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Chapter 38:
Battle Stations

Neva sat at her workstation in the infirmary, staring at the screen and tapping her lower teeth absently with a fingernail. All around her, the familiar smell of disinfectant soothed her nerves, as did the soft hum of the machines. She was still getting used to the new equipment, all of which was a vast improvement over the outdated resources she’d been working with ever since coming on board the Exile.

Wilson slept in her lap, curled up like an orange pillow, the tip of his tail tucked over his pink nose. When the door opened, he cracked a single yellow-green eye, decided it was nothing of particular interest to him, and closed it again.

“Hey,” Rat said with a smile. “Looks like you’re thinking hard.”

“I am.” She leaned her head back for a kiss, which he gave her.

“That’s why I pay you the big money.”

“I thought I got an equal share with the rest of the crew.”

“Damn. I was hoping you’d forgotten that.”

“Silly boy.” She spun the chair around to face him, waking up Wilson. The cat yawned hugely, pink tongue curling, then hopped off her lap and wandered over to sniff at Rat’s boots.

Rat nodded in the direction of the screen Neva had been staring at for the last hour. “What’s so interesting? Anything I’d understand?”

“I’m not sure if I understand it myself,” Neva said ruefully. “I’ve been trying to figure out what Mahadevan did with the telepath-making procedure that caused such different results in Kai. There was no transition period, no changeover. Just--boom--instant telepath.”

Rat crouched down to scratch Wilson behind the ears, but his gaze remained focused on her. “And you think you’ve found some answers?”

“Maybe.” Neva gestured tiredly in the direction of the screen. “I wish I’d known that I’d need this much neuroscience, back when I was in med school. I’d have specialized.”

Rat’s look became rueful. “I know that I’ve asked a lot of you. Iluka did the same, but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry. It isn’t fair to you.”

“Is it meant to be?” she asked, repeating back to him what he’d once asked her. “I don’t regret it, Rat. I just wish I knew enough to be sure I’m interpreting the results correctly.”

“So what is your interpretation?”

Neva paused for a moment, chewing on her lower lip as she marshaled her thoughts. “The difference appears to be that Dr. Mahadevan used what she learned from Project Zero to develop a two-pronged process: one for the short term, and one for the long term.”

Rat frowned slightly. “Explain.”

“The original Project Zero, for lack of a better term, resulted in permanent, long-term changes in its telepaths. Those changes take time to make, however. Mahadevan realized that she could cut down the wait by...harvesting...certain neurotransmitters and other chemicals from you, probably using a spinal tap. After some purification, she introduced them into Kai.”

She thought a small shiver ran through him, although it was hard to be sure. “Instant telepathy?” he asked; his voice sounded steady, at least.

“In a way. It’s more complicated than that, in reality, but that’s the gist of it. It’s only temporary, though. Eventually the introduced chemicals will break down. No more telepathy. So for the long term, she used a modified version of the Project Zero process. Whether that’s activated yet or not, I couldn’t say.”

“Huh.” Rat stared at the floor, obviously lost in thought. After a moment of stillness, Wilson stood on his hind legs, balancing against Rat’s knee with one paw and patting his arm with the other to get his attention. Rat blinked out of his reverie and petted Wilson absently.

“What are you thinking?” Neva asked.

“I don’t know. Nothing, probably.” He gave her a quick smile. “Do you think...do you think Kai’s having any problems with the telepathy?”

“Given that she was screaming at Marissa and killing Zats with her brain when we last saw her, she’s not having enough of them,” Neva replied dryly. “On the other hand, we found two of her own crew dead on the docks, and it was obvious a telepath had killed them. If you didn’t do it, then it must have been her, and I doubt she did it on purpose.”

“You’re probably right.” Rat scooped up Wilson and rose to his feet. “I wish I knew more, though. We can’t count on her being as incapacitated as I was, but it would be nice.”

