***
The defensive turrets fired another salvo, and Selaris dug her nails into the hotseat’s poorly-padded armrests. She didn’t feel any real pain, exactly, but she did have to fight off a fresh surge of fatigue with each and every shot. In a way, it reminded her of when she’d been an eight year-old girl running laps around the Agora. By about the fifth loop, she’d generally been on the verge of collapse, but somehow she’d always convinced herself to keep going, to make just one more pass around daddy’s office in the Ecclesia. Sometimes she would catch a second wind and hit eight or nine before keeling over near the fountain. Once she had made it as far as eleven.
Right now it felt like she was on lap thirteen, and this time there was no end in sight.
“The enemy battleship is nearly within range,” Thexyl reported over the com. “They will likely attempt to destroy the emplacements before sending in their transports once again.”
“Then we better shoot them first,” Selaris said through clenched teeth. “We’re ready whenever you are.”
“Power levels have begun to drop. I no longer have sufficient reserves to fire two of the turrets.”
She frowned. She’d felt it too, a sudden dip in the strength of the link. Opening her eyes, she craned her neck and glanced over to Thomas. She could barely make him out in the other hotseat; everything in the room appeared blurry and indistinct, almost like she was looking through a hazy pane of glass.
“Thomas? Is something wrong?”
When he didn’t reply, Selaris reached out with her mind instead, trying to communicate with him that way…
“He’s lost consciousness,” she said, unstrapping herself and stepping out of the chair. The moment she disconnected a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over her, and she had to grab onto the chair arm to keep from falling over. Thankfully it passed quickly, and she leapt over and grabbed onto Thomas’s arm.
“Hey, wake up,” she told him, slapping him gently. He groaned as his head bobbed to the side, and several fresh beads of sweat dripped down his brow.
“I can’t…” he breathed. “I can’t do it anymore.”
“You have to,” Selaris said firmly. “That ship is about ready to—”
She cut off as a mild tremor shook the room, followed almost immediately by a second and third. Those weren’t the barely-noticeable quakes of starfighter cannons deflecting off the shields—those were the shockwaves of a capital ship’s heavy weapon emplacements.
“Turret three has been destroyed,” Thexyl reported. “Their weapons are having no difficulty piercing our shields.”
Selaris grimaced and shook Thomas’s arm harder. “Come on, we have to fire back while we can!”
He shook his head, and tears began to streak down his face. “I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry…”
Another series of tremors, and the indicator light for turret four summarily winked out.
“All right,” she breathed, sucking in another deep breath. “Then let’s try this: can you route the station’s shield grid through my hotseat?”
Thomas blinked and glanced up to her through his tears. “What?”
“Route the shields and the turret through my hotseat. I’ll see if I can supply enough power for both.”
“You can’t,” he rasped. “There’s no way you’ll be able to—”
“Just do it,” Selaris ordered, releasing his arm and hopping back into her chair. “Thexyl, you should be getting power back any second. Can the Golem or the Phoenix help out?”
“Grier is attempting to draw the battleship’s fire, but they aren’t taking the bait. The Phoenix has suffered damage, and without Markus I don’t believe it has sufficient power to function.”
Without Markus? She mouthed the words, but nothing came out. Was he dead? Injured?
“I think I can reroute this,” Thomas said as he worked frantically at the control console. “I can’t promise you won’t overload the buffers, though—the conduits weren’t designed to handle this much power from one junction.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Selaris said as she finished strapping in. Fresh tears tickled her nose on the way down her face. “I’m plugging in.”
The Spider and the Fly Page 65
