He found a pathway another officer had opened on the enemy vessel. It looked like the coding for a transport beam. If they had been able to get a hold on Lily, they could have used that bit of code to hack into the transporter and bring her back here, but they couldn’t get a lock on her. There was a shield of some kind hiding all life forms on the ship.
Taz stared at the Nym cruiser’s data. The only way to get Lily back was to shut down the entire ship by hacking into their primary systems interface, rendering the life form shield and auto-destruct useless. It would also shut off the air, and if Taz were more familiar with Nym-built hardware he would have tried it anyway. But this wasn’t a Commons or Empire ship, and he had no idea how long the emergency air circulated, or even if the Nym utilized such devices. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have welcomed the challenge, but he had to get this done in a bare few minutes, without anyone on board the Defiant noticing. They would certainly find a way to stop him.
The line of code for the transport unit was linked into communications and security aboard the cruiser, which was good. The pathways that branched off each program began with the same string of numbers, and he memorized them. That likely indicated the beginning of the PSI’s coded address, buried deep in the computer systems. He searched along other lines of data, looking for a link beginning with that sequence, and came upon a cluster of them. He followed the line of code with his hands on the console’s smooth surface.
There it was. That had to be the controls for the PSI.
All he had to now was circumvent around the PSI and knock out their defense systems without shutting off life support or blowing up the ship. When he did that, he could link the Defiant’s PSI to the Nym’s, essentially turning the latter into an extension of the Fleet ship. If the tractor beam could hold on long enough to successfully worm his way into the enemy ship, he could control it remotely. Like a bunch of cargo bots.
If this weren’t a life or death situation, this would be fun.
Chapter 17
Lily held her weapon at the ready and pressed a button next to the elevator. Its doors opened; she stepped in, and it immediately began to ascend. Shit. She examined the smooth walls for an emergency stop button to no avail. There was a short ladder built into the wall that reached the ceiling, which gave her hope. Even a group of people as arrogant and advanced as the Nym had to have emergency protocols in place for something as simple as an elevator.
She heard a series of barked commands over an intercom panel near the ceiling. She didn’t understand a word of it but had no doubt that the ship’s crew was on to her.
There was a single, tiny button near the floor. She pressed it and prayed. The elevator ground to a halt.
Relief coursed through her, but it was short-lived. She whirled around the elevator but couldn’t find any means of escape. She hoisted herself up the ladder and pounded at the ceiling panels with her fists. One gave way an inch or two, and she slammed the butt of her gun against it. A small burst of energy jolted her arm and seared a black spot on the floor.
Oops.
She hit the panel with her fist again and it loosened. Her hands aching, she forced it aside just enough to wiggle her body through and sit on the roof of the elevator.
She looked around. “Holy shit,” she breathed softly. She could see a network of metal beams, cables, and the stark bodies of other elevators around her, arranged in a semi-circle. She looked up and saw the floor above her, about fifteen feet. She would have to climb to the next deck and pray that her luck would hold out.
Her gun in one hand, she grabbed onto one of the support beams hugging the elevator’s body and wrapped herself against it. She forced herself to remember climbing ropes in high school gym class. She took in deep breaths and concentrated, inching up the support beam, made more awkward by the weapon in her hand and another in her waistband.
An elevator on the other side of the half-circle whirred into action and stopped on a deck two levels below her. A new fear gripped her: What if the elevator she had broken out of started moving? She hurried her pace, picking up a rhythm that would have made her gym teacher proud. Finally she approached the metal decking of the next deck, a bare few inches, and held on to the beam. She let go of it with the hand gripping her gun and thought quickly about how to get through the doors without drawing attention to herself. If she shot through them, someone would notice before she could get through. She would have to launch herself at the doors and push her way through.
She had one chance to do this.
She could. She would fall through and roll.
Lily’s toes touched the floor’s edge and she swayed slightly, gripping the beam beside her. She threw all of her weight against the doors and crashed through them to the floor. She crouched down on her knees, grateful for the solidity beneath her. Then she saw the pair of black boots a few inches away.
She looked up at the stunned Nym soldier. Without thinking further, Lily fired her gun upright and scrambled out of the way as the body fell face-first to the decking with an ungainly thump. Black goo seeped from its body and splashed on her clothes. She looked around and saw no one else, but that was going to change soon. The blast from her weapon had been loud and had sliced cleanly through the Nym, leaving a smoking crater in the wall behind him. She could see a comm badge winking through the black sludge on his chest. She ripped it off his uniform and stuck it in her pocket. That could be good for something.
She was in a small foyer. There were a few doors lining the walls, nothing labeled in her language, of course. She would have to pick one and brave whoever and whatever was behind it. If she stayed here, every door would open, and she would have far more Nym than she could handle.
Well, she already did. She picked a set of doors and fired her gun. There was a hollow sawing noise, and she kicked them in.
She saw a viewport looking out over space. Then two shocked Nym sitting at consoles, strapped into chairs.
Dear God, she’d picked the cockpit. She fired two quick charges to the Nym, who slumped over in their seats, leaking black blood everywhere. She held her breath—did they ever stink when they died—and pushed against one with all her might. He fell over to the floor, and she took his seat.
