Full Metal Heroine: A Military Space Opera Adventure (Lady Hellgate Book 2)

by Greg Dragon

  So, she stepped out into the passageway and pulled out her spike, holding it near her chest as she cat-walked towards a door leading to an adjoining passageway. Once she got there, she would truly know what had happened on the ship, since it had a number of portholes and was where most of the Marines congregated.

  She stepped foot over foot, looking this way and that, glancing behind her periodically in case one of the Geralos was cloaked. She made it to the door without incident and paused to listen for sounds. There were people talking. It sounded like an auditorium so she slapped the glowing bright red panel, and when her hand made contact the door slid open.

  There in front of her was a crowd of Marines taking turns at a porthole, and cheering at whatever was out there. None of them noticed her, so she took advantage and worked her way past them. When she reached the end of the passageway, she opened the door to the cargo hold. This too was packed with Marines, but she could actually see past them to the looming bay window.

  There was a capital ship, a starship, and she recognized it as the Aqnaqak from seeing its image on holo-vids. Directly next to it, like two insects locked in the act of lovemaking, was the newer, and sleeker, Rendron.

  Being here and seeing these ships with her own two eyes would have made Tasmin popular back on Syr. To the people on the hub, a starship was the ultimate symbol of hope. It was their weapon against the Geralos, and a free-roaming vessel of limitless possibilities. It was a privilege seeing the two of them, and to think she would be setting foot on the deck of Aqnaqak.

  Even the Marines bridled with excitement, these tough warriors who were born and raised there, so Tasmin felt no embarrassment for clasping her hands and thanking the maker. There was simply nothing as beautiful as what she was seeing before her.

  The sight of all that metal and ingenuity, combined into a floating behemoth. She wished that she had something to record this memory in time, so that later on when she was reunited with her family, she could show them what she saw.

  It was absurd. Their home was gone, along with their neighbors, history, and everything that she had ever known. It was as if she had woken up on this ship with the past being a dream that she confused with reality.

  Was everyone truly gone? All of the good and bad people who she knew on the hub? Tasmin felt her strength slipping as she considered the unknown. She was so helpless, and riddled with guilt, since she blamed herself for abandoning them when she had gone to take the shower.

  It was this thought that broke her, and she retreated to the corner of the bay, where she could barely hold it together as she worked at concealing her tears. What if the pirates had taken them beyond the allied planets, to the unknown sector known as deep space? What if they went beyond the line where the Alliance couldn’t see? The Aqnaqak would have to move on, and she would be stuck not knowing if they were dead or alive.

  She was old enough to know that the Alliance would not spend resources on something as insignificant as her family. And what if the kidnappers were actually Geralos, dressed up in disguise to catch their prey? Her family would be transported to a feeding camp for the lizards or served up as a meal for a high-ranking Geralos royal. It would be a fate worse than death, them having to live their life as food, and Celeste would have it the worst, since they’d likely preserve her to breed.

  Tasmin felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach, knocking out the air and making it impossible to breathe. Had the sergeant been lying about the search for the kidnapper’s ship? Did the Alliance captain who sent for her really care about what she’d seen? Why was she going to the Aqnaqak, now, when her family had yet to be found? Now as she looked out at the Marines, their cheers and elation felt like jeers of pain.

  Tasmin was suddenly convinced that they had lied to her about everything. There would be no rescue, and there would be no reunion, and she didn’t want to guess why she was needed. She was seventeen, an adult by Alliance standards, but they’d still felt the need to lie, which she could not understand.

  Tasmin sunk down to the deck and placed her head between her knees. If she could will herself to die, she would, and spare herself the torture of the guilt. She tried to think back on her life and what she had said to the sergeant. They had thought that she knew something of the attackers, and it was the only reason why she was here.

  “Stand up,” said a voice that she recognized as none other than Sergeant Codi Arc’s. It was commanding but even, like a strong suggestion that she couldn’t decline. Tasmin looked up at the giant, whose face was so grim that for a moment she considered that he too had suffered some loss.

