“Commander Hargreaves will be happy,” he noted, “which is a relief.”
Stephanie stared at him. “He’s not that bad.”
“You haven’t seen him when his engines play up,” he muttered. “He’s almost as impossible as Herkat when it comes to his equipment.”
He became aware of the silence and looked up. All eyes in the command center were on him, and a small smile played around Stephanie’s lips. It was as though the ship hung on his next command—which it did, he realized.
After clearing his throat hastily, he straightened in his seat and nodded to the pilot. “Take us to the Sol system, Wattlebird,” he ordered and Jonathan brought his finger down on the final key.
Still smiling, she left the command deck with Lars and Vishlog on her heels. She stopped when she arrived at the pod center. “There’s something I need to work out,” she told them and frowned when Lars settled against the wall.
“I could be a while. I have a lot of notes to go through—”
“I have time.” He cocked an eyebrow, and Vishlog took up a position against the opposite wall.
“Me, too,” he rumbled when she glanced at him.
She sighed. “Don’t blame me if you get bored.”
“It’s our job, Steph,” Lars told her. “This is what we do.”
“I’m not used to having people waiting on me.”
“Why not? Haven’t we done it long enough?” He looked at Vishlog. “It looks like we have more practicing to do.”
When she didn’t move, he nodded toward the pod. “We get downtime when we’re off shift. Better go deal with whatever it is. We’ll still be here when you come out.”
“Or Frog and Brenden will,” Vishlog added. Lars rolled his eyes and the Dreth smirked. “Well, we don’t know how long it’ll take her. If it’s only working on her notes it could be hours, but if it’s a different Steph kind of problem, it could be days.”
“Yeah,” the man agreed, “and I guess if it’s a Morgana-related issue, we could be here for years.”
“Not funny, guys,” she told them, and they both grinned. “Fine.” She threw her hands up, slid into the pod, and pulled the lid closed over her.
As much as she hated to admit it, it was good to know someone was looking out for her while she was inside. She might joke about it, but that incident on the pirate ship had begun to bother her. What if the Knight was boarded?
She pushed the thought away. “AI, I need to see Meligorn.”
To her surprise, a female voice answered. “Certainly, Stephanie. Where on Meligorn would you like to be?”
“Do you remember the first location I was taken to?”
“That location is in my files, yes.”
“Take me there.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
The world melted around her and the slender, weather-worn trunk of the first Meligornian tree she’d ever seen appeared. Her heart lifted as its deep purple and green leaves unfolded like a blooming flower and the horizon came into being.
Once more, she watched as two moons appeared on a translucent purple horizon and mountains loomed. The sky shifted to the purple hues of an early Meligornian evening.
Stephanie breathed a sigh of happiness. “Thank you, AI.”
It did not answer but continued to unfold the scene. Having passed the shift from forest to mountain, it now moved to a meadow and the pond with blue lily pads and its eight-legged Meligornian frog.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, folded her hands, and drew them to her chest. It was hard to decide which class to work on first—especially with Lars’s words echoing through her head.
If it’s a Morgana-related issue.
The fact that she could also hear Brilgus’s voice didn’t help either.
Why don’t we ever hear of a Morgana living a long time?
And then there was, This issue you have with attacking.
She clenched her fist at her side. “Damn Meligornian,” she muttered. “He might actually have a point.
While she didn’t like admitting it, saying it out loud helped her focus. The thing she needed to deal with the most wasn’t her notes or her lesson plans. It was the Morgana.
Even Wattlebird had seen it. You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.
Stephanie thought of her first and only encounter with another Morgana—the one with the pleated skirt from World War Two—and wondered how long the woman had lived after their meeting. From the questions she’d asked, she hadn’t even made it to the end of the war.
Was it worth it?
The question unsettled her, and she shook her head. She didn’t want to die not knowing if she’d made a difference. Worse than that, she didn’t want to die before their enemies had been defeated. What if her predecessor hadn’t turned the tide before she’d died? What would have happened to the Earth then?
Deciding she couldn’t risk it, she set her mind to working out how to control the Morgana within.
“I need L’Shy,” she announced, and exactly as M’rick had done before him, he stepped out of the tree line, his white hair cascading over his shoulders. His robes were as blue and gold as M’rick’s had been.
He caught the troubled look on her face and asked, “What can I help you with, Stephanie?”
She sighed. “I’m not sure anyone can help me,” she told him.
“Try me.”
“So, what good is saving the Federation,” she asked, “if I only die at the end?”
“Well,” he answered with a gentle smile, “the rest of the living would appreciate your sacrifice. And then there are all the romantic stories that would be created about you.”
His reply surprised a laugh out of her. “Sure, because that’s what I want more of—bad drama videos where they probably have me with multiple partners and Frog as the very jealous boyfriend.”
“I’m not sure,” the avatar mused, “that even they could screw the truth up that badly.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” she told him and sighed. “I’m gonna have to think about this more. Let’s try to think of how to get rid of that radiation, instead.”
