by J Palliser
"I've got him, Twelve. Follow your orders and rejoin Three Flight."
"Thanks, Control."
"Get going, Twelve!" Ares echoed.
Ares made a mental note to talk to Jarro about this, if and when he was calm enough to do it in a civilized manner. He turned his ship away from Hanson's fighter and headed back towards the fight. He looked at his sensors and saw that there were still over twenty Defenders buzzing around, with various Knight's hot on their tails.
En route, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. To his left, the Thula Defense Corps star cruisers reverted to real space side by side. The ships, the Pyrrhus and the Pioneer according to his IFF transponder, couldn't have been expecting the Destroyer to be there, but they came about promptly in an attempt to avoid the range of her guns.
Ares spoke to his mech-droid. "K5, get me the frequency that the Thulas are using." The droid tooted once and a button on his comm unit lit up. He punched it. "Knight Leader to the TDC ships."
"This is Captain Amara of the Pyrrhus. We weren't expecting you to have company, Knight Leader."
"Neither were we. Do you have orders concerning this kind of situation?"
As he asked, he saw the arrow shape of the Destroyer plunge towards them at flank speed. K5 scrolled their weapons range on his board. They would come to bear on his group in less than a minute. The Destroyer would open up its cannons and missles on them.
"Our orders are pretty vague concerning taking on Destroyers, Knight Leader."
"I don't think you should take them on either, Captain, but that Destroyer and her Defenders will be on you before you can make your jump. I don't think you have a choice but to take the offensive. If you get caught running, we're all in serious shit."
"I'm forced to agree, Colonel. We'll take the Abraxas if you can handle her Defenders."
"Understood. May God protect you."
"And you."
***
One of the Deutschland-class heavy cruisers ships charged in towards the Destroyer from above, her forward guns blazing, while the other came up and over from below, trying to help collapse the bow shield. Green and red tracers crossed the distance between the three ships in sheets.
Admiral Samra watched in disbelief as the two smaller and more maneuverable cruisers converged on the front of his ship. He knew that they shouldn't be able to do him serious damage, but the Valkyries had regrouped and were keeping what was left of his Defenders busy. To make matters worse, a good deal of his guns weren't able to depress far enough to where the ships came at his bow.
"Where did they get those two ships from? They aren't supposed to have any capital support," he mused out loud.
Lieutenant Jarice Kryton looked up from the damage control station in the crew pit. "Admiral Samra, we've just lost our bow shield. Atmosphere on decks ten and twelve is venting in the forward compartments. At least twenty-six Defenders have been heavily damaged or destroyed."
Samra swore and jumped out of his command chair. He paced up and down the walkway a couple of times, trying to order his thoughts. If the battle continued like this, he would lose the Abraxas, his only ship. After Knight Squadron destroyed his Defenders, they would come after him with their missiles, tearing his ship apart.
But if he broke off and retreated, Prefect Tanweer would probably kill him for his cowardice. Although the thought of facing her wrath caused icy tendrils of fear to crawl down his spine, he preferred that option to losing his ship. He could probably convince Tanweer to spare his life, but without the Abraxas he was nothing.
Better the devil you know...
The deck plates beneath his feet trembled as the bow of his ship took a pounding from the two heavy cruisers. "That's it, we're getting out of here. Navigation, plot us a course, any heading. Communications, recall our remaining fighters immediately. Those who aren't in the hangar in five minutes will be left behind."
He paced again on the walkway above the crew, knotting and unknotting his fists. Tanweer wasn't going to like this. Not one bit.
21
XX
On the bridge of the Pyrrhus, Captain Amara smiled as he saw the bow shield of the bigger ship flare pink and green then implode, and a cheer went up throughout the crew stations. Even though the Thula ships were much smaller than the Abraxas, they were managing to cause enough damage to make the Destroyer's commander think twice about hanging around. But the Pyrrhus had suffered some damage as well. If not for the element of surprise, Captain Amara was certain that they would have been in serious trouble.
He coughed as smoke from what used to be the main sensor terminal drifted past him. "Fire control, target the unprotected section of the Destroyer's bow. Relay that order to the Pioneer. And get a damage control party up here to put out that fire."
"Yes, Captain."
A Lieutenant in the blue uniform of the Thula Defense Corps appeared at his elbow. "She's running, sir."
As he spoke, the mighty ship began to pivot, bringing her undamaged shields around to protect her against the two cruisers. The last of her Defenders were frantically trying to reach her hangars from several directions.
"She's going to jump as soon as all of the fighters are aboard." Captain Amara turned and began issuing orders. "Pour on all the fire you can. Try to keep her here."
