by A. R. Knight
As sappy as that sounded, in a universe like this? Friends were hard to come by.
Eponi unplugged the cord, reached down and lifted up the grate. Felt around to find the open slot on the battery’s port, and gave the maneuvering jets free access to the boost juice. Immediately, a new hum rumbled through the Prisa, the ship waking up and realizing it could still be saved.
“I’ll come back for the rest of you later,” Eponi said to the switchboard and its torched lines.
Feeling her way back through the stairs, up and all the way to the cockpit, Eponi saw the Nautilus had kept its advance, stretching out its lead. The flight stick felt dead in Eponi’s hands, its assisting power gone with most everything else. But when Eponi toggled on the jets, when she pulled back hard on the flight stick, the links worked.
The Prisa flew.
Twenty-Five
One Over All
Rovo watched. For the first time in what felt like forever, he watched.
Lamya and her squad rounded up the agents, packed the twenty or so together and marched them off somewhere. The agents didn’t look happy, didn’t look sad. If Rovo had to guess, the dry expressions on their faces said they were thrilled to be alive, and not too concerned about the future.
Worrying, that. But then, so was the pain spreading out from his chest and leaking on down his legs, up around his shoulders. Nerves that didn’t want to rest.
Rovo watched the skeleton crew manning the comm center, the loyal officers, ensigns, and various crew going back to their duties while dealing with the couldn’t-be-fun realization that their co-workers, their friends, their fellows had been someone else the entire time. Rovo hadn’t felt that betrayal before, but he knew how duty could distract, and Deepak’s crew went back to sending along messages, handling called-in questions, and directing traffic around the ship.
Others set about cleaning what they could, or helping bots navigate through the wreckage to start repairs.
Aurora hooked Rovo’s main attention, though. She’d picked the closest console that didn’t have a laser hole through its screen. Rovo saw her tapping through, sending one message after another, each one reading the same thing.
As if feeling Rovo’s eyes on her, Aurora stole a look his way.
“Still alive over there?” Aurora asked.
“Not sure I want to be,” Rovo replied. “Getting shot sucks.”
“I know. I’d take you to the med bay right now, but until I get word that it’s clear, I don’t want to risk it.”
“You know I’ve been to the med bay today?” Rovo said. “Two agents tried to kill me there.”
Aurora didn’t look thrilled at that. Rovo must’ve ruined the joking mood. Set things on a different course, because Aurora pushed herself back from the desk and took the few long steps to sit next to Rovo.
“Agents tried to kill Sai and Eponi as well,” Aurora said. “Me, too. Renard, that man we saw in the projection on Wexer? This is all his play. He thought I’d know where Kaia was, that’s why he had Deepak separate me.” Aurora’s eyes narrowed, looked at nothing in particular. “Deepak made it seem like the Nautilus was at risk. That’s why he helped Renard, or so he says.”
“Do you believe him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Aurora said. “We’re going to fight for the ship regardless.”
“Why?” Rovo replied. “We know where Kaia is. We should just get in the Prisa and leave. Who gives a damn about the Nautilus?”
The question came out easier than Rovo thought it would. The little girl that he’d found, alone and largely abandoned in that Dynas apartment, made the ship, made all the agents and the admiral and their dueling agendas so pointless.
Here he’d joined Sever to become a battle-hardened soldier and now a girl’s carefree love had thrown that dream away. And Rovo didn’t care at all.
“Because if we let Renard win here, then he can focus his resources on us,” Aurora said. “If we push the troops across DefenseCorp to fight the agents on their ships, on their worlds, then DefenseCorp’s going to be too busy struggling with itself to care what we do.”
Rovo blinked. Tried to catch on to Aurora’s words and what they really meant.
“Those messages you were sending, what were they?”
“The truth.” Aurora leaned her head against the wall behind her, and Rovo figured she must’ve been as exhausted as he was. “I sent exactly what happened here to every DefenseCorp ship in the Nautilus directory. They’ll all hear that they shouldn’t trust their agents onboard, that they need to act to prevent a coup.”
