![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalThis requires some explanation.
Back in July I wrote a short little fic bit, inspired by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaypeta's short story "A Matter of Honour", which explored from the of the darker aspects of her character, Terinu. Stuff that she considered canon, but wasn't really suitable for a a PG-13 webcomic. My story was just a short little, absolutely cliched "Evil Twin" encounter, where Terinu met a version of himself that didn't have the benefit of the most positive influence he had in his early days. Peta liked it, enough to draw a picture of the two together, that she intends to complete as a full color pic for her 2008 calendar.
After that, I did another short bit, looking at what her character Leeza might look like in that universe.
And then Lance.
And then Mavra Chan.
By the time I reached the point of Rufus meeting his own twin, I had the "Good parts" version of a full blown story. The only problem was putting together all the bits I'd already done, so it had a coherent plot. That has taken me about a month of work. The story isn't complete yet, but I'm at least working on it in a linear fashion again, working towards the endgame, and I can finall start putting up the bits I'd completed earlier. Enjoy.
* * *
“Lieutenant, what's the status on that coffle of pirates?” Blake asked, pausing in the cruiser Suhayar's gangway. Her ship was docked at a refueling station, taking on badly needed supplies after their latest patrol.
Her cousin grinned at her. “Already offloaded. Once they're deloused and scanned, the ones that have already been ID'd and tried in absentia will be going up on the auction web tomorrow. Wanna watch the show and see what your combat bonus is going to be?”
Blake made a brief face. “No thanks. I've got better things to do than watch Scum on Parade. I need to oversee our repairs.” That last action had pushed the Suyahar's crew to the limit. The pirate galleon proved to have good legs, and Blake's ship had given her a long stern chase, trying to catch up to the galleon before it either slipped over the Ardactavian Hive's border or managed to hook up with more of its kind to gain an advantage in battle. But in the end her ship had won, and the flights of who knew how many merchant vessels would be just a bit safer, at least for a little while.
“Come on, Lee,” Lance pushed, “you at least deserve a round at the bar for what we did. You can join me and the others at the officer's lounge tonight.”
“I've got work to do,” she said, then looked at him a bit more sternly after an enlisted man passed, “and you need to remember how to properly address me.”
Lance rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Captain.”
“Lance,” she said in a warning tone.
He gave her an exasperated look. “We're cousins, L--, Captain.”
“That's when we're home at Vonnie's,” she reminded him. “Out here I'm a ship's captain and you're my subordinate.” Blake let her expression soften. “I can't let anything get by that might smack of favoritism towards you, Lieutenant. That's a guaranteed morale killer, and out here on the front lines we can't afford that. Not on a ship this small.”
He nodded, looking a bit more thoughtful. Quite an unusual, if welcome, expression on him. “Understood, Captain. Still, we'd all appreciate you joining us for that beer.”
She smiled. “I'll take it under serious consideration, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”
Lance snapped her a mostly regulation salute and went on his way onto the dock, while Blake trudged back aboard her ship and headed towards her office. Whatever post-mission fatigue she was feeling quickly dispersed when the door slid open to reveal her father, Admiral Erwin Blake, sitting at her desk. She snapped to attention and was immediately greeted with an “At ease, Captain Blake, and shut the hatch.”
“Hello, Admiral,” she greeted. “How the hell did you manage to slip aboard without me hearing about the commotion?”
Her father let out a rare grin. “Magic. That and I threatened to demote the marine guarding the cargo lock if he let the word out before I had a chance to see you. How are you doing, Leeza? How'd the mission go? You look like hell.” He stepped around the desk to give a very non-regulation hug, which she returned happily.
“Nothing twelve hours of sleep, a hot shower and a carafe of tea wouldn't cure,” she told him, sitting on the edge of her desk while her father down again in her chair. “It was a tough fight. I might have have let that galleon go. She was a bit larger of a target than we were set to fight. Except that we pinged her just as she was pulling away from the hulk of a gypsy ship, and I knew there was a possibility of hostages aboard her. My crew knew that too, and they were happy to run double shifts just for the chance to nail those nova damned bastards. We got her in the end though. Rescued fifteen survivors from the freighter and captured almost all of the galleon's crew alive.”
“How did Lance do?” he asked.
“Good,” she said. “I'll admit he was more like an overgrown puppy than a fresh from the academy Marine when he first came on board, but he's fitting in well. Major Talbot, my Marine detachment's commander, spoke highly of his work during the boarding action. Lance managed to blow out a bulkhead in the brig section that let us scoop up the hostages and get them to safety before the pirates could react and use them as a bargaining chip.”
“Good. Very good,” her father said. “That's one less pirate in the void for us to worry about.”
“One down, a few hundred more to go.” She waved away the praise and gave the Admiral her most penetrating look. “With respect, you didn't come all the way from Luna Station headquarters to an outback refueling station just to thank me for scragging one pirate ship, sir.”
“No, I didn't, Captain,” he said, straightening in his chair. “I've got a new assignment for you. I'm taking you off patrol duty and assigning you an additional two squads of marines to the Suyahar's complement to bring it up to a full platoon. You're going to be commanding the lead ship in a three ship raid.”
“A raid? Where?” she asked, coming to full attention. “What's the target?”
Her father touched a control at her desk. She heard a slight hum as the office's anti-monitoring screens snapped up, preventing all electronic communications from entering or leaving the room. “Captain Blake, the information you are about to receive is of the highest classification. It is not to be discussed outside this room. I do not exaggerate when I say that failure to heed that warning may lead to the Galactic Sapiens Alliance's destruction.”
“Understood, sir,” she replied, her mind racing. Blake was well aware of her rank in the hierarchy of shipmasters in the GSA's fleet. Though she was arguably one of the youngest captains in the navy, she didn't hold any illusions about being the most experienced. To be handed the responsibility of leading a fleet, however small, either smacked of pure nepotism on her father's part, which would be a first...
...or something so deadly serious that he felt it could only be handled by someone he knew more closely than any other officer in the fleet.
The admiral touched another control, and a map of the GSA frontier appeared on the office's central monitor, focusing rapidly on a single star system, then just one planet. “You'll be going to Bolt Hole, a planet on the far edge of the outback, near the Ardactavian Hive. It's a pirate haven, a failed colony that's now the home very every smuggler and pirate scum looking to offload hot cargo. It's also where, if our intelligence holds, Mavra Chan herself will be arriving in less than a week, aboard her flagship, the Celestial Marauder.”
Blake whistled. “You don't think small, do you, sir? Chan has been harder than a bloody snark to catch.”
“Chan isn't your target. If you can take her out, excellent, but she isn't the focus of this mission. Your job is to catch him.”
A face appeared on the screen. It belonged to a gray faced alien, though not a Creo. No Creo ever had features that fine, nor pointed ears or a such a long tail with a large spade on the end. It was humanoid though, wearing black leathers and a dark expression.
“Who is that?” she asked. “He looks like a kid.”
“By our estimates he's somewhere between fourteen and sixteen,” her father said, “but don't let that fool you. He's Mavra Chan's personal assassin and bodyguard.”
“What species is he? Some new race we just discovered?”
Her father's face turned grim. “No, a very old one. One the Terran Confederation had thought safely dead and buried. Your assignment is to make sure it stays that way. Otherwise, I do not exaggerate when I say that the entire GSA may be placed at risk if you fail.”
She stood up and gave him a careful nod. “When do you need me to launch, Admiral?”
He smiled again. “That's my girl.”
* * *
Blake leaned back in her acceleration seat, tightening the buckles of her restraint harness over her spacesuit as she listened to the multitude of voices of her crew in the Ari Suyayar’s combat information center. A compact room in the center of the light cruiser’s hull, it was the brains at the center of a complex nervous system of sensors, weapons, shields and drive systems, all directed by Blake as the she closed in on her prey. Illusion, all illusion, she reminded herself. The feeling of omnipotence that the room could sometimes bring would be shattered easily enough if the Suhayar took a hit that disabled its internal power, leaving her trapped, blind and deaf in a sealed box with nowhere to run, waiting to see if the power came back up or the hull breached and exposed her fragile human body to the vacuum.
“We’ve still got a good track on the Celestial Marauder, Captain,” her sensor officer reported from his station. “They’re making no signs that they’ve detected us yet.” Which was as it should be. The Suhayar’s sensors were superior, at least in theory, to ones carried by Mavra Chan’s flagship, allowing it to follow her outside of the pirate’s own detection range. Assuming she hadn’t gained an upgrade from some black-market supplier, or perhaps even the Ardactavian Hive.
“Very well,” she said. “First Officer, what is the status on the Wilson and the Namatjira?” The other two ships in Blake’s little fleet were sisters in the same class as the Suhayar, larger than destroyers, faster and more lightly armed and armoured than a heavy cruiser or battleship. She seriously doubted that the fact they were all named after the Three Children was a coincidence on her father’s part when they’d been assigned to her. It was a subtle bit of inspiration for the crews of all three vessels, to keep them focused on their task. The message was clear: This mission is important, boys and girls, be on alert.
