“This is impossible,” Thorella hissed angrily as he saw human battleships winking off the tactical display as they jumped into hyperspace. In but minutes, the only capital ship that remained was Sandhurst, Sinclaire’s flagship, and the carriers that were busy recovering the Marines under the watchful eyes of the Kreelan fleet. It was a sight no human could ever have foretold, and one that many would never be able to accept as being anything other than legend or fantasy.
To Thorella, it was nothing less than cowardice. Treason.
After the initial wave of anger caused by those thoughts, he realized the full implications – for himself – of what had happened. Camden and Mackenzie had obviously survived to tell their stories, and with Braddock as the senior councilman and acting president (unless someone else more senior happened to show up, which Thorella thought was unlikely, at best), Thorella’s future back in Confederation space would be exceedingly grim. His ambitions, his destiny, were blown away as if by a battleship’s guns.
In a daze, he left the cockpit, not even bothering to put the ship on autopilot. It doesn’t matter, he thought. Nothing matters now. He wandered aft, toward the parlor and the liquor cabinet. The Pearl carried only the finest, he noted bitterly as he hefted a bottle of eighty year old scotch. None of that syntho crap for her passengers! He did not even bother with a glass, but removed the cap and lifted the bottle in a mock toast to his own failure and impending demise. Then he took a long swallow, his body nearly numb to the burning liquid’s passage. Like a child with a favorite teddy bear, he carried the bottle to the overstuffed chair next to the artificial fireplace and collapsed into it, drained. Finished.
It was only after he had polished off a third of the bottle that he noticed the black case perched on a table on the far side of the room, near the door. Something about it was vaguely familiar, but through the fog of alcohol and depression, he could not quite place where he had seen it before. Intrigued as he could be in his present state, he mustered enough energy to get up. Not quite walking, but not staggering, either, he made his way to the table and the mysterious case. He ran a finger over the top, noting the perfectly smooth surface and the material’s excessive strength.
Could it be? a tiny voice somewhere inside his skull cried. He picked it up, feeling the weight in his hand.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispered to himself as his heart began to race with excitement. Dropping the bottle of expensive scotch, he set the case back down on the table – carefully, oh, so carefully – and examined its latching system. “Ohmygod,” he breathed, his body quivering as if in the throes of orgasm.
There was no mistake. It was the kryolon weapon command console. The fools, he thought, had somehow gotten hold of it, and then left it behind! That was the only reason he had not recognized it sooner: his mind could not accept the possibility that it had simply been left here, unattended.
Suddenly, his fortunes had changed yet again. He thought of Sandhurst standing by, watching over the recovery of the Marines, and Braddock and the others on board her.
“Thank you, God,” he said aloud, a blasphemy coming from such lips.
Despite what Laskowski had briefed to the General Staff about the weapons being distributed among several ships, the entire arsenal had secretly been put aboard the ill-fated Warspite, with two of them being transferred to the Golden Pearl during Gard and Mackenzie’s short-lived incarceration aboard the flagship.
Only three people had known the launch codes: Borge, who was now dead; Admiral Laskowski, who had recently gone down with the Southampton; and Thorella. He was now the only living human being who could launch the two remaining weapons.
And launch them he would.
***
Jodi forced her eyes open against the pain and drugs that were gradually working their way out of her system after her forced separation from the autodoc. She had to see what Thorella was doing, had to know what scheme he had come up with that had changed his somber mood to one of disquieting elation.
Wedged into a chair at the main engineering console in the Pearl’s engine room, Jodi was managing to hold out, minute by minute. She had been asleep in the sickbay when Thorella came aboard, and the transition to flight had awakened her. She had called out for Nicole, for the others, but no one had come. Thank the Lord of All, she thought, that she had not used the ship’s intercom. That would have brought Thorella right to her.
No, she had sensed that something was wrong, and had managed to pull herself out of her bunk and crawl to a monitor. From there, she could view the cockpit. It took her a long time to be sure that she would not scream at the sight of the thing that sat at the controls. Not long after that, she decided to act.
The first thing she had to do was to get out of sick bay and find a place that would be relatively safe if Thorella decided to prowl around. The second was to find a way to neutralize whatever threat he might pose to both her and the others, wherever they might be. After a moment’s consideration, her knowledge of the Golden Pearl led her to the engineering section all the way aft as the best place to fulfill both requirements. After that, she only had to figure out a way to get there.
It did not take her long to realize that she would never make it on her own. Now separated from the autodoc, the pain that poured into her brain was agonizing, and it was only sheer willpower and a badly bitten tongue that kept her from crying out, perhaps letting Thorella know that he was not alone on this ship.
As she lay panting, trying to rally some strength, she remembered the ship’s complement of service drones. Carried by many starships, such drones were the ship’s handymen, performing many of the more monotonous maintenance tasks. They were neither aesthetically attractive nor particularly intelligent, but they more than made up for it in brute strength and reliability.
