“Why?” he implored.
“You wouldn’t let me onto the Exuberance,” said Zarbi. “This was the only way.”
“The captain will hear of this,” complained Jenkins.
“Captain Blue cares about one thing,” said Shalzak. “Results. Let’s first deliver what she needs. If we fail, we may as well stay here in this dusty shaft, because I for one wouldn’t dare return to Midnight Sun.”
Jenkins kicked away the last of the netting. “On that at least we can agree. Let’s conquer the Arashi Nova.”
* * * * *
Chapter 19
Captain Jamie Sinclair drummed his fingers against the arms of his command seat on the bridge of the sodding heap of rust and bolts his father had chartered for this mission. A tramp freighter they called it. Och, aye. Arashi Nova was a tramp of a ship all right. Jamie had all but hired its sister ship Alnwick Nova, with its hidden laser turrets and a proper CIC, but – oh, no – there’d been some kind of minor newsworthy mystery about the Alnwick Nova some decades back, and father had insisted that the best protection for Jamie and his Zulu Company command was anonymity. So they’d switched for this junkheap.
Unlike its sister ship, the reason Arashi Nova appeared so authentically harmless was because it really was a genuine shite-bucket of rust.
And as for anonymity – well, that had gone well, hadn’t it? How in Hades had that woman stormed aboard less than a day after the special reconnaissance raid on her home turf at Kubar Park?
So here he was, sitting on the bridge, staring at the array of Tri-V screens curved around the overhead. Same as the rest of the bridge crew, he was here to monitor the camera feeds and diagnostics, keeping vigilant to protect the three dormant mecha in his hold.
His mind kept drifting from the displays and onto someone else: Captain Sue Blue.
The wee minx was only a tiny thing to look at, but her presence warped space and time – and men’s minds – around her in ways that were inexplicable but – he sighed – were not altogether unpleasant. He allowed himself the luxury of imagining what it would feel like to caress the knife edge of her cheekbone and carry on along the smoothness of her bald head. Out of those dark eyes, she’d be blasting him with that bold defiance he enjoyed so much.
Blue would make a perfect story to spin out over beers at a Karma merc pit bar, the yarn gaining embellishment with each retelling.
He grinned, but his mood swiftly soured. He wouldn’t be visiting Peepo’s Pit any time soon. And any human who did deserved a slow gutting that Jamie would be happy to carry out himself.
Peepo was an enemy now, and they were at war. That changed everything. Sinclair’s Scorpions would do their duty and carry out their mission, no matter the wee minxes who beguiled them and rust buckets that flew them. They just had to hold on for two more transitions, and they’d reach the safety of their rendezvous.
His fingers were still drumming.
He picked up his hands and stuffed them under his arse. Not the most glamorous look for a mercenary officer, but better than communicating his anxiety to his personnel.
“TacCom, send the other drone out on exterior watch.”
“Aye, sir,” replied Corporal Anitha Dhuru of 3rd Platoon, who’d been redesignated tactical command officer for Arashi Nova.
To maximize security, the 52 personnel Jamie commanded were crewing the ship themselves, and he was proud of how well they’d adapted. The old man had deliberately recruited personnel with a range of non-core skills for just such a purpose. All the same, Zulu Company was still getting used to working to a different organization, made only a little easier by referring to personnel by their role rather than their usual rank.
“XO, with both drones on patrol, I want double the eyes watching their feeds. And reduce duration of the watches. I need everyone fresh, because when Blue makes her move – and believe me, she will – it’ll be sudden and violent.”
“Aye, sir,” replied the veteran Jamie thought of as First Sergeant Andy McClain. “I’ll also send a section out in CASPers to patrol when Drone-1 comes in for refueling in about ten hours.”
“Good thinking. The damned woman’s stringing us along. Trying to tire us out before she makes a move. But we’ll be ready.”
“Sir,” called the helm in alarm. “We’re de-clamping from the Exuberance.”
“What?” It felt like shards of ice were pricking Jamie’s back as he gawped at the flashing red icons appearing on the main screen – few of which he understood, and none of which looked good. “Show me a visual.”
