by Nick Webb
We never thought we’d be here, Walker had told them in the briefing a few days before. But Tel’rabim is on the run, he’s desperate, and we have something he wants. We have the chance to lure him into a mistake.
Pray God they believed her.
And now, as she had half expected, there was what looked to be the a full half of the Telestine fleet.
The rest were probably on their way.
Her eyes drifted to the comm unit at her wrist, where the message to Larsen lay ready and waiting. If she died here today, the plan would still go off. That was her promise to herself.
Her eyes narrowed at the formation on the readout. “Are they charging any weapons?”
“No, ma’am.” The officer spoke a little too loudly.
It was too easy. It was much, much too easy.
“And the renegade fleet following us? Still no sign they’re still broadcasting that damn … Seed?”
The girl looked up from where she was sitting at a command console. She solemnly shook her head. “I think … I think I stopped it. Maybe.”
That was reassuring.
She had gone over this plan a dozen times with Delaney, each time aware of his cool, assessing gaze, each time hating him for saying nothing, for not even trying to persuade her. Hating him for being so sure that she would change her mind.
It had been decades. She wouldn’t change her mind. At the end of this, the blue-green planet would be a smoking wreck, and the Telestines would all be dead. Every last one.
And humanity liberated. Free to find new homes in the stars. An infinity of blue-green planets to call their own.
Humanity’s future began with today’s plan. Get to the surface, obtain whatever knowledge necessary to implement FTL from the archive. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? They’d studied every Telestine wreck they could find, and seen no evidence of such propulsion—but why build that onto warships made for intra-system battles?
She should have known that the answer lurked somewhere in those floating cities.
She would have it soon … if Tel’rabim allowed her to land. Despite Nhean’s assurances, she wasn’t quite sure that this plan would work at all. She hoped against hope that his desire to stop Ka’sagra was stronger than his hatred of humans. And of her, especially.
“We’re being hailed, ma’am.” The officer’s voice was still too loud, nervous in the still of the room.
Walker nodded to him to accept the message.
“Admiral.” She wasn’t good at reading the expressions on Telestine faces, or in their voices, but she was fairly sure Tel’rabim still hated her guts. “I take it you are here with the Dawning.”
“Yes.” She said nothing more. Let him drive this conversation. “We are to land in London?”
“No.”
She felt ice form in the pit of her stomach at that one word. “I was told by Nhean—”
“You will send a shuttle,” he said, uncompromising. “The Dawning, and one pilot. That pilot will not be you, Admiral. The shuttle will be permitted to land, deliver the Dawning, and then it will be escorted back to your ship—which will remain in very high orbit.”
“No.” Panic coursed through her.
She had to find a way out of this. She had to get to the surface.
“Yes,” he replied. She was fairly sure he was smiling at her. “Did you think I would allow you into my city? That I would even allow you anywhere near this planet with that warship of yours? No. You will stay put.”
She gripped the armrests of her chair in seething anger. Nhean had betrayed her. Nhean, Pike, Larsen….
Tel’rabim continued. “We have a phrase we tell our children when we take them into our … I believe your word would be … museums. Places where we display delicate, priceless works of art. Far superior to the garbage humans hold as art. Children are small, uncoordinated, and often unintentionally destroy things around them. We tell them, ‘look, don’t touch’.” He smiled, and Walker swore he was imitating a human look of paternal condescension. “Admiral Walker, welcome to Earth. Look, don’t touch. Send me the Dawning, and then wait in your seat like a good child while I stop Ka’sagra.”
The screen flickered off.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Near Earth
EFS Pius
Bridge
“What the hell are they doing?” George hissed.
Terrified silence was her answer.
“Seriously.” She shot a more venomous look at her crew. “Anyone is free to offer an answer. What the hell is going on here?”
For the Intrepid hung, battered and rickety, in front of the entire Telestine fleet, and was so far unscathed. The few ships that had managed to get away from Neptune in time to accompany it were close by its sides, but there weren’t enough of them for any sort of formation.
The rest of the Exile Fleet had apparently been summoned, but they were still assembling out near the moon. For now, Walker was staring down the full might of the Telestine fleet with just a handful of ships.
“Maybe … Tel’rabim thinks it’s a trap,” one of the officers suggested tentatively. “There are so few of us, maybe he thinks we have some grand plan.”
“Then why was he waiting for us?” George practically roared. Her hand hit the arm of her chair and she winced at the pain. It only made her angrier.
“Not for us,” a new voice suggested.
Everyone turned to look. The man who spoke was only a junior officer, but no one else had spoken, and he was frowning deeply, so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t seem to have noticed his own boldness. His grey eyes met George’s, and his gaze was still far away.
“They were waiting for her,” he said. His arm rose, to point to the Intrepid, dwarfed and outnumbered. “They knew she was coming, even if they didn’t know about the rest of us.”
His voice trailed away, and George realized what he meant.
