Three banshees begin to materialize inside. Yari screams. I yank my guns from their holsters and open fire, cutting down two before they’re whole enough to move. The third gets its gun up, and I pull Yari away as it shoots, its blast hitting the closing door behind us.

  I drop to a knee and open fire, blasting the thing four times. It shudders and collapses.

  Rozik’s right. How do they manage to place the golems so perfectly? There’s no way they can know we’re down here.

  The answer becomes clear a moment later. The bridge is fully awake and active, the stations all lit, the main display active, the command station glowing. They understand how much energy the bridge draws and can sense the power drain. But why didn’t they transport onto all of the friendly ships’ bridges?

  Why here and now? I didn’t give them a chance to resume our interaction from earlier. Are they still trying to talk to me?

  The thought gives me pause, but only until the command station starts flashing and the point defense terminal shows a hit against the shields.

  “Yari, I need you to work the shields,” I say. “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  I bring her over to the station. “The AI will tell you where the incoming fire is going to hit. You need to tap the area to activate the shield. You’ll need to be fast.”

  “I’m fast. But that seems like a lot of work.”

  “Believe it or not, it’s more efficient. It lets us focus limited energy into smaller areas instead of spreading it across the whole ship like the automated system is doing now.”

  “What if I miss?”

  “Everyone misses sometimes. We can take a few hits, but not too many. We just have to miss less than they do.”

  She smiles. “I can do that.”

  “I know you can. I’ll switch off the automated system, and then it’s up to you.”

  “Roger.”

  I retreat to the command station. I’ve never flown a full-blown starship before, especially not a Commune design. I stare at the control board, unsure of what to do. Some of the systems are the same, perfected before war broke out. Others are as alien to me as the banshees.

  I remember that they can teleport onto the bridge at any time, and I place both pistols in easy reach. I’m betting movement makes the transfer a lot more tricky and harder to pinpoint. Now all I have to do is figure out how to make the ship move.

  I look past the command station to the comms terminal. Then I run over to it, finding these controls more familiar. I open a hailing channel, hoping the mercenary captains and maybe Rozik will answer.

  “This is Commander Grayson Stone, onboard the Commune corvette…I don’t know the name or designation. It’s the one with the electro-lances. Trouble is, I’m Alliance. I don’t know how to fly it.”

  Rozik’s laughter is the first thing that comes over the comm. I can’t believe he’s laughing at a time like this. “The great Alliance pilot, and you end up on a ship you can’t fly. That’s beautiful.”

  “Rozzie, help me out here. How do I get this thing in motion?”

  He instantly becomes dead serious. “Keep the channel open and go back to the command station.”

  I do as he says. “Okay.”

  “Now, tap—”

  “Odin?” Amelia says suddenly, interrupting. “Odin, did you make it to Schrödinger?”

  I assume that’s the name of the ship. “Yes, but I can’t fly it. I don’t understand Commune.”

  “Forget that,” she replies. “Do you still have your needle?”

  I put my hand against it in my pocket. “Of course.”

  “Go down to the next deck. There’s a secondary bridge with a connector. Grandfather was an Alliance pilot, back in the day. He had a DCI. That’s how he met my grandmother. They were matched and flew together for over a dozen years before they ran away from the Navy.”

  “I can’t fly this thing alone.”

  “You can. After Grandmother died, he had Kratz install a virtual surrogate for the mesh.”

  “Virtual surrogate?”

  “An AI stand-in. It’s not perfect, but it should keep the pressure off. The code is 1933.”

  “I’m on my way,” I say. “Yari, let’s go.”

  “I thought—”

  “Not here. Come on.” I motion for her to hurry and she jumps up from the seat, just as a pair of golems begin materializing ahead of her.

  She sees them, but this time, she doesn’t scream. She races past their hazy forms, skipping by as the first reaches for her and misses. I grab my guns and fire on the golems as we evacuate the bridge, cutting one of them down.

  “One more deck,” I say, leading her to the stairs. I look back to see the second golem leave the bridge behind me. Another one comes through after it, replacing the one I destroyed.

  We reach the next deck, crossing to a heavy blast door in the same position as the bridge above. There’s a security panel beside it with an analog keyboard. I tap in the code, 1-9-3-3, and the door slides open. We enter the room just as the golems come out of the stairwell. The door slides closed beside them, leaving them locked out.

  For how long?

  The auxiliary bridge, designed more like a Skirmisher cockpit, is miniscule compared to the one above. I’m sure it’s intentional. I hurry to the seat on the left, digging my Lucier out of my pocket. Yari jumps into the seat on the right.

  “Excuse me,” a voice says. We both turn to look at the woman who’s suddenly standing in front of Yari’s seat. She looks like a younger, prettier version of Amelia dressed in an old-fashioned Alliance Navy flight suit. “I need to sit there, little one.”

  She looks real enough, until the projector in the ceiling flickers and she flickers with it.

  “Virtual surrogate,” I say.

  “I prefer Amora,” she replies as Yari climbs out of the seat and she drops into it. “Shall we mesh?”

  I’m a little nervous about the idea, but we’re out of time and options. I notice there’s a display ahead, along with a manual terminal and another seat. “Yari, sit there. I’ll pass the shield controls to that terminal.”