After a few moments of muffled curses, a wireframe representation appeared of the Arashi Nova gradually drifting away from the massive heavy hauler. The behemoth was spinning about its central axis to offer limited pseudo-gravity, and the transit riders were attached to its hull in a helix pattern to even out mass distribution. As the Exuberance spun around, transit riders on the other side of the helix would soon come about to crash into the Arashi Nova, a collision the rustbucket would never survive. Legally speaking, if anyone were by chance to be waiting outside and helped themselves to the cargo of a smashed ship that had lost pressurization, engines, and life-support, it would be salvage, not piracy.
Not even his Peacemaker sister Nikki could dispute that.
He hadn’t thought Blue would be so lethal. He should have sliced her in two when he’d had the chance. And for that matter, those Raknar must be even tougher than he realized if Blue planned to smash the ship and retrieve the stolen cargo undamaged.
“Helm, get us out. Fast!”
Alarms blared throughout the bridge, but they couldn’t drown out the sound of vehemently protesting metal.
“Maneuvering thrusters and ion engine engaged,” reported Helm, “but no effect. It’s as if we’re caught in some kind of grapple.”
Jamie had thought his bridge was in uproar. Now it descended into utter chaos, with so many reports, alarms, and ignore-me-and-die visual alerts that he couldn’t keep track.
“Depressurization alert on Deck Thirteen.”
“Cargo access doors opening in main hold.”
“Pressure beach, starboard aft quarters.”
“Missile lock! I repeat, missile lock!”
“Boarders in the main hold.”
“Exuberance hailing us.”
“Put them through,” Jamie commanded.
The face of Captain Klagg filled one of the Tri-V screens. Beneath the cuteness of his enormous eyes, steam was coming from his flared nose, and the scaly skin on his chin had turned the lurid orange of a bad acid trip. “You piece of human excrement. You useless mammal. What’re you doing firing thrusters while clamped to my ship?”
“We aren’t,” Jamie replied. “We’ve been un-clamped. It is attempted piracy.”
“Idiot. Reboot that bag of pus you call a brain and think again.” The image of the captain shrank, giving up space to a new feed from a camera mounted on Exuberance that was trained on the Nova. The camera showed Jamie’s ship still attached to the Exuberance, not under missile attack, but with atmosphere venting from the open hold doors. Dark inhuman figures floated in the back. A different camera caught a good view of a figure. It was a CASPer. Mark 8, he thought, but it’s difficult to see with its matte black coloring. The camera zoomed into the left shoulder, which bore a stylized image of a black star shooting arcs of coronal flame. A midnight sun.
“I’m levying a 100,000 credit fine,” said Klagg.
“But…”
“And if you don’t deal with your pathetic mammal feud, I’ll seize your vessel and its contents in indemnity for your own stupidity.”
“Apologies,” Jamie replied. He wanted this alien gasbag off his comm link. He waved at First Sergeant McLain – the XO – to organize a defense.
Klagg was too dangerous to annoy further. Jamie’s father had once told him, long ago, that being a successful mercenary commander required more than bravado and blowing things up. Sometimes it meant smiling politely while an ir
ate alien roasted your arse.
“Since you’re clearly not competent to protect your own ship, I can – for a small fee – arrange a contract for a mercenary team from a more dependable race to bail you out.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Jamie snarled through clenched teeth, his patience at an end. He gave a cutting gesture for SigCom to rid his screen and ears of the arrogant alien.
The moment Klagg was gone, Jamie hit the PA control in the armrest he’d been drumming a minute earlier. “All hands. Battle stations. Boarders in the main hold. Repeat, battle stations…”
SigCom was shaking his head. “It’s no use,” she said. “We’re blocked out of the PA.” Her face went a little pale. “This is what the crew’s hearing.”
The sound of bagpipes filled the bridge.
Jamie felt his face grow hot and red. Och, aye, Blue. Very funny.
“Secure the bridge,” he ordered TacCom as he punched his harness release and pushed off for the starboard access tube that led to the hold. “We’re about to teach that demented she-devil not to mess with Sinclair’s Scorpions.”
