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  Adira fixed Mach with a cold glare. “Ions ready to go.”

  Nodding, Mach analyzed the orcus fighters’ positions. They swooped round in an arc, the three ships splitting direction so that two banked either side of the Jaguar’s vector, the third dipping below.

  “They won’t escape the firing arc,” Lassea said, surprising Mach with the focus on her face. Danick looked pale, but calmer than he had been when they flew through the Vekron Valley, making that decision justified in Mach’s eyes.

  “You two monitor the flanks,” Mach ordered the JPs. “Adira, Sanchez, blast ’em when you have them in your sights.” With a chorus of affirmatives, Mach increased the power to the Gamma Drive and pulled the yoke back to angle the motors down, sending the craft in an upward arc.

  The central orcus fighter started to turn and head upward, following their vector, just as Mach hoped. The other two were curving inward, approaching the Jaguar’s flanks.

  “They’re trying to hack our nav systems,” Babcock said.

  “Then stop them,” Mach yelled.

  “I’m on it. Launching digital chaff mines.”

  Squid appeared in Mach’s peripheral vision. “Yes?” Mach snapped.

  “Sir, would the UAV-Interceptors be of use in this situation as we do seem to be outnumbered,” Squid said.

  “Of course!” Mach had completely forgotten about them in the excitement of taking the Jag out for its first flight.

  “Mach,” Danick said, looking around from his console, his eyes eager, “I trained on UAV-drones in CWDF academy, the controls here look similar enough; the AI-driven defense programs are the same. I can—”

  “Do it,” Mach said, cutting the kid off. “Focus fire on one orcus ship at a time. Lassea, you monitor both flanks and comm with Danick to help with targeting.”

  Lassea nodded and adjusted her console’s holodisplay to show both sides of the Jag’s field of view. Mach turned his attention back to his maneuver. When the ship had reached the zenith of its arc, he snapped the yoke to the left, spinning the craft through one-eighty so they were now facing the orcus ship below.

  Before the enemy could react, Mach gunned the Gamma Drive to seventy percent, launching the ship to within firing distance.

  “Locked for torpedoes,” Adira said.

  “Fire three when ready,” Mach replied.

  “Launching torpedoes.”

  Mach watched the screen in front of him as a weapon’s HUD showed the feed from each torpedo. Much like the orcus fighters’ formation against the Jag, the torpedoes split wide to ensnare their target from multiple angles.

  “Orcus closing on our flanks,” Lassea said.

  Danick nodded and manipulated the controls for the UAVs. The two interceptors launched out of their bay in the stern of the Jaguar and with their miniature fusion motors were soon closing in on the fighter from the port side.

  Turning his attention back to the torpedoes, Mach watched the orcus ship barrel-roll out of the way of one but then arced away into the path of another. It struck the orcus fighter amidships, sending it into a tight flat spin.

  “In range,” Sanchez said. “Firing lasers.”

  Mach matched the path of the orcus fighter to give Sanchez the best chance of a hit. They were less than half a klick away when Sanchez fired with a cry of, “Yeah!” The quad lasers, along with the other two torpedoes, hit home, turning the orcus fighter into a spray of light and debris.

  “One down,” Adira said.

  “Digital chaff mines active,” Babcock said. “We’re safe. Should I engage stealth mode?”

  “Do it,” Mach said as he steered the Jaguar out of the way of the wreckage. Some of the debris struck the ship. Bits of metal and plastic struck the Jag’s hull, echoing the crashes throughout the bridge. A couple of minor alarms rang out.

  “Squid, investigate,” Babcock said to his floating friend. The small drone zipped out of the bridge.

  The lights within the ships dimmed when Mach tried to increase the power to the Gamma Drive. The drive wouldn’t power up more than seventy percent.

  “Flanking ships with point six of a klick,” Lassea said.

  “I’ve got one,” Danick said. “Firing ion blasters.”

