Haywire (39 page)

The tablet in Fuqua’s hand chirped, stopping the general in mid sentence. The XO pressed a finger to his ear, nodded a few times, and then pressed a button on his tablet. “Sir, you need to hear this.”

Trusting Fookie to know his job, Harper reeled back his tirade and said, “This is Harper, go.”

“
General, this is Captain Townsend. We have a serious situation out here, Sir.”

The distant ship captain sounded stressed to the breaking point. Had he known Townsend was such a delicate flower he’d have chosen another ship to go after the Titan.

“
We’ve got situations all over the place, Son. Care to be specific?”

“
It’s the Hezrin, Sir. One of their ships just appeared over Mars.”

A nuke detonated in Harper’s guts as everything coalesced into one giant shit storm. “It’s not the Hezrin, Captain. It’s the Titans.”

“
Titans?” Townsend asked, his tone more unsure than ever. “You mean more of them? What’s going on?”

“
Steady, Sailor,” Harper said, his anger anchoring his mind. “Minutes ago I got wind that the Union sent us intel stating the Titans were coming back in force, and they were coming to kill us all. I know how it sounds, but–”

“
Intel from who?”

Harper didn’t feel like playing answer-man to a lowly captain, but he knew the man had a right to know. “From the very folks you’ve been chasing. That Titan you’re after is apparently here to save us, and while we’ve been trying to capture her she’s been looking for a way to stop the Titans that are coming to kill us.” He stopped speaking for a moment, and then said, “I believe that’s what you’d classify as irony.”

Townsend laughed humorlessly. “And we’re supposed to believe her?”

“
I don’t like it either, Captain,” Harper replied, “but the eggheads say her data is accurate based on embedded crypto-whatevers. That, paired with data we received from an attack out at Titania, leads me to believe they’re right.”

“
Then what are my orders, Sir?” Townsend asked, all business.

That was the very question Harper wrestled with. After a moment he said, “Stick with that shuttle and make sure it gets where it’s going. For now we operate under the assumption that all this is true. But, if we find out this is a setup, I want you to blast that shuttle and everyone on board into a billion pieces. Understood?”

“
Understood, Sir.
Culper
out.”

After the channel closed, Fuqua lowered his tablet and settled into a chair in front of Harper’s desk. The XO looked pale, and that was saying something for a man with skin as dark as his. The last thing Harper needed was his right-hand man getting weak in the knees, so he clapped a hand onto the younger man’s shoulder and gave him as fatherly a squeeze as he could muster.

“
Buck up, soldier. Nothing’s over until I say it’s over. If this means we finally have to clean up Groesbeck’s mess, so be it. Been a long time comin’, and I’ll be glad to get it out of the way. This Titan business was trouble from the start.”

In the distance was a ship Shawn never thought he’d ever actually see in person. It was similar to images he’d seen in vids and ebooks, but knowing it was out there, hanging over his head, chilled him. The Hezrin ship was massive, all hard angles and gun ports. Radar said it was nearly five kilometers long from stem to stern, and though it wasn’t moving fast, it was still moving. He wished he didn’t have to be anywhere near it, but he knew he had no other choice. The only thing they had to be thankful for was that it was on the opposite side of them from the conduit to Hygeia.

“
Mom would love to see this,” he said, his lips numb.

Artemis shook her head. “N-n-no, she wouldn’t.”

Hutchins leaned in and squinted at the display. “If those Titans are so crazy, how did they manage to get all the way out here? Seems like a pretty high functioning insanity.”

“
Thanatos is a man o-of incredible will,” Artemis replied. “He always said I was the greatest soldier he’d ever served wi-wi-with, but everyone knew he had no equal. His will binds them through their internal radio network, keeping them just enough in check to man that ship and bring them her-r-re.” She sighed and turned and looked at the shuttle pilot. “How clo-o-ose are we to the conduit to Hygeia?”

“
I’ve got the engines well into the redline,” the shuttle pilot said. “We’re getting there as fast as we can. The Union navy is helping by scrambling everything they have to try and stop that Hezrin ship.”

