Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench (27 page)

The enemy cruiser that Mac’s ship had hit was still busy dying; explosions rocking it from inside and debris was spreading outward. However, it was the second cruiser, the last one still intact, that Vas was worried about. Granted, it had moved away from the fighting, but not enough for her comfort. It could still charge forward and attack the
Warrior Wench
.

Vas punched the Fury’s engines and shot forward. Because the outer wing guns were still jammed, she was limited to what charges were left in the smaller inner wing weapons, but a quick check told her it was enough to at least cripple the cruiser.

The cruiser was holding in place. She could almost imagine what was going through that captain’s mind. His fleet was gone. Whatever big, bad, and ugly they had been waiting for to come through that supergate was now floating around in tiny pieces along with the remains of that supergate. Most likely he was torn between revenge and getting the hell out of here.

He waited too long to make up his mind.

Vas thumbed the launch controls, dumping everything that was left in the Fury’s inner guns into the side of the ship. At first she thought it hadn’t worked, then a chain of explosions, following the length of the cruiser, burst into space.

“Let’s get out of here.” Vas said to Mac then turned the Fury around.

Mac only grumbled from his place in the storage area, but Vas took that as an agreement. The last cruiser was burning quite nicely behind them as Vas gunned the Fury as much as she felt safe. Pieces of the supergate and the massive cruiser that had tried to come through were spinning around the debris of the earlier fight. At least that part had worked.

“Now that is a sight for sore eyes,” Vas said then chuckled to herself that she was actually glad to see that garish
Warrior Wench
design.

“What is? I can’t see anything down here.” Mac’s whine told her he was okay.

“Our ship. She’s intact.”

“Gosta? Come in?” Only static met Vas’s hail and coldness grabbed her heart. Had the explosion from the supergate done damage she couldn’t see? Now that she looked closer it was clear that the
Warrior Wench
was listing. And the three Flits were still circling outside the landing bay.

“Damn it, Gosta, you better be okay.” Vas tried again, and then flicked the channel to reach the Flits. “Glazlie? Huglin? Marwin? Are you guys okay? Have you been able to reach the ship?” She clicked back. “And I have Mac in my cargo area. He’s cranky but in one piece.”

“I heard that!” Mac yelled from the storage area.

“I know you did.” Vas yelled back and sent her message again. Was no one left?

“Captain, good to see you.” Glazlie’s voice was scratchy with static but most likely that was the fault of a billion tiny pieces of what used to be a supergate.

“Can you reach the
Warrior Wench
? Are you all okay?”

“We’re fine, but no, I haven’t been able to reach them, nor get the landing bay open.” More static cut her off. “But it looks like the rest of our ships got through the hypergate.”

Vas studied her screen. That was good and bad. Good for the refugees, bad if the
Warrior Wench
wasn’t functioning.

“I’m going to move in closer.” Vas moved the Fury as close to the
Wench
as she could.

Damn it, they had to have made it. The ship didn’t look that bad from the outside, even up close. But she was starting to list even more.

“Gosta, Xsit, anyone. Come in.” She opened the hail to hit all personal comms as well. “Anyone, this is Vas calling anyone on the
Warrior Wench
. Is anyone picking me up?”

The silence that followed almost made her throw up. At least they’d gotten all those refugees out of here. Damn it though, it just wasn’t fair. Vas started pounding on the console as the events of the last hour—was it only an hour? —caught up with her and dragged her under. Damn it all to hell! First Deven and Jakiin, now the entire crew?

“Captain?” A faint voice echoed from her open comm. “Vas? Is that you?”

Vas wiped her face, surprised at the wetness she found. “It’s me, Terel. Are you guys okay? I can’t get anyone on the command deck comms.”

