Dangerous Data (The Meridian Crew Book 2) Page 10

  “Ahhh,” Admiral Galena said, moving toward Amelia and the crew with slow steps. “There’s the girl.”

  He moved closer, a smile spreading over his thin lips, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepening.

  “Amelia Durand,” he said. “That’s a name I didn’t think I’d hear ever again.”

  “Glad to disappoint you,” Amelia replied.

  Galena’s eyebrows flicked up in surprise. “’Disappoint’? Why would I be disappointed?” he asked, his hands folded across his belly. “You were one of the best Geists I had. Maybe the best – who knows?”

  He closed the distance between himself and Amelia, Amelia noting that he was nearly the exact height as her. “No.” He turned back around after taking a long look at Amelia as if to confirm that it was actually her. “More than that, well, the Geist is a type of soldier that doesn’t seem to function well in this new, post-Federation world. Which isn’t surprising. They, you, were trained as tools, objects to be used for specific functions. Need a nail put into a piece of wood, you use a hammer…need to, ah, wipe out a squadron of torpedo bombers, you use a plasma battery. You need a rebel officer assassinated, but he’s hiding out in some hardpoint bunker on Ganymede, you use a Geist – you get the idea.

  “Anyway, without the, well, say, structure of the Federation, a lot of you went all goofy on us. Most of you weren’t meant for a world outside of strict military hierarchy, it would seem.” His voice trailed off, as though remembering something. “But you’re different, Amelia. You seem to be doing better than the rest.”

  Galena cast his gaze over Sam, Sasha, and Benkei. “Maybe having a crew helps. Plenty of you all went solo after the war ended. That didn’t work out well for any parties concerned.”

  His eyes then widened, as though catching himself. “Anyway, we have the matter of this little theft of yours to contend with. Lucky for you, we’ve got time to get this situation with the Confederation squared away, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting off Scott-free. Oh, no, no, no.”

  “Then what do you want?” demanded Amelia.

  “Why, I want you to work for me,” he said, his face lighting up. “We’ve been moving heaven and Earth to get a Geist in our ranks, and here you are, right on the bridge of my ship.”

  “Not a chance,” said Amelia.

  “You really think you have a say in the matter?” He looked over the rest of the crew once again. “Here’s what we’re going to do: Amelia is going to enter into our employ, and the three of you are going to be imprisoned. Should you refuse, Amelia, one of your crew will be executed. Refuse again, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what will happen.”

  Anger bubbled inside Amelia as she looked upon Galena, his soft, round face lit up with pleasure at his plan.

  “But, Admiral,” said Alain. “We need to put them through the courts. We can’t just declare them guilty and throw them in jail indefinitely.”

  Galena’s eyes narrowed. “We can and we will, boy. You know what’s at stake here. You know that the city needs every advantage it can get a hold of just to stay afloat…”

  As Galena talked, chewing into Alain, something above caught Amelia’s eye. In a city like New York, light pollution prevented the sight of just about everything in the evening sky but the moon and Venus. But as she looked up, she saw a small, solid point of light, a bright dot that stood out, even in from her vantage point.

  “But what good is being independent if we’re not going to obey our own laws!” protested Alain.

  Amelia watched as the point of light grew. Now it was the size of a ball bearing. And it was still growing.

  “Not another word out of you, lieutenant, or I’ll have you court-martialed,” fumed Galena.

  Now, it was the size of a ten-credit piece.

  “Uh, guys,” said Amelia, pointing at the sky.

  But they barely had a chance to look up before the sky filled with white-hot light, a full explosion from the Azani cannon, blasting from the now fully operational satellite, and into the hull of the Basileus.

  CHAPTER 22

  The impact from the Azani rocked the Basileus, a deafening crash followed by the steady, deep thumping of several massive explosions setting off along the length of the ship that made Amelia’s teeth chatter. When the light dissipated, the scene on the bridge was chaos. Officers and crewmen ran amok, screaming sounded from comms coming in through the dozens of vidscreens that lined the walls, and klaxons blared through the ship, accompanied by strobing red lights.

