by Ren Garcia
A Sister toyed with a blue flower from one of the pouches. Another one tugged on a frog.
"I desire no compensation."
"In that case, Captain, the Sisters request these bodies be taken with all possible speed to chapel Twilight 4 where the Sisters will begin the slow process of examining and discovering all their secrets."
"I see. Twilight 4, way to the south of Remnath, if I am not mistaken."
Syg wandered over to Dav and hung on his arm.
"Correct, sir. On the morrow a procession of three Fleet vessels will arrive to provide escort for these bodies."
"I require no escort."
"The Sisters insist. They feel something sinister is afoot and wish to take no chances. Furthermore, and no disrespect intended, sir, but the fine vessel Seeker will not be the lead ship. You will be providing escort to the lead vessel, where the bodies and materials will be kept in safe passage."
Davage shook his head. The Sisters looked a bit concerned.
They pummeled the Marine with thoughts.
"Please, Captain, the Sisters again acknowledge your skill and seniority and greatly desire that your honor be not damaged in this matter. They were simply hoping to provide the citizenry with a grand Fleet display, as in the days of old, and they are certain that, when you see the lead ship for yourself, you will be pleased."
"My honor is not damaged, Sisters, and thank you for your concern. I will abide by your wisdom and look ahead with great interest to this grand procession on the morrow."
The Sisters mentally chattered amongst themselves and appeared relieved.
With that, the Marines quickly collected the bodies and were gone within the hour.
11
A GRAND PROCESSION
The next morning, Davage, Syg, and Ki went down to the docks to await the arrival of the Fleet. Davage had to admit, the Sisters had piqued his curiosity about this procession, and, in particular, the lead ship that was coming.
Ki announced that she was thirsty and headed to a nearby pub. Beth and Ennez followed.
Syg, getting impatient, wanted to know when he was going to propose to her.
Soon, Syg, soon …
Before long the Fleet began arriving, their gas-compression engines screeching through the cold air.
The first to arrive was the Blue Max, a fairly new Straylight vessel commanded by Captain Wythleweir, a lady of House Conwell. Wythleweir had little Fleet experience. No doubt the vast Conwell fortune and connections came into play during the appointment proceedings for the Blue Max's captain's chair.
Gracefully, the Blue Max set down in the bay, next to the Seeker.
Shortly, the Caroline roared down from the mountains. An old Straylight, the Caroline was captained by Captain Stenstrom, Lord Belmont, in his thirteenth appointment. Light as a feather, the captain brought the Caroline down on the other side of Seeker.
The villagers were buzzing with excitement. It had been a long time that so many ships had been here at once. They anxiously awaited the arrival of the last ship, a "surprise" that the Sisters had promised.
They didn't have long to wait, soon, coming out of the western sky, a black dot approached.
Dav and Syg looked at it. It didn't sound like a Straylight, no roaring, no characteristic whistling, it thrummed with a steady beat.
Dav Sighted it.
"Syg, you remember Ki mentioning a lady named Demona of Ryel and her fine vessel Triumph that we all admired so much?
"Yes, Dav—why?" She squinted and strained to see the ship that was approaching.
"Because there it is."
Clear in Dav's Sight was the Triumph … not the ship that was currently speeding Demona of Ryel to her home, but an identical, much larger version built in Provst by Lord Milos of Probert, the first of a new class. It was a long ship with a narrow, elongated upper hull and a squashed, flattened lower section with no "neck" between the two. It looked like two huge teardrops fused together. The engines were splayed flat at either side on sturdy gantries that retracted into the hull, and they glowed with blue light. It put down in the bay and was clearly much larger than the Straylights next to it.
With the exception of being much larger than the original, it was the spitting image of Demona's ship. Syg, in a flap, was pummeling him with questions, but he wasn't listening. He stared at it, lost in nostalgia.
After a time, a beaming Lord Probert and the Lady Branna of the Science Ministry disembarked.
"Well, Captain, what do you think of her?" Probert asked.
"Lord Probert, it certainly looks like the Triumph I remember. Quite a bit larger than the original, if I recall correctly."
"It had to be larger, Captain," the Lady Branna said, "as this stubborn old man, and soon-to-be unwilling guest of my dungeon, would not part with his tried and trues. This is the ship of the future, Captain. It is equipped with a fully capable tach drive, along with Lord Probert's beloved Stellar Mach coils, as he would not be rid of them. It is fully shielded and mounts devastating Sar-Beams instead of Battleshot batteries …"
"An error in judgment that I will see your blue-haired carcass rotting in prison over, I swear it, Lady Branna," Probert said, pointing at her.
She ignored him.
"Canisters?" Dav asked quietly, hopefully.
"Yes," Lady Branna said, "it mounts canisters, though I pushed for deleting them as well."
"I would send you straight to hell first."
