The Oncoming Storm (32 page)

“The freighter has been stolen,” the voice said. The speaker didn’t even bother to identify himself. “You are ordered to allow us to recover our ship without interference.”

“Ordered?” the XO repeated. “Unless he has some secret weapon mounted in that hull, Captain, we outgun him by an order of magnitude.”

“Red alert,” Kat ordered. Alarms howled through the ship as she touched his console, linking her into the audio channel. “This is Captain Falcone. Your vessel has engaged in hostile acts within Commonwealth space. You are ordered to stand down. The freighter will be boarded, then towed to the nearest Commonwealth naval base. You may request its return there.”

“They just swept us,” Roach snapped. “They’re locking weapons onto our hull!”

Kat blinked. “Are they mad?”

“They may not want to report failure,” the XO said softly. “What will their superiors say if they back down now?”

It seemed absurd, Kat considered. Her superiors wouldn’t expect her to pick a fight with a starship several times her size, not over a mere freighter. That suggested there was something important about the freighter, something that needed to be recovered at all costs, no matter the risk. Unless it was a trap, of course. The freighter had really been quite lucky, suspiciously lucky, that Lightning had picked up her distress call.

“Lock weapons onto their hull,” Kat ordered. They’d clearly been trying to take the freighter intact, but they might change their minds now Lightning had arrived. “And prepare to cover the freighter if necessary.”

There was a long pause. “Your attempts to shield the freighter are an act of war,” the enemy commander said finally. “Stand down and allow my forces to board the freighter or you will be fired upon.”

Kat thought fast. Her orders were somewhat contradictory, thanks to Admiral Morrison and his bureaucrats. She was supposed to patrol the border and defend Commonwealth interests, but she wasn’t allowed to fire first under any circumstances. It might start a war. Yet she knew the war was likely to start anyway . . .

If we had a few weeks to prepare, she thought. But we won’t get those weeks . . .

She keyed her console, opening the channel. “This is Commonwealth space,” she said, firmly. “I will not allow acts of aggression within our territory. You will have your chance to issue a demand for the freighter to be returned to you and any prisoners to be extradited. I . . .”

“Incoming fire,” Roach snapped. Red icons blazed to life on the display. “Multiple missiles incoming; I say again, multiple missiles incoming!”

“Launch decoys,” Kat snapped. In hyperspace, point defense would be dangerously unreliable. “Return fire!”

Lightning shuddered as she unleashed a broadside, aimed right at the Theocratic vessel. Kat braced herself as the wave of incoming missiles altered course, some suckered away from her vessel by the decoys, others picked off neatly by the point defense. But two survived long enough to slam into her shields.

“Energy disturbances registered,” Lieutenant Robertson reported. “Hyperspace has started to become dangerously unstable.”

Kat winced. “Pull us away from the disturbances,” she ordered. On the display, the enemy ship had taken seven hits and was spinning out of control. “Raise the Theocratic ship. Order them to . . .”

She broke off as the enemy craft exploded, ripped apart by the disturbances in hyperspace, her crew wiped out before they could hope to get to the lifepods. Kat felt a moment of true horror at what she’d done, then pulled herself back to reality. If their actions provoked a full-scale hyperspace storm, escape would become extremely difficult. Fortunately, hyperspace seemed calmer than she had any right to expect.

“Target destroyed,” Roach said. “I’m not picking up more than a few fragments of wreckage.”

“Understood,” Kat said.

She shuddered. The war might have just begun . . . assuming, of course, the Theocracy figured out what had become of their vessel. It was quite possible they’d assume the destroyer was lost in hyperspace, particularly if the freighter they’d been chasing was desperate enough to ram them amidships.

“Contact the freighter,” she ordered. “Inform them they are to hold position, stand down all weapons and shields, and prepare to be boarded.”

The XO looked at her. “With permission, Captain, I should accompany the Marines,” he said. “One of us may have to make decisions in a hurry.”

Kat hesitated. It was possible, although unlikely, that the Theocracy had been in the right. If so, their crew had fought and died for nothing. But it was far more likely they were dealing with political refugees or defectors. Either case would require some quick decisions.

“Do so,” she ordered. “But be careful. This could all have been arranged to trick us into lowering our guard.”

“They threw away a destroyer to do so,” the XO pointed out. “It doesn’t seem likely.”

“We shall see,” Kat said. “Watch yourself.”

She watched the XO leave the bridge, then turned to watch the display. The freighter seemed innocent, too innocent. Kat felt suspicions flickering through her mind as the marine shuttles launched, heading right towards the freighter. What was it carrying that was so important that an enemy commander had been prepared to risk almost certain death just to prevent the ship from falling into Commonwealth hands? Or was it meant to convince the Commonwealth that they’d captured something vital?

All she could do was wait.

Up close, it was alarmingly obvious that the freighter had been in a battle. Scorch marks covered its hull, revealing moments where the shields had failed and allowed directed energy weapons to caress the ship. Someone had bolted weapons and sensors—even shield generators—from several different eras to the hull, trying to give her some extra—and unexpected—punch. William was alarmingly impressed with whomever had done the work, even though it was far too sloppy to be tolerated on a Royal Navy starship. They’d somehow managed to get the different systems to work together.

