His X-23 shuddered with enemy fire raking his tail. He jogged right, testing the limits of his g-force compensators.
And the hits just keep on coming.
Chapter 18
Somewhere in Q-Space
Engineering, ISS Avenger
“How much longer?” Avery demanded, shielding her eyes. They’d been cutting their way into Engineering for what felt like an hour. The bulkhead doors were sealed tight from the inside.
The constant shush of his laser torch forced the tech to speak up. “Another thirty seconds, ma’am.” His voice echoed inside his protective visor.
Annoyed at the delay, Avery looked over the four-man security team around her. One of them, one she didn’t know by name, made her do a double take.
Kind of old for a lieutenant, thought Sam, realizing rather self-consciously that he was, in fact, about her age. But she’d known a few security officers like that. That branch of the service didn’t attract the most diplomatic sort to its ranks. Maybe this guy had been the apocryphal hardass who didn’t deal with authority very well. The rule that proved the exception. Maybe he’d been a commander once and been busted back a time or two for insubordination.
“You new?” she asked the lieutenant.
“Yes, Captain Avery. Just transferred in.”
She nodded. “I don’t remember requesting a new lieutenant. We didn’t lose any security officers in the action at Britannia.”
The lieutenant gave her a half smile. “I just go where I’m ordered, ma’am.”
The rest of the security detail grunted assent.
“What’s your name?”
“Barstow, ma’am. People call me Fats.”
“Fats?” She made a show of looking him over. He was anything but.
“Childhood nickname,” he supplied. “It stuck.”
“Ah.”
“And there we go,” said the tech, flipping off the torch.
Avery tapped him on the shoulder, and he backed out of the way. She drew her sidearm and looked to the four-man security team. “Ready?”
They all nodded.
“I want Malcolm Brent alive,” said Avery. “We need intel.” She looked to the lieutenant commander standing at the manual override on the door. “Ready, Drake?”
The assistant chief engineer nodded. “Ready, ma’am.”
“On three,” said Sam. “One…two…three.”
Drake cranked the override handle around once, then again. The door cracked halfway open.
Engineering was dark. A faint metallic smell, almost gritty, wafted out to them as the air released into the corridor.
Farrell, the commander of the security team, stuck two fingers in the air and jabbed them to the right. Barstow and an ensign went in. The officer jerked his head to the left, and he and his partner entered.
Avery hung back. Part of her wished the marines were with them, but she had them shining a light in every dark corner of the ship, kicking over cargo containers, scouring the ship for Brent.
She turned to Drake at the wall box. “Get those lights on ASAP. I don’t care what you have to—”
The lights in Engineering flashed on. Avery looked in and found Barstow’s hand on the switch. He wore a smirk that said always try it first.
Yeah, an attitude about authority.
Then Barstow’s expression changed. She followed his gaze.
“Oh, Jesus,” said the ensign next to Barstow.
There were three bodies. At least three. But so much blood. Like it had come from twice that many.
Avery stepped inside and punched the wall comms. “Sickbay! Get three medical teams down to Engineering! Double-time it!”
“Sickbay, acknowledged,” came the hurried reply.
“Captain, please stay outside the room,” said Commander Farrell. He scanned the upper level of Engineering. “Beta team, clear that side.”
“Maybe I should stay with the captain,” suggested Barstow. “In case—”
“I’ll be fine, Lieutenant, thank you for your concern,” said Avery, ignoring Farrell’s request and stepping through the half-opened doors. “You gentlemen clear the room.”
Barstow nodded and began searching. As his partner moved to follow, the ensign slipped and barely caught himself before hitting the floor ass first. A bloody streak painted where his foot had slid. The young man blanched like he might lose his lunch.
“Keep it together, Ensign,” said Barstow. “You’ll likely see worse before we’re done here.”
“Yes sir” was the squeamish reply.
The corpses lay in three places, soaked in blood. One technician near the q-jump drive control panel looked like she’d been dropped where she stood. Brent must’ve come up behind her, slit her throat quickly, thought Sam. She’d bled her life out from her carotid artery. It still cooled, sticky and red on the deck.
