Wings of Retribution (80 page)

Outside, something struck the wall and the building rumbled with an explosion.  Two more blasts followed, each one successively closer than the last.

“Enemy ships?” Fairy said, frowning.  “Who?”

“The Utopia,” Stuart said softly, glancing at Ragnar.  “We weren’t fast enough.”

“The
Utopia
?” Fairy squeaked.  “But I thought nobody
knew
about this place.”

“Ragnar set off a beacon,” Athenais said, sighing.  “When they killed his family.”

Fairy’s mouth fell open and she turned to Ragnar, looking crestfallen.  “They killed your
family
?”  The little twit was actually somewhat endearing, Athenais decided, when she wasn’t being a twit.

Ragnar nodded.  “Right after you took off with
Retribution
.”

Fairy looked stricken.  “Because of me?”

“No, because Juno’s a bucket of bolts short of a ship,” Athenais said.  “You had nothing to do with it.”

“But how do you
know
that?” Fairy whispered.  “What if it made her mad…?  What if…”  Her words broke off in a wretched sob.  “Oh, Ragnar, I’m so sorry!”

She actually means that,
Athenais thought, bemused.  “Listen,” Athenais interrupted, before she could babble more apologies, “The woman probably lost her mind when PsyOps abandoned her on that planet a few thousand years back.  Anything she did, she did it of her own free will.  It’s not anything you did.”

“But how do you
know
that?” Fairy whimpered.  “Oh, God, what if I—”

“You
didn’t
,” Athenais snapped.  “Juno was going to kill the shifters from the very beginning.  It’s a tradition for her.  Something she’s been doing ever since she managed to get enough money.”

“She kills shifters?” Fairy blubbered, confusion written clearly upon her tear-splotchy face.

Fairy, Stuart, and Ragnar were all watching Athenais, now.  Ragnar looked increasingly angry.

Athenais took a deep breath.  “A few millennia ago, I guess she got tired of being a living god on Xenith and went to Derkne for a few years to start a family.  Had kids and everything.  Got real attached to them, from what Rabbit and I could figure out, and was really getting into living the normal life.  Anyway, her son was killed on Wythe, right after the One Species charter went into effect.  Wythe was a shifter planet, back then.  Her son was an emissary, a gifted negotiator.  His goal on Wythe was to convince the shifters to let the Utopia establish a colony on one of its moons, with the subtle threat of military force if the shifters did not comply.  The shifters took Juno’s son and the eleven other diplomats, locked them all in a room together, and executed them.  They sent the video back to the Utopia as their reply.”  Athenais shrugged.  “After that, I guess she kinda went off the deep end.”

“You
knew
about this?!” Ragnar said.  “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Tell you when?” Athenais retorted.  “Maybe if you hadn’t shocked yourself into unconsciousness when I was trying to help you, I could have.  As it was, I had to do something, so I saved your life.”

“Did you tell Paul?  Did you tell my
father
?”

Athenais looked directly into Ragnar’s furious eyes.  “Would
you
want to know it if you were about to die?”

“They might have been able to save themselves!” the shifter snarled at her.

It was the parasite that saved her.  Gently, Stuart said, “Ragnar, there was nothing they could do.”

Ragnar looked away.  They listened to the alarm blaring through the halls in silence for a few minutes, jumping each time the palace shuddered with another blow.  After a moment, he said, “We should give it a day or two.  Dallas removed Juno’s clearance. 
Retribution
isn’t going anywhere.  Let’s let them duke it out with the Corps and then make a run for it.”

“I’m not going to be up for much fancy flying,” Athenais warned, wiggling the digits sprouting from her shoulder socket.

“That’s okay,” Fairy said.  “I’ll fly.”

“
You
?” Athenais scoffed.  “When have
you
ever been on the wrong side of a blockade?  That
is
what this is going to turn into if we wait much longer.  The Utopia will lock the planet down, control all traffic coming and going.”

“I fought Erriat’s entire fleet,” Fairy said stubbornly.

“Well, take that and multiply it by about a hundred.  Now add mass-seeking weapons and autopilot interference.”

Fairy’s eyes widened.  “Autopilot?  You mean—”

“
Everything’s
manual,” Athenais said.  “Right down to spin compensation and weapons locks.”

“Oh.”

“So,” Athenais said, “Do we have any other bright ideas?”

“Dallas could still fly us,” Stuart said.  “I could help her concentrate.”

Athenais sighed.  “Look, Stuart, maybe you don’t understand what I mean by ‘manual.’  That many ships, they’re gonna have an ASP.  The Utopia’ll use it to zap us with a signal that shuts down the ship’s computers.  All the calculations, all the trajectories, all the plotting has to be done in the pilot’s head—in a split second. 
While
they’re doing their darndest to blow us into itty bits.”  She gestured at the girl.  “She might be a stick-fairy, but not even a fairy can work magic.”

