by C H Gideon
She was ready to step back into the light. The war with her father was behind her now that she had assumed a galactic position, a role greater than one planet. Maybe someday she’d return to free Lariest from his tyranny, but today was not that day.
Her only regret was that she’d miss the tabloids showing her with Ka’nak and his declaration that she was his boss. Her father would put an end to Ka’nak’s career in the ring, but that was the same as her apartment—a place he would never return to.
Jiya watched the checkout clerk snap a selfie with Ka’nak after the chip was accepted for payment and smiled again. It was getting easier to trust the AI.
Takal bowed his head as he passed Jiya on his way to check out. She frowned at seeing the liquor in his cart. He avoided making eye contact. Geroux had a couple bottles of champagne and two more of wine, the best the store had in stock.
Jiya leaned close. “We need to get him off the booze.”
“I know. I worry. Maybe Reynolds can do something. If he can help Maddox, he should be able to help my uncle.”
Jiya nodded and headed down the nearest aisle. She needed to finish her shopping. It was time for them to go. She wasn’t surprised to find herself in the coffee section. She jammed her arm into a shelf of flavored and high-test instant coffees and swept them all into her cart. Then she did the same with the second-best brand. “He did say two weeks...”
Chapter Thirteen
After a successful supply run the crew’s performance improved dramatically. Reynolds stood on the bridge running his calculations for what felt like the millionth time.
It might have been two million times by then.
“Stop stressing,” Helm told him. “You’ve checked the numbers, and the program is running fine. The search vector makes as much sense as anything else we’ve thought up to seek out those Kurtherian demons.”
“I agree,” XO called. “So why are we still sitting here?”
“Waiting on the Larians to wake up and report for duty,” the AI answered.
“Can’t we just plug them full of nanites and soup them up, so we don’t have to sit around waiting for them to get their beauty rest every night?”
“Judging by the way some of them look, no amount of rest is going to make them beautiful,” Tactical muttered.
“I wish we could, XO, but Bethany Anne would kick our collective asses if we did anything like that right now,” Reynolds assured them. “No upgrades until these meatbags have proven their worth to the Federation’s cause and we get the okay from the bosses. Until then, we’re stuck with redshirts.”
“Well, they brought aboard a metric shit-ton of coffee in their supply run last night, so at least they’ll be somewhat energized once they finally drag their asses out of bed,” Navigation commented.
“All that’s just to counteract the epic amount of alcohol they grabbed. Their brains are probably pickled in their skulls.”
“Perhaps we should sound Reveille and wake their lazy rectums up,” XO suggested.
Jiya swept onto the bridge right then, grunting at the assembled AI. “No need,” she argued. “We’re here.”
Geroux came in behind her, yawning and wiping the sleep from her eyes.
“Such military precision and timing!” XO commented.
Geroux shrugged and flopped down in Comm’s position. “Move over, Space Ghost, I’m taking over.”
“Oh, you know who Space Ghost is but you don’t know about Star Trek?” Reynolds groaned. “What kind of heathens are you people?”
Comm sighed at his dismissal. “And the first pink slip is had,” he muttered. “Now I’m off to spend the last of my days in Reynolds’ brain.”
“Good luck with that,” Tactical told him. “It’s a serious shit show in there.”
Jiya crawled into XO’s spot and forced a grin. “One down, too many of you bastards to go. I’ll pour one out for you later, Comm.”
“Where are the other two?” Reynolds asked.
“Ka’nak is double checking the system work they finished last night and going around to inspect the hull repairs. Takal is working on your new body. He says he has some ideas already,” Jiya replied.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Reynolds replied. “Can’t wait to see the new me.”
“As if there aren’t enough of you already,” Jiya murmured.
“I heard that,” Reynolds replied.
She met his glare with a grin. “We’re ready to go whenever you are, boss.”
“Then let’s get moving, boys,” Reynolds shouted, the excitement clear in his voice. “Helm, set a course by the navigation algorithm and let’s see what the hell we find out there.”
“Done,” Helm called. “Activating Gate drive in three…two…right-the-fuck-now!”
The SD Reynolds shot into space faster than anything Jiya could imagine. She clung to her seat in awe, watching the viewscreen flicker and flash, and then they were deep in the Chain Galaxy, far, far away from her home planet of Lariest.
It was the most exciting thing Jiya had ever experienced.
Her heart raced, her pulse whooshing in her ears, and butterflies danced in her stomach.
It was awesome. Amazing. Thrilling.
And then it wasn’t.
Boredom set in fast.
The vast emptiness of space splayed before Jiya’s tired eyes, and before long, she found herself wishing she’d downed more than one cup of coffee that morning.
“I’d kill for an espresso,” she mumbled, blinking her eyes to wake them up.
“This is what space travel is all about,” Tactical told her. “Months of tedious nothingness followed by thirty seconds of harrowing life and death decisions, laser fire everywhere, then months of reports explaining to the bosses why you blew up a planet.”
Jiya straightened in her seat and turned around, staring at Tactical’s position as though she could actually see him. “I take it that’s the voice of experience?”
