Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (168 page)

“Coward. As commanding officer of the
EAS Akagi
, I find you guilty of sedition and treason.” Liam drew his Daemon from its holster at his hip, leveled it at Kone’s forehead and pressed the trigger.

Screams and gasps rang through the bridge. He ignored them to jab a finger toward the body now sprawled on the floor in front of a wide spray of blood and other fluids.

“Have maintenance clean this mess up. Security, open an investigation into the Captain’s recent activities. He may not have been working alone. Now, did those pathetic blasts do any useful damage to the nodes?”

Receiving no response, he pivoted to find his XO gaping at the corpse. “Well?
Did
they?”

The XO jumped and skittered backwards. “I’ll ch-check….” He rushed to his station and studied the readouts as beads of sweat trickled down from his hairline. “It’s possible the first node was significantly damaged. We’ll need to send a drone in to confirm.”

“And the second and third?”

“Uh…some exterior damage, but their mechanisms are intact. Sir.”

Liam ran a hand across his buzz-cut hair. He needed to…needed to…needed to…. “Instruct six fighters to do blocking runs on those nodes and take them out.”

“Sir, the first two fighters—and possibly the third—on each run will be destroyed in the attempt.”

“I know they’ll be destroyed, you dolt. Tell the pilots to be ready to
eject
.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a shame. He only had twelve fighters, a skeleton complement assigned to the cruiser for small, quick missions. But the
Akagi
, the frigates and the other fighters possessed sufficient firepower to inflict plenty of damage on the planet below; he could afford the sacrifice.

Liam turned his back on the gore decorating the floor as a medical crew and maintenance personnel arrived to begin cleaning it up. Eyes darted away from him as his leering stare passed over the bridge, but he didn’t care. Of course they feared him. Fear was control.

A few minutes later he was treated to a series of proper explosions as the fighters dive-bombed the array nodes. The first absorbed the attack while the second suicided into the node and the third fired on it. The debris, brute force impact and weapons fire combined to render it incapable of firing. The nodes managed to damage even the final fighters before being destroyed and two of the six pilots were lost, but the outcome was the same.

The resulting gap was small—any error in their trajectory and the adjoining nodes would target his ships—but it was enough. Satisfied, he squared his shoulders.

“Prepare for atmospheric traversal.”

In a dark, empty maintenance corridor on Deck 3, Brooklyn covered her mouth with one hand while the other grasped frantically for the wall behind her.

A wave of nausea roiled her stomach, threatening to send her to her knees. The scene replayed in her mind in a constant loop for which she couldn’t find the ‘stop’ command, and after the fourth replay she lost the battle against the nausea. She leaned over and vomited onto the grate floor, hoping the remnants of her lunch didn’t find their way to Deck 4 and land on the head of some unsuspecting soldier.

Guilt-flavored acid followed the vomit to lodge in her throat as she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt. Kone was dead because of her.

No. He’s dead because O’Connell is a deranged psychopath.

The certainty of the truth of the statement did little to ease her guilt. She was responsible for the sabotaged warheads; it had been her idea and she had been the one to drag him along to help. He should have ratted her out and saved his own damn skin! She should have—would have—taken the shot for him. Goddamn Marines and their goddamn honor….

She wouldn’t be expected to know about the execution, not immediately. The only reason she did know was due to the fact she’d planted a tiny surveillance cam near the entrance to the bridge days earlier and the feed went directly to her eVi. But no one knew about the cam. Not even Kone…which meant he’d given his life without knowing that she would learn the true nature and extent of his sacrifice.

Dammit, Kone, you stupid bastard.
Her hands sank into her hair, and before she realized it she’d yanked out random locks and ruined her tight ponytail. Dammit. She needed to get herself together.

She also needed to prepare the correct response for when someone told her his fate. Ugh, they did not teach acting skills in Marine Recon. It had been all she could do to project detached professionalism when in O’Connell’s presence. How would she manage to not explode in rage the next time she saw him, much less act
normal
?

She would manage it because she had to do so, if she wanted Kone’s sacrifice to mean a damn thing. And she wasn’t going to have to do it for much longer, because O’Connell’s abhorrent, mad reign of terror was about to end, even if she had to die to make it happen. Kone had done no less.

Which, she admitted as she redid her ponytail then exited the corridor with renewed purpose and began taking a circuitous route to the engine room, she very well might.

“Mommy, I wanna go to the adventure store!”

Isabela ignored her daughter to concentrate on maneuvering through the chaotic airlanes near the spaceport. The fact the skycar’s navigation ware ostensibly would not allow a mid-air collision did little to ease her anxiety. There must surely be a point where the number of vehicles in proximity exceeded the abilities of the guidance system, and the skies above the spaceport had just as surely reached that point of saturation.

