The Glory of the Empress

by Sean Danker

  “Go,” Mao said, and Ibuki hit his release and sprinted off the bridge. “Take over,” she ordered Bjorn.

  Bjorn dropped into his seat and activated his console. He felt something from his injured side, but ignored it.

  Morel was shifting his configuration to support Unit Two. He would handle Ibuki while Bjorn worked with Diana.

  The three of them must have been trapped on the bridge; they’d locked it down against the intruders. That was why Ibuki wasn’t in the fight; the contractors had been between him and his fighter. It didn’t explain why Compton and DiJeur were unaccounted for, though.

  His interface couldn’t connect with Diana’s fighter. For a split second, Bjorn feared she’d been destroyed—but that wasn’t it. It was the jamming from Tenbrook’s people. So what had Morel and Ibuki been looking at? It had to be the Lydia’s own tactical overview.

  “Bjorn,” Mao said tightly.

  He adjusted quickly. Mao knew he couldn’t talk to Diana; she was asking for something else. She wanted him to interpret.

  “She’s looking for a target,” he reported, watching the light representing Diana streak across his screen. “She’s trying to break their formation, but she doesn’t have any perspective.”

  Mao made a sound of annoyance and banked the Lydia again.

  “All guns,” she barked at the ship’s AI. “Support Ibuki. Bjorn,” Mao said as she wheeled the ship around, “find me that jamming ship. I want my coms back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Bjorn enlarged the Lydia’s readout and wrapped it around himself, watching the signals weave across the grid. Diana rolled, narrowly dodging the debris from Ibuki’s first kill.

  “Lydia, push it.”

  “Commander, the engines are over capacity.”

  Mao forced the controls forward, plunging the Lydia into the heart of the battle. The ship shook violently under intense fire, plasma and missiles arcing from her flanks like wings.

  Bjorn jolted against his straps, bracing his arms on his console and trying to think. It wasn’t a large company of privateers, but there were still enough glowing dots on the grid to make his head spin.

  “The outlier at X4,” he called out, wincing at the pain in his side. The jamming ship wouldn’t be in the thick of it; he had to look for vessels that were staying clear of the worst of the fighting. The jamming itself was coming from dozens of probes floating through the battle zone, but it was the ship’s constantly changing signal that was being bounced between them that actually interfered with communications. Without the ship, the probes would be useless.

  That ship’s commander would want to be discreet.

  “It’s an artillery ship,” Mao snapped back, her eyes locked on her own screen.

  “Ibuki’s on it,” Morel said calmly.

  Of course the longer-ranged ships would be hanging back. Bjorn wouldn’t be able to spot the jammer that easily. Obviously it would be protecting itself. How, though?

  Mao took them down and along an intact dome, skimming close to the surface. Fire rained down behind them, devastating it and venting another of Oasis’ massive atriums.

  A crescent of missiles arced toward them on a collision course. No targeting system could truly lock onto the Lydia, even when she was in the open. This was a guided strike, and those cutting warheads would ignore the ship’s shields entirely.

  Mao spun away, but the missiles followed.

  Bjorn could see what Mao was trying to do. She wanted to escape the battle to give Diana and Ibuki time to work. Oasis was constructed of dozens of primary components, all held together by a complex network of walkways and other connections.

  Mao intended to use the station itself for shelter, but she had to slow the Lydia to find an appropriate entry point, which allowed Tenbrook’s chasers to concentrate their fire.

  Mao banked again, and Ibuki barreled past them, scattering the missiles, which detonated in a string that cut a wide pattern across the stars. The Lydia vanished into the dark, slipping in between two opposing domes.

  Ordnance crashed into the station behind them, and Bjorn watched a portion of a dome break free, crushing the ship of the brave pilot who had tried to follow them.

  Whether Doyle was still alive or not, there was only one reason Mao would be trying to eliminate these chasers. Her first instinct had to be to run, particularly after she’d had her ship nearly taken from her—but she was fixated on the jamming vessel. That could mean only one thing.

