This growing sense of fury seemed to trigger something in the surrounding cells. He wasn’t sensitive enough to read what was happening on an instinctual level but he was aware of a flood of conflicting emotions on their part as they relived again some of the pivotal encounters they’d shared with the Da’al. From the grim destruction of their planet to their pursuit across the stars, they had faced extinction on numerous occasions only to survive because of their propensity for brutally uncompromising counter-maneuvers.

  Their urge to confront the old enemy and destroy them seemed to know no bounds and Webster realised with grim certainty that in their rush to neutralise the enemy vessel they had unwittingly vectored in on the Confederation ships also.

  Webster’s reaction was to throw up a defensive perimeter which took in the friendly ships but found that he met with resistance at every turn. The very vulnerability of the ships seemed to draw the attention of the ship’s guns for no sooner had he thrown up a protective area than the ship was retargeting them again. What an irony it would be if, in attempting to protect his allies, he ended up precipitating their premature destruction.

  Slowly, he began to prevail, beating back wave after wave of aggression as he forced the cells to cooperate. Yet they were still suspicious of him and in the end he was forced to concede. There was only one way of satisfying their homicidal tendencies. And that was to give in to them.

  Acquiring target. The ship known as the Tyr.

  With a super-human act of will, he found he was able to resist the rush of their blood lust by targeting exclusively the Da’al ship which was, even then, coming to full awareness - scanning them as a potential target.

  With a fatalistic detachment, Webster switched power to the ship’s main guns, painting the Da’al ship as the only proscribed target. For a brief moment it took on a luminescent quality, seeming to glow bright against the backdrop of space.

  His communion with the ship was wonderful and terrible in equal measure and it seemed for an instant as though the ship’s high energy lance was firing directly through him. For several seconds, he struggled to control the beacon of blue flame which arced across the gulf of space but slowly he felt the ship starting to respond. It orientated itself so that the lance came around, slicing through Da’al’s external plates immolating everything inside, the veneer of her impregnability gone in an instant.

  The voices in his head were jubilant driving him on to excoriate the enemy, directing the lance across its hull in a series of zigzags designed to ensure that nothing could remain alive inside.

  For a brief while, Webster was lost within this frenzy of destruction. It was only when he succeeded in hitting one of the fuel cells, buckling the hull plates in an endless procession of destruction that he became fully aware of what it was he was doing: cutting signatures of vaporising atmospherics across the face of the enemy.

  In all his years of loyal service to the Confederation, he’d never experienced such simple, unfettered joy. The unambiguous delight to be found in simple, mindless mayhem.

  So, this was what it was like to live free of consequences, to let loose the demons and to run amok.

  It was intoxicating.

  And yet, at the same time he experienced a very real sense of disassociation. The last time he’d done something like this he’d been captain of the Syracuse slaughtering those Yakutian pirates. Though it had felt absolutely right at the time, he’d later regretted it. For some reason, such a random act had demeaned him in Faulkner’s eyes, the absolute opposite effect of what he’d been trying to achieve.

  Destruction tended to turn ugly once you started relishing it.

  Webster broke the contact and stepped back, his breath ragged and uncertain as adrenaline continued to course through his system.

  He slowly became aware of The Librarian watching him from the other side of the room, a look of elation on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, seeming to enjoy Webster’s relative discomfort. “Aren’t you going to finish them?”

  Webster took a faltering step down, off the raised deck, allowing his weight to carry him towards the doorway.

  “I’ve done enough. I’m leaving.”

  “Really?” The Librarian said, clearly sceptical. “Where will you go?”

  “I’m going to get Dalbiri. Then the two of us are going for a short walk.”

  *

  Schwartz’ ear-bead buzzed and she tapped it once to accept the communication.

  “XO, it’s me,” Khan said. “I’m down in The Gun Room.”

  The sense of relief she felt on hearing his voice was indescribable.

  “Is Powers with you?”

  “Unfortunately, PO Powers was hit in that last attack, so it looks like I’m the one in charge down here.”

  With anyone else in this situation, she might have panicked but Khan sounded calm, serene even.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “The delivery system worked fine. I’m working the starboard gun and there’s another team on the port side. We’ve got more than enough TTs down here but the difficulty’s been loading them. Because of the way things are set up down here, we can only load fifty at a time.”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Not really, no. We’re only going to get one shot at this, so I was kind of hoping for … oh, wait a second.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything’s fine. I’ve just had an idea how we might get round this.”

  “Well, make it quick, we’ve only got a few more minutes.”

  “Okay. Look, I’m going to have to get back to you.”

  And then the connection was cut.

  Leaving her feeling confused. What was going on down there?

  She turned to find Faulkner standing by the edge of the torn deck plates. The way that his face was lit from underneath making him look like some music hall villain.

  She thought about bringing him up to speed with the rail guns but then decided against it.

  Khan would sort it. He always did.

  “Have we heard any more from the Serrayu?” she asked.

  “Not yet but then I imagine they’re pretty stretched at the moment.”