That must’ve alerted the others.
The second corpse, a maintenance technician by his overalls, sprawled on the floor, a wrench in his hand. Sam couldn’t see his face, but he had multiple wounds in his chest. He’d fought with Brent. And lost.
And finally….
“Jesse!”
Drake ran past her captain to the officer crumpled in a sitting position below the q-jump drive converters. Jesse Steinman, the chief engineer, looked like he’d died defending his beloved engines. The austere silver of his engineer’s tunic was stained a dark red that hadn’t stopped flowing even after reaching the floor. His legs splayed out in front of him, his head drooping lifeless on his chest, he almost seemed to be asleep. His assistant chief engineer knelt beside him, choking back her grief.
Avery moved to stand behind her. She let Drake have a moment. “Commander Farrell, report,” she said quietly. Farrell looked down over the gangway he was searching above.
“Barstow?”
“All clear over here, sir.”
“And here. And Captain,” Farrell said, motioning behind him as he leaned down, “there’s an access panel back here that’s cockeyed. I think that’s how our rat escaped.”
Cumrat, you mean.
So, Brent was loose in the ship’s infrastructure. And no one knew where to hide better than Avenger’s former XO. “Commander, I want you to bring up the ship’s schematics. Everywhere that accessway leads, I want you to run it down. Grid it out. Coordinate with the marines, but you’re in charge of the search, understand me? And remember, I want this sonofabitch alive!”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” said Farrell. “Hey, you two! Search that section one more time. Make sure every door, panel, or air vent is locked down. Then we’ll run this shitbird to ground.”
Barstow and the ensign nodded.
Avery knelt down beside Drake. She was brushing the curl of hair away from Steinman’s forehead. It took three tries to move it. The stubborn lock was plastered in place by blood.
“Drake?”
No response.
“Lieutenant Commander!” It came out harsher than Avery intended. But time was short.
Drake turned but seemed to look right through her captain.
“Lieutenant Commander Drake … I need you to focus.”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
“I know he was your friend. And he was a good officer. But I need you to focus now. I need you to take over as chief engineer.”
The woman stood up by instinct, arms stiff, cheeks streaked.
“You are now my chief engineer, Commander. Do you understand?”
“Ma’am! Yes, ma’am!”
The medical teams were climbing through the half-opened door from the corridor. Once inside, they paused for a moment, taking in the carnage.
“Do you know how to get these converters back online?”
Drake’s face seemed offended at first, then hardened to duty.
“Of course, ma’am.”
“You’re an officer aboard the ISS Avenger. Respond like it!”
“Aye-aye, Captain!”
Avery leaned in to whisper. “We’ll gri
eve later, Cynthia. Now, I need you to do your duty and get us back in the fight.” She leaned back. “Can you do that, Commander? Can you get us back in the fight so we can kill the cumrats responsible for your crewmates dying in cold blood?”
Drake’s eyes, which had remained distant, suddenly focused on Avery’s. “Aye-aye, Captain.” A quiet response but with steel in it.
“How long to reengage the q-jump drive?”
Avenger’s new chief engineer did the calculations quickly. “Fifteen minutes, ma’am. He didn’t pull any parts. Must’ve been in a hurry.” Drake glanced down at the deck around them. “Brent just shut it all down. But we should run systems checks to ensure no other—”
“You have five minutes. Watch the levels as you restart. If something redlines, call me on the Bridge. Otherwise, skip the protocols and get my engines back online.”
Drake nodded and turned away to begin firing up the converters. She stopped short as Steinman’s body blocked her. Then she carefully bent down and, with Avery’s help, moved him to one side. Wiping red smudges on her uniform, she began keying the restart sequence into the panel.
The captain walked over to the medical teams. “Take these bodies down to Sickbay. Do it quickly. Do it discreetly, if you can.” The officer in charge acknowledged the order as Avery pressed the wall panel.
