Morgan's Choice (41 page)

“Hold on, Morgan. I’m coming.” Ravindra’s
baritone voice floated through the panic.

Her fingers were going numb. But if she
shifted her hand she would slip.

“Hold on.”

She heard him spring onto the pipe.

“Give me your hand. The other hand.”

She twisted, lifting her arm. He gripped,
sure and strong, around her wrist and pulled her up against his
body, balancing easily on the pipe. His arms held her tightly, his
cheek against her hair. She could feel the pounding of his heart.
She felt terrible, feverish. And foolish.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes. Thank you.” She risked a glance up at
him. “How did you get down?”

“Down the cable.” He pushed her away so he
could see her face, still with his arms around her waist. “Do not,
on any account, do something like that to me ever again.” His voice
was rough. “I thought I’d lost you.”

She’d thought so, too. “I’m sorry.”

“Now, do you know what must happen?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what I must do.”

He was right. She’d always been taught to use
the correct tool for a job. This time it was him. Besides, she was
still shaking. She showed him the spanner. “Each pipe has something
that fits this. Make sure all of them are down. Then make sure they
stay down. Fit one of these into each.”

“Hold onto the cable while I get this
done.”

Morgan did as she was told. Ravindra walked
sure-footed along each branch. First, shut down the raised valve.
Find the right key. Fit it. He’d fixed three when the one he hadn’t
fixed began to lift. He took out the spanner, forced the valve
down, and fitted the key. Then he put the key ring onto his
belt.

“How do we get back?” she said.

“You stay here. Keep hold of the hook. Better
still, hook your belt.”

He pulled himself back up the cable, hand
over hand. His strength and athleticism, after all they’d endured,
was amazing. When he reached the platform he had to edge himself
along to one of the rail supports to swing himself up. He slipped,
swinging down again onto his hands. Morgan held her breath.
Come on,
Ashkar
. He’d endured so
much because of her.

He rolled onto the platform. She sagged, legs
turned to jelly.

“Stand in the hook, Morgan.”

She took a deep breath and placed her foot
onto the curved metal, hands tight on the cable. The motor whirred
and the hook rose.

He was waiting, lying on the gantry to pull
her up. She scrambled over the railing and sat knees bent, wiping
sweat from her face.

He crouched in front of her and pushed her
hair back with gentle fingers. “When the ship realizes, there will
be trouble, I fear. We must escape, quickly. Can you find the hatch
back to the Starliner?”

“Yes.” Morgan consulted the mental map she’d
drawn as they traveled. “We’ll have to go up two levels and then
across. Let’s hope she’s still so distracted she’s forgotten about
us.”

He helped her up and into the cart. She drove
back up the corridor to the transit system, into the waiting car
and pressed for two levels up.

“
I’m surprised there are so few
Yogina
about,” he said.

She shrugged. “Artemis doesn’t need much
help. She runs the whole ship. The
Yogina
that are not warriors would only need to tend the warriors,
the food supply, that sort of thing. I suppose the warriors are on
their way to Krystor.”

They eased out of the transit car, looking
right and left into another empty corridor. Not far now. Still
nothing from Artemis. Maybe they’d got it all wrong. Maybe they’d
done nothing. She still felt the entity’s presence, like the
brooding heaviness in the atmosphere before a storm. Her skin
prickled with foreboding. She felt hot.

At last. The hatch. Ravindra recognized where
they were, jumped off the cart and went first, loping along easily
while she labored.

Artemis chuckled. In a way it was worse
than anger. “
You cannot escape. You cannot defeat me. My helpers will
remove the locks. Foolish, foolish.”

He reached the hatch to the airlock.
“
Mala
.”

Morgan pushed past him. The equalizer gauge
showed red. The bridge to the Starliner was gone.

Chapter
Forty-Seven

“Can you open this?” Ravindra said, pointing
at the airlock.

“No.” Morgan’s heart beat too fast. “I’m not
going to be able to shift it with a vacuum on the other side.”

