"Sissy boy is hardly an accurate term anymore is it?" I said gesturing at my body.

 
by Lisa Caitlin Grey

 

---

 
This story is dedicated to my beloved friend and soul mate who passed away in November of 2002. Dana, I will always miss you terribly.
 
Part 8: Star Faring For Freedom
 
Chapter 27
 
 
We lifted free of the tarmac on the anti-grav generators. As soon as we gained enough altitude, I brought the main and secondary drives to full thrust. The Duality Too shot up into orbit like a watermelon seed somebody squeezed from between their fingers. As we gained orbit, we contacted Diversity local space control and they vectored us out. The trip to our little pass-through point in the blockade took far less time than it did the first time and we arrived at Stile Station without incident.

Stile Station, getting its name from a stile, or a bridge between pastures, was built to serve as a relay station to assist stealth capable ships making their drift run across the blockade. It was also there to prevent unauthorized runs by non-stealth equipped ships and those that didn't have the code to disable the drone. This back door into the Zone was far too valuable to risk drawing attention to it.

"Duality Too, this is Stile Control. We have you inbound on long range sensors," the Comm crackled. "Will you be stopping with us?"

"Stile Control, this is Captain Valerie Callaway, commanding Duality Too," I said, "We're just passing through this time around. Request sensor relay feed, authorization code Victor Nancy Charlie Mike Charlie Charlie Bravo Nancy Charlie Wun Niner Seven Four Four Two."

"Copy that, Duality Too," Stile Control returned. "Authorization code checks as does your piggy-backed transponder code. Beginning sensor relay feed now. Have a safe trip and come back to us soon, hear?"

"Thanks Stile Control," I said. "We are receiving the sensor feed and setting up for our drift run. We'll be going to stealth shortly. See you on the return trip. Duality Too out."

We laid in our heading and began our max burn. As we approached the transition area of the senor buoys' maximum range we cut the drive and went into stealth mode. We had built up a lot more speed than the last time we'd run the blockade so we wouldn't be in the sensor area for as long.

"Damn," I cursed, as we made it to about a quarter of the way though the detection area. A TSN ship entered our scope.

"What's wrong," Sam asked nervously.

"We have a TSN dreadnought inbound," I said.

"Oh crap," Sam said. "Does she see us?"

"Not at the moment," I said.

"So what's the problem?" Sam asked.

"The problem is that we will cross her course about 100 klicks ahead and above her," I said.

"And?" Sam prompted.

"Stealth mode masks us from sensor detection in all but the infrared and visual spectrums," I explained. "We are beating the infrared by not running our drive and creating a big heat plume. However, at that range, they will be able to faintly detect the heat of our life support. While it's not uncommon to pick up such faint readings in space, we will be clearly visible to anybody that's looking. Our hull is camouflaged, reflecting the star field around us, but it's an imperfect thing. A trained eye will be able to spot us easily."

"So what do we do?" Sam asked. "Shouldn't we turn back, or make a run for it or something?"

"If I fired the drives now they would definitely detect us and by the time we scrubbed off enough speed to go back the other way, our intent would be clear," I explained. "It's not a given that they will see us, just a better than even possibility. We could get lucky and the sensor tech on duty could just assume our heat signature is cosmic in origin without even looking further. That's our best hope at this point so we will continue as we are and watch carefully for any sort of activity that says we've been detected."

"I see that reports of your courage under fire were not exaggerated," Sam commented.

"My decisions are based on what allows us to get the mission done while giving us the greatest chance of survival," I rejoined. "Courage has nothing to do with it."

"Bullshit," Sam grinned at me. "You calmly sit there as we drift into the path of a dreadnought whose firepower would rip us to ribbons instantly and you say that it isn't courage? Goddess, girl, I am scared shitless!"

"And I'm not?" I asked. "My whole family including my son is on this ship. I am risking all our lives here and that terrifies me."

"Yet you are calm and making rational decisions," he said. "That, dear lady, is courage."

