Renegades (Dark Seas Book 3)

by Damon Alan

  She reached out with her senses. On the other side of the floor was a thin layer of newcomer machines, and beyond that was the great emptiness that had been outside the shuttle. She dedicated some small part of her awareness to following Alarin as she explored. She was inside a ring of material, several of what the newcomer had called decks thick. She was on the outer deck, and above her head were six more.

  “These cabins were for passengers on the cargo runs this vessel made. It’s expensive to get passage on a dedicated starliner, but passenger on a cargo…”

  The man droned on about things she had no clue about. Star systems, planets, these were all far places that had no meaning to her. She heard the words, but felt nothing from them.

  “Here we go,” their guide said. “Staterooms 1-6 and 1-7.”

  “Thank you,” Alarin said.

  The man showed them how to use the doors, then led them inside Emille’s quarters. “Do you need me to show you how to use the facilities?” the man said as he gestured toward another door.

  “I know how things work,” Alarin answered. “I will show her.”

  “Let anyone know if you need anything,” the newcomer said as he left.

  Emille jumped on the bed. Behind the bed the floor angled upward, and a small window looked outside the vessel. She wiggled to the top of the bed and looked at the Tapestry. It slowly moved past as the ring she was in rotated.

  “Do you need to bathe?” Alarin asked.

  “Yes!” she answered as she jumped up.

  He waved her toward one of the two unopened doors in the room, and it opened as they approached.

  Inside was a small box with a glass door, a strange toilet, and a sink. An area over the sink reflected her image better than any water or glass she’d ever seen. She ran forward and looked at herself.

  She frowned. “I’m a mess.”

  “You look stunning,” Alarin said.

  He opened the glass door on the small box, and turned a knob that was inside. Water jetted from a protrusion near the ceiling, splattering to the floor.

  “A waterfall,” she squealed.

  “A shower,” he corrected. “You step inside and use soap to clean yourself, the water is heated to a comfortable temperature.”

  She looked at him, and at the size of the shower.

  “It will hold two,” she said.

  Alarin flushed and looked at the floor before looking back at her a moment later. “Do you really wish to skip the traditions?”

  She reached down and unlaced her robe, letting it fall from her shoulder. Nude, she stepped forward and placed a hand in the center of his chest. “I’ve never been with a man, but Merik shared so much with me that I feel I already know you. I know what you like, and your gentleness.”

  His hand laced into her hair and she was surprised how much she liked the dominance that implied. He kissed her, long and passionately, in a way she’d never experienced before.

  “I claim you as my promised mate,” he said. His voice was almost a growl, yet she sensed in it a longing not for possession, but for intimacy.

  “I submit to your claim,” she whispered back. She threw one arm behind his neck and moved even closer to him. “Consummate your promise.”

  Slipping his hand into the tiny space between them, Alarin unlaced and dropped his breeches.

  Emille unhooked the wooden buttons of his shirt, then peeled it off him.

  Both naked, they embraced. Their minds opened and they intertwined their essences as well as their bodies. Inhibitions ceased to exist and secrets fell by the wayside. Intimacy unlike any shared by the ungifted flowed between them.

  It was the most natural thing she’d ever done.

  Nearly breathless, Alarin looked toward the running water. “We should bathe.”

  She glanced through the door at the bed that awaited, then back at the shower. She finally nodded and pushed him toward the waterfall. “And quickly.”

  The glass door closed them in.

  Under Alarin’s gentle touch, Emille discovered that shared visions rarely match the experience of reality.

  Chapter 25 - Tactical Monster

  27 MAI 15329

  The Schein lay nestled next to a comet with no name. They were too far out from Oasis for the vents to be active, and so they rested safely in the radar shadow of the two kilometer wide jumble of volatiles and rock.

  Orson paced the bridge, his magnetic boots clicking loudly with each step. Andersott, Jace, and Heinrich were with him.

  “We need a plan to hit her hard. My guy on the Yascurra reported they were readying the ship for combat before we lost contact with him. That bitch plans to come after us.”

