Damra nodded. “Excellent, m’lord. I’m looking forward to smashing them.”
Zukra changed the subject. “Any word from Orma on that terrorist attack at the docks?”
“Aye, m’lord. Orma reports no damage was done to the station. One Human terrorist was killed. Two of her cadre escaped on the morning shuttle but were intercepted at the surface. Unfortunately, they refused to surrender and were killed in a firefight at the port.”
“Damn,” exclaimed Zukra. “A Human terrorist on our station. That was unexpected. Clever animals, these, although still too stupid to properly plan and execute such an attack.”
Zukra sighed. “If only we could have captured one of them - we could have extracted enough information to roll up the whole organization.”
“Aye, m’lord. Unfortunate.”
“Ah, no matter. We’ll have another chance. Orma’s team will track down these terrorists in short order.”
“Aye, sir. By the way sir, I just noticed that you gave Captain Orma the Tornado.”
“Yes, I gave him permission to come along. The Tornado is our oldest battlecruiser. It’ll be a nice target for the Humans. He’s welcome to it.”
“Very good, sir.
Nidarian System
Fleet Assembly Point
The Humans must die. All of them. Right down to the last ship. And then their planet must be wiped clean. They must not be allowed to expand into space.
Tanno had made the thoughts into a mantra. He repeated it every day now. He knew his survival depended on it. High Councilor Garatella had made that perfectly clear.
Kill them all, or fall on your sword, Tanno.
Tanno had a new flagship. The Ekkarra. Just out of shakedown, it replaced a battlecruiser of the same name - one that no longer existed. The original Ekkarra had been the flagship of the detachment sent to bolster Zukra before the Battle of Deriko.
And the original Ekkarra was now junk, floating in the black between Deriko and Ridendo. Junk that was still being collected up by the Humans and used to rebuild their own damaged ships - or sent into the nearby star as trash.
Tanno burned for revenge. The Humans had humiliated him. Him - the senior Fleet Admiral of the Nidarian navy. And not only the Humans. The breakaway Nidarian rebels who served with the Humans were even worse. They fought against their own kind - traitors.
Tanno’s mind was made up. In this coming campaign, he would wipe the slate clean. They would take no prisoners. He would wipe the Humans and the Nidarian traitors who helped them from the universe.
First, he would kill their fleet at Dekanna. Then he would journey to Earth. He would grind their planet into oblivion. If there was a small number of survivors at the end, Zukra could take them for playthings in his torture chambers. Tanno didn’t approve of torture; but he would not be the one doing it. That made it none of his business.
“Fleet is ready for departure, Admiral,” he heard from his Flag Aide, sitting close beside him.
“Very well,” said Tanno. “Let’s go,” he said, rather undramatically.
The Flag Aide nodded to the Flag Captain, standing three meters away on the slightly lower main bridge of the Ekkarra. The Flag Captain nodded at his quartermaster. Tanno felt the ever-so-slight Coriolis force as the flagship made a slight rotation and began powering out of orbit. In the holo, he saw the rest of the fleet falling in behind.
We’ll be at Dekanna in eleven days. They’ll know we’re coming - they have their spies out in our Oort cloud watching us, I’m sure. They’ll be ready. But it won’t do them any good. Zukra will be there waiting for us. This time…
This time we eliminate them from the Universe.
Ashkelon System - Kuiper Belt
Ashkelon Shuttlecraft
“Are you sure these are the coordinates I gave you?” asked Jim.
The little Ashkelon shuttle responded.
<106.2, 105.2, 53.1 - Point Charlie-Four as you designated>
Desperately, Jim scanned the holo.
There was nothing. No packet boat anywhere to be seen. Just a whole lot of empty space in every direction.
“Are you broadcasting the signal I gave you?”
Jim didn’t know what to do next. After spending more than eight hours crammed into a tiny hidden compartment in the food container, then an hour crawling through a sewer system, then having a running gun battle with Ashkelon guards while carrying Rita over his shoulders, then facing Orma expecting to die…the last few days had taken a lot out of him.
He had tried to sleep during the thirty-eight-hour trip to the Kuiper belt, but his worry about Rita had kept him awake. He tossed and turned - but sleep just wouldn’t come.
He tried everything. But every time he dropped off to sleep, he woke again within an hour or so, terrified that Rita had died while he was sleeping.