A few hours later, freshly showered and in a new ship suit, she returned to the Bridge with Lars and Vishlog in her wake. Emil turned as she came in and caught her eye as she approached.
“Question?”
“How far out does the Federation patrol from Earth?”
He opened his mouth to answer but she hadn’t finished.
“And is it possible that our patrols and planets could be watched from beyond that?”
Before he could ask, the navigation team put the map of known Federation space on the viewer.
“Add in the Outer Reaches,” he ordered and waited as it was brought up.
She moved closer to the screen. “All that?”
“Yes. This,” he explained and highlighted the relevant areas of the map, “is the area we patrol regularly, and these,” he added and indicated the Outer Reaches in a different color, “are the areas we try to patrol regularly.”
He sighed. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the ships or the men to do that as often as we’d like or need to.”
“To answer your other question…” He paused. “There is so much unknown space that of course, it is possible we are being watched and aren’t aware of it. To add to that, it is also possible we are being observed from much closer and are not aware of it.”
With a soft sigh, she lowered her head, not to look at her feet but focused on some point further out—and not the deck. After a minute, she tilted her head and looked at him. “Do you think that was the entire Teloran fleet?”
Emil looked around the command center and locked the room down.
“This doesn’t leave this room,” he told the crew and they nodded. He turned to her and his quiet reply fell around them with the force of an asteroid strike.
“No. I do not.”
Stephanie swallowed and jerked her head in a reluctant affirmat
ive as though this was the reply she’d expected. “So…” she began, “the rest of the fleet might be between us and Earth.”
“Yes.” His reply was short and sounded as if she’d torn it from him.
She frowned. “So, if we can determine where the Telorans came from to attack Meligorn, we could…”
Her voice faltered, but he picked up what she was trying to put into words. “You want to find the enemy fleet.”
This time, her reply was much stronger. “I do.”
“Only us?.”
She looked at the viewscreen and its maps. “I don’t see anyone else out there.”
“Only us against the entire Teloran fleet?” He couldn’t stop his voice rising slightly in pitch.
“Even I’m not that crazy,” she told him and laughed, and he wisely refrained from saying that the Morgana very much was.
What he said instead was, “So, what do you want to do with them if we find them?”
“Well, not attack them,” she admitted. “I only want to take a look.”
“Uh-huh. You know that if we find them, they will pursue, no questions asked,” he told her.
“Oh.” She became thoughtful. “Well, how about you drop us a long way out from Earth and we do some active search testing on our way in.”
“Do you have any idea where you want to start?”
She shrugged. “I was kinda hoping you’d be able to help me with that.”
Emil turned to navigation. “You’re up. Based on the trajectory the attack force came in from and what we know of the transference points, which sectors do you think are the most likely for a Teloran approach to Earth?”
“Should we assume they think their attack on Meligorn would be a total success?” Lieutenant Samsara Bhattani asked.
“Yes.” Stephanie’s voice shook with anger. “They are that arrogant.”
“Then there are three approaches that are the most likely,” the lieutenant said and highlighted the relevant areas on the screen, “and of these, this is the most logical.”
“So, what are you thinking?” the captain asked while she studied the screen.
“Honestly? I wish we had a way to be everywhere at once,” she told him. “What if we jump in and they’re not there but they arrive after we leave? What if we jump in after they’ve already gone?”
He laughed. “We can always leave an early-warning beacon.”
“We have those?”
“They were in the last-minute shipment from Earth. You saved quite a few of them when you helped with the accident in the loading bay.”
“I did? Oh, good, so why don’t we drop some of those in as we go? We can always put one in the most likely sector for them to travel to next and make the jump to the ones they’re likely to arrive in. That way, it won’t matter if they get past us. We’ll still know.”
“And I can deploy sniffers,” the captain told her and hastened to explain when she looked puzzled. “Sensors for picking up ion trails left by transiting starships. That way, we’d know if anything had passed before we arrived.”
“Do their ships even leave the same kinds of things behind that ours do?”
“Well, I don’t think they have disgruntled crew,” Emil remarked, “but I’ll see if the Knight managed to get any samples from the battle zone. We might luck out.”
“I have the samples required,” Ebony replied before he could ask. “I gathered them on the way into the Deep Warrior. Analysis has identified an element not present in the exhaust from known drives.”
“And you think that’s from the Telorans?” Stephanie asked.
“Unless there was some other unknown source for it, that theory is sound, yes,” Ebony replied and sounded mildly put out.
“Navigation, plot me a course to cover those points. Jonathan, stand by to jump.”
Samsara’s calculations took next to no time, and the pilot’s hands had already begun to move while the captain was still speaking.
“Jumping,” he snapped as soon as he received the command.
“We are so far from home,” she murmured when the jump was over and they’d appeared at the second visitation point.
“Remember,” Avery quipped. “Home is only a jump away.”
Lars groaned, and Vishlog looked at her. “Do we really need him?”
“You’ve spent too much time with Frog.” She chuckled.
