by C H Gideon
“That could be what they want us to do,” Asya suggested. “I mean, they had to know we’d plunder their systems before we destroyed the ships. That’s just standard practice, right?”
“Well, we already know enough about their coding to recognize and defend against it, so it’s not like uploading a virus is much of a game-changer,” Reynolds replied with a shrug. “Besides, if that’s their big, nefarious scheme, we’re seriously overestimating Phraim-’Eh.”
“Databases copied and decrypted,” Geroux reported. “I’m parsing the information now.”
“Blow those ships away, Tactical,” Reynolds ordered. “No point letting them sit there while we pick our asses.”
Tactical complied and fired on each ship in turn. With no shields up, they were sitting ducks.
It took a moment for him to batter past the armor, but it wasn’t long before all three ships were rattling hunks of junk, tumbling toward a fiery death in the atmosphere of Suri.
“That was fun.” Tactical chuckled.
“I think I’ve got something, Captain,” Geroux said.
She brought it up on the screen.
“A location in the Stark’s data coincides with one of the smaller cult installation’s coordinates we scraped from Jora’nal’s computer.”
“What are we looking at?” the AI asked.
“It’s some tiny, out-of-the-way planet that’s barely a blip on the star charts,” Geroux explained. “A planet that doesn’t even register as having a real name, only a designation. QI482, but the corresponding logs reference it as ‘Quil.’”
Reynolds looked it up.
“An agricultural planet?” he asked, reading the information scrolling across the screen. “No exports, nothing of note has ever been recorded regarding it, and it’s way outside the space lanes. There is literally nothing there.”
“Sounds like a perfect home base for a cult, if you ask me,” Asya said.
“It’s a trap!” Tactical shouted.
“It’s no fun when they don’t get the reference, Tactical.”
“Not my fault they were born in the wrong galaxy…far, far away.”
Reynolds groaned. “Just stop, please.”
“We could always go and check it out,” Jiya suggested. “We’ve still got the trackers on Phraim-’Eh, and we’ll know if he responds to our invading his space. If he doesn’t, then we blow up the outpost there, and we’re another batch of dead cultists ahead with no loss to us.”
Reynolds stiffened, suddenly grinning. “That gives me an idea.”
“That’s never good,” Tactical muttered.
Chapter Eighteen
Phraim-’Eh sat in his quarters aboard the Godhand.
Still stationed over Hajh, he had his disciples scouring through the wreckage Reynolds and his people had made of the outpost below. And though there was little left to parse through, Phraim-’Eh had to be absolutely certain that the Federation scum received no additional intelligence from the out-of-the-way station.
He’d once believed his whereabouts to be sacrosanct to his top disciples, that they would never betray him to the Federation or his other enemies, but that illusion had been shattered by Jora’nal.
It had been further stomped upon by the revelation that Jora’nal still lived and was in the AI’s custody.
He wanted to think the Federation pawn had lied to him, that he’d only been baiting him when he said that, but evidence from the site of Jora’nal’s failure spoke of Reynolds’ escape from the planet right before the explosion that wiped out the headquarters there.
That meant that, if Reynolds could have slipped free, then so could Jora’nal, especially if the AI took the disciple with him.
He wondered if the fool was working for Reynolds, being fed promises and lies to cooperate, or if the foul creature had suffered and broken under torture.
Does it matter? he asked himself.
That Jora’nal would betray him in either event was sufficient to consider him lost.
And if he were still alive when Phraim-’Eh was finished dealing with Reynolds and his crew, Phraim-’Eh would see to it that Jora’nal met a fate fit for scum like him.
A smile crept to Phraim-’Eh’s lips as he imagined what he might do to Jora’nal, but a quiet knock at the door tore him from his pleasant reverie.
“Come!” he shouted.
A servant eased the door open just wide enough to peek inside.
“The Voice wishes to speak with you,” the male said.
