Pate laughed. “Scion Baxa is far more powerful than you can hope to understand. You should pray that he’s receptive to your ceasefire. But if you wish him to entertain your proposal, you will need to come over to my destroyer and negotiate in-person. Otherwise, how can we trust that you’re serious?”
Husher returned the Ixan’s snakelike gaze. It’s not like I’m any safer aboard the Hornet, I suppose. “Fine.”
The Ixan’s creepy smile stretched wider. “Excellent. I await you with bated breath.” The viewscreen went dark.
Chapter 16
Ingress
Living aboard the cramped combat shuttle with Chief Ralston and his marines made for an interesting couple of days. The marine commander became testier with each passing hour, and the already-stale rations didn’t improve anyone’s mood.
Ralston ridiculed him for the arrangement incessantly, which the chief knew Keyes had advised Captain Husher to order. Ralston would have preferred traveling aboard the Maddox in luxury. He can ridicule me all he wants. It doesn’t make sense to put all of our assets on one ship.
Keyes had no desire to be proven right about that, but unfortunately, when they emerged from the wormhole, he was.
“Wait,” Ralston said, eyeing the shuttle’s tactical display. “Where’s the Maddox?”
They waited for twenty minutes, which was probably more time than they could afford to lose. All it will take is one stray scan for a warship to pick up on our presence and make a beeline to attack us.
“The Maddox is gone,” Keyes said at last. “They didn’t make it through the wormhole. We need to move.”
Only the combat shuttle full of marines and seven Falcons remained to complete the mission. After the Maddox’s disappearance, Ralston ceased his jabbering.
They made for the research station’s coordinates that Ochrim had given them, deep inside the system’s thick asteroid belt—the perfect place to hide classified research. Unless, that was, your chief scientist leaked its location to your enemy.
Keyes hated waiting. Especially when battle loomed large on the horizon. When he needed calm, he looked at the tactical display, which showed the Falcons in formation around them. We can do this, even without the Maddox. We’ll get in, nab Ochrim, and get out before the Ixa even know we’re here.
At last, the research station became visible to their sensors. “Will we bother ordering them to open their landing bay for us?” Ralston asked, his eyes on Keyes.
Keyes returned the Scot’s gaze with eyebrows raised, momentarily taken aback at this sudden show of deference. “No,” Keyes said. “Fire the shuttle’s siege charges.”
Ralston passed the orders on to the pilot, and soon the tactical display showed the charges sailing toward the station. A couple minutes later, the display washed green to indicate a successful breach.
“Take us in,” Keyes radioed to the pilot, testing the waters to see whether Ralston would allow him to take command. He had no desire to do that, either, but he took the man’s newfound manners as a sign that he was shaken by the Maddox’s demise. Keyes couldn’t risk leaving the command to a man not capable of thinking straight.
The Scot didn’t comment.
Switching to a wide channel to address his Falcon pilots, Keyes said, “Circle the station and radio me if you detect any sign of Ixan warships approaching. I want to be kept updated on exactly how much time we have to yank this scientist and scram.”
“Yes, sir,” came the reply, several times over.
It was time. The shuttle brought them inside the research station, and immediate gunfire rained on it from all directions.
They were waiting for us. “Take out as many enemy combatants as you can with the shuttle’s weapons,” Keyes shouted to the pilot. “Open the airlock, right now. Take care not to impede us with your fire as we exit the shuttle.” He turned to the marines, most of who had already unstrapped from the crash seats and leapt to their feet. “The Ixa have us over a barrel. We need to engage them, right now. If they disable this shuttle, we’ll have no way out of the system.”
They crowded into the airlock—as many marines as it could accommodate, which amounted to a little over three-quarters of their platoon. The outer door had been built wide, to avoid providing the enemy with a convenient choke point to pummel, and Keyes gave silent thanks for that.
As soon as it opened, the marines rushed out to find whatever cover the landing bay had to offer. Keyes ran to a squat control panel, hunched behind it, and started returning the Ixa’s fire. The enemy was arrayed on the perimeter of the landing bay, in full pressure suits. How much notice did they have of our arrival? Just how screwed are we?
