“Look at what people do to the indigenous life-forms of other planets. We barge in, exerting our influence over the environment, whether it’s intentional or not. The Luminals probably look at us no differently than we look at the insects floating around the steam vents waiting to be squashed and taken prey by something stronger, something smarter. The post-humans saw that. They figured out before we did that there are dangers out there that humans could not possibly imagine, and we had to be prepared.”
That was the fear that had sparked the Collectors to embark on their zealous quest to conquer humanity and force the whole of humanity to follow their path. They were driven by fear. The fear that there were more powerful beings out there, dangers beyond human. It was driving Hannah now. She wanted humanity to succeed. She thought the SRE was weak, ineffectual. That the current form of interstellar human civilization wouldn’t last against the denizens of the galaxy. She had said as much to Tag before.
He should have been satisfied knowing this. But he wanted her to admit it. Wanted to know there was still a shred of humanity left in her. That she wasn’t actually on some hell-bent, maniacal quest for power or money.
“Please, Hannah. There are other ways. We’re scientists, for the gods’ sakes. We can find another way to prepare ourselves without all this subterfuge and treason and taking human lives!”
“You and I both know that the advancement of medical science—our very understanding of biology and physiology—didn’t come cheap. There is no substitute for experimenting on live subjects. I don’t relish it, but we must test the post-human genetic treatments to ensure they will work on all humans.”
Tag searched her eyes for something other than cold determination. Where was the woman who’d lain in his arms while they counted the stars? Was she still in there somewhere, or had even that been a lie? “Come with us. Give the SRE a chance. Give me a chance.”
“I can’t do that, Tag.” Hannah took a step toward him her weapon raised. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to join me?”
Tag pictured Ezekiel on the Dawn. The post-human Collector had tried to persuade him their cause was righteous. Necessary. But Tag couldn’t agree with the egotistical unilateralism of it all, the selfish idea that every sentient being, including humans, should bow to the Collectors’ will in some crazed attempt to combat a future invasion by the near godlike Luminals.
“I’ve made my decision,” Tag said.
“So have I,” Hannah said.
She squeezed the trigger. A blue bolt stabbed into Tag’s chest. There was no pain. Just the cold sensation of his muscles and joints locking. Then everything released, and he collapsed. His head smacked against the floor, and he saw only Hannah’s feet. She walked away from him and tapped on the terminal.
“Site B armed and loaded,” a computerized voice said. “Site A primed. Detonation in ten minutes.”
“Goodbye, Tag,” Hannah whispered.
Then she left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The dull throb at the back of Tag’s skull was nothing compared to the pain of Hannah’s betrayal. He tried to will his muscles to work, but the only thing he achieved was a surge of raw frustration. He was as paralyzed as Bull.
Gods be damned, he thought. He needed to reach his wrist terminal to warn Sumo, Gorenado, and Lonestar.
He saw movement in his periphery. Bull was trembling, his mouth opening and closing. “C-cap...” he stuttered.
Before he could finish the word, a deep rumble shook through the facility. Would this really be the end for them? Paralyzed and left to die in an explosion on a goddamn worthless rock like Orthod? Hannah hadn’t even had the guts to kill him herself. Maybe that would help her sleep at night.
The quaking intensified, shaking dust from the domed ceiling. Tag’s fingers twitched, and he managed to clench them into a fist. His lips started to work, though he could make no sounds. The paralysis was wearing off, but not fast enough.
Then footsteps pounded down the corridor. Bull’s hand stretched toward his rifle, but the weapon might as well have been a kilometer away. The marine’s eyes locked with Tag’s. A fire burned in them. Tag could tell what the man was thinking. No warrior deserved a death like this, paralyzed and unable to fight back.
You bastards. He tried to say the words, but they came out in a meaningless gargle.
Figures burst through the door, weapons raised. He’d come so close to unraveling the link between Starinski and the Collectors. So goddamned close.
“Captain!” Sumo called. She knelt next to him and propped his head up.
“You okay, boss?” she asked.
