by M. D. Cooper
Katrina laughed.
Juasa glanced back at Malorie and frowned. Katrina wondered if she still harbored any feelings of compassion for the woman, or if that was gone now.
Probably not gone. It’s only been a day, after all. What a day.
Jordan directed the ship into its approach vector and began to slow the vessel down. Twenty minutes later, they were sliding into their berth.
Katrina reviewed the positions of the Blackadder ships within ten light minutes. They’d maintained their positions while the MDF ships—most of them, at least—had begun to move toward their stations, or their prior patrol paths, dispersing through inner Midditerra.
The moment the bay doors began to close, Katrina sent out the call.
“Let slip the dogs of war,” Korin whispered.
“You sure about this?” Jordan asked. “It’s going to be a slugfest out there.”
Katrina raised an eyebrow as she turned her head to look at the young captain. “You asking to get out and join the fun?”
“Well, maybe a bit.”
“I’d let you go, but I need Sam to help me take the station—with luck, he can convince the station AI that there’s a better way, and it can aid us.”
“We’re just the getaway car?” Jordan asked.
“Well, I half-expected us to need to shoot our way in. You’ll need to defend this bay, though. We’ll need those boarders too.”
“Any near here?” Jordan asked. “Some backup would be nice.”
“You have a starship. What backup do you need?” Malorie asked, speaking for the first time since she had come onto the bridge.
Jordan snorted and shook her head. “Really hard to target enemies under the cradle in here. Stations—especially stations like Farsa—like to make sure they can hit you in the belly if you give them trouble.”
“Oh,” Malorie said.
“OK,” Katrina turned from the holo. “Time for us to make some noise. Juasa, any chance the armory on this boat was still in one piece?”
Juasa shook her head. “Stripped clean.”
“Yup, in the flesh,” Katrina said as they walked off the bridge. “Say hi to Astrid, Lara.”
“Hi, Astrid,” Lara said in a monotone.
Korin led the way, and Katrina, Juasa, Malorie, and Lara followed.
“I don’t know why you need me to come,” Malorie complained. “What am I going to do?”
“You’re here to show any Blackadder we meet that there’s no other side to switch to. We’re united against the MDF.”
“Go us!” Malorie sneered. “Shit, this grating is sharp with no shoes.”
“Should have kept them on,” Juasa said. “I’ve seen you walk all day on more uncomfortable ones.”
“I was shot!” Malorie exclaimed.
“Try getting ten lashes and then a caning, and we’ll talk,” Katrina said. “I could send you back up to Jordan, but I’ve seen some of the looks she’s given you…it may not be safe.”
Malorie blew out a long breath and picked up her pace. “There may have been a thing once.”
Juasa shook her head. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
They reached the airlock, and Korin descended the ramp first, sweeping his weapon across the deserted bay.
“Seems clear,” he said.
Katrina dispersed a cloud of nano and passed their control to Sam.
“Hello?” a voice called out from the far side of the ship.
Katrina led her group around the vessel to see a group of men and women in mismatched armor standing near one of the bay’s doors.
“Moana!” Korin called out and raised a hand in greeting. “We’re going to make a little excursion to Lara’s command deck. Care to join us?”
“Holy. Shit,” the woman Korin had spoken to said as she laid eyes on Lara and Malorie. “What. The actual fuck. Is going on?”
“The Midditerra System is under new management,” Katrina said as she approached. “Namely mine. Blackadder, too.”
“Seriously?” another of the assembled group asked.
Katrina elbowed Malorie, who nodded. “Yeah, she runs the Blackadder now.”
On Katrina’s other side, Lara nodded. “Katrina’s the boss.”
“So what’s your plan?” Moana asked.
“We need to get to Lara’s command deck,” Katrina said, nodding in the general direction of the central spire. “From there, I can issue orders on her official channel and announce the changing of the guard.”
“Well, shit. Let’s go,” Moana said. “Maglevs are shut down, so we’ll have to walk.”
