by Brian Smith
Hagen brought the ship’s lidar online, using it for navigation and terrain clearance. After looking at the historical data of Aurora’s previous two trips to 5111 Omega, he tried to mimic the profile and stylistic quirks of the former helmsman in the same way Ayers had mimicked the communications. Once Ford was confident the pilot had it well in hand, he turned his attention back to the cyber specialists.
“What have we got?” he asked.
“Information is starting to come in now,” Petty Officer Sims replied. “I’m passing it to you, XO,” he added. Ford dropped his snoopers and looked. Ayers’s cybermole had thoroughly infiltrated the depot’s systems and began sending back all sorts of useful data, much of which was coming from the MIM’s own internal security sensors and optical feeds. Included in the data was a more detailed layout of the facility itself, along with its engineering schematics.
Ford studied the readouts closely, both impressed by and appalled at the skill with which the MIM had cannibalized pirated torchships and converted them to the high-tech manufacturing facility he was looking at now. It was quite an operation—robotic miners took minerals from the asteroid itself, which were refined into usable alloys and composites onsite before being fed into industrial-grade printers and, in turn, a robotic production line in order to “stamp out” the desired components. Although it required some human oversight, the entire process didn’t need even as many people as it took to crew a single commercial torchship. According to Ayers’s data, there shouldn’t be more than twenty or thirty people down there, normally divided up into three or four shifts.
“Okay, Ms. Ayers, how do we best use this windfall?” Ford asked.
“I’m currently tagging tangos who are armed versus those who aren’t,” she replied. “I’ll continue to update that in real time as well as I’m able, right up until the time the Marines storm the dock. I’ve got it on a data feed to the MARDET, along with the station’s floor plan and engineering schematics—they’ll have a solid picture going in. I’m also setting up to take direct control over their systems and lock them out as we arrive—I can’t do it any sooner or we’ll spoil the surprise. Once that’s done, however, I can jam up their internal communications pretty good, turn off the lights wherever I want, and so on. I thought about trying to alter their atmospheric mix and just put everyone to sleep, but that won’t work. They’ve got a small infirmary with an autodoc and active biomonitors. An alarm will sound if I cut oxygen content, and the bad guys will just suit up and be waiting for us.”
“Can you shut it down?”
“It’s a medical system, isolated by design with limited networking. Short answer: no, sir.”
“Do the atmosphere thing anyway,” Ford ordered, “but time it for a minute or two after we begin the assault. It’ll disrupt any resistance if they get an alarm and go scrambling for exosuits. It’ll sow confusion and give our team an advantage.”
“Good idea!” Hutton added.
“Can do, sir. That just leaves one variable I have no control over,” Ayers went on. “Autonomous AI weapons. If that’s what they’re making here, some may be integrated into their defenses. I’ve briefed Vargas to be ready for that. He’s incorporated the possibility into his plan.”
“Captain Keith and I discussed it with him before,” Ford added. “They either have them or they don’t. It’s the one big risk we can’t mitigate. Any intel on that?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well,” Ford replied. “What about Marshal Hutton’s fugitives, and legal evidence?”
“Both her guys are here, and they’ll tag as ‘special’ in our AR overlays. I’m caching a copy of their entire data partition as well, decrypted and ready for the marshal to use. There’s too much here for me to sift right now, but I think the authorities on Mars will be able to put a real crimp in the MIM.”
“Good work, you two,” Ford said grimly, including Sims in his praise. He keyed a different communications circuit. “Staff Sergeant Vargas, are you receiving the data feed from cyber/intel?”
“Yes, sir,” came the remote reply.
The Marines were suited up and ready to go, along with their own electronic-warfare gadgets and combat drones, down at the main lock. The MARDET was already programming its own drones and bots with Ayers’s intel data, particularly the data that would differentiate between armed and unarmed opponents. Their goal was to take as many of the MIM insurgents alive as possible, but it was about to go hard with them, all the same.
“XO!” the pilot called.
