Boneshaker

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "The opposing force is too great for you to make it through unscathed," he said. "We will have to find another way off the bridge." Jacob looked over at Edgars and saw his chest rise and fall. He took a nasty tumble, but he was alive.

  "Fucking idiots just fragged their own captain," he said. "Didn't even take a quick peek to see where we were standing. Okay…we need out of here." He walked over to one of the three active com terminals and worked through the menus until he found what he wanted.

  "Sully, you there? This is Brown up on the bridge."

  "Lieutenant? Yeah, I read you. We're all on the ship and ready to—"

  "Tell 701, Mettler, and MG to get over to Hollick's ship," he said, then turned to 707. "Your guy can fly one of these ships, right?"

  "Of course."

  "Okay, Sully…tell 701 I want him to fly Hollick's ship out and take up position just out of weapons range of the Talon. They're going to wait here until the taskforce shows up."

  "And what are we going to be doing?" Sully asked.

  "I'll let you know when you get up here," Jacob said. "There's an airlock up near the bridge the inspection tender would normally dock to. Come up and get us there."

  "On my way."

  "That airlock is one deck down," 707 pointed out.

  "There's a little secret in the captain's ready room I found out about when I was going through this ship's drawings during mission prep," Jacob said. "Come on."

  He couldn't hear the Marines on the other side of the hatch trying to get in over the ringing in his ears, but he knew they were out there, and it added a sense of urgency to what he was doing. After closing and locking the hatch to the small office, he went over to the corner and dug at the carpet until the corner came up, and he could pull it back, revealing the bare deck…and a hatch.

  "What is its purpose?"

  "Naval R&D has picked up on the top brass's paranoia," Jacob said. He pulled up the handle and turned, releasing the locks. "They see One World traitors around every tree, so when the new classes of ships came out, they were worried about a possible mutiny by sympathizers. This office has a blast-proof hatch, and then this lets the captain escape one level down into a corridor that has multiple exit-only hatches.

  "Fascinating," 707 said. "You should go first in case I do not easily fit."

  "I'll pull the ladder off so you can just jump down." Jacob was already halfway through the hatch. 707 followed, managing to slip through the opening and close the hatch at the same time. Once he'd landed, he used a cutting laser to tack weld the hatch in three places. "This way."

  Jacob led him aft, towards a hatch he knew came out near the airlock, the obvious intent being for the captain to use it to escape if need be. Once they emerged into another corridor, this one with the lights still up and only two crew members sleeping soundly on the deck, it was only a matter of minutes until they were at the airlock, just in time to see Sully gently guiding the Boneshaker up for hard-dock.

  "I'd say we have completely worn out our welcome here," Jacob said, smiling. "Let's hit it."

  For some reason, he felt elated. He'd actually completed the mission. It had cost him dearly, and he would feel that pain soon enough but, for now, it was enough to know the Eagle's Talon would soon be back in Terran hands, and before the ConFed had found the rebel fleet's new hiding spot.

  23

  "We just received an authenticated go-signal from Obsidian, sir!"

  "Get us there as fast as she'll fly, Captain," Webb said, emotions flooding his body. Obsidian had actually done it. They'd managed to track down a needle in a galactic haystack and did it in time for them to fix the problem.

  "Helm, bring us onto new course," Commander Duncan said. "Maximum slip-velocity."

  "Coming about, max slip, aye!"

  "The task force will get there nearly a full day before we will, sir," Bennet said from his side.

  "That's fine. They'll have work to do securing the ship. Did the message include what's around the Talon and the ship's status?"

  "Sir, Obsidian reports that the Talon is sitting in interstellar space, unaccompanied, and that her slip-drive has been disabled," the com officer reported.

  "Disabled?" Webb asked suspiciously. "Ensign, request a full status report from Obsidian."

  "Aye, sir."

  "What's wrong?" Bennet asked.

  "I think our intrepid scout team did a lot more than simply spot the ship and call it in. That's why they've taken so long. Brown boarded her and disabled the drive…either that or he sent those damn battlesynths to do it for him."

