Triumphant

by Jack Campbell

  The group of now only five Marines, counting Mele, and the four ground forces soldiers headed off down the darkened hallway for a short distance before Ford darted to one side into a narrow access passage. Barely five meters along that, he paused to flip open a panel, leading the way onto the stairs beyond it. Mele made sure the panel closed tightly behind her before following the others.

  “Freeze!” Giddings said, his whisper sounding loud over the command circuit, one hand coming up to make the sign for the same command.

  Everyone in the small group stopped moving. Mele felt herself breathing slowly and shallowly even though that sound wouldn’t carry through the battle armor.

  She felt the thump of feet passing overhead, along a hallway that crossed over the shaft holding the stairs, heading toward where the enemy patrol had been decimated.

  Mele hoped that the enemy wouldn’t simply fire when they got there and saw Corporal Okubo. That could happen. Their minds wouldn’t register the red medic symbols glowing, instead showing them an enemy, and fingers on triggers would twitch. Oddly enough, AI-controlled weapons could do the same thing, ignoring clear signs that the target was a noncombatant, or even friendly, and firing anyway. Something to do with complex decision trees and options spontaneously collapsing, a code monkey had once told her. Humans probably accidentally shot their friends for different reasons, but the result was the same for whoever ended up being the target.

  But the enemy battle armor should register the medic beacon. Hopefully. If Okubo had remembered to activate it while trying to keep both that Marine and the enemy soldier alive.

  The tremors from the footfalls overhead fading, they set off again, reaching a landing with a door that led to another hall, then a room, and inside that a hidden access panel that allowed them to crawl into a maintenance corridor whose usual entrance had been sealed.

  “Everybody rest. Lamar, post a sentry. Glitch, find me a link to Lieutenant Paratnam or Sergeant Savak or the Saber.”

  “What if I contact Gunny Moon?”

  “Get me anybody!” Mele sat down, back against a wall, trying to plan what to do when she didn’t know how many forces she had left or where they were, or how many enemies were left or where they were.

  “Major?” Mac came by, pointing to the wall. “We’ve got live power outlets.”

  “Bonus.” Mele plugged in her battle armor so the systems could recharge. “How can we still have power here?”

  “Separate battery backups. There are different battery banks for the equipment on the facility, but since we pulled off what equipment we could and shut the rest down, there hasn’t been any drain on the batteries since primary power went down. If we find a battery bank that hasn’t been drained yet, we’re good. I think these might be the facility stabilization systems.”

  “Facility stabilization? Any idea what happens when the batteries for those systems die?”

  Private MacKinder shook his head. “I guess when the facility stabilization stuff shuts down, the facility goes unstable.”

  “Thanks, Mac,” Mele said, knowing her sarcasm probably wouldn’t register on the tired Marine.

  A couple of minutes later, Corporal Lamar eased up toward Mele. “Major, my suit’s reporting damage to your armor.”

  “Damage?” Mele remembered the enemy grenade, checking her side. “Yeah. Got nicked, but it didn’t penetrate.”

  Lamar knelt to examine the damage, playing a dim light on it. “It could worsen if it’s not repaired. We’re out of liquid weld. Mac! See if there’s any duct tape in that maintenance locker. No, wait! Check that maintenance locker for booby traps, then see if there’s any duct tape in it.”

  “Got it.” A couple of minutes later, Private MacKinder got the door to the locker open, rummaged inside, and then emerged with a partial roll of duct tape. “We’re saved!”

  “Shut up, you idiot,” Lamar said, laughing, as she took the roll. She worked for a few moments, tearing off strips of duct tape and reinforcing the damaged area on Mele’s armor. “There you go, Major. Good as new. Almost.” Lamar paused. “I just thought of something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What if someone made a weapon that homed in on duct tape?”

  “That’d be the end of life as we know it,” Mele said. “Don’t give people ideas.”

