A distant, dull thump and clunk from the outer composite hull sounded like something grabbing hold. Sheen looked at his wrist-mounted holo-stage still drawing power from its own independent power cell. He extended the sensor range to max, just about taking it beyond the upper hull only a few dozen meters above his head.
A large object was over his ship.
Sheen pulled a fresh stick of white root from his jacket’s breast pocket and a pulse pistol from the small recess in his command chair armrest, then he opened a communication channel.
“This is the captain. Arm yourselves. Every member of the Ultimatum company and crew will fight,” Sheen said. “Kill every Skarak you can. Don’t let yourself be taken alive. Sheen out.”
Climbing down from his chair and taking a cover position, weapon aimed at the command deck entrance, Sheen made ready to defend his command.
A blue flickering light appeared and filled the command deck, spreading down from the ceiling, over the bulkheads and then across the deck. The blue lines began turning white as they crept over every surface in a jerking motion. Sheen heard the brief yells of pain from his command deck crew as the first white line touched his boot. He yelled briefly, and the white root dropped from his drooling mouth.
2
Will Boyd floated a meter above the reactor in the drive room and studied the problem. He had worked on the reactor for two days straight and the shunt was still not delivering power to the many sub-systems of the Faction raider, the Odium Fist. He had tried everything short of a big hammer and some cursing.
The Fist was adrift in an upper density layer of the gas giant Extremis. The Fist’s density was almost perfectly matched to the density of the surrounding gas and she moved like a submarine through the stream that circled the massive gas giant.
All was quiet, except for Boyd’s regular grunts of exertion and shouts of frustration as he tried to bring the power systems back online.
The Fist had orbited Extremis three times since first plunging into the atmosphere. Drifting unpowered, the Fist was being tugged and swept along by the winds of the density stream.
An external sensor, running off an independent power cell, reported that the Fist was about to contact the bottom boundary layer of the stream. She was drifting downward like a feather in a breeze and had connected with the lower boundary layer several times already. Boyd couldn’t be sure the old ship could take many more encounters with that layer. He took hold of the reactor cap below him and pulled himself down. He gripped as tightly as he could and listened to the countdown as the Fist dropped, centimeter by centimeter, to the layer below.
The impact was violent—not for the speed the Fist carried but due to the much higher speed of the lower density layer. The winds kicked the Fist back up, violently repelling it and sending the raider tumbling up to where it was swept along again.
Boyd gripped tight, his knuckles white, as the Fist cartwheeled through the gas until friction slowed it and the Fist settled, again drifting like driftwood on an ocean current. The Fist immediately began to fall again. It would be many hours before it drifted down to the boundary layer again. Boyd hoped he could get the ship started before that happened. Sooner or later, the collision with the lower boundary would catch the Fist in a delicate spot and do some critical damage. Tough as the old raider was, she couldn’t take much more of this.
Boyd relaxed his grip on the reactor cap and let himself drift. With the Fist’s power offline and the ship in virtual freefall, gravity was less than five percent standard, even given that the ship was inside the atmosphere of the gas giant.
Boyd reconnected the conduit and crossed his fingers. Hopefully this time, it would work. He knew enough about ship systems to be able to perform the basic essential repairs, but this was a core transfer problem and surely needed a week in drydock and team of qualified engineers to fix it. He was a great pilot and a brave warrior, but he was feeling a little out of his comfort zone.
“Comfort zone,” he said to himself with a dry laugh as he made the final connections. “When has being on an undercover operation in the Faction included any kind of comfort zone?”
Boyd flipped the cover in place and flipped the switch. He closed his eyes in fear that the reactor would explode. Pointless, he knew. If the reactor exploded, he would have no more than a nanosecond to regret it before the Fist and everything within it, and within a hundred meters of it, was turned into a super-heated ball of plasma.
Realizing that he was still alive, he opened his eyes. He grinned as the lights across the reactor housing chamber flickered on. He yelled in victory and joy that he had fixed the ship. Then the sound of a distant alarm echoed along the corridors of the Fist.
