Repercussions
Page 16
She was still mulling over what their next options were when alerts lit up across the consoles, and she saw two dozen missiles launch from the cargo pods attached to the Orfa ship, all headed toward the Castigation.
Four were taken out almost immediately, followed by six more a few seconds later, but with the Melrose’s proximity and the weapons’ speed, that was all the time the Cavalry had.
Nuclear fireballs splashed against the Castigation’s shields in a brilliant cascade of light and plasma. The EM pulse washed over the surrounding ships, temporarily blinding sensors, and Katrina bit her lip, glancing at Ensign Carlie, who was gripping her armrest like she was going to tear it off.
Then the scan suite came back online, and Jordan’s dreadnought was still in place, its cooling fins glowing hotly, though it appeared to have suffered no damage.
That relief was followed by Jordan’s angry voice coming across the all-fleet.
Katrina’s attention had been so focused on the Castigation that she hadn’t realized that the Dino had already broken formation, moving to flank the enemy ship in anticipation of its surrender and the boarding to come.
The other three frigates were moving closer to the Castigation, prepared to overlap their shield umbrellas to better defend against the Melrose—which Katrina was beginning to suspect was not a freighter at all.
As she made these observations, Jordan directed the Cavalry ships to return fire. Beams lanced out from all six vessels, striking out at the Orfa ship, which had begun to spin on its long axis. The rotation of the ship would make it nearly impossible to aim a beam at a single point on its hull, as the cargo pods continually obscured clear lines of fire.
But that is not where Troy and Sam directed the weapons fire. Instead, the Cavalry ships struck the locations where the nuke-bearing missiles had launched from, with an accuracy that only AIs could achieve.
The resulting explosions that blossomed on the enemy’s hull surprised Katrina; she’d expected the Orfa ship’s shields to be up.
Katrina nodded absently as the scan suite updated the status of the Orfa ship, and she saw that, other than the targeted pods, the ship did not appear to have suffered any significant damage.
The Cavalry ships continued to fire on their target, but now its shields were up, and the beams were diffused before they reached the large vessel.
As though in response, two of the pods detached from the starboard side of the Melrose and drifted away, revealing a pair of railguns that were unfolding from their transit configuration and pivoting to align with the Dino.
DeBough’s frigate was not making the turn. The vessel was still on its original course, behaving as though the events of the last five minutes had not occurred.
She was beginning to sound desperate.
Nothing.
Sam’s mental voice came over the command net, addressing Troy and the senior captains.
Troy added another option,
He didn’t speak any further, as the enemy’s railguns came online and fired at the Dino.
Though every weapon in the fleet was firing at the Melrose’s shields, they didn’t penetrate, and two salvos of tungsten rounds slashed through the black and hit the frigate fore and aft.
Gemma-the-taxi-driver’s uncle, Commander DeBough, along with fifty members of the Cavalry, died as the ship was smashed by the kinetic impacts. No escape pods jettisoned, and something exploded inside the vessel that ripped it to pieces.
Had they even been aware of it?
The thought of the ship’s crew watching with horror as their death approached, unable to even activate shields, sent a shiver through Katrina.
She felt the cold touch of Juasa’s ghostly hand on her shoulder. She turned, expecting to see the apparition’s accusing gaze, but nothing was there. Instead, her mind’s eye saw the smiling face of the young woman in the taxi who had been so excited about the future.
Ensign Carlie half rose out of her seat, gasping quietly as she stared at the forward display, the woman’s movement bringing Katrina’s mind back onto the bridge.
Anger flared brightly inside Katrina, and with a strange lurch, she felt as though Juasa’s memory had let go of her heart. A keen sense of the physical world folded in around her.
She felt her feet planted firmly on the deck, her mind focused on the here and now. A glance at the ensign made her wonder if someone she cared for had been on the Dino.
The shift Katrina had felt within happened in the span of a second, but for her, it had felt like hours. The instant she knew that treachery had killed the Dino’s crew, something inside her changed. She wasn’t exactly sure how, but she was more herself than she had ever been.
Several more of the cargo pods on the Orfa ship had detached, revealing more offensive weapons, and the vessel was sending a steady stream of rail-fired slugs and beams at the Cavalry ships.
However, in the time it had taken the Melrose to bring its weapons online, the squadron had initialized its interwoven shield umbrella and was weathering the barrage.
