For their plan to work, everyone would have to hit together, and Kaly would start the attack. But Team 201 had learned to work together as a single, functioning organism. Each of them knew exactly what the others would do, and Kaly didn’t let herself worry about her teammates. Instead, she put her full attention on getting herself ready. As Ben Di started the countdown, she carefully swung her submachinegun back and behind her as quietly as possible, and double checked the stun pistol she had been given by Captain t’Gwen.
She was a good shot with most pistols—not as good as she was with Tatiana--but proficient enough to feel reasonably confident of success. That was if everything went the way they had planned it. Most plans only stayed intact until the moment that they encountered the enemy though. After that, things tended to go sideways, and only quick reflexes and fast thinking compensated for all the chaos.
3, 2, 1. Go!
Kaly pushed the plate up and popped out. The trooper was right in front of her, and before the startled woman could react, she fired the stun pistol. There was a bright flash and the woman toppled forwards.
Margasdaater came out of her hiding place at the same time, and threw a stun grenade at her target. It hit the trooper just under the lip of her helmet and with such force that the impact alone was enough to render her unconscious. As Margasdaater ducked back down into cover, it rolled away and exploded uselessly under a control station with an earsplitting ‘bang!’
When she rose again, the Zommerlaandar had a big grin plastered on her face.
Goddess, Astrid! Kaly thought. Did you have to throw it that hard?
Yah, vell, zorry, Margasdaater apologized, clearly not sorry at all.
Over at the entrance, the two other troopers were also down. Ben Di and T’Jinna had subdued them with their stun pistols. But no one paused to celebrate their easy victory. Instead they jumped out and began to disarm and secure their prisoners.
One of the Engineering Techs, who had been cowering behind a nearby control console, came up to Kaly and offered to help. Together, they dragged Kaly’s trooper off to the side.
Admiral, Chief, Kaly heard Ben Di think. We’re clear. Come on up.
When Lilith appeared with the Chief and the others, she took in the sight of the unconscious troopers and nodded to Kaly in approval.
“All right, Chief”, she said. “Let’s get that Protocole instituted and end this thing.”
“Straightaway, ma’am,” Bel Lyra answered, leading her over to a control station. Lilith sat down at it, and started to reach for the interface.
She was interrupted by the sharp staccato of a chemical weapon being fired. Blood blossomed across Bel Lyra’s jumpsuit, and the woman spasmed from the impact of the rounds as they hit her.
Jon reacted instantly, grabbing Lilith in his powerful arms and dropping with her to the decking. Jan joined him an instant later, wrapping herself around the neoman and adding her own mass to the human shield.
Kaly’s head whipped around and she saw the tech who had helped her, crouching nearby. There was a needlegun in her hand. The kind that was issued to RSE Teams.
Even as her mind processed this fact, Kaly was bringing her submachinegun around. But before she could fire, the enemy agent had dropped her pistol, withdrawn a wicked looking sword from under a nearby station, and leapt forwards.
The woman disappeared halfway to the deck, transforming into a shadow. In an eye blink, it had crossed the room, passing by Margasdaater, then T’Jinna, and finally Ben Di.
Margasdaater cried out and clutched at her throat as bright red blood welled up through her fingers. Simultaneously, T’Jinna screamed when her hand flew away, still clenching the pistol it had been holding, and Ben Di simply dropped to her knees with an expression of shock. Her head toppled away from her body an instant later, and then her decapitated corpse followed it to the decking.
Wailing in terror, Kaly let off a burst from her weapon, but the phantom had moved out of her line of sight even before the first round managed to leave the barrel. Then she caught a brief glimpse of Jeena drawing his own sword, and vanishing.
There was a flash of purple sparks near the center of the room and a clash of steel as the two shadows engaged one another. An instant later, a head materialized out of thin air and rolled across the decking, coming to rest at Kaly’s feet.
It was the tech. Her eyes were wide with horror, and her mouth moved for a moment, trying to expel a scream that would never come. Her body came next, collapsing onto the metal floor with a sodden thump. Then Jeena reappeared, standing over it with a bloody sword.
