Chaos Quarter (26 page)

Both ships opened fire.

* * *

As the various pursuing super-powers bashed away at each other, Rex put his plan into motion.

“Come on damn it,
go faster
, you sluggish bitch!”

“
The ship’s engines are exceeding 100 percent designed thrust
,” the computer spoke.

“That frigate has the speed to catch us, even if we had a head-start of several hours,” Lucius spoke, calmly sitting at his station.

“Better hope they lose, then,” Rex replied, pressing
Long Haul
to flee even faster.

“And if they don’t—”

The ship rocked, something impacting the dorsal hull. A trio of Byzantine fighters swooped past. Dart-like in shape, they peppered
Long Haul
with cannon-fire.

“God damn it!” Rex bellowed.

The computer jumped into action, while Lucius slaved his station to the rear turret. Thirty millimeter rounds spat from the ship’s guns, lacing the void with tracers. Three fighters formed against them, coming in for an attack on their engines, swooping up from beneath.

Rex nudged a pedal with his foot, sending the ship into a barrel-roll. The fighters came on, opening up with cannon fire. Lucius lined up on the lead attacker and squeezed the trigger.

A half-dozen thirty millimeter slugs tore through the fighter's cockpit, shredding the pilot’s body in the blink-of-an-eye. The fighter spun out of control, knocked off a collision course by the force of the rounds.

The others kept firing. Metal screeched and cried as the rounds hit home. Rex knew he couldn’t outmaneuver the smaller fighters, but he didn’t need to. He pulled the ship up in a steep, ninety degree climb.

Lucius figured out his plan, switching controls to the dorsal turret as
Long Haul
rose. The fighters moved to match, but for a brief second, the dorsal turret had a clean shot at one of the attackers.

A hail of fire from Lucius ripped into the top of a fighter, tearing through its hull. The rounds chewed up its electronics and reactor, leaving it dead in space. The fighter floated away on its last trajectory, the pilot trapped inside.

The last surviving fighter pulled away sharply, burning hard for the asteroid belt and the intruders lurking there. Rex brought
Long Haul
back on course, the ship sluggish in its response.

“
Starboard-side engine has sustained damage. Speed reduction of 32 percent required to prevent imminent catastrophic failure
,” the computer informed emotionlessly.

“What?!” Rex screamed. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“
I am incapable of—”

“Shut the hell up!” he snapped, watching the speed bleed away on the viewscreen.

“Now we cannot outrun either of them,” Lucius pointed out.

Rex grumbled, “Then let’s pray they both lose.”

* * *

“We are down to two functioning engines, sire,” the engineering tech spoke.

Julius sighed and wiped at his forehead. Blood from a gash smeared his fingers. He’d been thrown out of his seat during their first run, striking a chair at the station in front of him.

“So we cannot escape,” he muttered.

“Not by outrunning them, sire.”

Julius sat back in his chair. On the viewscreen before him, in between second-long bursts of staticky disruption, he could see the odd biological ship turning, bringing its front around. The vessel was pitted and scarred, leaking fluid from several places, but it still moved forward confidently.

“Which of our weapons remain functional?” he spoke.

The weapons tech did not turn, merely spoke, “The starboard main gun and two of the lighter guns. We have five missiles remaining.”

“Accelerate forward and slide the ship around their starboard flank, keep our front pointed—”

“Sire,” the engineering tech interrupted. “The maneuvering thrusters have sustained too much damage.”

Julius ignored an instinctive urge to snap at his inferior for interrupting, focusing on the reality of the man’s words. They couldn’t outmaneuver the enemy and couldn’t outgun them.

It left him only one real option.

“Close and fire everything.”

* * *

The War-beast groaned in agony, searing pulses of charged particles striking its carapace again and again. The wounded Europan vessel shot forward in a suicide run, firing everything it had.

Blair squeezed the warm protrusions in his hands, firing the remaining forward rail-gun repeatedly. A half-dozen rounds tore across space and ripped into the Europan vessel, smashing through its hull. Shredded metal flew into space. He kept squeezing, even as a pair of missiles struck home on his War-beast.

