Chapter Nineteen

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Ren’s quarters were a smaller version of Sully’s, again reminding me this had once been a luxury yacht. There was a salon and dining area, and a separate bedroom off to the left. Blues and pale greens predominated. A deck of cards sat in the middle of the square dining table, waiting.

“One game.” Sully eased into the chair opposite Ren. “That’s all I have time for. I’ve been playing with a theory. I think I know what I’m doing wrong.” The viewport in the dining alcove had a bench seat. I sat, bemused, glad to be away from Gregor’s presence. I’d been on board six hours. Despite Ren’s proclamation, I wasn’t sure if this had been finally, a good day.

One hand was dealt, played. Two. Sully lost the first but won the second. He was positively gleeful. Third hand. Sully lost. A dismissive flick of his fingers. “Lapse in concentration.” Fourth hand. Ren’s cabin door chimed. He tilted his head, sensing. “Enter.” I sat up straight as a Taka ducked through the doorway. “Ren, I wanted to—” His gravelly voice stopped abruptly, as his gaze fell on Sully, then me. “Pardon. Pardon. Didn’t know.

Sully-sir, glad you’re safe. Back.”

I looked at Sully. Ren. The Taka. Sully waved him in. “Come in, Verno. Ren, you want to do the introductions? It’ll give me time to plot my next move.” Verno. A Taka. Suddenly I remembered where I’d heard the name before: Drogue, on Chalford’s Lucky Seven.

“This is Captain Chasidah Bergren, Verno. Chasidah, this is Verno, my brother.” Brother Verno the brother? No. Verno. Ren’s Takan brother. Verno ambled over behind Ren’s chair, extending his hand as I stood. Takan fur was soft and coarse at the same time. His large hand enveloped mine. “Good to meet you, captain. Blessings of the hour.”

“Blessings,” I replied back automatically, still somewhat in shock. “Verno… I’m sorry. Ren never said he had a brother.” But he had repeatedly talked of his Takan mother, his Takan family.

Verno’s laugh was a crackling rumble. If I’d been down in engineering I’d be looking for a sudden fracture in the sublight thruster grid. “Little brother. Little brother the Brother. This is the best joke, no?”

“Then you are a monk—?” First a Stolorth Brother and now a Takan one. The Englarian church was experiencing some changes. I wondered if anyone in Non-Human Cultures knew about that.

“Took full vows two years ago. I am the big little brother Brother to Ren’s little big brother Brother.” He laughed again.

“Damn fine navigator, too. The church’s gain was almost my loss,” Sully added, peering uneasily at his cards.

I never would have called Ren little, but compared to Verno, he was. “You’re not assigned to a monastery?”

The furred face tilted in an almost exact mirror-image of Ren’s. “Assigned to a mission, Captain Chasidah. Assigned to a mission.” A mission to right the wrongs being done to his people. I understood. He patted Ren’s shoulder. “I wanted to tell you Dorsie’s making srorfralak pie.” “A Takan vegetable pie, very thick,” Ren explained, fanning his cards on the tabletop. “Hell’s ass.” “Very delicious,” Verno added over Sully’s outburst as he stepped for the door. “Letting Ren win again? Kind of you, Sully-sir. Blessings all. Blessings. Captain?” He gave me a nod as he ducked under the open doorway.

I sat back down on the bench seat and stared at the door as it slid closed. A Taka. A Stolorth. A human cook who packed a laser pistol under her apron and baked srorfralak pie.

Sully had one hell of a crew.

“Damn it all!”

“Tomorrow’s always another game, Sully. Shall we escort Chasidah to dinner?” Sully held out his hand to me. “That must be my problem. Lack of adequate nutrition.” I took his hand, felt him slip something into my palm. I pulled my fingers away as we followed Ren through the doorway. A card. Angel of heart-stars. Grinning, I tucked it into my pants pocket.

We were two days into transit to the Baris-Calth border when the lights in the ready room flickered, died and came on again, at half power. I stood, Sully rising beside me. An alarm whooped discordantly in the corridor. He bolted through the doorway connecting the ready room to the bridge. I was right on his heels.

“Verno!” The Taka sat on duty in the command sling, long fingers working the console rapidly. “Main computer failure, Sully-sir. Auxiliary generators online. Tow’s holding. Shields down—” “Shit!” Sully lunged for the engineering station, brought up his screens. Raked his straps over his chest. “—power’s out to weapons, long range. Enviro secure. Engines dropping at one-quarter sublight.”

I took the helm in front of Verno, strapped in, verified course heading, speed.

Automatically put manual on standby, in case we lost auto-guidance. Which only kept us going where we were going. It didn’t do one damn thing to help us get there, safely. Without scanners, weapons, shields we were as vulnerable as a newborn birdling fallen unseen from the nest.

And as blind.

I heard boot steps thumping in the corridor behind the bridge. “What the fuck’s going on?”

Gregor.

“System’s cascade failure,” Sully barked back. “I see it but I can’t halt it, yet.” Hands grabbed my shoulder, roughly. I jerked backward. “Move, Bergren!” Gregor.

I flicked off my straps and vacated the seat, but only because we were in trouble, big trouble. Gregor slid in, swearing, hands moving over the screens. “Helm secure,” he announced.

