* * *
Ethan couldn’t resist the urge to tap his foot as he stood behind Petty Officer Damen Corr at the nav, waiting for the system to reboot. They’d just finished fixing the damaged reactor core after more than an hour of work. Emergency power had been restored within just a few minutes of going out, but main power had only been restored fifteen minutes ago.
Come on! Ethan thought, gritting his teeth as the nav officer hurried through system diagnostics and calibrations.
“Almost there . . .” Damen reassured. “Got it!”
“Start spooling the SLS, and head to the rendezvous!”
“Yes, sir,” Petty Sergeant Damen Corr replied.
With a sigh, Ethan straightened from leaning over the nav station, and then he turned around.
That was when he noticed that everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare at him. The uncertain looks on the crew’s faces were puzzling. “What is it?” Ethan asked of no one in particular. Then he saw Caldin stalking toward him, weaving between control stations. At her side were the pair of guards Atton claimed to have sent back to the transfer station.
Ethan’s brow furrowed as he saw them approach. Then he noticed Kurlin standing tall and smug by the entrance of the bridge, his skeletal arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the open doors.
Why wasn’t he in stasis? No one should have been able to enter the overlord’s quarters to find Kurlin and let him out . . . unless. . . .The power failure. Without even emergency power to keep it running, the stasis tube would have opened by itself. Kurlin had merely had to let himself out. From the look on his face—and on Commander Loba Caldin’s as she approached—Ethan didn’t have to wonder if the doctor had revealed the test results which proved he wasn’t the overlord.
“Hello,” Ethan greeted Caldin as she drew near, and then he turned to the guards and nodded to them. “I thought Captain Reese sent you—”
“He sent us into stasis!” one of them snapped.
Commander Caldin and both guards stopped a half a dozen feet away from Ethan. The guards had their rifles trained on him as Caldin spoke, “In the name of the Imperium and the true overlord, Altarian Dominic—may his soul rest wherever it now lie—you are under arrest for suspicion of murder and high treason.”
“Excuse me?” Ethan didn’t think feigning innocence would work, but he had to try.
“You needn’t play dumb with me, whoever you are. Doctor Kurlin sent the proof to everyone on this ship. There is no way you could possibly be the overlord. You are wearing a holoskin, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll remove it before we have to strip you naked to do so.”
Ethan shook his head. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Guards! Search him!”
Ethan backed away from them, but he quickly fetched up against the back wall of the bridge and stopped. Tova had turned from the viewports to watch, her glowing red eyes trained on them as the confrontation unfolded before her. Ethan glanced at the alien, wondering what she was thinking.
Turning back to the advancing guards, he held up his hands in a shrug. “Fine, go ahead,” he said. “But you’d better arrest that man, too!” Ethan pointed up to Kurlin, and the old man straightened, his brow furrowing uncertainly.
“W-what for?” Kurlin stammered.
“Mass murder, and conspiracy.”
“I . . .”
The guards advancing on Ethan hesitated now, and one of them turned back to Caldin. “He’s right, ma’am. The doctor confessed to creating the virus which killed the crew of the Valiant.”
Caldin rounded on Kurlin, her face livid. “Is that true, Doctor?”
“You can’t prove anything!” he screeched in a reedy voice.
Now Kurlin was the one backing away, and Ethan grinned. “You miscalculated, Doctor. I’m not the only one with secrets to keep.”
Caldin hesitated for just a moment, watching as Kurlin retreated through the open doors of the bridge, but then in one smooth motion she drew her sidearm and shot Kurlin in the face. He collapsed, his body convulsing on the floor before he lay still, and then all eyes turned back to Ethan and Caldin nodded to him, her pistol now aimed at his face. “Do you confess to your crimes?”
“You’re going to trust a mass-murderer?” Ethan asked.
Caldin shook her head. “No.” She gestured to the guards. “Strip him!”
