“This blade has a history, brethren. It was used for this very purpose in the first cathedral ever built for the worship of our gods. It was used for centuries thereafter, until the worship of our holy ones took a gentler turn.”
“It has slept, awaiting a need to pull it from its slumber.”
Kraada’s voice dropped, and it seemed as if the bones of the cathedral itself strained to hear his next words.
“It’s time for it to awaken. It’s time for the church to again sacrifice the body and blood of the unfaithful to our gods, in order to seek their approval and forgiveness for our many failings.” His face twisted into a vicious sneer. “After all, it is right, and it is just, that those who oppose their will in the mortal realm should get the opportunity to face their judgment without delay.”
He turned and offered the dagger back to Variin. She took it and lifted it, positioned perfectly for the blade to catch the light and reflect it out to the congregation. She held it there for but a moment, then pulled it down with a flourish, stalking to her position at the rear of the sacrificial altar.
Kraada felt the rightness of the moment sweep through him and the approval of the eight shining down on him. The ever-present pain in his skull vanished and was replaced by ecstasy.
“Now, see what awaits the unfaithful!” he yelled, arms raised to the deities above.
Variin lifted the blade and drove it down into the body on the altar. It transfixed the victim’s heart, and blood flowed out from the matching wound in his back. His scream cut off as quickly as it started and echoed in the vast stillness of the chamber.
The blood filled the chalice. Kraada walked to that end of the altar and looked down at the sacrifice, a vicious expression of satisfaction on his face. He lifted the chalice and turned as if to offer it to his congregation. The scent of the newly claimed blood and death suffused his nostrils, and he closed his eyes.
He raised the chalice and drank. His ecstasy vanished in an instant as the vile taste coated his mouth and slipped down his throat. He stilled his features, set the chalice back in its receptacle, and made a stately exit from the cathedral to the horrified quiet of the congregation.
Kraada Tak most definitely did not sense the disapproval of the gods communicated in the rancid blood of the victim.
Definitely did not.
Chapter Fifteen
Cross entered the shuttle bay as soon as it depressurized, jogging toward the descending ramps of the two shuttles. The enemy’s jamming had been overwhelming on this run, so only sporadic reports had made it back. He cringed when he saw one of the Marines, still clad in power armor but without a helmet, carried out on a stretcher.
He rushed to the wounded figure and discovered Hugo Galano. “Forget to dodge?”
The Marine laughed at him. “Something like that. The suit tells me it’s a clean break. They’ll have me fixed up in no time. In the meantime, the painkillers are nice.” He dragged the last word out and drew a laugh from Cross. He patted the Marine’s armor and got out of the way.
Sinner stepped from the other shuttle, and the stench of mud and carbon and additional unpleasant things wafted from her. He tensed his face in an effort not to retch and said, “Showers are over there.”
She removed her helmet and shook out her sweaty hair. “I thought desert planets were bad but give me that over the disgusting jungle any time.”
Saint emerged, his own helmet under his arm. “No one said you had to swim in the stuff, Sin. That was not part of our mission parameters.”
She made an obscene gesture in her counterpart’s direction, then stomped off. Hopefully she’d hit a decontamination chamber first. He couldn’t imagine that smell inundating the Marines’ compartments. Cross turned to Saint. “Details, Gunnery Sergeant?”
Saint checked to make sure all his troops were headed to where they were supposed to be, then turned back to reply, “There were fewer of them than on the last two, but we definitely missed having the Pandora there. Fortunately, the AAN fighters harassed the enemy ships until we could turn it into a loss for their ground forces. They chose to board their transports and run away rather than finish the fight.”
“And the colonists?”
“Some casualties among those who fought alongside us. Those who didn’t were safe in a bunker at the center of the installation.”
“Seems like the admirals did a good job of picking the order of colony defense, then.”
Saint nodded, and Cross saw the moment the adrenaline left him. The suit suddenly appeared to be holding him up, rather than the other way around.
“In any case, you once again defended the defenseless and upheld the honor of the Washington. Thank you.”
The Marine gave him a small smile and said, “You’re welcome, Captain.”
Cross gestured him toward the exit, and Saint clomped off. As he watched the Marines progress from the bay, he had a moment of introspection, looking back at his earliest encounters with the Gunnery Sergeant.
For the first time, he realized in addition to being a complete bastard, Saint had been providing important lessons that he’d internalized without realizing it. “Clever,” he said out loud, then shook his head.
As he walked the corridors on the way to engineering, Cross trailed his fingers along the peeling paint on the walls. Even here, deep in the ship, they were uneven and full of hasty patches and ugly welds. The Washington had seen better days, but she still kept fighting the good fight.
He recalled for a second the scent of newness that hung about the Chicago. It couldn’t compare to the lived-in odors of the Washington, a mix of sweat, polish, and the pungent tang of new metal. He shook his head again, this time in quiet thanks for the opportunity to command her.
His footsteps had brought him to engineering without his notice. The cacophony of the space’s barely controlled chaos grew in his ears, and he searched around for the chief engineer. He found him in his office with feet up on a display table and a tumbler of whiskey in front of him.