“We’re okay, battered, and the ship is going to have to limp somewhere safe for repairs. Gunny is having a fit at no weapons and in enemy territory. But we’re okay. Gosta’s trying to replace the comm system with one he stole from a Flit. Should be enough to get us along. Bathie and Divee are trying to get the stabilizers back on. And the engine will only hold hyperspace for about ten minutes at a time, so we’ll have to do short jumps.” Terel paused. “Did you all make it?”

Vas thought at first that she was asking because Mac’s ship was gone, but then she realized if they’d been blind since the supergate exploded they couldn’t possibly have a clue as to who was out here. “We made it. Mac’s lost us a ship, but he’s in one piece.”

“I heard that too!” Mac yelled from the back again.

“And again I don’t care!” Vas yelled back.

“Who are you yelling at?” Gosta’s voice was a very welcome sound. “And you guys can come in at any time; we’ve got commands for the landing bay back. The ship will need to sit like this for a bit longer, but you can land now. She won’t be doing any unexpected moves.”

Vas glanced up as the triplets headed for the bays. Obviously the comm was completely working again. She reached back and pounded on the storage wall. “Hang on, we’re going home.”

Mac gave a reply that was luckily mumbled. Well, it was lucky for him it was mumbled.

It was a bit tricky to get into the landing docks because of the list, but at least the ship wasn’t bouncing around. The triplets were all waiting behind the blast glass when she shut off the engines. All three ran forward as the outer doors shut and pressure was back in the hanger.

Vas released her seat and climbed out as well. She almost forgot to release the storage door but a pounding reminded her.

“Ouch!” Mac swore as he tumbled out.

“Why in the hell were you leaning on the door?” Vas helped him up. He was filthy; obviously his ship had been on fire before she got him. However, his bright blue eyes were very cognizant. And pissed.

“How was I supposed to know that was the door? I was just the tagalong!”

He would have continued his tirade but Glazlie ran up and engulfed him in a hug, a hug far more than just shipmates would imply.

Vas left the hanger. There was too much that happened today for her to sort it out now.

“I expect you to meet me on deck, Mac.” She’d give him a few minutes with his friends.

Her energy faded as she walked to the command deck. She knew she needed to deal with Deven’s loss, but she didn’t have time. Or she didn’t want to make time. Funny how she could still imagine what Deven would say. He would say she was dealing with physical issues to avoid the emotional ones.

And he would be right.

Nevertheless, the fact was they still had a lot of physical issues to deal with. She didn’t have time for grief yet.

The command deck wasn’t a total mess, but wires were everywhere and at least two consoles were gone. Some of it appeared to be self-inflicted and judging by the swearing she heard behind one console she could guess who did it.

“Can we get out of here yet?”

Gosta popped his head around the raised console. “Does it look like we can?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. I’m still having some trouble patching together enough of a system to get us through the hypergate. Whatever was in that ship or the supergate fried just about everything.”

Vas took her seat, and then turned to Xsit. “Has anyone checked to make sure the hypergate is still even functional?” They’d gone far beyond the original estimate that Flarik thought she could keep it working.

Xsit chirped and ducked to run the scan. Things must be bad if Xsit was down to chirping. But she’d always had a serious sweet spot for Deven, and unlike Vas she wasn’t as good at blocking her feelings.

A loud chirp got everyone’s attention a few moments later; Xsit peeked up with an embarrassed look on her face. “Sorry.” The rrr’s came out as a trill, and Xsit coughed, then tried again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle anyone. The gate is still up and working.” She clacked her beak. “I’m not sure how long that will last though. It took some damage from the explosion as well.”

Vas put her head back against the headrest. She had no idea how long before the enemy would come back. She had to assume there were more of them who were not at whatever this rendezvous had been. She toyed with trying to reclaim part of the Furies, but they were literally shattered, and any larger portions were in the radioactive spill from the dying ships. Besides, Deven and Jakiin were dead. Bringing back their bodies, or parts of them, would only make things worse.

She knew the
Warrior Wench
had a full complement of escape pods. In theory if enough pods linked together they could trigger a hypergate and at least ride it for a few stops. Which would mean leaving the
Warrior Wench
behind. That wasn’t a plausible idea. So what was?

