by Tim C Taylor
Taverasene wasn’t a fool either. Nor did she need to survive. She lowered her head so the launcher strapped to her back did not kill her straight away. Then she activated her weapon.
The weapon system was called a trident net. It was already set to maximum yield. She aimed at the likely position of the enemy reserve and fired. A stream of micro-nukes emerged and then detonated.
It was like looking into a star’s heart. Despite all her battlesuit’s protection, she felt her body burn.
Even with her gills as dry as death, and the need to vomit rising from her throat, Taverasene’s mortal body still functioned well enough to note that the hull seals her team had laid over the boarding breaches were all intact. The Vengeance was now sealed. She was watertight.
“Mission accomplished,” she reported to her commanding officer.
Floating limply through the void, she watched through her ship’s internal cameras as the compartments and passageways infected by the blasphemer boarders were flooded with water.
The sights were almost comical. The enemy was a mix of Jotuns, humans, and Transgoans. They were trained for the void and for the land surfaces of a variety of planets, but not for water.
They floundered, unsure of how to operate in this new environment.
To their credit, they swiftly recovered, but by then it was too late.
Littorane defenders had taken advantage of the confusion to emerge through secret connecting routes with harpoons, torpedoes, and monofilament needle guns.
Many of the ship’s defenders were unarmored, and most were not even warriors, but all were children of the seas.
The outer frames of the Vengeance of Saesh flowed red with blasphemer blood.
Taverasene switched her viewpoint to the void outside of the ship and saw heavily armed medical teams heading her way.
She was pleased that her body might be restored to service, but that was nothing to the joy she felt that Admiral Indiya, the mortal vessel of the Goddess was preserved, and this last-ditch attack by the blasphemers had failed.
— Chapter 60 —
“Got to hand it to you, Boss, you’re doing the fleet proud.”
Petty Officer Simon Coombes, acting Boss for Lance of Freedom’s X-Boat hangar gave a distracted reply. “Yeah, just doing my job, pilot.”
The pilots coming in for their refuel, rearm, and a patch up were heroes, and so deserved a considered answer, but Coombes was a busy man. The logistics projections showed they would run out of attitude adjustor fuel before the next squadron came back in. They could steal from the Lance’s own reserves, but that meant authorization from the XO which would take time …
Something about the pilot’s voice made Coombes wrench his head out of his analysis projections and slide his holoscreen focus onto the rundown of flight deck operational status.
No wonder he’d noticed something special. It was only chodding General McEwan out there. Heard he’d earned himself a call sign. Guess that meant McEwan was all right.
Coombes checked the status of McEwan’s Mark1 Mustang. Two coolant pump failures, and three of the twelve exhaust ports were fouled. She needed refueling and rearming – naturally – and the general’s starboard armor was no more than wishful thinking. Looked like a ten-minute refit.
“I’m sorry, Catcher,” said Coombes. “I didn’t answer you properly.”
“No dramas, Boss,” McEwan replied. Gods, he sounded exhausted. “I know you’re busy.”
“You misunderstand, sir. I apologized because I should have made clear that if anyone has done the Legion proud here, it is the true Hangar Boss. Master Petty Officer Hortez.” Coombes found himself coming to attention. “He’s not with us anymore, but his training and inspiration mean we know how to do our jobs well. We’re paying the Boss our tribute the only way we know how – by getting you fliers back out into space and giving hell to the enemy.”
“That we are doing, Coombes. The best we can.”
Coombes nodded. The general couldn’t see that, of course, but there were more vital matters to attend to on this hangar than chatting with generals, even if they had earned a call sign.
— Chapter 61 —
For a moment there, Springer could almost believe she was back on Fort Douaumont, the old training hulk that had orbited Tranquility.
Except back then she hadn’t partnered with a half-mad AI, and she’d usually buddied with Arun, not with her.
“I know. We’ve just got here, remember?”
Springer could see the enemy Marines now with her own eyes. They were Transgoans: squat, three-legged creatures from a low-gravity world. Seeing them wasn’t the result of her freakish super vision that she’d discovered when she tried to kill Xin. This was because the enemy had switched off their stealth function.
The Transgoan dongwads appeared upside down because they were actually stupid enough to follow the charged walkways marked out along the deck. Springer’s squad – a scratch team tasked with protecting the Colonel – was positioned above on the overhead.
She held her fire as they passed underneath.
Then Colonel Xin Lee gave the order and Springer squeezed the trigger of her SA-71.
— Chapter 62 —
“Shift your ass,” shouted the replacement power tech. Flint her name was. From ‘C’ Crew. “I need this compartment pressurized, ASAP.”
“Ignore her, Stolley,” said Harxhi with soothing calmness. “Flint is tired, that’s all.”
We all are, thought Spacer Stollajko, Stolley to his pals, as he finished setting the emergency sealant. But he kept his mouth shut. Harxhi was the damage control team’s leader. Stolley listened to him, and him alone.
A hellblaster missile had tunneled clean through the Lance’s starboard hull, and they had lost pressure as far as Frame Four.
Damage control shouts were coming so fast now, all they could do was prioritize, patch, and move on.
