“SOS with his hands and then that dancing around exactly what kind of contagion he was talking about,” Rogers agreed. “Clever man. What are people picking up from what he’s saying?”
“The entire camp is interned,” Nguyen told them. “No one escaped. Potentially, something happened to Administrator !Lat.”
“Most likely, they aren’t up to editing !Lat’s skin to be non-damning in a reasonable time frame,” Nystrom suggested. “We’d be hard pressed to do it, and I imagine we have better software and hardware than they do.”
“And it is perfectly reasonable for the deputy to be talking to us if we didn’t already smell a rat,” Morgan agreed. “Of course, Dr. Dunst made sure we knew there was trouble. If his ‘contagion’ is still present and orbital space is still unsafe, we have a problem.”
“Pirates on the ground, armed vessels in space,” Vichy concluded. “If they see us coming, they will use the prisoners as hostages.”
“Which is our biggest problem,” Rogers said. “I’ll back Defiance against every pirate in the Imperium at once, but we want to get those people out.”
“Especially Dr. Dunst,” Morgan agreed. “For reasons even I am apparently not cleared for, he’s flagged as a critical priority in our databases.”
He was also in her covert systems as being cleared for two Dragon Protocols Morgan was officially in on. She figured that meant he was probably in at least two more—if nothing else, she didn’t know the official protocol for distributing the information around how the Precursors had died.
She was under orders to never tell anyone. Ever. No matter what.
“I believe this is mostly going to be a shuttle operation, Battalion Commander,” she told Vichy. “I mean, I suppose we could insert shuttles directly from hyperspace, but I’ve been told the Imperial Marines don’t like it when I tell them to do that.”
It was possible to retrofit the systems from Defiance’s hyperspace missiles to allow a shuttle to enter normal space through a gravity well. Possible didn’t mean easy—and it was a hellish ride for anyone on the shuttles in question.
Morgan had been the first officer to suggest it and had joined the Marines on the first of those hellish rides. Operating in a zone where an interface drive meant death-by-malfunctioning-Precursor-technology, they’d been looking at a long ride back out when they’d made the jump, too.
“While your personal specialty has value in many cases, here it would only get us to orbit,” Vichy pointed out. “However, Defiance took delivery of six of the newest assault shuttles before we began this tour.
“While they are mostly identical to the rest of our shuttle fleet, these six have been equipped with the newest version of our miniaturized stealth field.”
Morgan had probably known that, but she’d forgotten. She had enough involvement in the shipbuilding community in the Imperium—through her father—to know that there’d been a fierce debate whether the Armored Dream–class ships like Defiance should carry a stealth field.
The end conclusion had been that Defiance and the other classes of her era were being built to fight Core Powers—and Core Power sensors found even the latest iterations of Imperial stealth technology laughable.
Against a random group of pirates on the edge of nowhere, though, Morgan was regretting that decision.
“How good is it?” she asked bluntly.
“Tests suggest the shuttles will remain invisible to our scanners to ranges as close as half a million kilometers, if we reduce velocity,” Vichy told her. “Assuming the pirates are limited to something comparable to the satellites the expedition started with, we should be able to land without being detected.”
He shrugged.
“Of course, once we are on the ground, we are extremely vulnerable to orbital fire,” he noted. “We would require Defiance to secure the orbitals as rapidly as possible.”
“If you can get boots on the ground and protect the prisoners, Defiance can deal with whatever’s in space and send in the rest of your Marines,” Morgan replied. “It’s your people taking the risk, Battalion Commander. If we’re trying to be subtle about it, we’re launching you from at least five or six light-minutes away.
“That’s a long time for something to go wrong.”
Including landing, Morgan eyeballed it at fifteen to twenty minutes. Defiance’s hyperspace missiles, her longest-ranged weapons, only had a range of three light-minutes.
“It is, but we have no choice, do we?” He smiled. “Au-delà du possible.”
