Into The Fire

Prologue-3

He swung his shuttle around, pointing it at the blocky building the Ragnosians had been using as a base. With a gentle nudge of the throttle, he was flying over the heads of frightened soldiers who scattered in all directions, over the chain-link fence.

The enemy base was just sitting there.

Noval curled his finger around the trigger but hesitated at the last moment. Those were his people in there. Never mind that; those were human beings in there. Helpless. He didn’t want to fight for Ragnos – he hated the things his government had done – but that didn’t mean he wanted to slaughter his former comrades.

But this wasn’t just any base. They had chosen it because the enemy was using it as a munitions’ depot, delivering weapons to military units that held Shalovka for the Confederacy. Well, he had chosen a side. He couldn’t back out now.

Novol squeezed the trigger.

Green plasma tore through the building, punching through the flimsy walls with a devastating explosion. He fired several more shots, reducing the place to rubble, and then flew westward over the conifer forest. “Objective complete!” he shouted. “Setting course for the rendezvous point!”

“Dropping out of warp,” Shinela said.

The Scrappy’s bridge was a simple room with control stations positioned along the walls in a haphazard ring around the captain’s chair. Only two of those were occupied at the moment. The ship had been operating with a skeleton crew ever since Jack stole it – that was to say “liberated it” – from a space station above Leyria.

A short and slim woman in black pants and a red shirt, Anna sat in the big chair with her hands on the armrests. Her red-blonde hair was tied up in its usual ponytail, thin strands framing her face. “Good job, Shinela,” she said. “Take us in.”

Corin Nomelia – the man who, for all intents and purposes, served as first officer – sat on her right, operating the defensive systems. He wore civilian clothing. Everyone on the Scrappy did; that was just the way of things on a ship of renegades.

Twisting to look over his shoulder, Corin frowned at her. “Reading fifteen hostiles, Captain,” he said. “Ten friendlies – or should I say potential friendlies – on this side of the planet.”

Pursing her lips as she considered his report, Anna nodded once. “Well, don’t be shy,” she chided. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

The long sheet of SmartGlass on the front wall lit up, displaying the image of a planet with blue oceans and green continents under swirling, white clouds. Ragnosian battlecruisers clustered around that tiny world, firing on their Antauran opponents.

The helmswoman sat between Anna and the main display screen. She was hunched over with her back turned, tapping away at her console. “We’ve got a clear vector of approach, Captain.”

“Steady as she goes.” That sounded like the right thing to say. Anna hadn’t quite settled into her new job yet. Commanding starships wasn’t all that different from leading Keepers into battle. Well, no. That wasn’t remotely true. The two jobs were nothing alike except for one important point of commonality: you had to project confidence even when you weren’t feeling it.

Of course, she wouldn’t have had to settle into anything if Jack would just suck it up and do his job, but that was a matter for another time. “Hail the enemy fleet.”

“Channel open,” Corin barked.

Standing up, Anna grabbed the hem of her red shirt and sharply tugged on it. She strode toward the main screen, coming up behind Shinela. “This is Captain Anna Lenai of the Alosian Defense Forces,” she said. “Belos Colony is under our protection. You are ordered to cease hostilities and leave the system immediately.”

She glanced to Corin.

He twisted around in his chair, shaking his head slowly. No response then. Well, no one had expected this to be easy.

Anna shut her eyes, drawing a deep breath through her nose, and then forced herself to press on. “We don’t want a fight,” she said. “I say again: we don’t want a fight. But if you do not comply, we are prepared to respond with deadly force.”

“Still nothing, Captain.”

Returning to her chair, Anna crossed one leg over the other. “Well, at least we tried to play nice,” she muttered. “Signal the rest of our ships.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This is Anna Lenai,” she said, buckling her seatbelt. “You are clear to engage the enemy. I repeat: you are clear to engage the enemy. All ships, break and attack.”

She retrieved the VR helmet from her chair’s side compartment and quickly put it on. The world changed before her eyes. It now seemed as though she was floating in the vastness of space with Belos hanging in the distance. Blue lines drew a wireframe of her ship, giving her a sense of scale.

Green dots appeared around the planet, each representing an enemy ship. All she had to do was focus on one, and the VR system magnified the image, giving her a full-colour view of a Ragnosian battlecruiser.

“Access the SlipGate,” Anna said. “Send a repeating message to Salus Prime. Tell Admiral Ethran I want to talk.”

Shinela chose a ship that was floating over a patch of swirling clouds, a long, bladelike vessel. From Anna’s perspective, it was pointed to the left, firing on enemies just beyond the edge of her peripheral vision.

The Scrappy descended upon it from above.

“Take out their shield generators,” Anna said.

A flurry of white tracers exploded from her wings, converging on the other ship’s dorsal hull, phasing right through the shields. The brief flicker of explosions told her that Corin had scored a critical hit.

The Scrappy leveled off, flying in a tight orbit with the blue planet beneath her and the emptiness of space above. Streaks of green plasma rushed past her, but none of them found their target. Shinela’s skilled piloting saw to that.

