Daughter of Destiny

by HC Playa

  "General Westing, this is Katarina O'Brian and Zane Gratig," Naia said.

  General Westing stepped away from the large holographic display. He exchanged handshakes with Zane first and then Katarina. "Pleased to meet you. Do I want to know how you got past security?"

  Katarina smiled. "I'll fill you in on that later and on how to keep other individuals from exploiting the same opening."

  He bobbed his head in a curt nod. "Much appreciated. Time's short, so I'll get to the point. Do you have an ETA on the IGC fleet?"

  "I’m sorry, no" Katarina replied. "I opted to leave before their leadership attempted to make me a long-term guest on Yopmar."

  "Are you saying they wished to detain you against your will?"

  "Possibly, but let's not worry about that."

  "Fine. I suppose we'll work with what we have for defense. Our satellites detect a sizable fleet in orbit."

  "Were you able to use any of the information I sent?"

  "Yes. We’ve rigged a few surprises, the first of which should detonate in a few moments." He pointed to the holographic map. "I'm needed, so if you don't mind, you civilians need to step over there." General Westing pointed to a handful of brown folding metal chairs and a faux wood table. "I'll debrief you later."

  He turned his back and rejoined the cluster of officers initiating last minute orders to the troops represented on the map by little green lights.

  Katarina stared at his back for a full minute and then shook her head as she headed for the chairs. "At least Grian granted me more than three minutes of her time."

  Naia muttered under her breath and all but stomped her way to the table. Katarina didn't mind leaving battles to the soldiers, but after risking so much, being relegated to the sidelines stung.

  Zane, however, lingered close enough to the holomap to follow the battle. Katarina could sense the coiled energy within him, ready to act if need arose. His posture and body language mirrored the generals and being ordered to stand down grated on his nerves even more than hers.

  Finn and Kieran joined them at the table. Finn leaned against the table and leaned over toward Katarina. "Want to take bets on how many green lights blink out before he asks for Zane's help?"

  Katarina folded her arms over her belly. "That is not the least bit funny. Those green lights represent people."

  Finn shrugged. "So do the red ones. I don't see anyone getting upset when they disappear. Human morals are no less ambiguous than Fae, iníon."

  She eyed her father, trying to figure out what he aimed to accomplish with this discussion. "I'm not going to argue morality. Do I want anyone to die? No. They started this, so I'm not going to feel bad that we have to use violence in return. Not everything can be solved with a magic band-aid."

  Her father returned her stare for a long minute. "Cool logic. Very good. You aren't hot-headed. It took me a few thousand years to learn that skill."

  Katarina's mouth dropped open, but Finn wandered off to go look at the station handling the list of odd domestic issues.

  "Don't mind father, he's always probing and testing people. I think he enjoys finding ways to make people lose their temper." Kieran straddled a metal chair and rested his chin on the edge of the chair. "So are we just going to sit around? I thought we were going to do something. This is boring."

  Katarina put a hand to her temple. Patience. He's your brother. Beating him upside the head will not knock humanity into him… unfortunately. At least she sort of understood her father's commentary. No doubt, in her dealings with the Fae, others would say or do things far worse and as the emissary she couldn't fly off the handle or refuse to consider their point of view. Finn didn't know her well, so it made sense that he might test her a bit.

  Curly hair in disarray and his eyes circled with shadows, Robert stepped out of an elevator, pausing when he saw her. "Hey, Naia texted me and told me you're back. Good! I have to get back to my station in case we need some last minute programming, but I can give you a quick run-down."

  "Thanks, Robert," Katarina said as she tested the table's stability before perching on the edge.

  "No prob. Our first wave of defense is the older fighter planes. They'll put up a realistic defense, but are instructed to avoid taking risks. They're basically a red herring. We've got tons of them, so basically we are trying to draw out as many of the Goloth forces as possible. As soon as they send a second wave, a massive EM pulse will go out in about," Robert leaned over and peered around Zane. "--three minutes. Our fighters are playing hide and go seek quite well, but we have lost a sizeable percentage. We installed proto-type energy shields to block the EM pulse. Long run, we can’t fight the Goloths on their level of technology, so we’re bringing them down to a level we can fight."

