Chapter 16 The Cavalry
The Cavalry
Polly
Eighty-five seconds.
I’ve run a thousand emergency calculations in my courier career. Engine failures in asteroid fields. Hyperspace coordinates that had to be perfect or we’d come out inside a star. That one time I had to calculate fuel consumption while a Morcrestian trade ship was actively trying to eat my hull.
This one has no solution.
Eighty-five seconds until impact. Two hundred forty seconds until help arrives.
The math doesn’t work. The math never doesn’t work—there’s always an angle, always a trick, always some impossible maneuver that makes the numbers sing. That’s what I do. That’s who I am.
Except right now, in this generator chamber that stinks of ozone and blood and the acrid tang of burned scales, the numbers are telling me we’re dead.
Through the bond, I feel Rynn’s acceptance. His peace. It should terrify me—this calm certainty that we’re about to be atomized by a fleet of corporate ships piloted by a man who’s clearly lost every marble he ever had. Instead, it wraps around me like a blanket, warm and steady.
Together, he sends. Whatever comes.
I look up at his face—beautiful and battered, scales still faintly glowing from the bio-flare that nearly killed him, golden eyes soft in a way that makes my chest ache.
And I think: Absolutely not.
I didn’t survive the Cassian Nebula stim-runners, three separate pirate attacks, and that one very confused Morcrestian who tried to eat my ship just to die because some corporate asshole has anger management issues.
“The Meridian ships,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. “They’re all slaved to the Eclipse’s tactical network, right? For coordination?”
Rynn’s brow furrows. Through the bond, I feel his exhaustion war with sudden interest. “Yes, but the network is—”
“Zip’s still in the fortress systems.” I grab his arm, feeling the residual heat of his scales through my gloves. “And Zip is very good at breaking into things he shouldn’t.”
Hope flares through our connection—bright and desperate and entirely earned. Because he knows my AI. He knows what Zip can do when properly motivated.
“Polly.” His voice is rough. “Even if Zip can access—”
“Trust me?”
His hand comes up to cup my face. His thumb brushes my cheekbone, and even now, even with death screaming toward us at ramming speed, that touch makes my pulse skip. “Always.”
“Then hold that thought.”
I tap my wrist comm. “Zip! Status on fortress network access?”
“CAPTAIN, I AM CURRENTLY INTEGRATED INTO APPROXIMATELY 847 SUBSYSTEMS, MOST OF WHICH WERE VERY POORLY SECURED. THE ZATERRANS ARE EXCELLENT AT HITTING THINGS BUT THEIR FIREWALLS COULD USE WORK.”
“Can you reach the Meridian tactical network?”
A pause. In AI terms, that pause is practically an eternity.
“THEIR SECURITY PROTOCOLS DROPPED WHEN THEY RECEIVED THE CONSORTIUM RECALL ORDER. POOR OPERATIONAL SECURITY. I AM DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED IN THEIR NETWORK ARCHITECTURE, CAPTAIN. IT’S FRANKLY INSULTING.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“THAT IS A YES DELIVERED WITH PROFESSIONAL CONTEMPT.”
Seventy-five seconds.
Suki’s voice crackles through the War Room channel, strained but steady: “Polly, I’m reading the ram trajectory. Even if we dump everything into forward shields—”
“I know. Working on it.”
“Working on what?”
Through the bond, I feel Rynn shift behind me. Feel his warmth at my back, his hand settling on my hip. Not restraining. Supporting. He’s letting me work—trusting me completely even as death bears down on us.
Stars, I love him.
Focus, Polly. Feelings later. Survival now.
“Zip, can you upload a virus to the Eclipse’s targeting computer? Something that would make it lock onto the wrong thing?”
“CAPTAIN, I CAN UPLOAD SEVENTEEN VIRUSES AND A RETROSPECTIVE CRITIQUE OF THEIR NETWORK ARCHITECTURE. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE THE WRONG THING TO BE?”
The plan crystallizes in my mind, sharp and desperate and absolutely insane.
“Rynn.” I turn in his arms, looking up at those golden eyes. “Your bio-signature—Voros has been tracking it across three sectors. His systems are locked onto you specifically.”
“Yes.” His jaw tightens. “What are you—”
“Can you push it brighter? Become the biggest target in the system?”
Understanding dawns on his face. Then horror. “If I flare that brightly, every Meridian ship will target me. I’ll be defenseless.”
“No.” I grab his face the way he grabbed mine earlier, forcing him to meet my eyes. “You’ll have me. And Henrok. And Suki. And apparently—”
That’s when the comm channel explodes with new signals.
“Polly!” Suki’s voice pitches up in shock. “I’m getting IFF transponders—OOPS signatures! Multiple ships dropping out of hyperspace!”
My heart stops.
“OOPS doesn’t have a fleet,” I say stupidly. “We have couriers.”