Still in shock, Kaly started to scramble towards Margasdaater, but she heard the distinctive sound of metal legs skittering towards her. Before she had time to react to this, Jeena had disappeared and she felt a hand shoving her to the floor. A cluster of energized bolts passed right through the space that she had just occupied, smashing into a control station instead and making it burst into flame.
It was the battlebot that they had encountered earlier. The killer robot had responded to the sounds of the fight, and now it was standing in the entranceway. Realizing that it had missed her, its head began to swivel around to reacquire her, and as it adjusted its aim, Kaly found herself looking right down the barrel of its guns.
The fatal shots never came though. There was a disturbance in the air, and something passed between her and the robot. Then the thing’s head split in half with a shower of sparks. It collapsed, and Jeena manifested out of nowhere, pale and panting for breath.
As the ‘bot crashed to the floor, Kaly made for Margasdaater again, and this time, managed to reach her. The Zommerlaandar was still alive, but the only thing that separated her from the afterlife were her hands holding the wound in her throat. There was blood everywhere.
“Kaly—“she managed to croak. Then she smiled weakly and her eyes fluttered shut.
“No!” Kaly sobbed, shaking her as if she could wake her back to life. “No! Astrid! Don’t leave!”
It was useless though. Margasdaater was gone. Wailing up at the ceiling in grief, Kaly gathered her up, and cradled her in her arms. “No…no…no…”
Jeena left her to mourn her comrade and went to T’Jinna. The Sireeni had curled herself up in a corner. She was holding her arm and staring incredulously at the bloody stump where her hand had been. Reaching into her med-pak, the neoman pulled out a dressing and gently wrapped it around the wound. The smart fiber molded itself to the injury immediately, and compressed, sealing off the severed vessels.
Having done all that he could for her, he made a point of retrieving the hand itself. It had slid over into a corner, and he knew that once medical attention became available, that it would be grafted back onto her. And in all likelihood, she would regain full use of it; thanks to the sharpness of the sword that had removed it, the wound had been clean. But like Kaly, he also understood that her mental healing process would take much longer, and that the outcome was far less certain.
Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that Jon and Jan had released Lilith, and now they were working together to help the Chief with another medpak. Miraculously, Bel Lyra was still alive, even though it was obvious that she had taken multiple hits from the needlegun.
She too would most likely live, the neoman thought, and he saluted Jon and Bar Daala with his sword for putting themselves in harms’ way to save the Vice-Admiral.
“Admiral,” he said, inclining his head at Bel Lyra. “Can we still engage the Protocole?”
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered. She looked at something behind him, and he followed her gaze. It was another tech. An officer. She was unarmed, and looked as shaken as everyone else.
“You!” he shouted. “Get over here and help the Admiral.”
The woman blinked as if she was having trouble understanding his words. Then she came around and ran over, barking orders of her own. “Someone get that fire out! Ensign—get on the back-up station and re-route away from it! Burn it woman!”
“Can you lock out the bridge and all the Class 1 areas?” Lilith asked her, wiping the back of a bloody hand across her forehead.
“Yes, ma’am,” the officer answered. “I have the clearance.” As she moved to take her place at the control station, Bel Lyra seized Lilith’s sleeve. “The gravity—“, she croaked. “Need to--change—that—“
“What does she mean?” Lilith asked.
“I know,” Jeena replied. He proceeded to give the tech the details.
The instant that the sailor sent the command, everyone noticed the change. For most of them, it manifested as nothing more than a ringing in the ears, but Jeena staggered as he felt the connection with his symbiote break off, and he had to fight to stay erect as the room spun.
Things stabilized for a moment, and then the unpleasant sensation repeated itself. It came and went like this, in alternating cycles.
“What is that?” Lilith demanded. “What did she just do?”
Steadying himself against the control station, Jeena gave her a wan smile. “She just saved us from any more attacks like that last one, Vice Admiral. Now we can finish this.”
