The Dance Eternal

ch. 26

26

“Do NOT let either of those vessels out of your sights. Ensign, full thrust, forward cannons arm and prepare to fire.”

“Yes sir,” the Ensign replied immediately.

The vessel, an O-PAT frigate called the Dretch Ward, was captained by Lieutenant-Commander Car’lota Yinnatre. Of human ancestry, Car’lota was a woman who saw to it that things got done. At forty years old, she had clawed her way through the ranks of the O-PAT, served in every crappy assignment on every dirt-patch planet in the Five Systems, and stomped mud-n-guts with the rank-and-file countless times along the way.

She stood at the head of the bridge – a rounded chamber forty feet across, with the bridge stations positioned at even intervals around a large central console – with her left hand planted on her hip, while her right gripped the rail that encircled the central console. Her gaze was locked on the large mining frigate as they navigated through the asteroid field, the miner's tractor beam pulling a smaller ship into its cargo hold. Yinnatre's determination burning in her voice, she shouted, “Gunners, fire warning shots.”

Destroy them both. They are a threat to us. The hiss in Car'lota's head was from a symbiote she had bonded during one of her tours – the thing had saved her life.

There she lay, her squad dead around her, a hole in her torso from large caliber gunfire, when it came to her;

She had managed to scoot her broken body close to the wall so she could sit upright-ish; she slumped to the side, as some of her spine had been destroyed by the strafing gunfire of the raiders' drone air support. Where this ruddy collection of thieves and murderers managed to get a set of heavy drones was one for the books, but she figured it didn't matter, now.

She felt a slight tugging at her mind, like a nagging thought, but dismissed it; she was still trying to get upright and stay that way, having slumped back over twice more. She knew she was finished – she just needed to push the damned button on her squad mate's pack... across the room.

Yinnatre tried to push that nagging back again, but this time it made it's insistence known.

“I wish to help... I wish your help. You will live yet.”

It wanted her help to hunt someone, several someones. She didn't take much convincing, and was healed completely within moments, allowing her to complete the mission single-handedly. She banged herself up intentionally, so she didn't come away unscathed and arouse suspicion – she had been told of these symbiotes, and they were considered to be “detrimental to a soldier's sense of loyalty”. If she were found to have one, it would likely end her career on the spot, if not her life.

Five years ago, she had finally made it – her service record had finally earned her a position on a vessel. All those years of slogging through protocol, mud and guts and kissing the right butts – she started to feel like she was going to miss the mud-n-guts, but she kept going. She truly was tired of soldiering; she wanted to see the universe more fully than through the little window of a troop-loaded drop-ship.

“Keep them ahead of us and close distance for EMP pulse.”

When she received her first captain assignment – this hunk of scrap, crewed by twenty of the worst, dumbest rejects the O-PAT had to offer – it was expected by the top brass that she would not last. It was rumored that some of the top brass even had a pool going on how long it would be before she would either quit or get herself into serious trouble. Instead, she took the misfit crew, and the under-budgeted hunk of junk, and make the best of them; the ship was functioning quite well considering substandard parts and tools, and the crew were showing discipline, ambition and a healthy work ethic. In all, the Dretch Ward was on her way to becoming a respectable post under Yinnatre's command.

The two ships flew ahead, the smaller vessel nearly halfway into larger ship's cargo hold, and she squinted, the eyes of a hawk focused on a mouse. She realized that she had not seen any fire, and growled, “I don't see any gunfire – where are the damned warning shots?”

“Sir, having difficulty with targeting systems, no response from weapons,” the port gunner announced, and the other chimed in with, “Same on starboard side, Sir.”

“Systems malfunction or jamming,” she seemed to order an answer rather than ask for one, and one was immediately provided. Nobody off-ship knew just what she did to get the crew in line, but it was working. They still had more to go, and lacked experience, but where they were once basically useless, now they were ambitious and disciplined.

“Systems malfunction, Sir,” groaned the starboard gunner, and port affirmed the statement with a similar grunt.

“Sir, you should see this,” the science officer announced, his nervousness plain.

Yinnatre moved around the bridge to the station, grumbling about the ship's condition as she dragged her left hand along the inner rail; the holo-display in the center showed green wire-frame representations of the two ships they pursued.

As she approached the terminal, the officer slid from his seat and snapped to attention, half expecting to get cuffed. She planted her right hand on the console desk, leaning toward the monitors. Looking sideways at the stunned officer, she said, “What have you got?”

It only took a moment for him to compose himself from the shock of being approached by the captain; O-PAT officers had always kept their distance from the 'common crew', so Yinnatre going to the station, much less with the officer right there, was completely irregular, especially in an organization that is all about protocol.

“There are several energy signatures that I have noticed in the last few minutes,” he said, doing his best not to sputter his words. He pointed to the appropriate signatures on the screen as he spoke, “First, and most recent and noticeable, is that the frigate is charging for a warp jump...”

Yinnatre turned toward the rest of the bridge, “Get us in range for that EMP!” She turned back, ignoring the growing chatter behind her, “What else?”

He suspects.

Clearing his throat, he said, “There are a pair of signatures that puzzle me.” He ran his hand over blond hair – which seemed to glow over skin that was nearly crimson. He was of mixed heritage – homo-sapien and zyecromo-sapien. He raised a bald eyebrow, and lowered his voice, “These are right together, both in the smaller ship... very similar to...” He went quiet, and his eyes slowly began to crank open wider and wider.

“Captain, the frigate is powering up for warp,” said one of the gunners, “Shall I incapacitate them?”

He knows. Kill him! Kill him now!

The science officer's hand slowly came up in front of him, his index finger pointing at her, his eyes like saucers, “Y-y-you... you're... one... of... ulp.” Her eyes narrowed and her lip curled in a sneer, and he suddenly felt as though his heart were being squeezed. He gasped desperately, the pain in his chest a fiery agony that seemed to instantly burn away any air he managed to inhale, while he stared in horror into Yinnatre's squinted eyes.

When his body crumpled, she shouted, “Call the sick bay.” She leaned in to look at the readout, and spotted the energy signatures in question, pulsing from within the smaller craft, now almost completely within the larger frigate.

She spun to face the room, recognizing very well the type of energy on that ship, and one of the gunners announced, “Sir, the frigate is fully charged for a jump-”

“Open fire,” she shouted, not letting him finish, “blow them into the void!” Her voice was echoed in her mind by the symbiote, They must be destroyed.

“But, sir, we're just supp-” the gunner was cut off when, in a flash, she was upon his station and pulling him from his seat with more strength than she should possess. He whimpered when her nose stopped a half-inch from his.

“Are you questioning orders,” she growled.

“N-n-no S-s-s-sir,” he stammered, his voice croaking through his constricted throat.

She dropped him, the acrid smell of fresh urine hitting her nostrils. A flash from the font drew her smoldering gaze just as the miner jumped and was gone, a few fading streaks of light the only mark that something had been there.

NO! The smaller ship, we must find that one. He was on it, the Harbinger.

Yinnatre stared at the last motes of warp-trail, then, she exploded in a fit of primal yelling and kicked the console next to the prone gunner's head, which dented the lower panel far enough inward to damage one of the control boards, causing it to spark and smolder.

She looked at the pathetic man curled at her feet, the front of his uniform trousers wet to his knees, and shook her head. Turning, she said, “Clean yourself up, soldier. You're on sick-leave for a week.”