Abysm by G. S. Jennsen Read Free Book Online

Alliance military stands ready to defend you. We only need your permission.”
    There was a weighty pause. “You mean you and Admiral Solovy.”
    “And all those serving under us.”
    “I wasn’t inclined to take a public position on this little spat, but they blew up my space station. And now you tell me they’re on the ground, too? If this is the start of a civil war, God help us all. Admiral Rychen, please rid Messium of this threat. I’m activating my Defense Grid authorization and transferring control to you, so you may use its capabilities as needed.”
    “Thank you, Governor. I assure you, it will be deployed solely as a last resort.”
    He killed the holocomm and shifted to the open screen to his right. “Admiral Solovy, you are a go.”

    S IYANE
    Alex magnified the radar screen as they neared the conflict zone.
    Mark Mom’s ship.
    Miriam had named it the Stalwart II . Alex’s chest fluttered as echoes of long-ago memories, delightful and terrible alike, washed over her.
    The ways in which her mother honored her father in this cause were as equally wonderful as they were heart wrenching. Volnosti —Russian for the principle of liberty and freedom and one of her father’s most zealously held tenets—marked every ship, uniform, standard and pronouncement of the campaign.
    One green dot bloomed larger than the others on the radar, and she pushed the memories into a deep corner while banking toward the dot. It flew near the rear of the formations, as a command ship should be, but not enough near the rear.
    What was her mother thinking? She’d said it herself before the final Metigen confrontation: she wasn’t a battlefield commander. She was a strategist.
    But it was worse than that. The Volnosti forces were outnumbered. The Earth Alliance military had nearly unlimited vessels to throw at any problem, and they’d done so here. Yep, she needed to be here to help.
    The lessons of the critical engagement against the Metigens began to come back to her. Battlefield tactics. Maneuvers and the counters to them.
    Valkyrie:  You’re remembering because I have prioritized those routines.
    Morgan:  And because I’m helping.
    Alex:  Smartasses, the both of you. Thank you.
    The Siyane was fully stealthed, so she cracked her neck and moved into position above and to port of her mother’s ship. Objectively, it had plenty of protection. But as noted, their side was outnumbered. On second thought—more battle memories—she moved a bit farther out, into the fray, and began searching for potential incursions.
    Ugh, this was all too sluggish. Too slow. Before she’d realized she’d done it, she’d slipped into the walls of the Siyane .
    And she could see everything . The deluge of information generated by two fleets threatened to overwhelm her, but she worked to scrutinize a limited, pertinent set of factors. Her goal was to intercept enemy vessels intent on damaging or destroying the Stalwart II .
    Within a few seconds she knew what to hunt for. Even the Metigen cloaking technology the ships used, as advanced as it was, could not hide perturbations in the fabric of the space-time manifold. What was invisible in three dimensions became apparent to her elemental perception.
    There. An Alliance interdictor had crept past the demarcation line which for now continued to hold. Publicly a standoff was in progress, but privately the enemy would try to eliminate the Volnosti leader nonetheless. Bastards.
    She spun and dove on an intercept course.
    Morgan:  The smaller Alliance vessels are weakest at the juncture of the impulse engine and the main hull frame. Find a seam in the adiamene there and you might be able to damage it.
    Alex:  Kindly keep to yourself how you know that.
    Valkyrie:  Even I know that.
    All the talking grated at the edges of her nerves. It interfered with the experience, forced part of her mind out of the elemental realm. She dialed down the volume and embraced the atoms whizzing past her skin as