"Enough games, General," Grimshaw said, folding his arms. “I’ll hear your terms.”
"The North Star must be carrying around fifty people." Ovious shrugged. "Their lives in exchange for you and the ship. That sounds like a fair trade to me."
Grimshaw stroke his beard as he considered the proposal. "My crew will leave on the Starfall. I'll stay behind. Will you agree to letting the shuttle reach twelve clicks before bringing me in?”
"Six clicks."
Grimshaw cocked his head. "That'll only put them slightly beyond long-range weapons. Twelve. Or we have no deal."
"Ah, Grimshaw. Just as stubborn as the last time we spoke. I could go on and on about how you are in no position to bargain, but I'm in a good mood today and in a hurry besides. Twelve clicks it is. Have the shuttle leave within the hour or I'll recant my offer. I don't have all day."
"Leave it with me, General," Grimshaw said.
A grin further twisted the Shanti's scarred face. "Oh, and make sure Ensign Clio Evans and her monkey stay behind too. Evans killed my son back on the Sentinel, and my daughter would like to...settle matters. If either Evans or the monkey try to leave, I'll blow the North Star and her shuttle to pieces."
"But—"
The connection cut before Grimshaw could finish his sentence. He turned to Clio then to the rest of the crew.
The fires had been brought under control and the smoke was dissipating.
"You all heard the conversation," he said, his eyes coming to rest on Clio and Booster, his brow raised in question. "Clio and Booster have a decision to make. The rest of you, abandon ship."
"We can't just hand the North Star to Chimera on a plate," Clio screeched before she could stop herself. She lowered her voice. "But, I'll stay."
"Booster stay," Booster confirmed.
Clio was surprised to find she felt more for the ship's safety than her own.
Grimshaw tapped his beard.
"I don't want to hand the ship...or anyone...over any more than you do Evans, but we have no choice. Eline, get everyone to the Starfall, and get as far away from here as you can. Take the Fist of Orinmore from engineering so you can re-enter the Shroud. Even with the North Star out of the picture, we can't lose sight of the goal. We need the Omnion to recover, and we need to secure more allies. I don't know anyone better suited to carrying on the mission."
Eline nodded. "Are you sure about this, Captain?"
Grimshaw gave a half-smile, his regenerated skin looking like that of a younger man. "It's the only way."
Eline's shoulders sagged. "Then...may the gods guide your hand."
She clasped Grimshaw by the forearm and they briefly embraced.
"Godspeed, Eline."
The Shanti embraced Clio briefly. "Take care of the Captain."
"I will," Clio said, her head too light to take in what was going on.
Eline left the bridge, and the crew followed, O'Donovan giving Clio a salute before joining them.
Clio didn't know what to say. It was all too much.
"I wish I could have talked Ovious into letting you leave, Clio, but as it stands, you and Booster staying is the only assurance the others will get away."
Booster looked to Clio, his eyes shimmering in the flashing alarms.
A pang of panic gripped Clio. She looked to the bridge door and back to Grimshaw.
She stood her ground. "That's okay, sir. Until now, we've faced this thing together. We'll face whatever comes next together too."
42
Starfall
Eline directed O'Donovan to lead the rest of the crew to the cargo bay to prepare the Starfall for takeoff. She'd sent a message to the other Shanti on board, ordering them to drop what they were doing and help everyone else to the shuttle immediately.
She turned down the North Star's main atrium, her mind reeling from the brief encounter with General Ovious.
Though the General was notorious among many Shanti circles, she'd never met him. Yet he knew so much. How did he know about her life on Claracia? Her previous life wasn’t a secret, but no one had ever had cause look into her background...or so she'd assumed. And how was Ovious connected to Malek?
Thinking the name doused an old flame with rocket fuel.
The Shanti Warlord had killed her sister. She tried to settle that score once, but Malek slipped off the Aegi Order’s radar. Eline had tried to follow up, but his trail had gone cold.
Is Malek still building androids? Where is he? Does Ovious know where he is?
Countless questions she buried long ago flooded her mind on her way to engineering.
She barked orders to straggling Terran crew members she encountered on the walkways, forcing them to hurry to the shuttle.
She was about to round a corner when a private not wearing a helmet almost ran into her.
"Where the hell is your helmet, Private?"
He stopped dead in his tracks, the blood draining from his face. "I, eh..."
"Can't you see or hear the damn abandon ship alerts? Deploy your helmet now before I throw you out the nearest airlock myself."
"Er, yes, sir." He fumbled with his TEK controls as much as his words as he activated his helmet. Motors whirred as the panels expanded and the visor snapped into place.
"That's better. Where do you think you're going? All crew are to report to the Starfall immediately."
"I eh...need to get some belongings.”
"Screw your belongings. Get your ass to the shuttle. Now!"
"Yes, sir," he mumbled as he turned tail and ran towards the stern.
Damn Terrans can't follow simple orders.
Most of the Shanti she'd brought from the Sentinel were already on board the Starfall assisting others as they arrived. The Captain entrusted her with the lives of the crew and she wasn't going to take that responsibility lightly.