  Jace’s face looked as concerned as Orson had ever seen it. Despite how they felt about Dayson, she was the most successful captain the Alliance had, at least in the sector she served in. If she was hunting them, it was serious.

  “I didn’t expect her to leave Refuge unguarded,” Orson ranted. “Maybe she cares about the brainers less than we thought.”

  “Maybe,” Jace agreed, “but maybe she’s just not the kind who can sit back and take it.”

  Orson laughed. That was funny. Orson looked at Heinrich. “Not like you, my little slut commander, eh?” He reached out and squeezed her rump. “You’ll take it, right?”

  “Of course. And no, Captain,” she agreed. “Not like me.”

  A thought dawned on him. “Damn, sometimes I’m a fool, Jace.” He squeezed Heinrich’s arm. “We have the counter to Dayson right here.”

  Jace nodded his agreement as Heinrich stared ahead blankly.

  “What’s your strategic and tactical analysis and recommendations, Commander Heinrich?” Orson asked.

  Without pause she gave him what he asked for. “If we remain here, we’re dead. Captain Dayson can resupply at will, she still has the services of the rest of the fleet at her disposal. We have nothing, and the supplies we have are limited.”

  Orson was willing to make them last longer by thinning out the remaining crew if he needed to do so, but she was right. There was no more once their current inventory was gone, even if that day was many months away.

  “She’s expecting to use that advantage to drive us into hiding and keep us there. Sort of a siege tactic, I suppose,” Heinrich said.

  “How do you know?” Orson asked.

  Heinrich’s face was expressionless. “It’s what I’d do. There is no reason for her to risk herself when she can force us to surrender by attrition.”

  “We have nukes. We could just hit the brainer moon until she capitulates,” Orson suggested.

  “Outside of one small area, we don’t have detailed maps of the surface other than a rudimentary coastline map of the continents,” Heinrich said. “Not to mention that we only have a few FTL missiles left. Once those are gone, we have to get close to attack. Ranged bombardment will not be an option.”

  Orson glared at her. She was right.

  “Can we counter Dayson with a different plan?” Jace asked.

  Heinrich looked at him with contempt.

  “Can we counter Dayson with a different plan?” Orson asked her as he grinned at Jace.

  “We take the fight to her.”

  Why couldn’t she just say it all at once? “Spit it out. Do you have a plan for that?”

  “We are parked at a comet. We turn the Schein into just another cometary fragment by coating our ship with a thick layer of water and carbon dioxide. Spray a layer of organic soot on top of that. It will make our helm answer slow, our acceleration feeble, but that won’t matter.”

  “Go on,” Orson urged.

  “We keep the gun and missile ports clear. This is actually a variation of one of Dayson’s own tactics. Once we use our drones as a sensor net and determine the route Fleet Captain Dayson is taking away from Refuge, we set an intercept course.”

  “The first time we adjust our course they’ll see us for what we are and nuke us into dust,” Jace complained. “This is stupid.�
��

  How dare he call Heinrich stupid? She was his. Only his.

  Orson thought about punching him for a moment, then realized who he was moving to defend. A woman who, if she wasn’t drugged, would gut both he and Jace with a knife and savor the moment.

  “You’re an idiot,” Heinrich said to Jace. “If you had any tactical sense at all, you’d have started this mutiny in a position where you could disable all the other fleet ships in one combat action.”

  Jace’s face flushed red and he started to unstrap himself from his gravcouch. “You bit—”

  “Do it,” Heinrich suggested calmly. “I am not imprinted on you, and I will savor the sound of your breaking neck as my fingers clench your throat.”

  Orson held up his hand for Jace to halt, laughing loudly. Heinrich had so much spirit that even Andersott’s drug couldn’t contain it all. “You will not touch her, Jace. Am I understood?”

  “She can talk to me like that?”

