by C. Gockel
“Portions of the fighter squadron are splintering off, Commander,” said Sterling from the seat of one of the Ark's two main cannons.
“They'll explore the cluster surrounding us to look for a way through that doesn't entail going around,” Noa said. There was one such pass through the rocks that they'd discovered in the past few weeks. It would be a tight fit, but would be large enough for a Luddeccean cruiser.
The monitors in front of the pilot chair had unusually crisp images. Noa had parked the least space-worthy ticks on the outside of the Ark at all the weakest points, and Jun and Kuin had wired the ticks' monitoring capabilities into the ship. Even ticks had better sensors than the old boat. Noa zoomed in and scanned their surroundings. Nothing on this side of the cluster. She switched to a monitor that showed the other side and saw a third of the fighters cruise directly into the cluster. The rest fanned out to go around it, no doubt to find and relay the quickest route for the fighter carrier, and other ships.
Gunny's voice cracked in the ether. “Guess we should be flattered that they'd send so many boats after us.”
Flashes of white appeared in the Ark's view monitors as mining charges Noa's team had laid in the cluster exploded. It looked like a white burst of fireworks. No ships emerged. She heard Chavez exhale in the copilot seat.
Noa felt no sense of relief. The only hope was Ghost. His channel was open in her mind, but she didn't reach to him, afraid to distract him. The structural damage to the time gate computer had been more extensive than they'd expected. It had missed being harmed by the collision, but had been damaged by the subsequent fires. Ghost seemed to think he could operate it remotely … where was he in the task of computing the time sphere, the bubble in space, gravity, and time that would deliver them instantly to Time Gate 1?
“Commander, you have to hold them off just a little longer,” her computing officer said into her mind, as though he'd been listening into her thoughts. And then, inexplicably, he added, “Unless James comes through.”
Ghost was short on sleep, and hyped up on stims. She didn't question the comment.
She heard the sound of the ladder access shaft's hatch opening, and familiar footsteps that were faster than usual. She didn't turn or toss a ball of light as James walked up behind her and put his hands on the back of her chair. Ghost must have needed him on the bridge—probably to stare through the skylight and get the most up to date view of the black. She saw explosions on the screen as some more of the fighter vessels veered into the cluster. Someone cheered over the ether as they hit the mines Gunny and the ticks' crews had placed. Noa frowned, watching on a monitor as other fighters, on course to pass through the cluster, altered their path.
“We won't be attacked from behind,” James commented.
“Just from every other direction,” Noa responded over the ether.
“I'm trying to look on the bright side,” he replied. “Can't make you be the only one to 'lighten the mood.'”
Noa exhaled, remembering those awkward days when they'd first met and he'd seemed nearly humorless. “Surviving will lighten my mood,” she replied silently, parroting his words from so long ago almost exactly. She meant them as a joke, but they came out harsh.
Over the general ether, Gunny said, “A fighter emerging from the cluster off port—two o'clock from my position. Firing.”
“Direct hit!” someone shouted, and there were cheers. “We can hold them off!”
Noa swallowed. They couldn't, but all she said was, “Well done, Gunny. Now stay alert!”
“I see another at six o'clock!” someone said into the ether.
“Another directly above,” said another voice. “Damn, missed him.”
“Clipped him! He's not going anywhere!”
Noa watched through the monitors as short range fighters darted out from behind the coverage of the cluster, barely avoided being hit by her men in the airlocks, and then disappeared. Her eyes narrowed.
“They're trying to draw our fire,” Sterling said over Noa's private channel. “We're going to run out of ammo.”
“Another off starboard, about,” said Gunny, sending the picture directly into Noa's mind. The ship was peeking out from behind a large mass about 1,500 km away. The Luddeccean commander was not being conservative. He knew they were here. His fighters hadn't been sent to attack, but to find the quickest route through the cluster to the gate. And he'd just found it.
The ship hit reverse thrusters and vanished. “And he's gone … Commander, we'll have bigger problems in minutes.”
