Abysm (6 page)

“Anyone who doesn’t, you will be honorably transferred out of the unit. See the base Operations Officer for your new assignment. Thank you for serving with me. It has been my privilege.”

4

MESSIS I

E
ARTH
A
LLIANCE
O
RBITAL
S
TATION
M
ESSIUM
S
TELLAR
S
YSTEM

K
ENNEDY TROMPED AROUND THE PERIPHERY
of the breakroom. “A planet-sized plant intelligence? Seriously?”

“No bullshit. Three of them.”

“Two of which tried to kill you.”

“Rather strenuously. And the third healed me.”

She veered around another corner. “And now you and Caleb are planning to lead an army of Metigens, or something? In a war against…humans?”

“I don’t think they’d technically be considered ‘human’ any longer, not as we—”

“Not the point. In case you didn’t notice, there’s about to be a war
here
to fight.”

Alex groaned. “Which is why we came back! To help. To try to, I don’t know, keep everyone’s stupidity from destroying civilization. Again.”

Kennedy threw her head back to glare at the ceiling. “Ugh, this is the thing about you that drives me nuts. You always expect the worst from people. You learn what’s happening, and you see idiots and bureaucrats and swindlers. I look out there, and I see people standing up for their right to live the way they choose. I see a whole bunch of people embracing progress and new ideas, even though it’s scary to do, and coming together in new ways and across lines which used to divide them.

“Alex, maybe for once you should think about fighting
for
something good instead of just against something bad.”

She stared at Kennedy, flabbergasted. She’d left for a few months and…what was this? “You’re really angry with me?”

Kennedy’s lips twitched; finally she shrugged weakly. “I don’t know. I was pissed when you took off and all I got was a bye-bye note. Then I had to leave behind my family and all my fancy comforts to strike out into the unknown, and you weren’t here for me to talk to about it. Noah almost died, and you weren’t here to tell me it was going to be okay, or at least crack jokes so bad I’d have to laugh.

“I missed you, over and over again. But I bucked up and did what I needed to do anyway, and I’m kind of damn proud of myself. So I don’t want you coming in here badmouthing what we’ve accomplished simply because you’re irritated.”

Alex sank into the chair. She felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. The world—events, people, sounds, movements—were whirling past her, and she couldn’t catch her breath.

“I’m sorry. I…you’re right, of course. I didn’t mean to denigrate or minimize everything you’ve done. It’s amazing, all of it. It genuinely has been a tough week and I need more sleep, but that’s no excuse. I should be…better.”

God, she sounded like a glitched recording stuck in an infinite loop. She opened her mouth to spill her soul, to admit the root source of her prickliness and everything else—

“Awww, it’s all right.” Kennedy bounced toward the fridge compartment. “Now that I’ve yelled at you and gotten all the angst off my chest, I don’t feel as mad anymore.” She peeked in the fridge and scowled, then closed it and headed for the door. “Let’s find you some of that food you need.”

Alex forced a smile as she stood. “Good idea.”

Caleb burst in the room at that moment, Noah close behind him. “Come on. We need to go.”

“What? I thought you—”

“The station’s going to come under attack in ten minutes, so moving now, talking later.”

“Attack? By whom?”

Noah snorted. “Who else? The Earth Alliance.”

Her eyes widened. “Mom will—”

Caleb softened his expression. “Will be fine. She’s on her way to her ship. She was sending security officers to collect you, but we volunteered, obviously.”

“Wait, she has a ship?”

He grabbed her arm and tugged her through the door. “
Later
.”

“Right.” She glanced over her shoulder at Kennedy as they hurried along the curving hallway. “You guys want to leave in the
Siyane
with us?”

“Considering we came here on a transport, hell yes, we do.”

Staff hurried in all directions through the corridors of the station as sirens rang out. Whether officer or enlisted, combat, tech or support, their movements were purposeful and directed. No one was running or screaming in panic.

As they maneuvered through the crowds toward the docks, Alex wondered, how many of the staff were loyal? They served under Admiral Rychen, but it was no guarantee they wouldn’t betray both him and her mother.

She shrank away from a beefy lieutenant who took up too much of the hallway for too long. The sooner they were on the
Siyane
, the better.

They burst into the lobby for the docking arms and ran smack into a slightly more panicked throng. Civilians, contractors, visitors. Security personnel were trying to impose order, but they seemed to be losing the battle.

“Oh, shit.”

Caleb tightened his grip on her hand. “Now you grab Kennedy’s hand. Noah?”

“We’re ready.”

Caleb plunged into the crowd.

Instantly bodies jostled against her, fighting for vantage or rebounding from others’ shoves. An elbow jabbed into her ribs. She cringed but kept moving as Caleb expertly steered them toward the sector they needed to reach.

Just as it began to look as though they had met an impenetrable wall of people, the crowd shifted. Direct, explicit orders bellowed over the speakers. New doors had been opened, providing new routes of escape.

Taking advantage of the shift in the ebb and flow of bodies, Caleb increased their pace, and they slipped through the last glut of people to reach their goal.

The security officer waved them through; they arrived at the
Siyane
bruised and scraped, but they all arrived. Alex keyed in the lock code on the airlock and hurried inside.

Valkyrie greeted them. ‘Welcome aboard. Is anyone injured?’

