The Dauntless was already proven in battle, handling several small skirmishes with Shiveen, and pirates and scavengers looting areas the Shiveen had been active in. The crew had become used to the new combat style that the dreadnought required and become familiar with the ships’ systems. For only being together for six months, the crew operated and any crew that had been together for longer. Much of that was thanks to Nambo and the other senior officers, who had taken Laroux’s request to have the most capable crew in MilCom navy operations to heart.
“What do you think, XO?”
Nambo pointed to the second Shiveen ship.
“That worries me. We can punch through the first, but that second ship will hit us as on the broad.”
“Good thing we have a ship and a crew that can handle it,” grinned Laroux. Nambo returned the smile.
Over the next ten minutes, the Dauntless and the enemy ship approached each other, bow to bow, the external cameras continuously updating visuals of the Shiveen cruiser. Enhanced imaging that increased the quality of the image allowed Laroux to see that the ship was just a cruiser, rather than the heavy cruiser they had encountered at the sun’s primary jump point.
The ship looked as alien as every Shiveen ship, or even Shiveen themselves, that Laroux had ever seen.
Unlike the sleek metallic craft that the Panhumanic Sphere used, Shiveen ships were organic, looking grown rather than constructed. They always reminded Laroux of the wild mushrooms he and Sophia had stumbled upon during a visit to one of the official Old Earth Museums built to replicate the glory of what remained of the homeworld of panhumanity; the mushrooms had been growing in all directions and all colors, growing over and through themselves as they fed on the decaying matter on the forest floor. But the bioluminescence lights than covered the Shiveen ships and flickered in secret neon sequences made Laroux think of creatures of the deep ocean that lived in a world separated from the rest of the universe until intruded upon.
And to be honest, perhaps that’s what they were. It had taken centuries and thousands of star systems for panhumanity to encounter sentient life among the stars, and on the first encounter, they picked a fight with it.
Sometimes panhumanity annoyed Laroux.
But it was always worth fighting for.
“They’re charging weapons,” said Nambo. On the combat desk, Laroux saw the telltale bioluminescent markers along the fore and sides of the ship changing color and brightness. A single neon shot, with a glowing tail, streaked towards the Dauntless. Laroux watched it on the combat desk, a single camera tracking it as it got closer. It exploded harmlessly about three-quarters of the distance between both ships.
“Helm,” shouted Laroux. “Begin rotational maneuvers.”
As the next shot from the Shiveen careened towards them, the Dauntless began spinning on its central axis, rotating clockwise with slowly increasing speed. A sequence of randomized shifts would have the dreadnought do this at different speeds in both directions, constantly turning and reducing the exposure of the CIC tower. The crew of the Dauntless had become accustomed to this maneuver now.
“Gunnery, when that ship is in range, send three shots down its throat.”
Tense seconds ticked by as the crew prepped their return volley on the Shiveen, which was now firing multiple rounds that streaked towards the Dauntless. The trick was timing things so that the first volley interrupted the enemy firing sequence so that the Dauntless rode the space opened, continually firing its mass drivers in the direction it was traveling in, clearing its own path.
“Fire now!” cried Laroux. He watched on the combat desk as combat computers showed the launch of three high velocity shells towards the Shiveen ship. Each of the long triangular rounds carried a nuclear payload, fired at a marginally different angle; a difference of a few percentage points on the angle of attack would allow each of those shells to strike the target at different trajectories, increasing the odds of striking an enemy ship and doing damage. Additional spin added during the shell firing, and the rotational spin of the dreadnought, would ensure difficulty in defending against their shots.
“They’re not turning or changing course,” said Nambo.
“I guess news of our existence hasn’t quite made it to this ship yet.”
“Oops,” said Nambo, smiling.
The Dauntless’ battle computers tracked each of the three nuclear shells as it neared the Shiveen cruiser, which had realized its danger and turned some of its weaponry onto the oncoming warheads. Defensive shots rained down across the three shells, cloaking them in a blaze of neon explosions that began to fill the view of the external cameras focused on the incoming enemy ship. One of the shell’s transponders went offline, revealing its destruction before impact, but the two others showed successful strikes. Their transponders disappeared as their nuclear payloads exploded inside of the enemy ship.
“Fire again,” said Laroux. Three more shells fired from the mass drivers, careening along similar paths as the previous rounds
The Shiveen ship passed through the chemical cloud it had created, pieces of its hull peeling off and falling aside from the two large holes that appeared on the top and port side. The Dauntless’ first volley had taken out some enemy ship’s armaments, but they could still fire on the Dauntless. Point defense cannons at the fore of the dreadnought began firing swiftly at the incoming enemy shells, splashing their path and intercepting them. The neon explosions from the chemical weapons would dissipate or thin before the Dauntless passed through them.
The next three shots struck true, ripping through the front of the Shiveen cruiser. There were bright flashes as they exploded and then the Shiveen ship broke apart, its own engines contributing to its destruction, huge chunks of the alien ship flying out in all directions.
Roars and cheers of success came from the crew in the CIC. Nambo gave a thumbs-up to Laroux, who returned it.
