“This is really messin’ with my mind, boss,” Lincoln said to Gregor. “Can I just shoot one of them? It would make me feel really good right now.”
“Negative, Rolly,” Gregor responded, calling Lincoln by his first name. “Let’s see if we can get to three-gee.”
Gregor tried moving closer to the doorway, but the crowd surged against him. He glanced at Mendel to find the other big man stopped by the crowds as well. Lucas had managed to split apart from the rest of the team and was approaching from a different direction, but having a similar time with the crowd. Yan, the shortest of the group, was almost lost in the sea of porcine whiskers and robes. The situation was becoming dangerous and Gregor decided not to accept it any longer. He aimed his short barreled rifle at the cavern ceiling. Choosing a patch of gray stone carved from the asteroid’s interior, he fired a single shot to disperse the crowd.
Instead of running, the crowd suddenly moved with a single act. Gregor was nearly overwhelmed by porcine bodies pressing against him. His height carried above most of the pressure, but hands were beginning to grab at the sleek black pressure suit. Gregor heard a shout of panic and saw Lincoln lash out against a Tonal woman who had yanked his arm. The short woman was knocked back a meter, but it enraged the crowd. More hands grabbed Gregor by the arms and tried to pull the big man down. He swept his gun out, smashing snouts and heads with the movement, but more bodies pressed in even as others went down. There was a howl of rage and Gregor saw Mendel grab a muscled Tonal by the neck and throw him over the heads of the crowd. The chanting tones of ancient Tonal had been replaced now by shouts of anger and obscenities in standard. More bodies began to fly as the pirate started throwing people around.
Gregor needed to get a handle on the situation and fast. He heard Yan cry out as Lincoln parted the crowd to get to him. Gregor swallowed hard and made a decision. He pointed the gun downwards this time, setting the blast for the minimal setting and fired. The stench of burning fabric and flesh assaulted his nostrils even through the mask. A flaming body fell to the ground and the panic started. Formerly chanting and blessing faithful now became a fleeing mob. The team was pushed down as dozens of Tonal ran for cover, terrified by the sight of the flailing, burning man. Gregor was kicked as the aliens passed by. As the crowd began to disperse and the man’s thrashing began to quiet, the big man was able to stand painfully up.
“Go!” Gregor shouted to the team.
Lincoln was carrying Yan as the two men scrambled to the doorway. Lucas was already at the entrance with his hack-pad, trying to open the secure door. It took Gregor a few moments to find Mendel. When he did, it was a sorry sight. The man was covered in blood and cut in multiple places. His eyes were shot with rage and he had lost his gun. Bodies were lying around the man in various states of consciousness. The berserker rage which had taken the man was frightening to behold, and Gregor knew why he had become a pirate.
“Eli,” Gregor shouted, trying to get through. “Stand down. We’ve got a mission.”
Mendel looked to the commander. For a few moments Gregor thought the man was lost in his bloodlust. He advanced on Mendel, holding the weapon out and hoping Eli would regain his sense. When the big man did come around, he looked as if he might cry. Gregor didn’t have time to comfort the man. He pointed to the door Lucas had just opened into the secure wing. As Mendel looked around himself, he found the assault pistol lying amid the ruined bodies of the faithful and retrieved it.
“Don’t tell Parker,” Eli said as he rejoined Gregor. “I don’t want him to know.”
Gregor had heard the man talk about his partner before and nodded as Mendel passed him into the wing. Parker Trega had stayed behind on Aleinhelm at Connor Jakes’ request. The two men had been together for a number of years and Gregor felt they deserved their secrets.
An alarm became evident as they moved swiftly into the facility. Masked by the panic of the crowd outside, Gregor wondered how long they had known the team was on board. They moved down the corridor in formation, checking each cross route as they approached the brig. The spy captured by the Ixloab was supposedly being held near the office of the High Magister of the Ixloab. Gregor didn’t care about titles, he only wanted to rescue the prisoner and get the hell out.
“Here,” Lucas said, indicating a door. “This is it.”
“Can you hack it?” Gregor asked.
