***
“Their scout ships are breaking off and heading back to the Unifier,” Grier announced over the com.
“Who knows, maybe they’ll just turn tail and run,” Markus muttered as his fingers danced across the console. “The Golem does look pretty scary.”
Jenavian glanced down to the tac-holo and the massive battleship now entering sensor range. There were bigger ships in the Convectorate fleet, certainly—both the Anderimus-class command carrier and Veltaka-class dreadnought dwarfed the standard battleship—but that didn’t mean the Unifier was anything to scoff at. At just over half a kilometer long and packing two dozen plasma cannons, it could shred a fleet of smaller ships with disturbing ease. Even the Golem, with its impressive armament and overcharging shielding grid, wouldn’t have a chance in hell of taking this thing out.
And they were about to fly straight into its mouth inside a fifteen meter-long shuttle.
“How long until they’re in weapons range?” she asked hoarsely.
“Less than twenty minutes now, and that’s assuming they don’t launch any gunboats or bombers,” Grier said.
Markus grunted. “I’d be more worried about assault shuttles. I guarantee the Widow gave them orders to capture any Flies in the city alive. If they manage to land even a single ship, they might unload troops or even a few Spiders. We’ll need to—”
“There’s really no point in worrying about that right now,” Jenavian cut in. “Either we buy them the time they need or we don’t.” She hit the com terminal and keyed for Thexyl. “Do you have an update on the last transport?”
“It won’t be ready for some time yet, and I’m not entirely convinced it ever will be,” the Kali said gravely. “We may have to resort to a backup plan.”
“There is no backup plan,” Grier cut in. “If you can’t get that thing flying, then all those people are dead.”
“We’ll get you the time you need, no matter what it takes,” Markus declared. Somehow, he managed to sound completely confident even though Jenavian could feel the doubt radiating off him. “Just do what you can.”
“I will,” Thexyl promised. “In the meantime, Lady Selaris is going to attempt to power up the city’s defensive turrets.”
Jenavian cocked an eyebrow. “I thought they were all broken.”
“They lack power, but with half the city already in darkness, we have some extra reserves. I told her to leave, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“She won’t,” Markus said knowingly. “If she can get a couple of them working, it might be enough to hold off any assault transports. That’s better than nothing.”
“I will contact you with updates on our progress,” Thexyl told them. “Until then, good luck.”
The channel closed, and Markus snorted softly. “I’ll give him credit: he sounds a lot more in control than most of those people back there have to be. I have a feeling even Zalix is sweating it at this point.”
“I was going to say the same about you,” Jenavian said.
“Well, to be fair, I have one of the best pilots in the Convectorate with me, right?” he asked wryly. “You ready to give this a try?”
“Do I have a choice?” she countered, fastening herself into the pilot’s seat and wishing desperately that they’d had a few weeks or days or even minutes to actually practice this before charging straight into battle against a foe forty times their size. But complaining about it wasn’t going to change the fact that a lot of innocent people were counting on her ability to be a quick study, and so she grit her teeth as she placed her hands on the crystalline spheres mounted on either chair arm.
“Trust me: you’ll be a natural,” Markus soothed, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll leave the vital systems attached to the main drive so you can focus exclusively on the engines.”
“Right. Let’s do it.”
He nodded and tapped his console. The surge of power was immediate; it crackled through her fingers and up her arms like she’d grabbed onto an exposed plasma conduit. Her teeth rattled as the ship siphoned power directly from her, and it was all she could do not to scream and pull away. But somehow she managed to hang on, and after a few more seconds the shock in her hands had dulled into a warm tingle.
“Power readings nominal across the board,” Markus said, sounding more relieved than he probably meant to. “Tayla, open the hangar bay doors. We’ll head out nice and slowly.”
“Roger.”
The bay doors in front of them gradually slid open, and a flickering green containment shield took its place. Outside waited the swirling crimson mist of astral space.
“You feel all right?” Markus asked. “You ready to take us out?”
“As long as you don’t mind cleaning breakfast off the console,” Jenavian grumbled.
He grunted. “You’ll be fine. Now move us forward.”
“And how do you expect me to do that?”
“Just will it to happen, the same way you’d move your own body—but slowly. We don’t want to break anything just yet.”
