by M. D. Cooper
Now all he needed was an opportunity to move against the man who held Calista.
He noted with dismay the growing distance between them as Giovanni motioned his soldiers to bring the stasis pod to rest near the hovercraft. He stopped them from loading it with a wave of his free hand. The other still held the plasma rifle, trained unerringly on Calista’s back.
Giovanni glanced skyward and Jason tensed, bloodied hand tightening around the blade hidden by his side. His head turned blindly and his ears strained for a clue to what the man was expecting, while he searched the shuttle’s feed for approaching vessels.
It was a gunship, bristling with chainguns and missile launchers. Jason turned toward the threat in consternation, the movement spawning a shaft of pain and vertigo in his head that caused him to stagger. Tobias stepped over to steady him, ignoring Giovanni’s growled warning.
Through Eidolon’s feed, Jason saw the gunship take a position directly above Calista and the group gathered around the stasis pod. He waited tensely to see what Giovanni’s next move was going to be. The man seemed wound tightly—too tightly—and through the searing pain in Jason’s head, warning bells were going off….
* * * * *
Calista’s alarm mounted at the growing distance between the Baratian who held her hostage and the shuttle. She pulled against Giovanni’s grip, but the man refused to relax his hold, his breaths growing harsher in his haste as he propelled her forward.
“You have what you want, lad, now let her go.” Tobias’s voice, calm and persuasive, reached them as she stumbled over a hillock hidden by the rangy sward.
The Baratian’s grasp tightened further as he swung around to face the Weapon Born. Tobias’s words proved to be a catalyst for the rage bottled within him.
“What I want? What I want?” The man’s face was apoplectic. “What I want is the tech you should have agreed to trade us when we approached you in the first place.”
He tilted his head up to regard the hovering gunship, and Calista could tell the man was communicating with the pilot as it descended. Giovanni grinned suddenly as the craft rotated, and Calista’s eyes widened in dread as she realized what the Baratian had done.
The gunship’s weapons were now aimed directly at Jason and Tobias.
Giovanni’s eyes took on a maniacal cast as he whipped around to face them again. “You cost me my career,” the man snarled. “It was because of you that I was sent to that stars-forsaken prison camp.”
She gasped as he planted a hand in the middle of her back and shoved her, hard. She went down on her knees, thrusting her good hand out to brace her fall.
The Baratian’s voice cut viciously, his words slicing through her as fear for Jason tightened like bands around her heart.
“You want your precious captain back? Fine. You can buy her freedom…with that shuttle of yours.” His head lowered menacingly as he raised his hand. “And your life.”
Horror washed through her at his words.
“No!” she growled, lurching to her feet and shoving Giovanni back with a strength she didn’t even recognize within herself. Raw determination burned inside her as she turned toward the stasis pod.
You. Will. Not!
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jason’s hand snap up, saw something slice through the air at an incredible speed, but her attention was fully focused on what she knew she had to do.
She reached mentally for the self-destruct as, all around her, confusion reigned. The numbers on her HUD flashed as they began to count down the five seconds until the fusion reactor failed.
Five seconds. Regret washed over her as she saw the realization of what she’d done register on Jason’s face, and he began racing toward her.
She knew she was far too near to the pod, and as far away as the shuttle was, it was still dangerously close.
Instead, she stood defiantly, spending those last, precious seconds pouring everything she felt for Jason Andrews through her connection to him. Bundling a lifetime’s worth of love, regret, tenderness, agony and despair into a single, impassioned, emotive burst.
* * * * *
At Calista’s shouted “No!” something inside Jason’s heart froze, and he realized what she intended to do.
The world around him slowed as he saw Giovanni swing the rifle toward her. Plunging deeply into his L2 state, he snapped his arm up and let the blade in his hand fly.
It rocketed through the air at an incredible speed, embedding itself into the man’s throat—but Jason had known that it would, and dismissed him as a neutralized threat. He was already on the move, reality tunneling down to a single, critical mission.
He had to remove Calista from the blast radius of the stasis pod.
She’s too close. Stars, she’s too—
He leapt forward as Giovanni’s soldiers began to raise their weapons—some aimed at Calista, others pointed toward the shuttle. In the confusion, the gunship rotated, seeking multiple targets before firing, but he knew that indecision wouldn’t last long. He just hoped his augmented speed was enough to beat it.
Through the feed, he saw the shuttle’s hatch open and Tobias’s battleframe emerge as the AI’s more fragile, organic frame sought cover. The battleframe, under the Weapon Born’s remote guidance, raced forward, and Jason could tell that its trajectory would intersect with his own.
