Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (13 page)

Shay leaned over and nudged Bryce on the shoulder. “Here we go, fancy pants, keep me clear!”

The pair sent more rounds back and forth. Missiles collided against the hull with a roar that was louder than before, the sound of expanding plasma vaporizing rock. Vibrations shook through the entire ship. The Hun cruiser didn’t waver, its nose was leveled straight at the
Garlic
with the deceleration continuing.

“Are they coming in?” Shay asked.

“It’s too late, if they tried to break away we’d keep smashing ‘em with the railgun. All they can hope for is to lock on,” William said.

He scanned through the alarm lists and saw that they’d taken a helluva beating. As soon as they were clear, he needed camera drones outside. Systems were missing, he needed to know if they were offline or simply gone. Vacuum alarms showed throughout the ship, Engineering was the only one with a full breach. His eyes snapped up to the display and back down again. So much to take in, so many details. The information overload was staggering. He pushed it behind him and took a breath. Focus on the essentials, win the fight, fix the ship. “Kill it, Shay, quit screwing around.”

Shay looked back over her shoulder and grinned.

The cruiser’s icon changed, and instead of reading a negative acceleration, it showed a positive value. A value that continued to grow. The cruiser was not just coming on, but charging.

William saw it and took a second glance. He was about to be rammed. His gambit to smash ‘em at close range just backfired. Now he couldn’t run. Worse, the entire nose of the cruiser was dead. Now it was just the brunt of a battering ram. “Shit, burn it!” he cried out.

Shay looked back and then leaned forward onto the console. Her voice was low as she called to Huron. “I need it full power, dump the reactor and burn the rails.”

Power meters spiked and capacitor banks showed heat alarms. Shay looked back at William for acknowledgment.

“Fire,” William said simply. He knew it was now, or get smashed by a few hundred tons of alloy. As it was, he didn’t know what was going to happen. He doubted they’d blow up conveniently. This was going to be rough.

The Hun cruiser was close, a few hundred meters away and then grappling lines fired out. Thin diamond strong tendrils sparkled in the dim sunlight and locked onto the ragged edges of the
Garlic
. The lines cracked like a silent whip and began to pull.

The railgun fired with a whizzing and popping sound. Dull explosions trembled through the floor. The capacitor banks had exploded under the shock. But it didn’t matter, not then, the stream of plasma burned through the nearest group of tendrils and tore a scene of havoc through the side quarter of the cruiser. Luck was with the shot as it tore a rift that sprayed vacuum for a brief moment. But every section looked hulled. The weapons on the cruiser stopped, but the derelict came closer.

“Bryce! Roll and burn,” William said.

Bryce worked the console with his entire body but the ship was sluggish to respond. The combined power of the railgun had taken the reserves designed for the grav drives. On top of it the tendrils were still attached and guiding the hun cruiser in closer.

William saw the inevitable, but knew of nothing more to call out other than “Brace!” He tensed his guts and waited for it.

The two ships came together, locked by the diamond grapples. The Hun cruiser’s nose collapsed on the edge of the
Garlic
and plowed through the stone like a rusty farm implement. Sparkling tendrils snapped under the forces but not before spinning the two into each other. The rear of the cruiser tumbled and rolled while the nose pirouetted on the rocky outside of the
Garlic,
spraying bits of alloys and chondrite into the darkness.

The roll stopped as suddenly as it began and the Hun cruiser drifted with the final tendrils, snapping silently. Bits of gray frost and debris followed after the Hun cruiser as it descended, broken and dead, into the minuscule atmosphere of the planet below.

William opened his eyes and felt the blood rolling down his nose. He wiped one eye free and stood on shaky legs. It felt like a little man had smashed him in the head with a mining pick. He gingerly touched his scalp and felt the sticky tang of blood and hair. “Shay? Bryce? Grgur?”

Blue lights flickered to life and the consoles began booting back up. Shay stood slowly and slumped back down onto the floor. One arm hung at an odd angle before her with the ball of the shoulder a bulge through her shirt. Bryce was slumped across his console. Grgur sat back onto his butt and looked around with his mouth open.

“Holy fuck,” Shay kept repeating in a low voice.

