Kyra’s jaw dropped so far it nearly hit the deck. What the— Have you told Kreon?
He was always aware of my psychic proclivity. He merely lacked the means to enable it in my previous form.
And I thought I had secrets…
We all have secrets, Kyra.
Yeah? Well, tell anyone else my boots were too big and I’ll put one up your shiny crystal recharge socket.
Your shoe size is safe with me.
She was spared the need for a pithy response when Kreon touched the Portal’s frame, causing the blackness within to churn and writhe.
“It works,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. “Well done, Loader. Could you please inform ALI to execute the strike on this ship, and the moon below, once we are through? And then perhaps she would be so good as to rendezvous with us on Helicon Prime.”
Loader’s stem swivelled towards the Warden. “Confirmed. ALI has allowed a thirty-second window for your departure.”
Kreon turned to the rest of them, his eyes glittering. “Be ready,” he told them. “There could be anything on the other side. But one thing we do know: my daughter is there, and she may well require our assistance.”
And with that, he stepped into the Portal and vanished.
Tris gave Kyra a weary look as he stepped up to take his turn. “Back to Helicon Prime, eh? Seems like we were just there. Man, I really hope the battle’s going well.”
And he followed Kreon through.
Left alone with Loader for a few final seconds, Kyra reached out to him again. I hope you’re right about this, Sparkles.
You can trust me, Kyra, he responded. Have you not heard the Earth expression; diamonds are a girl’s best friend?
She snorted. You’re a bit big for a necklace, she pointed out. But don’t feel blue.
And grinning to herself, she stepped through the Portal.
29
Àurea stared at Tenacity’s viewscreen in horror.
The tactical display confirmed what she was looking at; no fewer than four of the dreaded Sanctuary-class battle stations were forming a blockade above Helicon Prime, with at least two more in reserve on the far side of the planet.
It was exactly the opposite of what every single information source available to her had suggested.
Which meant she’d been duped. They all had.
The Keepers of the Faith were masters of disinformation and false-truth, disseminating their lies through the vehicle of the Church. They’d been trying to control every scrap of information in the Lemurian Empire since their inception centuries ago…
Evidently, they’d succeeded.
Freedom is dead then… And so are we.
But that was all the despair she could allow herself.
Snapping back into the moment, she glanced around the bridge.
Captain Nikolau was frozen in his seat — he, too, was experiencing the shock of certain death staring back at him.
But only for a moment.
“Shields up!” he ordered. “Move towards them at flank speed. Give me status on the Folly. I want everything with military-grade defences to the fore. We’ll target the bastards in the centre and try to punch a hole through to the planet.”
Suddenly the bridge burst into action. Comms chattered, targeting displays flared to life and messengers ran to and fro between the consoles.
Despite her fears, Àurea felt a shiver of anticipation. She’d never been on the command deck of a capital ship during a battle. Even though the odds were stacked against them, it was impossible not to feel awed by the sheer power at her command.
“Target the closest Sanctuary,” she called out. “And get a message out to the fleet to follow our lead. We need to concentrate fire on them one at a time. It’s the only way to beat them.”
A comms operator looked up at her, getting her attention. “Ma’am the Folly is firing.”
Àurea focused on the viewscreen, watching the giant column of light spear out from the battle station’s main gun. It blazed for a split second only, slamming into the same ship she was targeting, only to be dissipated by their shields.
“Firing again!”
Àurea smiled. Not only was the Folly a lethal engine of destruction, it was itself a Sanctuary-class vessel. Askarra had access to full schematics of her opponents, and knew everything there was to know about their defensive capabilities.
“She’s firing again,” the comm operator shouted. “Short bursts. Rapid fire. Their shields are down!”
“We’re taking incoming,” someone else called out from further down the bridge.
“Return fire!” the captain ordered. “Ignore the Sanctuary. Concentrate on the most imminent threats and work your way out from there.”
He received several shouts of confirmation, as the gunners selected new targets.
Àurea seethed. Nikolau was undermining her command. Granted, this ship was his, and he was used to being in charge here. But it was a commonly understood tenet of warfare; no ship could survive two captains. Their clashing strategies would translate into ineffectiveness on the battlefield — or worse.
She open her mouth to belay his order, when she felt her mother’s hand on her arm.
“Leave him be,” Sera said in a hushed tone. “This kind of battle is his territory. Focus your energy on the fleet; they are yours and yours alone.”
Àurea nodded. This was hardly the time and place for pettiness, and it stung that her mother had needed to remind her of that.
On the main viewscreen the Folly’s gigantic laser fired again, spearing into the defenceless Sanctuary and burning a hole clear through it.
An object lesson in the power of focus.
Thrusting her emotions aside, Àurea leaned over the com officer’s chair. “Give word to the other ships. Form up on us. Protect the more vulnerable vessels. They’re to co-ordinate with each other on localised threats, but hold fast to our course. We move on Helicon Prime, no matter what gets in our way.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She looked back at the viewscreen, its tactical overlay blossoming with points of light.
The battle had begun in earnest.