  Which was true. The last salvo Thor had launched against the Yakutians would have decimated a lesser ship.

  “So, no word on those shields?”

  It was an honest question and one which was no doubt occupying the thoughts of the rest of the senior crew. With the shields still in place, Renheim would be left in a desperate situation. One she might well not recover from.

  The Yakutians had been loath to engage the Da’al under Muhbarat and now, under Sunderam, it seemed that not much had changed.

  “Don’t worry,” Faulkner said. “Sunderam won’t let us down.”

  “How well do you know him, then?”

  “Only met him once. Governor Ardent’s garden party but I was impressed. I don’t pretend to know how these Yakutian house systems work but for someone like Sunderam to supplant an established figure like Muhbarat and live to tell the tale– well, that really is impressive.”

  Something flashed on Schwartz’s console and force of habit caused her to look down.

  Another damage report.

  She saw the number of wounded, highlighted in green, and looked away before it showed her the number of dead.

  She tapped the screen without a second glance and the figures disappeared.

  *

  They could see Thor now clearly on their main monitors and Schwartz had to check the distance to ensure that they hadn’t left it too late.

  No. They were closing to within two hundred thousand kilometres.

  The enemy could no doubt see what was happening and would be delaying their next salvo to launch at the optimum moment. By her reckoning, that would be around the hundred and fifty thousand mark. At that distance, they wouldn’t even need to rely on their warheads, the velocity of their missiles alone would be enough to rip the Renheim apart.

  At that precise moment she felt something shift inside of her. A precise internal pressure, painful and yet somehow sublime.

  Immediately, she forced her mind to focus on the matters at hand, but it wasn’t easy. Something strange was happening to her body, she had to at least acknowledge that. Yet common sense told her to ignore it. She had another two months to go.

  Phantom pains were common during pregnancy. She was just going to have to get used to it.

  Still, it hurt, and she couldn’t help probing her stomach to see what, if anything, had changed. It was while she was doing this that she became aware of the Tactical team anxiously looking over in her direction. They were awaiting her next set of instructions.

  She pointed towards her console, her expression suggesting that they should do the same.

  One by one they turned back to their screens.

  The pain came again and this time she gritted her teeth.

  She’d sacrificed an awful lot to be in this position and she could think of nowhere else she’d rather be. When she’d first gone into the service, the expectation had been that if she ever did see action, it would be up against the Yakutians but things changed and now, with the Da’al, they were up against the greatest threat mankind had ever faced.

  What happened in the next few minutes would mark a decisive moment for the Confederation. If she could find a way to secure a victory here then that might be enough to tip the scales slightly in their favor. And, having held off the Da’al’s first foray into their system, they would hopefully have an opportunity to strengthen their position. Reinforcements from Lincoln couldn’t be that far away.

  But if they failed to hold their nerve, if they blinked at this most inopportune of moments and let Thor evade them, allowed her to slip through, then everything that had gone before, all those sacrifices, would count for nothing.

  This was her moment. Her opportunity to defend those things which she held dear. And if she couldn’t stay true to those, then how else was she going to safeguard her child’s future?

  She adjusted her screen so that she could talk to the entire rail gun crew, taking pleasure in the fact that Stephen would be hearing this as well.

  “Targeting. I want us locked on that sonovabitch with viable targets cycled through to me as soon as they appear. Once I’ve given them the green light you may fire at will, no need to check with me after that.”

  “Just to remind you, ma’am, the enemy’s shields are still operational.”

  She ground her teeth together at that.

  “Yes. But, hopefully, not for long.”

  Her targeting screen was automatically selecting viable options across Thor’s hull using the data they’d gathered from the previous Da’al ships they’d encountered. This way, they hoped to try and pinpoint where their weaknesses lay via heat signatures and electrical impulses.

  But none of it would matter if they couldn’t get those shields down.

  What was Sunderam playing at?

  “Ma’am, we are ready to fire.”

  Stephen’s voice. Brisk and efficient.

  “Acknowledged. We’re just waiting for the go ahead.”

  “Ma’am, are you seeing this?”

  With Topeka obscuring the sun, Thor had been thrown into deep shadow. So, all that she could see was the port side laid out beneath her like some vast Mediterranean city at night.

  It looked tremendously peaceful, beautiful even.

  Then she became aware of something odd happening. The lights around the ship’s prow seemed to twinkle before disappearing completely, suggesting some kind of localised power surge.

  But then she realised that this was happening in vast swathes all across the face of the ship. The individual pinpricks of light surging before quickly being extinguished. One by one, all the lights were being turned off, swathing the forward section in almost total darkness.

  With some difficulty, her mind started to work out what it was that she was seeing.

  Someone said, “The whole ship appears to be shutting down.”

  “Lieutenant commander,” Faulkner’s voice echoed around the bridge, jarring her from her reverie. “The shields are down. You may fire when ready!”

  Schwartz’s mind went suddenly blank as she stared at the main targeting display. It had suddenly come alive, automatically scanning Thor’s hull in order to highlight points of tactical significance.