A fire alarm.
Boyd swung down from the reactor cap and floated out of the drive room hatch into the corridors of the Fist. With gravity so low, he was able to fly along the corridor with occasional flicks of his fingertips on the deck, throwing himself up and forward in long arcs.
The flicker of the fire lighting up the bulkhead of the corridor showed Boyd it was coming from the main supply locker. Boyd bounded forward. All the supplies were in there. He had no intentions of starving to death down here in the clouds of Extremis.
Spinning around the open hatch into the main store locker, Boyd saw Thresh. She was in her medical gown, a med-pack on her ankle falling away, its black tendrils still attached to her ankle wound. The med-pack on her head wound still in place. She had a fire suppressor unit in her hands and was directing it at the fire. She delivered a huge blast of suppressant that sent her flying back in the opposite direction.
She collided with Boyd, her gown floating about loosely. Her hair drifted up and around, wafting across Boyd’s face. He gripped her around her waist and held her steady. She glanced back over her shoulder at Boyd, her hair moving in floating waves.
“Brace,” she said as she turned back to the fire and gave another blast with the suppressor.
Boyd held out his arms and gripped the frame of the hatch, holding Thresh in place with his body. His feet floated just above the deck.
Thresh pushed herself forward and moved in toward the fire that was eating away at a stack of ration blocks. She moved in and gave another blast, finally beating the flames. Only a drifting black wisp of smoke from the charred mass of ration blocks remained. She delivered a final blast of suppressor before abandoning the extinguisher. It drifted away and dropped slowly to the deck.
Thresh turned, her gown floating around her as she turned. She moved gracefully, her hair floating around her head, but her face looked like thunder and she turned the storm onto Boyd.
“What do you think you are doing to my ship?” she said. “I told you to leave the reactor to me.”
Boyd’s jaw dropped. “I fixed the shunt, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but you didn’t close off all the distribution nodes. That’s why this one erupted. You’re lucky it wasn’t one in the ordnance magazine. If one of the high-ex hail rounds had gone up, we’d both be choking on Extremis atmosphere about now.”
“I had to try, Thresh,” Boyd said. He drifted over to her. “You are still not fit for work and we can’t just float here until we run out of air.” He wrapped an arm around her to move her away from the smoldering mess of ration blocks and the burned-out distribution node.
Thresh slung an arm over his shoulder. “Lucky for you I was up,” she said. “I needed a drink.”
“I made sure you had a hydration pack before I went to the drive room,” Boyd moved her gently out into the corridor and back toward the small med-bay.
“I don’t mean hydration. I wanted some flavor too.”
“Hydration is all you need, and rest. You are nearly recovered. Just give the med-packs a few more hours.”
Boyd knew Thresh needed more than a few med-packs, but it was all they had. She had taken a beating at the Battle of Kalis LZ, but she was resilient, if a little too headstrong. If Boyd hadn’t sedated her that first day, she wo
uld have worked on the Fist’s damaged systems herself.
The ship had also taken a beating at the Battle of Kalis LZ, having narrowly escaped destruction by the Union and the Skarak. The moon, Kalis, had turned from a carnival to a bloodbath, and Boyd had been in the middle of it all. He was still a little surprised that he had come through unscathed.
Boyd laid Thresh down on the med-pod, the cover moved up over her ankles. The med-pack that had been clinging on by a few fine threads was removed by the mechanical tentacles of the med-pod cover and replaced by another. Her ribs and shoulder also received treatment.
“Just leave the power systems alone,” Thresh said. Her eyelids dropped as Boyd administered a sedative.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said. “Just another few hours and you’ll be able to swing a wrench again.”
Her eyes fell shut as the pod cover slid up and over her completely. The milky cover just allowed Boyd to see through to the feisty young woman lying beneath. She was bold and brave, and possibly the best engineer Boyd had ever worked with. And she was beautiful. If the med-pod cover hadn’t been in place, Boyd felt sure he would have leaned over and kissed her full, pale lips.
