Killbox

To my surprise, Ramona pops up on the holo. It’s brief, just one sentence: “I will do whatever’s necessary to protect what’s mine, Sirantha.”

Cryptic, as always. I sigh. Not the promise of help I’d hoped for, but we have more important matters to attend right now.

He eyes me, one brow raised. “You want to tell me what that’s about?”

Even if he’s furious with me, like when we took the ship out at Emry, I can’t lie to him. That’s the one thing I’ll never do, even if the truth paints me in shades of treachery or cuts him to the bone. “I asked her for help. Appealed to her higher nature.”

A long silence as he considers the implications. Then he shrugs. “Tarn probably won’t like it, but in desperate times, we’ll take any allies we can muster. Keep me posted.”

I nod. “Shall we go raise some hell?”

March grins at me, looking more like himself than he has for months. “I thought you’d never ask.”

CHAPTER 49

The Triumph comes in hot.

We jump a few thousand klicks out and hit the Morgut from behind. Their ships are sharper than ours. To my eyes, they look like dark stars, and they wheel at unlikely angles. Each prong of the ship represents a different function: engines, navigation, communications, and medical. The power grid lies in the middle, I think. These aren’t like the ones that crashed on Dobrinya.

“They’re starshredders,” March tells me. “Fast and powerful, but not durable. That’s good for us.”

They’ve focused their assault on the SDIs, which means our timing is good. On the downside, we’re facing six, twice as many as before. Whatever they need the uranium for, they’re determined to get it. I’m just as determined to blow them out of the sky.

Six Morgut ships ring the SDI. Unless they take all of them off-line, passing through the shields will prove impossible without frying their nav coms. This mining colony spent more credits on defense.

I open a channel to gunnery. “You set, Torrance?”

“Loud and proud, ma’am. You’ve got lasers, yeah?”

Pulling down the targeting array, I answer with the first volley. The Morgut ship’s shields take the first hit, not even a glimmer of weakness. They’re caught between the SDI and us, but even with the assist, we’re outnumbered. March swoops, spinning us through a graceful arc that dodges most of their return fire. A few hits glance off our shields, but nothing solid.

March says, “Looks like they’ve configured their shields against our weapons. Change the pulse.”

While Torrance shoots away in gunnery, I do as March has asked. Before we left, Dina optimized my lasers so they cycle back much faster now. I let fly again, targeting the lead Morgut vessel, but once more the shields hold firm.

“It’s not working,” I growl.

The whole ship rocks. Since we’re soaking hits from six different sources, our shields will go down first unless we get creative. March takes evasive action, rolling us beneath them. Their pilots seem less skilled, as one ship goes into a hard spin, trying to avoid what must look like an imminent collision.

March laughs softly, pleasure blazing in his face. “They felt the draft from that one.” He taps the comm. “Doc, Evelyn, what can you tell me about Morgut shields?”

“This doesn’t seem like time to chat,” Doc says wryly. “But I presume you need a weakness?”

“That would be nice,” March grits out.

The Triumph shudders again, and I hear a distant boom.

“Aft shields down,” Torrance reports. “I’ve got an ensign working on the problem. I can’t stay on cannons and repair the ship at the same time.”

“There’s too many of them.” I launch another round, only to see it dissipate.

“Going on defense,” March says. “Maybe we can lead them away from the colony.”

I spin the targeting array, covering our retreat. My shots do nothing that I can see, but the Morgut definitely give chase. With our weakness aft, only March’s preternatural skill at the helm keeps us in one piece. Several more hits rock us, even so.

“We’ve got power leakage,” the ensign says. “And a fire smoldering on deck two.”

Mary, I wish Dina were here.

“Patch it up,” March orders. “Send bots to deal with the fire, and get those shields back up. Doc, how we coming on your end?”

“We’re working. It’s not instant soup,” he answers with asperity.

Evelyn’s voice comes over the comm. “I may be able to reconfigure the lasers to emit a pulse that will temporarily disrupt their shields.”

“I’ll be ready on cannons,” Torrance says.

“Do it. Quickly.”

“We need control of lasers back in gunnery for me to work on our end,” Evelyn says. “I’ll send them back up when I’ve finished.”

March grunts an acknowledgment, opening the ship’s engines to full speed. He loops back around, no doubt hoping to drag the Morgut ships back into SDI range. Maybe they’ll do some damage when our lasers take their shields down.

As we skim around the planet, I notice they’ve destroyed half the SDIs. When the last one goes down, the colony will be defenseless. For the next terrifying moments, I’m a passenger. Sure, I could jump us out of here, but that wouldn’t help the colony. If we leave them undefended, the Morgut will sack and pillage the place, stealing the uranium for their use. No matter their purpose, that won’t be good for us. Uranium can be used for fuel, so maybe they need it to power the fleet.

