Tour of Duty: Stories and Provocation

by Michael Z. Williamson

  Jan had little to do until his departure. He spent it moping, getting angry, and finally beating on the combat practice dummy for hours, twisting in microgravity. When Meka called him over to explain the gear, he was more than eager to just get things over with.

  She showed him the mass of gear and began to go through it. He checked everything off with her. Weapons and gear needed little explanation. He was familiar with the technical details of her maneuvering harness and the munitions fuzes even though he’d never used them. The briefing would be far too short a distraction.

  “We’ll synch our chronos,” Meka said.

  “Goddess, don’t give me a clock,” Jan begged, shaking his head. “If I have to watch it count down, I’ll be a basket case. Just put me there with some stuff to read and let me go.” He spoke loudly, eyes wide, because the stress was getting to him.

  “You need one in case the auto system fails,” Meka said. “You’re getting a triple load of ammo. It seems unlikely, but if anyone shows up to stop you—”

  “Then I hold them off as long as I can.”

  “Right,” Meka agreed.

  Costlow showed the plotted course in a 3D, and asked, “We let you off here. Are you sure you can maneuver well enough for that distance?”

  Shrugging, Jan replied, “End result is the same for me either way, but I’m sure. I do a lot of EVA. Unlike some people, I like it.”

  “Bite me, Bro,” Meka replied and laughed, too loud from stress. She had always hated long EVA, and that’s what this was. She was assembling a pile of gear including her powered sled, two oxy bottles, the basic demolition blocks from everyone’s standard gear plus her own larger pack, weapons and stuff the others wouldn’t recognize. Her actions were trained, expert, and only a little shaky from tension. She’d done long trips in the dark before, and survived, but that didn’t make it fun. She had her sled for this one, Jan was making a far shorter infiltration, and the boat wasn’t her concern. She prepped everything, had Jan and Jemayel double check, and went through exercises to calm herself. Those didn’t work for Jan.

  With less than four hours until his departure, Jan sat staring at the bulkhead of the day cabin. His bunk was folded, and his few effects sealed in a locker. He’d recorded a message and written instructions, all of which made things rather final. He didn’t feel thoroughly terrified yet, but did feel rather numb. Rest was impossible. He nodded briefly to Sarendy as she swam in, and tried not to dwell on her. It was all too easy to think of justifications to break the fraternization ban. He didn’t need rejection or complications now, and the sympathy ploy was the only approach he could think of. It wouldn’t work, as she was in the same boat as he, quite literally.

  “Come back here,” she said, gesturing with a hand. She turned and swam for her intel bay.

  As he followed her in, she closed the hatch and dogged it. The bay was dimly lit by one emergency lamp, there being no need for its use at this time, and there was just enough room for the two of them inside the radius of couches and terminals set against the shell. While his brain tried to shift gears, she grabbed him by the shoulders and mashed her mouth against his while reaching to open her shipsuit. Both their hands fumbled for a few seconds, then his stopped and drew back while hers continued questing.

  “Mehlnee,” he muttered around her kiss. She drew her full lips back a bare few millimeters, and he continued, “I appreciate this . . . but it won’t help me deal with . . . this.”

  “It helps me,” she replied, voice breathy, and wrapped herself more tightly around him. Her lips danced over his throat and he decided not to argue with her logic. His hands were on the sinuous curves of her golden-skinned hips, and long-held fantasies solidified into reality. Frantic, unrequited lust made thought impossible, and that was a good thing right then.

  Jan was first out. He doffed his shipsuit and donned his hard vacsuit, intended for short duration EVA maintenance and not the best for this mission. It was what he had, though. Meka’s assault harness fit snugly over it and would provide thrust. Three bottles rode his back, two oxy-helium, one nitrogen for the harness. His rifle and clips were along the right bottle, and his comm on his wrist, programmed with everything he needed. Strapped to his chest was a large, bulky pack with over twenty kilos of modern military hyperexplosive. It would be more than enough for the station in question.

  Melanie and Meka checked him over and helped him into the bay. The other two were busy on the flight deck. Ignoring his sister’s presence, Melanie kissed him hard and deeply. He kissed back, shaking, wanting to leave before the whole situation caused him to go insane. Meka waited until Sarendy was done, then clutched him briefly. “Good luck,” she said.

  “Good hunting,” he replied.

  Behind him he heard, “Oh, I will,” as the hatch closed.

  Jan stared out the open bay into cold black space with cold, bright pinpoints of light. “God and Goddess, I don’t want to do this,” he muttered. His stomach boiled and churned, and he wished he’d filled his water bottle with straight alcohol. Even the double dose of tranquilizers was not enough to keep him calm.

  A light winked once, twice, then a third time, and he jumped out briskly, feeling the harness shove him in a braking maneuver. He was immediately thankful for the suit’s plumbing, and his brain went numb. I’m dead now, was all he could think.

  The station Jan was attacking would note the passage of the anomaly that was the boat as well as it could, and report later. Meka’s target was more complicated. It was crewed, and they would react if they saw her. She’d have to ride her sled for some distance and most of a day, and try to time it for a covert approach. That might be the hardest part of this mission.