I’m not going to make it!
The thought filled him with despair as the self-destruct countdown flashed to zero on his HUD, and the massive battleframe hit him from behind, covering him as best it could.
The last thing he recalled seeing was the telemetry from Eidolon updating with firing solutions for the Baratian gunship, as the world exploded in a maelstrom of white-hot agony—only this time it seared him both inside and out.
MARINES ON ICE
STELLAR DATE: 03.15.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ESS Avon Vale, en route, Verdant Mining Platform
REGION: Inner Asteroid Belt, Little River
The Avon Vale came screaming in, pulling fifty gravities as it braked on an intercept vector with Verdant Mining and the approaching Barat cruiser.
As Shannon feathered their approach, and the Vale’s apparent gravity neared a more tolerable five gs, she deactivated the stasis units and sent the awakening humans—those from Godel, along with Terrance, Khela, and Jonesy—a status update.
While the Vale’s humans struck out for the command deck, the rest followed an AI noncom waiting to escort them amidships.
Once they arrived, they fell in by platoon, and Major Fletcher, the Godel AI commanding the company of soldiers assigned to this mission, addressed them.
A dozen of the soldiers were technical specialists, brought along specifically to repair environmental, structural, and stabilization systems onboard the platform. Those petty officers stood aside as Fletcher addressed the rest.
There were none, and an hour later, Shannon had matched v with the station. The STC hadn’t responded to her requests for a berth, but the Godel AIs used a backdoor into the station’s networks and disabled the automated defenses.
* * * * *
Mo Chaudry pressed his back against the bulkhead, gasping for breath, wondering when the hell he was stuck in would finally come to an end.
His left arm was tingling again, and he slapped the palm of his hand against his thigh, trying to wake it up.
The pulse shot the Baratian saboteurs hit him with had ruptured one of the veins in his arm and, though his mednano had staunched the internal bleeding, the trauma had temporarily damaged nerves, causing his hand to go numb.
“Fucking Barat,” he muttered, massaging his hand as he peered carefully back around the corner. “I knew things hadn’t fallen that far into the crapper here.”
He spotted a trio of teens running by with boxes of stolen sim-gear. He had half a mind to stop them, but knew his pursuers weren’t far behind.
They had done their job all too well, the station fallen to riots and ruin, but still they were after him. He supposed it was because his ocular implants had recorded their final act of sabotage. If he could broadcast it, the vid would prove that Barat was behind the worsening conditions on the Verdant platform.
Stars, Molly. In case I don’t make it…I just hope you and the kids are all right.
He drew in a few more gulping breaths and then resumed his loping jog in the station’s half-g, his goal a relay—any relay—that would allow him to upload the footage to an outside source.
The last two he’d managed to reach had both been destroyed, deliberately sabotaged to limit the flow of information coming from the platform.
His spotty connection to the station’s network had indicated that relay 9A1 was still operational, and it had a direct connection to an external array.
A dozen meters ahead, the passage he was moving down intersected a wider concourse. He just had to cross that, work his way down a few maintenance corridors, and he’d be there.
Then maybe the lazy bastards at Godel will send us some damn help.
Just before he reached the concourse, a series of muted whumps came from around the corner, and he grabbed a handhold on the bulkhead, arresting his motion and slamming his shoulder into the wall before he came out into the open.
Rubbing his much-abused arm once more, he drew his pulser and carefully walked the last meter to the corner. A quick glance showed a group of Verdant security to his right, crouched behind thick plas barriers.
On the left was a crowd of rioters, a few with pulse pistols, the rest with whatever improvised weapons they could find. The rioters were hurling insults at the security personnel, who were only firing when the crowd moved in too close.
Mo had already learned his lesson about wearing anything with ‘Verdant’ on it. The very first time he’d managed to lose the Baratians, a trio of thugs had spotted him and yelled something about ‘Verdant scum’ and how he was gonna die. A few warning shots from his pulser had sent them running, but that had clued him in that a change was required.
His jacket had been the first to go, but the form-fitting EV suit he wore underneath still clearly broadcast Verdant colors. Not long after, he’d come to a looted clothing store and stripped down, swapping to a pair of black pants and a loose jacket with a gaming logo on the back.
The irony of the thugs singling him out was that he knew one of them from the docks. The woman was a Verdant yardmaster who managed processing and storage of extracted ores.
Damn idiots…everyone who works here works for Verdant.
He knew that half the security guards had families onstation as well; the fact that they were trying to maintain some semblance of order in the face of such chaos was admirable.
