He strode off towards the short corridor that led to the psionicist’s pod.
“I don’t need to be far up the track at first,” he called back to Sivarek. “Just ready the theta burst on my signal. I’m sure they will come to me— and then, they’re going to suffer.”
“Oh, okay,” Sivarek responded. The Engineer’s eyes fluttered for a moment, and he groaned as he used the console to push himself up to a standing position.
Seutter was concerned… Not so much for the Engineer’s well-being… although he had to admit deep down, there was that a little bit of that.
But would Sivarek be able to perform his duties?
“Are you… alright?” Seutter asked, the words sounding strange coming out of his mouth.
Sivarek nodded, indicating the green foam. In fact, he moved so that he stood under a torrent of it. It was coming down from the ceiling as if he was taking a foam shower, and he rubbed it into his scalp and face.
“It’s not just fire suppressant, the foam,” he explained. “It’s full of medical nanos, modified like the ones we used to remodel the ship. It’s healing me. And helping me keep linked to the system.”
Seutter picked up his helmet and strode towards the hull on the psionicist’s pod.
A message came over the comm just as he left the room: it was Xon.
“Seutter,” he said, “are you down there? You need to wait for me. You don’t know what you’re facing.”
“Uh… He’s going out,” Sivarek said.
“Graham, please wait,” Xon pleaded…
But Seutter ignored him, and jogged towards the pod.
#
The psionicist’s pod slowly rode out on the track between the booms of the front of the Musashi.
Seutter removed the Valorian headband from this utility pack, and put it on, replacing his helmet over it. An electric buzzing ran over his scalp and then filled his brain, like static.
“Good,” he thought, “They don’t expect me. But I have to find them, get tuned in.”
Hello, he thought. Hello?
He concentrated on the five lozenge-shaped smaller ships that were spinning around the Musashi.
The larger spherical ship hovered in the distance.
That’s the master, he thought. I’ll get to you next.
Hello, he repeated, shouting out with his mind—
—and the ships spun closer to him.
The five came to a stop in formation—in a ring—above and around his pod.
Curious… bastards didn’t expect this.
Idiots, he thought.
The Infidel has usurped the voice of Heaven!—came a hiss in his head.
Punishment and pain!— came another. God demands that retribution be taken twice-fold.
Pain, Seutter thought. I know a lot about pain, yes.
He knew that he didn’t have much time. He had to summon every bit of agony he could recall from his entire lifetime.
And there was quite a lot of it.
Beginning with the suffering—and the lonely, cold, hopeless shame—of the Colonial women who’d been imprisoned in the breeding chamber. Yes, that was good for a start.
Then there was the pain of his alienation as a Psionicist, his loneliness, the mental chatter of others around him like insects, day and night. Eavesdropping on a society that he could never join into…
No that was nothing, that was just weakness.
Griffin.
Yes.
He thought about Griffin. Remembered the feedback loops of pain that he had experienced as a child and young adult, his brother torturing him, torturing others… Not just with physical pain, but by separating others from their thoughts, their identities. Violating minds and bodies and looping back the pain and the shame—
Again and again and again and again.
Until it became unbearable, the victims hating themselves, hating every breath, wanting to die.
“Hello!” Seutter repeated, shouting out loud this time. “Feel this—like it—you worthless little damn whores. Simpering, twisted flesh, you feel this, you deserve it, you deserve all of it.”
And Griffin, was laughing in his mind. There was Griffin’s face, almost identical to Seutter’s own, laughing and smiling. As if this were the funniest joke he had ever known.
Meanwhile, tears flooded Seutter’s own face, as the pain and shame—
Remember pain and shame—
So much shame!
—flooded, flowed through him from head to toe. He quivered, spasmed, screamed and laughed.
“Retribution!” he screeched. “Feel this. This is your retribution!”
He watched as the smaller Valorian vessels began to drift from their static formation, moving slowly, but apparently randomly.
And the voices came back in his head.
Screams of confusion, of agony…
Alas! God has abandoned—
No, we have drowned in sins of flesh and—
Shame to hide from God forever—
Unity is broken and betrayed we have—
Judgment upon us!
One of the Valorian vessels started to dissolve.
The black tissue of its hull began sloughing off into space, in trickles and globs.
The other four of its companion vessels followed suit, their skins all shedding into bits of random biological matter, floating in a ragged cloud around Seutter’s pod.
And when the oily black hull of each ship flowed away, all that was left was a ribcage like skeleton, made of delicate bones—like silvery fish bones floating, breaking, brittle, turning to shards in the void.
And at the center of each disrupted vessel, beneath the rended hull and shattered silver-bone, was an armored Valorian.
Now, these Templars spasmed in space, convulsed. One tore at his own visor, until he succeeded in rending it, and a gush of fluid exploded into a cloud in the void.
The others simply shook and seizured—
Until they were finally, brutally still.
Their voices stopped, their screaming presences gone.
And it was only then that Seutter was aware of another presence…
A mind of burning judgment, coming from the larger sphere-ship.
A very, very loud mind.
