She was surprised to note that his face was that of an old man, if he was Starborn he must have been one of the very first, and he must have done as many tours as any of the original Duty Crew. “Doom…” he said. Then he died.
Snow took no chances. She tied his hands behind his back with his own rifle strap and left him face down on the ice. She looked around at the tugboat ships, each one smaller than the original Dee-Dub. They were designed to jump while carrying a much larger sphere of material, but they were useful for little else. In order to speed their construction, they were given no boosters and their e-drives were small indeed. She had to assume he'd placed one or more bombs per ship. Starting with the one bomb she'd seen the man place, Snow began to collect them.
“Linda to anyone.” Linda's voice came over the radio. “Come in anyone.”
“I hear you, Linda,” Snow said. “I'm securing the hanger. How did things go? Have you heard from Max?”
There was an explosion in the distance then she felt a tremble in ice.
“Mmmmmaybe?” Linda said. “That came from his sector. I'll send help.”
Snow wasn't waiting. She clutched her rifle and ran up the ramp to the surface above. When she reached the surface, she looked for a sign of the explosion. Debris, a mushroom cloud, anything. But there was no sign. She ran on, heading towards Longissima, intending to shortcut her way through the ship to Max.
She was breathing heavily when she arrived and entered the airlock. It finished cycling, the hatch opened, and she was met with a scene of chaos. Eva lay on the floor, eyes closed as though she were sleeping. A few quick steps brought Snow to the command room and more bodies.
Linda was at a console. She waved a hand dismissively at the bodies. “They’re just sleeping,” she said.
Snow hoped that wasn't just Linda's cheery optimism. But she wasn't going to stick around to find out.
Linda further waved her hand as if to say, go-get-the-man-with-the-long-legs.
Snow ran down the corridor to the airlock leading to the shipyard factory. It was still in a state of vacuum and she was forced to wait several agonizing seconds for it to fill with air before finally opening. She entered, activated the door, and waited yet again for it to cycle.
“Snow, are you out there?” said Max's groggy voice.
“Ya, I'm here. I'm coming—” Snow said.
“You need to go back to the hanger. Traitor Three… he went that way after the explosion and he still has his detonator,” Max said. “He might be able to use it on Two's devices. Did you take out Two?”
If the detonator was just a data pad, it was highly likely he could do just that. Snow stopped the airlock in mid cycle. “I did. Are you okay?” She almost kept the worry from her voice.
“I'm okay. Just stuck in the ice. The factory is ruined though. Those ships are all we have. We don't have time to build a new factory and new ships.”
“I'll stop him,” Snow said as the airlock was pumping away. And Snow was hoping the path through the ship really was a shortcut. “Just pretend you're dead if he comes back.”
“He won't come back. He collapsed the only remaining outside tunnel. And anyway, Doozer's here.”
The airlock opened and Snow ran out, nearly running into an android. Snow sensed somehow that it was not Linda. Two androids in total entered the airlock behind her. She ran on, quickly arriving at the other airlock. It slowly cycled. She drummed her hands on the walls, keeping her momentum up. Finally, the hatch opened, and she rushed out.
As soon as she climbed the few steps to the ice plain, she stopped and looked for Three. She lifted the rifle, using the scope to scan the ice. And there he was coming around the far end of Longissima at a walk. She steadied her aim on the edge of the ship, then she pulled the trigger. But she led too much and the burst flashed ahead of the man. He started to run, towards the hanger dome. Snow fired off a few more bursts, hoping for a lucky shot. When she didn't get one, she began running too. She estimated that they were each about the same distance from the hanger, though Snow had a more direct route to the nearest tunnel. But Three didn't need to reach the hanger. He needed only to get close enough that he could trigger the bombs. How close that would be was anyone’s guess. The data pad wasn't designed to penetrate ice, but if he could reach a solid line of reflection within the range of the data-pad? Boom. Snow picked a point of intersection and sprinted at top speed, using the strength and stamina given to her by an uncertain amount of genetic trait tinkering. But if the traitor, like her was Starborn, he would have those traits as well.