  Mao had something to say. Even without this local jamming, long-range communications were still suppressed. That meant Mao thought there had to be someone close enough to hear her.

  She believed Woodhouse’s theory that Evagard had intelligence assets here, watching unseen. They were the ones she wanted to get a message to. But it wasn’t a warning; a warning was unnecessary. Anyone nearby would already know about Oasis and the threat.

  Bjorn could think of only one thing Mao would risk everything to send off: the Everwing combat data. The proof of concept that the fleet needed to justify continuing the Everwing program. And if Mao thought this was the only way to preserve that data, then she’d already come to the conclusion that none of them were going home.

  This wasn’t about winning anymore. That wasn’t going to happen. Mao just wanted to make sure it wasn’t all for nothing.

  Bjorn felt his stomach lurch as they rocketed through the narrow confines between Oasis’ components.

  Mao burst into the open on the far side of the station. Ahead was the largest of the chasers, a Trigan destroyer that had escaped the Lydia’s first battle with Perdita. Maybe that had made its captain cocky. Ibuki and Diana converged as one, and the ship vanished as though by magic, only a fine haze left behind as both Everwing fighters streaked past.

  The Lydia twisted around at Mao’s command, firing ferociously at the ships whose pilots had been too timid to follow them through the station itself, and letting the shields take another beating that jerked Bjorn in his seat.

  He saw another ship disappear to starboard around the curvature of the dome. It wasn’t showing up on the visual scanner. It had camouflage good enough to fool the Lydia’s AI.

  “I’ve got him,” he called out, marking the signal. “He’s using Oasis to mask himself, taking advantage of the interference.” Interference that Bjorn was now fairly certain had something to do with the xenos, the corrosion, and the fine dust all over Oasis. “He’s sticking close to the station.”

  “Where?” Mao’s eyes flashed, and her hands tightened on the control globes.

  Bjorn had never been any good at five space. He leaned forward, pointing. “There.”

  It was enough for Mao. She accelerated, bringing the ship around and using the forward cannons to obliterate the solar panels blocking the way. Through the wreckage a slim blue ship was clearly visible, doing its best to get away.

  Mao pushed the Lydia harder, stacking her shields to the front of the ship to bull her way through.

  “It has to be us,” Morel said, echoing Bjorn’s thoughts. They couldn’t communicate with the fighters, who were busy with the warships—they wouldn’t see this blue ship as a threat, wouldn’t waste their time on it.

  Only the Lydia could destroy Tenbrook’s jamming ship.

  “I know,” Mao growled, wrenching the control globes to keep the blue ship in sight.

  The jamming vessel fired its cannons into the dome beneath it and plunged in as the carbon dissolved. The ship continued to fire, devastating the station and creating a stupendous amount of debris.

  The scanner wavered, and the signal disappeared. He was making cover to buy time. Mao wasn’t having it.

  She dove into the haze, repulsors protesting all the way, raising a storm of debris like nothing Bjorn had ever seen. The blue ship was out of luck. There was nowhere to run, unless it could somehow burr
ow into Oasis itself.

  Bjorn could see barely anything through the viewport, but it was enough for Mao. She executed an emergency roll to present the Lydia’s starboard guns.

  The broadside was overkill, but Bjorn sensed that Mao was making a point.

  The blue ship was blown away in an instant, and a single white explosion lit up the dome, blasting away the debris all at once.

  Mao had positioned herself to escape, and now she burned out of the ruined dome, vaporizing whatever might have been left of the blue ship, along with the atrium itself.

  The com array lit up.

  “We’re live, Commander,” Morel reported.

  “Lydia, broadcast those encrypted packets and launch the signal boosters,” Mao said without hesitation. “Bjorn, take control. I want every last one of these ships destroyed.”

  Bjorn was already connecting to Diana’s fighter. Her face appeared on his screen, and he almost didn’t recognize her. She looked terrible, but this wasn’t the time to hassle her about her health. There were still half a dozen chasers, and they were breaking away.