“You were in a different situation,” Neva said gently. “You found yourself the only living person in a room full of dead Zats, with no idea who you were or what had happened. You spent two years on the run, trying just to stay alive, while at the same time figuring out if the voices in your head were even real, or just phantoms cooked up by your mind. I think you have every excuse to have had difficulty adjusting.”

“By which you mean: lost whatever sense I had left,” Rat said, but he grinned. “You’re right. Kai is probably on the Zat station right now, cackling like the villain in a bad vid and using her telepathy to manipulate everyone around her.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Maybe not, but it’s what we’ve got to assume. Worst case scenario, and all that.” He sighed. “Thank you for letting me know what you’ve found.”

“You’re welcome. Was there anything you needed?”

“No, I just came to remind you that we’ll be coming out of hyperspace in a couple of hours. You should get some food before then, considering we don’t know what we’ll find on the other side of drop. It might be a while before any of us have time for luxuries like eating and sleeping.”

Neva nodded. “You’re right, of course.” Switching off the monitor, she rose to her feet and stretched. “Let’s hit the galley, then.”

*   *   *

“Prepare for drop,” Jason said. “In ten.”

Fiona sat back in her chair, consciously not tightening her grip on the armrests or otherwise projecting worry. She had the bridge; Rat was riding out transition in the Cuchulainn, ready to launch if they came out into an ambush.

“Be ready on the guns, Mr. Werner,” she said. “If anything comes at us, blow it out of the sky.”

“...zero,” Jason reached the end of the countdown. “Hold for drop.”

The Savrasa engines cycled, locking onto the mass point back in realspace and dumping them back out into the universe. “Braking,” Jason warned, and Fiona felt the straps of the safety web bite into her shoulders and torso.

“Scan, report,” she snapped. “We can’t afford to be blind, here!”

“We’ve got beacon,” Neva said a second later. “There’s nothing showing up near us. Nothing moving away from the station at all.”

And that had become a sign that things weren’t right, sure enough. “The Voracious?”

“Negative. I don’t see it anywhere, not even docked at the station.”

Com crackled, some fault in the lines bursting static before Rat’s voice came on. “They might have hacked their transponder, like we did.”

“A Zatvian Klegger isn’t going to be able to pretend to be a freighter, especially not putting into a Zatvian station,” Fiona argued. Hell and damnation.

Rat swore. “You’re right. She’s not here.”

“What now?” Neva asked uncertainly.

“Before we start getting ideas about chasing after the more-psycho of your sisters, captain,” Marcus said, “I’d like to remind everyone the reason we came here in the first place.”

“If Kai passed through without stopping, then we’ve already lost her,” Alouette pointed out. “The station would have recorded her vector, though. But we’ll have to talk to them to find it.”

Silverblade must have been listening in on com, because she came on and said, “Perhaps Jason could do his magic trick.”

“No,” Jason said. “I can’t. Even if we hadn’t already torn out everything Alouette and I installed, I wouldn’t.”

“We cannot allow Kai to escape.”

“No.” Rat said, and even over come he sounded damned serious. “I’m not asking anyone on this crew to compromise themselves, and I’m not stabbing our friends at Waga Chun in the back.”

“Again, Kai is not the reason we were on our way here to begin with,” Marcus said, and Fiona heard the rising edge of worry and anger in his voice. “We came for Genevieve, remember?”

“No matter how dangerous the Furies might be, no one of them is as dangerous as Kai might become,” Silverblade argued.

“This is not up for discussion,” Rat said forcefully. “Hear me? And Silverblade, as helpful as you’ve been, you’re not a voting member of this crew. Believe me, no one wants to find Kai more than I do. As much as you think you know about what Kai is capable of now...you don’t. You really don’t. But we can’t lose sight of the reason we’re out here in the first place, which is to free whatever Furies we can. Starting with this one.”

A bit to Fiona’s surprise, no one argued--but then, Rat very seldom took that tone, either. A bit harsh with his sister, though.

“I’m getting on the horn to the station, before they start wondering why they haven’t heard from us,” Fiona said, before there could be any more interruptions. Switching over to beacon channel, she said, “This is Fiona Maclachlan, first mate of the freighter Archangel to station, come in, station.”

