* * *
“Talk to me, McLeod. What’s left?” Katahl called up to tactical, his dark brown eyes fixed on the viewscreen as the last of the Alystierian attack force began to descend on their position.
“All wings are in and the last of our ships just jumped away,” McLeod said. “It’s down to us and the Kennox, sir.”
“What about them?” Katahl pointed to his foes in the screen.
McLeod ran the data. “Looks like three carriers, six cruisers, nine destroyers, and the Kamuir…all mostly armed and headed straight for us.”
“And the last Kurgorian ship?”
“She just came about, sir. ETA: three mikes, maybe a little more.”
Katahl rested his chin on his fist and studied the screen.
“Why are they taking so long to engage us?” asked one of the other officers.
“It’s Masterson,” Katahl said, brown eyes narrowing. “He wants to savor the kill before taking it.” Not wasting any more time, the admiral spun on his heels and marched back to the comm panel on his command chair. “I’ll be damned if he gets it from me without a fight, though.”
* * *
“Engineering, what’s the hold-up?” Katahl’s voice barked again, sending Jon Simpson scampering across the second-level catwalk toward the main injector assembly.
“I’m almost there, Admiral!” said the stocky engineer, running a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “Just a few more seconds, and I should have the mains back online!” Programming in the last of his revised settings that would hopefully slave the Praetorian’s drive-system to that of the Kennox, Simpson gawked when the umbilical registered yet another flatline. “Ah, come on!”
“Hey, Chief!” a familiar voice called from a level down, and Simpson glanced past the railing to see a singularly-barefooted Wyatt standing there with a bin of spira-tools. “Need a hand?”
* * *
“Enemy contact in sixty seconds, sir!” McLeod announced.
“Weapons status?” Katahl asked as a handful of early booms began to rumble in the distance.
“Main batteries are down to thirty-three percent. Secondary and thirds are nominally better at forty-two, but we’ve lost all slider coverage from port-aft to port-center with almost nothing to starboard save a handful of platforms along the bow.”
“Armor integrity?”
“Forty-six percent, give or take, from bow to center-mass,” McLeod said. “After that, you’re getting into the sections that got torched up at Kyma, which is to say they’re not worth reporting.”
Katahl exhaled through his nostrils then rose to his full height. “Helm, signal the Kennox that we’re about to move then lay in a course for the Alystierian flagship, Kamuir, with every peg of sublight you can give me. Tactical, stand ready with everything we’ve got.”
“Sir?” the helmsman blurted through the chorus of gasps around the bridge.
“As long as we’re locked in at close quarters with the grays, the aliens can’t engage,” Katahl said.
The young man’s look of shock didn’t falter.
“Son, we didn’t have a prayer before against those alien ships, much less in the shape we’re in now,” Katahl said. “Our only chance is to close in as tight as we possibly can to the Kamuir and pray those things actually give a damn about their allies’ commander. Now do it.”
The helmsman nodded, and Katahl returned his focus to tactical. “Once we’re in range, I want you to hit that son of a bitch square in the jaw with everything we’ve got. Hear me? Everything.”
McLeod’s look tightened over the blue and yellow lights of his terminal. “Yes, sir.”
* * *
“Chancellor Masterson, sir!” Ovies yelped over the Kamuir’s alert system. “The Praetorian has just altered course and is heading straight for us!”
“What?” Masterson exclaimed. Then turning back to his main viewer, he looked on in total disbelief as his wounded opponent, carrying what little defenses she had left, leapt into claustrophobic range and opened up full bore on his hull. “Tactical! Target their bridge and fire!”
In that instant, the space around the two ships ignited in a blaze as each one laid into the other with every last kilo of ordnance it had, sending massive pillars of fire and debris spiraling into the black.
As ordered, the Praetorian managed to keep the brunt of the violence focused on her forward sections where she had max protection. Meanwhile the Kamuir—still a bit dazed by the ASC flagship’s surge of aggression—regained her footing in time to lock down the Praetorian’s mid-section and begin gutting her with its main batteries.