THESE ONES HAVE BEEN MEASURED AND FOUND WANTING IN FAITH. YOU ARE THE INSTRUMENT OF CULLING, AS I FORESAW. EVEN SATAN HAS HIS PURPOSE. BUT YOU SHALL HENCE BE JUDGED… INFIDEL.
The headband began to grow hot on him, and Seutter could feel tingling fire, racing through his nerves and his mind.
And then there was another voice—not in his head but over the comm.
Xon.
“Graham, remove the headband. Remove it!” Xon ordered.
And, exhausted in the moment as he was, Seutter knew that Xon was right. He frantically unfastened his helmet, threw it to his feet in the pod, and ripped the Valorian headband off his head, dropping it in his lap.
Enoch, he thought. He is there. That voice, full of fire and judgment.
What if I am not ready?
I still have the theta wave burst, Sivarek standing by…
Suddenly, a concussive force shook the pod.
There was a shining blur of motion, and he looked up.
The top of the port-side sensor sail was shattered, silvery bits of it whirling away into space—like cut bits of foil on the wind.
What? That had to be…
An explosion, an attack?
He had been so preoccupied with the Valorians—and so exhausted—that he hadn’t even sensed it.
But yes, there is a wormhole formation…
A large ship was swiftly emerging from the glowing portal of a wormhole near the Valorian station… A Republic capital ship.
Seutter shook his head in confusion.
Why are they shooting at us?
Have I made the whole universe hate me now?
49
The bridge crew cheered as the smaller Valorian ships seemingly dissolved under Seu
tter’s assault.
“Whatever he did,” Albert Hawking remarked, “your man is a genius, madam. Bravo.”
Their celebration was cut short, however, when Reynard announced: “Wormhole formation! It’s definitely Republic this time, Commander.”
They looked to the main viewscreen and the familiar shape of the gigantic shark-like, red and black flagship Mars was swiftly emerging from the glowing portal of the wormhole.
“It’s the flagship, Sir,” Reynard announced.
Now things get really complicated, Brattain thought.
“More of your comrades, madam?” Hawking asked. “They are here to help, yes?”
As if in answer to his question, the flagship fired a fusion torpedo, which streaked out— shattering the top half of the port sensor sail.
“They’re attacking us!” Reynard exclaimed in disbelief. “What? Wait, we have a priority comm signal…”
An image filled the main screen.
Wesley was there as Brattain had expected; but he was only standing in the background, his arms crossed in consternation.
In the center of the screen was First Consul Wells, one of the most famous faces in the Republic. His face now was not grandfatherly and kind, as it had appeared so many times in the ‘casts. Rather, he wore the expression of a stern, dour patrician. Disappointed, judging…
“Why have you initiated attack against the Valorians, Commander Brattain?” he asked.
“They attacked us first, Sir,” she responded. “Given that the lives of the Colonists were at stake, and the absence of further orders, I decided to proceed to—”
“You had further orders, from Captain Fitzgerald,” Wells replied coolly. “Stand down, just stand down… Was that too complicated for you?”
“What orders?” Reynard asked, looking at her, confused.
“You will stand down now,” Wells continued. “Deactivate all weapons systems and all security on your airlocks. The Valorians will have full access to your ship.”
“But Sir…” Brattain protested. “The Valorians have made it clear that they feel they have some sort of religious obligation to execute our crew. And the Colonists have already suffered inhuman treatment at their hands.”
Wells shook his head. “Commander, it is time for the ultimate test of loyalty. Your father sacrificed his life for our grand Republic. What will you do? You acted without orders, and interfered in a diplomatically fragile situation. The fate of your crew rests on your own ill-informed decisions. However, I can plead with Master Enoch for his mercy. I do not wish to further damage your ship, but…” He spread out his palms, and shook his head. “I can make no promises. But if you continue to resist, the only thing I can guarantee is pain. You felt what the Valorian psionic attacks can do before. And Master Enoch is the strongest of them all.”
“Master Enoch?” Brattain asked. “Whose master is he, that you speak of him with such familiarity? And what does it matter if we stand down, if he has the ability to destroy us anyway? Wait… You want the ship intact, don’t you? The innovations from Sivarek’s redesign… That’s more important than any of us.”
“But we are a Republic crew,” Reynard protested. He turned to Brattain. “We followed orders. Your orders. People suffered, died… Cruz, Simak… I always followed orders!”
Now, on the screen, Wesley Fitzgerald stepped forward, shaking his head as if in imitation of Wells, like his puppet.
“Liz, you were never suited for command,” he said. “It’s not your fault. Please, let’s make this as easy as we can. Yes?”
“Jesus,” Brattain snapped. “Get him off the damn screen.”
Reynard terminated the transmission as she ordered, and Wesley’s face blinked out, to be replaced by a view of space outside… And the Valorian sphere.
Reynard stared at her for a moment, his eyes tearing up.
“Jesus,” Brattain said. “Listen to me. The Valorians want us dead. Whatever you think of me, we can only fight now, and try to survive and get the truth out.”