“Station control to Archangel, welcome to the system, and we hope you’re coming in with full holds, over.”

Fiona arched her brow. Not very good at trading, these Zats. “Aye, that we are, station. I take it you’re needing a bit of resupply?”

“To say the least. And news, if you have it.”

I don’t like this. An agreeable Zat is a Zat who’s up to something. “Only a bit of the latter, I’m afraid, but we’ll be happy to trade what we’ve got. Send us a lane assignment, and we’ll head on in.”

“Agreed. Station out.”

Fiona sat back in her chair, and found Jason watching her worriedly. Static spat across the ship com again. “Well,” Rat said, “that was strange.”

*   *   *

Kai found that she couldn’t hold back the grin that fought its way to her mouth. She stood in station Control, a few feet behind the com officer who had just signed off from the Exile--or whatever they were calling it. Whoever had done the work on cracking their transponder had been a pro.

“Well, captain, we’ve done as you asked--put a false signal on beacon feed to hide your ship, and done our best to lure them in. You’re certain that this vessel is a danger?” General Ukwu asked from where he sat at an empty station.

Her report had filtered all the way up the chain of command, just as she’d hoped. Then again, she’d made certain to include a few choice keywords, starting with “project” and “zero.” From what she gathered, the rank and file wouldn’t recognize the phrase, but the generals most certainly would.

It was a gamble that had paid off. Ukwu had contacted her personally, hoping that she was about to hand him another weapon in his struggle with the opposing general. She’d dashed his hopes, of course, but his eye had remained on her. Which brought the Fury within reach.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to approach her.

“I’m sure, sir,” Kai said. She hated the bowing and scraping, saluting and pretending that other people were in charge, but she’d set them straight soon enough. “As I said in my report, the pirates that Dr. Mahadevan hired to apprehend the Project Zero inductee turned traitor and allied themselves with the telepath. I saw first-hand the sort of damage he can do. You don’t want to let someone on this station who can kill with his thoughts.”

“We could use the supplies,” Ukwu mused.

No! Damn it!

“The risk to you is too great, sir,” Skeris said. Suspicious bruising had formed around his eyes, but Kai was glad he’d survived, since he was proving to be useful when it came to handling the general.

Ukwu nodded slowly, his chins flowing over the tight collar of his uniform. “You’re right. Send out the fighters as soon as they’re in range, and make the strike as surgical as you can. We may yet be able to salvage their cargo holds.”

Kai grinned gleefully. Perfect. The Zats would take care of her brother for her. Telepathy was no advantage at all in a space battle, where your opponent was too far away to hear.

She glanced over her shoulder, to where the Fury stood silent and still behind Ukwu’s shoulder. To all outer appearances, she was the picture of emotionless calm.

But within...oh, that was another story altogether.

The Zats will take care of Xian, once and for all.

And then, I’ll take care of the Zats, and have myself a Fury. If I can just hold it together a little longer, everything will be fine.

She felt a faint stinging on her palm, and looked down to see the blood that her nails had drawn from her clenched fist slowly dripping onto the floor.

*   *   *

“So. Something is obviously wrong here. The question is: what?”

Rat stood on the bridge, his arms folded across his chest as he stared at the visuals Neva had brought up. They weren’t yet close enough to the station to get a good look at it with passives, but they had picked up quite a bit of debris in the lanes.

As if there was a battle here. But wouldn’t they clean up the lanes as soon as possible after?

“I’ve tried to be making some...shall we say, gentle queries,” Fiona said. She sat at com, her long red hair swept back into a loose braid that emphasized the strong architecture of her face. “They’re not really wanting to discuss it with a lowly freighter, though, and very politely told me to mind my own damned business.”

“Huh.” Rat tugged absently on one of his dreads; they’d gotten long enough to hang below his shoulders now. “I can’t say that I like any of this...but I also can’t say that I see we have a choice but to go in. There’s at least one Fury on that station, and even if she isn’t Marcus’ daughter, we have to try and save her.”

