Morgan's Return (31 page)

Morgan was on the bridge, still wearing the exo-suit with the helmet retracted. She looked strained, but then it had been a long few days. He ached to sweep her into his arms, but that would be wrong and stupid. "You're all right?"

Her lips curved into a tight smile. "I'll live. Time to go. I think the word has finally filtered through. Strap yourselves in, everybody."

Ravindra sat down in the navigator's chair beside her and let the harness deploy. Jirra slipped into the engineer's seat to Morgan's right. Prasad and Davaskar took two of the four seats at the rear of the bridge, with Tullamarran wedged between them, and Partridge and Eastly took the last two seats. Crowded, but not impossible.

Morgan gestured at the screen, where a red-faced official mouthed words. "I turned him off. Want to hear?"

"Yes, I do," Ravindra said. "It might be useful."

"…
shut down your engines, return to dock, and prepare to be boarded. If you attempt to leave, you will be fired upon. I repeat, you will be fired upon
."

"I'm ignoring that. Departure sequence is underway and I'm good to go," Morgan said.

Uniformed officers with pistols had arrived at the dock. A few gathered at the locked gate.
Vulsaur
started to back out without casting off the ramp, which tore away. The troops on the dock blasted the gate and poured through, firing after the ship. Laser blasts spangled the forward shields with florets of light.

"What happened when I called you?" Ravindra asked.

Morgan rocked her head from side to side. "I had a visitor."

A visitor? On
Vulsaur
? How was that possible? The ship was almost in clear space. A few more meters, and then they could turn. "Tell me." He made the words an order.

"Seems I have an enemy I didn't know I had. Another Supertech. She was waiting on board. She escaped."

He frowned. "How did you not know she was waiting for you?"

She glanced at him. "She stopped the IS from alerting me."

What
? "Stopped the IS…?"

Morgan spun around, her face flushed. "She's a Supertech. She can do what I can do. And let me tell you, she's very fucking good."

Ravindra could swear she was favoring one arm, as if she was injured. "Morgan, explain to me what took place."

She rolled her eyes. "She was waiting for me, on the ship. She set it up so the air supply would fail, knowing I'd have to come and fix it before anybody else could get on board."

"This woman wore an exo-suit?"

"Yes. Now she's gone. And I'm betting she hasn't given up." The deck shuddered as Morgan applied the thrusters, pivoting the ship around its center.

"Perhaps she called the station security?"

Morgan shook her head. "She wants to kill me herself." A cheeky grin lit up her face for a moment. "She rather fancies you. Rather a lot, actually."

Jirra suddenly found something fascinating on her console, while Davaskar cleared his throat.

"Really." Ravindra raised an eyebrow, aware of the screen that showed a patrol ship coming around the space station's rim to port. "Are you keeping an eye on that?"

"I am," Morgan said. "They don't stand a chance."

Acceleration thrust him deep into the back of the chair, the space station receding behind them. The patrol ship would follow, of course, but they would not know what
Vulsaur
was capable of.

"So. What does this other Supertech look like? Would I be persuaded to trade?" Ravindra asked.

Morgan guffawed, and raised an image on the 3D display.

Shorter than Morgan, the woman's features were unremarkable. Not ugly, not beautiful. A face a man would miss in a crowd. Her darkish hair was cut short, framing her face. Only her eyes were different. They were ordinary human eyes, round irises surrounded by white, but they burned with an intensity which was almost frightening. The rest of the body was a mystery underneath the exo-suit. No, he didn't think he'd be trading Morgan in anytime soon.

"Uh-oh. Raider coming up fast. Fuck it, that'll be her."

Chapter 27
 

P
anting, Ellen climbed into the Interceptor's pilot's seat, still wearing her exo-suit. That had been far too close for comfort. She'd saved a copy of the strip-tease, of course, to play back later, when there was more time to savor the performance. After she'd finished Selwood for good.
Vulsaur
might be fast but it couldn't use the wonderful shift drive until well beyond the space station. And they wouldn't get that far.

Nemesis's
engines were already warmed up. Ellen asked the station for an emergency departure. It didn't hurt to try to be polite. Who knew when she'd be wanting to come back here? If only to find out why Selwood and Ravindra had visited.

"
Reason
?" Station Control asked.

What reason did anyone ever have? "I'm in a hurry." Ellen kept an eye on
Vulsaur
. Damn and blast, the ship was backing out.

"Sorry, Control. This is an emergency." She dumped the umbilicals, disengaged the ramp, and set the forward thrusters to twenty percent.

"
Hey! You can't do that. You'll be fined
."

"Send me the fine." Ellen shut the circuit down.

Nemesis
shot out of the dock into clear space. Ellen settled in the seat and focused her mind. In a fight against another Supertech, she wanted the advantage. Total Machine Meld. Her body sagged, apparently unconscious, in the seat, while her mind flowed through the systems, manipulated the sensors, became a part of the hull, the weapons clusters, the shields.

The Interceptor rotated, pressing the limits of its capability.
Vulsaur
shot away from the station, fast, but not fast enough. Ellen poured on the power. Funny how one felt so detached in this state. She had a job to do: destroy
Vulsaur
.

The wide sensors blinked warnings. Ellen ignored them. The distance to
Vulsaur
decreased. Missiles fired. One… two… three… four.

***

"K
eep those harnesses on, everybody," Morgan said. "Things might get a bit tough."

"Can we help?" Ravindra asked.

"No. It'll be her… or me." She turned to look at him, wishing she had more time to tell him, prove to him what he meant to her.

