<Matrem Katrina! We know you’re in here. Come down the corridor, arms up, no weapons.>
The message was broadcast over the base’s public emergency net. After a moment’s pause, it began to repeat.
<How does ‘hell no’ sound?> Katrina responded as she checked the map for an alternate route to the launch bay—only to find that there were none.
<There’s no way out, we have your pinnace, you’re trapped.>
<They don’t know about the Voyager,> Troy said.
<Yeah, but they must suspect that there’s something down here,> Katrina replied. <Are they trying to get to the bay?>
<No, those five are all in the corridor you need to pass.>
Katrina approached the intersection and sent a probe in front of the corridor, getting a view of the five enemies. They were all in cover at another intersection down the cross corridor on the right. Taking them out before they got her would be well-nigh impossible—at least in any reasonable timeframe.
<I’m going to run across this corridor, and I encourage you to go ahead and shoot at me,> Katrina said. <I’ll hold the case of antimatter up nice and high so you can be sure to hit it and kill us all.>
There was no immediate response, and Katrina took advantage of the distraction to follow through on her promise and dashed across the intersection.
She fired four rounds with the ballistic rifle as she raced by, keeping the shots low. One of the Primacy soldiers fired back, and the shot hit Katrina in the right arm. It was a rail-fired pellet, and the kinetic impact spun Katrina around, slamming her into a wall.
Her arm felt numb and she looked down, half expecting it to be gone, but it was still there—though the armor’s ablative plating had been shattered.
She pulled herself back to her feet and took off at top speed, firing behind her as she ran, praying it would be enough to get her to the next pressure door.
Troy must have been watching, because as she approached, the pressure door began to lower.
<Slow it down!> she called out.
<Sorry, the door only has one speed!>
Katrina took her powered armor up to full speed, the maglocks on the boots clacking loudly as they flipped on and off, facilitating her run.
The door was less than half a meter from being fully closed as she slid underneath, pulling the case behind her. A pulse blast hit her side, and she clambered back to her feet as several more shots hit the door and deck.
At least they’re not shooting to kill, she thought.
Katrina didn’t wait to see how the Primacy soldiers felt about being shut out, and raced down the corridor toward the launch bay. She reached it without incident and boarded the lift, slamming her armored hand into the activation button.
The lift began to rise slowly toward the catwalk, and Katrina looked down to see that the deuterium umbilicals were still connected to the ship.
<Shit, Troy, can you remote detach the fueling line?>
<No, that system is isolated for some reason. You’ll need to manually disconnect.>
“Dammit,” Katrina swore aloud before setting the antimatter case down and jumping off the lift.
It had only risen thirty meters, and she landed on the deck with a loud clang!
The passageway she had just returned through was still empty, and Katrina prayed it would remain so as she ran to the fueling station. The Voyager’s tanks were at ninety-five percent, which would have to do.
She keyed in the disconnect command and was about to turn back toward the lift when a shout, amplified by the wearer’s armor, called out from behind her.
“Freeze!”
The fueling umbilical disconnected and began to slowly retract as Katrina raised her arms and slowly turned around.
There, at the entrance to the passageway, stood the five Primacy soldiers. Two were standing with their weapons aimed at her, while the other three were carefully moving around the sides of the launch bay to flank her.
Katrina toggled her armor’s external speakers and cocked her head before replying. “Why are you doing this? Are you going to kill me for trying to find the Intrepid?”
“It doesn’t matter,” one of the soldiers—a lieutenant, by the marking on his collar—said. “We have our orders. We’re to take you into custody.”
Katrina took a step toward the lift, which had now reached the top, and lowered her left hand while her right reached behind her back for her multifunction rifle.
“Are you ready to kill me? To go down as the ones who killed the last of the Hyperion’s crew? Markus’s wife?”
“Matrem, don’t make us do this,” the lieutenant said, and she could hear the anguish in his voice. This man didn’t want to be here. He may even agree with her; but she feared that he was honorable, and would do his duty no matter the cost to himself.