  Two blue triangles on the combat screen bleeped, indicating the UAVs had successfully fired and hit with their miniature ion weapons. One of the orcus fighters disengaged its interception path.

  “Sir,” Squid said over the comm channel, “there’s an issue with the fusion crystals. We’ve lost power in three of the array.”

  “Dammit, can you fix them?” Mach asked.

  “Stealth mode not activating,” Babcock reported. “System error.”

  “I’ve lost control of one of the UAVs,” Danick said.

  “No power in the ion cannon either,” Adira added.

  Mach slapped his hand against the arm of his chair, wondering what the hell was going on though accepted it was his own damn fault for taking an experimental, untested ship out like this. “Sanchez, what about the lasers?” he asked.

  “Single fire only,” the hunter growled.

  “We can’t stay and fight like this, we need to L-jump while we still can,” Babcock said, turning to face Mach. “Squid says we should have enough juice to get us to our destination, but not sure what condition we’ll be in when we get there.”

  “Well,” Mach said, “we can’t stick around here. Looks like more orcus fighters launched from Feronia.” Mach nodded his head to the viewscreen, which showed half a dozen smaller craft break the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Danick, bring the UAVs home. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Done, they’ll be in the hangars in approximately a minute and a half.”

  “Sir, the remaining orcus fighter is drifting out of firing range,” Lassea said.

  “It’s waiting for the support of the others,” Adira said. “We ought to chase it down.”

  “No,” Mach said. “We’re jumping. I don’t like these odds.”

  Mach reduced the power to the Gamma Drive by fifty percent and brought the ship around to face the coordinates of their destination: the contested sector beyond the NCZ. He waited until the UAVs had confirmed their re-entry to the ship’s bay before plotting the course and diverting all power to the LD. It wasn’t quite enough to engage. He had to shut down the power to the laser and ion cannons.

  “We’re a sitting duck,” Adira snapped.

  The group of orcus fighters was closing in to torpedo range.

  Mach watched the power to the LD increase, but it still wasn’t enough.

  “EMP torpedoes fifteen seconds from impact,” Babcock said.

  “There’s not enough juice left,” Mach said, trying to think where else he could divert the power from in order to give the LD enough to engage. “Squid,” he said, “re-engage the damaged crystals.”

  “But, sir, they could destroy the array completely.”

  “Could, but not certain. What are the odds?”

  Squid waited for a moment before saying, “Ten percent at a minimum chance they’ll blow the entire array, damaging the LD beyond repair.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Do it.”

  “As you wish,” Squid said with a chirp.

  “Ten seconds from impact,” Babcock informed them.

  Mach tapped his fingers against his knee, waiting for Squid’s confirmation.

  The entire crew turned to face Mach, each person’s face taut with a mix of fear and expectation.

  “Five seconds,” Babcock said before counting down. “Four… three… two…”

  “Crystals re-engaged,” Squid said.

  Mach hit the LD control on his holoscreen.

  “One…”

  The roar of the EMP torpedoes sounded like a thunderstorm had erupted within the craft, but it was too late. The LD kicked in, launching the Jaguar forward even as a dozen or more alarm icons flashed, warning on one issue or another. The ship entered that weird state of FTL travel whe
re they saw only darkness on the holoscreen and the hull seemed to vibrate with an impossible frequency. A subsonic susurration filled the bridge.

  The crew waited for Mach’s update, almost as if they needed him to say if they were dead or alive. How would Mach tell the difference, he didn’t know, but what he did know, was that it was too damned close for comfort.

  At least this time, his gamble paid off.

  The Jaguar’s LD held up despite the damaged crystals.

  They’d just need to wait now and see what kind of state the ship was in once it finished its jump—if they made it that far.

  “We’re okay,” Mach said, wiping the sweat from his face. “We’re all okay.” For how long that would last, he just couldn’t say.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morgan ascended the steps toward a defense control room, close to the base of the thirty-meter-tall, light gray pulse cannon.