* * *
“Admiral, sir, we’ve got a problem!” McLeod said over the thunder.
“Tell me something I don’t know!” Katahl shot back.
“Sir, three of those Alystierian ships have managed to carve out a wedge between us and the Kennox, and by the look of it that Kurgorian ship is lining up for a strike on her starboard nacelle.”
“We’ll be trapped here if they do!” Floyd shrieked from the comm.
Katahl snapped his head around to tactical. “Time?”
“Thirty seconds, sir.”
“Simpson!” Katahl shouted into his comm. “We’re out of time.”
* * *
“Stand by, Admiral, we’re almost there,” Wyatt said with a final tweak to the core’s injector assembly. Once they threw the switch, the system would spike with energy, and if he didn’t get this right, the whole thing would overload. Wyatt patted the panel in front of him. Come on, old girl, give me one more jump. I know you’ve got it in you.
“Boost infusers are at full-rich and online,” Simpson shouted from the catwalk, the muffled boom of artillery and failing bulkheads thick in the air behind him. “How are we doing on the assembly?”
“Good as it’s gonna be,” Wyatt called from his station. “Umbilical levels are decent and holding strong at a steady 68 percent.”
“All right.” Simpson slid down the ladder, “Nothing else to do but fire her up and see what happens.”
Wyatt keyed his comm. “Kennox, this is Praetorian. Initializing caldrasite porting sequence…now!”
A hollow hum echoed through the tall, cylindrical chamber as Wyatt looked on, heart in his throat. His display lights blinked. Then all at once, they burst to life when the slumbering drive moaned awake.
“Yeah!” Simpson howled.
“Bridge, this is engineering,” Wyatt shouted. “We are online and ready to roll. Now get us the hell outta here!”
“All crews!” Katahl’s voice hailed. “FTL in three…two…one…Jump!”
* * * * *
Chapter 41: Deceived
The loud kla-klack of thirty-six A-90 assault rifles rang out in Lee’s ears like a shot as he skidded to a halt on the flight deck. They belonged to the six security teams who were securing the alien escape pod he’d just hauled in. Though in an odd turn of events, Lee had since learned that ex-chancellor Lucius Zier and another man—an Alystierian captain—had been aboard the first pod, both of whom now stood zip-tied under guard off to the side.
“Have they opened it yet?” Mac demanded, having sprung from her own crashed-down Mako and sprinted into the hangar behind Lee. Link and Layla were with her. “Have they found him?”
“Hey, fellas?” Link pointed to the guards’ weapons, which were aimed at the pod. “It’s okay, he’s one of ours.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” Katahl cut through the crowd to meet them. “Just because whoever is inside this thing flashed Sergeant Tucker’s signal to get here doesn’t automatically mean it’s him. We’re just taking precautions.”
Link started to say something else but was interrupted by the loud hiss of air from the pod’s decompression sequence followed by a series of thick metallic clacks from the cube’s only entry point—the door release, Lee presumed.
The sequence concluded with one more clack, and Lee felt his nerves jump when the entrance peeled back from the
craft, and a massive black figure, encased from head to toe in heavy Kurgorian armor, stumbled out.
“What the hell?” Link muttered in confusion.
Lee shook his head; he too was taken aback by the sight of whatever this was. For starters, the thing was nothing short of horrifying to look at—though perhaps even more puzzling was its physical state upon exiting the craft. Part of the figure’s right shoulder appeared to be missing, as if the plating had been sheered away from the frame somehow—most likely by an energy weapon, Lee guessed, based on the melted steel and scorch marks surrounding the wound. Pieces of the chest piece, left gauntlet, right thigh, and even the helmet had also been torn away, while several other sections—most notably the left arm and torso—showed the same charred exterior and smoldering mesh as the shoulder. Some of them were scuffs of little significance; others were deep gashes that ripped clean through to the wearer, who was obviously bleeding.
Whatever had happened to this thing on its way off of that ship, Lee guessed, had been brutal. He stepped toward it.