“Aim for their faceplates,” Keyes ordered over the platoon-wide. “Let a little space inside their helmets.”
An explosion roared behind him, quickly quenched by the void. Keyes huddled against the control panel. The vacuum of space wouldn’t carry a shock wave, but there was still shrapnel to worry about.
When it was over, he looked back. The combat shuttle had been destroyed, just as the remainder of his platoon was exiting. None of them had made it.
Chapter 17
Traitor
Commander Vaghn squinted at the CIC’s main viewscreen from the Captain’s chair, where she’d never been comfortable sitting. It wasn’t just the weight of command that made her shift in her seat—the chair was also hard and unyielding. Captain Husher always looks so at ease in it. She didn’t know how he pulled it off.
The viewscreen showed no changes. The Ixan fleet still had them surrounded, and negotiations continued aboard their destroyer. Presumably, they continue.
“Should we send a boarding party in after him?” Chief Ackerman said, his voice uneven.
Vaghn glanced at him, blinking. Despite all the shit Warren Husher’s given him, he still loves his captain. In her opinion, that said more about Captain Husher than it did about the chief. You couldn’t help but respect the captain, no matter how much he needled you.
“No,” she said. “The captain ordered us to wait until we heard from him. So we wait.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Incoming transmission,” the Coms officer said.
“Put it on the screen.”
The tactical display flickered, and then Pate’s face replaced it.
“Where’s Captain Husher?” Vaghn said.
Though Pate sat his Command seat as stiffly as she did, he looked happier than she’d thought it was possible for an Ixan to get. “Your captain has decided not to return to the Hornet, Commander Vaghn.”
She leaned forward. “Don’t screw with me, Pate. Release him, or I’ll hit you with everything I have.”
“You and I both know ‘everything you have’ isn’t very much. Not to mention the fact that I have you surrounded. At any rate, ‘release’ isn’t the right word. Captain Husher is free to go—he simply doesn’t wish to. Here, I’ll let you talk to him.”
Husher stepped into view, wearing the same roguish grin he so often did. Is this one of his pranks? She instantly discarded the thought. The idea of Husher teaming up with an Ixan to pull a fast one on his XO…it was absurd on the face of it.
“Captain,” Vaghn said. “What’s going on?”
“Command Leader Pate has already told you that, Commander. I’m not coming back.”
“Why…why not?”
“I’d like to thank you and the crew for bringing me here. Without this stupid excuse for a mission, I would never have had the cover I needed to join my spiritual brethren.”
“Your spiritual brethren? What?”
Husher’s smile widened. “I’ve always felt a kinship with Scion Baxa, and when the opportunity arose a couple years ago to pass UHF secrets to him, I jumped at the chance. Now that I’ve all but won the war for the Ixa, it’s time for me to get well clear of humanity, wouldn’t you say?”
Vaghn slowly shook her head, her eyes never leaving Husher’s face. Is this real? Am I dreaming?
�
��I suggest you leave this system,” Husher went on. “Without delay. Of course, you could stay, if you really want to. Maybe Pate will let me give the order to obliterate you. Honestly, I’d enjoy nothing more than to begin the destruction of my weak, cowardly species. Starting with you.”
“Cut the transmission,” Vaghn said to the Coms officer. Who was now her Coms officer, apparently.
The viewscreen went black.
Silence reigned.
“He didn’t mention the mission,” Ackerman said.
“What?” She was having trouble reassembling her thoughts.
“The mission. The real mission—Keyes retrieving Ochrim.”
She gave her head another shake, brisker this time. “You’re right. He didn’t.” But why not? Was it because Husher hadn’t actually betrayed humanity, or was it because he didn’t want them warning Keyes that the Ixan fleet would soon be upon him?
And what about Husher’s wife and son? Everyone knew how much he loved them, and his betrayal would no doubt follow them for the rest of their lives. It made no sense.
