the toddler, stroking her finely furred face until she put her head back down. “I don't want you to hurt anyone else. Find another way to show security who the West Keepers are so they can deal with them their own way or I'll make sure they find out about you.”
Larry looked genuinely surprised and stopped working on his side of the table. He stared at her silently for a long moment.
The communication portion of Ashley's console came to life as Minh-Chu's head appeared holographically over the table. “This is Ronin. Can anyone over there hear me?”
“That's the Freeground emergency frequency, I've been trying to get in ever since Jason came aboard,” Larry said. “Minh is using it unencrypted.”
“What do I do?” Zoe sat up in Ashley's lap and smiled at Minh's face.
“Reply, but don't tell them I'm here. I'll block myself from the transmission.”
Ashley took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Here goes,” she said to Zoe, who looked up at her, pointing to Minh's image. “Ronin? This is Ashley Lamport.”
“Ask him if he realizes he's broadcasting in the open,” Larry whispered.
“Ashley? They put you on comms?”
“I'm kinda doing a lot of things right now. Do you know you're in the open?”
“You mean, transmitting in the open? Right, I didn't know who was left over there, so I didn't have a choice.” Minh looked away for a moment, his image flickering violently. When it returned to normal Ashley’s communications terminal displayed a long, rapidly changing number. “There, we’re encrypted. Who's your little friend?”
“Zoe, she’s my copilot today. We found a safe spot and I'm getting the pilot's controls running.”
“Can you send me a ship status report?”
“Um, maybe?”
“It's the green and gold circular image on the comm screen.”
“Oh, I've been using that to check the ship myself.”
Zoe beat Ashley to it, smacking it with her slender hand.
“Whoa, she's bright, isn't she?”
“Oh yeah. I'm going to lock my controls though, just in case she gets a little adventurous,” Ashley said, bouncing Zoe in her lap. “Things aren't good here though. The whole ship's under attack from the inside. I don't think there are many safe places left.”
“I can see, but the ship above you is under attack too. This is a mess,” Minh said, shaking his head.
“How far behind is everyone else?” Ashley asked, hopeful.
“I'm it for now, but after seeing this I think Jake will muster up and get everyone out here as soon as they can.”
“This is Jason. I'm re-encrypting this channel with a biometric access gate.”
Ashley didn't know the serious minded communications and computer genius, but was relieved to see him. The sight was welcome, especially after discovering that help was much further off than she hoped.
“What's going on Jason?”
“Frost is leading the main assault against the destroyer docked to the dorsal mooring point, and I was leading a team to the bridge, but we're getting pushed back. They have some kind of sonic scanning technology in place that's seeing right through our cloaksuits, and we don't have the people to push through with force. I'm glad Frost is doing better. He's already shut down their hangar bay and he's moved into their ship.”
“Do you have a backup plan?” Minh asked.
“Oz took care of that, but he was killed while creating a diversion on the Triton’s bridge. I'm trying to get back to put the plan back into motion, but there's a lot of territory between me and the dorsal mooring point. Ashley, this report says that you were woken up when someone interfered with you in the infirmary. Who was it? What happened? There's no security footage.”
“Tell him you don't know, the soldiers were dead when you came to,” Larry whispered. The communications terminal was blocking any sound from his side of the room, a function she'd never seen the computer perform before.
“Um, the soldiers were dead when I came to. I used a ventilation shaft to get to a safer spot.”
“You found me knocked out in the next room and treated me with emergency nanobots,” Larry added.
“Larry’s here too,” Ashley blurted. “Somewhere, getting food maybe.”
“Nice going. I need you to replace a pilot who was with Oz. I've been in touch with Chief Grady, and he can give us a wormhole using the emitters we have left, so plot a course and as soon as we manage to shake two of the ships docked with us, get us moving. We'll take care of the rest.”
“How are you going to decouple the enemy ships?” She asked, looking at the port and starboard mooring points again. There was a destroyer firmly clamped to each side, and the sensors there reported that emergency welds were in place, holding them fast.
“Don't worry about it,” Jason insisted. “Minh, where is the Captain?”
“We landed on Tamber, it's under Carthan control. They're neutral enough, but I wouldn't call them friendly.”
“Good enough, forward the coordinates to their secondary arrival area to Ashley.”
“Already done.”
“I'm going to make full burn back, see if we can't get everything we've got on its way here.”
“Ronin, I know every instinct you have is telling you that is the right thing to do, but you can't. The only reason why you're not fighting off fifty fighters and dodging long range weaponry is because they're watching that buoy you lodged, trying to crack our codes and track back to your ship.”
“And here I thought I was being all careful and sneaky using half a dozen deactivated buoys to relay my comms.”
“Half a dozen? That’s why I’ve been seeing worm holes pop open. That’s kinda genius, Ronin,” Ashley congratulated with a big smile. It was the second conversation she’d ever had with him, and for the second time she was impressed.
“It just means that it’ll take them minutes to track this instead of seconds,” Jason interrupted. “Ronin, you have to go back and tell the Captain what's happened, but any help he can send will come too late. There's an Overlord coming. It’ll be here in about two days if the communications I've intercepted are right.”
The colour drained from Minh's face; “Is there anything I can do right now?”
“Get back as fast as you can. Tell the Carthans that the Triton is coming and we'll need help.”
“Will do. Heading out right now. Good luck Jason, be the brain we all know you are and get to Tamber safe. Hang in there Ash, I’ll see you on Tamber. Slick and I scanned some nice beaches on our way out, I’ll make sure there’s a drink with an umbrella in it waiting for you.”
“How’d you know I was a beach bunny?”
“Crewcast,” Ronin smiled.
“Can we hit pause on this courtship for just a little while so I can get back to saving the ship, please?” Jason said in a withering tone.
“Righto, on my way out.”
Ashley couldn’t help but snicker as the transmission terminated.
Larry shook his head with a disapproving expression.
“What? If we can’t have a teensy laugh, we’d all just snap.” She said cheerily, bouncing Zoe in her lap. “Right baby?” she asked her.
The toddler slipped to the floor and started running around the table sweetly singing; “roo roo rooooo.”
“That is the most random thing I’ve ever seen,” Larry remarked, wide eyed. “And annoying.”
“She’s excited, and probably learning to talk. Just let her go, she’ll tire herself out soon.” She said as she finished plotting their first wormhole jump. Without hesitation she moved on to setting up the second.
“Say ‘Larry.’” he requested as Zoe stopped in front of his chair.
She turned around and started making her way back around at a march, singing; “loo loo looooo,” instead.
“Well, at that rate she’ll be able to say her own name by new years,” Larry grumbled.
“Say ‘Ashley’,” Ashley invited sweetly.
“Allee!” Zoe shouted back.
