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  Tyra twirled the ship in another direction and shot towards the next freighter. Trey scorched the edge of the ship, but it wasn’t a direct hit.

  “Brother, we do not have time for me to correct your mistakes,” she hissed.

  “I got him,” Matt said, focusing on the Adamanta needles ready in small clips all over the ship. On her screen was the Adamanta sensor. She twirled it to face the limping freighter, and with a great mental push, fired the needle at it across the expanse. Though no bigger than her little finger, the needle punched through the hull of the freighter like it was a kinetic round. She could feel it ricochet off the walls inside, and pushed it further still, into the engines and other important equipment. The freighter listed in one direction and began a slow, methodical spin towards a massive asteroid.

  Xander switched to a heat signature feed capable of weeding out organic life from the high levels of background radiation. “Confirmed kill, no Beltine left alive on board. Nice work, Matt.”

  “No lecture about conserving my strength?”

  Instead of reprimanding her, a corner of Xander’s mouth turned up into a tired smile. “Let’s get through the fight we’re in, and then we’ll worry about the fight ahead of us.”

  “Got it.”

  “And conserve your strength.”

  The smartass comment she had on deck was lost as Tyra banked the Contessa into a long looping spin, chasing down a freighter disappearing around the edge of the Beltine base. They came so close to the structure that Drew actually sucked in a breath and closed his eyes.

  We know you.

  Matt gasped. The words had come from the Anassos over an intercom on Alton Three, word for word, and now they tickled the back of her mind, fading quickly as the Contessa fell away from the mining station.

  We know you.

  “Boss,” she said, rubbing at her forehead.

  The guns fired again, and Trey hissed his satisfaction as another freighter was blown into pieces.

  “Marking the next target, Tyra,” Xander said, and the Contessa shifted course almost immediately.

  Matt realized she’d been whispering and spoke louder. “Xander.”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a powerful Anassos on the station. That’s what I’m feeling.”

  He glanced sharply at her. “You’re sure?”

  Matt nodded, grimacing. “It’s speaking to me. Or it was, when we got close to the base. I don’t know how, but it was.”

  Matt knew Xander had his own nightmares about the Anassos. One had captured him and Captain Pharo Johnson. The other man had died horribly right in front of Xander, and the colonel had nearly been killed by an Anassos' mental spike. That she was hearing one's voice right then certainly would give him pause.

  “Just another reason to turn this place into scrap once we get Simon’s people out,” Xander said, but she noticed his face went several degrees paler.

  Tyra poured on the speed, bringing the Contessa in a wide arc that gave Trey an almost unfairly easy shot against the broadside of the freighter. The next two tried to hide in a cloud of particulates, but Xander had them on his screen and guided Trey’s guns remotely, locking the reticles not on the ships but the space they were about to occupy. One went down, the other was only winged, but Xander must have nicked their engines. Their heat signatures ramped up exponentially and within another twenty seconds the Beltine freighter cannibalized itself in a brief bright dot of light on their screens.

  Drew grinned over at him as he sat back, exhaling in relief. “Lucky.”

  “You saying I didn’t mean to do that?” Xander frowned at his screen. “They’re getting smarter, Tyra. Splitting in three directions all at once and gaining speed.”

  “Overlay it on the corner of my monitor,” she said back. Xander brought up the video feeds capturing the Beltine freighters escaping as well as a trajectory path for each of them through the asteroid belt.

  “Hurry,” her brother hissed.

  “Really, Trey?” Tyra snapped back, tapping her monitor and spinning the trajectory path to show her a few different angles.

  “Children,” Matt muttered, “let’s not fight.”

  Tyra enhanced the trajectory path, drew a line, erased it, and drew another one. “Got it,” she said. As she spun the Contessa, she glanced aside at Trey. “Shall I tell you the obvious, too? ‘Get your trigger finger ready?’”

  As Trey muttered under his breath, the Contessa took a reverse gyre-like approach to the three fleeing freighters. The first target was the most distant, as it had built up the most speed and posed the most imminent danger. Their laser fire danced across its aft until Trey centered on its thrusters. The bright gleam made for an inviting target, one he took full advantage of, and the freighter into scrap no bigger than a fist.