“She could do it,” Stuart insisted.

“Oh come on!” Athenais snarled.  “She
can’t do it.
  I’m
telling
you.  Now let’s find something productive to talk about before our section of pretty pretty hallway gets blown out of existence by high-energy photon beams.”

“What makes you so sure?” Ragnar asked, ignoring her.

“I know her,” Stuart said, giving his beloved airhead a doting look.  “We get her back on
Retribution
and she can get us home.”

Athenais did not miss the flirtatious look Fairy gave Stuart in response.  Her gut twinged at the idea and she gave a derisive snort.  “I’m sorry, but I’m not about to spend the next twenty years floating in space because you think Fairy can break a Utopian blockade.  I’m telling you right now.  It’s impossible.  Not even I could do it.  We need to get out of here
now.”

“She’s better than you,” Stuart said.

Athenais narrowed her eyes at the worm.  She was
so
getting tired of hearing that.

“Hey, now,” Ragnar said, stepping between them, “Let’s just wait to see what happens.  Maybe the Utopia will offer sanctuary for captured citizens.”

“Maybe,” Athenais muttered.  “And then maybe they’ll just blow this planet apart and call it good.  It’s what the place needs.”

“Amen to that,” Fairy agreed vehemently.

Athenais gave the twit a sideways look.  Well, maybe she wasn’t a
complete
airhead…

Dallas watched the fight from the roof of the Wall while the others stayed in the storeroom, worried about being seen.  Stuart lurked in the corner near the staircase, not wanting to leave her alone, yet not wanting to expose himself, either.  Looking out in either direction, huge holes riddled the Wall, some areas collapsed altogether.  Standing in the shelter of the rampart, Stuart’s nervous gaze continued to flicker towards the devastation.

“Dallas, haven’t you seen enough?” he finally called as the sun was going down. 

“Are you crazy?!” Dallas shouted back.  “This is when it gets good!”

Indeed, as night fell, they could see ship after ship explode in the atmosphere and hurtle into the sea.  Dallas sat down on the edge of the wall, back to the ocean, and stared up in awe.

“I wonder if they’re Xenith or Utopian,” Dallas said, watching the streaks of fire trace across the sky.  She longed to be up there, a part of the show.

“What does it matter?!” Stuart cried.  “Dallas, it’s not
safe
up here!”

“Who do you think is winning?”

“Dallas, any minute now one of those ships is gonna land on us!”

Dallas’s eyes were fixed to the sky.  “We’ll be dead whether we’re on the roof or a couple floors down.  Besides, it’s not the ships we need to be worried about.  It’s the Utopis who get through their lines.”  She turned to Stuart.  “
They’re
the ones that are gonna start blasting holes in the—

Even as she spoke, a fighter screamed past, blowing apart a section of the Wall a half-mile from where they stood.  Two Xenith gunships followed it, making the entire island rumble as they shot overhead.  A few moments later, she heard the telltale sound of a fighter engine exploding.

“Dallas,
please
come back inside…” Stuart whined

“Stop being an old fiddlestick,” Dallas ordered, jumping lightly off of the wall.  “Come here.”

Stuart glanced at the sky cautiously.  “Why?”  He stayed firmly hunkered behind the wall.

“Because sooner or later, we’re gonna be up there ourselves.  I want to show you something.”

“Dallas, I really think we should—”

“Come
here,
Stuart.”  She stomped a foot and pointed at the stone floor beside her.

“Okay.”  He ran to stand beside her, head low, as if the terrain between the wall and where she stood was somehow more likely to get hit with laser fire.

“Look up there.”  She pointed at what looked like a wispy cloud blotting the stars.

“What is it?” Stuart said.

“That’s our blockade.  Depending on how close it is, I’d say a few hundred thousand ships, at least.  Those big bright spots are carriers.  I’m counting five of them, but there’s probably more hanging back in the debris field.  The Utopia wasn’t taking its chances.”  She turned to him.  “Just what did Ragnar send to them, anyhow?”

Stuart winced.  “I’m not sure.  It would’ve been nice if he wasn’t so thorough, though.”

“What are you talking about?” Dallas demanded.  “This is great!”  She lay down on the stone, hands under her head.

“Dallas, people are dying up there.”

“Not that,” she said, disgusted.  “The number of ships.  We couldn’t have asked for better odds.”

Stuart stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

Dallas sighed and explained.  “To a point, the more ships a fleet has, the better its odds of winning.  But it’s a bell curve.  After a certain point, the bigger the fleet, the less coordinated, the less maneuverable, and the less efficient. 
Especially
against a very small number of fast enemy ships.  It creates confusion.  Pilots are afraid to fire because they aren’t sure they’re not friendlies.”