Mercurial: Ace Evans Book 5 (Ace Evans Series), page 19
“Let me try,” Nyx said. “Please.”
“Go ahead.”
Nyx hurried over to the communications console. The officer there handed her a headset. “I’ve got a tight-beam lock on those ships,” she said. “No one else will hear you.”
“Thanks,” Nyx said, settling the headset in place. “Alex, do you read me?”
She waited. It wasn’t proper radio communication format, but they didn’t use it when she was speaking to him through his INC. After a moment of silence, he responded.
“I hear you,” he said.
Loman could hear him too. The response came over the bridge speakers.
“What are you doing, Alex?” Nyx said. “You don’t have orders to attack those ships.”
“I don’t need orders,” he said scornfully. “Can’t you see what’s happening here?”
“I see that you’re acting on your own. That’s not good CDF discipline.”
“But these ships want to destroy us,” Alex argued. “They’re mobilizing against us.”
“They’re posturing Alex,” Nyx said calmly. “Just putting on a show. No one here wants to fight.”
“They want control of the asteroid fields.”
“That’s right, they do,” Nyx agreed. “And if all else fails they may fight one another, but until then, they’re just putting on a show. Trying to act strong, hoping the others would concede to their demands.”
“But the best way to show their strength is to pick off a weak rival,” Alex said.
“Maybe,” Nyx replied.
Loman knew where Alex was going. The Drachma was the weak rival. They couldn’t even run away, and they had no backup. His reasoning wasn’t flawed; if someone wanted to put on a show, it stood to reason that they might attack his ship.
“The Drachma is weak,” Alex said.
“No, not if we have you,” Nyx said. “Come back. Please.”
“And then what?” Alex asked.
“You’ve proven your strength,” Nyx said. “No one will want to fight us now.”
“Do you really think that’s what this is about? You think I’m just showing off?”
“I don’t know,” Nyx replied. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“I’m protecting you,” he blurted. “I’m protecting all of you. Mr. Haley, surely you see that.”
“How’s he know we’re listening?” Lieutenant Jones asked.
“Operators know that someone’s always listening,” Loman said. “Put me through.”
The communications officer nodded, adjusted a few things on her console, then pointed at him.
“I do, Alex, but I didn’t want you to do that,” Loman said. “I never wanted you to carry that much responsibility.”
“It had to be done.”
“Why?” Nyx asked.
“Because if we’d waited, someone would have attacked the Drachma,” Alex explained.
“But you could have stopped them,” Nyx said.
“Yes, and everyone would have seen. They would have recognized the danger, just as they do now. And they would have banded together. I couldn’t stop them all, Nyx. Not without putting you in danger. I had to strike first.”
“And it worked,” Loman said. “Four battle groups are running. You saved us, son. Now come back home.”
“The mission isn’t complete, sir,” Alex said.
“We’ve shown our superiority,” Loman countered. “We’ll use diplomacy now. No one else needs to die.”
“No, sir, that’s not the way.”
“Alex, listen to me. I’m ordering you to return to the Drachma,” Loman said.
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“And why the hell not?” Loman demanded.
“Because there’s still a threat,” Alex said. “If I come back now, it will put you all in danger.”
“Commander,” the radio operator spoke up.
Loman looked down and frowned.
“Alex, you were right. The other groups are banding together to stop you. Let me negotiate. There’s no need to fight them all.”
“He’s right, Alex,” Nyx pleaded. “Don’t take the chance that you might get hurt.”
The only response was laughter. The sound of it chilled Loman. He didn’t understand what had happened to Alex. He knew the young man. In fact, he admired him. He was someone who cared and didn’t hide his feelings. When things were dicey, he had a unique ability to see when to act. His first instinct was to help those in need. It didn’t make sense that he would act so defiantly.
The sounds of his laughter suddenly stopped. “We lost him,” the communications officer said.
“Sir, shouldn’t we do something?” Jones asked.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Loman said, frowning at what he knew his first officer was going to say.
“Can we fire on those Oppenmire ships?” Jones suggested.
