26
Strained voices shouted orders in a mixture of Standard and Zafharish. Rhis was in command, but Dallon translated whatever he seemed to believe Trilby needed to know.
That helped, but for the most part Trilby reacted on instinct. Keeping the ship in one piece, all systems operating, needed no translation.
“Torpedoes, incoming, portside.” Dallon barked out heading and speed. Rhis initiated evasive maneuvers. Trilby monitored shield status, still holding at one hundred percent despite several direct hits.
But the ’Sko hadn’t fired torpedoes at them before.
Farra, at communications, sent out repeated SUAs on both Conclave and Imperial channels. And monitored for any answer from the Cosmic Fortune. Which was, Trilby guessed, a bit more than an average tri-hauler. But she could also be as much as a deuce ahead of them.
The torpedoes veered away.
“Sloppy shooting,” Mitkanos grumbled in Zafharish.
“Don’t count on it.” Rhis didn’t take his concentration from the board. “That might just be a warning. Farra?”
“Nav. Nothing yet, sir.”
Trilby answered his question before he asked it. “Comm pack still online. We’re sending.” But no one’s answering.
“Bloody hell.” Rhis’s curse was hushed, tense.
The ship shuddered slightly as Mitkanos fired their weapons. Not the ion cannons, not yet. That, Trilby knew, would be for the mother ship. If she got close enough.
“They’re pulling back, regrouping maybe,” Dallon advised.
Rhis shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the younger man. “Jumpgate?”
“None in range yet, sir. We’re in one of those dead areas.”
Trilby caught Rhis’s gaze, and his unspoken command. Her fingers flew to the nav link on her console. “Which one is the real file?” She was looking at the Herkoid data Rhis intended to give to GGA.
He reached over quickly, highlighted a minor file tagged for enviro. “Here. Bring it up. I’ll decode it.”
She scanned the old star charts as they filled her screen. Lissade. Syar. She grabbed all references to the Colonies, ran through them quickly.
The ship rocked again, lights flickering. She glanced to her left. “Shields holding at eighty percent.”
“Jumpgate?”
“Not yet.” She paged through another chart. Damn it! There had to be something. She didn’t care where it went, as long as it took them into hyperspace and gave them time to have someone meet them—and the ’Sko, if they followed—when they exited.
The long-range scanner in front of Rhis beeped. Trilby looked at the board. Maybe the Cosmic Fortune? Or a Conclave patrol?
But Rhis’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “Second mother ship. ’Sko. Thirty-five minutes out.”
That meant two more squadrons of ’Tarks.
“Why?” Trilby asked, feeling it was a foolish question even as she voiced it.
“Jagan’s message is my guess.” But Rhis didn’t sound like he was guessing.
Mitkanos swore. “Damned bastard.”
Another sickening shimmy, another flickering of lights.
“Shields at eighty and holding. Generators online,” Trilby said, and opened the next star chart. Two squadrons of ’Tarks were big trouble. Four were certain death.
“Watch starboard flank,” Rhis called out to Mitkanos.
“On them. On them. In range.”
Trilby saw the cluster of ships part on the scanners. Rhis saw it too. “The newcomers are splitting up—damn it! Class-Five destroyer! They’re screening a Class-Five destroyer!”
He banked the ship, hard. Engine-overload signals flashed. Trilby was wrenched against her harness straps, then something slammed into the back of her seat with a harsh cry. She jerked forward.
“Bloody fucking …” Rhis switched to Standard. “Get the hell off the bridge, Grantforth!”
Trilby twisted around. Jagan’s hands were locked onto her headrest. He was half kneeling, half sprawling on the floor behind her. His face was pale, sweat-streaked.
“No! Wait,” he croaked.
Rhis jerked his thumb at Dallon. “Get him off here! And lock the bridge this time!”
Jagan clawed at Trilby’s arm. “Tell them I’m on board! They can’t … they won’t … they just want those map files.”
“Get below, Jagan!” Trilby told him tersely.
“Uncle Garold needs those map files to seal the agreement!”
“Those are Niyil ships, Grantforth.” Rhis turned in his seat, tried to push Jagan backward.
“Yes! We’re working with them too.”
