Chapter 44
Sun Eater
Eight Sovereign Fleet destroyers. Sixteen fighter craft sourced by TCIP. And one enormous adapted cargo freighter that would carry the daring two-dozen hidden in its belly.
It was more than Fia had expected, but it might not be enough.
“Skee-la Tetta?” a short, bubbly human woman with bright purple braids asked.
Fia looked down at the woman as they both stood in the makeshift staging space, awaiting their mission briefing. There were plenty of humans present, so she did not stand out much, other than the vibrant hue of her hair and her shockingly cheerful demeanor.
“Shifting grounds, indeed. Where did you learn that?” Fia asked, smiling slightly.
The woman beamed. “One of the Sov folks, they said it was something y’all said when you were bracing for something big.”
“Not an inaccurate translation. And fitting, given our circumstances. This is certainly something … big.”
“If you don’t mind me askin’, what got you to sign up for this? Personal, professional, or uh … I don’t know what a third one would be. Paradoxical?” she said with a laugh, and Fia joined her in the chuckle.
“Personal. Someone I love is aboard the Karnel. I think that makes this more than professional.”
She had said the word out into the air before it had even registered in her mind. She spoke it to a stranger before she had even said it to him.
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” the woman breathed, her voice solemn. “Much more honorable than me. I’m here to get some good old-fashioned revenge.”
The woman wasn’t exceptionally muscular, but she squared up and punched the air with a surprising amount of strength.
“I do not intend to fight honorably,” Fia said with a slight grin.
Her new friend mimicked the expression and held out her hand in greeting.
“Well, pleasure to meet you, fighting-for-love Icthian lady. I’m Jess. If I don’t end up a dead smear on a Sol spear after this, you’ve gotta give me the whole sappy story. I’m a sucker for that shit.”
She returned the handshake with a small bow of the head. “I am delighted to have met you, vengeful warrior woman Jess. Keep your footing, and we will meet on the other side of this to swap stories.”
They all hushed as the dozen captains of the TCIP forces and Commander Parovek arrived on the gantry overhead. His voice boomed over the crowd, echoing off the massive arched ceilings above.
“Tonight is the inaugural flight of the force that will bring justice to Tau Ceti. No longer the Fleet of the Sovereign, not just the scattered militia of TCIP. Tonight, we band together under a new name. A new goal. A new banner that will carry us to victory. We will be that which devours the light of Sol. In your ancient tongue, we have wrought the name: Heliovor.”
The observation tank on the destroyer was more compact than she was used to, but this vessel was not meant for luxury.
It was a sleek, lean thing. Spending square footage on comfort meant less space for ammunition or fighters.
Her “diving bell” was just a narrow tube, recessed into the deck below the crew jump seats and sealed from above.
The water was sickeningly cold as she sank into it, and she signaled for the tank technician to close the hatch and initiate the data-links. She flexed her claws and let her tendrils flare as the innumerable threads of information swelled through her field of perception.
Twenty-four ships, and approximately two hundred souls per ship. They didn’t outnumber those on the F.V. Karnel, but if she could hide them until they were within visual range, they would have the element of surprise.
She keyed into the comms lines of the scattered teams within this massive group.
The voices from this newly formed battalion were many and vibrant.
Not just English, but a soothing blend of Icthian dialects, both new and old.
As they prepared, she heard teams reassuring themselves in Polish, Arabic, and even a bit of her favored Pan-Francais amidst the chatter.
So many voices, but none of them were his.
Soon. Soon, I’ll hear his voice again. Even if the words he says are rightfully hateful, I will hear him. See him. To make sure he’s safe. Even if he never wishes to see me again. This is what I was made for. I will protect him. From afar.
Her focus split and reflected between the two dozen ships.
The vast expanse of her control widened to engulf the entire sector of space they were entering.
The bright flare of scanners from the Federation stood out like neon pink pulses in her view.
One by one, she coiled a hush around them, dampening the disturbances the Heliovor ships left in their wake.
They were almost five minutes from visual range, and she had already exhausted three of her stimbeads.
Even with the chems dosed by the technician, this was an undertaking beyond anything she had attempted in the past, and she was faltering fast. It used to be one Sentu per ship, one footprint to conceal.