“Negative,” the FC officer replied. “They’re out of range.”
“And we don’t want to kill Sergeant Evans,” Loman said with a frown. “He’s one of us.”
“But he’s disobeying orders, sir,” Lieutenant Jones said. “Killing innocent people.”
“No,” Nyx said. “They’re not innocent.”
Loman raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to one side, thinking. Nyx had a point. “Those aren’t Lewan Enterprises vessels out there,” Loman said. “None of us has a legal right to be here. Those are military ships, Lieutenant. Explain to me how they’re innocent.”
“Well… I just mean…”
The fire control officer spoke up, “Sergeant Evans isn’t wrong from a tactical point of view.”
Loman nodded. “He has a gift for tactics. If there were an advantage to waiting, he would have done that. With our engines down, we can’t escape if someone decided to take a shot at us.”
“But we don’t know that would happen,” Jones said in a weak attempt to salvage his pride.
“Oh, come now, Lieutenant. Perhaps you served under Captain Poe too long. The CDF is military and we have to assume that we are always under threat. No one is going to give us a pass because our ship is damaged. In fact, it’s an open invitation for any rival force to take us out. I’ll concede that Sergeant Evans isn’t sounding like himself. And he’s disobeyed direct orders, which he will have to be held accountable for. But he’s doing what he always does.”
“Protecting us,” Nyx said.
Loman looked at her and knew that she understood him. Even if none of the officers on the bridge did, she knew. There was something about Alex that made him special. It was his ability to put himself in danger to help others. And while Loman wouldn’t have sent him to do it—in fact, he wished that Alex hadn’t done it—he understood why Alex felt the need to act.
“I still think we should take him out,” Lieutenant Rory Jones said. “He’s obviously lost his mind. There’s no telling what he might do.”
“No,” Loman said. “He hasn’t lost his mind. He’s just realizing what he’s capable of.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Alex was at a disadvantage. Five other battle groups were mobilizing against him. Three were close enough to join forces, the other two were moving into flanking positions but where too far away to be a factor before Alex was in range.
Still, he couldn’t just charge into the main armada arrayed against him. They had eight battleships and sixteen light cruisers. They were spread out forming a wall of firepower. The Oppenmire cruisers had a few torpedoes, but they had to be loaded into their firing tubes by the crew, which Alex had killed by increasing the gravity on their ships. That left the lasers, but he knew the weapons on the battleships had greater range and power. He couldn’t stand toe to toe with the forces he was charging toward.
But he wasn’t helpless either. He fired the thrusters on the ship closest to him. It slowed, but didn’t alter its course. Alex moved up on top of the slower ship, using his electromagnets in his battle suit to fasten himself in place. He didn’t remain standing, but he made his profile as small as possible on the sleek battle cruiser. Moving to the rear of the ship would have given him more cover, but he needed a good view of the battle if his plan was going to work.
Once the other Oppenmire ship had outpaced the one he was attached to, Alex used the maneuvering thrusters to line his vessel up with the other so that they were flying on exactly the same heading. The first ship continued pulling ahead. Alex guessed that by the time it was within range of the larger battleships, it would be nearly ten kilometers ahead of him. He was cutting things close. The ships were charging through space at nearly five hundred kilometers an hour. That would give him just over a minute to make his preparations before he was within range of their weapons.
Death was a very real possibility. Alex didn’t want to die; just the thought of it sent a pulse of agonizing pain through his body. He was too powerful to be vaporized by a battleship’s laser array. And yet he wasn’t strong enough to take control of a ship that was sixty or seventy kilometers away. He had to get closer, and that meant taking a risk.
He looked up as the first ship moved within range of the battleships. Unlike the crews of the Oppenmire ships, who thought they had him on the run, the battleships didn’t hesitate to fire. The Oppenmire vessels had drawn closer, thinking they could take him out in one blast, but he had synced to their ships and shut down their weapons before they could act. One mistake was all it took to doom the crews of their ships. They had thought they were at an advantage, and they followed traditional tactics, but they were wrong. As the first Oppenmire ship blew apart under the long-range fire from the battleships, Alex hoped that he wasn’t wrong.