“Any time is too much time with that man,” Jonathan observed.
“Scans?” Emil asked to bring them back on track.
“We’re clear,” Lieutenant Emily Patel replied. “Scans and sniffers show no ship presence in some time.”
“Deploy the beacon and get us out of here, Wattlebird.”
He complied. “You do know how much this is costing us,” he grumbled, “and we’re simply leaving it here where anyone can pick it up.”
“Not anyone,” the captain corrected. “These are Navy beacons. They’re designed to take care of themselves.”
While the scan team ran their checks, she looked up the cost of the beacons. “Holy crap!”
She looked at the captain. “The Navy had better resupply me.”
“Scans and sniffers say it’s clear, sir.”
“Wattlebird…”
They jumped through the remaining two systems and found nothing in any of them—and no evidence that anything had passed, either. She looked both relieved and disappointed.
“Well, either they haven’t been yet, or we’ve well and truly missed them. Jump us back.”
“Short hops, please,” the captain ordered sternly, and Wattlebird smirked as he made the adjustments.
“You know me.”
“Too well,” he told him, his voice stern.
The world blinked and suddenly, the command center came to life.
Alarms sounded on the navigations and scan consoles and the scene on the viewscreen flickered.
“Sir, we have activity in—”
“I see it!”
Stephanie snapped a look at the screen and saw it. “Jump us!”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The screens showed two Federation destroyers facing a small group of Telorans, and it was not going well. Although the destroyers out-massed the enemy ships, the aliens outnumbered the destroyers three to one.
“An advance party,” Captain Pederson murmured. “Just our luck.”
“How’d they get past us?”
“They took an alternate route,” Samsara snapped. “I’m calculating it now.”
While she worked the numbers, Lieutenant Patel highlighted one of the Telorans. “It looks like they’re leaving.”
Now that she’d pointed it out, they caught the slight increase in distance between one of the outer ships and the battle.
“They’ll go back to alert the main fleet,” Emil observed.
“We have to stop them!” Stephanie cried.
Her shout was echoed on the Naval ship’s Bridge.
“Dammit! Clear our lines of fire and stop that ship!” Captain Felicity Travers roared.
“We’re trying, ma’am, but they keep blocking us.”
“I can see that but get us clear. We can’t let them get away.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!”
The captain watched the screens and knew they wouldn’t make it. The Carolinus struggled to hold her own against the missiles thrown against her shields. She followed the energy readings, which climbed as the ship pulled more energy from the space around them and directed it to the shields.
At this rate, they’d have nothing left for their drives.
She looked at where the Star Eagle hung on her flank and saw she wasn’t the only one being blocked, except the Star had the worst of it with three Telorans breathing down her throat. No matter how she tried to work it, Felicity couldn’t see either of them breaking free in time to stop the scout getting clear and escaping.
“Goddammit!”
Frustrated, she could only watch helplessly as the fleeing Teloran vesse
l eased clear of the melee, and she waited for it to accelerate. Unbelievably, it stuttered. That was the only way she could describe it. One minute, it moved smoothly through space and the next, its forward movement stuttered.
Its engines flared and purple lightning shivered over its hull. The lightning flickered and burned and sank into the metal to mark it with a jigsaw of light and Travers gasped. It was a sound that echoed around the command center.
“What is that?” one of the scan team asked, his voice hushed with awe.
“I don’t know, but I sure as shit hope it’s not contagious,” defense responded sharply. “ʼCause I don’t think I have anything to stop that kind of thing.”
“Neither do they,” navigation observed as the lightning flashed from purple to blue and finally burned white.
The Teloran’s engines blew and its hull shattered. A handful of pods burst out of it when the hull broke apart, and lightning engulfed them. They exploded in a shower of sparks.
“Oh, my God,” scans whispered, and Felicity had to agree.
“What happened?” she snapped as a hard, cold voice spoke through their communications system. “I am the Morgana. I am Death Incarnate. I am the Protector, the one who will end the Teloran people.”
As the voice faded, a new ship appeared and Felicity stared. “Unidentified craft, identify!”
Again, that eerie voice spoke. “I am the Morgana. The craft you see is the Ebon Knight. We are your salvation.”
“Salvation, my ass,” the captain snapped, “but you’d better be friendly or we’ll deal with…” Her voice trailed off as the new craft opened fire and delivered a barrage of missiles into the poorly-shielded rear of the third Teloran craft facing the Star.
One of the aliens ranged against the Carolinus began to pivot and its shield shifted in an attempt to protect it against this new threat.
“Fire!” Felicity cried and her vessel released another onslaught of missiles. Beside her, the Star did the same. “Gunnery!”
“Keep your britches on, ma’am. We’re charging, now.”
Another fusillade of missiles flared from the Knight and the third Teloran didn’t finish the evasive action it had started. It blew, engines first, before its weapons went. Purple fire erupted around it to destroy the pods that sought to escape.
Witch Of The Federation III (Federal Histories Book 3) Page 62