  Seazza followed, ready to take notes. It wouldn’t be necessary. Part of his monthly routine was to inspect the six batteries that ringed the capital city. This was just another notional duty as part of his routine. He had already been around four. The ground crews ran them like a smooth machine and didn’t need his patronage.

  Two fidesians and a human, in the sky blue artillery uniforms, rose from their chairs around a console and stood to attention. A red-tinted window ran the full length of the twenty meter room, giving an all-round view of the skyscrapers that dominated the central city, the smaller CWDF base buildings, and the distant dark green mountains.

  A sharp chemical odor hung in the air, the standard-issue cleaning fluid CWDF used before any kind of inspection. Morgan wondered if desk jockeys assumed this was the usual smell in the military installations outside their offices. He had served time on battleships and knew different.

  The human, a young fresh-faced lieutenant with mousy hair, stiffly saluted. “Battery Two ready for inspection, sir.”

  “At ease,” Morgan said and glanced around at the sparkling metal desks, console and his own reflection in the gleaming window. The men relaxed and sat in their chairs, waiting for the vacuous questions. How are things? Are you enjoying it here? How long have you been in the artillery?

  They and he knew it was all an act.

  Bigger things were at stake. With the Axis forming up for battle and searching for the Atlantis ship, Marshal Kenwright playing down events, and Carson Mach busting out a prisoner from Summanus, the Salus Sphere felt like a big shit sandwich. If events weren’t handled properly, all of them would have to take a bite.

  “Anything to report?” Morgan asked.

  “We haven’t received a credible threat since the exclusion zone was set up around Fides Prime,” the lieutenant said.

  Morgan frowned. “Exclusion zone?”

  That was a procedure only taken when they expected an attack. It made no sense; Morgan hadn’t received anything on his smart-screen.

  “We received the command call,” the lieutenant said and bowed his head. “I can’t believe Orbital Twenty-Two has gone.”

  “Excuse me?” Morgan asked. He refreshed his smart-screen and had no notifications. “When did this happen?”

  “Fifteen minutes ago. I thought you…”

  Morgan felt anger surge inside for two reasons. They had lost more lives and it wasn’t hard to guess the source. Secondly, all operational units and staff officers were supposed to receive the command call notifications. It wasn’t hard to work out that the marshal had had him removed from the distribution list after his last dressing down.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” he said to the artillerymen and gently grabbed Seazza by the elbow. She took the hint and followed him back to the stairwell.

  “Did you receive any messages about this?” Morgan said, keeping his voice low. His cheeks burned from the humiliation of being told about the situation by a junior officer. Kenwright and his staff didn’t even have the courtesy to make him aware of the move.

  “I’m not part of the command call,” Seazza said in her matter-of-fact way, maintaining her best political poker face. “I presume you were taken off to concentrate your efforts on the search for the Atlantis ship.”

  Resisting the urge to punch the internal wall, Morgan bit his lip and took a deep breath. He selected Ops on his screen and raised it.

  “Ops, Captain Paterson speaking,” came the reply above the noise of loud conversations.

  “This is Admiral Morgan. Please update me on what happened to Orbital Twenty-Two.”

  “It was just like before, Admiral,” the captain replied after a brief pause. “A wormhole appeared, a ship came through and blasted the station before we lost all trace of it.”

  “The same design as the one that destroyed Orbital Forty?” Morgan asked.

  “Exactly. We had a fighter doing a sweep at the time. It recorded a feed. I’ll send it through to you now.”

  “I want all the information you have. Wormhole coordinates, last tracked location of the enemy ship and energy readings. Do you understand, Captain?”

  “Perfectly, Admiral. Will that be all?”

  “Can you give me an update on the Axis frontier movements?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not authorized to do that, Admiral. Outside of the marshal, we’re only to provide officers updates on their allotted tasks. The order came down this morning.”