<Thanks for stalling them,> Troy said privately.
“Oh, you won’t do this; you’ll only try,” Katrina said before diving behind a fuel pump.
Above the soldiers, the Voyager’s point defense weapons slid out of the ship’s hull and took aim.
“Time to go!” Katrina called out.
The Primacy soldiers didn’t move, and Troy opened fire. He didn’t target them directly, but the invisible laser beams began to trace glowing lines across the deck toward three of them.
Katrina peered out from behind her cover to see one of the soldiers take aim at the beam’s emitter, and she fired a kinetic pellet at him, clipping his arm and spinning him around.
Turnabout is fair play, she thought.
“Fall back!” the lieutenant called out, and Katrina wondered if that was relief she heard in his voice.
She watched four of the soldiers exit the launch bay, and wondered where the fifth had gone. Then she realized the fifth was the one trying to flank her on the left, and spun to see the armored figure come around the other side of the large fuel pump.
A pulse blast hit Katrina center mass, and pushed her back before her boot’s maglocks activated.
The soldier, a man by his gait, approached, firing twice more. One shot twisted her sideways, and she let herself fall backward. The second shot rippled through the air above her.
The move had given her time to bring her rifle to bear, and she fired a trio of rounds at the solider—two hitting the man center mass before the rifle’s kick sent the third one wide.
The soldier’s armor cracked, and he stumbled backward, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
Katrina didn’t wait for him to recover, and flipped to her feet, rushing toward the man, firing twice more with her rifle before she reached him.
The ferocity of her attack appeared to have surprised the Primacy soldier, and she drove a power-assisted fist into his chin, snapping his head back.
He stumbled, and she grabbed the barrel of his weapon and tore it from his grasp, flinging it across the launch bay.
The soldier was undeterred and drew a sidearm. Three shots fired from its muzzle; the first two cracked the armor beneath her rib, and the third penetrated.
Katrina clenched her jaw to keep from screaming, and compressed all the rage and frustration she felt at her own people trying to stop her into cold determination.
If this man wanted a fight to the death, she’d bring it to him.
She took a step to the side to avoid further weapons fire and kicked the soldier’s arm, sending his next rounds wide.
Then she lowered her rifle and set it to fire both kinetic and ballistic rounds at the same time—in full automatic.
Katrina fired the weapon over the Link, concentrating on keeping it aimed at the soldier’s feet. Three dozen rounds hit the man’s feet in three seconds. One of his boots was blown clear off, and the other crumpled under the barrage.
Her goal had only been to disable the maglocks on his boots, but this result would suffice as well. He was screami
ng in pain as Katrina dropped her rifle, and she scooped the man up—the low gravity and powered armor making it easy.
With a grunt, she tossed him over the fuel pump and toward the entrance where his four teammates had retreated from Troy’s laser fire.
“Take him and go!” Katrina called out as she picked up her rifle. She looked down at her side to see biofoam spilling out of her armor and sealing the wound. The bullet was still in there, but that would have to be removed later.
Katrina peered around the pump to see one of the Primacy soldiers dragging her attacker into the passageway. Then her gaze settled on the lift control—which was damaged and sparking.
<Any chance you can send the lift back down?> Katrina asked.
<Nope, another thing in this base that’s not on any central control system.>
Katrina looked for another lift to the catwalk, and spied it across the launch bay. It was no good, though; the soldiers in the passage would have a clear line of sight on her when she reached it.
<I’m going to climb,> Katrina said.
<Better hurry; the rest of their squad has nearly cut through the pressure doors.>
Katrina slotted the rifle onto her back and ran to the shaft that the lift rode on. She leapt onto it and used the maglocks on her hands and feet to ascend the pole as quickly as she dared.
<You can’t leave!> The lieutenant’s voice called out over the emergency net. <You’re violating the Veil Act.>
Katrina continued to climb as Troy peppered the entrance to the corridor with laser fire.