“Got it!” Gosta shouted, but swore a second later. “Almost. Damn it. Wait, we’re back, but we have to run now. Jakiin—” Gosta closed his eyes as he automatically shouted the dead man’s name. “Mac, get us to the gate. I don’t care where it goes, just get us out now.” He nodded over to Vas. “We have minutes before the system crashes.”

Vas nodded. “You heard the man, Mac. Let’s leave this wretched galaxy.”

Mac nodded tersely and hit the codes in. The ship lumbered a bit—whatever patchwork repairs had been done to stabilize her, they weren’t completely holding. But it moved. They made it through the jump.

True to the estimate from Xsit, they couldn’t stay in the hypergate stream for more than ten minutes. The first jump, Vas tried to push it, but the ship started to rip itself apart. She kept their jumps to no more than eight minutes after that.

Because they had to keep their jumps so short, it wasn’t until they’d gone through about twenty, that Vas agreed to have them lay in command for the system the refugee ships were meeting them at.

The refugee ships had made it intact and a thorough scan of the system indicated no other ships in the area, so Vas instructed them to head for Home.

“We’ve got this now.” Flarik’s voice was unusually gentle as she came to Vas’s command chair.

Vas knew she was right, they were fine now. Nevertheless, she didn’t want to leave the command deck. The fighting and the massive number of hypergate jumps they’d made had allowed her not to think. The crisis was over for now. Now would come the thinking.

She held off answering Flarik as long as she could, but the crew was starting to look at her in sympathy. Damn it, she couldn’t break down in front of them.

“Thank you, Flarik. You and Gosta have the deck. Mac, call me the instant anything odd comes our way, or when we get to Home.”

She made it to her quarters just as Mac sped them into the next hypergate. The soothing hum of the ship as she used the hyperspace links relaxed the knots in Vas’s neck. Which wasn’t a good thing as they were about the only thing still keeping her emotions in check.

She held on until the door was shut and locked behind her. Flinging off her flight jacket, she did something she hadn’t done since she was nine and her brother betrayed her to a bunch of telepaths. She threw herself on her bed and cried until she fell asleep.

Chapter Thirty-One

Mac rarely obeyed orders, and judging from the time she’d been asleep, he hadn’t changed. Vas swore as she looked at her wrist piece. She’d been out at least three hours, far longer than it would have taken to get to Home.

Which meant Mac disobeyed her yet again, or they weren’t safe.

“Gosta, where the hell are we and why wasn’t I called?” Vas rolled herself out of bed and shrugged into a clean flight suit.

“Because I told him not to.” Nariel’s voice was far more clipped than usual. Her sibilants were clean. “We’re safe, don’t worry. I can come down there or you can come to my office.”

Vas ran her fingers through her hair. She didn’t have time for this. “Nariel, I know what you’re trying to do. We can deal with this later.”

“I come down there, or you come here.”

“Now wait a—”

“You gave me an order when I first came on board. Do you recall what it was?”

“This isn’t the time—”

“You said, and I quote, “If at any time I feel that anyone on this ship, including you, is not able to function, I have the obligation to lock them up until such time as I believe they can return to duty.” Her voice softened. “Vas, I know you are hurting. This entire ship is hurting. We need to deal with it now. You need to be able to help them through this.”

Vas stared at her comm. What kind of mercenary had a mind-doc who could overrule the captain? She shook her head. A healthy one. She’d seen too many mercs crumble by not taking care of themselves and their crew physically and mentally. Giving Nariel and Terel overriding control to look out for her and the crew was one of the smartest moves she made. And one of the reason they lost so few crewmembers.

It was, however, a pain in the ass.

“Come down here.” She tried to pull her quarters together a bit. No reason for the mind-doc to have more to deal with.

