Untitled (51 page)

* * * * *

The fleet had gone about a thousand miles to the south, and it had taken about an hour to get this far. Syg, beginning to get bored, began sending Dav dirty telepathies.

She winked at him and left the bridge.

Feeling a bit tied down by this turtle-pace grand procession himself, Dav decided to take her up on her offer. He'd wait several minutes and then excuse himself; he didn't want it to seem that he was going to be dallying with Syg, though pretty much everybody knew that's what he would be doing. Kilos, standing at her Ops station, gave him a knowing look.

12

And that's when the
Triumph
heeled over hard to port, dropping out of formation like a rock.

The
Caroline
had to make a severe nose down movement to avoid getting Slapped by the plummeting lead ship. Continuing on through the clouds, the
Triumph
was locked in a steep, brutal dive to the surface below. Davage, intimately familiar with the workings of a
Straylight
, had no idea what might be wrong with this new
Triumph
class ship— externally, the ship appeared to be functioning normally as far as he could tell.

Recalling Metatron, Davage walked over to the helm and politely, excused Saari, the helmsman. She thankfully stepped back, eager to watch Davage in action. He pulled a pair of white gloves on and lowered the ship into trail. "Let's beat to quarters," he said, wanting the ship ready for action if needed. The claxons went off, and the crew began bustling about.

Very low to the ground, the
Triumph
pulled up, climbed a bit, and leveled, gliding along quietly as if nothing had happened.

"Com, send to
Triumph,"
Dav said.

"Aye, Captain," the Com said. "No response, sir."

The silence from
Triumph
was ominous.

Holding the
Seeker
in a shallow dive, Dav leveled up a bit, giving himself plenty of room. The
Caroline
followed suit and shallowed at his flank. The
Blue Max
continued down.

Dav Sighted, staring down through the floorboards and decks, down to the
Triumph
, through its hull and into the interior.

His blood froze. Inside, there were dead bodies everywhere. It was heartbreaking, all these people, elegant, dressed in their best, ready for a grand party—dead, chopped to pieces. Inside, there were no less than three hundred "Mariliths" running about, taking key sections of the ship, including the bridge. The Fanatics of Nalls—they had somehow stowed away. Those odd dolls in their pouches, he recalled—perhaps they had "Boxed" themselves into those.

Davage pulled the wheel back. "I want flanking speed. Com, send to
Caroline
and
Blue Max
, the
Triumph
has been taken by hostile forces and must now be considered an enemy vessel!"

"Aye, sir!"

The viewer clicked on, and suddenly they were seeing the
Triumph's
bridge. Close up, filling the screen, was Princess Marilith of Xandarr, her face painted for war. There was fire in her eyes and a slight crooked smile on her lips.

This was no Cloaked Fanatic. This was the real thing. He'd know that crazed gaze anywhere.

"Care to play, Captain?" she said with a sneer. "You're going to die today!"

The screen flipped off. And Davage saw what was coming. He rammed the wheel upward to Z plus two thousand feet.

A wailing red Sar-Beam blast came sizzling upward, just missing his rolling belly. Another blast—the
Blue Max
was hit square in the neck of the ship. Smoking, it heeled to port, taking yet another blast in its ventral.

Sight.

Davage whipped the wheel first one way then the other, the
Seeker
standing on its head. A Sar-Beam screamed by.

Enough, enough of this. "Canister control, I want a two-shot stagger fire aimed for the
Triumph's
stern!"

He heard nothing back.

"Canister control, do you read?"

Before another moment passed, twenty shimmering balls of floating, granular light appeared at various places on the bridge.

Dav had seen this before. Balls of light, just like when Demona of Ryel "filtered" down from her ship to join him for lunch on the surface of Kana.

Matter/Energy converters. Teleportation units!

"We're boarded!" Davage cried, drawing his MiMs.

The Fanatics of Nalls, all Cloaked to look like Marilith, leering, confident, laughing, drew their odd assortment of weapons and sprung to attack.

