Chapter 41
The infiltration team gathered at the freighter’s hatch. Each of the techies stared at Mace with wide eyes, their hands either clamped around their satchels or palettes. The tapping of Callista’s fingers was the only sound until Grey lifted a pulse cannon to his shoulder and Spiro snorted.
Grey shrugged. “Never leave home without it.”
“Autonomous shielding?” Cache asked Callista.
The techie swallowed, her face pale. “Sending you the frequencies now.”
Cache nodded to him, and Mace took point. Their vambraces beeped as one. The warriors adjusted the settings on their weapons to the frequency of the defenders’ personal shielding.
“All right, people.” Cache stared at each one of them. “Let’s get this done.”
Weapons aloft, Mace opened the hatch. As they’d hoped, the Phalanx’s frontal assault had distracted the defenders. All CORE personnel in the bay ran to battle stations, no one paying attention to the freighter.
They’d gotten halfway to the exit when they were noticed. In rapid succession, Mace took out the three defenders closest to them. Laser fire erupted behind him, but he trusted Spiro, Betel, and Cache to take care of it while he cleared the path ahead. Beside him, Grey used the pulse cannon, wiping out five defenders with one blast.
As the last of the weapons fire behind him died down, a shadowy silence followed them out the bay and into the corridor. A pair of defenders cornered ahead of them, and Mace fired two shots taking them out. Each corridor they cleared brought them closer to the command center.
Their luck ran out in the Section B atrium, the area laid out almost identical to the one in Section C.
Backs pressed against the bulkhead, Mace stared at each of team members, mind racing. He should have expected it. They were trapped. Defenders guarded every angle of the atrium, and they’d taken defensive positions behind them as well. Those pairs of defenders, easily neutralized, had only been decoys.
Right now, they had no place to go. If Mace stuck his head out, his brains would be splattered against the bulkhead.
“Any suggestions?” Cache asked beside him. The techs on her other side vibrated with fear.
It was such a blasted mistake to bring them. He glanced at Grey, who shook his head. Betel and Spiro didn’t share any ideas either. Mace settled his eyes on Cache. “I have one, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Try me,” she said, her tone edged.
“Blow a hole in the lift and rappel twenty decks.”
Cache’s eyebrows arched with understanding. “I actually do like it. Subtle.”
He cocked his head to the techs.
“They’ll be fine,” she said in answer to his silent question. “They’re tougher than they look.”
Mace shook his head. If they were any less tough, they would be a puddle of piss. “Grey, open up the lift on my mark. Cache, get the techs secured into bungees.” He looked at Spiro and Betel. “What are you two hoarding?”
“A little of this. A little of that,” Spiro said, pulling out a smoke grenade from the vest he wore.
Betel grunted and took out a flash bomb from his pant pocket.
Raising his eyebrows in appreciation, Mace waited for Cache to secure the last techie, then nodded to Grey. His friend aimed at the main lift and fired. A deafening blast echoed a second later, shattering the lift’s walls.
“Eyes,” Mace said in a low voice.
Everyone looked away as Betel and Spiro threw their toys. An earsplitting boom accompanied a blinding flash. Smoke billowed everywhere.
Cache ran the techies through the chaos, adding her cover fire. Their bungees stretched tight as they fell through the chasm Grey had created. Mace heard one of them scream the entire way, thought maybe it was Newton. The five warriors used ropes to follow a second later, landing on a heap of rubble covered in dust.
“Seal that,” Mace ordered Grey, motioning for the techies to get as far away as possible.
“Fire in the hole.” Grey tossed a grenade upward, then ran for cover as Mace ducked around the corner with the others.
The explosion rocked through them, raining more debris until the shaft was totally unusable.
“That was fun,” Spiro said, stepping away from the bulkhead.
“You’re all insane,” Callista murmured. She sat against the bulkhead like her legs had given out, her breathing labored, head bent between her knees.
Spiro shrugged. “Probably.”
“Shouldn’t we have gone in the other direction?” Newton asked, his voice sounding raw as he pointed to the overhead. “Like upward.”