Alex peered behind her while engaging the restraints in the cockpit chair to see Noah fussing over a scrape on Kennedy’s cheek. “Unless someone’s bleeding to death, first aid will have to wait. You’ll want to strap into the jump seats. This could get interesting, and that’s before we get clear of the station.”

Kennedy made a face but did as instructed. “I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is the word you were looking for.”

She chuckled and activated the HUD.

Caleb joined her in the cockpit. “You got this?”

She jerked a firm nod. “I got this.” Her pulse accelerated. This was going to be a
rush
. She raised her voice, trying not to sound overly excited. “Are you two set?”

“Yep.”

“Valkyrie?”

‘Most definitely.’ She sounded excited, too.

EACV-7A492X to Messis I Traffic Control: Requesting release and departure clearance from Dock E-17.

Messis I Traffic Control to EACV-7A492X:  Clearance granted.

They weren’t wasting any time with procedures. A second later the clamps retracted.

Alex edged the impulse engine up to five percent, dipped and arced slowly around to open space.

Chaos that closely resembled panic awaited. Shuttles raced to the presumed safety of the planet below while fighters crisscrossed the perimeter of the station. Platoon-sized formations of frigates and several cruisers formed up and accelerated away. To where the approaching attackers were located?

She didn’t give a damn what her mother said in public. This was a bona fide insurrection.

Kennedy piped up behind her. “Are my ships in combat? I really want to see that.”

“I don’t think there’s any actual combat so far. We can’t make out the battle lines yet.”

“Yet?” Caleb cocked an eyebrow. “We should go to Seneca or Romane. If this is the opening salvo of a war, I don’t feel comfortable being somewhere with inferior firepower.”

She prevaricated. “Either of those is fine.”

“But?”

“But we’re going to help first.”

“What? Never mind, I don’t need to see my ships in combat that badly.”

“Did you forget? Valkyrie and I helped fight the final battle against the Metigens. We have been here before.”

Caleb sighed. “I was about to point out you weren’t technically piloting a ship at the time, but having been on the receiving end of your piloting skills, I would never question them.” He checked over his shoulder. “If either of you were pretending to be strapped in, I’d strap in for real.”

There was the muffled sound of a strap tightening.

Some of the Volnosti ships—what a fabulous name—had established a perimeter a megameter out from the station. Buying people time to evacuate and the planetary defenses below time to go on alert…assuming the government was on their side. Again she worried about allegiances. Unlike on Earth, where the government and military shared control of the Terrestrial Defense Grid, requiring the agreement of both to use it, for political reasons the Messium government retained complete control over their orbital arrays.

“Valkyrie, can you get us patched into the Volnosti comm system and make certain we’re greenlit?”

‘No, I cannot. But Annie can.’

“Good enough.” She suspected Valkyrie was enjoying being back among her own kind.

Satisfied everything was in order, she picked out a course for the front line about the time the comm channel lit up.

Admiral Solovy:  “Alexis, get out of here. Messium isn’t safe, but you can go to Romane. Stay out of the crossfire.”

That didn’t take long. “Respectfully, Admiral Solovy, no. I can help. Now stop talking to me and go direct your battle.”

Admiral Solovy:
  “Chort tzdbya beeree.
Fine. But for God’s sake, get far away from Messis I. Immediately.”

She burst out laughing, followed shortly by everyone else in the cabin as their translators kicked in.

Kennedy cackled a bit wildly, so much so Alex suspected she
had
been injured during their escape and was enjoying some painkillers. “I’ve never heard your mother mouth off so!”

“Neither have I. Guess she was paying attention to Dad’s curses all those years after all.” Another thought distracted her from the undeniable humor of her mother’s response. “I wonder why she said to stay away from the station, instead of the front line? Is something going to happen there?”

Curious, she adjusted course and arced back toward Messis I.

“You’re doing exactly the opposite of what your mother said.”

She didn’t need to look over at him; she could see Caleb’s pained expression perfectly well from the corner of her eye. “Not the first time.”

The flow of shuttles had slowed considerably, and presumably it had been largely evacuated. It didn’t appear to have much in the way of weapons, defensive or otherwise.

As a joint civilian-military initiative, it relies on the planetary defenses for its protection.

Then why is it important? The battle will be elsewhere.

Two Alliance cruisers emerged from superluminal two megameters from Messis I on the opposite side from the gathering fleets. The station’s fighter protection instantly moved toward the ships, but they’d barely begun to close the distance when both cruisers fired.

Not on the fighters.

On Messis I.

Eight separate laser strikes tore into the structure, ripping through the utility shields then multiple layers of metal. Enormous chunks of the station broke off to tumble through space. The lasers next directed the full force of their fire on the lower central portion.

The primary power module is located in the targeted sector.

“Oh….” Alex yanked the ship vertical then another 45° to flee.

The power module ignited and the core of Messis I exploded in a roiling fireball. Its hull disintegrated and spears of metal were hurled outward at accelerating speeds.

The shockwave slammed into the
Siyane
. She gritted her teeth and concentrated on dodging fragments of the station until her speed exceeded theirs. She wanted to slip into the walls of the ship, but she feared the debris would physically
hurt
.

Finally they outpaced the leading edge of the explosions and the vicious beating subsided. She breathed out. “Everyone good?”

Caleb reached over and squeezed her hand. “Like I said about your flying….”

Kennedy’s voice rose an octave higher than usual. “They blew up the station! Are they insane?”

5

MESSIUM STELLAR SYSTEM

EAS
C
HURCHILL