“If your army approves,” he began, more than a hint of disdain in his voice, “perhaps we can begin the negotiations?”
Anastasia’s lips formed into a thin smile. “At your leisure.”
Felor bowed slightly and led them toward an open transport tube in the far wall. He gestured for them to enter, following them in and pressing the appropriate key on the tube’s control panel.
The doors swished closed and the transport tube began its descent. It struck Anastasia as a bit odd that the negotiations were being held underground, but Dex did not seem concerned, so she convinced herself not to worry about it. Mentally chastising herself for being unduly paranoid, she reminded herself that one must begin negotiations with an open mind, not one clouded by distrust and enmity.
The transport tube came to a halt and the doors slid open to reveal a medium-sized room, devoid of the lavish accouterments of the upper levels of the palace. In the center was a plain wooden table, and before it a single chair. At the opposite side of the table was the hard-looking woman from the viewscreen.
Without waiting for instructions, Anastasia walked to the chair and seated herself, peripherally noticing that Dex chose to stand instead of sitting on one of the chairs at the perimeter of the room. Felor walked around the table and sat in a chair to the woman’s side.
“So,” began the woman without ceremony, “this is Anastasia Mason. I thought you would be taller.” She snickered softly. “Very well. I am Natasha Tauziat, and for your purposes, you can consider me in charge here. Now,” she said, leaning across the table, “what in the hell are you prepared to offer me?”
Anastasia tried to control the sigh that escaped her. It was going to be a long day.
. . . . .
Another alarm rang out as Alexis finished patching the starboard shield grid, and she checked her display to find that the aft capacitors had been reduced to 49%. A jet of steam issued forth from the cooling tubes above her head, and she heard Ryan’s voice above the chaos.
“I need that crossover cable now!”
Alexis looked over just long enough to catch Ryan’s eye as the tech scurried to him with the required cable. He flashed her a quick wink as he grabbed the cable and began inserting it into an access panel on the side of the harmonics computer bank.
A voice from the intercom tore Alexis away. “Miss St. Claire, what is the status of those shield grids? I’ve got ambers all up and down my alert board.”
That’s because they’re kicking the crap out of us, she thought, barely refraining from airing her thoughts audibly. “The shields are taking quite a beating, sir,” she replied instead. “I’m holding them together as best I can.” Then, against her better judgement, she added, “Perhaps you could advise the Captain to perform some evasive maneuvers, when he has a chance.”
She could see the tactical officer’s face as he sized up her remark, not sure if it was meant to be scathing or humorous. Apparently deciding on the latter, he replied, “That will be all, Lieutenant. Carry on.”
Alexis looked over her shoulder to find one of the techs at the engine control board staring quizzically at her. “It’s true,” Alexis offered. “Some evasive maneuvers would be nice.”
The tech gave her an I know look, quickly returning to her duties. But Alexis never could understand what Captain Woolslair thought was to be gained by obstinately charging straight into the thickest of the fighting. Judging from the lack of use of the maneuvering thrusters and the repeated damage to shield grids on all areas of the ship, Alexis was sure that the Captain had not deviated from his standard combat “strategy.”
Of course, Alexis reminded herself, she was not a tactician. Combat strategy was not her job. Her job was to keep the shields up so that Woolslair could look like a hero. Which was fine, she thought. She would be happy enough if she just kept the Brigadier in one piece.
Another jarring explosion rocked the ship and Alexis returned to her work. As she patched another hole in the shield grid, she thought of how much she enjoyed the responsibility of keeping the entire crew safe from attack. And, in the middle of the chaos, with Vr’amil’een weapons raining down on them like hailstones, Alexis could not help but smile.
. . . . .
Anastasia slumped down on the bed, her mind and body thoroughly drained even though the most physical exercise she had all day was walking to and from the transport tube. The worst part was that, despite all her best efforts, her most generous offers, and her extensive diplomatic training, she had been unable to cajole so much as a single reasonable concession from Natasha.