She didn't want to leave Grimshaw and Evans behind, but the Captain had made the best decision possible given the situation. Grimshaw was as foolish as the Terran, but he was usually right when it mattered. And he was well respected by the crew. She had to give him that much.
Eline hammered an access panel and made her way into the engineering deck’s upper corridor.
The walkway rocked.
She kept her balance despite her sprained ankle and torn shoulder. The pain meds had finally kicked in. She checked the ship's status via her SIG. Much of the North Star had been harder hit than the bridge. Several fires on the sub decks were messing with the gravity generators, but she had to focus on engineering.
She passed the elevator system and was glad to see it had been deactivated. She descended the steps two at a time and arrived at a giant hole looking out into the debris field. The Monolith remained stationary at a distance, its bulk blotting out the stars.
Eline pulled herself along the walkway rail where half the floor had fallen away, doing her best not to touch the shimmering breach-shield that held the atmosphere inside. Reaching the other side, she opened the next door.
Heat blasted her suit.
A fire raged in the adjoining corridor. Voices called from the other side. She barely made them out over the roar, but deciphered the word, ‘valve’. She followed the pipes running the length of the wall and realized what they were trying to say. A fuel pipe had ruptured and caught alight.
The valve was no more than six feet from the flame jets. She approached slowly, shielding her face with a hand. The heat inside her TEK suddenly became overwhelming and her environmental warning system alerted her to multiple imminent failures. She turned the valve in the off direction as fast as she could, more warnings appearing with every second. She fought to breathe, the hot air inside the TEK burning the back of her nose.
She finally closed the fuel line and the flames disappeared almost immediately.
She grabbed an extinguisher from the wall and blasted three small fires that remained.
Five officers emerged from the smoke beyond.
"Thank you, Commander," the nea
rest said. "I thought we were barbecue back there."
"The bulkhead just outside engineering collapsed,” a second said. "No going that way."
"Dammit," Eline muttered. "The main walkway isn't much better, but it's still passable. Were there others in engineering?”
"The Zaqarans ordered everyone to leave while they worked on getting the reactors back up. I told them the coolant system was shot to bits, but they wouldn't listen."
"Arrogant bastards need to get out of there. I'll have to take a maintenance tube from the level above. This way."
Eline led them back up the steps to the shielded hole.
"Careful you don't touch that shield if you want to keep your limbs," she said.
She led them across the rail and fastened them to the pole.
The last engineer was about to mount the walkway when a sharp crack issued from the hole.
"Harness to the rail!" Eline shouted.
They pulled hooks from their utility belts.
A louder crack issued and half the corridor vanished, flying into the void, taking two engineers with it.
Those on the walkway cried out.
One engineer reached for her friends.
"They're gone!" Eline pulled at her harness. "This way if you don't want to join them."
Eline and the other privates led the hysteric Terran around the left bend and through an open door.
Eline punched the emergency lock and the door slammed shut and her boots hit the floor.
They detached their harnesses and held onto the rail.
The three engineers slumped to the ground.
"Derek!" The crying Terran screamed. "They got Derek!"
Eline looked to the other Terrans who were holding themselves together despite also being in shock.
"Mourning your friends can wait. Don't add another three bodies to the fatality count. Get yourselves to the shuttle."
"Of course…sir," the sobbing engineer said, her wide eyes vacant.
Eline didn't think she was going to move, but the others dragged her to her feet.
"Let's go Tina,” her female colleague said. “The Commander's right. We need to get to the shuttle."
They half-carried-half-dragged her around a corner.
Eline removed a maintenance panel and slipped inside the tube, mounting the ladder.
Her TEK lights activated as she descended into darkness.
The tunnel creaked, cracked, and moaned around her. She expected the walls to disappear and be sucked into cold space, but the ship held. She reached the bottom and exited the maintenance shaft into an engineering corridor. She crouched under a section of buckled ceiling and emerged in engineering proper.
The damage inside engineering itself was surprisingly minimal. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought there was nothing wrong with the North Star. Two Zaqaran engineers worked at a control panel Eline couldn't even begin to understand.
They turned as she approached and she read their name-tags. The female with the yellow-tinted crest was called Thurz. The red-crested male was Zid.
"What the hell are you still doing here?" she snapped. "Didn't you hear the Captain's orders?”
"Of course we did,” the Thurz snapped back. "We can't leave without the key. We need to recalibrate output first to maintain as much power as possible while everyone else gets off."
"What do you mean maintain power?"
"When auxiliary power runs dry, the core will lose most of its shielding and become unstable. It'll only erupt if disturbed, but with the state the North Star is in, we can't take that chance."
"How long before we lose shielding?"
"We've redirected enough power to last an hour, maybe two,” Zid said. "Less if the North Star continues to lose systems."
"Once we take that key, power levels drop faster,” Thurz added.
"Then I guess we better hurry the hell up," Eline said, nodding at the key recess.
Thurz retrieved the key and passed it to Eline.
"This way."
They followed her back the way she'd come, climbing the maintenance tube to the deck above.