  Getting Mao the results she wanted wouldn’t be easy, but a lawful order from a ship’s commander was for all intents and purposes a command from the Empress herself.

  “Break off,” Bjorn snapped as Diana went after a ship that had already been damaged, and she looked up, startled. “He’s crippled. Target the outlier—he’ll try to cover the survivors while they spool up. We can’t let any of them escape.” He drew her a line and turned his attention to Ibuki, directing him to a more valuable target.

  Diana’s mine went wide, annihilating another entire atrium on Oasis’ upper face. Bjorn looked over in alarm, seeing a trickle of blood appear from her nose.

  “Diana, focus,” he said, highlighting her target. She couldn’t miss. Was there something wrong with the computer? Bjorn pulled up the log, though the endless lines of code made his head hurt. If her aim was off, he might be able to compensate for it on his end, correcting her.

  A second mine detonated, this one breaking off an even more substantial chunk of the station.

  Ibuki’s target was about to run, but Mao was there. Her main gun landed two direct hits. The chaser’s shields held, but the impacts destabilized him, preventing his jump.

  Diana shook her head, trying to concentrate. She coughed, squeezing one eye shut, and doggedly went after the last ship.

  This one was at the very bottom of the priority list for a reason: it was little more than a shuttle. Tenbrook knew about the Lydia’s ability to fool targeting computers, so he used shuttles with small crews and powerful scanners to spot manually for his warships. This little shuttle had no meaningful weapons, but it did have a pilot who wasn’t willing to give up.

  “I’ve got him,” Diana croaked.

  The tiny shuttle vanished through a gap in the station’s spindles. Diana didn’t hesitate to follow.

  “Focus,” Bjorn told her again.

  “I’ve got it,” she replied, though her right eye was still shut. She was in pain.

  “Your body’s rejecting the Harbinger. Break off. Let Ibuki finish it.”

  “I’ve got it,” she repeated, and Bjorn wasn’t sure she’d even heard him.

  Her locator vanished from the tracker, but he still had her face on-screen—though the signal was flickering. He was going to lose her completely in a moment; the interference from the station was too much when she was in there. Bjorn opened his mouth to order Ibuki to follow her, but even through the noise obscuring the image, he saw her slump over.

  The feed vanished.

  Bjorn flicked open the override case and twisted the key inside. He hit his harness release and got up, leaving the bridge.

  “Bjorn, what are you doing?” Mao demanded over the com.

  He didn’t break stride. “I need your override to sync the simulator with Unit Three,” he replied, hitting the palm lock and turning into the simulator room. The small white chamber lit up, and the plastic bubble meant to mimic the cockpit of an Everwing fighter opened as he approached.

  There was a sudden jolt of pain from his side and he fell to his knees, grabbing the lip of the open bubble to stay upright.

  “Bjorn, I just got a med ping from you.” Golding’s voice sounded worried over the com.

  “Not now,” he said, dragging himself into the cockpit. He sagged back in the seat, fitting the collar around his neck and sealing the bubble. The displays lit up, and holograms began to form, mimicking the interior of an Everwing fighter. “I need control, Commander.”

  “The signal’s weak. I’d have to boost it,” Mao said. “You’ll have input lag. Even more than you would otherwise.”

  “And you’ll have another dead pilot,” Bjorn snapped, powering up his systems.

  “Manual override authorized,” the bubble’s computer announced in a soft female voice similar to that of the Lydia’s AI. “Authority of Commander Kelly Mao.”

  The feed from Diana’s Everwing appeared; he could see the battle as though he were sitting in the actual fighter. Bjorn had already taken control of Diana’s Everwing. Now he was going to fly it.

  Every detail of the simulation was perfect. The only thing out of place was the ghostly appearance of Diana herself, the holographic representation of her limp body mingled with his as if they occupied the same space.

  “I’ve got you, LT.” Golding’s face appeared to his right. She was at his console on the bridge; she must have finished clearing the ship. She was still bleeding.

  “Thank you,” Bjorn said, locking his collar in place.

  “You bringing her back or closing it out?”