She looked at the console in front of her. Red symbols blinked in an angry staccato across the screen, a clock next to it. No, a countdown. It was counting down minutes and seconds.
It was down to eight minutes, twenty-eight seconds.
Whatever was supposed to happen in eight minutes, it couldn’t be good. She tapped the console and found it unresponsive to her touch.
No.
She tapped her Fleet comm badge and prayed. “Stewart to Captain Marska,” she said. “Stewart to the Defiant—anyone!” Please, please let someone hear me. She had no idea of the kind of range these things had.
A familiar voice replied, and she nearly wept at the sound of it. “Lily!” said an incredulous Rian.
“I’m on a Nym ship. I can’t get out. Help me!” The fear and panic she had kept at bay had overtaken her. She was in danger of having a complete meltdown, and she couldn’t afford that.
“I know,” Rian said. “We have a tractor beam containing the ship. Lily, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Where are you?”
“A cockpit or a navigation room, I think. I think I killed the pilots. I mean, I know I killed them, but I’m pretty sure they were the pilots.”
“Starboard or portside?”
“I have no fucking idea! I just crawled through an elevator shaft! Can’t you find me?”
“We’re trying.”
Lily heard some static, and the link went dead. She heard voices nearby, the angry growl of the Nym.
No.
It would not end this way.
She looked around the room for a place to hide and found nothing. She would have to go back into the corridor. She could get back and hide in the elevator shaft.
She chanced a peek outside. There were at lea
st two voices, and they sounded like they were around the corner. She bolted for the broken elevator doors and looked up and down the shaft. She could climb another deck and cut her way onto another deck. It was her only option. She teetered on the edge of the deck, willing herself not to look down, and jumped gracelessly for the support beam. She clutched it for dear life. Tears blurred her vision, but she soldiered on.
I didn’t tell him I love him.
“Lily?” said a hoarse voice from her comm badge.
She kept herself wrapped around the beam and tapped it. “Yeah?” she whispered.
“It’s Taz.”
* * *
Rian’s comm badge trilled. “Shraft to the captain,” he heard.
“Captain here.”
“I’m in the Nym’s PSI,” the ensign said proudly.
“What?”
“I hacked into the PSI. I’ve almost figured out how to shut down the ship. I’m in their computers right now.”
Rian looked at Lieutenant Steg, who glowered at the doctor as he demanded answers from him. “Watch him,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
“Shraft, what have you done?” he demanded.
“I’ve unlocked their transport code,” Shraft replied. “I’ve got a lock on Lily’s DNA. I know where she is, approximately. I can’t bring her here using our locks, though. I can’t get through that part of the ship’s shields.”
Rian looked around the floor and spotted the badge Ashford had been holding. He grabbed it. “What if I use a Nym badge?” he asked Shraft. “If I have one, I can transport to their ship, get Lily, and use it to bring her back, right?”
“Sure. Where do you have a Nym badge, though?”
“Right here. I’ll explain later. Ensign, can you do this?”
“Yes,” came back the confident reply. “I just need to have the data on the badge. Can you plug it into a port and let me look at it?”
Rian raced to the doctor’s private office and unplugged the computer perched on the desk. He jammed the badge into the vacant port and relayed the location to Shraft.
“I see it,” the ensign said. “It’s showing up as invasive, but...” He heard some taps, Shraft’s fingers flying across the console. “Contained. Lily is on deck four or five; it’s hard to tell through the shield. I’ll transport you to deck five.”
“Affirmative.” Rian removed the badge from the port and held on to it, his weapon in the other and primed. He braced himself for the transport.
He was a little unsteady on his feet when he materialized on metal gridwork, but quickly regained his equilibrium. He looked up and down the foyer he was in and saw the dead Nym lying not two feet away. Beside him, a set of smashed-in doors. He blanched and crept forward to a set of doors decorated with black scorch marks. Inside was a cockpit helmed by a pair of dead Nym.
Lily had done this. He couldn’t help but feel pride.
He left the cockpit and tapped his badge, calling for Lily. A soft voice issued out of it. “Rian?” she said.
“I’m on the ship,” he whispered. “I can get us back. Tell me where you are. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“The elevator,” she replied. “I’m in the elevator shaft. Where are you?”
“I just found some dead pilots. Good work.”
“Go back out in the hallway. You’ll find a set of broken elevator doors. I’m climbing up another deck.”
He slipped out of the cockpit and into the corridor, where he found the broken doors he had passed earlier and two Nym peering down the shaft. He fired off two blasts from his pistol and they dropped heavily into the shaft, a muted thump sounding many decks away. He heard a very frightened and feminine scream from somewhere in there. He looked down the shaft and his stomach turned over.
“Up here,” came a hoarse whisper.
He looked up and saw Lily clinging to a support beam. He had never been so glad to see anyone in his life. “Get up here,” she hissed. “They know I escaped. Come on.”
He jumped for the support pole she was holding on to and shimmied up the cold metal until her feet were almost level with his eyes. “We have to get out of here,” Rian said.
“I’m going to the next deck,” she said and kept moving upward.
