Excalibur Read online

  The last of the scavengers dropped his weapon and stood, raising his arms. Albion pulled the trigger and blasted a hole in his chest. Wide-eyed, the man stared for a moment, unbelieving, and then collapsed.

  “Mercy, they name is not Albion,” Lyana muttered, making a show of leaning away from the captain as she spoke.

  “Like they’d have shown us any if their mosquitos had scuttled the Excalibur.”

  Ares drew his legs in and scuttled into position near the door. Crate still stood outside, staring in, eyes narrowed at the mess.

  “Next time, can I request you spill less blood on the consoles?” He’d never been much of a fighter, but his technical wizardry was what Albion had brought him along for.

  “Just get in here and plug in. I wanted the ship’s logs and system files uploaded to the Excalibur before we leave this heap to rot.”

  “I say we torch it,” Lyana said. “Why leave it for another scavenger to stumble across?”

  “I agree.” Randall nodded.

  “At least you’re smart enough to take her side only when I agree, too.” Albion gestured toward the doors. “You two go make yourself useful and track down the plas-stones. Take Ares with you.”

  The battle bot shifted and crawled out the door. Lyana and Randall followed him without comment, and Albion watched them leave until the sound of Ares’s clicking footsteps faded. Then he turned back to survey the bridge.

  It was an abattoir.

  Bodies were littered across the deck, and not just those he and his crew had just killed. There was maybe a dozen more scavengers splayed out from Randall’s cannon fire, and who knew how many from the collision, the two horde ships running into each other as they’d attempted to flee. The starboard wall of the bridge was a mess, emergency patches applied en masse in a sloppy collage of overlapping pieces. It looked like a quilt Albion’s grandmother had made him once, only with far less color. The makeshift bandage kept the ship together, the bridge mostly sealed, but any impact against it, inside or out, and the entire wall would peel away, taking Albion and Crate with him.

  “Let’s say we hurry this up a bit, yeah?” He motioned to the wall, and Crate nodded in reply, still digging through the old destroyer’s systems.

  Albion paced, sticking close to the door, doing his best not to traipse through the blood congealing on the floor.

  “Plas-stones secured,” Lyana said through the comms, her voice echoing in his head. He adjusted the volume and replied.

  “Good. Get back to the causeway, and get that stuff to the Excalibur.”

  “What about you two?”

  “Going to be a bit.” He glanced over at the engineer, whose focus was entirely on the console before him. “Crate’s struck up a romance with the ship so no telling how long this will take. Have Choi scan wide to make sure no one creeps up on us.”

  “I heard you,” Choi said, “and, as always, I’m covering your asses without you even needing to tell me.”

  “That’s why you’re getting chubby, Choi,” Lyana told him, chuckling into the comms. “All them extra rations for being the best kiss-ass of all.”

  “I remember you begging me for the extra cheesecake bars the other day, or was that some other commander?”

  “Daaamn. You’re going to out me like that?”

  “Know your target and what’s beyond, Sweetheart,” Choi answered. “Burn me and you catch the backlash.”

  “That’s how it is, huh?”

  “Would you two shut the hell up.” Albion shook his head. “Clear the channel. We’ll be up as soon as we can.” He glanced over at Crate, who grinned at him from behind his face shield. Albion shifted the comms to beam directly to Crate’s receiver. “And you, hurry up. I really don’t want to be here when that patchwork breaks loose.”

  Crate grunted and went back to work. Albion went back to pacing. He drew in a slow breath and let it out just as slow, regulating his heart rate as he dug deep for patience. He and the crew were due for some shore leave soon, and there was no doubt in his mind that he needed it. They’d rubbed him raw of late, the confined quarters of the Albion a mobile prison with only a few more amenities. Those plas-stones would help with that, he hoped. He had plans to—

  “Uh, Captain?”

  Albion sighed, his brain slamming on the brakes just shy of his happy place. “Just finish up, Crate. We don’t have time for this right now.”

  “No, seriously, Marek,” he insisted.

