Zakota Read online

  Zakota wasn’t quite sure why they were always bickering, though he was positive Ku had started it. It was somewhat odd, since they were the only ones on the ship who came from Amalcari, and they should have had much in common. Ku never admitted it—he rarely admitted to anything personal—but Zakota suspected Ku looked down on him because he hadn’t given up the old ways. Ku clearly didn’t care about their gods or their culture. Or anything, as far as Zakota could tell. He just liked blowing shit up.

  “Since Lieutenant Coric isn’t here,” Commander Korta said from his science station, “I have taken the liberty of monitoring Scyllan communications, Captain. They are not bothering to encrypt their transmissions.”

  “What are they saying?” Sagitta asked.

  Zakota flexed his shoulders and watched the Scyllan ship intently—it had passed the warship, so he could no longer use the bulky Zi’i vessel to hide behind. That was fine. He was ready for some fancy flying. This was the part of his job he loved.

  “The two ships at the gate have been ordered to detain us at all costs,” Korta said.

  “If they choose to stand in our path, their costs will be great,” Sagitta said coolly.

  Zakota suspected it had galled the captain to flee from the Scyllans and the Zi’i the last time they had been in the system. They were alone here, and there was no way to call through the gates for reinforcements, but Sagitta still wasn’t the kind of man to run from a battle. Neither was Zakota.

  Relying on his instincts as much as the computer’s sensors, Zakota knew the Scyllan interceptor was about to fire. He whipped their winged fire falcon away from its path and dove.

  Orange plasma-based beams streaked past, missing them by a hundred meters.

  Knowing more attacks would follow, Zakota rose and wheeled and dove, using all the dimensions of space to set a course that would be difficult to anticipate, even as he kept them heading toward the gate. If they made it through, it was unlikely the Scyllans would follow. Intel said they never left their system.

  The three interceptors still behind the warship peppered its shields with fire.

  “Return fire, Ku,” Sagitta said, that cool determination still in his voice.

  The ship’s weapons fired so quickly that it was as if Ku had been reading the captain’s mind. Twin blue en-bolts streaked back toward the closest interceptor. The Zi’i warship also returned fire, energy weapons lighting up the black of space.

  “Are you flying and shooting, Asan?” Zakota asked as he whipped away from another attack from the interceptor.

  “Coric is firing while listening in on their comm chatter,” Asan said. “She’s a woman of many talents.”

  “We would agree with that if she were hitting anything,” Ku said.

  “You haven’t taken anything down either, Killer,” Coric said, her tone faintly annoyed, as it usually was when she spoke to him. Ku really had a way with women.

  Ku’s en-bolts slammed into their pursuer’s shields over and over again, his aim unaffected by the gyrations Zakota was putting the Falcon through. The interceptor stopped firing at them, and Zakota straightened them out. The enemy ship was too busy with its own evasive maneuvers now. Ku struck it several more times, and the ship went dark on the sensors, its power gone.

  “Take us back to get the rest of them,” Ku told Zakota.

  “That isn’t part of the plan,” Zakota said.

  “New plan,” Ku announced. “Lieutenant Coric, we are coming to protect you.”

  “Goodie,” she said.

  Zakota looked to the captain for permission. Sagitta was bent over the communications station, talking to someone. Putting some other plan together?

  Since he didn’t waylay Ku’s idea, Zakota went along with it.

  “I better get to engineering,” Hierax said and headed for the door.

  “I want my tow-beam trick ready in two minutes,” Sagitta told him.

  “It takes me two minutes just to get to engineering.”

  “You better sprint then.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Hierax ran out the door.

  Zakota, focused on the enemy ships, closed his eyes to slits and took them in a loop. He flew over the top of the warship and spun as the three interceptors exchanging fire with it came into view. They must have seen the fire falcon approaching, but they did not react quickly.

  Ku fired rapidly and with uncanny accuracy, as if he were a computer himself, or perhaps possessed by the gods. En-bolts streaked away from the Falcon as Zakota dipped and dodged preemptively, making them as difficult a target as possible.

