Kicking Ashe

by Pauline Baird Jones

  You fixed it?

  No. It is not only undamaged, but fully deployed.

  So I’m shiny silver metal girl again? Okay, a bit shallow, but she hated being shiny, silver metal girl.

  I am adjusting the hologram settings so you look like you did on the planet. And you still wear the clothes given you there.

  Sweet. Her heart gave a big kick. Maybe her time senses were—more than her heart slumped figuratively against Shan’s chest when her senses remained firmly offline. The warm chest kind of helped ease the pain. It was a very fine chest.

  It might return in another time event. Or time may be too unstable for it to work properly.

  She stared at the map and had to agree that could mess up more than time senses. Was Time toying with them or trying to help them? Her current proximity with Shan was more than helpful, though the fact that he was still unconscious ramped up worry—

  He stirred again. The chest under her chin rising and falling in a big, wake up sigh. A pause, then his lashes fluttered, lifted. A foggy, green gaze warmed. The lips curved a bit, though he didn’t go overboard. With his free hand he touched her cheek. “You are still here.”

  The husky mutter sent warm delight cascading through all of her. She wanted to promise she’d always be here. Wanted to believe Time would let her. Hard to trust Time, when it was wigging out all around them. Despite the pang squeezing her heart, she smiled. How could she not when he looked at her like that? “I am.”

  His lashes lifted higher, allowing him to see more. “We are on my ship.”

  “Yes.” And I’m on you. Good news and more good news.

  A crease formed between his brows and her heart clenched.

  “My brother. I scented him again, just before—”

  Her eyes widened. Pieces fell into place. “He was on the missing ship.” His nod was grim, not easy to accomplish with a mere nod, but he managed it.

  Seemed wrong to stay on his chest after that. She disentangled limbs, weapon and body and sat up. Did it seem he almost protested? Or had her critical thinking skills turned wishful? Shouldn’t be wishing anything—

  She rubbed a tiny ache in her temple that Lurch couldn’t ease. “Do the Zelk ever take prisoners?”

  He sat up, too, his back against the bulkhead and rubbed his face. “Not much is known about the Zelk. Nothing is known about how—”

  He stopped, his expression deep in not-happy, though not—it seemed to her—the same as their first contact. More crappy-situation not happy, than Ashe-is-a-pain-in-the-ass unhappy. Ashe let relief trickle down her insides, though she tempered it with caution. What Time gave, it could take back without breaking a sweat. The thought of Time sweating rather made her eye want to twitch. To escape thought and twitch, she said, “I’m sorry.”

  Do you think we could figure out which time stream his brother is in and go get him?

  My time databases have not updated.

  Not so much as a negative as an ignore of the question, though now that she thought about it, her suit’s beacon sniffer wasn’t picking up anything from the Time Base. Not a good sign. Still it could be the shifting time blocking both sniffer and Lurch’s access. Or it could be gone. Could we be in a broken reality? She’d landed in one once. It had been pretty unstable. Hadn’t been there long enough to know if it was unstable like this was unstable.

  Shan looked around, rubbed his face with a kind of manly wince. If he hurt half as much as she had—

  “I don’t remember activating transport.”

  “We had to get gone and this was the only place to go.” She lifted her knees, wrapped her arms around them, her weapon held loosely and pointed down. Rather expected him to demand it back. He didn’t. Holstered his and made no comment when she stowed hers. He did rise and hold out his hand to help her up. Good manners and sweet when he held on after she made it upright. Now if he’d just offer a little tour of his utilitarian bridge and maybe his ship—

  “You brought us here?” So no tour. She nodded. “How?” Before she could answer, he huffed out something that was part sigh, part snort, all of it troubled. “I have many questions.”

  What he didn’t have was the attitude. “I’m sure you do.” And she had theories and conjectures instead of answers.

  He looked past her with a frown. “What is that?”