Astrid offered.
Katrina was a little worried about being confined in a maglev train car, but it was still better than slogging their way across three kilometers of station to the central spire.
With Moana’s group of eleven pirates bolstering their numbers to sixteen, they exited the bay and worked their way through several wide boulevards to the maglev station Astrid had indicated.
Shit, that didn’t take long, Katrina thought.
Astrid made a strange warbling sound that Katrina realized was her laugh.
The team arrived at the maglev platform to find it protected by four MDF soldiers. Katrina walked out into the open with Lara at her side, while the Adders held back, out of sight.
“Admiral!” one of the soldiers cried out as they approached. “We heard you’d docked. The maglevs are offline, we’re not sure why.”
Lara pointed further down the thoroughfare. “Then we need to go on foot, two of you, scout ahead. You others, check the corridor we just came down, I think there were Adders back there.
The soldiers rushed to comply. Katrina kept walking with Lara toward the maglev platform when weapons fire erupted behind them. Her nanocloud showed that the second pair of soldiers had been taken out.
The first pair that she’d sent to scout ahead turned, only to meet the kinetic rounds of a dozen Adder rifles.
&
nbsp; Katrina nodded grimly as she stood on the platform waiting for a train to arrive. By the time Juasa and the rest of the Adders reached their side, a car was gliding to a stop on the magnetic rail.
“All aboard!” Moana said with a grin.
The maglev ride to the central spire didn’t take long, and when they arrived at the terminal where the train let out and the lifts to the spire lay, it was entirely empty.
Astrid said as Katrina looked around.
Katrina’s augmented olfactory senses could pick up a hint of the fire suppression gas, but not enough to cause any issues.
Astrid sent a happy feeling into Katrina’s mind.
Katrina nodded absently as she called back to the Castigation for a sitrep.
Juasa said with a rueful laugh.
Katrina considered her options.
Jordan’s infectious grin came across the Link into Katrina’s mind.
Katrina turned her attention back to the issue of the lifts and the command deck high up the spire.
There was a pause before the AI replied.
Katrina ran a hand through her hair. That was a wrinkle she hadn’t expected—it would have been nice for Astrid to share that tidbit sooner, but she didn’t want to chastise her new ally so soon.
Katrina didn’t reply as she approached the bank of lifts and summoned one to come down. One of the doors opened, and Katrina stepped in.
“Lara, Korin, we’re going up for a little stealth entry. The rest of you follow in five.”
“Like fuck. You are,” Moana said. “I’m coming, too.”
Several more of the Adders shouted that they wanted to join in, and Katrina laughed. “OK, four more. But we’re trying to be sneaky, so those of you with bulky armor are gonna be kicking in the front door in five.”
Moana and three other Adder women joined them in the lift, and Katrina sent the conveyance the command to rise.
“I’m coming too,” Juasa said, hefting a rifle she’d picked up somewhere along the way.
Katrina was going to tell her to stay back with Malorie and the other Adders, but thought better of it and nodded. “Of course.”
Juasa stepped in and gestured to the control screen. “Lara’s command deck is level 417.”
“There’s no option for 416,” Katrina said. “Gonna have to stop it manually.”
“Good luck,” Korin chuckled.
“Well, if I miss it, we’ll just hold Lara out in front and pray they like her enough not to blow her away,” Katrina said with a grimace as she accessed the lift’s emergency braking system and got ready to activate it.
“I think she twitched when you said that,” Juasa said. “Is she fully controlled?”
Katrina checked over the nano that had formed a net around Lara’s brain stem. “Yeah, they’re in place. She must have really tried to move there and got a signal past. Lara, try that again, and I’ll have the nano sever your spinal column. Understood?”
Lara didn’t move, and Katrina turned her attention back to the lift as it slowed, passing floor 400.
“Brace!” she called out, and the lift stopped abruptly. “Get the doors open, it won’t take them long to figure out what we did,”
Two of the Adders pulled the doors open, and the team rushed out into a dimly lit maintenance level.