  Zane turned and walked over. "Good plan. That should even the odds a bit, but a standard attack fleet has thousands of fighters." Zane gestured to the holomap on which colored dots moved around to indicate friend and foe locations. "They only sent a portion of their force. They have at least two or three times that many docked and ready to go. That map is only for this continent. Similar battles are happening all over the globe."

  "I know. You are?"

  Zane held out his hand to Robert. "Zane Gratig."

  Robert accepted the hand and gave it a shake. "Robert Sheffield, Naia's husband." He shook his head. "The brass isn't planning to win this on our own, at least not from what I've heard."

  "They aren't taking into account the threat of the capital ships."

  "They are hoping they won't engage until IGC arrives. We don't have anything that can take them on. No even out newest fighters could handle them. However, when we break them out, they should do some serious damage to the disabled Goloth fighters. Based on the schematics Katarina sent us, we modified two squadrons of prototypes, adding focused EM emitters to their missiles and fine tuning their targeting computers. They are remote operated, so even if they go down, we won't lose any men, which is the biggest plus in my book."

  "Won’t the EM pulse deactivate the missile’s guidance system?" Katarina asked.

  "It won’t matter at that point. The pulse will trigger the detonator. Even if it isn’t a direct hit, the missile should cause enough damage to incapacitate the enemy ship, and possibly some of its buddies in the vicinity." A cheer went up and Robert took a look at the holomap. "Looks like the first surprise deployed as planned. I gotta split." Robert waved, and jogged over to the elevator where a stationed soldier keyed in an access code to let him in.

  The lights flickered and a deep rumble followed moments later.

  "Shit," General Westing cursed. Alarms blared and the voices grew curt and strained.

  A wave of nausea hit Katarina as more explosions rocked the installation. Something hit buildings on the surface and despite her blocks, the pain of the wounded and the darkness of death clawed at her. The tension in the room didn't help her block out the draining emotions. Zane placed a hand on the back of her neck and rubbed. "Breathe, rahmali o mi." He abandoned monitoring the general and his attention to bolstering her shields and siphoning the negative energy.

  Zane leaned over toward Naia so she could hear him over the noise, "See if you can find out what's going on."

  Naia marched over to General Westing and held a short terse discussion before returning. "Those capital ships you mentioned are the problem. The Goloths located our command centers and are targeting the largest ones from orbit. We’re safe enough here. He ordered the upper levels to evacuate. Unfortunately, not all of the command posts are built to serve as bunkers."

  Katarina closed her eyes and clasped Zane's other hand.

  "My ship could handle them," Zane whispered in her mind.

  Damn it, she didn't want to be brave and selfless. She wanted Zane at her side—needed him at her side, but she felt every death, every injury beyond the walls and floors above them. She was incapable of ignoring that much horror.

  "Go. I've got your back," she whispered, but Zane didn't need
to hear her to know what she said. His psyche surrounded hers, trying to protect her from the onslaught of anguish. "I'll be fine." She took a deep breath and mustered every ounce of control she could to hide the pain that stabbed into her brain when he let his mind recede from hers.

  He caressed her face before turning and looking for Finn. "Danua!"

  Finn paused his conversation with the young woman keying in information at a terminal. He scowled and flashed over to their side. More than one person did a double take at his sudden appearance.

  "I need my ship."

  "The name is Finn, not Danua, and what is it humans say? Oh yes, what's the magic word?"

  "Please," Katarina bit out to keep Zane from wasting time arguing with her father.

  "Your ship is on the tarmac. Keep in mind that my daughter will not be pleased if you do something stupid and end up dead."

  She and Zane exchanged a look that made her heart thump hard in her chest. He turned and strode toward the cluster of people around the holomap. "General Westing."

  "What?" Westing asked in a clipped voice.

  "I have a ship with stealth capabilities. Even though my weapons aren’t as powerful as those Goloth Trapqerts and Kekkes they’re using, mine is faster, more maneuverable. They’ll never see me coming, and I know something they don’t know."

  "What’s that?" General Westing asked.

