Michael Anderle - [Heretic of the Federation 03]

by Time to Fear (epub)

  “That’s not what the Regime says.” The Talent who replied sounded more resentful than disbelieving.

  “The Regime lied,” John snapped. “They lied because they needed a scapegoat at the end of the last war, someone for people to be angry with while they took power.”

  “The Heretic,” one of the other Talents snarled.

  “The Witch,” he corrected, “who saved our world countless times and was rewarded by being made an exile from her own worlds, while those she sought to help were vilified and treated like second-class citizens.”

  “Animals!” the third Talent retorted. “We’re treated like highly intelligent animals and our parents made pariahs.”

  “And it’s wrong,” John told him. “You are not animals. Your parents did nothing wrong. You are as human as the rest of us.”

  “But our reality is this!” the fourth Talent protested, despair in his tone.

  “Not for much longer,” he assured them, and his voice rose to a crescendo. “The Witch is back and she is coming! And I am making a way for those who wish to throw off the shackles of tyranny to join me and fight!”

  One of the Talents drew back and the power in her hands intensified.

  “No one will believe you,” she protested.

  “They will when fire rains from the sky,” he retorted.

  The blue surrounding his body crackled as the Talent attacked and delivered a spray of electrical balls into his shield.

  “Run if you want to live!” he commanded and thrust a hand forward.

  The fire that followed fried the Talent where she stood and sealed her smoking corpse to the wall.

  “Find me if you want to fight,” he added.

  One of them turned to the stairwell but they didn’t reach it. The collar around their throat sparked with light and their head separated from their shoulders.

  The other two didn’t even try.

  The Four-Leaf’s patrons gaped at the screen as they unleashed a hail of lightning, electrical balls that exploded on contact, and fire. They gasped when the maelstrom cleared and John stood untouched in the center.

  He raised the pistol and opened fire, and the Talents renewed their attack. Everyone startled when a triumphant shout cracked across the room.

  “Yes!”

  Behind the cover of the machines, Ivy couldn’t see the effect she had on the fight. She’d found the solution to the final defensive program standing between her and downloading the code into the satellites.

  The upload was done, and all that remained was the transfer between the orbital and the satellites to which it was connected—and then to have the code jump to the next orbital and the satellites it controlled.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard and her tablet beeped as the code was accepted and the transfer began. Only then did she glance around the rack of machines.

  She was in time to see John lifted off his feet and hurled into the other side of the stack. It shook, and she glanced at her tablet to make sure the transfer continued.

  “Ugh!” her teammate grumbled, pushed onto his feet, and swept a wall of blue into an advancing Talent.

  One of the others scoffed at him, “Where’s your Heretic now, 781?

  “I…am…more…than a number,” he all but snarled and sent another barrage of electricity at the man.

  Ivy glanced at the tablet, saw the transfer was moving smoothly and that the code was already being sent on, and stood. Another strike rocked John back and the remaining Talents started to close.

  “To heck with this shit!” she exclaimed and picked up the blaster she’d set down beside her.

  One-handed, she pressed the command she’d typed for the system to block all incoming access to the hub. As soon as the tablet beeped its acceptance, she rose and fired in one fluid movement.

  “No one will change you back!” she snapped and slid around the edge of the racks to join the fight.

  In the data center below, Amaratne and Remy were in trouble. The AI had finished uploading the code and moved up in time to deal with the squad that slid into the room through Door Number Four.

  One of them had lost his life when the sticky on the roof blew and the rest advanced cautiously.

  They needn’t have bothered, Remy thought as the admiral reversed away from the Enforcers coming through Doors Number Two and Three.

  “Nice of you to join me,” Amaratne called and acknowledged his presence.

  “Nice of you to leave some for me,” he responded.

  “You know I saved the best for last, don’t you?” the man replied as a Talent and his handler appeared through Door Number One.

  “You know I didn’t need one all for myself, right?” Remy asked as a second Talent and her handler appeared out the smoke wisping around Door Number Four.

  “I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

  “Next time, go halves.”

  They stood angled out from each other, and Amaratne glanced at Door Four. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her before.

  The man, on the other hand, was young enough to have been his son—if his son had had flame-red hair and a face set in a perpetual sneer.

  The surviving Enforcers advanced with their blasters leveled.

  “Give it up, boys,” one instructed.

  “Hmmph. Not likely,” Remy muttered but kept his voice pitched for Amaratne’s ears.

  The admiral chuckled and his blaster didn’t waver.

  “I don’t think John will be very happy with us,” he said.

  “Why not?” his teammate asked.

  “Because I recall him saying no one was to die and I don’t think we can oblige him.”

  “Is your shield up?” the AI asked.

  “It’s on,” he acknowledged. “Why?”

  “Because I just activated the last scramblers in your suit.”

  “I missed some?”

  “They’re called scramblers for a reason.”

  As he spoke, the admiral’s discarded fat suit began to crawl across the floor toward the Enforcers. Amaratne jerked his head around and stared at it.

