The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (24 page)

Natalia
was unable to shake the feeling that all her suffering and loss had
been for nothing. Her fate seemed sealed: she would die trapped in
this cramped steel coffin, drifting through space.

But no,
she had come too far and been through too much to give up hope now.
She had looked behind her to the open stasis capsule that she had
used it as a bed. She deliberated use of the capsule for a while,
before turning back to gaze out at the empty space ahead of her,
nibbling on a biscuit and thinking back over the events of the past
months.

* * *

Her
primary mission had been a complete success. Along with several
other operatives, she had completed a series of hit-and-run
operations against essential Enemy targets in a number of Imperial
systems. The team had gone in hard and fast, there being no sense
in attempting to be strategic about it. The Enemy were far better
equipped, far more knowledgeable and much more combat efficient
than they could ever hope to be. Her unit had suffered losses along
the way, but they all knew that many of them would not be coming
back.

Another
fundamental part of the operation had been to collect as much
information about the Enemy and their recent activities as
possible. This they had also achieved, though not without the
expense of many lives. The data cards holding the various reports
now resided safe and secure in her jacket, zipped into an inside
pocket.

With
their objectives met and their mission accomplished, they had begun
the journey home. It was as they approached a jumpgate to cross the
Imperial-Independent border that they had been hit hardest. Natalia
had been stood on the small bridge of her vessel when a jump point
had formed behind the convoy. From it had issued an Imperial
frigate and a host of Imperial starfighters, of all variety. They
had attacked the instant they were clear of the point, with
ferocious speed and efficiency.

One of
the convoy had been destroyed within seconds and several others had
been crippled moments thereafter. Her own ship had been struck by a
volley of rocket fire, sections of the vessel starting to come
apart. Fires and explosions had ripped through the interior,
resulting in a great deal of damage and casualties. The ship had
started to tumble, barely a few kilometres from the
gate.

As the
Enemy left the vessel, to concentrate on the others who were
returning fire and attempting to clear their paths to reach the
jumpgate, Natalia had pulled the burnt and injured navigator from
his chair…

* * *

She had survived, though for how much longer she did not
know. After seven days alone in the Iliad system, the
pod
’
s on-board
computer had started to jingle. It had warned her that she was
running low on oxygen and recommended that she place herself within
stasis for the remainder of her journey. Natalia had looked to the
screen and then around to the capsules. It seemed she had little
choice about using them. The SOS continued to broadcast from the
escape pod as it had done for the past seven days, but there was
no-one to hear it.

She
stood beside the capsule, staring down into the soft beige padding,
which would become her resting place until she was rescued. A
perfectly normal, healthy human being could survive for months in a
capsule such as this, their metabolism slowed to the point where
neither food nor water was needed to sustain them. Death would
eventually claim them, though. Maybe not for six months, maybe not
for twelve, but they would not live forever. And that was the part
about it that had scared Natalia the most because she didn’t know
how long her pod might drift for.

As she’d stripped, Natalia had wondered if the inside of the
escape pod would be the last thing she ever saw. Would she close
her eyes, never to awake? She paused before relenting to the
capsule
’
s
control, returning to the cockpit, powering down all the lights and
switching the SOS broadcast to a low range.

She was
in two minds about advertising her presence. On the one hand, it
could aid in her rescue should anyone detect her ship adrift. On
the other, the Enemy could be drawn to it. They would without doubt
see the craft on their radars and come to investigate, but whether
they wasted any more time with it was another matter. She had
discovered that the Enemy had begun to aggressively salvage almost
everything they could find in recent months, gearing up for their
next big push. In combat, they now preferred to cripple their
adversaries, so that the vessels could be assimilated into their
ranks; only destroying those that were either of a measurable
threat or completely unusable. This, she knew, was the only reason
she had survived the attack on her convoy: her vessel meeting their
requirements only briefly before it had started to come
apart.

Through
the near-darkness, she made her way back to the capsule and settled
down inside, having checked once again that her reports were still
secure in her jacket. With that little peace of mind, she activated
the controls that would close her in and induce the
stasis.

It was Natalia
’
s belief that switching off most of the power would give the
Enemy the impression that the escape pod had been drifting for
years, the power and vital system components having broken down a
long time ago, the occupants almost certainly dead. She hoped that
the pod would prove too small to be of any use to them, and that
they would waste no further time with it and move on.

Or
perhaps they would destroy it anyway, just to make sure.

XI

—
Another Rude Awakening —

“
D
odds!
Hey! Wake up! Wake up!” Dodds blinked awake and became aware of
three things: the first was that Estelle was standing next to his
bunk, shaking him vigorously; the second, that there was an alarm
wailing; and the third, that he had a splitting headache, a result
of the previous night
’
s drinking session having caught up with him. He wanted
nothing more than to go back to sleep and wake up much later on,
when everything had calmed down, and when it no longer felt as
though someone was tightening a vice around his head.

He
struggled to pull himself into an upright position, wincing at the
pain in his head. He saw that all around the quarters other people
were hastily pulling on boots, trousers and jackets and running out
the door.

“
What
’
s happening?” he asked, feeling as
though his head was going to explode at any minute.

“
Enrique, do
not
go back to sleep!
Don
’
t you dare go
back to sleep!” Estelle shouted at the man in the bunk below
him.