The two corpsmen reached for Ethan and began tearing off his white uniform, their hands groping all over him in their haste to find the holofield projectors he was wearing. One of the guards grazed the thin strip around Ethan’s neck and yanked on the fragile projector, momentarily interrupting the projection and allowing Ethan’s real features to shine through. The guards jumped suddenly back from him, as though he’d burned them and then every man and woman on the bridge bolted to their feet and drew their sidearms.
Caldin nodded to Ethan and smiled. “I thought you were acting odd lately. The way you seemed to have suddenly forgotten everything about Sythian tech made me wonder if you were going senile. But now I see the true reason for your ignorance.”
“What have you done with the overlord?” the comm officer interrupted, his expression twisted in fury.
Ethan shook his head. “This is not what you think.”
Caldin snorted. “Then what is it? Answer the man’s question. What have you done with the overlord?”
Ethan shrugged. “The overlord you all knew was an imposter, too. I’m just the stand-in who agreed to take over from him.”
Caldin began laughing. “You expect us to believe that? Yes, good one, deflect attention from yourself as a skinner by claiming that the real overlord was a skinner, too! So I suppose that makes your actions perfectly acceptable? How stupid do you think we are?”
“It’s the truth.”
“We’ll decide what’s true or not. You can’t hide from a mind probe.”
Ethan’s eyes widened at that. If they submitted him to a mind probe they’d find out everything, including his own role in the taking of the Valiant. If they weren’t planning to kill him for impersonating the overlord, they’d surely kill him for his part in spreading the virus which had killed more than 50,000 officers. He was as guilty as Kurlin.
Caldin went on, “Put him in stun cords, and lock him in the brig. We don’t have time to stand around listening to this man’s lies anymore—oh and disable that holoskin! I want to see his face.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ethan watched the stun cords being tightened around his wrists, and then he saw one of the guards reach up and break the holofield emitter around his neck. Suddenly Ethan’s real appearance was revealed. More gasps rose up from the crew, but that was just the reality of it sinking in. No one actually recognized him. And why would they? He was just a lowly freelancer and ex-con. The one man who might have recognized him was the same one who’d betrayed him a moment ago—the man who now lay stunned on the deck just outside the bridge.
And as irony would have it, they were about to become cellmates.
Chapter 23
Alara stared at the grid, her eyes wide and blinking while her hands and feet moved mechanically to evade the swarms of incoming missiles. She’d had to ask Ethan to turn down the volume on the missile lock warnings, because they’d fast become deafening. Her afterburners were pushed up to the max and running out of fuel.
“Form up!” Captain Reese said over the comms. She could barely hear him over the steady roar of the thrusters. It felt like her head was actually inside the exhausts. “We’re getting out of here, Guardians!” the captain went on.
“We’ll cover your retreat,” Ithicus said, and Alara felt a stab of regret. Neither of the Mark II’s would make another jump. Outnumbered several hundred to one, there was no way either Ithicus or his wingmate would survive.
One of the missile lock alarms beeping in Alara’s cockpit became a solid tone, and Alara stomped on her right rudder, only to see a missile go flashing by her cockpit in a bl
inding blur, passing so close that she could feel the heat of it radiating through her canopy.
A waypoint appeared on the star map, behind her current position, and Alara pulled up hard to loop back the way they’d come.
“Head to that waypoint, Guardians! We’ll make the jump as soon as we’re clear.”
Alara roared by a pair of Sythian shell fighters that had been on her tail, and then glanced at the star map to see the rest of the guardians forming up and roaring away from the enemy at top speed. What was it her AI had said?
Even the fastest bird must eventually land to rest its wings.
Where were they supposed to land? Alara pulled every evasive maneuver she could think of to shake the remaining missiles off her six. She was flying on sheer instinct alone. Lasers and missiles spun away to all sides, never touching her fighter. And then, abruptly, Alara noticed that the alarms had quieted, and all that was left was the roaring of her engines. A quick look at the grid revealed that they were now out of range of the enemy fighters. She breathed a deep sigh and shook her head.