William walked over to Bryce. Every step felt disorientating, like he wanted to fall over. The beginnings of an epic headache were growing. He tapped Bryce and felt the muscles tense under his hand. “Bryce? You okay?”

An animal like moan came from Bryce as he pushed himself off the console. A string of saliva and blood peeled itself off of his chin and dropped onto the console. His nose was pushed in and the front of his mouth devoid of teeth. A pair of black eyes were already forming. The pretty boy look was no longer in style.

“Relax,” William said. “Grgur? Are you okay?”

Grgur spat on the floor and grinned. “I’ve had hangovers worse than this, Captain,” he said.

The consoles settled into a steady state and William slid himself back into his chair. He sent a request to all stations for an update and waited. It took him a second to realize he could ask. “Stations, report.”

The response brought any exuberance about a victory and slammed it into the gutter. Engineering was huddled up in suits and working to seal the breaches. The other Marines were locked into the galley while the whereabouts of three more crew members was unknown. Atmosphere alarms sounded everywhere.

“Did we kill it?” Shay asked, sitting down.

William glanced at the screen. “Yes, I think we did.”

Shay nodded and scowled, rubbing her arm. “Fuck.”

The first camera drone launched and hovered fifty meters off the
Garlic
. Underneath was an asteroid ripped, torn, and gouged. The immense furrow that the cruiser had dug showed alloy and crew quarters beneath. The mouth of the railgun was caved in and only a single mass driver battery was operational. The missile launcher in the rear hung oddly. But it was, for the most part, still a functional starship.

William drifted a hand onto the rocky wall and patted it gently. He felt a strange sort of reverence for the ugly little potato. Now, only a troopship. “Huron, take anyone you need and seal us up, we’ve got one more ship to take on.”

“Message from the
Gallipoli
, Captain.” Shay said. “He says, ‘Good work, see you at the troopship.’”

William felt a touch of relief. He’d take all the help he could get, especially given the shape he was in. “Well, I guess I judged Mustafa wrongly.” He looked to Bryce. “Plot an intercept, Mr. Bryce. We’ve got another ship to kill.”

The monastery smelled nothing like Emilie thought it would. She expected it to smell musty, old, with a touch of incense. Instead it smelled like beer.

It wasn’t like an old tavern with stale smells and still air. The aroma was rich, hearty, malty, and sweet. Beyond the smell of beer, it was the smell of a brewery. The smell of Lent.

She followed behind the monk and stared at his rich brown robes. Whatever it was she was expecting, this was not it. Her mind was still on the departure of the asteroid frigate. The Hun were here. In her system. Thoughts of the additive weapon library came back to her. At the very least she could leverage some minerals and sell some weapons. If she could get back to Winterthur, she thought, and if the Hun were stopped.

The monk in the walnut brown robes turned and smiled warmly. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

She smiled sheepishly and felt even worse when she realized she’d forgotten his name. “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”

He let out a deep sigh of relief and smiled widely. “Oh boy! Don’t I know that feeling.”

“Harwell!” a voice boomed from down the hall.

That’s right, she thought. Harwell. She stopped and turned.

At the end of the hallway a short man with a stout belly stomped closer. One hand was out in front of him as if warding something away, while the other held a metallic stein. Both of his eyes were milky white like old balls of glass.

“Brother Devereux,” Harwell said in a low voice.

“A woman? Is it a woman?” the blind man spouted out. He stopped at the end of the sentence and took a sip. Brown frothy liquid rolled down the creases in his chin. “You know better!” He shook a stubby finger at Harwell.

“The Sisters asked me to—”

“Excuses! Now get her to Sister Dandalaza!” Brother Devereux burped.

Emilie had no desire to get into it with the burly monk. Her eyes drifted to his hands and saw massive scars on his knuckles. The sort of scars a man gets pummeling something. Who were these monks? “I’m sorry, Brother Devereux, I wasn’t aware of the protocol.”

Brother Devereux’s face melted into a smile that was braced by a deep set of dimples. He twirled his hand and bowed slightly. “You have my apologies as well. We do not receive guests often, and normally just the Core delivery.”

“Well, I now have the Core contract.”