As he mulled over his situation, the crowd advanced once more, and the guards fired wide-spread pulse shots, driving the mob back.
Mo decided he wouldn’t get a better opportunity, and when the firing stopped, he dashed from his cover, crossing the concourse as quickly as possible.
He’d almost made it to the passageway on the far side when a pulse blast from the mob’s side hit his much-abused left arm and spun him around.
The deck came up to meet him, his face mashing into the hard plas. He slid a full two meters before he came to a stop. He stayed down, taking a moment to regain his senses before flopping onto his back, relieved to see that he had made it to the passageway.
Pulse fire had resumed in the concourse, but luckily, no one seemed interested in him—at least not yet.
Getting up was a struggle, as his left arm was completely numb, and his shoulder felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. The combination of pain and numbness made his entire left side feel like it wasn’t properly attached to his body.
Suck it up, Mo. Now move.
Steeling himself with the mental admonition, he drew on a reserve of energy and surged to his feet. Stumbling down the passage, he took a right and then a left, finally spotting the comm relay’s door.
It was set into a bulkhead that had to be no more than a few meters from the station’s hull. He picked up his pace, bracing himself for what he hoped would be his final task before he would hole up somewhere and wait for the madness to be over.
Upon reaching the door, he found that it was locked—a good sign—and manually input his credentials into the access pad to open it. Once inside, he breathed a sigh of relief. The relay appeared to be intact, the column of equipment displaying a row of green status lights down one side.
He was about to Link to it when the station’s network went down again. Muttering a curse, he cast about for a hard-Link cable, but froze when a voice came from behind him.
“Nice try, buddy. You almost made it. Now, turn around.”
Mo lifted his hands and slowly rotated, wondering why the man didn’t just shoot him. Only one of his pursuers was in evidence. He considered charging the man, but the Baratian saboteur must have guessed at his intentions.
“I’d like to keep this relay intact, buddy, but if you give me half a reason, I’ll blast you into a bloody soup.”
Mo’s shoulders slumped. “You’re gonna kill me anyway, aren’t you?” he asked in a resigned tone.
“Sure, yeah, but there are a lot of ways to die.”
Mo swallowed and began to lower his hands. “What if I just—”
What was sure to be a nonsensical plea was interrupted by a voice from the passageway.
“Sage advice, buddy. Drop it, or I’ll blow your brains all over the bulkhead.”
The Baratian saboteur glanced to his left. A look of consternation crossed his face and then his eyes narrowed as he swung his pulse pistol toward the unseen speaker.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the newcomer fired.
Mo’s attacker fell. Seconds later, a Godel Marine swung around the corner, his weapon trained on the hapless engineer.
“You armed?” the Marine demanded.
“Pulser, jacket pocket.” Mo’s throat worked, and then he spoke. “Stars…I sure am glad to see you.”
The Marine nodded. “Pull the weapon out, nice and slow and drop it.”
Mo nodded and complied, tossing the weapon out of reach. “I have evidence against Barat, there were three of them—”
“Three?” the Marine asked. “We got two not far back. Do you know if there are m
ore?”
Mo shook his head. “Not that I saw.”
“OK. Come on out. We’ll take you to the major.” The Marine glanced down at the moaning Baratian. “Along with this trash.”
* * * * *
Terrance paced quietly behind the captain’s chair as Landon broke orbit with the platform and set the Vale on an intercept course with the Baratian cruiser. The plot was displayed on the main holo, with time to intercept hovering discreetly beneath it.
He knew it hadn’t been necessary that he come along; in fact, Edouard had seemed surprised when Terrance had declared his intentions. But Phantom Blade was his responsibility, and he refused to see them venture into harm’s way alone.
His eyes swept across the almost exclusively AI crew complement staffing the bridge. Landon had proven his tactical mettle back in Tau Ceti. He now sat in the captain’s seat and would call the plays for the upcoming skirmish, should one erupt.
Logan and Charley sat at Scan and Navigation, respectively. Khela was seated at Security, and Jonesy—the only other human aboard—was running Comm.
Terrance sent a mental chuckle in response before shifting direction and heading toward one of the observational cradles off to one side.
Charley nodded to him as he crossed behind, the AI already interfacing with the three hundred and fifty space combat drones Godel had provided. The amidships bay doors had already been retracted on both sides, with ES fields in place and ready to disengage at a moment’s notice.
He glanced over to where Logan was seated at the station nominally known as Scan. From there, the AI could reveal the ship’s true capabilities, should they prove to be needed.