Ahead Full Read online

  Provides me with more wisdom, Ashur replied.

  How does Bellatrix put up with you?

  Not well, which is why she failed to notice that I snuck out.

  Baba Yaga’s red eyes stared at the dog, not blinking at all until Ashur turned toward her.

  What?

  Baba Yaga shook her head slowly as she turned to view her control screens once more. You had better hope you die on this trip, or Bellatrix is going to make you wish you had.

  Ashur yawned, No, I’ll just be sleeping in your suite for a week.

  Oh … goody.

  “Ok, we have three, two, one …” The Shinigami went through the gate, coming out in an entirely new location of the galaxy. The Black Eagles started appearing behind her after about ten seconds.

  What good would it have done if we had failed to get here? Ashur chuffed.

  If the gate acted like a shield and if we went splat, the fighters could have veered off. If we had died on this side, then we all would have died.

  Ashur put his head down. I really hate space flight.

  —

  Julianna noticed the message from the Shinigami and confirmed it had been sent to all the fighters. It was short and succinct.

  Stay on my path or die. You veer from the path and don’t die, I’ll find you and kill you myself. So, stay on the damned path.

  “I guess she wants us to stay on the path, eh, Boss?” Billy commed.

  Before Julianna could reply, Baba Yaga’s voice came over the radio. “Yes. That was the reason for the message, O’Neill. Do you need me to write it on a piece of paper and come over to your cockpit and shove it so far up your ass you can read it on your retinas?”

  “Uh, no, ma’am,” he replied.

  Julianna shook her head. She hoped the rest of her team didn’t antagonize the Witch, or she might not make it back to the Empress with everyone intact.

  Then she chuckled. How would she write up the cause of death? “Death by irritated Witch?” or in Billy’s case, “Reverse intestinal non-biodegradable inflammation?”

  She clicked her comm. “Everyone stay on the line. Sandra, tighten up your vector.” She nodded to herself when Sandra and her co-wing locked back into place. As the tail, she could see almost all her pilots in front of her. Her eyes went to her sensors and opened wide when the first Leath came through the gate.

  It wasn’t the larger ships, as they had expected, but rather a spread of twelve missiles going much faster than the fighters. “Oh … crap.” She hit the comm. “Fregin to Baba Yaga, we have missiles back here.”

  “Well, shit,” Baba Yaga’s voice came back. “I’m turning around, but everyone else keep pushing forward. Dammit, I’m not going to be able to get all of them, I don’t think. I’ve released the anti-missile defense. If you have any secret methods for getting more speed out of those ships this is the time to try, Captain.”

  For a long, tense minute the ships carefully followed the course they needed, until the fighters started escaping the zone and they could open up. Julianna was starting to sweat.

  Behind her, two missiles exploded.

  Then two more.

  “C’mon, only eight more. I’m not asking for much,” she whispered. She watched as eight missiles became seven, then six, five, four. Finally, three and two exploded, leaving one.

  Julianna’s eyes narrowed when Ricky Bobby tweaked his position. “Oh no, you don’t,” she whispered to herself as she sent commands to her ship.

  Before Ricky Bobby could sacrifice himself, her ship braked sharply and curved left, blocking the AI’s effort to place himself in front of the missile.

  “NO!” Julianna heard Ricky Bobby’s voice over the system as she slammed into the side of her cockpit, the explosion behind her ripping her ship apart.

  That was when everything went black.

  —

  “Dammit!” Baba Yaga spat. “They are going to fuck-up my perfect safety record.” She touched her comm. “People, keep flying. Shinigami is going back for the captain and her co-wing.”

  None of the fighters could see the Shinigami as it blew past them.

  —

  In space, the ejected cockpit was careening toward the left. Chasing it was an older model Black Eagle focused on confirming the trajectory and spin of the small piece of the ship that was left.

  Ricky Bobby commed over his link to Julianna. “If you came all this way just to prove I’m worth saving, don’t be a bitch and get yourself killed.”