  “I can adequately handle point defense,” Amora says.

  “Adequate isn’t good enough,” I reply. “I’m Commander on this bridge.”

  “Yes, sir,” Amora says respectfully.

  A projected needle appears in her hand, and she snaps it into the connector before leaning back to insert it into her holographic DCI. The whole thing looks real enough, and I do my best to suspend my disbelief. I understand it’s important to the mesh that I believe she’s at least real enough that this will work. But to mesh for real we’d have to share a lot of brainwave commonalities. She doesn’t even have a brain.

  Again, it’s not like I have any other choice.

  I snap my needle into the connector, buckle in, and sit back, inserting the needle into my DCI.

  Then all I feel is pain.

  It isn’t the same pain I felt when I flew Star Fire solo. It’s a different agony, a familiar ache. I’ve been through it before, each time I’ve meshed with a new partner for the first time. Joie wasn’t so long ago that I’ve forgotten what it’s like.

  The weird thing is that it’s happening at all. Amara Rocklin isn’t real. A virtual surrogate—part of the computer system running the mesh—she’s the closest thing to an actual ghost as anyone can get. I suppose that’s fitting, considering where I am.

  I’ve heard the wealthy can pay to have their brainwaves imaged and digitized all the way down to the subatomic level. That there are places that can make identical copies of a mind. The ultimate goal is to pair the digital brain with a replacement body—either organic or mechanical—so the person can live on indefinitely. I’ve also heard people claim less scrupulous actors with deep pockets have paid to make people disappear so the abducted can become hosts to stored minds. I never really gave much thought to the truth of the rumors until now.

  Amara’s life flashes through me, interfacing with my brain at such high velocity, all I see are single blurred images and a rapid cycle of related emotion. It’s that cycle that causes the pain, the body reacting too slowly to keep pace and ultimately becoming overwhelmed. Every muscle in my body is tense. Every nerve is crying out.

  And then it ends as suddenly as it began. I’m aware of my body relaxing and slumping back into my seat. My eyes are open, but I’m momentarily blind. The mesh is activating, the connection being made. I search my memories for Amara’s last moments with Geramin. The sadness of their last interaction brings tears to my eyes, not only for them but for what I’ll never have with Shae.

  The mesh comes alive. My vision returns. I can’t see the bridge or Yari. I’m looking out into space, able to sense the entirety of Schrödinger and everything around it.

  “Are you ready?” Amara asks, her voice in my head.

  I am.

  Chapter 41

  The first order of business is to take care of the flies buzzing around my head. I let Amara take control of navigation while I meld with the ship’s weapons system, finding it more impressive than was visible from outside.

  “Yari,” I say out loud. “I’m giving you the ball.”

  “I’m ready,” I hear her reply.

  I switch the shields over to manual with a thought. Then I take control of multiple ion cannons at one time, able to simultaneously see the space around them all. At the same time, I’m aware of the corvette beginning to move, the main thrusters firing and catching one of the banshee fighters in its ion trails.

  I shift the turrets to follow the banshee fighters, who are moving into position to strafe along the starboard rear. I don’t fire on them right away, giving Yari a chance to prove herself at the shield controls.

  The energy blasts come in at us, captured by rapidly appearing flashes from the generators before they can hit the hull. Nearly twenty blasts come in, and she catches them all.

  “Nice job,” I say out loud while beginning the counterstrike. Six ion turrets move independently, my mind able to capture them all at once through the DCI. I fire two of them, hitting two fighters on opposite sides of us, then fire three more. Another two fighters are quickly destroyed. “Weren’t expecting that were you?” I say absently.

  “What?” Yari asks.

  “Nothing.” I switch controls to a different set of turrets and start shooting, taking out two more banshee fighters. They took Joie and me by surprise that first time. It won’t ever happen again.

  “Amelia,” I say, activating the comm with another thought. “I’m in. We’re underway.”

  I can do more than talk to Naraka now that I’m meshed. I have full access to the station through the ship, and I use it to interface with their comms. I’m probably going to regret the next thought before I finish thinking it, but Rozik was right about one thing.

  I hate to lose a fight.

  “Attention all ships,” I say over the general channel. “Attention all ships. This is Odin Longknife, aboard the corvette Sleipnir. I’m headed your way. Get your asses into formation and prepare to attack.”

  “Sleipnir?” Amara asks.

  “Odin’s horse,” I reply. “It wouldn’t have the same effect to tell them this ship is named Schrödinger.”

  “Sleipnir,” one of the captains replies, voice trembling slightly. “Odin? I…we’re moving into position now, sir.”

  I can tell they are, multitasking through the DCI to watch the tactical. The banshee fighters are still swarming around us, and I activate all sixteen of the ion cannons that circle the ship, targeting them and opening fire. I would never be able to handle it if I didn’t have the virtual surrogate to handle steering and Yari to handle the shields. It leads me to absently wonder if this is the first time a ship has operated in a hybrid mesh and non-mesh capacity.