The sleek battle cruiser was no match for the lasers. Even at a maximum distance, the focused light was powerful enough to cut through the ship’s hull. The fusion reactor exploded, breaking the ship into pieces. Alex watched, counting the seconds in his aching head. Most of the ship was blown to tiny bits of matter that were useless to him, but not all of it.
With less than half a minute left before his ship crossed into the range of the battleships, he released his hold on the ship and pushed himself backward. He forced himself to stay close to the ship. The vessels were too far to see him clearly, and he was too close to the Oppenmire ship to be picked up on their radar. Fortunately, the cloud of debris from the first explosion gave him visual cover, which was essential to his plan.
He let the ship move past him, with just over ten seconds until she entered the danger zone. He maneuvered quickly into the space directly behind the ship. A few seconds later, laser fire converged on the ship. It erupted in a fiery blast that impacted his Titan battle suit. It felt to Alex like he’d flown into a wall. The raging heat in his head didn’t feel good anymore. It was painful, but he couldn’t resist it. And, fortunately, despite the shock wave that had buffeted him, he was still drifting forward, hidden by the cloud of debris. Not far ahead of him, was the scorch and twisted remnants of the Oppenmire ship’s engine exhaust. The pipes and wiring were blackened and twisted into a gnarly mess, but the cone that had once protruded from the rear of the ship was still intact. Alex gave his Titan suit a few minor thrusts that took him inside the cone. It wasn’t as big as it looked. He had to draw his knees up to his chest in the battle suit to fit inside the thick metal cowling, but once he was inside, no one could see him.
The bit of space debris was still moving quickly, and while not directly toward the wall of the ship, it was close enough for Alex’s purposes. He was too far away to act and couldn’t see the ships he was planning to destroy, but he picked up their EM waves. They were busy scanning the wreckage. The debris cloud was drifting out in all directions and reflecting light from the Askerria star cluster. Perhaps they would think they had won. Or maybe they would stay vigilant, believing that their victory was too easy. Alex was betting they would believe that no one could survive the blasts. And, in fact, he had taken a massive blow. Fortunately, his battle suit was built with impact-absorbing components. Its armor was thick enough to survive the blast. He had feared that it might be compromised, but it held together. He still had just over fifty percent of his suit’s power, and even more air. He guessed he could survive in space for at least twenty-four hours, maybe more.
Time seemed to drag by. He could feel himself drifting nearer and nearer to the ships, which hadn’t yet moved from their positions. They were waiting, wondering if the threat was over. His greatest advantage was the unknown. They might have deduced that he was behind the attacks, but they didn’t know how. And while it appeared that he had been a victim of the last attack that blew the final Oppenmire cruiser to pieces, they were afraid to celebrate, afraid they were missing something. It held them frozen in fear, like a wild animal being stalked and hearing something it can’t see or smell yet.
The burning pain in Alex’s body thrummed at the thought that he was hunting the hunters. The very idea that they feared him stoked the fire that started behind his eyes and was now ravaging his brain and cooking his body. He could feel the sweat inside his battle suit, despite the temperature controls. He ran a quick diagnostic and saw, like Nyx had, that he was feverish, his vitals all elevated. It was noteworthy, but he would see to his own needs once the Drachma was safe. Until then, nothing else mattered.
It took him forty minutes to drift within distance of the closest ship. The fourth battle group had arrived and been sent to investigate the wreckage. He could have seized control of a Zen Tech Corvette class battleship, but instead he just listened. He had a picture in his head of the various ships according to their EM waves. He knew which were close and which were farther away. He could even tell the differences among the battle groups, even though the ships were mingled together. But it wasn’t until he tapped into the Corvette’s communication system that he heard the voices and knew they believed the danger had passed. There was still tension, but he guessed it arose from being in a temporary battle group made up of various enemy ships.