But before the bridge crew could comply, the Destroyer was gone, entering the safety of gravity-drive.
***
"All right, people. Check in."
As the Knights checked in one by one, Ares was amazed and relieved to find that the only person missing was Hanson.
"Okay, I want everyone on board the cruisers right now. Three Flight and I will head for the Pyrrhus. Watcher, you'll dock with her top-side. One and Two Flights, you head for the Pioneer. Konrad, you're in charge. See if you can get a shuttle from the Captain and report to me on the Pyrrhus as soon as we enter orbit around Thula."
As everyone came around to meet with the cruisers, Ares switched over to Jarro's private frequency. "Jarro, care to explain to me why you wouldn't follow my order?" He tried to keep his tone reasonable, but he was finding it harder and harder to deal with Jarro and his recent string of insubordination in a calm manner. He wondered how Aiden had done it for so many years. His respect for Aiden's leadership skills rose another notch.
There was a pause before Jarro replied. "I'm sorry, Ares. I just couldn't leave him out there on his own." There was another pause. "Have you heard if he's okay?"
"Not yet. I know that he was taken to the Pyrrhus, so we should know soon." Ares took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, stalling for time as he composed himself. "Jarro, I want you to understand something. You asked to be transferred to this unit, a unit which for the time being is under my command. The next time I give you an order, I expect you to follow it. Is that clear?"
"Clear, Lead."
"Good. Now follow your flight back to the Pyrrhus."
"Yes, sir."
Jarro and Ares were the last of the Knights to land in the small, crowded hangar of the Pyrrhus. As they set their ships down carefully among the other Valkyries already there, Ares noticed Neva making his way towards them with a man who could only be Captain Amara. The Captain was tall, at least two meters, and a couple of dozen years older than Ares. There may have been gray in his hair, but he was so blond it was hard to tell. His blue uniform was spotless despite the recent battle.
Ares pulled off his helmet, leaving it in his cockpit, and jumped down the rungs of the ladder two at a time. Even so, by the time his boots hit the deck, the squadron's executive officer and the Pyrrhus's Captain were there to meet him.
He opened his mouth to congratulate Captain Amara at driving off the Abraxas, but before he could say anything, Jarro Fenn came around the nose of his fighter at a run. "Is Hanson okay?" he asked Neva rather breathlessly.
Neva managed to stop Jarro before his momentum carried him straight into Ares. "Yes, amazingly enough he's all right. His emergency energy field
held in his oxygen, but he lost consciousness and got pretty cold. He's most likely got a concussion and a touch of hypothermia, so they're dunking him in a thermal tank as we speak. Because of the purity of the Loraca the Thula are carrying on board, he should be out in a couple of hours at most. He'll be up and complaining again by morning."
Jarro seemed to deflate and he leaned against the front landing strut of Ares's ship, breathing hard. Ares laid a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Jarro, why don't you head for the sick-bay and make sure you're there when they pull him from the tank. I'll contact you if we need you."
He looked at Ares and smiled. "Thanks, Colonel."
Jarro gave a salute that was more a wave and took off at a trot. Once he was gone, Ares returned his attention to the Thula Captain. "I must admit that I'm impressed that you were able to drive the Abraxas off, Captain. My compliments to your crew and that of the Pyrrhus."
"Thank you. I would actually have preferred to keep her here." At Ares's surprised look, the Captain attempted to explain. "We had a chance at doing her some real damage." He shook his head then looked over at Ares. "And I would like to thank you and your pilots for keeping those Defenders off our asses while we did it. You managed to destroy twenty-nine of the forty-eight you faced with only damage to one ship. Those are impressive numbers."
"I'm sure your appearance had a lot to do with our success. That and their pilots just aren't that good."
"Still, now I understand why Major Borne speaks so well of you."
Ares smiled. "I had no idea that Borne thought that highly of us."
"You'd probably be surprised."
An Ensign appeared beside the Captain and she cleared her throat to interrupt. "Sir, we have an incoming message for Colonel Crane. It's coded Priority One and has been routed through Daraa, then Thula, and finally out to us."
"Ensign, show Colonel Crane to the main briefing room and have the bridge pipe the message down there.
"Yes sir." She saluted and turned to lead Ares away.
On his way out of the hangar bay, Ares passed Otto and Mira.
"I've an incoming message from Daraa, coded Priority One. I would like for both of you to sit in on it with me."
Mira smiled. "Of course. I love all of this top secret stuff." She grabbed Otto's hand and dragged him along in her wake.