  In the maintenance bay, she strapped herself to her sled and had Jemayel check her over. With a final thumbs up and a lingering hug, she turned to her controls and counted seconds down to her launch.

  The boat passed through the volume as stealthed as possible, oriented so the bay opened away from the station’s sensors. There were no emissions, only the operating radiation and a bare hint of the powerplant. Her braking thrust was hidden by the mass of the boat, and should be almost invisible at this distance. That should put her right on top of the station at Earth clock 1130 the next day, when the crew would hopefully be at lunch.

  Once the vibration and heavy gees tapered off, she checked her instruments and took a trank. It would be a long wait, and very eerie in complete silence and blackness.

  And now I’m dead, she thought.

  Sarendy reported when they were outside the known range of the station, and Costlow waited a planned extra hour before bringing up the plant and engines. He wanted to be lost in background noise.

  The thrust built steadily in a rumbling hiss through the frame. Most of the impulse would be used now, with only enough left for margin and maneuvers. That would simplify the approach by minimizing emissions then. The velocity increased to a level the boat had rarely used, and he nodded to his remaining crew as they completed the maneuver. Now they had to wait.

  “Anyone for a game of Chess?” he asked.

  Jan watched for the station. It was a black mass against black space, and he was glad to see it occult stars. He’d been afraid the intel was wrong and he was sailing off into space for nothing. Odd to feel relieved to see the approaching cause of one’s death, he thought. It had been a three-hour trip, and he was hungry. He would stay that way for the next day and a half, because his suit was intended for maintenance EVAs only, not infiltration, and had no way to supply food. So much for the condemned’s last meal. Then, there was the irony that his boat had IDed this particular piece of equipment, which is why it was on the list, and why he was here.

  The occultation grew, and he got ready to maneuver for docking, landing, whatever it was called in this case. He switched on the astrogation controls, adjusted his flight toward it, then braked relative. He was tense, lest the reports be inaccurate and the station blast him with a defense array, but nothing happe
ned. He didn’t overshoot, but did approach obliquely and had to correct for touchdown.

  There was no one and nothing nearby, which was as expected. He snapped a contact patch out, slapped it to the surface, and attached his line. There were no regular padeyes on the unit.

  A short orientation revealed where the power cell was. He planted the standoff over it and slapped it down with another contact patch. When it triggered, the blast would turn a plate of metal beneath it into plasma and punch it through the shell into the power cell. He armed it, and all he had left to do was defend it against what appeared to be nothing, wait until it detonated and die with it. Simple on file. Doing it didn’t seem quite that by the numbers.

  At first, he was terrified of being near the charge. He realized it was silly, as it would kill him anyway, and if it didn’t, suffocation would. He compromised between fear and practicality by hiding over the horizon of the small, angled object. It was a bare three meters across, five meters long, and almost featureless except for a docking clamp inset at one end. Its signals were all burst through a translucent one-way window. He longed to tear into it for the sheer joy of discovering if the intel briefs were correct about this model, but that might give him away. He’d sit and wait.

  He did have emgee, and a suit, and a tether. He decided to rest floating free. The technique had helped him before when stressed. He stared out at the stars and the distant pointy glare of Iota Persei, their star, and fell into a deep sleep, disturbed by odd dreams.

  Meka approached the station gradually. She’d have to leave her sled behind and finish the trip in just her suit to avoid detection. While a bedecked suit would register as maintenance or a refugee with the sensors, the sled would trigger alarms as an approaching threat even if the enemy didn’t have knowledge of the precise design. She made one last correction to her orbit, set the autopilot, pulled the releases, and drifted loose from the frame. Her minuscule lateral velocity should be of negligible effect.

  The sled burped gently away on gas jets rather than engines, and would hopefully never be detectable to the station. It was near 0800 by Earth clock, and another three hours should bring her quite close. That’s when it would become tricky.

  First, she’d have to maneuver with an improvised thruster. Jan had her harness, she had only a nitrogen bottle and a momentary valve. He’d—hopefully—made his approach with power but no navigation. She had the navigation gear in her helmet, but improvised power. The risks they were taking would cause a safety officer to run gibbering in insanity. On the other hand, they were dead either way.

  There was also the substantial risk of the station noting her approach to its crew. They might await her, or send someone to investigate, or shoot her outright. She was betting against the last, but it was just that—a bet. If they met her, it meant a fight. She would win one on one against anybody she faced, but the station might have up to twenty crew. It was effectively a large recon boat with maneuvering engines, and she didn’t relish a fight within.

  Unlike her previous long EVAs, she was relaxed and calm. Perhaps it was experience. Maybe it was the complexity of the task and the associated thought that kept her too busy to worry. Perhaps it was fatalism. As she neared her target, more issues interfered and she dropped all those thoughts.

  There were no obvious signs of disturbance as she approached. That meant that if they did see her for what she was, they were at least holding their fire. She checked her weapon again by touch, and began readying her muscles for a fight. If someone met her, she’d go along peacefully to the airlock, then start smashing things and killing on her way inside.

