“Have you checked on him?” Cormac asked.
“Yes. Dr. Chen says he’s asleep,” Victor said. “Which is good. I’d rather not have Gaz show up at the airlock on crutches, asking to join the fight.”
“A wise decision,” Cormac said. “Gaz has always had an unhealthy attraction to taking risks.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “Granted you don’t make a habit of getting into firefights the way Gaz—”
“And you.”
“—Gaz and I do, but you’ve stuck by despite all the crazy ploys I’ve pulled off,” Victor said.
“You do take risks with the ship and with the lives of the crew,” Cormac said. “But they are tactical risks with large financial rewards attached to them. Or need I remind you that I have earned enough serving as your chief engineer to retire in comfort.”
“Is that what you plan on doing, when this finally all ends?” Victor asked.
Cormac looked off in the distance. “When that time comes,” he said, his voice full of longing, “I think I will buy a starship. One that will let me go home without luring anyone else there.”
Victor nodded. He envied Cormac for having a home he could go back to. “I can understand that. I’ll be more than happy to help you get that ship whenever you desire. Though the
Alex
will miss you. I don’t think there’s a better engineer in the galaxy than you.”
Cormac nodded and placed a hand on a bulkhead. “This has been a good ship. The Mustangers built her well. I admit, I will look back with fondness on the years I have spent as part of your crew.”
“I was certainly glad to have you, Cormac,” Victor said.
“Hopefully, Captain, when all is said and done, you will find a new place to call home,” Cormac said. “A place where you may find some peace.”
“A nice sentiment,” Victor said, smiling sadly. “But I don’t think peace is in my future.” He shrugged. “I doubt I’d know what to do with peace if I found it. I’ve been fighting almost twenty years now.”
“That just means you deserve to find peace more than most, Captain,” Cormac said. “And, given your skills at fighting, I wouldn’t be surprised if you eventually run out of enemies to fight.”
“That’s the thing, Cormac,” Victor said. “In this galaxy, there's always another enemy to fight.”
Chapter 23
The
Alexander
flashed into existence in the Gaddon system, cruising from the Mustang jump point at one hundred meters per second.
“Launching courier drone.” Victor hit the release, dropping the small robotic spacecraft. As soon as it detached, it fired cold-gas thrusters to cancel out its momentum and to remain inside the jump point. It would have enough propellant left over to keep its station here for twenty-four hours.
With the drone away, Victor turned his attention to the sensor screen to watch the greatest object of interest in the otherwise barren system: the First Imperial Battlefleet. It was over a billion kilometers away, hovering near the other jump point in the system, waiting for the Alliance fleet that had already passed them.
They had no idea what was about to happen.
“Transmitting,” Victor said, beaming the prerecorded message to the First Imperial Battlefleet to inform them that the Mustang system was now secure. It would take an hour for the Lysandrans to receive the message.
“Captain, I got Lysandran warships two hundred million kilometers out. Looks like a picket force,” Fara said. “A cruiser and four frigates.”
Victor switched his attention to the close contacts, mentally kicking himself for fixating on the main fleet. “I see them.”
“They’ll see us in ten minutes,” Fara said.
“Our IFF should hold up at this distance,” Victor said.
“It won’t if they decide to inspect us visually,” Fara said.
“Well, let’s not give them reason to do that,” Victor said. “Head toward the main fleet. I’m going to say hi to the picket ships.”
Victor sent out the short message, identifying his ship as the Imperial frigate
Vorenus
and him as Commander Mandar Thrace.
If the Lysandrans had checked their records, a frigate named
Vorenus
in the Second Imperial Battlefleet was, indeed, commanded by a Mandar Thrace. What they didn’t, and couldn’t, know was the
Vorenus
and its commanding officer were little more than an expanding cloud of gas on an escape trajectory from the Mustang system.
“So now we just wait, right?” Fara asked.
“Yes,” Victor said.
Wait they did. Eleven minutes after hailing the pickets, the lead cruiser responded.
“
Vorenus
, this is
Swiftsure
. We’ve received your message and acknowledge. Hold station near the jump point until you receive new orders from the First Fleet.”
“Acknowledged,” Victor said on the comms, then closed them off. “So far, so good. Fara, you heard him. Stay near the jump point, but keep your distance from the pickets. That is, without looking like you’re keeping your distance of course.”
“Sure thing. I’ll keep it nice and casual, Captain,” Fara said.
“Captain?” Cormac said through the intercom.
“I hear you, Cormac. What is it?” Victor said.
“I have been monitoring the new drive rings and noticed their emission spectrum changes as their temperature goes up,” Cormac said.
“And since you're calling me, you must think this could be a problem,” Victor said.
“Yes, Captain. If the engines get too hot, then their emissions will no longer match those of the Lysandran frigate we’re pretending to be,” Cormac said. “You should limit the ship’s acceleration to no more than 100 gs.”
“That’s less than half the acceleration the
Alexander
is normally capable of, Cormac,” Victor said.
“The
Alexander
can still reach her full acceleration. She just won’t look like a Lysandran frigate at full thrust,” Cormac said.
“All right, I understand, Cormac,” Victor said. “Thanks for the heads-up. Fara, you get all that?”
“Yep. I’ll be easy on the gas, Captain,” Fara said.
Victor nodded and let out a long breath. It wouldn’t look too suspicious for a frigate to limit its acceleration to 100 gs. Or at least he hoped it wouldn’t from the Lysandrans’ point of view.