“Wilson and Namatjira report they’re in position, Captain,” her XO told her, an older Galen male who had served under her since she’d first been given command of her own ship three years ago. Both cruisers had warped in ahead of the Suhayar, along the course the Marauder was most likely to take as she made for orbit around Bolt Hole. It was Blake’s intention to intercept the pirate vessel well before Chan could reach her goal and potentially hook up with other pirates who might come to aid her defense. Blake’s own ship would act as the hunter, flushing the Marauder out, right into the path of the other Navy vessels, then come in from behind to close the trap.
“Very well. Notify the Wilson and the Namatjira that we’re beginning our attack. Launch fighters Ready One and Two, and bring Three and Four to the linear accelerator stations to follow. Increase our acceleration to 90% of maximum and unsheathe all missile batteries and cannons. We are now at Red Alert!”
She heard the echo of the alert klaxon sound throughout the ship, as the CinC followed out her orders. There was a muffled thunk, thunk as the first two fighters flew clear of the launch bay, and the blips of their IFF transponders suddenly appeared on the CinC’s main situational display in the central holotank.
“Ready One and Two report successful launch, Captain,” her XO reported. “Launch Control reports Three and Four are moving up to the accelerators.”
“Very well, First Officer. What’s the status on the boarding party?”
Her XO checked his board briefly. “Major Talbot reports they are boarding the shuttle now. They’ll be ready to launch as soon as Three and Four are away.”
“Good, good,” Blake said, resisting the urge to tap her leg in nervous anticipation. The planned boarding and capture of the Celestial Marauder’s crew was to be handled by the Wilson and the Namatjira, with Blake’s own vessel acting as backup. For probably not the last time she silently cursed herself for agreeing to allow Lance to be assigned to her ship. As a relative she could have refused, on the grounds of potential favoritism, or the very real possibility of them both being killed in the same combat action. But she’d finally given in to her Aunt Vonnie’s insistence that “Someone has to grab that pup behind the ears and give him a shake if he gets out of line.”
Well, it wasn’t as if it was likely he was going to get involved in this particular scrap. The two platoons aboard the Wilson and Namatjira ought to be more than enough to take out a crew of scruffy pirates, never mind whoever was supposedly leading them. Even better, if we take Chan successfully, one of the most feared pirates around, the rest of those space rats are going to be running scared for a long time.
First things first though. She noted the closing distance between themselves and the Marauder. The fighters were closer still, but they had the advantage of greater stealth protection from their smaller size and power output. There was another thunk, thunk from below, as the remaining pair of fighters launched, and her XO reported that the other two ships had also deployed their own complement successfully. “All right then, First Officer, light ‘em up!” she ordered.
The data in the situational display flickered and reset itself, as percentages and guesses on the truth by the Suhayar’s battle computer became dead certainties, as the cruiser’s active sensors went live and painted the Marauder. The pirate ship’s reaction was immediate, as her own sensors went active and her engine output suddenly increased dramatically, trying to get some distance between her and the hunters behind her.
“She’s heading right towards Bolt Hole,” Blake’s XO noted with quiet satisfaction.
“And right into the Wilson and Namatjira’s teeth,” Blake agreed, keeping her eyes on the situational display. “Tell our fighters to keep their distance. We want to keep herding her. No point at putting themselves at risk to inflict a few pinpricks.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The minutes dragged as the Marauder began to lengthen the gap between them. That’s right. We’re just a dumb GSAN cruiser that lit our sensors up before we were in position, too eager to get a kill. We’re idiots. You’ve got enough legs to get to Bolt Hole and safety well before us. “Status on our missiles, First Officer?” she asked.
“Ready to fire, Captain. Wilson and Namatjira report they are receiving our targeting data clearly.”
“Then the order is: All ships, fire missiles on the Marauder!”
Her ship’s frame rattled as the smaller linear accelerators mounted on her dorsal and ventral turrets spat out their missiles, the cylinders lighting their own drive engines the moment they were clear of the Suhayar. The pirate vessel’s reaction was gratifying, as it suddenly discovered it faced not one, but three armed ships, and it vectored its acceleration ninety degrees from its previous course, trying to outrace the deadly automated predators tracking it down. Outnumbered, outmaneuvered and outgunned. What are you going to do now, pirate? Blake thought savagely.
“The Marauder is launching missiles at the Wilson and Namatjira, Captain,” her Sensor Officer reported. “Nothing coming in our direction.”
“She's trying to blow through the fire and head for safety,” Blake guessed.
“Both ships report they are diverting their fighters to counter-battery duty,” her XO noted.
“Very well,” Blake noted. “How much time until our missiles intercept the Marauder?”
“Thirty seconds.”
Blake kept her eyes focused on the missiles' track, as the laws of physics made their inevitable impact a certainty. There was simply no way for a manned ship that was properly targeted to avoid a missile attack. Fragile flesh and bone could never match the bone crushing maneuvering and G's of acceleration that an unmanned smart impact weapon could reach.
“Marauder is launching counter-battery missiles, and mounting directed energy defense,” the sensor officer reported. Then a moment later he added, “Estimate twenty-five percent of missiles destroyed.”
“Fifteen seconds until impact,” her XO said.
“Forty-five percent destroyed.”
“Eight seconds to impact. Wilson and Namatjira report they're countering the enemy missiles without difficulty.”
“Sixty-five percent destroyed.”
“Impact in four... three... two... one. Missiles have struck,” her XO said coolly. On the situation display the track of the missiles disappeared as the sensor data on the Marauder became choppy and incomplete as it was surrounded by a debris field of its own making.
“Enemy ship has ceased acceleration and is tumbling, Captain,” the Sensor Officer reported. Around the CinC, the other crewman at their stations let out a spontaneous cheer.
“Belay that,” Blake ordered, after a few moments. “Comm Officer, send the following message to the Marauder, 'Surrender now and prepare to be boarded.'”
“With pleasure, Captain,” her Comm Officer said, grinning.
Then the Sensor Officer sat up straight in his seat. “Captain! Two new contacts appearing, close in to the Wilson! One fighter, one galleon sized vessel!”
“Where the hell they come from? What's their identification?” Blake demanded. She felt her heart began to race as her mind whirled, Where did they come from, how did we miss them?!
“Fighter appears to be a Vulpine Sleek Wing, the galleon looks like...” the Sensor Officer paused, looking confused.
“What's the identity of that galleon, SO?” Blake demanded.
Her Sensor Officer looked up at her, helplessly. “It's the Marauder! A second one!”
“Impossible! She’s a unique design!” Blake told him. “Nav! Divert our course to intercept the new bogie. Comm, send orders to the Namatijira to do the same. Weapons Officer, ready missiles to defend the Wilson.”
“She’s too close to the galleon, Captain, less than two-hundred fifty meters,” her weapons officer reported. “We fire on her and the debris field will cut the Wilson apart.”
Blake’s hands clenched into helpless fists. “Belay that then. Engineering, redline the engines! Weapons Officer, make ready to hot shot the lasers and PPC cannons. We’ll burn them out after a few shots but we might be able to drive off the bogie before that happens. Sensor Officer, how the fragg did you miss those two ships?”
The man looked stricken. “Captain, I didn’t, I swear. They literally appeared out of nowhere. One moment the Wilson was alone and the next minute they were there!”
“The Wilson and the new bogie are engaged, Captain, and two of her fighters have been destroyed,” her XO reported, pointing to the situation display. “The new Marauder closing in. She’s too close now for the Wilson to fire her own missiles.”
Blake bit her lip, feeling helpless as the battle played itself out. “Like I said, the design unique. She’s probably angling to…”
The Comm Officer spoke up, “Wilson reports she’s been rammed amidships, near their engineering compartments. Power to her weapons have been cut.”
“Very well, XO, how long until we’re in range to help the Wilson?” she asked.
“Twenty three minutes, less than fifteen for our fighters, Captain,” he said, “by that time it’ll be all over.”
“Wilson reports she had boarders in her engineering section,” Comm said. “I also have a message from the Sleek Wing fighter. He claims that he is an independent Vulpine mercenary pilot and not part of Chan’s forces.”
“Confirm, the Sleek Wing is firing on the second Marauder,” the Sensor Officer reported.
“What the frell is he doing there anyway?” Blake asked aloud. “Very well. Comm, inform our own fighters that they are not to fire upon the Sleek Wing.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Five minutes later the Vulpine fighter was still trying to harass the second Marauder, while the first one had managed to restore power to its engines and was limping away slowly as the Suhayar and the Namatjira raced to engage her mysterious sister ship. Two minutes after that the Wilson’s comm and telemetry feeds ceased transmitting.
“The second Marauder is disengaging from the Wilson,” the SO reported. “She’s accelerating…” The corner of the situation display where the Wilson and the pirate ship were marked suddenly became an angry cloud of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of debris tracks.
“Wilson appears to have suffered a massive explosion aft,” her XO said a moment later, looking as shocked as any Galen could manage.
“She’s broken into two pieces and is launching lifeboats, Captain,” the SO said. “The second Marauder is accelerating to meet up with the first one. The Sleek Wing has ceased acceleration and is holding position near the remains of the Wilson.”
