The Key

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Their guys were kicking ass, but it wasn’t enough. There were just too many of them.

  What was she waiting for? Why didn’t she kill him? Unless she’d discovered a back-up in place? They’d worried that there would be someone who could take over if Xever went down, they just didn’t know how long it would take his replacement to get up to speed. That had to be it. He just had to give her more time.

  He hoped he had it to give her.

  * * * *

  As he watched the assault force close in on Donovan, Henderson went with his gut and turned over one of the cloaked ships to the Gadi force. He let the Gadi leader go with them. They were probably all going to die anyway. When he was sure they were pointed at one of the Dusan ships—and not heading back to the outpost—he gave the launch order for their cloaked ship.

  The plan was to land his squad as close to the bridge as possible and neutralize the command crew. Either they’d take the ship, or at least provide a distraction to keep Xever off guard while Donovan did whatever it was she was supposed to do down there.

  They didn’t have the firepower, even combined, to take on a battle cruiser.

  It sounded simple, straightforward.

  It probably wouldn’t be.

  * * * *

  Fyn found more weapons on the dead Ojemba in the hallway and added those to his gear. In addition to pulling up a HUD on demand, Fyn found he could also make the lights turn off and on, and open or lock doors. As Sara liked to say, cool.

  Near as he could tell, there were about one hundred and fifty men between him and Sara. So far she seemed to be fine. Xever was keeping his distance.

  For now.

  Fyn intended to be there when he stopped.

  With guns in each hand, both set to kill, he got in the elevator and started up. When the door opened, he did a rolling dive out into the corridor, his arms crossed over his chest. He fired both directions.

  When he got up, the corridor was clear.

  * * * *

  Things had gone from bad to worse. Their shields were down to fifty percent. This was close quarters fighting, but with big ass ships.

  It was a brutal, messy business.

  The Dusan were now using some of their ships as bait for the cloaked ships, while others waited for them to pop into view. They’d also dropped some kind of timed missiles, like old-style depth charges, that went for the cloaked ships as they appeared. Even with the upgraded shields, the ships were getting pounded. The cloaked fighters were taking a beating, too, when they popped into view.

  Despite it all, they were hanging in there.

  The worse news, they’d been boarded. The Dusan had managed to sneak assault transports through the chaos and into a couple of the bays. The distant sounds of small arms fire rang through the Doolittle, like a counterpoint to the battle raging in space. Everyone who could use a weapon was putting up a fierce resistance, but once again, the numbers were against them.

  The good news, the barrage of missiles had let up on the two earth ships.

  Clearly Xever hoped to take them intact.

  Take no prisoners.

  Not even the women were to be spared, though after seeing what they did to them, maybe that was a good thing.

  The even worse news, small arms fire was getting closer to the bridge with each passing minute as defenders kept falling back and back.

  Halliwell studied the HUD, trying to sort through all the data coming in. The fighters were buzzing in a cloud throughout the larger battle.

  The Dusan had lost a huge number of ships, but their ambush had turned the tide in their favor. And they still had a shit load of ships left.

  The Gadi had lost two ships.

  They’d lost two of the Garradian ships and their crews. Halliwell had ordered the other two to withdraw and regroup.

  Just under half of their fighters were down, and casualties were mounting quickly inside both the Doolittle and the Patton.

  Amidst the chaos, the cloaked ships now reengaged to support the beleaguered fleet. For now they were still holding their own.

  Barely.

  Clearly Donovan was finding it harder than she expected. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to be in contact with so many minds. Perhaps it was time to help her out a bit.

  It was time punch to through the Dusan fleet.

  “Commander Gaedon, papa lima alpha on my mark.”

  * * * *

  The pain was bad. She needed to show Adin her back until she got it under control. Sara got up and walked over to the tracking screen, poking it with a finger and watching the ripples spread out.

  It was weird to be so many places. Here. There. Even weirder that most of the Dusan didn’t seem to be…thinking that much. It was almost like their brains were empty slates that only Adin wrote on. Except for the small circle of minds waiting to take over. It was pretty creepy.

  But it did give her hope that if she could take the network completely down…

  The pain eased a bit. Enough. She turned and smiled at him. It helped keep a grimace at bay.

  “Did you have a brother?”

  “I had…several.” He hesitated. “What do my brothers have to do with your story?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  She could feel his mind sharpen, as if he sensed an alien presence.

  She came back and sat down. “My story is about two brothers, you see. And…Miri. Can’t forget Miri, can we?”

  That pulled his attention back inside the room.

  His brows arched. “Brothers?”

  Sara nodded.

  He was quiet a moment. “So Miri had…many men interested in her. This does not surprise me that these brothers also both wanted her.”

  His eyes told her he still wanted her, but she felt nothing. He’d lost the power to touch her. It was a relief. She didn’t need to be fighting her own messed up libido while she fought him. She’d come a long way from their last encounter.

  “Miri loved one of the brothers, the younger, but he didn’t know how to love. He felt the hunger of passion, but was unable to be filled when he got it. He was always hungry, never satisfied.”

  Adin didn’t speak, but she’d affected him. She could feel it through the connection. His lips tightened. “And the elder brother?”