“Counterattack,” she said.

The Scrappy flipped upside-down.

Now, the planet’s sapphire oceans seemed to hang over her head with the endless void waiting under her feet. They were flying backward, the enemy ship receding into the distance. “Incoming EM missile!” Corin shouted.

Anna saw the thin projectile launching from the battlecruiser’s starboard cannon, leaving a trail in its wake as it sped through the vacuum. That thing didn’t have to hit the Scrappy; it could do damage if it detonated within a few kilometres.

“Dumb-fire mode?” she asked.

“No, it’s homing in on us.”

“Divert it.”

Corin employed the new countermeasures that Alosian research teams had been developing, and Anna crossed her fingers. The missile veered off course, heading off to her right, and then exploded in a brilliant flash of radiance.

The EM-pulse washed over the Scrappy, jostling Anna in her seat. “Status?” she yelled, her voice squeaking. Great! She was really projecting confidence now.

“Minimal damage,” Corin said.

“Return fire.”

Two missiles shot out of the Scrappy’s wings, converging on the distant ship. They both exploded on contact, leaving a massive hole in the enemy’s hull. The damaged shield grid had failed to stop them.

“Reverse course.”

Shinela performed a half-roll – placing the planet squarely beneath Anna’s ship once again – and then they were flying back to the damaged battlecruiser. She got a good look as the other ship drew near; it was scorched with a huge hole in its starboard quarter.

They sailed effortlessly underneath the Ragnosian vessel.

Ten seconds later, the Scrappy was speeding toward a fat, Antauran dreadnought that was firing pulses of blue light at a looming opponent. At two looming opponents. A pair of battlecruisers was pounding the little ship with green particle beams.

Sitting back with a heavy sigh, Anna drummed her fingers on the armrest. “Isn’t that always the way with bullies?” she grumbled. “Let’s see if we can even the odds, shall we? Target the nearest one.”

The Scrappy’s nose pitched upward, the planet dropping away beneath her as she climbed toward one of those long, thin battlecruisers. Streaks of green plasma erupted from the enemy’s starboard cannons.

Shinela executed a quick downward slide, and those pulses of verdant light went right over Anna’s head. A targeting reticle appeared before her, highlighting a vulnerable point on the battlecruiser’s hull.

Particle beams burst out of the Scrappy’s wing cannons, converging on that spot and punching through the shields. A red-hot chunk of debris came hurtling toward her. Anna flinched, raising her hands to shield herself.

It all happened so fast.

The next thing she knew, she was climbing even higher, soaring gracefully over the Ragnosians’ dorsal hull. She twisted around to watch the damaged ship receding into the distance behind her.

They continued in a high orbit above Belos, a blue ocean with wispy clouds rolling past beneath her. A green dot appeared, expanding into an enemy ship that was coming toward her, headed in the opposite direction.

It flew past on her left, a Leyrian Phoenix-Class following in hot pursuit, firing an orange particle beam from its pointed nose.

“Captain,” Corin said. “We’ve had a response from Salus Prime.”

Anna yanked the helmet off, blinking several times. Her hair was a mess. “On screen!”

The SmartGlass lit up with an image of Telixa Ethran. A tiny woman with a bob of short, brown hair, she sat behind her desk, lounging in a cushy chair and smiling like a demon. “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“Call off the attack on Belos,” Anna pleaded.

“I do appreciate audacity.”

Closing her eyes, Anna bent forward and touched fingertips to her forehead. She hissed and then gave her head a shake. “I didn’t forget about you, Telixa,” she said. “I’ve been speaking with Dr. Veneray. He’s made some progress.”

Sitting primly with hands folded on the desk, Telixa glared at her from several hundred lightyears away. “Please don’t insult me with more empty promises.”

The Scrappy trembled when it was hit by enemy weapons’ fire. Anna was nearly thrown out of her chair. The lights flickered, and the transmission wavered for a few seconds, but it wasn’t long before the static faded away. Once again, she was treated to a vision of Telixa’s self-satisfied smile.

“Corin,” Anna panted. “Send the file.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

That mocking grin died when Telixa saw the information that was coming through on her computer. “What is this?” she demanded.

“It’s Dr. Veneray’s research,” Anna replied. “He thinks that he can adapt Jack’s antibodies to treat someone without a Nassai symbiont. But we haven’t had a chance to test it. We can help you, Telixa. We can end this war. Just call off your ships.”

“You say that,” the admiral growled. “And yet, there are still Justice Keepers on Salus Prime. They recently destroyed one of our bases, killing dozens of Ragnosian troops. You left some of your people on this world, knowing that they would start a rebellion!”

Anna looked up and narrowed her eyes. “Well, what did you expect?” she croaked. “Your people are a hostile invasion force! The Salusians have every right to defend their home! If you want the fighting to stop, all you have to do is leave their world!”