Reynard laughed scornfully. “Survive? Oh I want to… All my life, I believed in the Republic, I followed the rules. They were weighted against me, but I followed them. For what? To die in disgrace? No. To hell with this!”
His hands moved rapidly on his console, and Brattain watched numbly as, on the tactical display, two fusion torpedoes sped straight from the Musashi towards the flagship.
No! He has Simak’s tactical functions. I should have known, should have locked them down…
The torpedoes, however, impacted the area of the Mars’s bridge with minimal effect.
“Lieutenant Reynard!” Brattain shouted, and the rest of the bridge crew gasped in shock.
But it doesn’t matter if I gave the order to fire or not, she thought. We are fighting Mars now, as well as the Valorians…
It’s a fight for our survival.
And it’s a fight we can’t possibly win.
#
The Spartacus was not in good shape. It seemed like every indicator on Washington's console was flashing: FUEL LEAK, RADIATION LEAK, HULL INTEGRITY BREACHED.
I got those bonesuit bastards in their little black ships, he thought. But it looks like they got me, too.
Still, he fired again.
Another set of two torpedoes jetted forward, continuing the tunnel through the biological structure of the Valorian station.
A few seconds later, the Spartacus hit a thin wall of tissue and then broke through rupturing it. There was open black space ahead.
Did it, Washington thought. Blasted all the way through the thing.
“Joachim!” he shouted on the comm. “Joachim, are you there? Gotta ditch.”
But he knew from the severe engine damage that he was seeing on the readouts that it was unlikely that the engineer had survived.
He looked up at the main screen, then… and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at what he saw. There was a Republic capital ship—an imposing, predatory monster of a vessel, painted in red and black.
And Spartacus was pointed straight at it.
Could be Musashi’s friends, right? he thought.
But then, something impacted the side of Spartacus, sending the ship spinning again. It had been a grazer bolt—a glancing blow.
But the ship was almost finished as it was. The controls were now unresponsive, Spartacus spinning slowly as it headed straight towards the Republican vessel.
God, why does the universe hate me so? Washington thought.
Still, he wasn’t even tempted to give up.
Balthazar Washington was a survivor. That was what he did, survive.
“Zoom time,” he hissed.
He tore Jeremy's drawling free from where it had been taped to the console. Holding this good luck charm crumpled in his fist, he bolted towards the rear of the ship, towards the lifeboats. He willed his legs to extraordinary effort— knowing that even a split second could mean the difference between life and death.
He reached the lifeboat Bay and threw himself through the opening into one of the boats, slamming the launch button with a booted foot, not even bothering with restraints.
The lifeboat launched with a muffled roar, the acceleration pressing him into the cushioned interior.
Rode out a shockwave once before, he thought. Can I do it again?
There was a violent jolt. The lifeboat spun, and the g-forces overwhelmed him as Washington’s vision faded to black.
#
Wesley’s crew had been concerned with the Musashi, which had just fired a torpedo at Mars’s bridge. That hit had been fully absorbed by their ablative armor.
A scant second later, one of Wesley’s sensor techs on the bridge of the Mars had reported unusual energy readings coming from the Valorian station.
The next moment, the side of that station had exploded, rupturing as a small ship barreled out of it, headed straight for the Mars.
“Unidentified ship on collision course,” the sensor tech advised.
It's the Colonial vessel, Wesley thought.
Before he could give the order to fire, First Consul Wells was already doing so. Mars’s grazers hit the side of the oncoming ship—but it kept barreling towards them, spinning now as it came.
“Fusion torpedoes!” Wells barked, sounding surprisingly confident in combat for a man who'd spent his life as a politician.
The smaller ship was still barreling towards them, looming large on the main viewscreen of the Mars. Wesley had to fight the useless impulse to run and take cover.
When the fusion torpedoes streaked out, scoring multiple hits on the oncoming ship, it was practically vaporized—although Wesley could see on his console that the hurtling debris was going to impact the bridge of the Mars.
A moment later, the bridge shook and red lights began flashing.
“Damage report,” Wesley ordered.
A tech answered. “Sir, the explosions were close. Ablative armor has been pierced; we have some minor pressure leaks.”
Wesley thought he could hear the hiss of outrushing air for a moment before the ship sealed itself. There was an odd charred smell in the air.
“Do we have radiation exposure?” Wesley asked.
“Yes,” the nervous tech answered back. “Readings climbing. The earlier hit from Musashi, while it did not pierce our ablative armor, must have weakened it. We’re exposed.”
First Consul Wells stood from the captain's chair and calmly ordered: “Evacuate the bridge.”
Wesley turned to him “Sir?”
“You do have a secondary control center?” Wells said. “This mission is too important to end with us cooked by radiation.”
Wesley nodded.
This is insane, he thought. Those Colonials are so desperate that they'd sacrifice their own lives to try and take us out, ramming us like that…
One of the sensor techs was moving towards the door at the rear of the bridge in order to exit.
It began to open—but then slammed shut.
“What's going on?” Wesley asked. “Is there a lockout?” His hand moved swiftly over the manual controls on the side of the door.
Space Cruiser Musashi: a space opera novel Page 25