  As each new target was acquired, the resolution of the screen became pin sharp, the chosen image swelling to fill the screen. It would stay there for only a couple of seconds before being replaced by a second target and a third, then a fourth.

  The woman monitoring the display looked back at Schwartz and nodded.

  “Targets acquired, ma’am.”

  “Very well,” Schwartz said, quickly tapping her first target. “Fire when ready.”

  Schwartz felt the hull start to vibrate as the rail gun opened up.

  On the display screen, it was possible to pick out the sparkling line of weapons fire which peppered the chosen target before the screen changed and the next potential target appeared.

  It all happened so quickly that at first it was difficult to fully comprehend what was going on. They seemed to be picking off their targets with impunity. It was more like a training exercise than actual combat. Every once in a while, they’d strike lucky and their target would explode, sometimes spectacularly.

  All the while this was happening, she was braced, anticipating the counterattack. But there was no sign of it.

  What was going on?

  She was distracted by a slight buzz in her ear and then Khan’s voice was there, filling her head.

  “Lieutenant commander! You’re going to have to stop for a minute. We’re running low on ammunition.”

  “Cease-fire,” she commanded and instantly the display in front of her froze.

  “What’s the matter?” she said, inclining her head to one side. “I thought we had plenty of ammo.”

  “We did, until you started shooting up the place. We’re already down to less than twenty thousand TTs.”

  She looked at the countdown clock mounted on the far bulkhead. Less than two minutes had elapsed since they’d started firing.

  “So soon?”

  “’Fraid so. You’ve probably got another five minutes of continuous fire before we’re cleaned out. But I’d appreciate it if you could restrict yourself to thirty second bursts. We don’t want these things to jam.”

  “Okay, lieutenant, thanks for the update.”

  She cut the connection.

  “Something wrong?”

  Faulkner had appeared at her elbow.

  “We’re running low on kinetic rounds, sir.”

  Faulkner raised his eyebrows.

  “Then it’s perhaps time for a re-think.”

  Schwartz looked at him askance, “Sir?”

  Faulkner ignored her and looked to his left. “Mr McNeill. How long before we’re out of effective weapons range?”

  McNeill didn’t need to consult his screen.

  “We have another eighteen minutes and twenty-two seconds, sir.”

  “Then we need to make every second count. XO, we’re going to have to be realistic. The best we can hope for now is to try and slow her down.”

  Schwartz bristled at that. They’d come so far and yet at the last, they’d been stymied. They’d simply run out of ammunition. It was a ridiculous situation to be in but there was no getting away from it. The only positive was that they weren’t on their own. They still had the Serrayu to fall back on, although Captain Sunderam still seemed to be taking his own sweet time getting those missiles away.

  It was almost as if he were reluctant to engage. ​

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I’m going to need some help,” Vincenzi said, his throat rasping as he spoke.

  The smoke was getting worse and he had to keep blinking to clear his eyes.

  The group of spacers coming down the corridor didn’t seem to hear him. As they drew closer, he saw that one of them was bleeding badly from a head wound while the others looked past Vincenzi, concern etched on their faces. As soon as he realised what was happening, Vincenzi stepped aside in order to let them pass.

  Young men looking out for their friend. In their position, he’d probably have done the same thing.

  Besides, it wasn’t likely that they’d have recognised him as a senior officer. He was without his jacket and was cradling his left arm. He’d broken it earlier sitting in the Officers’ Mess. He’d stopped off to get something to eat when the whole universe seemed to shift violently. The sound of multiple explosions detonating deep within the body of the ship had foreshadowed what was to come. And then, mere seconds later, one of the maintenance panels had burst out of the deck, striking him just below the shoulder.

  He’d tried not to look at the nub of bone sticking out through his skin as he’d busied himself shredding his jacket in order to turn it into a sling.

  Normally, that would have prompted a trip to the medi-bay but the level of destruction he’d witnessed in the last few minutes suggested that they’d have more pressing matters to attend to. Plus, he needed to check on the admiral and the entrance to the bridge was just up ahead.

  Wouldn’t take a minute.

  The fact that there was no sign of the Marines who guarded the bridge twenty-four seven was the first indication that things were even worse than he’d suspected. Up until this point, he’d taken some solace in the fact that there’d been no attempt to evacuate the ship but the closer he got the more he started to realise that this was much more than some simple oversight.

  Where was everyone?

  The door didn’t peel back automatically when he approached and he had to spend time looking for the manual over-ride. There was an acrid stench in the air and he realised that he couldn’t see very well. The lights were on but they were muted in some way. He spent a couple of moments searching for the panel and, when he located it, wasted no time entering his authorisation code.

  But when the door opened, he was hit by a rolling black smoke cloud which spilled out into the corridor. He had to take several steps backwards just to regain his breath, though what worried him most was the intense heat venting out through the entrance way. If there’d been a fire on the bridge then that might explain why no one had triggered the alarms, though surely the sprinkler system should have dealt with that. It didn’t make any sense.