“Very well,” Blake said softly. The normal chatter of the CinC had become muted, as the magnitude of the disaster became apparent to the officers and crew. “First Officer, have the Namatjira meet us at the remains of the Wilson and launch boats to retrieve survivors. Order Ready One and Two to follow and track the two pirate vessels for as long as they can, until they come in range of Bolt Hole’s defenses.” Her voice rose in growing anger. “And get that damned Vulpine fighter in our dock. I want to have a talk with her pilot and find out what exactly is going on.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later Blake’s ship had reached the shattered remains of the Wilson and had attached grappling bots to the larger fore section, where the most survivors were to be found. As both her crew and the Namatjira’s raced to recover the wounded and the distressed, the Vulpine fighter was brought onboard. Busy with coordinating the rescue efforts, she reacted with irritation when Lance’s voice came over her suit’s comm.
“Lee, I mean Captain, you’d better get down to the flight deck,” he said, sounding off-balance. “We’ve got, ah… situation here with the Sleek Wing and her crew.”
“Lieutenant, I do not have the time right now,” she snapped. “If they’re giving you trouble, stun ‘em and stick them in brig.
“Believe me, Lee, you’re going to want to make time,” Lance said. “I’m serious.”
Blake muttered a curse under her breath and said, “First Officer, you have the bridge.” Then she made her way down the gangways to the flight deck, the lifts being reserved for the movement of wounded survivors from the Wilson up to the sickbay. Doffing her suit’s helmet, she found Lance standing beside what had to be the Sleek Wing’s pilot, a sandy furred Vulpine wearing a gaudy green and gold flight uniform. Lance, on the other hand, was definitely out of uniform, wearing a civilian spacesuit instead of the standard Marine battle armour that he should have been wearing as part of a boarding team.
“All right, Lance,” she said to him. “What is so flaming important that you had to pull me out of the CinC to handle it, and why are you out of uniform?”
Lance, who had gotten a distinctly pole-axed expression as she pulled her helmet off, remained silent. The Vulpine however, merely raised his eyebrows and said, “I think you’re speaking to the wrong Lt. Freeman, Captain.”
“Behind you, Lee,” she heard Lance say, and turned around to find herself facing her cousin again, this time dressed in his armour.
“What the fragg?” she exclaimed, twisting her head to try and keep both Lances in sight.
“Better get yourself a coffee, Leeza,” the first Lance said, “this is going to be a long story.”
* * *
Leeza woke up lying facedown on a sleeping pad, her eyes blurring from the pounding headache of post-stunner shock. She swallowed bile back down into her throat, thankful that she’d had a light breakfast before she and Terinu had climbed into their purloined Sniper just… oh, how long had she been out? She rolled over, blinking up at the dull red light in the ceiling. It was a method of sensory deprivation, she remembered from some long ago conversation with Lance about military interrogation techniques. Combined with heavy soundproofing, in a few hours it could send a prisoner into hallucinations if they couldn’t figure out a way to keep their mind occupied.
How did I get here? She tried to move past the pounding pain in her head, trying to think. Terinu had come with her to examine the gravity anomaly they had come across, not so much out of scientific curiosity as to get out of Lance’s way. Then the bloody thing had moved, swallowing their fighter and blowing out the electronics. She had spent a frantic two hours trying to bring them online again, before the Celestial Marauder had suddenly appeared in front of the fighter’s windscreen. Their attempt to escape, before the pirate ship had snagged them with grappling bots, had been short but terrifying. Then they had been dragged out of the cockpit and Leeza had been coshed on the back of the head by a shock stick, judging from the tender, burned spot at the base of her skull.
Captured again, she thought irritably. It seemed to be becoming a habit for her. Get your head out of your ass. Teri has been captured too. You need to get him out of here and find some help. If Mavra Chan followed us through that anomaly then she’s a threat to this universe too.
She patted herself down. Her sidearm was gone of course, along with her datapad, circuit tester and a ridiculously expensive Swiss Army knife that Vonnie given her three Christmases ago. They had also taken her sock, boots and belt, in return locking a tracking cuff on her right wrist. Depending on the model it would either shriek an alarm, inject a sedative, or perhaps even explode with a shaped charge that would take off her hand if she tried to leave her cell or attempt to remove it. Leeza didn’t care to guess which model Mavra Chan preferred.
After finding and using the cell’s foldaway toilet and sink, measuring the length of her cell in paces (one and a half by three), and pounding on the walls (soundproofed, as she suspected), Leeza had exhausted the limits of amusements she could produce in her new quarters. She sat down again on the sleeping pad, leaning against the wall and trying not to fall asleep. The dark red light seemed to induce lethargy, or at least she hoped it was the light and not a concussion. At any rate sleeping would be the wrong thing to do. She needed to try and come up with a plan. Terinu being recaptured by Chan was the worst possible thing that could happen to him, and as long as she was in this cell the pirate warlord could use her as leverage to force the young boy to do her bidding.
Despite her resolution to not sleep, Leeza found that she’d nodded off when the door to the cell suddenly slid back, blinding her temporarily as the bright light from the corridor flooded in. She blinked and shaded her eyes, as a tall, rangy, angular figure entered and squatted down beside her.
“Hello there, Captain Blake,” Mavra Chan greeted, grabbing her chin. “Now what’s the daughter of Admiral Erwin Blake doing all the way out here in the backbeyond, in a dinky little fighter and with my Ferin?”
Captain? Maybe she was referring to Leeza’s brief career as the Treona’s shipmaster, though more properly she’d been the group den mother for all the time she spent playing referee between Lance and Terinu. “Sightseeing,” she replied.
“Cute,” Chan replied, then smacked her hard across the face, growling, “I don’t do cute, Captain. I want to know what you were doing out there, where you found that Ferin, and how much your daddy admiral knows about them.”
Leeza touched her lip where Chan had struck her, tasting blood in her mouth. Maybe she did have a concussion, because she certainly wasn’t tracking where the conversation was going. She tried to focus on the pirate’s face. Somewhere along the way she must gotten some plastic surgery, for the scar on her face was gone and her obviously artificial eye had been replaced by a more normal looking prosthesis. “I’m not telling you anything until I know Terinu is safe. Let me see him.”
“Why, that would be my pleasure.” Chan turned and called through the open door. “Terinu, why don’t you introduce yourself to the Captain here?”
Terinu walked through the door. Except that it wasn’t the Terinu that had been sitting beside her in the Sniper. This boy walked with confidence, not her young, emotionally broken ward’s customary wariness. His hair was cut short except a half dozen long, thin braids wrapped in silver wire and ending in sharp looking arrowheads. He wore tight black leather pants from which hung a plasma pistol and wore a sort of bolero shirt/jacket that left his well muscled abdomen exposed. He looked down on Leeza with an expression of cool amusement. “Hello there, Captain Blake,” he said, while Mavra Chan stood up and rested her hand on his shoulder, giving Leeza a Cheshire Cat grin.
Oh, right, alternate universe, she thought dizzily. Oh, fragg.
* * *
“Alternate universes?” Blake repeated with disbelief, then sipped her tea. After making sure that the recovery operation could proceed without her direct supervision, she had pulled Brushtail, Lance and the other Lance into a conference room for a debriefing.
“I realize the concept is difficult to believe,” Brushtail continued. “I myself find it amazing. Nevertheless it’s happened to us at least three times now, and I fear it’s becoming a habit.”
“So in your universe there’s another Leeza Blake, captain of another Ari Suhayar?” she asked.
“Ah, not exactly,” the other Lance said. “She’s a civilian on our side. Got into engineering as a contractor for the Navy, at least until Uncle Erwin… um…” He closed his mouth and put on a pleasant smile, in exactly the same expression the real Lance usually took just before dropping some unpleasant news on Aunt Vonnie.
“Care to expand on that, Lieutenant?” Blake prodded.
Brushtail cleared his throat. “Our Leeza has a somewhat… difficult relationship with her father. I don’t think entering the Navy was ever a very attractive career option for her. Even less so these days.”
“My father is a great man.”
Now it was Brushtail’s turn to smile, which seemed to involve most of his teeth, tightly clenched. “He is very influential, yes. But to return to the subject at hand, our Leeza, along with… a good friend of ours, was in a Sniper that we had, er, acquired, and was using to try and scan a gravity anomaly that was similar to what we had encountered prior to our first run in with an alternate dimension. As best as Lance and I were able to determine, she got a bit too close and was sucked into your universe. Naturally we were frantic to follow, but it was over a week before we managed to get a sensor lock on the thing. It seems to fade in and out in a very alarming manner. Unfortunately we managed to find it again at the exact moment that Mavra Chan caught up with us. I accelerated towards the anomaly, she followed, and we both found ourselves in the middle of your action against your universe’s Celestial Marauder.” Apologetically, he added, “I am sorry that I was unable to prevent her from destroying your companion vessel.”
“One little fighter against a heavily armed galleon is unfavorable odds at best,” Blake told him. “I’m surprised you survived against her.”
“Her ship was more interested in taking out the Wilson, fortunately for me, and unfortunately for that poor Navy crew” Brushtail said. “But now we find ourselves in a rather deadly quandary. Attempting to rescue our friends from Mavra Chan is a difficult enough task. Attempting to rescue them from two Mavra Chans is going to be very tricky indeed.”