Ford registered the alarm in the pilot’s voice and snapped his attention back to their approach. He saw immediately what had prompted the outburst: they hadn’t been expecting to encounter any other ships here, but there was another gunship docked at the depot, of a class identical to that of the pair they had defeated before. “I see her,” Ford replied. No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, he reminded himself. Damn!
He glanced at his displays and cursed again. Aurora was completely under the overhang now and into the cavern—no line-of-sight to Reuben James any longer, so no way to call her. His mind raced through options: the freighter had nothing to shoot with, so that wasn’t even a choice.
He took one of their IR sensors and aimed it at the gunship, specifically at her drive section. It came back as near-ambient, which was good news—it meant her fusion reactor was either shut down or in standby. He hoped it was the former, but he couldn’t afford to assume that. Best case was that the gunship herself was inert, but the presence of her crew meant an additional twenty or so tangos to take down. The numbers no longer looked so promising, especially if there were fully automated defenses to deal with as well. Furthermore, once the shooting started, there was nothing stopping that gunship from shredding Aurora or maybe even surprising Reuben James when she finally emerged from hiding.
“Orders, sir?” Hagen asked tensely. “What’s the play?”
Time was running out—decisions needed to be made—now. Ford almost asked Ayers what she could do, but realized she already had a full plate. Instead, he mentally borrowed a page from the Marines: sudden surprise and violence of action were the order of the day. Sucker-punch the bastards and kick ’em while they’re down! he told himself. Visions of John Paul Jones and three hundred years of naval tradition flickered through his hindbrain.
“Warrant Officer Hagen,” he addressed the pilot, “you have the deck and the conn. Complete the docking maneuver as briefed. I’m going to form a second boarding team.”
Hagen turned sideways to look at the XO; Ford saw the grin split his features. “Yes, sir!” he said enthusiastically. “I have the deck and the conn!”
Ford activated his all-call circuit so that he was speaking to everyone aboard. “Now hear this: this is the XO. We’ve got a situation, people. There’s another gunship docked at the depot. She appears to be powered down, but we can’t afford to risk it, as this ship is not capable of defending herself. My intention is to board and take the enemy ship concurrent with our assault on the station. MARDET commander, detail one fire team to me and adjust your assault plan as appropriate. Chief Hogan, muster every rating you can spare at the main lock with small arms—on the double!”
Ford unstrapped and got up, listening to the acknowledgments. He activated his magboots and turned to Ayers. “Cheryl, you’ll be the senior officer left aboard when we assault. Let Hagen handle the ship. You provide overwatch and render whatever assistance you can from here.”
“Can do, skipper,” she replied.
Ford’s eyes widened slightly, feeling a slight thrill run through him at the title. In a warped sort of way, Aurora was sort of turning into his first command.
Ayers glanced over at her assistant. “Sims, un-ass that console and join the lieutenant’s boarding party. I can handle cyber myself for the remainder of the action.”
Sims hesitated. “I’m not a Marine, ma’am,” he said, the fear evident in his voice.
Ford slapped him on
the shoulder of his battle suit. “Neither am I, Sims, but it’s all hands on deck. Grab your sidearm and let’s move it, sailor.”
To his credit, Sims obeyed without voicing any more objections. The two of them made their way down to the main lock, mustering behind the Marines waiting to assault the station. The latter looked imposing in heavier combat suits than those worn by their navy counterparts. The programmable adaptive camo on the marine suits was set for the environment they were about to encounter: it was digicam, but mostly black now, interspersed with various shades of gray. If a Marine stopped and stood still for long enough, his suit would adapt based on built-in optical sensors and cause him to vanish chameleon-style, blending almost perfectly into the background. Unfortunately, the suit technology wasn’t good enough to accomplish that while a body was on the move; but the camo was nonetheless remarkably effective against the naked eye.
Ford wasn’t surprised to find that Hutton had followed them down and was mustering with the second boarding team. She was hefting a compact automatic assault rifle taken from one of the prisoners, in addition to her own holstered sidearm. Under normal circumstances Ford would never have entertained her joining the boarding party, but he was strapped for shooters now and he knew it.