She felt the betrayal like a hit. She had known for months that Walker was insane. Walker didn’t give a damn about anything or anyone. She’d let whole settlements be destroyed. But this—this was something more.
“They’re working together.” The words hardly came out. “They’re allies. She sold us out to the Telestines.”
No one answered. No one knew what to say.
No one except her. She looked over at the gunnery liaison. “Make sure the cannons are ready for my mark. Like hell am I going to let this woman give us up to these shit-sipping, planet-swiping aliens!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Near Earth
EFS Intrepid
Bridge
“If you don’t allow us to accompany her down,” Walker said quietly, “you won’t get the Dawning. Period.”
All she had was a bluff, but it was a damned good one. Tel’rabim had wanted the girl back badly enough, had been scared enough of Ka’sagra, to allow a human ship to approach Earth. Walker knew in her gut that she had some leverage here .
If only she could find it.
“And why are you so determined to accompany it?” Tel’rabim didn’t have eyebrows to lift, but she got the distinct impression that the face he was making was the Telestine equivalent of a sneer. “If you have no destructive plans—”
“And if you had no plans to abduct her again, you wouldn’t object to her having an escort.” Walker drew herself up, and spat back all of the things Pike had yelled at her before. “You made her like a toy. You still think she’s yours, like a thing to be owned, and she isn’t. She’s a human girl.”
“She’s not human,” Tel’rabim said easily. “You know that. And do you think I would trust her again, after what she’s done? No, I’d be more likely to shoot her down with your ship now—and I won’t hesitate to do so.” He paused, and an unmistakable smile spread across his face. “I can always make another, after all.”
Pike had told her about those labs: humans on slabs, blood and implants and needles and—
She stared at him, the pulse pounding
sickly in her throat, and she had not a single thought in her head except to murder him with her bare hands.
“Ma’am!” The call was distant. “Ma’am, the Pius has finished its deceleration and—”
She never got the chance to finish the sentence. The barrage hit across the broadside of the Intrepid and rocked them forward even as the klaxons sprang, belatedly, to life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Near Earth
EFS Intrepid
Bridge
The sudden pitch of the ship knocked her against the command desk, and Walker felt the breath go out of her with a whoosh. She struggled to breathe, hauling another officer up off the floor and pointing breathlessly for him to get back to his seat.
“All right, so we’re doing this.” She hadn’t thought they’d be foolhardy enough to start a battle like this when she had the Telestines at her back, and not firing on her—but apparently the Funders were exactly that foolhardy. “Who the hell did they get to command this shit show?”
No one answered her. The bridge crew seemed to have come to life with the klaxons, and every one of them was calling information, tapping commands into their computers, and waiting for commands—not questions—from Walker.
“Get the ships in formation. All of ours.” All five, God help them. “Turn about and face the renegade fleet. And get the Exile Fleet in from their rendezvous point.”
Calls rang out to the other ships, each communications officer yelling into a comm unit, and Walker looked around for the girl. She was hanging back, looking at the door as if she wanted to leave.
“You.” Walker knew her voice was harsh. “I need you here.” She locked eyes with the girl. “Are they broadcasting the virus right now?”
The girl shook her head.
“Well, they might. So get over here and be ready to do whatever the hell it is you do, or you’re not getting down to Earth.”
“Ma’am, starboard thrusters non-functional.” An officer held one hand up, the other at her ear to receive reports from engineering.
Another hand came up. “Fires reported near the engine room, ma’am.”
“Hull plating on the starboard side is—”
“Ma’am, our ships are in formation.”
There was nothing she could do about the rest of it. All she could do was fire until the ship gave out, and give the mutineers a fight to remember.
All she could do was try to stay alive until the rest of her fleet showed up. She exchanged a glance with Delaney and prepared, for the first time, to fire on human ships.
It had been easier to run.
“Fire,” Walker said crisply. “And advance.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Near Earth
VSF Arianna King
Bridge
Larsen was in his quarters, staring pensively at a map of the Pacific, when his comm unit beeped.
“Yes?”
“Sir, the Intrepid has decelerated over Earth as expected.”
“Excellent, thank you, Greer.”
“Unfortunately, sir, it looks as if the mutinied ships have begun firing on them.”
Larsen, in the middle of opening his mouth to give the man an order about how best to maneuver into position for the drop, closed his jaw with a snap.
He knew what he had to do. He had promised her.
But it cost everything he had to say the words. He braced his knuckles on the table and ground them into the metal, letting the pain steady him. He’d activate this bomb himself, if he had to. This was the key to turning the tide of the war, and he was not going to let her down by jeopardizing that.
“Begin adjusting orbit,” he said quietly. He had to say the next words. He had to. “We must make this drop. It is the admiral’s highest priority.” He desperately didn’t want to do this.