"Clear the bridge!" Dav yelled, firing his MiMs, the small, elegant pistol making its usual "pock, pock" sound. "Everybody into the conference room, bar the door, and don't open it unless ordered to by me!"

Kilos drew her SK. "You heard him, everybody out!" She began firing, her weapon making a much more satisfying "tack! tack!" report.

The bridge crew, unarmed, quickly made their way to the conference room door, Davage and Kilos covering them with fire. This was something of a maddening situation. The Fanatics, while being eager to fight and initially intimidating, were not overly wise or skilful as they fought. Ki had already dropped four and Dav three, the small MiMs needing two or three shots to kill a person. Dav couldn't clean them up with his CARG as he had to turn the wheel. The
Triumph
out there with its reaching, deadly Sar-Beam fire was of much greater importance.

He Sighted a knife whizzing for his head. He ducked.

He Sighted another Sar-Beam blast. He rolled the ship. The crew, used to a twisting, turning "Dav fight" casually hung on and stood tall as they exited. The Fanatics, though, tumbled and flew screaming about the bridge, many dropping their weapons and at least one being killed with a crushed skull against the ceiling.

The Fanatics were flabbergasted; they'd never experienced anything like it. Some looked miserable, like they were ready to drop their weapons and give up.

Seeing this, the bridge crew stopped running and began fighting. They fought the Fanatics, unarmed and untrained. They fought with whatever they had; Davage saw coffee cups, report pads, shoes, and belt buckles go flying in a cloud across the bridge. The Fanatics, down to eleven attackers, found themselves swarmed on all sides, the bridge crew latching onto them and pulling them down relentlessly. Saari had one around the throat with her belt with her left hand and was beating the Fanatic senseless with a shoe in her right.

A Fanatic leveled a long pistol at her.

Pock—right between the eyes. The Fanatic fell.

Ki's hammering SK, its endless magazine of twenty-five shots, finished the rest of the armed Fanatics.

A final belly roll to avoid another Sar-Beam blast closed the proceedings, and the bridge was secure. A few minutes later the Marines came in to mop up the survivors and declared all key areas of the ship re-taken and secure.

"Is everybody all right?" Davage said as he pulled the
Seeker
into a steep, steep climb.

The crew nodded.

Davage was furious. "Did nobody hear me? I ordered this bridge cleared!"

They stood there and looked at him.

"You could have been hurt, you could have been killed, and I expect my orders carried out next time!"

The crew stood there, many shoeless, one covered in coffee, some, beltless, were holding up their falling pants with their hands. They looked miserable after the rebuke.

"Sir …" Saari said quietly, shoeless and holding up her pants, "if you are going to order me to abandon my post in the face of the enemy when you are standing at yours, then you will have to court-marital me, sir."

"Me too, sir," others said.

Kilos smiled. "Looks like it's a mutiny."

Davage holstered his MiMs. "Indeed, it appears I'll need to make quick work of this mutiny … in the mess later on over buncked narva as I toast to my crew's courage. Now, let's get posted."

The crew cheered and returned to their stations.

* * * * *

When the ship started tumbling, Syg was naked in bed. She'd been waiting for Dav, tense for his arrival.

But then, the ship started a pounding series of rolls and lifts, throwing Syg from the bed. Rolling naked to the floor, she Stenned herself into place, the sheets from the bed sparking as they touched it. Through the window she could see the
Triumph
firing on them and the other escort ships scattering.

Marilith—she must be behind this. She and those Fanatics of Nalls.

Always in the wings, always the stalker, Marilith will never leave them alone … never. And she was probably right over there, in the
Triumph
.

She lowered her Sten, made her way to the closet, pulled out a black robe, and put it on.

She was going to finish this. She was going to the
Triumph
and face Marilith, and she was going to have to kill her.

Resolute, wearing the black robe, Syg went out into the hallway, stopping to take one last look at her quarters.

Just in case.

