Skirmishes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Vilhauser behind, along with two very good soldiers, because the idiot scientist wasn’t listening to her, and his actions threatened her crew.
    Now there was a second threat—the weapons’ fire, cool and white across the dark starscape.
    The betraying bastard who commanded that transport vessel had waited until his ship was as close to the edge of his firing range as possible. Those shots would take only seconds to arrive, but those seconds were enough.
    “Calthorpe, activate the stardrive!” she said, as her gloved hand slapped the emergency beacon. They were going to need help, and she wanted to make sure they got it—even before she got the Discovery out of here.
    Her first fucking solo command, and she wasn’t sure the ship would survive it. She could’ve handled one threat, but not two. There was Vilhauser and the damn device, and now that betraying bastard on the transport had decided to get involved.
    She had no idea what would happen if the transport’s weapons’ fire missed the Discovery and hit the Room of Lost Souls.
    And she didn’t want to find out.
    The bridge crew hung back more than she would like, but half of that was her fault. An operations commander usually didn’t take over the controls of a ship. Technically, she wasn’t in command of this ship. Sub-Commander Calthorpe was.
    And she had just relegated him to navigation.
    To his credit, he didn’t complain.
    Not that he could, when his ranking officer was effectively taking over his command. He hadn’t complained when she opted to go the Room of Lost Souls, either. He hadn’t even cautioned her, although he had given her a look that had chilled her.
    Not because he was angry at her, but because he didn’t approve.
    So many people didn’t approve of the way she commanded anything.
    And now, she was going to get in trouble for everything she had done—unless she got the Discovery out of here.
    The weapons’ fire slammed into the lower level of the Room of Lost Souls, slicing off the landing area. Bright white light nearly blinded Elissa, and she would have ordered the crew to dim the screen but they were already ahead of her.
    The Discovery ’s stardrive kicked in, and she let out a small breath. Not only would they get away from the debris field, but they would get away from the transport before the betraying bastard realized that his shots had missed their target.
    Then something hit her ship, rocking it and knocking out all the lights. She went from leaning on the console to falling away from it and slamming into the ceiling.
    Sudden zero-g. She activated the gravity in her boots—or tried to. Nothing happened.
    Things hit her—people, pieces of equipment. She had set down the suit’s helmet and now it had to be among the things floating around in the darkness.
    She could breathe, but her chest—her entire body, really—felt odd, as if it had been electrified. Her heart shivered—literally shivered—before returning to its usual rhythm.
    Around her, she heard gasps and cries and echoey bangs as people hit things. She reached up and grabbed on to something on the wall/ceiling/floor nearest her. The first thing she had to do was orient herself.
    As she held on, she realized that the ship—this very large ship—was rolling over and over and over again, like an out-of-control children’s toy. She had been floating free, moving with her own momentum; the stuff around her was moving at a different pace, and the ship was moving too.
    Only its movements were even less predictable because it had just activated the stardrive, and then the whatever hit them and pushed them in yet another direction. Because Elissa was effectively blind to the exterior of her ship, she had no idea if something big in the debris field was going to hit her or not.
    Something big like the Room of Lost Souls itself.
    Son of a bitch. That betraying bastard hadn’t missed. He had deliberately targeted Vilhauser, and the resulting explosion had caused this