Here Be Dragons (28 page)

Metatron
watched as
Gabriel
somersaulted to aim her ballista. She flew backwards, face to face with her pursuer. Her avram fired, and began to drift laterally in orbit.
Metatron
activated her own and matched the movement, and soon they were once more locked together.

“
Mr. Okoye,” Elena said. Ikenna raised his eyes to her, but Elena did not see them. Her own were closed again. “You served under Captain Muller. Do you think she is brave?”

“She came out here alone,” Ikenna said. “Yes, I think she is. Do you?”

“I do,” Elena said. “I think she’s the bravest woman I’ve ever known. She’ll complete the mission. No matter what.”

The sun exploded over the horizon, and the stars disappeared beneath its rays.
Gabriel
was going to drift right across it, and the light would hide the energy from her ballista. At this distance it would take only seconds for a shell to hit. But while
Metatron
could reload and fire again if she got the chance,
Gabriel
would have only one suicidal shot. Either she would die, or they both would.

Elena clenched her armrest with her left hand, and her control stick with her right. She gripped it so tightly that it shook, but her index finger rested lightly a millimeter from the trigger. She was afraid that if she let go, she would sink into the darkness and disappear.

“Keep use eye to eye, Mr. Yukovych,” she said, unseeing. “And don’t blink.”

Metatron
watched as
Gabriel
disappeared into the sun. She held her fire, unwilling to miss the shot, and waited for the blow that would kill both
Archangels
.

“Captain.” Ikenna looked to Demyan. After a moment the helmsman nodded, and crossed himself. “We have to fire.”

Elena was very still at her station, eyes shut, softly breathing. She looked as if she were asleep, fingers still wrapped around the trigger, but her lips, caked with dried blood, were moving. She was singing.

As Demyan and Ikenna watched, she let go.

Gabriel
burst from the corona seconds later, and
Metatron
prepared to attack. She had to kill
Gabriel
in the next minute, or at least shoot her antennae off, or it would have been for nothing. The targeting laser flashed, and struck an object directly ahead of the bow, only ten kilometers away. Her ballista energized.

Elena
hadn’t fired. She had just let go. The steel ball inside the chamber had been shoved down the barrel by the gas injectors, and out the open door and into the open space between
Gabriel
and
Metatron
. The ballista round had almost no velocity at all, but its target had plenty to spare.
Metatron,
in her haste, had forgotten the first rule of space warfare—never give chase.

She had faced her enemy without blinking, and their ballistas were almost perfectly aligned.
Metatron
overtook the round at a dozen kilometers per second, and it tumbled into her and slipped through the open gun port and into the muzzle. The ballista fired at that moment, and as
Gabriel’s
shell scraped the barrel and dug a trench into its wall,
Metatron’s
own round flew to meet it. They struck at an angle, and ricocheted against the inside of the ballista.

They cut through the walls of the barrel, and twin jets of plasma spewed from opposite sides into the housing. Burning steel and titanium cut the coils in a dozen places, and bolts of lightning arced through the cavernous chamber and incinerated everyone inside. The power surge looped back on itself and overloaded the system, and the surviving coils shot their braces and exploded. They shattered the bow entirely.

Chunks of her own hull diced
Metatron’s
sails and left nothing behind but seared metal ribbons. They sliced through the corridors and ripped her all the way down to amidships. The shrapnel severed pipes and wires, and cut the bulkheads apart like paper. Anyone caught outside the core compartments was shredded.

The hull collapsed, and half the atmosphere vented and blew into space. A sheet of flame danced briefly along
Metatron’s
body, and vapor clouds poured from her torn flanks and hung frozen above her. The electrical grid shorted out, and the delicate fiber optic networks snapped under the shock. Most of the ship went dark, and the remaining hatches slammed shut, though there was hardly anything or anyone left to protect. But the engine room had survived intact, and the fuel cells poured heat into the hull and roasted it from the inside out.

