After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, Ortiz and her Marines managed to herd the hundreds of civilians to the airlock deck. The greatest challenge then was to keep them from stampeding to get aboard Leander.
"What are we going to do with them all?" Walker asked as she met up with Ortiz beside the entrance to the airlock. Eustus, Davis, and Stalin were with her, while the other Marines kept the passengers from getting out of hand.
Ortiz shook her head. "Does the captain have any idea how many he can take aboard?"
"I haven't heard anything from the bridge, but they're still taking people on."
Walker scowled. "I'm not sure where we're supposed to fit."
"We're probably going to have to hitch a ride on one of the other ships," Ortiz said with a sigh.
Castle, who stood nearby shepherding passengers into the airlock, turned and gave her a pained expression. "Aww, man."
"Hope you locked up all your loot," Ortiz told him with a grin. "I wouldn't want to think about all these civvies pawing through your porn stash."
"If someone so much as touches—"
He was cut off by shouts and screams as a huge chunk of wreckage tumbled into sight through the viewports, arcing over the upper hull of the Venetian Star to crash into Leander just aft of the bridge, breaking the ship's back. More wreckage, ranging in size from golf balls to battle tanks, slammed into the corvette, piercing her hull and venting dozens of compartments to space.
Frozen with horror, Ortiz watched as her ship, her home, bent and twisted like a toy being torn apart in the hands of an invisible giant. Plumes of air streamed from rents in the hull, carrying crewmen, civilians, and everything else that wasn't fastened down, into vacuum. Titanic electrical discharges arced from the engineering spaces, momentarily joining the fore and aft sections of the ship with cyan fire as Leander continued to break apart, incinerating anything that got in the way. An explosion erupted from the torpedo room as one or more of the torpedoes ruptured in their launch tubes, blasting the forward section of the ship away from the stricken liner and taking the flex-dock, which was packed with screaming passengers, along with it.
The passengers still in line to get aboard recoiled to the inboard side of the passageway as those trapped on the stretching flex-dock whirled around and tried to retreat back to the Venetian Star.
"Close the airlock," Ortiz heard herself say, unable to believe that the words were coming from her own lips. Her heart was a block of ice, hammering in her chest.
"Lieutenant," someone cried, "we can't!"
The dock continued to stretch and stretch as the forward section of the corvette moved away, and Ortiz could hear the groan of metal at the outer door of the airlock, which was full of panicking people trying to get back aboard the liner.
She raised her voice, both on the radio and on the PA system above the cacophony of terrified screams. "Close the airlock!"
As the other Marines stood, frozen by the horror of what they'd been ordered to do, Stalin went to Castle and took his rifle. Then the big NCO stepped forward to the inner door of the airlock, brutally shouldering aside the passengers in his way. Bringing up the assault rifle, he fired point blank into the mass of passengers trying to push their way back aboard. Men, women, and children died under the withering fire of his weapon as he emptied his entire magazine, a full hundred rounds, into them, and his expression registered no more emotion than if he had been shooting targets on the firing range. Then, kicking the bodies that were lying in the doorway clear, ignoring the pleas of the passengers who were still trapped in the flex-dock and the wreckage of the Leander, he strode through the blood pooling on the deck and hit the control to close the inner airlock door.
An instant later the flex-dock tore free and began to whip back and forth like a loose fire hose, spraying a torrent of bodies into space as the remains of Leander tumbled away.
After handing the rifle back to Castle, Stalin turned to Ortiz. She still stood like a statue, staring at the nightmare tableaux beyond the hull. He took her arm in an almost gentle grip. "We go now."
"You fucking bastard," someone whispered into the terrible silence that had fallen on the survivors, just before the Venetian Star itself reeled under the impact of a cloud of debris from the ongoing battle.
***
Reza witnessed the catastrophe of Leander's demise through his second sight, and it sufficiently disturbed him that he would have suffered a serious injury from one of the attacking warriors had not the deck under their feet suddenly shook as if struck by an earthquake. He focused his full attention to the here and now, for he needed no special senses to know that the starliner was suffering damage that would soon leave it completely untenable. If Ortiz, Eustus, and the others had been able to make their way safely off the ship, he would have been content to continue the Challenge. But now...
"Kazh!" he ordered as the latest group of warriors fighting him regained their balance. They immediately lowered their swords and stood tall, heads bowed. Striding to where Sai-Kel lay on the deck, badly wounded, he knelt beside her. "You will gather your warriors and leave this ship."
"The Challenge..." she said with difficulty, a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth, "...it is not yet complete."
Reza took her hand and held it. "All of you have brought Her great honor this day, but I would not have your lives wasted needlessly aboard this hulk." The ship shuddered again as it was struck by a large piece of debris, driving the warriors to their knees, and Reza heard the tell-tale high pitched squeal of air escaping.