Whether because he realized he would not beat her to the entrance, he wanted a fight, or he was simply mad as a hatter, Snow didn't know, but he gave up the race to the tunnel and turned towards her. She could hear him rant as he came at her, though between his helmet and hers, the words were lost.
She pulled out the rifle and checked that it was almost fully charged. She aimed and zipped off a burst. He dodged to the side putting a pile of debris in the way. That's when Snow realized the deranged man hadn't been completely crazy in his choice. There was quite a lot of debris between the pair. She ran to the side and exposed him from cover. She let off another burst. He dodged again, finding something new to interpose between them. He jinked back and forth in an irregular pattern. She fired burst after burst. The more she missed the worse her aim became. Finally, he charged around the last piece of cover towards her. His own rifle was in his hands now. Snow dropped to the ground as a burst sailed past her. She aimed and let a burst fly. This time he didn't dodge. His rifle took the brunt of the salvo as the beams zipped into him.
He dropped the rifle and stretched his stride, pouring on the speed. Snow pulled the trigger, her aim steady and true. But in place of the deadly 'zip, zip, zip' was a sad, three note tone. The rifle was drained. The man continued his charge. Snow jumped to her feet as he drove into her. They hit the ground and rolled apart. Each coming to their feet in a crouch and automatically circling as each sought opportunity. The traitor lunged forward. Snow stepped back, aware he was only testing her. Again, he lunged, but this time she hit him a glancing blow with the rifle. They traded opening blows with each other. Snow recognized his training. It was the same as her own. Which meant he had to be Starborn, since that training and technology behind it were developed long after Longissima set sail, meaning that only duty crew had had them installed. Even soldiers like Commander Carrack had only trained with bulkier VR tech and old-style chips.
And Traitor Three was too young to be original duty crew, that much was also clear. He feigned left then ducked in to make the first real strike of the fight. Snow slipped back, avoiding both the feign and the strike, sacrificing an opportunity to counterattack. There was more circling, more pressing for advantage. The next attack again came from the traitor. This time Snow whacked him hard on his dome helmet with the rifle. The mostly plastic weapon bounced off without damage to the helmet, but it did drive the man to the ice for a moment. Snow kicked out, catching him in the shoulder and again in the side. She continued to take advantage, stomping and kicking him until he went limp. With a foot on the back of his neck, she held him in place while she looked for and found the data pad, clipped to a utility belt on his waist. She reached down to grab it. The traitor rolled, and she went down, his hand on her ankle. The rifle hit the ice, broke free from her grip and slid away. She abandoned it and concentrated on the grapple with the traitor. A distinctive, happy tune beeped from the rifle.
Snow cursed, and tried to roll to the side to gain the rifle. But the traitor heard the beep too. He had the advantage, having just reached the lofty height of a low crouch. He threw himself to the rifle, beating Snow to it and quickly gained his feet. He angled the rifle barrel and spun towards Snow in one fluid motion. Lying with her back on the ice, Snow kicked powerfully upwards, driving her heel between the traitor's wide, spread legs.
With the rifle and data-pad in her possession, she pondered what to do with the traitor, lying face do
wn and groaning on the ice. The charges were ticking back up on the rifle. She aimed near one of the traitor’s boots on the ice and let off a burst. Very little of the ice melted, but very little was all she needed. When the ice refroze, a split second later, the boot was held fast. She did the same with his other boot and elbows. He couldn't see what she was doing and seemed unaware of what was happening, until he was pinned on all four points and she moved to do the same to his helmet. She blasted away at the ice just below his face. He jerked away, calling out for mercy, which allowed her to position he shots below his face plate and its chunky seam. When she was finished, she jumped on his head, squashing it down into the pool of water. She held him there until the water froze, holding his helmet tightly in place.