  Albion, surprised by the use of his first name, something Crate only did when shit was about to hit the fan, stiffened and turned his full attention to the engineer.

  “Tell me.”

  “The scavengers picked up a distress call two days ago, and—”

  “A distress call?” Albion groaned. “Seriously? You’re nagging me about a distress call? They’re scavengers. That’s what they do, find flailing ships and raid them. What’s your point?”

  Crate stiffened in his seat and locked his eyes on Albion. “This isn’t just any distress call, Captain. It’s from the Ithaca.”

  Albion froze, his heart pounding in his chest, threatening to burst free. The name of the ship seared its way into his skull, and he struggled to breathe. The Ithaca.

  Mara.

  Four

  Sector 032, Allied Space

  Once more aboard the Excalibur, Captain Albion hunched in his chair and sneered at the view screen. His crew worked in silence around him, and even Ares sat in the corner, Albion having ordered everyone to stations without allowing him to return to stasis.

  “How did we not pick this up, Ensign Harkon?”

  Randall wilted under the captain’s glare.

  Crate, who’d also been condemned to the bridge for the time being, and loomed over Harkon’s shoulder, cut in. “You were somewhat right about the Covenant broadcasting on new channels.” He reached down and tapped out a sequence on Harkon’s console, and a flood of distorted voices filled the cabin. Crate adjusted the volume, quieting the incoherent squall.

  “Somewhat?”

  “They aren’t broadcasting wider, they’re blocking receivers.”

  Albion stared at Crate. “They’re muting channels? But how?”

  “They’ve essentially plugged a virus in the signal they’ve been sending out, which slips into the code and quiets the channels without anyone noticing. While we the Xebedonian nature of our system allows me to see signals across those channels, I can’t zero in on them because of the edicts of the virus.”

  “That’s we didn’t hear the Ithaca’s distress call?” Lyana growled. “That’s some administrative bullshit, right there.”

  Albion agreed. “And we won’t pick up on anyone else’s as long as communications are being manipulated.” His pulse thrummed at his temples, and he felt nauseous. Mara and the Ithaca might not be Covenant ships, but they were under a Covenant charter, offering them the same protection as any other Covenant citizen. But they’d been left to die by the same people they worked for.

  “Why would they do that?” Randall asked, his cheeks pale.

  “Good question.” Lyana slammed her fist into the armrest of her chair. It creaked in complaint.

  Albion stiffened. “The Xebedon.”

  All eyes shifted his direction.

  “Vice Admiral Vance teased us about it,” Albion said, the words punctuated with a growl. “That bastard. He even said we weren’t privy to receive the broadcasts any longer. This is what he meant. He didn’t want us to know about the Xebedon incursions and what’s going on in the outer rim. That’s why they’ve blocked us.”

  “Not just us,” Crate said. “They’ve blocked everyone. I’ve run a trace and all inbound signals not piggybacking on the Covenant’s authorization signal are being blocked inside allied space.”

  “All of it?”

  Crate nodded. “No one heard the Ithaca’s distress call except for those listening in on open channels that hadn’t been tampered with by the virus.”

  Albion sn
arled. “Not no one,” he said. “The Covenant heard it, and they chose to ignore it.” Marek’s stomach tightened into a writhing knot as he pictured Mara and her crew being left to die, and they didn’t even know it. The distress call had gone out, but they had no clue it had been suppressed before it reached anyone who might offer aid. The Covenant had offered the Ithaca up to pirates and scavengers without a moment’s hesitation.

  “How much longer, Choi?” The question was all sharp edges, and though Albion didn’t mean to take his anger out on the helmsman, he couldn’t help it.

  Choi, however, didn’t seem to care. “Five minutes if we drop right in on top of them.”

  “Do it.”

  The helmsman nodded at the order.

  Lyana hopped from her seat. “I’m going to prep for insertion.” She didn’t need to add the just in case part but Albion understood it anyway. “With me Harkon, Ares.”