  “What the hell was that?” demanded Galena, holding onto a nearby railing for support.

  “Sir,” reported a nearby crewman who had just run up the stairs. “A massive blast of energy has cut through the aft ship.”

  “What?”

  “We’re receiving reports that the hull of the ship has been punched through completely. Crew quarters four and five have been completely destroyed, and one of our fusion reactions is off-line.”

  A moment passed as the admiral took in this information, Alain looking at him with a shocked expression.

  “Four and five…” said Alain. “That’s over four-thousand crew members.” Alain turned to the Admiral.“Sir! We need to evacuate the ship now.”

  Galena turned to Alain, his eyes hot with anger.

  “Abandon the ship?” he asked. “Not a chance in hell.”

  “That’s got to be the Azani,” said Benkei.

  Amelia glanced at Sasha and Sam, who seemed to be looking at her for direction.

  “Lieutenant Rickert, leave my bridge this instant, and take the prisoners with you. We’ll discuss your insubordination once this crisis has been resolved,” shouted Galena.

  He then shot a glance of white-hot rage at Amelia, one that seemed to send the message that this didn’t change a thing.

  “Let’s go,” said Alain, grabbing Amelia by the upper arm and leading the crew off the bridge, the group dodging the darting crewmen and women.

  Once they reached the elevator, the previously peaceful space now thrumming with red light, Alain sighed. “He’s going to lose the ship,” said Alain. “If he doesn’t give the order to scuttle, then we’re going to lose tens of thousands of lives.”

  “Then what can we do?” asked Amelia.

  “The communications array. If we can get there, then we can override the bridge’s comms access and issue the order to evacuate.”

  “We have to!” said Sam. “We can’t let these people die!”

  Amelia turned to Sasha. “Did you see in the schematics how often that thing can fire?”

  Sasha shook his head. “It’s hard to say, but if they know what they’re doing up there then they’ll be able to fire again in twenty minutes.”

  Nodding, Alain hit the elevator button marked “C,” the elevator shafting onto a horizontal track and racing down the length of the ship. After several minutes, the track shifted vertical, and moved upwards at a breathtaking pace.

  “Come on, come on,” said Alain, tapping his foot against the grated steel of the elevator floor. Then, after another couple of minutes, the doors opened, revealing a low-ceilinged room packed with complex-looking communications equipment, the scene there only slightly less chaotic than on the bridge.

  “Sir!” called out a sergeant in plated armor. “What’s the news from the bridge?”

  “Give me a second, sergeant,” said Alain, running toward the largest terminal. Sasha followed close behind, and the two of them set to work, Amelia watching from feet behind. She saw a red outline of the ship from a cross-section angle, an entire vertical column of the ship flashing white. After a few moments of typing, Alain sighed with relief. “Sergeant!” called Alain. “The bridge’s communications have been disabled by the attack. Put me onto a ship-wide message.”

  The sergeant nodded, typed a few keys into a nearby computer, then handed Alain a thin, black microphone. “Go ahead, sir,” he said.

  Alain took the microphone and brought down a deep breath, knowing tha
t he was about to violate the chain of command in a possibly unforgivable way.

  “Attention crew of the Basileus,” he said, the eyes of the people in the comms room on him. “The ship had sustained critical damage, and we have reason to believe another strike may be inbound. We’re issuing a ship-wide evacuation. Please proceed to the nearest escape shuttle in an orderly fashion. Do not collect your belongings. Do not make any unnecessary stops – your life may depend on it. Good luck, and God bless.”

  Alain let out a lungful of air and dropped the microphone. “That means you, sergeant,” he said, regaining his composure. “See to it that everyone on the comms deck is evacuated.”

  “Sir!” the sergeant replied, saluting Alain.

  “We need to go, now,” said Amelia, ready to leap back into the elevator.