“I’m willing to help you on that matter, and I hope you’ll be willing to help me,” Blake said. “Our mission revolved around either capturing or neutralizing a certain member of the Marauder’s crew. When I had three ships against one galleon, the odds were easily in our favor. Now I find myself with two ships, going against two galleons, both of which are in orbit around a planet hostile to GSA law. I could back off and send for reinforcements, but that runs the risk of Chan, both of them, getting away. I need to take her out, take both of them out now, not just for the sake of my mission but for the honor of all of the Wilson’s crew that lost their lives in her assault.”
Rufus and the other Lance shared a worried glance. “Ah, Lee, I mean Captain Blake,” Lance began, “the fellow you’re trying to take out. Your orders didn’t happen to come directly from Uncle Irwin himself, did they?”
“They did,” she admitted.
“And they didn’t happen to specifically target a short grey alien kid with horns on his head and a frelling enormous tail, did they?”
“That’s restricted information, Lieutenant,” she said, “and you aren’t on the need to know list.”
“Figured that,” he said. The other Lance turned to his companion, “Ah, Ru, I think its going to be at least a few days before we can get any kind of rescue operation going anyway, seeing as this universe’s Marauder won’t be going anywhere soon, and Captain Blake has to plan her strategy. So maybe it might be best if we looked for some allies.”
“What sort of allies?” the real Lance asked.
The other Lance shrugged. “Well, if I’ve got a double here, and Leeza does, it only stands to reason that Rufus does as well. If he’s anything like ours I’m sure he’d be willing to help.”
“Absolutely not,” Blake said firmly. “Neither of you are leaving this ship until this situation is resolved.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Blake,” Rufus said carefully, “but I don’t follow your reasoning. Are you saying that we’re under arrest?”
“We are in the middle of a combat action. I can’t let a civilian loose with information about it, especially this close to Chan and her allies. Furthermore, I don’t care what universe your particular Lance comes from, he is still a military officer and subject to military discipline. If he leaves I would consider it going AWOL and act appropriately.”
“Oh, come on, Lee,” the other Lance said. “Stop being a bloody stiff neck like your old man! You have to see that you’re going to need help on this op, and you’re too far from headquarters to get another Navy ship in. Letting Rufus and I go is your best bet!”
“I will do no such thing,” she said, glaring at him. What the hell was wrong with her family in his universe that he would have the gall to speak about the Admiral like that?
“Very well,” Brushtail said, standing up and giving her a short bow. “You may keep Lance about, as he is a Navy officer. I, however, am leaving to find help.”
Blake stood up and leaned over the table in his direction. “No, you are not. If you argue the point I will have you escorted to the brig, rather than the guest quarters.”
Brushtail smiled again, and this time there was absolutely nothing friendly in it. “Captain Blake, I am the Viscount Ru-ofanius Brushtail, of the House of Brushtail. I am leaving your ship to find help. If you chose to argue the point, or attempt to restrict me in any way, it will be considered a diplomatic incident in the eyes of the Vulpine Lords. That will cause a considerable stink no matter what universe I hail from. You have enough troubles already. Losing a ship in your fleet in such an unexpected manner is not going to make your father the Admiral pleased. Don’t add to your black marks by having the Vulpine government making inquiry into your actions as well.”
She gripped the table, fingers clenched in outrage, measuring his threats against the sheer pleasure of seeing him stuck in the brig anyway. “Your point is taken, Lord Rufus,” Blake finally said. “Go find your twin then. I assume you will be discreet and not mention what you have of this operation to anyone else.”
“Naturally, Captain. You have my discretion on that matter,” Brushtail agreed. He turned to the other Lance. “Take care of yourself, young man. This ship is not in friendly country.”
“You too, Rufus,” he said, giving the Vulpine a laconic salute.
Brushtail gave her another bow and walked out the of them. Blake let out a sharp, angry snort and turned to the real Lance. “Find some quarters for your twin there, Lieutenant. I’ve got to get back to the CinC and start planning our next move.”
“Yes, Captain,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Come on, Bro.”
“With pleasure,” the other Lance replied, glancing at Blake with a curious expression before following his twin. When they were gone, she blew out a breath and sat down in her chair once again, sipping on her mug of tea, her mind racing.
There’s something wrong. It can’t be a coincidence that they knew the description of the target. She took another sip of her tea, feeling a bit more satisfied. If I bring Chan’s assassin in, it’ll just barely make up for the cost of this operation. If I could bring two of them in…?
Blake stood up and set the cup down, heading out the door towards the CinC. She had a lot of planning to do.
* * *
“Well, that went well,” Lance said.
“Compared to what, mate?” Lance replied.
Lance shrugged. “Imagine being in the same room as her and Uncle Erwin, and you just screwed something up.”
“Oof! No thanks! One of the Admiral is bad enough.”
Lance stopped at the door of one of the ship’s guest quarters and put his hand on the palm lock, the touched the keypad to indicate a guest was being settled there. “Okay, now you put your hand here to set your palm code… Oh, wait, I guess you don’t have too.” He grinned at his twin. “This is gonna be fun, mate.”
“Yeah, can’t wait until Rufus comes back with his twin. He’s a good bloke.” They stepped inside and his twin sat down on a padded station chair.
“Most Vulps are. How’d you hook up with him?”
“Eh, ran into him when the Galapados attacked a refueling station that my squadron was parked at after completing an escort run. He was escorting a freighter convoy at the time but turned about to help us when it looked things were getting out of hand.”
“Who are the Galapados?” Lance asked.
His twin frowned. “Big lizard fellas, ‘bout a half a head higher than you or me. The Varn Gene Mage designed ‘em as some sorta super-warrior race. You never head of ‘em?”
Lance’s eyes widened. “The Varn? Look, now you’re getting scary. The Dominion is long gone, has been for five hundred years.”
“Yeah, well, in our universe they decided to make a comeback,” his twin said. “We’ve run into the Gene Mage a couple of times now. He’s pretty hot to get… ah, our friend.”
Lance hooked a second chair with his foot and sat down across from his twin. “Look now, that’s the second time you’ve gone cool when you started talking about your ‘friend’ that you’re trying to rescue along with Leeza. What’s got you and the Vulp so tight about him?”
“Can’t say,” his twin answered. “Maybe after it’s all over we can, but first we gotta get the two of them back.”
Lance leaned back in his chair and gave the other Lance a long stare. “He’s the twin of our target, isn’t he?”
His twin sighed. “I can’t tell you that. Same as you shouldn’t be talking about him with me.”
“I am talking about him,” Lance said. “I want you to talk about him. Lee has been tight-lipped about this guy ever since we got put on this duty. I know what he looks like, and I know he’s supposed to be some kinda fancy throat cutter. That still doesn’t explain why the frell the Navy needs to send three light cruisers to go after one moddie pirate. We’re not even targeting his boss, who seems about as nasty as they come, just him. Now what is this kid and why is Uncle Erwin so hot to get him?”
His twin scratched under his chin, then took a long breath, “Ya can’t tell Captain Leeza what I’m gonna tell ya, mate. Not if she’s as tight with Uncle Erwin as it looks like she is.”
Lance shook his head. “I’m a Marine officer, same as you. If it’s about our mission, I’ve got an obligation to tell her.”
“You’ve also got an obligation to disobey blatant criminal orders,” his twin said.
“Nothing criminal about what we’re doing. We’re arresting a murderer,” Lance said.
Now it was his turn to shake his head. “No, you’re going after a fifteen year-old kid. And if your Admiral Blake is anything like ours, it isn’t justice that he’s after. He wants to put the kid on an operating table and cut him open to see what makes him tick. And if he can’t do that, he wants him dead.”
“What? Oh, come on! Uncle Erwin can be as stiff-necked as they come, but he’s wouldn’t ever…”
“He does in our universe,” his twin said, cutting him off. “Terinu, the boy you’re after, in our universe he’s Leeza’s ward. Even knowing that, the Admiral sent a hit team after him, and then stuck Leeza, his own daughter, in a fraggin’ prison when she had the guts to call him out on it. Me, Rufus, Vonnie, and another friend of ours broke her out, and we’ve been runnin’ from the Admiral ever since.”
Lance blinked. “So where’s that leave you mate?”
His twin stood up out of his chair and began to pace. “AWOL. I sh*tcanned my career to help Leeza and Terinu, because it was the right thing to do, and because Erwin Blake was wrong. Even knowing what that kid is, he’s still wrong to try and kill him.”
“So what is he, bro?” Lance asked. “Why’s he so important that you willing to lay your career down for him? Why would the Admiral be so mad to get him, a teenage alien kid?”
“He’s a Ferin,” his twin said. “That doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means everything to the Admiral. Because the Ferin were what powered the Dominion back in the day. And if the Gene Mage gets a hold of him, the Admiral thinks they’re gonna come back, and we’ll be fightin’ the Twenty Years War all over again.”
Lance was quiet for a long time. Finally he said, “We can’t fight the Twenty Years War again. Not with the Alliance in the shape it is nowadays.”
“Same here.” His twin sat down again, giving him a stare. “So what are ye gonna tell Captain Blake, when you report back to her? Because ye know she’s gonna ask what we talked about.”
Lance blew out a breath. “Well, we’re just gonna have to see, ain’t we?”
“Guess so.”
“Worth your career, was it?”
“Yeah, yeah it was.”
“Let’s hope I don’t have to make the same decision,” he said, then smiled. “Hate to take Leeza off my Christmas card list.” Then he stood up, shook his twin’s hand, and left the room.
