by C. Gockel
“Don’t do it,” Volka said.
Dr. Patrick was the least … martial … of all her captains. He was a man of science who accidentally wound up captain of a ship destined for combat.
In answer to her thoughts, he thought something inscrutable. “I think lobsters would taste disgusting if all they had to eat was blue-green algae. Get the other captains ready. You can’t control me, see?” And then he smiled; Volka felt it.
“No,” Volka exclaimed, sharing his thoughts as she did, hoping the other captains would convince him not to attack, but Dr. Patrick’s ship was already darting like an exploding star from the formation.
In the holo, a Skimmer broke away from the rest, spinning so quickly it was a blur, phaser fire peeling off of it the whole time so that it looked like it had cannons on all sides, not just in its keel.
Leaning forward, Alaric said, “Be ready,” not knowing what was happening, but knowing their chance was coming. Three of the Skimmers peeled after the first, providing cover, the others protected the Luddeccean LCS.
The first Skimmer plowed directly into the cruiser’s single forward hover engine. There was a flood of light, electricals malfunctioning, and the ship’s bow tipped up, the first Skimmer embedded within it, until the enemy ship was nearly vertical and the field of sky that had been hidden behind its bow was now wide open.
The LCS blasted into the opening where the bow had just been, Nightwing, the Skimmer James was in with them, but falling out of the lead to let the LCS pass and to ward off the fighters launching from the Dixmude. A missile rocketed from the LCS Nehrer directly into the band of the singularity beam. It was a conventional fission weapon in space. There was no blast and no shockwave; there were no air molecules for the radiation to act upon. But at the site of the missile’s impact, the weapon’s ring glowed red hot. The heat spread along the ring, and the singularity weapon stretched and warped.
“Now!” Alaric commanded. Volka, get out of the way! He knew she felt it before the Net-Drive engaged.
There was the nothingness, and then the Uriel was above Planet Zero, facing the distorted red hot singularity band engineered to warp space-time … now just molten and useless.
“Withdraw outriggers,” Alaric commanded. He saw his ship from outside in the holo, her heading the deformed ring. Skimmers rushed up and pushed the ring aside, and the Uriel blasted toward Planet Zero’s Kaman line, the boundary between space and atmosphere. The cruiser was still pitched perpendicular to the planet’s surface, the Skimmer still embedded in its keel.
“Outriggers secure,” someone said.
“Should we fire, sir?” one of his officers asked. The Skimmer was trembling, visibly vibrating, a ptery whose feet were caught trying to break free, but gray veins were spreading along its sides.
“Torpedoes on the cruiser—target its starboard wing. Phaser fire, low, on the Skimmer!” Alaric ordered.
“Yes, sir!”
The gray veins encapsulated the entire ship. Light shone from within it, highlighting their sinister grasp.
One of his men said, “Torpedoes are—”
There was an explosion within the cruiser, and the Skimmer embedded in its hover engine shot out. Its hull was pitch black in parts, but for a moment Alaric’s heart leaped. “Fire on it!” he ordered. Phaser fire ripped from the Uriel and from the other Skimmers, bathing the sides of the injured Skimmer in fire … but not reaching her bow, and it remained black. In the next instant, a projectile fired from within the cruiser, striking the still-black section of the Skimmer’s hull. And the unthinkable happened. The Skimmer cracked like a black egg, pieces of her and her crew exploding outward.
From somewhere—or maybe everywhere—a scream arose.
For a moment, when Patrick’s ship had been thrown from the cruiser, Volka had hoped. And then the projectile—was it a weapon or a piece of the cruiser?—had shattered the ship along its Infected side. Patrick, his Skimmer, and his crews’ strings were curling in on themselves, still there, but thinning, the coils that were their hearts and lungs already extinguished. In an instant, it struck her how appropriate it was that it had been Patrick and his ship. He was the most cautious, and his move had been cautious. They might have been able to overcome the cruiser without his deliberate death, but that would likely have cost more lives.
Volka’s scream rose with Sundancer’s and the elderships’, but hers turned into a cry of rage as theirs remained anguished. She raided Alaric’s and Noa’s minds, seeking the best way to retaliate. She saw it, and her ships gathered at the bow of the Uriel, protecting the immense vessel as it plowed toward the planet.