  “You what?” he exclaimed and released his blaster so it hung from its strap as soon as some of the Enforcers followed his gaze.

  He whipped his hand into his pouch, pulled out the scramblers he’d retained, and threw them toward their opponents.

  Some of the Enforcers fired as soon as he moved, but his shield coped with the impacts and he went from scramblers to grenades.

  “Messy,” Remy noted and followed it with, “Incoming!” when he caught sight of the female Talent who glowed a sudden, virulent blue.

  As if his words were a signal, the male Talent looked up. Amaratne glanced around to see what Remy meant as the female Talent raised her hands and the two handlers were encased in blue.

  Before either of them could react, she picked them up and hurled them toward the infiltrators. “Catch!”

  The Enforcers who’d managed to escape the area of Amaratne’s little bombardment were regrouping, but only three of them were left. At the woman’s call, their mouths dropped open and they froze.

  The admiral didn’t waste time to see what she did next. He snatched his blaster, pivoted, and fired. He caught the first controller in the chest and walked his fire into the man’s head. A small square box fell from the man’s hand, and he fired into that as well.

  Beside him, Remy eliminated his controller before the man landed and turned his pistols on the remaining Enforcers. Only one of them managed to raise his blaster in time.

  He was not fast enough to fire before he died.

  As they eliminated the controllers and the Enforcers, the female moved so she had a clear line of sight on the redhead and delivered two lightning bolts as she approached. That gave the kid enough of a heads-up to defend himself or leave.

  Instead, he chose to stay and fight—and he tried to take the fight to her. A fistful of glittering darts whistled across the room as he a
dvanced and a ball of fire followed.

  The woman caught most of the darts on a shield, but one got through. Her eyes widened when she saw the fireball, but she wrapped a small oval of blue around her hand and smacked it back the way it had come.

  Before the younger Talent had time to respond, she followed the return with a volley of smaller fireballs and several narrow darts of her own. Her opponent didn’t dodge them all and didn’t try to raise a shield.

  He screamed as the fire wrapped around his torso and fell silent as the next barrage of darts caught his throat and head. The female Talent put a hand out and leaned on the wall.

  “We have a little time,” she rasped when the two infiltrators looked at her. “I can show you out.”

  Remy was the first to respond. He hurried toward her as Amaratne followed, his blaster raised in case she couldn’t be believed.

  The woman didn’t protest, but she did take Remy’s hand when he offered it.

  “Are you hurt?” the AI asked, and she shook her head.

  “There’s no time to bleed,” she told him. “It’s this way.”

  Amaratne lowered his blaster to port and scanned the room and the corridors behind them as she led them farther into the complex.

  “The front door’s compromised.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Tegortha’s Teeth, there are so many of them,” Jaleck murmured.

  “And our first-wave friends are very happy to see them,” the chief of comms commented.

  They watched as their target’s shields absorbed their missiles but flickered and died under the fire from their sister ship. The third ship in their attack formation scored several hits as they completed their pass.

  As one, they increased power to take them out of retaliation range and circle for another approach. Across the battlefield, other Dreth formations were doing the same accompanied by swarms of Dreth fighters.

  Shouts came over the Regime comms they’d hacked, and Jaleck almost blessed the spies. They’d been such useful creatures by the time the Telorans were done.

  Her face hardened. And then they’d been dead, for all the good that would do her world.

  “Stand by for boarding!”

  “Where are those Marines when you need them?”

  “What is that— Dreth have Talent?”

  The panic was tempered by other more important messages.

  “Stand fast, Fleet One. We will secure your port flank.”

  “Tango Alpha Delta, swing starboard. Don’t let them break away.”

  “Rear Admiral on the field!”

  Jaleck caught the worried look from her comms chief and looked at the scan team. “Get me a visual.”

  “On screen, ma’am. Whatever they’re sending, it’s bigger than anything we’ve got.”

  She regretted having to give up the Teloran ship she’d taken. Still, it had been for a good cause. She watched the new Regime ships transition into real space.

  “Those are capital ships,” she observed and kept her voice firm as she watched them emerge. “Now things are interesting.”

  She started to smile, and her crew felt a shiver of anticipation. Their War Lord was baring her teeth. They were either dead and didn’t know it, or they were about to do something that would end in death or glory.

  Before she could tell them what it was, though, comms intercepted a transmission from one of the newly arrived capital ships.

  “Alert Tango-Alpha-Delta. Incoming translation two sectors over. Alert Tango-Alpha-Delta. You have a large incoming translation. It is not one of ours. I repeat, it is not— Holy shit!”

  Jaleck smirked. “That’s not standard communication protocol,” she observed and signaled to her scan team. “Show me.”

  As they scrambled to provide her with the data, another transmission came through in a voice filled with fear.

  “It’s the Leviathan. I repeat, the Leviathan just transitioned in-system!”

  The ensuing barrage of communications masked the incoming call for the admiral.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Emil told her. “I brought you a gift to make it up to you but let me apologize.”

