by Richard Fox
Aidan was quiet for a moment, then very quietly said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“That’s not true. Just last night, he…he told me how proud he is of you. That you’re very brave and will grow up to be a great king.”
Aidan looked up and wiped his nose.
“We can go home soon?”
“We will go home. I swear, on my honor and my life, that we will return to Albion…I just don’t know when. Yet.”
“I miss everyone. I miss my room. I want to play outside again.”
“So do I, my Prince. So do I.” Gage leaned over and picked up a thin book from the floor. “Can I read you a story?”
“Yes. But do the voices. Mr. Berty doesn’t do them right at all.”
****
Captain Price sat in her command chair, drumming her fingers against her armrest while watching the Orion’s shields flicker through the forward viewports. Volcanic ejecta from the Wicked Sisters had grated against the ship’s shields for hours, causing waves of energy that flowed across the shields like the auroras that stretched down from Albion’s poles every solstice.
“Guns, what’s your read on our emitters?” she asked.
“They’re holding…for now,” Vashon said. “Repair crews got our port shields up to ninety percent before we left Sicani, but the work-around they used was meant to stand up to pirate guns, the occasional big hit. Not this sandpaper fog we’re flying through.”
“What’s our worst-case scenario if the emitters fail?”
“Hull pitting. Micro-punctures to outer decks. Might lose some antennae. Real problem is mass accretion. If we lose port shields, every bit of rock that comes in will bounce around in the interior shield wall and stay there—like walking around in a rainstorm with a bucket. The bucket gets heavier the longer you’re out there. It’ll slow us down.”
“We could invert if we lose shields,” the conn officer said over his shoulder. “Turn the ship over and move the open section away from the direction of the moons. Should decrease the mass accretion significantly.”
“An option,” Price said as she pulled up a screen from the side of her chair and checked the fleet’s formation. Several of the destroyers on the edge of the diamond had drifted, distorting the neat shape the fleet had before they passed within the moons’ orbits. The lasers the fleet normally used to exchange ship-to-ship telemetry data were badly degraded in the fog of ash and rock particles flowing down to Gilgara. Radio broadcasts would cut through, but they would also serve as a beacon to anyone listening, which was why the fleet was under silent running conditions.
One of the wayward destroyers, the Fairbarn, edged back into place. For a moment, an unidentified contact appeared on her screen, just inside the outer cordon of destroyers. Then it appeared again, deeper within the fleet’s formation.
“Sensors, what do you make of that?” Price asked.
“Ejecta colliding,” Lieutenant Jellico said from her station. “Our passives are almost overwhelmed with random thermal plumes from here to the planet’s surface.”
“On the surface? Show me,” Price said. A moment later, an image of one of the many coal-black craters along the equator came up on her screen. Time stamps from almost fifteen minutes ago appeared next to small heat readings as they appeared along the rim. All had an altitude of a few dozen to several hundred meters above the surface.
The sensor ghost appeared again, closer to the Orion.
“Jellico, Gilgara doesn’t have much of an atmosphere,” Price said. “How is anything burning up so close to the planet?”
“I…that’s a good question, ma’am,” she said as logs of sensor data came up around her workstation. Another brief return pinged on her screen, the largest one yet and even closer to the Orion.
“Ma’am,” Vashon said, “suggest we direct the gun crews to do a visual sweep of that sector.”
“Conn, how much longer until we’re at the jump point?” Price asked.
“Twenty minutes at current speed,” Jellico said. “We still don’t have the jump equation from the Carlin.”
“Hail those criminals and tell them to disseminate it,” Price said. “No point waiting around if it isn’t absolutely necessary.”
Price drew a quick plot from the far side of the two moons and the barren planet and bit her lip. If a hostile fleet was out there, it would have just enough time to catch up to the 11th before it could jump away.
“Sensors, I want a directed radar pulse across sectors seven through nineteen. Something’s off,” Price said.
“Ma’am, Commodore Gage ordered silent running. The pulse energy needed to cut through all the noise will—”
“Did I stutter?”
