Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(103)
They want to destroy the Genesis Gate. The only way to do that is to send Abel through in a ship with a thermomagnetic device—Noemi’s original plan, all those months ago. In the resulting detonation, Abel would be utterly destroyed, possibly vaporized.
And Akide has the programming knowledge to force Abel to do it.
Noemi wouldn’t allow Abel to choose the path of destroying himself to destroy the Gate. Instead it seems that destruction has chosen him.
35
THERE’S NOTHING WORSE THAN BEING AT THE HEART OF A battle you’re unable to fight.
Noemi decides this about the fourth time a mech flies straight into what would’ve been her crosshairs. Her thumbs tighten on the controls, instinctively seeking triggers for weapons that aren’t there. In the corsair, it accomplishes exactly zero, except for accidentally turning on Virginia’s music.
Once she’s shut that off, she tries to take stock. Without the combat map provided by command, or any communications with her fellow fighters, making sense of the battle is almost impossible. Genesis starfighters dart among Vagabond ships of every size and stripe. Mechs fly around her, random as gnats, sometimes so thick they blind her to the rest of the starfield. She’s still registering as a civilian vessel to them, so she’s safe, but Noemi didn’t come here to stay safe. She came here to help.
Even without weapons, she can defend her world.
Months ago, she was on the verge of being captured by Stronghold authorities when Virginia flew by in this exact ship. Virginia had defended the Persephone not with blasters or lasers, but by scrambling the signals all around her.
Why didn’t I ask her exactly how she did that? Noemi thinks as she goes through the various controls, familiarizing herself more with the corsair’s less-critical functions. That would’ve been an extremely useful conversation to have. Mega-useful. Finally she hits upon a subroutine in communications that ought to work. Here goes nothing….
The corsair broadcasts on wavelengths that rise and fall in sine curves across the control panel. At first she wonders whether she’s now playing Virginia’s music to the mechs, which would be hostile but not effective. Then she sees a handful of mechs fold their strange metallic wings, almost like bats preparing to sleep. A smile spreads across her face as she realizes they’ve lost their command signals from the Damocles.
That’s exactly what they’re doing, Noemi thinks. They’re falling asleep!
Laughing out loud, she pushes farther into the thick of the night and does it again. Once more, a dozen mechs fold up into uselessness, and the Genesis and Vagabond ships pick them off one by one. This isn’t as satisfying as destroying them herself, Noemi decides, but it’s effective. The more Queens and Charlies she incapacitates, the better chance Genesis’s forces have of winning this fight.
When she swoops into another cloud of mechs, they adjust formation. Noemi’s heart sinks as she realizes the Damocles ship has detected what she’s doing. So has the Katara; the massive vessel changes course, trying to put itself between the corsair and the Damocles, but it’s too late. Any second now, those mechs are going to attack her—
—yet in one instant that formation breaks, and the mechs turn on one another.
“What the hell?” she says out loud, her voice echoing inside her helmet. Queens and Charlies firing on one another? Ignoring the Genesis fighters? A Damocles ship must be malfunctioning.
But there’s something very methodical about the way the warrior mechs are fighting. Their movements are synchronized. Almost like they’re separate parts of the same thing…
Just like Simon’s mechs were on Haven.
Only one other person could do this. Only one other person in the whole galaxy, one person most people wouldn’t admit is a person at all.
Abel! She looks around wildly for the Persephone, though of course it’s impossible to glimpse it in the chaos. The mech-on-mech battle has escalated into an animalistic frenzy, one pouncing upon another in the same eerie rhythms. Shards of metal spin out in every direction; some of them rain against her cockpit.
Noemi presses a hand to her mouth in both horror and wonder. The wonder is for Abel—he’s expanded his capabilities even further, done something so unprecedented and heroic that it fills her with awe.
The horror is for what Abel might’ve done to himself. Was Simon’s mind doomed from the beginning, or did he break himself down by trying to control machines, trying to be only a machine instead of a person?
But the mechs have almost completed their violent self-destruction. Most of the ones remaining are the ones she put to sleep, and the combined Genesis/Vagabond fleet ships have resumed blowing those to smithereens. The lone Damocles ship in her field of vision turns away, clearly heading for the Gate. Earth’s forces are in full retreat.
They’ll be back. They’ll dig deep. Earth has warships capable of being operated by humans. They may have forgotten how to fight their own battles, but war has a way of reminding people.
“This isn’t over,” she murmurs, watching the Katara take its place at the center of the fleet, a silent testimony to Dagmar Krall’s contribution and potential new power.
The war hasn’t ended. It’s just entered a new phase, one Noemi can’t guess at. But she senses the danger will be even greater.
Flying toward Abel’s ship feels like swimming against the current. Almost all the other ships in the fleet have begun their journey home, zipping past her, leaving wake trails in the debris of the battle. One of the larger Genesis vessels, the Dove, lingers near the Gate—for more readings, or another message, she figures. Other than that, she and Abel are going to have this corner of space all to themselves.