* * * * *
Chapter 20
“They’ve spotted us,” said Sun over the tactical channel. “Vengeance Squad, move in!”
Branco didn’t have eyes on the operation – he was still inbound and hidden from the Arashi Nova by the curve of the Exuberance’s hull. If the operation was going to plan, the Nova’s hold would be opening to space, and the five Zuul of Vengeance Squad would be firing multiple volleys of chaos rockets inside. Under cover of the confusing-as-hell mayhem unleashed in the hold by the rockets, the rest of Vengeance squad would be moving in, their objective to disrupt the Scorpions guarding the Raknar so the extraction teams could transfer them through space to Midnight Sun.
The extraction teams – Shock, Gold, and Lightning Squads – needed enormous strength to move the Raknar, and resilience under fire. The extraction teams were CASPers.
“Shift it!” yelled his partner in this operation. Juliana Keiko’s voice came through so loud that the control software in Branco’s Mark 8 lowered the volume of his squad feed.
In the Tri-V bank on the inside of his CASPer, Branco expanded the camera view of the heavy lift platform he was transporting with Keiko. He opened the throttle on his jump juice to compensate for her increased thrust, so they didn’t skew the lift platform onto the wrong bearing. The enormous mass of the platforms made them a nightmare to maneuver at speed, but they’d need that speed if they were to extract the enormous ancient mecha under fire. Meanwhile, he kept one panel displaying a representation of UTS Exuberance as it flashed beneath them on their advance to the battle space.
The Scorpion ship was not a military vessel, and their intelligence said that its close quarter sensors and antipersonnel defenses were minimal. The alien mercs of Vengeance and Sun’s command section had risked going in light, crawling across Exuberance’s hull to the Nova under cover of radar-absorbing stealth sheets.
The Nova might have rheumy old eyes on its surroundings, but Sun couldn’t assume it was completely blind. Which was why the human squads in their CASPers, and the heavy lifting equipment they carried, had hidden out of view across the crest of Exuberance’s bulky hull.
“You got this?” challenged Keiko as the safety lights on the Nova’s stern edged into view, followed steadily by the rest of the tramp freighter, which was shaped like an enormous Jeha – pairs of pincer-like claws curling down from a long, curved upper structure. Cargo modules, and other modules, could slot into these holding pincers, but the Nova also had a large integral cargo hold at its center.
Sun had timed the assault so the Nova was in Exuberance’s shadow. In Branco’s lowlight-enhanced view, the exterior lights outlining the freighter were green flares that burned so intensely that the only other part of the Nova he could see was the hold, which was currently a hash of electro-magnetic hell sent out by the chaos rockets.
“Respond, Branco,” Keiko urged.
“Yep, I got it.”
“Ignore all that shit out there,” she told him. “Imagine it’s just another run in the sim. We nailed it every time in practice.”
“Not a problem,” Branco replied. But this wasn’t simulated.
Keiko activated the five-second countdown for both their suits.
Vengeance Squad had already disappeared into the hold, which was lighting up with explosions and weapons fire. Sun and three other mercs in light armor were setting up a command post on the Nova’s hull in the cover of the hold doors. Branco tried not to worry about his CO and sometimes lover going into a battlespace without her CASPer, but when the countdown reached zero, he had far too much going on to think of anything but himself, his buddy, and the lift platform that massed as much as a tank.
Branco released his grip on the platform and tapped his jets to join Keiko on its far edge, riding the heavy lifting gear like a body board. Together, they fired burst after burst from their jumpjets, slowing the platform and shifting it to a vector headed for where the open hold doors would be in another thirty seconds.
They let go of the moving platform and pumped their jets to overtake it.
“Remember,” said Sun over the tactical grid, “don’t use lethal force unless you’re in imminent danger.”
“You don’t have to remind me,” grumbled Branco privately. He shared the reluctance to kill fellow human mercs who were just doing their jobs, but CASPers were the epitome of lethal. He was kitted out with EMP limpet mines and had drilled on disabling attacks, but he had no doubt that people were about to die.
