Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2)

by Marie Andreas

  Vas shuddered as the images she’d seen while hanging upside down in a drifting Fury came back to her. Deven hadn’t been around during that event, but he’d probably read the reports—at least what she’d put in them.

  “I think I saw them.” Vas held up her hand to hold off the barrage of questions she saw on the faces before her. “No, I didn’t make an official report. Mac didn’t see what I saw, so I thought maybe I had hallucinated. When the Fury was drifting, I saw a place filled with war ships—ones like nothing I’ve ever seen. The images only lasted a short time, but it was terrifying if that was real.”

  “The attack you did on the breach with the Fury temporally opened something,” Deven said. She’d been right, he’d studied what had gone on while he was gone. “Did any of the ships react to you?”

  “None of them.”

  Everyone was silent for a few moments. Vas had forgotten the incident until now. To be honest, there were a lot of far more pressing events taking place, and she had been injured and oxygen deprived when it happened.

  “We can track down Marli if you want,” Deven said, “but Flarik is right, we have to destroy Mayhira.”

  Vas waited a few moments, but, again, no one in the room was responding. “And how do we do that? In case you all haven’t noticed, we don’t have a planet killing gray ship hanging around, and if we did, they would be trying to stop us.”

  Gosta got up from where he’d been looking at the results from the study of the silver matter on Mayhira. He paced, but wouldn’t look at Vas. Considering that her ready room wasn’t that large that wasn’t easy to do.

  “You are not going to like this, Captain.” He finally circled back to his seat and settled in, but stayed perched on the edge of the chair. “I’ve actually broken down some of the information about the buoy.”

  “And?” she finally prompted. Anyone else and she would have questioned the leap from blowing up a planet to the odd space junk Aithnea had left her. But she knew Gosta well enough to know the subject jump wasn’t as wide as it seemed.

  “There is no way to put this nicely. It’s a bomb.”

  43

  Gosta glanced up quickly but then dropped his head back down to look at his hand-held. He looked like he was trying to find a way to crawl into it.

  “A bomb?” Vas tilted her head. Maybe she had misheard. “As in I have a potentially deadly bomb sitting in my decon hold?” Had that thing come from anyone other than Aithnea, Vas would have been racing to jettison it. Aithnea had clearly wanted her to take it—and it had saved the ship by being able to communicate with the Victorious Dead’s core when they couldn’t get to it any other way. “How in the hell could we have missed that?”

  Everyone started talking at once, but Vas held up her hand. “Is it a danger to us right now?”

  Gosta chewed on his lip, then shook his head. But it was more like a shake-shrug.

  “I told you, your Mother Superior was a crafty nun,” Flarik said with a look of admiration. “These texts indicate the order’s purpose was to prepare for a battle when the Asarlaí returned. Quite a feat since most of the known galaxy believed them all dead.”

  Deven nodded. “I don’t think we’re in danger from this. When she knew they were not going to survive, she needed to make sure it got to the one person who could finish their work.”

  Vas leaned back in her seat. Aithnea had said she and her crew were needed to do something big. There was more to it than that. Aithnea herself could have carried out the destruction of Mayhira if she’d just told the gray ships where Vas was. There was no way that Aithnea would betray Vas—but she also clearly had a plan for Vas that went beyond using the buoy.

  “I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” Vas muttered under her breath.

  “What?” Flarik said it but Gosta and Deven looked just as confused.

  “Aithnea said this ship, and myself, had something much bigger to do. For a brief moment I thought maybe destroying that wretched planet was it. But I think, whatever she had in mind, it’s bigger than this.”

  “Do you have the specs for the bomb?” Deven leaned over to Gosta.

  Gosta got to his feet. “I do, but the full analysis is better viewed on my console.”

  Deven got to his feet as well. “Looks like we have a planet to blow up after all.” He gave Vas a tilt of his head, then he and Gosta left the ready room.

  Flarik started to follow, but turned at the door. “Did something happen down there? Aside from you three almost getting destroyed by the empress?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Deven seems different…more Devenish.” She had her investigative lawyer look on—the one where it felt like her eyes were not only going through the person but into their entire history and possibly that of their parents.

  Vas shook off the chill she got whenever Flarik looked at her like that. It was interesting that Flarik had noticed a change when Deven really hadn’t said much at all. Vas had felt it during their kiss—a moment where he just became him. And obviously Flarik had picked up on the change now as well.

  “I think he’s coming back to himself. There are still a lot of memories from those two copies, but he’s getting through them.” Vas might just ask Nariel if physical stimulation could help memory loss. If that’s what got him on the track back to himself, Vas was really going to have to make sure they found time to work on it some more.

  The tilt of Flarik’s head told Vas she wasn’t fooled. “I see. Well, it’s good to have him back.” She walked out of the ready room.

  Vas started to follow, but then sat down again. One thing she was not, and never had been, was retrospective. Things happened, you adjusted, and you moved on. But life right now was a bit much even for her. Not only was her second-in-command back from the dead, an entire religion had destroyed itself to protect Vas and her crew…so they could go blow up a planet and whatever else they were supposed to do. Most likely there was an obscure prophecy out there outlining exactly how Vas’s life was going to go to hell. And, oh yeah, it looked like the long dead Asarlaí were alive, in another dimension, but fighting to come through. And they had friends and robots on this side trying to help them. That image she’d seen when she was drifting in the dead Fury was soul chilling. She put her head down on her fists and took a few deep breaths.