The man looked pained at the question and slapped the hack box into place. Several seconds later the light turned green. The door clicked and slid aside. Gregor advanced into the brig facility. The standard office configuration of the outer lobby made maneuvering easy. In all his life, he had never seen a brig designed any other way and it was strangely comforting. They moved past the outer lobby, Lincoln setting the injured Yan on a couch and watching the door behind them while Lucas, Eli, and Gregor moved down the rows of cells. Near the end, Lucas held up a hand. There was a voice at the end singing softly in ancient Tonal. Gregor nodded, and Lucas pressed the cell activation panel. The door slid aside and Gregor stepped into the cell.
Sitting on a stool in the middle of the room was a Tonal female with thick bruises over her face. Gregor swept the room with his gun and found the source of the singing. Another Tonal, male, and thick with fat, was sitting on the small cot. In his hand he held a small pistol pointed at the head of the female. Gregor took another look at the woman on the stool. Her features were obscured by the bruising and swelling from her injuries, but he thought he knew her. The other Tonal stopped singing and raised the pistol. A shot from the corridor outside neatly beheaded the magister. Gregor turned to see Eli with his gun raised and a grin on his face.
“I hated that song. You know he was just going to shoot her, right?”
Gregor rushed to the side of the woman. She lifted her head slightly and tried to look at him through swollen lids. Her hands were tied in front and ropes held her ankles to the stool. Lucas came around and started untying the woman as Gregor used the tips of his fingers to hold up her head.
“We’re from Resolute,” Gregor said in a soothing tone. “Are you Petunia?”
There was a slight shake of the woman’s head. She licked dry lips and nodded, gaining strength from the action. Gregor couldn’t shake the feeling he knew the woman. He searched his memory back a few years to his time serving under Admiral Chang on the Baal.
“Lellda?” he asked.
The woman’s eyes opened and looked back. There was a faint attempt at a smile on her face as she remembered her name. A croak tried to form in her throat and Lucas handed a small pack of water around to Gregor. He twisted the cap and allowed the woman to drink from the pouch. A thin line escaped her lips as she drank greedily. To keep her from choking, Gregor pulled the pouch away. She looked alarmed for a moment, before a new look entered her eyes. She leaned forward and grasped Gregor by the pressure suit front.
“Are they on their way?” Lellda asked.
“Who?” Gregor replied. “We cleared the hallway. We should be okay for the moment.”
“No,” Lellda said, a new urgency in her voice. “The fleet. Trinity is coming. They’re going to destroy it all. We have to get out of here!”
14
Alice jerked the controls of the fighter hard to the right. As her feet twisted the rudder, the little fighter was thrown into a corkscrew turn. She felt the straps bite into her shoulders despite the upgraded inertial dampening system. In a lesser fighter, she would be dead. A half-power rollover turn pushed the Eagle to its limits and the pilot even further.
She felt panic set in as she guided the ship back into a flattened overhead loop. This was the first real combat she had experienced since the end of the war, and although she was exhilarated at being back in control of the ship, she had begun to doubt she still had the talent to be an effective warrior. Having her memories and experiences pulled from her mind had scarred her. When the Resolute had been called to Aleinhelm a few months ago by Connor Jakes, she had come face to face with one of the gr
ay-skinned demons. The alien was only a youth, no idea of the power it possessed, but it had frightened her back to her quarters for weeks afterwards. It was another thing she had to thank Lee for.
A plasma bolt shot past her canopy, causing the projection to flicker for a microsecond. She cursed herself for letting her mind wander again. It was another indication she shouldn’t have been in the fighter. A drop in power and a sudden flat spin turned the ship around towards the attacker. Bolts of red-orange fire lanced across space and into the shields of her pursuer. The ship glowed blue as she poured more energy into it. A final flicker showed her the ship’s shields were gone. She goosed the throttle forward and into the oncoming ship’s trajectory. It was kill or be killed now and she took the shot, but in her mind she was screaming. Her own shields flared as impacts from the shattered debris of the other fighter peppered her hull. The sound was like the thunderous beating of her hands against her cell walls again and she was back there.