“Why are they letting us leave?” the Coms officer said.
“They want us to spread what happened here,” Vaghn said. “They want the UHF to know of Husher’s betrayal.” If betrayal is what it is. That would be for the admiralty to sort out. And the media, no doubt.
“Pate just fired a warning shot across our bow,” her sensor operator said. “It came close.”
“Have the Ixa behind us moved away from the wormhole?”
“Yes. Apparently we’re truly free to go.”
The Hornet shuddered, then. “What was that?”
“A kinetic impactor.” Another impact followed the sensor operator’s words.
“All right,” she said, her vision going blurry. No tears. This is not the time. “We have no choice. Let’s go.”
Chapter 18
Flight
Ochrim had told Keyes where in the station his lab was situated, and he’d even described routes from each landing bay. Which would have come in handy, if Keyes and his remaining marines hadn’t gotten completely turned around in combat.
Running toward cover and away from fierce attacks by the station’s defenders, ducking inside chambers to avoid explosions—it had destroyed the team’s sense of direction, and now they wandered blind, stumbling from skirmish to skirmish.
The enemy’s backup will arrive soon, in numbers we can’t handle. Keyes pounded down a corridor with his comrades in loose formation around him, blinking away the grainy sensation stims always brought. He’d already administered two rounds, and each dose brought a shorter window of increased adrenal activity while taking a heavier toll on his body. I can’t hit them again. Can I?
He rounded a corner and drew up short. This corridor ended in a single metal-plated door. In front of it, the largest Ixan Keyes had ever seen held another Ixan in a one-armed headlock, a pistol planted firmly against the prisoner’s head. The other marines raised their weapons.
“Hold your fire,” Keyes barked.
The giant Ixan wore a grin so wide it threatened to split its head in two. “Too stupid to invent your own technology, is it, human? So you come to steal ours. Well, you’re too late. We would prefer Ochrim dead over working for you.”
“Kaklin,” Ochrim said, but the Ixan’s massive bicep flexed, and the scientist made a choking sound.
Keyes raised his assault rifle. “Kill him, and you die, too. I guarantee it.”
“Ah, to die fulfilling Scion Baxa’s will…it would be a better death than I could have dared hope for. But what happens in this corridor doesn’t matter. We saw you coming, human, and we called for backup immediately. They’ll be here to put you to death any second. I keep Ochrim alive to give you false hope that perhaps you’ll wrest him from my grasp unharmed. But you will not—you’ll only fritter away your final moments.”
Even with his breathing restricted, Ochrim’s eyes were locked on Keyes. Alien facial expressions were notoriously difficult to read, but even so, something passed between the two of them, across the expanse that divided their species.
The scientist blinked, slowly, deliberately. As though of its own accord, Keyes’s gun muzzle twitched up to point at the large Ixan’s head at the same time Ochrim wrenched away violently. The pistol fired, scoring the wall, and Keyes’s assault rifle roared in his hands.
The giant staggered backward, collapsing against the metal door. It did not move again.
“Do we need to move that thing out of the way?” Keyes asked Ochrim.
“No. I have all the data I need stored on a single drive. It’s the only copy that exists, now. I destroyed everything else.”
“Then let’s go.”
The remaining marines—barely enough to make a squad—formed up around Ochrim.
“Our shuttle was destroyed soon after we came in,” Keyes said. “Any ideas for how we’re getting out of this system?”
Ochrim nodded. “There should be transportation available in Landing Bay 3. I’ll show you the way. Hopefully you can sort out how to fly an Ixan craft.”
“Yeah. I’m sure that’ll be fine.” Keyes blinked, trying to match his facial expression to his words. We’re screwed.
“Kaklin told me a corvette will be the first Ixan warship to arrive.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” If they didn’t leave before the corvette’s arrival, it would eat them alive. Falcons included.
On their way out, they encountered just one station defender, who fired on them as soon as it saw Ochrim.
Suicide. The Ixan quickly fell to the marines’ gunfire.