“Patch him through,” Phraim-’Eh replied, waving the servant away. He was all too glad to comply.
Phraim-’Eh opened the channel without waiting for the servant. Quiet static became an even quieter voice after a moment.
“Speak, Voice,” Phraim-’Eh commanded, too sick with disappointment to be bothered to threaten him.
It clearly did no good, and the Voice would feel Phraim-’Eh’s wrath soon enough. Until then, he served a purpose.
“Reynolds has been to Suri,” the Voice reported.
“And?” Phraim-’Eh nudged when the Voice paused to catch his breath.
“The ships there have been destroyed, and he coerced the captain and his crews to stand down and turn their back on you, Lord.”
A growl welled up from deep in Phraim-’Eh’s throat. “He did what?”
“Captain Rom has turned against you, if only in a promise to Reynolds,” the Voice went on.
“Then he has turned against me indeed,” Phraim-’Eh swore. “I will see the captain and all his people dead! Prepare to meet me, for I am coming to Suri now!”
“If I might…” the Voice pleaded.
“You dare?”
“Only so that you might not be blinded by your rage before you know everything I have learned, Master,” the Voice told him.
Phraim-’Eh nearly choked on his fury, but he reined it in enough to allow his disciple to speak and explain himself.
“Tell me!”
“Reynolds has learned of Quil, Master,” his disciple told him. “Captain Rom overheard him saying as they banished him to Suri that their next target would be Quil. The captain prays to beg your forgiveness for providing this information.”
A cold chill froze the blood in Phraim-’Eh’s veins. “How…could…” He left his question hanging, all thoughts of the captain’s betrayal vanquished from his mind.
His stomach churned as he imagined Reynolds defiling his home planet, ruining the system as the android’s masters had ruined countless others by bringing their warped sense of justice to them.
“This cannot be allowed,” Phraim-’Eh said, more to himself than the Voice. He barely remembered the disciple was on the line. “He cannot be allowed to defile the home of my forefathers. They struggled long and hard to find a world where they could hide from the clawing fingers of the Federation, where they could feel safe at long last. I will not let them soil Quil! I will not!”
Phraim-’Eh leapt to his feet, his power barely restrained. He paced back and forth, every step pounding across the deck and reverberating through the steel.
“Summon every disciple to me,” Phraim-’Eh ordered, “and call them to war. This creature shall not set his blasphemous foot upon my homeworld. I will see him burned to ashes before I let him take my world from me.”
“As you wish, Master,” the Voice replied, and was forgotten.
Phraim-’Eh screamed for his servant. He would journey to Quil and set an armada about the planet, ensuring Reynolds could never come near.
And for daring to threaten his home, Phraim-’Eh would see the AI burn.
Then he’d turn his fury on the Earth!
Chapter Nineteen
“What do you know?” Reynolds said, pulling a face. “This place really is the pathetic god’s base of operations.”
He tapped the screen that was monitoring Phraim-’Eh’s fleet, calling it to the attention of the crew.
“He’s pulling up stakes and headed this way like a bat outta He
ll,” the AI went on. “He didn’t even bother to collect the people he’d dropped off on the planet before he took off. Poor bastards.”
Ka’nak shrugged. “That’s a few less cultists we have to worry about killing, but I’m torn as to whether that’s good or bad.”
“The trackers show that he is on his way here with all haste,” Takal warned.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing we showed up before we convinced Captain Rom to send that message, huh?” Reynolds laughed.
The SD Reynolds had Gated in earlier in the day and laid traps for Phraim-’Eh’s fleet. They’d seeded the space around the planet with cloaked mines in the hundreds, and they’d arranged a few other surprises for the would-be god once he arrived.
Phraim-’Eh’s panicked reaction to Quil being threatened made it clear that Reynolds had made the right decision.
Since the start of the mission, the cultists and their leader had been the ones to choose the times and places of the engagements between them, and Reynolds and his people had suffered for it.
