<
Jessica keyed her Tri-V to show the port quarter view. Six missile icons appeared, and Jessica keyed a trajectory estimate. All of them tracked the thrust core’s power plants.
“Countermeasures locked.”
<
Let’s hope the Besquith build sturdy ships.
“Full battery launch in five seconds. Everything we have.”
Jessica counted silently. Four, three, two, one...
A rush of missiles, more than she could count, raced out of the core’s batteries. The massive detonations lit up her Tri-V. A split second later, the camera feed disappeared. Along the hull, the debris rained like hail in large thumps and scrapes.
“Detach all ships!” The command pilot roared. “All systems offline now!”
Jessica realized what he’d done. If they survived the rain of debris relatively unscathed, the MinSha might believe they were dead and drifting in space.
“Engines offline, power plants two and three damaged.” The second pilot’s hands raced over the controls. The bridge lights dimmed, and silence fell.
Heart hammering in her ears, Jessica tapped her earpiece. “Lucille?”
<
“If we can get to the gate, we can beat them to Victoria.”
The command pilot cleared his throat. “Peacemaker? We will not have the power to stay in hyperspace if we lose either of our power plants. I have engineers in the compartments now.”
“How long until we know?”
“Several hours.”
<
Her earpiece chirped. “Jessica?”
“Tirr! You okay?”
“I’m fine, but we’ve taken a lot of damage down here around the engines and power plants. I’m making my way there now.”
Jessica took a breath and held it for a second. “Stay out of the engineers’ way, Tirr. Come to the bridge. If we’re able to maintain our hyperspace generators, we can beat them to Victoria.”
“Acknowledged.”
<< The Flatar ship has resumed course but continues to scan our debris field.>>
“Start a timer, Lucille. We need to know when they’ll arrive at Victoria.”
<
The command pilot slapped his console with one left hand. “Engineering reports power plant three is operating at 65 percent and is stable enough for hyperspace. Power plant two is offline. The system checks out, but a connection to the main conduit appears to have been severed or placed in safe mode. We can’t access the controls directly. It will take my crew at least two hours to get a secondary connection, Peacemaker.”
Jessica nodded. “As soon as the last MinSha fleet vessel transits, bring us about and head for the gate. Once engineering fixes the connection, we’ll jump.”
The command pilot frowned. “Peacemaker, if it’s truly severed, we will not be able to jump within a timeframe capable of catching the MinSha fleet. The best we can hope for is the control sensors shut down due to a power spike. We won’t know until they get a remote vehicle inside the tube. It’s too small for a Pendal. Or a Human.”
Jessica half-smiled at the commander. It was as if he’d read her mind. “All other systems?”
“As soon as the Flatar ship jumps, we’ll reboot everything and see where we stand.”
<
Tirr appeared in the hatch. “I haven’t seen any significant damage to the hull, Captain. All the pressurized decks are holding. Can we do anything for our detached ships?”
“No,” the command pilot said. “I relayed an emergency message to the gate before the last salvo. Life signs on all ships are negative.”
“Understood.”
Jessica frowned. She’d managed to lose Dreel’s yacht, and a lot of innocent beings had died. Jaw clenched, she sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. Every death hurt despite what she knew from her time as a mercenary and a Peacemaker U candidate. The responsibility for the deaths of innocents wasn’t personal, but it smelled and tasted like failure, and she could not shake it. Since she left the academy, death followed her, and that would continue as long as she was a Peacemaker. In a galaxy filled with ne’er-do-wells and barely legal operations, peace was kept through conflict. Conflict meant the spilling of blood, and all she could do was protect the ones she could, even if it meant sacrificing herself. There would be a time and a place for that, though. She opened her eyes and saw Tirr looking at her.
<
Jessica spun in her seat and looked at the Pendal flight crew. “Once the last ship jumps, head for the gate.”
“Understood, Peacemaker.” The Pendal pointed at his Tri-V display. “The engineering team has inserted a drone into the tube system. We’ll have an answer soon.”
Jessica tried to see what was on his display. “Your other power plant is holding?”
The command pilot nodded. “Appears so. I’ve placed monitoring crews on all the power plants. If we can transit, we won’t lose power in the middle of hyperspace. You have my word.”
Jessica nodded. The view on her Tri-V changed to an engineering screen. She could see the drone’s camera feed in one corner, flanked by relays on the ship’s status. The damage appeared to be superficial. There were some antenna feeds and comms relays operating on auxiliary systems because of damage to the primary ones, but the thrust core appeared viable enough to get them to Victoria.