Just outside Landing Bay 3, they got the scientist into a pressure suit as quickly as they could. Then they escorted him into the bay, where a single shuttle waited. It took Ochrim just a few seconds with its exterior control panel to grant them entry.
Running to the cockpit, Keyes immediately felt overwhelmed. The controls looked totally foreign to him. He didn’t know where to start. And there’s no one else aboard with flying experience. I’m it.
He tapped a round touchpad near the top of the console, and the cockpit’s lights dimmed. Damn it. Another few taps restored them to their former brightness.
“Sir, there’s an Ixan corvette approaching.” It was one of his Falcon pilots. “It’ll be here within minutes.”
“Acknowledged. Thanks for the update. We’ll be departing the station momentarily.”
Keyes began experimenting with a variety of controls. At last, he found the ignition, as well as what he felt fairly certain were the shuttle’s attitude controls. Then he achieved liftoff.
Now, how to get the landing bay doors to open… He glanced to the right, at what looked a lot like a panel with various weapon controls. Screw it. After a few seconds of fairly dangerous experimentation, he sent twin siege charges at the doors, which blew apart on impact.
He guided the shuttle through the jagged gap he’d created. By then, he’d found the craft’s tactical display, which showed the Ixan corvette nearly upon them.
There’s no way seven Falcons can take that on, barring a minor miracle. Even a full squadron would have struggled to defeat the corvette.
But he didn’t need his pilots to defeat it. Only stall it.
Which will mean consigning them to their deaths.
His hand shook as he raised it to his helmet. This was the last of his Air Group. A CAG who loses every pilot should not be rewarded. And yet he would be, if he escaped this system with Ochrim.
“Pilots, assume a wide battle spread formation. Be prepared to break formation if necessary to avoid enemy ordnance. Your mission is to buy us time to escape this system and to deliver Ochrim’s work into UHF hands.”
“Yes, sir,” came the immediate response, from all seven Falcons.
A lump formed in Keyes’s throat. “Your efforts here will resurrect humanity’s hope for winning this war. Those efforts will never be forgotten.”
He focused on improving his abi
lity to fly the Ixan shuttle as quickly as possible, trying to detach himself from what was happening on the tactical display, which showed his Falcon pilots falling to the corvette one-by-one.
Soon, the shuttle accelerated at what Keyes felt confident was its maximum rate. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched another Falcon go down. And another.
Only two fighters remained, still trying to take out the corvette’s point defense turrets so that they could focus on more vital targets. A spray of kinetic impactors blew up another fighter, and Keyes saw that its pilot had not ejected. None of the pilots had. They knew there would be no one to retrieve them.
The sole remaining Falcon sped toward the enemy in what Keyes recognized as a kamikaze dive. No. The Ixan warship’s point defense turrets tore it to shreds long before impact, and the debris that had been a Falcon rained down harmlessly upon the corvette’s hull.
Next, the corvette turned its attention to the shuttle. The tactical display showed it quickly closing the distance. It fired twice, and Keyes managed to avoid the streams of kinetic impactors, even though guns-D maneuvers were much harder in the bulky shuttle than in a Falcon.
The third round of impactors struck home, and the shuttle shook, the cockpit’s lights turning red. “Damn it,” Keyes shouted, but another glance at the tactical display silenced him.
A homing missile had left the corvette and was rushing toward them.
Chapter 19
History
Frantically, Keyes scanned the tactical display for cover of any kind. The nearest asteroid was much too far, and the wormhole lay farther still. That’s it. We’re done. The war is done.
At that moment, a lone fighter emerged from the wormhole and sped toward him. A Talon. Could that be—
“Wingtip Fesky?”
“Lieutenant Keyes. Long time no talk. Thanks for those coordinates.”
“I have a bit of a situation here, ma’am—”
“I see it. Concentrate on accelerating toward the wormhole, and I’ll accelerate toward you. Just as we’re about to collide, I need you to adjust your attitude thirty degrees downward relative to the ecliptic plane. Can you do that?”
Traitor Page 5