In Her Name

Finally, after what seemed like hours, she was rewarded with the smooth humming of a drone entering sick bay, obediently coming to a stop in front of the chair where she had been sitting, waiting.

With another burst of effort, Jodi managed to drape herself over the boxy machine’s back, its impellers instantly compensating for her weight.

“Engineering,” she gasped, ignoring the flecks of blood that flew from her lips.

With nothing in the form of acknowledgment, the drone retraced its path out of the room and silently headed aft, hauling her along with it.

Once in engineering, the first thing Jodi had done after locking the door behind her was to make sure that Thorella could not communicate with the outside world. She had no idea what he was up to, why he was on this ship, but she had no intention of letting him get into more trouble – or causing any. Then she disabled his maneuvering controls. That took a while, during which she heard Tony Braddock’s fleet broadcast.

His voice and his words told him that Nicole must be all right, too. The thought made her feel better, but it did nothing to improve her health. She was bleeding again, inside. And there was no autodoc here to help her.

Jodi watched with grim amusement as Thorella lost himself in depression at Braddock’s words. To see him crushed, defeated, was a small victory, enough to bring a smile to her battered face, and with that accomplished, her body demanded rest, and she passed out into dark oblivion.

She woke up some time later to see him tinkering with a strange black case that he had found, and she was instantly worried by the change in his demeanor. She should not have been afraid, she told herself, because he could not access any of the ship’s systems from outside this compartment, and there was no way he could get in here without blowing through the hardened bulkhead.

“What are you doing, you bastard?” she whispered as she watched his fingers fly over the console that was revealed to be inside the case. “What is that thing?”

A pair of flashing lights on the control panel suddenly caught her attention: TORPEDOES ARMED, the display said.

“Wait just a minute,” she hissed. “Computer,” she barked, “weapons status?”

“All weapons under local control are in standby mode,” the synthesized female voice answered smugly. “No targets designated, no–”

“Then why are the torpedo status lights showing that they’re armed?”

“Torpedo tubes one and two are not under local control,” the computer answered as if Jodi were an idiot.

“Then who controls them?” Jodi felt a bead of sweat slip down her back.

“That information is classified.”

“Do tubes one and two have targets?” she asked, frantic now as she watched the status display changed from simply armed to ready.

“Affirmative.”

“What are the targets?” Jodi yelled at the console.

“That information is classified.”

“Goddammit,” Jodi shouted helplessly, “what the fuck isn’t classified?”

“Tubes one and two were reloaded with unserialized weapons while we were docked with Warspite,” the machine answered suddenly.

“What weapons?” Jodi asked. “Special weapons? What kind?”

“That information is–”

“Shut up!” Jodi shouted angrily. “Show me a theoretical torpedo trajectory based on current ship’s vector and torpedo launcher alignment.” She could not get the computer to tell her what the real target was, but maybe she could dupe it into giving it to her anyway.

“One moment.” And then the holo screen showed the sector of space near the sun. A red line arced out from the icon that was the yacht, following a trajectory right into the sun.

“What the hell…” Jodi whispered to herself. Suddenly, she understood. She had heard the tales, but had never believed them until now. Kryolon warheads. And Thorella controlled them. Her blood turned to ice in her veins.

“Computer,” she ordered, “shut down all power to weapons–”

The ship shuddered. Again.

“Torpedoes one and two away,” the computer announced cheerfully. “Power-down to weapons systems commencing… Completed. Weapons successfully powered down.”

Too late! Jodi cursed herself. On the holo display, the two weapons followed the computer’s projected course with unsurprising precision.

There was only one thing left for her to do now, she thought. It would no doubt cost her life, but there was no choice. She reactivated the datalink, hoping that Thorella would not catch on until it was too late.

“All ships, all ships, this is the Golden Pearl…”

* * *

“Weapons launch!” Sandhurst’s tactical officer cried, his eyes following the trajectories of two torpedoes launched from the small ship trailing behind the rest of the retreating fleet. For the last hectic forty minutes – it had seemed like hours – his primary job had been to keep human ships from firing on Kreelan ones, and for the most part he had been successful.

“Who?” Admiral Sinclaire demanded.

“It looks like that yacht, sir, the Golden Pearl,” the tactical officer replied quickly as his fingers stabbed angrily at his console, “but I’m not getting an IFF response, no datalink, and no voice, either. She’s not responding at all.”

“What’s she targeting?”

“Don’t know, sir. There aren’t any Kreelan ships in that quadrant.” Pause. “The torpedoes are headed right into the sun.”

What the Devil? Sinclaire thought. He had just gotten the fleet back into some kind of order, strange as it was, and he was not about to let things fall back into chaos, especially with the Marine transports still en route back from the Kreelan moon.

He was about to ask something else when the comms officer suddenly shouted, “Fleet emergency broadcast, admiral!”

“On screen!” Sinclaire demanded immediately. He was shocked by what he saw.

“All ships, all ships, this is the Golden Pearl.”

“Jodi,” Nicole whispered, fighting to keep the tears of rage held in check at the sight of her friend’s mutilated face, guilt surging through her for abandoning Jodi in her hour of need.

“This is Admiral Sinclaire aboard Sandhurst. Go ahead, commander.”

“Sir,” Jodi said thickly, obviously in excruciating pain, “you’ve got to get the fleet away from here as fast as you can. You’re all in great danger.”

“Commander, the Kreelans have given us time–”

“It’s not the Kreelans, sir,” she interrupted him, “it’s the weapons General Thorella, who’s aboard this ship, just launched. You should be tracking two torpedoes, heading into the sun.” A nod to Sinclaire from the tactical officer. Two maroon streaks were rapidly making their way across the holo image of this part of the system to the star at its center. “I think they’re fitted with kryolon warheads.” She paused in the sudden silence that enveloped Sandhurst’s bridge.

“Thorella launched these things?” Sinclaire managed to say with what felt like someone else’s tongue, so shocked was he to be hearing this. “On whose authority?”

She gave him a bitter smile through blood-caked lips. “His own, of course,” she rasped. “He’s never needed anyone else’s.”

“I am coming to get you, Jodi,” Nicole said suddenly. She had made a quick mental calculation from the tactical display. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Nicole,” Tony said from behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off angrily.

Jodi shook her head slowly, wincing at the pain the movement caused. “You can’t risk it, Nicole. There’s no time. And… I don’t think I’ll last that long now, anyway.” A bitter smile.

Sinclaire could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Kryolons, of all things. Could it