In Her Name

completely paralyzed.

“What the fuck did you do to him, Thorella?” Jodi snapped as she knelt next to Reza, feeling for his pulse. It was there, his heart beating rapidly to clear the adrenaline from his system. His eyes were still open, but they stared straight ahead, unblinking. “What did you do?”

“Not a thing, commander,” he said, a surprised smile on his face. “And I would remind you not to address me like that ever again. I don’t care if you like me or not, but I am a superior officer.”

“Then let me say it, Markus,” Nicole growled like a leopard, her nose not an inch away from his, “what the fuck did you do?”

“I already told you,” Thorella said, obviously pleased with whatever had happened. “While I know you won’t believe me, I did absolutely nothing. It just appears to me that your traitorous friend there has not fully recovered. Such a pity.”

“Reza, can you hear me?” Jodi said urgently, looking into Reza’s glazed eyes. The pupils were dilated wide open. “Nicole, I think you’d better get the doctor in here. There’s something–”

As she watched, Reza’s pupils suddenly began to contract to something close to normal for the light in the room. He blinked and tried to speak.

“Well,” Thorella said merrily, “I do have to leave now. I just wanted to check on our temporary guest, pending his trial and execution.” He stepped back toward the door, then turned around as an afterthought. “And Commander Mackenzie, please don’t stay more than sixty seconds after this door closes behind me, or I’m afraid I’ll have to have you arrested.” He smiled, and was gone.

“Nicole–”

“I know, Jodi,” she said, kneeling down beside her as Reza began to recover from whatever had happened to him. “You had better do as he says. I will take care of Reza.”

“But–”

“Go,” she said. “He means it. We can ill afford more trouble now.”

Furious, Jodi did as she was told. As she stepped through the outer lock of the holding cell, she noticed the Marine lieutenant standing at stiff attention, eyes boring a hole in the far end of the corridor, staring after the retreating Marine colonel who had just promised to destroy the younger man’s life in the military. “Lieutenant,” she said to his pale, emotionless face, “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll see… I’ll see if there’s anything I can do…”

He said nothing, did not even acknowledge her presence.

Feeling like a fool and plagued with guilt, Jodi turned and walked away, the sound of her boots on the marble floor echoing hollowly in her ears.

Forty

Commodore Denise Marchand was quietly elated but openly confused. Her tiny scouting squadron, consisting of the heavy cruiser Furious – her flagship – and three destroyers, had stumbled upon a much superior Kreelan force of three heavy cruisers forty-three hours earlier. Much to her surprise, the Kreelan ships had not only failed to engage her, but had split up and run without making anything more than half-hearted attempts at defending themselves. Not by nature a cautious sort, Marchand had split her force, sending two destroyers after one cruiser, the Furious and the remaining destroyer after another, while temporarily ignoring the third enemy vessel. That was as much prudence as she was able to muster at the time.

In a matter of minutes, the first Kreelan cruiser had been reduced to a flaming hulk by torpedoes from the two pursuing destroyers, which immediately wheeled about to rejoin the flagship and her escort, which were still racing after the second fleeing Kreelan vessel. Not long thereafter, that ship finally came within range of the guns of the pursuing Furious, which wasted no time in breaching the enemy’s hull with a series of accurately placed salvos. The enemy cruiser exploded in a swirling fireball.

Then Marchand turned her attention to the surviving Kreelan cruiser, which had wisely used the time bought by its companions to try and escape, for now it was completely outnumbered and outgunned.

But this ship, or its commander, was different. While it hardly showed the fearless courage normally shown by Kreelan warships, its captain fired back, keeping both the Furious and the darting destroyers from nipping too closely at her heels as she fled deeper into Kreelan space.

Marchand was still wary of some sort of elaborate trap, but that would be totally out of character for the enemy. The Kreelans did not run, nor did they normally play games of cat and mouse. At least, not until now. Besides, she thought, why would anyone sacrifice two cruisers – three, if she caught up to this one – in exchange for a cruiser and three destroyers?

No, she told herself, this was something else, and it fit with the recent intelligence reports of sharply decreased resistance on the part of Kreelan forces everywhere.

“Commodore,” the flag communications officer reported, “we have an answer from Fleet.”

Eager to see what headquarters had to say in response to her request to follow the enemy cruiser into what was, except for the silent scoutship patrols, unknown space to human ships, Marchand called up the message on her console: Pursue enemy at own discretion. No supporting forces available. Godspeed.

It was just what she wanted to hear. She had been in the Navy – and had survived – for nearly twenty years. She was tired of always being on the run, turning her stern to run away from what always seemed to be a superior enemy force, or rushing to save some colony from destruction, only to arrive a little too late. While her squadron hardly constituted a major battle fleet, they were good ships with good crews, and this time she was determined to take the fight to the enemy.

“Captain Hezerah,” she asked of the Furious’s captain, “what’s the range to target?”

“One-hundred fifty thousand kilometers and steady,” he said instantly. “Zero closure rate.” At flank speed, the human squadron was making only enough speed to keep up with the Kreelan, not enough to overtake her. “Commodore,” he said quietly, “we won’t be able to keep this up much longer. Tai Mo Shan’s main drive is near the breaking point, and our own core passed the red line three hours ago. If we don’t slow down soon, we may never get home.”

Marchand frowned. She had known this was the case since Hotspur, one of the other destroyers, had blown a deridium converter over twelve hours before. Somehow, her engineers had kept her going, but that would not last for much longer.

She looked at the red icon that was the Kreelan ship they were hunting, wondering for the thousandth time why it had not jumped into hyperspace. The only reason she could imagine was that there was something wrong with the enemy ship’s hyperdrive. For the pursuing human squadron, that was both a blessing and a curse. Had the ship jumped, Marchand would have been forced to turn back. It was impossible to actively track a ship in hyperspace, and this entire area of space was uncharted. Marchand could not afford a jump that might drop her squadron back into normal space in the center of a star. On the other hand, drawn out, high-speed chases through normal space were hard on ships and their crews. And in Marchand’s grim estimation, any ship losing its main drive this far into enemy territory would have to be written off the naval registry as another casualty, for they could hardly expect to return home.

“We’re so close,” she whispered angrily through her teeth. “Are they still headed for that nebular formation?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Captain Hezerah replied uneasily. “Right for it.” In all his years in the service, he had seen nothing quite like it. Like a giant fog bank in space, or some gigantic ball of wispy cotton, it hung before the racing