  Alain nodded, and she and he dashed back in, Alain hitting the button for the docks.

  “Guys, don’t kill the messenger and all that, but it’s been twenty minutes,” said Sasha, his eyes on his slate.

  And as if on cue, another deafening explosion pounded through the ship, Amelia feeling the force of the impact in her bones, the elevator shifting and lurching, tossing the passengers about.

  But the elevator continued downward and less than a half a minute later, the doors opened, though, with a slow, painful-sounding creak this time, allowing them access to the dock where the shuttle was parked. The dock was a scene of total bedlam, with crew members piling into shuttle craft, running here and there, and doing whatever they could to get off of the ship.

  A cascade of sparks showered down from the ceiling, and Amelia could see the licking of flames coming down from the top of the opened dock, the fire crawling down the side of the ship.

  They made their way to the shuttle, but just before they could enter, the entire ship lurched and pitched, the bulk of the massive warship listing to one side.

  “Get in!” shouted Alain, pulling open the door, Benkei and he shepherding the rest of the crew into the cramped confines of the ship.

  Once on board, Alain and Sam took the pilot seats, powered up the shuttle, and took off, the craft rushing through the flames that now nearly covered the exit to the dock.

  CHAPTER 23

  Amelia ran to the back of the shuttle as it flew from the ship.

  “Oh, my God,” slipped out of her mouth as she looked over the wrecked form of one of the most powerful ships in the solar system.

  The Basileus was punched through completely into two locations, the first blast having punctured the aft, the gaping wound in the ship ragged and flame-ringed.

  “They got the bridge,” she said, looking at the second hole, which had perforated the ship right through the command center of the ship.

  The area where they stood not twenty minutes ago had been destroyed, vaporized by the burst of super-heated energy from the Azani cannon. She knew that anyone there when that beam hit would’ve been killed in a split second, likely before they even knew what happened. The thought that Galena was surely dead crossed her mind.

  The Basileus was pitching from one side to the other, struggling to stay in the air. To Amelia’s relief, she saw that hundreds of shuttles and escape craft were all darting from the ship, each one filled with lives saved thanks to Alain.

  “That thing’s not long for this world,” said Benkei, who had taken a place next to Amelia, watching the ship.

  Then, right as he finished speaking, a massive, shattering explosion ripped through the side of the Basileus, a gargantuan, thundering crash that shattered windows on nearby buildings and ripped the ship into two flaming pieces.

  “Holy shit!” shouted Amelia as the Basileus careened into the water, the fall only slowed by the waning power of the still functioning antigrav generators on the craft.

  More explosions popped and hissed on the ship as it crashed into the water. Amelia stepped back from the window and fell into her seat, realizing that the Basileus, and most of whatever crew remained on her, were dead.

  Alain flew in silence, the ship sailing over Manhattan, back to the Queens dock where the Meridian was parked. Not a member of the crew said a word as they flew, and in time, they were back at the dock, their ship in the same condition that it was left in, though, with a few large stickers indicating overcharge fees left by the dock owners.

  “We’re leaving, now,” said Alain, standing near the Meridian dock.

  “What about the shuttle?” asked Sasha. “Probably could get some good money for this.”

  “I don’t care about the shuttle. I care about killing whoever just murdered thousands of crewmen on my ship.”

  “Geff,” said Amelia.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then what’s the plan?” asked Benkei.

  “First, I need to get in contact with the fleet command. What’s left of it, that is,” said Alain.

  “But isn’t that thing going to be ready to shoot again in another twenty minutes?” asked Sam.

  “No,” said Sasha. “It won’t be ready again for another few hours, and if they fire it again then, it won’t be ready again for another day. Each cannon was only meant to be fired occasionally. That’s why they needed a whole network of them.”

  “Right,” said Alain. “That thing requires incredible power. Geff must be hoping to bring us to our knees quickly.”

  “Then where would be his next target?”