The look in his eyes cut her to the core. If she'd ever doubted him, she didn't now. "Machine mode. See you on the other side."

This was what Cruickshank would have done.
You can't beat another Supertech just riding the ship. You had to become the ship.
And Cruickshank had an Interceptor, a fighter so new, Morgan only had an idea of its capabilities. But then, Morgan had virtually built
Vulsaur
, adding smarts into it that only she knew about. The ship flowed around her, she flowed through the ship. She saw through the sensors' eyes, felt the stabilizers, adjusted the shields.

The Interceptor had closed the distance. Cruickshank would have to act soon, or
Vulsaur
could disappear into the dimensions of shift space. Ah. Missile. Two… three… four missiles. All trackers. Morgan absorbed the tracking signals into
Vulsaur's
shields and threw the ship hard down. The missiles followed. They were working on visuals, or Cruickshank was directing them herself. Morgan cut
Vulsaur
back around, and aimed hard up at the Interceptor, firing her cannon as she came. The Interceptor dodged, but Morgan took a chance to take out one missile. Debris sparkled on the shields.
Take that, bitch. You might be good, but four missiles is a bit much to handle all at once
.

Engines pushed to the red limit screamed. Easy, now. Up and around until
Vulsaur
faced the missiles. The Interceptor roared around on her tail, its beam weapons sending out bright blasts of energy. Morgan fired at the missiles, then pulled hard at ninety degrees. The shields sparkled again, a hit that sent a shudder through the ship, despite the absorption power of the shield. Down to thirty percent. The damage reports flowed through. Nanobots worked at sealing the ship's skin.

"I've got you. You're dead." Cruickshank's voice crowed.

Not yet I'm not.
Morgan dropped
Vulsaur
suddenly, just far enough for the Interceptor to pass over the top of the ship, and switched all power to the forward thrusters. A blast of the beam weapons and the last missile exploded.

The Interceptor pivoted, beam weapons firing.

***

M
aximus
announced its presence and good intentions as soon as the ship had completed the jump into Ushas space. Makasa left the ship's captain to it, comfortable enough in the guest quarters, he supposed. Better that, than the bridge. He lay on his sofa, his gaze on the monitors. Ushas floated in the blackness of space, a blue and white world, like any other human-settled planet in the Galaxy. The Ushas Government had been told of
Maximus's
visit. They hadn't exactly been thrilled, but there was little they could do about it. A condition of being part of the Coalition was that ships of the Fleet were allowed entry.

"Admiral?" Captain Trask's voice through the PA sounded mildly alarmed.

"Captain?"

"We seem to have come out into a battle." The screen zoomed in on a skirmish between two ships. An explosion blossomed, a deadly flower of debris, while the ships dodged. "Our IS reports that the fighter is a Dainridge Interceptor and the other is
Vulsaur
."

Morgan and Cruickshank, involved in a deadly battle. Makasa's heart beat too fast. So many questions. "I'm coming up to the bridge."

He grabbed his jacket and ran, pulling on the coat as he did so. He arrived out of breath, panting, just in time to view an explosion on the screen. Debris splattered the shields.

"Damn it, that's two missiles," growled Trask. "The skills are amazing. From both of them."

"That's because they're both piloted by Supertechs," Makasa managed to say between gasps for air.

Trask saluted. "We tried to contact them, Sir. No response. I can launch a squadron."

The Interceptor blew away a missile from
Vulsaur
, then raked the ship with fire.

Makasa shook his head. "You don't try to fly a kite in a sky where dragons are fighting. Give me a channel to the Interceptor." Even if Cruickshank was in full machine meld, he could bring her out. The code was in his implant, encrypted and inaccessible to anyone but him. One for every Supertech under his control.

"The channel is allocated, Admiral," Trask said.

Makasa sent the signal for Cruickshank. She had no choice but to respond.

"Admiral?" Her voice sounded slurred, typical of machine meld.

"Break off the attack, Cruickshank. I want that ship in one piece."

"Kill her. I'm going to kill her. Selwood. She's bad. Gone bad."

That was his fear. But he wanted that ship, that shift drive. Then he could judge. "Call off the attack. That's an order."

The answer was a growl, then, "I'll kill you, Selwood."

Gods. She'd broken off contact and headed straight back into the attack. She shouldn't have been able to do that.
Vulsaur
was ducking and weaving, trying to escape the Interceptor's missiles and beam weapons.

They'd left him with no choice. Makasa turned to Trask. "Captain, have your Supertech take a fighter out."

***

O
h, Fuck
. A battleship.
Maximus
had only been commissioned a year or so when Morgan had disappeared in
Curlew
. So the Fleet was after her. Or maybe Cruickshank? They weren't attacking, just hailing. Morgan hoped they'd launch a squadron. She could use the fighters to help fight Cruickshank. The bitch was good, no doubt about it. Sure, she had a state-of-the-art fighter, which helped, but even so, she was giving Morgan a run.

"Morgan."

Morgan's heart leapt. She was back in her body, while her mind flew with
Vulsaur
. Her arm hurt, a throbbing, pulsing pain. Ravindra sat beside her, his face tight and drawn. He opened his mouth but she raised her hand before he could speak.

The voice she'd heard was Makasa's.

"Admiral?"

"Call this off, Morgan. I don't want to destroy you." That chocolate coated voice sounded clipped.

"Suits me. Better tell your little friend, Cruickshank, that she doesn't want to destroy me, too."

"I'm on
Maximus
. I want you here."

The sensors nudged. "No time now, Makasa. She's attacking again."