“No, ma’am. Sensor pulse from seven to nineteen. Aye aye.”
Price swiped a fingertip across a pad and brought up the emergency contact screen. She double-tapped Gage’s icon.
“Commodore to the bridge,” she said quietly.
“By the king!” Vashon called out.
Price’s head shot up.
“Got hostile contacts on an intercept course. Return is fuzzy, but they read as Daegon boarding shuttles,” Vashon said.
Price angled her chair screen up. The enemy was well within their perimeter…and only minutes away from the Orion. Dread welled up inside her and flooded her body. She lunged out of her seat, her body moving far slower than her mind as she jumped onto the command dais.
“Red alert! All ships to battle stations!” Price shouted. “I want a full sensor sweep, now. Guns, can you intercept those shuttles?”
“Flak turrets are spinning up,” Vashon said, “but the targets went to full afterburners once the radar sweep hit them.”
“Damn it,” she said. The holo tank flared to life…and dozens more Daegon assault ships appeared just beyond the fleet’s perimeter. More enemy ships appeared over the horizon of the outer moon, a Daegon force of capital ships that grew larger by the second.
“The Harlequins set us up,” Price said to herself.
****
Gage ran his fingertips down the page of a thin book he held in his hands and glanced at Prince Aidan, where the boy lay curled up next to him on a couch.
“‘You are a bird and you are my mother,’” Gage read. “The end.”
“I like the story.” Aidan rubbed an eye with his fist.
“It’s a very, very old story from Earth,” Gage said. “My mother used to read it to me before bedtime.”
Aidan pushed himself up and dangled his feet over the edge, knocking his heels against the couch.
“I’m like that little bird,” the Prince said. “I want to go home and find my mother. When can we go back?”
Gage set the book to one side.
“That’s hard to say, my Prince. It won’t be soon, I’m sorry to say.”
“Before my birthday?”
Gage’s brow furrowed. He didn’t know that date. The King’s and Queen’s birthdays were public holidays on Albion, not so for their children.
“We’ll see. But before then, will you be nicer to Ms. Salis?”
“No,” Aidan snapped. “I don’t like her.”
“Well, she ca—”
Battle stations sounded. Aidan shrieked and buried his head against Gage’s side. Salis burst into the room, her armor sliding over her face and head.
“Aidan, your special clothes,” Salis said as she opened a locker next to the door and pulled out a bespoke vac-suit and helmet.
The boy began sobbing.
“Get him to his quarters.” Gage tried to pick the boy up, but he squirmed away.
“I’ve got him, sir.” Salis unzipped the vac-suit and tossed it on the couch.
Gage got up to leave, but Aidan clawed at his arm.
“No leave!”
“My place is on the bridge. Salis will take care of you.” Gage pulled the boy’s hands away as Salis wedged herself between the two of them.
Gage rushed o
ut of the room and found Thorvald waiting with a pistol in one hand, a void helmet in the other. Aidan’s cries carried through the bulkhead.
“This is no place for children,” Gage said, taking the helmet from Thorvald and putting it on. A mechanism in the base of the helmet connected to his shipboard uniform and a puff of stale air filled his visor. He pulled on a pair of gloves as he and Thorvald ran for the nearest elevator.
“Commodore, it’s an ambush,” Price said through his helmet once it connected to the ship’s network. “Dozens of Daegon assault boats. They were waiting for us on the planet’s surface. We missed their approach in all the noise. It’s my own damn fault. Permission to open fire on the Carlin.”
“Belay that. Do we have the jump solution yet?”
“Negative. Daegon fleet, currently scanning fifty-nine cruiser analogs and one battleship on an intercept course.”
Gage bit back a curse. He turned down a hallway, feeling the deck shake as the nearby point defense battery opened fire.
“Best speed to the jump nexus. This is not the time or place for a last stand,” Gage said.
A groan of metal filled the passageway. Thorvald grabbed Gage by the shoulder and jerked him back just as the hull ripped inward and a Daegon boarding torpedo broke through the Orion’s defenses.
