She followed after the nun and took in the silence of the rest of the ship. Whatever assets she had hoped for, there was nothing here. She caught glances of other shrouded nuns. “Sister? What are you doing way out here?”
Dandalaza smiled and glanced back to Emilie. “We wait and pray. It is closer to God here.”
“Why not a planet?”
“Once they open the next star system, we will move there. Already we wait on the edge.”
Emilie looked at the woman and felt out of place. Matters of faith were never her strong point. At least not the sort that Dandalaza placed stock in.
“Here we are,” Dandalaza said, as she opened a narrow hatch and stepped inside.
Emilie passed through into a launch that felt a few decades newer. The bulk was raw cargo space while a small crew area was stuck next to the cockpit. She took a seat next to Dandalaza and sat in silence. She didn’t have any more questions for the Nun—her mind was spread thin, planning out how to salvage what she had in system.
She hadn’t planned on the Hun coming in, it was in the back of her mind, but it never seemed real. None of it did. At the very least she had the additive cells on planet and in system. But on top of that, she had full libraries, something the colonists definitely did not. She pondered on the term “colonist”. She wasn’t a colonist, being third generation, but the term still stuck.
The plan started to take shape as the launch dropped away from the monastery. The first task, get the additive cell working on a new mining fleet. She’d have to negotiate for some resources but saw no issue with a little credit. Beyond that it’d take time. What would the UC do, she wondered? Would William engage? She glanced around the bridge for a display. “Can you see them?”
Sister Dandalaza leaned forward and flipped down an old style display. It blinked into a pattern of hexes and shifted into a starmap. The edges were fuzzy, like it was cleaned too often. Icons blinked where transponders showed, but nothing more. The Core transport was heading out with Mustafa as escort.
“I hope he’s getting paid for that,” Emilie mumbled.
The small launch made the first blink and plunged through the gap to the next blink. Emilie spent the time in silence as she reviewed her position. It was the sort of thought that was beyond numbers and tables and in the realm of heart and grit. It was more than just value now, it was something bigger.
“Look,” Sister Dandalaza said. She pointed to the display and flashing energy signatures near a barren planet. “Railgun signatures. Grav expansions, a nasty fight.”
Emilie peered at the screen but could only see the numbers. None of it made any sense to her. “Who’s winning?”
Dandalaza watched the display with her hands folded onto the crisp black fabric of her habit. Her eyes danced on the screen and she nodded slowly. “Neither, they spread apart. They’re close in to that planet, the well makes for a quick engagement.”
“You were Navy?”
“Once, yes. Then I found a calling.”
Emilie saw the signatures begin again. She wished she could understand what was happening. A new indicator would flare and Dandalaza would click her teeth or suck in air. She glanced at the Nun—her face was scrunched up tight and she had every bit of energy focused on the screen.
“Hmm,” the Nun said quietly.
“What?”
“It’s done,” she said, and pointed at the screen. She leaned closer and zoomed back the display. The Gallipoli was no longer on scan.
“Where did my ship go?” Emilie asked. She hoped that Mustafa didn’t leave her behind.
“Turned off the transponder. My guess is they’re going in to flank the last intruder,” Dandalaza said. She pointed and nudged at the screen. “They’ll come in and pair up.”
The pair watched the display and passed through into another blink. The starscape barely shifted but Winterthur loomed closer. The planet was a smoky ball smudged with blue stripes.
Emilie felt her heart stir and leaned closer to the visual display. She hadn’t expected to feel much of anything, yet a tear was creeping down her face. Her eyes danced and took in the details, the only definable feature was the heavier density of cloud cover near the capital. “Home,” she whispered.
“About an hour,” Sister Dandalaza said.
Emilie nodded and turned her head to hide the tears. She glanced at the Nun and felt lost, there was a sense of purpose she had before, a faith in herself, that was lost. Gone into the nether. A moment later she started telling the carbon skinned Nun everything.
It was a confession, a confession of ideals, guilt, fears, and sins. By the end, tears flowed and sobs racked her chest. She felt a leaden weight rise and a new clarity emerge.
