There was no doubt. It was working. Winnie had just watched six tactical operations officers aboard six ships stare blankly at a confirmation popup on their screen. "Confirm live fire command". It had disappeared seconds after the opposing spider swarms made their second pass at each other. The rest of the crews weren't much better. The comms officers backed their hands away from their controls as though their radio was an angry cat. The captains acted nonchalant, but half were secretly looking up their flight mission. The pilots and co-pilots kept glancing at each other as though too shy to talk. And now the commander aboard the main ship was having an embarrassing conversation with headquarters.
"Victoria!" Winnie turned to look looked the queen in the eyes.
Victoria shot up from Tan's lap. "Don't you dare stop!" She sprinted from the launch bay. Winnie glanced with her mind and saw her running back to the bridge. Thirty seconds until evacuation.
Winnie looked back at Josephine and resumed visualizing the other crafts. They were still just as befuddled.
Something changed. Their screens no longer displayed the spider drone swarms or any of its multitude of controls. All it showed was a prompt: Console disabled. System under remote access. Winnie listened to the radio chatter coming out of their ear pieces.
Nothing.
Someone had disabled the orbiter crews' controls. Who?
With her eyes still locked on Josephine's, her mind searched about. The radio chatter gave no clues. She checked the prompt again. In its corner, after a string of numbers and letters, was an address: lk-emm.manakin.strk-12.co.
Instantly, Winnie's mind was in the Manakin. It was floating half a mile out from Porto Maná. She scoured up and down the main spire. The bridge? No one was doing anything related to this. The flag bridge? No. Flight operations? No. The strike room? ...Yes. There was Sakhr leaning over an officer who worked at a console with a display identical to what the orbiters had moments ago. They were going to continue the attack from here, and the officer had a hand on Sakhr's plaque. Josephine wouldn't be able to touch him.
The attack was going to happen.
Winnie's mind shot back to Victoria. She was in the Venezia bridge now, yelling at Stephano to hold the evacuation while shoving the comm officer out of the way. Didn't she see what was happening on those ships? In twenty seconds, this ship would be destroyed. Victoria would not make it back to the bay in time.
"Go back," Josephine said.
"What?"
"Go back. Look at Sakhr again."
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Winnie did so. "Why?"
"I wasn't done."
"But he's shielded."
Without breaking eye contact, Josephine shrugged. "I'm getting them. I can feel it."
"But..." Winnie kept her gaze. "How?"
Another shrug.
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The officer worked slower since Sakhr was pressing one of the man's hands to the plaque. It didn't matter. The man was already resting.
"Are you done?"
"The spiders already have their flight plan, Your Majesty. I'll just need to confirm live fire."
"So it's... okay?"
"Pretty much, ma'am."
Sakhr pressed his hand down harder. One slip up and this would all be for nothing. No slip up, and everything would be better. Just fifteen more seconds. He was counting in his head along with the onscreen indicator. At ten seconds, a prompt came up.
The officer didn't move to press it.
"Is that it?" Sakhr asked.
"Is what it, ma'am?"
"The... button."
"What?"
"The..." Sakhr wracked his mind. "The thing. You need to do that... to do something."
"Ma'am?"
"Just do it!"
"Do what?"
Sakhr paused. The officer needed to do something—something to do with Victoria. Capture her? No. Kill her. She was... somewhere. And the Air Force was about to... what?
Snapping, Sakhr staggered backwards. He clutched his plaque in his hands like a lifeline. His memory was shot. Josephine was affecting him. But how? He was shielded. Shields worked against her, right? Right. She avoided high exemplars.
But how did he know that?
Did he read it somewhere?
He knew he'd read a record on Josephine, but he couldn't remember anything in it.
She was... important.
Her name was... ‘J' something... or something. He knew it a minute ago.
"Your Majesty?" asked the Admiral. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," said Sakhr distantly, but he knew he wasn't. Something was terribly wrong. He just couldn't put his finger on what. He couldn't even recall why he was here. Everyone stared, expecting something from him, because something important was going on. But then something bad started happening.
His mind.
His mind was being pilfered by something.
His shield.
His shield was broken.
He dropped his plaque and lunged for Sibyl's. Startled, she backed up a step as Sakhr stumbled into her. They both clutched her plaque. His old one clattered on the steel floor.
Sakhr's mind raced. There were so many holes in his memory that he wasn't sure of anything anymore. He needed time to think.
"I need to go," he said.
"Your Majesty?" Laughlin said.
"Finish up by yourself, Admiral." ...whatever it was they were doing. Sakhr stalked from the room, pulling Sibyl along with him. Between them, they cradled the plaque like a rescued child.
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Winnie took her attention away long enough to watch the spider drones shoot past the Venezia. They came within a hundred meters of the ship. She'd watched as the confirmation screen in the strike room timed out, unnoticed by anyone, but it didn't make the moment any less heart-clenching.
But it passed. The swarm would never catch up for a second attack. Winnie slumped against the wall and melted to the floor.
Victoria returned. She did not look relieved.
"How were you erasing Sakhr's memory like that?" she asked Josephine.
"I don't know. I just was. I hit everyone in that room."
"Including Sibyl?"
"No. Not her."
"So it was a shield failure. You didn't find a way to work around shields."
"I guess."
Victoria frowned.
"What?" Winnie asked. "Can't we just be happy we're alive? We got lucky."
"Yes," Victoria agreed. "We got very lucky." Troubled, she left the launch bay toward the bridge.
It left Winnie wondering.
What could be so bad about Sakhr not being shielded?