Brother Devereux nodded and smiled. “A pleasure, I’m sure. Now, we’re sorry, but Lent is a special time.” He pointed a finger down the hall. “Now please, Brother Harwell. Go.”

Harwell gently grasped Emilie by the elbow and steered her down the hallway. The ship had the feeling of something old. The wall panels were long gone, now showing the lifeblood of conduit, piping, and wiring beneath. A thin patina brought every detail out and placed it firmly in the realm of the antique. They passed through a troop loading area, now a simple chapel. The space was large enough to hold a full landing force, but now held pews and an altar. Entrances to the drop capsules flanked the entire chamber. Brother Harwell focused on getting them to the rear of the ship as quickly as possible.

Harwell stood next to an ancient bulkhead and beat on the edges with a wooden mallet. He stood nervously and shuffled in place.

A moment later the bulkhead peeled back and revealed the rest of the ship. The other side of the bulkhead was brighter, more alive, and there was even greenery sprouting beneath the ships lights.

A woman waited, round cheeks dimpled with a smile.

“Thank you, Brother Harwell,” she said in a rich accent that had inflections on the edges of words that were hard, unique. She beckoned for Emilie to enter.

Emilie entered and smiled at the nun. “Sister Dandalaza?”

“Yes. Now, not to sound brief, but we’d like to get you back to Winterthur.”

“I understand.”

She followed after the nun and took in the silence of the rest of the ship. Whatever assets she had hoped for, there was nothing here. She caught glances of other shrouded nuns. “Sister? What are you doing way out here?”

Dandalaza smiled and glanced back to Emilie. “We wait and pray. It is closer to God here.”

“Why not a planet?”

“Once they open the next star system, we will move there. Already we wait on the edge.”

Emilie looked at the woman and felt out of place. Matters of faith were never her strong point. At least not the sort that Dandalaza placed stock in.

“Here we are,” Dandalaza said, as she opened a narrow hatch and stepped inside.

Emilie passed through into a launch that felt a few decades newer. The bulk was raw cargo space while a small crew area was stuck next to the cockpit. She took a seat next to Dandalaza and sat in silence. She didn’t have any more questions for the Nun—her mind was spread thin, planning out how to salvage what she had in system.

She hadn’t planned on the Hun coming in, it was in the back of her mind, but it never seemed real. None of it did. At the very least she had the additive cells on planet and in system. But on top of that, she had full libraries, something the colonists definitely did not. She pondered on the term “colonist”. She wasn’t a colonist, being third generation, but the term still stuck.

The plan started to take shape as the launch dropped away from the monastery. The first task, get the additive cell working on a new mining fleet. She’d have to negotiate for some resources but saw no issue with a little credit. Beyond that it’d take time. What would the UC do, she wondered? Would William engage? She glanced around the bridge for a display. “Can you see them?”

Sister Dandalaza leaned forward and flipped down an old style display. It blinked into a pattern of hexes and shifted into a starmap. The edges were fuzzy, like it was cleaned too often. Icons blinked where transponders showed, but nothing more. The Core transport was heading out with Mustafa as escort.

“I hope he’s getting paid for that,” Emilie mumbled.

The small launch made the first blink and plunged through the gap to the next blink. Emilie spent the time in silence as she reviewed her position. It was the sort of thought that was beyond numbers and tables and in the realm of heart and grit. It was more than just value now, it was something bigger.

“Look,” Sister Dandalaza said. She pointed to the display and flashing energy signatures near a barren planet. “Railgun signatures. Grav expansions, a nasty fight.”

Emilie peered at the screen but could only see the numbers. None of it made any sense to her. “Who’s winning?”

Dandalaza watched the display with her hands folded onto the crisp black fabric of her habit. Her eyes danced on the screen and she nodded slowly. “Neither, they spread apart. They’re close in to that planet, the well makes for a quick engagement.”

“You were Navy?”

“Once, yes. Then I found a calling.”

Emilie saw the signatures begin again. She wished she could understand what was happening. A new indicator would flare and Dandalaza would click her teeth or suck in air. She glanced at the Nun—her face was scrunched up tight and she had every bit of energy focused on the screen.

“Hmm,” the Nun said quietly.