A little over two hours after jumping in, the
Alexander
received a response from the First Imperial Fleet.
Admiral Thera Loris’ face appeared on the screen. Her hair was longer, but otherwise she looked much the same as she did when he had met her shortly after the Battle of Savannah.
“
Vorenus
, I have received your message,” she said. “Know the emperor is pleased to learn that the Mustang system has been secured. Hold your position near the jump point until the fleet arrives. I’ll be dispatching the frigate
Darius
to inform Admiral Phane of our approach.”
Shit
, Victor thought. He hoped Loris wasn’t expecting the
Darius
to return very soon.
One of the frigates guarding the jump point, presumably the
Darius
, burned for the jump point at full acceleration.
Much farther away, the three thousand drives of the First Imperial Battlefleet lit up like a constellation of stars, and the fleet accelerated toward the Mustang jump point. Or, more accurately, they had begun accelerating an hour ago. It would be another sixteen hours before they arrived.
There was no question the
Darius
wouldn’t be coming back; it would be vaporized within seconds by the Alliance fleet which loitered near the jump point awaiting Victor’s signal.
The question was, did Loris expect the
Darius
to come back, and, if so, how long would she wait before her alarm bells rang in her head?
Victor sighed. He could do nothing about it other than wait and hope.
“Everyone, feel free to rotate to your bunks and get some rest,” Victor said into the intercom, broadcasting throughout the
Alexander
. “If things go according to plan, we’ll have a while.”
Fara got up from the pilot’s seat and walked over to him. “What about you, Captain?”
“I can sleep in my seat,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“Suit yourself, Captain,” Fara said. “I’ll be in my bunk. Wake me if anything happens.”
“You’ll be the first I’ll wake,” Victor said. “You’re the one who has to fly us out if we get into trouble.”
“You mean, we aren’t already in trouble?” she said, then departed the bridge.
***
Victor remained awake for almost ten hours, waiting for the Lysandrans to become suspicious about the disappearance of the frigate they sent to Mustang. But apparently they weren’t expecting it to come back because, even as the hours passed, they just continued to accelerate toward the Mustang jump point and into the jaws of the trap Victor had baited for them.
As the hours passed, tension gave way to boredom, and soon sleep overtook Victor. He found himself back on Savannah, feeling the familiar cool breeze on his face while he looked over the paradoxically smooth water of the lake. Only in a dream could he have both wind and glass-smooth water.
“I was hoping I was done with these,” Victor said.
“No you weren’t,” said his wife.
Victor turned around to see Gina, her yellow dress flapping in the breeze. His heart ached at the sight of her. “Hi, Gina.”
“Hi, Victor.”
“Where’s Alex?”
“You’ll have to answer that yourself. This is your dream, after all,” Gina said.
“Fair enough.”
“I like the beard,” Gina said.
Victor rubbed his face, feeling the coarse hair under his hand—his prosthetic hand. He looked like the man he was now, not the man his wife had known.
“
Hrmm
. This is odd,” Victor said, looking himself up and down. “I wonder what this means.”
Gina shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe you’ve become comfortable with who you are now.”
He shook his head at the idea that he was more comfortable as Victor Blackhand than as Victor Selan. “I really hope that isn’t true.”
“Why shouldn’t it be?” Gina asked.
“Because this”—he held up his prosthetic hand for emphasis—“this is not the man I want to be.”
“But it is the man you chose to be, isn’t it?” Gina asked.
“It was who I had to become, to avenge our world, to avenge you and Alex,” Victor said.
Gina grimaced. “You didn’t have to become what you are now. You had a choice, remember?”
“I remember,” Victor said. “I was offered the chance to save the galaxy.” He stepped close to Gina and brushed his artificial fingers through her brown hair. “But I don’t care about saving a galaxy that doesn’t have the people I love in it.”
Gina gave him a sad look and took his prosthetic hand in hers. “You’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle, Victor. Have you ever once considered what Alex and I would’ve wanted you to do?” she said.
Suddenly Alex was here, with his toy, the Guardian. He held up the figure to his father.
Victor reached for it…
***
“Captain?”
Victor jerked awake. He was back on the
Alexander
’s bridge.
“Victor!” Fara said, leaning over his seat.
“I’m awake! I’m awake! What is it?”
“It’s almost go-time, Captain,” Fara said.
He checked his screen. The Imperial Battlefleet was almost finished with its braking burn. It was less than an hour away, only a few light minutes out. Close enough for the
Alexander
’s sensors to resolve individual ships.
Victor quickly found the
Spear of Lacano
deep within the fleet. He highlighted it. “That’s the Imperial flagship, Fara. Move us along their expected path to lay out our mines.”
“This isn’t a suicide run, right?” Fara asked.
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I promise.”
Fara nodded. “I’ll get us moving then.” She walked to her station at the front of the bridge.
He began arming the warheads, inputting the Imperial flagship’s unique signature and programming the warheads to ignore everything else.
A vector appeared on Victor's screen—a point near the end of the
Spear
’s expected path toward the jump point, near its braking burn.
“How does this look, Captain?” Fara asked.
Fara intended to drop the mines near where the
Spear
would be moving the slowest, relative to the mines. It also kept the
Alexander
a healthy distance from the Lysandran fleet. She had chosen well.
Victor nodded. “This looks good, Fara. Take us there, nice and easy.”
“Nice and easy it is, Captain,” Fara said. The
Alexander
’s drives came to life, and the frigate accelerated toward the point just a few hundred kilometers distant.