David Weber - Path of the Fury

"Engineering estimates another fifty-five minutes to restore Fasset drive, sir," Rahman reported, "but we've restored as much basic combat capability as we can without cyber synth." "Understood. Stand by to drop the shield."

Megarea was back up to .43 C when the OKM shield's impenetrable blot disappeared from Alicia's sensors. She stiffened, checking ranges, then relaxed. The dreadnought was over twenty light-minutes astern, and it was her sublight sensors which had reported the shield's passing. Her gravitics still didn't see a thing, and that meant the dreadnought must have engineering problems of her own. Now if she'd just go on having them long enough… .

Howell watched his plot replay Issus's destruction from Verdun's sensor records in bitter silence. An alpha synth. No wonder it had done such a number on them! And it explained the lack of SLAMs, too.

But Issus had gotten a piece of it. A big piece, judging from its subsequent behavior, and he cursed his own caution for not dropping the shield sooner. Yet the critical point was that the alpha synth's speed had been drastically reduced. Even Procyon could make up velocity on it, now that her drive had been restored, and he had no choice but to do just that.

Pieces fell into place in his brain as the big ship accelerated in pursuit. That had to be the rogue drop commando-only a madwoman would have come after them alone and launched that insane attack down Procyon's throat-so Fleet didn't know a thing. A part of him was tempted to let what-was-her-name, DeVries, go, trusting to the Fleet's own shoot on sight order to dispose of her, but mad or not, she had the hard sensor data to prove her story. All she had to do was get into com range of any Fleet base or unit and pass it on.

He could not permit that, and so he dispatched his freighters to the alternate rendezvous and went in pursuit. His cruisers and remaining battle-cruisers could have overhauled sooner than Procyon, had he let them. He didn't. Lamed though that ship was, God only knew what it could still do, and Procyon could hang close enough to break into the same wormhole space and close to combat range. She still had the weapons to take even an alpha synth, and if it took time, time was something he had. On this heading, he'd overtake DeVries eleven light-years short of the nearest inhabited planet.

"Looks like we're back on track," Megarea said. The entire squadron was in pursuit, and its faster units were hanging back. They'd managed to pull out of Procyon's SLAM range before she lumbered back to life, but she'd regain it eventually, and Megarea's drive couldn't be interposed against fire from astern. Which might be just as well, given its current fragility.

"What happens when they get the range on us again?"

"Depends. We'll be into wormhole space, and I think I'll have most of my EW back on line by then. If I do, they'll have a hard time localizing us. They can't throw the kind of salvos Soisson's forts could, and SLAMs can't go supralight relative to us in wormhole space, either. I'll be able to track 'em and do some fancy footwork, and even that damned dreadnought can't carry a lot of 'em. I expect they'll choose not to waste them and hold off until they can get to missile or even beam range. That's what I'd do."

"I just hope they're as smart as you are, then."

"Me too," Megarea snorted, and Alicia nodded and shoved herself up out of her chair. "Hey! Where're you going?"

"To the head, dummy." Alicia managed a weary smile. "I'm coming off the tick, and I've got an appointment with the John."

"Uh, you might want to reconsider that."

"Sorry." Alicia swallowed a surge of nausea. "Already in process."

"Damn!" Alicia's eyebrows rose, and Megarea sighed. "Alley, we took a lot of hits. There's no pressure in the bridge access passage."

"You mean-?"

"I mean I'm working on it," the AI apologized, "but I need another hour before I can repressurize."

"Oh, crap," Alicia moaned in a stifled tone. "'Get your tractors ready, then, because-"

Her voice broke off as biology had its way.

Half an hour later, a pale-faced Alicia sat huddled in her chair. Her uniform was almost clean-Megarea's tractors had caught most of the vomit and whisked it away-but the stink of fear and sickness clung to her, and she scrubbed her face with the heels of her hands as a new and deeper fear rippled within her. Now that the immediate terror of combat had receded, she had time to think … and to realize fully why she had done what she had. She'd lost it. She hadn't panicked, hadn't frozen, hadn't tried to run. Instead, she'd done something worse.

She'd gone berserk. She'd forgotten the objective, the plan, the need to survive, even that Megarea would die with her-forgotten everything but the need to kill … and it had not been temporary. She'd felt it again the instant tick reaction let her go. Bloodlust trembled within her even now, like black fire awaiting only a puff of air to roar to life once more.

It was madness, and it terrified her, for it was infinitely worse than the madness Tannis had feared, and she had infected Megarea with it. The Fleet had been ordered to kill her; now, she knew, that order was justified. If a drop commando's insanity was to be dreaded, how much more terrible was the madness of an alpha synth pilot?

"No, Little One." Alicia winced, for the soft voice held something she'd never heard from the Fury: sorrow. She gritted her teeth and turned away from it, clutching her self-loathing to her, but Tisiphone refused to be evaded. "It is not you who have done this thing. It is I. I have … meddled unforgivably. Do not blame yourself for the wrong I have done."

"It's a bit late for that," Alicia grated.

"But it is not your fault. It-"

"Do you really think it matters a good goddamn whose fault it is?!" She clenched her fists as barely leashed madness stirred, and tears streaked her face.

"Alley-"

"Shut up, Megarea! Just shut up!" Alicia hissed. She felt Megarea's hurt and desperate concern, and she shut them out, for Megarea loved her. Megarea would refuse to face the loathsome thing she had become. Megarea would protect her, and she was too dangerous to be protected.

Silence hovered in her mind and her breathing was ragged. She still had enough control to end it. She could turn herself in … and if Fleet killed her when she tried, perhaps that would be the best solution of all. Yet how long would that control remain? She could feel her old self dying, tiny bits and pieces eaten away by the corrosion at her core, and the horror of her own demolition filled her.

"Little One … Alicia, you must hear me," Tisiphone said at last. Alicia hunched forward, covering her ears with her hands, digging her nails into her temples, but she couldn't shut out the Fury's voice.

"I am arrogant, Little One. When first we met, I saw your compassion, your belief in "justice," and I feared them. They were too much a part of you, too likely, I thought, to cloud your judgment when the moment came.

"I was wrong. Oh, Alicia-" the pain in the Fury's voice was terrible, for she was a being who had never been meant to feel it "-I was so wrong! And because I was, I built a weapon of your hate. Not against your foes, but against you, to bend you to my will at need, and in so doing I have hurt one innocent of any wrong. Once that would not have mattered to me. Now it does. You must not hate yourself for what I have done to you."

"It doesn't matter who I hate." Alicia slumped back and opened tear-soaked eyes, and her voice was raw and wounded. "Don't you understand even that? It doesn't matter. All that matters is what I've become!"

"The debt is mine," the Fury's voice had hardened, "and mine the price to pay. I swear to you, Alicia DeVries, that I will not let you become the thing you fear."