Marooned - Christie Golden [88]
At once, they began firing on the small boarding ships, disabling them almost casually. Every burst of fire power sent a small ship spiraling off course to tumble to rest and hang limply in space.
"Engineering! Let's move!"
And then Voyager, too, powered up, hardly the defenseless vessel she had feigned to be. She joined the three sentinel ships, and the odds were now four to six. Half of the crew of the Ja'in vessels were vulnerable in their small boarding ships. Chakotay did a quick count. Eighteen of those smaller ships were completely defenseless now.
"Captain," said Chell, "two of the larger Ja'in vessels are breaking formation. They're fleeing. Shall we pursue?"
"Negative," replied Chakotay. "Let them go. It's Yashar I want. Concentrate on those still left."
The battle continued.
"This can't be happening!" whispered Kula Dhad, staring at the viewscreen from the main control center. All about him was chaos. A few Ja'in still remained at their posts, stubbornly loyal in the face of unlooked-for catastrophe. They shouted orders that were disobeyed, frantically pressed webbed, clawed, or padded fingers to screens in a futile effort to avert the inevitable. Others had long since fled, fearing the worst, taking their own ships and getting out before the conquerors arrived.
By Dhad's horrified estimate, twenty-two of the little raider ships had been either destroyed or disa bled past the point of continuing the fight. Two of the big ships had peeled off, heading who knew where, deserting their commander in his most desperate hour.
Which, Dhad thought with ignoble honesty, is not such a bad idea Somehow, the Alpha quadranters had been able to surprise them at every turn. Their captain had refused to yield Kes with good grace. They'd refused to die when their ship was shot down. They'd allied with those smelly, nasty Sshoush-shin, they'd managed to take over the Ja'in's own sentinel ships, they were decimating the most powerful pirate fleet in the sector with an almost careless ease, and Kes He'd watched the crack in his dreams begin the minute he'd brought word of Kes's beauty to Aren Yashar. Bit by bit, the comfortable fortification he'd built for himself had crumbled, and now, it was all collapsing on top of him.
When Aren returned-and the way Dhad's luck was running recently, the commander would somehow manage to wriggle his way out of this one as he had so often before-he would come with anger the likes of which Dhad had never seen. His fleet was decimated, he would have lost more than half of his servants, and who would he blame?
Kula Dhad, of course. Not Kes, who was the cause of it all; not the Alpha quadranters, with their soft morals and unexpected rock-hard spirits; and certainly not himself. He would come with anger, and he would most certainly kill Kula Dhad.
Dhad hesitated just an instant, then, with the rest of the traitors, abandoned his post.
He found Kes exactly where he expected her to be. Dhad had no idea why he was detouring when every second was precious, but there he was, staring down at her as she was bathed in the luminous glow of the screen.
She looked up at him, victory shining in her eyes. Did she know?
"Things are not looking good for the commander," Dhad said bluntly. "Your people are pressing him hard. But I have known Aren for nearly two millennia, and I have never seen him beaten yet. He will return, and he will be angry. I'm leaving. I wanted-I wanted to warn you." He paused, rubbed the webbing between his fingers in a nervous gesture. "I can't take you with me. I'm sorry. But if he returned and you were gone, he would follow me to the ends of the universe."
Kes smiled, that soft, haunting smile of hers. "It's all right," she said. "I don't know what's going on up there, but it doesn't matter."
"You should find a means of escape,"