  "I know precisely where to aim to destroy their power core. My unit discovered a weakness in their shields the last time them we took on one of the larger terrorist cells."

  "What if they’ve fixed the problem?"

  "No one lived to tell about it."

  "Then let's get this done," General Westing said. He pointed to a guard standing at attention beside the reflective doors of an elevator. "Escort Gratig to the surface. Tag his ship with a GPS emitter so we can track him as one of ours."

  Zane returned to Katarina, wrapping her in his arms. For a moment, with him so close, the world blocked out and it was just the two of them. She pasted a confident smile on her face, even if he knew how frightened she was inside. "Go get ‘em, flyboy."

  His face lit with a grin that never failed to make her heart pound. Then he turned on his heel and strode to the elevator where his escort waited inside holding the door open.

  Naia hopped up on the table beside her, tapped her arm and then jerked a thumb at Finn and Kieran. "Uhm, Kat, who are they?"

  Katarina couldn't answer. In order to concentrate on his mission, Zane pulled far away from their link. Without his added support, her control reached the edge of her limits. Blackness edged her vision. She breathed in and out while gripping the table, but couldn't win this fight.

  ***

  Judging by the creepy glowing eyes of the two men, her sister's new friends were faeries. She waited for Katarina to make introductions, but after a moment she noticed the grip on the table and the rapid, shallow breathing. Naia frowned and brushed back the curtain of hair hiding Katarina's face.

  "Uh-oh."

  The tall blond faerie glanced over. "Oh, shit!"

  In less than a blink of her eyes, he was in front of her. He placed his hands on either side of Katarina's head and spoke softly in a foreign tongue.

  The other one moved just as fast and was beside the tall one in an instant, trying to crowd her out. "Father, what's wrong with her?" The taller one, intent on Katarina, didn't respond.

  The other faerie spared her an annoyed look. "Move out of my way, human."

  "Whoa, buddy. I don't care if you're Dark Lord Tinkerbell, I'm not leaving Kat."

  He narrowed his eyes.

  "Don't even think about it, buster. You try any funny magic mojo and Kat will fry your ass." He cocked a brow and recalling that she wasn't entirely helpless, she added in a rush, "Harm me or mine, though powers divine, three times three back onto thee. As I will so mote it be." A tingle of electricity surged through as the spell wove around her.

  "You're a Mage?"

  "No, but I learned the rudiments of spell casting from Kat's mom. She did a lot of paranormal research."

  That news didn't seem to endear her to him. In fact from the way he clenched his jaw, she was glad she thought to cast the protective spell.

  "Do you know what's wrong with Katarina?" the faerie asked through clenched teeth.

  "Emotional overload. She has superb blocks, but she isn't superwoman. She has her limits. I forgot about it at first because she was acting so normal, but she usually avoids closed in places with a lot of people, especially if those people are likely to be emotional. I'm going to take an educated guess that a war zone with people dying up there is just a bit more than she can handle." She glanced at the tall faerie and Katarina. Whatever he was doing seemed to be working. Katarina no longer gripped the table's edge and her breathing slowed.

  "She was aware of this weakness?"

  Naia rolled her eyes. "Of course. She's had to deal with her empathic abilities all her life and the telepathy for about half that. She told me once that the empathy was far harder to deal with because of the emotional element which triggered physical reactions. " She jerked her thumb toward the faerie assisting Katarina.

  "Who is he and what is he doing?"

  "I'm Finn, Katarina's father," the tall blond faerie answered instead of the one in front of her.

  Naia stared at him, looking from Katarina to the faerie. He brushed the hair away from Katarina's face and then cradled her face between his palms. "Better, iníon?"

  Naia breathed a sigh of relief. Given the things she heard about the Fae from their mom, the last thing she expected to see was a man this attentive and caring. The other definitely fit the tactless and rude description, but Finn, not so much.

  Katarina nodded. "Thank you."

  He put a finger under her chin and tilted it up. "You are my daughter, Katarina. If I could, you would never feel a moment's pain or unhappiness."

  The other faerie leaned in and added, "I'm Kat's twin brother, Kieran."