The bridge had come through unharmed, along with a handful of crew, but these were the unfortunate few.
Metatron
was now no more than a headless metal hulk. She drifted, bleeding and paralyzed, her living mind locked away inside a deadened body.

Elena awoke to a smile.

“Captain.”

Eyes still closed, she felt Ikenna’s hands on her shoulders for the second time that day. They were gentle, as was his voice.

“Mmm.”

“Captain, it’s over.”

Elena opened her eyes. Ikenna hovered next to her, grinning for the first time that she could ever remember. Demyan remained at his station, but he was smiling as well. There was another hand, on the back of her head. Rivkah held tight to Elena’s armrest. Tears ran down her face and washed valleys into the blood and grime that coated her skin.

Elena’s lips moved soundlessly. Ikenna ducked his head closer.

“Say again, Captain?”

“Status report,” Elena said.

Ikenna laughed.

“Impact.
Metatron’s
ballista is destroyed, her sails are gone, her hull has partially collapsed, and she’s coasting.”

“How long?”

“Five minutes, more or less.”

“Y the message?”

Rivkah and Demyan appeared confused, but Ikenna answered immediately.

“Well on its way.”

Elena shut her eyes for a long moment. Her mouth curved in a quiet smile, and rise and fall of her chest slowed. She appeared to fall asleep once more.

“Que hace ella?”

“Sorry, Captain?”

Demyan didn’t speak Spanish. Elena screwed up her eyes and dug deep for her English, but Ikenna answered first.

“Absolutely nothing.” He pushed back over to the watch station and double checked the sensors. “Her course is steady, guns hot and thrusters cold. Her avram is inactive. The damage appears to be catastrophic.”

Elena reached out a hand to bring up the image herself, and found that a blanket had been laid over top of her. She looked around at the crew, blinking slowly. They were all soaked in sweat. Even down to emergency power, there was too much waste heat for one shot up radiator to handle.

Rivkah spoke for the first time. Her hair was matted to her cheek by tears and sweat.

“You were shivering.”

Elena looked down at the blanket. It was dark, almost black in the dim light. Except at the edges, which were still a light blue. She reached for her touchscreen, and
Metatron’s
image appeared before her. Ikenna switched the view to infrared.

“She still has power. More than she can handle, as a matter of fact.”

So they were dying alive in there also.
Gabriel
’s own power problems were a blessing in disguise at this point. With all four fuel cells active, her crew would already be dead.

“Can you raise her?”

Demyan shook his head.

“I’ve tried. Their radio equipment is wrecked, and she can’t see or won’t respond to laser.”

“Casualties?”

“Hers?” Demyan asked.

“Nuestros.”

“Eleven dead, nine injured,” Rivkah said. “Twenty four in reasonably good health.”

“En total?” Elena blinked slowly.

“Yes, Captain. There’s some bumps and bruises in there, but they’ll live.”

“Can
Metatron
make it back to the Belt?”

Ikenna took a moment to answer.

“Her engine is offline. If she burns or lights the thrusters, the waste heat will overcome the crew. It would take between one hundred and one hundred twenty days at her current speed.”

“The outsiders have to know where we are,” Demyan said. “All that shooting, all those burns. They have to.”

“They’re probably confused as fuck,” Elena said.

That shocked a laugh out of the bridge, even Ikenna. A moment passed, and she spoke once more.

“Poor bastards.”

No one asked who she was talking about this time.

Elena looked at Hassoun, still slumped in his chair. His dead limbs twisted and turned in the air, rocking back and forth under inertia. She tried to imagine the agony and the sheer mindless terror that had consumed his last moments. Hassoun’s earnest vigilance had caught the nuke, had saved the ship, saved them all. And for that, he had died without a face. He had probably never even realized what was happening to him.

Hassoun would never go home again, but his name would return to a hero’s welcome. He would have a military funeral at Solstice, and a Muslim funeral in Alexandria, and both would be well attended, though the mourners would have no body to bury. There would be medals, decorations, his mother and father would receive the Thanks of the Global Assembly.