“No, the ship is set to auto-destruct in a few minutes. I have a Nym comm badge that will let us bypass their shields and get back to the Defiant. If the auto-destruct goes before we unlock the tractor beam, the Defiant will be blown to pieces.” He hoisted himself up a few feet, twisting around Lily’s body wrapped around the support so he could face her, his legs holding her in place. In the dim light offered in the lift’s shaft, he saw the tears on her face and the reeking Nym blood staining her skin and clothes. After all of this was over, he would never let her go again. He wrapped an arm around her, kissed her temple, and fumbled in his pocket for the Nym badge. He slipped it out and it slid from his grasp, down the shaft.
Lily stared down, horror on her face. “Shit!” Rian snapped. He forced himself to remain calm and keep his grip on the support beam. “Lily, we have to move. Now!”
The lift below them whirred to life and began going up. Lily screamed.
“Go!” Rian shouted. If the lift got to them...he stole a glance at Lily. He would not think about that.
The lift vibrated along the supports, now three decks away. He could see a ragged hole in its top. “We’ll have to kick in those doors,” Rian yelled over the noise, and he looked up at another set of doors half a deck above them.
“We won’t make it,” Lily shouted back, and she tossed her weapon down the shaft, freeing both of her hands. She felt around her pocket for something and pulled out a flat square streaked with black gore. Another Nym comm badge. Rian didn’t have time to ask where she got it.
The lift was a deck and a half away. “Hang on to that,” he said. She nodded. “When I tell you, we’re going to jump.” She nodded and clutched the badge in her hand until her knuckles went white. He wriggled his body around the support until he was behind her and clasped his hands around her waist. Her spare Rikto-Four dug into his stomach, but he ignored it. He kept his eyes the rapidly ascending lift. “Let go!” he shouted.
She obediently released her grip on the beam as he pushed them off it. They landed with a thump, the lift’s ceiling cracking under their weight. Rian instinctively crouched down, and Lily followed and immediately reached for the laser pistol in her waistband. Rian already had his ready, and he slammed his weapon at the lift’s ceiling. Pieces rained down on its occupants, a pair of Nym, who turned shocked green eyes to the sight above them. Rian put short, quick charges through both of them before they could react. He motioned to Lily. “Jump in,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She didn’t argue or hesitate. She dropped through the hole and landed on a body oozing black blood. “Fuck!” she said in disgust. “They stink!”
Rian grimaced and jumped in after her, blood splattering his clothes. His nostrils constricted at the smell. The gods only knew what that lift would smell like after an hour or two, but they didn’t have enough time to find out. “The badge,” he said. “You still have it?”
“Yeah.” She opened her hand, where the badge had made indentations in her palm.
Rian tapped his comm badge. “Shraft,” he said. “I’ve got her.”
“Thank gods,” said the ensign. “You’re down to two minutes, forty seconds.”
“I lost the first badge. We have another one. Will that work?” He held his breath.
“I cleared more code after the last time we communicated. I’ve got your DNA, Captain, and a bunch of Nym comm badges in the vicinity.” There was a pause. “Got the transport lock.”
The lift stopped, and its doors opened.
A battalion of Nym soldiers stood at the doors, weapons at the ready. Rian grabbed Lily and she clung to him, but further reaction was halted by the sensation of being turned inside out. Neither could say anything as the air was sucked from thei
r lungs.
Today marked the first time Rian wanted to be pulled through a transporter.
Their bodies coalesced on the Defiant’s bridge. The impact from the transporter knocked them both off their feet, and Lily’s Rikto-Four skittered across the floor. They both lay on the decking, breathing heavily, before Lieutenant Asmo jumped up from her post at navigation to help. Rian forced himself to sit and tried not to throw up. Transporters delivered a hell of a wallop.
Lily lay on her side, weeping. Asmo talked to her, murmuring soothing things and urging her to take deep breaths. Rian crawled over to her on hands and knees and helped her sit up. She swayed a little, taking in her surroundings in disbelief. “Rian,” she said simply.
“We made it,” he replied.
“I think I’m going to throw up again.” But instead, she slumped to his chest in a dead faint.
The Defiant shuddered violently as the tractor beam was disengaged. “Captain,” Kostin shouted. “Shraft couldn’t disable the auto-destruct. Hold on. This is going to be bumpy.”
Rian slapped at his comm badge. “Shraft,” he said sharply. “Are we disconnected from the Nym’s systems?”
“Yes, sir. Forty-five seconds to auto-destruct.”
“Thank the gods.” He eased Lily off him, and Asmo crouched down to hold her up. Rian ran to the nearest console and quickly took in the situation. Kostin had disengaged the tractor beam. He and Kostin banked the ship to the starboard side and brought up the engines to their full power. He activated the shields and watched the image of the Nym cruiser displayed on the forward viewscreen. They weren’t going to get far enough away to completely avoid the explosion, and he doubted their shields at their current state would protect the ship from the impact. He recalled the last explosion the Defiant had to ride out, that star going nova. He had nothing to lose; his method had worked before, and Fleet was already pissed off at him. “Cutting power to the engines,” he announced to the bridge. Kostin sputtered a laugh.
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