“It might make our job easier, if things are falling apart on station,” Neva suggested from scan.

“Maybe.” But he wasn’t going to count on that.

Alouette glanced at him, her big, dark eyes shadowed. “Don’t trust them, captain.”

He took a deep breath, let the whispers roll through him, over him, like a wave over a rock. “I won’t, Alouette. No matter how desperate they seem, or how harmless they act.”

Neva straightened sharply. “I’ve got movement. Something’s just left the station. Scratch that--make it several somethings.”

“What are they, Dr. Whitestone?” Fiona asked, her commanding voice cutting the air like a scalpel.

“Fighters. Headed this way! We’re getting pinged--it’s us they’re coming for.”

“Well, they didn’t waste any time before stabbing us in the back, did they?” Rat muttered.

But if they need our supplies, why not wait until we put in?

Rat leaned past Fiona and hit the allship com. “Alert, alert, alert! We are under attack from the station; repeat, under attack from the station. All hands to your posts.”

Adrenaline jagged through his veins, spurred by his own worry and the sudden stress coating the whispers. “You have the bridge, Fiona,” he told her. “I’m taking the Cuchulainn out.”

“Aye, captain. Good luck to you.”

He hit the ladder at a run, cursing the non-functional lift yet again. A quick glance up showed him boots descending, so he scrambled up until his fingers were in danger of being stepped on, then hung off the side of the ladder, one foot and one hand on a rung. Marcus passed him first, with a grunt of thanks. Jason was next; he paused for a moment, then gave Rat a tight nod. “Good luck out there.”

“You, too.”

Rat stopped at crew level long enough to pull on his ‘suit. As soon as the helmet was settled, he switched on the com so he could overhear bridge chatter. The ship hadn’t made any sudden movements--thankfully--which presumably meant they weren’t under fire from the station itself, but otherwise he felt blind as to what was going on.

“Fiona, what’s our status?”

“Fighters are still en route. Looks like they’re planning on flanking us.”

“How many?”

“About twenty, captain.”

His heart sank at that. Although each fighter was tiny compared to the mass of the Exile, enough of them working in concert could bring the ship down. And one lone fighter against them isn’t going to make much of a difference.

But it’s what we’ve got, so get your ass in gear and get out there.

Climbing the lift shaft up to the spine was tricky; he had to wait for the cylinder to line up with the immobile spine, something the lift handled automatically, but which was a bit more problematic while hanging off the emergency ladder in a bulky ‘suit. From there, he kicked off in the null-g of the spine, gliding smoothly to the Cuchulainn’s hatch.

“I’m in,” he reported, even as he pulled the canopy closed behind him. As Fiona opened the false hold that hid the fighter, he brought the fighter’s engines to life, felt the familiar thrum of power through the seat. His screens flared to life, showing the spread of enemy fighters.

Damn it. I don’t like these odds.

He took a deep breath. To hell with that. Get the job done, Rat.

If nothing else, he might be able to draw some of them off from the Exile. Why the station guns hadn’t been brought into play, he had no idea, but now that their own fighters were in the way, it seemed unlikely they’d start shooting. So that was one less worry, at least.

His screens flashed a warning, at the same time as he heard an outburst of swearing over com. “More fighters launching!” Neva shouted.

Oh, hell.

Rat clicked on his com. “Fiona! We need to get out of here. I’ll cover the ship’s retreat.”

Then he was in range of the first wave of fighters. Alerts rang in his ears and flashed across his screens. He jinked, sent the fighter through a spin, firing the whole way. The nearest Zat fighter went up, a brief burst of fire before the oxygen dispersed or was consumed.

He cleared the cluster of fighters, one pinging alarm telling him that there was a new scorch mark down the side of the Cuchulainn, although thankfully nothing critical had been hit. Two of the fighters broke off to come after him. He hit thrusters, flipping the Cuchulainn through a 180-turn, his vision graying out as a few gravities of force suddenly shoved against him. The main engines kicked back in even before his vision had cleared, hurling him back into his pursuer’s faces with guns blazing. One of them executed a bit of fancy flying himself, but the other took the full barrage. It kept going as Rat passed by, but he caught a glimpse of breached canopy and a motionless form caught in the safety web.