The pressure patch registered a good seal, and Stolley released the valve on the compressed air hose that would pressurize the compartment.
“About chodding time,” grumbled Flint.
Stolley bunched his hands into fists.
“Let it go,” urged Harxhi. “Remember why Flint is here.”
Flint took a deep breath, shed her bulky gauntlets, and with bare hands began aligning the core of the replacement power cable, matching the phase setting to the burned-out section.
The compartment’s air was still far too thin to breathe.
Restoring power to burned-out compartments was a dangerous and lengthy task. The power tech didn’t have time, no one did. So she cut corners, just as Martin had done.
And that was why Flint was here, and Martin’s charred corpse was still on Deck 10.
Stolley obeyed Petty Officer Harxhi and let it go. He did more than that. He walked over to the replacement power tech, took off his own gauntlets, and asked: “what can I do to help?”
— Chapter 63 —
The battle raged for hours. Feints and counter-feints, boardings and bombing runs, surprise attacks and silent sacrifices – Arun couldn’t track the big picture any longer. He trusted his flight leader to give him the right orders. And soon after Flight’s Phantom crumpled into fast-moving junk when her momentum dump failed, Puja reformed the survivors of her wing into a single tactical unit. Arun transferred his trust to the woman he’d kissed a lifetime ago, and flew his Mustang like a cyborg.
At the start of the battle, he and Barney had been a team with complementing strengths. As the killing ground on, the division of tasks between them became so fluid that they had transformed into a single, hybrid fighting automaton.
When the human component that had been Arun McEwan was drawing deep of his final reserve of endurance, an unexpected message came out of the black. “Second Wing, return to your berths. Get some r
est, you’ve earned it.”
Arun’s mind couldn’t process this unaided, but he felt sure something important had changed. “What’s happening?” he asked Barney.
His AI flashed his reply up as fat text scrolling over the main flight screen display.
The enemy is fleeing. Our reserve forces are pursuing. Obey your orders. Rest, Arun! We’ve won!
— Chapter 64 —
After setting down safely back in the Lance’s X-Boat hangar, Arun immediately felt a crushing weight of fatigue. Pilots were stumbling along the flight deck. Bodies were floating in zero-g (dimly a voice told him that if the carrier was experiencing zero-g then it was not accelerating. It must either have its engines destroyed or not feel any threat). There was blood on the flight deck. A lot of blood.
Arun tried to get out of his seat but could not move. More in bemusement than panic, he examined his limbs to check whether they were still whole. If he had sacrificed his limbs to help win the battle, then that was a price he’d pay in a heartbeat.
Barney told him they were still functional, but that was a lie because he still couldn’t move. The weight of fatigue was so paralyzing that he had to deploy his last reserves of strength just to keep on breathing.
The other pilots were shuffling away from the hangar, often with assistance from the deck crew. They were exhausted, but they could never feel the same crushing weight as Arun. All they had done was fight at unnatural speeds for hours in a desperate gamble that had paid off for the survivors. But it had been Arun’s gamble. His decision to stay here. Every pilot who never made it back would have been alive if not for Arun’s choice to make a stand. Every bloodstain on that deck was on his hands.
“Stop thinking too deeply,” he said out loud. “Guilt is an indulgence. I’ll be needed soon. Get some rest… They’ll… they’ll need me soon…”
Arun allowed his drooping eyelids to rest for a moment… and was instantly asleep.
— Chapter 65 —
“Come with me.” The voice had an odd inflection and there was something in the tone that sounded marginally off, as if it wasn’t real. Still entangled in the muzzy state of half-sleep, Springer had difficulty believing the sound belonged anywhere other than in her dreams. She instinctively asked Saraswati for a tactical update, but there was no reply. Must be a dream then.
“Marine Tremayne,” the voice spoke again, quiet but insistent. “You should be awake enough to hear me now. Please come with me.”
She dragged herself towards full consciousness, part of her mind resisting, clinging stubbornly to the cozy comfort of sleep. “Go ’way.”
Despite the defiant words her eyes flickered open, to discover a pair of saucer-like eyes staring at her. Alarmed at how close they were – surely no more than a hand’s breadth away – she jerked upright and pressed backwards against the bulkhead. At the same time, her sluggish thought processes registered and identified the tiny form that hovered beside her, dimly visible thanks to the glow from its own eyes.
“Darius?” She hissed the word in an exaggerated whisper, not wanting to disturb the other Marines who still slept in their suits around her, their helmets hanging from one hip, and carbines from the other.
Ready for battle…
Adrenaline pumped through her. The 3rd Fleet was on the run but still dangerous. She had her SA-71 in her arms and was about to release the safety when her brain caught up with her instincts. If the scratch battalion she’d been assigned to was needed for action, the others would have been woken. This was just her and Darius.
She had all but forgotten about Furn’s pet miniature robot, having hardly seen it since the Themistocles was destroyed years ago. “What the frakk do you want? Did Furn send you?”
“Who else? Come.”
For a moment she was tempted to just swat the irritating mechanoid away and try to get some more shut-eye, but she was awake now and Darius wasn’t likely to give up. If this went on much longer it was only going to disturb her new comrades and they certainly wouldn’t thank her for that.
