Shards of Eternity

by John Triptych

  Vega clenched his jaw. They know about us now. “Helm, how long before we could initiate docking with the shuttle?”

  The helmsman used the shipboard AI to run a quick calculation using his own console. “Four minutes, fifteen seconds.”

  “We’re not going to have enough time,” Vega said. “Can you go for a steeper angle?”

  “If we increase our delta-V, we’ll overshoot them, Captain,” the helmsman said.

  Vega activated his com-link. “Baz, we’re under fire up here. Can you go faster?”

  “I’m already at full throttle, boss,” Baz said over the com-link. “Can’t get much faster than this.”

  Cursing, Vega switched his com-link channel to the planet’s surface. “Karana, you still reading me?”

  It was Karana’s turn to answer. “Yes, Captain. I’m still here.”

  “Have our friend engage the orbital defense grids,” Vega said before pausing to look at the vector and thrust readings. “At exactly one minute, thirty-three seconds from … now.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Vega lowered his voice a notch. “Karana, just in case we can’t pick you up, try to make it to the rendezvous point, okay?”

  “I understand,” Karana said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  11 Breach of Honor

  Throughout her existence, Captain Janice Gwynplaine had followed a single rule: never break your word. Despite living the life of a corsair for more than four decades, she had no regrets. While other crews tended not to leave any witnesses, she always made it a point to spare civilians whenever she could. Her fair and honest reputation was held in high esteem amongst pirate circles, and she expected every member of her crew to act in accordance with her directives. This code of conduct also extended to her allies whenever they did a job together. If anyone ever violated her trust, she became an implacable enemy and hunted them down at all costs.

  Her granddaughter Madison served as the communications officer on the bridge of the Stiletto, and she noticed her grandmother’s grim countenance. “Captain, the Nepenthe has taken out the third system defense ship, but they’re still busy with the fourth one. They say they’re too slow to catch up with us at this time.”

  Janice nodded in acknowledgement. She turned to her executive officer. “Dun, when can we finish off the Tiburon?”

  In addition to being the second in command of the Stiletto, Dun Bryant served as both the weapons and tactical officer. He kept his eye on his console, hoping to line up the prefect shot to disable the treacherous ship they were chasing. “Give me about three minutes and I’ll have her.”

  “Good,” Janice said. “Once we deal with Vega, we’ll need to launch a shuttle to pick up Dangard’s people. They’re still trapped down there.”

  Bryant narrowed his eyes as he inputted another command into the tactical console. It looked like an easy shot to make, and yet it bothered him. Vega is no fool, he thought. He must have a big reason why he’s done this to us. What’s his game?

  Madison gasped as she went through an intercepted message. “Grandma, check the orbital grids!”

  Janice raised her eyebrows while combing through her tactical screen. New blips suddenly appeared all around them. “Dun, what’s going on?”

  Bryant uttered an earthy curse. “Damn that Vega. He’s engaged the orbital defense grids against us. We need to veer off right now. We’re in line against a full lancer barrage if we stay on this intercept course.”

  Janice glanced at the pilot in front of her. “Begin evasive maneuvering and break off from the attack. We’ll get Vega as he tries to make it out of the system instead.”

  Bryant glared at his tactical screen. He was pushed back into the chair just as the Stiletto began a high-gravity maneuver to get away from the swarms of missiles being fired at her. I had them in my sights too. Damn.

  Janice could only watch in despair as a small blip was able to get close enough to the Tiburon for a successful orbital docking maneuver. I don’t care where you go, Vega. We’re all united against you now.

  In the museum’s security control room on the planet’s surface, Karana used the command console to cycle through various camera feeds, and they all showed the same thing. Once the robots had been unleashed, a massacre ensued. The security teams stationed inside the building were quickly overcome and hunted down by their own bots, and now dozens of corpses lined the corridors and inner offices. The remaining survivors either fled or were hiding in closets and bathroom stalls.