  The AI piloted his ship deftly as he approached where Julianna was supposed to be. He wasn’t sure if he could do the AI equivalent of crying, but he would rather not find out.

  The intra-system comm crackled to life with a female’s voice on the other side. “Wow, for an AI you have a really coarse mouth,” Julianna told him. “I didn’t sacrifice myself so we could both die.”

  Another voice joined their conversation. “I’d tell you both,” Baba Yaga said, “to get a room if we weren’t in the middle of a fucking war with the heavens about to open up in fire, so let’s focus on saving your asses and being safe, shall we?”

  >>Locked onto the cockpit, using the antigrav beams to slow and stop her wobble and spin.<<<br />
  “Well, fucking hell.” Baba Yaga spoke again. “Ok, Ricky Bobby, the cockpit has stopped spinning. We’ve got ships coming through the gate. Save your captain.”

  “I will,” Ricky Bobby promised. “Thank you for helping me.”

  “Like to do more, but I have a couple dozen ships to destroy.” The Shinigami drifted off a little distance, then executed an amazing maneuver and headed back toward the ships which had just translocated through the gate.

  “Captain, do you have an air supply?”

  “Yes,” Julianna replied. “Both suit and tank I can bring with me.”

  “Great. Air up and grab the tank for the transfer. You should use the air tank you bring, since I don’t know how contaminated mine might be. My seals are still good.”

  “Good enough for me.” Julianna cracked her cockpit, the top unlocking, and she pushed it up. The auto-opening feature had gone away with the rest of her ship, she assumed. Moving as quickly as she could in zero-g, she stood on her seat. The shadow of her partner’s Black Eagle covered her for a moment as he moved into position and then pivoted on his axis, opening his long-unused cockpit.

  “I’d say “Ow,” but I really don’t feel anything,” Ricky Bobby admitted. “I am still seeking to understand why you risked your life for me.”

  “Shut. Up,” Julianna told him. “If I tell you I’ll probably start crying, and that is just a mess in these helmets. I’ll have the “existential life questions” talk with you when we get back to a proper ship.”

  “I’m not proper?”

  “A carrier, you dolt,” she replied as she used the canopy to spin in space, turning upside-down and pulling herself into the cockpit. “That’s me settled. Let’s get some space from that wreck.”

  The nearby sun glinted off the aged and marred canopy as it started to close.

  A moment later Ricky Bobby spoke through his cockpit’s internal speaker for the first time. “Uh oh.”

  “What, uh oh?” Julianna looked around. “Shit, do we have a bad seal? It’s ok.” She tried to calm the AI. “I have suit air.”

  “No,” the AI responded, pulling away and heading toward the location of the other fighters of the squadron. “I just wanted to try out humor.”

  She chuckled. “Ricky Bobby, you can be such an ass.”

  —

  ADAM, keep an eye on those two. Make sure we don’t need to go help them again.

  >>Understood, Bethany Anne.<<<br />
  “Shinigami,” her voice grated on her vocal cords. Perhaps she should have chosen a different voice, but too late now. “When we are crossing the track, light us up to their sensors as we run perpendicular. I want to try to get them to jump into the minefield.”

  “Crossing in five, four, three, two … crossing. Turning on lo
cation emissions.”

  Twenty-nine ships came through the gate. By the time the Shinigami had crossed the safety zone, four were already out of the core killing area and turning to follow the black ship. The other twenty-five, including three of the Battleships, turned hard.

  Right into the maelstrom of a sun.

  “Fire all pBYPSs.” Bethany Anne sighed. Thousands of the miniaturized Etheric Energy Lasers which had been previously seeded in the system by her people opened fire. She noticed that a few seemed to explode on their own. “Make sure we are recording all we can. Looks like we haven’t figured out all the problems in manufacturing.”

  “Stop pBYPSs.” she said some thirty seconds later.

  Her ship’s EI updated her. “Twelve-point-two percent of the pBYPS system is still active. All others are spent.”