They followed the Ensign down a corridor that led to a turbo-lift. She punched a button and they headed down several levels at a stomach lurching speed. When the doors opened, they all piled out and across a hallway into a brightly lit conference room. All along one side of the room were transparent view-ports which offered a spectacular view of the space around the Pyrrhus. At the center of the room was a large table with a holo-unit in the middle and several chairs around it. The rest of the room was empty.
The Ensign called to the bridge, and Ares's message was redirected to the holo unit in the table. The blue uniformed officer then turned and left. Ares readied himself, not sure who or what he was about to see.
"Hey, Ares!" Ru Larado's voice blared from the comm unit. A one meter tall hologram of her stood at the center of the table, looking at a point just over Ares's head. "Have you guys managed to misplace a Commander? Well, if you have, I may have found him."
Ares was beginning to wonder if everyone but him knew where Aiden was.
"He's in someone else's possession at the moment, a nasty piece of work called Prefect Natal Tanweer. We were thinking about taking him back from her. You know anybody who'd be interested in helping? Maybe overthrow a Khawarij Prefect at the same time? Oh, and I was wondering if you had any Destroyers hanging around? It would come in real handy for what I have in mind."
Ares paused the playback and turned to Mira. "How does she do that?" Ares had known Ru for many years, and he had never ceased to be amazed by her. She always seemed to be two steps ahead of everyone else.
"I don't know." Mira replied. "There is no way she could know that my father's got the Prometheus en route to Thula, is there?"
Ares threw his hands into the air, exasperated. "She seems to know everything else." He reached for his earlobe again, but managed to stop himself. "Maybe she assumed that Dallas would be in on this by now. She knew how close Aiden was to your family. And she seems to think we'll be able to get one from somewhere. We'll just have to trust her on this, I guess." He hit a button and the message resumed.
"Your Commander is being held on the third planet of the Artemis System. I need you to meet us at the first planet twenty-four hours from the time stamp on this message. Maybe that will put enough distance between the Khawarij and your force to prevent discovery. We'll finalize my plan there."
Her image paused, and she glanced to one side of the holo-cam. "You'll be wondering about your Commander and how he's doing. I haven't seen him myself, but from the details I have, it doesn't sound good. The Prefect that's got him has a very serious case of revenge. They've been pretty rough on him so far, but she wants to use him in some kind of ceremony in two days from the date of this message. So they'll keep him alive until then."
"That explains it." Otto murmured.
Ares paused the message again. There was a gloom in Otto's voice that formed an icy lump in his stomach. "What do you mean by that?"
Otto hesitated, looking out the view-port to his left. In the reflection, Ares could see a number of emotions cross Otto's face. He eventually sighed in resignation and turned to face Ares and Mira again.
"Last night, when I finally did get to sleep, I had this dream. I don't usually remember my dreams, but this one stayed with me when I woke up, and I couldn't shake the feeling of dread it left behind. I dreamed of Aiden. I couldn't see anything clearly, but he was suffering. I had hoped that it was just my imagination working overtime, but I think it was something more. I think that somehow, over the great distances separating us, I could feel the pain they were inflicting on him."
His voice was raspy with emotion, and the lump of ice in Ares's gut turned into a full sized glacier. He knew that Otto wasn't someone who over-dramatized things. If he said that he felt something, Ares had no choice but to believe him. "We're not going to let him continue to suffer, Otto." He tapped the resume key and Ru began to speak again.
"You are probably curious how I know where he is and how you will be able to meet me with a big enough force to take a planet." Even through the static of the transmission, Ru's eyes sparkled with mischief. "To find that out, you'll have to come and meet me. I'll do everything I can on this end to prepare. See you in twenty-four hours."
The transmission ended with a pop, and Ares closed down the holo-unit. He thought for a moment then turned to look at Mira. "How far out is the Prometheus?"
"We're supposed to rendezvous with her in five hours at Thula. From the time of the message, it looks like Ru sent it over nine hours ago. It'll be tight, but we can be at Artemis just inside her time frame."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get moving," Otto said.
Ares headed for the door just ahead of Otto. "I'll go and speak with the Thula. We'll be under way to Thula as soon as possible. I just hope I can convince Captain Amara that he wants to come with us to Artemis III."
22
XXI
Ares entered the dimly lit medical bay on the Pyrrhus was a small room, dominated by the eerie green glow of the Loraca tank. To the right side of the tank were several hospital style beds, some occupied with injured crew members. On a bench to the left of the tank sat Jarro Fenn, his elbows resting on his knees. He had stripped the top of his flight-suit down to his waist and tied the arms together around his hips. His white sleeveless undershirt took on the green glow of the room and clashed with the grey of his flight-suit.