  The transmission ended and she chuckled. On the screen, the Tempestarii’s engines flared, and she changed course to target the two battleships leading the Tango-Alpha-Delta.

  Jaleck gave the two ships this. They stood their ground and fired, and when their shields flared and flame gouted into space, they turned to run.

  The Regime’s Rear Admiral’s next order held an edge of panic.

  “Bring that bitch down!”

  She smiled as their opponents turned in blind obedience to the admiral’s orders, and she gave her own quiet command.

  “All captains, show no mercy.”

  Dreth battle cries filled the decks.

  “Boarding parties, capture or evacuate. You have three minutes to decide.”

  The communications board lit up as Dreth Marines called their decisions, and Jaleck felt her ship turn as it targeted the closest Regime cruiser.

  A sudden scream was picked up on the open comm line.

  “What is that?”

  Jaleck frowned but a second later, a familiar voice sounded in the heads of enemy and friend alike.

  “You hurt my people. You hurt my clans. You killed my friends.”

  Stephanie paused, but the admiral had the impression of fury and an impending storm. The girl’s next words were as much an order to her and her people as they were a heads-up to the Regime.

  “There will be no empathy, no sympathy, no forgiveness, and no mercy.”

  She identified herself with her next words.

  “My name is Stephanie Morgana—and I am the Bitch who will bring you down!”

  After a brief flash, another engine signature appeared on the battle map.

  “It’s the Knight,” the scan chief whispered in awe.

  “And she’s not messing around,” his second answered and pointed to where the ship had chosen to appear.

  Jaleck’s lips curved in appreciation. The Ebon Knight had an attitude as bad as her mistress’s and she’d chosen to decloak in the middle of the largest cluster of enemy ships that turned to threaten her sister.

  On the board, it looked like the Knight had exploded in every direction at once. Every gun fired, and missiles followed.

  The admiral stared. The gun crews had to be working double-time to release that much Tegorthan pain—or the ship had been given serious upgrades.

  Both, she decided when the vessel continued to fire and enemy shields collapsed around her. At least one ship collided with its allies in its haste to escape the newcomer’s fire, and explosions flared throughout the Regime fleet.

  At the same time, a circle of blue appeared in front of the ship leading the charge toward the Tempestarii’s flank. Before its captain had time to alter course around it, the vessel had gone through and appeared in front of the space of a new transition at the Regime’s entry point.

  Battlecruiser met ship-of-the-line with too much proximity and momentum to stop, and the resulting explosion tore both ships apart. Debris spread in missile-like arcs to the ships nearby, and Jaleck chuckled.

  “That’ll teach you to enter a battle zone in close formation,” she told them.

  “Yup,” Gralog commented from behind her shoulder. “It sucks to be them.”

  She couldn’t agree more.

  “Him!” Rawlins said and stabbed her finger on one of the images moving across the screen in front of her, Captain Newcome of the Earth’s Rise.

  She glanced at Johnny and the ex-Naval analyst nodded.

  “He had significant connections to Intel, and I can’t see that changing. That’ll be where the dirty-trick boys are putting their data.”

  The captain tapped the comms. “Todd, we have a target. Knight?”

  “Hold onto your hat, Captain.”

  To those watching, it looked like the Knight simply vanished, but not before she fired another barrage
that destroyed another dozen ships to leave the Regime’s charge—and most of its fleet—in tatters.

  When the ship appeared again, the Earth’s Rise had already altered course for the transition point.

  “Don’t let her transition!” Rawlins ordered.

  “Do I look like I was born yesterday?” the Knight snarled. “My gun crews have her in their sights and the appropriate ammunition loaded. We’ll stop her in three…two…one!”

  The three missiles that leapt from her bow had been carefully chosen, as had the barrage that demolished the Rise’s rear shields before the missiles arrived.

  A single missile penetrated a hull already suffering multiple fractures. Sealing foam filled the breaches rapidly, but it was not enough.

  The explosive detonated two levels above the ship’s engine room. It knocked the engines off-line but didn’t destroy the shielding surrounding them. Reactivating them would take time.

  “That won’t last forever,” the Knight informed them, “but you need the data and EMP would not have guaranteed its retrieval.”

  “Noted,” Todd confirmed sharply. “We’ll make sure she doesn’t run away with us.”

  “You’d better,” Stephanie told them, and Rawlins froze.

  Thinking of what the girl might do to retrieve her Todd sent chills down her spine.

  Clearing her throat, she managed one heartfelt blessing before she turned to the battle again.

  “Godspeed, Marine.”

  John was holding his own when he felt the orbital shudder with two high-speed arrivals. Ivy ran to the stairs and peered over the edge.

  “We’ve got company,” she told him.

  “Well, duh,” he muttered and threw lightning into the face of an Enforcer who stuck his head around the door. “What kind?”

  “The kind that wear power armor and carry very big guns?”

  He fired a hasty barrage at both doors and hurried toward her to see what she meant. She rose to cover the doors and dropped an Enforcer who’d gathered enough courage to look through.