They wove their way through a string of empty corridors, signs of damage appearing every few steps.
She stopped in the hold stairwell and shone her lights below to make sure the way was clear.
A force from behind shoved her into the wall. Her visor cracked against a support beam.
She turned as Zid slammed into her.
The floor in the corridor beyond had fallen away. A monstrous flame sucked and howled.
She tried to close the door, but it was jammed open. She pulled Zid down the stairs as flames licked the landing.
A door slammed, closing them off from immediate danger.
"Don't you go getting killed on me…” she panted as she dragged the shocked Zaqaran, refusing to let him go.
“But…Thurz.”
“She’s gone. We need your help to get back into the Shroud with this thing," she snapped, holding out the key with her weaker arm. "You hear?"
He nodded frantically, his eyes wide with fear.
She led him through the next set of doors.
A section of floor had been torn away with a thin strip connecting the door to the hold entrance. Shields held the atmosphere in on either side.
"I can’t walk across that," the Zaqaran cried out.
"Either you walk it, or I leave you here with the fire that took your friend." Eline jabbed a finger into his breastplate.
Taking her own advice, she stepped onto the narrow strip of walkway. It groaned and wobbled under her weight.
To her relief, it held.
She reached the stump of floor jutting from below the hold door and turned around to find the Zaqaran hadn't budged.
"Come on," she gestured wildly.
He did so hesitantly, the sweat glistening through his visor even at a distance. He slowly inched forward, holding his arms out to either side for balance. He reached halfway when the shields below flashed.
Eline looked into the black below to find a cluster of debris heading their way. A spinning piece of the North Star struck the shields, causing a flash. The debris tumbled off into darkness.
A cluster of much larger parts headed their way. They would smash straight through the shields and tear what little remained of the corridor to pieces.
“More debris incoming," she shouted. "Hurry!"
Eline opened the door and held the frame, ready to pull herself through.
The Zaqaran sprinted on wobbly legs, his arms reaching forward in desperation. He stumbled near the end. Eline thought he was going to fall into the shields when he sprang forward, grabbing onto her arm.
She pulled him through the doorway and flipped the emergency lock as the debris struck.
A tremor shook the hangar.
A stack of crates toppled, blocking their way. Eline scrambled over them, leading the Zaqaran by the hand.
The hangar heaved, and a loading vehicle slid across the corridor.
Eline hurried ahead and pushed against the machine, wedging her legs against the wall and pushing with her one good arm. Her TEK’s joints shrieked as the vehicle's weight pressed down on her.
"Go, you fool!" she groaned.
The Zaqaran crawled under her.
Eline thought her legs would be crushed, but the hangar suddenly jumped again, pulling the heavy loader the other way. Recomposing herself, she led the red-crested engineer to the Starfall.
The ceiling above moaned and twisted as they went.
“Get a move on, that ceiling won't hold for long."
They reached the Starfall’s ramp, and she tossed the Zaqaran into the back.
Two Shanti guided him inside and forced him into a seat.
Eline climbed in behind him and the ramp.
The shuttle lurched forward and shot through the hangar doors.
She opened a link to Captain Grimshaw. "I've got the key and the case. Made it off with a Zaqaran
engineer. Good luck."
There was no answer. She hoped he heard her. Not that it would make any difference.
A plume of blue expelled from the hangar entrance and the North Star shrank to a spec before vanishing entirely in the shadow of the Monolith.
43
The Pod
Another groan issued from the depths of the North Star. Clio checked Ascari's internal readings one more time. The fires had burned out for the most part and decks with unsealed breaches had been isolated. Despite multiple hull fractures and losing most of her undercarriage, the North Star's structural integrity held, but the sounds of twisting and contracting metal made Clio imagine her being torn in half. And that was without considering the failing core shielding.
Half of her hoped the core would explode and put an end to everything. At least then, they'd take a few Chimera assholes with them.
But the bastards would send engineers to deal with the core before that could happen.
Her stimulants had worn off, and she'd lost her spares in the attack. Exhaustion crept back into her body as she rested on the chair, battling to stay awake. She couldn't let herself fall asleep. Booster needed her. As did Grimshaw.
The Puck rested on the chair opposite, messing with ruined electronics like an infant working on a puzzle beyond its comprehension.
Grimshaw sat before the secondary display, flicking through various screens and options as he waited for another update from General Ovious.
"The Starfall is well out of range,” he said. “Chimera will be in touch again soon."
"Are you really going to let them take the North Star…and...us?"
"It's the only thing I can do."
"Blowing the core is another option."
He slowly shook his head. "We might damage that dreadnaught, but they'll go after the others."
"There's got to be something else."
He turned to Clio and sighed. "We've had a good run, Evans."
"Why do you sound like you've given up, sir? We can still make it out of this. We can still complete the mission together."
He gave her a smile, but his eyes were sombre and heavy. "I don't think so, Evans.”
The Galactic Sentinel: Ultimate Edition: 4 Books with 2000+ Pages of Highly Entertaining Sci-Fi Space Adventure Page 113