“Is the Starliner still there?”

The Starliner. She felt with her mind. “Yes.
It hasn’t moved relative to Artemis.”

“Well then. We’ll have to find another way.
Where does Artemis launch her ships? It has to be nearby.” He
turned and went back to the corridor they’d come from.

“
Me first,” she said when they reached the
doorway. She pushed ahead of him. A troop of warriors passed her.
She ducked back inside. “
Yogina
.
But we can follow them to the hangar bays.” She didn’t add it would
be dangerous for him. He knew that.

“Good. Which way?”

She slipped out into the corridor and into
the driver’s seat of the cart. “Lie down in the back. They can’t
shoot me.” She hoped.

He did as he was told. She heard the little
warriors before she saw them, jogging along in two files, weapons
slung over their shoulders. They seemed intent, unaware of the
vehicle behind them. Soon enough they turned left, back toward the
perimeter of the ship.

A row of hatches appeared on both sides. The
double row of warriors halted at one hatch and the first file
stepped through, one at a time. She kept the vehicle back while
Ravindra peered over her shoulder.

“Airlocks?” he whispered.

“I think so.”

As soon as the last
Yogin
stepped into the hatch, Morgan moved the vehicle
forward. Ravindra leapt off the cart as the hatch began to slide
shut.

“Quick. Get in here.” He dived through the
gap.

Morgan battled the fogginess in her
mind.
I’ve
got to keep moving, got to get away.
The gap narrowed. She forced herself through into
a confined space long and high enough for the
Yogina
assault ship it contained. Just in time. The locks
thunked into place. Ravindra reached down from the top of the
assaults ship’s hull, took her hand and pulled her up next to
him.

“Activate your helmet.”

As soon as the helmet sealed, the suit’s air
supply activated. Sixty percent still in the tanks. It should be
enough. Pretty smart for a primitive, this admiral. This would get
them off Artemis. She hoped he had an equally good idea to get them
to the Starliner.

His lips jerked in a tight smile as he looked
at her through the helmet’s faceplate. He’d turned on the suit’s
audio. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Somehow the words were so
much easier to say now.

Her suit sensors reported vacuum outside.
This was it. The hatch at the assault ship’s bow opened outwards
like a flower. The ship floated forward.

The edge of the launch bay hung before her
eyes. There wasn’t enough clearance. They were going to be scraped
off. Heart bounding in her breast, she let go. Ravindra had,
too.

“It’ll be tight,” he said. “We have to get
out as soon as the ship clears or the bay doors will close. Tell me
when the end arrives.”

She tuned her eyes to see in infrared.

The assault ship moved beneath them, its
barely activated drive emission a soft glow to Morgan’s eyes. When
the red glow of the ship’s engines appeared beneath them, she said,
“Now.”

Ravindra took her arm in one hand and swung
himself out, grabbing the closing segments of the bay for extra
momentum. He kicked off against the assault ship’s hull, heading up
Artemis’s side.

Krystor appeared, a bloated ball against
the blackness of space. The planet looked so peaceful. It wasn’t;
it couldn’t be. Artemis was throwing more of her warriors into the
fray.
Vidhvansaka
,
outline thrown into stark relief by Krystor’s sun, hung in space
against the stars. She wondered where the other two frigates
were.

“Where is the Starliner?” His voice sounded
metallic in the suit.

She found the ship, connecting to its
computer systems. “A ways up there.”

Ravindra took out the
Yogina
weapon and fired down several times. “When those
assault ships accelerate, I’d like to be out of the direct line of
their emissions.”

Good point. The assault ship moved on,
joining a flotilla. A few moments and the ships powered away, off
to batter Krystor. The emissions buffeted them, pushing them closer
to Artemis’s side.

Ravindra used the beam weapon several times
so that they drifted parallel to Artemis’s flank. Did Artemis know
where they were? Perhaps. That pressure on her mind that Morgan had
felt since they had boarded the mother ship was still there.