"And Captain, it mounts our first, fully functional electro-teleporter assembly. No more need for Arrow Shot; we can now materialize directly from orbit."
"A scandal!" Probert said. "Who ever heard of such a thing?"
"The scandal, Lord Probert, will be when you resort to cannibalism for survival once your rotund backside has polished the stones of my dungeon floor for a while!" Lady Branna replied.
"You'll starve me, will you, harpy! I will ensure you get your three nourishing meals a day in prison, Lady Branna!"
Davage was impressed; Lord Probert and Lady Branna had outdone themselves. He laughed and separated the bickering duo.
"It is a fine vessel, Captain," Probert said. "I already have five more spars laid in Provst. I'll be wanting you in attendance to pick one out. Bring money, as always."
"You would have me set the Seeker aside?"
"I wish to see our finest captain set sail in our finest vessel. Do you not agree, Lady Sygillis, that Captain Davage is our best?"
"I suppose he does well in a pinch," Syg said, smiling at him, infinitely relieved that this was not Demona of Ryel's ship.
"It is a fine ship, but to leave the Seeker … we've been through so much together."
"Oh," Probert said, "you Fleet captains, so sentimental. You talk of the Seeker like it's a living thing, like it has a soul. If it has a soul, Captain, it's because you gave it to her. Will your new vessel be any different? It needs a soul too, I suppose, does it not?"
He smiled. "Time marches on."
"Well, then, let's aboard, and I'll show you around."
Probert offered his arm to Syg, Davage offered his to Lady Branna, and they went in.
* * * * *
Davage ordered the Seeker into the air, the screaming gas compression engines slowly lifting it out of the bay, the massive underside of the ship creating an artificial rainstorm of dripping water. The dock was its usual mass of waving, cheering people watching the giant ship climb away.
Davage always had a sheepish urge to drop the nose and buzz the dock, soaking those in attendance. It was his dock, his town, after all, but as he didn't want to burst the eardrums of every one of his people, he fought the urge off.
Gracefully, he ordered the ship set at station three thousand feet in the air. There, he waited for the other two escort ships and the Triumph, whose engines were starting to throb with blue light.
The Caroline, performing a slow spin to clear away the water, joined him to his right. The Blue Max then began rising in loud, workmanlike fashion, par
king at his left.
Soon, the Triumph rose into the sky, much larger than the escorting Straylights, but infinitely quieter.
Davage got a Com from the Triumph. Yard Marshall Tempus, a yarding captain from Bern, popped into view—apparently a permanent captain had yet to be appointed. In fact, the whole crew were made up mostly of guests, dignitaries, Admirals, and others, all dressed in their finest, with a small squadron of Marines and a few Sisters to guard the "cargo" of dead Fanatics and their baggage.
"Tempus to escort fleet, we are ready to proceed."
"Shall we ascend to a standard cruising altitude of seventy thousand feet and bear planetary revolutions?" Davage asked.
"No, no, Captain," Tempus said. "Let's give the people something to see. Cruise at five thousand feet and make for parking revolutions only. Let's go nice and slow. To Twilight 4 as in the days of old."
Syg, sitting in Dav's chair, looked up. "What's that mean?" she whispered.
"It means this trip is going to take a while … several hours at least."
"Well then," Tempus said, "if the Seeker will park to my right and the Caroline to my left, the Blue Max will bear tail. Keep to a standard formation and let's open the baffles a bit … let 'em hear us coming."
"Aye, Marshall. Helm, you heard him. Collect at four and stay tight."
Crewman Saari, Lady Branna's daughter, smiled, and slowly, the Seeker tucked into the starboard of the Triumph and the procession began moving to the south … a grand Fleet display not seen in some time.
* * * * *
The fleet had gone about a thousand miles to the south, and it had taken about an hour to get this far. Syg, beginning to get bored, began sending Dav dirty telepathies.
She winked at him and left the bridge.
Feeling a bit tied down by this turtle-pace grand procession himself, Dav decided to take her up on her offer. He'd wait several minutes and then excuse himself; he didn't want it to seem that he was going to be dallying with Syg, though pretty much everybody knew that's what he would be doing. Kilos, standing at her Ops station, gave him a knowing look.
12
THE TRIUMPH FALLS
And that's when the Triumph heeled over hard to port, dropping out of formation like a rock.
The Caroline had to make a severe nose down movement to avoid getting Slapped by the plummeting lead ship. Continuing on through the clouds, the Triumph was locked in a steep, brutal dive to the surface below. Davage, intimately familiar with the workings of a Straylight, had no idea what might be wrong with this new Triumphclass ship— externally, the ship appeared to be functioning normally as far as he could tell.
Recalling Metatron, Davage walked over to the helm and politely, excused Saari, the helmsman. She thankfully stepped back, eager to watch Davage in action. He pulled a pair of white gloves on and lowered the ship into trail. "Let's beat to quarters," he said, wanting the ship ready for action if needed. The claxons went off, and the crew began bustling about.
