And Prisma had walked by him.
The little girl and the large trundling bot behind came walking down a passage inside the hurtling ship. And she simply reached out and stroked his fur.
Wobanki also do not like to be touched. Unless it’s by a female wobanki. And that’s another story.
But the girl did it so quickly that he wasn’t able to pop his claws and hiss at her. And then she was just staring at his fur, stroking him softly. It was very peaceful. Calm. It was a thing Skrizz had needed all his life… without ever knowing it
And then she stopped, and she nodded at him without saying a word. She continued on down the passage, off into the darkness of the ship.
And ever since that time, Skrizz had found himself not slipping away as had been his plan, preferably with some of their shinier things.
Instead he’d found himself… waiting.
Waiting for her to do that again.
And sometimes she would.
And it was the most pleasant thing he’d ever experienced. It felt like a deep quiet hum deep down inside him. And that caused his mind to surrender to the golden glow so many of the priests on his home world were always trying to get everyone to listen for. To believe in.
He’d always thought they were hucksters.
Yet somehow… this little girl had made him feel the hum.
So he’d stayed. Waiting for it to happen again. To him, she was a kind of priest.
And now he found himself punching atmosphere, flying a tactical assault ship for a Repub Nether Ops team, and twenty seconds later they had bogies all over them.
“Chabu tatanki wapeanu?” he yowled at Andien. She was behind him in the navigator’s seat.
She shook her head. “This ship doesn’t have any weapons. Get us out of here, kitty cat.”
23
“We’re scrubbing! We’re way too over our heads on this!” Andien practically screamed at the large man across the table from her. They were in the TAC planning room of the ship. Just the two of them.
Hutch listened.
She’d run through what had happened, getting more and more irate as she went through mission failure after mission failure. Seeming to take personal responsibility for everything that had gone wrong, as though she were conducting a jury trial against herself. Desperate to find herself guilty so that she might report to the nearest firing squad.
“I got three men killed back on the landing pad,” she said on a morbid note of finality.
And they’d left two of the dead operators behind. Reeco had died on the cargo deck as the ship evaded the tri-fighters.
They were compromised. Somebody had known what they were after, and they’d come to get it with a lot more than Ghost Squad had shown up with. Shock troopers. Air support. They’d been lying in wait as though they’d known a Nether Ops team would show up at that particular comm node. One of nine that could’ve provided the required information and access.
The Forresaw barely made it to jump. Five of those strange howling tri-fighters had come out of nowhere. The Forresaw wasn’t a combat ship; that wasn’t its purpose. Its lack of weapons was what allowed it to go unnoticed for Ghost’s infiltration ops. It was optimized for stealth.
If it hadn’t been for the wobanki, they’d all be dead. The cat could fly. That was for sure.
“So scrub and head back,” Andien said. Her eyes were tired. Her voice a dry croak. “We got the info. So let’s turn it over and get a real plan together for how to make it work. Because more than likely, whoever this enemy is… they trawled our hack and they know exactly where that fleet is, too. And obviously, they’ll show up in force.”
She finished. Her shoulders were slumped, and she was practically leaning over the smart table.
Hutch sat with his arms folded. Like some statue that hadn’t been moved by her storms. “Our orders are to take the kid out to the fleet, activate it once it receives her authentication, and get clear,” he rumbled. “Those are still our orders.”
“Gee, thanks. I hadn’t comprehended that until you summed it up so nicely!” Andien shouted. “Orders are contingent on the situation. The enemy is inside the perimeter. Someone flipped on us, Hutch. No one was supposed to know about the Doomsday Fleet. No one was supposed to know that the comm traffic from a comm node was the only way to locate it. There are human factors here. The fleet is AI-controlled. It’s hidden and waiting. Only those in the know, know! And someone in the know flipped our mission and sent a larger force to take us out.”
She was begging him to see the point. And when his impassive features refused to show her that he acknowledged, or even understood, she spelled it out.
“Someone in the Republic is working against our orders.”
Silence.
“Do you know what that means?”
He nodded. She ignored this because she was working herself up to a whole new tirade. Fresh anger welled up within her.
“It means we can’t trust anyone. It means that any rendezvous could leave us dead and the fleet lost. It means that whoever knows about us pulling the hack… they’re most likely going to make sure we’re good and dead if we dump out of hyperspace anywhere, including where we’re currently supposed to be headed. Which they probably also know because—and here’s where I bring things home for you—someone in the know flipped on us!”
Hutch merely shrugged, and this caused her to dig down, grit her teeth, and try to control a scream she turned into a grunt as she slapped the smart table with the flat of her hand. Obviously the big stupid operator didn’t realize how dead they were.
Hutch finally spoke. “So who, exactly, do we go back to if we can’t trust anyone?”
“What?”
“You just said it. We can’t trust anyone. We show up anywhere and we’re dead. Copy that.”
She shook her head. She had people she could trust. Victory Squad. Chhun and Owens and Legion Commander Keller. But she couldn’t tell him any of this. Because she didn’t trust him. So she kept quiet.