Sharp claws tore away her clothes, along with any shred of dignity she had left. Ch’Tauk didn’t wear flight suits, so they thought the custom unnecessary for prisoners. The cold metal under her hands and body hummed with unseen power. She felt metal bands clamp down her wrists and ankles. A final indignity was pushed over her mouth. It was one of the first lessons her captors had learned. Alice used everything she had to resist, even her teeth. Thick-skinned hands probed at her temples. She could feel it. Memories of her father and mother, time they had spent before her mother died and left her with a man who found more comfort in a bottle than in his daughter. She tried to scream, but no sound would come. In her heart she hoped for salvation. At first it was Lee she had dreamed of. Later, she searched her mind for any comfort and found a man she looked up to. Alfredo Ortiz had seen more in her than just a mechanic. She wanted to see the old man again. After her rescue she had learned the Ch’Tauk had sought him out during the war. It was her mind which had pushed them and it made her scream.
“Princess?” Jackal’s voice cut through the ravings of her mind. “Princess, you’ve broken formation. Are you okay?”
Alice shook her head and felt the metal of the flight controls under her wrists. She pressed her feet down and felt the rudder react. The stars were sweeping past her canopy so fast. She looked at the heads-up, desperate to find Lee. Instead, she saw the Resolute moving away. As her senses realigned, she realized it was her ship which was moving further from the battle and not the battleship.
“Sorry,” Alice replied to her flight commander. “I … I thought I had a rudder problem after I flew through that guy.”
“Return to formation, Princess. We’re down to two-to-one now and I think Aztec needs a hand.”
“Roger, One,” Alice said, turning the ship hard and back towards the battle.
She searched the heads-up for the familiar blue dot of her fellow pilot. Aztec had been one of the original pilots recruited by Lee aboard Baal when the battle had only just begun. He was a capable fighter pilot and a good friend. Now the pilot had two fighters on his tail and an engine warning light on his telemetry. She pushed the throttle forward again, trying close to three-quarter speed to get her closer to the pursuit. The revamped Eagles were capable of superluminal speeds at full power, but she knew she couldn’t handle time travel just now.
The flashes of plasma jumped forward in front of her as she closed in on the two Ixloab ships. She was coming in from above the two ships at an acute angle. As Aztec flew under her, she opened fire on the fighter to the left. The armor on the ship was thicker than on her own and held up under her barrage, but the ship broke off pursuit of Aztec and turned to follow her. She pulled back hard on her throttle, slamming the engines into reverse while twisting her feet. The ship came to a sudden stop and stood on its nose. As the Ixloab crossed under her, she let loose with all the cannons. The ship split neatly in half at nearly full speed. For a moment, she thought she could make out the faces of the two pilots inside before their oxygen burst into flame.
“Big Momma?”
The voice cut through the moment. The Eagle broadcast on the reserved combat channel scrambled to a special frequency. Chatter was kept to a minimum during maneuvers to minimize confusion during combat. Alice’s mind snapped into overdrive as the voice repeated the call. She had been so focused on the fighting she had forgotten the purpose of the distraction. The voice resolved in her mind to a small, dark-furred Vadne girl who she vaguely remembered was a linguist.
“Ako?” Alice called. “Where are you broadcasting from?”
“The team is ready, Alice. We are on board a shuttle, but the door won’t open. We’re surrounded and need assistance. We have retrieved the ... um … package.”
“We’ve got you, Blue Team,” Jackal’s voice called over the open comm. “Merlin and Princess, break away and make a hole. We’ve got your back.”
Both pilots acknowledged the order and clicked off. Alice flipped the ship back over and found the asteroid. She saw Merlin’s ship on the heads-up display and angled the Eagle to intercept. Their orders had been specific. They were to clear a way for the shuttle with their retrieved spy on board out of the base. Jackal, never a woman to demand subtlety from a battle, hadn’t said how to accomplish this, but she had chosen the best people for the job. Besides herself, Merlin was the most destructive of all the pilots and had a good eye for precision strikes.
“Merlin,” Alice called. “I’ll follow you in and pop the cherry.”