Air whipped around Gage as it rushed to the open vacuum. Lights flickered and all sound beyond Gage’s suit vanished. The gale pulled Gage off his feet, and only Thorvald’s iron grip kept him from sailing into the void.
The Daegon torpedo’s fire-scorched hull rotated on its axis, grinding out sparks against the Orion’s superstructure.
“Down.” Thorvald pushed Gage to the deck a heartbeat before a side panel blew off and sliced over their heads.
Daegon soldiers clambered to get out of the opening as light from passing energy bolts of the Orion’s weapons passed over their blue armor and glinted off their rifles’ bayonets. Thorvald flicked a switch on his pistol and braced it with both hands. The weapon fired on full auto, shredding the tightly packed Daegon as they fought to break out of the boarding torpedo.
One soldier managed a hip shot that glanced off the Genevan’s shoulder, pulling the last of his rounds wide.
Thorvald’s armor shifted into a round shield on a forearm and he charged forward. A Daegon shot bounced off the shield and into the ceiling. A second caught the bodyguard in the ankle.
Thorvald jumped forward and smashed the edge of shield into a soldier struggling over the body of a comrade. The blow snapped the man’s neck, leaving his head dangling at an angle that turned Gage’s stomach.
Thorvald slapped away a clumsy stab from the last Daegon, then grabbed him by the face, tearing the front of the soldier’s helmet. Air spilled into the vacuum and the blue-skinned Daegon dropped his weapon and pawed at his mouth and nose. Thorvald grabbed a fallen rifle by the barrel and clubbed the Daegon against the side of his head.
Blood spattered to the deck and boiled off almost instantly.
“I can’t get you through here,” Thorvald said. “The closest lift to the bridge is on deck nineteen.”
A squad of Orion Marines ran around the corner and drew down on Thorvald.
“Stop!” Gage yelled.
“Sorry, Commodore,” the lead sergeant said. “His armor looks a bit like theirs.”
“Is the maintenance hatch to deck four still intact?” Gage asked.
“Yes, sir, just went past it,” the sergeant said.
“The Crown Prince is in room 11-Alpha. Escort him and his Genevan to the Admiral’s quarters,” Gage said.
“But what about you?” the sergeant asked.
“Are you insulting me?” Thorvald asked as he came back from the boarding torpedo.
The ship rocked as an explosion reverberated through the decks.
“Get moving,” Gage said.
****
Petty Officer Challons ran up to a vent spewing flames. He felt the heat through his helmet and gloves as he unsnapped a hose from his leg and aimed the nozzle at the vent. The fire blackened and the warped gate hung from a single hinge. Two more sailors stopped behind him, both holding carbines and crowbars.
“Deck Officer, this is damage control team three,” Challons said as he sent a quick burst of foam into the opening and the fire sputtered. “Got a ruptured air line somewhere between the antennae array station and the magazine on deck two.”
He opened the aperture on his nozzle and flooded the vent, coating pipes and cables with foam. The foam hardened, then exploded as the flames reconquered the space and hardened foam bounced off his helmet and shoulders.
“Deck Officer, team three, we got a fire line here. Suggest we go full vacuum on the deck. If this gets worse, the main transmitters will be at risk…Deck Officer?” Challons tapped the side of his helmet.
There was a flash of light and one of his teammates pitched forward, a smoking hole in his chest, as three Daegon soldiers rushed at them from behind. One rammed a bayonet into a sailor’s chest and raised him into the air, skewered at the end of the weapon.
Challons fumbled for a pistol locked in its holster. One of the Daegon grabbed his arm and flung him against the bulkhead. The sailor bounced off and fell to the deck, stunned. A Daegon stripped his pistol away, then hauled him up onto his knees. He pinned Challons’ arms back and held him as the sailor struggled.
A man in an Albion Navy vac-suit walked around a corner. The Daegon soldiers ignored him as he put his hands on the side of his helmet and lifted it up. Beneath was a man made of matte obsidian. Every bit of his head was pure darkness—even the flicker of firelight seemed to melt into his skin.