  Without hesitation, the three stormed into the transit shaft and disappeared. Albion clung to his chair, fighting the urge to go after them, but he needed to remain on the bridge until he was certain what they were walking into. While he trusted Choi explicitly, there were simply some orders that couldn’t be pawned off on a subordinate. Expecting him to assume command in the middle of a firefight was one of those. Albion had no clue what might be waiting there when they came out of hyperspace. With half the crew preparing, he needed to stay where he was.

  But he hated every second of it.

  “Four…three…two…” Choi counted, the deep vibration under Albion’s feet subsiding as the Excalibur slowed and entered core space.

  “Full shields,” Albion called out. “Run scans.”

  Directly ahead of the Excalibur hung the Ithaca, floating dead in a cloud of debris. Albion clasped to his stomach, bile burning the back of his throat. His scanner beeped with a red dot where the Ithaca drifted, Choi shunting his scan results to the captain’s console. Albion ran his eyes over the information, his teeth clenching of their own accord.

  “Bring us closer.”

  He didn’t want to admit, couldn’t admit, that the Ithaca was devoid of life forms, the scans picking up nothing. But as they drew closer, he spied the ruin that ran the length of the freighter from its nose to its tail. Deep furrows of charred black were all that was left of the port side, its makeshift cannon batteries obliterated. The once shapely freighter, a queen among the fleet, had undergone a butchery, entire sections of the ship blasted away. Albion’s breath caught in his lungs as he surveyed the wreckage.

  He saw that the automatic emergency measures had failed in all but a few locations along the port, gaping black holes ripped in the hull with nothing between them and the open space outside. A couple of tattered patches floated among the debris. His eyes scanned the jagged openings, desperate to spot something, yet hoping not to. There would be no good news coming out of that shattered hulk. Albion’s breath came out in stuttered gasps.

  Choi, sensitive as ever, swung the Excalibur about, crossing over the top of the Ithaca, and drawing up near the nose of the craft, holding his distance to keep the scuttled ship from slamming into them.

  “Still nothing,” Choi said, the statement barely a whisper.

  “Damn it.” Albion stared at the view screen, his hands wrenched in his lap. He wanted to board, to search the ship from stem to stern, but if Choi hadn’t picked any life forms up inside, then there was no—

  “Wait!” Choi stiffened in his seat. “Shit. Brace for impact!” he screamed across the comms.

  The red dot on Albion’s screen came to life, a section of the Ithaca glowing green as its cannons came online.

  “Evasive maneu—” The order wasn’t even all the way out when Albion knew it was too late.

  A short burst of cannon fire slammed into the Excalibur, and the captain was grateful he’d ordered the shields up when they’d first jumped in. Otherwise, the ship would have been so much junk floating in space.

  The cannon blasts rattled the Excalibur, knocking it backward, and causing Albion to bite his lips, deep, resonate vibrations battering all aboard. The taste of copper filled his mouth as Choi righted the ship and readied to return fire, his hand hovering above the console.

  “Wait!” Albion raised a hand as the green of the Ithaca flickered and turned to black, the barest hint of color fading in and out. “That was the last of her energy.”

  “You want me to—”

  “I want you to hold, Choi. Just hold, damn it.”

  “We’re all right, if anyone cares,” Lyana said through the comms.

  Though he was glad to hear it, Albion ignored her, thoughts churning in his head. He glared at the sensor reports, noting the interior of the Ithaca just as lifeless as it had been when they arrived. But how could it have fired on them if—

  Then it struck him.

  “Choi, hail the ship,” he ordered. “Let them know it’s us.”

  “Captain?”

  “Just do it.” Albion hopped up and came to stand over Choi as the helmsman did as commanded.

  The signal went out, and Albion stood frozen in place, breath growing stagnant in his lungs as he waited. Choi held his tongue, eyes scanning the console only to finally reach out and tap the sensor screen.

  “Three life forms just appeared, Captain.” Albion let his breath out in a long, drawn-out sigh, and felt his legs wobble beneath him. “They’re returning the hail.”

  “On screen.”