“Roger, Princess,” replied Merlin.
Both ships fell in, with Alice’s fighter just a hundred meters behind. At the speed they were travelling, this wouldn’t be much, but it was enough for their plan. Merlin dodged a small asteroid, causing Alice to snap-roll right. She cursed herself again for lapsing. It wouldn’t have been this way before the war. Falling back into formation, she let the throttle back again, distancing herself from the imaginary wake of her teammate. As Merlin accelerated, he opened his missile bay and fired two projectiles straight at the massive metal doors. Quickly pulling up, Merlin climbed over the outer surface of the base just as his missiles made impact. A blossom of explosive power erupted from the doors. From behind, Alice could see the metal bulging as the superheated plasma pulled it outwards and away from the frame. Alice fired her cannons at the swelling mass of metal and veered away fast. The plasma hit dead center of the bulge and ruptured the melted metal, throwing ships, molten metal, and bodies into space.
Both pilots looped back around just in time to see a lone shuttle, not much bigger than the destroyed decoy from Resolute, shoot out the open hole and towards the battleship. Alice saw Jackal and Aztec swoop in from above and below to escort the shuttle back. The last of the Ixloab fighters broke off and headed back to the base, ignoring the fleeing shuttle. Alice looked at the display for a status on Resolute to find one of the cruisers disabled and the other seemingly on fire in space. The battleship appeared erratic but intact as they guided the small ship home.
“Big Momma, this is Princess,” Alice called. “You got room for five?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Farthing’s voice purred over the comm. “You are cleared to escort the shuttle. We have an empty bay and a crew waiting to cool you guys off.”
“Big Momma, what is your status?” Jackal’s voice cut in. “You’re waddling a bit.”
Alice checked her scanner again to see what he meant. Resolute was moving slowly but steadily through space. Instead of a smooth ride, though, the big ship was twitching near the stern. The reactionless drive moved the ship by manipulating magnetic fields along the hull, and it looked as if the old battleship was wagging its tail as it moved.
“Booth is screaming in Gaelic,” Lee’s voice came over the comm. “We’ll be fine in a few minutes. They got in a lucky shot. Is everyone alright?”
“I’m fine, Lee,” Alice said, interrupting Jackal’s response.
“Demons five, Big Momma,” Jackal replied, giving the signal that all four pilots wer
e returning. With Lee, the team consisted of five pilots, and the tradition was to include his ship in the call. “Princess might need a tune up, though.”
Alice didn’t respond to the rebuke. She had overstepped and called her captain by name. It was a subconscious thing she had done. Again she was reminded of her inability to control her emotions. For his part, Lee replied to Jackal with the coded all clear and the ships broke off to dock in the small hangar bays. Alice stayed out while the shuttle carefully maneuvered into the bay. After getting the signal, she moved her fighter into its cradle and shut down the drives. A few minutes of recompression and she was able to pop the canopy and climb out.
The sound of the bay alarm was a comfort to her nerves. Some of her favorite times had been in hangar bays through the years, and the sounds always calmed her. Crews rushed through the airlock to check the ships. Alice stepped out and onto the wing, stretching her long neck and pulling the helmet away. As she stepped down to the deck, she realized the alarm, which should have shut off, was still blaring.
“What’s up?” she asked the nearest technician.
“Tactical alert,” the man replied. “Captain wanted you in before we jumped.”
“Did the Ixloab come back?” Alice asked, stopping the man from hooking a power cable to the ship.
“No, it’s something else. I didn’t ask.”
Alice saw the doors to the Ixloab shuttle open and Lellda step from it. She smiled and stepped to the Tonal woman. Younger than Alice, Lellda had proved to be a capable officer and the two had hit it off in a few parties. The girl had always seemed sad, though, for the loss of their mutual friend Wellick.
“So you’re Petunia?” Alice said, throwing her arms around the shorter woman.
“I have to get to the bridge,” Lellda said, panic in her eyes. “It’s Trinity. They’re coming for the Ixloab.”
Resolute Alliance (The War for Terra Book 6) Page 12