Beside me, March flies like a man possessed. He’s successfully drawn them back to the SDIs, and through his swift reflexes, we’re avoiding the worst of the hits. But unless Evelyn can do as she suggested, we’re outclassed.

“I think I’ve got it,” she says at last.

March tells Torrance, “Focus on their power grid.”

My lasers come back online, and I take aim. The blue beams soar away, striking true, but at first it seems like Evelyn’s trick didn’t work. Then the blue light spreads, sparking through the shields, and Torrance follows it up immediately. His shots scorch the side of the ship. I imagine the stink of ozone and burnt metal.

“You got the power grid. Shields are down!” March whoops.

Without being told, I know to target the other five ships in quick succession. If Torrance can take their power off-line, it will take them longer to get the shields back up. More chance for the SDIs to inflict damage.

He follows my lead, switching targets with a speed that speaks both for his reflexes and Dina’s training. Four out of six lose power. As if scanning for vulnerabilities, the SDI switches targets. The first Morgut ship takes a barrage of minilaser fire. The SDI lasers impact on the hull, creating a fissure visible through the targeting array.

“We have breach!” I dance in my seat while continuing to fire on the last two ships that still have shields.

We take two more solid hits, and the Klaxons go off. Red light fills the cockpit. Mother Mary, that means we have breach, too.

“Seal it off!” March shouts.

The rest of us stay on target. I lock on the weaving Morgut starshredder and let go.

Got you. Its shields flicker and go out, leaving them vulnerable. The SDI rains constant fire in a ninety-degree arc. It will go this way until we win, or it runs out of power, whichever comes first.

Rose beeps us. “Comm request from the colony, sir. Do you want it?”

Though he grumbles about the timing, March answers, “Send it. Voice only.”

An unfamiliar female voice speaks: “You’re just in time, Triumph. I’m sending long-range missiles from other SDIs. You’ll have more support soon, if you can hold out.”

“Roger that. If you don’t mind, though, we’re kind of busy up here.”

Unlike the other colony manager, she doesn’t sound frightened. She laughs. “Understood. Call me when it’s done.”

We evade their fire as best we can. They haven’t pulled off because they can’t imagine losing this fight to one ship and planetary defenses. But they don’t know our crew, and they haven’t seen our mods.

Proton missiles come zooming past us, blowing one of the Morgut starshredders all to hell. Lucky break for us, that was the one whose shields I hadn’t managed to disable. Now I can just shoot away.

Like hive-minded creatures, the five remaining Morgut ships focus their fire on our weapons array. Only March’s skill in the pilot chair keeps us from utter destruction, constantly twirling us away, which makes my job a little harder. Not that I’m complaining. I can’t worry about the fires or the breach, as long as I have weapons.

My lasers sing, slamming into their hulls again and again. I look for a weak point but find none. Torrance supports on cannons; he fires less often, but he can do a lot more damage. Soon, another round of proton missiles come screaming past, blowing another ship to dust. Two down, four to go.

“Target medical,” Doc says. “I think life support may operate from there.”

Without life support, they can’t shoot back. Good thinking, Doc.

Torrance and I switch targets, aiming for the medical prong. Our concentrated fire bites deep into the hull, and vacuum does the rest, pulling the prong off in a ragged break. That becomes our new strategy: We whittle them down, then the incoming missiles do the rest. Though our ship stinks of burning metal and hot wiring, we’re still flying when the last Morgut ship dissolves into scrap.

“Status,” March demands.

“Aft shields back online!” The ensign says finally. “All fires out.”

An eternity later, Doc answers, “Ten wounded, none critical. No fatalities.”

We open the comm shipwide and listen to our people cheering. A trickle of something drips into my eyes. I touch my brow, surprised to find I’m sweaty as hell, but unlike Dina, I don’t smell of flowers.

I tap the comm and ask Evelyn, “How did you work that trick with the lasers? Not that I’m ungrateful. Just amazed.”

“I noticed that certain radiation frequencies disrupt the guidance fields of my nanites, and I thought it might work on shields on a larger scale. I figured we had nothing to lose.”

That was certainly true. The Morgut were kicking our asses before her brainstorm. “Way to go, egghead. We’ll make a soldier of you yet.”

“Unfortunately, the alteration burned out our lasers.”

On the grand scale, the ship has bigger problems. At least we’re in once piece. More or less. “We should put down to make repairs,” I suggest to March.

March shakes his head. “We can’t stay in one place long. Don’t know how long it’ll be before the next site is hit. It might be a simultaneous attack for all we know.”

“Can Torrance fix things en route?” Dina could, no question. But I don’t know how good her replacement is.

“He’ll have to.”

CHAPTER 50

I never thought I’d say this, but—

I’m tired of jumping.

Even when Argus takes the lead, I have to be on-site in case something goes wrong. So far nothing has, but you know the one time I refuse the call and sleep ten minutes longer, well, that’s when we’d wind up lost in grimspace.