The mechs then altered course, like a swarm of angry bees on her sensor display, and started for the next enemy ship. At the same time, more mech teams sailed out from the battle group’s destroyers, which were closing the distance fast.

  The Junlo ships, realizing the threat, were now refocusing their fire on the incoming mechs. But the mechs were tiny, scattered, and moving quickly. The lead Junlo tried to slow and turn away from the mechs, but that only managed to hem in the ship directly behind it.

  Fesky and her fighters were just getting back in range again when another small detonation indicated that the lead ship had succumbed to the mechs’ firepower. A second explosion just a few minutes later signaled the destruction of the second ship’s engines.

  “Those mechs are having all the fun,” Damon said.

  “Yeah, now that we pushed the targets into position,” Eightball said. “You’re welcome, mechs!”

  “Let’s cut the chatter and help with the mop-up,” O’Malley said.

  She was right to call it a mop-up. That was all the operation was at this point. Of the four ships that had made it past the Pythons, three had now been disabled by the mechs.

  “Saved one for us!” said Hooper.

  It was literally a race to see who could get the kill first. The mechs that had overwhelmed the forward ships were already thrusting toward the remaining ship under power.

  At the same time, the Pythons swarmed over it.

  For a moment, Fesky worried they would overdo it, and trigger a bigger explosion than was needed to take out the engines—which wasn’t crazy, she thought, since they knew so little about these ships and their structure.

  But her fears were unfounded. Her own squadron of fighters made direct hits on the thruster assembly, and the ship went dead in space.

  “That’s ours!” Hooper said triumphantly.

  Fesky felt her grip loosen on her Python’s power stick. She scanned the space around her for more targets, but there was nothing that looked like a threat.

  The Junlo ships were all disabled.

  Chapter 29

  Flight Deck

  UHC Providence

  Fesky waited next to her Python, helmet under her wing arm. A trio of pilots came by and nodded at her. She got a glimpse of the deck crews working on some of the other Pythons. She even saw Decker. He offered his customary human quirk of winking at her. “Commander,” he barked.

  “Deck chief,” she replied.

  “Not deck chief,” he said. “Not anymore.” He shot past on his way to another wing of fighters that was arriving in the big hangar.

  Of course. He’d survived the loss of the Relentless, but it wasn’t like the Providence was in need of a new deck chief. So he’d made do with what position he was offered.

  Just like the rest of them.

  Fesky finally saw the person she was waiting for. “Commander,” she said, falling in line with O’Malley.

  Her opposite number had a sour look on her face. She wasn’t happy to see Fesky waiting for her. Fesky knew humans well enough to know that.

  “Commander,” O’Malley replied. “What can I do for you?”

  She was walking fast and clearly had no intention of stopping for a little chat. Fesky didn’t care. She stepped in front of her and awkwardly caused her to almost trip over to avoid running into her.

  “What’s your problem?” O’Malley snapped.

  “You outrank me,” Fesky said. “Let’s be clear about that.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She looked over Fesky’s shoulder like she had better places to be. “So is that your problem?”

  “No,” Fesky said. “I don’t care about rank, not unless it causes problems with the air wing.”

  “So, what then?”

  “You outrank me,” Fesky repeated. “But that doesn’t mean that you should just blow off my suggestions.”

  O’Malley’s face darkened. “Is that what this is about? I told you I was taking your suggestion under advisement.”

  “You said what you needed to say to ignore me. And that’s fine. It’s your right. But I have a lot of experience in the cockpit.” She could see O’Malley beginning to open her mouth. “Just like you do,” she hurried on. “And just like all our squadron leaders. This isn’t about who has the most experience or who should have rank on whom. It’s about listening, and taking the suggestions of everyone seriously. If we don’t do that, we’re going to be in trouble out here.”

  “We’re already in plenty of trouble.”

  “All the more reason to be open to each other’s ideas,” Fesky squawked. “We’re not here to compete with each other. We’re here to survive. If we don’t have unity, we’ll die out there.”

  O’Malley glanced around, and Fesky realized there were a few pilots and deck hands gathered in listening distance. Definitely not what she’d had in mind.

  O’Malley leaned in close. “Let me tell you what I think. I think you don’t like that I’m in charge. You don’t like that I’m the one that the captain calls, and yes, that includes your precious Captain Husher, who I guess is suddenly calling the shots. Just because you two think on the same wavelength doesn’t mean I have to do what you tell me.”

  “I have no problem with you being in charge,” Fesky said. “Like I said about rank. Who calls the shots isn’t important to me. But the fate of this battle group is important to me. The fate of the Milky Way is important to me. And those things are threatened if we start getting worried about who’s in charge or who gets to call the shots or who gets to think they’re the next in line for a promotion. None of that will keep us all alive out here.” Her beak clacked sharply together. “None of it. The only thing keeping us alive is working together, keeping our eyes and ears open and listening to each other. Truly working together as a team. And that means we don’t ignore each other just because we have cliques or vendettas or flat-out grudges. We don’t let that stop us. I won’t let it stop me. And I expect it not to stop you.”

