly-made Tactical station via a series of hard lines. Its 'head' bore a quartet of what looked like multi-faceted eyes, and each of its nine, spindly extremities ended in a small, delicate-looking claw-like appendage with six 'fingers.'
“Thank you, Dusk,” McKnight said in a perfunctory tone. “Conserve our antimatter unless or until we encounter multiple warships on arrival.”
“Acknowledged,” Dusk, the 'Tactical Officer' droid, replied in its metallic, growling voice. McKnight had been loathe to install the droid—or any droid, including Waldo—into the Rainbow's command and control staff. But after seeing Dusk's epic beat-down of all challengers during every tactical simulation she could concoct, she was forced to admit that it would be a mistake not to employ its abilities in service of her crew and their mission.
Also, the fact that he could fire the Rainbow's keel-mounted mass driver almost as well as Fisher could, with obvious room for improvement, had essentially made the decision for her.
“Five minutes to conduction,” Shiyuan reported.
Her XO came over to stand beside her chair, his hands clasped behind his back professionally as he surveyed the bridge crew. Penelope Winters, at the bridge's Engineering console, reported, “All plants operating at combat spec, Captain.”
Waldo issued a short series of bleeps—apparently directed at Dusk for some unknown reason—before interjecting, “Our droid crew reports that repair efforts have ceased, all units have returned to their charging alcoves, and they await successful conduction before resuming the last of their work on the habitat module.”
“Thank you,” McKnight acknowledged both Winters and Waldo.
“Three minutes,” Shiyuan reported.
Spalding leaned in close. “Between you and me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “do you really think Captain Middleton's out there?”
“I do,” she nodded confidently before fixing him with a conflicted gaze. Straightening her self in her chair, she stiffened her voice and added, “Besides, we don't abandon our friends—I know that sentiment has gotten many fine servicemen, some of them our friends, killed in the past. But if we don't honor each other, who will? The politicians? The voters? The Flag, even?” she shook her head firmly. “Most of the time in my life, I'm not sure if what I'm doing is right. When I am sure, like I am right now, I take the plunge and never look back.”
Spalding gave her an approving nod. “That's better than I could have said it, Captain.”
“One minute to conduction,” Shiyuan called out, and shoulders tightened all around the bridge.
“All hands, this is the Captain,” McKnight keyed into the ship-wide, “we're fifty seconds from point transfer. Whatever we find on the other side, we'll deal with—just like everything else we've run into.”
At that, the timer over the main viewer counted down to zero. When it did, unlike the previous conduction they had experienced, there was no telltale sign that anything was about to happen—and, for a few seconds following the countdown hitting zero, McKnight genuinely thought that nothing had happened.
Then the sensor feed began to populate, and a ship appeared at the edge of sensor range. “Contact! I've got a contact at the edge of short weapons range,” Shiyuan called over his shoulder as he coordinated the Rainbow's active sensors in a targeted scan of the vessel. “It's a courier vessel, Captain,” he reported a moment later, causing her to relax fractionally. “And it's fleeing at full acceleration.”
“Lay in a pursuit course,” she commanded, and the large Rainbow ponderously came about and engaged its engines. “Yide,” she opened a direct line to the Sundered's com-link, “prepare to launch the Mode in pursuit of a courier ship. Lu,” she switched to the warrior woman's link without awaiting a verbal acknowledgment from the uplift, “I need your strike team aboard the Mode immediately.”
“We will be aboard in forty seconds, Captain,” Lu's reply came promptly, and a quick check of the hangar's status showed the Mode's engines were firing up in prep for a launch.
The Mode was just fast enough to keep up with a courier vessel, but unlikely to catch a dedicated Imperial
courier in a simple contest of acceleration curves—which said nothing of the courier's likely faster-than-usual FTL recharge rates.
“We have six minutes to shut that courier's FTL drive down,” she snapped after checking Imperial courier ship statistics and finding a match for the ship on their sensors. She turned to Dusk, “If you only use medium lasers during that interval, can you disable its engines without causing catastrophic damage to the rest of the ship?”
“83% probability, Captain McKnight,” Dusk replied instantly.