Noa looked down at the monitors that showed the opposite side of the cluster. Two ships went to the pass. Another changed its trajectory, so it was on a heading “above” the cluster. Noa blinked, and the ship vanished. “They went to lightspeed? In the cloud?” Sterling said.
“No,” Noa said, her apps already calculating the ship's acceleration. “But they are going too damn fast.”
“That's dangerous … isn't it?” James whispered.
It was incredibly dangerous. They wanted James … and maybe her … eliminated very, very badly. Something ticked at the back of her mind, but before she could focus on it, Chavez asked, “Where will they go?”
“Around the cluster out of range,” Noa said aloud and to the ether. “They'll be coming around to bow.”
“The aft cannons are ready, Commander,” Manuel said, answering Noa's unspoken question over the ether. There was a ruefulness in his voice when he added, “There isn't a thing else for this girl to put her engines into.”
Noa's hands tightened on her armrests. She had positioned the Ark so that the bow, and the might of the cannons, was facing into the vastness of the black, leaving the cluster, and her men in the airlocks with their phaser launchers, to protect the stern—along with a few other surprises she had in store. She hoped they would buy enough time.
On a special channel that she had established days ago, she reached out to the operators of the ticks she'd recruited in the past week. “Be ready, just like we practiced,” and then she reached out to her computing officer. “Ghost … can you at least get the gate's weapons online?”
“No, I can't get the weapons online, and I'm computing the time sphere as fast as I can! Just keep holding them off!”
“It's time,” Gunny said.
“I know,” Noa said. “Chavez, you have the helm.”
“Aye, Commander,” the ensign said.
Noa's mind flew through the ether to the tick commanders and Kara. The young engineer had helped establish ether control of the ticks.
“We're as ready as we'll ever be …” Kara said. “All systems go.”
“Yee-haw!” said Bo. The trigger happy engineering student had helped Kara.
Noa closed her eyes to block out the bridge of the Ark. Numbers and monitor views of the ticks played behind her lids, just as fighters emerged at the edges of the cluster. With a thought, she sent the target to the other ticks. To Gunny, she said, “We'll concentrate on our friends emerging at nine o'clock.” That was the pass. “You handle the rest.”
To her team, she said, “We're covering the main pass. Follow my lead, and remember to take evasive maneuvers.”
Noa commanded the tick's eight legs to curl up. As soon as a green light appeared at the periphery of her vision, she gunned the tiny ship into the cluster. Fleet drones mimicked the feel of acceleration and even the shake of remote-controlled ships if you pushed maximum velocity or hit a dust cloud. Guiding the ticks by mind was different. More remote. There was no tactile feedback or even sound. Noa piloted by sight alone, flitting the thing from side to side and changing the angle of its flat thick body, expecting fighters to appear at the edge of the cluster at any moment. Sure enough, a few poked around the rocks. “Take cover,” she said.
“I can get a shot in!” Bo cried. Noa had only given him the tick because everyone else with experience was occupied. She saw phaser fire streak from a tiny cannon on the tick's hull. It went wild, and within seconds, the
fighter had parried. “I've been hit!” Bo cried, and then she felt his connection slip from the “Tick Squadron's” channel.
Noa stifled a curse. Briefly checking in with the rest of her team, Noa guided her craft into the asteroids closest to the nine o'clock passage. An ether code transmitted by her tick turned off the mines on the asteroid and she and her squadron were able to keep the tick flush to the rocky surface. Another asteroid slowly spun on its axis above the ticks. Her tiny vessel rounded the horizon of the asteroid. Engaging the tick's legs, she shut off her thrusters, and more importantly, their “glow.” Crawling on the asteroid's surface, she saw three fighters escorting the first larger cruiser just a few kilometers down the “passage.” “Take your positions,” she commanded, “hold your fire until you hear my word.” She hopped the tick further down the passage toward the approaching vessels, crawling across the rocks, keeping out of sight. As she did, her stomach sank. She saw more fighters behind the first cruiser. Her mind raced briefly to the Ark, and the general channel. James answered her unspoken query. “We haven't been directly fired upon, Noa. Fighters appear at the edge of the cluster and then disappear.”