Pulling herself back up to the ship’s comm console, Jodi waited for the pain to subside again before she began entering the commands that she hoped would bring one of the machines to her without attracting unwanted attention. A sailor would pay no attention to a passing drone, subconsciously knowing that the machine was merely setting off to check on some subsystem or other. A psychotic Marine, however, might take more notice.
Minutes passed as Jodi fought to keep from passing out, waiting for the drone to arrive. She had no way from this panel to monitor its progress; besides, she was more interested in keeping an eye on what Thorella was doing, which was, mercifully, nothing. For the moment.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, she was rewarded with the smooth humming of a drone entering sick bay, obediently coming to a stop in front of the chair where she had been sitting, waiting.
With another burst of effort, Jodi managed to drape herself over the boxy machine’s back, its impellers instantly compensating for her weight.
“Engineering,” she gasped, ignoring the flecks of blood that flew from her lips.
With nothing in the form of acknowledgment, the drone retraced its path out of the room and silently headed aft, hauling her along with it.
Once in engineering, the first thing Jodi had done after locking the door behind her was to make sure that Thorella could not communicate with the outside world. She had no idea what he was up to, why he was on this ship, but she had no intention of letting him get into more trouble – or causing any. Then she disabled his maneuvering controls. That took a while, during which she heard Tony Braddock’s fleet broadcast.
His voice and his words told him that Nicole must be all right, too. The thought made her feel better, but it did nothing to improve her health. She was bleeding again, inside. And there was no autodoc here to help her.
Jodi watched with grim amusement as Thorella lost himself in depression at Braddock’s words. To see him crushed, defeated, was a small victory, enough to bring a smile to her battered face, and with that accomplished, her body demanded rest, and she passed out into dark oblivion.
She woke up some time later to see him tinkering with a strange black case that
he had found, and she was instantly worried by the change in his demeanor. She should not have been afraid, she told herself, because he could not access any of the ship’s systems from outside this compartment, and there was no way he could get in here without blowing through the hardened bulkhead.
“What are you doing, you bastard?” she whispered as she watched his fingers fly over the console that was revealed to be inside the case. “What is that thing?”
A pair of flashing lights on the control panel suddenly caught her attention: TORPEDOES ARMED, the display said.
“Wait just a minute,” she hissed. “Computer,” she barked, “weapons status?”
“All weapons under local control are in standby mode,” the synthesized female voice answered smugly. “No targets designated, no–”
“Then why are the torpedo status lights showing that they’re armed?”
“Torpedo tubes one and two are not under local control,” the computer answered as if Jodi were an idiot.
“Then who controls them?” Jodi felt a bead of sweat slip down her back.
“That information is classified.”
“Do tubes one and two have targets?” she asked, frantic now as she watched the status display changed from simply armed to ready.
“Affirmative.”
“What are the targets?” Jodi yelled at the console.
“That information is classified.”
“Goddammit,” Jodi shouted helplessly, “what the fuck isn’t classified?”
“Tubes one and two were reloaded with unserialized weapons while we were docked with Warspite,” the machine answered suddenly.
“What weapons?” Jodi asked. “Special weapons? What kind?”
“That information is–”
“Shut up!” Jodi shouted angrily. “Show me a theoretical torpedo trajectory based on current ship’s vector and torpedo launcher alignment.” She could not get the computer to tell her what the real target was, but maybe she could dupe it into giving it to her anyway.
“One moment.” And then the holo screen showed the sector of space near the sun. A red line arced out from the icon that was the yacht, following a trajectory right into the sun.
“What the hell…” Jodi whispered to herself. Suddenly, she understood. She had heard the tales, but had never believed them until now. Kryolon warheads. And Thorella controlled them. Her blood turned to ice in her veins.
“Computer,” she ordered, “shut down all power to weapons–”
The ship shuddered. Again.
“Torpedoes one and two away,” the computer announced cheerfully. “Power-down to weapons systems commencing… Completed. Weapons successfully powered down.”
Too late! Jodi cursed herself. On the holo display, the two weapons followed the computer’s projected course with unsurprising precision.
There was only one thing left for her to do now, she thought. It would no doubt cost her life, but there was no choice. She reactivated the datalink, hoping that Thorella would not catch on until it was too late.
“All ships, all ships, this is the Golden Pearl…”
***
“Weapons launch!” Sandhurst’s tactical officer cried, his eyes following the trajectories of two torpedoes launched from the small ship trailing behind the rest of the retreating fleet. For the last hectic forty minutes – it had seemed like hours – his primary job had been to keep human ships from firing on Kreelan ones, and for the most part he had been successful.
“Who?” Admiral Sinclaire demanded.
“It looks like that yacht, sir, the Golden Pearl,” the tactical officer replied quickly as his fingers stabbed angrily at his console, “but I’m not getting an IFF response, no datalink, and no voice, either. She’s not responding at all.”
“What’s she targeting?”
“Don’t know, sir. There aren’t any Kreelan ships in that quadrant.” Pause. “The torpedoes are headed right into the sun.”
What the Devil? Sinclaire thought. He had just gotten the fleet back into some kind of order, strange as it was, and he was not about to let things fall back into chaos, especially with the Marine transports still en route back from the Kreelan moon.