Beyond the possible. A French paratrooper’s motto, of course.
“Then the Marines lead the way, Battalion Commander,” Morgan confirmed. “We’ll be as close behind you as we can, but you’re looking at almost ten minutes before we’re in orbit once the rocket goes up.”
“And three until you’re in HSM range,” he pointed out. “If my Marines are wiped out in three minutes, Captain Casimir, I will have very strong words for God.”
Even from Defiance’s bridge, Morgan could have almost missed the shuttles slipping away. She was specifically watching through some of their more standard sensors as they were supposed to be launching, and the stealthed shuttles were barely a blip even on the tachyon scanners.
They were still a blip and she could have tracked and targeted them, but she had a lot less data on what she was looking at than she was used to. It was still clear to her scanners that she was looking at six small craft heading away from Defiance at half the speed of light, but it was vaguer than she’d have expected.
“I think our stealth systems have improved more than we give them credit for,” Rogers said softly. “Most officers I know wouldn’t expect we could conceal a full ship that well, let alone a shuttle.”
“Size of the vessel is at least as large an impact as the size of the generator,” Morgan pointed out. “If you can get the generator small enough, it’s easier to hide a shuttle than a cruiser.”
But Imperial stealth tech had definitely advanced by leaps and bounds over the last ten years. The A!Tol Imperium had chosen to focus on other areas than stealth for their own tech development, working up new power sources, shields and weapons. The new generation of battleships being laid down would finally be based around contained black holes.
They’d been working on that since Morgan had joined the Navy, and she still wasn’t sure she wanted one of them on her ship. She already had a power core at the heart of Defiance that could be fed any matter available to hand and convert it directly to energy with about seventy percent efficiency.
Her understanding was the singularity reactors used a version of that which drew on the black hole’s own mass, creating a near-infinite fuel supply operating with near-perfect efficiency. She still didn’t want a singularity on her ship.
The singularity core advancements came from the same source as the new stealth systems though, and she wondered if the Core Powers that had fought the Mesharom would recognize the devices shielding her shuttles.
That was classified under the Fallen Dragon Protocol. She was the only person on Defiance cleared to know that they were reverse-engineering Mesharom technology, and that was only because they couldn’t hide it from the woman who’d retrieved the tech database they were using.
“It’s been a decade of change,” she finally conceded to her First Sword. “We got our first stealth systems from the Kanzi, and they sucked. We stole Taljzi systems during the occupation, and we’ve been working on them since. Still…” She shrugged. “I wonder if the argument over whether Defiance and her sisters should have a stealth field should have gone the other way.”
“Sir, we are two minutes from the logical point we’d enter hyperspace,” El-Amin told her. “What do we do?”
“Bring us to a halt, Commander,” Morgan ordered. “We’ll wait here for a moment. If they get Dr. Dunst on the line again, I’m sure I can keep everyone talking long enough to let Commander Vichy land his shuttles.”
“What does au-delà du possible even m
ean?” Rogers asked grumpily. “Prissy Frenchman can’t even brag in English.”
“‘Beyond the possible,’” Morgan told her First Sword. “Motto of one of the French Army’s parachute regiments; I don’t know which one off the top of my head. One of the ones that survived into the Franco-German Army. His family traditionally served in the Army before the Annexation.”
“Huh. I like it,” Rogers admitted. “Wait, you speak French?”
“My honorary uncle was Admiral Jean Villeneuve, who was French to his bones,” Morgan reminded Rogers. “I speak French fluently. I’m just not going to give Vichy the satisfaction of admitting that.”
She’d learned French to please her “Uncle Jean.” She’d learned Cantonese, Japanese and Korean because she’d grown up in Hong Kong. Everything outside those four and English she’d need translator earbuds for, but tradition made the working language of a human-crewed Imperial ship English.
Tradition, it seemed, that hadn’t made an impact on Vichy.