  Not a moment later, the flickering image of the Ithaca’s bridge materialized. Mara’s weary visage filled the screen, and Captain Albion clasped Choi’s shoulder to keep from stumbling.

  “Hey,” was all he could manage to spit out.

  “We thought you were one of them,” she said, her shoulders slumping in obvious relief.

  Choi let out a nervous laugh. “We’ve gotten that a couple times today.”

  “Are you all right?” Albion stared at the screen, taking in every inch of Mara.

  Her long black hair, usually piled so neatly atop her head, was a wild nest that ran amok in every direction. She brushed strands out of her soot-covered face, the lavender gleam of her eyes piercing through the view screen. Blood had crusted at her nose, and a long, narrow gash ran the length of her chin. What little he could see of her outfit was much the same, dark with ash and covered in bloodstains.

  “I’m okay,” she said, though it was clear she only meant physically. Her emotional wreckage hung as plainly across her features as the debris of her ship cluttered outside.

  Albion didn’t even bother muting the screen as he shouted orders. “Choi, bring us over the ship.” He shifted to the comms. “Prepare to board the Ithaca, Commander. Straight to the bridge and get everyone back here as fast as you can.”

  Lyana acknowledged the command, but Albion ignored her, watching as Choi maneuvered the Excalibur into position above the crippled freighter.

  “We’ll need a stretcher,” Mara said, and Albion relayed the order even though Ares could carry anyone who needed it without bothering with a stretcher.

  For a few moments, the two captains stared at each other without saying a word. Albion knew his people were close to collecting Mara and her remaining crew members, as he heard the sullen thump of Ares breaching the Ithaca through the comms. Then he heard the bridge doors open on Mara’s side, and she turned away from the screen and disappeared.

  “We’ve got them,” Lyana said over the comms, though he couldn’t see her on the screen. “Got one that’s real bad,” she whispered. “Critical, but Mara is okay, Captain.”

  Albion sighed, grateful he wasn’t wearing the insertion helmet as the sound would have carried across the comms. “Get them into the Excalibur, and we’ll worry about everything else then.”

  Lyana grunted, and the view screen went black.

  “The Ithaca’s dead, sir,” Choi said, making sure his voice didn’t carry.

  Right then, Albion didn’t give a damn. His only concern was that Mara was safe.
He knew that was selfish of him, but he couldn’t help himself. Though they hadn’t seen each other in over two cycles, their marriage having atrophied a good six months before that due to both having been more in love with their jobs than each other, seeing her set fire to his adrenaline. Not just because she was in danger, either, though he was sure that played a part.

  The truth of it was, he missed her.

  He gave Choi’s shoulder a squeeze, not wanting to think about that. “I’m going down to the infirmary. As soon as everyone is aboard, phase us out and get us to Saturnus. If what Lyana said is true, we don’t have a whole lot of time.”

  Five

  Saturnus Outpost

  Sector 029, Allied Space

  The Excalibur had settled in at the Saturnus Outpost ten hours after they’d brought the crew of the Ithaca aboard. They rushed Commander Shane Wilson to the medics, Mara’s injured crew member, and had Mara and Lieutenant Michael Cole examined, as well. Outside of superficial cuts and bruises, both checked out fine. Wilson, however, had been rushed into surgery, his injuries too severe to offer much hope.

  In defiance of his emotions, Albion had left Mara with her crew mates and didn’t intrude more than once at the start of their journey, giving her a desperate hug and making sure she would have whatever she needed from him and his crew while they cared for Wilson. He returned to the bridge where he could wear a groove in the floor with his pacing, leaving Crate to assist Ares, who was as much their medic as he was their shock troop.

  At Saturnus, however, news of Wilson pending and nothing more to be done, he gave in to his impatience and approached Mara as she sat outside the medical offices. Cole had wandered off, leaving her alone.

  “Hey,” Albion said as he walked up and set a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  She shrugged, which he remembered as being her way of way of saying no without actually saying it. It used to piss him off to no end, but now it didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  “How about we go get a drink, get some food into you. If anything changes, the medics know how to find you.”