Alex waited patiently. He could feel the wreckage he was hidden in moving closer. He was drifting up and toward the lines of ships. If left to its own devices, the wreckage would glide past them all, but Alex had no intention of escape. He synced first to one, then two of the large battleships. They were bristling with weapons, all primed and ready, the targeting controls scanning space for any sign of an enemy. Fortunately, with his Titan MBS severed from the Drachma he was invisible, just another piece of wreckage no one gave a second glance to. When he finally drifted close enough to allow him to sync to the third battleship, he was struggling to maintain control. The ships weren’t close. There was at least fifteen kilometers between them, but they were sitting on a hair trigger. All Alex had to do, was set it off.
He fired every laser on the three ships. Light shot in nearly every direction. Many of the ships in the armada had deflector shields, but only on their bows. They weren’t expecting fire from their flanks. Six ships exploded in the initial volley, and Alex felt lightheaded. It wasn’t just pride or giddiness at seeing his plan work. He had pushed himself too far and had to release two of the warships or risk passing out. He clung to the closest, launching the torpedoes the ship had loaded in its firing tubes. The other ships were fighting back, and it felt to Alex like it was every man for himself. He could have brought up the battleship’s external video feeds, but he wanted to see the fight from the outside. He leaned out of the exhaust vent he was hiding in. Missiles and torpedoes raced between the ships. Lasers lit the battle in flashes of orange, yellow, red, and blue. Some ships exploded; others began venting atmosphere that pushed them off station. Several were already spinning uncontrollably. There were even escape pods being launched, although Alex had no idea where they hoped to land. There were no planets, not even a space station in the Askerria Sector.
The fifth battle group, which had been pushing toward the far flank to join the others, saw the sudden, unexpected betrayal, and turned away. The fourth group, a Zen Tech armada with four Corvettes and two full-sized battleships, which had been investigating the wreckage only moments before, rushed suddenly into the battle. Unlike the other ship, they were already moving, giving them more maneuverability. Alex didn’t need to do anything else. Every ship in the combined battle group was firing at the others. He slumped back, watching. He even used the thruster on one leg to rotate the exhaust vent. He had a front-row seat to an epic and terrible battle that no one would win.
Alex turned his attention to the last group of ships. They had turned from the battle completely and were waiting, like Alex himself, for the others to destroy their rivals. But if the last group survived, they would be a threat. Without thinking, Alex jumped from the exhaust vent and fired his thrusters straight toward an approaching Corvette. If they saw him, they couldn’t react fast enough to do anything about it. He seized control of their ship, ignoring the sudden terrible stabbing pain in his head. With a single thought, he broke off from the attack run the Corvette was making toward the battle and swung around toward the final battle group.
As the ship slid through space, Alex flew out and landed on their port side. He had to cut the ship’s lighting, which he did with a thought, and then started to slay the crew by amping up the artificial gravity. But at the last second, something stopped him. He wasn’t sure what made him hesitate, but instead of increasing the gravity, he took the generator completely offline. The crew would be struggling to keep themselves under control, but they were alive. He wasn’t sure why he had the sudden need for mercy, he was sending the ship to attack and kill, yet something kept him from destroying the Zen Tech crew.
The Corvette sailed over the wall of destruction, which the initial battle group had become. There was more wreckage than intact ships, but the fighting wasn’t over. It was as if they had all gone mad and were intent on killing everyone in sight. Fortunately, that didn’t include the Corvette, although the other Zen Tech ships were throwing themselves headlong into the fray.
Alex turned away from the battle and focused instead on the last group of ships. They were Catalyst Corporation vessels. Alex knew them by the shortened name Cat-co. They’re fat, raindrop shaped vessels, six in total. And as he turned the Zen Tech Corvette to the side, bringing all the ship’s guns to bear, dozens of drones were launched. Alex had stopped just outside the range of the Corvette’s guns. He couldn’t fire on the flotilla yet, but it would only take a single burst from the long warship’s thrusters to push the Corvette into range. At the same time, he launched himself upward. It was difficult. His head seemed to be spinning. He felt dizzy and nauseated. The darkness of space loomed in front of him, and he wanted to drift away. But before he could, he had to stop the threat. Despite the pain and the terrible heat, he clung to a single thought—protect Nyx.