  "Obsidian reports they were taken captive by Captain Edgars and managed to escape confinement after the Talon had already departed the area. They successfully disabled the ship's slip-drive, and then left on their own ship. They're now shadowing the Talon out of weapons range." The ensign paraphrased from what looked like a two-page report that had popped up on her terminal.

  "Send that to my com unit, ensign," Webb said. "I'll be back in my office."

  "Yes, sir."

  Webb sat down at his desk, transferred the file over to his terminal with a flick of his wrist, and began reading the detailed report Brown had submitted. The more he read, the more fantastical it seemed. Obsidian had been overmatched when Hollick had been playing them and walked right into an obvious trap, but what Hollick nor Edgars could possibly know was that Brown was coming equipped with three combat-tested battlesynths. From what Webb read, much of the mission's success was due to their intervention. The trick with the environmental system was a particularly nice touch.

  "Damn," he said, sitting back and rubbing at his eyes. There was nothing he couldn't do if he somehow convinced all the battlesynths to operate within his command. The thought of that made him smile, then frown as something occurred to him. 707 had asked to accompany him because of some vital matter he needed to discuss, but he'd never actually brought it up. The big machine had just loitered around for a few days until it got a positive bearing on where Brown was and then—poof!—they were gone.

  They'd played him. Brown had been out of circulation for some time, stashed away until Webb could guarantee his safety and get his team rebuilt, and the battlesynths of Lot 700 didn't like not knowing where he was. As soon as they knew where he was, and that he was in danger, they vanished. He could only laugh at the absurdity of it. Lot 700 represented an unimaginably powerful small-unit fighting force any military would love to get its hands on, but they’d decided sitting on a remote planet and watching over a single human is a better use of their time.

  You couldn't make that up, and he needed to be careful who might realize it around his sphere. If certain people in NIS or Fleet Ops realized they could make the battlesynths jump and dance to their tune simply by putting Brown in danger, there was no telling what they'd do to that poor kid.

  He stood and checked the wall clocks, calculating how long until they reached the Talon. With just under five hours, he had just enough time to grab something to eat and some rack time before the real fun began. The heavy cruiser may have been unable to escape, but it could still shoot.

  "This is a huge pain in the ass, LT!"

  "Shut up and push!"

  The two ships Obsidian had escaped the Talon in were now slowly spinning in space some distance away from the cruiser. They were joined together by a flexible cofferdam so the two crews could get their work done. Jacob had put them far enough out that the Talon couldn't shoot her guns at them, but a missile strike was still a possibility. He just had to hope that Edgars wasn't that sort of a sore loser. The Terran task force was on its way and would be there shortly, hopefully well before any reinforcements the Talon crew might try to call up.

  Leaving the ship armed and able to communicate hadn't been optimal, but trying to disable everything in the short amount of time they had was simply impossible. Now, with the ships spinning slowly to keep the tunnel stretched and straight, the crews were busy passing down equipment from Hollick's ship to the shuttle.
/>
  When his crew had searched the ship, they'd found nothing. Even the local memory cores had been wiped. It wasn't until the third pass that they'd found something interesting: a com unit that had fallen down off a shelf and had been wedged in the narrow gap between the rack and the bulkhead. One World had decent encryption routines, but their com people couldn't have imagined an expert like 784 would have been trying to access the unit. The battlesynth didn't even bother turning the device on. Instead, like a surgeon, he'd disassembled it and downloaded the data it contained directly off the memory core, bypassing all of the encryption and hardware traps they'd installed if someone tried to slice into it.

  The device had been a treasure trove of information once they'd managed to read the data. It had com addresses, encryption codes, locations, names…anywhere Hollick had been and why he'd been there was documented on the device. Jacob guessed he had lost it, had faith that his protective measures would be enough to keep his secrets, and cloned a new com unit afterwards.

  There were also some remote data storage sites Jacob was very intrigued with, but in order to access them, he would have to transmit the passcodes from an approved slip-com node, hence why his crew struggled to move the bulky avionics box from Hollick's ship over to the Boneshaker. He would have 784 work on tying the device into their systems and downloading the data on the remote sites during the flight out.