He was totally exhausted. His brain wasn’t working right, and he knew it.
“Maybe they’re afraid to make contact,” he mused out loud.
“Can you expand the range on the holo?”
Jim still saw nothing on the holo. No ship was waiting for him.
But…there was one small icy body right at the edge of the holo. It was a typical Kuiper belt object, an irregular iceball of about ten klicks diameter.
“If they’re out here, they’re behind that iceball,” he thought out loud. “Shuttle, take us to that iceball.”
As the little shuttle turned and began the ten-million klick leg to their new destination, Jim went back to check on Rita. She was still inert, under the blanket. She was breathing. But that was all. There was no other sign of life.
Sitting down beside her, Jim took her hand in his.
“Hey, hon. Bet you didn’t expect to ever see me again. And to be honest, I didn’t expect to ever see you again either. But here we are. So…how about waking up? I’d really like to talk to you. Tell you how much I love you.”
But Rita lay sleeping, oblivious to Jim’s entreaties. He turned, laid his body down on the length of the seat next to her. There was just barely enough room; he was hanging half off the seat. But he managed to hold on to her, pulled her in tight, found a way for them both to lie on the seat without falling. The warmth of her body felt good to him. It showed she was still alive. He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and then laid his head down and closed his eyes. Somehow, holding her, he slept.
He slept, and he dreamed. He dreamed about the first time he was with Rita, in the hangar at Fort Nelson. When they both thought Bonnie was dead, and she came to him in the night, and they cried together.
Chapter Twenty
Ashkelon System - Kuiper Belt
Ashkelon Shuttlecraft
Movement.
Jim came half-awake.
He had felt movement.
Raising up his head, he looked at Rita.
Had she moved? He wasn’t sure. He had felt something.
But she wasn’t moving now.
Groaning, he got up off the seat and stood.
“Where are we, shuttle?” he asked.
“Decel to a stop, then stop all engines,” Jim. “Let’s not spook them.”
A few minutes later, the shuttle came to a stop relative to the iceball, which was now only a couple of hundred klicks in front of them. In the holo, Jim could see the ghost of a ship signature behind the object. It looked about the right size to be a packet boat.
But was it the EDF packet boat he expected? Or an Ashkelon corvette, loaded with weapons that could blast his shuttle to atoms?
“Are you still sending the signal?”
“Damn these guys,” Jim said. “There’s such a thing as being too cautious.”
In the holo, Jim could see the ship outlined behind the iceball moving. In a matter of seconds, it poked its nose out and came into view.
Jim heaved a sigh of relief. It was the EDF packet boat.
Ashkelon System
Packet Boat PB04
An hour later, Jim watched as the medic aboard the packet boat carefully placed Rita into a medpod. The boat was tiny, but anticipating that Jim or Helen might have injuries, they had installed a medpod - just in case.
They had never expected to put Rita Page into it.
The captain of the packet boat was Captain Inman. He stood with Jim as the medic made Rita comfortable and closed the lid of the medpod.
“It should keep her alive until we get to Earth,” Inman said.
“We’re not going to Earth,” Jim replied. “We’re going to Dekanna.”
“Dekanna…no, sir, I have orders to take you to Earth.”
Jim turned to him, a stern expression on his face.
“We’re going to Dekanna, Captain. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“But sir…my orders were explicit. To collect you and Lieutenant Frost and take you straight to Earth!”
“Captain. Can’t you see that things have changed? That’s Admiral Rita Page in there. We need to take her to Dekanna. The Dariama are some of the best engineers in the world. That also means they have some of the best medical practices. Hell, they built that medpod! If there’s a way to save her, they would know it. We must go to Dekanna, Captain. It’s her only chance!”
Inman looked askance at Jim for a while. Finally, grudgingly, he gave in.
“Very well, sir. Dekanna it is. But if I get my ass in the wringer over this, you better be there to back me up. This is totally your idea.”
Jim nodded. “Thank you, Captain. Don’t worry - if Bonnie gives us grief over it, I’ll claim I highjacked your boat.”
Inman shuddered. “I suspect that would make things worse, not better. If you don’t mind, let’s just stick to the story that you coerced me and leave it at that.”
Jim smiled. “I understand. By the way, do you have a shower I can use? I recently spent some time in a sewer.”
Inman nodded in relief. “I was hoping you would ask that. Just down the passageway to the right.”