As they spoke, the two AIs continued to coordinate fire on the Orfa ship, which weathered their strikes just as well. It was like an evenly matched slugfest…. One in which whoever’s reactors overheated first lost.
Angry calls had come in from the three remaining frigates, and all eyes on the Voyager’s bridge turned to Katrina. She folded her arms across her chest and returned each one look for look. Her crew was the ‘now’ and she needed to be present with them, not inside her own head.
She listened to the messages that had come in from the frigate captains they’d locked out after the Dino’s destruction.
The man’s voice was rife with sarcasm, and Katrina was impressed by the calm aplomb Jordan replied with.
His words built up a fresh fury in Katrina. She had heard what she needed, but before she could discuss her thoughts on who the traitor was with Troy, the enemy ship finally hailed them.
Gasps came from the bridge crew, and Katrina pursed her lips, speaking on the command net.
Katrina saw another salvo of missiles fly toward the squadron from the Pemberton, all but seven being destroyed before they impacted the shield umbrella.
Ship reactors across the fleet moved closer to the red, and the vessel’s cooling vanes glowed as brightly as a star.
The captain’s avatar nodded vigorously.
As she spoke, the ship’s scan showed a pair of Bollam’s World cruisers transition out of the dark layer just a light minute away. They were burning hard, and if the didn’t brake, would be able to fire on the Cavalry ships before they could transition to the dark layer.
Katrina couldn’t agree more.
Jordan was already hailing the disguised Bollam’s World vessel before Katrina had finished giving instructions to the AIs.
There was a brief silence, and then Captain Houston’s reply came back with the irritation of a man who was following orders he disliked in the extreme.
Katrina raised an eyebrow at that.
So this captain doesn’t know everything about why he’s been sent here with those orders.
It made him more dangerous. He would kill them all and never understand why his superiors did not thank him for it.
She commented privately to Troy,
Katrina didn’t answer. She turned to Ensign Carlie and reached out to touch the woman’s white knuckles as she gripped the edge of her console.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the woman before speaking on the command net.
Jordan showed no recognition of the phrasing Katrina had used.
Sam sent a grunt of displeasure.
Sam also gave no indication that he’d caught the meaning in Katrina’s words, but Troy did, and privately he spoke up.
She didn’t really need to answer. Troy would determine her reasoning soon enough. She didn’t want to argue with him any sooner than she had to.
A groan rippled through the ship, and Katrina felt the deck plate shift beneath her feet. Carlie nearly fell out of her seat, and gave Katrina a worried look.
The comm board was alight with messages from the three frigate commanders, each more worried than the last. She was about to reply to them, when Captain Houston of the Pemberton hailed them once more.
But it wasn’t Jordan who answered this time.
Katrina took a cleansing breath before returning to her seat. She flipped over to the all-squadron channel as she responded to the enemy.
Her hands weren’t shaking, yet she was filled with rage. She was a curious combination of Warlord and Matrem. Ironic that those two personas would mesh at this moment.
She received only silence from the Pemberton’s captain.
Did he think it was a ploy?
Major Aerns turned toward her, sadness in his eyes. “Ma’am, what are you doing? Even if he believes you, he would take you to your death.”
Katrina smiled gently in return. “I won’t let you die fighting a lost battle when there is a way to save you.”
Was she wrong? Would she die in a flash of white without ever knowing if she had taken Troy to his death, along with hundreds of other souls?
On scan, she could see that the volume of weapons fire between the Boller ship and the Cavalry had diminished greatly, just a token exchange was going on as they waited for the captain of the Pemberton to respond.
She was about to repeat her hail, when Captain Houston finally replied.
A moment of surprise went through her mind when she realized she was channeling Verisa. She was flirting with the man who had just killed dozens of her people.
She heard laughter in the voice that replied.
It’s working.
He was intrigued, and that was all she needed.
Katrina stood and triggered the optics to send her image with the message.
Captain Houston did not return the courtesy by sending his own visual. He was silent for nearly a minute.
Finally, he said,
As Houston’s words came across the Link, the Pemberton ceased fire, and the Cavalry did the same.
Katrina looked around the bridge. The faces staring back at her wore a mixture of surprised and sad expressions.
So, not everyone has forgotten Katrina the Warlord, after all.
She still couldn’t answer him. She would never be able to do this if she did. The risk that she truly was surrendering to her death was more possible than not at this point.
“All of you are getting home. Troy will get you there.”