She held his hand tighter. "And what of you, priest of the Desh-Ka?"
"Fear not for me," he said gently. Letting go of her hand, Reza stood up. Rendering Sai-Kel a salute, he said, "May thy Way be long and glorious." To the others, he ordered, "Take her and yourselves to safety. You will fight for Her honor and glory another day. Go."
The survivors knelt and saluted him. Then a quartet of warriors carefully took Sai-Kel in their arms and led the other warriors in the direction of the bow.
Rendering a final salute and silent prayer for the dead who remained behind, Reza visualized through his second sight a particular access way several decks below, then vanished into thin air.
***
After hammering in frustration on yet another damage control door that had just slammed shut, Walker turned around "We're cut off! The other side is depressurizing."
The Marines and the surviving passengers now found themselves trapped in a hundred foot long section of passageway. The pressure door behind them, which led back through several twists and turns to the starboard side airlock, had slammed shut a few moments earlier. They were trapped.
"Dammit," Ortiz hissed. "Chasseur," she called over the radio to the destroyer, which was still alongside, "this is Ortiz. We..." She gulped as she stared at the nearest holographic display of the ship's deck plan. "We need some help to reach you. All the passageways we need to reach the port side are in vacuum, and we've got a hell of a lot of passengers without suits or beach balls. If a team could set up a temporary airlock and bring us a big pile of beach balls, we might be able to get these people out of here. "
"Wait one." That was the voice of the ship's XO, with whom she'd been trying to coordinate their escape.
A different voice came on after a brief pause. "Ortiz, this is Captain Somerville. I can appreciate your situation, but we've overstayed our welcome. The ship's already sustained damage from debris and, in case you haven't noticed, the task force is still engaged." He paused. "You've got five minutes, lieutenant. Then we're pulling out. I can't risk losing the hundreds of passengers we've already crammed aboard, not to mention my crew."
Ortiz felt like throwing up. "Five minutes? Sir, there's no way we can get to you in that time with all these civilians!"
"You can't save everyone," Somerville said in an agonized voice. "But maybe you can save yourselves. Whatever you decide, you'd better get moving. Somerville, out."
She turned to face Stalin. He and the others hadn't been privy to her conversation with Somerville, but he knew from her ashen expression what the captain must have told her.
Stalking to the damage control door, he pushed Walker out of the way and reached for the override that would force it open. The passageway beyond was the shortest route to the Chasseur, and opening that door would kill every one of the civilians.
"No!" Ortiz raised her pistol, pointing it at Stalin's back, her finger already tensing on the trigger.
The civilians just behind her yelped and jumped back. That caught Stalin's attention, as well as her own. She looked up in time to see the tip of a gleaming blade slicing through the ceiling, carving out a near-perfect square as big across as a large man's shoulders.
"Move back!" she shouted just before the section of ceiling, which was made of metal and carbon fiber lattice half a meter thick, crashed to the deck.
A blood-streaked face peered down at her from the deck above.
"Reza!" Eustus whooped.
"Where the hell have you been?" Ortiz said, shaking her head.
"Later," Reza told her. "We can reach the other ship, but we must move quickly."
"There's no point," Ortiz told him. "The captain gave us five minutes before they abandon us. We'll never make it, and certainly won't be able to get everyone to climb up there in time."
"Have faith, lieutenant," he told her. "Now do as I ask. Quickly. Post the Marines at intervals beside the civilians, with two here, and have them engage the mag locks on their boots. Then have the civilians hold hands."
The Marines did so without being asked, and the passengers formed a chain.
"Wait a moment," Reza said before ducking out of sight.
Turning to Eustus, Ortiz said, "What's he doing?"
"Beats me — oh, crap!"
The artificial gravity suddenly cut out.
"Lieutenant, Eustus, jump up here!"
After switching off his mag locks, Eustus followed Ortiz through the hole.
"Help the passengers up here. We must guide them up to the shopping mall, then across to the destroyer," Reza told them.
"We still won't make it," Ortiz said, glancing at the life support panel that stood open. Reza had cut the circuits controlling the artificial gravity in this part of the ship. "We can't move fast enough."
Reza smiled. "Have faith. But we must hurry."
Ortiz barked the necessary orders, and the train of passengers was handed up through the hole. Eustus took the first one, an older man, by the hand and began to lead him after Reza, who stood at the far end of the passageway in a junction. Behind him stood another closed pressure door. As Eustus watched, Reza shoved his sword through the metal as if it were paper and air began to whistle as it escaped into the vacuum on the far side. Reza widened the hole just enough that an artificial wind began to gently carry the passengers toward him faster than Eustus could keep up.
"Let them come!" Reza called. "And get a pair of Marines up here. We must..." He had to search a moment for the word. "...leapfrog to our destination."