  Fesky fell silent. She glanced around, now seeing that several members of the deck crew were watching. At least the pilots had the decency to keep moving, although some were clearly hanging back to listen.

  If they were looking for fireworks from O’Malley, they got none. She simply turned and walked off without another word.

  Fesky felt the feathers twitch all over her body. Then she also turned—and almost ran right into Paul Decker. The Relentless’ former deck chief had a big grin on his face.

  “Hello,” she said awkwardly, cutting short where she’d normally say his title. “Paul.”

  He snorted. “Good for you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He just jutted his chin at O’Malley’s receding form. “Good for you.”

  Then he stepped around her and yelled at the deck crew still hanging around to take care of the waiting fighters.

  Decker turned to look at her one last time and offered one of his trademark winks, followed by a big belly laugh.

  Chapter 30

  Tactical War Room

  UHC Providence

  “I’m sorry.” Husher said the words without prompting. He knew what was coming. There was only one reason why he was here; he felt sure of it.

  While the admiral had gone to the large conference table and taken a seat, Husher had remained standing. If he was going to get dressed down, he wasn’t going to sit through it unless he was ordered to.

  Iver took a long, steely look at Husher, seemingly taking him in and judging him, top to bottom. It was like being a new cadet all over again, with the drill sergeant staring at him right down to his nose hairs, looking for anything that he could bust him for. Was the second rung of his shoelace on his right boot twisted around? Was there a split seam on the pocket of his cargo pants? Hell, was there dandruff on the shoulders of his uniform?

  You never got too old to get dressed down by a superior, and in those moments you never forgot the first time it had happened. It was as true of this as anything else—you just never forgot the first time.

  “Sit down, Vin,” Iver said.

  Husher was surprised that he hadn’t used his title. The informality almost threw him off as much as getting dressed down would.

  “Sir?”

  “Take a seat, will you? I don’t want to have to look up to you to say this.”

  Bewildered, Husher sat.

  Iver ran his hand through his short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. “Overriding a superior during battle,” he said, tapping the table thoughtfully.

  Husher hadn’t really overridden him. If anything, he’d just…ridden? There was no one filling the void, and he’d just stepped in and…the others in the CIC had just looked to him. He wasn’t sure what exactly, in retrospect, he was supposed to have done differently.

  “I guess an apology is in order,” Iver said finally, folding his hands.

  “Like I said, sir—”

  Iver held up a hand. “No, I’m going to apologize to you.”

  Husher stared dumbly at the man, not sure he’d heard correctly and not sure what he was supposed to do if he had. “You,” he said haltingly, “are going to apologize…to me?”

  “Yes, Vin, I am.”

  “For what?”

  “For putting you in that position.” Iver waved a hand. “Look. I’m not just going to apologize. I’m going to thank you. In normal circumstances, sure, this would have been an egregious problem. We’d have to be figuring out what we were going to do with you right about now. And it wouldn’t be pretty.” He cracked a smile. “But we’re not home. This isn’t home. This is some strange place with threats I can barely wrap my head around. And the fact is, we need to win out here. We need to win, or we never get to go back where all that normal stuff about the chain of command exists.” He smiled even more broadly. “Back to a place where I really can bust your balls for doing shit like that.”

  “I’d like that,” Husher said, allowing himself to relax the slightest bit. “I want to be somewhere this turns into a real dressing down for me. Because then, at least, the world wouldn’t seem so crazy.”

  “Well, this isn’t the world, or the galaxy. Not the one we know. The normal one.”

  Iver stopped talking, and Husher found that he had nothing to say, either. He was still a little too in shock that, rather than cutting him down, Iver was actually thanking him for his actions in the CIC.

  “We have to get you promoted, Vin,” Iver said at last.

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me. I wasn’t bullshitting you when I first told you that I’d lobbied hard for you to get another star. You deserve it. We have some real assholes in the admiral rank. You’re looking at one of them. Don’t pretend you don’t think so.” He laughed. “But dammit, Vin. We need good officers like you among the admirals. You command this battle group too well, and the other captains respect your choices and your authority too much, for this to be only a temporary condition thrust on you and rescinded when we’re gone.”

  “I think we both know that the chances of me getting that promotion are, well, slim.”

  Iver chuckled. “If we get out of here alive, the chances of me not doing everything in my power to make your promotion to admiral happen are slim. Actually, they’re zero. And I have more friends than you might imagine, especially now that we’ve shifted away from the IU. My influence will be strong.” He slapped the table. “We’ll make an admiral of you yet, Vin. I know that in my bones.”

  Husher knew that more stars meant more problems, but he’d never been one to shy away from responsibility. His father hadn’t, and the men he most looked up to in his life hadn’t, so he wouldn’t either. “I’d very much appreciate that, Admiral.”

  Iver looked wistfully up at the ceiling, then leveled his gaze on Husher again. “At the very least, that would get you out from under my command and you could stop making me look so damn bad.” He said it half-jokingly, but there was a hint of truth there.