“The agents might intercept those messages.”
“Good. If some get through and some don’t, that will make it look even worse. The more we turn DefenseCorp against itself, the better.”
“You’re sounding almost evil, Aurora.”
“I’m protecting my squad, Rovo,” Aurora said. “And I don’t think turning more squads against Renard and whatever his plans are is evil.”
“No, but . . .”
“C’mon.” Aurora stood up, reached down to help Rovo to his unsteady feet. “Until the med bay’s ready, I have something I need you to do.”
Aurora set Rovo at the console. The messages Aurora had been sending played out in front of the rookie, with plenty more ready to get passed on to still more ships. DefenseCorp had thousands, maybe millions, of vessels covering the galaxy, and Aurora wanted to send the message to every single one.
Rovo also noticed Aurora hadn’t signed the messages as herself. The name attached to all of these belonged to the comm officer that’d used this desk before the firefight. A war started by someone that might already be dead, that would never know what they’d been used for.
“I’m not a communications expert,” Aurora said, noting that she’d been sending the messages one by one. “You are. I’m hoping you can find a way to do this faster.”
“If I don’t die first.”
“About that,” Aurora said. “I’ll talk with Lamya. Get a medic to take a look, and once we clear the med bay, you’re going back in.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“We haven’t heard anything from the bridge in a long time,” Aurora said. “I don’t know what that means for Sai and Eponi, but I want to find out. Vana and Gregor are heading up there, but I’m going to try and get some more information. I won’t be far away, so call if you need something.”
His commander left Rovo there, staring at a screen with the responsibility to tear a galaxy apart.
Back aboard his old space station, in his old career, with his old responsibilities, Rovo saw all the correspondence that shifted through his sector. Saw plenty of messages meant to undercut an admiral here or build up an officer there. Political maneuvering. Sides existed everywhere, and DefenseCorp often handled its internal disagreements with the victor sending the loser off on some distant assignment to a forgotten rock like, well, Wexer.
Rovo read the message Aurora had been sending, wanted sent. It didn’t have the straightforward language drafted by a specialist, and it lacked the authoritative tone to command immediate action. Instead, Aurora demanded action in simple terms, presenting the agents as a nebulous threat that ought to be apprehended to be safe.
Aurora wanted a war, but the way she’d written this thing would fall right within the usual DefenseCorp trappings. If anyone bothered to act on it, they’d slap the agents on the wrist until the agents convinced them otherwise.
The threat couldn’t be nebulous. Couldn’t be vague. The agents had to have an objective that would bring every squaddie to their feet in anger. That would have admirals putting stun cuffs on any agents they saw.
Rovo knew words that could bring that about. Clear evidence coupled with specific steps to negate the immediate danger. Add in some official dressing, and a message that could be dismissed as a strange superlative would get right to the captain of every ship. Would no doubt get some to take their agents in until the truth came out.
> Enough agents would protest the action, enough fights would break out, that Aurora’s plan might work for a while. Buy Sever some time.
Rovo felt chills, sat back from the console and looked around the comm center. Lamya had squaddies posted outside the partitions, watching for some attack that hadn’t come. Aurora spoke with the commander not all that far away, and it looked like the two were arguing over something. Otherwise, the center hummed as those who still had working desks went back to it, while others helped bots with the clean-up. The smoke dwindled, though the burning smell permeated everything.
A sign that as fast as things could go back to normal, some things simply wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Triggering a face off between DefenseCorp’s two main divisions would do the same.
She’d come to the door when Rovo knocked. They’d communicated through a twisting knob, the slight shivers and tremors in the door. Rovo had carried Kaia through Dynas, pursued by the people who could’ve been the very same agents they fought here. Hunting for her, wanting to use Kaia, her blood, for things Rovo didn’t want to imagine.
Yeah, he could send the message.
