By Erin_Cale
Disclaimer: See first part.
***
The hallway was eerily silent as Kathryn followed Dylan up to Command. She was worried and the silence didn’t help matters any. Back on Voyager, the klaxons would have been wailing, crew members would have been running to their stations. Here, there was no sound save for the muffled noise of their shoes pounding on the floor.
As they ran in what felt like an upward direction, Dylan asked the ship, “Can you identify them?”
“Yes sir. The Drago-Kazov.”
“Damn.”
Kathryn was confused. “Who are the Drago-Kazov?”
“They’re a Nietzchean pride who are after both Tyr and myself. They’re also very powerful.” Dylan raised his voice a little to ask Andromeda another question. “How many are there?”
“5,” came the prompt reply.
“Well, he’s not sparing any expense for our capture is he? Personally, I’m flattered.”
Kathryn’s confusion quickly turned to worry. “There are people out there who are chasing you and you’re flattered that they sent five ships?”
“Don’t worry, Kathryn. We’ve gotten through situations like this before and we’ve got one of the best pilots I’ve ever known.” Despite his words, Dylan was still worried. However, even under the worry, he was surprised at himself for how much he had come to trust this woman in such a short time.
Kathryn stayed silent for the rest of the run up to Command. When they finally reached it, Kathryn moved off to one side, where she would be out of the way. Dylan and the others took no notice.
“Cuchulain is hailing us.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Cuchulain’s arrogant face appeared on the forward screen. “Captain Hunt.” He took a quick look around Dylan’s Command center. “I see you have recruited another mindless minion to your ‘cause’.”
Dylan threw a look at Kathryn, silently telling her not to interfere. She wouldn’t have anyway, but she gave Dylan a slight nod, indicating that she wouldn’t say a word. Dylan turned back to his opponent.
“So, come to collect Drago’s bones from us again?”
“As well as your head.” Though Cuchulain answered with a smile, their was no kidding in his tone. “If you and Anasazi bring Drago’s bones over to my flagship, I promise that I will be lenient on your crew.”
“Right.”
“You have two minutes to decide. If you don’t decide then to come over with the Kodiak and the remains of Drago Museveni, I will destroy your ship with all hands aboard. Cuchulain out.”
Dylan looked to his crew. “If we face off against Cuchulain now, there’s no way that we’ll be able to survive.”
“We should at least go down fighting,” Tyr commented.
“I think we could still transit to slipstream before they could attack,” Beka said.
Andromeda answered Beka’s comment. “It’s too late for that, Beka.”
“Then what can we do?” Trance asked.
“Trust in the Divine,” Rev suggested.
Kathryn cleared her throat loudly, attracting the attention of everybody in the room. “Has everybody here forgotten that Harper and I just finished building a generator for energy shields?”
“But they haven’t been tested,” Harper protested.
“It’s either trust me and test them under fire or die fighting without them.”
“How soon can you activate the shields?”
“Everything is in place. All it needs is power. We gave Andromeda the ability to turn on the shields herself.”
“All right then. Andromeda, activate the shields.” Andromeda’s hologram nodded. The screen that showed the starscape didn’t change.
“Shouldn’t that change somehow?” Harper asked.
“No. This is the way that our shields look from inside the ship. The view only changes when something’s wrong, so this is a good thing.”
“Do you really think we can take on 5 Drago-Kazov warships?” Harper asked, his voice a little higher than normal.
“It all depends on the weaponry these Drago-Kazov have. But if they’re just using projectile weapons like what you’ve told me the Andromeda uses, then I think the shields will hold off the majority if not all of their weaponry.”
“We’ll have to test it one way or another,” Dylan muttered. “Andromeda, bring us about and send a message to Cuchulain that we won’t be surrendering anything any time soon.”
“Message away.”
The ship shuddered under sudden weapon’s fire from the five ships, but nothing exploded, the lights didn’t go off. Most importantly, Andromeda didn’t report a hit. The crew looked on in awe and Kathryn looked proudly at the forward screen. The energy shields crackled with fierce energy, but no weapons got through.
“Return fire.”
Andromeda’s tactical screen replaced the view on the forward screen. They saw the little shapes that represented the Andromeda’s missiles strike one of the enemy’s ships, destroying it almost immediately. Kathryn’s eyes widened slightly at the thought that she had just helped to destroy that ship. Then she supposed that, with only projectile weapons at their disposal, they couldn’t exactly take out the other ship’s engines or weapons. Even after justifying it to herself, she couldn’t watch as two more ships were destroyed.
“The last two ships are retreating.”
“What about Cuchulain’s flagship?”
“One of those fleeing.”
Tyr slapped his console in an unusual display of happiness. “Yes!”
Kathryn gulped and looked back at Dylan as the tactical screen changed back to the image of the two ships running. “See? What did I tell you? My survival depends on your survival.”
Dylan looked back at her. He noticed that her eyes showed the kind of aging that only comes with seeing too much destruction in one’s time. He felt immensely sorry for her and, unable to find anything else to say, he said, “Yes. So it does.”
***