Without slowing, the Dauntless barreled through the space where the enemy ship had been, trailing chemical wisps of the Shiveen ship in its wake.
6 Deployment to Pallas IV
Strapped into the APC, Jack and the others felt every one of the maneuvers the Dauntless performed, along with the effects of exploding enemy fire. At one point Jack felt his stomach twist as the Dauntless suddenly pivoted and spun along one of its other axes before swinging back to its original position a few seconds later. He heard sounds of mild laughter and retching as one of his fellow graduates in another fireteam threw up into the bag one of his fireteam had magically produced.
“Makes you feel alive, right?” laughed Anderson, punching Jack softly on the arm.
“You know that you’re broken in the head, right?”
“Not the first time that’s been said. Won’t be the last.”
While wrapped in multiple layers of protection in the form of his armor, his seat harness, the APC’s body, the infrastructure of the Dauntless and its hull, Jack couldn’t help but feel nervous and impotent. It wouldn’t be long though until he was on the planet.
That thought scared Jack more than he had realized.
Soon everything he’d been practicing and simulating for the past year would become altogether too real.
“We’re about to jump again,” said Morales, sitting at the head of the APC. He smacked the knee of a dozing marine next to him, who woke up sharply looking around confused, which caused the others to laugh.
How could anyone sleep as they were about to head into combat? Jack didn’t think he ever be able to do that.
The Dauntless jumped into linkspace once more.
Ten minutes later, the dreadnought arrived at Pallas IV, announced by a sharp lurch back into realspace.
The graduate officer was now dry heaving. Someone gave him another empty bag and told him to use it to breathe deeply.
“You ready, Rook?” asked Anderson.
“No,” replied Jack.
“Right answer. You’ll love the next part.”
“I’m won’t, will
I?”
“You’re really won’t. But you should.”
“Anderson only enjoys it because they dropped him on his head as a baby,” said Bandura. “Multiple times.”
“Sticks and stones, Bandura. Sticks and stones.”
As before, Jack felt the dreadnought turn but instead of it being on a single axis, it was on multiple. It reminded Jack of a fair ride he’d taken once where he and girlfriend sat in a large box full of seats on an arm that swung and spun, using gravity to provide a simulated form of weightlessness and screw with the body’s internal directional sense.
He hadn’t liked it then and liked it less now. He turned to Anderson, seeing him smiling, eyes closed.
“You like this?”
Anderson opened one eye and winked at Jack. Bandura tapped Jack’s arm.
“Multiple times.”
“That explains so much,” said Jack.
The random shifting and spinning on axes continued for another few minutes before a soft klaxon began sounding repeatedly inside the APC. By now, Jack was feeling a little disoriented.
“Prepare for drop…” said Morales.
“This is the best part,” said a grinning Anderson.
“Broken,” said Jack. “Completely and hopelessly broken.”
Jack’s insides lurched as the dropship fell out of the loading bay of the Dauntless, accelerating as Pallas IV’s gravity took hold of it. Inside the APC, everyone and everything shook as the dropship fell freely into the low decades-new atmosphere of the planet, juddering from the drag applying to the dropship’s belly from even such a weak atmosphere. Jack could feel his teeth chattering together as he bounced this way and that, his harness barely feeling functional. Anderson let out of a whoop of joy. Jack felt like he wanted to throw up. At the front of the APC the marine who had been dozing off was asleep again, or possibly unconscious.
The shuddering stopped, presumably because the dropship had changed its angle of descent and was now penetrating the atmosphere; dropships were designed for continual entry/re-entry like the old Terran space shuttles of the 20th century, although unlike them they could break atmosphere without help of a secondary launch system. They also carried offensive and defensive armaments those old shuttles didn’t.
Morales checked his alek and pushed different data loads to each of the fireteam leaders.
“These are our orders, including individual team orders” he said. Jack followed along with the visual representation showing up in his helmet AHUD as Morales spoke.
“First and fourth squad in Dropship One will head towards New Macedon. Second and third squad are to recon the smaller settlements further out. Squad three will drop first in their APC, then us. We’re tasked with checking out some mining operations and a research station. Delta and Fox, you’ll both work in tandem as we hit each of the mining operations in the APC. Echo, we’ll drop you at the research station and pick you back up on return.
“Our immediate orders are to secure the locations, recover data, and rescue any survivors we find; we’re not expecting to find many. We’ll all be meshed in to the Dauntless, but communications will be spotty. It seems Pallas IV is home to some nasty ion storms that can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks, running though alpha to gamma. Do not stay outside in a radiation hard vehicle or building longer than an hour if you can help it. Check your rads level often and shoot up radsol as needed.
“This also means we have no idea where the Shiveen are on the surface.
“Atmosphere is nominal, if a little weak. Enough oxygen for us to work with, but the dust on the planet surface means using breathers. Thank god they used an atmo engine, because I hate fighting in a vacuum.
“Get ready, boys and girls. Shit’s about to get real real.”