Noa felt the inkling in the back of her mind become a near-certain dread. “They're getting ready for something big,” Noa said, afraid she knew what it was.
“I would expect them at least to fire upon the gate,” James said.
“They must have figured out it isn't operational, we'd be long gone if it was,” Noa muttered.
“Still …” James said. “If they don't want us to get away … you would think …”
“Tick Squadron report,” she called out across the ether. She couldn't continue the trajectory his thoughts led her down. There was only one reason they couldn't be firing at the gate.
“In position,” her squadron replied—only nine, because Bo had taken himself out, uselessly.
“Do not fire on the escort,” Noa commanded. “Gunny and company can take them out. Our job is to keep that cruiser from getting any closer.”
Reverse thrusters on the cruiser glowed. A positioning app in Noa's tick began to blink. In the real world, Noa's mouth fell open. “No ...” she whispered.
The cruiser had come to a halt. Its forward escort did likewise, heart beats later. They weren't attacking.
“No one coming around to bow, Chavez?” Noa asked.
“All clear so far,” the ensign responded.
“Gunny?”
“They're staying tucked out of range, probably just beyond the next cluster,” the sergeant replied. “They have enough fire power to decimate us in minutes if they really wanted to … why are they waiting?”
Sterling was right, they could take out the gate and the Ark in a few minutes—it would cost them dearly, but if they wanted the gate sealed, attacking with overwhelming force would be the best option. If they didn't, they'd have only a few minutes once the Ark slipped through to destroy the gate and prevent Fleet warships from coming through … In the chair on the bridge, her breathing got ragged. They had cruisers at nine o'clock, and would soon have them at one o'clock and five o'clock around the cluster. They'd begin firing on the time gate as soon as the Ark gated out. In the event that Noa and her team might have left surprises to prevent that, they had the cruiser at bow ready to fire on any vessel that gated in before the gate was demolished. They were so thorough … but they were waiting.
James was in her mind. “They want something.”
Noa felt her stomach sink. She knew what. “We're not negotiating!” Noa said, to James first, across his private line, and then to the general ether. “We are not negotiating! Do not answer hails!”
At that moment, the comm device on the dash of the Ark began cracking with static.
Noa's focus snapped back to the real world. Instead of the Luddeccean cruiser, she was staring at the comm speaker. Instead of the monitors of the tick, she was looking at the monitors of the Ark.
“I didn't do anything!” Chavez cried.
Before Noa could respond, or touch a dial, a voice crackled into the bridge. It sounded older than she remembered. Tired. But she would always recognize the speaker. She stared at the comm device in a combination of hope and horror.
“Noa,” Kenji's voice crackled through the speaker. “We must talk.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Noa, we must talk.”
Kenji's words hung in the bridge. James heard Noa swallow. The rest of the crew went silent.
We're not negotiating. We know what they want. The words Noa had said just moments ago were at the forefront of his mind, or maybe deep within whatever passed for a heart in a cyborg. She knew they'd ask for him. A dreadful, hopeful, sickening thought occurred to him. Maybe they'd ask for her, too, and then he wouldn't have to go alone. That's what they'd asked for before on Adam's Station … James and Noa. And Noa and James would not surrender. They would go out like a solar flare and take as many of the Luddecceans as they could with them.
His mind reached out to Noa's and across the ether she sent him a vision of bright white, their secret kiss, and a promise.
“Noa,” Kenji's voice crackled. “The planet of Luddeccea is in danger—”
“From extremists,” Noa hissed.
On the bridge, James heard Sterling mutter softly, “Not ripping my eyes out.”
“—from Time Gate 8 that is now weaponizing its fission reactors,” Kenji said, his voice cool and unemotional.