But Boyd knew he could never be close to her. Grudging respect was all she could have from him. She was Faction, so she was his enemy. He was a Union Blue Star Marine on an undercover operation to locate the leader of the Faction and assist in his capture.
Boyd checked Thresh was asleep. He needed her fit if he was going to get the Fist out of the clouds of Extremis. But right now, he needed her out of the way so he could launch a sensor probe up through the clouds and into orbit. Things had been frantic at the Battle of Kalis LZ and he needed to make a report to his boss. With power restored to the Fist, and Thresh sedated, he could.
Boyd placed his hand on the med-pod cover just above Thresh’s chest.
“Take it easy, Enke,” he said quietly. His gaze lingered on her for a moment, her chest rising and falling gently as she slept and her eye lashes flickered, dancing in some dream.
Boyd pushed himself off the pod and out of the med-bay into the corridor. He drifted along toward the flight deck and the sensor console.
The flight deck was dark, lit only by the emergency lights. It was cold, and a sparkling frost layer covered everything.
The sensor console was unpowered save for the single green light at the top right corner indicating it was receiving power. Boyd tapped the console and it lit up.
He needed a small amount of power from the core, more than he could get from an independent power supply. He opened the probe outer doors and made ready to launch. He activated the main holo-stage and brought up a flickering image of the Odium Fist, showing her orientation to the planet. She was tumbling lazily. He waited until the spin presented the probe launch tube to the upper layers of atmosphere. With the tube pointing straight up, he launched.
The probe punched its way up through the atmosphere and gained orbit in a few minutes.
Boyd set the probe on passive scan mode and searched for any Union ships that might be in the area. Finding nothing, he then searched for Faction ships. Then Skarak ships. The area was quiet, like any battlefield once the guns fell silent—quieter than it had ever been before, as if the ghosts of the lost dampened all sounds to total quiet.
Satisfied that all was clear, Boyd accessed his covert device. He could not send out through the clouds of Extremis directly, but with a signal boost from the probe, he could. He opened a channel to his boss: Major Featherstone of the Blue Stars.
“Sergeant Boyd.” Featherstone’s image appeared on Boyd’s small device. “You made it out alive. Well done, Sergeant.”
“Only just,” Boyd said. “I had a few hundred Skarak soldiers after me, not to mention a couple of Union fighters on my tail as I tried to get away.”
Featherstone nodded. “Well, I’m glad you did. Where are you now?”
“Adrift in the clouds of Extremis,” Boyd said. “But safe, for now.”
“You want to come in? I can have a team come and pick you up.”
“Negative, sir.” Boyd checked over his shoulder that Thresh wasn’t walking the corridors in search of a drink. It was strange talking to the major here on the flight deck. If he had done this a few days ago, with all the Fist’s crew here, he would have been beaten to a pulp, and then they would have gotten really nasty.
“My cover is still intact,” Boyd said. “I got close to Kitzov. I can get close again.”
“Alright. Just don’t push it. I’ve not lost a Blue Star on a covert op yet and I’m not going to start with you. Do you copy?”
“Copy that, sir,” Boyd said.
“Hang tough, Sergeant. You’re doing a great job. Featherstone out.”
As the image of Featherstone flickered out, Boyd considered how much of a good job he had really done. Yes, he had gotten close, but Kitzov was still a free man, evading Union justice. Boyd had had chances to execute the criminal leader of the Faction, but his orders were to locate, not kill.
Boyd would have happily killed the man. Only his respect for his commanding officer, his fellow Marines, and his Blue Star badge had prevented him from putting a pulse round in Kitzov’s head.
But the time would come when Boyd would see justice done. Not only was Kitzov a destabilizing, dangerous element in the Scorpio System, undermining the rule of Union law, but he was also a murderer. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands. But it was one man’s death that most motivated Boyd—the death of his brother, a lieutenant in the Fleet Marine regulars. Boyd’s brother had been executed by Kitzov, and for that reason above all others, Boyd hated the Faction, hated Kitzov, and risked his life to see justice, to one day see Kitzov walk up the steps of the timber scaffold outside the capital building on Terra and take a short drop into oblivion.