The science station that Jack and his fireteam were to scout and secure was the first stop the APC would make after its delivery on-planet by the dropship. The dropship had delivered the APC about five klicks distance from it, right in the eye of an ion storm, and had promptly dusted off and began moving to its next destination before the storm could play havoc with its flight controls.
As the APC moved with velocity towards its own destination, bumping and rattling over the bumpy ground of the planet, Jack and the others prepped themselves for deployment, pulling rifles from the weapon locker and synchronizing their aleks.
“This storm will probably come right over you once we leave,” said Morales to Jack and the others. “Don’t expect immediate support if you get into trouble.”
“It’s a science station,” said Anderson. “There’s not likely to be any.”
“This is Shiveen country now, Anderson,” replied Morales. “Watch for the enemy and don’t be yourself and be stupid.”
Anderson mock-saluted Morales, who shook his head at the heavy weapons a specialist.
“Anderson,” Morales said, “That big mouth of yours will get you in trouble some day.”
“Most likely, LT. That’s what my momma keeps telling me.”
“And yet you keep saying things.”
“Everyone has a talent, Sir.”
Morales laughed and shook his head again. “Okay, we’re coming up on the station. Prep time.”
Anderson took up point at the rear door to the APC, his heavy rifle pulled into his body, ready to draw down as soon as he exited the APC. Jack’s role in the fireteam was the “ready” position and he should take point, but exiting a vehicle on an alien-controlled planet meant putting out a strong defense first just in case things got ugly fast. Jack and Bandura stood behind Anderson, their rifles engaged, ready to step beside Anderson and provide him covering fire if needed. Stone and Morales spoke to each other in private, their faces close together, Jack unable to make out what they were saying as they whispered to each other. They shook hands then saluted to each other.
“Okay, kids,” said Stone. “Let’s go secure something.”
The APC halted smoothly and the bottom-hinged rear door slowly opened, its hydraulics letting it fall slow and evenly. Wind whipped around the opening, red and brown dust from the planet’s surface being thrown into the APC, causing all the marines inside to pull down the goggles and breathers in their helmets. Bandura grabbed a drone from her belt and threw it up into the air, where it struggled against the wind momentarily before rising into the sky.
Jack’s combat AHUD showed up in front of the transparent metal shield of his goggles, providing him planetary condition information, and outlining the few sparse buildings of the science station in bright orange. Information from Bandura’s drone came through to him and a direct vidcast feed.
The station was a bubble station, a large central multi-story structure surrounded by a number of smaller buildings in the shape of a bubble, all made from high tensile synthetic metals. The bubbles were connected to the central building with short tunnels making the whole station like the classic moonbases of the 21st century. Most of the bubbles would be for hydroponics or sleeping quarters, with the central building providing daily operations. That was where the fireteam should go first.
Anderson stepped out of the APC, sweeping his heavy rifle around in a long arc, scanning the environment for any potential threat.
“Clear!” he yelled then started walking towards the science station.
Bandura looked at Jack.
“After you, Rook,” she said, gesturing to the outside of the APC. Jack stepped down the metal ramp until one foot was on the planet’s surface, then the other.
This was the only other planet he’d ever stood on apart from his home planet, and it was wildly different from that constantly artificially temperate world with its regular patterns of rainfall used to irrigate and maintain the high-yield crops that were the planet’s mainstay product. Pallas IV was arid, the atmosphere thin, but the atmosphere engine that had been working its magic on the planet was still ramping up. It wasn’t unknown of some planets to take up to ten years to develop a fully breathable atmosphere. Pallas IV
had been at least two years away from that from what Jack had read.
“Dinny dilly, dinny dally,” Bandura said in her best attempt at a Scottish accent as he pushed Jack forward with the butt of her rifle.
“That is horrible,” said Jack, turning to follow Anderson, who was outpacing the rest of the fireteam. For such a large man, he was fast.
“Weapons hot,” said Stone from behind him. Jack realized that he had forgotten to power up his rifle before stepping out of the APC. He cursed. Such a rookie thing to do. He knew better.
The whine from APCs engine rose about the wind whipping around Jack and the rest of the team. He saw the rear door ramp raise as it moved to its next destination.
“Transponder set,” said Bandura. “Though with this storm, not sure how much good it will do.”
“Just keep the lights on,” said Stone. “Let’s catch up to Anderson before he does something stupid.”
“Here’s another,” said Jack, looking at the strange chemical scoring on the floor of the science station vehicle bay. A long triangle of pitted metal ran along the floor ending in front of some metal storage units. Well, most of some metal storage units. The acid from Shiveen weapons had eaten away a large hole in the top and sides of the boxes. Jack had seen vidcasts of what that acid did to non-metal too, although it never seemed to affect the Shiveen themselves.
The vehicle bay was huge, and in the center sat a single unpowered standard wheeled planetary rover painted with white anti-reflective paint. A logo showed that it belonged to the First Frontier Mining Company. The six-wheeled vehicle looked big enough to carry perhaps at least a half dozen passengers.
“Definite firefight here,” said Anderson, pushing the goggles and breathing mask of his helmet up. He swept his weapon around on its harness. “Looks like a standard triad got in from the battle spray.”
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