Tag mumbled something completely incomprehensible.
“All clear in the passage,” Coren called from somewhere behind Tag. “Let’s go!”
Gorenado and Lonestar lifted Bull between them. The sergeant’s legs moved as if he was a toddler trying to walk for the first time. Pinpricks spread from Tag’s toes and into his legs. Sumo and Coren each took an arm, and the group dragged Tag and Bull back toward the ship’s bay. The Forge of Blood was gone.
But Hannah’s shuttle was still here.
“Load them up,” Coren said. “I can’t defuse the bomb, but I can open the shuttle bay.”
“You got it,” Gorenado said. He and Lonestar dropped Bull into one of the shuttle’s crash couches and clicked the restraints together. Then they helped Sumo secure Tag.
Coren jumped into the pilot’s seat. The door to the shuttle closed with a bang, and the thrusters growled to life.
“Was that the bomb?” Tag asked. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Thought we had ten minutes.”
“No, that was the bomb at Site B. Caused a small earthquake,” Coren said as he pulled back on the shuttle’s controls and guided it into the moon pool. The world turned dark blue around them. The shuttle’s lights were their only guide through the murk.
“Alpha, did Cho set up the planetary defense systems?”
“They appear to be experiencing some kind of technical difficulties. Cho claims they are associated with the earthquake,” Alpha replied over the comms. “He said this is the issue he reported to you before. Every time there is an earthquake, the defense systems go dark.”
“Cap, I’m not one for coincidences, and this seems like an awful big one,” Sofia said.
“You got that right. It’s all connected. That old fission bomb going off at the test site.” Tag shook his head. “Make an earthquake, then take the defense systems down. Alpha, there’s no reasonable explanation for how an earthquake would affect the orbiting defense systems, is there?”
“There does not appear to be a probable and reasonable explanation to me, Captain. Unless, of course, these manmade earthquakes are simply, as you all might say, a smokescreen.”
“We’ll have to check the marines’ logs later,” Tag said. “But for now, catch the Forge... it’s going straight back out into space.”
“We’ll do our best,” Coren said. Then he made a call over the public comms. “Alpha, what’s your ETA?”
“One minute from your position,” she said.
“The Forge has already taken off,” Coren said. “Track them.”
“It’s a stealth shuttle,” Sofia interjected. “How are we supposed to track it?”
Coren almost smiled. “Check the frequency I just sent you.”
“I’ve got a ping,” Alpha replied.
“That’s them,” Coren said. “I managed to get a transponder on their hull.”
“Like the one Lonestar put on the Argo?” Gorenado asked.
Lonestar recoiled at that. She’d been duped by a collaborator into installing the transponder on the Argo that enabled the Drone-Mechs and Collectors to track their ship.
“The one I installed won’t survive a hyperspace trip.”
“Damn,” Tag said. He tried massaging his jaw with his trembling fingers.
“As you humans would say, no dice,” Coren replied. “The only way we can figure
out where they’re going is if we board the ship.”
“Then that’s what we have to do,” Tag said. The shuttle shoveled through the water. Light glowed ahead, and then clear blue sky appeared. “Alpha, did we get those reinforcements?”
“Cho gave us one squad,” Alpha said. “The rest are back at the Principality.”
Tag was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Is he posting guards around the town?”
“Yes, Captain. He also told me to tell you that you owe him one. After the footage we showed him, he wants to have a discussion with you to understand, and I quote, ‘what in the gods’ name is going on in this hellhole.’”
A fan of orange light exploded from below them. Water burst upward in a spray of mist and expanding gases. Tag was thrown about in his restraints, the aches in his body turning to fire. Site A had detonated. The facility below was gone.
A sudden loss of acceleration jolted his stomach. The wailing alarms and crimson lights flooded the cabin. Through the shuttle’s windows, Tag watched gray smoke plume from one of the thrusters.
“Gods,” Bull growled. “Can’t you fly this damn thing straight, Coren?”
The Mechanic gave Bull a one-fingered salute that he had picked up from the humans.