“So we’re dead,” continued Hutch. “Because no matter where we show up, not only do we know where that fleet is, we also have the one thing that gets us root access to fleet startup. The kid.”
She watched him. Watched the cold dead look in his eyes where all the mortal math scrolled across his brain stem. And she was suddenly aware, in that howling silence between them in that moment, that he’d killed not just tens… but maybe hundreds of other people. And even thousands indirectly by his actions. Looking into his eyes was like looking at a whole other type of human being. A type that didn’t feel, or think, or figure, the way you were supposed to when you were human.
She was looking at something cold. Something calculating. Something almost… primal. Like some animal that killed to stay alive. Moment to moment.
“So what are you saying then?” she asked, confident in spite of what she saw in the man.
She had visions of the operator spacing the little girl. And visions of herself standing right beside him, looking into the airlock. Some distant part of her mind was adding up how many of the people in this ship they’d have to space to get clear of this. The Endurian. The code slicer. The cat.
She would kill Hutch first.
It was a thought so quick, dark, and shocking, she wondered if it had truly been her own. She was amazed at what a person could become when their life was on the line.
“I’m thinking,” began Hutch, his eyes focusing on her, “that if we can get the fleet activated before anyone catches us, then we become irrelevant in the grand scheme of high and mighty muckety mucks playing their power games. Once that fleet is online… we don’t matter.”
She was both amazed and horrified at how far her mind had departed from his. Horrified at what had been inside her all along. Horrified. Just horrified at the dark gaps between the known and the unknown.
She blinked as though that would somehow shutter the windows to her soul. As though the big operator were some stranger in the ni
ght, passing by her window, looking in at her, seeing her awful nakedness.
And she, too, was that stranger seeing herself for the first time. Horrified at who she really was and wondering if she’d been this way all along.
“So,” she began slowly. “You’re saying we stay on mission? That’s our only way out.”
The silence of hyperspace seemed to fill the void between them. Seemed to fill the whole ship. Seemed to be a space between the death and destruction going on across the galaxy where they could hide only for so long.
He nodded.
“Half your team is dead. Including our pilot,” she stated matter-of-factly.
He nodded again.
He leaned forward and studied the stellar overlay on the tacplan interface. A digital sand table. All the intel they possessed displayed and updated in real time. And they had damn little of it.
“Cat’s a good enough pilot,” he said. “We can probably use the code slicer. At least as a backup for Maas. The Endurian will take care of the kid.” He straightened up, folded his muscular arms across his bulging chest once more, and smiled wanly. “And we got a war bot. I say… good enough. Let’s roll.”
And me, thought Andien. You’ve got me… and you still have no idea how much that’s worth.
***
Prisma sat on her bunk, alone save for Crash. The big bot stood watching the door. Intent on protecting her.
And Ravi appeared. Crystallized out of nothing to become something. And it was so natural. Like… like that was the way the universe really worked.
Prisma watched him. Truth be told, she was scared to death. Her chest rose and fell in short breaths. Like some pre-adolescent, hard-working bellows.
Ravi smiled at her. “You did well, Miss Prisma.”
Prisma didn’t answer. There was a part of her that was in shock. A part of her where everything that had happened was catching up. All at once.
“Just breathe, Prisma. One large breath.”
Prisma took a giant breath, closed her eyes, and let it out.
“I wish I could tell you it was going to get easier, Prisma,” Ravi said in his near-perfect elocution. “But I can’t.”
Prisma opened her eyes. She saw fear. Fear of all the terrible things that could happen was there, behind Ravi’s large, coal-dark eyes.
“I am so sorry, Prisma. So very sorry indeed.”
And in that moment Prisma’s mouth made a small ‘O’. As though she were going to begin some plea. Some rant. Some begging for the galaxy not to be this way. As though she would trade anything to be free of this trail she found herself on.
Never wanted to be on.
In that moment she would even give up revenge.
The revenge that had burned inside of her since…
Since…
But Ravi interrupted.
“Right now you feel helpless.”
Prisma nodded.
“And you feel alone?”
Prisma nodded again, and tears began to gather in her eyes. She wiped them away and set her face, as if to show they’d never been.
“I am going to give you a gift now.”
And without a word, Ravi reached forward and passed his hand over hers. It was so gentle. So gossamer. And yet it was real. And for a moment Prisma was overwhelmed, and now the tears came as a golden glow that was like happiness and grief filling her all at once.
“What is it?” she asked, sobbing.
Crash stirred. “Are you all right, young miss?” he asked in his basso profundo.
Prisma nodded and wiped her nose. And yet the tears still came.
“Why are you crying? Are you injured?” continued the bot. “I have allowed nothing to hurt you… Have I hurt you?”
Prism shook her head. And still she continued to cry.
“As long as I am able I will never allow you to be hurt, young miss. I promised your father, and now that he is dead I feel a great burden not to hurt you. Though… perhaps mentioning his death has indeed caused me to hurt you afresh… Have I?”
Prisma shook her head.
“He can’t see me, Prisma,” whispered Ravi gently. “I do not wish him to.”