  “Oh yes, the elder brother…”

  She could feel his mental shift, feel the weight of his thoughts moving more and more her direction and less and less toward the battle.

  Sara clenched her hands where Adin couldn’t see them, as she wormed her mind deeper and deeper into the Dusan network. There had to be one, central command channel. If she could find it…

  * * * *

  Things were bad, real bad. Hawkins’ fighter shook as a stray shot pinged off his shields. They were holding, but not for much longer. The Dusan reinforcements brought even more fighters, a big ass Dusan Flagship, and a slew of cruisers.

  “This is Halliwell. I need Alpha to tango on that Delta Foxtrot with some EM Mikes. It’s pounding us to hell!”

  Hawkins did a bat turn as he responded. “Roger that. Alpha group does anyone have any EM mikes left?”

  “This is alpha6, I’ve got one.”

  “Tango on the Delta foxtrot and I’ll cover you.”

  They accelerated towards the massive hulk. Hawkins blasted a fighter that tried to get on Jenkins’ six. The defensive fire from the ship was intense. Space was thick with lasers and projectiles. He could have got out and walked on them.

  “Fire that mike! We won’t last much longer here!”

  A streak of fire shot out from Jenkins bird. He started to bank off, but caught a blast from the ship. He spiraled toward Hawkins, catching the edge of Hawkins’s bird just before he exploded.

  His ship shook violently. Warning lights and buzzers sounded. His shields went down.

  He felt the loss of control…

  He was a smoking hole in the making, but maybe he could do some damage…

  He urged his bird
towards a big tank behind the engine of the flagship…

  * * * *

  Halliwell watched Hawkins bird get clipped by Jenkins, saw him struggle to regain control.

  And fail.

  It began to spiral, but he managed to point it toward the flagship. It smashed into the side. Fire flashed. The big ship shook, but it seemed to absorb the blow.

  “Fall back!” he shouted. “All craft fall back from flag ship!”

  For a moment, it looked like a dog shaking off fleas as their ships scattered from the area around the flagship.

  Then a secondary explosion rocked it. Followed quickly by a third. The last explosion made it go away. The fireball engulfed several squadrons of Dusan fighters.

  But when the debris cleared, there were plenty left to continue the fight.

  * * * *

  Sara could see the battle from the Dusan point of view. They were winning. She had to find the way to take the network out before it was too late. Her control of the connection faltered and she felt Adin almost sense her. She rushed into speech.

  “The elder brother wanted Miri, too, but then something changed.”

  “Something?”

  “Their father became ill. The elder brother was the heir, the one who would lead their people.”

  “That is the way of the weak. I had to earn my right to lead.”

  Sara wasn’t surprised to hear that. Dusan had left a strong imprint of himself on his people.

  “Miri’s faithless lover agreed with you. He wanted his brother’s inheritance. He began to plot and to plan. And then he found out something that…changed everything.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Miri, the woman he’d discarded, the woman he’d left to pursue his next conquest, was a scientist. And not just any scientist. She was the head of all the Garradian scientists. She controlled access to many…wonders.” Sara gave Adin an ironic look. “Apparently women weren’t always despised in this galaxy.”

  Adin smiled, acknowledging the hit with a slight dip of his chin.

  “Miri learned of Dusan’s…renewed interest and knew she had to leave, to hide from him. Her people faced a civil war. So Miri and the elder brother fled to one of their colonies on another planet. He asked her for control of the…wonders.”

  “Not so different from his brother,” Adin said, ironically.

  It was getting harder and harder to split her focus, but she could tell she was getting close.

  “She told him that she needed a key. That she had to travel alone to retrieve it. He let her go.”

  “Most unwise.” Adin smiled.

  “Instead, she locked all the wonders…and left.”

  Adin stared at her and she could feel him, hell, she could almost see him, putting the pieces together.

  “What were the names of these two…brothers?”

  “The elder was named…Gaedon, but everyone called him Gadi.”

  He twitched slightly. Sara was so deep inside his head, she wasn’t sure if it was his brain or his body.

  “The younger son was named Dusan.”

  “That is not true.” His voice was intense, but controlled.

  There it was, the channel she’d been looking for.

  “There are no Dusan, no Gadi…just Garradians.”

  She stared at him as she reached into the channel…

  Adin’s eyes widened.

  Energy flashed along the connection before she could disconnect.

  It went through her mind like a ball of fire...

  * * * *

  There was a flicker of light, a kind of power surge, and the connection with Donovan went down. Halliwell could see an immediate shift in the Dusan’s…fighting. Xever was back in control. He didn’t need the connection to see it. It was playing out in the battle. Xever wasn’t just back on board, he was pissed off. He threw his ships against them with no concern for the men in them.

  Donovan was dead or had been neutralized. That was the only explanation.

  “Major Loren, launch the outpost defenses at your discretion.” Halliwell spoke calmly. It was their last line of defense. And it would reveal the location of the outpost to the Dusan, to Xever. “And you might want to prepare to evacuate the non-combatants.”

  They had succeeded in cutting their way their way through the center of the Dusan Fleet, but now they were besieged on every side. As Halliwell began to think about his own possible retreat, it was as if Xever heard the thought. His ships began to flow around their positions.