“Chief,” Cross said as he plopped down into a chair beside Jannik.
“Cross,” the older man replied, pulling out a second glass and filling it with a finger of the amber liquid before sliding it over.
He took a tiny sip, just enough to push the taste of the Marines’ armor and the old corridors out of his mouth and nose, then returned it to the table.
“Got my junior watching things,” Jannik explained.
“I had nary a doubt, Chief.”
They stared at each other for a second, then both broke into a chuckle. “Aye, I’m getting a little loose with the rules in my old age,” Jannik said.
“I have complete faith that you’ll have it under control right until the instant the ship explodes underneath me.”
“And rightly so,” Jannik countered.
“So, status?”
“You bent her again, Cross. This time in the other direction.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me that the two cancel out?”
“Thank the stars you didn’t go into engineering,” he said with a shake of his head. “No, what we have now are new points of tension throughout the ship where the torque has misaligned the metal in sort of a wave. Sparing you the molecular level discussion, basically, she’s more brittle than she was.”
Cross frowned. “How brittle?”
Jannik scratched his chin through his beard, then folded his arms. “We might survive a hit from one of those rammers without breaking apart, but we’d likely no longer have the integrity to tunnel or use the wormhole network, if we could still fly at all.”
Cross processed that information, then took another small sip of his drink, using the fiery burn to push away his darkest thoughts.
“All right, then, no rammers. Got it.”
“Torpedoes would be unwise, too,” Jannik added with a surly grunt.
Cross pushed down his annoyance. “Is it time, Chief?”
Jannik seemed to deflate before hi
s eyes, the breath washing out of him in a long sigh. “Some moments it feels like it, my boy. Other moments, I know with complete certainty this is where I belong. Those moments are coming less often now.”
“Do you have any reports?”
Jannik shook his head. “The colony isn’t on the list of those reporting attacks, so there’s been no information. I’m sure she’s fine. They’re fine.”
He didn’t sound sure.
“Nothing available on the, old engineers’ network, either?”
“Not a thing. Seems everyone’s too busy trying to fix the damage to their vessels that irksome captains keep causing.”
Cross stood and gave Jannik a soft punch in the shoulder as a goodbye. At the door, not looking back, he said, “The second you are sure, you tell me. There’s still time to get you there before the big one.” He departed without waiting for a reply.
The summons for the briefing came while he was en route his quarters, so Cross switched paths and emerged onto the bridge. He waved at Jacobs to stay in the chair and strode to the ready room. He was a couple minutes early, so he took the opportunity to sink back into the padding of a seat. It was far from comfortable but was the softest thing he’d felt in a while. He closed his eyes and stilled his thoughts, setting them free one by one until he was ready.
He sat up just in time for the activation of the main display. A grid of faces appeared, the captains of the ships currently undertaking colony defense and the available members of the admiralty. Admiral Hugo Silva begin speaking as soon as a connection was established.
“Captains, you’ll no doubt be pleased to know we have blunted the enemy’s attacks on our colonies. While we’ve lost some, we have protected many, many more. Your efforts accomplished this, and you and your crews should be proud of them.”
He coughed, then wiped his mouth and continued, “We’ve designated several ships to check out the remaining colonies and mop up whatever enemies are still around. A hunting pack, let’s say. The rest of you should make your best speed to sector eighty-one, where we’ll reform prior to our final assault.”
“Our probes have shown a defensive buildup in the Xroeshyn home system, which was to be expected while we addressed this delaying tactic. Nonetheless, the numbers still appear to be in our favor.”
“Unless it’s a trap,” Cross whispered under his breath, followed by, “Of course it’s a trap.”
Silva continued speaking, and Cross refocused to catch the end of the sentence, “—for refueling and rearming. Make whatever essential repairs are necessary where you are, then get to the rally point.”
The display shifted to show only the admiral. He presumed the other captains saw the same. “Make no mistake, we will lose colonies by recommitting to our final attack, unless we’re incredibly lucky. But we cannot afford to delay any longer, lest we win the battles on the planets only to lose the war in space. See you all soon. Silva, out.”
Cross strode onto the bridge. “Lee, how long to get to sector eighty-one?
“One day, seventeen hours,” his helm officer replied after a moment of calculation.
“Put it up on the screen,” he said, raising a hand to keep Jacobs in the captain’s chair. When he saw the route and the planets along the way, the grin that covered his face made his muscles hurt.
“We’re going to take a little detour.”
Eleven hours and a number of minutes he didn’t care to calculate later, Cross had reclaimed the captain’s chair. A meal, seven hours of sleep, a shower, and another meal had returned him to something very near human. He wore his dress blacks and had instructed the bridge officers to do the same. As they emerged from tunnel space and the system resolved itself before them, the door behind him hissed open.
The chief engineer stepped onto the bridge, his accent pronounced as he said, “Why have you torn me away from—” His words trailed off as he took in the image on the main display, which shifted as they grew closer to their target.
