by Jay Allan
His thoughts lingered for a passing instant, a few seconds’ serious consideration about ramming. He wasn’t suicidal. For all his bravado and the recklessness of so many of his missions, he really wanted to live. Kyle Jamison’s death had hit him hard, and after the initial devastation had faded, he’d come to realize what was at stake every time he flew into battle…in a way he never had before. At first, he’d vowed to avenge his friend’s death…but by the time Jovi Grachus, the Alliance pilot who had killed Jamison, died, she’d done so in a battle fighting at his side, and he’d found himself mourning her death instead of celebrating it.
Time hadn’t healed the wound of Jamison’s death, but it had given him a perspective. His lost friend would have wanted him to live, and his acceptance of the feelings he’d long had for Stara Sinclair, along with her reciprocation, had given him thoughts of a future that the crazy young pilot he’d been had never had. He would do what was necessary, be there for his pilots, for the fleet…but he wouldn’t throw his life away.
Of course, if Repulse didn’t escape, he was dead anyway. And Stara was on that ship.
His hand hovered over the controls as the hulking enemy ship grew larger and larger on the display. The Hegemony vessel was damaged, and he could see several weak spots on the scanning display. If he hit in just the right spot, slammed in with all the thrust his engines could give, he just might be able to cripple the thing. It wouldn’t be decisive, but it might buy Repulse some more time. At least a little.
Buy Stara more time.
He thought about it. For a fleeting instant, probably no more than a fraction of a second, he decided to do it. But then something stopped him. Was it self-preservation? Fear?
Or the realization that many of his people—perhaps all of them—would follow his lead?
He might reconcile with his own death, trading his life to buy a few precious moments for Repulse. But he wasn’t ready to lead almost thirty of the fleet’s top veterans, his comrades and friends, with him.
He jerked hard on his controls, feeling an adrenaline rush as he realized just how close he’d come. His fighter’s engines blasted hard, and he zipped by the Hegemony ship, coming within an almost unbelievable two hundred meters.
He looked at the display, saw the enemy ship for an instant at a range he doubted any other Confederation spacer had seen a Hegemony vessel…and then he blasted away from the hulking ship and spun his fighter around. It was time to decelerate, and then blast hard back toward Repulse.
If his fuel held out.
And if Repulse was still there.
* * *
This is where it ends…
Anya Fritz was working hard, feverishly, with as much urgency as she’d ever felt in her long and storied career. But it was hard to stay focused. The radiation sickness was killing her, and she’d been taken by recurring attacks of projectile vomiting. The reactor’s control room had become a nightmare, filled with shattered machinery, deadly radiation, and now with the detritus of two engineers, both desperately sick and lethally poisoned, struggling against the odds to repair the strange malfunction that was minutes from consigning all of Repulse’s crew to certain death.
She thought she’d finally figured out what was wrong. The Hegemony weapons had energy patterns quite different from Confederation equivalents, and the conduits had been affected by a strange variant of normal radiation. She didn’t understand it, not completely—it would take months, maybe years of research for that—but, she thought she could work out a patch, get the reactors and engines back online.
If she could stay conscious long enough.
If she could stay alive long enough.
“Commander, see if you can reroute the 23A14 circuit.” She paused, sucking in a deep, raspy breath that both brought her some relief and made her stomach churn again. “Use the emergency wiring.”
“I’m…on it…Captain.” Billings sounded worse than she did. She’d been waiting for the officer to collapse into unconsciousness any minute, but somehow, he’d managed to keep going. She’d tried to get him to leave her alone in the contaminated compartment several times, at least in the beginning, before the blast doors came down, and when it might have made a difference. But the truth was, she didn’t have a chance of saving Repulse without his help. Fritz tended to be harsh and unemotional, but she’d become truly fond of Billings over the years they’d worked together. He was a good man, and a good officer, and she hated watching him die right in front of her.
But there had been no choice, not if Repulse was to have a chance at survival.
“Easy, Walt,” she said. “This is delicate work…and neither one of us is…” She didn’t need to finish. Billings knew as well as she did they were both dying.
“I’ve got the…one end in…place, Captain…just give me…a few seconds…” There was a pause. Fritz leaned against the console in front of her, entirely unsure if she could stand on her own without something to lean on. It was okay, though…once Billings was done, everything she needed was in easy reach.
Just another minute or two…
She didn’t know if it would work, but she was pretty sure it was her last try. The fuzziness in her head was growing, pushing aside the sharp, analytical thought that had defined her for so long. She was losing herself, slipping away. She had to get this done, and she was struggling to find the last bits of energy left to her.
Billings slipped down to his knees, and turned to look at her. “I…got…” He fell forward before finishing, landing hard on the ground in front of her, silent, unmoving.
She tried to turn to move to the spot he’d occupied, to confirm that he’d done what she had asked. But her legs were like noodles. She wasn’t going to make it there, not in time. She had to rely on Billings, trust that he’d done what he’d had to do.
She reached down, moving her hands over the power feeds. It was dangerous work, and if her trembling fingers touched the wrong spot, the electricity would fry her to a crisp.
