by M. D. Cooper
Fifty hours? Two days?
Is he making a very not funny joke? she wondered.
Katrina’s mind went a little flat.
Had it been real? Had Xavia come back and been there with her?
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw purple flower petals on the deck, but when she turned to look, there was nothing there.
Katrina shook her head and went into the san. She needed to get clean and get all of it out of her head, or she would truly lose her mind.
SANCTUARY
STELLAR DATE: 12.05.8537 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Voyager, approaching Sanctuary
REGION: Outer fringes of New Eden
The final approach was a view Katrina always watched with a great deal of pleasure. The cavern, known to the Cavalry simply as ‘Sanctuary’ was their home.
It was situated within a dwarf planet in the outer reaches of New Eden, over a thousand AU from the star. The little dwarf planet had a nominal diameter of approximately two thousand two hundred kilometers; being so far from the star’s gravitational pull meant that the orbital period was in the neighborhood of nine hundred years. While all heavenly bodies rotated, Sanctuary’s was so slow as to be barely perceptible, and the cavern side of the planet always faced away from its star, into what Kimber called ‘open space’.
It was the perfect hiding place for their fleet of ships.
The cavern bored within the planetoid was not natural; it had been created by machine, obviously intended to be a base of operations for some long-forgotten enterprise that had been abandoned with its structures incomplete. Privately, Katrina and Troy had decided it must have been something the FGT had started and never finished.
From space, the cavern was not discernable. There were three openings lined up vertically from the top to the bottom of the cavern. These had been designed to appear as craters from a distance.
Katrina sat back in the captain’s seat and watched the smaller frigates head toward the center opening. Troy powered down his main engines and used the smaller thrusters to perform the more delicate maneuvers needed to match delta-v with the planet and ease into the southernmost opening.
As the Voyager passed through the opening, Katrina whispered to herself, “Home again, home again, thank the stars.”
With interior dimensions of thirty by twenty kilometers, the vast, oval-shaped cavern was still oversized for the Cavalry, though it gave them ample room to grow. The longer dimension ran north to south. Cut into the east and west sides were deep shelves with floors so thick, even the Castigation could rest on one without concern.
Troy, however, preferred to settle on the floor of the cavern in the southern end. There was less buildup there, so should he need to quickly boost out, there was nothing between the Voyager’s bow and the crater-exit above.
The final descent took only a few minutes, the ship slowing down with ease in the planetoid’s low gravity.
When they reached the bottom, Katrina couldn’t help but let out a sigh.
Katrina thought of the myriad things she had to do to ready her next raid—the raid that would change her people’s fortunes—and was nearly overwhelmed by the weight of it all.
“You know…I think I’ll try to get some sleep.”
“No, not really. You know what they say about rest for the weary….”
* * * * *
Two days later, Katrina was standing in her cabin aboard the Voyager, giving a holo of herself a critical look as she straightened the lines of her brown overcoat.
She had opted to dress in her favorite brown, low-heeled boots, with a single brass-buckled strap creating a small lip, flaring up to just above her knee. Her coat was a thigh-length, embroidered affair matching the color of her boots, with peak lapels, a fitted waist, long, tapered sleeves and jetted pockets below the waist that were deep enough to conceal a pulse pistol and backup cartridges. Beneath her coat, she was only wearing a skin sheath, currently muted to a dull reflection of her red hair.
It had been a long time since Katrina had given her appearance this much attention. She knew she was an attractive woman, but had not wanted to be viewed as such for reasons she still refused to think about.
However, today, she needed the confidence that her appearance gave her. She was about to go into a meeting where they would plan the most daring of all the raids the Cavalry had ever made.
But when she looked at the holoimage of her face,expecting to see strength in her eyes, she saw only fear. She could feel it even now, when her image was that of a confidently capable stateswoman.
Her left hand flexed into a fist, and she took a deep breath, willing herself to relax, to focus on the meeting. Norm and Jordan had already given their full support, knowing their opportunity to strike at Orfa was possibly a one-time shot. Everyone needed to believe they would succeed. Everything had to work in perfect concert so that both raids Katrina had planned would be over before any news of pirates could reach Armitaj and Orfa’s security forces.
Everything was going to be fine.
She turned with a swirl of her pirate coat and left her cabin, her confidence resurging as she strode out into the corridor.
* * * * *
Katrina sat in a small, two-person shuttle that carried her away from the Voyager, traveling toward a landing pad on the uppermost level of the cavern.
The little shuttles had been designed by Sam and Carl, who identified them with the term ‘taxi’. Currently, there were taxis flitting all about the cavern, transporting people, cargo, parts—just about everything that needed to be moved from one area to another.