He pushed his admiration aside as the shuttle dropped towards the nearest airlock. According to the plans, they should be within a few meters of the bridge—much of the freighter was nothing more than cargo holds—but it was impossible to be sure. The freighter was old enough to have been refitted to be anything from a passenger liner to a garbage scow. A dull clunk echoed through the shuttle as she mated with the airlock, and then a hiss sounded as the hatch opened and air pressure matched.

“Stay here,” Davidson said to the XO. The armored marines would take the lead. “Watch our backs.”

William scowled as the marines stepped through the airlock, ready for anything. Cold logic suggested it wasn’t a trap, but he had to admit the captain’s paranoia was grounded in reality, particularly after hearing some of the tales from the refugees. The Theocracy hadn’t hesitated to call down strikes on their own positions just to kill insurgents and freedom fighters. If they thought it was important enough, they could have easily sacrificed a destroyer just to make sure the freighter was taken into custody.

But if they intended the ship to serve as a Trojan Horse, he thought, it wouldn’t work. We’d never allow it anywhere near the fleet base without checking it thoroughly first, would we?

“Commander,” Davidson said, “you might want to take a look at this.”

William stepped through the hatch. Inside, the vessel was as dull and gray as any other freighter from the early expansion era, but it wasn’t the bulkheads that caught his attention. The men standing at one end of the chamber, their backs pressed against the gray metal, were cyborgs. Their bodies had been extensively modified in a manner he could only deem crude. Half of them had had their arms replaced by weapons, the other half had electric eyes or implants growing out of their heads. And they looked . . . oddly unconcerned.

“They’re under orders to do nothing,” a soft voice said. “They will obey.”

William turned to see a slim man wearing a white robe. There was something effeminate about his movements—and his face, come to think of it. If he hadn’t had an Adam’s apple, William would have wondered if he was a girl, pretending to be a man.

“Obey?” Davidson repeated. “What have you done to them?”

“They volunteered to be bodyguards,” the man said. “The doctors programmed them to be obedient.”

William felt sick. It was easy to use implants for thought control, to direct someone along an approved route of thinking—or simply to puppet their body like something in a simulation. But it was banned, so completely that anyone who dared suggest using it risked being summarily sacked, while standard implants had built-in safeguards to prevent anyone from hacking them and turning the user into a slave. It wasn’t something he would have used on anyone, even a volunteer.

He gathered himself. “How many people are there on this ship?”

The young man hesitated. “Will you swear not to return us to the Believers?”

William felt his eyes narrow. The Theocracy called its people the Believers, but hardly anyone else did. He’d thought he was dealing with refugees from a border world, yet the presence of the cyborgs argued otherwise. Something was deeply wrong. He drew on his experience and studied the young men, then pasted a reassuring expression on his face.

“If you’re seeking political asylum,” he said, “the case will be heard at the nearest naval base. However, I can assure you that you will not be returned unless you are guilty of crimes under interstellar law. The ship may have to be returned; you can stay. But we need you to cooperate now.”

The young man took a breath. “There are seventeen crew, nineteen bodyguards, and twelve passengers on this ship,” he said. “The passengers are important.”

William gave Davidson a sharp look, then looked back at the young man. “There isn’t any more time for games,” he said. “I need you to answer the questions. Who are the passengers and why are they here?”

The young man straightened upright. “They are the Princess Drusilla and her maidservants,” he said. “And they request that you protect them from their enemies.”

Davidson could only gape. “Pardon?”

“Search the ship thoroughly,” William ordered. He’d expected a defector ever since he’d seen the bodyguards, but he hadn’t anticipated a princess. Everything they knew about how the Theocracy treated women suggested they were neither seen nor heard. How could one of their princesses have stolen a ship and escaped? “The captain will have to meet with the princess, in person.”

“She cannot meet any unrelated male,” the young man said quickly. “She . . .”

“Will have to get used to our customs if she wishes to stay,” William said. If the princess couldn’t meet an unrelated man, what about the man facing him? Or her cyborg bodyguards? But the cyborgs could probably be programmed to ignore her. “Now, if you don’t mind, we will search your ship.”

Kat had grown up in a society where men and women were largely equal. A baseline woman might be physically weaker than a man, but an enhanced woman could be stronger than an unenhanced man, and technology had liberated them from the drudgery of life in the past. She had to admit she was curious about a woman from a very different society, particularly one who had managed to escape her family’s grasp. Kat could sympathize. But, at the same time, it was a major diplomatic headache.

She felt a trickle of dislike as soon as Princess Drusilla was shown into her Ready Room by two female marines. The princess was slender with dark skin, darker eyes, and an air of helplessness only betrayed by the sharpness in her eyes. She was no fool, Kat knew, despite her air of fragile vulnerability. This was a woman skilled in manipulating others to get her way.

Just like Candy, she thought, but Candy could have abandoned her manipulations at any point and lived her own life. She had a feeling Princess Drusilla would never have been able to live on her own. Nothing they’d heard from the refugees had suggested women had good lives in the Theocracy. It seemed to be more common for them to become nothing more than baby factories. Given the Theocracy’s expansion rate, Kat could well believe it.

“I did not believe them when they told us a woman commanded this starship,” Princess Drusilla said. Even her voice was enchanting. Kat couldn’t help being affected, although she was well aware of the manipulation. By now, it was probably habit for the princess to manipulate those round her. “And you’re so young.”