  Morgan clenched his fist and moved the screen closer to his mouth. “I need an overall picture to figure out if the Atlantis ship is working in conjunction with the horans.”

  “We don’t have an established connection,” the captain said, his voice becoming increasingly wobbly. “You saw it yourself, Admiral. The horans are searching for the ship too.”

  “I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

  “The operations center has gone to lockdown. Sorry, Admiral, you’ll have to speak with the marshal if you want access.”

  “Thank you for the information. Out.”

  There was little point continuing to put a young officer under pressure for doing his job. Morgan had been in the situation before, caught between a direct order against a high-level protocol. It wasn’t much fun. They all had the same goal. To keep the Salus Sphere safe.

  Senior officers in the CWDF all had different ways of doing things. The mentality stretched back to the Century War. A lot of the old sweats believed the strategy that helped them to victory remained true to this day. They didn’t factor in the Atlantis ship punching holes in the frontier’s defensive ring or the growing technical edge the vestans provided the horans.

  With two orbital stations down, and hundreds of lives lost, the Salus Sphere had two weak points to plug with capital ships, and many citizens in mourning. The situation was becoming increasingly critical. Kenwright’s reactionary strategy of putting out fires wasn’t going to work.

  Morgan sighed and looked at Seazza. “Did you hear all of that?”

  “Your best opportunity to make a difference is to capture the Atlantis ship. If war is coming, your team’s success could prove the difference between success and failure.”

  “That’s my point,” Morgan said, trying not to show his exasperation at the situation. “I’ve been blocked from joining the fight and have limited resources for a mission that could mean the difference between defeat and victory. Even if we destroy the ship, it will mean we lose no more stations, which will make things much harder for the Axis.”

  Seazza glanced in either direction and stepped closer. “You haven’t had any official word from the marshal yet. Once you do, I’ll speak to Vice President Orloza and arrange a meeting.”

  “He’d have to be blind not to see what’s happening,” Morgan said, feeling a release of tension at the promise of speaking with the senior member of the senate. It wasn’t the correct chain of command, but the risk was worth it, if it meant preserving their territory and lives. “I’m going to the marshal’s residence immediately. Meet me back at my office. We don’t have any time to lose.”

  **
*

  Morgan watched the attack on Orbital Twenty-Two on his screen as the transport pod hummed past the empty airfield toward the marshal’s residence. The orange wormhole appeared again. It formed a wide tunnel. The bulky Atlantis ship drifted through, surrounded by crackling lights. It fired six blue bolts at the station, crippling it, before sucking in the wreckage and surrounding debris.

  The feed sent a chill down his spine. That kind of destructive power would be difficult to stop, even for capital ship with a capable captain at the helm, but it needed stopping. At the moment, the Atlantis ship was the biggest threat to security.

  Mach still hadn’t sent an update. Morgan carried out a generic search on the Salus network to see if his name popped up. He groaned when the results flashed across his screen. Carson Mach had been added to the Feronia wanted list, for the resource robbery. Morgan knew Mach had his own way of getting things done, but if Kenwright found out, it would torpedo the mission. As things stood, that was their best chance of eradicating the threat.

  The pod came to a gentle halt outside the stone gates and its door slid open. The gate guards slapped their hands against their rifles and clicked their heels together. Morgan returned a salute and crunched up the pebble path toward the two front doors.

  A junior female fidian officer met him in the entrance hall. “Good morning, Admiral. I don’t have you down for an appointment?”

  “I need to see the marshal immediately,” Morgan said, admiring the array of medal ribbons on the right breast of her dark blue shirt.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. He’s holding a meeting with the defense chiefs.”

  Morgan shook his head and looked up at the painted mural on the ceiling, depicting a destroyer battle from the war. Both he and Kenwright captained ships during the struggle. “Doesn’t that include me?”

  The officer spun and faced a desk, danced her fingers over a holographic keyboard and gazed at the screen. “You are down for a meeting tomorrow morning. I’ll send you out an invite later today.”