“My lawyer advises me to plead the Fifth,” Tactical muttered. “But anyway, yeah, space travel isn’t all the video fanatics make it out to be. It’s damn boring.”
Geroux yawned as if on cue, and Jiya chuckled.
“I need an IV of caffeine, stat,” Geroux muttered.
“I could use one of those myself,” Jiya agreed. “Wonder if we can get one of the bots to deliver us a coffee or twelve?”
“Only one way to find out,” Geroux said with a mischievous grin. She went to trigger her comm, but Tactical cut her move short.
“Belay that,” he called. “We’ve got company. Looks like it could be a scout ship, given its minimal armor and apparent weaponry. It’s too small to be much else.”
“Kurtherian?” Jiya asked.
“Not a traditional one by the looks of her, but you never know. Those bastards are sneaky.”
“She’s spotted us,” Geroux reported, pointing out a sudden adjustment in the alien ship’s course.
“Hail her and let’s see what we’ve got,” Reynolds ordered, his android body stomping onto the bridge and flinging into the captain’s seat.
“She’s not responding.” Geroux shook her head. “Shields are coming up.”
“Weapons are still cold, Captain,” Tactical added. “She’s not looking to fight but to run.”
“Don’t let her get away,” Reynolds demanded. “Keep hailing and pressure her to stop, but if she doesn’t, stay right on top of her. We can’t let that ship out of sight.”
“Engines engaged,” Helm told Reynolds. “We’re closing, but she’s not making it easy.”
“Where’s she headed?” Reynolds asked.
“Looks like we’ve got a small Gate a distance ahead,” Navigation replied. “She’s angling that direction.”
“Lock her signal down, so we don’t lose her if she gets there before us.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Geroux replied, clearly struggling to keep up with the excitement and the back and forth precision of the collective AI. A sheen of sweat glis
tened on her forehead.
Jiya was sure she had the same, but she wasn’t about to call attention to it by wiping it away.
“She’s at the Gate,” Navigation reported. “Shit, now she’s through.”
“Still got her on scanners,” Jiya noted. “We’re not losing these bastards.”
“Coming up on the Gate,” Helm said. “Preparing for entry. Five, four, three, two…entering.”
Once more the brilliant flash of Gate travel flooded the bridge with light, and then they were through. Jiya grunted at the oddness of the spatial shift, but she didn’t lose track of the fleeing scout ship.
“There she is,” she called out. “Starboard side.”
Helm was already on it. “Closing,” he told the crew. “Another minute and we’ll be sniffing their asshole.”
“Do we have to?” Geroux asked. “I mean, I’m all for adventure, but some things are better left un-experienced.”
Tactical chuckled. “There’s nothing like the smell of burning asshole in the morning.”
“Going to have to take your word for it, Tactical,” Jiya responded, unable to get the sordid image out of her head. “Reynolds, we’ve got `em. They’re within weapons range.”
“Tactical, put some heat on their tailfeathers,” Reynolds commanded.
“Targeting engines,” he replied.
“They’re evading,” Helm reported.
“They aren’t evading shit,” Tactical stated, and the superdreadnought’s forward guns fired.
A bolt of energy streaked through space and slammed into the scout ship’s rear shields. It was like a hammer versus an ant.
The shields flared and dispersed under duress, and the bolt scored a direct hit on the scout ship’s engines. There was a flash of light, and then the scout’s hull warped and gave way. Its engines exploded, a burst of fire and light erupting, going out as soon as it started. The ship listed and began to veer off course, spinning in a slow circle as its momentum was redirected.
“Excellent shot, Tactical,” Reynolds complimented.
Jiya watched the wounded scout ship as it slowed, the SD Reynolds drawing closer with every passing second.
The screen highlighted the wreckage of its engines, and Jiya complimented Tactical on the precision of the shot.
The ship’s hull was charred black and looked as if it had been melted, the once-round engines warped into crescent shape. Wisps of smoke trailed behind the ship, and she saw its external lights flickering, appearing ready to go out.
“Hail them again” Reynolds called.
“Same song and dance,” Geroux answered, shaking her head. “We keep sending, they keep blowing us off.”
Reynolds nodded. “Then we board to get what we need.” The android pointed at Jiya. “Assemble the crew and gather weapons and gear from the armory. I want all of you in on this.”
“Everyone?” she questioned.
“Did I stutter?” Reynolds barked. Jiya raised an eyebrow and glared at him. “I’ll go with you, but this is an experience all of you need to have, so gear up.”
“Yessir, Captain Reynolds, sir,” Jiya replied, stomping off the bridge with Geroux at her heels.
Reynolds sighed once they had left.
He glanced down the corridor in the direction the two women had gone. “Anyway, hold down the fort while we board and figure out what those squirrelly little bastards were running for.”
“Probably has nothing to do with us being a superdreadnought,” Navigation muttered, stating what might well have been obvious.
Still, Reynolds needed to know if there was more to it. Besides, they’d plotted a search vector to find Kurtherians, and since there might well be a Kurtherian aboard the scout craft, or they might know of some, it only made sense to board and scrape all the intel they could from the ship.