Trilby caught Rhis’s quick look of disgust. Then Dallon grabbed Jagan under the armpits, yanked him upright.
“They’ve got ion cannons primed,” Mitkanos said in Zafharish.
“Bring full weapons online!” Rhis ordered. “Destroyer is primary target. Fire at will.”
Jagan wrenched against Dallon, reached for Trilby. “What’s he saying? What’s happening?”
She looked up. “We’re in trouble. Big trouble. Strap him in at second nav, Dallon.” There was no time to drag Jagan below to his cabin. She needed Dallon on the bridge.
And Rhis needed her attention. “Jumpgate?”
She turned back to the charts. “Working on it.” But there was nothing. Nothing. The ’Sko couldn’t have picked a better spot to ambush them if they’d known… .
She glanced at the code trailing down the side of the file. Shadow’s notations and a comment by Vitorio. This was one of the charts Carina had. Trilby felt as if her heart stopped. “Khyrhis.” She said his name softly.
Dark eyes turned to her. She didn’t try to disguise the fear in her voice. “This is the same chart Bella’s Dream had. There are no jumpgates here. They know that.”
He held her gaze for a very long moment, then turned away. His deep voice was emotionless, held the hard tone of undeniable authority. “Rimanava. Open a channel to Admiral Vanushavor, Code Delta Priority One. Copy to Captain Rafiello Vanushavor on the Vendetta, Commander Zakar Demarik on the Razalka. Transmit all logs.
“Append note to Demarik. On my orders, engage the First Fleet. Objective: Syar.”
Trilby understood. Rhis was authorizing an invasion of the Conclave.
But Jagan didn’t, though he evidently recognized some names. “Vanushavor? Razalka? What in hell are you doing, Vanur? I told you, they just want—”
“In range. Firing!” Mitkanos bellowed.
Rhis held the ship steady, then turned back to Jagan, his eyes narrowed. “Our nav banks? I already tried that. They declined. Answered with two squadrons of ’Tarks instead. They want you dead. All of us dead. Probably your beloved uncle as well. Only fools think they can make deals with the ’Sko.”
Jagan strained angrily against his harness. “Who do you think you are to call me—”
“Tivahr. Senior Captain Khyrhis Tivahr of the Razalka. That’s who I am, Grantforth. Now shut up or I will let you talk to the ’Sko. In person. Out the air lock.” Rhis swung around. His fingers flew across the command console with a vengeance.
And he missed the sight of Jagan’s mouth dropping wide open. But Trilby didn’t. Nor did she miss the flicker of fear in his blue eyes.
He finally noticed her scrutiny. “You knew this?” His voice rasped.
“Yes.” She went back to her star charts. But an unexpected pride surged through her. The Khyrhis Tivahr. It sounded very, very right.
“Mother Two, ten minutes,” Mitkanos intoned.
The ’Sko destroyer had pulled back, gathered its shield of ’Tarks around it again when Mitkanos returned fire with their ion cannons.
Shields were down to seventy-five percent, but comm pack was still online. That was critical. Someone had to hear them. Someone had to answer their distress call. They might outrun a mother ship, even two, but not the ’Tarks, which could refuel from the mother ships. Time was not on their side.
They needed a
safe haven, but without a jumpgate Trilby couldn’t find them one. There was nothing out here in this section of the Syar Quadrant, not even an asteroid field. It was, as Dallon said, a dead zone. The description chilled her. No. It would not be her dead zone. She refused to accept that.
“Trilby.” Jagan’s voice hissed across the bridge, through the beeping of the monitors and curt commands in Zafharish. “Link me to the ’Sko. I can—we can trade his life,” he pointed at Rhis, “for ours. They’d love Tivahr the Terrible.”
Trilby flashed him a disarming smile. “Fuck you, Jagan.”
“Bitch!”
She shrugged, caught Rhis shaking his head at their exchange.
“Captain Tivahr.” Farra switched to Standard. “I am picking up a Norvind convoy, forty-six minutes out. They acknowledge our SUA.”
Hope blossomed in Trilby’s chest. Forty-six minutes. They could hang on that long, couldn’t they? A freighter convoy wouldn’t be heavily armed, but they might have an escort. It was better than nothing and might buy them time until the Fleet—either Fleet—could find them.