Larsen could feel the sweat beading along his neck and running down his back as the Arianna King carefully adjusted its path to ready itself for entry into Earth’s atmosphere. He wondered how much Walker had planned this moment. Could she have known that the mutinied fleet would fire? Had she somehow coordinated this attack in order to distract the Telestines?
He wouldn’t put it past her. Larsen knew she was willing to make any sacrifice to place this bomb.
The crew held their collective breath as the King approached the shimmering, seemingly peaceful planet. Their entrance vector had been plotted with the best intel available to humanity, but given that that intel had been provided initially by Nhean—Larsen’s fists curled reflexively at the thought of the man—no one was sure quite what to expect.
A soft, orange glow began to creep along the King.
“After the drop, execute the emergency atmosphere exit protocol C. We head directly for Mercury. We will not engage. Admiral’s orders. Keep our speed high, we don’t want to give them the chance to take us down.”
He hoped to God he was making the right choice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Near Earth
EFS Intrepid
Bridge
A barrage of missiles landed against the side of the Cyprus and the hull plating began to buckle.
“Repeat.” Walker’s voice was eerily calm. The entire battle was unfolding with a sort of precision—each result coming into her mind seconds before it unfolded in reality. “Exodus, swing to port.”
The second barrage of missiles was away with a shudder in the hull. A moment later, the officers tracking another engagement gave a muted cheer. The St. Thomas, one of the newest destroyers from Mercury and a mutinied ship, swung hard to port. Its nose burst through a crowd of its own fighters, debris scattering like fireworks, and its bow smashed across the side of its sister ship.
Walker allowed herself a small smile.
Once, these had been ships they needed to save—potential allies in a larger fight. Now, they were ships that were clearly hell-bent on an engagement. They were enemies.
“Ma’am, you’re being hailed by a Captain George.”
So things weren’t going as well for them as they expected, and now they wanted to talk? Walker tapped the comm unit to open the call. “Hello.”
“Traitor.” George’s voice sounded like she was almost frothing at the mouth. “Colluding with the Telestines. Well, look how much they think of you—they won’t even protect their new allies.”
Walker made a series of gestures to the navigation crews to guide the next formation. Only then did she bother to respond. “Think carefully about what you want. If they don’t care about me, they sure as hell don’t care about you. When the smoke clears, you’re going to be a bunch of debris if you don’t back off. And you know … I wouldn’t even be here today if it weren’t for your little mutiny. So should we talk about that, George?”
She was egging the other woman on, and she could scarcely afford the distraction right now—but her curiosity got the better of her. George had been a promising commander. She had a good tactical mind. She was headstrong and outspoken, but Walker valued those traits. She preferred to know what her officers were thinking.
It appeared she had missed one important thing, however. She hadn’t seen the depth of George’s disagreement with her tactical choices.
“You were a lost cause even before this,” George told her. She was trying to get ahold of herself. Walker could imagine her clenching her fingers so hard the knuckles turned white. “You’d lost all touch with reality. How long do you think you’ll hold out now? Better to let your crew have the chance to leave you than force them to go down for your cause.”
“Ma’am, the Kali is….” One of the officers looked at Walker hollowly. “It’s not responding,” she said blankly.
A hollow feeling grew in Walker’s chest. They were taking out ships, yes, but how long could that last?
She muted the call for a moment. “Readjust the formation to compensate.”
“Shouldn’t we send a team to—”
“No.” Wounded or dead, the Kali was lost. “Focus on our
enemies, lieutenant. Not on the fallen. There will be time enough for grief later.”
She had muted herself, but George was still talking in her ear: “You’ve forgotten what it means to serve and protect, Admiral, but surely even you must remember what it means to be human. Look at the faces of your crew. Look at them, and tell me they’re not worth saving.”
On the battle readout, another one of her ships flickered red and disappeared, and George’s formation opened like a hand, ready to snap shut around the tiny collection of ships that still protected the Intrepid.
Oh, God. Her fingers found the cross at her throat. She should sound an evacuation alert. The rest of them could still escape. It was her the Funders wanted dead, and even if the shuttles didn’t have much of a chance on their own, outside the ship … it was a better chance than they had here. Anyone who stayed on this ship was as good as dead.
A hit rocked across the starboard side and she jerked her head in time to see a piece of the ship tear loose on the engineering readouts. Metal was flayed open, air venting, and the klaxons restarted. Screams came from the headsets, loud enough for her to hear—and then gone.
Let them surrender. Her mouth opened on the words, desperate—
But her other ships had no intentions of surrendering. They didn’t even wait for her orders. A moment later, the Aveline, one of George’s destroyers, burst into a cloud of red. A moment later, as Walker’s own proximity alerts blared, the Hellas followed it.
She turned to look at Delaney, and he gave a tiny shake of his head. “I know what you’re thinking,” he cautioned her, “and we’re not leaving. Any of us. We’re not just going to roll over and watch them kill you. So get back in the fight.”
“Right.” She focused on the battle readout. Think, think!