“I’ve got you in my sights,” Sofia said.
“The Forge is about to clear the atmosphere,” Alpha said calmly.
Tag’s mind raced as he tried to figure out their next move. Before they could chase down the stealth ship, they needed to rendezvous with the Argo and Cho’s men. But by the time they did that, the Forge would be in hyperspace.
“Alpha, secure us with a grav tether. We won’t have time to dock with the Argo.”
“But without—”
“Yes, I know. We won’t have the safety of an energy shield, and we don’t have any goddamn weapons. But right now, the Forge’s crew doesn’t know we can see them. They think they have the advantage.” As he thought of the abducted colonists and marines on the Forge, Hannah’s words repeated through his head. Some sacrifices must be made to survive. “Fire on the ship. Engines, then weapons. In that order. It’ll all be for nothing if they get away.”
“To be clear,” Sofia said, “the hostages are still on board, right?”
“Yes,” Tag said. Then, with more confidence than he felt: “There’s no other choice. We’ll worry about the hostages when we board, but the only way we can do that at this point is if you kill their engines.”
Tag closed his eyes, grateful his crew couldn’t see his face. He was risking the lives of innocents to complete his mission. How was that any better than what Hannah had done?
CHAPTER FORTY
The shuttle lurched as the Argo snagged it with the grav tether. Momentum pulled Tag’s body against his restraints. The shuttle rattled, ill-equipped to deal with the maneuver.
“Engage energy shields,” Tag said. “Sofia, keep us on the Forge’s tail.”
“They’ve got to be getting nervous now, Skipper,” she said.
“Then let’s not give them any time to think about it. Alpha, let loose with the Gauss and pulse cannons as soon as you have a lock. Give her everything you’ve got.”
“Yes, Captain,” Alpha said after a pause.
He knew what he was asking of Alpha was no easy task. She had to aim blind, with Coren’s transponder her only guide. A sudden flurry of orange bolts lanced from the Argo. The rounds seared through space. Tag watched, waiting for some sign that they’d found a target.
Nothing. The pulses disappeared into the darkness as if they had fired at a ghost.
“Mark trajectory and acceleration maintained,” Alpha reported. “All signs indicate that I have missed.”
“Keep at it,” Tag said. Hannah and her crew knew the Argo was on their tail now. They’d be racing to make the jump to hyperspace.
Alpha unloaded another salvo. The shuttle was tucked close enough to the Argo’s belly that its fuselage was caught in the shockwaves. The little craft shook, and Tag’s fingers tightened unconsciously around his restraints. A trail of fire tore through the vacuum. Tag’s vision narrowed on the bands of orange, like streaks of violent magma stretching to grasp their unseen foe.
Then, a spark of green.
They had scored a hit.
“Recalculating now,” Alpha said, sounding far more confident than before. The hit would hardly count in another skirmish. In this one, it made all the difference. They hadn’t damaged anything, but now they knew where the ship was in relation to the transponder.
Another volley exploded from the Argo. This one did not go unanswered. Cannon batteries thumped from the Forge with a force Tag could feel in his gut. Lasers, pulse rounds, and PDC fire filled the space between the two ships. Sofia maneuvered the Argo so that Tag could no longer see what was going on through the cockpit viewscreen.
Sofia was clearly trying to shield the shuttle from the incoming fire, sacrificing mobility for the lives of her captain and the rest of the crew. The shuttle was now pressed against the Argo’s hull. Every growl of the cannons, every spat of incoming fire absorbed either by the shields or the Argo itself rocked the shuttle, too.
“Damage report,” Tag said after a teeth-rattling jolt.
“Shields down to twenty percent,” Alpha said. “Forward-hull integrity compromised. Fusion reactors and engines at sixty-five percent.”
“And our target?”
“Difficult to tell,” Alpha said. “Cloaking shields still appear to be functional. Acceleration maintained.”
Damn it, Tag thought. He glanced at his wrist terminal. Only twenty or thirty seconds, if they were lucky, before the stealth ship reached a safe hyperspace-transition distance from Orthod. That was assuming Hannah wouldn’t risk an early transition.