3
Major Featherstone stared at his desktop holo-stage as the image of Boyd vanished. The image of his sergeant was replaced by lists of text detailing the loading schedules of a dozen heavy freighters that the Resolute was due to escort to the inner system on their way to Terra.
Featherstone cancelled the text with a frustrated jab of his finger. He didn’t need to know how many tons of Black Ice were being stored in what compartment of what heavy. He just needed to know when they could leave. He was growing impatient with his current assignment.
The convoy of heavies was destined for the orbital base around Terra, where the Black Ice—a necessary element in their ship reactors—was required for maintenance and service. With the fleet dashing back and forth across the system, chasing down rumors of Skarak incursions and Faction raiders, the supplies of Black Ice were being stretched. And with the Faction destroying any Union heavy it came across, the freighters were now being grouped into mass convoys, each with a single fleet ship for protection.
Before the recent Skarak incursions, the heavies would rely on a Union cruiser to be nearby, ready to fight off any Faction raider that dared come too close. And even if the cruiser was too far out, the Union crew could simply batten down the hatches and dig in, secure in their command decks while the Faction tried to rob them of their cargo.
But with the Union cruisers on deployment across the outer edge of the Sphere, all scanning for the next Skarak incursion, the heavies were at the mercy of the Faction lying in wait between the belt and the orbit of Supra, the innermost gas giant.
Featherstone opened a holo-map of the system. He was currently sitting at the outer edge of the Sphere. The Resolute was holding position near the group of large, dark asteroids all bound together by a composite framework and passageways, creating a vast network of tubes leading from one asteroid to the next in a vast mining city.
The cargo port lay inside one of the mined-out asteroids at the edge of the complex. The vast rock was hollow with enough docking space for several heavies at a time. Crew and cargo came and went.
Outside the cargo port was the holding area where the heavies, loaded
and ready to go, were still tethered to the port asteroid.
Running patrols around the perimeter was a squadron of Blades—fast and agile, and heavily armed with spitz guns and a single forward-mounted, high-powered laser. The squadron was enough of a deterrent to hold off any single raider, but should the Faction attempt a mass attack on the mine, the fixed defense platform was more than equal to the task of defending it. A small town in its own right, the platform housed a battery of twenty independent spitz guns and six high-energy laser assemblies, all able to pivot to target any enemy ship, or able to align and lay down a devastating barrage of laser fire that only the Union carriers could rival. This defensive firepower was augmented further with a single mass cannon, itself enough to take down any raider foolish enough to stray into its range.
Such was the value of the Black Ice that the Union defended so heavily. The Union had sought it out across the Scorpio System, but it could only be found in useful quantities in the Sphere. Here it was mined and then taken to the orbital facilities around Terra for processing, the facilities too precious to the fleet to be sited too far from Terra.
The Resolute was docked alongside the defense platform on the upper side of the mining facility. Featherstone zoomed out.
The outer system was a dangerous place at the best of times. The Faction began here in the outer system and had spread its separatist dogma across hundreds of outer system settlements. Raiders operated and hid out here, moving from one supportive collaborator settlement to another, avoiding the Union and striking at its weak points whenever it could.
The planet of Lastone appeared on Featherstone’s holo-map as the image zoomed out. The volcanic world was a perfect hiding place for Faction raiders. It was almost impossible to colonize the planet due to the extremely hostile environment with its thick, noxious atmosphere and highly-volcanic crust. But that same deadly environment made it an excellent hiding place for raiders ready to strike heavies leaving the ice mines, or flee from Union ships on their tails. It was such a perfect hideout that the Union usually kept a cruiser and a pair of frigates around the planet at all times.
Invasion (Blue Star Marines Book 3) Page 2