The pilot, a woman named Gemma DeBough, swore at another taxi and shook her fist.
Katrina laughed at the colorful language, relaxing in the normalcy it brought about.
Gemma was the daughter of an original Cavalry member. Her father was a senior engineer, and her uncle was commander of the frigate Dino. The brothers had been members of Blackadder because their other choice had been to serve as slaves in Jace’s fields.
The parallel of her past and present was not lost on Katrina. On a micro scale, she had recreated Victoria. Perhaps this small ‘inner world’ would thrive and remain safely hidden from the brutal people that seemed to populate this time in history.
The taxi passed between the third and fourth levels, where lay the main docking cradles, as well as the primary maintenance bays. The space was large enough that nearly every ship in the Cavalry could dock inside at the same time—though they’d never had reason to do so.
Katrina could see a crew pulling hull plates off a frigate that had taken damage in a skirmish during a raid a month ago. It was repairable, but acquiring or fabbing the needed parts for major repairs took time, and the Cavalry did not cut corners when it came to caring for any equipment—especially one of their ships.
They had only ever lost one cruiser, and that was something they lay at Orfa’s feet, along with what the corporation had done to Jordan and Sam.
Gemma turned in her seat, a smile on her lips. “Lady Katrina, do you see the little blue ship at the back of that maintenance bay?” She pointed into the bays arrayed along the fourth level.
Katrina moved sideways and saw a bit of dark blue quarter pa
nel on what was obviously a one-person vessel.
She looked back at the young woman. “So, Gemma, you are obviously bursting to tell me. What is it?”
“Well, that is a space fighter. My da worked on the design with Rama. I think it’s the fifth one that has been completed. Doesn’t look like the engines have been fired, though.”
Gemma was almost bouncing in her seat as the taxi rose up to level three, and now Katrina could clearly see the top of a sleek little fighter that resembled the projectile from a pulse pistol, but more refined.
“So are you excited because your father is one of the designers, or because his daughter may be in line to learn to pilot one of them?” Katrina arched an eyebrow and laughed as the younger woman blushed.
“Flying a taxi is OK, but going out into the black and zipping around in one of those? Ma’am, they just don’t compare!”
Katrina laughed again as the taxi moved further up, past the second level, toward the topmost, which was her destination. These two levels had been built up over time. After twenty years of construction, the level was filled out completely and allowed the entire Cavalry population to have living quarters and multiple common areas for meals and recreation. The senior officers of each ship had quarters on the first level, where two briefing rooms, a larger Captain’s Conference room, survey center, and staging theatre had also been built. Additionally, there was a science lab that had grown to two levels within its own module.
Not everyone in the Cavalry crewed ships.
“So I take it your mother’s wish for you to become a botanist is being put on hold?”
A shake of short brunette curls accompanied her answer. “Ma says I can learn to fly, but only if I don’t let the science slide. The talk at dinner these days goes back and forth between fighters and hydroponic farms so much that sometimes I dream about jet propelled vegetable fields.”
Katrina laughed again. “Gemma, you are good for the soul.”
The pilot blushed and shook her head as she turned her attention to landing the taxi on the pad at the end of the tube leading into the modules.
Troy and Sam had designed a configuration that allowed the taxis to dock door to door with an airlock that led to the inner doors of two joining airlocks in a T-design. Gemma docked like she’d done it a thousand times before—which she probably had—and the joined doors opened away from each other.
Katrina stood, giving the pilot a lazy wave and a smile as she left the shuttle, touching the inside release to close the inner door before heading to the top of the T and turning left toward the meeting rooms.
Troy said as she reached a door with a pale scrolled title on it reading, ‘Captain’s Conference’.”
Katrina let out an exasperated sigh, but her mouth curved into a half-smile. Kimber was still exploring her freedom from the shackled life she had led before being rescued by the Cavalry.
As if summoned by Katrina’s thoughts, Kimber popped into her head with a mental bounce that always made Katrina think of a rubber ball.
Katrina could feel herself getting irritated over something she usually thought amusing. Kimber had very deliberately nicknamed Malorie ‘The Spider Lady’ and derived great pleasure in listening to the crew use it when Malorie wasn’t around.
Katrina supposed her reaction was due to the disturbing dream still sitting heavy in the back of her mind, coloring everything she felt.
She was still frowning as she entered the conference room, but schooled her expression as everyone seated at the large table stood to salute her. She sighed and decided that she deeply disliked being saluted.
She sketched a return salute, feeling the dream image of Warlord Katrina mocking her, but then, as she walked past Jordan, she heard Commander Gavetts whisper to the woman seated next to her, “Nice boots. I want them for my uniform.”