“You look tired,” Dex offered. “That was one tough lady.”
“I know,” Anastasia replied, her words muffled through her pillow. “I have a bad feeling that we’re just wasting our time.”
“You’ve had tough negotiations before, haven’t you?”
“Sure I have. But—I don’t know. At least you usually make some progress. You can just tell when someone is never going to budge a centimeter.”
Dex laughed. “I especially liked the way she wanted autonomous control of half the Sector, and a presence in the Confederation Senate. All with Confederation military protection, no less.”
“Exactly my point, Dex. She must know her demands are ludicrous. Yet she won’t compromise at all, and she wants to reopen negotiations tomorrow.” She sighed heavily. “It’s nothing more than a tremendous waste of time,” she repeated.
“You want to just pack up and leave, then?” Dex asked. “If you think they’re just trying to stall us or—”
Dex’s nanocomputer suddenly sounded an ominous tone. In an instant, Dex’s phaser was out of his holster and he had run to the bedroom’s large curtained window.
“Get down!” he yelled. “Behind the dresser!”
A fresh surge of adrenaline propelled Anastasia off the bed and behind the dresser in one fairly fluid roll. She peeked out from behind the dresser to see Dex firing out the window at some unseen assailant.
“Get your head back,” he ordered, apparently sensing her movements without so much as a glance in her direction. As if to illustrate his point, a bright green beam of energy crashed through the window and burned a hole through Anastasia’s bed.
The bed she had been lying on ten seconds earlier.
As abruptly as the attack had begun, it was over, the angry cacophony of laser fire quickly thinning out to nonexistence. Still under orders to keep her head back, Anastasia hesitantly muttered, “Dex?”
He appeared around the corner of the dresser, offering his hand and helping her to her feet. He had reholstered his phaser.
“I think it’s time for us to get going,” he suggested. “It seems your instincts were right. They didn’t want us here to negotiate.”
Anastasia brushed herself off, looking out the broken window at Dex’s Commandos, who had already secured the area outside. She strained her eyes and could see that three of them clustered over a dead Turian, evidently the instigator of the attack. She could see, even from this distance, that his head had been vaporized by a well-aimed phaser bolt.
“That was it?” Anastasia asked. “A lone Turian?”
Dex gave her a confused look. “One is all it takes.”
Anastasia nodded. But if someone had really wanted her dead, she doubted that they would have sent just one attacker. Surely they could not have underestimated Dex’s squad that much?
Anastasia walked back to the ruined bed and sat. Something about this isn’t right, she thought. Her senses had told her as much since before she even descended to the planet, and they were warning her even more vehemently now.
“Yes, Dex,” she said abruptly, rising from the bed. “It is time for us to leave.”
. . . . .
The Vr’amil’een snub fighters were nothing more than specks, hardly visible through the glare cast on the canopy by the system’s twin suns. Zach only glanced at his tactical display, which was about to become far too chaotic to be even remotely useful.
The enemy ships suddenly began to grow larger, and Zach locked onto the lead fighter, releasing a missile as soon as he was in range. A moment later, the oncoming ships released a massive salvo of missiles, which sped toward Zach’s squadron like a wall of spikes.
“Evasives!” Zach barked into the headset, and he corkscrewed his fighter between a pair of the unguided missiles. A third caught him with a glancing blow, set off by its proximity warhead, but the shields held. He looked up to find that the snubs were upon him.
It only took a moment for all semblance of textbook dogfighting skills to be lost. Dozens of Confederation fighters and scores of enemy ships commingled in a deadly dance of unrehearsed desperation. Zach targeted the first fighter he saw and hoped his squadron-mates would keep most of the rest off his tail.
Streaks of energy shot from the nose of the ZF-575, catching a snub fighter in the engines and spinning it out of control. The proximity alarm trilled, but Zach was unable to evade a missile that streaked into his ship’s flank. The starboard shield grid sputtered out and a wisp of smoke snaked from the control board.