TBC
Back in July I wrote a short little fic bit, inspired by
chaypeta's short story "A Matter of Honour", which explored from the of the darker aspects of her character, Terinu. Stuff that she considered canon, but wasn't really suitable for a a PG-13 webcomic. My story was just a short little, absolutely cliched "Evil Twin" encounter, where Terinu met a version of himself that didn't have the benefit of the most positive influence he had in his early days. Peta liked it, enough to draw a picture of the two together, that she intends to complete as a full color pic for her 2008 calendar.After that, I did another short bit, looking at what her character Leeza might look like in that universe.
And then Lance.
And then Mavra Chan.
By the time I reached the point of Rufus meeting his own twin, I had the "Good parts" version of a full blown story. The only problem was putting together all the bits I'd already done, so it had a coherent plot. That has taken me about a month of work. The story isn't complete yet, but I'm at least working on it in a linear fashion again, working towards the endgame, and I can finall start putting up the bits I'd completed earlier. Enjoy.
* * *
“Lieutenant, what's the status on that coffle of pirates?” Blake asked, pausing in the cruiser Suhayar's gangway. Her ship was docked at a refueling station, taking on badly needed supplies after their latest patrol.
Her cousin grinned at her. “Already offloaded. Once they're deloused and scanned, the ones that have already been ID'd and tried in absentia will be going up on the auction web tomorrow. Wanna watch the show and see what your combat bonus is going to be?”
Blake made a brief face. “No thanks. I've got better things to do than watch Scum on Parade. I need to oversee our repairs.” That last action had pushed the Suyahar's crew to the limit. The pirate galleon proved to have good legs, and Blake's ship had given her a long stern chase, trying to catch up to the galleon before it either slipped over the Ardactavian Hive's border or managed to hook up with more of its kind to gain an advantage in battle. But in the end her ship had won, and the flights of who knew how many merchant vessels would be just a bit safer, at least for a little while.
“Come on, Lee,” Lance pushed, “you at least deserve a round at the bar for what we did. You can join me and the others at the officer's lounge tonight.”
“I've got work to do,” she said, then looked at him a bit more sternly after an enlisted man passed, “and you need to remember how to properly address me.”
Lance rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Captain.”
“Lance,” she said in a warning tone.
He gave her an exasperated look. “We're cousins, L--, Captain.”
“That's when we're home at Vonnie's,” she reminded him. “Out here I'm a ship's captain and you're my subordinate.” Blake let her expression soften. “I can't let anything get by that might smack of favoritism towards you, Lieutenant. That's a guaranteed morale killer, and out here on the front lines we can't afford that. Not on a ship this small.”
He nodded, looking a bit more thoughtful. Quite an unusual, if welcome, expression on him. “Understood, Captain. Still, we'd all appreciate you joining us for that beer.”
She smiled. “I'll take it under serious consideration, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”
Lance snapped her a mostly regulation salute and went on his way onto the dock, while Blake trudged back aboard her ship and headed towards her office. Whatever post-mission fatigue she was feeling quickly dispersed when the door slid open to reveal her father, Admiral Erwin Blake, sitting at her desk. She snapped to attention and was immediately greeted with an “At ease, Captain Blake, and shut the hatch.”
“Hello, Admiral,” she greeted. “How the hell did you manage to slip aboard without me hearing about the commotion?”
Her father let out a rare grin. “Magic. That and I threatened to demote the marine guarding the cargo lock if he let the word out before I had a chance to see you. How are you doing, Leeza? How'd the mission go? You look like hell.” He stepped around the desk to give a very non-regulation hug, which she returned happily.
“Nothing twelve hours of sleep, a hot shower and a carafe of tea wouldn't cure,” she told him, sitting on the edge of her desk while her father down again in her chair. “It was a tough fight. I might have have let that galleon go. She was a bit larger of a target than we were set to fight. Except that we pinged her just as she was pulling away from the hulk of a gypsy ship, and I knew there was a possibility of hostages aboard her. My crew knew that too, and they were happy to run double shifts just for the chance to nail those nova damned bastards. We got her in the end though. Rescued fifteen survivors from the freighter and captured almost all of the galleon's crew alive.”
“How did Lance do?” he asked.
“Good,” she said. “I'll admit he was more like an overgrown puppy than a fresh from the academy Marine when he first came on board, but he's fitting in well. Major Talbot, my Marine detachment's commander, spoke highly of his work during the boarding action. Lance managed to blow out a bulkhead in the brig section that let us scoop up the hostages and get them to safety before the pirates could react and use them as a bargaining chip.”
“Good. Very good,” her father said. “That's one less pirate in the void for us to worry about.”
“One down, a few hundred more to go.” She waved away the praise and gave the Admiral her most penetrating look. “With respect, you didn't come all the way from Luna Station headquarters to an outback refueling station just to thank me for scragging one pirate ship, sir.”
“No, I didn't, Captain,” he said, straightening in his chair. “I've got a new assignment for you. I'm taking you off patrol duty and assigning you an additional two squads of marines to the Suyahar's complement to bring it up to a full platoon. You're going to be commanding the lead ship in a three ship raid.”
“A raid? Where?” she asked, coming to full attention. “What's the target?”
Her father touched a control at her desk. She heard a slight hum as the office's anti-monitoring screens snapped up, preventing all electronic communications from entering or leaving the room. “Captain Blake, the information you are about to receive is of the highest classification. It is not to be discussed outside this room. I do not exaggerate when I say that failure to heed that warning may lead to the Galactic Sapiens Alliance's destruction.”
“Understood, sir,” she replied, her mind racing. Blake was well aware of her rank in the hierarchy of shipmasters in the GSA's fleet. Though she was arguably one of the youngest captains in the navy, she didn't hold any illusions about being the most experienced. To be handed the responsibility of leading a fleet, however small, either smacked of pure nepotism on her father's part, which would be a first...
...or something so deadly serious that he felt it could only be handled by someone he knew more closely than any other officer in the fleet.
The admiral touched another control, and a map of the GSA frontier appeared on the office's central monitor, focusing rapidly on a single star system, then just one planet. “You'll be going to Bolt Hole, a planet on the far edge of the outback, near the Ardactavian Hive. It's a pirate haven, a failed colony that's now the home very every smuggler and pirate scum looking to offload hot cargo. It's also where, if our intelligence holds, Mavra Chan herself will be arriving in less than a week, aboard her flagship, the Celestial Marauder.”
Blake whistled. “You don't think small, do you, sir? Chan has been harder than a bloody snark to catch.”
“Chan isn't your target. If you can take her out, excellent, but she isn't the focus of this mission. Your job is to catch him.”
A face appeared on the screen. It belonged to a gray faced alien, though not a Creo. No Creo ever had features that fine, nor pointed ears or a such a long tail with a large spade on the end. It was humanoid though, wearing black leathers and a dark expression.
“Who is that?” she asked. “He looks like a kid.”
“By our estimates he's somewhere between fourteen and sixteen,” her father said, “but don't let that fool you. He's Mavra Chan's personal assassin and bodyguard.”
“What species is he? Some new race we just discovered?”
Her father's face turned grim. “No, a very old one. One the Terran Confederation had thought safely dead and buried. Your assignment is to make sure it stays that way. Otherwise, I do not exaggerate when I say that the entire GSA may be placed at risk if you fail.”
She stood up and gave him a careful nod. “When do you need me to launch, Admiral?”
He smiled again. “That's my girl.”
* * *
Blake leaned back in her acceleration seat, tightening the buckles of her restraint harness over her spacesuit as she listened to the multitude of voices of her crew in the Ari Suyayar’s combat information center. A compact room in the center of the light cruiser’s hull, it was the brains at the center of a complex nervous system of sensors, weapons, shields and drive systems, all directed by Blake as the she closed in on her prey. Illusion, all illusion, she reminded herself. The feeling of omnipotence that the room could sometimes bring would be shattered easily enough if the Suhayar took a hit that disabled its internal power, leaving her trapped, blind and deaf in a sealed box with nowhere to run, waiting to see if the power came back up or the hull breached and exposed her fragile human body to the vacuum.
“We’ve still got a good track on the Celestial Marauder, Captain,” her sensor officer reported from his station. “They’re making no signs that they’ve detected us yet.” Which was as it should be. The Suhayar’s sensors were superior, at least in theory, to ones carried by Mavra Chan’s flagship, allowing it to follow her outside of the pirate’s own detection range. Assuming she hadn’t gained an upgrade from some black-market supplier, or perhaps even the Ardactavian Hive.
“Very well,” she said. “First Officer, what is the status on the Wilson and the Namatjira?” The other two ships in Blake’s little fleet were sisters in the same class as the Suhayar, larger than destroyers, faster and more lightly armed and armoured than a heavy cruiser or battleship. She seriously doubted that the fact they were all named after the Three Children was a coincidence on her father’s part when they’d been assigned to her. It was a subtle bit of inspiration for the crews of all three vessels, to keep them focused on their task. The message was clear: This mission is important, boys and girls, be on alert.