  “Second ship is changing course, I won’t be able to give you a good angle,” Tyra told Trey. “Matt, I’ll get you close.”

  “Got it.”

  They arced back in the general direction of the mining base. Tyra began to spin the Contessa so her turret had a clear shot on one escaping freighter while Matt tried to lock onto the other with her Adamanta eyes. Against the glitter of a metallic asteroid behind it, she almost didn’t spot it, but when she had it, she didn’t look away, didn’t dare blink.

  “Matt,” Tyra warned. “Almost out of range.”

  “I know,” she said. No time for precision. She gathered up six needles and punched them out in a fan. The spray would have been too wild if she couldn’t maintain control over the needles with her mind. Gritting her teeth, Matt guided them back. This far out and at the speed the needles were traveling, the headache was near instantaneous but Matt couldn’t afford to pay it any mind. She had only a second or two before they were out of range entirely. Fingers digging into her armrests, she readjusted the trajectory of two, pushing them straight and adding just a bit more punch to their speed, gasping as her headache turned into a sudden, insistent pounding. Then the needles were too far gone to do anything but hope, and she stared into her monitor.

  The freighter creeped away. On the video feed, it seemed to move like a slug, but in reality, it was picking up speed exponentially and they had maybe three, four minutes tops before it was out of the Contessa’s range. It could jump to FTL or disappear among the asteroids and they could do nothing about it. Matt's needles were only visible thanks to digitized outlines. Three were a definite miss, spraying out too far to even come close. One careened off something unseen, particulates or a chunk of rock, most likely. But two crept ever closer to the freighter, The Contessa vibrated as Trey’s guns took down the other freighter, but Matt hardly noticed. Beside her, Xander drew in a deep breath as the needles neared their target – and bored inside.

  A long string of gasses and liquids doodled out behind the freighter as it began to spin aimlessly, pendulously slow towards nothing at all. Before it faded from their cameras’ sights, its hull began to crumple, and when Matt glanced over at Xander, he nodded.

  Four Beltine freighters left, and the aliens seemed to realize they stood no chance at running. Instead, the freighters spun towards the Contessa and began lumbering towards the military vessel.

  “Uh,” Drew said, stabbing his finger at the monitors up front. “Uhhh. Uh. Uh.”

  “Well, that sums it up perfectly,” Tyra said, and snapped the Contessa around, giving Trey a shot at the first ship darting towards them on a suicide run. His first salvo missed, the second skimmed the surface, but the third connected. The other three Beltine had picked up enough speed that this was now no longer a joke for Tyra. “Brother,” she warned.

  “I know.”

  There was no more need for leading their targets. Trey aimed, and where he fired, Beltine died. Two of the three remaining ships fell in rapid succession, but the third shot towards them, the lasers cutting through its nose. Nothing could have survived that much exposure to space, but the ship itself still came for the Contessa.

  “Brace,” Xa
nder shouted, but Tyra was moving with the freighter, twirling as it twirled, matching its unpredictable spin as best she could manage. Matt gasped and even Xander grimaced, both staring at their monitors as Tyra pulled their nose up incrementally, hissing. The freighter’s belly crackled against their shields. This was it, Matt thought, this was how they died, by some stupid derelict ship, and it was so damned bleak and hilarious she couldn’t help a mad laugh. Xander glanced over at her, his knuckles white from gripping his armrests, and then the freighter was away, leaving chunks of its struts in its wake, floating harmlessly away from the Contessa.

  Tyra sucked in a lungful of air and bellowed, “I am the greatest pilot alive!” She caught herself, glanced around sheepishly, and cleared her throat. “Ah. All Beltine freighters down, Colonel.”

  Drew unhooked his harness, leaned forward, and planted a great big kiss on Tyra’s cheek. She shoved him back into his chair. He sighed happily. “Knew it. Knew it all along. Definitely didn't almost cry. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.”