  What she wanted was a few more drinks, then for all of them to run off somewhere and hide. Vas wasn’t a coward, but she was a pragmatist. This universe was in for a world of hurt and for the first time in her adult life she didn’t know if she could fight hard enough to stop it.

  The deep breathing calmed her. This was what she did. She fought for whoever paid her, but in this case her payment would be having a galaxy to live in. She got to her feet and headed for the door. Hopefully Gosta and Deven had figured out the best way to blow up the planet.

  Bathie had taken over the long-range communication station and called Vas over as soon as she came out of her ready room. “I’ve been tracking the Flaxen Gusset; the empress is taking a different route, but hasn’t been able to mask her signature. It’s odd though, the way they’re going will get them there after us—by at least two hours.”

  Vas scowled at the screen Bathie showed her. The empress had been slowed down a bit by the Silantians—she’d obviously pissed them off by entering their space without clearance. But Vas had made note of when her ship left the system and they weren’t that far behind. Why was she now taking an older gate route to get there?

  “Do we know if she’s meeting up with anyone else along the way?” Vas pointed at the route the empress was taking. “What planets are along that?”

  Bathie had far more creative swear words than even Vas. “The Rillianians had three outpost worlds here,” she said as she tapped the screen. “They haven’t used them for at least twenty years, but as far as the official records show, no one else has either. All three are small and don’t have much to sustain life.”

  Well, that reinforced the suspicion that the e
mpress had been working with someone—it had been just speculation that it was the gray ships trapped on this side. But the ships were connected to the Rillianian monks, and that was a close enough connection for Vas.

  “I think I know why the gray ships fired on Mayhira when the explosions began,” Hrrru’s voice came from the comm, but Vas automatically looked toward his empty station. She shook her head at the habit, he wasn’t going to be leaving Terel’s care any time soon. “Whoever caused the reaction that brought the silver substance to the surface, did it prematurely. They knew what was happening and were halting the process. Possibly Empress Wilthuny realized her error when she was down there.”

  Vas nodded. Either that or someone else stopped the process Wilthuny started with her explosions.

  “Let me check something,” Bathie said as she pulled up files. “Yup. Gosta was tracking her when you and Deven were still down on Mayhira—she left via the Javae system.”

  Crap. Wilthuny had screwed things up when she attempted to destroy her own gahan in an attempt to get whatever was under the surface out. And to get some recompense via suing the Mayhiran government. Then she went and called her friends in the gray ships to come fix it when things didn’t go as planned. Goddess only knew who she was bringing in from the Rillianian outposts this time.

  Vas stared at the star screen and the empress’s path a few more moments. But when nothing solidified in terms of actual answers she turned back to her command chair. She skimmed the updates on her ship and the Victorious Dead. Marli had done more than a few adjustments to it during her assistance of the repair. Next time she popped back into their lives Vas would have to get a list.

  “I think we have a plan,” Deven said. He was definitely back to his normal self—he’d snuck up on her without notice. He used to do that all the time when he first started working with her. It annoyed the hell out of her then. It was actually welcome this time. Providing he didn’t keep it up.

  “Do you wish to share this plan, or just stand there smirking?” Vas had to admit, he did look different than before the trip down to Silantian. Maybe it was the look of potential mischief that seemed to constantly linger near his eyes and mouth. It had been missing before, but she hadn’t noticed it had been gone until she saw it now.

  “You used to like my smirk.” He flashed a lethal and very Devenish smile.

  Vas narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Agreed, this isn’t the time,” he said, but the words were offset by the continued smirk. “Gosta has some good schematics and I think we can manage to blow up Mayhira. We’re going to need an asteroid drill though.”

  “A class one asteroid reduction unit,” Gosta added from his console.

  Even an old drill would be very hard to get on short notice—legally anyway. A class one would be practically impossible. Those deceptively small drills were designed to destroy the big asteroids out on the rim. “First off, how would we get one of those, secondly, even a class one won’t destroy a planet. Even a relatively small one like Mayhira.”

  “Ah, but we’re not going to destroy it that way,” Gosta said.

  “Gosta has found the weakest spot in the planet’s mantle,” Deven said. “The plan is to drill down there and plant the bomb. If we get it under the silver material the detonation should create a chain reaction.”

  While it was good that Deven was himself again, that also meant that cues such as him holding back from telling her bad news were back in place as well. He got a thin line between his eyebrows when he knew she wasn’t going to be happy. “What else?”

  Deven stood back and watched the star screen in front of them. “We need to get into their capital to run the drill, and that was filled with black suits when we left before, per Gosta’s excellent scanning.”

  “And?” This was not good. It was already a crappy situation and for Deven to not even meet her eye? Vas wished that he was less like his old self right now.

