Assassin's Orbit

by John Appel

  She felt herself continuing to fall even after hitting the soft grass. Or maybe sinking was the better term. The world around her grew less substantial.

  I wish I’d given Daniel my answer, she thought before the darkness came.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Meiko

  Hub Exterior, Ileri Station

  They were twenty seconds from the intercept point when an annoying chirping sounded in Meiko’s ears. “Fuck,” one of the troopers next to her on the little maintenance cart said. “Targeting ladar.”

  “Loh said the drone didn’t have anything like that. Javier, stop,” Zheng said, and their driver hit the brakes. “Everyone off!”

  Meiko unclipped her tether and swung herself over the rail, her eyes questing for a new tether point. Operating in microgravity meant that they could easily turn themselves into accidental and temporary satellites of Ileri, and easy targets if they went flying free in the wrong place.

  The chirping ceased, for Meiko anyway, as she pulled herself across the surface to her chosen tether point. She checked her HUD for the positions of her teammates as she clipped in. Her tether was thirty meters long, which had sounded like a lot. But out here on the surface of an asteroid five klicks wide, it seemed pitifully small.

  “Emission source pinpointed.” One of the troopers, ten meters ahead of Meiko in the direction they’d been traveling, held a sensor wand out from behind the girder he sheltered behind. “Looks like a Hunter-class combat bot.”

  “Shit. Rebels must be coming for the nano too.” Zheng had her right arm extended in firing position. “OK. Bounding overwatch, successive bounds. Ahmed”—the other armored trooper—“and I are trailing element and base of fire. Got it?” Everyone signaled assent, even Meiko; she hadn’t practiced these kinds of tactics in decades, but the old lessons had stuck. “Haruman, Bakshi, you lead. Ogawa, you and Achide follow, then me and Ahmed. Go.”

  Meiko raised her assault laser and searched for targets but found none. When her turn came, she unclipped her tether and pulled herself to a position online with the first two soldiers, took cover, and clipped in again. Zheng and her armored companion then moved up to join the line, and they repeated the cycle. They didn’t catch sight of the enemy, but twice more they caught splashes of ladar, confirming something was out there.

  Things went to shit on the fourth bound.

  She was just clipping in when Bakshi, one of the lead element, called out. “I can see the objective. It’s about sixty meters ahe—”

  High-velocity slugs punched through the radiator return line Bakshi lurked behind and through their armored suit like it was rice paper. Meiko watched in horror as the spray of blood and gas and tissue that vented out of the exit holes briefly sparkled as it flash-froze, then dissipated. Liquid coolant under high pressure spurted from the punctured radiator and flung Bakshi’s corpse out to the limit of their tether, whereupon the combat bot shot them again.

  “Counter-battery!” Zheng called. Achide pulled a tube from their chest pack and stuck their arm out from behind one of the radiator’s support pillars. Sparkles briefly winked into existence at both ends of the tube as the compressed gas inside kicked the missile out of the launcher. Meiko, knowing what came next, ducked, so she missed the blinding flash as the missile locked onto its target and lit its engine. The trooper was already moving to a new position before the missile struck home.

  She poked her assault laser out from around her cover and swept the camera across the area in front of them. She could see the drone now, and her IR sensor picked up the rapidly cooling hotspot that marked where the bot had crouched. Her djinn found a possible target, a human-shaped form on the ground next to the now-stationary drone. She lined up her target reticle and fired three pulses.

  At least one of her pulses hit and she was rewarded with the sight of outgassing; she’d breached something under pressure, at least, though whether she’d hurt the person inside the suit wasn’t clear. She pulled her weapon back behind cover and unclipped her tether, hunting for her next firing position.

  That’s when she saw the second bot. “We’re flanked! Target bot, nine o’clock from my position, range eighty meters!” She brought up her legs, got her feet onto the stanchion, and pushed off hard. She skimmed along the surface to the next stanchion even as the bot, anchored into the rocky surface of the hub asteroid, fired another burst of slugs, catching Ahmed in the side. Even power armor wasn’t proof against the bot’s weapon and Ahmed screamed as the rounds penetrated. His screams cut off, whether from the severity of his wounds, loss of pressure in his suit, or the armor’s internal medical system pumping him full of sedatives to try and stabilize him, she didn’t know.