The Uriel just had to get close enough to drop the fusion weapon, eight kilometers from the surface. At that level, Planet Zero had more methane and hydrogen in its atmosphere than Earth—that was why the plasma beams had flared so strangely on their first trip. The fusion reaction would be amplified. They had enough firepower to sterilize the entire half of the continent, according to Kenji. They only needed to get close enough …
From the Uriel’s sides fighters emerged, a few human pilots and Bracelet and TAB leading drones. The drones couldn’t be manned, not with the jammers active, but they could follow their leaders, take orders via encrypted lightbeam, and protect the Uriel against the Dixmude. They were evenly matched now. Just as he thought that, alarm rose from the Skimmers. Dark shadows were racing up from the planet below.
Volka blinked and was staring at two more huge warships and squadrons of fighters rising toward them. The Dark’s ship’s torpedoes were rising even faster. Alaric’s voice was in her mind, “Pull up! Pull up!”
With a snarl, Volka pulled the Skimmers away.
6T9 was blind. He existed in a mindscape, tied to the other AI and the Q-comm aboard the Uriel, but he was also hardlinked to a cannon’s camera. They were switching out the phaser cannons, and now the spent one he was tied to was displaying Sundancer’s interior. He was projecting that to the holomat. It was attached to the same hardlink with a splitter so he could display the scene outside to the crew. He wasn’t sure they needed it.
Through the phaser’s sights, he saw Volka sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her fingers were curled into claws, and she was staring at a point on the wall, chin dipped low. The crew ran around her as they went about their business, eerily quiet. As the new cannon sank into the floor, Lieutenant Dixon stopped and looked at the same point Volka was glaring at in the opaque wall. Then he grabbed the splitter and quickly plugged 6T9 into the new cannon.
6T9 was seeing the outside of the ship again. Sundancer and five other Skimmers swung around the Dixmude’s starboard sides, cannons laying down fire, herding some of the Dark’s fighters into a cluster—
Captain Darmadi ordered the same action a second slower than it occurred. That had been happening throughout the battle: The Skimmers obeyed Darmadi before Darmadi had given orders. The humans and ships were tied together by something faster than words, ether, or lightbeams.
James called out, “We are in formation, but—”
A Luddeccean LCS blasted phasers from their heavier cannons into the clustered Dark fighters, and they were obliterated, chrome snowflakes one instant, ash the next. The Skimmers were already twisting above the Dixmude. An instant later, they were lending support to Nightwing and the other LCS, trapping the Dixmude, leaving her open to—
“Break off now!” Volka snarled. Milliseconds later, the same command came from Darmadi.
Outside the ship, the LCSs and Skimmers peeled away, rising up to regroup with the Uriel. The Dixmude continued on, stately and oddly peacefully, and then a blast from the Uriel struck her midway along her starboard side. The Dixmude exploded.
The Skimmers and the LCSs were already regrouping, right where they needed to, before Darmadi gave the order. Spinning back to surround the Uriel, the Skimmers took her bow, the LCSs her sides, the allied fighters following. They’d lost scores of fighters, an LCS, and another was limping—but the Dark had lost the
Dixmude and the cruiser, and the remaining allied forces were evenly matched with the Dark’s two smaller warships, the same ones they’d encountered in their first foray to this planet. At that thought, 6T9 saw a vulnerability between the two Infected ships, both now off starboard—they and the Dixmude had set themselves in positions between the allies and the shipyard. Not that the fusion bomb needed to be closer than a continent from the shipyard. If they ignored the two ships, they’d have them at their backs, but if they attacked now, altering course, sliding from their direct plunge toward the surface by 35.9 degrees, the Skimmers, fighters, and LCSs could form a wedge between the two, laying down fire that could weaken the two ships and allow the Uriel to—
Darmadi started to give the order, but the Skimmers, LCSs, and fighters altered their course by 35.9 degrees before Darmadi finished or 6T9 could begin to voice the strategy. As the Uriel changed course, Darmadi spoke over his Q-comm, “Well done, Wolf.”
6T9’s hand went to the point in his armor where he had once carried Eliza’s ashes and now carried Volka’s ring. He didn’t relay Alaric’s praise. He didn’t need to.