The men and women of
Metatron
would have nothing. They would never reach the Belt. They would be overheated and underfed, their wounded would suffer every minute, and their enemy would fall upon them soon enough. And if even by some miracle they returned safely, it would be to dishonor and disgrace. Deeply patriotic, devoted to the cause of the Global Union, they were traitors nevertheless, and would wear the mark upon their heads. Elena felt as though she were watching a dying man crawl on hands and knees through the desert, chasing after a mirage.

“There’s no chance of rescue,” Rivkah said. Elena realized that the doctor had never taken her hand away from Elena’s hair. “We have six lifeboats intact, and that’s just enough to hold those we have now.”
Metatron’s
own lifeboats appeared to have suffered catastrophic damage.

“And even if we tried,” Ikenna said, “the outsiders could attack right in the middle of the evacuation.”

Elena nodded. There could be a drone or a vessel approaching, even as they spoke.
Gabriel
too had been lame and helpless as the hunter had circled around her. But
Metatron
would lack even the small hope that she had known.

There was only one thing to do. She knew it was what Anne would want.

“Reload the ballista.”

Gabriel
trailed her sister watchfully. There was no grace here, no ballet, not anymore. They were two exhausted fighters clinging to one another in the ring.
Gabriel
didn’t try to approach, but maintained her distance carefully, almost respectfully.
Metatron
made no effort to flee, no attempt to fight. Her guns were active, gushing heat that the crew could ill afford, but to no purpose. She
drifted serenely in
Gabriel’s
gunsights, as if she were unaware.

Gabriel
had no missiles left. But her ballista was undamaged, and a final shell hovered in the center of its cradle, suspended perfectly by magnetic force. A final, invisible laser pulse reached out across the gap and tapped
Metatron.
She did not reach back.

A bitter taste flooded into Elena’s mouth to join the metallic sensation she already felt.
Gabriel
had taken three opponents unawares, but she had never fired on a helpless foe. Even
Metatron
had kept her weapons tight when she had discovered
Gabriel
beside
Gideon.
Now Elena knew why, with an internal clarity that her dimming eyes could not match. To spare
Gabriel
and bring her captain aboard the ghost ship, to try to convince her of the righteousness of
Metatron’s
cause, had been a foolish move, but one well meant. And it was the only reason that Elena and
Gabriel
were still alive. Anne had loved her after all, and hadn’t been able to bring herself to do what Elena would now.

Metatron
waited until the last moment. Her guns, armed and ready, suddenly went cold. Their power had been cut, and they automatically rotated and locked into their default position, aimed at the void.
Metatron
had laid her shield upon the ground. It was a either a sign of surrender, or salute.

Gabriel
fired.

The bridge was quiet. It seemed profane to speak aloud, and Ikenna hadn’t even bothered to report the impact. None of them looked at Elena. She broke the silence first.

“Abandon ship.”

There was nothing else for it. The irradiated hull, while nonfatal, was a hazard she couldn’t ask them to bear. And even with the fuel cells offline, the internal temperature would rise steadily until it became unbearable. The lifeboats were unarmed, but that was no matter.
Gabriel
was in no shape to fight, and even the meanest outsider drone could have defeated her now.

Demyan brought his right hand to his lips, and kissed the rosary that was wrapped around it. Elena had never noticed it before, but he’d probably had it with him always. She had trusted him to steer her ship, and never watched his hands.

“How is the medical staff?” Elena asked Rivkah.

“We lost Wen.”

“Divide the wounded in three boats, and split yourselves up. Keep the most critical for yourself.”

“I’ll get them ready to move now.”

Rivkah started for the door.

“Mr. Okoye, you’ll be in command.”

It took a moment for them to react. When Rivkah turned, Elena was already looking at her.

“Captain—what—”

Elena shook her head slowly, and smiled.

“My place is with
Gabriel.
I go where she goes.”

Rivkah floated up to her and took her by the hand.

“I’m not leaving any of my patients behind. You’re coming with us.”

“What did I tell you about giving orders on my ship? You know what happened to the last guy who tried that?”