  Ashe turned. Her gaze pinging on the command sling—and only seat on his bridge. It looked comfortable enough, and apparently gave Shan access to all his data, tripling what was available to him during a battle, if what Lurch had learned was true. Consoles, panels, instrument panels, screens—some lit, some not—walked tidily around the perimeter. Shan took the direct path the tracking screen Lurch had tweaked.

  “It looks like a terrain map, but it is not, is it?” Shook his shoulders restlessly. He traced one of the lines with a finger. “It does not follow the topography that we experienced dirt side.”

  “Time has a different terrain than, well, terrain.” Well, that sounded bright.

  “Time…terrain?” He looked at her, a brow arched in skepticism that was not apparent in his eyes.

  “It’s a time tracking display.”

  He stared at her for several seconds. “Would not a clock suffice?”

  Ashe managed a small chuckle. “According to this, we’re in some kind of fractured time.” She marked the ship’s position near the edge of the amoeba. “We need to be able to track it to navigate our way out.” If that was possible. “I wish we had a picture of what it was like during the skirmish dirt side.”

  Why?

  “I don’t understand why the Zelk didn’t react when we started shooting them.” Ashe answered Lurch’s question, though Shan didn’t seem to notice. Could they have been in a different flow of time than the Zelk? That didn’t explain why they were able to see and shoot them, though.

  Shan shoulder’s shifted, as if the question made him uncomfortable. “This is only my second, dirt side encounter.”

  “It was a well laid ambush. Decent strategy.”

  “Their tactics were similar to my last encounter.”

  “What happened?” Seemed less weird to ask it that way, than to ask how he survived.

  “The wind shifted.”

  They had been upwind from the Keltinarian patrol, she recalled. “So they know you scent parse, but don’t seem to deal with the unexpected very well.”

  Shan’s nod was slow. “It is the same when we encounter them in space. Though they learn quickly. I have to keep changing tactics. What worked once, does not work more than twice, though it will work within a single battle.”

  That seemed important, though was not yet clear why. She filed it away, right under the headshots. Not because she saw a connection.

  But you feel one.

  Yeah. Or I’m crazy.

  Shan stepped closer to her time tracking chart, angled his head one way, then the other. “Fractured.” He shook his head. “How then did we move through it?”

  “We’re creating theories on the fly here—”

  “We?”

  Oops. She licked her lips. “I am in consultation with an expert on time theory.”

  His gaze swept her covered parts again. “Despite your malfunction.”

  “My malfunction seems to be less…mal. And more…function again.”

  His gaze tracked between her and the time data display. “When we moved through time?”

  He is less stupid than I thought.

  She thought about telling him to be nice, but he probably thought he was being nice.

  “Could my brother exist in one of these?’ He traced another time wave. “Could we save him? His ship?”

  “We aren’t sure we can save us. This is—” She had no clue what this was. It did look like a fault line cutting through the impact zone on the screen, additional fissures branching out like limbs and all of it apparently enclosed in normal time. But why here? Why now? It had started before Shan arrived—

  And that’s when she re
alized that the epicenter was shifting position.

  “Crap on a cracker,” she said. “It’s stalking us.”

  Not us. It started before we arrived, brought us here. It’s after him.

  Usually she liked the aha moment. Wasn’t feeling the love this time, though. And if that weren’t cracker crap enough, warning sirens blared. Another screen showed why.

  A Zelk ship. One Zelk ship should be easy—two, three, no four more popped into view. Six Zelk ships. Two big mothers and four, pissy, smaller ones.

  Make that a lot of crap on a freaking cracker.

  * * * *

  Shan still had many questions, saw much that was unclear in this time tracking screen of Ashe’s, realized how much he did not know. But he did know how to fight Zelk. He threw himself into the command sling, strapped in with swift, sure movements, then dropped his hand into the controls. Shields surged up. Weapons went hot. He activated the co-pilot’s sling for Ashe. Heard the grind of gears as it emerged from the deck and locked in place.