Rhis was already relaying instructions, altering course to intercept.
“Coming in range. Targeting.” Mitkanos’s commands brought her back to the closer problem. The ’Tarks. In a different formation.
There was something odd about it, but she couldn’t peg what exactly, and reasoned that she could well be misreading it due to stress and inexperience. She wasn’t military. She went back to her duties. “Shields down to seventy. Unless—” Hell. Jagan was on the bridge. Who needed enviro belowdecks if no one was there?
She looked quickly at Rhis. He nodded. “Cutting off life support to crew deck,” she announced. “Thirty seconds. Segueing power to shield generators.”
“In range. Firing!”
She glanced at the screens, saw two ’Tarks splinter apart. “Good shot, Yavo.”
Then something slammed into the ship. Trilby wrenched sideways, the chair’s armrest digging painfully into her ribs. She heard Mitkanos grunt over the screeching of alarms. A panel sizzled behind her, punctuating Rhis’s litany of curses in Zafharish and Standard.
“Bloody Gods damned ion cannon! Direct hit, starboard flank. Mitkanos!”
“Star … starboard torpedo tubes inoperational.”
Her screens were no more encouraging. “Shields down forty percent.”
“Recalibrating lasers,” Dallon said. “I need five minutes—”
“We don’t have five minutes. Brace! Incoming cannon fire!”
Trilby’s skin chilled as she tugged her harness secure with one hand. She raised the other arm over her face, locked her feet against the lower panel. Only at the last minute did she glance under her arm and catch Rhis’s dark and weary gaze as it flickered up briefly from the command console.
“Yav cheron,” she told him.
His wistful smile was the last thing she saw as the bridge exploded.
She woke to a red-tinged darkness and a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth. She recognized both. Power was down. Enviro had kicked off, long enough for her to lose consciousness. Dezi must have gone down to engineering—
But Dezi wasn’t here. This wasn’t the Careless Venture. She struggled against something heavy, found it wasn’t her safety harness holding her into her seat but a thick braid of conduit, cascading through the ceiling.
She coughed, pushed it aside. The ship was eerily quiet, save for an ominous hissing noise from the corridor. Ruptured enviro conduit. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, caught shadowy forms, silent, around her.
“Rhis!” She unsnapped her harness, lunged for his seat. It was empty.
Oh, Gods! She dropped to her knees, felt along the floor, her fingers finding debris but nothing more.
“Rhis!” She heard a clunking noise, but it sounded distant. Way belowdecks.
She pulled herself to her feet, shuffled to her right toward two forms. They were warm. She heard a groan as she ran her hands over the smaller one. Farra. “Farra? Yavo?”
“Vad, vad. This is you, Trilby?” Mitkanos answered first.
“It’s me.”
Farra was coughing. Mitkanos worked on releasing her harness.
“Where’s Rhis?” Trilby asked.
“Here.” He was leaning in the hatchway. “Bloody Gods damned generators—”
She nearly sprang into his arms, tripping over cables and warped panels on the way. He caught her tightly against him. His face was wet and covered with something gritty, but she didn’t care. She kissed him until Mitkanos stumbled into them, bumping her sideways.
“S’viek noyet.” The large man grabbed a skewed section of bulkhead, tried to twist it sideways.
Dallon. Gods, no.
Rhis moved, braced his arms against the tall panel, pushed with Mitkanos. Behind them, Farra worked on the command console.
The red-tinged emergency lights brightened. Two small overhead white lights flickered on. Trilby could see Dallon slumped in his harness. Mitkanos grabbed his arm, felt for a pulse.
Dallon stirred, raised his head groggily. “Bloody hell.”
“Don’t move yet,” Rhis ordered in Zafharish, and drew out a small medistat.
“Vad yasch… . I’m okay, Captain. Just blacked out. Enviro must have quit.”
“It did.” Rhis ran the unit down Dallon’s side. “You’re a tough one, Patruzius.”
“Captain.” It was Rhis whom Mitkanos called to, but Trilby turned as well, stepped toward him. And saw Jagan’s form pinned awkwardly in the chair, a metal rod protruding from his chest. Blood stained the front of his pale shirt. His eyes were open, as if in surprise.