And if Walt didn’t get that lead connected, you might blow the reactor…and the ship.
She knew she should get Captain Eaton’s okay, that she was risking a catastrophic failure if either she or Billings had made the slightest error…but there just wasn’t time. She could feel herself fading…and if she failed, Repulse was doomed anyway.
She reached out as her legs began to give way, and she connected the last lead.
Then she fell to the deck, and everything went black.
Chapter Sixteen
Outer Ring, Western District
Troyus City, Planet Megara, Olyus III
Year 317 AC
Andi Lafarge walked down the nearly deserted street, her instinctive nerves alive, tingling. It was an old friend, her sixth sense, one that had warned her of danger many times in the past. While much of Troyus City looked like a pure manifestation of urban beauty and grandeur, the Outer Ring was home to the service industries, warehouses, and the lower-class workers who served the politicians and magnates and made the inner city function. It was also the home to most of the serious crime that plagued the Confederation’s capital.
The Outer Ring was divided into four districts, each named for compass points. The East was the best, filled mostly with modest, but decent, low-income housing. The North and South contained industry and storage facilities, many of them dealing in dirtier or smellier operations than were welcome in the city’s finer sections.
The West was the worst, filled with Troyus’s most decrepit and violent slums as well as rows of warehouses, many of which were owned and operated by gangs and crime syndicates. Troyus City had a mostly deserved reputation as being a magnificent city, and the inner sectors all matched that description to a considerable extent. But one look around her confirmed to Andi that Troyus had the same ills as any urban metropolis.
She had a sour look on her face. Of all those who might come to Troyus, stay in one of its hotels, dine at its restaurants, and partake of its famed Museum Row, none
had ever been less surprised than she that the city had corralled its poor and undesirables to its outer areas…and that the politicians who infested the capital like an out-of-control epidemic had created a virtual paradise for themselves to enjoy. All funded, of course, by the Confederation’s billions.
They didn’t even have to steal the money for that…they just budgeted it openly to construction programs and declared it was all a testament to the Confederation’s glory and greatness. I wonder how much of that wonder the people who live here enjoy...
Tyler Barron carried his share of cynicism, she knew, as did most of her crew, but none equaled Andi in pure disgust at most of the people and institutions she saw around her. She believed the foulness and corruption she could see was only the very tip of the iceberg, the vast majority of the malfeasance hidden from view. Her childhood had been spent in an urban nightmare that made Troyus’s Outer West sector look like a paradise, and she defied humanity to exceed her expectations for hypocrisy and vileness.
For all the run-ins she’d had with the law, all the effort and funding that went into hunting down Badlands adventurers and smugglers, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen politicians truly held to account for their crimes and sins.
One hand that had gotten caught in the machinery and lost a couple fingers.
Andi always felt that way, but she was in a foul and angry mood just then. She clutched a small rag, and she was trying to get her hands passably clean, to wipe away the blood. She wasn’t a brutal person by nature, but she’d never believed in considering herself above an enemy’s tactics. She was more than willing to stoop to her adversaries’ levels when battling them. The things she’d seen things by the age of seven or eight would make most middle and upper-class Confederation citizens sick to their stomachs.
She’d been wounded many times and tortured, and she’d lost close friends. She’d plunged into the cold depths of uncharted space and stared death in the eye more times that she could easily recount. Andi Lafarge didn’t let anything stand in her way, not false ethical standards, nor morality directed at those who possessed none themselves. She’d scoured Troyus City, searching for any sign of Ricard Lille, but the assassin was like a ghost. She’d become more and more frustrated, her inner fury rising, driving her with increasing urgency…until she’d found one of Lille’s people.
She’d uncovered several individuals she suspected were Sector Nine agents, actually, but one in particular she knew was one of Lille’s, one of those who’d been on Dannith when she’d been a captive.
She’d kept her cool, despite the urge to lunge at the agent right away, and she’d trailed him, watched his every move, plotted…and then she’d made her move. She’d taken him in the middle of the night, without being seen. Then she’d taken him to an abandoned warehouse in the Outer ring, a decrepit building, half falling down…and a place where no one could hear his anguished cries. There, she had particularly enjoyed “searching” him for tracking devices and implants as the helpless man stared up at her and screamed.
She wasn’t a sadist by nature, but every time she felt guilt or hesitation coming on her, she remembered what they did to her on Dannith, and the rage she felt at those who had broken her. With each bitter, hateful memory, sympathy and morality were again banned from her thoughts, and she redoubled her efforts.
There had been no tracking unit, which was somewhat of a surprise, but the working over she’d given the now broken and bleeding man had other uses. She needed to know what he knew. Specifically, she wanted to know exactly where Ricard Lille was, and the sooner the man knew how far she’d go to get that information, the quicker she’d get what she wanted.
She’d done what was necessary, what she had to do to cut through the man’s Sector Nine conditioning, his fear of Ricard Lille.