Should she follow Darius? Part of her felt that would be deserting her unit, but her orders were to be ready to move out at fifteen minutes’ notice, not to stay with the other sleeping Marines. Besides, she had shared an adventure with Furn and Umarov, and the Old Man’s death made her feel closer to the remaining survivor.
After gunning for Colonel Skangat in the minefield, Springer wasn’t certain for how much longer she would remain a Marine.
This had better be good. As quietly as she could, Springer snuck out of the room. Throughout the whole process the tiny robot hovered, not saying a word but somehow conveying a sense of impatience.
“What does the dongwit think he’s playing at, waking me up while I’m resting?” she muttered once they were out in the corridor. “Doesn’t he know I’ve just fought in a battle?” For once Darius stayed silent.
Floating in front of her like a mechanical lure, Darius led her through the Lance’s decks to the same workroom where she’d vented her frustrations to Furn yesterday morning, before the battle which was still ongoing, although the pursuit of the scattered remnants of the 3rd Fleet had been left to the Legion reserves.
Along the way, they encountered nobody else. Whether that was due to luck or Furn’s design Springer couldn’t say, but she wouldn’t have put it past the ingenious freak.
Furn was in a state of excitement, having abandoned his work station in favor of pacing, and he was clearly relieved when she and Darius arrived.
“What took you so long?” he snapped.
“Frakk you!” she said. “You drag me away from my unit and have me sneaking around the ship like some spy only to moan because I’m not here in an instant…?” Only her refusal to go through all that without learning the reason stopped her from turning around and heading straight back to her battalion.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m not used to this sort of thing.”
“Used to what, exactly? And it had better be something spectacular.”
“Oh it is, I promise you. Sorry about the hour, but I had to tell you as soon as I could, and Heidi will only turn a blind eye for a limited time.”
He was grinning like a first year cadet who had just gotten away with the most audacious prank ever. Rather than finding this reassuring her, his expression just made Springer nervous. “What have you done, Furn?”
“Oh, you’re going to love this!” He clapped his hands excitedly. “They’re gone.”
“What are?”
“Xin’s embryos – I told you I could find them.”
“Sorry, what do you mean ‘they’re gone’?”
“Killed. Rendered unviable. I engineered a glitch in the temperature modulation of their storage unit. They’ve cooked, beyond any hope of salvage, and the best part is that it will all look like a systems failure and not anyone’s fault.” He laughed, gleefully.
Springer stared at the freak as a fist of horror closed around her heart. “Please tell me you’re joking, that this is a wind up.”
“Of course not. You think I’d joke about something like this?” His grin faltered as he noted her expression. “Why aren’t you happy?”
“Happy… Happy? You chodder, Furn. What have you done?”
“Killed the offspring of ‘that sour-faced skangat Xin’, of course.”
She recoiled, hearing her own words repeated back at her. “But why?”
“For you.”
“Oh no, you’re not pinning this on me… You didn’t do this for my sake.”
Furn looked genuinely puzzled. “Of course I did. Do you not recall? We agreed that if not for Xin’s embryos you could be happy. Well now you can be.”
For a moment all Springer could do was stare. Those embryos – future children – murdered; Arun’s dynasty, which her visions had foretold, crippled before it had begun, and it was all her fault. If she hadn’t shot her mouth off to Furn, if she had only put a lid on her emotions until they had calmed down,
none of this would have happened. No wonder she had never seen herself in any of the glimpses of Arun’s future – because she didn’t have a future. She would surely be executed for this. Her fault; hers.
“We have to tell the general,” she said.
“What? Are you mad? That’s the last thing we should do. Listen, no one will ever know it was us, no one will realize it was anybody. Of course it’s a tragedy, and we’ll mourn with everyone else, but then in a week, a month from now…” He shrugged. “Life goes on.”
“I’m sorry, Furn,” she said quietly, “I can’t.” My fault, mine. “Heidi-23,” she said more firmly, “summon General McEwan.”
“No, you can’t!” Furn shrieked. “Belay that command!”
“Summon General McEwan!” Springer repeated.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, turning to Furn. The look in his eyes spoke of hurt and betrayal. “We have to do this.”
My fault, mine. Murderer.
— Chapter 66 —
A comm ping rang in Arun’s head.
Had the whole galaxy conspired to drive him insane? What the frakk was going on?
“Barney, are we under attack?”
His AI gave Arun a sense of safety, followed by cool information. The enemy was being chased far out system, in full flight.
The call was from CPO Coombes. Damn! Much as he wanted to yell at this Coombes, Arun couldn’t shout at someone he couldn’t place. He tried to reawaken his protesting mind. Wasn’t Coombes the Deputy Hangar Boss he’d fought beside? But that Coombes hadn’t been a chief petty officer. Without needing to be asked, Barney popped the details into Arun’s head.
Arun waved away Barney’s info update. He couldn’t decide which was the more sobering: the reminder that families existed and were serving alongside each other in the Legion, or the fact that the master-at-arms had contacted him? Suddenly Arun didn’t feel like shouting. He accepted the call.