Sister Dandalaza watched with eyes hard like flint. “Maybe you never had a true purpose? Maybe now you’ve found it, and it scares you?”
Emilie felt it in her heart, a twinge, a twist of heat. She glanced at the Nun and nodded. “Maybe,” she croaked.
“It was after New Tunis that I left the Navy. I saw the violence that was coming. I needed to know there was something more, a meaning, a reason, the thing that made space. Even just the nudge into existence,” Sister Dandalaza said. “Purpose is like duty, it can be a terrible weight. For some, it’s too much.”
“Duty.” The word didn’t feel real. She’d known duty, but duty to a Corporation, a department, a business group. She grappled with concept and felt lost. The duty she felt had always been to herself, and now the change was setting in.
“Find your duty, your purpose, and come to grips with it,” Sister Dandalaza said.
Emilie sniffed and wiped her eyes. At least, she thought, I’ll have time to think.
Traffic around the planet was almost nonexistent. Only a battered old freighter lay against the elevator complex like a beached whale. Farther off the Core transport made the final blink out of the system and towards the depths of space.
Now Emilie felt totally alone. Adrift with nothing but asset codes and a library for an additive cell. Everything she needed for a fresh start, and a purpose that mattered. The materials would come soon enough, but the purpose seemed fleeting. She snuck a glance at the nun and tried to regain her composure.
Sister Dandalaza kept her eyes locked on the displays. “Oh my.”
“What is it?” Emilie asked. Her eyes settled on the energy display and saw a new signature flare.
“That was a torpedo, no one’s used one of these in a very long time.”
Emilie opened her mouth and snapped it shut quickly. Mustafa. Her last moments on the bridge came back to her, they had just onlined a torpedo launcher. “Are you sure?”
The nun nodded quickly and stabbed her dark finger at the screen. “See the rings spreading out? It’s an area denial charge. Old old. Back before the grav drives. ”
Emilie felt that things just went from difficult to salvage to nearly impossible. No retention bond. With no bond, came no security. Mustafa had found a better deal, she thought. Or that by claiming the system for his own he’d negotiate his own terms. “It’s not the Harmony ship? How long ago?”
Sister Dandalaza tore her eyes from the energy display. “No, that’s old UN technology. Thirty minutes ago,” she said, barely a whisper. She looked back to the screen eyes wide, haunted.
Emilie nodded and looked away from the display. Her only chance now was to get on the ground. She still had value, but not as a hostage to a mercenary. The value would be to whoever needed to fight the Hun on the ground. If there was ever something she could bank on it was the stubbornness of a colonist, and the desire for a good weapon.
More energy signatures bloomed on the screen like red and yellow roses. Someone, somewhere, was taking a hell of a beating.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
––––––––
Shockwaves rippled through the asteroid with an intensity like a bass drum. Bits of hull aggregate dropped away in chunks with sections of insulation backing dancing in the air. The
stream of alarms suddenly stopped. Only the sounds of pumps and valves rippled through the air.
“A fucking torpedo,” Shay said. Her hands slid on her console while her eyes locked on the display above her.
“Bryce!” William snapped at the Midshipman. “Bryce? Dammit!”
The Midshipman slumped onto the side of his console and lay with his head down. Sobs rolled out. Deep mournful animal sounds. With every new impact he shook.
William snapped the control of the nav system and transfered them to his console. A mess of plots and probabilities flickered away from the Garlic leading to points all over. He scratched most of the routes. “Shay, you’ve got weapons.”
Shay snorted and leaned forward. “Ain’t much left, Captain,” she said, her fingers dancing along the keys.
“Then make it count,” William said. He pushed the nav display around and rotated the ship. Another quick movement and they settled into a semi-random pattern. “Gamma roll, sigma profile.”
She nodded and glanced at Bryce. “C’mon, dammit.”
Bryce sobbed and moaned.
