Chapter 621 Like a Bull in a China Shop
“Divert thender and pick him up,” Ayaka ordered moments after watching the recovered video.
“Apologies, Commander. Orders from the fleet are that we’re to immediately proceed to rendezvous with the Khopesh. They’re non-discretionary, I’m afraid,” thender pilot replied.
Thender continued rocketing straight up with over 20 subjective gravities of eleration pushing its passengers into their eleration seats and crash harnesses. The pilot would have gone faster, but his passengers were no ARES troopers or fleet sailors that had been trained to tolerate that kind of force; they were scientists, and scientists were by andrge a sedentary lot.
Lasers from the Khopesh’s drones began firing, the ionization in the air from the storm making them visible as shes of dim blue beams as they burned through root after root. The empire’s drones were designed to increase the strategic missile defense depth of the TSF, so handling rtively slow-moving roots was an easy task that could be left to their onboard VIs without worry.
Missiles in space battles would be traveling at a rate higher than .8c by the time they reached an intercept envelope, which was far too fast for any human to respond to, but the roots were only moving around a few hundred meters per second. Even if the VIs werepletely incapable, or even entirely nonexistent, human drone pilots would still have been able to protect thenders.
Ayaka knew that, so she frowned and said, “The drones are perfectly capable of keeping us protected, Warrant. But Warrant Lee doesn’t even have those, and he needs rescue—”
“Sorry ma’am, the orders are nondiscretionary. And they came down from the admiral’s staff. No way in hell—” the pilot twisted thender around in a wild corkscrew to dodge lightning bolts,sers, and roots, “—am I viting them for an EF Commander. I get it, I really do. I’m sorry you lost your... whatever, but this train we’re on isn’t stopping ‘til it reaches the station. Ma’am.”
Ayaka looked back at the map disy, where Joon-ho’s name wasbeled alongside the seven other people he had been sent to save. All eight of the names were shing yellow, showing that their connections had been lost. But at least that “connection lost” status gave her enough hope to go on; far more so than the solid red of “confirmed dead” did, anyway. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
She decided to raise the issue with Captain Marinakis. He was an old friend of Admiral Bianchi’s, and perhaps he could get the task force’s leader to agree to divert ander for a rescue mission. She knew, though, that it would be putting everyone in thender in severe danger, but she could do no less than try. After all, she’d been the one that had ordered Joon-ho to go on the rescue mission, so hers was the responsibility for that task’s failure. She was also the one responsible for letting him go alone, without any form of backup or escort.
Her intentions had been good. She could have diverted a drone from the Khopesh to rescue the scientists, but the opportunity to get the Terrible Teenager off his ass and contributing to the mission had proven impossible to pass up. And she knew, at least on a conscious level, that there had been zero indication that there was any danger at all. It was just a broken-down rover filled with scientists running one of thousands of experiments on the surface. It was supposed to have been a milk run, without any more danger than one would encounter while heading to the neighborhood bodega to pick up milk.
But as Ayaka was now discovering, guilt didn’t take rationality into ount. Her order had thrown one of her subordinates into life-threatening danger, and she couldn’t possibly forget that. Nor could she forgive herself; at least not so soon, anyway.
“I’lle for you soon, so you’d damn well better survive. If you die, I’ll kill you,” she muttered under her breath, nning on how to make a rescue mission happen amidst the chaos of evacuations going on around her. Joon-ho would be returned to her alive, or she would see his corpse buried with who, or whatever had killed him.
The moment thender settled onto its skids and opened its hatch in the boat bay of the Khopesh, Ayaka stormed down the ramp and headed toward a transport that would take her to the bridge of the enormous drone tender.
She had devised a rescue n that would, she hoped, satisfy all parties involved without the risk of harm to any human life and was determined to have it carried out,e hell or... well, high water had alreadye. Now all that remained was topose herself; she had been raised well enough that she knew anxiety or anger would only hurt the chances of her n being epted.
......
On the bridge of the TFS Khopesh.
The low buzz of people hard at work filled the air, alongside the almost physical sensation of tension. As a drone tender, each wing of drones wasmanded from the bridge, while the pilots of those drones were in VR pods in giant, cavernous bays deep in the guts of the massive vessel. Thus,pared to most imperial ships, drone tenders had a higher number of active personnel on the bridge.
Which meant that Ayaka had a muchrger audience when she glided into thepartment and saluted the captain.
“Captain Chang, a word, please?” she asked, still holding the salute.
“In my ready room, Commander,” the captain replied, then turned to hismunications officer. “Lieutenant Commander Sanders, you have the bridge.”
Then he stood and gestured toward his ready room, but Ayaka was already on the move. Perhaps her anxiety was showing through more than she would have liked.
When they reached the ready room, Captain Chang sat behind his desk and preempted the conversation. “I know what you have in mind, Commander, and I agree. As soon as the evacuation isplete, I’ll send a flight of drones to rescue your awakener.”
Ayaka was taken aback; she had expected she would need to fight for the rescue mission to take ce. “Thank you, Sir,” she finally said.
“But it’ll have to wait until after the evacuation isplete and thestnder—”
“Begging your pardon, Sir,” she interrupted. “But it’s imperative that we send the mission out now. The longer we wait...” she trailed off, unable to finish the thought. At least not out loud, anyway; the rest of the sentence was rampaging through her mind like a bull in a china shop. ‘The longer we wait, the more likely it is that he’ll be dead when we get there.’