“Lucille, I want a five-day transit. Do whatever you have to. We need to get to Victoria first. Every second counts.”
<
Jessica glanced over her shoulder at the flight crew. “Can I listen to engineering?”
The command pilot didn’t look up but nodded. “You’re connected for transmit and receive.”
“Thank you,” Jessica replied. She transferred the audio feed to her headset and listened. The crawling drone wasn’t much larger than a roach but infinitely more agile and capable of nearly unlimited controlled flight. She watched the feed from inside the small conduit. Up the tube Jessica could see small arcs of electricity and a cascade of sparks. Chatter filled the audio channel.
“The tube has been compromised. We can’t reach the main conduit this way. The auxiliary conduit is also damaged. There is no way we can ensure the connections are valid and—”
A black and white blur crossed the field of view and in a millisecond the drone’s feed went black.
“Drone offline,” one of the engineers said. “Catastrophic termination.”
“From what?” another engineer asked.
The chatter dissolved into chaos as a collection of lights on the Tri-V blinked rapidly, then steadied. Power Plant Two’s power output climbed from zero to two percent.
“Power Plant Two just started its ignition sequence,” the second pilot said. “How is that possible?”
<
“Bring us about,” the command pilot said. “Maximum thrusters to the gate. Engineering? I want a full report.”
There was silence on the channel. “We don’t know what happened, Captain. The system came on unexpectedly—a full restart. No one on the crew is small enough to get up there and reconnect the conduit. We have to ass
ume it was a sensor failure, and the power plant safed itself. That’s our current theory, at least.”
“Theories don’t matter. Make sure that plant reaches a normal power level and that you can keep it there.”
“Understood, sir.”
Jessica changed the Tri-V screen to navigation and saw their icon turning toward the gate. Trusting Lucille to bypass the gate’s command systems and engage with the stolen key, she turned to Tirr. “Get down to engineering before we jump and look around. Find the unusual stuff, just like on Weqq.”
Tirr nodded. “I will, Jessica. Is there something you are expecting me to find?”
Jessica studied his face for a moment. “I don’t know, Tirr. I’m not going to worry about our good fortune, but I want to make sure we’re going to make it to Victoria. As soon as I hear from Lucille, we’ll jump.”
<
Jessica chewed on her lower lip for a second. “Can they do that?”
<
Which makes it a possibility, Jessica thought. Gods, they’d strand us here and disrupt the Cartography and Information Guilds in the process.
Which may be their intent, Jess.
There wasn’t a single thing she could do, though. The gate was a good fifty minutes away and even when they arrived, they’d be outmanned and outgunned. Success on the gate at New Persia was one thing. Here, survival meant trusting Lucille like she never had before.
“Lucille, can you defeat the MinSha?”
<>
“What can you do to stop them?” Jessica asked. “Is there a way to use your link to stop their attempt to shut down the gate?”
<
“Do everything you can, Lucille. We have to stop them.” Jessica took a deep breath and held it for a moment. All they had to do was hold the gate open long enough to jump and maintain the power levels on the thrust core. If they made it to Victoria, they could deal with the inbound threat. But that, in and of itself, was a big if.
“Jessica?” Tirr’s voice chirped in her headset.
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve consulted with the engineers. I don’t think anyone placed the main conduit in a safe mode. I believe someone uncoupled it at a higher junction we could not see from the drone. Until we can get in there, I cannot be sure, but it would have to have been reconnected by an outside force. That access way is less than a third of a meter wide in most places.”
“Could any of the crew have done it? Maybe sacrificed themselves to make the connection?”
“All crew members are accounted for, Jessica.” Tirr replied. “None of them are small enough to have done it. We were extremely lucky it reconnected itself. I cannot think of another possibility fitting the parameters of the situation.”
<
Jessica whipped her eyes to the gate control screens on the bridge. The gate showed 98% charged and all systems functioning normally. “They weren’t successful?”
<>
The Pendal second pilot spoke loudly. “Gate control is under a security lock down. Apparently, they’ve lost control of their security platform, and there were casualties. Transit requests are paused.”
Like hell they are.
“Lucille?”
<
“Copy all, Lucille.” Jessica replied. She turned her head away from the pilots and whispered. “What did you do on the gate?”
<>
“You captured them, then?”
<
Holy shit.
“You did what?” Jessica tried to contain her shock and keep her voice level, though she knew Lucille could sense it.