An hour later neither Nariel nor Vas was truly happy, but Nariel was willing to leave her alone. Which was about the best she could hope for. They’d lost three others besides Deven and Jakiin, plus the eight they’d lost on the planet and the ship was still limping. The good news was that the refugee ships had all made it…to Home.

Vas drummed her fingers on her command chair when she was told the news. It wasn’t as if they had a choice. Their contact for the ships didn’t have directions for Marli’s secret hideout. Hhssion, her supply clerk, had stayed aboard the largest refugee ship. He had given them the way to Home.

“Ya know what? We’ll deal with that later. They can stay put. If Hhssion sets them up and works it out with Grosslyn, I have no issue with it.” She stood and studied her command crew. The command deck was still in pieces. They should head to Home for repairs. She just wanted to take a few more precautions before they potentially gave away their last safe spot.

First she needed to say something. She flipped open the comm so it went ship-wide. “I know our recent loss has hit all of us hard. But know that our crewmates died saving us. Saving this ship, and those lives sitting at Home. Deven and Jakiin went forth fully knowing they weren’t coming back. Likel, Johannis, and Ti didn’t know it, but they were fighting for all of us when they fell at their posts just the same. Same with the eight we lost on the planet. We’re not safe yet, but when we are, we will grieve, laugh, and remember the fallen. To the victorious dead!” The last was echoed throughout the ship.

With a deep breath she shut off the ship-wide comm. Now to follow through. “How many more jumps can we make before we’re stuck?”

Gosta’s head bobbed as he ran calculations in his head. “Probably no more than four or five.”

“Which is it?” Vas softened the question with a smile. “Do we jump that fifth or not?”

Again the bobbing. Gosta finally shook his head. “No. We’ve already jumped six more times since you left the deck. Four more we can clear. That would put us at thirty total since we fled. Another isn’t worth the risk.”

“And anyone that can find us after that many jumps already knows where Home is,” Bathshea said softly. She had been sitting in Xsit’s seat since Vas arrived. Most likely the emotional Xithinal was in Terel’s care.

“Agreed.” Vas resumed her seat. “But first I need one more sweep of the ship, inner and outer. We need to make sure not the tiniest speck of tagging is on us.” Gosta had suggested a hypothesis on how they were pulled into the dead gate that flung them into the gray ships: Marli’s tracking beacon. He wasn’t sure why yet, but something about it had opened the gate. Vas had a bad feeling it was due to some sort of Asarlaí tech built into the tracking beacon. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell Gosta that. That Asarlaí tech opened a closed gate again tied the Asarlaí-worshipping Rillianians into the gray ships. Vas added it to her notes, and copied them all to Flarik’s personal computer.

She turned to Bathie as another thought hit her. “Can you have a crew scan the Fury and the three Flits as well? I seriously doubt anyone out there had time to tag us during that fight, but you never know. Their tech is beyond us. Oh and, Mac, go space your flight suit.”

The squawk that answered was reassuringly normal. “What? Why? Do you know how long it takes to break one of those in just right? I took that thing everywhere!”

“Don’t really care, flyboy,” Vas said. “That suit was out there, they could have bathed the entire area in trackers. Dump the suit.” She sighed. “You can have one of the
Warrior Wench
flight suits.” The ship had come with a limited number of extremely high-end flight suits. Vas had been holding them back so there wasn’t a knock down fight for them.

Mac’s face went skeptical. “Really? I thought you weren’t letting anyone have those?”

“Well, if you don’t think you deserve one.…” Vas shrugged.

“No, no, no! I’ll take it.” He grinned. “Thanks, Captain.”

“Get fitted once we’ve finished our hops. I have a feeling we won’t be staying on Home long.” Vas nodded to Gosta and Flarik. “Can I speak to the two of you in my ready room?”

Both followed her in silently and took their seats. Vas took a breath to settle herself. The talk with Nariel had helped but the fact was, it was going to be a long time, if ever, before she got over Deven. This had to be done.