  Naia eyed him, wondering if Kat minded if she taught her brother a few lessons in manners. Before she could craft a nice sarcastic reply, an alarm screeched, interrupting the introductions.

  “Incoming!" A voice announced over the chaos. Lights blinked out as the room shook with a series of vibrations. The floor bucked and Naia crashed to the floor. The table toppled over, barely missing her hand. A cacophony of noise and curses told her she wasn't the only one who hit the floor. The whole episode lasted mere seconds before orange tinted emergency lights kicked on.

  "They hit the power relay station. The generators should kick on...." The lights came back on. "Now," announced a young man in a rumpled uniform, sprawled half out of his chair.

  "Kat!" Naia looked up at the sound of the Finn's strained voice. A stream of blood trickled down Katarina's brow from a cut on her forehead. She and Finn crawled to Katarina's side at the same time.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fi—" Katarina broke off on an indrawn breath.

  Something warm and wet seeped under Naia's hand. She looked down. Clear amniotic fluid streaked with blood spread beneath Katarina.

  "Oh, God!" Naia looked up to meet Finn's horrified gaze. "Can you heal her?"

  She knew her expression must match his when he answered, "Child birth is not something with which I can interfere. The balance is too delicate."

  Chapter 21

  Zane streaked into the blue sky, dodging dogfights and snarls of ships exchanging fire. He banked to the right so that he saw the desert floor in his right view screen. He leveled out after clearing the heaviest of the fighting and upped his speed and altitude to escape velocity. Katarina's pain hit him low in the back and abdomen, like some tried to wrench his intestines loose while they squeezed him in a vice.

  "Katarina!"

  "I’m okay, Zane."

  "Don't lie to me. I’m coming back right now." He started to slow for descent.

  "Don't you dare turn that ship around. Keep me safe. Keep our childr
en safe."

  Zane’s hands trembled on the flight controls. He needed to make the attack now, but every fiber of his being screamed at him to go back to Katarina.

  "I’m in labor, Zane, not getting tortured. I'll be fine. Finn and Naia are with me."

  Zane wanted to scream. He should be down there with her, but instead he was flying into battle. He straightened his vector.

  "I do this for you, my love."

  It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, harder even than leaving her the first time, but he broke the connection and let his mind fall into the ultra-aware mode that served him so well. The sooner he finished this, the sooner he’d be back.

  His sleek ship sliced into the black depths of the thermosphere and beyond. He didn’t let his mind dwell on the flames of downed ships and burning buildings below. Zane activated the cloaking device. The thing was a little temperamental, and wouldn’t do him any good when it came time to shoot, but at least his approach would go unnoticed.

  Five enormous Trapqert troop carriers loomed over Earth, spread out, bombarding the planet's largest landmasses. The largest, most heavily armored vessel loomed over North America. His gut told him that particular vessel belonged to Karglock. His vanity wouldn't allow him to occupy any but the best ship in the fleet.

  He zeroed in on the command vessel, avoiding the streams of fresh Kekkes leaving and battered ones returning to the carriers. With deft adjustments, he flew low over the enormous ship, skimming the surface to further mask his presence. He would have to veer away at an impossible angle after shooting at near point blank range, but Zane had confidence in his ship and his skills.

  Trapqerts were constructed in two sections and then carefully fused together. The larger horizontal diamond shaped section housed the bridge, crew quarters, cargo holds, and hangar bays. The fin shaped section that rose from the dorsal side of the ship held the engineering portion of the ship as well as specialized sensory equipment. Theoretically, this was done so that the main structure could be mass-produced and then different lines of frigates could be tailor fitted with appropriate engineering sections. Their weakness, as he'd discovered, lay in this design. The power core was housed only a few feet inside of the ship near the juncture where the two sections were put together. If he had stronger torpedoes, a direct hit would snap the ship in two. The most he could hope for from his load was a hull breech and the loss of the power core. The damage wouldn’t be bad enough to destroy the ship, but without power, if IGCF didn’t arrive soon, the situation would be fatal for the crew. The steady stream of fighters entering and exiting the hangar bays required the frigates to keep shields lowered. It gave him a tactical advantage. He wouldn’t last long against one ship, let alone five, if they raised shields.