The remaining two Luddeccean warships fell away. Alaric’s shoulders fell, and he exhaled. He swore someone had reduced the grav settings; he felt incalculably lighter.
“Our sensors and comm systems are no longer being jammed,” an officer exclaimed.
Alaric’s lips twitched. They were almost done. All they had to do was drop their payload and …
“Sir,” the same officer said a moment later, “five new ships just appeared on our scopes—” and blurted out coordinates.
“Put it on the holo,” Alaric ordered, and the holo scene shimmered.
His communications officer said, “Incoming from Sundancer.”
“Put them on air,” Alaric said.
Volka’s voice filled the bridge. She sounded angry and calm in equal measure. “Ten faster-than-light ships just free-gated in.”
“I only saw five,” his officer protested.
Admiral Wolf continued, “Five near us, five more on the other side of the planet.”
The officer grumbled something about unreliable alien spacecraft. Alaric’s fingers beat out a rhythm on his armrest, and he stared at the holo. There had been no Dark faster-than-light ships in the battle so far, but now they were above them, moving to intercept the Uriel’s current course.
… Because they knew that the Uriel was trying to destroy the shipyards and thought that the Uriel needed to be closer, that she was carrying some conventional weapon.
Admiral Wolf’s voice echoed in the bridge again. “The other ships are on course to the shipyards.” She answered his question without him having asked it. She’d read his thoughts, just as she had been doing this whole blasted battle. He didn’t mind. He might have imagined Volka replying, “Good.”
The Dark expected the Uriel or one of the LCSs, perhaps, to fire a conventional warhead that they would shoot down. The shipyards were vitally important to them. A question entered his mind—before it left his lips, Admiral Wolf responded. “The Skimmers are sensitive to fluctuations in the waves. No other ships have free-gated into this system, though a number, perhaps ten, free-gated out, just before we arrived.”
One of his officers said, “Do they know where the Dark’s ships free-gated to?”
Alaric was distantly aware of Admiral Wolf saying, “No.”
The faster-than-light ships left before the allies had arrived, to attack Luddeccea and System 11, and perhaps to go about business as usual—picking up more Infected from settlements throughout the galaxy. But now, the shipyard was in danger and ten were here to protect one of the Dark’s most valuable assets. His fingers drummed against his armrest again. Another question entered his mind. Again, Admiral Wolf answered it before he asked. “Sixty says the ships are too high above the shipyard to be within range of a fusion blast on the surface.”
Damn. Alaric studied the holo. The Dark’s faster-than-light ships were its key to the galaxy. It was already spreading in the Republic through other means, but except for the faster-than-light ships, it could still be stopped if the Republic got serious about quarantining a system. All they had to do was close the gates … and even if the Republic had no stomach for such drastic measures, the individual systems did—witness System 11’s defection, and System 5’s aiding and abetting its breakaway. But the existence of the faster-than-light ships limited even the ability of the brave to respond effectively.
Just how many of those ships would the Dark be willing to risk to protect its shipyard?
How much longer would the galaxy be free if the allied forces took out half the Dark’s fleet now with their strike? There was one way to find out.
“Shall I change our heading, sir?” asked his navigator.
“No,” said Alaric. Let the Dark think that they needed to be closer. “We’re going to see if we can flush a few more of their pterys out of the bushes.”
There were murmurs around the bridge. Ko’s head jerked in Alaric’s direction, and then he nodded slowly. “We can take them. All of them, Captain.”
Alaric wasn’t sure of that. He was sure they could drop their payload and take a lot more faster-than-light ships with them, and that was all that mattered.
“The Skimmers are with you,” Volka said.
Alaric smiled grimly and thought of his last call with his wife. For the first time, she’d admitted she wanted him to come home. He had a feeling he’d be letting her down. “I’m sorry, Alexis.”
26
The Lion’s Den
Luddeccea : New Prime
Alexis was gone. Silas was in the kitchen, struggling to make himself a cup of coffee with shaking hands. She or the maid had always made him his beverages. Before that, it had been Volka, or his old chef, or “Mr. Niano”—the too beautiful young man who for a moment Silas had thought ….