  Matt snickered as Xander opened a line of communication to the Hayward and Everett. “All freighters have been eliminated. Give me a status report.”

  The captain of the Hayward said, “Dairos fighters have been dealt with. We’re investigating the area, but it looks like you’re all clear.”

  Xander signed off and leaned forward. “Let’s begin the docking procedure. Tyra, find us a spot on that structure where we can breach safely without any potential harm to civilian lives on board. We do not engage with Dr. Cardew’s people unless they fire first. Pick your shots carefully. If there are civilians around, you prioritize their safety. We get who we can back to the ships, and then we set our charges. Everybody suit up and get ready. Matt says there’s an Anassos, and that means we’re in for a fight.”

  ***

  Even in the back of the pack with Dr. Cardew, Simon still involuntarily flinched when the security team breached the hull of the Beltine station. As the Contessa took care of their pesky freighter and fighter problem, they’d docked in one of the freighter ports. The Exemplar's airlock wasn’t made for the strange hive-like material of the honeycomb structure, but Simon’s engineers had anticipated the need to dock to unusually designed alien craft and included a jelly-like molding that could be spread to provide an airtight seal. It held, even as the explosives pierced the Beltine’s hull.

  Laser fire greeted the first members of the security team behind portable riot shields to storm through. Dairos underlings took cover around the edges of great masses of machinery breaking down metal, stone, and frozen chunks of liquids for transport. Already terrified, Simon realized the machinery met the bamboo-like floor and wondered if it, like the hive ships, was all some living thing, cannibalized and mechanized by the Beltine for their purposes. The team pushed inwards, their shields blocking most the Beltine attack as their own lasers started firing.

  “Watch your aim!” Dr. Cardew belted across the comms equipment as she hunkered down behind a security shield with Simon. “Until we know what’s potentially explosive, be careful.”

  The security team ignored her warning, firing back indiscriminately into the masses of Dairos. She hissed, and one of her people focused her attention on an Adamanta sensor array, lifting it up and sending it zooming down the bridge and into the fray. It scanned the minerals and ice as the first of the Dairos began to fall to the security team, sending the feedback to a portable device on the woman’s arm. She glanced up at Dr. Cardew and nodded.

  “Not like it matters to these primates anyway,” Dr. Cardew muttered. “Still, good to know we’re not going to be blown to bits.”

  Laser fire scattered three feet above their heads, hitting the bulkhead of the Exemplar.

  Simon grabbed at her arm weakly. “Ammo. Let me have ammo. We did everything you asked, we’re here, we’re in this fight.”

  “Let’s get a little cozier a few rooms in before we do that,” Dr. Cardew said, smiling fondly as if she were talking to a favorite child.

  The security team drove farther and farther into the port. The Kyraos controlling the Dairos began pushing their mindless drone warriors forward in an attempt to take back the room before it was lost. A dozen of the carapaced fighters bore down on the mercenaries, firing without care as to their own safety. One of the security team leaned out too far to fire back, and a burst of lasers left him missing three fingers and his pistol. He screamed and fell on his rear, scooting back towards the next wave of guards as he held up the blackened ruin of his hand. Someone grabbed him up and forcibly shoved him behind another shield.

  Simon watched all this, his stomach rolling. Into Cardew’s ear, he screamed, “This is just one room. How are we going to take the whole facility?”

  “Skill, luck, a lot of clips.”

  “You are insane. You have lost it.”

  Her smile faltered, and she gazed out at the chaos in the port. Three more Dairos fell in rapid succession, and she muttered, “Yes. Maybe. But I will drag humanity across the finish line.”

  The shields were taking too much damage but the security team pushed far enough into the room that they could pour fire into the Dairos ranks from behind the cover of heavy machinery. This was not a protracted firefight full of heroism. It was a short, brutal affair, over in just two minutes. The Dairos came, the team killed them. Cardew had picked her people well. Soon, all that was left was one Beltine, scrabbling across the floor for a laser rifle, its legs trailing behind it uselessly. One of the security team darted forward, raised his boot, and finished the alien off with a sickening crunch. Simon didn’t hold back this time, and spit up a long, thin bitter stream behind a chunk of stone twenty feet taller than him. Cardew watched him, that faint smile back on her face.