He was about to ask something else when the comms officer suddenly shouted, “Fleet emergency broadcast, admiral!”
“On screen!” Sinclaire demanded immediately. He was shocked by what he saw.
“All ships, all ships, this is the Golden Pearl.”
“Jodi,” Nicole whispered, fighting to keep the tears of rage held in check at the sight of her friend’s mutilated face, guilt surging through her for abandoning Jodi in her hour of need.
“This is Admiral Sinclaire aboard Sandhurst. Go ahead, commander.”
“Sir,” Jodi said thickly, obviously in excruciating pain, “you’ve got to get the fleet away from here as fast as you can. You’re all in great danger.”
“Commander, the Kreelans have given us time–”
“It’s not the Kreelans, sir,” she interrupted him, “it’s the weapons General Thorella, who’s aboard this ship, just launched. You should be tracking two torpedoes, heading into the sun.” A nod to Sinclaire from the tactical officer. Two maroon streaks were rapidly making their way across the holo image of this part of the system to the star at its center. “I think they’re fitted with kryolon warheads.” She paused in the sudden silence that enveloped Sandhurst’s bridge.
“Thorella launched these things?” Sinclaire managed to say with what felt like someone else’s tongue, so shocked was he to be hearing this. “On whose authority?”
She gave him a bitter smile through blood-caked lips. “His own, of course,” she rasped. “He’s never needed anyone else’s.”
“I am coming to get you, Jodi,” Nicole said suddenly. She had made a quick mental calculation from the tactical display. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Nicole,” Tony said from behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off angrily.
Jodi shook her head slowly, wincing at the pain the movement caused. “You can’t risk it, Nicole. There’s no time. And… I don’t think I’ll last that long now, anyway.” A bitter smile.
Sinclaire could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Kryolons, of all things. Could it be true? More to the point, could he discount the possibility? And what could he do about it? Run like hell, he told himself, a shudder rippling up his spine. “Mister Zhirinovski!” he bellowed to the acting fleet operations officer.
“Sir?”
“How much longer to jump?”
“We should be ready in seventeen minutes, sir.” Five assault transports were still coming in; their carriers would jump as soon as they were aboard, and Sandhurst would follow them out, the last human ship to leave. The only ones now being left behind would never be coming home, anyway, their drives dead, their life support failing. There were simply not enough able ships left to rescue all the stragglers.
Sinclaire turned on his tactical officer. “How long before the torpedoes reach the corona?”
“Just under two minutes, sir,” he replied, noting that the torpedoes had now run out of fuel and were coasting on toward their target. “If what I’ve heard about the kryolons is right, we’ll have about fifteen minutes from initiation of the kryolon reaction – that’ll be upon detonation in the corona – to the first stellar debris reaching us here.” He looked helpless for a moment. “But that’s just a guess.”
“Better than nothing, lad,” Sinclaire said quickly. “Zhirinovski, you’ve got ten minutes to get the other ships out of here. Tell the transports to push it past the limit. If they’re not back aboard by then, they get left behind.” Five minutes was not much of a safety margin, but it was all he could give them.
“Aye, sir!”
“Captain Jorgensen,” Sinclaire spoke into the comm link to the ship’s bridge, “we’ve got a problem.”
“Sir?” the captain answered immediately, her attention riveted on the
old sailor’s face in the screen.
“Have Sandhurst ready for her jump in ten minutes, captain. The Kreelan sun may be… unstable. We’re pushing up the timetable.”
“Aye, admiral,” Jorgensen answered. “We’re ready any time, sir.”
Sinclaire nodded.
“What about her?” Nicole demanded quietly, nodding toward Jodi’s image. Her eyes were closed, head down.
“She’s right, lass,” Sinclaire said as gently as he could. “You couldn’t get there in time to help her. You’d only die, too. Perhaps… keeping her company might be best. No one likes to go out of this world alone, and Lord knows she’s earned what little comfort any of us can provide.”
Nicole nodded in resignation, now welcoming Braddock’s arm around her shoulder. But she looked up suddenly at Jodi’s voice.
“Nicole,” she said in a whisper, “It’s Thorella. I think he’s coming…”
Fifty-Nine
Reza did not have to see what was taking place throughout the Empire; he could sense it. He was spiritually reconnected with Her Children, with the Bloodsong again echoing in his veins. He could again sense Her will, and knew that a great Change was about to take place, something that would alter his people forever and take them to the next step in their evolution as a species. Wherever they were, warriors and clawless ones waited for the rapture that they knew was about to come, only moments away now. Even the hapless males that had been evacuated from the nurseries knew that something was happening, for while they were witless creatures with but a single function in life, they, too, were bound to Her will. And in their own way, they felt the tremor in the life force that bound them all to one another, that was the endless thread of life that the Kreela called the Way. While they did not realize it in their blissful ignorance, they had been redeemed, and the glory and honor that had once been theirs was about to be again in the new form that was soon to come.
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