The work came easy once he’d decided to do it. Rovo slipped in the terms, re-arranged the focus, and then queued up the release to patch through networks on a repeated blast. Aurora had been sending isolated messages one ship at a time. Rovo had the Nautilus broadcasting the warning on a constant beat to any satellite in range, using a general DefenseCorp tag that any DC ship would snag and see.
It would take years for the warning to cross the galaxy, but the words would get there.
“It’s done,” Rovo said, making his slow way to Aurora.
“You look better,” Aurora replied, looking up from her console. The words came bright, but Rovo saw worry. “Medic do his job?”
The medic had flushed Rovo with enough painkillers to keep him floating on a numbing cloud, yes.
“I’m all right for now,” Rovo replied. “What’s up with Sai and Eponi?”
Aurora tapped at the screen, blew up a scanner showing ships around the Nautilus, “The Prisa’s out there. Looks like someone decided to try and shoot them down. I’m not getting a reply from the ship, and it’s falling behind the Nautilus. We can’t slow down the cruiser without the admiral giving the order.” Aurora’s muscles tightened, a spring coiling. “If Deepak’s even still alive. I haven’t heard from Gregor and Vana either, which makes me worried.”
“So we have problems, is what you’re saying.”
“Definitely problems,” Aurora looked over Lamya’s way. “Lamya’s playing her orders. She doesn’t want to leave the comm center, especially if there’s a chance the bridge is compromised.”
“Aren’t there other squads on the ship?”
“That’s the thing,” Aurora said. “They’re all getting pulled to guard critical points. We’ve already sent three to the bridge, and haven’t heard back from any of them.”
So why send more into the maw?
“Then, what do we do?” Rovo wished he had something smarter to say, but he hadn’t exactly dealt with a total ship takeover before.
“You ought to get some rest,” Aurora replied. “I think I can convince another squad to head to the bridge, and I’ll go with’em this time.”
“Because you’ll make the difference. One person.”
“One badass commander, you mean.”
“This isn’t a joke, Aurora,” Rovo said. “I mean, Kaia’s life depends on us getting off this ship alive. Sai and Eponi might need help. And, hell, I need help.”
“And none of that matters if we can’t take the bridge, or make sure it’s destroyed,” Aurora said. “Otherwise, they’ll know anything we do. They can shut doors behind us, turn turrets against us, or worse.”
Rovo leaned against the glass-topped cross, grateful for the support the thing gave his exhausted legs, his sore chest. The painkillers did a great job killing the aches, but the drugs sure left a lot of crap behind to deal with.
Aurora had it right: Rovo did need to rest.
Not that he could.
“If you’re going to the bridge, then I’m going to the docking bays,” Rovo said. “I’m going to get Sai and Eponi.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“For this, I don’t need to be.”
Rovo would’ve laughed at the look Aurora gave him then, would’ve if pushing that much air through his torched lungs didn’t make the rookie feel like he was about to die.
But he hadn’t.
Not yet.
Twenty-Six
Restless Warrior
The next assignment, Deepak threw Sever onto an edge. A placement guaranteed to see little action. Observe and protect. Aurora wasn’t thrilled, but she gave Deepak room there. Sever had some new recruits to fill the losses from before. Good to ease them in.
But the one after that? After they’d spent the night watching a nebula spin by in its glorious purples and reds? Deepak threw Sever into the reserve again, playing guard duty around a collection of wealthy bureaucrats whose cash made them annoying and irrelevant to the riot suppression work DefenseCorp was really there to do.
By the third toss-off task, Aurora didn’t even look at Deepak while he read off Sever’s crap assignment. After the briefing, she didn’t wait for him. When they returned, Sever not suffering a scratch, not even firing a blast, Aurora kept her mouth shut, her eyes looking elsewhere.
Only when Deepak waited outside her cabin, when he blocked her from going inside, did Aurora decide the time had come to talk.
“You’re trying to protect me, and I don’t need it. I don’t want it,” Aurora said, opening the conversation with the hottest salvo she’d sent in months. “Sever doesn’t deserve it. We’re good enough for the hard work, we’ve earned it. Hell, our cash accounts make it seem like we’re cleaning toilets.”