  She reached cover, grabbed on to arrest her motion, and clipped in. She fumbled her laser into firing position and triggered a full ten-pulse burst, the most the weapon could handle before overheating. The bot moved forward and she pivoted towards the other side of her stanchion, anxiously watching the cool indicator. Something flashed between her and Zheng, who had moved forward to engage hostiles up by the drone, and Achide’s status indicator went dark. That was bad; only Achide carried missiles, and only those or Zheng’s weapons were likely to hurt the bots.

  Meiko rolled right, sighted again, and triggered another ten-pulse burst to no evident effect. “Zheng! Can you deal with the bot on our flank? I can’t hurt it.”

  “Busy,” Zheng said. Meiko looked and saw her crouched over Haruman’s body, realized she was slapping an emergency patch onto the trooper’s suit. Fuck. Four down in less than a minute, and two of their heaviest weapons out of action to boot.

  She rolled left, poked the weapon out again, and swept it across the space between her and the combat bot. There, another coolant return line, right between her and the bot, which was now only forty meters away.

  “Keep it busy, Meiko,” Zheng said. “Just need a few seconds.”

  “Trying.” She unclipped her tether, took a breath and triggered her music. The volume was low, but she sang the ancient Porto song, older than the journey to Exile, as she lined up another ten-round burst into the pipe:

  Long live my god

  Long live my master

  Who taught me

  Capoeira...

  Coolant sprayed from the holes she’d made, spraying across the space between her and her antagonist. It wasn’t much of a screen, but she saw some of the streams hit the bot. Maybe it would help. Just a little... She launched herself across the rocky surface towards Achide’s body, sure the bot would kill her before she reached it.

  It is water for drinking

  It is iron for striking

  It is from the sacred drums...

  “GOT IT!” Zheng cried out. Meiko blinked up her feed and saw the pressurized canister rupture under the hail of armor-piercing slugs from Zheng’s mini-guns. Her djinn, scanning the debris, flashed highlights around a piece bearing a biohazard symbol. From the data dump they’d captured from Mizwar, she knew the nanoware couldn’t survive the combination of vacuum and radiation. The station was saved—

  The bot fired, but not at Meiko.

  Zheng cried out, once, and then her body was sailing out into the dark as the bot fired again, and again, each burst hitting her, each bullet pushing her further out into the dark.

  Zheng hadn’t clipped her tether.

  Meiko blinked back both tears and Zheng’s feed, now showing a pinwheeling view of the stars. She grabbed hold of the girder to which Achide’s body was tethered and wrapped her legs around it like a lover. Her grasping hands pulled at Achide’s chest pack, found the missile. She leaned back, pointed it at the bot and twisted the firing collar. She released the tube and snatched up her laser, sighted in, and fired.

  Golden light seared her vision as the missile’s engine lit, and a lance of fire hit the combat bot, blowing it to pieces.

  Then it was silent, except for the ragged heave of her own breathing.

  Her nemesis dead, sh
e carefully eased down to the surface, then scanned the battlefield. Nothing moved, and all the IR traces were dying out, cooling rapidly.

  She looked up in the direction her djinn told her Zheng’s body must be but couldn’t find it. She checked the status indicators again and found that Haruman, indeed, was still alive. She checked the integrity of the emergency patch Zheng had applied, then carefully gathered the trooper into her arms for the short trek back to the cart.

  Mission accomplished. But God, what a price.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  Andini

  SSV Iwan Goleslaw, Ileri High Orbit

  “Incoming message from the Ileri escort commander.”

  Andini snapped awake and rubbed a hand across her eyes. She glanced at the time display, grimaced, and reluctantly peeled her sleep sack open. “Put it through, audio only.” With pressure restored in perhaps half of Iwan Goleslaw’s undamaged compartments, she’d felt secure enough to sleep without even a softsuit. A T-shirt and workout shorts were hardly fitting attire for a call with the watchdogs Vega had insisted shadow her ship, though she suspected her counterpart would understand. “Andini here.” She didn’t croak, exactly, but she grabbed an energy-drink pouch from the stash she kept by her bunk and took a drink to clear her throat.