“We’ve completely lost track of the shuttles, sir,” Nguyen reported. “They were reducing velocity as they crossed the half-light-minute mark. Estimated landing time is four minutes from…now.”
Chapter Nine
Despite his understanding of the system and his confident front to Defiance’s senior officers, Pierre was honestly surprised when his shuttle hit atmosphere without even being shot at.
“Did we pick up anything in the atmosphere?” he asked his pilot. “We can still send a pulse back to Defiance.”
“I don’t know about the Navy, but I find the fact that I didn’t see anything suspicious,” the pilot told him.
“Oui. C’est pas bon.” Pierre shook his head. “Nothing at all?”
“The expedition’s satellites are gone and there’s nothing in orbit to replace them,” the woman confirmed. “I’m gonna guess the pirates are parked on the surface.”
“We find out in moments,” Pierre noted. “Stand by the weapons, Marine. I believe we can disable a sitting duck before it launches.”
Their weapons were designed to disable civilian ships in space. He was quite certain they could disable a ship parked on a planet, regardless of its defenses.
“Horizon on the target in five. Stand by.”
It was the moment of truth. This particular version of the stealth field was effective enough in an atmosphere, but it wasn’t going to conceal the wake pattern of six shuttlecraft flying at several thousand kilometers an hour.
Pierre gave the pilot a firm nod then put on his helmet and returned to the main cargo bay.
“Marines, there are Imperial citizens on the ground,” he reminded them all. “We don’t have reliable target identification as to who is and isn’t hostile. Stunners first, plasma second. Prisoners are almost as handy as rescued hostages, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oorah!”
That particular Americanism, it seemed, was unavoidable with Marines. Pierre wasn’t a fan of it, but he was a fan of the enthusiasm it showed.
He checked the charge on his suit’s stunners and accepted a plasma rifle from Company Commander Comtois.
“Ready, Comtois?” he asked.
“We’re out of time for that question,” the other officer told him. “I make it twenty seconds to the ground.”
“Agreed. So, we must be ready.”
Comtois’s response was cut off by the bottom dropping out of Pierre’s stomach.
“Sorry, team, it appears our unexpected infection brought along some antiaircraft guns and is finally awake,” the pilot replied. “Please…hold on.”
There was an audible crack as the shuttle’s shields collided with something, presumably a tree. How low had the pilot taken them?
“Mon dieu,” Pierre murmured to himself as he brought the external cameras up. They were among the trees, and only the size and separation of the local arboreal life had kept them to a handful of impacts.
Blinking lights ahead announced their destination, and he inhaled sharply and steadied his grip.
“Ready,” he barked, as unnecessarily as his querying Comtois. His Marines were his Marines. They would no more be unready than he would go unshaven.
The shuttles were still invisible as they tore into the encampment, opening their bays and dropping power-armored Marines as they went. Pierre and his command platoon dropped next to what had appeared to be a motor pool of some kind, covered in multiple sheets of plain tarpaulin.
“Not a motor pool,” he observed as he turned to see what was under the rough cover. “We have found the prisoners. Alpha Company, perimeter around the cages. Bravo-Five, the com tower, if you please.”
Six shuttles meant he’d only brought one of Bravo’s platoons. So, of course, he’d brought Bravo-Five under Speaker Lebeau, Both his most experienced platoon commander and another Frenchman.
Sort of. He had a good French family name, anyway.
Even through the suit, he could feel stun fields sweeping the site. Most of the prisoners in the cells were unconscious, which was probably the safest state for them. Their guards, all in a uniform strange black robe-like garment, were less disabled.
Plasma fire started to respond to the stunners, and Pierre was watching everything take shape. He took a shot with his own rifle as he picked out a shooter, a cloaked pirate who had definitely been hit with a stunner.
“Those cloaks are stun-proofed,” Comtois reported as Pierre realized it himself. “Prisoners are contained and stunned. Our hostage-takers are not.”