Two down. He glanced at the screen--then blinked, for a moment wondering if his systems were malfunctioning.

The second wave of fighters was drawing closer, but about half of the first wave had broken off and appeared to be engaging them.

He toggled com. “Fiona? Am I seeing this right?”

“Aye, captain. Hold that--I’ve got an incoming call from our new friends.”

“Patch it through to me.”

His com buzzed slightly, the signal weak, as if the fighters were sending themselves, without the boost of the beacon. “--to freighter. Repeat, this is Captain Hayes, 90th Fighter Squadron, to inbound freighter. We are prepared to render assistance against the rebel factions which have unlawfully attacked you.”

Well, that’s Zat-speak all over. “This is Captain--” he couldn’t remember who he was supposed to be this time, decided it didn’t matter at the moment “--Captain Rat, currently in the fighter Cuchulainn. Your assistance would be much appreciated, over.”

Someone--probably Captain Hayes--sent a code, and the Exile dutifully tagged the newcomers yellow instead of red, the battlefield suddenly looking a great deal more winnable that it had moments before.

“Orders, captain?” Fiona asked. “Are we still retreating?”

“Negative.” He didn’t know what was going on, but if they ran now, they’d never get a second chance to free the Fury stationed here. “Resume course heading, and engage enemy fighters.”

“Aye-aye, captain.”

A small cluster of red dots had begun to close in on him. Rat grinned and settled his hand on the firing controls. “All right,” he murmured to the silence inside his helmet, “let’s do this.”

*   *   *

The battle was short but fierce. With the addition of the new fighters--Neva couldn’t bring herself to think of any Zatvians as “allies”--the enemy ships had been fighting a losing battle. After a few rounds of blistering fire, the remainder retreated back in the direction of the station, pursued by  most of the second wave of fighters.

One remained near the Exile, however, flanking the ship as Rat returned the Cuchulainn to its hold.

“This is Captain Hayes,” the Zat pilot said over com. “Forgive me for the unusual manner of communications, but station control has fallen to rogue elements, so beacon feed is currently out of our hands.”

Rogue elements?

“As you may have surmised, they set a trap for you. I can’t say more than that over open com, but I can welcome you to the part of the station still held by legitimate forces. We’ll have to manually assist with your docking, I’m afraid, but if your pilot is up to the challenge, we should be able to accomplish it.”

Fiona shot Jason a glance. “Oh, I think he’s up to it, although we’d be much obliged for any help you can be giving us.”

“I’ll transmit a berth assignment to you now, then. Since we don’t have long-range communications, one of us will escort you in. If you have need of anything, please let us know.”

“We copy, Captain Hayes.”

“Oh, and one other thing that you might find of interest. A Klegger entered the system ahead of you and put in on the side of the station controlled by the rogues. Shortly before you showed up, station control removed its profile from beacon output. Do you have any thoughts as to why that might be?”

So Kai is here. And working with the Zats once again, it seemed.

Then again, it sounds like we might be doing the same.

“I couldn’t say,” Fiona replied neutrally. “We’ve got the berth assignment, and our navigator is plotting our approach.”

“I’ll see you on the docks, then. Hayes out.”

As soon as the transmission cut off, Fiona said, “Did you get that, captain?”

“Yes,” Rat replied over com. “I’m not sure what to make of it yet. I’d like to know why they stuck their necks out to keep us from being blown out of the sky, for starters.”

“‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Jason quoted.

“I hope that’s all it is.” Rat paused, and Neva thought he’d signed off, until he added, “Just don’t forget that the enemy of my enemy...is sometimes just another enemy waiting for their turn to kill you. Rat out.”

Are the Zats to be trusted, or is Rat a fool for working with them at all? Let me know what you think in the forum.

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