His next salvo blasted a third of the frigate free, sending a vast chunk of wreckage twisting away through space. His third barrage broke the back of the vessel, boring right through its center into the engines. Explosions rippled through the dying ship as its reactor walls breached. Vast amounts of energy tore loose from the fusion cores, exploding outward through the portside, vaporizing a gaping chunk of the ship.

The Europan’s final shots pounded into his hull, turning the War-beast’s wail into a scream. Blair pushed the reality of the damage out of his mind and maneuvered the ship out of the way of the lifeless frigate. The twisted remains of the vessel floated away, explosions rippling out of compartments that still held air. It drifted away into the darkness of the asteroid field.

“Primitive fighters are closing on us,” Flynn spoke from his command pod. “We have breaches of the beast’s skin on multiple levels.”

“Is the immune response underway?” Blair asked.

“Yes, but it will take months for these wounds to heal,” Flynn informed.

“What speed can we do?”

The War-beast vibrated heavily as Flynn tested the engines.

“Nearly full. We still outpace our quarry,” Flynn spoke.

“Then follow. Destroy any primitives who try to stop us.”

* * *

“How far are we from minimum jump distance?” Rex asked, drumming his fingers on his console. He already knew the answer.

“
Seventy-two million miles
,” the computer replied.

“And how long again before they catch us?”

“
Four minutes
.”

“Well before we reach safe distance…” Rex grumbled.

“
Yes.
”

Silence. Lucius’s hand remained steady on the firing stick. His visor displayed the rear camera views. The bioship was just becoming visible. Its round curves were jagged and torn, damaged from battle. But it pressed on, its big guns pointed at them.
It will be an easy kill
, Lucius thought.

“Power up the jump drive,” Rex ordered.

“
We are not at a minimum—”

“I don’t care, do it,” Rex commanded.

Lucius glanced over at him, his calm façade broken by fear. Rex didn’t meet his eyes, just kept looking at the viewscreen. Lucius’s gut screamed at him, telling him to yell at his captain. You didn’t jump within three hundred million miles of a yellow star. The gravity was too great, distorted space too much. They would have no way of controlling where they went or where they emerged.

He’d heard horror stories, unofficial things that nobles whispered about when alone; tales of people who jumped too close to a star or planet. He’d heard of ships emerging inside of a star or planet, or coming out in an atmosphere at such high speeds that you soon found yourself inside the planet anyway. He knew, academically at least, that there was a much higher probability of emerging in empty space. But his gut didn’t seem to care.

“
The bioship will be within firing range in sixty seconds
.”

“Are you even going to try to fight them?” Lucius asked.

Rex didn’t answer. Lucius returned his attention to his visor. Range figures ticked off at the bottom of the display, every second ticking off tens of thousands of miles. At this speed neither could maneuver and fight, and the ships themselves could come apart from the strain of banking at such speeds. If Rex wanted to take a chance and fight, he’d have to slow.

The Hegemons wouldn’t need to slow though, not if they kept behind them. A straight shot from the rail-guns could catch them. They’d only need one hit.

Several flashes emerged from the closing vessel. They were firing, well out of range.
Pot-shots
, Lucius realized. He closed his fingers around the gun-trigger.

“I want dorsal and ventral turrets firing as soon as it comes into range,” Lucius spoke, the computer chirping its compliance.

The bioship's shots streaked wide, passing harmlessly. A mix of rounds, large and small, came at them. The computer artificially illuminated the rounds in luminescent green on his viewscreen, letting him see the grey lumps of metal against the black of the void.

“
They are in range
,” the computer announced.

Rex’s hand moved toward his console screen. The ship shook hard, a smaller round slamming into the cargo bay, bucking them off course. The force of the blow sent them lurching forward. Lucius felt the console smack into his ribs, knocking the wind out of him. The computer didn’t waste time, firing the turrets while he struggled for breath. Thirty millimeter rounds spat out of the ship’s turrets. As Lucius came to his senses, he saw the rounds striking the bioship, little more than irritating bee-stings. In moments the bioship would lock in their big guns and fire again.