“If stunners won’t work, that’s why we carried plasma guns,” Pierre replied. “Neutralize them, Marines. We know that Dr. Dunst, at least, is in the tower. We need him alive. Speaker Lebeau—bring him home.”
The invisible sweeps of stunfields faded now, and his Marines were returning fire with the precision of the elite soldiers they were. The cloaked defenders were well equipped and determined…but they were not elite soldiers.
Pierre spotted one popping out of cover to try to line a shot up on Comtois and calmly shot the being down. He stepped over and pulled the cloak off the corpse. The hard red face of an Ivida stared blankly up at him.
“All Imperials still,” he muttered. “Comtois, are the prisoners secure?”
“The prison compound is under our control,” his subordinate confirmed. “There were only a few cloaks moving around; I think the rest are either in the barracks or in the tower.”
“What about the dig site itself?” Pierre asked, gesturing toward the set of tents around the edge of the city. He could barely make out the buildings amidst the trees, but the trees didn’t conceal everything.
“Possible. I’ll detach two platoons to sweep the dig site and the barracks. What about the com tower?”
“It isn’t big enough for Lebeau’s people, let alone reinforcements,” Pierre admitted as he turned to study the prefab structure. “Let’s hope this was most of them. It’s possible there were only a few people down here.”
“If that’s the case, sir, we may have another problem. There’s no ship down here.”
Pierre grimaced.
“Get a pulse out to Defiance,” he ordered. “It’s possible that the ship we encountered was the only one that was here, but I doubt it. Casimir needs to watch her back.”
Chapter Ten
“No contacts, no contacts,” Nguyen repeated softly, the words hanging in the deathly quiet of Defiance’s bridge.
“We are three minutes from orbit,” El-Amin added. “Under two light-minutes and closing.” He paused. “Shouldn’t we be seeing something?”
“If there’s anything in space, we’d see it,” Morgan agreed. “Shouldn’t there at least be the expedition satellites?”
“I see a debris field in a decaying orbit that might be one of them,” Nguyen replied. “There is nothing in orbit of Beta, sir. Beta-A orbit is clear as well.”
“Rogers, do we have an update from the Marines?” she asked her First Sword.
“They’ve secured the main c
ompound and what appears to be the primary prison site,” her First Sword told her. “There are no ships, not even shuttles, landed at the site. Hostiles have dug in to the coms tower and are continuing to resist there, and Vichy has Marines sweeping the edge of the dig site itself.”
Everything sounded and looked like the situation was under control, but it didn’t smell right.
“Not even shuttles, huh?” she asked aloud. “And nothing in orbit? If their only ship had left, wouldn’t they have left behind at least a shuttle?”
“I would have,” Rogers agreed. “The moon, sir?”
“Most likely,” Morgan agreed. “Nguyen, move the probe net. I want eyes on the far side of Beta-A ASAP.”
The drones weren’t that much faster than Defiance herself. The cruiser was moving toward the planet at sixty percent of lightspeed, and the drones were moving at seventy-five percent.
Even their sublight missiles could only move at eighty-five percent, which seemed to be a hard cap for the interface drive. “Long-range” combat was a question of light-minutes, and the main problem was still often getting into range of an opponent that didn’t want to fight you.
“I’ll have eyes in thirty seconds,” Nguyen reported. “Three drones are already en route; I’m adjusting the pattern to send six.”
They were now well within range of every long-range weapon known to Morgan. Her hyperspace missiles had a range of five light-minutes. Her sublight interface-drive missiles had a range of two.
Her shorter-ranged weapons were much shorter-ranged, with both her plasma lances and her hyperfold cannons maxing out at fifteen light-seconds. The Imperium had designs for even more powerful weapons than those two—but those guns had a range of less than a light-second.
As the Imperial Navy had demonstrated again and again in the Taljzi Campaigns, no modern warship was going to let an enemy they knew had a disrupter inside that range.
Relics of Eternity (Duchy of Terra Book 7) Page 6