Deadshepherd (Tales of the Final Fall of Man Anthology Book 1) by Andrew Hindle

Author:Andrew Hindle [Hindle, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-04-29T23:00:00+00:00

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Attacus passed temporary control of the bridge to Baadan – as Malachi had no doubt known he would – and followed Sergio out into the main access thoroughfare which stretched through the command section and dived into the heavily-armoured transit spar. The landers, shuttles and fighters were two sections along.

“Sergio.”

Malachi stopped, squared his shoulders dramatically – the robot parrot on his shoulder shifted and rustled – and turned to face his friend.

“Attacus.”

“You’re not actually thinking of going aboard?” he said with rising anger.

“It’s the only–”

“Don’t give me the ‘it’s the only way to resolve the situation peacefully’ line, Sergio,” Attacus snapped. “We invented that line together. If you’re worried that this thing will destroy the Draka, that they’ll board us and slaughter us the way they apparently did with the Linda and–”

“Yes?” Malachi said coldly. “Then what, Acting Captain? I’m open to recommendations. Because as far as I can see, we have three alternatives,” he ticked them off on his fingers, briskly and angrily. “Negotiate. Fire on them. Or jump out of here while we still can, and come back with another half-dozen warships, and any backup the Fleet lets us have, and an aki’Drednanth or two for good measure. And any backups we happen to get, we’d be getting on the basis of what little we’ve seen here,” he seemed to make an effort to moderate his tone. “Starting a shooting war with the Flesh Eater has no guarantee of success. Neither does running for reinforcements – and that option has the added drawback of not knowing whether they’ll still be here when we come back with the cavalry.”

“Send a clipper,” Attacus said.

“We sent a clipper,” Drakamod said calmly. “On the edge of the volume before we crash-jumped to this location. We attempted to send another clipper from here but while the Draka’s relative drive appears functional, smaller vessels are disabled – apparently due to a counterpulse through the gridnet, but we are still trying to ascertain–”

“When exactly were you going to tell us about this?” Attacus demanded.

“Attacus, relax,” Malachi said. “The clipper-launch was logged as standard operating procedure – along with the rest of the prep before we crash-jumped, and the failure of the clipper units after we jumped. It’s just not unpacking readily and Tactical are struggling to prioritise the data, with Charlie offline. Besides,” the Captain went on, “even a clipper will take a couple of weeks to get to any outpost big enough to muster even a moderate response group, assuming the pilot has any success. And they’ll take another couple of weeks to get back here. Keep in mind that the clock’s ticking. The Flesh Eater isn’t going to let us float here indefinitely. Sooner or later, they’ll act – or our own Fergunak will.”

Drakamod, clinging to Sergio’s shoulder, didn’t disagree with this assessment.

“So wait for them to fire the first shot,” Attacus said. “Stare them down. Remember the–?”

“Their first shot might be the last in a very short war,” Malachi said. “At least

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