“Come with me,” Cache said and led the team under a low corridor—even the shaky-legged Callista—ducking under a low beam.
The engine core pulsed its hum close by. In its outer cylinder, they wouldn’t see it in the next part of their journey.
“We’re in the scrubbers,” Callista breathed, wiping the soot from her cheeks.
The small robotic creatures collected condensation, clicking against the metal framework, and were oblivious to the station’s change in command.
“And sixty decks above is the command center,” Mace said, coming to stand beside her.
“Sixty?” Newton asked, voice weak.
Mace pointed to the ladder disappearing into the dark space. “Let’s get climbing.”
Panic clawed at Nia’s throat. The Phalanx rocked again as she gripped the ladder on the side of the Condor. Every second step upward was pure agony as knives stabbed her ankle. No one stopped her, everyone too busy with the battle happening outside. When she got to the top, she pushed herself over the edge with her good foot but landed on her bad with a hiss with pain.
The inside of the Condor was so much bigger without Mace behind her. Too big. She could barely reach the controls if she sat in the seat properly. Mace hadn’t told her how to adjust the seat, but she searched.
Something clacked behind her as the seat moved forward. She took a quick look and saw a med kit. A whoop of joy left her lips. She could fix her messed up ankle. Her movements jerky, she grabbed it.
Propping her foot against the control panel, she used the scanner and regenerator to heal her ankle. It only took a few minutes, and the swelling disappeared, the pain easing. But during that time, the Phalanx rocked around her in a continuous rhythm, like it was being bombarded nonstop. It didn’t bode well for her getting off the ship.
Nia tried to calm her jumpy heart as she went through all the pre-flight checks she could remember. The canopy closed on a whine. Once closed, her view of the bay blocked by the inactive viewer, she stared at the control panel in alarm.
How was she supposed to get clearance to leave without being shot down?
This is a stupid idea.She should have tried to head to the bridge. The ship rocked again. Maybe there wasn’t a bridge left to go to.
She touched the viewer control. Her eyes blinked at all the information streaming in front of her, disorienting. In the bottom corner of the feeds, an image of the Phalanx’s exterior made her gasp. Guardians fired continuously, like they were trying the punch a hole through the shields, and the Phalanx wasn’t moving out of the way. Orion beckoned in the distance. She was so close!
Her heart in her throat, Nia touched the comm. “Um, hello? I need clearance to leave the Phalanx. Can someone help me?”
The comm crackled, then a masculine voice echoed over the line. “Identify yourself. Why are you using the emergency bridge channel?”
“The bridge! That’s what I needed. I’m Nia in the CORE Condor, shit, I don’t remember what the call numbers are, um, requesting to depart from the starboard aft hangar. I’m Commander Mace’s former captive. Oh, blast. I wasn’t supposed to say that. Okay. Here’s the truth. I saw a traitor. One who was in the engine core the day the CORE attacked. He’s headed to Orion. I need to identify and stop him. And I know Admiral Krispin is in charge of this vessel and Mace said he didn’t trust another man more with his life…and so I’m trusting him with my life. Stars above, this sounds so stupid. Mace said he was going to Orion. The traitor was going to Orion. So I need to get to Orion, okay?”
Silence echoed on the other end of the comm, and Nia banged her forehead against the control panel. She’d never sounded less intelligent. What the hell was she doing?
When she lifted her head, two Tellusian warriors were making their way toward the Condor. Oh, shit. This was it. She was going to be arrested and put in bonds.
But they stopped a few meters away.
The voice on the comm made her jump. “Condor Echo Two Six Two, you are cleared to depart. Safe journey. Out.”
Nia let out a breath. How had that even worked? Fingers shaking with adrenaline, she engaged the thrusters and hovered above the deck. The ship hummed and groaned. Why hadn’t it made those sounds when Mace flew it? And she was pointed in the wrong direction. Keeping an eye on her thrusters, she turned the ship between the two shuttles. She’d almost accomplished the task without incident, when the tip of the fighter’s wing grazed the one shuttle. She over-corrected and banged into the other one. The sound reverberated through her skull and made her fingers tingle on the controls.