  Switching to the video feed inside the inner vault, Karana lingered over the dead bodies of the Nepenthe’s strike team for a short minute before scowling. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to locate the body of their commander, Garrett Strand. She began to wonder if he was still alive.

  Hoyt slouched on the chair beside her. “It’s over, you won.”

  Karana continued to go through more surveillance channels; plenty of bodies on the screen, but she still couldn’t find any evidence of Strand having been killed. “What about the planetary authorities?”

  “Local law enforcement cordoned off the whole museum compound,” Hoyt said. “But they’re not coming in yet.”

  “The spaceport?”

  “I can still get us maglev train access, though I would bet they’re waiting for us outside.”

  Karana turned to look at him. “Are there any alternatives to get up into high orbit from here?”

  Hoyt’s frustration had at last boiled over, and it gave him some courage. The gangly cracker stood up. “I did everything you wanted me to do. Now I need to speak to my daughter.”

  “This ain’t over yet,” Karana said. “When we’ve figured out a plan to sneak away then I’ll get you in touch with her.”

  Hoyt’s body began to shake. “No! I need to hear her voice now. It’s been two weeks. Please.”

  Karana turned and stood less than a meter from him. “Don’t make me repeat what I said. I asked you if there were alternatives to the spaceport. Answer my question first.”

  The tranquilizers in his system had faded away, and he seethed with a gnawing paranoia as to whether his family was still alive. Hoyt held up his trembling arms in a pathetic gesture of defiance. “I’m not doing anything more until I hear from my daughter. You promised!”

  In less than a second, Karana had closed in and grasped his throat in a machinelike vise. A mere flexing of her cybernetic hand would deliver enough force to crush his windpipe. Choking, Hoyt fell to his knees as she stood over him.

  Karana’s eyes remained impassive. “Is this what you want?”

  “My … daughter … p-please.”

  “Now don’t lie to me,” Karana said. “What’s the code to disable the orbital grids?”

  “Same … code. Please … m-my … daughter.”

  She’d had enough of his whining. What was needed now was to get away. “I’m taking you to your daughter.”

  As Hoyt stared up into her remorseless silvery eyes, he at last knew the terrible truth.

  Karana clamped her hand shut. Hoyt thrashed his arms around, struggling in vain as the pressure became too much to bear, and he soon went limp as the light went out of his eyes. Karana lowered the still-warm corpse gently to the ground before letting go. Vega had instructed her to finish him once he had his hands on the shards; now all she needed to do was to slip away in the chaos.

  Checking the monitor screens one more time, she could see the police were preparing to move into the compound. Using her neural interface jack, she disabled all of the underground maglev tracks until only one remained—a small personal high-speed train for her to use. Once she got into the spaceport, she could join up with the fleeing tourists and hide amongst them. The only witnesses to her deeds were all dead.

  As she took out a bag from under the table and began to put on civilian clothing, the door to the side of the room suddenly opened, momentarily startling her. Grabbing a gauss pistol from the countertop, she whirled and aimed the weapon towards the now op
en entryway.

  A box-like robot with treads entered the room and extended two vacuum nozzles from its arms. Karana could only watch in amazement as it began to clean the floor in front of it using an extendable mop and soap sprayer. The tenseness that had been a part of her since the operation began needed an outlet, and she tried to contain her laughter. Despite all the things happening inside the museum, the automated tasks set by the AI control server continued to be scheduled and accomplished as if it was just a typical day.

  Karana finished putting on a blouse and slung a cheap handbag over her shoulder to complete her transformation. She contemplated placing the pistol into the bag but figured it would be better to pass through the police cordon unarmed. My cyberwear ought to do if things get rough, she thought while abandoning the weapon on the counter.

  As she made her way around the cleaning robot, the machine suddenly extended one of its ropy arms and grabbed her by the knee. Karana reacted instantly, lashing out with a wicked side kick that landed on the robot’s torso. The cleaning bot was thrown backwards by the force of the blow, a big dent on its side.