Dodds
leaned over, taking care not to tip himself off the side of the
bed.

“
Hey, come on!” Estelle called again.

“
All right, don
’
t shout, I heard you first time,”
Enrique complained. He hauled himself back up, where he sat hunched
over, head in his hands. “Aw, man. I feel like I’m going to
puke.”

Dodds pulled out a watch that he kept under his pillow and
tried to focus on the little blue figures on the face. It was just
after four in the morning; he
hadn’t
managed more than
three
hours
’
sleep
since settling down. He felt a momentary sense of déjà
vu.

“
What
’
s going on?” Dodds asked again. His
eyes followed the figures running out of the room and then saw the
answer to his question come striding in through the quarters’
doorway, flanked by two other staff.

Commodore Hawke surveyed the scene in front of him with a
look of disgust. “Come on! Come one! Get moving!” he barked,
clapping his hands together. “You hear that alarm?
That
’
s the call
to general quarters! That means now! What are you standing around
for? Move! Now!”

Estelle turned back to Dodds and mouthed for him to
get up now!
Dodds looked
to Hawke and saw his attention shift to the bunk he and Enrique
occupied.

Hawke’s
eyes narrowed as they fell upon Estelle. “What the hell are you
doing? Did I not just make myself clear? Have you gone deaf?” Hawke
asked of her.

Even in
his current state, Dodds knew that Estelle was in the one place she
would rather not be at this point in time: stood next to two
members of her flight group, who did not seem capable of mustering
the strength to pull themselves out from under the
covers.

“
Sir, I was…” Estelle began.

“
Do these little boys need their mummy to
dress them?” Hawke growled. He then looked straight at Dodds and
the pilot felt his heart jump the moment the flicker of recognition
crossed Hawke’s face. “Dodds! I should have known! How could
it
possibly
have been anyone else? Didn
’
t feel like getting out of bed this
morning? Decided you were going to call in sick?”

Estelle
gave Dodds a pleading look not to answer back.

“
No, sir. I just had difficulties sleeping last night, sir,”
Dodds said, forcing himself to answer in as much as a normal tone
as he could muster.

“
Well then, we
’
ll see if we can get you a cot and
a teddy bear for tonight then, shall we? Now get your arse out of
bed!” Hawke shot back with contempt. With one last look around the
dormitory, he turned on his heel and started back down the
corridor. But not before issuing an ultimatum: “Main briefing room,
Dodds!” he said, pointing a stiff finger. “Three
minutes!”

As he
stormed out of the room, Estelle began throwing Dodds’ and
Enrique’s clothing at them, urging them to get a move on. Kelly and
Chaz, already clothed, hovered close by, waiting for the two men to
dress themselves. They did so as fast as they could and together
the five hurried from the now empty dormitory, towards the building
holding the main briefing hall.

* * *

The
White Knights
entered the packed hall to discover that all of
the seating, except for that closest to the podium, had already
been taken. Dodds wanted to remain at the back, out of sight, happy
to join others sat down on the floor, against the wall, but Estelle
was already herding them to the front. The group ended up sitting
almost right in front of the podium, just where Dodds and Enrique
did not wish to be. The platform was occupied already by Parks,
standing against a large screen that covered half of the front
wall.

Parks
watched with an impatient scowl as people continued to stream into
the briefing hall. “Find a seat or some place to stand and settle
down!” his voice boomed over the speakers.

Hawke
shoved his way past those standing, to get to the front, followed a
lot less aggressively by Meyers. Dodds caught a glimpse of Hawke
stuffing a handkerchief back into an inside jacket pocket and saw
that it was once again stained with blood. He wondered in his hazy
mind what was causing the man to receive so many nosebleeds. He
could never remember him having done so much in the
past.

Parks said, “We have a lot to get through and very little
time to do it, so pay attention, all of you.” The voices died down
and all that remained were the sounds of the shuffling of chairs
and obligatory coughing. Now that he had
everyone
’
s full
attention, Parks began in full.

“
You should all know that several months
ago the Confederation Stellar Navy flagship,
CSN Dragon
, was boarded
and subsequently stolen by an unidentifiable, but strongly numbered
and armed, hostile force. Following the take over, it dropped off
of all galactic surveillance systems and vanished without a
trace.”

Behind Parks, the screen showed images of the enormous
battleship; not that anyone who had every set eyes on the behemoth
needed reminding. At over four-and-a-half-kilometres in length, it
dwarfed even the Confederation
’
s own carriers, being several times
bigger than its nearest rival.
Griffin
, the largest of the
CSN
’
s carriers,
was a mere eleven hundred and thirty meters by comparison. As Parks
continued to speak, the images on the screen behind him changed to
show schematics of the battleship, along with size comparisons with
other large vessels. Dodds rubbed his eyes, trying to focus and
keep them open.

“
Without going into specifics, we now
believe the theft to have been the work of one of the major
factions fighting in the Imperial civil war. After
Dragon
disappeared it
was assumed it had either been destroyed or had been abandoned and
left to drift somewhere between star systems. However, two days
ago
Dragon
reappeared in the independent-declared regions of space and
has begun making its way through some of the uninhabited systems
there. We have been tracking its progress and believe that we are
now in a position to intercept and retake the ship.”