Katrina let loose a cloud of nano, signaling it to work its way back down the lift and establish a connection with Astrid. With any luck, they could bypass the local protections and gain some level of control up here.
Some of the nano also found network conduit and began following them, looking for junction boxes.
Korin and Moana moved ahead, working their way down the passageway. Two of the other Adders followed, and Katrina fell in behind them alongside Lara and Juasa while the last two women brought up the rear.
She established a local combat net with the group and provided the floorplan she’d pulled from Lara’s mind.
Thirty meters down this corridor, then ten more down to the right, there was a ladder shaft that ran up through the spire. It would bring them up just a dozen paces from the entrance to Lara’s command room.
From what Katrina had gleaned from Lara’s mind, systems in that room would allow her to issue direct commands to the AIs and NSAIs in the MDF ships.
That should put the entire Midditerra Defense Force under her command.
They reached the ladder shaft without incident. Korin opened the hatch and peered down the twelve hundred meter drop.
“Watch your step. A fall here’ll take you clear down to hell.”
He climbed up the ladder to the next level and peered out into the passageway on level 417.
The team climbed the ladder one by one and began moving down the hall to the broad doors leading into Lara’s command center. When they had all arrived, Katrina took a deep breath and pushed the doors open, stepping in with Korin and Moana at her side, their weapons sweeping the air in front of them.
Other than a cluster of holodisplays in the center, the room appeared to be empty.
“Fan out,” Katrina said as she walked toward the holodisplays.
“Looks just like it did yesterday,” Juasa commented as she caught up to Katrina.
“Shouldn’t we have heard fighting back at the lift by now?” Korin asked.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” a new voice said.
Katrina sent a passel of nano toward the displays, but they stopped short, caught in a grav field.
“Shit,” Katrina swore, trying to get her probes past the grav field.
Then, one-by-one, the holodisplays shut off, revealing the person she least expected to see.
Jace.
JACE
STELLAR DATE: 01.20.8512 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Farsa Station
REGION: Orbiting Persia, Midditerra System
Jace’s bearded face broke into a toothy smile. “I must say, Katrina. I really have to thank you for this. You gave me an entire system! What a great present to return to.”
“Surrender, Jace!” Katrina shouted. “We have you surrounded. The only present you’re going to get is on the far side of the airlock.”
Jace shook his head. “I don’t think so. You see, Moana and her ladies here haven’t really sided with you. They’re still allied with me.”
Katrina turned to see Moana and the four women with her turn their weapons on Juasa, Korin, and herself. A sound behind her got Katrina’s attention, and she saw the other Adders enter, bringing Malorie with them.
Jace’s wife wore a look of terror on her face. Katrina knew that no matter which way things went, Malorie was going to suffer before this confrontation was over.
“Malorie,” Jace called out. “Honey, I hope Katrina hasn’t hurt you—not too much, at least.”
“Does it look like I’m unharmed?” Malorie asked. “Lara shot me, the bitch.”
“Lara!” Jace exclaimed, turning to the admiral. “What do you have to say for yourself? Shooting my wife! And on the night you surrender Midditerra to me.”
“Lara doesn’t speak for herself anymore,” Katrina said. “Neither does Malorie.”
The moment she uttered the words, Malorie stopped moving and sat down on the floor.
“Nice trick,” Jace said with a throaty laugh. “Two can play at that game, though. Juasa, come here.”
Juasa didn’t budge. “Fuck you, Jace. Katrina’s going to mop the floor with you.”
At least she appreciates my skills when her life’s on the line.
Though Katrina’s nano wasn’t able to make it past the grav field that protected Jace, she was able to target the other Adders in the room. Not all of them, not in time, but enough.
“How did you get here, anyway?” Katrina asked, buying time for her nano to reach and infiltrate the closest Adders. “I didn’t see the Verisimilitude enter the system.”