“You alright, Wolfman?” called Raven’s voice over the intercom. “Sorry about that—I couldn’t take him out in time.”
“Fine,” Zach replied, already targeting his next victim. “I’ll hold the ship together.”
The ship Zach was tailing executed a standard S-curve, and Zach anticipated the maneuver, finishing the enemy off with a burst from his wing-mounted lasers. He shook his head derisively. Live by the book, die by the book, he thought, instinctively spinning his ship around in a dizzying turn and watching as the snub tailing him utterly overshot his position.
Ahead of him now was a trio of snubs, tailing Halcyon’s agile SF-367 fighter. Halcyon twisted out of his pursuers’ line of fire, but was unable to lose them amongst the maelstrom of enemies. Zach forced the thruster handles forward and shot after the receding ships, recklessly accelerating through the mass of fighters at a dizzying velocity. He thumbed the firing studs and his lasers found their target, ripping into the nearest of the three snubs and causing the remaining pair to give up their pursuit.
“Thanks, Wolfman,” Halcyon stammered. “I couldn’t shake those guys.”
“Don’t mention it,” Zach replied, realizing that he had picked up a tail of his own. Another ship approached from the front, closing on him with remarkable speed. Zach threw the thruster handles forward once again, streaking toward the enemy with abandon. A series of shots impacted his rear shields, but the ship ahead wavered in its approach, and Zach swerved around it, spinning 180 degrees. The pursuing fighter tried to match his movement, but was not agile enough, crashing into the other snub and sending both spinning out of control.
Zach spared himself a quick glance at his readouts and assured himself that his ship was still in fighting condition. A short alarm tone rang out and Zach found another pair of snub fighters speeding toward him. He gritted his teeth and shot back into the fray.
. . . . .
She could still hear Felor’s ingratiating voice over the intercom. “But Captain,” it continued, “I assure you steps are being taken to find out who is responsible for this evening’s attack. Security will be tripled—”
With a wave of her hand, Anastasia silenced the transmission.
“We are clear for launch,” Ariyana reported. “All systems reading optimal; energy banks fully charged.”
“Good,” Anastasia muttered, settling comfortably into her Captain’s chair. “Get us the hell out of here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The ship’s antigrav repulsors raised the Inferno from her perch, angling her nose upward just as the main engine bank took over. With a dampened rush, the ship surged into they sky, taking only a few moments to clear the planet’s thick atmosphere.
Anastasia half expected the orbital armada—if one could call it that—to open fire on her ship, but the Inferno, followed by Dex in his Cerberus, sped through the blockade without incident. She breathed a sign of relief as they gained distance from the planet of New Berkeley.
Without warning, however, the ship’s movement suddenly stalled, unceremoniously coming to a complete stop only a few thousand kilometers from the planet and its blockade. A shrill alarm went off inside Anastasia’s head, and she could almost hear the voice of her unconscious mocking her. I told you so …
“Captain,” Cody exclaimed, his eyes darting across his status board. “I’m reporting all engine banks off-line.” He punched valiantly at his console. “Controls are not responding.”
“Go to maneuvering thrusters,” she ordered, calling up the engine displays on her own console. “Turn us to face the blockade.”
Cody obliged and the ship spun to face the planet. But the SPACER ships were not moving. They just sat there, seemingly oblivious to the Inferno’s condition.
Could it be just a simple engine failure?
Dex’s image appeared on the viewscreen. “Captain?” he asked. “Is something the matter?”
Anastasia studied the engine schematics on her console. “We seem to be having problems with the engines, Dex. I’m about to find out the cause of the problem now.”
Just before she thumbed the intercom, Vance’s voice carried over the speakers. “Bridge, this is engineering. Captain, I am searching for the cause of the malfunction. All diagnostics report—” His voice abruptly cut off. An ominous rumble had engulfed the ship, the sound of an equally ominous weapon powering up.