  The space around Sleipnir is alive with blue flashes from the ion cannons, making it hard for the banshee fighters to go anywhere without getting hit. They’re still trying to attack, their efforts more easily blocked by the focused shield energy of the point defense. They don’t seem to have a weapon that can overcome a larger warship, something like a Skirmisher’s torpedoes, and now that we’re in motion I hope the golems can’t be transferred aboard.

  “Odin,” Amelia says. “You need to hurry. Our forces are retreating toward the control center and main reactor, and we’re sealing off sections of the core, but we can’t hold the golems back much longer. Every time we kill a few, they send in more.”

  “Roger,” I reply, sending a thought to Amara to speed up our approach. The surrogate responds instantly, increasing Sleipnir’s velocity. A bang from somewhere outside the bridge reminds me that we have golems of our own still on board. “We’re in a similar boat. Yari!”

  “Yes, Commander?” she replies.

  “Grab my guns, just in case they get through.”

  “I’m a little busy.”

  I switch the shields back to automatic for the moment. “Now you’re free. Come get them. If the golems make it past that door, you need to blast them.”

  I can’t see her, but I can sense her when she gets close to me. “I never used a gun before. I would have shot Dart a long time ago.”

  “Aim and pull,” I say. “It’s that simple. Just keep pulling until they fall over.”

  “Roger.”

  She takes the guns and brings them back to the terminal. I switch the shield control back to her.

  The good news is that the banshee fighters have started to realize they can’t handle us on their own. They’re beginning to break off and flee toward their fleet, which also means getting past the mercenary ships again.

  “Naraka fleet,” I say. “Don’t let them get through without making it difficult.”

  “Yes, sir,” a few of the captains reply. It’s ironic how quickly they fell in line once I confirmed my identity to them. Even more ironic is how quickly they’ll let Amelia take me prisoner to sell me to the highest bidder so they can get paid.

  But would she really do that?

  The bad news is that the banshee master ships have realized the fighters can’t handle us. I’m aware of them in the long-range sensors, beginning to accelerate toward the fight.

  “This is what we wanted,” Amara says.

  I’m surprised she knows that. I was thinking the virtual mesh was one-way; I got her memories and she got nothing from me. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

  “I’m very sorry about Shae,” she adds, the statement really creeping me out. She shouldn’t know any of that. How did Kratz do it? Amara answers the question for me. “The digitization system is on board. The process is very similar to mesh synchronization. Chief Kratz said he just connected the dots.”

  I doubt it’s that simple.

  We’re gaining speed and getting closer to the mercenary fleet. The ships are spreading back into the diamond formation and making room for me in the center. Their weapons are still flashing across the black ahead of us, every once in a while, resulting in a larger flash when they hit a banshee ship. We’re winning this fight for the moment, but I’m not sure it’ll last.

  I release the ion cannons, tempted to begin charging the electro-lances. I hesitate there, keeping the banshee’s sensitivity to electrical fields in mind. If they can sense the sudden surge of power to the wings, will they guess at the volatility of the weapon and either circumvent it’s accuracy or retreat?

  I decide to keep the lances powered down. It’ll take time to charge them and it’s risky to wait, but it might be more dangerous not to.

  Sleipnir reaches the mercenary formation. Amara guides the ship smoothly into position in the center, advancing slightly past them to keep them clear of the lances.

  “Naraka fleet, we’re in position,” I say. “Match speed and course.”

  “Roger, Odin.”

  Amara slows us down slightly while the rest of the ships accelerate. The cargo hauler is the biggest and slowest in the group, and it leaves all of us waiting for it to catch up. It’s tempting to leave it behind, but we need all the help we can get.

  I guess the fates hear me this time and decide to grant my wish. I’m suddenly aware of movement off Sleipnir’s starboard side. A swarm of smaller ships is sliding out from the bottom of the station, emerging from the core. It takes a few seconds for the sensors to identify them.

  Commune starfighters. The entire complement of fifty I spotted in the upper hangar. The lead ship opens a comm channel, and I answer it.

  “Alliance,” Rozik says. “I thought I would be of more use out here than in there.”

  “You fly starfighters now, too?” I ask, trying to hide my awe. I’ve never seen a single Commune pilot control this many drones. It takes a shipload of mental effort to manage.

  “Oh, I do more than fly them, Odin,” he replies. “You’ll see.”

  I’m not sure what he means, but I’m eager to find out.

  I won’t have to wait long.

  Chapter 42

  Space warfare is a funny thing. The scale of everything changes so much, and the size of the combat units involved can’t possibly scale up to the size of the potential battlefield. And since there’s rarely any real cover, there’s often little value in trying to take your opponent by surprise. Instead, tactics become a matter of utilizing the capabilities of the ships in your fleet to the best of their abilities.

  Fighters are fast and maneuverable but easily defeated by more powerful weapons, while ships like the hauler are slow and hard to steer but generally offer more powerful shields and weapons that can both give and take a beating.

  The end result is that you often have opposing sides making complex maneuvers in three-dimensional space and trying to use the distances and the limits to the speed of light to outdo the opponent in plain sight of every sensor the other side has. It becomes a matter of how well the commanding fleet officer on each side of the conflict manages to think ahead, like a giant game of chess played out on a seemingly endless board.