  “Strap yourself in.” Heard the tone of command in his voice and tensed for her response—

  “Yes, sir.”

  Good, she could take orders, not just give them.

  Battle screens appeared, one by one. Tracking showed all six Zelk craft on high alert, but no weapons lock yet. That was unusual. He had not bothered to cloak, assuming it was already too late when they dropped into normal space. All six were on a course that would bring them close, if not across their position so why did they remain in their standard defense formation? Not a typical Zelk reaction. He started a life signs scan. Zelk life signs did not register, but if his brother were on one of the ships—he got a hit. One of the smaller ships had a single human life sign.

  He brought the scan screen forward for her, highlighted that ship, gave her a look with the order. “We do not destroy this ship.”

  She appeared to want to say something, but after a pause, merely nodded. A slight smiled edged her mouth. “Six to one.” She was back in that place of steely calm.

  “An opportunity to excel.”

  That earned him an approving look. “We’re tweaking your firing solutions and weapons power usage. You should get a better result and faster recharge rate.”

  He wanted to object, but before he could, he saw the difference on his battle screens. They’d need all of that and more to survive this opportunity to excel. He glanced at Ashe and caught her studying him. He had time to study back. Not sure how much, but enough, so he used it to learn her face. He was a man. She was a woman worth the time. If this was his final day…

  Her skin had turned iridescent again, her gaze seeming to flick between the battle screens she should not be able to see. The edges of her mouth curved, as if what she saw pleased her.

  “A good day to kick some Zelk trash.” Her brows arched, as if in sudden thought. “You are going to let us be part of the party, aren’t you?”

  He arched a brow. Her time expert was also a battle expert?

  “I do love to shoot.” She grinned, provocation in her eyes, as her iridescent fingers flexed.

  He was a fair shot, but he knew the ship better. He should have hesitated, would have before—but something had changed and not just because she hadn’t shot him in the back. Trust for her was there, and more. He felt confidence, felt as if it had always lived in him. Had they done this before? Fought together? He transferred weapons control to her chair.

  “After we kick their trash, I’m so going to kiss you on the mouth.”

  His lips twitched. “It is good to have goal.”

  The new screen, the time tracking screen showed the epicenter drawing close, the cone of its tail passing, then wrapping back around them. His ship rocked. It heaved. Went almost transparent, but this time his view was into the hungry maw of space. Almost felt as if it debated whether to eat them or leave them for the Zelk. Felt like a small eternity—the wave subsided and more sirens blared as the Zelk squadron began to react, their formation collapsing and reforming for attack.

  “I do believe they see us, Commander.”

  The distance between the six ships began to alter, the two larger, slower ones staying on direct course, while the smaller ones moved to flank their position. He noted the one with the human life signs took a less aggressive position. Once before he’d seen a ship do this. When it became clear the Zelk would lose the battle, it had fled, jumping into hyperspace just ahead of a kill shot. If it weren’t for that life sign, he’d have made it his personal mission to take it out.

  Port landing rockets fired, just enough to kick them out of position seconds before the first volley of opposing fire tracked over where they’d been. Clever. He’d never considered using landing rockets in such a manner.

  He used her move to tighten his control of ship movement, spun them in a tight circle, bringing his forward guns around. As soon as they hit prime firing position, energy lasers made a bright path toward one of the smaller ships. It exploded in a ball of fire that flared against his shields.

  Shields down ten percent.

  He used the debris to aid him as he threaded the ship between the cross fire from the remaining ships. It helped that they needed to avoid shooting each other while shooting at him. He used that, used it against them in a complicated battle dance. It seemed as if Ashe timed her fire to aid his dance.

  “Nice moves.” Like the perfect dance partner, she used his moves to lay down fire from forward and rear weapons, forcing one of the ships to fall back to avoid the hit.

