Origins (16 page)

I hadn't expected the sudden and visceral emotional response that I felt as I stepped aboard the
Colossus
. The memories that I associated with the vessel were like caged demons – desperate to get out, to drag me back to what had happened here. They rattled at their bars as I stalked the corridors. I ground my teeth, locked the gate: fought to remain in the now. As I looked down the empty corridors, I could hear the voices of the invading Directorate Swords – could see their dark shapes lingering at the edge of my vision like ghosts.

If being aboard the ship was having any effect on Loeb or James, neither of them were showing it.

“CIC is this way!” Loeb yelled, taking off down a corridor. He broke a security tape that had been strung over a junction; hustled the rest of us onwards.

“Will he even be able to fly this thing?” Jenkins queried. “He's awaiting trial for negligence.”

“Court-martial,” Loeb corrected. “And nothing has been proven yet.”

“Ostrow isn't looking good,” Martinez said. “He needs medical assist, immediate.”

The Mili-Intel officer was strung between Mason and Martinez, in a semi-conscious state. His glasses had been lost at some point during the evacuation, but both of his hands were still wrapped very tightly around the black box, making it even more difficult for the Legion to support him. I didn't say it, but I suspected that Ostrow didn't have long, and I doubted whether there was much that we could do to help him.

Loeb waved at an officer. “Lieutenant Allaji, get that man down to Medical.”

Allaji nodded, gathered another sailor with him, and took over the duty. As Ostrow was transferred between crew, he suddenly jerked awake. His eyes were wild, unfocused, and the abrupt activity sent a wave of pain across his face. The sailors quickly vanished with the injured man.

“He isn't going to make it,” I said, under my breath.

“I didn't think that you even liked the guy,” Jenkins asked.

“Doesn't mean that I want him to buy the farm,” I said. “Not here, not like this.”

Crewmen scattered in our wake. Loeb fired off orders at everyone we passed, from engineers to a handful of Marines that Command had stationed as a garrison.

“Get our systems warmed up for activation. But do not – repeat
not
– initiate drive boot. Keep the mainframe AI off-line until I give the order.”

Despite his predicament, no one challenged him.

“Aye, sir,” I heard his comm crackle.

“Loeb out.”

We hit the command intelligence centre at pace.

Just as the rest of the ship had been refitted, so too had the CIC. It was crammed with glowing consoles, with new scanner-units and weapons stations. The lower workpit – where the tactical holo-display was situated – was criss-crossed with gantries and suspended observation pods, making for a hectic and complicated working environment. The blast-shutters were open, and the tactical display hummed with a holo of near-space. Twenty or so officers were at stations, powering up what little tech would not be detected by the Directorate fleet.

“Get my command throne ready, now!” Loeb said.

“Aye, Admiral,” a young-faced Naval woman replied. The command throne had been shrouded in a plastic sheet; the guts of Loeb's personal scanner-suite opened beside him.

“Do you want the scanner running passive, sir?”

“Of course I do!” Loeb said, settling into his throne. Someone offered him jacks to his data-ports, and he slammed them into his forearms. “Let's see what we've got… Get the weapons systems booted, but all modules are to remain on passive. Nothing that might let that bitch see that we're powering up.”

James and the Legion chose posts around the CIC. Saul was silent, and took up a seat at the rear of the centre. There was more than enough space.

“We have a helmsman and a navigator, sir,” an officer said. “The bridge is ready to go online.”

“And now we have weapons…” Martinez said. He'd taken one of the weapons pods at the nose of the vessel; it hummed as the pod elevated inside the crew-pit. “I have the
Shanghai
in my sights, but I won't remember her.”

“Don't fire!” Loeb barked. “Any of our weapons go active, and the
Shanghai
will read our identification codes and energy signature. She'll know that we're out here.”

“How long until the
Colossus
' engines are operational?” I asked.

