The Empty Warrior (20 page)

On the bridge there was chaos. Crew members were screaming. Valessanna checked the spatial plot and could see that
Vigilant
was not resuming her course. She screamed urgently into her com link. “Maneuvering!” There was no reply. “Maneuvering!” she yelled again and still received no answer. She ordered the command chair to free her, pushed the spatial display to one side, and sat up so she could see the helm. The crewman there, Joella Darcon, sat frozen at her station, also free of her cocoon. That meant that the helm was under manual control—Darcon’s control. And yet she sat there immobile, unseeing, and unresponsive. Only her restraining belts and the fact that the chair was securely bolted to the deck had kept her from being thrown about the bridge as the ship had been struck.

With the helm station still in good working order and its operator uninjured, there was no easy way to override the panel from the command chair, or anywhere else for that matter. Instead Valessanna screamed at Darcon directly. “Maneuvering! Joella! Joella, look at me! Look at me now!” The crewman’s vacant gaze slowly turned toward her captain. Her mouth gaped; her eyes were wide with fear. Valessanna stared straight into her terrified mien and pointed an extended index finger directly at the bridge of her nose. She half spoke and half shouted, deliberately enunciating each word, malice dripping from every syllable. “Turn the ship away from the Vazileks now.” Or I will come off this chair and rip you head off with my bare hands, she may as well have added. Darcon sat frozen for one more second, before gathering herself and turning to her station.

Valessanna pulled the holographic plot back to her side and saw
Vigilant
begin to turn away from the attacking vessels. But again the ship was too slow. Part of another salvo blasted through the weakened shielding, blazing into the top of the stern, and taking out another engine. Fire and chucks of metal again erupted away from the hull. The great vessel shuddered and pitched up for a second time, complicating Darcon’s task of trying to bring her back on course. Fortunately no further strikes blasted through the shields in the following seconds and
Vigilant
was able to turn her stern to the Vazileks and once again project adequate shielding to safeguard her from her pursuers.

Valessanna’s com link was screaming as she settled back into the command chair. “For the love of Rock, what are you doing to my ship, Val?!” It was the always unpleasant and now screeching voice of an angry Calese Arkhus, the chief engineer.

“Calese,” she answered testily, “right now I have two Vazilek raiders on our tail that are trying to kill us. So stay off this channel and ready the deep drive. We’ll argue about this later.”

“I think not,” Arkhus replied icily. “That last shot was another direct hit on one of my engines. The explosion damaged the ones on either side as well. We’re working on both of them now but I’m not sure when or even if we can bring them back on line, and it will take damn near forever to get to deep drive velocity with four engines out. Just how do you plan to deal with this?”

Valessanna was momentarily stunned. She had not realized that the damage was so severe. “Calese,” she finally replied, “we need all the acceleration we can get. Do your best. Get those engines back on line if there is any possible way to do so. Captain out.” Before Arkhus could reestablish the connection, Valessanna instructed the ship to allow no more transmissions from the engineer to reach her com. Anticipating Arkhus’ next move, she turned to Busht. “Calese will be in your ear any moment. Deal with her, please.” The first officer’s only reply was a grimace.

The spatial plot was already revealing the truth behind Arkhus’ concerns. Although
Vigilant
was still pulling away from her pursuers, the rate of separation was visibly slowing. It would only be seconds before the now superior acceleration of the Vazileks would allow them to start closing the gap between themselves and the police cruiser, and that with
Vigilant
making only a shade over half the speed of light. It was a very long way to point nine two, the minimum velocity at which
Vigilant
was rated for deep drive activation. Engaging the drive at a speed anything less than that would mean heavy structural damage, if not outright destruction.

Valessanna pulled up the engine performance displays. Despite her anger and insubordinate behavior, Arkhus was indeed doing her best to increase acceleration. All of the remaining operational engines were blasting away at one hundred and twenty per cent of their maximum output, but heat levels were getting dangerously high. The ship could not take much more and yet she was only now approaching point six.

Behind the stern, the shields were taking a monstrous beating. Even with all of shield power directed aft, the generators were still straining to provide protection. Valessanna ordered the focus of the shields to be narrowed even more until only the engines and the deep drive were screened, leaving the wings and tail unprotected.

It did not take the Vazileks long to recognize what she had done. They split their two ship formation, moving away from each other as quickly as they could without losing ground. In only a minute the cruiser’s defenses again had to be widened to cover attacks coming from two radically different angles. Again the shield generators started to edge closer to failure, and there was no power available for
Vigilant
to fight back. With the engines burning well over their maximum output, the shield generators straining, and the deep drive powering up for light speed, there was no power in any system for the weapons to draw from. Charging them now was simply out of the question.

As the two Vazileks ceased moving away from each other and came to parallel courses with
Vigilant
they again began to slowly close the range. Each kilometer they gained enabled their weapons to strike with more violence, and each hit on
Vigilant’s
shields was more difficult to dissipate. Finally the shields could no longer block the entirety of the bombardment and bits of the lethal energy began to find its way through. Several hits impacted with enough residual power to cut through the hull and into the gun deck. Explosive decompressions shook the cruiser from amidships to stern. Klaxons wailed. Crewmen shrieked in terror. Some deserted their stations and ran forward toward the bow, seeking a safe haven. Valessanna checked the ship’s velocity. It was only point seven-seven light speed.

On the bridge, discipline was rapidly crumbling. The crew knew only too well that certain death was snapping at their heels. A crewman at one of the now useless weapons consoles suddenly freed himself from his chair and stood, looked furtively about the bridge, and then bolted out into the nearest corridor. Valessanna’s first impulse to send someone after him, but she thought better of it and ordered Busht to find a replacement. At that moment another explosion, this one somewhere close to the bridge, shook the vessel.
Vigilant
was nearing destruction.

