Jodi made her way past the warriors, who parted before her, and knelt down next to Reza. “I’ve come to take him home with us,” she said gently, hoping Esah-Zhurah would understand.
“His home,” Esah-Zhurah said slowly in Standard, the alien words coming to her only with difficulty after so many cycles of disuse, “is in my heart.” Her eyes turned to his face, peaceful now, and pale, the thin line of blood from his mouth almost dried. “But you are right,” she whispered after a moment. “It was for your kind that he denied himself before the Empress and parted with all he once loved; it was for your kind that he gave his life. His body, his ashes – even the collar of his honor – I grant you, for he died without Her forgiveness. He died not one with our Way.”
Reaching out with a bared hand, Jodi gently touched Esah-Zhurah’s face. “I’m so very sorry,” she whispered. “I… I know how much he loved you. All these years, he never loved anyone but you.”
“Did you love him?” Esah-Zhurah asked quietly, her magnetic eyes fixed on Jodi’s face.
Jodi flushed with a sudden pang of guilt and embarrassment, but she did not look away. This was not the time for modesty. “I cared for him greatly,” she said. “I… I held him once, at a time when I think he would have died from loneliness, without you. When he slept, he cried out for you. He told me about you, about your love. That’s how I know your name.”
Esah-Zhurah nodded. “Thank you for your kindness,” she whispered. “Will you honor his memory?” she asked.
“Always,” Jodi answered. “He will not be forgotten.”
“Then he is yours,” Esah-Zhurah said, her voice trembling. She carefully laid his body down, smoothing back the hair from the face she so loved. Gently, she kissed him on the mouth. “Fare Thee well, my love,” she whispered in her own language.
Esah-Zhurah stood up and nodded toward Eustus, who walked quickly to where Jodi was kneeling. “You must go quickly,” she told Jodi.
“Jesus,” Eustus said upon seeing the gaping wound in Reza’s chest. He saw the weapon that caused it lying in the grass nearby, its serrated edge festooned with gore. His last delusions about Reza still being alive quickly evaporated, regardless of what Nicole may have said.
“Come on, Eustus,” Jodi said, trying not to look too closely at the wound, “we’ve got to hurry.”
Esah-Zhurah turned away as Jodi and Eustus struggled with Reza’s body. The smell and taste of Reza’s blood were still strong, too strong, and she feared they would always be with her. She watched the blue glow of the First Empress’s pulsating heart, still resting in the mountain crater, and prayed to Her for salvation, for forgiveness. For her own heart was dead, and never would live again.
Eustus was now acutely aware of why Jodi had needed someone’s help. It took both of them to get Reza’s body to the ship. Jodi danced up the ladder to the aft cockpit, standing on the edge of the hull to help Eustus as he climbed up behind her, Reza over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. After a few minutes of precarious balancing and brute force, Eustus was secured in the aft seat, holding Reza’s body.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said as Jodi dropped down into the pilot’s seat and began the takeoff sequence, slapping on her helmet as the canopy whined into place.
Thirty seconds later, they were airborne.
“We’re reading a ship ascending from the surface, sir,” the intel officer reported. “Checks out as a Corsair.”
“Mackenzie,” Sinclaire growled.
“Looks like it, sir.”
Sinclaire only grunted in response. On the tactical display, a tiny blue wedge detached itself from the planet and set course for the fleet, now hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. And everywhere, crowding the display, were red wedges accompanied by a few lines of elaborating data that identified the Kreelan ships that were appearing around Erlang like salmon about to spawn. “How many Kreelan ships, now?”
“Eighty-seven major combatants, sir, plus scores of smaller ships,” the intel officer reported. “STARNET is reporting as many more still on the way.”
“Bloody hell,” Sinclaire whispered. It was the largest Kreelan battle fleet that had ever been assembled in Sinclaire’s lifetime, and more ships were still arriving; humanity would never have been able to amass such a fleet in one location so quickly. “How long to the jump point?”
“Nine minutes and forty-seven seconds, sir,” Captain Amadi replied.
“And how long for Mackenzie’s ship to reach us?”
Intel shook her head. “Almost eleven minutes, admiral, at the Corsair’s top speed.”
A little over a minute too late, he thought glumly. “Has anyone been able to contact her yet?”
“No sir,” Amadi said. “Nothing since she left the ship.” They had no way of knowing that Jodi had disabled the command datalink in her fighter that might have allowed Sinclaire to recall it on autopilot, overriding Jodi’s own commands. And along with the datalink went the voice and video communications.
“She’s on her own, then,” Sinclaire said. “I won’t risk the fleet for a single person.”
“Sir,” a yeoman called from the FLEETCOM position, “it’s Commander Ivanova. She’s in trouble.”
Commander Ludmilla lvanova, captain of C.S.S. Gremlin, a destroyer guarding the fleet’s rear as it withdrew, was more than in trouble.
“Admiral, we’re taking heavy fire from a cruiser that just dropped in-system,” she said quickly as her ship rocked under the impact of another salvo.
“Captain!” the engineering officer reported, “We’ve lost the starboard aft-quarter shields!”
“Helm, roll us nine-zero degrees to starboard!” she ordered quickly. The destroyer responded immediately, rolling its exposed side away from the withering fire from the heavier Kreelan ship. “Make your course zero-five-zero mark eight-zero. All ahead flank!” While Gremlin was outgunned and out-armored, she was still faster and more maneuverable, and had her own set of fighting teeth.
Focusing again on Sinclaire’s concerned image, she said, “We’ll try to draw them off, sir.” She smiled. “Wish us luck, admiral.”
“Good luck, Ludmilla,” he said. It was a paltry farewell to the captain and crew of a good ship. Both of them knew that Gremlin would not be returning to port. The Kreelan cruiser had the uncanny luck to have dropped in right behind the retreating human fleet, where none of the heavy ships could bring their main batteries to bear, and where they themselves were most vulnerable to enemy fire. It was Gremlin’s job to hold off any Kreelan ships long enough for the fleet to jump out; if she could not, and Sinclaire was forced to turn any of his other ships to face the oncoming threat, he stood to lose a lot more than a single destroyer. “Godspeed, captain.”
On Ivanova’s display, his image faded, disappeared.
An explosion rocked the ship, throwing her forward against the combat restraints of her command chair. “Damage report!” she shouted into the chaos that was the bridge.
“Hull breach in engineering!” someone replied. “Main drives off-line!”
“Weapons,” she ordered the crew manning the weapons stations, “ready torpedoes, full spread, home-on-target mode.”
“Torpedoes ready, captain!”
In the main viewer, she could see the Kreelan cruiser gaining rapidly. Her skin tingled as she could almost sense the enemy ship’s main batteries charging, almost ready to gut her wounded destroyer…
“Shoot!”
Just as the Kreelan cruiser’s guns erupted with lethal energy, Gremlin’s eight torpedo launch tubes jettisoned their own destructive cargo. Seven of them cleared the ship before the final Kreelan salvo tore into the thinly armored destroyer, boring into its reactor core. The Gremlin disappeared in a huge fireball that consumed Ivanova and her crew.