<I don’t care.>
Below, one of the soldiers braved the laser and edged out to take a shot. A projectile ricocheted off Katrina’s armor, and Troy responded with a beam that burned the soldier’s foot off.
<I’m as resolute as she is,> Troy announced to the Primacy soldiers. <And I’m a lot less sensitive about killing you. This ship is leaving, so I recommend you get out of this base if you don’t want it to be filled with your ashes.>
As he spoke, emergency warning lights began to strobe, and a voice came over the emergency net.
<Warning, evac ship launching in t-minus five minutes. Rail launch will be assisted by chemical boosters. All personnel, clear the Evac Site.>
The message repeated as sparks flew from the side of the launching rails, heating the ignition systems for the chemical boosters.
Katrina didn’t look to see if the Primacy soldiers were pulling back as she reached the top of the lift’s pole. She snatched up the antimatter case as gracefully as she dared, and raced down the catwalk and across the gantry. Once inside the airlock, she slammed her fist into the emergency closure control as the gantry fell away from the ship.
<What happened to ‘t-minus five minutes’?> she asked Troy.
<Think I’m going to let them know how long they have to shoot us down with their patrol ship?>
Katrina looked at the case of antimatter and knew she didn’t have time to get it into secure storage, so she hauled it up the ladder past the Ops Deck, and onto the Flight Deck.
Unlike the rest of the ship, the cockpit was currently oriented so that the seats faced ‘up’. This would give the pilots better support when the ship boosted out into space.
Being pushed back into an acceleration chair was far better than being pushed down into one, something that tended to break spines.
Katrina climbed the rungs built into the floor and slung the case into a seat, buckling the harness around it. Once she was reasonably certain it wouldn’t break free, she shimmied into her own seat and buckled in.
The fit was awkward in the powered armor, but she managed to get the harness in place, and pulled up a view of the launch bay on her HUD.
<Looks like they took the hint,> she said when the feeds revealed the soldiers falling back to the entrance shaft.
<It took a few more shots to show them we were serious, but they finally got the message.>
Katrina pulled up the launch status and shook her head. <Looks like they’re trying to stop the launch rails with a remote hack.>
<Let them try,> Troy said. <This facility exists for one purpose: to launch this ship. Once that launch is started, it is very, very hard to stop. Plus, I learned a few tricks from Angela during our time together. There’s nothing they can do—and even if they could, I’d just fire the fusion engine in here.>
For the first time, Katrina realized that Troy might be more desperate to leave The Kap than she was.
<Can you really do that? Is it safe?>
Troy chuckled. <Yes, and not even remotely. Ten seconds, hold on.>
Katrina switched her view to the top of the launch silo, which was still covered. She was about to say something about it when an explosion flared above, and the doors blew outward.
Then the chemical boosters came alive, and the rail hauled the ship up the kilometer-long shaft, and out into space. The instant they cleared the surface, Troy activated the fusion drives, thrusting the Voyager forward at over 10g.
Katrina prayed that the Primacy soldiers had not exited the top of the entrance shaft, or it would be the last thing they did.
She didn’t have much time to think about it, though. Beams hit the Voyager’s hull, and she toggled the refraction shields, limiting the impact of the enemy weaponry.
Enemy. Those were her people. She had worked for decades to build this colony for them; first at her husband’s side, and later as governor herself.
Now they were trying to kill her.
She saw the patrol craft sitting in a geostationary orbit and fired the Voyager’s forward beams at it. She wasn’t shooting to kill; just enough to let them know that her ship was bigger, and had teeth.
The Primacy ship boosted to avoid being a stationary target, and then Voyager’s scan suite screamed a warning about incoming projectiles.
<Launching chaff!> Katrina announced. <Firing EM countermeasures.>
Troy didn’t respond, but the attitude thrusters fired and the Voyager changed trajectory, slamming Katrina sideways in her seat.
