Operation Chimera (23 page)

“You know what galls me, son? The way these damn Draxx think they own the universe.” Keg spilled a little coffee down his front as he tried to take a sip. “I’ve been out here for forty years, ten of them in command, son. Just what―”

Liam, smiling, brought his closed fist down atop Keg’s head.

The droid’s light-eyebrows dispersed in a pixelated cloud, returning to normal. Keg peeked into the cup and swerved to face Liam. “Made you coffee, Liam. Here.”

He took his no-spill shamrock mug back, planting the wide base in its holder with a click. “Thanks.”

Flight control came back online just as the Python’s main gun glowed again. Liam shoved the throttle forward. Keg, hovering, remained motionless in regard to space. As a result, he had a severe meeting with the rear wall. Pinned in place from the acceleration, he wailed.

“Ah ha, ha ha ha ha. Fools! You see, everything is going according to my plans.” With a grunt of exertion, he peeled one arm off the wall to point at Liam. “You, minion, return us to my lair at once. I have much work to dooooooo.”

Keg went headfirst into the back of the co-pilot seat as Liam hit the thrust reverser. The entire cockpit flooded with orange light for an instant as another massive plasma ball sailed overhead, too far away to hit.

The droid flipped up and over the seat, landing in place. “Good morning, Lieutenant Dalton. Did I miss anything important?”

“Keg, turret, please. There’s still fighters after us.”

He floated through the hole in the ceiling. “I shall obey, in accordance with prophecy!”

Emma went for the Python, ignoring both Michael and Aaron screaming at her to break off. She spiraled through a cloud of pulse laser fire, enduring one minor scorch to the left winglet before she broke past it to the rear. The large ship did not maneuver after her.

“Damn, I guess they’re smarter than they look,” she said.

Aaron laughed. “You didn’t honestly think they’d try to point that thing at you?”

“I did a little, maybe.” She flip turned, lighting up the Python’s engine nacelles with pulse laser blasts. A stream of fire puffs drew a glowing line across the back of the vessel, and several went into the end. “Maybe I can still get their attention.”

With one of three large engines sputtering, the Python did turn, but only enough to bring a cluster of heavy turrets to bear on the gnat behind it. A dozen particle beams opened up, filling the void around her with streaks of bright yellow. She accelerated into an erratic dive, right at the Draxx corvette. Emma squinted, angry at Betty’s incessant repetition of “pull up, pull up.” She did so, at the last possible second. Somehow, she had slithered through a curtain of particle beams alive, and gotten too close for any of the turrets to be able to reach her.

“You are either charmed or suicidal.” Michael thought back to his dream, the case of insignia pins. “I’m hoping it’s charmed.”

“Just trying to stay alive.” The Mosquito blasted over the Python’s nose, diving out of the firing arc of the main gun. Her gamble that they wouldn’t even try to hit such a nimble ship with it paid off.

“Now what?” asked Zavex.

Aaron jumped on the tail of a Krait going for the Manta, riddling it to death with pulse laser fire. “If she can keep the big boy distracted, Dragon and Zavex can get behind it. A couple of Widows up the tailpipe should take it down.”

“Now who’s talking suicide? Glaives couldn’t get close to it without getting shredded by the parti beams.” Emma swerved away from another barrage.

“I don’t think that would do us any good, it looks small from here but that thing is still a corvette. We could all land in its shuttle bay. Even widows will just tick it off.”

“Liam is wise. Does anyone have a better idea?” asked Zavex.

“I’m working on it,” replied Michael. “I’m working on it.”

ommander Robin Teague yanked down all four levers, and the sound of power manifested as a noticeable hum from nearby. After hesitating for a moment to ensure it continued, she replaced the floor panel.

“Hand me those locking nuts, Lieutenant,” she told Hardy. He passed them to her, and made short work of slipping them back into their designated holes, twisting them tightly back into place. “That’ll do it.”

“You know your way around things, don’t you, Commander?” Hardy asked.

She laughed. “Case of having to, in my experience. Comes in handy to know how everything works on a starship. Back in the Academy, I was known to spend evenings poring over schematics and technical manuals.”

“Wow.”

“It’s not something to be in awe of, Lieutenant,” Teague said. “In fact, it’s probably rather sad. I guess I should’ve been out getting drunk.”

“So how come you’re able to restore power and engineering can’t?” Hardy asked.

“I could’ve had them come up here to do this, Lieutenant. But they’ve got enough to do down there. Rerouting power to one section of the ship is a helluva lot different than doing the same for every inch of her.”

Robin led the way back to the bridge. The corridor was still dark, but by the time they reached the bridge, the lights were back on. A handful of systems came back online, evidenced by their screens displaying the respective start-up coding, a digital language scrolling too fast for any human eye to discern its meaning.

“Good work, Commander,” Driscoll said.

Lieutenant Hardy returned to his seat, but found the helm still devoid of life.

“I don’t know what good it does us,” Teague said, looking about. “If we can’t actually control the ship…”

“The Chief will get her back together again,” Driscoll said.

“Let’s hope so.” Teague looked in the direction of Lieutenant Brooke and the Weapons station. “Do we have weapons control?”

Driscoll nodded. “Yeah. That’s the one bit of good news we’ve had so far. Unfortunately, not even the short range sensors are operable right now. We can shoot, but we don’t know where to aim. Systems are rebooting, but for all intents and purposes, the rest of the ship’s dead as a dodo.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Captain, I’d like to head on down to the engineering section, see if I can’t give the Chief a hand,” Teague said. “There might be repairs he could use a few extra bodies for. Might help him in getting us control of the
Manhattan
back.”

“By all means,” Driscoll said. “Whoever you come across along the way, drag ‘em with you. Set them to work down there. And tell Macintosh
I
sent you.”

“Yes, sir,” Commander Teague said, throwing him a strange look before she once again left the bridge.

he Mosquito careened in a wide arc, only meters in front of crisscrossing streaks of orange death. Any single strike from a heavy particle cannon would reduce the little fighter to a cloud of stray atoms and a few bits large enough to see with the naked eye―and a dozen passed by every two seconds.

“We have to get out of here,” said Aaron. “We can outrun it.”

“We can’t outrun it if we’re being evasive,” said Michael, “and if we turn and burn it’s got nice clean shots right at our collective asses.”

A painful silence settled over the comm channel until Emma broke it. Her voice was eerie in its calm. “Use the
Lewis & Clark
for cover, I’ll get it to chase me past it then you could try that missile in the tailpipe thing.”

Michael stared at Emma’s holographic bust; she had to know that one half-second of mistimed maneuvering would be the last mistake she would ever make. Despite that, the only readable sign of her being in a high stress situation was the occasional grimace in time with a swerve.

Aaron went for the hulk, as did Liam.

“Will those neutron beams work?” asked Zavex.

“The high density neutron accelerators could theoretically breach the outer hull of a Python, however the diffusion effect through such material would result in the need for pinpoint accuracy to deliver the remaining energy to a critical system.”

Liam gaped at the droid for a few seconds. “Thank you, Keg. What he means is it could pierce if I hit a soft spot but it would have to be dead on target to something vital. Basically, I’d be teasing a lion.”

“They know you’re a threat, that’s why they’re shooting at you,” said Aaron.

“Oh, here I am thinking it was because I’m the only thing they feel they can hit.”