Very low to the ground, the Triumph pulled up, climbed a bit, and leveled, gliding along quietly as if nothing had happened.
"Com, send to Triumph," Dav said.
"Aye, Captain," the Com said. "No response, sir."
The silence from Triumph was ominous.
Holding the Seeker in a shallow dive, Dav leveled up a bit, giving himself plenty of room. The Caroline followed suit and shallowed at his flank. The Blue Max continued down.
Dav Sighted, staring down through the floorboards and decks, down to the Triumph, through its hull and into the interior.
His blood froze. Inside, there were dead bodies everywhere. It was heartbreaking, all these people, elegant, dressed in their best, ready for a grand party—dead, chopped to pieces. Inside, there were no less than three hundred "Mariliths" running about, taking key sections of the ship, including the bridge. The Fanatics of Nalls—they had somehow stowed away. Those odd dolls in their pouches, he recalled—perhaps they had "Boxed" themselves into those.
Davage pulled the wheel back. "I want flanking speed. Com, send to Caroline and Blue Max, the Triumph has been taken by hostile forces and must now be considered an enemy vessel!"
"Aye, sir!"
The viewer clicked on, and suddenly they were seeing the Triumph's bridge. Close up, filling the screen, was Princess Marilith of Xandarr, her face painted for war. There was fire in her eyes and a slight crooked smile on her lips.
This was no Cloaked Fanatic. This was the real thing. He'd know that crazed gaze anywhere.
"Care to play, Captain?" she said with a sneer. "You're going to die today!"
The screen flipped off. And Davage saw what was coming. He rammed the wheel upward to Z plus two thousand feet.
A wailing red Sar-Beam blast came sizzling upward, just missing his rolling belly. Another blast—the Blue Max was hit square in the neck of the ship. Smoking, it heeled to port, taking yet another blast in its ventral.
Sight.
Davage whipped the wheel first one way then the other, the Seeker standing on its head. A Sar-Beam screamed by.
Enough, enough of this. "Canister control, I want a two-shot stagger fire aimed for the Triumph's stern!"
He heard nothing back.
"Canister control, do you read?"
Before another moment passed, twenty shimmering balls of floating, granular light appeared at various places on the bridge.
Dav had seen this before. Balls of light, just like when Demona of Ryel "filtered" down from her ship to join him for lunch on the surface of Kana.
Matter/Energy converters. Teleportation units!
"We're boarded!" Davage cried, drawing his MiMs.
The Fanatics of Nalls, all Cloaked to look like Marilith, leering, confident, laughing, drew their odd assortment of weapons and sprung to attack.
"Clear the bridge!" Dav yelled, firing his MiMs, the small, elegant pistol making its usual "pock, pock" sound. "Everybody into the conference room, bar the door, and don't open it unless ordered to by me!"
Kilos drew her SK. "You heard him, everybody out!" She began firing, her weapon making a much more satisfying "tack! tack!" report.
The bridge crew, unarmed, quickly made their way to the conference room door, Davage and Kilos covering them with fire. This was something of a maddening situation. The Fanatics, while being eager to fight and initially intimidating, were not overly wise or skilful as they fought. Ki had already dropped four and Dav three, the small MiMs needing two or three shots to kill a person. Dav couldn't clean them up with his CARG as he had to turn the wheel. The Triumph out there with its reaching, deadly Sar-Beam fire was of much greater importance.
He Sighted a knife whizzing for his head. He ducked.
He Sighted another Sar-Beam blast. He rolled the ship. The crew, used to a twisting, turning "Dav fight" casually hung on and stood tall as they exited. The Fanatics, though, tumbled and flew screaming about the bridge, many dropping their weapons and at least one being killed with a crushed skull against the ceiling.
The Fanatics were flabbergasted; they'd never experienced anything like it. Some looked miserable, like they were ready to drop their weapons and give up.
Seeing this, the bridge crew stopped running and began fighting. They fought the Fanatics, unarmed and untrained. They fought with whatever they had; Davage saw coffee cups, report pads, shoes, and belt buckles go flying in a cloud across the bridge. The Fanatics, down to eleven attackers, found themselves swarmed on all sides, the bridge crew latching onto them and pulling them down relentlessly. Saari had one around the throat with her belt with her left hand and was beating the Fanatic senseless with a shoe in her right.
A Fanatic leveled a long pistol at her.
Pock—right between the eyes. The Fanatic fell.
Ki's hammering SK, its endless magazine o
f twenty-five shots, finished the rest of the armed Fanatics.
A final belly roll to avoid another Sar-Beam blast closed the proceedings, and the bridge was secure. A few minutes later the Marines came in to mop up the survivors and declared all key areas of the ship re-taken and secure.
"Is everybody all right?" Davage said as he pulled the Seeker into a steep, steep climb.