  But some of the interceptor plasma blasts caught their wings or their belly as the Falcon twisted and dove. The shields absorbed the hits. For now.

  Coric fired from the warship again, but Asan wasn’t an expert on piloting the hulking vessel, and he wasn’t able to line her up to strike the smaller, more maneuverable interceptors. Zakota was tempted to use the big Zi’i craft for cover, but with their own people on board, he didn’t want to draw extra fire toward it.

  “Their shields are awfully good for people who never leave their system or get any practice fighting,” Ku grumbled after striking the same interceptor for the fifth or sixth time.

  “Maybe they practice on each other.” Zakota was glad his voice came across as calm and that his hands were steady on the controls, even if sweat had broken out on his forehead.

  He’d been in dozens, if not hundreds, of battles since joining the Star Guardians, but he never forgot that the lives of everyone on the ship were at stake if he screwed up. And more than that, the lives of those who depended on everyone on the ship, those who depended on him. Since his father had died, he’d been the main provider for his mother and his little brothers and sisters back home. The money he sent them each month helped them make ends meet. He’d promised his father he would take care of them, so he couldn’t let himself get killed out here.

  “One more try,” Sagitta said, now standing behind Ku and Zakota. “If you can’t take those three out, just get us to the gate.”

  He didn’t sound irritated that Zakota and Ku had taken the initiative to turn back to fight, but it was clear he didn’t want to waste a lot of time on the enemies behind them.

  Zakota brought them around so Ku could line up another shot. He fired at the interceptor that had taken the brunt of his ire so far. Finally, the enemy’s shields dropped, and the back half of the ship blew. It went dark on the sensors.

  “Two left,” Ku said.

  “We’re ready for your trick, Captain,” Coric said over the comm.

  Ready for what trick? Zakota had missed a memo with details.

  “Break off the attack,” Sagitta said. “Head for the gate and fly under the warship’s belly. Try to make it so those two waiting interceptors don’t see us. Or at least that they feel they have a bigger problem to deal with.”

  “Break it off?” Ku protested. “We can destroy the rest. I just need two minutes. Then they’ll learn never to mess with the Star Guardians again.”

  “We’re the intruders in their system,” Sagitta said quietly. “Break it off. Save the destroying for the Zi’i.”

  Ku growled under his breath.

  Zakota obeyed promptly, the captain’s words making him feel guilty for the part he’d played in destroying two of the ships. They had to defend themselves, but he realized this wasn’t a typical mission, where they were clearly in the right and on the side of the law. This was someone else’s system, and even though all they wanted was to pass through, it could be argued that they were in the wrong. They were the trespassers.

  “Hugging Asan’s belly,” Zakota said, snugging the fire falcon up under the back half of the warship. Their vessel wasn’t small by any means, but it usually housed a crew of less than fifty, as opposed to the hundreds of Zi’i that could prowl the corridors of their big warships.

  “Didn’t know you two had that kind of relationship,” Ku said.

  “It’s Asan’s fluffy
hair. I can’t stay away from it.”

  “I heard that,” came Asan’s voice over the comm. “Don’t forget that I compete in axe-throwing contests for fun.”

  “You can’t throw an axe at a superior officer,” Zakota said. “There’s a regulation against it.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t remember that being in the regs.”

  “At the very least, you’d have to do double-shifts if you took me out,” Zakota said.

  “I’m already doing double-shifts over here.”

  “Fine, you’d have to pilot both ships then.”

  “Sounds challenging.”

  “Enough chatter,” Sagitta said. “Asan, you ready? Make it look like you’re going to ram them to get through the gate. Deploy the beam at the last moment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ku, keep the ones chasing us from peppering our ass.”

  “Yes, sir. Doing my best.”

  Zakota might have felt guilty about destroying two Scyllan ships, but Ku didn’t seem to share his remorse. He hadn’t stopped firing at the ones still chasing them.