  He pushed the fighter forward cautiously. Piloting from the safety of the Lydia didn’t make it any less real. Diana was still physically inside the fighter, which was fragile without its kinetic protector. Bjorn had to be careful.

  “I’ve got no ordnance left. I’d have to make the kill with the rail gun, and it’ll never happen with this much lag,” he said.

  Ibuki’s face appeared on his left. “Bring him to me,” the other pilot said calmly, though light was flashing across his face. He was flying through the coolant, searching for any other ships that might be using the signal interference to hide from the Lydia.

  “Can you do it, Bjorn? Scare him out?” Mao asked.

  The last enemy ship was inside the superstructure, fleeing among the debris. Bjorn didn’t stand a chance of destroying it, but he could still give chase. If the ship fled into the open, Ibuki could take it out, and there would be no one to tell Tenbrook what had happened.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bjorn replied.

  There was no trail to follow; Bjorn could only take the course that seemed most obvious. Fleeing at high speed through the innards of a space station took nerve, and he was beginning to appreciate that Mao was a gifted pilot herself.

  The shuttle would take the widest, safest routes. The pilot wouldn’t want to sacrifice speed, but he wouldn’t want to crash either. Neither did Bjorn. He made his decision and moved. Diana was unconscious, but her Everwing still functioned.

  His lights showed him the cramped, heavily damaged tunnel ahead, and he’d have had his doubts about flying this course at speed even if he’d been in the cockpit himself, without this input delay. The lag was bad, but the fighter was still more responsive than Bjorn had feared. He pushed it harder.

  “By the Empress, Bjorn!” Golding said as he careened around a particularly sharp turn.

  He couldn’t reach the speeds necessary to build up the Everwing’s kinetic protector. Without traditional defenses or his protector, the fighter was unbelievably fragile; even small-arms fire could damage it.

  Red warnings flashed in his eyes, but he’d spotted the shuttle.

  “Visual,” Golding called out.

  “I saw it,” he replied, firing a burs
t from the rail gun. He didn’t stand a chance of hitting anything, but the shuttle’s pilot didn’t know that. Bjorn’s shooting tore through metal as if it wasn’t there; the pilot had to be sweating.

  “I’m ready for him,” Ibuki said.

  “This is a decision he has to make for himself,” Bjorn replied, narrowly avoiding a collision with a piece of floating debris. He fired again.

  “Don’t crash my fighter, Bjorn,” Mao warned.

  His hands tightened on the controls. The debris ahead had been disturbed. “He’s coming,” he announced. “I’m right behind him.”

  “I’m ready.” Lieutenant Ibuki nodded to the camera, narrowing his eyes.

  “Bjorn, what’s wrong with Kladinova?” Golding demanded.

  “Not the time,” Mao cut in. “She still has vitals. Bjorn, I don’t care about the fighter, but don’t lose my pilot.”

  “I won’t.” Bjorn came into view of the shuttle again, and fired. The shots went wild, but the pilot took the hint. He angled away, and Bjorn saw him thrust toward starlight.

  “He’s coming out.”

  Bjorn didn’t see Ibuki strike; it was all he could do to get clear of Oasis in one piece.

  “Kill confirmed,” Ibuki reported.

  26

  BJORN sagged in his seat as the simulation dissolved. He took a few ragged breaths, then tore off the collar and climbed out of the bubble, staggering to the hatch.

  The bodies were still lying at the bridge end of the spine. He ignored them, hitting the palm release for the bay hatch.

  Diana’s Everwing stood right where he’d landed it, only a little askew from its proper place. Bjorn had been in a hurry.

  There were two bodies in white lying on the deck. Bjorn had entered through the other bay when they retook the ship. He hadn’t known about this until he brought back Diana’s fighter.

  Major Compton and Yeoman DiJeur lay side by side. Both had been executed with shots to the head. Not even stasis technology could help them now.

  Maybe they’d been caught out by Tenbrook’s men. Bjorn didn’t know. He stumbled past their bodies and didn’t look back.