  Alain walked to the edge of the dock, looking past the dense cluster of grimy buildings, at one of the few glittering spires in Manhattan visible from their location, the tallest tower among the tallest towers. “That, right there,” he said, pointing upwards to the building on the right, a lit-up tower angled like a shard of illuminated glass. “The New York government headquarters – the Empire Tower.”

  Amelia took her place next to him. “Then we don’t have any time to waste.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The five of them ran to the flight deck, and as soon as they arrived, Alain took over the vidscreen and punched in a number.

  “What are you doing?” asked Amelia.

  “Trying to see if I can get your ass off the hook.”

  The screen dialed, and after a time, a serious-faced middle-aged woman with small, scanning eyes, a thin mouth, and silver hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.

  “Lieutenant Rickert – Jesus, where are you?” the woman asked, looking around at a scene of government bureaucrats talking to one another with wild gesticulations.

  “I’m on a civilian ship, some local mercenaries who happened to be on the Basileus when it was hit. They helped with the evacuation.”

  “What a nightmare,” said the woman, looking away and shaking her head. “Thank God Galena issued the evacuation orders or we’d be pulling nothing but corpses out of that ship.”

  “Right,” said Alain, not missing a beat. “What’s the situation with the fleet?”

  “It’s a mess. Galena and just about every other high-ranking officer were on the Basileus. We’ve got staff here, but it’ll take us days just to sort out the damage done to the command structure, let alone mount an attack on the array capable of getting through its defenses.”

  “Listen, I’m with a crew on a state-of-the-art Federation ship, called the Meridian. It was one of the most advanced stealth corvettes in the Fed fleet.”

  “I’m assuming you’re not telling me this for fun?”

  “That array’s going to be back on in a few hours. We’re going to try to slip in through the Azani’s defenses and take the thing out from the inside.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Your crew think you can pull this off with that ship of yours?”

  Amelia jumped into the frame.

  “My ship,” she said. “And we’re more than happy to help, assuming we’ll be compensated – you know, with money.”

  “Fine, fine,” said the woman. “Just get it done.”

  “And you might want to get as many people out of fleet command as possible,” said Alain. “On
ce that cannon’s back online, it’s almost guaranteed to be the next target.”

  “That’s what we figured, but thanks for the warning. Good luck, Lieutenant Rickert.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then the screen went black.

  Alain collapsed into a nearby seat and ran his hand over his face, rubbing his flesh.

  “Letting the admiral take the credit?” asked Benkei.

  “Letting them know I did it would be admitting to undermining the direct orders of the fleet commander. Regardless of how many lives were saved, I’d be up for court-martial. Besides, I don’t care who gets credit, just as long as lives were saved.”

  Amelia found herself gazing at Alain as he spoke, memories of the kind-hearted, the-right-thing-at-any-cost man who she fell in love with when she was still a kid flooding back into her mind.

  “And you all’ve lucked out. Any evidence that you were all involved with this in any way but as helpful bystanders went down with the Basileus.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Sasha, a wedge of white cheese from the Meridian refrigerator in his hand.

  “Then what’re we waiting for?” asked Amelia.

  A grin on her face, Sam gunned the engines to the ship and pulled the ship out of the dock, turning the Meridian around and pointing it up, beyond the grimy browns of towers of Queens. The engine whirring, the ship pulled up in a graceful arc, up into the evening sky, high enough that the light pollution of the city below gave way to the endless spread of stars.

  But even from their vantage point a mile above the city, the smoldering wreck of the Basileus could still be seen, a crackling, orange mass along the length of the island. Alain stood near the window of the flight deck, looking down at the debris of what once was the crown jewel of the New York Navy.

  Amelia observed him with a sense of longing, a pull that she thought she’d never feel again. But before she could consider it for any length of time, he made an abrupt turn toward the entrance to the flight deck and rushed out with quick strides.

  “How long until we’re at the array, Sam?” asked Amelia, watching Alain leave.