“Three minutes,” Loeb said. He waved at the workpit, to any crewman who was listening. “Recall all robot engineers and anyone on the outside of my ship—”

The communicator beside me washed with air-traffic from surrounding space. “
Broken knife
,” an operator said. “
Repeat: broken knife.
”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, exasperated.

“It's the code word for general retreat,” Loeb said. “It means that we've lost.”

Already, ships in near-space were breaking orbit, pulling away from Calico, leaving multi-coloured smears of light on the blackness of space. Activating FTL drives. Far below, Calico Base was being consumed by a carpet of warheads. The collected, focused firepower of the Asiatic fleet was unstoppable. Intense white explosions claimed the precarious towers. Hab-domes lay open to the void. The mine shafts were collapsing in on themselves, consumed by the dust-plains of Calico.

“God have mercy on their souls,” Martinez said. “
Gracia de dios.
”

“I… I can't get the remote docking claws open,” an officer said. “I'm getting a systems error. I need to make a link with Calico Space Control for permission.”

“No way,” Loeb said. “We'll have to pull away with them attached. It'll do wonders for our hull plating, but it's a damned sight better than getting hit by a Directorate warhead.”

“Null-shield is ready for activation,” an officer said. “On your order, Admiral. The engine and thrust control will be two minutes and counting.”

Loeb nodded. “Raise the shield.”

This was it: the gamble. With the shield up, I seriously doubted that the Asiatic fleet would be able to ignore us.

“Raising.”

Space outside rippled. The effect was just at the edge of my perception; a blue tint against the black. Something – probably a piece of debris thrown by the engagement between the Alliance and Directorate – hit the shield. It sparked brightly, marking successful activation.

“Thrust control is going to helm!” Mason yelled. The excitement in her voice was barely containable. “We're going to make this—”

“What are we going to do?” Kaminski asked. “We can't use the Q-drive in-system.”

He was right; using the quantum-drive technology that allowed us to compress space and time wouldn't be possible in the gravity well of a local star or world.

“We'll use the faster-than-light drive,” Loeb declared. “Pull away at full thrust, and hit maximum velocity. That'll get us out-system, and away from here.”

“Good enough,” Kaminski shrugged.

Outside, a stray Interceptor approached us. The frag wounds on my back throbbed in time with my pulse, willing the far smaller ship to
just fuck off!
Martinez was antsy, and I could see his holographic suddenly snapping to focus on the Interceptor.

“I could take it…” he said.

“You want to do the honours?” Loeb asked me. He flipped open the manual control unit on his command station. It housed an archaic but symbolic red button labelled SYSTEM BOOT. There was, no doubt, a good deal more to it than just pressing a button, but nothing felt quite so definite as pushing a DNA-encoded control.

I reached over, watched the incoming Interceptor – framed perfectly by her bigger sisters, the
Shanghai
and the rest of the Directorate fleet – and rested a finger on the button.

“Going online,” I said.

I pressed the button.

“We have helm control.”

“Patching to bridge.”

“Activating inertial dampeners, internal and external.”

“Engine is online. Thrust control ready.”

“Gravity well is stable and holding. All life-support systems are active.”

“Bring us ninety degrees starboard,” Loeb said. “And break umbilical with the orbital dock.”

“Aye, sir.”

There was a loud, pained screech – metal-on-metal – as the
Colossus
repositioned herself. The hull ground against the landing spars attaching her to the dock: broke the shell in which she'd been encased. Parts of the deep-space facility broke away, floated in space around us—

The communicator chimed.

“Oh, shit,” Kaminski said.

The simple, commonplace occurrence had taken on a sinister edge.

“We're being hailed,” a communications officer declared.

Loeb turned to me. His expression was fixed. “You make the call, Lazarus.”

“How long until we can pull away, make for FTL?” I asked.

“We'll need clearance from Calico's gravity field,” Loeb said. He shrugged. Quickly calculated, based on data scrolling down his monitor. “Another thirty seconds.”