  “Bring them out,” she said into her comm device.

  The few guards she’d left on board the Exemplar pushed out the rest of the volunteers for the mission. Some were crying, most looked sick at the violence in the room. Kingston trailed them, looking bored with all of this as he slung a massive laser rifle against his shoulder. Lieutenant Lawrence, her face stoic, raced for Simon and helped him up off his knees. He felt an odd pang of shame for having been sick, but she didn’t mention it as she glared at Dr. Cardew.

  “Captain Ramos, divvy up the volunteers. Arm them, but do not give them ammunition until it is strictly necessary. You’ll head one team, I’ll take the other. If you spot an Anassos, I want it alive. You see it, you use the gas grenades and the electric bindings, do you understand?”

  Captain Ramos, dressed in a security officer’s armored jumpsuit and hefting a laser rifle, nodded. Quickly, he pointed at half the volunteers and the members of the crew loyal to him and Cardew. “You lot, with me. The rest of you, you follow Cardew’s orders like they were mine.”

  The doctor took in her half of the willing and unwilling alike. Kingston ambled over to her side, pointedly ignoring Simon. Cardew clapped her hands once, her smile disappearing. “Well. Let’s get this done.”

  “Let them go back,” Simon begged her. “Please. Let them join the others.”

  The room rattled, and Simon fell sideways, crashing hard on his arm. A few people screamed until Kingston raised his rifle up and fired a single blast. The shot didn’t have the effect an old kinetic weapon might, but the hum-hiss still drew every eye in the room and the people quieted.

  “If we’re going to do this, we need order, not panic. Step out of line, and we all might die,” Cardew said. “Your choice.” Her smile reappeared. “Pick quickly, though, because we’re going to breach the next room.”

  Chapter 5

  His rifle raised halfway, Trey swept in, checking his corner as behind him Xander did the same thing to the left. Dozens of Dairos filled the room at what could best be described as caterpillar-like conveyor belts, if the caterpillars had been turned upside down and thousands upon thousands of legs added to their bodies.

  “What the…?” Trey asked.

  None of the Dairos paid them a
ny attention whatsoever. From forty or so holes in the wall, they helped guide along small chunks of stone and metal. The legs picked at the materials, dropping dust into long shallow pans and leaving small chunks for the Dairos to pick up and drop into small chutes between them.

  “They’re breaking the materials down, cleaning them. This isn’t just a mining operation. They’re refining it here,” Drew said, and rubbed his chin. “I’ll bet that’s why the particulate clouds were so dense around the station. There shouldn’t have been—”

  “Now’s not the time for hypotheticals,” Xander said gently, keeping his gun trained on a nearby Dairos.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “Question is,” Trey said, slowly picking his way through the room, “is the ship secure here?”

  Drew shook his head. “I don’t know, but ask me that about any section of this place and I wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. I mean… I guess at least no one’s lobbing shots against the airlock. I’ll take that as a good sign.”

  “Boss?” Matt asked. “Do we…?”

  Trey glanced over at Xander, knowing what Matt’s unasked question was. Do they kill the Dairos? It would be just as brutal as carving up the unarmed freighters. None of them had felt particularly heroic doing that, but the ships had jeopardized the mission. These Dairos could come alive at any moment, controlled by a Kyraos to attack. So why weren’t they?

  “Take up defensive positions,” Xander said quietly. From a sheath, he drew an Adamanta knife. The team took up a firing line behind one of the alien conveyor belts, ready to open up if the Dairos were ordered to stop working and swarm them. Trey watched as his boss focused and threw the knife at one of the Dairos with his mind. The blade sunk deep into its neck and the creature fell, dead without so much as glancing in their direction.

  “Save your ammunition. Take them down quickly and with as much mercy as we can give these things,” Xander said.

  Trey and Tyra took one half of the room, Matt and Drew the other, and Xander worked his way up the middle. “This will haunt my dreams, brother,” Tyra hissed at Trey.