Marine
Page 12
"Damnit, Jacob, you have to listen to me!" Murph had started to raise his sidearm into a defensive posture when Jacob acted. Murph was good, but he wasn't ready for how fast Jacob could launch himself across the bridge. He'd barely brought the pistol halfway up when Jacob slammed into him, knocking the gun away along with his breath. The lieutenant was able to easily slam Murph onto the deck and climb over him, immobilizing his arms.
"You murdering, traitorous piece of shit!" Jacob snarled before driving his fist down into Murph's face, the sergeant still wearing the same astonished expression he had when Jacob had crossed the bridge in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 13
"So… what'd we miss?"
Mettler and Taylor arrived at the same time, leaving MG as the only member of Obsidian still not aboard the Corsair. Jacob had been able to rein in his rage and, rather than kill Murph, had secured him to a seat with restraints he'd found in the armory. Mosler was indeed dead as he'd feared, the loss of his CO hitting him harder than he would have thought given he'd just met the man. Sully was alive, but unconscious. Jacob had carried the lanky pilot to the infirmary and had the automated systems working on him.
"I walked up onto the bridge and saw Murph standing over the captain's body, sidearm still drawn," Jacob said, watching the newcomers carefully. He'd rearmed himself after the fight and was now trusting nobody.
"Wait, what?! Murph fucking killed the captain?" Mettler asked. "Why?"
"I haven't been able to question him," Jacob said. "I knocked him out and he hasn't woken up yet."
"You knocked out Murph?" Taylor sounded skeptical. "You, a squeaky new lieutenant who’s never even been through BRC or AdSOC training managed to take down an armed Sergeant Murphy without getting a scratch on you?"
"I surprised him," Jacob deadpanned.
"Wasn't… me."
"Looks like he's coming around," Mettler said, walking over to Murph. "What?"
"It wasn't…me," Murph struggled to get out.
"It wasn't him." Everyone spun to see who the new voice belonged to, and they saw Sully leaning against the hatchway, holding a cold pack to the side of his head. "It was Scarponi."
"What? Scarponi?" Jacob asked, realizing he hadn't seen the engineer since he'd been back. "What happened, Sully?"
"I gotta sit down before I puke again," Sully said, stumbling over to one of the sensor station seats and collapsing into it. "The med bay computer says I have a mild concussion. Doesn't feel all that mild."
"You saw what happened here?" Jacob pressed.
"Yeah. We were monitoring the inbound traffic when we saw a Clipper-class dropship coming down," Sully said. "Those haven't been used in years, so we knew it wasn't one of the other Scout Fleet teams. We tracked where it landed, and Mosler was about to walk over and check it out himself when all the displays began flashing warnings and the lights started to flicker.
"Next thing I know, Scarponi is standing on the bridge with an old pistol—like an actual fucking pistol, an old semi-auto that shoots bullets—and shoots the captain right in the head." Sully stopped and looked over where Mosler's body was still on the deck, covered with a sheet, and broke down for a moment, tears rolling freely down his cheeks.
"How did you get injured?" Jacob asked gently.
"I was sitting down in the pit." Sully gestured to the pilot's station that was sunken into the deck. "His gun must have jammed, or he didn't want to waste the bullets, because when I turned to get out of my seat, he kicked me in the side of the head with those fuckin' safety-toe boots he wears. That was lights out for me."
"And then I came in after Scarponi was already gone, and about five minutes before you arrived," Murph said. "I knew something was up because the ship was locked up tight when I got here and the codes were scrambled. I had to use an override code I'd gotten from Mosler a while back." Jacob pulled the key for the restraints from his pocket and walked over, releasing Murph by touching the coded key to the mechanism and pushing the button.
"Do you need medical attention, Sergeant?" he asked.
"I'll be okay," Murph said, rubbing his wrists. "You pack a hell of a wallop, LT. Don't worry, no hard feelings. I'd have reacted the same way in your shoes. I'm just glad you had the restraint to not kill me."
"Me too," Jacob said, now feeling guilty for reacting without all the facts. "So, humans on the team that tried to hit us, an obsolete human dropship comes in on top of us after an obsolete class of human starship happens to stumble across the wreckage of the Endurance. I guess we know where they were getting their information from."
"Scarponi was a replacement crew member who had been with us for less than a month before you arrived," Sully said. "We assumed he was NAVSOC, but I'd never seen him before and it's a pretty small community."