“Maneuvering,” Valessanna bellowed desperately. “Prepare to engage the deep drive.”

Darcon, who had still not reengaged her cocoon, swung her chair around to face Valessanna. She whimpered between bouts of trembling that ran the length of her body. “Not fast enough,” were the only words her lips were able to form.

“Joella!” Valessanna yelled at her in the same way that had successfully penetrated her stupor minutes before. “Man your station and prepare to engage the deep drive!”

Darcon suddenly stood up from her chair, her breath coming in ragged gasps and her fists clenched at her side. “What is wrong with you?” she yelled, apparently aiming her ire at the Vazileks. “We’ve done nothing to you. Why do you hate us so? This is insane! What is the matter with you?”

“Joella,” Valessanna addressed her sternly. “Man your station!”

Darcon still stood unmoving. Then she began to bang her fists on the front of her thighs while a piteous wail escaped her throat. Suddenly she too sprinted from the bridge and was gone. Another crewman ran out after her. The monitor at the abandoned maneuvering station showed the ship moving at point eight-four.

Valessanna left her own chair and jumped down to the deck. As she landed another plasma impact wracked the ship, throwing her off her feet and tossing her about the bridge as if she were a dinghy in a typhoon. Only the impact of her left shoulder against a bulkhead stopped her momentum. She crumpled to her knees, then collapsed. The gold fabric of her uniform had been ripped in several places down her left side; beneath it blood oozed from wounds into the tight weave of the garment and through the sundered strands where her torn garb bordered the lacerations.

Lying prostrate on the plating, agony pulsing down her arm and flank, it took several long seconds before she could find the strength to push herself to her feet. Screaming invective at the walls, the pain, the Vazileks, and the universe in general, she staggered to the maneuvering station. As she reached it the inertial dampeners began to fail, nearly causing her to be torn away from her objective. But she hugged the backrest of Darcon’s former seat to her breast and held fast, preventing the g-forces from flinging her away to stern. The effort sent new ripples of pain running through her battered body.

Every inch she gained was an excruciating exercise in agony, but nevertheless she pulled and clawed her way forward until her head was next to the console, her body parallel to the deck, and her feet planted firmly against the backrest of the station’s chair. She held herself above the controls with her damaged left arm; hooking it over the top of the console while using her free hand to activate the drives. It took a few seconds for the starters to energize.

“Navigation, give me a plot!” she shouted, but the crewman there only stared at the viewscreens as if catatonic, watching as the pursuing Vazileks spat blasts of hatred at
Vigilant
.

There was no more time; her ship was dying. Behind her, Busht, realizing her intent, shouted a warning. “Val! Strap in!” She paid no heed and punched up the deep drive, seeing as she did so that the ship’s velocity was point eight-nine.

Vigilant
surged forward with such force that Valessanna was pulled backward over the chair she should have been strapped into and propelled, spine first, against the base of the command chair she had so recently abandoned. More pain ravaged her body as inhuman forces wiped her off the pedestal, around its side, and into the aft bulkhead. Likewise, every crewman aboard who was not strapped down tumbled about compartments or down companionways and corridors. The deep drive itself pushed forward with such force that the myriad and massive braces and supports that held it stressed and bent, some of them breaking under the strain. Deafening metallic shrieks issued from every corner and crevice of the big cruiser as she was thrown past the light barrier. Her weakened hull was torn open in a half dozen places by the force of the explosive acceleration. More airtight hatches slammed shut and more people died gruesome deaths, but
Vigilant
survived.

The ship hurtled into the sheltering gloom of faster than light travel, where no sensor could track her; no weapon could find her. She was, for the moment, free from the pounding of Vazilek cannons and was leaving the raiders far behind.

CHAPTER TEN:

Aftermath

Valessanna sat solemnly at the head of the long table that occupied the conference room adjacent to her quarters. She silently stared at nothing, mourning their losses; and brooding over their failure to accomplish the mission. The three other officers in attendance remained closemouthed as well. All of them had chosen chairs at staggered intervals, intuitively seeking to put space between themselves and their counterparts. No one wanted to be close enough to another for casual conversation. Too many of their crewmates were gone now, and any mention of their narrow escape would only have served to make everyone feel worse about those who hadn’t made it through. Melancholy clung to their psyches like the shrouds of the dead.

But there was more than bereavement moiling in Valessanna’s breast; guilt had also made its home there, swirling about her ribcage like a whirlpool, clawing at her essential being, pulling her down into blackness. She was the captain; she was responsible; she should have found a way to bring everyone home. The fact that she had been unable to do so weighed on her like a tombstone strapped to her back. Her heart literally ached. She had suffered no wounds to the chest, but nevertheless there was pain beneath her sternum, and her breath seemed to come in inhalations that were shorter than they should have been. It was woe that might never be salved. She was already sure that the memories of the Sol system encounter would hound her through the centuries like a pack of hungry wolves. She would never outrun them. But how long would it take for the pain to fade?

And it wasn’t just her heart, everything ached. She was sore to the core of her physicality. She had been carried by litter from the bridge to her quarters, where a med tech had repaired her cracked vertebrae and dislocated shoulder. The man had also tended to her cuts, bruises, and abrasions, but she had refused the painkillers offered her. She had no right to avoid the pain. It made no difference anyway. Even a massive dose of Distreban wouldn’t have given her any respite, not that the mood altering drugs were allowed on police ships during deployments. No pharmaceutical could have quelled the hurt inside her from having failed her crew so miserably. How could she look any of them in the eye ever again? She had not the moral authority to command now.