  “Captain Andini, this is Commander Langiri. The rebels appear to be making a push. They’ve launched a number of shuttles from the surface and all their craft in orbit are maneuvering. We’re going to action stations and respectfully suggest you consider doing so as well.”

  She’d wondered when the next phase of the battle would light off. “Thank you, Commander. I’ll do so. Do I have clearance to relaunch my remaining weapon busses?”

  “Not at this time, Captain. Please maintain your connections to the task-group tactical net so we can coordinate defensive fires and keep clear from each other’s firing solutions.”

  It was the answer she’d expected, but figured it was worth a try. “Absolutely, Commander. Do you advise securing my radiators?”

  Langiri hesitated. “Perhaps not immediately. The analysis teams are still working out the rebels’ likely deployment. But we’re well within the probability cone.”

  Damn. The damage to her ship’s heat-management systems had turned out to be too severe for her crew to repair, and the lost coolant and phase-change material had to be replaced anyway. If she had to pull in the radiators, her combat power would be limited to point-defense guns and whatever weapons the Ileris permitted her to launch. But if she kept them deployed to keep the lasers and particle cannon operational without cooking the ship, she risked losing all her last good way to dump heat. She’d have no alternative but to beg the Ileris to let her dock, and the thought of that was unbearable. “Understood, Commander. Iwan Goleslaw will come to Condition Two and await further information.” After the briefest of pauses, she added a codicil. “Be aware that I intend to exercise my discretion in defending my vessel.”

  Langiri sounded bemused. “I understand completely, Captain. We’ll keep you informed as things develop. Langiri out.”

  Andini drained her drink pouch and fancied she could feel the chemical kick-start already working. Imaginary or not, she felt her fatigue recede just a bit. She snapped open a command window. “Attention, my children. Action stations. Bring the ship to Condition Two. Execute.” She heard her slightly muffled voice through her cabin door, along with the alarm buzzer, followed by the sounds of her crew hurrying to their stations. She sighed, grabbed a nutrient bar from her stash, tore it open with her teeth, and started the process of shucking her clothes so she could don her suit as she chewed.

  With her yeoman’s assistance, fifteen minutes later she was able to pull herself, fully suited, into the combat center. “Status report!” she barked after the watch officer transferred the con. The news was mixed. Casualties had been fully offloaded at last, and two of her three shuttles were snugged into their bays. The third remained on Ileri Station. Point defense was still completely down on the damaged side of her ship, and only forty percent of her launchers were operational, but she had full maneuvering capability again—as long as the radiators were deployed. “Things could be worse,” she said to Dinata, who joined her in the combat center.

  “You should ready the special ordnance,” Dinata said, in her most imperious tone. “We cannot allow this infestation to spread.”

  Dinata had never struck Andini as a practical person, and this certainly remained true now. “To what end, Minister? Our conversion bombs aren’t ship-to-ship weapons.”

  “The Ileris are clearly dealing in proscribed technologies. You saw the evidence.”

  “I’ve seen evidence that a rogue commercial entity has done so,” Andini said carefully. “No evidence has surfaced of widespread contamination, or of collusion on the part of the Ileri government.”

  Dinata snorted. “This rebellion is evidence enough. You’ve also seen Mizwar’s report.”

  “Are you ordering me to conduct a general planetary bombardment?” Andini said, wondering if this was the moment she’d been dreading. “I’ll happily engage any clearly identified targets, but I’m hardly going to sterilize the planet based on the information to date.” She was grateful her orders permitted her that much discretion.

  Dinata huffed but didn’t push further. Andini returned her attention to monitoring the imminent battle.

  She didn’t have long to wait. Her tactical officer’s projections told the story clearly enough. “Ears, call the Ileris.” The link came up almost immediately. “Commander, it seems apparent the rebels plan to converge on our formation.”