"Let's kill the speculation for now," Jacob said. "Murph, I need you to come with me and make a report to Captain Webb. Taylor and Mettler, get the captain into a body bag and in stasis for the ride back home. Sully, if you're up to it, could you start checking over all the Corsair's flight systems?"
"I'll manage," Sully said and waved off Taylor when he tried to help the pilot up.
"Lieutenant, you better have a damn good reason for breaking protocol and contacting me during a mission." Webb's face was a thundercloud on the ultra-high-resolution video link they had via the slip-com node. The faster-than-light communication method wasn't quite instantaneous, but it was close enough that the lag was barely perceptible.
"Commander Mosler is dead, sir," Jacob said without preamble. "He was murdered by Chief Petty Officer Michael Scarponi while my team was on-mission. Our pilot was also injured but will recover. Scarponi is missing, and we believe he may have been working with the Ull and their human collaborators."
"Why is Sergeant Murphy there with you?" Webb asked, seeming to process the news that one of his Scout Fleet captains—and a personal friend—was murdered by one of their own with aplomb.
"Captain, my name is Alonzo Murphy, but it isn't sergeant…it's agent," Murph said. "Special Agent Alonzo Murphy, Naval Intelligence Section. Confirmation code is bravo, zulu, zulu, seven, two."
"Standby while I call this in, Agent Murphy," Webb said and the screen went dark.
"What the fuck, Murph?" Jacob asked.
"Don't worry about it," Murph said. "I was embedded into Scout Fleet long before you came along. I'm an assimilated O-3, but I won't pull rank on you."
"NIS confirms your identity, Agent Murphy," Captain Webb's likeness came back up on the SCIF's massive wall monitor. "They wouldn't divulge your mission, but the ensign who answered the desk said you could tell me at your own discretion."
"Sir, I was assigned with tracking down any potential security threats within Scout Fleet," Murph said. "There have been a number of breaches and, unfortunately, more than one incident like the Endurance attack. Your teams are given a lot of freedom and operate well beyond anywhere the normal Navy does."
"So, NIS has it in their mind that Scout Fleet personnel would have the most opportunity to collaborate with known traitors given they're on such a long leash."
"Correct, sir." Murph bowed his head for a moment before going on. "Captain, I'm sorry about Commander Mosler. I had cleared Scarponi when he was assigned to Obsidian, but it looks like he may have been working with Margaret Jansen's faction. They have been tracking us since we left Terranovus, and I believe he had modified the Corsair's avionics to make it possible to board her without us detecting it."
Jacob had no idea who Margaret Jansen was, so he kept his mouth shut and let the people who knew a lot more than he did to keep talking around him.
"I have his service record right here and… Well, this is troubling," Webb said.
"Yes, sir," Murph said. "Scarponi joined the military well after Jansen's group left and he had no known associations with anybody in the original Terranovus fleet. This confirms NIS's fear that a sympathetic element that still exists within the UEAS is actively recruiting within the r
anks."
"And here I thought you telling me one of my best friends being murdered was the worse news I'd get today," Webb deadpanned. "What about the rest of Obsidian? Are they clear?"
"I have some…questions…about the lieutenant here, but nothing that concerns him being a security risk," Murph said. "The others are all solid."
"And you have Zadra with you?"
"Negative, sir," Jacob spoke up. "She wasn't at the designated location. She contacted us remotely and explained that the ConFed had been sending in teams to get her, so she gave us a way to find her and left the planet. We were able to recover the data cards with her presumed location even after being ambushed by a group of Ull and humans."
"I see," Webb said. "Agent Murphy, would you excuse yourself and allow Lieutenant Brown and I a moment alone. I don't think there's anything more we need from you."
"Yes, sir." Murph climbed out of the seat, squeezed Jacob's shoulder, and exited the SCIF.
"Jacob, we need this Veran brought back alive." Webb leaned forward. "Normally under these circumstances, I'd tell you to sit tight and wait while we send in a recovery team, but I don't think we have that sort of time. There are a lot of interested parties trying to find Zadra, and whoever gets to her first will get the keys to the castle. That might not mean much to some, but for Earth, it's enormous to get access to her information network."
"And since we still have a pilot and my ground team is intact, you want me to take command of this mission and press on," Jacob guessed. "Sir, I feel I have to tell you that I'm really not comfortable with this in light of my completely lack of proper training and experience for this."