The traitor began mumbling more rhetoric. Snow ignored him. She informed Max that she'd wrangled Traitor Three. He informed her that she was the best and also that he didn't think he'd lost any more body parts. He was being dug out of the rubble by androids. Snow took the time to retrieve the bombs from the ships in the hanger. They were not large, but she was certain they would have been sufficient to render the ships useless had they been activated.
Snow received some good news before she arrived back at Longissima. The crew members she'd seen lying on the floor of Longissima, along with Ravaea and Freenan, had indeed been sleeping. The three traitors had released a sleeping agent into Longissima's corridors, as part of their plan to take the ship. They must have thought they had already achieved victory, because blowing up the shipyards and the small fleet of tug jumper ships seemed to have been very much of secondary importance to them.
Snow received in person the bad news that not all of the earthlings had been sleeping. Gustov's newly assigned assistant, and three pod bound earthlings in the medical bay had been found dead. They were still putting together the details, but it seemed that Yannis, the oldest of the traitors, was an original duty crew member, not Starborn, but had slept the centuries away in a Starborn's pod. It suggested that the pods, not the Starborn were the key element that allowed for GE's space madness to take hold. Shortly after being woken, Yannis had attacked Gustov and left him for dead. Yannis then woke the two corrupted Starborn that had been curtained off in the med bay. Between the three traitors, they opened the three other pods waiting in the med bay and killed their occupants. Gustov too would have likely died of his injuries, were it not for the sleeping agent, which put his body into hibernation and saved his life.
When the earthlings had all reawakened, Snow would tell them the rest of the news they had to bring. The good news that they'd found a generous supply of the much needed Akoronite, and the bad news that GE had begun bombing the cities of Grailliyn. Entaarguuishawa was gone. And it seemed likely, that soon other cities would follow.
Chapter 31
Together they worked to revive the earthlings. Most of their injuries were relatively minor, consisting largely of concussions and bruising, with a few lacerations here and there that were the result a sudden freefall to the floor. For the four murdered earthlings, there was no time for a proper ceremony. They were hastily buried in the ice with a few quick, but heartfelt words. Then the living carried on with the hope that in the end there might continue to be survivors. It would be left to those survivors to remember the fallen.
Traitor Three was collected and questioned. He, proudly and madly, declared that their activities had been revealed to GE, though he referred to them as The Masters. He warned that there would soon be a reckoning. And that he would be cherished and saved in the end for his service to The Masters. When it was determined that they would get no more from him, he was placed back in his pod which they strapped shut and marked as dangerous, before locking it in the ice. Given time, they would do what they could for the poor man, but with so many earthlings still left to revive, and an evil galactic empire on their heels, Max had real doubts that the man would ever reawaken.
With time so short, and pilots still in limited supply, Max and Snow were each assigned to separate ships. Max was assigned to the Dee-Dub, to which still further modifications had been made. Linda and Doozer were to stay with him on the Dee-Dub. Snow on the other hand had been assigned to one of the tug jumpers she'd saved from destruction in the hanger. Along with her was an AI she was referring to as Mindac, though he referred to himself as Terrance.
The other tug jumpers were also crewed by an AI, earthling pair. The AIs could operate the ship completely, but they were limited in their ability to make decisions. It wasn't clear to Max if it was a rule, or if they were built hardwired that way. They had all been shut down by the traitors. But apparently that was only to stop them from helping the earthlings. None of the AIs were able to knowingly hurt a human, not unless they had a direct order. It turned them essentially into the equivalent of a gun and in the cases of such violence, the human was considered to be taking the action personally.
The tug jumpers were designed to jump from place to place. They had limited maneuverability, so the complex piloting that Max had trained for would be wasted in any case. There were thirty-six of the little tug jumpers, which was many more than the number of earthlings available to pilot them, so even Freenan and Ravaea had been pressed into service, and cajoled into accepting dome-chips to boot. It all seemed very normal now to Max, and each of the earthlings were now receiving updated dome-chips before they were properly woken.