  "You know the NIS has entire departments available that specialize in this," Murph said.

  "You mean the same NIS with all the leaks that NAVSOC apparently has?" Jacob scoffed. "Besides, there's no time. Hollick will get himself someplace safe, hunker down, and then deauthorize all of the nodes on his old ship. The only reason he probably hasn't done so already is because he thinks nobody knows about his data caches."

  "Fair enough," Murph said, and then slid in closer to Jacob. "So, why are just you, me, and the tin men going?"

  "Because you're an NIS agent, I'm an officer, Sully is an officer…the punishment for this will be a little different than it would be on the enlisted guys," Jacob said. "They might drum us out of the service, but those guys will be sitting in Red Cliff."

  Red Cliff was the nickname given to the military internment center on Terranovus. It was a remote base in the middle of the desert, ringed by towering walls of red rock. Escape was impossible, the climate was oppressive, and the suicide rate at the prison was high for those with sentences longer than five years.

  "I don't want to lose my job!" Murph protested.

  "Then stay here," Jacob said. "But I'm going, and Sully is already onboard with this. If I can nail Hollick, and that's the last thing I do in the Navy, I'll consider it worth it."

  "When the hell did you become such an idealist?" Murph hissed. "They put officers in Red Cliff, too, you know."

  "Yeah…but not for simply going slightly outside the scope of my orders to chase down a target of opportunity that's listed as highest priority for both the NIS and the UEN," Jacob said. "You in or out, Murph?"

  "You bastards!" Murph ground out. "If I go with you, I'm in deep shit. If I don't go with you, my superiors will think I'm a coward without initiative, and my career is sunk."

  "Clock is ticking, my friend," Jacob said. "If you're coming, be on the shuttle in the next twenty minutes."

  Murph walked away, muttering to himself. Jacob looked around the interior of Hollick's ship. He stood in a beautifully appointed galley, complete with state-of-the-art food synthesizers, comfortable seats, and an entertainment system that took up an entire bulkhead. It seemed to be a converted VIP craft more than it was a military ship.

  "Well, well, well…wasn't that interesting," Mettler said, coming around the corner.

  "What was interesting, Sergeant?" Jacob asked.

  "That conversation you and Agent Murphy were having."

  "Mettler, there are very few types of people in this galaxy I can't stand…thieves, people who don't wash their hands after using the head, and eavesdroppers. You're two of the three, and that's only because I don't think I've ever caught you stealing yet."

  "You guys can't cut me and MG out of this, LT," Mettler said. "Please, sir…Commander Mosler and Taylor were like family to us, and they're both gone because of this piece of shit." Jacob opened his mouth to deny the request outright but stopped.

  "Damnit, Mettler!" he swore. "You want to go to jail for this shit?"

  "If I have to."

  "Then go get the other dumbass, and we'll talk about this," Jacob said. "No promises since one of these ships has to stay here regardless until the taskforce arrives."

  "I'll go get MG."

  The UES Kentucky meshed-in a mere forty-five minutes after the taskforce did to the unremarkable region of space the Talon floated in. Once active sensors were up, Webb could see Edgars wasn't bothering trying to flee on his subluminal engines, and his weapons were powered down. Both good signs the negotiations might not involve blasting one of their own ships with Admiral Sisk's destroyers.

  The taskforce had quickly deployed around the disabled cruiser, making sure any avenues of escape were covered while also staying just out of range of the Talon's big guns. Webb also saw there was a small civilian courier ship of unknown origin and assumed it must be Brown's crew.

  "Status?"

  "The flagship has told us Captain Edgars is waiting to speak with whoever is in charge. Admiral Sisk is apparently unclear who that is," the Kentucky's second officer said.

  "Message the flagship and tell Admiral Sisk he is in command here, and that I'm just an observer," Webb said. "Also relay that we would take it as a professional courtesy if we were allowed to listen in."

  "Sending message, sir."

  A few minutes later, they received a channel tie-in request, and the Kentucky was able to see and hear what was happening between Sisk and Edgars.