  The two at the gate fired at the warship as it approached. Asan sped up, doing a convincing job of pretending he would ram them to bunt them aside and clear the way.

  “Ready the tow beam, Zakota,” Sagitta said. “Target the bottom ship.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Remember how we combined the energies of these ships’ tow beams to fling the gate into space?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to do the same now. Except you’ll try to fling the bottom ship into the top one.”

  “We have to drop shields to activate the tow beam,” Zakota said, even though the captain knew that as well as he did.

  “I know. We’re going to do this quickly.”

  “Should I shoot at them to distract them?” Ku asked, as if he wasn’t already busy firing at their pursuers. He purred triumphantly when he struck one’s thrusters with enough power to knock out the shielding there.

  Sagitta hesitated, and Zakota thought again of how they were the trespassers. But when he spoke, he gave a firm, “Yes.”

  “Deploying tow beam,” Coric said as Asan said, “Dropping shields.”

  “Go, Zakota, Ku,” Sagitta said.

  Ku lowered the shields as Zakota deployed the tow beam, grasping the Scyllan ship, energy crackling in the air as their beam met its shields. The warship’s beam shot out, also wrapping around the enemy craft.

  Interceptor fire slammed into the Zi’i craft. The Scyllans didn’t seem to notice the fire falcon, or they just didn’t see it as a threat equal to the warship.

  “Your mistake,” Zakota whispered.

  “Ready,” Coric said.

  “Now,” Sagitta ordered.

  Zakota and Coric tapped the controls to lift the Scyllan ship as quickly as possible. Normally, a tow beam wouldn’t have the strength to overpower a vessel with thrusters activated, but the Scyllans had been sitting there in front of the gate, their thrusters inactive. The combined power of the two beams moved it as easily as it might have an asteroid.

  The lower Scyllan ship whipped up, and Zakota and Coric abruptly turned off their tow beams, releasing it.

  It smashed against its fellow ship with the momentum of a comet hurtling through space. The top Scyllan ship, similar to its mate, hadn’t had thrusters activated. Even though its shields were up, the other vessel struck it with enough energy to knock it aside. Both ships careened off each other and out from in front of the gate.

  The warship flew across the event horizon, disappearing into the wormhole, and Zakota was right on its tail.

  2

  As they sailed out of the gate and into the Ios System, Zakota slumped back in his seat. He wanted to melt all the way down to the deck and take a nap. Or maybe head to his bunk, but he made himself check the sensors to make sure there wasn’t anything surprising in the system. Like that armada of Zi’i ships that Asan had seen leaving the Scyllan System the day before. Also, he kept an eye on the gate behind them. Just because they didn’t think the Scyllans would follow them through didn’t meant it couldn’t happen.

  “No blatant enemy ships on the scanners, Captain,” Korta said, making the report before Zakota had it.

  “Good,” Sagitta said.

  “The system is busy, however,” Korta added, “with approximately thirteen more ships than typical flying between the gates, and twice as many at Tyrax Station as usual. That gives us seventy-three in the system and forty-six of them at or around the station.”

  “They may be fleeing trouble at home,” Sagitta said quietly. Grimly.

  Zakota rubbed his gritty eyes. Dethocoles wasn’t home for him, so he wasn’t as emotionally tied to it as the captain and much of the rest of the crew, but he’d done his training there, and the Star Guardians were based out of the capital, so he’d spent much time on the planet and had many friends there. And for more than personal reasons, he didn’t want the Zi’i to strike such a great blow against the Confederation, as it would be one against humanity at its core, with ramifications that spanned the galaxy. If the aggressive aliens took over—or destroyed—Dethocoles, that might give them the advantage they needed to do what they hadn’t managed during the Territory War six years earlier. Defeat and enslave—or destroy—all of humanity.

  “You’d think they would go to help,” Ku said. “Cowards.”

  “Maybe it’s not their war,” Zakota said, looking at the sensor readout of the ships in the system. Some were freighters with few offensive capabilities, some belonged to aliens, and some were old-model space fleet ships, probably decommissioned and purchased by civilian captains. Human captains. Maybe Ku was right and those people should have gone to Dethocoles to help.

