Redemption Protocol (Contact) (75 page)

Whittenhorn nodded, apparently satisfied. He glanced at Yamamoto.

“Shall we retire for dinner, Captain, until we know more?”

Yamamoto frowned at the holo. She called up information on the console screens.

Whittenhorn frowned at her impertinence.

“I said––”

“I heard you,” Yamamoto said.

The instruments couldn't be right, could they? She called up more tracking information.

“Well, I don't think––”

Whittenhorn was interrupted as the bridge was bathed in red light. Alerts flashed across the console.

Yamamoto frowned.

“We appear to have launched a missile at the Empire of the Sun
Brilliance
. They have given us five seconds to destroy it.”

Whittenhorn blinked.

“What?”

Yamamoto couldn't understand it.

“It’s one of our sleeper platforms. A definite launch. Initiating self-destruct.”

Bergeron turned to Whittenhorn.

“Surely––”

“Please be quiet,” Yamamoto said, distracted.

She monitored her instrumentation.

“Nothing. It failed.”

More alarms lit up.

Bergeron looked panicked.

“What can we––”

Yamamoto flicked up multiple displays as she worked the process.

“Please be quiet or leave the bridge. I am relaying inbound communication about the missile launch to screen five. The
Brilliance
threatens immediate response.”

Whittenhorn frowned.

“Well, we didn't––”

Yamamoto monitored the data feeds surging with battlespace information.

“Actually, we did, Commander. The
Brilliance
has successfully destroyed the missile. They have a lock on the
Intrepid
.”

“They won't––”

Yamamoto winced.

“We have launched another two, four, six missiles at the
Brilliance
.”

“Six missiles!”

Alarms shrieked across the bridge.

“We have incoming laser fire. Gigawatt range. Our shields are partially deflecting. We are exposed.”

Yamamoto stepped back, shaking her head.

“Our phase array is disabled. Overkill imminent.”

Whittenhorn wrung his hands in distress.

“Should we evacuate?”

Yamamoto looked at the idiots on her bridge, staring at her wide eyed.

 197. 

Havoc needed to lure Stephanie back in. He had to give her something she could use to score brownie points with the United Systems.

> If you’re ever coming back in here to help me, we can at least try and stop the ORC from taking the other weapon system.

> What other weapon system?

> What, am I meant to just lie here?

> I'm coming.

Stephanie came through the lock a minute later. She retracted her visor and smiled as she squatted next to him.

“You repaired your suit?”

He looked down at the replacement panels he'd locked in. They were a patchwork of basic components, like a multicolored jigsaw puzzle slathered with sealant. Its capability was a fraction of what his full suit could do, but it was better than nothing and hopefully good enough.

“Looks a real mess, doesn't it?”

You lying cheating bitch
.

“Tell me about these weapons, John. What are the ORC doing?”

He scrutinized the face of the woman he'd asked to marry him.

“We've got a real problem here, Steph.”

She eyed him oddly. He obviously wasn't hiding it very well. Probably too 'emotionally invested'.

She pulled a hand through her hair. Her voice faltered a little.

“What is it?”

“Well we're both sitting on a pile of ONC. Switch your comms public or I’ll kill you.”

Her eyes widened as she took in the dull ring of ONC around her. Her face turned bitter and she snapped at him.

“You'll be gone too.”

And there it was. The final thread of a possible alternative reality that he couldn't imagine but still hoped might exist, snapped.

“If you move, and I mean move a muscle, even twitch an eyelid, I'll blow you to hell.”

“You wouldn't.”

“You decide.”

“They'll pay you.”

“Not everyone is as interested in money as you.”

“So what do we do now?”

“How long?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes.

“Oh, please.”

“
How long
?”

“Yes.”

His mind spun at the revelation. Their entire time together.

“But I would have stayed with you, John, if you’d gone Flag. I mean, I wanted to.”

His head was splitting as his entire life reshaped to accommodate the facts. She'd been a United Systems agent since the day he'd met her.

“You lived your entire life based on a lie.”

“I didn't deceive you, you deceived yourself.”

“Is that what you think about everyone you lied to?”

“I was always true to myself.”

“Is that more of your mother's wisdom?”

She snapped at that.

“You don't know how we suffered. My mother told me it takes more courage to suffer than to die. She said we'd suffered enough.”

“You don't even know what suffering is.”

“Ha! Of course it's all relative, just because we didn't starve. My father let us down. I didn't have a choice.”

Havoc couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“He sacrificed everything for you.”

“That's a man's job. Of course, he should be happy to sacrifice himself for that.”

“Spoiled brat.”

“Don’t you fucking dare call me spoiled! Do you know how hard it is, what I've done?”

“You have no guilt at all, do you?”

“What do I have to feel guilty about? Mother told me to take what I can and forgive myself. She taught me if I love it, I should have it and if I want it, I deserve it. We suffered enough.”