“Wilson and Namatjira report they’re in position, Captain,” her XO told her, an older Galen male who had served under her since she’d first been given command of her own ship three years ago. Both cruisers had warped in ahead of the Suhayar, along the course the Marauder was most likely to take as she made for orbit around Bolt Hole. It was Blake’s intention to intercept the pirate vessel well before Chan could reach her goal and potentially hook up with other pirates who might come to aid her defense. Blake’s own ship would act as the hunter, flushing the Marauder out, right into the path of the other Navy vessels, then come in from behind to close the trap.
“Very well. Notify the Wilson and the Namatjira that we’re beginning our attack. Launch fighters Ready One and Two, and bring Three and Four to the linear accelerator stations to follow. Increase our acceleration to 90% of maximum and unsheathe all missile batteries and cannons. We are now at Red Alert!”
She heard the echo of the alert klaxon sound throughout the ship, as the CinC followed out her orders. There was a muffled thunk, thunk as the first two fighters flew clear of the launch bay, and the blips of their IFF transponders suddenly appeared on the CinC’s main situational display in the central holotank.
“Ready One and Two report successful launch, Captain,” her XO reported. “Launch Control reports Three and Four are moving up to the accelerators.”
“Very well, First Officer. What’s the status on the boarding party?”
Her XO checked his board briefly. “Major Talbot reports they are boarding the shuttle now. They’ll be ready to launch as soon as Three and Four are away.”
“Good, good,” Blake said, resisting the urge to tap her leg in nervous anticipation. The planned boarding and capture of the Celestial Marauder’s crew was to be handled by the Wilson and the Namatjira, with Blake’s own vessel acting as backup. For probably not the last time she silently cursed herself for agreeing to allow Lance to be assigned to her ship. As a relative she could have refused, on the grounds of potential favoritism, or the very real possibility of them both being killed in the same combat action. But she’d finally given in to her Aunt Vonnie’s insistence that “Someone has to grab that pup behind the ears and give him a shake if he gets out of line.”
Well, it wasn’t as if it was likely he was going to get involved in this particular scrap. The two platoons aboard the Wilson and Namatjira ought to be more than enough to take out a crew of scruffy pirates, never mind whoever was supposedly leading them. Even better, if we take Chan successfully, one of the most feared pirates around, the rest of those space rats are going to be running scared for a long time.
First things first though. She noted the closing distance between themselves and the Marauder. The fighters were closer still, but they had the advantage of greater stealth protection from their smaller size and power output. There was another thunk, thunk from below, as the remaining pair of fighters launched, and her XO reported that the other two ships had also deployed their own complement successfully. “All right then, First Officer, light ‘em up!” she ordered.
The data in the situational display flickered and reset itself, as percentages and guesses on the truth by the Suhayar’s battle computer became dead certainties, as the cruiser’s active sensors went live and painted the Marauder. The pirate ship’s reaction was immediate, as her own sensors went active and her engine output suddenly increased dramatically, trying to get some distance between her and the hunters behind her.
“She’s heading right towards Bolt Hole,” Blake’s XO noted with quiet satisfaction.
“And right into the Wilson and Namatjira’s teeth,” Blake agreed, keeping her eyes on the situational display. “Tell our fighters to keep their distance. We want to keep herding her. No point at putting themselves at risk to inflict a few pinpricks.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The minutes dragged as the Marauder began to lengthen the gap between them. That’s right. We’re just a dumb GSAN cruiser that lit our sensors up before we were in position, too eager to get a kill. We’re idiots. You’ve got enough legs to get to Bolt Hole and safety well before us. “Status on our missiles, First Officer?” she asked.
“Ready to fire, Captain. Wilson and Namatjira report they are receiving our targeting data clearly.”
“Then the order is: All ships, fire missiles on the Marauder!”
Her ship’s frame rattled as the smaller linear accelerators mounted on her dorsal and ventral turrets spat out their missiles, the cylinders lighting their own drive engines the moment they were clear of the Suhayar. The pirate vessel’s reaction was gratifying, as it suddenly discovered it faced not one, but three armed ships, and it vectored its acceleration ninety degrees from its previous course, trying to outrace the deadly automated predators tracking it down. Outnumbered, outmaneuvered and outgunned. What are you going to do now, pirate? Blake thought savagely.
“The Marauder is launching missiles at the Wilson and Namatjira, Captain,” her Sensor Officer reported. “Nothing coming in our direction.”
“She's trying to blow through the fire and head for safety,” Blake guessed.
“Both ships report they are diverting their fighters to counter-battery duty,” her XO noted.
“Very well,” Blake noted. “How much time until our missiles intercept the Marauder?”
“Thirty seconds.”
Blake kept her eyes focused on the missiles' track, as the laws of physics made their inevitable impact a certainty. There was simply no way for a manned ship that was properly targeted to avoid a missile attack. Fragile flesh and bone could never match the bone crushing maneuvering and G's of acceleration that an unmanned smart impact weapon could reach.
“Marauder is launching counter-battery missiles, and mounting directed energy defense,” the sensor officer reported. Then a moment later he added, “Estimate twenty-five percent of missiles destroyed.”
“Fifteen seconds until impact,” her XO said.
“Forty-five percent destroyed.”
“Eight seconds to impact. Wilson and Namatjira report they're countering the enemy missiles without difficulty.”
“Sixty-five percent destroyed.”
“Impact in four... three... two... one. Missiles have struck,” her XO said coolly. On the situation display the track of the missiles disappeared as the sensor data on the Marauder became choppy and incomplete as it was surrounded by a debris field of its own making.
“Enemy ship has ceased acceleration and is tumbling, Captain,” the Sensor Officer reported. Around the CinC, the other crewman at their stations let out a spontaneous cheer.
“Belay that,” Blake ordered, after a few moments. “Comm Officer, send the following message to the Marauder, 'Surrender now and prepare to be boarded.'”
“With pleasure, Captain,” her Comm Officer said, grinning.
Then the Sensor Officer sat up straight in his seat. “Captain! Two new contacts appearing, close in to the Wilson! One fighter, one galleon sized vessel!”
“Where the hell they come from? What's their identification?” Blake demanded. She felt her heart began to race as her mind whirled, Where did they come from, how did we miss them?!
“Fighter appears to be a Vulpine Sleek Wing, the galleon looks like...” the Sensor Officer paused, looking confused.
“What's the identity of that galleon, SO?” Blake demanded.
Her Sensor Officer looked up at her, helplessly. “It's the Marauder! A second one!”
“Impossible! She’s a unique design!” Blake told him. “Nav! Divert our course to intercept the new bogie. Comm, send orders to the Namatijira to do the same. Weapons Officer, ready missiles to defend the Wilson.”
“She’s too close to the galleon, Captain, less than two-hundred fifty meters,” her weapons officer reported. “We fire on her and the debris field will cut the Wilson apart.”
Blake’s hands clenched into helpless fists. “Belay that then. Engineering, redline the engines! Weapons Officer, make ready to hot shot the lasers and PPC cannons. We’ll burn them out after a few shots but we might be able to drive off the bogie before that happens. Sensor Officer, how the fragg did you miss those two ships?”
The man looked stricken. “Captain, I didn’t, I swear. They literally appeared out of nowhere. One moment the Wilson was alone and the next minute they were there!”
“The Wilson and the new bogie are engaged, Captain, and two of her fighters have been destroyed,” her XO reported, pointing to the situation display. “The new Marauder closing in. She’s too close now for the Wilson to fire her own missiles.”
Blake bit her lip, feeling helpless as the battle played itself out. “Like I said, the design unique. She’s probably angling to…”
The Comm Officer spoke up, “Wilson reports she’s been rammed amidships, near their engineering compartments. Power to her weapons have been cut.”
“Very well, XO, how long until we’re in range to help the Wilson?” she asked.
“Twenty three minutes, less than fifteen for our fighters, Captain,” he said, “by that time it’ll be all over.”
“Wilson reports she had boarders in her engineering section,” Comm said. “I also have a message from the Sleek Wing fighter. He claims that he is an independent Vulpine mercenary pilot and not part of Chan’s forces.”
“Confirm, the Sleek Wing is firing on the second Marauder,” the Sensor Officer reported.
“What the frell is he doing there anyway?” Blake asked aloud. “Very well. Comm, inform our own fighters that they are not to fire upon the Sleek Wing.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Five minutes later the Vulpine fighter was still trying to harass the second Marauder, while the first one had managed to restore power to its engines and was limping away slowly as the Suhayar and the Namatjira raced to engage her mysterious sister ship. Two minutes after that the Wilson’s comm and telemetry feeds ceased transmitting.
“The second Marauder is disengaging from the Wilson,” the SO reported. “She’s accelerating…” The corner of the situation display where the Wilson and the pirate ship were marked suddenly became an angry cloud of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of debris tracks.
“Wilson appears to have suffered a massive explosion aft,” her XO said a moment later, looking as shocked as any Galen could manage.
“She’s broken into two pieces and is launching lifeboats, Captain,” the SO said. “The second Marauder is accelerating to meet up with the first one. The Sleek Wing has ceased acceleration and is holding position near the remains of the Wilson.”