I let it go and we continued into harm's way in silence. The tension mounted the closer we got. We were seconds away from our closest point to the dreadnought. They would be reading our heat signature now. I said a silent prayer as we crossed the dreadnought's course. There was no response from the dreadnought as yet. The tension began to release as our drift carried us further from the TSN ship. We were just about to transition out of her gun radius when she did an about face and began to move toward us, deploying fighters.

"Well, boys and girls, they've spotted us," I said, and firewalled the drives. The Duality Too leaped forward as I vectored her immediately away from the dreadnought and her inbound fighters.

"Valerie, we are being hailed," Dan informed me.

"On the main screen please, Dan," I said.

"Unidentified vessel," a familiar face said from the screen. "This is the TSN Dreadnought Aquinas, you are ordered to cut your drives and heave to."

"Sorry, Captain Edmunds, I can't do that," I responded.

"Identify yourself," Captain Edmunds my old CO demanded. "Do I know you?"

"Captain Valerie Nicole Callaway commanding the Duality Too," I returned. "You cannot catch us, Captain. Call off your fighters for their safety. We are armed and will not hesitate to return fire if they fire on us." I was desperately trying to stall until we got out of hyperspace-inhibited range. The fighters were no match for us, but they could do damage and perhaps slow us enough that the Aquinas could close range on us.

"Callaway...I know that name and you do look familiar," the Captain said. "Do I have the honor of addressing a relative of Brock Callaway? His twin sister perhaps?"

The Captain knew full well whom he was addressing but he was respecting the promise to me long ago.

"Perhaps," I said smiling. As long as he was talking he wasn't shooting.

"I must say, I completely understand why he kept you such a secret. You are very beautiful, my dear, and unless I miss my guess, very deadly as well, if you are anywhere near the caliber of your brother," the captain said.

"Fortunately, you won't have to find out," I said as the green indicator light illuminated, letting us know we could now jump to hyperspace. I brought the jump generators on line and began to initiate the jump.

"I'm afraid I will, my dear," the captain said. Just then I heard a clang against our hull and the jump generators went off line.

"They've hit us with a jump inhibitor missile," Dan said calmly. "At the inhibitor field's rate of decay, we won't be able to jump for another minute."

"That means the fighters will have a minute to hit us with another inhibitor missile and try to slow us enough that the Aquinas can close," I said, bringing the point defenses on line.

As the first fighter came in and strafed us, our own guns gutted it as it passed. Another, approaching from above us, took three hits from our new mini PBC turret and disintegrated into a ball of expanding gases. The remaining four fighters launched every missile they carried and followed them in, in an attempt to overwhelm our point defenses. The missiles were swept from space without too much trouble, but then the fighters were on us, targeting our drive. As the turrets reacquired, a third fighter fell prey to the PBC turret while the others began to take damage from the less powerful rapid-fire pulse lasers. They fell back.

"Captain Edmunds, please, for the safety of your crew, call your fighters off," I implored my former CO. "You have done enough to try to stop me and as your fighters have barely blistered our paint at the expense of three pilots and utterly failed to slow us one iota, you will not be faulted for protecting your crew."

"Very well, Miz Callaway," Edmunds said. "I'm pulling my fighters back, but you haven't gotten away yet. That's a very impressive ship you have there. The hull design is not in any of our databases. May I ask where you got it?"

"I built it from liberated TSN parts," I lied smoothly. "It’s one of a kind."

"Oh shit, Valerie, we've got 2 light cruisers and a destroyer inbound from ahead of us on an intercept course," Brian said, his voice breaking under the stress.

"Steady, Mister Andrews," I cautioned. "Mister Chestnut, how long until we can jump?"

"Twenty seconds, Valerie," Dan said, the tension apparent in his voice as well. "The incoming ships will be in firing range in ten seconds."

"Very well. They are playing hardball. They are about to find out what the Duality Too is capable of," I had been trying to keep the Duality's true firepower an unknown, but now we had little choice. "Brian target the cruisers with nukes and I will take care of the destroyer. Our gun outranges theirs and that should give them something to think about."

"Missiles locked on and away," Brian said, as I brought the main gun on line.