“You may be the most selfish person I ever met.”

She raised her chin indignantly.

“Everyone is selfish. People are just annoyed when other people beat them to it. Life doesn't have any purpose except to do as well as you can.”

“People trusted you.”

“That’s their fault. If you have to sacrifice someone, sacrifice someone else.”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Like Novosa?”

“That wasn't my fault. She was on to me. What could I do?”

He nodded slowly. She wasn't a friend. She was the enemy.

Stephanie watched him, realization dawning. She looked around desperately. Her brow furrowed.

“They'll kill you.”

He stared at her.

He said nothing.

She hissed at him.

“You wouldn't dare.”

He smiled, his mouth twisting in disdain.

She gazed at him, wide eyed and sincere. Her voice was plaintive.

“Please, John, I still have feelings. On the ship, earlier, that was real.”

He stared at her as he slowly shook his head. His heart was ice in the void.

Her lip trembled. Tears beaded in her eyes and then broke, rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes scanned left and right, searching for a way out.

“Please, John, this isn't fair.”

 198. 

The laser of the EOS
Brilliance
overwhelmed the
Intrepid's
phase array and mission killed it. Rather than waiting to burn through the forward shielding, the
Brilliance's
laser simply swept along the length of the vessel. The
Intrepid
presented an entire exposed flank and the
Brilliance
exploited it.

The
Brilliance's
laser swept across discs two and three. The fierce energy burned through the thin skin of the unshielded hull in a flash. Valves blew out as the central tanks were superheated. The walls of the habitation modules dissolved away and the air inside escaped, burning explosively as hundred of millions of watts of energy was imparted instantly. The material touched simply vaporized, ceasing to exist. Pressure surges caused overload, valve failure and blow out in sequence along the spindle. Key valves in the cooling systems on the spindle overloaded and exploded. Fuel tanks on secondary drives blew up, streaming fuel into space.

The containment systems were overwhelmed under the power of the
Brilliance’s
attack. High pressure pipes failed and exploded along their lengths. The bridge instruments recorded critical pressure levels rising geometrically. Valves closed to try and prevent the spread but the systems couldn't dump enough in time. High pressure gas burst out of surge valves, shooting from vents across the vessel. The
Intrepid's
structure vibrated, rattled and shook as alarms screamed. The oxygen tanks at the center of disc three exploded. The ship broke in two, snapping between the targeted discs. Fire raged violently across the ship.

Water streamed into space. The superheated vapor cooled and distilled into millions of floating ice crystals. The
Brilliance's
laser swept over some of them, superheating them instantly and causing them to explode yet again.

Yamamoto watched the pressure triple and triple again in the systems leading to the bridge; orders of magnitude over design thresholds. She felt a twinge of loss as she saw disc two disappear on the instrumentation. Brennen gone. Leveque gone. Power died on the bridge. It went completely dark for a second. She was rocked by a huge explosion some distance away.

Emergency lighting came back on. The
Brilliance
continued its unrelenting sweep across the
Intrepid
. The cooling system at the heart of
Intrepid's
bow boiled and burst. Yamamoto saw the readings surge one by one. Her beautiful ship was going down. It was over.

The holograms of the three startled idiots opposite her shimmered and blinked out.

She touched the console and said goodbye. She felt increasing vibration and then, from nothing, the air around her exploded into flame.

 199. 

Havoc glanced down.

The ONC was formed into a shaped charge on the floor. It probably wouldn't kill Stephanie. In retrospect he might have set it differently.

The detonation shock wave cut through the cabin floor and blew out the ice underneath. An incendiary charge on a nearby shelf caught in the explosion and ignited.

He dropped through the jagged hole in the ice and fell toward the sludge two hundred meters below. He saw the flames roll up one side of Stephanie’s body. Her hair caught fire as she tried to turn her face away. Incendiary melt clung to the left side of her suit and face, burning into her. A pack of needle kinetics blew off a shelf, deflecting off her suit but penetrating her face and neck. He dropped further away. He could only see her head now, screaming and burning as she turned to escape the cabin.

He watched the United Systems through the ice. They were observing the cabin. Stephanie burst out of the lock and ran toward them. One of the United Systems commandos grabbed her arm and dragged her away. Havoc was still falling as a United Systems platform flew over the cabin.

The timed charge in the cabinet exploded as he hit the surface of the thick sludge, destroying the cabin and taking out the United Systems platform.

He sank under, and was gone.

 200. 

Weaver looked up at Tyburn, feeling bitter.

“So what do you need me for?”

“We trade you to the ORC.”

“What was Havoc doing with my father?”

Tyburn appraised her.

“He abducted him.”

“I don't believe you.”

Tyburn shrugged. Ekker spoke from the cockpit.