This was an order of magnitude more taxing, and she could feel her control slipping as they approached the last stretch.
She had to focus. She had to find her footing. This would all unravel if they were spotted too soon.
The image of Davik, his hands pressed to the outside of the tank, rose to the surface of her mind. She had been here before, overwhelmed and overreaching. He had been there to anchor her.
She couldn’t even remember what he had said. She could just recall the shape of his words. The way the sound resonated in the water. The way she could see the press of the pads of his fingers against the plexiglass.
She pressed her own hands against the wall of the tank, bracing herself against the curve of the cold, dark surface. Maybe it was the overloading of her nervous system, but she could swear she felt him on the other side.
The tactical coordinator of the newfound fleet spoke in her ear: “Reaching visual range in ten seconds. All units, prepare to break formation and engage at will. Breach vessels, lock coordinates. Rescue ships remain on periphery for recall.”
Ten seconds left to keep them hidden. She could grant them that.
“This is Rescue Ship Beta. What is your status, Breach Four?”
Fia could hear her pilot, the wild-haired Jess, calling over the comms to their dedicated breach team. They were en route to the prisoner quarters where Davik was being held. True to their name, they had breached the Karnel. Forcibly.
Their breach craft were fitted with a pyramidal reinforced hull on its nose, angled to pierce with the tip of the angular snout. After impact, terrifyingly powerful hydraulics on the interior tore open like a blooming flower to create an access point in whatever unfortunate ship they barreled into.
By all metrics she could see, that seal was holding. They were on their way.
“This is Breach Four. Seals confirmed. Minimal engagement at breach point. Karnel has kicked off lockdown ahead. Highest priority is overrides and route monitoring. We’ve woken them up, can’t un-ring that bell.”
“Confirmed. Pivoting to aggressive posture. Walk swift, Breach Four,” Fia replied.
She dropped a cluster of distracting, echoed signals along the Karnel’s sensors. It bought enough time to get the breach team deeper in without the Karnel pinpointing what was happening immediately.
But now, they had pushed past the point of obscurity. Now, they were blazing death in a trail that she would lead all the way to him.
They were a synchronized force of beauty. She watched her team with every camera feed she could find, and with her over-dosed strength, she disabled the seals between the bulkheads as they drove deeper into the belly of this forsaken beast.
Fia fed them the heading of enemy units, and they didn’t hesitate to act. With a zeal and trust she did not realize she had earned, they took her word as gospel and opened fire on her command.
They closed in on the prisoner holding cells and fanned out to gather the captives. Fia could hear confused chattering from the prisoners, but still not the familiar voice she had been searching for. She ripped through the video feeds with a growing sense of fear rising in her chest.
He wasn’t here.
Prisoner logs. Prisoner details. Check in, check out.
Meal details. Security incidents. Guard logs.
Maintenance registry. Every attainable point of data she thought might point towards him, she pulled into her wild tangle to survey.
None of it gave any sign. It was as if they had scrubbed him from the logs.
“RS Beta, we’re all accounted for minus one. Clear to recall?” the breach team sergeant called across the comms.
“Negative,” Fia said as she frantically scanned for anything, anything to cling to. “Yerevan is unaccounted for. Cell three.”
“Cell three, copy,” the sergeant replied.
Fia pulled up the visual feed of the holding cells.
The sergeant dragged a thrashing man in a guard uniform towards Davik’s cell by the front of his jacket.
She couldn’t make out the words, but she saw the man clutch at the sergeant and make some sort of pleading gesture.
Then, there was a gun pressed to his head, and the pleading melted into babbling and wide-eyed tears.
“RS Beta, can you confirm visual of Yerevan in the medic bay on this level?”
The medic bay. Why hadn’t she thought to look there?
She surged her focus back into the main network hub of that ship floor, flitting through the images until she saw one with the telltale bright, sterile lighting of a medical ward.
Three, four, five cameras that only showed just a handful of Sol Forces barricading the doors while the medical staff tended to injured soldiers.
Among the soldiers lay a prisoner shackled to his bed, with steel manacles that matched his titanium throat.
“Visual confirmed.”
“Affirmative, RS Beta. We are en route.”