She wasn’t proud of herself, but mostly she was a bit disturbed at how little guilt and anguish she felt. She’d always been hard, with a focus on what the universe was truly like, and not the lies most people chose to believe. But what her enemies had done to her had changed her…and the hapless agent was the first to feel the terrible consequences of that fact.
The side of Andi that was still herself struggled inside with what she’d done…but the onslaught of reality was irresistible, the success of her methods beyond question. Her victim had talked. He’d given her everything she wanted.
She knew where Ricard Lille was. It was time for vengeance.
* * *
“Desiree, things have gotten well out of hand. Your assistance in securing justice against Gary Holsten and our corrupt military officers was greatly appreciated. But, this is too much. Megara is stripped of its defenses to support Admiral Whitten’s pursuit of Admiral Barron, and we’re receiving communiques from Admiral Winters on the frontier…messages reporting invasion, and now, signs of a second attack at Dannith. With all of this happening, you want me to do this?” He shook his head. “It’s just not possible.”
Marieles was sitting opposite Senator Ferrell, looking over the massive old-wood desk the politician had purchased to furnish his new, larger office. That alone was a disturbing shift in the power balance between the two. Ferrell had come to her many times, and being virtually summoned to his office didn’t please her.
I may have to sleep with him, after all…
Marieles had used the Senator’s attraction to her for all it was worth, but she hadn’t allowed things to go beyond harmless—and to Ferrell, she suspected, frustrating—flirtation. There were two reasons for that. First, she’d decided the pursuit would be more useful and longer lasting than allowing the Senator to get what he wanted, and perhaps lose interest afterward. And, second, she found the man utterly repulsive.
“Tolbert…” She looked across the desk, and caught the look in his eyes. The hunger, the need to chase her, the desire that had driven him to heed her advice…it was gone. She’d found Ferrell as a powerful man by most accounts, a Senator. But he’d been a non-entity, ignored most of the time, and involved in important matters only when an extra vote was needed by one side or another. To that lost soul, that corrupt psyche, she had been an exciting mystery, a symbol of his need to excel, among women and among his peers.
Now, Tolbert Farrell was one of the most powerful politicians in the Confederation Senate. He pulled the strings instead of dangling on them, and the world had opened to him. Friends, lovers, political allies…they all chased him now, competing for the thinnest sliver of his time and for the merest token of his approval.
She’d waited too long. The currency she had tried so hard to avoid using, that she’d kept in reserve, was devalued. She had lost her hold over Ferrell, and with that, her influence in the Senate. She’d managed to get Torrance Whitten promoted to the top naval command with Ferrell’s help, but now she was stopped short of gaining blanket authorization for any actions, a decree that would have made the officer a virtual dictator, if only for a short time.
“I understand, Tolbert, and I just want to congratulate you. When I first came to you, I didn’t know what to do with the information I’d acquired. You handled it, and you handled it well, and I’m honored I played a part in your uncovering of the largest corruption scandal in history. You have secured your place in Confederation history.” She figured flattery would work, at least to stabilize things, to keep Ferrell on friendly terms.
And to subtly remind him, all he’s gained came on the back of what I provided him…
The politician smiled. “Indeed, Desiree…if I have not thanked you for coming to me, allow me to do so now. I am greatly appreciative, for your confidence, and for your friendship. Always.” He rose as he finished, and he reached his arm out, gesturing toward the door. “I wish I had more time, I truly do, but if you will excuse me, I have pressing commitments.”
He walked around the desk and leaned in, hugging her briefly and then stepping back.
“Thank you, Tolbert.” She turned and started toward the door, pausing for
a moment and looking back. “I hope I can see you again soon…socially, not on such dire and depressing business as has dominated our times together so often.”
“Yes, yes…of course. Lunch one day perhaps.” His tone was pleasant enough, but she could hear the dismissiveness in it as well.
She was relieved that it didn’t seem Ferrell had any real suspicions about her. That was good. She’d been amazed that no one had dug deep enough to find that she was a Sector Nine agent, or at least an operative of some kind.
But one thing was certain. She’d lost control of Ferrell…and that made holding onto Whitten all the more vital.
* * *
“Any updates?” Ricard Lille stood just outside the non-descript building. The woman he was speaking to looked like some type of maintenance worker or laborer, anything but the highly trained Sector Nine agent she was. Lille had only trusted his closest associates with guarding Van Striker…those loyal only to him and not also to Desiree Marieles. He tended to travel alone, or close to it, and the need to continue to support the operations on Megara and to guard the Confederation’s former naval head of operations had forced him to call in his agents from Dannith. There was some risk to that, assuming anyone was trying to track him, but he needed the manpower and he felt the danger was tolerable. Besides, with all he was hearing about Dannith and whatever new force the White Fleet had encountered in the Badlands, it seemed like time to pull the remainder of his people off the frontier world anyway. Whatever was going to happen there, it didn’t seem likely he’d be back anytime soon.
“No, sir. Everything is quiet.” A pause. “I think the admiral is going a bit mad. We’ve left him in his cell without contact, as you ordered. He should be ready for any questioning you wish to institute.”