  He’d used some similar moves in his last skirmish with the Zelk. Did the coward ship remember? Think it knew him? Would they, could they learn to expect the unexpected from him? Time to find out. He keyed in the spinning dive he’d used last time, then gave it a last minute twist. His movement took him too close to Timrick’s prison. This ship retreated, though not without firing at them. He tensed as laser fire tracked toward it. “Ashe—”

  “Trust me,” Ashe muttered, her tone coolly absent, as if her focus was where it should be. “I don’t just like to shoot. I’m good at it.”

  Her shot stabbed into the engines, with a precision that left the rest of the ship undamaged. It staggered away, its systems blown and useless—though life support and some weapons still functioned.

  “Excellent.” Shan steered a new course, drawing the remaining combatants away from the damaged ship—and them out of range of its remaining weapons. The odds were now four to one.

  Once clear, he sent them in a wide turn. His weapons spat again and another Zelk ship made a permanent and fiery exit from his tracking screen. Three to one. The remaining pilots had some skill, boosting his feeling he’d met them in battle before. They appeared to anticipate his moves. The wild card was Ashe. He did not know what she’d do. So even if they knew his strategies, they did not know her. He made a tight turn to avoid a volley, felt it sizzle across his ship’s skin. Fire warnings went off, but suppression equipment reacted with dispatch.

  She’d tweaked more than firing solutions, he decided as he picked their way between more deadly crossfire. A touch to the afterburners lifted the ship over the last fire run.

  Ashe used his movement to score hits on each ship, though they remained functional. For now. He jinked, then dropped, the engines roared a protest. Rocked as something not weapon’s fire impacted their shields.

  The distraction cost him as a Zelk got weapons lock on them. He tried to spin away, even as the track of energy fire reached—and passed through them. His ship shuddered as if they’d been winged on the backside by this mysterious and unfriendly fire.

  “Our ship was in a different time from the shot, except for our tush.” Ashe gritted out the words as she fired back. Scored a shield hit on one of the larger ships. Took their shields down some, but not enough.

  How was he supposed to fly against ships and time?

  “Trade with me,” Ashe said, her firing runs painting deadly patterns in the space around them. Gave them a brief mo
ment of safety as the Zelk craft dodged out of position to escape. “Lurch and I can fly. He can see the time waves.”

  No time to hesitate or think. He switched the controls, felt the weapons respond to his touch now as his ship changed its dangerous dance through space. Felt the change in pilot to his toenails.

  When the ship dropped in front of a Zelk firing run, he almost protested—until this beam of lethal light also passed through the ship without making contact. They were using the time waves to deflect, to hide. They? He lacked time to ask or even wonder how this Lurch had gotten on board. Or where he was.

  They jinked his ship up giving him a near perfect firing solution. He used all his forward weapons could give him, focused them at the Zelk attack ship holding the point of the triangle with an arrogant confidence. With the boosted firing solutions, his shots punched through their shields and into their power core like a fist. He felt his ship strain to turn away from the fiery ball in their path. Didn’t wholly clear it. They passed through its edges, heat licking hungrily at their shields. Damage reports scrolled across his side vision. He ignored them. Ignored warning lights. Sounds. Focused only on the last two Zelk ships.

  These were the largest of the Zelk craft, had the heaviest shielding. And lances that could pierce shields and metal, could stab into the heart of his ship if they weren’t fast enough. She brought his ship in close, too close. He opened his mouth to protest, even as he prepared for her run—he fired on the under belly of one ship. The lance scraped across the port side, then they were clear, spinning to avoid the other ship.

  “Their ships are as spiky as their soldiers,” Ashe muttered behind him.

  Shan frowned when he felt the ship turn away from the battle, not full throttle, almost as if they’d lost some power. The two Zelk turned to follow, the bulky ships taking longer to make the turn.

  “That’s right. Come after us,” Ashe murmured.

  Shan considered firing rear rockets, but the angles were wrong. His fingers ready, he watched the larger ships begin to close, each moving to a flank, both intent on piercing his ship from both sides. What—

  “I see them,” she said, as if he’d spoken. “Come to mama. Just a little closer.”