And then he told her about the power.
Not the name of it.
Not its use.
But what it was.
“There is something in the universe, young miss. A gift to some. Through it, change can be affected for great good, or great evil. But never for both. And it is always a gift. No strings are ever attached.”
Prisma felt something moving through her. Murmuring of best days and love. Of better times. Of all things being one in some way, shape, or form.
“What do I do with it?” she whispered.
Ravi looked at her for a long moment.
“That is the burden of the gift-giver… to hope that I have given it to the right person. I spent time with Captain Keel for such a purpose. He was not the one. But it is yours now. We will see if you will use it for good, or evil.”
Then he held out a blue marble. He handed it to her. And in that instant it became real in the palm of her hand. She stared at it. It was like a tiny living world.
“It is just a marble,” he said, as though sensing her thoughts. “But it is also a test.”
Prisma made a face indicating she didn’t understand.
“You want to know how?” asked Ravi.
Prisma nodded, and he smiled that warm knowing smile that was full of delight, and maybe a good kind of mischievousness.
“When you convince it to move, all by itself… the power will begin to grow within you.”
Prisma stared at him in disbelief.
“Put it away for now. In time, you must practice with it. Concentrate upon it. Convince it to change the universe for good. And it will. As will everything.”
“Why?” Prisma asked. And then, with a plaintive wail that made Crash jerk to life once more: “I’m just a girl. And… I’m afraid!”
“Because,” Ravi said. He began to fade. “The galaxy must change.”
And then he was gone.
And Prisma stared at the marble for a very long time.
24
The Umanar system was aflame from the massive blue giant at its center. Even from this distance Andien could see the apocalyptic majesty of the hot star igniting the massive super-planet closest to it, creating a slow, eons-long burn that left a flaming vapor trail across the system.
As the Forresaw jumped into the system, the ship’s advanced sensor package quickly picked up another starcraft in the area. A large ship of unknown origin and make. Hiding inside the fiery maelstrom.
“It’s big,” sighed Andien.
Hutch leaned over her in the tiny TAC center at the back of the flight deck.
Andien plotted a course, sent it to the pilot’s HUD, then stood up and leaned over the cat. “Rough in there? Can you make the approach?”
Skrizz shrugged and murmured some wobanki phrase about little things not bothering big cats.
Hutch grunted at the expression. “I’m assuming this ‘fleet’ defends itself until we provide authorization. Unless it signals us otherwise, we’ve got to set down inside the docking hangar, if it’s got one, and get Prisma to a terminal for a biometric scan. Once that’s complete, Ghost Team is done.”
That was true. Andien had her orders. Give the fleet a private comm channel to engage with the House of Reason’s Security Council. With Orrin Kaar himself.
Not the admiralty.
That had been made painfully clear in the meetings with X. This was a bypass. The House of Reason wanted to be able to use this fleet at their discretion. They wanted direct control without the Repub admiralty in the way.
“Does it bother you, Hutch?” Andien asked. Realizing that he might not be following her train of thought, she quickly clarified: “That they want direct control of whatever this fleet is to go to the House instead of the navy?”
“No. Those are the orders,” Hutch replied. “That’s how
it works in the Nether. Don’t go thinkin’, and you won’t go disappearin’, little girl.”
“Check the files. I was in Nether long before they pulled your ass off the field just because you were good at shooting straight.”
Hutch cleared his throat. He seemed taken aback—apparently realizing that Andien had been allowing him to patronize her until just this moment. “Didn’t mean it as a threat.”
***
An hour later they’d made a slow pass down the spine of the massive, dark ship. Inside the maelstrom between the burning blue star and the gas giant, blue vapor clouds, on fire, swirled and vaporized. And while it looked like some vision of hell—and required more power to the deflectors—it was actually quite beautiful. And quiet. And mostly harmless, other than a lot of chop going in.
The ship was unlike anything Andien had ever seen—in the Republic, in any other local navy, even in the enemy fleet that had attacked Tarrago. It looked almost like a giant assault blaster or orbital cannon moving through space. Its very design suggested that it was a weapon. It was many decks high, but not wide, and its external features seemed to elude the logic of purpose—though, again, it left no doubt as to its aggregate purpose: this ship was one giant weapon system.
“Bota rurari ranamu,” announced Skrizz. They were being scanned by the ship as they passed along its upper hull.
Some distant part of Andien wondered if they were about to be attacked. Obliterated without a chance to provide authentication. And what could they do if they were?
Beneath the Forresaw, sections of the mystery ship sprang to life. A hangar deck’s illumination system switched on, throwing ghostly light into the flaming darkness between the planet and the star. Andien checked the sensors once more.
“Getting life support readings in various sections. Looks like the AI is waking up and ready to receive us.” She took a deep breath. “Requesting clearance to land.”
A standard Repub landing authorization code came through. The HUD plotted a course straight into the large docking bay that had just lit up along the port side.
“Take us in, Skrizz. But keep the engines on idle no matter what. We may want back out. Fast.”
Sword of the Legion (Galaxy's Edge Book 5) Page 20