***
Up above them on the bridge, Silvi bel Thana had also noticed the change, and when she tried to access her symbiote, and failed, she cried out in dismay. An alarm went off next, warning everyone that the Main Lifts had just gone offline. It was followed by another alert about the bridge itself.
All of the control stations had gone dead. So had every other location where her teams had been stationed.
Josette’s hologram appeared. Her face wore a creamy, self-satisfied expression. “Silvi? Angelique is dead, and it is all over for you and your friends. Give up now, and your lives will be spared.”
“No!” Silvi shrieked, slashing at the holo with her sword. “No! That can’t be true!” She rounded on Katrinn and her officers. “I’ll kill them all! I’ll kill them one by one unless you get me a ship!”
“Of course, sister dear,” Josette replied. “I fully understand. A ship has already been prepared for you. It is in the Hangar, awaiting your pleasure.”
Silvi pulled Katrinn up by her collar and put the edge of her weapon to her throat. “She’s coming with me—as insurance—sister dear.”
Oddly, Katrinn was smiling. “You’re done,” she said to her, her words slurring. “It’s over.”
Silvi heard a faint hiss, and realized that everyone around her was starting to sway, and then to her horror, collapsing to the deck. With another panicked cry, she released Katrinn and immediately donned the emergency breather mask she had appropriated for herself. Eyes wild with desperation, she took a deep breath from it, and looked around her for her fellow agents. Two of them had been too slow to react, and they had joined the crew in unconsciousness, but three were still standing.
“Follow me!” she shouted. She led the way over to an access panel set in the bulkhead. Wrenching it open, she climbed in and began to ascend the emergency ladder without bothering to see if her companions were still behind her. The ladder led up to a series of tubeways, and ultimately the Hangar itself.
Down in the secondary bridge, Lilith saw this happening on the ‘vid feeds and turned to Skylaar and Josette. They had returned with a full squad of Marines. “She’s getting away!”
Josette pointedly ignored the display and examined her perfectly manicured nails instead. “Yes, Admiral,” she sighed. “She is.”
“We need to send someone after her!” Lilith declared. “She needs to stand trial for this!” She looked to the officer leading the Marines. “Get some people up there, Lieutenant! I want that woman brought back to me in irons!”
“Belay that, Trooper,” Skylaar interrupted. “This is an Agency matter. Let her go. Do not interfere. That is a direct order under the authority of the Chairwoman’s mandate for the RSE.”
By now, alarms were telling them that the fugitives had left the emergency ladder and had passed through a maintenance tube. In just a few minutes, they would reach the Hangar and make their escape.
“She’s getting away!” Lilith repeated. She couldn’t believe that they were actually letting this happen.
Skylaar simply shrugged, and Josette calmly took a seat and watched as a panel that opened into the Hangar Bay was breached. A minute after this, the Hangar’s status display registered a shuttle’s engines coming to life, and then it informed them that the vessel was taxiing over to a take-off strip. It was preparing to leave the Athena.
“What is this? “ Lilith demanded. “What is going on here?” Neither woman bothered to enlighten her. Meanwhile, the shuttle had departed and was beginning its descent towards Ashkele.
“Offhand,” Josette finally said, “I’d venture to say that my sister plans to seek asylum with the Xee, and then sell what she knows to the Hriss or some other pack of alien vermin.” Her tone was mild and thoroughly unruffled.
Lilith was aghast. “And you’re actually letting that happen?”
Now it was Josette’s turn to answer with a shrug. “Evidently.”
By now, the shuttle had reached the outer layer of the atmosphere, and as it continued to drop, Skylaar watched its progress keenly. “I believe that it has reached the correct altitude,” she observed.
At that precise instant, the vessel exploded. Immediately, automatic calls went out to the Hangar Bay to dispatch emergency rescue units, but the Nemesian reached over and silenced them.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “Clearly, Silvi had some explosives in her possession when she departed. These must have gone off prematurely.”