  “Yeah.” She leaned back in her chair. “Over fifty percent of those ships aren’t going to make it back home.” She looked at the four who had fired missiles behind her. “Go inactive and dodge the missiles, and take me out of range. Connect me to the Battleship’s captain.” She looked around as the ship disappeared from tracking and the missiles lost lock.

  “I wonder if he will be willing to see reason?” she asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Leath Battleship YahmaKaz

  The rage the captain felt was consuming him. “Fire all missiles!” he spat. He could see the destruction the Empire had wrought, and if he could kill this avatar of the Empress his people would be able to withstand a fight in the system.

  Provided they could bring the defensive platforms back online.

  The symbol of the enemy’s ship disappeared off his screen. “WHAT?” He looked around, annoyed. “Was she destroyed, or are we incapable of finding a ship so close to us?”

  “Not destroyed, sir,” Missiles reported. “All missiles are still accounted for, but they are aimed out into space.”

  Captain Mel’nij ground his teeth together in frustration. “Prepare to follow the fighters. They do not have jump capability, and when we take them out perhaps Baba Yaga will come to their aid, if she cares about her people enough before we kill them.”

  He turned in his seat. “Send the message to our ships: Those that can support others, do so. We four will continue the fight.”

  Captain Mel’nij’s eyes flicked to the main viewing screen to see an ink-black face with white hair and red eyes looking back at him. “Greetings, Captain of the Leath Battleship.” She spoke normally, not like she had just killed so many of his people.

  “You won’t get away with this!” Captain Mel’nij growled. “We have more than enough ships and firepower to support our people. This is merely a small setback!”

  “Captain Mel’nij, I’m not here to beat the Leath people, I’m here to eradicate an infestation by an alien group that is killing your people. Even now,” she dipped her head, “they are forcing you to try and kill me to hide the truth.”

  “What truth?” Captain Mel’nij asked. “I’ve seen your accusation that they are Kurtherians.”

  “And they are,” Baba Yaga replied.

  His hands opened and closed in frustration. “How do I know you are not just looking for a way to kill our leadership, so you can put your little human empress at the top, like what happened with the Yollins?” The coarse laughter surprised Captain Mel’nij. “What is so funny?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  Her smile, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth, didn’t make him feel any easier. “If you knew the Empress like I do, you would realize she doesn’t want to be in charge of a janitor, much less a whole new people and system.” She shook her head. “No, she wants peace with the Leath, stopping any more efforts to subjugate—or worse—other peoples and allow you to rule yourselves. Perhaps there are options for a united future, or perhaps there has been too much bloodshed to allow that. However, ruling the Leath is absolutely the last desire she has.”

  Her eyes flicked to something off screen, then back to him. “If your group does not stop trying to turn and go after my fighters, I will be forced to cease discussing options and destroy your last four ships.”

  He waved a hand. “We are out of your killing area,” he replied. His own eyes flicked to the sensors, wondering if the four of them were being pulled into a trap as well. His people never saw the small defensive nodes which fired lasers into their ships.

  “There is always more than one way to destroy, Captain.” He turned to look at her; she seemed annoyed. “And if my motherfucking Navy were where they were supposed to be at the time they were supposed to show up, I wouldn’t have to stall like an idiot. Admiral Thomas better get his ass in gear…” She paused, then her eyes lit up. “Oh, here they are.”

  “CAPTAIN!” Sensors called. “We have seven, no, twelve… Sir,” His Sensors Prime turned in his seat. “We have thirty-plus ships gating in near the fighters!” He turned back around. “Uh, sir?”

  Captain Mel’nij bit down on his impatience as he looked over. “Yes, Sensors?”

  He could almost hear Sensors trying not to squeak. “There are seven superdreadnoughts, sir.”

  “Seven?” he hissed. His own people had four, all of them in a nearby system and probably firing up to gate into the main Leath system for protection right now.

  Pound for pound, the Empire’s superdreadnoughts could take one of theirs, but it would come out crippled. With seven, he couldn’t hope to do them enough damage. “Where the hell did they get seven?”

  “Um, eight, sir.” Sensors seemed subdued. “We just had another gate in from a different direction.”