Good people had died or been injured because Phraim-’Eh had held all the cards, sneaking around the shadows and bleeding his misery into their lives.
Fuck that!
Reynolds had not just slipped an ace up his sleeve, he’d thrown the whole fucking deck out and changed the game.
Now, instead of running and reacting, trying to figure out what was going on, Reynolds had taken control. He’d lured Phraim-’Eh to them.
The planet being the wannabe god’s homeworld only made the turnaround that much more satisfying.
The pleasant pastoral planet that hung below was an odd backdrop to such a poignant moment, but Reynolds would take what he could get if it meant getting a real shot at taking out Phraim-’Eh for good.
And he would.
It didn’t matter what it took, Reynolds would see this Kurtherian line of evil aborted before it could cause any more harm to the universe than it already had.
It all ended today.
“Where are we, Takal?” he asked over the comm.
“Putting the finishing touches on the program,” the inventor replied. “I only wish I had time to test it. I can’t be certain—”
“There aren’t any wish-granting genies out here for you to winkle a wish out of, so you’re going to have to make sure it works in the sandbox, or we’re fucked,” Reynolds told him. “We’re not going to get more than one shot at this. If it fucks up, we’re dead.”
“I feel better about it now, thank you,” Takal replied snidely.
“Hey, it’s what I’m here for,” Reynolds shot back. “Seriously, though, this needs to work.”
Tactical chuckled. “No pressure.”
“Trackers show Phraim-’Eh is nearing the system,” Geroux reported.
“I need to get back to the program, then,” Takal muttered. “I guess we’ll know if it works soon enough,” he added before cutting the channel.
“If I were a betting person…” Maddox began.
“Maybe you and Takal can go get a beer,” Reynolds told him. “I think at this point, I’d prefer a drunk Takal over a sober one.”
“It’s not like the fate of our existence lies in his hands or anything,” Tactical said. “Right? Right?”
“I’m seriously regretting having split my psyche,” Reynolds told Tactical. “Well, parts of it, at least.”
“Now, now, girls,” XO chided. “You’re both pretty.”
“We’ve got approximately five minutes before Phraim-’Eh pops in,” Geroux called.
“Everything’s in place,” Asya noted. “There’s really nothing we can do but wait.”
“That’s the worst part of it all,” Maddox said. “Put me in the fight, and I’m fine. Tell me to wait, and the anticipation just sucks the life out of me.”
“He’ll be here before you know it,” Jiya warned, “so stay frosty. We’re ready for this.”
And they were, Reynolds realized.
Every variable he could control had been rigged their way. Now the only real concerns were luck and the overwhelming power of Phraim-’Eh’s armada.
Either could sway the odds away from the SD Reynolds, but the AI wouldn’t let himself think that way.
He and the crew had survived against all odds since they’d started this mission, and Reynolds would be damned if he failed now.
Not with so much riding on him.
He’d stand over a fallen Phraim-’Eh and deliver the final blow of the battle no matter what.
“Button up, folks,” Asya called. “We’ve got incoming.”
Reynolds didn’t bother to sound any alarms or dim the lights as they counted down the last few seconds before Phraim-’Eh arrived and engaged them. It wouldn’t do anything but heap stress on the crew, and he didn’t want to do that to them.
In fact, he contemplated dancing a jig and singing Gaelic battle songs to motivate them, but then he remembered he was a terrible dancer and Takal hadn’t designed him with a pleasant singing voice.
Guess I’ll just have to lead them to victory, then, he thought with a laugh.
“He’s here!” Asya announced.
Phraim-’Eh’s command ship Gated in, the rest of his fleet following behind.
That was when the fun started.
Explosions erupted as soon as they arrived, the fleet Gating in close to the planet in order to barricade it against Reynolds’ aggression.
They’d walked right into the trap, Phraim-’Eh’s impatience getting the best of him.
The cloaked mines wreaked havoc among the enemy ships, forcing them to veer off and break ranks as more and more of the mines went off.