  “Why?” she said, after clearing her throat. It wasn’t easy to talk, but she didn’t want to move unless she really had to. Codi did not answer but stuck out his hand and patiently waited for her to take it, as if she had no choice. It was a curious sight, the sergeant here while his Marines celebrated behind him.

  Would he lie some more? His stoic face was pretty scary, and she wondered if he gave this same look to the pilot who had betrayed him near the hub. Tasmin took his hand despite her misgivings, and he pulled her up to her feet and then led her out into the central passageway.

  There they were alone, which didn’t seem to be an accident, and he released her hand, which she then used to wipe the tears away from her face. Codi handed her a bit of cloth that was soft and smelled of something sweet and pleasant. She used it to dab her tears, then handed it back as she regarded him, steeling herself for the truth.

  “We located the ship with your parents,” he said. “We were able to catch them before they jumped out of the system. Our Infiltrator, StarLance, was able to perform a board and rescue. The good news is that the ship is now in the hands of the Alliance, and the perpetrators were apprehended and are being flown here for questioning.

  “The bad news, Tasmin, is that your father was killed. He and several other brave men broke out and made an attempt to take over the ship. I can’t pretend to be good at this, but I’m sorry. I’m a Marine and still, I can’t imagine how you feel. I just thought that after everything, you needed to know.” With that he shut his mouth and seemed to gauge her reaction closely.

  Tasmin pushed down the pain, a skill she was now trying to master. She swallowed the fireball lodged inside her throat and forced herself to stand up straight. “What about my mother?” she said. “And my little sister, Celeste?”

  “I couldn’t confirm from the brief, but what I know is that the coup was orchestrated by your father, Romul Rose. That was his name, right?” Tasmin nodded slowly as she tried to picture her father’s face. Why can’t I remember his face? she thought, panicking at the thought. If I can’t remember his face, how can I keep him in my memory?

  “His body was recovered along with that of five other people,” Codi said. “Their names are going to be honored in the Aqnaqak’s hall of heroes. While we could never replace his life, Tasmin, I want you to know that he will be remembered as a hero. We have secured you and your family lodgings on the Aqnaqak. You will never have to worry about something like this happening again. The survivors are on their way back as we speak. Like I said, the names were not in the brief, but I hold out hope that your mother and sister are with them.”

  It was just too much, hearing what happened with her father, and the renewed hope of being reunited with her mother and sister. Poor Celeste, she thought. I wonder how she’s doing after dealing with maker-knows-what? She thought about her father, who died a hero, and would be honored on a capital ship. In the afterlife he would be beside himself, bragging to anyone willing to listen.

  Throughout her life all he she had ever heard was how the Rose name was special. How they had come from a long line of heroes who fought for Vestalia before the hub. She had loved those stories as a child but had grown cynical towards him as she got older. How could she believe his stories when all she had for evidence were words?

  Tasmin thought back on all the times they argued, when she had grow
n too old to believe. She cried openly now, not only because of his sacrifice, but because she wouldn’t get the chance to apologize. In his death he had not only managed to save the lives of his family, but the lives of the only survivors of Syr. She felt foolish and young for the way she had treated him, along with emotions that she couldn’t explain.

  “He was a great man,” Codi said.

  “I know, Sergeant Arc.” she managed. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  She stared past him through the porthole where she caught a glimpse of the strange ship from before. Behind it was Meluvia, which should have awed her more than the Aqnaqak. But what she saw coming at them struck her as impending doom.

  Tasmin lifted an arm and pointed at the window. “Do you know who and what that ship is?” she said.

  The big man turned to see what she was talking about. He made a noise that could have been a groan followed by the sucking of his teeth. He walked over to the window and placed his hands against the bulkhead, then peered out as a set of fighters left the Aqnaqak to confront the ship.