“OK, let’s get to it,” Katrina said as she walked around the room to the head of the table, though she did not sit. “There will be a lot of preparation, and some of you will be leaving in less than eighteen hours for your part of this campaign.”
She activated the table’s holo system, and star maps with notations and travel-time calculations appeared.
“What you are looking at are three maps of Orfa’s current trade routes.”
There was a stir of surprised approval, and Katrina’s smile grew. Orfa was not just a focus for revenge; a successful raid on even one Orfa shipment could be worth more than anything they had ever hit before.
“The beast is finally within our sights.” She gestured toward the two commanders sitting beyond Norm at her right. “Choopa and Gavetts returned yesterday from Armitaj bearing gifts. Arrangements for safe harbor for our ships, as well as buyers for our future spoils, have been made. We also have additional people on the station’s commercial docks that are leased by Orfa. They’ll update us if there are any last-minute changes that affect our plans. Commander Choopa brought back verification of all three known routes. More importantly, we now have travel dates and partial manifests.”
Katrina made a gesture, and the displays switched to show a scrolling list of cargo.
“We know that two of these routes will be used within five days of each other. We also know which ships will be using which route. Look carefully at what is in front of you. Even one successful raid would mean we would not need to make another run for at least five years. Two successful hits would take us out of sight long enough to turn into ghosts.”
She watched the faces of the commanders. There was a variety of positive reactions, from Jarmin’s wide smile to Gavetts’s cautious grin.
Then Commander Fritz tossed a little ice on the warm, fuzzy feeling building among the group.
“So if we are going to be taking a break for a few years, what are we going to do instead? Become farmers?”
Commander Fritz had been a Blackadder pirate and embraced his chosen profession with bloodthirsty joy.
He looked at Malorie. “And what about Spider Lady? Is she going to plant a garden and grow roses?”
Katrina frowned, and would have reprimanded Fritz for the use of the nickname, but Malorie beat her to it.
In the quiet tone of someone asking for the time of day—but far more intimidating as the rasping sound reminded one of a demon’s breath—Malorie asked, “Fritz, you know I can snap your arm off like it’s nothing more than a dry twig, right? Want to be a one-armed farmer boy? Maybe I want to grow roses. I used to like flowers…I think.”
Fritz was staring at Malorie with a mixture of bravado and fear.
Everyone was a little intimidated by Malorie. Not just by her appearance—which she had modded considerably to include a sort of female, metal torso colored in an iridescent shade that alternated deep purple and blood red—but mostly because they knew how much she enjoyed being in the initial raiding parties and playing the role of demonic metal centaur spider and scaring the enemy crew into horrified submission.
Things had gotten worse since, on one captured ship, a crewmember had been so terrified by Malorie that he’d dropped dead from a heart attack. Since then, she had developed the habit of wearing a gold ring on her left ear that she had supposedly taken off his dead hand.
“Commander Fritz, are you reall
y worried you will get bored?” Katrina spoke into the tense quiet. “We can always use another undercover agent on Calibri. Who knows? Maybe you will enjoy living there so much, you will choose to stay.”
Fritz flinched, giving her a horrified look, and opened his mouth to speak, but Malorie took another opportunity to get her own back.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea. I could get into that android body you hide in your cabin, and play the part of your wife. No one on Calibri would think it unusual that you married your sex toy.”
Captain Fritz turned ashen and began to stand up, fists clenching at his sides.
“Enough! Malorie, stop creeping people out with talk of that damn android. And Fritz? Sit. Down. Stop antagonizing someone who really could snap your arm off like a dry twig.”
There was an expectant silence while everyone watched Commander Fritz.
They all knew how Malorie had come to exist as a braincase in the bulb of a mechanical spider. It was enough to stop anyone from pushing a point after Katrina had called for an end to it.
Fritz schooled his expression to that of a man in charge of a ship and large crew. He gave a brief nod to Katrina then sat down. The general mood returned to business, and she sighed inwardly.
There was no room for internal strife out in the black. That’s where failure started; it was a rot that the Cavalry would not survive.
Troy said over their private connection.
The AI’s words gave Katrina an eerie feeling that made her hair stand on end. For a moment, she could remember the metal and pain of the Warlord’s body. She ignored her imagination and looked around the room, meeting every person’s eyes before continuing.
“Each of you will have a set of coordinates and orders communicated to you by Troy. Outside this room, they are to be shared on a need-to-know basis only. Your initial jumps will be programmed into your ships by Troy, Sam, or Kimber.”