William looked up briefly and counted the critical alarms. Too many. The torpedo had made such an unbelievable detonation that almost every seal punctured. Nanite repair loads were buried into the red. The camera drone, before it was hit, showed massive thermal loads. The nanites were trying to stop the dam with a finger. He wanted to shake his head, but instead laid out a course between the Gallipoli and the troopship.
“We’re threading the needle, we’ll hug the troopship. Then they can’t use the torpedo again. When we pass, I need you to pepper that ship, hit ‘em hard.”
Shay nodded and focused on her console. “A fucking torpedo,” she said again, shaking her head.
“Captain? Reactor is stable, but hoowee the Haydn is close to a breach,” Huron called through his EVA comms.
A single display shifted and showed a yellow EVA suit standing beside the Haydn drive. The suit was spraying sealant and laying over a nanite mesh. “Can you keep that quadrant clear?” Huron asked.
William wanted to tell him that nothing was clear but instead modified the roll program. They’d oscillate instead while presenting the breach to the lightly armed troopship. “Halting the roll, Shay, going to a Marley oscillation instead.”
The Garlic oscillated between both of the working mass drivers. The rapid bursts pulsed a stream of nickel enhanced nanite. The impacts rippled against the nose of the corvette. Spatters of green plasma pulsed away as ragged divots glowed with nanite fire. The troopship strained to move away, pivoting as best it could to present a less damaged flank. It returned fire with two meager single point drivers. The streams of plasma were miniscule compared to the searing waves of fire that blasted out from the corvette.
The corvette danced like a ballerina, sliding and moving. One face absorbed the mass driver fire and the entire bulk rolled to show another new, fresh surface. With every roll brought a new battery of weapons. Almost every surface on the Gallipoli spewed out a projectile of some sort.
The Garlic pushed through the fire and came closer to the troopship. A railgun battery seared a lance of fire across the scant kilometer between the ships and evaporated one of the remaining mass drivers on the Garlic. Debris slung outward and tumbled soundlessly against the hull of the troopship.
William started to feel the rise of fear, but that rise was buoyed with anger. The rage was what propelled the fear. He could taste it. This wasn’t done, not yet. He looked up from his display to Grgur and nodded. Grgur grinned back with a mouth of wide, yellow-stained teeth. “Shay, nail the Hun!”
Shay whistled and keyed the weapon program. “On the way!”
The Garlic rolled and halted for a moment. The mass driver paused and sprayed slugs along the edges of the troopship. The troopship tried to roll and show a new face but it wasn’t nimble enough. Atmosphere vented from holes while grav shields deflected the rounds in others. The mass driver stopped just as the Garlic passed the nose of the troopship.
The troopship’s hull blasted out thermal signatures. Atmosphere purged from chamber after chamber while a meager nanite sheath tried to heal the damage. Entire sections went dark and cold. A good majority of the ship was now a lifeless hulk.
“Big bastard,” Shay said in a low voice.
William felt nothing but hate for those inside of it. He knew what they’d do on the ground. All he could hope for was to whittle away at the troopship and hope the forces on the ground could carry the day. “Shay, focus on the Gallipoli. Keep your heat down, if they launch another torpedo kill it.”
“Aye, Captain!” Shay replied quickly.
The Garlic sped away from the ships at an angle that would blink them into the mining debris. More fire erupted from the Gallipoli. Every impact strained the Garlic. Whines, groans, and tensile strains echoed through the bridge. With each strike, the mass of the Garlic dropped. With mass was strength, and the ship was losing strength.
He could see a way out. His fingers traced the Gallipoli. It was mirroring the movement of the troopship. He could press away and blink into the asteroid belts. The zone was rippled with clouds of stamped ore, discarded equipment, and most of all, asteroids just like him. He could picture a nice slow orbit, plenty of time away from prying eyes and a chance to lick some wounds. He laid in the course and glanced back up.
The Gallipoli rolled gently. A flash popped on the far end of the corvette. The torpedo launcher birthed the enormous capsule on far side allowing a few extra seconds of acceleration before it was clear of the Gallipoli.
“Torpedo!” Shay called out. Her hand slapped the console with a crack. The mass driver fired so quickly that the individual pulses could barely be heard.
