The Spider and the Fly
Page 67
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“Lady Selaris is reinforcing the shield grid,” Thexyl said, “but I can’t imagine she’ll be able to keep it up for long. We seem to be out of options.”
Jenavian hissed in frustration and reached her hand down to check on Markus again. She couldn’t feel his thoughts, but he still had a pulse, for whatever that was worth. The way things were going it might have been better if the attack had killed him. At least then the Widow wouldn’t be able to recapture and then reassimilate him…
“They aren’t taking the bait,” Grier said bitterly. “We’re not a threat and they know it.”
“You should leave, Jen,” Thexyl said. “You and any remaining support ships should get back on the Golem and shift out of here.”
Jenavian shook her head even though the transmission was audio only. “And leave everyone there to die? And leave you to die?”
She could perfectly visualize the streaks of yellow rippling down his scales. “There’s nothing else you can do. At least if you and Markus survive, you can try and recruit others.”
“Just keep holding on,” she told him, closing the channel and biting down hard on her lip. “Grier, I have an idea…but you’re not going to like it.”
“I’ve never liked anything you’ve said before, so I don’t see any reason for that to change now,” the other woman quipped. “But I’ve also never run away from a fight before, and I’m not just going to sit here while that ship pounds the city into rubble.”
Jenavian nodded and took a deep breath. Convincing an ally to help her do something this crazy would have been hard enough, but Grier barely rated above an enemy. Still, it was better than sitting here and collectively licking their wounds.
“I need you to make an attack run on the Unifier…all the way into point-blank range.”
There was an ominous pause. “You’re right, I don’t like that. In case you weren’t paying attention, there’s a reason we’ve been avoiding going toe-to-toe with that thing.”
“I know, but it’s the only way I can get close enough to take another shot,” Jenavian said. “Without Markus I don’t have shields, which means I need some cover to hide behind.”
“I’m glad you think so highly of us.”
“Listen, if I can get another shot I think there’s a chance I can take out their shields. Once they’re down you’ll be able to tear their flank apart. They’ll have to retreat, or at the very least turn and face you for once.”
Grier sighed. “You mean assuming we survive long enough to get into position.”
“Approach as fast as you can, I’ll keep pace. I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s no other way.”
Another pause, this one even longer than the first. “I suppose not. You just better be damn sure you don’t sputter out like that first shot. If you fuck up that badly, I’ll turn the Golem’s cannons on you before we go down.”
“Fair enough,” Jenavian said, smiling tightly. In a different life, she might have actually been friends with this woman. “I’ll follow your lead.”
She brought the Phoenix in tight behind one of the Golem’s awkward “limbs,” nestling herself as close as she could to the superstructure so neither the Unifier’s cannons nor those of its fighters could get a bead on her. After a few seconds the gangly ship started its approach, and Jenavian matched its velocity as best she could.
They entered the battleship’s kill zone quickly, and its starboard cannons immediately began firing. Fighters buzzed in and about the Golem, avoiding the retaliatory fire of the point-defense turrets as best they could while scoring just enough hits to keep Grier from doubling up her forward shields. A few of them tried to take potshots at the Phoenix, but thankfully none of them connected.
Once they finally moved within range, Jenavian closed her eyes and tried not to think about their first failed shot. By himself, Markus hadn’t been able to penetrate the Unifier’s shields, and he’d practiced with this thing far more than she had. She just had to hope the damage they’d already inflicted would open a wide enough chink in their armor that she could exploit…
“If you’re going to do something, do it now,” Grier called out over the com. The Golem shuddered as its shields began to buckle, and Jenavian could feel the desperation from the minds of its crew. They all believed they were about to die, and it was up to her, the woman who damned them, to pull them from the flames.
“I’m going in,” Jenavian said to anyone who was listening, and the Phoenix flipped up and around the superstructure and dove in hard towards the battleship. A storm of blazing death lit up her viewport as the two mighty ships exchanged a point-blank broadside, but she squinted past the explosions and let her link with the Phoenix guide her movements. As expected, one of the enemy cannons swiveled towards her and locked on, and she twisted the shuttle into a tight roll as the flash of energy scorched past the underside of the hull. She dodged a second shot and then a third a few seconds later, and then finally she was face-to-face with the weakest section of the battleship’s shield grid. She stretched out to the Phoenix’s cannon, letting it sap the power it needed from her to charge itself, then tucked the ship into yet another tight spiral to try and avoid one more blast before firing herself—
She didn’t make it. Agony seared down her left arm as the Unifier’s gunners finally connected, and the Phoenix’s port wing blew off in a cloud of flaming debris. She opened her eyes enough to watch the skin on her arm turn red and then black as it burned away. Every instinct in her body commanded her to release control, to step away from the console and pass out…but instead she just screamed and focused all of her attention on the ship’s weapon. If she could at least fire one shot, then her death would have some purpose…
The Phoenix fired. The blast burned into the battleship’s shields like a high-powered laser drill, but still they refused to buckle. Jenavian grimaced and redoubled her efforts, funneling every last watt of energy she could manage into the weapon—
Finally a massive plume of flame erupted beneath the drill beam, and a twenty meter section of the Unifier’s hull liquefied and peeled away. An instant later the Golem’s cannons unleashed another volley, and this time they too struck home. A devastating shudder rippled up and down the battleship, and it writhed in agony like a great ocean beast that had suddenly been harpooned.
Jenavian smiled, and her mind finally gave out. Her connection to the Phoenix was severed, and she collapsed onto the deck plating next to Markus. Darkness swiftly followed.