Spectra's Gambit (35 page)

“How long do you think we have?”
she asked.

“Since the station is deploying their first line of defense, I would guess only a few hours. They would want to wait as long as they could before tipping their hand, but they need their fleet in place before the attackers arrive,”
I sent back.

We waited for some hours before the incoming fleets started jumping in. I expected the command ships to be among the last to arrive, so we waited for them to fully deploy before we made any move.

“There are a lot more attackers than defenders,”
sent Saraphym.

“The station has only begun to deploy. They will probably wait until the battle is underway and the attackers fully engaged before deploying the rest of their defense,”
I sent back. This would be an interesting battle. The attacking fleets were large enough to overcome what was deployed, but I suspected that the station had a lot more still to call on.

“Which ship is our target?”
she asked.

“Good question. Usually the command ship will be in a well-protected position and act as the hub of the communications network. The energy from communications is easy to spot because it will be in tightly-packed beams,”
I sent. I could easily discern the target ship, but I decided to wait and let her look for it.

After a while she sent,
“There! That one looks like the center of a spider’s web! Is that it?”

“Yes. Good work! Let’s get on board and see what we can find out,”
I sent.

We slipped aboard the ship, using our habitual method of entering through an exhaust port. Once on board we found some uniforms and pulled them on over our armor. We planned to avoid being noticed, but the uniforms would help us blend in better if we were.

The ship’s crew was a surprising mix of cyborgs and normal humans.
“Very odd. Cyborgs typically hate anything or anyone that is not one of them.”

“They seem to be getting along fine here,”
she sent.

“Yes, and that worries me.”
I led her down some maintenance tunnels until we found what I was looking for: a place where the data feed for the primary data core ran through an access panel which I could open without alerting anyone to our presence.
“Okay, we just hook up this datapad, close the access panel, and hide for a few hours while it works.”

“What if someone detects it?”
she asked.

“Then they will come here to retrieve it, and I’d rather not be around when they show up,”
I sent.
“We will check on it later. Meanwhile, let’s find a place where we can observe the chief officers.”

We stayed in the maintenance tunnels and moved as quietly as we could until we found a planning room where a human sat at a tactical display and called out orders. Around him cyborgs worked silently, presumably carrying out his orders.

Nothing exciting was happening, and I was considering changing our location when another human walked in and said, “Jashier, sir, the station has deployed a second wave and now matches our numbers.”

“That is not possible,” responded Jashier. “That first wave should have emptied the station completely.”

The man who had entered touched the display, and it changed to show the position of the fleet and all the defenders. “It is all Class Four tech, sir.”

When the Empire had fallen, there had been a general regression in the level of technology. The attackers’ fleet was mainly what had become known as Class Three tech, which was one generation of technology removed from the Empire, which was arbitrarily labeled Class Four. Some of the more remote areas had fallen to Class Two or even Class One. A full battle fleet of Class Four tech had not been seen since shortly after the Great War.

“That is not possible!” roared Jashier. “How could they have anticipated our movements and assembled this much firepower in time?”

I watched on the screen as the attacking fleet was beaten back. The defenders’ craft were superior to the attackers’ and had the support of the station. The attackers would be wise to turn tail and retreat now.

“Shall we retreat?” asked the man.

“No! We will destroy them yet. Deploy the penetration troops and take that station down from the inside. Then move the fleet out of range of the station’s weapons array. Concentrate our attacks on their lines of communication.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man.

“We’d best get that datapad and get off this ship,”
I sent.

“You don’t think they can win?”
she asked.

“Whoever that Jashier is, he is a fool. He is outgunned and outmaneuvered. A wise leader would retreat to fight another day. Instead, he will lead these men to their death.”

We made haste back to where the datapad was hidden and retrieved it. From there we slipped off into space, ditching the uniforms in the exhaust tunnel where they would be destroyed by the extreme heat. As we flew away from the command vessel, the battle raged all around us. The energies flying about were almost intoxicating just to look at.

A quick look at Saraphym reminded me that she was not yet ready for this level of temptation. I guided her out of the battle to a safer place where we could watch the fight play out. The battle was heavily one-sided, and I suspected that there was still
at least one more wave of defenders to launch.

“I don’t get it. He is savvy enough to get cyborgs and humans to work together and command two battle fleets, but too stupid to see he has lost this battle,”
I sent.

“Unless he never intended to win,”
she sent back.

“What do you mean?”
I asked.

“My father taught me to ask unlikely questions when trying to figure out the motives of others. What if Jashier never intended to win this battle?”
she asked.

“Okay, that is a reasonable question; but then why fight it? What is his goal?”
I asked.

“I haven’t worked that out. Who is hurt most by a loss here?”
she asked.

“I would guess the cyborgs, since they make up the majority of the attacking force,”
I sent.
“Maybe that is his game: he is a double agent for the defenders?”

“If so, that is one heck of a score for the defenders,”
she sent.

“Yeah, unbelievably good, but there is no doubt that he appears to want to lose this fight in the biggest way possible,”
I sent.

“What was his comment about a penetration team?”
she asked.

“I expect he means that he is sending some of the cyborg troops to board the station and try to take it over, or destroy it from the inside, while he draws the fight out here,”
I sent.

“So he thinks he can win that way, then?”
she asked.

“If so, he’s wrong. It will be just as much of a failure as his initial attack. You make a move like that after you force the station to launch most of its troops to defend, not while the station is still fully staffed and operational,”
I sent back.

We watched the fight take place below us. The plan was to link back up with the Nemesis a full day after we had left it. That should give them plenty of time to complete their missions and get out. It also had the nice side-effect of leaving me and Saraphym alone out here for a good long while.