  “I won’t!” Lamar looked down at her arm, the limb hidden by the battle armor covering it. “I got a bad scrape once and Doc Okubo slapped some duct tape and gauze on it. Do you think he’s going to be okay, ma’am?”

  “Yeah,” Mele said, trying to sound as if there wasn’t any doubt of that. “As far as we can tell, the guys we’re fighting are taking prisoners. Okubo had his medic lights on and should have turned on his beacon as well once we were gone. He’ll have been able to keep Luk alive, and be able to treat the other prisoners the enemy has taken, so that’s sort of a good thing.”

  “Kind of funny a guy named Luk getting hit that bad, huh?”

  “Well, he didn’t get hit bad until now, and Doc Okubo was there to help him, so maybe his name still fits.”

  “I bet you’re right, Major.” Lamar looked about her as if the dark and the walls would yield to her vision. “I wish we knew where they were holding the prisoners. Maybe we could get to them. Free ’em with an all-out hostage rescue and recovery.”

  “The enemy won’t be holding prisoners on this facility,” Mele said, shaking her head. “They’ll probably have taken the prisoners to the freighter. Easier to guard them there.”

  “Maybe we can find out for sure,” Giddings said. He’d been listening, and began fiddling with controls on his equipment. “If Doc Okubo had his medic beacon lit off. Those have a lot of power to cut through jamming during a fight. If the enemy didn’t remember to have him shut that off . . . yeah. There it is. Bearing . . . distance . . . that’s got to be that ship. The prisoners are definitely on it.”

  “That’s good to know. Not that we can do anything about it,” Mele said. “The freighter will be a problem for the space squids. They can—” Memories from the fighting at Kosatka abruptly forced their way into her mind. “Oh, crap. Glitch! I need comms to Saber now! Get me a line! Anything you can find.”

  It took time. Giddings had to avoid attempts by the enemy to spot and trace his tries at finding an intact line out, and twice everyone had to freeze while enemy patrols passed close enough to create worries they might spot the faintest vibration from the Marines.

  But finally Giddings gave her a go signal and Mele saw her comm light glow green. “Saber. Am I talking to Saber?”

  The reply sounded wary. “Saber is the ship. You’re talking to me. Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Major Darcy, commander of the defending forces on the facility. Who the hell are you?”

  “Uh . . . huh? I . . . uh . . . Petty Officer Tork . . . engineering watch. Is a major like a lieutenant?”

  “A major is like a commander—”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am! But this circuit isn’t supposed to link to outside calls. Oh, did you come in through the system status net? That shouldn’t be active with only one ship out here. I’ll—”

  “Never mind! I need to talk to Commodore Geary. Right now. This moment. Before we lose this link! Can you patch me through?”

  “I . . . I’ll tell someone! Hang on, Commander!”

  Waiting for the next several seconds took all of her willpower.

  Rob Geary’s voice came on the line so abruptly it startled her. “Mele? Is that you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You scared the hell out of one of my petty officers. Did you get my message?”

  “Yes, sir! Listen, I’ve got to say this quick before we lose this link. We know the enemy has taken prisoners of some of my Marines and some ground forces soldiers. We’ve got indications that those prisoners are being held on the freig
hter. If that freighter runs, while it has some of our people as prisoners aboard it along with enemy soldiers trying to get out of here, can you stop it without killing our own people?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. “That might be a problem. If the freighter was on its own, we could match vectors and take out parts of it, but even then we couldn’t know if prisoners had been placed near any of those pieces of equipment to keep us from firing on them. If the enemy cruiser and destroyer remain as escorts, we’d have to make high-speed runs instead of matching vectors with the freighter. If we’re moving that fast, it’s very difficult to aim to hit just one or two particular spots on a ship, even if we did know exactly where on the freighter our own people are located and tried to avoid hitting those areas.”

  “What options would we have?” Mele asked. “Anything better than those two?”