Thirty seconds was more than long enough for a warhead to breach our shield. Not only that, but pulling away from Calico's gravity wouldn't guarantee our successful escape: the
Shanghai
or her sister fleet could pursue, send robot fighters or attack ships after us.

The chime sounded again.

Though our course continued, and the agonising groaning went on as we pulled from the dock, the CIC fell quiet.

“It's coming from the
Shanghai
,” the same officer confirmed. “She's locking weapons on us.”

“She's turning,” Mason said. “Engine thrust at ninety per cent.”

From down in the crew-pit, Martinez tutted with obvious annoyance.

“
Solo déjame tomar un tiro, por favor
,” he barked.
Just let me take one shot, please.
“It'd be for 'Ski; we owe him that at least.”

Kaminski was white-faced with a combination of rage and nerves – being presented with his captors – but to his credit said nothing.

“Not yet,” I said. “But be ready on my mark.” I nodded at Loeb: “Respond. Open a comms channel.”

The tactical display illuminated with a holographic of Admiral Kyung's face, and I looked on the Assassin of Thebe.

“Am I addressing Colonel Harris?” she said. That same tight, precise pronunciation of Standard.

“I am here,” I said.

“You are the one that they call Lazarus?”

“I am.”

Mason held up a hand to me. She mouthed words.
Twenty seconds.

Across the CIC, displays began to illuminate. Green responses were coming back from each station.
Keep her talking
, I thought.
Give the crew time.
Loeb sighed quietly, no doubt willing the machines around him to work faster. His wish to train weapons on the
Shanghai
, to take out the woman who had caused his disgrace, was intoxicating, but I knew that he was too good an officer to let bloodlust get the better of him. I was wrestling with my own emotional response. Did Kyung know, I wondered, what she had taken from me?

Outside, the
Shanghai
described a tight arc. Thrusters fired along her aft and her black bulk initiated a turn in our direction.

“I am Admiral Kyung, appointed as battlegroup commander of the Third Asiatic Directorate Response Force—”

“Let me stop you there,” I said. “That ship is Directorate Spec Ops, and I don't give a fuck who you are. I already know
what
you are: the Assassin of Thebe. A murderer.”

The woman's face was unreadable. The nano-comms threads that etched her features glowed as she read her ship's systems, but her cheeks were puckered and swollen; a mass of keloid tissue that looked like the result of Krell boomer fire.
Injuries from Damascus?
I asked myself. That would make sense.

“Surrender,” Kyung said.

There was an impassive coldness there: as though there was a huge void between this woman and the rest of the human race.

“Fuck you,” I said.

I mentally counted down the seconds, but that gaze – the hard edge to the woman's eyes – was enough to put me off.

“Ten seconds…” Loeb whispered.

“There is no point in running,” Kyung said. “We have more than enough firepower to put Calico Base down.”

“I know what you want,” I repeated, feeling the rage swell within me. “But what I want to know is why? This isn't about me. It's about the
Endeavour
.”

“Is that what you think?” Kyung said. “I can assure you, it really isn't about her at all.”

She was playing for time, I was sure, as well.

“Then what do you want? Why do you want me, Assassin?”

“I have my reasons.” Kyung's pale-lipped mouth twitched at the corner. On another face I'd have considered the expression a smile. “The
Colossus
is an old ship; we can outrun her, and take what we want.”

“Your FTL isn't hot. You're talking shit.”

Loeb counted down the seconds on his hand –
five, four, three, two, one!

“And we're good!” he yelled. “Systems online across the board.”

Leaning into the display so that I was staring her down, had her in my sights, I said, “I'll be seeing you.” I pointed to Martinez. “Do it.”

Kyung went to speak again, but the image collapsed into the holo.

“
Vete a la mierda!
” Martinez yelled.

He hunched over the weapons controls, his holo indicating successful discharge of the railgun battery. Bright flashes signalled null-shield breaches, explosions racking the
Shanghai
's flank.

Buzzard takes Assassin.

Loeb slammed a fist onto his armrest. “Go!”