“Time to put my android foot up someone’s ass.”
Chapter Fourteen
The crew donned the makeshift armor left behind by the previous crew.
They looked like rejects from a first-season Doctor Who episode.
“We’re going to need to do something about our equipment, I’m thinking,” Jiya moaned. “That’s probably going to be your next job, Takal—crafting some armor that actually fits us.” She glanced at Geroux, who swam in her suit. “This is ridiculous.”
“We’ll worry about it after this, and after I get my new body,” Reynolds said, although he too seemed distraught by what he saw among the crew. “Don’t die.”
“Reassuring,” Takal muttered, taking a hit from his flask. “I can work on both, fortunately,” he whispered to Jiya, who nodded in reply.
Ka’nak pushed past the group, moving to the front of the line near the boarding tube. He looked every bit the warrior. “Just stay behind me, everyone.” While his armor didn’t fit perfectly, it was clear he was closer to the prototype of those who’d come before.
Jiya wasn’t comfortable invading an alien ship this way, but what other option did they have? This was the mission she signed up for.
Sort of.
Who knew what the hell these particular beings were? They were going to find out far sooner than later.
“We’ve got ten lifeforms aboard,” Comm told them, pulling himself out of mothballs while Geroux was away from her station. “They are apparently wise to our tactics, so they’ll be sitting right there when you break through to their ship.”
“That seems…unfortunate,” Takal mumbled.
“Show some courage,” Reynolds replied. “The plan is straightforward: hit them hard and fast and keep pumping bolts into them until they’re all dead. What’s so difficult about that?”
“I’d say just about every bit of what you said,” Takal admitted. “These are living beings we’re talking about here. How do we even know they’re hostile?”
“Well, if they shoot at us, then we’ll know they’re hostile,” Reynolds retorted. “It’s pretty simple, really.”
Takal looked at his weapon and let out a loud sigh, his hands trembling.
Reynolds stared at Takal as the older man stood there eyeballing the floor. “Wait, haven’t you ever killed anyone before?”
Takal shook his head. “Never.”
The AI stiffened. “Oh, hell. Are you serious?” He looked at the rest of the crew in turn. “What about you, Geroux?”
“Nope,” she replied.” Can’t say that I have.”
“You, Jiya?” Reynolds asked. “At least tell me you’ve taken someone out before.”
“On dates,” she answered, shrugging. “I’ve even paid a few times.”
Reynolds deflated. “Well, this certainly changes things. I’d assumed—and yes, I know the stupid saying: ass, you, me—I thought the lot of you had some kind of combat training.” He grunted. “Looks like we have a bunch more training to prioritize if this is going to work.”
Ka’nak raised his hand. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve killed lots of people. Lots.”
“It does, actually,” Reynolds told him. He paced for a moment, clearly wondering what the hell he should do.
“We’ll make it work, Reynolds,” Jiya told the AI, although she wasn’t completely sure how. “We just need to be smarter than our enemy, right?”
Reynolds shrugged. “Usually, hitting them with so much force they don’t have a chance to hit you back is better, but sure, we can try to outwit them this time. What do you have in mind?”
She didn’t have much.
Having never been in such a situation before, her mind was one big blank. How did you go about planning to kill people?
She looked at Geroux and Takal, who were even more nervous and less prepared than she was. At least she’d spent her life training on various hand-to-hand and martial arts techniques. Geroux was a book-learner, and Takal was… Well, Takal was Takal. He was an out-of-shape genius who didn’t have a clue about weapons, let alone how to put one to use against an enemy.
She turned her focus to Reynolds, who stood there impa
tiently tapping his foot, and then to Ka’nak. Here was her real army, the fighters who’d burst through the door and kick ass until there was no more ass to kick.
Then it hit her.
“Hey!” she cried out. “Can we get one of the bots down here?”
“For what?” Reynolds asked. “They’re not designed for combat.”
“Don’t need them to be,” she answered. “They can take a shot or two without blowing apart, right?”
“Yeah, they’re fairly sturdy. What are you thinking?”
“I remember something I did as a kid at my father’s compound,” she said. “It was a game. Actually, Geroux and I played it a bunch of times, too. We would set up cups at the end of a long walk, and we’d find palm-sized stones and roll them down the walk to knock the cups over.”
“Bowling?” Reynolds clarified.
“Don’t know what bowling is, but we called the game ‘Knock `em Over.’”
Geroux grinned, clearly remembering the game.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything we’re about to do here?” Reynold asked.
“Well, that’s where the bot comes in,” she replied, offering him a sly grin.
Judging by the expression that washed over the Jonny android’s face, he realized what she intended.
“Oh, that might just work,” he muttered. “Hey, Comm, get me a bot down here. But not one of the sparkly new ones. Send an old beater that still works.”
“On its way,” Comm responded.
“Forgive me for not keeping up, but what the hell are you two talking about?” Takal asked.
“Tactics, old man,” Reynolds said with a grin. “Tactics.”
Jiya patted the old scientist on the shoulder. “Just stay at the back and shoot anything that comes toward you that isn’t one of us, okay?”