“Launch drones,” Cross commanded, and advanced sensor modules mounted on customized torpedoes blasted for the planet. The missiles shielded them from the atmosphere and ejected the drones once they reached visual distance to the ground. They deployed in separate directions, and the sensor officer put the take from one of them into a big window overlaid on the backdrop of the planet.
Everyone was silent as the camera flew, showing them a luxurious landscape full of trees, lakes, and rivers that whipped by too fast to truly see. The sense of peace they engendered washed over the bridge like a wave.
Finally, the drone decelerated, providing a swooping view of cultivated fields and farm buildings, then the well-maintained center of the human presence on the planet, colony Wheaton. On the screen, colonists went about their day untroubled by the war sweeping wide swaths of the galaxy.
“Fitzpatrick,” Cross said softly, and moments later a ruggedly handsome man with a shock of receding white hair and rivulets of wrinkles flowing down his face appeared on the main display.
“Hail, Washington, what can we do for you on this fine day?” His cheerful greeting seemed natural, but the tenseness at the corner of his eyes spoke to his worry.
“Routine check-in, Mayor Hidalgo. Do you have anything to report? Any problems?”
The man scratched the back of his neck. “Well, we’ve had a few new children born since our last official report, what was it, five months ago, but nothing more.”
Cross glanced at Jannik. His eyes were glued to the images on screen, and he leaned forward as if eager to get closer to the planet. “And your facilities? Everything is running smoothly?”
The mayor laughed. “Our engineer would scare the misbehavior out of any machine, Captain.”
Cross gave Hidalgo an answering smile. “Very well then, Mayor. Lieutenant Fitzpatrick will provide you with direct communication codes to the Washington, DC. If you find yourself in need, let us know.”
“Will do, Captain, thanks for stopping by,” he said, and the signal dropped.
The sound of the lift door opening and closing broke the silence, and Cross looked around at his bridge officers with a grin and saw matching expressions on their faces.
“All right, Lee, head to the rendezvous, top speed.”
As he settled back in his chair, a one-to-one communication pinged in his earpiece, and his chief engineer’s hoarse voice said only, “Thank you, my boy.”
Chapter Sixteen
The door to her quarters slid aside in front of her, and Indraat entered. She turned and hit the appropriate sequence of buttons on the wall panel, so the room shifted to secure mode. Physical and electronic barriers snapped into place to shield her within her sanctuary, ready to defend against any enemy.
Or, in this case, to provide her with complete privacy as she accepted new orders from her home world.
She stood, spine straight, and schooled her expression into one of neutrality. These days, she never knew who might be watching, even in a supposedly secure room.
“Play back message.”
The ship’s systems brought the display above her small table to life. The logo of the Xroeshyn Navy rotated lazily to provide a visual counterpoint to the emperor’s voice as it emanated from the screen.
“Fleet-Captain Indraat Vray, I send you greetings and congratulations on the successes your fleet has achieved. You’ve made manifest the will of the Xroeshyn people and effectively delayed the human attack on the home world. The trespassers’ forces are substantially depleted. The attacks on the colonies were a complete success.” His breath rasped on an inhalation.
“Now, however, is the time to begin a new strategy. The fleet is to finish its current attacks and return to the home system at full speed. When you arrive, we will prepare a welcome for the humans that’ll end their threat once and for all.”
Kraada’s tone softened slightly, “I look forward to seeing you at the palace, Niece. Remember your vow, and continue to perform at the highest levels, as you have been.”
The missive fell silent, and she stood for several more moments, awaiting a potential resumption. Finally, the screen followed the sound into nothingness. She activated a communication line to the bridge and passed on the new orders to her first. She finished her day with a quick, scalding shower, hoping the pain would push all doubts and worries away.
When it failed to do so, Indraat fell into a fitful sleep.
The rest cleared her mind, and she woke to a clear sense of purpose. She dressed in her uniform pants and undershirt, then summoned her religious officer to her quarters.
He arrived moments later, slightly breathless. She smiled at the image of him running through the ship’s corridors in response to her call. She motioned him to a seat at the small table and handed him one of the two cups of tisane a subordinate had delivered. He looked up at her with a question his eyes. She shook her head and said softly, “It’s clean. I tested it.” He nodded and drank.
Indraat sat across from him. “Deacon Raanja, I’m going to make a difficult request of you. In part, it’s related to the irritating necessity that requires us to check our food and drink for sabotage.”
She paused and took a pointed sip of her tisane. “On earlier occasions, I’ve asked you to use your special system access to communicate with religious officers on other ships in the fleet.” He nodded. “The situation is now such that I must ask for further revelations that are traditionally within the sole purview of the church.” A small glimmer of fear or concern appeared in his eyes.
“Put in the simplest of terms, Raanja, I believe there’s someone working against this ship’s best interest onboard. I need to know if you have deeper access to the ship systems than were revealed to me.”
He took a delaying sip but failed to still a slight tremble in the hand gripping the cup. She pretended not to notice, affording him the illusion of privacy in which to make this difficult decision.
Raanja sighed. “You’re as insightful as always, Fleet-Captain. I do possess accesses of which you’re unaware.”
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