  “Apparently. I think she believes she can take you. Stars, I think I believe she can take you,” Orson answered. “If she gets out of line, she’s mine, and it will be my duty to correct her.” He turned to Heinrich. “Besides, once the effects of the drugs are permanent, she’ll be your queen,” he commented as he appreciated Heinrich’s fire.

  She stared back at him a moment, her face cold. Then she smiled. Except for her eyes.

  “Heinrich, why is Jace an idiot?”

  “Because in his simple mind, a thruster is either on or off. That is not true, it can be fired at any power level between minimum and maximum. If we correct our course with minimum thrusters, give the ship a rotation and activate different thrusters as they are on our sunlit side, it will look every bit like a comet with the vents switching into the active phase as the surface heats up.”

  “Huh…” Orson grunted. He thought about it for a bit. “Jace, she’s called you out. You’re officially an idiot.”

  “If we only fire thrusters on the sunlit side, we’ll only be able to thrust along a narrow arc of vectors,” Jace countered.

  “Ooo, looks like Jace is calling your bluff, my queen.”

  “Because he’s an idiot. Comets don’t have one vent only, and they often still fire as they cool down after rotating into the darkness. We will be able to thrust in all directions. Only more slowly sunward than out-system.”

  “Pow! She puts Jace away!” Orson bellowed.

  Jace shook his head, a mask of anger on his face. “I don’t like it, putting all our trust in this woman.”

  Orson wondered what the man’s issue was. If the problem was just with Heinrich or with all women.

  Orson hated every woman to some degree, of course, they’d rejected him sexually his entire life. And in other ways as well. Even his biological mother had left him in the hands of strangers.

  Heinrich was the type of woman he deserved, even if no woman like her had ever seen it. And, joyfully, at some point she’d be his permanently.

  “We will go with your plan,” Orson said as he moved closer to her. He reached up a hand to cup her breast, and gave her a long kiss.

  She responded appropriately.

  “If you succeed, you get to look forward to bearing my children. If you fail… well then we’ll die together.”

  “I am a lucky woman,” she said. The lack of energy in her voice made him wonder how much of her was in there, and just how much was under control.

  He pulled away.

  “Go make this happen. Use any crew you wish to transfer the volatiles to our hull,” Orson ordered as he pointed toward the bridge door.

  Heinrich unstrapped and left.

  “You still trust her?” Jace asked.

  “We have no choice,” Orson answered. “You’ve been awful quiet, Andersott. How about it. Is she trustworthy?”

  “She’ll do as she’s told,” he answered. “Unless you forget to make her take the meds.”

  “She’s been taking them.”

  “Then you have no worries,” Andersott replied.

  Six days later the Schein thrust away from the main body of the comet, coated in a meters thick layer of frozen volatiles.

  Only a small standard freight container remained behind, filled with electronics and a laser receiver.

  Heinrich’s plan involved precise timing. They needed the Hinden to act in a controlled fashion.

  The next few days would determine everything.

  Chapter 26 - Shooting Stars

  27 MAI 15329

  “This is my flight deck, Lieutenant Commander.”

  Commander Ilmaris was right. It was his flight deck. But as of six days ago, these shuttles were no longer his.

  “Maybe you should take that up with Fleet Captain Dayson,” Harmeen said. “She has ordered me to do exactly what I’m doing.”

  “And I have a right to know what that is,” the officer protested.

  “No, actually sir, you don’t.” Harmeen hated this sort of confrontation. His stomach fluttered, but he wasn’t about to fail Captain Dayson. She’d lost as much if not more than anyone else in the fleet, yet she did everything in her power to keep the crews together on the same team. “You will step away from the shuttle or I will ask Ensign Hamden to physically remove you.”

  Imaris’s face turned bright red, but he turned a hundred eighty degrees about and pushed off the shuttle’s hull. He floated to the far side of the bay, where he took up a position to glower at Harmeen.

  Which mattered not one bit.

  Harmeen ordered the engineers to take the packages onboard the first shuttle, including the packages destined for the second.