William grasped the armrests of the chair and clutched as tightly as he could. Kill it, he thought. Stop that bastard! He knew if it hit they’d not have the integrity left to survive. They’d fall apart into nothing.
The torpedo danced and wavered so quickly it was almost as if it was vibrating. Mass driver slugs sailed past it in a wall of nickel alloy. Then, in a flash of whiteness, it was gone. Walls of shrapnel and plasma expanded out and away, first impacting on the troopship and then on the Gallipoli itself. Sensor readings bounced from side to side as the energy shockwave collided with the Garlic.
William tensed and listened for more alarms, but most of all he listened for that horrible sound of cracking. A second passed and the hull groaned, but didn’t crack. They’d made it. “Three minutes to blink!” he called out.
Bryce raised his head and turned to look at William. Spit ran down his chin in a wide sheet of slick redness. His eyes pleaded as he shook his head from side to side. The sobs stopped.
William looked away from Bryce and back to his console. He felt a sort of pity for the young officer. Pity that was a luxury he didn’t have the time to deal with. If it wasn’t for the vacuum on the other side of the door, he’d have tossed him out long before. “Huron? How’s it looking?” Most of his maintenance alerts for the engineering section showed disconnects.
“Haydn is live, grav drive is clear, reactor is acting like a saddled bitch.”
“Can we—”
“Yes,” Huron replied quickly. “We can blink.”
The path of the three ships diverged like a spreading wedge. The Garlic pulled away with lances of plasma, mass driver slugs, and a ragged assortment of missiles chasing after, but nowhere near enough or fast enough to make a dent.
William watched as the distance grew slowly. Too slowly for his taste, but now it was the waiting. So long to wait for a fight, he thought, and it’s over in minutes. He savored the dripping of the adrenaline, that edge of the seat giddiness. A hard pit in his stomach grew that was edged with sore muscles. In a second he relaxed back and sighed, feeling his muscles uncoil. “We’re blinking in thirty seconds.”
Bryce looked between Shay and William with a burning in his eyes. He wiped the drying blood with his sleeve and started to sob onc
e more.
“Shaddup for fuck’s sake,” Shay said without turning to look at Bryce.
“Ms. Shay,” William said. He agreed with her, wholeheartedly, but this wasn’t the time or the place. The feelings Bryce felt, he once felt too, when he’d debated shooting himself after crashing on Redmond. Alone, freezing to death, with nothing in his hands but a handgun. He sealed that memory away and looked down to Bryce. “Mr. Bryce, compose yourself. You’re an officer.”
Grgur stood a bit taller and Shay slid out from the slump and planted her back squarely against the seat. Bryce sniffled and nodded solemnly, sadly. He turned away from William and Shay and looked down to the floor.
The dim rumble of the impacting gunfire was like thunder receding into the night. Maintenance alarms blared on every display, every screen, every console. The Garlic was alive, but barely.
“The Gallipoli is holding course,” Shay said.
William nodded and keyed up the intercom. “Blink in three, two, one,” he said, tapping his console and watching the starscape change.
He let out a breath and exhaled deeply. His eyes drifted to the displays and began to prioritize. He keyed up the personnel screen and saw nothing but errors. Time to do it the old fashioned way. “Crew, sound off.”
“Shay.”
“Huron.”
“Bryce.”
William listened as the names drifted in a slow rhythm, checking them off one by one. He dreaded the moment when it would stop. The words hung in the silence and he nodded slowly. Three gone. Bryce’s shift. They’d have been sealing breaches, he thought, keeping us alive. “Huron, can you get to a console?”
“Already there, Captain.”
“How long ‘til we can get sealed up?”
“It’s going to be a bit,” Huron said. “We’re holed in the center section. I need to find a patch big enough to seal it.”
“How big?” William asked as he pictured a mass driver slug sized hole.
“Hmm, a few meters should do it.”
“Shay, run a passive, find me some rocks,” William said. He looked to the wall next to him and patted it with his augmetic hand. They suffered a wound a few meters wide but the ship held together.
Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) Page 11
