Killbox (Sirantha Jax 4)

“How old is that bounce?”

A brief delay, then Rose answers, “Four hours, LC.”

Shit. Mary help us, it’s going to be tight. I hope they have good SDIs, the kind with weapons, shields, and titanium plating.

“Wake Commander March and get him up here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

On my own, I start powering up the phase drive. I want to be ready for jump the minute he slides his ass into the pilot’s chair. Then I bring up the star charts and start making the necessary translations, grimspace to straight space.

We’re here. Need to be there. Got it.

By the time March arrives at a dead run, still buttoning up his shirt, I’m ready to go. His hair is standing on end, but I don’t kill valuable time ribbing him about his dishevelment. As he sits down, I jack in.

His presence floods the nav com when he joins me. Since he just woke up, there are no partitions in place yet. He’s tumbled, inside and out.

Miss you.

Want you.

Love you, Jax.

The feelings deluge me, evoking a shudder. Mary, his loneliness hurts. Surely this qualifies as cruel and unusual. Just when I think I can’t bear to see any more of his quiet, private grief, he shuts it down. Iron curtain.

I expect him to acknowledge the lapse. Instead he offers, Don’t jump us right on top of Dobrinya. Put us out of sensor range.

Ambush? I guess.

That—and we can’t let them know we have a direct-jump-capable ship. If they find out, every Morgut vessel in the universe will receive our ion trail and come gunning for us.

I shiver again. I’ll take care of it.

The phase drive is already humming at capacity, and we’re good to go. This time, surrender comes easy. The drive roars through me, twisting into the nav com, and as one, we pull the ship into grimspace.

Heat pours through me, a volcanic mountain of it, but thanks to the neural blockers and the filter of the implant, I only experience a fraction of it, then I’m home. Magic. Chaos. Grimspace blazes to life inside my veins. Could be my imagination, but I swear each time I do a direct jump like this, using my body as the conduit, the magnetism in my blood gets a little stronger, like I could touch the view screen and alter the patterns swirling in such luscious, hypnotic hues.

But there’s never time to experiment when we pass through. We’re always on the way to somewhere else, where we’re needed urgently. Nobody ever comes to sightsee in grimspace, for good reason.

Dobrinya asteroid. But not too close. Minute calculations. Then I find the nearest beacon and look through. For an infinitesimal moment, it’s as though I can see in four dimensions, both where I am and where I need to be.

Easier, this time—practice really does make perfect. The phase drive responds to my call, and March inputs the commands that result in our arrival at the spot in grimspace from which we need to jump. Once more, we pass through in fire burning white-hot beneath my skin. I feel as though I could shoot lightning from my eyes.

Despite my customary shakiness, I unplug quickly. I don’t want him in my head any more than he has to be.

He’s already checking our coordinates. “This is perfect. We’ll be there in less than ten minutes, but they won’t see us coming until it’s too late. Will you be ready on lasers by the time we need you?”

I nod. “Ten minutes will do fine.”

With trembling fingers, I route the lasers to the cockpit and engage the targeting array. My aim will be for shit if we’re jumped right now, but I should steady up soon. To aid that, I breathe slowly and steadily, trying not to think about what lies before us.

Three Morgut ships.

Even if we take them by surprise, the odds don’t look good. The asteroid Dobrinya seems to grow larger as we close the distance, an enormous dun rock with orange striations, and bits of ice on its extremities. Trenches scar the surface, deep, dark pits wherein bots labor to bring forth the ore.

This is all that remains of Dobrinya’s moon.

Once, eons ago, it had a twin, but there was a collision, which caused a cataclysmic event. Life has not yet re-evolved to humanoid levels on planet, though Fugitive scientists found ruins with incredibly ancient technology. Some historians claim that the ones who seeded the galaxy, the ones who built the beacons, came first from Dobrinya. That’s about all I recollect from my universal history at the Academy.

The outpost clings to the top of the asteroid like an ant colony, a scrabble of buildings and machinery. Why anyone would choose to live this way escapes me, but obviously there’s money to be made. Someone has to sell the provisions and take care of cargo freighters that dock to carry away the ore. Someone has to provide goods and services to the maintenance crews who keep the place running.

“Computer, what do they mine here?” The question makes me miss Constance.

“Searching.” The vast lack of personality in its monotone reply makes me miss her even more. “Uranium,” it returns shortly.

Constance would’ve done a little thinking, tried to add that to what we know about the Morgut attacks and assimilate a pattern from it. Without her unusual autonomy, our ship can only offer exactly what we ask for, leaving us to connect the dots.

“Nanites and uranium,” I say aloud.

March follows my train of thought. “That doesn’t add up to anything good.”

“Definitely not.”