The aiming reticule flared to life on the screen displaying various targeting information. I carefully maneuvered the Duality Too until the reticule transfixed the destroyer. As the range display dropped quickly the reticule turned green indicating the destroyer was now in range. I fired the gun. Unlike the original Duality where we lost power momentarily when firing the main gun, the lights of the Duality Too scarcely flickered. Down range, our shot ripped through the destroyer's side, opening several decks to space in an explosion of vaporized hull plates and escaping atmospheric pressure. Her course faltered a bit but she kept coming. I fired again this time the result was more spectacular. First she dropped back a bit behind the cruisers as her drive went off line, then a moment later her reactor went critical and she incinerated herself in a white-hot nuclear explosion. Before the EMP from the exploding reactor even reached the cruisers, our missiles drove deeply inside their hulls and they similarly became bight plumes superheated gas and radiation. All this happened a half a second before they even reached firing range.

"Oh my god, Callaway," Edmunds said over the comm, his composure finally breaking. "You are an animal! You just snuffed out 2100 lives! You’re going to burn for this, you bitch!"

"And you are a fool," I snarled ferally at him. "I warned you to leave us be, but you persisted. Now you have 2103 lives, to be exact, on your hands. Make no mistake, I will protect my own ship and crew at any cost."

"They were following orders," he screamed at me.

"You fucking moron! Didn't you learn anything from me?" I said furiously. "Following orders doesn't absolve you of responsibility! There are just some orders that shouldn't be followed. What I did here was defending myself. Or maybe you just wanted to give me a bouquet and send me on my way, eh?"

"You've just made a huge mistake, Callaway," Edmunds said frostily. "The TSN will never rest until you are hunted down and brought to justice."

"Fuck the TSN and its perverse justice," I said equally as icily. "The TSN and the Terran Government is responsible for far more innocent deaths then the 2100 that died here today. Mark my words, Edmunds, get out while you can, 'cause the butcher's bill is coming due for the Terran Government and the TSN and the price will be paid in blood."

As I said this, the inhibitor field dissipated and we jumped to hyperspace before Edmunds could say another word.
 
 
Chapter 28
 
 
"Wow, that was intense," Sam said after we transitioned back to normal space. "Valerie, you are one vicious woman. 2100 people, dead, just like that because they opposed you."

"Mister Andrews, you have the con," I said tightly as I got up and quickly left the flight deck.

I went straight to my cabin, which was thankfully empty. As soon as the door was shut and locked, I collapsed on the bed and began to sob. I had killed 2100 people. It didn't matter that they meant my family and me harm. Hell, truthfully most of them had no choice but to be there, and I knew it. The audacious words I had said to Captain Edmunds in the heat of the moment were bull. He knew it, and I knew it. It didn't help that I knew him and he would feel just as responsible for the hideous loss of life.

My heart ached for those men and women and their families whose hopes and dreams were vaporized in an instant of nuclear fire. As much as I hurt, I knew I would do it again and again, until there was no life left in the universe except Miri and our son. I didn't like myself very much at that point. However righteous the reasons, when the dust settles, killing is still killing.

I looked up when the door opened and Miri entered the cabin. She took one look at me and her eyes softened.

"Aww, Honey, what's wrong?" she asked gathering me up in her arms and holding me tightly.

"Edmunds was right," I said. "I am a monster. I thought I locked the door."

"You did," she said gently, "but you can't shut me out, Sweetheart. Don't even try to shut me out. I love you and you're not a monster. Did you enjoy killing those people?"

"No," I sobbed.

"And look at you," Miri pointed out. "You're eaten up with guilt. You feel terrible that they had to die. If you were really a monster, you'd have been laughing about it, not grieving for them. You know they knew the risks when they joined the TSN. They knew there was a chance they could get killed; yet they chose to be there anyway. You did what you had to do, to protect us and our people. What you did, you did for all the right reasons. What they did was die trying to preserve tyranny and oppression. Yes, their deaths were useless, but that was their choice. They didn't give you one."

"It hurts so bad, Miri," I sobbed on her shoulder.

"I know it does, Sugar," she said, "I know it does. That's the part that makes you human. If it didn't hurt, you wouldn't be the woman I love. I've got you though, just let it all out and it'll feel better."