  There would be no retreat from this fight.

  So be it.

  The Gadi and Garradian ships were taking major damage. Some had lost communications and part of their weapons. Debris drifted everywhere, some the shattered hulls of ships, theirs and Dusan.

  And in between, it seemed that every bit of space left was filled with the flash of missiles, explosions, weapons fire. The rattle of gunfire was louder now within the Doolittle and the yells of men in combat were audible during lulls in the battle. An out of control fighter smashed into the ship sending a shudder through the bridge.

  The HUD lit up, the Kikk outpost lit up with multiple bogeys, as Loren joined the fight.

  And it still wouldn’t be enough.

  “Shields are down to thirty-five percent.”

  Well, one thing is for damn sure, Xever is not getting my ship.

  He armed the self-destruct.

  * * * *

  Fyn was only one level below Sara’s position now. Xever had moved her to that room where she’d killed herself.

  The one with the bed.

  At the moment, she was alone in there. Not moving. Would explain why she was alone. Still about fifty Dusan between him and her. Twice that behind him, but they weren’t a problem anymore.

  He checked the HUD. Someone had lived long enough to tip them off that he was in the outpost. Two groups were moving in on his position. At least ten men in each.

  He took out the lights in the corridor, lowered his night vision goggles, turned them on and waited for them to find him.

  * * * *

  Sara woke slowly. Someone was pounding on her head with about twenty hammers.

  Crap. The nanites were trying to restore order. She could feel it. Lots of damage to repair.

  She went to rub her aching head and…couldn’t. Her hand moved, just not toward her head. She tried the other one. It didn’t make it to her head either. She tried her legs. They seemed to be stuck, too.

  She opened her eyes, though she really didn’t want to. The light stabbed into them with punishing force.

  It took her a minute to figure out where she was.

  The Supreme leader suite.

  And how she was.

  Chained to the bed.

  Not good.

  Memory returned in a painful rush. Adin had slammed her out of his mind like a bat to a ball. The hit was almost out of the park.

  Okay, how bad was it. Was the baby okay? Had the energy feedback injured her—before she could finish the question, she could…see her own womb. A golden net of nanites surrounded and protected the baby. Might have to rename the little suckers. They were acting more like nannies.

  That was the good news.

  Her vest was gone, radio with it, but she still had clothes on. That was good, too. Probably wouldn’t last, but at least she hadn’t been stripped while she was unconscious.

  Adin had done a lot of damage. Too many more of those and she’d be drooling down herself, despite the nanites.

  She needed to improve her situational awareness. She tapped into the outpost’s sensors. Dots all over the place. No way to tell which dot belonged to Adin. Wait, dots were disappearing. One dot seemed to be kicking their asses. Cool. Had Kalian managed to get one of his guys back down here? Or had Henderson sent a guy?

  She checked on the Dusan ships. Looked like both had been boarded. Small groups of dots were making larger groups of dots go away.

  Only way she could help, was to try ag
ain…

  Sara closed her eyes and reached out. Two transmitters down, two to go. At least now she knew the way. All she needed was time to get to it again.

  Not that it was going to be easy. Now that Adin knew she could get into the network, he’d be watching for her.

  Sara tapped in and stopped, waiting to see if he’d notice her—

  The door swished open. She wasn’t surprised to see Adin enter.

  “You are awake.”

  He seemed almost relieved.

  “I’ve got a bitch of a headache.”

  He pulled up a chair and sat down, capturing one of her hands. It wasn’t hard to do. Her range of movement was severely limited.

  She could probably have broken some of his fingers, but she couldn’t see the upside of pissing him off. A lot of downside, but no upside.

  He played with her fingers, his expression…complicated.

  “You have locked the outpost again.”

  “Yes.”

  A small smile quivered on the edges of his mouth, but he managed to suppress it. He held her gaze with his as he bent and nibbled on her fingers.

  Not even a shiver.

  “Turn it back on.” He kissed the inside of her wrist, but his eyes watched her.

  He was close. It was easier to get in when he was close—

  “Stay out of my head, Sara. You’ll get…damaged.”

  Sara lowered her lashes. “I’m going to get…damaged anyway. I think we both know that I prefer…damage…to…this.”

  She rattled the chain with her free hand.

  He shifted his butt from the chair to the bed, his mouth moving up her arm. It felt…wet.

  “What you…need from me, you won’t get this way.”

  He stopped. “I don’t need anything from anyone.” He looked at her, his gaze hard. “What I want, I take.”

  “Do you even know what you want?” She stared at him. “You think I came here to betray you, but that’s not the whole story.”

  “What is the whole story?”

  Sara wasn’t even sure. She knew that she felt…compassion for him this time. Her father had made him this way. He was a monster…but buried behind the monster, she thought she saw a longing for something different in his eyes.

  He produced one of her knives. Sara stiffened.

  “I was going to have my men strip you, but then I thought of this.” He put the edge of the knife under her tee shirt and cut, the cold edge of the knife sliding against her bare skin. “You cut up my gown. I’m going to cut up this uniform of yours. A little at a time.”