  Langiri, on video this time, looked grim. “That’s our analysis as well, Captain.” A side window popped open to display navigational data. “My orders are that we maneuver on this course in order to link up with reinforcements.”

  Andini flicked a copy of his instructions onto the main tactical display. Her tactical officer frowned. “That relief force is smaller than I’d expect,” she said. Andini relayed that concern to the Ileri.

  “Higher command hasn’t shared all their plans with me,” he said. Andini thought she detected a note of frustration in his voice, but the expert system reading both his verbal and nonverbal cues gave anxiety a higher score. “However, I’ve been given discretion in the matter of allowing you to launch more busses.”

  A-ha. Vega’s plan—and Andini, having studied the new Prime Minister’s career carefully, felt sure it was Vega’s plan—became clear. A mix of anger and admiration for the Ileri leader’s boldness warred within her. “I see,” she said. “Do I have that clearance?”

  “My tactical officer suggests waiting until this waypoint,” Langiri said, and the point in question flashed once in the projection. “In case we need to maneuver again. That should preserve their operational time.”

  “Very good. Andini out.” She cut the connection and turned to her tactical officer. “We’re bait.”

  The tactical officer nodded grimly. Dinata looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  Andini highlighted the bulk of the Ileri formations, which weren’t moving to join Iwan Goleslaw and her escorts. “The rebels are coming for us. Vega’s letting them, sending just enough of her own strength to make it a fair fight, and defend against any accusations that she left us out to hang. She’s going to let us bleed her enemies for her.”

  “You sound like you approve.”

  Andini sighed. “It’s a smart plan. I’d probably do the same in her case.” She ordered the ship control officer to maneuver in concert with their escort and put the launcher crews on standby. “Pull in the radiators and set Condition One. Execute.”

  The second Battle of Ileri played out much the way Andini expected, at least at first. Iwan Goleslaw and the Ileri ships with her launched their ordnance at the appointed time, Andini putting everything except for the special weapons and her anti-missile munitions into service. The rebel formations, converging from several different or
bits, launched their own array of missiles and weapons busses. Andini and the Ileris knocked most of these down, but some got through. To their credit, Langiri and the other Ileri commanders did their utmost to screen Iwan Goleslaw’s blind side, at some expense to their own point defense. The rebels, for their part, focused the bulk of their fire on the Ileri vessels, and before long both frigates became expanding balls of plasma and debris.

  Andini logged a note commending their bravery and turned her attention to killing as many of the rebels as she could, using her impaired ability to maneuver to keep her damaged side away from the enemy.

  Strangely, the oncoming flotillas didn’t focus fire on the Iwan Goleslaw itself. Instead they poured most of their attacks into the cloud of weapons platforms surrounding the Saljuan ship. They directed the remainder of their fire at the approaching loyalist vessels. Her tactical officer figured it out first. “They’re going for CQB,” she said. Close quarters battle, where mass drivers and particle beam weapons reigned supreme. Weapons that Andini couldn’t use without cooking her ship.

  “Swing the surviving busses to the far side of the ship,” Andini ordered. “If the rebels aren’t shooting at us, we can shield the busses and use our point defense to interdict the incoming fire. Drop the remaining decoys and try to make it look like the busses are still holding station.”

  Fist moved to comply. Dinata looked confused. “What are you doing?”

  Andini’s mouth set in a grim line. “I’m holding a knife behind my back so I can stab the fuckers when they get close enough.”

  Whether the rebels fell for the ruse, or simply didn’t care, she didn’t know. The first wave of enemy vessels bored in, though her escorts managed to kill two before the range closed. She felt like she could practically reach out and touch the enemy ships. Finally, with less than a minute to go before they reached mass driver range, she gave the order. “Now. Dump everything we’ve got at them.”

  It was knife-fighting range indeed, at least in space combat terms. The rebels’ point-defense systems had scarce seconds to swat down the incoming barrage, and perhaps half of the Saljuan ordnance found its targets. Flowers of fire blossomed above the planet’s night side, lighting the heavens. Ships and crews died, some before they realized they were in danger.