She closed her eyes, felt her head start to spin, then Rhis’s arm was around her waist. He lifted her into his chair. “Put your head down. That’s it. Deep breath. Deep breath. It’s all right.”
All right. Was it all right? Jagan was dead, impaled by a conduit casing that must have shot through the ceiling in the explosion. A foot to the left and it would’ve hit Dallon. Or, at another angle, herself. Or Rhis.
She stopped staring at her boots—they were scuffed—and raised her face. “I’ll be okay.”
He kissed her forehead.
“Ship’s status?” she asked.
“Well, enviro’s working.” He glanced over his shoulder at Mitkanos, whose arm was wrapped around his niece’s shoulders. “I don’t know about the hyperspace engines. Or the drives.”
“Only emergency systems respond on the boards,” Farra said. “Lights, enviro. That is all.”
Dallon had moved to Mitkanos’s station and leaned over the monitors, one arm clasped painfully against his side. “Weapons are not responding. Not that I’d expect—”
The ship jerked suddenly, followed by several loud thunks. Farra tottered against Mitkanos. “What was that?”
“Tractor beam, maybe.” Rhis frowned, glanced over Trilby’s shoulder at his console. Most of the screens were dead. His hand moved to the small pistol holstered to his hip. “Or boarding ram.”
Mitkanos and Dallon mimicked his movement. Trilby patted her utility belt, felt her pistol and tools.
Another series of jerking movements and more thunks.
“Boarding ram,” Dallon said, nodding. “Can we lock the bridge?”
Farra tapped at her console. “Nothing is responding.”
“We have to make a stand here,” Rhis said. “That convoy’s on its way.”
“How many will board at once?” Farra asked.
Trilby heard the muted click as Rhis unlocked his pistol. “I have no way of telling. But they have to come through that hatchway one at a time.” He motioned to Dallon and Mitkanos. “Either side of the doorway. Then silence. Let’s not give them any advance warning.”
Trilby sat at communications, listened to her breathing, listened to the creaking and groaning of her ship. Rhis stood next to her, leaning one hip against the console. His pistol was in one hand, his other lightly massaged her shoulder.
Farra was at Mitkanos’s station: weapons. Useless now.
Only command and copilot chairs were empty. They were the first things anyone would see coming through the hatchway.
Sounds. Thumping. Then voices, high-pitched, nasal. Jarring. ’Sko voices. Ycskrite words. Trilby snaked one hand up to her shoulder, squeezed Rhis’s fingers. He squeezed back, hard. Then released her.
No distractions. Not now.
Boot steps, clearly boot steps now. Coming quickly, but not as quickly as her heart thudded double time in her chest. How many of the ’Sko had boarded? How many could they kill before their pistols went cold?
What if the other mother ship took out the Norvind convoy before it got here?
Forms suddenly appeared in the hatchway. She raised her pistol as Rhis fired. She took aim, squeezed the trigger in rapid succession. Laser fire singed through the air. Red-suited forms, tall, thin, flailed, screamed. Behind them, others fired back.
Ycskrite words were shouted. Rhis pushed her to the floor, snugged her up against the console. She saw Dallon drop to one knee, fire around a thin body jerking under impact.
Mitkanos backed up, drew Farra behind him. She fired over his shoulder.
The red-uniformed ’Sko kept coming. She could see gloved hands grab the wounded and lifeless bodies. Muted thumps followed as they were shoved out of the way, down the stairwell.
Trilby saw a flash of red, fired again.
“We need cover!” Rhis barked harshly in Zafharish.
Dallon jerked his head toward the bulkhead panel skewed across the nav station.
Trilby understood. They had to move the long metal panel diagonally across the bridge. It would give them a four-foot-high wall. They could wedge one end at the copilot’s chair, the other at communications. They wouldn’t be trapped on the flanks, like they were now.
Their shots would be more accurate.
Trilby understood something else. They needed accuracy. Their pistols were running low on power.
“Mitkanos!” Rhis pointed to the communications chair. “Lock it down. Patruzius and I will shove the panel toward you.”
Mitkanos scrambled sideways. Farra adjusted her crouch, tapped off two more shots as he moved.
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