There had been no attempt at parlay, not that she’d expected any. The Keepers of the Faith would be merciless. They would seek not just to defeat this rebellion, but to do so in such a way as to send a message. If they won this battle, for generations to come any prospective rebels would bite their tongues and keep their heads down, remembering the lesson taught to the Ingumend.
Which is why we have to win.
The Folly was firing again, but the other Sanctuary stations were pulling back, wary of its firepower. Askarra walked a difficult line; if she moved to pursue them, she’d be putting herself in jeopardy from hundreds of shorter-range vessels, all of which had their own powerful arsenals. The Folly was no longer equipped to deal with dozens of heavily-armoured targets at once; she’d sacrificed that capability on the path to becoming the ultimate Sanctuary-killer.
“Have the Folly move forward alongside us,” Àurea told the comm officer. “We’ll screen her from the smaller vessels as best we can.”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, getting busy with his message.
“Sir, the Pilgrim is taking structural damage,” one of the tactical operators called out. “She’s finished!”
A bright flash on the viewscreen illustrated his words, as the stricken ship’s reactor went critical.
A few people on the bridge gasped — further evidence of their inexperience, not that Àurea needed it.
Our first casualty. Or casualties, she corrected herself.
Àurea had no idea how many people had crewed the destroyed ship, but every one of them had sacrificed themselves in her cause. The loss stung, as it did every single time; recently she’d felt so much of this pain she thought she’d become immune to it.
Apparently not.
The men and women on the bridge worked with grim purpose now, all sense of excitement gone. The Pi
lgrim still burned on the display, a reminder of just how deadly this game was.
Àurea felt suddenly powerless; whilst her turbolasers could reach out and touch the enemy ships, there was nothing she could do to protect her fleet from the return fire. In close combat she was a hurricane — she could throw herself into the thickest fray and emerge unscathed. Her skills allowed her to pick and choose her opponents, taking on the toughest herself and coming to the defence of anyone who was flagging.
But up here she was just another cog in a giant machine. Less than that; with Captain Nikolau in charge of the ship, and her own knowledge of large-scale strategy hopelessly inadequate, she was a spare cog without a purpose. Just another useless observer, powerless to help those fighting and dying at her behest.
And they were dying.
Call after call came in, reporting damage and casualties from the smaller ships.
Still they surged ahead, following her orders. Helicon Prime loomed large on the viewscreen now, bisected by a stripe of heavy cruisers like a ring of steel around the planet.
So close…
The enemy fleet seemed to be giving ground, slowly retreating towards the planet.
It made little sense; though Helicon Prime possessed sub-orbital weapons batteries, they were a last line of defence. By letting them get into range, the enemy was taking the chance that some of Àurea’s ships would break through to attack the surface.
Surely they’re made of sterner stuff than this?
They could of course be luring them back towards a trap of some kind, but Àurea couldn’t imagine what it was.
“Press on!” Captain Nikolau ordered, leaning forward in his chair. Their ship had taken damage, but it was mostly superficial; so far the battle had been conducted at long range, and their shields had managed to shrug off most of the incoming fire.
Àurea studied the tactical display, convinced there was something she was missing.
Ship after ship formed up behind her in a wedge, with Tenacity as the tip of the spear. The captain was in his element, barking orders to other captains that he knew by name. Àurea felt distant, a spectator in her own battle.
“One of the cruisers is offloading something!” The voice belonged to a junior bridge officer — he couldn’t have been more than eighteen — that bore a striking resemblance to the captain.
“What is it Lantz?” Nikolau turned towards the boy.
“I’m evaluating each ship for its threat potential. At first I thought they were venting ballast, but it could be a weapon.”
“On screen!” the captain called.
The shape of the Church cruiser swelled to fill the display. It was many hundreds of kilometres distant, but the computer-enhanced optics gave a startlingly realistic approximation.
Strange dark flecks were being discharged into space, where they drifted aimlessly like motes of dust.
The captain hunched forwards. “Are those… bodies?”
“Confirmed captain,” said the boy, obviously his son. “They’re being blown out the airlocks in groups. It’s…”
“It’s our people!” the captain surged to his feet. “Survivors from the other bases! Prisoners! They’re executing them en masse!”
Àurea turned to him, but her mother laid a cautioning hand on her arm. “It’s a trick. Designed to incense you. Do not fall prey to it.”
Àurea hissed out the breath she was holding. Her mother had a point. “Order no response,” she told the comm officer. “Make sure none of the other ships are drawn in by this.”
The captain rounded on her. “Are you mad? That’s our friends out there. Your followers! We have to save them.”
“Hold course for the planet,” Sera called, more steel in her tone than Àurea could ever match.
“I will not!” the captain snarled. “Helm! Best possible speed for that cruiser. Comms! Let the others know what’s going on. We need to take control of that cruiser before they space any more of our people!”
Sera, formidable even without her battle armour, took two strides towards the captain’s chair. Her gauntlet came up, pointing at him; the tips of embedded weapons protruded, a targeting reticle appearing on his head. “I won’t ask again,” she said. “This ship is now under my command.”