  Nothing happened. Either the station’s sensors didn’t see her, or they assumed she was performing maintenance and ignored her. It was good to see the intel was accurate, but it still felt odd that her presence wasn’t even reported. Perhaps it was and they were waiting for her. Dammit, no second guessing.

  She was close enough to think about maneuvering now, and there were still no signs of enemy notice. The nitrogen bottle beside her breathing bottle was plumbed into a veritable snakepit of piping Jan had built for her, that ended front and back at shoulders and hips, much like a proper emgee harness. She hoped the improvised controls worked so she wouldn’t have to attempt it by hand. Her record on manual approaches was less than perfect.

  She vented a pulse of gas and the harness worked as planned. Two more short ones brought her to a bare drift. She sent more thoughts of thanks after her brother, who had turned out to be essential to almost every mission she’d fought in this war. His technical skill in every field was simply genius.

  She managed a gentle touchdown on the station hull, letting her legs bend and soak up momentum. She caught her breath, got her bearings, and went straight to work. She had no idea how long she could go unnoticed.

  She placed the prebuilt charges with a rapidity born of years of practice. Each charge was designed to punch a hole into a compartment, hopefully voiding them all and killing the occupants instantly. She danced softly across the hull to avoid noise inside that might give her away, swapping tethers as she went, and planted them precisely with the aid of thoughtfully provided frame numbers. Magnetic boots would have made it easier . . . if the shell had been an iron alloy and if clanking noises didn’t matter.

  She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She pivoted to see a UN spacer in gear, staring at her in surprise.

  Her combat reflexes took over. He was unarmed, meaning he was conducting routine maintenance or inspections. It was possible he wore a camera that was observable inside on a monitor, and he would definitely report her as soon as he recovered from the oddity of the situation. She twisted her right arm to unsling, then pointed her rifle and shot him through the faceplate.

  The eruption of atmosphere and vaporized blood indicated he was dead. She put two more bullets through him to make sure, the effect eerie in the silence. The recoil of the weapon was mild, but with no gravity or atmosphere it started her tumbling. She steadied out with a grasp of her tether, and brought herself back the half meter to the shell. Now what?

  Her pulse hammered and her breath rasped. Despite the massive damage and casualties she’d caused in her career, it was only the second time she’d killed someone directly and up close. She forced her emotions into quiescence and considered the situation. If he’d reported her, she had seconds to deal with it. If not, she had a little longer before he was missed. If she killed the crew early, they might miss a scheduled report and the secrecy of her mission would be compromised. If she waited, they could report her presence. She didn’t see much of a choice.

  Her fingers activated the system through her comm, she paused a second to confirm the readings, and then detonated the charges.

  If the atmosphere gushing from her enemy’s helmet had been impressive, this was awe-inspiring. Brilliant bursts of white were swallowed by fountains of spewing air and debris. The station shook beneath her feet as the hull adjusted to lost pressure. Anyone not in a suit should be dead. Now to hope no report was expected before her mission zero time. It was a long shot, but all she had. And it was unlikely that the omission would be considered more than a minor problem at first.

  Costlow was a first class pilot, but this would strain even his capabilities. The astronautics would take over for evasive maneuvers only. The approach would be manual.

  While there was a timed window for attacks, the closer together they were the better. Any hint of action would alert the enemy and reduce the odds of success for others. He wanted to time this to the second, as much as possible. To avoid detection, he had to rely on passive sensors operated by Sarendy across from him. Passive sensors didn’t give as accurate a picture as active ones, which meant he’d have to correct the timing in flight. As he would approach at a velocity near the maximum physics and Jemayel’s bypassed safeties would allow, that left little time for corrections. He wanted to get inside their weapons’ envelope and right against the skin before they deduced what he was.
That also increased the risk of their particle watch picking him up, assuming him to be an incoming passive threat, and shooting preemptively.

  They were only a few hours from target, and he’d already brought them around in a long loop behind the London’s engines. The emissions from them would mask their approach in ionized scatter. He wondered again just how hard this would have been without Sarendy, Jan and Otte. Sarendy was pulling all her intel from the sensors up to the flight deck and using it to assist in astrogation, and was preparing a counterintel system for use when they were detected, and would utilize the active sensor antennas as offensive transmitters. He hadn’t realized that was even possible, but Sarendy was a witch with sensors, Jan an expert on improvising hardware, and Otte had kept up with both of their orders and put the system together. Amazing. If a crew had ever earned its decorations, this one had.

  “Your turn, Warrant,” Sarendy reminded him.

  Right. Chess. “Um . . . ” He moved his queen, looked at the board with satisfaction, and leaned back. Her rook’s capture of his queen and declaration of checkmate stunned him.

  “Perhaps we should stop now,” he suggested. “I didn’t see that coming and I have no idea what you did. And both my bishops are on white.”

  “They are?” she asked. “So they are. Let’s call it a game.”

  Meka swam through the main corridor, counting bodies with faces reminiscent of dead fish, and checked that every compartment was open to vacuum. Nodding to herself, ignoring the grisly scenes, she made her way to the powerplant and unlimbered the large charge on her chest. In seconds it was armed, placed, and she swam back out to face the outer hatch. Little to do now but wait.