Sometime later I pulled myself back together and fixed my makeup before heading back out to the common room. I went to the bar and poured myself a stiff drink. Sam was seated on the couch holding an ice pack to the side of his face with one hand and a potent looking drink in the other.

"What happened to you?" I asked as I sat down on the other end of the couch.

"Let me tell you, that woman of yours has a right cross like a prizefighter," he groaned. "It was like getting hit with a rifle butt, and I would know, I've been hit with a rifle butt before." He pulled the ice pack away from his cheek and displayed the ugly purple bruise that was developing there.

"I think you'd better tell me what happened," I said.

"I'll tell you what happened," said Miri from the doorway. "After you left the bridge, Brian called me up there. He told me that you had left quickly after Mr. Keller made his insensitive comments," she glared at Sam and he blanched, "When I heard what he had said to you, I lost it, blasted him in the head then came to find you." She didn't look a bit repentant about it either.

"That's what happened," Sam confirmed. "I deserved it. I just couldn't believe how quickly that many people died. I was shocked and horrified, but honestly, I was impressed at how efficient you were. I mean, you seemed so decisive, so professional, and so calm, it just didn’t occur to me that it hurt you to do what you did."

"You think killing three ships full of people is easy?" I asked. "My goddess, who do you think I am, Joseph Mengele?"

"I see now I was wrong to think you were that cold-hearted," Sam said, "though I should have known before. I was just so shocked. I owe you a big apology. I'm very sorry."

"No problem," I said magnanimously. "It's water under the bridge. Right Miri?" When she didn't respond, I said again, "RIGHT Miri?"

"Yeah, okay, water under the bridge," Miri said grudgingly.

"I don't know which of the two of you I would want to piss off least," Sam laughed. "You can both be as frightening as you are beautiful, and that is petrifying indeed."

We soon settled into a routine. We would spend at least two months traveling through potentially hostile space, no ports or stations until we reached the reported alien occupied area of space. I knew we had started out this journey on the wrong foot and in two months we would all be sick of looking at each other. It became Sam's job to take care of meals and such because he wasn't qualified to stand watch. I hardly saw Miri, except for brief periods where we either exchanged watches or after my watch before she went to bed, leaving me to watch Brock. Of course, she was up before Brock and I arose.

I was handling our son's schooling; not that it took much, since it was basically jacking him into the accelerated learner and watching him. Still, Miri and I were getting a bit haggard from standing watch on the bridge and then standing another over our child. I guess it was showing some because after I became routinely shrewish with everyone, Brian and Dan offered to stand 8 hour watches so that Miri and I would have more down time together and with Brock, as well as more time to rest. It worked out great and my disposition improved significantly.

Not that there wasn't any excitement. Even though space is a very big place and we were just one small ship, the TSN, I found out later, had mobilized the biggest hunt in history for us. Knowing they would be looking for us, we followed a long, meandering random course to prevent them from amassing a force to catch us as we dropped out of hyperspace to recharge the jump capacitors. Still, there was the odd time we dropped out where a TSN ship would be loitering. Luckily, they were mainly smaller ships like destroyers and frigates and they refused to engage us. Instead, they faded back out of weapons range and shadowed us until we recharged and jumped again.

I kept waiting for us to run into a hero-type, or someone with more balls than brains. As luck would have it, we managed to run into another old friend commanding a missile frigate. Wouldn't you know, it had to be someone with an ax to grind with me.

"Hello, Broccoli," came a voice over the comm channel, soon accompanied by a familiar face.

"Oh-laughable," I said cheerfully. "Fancy meeting you way out here. Did you come all this way just to let me humiliate you again for old-time's sake? Aww, how sweet of you."

"Oh no, you got it all wrong," Olaf said, equally as cheerfully. "I'm here to return the favor, sissy boy."

"Sissy boy is hardly an accurate term anymore is it?" I said gesturing at my body.

"I don't care what you've done to yourself, you're still, and always will be, a fag," Olaf insisted, "and one that has an ass-whooppin' coming. Tell you what, surrender now and maybe I'll just content myself with raping you repeatedly until we get you back for your execution."

"But if you really think I'm a man, then wouldn't that make you a fag too?" I asked. "Anyway, that leads us to another lesson: never offer an opponent surrender terms that would be a fate worse than death. It tends to make them laugh in your face." I suited action to words.