“Do it,” she commanded, and the Rainbow's new arsenal of medium lasers lashed out at the fleet-footed vessel burning for all it was worth away from her larger, sluggish warship. The first barrage failed to penetrate the courier's shields, but shortly after it had been authored the Mode slipped free of the hangar with a four man team, led by Lu, aboard.
“Lu,” McKnight piped back into the direct Lancer Command Channel, “if we can't bring their engines offline in four minutes, you're going to need to transfer via space-walk, wait for the point transfer to conclude, and then take control of the ship. If that's necessary, point transfer to the coordinates I'm feeding to your link right now,” she said as she forwarded the Rainbow's next point transfer target coordinates.
“Understood; coordinates received,” Lu replied as the Mode surged forward with more acceleration than should have been possible for anything outside of an Imperial courier ship.
Another volley of fire erupted from the Rainbow's medium laser array. This time a single shot pierced the courier's stern shields, but barely managed to land against the nimble craft's hull.
“She's pulling away,” Spalding grunted, moving to stand beside Penelope Winters where he assisted her with some task she appeared to be struggling with.
The third volley erupted from the Rainbow's newly-installed medium laser array, and this time five beams struck the courier's hull. The sleek ship's engines flickered as it went into a bow-over-stern tumble before reorienting its attitude. But its engines appeared to have been knocked offline, at least temporarily.
“What could be so important and secretive that an Imperial courier would travel through the Conduit alone, and then wait around—presumably—for an escort?” McKnight wondered aloud.
“What makes you think they're waiting for an escort?” Spalding asked with a raised eyebrow.
“They should have been able to point transfer before we arrived,” she replied, “though it's possible we just got lucky—“
She was interrupted when Dusk authored another salvo, this one skewering the courier amidships with a pair of beams that quickly saw the sleek craft eject its fusion core. A moment later, its hyper drive was also ejected—a common issue with such compact craft was that their critical systems were ineffectively shielded, so any serious damage generally required such systems to be discarded.
She reviewed the last salvo's fire pattern and cocked her head skeptically at the precise nature of the shots Dusk had landed. Six beams had converged into a single point near the stern, with the other two striking fifteen meters toward the bow. The timing of the eight coordinated shots was perfect: the first six had drawn the courier's shields, and the last two had punched holes through the power feeds connecting the courier's fusion plant and hyper drive.
It wasn't an unprecedented pattern of fire, in fact it was perfectly textbook. But what made it impressive was the speed with which he—or it—had devised it based on the sensor data. The decision to go with a six-two split on the beams was contraindicated just a few seconds earlier, when four-four would have been more advisable given the courier's shield status. Four-four would have presented a higher probability of causing catastrophic damage, however, which is why Dusk had awaited the six-two conditions.
In a span measured in only a handful of milliseconds, Dusk had sensed an opening and taken full advantage—and McKnight knew the only way she could have matched that performance was by having the fire patterns already queued up and slaved directly to the sensor feeds.
“Good shooting, Dusk,” she congratulated.
“Thank you, Captain,” the droid's synthetic voice promptly replied.
“Lu,” she switched to the Lancer Command channel, “be advised: the courier is on backup power. Retrieve the data storage systems if possible, and capture enemy crew alive if possible—but don't consider either objective a priority. Your job is to secure the courier's comm array ASAP.”
“Understood,” Lu acknowledged—and a second later the courier exploded.
More accurately, the ejected fusion core went critical and tore the relatively flimsy courier ship into four distinct sections as the blast wave propagated unpredictably outward from the drive core.
“The Mode sustained no serious damage,” Jarrett reported. “They were still too far for the blast to penetrate their shields.”
McKnight's eyes narrowed. “Give me the raw sensor feeds,” she commanded, and a moment later Shiyuan had forwarded the raw data to her console. She pored over the information, finding nothing to suggest that the hyper drive had been in immediate danger of failure, and her hackles went up. “Engage the jump drive for immediate void jump,” she snapped, “I feel a targeting beam on my back—get us out of here!”
“Immediate void jump, aye,” Spalding confirmed before turning to the Engineering console where Winters worked anxiously to relay the necessary commands.