“I’m sorry, Anna,” Telixa said. “But I’ve come to realize that I can’t trust Justice Keepers.”

The screen went dark.

Corin checked his instruments and then shook his head in dismay. “She’s gone, Captain,” he said. “Killed the transmission.”

“All right,” Anna groaned. “Prepare to-”

“Just a second, Captain,” Corin said, hands flying over his SmartGlass console. He scrolled through several windows of telemetry, flinging them aside with a swipe of two deft fingers. “The enemy is retreating! All Ragnosian ships are breaking orbit and going to warp!”

Once again, the screen lit up, this time with the image of a tall man in a blue uniform who stood on a bridge that had seen better days. Half of the monitors that surrounded him were showing nothing but static.

The face that greeted her was pale with a white goatee and deep wrinkles under sunken, blue eyes. “This is Colonel Taro Tremar of the Antauran Space Fleet,” he said. “It seems we owe you a debt of gratitude. I wasn’t expecting eight Leyrian ships to come to our rescue.”

Reclining in the chair, Anna replied with an impish grin. “We’re actually with the Alosian Defense Force,” she said. “We broke away from Leyria in protest of illegal actions taken by the Leyrian government.”

“And we’re allies with Leyria,” the colonel replied. “So, technically, that makes you our enemies.” Bleakness take this guy. Was he really stupid enough to pick a fight with the people who had come to his rescue? She breathed a sigh of relief when he added, “But I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“We’re just being neighbourly, sir,” Anna said. “The people of Alios want to be friends with Antaur and her colonies.”

A smile put crinkles around the colonel’s eyes. “The gesture is appreciated, Captain Lenai,” he said. “But it might be wise for you to leave the system.”

Anna raised an eyebrow.

“After we assist you with any repairs, of course.”

The narrow, rectangular window in Mother Danla’s office gave Larani a view of rolling green hills outside the church. The glass had a slight blue tint, making everything seem cold even though it was a pleasant day in autumn.

Tall and lean with dark skin and long, black hair pulled back in a clip, Larani stood with one hand on the window-frame. Her angular face was pinched into an expression of disapproval. She had been wearing that expression a lot lately. It came with the anxiety she felt every time she sent her people into the field, a daily occurrence now.

“They’re asking for you,” Danla said.

Larani turned around.

The priestess who ran this church was a frumpy woman in a simple, gray dress and blue shawl. Golden hair framed a pale face with a cleft chin, and her green eyes were a touch too big.

Here in Shalovka, the people worshiped Crix, God of Luck and Laughter. He was of the same pantheon as Haloren goddess Audria. One of the lesser gods, or so Larani had been told.

While the stories around Crix painted him as an ostentatious fellow, his devotees were anything but. Danla’s office was a drab room with only a single bookshelf and a plain, wooden desk.

“We should go then,” Larani said.

She followed the other woman through a narrow hallway that led to the back of the church. There, she found a stairwell that took her to the basement. Some of her rebels had gathered in the storage room.

A naked bulb in the ceiling illuminated four stone walls with wooden shelves that supported casks of wine. A small cupboard contained pens, paper and other implements that Danla and her scribes used for correspondence. She saw a broom, a mop and several wooden chairs in the corner.

One of the latter had been moved to the centre of the room. The man who sat in it – a Ragnosian commander, by his uniform – was bald with an olive complexion. He was slumped over, head lolling, unconscious.

The air down here was musty and a bit too cool for her liking. Her people had been using the church basement as a base of operations for two weeks, sleeping on the floor or the old, broken sofa in the other room. Danla had been kind enough to take them in and hide them from the Ragnosian patrols that had moved into Shalovka.

Melissa stood tall with hands clasped behind her back, watching the prisoner with a stern expression. Behind her, Novol leaned against the stone wall.

“Have you gotten anything out of him?” Larani asked.

Melissa spared her a glance and then directed a frown at the sleeping man. “He isn’t willing to talk,” she said. “But we downloaded the data from his pocket computer and ran a decryption algorithm.”

“Did it work?”

“It did,” Melissa said. “And we have a problem.”

Avrin Bryse strode out of a shadowy corner with his multi-tool resting in the palm of his hand. A hologram wavered into existence, depicting text in Vanasku. With a few quick gestures, he had his multi-tool translate the document. Larani skimmed through it, her trepidation growing with every word. “Are you sure this is accurate?”

“We have no reason to doubt it,” Bryse replied. “I don’t think they realize we can hack their software. Anna’s little stunt was brilliant.”

He was referring to the maneuver where Anna, posing as a Haloren butler, seduced General Mikken Heldoran and went through his pocket computer. Larani had to admit that it was a clever plan. The good general was obviously reluctant to divulge the details of his little indiscretion. No one had realized that he had been the source of the leak. Or that Leyrian multi-tools could break Ragnosian encryption.

Heaving out a breath, Larani hung her head as she strode into the room. “Then we do have a problem,” she said. “In two weeks, the Ragnosians are going to attack Leyria.”