Jenavian did her best to nod. The pain had mostly gone away, but her teeth were still chattering uncontrollably for some reason. “Right. Here we go.”
She closed her eyes and tried to separate out the different sensations shuddering through her. She could feel each part of the ship as if it were a half-numb body part—the wings were her arms, the landing struts her legs—
The shuttle blasted out of the docking bay like a torpedo, and by the way Markus’s mind stuttered in response, Jenavian was surprised he didn’t keel over from a heart attack.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I guess it was good we were lined up properly.”
“It’s all right,” he managed. “Just try and spin us back around before we overshoot the whole battle. Then bring us into formation with the others if you can—we really don’t need to help the Convectorate figure out this ship is different.”
“Working on it.” She ordered the ship to decelerate and come about, but this time the response was sluggish. She could only assume her subconscious mind was overcompensating; she needed to find a compromise between extremes, and quickly.
“You two still alive?” Grier asked.
“More or less,” Jenavian replied. “Falling into formation now.”
“You sure you weren’t chewing on some loomba this morning? A Dowd could drive a railcar straighter than that.”
“We’ll be fine,” Markus said. “Just worry about keeping the other ships in formation. We’re not exactly drowning in combat veterans here.”
Grier grunted softly and opened the channel to the rest of the fleet. “All ships, this is the Golem. Follow our lead.”
A series of acknowledgements came back, none of them sounding particularly confident. The fact their “secret weapon” was spiraling around like an inebriated thornfly probably wasn’t helping matters.
Clamping down hard on her lip, Jenavian did her best to arc the ship back around and settle into the back of the formation. In theory, their strategy was simple: while the Golem and the other support ships skirmished at the edge of the battleship’s range, the Phoenix would slip in beneath their screen and make an attack run. Markus assured her that the shields on this thing were a lot stronger than they looked, and he believed that the Unifier would direct most of its firepower at the opposing capital ship rather than a single shuttle. Of course, if the Phoenix’s weapons had as much kick as he promised, the enemy’s threat assessment would quickly change. They might only get one legitimate shot.
One shot against a battleship forty times their size while piloting a shuttle she’d never flown. And if they failed, she’d be condemning thousands of people to their deaths, not to mention damning Selaris and the other adepts to a life of servitude beneath the Widow’s heel.
It probably could have been worse. But not by much.
“All right, we’re looking good,” Markus commented as he studied the status monitors. “I’m going to plug in and
bring up the weapons and shields.”
“Do I need to do anything?” Jenavian asked.
“Just focus on flying straight and getting a hang of the controls. Here we go.”
She felt it the moment his mind connected with the ship. A rush of power surged through the hull, and his thoughts washed over her. The connection wasn’t quite as strong as when they’d linked directly—it was more like having a conversation through a pane of glass—but she could still sense his doubt and fear and worry all being sealed off by a thick wall of determination.
“All weapons responding,” Markus said, his voice strained. “Powering up the shields now.”
A shiver tingled its way across Jenavian’s skin as the shields came online. Her conscious mind could see the energy fields flash into existence around the Phoenix’s exterior, but through the link it felt like she was sliding into a fresh jumpsuit…or like someone was dragging their fingernails across her bare skin. Either way, while it was definitely the most pleasant sensation of this whole debacle so far, it didn’t make her feel any less exposed.
“Shields up and ready,” Markus reported. “Go ahead and take us in.”
Jenavian drew in a deep breath. A few hundred years ago, the Seraph had led a miniscule fleet against a mighty Tarreen armada inside the Nomari Nebula, and the resulting battle had changed the course of the future. History was replete with similar tales of valorous heroes overcoming impossible odds, and while the scale was considerably smaller here, she wondered dimly if they might be able to achieve a similarly implausible victory. Probably not. The unrecounted version of history was doubtlessly filled with tales of the dominant force crushing its opposition into dust, but stories like that didn’t excite the Holosphere.
And besides, no one in the galaxy would ever mistake her or Markus for heroes. Fools certainly, but definitely not heroes. Realistically, two converted killers like themselves didn’t deserve a miraculous victory. She just had to hope that whatever mysterious powers ruled over the galaxy believed the innocent people back on New Keledon did.
“I’m ready,” Jenavian said softly. “Let’s do this.”
The Spider and the Fly Page 59