“Very well,” Blake said softly. The normal chatter of the CinC had become muted, as the magnitude of the disaster became apparent to the officers and crew. “First Officer, have the Namatjira meet us at the remains of the Wilson and launch boats to retrieve survivors. Order Ready One and Two to follow and track the two pirate vessels for as long as they can, until they come in range of Bolt Hole’s defenses.” Her voice rose in growing anger. “And get that damned Vulpine fighter in our dock. I want to have a talk with her pilot and find out what exactly is going on.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later Blake’s ship had reached the shattered remains of the Wilson and had attached grappling bots to the larger fore section, where the most survivors were to be found. As both her crew and the Namatjira’s raced to recover the wounded and the distressed, the Vulpine fighter was brought onboard. Busy with coordinating the rescue efforts, she reacted with irritation when Lance’s voice came over her suit’s comm.
“Lee, I mean Captain, you’d better get down to the flight deck,” he said, sounding off-balance. “We’ve got, ah… situation here with the Sleek Wing and her crew.”
“Lieutenant, I do not have the time right now,” she snapped. “If they’re giving you trouble, stun ‘em and stick them in brig.
“Believe me, Lee, you’re going to want to make time,” Lance said. “I’m serious.”
Blake muttered a curse under her breath and said, “First Officer, you have the bridge.” Then she made her way down the gangways to the flight deck, the lifts being reserved for the movement of wounded survivors from the Wilson up to the sickbay. Doffing her suit’s helmet, she found Lance standing beside what had to be the Sleek Wing’s pilot, a sandy furred Vulpine wearing a gaudy green and gold flight uniform. Lance, on the other hand, was definitely out of uniform, wearing a civilian spacesuit instead of the standard Marine battle armour that he should have been wearing as part of a boarding team.
“All right, Lance,” she said to him. “What is so flaming important that you had to pull me out of the CinC to handle it, and why are you out of uniform?”
Lance, who had gotten a distinctly pole-axed expression as she pulled her helmet off, remained silent. The Vulpine however, merely raised his eyebrows and said, “I think you’re speaking to the wrong Lt. Freeman, Captain.”
“Behind you, Lee,” she heard Lance say, and turned around to find herself facing her cousin again, this time dressed in his armour.
“What the fragg?” she exclaimed, twisting her head to try and keep both Lances in sight.
“Better get yourself a coffee, Leeza,” the first Lance said, “this is going to be a long story.”
* * *
Leeza woke up lying facedown on a sleeping pad, her eyes blurring from the pounding headache of post-stunner shock. She swallowed bile back down into her throat, thankful that she’d had a light breakfast before she and Terinu had climbed into their purloined Sniper just… oh, how long had she been out? She rolled over, blinking up at the dull red light in the ceiling. It was a method of sensory deprivation, she remembered from some long ago conversation with Lance about military interrogation techniques. Combined with heavy soundproofing, in a few hours it could send a prisoner into hallucinations if they couldn’t figure out a way to keep their mind occupied.
How did I get here? She tried to move past the pounding pain in her head, trying to think. Terinu had come with her to examine the gravity anomaly they had come across, not so much out of scientific curiosity as to get out of Lance’s way. Then the bloody thing had moved, swallowing their fighter and blowing out the electronics. She had spent a frantic two hours trying to bring them online again, before the Celestial Marauder had suddenly appeared in front of the fighter’s windscreen. Their attempt to escape, before the pirate ship had snagged them with grappling bots, had been short but terrifying. Then they had been dragged out of the cockpit and Leeza had been coshed on the back of the head by a shock stick, judging from the tender, burned spot at the base of her skull.
Captured again, she thought irritably. It seemed to be becoming a habit for her. Get your head out of your ass. Teri has been captured too. You need to get him out of here and find some help. If Mavra Chan followed us through that anomaly then she’s a threat to this universe too.
She patted herself down. Her sidearm was gone of course, along with her datapad, circuit tester and a ridiculously expensive Swiss Army knife that Vonnie given her three Christmases ago. They had also taken her sock, boots and belt, in return locking a tracking cuff on her right wrist. Depending on the model it would either shriek an alarm, inject a sedative, or perhaps even explode with a shaped charge that would take off her hand if she tried to leave her cell or attempt to remove it. Leeza didn’t care to guess which model Mavra Chan preferred.
After finding and using the cell’s foldaway toilet and sink, measuring the length of her cell in paces (one and a half by three), and pounding on the walls (soundproofed, as she suspected), Leeza had exhausted the limits of amusements she could produce in her new quarters. She sat down again on the sleeping pad, leaning against the wall and trying not to fall asleep. The dark red light seemed to induce lethargy, or at least she hoped it was the light and not a concussion. At any rate sleeping would be the wrong thing to do. She needed to try and come up with a plan. Terinu being recaptured by Chan was the worst possible thing that could happen to him, and as long as she was in this cell the pirate warlord could use her as leverage to force the young boy to do her bidding.
Despite her resolution to not sleep, Leeza found that she’d nodded off when the door to the cell suddenly slid back, blinding her temporarily as the bright light from the corridor flooded in. She blinked and shaded her eyes, as a tall, rangy, angular figure entered and squatted down beside her.
“Hello there, Captain Blake,” Mavra Chan greeted, grabbing her chin. “Now what’s the daughter of Admiral Erwin Blake doing all the way out here in the backbeyond, in a dinky little fighter and with my Ferin?”
Captain? Maybe she was referring to Leeza’s brief career as the Treona’s shipmaster, though more properly she’d been the group den mother for all the time she spent playing referee between Lance and Terinu. “Sightseeing,” she replied.
“Cute,” Chan replied, then smacked her hard across the face, growling, “I don’t do cute, Captain. I want to know what you were doing out there, where you found that Ferin, and how much your daddy admiral knows about them.”
Leeza touched her lip where Chan had struck her, tasting blood in her mouth. Maybe she did have a concussion, because she certainly wasn’t tracking where the conversation was going. She tried to focus on the pirate’s face. Somewhere along the way she must gotten some plastic surgery, for the scar on her face was gone and her obviously artificial eye had been replaced by a more normal looking prosthesis. “I’m not telling you anything until I know Terinu is safe. Let me see him.”
“Why, that would be my pleasure.” Chan turned and called through the open door. “Terinu, why don’t you introduce yourself to the Captain here?”
Terinu walked through the door. Except that it wasn’t the Terinu that had been sitting beside her in the Sniper. This boy walked with confidence, not her young, emotionally broken ward’s customary wariness. His hair was cut short except a half dozen long, thin braids wrapped in silver wire and ending in sharp looking arrowheads. He wore tight black leather pants from which hung a plasma pistol and wore a sort of bolero shirt/jacket that left his well muscled abdomen exposed. He looked down on Leeza with an expression of cool amusement. “Hello there, Captain Blake,” he said, while Mavra Chan stood up and rested her hand on his shoulder, giving Leeza a Cheshire Cat grin.
Oh, right, alternate universe, she thought dizzily. Oh, fragg.
* * *
“Alternate universes?” Blake repeated with disbelief, then sipped her tea. After making sure that the recovery operation could proceed without her direct supervision, she had pulled Brushtail, Lance and the other Lance into a conference room for a debriefing.
“I realize the concept is difficult to believe,” Brushtail continued. “I myself find it amazing. Nevertheless it’s happened to us at least three times now, and I fear it’s becoming a habit.”
“So in your universe there’s another Leeza Blake, captain of another Ari Suhayar?” she asked.
“Ah, not exactly,” the other Lance said. “She’s a civilian on our side. Got into engineering as a contractor for the Navy, at least until Uncle Erwin… um…” He closed his mouth and put on a pleasant smile, in exactly the same expression the real Lance usually took just before dropping some unpleasant news on Aunt Vonnie.
“Care to expand on that, Lieutenant?” Blake prodded.
Brushtail cleared his throat. “Our Leeza has a somewhat… difficult relationship with her father. I don’t think entering the Navy was ever a very attractive career option for her. Even less so these days.”
“My father is a great man.”
Now it was Brushtail’s turn to smile, which seemed to involve most of his teeth, tightly clenched. “He is very influential, yes. But to return to the subject at hand, our Leeza, along with… a good friend of ours, was in a Sniper that we had, er, acquired, and was using to try and scan a gravity anomaly that was similar to what we had encountered prior to our first run in with an alternate dimension. As best as Lance and I were able to determine, she got a bit too close and was sucked into your universe. Naturally we were frantic to follow, but it was over a week before we managed to get a sensor lock on the thing. It seems to fade in and out in a very alarming manner. Unfortunately we managed to find it again at the exact moment that Mavra Chan caught up with us. I accelerated towards the anomaly, she followed, and we both found ourselves in the middle of your action against your universe’s Celestial Marauder.” Apologetically, he added, “I am sorry that I was unable to prevent her from destroying your companion vessel.”
“One little fighter against a heavily armed galleon is unfavorable odds at best,” Blake told him. “I’m surprised you survived against her.”
“Her ship was more interested in taking out the Wilson, fortunately for me, and unfortunately for that poor Navy crew” Brushtail said. “But now we find ourselves in a rather deadly quandary. Attempting to rescue our friends from Mavra Chan is a difficult enough task. Attempting to rescue them from two Mavra Chans is going to be very tricky indeed.”
“I’m willing to help you on that matter, and I hope you’ll be willing to help me,” Blake said. “Our mission revolved around either capturing or neutralizing a certain member of the Marauder’s crew. When I had three ships against one galleon, the odds were easily in our favor. Now I find myself with two ships, going against two galleons, both of which are in orbit around a planet hostile to GSA law. I could back off and send for reinforcements, but that runs the risk of Chan, both of them, getting away. I need to take her out, take both of them out now, not just for the sake of my mission but for the honor of all of the Wilson’s crew that lost their lives in her assault.”