An incoming kinetic round plunged through the Argo and grazed the shuttle’s hull. A plume of white gas froze into many crystalline shards that pinged against the cockpit.
“That was too damn close,” Sumo said.
Then another volley slammed into the Argo. The shuttle smacked against the larger ship. Another orange round of pulsefire gouged the Argo like a knife. Tag bounced in his restraints, his bones scraping together.
One of the Argo’s impellers had gone dark.
“Engines down to thirty-five percent,” Alpha said.
“I’m giving it all I’ve got,” Sofia added, her voice shaking with effort or pain, “but they’re getting away.”
“They will not get away. Alpha, you’ve got to do this!”
Tag thought she answered in the affirmative, but he couldn’t be sure. A cacophony of cannon fire drowned out her reply. Tag felt the thudding weapons deep in his core. His whole body hurt from everything it had endured recently. The more the Argo bucked, the worse the fires in his limbs and nerves became. He heard the whistle of gas escaping pipes and the spark of broken wires, the desperate cries of the cannons charging. Over and over they burst, as if the Argo was bellowing challenges at Forge. The ship wouldn’t be satisfied until its enemy was gone.
“Engines at five—” Sofia stopped as another violent explosion rocked the Argo. “Never mind, engines down, Captain. Engines down!”
We aren’t done until every last cannon is quiet, Tag thought. You can do this. You can do this.
He wasn’t sure if he was talking to the ship or Alpha or himself. Maybe the gods.
The Argo was badly damaged, but Tag wasn’t going to give up. The Forge had lost its stealth shields, and after one final volley, its impellers and cannons went dark. Both ships were crippled, drifting through space. “Captain,” Alpha said. “The Forge’s shields are down. Their engines are no longer functional, and they’ve stopped firing. All weapons appear disabled.”
“Then it’s time to board,” Tag said, reaching for his harness release. “Tell Cho’s marines to get ready.”
“That will not be possible,” Alpha said. “The passenger hold took a direct hit. There were casualties.”
“Dead?” T
ag asked.
“Uncertain, Captain. Communications are down.”
There wasn’t time for regrets. Later, Tag could second-guess his decisions and grieve for the marines. “Alpha, get down there and see if you can help those men. Bull, do you think we can take them on our own?”
Bull was silent for a moment. “You don’t fight with the army you want. You fight with the one you got.”
Tag nodded. “Coren, we’re going in.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The grav tether released the shuttle, and Coren eased the craft out from under the Argo. His ship was in bad shape. Not the worst Tag had ever seen, but it still made him slightly sick. Alpha and Sofia were trapped in there, along with the injured marines. The ship could easily become their drifting metal tomb.
His medical instincts kicked in, telling him to stop their pursuit of Hannah and the collaborators. What if Alpha couldn’t help all the marines?
But far more was at stake than just those individuals’ lives. The Forge held its own cadre of prisoners whose lives were in the balance. And if the collaborators escaped, there might yet be more untold and uncontrolled damage on other colonies around the galaxy. They had to stop Hannah and the others, gather what intel they could, and see who they could save aboard the Forge. It physically pained him to abandon the marines injured in the Argo, but he had little choice when the future of humanity might be at stake.
“Alpha, once you’ve seen to the wounded, start repairs immediately on the Argo’s engines,” Tag said. “Second priority is shields.”
“Captain, I estimate eight to ten hours will be required for essential repairs.”
“I understand,” Tag said. “Start now.”
The shuttle puttered on. Smoke no longer trailed from the shuttle’s damaged thruster, but Coren still had to jockey with the craft to keep it under control. As they approached the Forge, Tag tried to judge the best place to gain entry. With Coren’s plasma cutters, they could make an entrance wherever they damn well pleased, given enough time. But time was not a luxury they could afford. A gaping hole had been torn into one of the cargo holds. Debris floated from it like the shredded entrails of a wounded animal.
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