She glanced over to see that the case holding the antimatter was still secure before firing the beams at two missiles that had made it through the chaff and EM fields.
One missile detonated, but the other was still approaching.
Troy shifted trajectory again, putting the missile right behind them. The engine wash hit the incoming weapon, and it detonated a kilometer behind the Voyager.
<Nice try, assholes,> Troy said as he altered the ship’s trajectory once more and spooled out the AP drive’s nozzle.
<I guess there’s no reason not to burn Perseus,> Katrina said. <No one lives there.>
<My thinking as well,> Troy said in agreement as he powered up the annihilator and the ship’s velocity increased.
<Just don’t go over thirty gees,> Katrina said as her armor filled her mouth with gel to keep her teeth from shattering. Elsewhere, it threaded nanostrands into her body, strengthening her bones against both the force and her body’s two-ton weight.
<Ship’s only rated for twenty-five,> Troy replied as he pushed it past twenty-six.
Katrina didn’t even have the ability to give a rueful laugh as she pulled up the view of the patrol ship behind them. It had given up on pursuit and was circling around Perseus, back to the Evac Site—likely to rescue the soldiers on the surface.
<We’re not being followed,> Katrina said, feeling the bullet in her side begin to travel back through her body. If her mouth hadn’t been full of gel, she would have screamed.
<I know, but I want to get our v up before we go dark.>
<Dark?> she asked as tears filled her eyes. <How dark?>
<This ship was meant as an ark to get to another habitable system, if needs be—which needs might be, indeed. Looks like Tanis wanted to be sure it could slip in unnoticed wherever it ended up.>
<Great. How good?>
<Stealth’s as good as the Andromeda’s,> Troy replied a happy tone to his normally dour voice.
; Katrina brought up a view of the Kap System. If they could boost this hard, then alter their vector and go dark, it would be possible to slip past the sensors at the system’s heliopause, and make it out into interstellar space undetected.
Which would be very useful, because if the patrol ship at Perseus wasn’t pursuing them, it meant that the Primacy Space Force had cruisers at the edge of the system moving to intercept the Voyager.
<Stand by for another vector shift,> Troy announced, and Katrina was pushed to the other side of her seat, and blinding pain coursed through her body as she felt at least two ribs snap.
<Troy, no more, I can’t…>
<Killing thrust, we’re adrift.>
Katrina attempted to breathe a sigh of relief, but pain stabbed through her in a dozen locations. She clenched her jaw and looked up the time to reach the heliopause: three days.
She reached up and unsealed her helmet, hooking it on her armor’s chest. Spitting out the hardened gel in her mouth made her gag, but she managed, and began to undo her harness.
“I’m going to get this antimatter into storage, and then spend some time in the autodoc.”
<Yeah, you look like crap.>
“Thanks.”
Katrina turned and saw that the antimatter case was no longer in the seat next to her. She craned her head anxiously while fumbling with her harness.
“Fuuuuuuck,” she breathed as she caught sight of it wedged between a console and the cockpit’s bulkhead, dented, but otherwise undamaged.
<I didn’t mention it—figured you didn’t need that stress,> Troy said with a soft laugh. <But if I could have crapped myself, I would have when it tore free.>
Katrina let out a nervous chuckle. “I can imagine.”
She pulled herself out of the seat and drifted toward the case in the zero-g environment. She gave a gentle tug and it didn’t budge.
“Here goes nothing,” Katrina said as she placed her feet on the deck and engaged the armor’s maglocks. “This is gonna hurt…. One, two, three—”
There was a deafening screech, and the case came free. Katrina was glad she was wearing the armor, or she and the case would have gone flying across the cockpit.
Her eyes watered from the pain in her chest, and Katrina kept her breathing shallow as she examined the case. It was bent along one side, and she decided not to open it until she got to the engineering compartment. Chances were that it wouldn’t close properly again, and the last thing she needed were five cylinders of antimatter floating around.