  “Unless I can make those two enemy warships go away, my options would be to risk killing some, or possibly all, of the prisoners in order to stop the freighter, or to let the freighter go. If the warships run and leave the freighter, I can try taking out its control deck or engineering, but if the enemy places prisoners in those locations, I won’t be able to fire without killing them.”

  “That’s it? There’s nothing else you can do?”

  “Mele, that’s one of the reasons we carry Marines. To give us more options. Only I don’t have Marines. You’ve got them all, and for good reason.”

  “Dammit, sir, I can’t take that freighter! It’d be a death trap! As long as the enemy . . .”

  “Major Darcy?” Rob asked. “Do we still have a link or did I lose you?”

  “I’m still here.” Mele hesitated, trying to sort through her thoughts. “Can you keep them off me?”

  “I’m not sure what you—”

  “If I capture that freighter, can you keep the enemy warships off me?”

  A pause. “When?” Rob Geary finally asked.

  “At the earliest, another twenty-four hours. How long is it until our reinforcements get here?”

  “About three more days. It’s four destroyers, Mele. From Eire, Benten, and Kosatka.”

  “Four—?! When did Eire and Benten join the war?”

  “You’ll have to ask your friend Lochan about that. I’m assuming he made it happen. We’ve also got Adowa and Catalan as allies.”

  For a moment Mele was lost for words. “Cool,” she finally got out.

  “That gives us superiority in space. Enough firepower to destroy both of the enemy warships. If the enemy warships try to escape, and I’m sure they will, they’ll have to start running within thirty-six hours or the four new destroyers will be able to alter their vectors to cut across the star system and catch the enemy before they can reach the jump point. The new warships aren’t broadcasting IDs, so the enemy might still think these are reinforcements for them. But that’s only going to last so long before the enemy warships realize they’re not getting the right answers from our new friends. I expect the enemy warships to bolt in about twenty-four hours, and I’ll be chasing them when they do, trying to slow them down. So that’s your timeline, Mele.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” she repeated. “And they’ll take the freighter with them?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s possible the enemy warships will choose to sacrifice themselves to protect the freighter, but that’s not what a careerist does when the chips are down, and the enemy commander has been acting like a careerist who wants to protect his own hide above all else. It’s already too late for that freighter to escape with them. It accelerates too slowly. The only chance the enemy warships will have to escape is if they abandon the freighter, and the only chance the freighter will have is if it has hostages to prevent us from firing on it.”

  Mele nodded to herself. “Meaning we’ll have a chance to capture and hold the freighter if we hit it after the enemy warships head for home. I can’t set things up in less than nine hours anyway. Okay, we’re—” Mele heard a rapidly repeated snapping sound over the circuit. “Commodore? Are we still connected?” Nothing.

  “They spotted the transmission and spot jammed it,” Sergeant Giddings said.

  “Did they trace it? Do we have to move?”

  “I don’t think so, but we should move in a little while anyway.”

  Mele sat back against the metal behind her, thinking. “I need to talk to Ninja. How are your comms with the surface?”

  “I can get you a link. It’s harder for the enemy to spot that because they’re not in the line of sight between us and the surface. When do you need it?”

  “Five minutes ago.”

  Half an hour passed, while Mele tried not to scream at Giddings to get her the connection now.

  It did give her time to think. There hadn’t been any sign that the enemy soldiers were withdrawing to the freighter, which would be the only smart thing at this point. Whatever else she’d learned about the enemy ground forces commander, he or she wasn’t stupid. They’d know they should be pulling back, and fast. So, why weren’t they?

  Maybe because they hadn’t been told about the four new destroyers. Maybe because the enemy warship commander didn’t want a lot of soldiers clamoring to be picked up before the warships bolted for safety. Mele had been warned about that as a private in the Marines back on the Old Colony world Franklin. “Never count on the space squids. When it comes down to supporting the Marines or running to save themselves, the squids will always look out for themselves.”