He heard Noa's intake of breath.
“What is he talking about?” said Chavez over the general ether.
“You can't trust him,” said James.
Noa's thoughts surged. “I can trust he believes what he says is true,” she responded. He swore he could hear her jaw get tight.
“Are they forcing you to say this?” she asked Kenji.
“No,” said Kenji. He sounded perplexed.
Noa leaned back.
“Are you on the bridge?” Kenji asked. “There's a red switch beside the main monitor. It should say video reception. If you toggle it to the left, we can see each other.”
James looked down at the toggle switch. He could see where once it had letters emblazoned beside it, but they'd long since faded away. Noa reached toward it and her hand paused midair.
James wanted to beg her not to flip the switch … she'd been so ready to end her life before. He blinked. Would his life end? The time gates had said he could upload himself. What did that mean? Just his memories—like the time capsule memories the real Professor James Hiro Sinclair had left? That was a half-life. He looked at Noa; her gaze was on the toggle.
Across the ether, Sterling said, “If we engage them, maybe we can buy time for Ghost.”
Craning her neck around, Noa's dark brown eyes met James's. She knew they wanted him. She was asking for permission.
She would die if they surrendered themselves together. She would die if they tried to fight them off. His vision went black and he had to grip the back of her seat to stay upright. If Noa died … that would be failure. The word coursed through him like a cold wind.
“Do it,” he whispered.
Noa flipped the toggle switch, uncertain what Kenji wanted to accomplish, but knowing each second she gave Ghost was precious. She told herself it wasn't because any way this turned out, this was likely the last time she'd see her brother. The monitor flickered, and her seat groaned. She looked back to see James squeezing her chair. His eyes were on the screen, but they flicked down to hers. His jaw shifted.
Something flashed near the monitor. Turning to it, she saw a small light blink at her and then go dark. The monitor went from static to flat grey, flashed again, and she was looking at Kenji. She expected to see him on the bridge, but he was in a command room seated at a table, his back to a window full of stars. He smiled weakly. “Hello, Noa.”
“Hello, Kenji,” she said, a lump forming in her throat.
Someone off the screen whispered near Kenji, “Time is precious.”
N
oa's fingers dug into her arm rest. Time was precious for all of them, apparently. She knew who they wanted, but she would wait for them to say it.
Someone else near Kenji whispered, “Hush.”
“It is good to see you are better,” Kenji said, his voice stiff. Noa swallowed. Kenji didn't do niceties. If he said that, it was because he was glad to see her.
“You, too,” she replied.
He stared at the screen, and Noa waited with bated breath for him to speak. Kenji's Adam's apple bobbed and Noa sucked in her lips. Lifting a hand, she slowly raised it toward the camera.
“We have no time for this,” someone aboard the Luddeccean ship said, the words almost lost in static.
“I need to talk to the one you call Sinclair,” Kenji said, face expressionless.
She heard her chair groan with the pressure of James's fingers.
“You can't have him,” Noa replied. Across the ether, she sent James a glowing ball of orange, and willed him to feel all the heat that was blooming in her chest.
Across the ether, James whispered, “Thank you, Noa.”
“I can let you go through the gate, Noa,” Kenji said, “but you have to let me speak with Sinclair. The Guard is prepared to engage. You will not bring the gate's computer online before you're overrun.” His nostrils flared and she noticed that there was a sheen of sweat on his skin. “You won't survive, Noa.”
“I don't—”
James cut her off. “I'll speak with you.”
Kenji leaned sideways, as though trying to look around Noa, but then straightened in his chair. “You will turn yourself over to us,” Kenji said.
Someone aboard the Luddeccean vessel complained, “We don't know if that is really … it. We need to see it.”
Noa reached to James through the ether. “No, James, don't do it!”
“Even if I don't go with them, it will buy time,” James whispered across their shared channel. James tossed the bright white light back across the ether, and thought, “Think of Eliza and Oliver. You want to buy time for them.”