Finally, she pointed in the right direction, and with a deep, fortifying breath, she punched the accelerator. Her head slammed into the seat as she jerked forward, through the shields and out the hangar.
Laser fire erupted in front her. Marauders, Strix, and mines careened all around. Nia screamed, banking one way then the next. A Guardian drifted at an odd angle, incapacitated. Escape pods shot out from its sides.
A mine headed right toward her. She over-corrected, and the Condor spun, making her stomach leap into her throat. It took her too long to get it orientated.
“Thrust balance. Thrust balance,” she repeated to herself.
Her comm crackled, then a feminine voice said, “Echo Two Six Two. Stay on this trajectory. We are here to escort you.”
Two Strix flanked the Condor, and Nia’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. Out of nowhere, orange bursts came at her, bouncing off the shields, then the Strix’s on the right. She accelerated, trying to get away. The Strix burst apart, debris raining toward her. Nia had no time to mourn the death, because the orange fire hit her shields over and over again. A Marauder headed straight for her. The repetitive screeching beep of a weapons lock echoed within the fighter. Her control panel displayed shield strength at eight-five percent.
The Marauder blew apart, chunks of metal composite sizzling against Nia’s shields. She banked to get away, almost hit the other Tellusian escort, and righted the ship as another Strix took the place of the destroyed one.
Oriondrew closer and closer. Her stomach no longer lived in her body.
Another worry toppled all the others. I don’t know where to land.
Thank the stars Grey had brought the pulse cannon. Defenders guarded the command center three deep. Mace and the rest of the team stayed out of sight near the disabled security checkpoint. They’d already thinned out the enemy ranks but needed one last push. A stunning blast from Betel’s grenade, followed by Grey’s second last shot from the cannon, and they broke through the line protecting the entrance.
As soon as he stepped into the command center, a shot narrowly missed Mace’s head. He dove for cover behind the secondary terminals, Spiro beside him. Using hand signals, he communicated with Grey across the space behind another bank of terminals. Cache remained in the corridor protecting her tech team.
Four defenders remained in defensible positions near the main holotable, their CORE techies huddled along the far bulkhead whimpering. Mace’s hand tightened on his gun.
Laser fire shot overhead, sparks cascading. As soon as the volley ended, Mace signaled Grey. He and Spiro broke around the terminal in opposite directions. Weapons fire blazed toward them. Spiro hissed. Mace dropped low, aimed, and shot a CORE general right between the eyes, leaving a wide hole through his forehead. Another short burst of fire followed, then silence.
“Grey, report,” he barked, fearing for a moment one of his friends was hurt or worse.
“Clear.”
Grey came into a view, and Mace stood to appraise the situation.
“Spiro, clear the rest of the area, make sure there are no surprises. Grey, make sure the CORE techies stay put. Take their PALMs.” Mace jerked his head to the half dozen men and women trembling in the corner before he walked back to the corridor and gestured to Cache. “The command center is yours, Commodore. Welcome home.”
A satisfied gleam entered her eyes before she herded the tech team in, all business. “Mouse, start unlocking key systems, we need weapons and navigation. Callista, check if they’ve hidden any survivors.”
Mace joined her and the techies at the holotable.
“There are Tellusians in the brigs.” Callista lifted her head to meet Cache’s eyes. “They’re not doing well.”
“As soon as it’s safe, we’ll send for the medical teams,” Cache said with a nod.
“Can we see the outside feeds?” Mace asked the techies in general.
“Give me a second,” Mouse responded.
The viewer flickered, went off, then every screen flashed with images of the outside battle. Mace focused on the Phalanx. Surrounded by six Guardians, they fired nonstop at the Tellusian Destroyer. It looked to be adrift.
“They’re dead in the water,” Cache said, almost in a whisper. “We need to help them.” She turned to the techies. “We need those mines online now.”
“Working on it,” said Callista and Mouse at the same time. Newton hadn’t resurfaced since going under the table.
“Oh, hell,” Callista breathed, her eyes panicked. A countdown started on the main viewer: Self-Destruct 29:59
29:58
29:57
29:56