“I need a new second-in-command. Normally I would wait a bit but we have to consider ourselves at war. Therefore, we can’t wait. You two are the most likely candidates, so I wanted to start with you.”

Neither appeared comfortable with her words, but Flarik looked almost ill.

“Captain, I respectfully have to decline. I would not be a good choice.”

Vas kept her face neutral. She agreed completely. However, she also knew that with someone like Flarik, that admission had to come from her. This way she’d support whomever Vas chose.

Gosta now looked completely ill. Unfortunately for him, he was the best choice.

“Captain, I—”

Vas came around to the front of the desk and held his gaze. “I know you don’t want this. No one wanted this situation to come up. Nevertheless, you’re the best choice. People listen to you, Gosta.”

The two bobs in his neck wavered up and down a few times before he spoke. “But I can’t enforce things. People may listen to me, but they don’t…fear me.”

Vas turned her look to Flarik, someone people did fear. She didn’t have to say anything.

“Do not worry, Gosta. People
do
fear me.” She ruffled her head feathers and put her most predatory look on. “I will make it clear that not listening to you will make them answer to me. Between us, we can make a serviceable second-in-command.”

Vas smiled. It turned out even better than she’d hoped. With Flarik backing him, Gosta would be able to take control should something happen to her.

“Thank you, both of you.” Vas went back to her chair and checked her computer. The scans of the ship were still running. They had time to resolve a few more things. “Now we need to put things together and fast. Who in the hell is behind this?”

Gosta relaxed. “I believe there is more than one group. With different yet somehow connected objectives.” He glanced at Flarik. “The Rillianians, the Graylian monks, and the gray ships. I believe they may be working together. But I’m not sure to what level. We have to assume the gray ships are from somewhere far outside the Commonwealth.”

“Do we know what they are trying to accomplish? Where is the Commonwealth on this?” Vas turned to Flarik. “Did we find out who those ships were that entered Mnethe V space just as we left? Did we get anything from them?”

Gosta bowed to Flarik to go first.

“They belonged to the Welischian consulate. The ambassador has a small fleet under her flag. They are Commonwealth, but only stick to outer rim.”

Vas swore. “Which puts them with the Graylians most likely.”

“There’s more,” Flarik added. “They were reported destroyed two months ago in a mysterious accident. And at the same time, two of the larger Graylian monasteries were abandoned.”

“Damn it. They could belong to anyone now, but my money is on those monks. Did they see us leave?”

Gosta watched his screens again. “I don’t think so. Xsit tracked when we picked them up on our scanners. They shouldn’t have seen us unless they did a log search of the gate.”

Which they could do if they were still Commonwealth. However, unless the entire system had gone bad, three ‘destroyed’ ships couldn’t use any known codes to search a gate. At least that was good news.

“As for the Commonwealth itself, it’s unclear. The person you spoke to may have gone rogue and still had channel access. Or it could be deeper.” Gosta said. “But unless you want to go to the Commonwealth home worlds, we can’t get close enough to any of them to tell.”

“No, we’ll stay away from that option. We’ll maintain blocking until I have reason to feel otherwise.” She looked at her two officers. Both were clearly exhausted. She’d had time to collapse. Whether they wanted to or not, they needed it as well.

“The scan still has some time to run, and Mac and I can get ourselves to Home. I want the two of you to both go talk to Nariel.” She waved off both complaints before they could be launched. “No options. I did it. You two do it. Then to your quarters. Get some rest, meditate, whatever. I have a new challenge for you.”

She flicked up the computer screen and turned it toward them. They’d gotten some hopefully useful data on their mysterious gray ship friends during the fight. “I need you both to analyze this and look for weaknesses. Also look at anything we gathered on their ground troops.” She shook her head. “I should have tried to bring a body back with us. We don’t even know what species they are. Deven,” her voice caught just a little, but it was getting better, “Deven scanned some data of them on the planet. It’s in the system too. Report back when you find something.”