* * * * *

The scene outside
Seeker
was poor at best. The
Blue Max
was staggering around the sky aimlessly, smoking, every so often after taking a hit from
Triumph'
s guns. The
Caroline
took a direct Sar-Beam blast to the engineering section and was clawing to stay aloft.

That's when it happened. The unthinkable happened.

The
Blue Max
loosed a two-shot canister barrage at the
Caroline
, the missiles hitting their mark, blowing a good part of the port wing clean off.

On fire, in a power dive, the
Caroline
roared down from the heights and passed through the clouds, spinning slowly from ventral to dorsal.

Still at the wheel of the
Seeker
, Davage wanted to Sight it down, but he had other, more pressing worries: the
Blue Max
was laying a bead on him. Sighting, he saw the ship in turmoil, the Sisters and Marines struggling to re-take key areas of the ship, but the bridge and forward canister bays were under the Fanatics' control.

Worse, on the bridge, he could see Captain Wythleweir on her knees, a few moments away from being executed by the Fanatics.

Dav spun the wheel, and plummeting, he slammed into the
Blue Max's
ventral frontal hull, Slapping her hard. The
Blue Max
rocked to port and veered.

Barely avoiding another blast from
Triumph
, Davage pulled the
Seeker
skyward in a steep climb. He had to get into low orbit. He needed legs to move, his gas compression engines straining to provide lift and speed. He needed his coils to really move, to really turn.

Behind him, the
Triumph
and
Blue Max
followed.

"Aft Sensing, what is
Blue Max's
status?"

"Sir,
Blue Max's
forward canister and starboard Battleshot ports are open."

Dav slid the ship to the
Blue Max's
left, hoping that the port side of the ship was still in Fleet hands and therefore safe.

The
Blue Max
ripple fired four canisters

"Captain, Aft Sensing! Four canisters on flat approach!"

So
, Dav thought,
here it is.
He was now facing the canister, the League's "ace" weapon. It could not be out-run, it could not be outmaneuvered, and it had virtually unlimited explosive firepower.

He could return fire with his own canisters now that his weapon bays were retaken—he could destroy the
Blue Max
—but the image of Captain Wythleweir on her knees stopped him, gave him pause. He had to give her a chance, give her and the Sisters and the Marines more time!

Now, to his situation, four canisters on their way. They were coming in flat, all pretty much one after the other.

The canister was a virtually inescapable weapon, but much of its power depended on the skill of the launcher, as the way the canister was programmed depended largely on the damage it did.

And Davage guessed these Fanatics weren't overly skilled.

"Aft canister, pattern Midnight-four. Release!"

There was a "thud," and two canisters shot out of the back of the
Seeker
. They went a short way and detonated in a large, enveloping, mushroom shape. The incoming four from the
Blue Max
flew into this mass of dense, exploding material and were shredded. A good canister launcher would have anticipated something like this and set the missiles to either move around the problem area or pre-explode, sending their warhead into the target anyway.

Not in this case; the canisters simply disappeared.

Davage wasn't going to let the
Blue Max
have another shot. He threw the wheel down, wrenching the ship around in a tight, screaming turn.

He headed right for the
Triumph
, and soon, he was tucked in next to it, just past the edge of its shield rim. The
Triumph's
helm tried to shake him, but Davage was on it like glue, following its moves perfectly. If the
Blue Max
wanted to shoot at him, they'd hit the
Triumph
too.

He Sighted another Sar-Beam and rolled to the other side, but too late. A red, searing lance of energy hit him square in the lower hull, blasting away one of his gas-compression engines. No longer able to keep up with the
Triumph,
the
Seeker
began falling back.

The
Blue Max
loomed large in the screen, its canister bays open.

"Captain, the
Blue Max
is hailing."

On the screen, a wounded, bleeding Captain Wythleweir appeared. She was bleeding from a gash on her forehead and a nasty wound on her shoulder. She was limply holding her MiMs in her left hand. Behind her was a confusion of Marines, crew, and Sisters.

"Captain," she said weakly, "the
Blue Max
stands with you."

"Captain, you're hurt."