That only pushed the ships into more of them.
A damaged ship filled Reynolds’s viewscreen as one of the destroyers ran into the cloaked stash of pucks Reynolds had cobbled together to provide an extra surprise.
It worked perfectly.
The impact tore through the ship’s shields and the pucks drilled into the armored hull so effectively that a gaping, venting hole was left behind.
Tactical took the opportunity to fire a salvo of missiles to finish the job the pucks had started.
The destroyer was struck dead on, its flank shredded by the rattling explosions. Listing, the ship veered into more of the mines, which put it out of its misery.
The ship, engines flaring, slowly tumbled away, lifeless.
“Down to nine!” Geroux reported.
It was still too damn many.
Then another of the destroyers was bleeding its atmosphere behind it.
“Using cloaked Pods really ought to be illegal,” Tactical said, laughing as Jiya remotely piloted another of the rigged Pods into the side of the destroyer she’d already hit.
“Use what you got, my mama used to say,” Reynolds remarked.
“You don’t have a mother,” Tactical fired back.
“Now you’re just being mean. Focus that shit on the bad guys,” the AI told him.
“We’re taking fire!” Asya announced.
“That asshole, Phraim-’Eh, is one single-minded motherfucker,” Jiya noted. “I’ve got a cure for that.”
Jiya maneuvered several of the cloaked Pods through a narrow passageway in the field of mines and set them on a collision course for the Godhand.
One was accidentally set off, caught in the crossfire, but the other two slammed into the Godhand’s shields and detonated.
The shields absorbed the impact and Phraim-’Eh’s ship kept coming, bearing down on the SD Reynolds.
“Lure him back into the mine lane,” Reynolds told Ria. “Let him think we’re retreating.”
“On it!” she replied, easing back to draw the Godhand in.
The ship shuddered and bucked unexpectedly, and Reynolds was forced to grab the arms of his seat to keep from toppling out.
“What the hell was that?” he called.
“One of the fucking destroyers broke through the minefield and rammed us,” Asya explained,
rapidly scrolling through the damage reports as Ria compensated for the impact.
Tactical hammered the destroyer for daring to kamikaze them, and Jiya added insult to injury by slamming several of the cloaked Pods into the bridge of the ship.
“Take that!” she shouted as the Pods exploded on the heels of Tactical’s missiles.
The destroyer veered off and lost control, drifting through the minefield to end its days in a flash of light.
“Sitrep!” Reynolds demanded.
“The starboard engine is damaged,” Asya called. “Down to seventy-eight percent thrust.” She growled as she examined the reports streaming in on her screen. “Son of a bitch! That last blow smashed a hole in the aggro center. We lost a couple of printers and about a year’s worth of food.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t the coffee!” Jiya asked, wide-eyed.
“No,” Asya replied after a moment. “Looks like it was mostly vegetables.”
“No loss there,” Ka’nak remarked.
“Hello, scurvy!” Tactical joked. “Welcome aboard.”
“The Godhand’s still coming,” Ria announced.
A ship-rattling blow backed up her statement.
“Shields are buckling on the starboard side,” Asya advised. “I’m buffering them with the Gulg techniques, but I’m not sure how long they’ll hold.”
“They’re eating mines, and I’ve rammed a couple Pods up their ass,” Jiya called. “That ship is a beast.”
“We might have to pull out the ESD again,” Tactical warned.
“It’s too soon,” Reynolds told him. “Not yet. Hold it in reserve.”
“Not much use if we’re dead,” Tactical said.
Ria veered off as the Godhand closed, expertly piloting the superdreadnought through the open spaces between the fields of mines they’d positioned, gaining some distance between the Godhand and the Reynolds.
“Nice move, Ria!” Asya congratulated. “That’s bought us a couple of seconds.”
“I’m punching the clock on a few more,” Tactical announced as he blasted a wounded destroyer and took it out, sending it careening toward the planet below.