  Captain Mel’nij leaned back in his seat and looked at the ships arrayed against him. His people could use these four ships to help save those whose ships were still on fire. He looked up at the face his people detested. “Speak to me of peace, Witch of the Empire.”

  She nodded. “Will you agree to a surrender so that your people can be saved by not only your ships, but by ours as well?”

  The captain leaned forward. “You would do this?”

  The red eyes flashed. “One of these days you will understand that I am not against your people unless they disrespect mine. I will pursue the Seven until either they are dead, or I am. Do we have an agreement for surrender, Captain?”

  “We do,” he answered. He turned. “Command all ships: shut down weapons and active tracking. Focus on rescue of all personnel and cease all hostilities at this time.” He looked to his left. “Missiles, send destruction codes.”

  In the far distance, thirty-six missiles detonated in the cold of space.

  Planet Leath, Tienemehn, the Seven’s Private Area

  First of the Seven Levelot watched the video for a third time. Inside her Leath shell, she grimaced in annoyance as the previous Intelligence Prime’s video went across the planet, including up to the Space Stations. Fortunately, she had caught it early enough, and no more video traffic went out through the gates to their sister systems.

  And neither did the news reporters from those systems, either. She breathed in and out, trying to calm the feelings which she wasn’t sure were from her or the body she was inhabiting.

  Either way, the feelings were a disgrace.

  She reached up and tapped her lips on one side. She hated the upthrust tusks herself, and whenever she found a potential candidate they were required to saw off their tusks as a display of their obedience to the Seven. That way she was never bothered by having to do something like that once she decided to exchange her current organic vehicle for the next.

  She stood up and started walking toward the door.

  To all, it is time to transfer to a younger body. Make preparations immediately.

  The door to her suite opened and shut silently as she walked down the hallway toward the servants’ area.

  She had just the sacrifice in mind.

  K’llereck System

  Baba Yaga looked with annoyance at the image in her screen. It was a picture of her; well, Bethany Anne “her
.” “ArchAngel,” Baba Yaga spat.

  “Don’t issue a command I can safely ignore, Baba Yaga.” The AI smirked. “This is a Yollin Leviathan-Class superdreadnought. I can take a few hits and shrug them off. Hits that would destroy that pretty black paint.”

  “Not if they can’t see me,” Baba Yaga argued.

  Great, I’m having an argument with my-fucking-self, she thought.

  “I calculate a seventeen-percent chance you will come out of the gate with enough charge left on the outside that other ships will be able to attack. Besides,” the AI smirked again, “we are going through, so catch us if you can!”

  The screen shut off. Bethany Anne glanced to her right, where Ashur was chuffing in humor. “Keep it up, furball, and I’ll make you walk back to Yoll,” she grumped. “Where’s Matrix?”

  TOM replied. He is talking with the Yollin and human crew from the Trojan Horse, regaling them with stories.

  “Great, we have our own entertainer aboard,” she mumbled to herself.

  Bethany Anne ignored the sideways glance from Captain Ni’ers J’onghe. The stories he would be able to tell amused her. She hit the comm to connect with the strike team. “G’laxix Shphaea, tell me you are ready!”

  “Ready and willing, my Witch.” Kael-ven’s amusement was evident as he replied to Bethany Anne’s avatar.

  “Don’t make me ask the Empress to kick your ass back up to Vice-Admiral,” she ground out. Beside her she heard Captain Ni’ers coughing. Trying to cover up laughter, she supposed. “That would cut your fun pretty damned short.”

  “Wow, no need to be nasty, Baba Yaga,” Kael-ven came back quickly. “We are running through the gate right under the ArchAngel. We will go silent and get the team where they need to go.”

  “Good.” She cut off that connection and set up the next. “Dan, you there?”

  “Yes,” was his short reply. “We are ready to drop. Just smoking a bit, telling some jokes, getting old, and all that.”

  “Liar,” she replied. “See you on the surface. If your team can find my Leath contact, protect him as a priority. He should see the success of his efforts.”