“
All they-they’ll do is die,” Artemis said.

The pilot looked back at her, his eyes like ancient stones. “We need time, and they’ll make sure we get it.”

Shawn felt small in the face of that kind of bravery. He was scared, but at least he had armor to protect him and weapons that could slice open starship hulls. The men and women putting themselves on the line had nothing but their wits and whatever luck they could find. It wasn’t right, wasn’t fair.

Artemis nodded, her armor jittery but her eyes hard and steady. “Then let’s make sure it’s n-n-not all for nothing. It’s time everyone knew the da-a-anger they’re in.” She placed her hand on the communications panel in front of her, and seconds later her voice rang out across space on an open channel, the signal relayed through conduits to every planet, moon, space station, and starship. “Thanatos,” she said, her words icy and flat, “good of you to f-finally join us.”

At first there wasn’t a response, but then a video transmission sparked to life on the comm display. The light level was low, but eventually a large, oval room resolved out of the darkness. Lights blinked from buttons, screens swirled with images he couldn’t make out, and smoke filled the air like a grainy filter. Then he saw small movements, as though people sat hunched over, twitching and jerking. The shapes were hard to discern against the smoky gloom, their profiles shifting constantly, but then he saw a large body stand from the center of the room and stagger forward. As it came closer to the screen, more lights played across its body until it could finally be seen clearly. Shawn gasped.

“
Ah, Artemis,” the distant Titan said, his voice grating and mechanical. “I’m so-so glad you’re here-re to welcome us-s-s.”

The sheer size of the man was enough to make Shawn’s knees weak. He was like a creature out of nightmares, his muscles carved from steel, flexing and writhing. His hands clenched and opened in random patterns, claw-like fingers cutting the air with tiny whistles. But it was his face that was most horrifying. Red smoldering eyes gazed above a mouth twisted in a demented grin, and spikes rose up from his head like a mix of horns and hair. He was a demon, a giant, a terror from a time best forgotten. Shawn looked at him, and his fear became an icy shard in his chest.

“
Is there e-even a trace of the officer I-I once knew?” Artemis asked, holding fast to her determination. “Or has the Hezrin’s fi-final weapon truly beaten you?”

The glow in Thanatos’s eyes blazed like a supernova, and his mouth twisted into a terrible grimace that revealed shining fangs gnashed together. “I am not beaten!” he shouted, silvery spittle dripping down his chin. “I l-led the war against those monsters. I hound-hound-hounded them across a hundred worlds, and when their end finally came, it was m-m-my hand that cut their throat. Do not dare to diminish my victory.”

“
But lo-look at you now,” she said. “The war hound has become little more than a rabid dog ne-e-eeding to be put down.”

Growls and the sound of metal pounding on metal rumbled through the bridge of the alien ship, and those forms Shawn could see were riots of thrashing limbs and pulsating armor.

“
And are you the one t-t-to do it?” Thanatos replied, barking at the camera that transmitted his image through the Sol System. “You were our greatest, but w-w-with me comes a l-legion straight from hell itself. You’re hopeless a-a-and alone.”

Artemis motioned with her hand at Shawn. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

Shawn swallowed his fear, pushed out his chest, and walked to stand next to her in front of the comm panel.

“
I’m far from al-l-lone, Thanatos,” she said. “We’ve been gone a long time, and they-they’ve been busy in our absence. This Titan is just one of a growing army on Hygeia, and we will de-e-estroy you.”

Thanatos’s eyes narrowed to glowing slits, and his face closed on the camera aboard his ship. When he spoke, the muscles of his face twitched, sending his metallic flesh jumping. “You could have a th-thousand Titans and it wouldn’t matter. We’re com-m-ming for you, and after we’ve eradicated you and your to-o-oy so-o-o-oldiers, we will come for Earth.”

“
Then come, Thanatos,” Artemis said in a hiss. “Come and ge-ge-get me.” She pressed her hand against the comm panel, and the transmission closed with a squelch of static.

“
Well, if you wanted his attention,” Alex said, “I think you got it.”