“Summerston,” Katahl hissed. “What are you doing?”
Lee waved him off and took another step toward the figure. “Hey, Danny,” he said, a tiny hint of doubt trickling through. “Danny, you in there?”
The figure said nothing. Instead, it reached back into the pod and grabbed hold of something. Then, with an effortless heave, it sent a corpse skidding across the deck plates toward the feet of the admiral.
“What the…” several voices said at once.
Of mid-height and slender build, the alien’s cranium was slightly elongated. Bright red skin covered in crystalline scales showed under the tattered black uniform.
“What is this?” Katahl asked.
The black giant hesitated, as if unsure whether or not it wanted to speak, before finally doing so. “That, Admiral, is your enemy,” it said in a deep, modulated voice that was every bit as creepy as Lee had anticipated.
Katahl regarded the body. “Why have you brought him to us? And what do you want?”
“Danny?” Lee inched closer to the centurion. “That’s you, right, brother?”
* * *
Danny swallowed hard behind the armor’s mask, not for the pain he felt over the litany of wounds covering his body, but because never in his life had he felt so utterly torn. That was his best friend standing there, and if Lee’s features were any indication—tired, pale, and haggard—the last few days had been rough on him as well. There wasn’t a doubt in Danny’s mind that all Lee wanted—all any of them wanted—was to see their family member whole. He could give them that, too, with little more than a thought. He’d signal the suit to raise the mask then he’d climb out to mass adoration, after which everything would be fine again…for a time…and really only for them.
Danny, on the other hand, would never truly know that kind of peace again. It’d been taken from him forever back on Alystier, and the man responsible for that had to pay. Sadly, though, Danny knew that unlike before, when they’d all thrown caution to the wind to go after Mac, Lee and the others couldn’t operate anymore with that kind of reckless abandon. They had too much to lose now. They had lives and responsibilities. They had families, people who relied on them to come home. People like little Don and Frank Baxter, whose lives would never be the same if something happened to their parents. And that, Danny concluded, was why the others couldn’t be a part of this, not this time.
In the end, Masterson was his war now. Not Lee’s, nor Mac’s, nor even the ASC’s. It was his, and if he truly meant to fight that war in the manner and on the grounds he intended, then the burden of doing so had to fall on him and him alone. For if Madisyn’s death had taught Danny anything, it was that a person’s loved ones would always be at risk where vengeance was concerned, and never again would he have that kind of blood on his hands…never. That was why no one in this room—not Briggs, nor Zier, nor even Lee—could ever know that Daniel Tucker had made it off Axius alive.
Checking his mic to make sure it was off, Danny peered across the flight deck at his friends…at his family…and allowed himself a handful of tears for what he was about to do.
“I love you guys…”
* * *
“Danny?” Lee persisted, his curiosity teetering on desperation. “Danny, come on.”
“The man you are referring to is dead,” the centurion responded with cold indifference. “He perished aboard the Axius with the rest of my people.”
Lee felt his entire body freeze. “That’s not…that’s not possible.” His eyes darted from the pod to the figure to his wife then back to the figure. “What could…I mean, why…but how can that be? You signaled our school name with your running lights! There’s no way you could’ve known to do that!”
The centurion gestured to Zier and the Alystierian captain. “I reached the CIC just in time to see these two men evacuate in my pralah’s escape pod, and it was my intention to fire on them. However, in exchange for my not doing so, your friend gave me the code they used to penetrate your defenses.”
“But why us?” A mixture of anger and frustration began to boil in Lee’s tone. “Why not return to your own ship with the other pods?”
“Because the Vanxus was already out of range. Getting picked up by your people was the only option I had for surviving the blast, and now I wish to take my leave of you.”
Zier and the other man trade bewildered looks in the corner of Lee’s eye.
“Out of the question,” Katahl snapped. “You’re not going anywhere.”