"I get it," Ortiz said in admiration. She still didn't think they'd get to Chasseur in time, but they might at least have a chance. She quickly barked out her orders to get the Marines leapfrogging ahead.
As the lead passengers, who were caught between gratitude at Reza's help and fear at his appearance, reached him, he again drew his sword and cut a hole leading to the deck above them and led the passengers along.
Like an enormous worm, the ungainly line wriggled its way through the ship, quickly picking up the pace as the Marines came to understand what Reza was doing. He would punch a hole in a door or wall to direct the airflow, which in turn would carry the passengers along like balloons. Then, once the hole was no longer needed, a Marine would cover it with a suit patch.
Ortiz reflected that it would have been fun had they not been running, figuratively speaking, for their lives.
As they reached the shopping mall deck, Reza drifted back to her position, now at the head of the passenger "train."
"Tell them they need not be afraid of what they see here," he told her. "They need not fear the dead."
Before Ortiz could ask any questions, he led her into the open mall.
"Holy shit," she breathed. Blood was spattered and pooled across a near perfect circle, roughly fifty meters across, at the center of the plaza. Along the edges were dead Kreelan warriors, laid out with mechanical precision like the spokes of a wheel, their heads (most were still attached to the bodies, some were not) pointing toward the center. "There are at least fifty of them here."
"Sixty-two," Reza said in a sad voice. "Come, lieutenant. We cannot delay."
Grabbing his arm, Ortiz asked, "You did all this?"
He nodded.
"Jesus." She favored him with a frightened look before turning away to face the passengers.
Reza heard the words she spoke to the civilians, but his eyes remained on the warriors who had fallen. He could see with his second sight Sai-Kel and the other warriors, waiting for the human ships to depart before they themselves left this hulk behind.
"Are you all right?" Eustus asked.
"I am not badly injured," Reza told him. "Do not concern yourself."
"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."
Reza nodded, but in his heart he was not so sure. He was not distraught over the deaths of the warriors, for that was part of their Way, and his. What bothered him more was the look of fear in Ortiz's eyes. She had just begun to trust him, but how could one truly trust someone that you would never understand? What would she think if she ever witnessed his true powers? "I will be fine," he told his friend, "in time."
"Let's get this show on the road," Ortiz said, and Reza led them onward.
***
"There it is!" Ortiz felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders as she dropped down the last deck through another hole Reza had cut with his sword. Before her was the port side airlock. She checked her chronometer: more than five minutes had passed, but the Chasseur was still there. "Thank you, Captain Somerville," she breathed. "I'll marry you and have your children."
A pair of Chasseur's Marines stood beside the entrance to the airlock. "Hurry your asses up!" one of them shouted over his suit's PA system.
Stalin and Walker took up positions on either side of the hole, with Ortiz to one side. As the passengers dropped through, still in zero gee, the two Marines propelled them toward the airlock, and the Chasseur's Marines guided them into the flex-dock.
Ortiz was momentarily blinded by a flash that lit up the space beyond the viewports as Chasseur fired on something with one of her main batteries. A second later the Venetian Star, which was already a groaning, hissing pile of distressed metal and plastic, shuddered again as a tumbling mass of wreckage, clearly Kreelan this time, slammed into her.
Marines and passengers were sent tumbling about as the destroyer's pilot desperately tried to match the tumbling motion of the stricken liner to keep the flex-dock from tearing away.
"The ship's going to cut loose!" cried one of the Chasseur's Marines who, with his companion, was turning to head into the flex-dock.
"No, wait!" Ortiz shouted. Cursing under her breath, she called the ship's captain. "Captain Somerville! If you close the inner door of your airlock and start depressurizing it, but leave the outer door open, you can just suck all the passengers across the flex-dock!"
"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard," came the captain's tense voice, "but we'll give it a try. Stand by."
"Come on!" Ortiz shouted to her Marines. "Get those people through the goddamn airlock!"
"This is like herding cats," she heard Davis mutter as he grabbed a man and woman who were crying like children and, using the leverage of his mag-locked boots, tossed them toward the entrance to the flex-dock.
Another set of blinding flashes came from the muzzles of Chasseur's main guns, and Ortiz desperately tried to blink away the afterimages burned into her retinas.
A whistling roar came through the flex-dock as the captain did as she'd suggested.
It worked: the pressure differential between the Venetian Star and the destroyer's airlock worked like a vacuum cleaner, dragging the passengers down the clear, flexible tube.
There was only one problem: not all the passengers could fit in the airlock at once. Not even close.
"Pack everyone into the dock," Ortiz shouted, "then pack yourselves in after 'em!" Once everyone was in the dock, which had its own hatch on this end that could be closed to seal air in the tube, they could all cycle through the lock at the far end. It would leave Chasseur vulnerable until they had everyone inside the ship, but it would keep everyone breathing in the meantime.