“My God,” Anastasia whispered.
It was the Wind of Death.
“Byron,” she shrieked, her composure instantly giving way to a torrent of unabashed terror. “Shut it down! Shut everything down now!” She looked to Dex on the viewscreen. “Dex, get your ship the hell out of here right now.”
Dex opened his mouth as if to respond, but, seeing Anastasia’s frantic expression, he quickly thought the better of it and reluctantly began moving the Cerberus away at high speed.
Anastasia jammed a sweaty palm at the intercom button. “Vance, cut main power! Sever the—”
But it was too late.
The rumbling reached a crescendo as tremendous waves of energy collected within the ship’s Subspace Destabilization Unit. The noise quickly became unbearable, a scything wave of sound never meant to be heard by human ears.
And then it fired.
The effect of the Unit, an effect Anastasia had prayed she would never live to see, was actually quite beautiful, in some horrific, appalling way. Waves of cosmic distortion cascaded from the ship in all directions, traveling outward like a hazy, rippling wind.
A Wind of Death.
The sweeping distortions rushed toward the helpless blockade like an unstoppable tidal wave. A quick count showed Anastasia that eight ships comprised the blockade on this side of the planet, and Anastasia hoped in vain that at least some of them were beyond the effects of the weapon. Within a few moments, the disturbance had reached the ships, washing over them in oblivious malevolence and causing the vessels to deform comically in the distortion’s wake. Just as soon as it had begun, it dissipated, mercifully just before impacting the planet itself.
The ships of the blockade, seemingly unscathed by the attack, hung in space just as they had before the wave passed over them. From a purely visual inspection, an observer would not in fact be able to tell that anything was amiss. It was almost as if it had never happened.
Except, of course, that every living thing aboard the ships was now dead.
An anguished cry escaped Anastasia’s lips, an involuntary reaction to the carnage that had just taken place before her eyes. She slowly tore her gaze from the viewscreen to look at the status display, which confirmed what she already knew to be true. Eight enemy vessels, it read. Zero life signs.
There had been one hundred and seventy-five people aboard those eight ships.
A voice from the intercom tore her from her pained reverie.
“Captain? What in the hell is going
on? I have no control over primary—” His voice cut off in mid-sentence.
“Vance?”
“Captain!” he screamed, frantic. “Send security to access corridor three right away!”
Byron had already bolted from his post, phaser in hand, as he rushed through the bridge doors and down the short hallway to engineering. Victor followed close behind him, and Anastasia rushed to keep up. Her mind was foggy and she struggled to clear her head.
A saboteur? On the Inferno? How in the—?
Anastasia raced around a bend in the corridor to find that Byron had already cornered the intruder, a red-faced Turian who stood with a photon destabilizer pointed to his chest.
“Don’t move,” Byron ordered. “Drop your weapon or—”
With a flash of blue plasma and a brief anguished grunt, the Turian was gone, disintegrated by his own hand.
An alarm echoed through the hallway. Reflexively, Anastasia stumbled back to the bridge, leaving Byron and Victor behind to investigate the former saboteur.
Upon her arrival, the Captain found Ariyana and Cody half turned to face her, half watching the viewscreen with unhinged jaws. Between them, the viewscreen was lit by flash after flash as a dozen Vr’amil’een warships jumped into the system.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 7
The ship shuddered violently as another concussion missile rocked the starboard bow. The shield grid wavered momentarily, but the matrix held and Alexis breathed a shallow sigh of relief.
Sounds of explosions and high-energy laser turret discharges continued to fill the engineering deck, and a faint trace of ozone could be smelled in the air. Techs shouted and ran past, ferrying cables, power cells, and diagnostic equipment across the large, crowded room. At Alexis’ console, wildly-fluctuating energy readings and capacitor levels made for a prismatic show on her display. She looked across to Ryan, punching madly at his computer terminal, and found herself smiling.
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