"Doesn't matter to me what you do," Olaf said. "If you surrender, I get to humiliate you before you die. If you don't then I get to kill you. Either way, it'll be my pleasure."

"Olaf, I see you still haven't learned the one lesson that will continue to get your balls knocked into your throat," I sneered, reminding him of our last face off. "You are far too overconfident. Back off, or I will be forced to administer another lesson and this one will be a hard one."

"Big words from such a little girly-boy in such a little ship," Olaf dismissed.

In truth there was some degree of bravado in my words because a missile frigate was nothing to scoff at. It could very well be a problem for us. Olaf's ship carried more than enough missiles to overwhelm our point defenses, but it also had a weakness. Most of the missile load on the frigate was guided by targeting telemetry from the launching vessel. The weakness was the large targeting array affixed to the superstructure of the ship. There was also a little matter of one of Dan's toys I had at my disposal.

"Well, Olaf, I guess some of you Neanderthals never learn, do you?" I sighed. "Let's dance then, tough guy."

As the missile bay doors opened on Olaf's frigate, he launched a full bay of missiles, easily enough to overwhelm our point defenses. But as the missiles sprang clear of the frigate and began to track us, I targeted the frigate's targeting array and fired a shot from the main cannon, instantly vaporizing it.

Olaf's missiles were now blind. I engaged Dan's little goody, which mimicked the mothership's telemetry and sent the missiles where we wanted, which was strait into the frigate's drive. In less than three seconds, Olaf's ship was blind and crippled, mostly with his own missiles. After one more well-placed surgical shot from me, he was deaf and dumb, too as I took out his hyperwave comm array.

"Olaf," I said, adding a finishing touch to his latest humiliation, "go back to school, you stupid jerk. You never could win against me."

"You haven't heard the last of me, Callaway," Olaf bellowed over the comm, as I pointed the Duality Too away and passed out of his comm range.

'Nope, I expect not,' I thought to myself, 'but then what fun would that be.' I would later appreciate the terrible irony of those words.
 
 
Chapter 29
 
 
"So, why did you let him live," Sam asked at dinner. "He obviously hates you and isn't likely to show you the same mercy should the tables be reversed."

"Sam, I am ruthless when I need to be, but I don't enjoy killing," I sighed. "Olaf is a hateful, cruel man, and someone who has been embarrassingly smacked down by me or someone on my behalf every time we've had a run-in. I'm sure he's more motivated than ever to take me out. He's an intelligent man, and an adequate officer. His problem is that he leads by fear, which doesn't inspire his men to go beyond their limitations. His commands will always be mediocre until he learns that fear is not the way to inspire loyalty. I don't have much hope of that. Also, as intelligent as he is, his hatred of me overrides his brain and he doesn't think. These are all factors that'll let me prevail every time. Why would I want to get rid of someone like that in favor of an unknown?"

"I see," said Sam. "What if someday he does change?"

"I always consider him a threat," I said. "I know what he's capable of, and I will never take for granted he will be an easy victory. I won't underestimate him. Anyway, his crew didn't deserve to pay the price for our vendetta."

The rest of our journey was relatively quiet, as we followed our seemingly random course that I hoped would keep the TSN guessing about our ultimate destination. The time finally arrived when we were about to make the last hyperspace jump before entering the alien territory. If the TSN had figured out our mission, this would be where they would be waiting for us. Everyone but Sam and Brock were on the bridge and ready for anything. Anything, that is, except for what actually happened.

I felt the familiar double jolt as we transitioned through hyperspace. Immediately, as we came out of hyperspace, alarms started going off. We'd jumped into the middle of an AI minefield. The mines began to drift towards us when their Artificial intelligence didn't recognize our transponder code.

"Gimme a vector," I shouted.

"Come to bearing three-one-five, azimuth plus oh-three-six," Miri responded.

I pointed the ship in the indicated direction and firewalled the throttles as Brian brought the point defenses on line. Our turrets began to destroy the mines closet to us, but there were so many of them. They began to get closer and closer to us before the turrets took them out and our only hope was to get clear before the gap closed and one struck us.