  Rob Geary hadn’t been like that. She’d forgotten that some squids supposedly thought like that. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was just Marines not trusting anyone else any more than they had to. But the enemy hadn’t impressed her as being the sort to play straight with their troops. More like being willing to cut their losses anytime things looked bad.

  If the enemy ground forces commander hadn’t been told that everything was about to go to hell, they wouldn’t realize how much the situation had changed for the defenders.

  “Major? I got Ninja’s line. Voice only.”

  “Great.” Mele hit the alert command repeatedly to tell someone at the other end that she was trying to connect. “Hello, hello.”

  A familiar, and very youthful, voice answered. “Who are you? Where’s your picture?”

  “It’s Aunt Mele,” she told Rob’s little girl. “I need—”

  “Hi, Aunt Mele!”

  “Hi. I’m calling on business. Where’s your mom?”

  “Just a sec! Mommy! Aunt Mele wants you to hack somebody!”

  Mele waited for a few seconds that felt like minutes until she heard Ninja’s voice, sounding worn-out. “I’m already hacking for all I’m worth, for what good it’s doing.”

  “Can you—”

  “No! I haven’t been able to get in!”

  “The freighter.”

  “What about the freighter?”

  “Can you get me and several other people onto the freighter?”

  Ninja’s reply took a moment. “Right now?”

  “No. About twenty-four hours from now.”

  “You mean physically? You mean the freighter the enemy came in on? You want to sneak aboard?”

  “Yes!”

  “I thought you had to stay on the orbital facility to defend it.”

  Mele shook her head before realizing that Ninja couldn’t see the gesture. “Not anymore. We won. The soldiers we’re fighting don’t know that yet, though. Which is good. It gives me a chance to grab control of that freighter before they can use it to try to escape. The rest of my people on the station can hold out until the enemy soldiers have to surrender, which won’t be long.”

  “Oh. Got it. So you need to get aboard the freighter. Yeah, I can do that.”

  “That’s great!” Mele said. “I need—”

  “Almost,” Ninja added. “I can almost do that. It�
�s just . . . it involves spoofing enemy sensors using a worm . . . but it’s got to be perfect, you know? Any discrepancies and the sensors tag it and the enemy takes a close look using their eyes and . . . wait a minute.”

  “I haven’t got a minute.”

  “Do you look as bad as you sound?”

  Mele stared into the darkness, trying to come up with an apt reply. “Probably. We’re a little short on mirrors, but that’s probably just as well.”

  “What about your outfits? Your armor? Is that messed up?”

  “You mean damaged? Yeah. Everyone’s armor has damage at this point.”

  “What about the enemy?” Ninja demanded. “Does their armor have lots of damage on the outside?”

  “Every one of them that I’ve seen,” Mele said. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because I can tell the worm to tell the sensors that any inconsistencies or anomalies they see are just damage to the armor! The sensors will still see things inconsistent with friendly armor, but it’ll assume those things are because of damage because I’ll tell them to do that! Why didn’t I think of that before?”

  “I don’t know,” Mele said. “How long will this take?”

  “When do you need it again?”

  “I need to hit the freighter in twenty-four hours. That’s when our space squids say the enemy warships will have abandoned their soldiers here, but before the enemy soldiers have figured that out.”

  “Uh-huh. So you need the worm in time to insert it in the enemy systems and give it time to spread. Ummm . . . I’ll try to get it to you in another couple of hours. Maybe.”

  Mele sighed, resigning herself to the need to wait for something she hadn’t expected to have a chance at ever getting at all. “Okay. We’ll try to punch a line through to you again in a couple of hours. Sergeant Giddings is giving me looks that say I need to end this call before the enemy fixes on us.”

  “I’ll get you that worm, Mele. And stop calling my husband a space squid.”

  “It’s a term Marines use to show their admiration for sailors. Honest. See ya.” Mele broke the call, knowing that Ninja would understand the abrupt hang-up.