<
Jessica let her head loll back against the seat. In microgravity, it didn’t give her much of a stretch, but resting her head on something, even for a split second, helped her relax and focus. The clinical precision of Lucille’s words cut through her thoughts and left Jessica questioning her programming and wondering if Lucille even qualified as a program anymore. She was something more.
Maybe she always was. Jessica replayed the drone’s imagery from the central tube and froze the image. Scrolling forward by milliseconds, she isolated a blur and made out what looked like a small limb with a very distinct paw. Jessica clasped a hand to her mouth but said nothing aloud.
Depik.
The chances it had completed its mission at New Persia and stolen a ride aboard Dreel’s yacht and the Pendal thrust core seemed too small to be possible, but Jessica knew the Depik were as resourceful and smart as they were deadly. The possibility their little glitch had an explanation was clear, and as much as Jessica wanted to believe a Depik had come to her aid, there was little chance of that happening. Yet if Tirr’s theory was correct, something had reattached the main conduit. Something small and clever enough to have known what it was doing—which pointed to the Depik. Lucille’s voice shook the thoughts from her head.
<
“Analysis?”
<
“Any good news at all?”
<
Thought somewhat insignificant, it was something worthy of hope. If Tara were still alive, and still looking for Jessica’s father, there was hope. Jessica watched the gate grow larger on the forward screens until the jump countdown started. Her mind on a binary planet that believed they were prepared for war, Jessica closed her eyes and tried to calm the raging torrent of thoughts in her mind. Entire species were willing to die to avoid subjugation. Her personal project and computer-based companion had clearly evolved into something more in line with a weapons system than a simple virtual assistant.
Gods. What do I do now? She focused on Victoria. The planet’s inhabitants believed they could defeat the MinSha without her assistance, but they were wrong. The MinSha would come in with weapons blazing. Orbital bombardment was no longer beyond them, and there was a very real possibility they possessed nuclear-type weapons capable of rendering an entire planet unsurvivable for decades. That a species like the MinSha, who she believed were capable of respect and understanding, would continue a course of war frustrated her. There was no logic to their campaign unless they expected to gain financially or in status from the Mercenary Guild’s actions. But having Taal’s support also showed
at least some of the MinSha desired peace. As much as Peepo and her minions wanted war, other leaders in the galaxy wanted peace. For the immediate future, courage was all that mattered. The people in the Victoria system said they didn’t need her help, but Jessica knew better.
It’s time to stand, Bulldog.
Come what may.
* * * * *
Chapter Eighteen
Central Detention Center
Solitary Confinement
Karma IV
Rains lay on his back looking up at the dim cell’s featureless ceiling. He didn’t know, or care, whether it was day or night. He assumed it was day because his mind was clearly awake. His subconscious was working overtime to rationalize the fact he’d been studying the artificial lighting embedded in the plasticine tiles with the intent of an engineer and the curiosity of a child for what felt like hours.
Fuck! Don’t let me start losing my mind.
Rains snorted at the thought. He knew it would take more than solitary confinement for a few days to make him really lose his shit. The orphanages and corporate foster homes of North America weren’t much better than his current lodgings. Surviving them as a child had been simple. The first rule was something all good soldiers knew—if they could sleep, sleep. They’d need the rest and there might be long periods when they couldn’t. Rains had that rule hard-wired into his brain. Sit down for a fifteen-minute nap? No problem. Sleep fourteen hours on a flight or lunar transit? Easy. He could sleep in any position, on any surface, with minimal effects to his body. The steel “bed” in the cell reminded him of the pallet he’d slept on for four nights outside of Troy, Alabama, when the corporate home went up in flames. That was the night he learned no one really wanted to be his friend. And when circumstances turned against the weaker kids, they’d sold him out to save their precious hides.
The tough kids believed they could escape. All they needed was a diversion, which they’d learned from watching hours of bad movies. After lights out, they’d snuck into the kitchen and started a fire. The corporate foster home wasn’t a big place, five or six rooms, with the perpetually-stoned Mrs. Green taking what she called the master suite. She was a plump woman with blonde hair who wore too much makeup. Although she lived in a marijuana haze, she actually seemed to care about the dozen kids in her house. All of them were mercenary orphans left behind when one parent died on a mission and the other parent lost the corporate stipends that fed, clothed, and sheltered their kids. Snagging a mercenary soldier was easier without children, the gossiping adults said. Supposedly they’d learned it from the old days of military service. Rains believed it was bullshit, even at eleven years old.
Stand or Fall (The Omega War Book 4) Page 19