  The next several hours were spent modifying the shuttle to support the signal strength they’d need to spoof a ship’s radar signal. They could vary the signal to mimic any ship in the fleet, including the Gaia if they needed to do so.

  Power was routed from the shuttle’s engine reactor directly to the device in order to achieve Harmeen’s goals. He added a remote auto-pilot so the ship could be controlled from the Hinden or set to follow any path input as a preset. Lastly, he blacked out the screens and locked out the outside controls.

  They repeated the task on the second shuttle more quickly. It had taken five days to design and build the right equipment, but only half a day to install it on the two tiny vessels. They were tiny to the human eye, that is. If they detected the Schein’s radar system they’d return a surprise for the mutinous vessel.

  Lastly the shuttles were loaded with a nuclear weapon each. Not for attack, but to be detonated in order to fool the enemy into thinking the mimicked ship was destroyed if that suited Captain Dayson’s needs.

  Harmeen chuckled. The thought of Orson thinking the Hinden and Yascurra were destroyed only to find them sitting in ambush later entertained him.

  Sadly the tactic hadn’t been as effective against the Hive, as the machines were very quick to notice even the slightest discrepancy in the radar return. Captain Dayson had told Harmeen that she’d read about the method in a military history book. It was last used to her knowledge during an inter-system war just before the Hive arose as a threat.

  She was counting on Orson’s inexperience. The shipboard AIs could likely tell the difference between a decoy and a real ship if used properly, but Orson wasn’t a hardened fleet commander.

  Captain Dayson was.

  Harmeen knew where to put his money for the upcoming battle.

  Chapter 27 - A Wicked Web

  27 MAI 15329

  “Situation report?” Sarah asked.

  “All systems green, fuel at one hundred percent, all stations reporting ready,” Captain Malveaux reported. “Please, Captain Dayson, take command of the Hinden.”

  “This is your ship, Alleyne. I wouldn’t dream of—”

  “—I insist,” he interrupted. “I’ve been under your command for years now. You’re a predator, sir. This is a situation that calls for that.”

  His comment was a bit shocking, although he clearly meant it as
a compliment.

  Predator.

  She was torn between congratulating herself on her war skills and revulsion at being thought of that way.

  “Very well, Captain. You will be my first officer.”

  Malveaux nodded, then moved to the first officer station.

  Sarah looked at the bridge. It was different than she was used to. Smaller. Designed much more for war than the Stennis was, mainly because the Michael Stennis was designed to run a fleet.

  This ship was engineered solely to deliver punishment.

  “Mr. Harra, do you have the course I planned plotted?” she asked.

  “Yes, sir. We’ll break orbit on your command.” Ensign Harra, the Hinden’s navigator smiled at her. An uneasy smile, uncertain and tense.

  “Do so. One gravity acceleration for Oasis VII. We’ll start our search there. Once more to war, Mr. Harra.”

  That was probably a bit dramatic. But she’d hoped her considerable skills as a starship commander wouldn’t be needed again.

  The ship shuddered as the engines ignited, spiraling away from Refuge and toward an enemy nobody had expected to fight.

  Sarah looked at her bridge crew. Malveaux as her first officer. Seto on comms. Harmeen on weapons and damage control. Ensign Harra in his long term position as the Hinden’s navigator. Their faces reflected her assessment. They weren’t happy, but they’d do their jobs. Determination mingled with sadness.

  This was a fight of brother against brother, albeit a brother who had become the enemy.

  The Yascurra joined the Hinden on a parabolic intercept hours out from Refuge. Sarah ordered the twenty-three smaller attack vessels onboard the carrier readied for combat. Hopefully the one they lost arriving at Oasis wouldn’t be the one they needed to find Orson.

  Sarah was reassuring the captain of the carrier about her choice of weapon loadouts. “Full nuclear packages, Captain Batalova. I know the pilots are mostly new, but I need them to stand tall now. They need to step up to the mission, or they shouldn’t have volunteered to be pilots.”