“
For be-better or worse, I d-do indeed,” she replied. Her hands shook at her side. “N-now let’s go and get ready.”

A new series of beeps tumbled through the air, sending Shawn’s nerves into overdrive.

“
Artemis,” the pilot said. “More ships are coming in. It looks like… two carrier groups. Alliance. I didn’t–”

Weariness clung to Alex’s face like a wet blanket. “Are they heading for us?”

The pilot was silent for a moment as he checked his screens, then said, “No. They’re heading for the Hezrin ship. They… We have an incoming encrypted transmission. It’s the AAS
Halsey
.”

“
Put th-them through,” Artemis said, drawing herself up as straight as she could.

“
Federal shuttle, this is Admiral Kaiser,” a woman said. On the comm screen she looked old enough to be Shawn’s grandmother, but the eyes that stared out from rectangular glasses were sharp. Her thin lips were set in a dour grimace. “I was told we had some bad people out this way.”

“
They ar-r-ren’t bad,” Artemis said, frowning. “They’re just n-not themselves.”

Admiral Kaiser shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips. “I’ll leave that for the grief counselors, Ma’am. My job is to go where I’m told and fight what I find. If you have a plan to stop them, then I’m here to help make it happen.”

Artemis stared at the screen, her eyes unreadable. “E-e-even if it means your death?”

“
Comes with the uniform, Ma’am. You know that better than anyone. So, do you have a plan or not?”

The Titan nodded and explained what she had in mind.

“
Not the best idea I ever heard,” the admiral said, “but it’s ballsy, and I like that. We’ll do everything we can to help. Kaiser out.”

The channel closed with a sharp snap, leaving Shawn feeling even more unready for what was to come.

Sitting in his captain’s seat, Townsend felt split down his middle. In front of him was the ship he’d been ordered to escort, but behind him his fellow sailors were throwing themselves into certain death. He wanted to turn the
Culper
around and help them, but he was a man who followed his orders.

“
Sir, the first shot’s been fired,” Roberts said. Her face looked ghostly in the light of her radar screens.

Townsend brought up a screen so that he could watch the battle unfold. From a pure numbers standpoint, the Alliance and Union ships should have had an easy time of it. Each Alliance carrier group had seven ships in their ranks, and the Union had a carrier group incoming rapidly. All of that hardware was pitted against a single Hezrin ship, but they might as well have been throwing sticks and stones for all the good they were doing. It was a repeat of battles a century old. But, in this case they weren’t fighting to destroy; instead they were only trying to stall, to delay the Titans as they flew for the Hygeia conduit. A fight was a fight, though, and lives were still lost.

“
My god,” Roberts said in hushed tones. “We lost the
Austin
… Just like that. I hope we– Wait, now the
Hendricks
is damaged. They’re sending out distress– Too late. They’re gone too. No escape pods left either of them.”

The Hezrin ship was powering inexorably forward, its guns firing in a slow, steady barrage. The Alliance and Union ships fired back, fired everything they had, but their weapons meant little against the dense Hezrin hull and its seemingly limitless countermeasures.

“
At this rate, Captain,” the
Culper
’s Gunny said, “we’ll be out of ships before that ship reaches the Hygeia conduit.”

Townsend had come to the same depressing conclusion already. “Then let’s hope Admiral Mixon can get more ships out here before it’s too late.”

As if waiting for him to speak, the Hygeia conduit flared, and through it poured the
Nimitz
carrier group, their gun ports open and already powering up. Between them went the federal shuttle, a fish swimming upstream amidst sharks. When the last naval vessel exited, the shuttle was through the conduit and on its way to the asteroid.

“
Don’t lose that shuttle,” he said. “It’s up to us to make sure it completes its mission, and I aim to do just that.”

Gimble had thought once the SWAT shuttle had left through the Mars conduit, it would signal the end of his troubles and let him perform his repairs in peace. And, for a little while at least, they had. Within an hour their primary power plant was restored, and their weapons were online minutes later. By the time their communications panel activated and showed the conversation between Artemis and Thanatos, their engines were nearly repaired as well.