Rufus and the other Lance shared a worried glance. “Ah, Lee, I mean Captain Blake,” Lance began, “the fellow you’re trying to take out. Your orders didn’t happen to come directly from Uncle Irwin himself, did they?”
“They did,” she admitted.
“And they didn’t happen to specifically target a short grey alien kid with horns on his head and a frelling enormous tail, did they?”
“That’s restricted information, Lieutenant,” she said, “and you aren’t on the need to know list.”
“Figured that,” he said. The other Lance turned to his companion, “Ah, Ru, I think its going to be at least a few days before we can get any kind of rescue operation going anyway, seeing as this universe’s Marauder won’t be going anywhere soon, and Captain Blake has to plan her strategy. So maybe it might be best if we looked for some allies.”
“What sort of allies?” the real Lance asked.
The other Lance shrugged. “Well, if I’ve got a double here, and Leeza does, it only stands to reason that Rufus does as well. If he’s anything like ours I’m sure he’d be willing to help.”
“Absolutely not,” Blake said firmly. “Neither of you are leaving this ship until this situation is resolved.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Blake,” Rufus said carefully, “but I don’t follow your reasoning. Are you saying that we’re under arrest?”
“We are in the middle of a combat action. I can’t let a civilian loose with information about it, especially this close to Chan and her allies. Furthermore, I don’t care what universe your particular Lance comes from, he is still a military officer and subject to military discipline. If he leaves I would consider it going AWOL and act appropriately.”
“Oh, come on, Lee,” the other Lance said. “Stop being a bloody stiff neck like your old man! You have to see that you’re going to need help on this op, and you’re too far from headquarters to get another Navy ship in. Letting Rufus and I go is your best bet!”
“I will do no such thing,” she said, glaring at him. What the hell was wrong with her family in his universe that he would have the gall to speak about the Admiral like that?
“Very well,” Brushtail said, standing up and giving her a short bow. “You may keep Lance about, as he is a Navy officer. I, however, am leaving to find help.”
Blake stood up and leaned over the table in his direction. “No, you are not. If you argue the point I will have you escorted to the brig, rather than the guest quarters.”
Brushtail smiled again, and this time there was absolutely nothing friendly in it. “Captain Blake, I am the Viscount Ru-ofanius Brushtail, of the House of Brushtail. I am leaving your ship to find help. If you chose to argue the point, or attempt to restrict me in any way, it will be considered a diplomatic incident in the eyes of the Vulpine Lords. That will cause a considerable stink no matter what universe I hail from. You have enough troubles already. Losing a ship in your fleet in such an unexpected manner is not going to make your father the Admiral pleased. Don’t add to your black marks by having the Vulpine government making inquiry into your actions as well.”
She gripped the table, fingers clenched in outrage, measuring his threats against the sheer pleasure of seeing him stuck in the brig anyway. “Your point is taken, Lord Rufus,” Blake finally said. “Go find your twin then. I assume you will be discreet and not mention what you have of this operation to anyone else.”
“Naturally, Captain. You have my discretion on that matter,” Brushtail agreed. He turned to the other Lance. “Take care of yourself, young man. This ship is not in friendly country.”
“You too, Rufus,” he said, giving the Vulpine a laconic salute.
Brushtail gave her another bow and walked out the of them. Blake let out a sharp, angry snort and turned to the real Lance. “Find some quarters for your twin there, Lieutenant. I’ve got to get back to the CinC and start planning our next move.”
“Yes, Captain,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Come on, Bro.”
“With pleasure,” the other Lance replied, glancing at Blake with a curious expression before following his twin. When they were gone, she blew out a breath and sat down in her chair once again, sipping on her mug of tea, her mind racing.
There’s something wrong. It can’t be a coincidence that they knew the description of the target. She took another sip of her tea, feeling a bit more satisfied. If I bring Chan’s assassin in, it’ll just barely make up for the cost of this operation. If I could bring two of them in…?
Blake stood up and set the cup down, heading out the door towards the CinC. She had a lot of planning to do.
* * *
“Well, that went well,” Lance said.
“Compared to what, mate?” Lance replied.
Lance shrugged. “Imagine being in the same room as her and Uncle Erwin, and you just screwed something up.”
“Oof! No thanks! One of the Admiral is bad enough.”
Lance stopped at the door of one of the ship’s guest quarters and put his hand on the palm lock, the touched the keypad to indicate a guest was being settled there. “Okay, now you put your hand here to set your palm code… Oh, wait, I guess you don’t have too.” He grinned at his twin. “This is gonna be fun, mate.”
“Yeah, can’t wait until Rufus comes back with his twin. He’s a good bloke.” They stepped inside and his twin sat down on a padded station chair.
“Most Vulps are. How’d you hook up with him?”
“Eh, ran into him when the Galapados attacked a refueling station that my squadron was parked at after completing an escort run. He was escorting a freighter convoy at the time but turned about to help us when it looked things were getting out of hand.”
“Who are the Galapados?” Lance asked.
His twin frowned. “Big lizard fellas, ‘bout a half a head higher than you or me. The Varn Gene Mage designed ‘em as some sorta super-warrior race. You never head of ‘em?”
Lance’s eyes widened. “The Varn? Look, now you’re getting scary. The Dominion is long gone, has been for five hundred years.”
“Yeah, well, in our universe they decided to make a comeback,” his twin said. “We’ve run into the Gene Mage a couple of times now. He’s pretty hot to get… ah, our friend.”
Lance hooked a second chair with his foot and sat down across from his twin. “Look now, that’s the second time you’ve gone cool when you started talking about your ‘friend’ that you’re trying to rescue along with Leeza. What’s got you and the Vulp so tight about him?”
“Can’t say,” his twin answered. “Maybe after it’s all over we can, but first we gotta get the two of them back.”
Lance leaned back in his chair and gave the other Lance a long stare. “He’s the twin of our target, isn’t he?”
His twin sighed. “I can’t tell you that. Same as you shouldn’t be talking about him with me.”
“I am talking about him,” Lance said. “I want you to talk about him. Lee has been tight-lipped about this guy ever since we got put on this duty. I know what he looks like, and I know he’s supposed to be some kinda fancy throat cutter. That still doesn’t explain why the frell the Navy needs to send three light cruisers to go after one moddie pirate. We’re not even targeting his boss, who seems about as nasty as they come, just him. Now what is this kid and why is Uncle Erwin so hot to get him?”
His twin scratched under his chin, then took a long breath, “Ya can’t tell Captain Leeza what I’m gonna tell ya, mate. Not if she’s as tight with Uncle Erwin as it looks like she is.”
Lance shook his head. “I’m a Marine officer, same as you. If it’s about our mission, I’ve got an obligation to tell her.”
“You’ve also got an obligation to disobey blatant criminal orders,” his twin said.
“Nothing criminal about what we’re doing. We’re arresting a murderer,” Lance said.
Now it was his turn to shake his head. “No, you’re going after a fifteen year-old kid. And if your Admiral Blake is anything like ours, it isn’t justice that he’s after. He wants to put the kid on an operating table and cut him open to see what makes him tick. And if he can’t do that, he wants him dead.”
“What? Oh, come on! Uncle Erwin can be as stiff-necked as they come, but he’s wouldn’t ever…”
“He does in our universe,” his twin said, cutting him off. “Terinu, the boy you’re after, in our universe he’s Leeza’s ward. Even knowing that, the Admiral sent a hit team after him, and then stuck Leeza, his own daughter, in a fraggin’ prison when she had the guts to call him out on it. Me, Rufus, Vonnie, and another friend of ours broke her out, and we’ve been runnin’ from the Admiral ever since.”
Lance blinked. “So where’s that leave you mate?”
His twin stood up out of his chair and began to pace. “AWOL. I sh*tcanned my career to help Leeza and Terinu, because it was the right thing to do, and because Erwin Blake was wrong. Even knowing what that kid is, he’s still wrong to try and kill him.”
“So what is he, bro?” Lance asked. “Why’s he so important that you willing to lay your career down for him? Why would the Admiral be so mad to get him, a teenage alien kid?”
“He’s a Ferin,” his twin said. “That doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means everything to the Admiral. Because the Ferin were what powered the Dominion back in the day. And if the Gene Mage gets a hold of him, the Admiral thinks they’re gonna come back, and we’ll be fightin’ the Twenty Years War all over again.”
Lance was quiet for a long time. Finally he said, “We can’t fight the Twenty Years War again. Not with the Alliance in the shape it is nowadays.”
“Same here.” His twin sat down again, giving him a stare. “So what are ye gonna tell Captain Blake, when you report back to her? Because ye know she’s gonna ask what we talked about.”
Lance blew out a breath. “Well, we’re just gonna have to see, ain’t we?”
“Guess so.”
“Worth your career, was it?”
“Yeah, yeah it was.”
“Let’s hope I don’t have to make the same decision,” he said, then smiled. “Hate to take Leeza off my Christmas card list.” Then he stood up, shook his twin’s hand, and left the room.
TBC