  “Whoever it is, is in trouble. The pilot has not been responding to our hails. While this ship is equipped with hard points for defense, we’ve been waiting to see what it would do. The fact that it followed us all this way makes me think it’s probably hostile. It better not be. Those ships right there, they’re what we call Phantoms.”

  “I know Phantoms,” Tasmin said, excitedly. “They will make short work of that ship.”

  “I forgot that you know Alliance ships. Do you want to be a pilot one day?”

  “I did, but that was when I was little, back before I learned that you had to be a cadet. I was told that the Alliance were not interested in civilian pilots.”

  “Who told you this, Tasmin?”

  “My dad did, actually.”

  “Well, he’s almost right, but there are other vessels on Aqnaqak that someone like you could eventually qualify to fly.” He turned away from the window to face her, as if he was no longer concerned for the mysterious ship. “What you should do when everything is settled is talk to the captain about your future. Aqnaqak is a war machine, but every spacer onboard has a job. There are transport vessels, security teams, the master-at-arms program, and so much more.

  “You’re going to be given a new life, and a chance at helping us against the Geralos. It won’t be easy, especially since you’re too old for the cadet program. You will have to spend your first few years catching up. But you’ve got stardust in your veins; all of us have seen it. I wouldn’t be surprised if in twenty years you ended up working on the bridge.”

  “Really?” Tasmin said, barely believing what she was hearing. She studied his face intently for any sign of a lie. It was hard to fathom a Rose from the hub sitting on the bridge of a capital ship.

  29

  “Captain Sho, you’re going to want to see this,” Toro Hanes said suddenly, breaking Retzo’s ride down memory lane. Toro Hanes was one of the navigators who Retzo had recently rewarded for his service during the fight with the Nian.

  Retzo had been standing in front of the giant window watching the Inginus repairs, no longer worried about the MLF, treachery, or Meluvia. His mind had been on a few months back, when he was on this same bridge, worried that his Nighthawks were gone forever. It had been a period of worrying, stress, and even worse, the mistrust of his fellow officers. He had imagined that Tara Cor was now suffering the same. Marines turning on their own? It was frightening and unheard of.

  “Captain Sho?” Toro said again, a hint of concern in his voice, and Retzo’s eyes met that of the Meluvian officer who was standing next to the navigation console.

  “What’s the situation, Mr. Hanes?” Retzo said, wanting to get past the embarrassment of gawking at the man. He walked over to the navigation station, avoiding the eyes of Genevieve Aria. She was like his mother, the way she fretted over him, and he knew that she would have questions later.

  The navigator swiped his hand over the top of the console, where several holographic images replicated the objects in that region of space. Retzo saw the Rendron with the tethers stretched out to the Aqnaqak, and Inginus being repaired by the auto-mech. He saw several other vessels he did not recognize, so he assumed they were from the Aqnaqak.

  “Sir, an unidentified vessel just entered the system, here,” he said, pointing to the edge of the map where a ship was flying towards the Aqnaqak. He recognized it as the Corfist, one of the Aqnaqak’s formidable assault ships.

  “Unidentified, Hanes? That’s an Aqnaqak troublemaker,” he said, wondering what had come over his navigator.

  Toro Hanes rotated the map by spreading his arms and twisting them, as if a giant invisible column stood over the console’s top. The hologram turned so that the assault ship was closest to the captain. Retzo squatted down while gripping the edge of the platform, and there below the assault ship on the display was a much larger dreadnought.

  Who are the fools piloting the Corfist, and why have they allowed that thing to follow them here? he wondered.

  Retzo stared at the hologram, teetering on the edge of warning his crew about a possible attack. What made him hesitate were the smaller ships now surrounding the dreadnought. They were Aqnaqak Phantoms, but no one was firing as they flew corkscrew patterns around the ship.

  “Miss Aria, get me Captain Cor on my comms,” he announced, as he manipulated the chunk of star map to see what else was near them. “If that dreadnought launches a torpedo, it could very well destroy the Inginus, and the debris from that impact would almost certainly deplete our shields,” he said.