“Start spooling for SLS!” Captain Reese called into the comm. “They’re going to try to jump that wormhole ship, wherever it is, into our flight path as soon as they see what we’re doing, so we need to keep maneuvering. I want you all to pick a slightly different heading. Keep ‘em guessing.”
“Skidmark, you’re crazy!” Gina said. “We’re all going to end up jumping in separate directions, and we’ll be stranded in the middle of nowhere!”
“Not if you make sure your actual heading matches the one plotted to reach the rendezvous just before the jump. It’s the only way we’re getting out of here.”
“Frek you, Adan! If I suffocate all alone in the middle of deep space I’m going to find you in the netherworld and choke you to death!”
“Cut the chatter, Five. You have your orders. As for Three and Four, just try to keep clear of the enemy, and we’ll send a shuttle back for you.”
“Roger that,” Ithicus said.
Alara watched her SLS start spooling up and the countdown appear on her HUD. As soon as that happened, her flight controls were automatically disabled, but she told Ethan to re-enable them.
“Alara, you will not jump to the coordinates you specified unless you maintain your current heading.”
“Just do it, Ethan! I don’t have time to argue. I’ll get back on that heading before we jump.”
“If you’re off by even half a degree, you’ll still end up jumping millions of kilometers away from the rendezvous.”
“I’ll handle it! Just paint the jump vector on my HUD so I can find it again.”
“As you wish.”
A green line appeared before her, stretching out to infinity, and Alara’s flight controls came alive in her hands. She kept a steady eye on the heading indicator at the top of her HUD, trying not to let the green desired heading get too far from the red actual heading. As her jump timer ticked down to two and a half minutes, she began decelerating for the jump. A quick look at the star map showed the enemy fighters gaining on them almost instantly. The pursuing shells would close to firing range before they could make the jump.
“Frek . . . we’re going to have company!” Guardian Nine said, noticing the same thing.
Even as he said it, Alara saw both of the Mark II’s on the star map break off the Guardians’ flight path and head back toward the pursuing fighters.
“Ithicus, what are you doing?” Captain Reese demanded. “Get back here now!”
“Negative, Lead. We’re going to cover your retreat.”
“Firestarter!” Reese growled.
“Ruh-kah!” Ithicus roared as he and his wingmate fired off a string of Hailfires at the wave of approaching shells. Because the enemy fighters were larger, the novas’ targeting computers gave them firing solutions long before the Sythians came into range. Alara watched on the grid as more than a dozen Hailfires streaked out toward the enemy formation. The shells opened up on the approaching warheads with lasers, but the Hailfires split apart early, spiraling off in all different directions before even one of them could be shot down. Now there were dozens of warheads streaking toward the enemy fighters. The shells tagged four, and the rest hit them with fiery bursts of light. Twelve enemy fighters winked off the grid.
It didn’t even make a dent in the enemy formation.
Alara shook her head, watching on the grid as the Mark II’s switched to pulse lasers and began strafing the shells at extreme range. Then the Sythians were in firing range, and hundreds of purple stars shot out from their formation. Alara held her breath, watching as those missiles swarmed toward Ithicus and his wingmate.
“Eject, Three, eject!” Captain Reese yelled.
Guardian Four, quiet on the comms until now took that moment to reply for the both of them. “So we can be captured by Sythians? I’d rather die.”
And then the wave of missiles reached the Mark II’s, and Alara looked away as the grid flashed brightly with their deaths.
“Thirty seconds to jump,” Alara’s AI said. “You should return to your original heading now. It will take time to correct your momentum.”
Alara heard the enemy fighters begin locking on to her, and she grimaced. It was a bad time to stop maneuvering, but there was no helping that now. She brought her nova back in line with the green jump vector painted on her HUD. The heading indicator said it would take 20 seconds to correct her heading to that vector, and then the countdown to SLS reached 25 seconds, and missile lock alarms sounded out in a flurry. Alara listened to the slightly different tone of beeps which indicated the enemy missiles were locked on and tracking her.
“Ten seconds,” the AI said, counting down to her jump. “Nine, eight, seven . . .”