The captain turned away and moved to the cockpit of the small craft. Jim stood for a moment, gazing through the window at the medpod. The thought kept going through his mind.
I first met you in a medpod. Let me meet you again in the same way. Wake up, baby.
Enroute to Dekanna
Packet Boat Donkey
“This is gonna be close,” Rachel grumbled. She was looking at her tablet. Bonnie had sent a warning message to let them know Zukra was staging his fleet just outside Dekanna and was expected to attack the system at any moment.
Beside her in the cockpit, Paco nodded agreement. “Tika - what’s your latest estimate?”
Rachel slapped the console in front of her, frustration in her voice.
“If we get there a few hours after, it’s going to be too late.”
Paco nodded glumly. “Tika, I don’t suppose there’s any way to get a little more speed out of this thing, is there?”
Rachel stood up in frustration. She glared at Paco as if he were personally responsible for their predicament. Then she stomped off down the passageway to her cabin.
Paco sighed. Being on this long mission with Rachel had initially seemed like a great idea - far safer than being in a fighter mixing it up with the Ashkelon between Deriko and Ridendo. But now…
Be careful what you wish for.
“Tika - tell me a story.”
“Tell me a story about the Broken Galaxy. Why do they call it the Broken Galaxy? What happened?”
“Parents? You have parents?”
“Of course. We are sentient creatures. We know the value of dissimilar reproduction and evolution. We don’t just blindly make copies of ourselves - how boring would that be?>
“Oh. Well, yeah. I guess you’re right. So - sorry. Please continue.”
“And that was when the capital was relocated to Nidaria, right?”
“So why do the Nidarians want to kill us? What have we ever done to them?”
“But we didn’t threaten him! We did nothing except ask for his help! And he was friendly with us at first - hell, he gave Rita a fleet to help defend Earth!”
“And your people? Do they think the same? Do they think Humans are a danger? Will they be coming after us next?”
“I hope you’re right, Tika. I sure hope you’re right.”
Enroute to Dekanna
Ashkelon Battlecruiser Tornado
Orma stared at the wall in his cabin. Thinking.
We’re on our way to Dekanna.
The Nidarians are on their way to Dekanna.
There will be a final battle there.
If Zukra wins, the Humans are finished.
But if Zukra wins, Ashkelon is finished as well. At least, the Ashkelon I love. The stain of blood will cover the Empire for a thousand years to come. Or ten thousand. Or more.
The honor of the old Ashkelon warrior society
will be forever gone. The arenas will be filled with Humans, and Taegu, and Bagrami, and Dariama. They’ll be slaughtered by the thousands to amuse Zukra and his companions.
And undoubtedly Nidarians as well. Zukra will turn on them as soon as Dekanna is pacified.
And his enemies - or his perceived enemies - will also take their turn. Zukra will ensure no one is left alive to threaten him.
That probably includes me.
I wouldn’t mind dying if it were to restore the honor of the old Empire. But to die for Zukra’s amusement…
And he would kill my friends as well.
And my family.
Orma stared at the wall. Thinking.
Orma turned his head and looked at the pseudo-window on the wall of his cabin. It displayed the world of Ridendo, blue and white and brown, a simulation designed to make things onboard feel like home.
A beautiful planet, thought Orma. Remarkably like Earth. We have more in common with Humans that we think. We are all creatures of the universe. Life forming out of raw chemicals on the surface of a rock. Impossible, trillion-to-one chances. Yet here we are.
There must be another way to do this. We don’t have to slaughter each other.
Dekanna System
Dariama Battlecruiser Maebong
“What’s our first order of business?” asked Admiral Sobong.
“Disposition of the fleets,” replied Bonnie. “My thinking is to put my Human fleet in the front of the formation. Your Dariama fleet next with the Taegu and Bagrami integrated into your cubes.
“We Humans will take the brunt of Zukra’s attack, slow him down and get his fighters tangled up with our own. Take out as many ships as possible. Then you’ll take your turn, but with far fewer fighters to contend with. In theory, by the time Zukra gets to you, there won’t be many fighters for you to worry about. That gives you the best chance to stop him and prevent him from breaking through to Dekanna.”
Sobong smiled gently at Bonnie, sitting across from her in the conference room. Farther down the table, the senior members of their respective staffs sat listening while the big dogs negotiated.
The Short End: Broken Galaxy Book Four Page 21