The centurion bellowed an ominous laugh, drenched in a digital haze. “Admiral, you have seen the level of damage my technology is capable of inflicting on yours. Thus, I can assure you that while you may inevitably take me, especially in my current state, it won’t happen until many more of your crew—starting with everyone in this room—has preceded me to the fall.” He paused. “Admiral, have you not lost enough lives today as it is?”
Katahl said nothing.
“If you’re not Danny, then why did he stay behind?” Lee snarled. “And why was it so damn important to him that these two men get to us?”
“The significance of these two prisoners is not known to me,” the centurion said. “You will have to ascertain that for yourselves. As for your friend, he was mortally wounded in the battle to take my ship, so much so that by the time he’d helped these two escape, he’d lacked the ability to stand, much less move to a pod of his own. He expired shortly thereafter on the floor of the CIC.”
The dark figure reached into his armor and produced a small object, which he tossed onto the ground. It was round and shiny, and it rolled in a straight yet wobbly line across the deck until it stopped at Lee’s boot.
It was a ring.
Right then and there, Lee Summerston’s world collapsed. He’d seen that ring before—once, long ago when things had gotten really bad for his friend back on Earth. Danny had been more than a year unemployed at that time, and in a fit of drunken depression one night, he’d pulled it out of a drawer and showed it to Lee and Mac.
“This belonged to my mom,” Danny had slurred, eyes glossed over and reeking of cheap vodka. “My dipshit old man gave it to her back in the seventies when they were just starting out…You know, during the good ol’ days when he wasn’t banging his patients. Yep, I figure this puppy right here oughta keep my wine rack stocked for at least a month—two, if Two-Buck Chuck’s on sale! Ha ha ha ha!”
Lee knelt down to pick up the ring and shivered, in part for the memory, though mostly for what it signified: Danny had meant to propose to Madisyn.
Turning to face Mac, Lee could already see the tears welling in her eyes. The same went for Link and Layla, both of whom looked away.
“You never answered my question from before,” Katahl said, “the one regarding your comrade. Why bring him to us?”
“That was not my intention,” the centurion said. “He was a coward who fired on me in the hope of seizing this pod. I killed him fo
r it, only I didn’t have time to jettison his body before my launch from the Axius.”
“And the ring?” Lee managed in a weak voice, clasping it in his fingers.
“Your man was holding it when he died. I’d intended it as a trophy. But, in the interest of cooperation, you may keep it if you wish.”
“What are your terms?” Katahl asked.
That drew another laugh from the centurion. “I want nothing from you, Admiral. I only ask that you allow me to board my ship and go in peace. Do that, and no additional blood will be shed here today.”
Katahl furrowed his brow, and Lee could see by the man’s expression he didn’t like it one damn bit. But he was considering it.
“Do we have an accord, Admiral?”
* * *
Once clearing the launch tubes, all but numb by this point inside his armor, Danny tapped the release inside of his right shoulder plating then steeled himself when the torso splayed open to eject him onto the deck. There he landed face-first in a pool of his own filth and fluids. Thankfully, though, the third had waited until the end to come, so he hadn’t had to marinate in it like he had the others. His head felt like a cesspool of toxins, his muscles a spastic trainwreck of tissue and misfired nerve endings, while his back and upper body were a shredded heap of burns and needle tracks, twitching and convulsing with his system’s attempt to regroup, cold turkey, from the suit’s ejection sequence. And yet, Danny supposed from his spastic sprawl on the soiled floor, deck plates buzzing against his cheek, it was all okay. They would all be…okay.
A few seconds passed, and Danny felt his muscles begin to relax, but he didn’t try to get up. Not at first. Instead, he reached a clammy hand for the O2 canister on the floor beside him and took a series of long, labored, wheezing breaths from its regulator. Hurling a final mouthful of bile and green alien fluid onto the deck to his right, he mustered enough strength to pull himself into the nav seat, where he watched through bloodshot eyes as dozens of tiny gray dots vanished into the void beyond the rear view port. They were the last of the ASC invasion force, the Praetorian among them, and thankfully so were his friends.
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