“Are you sure?” he asked her privately, pressing their helmets together so that he could talk without using the radios. “That suit isn’t much in the way of anything.”
“I’ll hide behind you,” she replied simply. “Or maybe you should follow me—I’m probably a better shot.”
Ford was feeling the flush of adrenalin against the coming action, and he smiled wildly. “I want to buy you a drink when this is over.”
“You’re on,” she replied, and leaned back to break the contact.
CPL Danvers stepped up and handed Ford a rifle. “You’d better take this, sir,” he said. “Third Fire Team is yours. Four shooters in total.”
“Damn glad to have you, Danvers,” Ford replied earnestly.
Chief Hogan was easy to spot, even in a battle suit. “Chief, what’s the count for the second team?”
“Eleven squids, four jarheads, and one deputy marshal: sixteen total. I reassigned a half dozen ratings to Staff Sergeant Vargas to backfill his team. Can I make a suggestion, sir?”
“Absolutely.”
“We need to go for her engine room—if the goal is to keep her powered down and out of the fight, all we need to do is take control of her reactor. Without power, she can’t fire a thruster or a single shot. Then it’s just a matter of . . . mopping up.”
“I concur. That’s the plan, then, people. . . . Corporal Danvers.”
“Sir!”
“Your fire team will take point. You’re the small-unit-tactics and close-quarters battle expert. We’ll conform to your tactical orders on the move, with the chief and me issuing any pertinent additional orders as needed. Did Vargas give you any drones?”
“Three, sir: one EMP and two standard snoop-and-shoot. I’ll make ’em count, skipper.”
“Very well,” Ford replied, checking their timer: less than a minute to dock.
Ahead of them, the remainder of the Marines under Vargas were making their final preparations and receiving last-minute tactical updates from Ayers.
“Team Two, does anyone not have a good AR overlay?” Danvers barked at everyone. Nobody replied, which was a good thing. “All right, we go right behind Team One, after the drones. Watch the AR tags, but don’t let them distract you! Don’t hesitate, engage your threats, and keep moving. Cyber/intel will kill the station lights as we hard-dock. Switch over to virtual now,” he ordered, doing the same himself as he said it. The view through the team’s snooper visors was suddenly augmented for dark vision, with everyone’s AR tags standing out clearly.
“Team Two,” Ayers sent, “I’ve transmitted all pertinent layout data to you. It’s one big, pressurized loading dock: once you leave Aurora, take a hard right and head for the next airlock down. That’s your target. Godspeed.”
“Copy,” Ford replied.
The acceleration alarm sounded briefly, but everyone was magnetized to the deck; nobody moved much as Aurora fired her braking thrusters and precessed slightly on her gyros, edging in to achieve hard-dock with the station. In their snooper displays, the countdown had rolled to zero.
Vargas keyed the airlocks open and all hell broke loose. Two MIM members were waiting to meet them; particle beams lased out and cut them down on the spot as a veritable swarm of Marine drones rose and burst into the loading dock, preceding the human squad. Scanning with inhuman speed, the Marine drones almost immediately pinpointed several automated defense emplacements and engaged them almost as fast as they were fired on in return. The first few seconds of the fight produced a confused cacophony of automated-weapons fire as robot systems targeted one another in an orgy of mutual destruction. A second wave of Marine drones vanished around corners and detonated as EMPs, scrambling anything electronic within their burst-radius. More Marine drones followed the second wave, programmed to scout ahead of the human fire teams and relay intelligence back to them. If engaged, these scout-drones could fire back, but their primary purpose was reconnaissance and pathfinding.
“Follow me! Ooh-rah!” Vargas shouted, leading the assault when the way was clear.
“Ooh-rah!” thundered a dozen voices in return. Team One surged from the airlock, the two Marine fire teams moving and blasting with practiced efficiency while the half dozen ratings attached to the team followed in their wake, accomplishing a lot less but providing the best support their experience allowed. Navy sailors always did some training for actions such as this, but it was mostly conducted in virtual reality and as an adjunct to the training required by their generally more technical job skills. Those trained as assistant masters-at-arms fared a little better but lacked the absolute ferocity and expert fire discipline of the Marines.