  “Stupid machine,” Karana said as she trained her eyes on the damaged bot. What could have caused that?

  The robot didn’t reply, but a voice coming from the open doorway did. “And an even dumber cyber traitor.”

  Karana looked up. Garrett Strand stood outside the door, and he had a gauss carbine aimed at her. She tensed up while mentally diverting power to her cybernetic limbs.

  “You shouldn’t have left the job of killing me to others,” Strand said. “After I’m finished with you, I’m going after your captain.”

  With lightning-fast speed, Karana shifted sideways, trying to find cover behind a number of desks. Strand opened fire with short bursts. A bullet struck her left hip but failed to penetrate her subdermal armor. Nevertheless, the force of the shot was enough to make Karana lose her balance, and she stumbled to her right, less than an arm’s length from cover.

  Strand kept firing, going for her body, and Karana took a short burst of three rounds into her chest. Despite the high velocity ordinance of the gauss weapon, only one bullet was able to penetrate her reinforced ribcage, and it lodged itself in the outer layer of her synthetic right lung.

  Her breathing slowed, but Karana could still think clearly. Falling to the ground, she grabbed a chair with her right arm and threw it at him. Strand dove out of the way as the armchair hurtled in his direction before flying past his head.

  Crouching on one knee, Strand aimed the carbine at his opponent once more, but Karana had managed to crawl behind one of the desks, and only her legs were still exposed. Strand kept firing until the weapon’s magazine was empty.

  Karana grimaced as her legs were hit by multiple rounds. Her internal network told her there had been some damage sustained, but she could still function. Pulling her legs behind the desk, she quickly began to squat while grabbing the sides of the table she was hiding behind.

  Strand reloaded in under two seconds, slapping another magazine into the reloading port behind the handgrip. The gauss weapon fired a stream of kinetic bullets propelled by magnetic energy, and it had good penetrative capabilities against enemies under cover. Seeing one of the desks move, Strand continued to squeeze the trigger, hoping a few of his shots would connect and finish her off.

  The desk she was taking cover behind was being plugged full of holes, yet Karana got up and held it in front of her before charging forward, using what power she had left in her damaged systems to keep going for a few more seconds.

  Strand dove out of the way as Karana threw herself against the entryway he had been crouching in, smashing what was left of the table she carried into the doorframe and shattering parts of the divider. The momentum was powerful enough to get herself out of the room and into the corridor, and they were now within close range of each other.

  Karana was on her knees as Strand rolled on the ground, trying his best to keep away from her. Using her right arm, she tried to throw a devastating punch at his chest, but Strand held up the gauss carbine like a shield. The force of the blow ended up bending the weapon, and the attack was blocked.

  Grabbing the weapon away from him, Karana threw it sideways across the passageway. “You’re right, I might as well finish you off myself.”

  Strand drew out a laser pistol from his hip holster, but she slapped it away as well before grabbing his throat with her left arm. The lieutenant gasped as her cold, metallic hand began to constrict around his throat.

  Karana was just about to apply the final squeeze to his throat when she heard a much younger voice coming from the other side of the corridor. “You didn’t get all of us.”

  Jerking her head up, Karana had just enough time to recognize Duncan Hauk as the boy fired his laser pistol at her. The flashing bursts of heat ablated the side of her head and shoulders as she let go of Strand and fell backwards. She held her hands in front of her, trying to use them as a shield, but too much damage had already been done. Karana tried in vain to keep her cyberwear operational by mentally diverting internal power, but the devastation she sustained was too much, and her system nodes began to shut themselves down.

  Hauk kept firing until she fell to her side. After reloading with a fresh magazine, he continued to aim his weapon at her supine body, half-expecting Karana to get up again. “You okay, LT?”

  Strand groaned while getting up. “Thanks, kid. I owe you one.”