“Clearly,” Josette agreed. “And saved us the ordeal of an embarrassing trial that would have harmed our new Chairwoman’s administration, not to mention the reputation of a number of other important women. Rather convenient, don’t you think?”
She rose from her place and brushed away some imaginary dust from her cloak. “I shall have to contact those women as soon as possible and remind them of their debt to me,” she said. “I am certain that they will want to express their gratitude.’
“Oh, and while I’m at it, I will also have to call my brokers. It seems that I have just inherited all of my sister’s shares in the Luxar Lines, and a substantial fortune in Credits.’
She bowed deeply to Lilith. “Admiral? It has been a true pleasure working with you. Now, if you’ll be so kind as to accommodate me, I’ll need somewhere to make these calls—in private, of course.”
Speechless, all Lilith could do was incline her head stiffly, and muster up all of her inner resources to marshal her temper. Since Sarah’s return, she had allowed herself to enjoy an unofficial truce with the Agency. But Josette had just reminded her of everything that she despised about that organization. They were the very worst of what the Sisterhood was, and she found herself sympathizing wholeheartedly with the rebels of the ETR and the Marionites.
Her inner turmoil was interrupted by an Engineering tech who had cross-trained for Fire-Control. “Admiral! We just had fifteen ships exit Null!” the woman announced. “They’re headed straight at us!”
Lilith’s eyes riveted on the sitscreens. The remaining in-system Hriss patrols were still arrowing in their direction, but they were a good 20 minutes away from becoming a serious threat. The newcomers had come out of Nullspace much closer than that, and would reach them in five.
Seevaans? she thought. It seemed impossible. According to Rixa, they still had hours before the insectoids would arrive. Someone else then?
Her question was answered when the ship’s computer finally managed to identify the intruders. They were Tzang warships—and alongside every category were nothing but question marks; ‘Weapons? Unknown. Defenses? Unknown. Class? Unknown.’
The only thing that was firm was that they were hostile. Their weapons—whatever they were—had targeted the Battle Group. The hail that the Athena received from the Tzang only confirmed this.
“Sisterhood ship, you have something of ours,” a voic
e said, sounding like it came from the wrong side of the grave. “You have the Secret. Surrender it to us now or die.”
Lilith’s mind raced. She had control of the Athena, and thanks to that, the Artemis and Demeter no longer considered her vessel a target. But most of her bridge crew were still recovering from the effects of the GZ gas, and the ship itself was being run from a secondary helm, with truncated control stations. And even with her sister ships helping, they would be facing fifteen warships of unknown strength, plus the Hriss, who were still on their way, and then the Seevaans.
It wasn’t even a match. It was a slaughter.
There was only one solution that would resolve the crisis, she decided. She turned to the tech. “Target that Tree,” she told her. “Thermonuke. One missile, maximum yield. Vaporize it.”
“Admiral?” Skylaar asked. “Are you certain? You yourself said that it needed to be studied by experts. And it is on sovereign Xee soil. If we attack it, we’re attacking the Xee.”
“Goddess damn the Xee,” Lilith snarled. “I’ve changed my mind. This thing shouldn’t be in anyone’s hands—least of all our enemies. Take it out, Ensign!”
“Yes, ma’am,” the woman answered. Her finger stabbed at the holographic controls. On the main display, one of the Athena’s missiles came to life, and then launched itself, dropping towards the planet below.
A howl of elemental rage came from the Tzang, and it was joined by the Hriss Commander as they both realized what she had just done. It was too late however. Neither force was close enough to intercept the missile. All they could do was watch helplessly as it gained speed and closed with its target.
Less than 30 seconds later, it detonated with a bright flash, and a violent shockwave rippled out into the surrounding ruins, toppling the ancient buildings. This was accompanied by a gigantic mushroom cloud, and a wave of dust which rolled outwards in all directions. When it finally cleared enough to reveal the result of the strike, the plaza was gone. In its place, was a crater filled with molten glass. The Tree, and all of its secrets, was no more.
Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve Page 80