  The look on his face when he finally turned to her made her wish he would go back to not looking at her. “It’s a close situation. If the bomb works the way we believe it will, the planet will be destroyed. If we’re off just a little bit, we risk turning it into the power source needed to open the gateway the Asarlaí are trying to create.”

  44

  The sad thing was, finding out that an action you need to take might lead to a galactic take-over by a bunch of powerful, homicidal maniacs wasn’t the worst thing Vas had ever faced. Okay, it probably was. But she decided that not looking too deeply might be the best course of action right now. “How sure are we that we won’t screw this up—that’s a pretty damn brutal failure risk.”

  Deven shook his head and started to go back toward his console.

  “I’d say we have about a twenty percent chance of getting it right,” Gosta said before Deven could. “No. I’d say closer to eighteen percent. Less if we don’t move quickly.”

  Vas closed her eyes and said a long, swear word-filled prayer to Aithnea. Granted, the Mother Superior didn’t set this all in place—the Asarlaí did that. But she’d made sure that Vas would be in place to resolve it. Or bring about a hell the likes the universe hadn’t seen in generations.

  “Do we have any other options, and I mean any?” Vas kept her eyes closed and leaned back in her chair.

  “Not at all,” Deven had come back to the side of her chair silently and his voice made her jump.

  “Then we do this. Gosta, work with Hrrru and nail down the specs as tightly as possible.” She got out of her chair to face her deck crew. Then thought about it and flipped open the ship comm and the intership comm to the Victorious Dead. “We’re about to go on a very important mission. The planet Mayhira has been compromised beyond recovery and we have to demolish it. There are enemy combatants in the area we need to get to in order to destroy it; and if we screw up, the Asarlaí are going to find another way through to this plane. I need all multi-level fighters to prepare for battle—we’ll leave skeleton crews on both ships. I also need anyone with experience using a class one asteroid reduction unit to report to me immediately. Questions should be fielded to Deven and Gosta. Vas out.”

  The deck crew had been privy to the prior conversation so there were no shocked faces. However, Vas knew that wouldn’t be the case for the rest of either ship. Pulling most of her crew off the ship to fight was something she rarely did. But while they had a few generational ships on their way to get folks off Mayhira, they weren’t carrying fighters.

  The other issue would be only taking the multi-trained personnel. Terel hadn’t had a chance to really examine the black suits, but they were, at least partially, if not completely, biomechanical. They’d had some problems when Vas had first met them and she used a pulse weapon of Gosta’s creation. The pulse weapon disabled all tech weapons in a large area—but it had also affected the black suits. Not as much damage as jamming their ability to jump, but she’d make sure they were prepared for that as well. Which meant she was going to need a lot of low-tech fighters. Gosta still hadn’t found a way to have the weapon target only one group. Her people would be without high-tech weapons as well.

  “How many of your anti-tech pulse toys do you have ready?” Vas wasn’t completely sure how he made them, but it appeared to be very time consuming. And they were only a single use.

  Gosta nodded, but by the way he looked upwards, Vas knew he was thinking. “Four that are complete. Three others that you could take with you, but they haven’t been tested and might not do what you want.”

  “Would they hurt us?”

  “No.”

  “Excellent. Put them in a separate bag within the pack, but we’ll need all that you have.”

  Gosta left the deck.

  Vas walked over to Mac in his pilot sling. “I’ll need you to get us a class one asteroid reduction unit and get it to Mayhira. Take Gon and Walvento with you.” Neither of those two were expert low-tech fighters, and they were big and strong. Mac was going to need back up in whatever seedy und
erworld he got the drill.

  “What? Why would you think that I…I mean…what I’m saying—”

  “Is that you have the best underworld connections of anyone in the entire crew, and you’re certain that you can complete this job.” Vas cut him off.

  Mac opened his mouth a few times, then finally nodded. “I might know someone. How much are we willing to spend?”

  “Spend whatever you need. I’m assuming you don’t want to reach out to those contacts out here. Go to your quarters and get us that damn drill.”

  Mac scrambled out of his pilot’s sling and ran for the lift. Divee stepped in without a word to take the pilot controls.

  “Xsit, can you try to hail Marli? It could be helpful to have her in on this.” Vas wasn’t sure about calling in the Asarlaí woman, but she needed anything she could get her hands on quickly at this point.

  “No response, Captain.”

  Vas went toward the lift. “Keep trying and call me if you find her. I’ll be in the med labs.”

  They had a two-hour lead on the empress, and that she was taking the longer route instead of worrying about them having that lead told Vas the empress wasn’t concerned about them. Or at least not as much as she hopefully should be.

  The lift opened and Vas ran down to the med labs and shoved open the doors. Terel wasn’t there so she kept hitting doors until she found her. The away crew fighting with the Hight had been able to grab a dead black suit—or most of one. Terel was taking it even further apart to find out how to destroy them.

  “We’re going to be fighting those things very soon,” Vas said. “What have you found?”

  “I heard. Not much really. They are definitely biomechanical, but very basic. There is little in the way of higher brain function. And these suits and helmets are compensating for a very compromised internal system.”

  Vas looked at the parts spread out on the table. The interior sort of resembled a formerly living being, but only if that being was made up of bio-gel. A substance used exclusively for injuries in hospitals.