I’d secured helm before he got there. I let it go, slid into the seat next to Sully, strapped in again. Damn. Primaries were collapsing, function codes unraveling. Sully was a half a breadth behind the decline, throwing everything to manual. I took the verifications away from him smoothly at his nod and freed him up to continue the chase. I’d do the cleanup recoding behind him.

Behind me, Verno and Gregor switched places. Gregor was first pilot. He belonged in the command sling. Belatedly I realized he should have headed there when he came on the bridge.

But he’d headed for helm, probably because that’s where I’d been.

More footsteps thudded, then Ren’s soft voice came from the comm station behind me. He had his headset on and worked intraship, coordinating with Dorsie and Marsh. And a man named Aubry I’d met only briefly; a maintenance tech who worked the shift opposite Sully’s and mine.

Everyone was awake. Everyone was at a station, a console, doing something.

And the Boru Karn, defenseless, streaked through the big wide darkness.

Everything was out there. Fleet cruisers, patrol ships. Commercial freighters. Transport yachts. Barges. Beacons. We were deep in Calth between Port January, Starport 10 and the Walker Colonies. Without sensors, without shields, we could collide with debris or an Imperial destroyer. The only difference being how quickly the hull ruptured.

“Get Dorsie on visual bogey-check.” Sully was thinking the same thing I was.

“Sublight’s still not responding,” Gregor said.

A yellow light in front of me blinked rapidly, turned to red. “Who’s opening the shuttle bay doors?”

Sully glanced quickly at my console then back to his. “Damn it! Systems are self-activating.

Overrides aren’t holding.”

They weren’t. It was as if half the ship had no power and the other half had twice as much.

I tabbed to another screen. “We’ve got power spikes in the secondary grid.”

“Rekeying damper fields,” Sully said. “Standby.”

I heard Gregor grunt out an acknowledgment, then, “Tractor-field’s engaged!” Shit! The Meritorious. No longer held at a safe, static distance but being yanked toward us, reeled in by a tow field turned tractor. A Lancer-class P40 coming hard, right up our tail.

“Override and disengage!” Sully ordered.

“Keying manual override, Sully-sir! Attempting to disengage.” Attempting wasn’t going to do it. We needed that field link broken now. And we needed engines, fast.

“Evasive action!” Sully opened intraship. “Aubry, get me those sublights—move us!” The Boru Karn heeled to starboard, slowly. I could hear, feel aux thrusters misfiring.

“Ten minutes to impact, closing.” Gregor’s voice was terse.

Sublights shimmied, grabbed for power the auxes couldn’t feed them in time.

“Eight minutes.”

We were still in her path. At least, most of us, as Sully had once taunted me. But most of us would be plenty enough for a hull breach on impact.

“Seven minutes. Closing.”

We couldn’t even fire lasers, shove her off course, push her away from us. My sweet little P40.

But we could destroy her. I could destroy her.

My sweet little P40.

I half-swiveled. “Ren! I need a hot trans link to the Meritorious, now!” I caught Sully’s desperate glance as I turned back. “Auto destruct. I can remotely activate her auto destruct.”

“Do it.” No hesitation.

I picked up the link from Ren on my screen and opened a transmit line. At the same time, I talked to Sully. “Shields. Forget sublights. We’re going to need shields.” A P40 under auto destruct just might take her with us. But she was going to ram us, either way.

“Working on it.”

“Working on it, too, Sully-sir,” Verno echoed. Only Gregor was quiet.

I worked on it, woke up my ship’s slumbering systems, thrown into hibernation for tow.

But a Fleet ship never truly slumbered. Even though the Boundary Wars had ended years ago, all Fleet vessels carried the same fail-safes. If boarded, abandon ship to the pods. Then blow the invaders out of the spacelanes via a code-secure hot link.

My link went hot. The Meritorious answered, queried. Who are you?

I responded, fed her authorizations, verifications.

Then the link fluttered. So did overhead lights.

Sully jerked around. “Damn it, Gregor, sit on those generators!”

“Recalibrating now.”

My link fluttered back on.

Meritorious. Bergren, Chasidah. AuthCode 71995-RQ. VeriCode R1 Q5 3789 X4X4.

Verified. Acknowledged.

Initiate Auto-Destruct. Initiate Auto-Destruct. Delete reconfirmation. VeriCode R1 Q5 3789

X4X4.

“Shields?” I asked Sully. It was decision time. “A Level 2 destruct is partial. A Level 1, total.

A 2 may skew her into us. Or away from us. A 1 may damage us, without shields.” Or destroy us.

Words, clipped and harsh, flew back and forth between Gregor and Verno, behind me.

“Level 2. I can’t guarantee shields.” His tone was grim. His dark gaze was steady, but bleak.

“Brace!” he called out to the bridge.

I heard Ren repeat it on intraship.

“Wise choice,” I said softly, completing my code. Sending it. Sealing our fates.

“Chasidah. Angel.” The words hung softly in the air as warmth, a sad, sweet, aching warmth, flowed over me.

Then I was jerked, hard, against my straps, the air sucked out of my lungs.