He glanced over at Rex. He lay on the ground, his head in a pool of blood.

Nobody was flying the ship.

Lucius leapt from his seat, the ship shaking from another hit. The bioship's defensive guns had more than enough power to tear up their little ship by themselves.

He glanced helplessly at the controls. There was no time to get Chakrika up here. There was only one option.

One dangerous fucking option
.

He mashed his fingers on the console screen, right over the big red JUMP panel. Space twisted in front of him as the ship jumped away.

* * *

Quintus screamed, his face red from exertion. The ship shook violently. Chakrika clung tightly to the infant, the two of them sitting in a ball in the corner of her room.

The intercom clicked.

“
Chakrika!
” Lucius screamed. “
I need you here! Rex is down!”

She looked at the wailing child, a moment of panic overtaking her. She kissed his head and dashed to his crib, placing him gently amidst the blankets. Darting out, she found Second clinging to a pipe running along the corridor wall. She grabbed the woman by the shoulders.

“Watch Quintus!” she screamed.

The tortured woman blinked, taken aback by the force of her words. She shuffled lifelessly toward Chakrika’s room. Chakrika sprinted toward the bridge.

And saw red. It filled the entire viewscreen, brilliant and nearly blinding, filtered by the computer to a brightness that wouldn’t burn out human eyes. Lucius stood hunched over the pilot’s station, grasping the corners of the console to steady himself.

She spotted Rex, face down on the floor. A pool of crimson surrounded him.

“What the hell happened?!” she screamed.

“He struck the console,” Lucius said, pointing to a blood-covered corner.

“Where are we?!” Chakrika roared, moving toward the piloting console. Lucius backed away, moving to help his injured captain.

“I don’t know!” Lucius shouted, the ship shaking violently. The metal groaned, so loud it drowned out his voice. Chakrika sat down and looked at the viewscreen. The radiation levels were spiking, bathing the ship with gamma rays.

“
Radiation will reach lethal levels in three minutes
,” the computer informed.

“What—is that a star?” Chakrika managed, fitting her limbs into their appropriate spots.

“
An M-classed star
.”

She glanced at the speed. They were moving, barely. The display read twenty thousand miles per hour.

“Distance to the star?” she demanded.

“
We are five hundred thousand miles from its surface
,” the computer informed.

She didn’t have to be an experienced pilot to know that this could not be good. Panic racing through her, she pressed on the levers, rotating the ship to the right. The damaged engines responded sluggishly. The star’s gravity pulled hard, dragging them closer. The ship’s hull groaned once more.

“He’s alive!” Lucius shouted, hunched over Rex. His voice sounded distant, part of another world. She pushed the ship around, a full 180 degrees from their original position.

Her foot punched the accelerator. More groans bellowed through the ship as its engines battled the star’s pull. Little by little the speed increased.

“
A breach has opened in the cargo bay
,” the computer announced lifelessly.

“Damn it! Go!
Faster
!” she screamed, her voice rife with futility. The radiation numbers continued climbing. Even her helper-nanobots would be useless if the computer was right.

“
Radiation will reach lethal levels in one minute
,” the computer spoke.

She could do nothing but continue to jam on the accelerator. The inevitable flashed through her mind’s eye. She imagined the ship consumed in fire. She saw Quintus, burning and screaming. She could feel her own body burning, searing in agony as she watched the baby she loved disappear in flames. She could see Lucius, his body an inferno, crawling toward his dying child.

She glanced over at Lucius, a wave of regret washing over her. His eyes met hers, his preternatural calm long gone. A tear traced down his face.

“I love you, Chakrika,” he spoke, still cradling Rex’s motionless body.

She moved her lips to speak, when something struck the ship, hurling her back in her seat. A hollow metallic
clang
filled the bridge. She turned to the viewscreen. A ship hovered in the darkness of space, its form too distant to make out. A long tether dominated the viewscreen.

Whoever it was, it had them and was reeling them in.

It’s the mind. It’s only ever been the mind! The rest is just a big, fleshy machine! Pluck my brain out of this body and stick it in another, it’ll still be me!