  “I think it’s two you owe me, but I’ve stopped counting,” Hauk said. “Just don’t make it a habit, LT.”

  “Very funny.”

  Karana’s body began to twitch slightly. Hauk quickly fired another laser shot into her.

  Strand gestured at him to stop. He wanted her for himself. “Enough, kid.”

  Hauk holstered the weapon. “Whoa, she’s still alive?”

  Strand grimaced as he pulled out his knife from a sheath in his right leg. “Not for long.”

  “LT, wait,” Hauk said as he ran over to where Karana was lying.

  Strand narrowed his eyes when he read the boy’s intentions. “You seriously want to take her alive? After what she did?”

  Hauk knelt down beside her. He could see that Karana was almost dead, yet a flicker of life remained as her silvery eyes continued to move slightly. “We’ll need her.”

  Strand walked into the security room and began going through the main console. Sorting through the command list, he located the jamming signal and deactivated it. “What do we need her for?”

  Hauk stood by the edge of the doorway. “I may not have been a pirate as long as you have, LT, but we ought to find out why she and her crew are doing this.”

  “I don’t want to know why,” Strand said. “I just want to kill them both.”

  “The more we know about their plan, the better,” Hauk said. “We can always get rid of her later.”

  Strand thought about it for a bit. The boy was right. It would be an effort to try and take her back with them, but the knowledge they could glean from her was invaluable if Vega was to be hunted down. “Alright, kid. I’ll take your advice on this.”

  Using his com-link, Strand was finally able to get a clear channel to the Nepenthe. “Captain Dangard, come in, over.”

  Commander Creull answered. “Where in the hell have you been, Lieutenant?”

  “It was a setup,” Strand said. “Most of my team is dead, but I got Vega’s XO.”

  “We’re hard pressed up here,” Creull said. “Can you make it to high orbit?”

  Hauk stood beside him; the boy had already found something while perusing through the security network console. “I think I know of a way to get us outta here without having to get to the spaceport, LT.”

  Strand nodded. “Affirmative, Commander. We’ll see you up in orbit.”

  On the bridge of the Stiletto, Janice Gwynplaine continued eyeing her console. The tactical display showed that a small fleet of Star Force vessels had just entered the far side of the sy
stem, yet they were too far away to be considered a threat for the time being.

  She punched the com-link button on her armrest to initiate an audio call to the Nepenthe. “Lucien, Star Force ships have just jumped in using the outlying shadow zones. You’ll need to pull away from the planet and head back to one of the zones on the other side.”

  “We’ve seen them,” Dangard said over the communications channel. “We neutralized the last defense ship, but we’re going to try and extract our team from the surface first.”

  “Be careful,” Janice said. “Vega reactivated the defense grid in orbit, and it’s why we had to veer off from attacking him.”

  “Yeah, we’ve taken hits.”

  “How bad is it, Lucien?”

  “We’ve had to slow our acceleration, so we’ll be lagging for a bit until repairs are finished. Can you still take out the Tiburon?”

  “I’m working on it,” Janice said. “I’ve plotted an intercept course against her before she makes it to the shadow zone and jumps out of the system.”

  “Okay, keep me in the loop. Over and out.”

  Janice turned to her executive officer. “Time to intercept?”

  Dun Bryant scratched his beard while keeping his eyes glued to the tactical screen. “We’ll be within firing range in a few minutes.”

  The Stiletto’s pilot glanced back towards her. “Captain, I’m getting contacts just up ahead of us.”

  Despite the intense gravity pull due to their high acceleration, Janice leaned forward. “What kind of contact?”

  Bryant switched over to what they were observing. “The Tiburon must have released her battle drones. They might do a kamikaze run against us.”

  “Take them out, Dun,” Janice said. “As fast as you can.”

  “Roger that,” Bryant said. “They’ll be too small and maneuverable for lancers or our main guns, so I’ll use the lasers on them instead.”

  “I leave all that in your capable hands,” Janice said.