Page 93 of Fate of Draga

“What are your orders?” Asher demanded. “Are we supposed to just sit here?”

“Adelina, I’m still outside the shield with a few other Draga warships,” Sozav reported. “They’ve evacuated who they can and we’re coming at you. They’re firing on us.”

“Send me the vid and your exact location,” Adelina ordered. Her sharp voice cut through everyone else’s. She leaned into her dominance and everyone aboard her ship went silent.

Sozav rattled off the numbers and she went to her console in the center of Command, right before the massive window that showed her the glowing purple shield, their fleet and through the shield – the horde.

A vid popped up and she expanded it with a flick of her fingers and then shoved it to the side so everyone could see, but it didn’t block her view. Then she tapped out the commands she’d made sure were in this shield as well.

Thank the Goddess they’d been able to test it in Hai.

“Come to these coordinates as quickly as you can, all of you,” she told Sozav. “You have fifty seconds before it’ll be too late.”

Sozav didn’t question her. He didn’t ask why.

Kaiden, Nash, and Varan stepped closer to her until she could feel them brushing against her shoulders in support. They may be furious with her – but they would stand with her no matter what.

Even now when it looked like she was about to sign their own death warrant.

“Adelina, please tell me what’s going on,” Asher practically pleaded. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“Nothing, little brother,” she murmured, calculating the time and the distance as she entered the code into the device. “You’ve taken care of me my entire life. Let me take care of you now. Let me take care of our people. If I fail…just know there is nothing else we could do now other than die. Let me try it my way first.”

The words were private, full of the love she had for her family. Adelina wanted them all to live. She wanted them to have a future where Asher and Veri were able to get married and William could fall in love.

She wanted all of this and more.

It didn’t matter that everyone could hear her over the fleet-cast. Adelina didn’t care. She wanted them all to know. This was her acting as queen, but also as a friend, a sister, a daughter, a wife…

Adelina glanced over her shoulder at Varan and he nodded. She was doing this for them too. Because if they had to fight that horde – most of them would die. Even if they won, the victory would be nothing more than ash with a handful of people left to rule over.

“The shield is open,” she told those outside the shield. “You have ten seconds.”

Then a small portal opened to the left in a square just large enough to let a few ships through the shield at a time. Neprijat rebels poured in and she tapped the console, ordering the other rebels, the pirates, and Brogna to guard that tiny square in a shield so large it covered an entire system.

More shots fired at her shield and it flickered in locations, weakened by the opening. A few more and it would disintegrate.

Adelina’s heart pounded as she counted out loud the remaining time before she had to close the opening.

Everyone on command was tense as they watched those ships full of innocents pour in. She knew, even before she got to the final number, that she would have to cut off some of those still behind the shield.

Battle still waged within the shield, but her people had done well. Most of their enemy had been eradicated or put outside the line however they could.

It wasn’t just innocents outside the shield. Some of their warships were as well and Adelina felt tears fill her eyes as she reached two and then one.

Her thumb hesitated over the command for a split second and then the captain was yelling at her that more enemy weapons were primed, that they’d primed themall.

A single tap and the square closed – trapping any of their people still on the outside with the horde and whatever innocents who hadn’t made it in time.

But that wasn’t why she was crying. Those tears finally spilled down her cheeks as she moved her finger over the second button, sending up silent prayers to all the gods and goddesses to forgive what she was about to do.

Adelina pressed down on the second button.

A glimmering shield appeared behind the Neprijat horde and wrapped around the entire system as well. She made sure to display all the readings and vids she could find and put them up for all to see, making the information public and sending it to the updated livestream.

“What in all the hells?”

She didn’t bother responding to Nash as she entered a second code – one that would damn her soul for the rest of her life. Adelina would spend the rest of her existence trying to repent for this.

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