Nanites are used to perfect and improve biological organisms. Uranium is a high-powered fuel. The two together? I have the itchy feeling the Morgut are working on a hybrid; some kind of biomechanical intelligence that requires both. And if they succeed, it will go the worse for us. Because they’re already kicking our asses without such an advantage. Otherwise, I wonder why they want Evelyn Dasad so bad. And why are they interested in stockpiling uranium?

The lasers are fully charged, but I need to make sure the targeting array is ready. Peering through to check its resolution, I spot trouble. A cold chill washes over me.

“On-screen, zoom in at 18.44.” I name the angle I’m looking at. “Five times magnification.”

“They’re through the minefield,” March says.

“And if I’m not mistaken, they’ve taken out at least one of the SDIs. It’s hanging dead and blasted, clearing a narrow trajectory to the outpost. Based on the scrap, it looks like they still took heavy damage coming in.” He nods, acknowledging my find. “If you angle a bit more . . .” I watch as he does. “You can see where they landed.”

Three ships.

They look disabled. It’ll take time to get them flight-worthy again. I know all about crash landings. If Mary is merciful and kind, there will have been Morgut casualties.

“Which means they’ve got no choice but to stay awhile, whatever they intended.”

CHAPTER 37

Dina’s voice breaks the silence. “What did I miss? The cannons are hot.”

“I don’t think that’s going to do us any good,” March answers.

I know as well as he does that it might be too late. Can we justify landing when that means risking the whole ship? March is the lynchpin of the war effort. If anything happens to him, the Conglomerate will never be able to replace him in time.

“Why not?”

“Check the settlement,” I say.

She’s clever; she’ll see what I mean.

“Shit.” Her dismay is palpable. “Are there any survivors?”

“We should try to find out before we put down.”

That’s new. Once, March would’ve landed without question, but he realizes what’s at stake as well as I do. We can’t rush to the rescue unless there’s some surety we’ll do more than expose ourselves to the Morgut for the dubious benefit of burying the dead.

I suggest, “We’re close enough for direct comm link. Let’s see if anyone answers.”

March tries several frequencies, cycling through all available channels. Toward the high end, we receive a reply. “Triumph? Thank Mary! You got our message. The Morgut are inside the facility, and they’re getting close.”

So there are survivors. That’s torn it, then. We’ll be putting down on asteroid Dobrinya, whether it’s wise or not.

“Give us your location,” March instructs. “We’re sending a team to help you.”

“Transmitting coordinates. I can also program the SDIs to let you pass from here.”

I study the terrain rising before us as the ship descends. “What kind of resistance can we expect?”

“Heavy. We didn’t fight. When we saw they’d breached our defenses, we fell back immediately. The only thing saving us is the fact that our complex is a series of prefab tubular buildings, connected via a series of vacuum locks and pressure doors.”

“In case of a breach,” Dina guesses.

I surmise the rest. “So there’s no atmosphere on the asteroid.”

“Correct. You’ll need to wear suits in passing from your ship to the facility.”

March has been studying the coordinates. “You’ve taken shelter in underground storage?”

“Yes. There’s machinery kept down here, but it was also dug to shield us from the worst of the tremors. The asteroid isn’t entirely stable.”

“Lovely,” Dina mutters.

“We’ll liberate you as soon as we can,” March tells him. “Keep this channel open in case you need us while we’re on the move.”

There’s no conversation while he lands. March needs all his concentration because there isn’t a nav com on the other end, assisting and providing trajectory. I remember all too well another crash on Marakeq, but he doesn’t repeat the mishap. We land as smooth as can be expected on a rock like Dobrinya.

“I’ll meet you at the hatch,” Dina says.

Normally, the captain would stay on the ship, but March has the most ground-combat experience. He won’t remain safely on board while his men take all the risks. If I know anything about him, I know this.

“Squad one, report to the disembarkation chamber.” Turning to me, he adds, “You have the ship, LC.”

My brows go up. “Excuse me? Sir.”

“You’re not going with us. We can’t afford to lose you.”

Is he being professional here? If I stay behind, he’ll give me the satisfaction of the real reason why.

“Any navigator can be upgraded if they’re willing to sign off on the risk,” I say coolly. “You have Argus on board. I’m sure he’d agree to more gene therapy to deliver the cations, so even were I killed in action, the fleet would not lose its advantage permanently. The same cannot be said of you, sir.”

“Are you refusing a direct order?”

“I’m merely pointing out the fallacy in your logic, Commander. Through technology and gene therapy, I am expendable. Your combat experience and your leadership abilities cannot so easily be replaced. Therefore, by your logic, you should remain on ship, and I should lead this mission as next ranking officer.”

Unless you’re speaking of yourself as the royal collective, unless it’s you who can’t bear to lose me. Break your rule. Say it out loud, and I’ll stay behind.