“Go! Go! Go!” Danvers called, leading the charge for Team Two. They broke from the lock and went to the right as instructed. Moving fast in microgravity without getting tangled up was difficult—it was one more thing the Marines handled far better than did their navy counterparts. While the sailors were highly adept at moving in null-g, the Marines were trained to fight in it. They deactivated their magboots, kicked themselves into motion, and flew to a certain degree, always using enough momentum to move themselves to the next hard surface so as not to get caught flailing in a slow float. Recoil from weapons fire had to be considered in micro-g: it acted as a propulsive force, and seldom in a helpful way.
They were almost to the lock leading into the gunship when it opened unexpectedly. A MIM combat drone jetted out and spotted one of its Marine counterparts, and the two machines blew each other apart almost as fast as human reactions registered the enemy drone’s presence.
Four bodies in armored battle suits spilled out behind the drone, firing weapons. One of them had the “special” tag in his AR overlay, marking him as one of Hutton’s fugitives: one Mason Barstow, wanted in relation to the Tongling massacre.
CPL Danvers had launched himself to the overhead; he was inverted with respect to the deck, magbooted to the overhead so that he could fire down into the open airlock. Ford saw Danvers get the drop on Barstow and hesitate, adjusting his aim for a nonlethal shot. Barstow reacted faster than seemed possible; he raised what looked like a compact submachine gun, but it fired a bright particle beam that burned into Danvers’s faceplate like it was nothing. The corporal went limp as a rag doll, his arms hanging and his weapon falling like a feather in nearly-null-g. The bowl of his helmet was blasted wide open and charred black—he was gone.
The shock of seeing it almost cost Ford his life. Like the other navy personnel, he’d never experienced close combat like this before except in an almost video-game-style virtual setting. He was late raising his weapon; Barstow pivoted with inhuman speed and drew a bead on him, but one of the Marines body-checked Ford out of the line of fire—as good a hockey hit as was ever seen
off the ice.
The particle beam split the air again, grazing Ford’s benefactor along the torso but doing no real damage. Ford tucked in his extremities and athletically let himself tumble once, then extended his legs and cycled his magboots, “sticking a landing” on the bulkhead adjacent to the airlock.
Ever since the earlier loss of his shipmate, Chief Hogan had been itching to hit someone—hard. Accordingly, he came on hard and fast, firing a quick, ineffective burst into Barstow’s midsection before stepping in and clubbing him with the butt-end of his weapon. He struck Barstow’s faceplate hard enough to crack it—most people didn’t appreciate how hard that was to accomplish against modern materials. It was clear the big chief meant to disassemble Barstow with his bare hands—he was shouting incoherent profanities, raising the weapon for a second strike, when Barstow reared up, dug his fingers into the fabric of Hogan’s suit with his free hand, and swung him up with enough strength to break the lock of the chief’s magboots on the deck. Barstow smashed him down to the deck, hard enough to knock the wind out of him even through a battle suit.
That the fugitive did this and yet remained solidly grounded to the deck was an apparent violation of Newton’s laws regarding equal and opposite reactions.
Ford was just thinking that Barstow couldn’t actually be Barstow, when a Marine-fired particle beam hit the fugitive squarely in the helmet an instant before he would have lased the hapless chief crumpled at his feet. The beam burned through almost instantly, and Barstow seemed to ignite like a human torch. As the body wheeled away, burning inside its suit with the intensity of a magnesium fire, Ford caught a brief glimpse of a fluorescent green-yellow splash that wasn’t blood.
“What! The! F—!” someone’s voice shouted in his ear.
Ford caught sight of another insurgent drawing a bead on Sims—and this time he didn’t hesitate. He fired a long burst from the hip, sending a stream of armor-piercing rounds into his target’s suit, spraying real human blood in free-floating globules and launching the dead man back toward the far bulkhead.