Silas swore he’d heard a growl. Peeling back the blackout paper on the windows, he peered out into the garden, his heart pounding in his ears. He saw nothing, not even the glowing eyes of a ptery.
Shaking his head, he returned to trying to open the top of the coffee maker. He needed to put a filter in; he knew that. Bother his shaking hands. He exhaled. Alexis had said she should be the one to stay, that he should take the children. The Dark wanted her, after all. Silas had argued, “Ah, but my dear, you’ve told me that you’d kill your own children rather than see them Infected. I couldn't kill my nephews, even in mercy. So, you see, I would be a terrible guardian, and you must be the one to go.”
In his memory, he’d spoken the words so fearlessly, like a manly protector, not like the terrified old man he was. He was sure in reality he’d probably sounded as fearful as he’d felt.
He was an idiot. He should have at least let her make him some coffee.
The lid snapped off, and he noted the chamber within was filter shaped. Pressing the filter in so it was snug—was snugness necessary? he had no idea—he measured out the coffee, added water, and pressed a button. A pleasant gurgling sound arose from the machine, and he had a moment of triumph that felt purer and more potent than anything he’d felt since … well, not long actually. The world had felt this clear when Joel first kissed him.
He wished Joel was here and was briefly angry at him for not being so, but then became angry at himself remembering how hard he had protested his lover staying. Joel had children and grandchildren. He couldn’t die yet. He had to take care of them. Like Silas had to take care of Markus, Lucas, and Sam. He did love them, scamps though they were. The one thing he regretted about his condition was that he couldn’t have children. Although, well, Volka said she admired him for not marrying, making babies, and then seeing men on the side. It wasn’t a choice on his part, but it had kept him honest, hadn’t it? He’d met the wives of some of his “friends.” They were often lonely … and confused, wondering what they did that was displeasing their husbands. Their husbands often resented them and could be terribly cruel. Yes
, his childlessness was probably for the best.
The rich aroma of the coffee hit him as the pot began filling in earnest. It set Silas to fretting fiercely about Joel. Joel’s sense of smell had been damaged a few years before his wife had died. The weere season couldn’t affect him anymore, but he also couldn’t smell grapes, raisins, garlic, onions, coffee, chocolate, or any number of human foods that were poison to him. He was worse than Volka for human food intolerances. Silas had made Alexis promise to look out for Joel, to make sure he didn’t eat anything he shouldn’t, and she had sworn she would. Silas trusted her, but she had so many insecurities about weere. Silas didn’t think she could look after Joel with the enthusiasm that he would have, the same enthusiasm that would make Joel protest that he was being a mother hen. Of course, Alexis would have incentive beyond an oath to keep Joel alive. Joel could “smell” the Dark. That was one of the reasons Silas had employed when driving Joel away. “You’ll just have a vomiting fit again and won’t be any help to me whatsoever. You might give the whole gig away.” Which had been true. And also cruel. And Silas hated it.
The coffee pot gurgled with finality. Silas poured himself a cup, managing to spill only a little. Gripping the mug with both hands, he went to the sitting room to be close to the front door. The only light in the room was from a candle on a sideboard. He sat down on the sofa and took a sip from his mug. His hands shook so much he opted to set the drink upon the table rather than risk a spill. He’d told himself he’d need the beverage to stay awake, but fear would never let him doze off. Running a hand through his hair, he swept his gaze to the side and noticed a shadow on the coffee table—a book. His brows came together. He didn’t remember leaving a book out here. Picking it up and examining it, a laugh choked out of him, fast and dry. It was a copy of The Three Books of the decorative sort, extra large with illustrations and calligraphy. He flipped through the pages. Admittedly, the illustrations were beautiful. His eyebrow rose. One of Alexis’s guards must have left it—he knew exactly which one, too—Andreas. He was always interjecting some religious tidbit into everyday speech: “If God wills it,” “By His grace,” “With His Blessing.” It was tiresome. And the book was not for Silas. He didn’t fit within its pages. All men might be sinners, but his specific sin, he’d reliably been told, was greater than most. Especially since he didn’t try to abstain from it. Sin enough just to imagine, but to carry it out was worse. Silas had tried for a time to resist, but in the end, he didn’t have the strength to spend a life without love.