  "This is Admiral Sisk, commanding officer of Taskforce Bravo, 3rd Fleet," Sisk announced with a flourish. Webb suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. The admiral knew this was a moment that would be reviewed by the top brass, and he was hamming it up for the archives. "Observing these negotiations is Captain Webb, commanding officer of NAVSOC."

  "This is Captain Edgars of the UEN vessel, Eagle's Talon," Edgars said. Webb frowned at his appearance. The captain had red eyes from burst blood vessels and bruising all over his face. Did Brown really need to rough him up that much? "As far as I am concerned, there will be no negotiating. I surrender the Talon and am prepared to be taken into custody. I would ask that my loyal crew not be punished for my actions."

  "That will be for someone else to decide, Captain," Sisk said. "While I am grateful you appear to be willing to see reason here, why have you surrendered so easily? If you'll forgive me saying, your reputation indicated you wouldn't."

  "I stand by my actions," Edgars said. "I feel I did what was in the best interest of Earth, and the galactic community as a whole. But I would never put myself or my crew in the position of firing on fellow humans. Your Scout Fleet operators quite thoroughly disabled my ship, so I am at your mercy. I am ordering my entire crew assembled in the main hangar bay."

  "Well…that was anticlimactic," Webb said. "Continue to monitor the situation. Someone patch me through to Obsidian since I'm assuming they're on the small ship sitting astern of the Talon." When the channel resolved itself, he stared at two of Obsidian's enlisted Marines and one battlesynth.

  "Captain Webb, sir," one of them said in greeting. "I'm Sergeant Jeff Mettler. I've been ordered to—"

  "Where is your commanding officer, Sergeant?" Webb interrupted.

  "As per the report we're forwarding to you now, sir, Lieutenant Brown and Lieutenant Sullivan are not aboard, nor is Sergeant Murphy."

  "I didn't ask you where they were not, Sergeant," Webb said. He could feel his face getting red, and the people around him took a step back.

  "They have left in pursuit of the fugitive, Elton Hollick, sir," Mettler said. "They have a lead on where he was escaping to and felt this
was a high priority."

  "I see," Webb said, his voice soft and calm. "So, you're a kill team now, is that it?"

  "I wouldn't presume to know if our designator has been changed, Captain. I'm simply—"

  "Shut your mouth, Sergeant," Webb said wearily.

  "Yes, sir."

  Webb felt his tension headache come roaring to the front of his skull. The UEAS had entire commands propped up to handle these sorts of direct-action missions, and one of his goddamn forward observers had just gone flying out on his own little vendetta. He had no doubt Brown would succeed this time. Since he only saw one of the battlesynths, Webb assumed the other two had left with Brown, which meant there was so much sheer firepower being brought to bear that even someone as slippery as Hollick had little chance. The problem was that Brown was bringing a neutron bomb to a knife fight, and the attention caught by his unsanctioned operation would blow back on NAVSOC and the Navy in general. Most planets didn't take kindly to strangers landing on the surface and trying to blow each other up.

  "Let me guess…you don't have any way to reach them, do you?"

  "Were you talking to me, sir?" Mettler asked. Webb lost it.

  "Weapons! Target that ship with the forward cannons and standby to fire!"

  "Wait, wait!" Mettler said, waving his hands. "I only have the slip-com node addresses for the ship we'd been using this whole time. LT didn't leave us any special way to get in touch with him."

  "Shall I fire, sir?" the weapons officer asked. Webb thought about it for a moment.

  "Not yet," he said. "But be ready to if I say. Sergeant, I'm killing this channel right now, and the next time I contact you, I hope for your sake you've become appreciably smarter."

  "I'll definitely work on it, sir."

  Webb slashed his hand across his throat to indicate he wanted the channel terminated. He looked over as another pane opened up on the main display and saw that Captain Edgars transmitted a video feed of his crew mustering in the hangar bay as he'd promised. The sensors showed he'd reduced his power output down to levels that would make it impossible for him to fire on the small flotilla of shuttles and transports Sisk had deployed to the cruiser.