The bottleneck to getting the ships into space was in processing their new hoard of Akoronite. Their other, smaller factories could have made quick work of it, but the traitors had sabotaged those as well. Thankfully, they had not been as thorough. The factories were being repaired but it was yet another delay. With all the regular factory units in full production, even the Dee-Dub's tiny factory was being utilized to manufacture small components for its larger relatives. But once those repairs were complete, Max would take the Dee-Dub back into orbit. There he would survey Grailliyn, looking for further signs of orbital bombardment, as well as fill in some of the gaps left by the few satellites already in orbit there.
Snow met him in Longissima's hanger bay by the airlock.
“Take care of Max for me, Doozer,” she said, tapping him lovingly on the carapace. “Try and keep all his parts attached. Which goes for you too.” She stood up from Doozer, grabbed Max, and kissed him before giving him a Snow hug.
Max squeezed back, reluctant to let go.
“I hear Mindac is a charmer. Don't fall for any of his smooth moves or cheap lines. And remember, I'm ninety-five percent more man than he could ever be,” he said, and gave her one final squeeze.
When he entered the Dee-Dub, Max found, that, despite his missing eye, he was sort of able to see in three dimensions again. He saw fully in three dimensions, anything that was displayed on the HUD or monitors, and all the interior parts of the ship, things that would normally appear within the trainer when running Dee-Dub simulations. Other things, Doozer in particular, were less fully realized. When he closed his left eye, he could see Doozer's computer generated image, which looked ever so slightly wrong when he moved. The recreation of Doozer's space-mask was spot on, a result no doubt of its model previously coming from the same system. Both Max and Doozer were kitted out in space gear and the interior of the Dee-Dub was kept in a state of vacuum. If there was no atmosphere in the cabin, there could be no repeat explosive decompression.
Max was already missing Snow when he reached orbit via sling shot rail. They continued to avoid the attention that a direct jump from the surface might bring. They could no more afford such attention now than before, though the time for such obfuscation would have to end when they launched the tug jump fleet.
The Dee-Dub's new modification was a slap n' dash installation of a pair of M-9 Roughshod arms and cannons, one to each side. The cannons, which benefited from the Dee-Dub's larger power supply, were formidable, but Max held little hope that they would be useful against the GE ship, if it came to that. Still, dentures were better than no teeth at all
. Usually.
When the ship was in the scheduled position, they jumped unceremoniously into geosynchronous Grailliyn orbit. As directly above Tawnee as was possible. From that distance only the general shape made from land and sea could discerned. The Beldorath sea was barely discernible. New York and Tawnee weren't discernible at all. Max connected to the networks on Grailliyn, and bridged together those that were currently without satellite access. He searched for a specific network node and plugged into it.
“Bob. This is Max. Come in Bob.” The was no response. Max tried again. Again, no response. On the third go he finally got an answer.
“Max? This is unexpected,” said Bob's voice. “To what do I owe the honor? We haven't heard anything in days. What the hell's going on up there?”
“There was some trouble on Mega, but it's all sorted out now,” Max said. He actually felt a little bad leaving Bob in the dark about the details, but he couldn't really trust Bob's loyalty. Or at least he didn't trust him to keep his mouth shut. If they managed to pull off what Max was about to suggest, then knowledge of the mutiny on Mega might just shake peoples’ trust. “But there's worse news which I guess from your tone you haven't heard.”
Bob was quiet for a moment then said, “Ya, I mean I could try guessing what the news is…or you could just speed things up a bit and tell me.”
If Bob were in the Dee-Dub at that moment, Max would have punched him in his stupid face.
“Entaarguuishawa was bombed from space by a high-speed impactor,” Max said.
Another moment of silence. “Hell,” Bob said finally, “were there a lot of casualties?” His smartass tone was gone.
“We don't know for sure. We saw it from orbit,” Max said. “If I had to guess, I'd say there were few survivors.”
Bob laughed, “No, Max. I realize you northerners are a bit cut off and secluded from the world, But I have actually been to Entaarguuishawa. It's a big place. Millions of people live there. Millions. One bomb? There's no chance.”
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 24