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Minutes passed in a blur.
Activity resumed around her. The other men reported what was happening throughout the ship and on the bridge; the commander gave orders. The fleet had enough military personnel to keep the roaming Ternetzi fighters at bay—the ones who’d invaded the ship and were now running loose through scrambled hallways.
Beyond the window, dancing blooms of combat exploded as the greater ship and its smaller ships engaged the Ternetzi forces.
It was as if she hadn’t made a dent with all her raging and meddling.
Collins finally looked at her again. “It’s too bad you can’t be more cooperative. I had very high hopes for you and… anyway. It’s going to be a long trip back to Earth in a cell.”
Lucca wasn’t returning to Earth… and neither were they. Their portal was gone.
Maybe he didn’t know.
His piercing eyes turned to Erulea. “Thisplanet is going to make an excellent place for expansion, don’t you think? It’s nearly twice the size of Earth. Incredible air quality, predictable weather patterns.”
Lucca gave it a moment’s consideration. “Our ships will get crushed.”
“We’ve been hard at work figuring these things out, Miss Watts. That’s why we hire scientists.”
“Of course,” she said flatly.
He stood up and her hackles rose. “Would you care to join us on the bridge for the show? It’s about to begin.”
She studied him for a long time, debating whether she had any recourse to stop him from what he was about to kick off. She was certain he intended to bomb the daylights out of Erulea.
They never got the chance.
“Door won’t open,” someone grunted.
“What?” asked the commander in honest confusion.
“It won’t open, sir.”
“What do you mean, it won’t open?”
Lucca sagged back into her chair, watching with detachment as five grown men struggled and failed to get the singular door to do the thing that doors were expected to do—open. It was an odd source of amusement to her, almost comforting. She had the pleasure of watching Terry Collins grow flustered over an unbreakable sheet of airtight metal. It was a random technical issue, most likely, and it brought a slow smile to Lucca’s face.
“Would you like me to take a look at it?” she asked. Give her tools, and she might open a window instead.
The commander ignored her.
And then he was giving the order over the phone system to commence with their depopulation efforts. He made it sound so neat, so clinical. His voice didn’t sound even remotely genocidal.
The second technical issue of the night revealed itself within minutes.
The room descended into a hush. Everyone held their collective breaths waiting for the bombs to drop. Lucca stared at Caligher, feeling utterly useless but otherwise resigned, almost peaceful. She’d done everything in her power and some things were simply too big for her.
But the bombs never fell.
Erulea gleamed, shiny and whole, peacefully unaware of the devastation the Aerinus meant to bring down on it. As the seconds passed and slowly formed a minute, then two, it became apparent to everyone that the bombs would never start.
Something had happened to the weapons system. It never warmed up all at once to auto-fire. An excitable heat danced in Lucca’s chest as she turned her eyes back toward Caligher—sensing… something.
* * *
It vexed the commander of the Aerinus—being trapped in that room.
What followed the catastrophic failure of their state-of-the-art weapons system was a compiling rush of unrelated failures.