Alara’s eyes dipped to the grid to watch the enemy missiles closing in on her fighter.
“One . . .” The nearest missile reached her, and then space dissolved in a blinding light.
For a moment she thought the missile had reached her before she’d jumped, but then Alara saw the bright star lines and streaks of SLS, and she sat back with a sigh. She half expected to feel her fighter rocked by an explosion even now after she’d gone to SLS, but of course missiles couldn’t follow her at superluminal speeds.
Alara’s eyes turned to watch the countdown on the SLS icon which had appeared on her HUD. It counted down from fifteen minutes. She would reach the rendezvous soon. Alara could only hope the Defiant was there already waiting for them. If not . . .
She refused to finish that thought. Alara passed the time fidgeting nervously and trying to ignore the maddening itch of sweat trickling between her shoulder blades.
By the time the reversion timer reached ten seconds, and Ethan began an audible countdown, her nerves were frayed, stretched taut like rubber bands, just waiting to snap. Her hands began to shake and she felt cold all over.
Then the star lines narrowed to pinpricks of light, and Alara’s gaze shot to the star map. She saw the remaining three Guardians appear around her fighter, meaning all of them had managed to return to the jump heading in time, but that was all she saw.
“Where’s the Defiant?” Gina asked.
“Frek . . .” Tenrik muttered. “She didn’t make it.”
Alara checked her coordinates just to make sure, but they’d jumped in right on top of the rendezvous. They were in the right place. Despite all the odds, they’d made it. And now . . .
“What’s your fuel look like, Guardians?” Captain Reese asked.
“Down to 17%,” Gina said.
“Same here,” Tenrik replied.
“Likewise,” Alara added. “Where’s the nearest habitable planet?”
“Odaran. We won’t make it there on 17% fuel unless we accelerate up to some skriff-krakkin’ speed and drift in real space—then the problem would be our air supply, not fuel. And even if by some miracle we did make it, we’d still have to get past the Sythian ships in the system.”
“So . . . what the frek now?�
�� Gina asked.
The captain took a deep breath and let it out over the comm, sounding to Alara’s ears as a burst of static. “We wait.”
* * *
Commander Caldin watched the reversion to real space on the captain’s table, waiting eagerly for Guardian Squadron to appear on the grid. As soon as the theater of space where they’d set the rendezvous snapped into focus, she saw a handful of green specks appear on the grid—just four of them. That’s it? she thought. We had fourteen!
“I have contact with the Guardians!” the comm officer announced. “They’re asking what took us so long.”
“Bring them in! We need to set out immediately in case the Sythians decrypted our comms. Helm, report! What’s our fuel?”
“We’re down to 35%,” Damen Corr replied.
Caldin frowned. “We’d better save what’s left, then. All right—as soon as our novas are aboard, set course a few million klicks from here, any direction, but use the real space drives. If the Sythians decrypted our comms and somehow figured out the coordinates of the rendezvous, I want to have a good head start. Meanwhile, I’ll go debrief our pilots myself. Don’t bother informing them of the change of command. I’d like to see their reactions. Petty Sergeant Corr—” Caldin turned to get the helmsman’s attention.
He looked up at her and ran a hand back through his short red hair, looking weary and stretched.
She nodded to him. “You’re now Deck Sergeant Corr, and the XO of this ship.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said, his blue eyes widening.
“You’re in command while I’m gone. Keep me posted. I’ll be on the comm if you need me.” With that, Caldin started down the gangway to leave the bridge.
“Ma’am!” The comm officer called after her. “Captain Reese is asking to speak with the overlord! What should I say?”
Caldin scowled as she strode down the gleaming gangway. “Tell him the overlord is busy!”
Captain Adan Reese had a lot of explaining to do.
* * *
As soon as he popped open his cockpit and climbed down onto the wing, Atton noticed Commander Caldin already waiting for him on the deck. She was flanked by none other than the two guards he’d stunned and put in stasis tubes. “Good morning, Captain Reese,” Caldin said.
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