The Starliner drifted ahead, glinting in
reflected light from Krystor. Morgan connected to the ship’s
systems and opened the external hatch. A few more bursts from
the
Yogina
weapon
and they were inside, floating in the darkness of the airlock. She
locked the external hatch and started the sequence to equalize the
air pressure. Nearly done. She heaved a sigh, feeling suddenly
weary, so very weary. Her head ached.

The hatch flashed green and they clambered
out onto the Starliner’s deck.

“
It’s not over yet, Morgan,” Ravindra said
as he removed his helmet. “Get moving and then contact
Vidhvansaka.
”

Yes Sir, three bags full,
Sir.
She dragged herself
up to the bridge and engaged engines while she scanned the
surroundings. The adrenalin must be wearing off. She felt,
basically, rotten and that presence still lurked in the corners of
her mind.

“Artemis isn’t attacking the capital ships.”
She opened the comms to the battle cruiser.

“No. She wants them to attack her. Right now,
that’s what I want, too.” He sat and the harness deployed over his
shoulders and legs.

“
Starliner, identify yourself”

She sent the sequence and added the passenger
list. Admiral Ravindra and Morgan Selwood. “You’re pretty confident
we did the job, then.”

Ignoring her, Ravindra picked up the
microphone. “This is Ravindra. Put me through to whoever is in
command.”

“
Admiral Ravindra? But… you’re
dead.”

“Do not waste my time. Put me through… now.”
His voice snapped with authority.

“
Switching to visuals.”

Ravindra scowled, his fingers beating a
tattoo on the arm rest.

After a few moments of delay for facial
recognition and to match retinal image, Captain Lomandra appeared,
eyes round. “
Srimana
.” He
opened and closed his mouth twice, then licked his lips. “Your
orders?”

“
Have the frigates stand off, full shield
power toward the alien vessel. You will hit the mother ship with
everything you have. I’ll head for the far side of
Vidhvansaka
and board when I
can.”

A stiff bow. “
Srimana
.”

The captain disappeared from the view
screen.

Artemis hung in space, an ominous
presence. Had her
Yogina
been able
to open the valves on the energy sink? Had they even closed the
right ones?

The frigates moved, pivoting away from the
alien vessel, their emissions glowing. Morgan pushed away a wave of
tiredness.

“We don’t have much time,” Ravindra said. “We
must be behind the battle cruiser when the energy sink
explodes.”

“Yeah.” She ramped up power to maximum and
checked the sensors. Artemis’s shields had begun to glow blue, a
shimmering haze all around the great ship. Tendrils were forming,
swaying like blown smoke. Toward their fleeing ship.

Fuck fuck fuck. And she was already weary.
A pulse pounded in her temple. “Hang on tight,
Srimana
. Looks like she’s lost patience with
us.”

She overrode the Starliner’s safety
constraints and pushed the ship into the red zone, ignoring the
alarms. The tendrils snaked out, searching for prey.
Vidhvansaka
grew larger. “Maybe we did
nothing. Or her attendants fixed the valves.”

Ravindra sat unmoved, outwardly calm, icy
cold. “Maybe. Or maybe this is the last vestige of the power she
collected when the frigates attacked. As I recall the blue tendrils
were much brighter when she destroyed
Ajagara
.”

His explanation was possible. But the
tendrils stretched closer and closer. The Starliner couldn’t go any
faster. Morgan’s heart couldn’t go any faster. Sweat gathered,
trickled down the side of her face. She would have to make sure the
Starliner was out of the way of the battle cruiser’s broadside,
too.

She engaged the top thrusters.

The Starliner changed direction, forcing her
body up into the harness. The blue tendrils dissipated, fell apart
above them.

Vidhvansaka
fired, a massive broadside of energy
beams, spitting bursts of blue energy that made Artemis’s tendrils
look like mist. They sizzled above the fleeing ship. Artemis’s
shields absorbed it all, sucking in the energy as though it had
never been.