  “What shall we do, Captain?” Toro Hanes said, and Retzo held up a hand to silence him. He was thinking about timing, and something he’d learned from the old admiral, Gerald Hal: Coincidences are rarely coincidences out here, he had said, referencing space and situations like this.

  The old man considered most things connected and operated from that stance so that he could never be surprised. At the time, Retzo Sho assumed him to be old school and slightly paranoid. He had never wanted to base his captaincy on conspiracies and fear. But his time with the love of his life had been cut short by what now seemed a sequence of well-timed disasters.

  It had started with Joran Wolf stealing Tara Cor’s weapons for the MLF, which led to her traveling to Meluvian space, where she saved his two Infiltrators from being destroyed. Then the Nighthawks went after Wolf, leaving the two ships to continue repairs while a hub was attacked and destroyed.

  Tara learned of a mutiny on the assault ship she sent to investigate, which was foiled only for a dreadnought to jump in and follow them back here. What else? he wondered. What other thing am I missing? If this is all connected, what is the glue?

  “Have you been watching that ship for a while, Mr. Hanes?” he said, standing up to face his man.

  “Yes, Captain, ever since it appeared on the radar. It’s been doing a curious bit of cloaking on and off. I think it’s low on power.”

  “Captain, that ship is not showing any signs of life,” an ensign named Jahan Ray reported.

  “What?”

  “Sir, we’ve been scanning it to see if it’s Geralos and we’re not registering any signs of life,” she said. “If it ever had a crew, they found a way to block our scanners, or they are all somehow dead.”

  “Is it a ghost ship?” Genevieve said out loud, and Retzo gave her a weary glance.

  “Don’t be absurd. There’s a logical explanation but blocking our scanners isn’t likely. This is an Alliance Capital ship. More than likely it is manned by Cel-toc androids, programmed to do whatever it’s doing.”

  Retzo touched his chin, squeezing it gently the way he always did whenever he was facing a difficult problem. He recognized the model of ship as a first-generation dreadnought, one of the original glass cannons from the fight for Vestalia. Retzo didn’t believe in ghost ships, but the sight of the dreadnought gave him chills. It had either been salvaged a
nd renovated by civilians, or it was indeed an enemy with an interest in the Corfist.

  Either way there was no chance that the people inside were Alliance Navy. He could order a torpedo to stop it cold, but it was too close to the Corfist to risk that attack. Not to mention, priming a torpedo would take some time. Retzo grew frustrated with the fighters that seemed to be provoking it by flying about while simultaneously preventing him from attacking.

  “Could you pan out a bit?” he said, and the navigator did just that. Meluvia appeared inside the hologram as a half-domed chunk of bright white light. Retzo saw the dropship now approaching the Aqnaqak, and that was when it registered to him what was happening.

  The Nighthawks would have Wolf on the ship, who had enough secrets to cripple the rebels. He knew the location of cells, not to mention the items that Cilas Mec had gathered. The dreadnought was not after the Corfist, or it would have destroyed it in Vestalian space. It was low on power but primed for assault, so its objective was the destruction of the ship that Wolf was on.

  “Jenny,” he shouted, angered by the time it was taking to reach Tara Cor. Genevieve Aria put her headset down on the console and actually ran over to him. Thype me, what is it now? he wondered. It wasn’t normal for Genevieve Aria to sprint across the bridge.

  “Captain,” she said softly, as she beckoned him to lean down so that she could whisper in his ear. “Captain Cor has put me on hold. Apparently a fight broke out on her bridge.”

  “She told you this?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “No, sir, but I have a friend there, and I reached out to him while I was waiting. One of the officers in the tactical division deployed those Phantoms outside of the captain’s command, sir. Captain Cor had him arrested and there’s an investigation in to who else is involved.”

  “Now?” he said, not believing his ears.

  “Right now, as we speak,” she said, looking as if she wanted to say more.