  Husher had to admit that he was impressed with Iver. This was a shift in thinking that would have been impossible before they’d made their way into this pocket universe; he felt sure of that.

  But now that they were here, it seemed that maybe Iver wasn’t the grasping politician of an admiral Husher had once considered him, particularly at the end of the last war.

  Perhaps the crucible of battle would do that to a man. Or at least, the chance that his survival might be on the line.

  “I have nothing else for you, Vin,” Iver said at last. He stood, and Husher did the same. “Now let’s get back out there and see if we can learn anything from these damn aliens that can save our collective asses.”

  Chapter 31

  Oneiri Team

  Junlo Salvage Ship

  “Watch that little bastard on your right,” Moonboy said.

  Jake spun and aimed his autocannons in the direction of a large chunk of plating, which concealed a Junlo fighter. The alien was sending small-arms weapons fire their way.

  “These guys just don’t get it, do they?” Zeph said.

  For the better part of a half hour, Oneiri Team had been working its way through the passageways of the new Junlo ship they’d disabled. Other mech teams were engaged in similar activities on all the Junlo ships they had managed to disable.

  “Jake, you got company on your six!”

  Jake spun around, spotting one of the squat Junlo running toward him. Now that he’d seen one up close, he found their tiny size and shape was deceptive. They were clearly quite capable of fast movement in spite of their short, stocky frame.

  The small weapon it held discharged as it ran straight at Jake, on what it had to know was a suicide charge. It was foolish.

  Too foolish, based on what he’d seen.

  Rather than fire, he ignored the creature and looked around. He spotted the trap. A second Junlo was standing next to what looked like a smaller version of the huge hover sleds they’d seen in the cavernous main holding bay.

  Jake swung his arm up and smashed it into the hover sled. The Junlo hiding behind it dove away at the last second, but the sled went flying across the ground thanks to Jake’s strike.

  The first Junlo managed to avoid it, but the one running toward him with a death wish, firing off his useless rifle, was hit full in the chest with the front of the sled. It crushed the alien against the bulkhead. The second Junlo managed to maneuver around the sled and pull his comrade from the wreckage, who he then started dragging away.

  Jake fired off one of the lasso-ties, the ones they’d been using to trap all the Junlo they came across. It flicked around the tiny form of the alien dragging his friend, constricting his limbs and sending him crashing to the deck.

  He screamed some noises at Jake, who felt genuinely sorry about the one he’d crushed with the hover sled. They weren’t necessarily trying to kill the Junlo—rather, they were attacking those that attacked them. But still, there was no reason to go killing any creatures for no good reason.

  “What the hell is that?” Steam said.

  She and Moe had come up behind Jake. He turned around and followed their line of sight until it reached the hover sled, which had finally come to a stop. But not before it had smashed into a bulkhead, piercing through to the next compartment, where there was a set of interior doors. Before he could speculate on what he was looking at, Moe clambered into the small space.

  “I think we got ourselves a little brig here,” Steam said as he covered Moe.

  Jake joined them inside the compartment “Watch for more of these damn things and their booby traps.”

  “Oh, I am,” Moe said. “But I don’t think they’ve been in here. At least, not recently. It looks like it’s untouched.” She paused. “No, wait, I see something here.”

  Now it was Steam’s turn to share a glance with Jake. “What are you seeing, Maura?”

  “Damn,” she said. “Jake, you gotta see this.”

  “What is it?”

  “We got ourselves a living Yin.”

  Chapter 32

  Containment Unit

  UHC Providence

  “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

  The question hung in the air as Husher peered through the containment field at the Yin creature. The field was set up in one of the supercarrier’s medical wings, and Husher and Shota stood just outside it.

  To say the Yin was standing was something of a misnomer, but Husher honestly didn’t know what term made more sense. They’d been watching the creature since it had been brought aboard, and it never seemed to stop standing.

  This Yin was as the Scions had described the species. It was spider-like in appearance—a quadruped with four arms projecting from its torso. It had no head—at least, not one Husher or any humanoid would recognize. Yet it did have eyes near the top of its narrow body, dark and deep-set, which seemed to take in everything. No ears that Husher could see, but between that set of eyes was a tiny nose that the scientists told him included the capacity to hear through the bones there.

  And finally the mouth, or what he assumed was the mouth. It was more of a gaping orifice that didn’t seem to ever close. It made the Yin look like it was perpetually surprised. But the big inset eyes, Husher soon realized, were the place to look for emotion.

  He sensed that the Yin wasn’t happy. Awakening in a containment field among strange aliens, after they’d liberated it from a Junlo prison, probably wasn’t helping its mood.

  “I can understand you,” the Yin said, or rather, the computer translated in a dull monotone. The initial message had been translated into the Scion language, since the Junlo seemed to understand that. Not for the first time, Husher was thankful they’d connected with the Scions when they’d arrived in this pocket universe. Their allies might be gone, but their language lived on as a critical common ground for communication.

  While the computer was translating, Husher could hear the actual sounds the Yin creature made. It sounded like air whistling through a tunnel. “You may call me Calder.”

 

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