“Captain to Bridge.”
“Hathaway here, ma’am. Did you find Commander—did you find Brent?”
“Not yet, XO, but we’ve retaken Engineering and are spinning up the q-jump drive. Have Helm lay in a course for Heroic. I want double crews manning the mag-rails. And I want to jump as soon as we’re able.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
“Avery out.” As she turned, she found both security teams comparing notes in the middle of the room. “Farrell? If you’re done here, get on the grid. I hate the idea of going into battle with that bastard running around inside the walls of my ship.”
“Agreed, ma’am. But we were just consulting—it’s Lieutenant Barstow’s opinion, and I agree with him, that you should have a security detail assigned to your protection. This….” He gestured at the slaughter around them. “Brent isn’t in his right mind.”
“He’s a Swarm agent, Commander,” Avery observed.
“That may be, but he’s also—as we call it by its technical term in the Security biz—batshit crazy. You need someone guarding your six.”
“That’s probably true,” she said, “but I won’t take any of you or the marines off the search to guard my ass. I can do that just fine myself.”
“Captain,” began Barstow, “as you said yourself—we’re about to go into battle at Heroic. If Brent really is a Swarm agent, you’d be his number one target. With Avenger’s XO and captain both out of commission, our offensive capability would be significantly hamstrung. I really must insist—”
“Now I see,” said Avery.
Barstow stopped speaking. “Ma’am?”
“Why you’re still a lieutenant,” she said, indicating his salted temples. “You just don’t know when to take no for an answer.”
Farrell began, “Ma’am, I actually agree with the lieutenant—”
“No. You have my order. Now get to it.”
“Ma’am!” acknowledged Farrell. “You heard the captain. We’ll start on F-deck.”
Barstow nodded, reluctantly it seemed to Avery.
How sweet.
It was touching to know her crew cared for her. Turning on her heel, she found the medical team picking up the limp form of the woman with the slit throat. Swallowing hard, Avery tried not to stare as she walked past them on her way to the Bridge.
Chapter 19
Outpost Heroic One
Veracruz Sector
“Mustang, tighten up! Tighten up!”
Laz felt like an old timey record with its needle stuck. The Invincibles had lost so many and their losses had proven so constant, he found himself repeatedly telling them to close up formation.
The Swarm fighters were pushing hard against the flank and were finally overrunning the few Invincibles remaining. It was only by the grace of Preble’s firing solution the transports hadn’t already been lost. Heroic’s meager point defenses were holding, but the flood of cumrats had already topped the dam.
The Indy’s CAG dipped and turned, that damned left wing with the holes in it forcing him to overcompensate with thrusters. It played hell with his ability to line up on the enemy. One engine flared briefly as fuel burned off to die in the vacuum of space.
“Damn it!”
Laz felt the crosshairs even before his proximity alarm sounded. He knew the cumrat was back there, and the laser blasts cracking around his cockpit told him he couldn’t outmaneuver their weapons lock, not with an engine down and that damaged left wing. He felt hounded like a three-legged fox in a swamp.
“Mustang, prepare to take over as—”
His X-23 jerked left, then right, and his helmet hit hard against the canopy window. The proximity alarm rang in the cockpit, and for a moment, he couldn’t see anything but stars exploding across his vision. Then a sharp thump from behind buffeted his ship, and on instinct he hard-sticked left. The sharp g-forces combined with his cracked skull to send waves of nausea from his brain to his belly. Laz shook his head to clear it and immediately realized what a mistake that was.
“Say again, CAG?”
“Ignore him,” said Ballbreaker as she swooped by Laz’s ship. “I solved his problem for him.”
Laz evened out his bird into a long, elliptical loop away from the heart of the fighting. He’d dodged the enemy for the moment and took a deep breath to clear his vision. “Thanks again, Ballbreaker.”
“You’re buying the first three rounds back at Wellington,” she teased.
God love ya for an optimist, thought Laz. “You’re on.”
