Wedged into a chair at the main engineering console in the Pearl’s engine room, Jodi was managing to hold out, minute by minute. She had been asleep in the sickbay when Thorella came aboard, and the transition to flight had awakened her. She had called out for Nicole, for the others, but no one had come. Thank the Lord of All, she thought, that she had not used the ship’s intercom. That would have brought Thorella right to her.
No, she had sensed that something was wrong, and had managed to pull herself out of her bunk and crawl to a monitor. From there, she could view the cockpit. It took her a long time to be sure that she would not scream at the sight of the thing that sat at the controls. Not long after that, she decided to act.
The first thing she had to do was to get out of sick bay and find a place that would be relatively safe if Thorella decided to prowl around. The second was to find a way to neutralize whatever threat he might pose to both her and the others, wherever they might be. After a moment’s consideration, her knowledge of the Golden Pearl led her to the engineering section all the way aft as the best place to fulfill both requirements. After that, she only had to figure out a way to get there.
It did not take her long to realize that she would never make it on her own. Now separated from the autodoc, the pain that poured into her brain was agonizing, and it was only sheer willpower and a badly bitten tongue that kept her from crying out, perhaps letting Thorella know that he was not alone on this ship.
As she lay panting, trying to rally some strength, she remembered the ship’s complement of service drones. Carried by many starships, such drones were the ship’s handymen, performing many of the more monotonous maintenance tasks. They were neither aesthetically attractive nor particularly intelligent, but they more than made up for it in brute strength and reliability.
Pulling herself back up to the ship’s comm console, Jodi waited for the pain to subside again before she began entering the commands that she hoped would bring one of the machines to her without attracting unwanted attention. A sailor would pay no attention to a passing drone, subconsciously knowing that the machine was merely setting off to check on some subsystem or other. A psychotic Marine, however, might take more notice.
Minutes passed as Jodi fought to keep from passing out, waiting for the drone to arrive. She had no way from this panel to monitor its progress; besides, she was more interested in keeping an eye on what Thorella was doing, which was, mercifully, nothing. For the moment.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, she was rewarded with the smooth humming of a drone entering sick bay, obediently coming to a stop in front of the chair where she had been sitting, waiting.
With another burst of effort, Jodi managed to drape herself over the boxy machine’s back, its impellers instantly compensating for her weight.
“Engineering,” she gasped, ignoring the flecks of blood that flew from her lips.
With nothing in the form of acknowledgment, the drone retraced its path out of the room and silently headed aft, hauling her along with it.
Once in engineering, the first thing Jodi had done after locking the door behind her was to make sure that Thorella could not communicate with the outside world. She had no idea what he was up to, why he was on this ship, but she had no intention of letting him get into more trouble – or causing any. Then she disabled his maneuvering controls. That took a while, during which she heard Tony Braddock’s fleet broadcast.
His voice and his words told him that Nicole must be all right, too. The thought made her feel better, but it did nothing to improve her health. She was bleeding again, inside. And there was no autodoc here to help her.
Jodi watched with grim amusement as Thorella lost himself in depression at Braddock’s words. To see him crushed, defeated, was a small victory, enough to bring a smile to her battered face, and with that accomplished, her body demanded rest, and she passed out into dark oblivion.
She woke up some time later to see him tinkering with a strange black case that he had found, and she was instantly worried by the change in his demeanor. She should not have been afraid, she told herself, because he could not access any of the ship’s systems from outside this compartment, and there was no way he could get in here without blowing through the hardened bulkhead.
“What are you doing, you bastard?” she whispered as she watched his fingers fly over the console that was revealed to be inside the case. “What is that thing?”
A pair of flashing lights on the control panel suddenly caught her attention: TORPEDOES ARMED, the display said.
“Wait just a minute,” she hissed. “Computer,” she barked, “weapons status?”
“All weapons under local control are in standby mode,” the synthesized female voice answered smugly. “No targets designated, no–”
“Then why are the torpedo status lights showing that they’re armed?”
“Torpedo tubes one and two are not under local control,” the computer answered as if Jodi were an idiot.
“Then who controls them?” Jodi felt a bead of sweat slip down her back.
“That information is classified.”
“Do tubes one and two have targets?” she asked, frantic now as she watched the status display changed from simply armed to ready.
“Affirmative.”
“What are the targets?” Jodi yelled at the console.
“That information is classified.”
“Goddammit,” Jodi shouted helplessly, “what the fuck isn’t classified?”
“Tubes one and two were reloaded with unserialized weapons while we were docked with Warspite,” the machine answered suddenly.
“What weapons?” Jodi asked. “Special weapons? What kind?”
“That information is–”
“Shut up!” Jodi shouted angrily. “Show me a theoretical torpedo trajectory based on current ship’s vector and torpedo launcher alignment.” She could not get the computer to tell her what the real target was, but maybe she could dupe it into giving it to her anyway.
“One moment.” And then the holo screen showed the sector of space near the sun. A red line arced out from the icon that was the yacht, following a trajectory right into the sun.
“What the hell…” Jodi whispered to herself. Suddenly, she understood. She had heard the tales, but had never believed them until now. Kryolon warheads. And Thorella controlled them. Her blood turned to ice in her veins.
“Computer,” she ordered, “shut down all power to weapons–”
The ship shuddered. Again.
“Torpedoes one and two away,” the computer announced cheerfully. “Power-down to weapons systems commencing… Completed. Weapons successfully powered down.”
Too late! Jodi cursed herself. On the holo display, the two weapons followed the computer’s projected course with unsurprising precision.
There was only one thing left for her to do now, she thought. It would no doubt cost her life, but there was no choice. She reactivated the datalink, hoping that Thorella would not catch on until it was too late.
“All ships, all ships, this is the Golden Pearl…”
“Weapons launch!” Sandhurst’s tactical officer cried, his eyes following the trajectories of two torpedoes launched from the small ship trailing behind the rest of the retreating fleet. For the last hectic forty minutes – it had seemed like hours – his primary job had been to keep human ships from firing on Kreelan ones, and for the most part he had been successful.