Stalin just laughed as he lobbed more passengers through the airlock. "You think we will live? Look." He nodded toward the airlock control panel.
It was dark. The airlock had no power.
Ortiz closed her eyes and shook her head. In all his butchery of the decks to get them here, which in a few cases had involved rather impressive displays of electrical arcing, Reza must have accidentally severed the power conduits for the port side airlock. The flex-dock, which had its own hatch at the docking end, couldn't mate with — or detach from — an airlock that had no power, because both ships were involved in the physical and electronic "handshake" for safety reasons. The dock would have to be released manually from inside the Venetian Star's airlock, which meant someone would have to stay behind.
"I'll take care of it," she said to herself in a tired voice.
The last of the passengers sailed by, and the Marines followed close behind. Stalin paused to give her a long look. She nodded. As he returned the gesture, she thought she saw a trace of sympathy in the Georgian's eyes. Then he was gone.
Walker passed by, giving Ortiz a squeeze on her arm. She bent forward to put her helmet in touch with Ortiz's. "Godspeed, el-tee," she whispered.
"You, too," Ortiz rasped. "Now get out of here." Something else crashed into the ship, and the destroyer's close-in defense lasers rapid fired at smaller chunks of debris that vanished in a fireworks show that might in other circumstances have been considered beautiful.
"We're the last ones," Eustus panted as he came up to her, Reza beside him. "Let's go, lieutenant."
Shaking her head, wishing she could be that green and ignorant again, she said, "Get your ass out of here, Camden." Taking him by the arm, she flung him into the maw of the flex-dock.
Last was Reza. Captain Somerville was shouting something at her, but she ignored him. "I would've liked to get to know you better, Gard. Take good care of your—hey!"
With one hand, he grabbed her combat harness, tore her free of the deck where her mag-locks had anchored her, and sent her sailing after Eustus. Ignoring her curses, he slashed open the panel covering the manual door mechanism and closed the outer airlock door. He waited until he heard the lock at the end of the flex-dock close.
He heard Eustus pounding and screaming on the other side of the now-closed doors, and put his hand to the metal, wishing he could reassure his friend. "Do not fear on my account," Reza said softly. "I will join you soon."
Then he triggered the manual release, letting the flex-dock separate from the dying starliner. Moving to one side, he watched as the destroyer pulled away, the tube trailing along its flank. The crew quickly cycled everyone into the ship before it jettisoned the lock and accelerated away.
With a quick check through his second sight to make sure his sisters in the bow had also made their escape, he closed his eyes and reached out to the Chasseur, wondering what his human companions would make of the bit of magic they were about to witness.
He vanished into the ether as the Venetian Star's port reactor went critical, vaporizing what was left of the ship.
***
Sai-Kel and the surviving warriors sailed through space in tight formation, protected by their energy bubbles. They normally did not use such advanced technology when facing humans, but Reza's command to save themselves had left nothing to their discretion. Once they reached the bow, they activated the bubbles, then launched themselves through the hull of the ship, the bubbles searing through the metal as if it did not exist.
Not long after they had departed the stricken vessel, it had vanished in a titanic explosion. Debris and radiation had washed over the warriors, but the bubbles were impervious to such trivial assaults.
They watched in wonder as the battle raged on between their sisters and the humans, what their eyes perceived merging with the emotions they felt in the Bloodsong. The humans would emerge victorious from this battle, as they often did, for the Empress willed it so. Her Children could not bring Her glory if they defeated the enemy too soon.
At last, it was over, and the surviving human ships departed. Not long after, a ship came to search for survivors, for leaving Her Children to die in the dark of space was not in keeping with the Way.
As it pulled along side, its great flanks bearing the runes proclaiming its name — the Kai'lan-Da — Sai-Kel smiled. It would be a great honor for her last words to reach the ears of the one who commanded this ship.
Her sisters pulled her inside, for Sai-Kel was very weak now, near death. The warriors made to take her to the healers, but Sai-Kel refused, instead ordering them to carry her to the bridge. They lay her at the feet of the one in command, a great warrior who had been the First of an even greater warrior.
"Syr-Kesh," Sai-Kel whispered as the older warrior knelt beside her and took her hand, just as Reza had.
"A healer must attend you," Syr-Kesh, who had been First to Tesh-Dar, high warrior priestess of the Desh-Ka, told her in an urgent voice.
"No," Sai-Kel said with a smile as her body began to fall away. "For Her glory...I would die...at his hand."
Leaning closer, Syr-Kesh asked, "At whose hand?"
Just before she fell into the warmth and light of the Afterlife, Sai-Kel whispered, "Reza."
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Last updated 09/12/201613:02 EST