"Valerie, we've got three heavy cruisers moving on an intercept course to our exit point from the mine field," Miri said.

"How close?" I asked urgently.

"The closest will intercept us at a range of 750 AU's," Miri said, and then added redundantly, "well within range of their guns. The second is vectoring in from the port side and will be on us shortly after we clear the field. The third is still on the far side of the field from us and unless we get bogged down in a firefight, it won't be a threat."

At that moment an explosion rocked the ship as a mine got a little too close before the point defenses took it out. "Damage?" I demand.

"Minor damage to the starboard landing skid. Starboard secondary drive output down 2 percent," Dan responded crisply.

"Okay," I said, "here's the plan. When we get to the edge of the minefield, we'll launch an ECM decoy. That should take care of any pursuing mines. Miri, target the ship closest to us and fire two nukes at it. Set them for proximity detonation. Chances are they won't do much damage, but they are coming through the minefield to intercept us. The EMP will cause the mines in the area to lose their IFF and they will go hostile toward any ship close to them. That should give them something to think about besides us. The other ship we'll just have to take our chances with. Our main gun won't take out a heavy cruiser on one shot, and we won't survive trading blows with her."

"So what are we gonna do?" Brian asked, having faith that I would pull us through this.

"We'll take a shot or two at them and hope we do some damage, and then, with the remaining reserve I kept in the jump capacitors last jump, we jump across to the alien controlled space," I informed them.

We approached the edge of the minefield and Dan deployed the ECM decoy as we burst though. Miri fired the nukes and 10 seconds later the EMP caused all the mines in a 100 klick radius to attack the heavy cruiser in their midst. This all worked better than expected. The mines pursuing us destroyed themselves uselessly against the ECM decoy while the mines attacking the cruiser took out it's fire control array and crippled her drives. Before the mines reset, the cruiser was adrift and no longer a threat.

That left us to deal with the second cruiser. I pointed the Duality Too at her as she came within our range and opened fire on her. She was taking major damage to her hull plates and I even managed to score a hit on one of her main turrets. Still, she came. I fired a full spread of missiles at her. They were harmlessly destroyed by the point defenses as they fired their drives for their final thrust to penetrate her hull. She kept coming, undeterred.

I turned us away from her and brought our drives up to max thrust, making evasive maneuvers as the cruiser entered her firing range and open fired. Particle beams sizzled by us as I jinked and dodged, while anxiously awaiting the jump ready light to illuminate on the console. Finally, it came on.

"Get those jump generators online!" I screamed.

"Done," Brian hollered back.

I engaged the jump generators and transitioned to hyperspace, but right before we entered, the cruiser scored a critical direct hit. I knew it was bad when we transitioned back into normal space. We were tumbling out of control. I immediately took the drives offline and the stabilizing thrusters stopped our tumble.

"How bad is it?" I asked, more calmly now that the immediate danger had passed. I glanced at the engineering station and saw far too many red lights illuminated on the status board.

"It's not good," Dan said. "We lost our port side secondary drive and the main drive. Without the port side secondary, the starboard one is useless. The jump generators are offline and unavailable and hyperwave comms are down. The damage to the drives is too extensive for the auto repair to get them back online. On the plus side, hull integrity and life support are in the green."

Our situation was very desperate. We could survive for years, but we weren't going anywhere. Unless somebody stumbled across us, we would eventually go mad looking at the same walls and faces day in and day out. I shuddered at the thought.

"Okay everyone," I said, "nice job back there. We're still alive and where there's life there's hope. Right now though, we need to unwind a bit. Let's all go have a drink and some dinner and then get some rest. We'll brainstorm about our options when we are thinking more clearly."

Everyone filed off the bridge except for me. I turned on the distress beacon and set the sensors to sound an alarm over the ship's PA if they detected anything, before following my crew. I sat down wearily on the couch in the common room with my customary rum and cola. Miri stood behind me, massaging my tense shoulder and neck muscles. We filled Sam in on our current predicament and he calmly affirmed his faith in my ability to get us out of these dire straits, before setting about making us dinner.

We were just sitting down to the meal when the sensor alarm I had just set went off.

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