Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

thousand year cycle, but Walter knew better. All it had been was a hack with the best of intentions. A program that had come with unintended consequences.

But unintended consequences were just a fact of life, Walter thought.

He let out another sigh and watched the kernels of food jostle, all of them going in circles.

The wheel of his cart set down and screamed, then rose back up, spinning idly and silently, if only for a moment.

Walter pushed his cart.

He had new prisoners to feed.

He figured he always would.

Part XXIII – The Bern Affair

“Nothing ends up where it began, for it cannot survive its journey unchanged.”

~The Bern Seer~

40 · Near Darrin · The Present

On the fringes of the Darrin system, an unlikely fleet formed and found its footing. Manned by Navy personnel long in the tooth and short on combat experience, and Callite refugees with little time as even shuttle passengers, they came together and tested their systems in a rising cloud of confidence. They had already done something previously thought impossible: They had pulled off a raid on the most feared system in the galaxy and had walked away with a fortune in hardware.

And now, what the new fleet lacked in numbers—counting less than fifty craft total—they almost made up for in raw power. The arms and defenses in each of the ships had evolved in a system famous for warfare. A system that had reduced entire planets to rubble.

Inside one of these ships, Edison put the finishing touches on the last of the hyperdrives, giving it one-time powers similar to Parsona’s. He surveyed the changes a final time, screwed the side panel tight using an index claw shaped like a Philips head, and then left the engine room, waving good luck to the ship’s crew as he stepped through the airlock and returned to Lady Liberty.

••••

Once Edison was aboard, Anlyn waited for the hatch indicators to show a good seal and then decoupled from their last ship. As she peeled away, she felt an immense pride in him for modding two more of the drives than any of the other engineers. His extra efforts had helped keep the Darrin fleet on schedule.

Overall, Anlyn was more than satisfied with how well the plan was unfolding. Even counting the loss of two full raid crews, the mission to steal and assemble such an advanced fleet had gone surprisingly well. She spun Lady Liberty around to face the staging area where pilots were putting their new ships through their paces. Several groups were engaging in weapons-lock dogfights with other ships in their wing, getting used to how the craft handled and how many Gs the crews could take in their ill-fitting flightsuits.

Anlyn watched as a few laser bolts were shot off into the distance. She had given them permission to test fire the cannons, but had told them not to waste rockets. Meanwhile, navigators contented themselves with dialing through menu after submenu, memorizing the location of defensive routines and practicing with locking onto neighboring ships on SADAR. This also helped the other crews get used to the sounds of their new warning alarms so they wouldn’t startle as easily in real combat.

Anlyn kept Lady Liberty above the action and watched. She saw a few good things within the maneuvers, but much wrong. The three real Firehawk pilots Molly had rescued from the Carrier stood out immediately as being head and shoulders above the rest. Each had been given command of one of the other three wings, and two of the pilots rode with their natural navigators. Saunders had argued the crews be split up, spreading their experience between two of the other ships, but Molly had insisted they remain together. She had assured them that the strength of an old partnership was more than double the advantage of each person on their own, and the way she had said it prevented any serious debate from taking place.

Now, Anlyn could tell from the mock engagements that Molly had been right. Those two intact and well- trained crews were dominating in their sparring matches, and were already helping the others improve their own abilities. Anlyn watched for a moment, then thumbed her radio. “Wing Three Beta, you’re inverting your dive like you’re in atmosphere. Just spin in place and fire.”

“Copy,” the pilot radioed back, his voice strained from the Gs.

Anlyn watched the maneuvers continue, offering advice where it was needed. Now and then, she glanced at the clock on her dash, which was counting down the moment to the real raid. Soon they would be jumping straight back to Lok and beginning their clash with the Bern fleet.

She could hardly believe what was set to happen next. As Edison settled in the nav seat and began going through the systems checks, she thought about what she was about to do. Anlyn Hooo, young princess, former slave, rogue pilot. She was about to lead a ragtag group of the aged and infirmed against the very fleet that had nearly brought all their demises and had literally downed loved ones among both the Callites and Humans. She was about to go up against the true enemy of her empire, the shadowy figures of her childhood nightmares, the subjects of so much prophecy, hand-wringing, and empty pronouncements, and she was in charge.

The ridiculousness of it all made it seem as if it couldn’t take place, as if something must stand in the way to prevent that moment from arriving. Even as the clock on the dash ticked down to the final hour, Anlyn felt almost sure it would happen to someone else, or in a different lifetime.

Then she thought about that massive Bern ship up in orbit around Lok, the one Molly told her had taken out an entire Human fleet. She knew that if Parsona and her crew didn’t have that gravity machine taken care of before they arrived, then none of her worries, none of her pointers to the other pilots, none of it would matter in the least.

Anlyn wondered if perhaps that ship was the thing keeping all her dreams from feeling real.

••••

Cat prepared herself for the jump into orbit while Scottie and Ryn arranged the hyperdrive platform in Parsona’s cargo bay. She sorted through the four remaining buckblades, looking for the one with the most solid craftsmanship. Ryke, meanwhile, continued to try and talk her out of going.

“It’s suicide,” he told her for the countless time.

Cat smiled to herself. The grizzly old scientist had resorted to repeating an experiment while hoping for a different result. It was a sign of how much he must care for her that his brain had stopped functioning properly. She powered on the buckblade, plucked one of her blond hairs out of her ponytail, then swiped the invisible weapon sideways through the dangling strand. The bottom half of the follicle fell away, and the barest tinge of something burnt drifted up to her Callite nose. She powered off the blade and hung it from her belt.

“Look—” She turned to Ryke and placed both hands on his low, broad shoulders. “It isn’t suicide, so stop thinking of it like that. Hell, if everything goes to shit like I suspect, that fleet up there might be the safest place in the universe. And you know me, I’ll switch sides in a heartbeat if I have to.”

Ryke frowned, his lower lip disappearing into his beard.

“I’m only kidding,” Cat said.

She squeezed his shoulder and looked around the cargo bay for anything she may have forgotten. She had a little food and water, a pair of good boots, a radio, and a buckblade. She couldn’t think of anything else.

“We’re all set up,” Scottie told her.

Cat walked over to Scottie and Ryn. She reached out her hand to shake Scottie’s, but he just used the grip to pull her into an embrace. She reciprocated, foreign emotions swelling in her throat, making it impossible to