“How is it going, Chrimson?”
asked Kymberly.

“Looks like it’s done,”
I sent and disconnected the datapad from the terminal.
“Now we just have to get off the station before someone notices us.”

“You mean like them?”
asked Jade.

“Hey! You there! What are you doing?” asked one of the station’s crewmen.

“Nothing, sir,” I said. “Just routine checks.”

“Guards!” he yelled and men came running.

“I don’t think he believed me
,
”
I sent.

“Run, Chrimson!”
sent Kymberly as the station guards moved in on our position.

We were trapped in a tight junction. There was no way we could all get away, and it looked like Kymberly was going to sacrifice herself so that I could get away with the datapad.

“Take this!”
I tossed her the datapad and charged away from them, straight at the front line of the human guards. My massive body hit their line and sent them flying back out of the way.

“Head to an airlock and jump out. We will hone in on your armor and pick you up,”
sent Kymberly as she and Jade took advantage of the distraction I made to run in a different direction.

I ducked my head and continued to run at full force down the hall as more guards appeared. It occurred to me that this was probably not the best plan, but it was the only one I could think of.

Human voices cried out for me to halt, and blaster fire began to erupt around me. Amazingly, they seemed to be rather poor shots, as I had not been hit. It wasn’t long before my luck ran out and there was a sudden sharp pain in my leg as my armor absorbed a direct hit. I lost my balance and flew into the wall snout-first. As I tried to get back up I felt another blast hit me square in the back, slamming me back down, and my world faded from red to black.

When I finally came to again, I was lying on the floor of a human-sized cell. My head was spinning, and my left leg did not want to work anymore. I tried to sit up, but I felt too lightheaded to move more than absolutely necessary.

Focus, Chrimson! You need to keep your head about you!
I thought to myself. Kymberly had instructed me to cooperate fully if I were ever captured, and not to worry; she promised that they would come to rescue me. I took a few deep breaths and lay there trying to determine how badly I was hurt.

Eventually I was able to slide over to a wall and used it to prop myself up so that I could look around. My leg was a bloody mess, but the rest of me looked uninjured. Any attempt to move my leg sent a sharp spike of pain through
my body and threatened to black me out again.

“Chrimson, are you rational yet?”
came Master Spectra’s voice in my head.

“Master?”
I sent back.

“We have been waiting for you to wake up for a couple of hours now. We are nearby and will break you out soon,”
she sent.

“Thanks, Master, but I don’t think I can walk or move much at all,”
I sent.

“Now that you are awake
,
we can fix that. First, I want to deliver a message to these folk. Can you speak?”
she asked.

“I have not tried, Master,”
I sent.

“Get the guard’s attention and tell him I will be there in one hour to get you. Advise him that if he cooperates, we will let him live,”
she sent.

“Master, that seems unwise. He will just call for help
,
”
I sent.

“Which is exactly what I want him to do. They need to know that we are not to be messed with, and that it is not acceptable to throw one of us into prison, especially without proper medical care,”
she sent.
“We will make an example of this prison block right under the cameras so that everyone will know we mean business.”

I inched myself higher until I was sitting up properly and then called out, “Hey, you!” as loud as I could. I was relieved to find that both my voice and my hearing were working.

I could see a guard sitting with his back to me at a desk, but he did not move. I yelled again but he still ignored me. I reached out with my power and removed the blaster from the holster at his side. It took a little effort, as I had to work the holster’s safety catch at the same time as pulling the gun out in the proper orientation, but this was one skill in which my former teachers had trained me. They wanted me to be able to disarm any target quickly.

Once the blaster was free, I used my power to slam it into the force-field wall that sealed my cell. There was a loud crack, accompanied by a shower of sparks that seemed to go everywhere at once. The guard jumped out of his seat and turned to face me, his hand going to his empty holster.

“I doubt if that gun will work anymore; sorry about that. Maybe next time you will look when you’re called,” I said.

He came over to the wall and asked, “Why should I listen to a lizard scum like you?”

“Because I have a message for you. In about an hour, Master Spectra will be here to take me home. If you want to live, you will stay out of the way.”

“Right; she is just going to waltz into this maximum-security prison and walk out with you in tow? Not likely.”

“Suit yourself. Honestly, I would prefer if she turned you into a zombie; then you might at least serve some use.”

“You talk big for a cripple,” he said.

It was a strain on what was left of my energy, but I reached out and picked up his chair with my telekinesis and tossed it into the force field right next to him. He sprang back as a shower of sparks rained down on him. “I could do the same to you at any time, but Master Spectra wants to give you a chance to live. It’s up to you what you do with it.” I was bluffing. I could barely keep my eyes open. The stress of lifting a man’s weight in my current condition would definitely be beyond me
.

He looked over at the chair, which was only a burnt, mangled remnant of what it once had been, then seized his comm. and called for reinforcements.

“Well done,”
sent Master Spectra.

Thanks to the transparency of telepathic communication I knew she’d found my little demonstration humorous.
“Thanks, Master, but I don’t have much strength left.”

“You won’t need it. Just stay awake and I will handle the rest,”
she sent.

Men started to pour into the room, all wearing heavy armor. They quickly fanned out around my cell and one of them, I assume the commander, walked up to the force field and said: “Any more games and I will kill you where you sit. As long as your people think you’re alive, it does not matter if you actually are.”

“You have ten minutes. I suggest you call your family and tell them goodbye,” I said. I did not know what Spectra had in mind, but one thing was sure: she had no need to bluff.