“You have *eleven* couriers.” Suki’s laugh is somewhere between hysterical and amazed. “And Mother. And she sounds pissed.”
The transmission cuts through the chaos like a knife through butter—familiar, exasperated, absolutely done with everything.
“OOPS-Actual to Pink Slip. Polly West, you have exactly thirty seconds to explain why my supposedly ‘routine diplomatic delivery’ has turned into a three-sector military incident before I reassign you to mail sorting for the rest of your natural life.”
I laugh.
It comes out broken and wet and borderline hysterical, but it’s still a laugh. “Mother. You came.”
“Of course I came.” Her voice softens, just for a moment, before hardening back into command efficiency. “You think I let my people get cornered by corporate thugs without backup? What kind of dispatcher do you think I am?”
A pause.
“Also, Suki owes me fifty credits. I called it in the betting pool.”
“There’s a betting pool?”
“Polly, there’s always a betting pool.”
Through the bond, Rynn’s confusion mixes with my overwhelming relief. He doesn’t know Mother—not really, not beyond what I’ve told him—but he can feel what she means to me. How her voice reaches into my chest and loosens something that’s been tight since this whole nightmare started.
Family. Found family. The kind worth fighting for.
Fifty-five seconds.
“Mother, we’ve got a situation.” I pull myself together, courier training kicking in. “Commander Voros is running a kamikaze trajectory. Every Meridian ship is targeting the fortress at ramming speed. Less than a minute until impact, and your fleet—”
“I can see the tactical display, kid. I may be old, but I’m not blind.” Mother’s voice is crisp now, all business. “All right, people, listen up. Standard protocol—we’re couriers, not a battle fleet. We can’t stop those rams.”
My heart sinks.
“What we can do is what we do best: be extremely annoying and hard to hit.” The comm crackles with multiple courier acknowledging. “Keswick Blockade pattern. Buzz them, make them dodge, buy time. And for the love of—someone remind me why I left my desk at Junction One.”
Forty-five seconds. The fleet is buying us time, but not enough.
“Polly, please tell me you have one of your terrifyingly creative plans.”
“Actually—”
Another voice joins the channel, calm and reasonable and somehow more intimidating than Mother’s aggression: “Coordinator Luzrak to all vessels. I am reading biosignatures consistent with elevated stress, combat pheromones, and—” A pause. “—at least one newly-formed mating bond.”
Stars and silence.
“Madge,” Luzrak continues, tone dry as cosmic dust, “you won the pool.”
“I always win the pool. Now focus on not dying.”
I watch through the fortress’s external sensors as OOPS ships swarm the Meridian fleet like angry wasps.
They’re not engaging directly—couriers know better than to dogfight with military vessels—but they’re disrupting.
Close passes forcing evasive maneuvers. One ship actually scratches a destroyer’s hull paint on a hairpin turn.
“THAT’S MY SHIP!” A voice I recognize as Tanaka howls over the comm. “THOSE BASTARDS MADE ME REPAINT LAST MONTH!”
Courier ships. Fastest in the galaxy. Built for impossible deliveries, not combat. But speed is its own weapon when you use it right.
I watch three ships thread through the formation, forcing Meridian vessels to break trajectory or risk collision. Watch another pair execute a synchronized roll that puts them directly in front of a cruiser’s sensors, blinding it for precious seconds.
We’re good. We’re so good.
But the Eclipse isn’t breaking formation.
“That one’s not taking the bait.” Mother’s voice goes tight. “He’s past rational decision-making.”
Luzrak: “Pheromone analysis from the transmission suggests psychological break. He will not disengage voluntarily.”
“Great. Corporate commanders and their ego problems.” Mother sighs heavily. “This is why I drink.”
Thirty seconds.
“Mother.” My voice is steady now. I know what I have to do. “I have a plan. But I need everyone to trust me.”
“Kid, you’re about to tell me something insane, aren’t you.”
“Probably.”
“Go ahead. I’ve already had two near heart attacks this week. What’s one more?”
I lay it out fast—Zip’s access to the network, Rynn’s bio-signature, the targeting redirect. By the time I finish, there’s silence on the channel.
“Let me make sure I understand this,” Mother says slowly. “You want your bonded mate to make himself the biggest target in the system, relying on a sarcastic AI to hack enemy systems in real-time, hoping the redirect works before the flagship notices and corrects course?”
“Yes.”
“That is, without question, the stupidest plan I have ever heard.”
“I know.”
“It’s something I would have tried at your age.”
“I know.”
Another pause. “Henrok, can you get fortress shields concentrated on Lord Valorian’s position?”
Henrok’s granite voice rumbles through the comm: “Already routing.”
“Suki, targeting data coordination?”
“On it. I’ve got full sensor array feeding to Polly’s position.”
“Luzrak, keep those fleet ships busy.”
“Of course, beloved.”