“I know,” said Keiko, the confidence in her voice strained. “It doesn’t sit right, but at least we’re not pirates.”
“Looks like piracy to me. Even if it’s arguably retrieval of stolen goods.”
“If we breached its hull, we’d be pirates, but the ship opened its doors to us. And if we subsequently have an altercation with the crew, that’s no one’s business but ours. Not the Exuberance. And not the Peacemakers.”
“That’s a desperately fine line,” said Branco. “Those doors didn’t open by accident.” He decided not to mention Flkk’Sss letting slip about a secret Midnighter team on the Nova. And Keiko definitely didn’t need to know that Jamie Sinclair’s little sister was a member of the deadly Peacemakers.
Keiko fired a burst from her jets and sped away. Branco brought up his fuel status – over half his jump juice already gone – but he had no choice but to increase thrust to keep up.
“You’re still new, Saisho,” she told him. “But you’ll learn. Sometimes you gotta walk a fine line in this business. If you don’t like gambling, stick to something safely away from the front line. Logistics, maybe.”
Then they were inside the mayhem of Arashi Nova’s hold. Sparks burst inside roiling clouds of smoke. Everywhere was movement, and most of it was an illusion spun by the chaos rockets. But Sun had sent a scout drone in first, and Shock Squad used the map overlay it sent to their HUDs to locate their target: Raknar-Gamma.
Branco took cover behind one of the restraining clamps around the Raknar’s shoulder and, as he did so, he brought his machine gun and magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC, hot and free.
Before they could retrieve their Raknar, there was the little matter of persuading Sinclair’s Scorpions to let them go first.
* * * * *
Chapter 21
From the safety of the huge stanchion, Branco and the eleven other Shock Squad CASPers assigned to Raknar-Gamma surveyed the battlespace. They possessed a key advantage. The chaos munitions sent in by the Zuul were screaming random noise throughout the electromagnetic spectrum and pinging false infrared and radar signatures into the smoke expanding to fill the hold. The chaos should be isolating the Scorpions from each other and blinding their targeting systems.
But the rockets had been tuned to leave the Midnighter tactical net a narrow window clear of noise at about 1.2 GHz. Even without jamming, the pulsed radar signals in t
his band were still being absorbed and reflected by the smoke. So, as a backup, Sun’s command team deployed an oscillating hammer to the outside of the hull that allowed her to communicate via a simple code to her squads through vibrations in the Nova’s structure.
Branco took a look through the hold. Visibility was poor, but his HUD clearly outlined his comrades and the Scorpion defenders.
“We have so many advantages it’s an embarrassment,” Albali had told his squad before setting off. Branco still couldn’t figure out if he was joking.
“Branco,” called Sergeant Albali, “take out Hostile 14. Keiko, you handle the platform.”
Hostile 14 was upside down relative to Branco’s position on the deck, and looked disoriented, but there was one Midnighter target that was easy for the Scorpion to see. Hostile 14 snapped an arm up and fired a high-cyclic laser at Betty, who deployed the laser shields on her legs to deflect the energy. Some of the beam rebounded onto her abdomen, where a combination of her armor and her tough hide meant Betty didn’t even notice.
The Scorpion lowered his laser-equipped right arm and raised his left. It was difficult to see through the hash, but the Midnighters had been briefed to expect 8mm gun pods with a mix of hollow point and armor-piercing loads.
Tatterjee fired his hypervelocity pistol, but the Scorpion anticipated the move and jetted down behind the top of a baffle just in time. A moment later, the CASPer must have spun ’round and bounced off the deck like a gymnast, because its gun-pod arm poked out from the top of the baffle, seeking targets.
Branco squatted down and pushed off from the deck, deciding that using his jumpjets would risk giving away his position. “Non-lethal,” he grumbled, settling the dark red reticle of his MAC on Hostile 14’s gun pod, and fired off a short burst of shells. He’d intended to damage the weapon and not the operator inside, but the Scorpion hadn’t read the script and moved at the last moment through Branco’s cone of fire.
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