“I need to see him,” Ja’war the Black said.
One of the Daegon unsnapped Challons’ helmet and tossed it aside.
“What is—what is this? Deck Officer? Deck—”
Ja’war darted forward and grabbed Challons by the throat, choking him.
The Faceless pressed a finger to his dark lips.
“Deck Officer,” Ja’war said in a singsong voice and an electric shock snapped through Challons’ throat as he gagged.
“Deck Officer,” Ja’war said again…in Challons’ voice as the black skin lightened to match the Albian sailor’s. Skin pulled taut around the eyes and Ja’war’s features morphed, like there were fingers pressing against the inside of his face.
Darkness pressed around Challons’ vision as Ja’war became a perfect replica of him.
“Thank you for this gift,” Ja’war said and then snapped the sailor’s neck with a quick twist.
“Now what?” one of the Daegon asked.
Ja’war edged his toe beneath one of the carbines of the dead sailors and kicked it up. He caught the weapon and gripped the handle.
“Now you’re of no use to me.” Ja’war jammed the muzzle into the nearest Daegon’s chest and shot him though the heart, pulling the corpse against him and using it as a shield to deflect the hasty stab from the next boarder’s bayonet. Ja’war shot him through the throat, then ducked and spun around to shoot the last of his escorts.
The Faceless picked up Challons’ helmet and put it on, then took an explosive charge off his belt and tossed it against the bulkhead near the raging vent. Ja’war hurried down the hallway and ducked around a corner, flipping off the Daegon jammer on his belt.
“—the hell are you, team three?” came over Challons’ intercom.
“It’s gonna blow!” Ja’war clicked a button on his gauntlet and a fireball roared down the passageway, singeing his vac-suit. With all the evidence disposed of, Ja’war brushed himself off and made his way to the Orion’s communication nexus.
Chapter 11
Gage rushed out of the lift and made straight for the bridge’s holo tank.
“Send reserve platoon alpha to deck eight,” Price said to a battle-armored Marine’s image in the tank. “We cannot lose the fusion plants if we ever want to make it out of here.”
Gage slapped a panel on his side o
f the tank and his fleet materialized. He spent a few seconds analyzing the data before saying, “Price, what’s the status on boarders?”
“Breaches all across our starboard. They coalesced into three teams—two of which we eliminated—and we’ve got the last one pinned down near bay seven, quartermaster’s stores,” she said.
A diagram of the Orion came up, hull breaches pulsing like bleeding wounds. Red lines traced the boarders’ advance through the ship.
“Going for our power plants this time, not for the Prince,” Gage said.
“Commodore, priority message from the Carlin,” the communications officer called out.
“Have them stand by,” Gage said. “Price, you have the counter-boarder fight.”
“Aye aye,” she said.
Gage swiped through the holo tank and his fleet appeared. Tiny icons of Typhoon fighters danced around Daegon assault ships, destroying one every few seconds. His walls of destroyers and cruisers closest to the planet kept up a steady stream of fire, annihilating the few Daegon ships racing toward the 11th.
From everything he could see, the fight was going their way. The Daegon had attacked with assault craft unsupported by larger ships and committed them to the battle piecemeal, and the Albion guns were defeating them in detail.
“Amateur effort,” Gage said. “Not like the Daegon at all…”
“Sir, the Carlin is transmitting a distress call,” Price said.
Gage zoomed in on the pirate ship and found it listing in space. Three Daegon boarding torpedoes stuck from her hull like embedded crossbow bolts.
“Conn, do we have the jump solution out of here?” Gage asked.
“Negative, sir,” the pale-faced lieutenant said.
The Carlin’s engines exploded, cracking the ship down her keel and sending the halves tumbling away from each other.
Price made an undisciplined gasp and covered her mouth. Silence fell across the bridge.
Gage did a quick mental calculation for a return jump back to Sicani and quickly concluded that there was no way to get to the nexus without going through the much larger Daegon fleet.