“You’re alive,” Deepak said. “You’re not hurt. Isn’t that better?”
“Of course I don’t want to get hurt, but that’s the job,” Aurora replied, sending her arm past Deepak to open the cabin. He followed her inside. “I’m not your delicate flower that you get to protect.”
“Don’t I?” Deepak’s eyes flashed, and he leaned on the wall, trying to project a cockiness the man hadn’t had any day in his life. “It’s my job to make the assignments.”
“It is,” Aurora countered. “You’re supposed to put DefenseCorp in the best spot to succeed, and that’s not happening when we’re in back.”
“Maybe I don’t care what DefenseCorp wants.”
“Then what about what I want?” Aurora said. “Do you care about that?”
Again, Deepak fell into a faltering protest. Of course he cared about her, that’s all this was. Of course he wanted her to do well, but not getting into danger. Of course he—
“This is a bad idea,” Aurora said, cutting Deepak off as he delved deeper and deeper into pathetic territory. “You’re a good guy, Deepak, but I’m not yours to save. Don’t protect me, don’t screw my squad.”
Deepak stiffened, saw Aurora had no joke, no softness in her look. Words seemed to come and go from his mouth for several seconds, before he fell into a formal DefenseCorp nod, said goodbye, and left.
The next assignment, Sever found themselves dropping behind enemy lines. During the briefing, Deepak didn’t look Aurora’s way. Afterward, he didn’t wait for her. And when they passed by another nebula, Aurora didn’t watch it from the top deck.
But the cash in her account grew and grew.
Some people leapt over the edge, others had to be pushed. Deepak put himself in the latter camp, standing on the bridge with Renard. DefenseCorp’s two divisions hung in the balance there on the Nautilus, the agents and the soldiers, facing off over the ship’s direction, over the future of the company that, by now, had the galaxy’s strength.
If one admiral gave way before Renard’s pressure, how many others would follow suit?
Aurora couldn’t know how much Renar
d infected. Whether the man spoke only for the agents he’d gathered on the Nautilus, whether he was only one branch of a larger web strung throughout DefenseCorp. Either way, she’d learned, she’d been taught, that you have to cleanse the disease wherever it appears, and prevent it from spreading.
That doing so would keep pressure off Sever’s backs? A nice benefit.
Most of all, Aurora wanted to wipe that smug, plastic smile off Renard’s face.
Sai and Eponi had agreed to the idea. Their role: provide the distraction, prevent Deepak and Renard from settling into their servant-ruler agreement. Spark a fight on the Nautilus that would give Aurora time to send the messages.
They’d succeeded. Now, Aurora had to complete the mission.
After helping Rovo get going towards the docking bays—two squaddies went with him for escort and assistance to keep him moving—Aurora counted Lamya and six squaddies left holding the comm center. Most of the others had left to escort the agent prisoners to Deepak’s designated bay.
Not a great number to defend against an ambush, though Aurora felt less and less like any attack would happen. The agents, so far, had shown a desire to work from the shadows, to leverage surprise for their assaults.
Sitting here and waiting would make Aurora and the others easy targets.
“You’re not going to the bridge too,” Lamya said when Aurora said what she was going to do. “Can’t let you.”
“Let me?”
The squad commander, bearing a few laser burns on her uniform and a gray bandage across her shoulder, waved a hand around her, “This is, until we hear otherwise, the Nautilus bridge. We have to defend it, and I need to know what’s going on. You’re going to debrief me, and then we’re going to set up here until we get more information.”
“You’re playing this like a normal engagement,” Aurora replied. “It’s not. We have to keep them guessing, moving. If we give—”
“We’re not giving them anything,” Lamya put a hand on Aurora’s shoulder. “Our squads are securing every major system on the ship. Soon, even if there are more agents on board, they won’t have power over anything. We can sweep each section in turn, validate identities, and net anyone suspicious.”