“How dare you,” he spat — but he made no move towards her.
“Sit down, captain,” Sera told him.
The man glared at her for a second, then slumped into the command chair.
“Excellent.” Sera turned back to the viewscreen. “Keep to our original course,” she said, not bothering to raise her voice. “Inform the other ships; any people we have on those cruisers are dead. The enemy will pay for this, but in a manner of our choosing.”
“Message sent,” the comm officer said. He sounded relieved; he clearly hadn’t been a fan of charging headlong into the enemy’s guns. “Getting confirmations,” he added. “No — wait! Daedalus is refusing to acknowledge.”
“Captain Seneka,” the captain muttered. “He lost his wife and kid on Presebal.”
“Daedalus is breaking formation! They’re at full burn, headed for the Church cruiser.”
“Idiots,” Sera dismissed them. “Target that cruiser. See if we can destroy it before they get there.”
“Our people are on that ship!” Nikolau growled.
“Target confirmed,” called one of the gunners.
“And get those fighters in the air,” she added. “They’re no use in a hangar bay. I want them flying sorties through the enemy lines. I want to know why they want us so close.”
“Yes ma’am!”
Àurea took a moment to analyse the mood on the bridge. Within seconds of her mother taking over there was an air of determined efficiency, as though her confidence had been transferred to the crew. It was fascinating to watch, though Àurea still agonised over her feelings of impotence.
Laser blasts slammed into the distant cruiser, but it was far enough away that most of their shots were absorbed by its shields. Two more ships from Àurea’s fleet had joined the Daedalus on its headlong rush; what they hoped to achieve was impossible to guess.
The Folly was still firing, but sporadically; its main gun required enormous power, and Ella was clearly hoarding it for when she got another Sanctuary in her sights.
The other ships were holding their own; the battle seemed to have reached a stalemate, with both sides exchanging long-range turbolaser fire which glanced off shields, and swarms of missiles which were intercepted en route.
And yet their fleet is so much more powerful than ours… what are they waiting for?
Her answer came a moment later.
As the Daedalus continued its suicidal onslaught, it was met not with fire, but with something else.
One of the Church ships flanking the cruiser opened a docking bay and belched several small shapes towards the Daedalus. The Ingumend vessel seemed to recognise the threat, twisting away at the last minute and blazing away at the incoming objects with all its weapons. Several of the shapes took direct hits and disintegrated, but at least two struck the hull of the larger ship and stuck there like limpet mines.
Why use bombs when they have enough firepower to annihilate that ship a dozen times over?
The other two ships following Daedalus had also pulled up. All three vessels made wide arcs, scrambling back towards the safety of their fleet — but the smaller shapes pursued them.
“Are those ships?” Àurea asked her mother. “Can we see them on the screen?”
Someone obliged her, bringing up a render created from multiple sensor readings. The thing was a ship alright; squarish, truncated, with stubby wings and a broad, flat underside.
All the bridge officers took a moment to study the image; Àurea could tell straight away that none of them recognised it.
“It’s a boarding craft,” Sera said into the silence. “I’d say the crew of the Daedalus has got company.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth when the comm ping
ed with an incoming signal.
“Captain Seneka,” the officer announced. “Should I put him on screen?”
“Do it,” captain Nikolau growled. He seemed to have forgotten Sera’s intervention; Àurea saw her mother’s face harden for a moment, but she chose not to challenge him.
A fuzzy image sprang up, the computer’s scrubbers working to correct the picture which was being broadcast through two sets of shields.
The man that sat in the command chair was whip-thin, his face like a hatchet. “The bastards are boarding us! Church soldiers in heavy armour. Nikolau, we can’t fight forces like that. Hell, half my crew are boys!”
“There’s nothing we can do from here,” captain Nikolau said. “Hold them off long enough to get back to us and I’ll have soldiers sent over from one of the other ships.”
“Ha!” the man on the screen drew his pistol. “We’ll never last that long. Might as well learn from our mistake. Don’t let the bastards get close!”
He cut the comm signal, and captain Nikolau slumped back in his chair. “This what you expected?” he asked Sera.
“One possibility. They’re retreating because they don’t want to waste ships in a firefight. And they don’t have to; they have soldiers to waste instead.”
Nikolau glared up at her from the command chair. “And your advice?”
“If you still wish to take Helicon Prime, we must press on. Casualties are unavoidable. Task the fighters to intercept any boarding boats, and have tactical identify the possible carriers.”
Nikolau roused himself and glanced around the bridge. “You heard the Lady! Get to it.”
Àurea squeezed her hands into fists. This was more like it. Much as she hated to hide behind her mother’s skirts, there was no denying her tactical superiority. She turned back to watch the tactical display — just as a new group of signals blossomed behind them.
An alarm blared, drawing the crew’s attention instantly.
Without warning, the new arrivals veered in — a flotilla of fast-attack craft, their weapons spitting at Tenacity’s flank.
Warden's Vengeance Page 36