“Engine flare!” Shiyuan shouted as an icon appeared on the sensors. “Thirty two degrees by fifteen—another one at eighty nine degrees by negative twenty six!“
Another icon appeared, followed by another—and another—and another still as it became clear that the Rainbow had been encircled by enemy craft.
“Void jump ready, Captain,” Winters reported loudly.
“Jump!” McKnight snapped as the Rainbow's shields flared—and very nearly collapsed!—under the combined weight of fire suddenly pressing down on them.
In less than a quarter second, the Rainbow's robust shields had been reduced to thirty percent capacity—but, after that quarter second elapsed, the refurbished warship disappeared, sliding past the so-called laws of physics and reappearing half a light year from the site of the destroyed courier ship.
“Jump successful,” Jarrett reported unnecessarily—if the jump had not been successful, the ship would have been torn apart or crushed by whatever gravity well had caught it during transit. “No sign of the Mode,” he added, also unnecessarily.
McKnight's left hand was balled into a fist, and she forced it to relax as she straightened in her chair. “Status report, all sections,” she said grimly. “Let me know the second we're ready to jump again,” she added as the full weight of her decision came crashing down on her.
“Lu had the rendezvous coordinates,” Tremblay said hollowly, “and Yide has our itinerary on a local device.”
She nodded distantly, “It's up to them to make the rendezvous. Unless...”
“Jump engines will be ready for a targeted jump back to the conduction point in twelve minutes,” Spalding said, correctly guessing her intention.
But she shook her head in negation, both at his urgency and her own emotionally-driven desire to go back for them, “In twelve minutes, their fate will already be decided. And the Mode's jump engines only need fifteen minutes to cycle after the various upgrades Yide made recently.” She drew a pair of quiet, steadying breaths before projecting an air of resolution, “We'll make the rendezvous, but only after our systems are capable of quick-jumping us out if there's trouble waiting for us there.”
“That's another four hours, Captain,” Spalding said gravely.
“Three hours fifty two minutes, XO,” she corrected, putting a countdown timer up on the main viewer representing that figure. “But it's the best we can do for them. For now,” she nearly choked before fighting through the last words, “they're on their own.”
Chapter XXXVII: For All She's Worth
The Mode juked, spun, slid, corkscrewed, and p
itched for all she was worth, pushing every last newton of thrust out of her drive system that was mathematically possible as Yide remarkably evaded fire for forty seconds following the Rainbow's point transfer. As far as Lu was concerned, the fact that they had not taken a single hit was nothing short of miraculous—and she found herself quietly muttering prayers to the Great Ancestors in the hope they might continue to grant their favor.
“Third decoy deployed,” Yide's sister reported with awe-inspiring calm from the co-pilot's chair in the Cutter's cockpit. “Three decoys left.”
“What can I do?” Lu Bu asked, more frustrated at her helplessness than dissatisfied with the Sundered siblings' performance.
“Sit down,” Yide snarled, his voice far louder than any human's could have been as he roared, “AND SHUT UP!”
The craft lurched violently to port, snapping Lu Bu's head into the rest of the seat she had just attempted to occupy. Sliding into the seat—which was barely large enough to contain her power-armored bulk—she strapped herself in just as Yide burned the Mode's first and second banks of solid-fuel afterburners in unison, nearly overpowering the craft's grav-plates in the process.
“Port primary grid is down,” Yide's sister reported tensely. “Fourth decoy away,” she added, almost as an afterthought, and Lu Bu barely managed to sight the decoy's icon on the sensor screen before it was snuffed out by enemy fire. “Fifth decoy down,” the uplift snarled, her lips peeling back from her fang-like teeth in a truly primal, undeniable expression of defiance. This time the decoy persisted for nearly four seconds before it, too, was snuffed out.
By conducting a perfectly-coordinated dance of their individual actions, Yide and his sister managed to almost wordlessly conduct their maneuvers entirely during the decoys' shockingly brief lifespans. This cut their engine exhaust signature down to the bare minimum which, when combined with the Mode's robust—and also recently-upgraded—stealth suite, had caused the Imperial gunners to miss on one hundred twenty three of their one hundred twenty four individual attacks.
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