She’d expected the flow of traffic to be predominantly in the exit lanes since there were no departing ships, but such was not the case. Apparently she was far from the only person to make an in-person visit on the off chance the scheduling VI fudged the truth about the lack of departures in an effort to keep the crowds down.

The trip had been to no avail, of course. The aliens approached from the east; Krysk was the second westernmost Federation colony and the sole western colony with the infrastructure to support an influx of several million refugees.

“Anna said there’s a new holovid of Punkie Bear & Saskoo where you visit a hidden castle in the trees and I wanna visit the castle.”

The traffic eased as she left the spaceport behind, and she turned the attention freed up to considering what to do now. She believed Caleb’s warning that Krysk was in danger of being attacked by rogue Alliance ships—before being attacked by the aliens. She was grateful her mother had never made it to Krysk, having instead been taken under the protection of Caleb’s employer. The news feeds were reporting devastating attacks on New Cairo and Ogham by warships bearing Alliance markings, though official Alliance statements disavowed any association with the ‘incidents.’ And the peace accord did appear to otherwise be holding so far.

She’d get out of the city. Any military attack would concentrate on the population centers, so she and Marlee would head to one of the small towns a couple of hours into the countryside. Their bags were already packed and in the trunk of the skycar, so they didn’t even need to go home. Decision made, she swerved into the next northbound airlane—

“Mommy, the adventure store’s the other way!”

She breathed in and readied her ‘mom’ voice. “Sweetheart, we can’t go shopping downtown right now. We’re going to go stay at the lake we went to earlier this year for a few days.”

“But Mommy, I’ll be
so
bored. Please, please, please let’s get the holovid first. I can play in it while we’re at the boring lake.”

A glance at the passenger seat revealed her daughter in full-on pout mode, lower lip poked out and skinny little arms crossed theatrically across her chest. She grumbled inwardly. She shouldn’t fold—but if she didn’t fold, Marlee was going to whine and cry and be uncooperative in every way for hours if not days.

“Ten minutes. We go inside, get this holovid you want and leave—no browsing, no crying for other toys and no changing your mind. Do you understand me?”

Instantly Marlee was bouncing in the seat, squealing in delight. “Yes, ma’am. I know exactly what it looks like and I bet I know where it is in the store.”

With a grimace she reversed direction to head downtown.

Parking was a nightmare. Krysk’s infrastructure may be able to support the influx of refugees, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t sagging under their weight. She finally located a spot in a rooftop lot six blocks from ImaginA, a children’s store featuring interactive educational and entertainment offerings. They called their products “holovids,” but in truth they were closer to a light, introductory form of
illusoire
.

Marlee had unbuckled her harness, grabbed Mr. Freckles from the floorboard and scampered out of the car before Isabela had shut off the engine. “Wait for me, okay?” Even as she uttered the warning she recognized the futility of it and swiftly exited to hurry around and grab her daughter’s hand.

Marlee tugged her toward the lift and danced in circles on the ride down, but hesitated when they reached the street. “Which way is the store, Mommy?”

She smiled in spite of herself and guided Marlee to the left. She needed to remember to treasure these times when her daughter still needed her, because they would be gone before she could blink.

They were halfway to their destination when a loud rumble assaulted her eardrums from behind. She spun in time to see flames pouring out of a tower several blocks to the northeast. Beyond it sunlight reflected off a fighter jet speeding away.

It was too late. The attack had begun, and she was at ground zero.

She grasped Marlee’s hand tighter and quickened her stride.

“Mommy, what was that?”

They needed to get inside and find some refuge. A sturdy-looking office building constructed of marble and synthetic stone occupied the next corner. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going to stop inside this place up here.”

“Okay….” Her daughter’s voice had softened to an uncertain tremble; the loud noises had frightened her.

The ground beneath their feet shuddered with a deafening
boom
. She didn’t take the time to learn what had caused it, but rather positioned Marlee in front of her and hurried her forward and through the doors of the office building.

Inside the lobby people stood around gawking out the windows like they were witnessing some circus performance and not a military assault.

“Do you have a basement?”

Most ignored her, but the security guard gestured behind him. “The entrance is over here.”

She glared at the others, who seemed frozen in fascination at the spectacle. “I suggest we all get down there right away.”

“You may be right….” The guard shook off his daze and shouted to the others. “Everyone into the basement, now!”

They rushed onto the lift as a screech—the distinctive roar of shearing metal—thundered from above and the lobby filled with dust and glass. Suddenly everyone was crowding in behind and pushing them into the wall as they lurched downward.

Then Marlee was ripped from her arms to disappear under the feet of the lift’s panicking occupants.