  “Maybe they’re cowards,” Ku repeated.

  “How far to Tyrax?” Sagitta asked, not deigning to comment on the bravery of the captains out there, or the lack thereof.

  “Nine hours and twenty-three minutes,” Zakota said.

  Ios was a big system with three stars, two orbiting each other and one doing a very distant orbit of the others. It took more than a day and a half to cross it. Zakota was surprised they hadn’t come in quickly enough to catch sign of the Zi’i armada on its way to the Dethocolean System. Unfortunately, the skirmish with the Scyllans had delayed their passage through that system.

  “Tyrax Station reports that there aren’t any docking slots open currently,” Korta said. “There won’t be for two days.”

  Sagitta’s eyes closed to slits. “Is that the truth?”

  “Sir?” Korta asked, his bulbous boulder body rotating as he looked toward the captain.

  “The Scyllans risked their lives and their ships to impede us, perhaps because they were bribed or threatened by the Zi’i. If that happened there, it could have happened in this system, as well.”

  “Tyrax Station is allied with the Confederation.”

  “It’s allied with six other species too. They’ll take anyone’s money.”

  “I see your point, sir,” Korta said. “We’re too far away for the sensors to scan their docks, but I can keep you updated as we approach. They did say that there are open spaces in their shuttle bay. We have access to the remaining Zi’i shuttles.”

  “If we try to take Zi’i anything into the station, we may get shot at,” Zakota said. He was fairly certain that the Zi’i were not one of the seven species welcome at Tyrax. Thanks to their tendency toward eating other species, they weren’t welcome in many places.

  “Yes, I had planned to leave the warship well away from the station,” Sagitta said, gazing at the view screen.

  “Maybe Hierax can paint one of the shuttles so it’s less obviously Zi’i,” Ku said.

  “It looks like a fang,” Zakota said. “How would paint help?”

  “Perhaps a pink fang would be less alarming,” Sagitta said, his rare humor coming out.

  “The stench would still give it away,” Zakota said.

&nb
sp; “You have a soft nose,” Ku told him.

  “Better than a soft dick.”

  “A problem you’re intimate with, I’m sure.”

  Zakota rolled his eyes.

  Ku smiled faintly as he looked back to his console. Gods, did the nut actually enjoy their arguments? Maybe only when he thought he came out on top. Later, Zakota would throw some raw steaks under his bunk to rot unnoticed for weeks. Ku deserved that.

  “Hierax specifically said he needs to get his parts from Tyrax,” Sagitta said.

  “Yes, they have in-house smelting and manufacturing facilities,” Korta said, “and they’re famous for stocking common and rare metals from all over the galaxy. I believe Chief Hierax needs the Wanderer alloy.”

  “Very well,” Sagitta said, “we’ll continue to the station. Korta, do update me on the status of the docks when we get close enough to scan them. My intuition is itching.”

  When it became apparent that the Scyllans would not follow them out the gate, the captain spoke again.

  “Zakota, lay in a course for the autopilot, then hit your rack for a few hours. We’ll need you fresh for Dethocoles.”

  “Yes, sir.” Normally, Zakota would turn over the helm to Asan for the night shift, rather than leaving the Falcon in the hands of the autopilot, but there weren’t any obstacles between here and the station, so it ought to be fine.

  Besides, judging by the way the captain sat down after giving that order, he wasn’t going anywhere, so the bridge wouldn’t be unmanned. Korta never seemed to need sleep, either. Supposedly, his species hibernated once in a while.

  “You, too, Ku,” Sagitta added.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Zakota set a course, rubbed a few of his talismans for luck—Ku was looking his way, so he didn’t kiss any of them—and stood up. As they headed for the door, Sagitta checked in on Asan on the warship.

  “Any damage over there, Lieutenant?” he asked.

  “Nothing major, sir. A few alarms are flashing, but that’s pretty typical.”