In the moment’s respite from immediate danger, he blinked his eyes back into focus and assessed the situation. He’d given up trying to coordinate with Preble, who was too busy fending off the three carriers to talk. They were down by half their fighters, and those goddamned carriers just kept skulking forward, as if savoring the coming moment of their assured victory. Laz angled his bird to get a better view of the bigger picture. Preble had his battle and Laz had his, and with any luck they’d both die well.
Independence was still maneuvering, but one of her main engines was dark. He couldn’t tell if she’d lost her q-jump drive or not. There were a dozen fires, green flames licking into space from enemy laser penetration, burning along her asteroid hull. Firing nonstop, her starboard broadside mag-rails looked largely intact, but a third of her portside guns were gone, obliterated by surgical strikes by Swarm suicide jockeys.
The enemy was learning.
A glance back at Heroic—closer now than earlier since the Swarm’s relentless advance had slowly moved the entire battle back to the base—showed him several transports still docked, still loading. Why was it taking so long?
Goddamn, they had one job. One.
“Hey, Laz, if you’re done sunning yourself, we could use a hand swatting these mosquitoes,” nagged Mustang. He was trying to sound cocky, Laz could tell, but the words were mired in fatigue. Stressed to the maximum by a thousand split-second decisions since the battle had begun, Havers was tired. They all were. And that meant slower reflexes as the adrenaline tapped out. Half their number gone and Independence slowly, inexorably being beaten to a pulp. If they’d needed every man before….
Laz spotted a Swarm pilot zeroing in on a member of Blue Squadron, who crept along at half speed. The pilot was a sitting duck. Indy’s CAG announced his return to the fight with his right thumb and a spray of lasers ending one more cumrat’s life.
“Oh, good! You’re back,” teased Chopper, whose ass had just been saved.
“Shut up and shoot, slowpoke,” said Laz.
* * *
Independence yawed around Preble, groaning with the stresses of multiple strikes. The deckplate
s beneath his feet felt less confident somehow, though he knew that was crazy. He caught himself on the pit’s railing and waited as the Indy righted herself.
“Get those stabilizers under control!” yelled his XO.
“Aye, sir!”
The viewscreen was alive with battle, but Preble focused on the tactical display in the corner. He glanced up to confirm what he thought he saw.
“Helm, hard to port. That carrier is coming straight at us. Get our starboard guns facing and focused.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And prepare full thrust. I’d also like us out of her way.”
“Aye.”
Independence shuddered.
“Another hit aft, sir.”
“Q-jump drive?”
“Functional. Barely.”
The Indy shook again, but this time she was giving instead of getting as her hundred starboard mag-rail batteries unloaded on the bow of the oncoming carrier. A small halo of slug damage bloomed dead center of the Swarm ship’s primary hull.
“Helm, hit the gas before she rams us amidships.”
“Aye!”
Independence seemed to groan in response to the helm’s demands.
“Captain! Heroic reports their last transport is loaded and taking heavy fire from Swarm fighters,” reported Hayden at tactical. “I think they’ve finally overwhelmed the outpost’s defenses.”
The tactical officer’s report had almost been unnecessary. The explosions of Outpost Heroic One’s primary buildings were evidence enough of the enemy’s progress.
“XO, get me the CAG. Redirect all fighters to support the transports still evacuating.” At least half a dozen ships had already escaped into q-space, headed for Mars. Three remained, including the one currently the target of half a hundred enemy fighters.
“Niña’s shields have failed.” Hayden shared a look with his captain. “They’re not going to make it, sir.”
“New contact, bearing five-eight-eight-mark-six,” said the sensors officer. “It’s Avenger, sir!”
“What?” Preble leapt to the upper deck to stare over her shoulder. The Indy shook with the Swarm’s latest assault.
“Get that woman on the horn!” yelled Wheatley, sitting himself in Preble’s chair. “I want to know what the hell—”
Legacy Fleet: Avenger (Kindle Worlds) (The First Swarm War Book 2) Page 11