"I can't turn this mission over to an NIS agent no matter what his assimilated rank is," Webb said. "Sullivan is an officer, but he's never commanded. That leaves you, the only Scout Fleet officer there with mission command experience, even if it was just one stroll into town where you led your entire team into an obvious ambush."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir," Jacob said, keeping the disrespect out of his voice with effort. "There's really nobody else who can do this?"
"There are only two Scout Fleet teams deployed right now, and the other won't be able to disengage and reposition in time," Webb said. "I could bring in outside contractors, but Zadra is too critical to trust to anybody I might reach out to given the instability within the ConFed right now. They may turn her over to curry favor."
"What if—"
"How about I sweeten the deal?" Webb said. "I hate that I'm being forced to negotiate with a second lieutenant, but you could turn down this mission and there's no way a tribunal would find you at fault for doing so. How about I give you what you want in exchange for you getting me what I need?"
"Sir?"
"This is how important Zadra is," Webb went on. "As unique as you are, I'd trade a hundred of you for just one of her. If you take the Corsair and go recover her, I'll call in some favors and we'll see about getting you a commission into the regular Navy and out of the Marine Corps."
"That sounds too good to be true, sir, no offense." Jacob didn't want to come right out and say the captain was lying.
"It does, but I can make it happen nonetheless." Webbed leaned forward, his eyes intent. "I still have some pull with the policy makers who oversee the UEAS. This wouldn't be an especially difficult task to have you pulled from Scout Fleet and put back on your original career track. It's more or less a personnel issue nobody will even blink at.
"If my generous offer isn't enough for you, perhaps I can appeal to your sense of patriotism…or survival. Earth is a tiny, new power scurrying around the feet of giants that are about to go to war with each other. Access to Zadra's network would allow us to know where and when to dodge once those giants really start stomping around."
"I'll do it if you promise to stop with the mangled metaphors, sir," Jacob sighed. He could protest more, but in the end, he knew he'd wind up doing exactly what Webb wanted, but he'd rather it was on his own terms, not because of being manipulated. "I'll have Sully look at the data cards and once we have our destination, we'll get underway."
"I knew I could count on you." Webb smiled. "Contact me at this node once you have her and not before. Keep off the net until she's secure and the Corsair is heading back to Terranovus. Webb out."
"Fuck me." Jacob reached up and rubbed his eyes, almost not hearing the SCIF hatch open behind him. When he turned, he saw Murph and Sully looking like they had some bad news. "What?"
"The Corsair is dead in the water," Sully said. "Scarponi sabotaged the grav-drive beyond my ability to repair it here in the field. We'd need an engineering team to come out and do a full recalibration on the emitter drivers before she could safely take off again."
"Of course," Jacob groaned. "We’re still being tasked with recovering the Veran. What are our options for getting out of here within the next twelve hours?"
"Steal another ship," Sully laughed. He kept laughing until he saw that the other two weren't. "That's a joke, guys."
"Is it?" Jacob asked. "Tell me, Sully, you think you could pilot one of these alien ships?"
"Of course, I can, but that's not the point."
"Oh, but it is," Murph said, now also smiling. "And this is the perfect world to try something like that on."
"Shit," Sully muttered. "I really hope I don't end up dead on this mission."
"Ready?"
"Ready for what?" Jacob was becoming weary of being treated like a burden. If someone asked him if he was ready one more time he was going to snap.
He and Murph had been walking around the perimeter of the landing pad complex adjacent to the one the Corsair was parked on. Sully was continuing to recover from the blow to the head as well as prepping the Corsair to be abandoned and, possibly, never recovered. They were purging all her navigational records, classified data, and physically destroying some of the ship's more sensitive components.
"Let me cut the bullshit here for a minute. I read your psych profile when you were first identified as a potential recruit for Scout Fleet," Murph said. "While you definitely had the moral flexibility they seem to want, you also have hang-ups when it comes to doing something bad for the greater good."
"You mean I have no problem killing as long as I'm killing for a justifiable reason? Like in the apartment?" Jacob asked.
"In a grossly simplified way, yes, that's what I'm asking. Because what we're about to do now? We're just going to walk up on someone else's ship and take it. If they happen to be there? They'll have to be dealt with, and out here, it isn't wise to leave witnesses or enemies behind."
"So, the question to me is am I willing to commit what would normally be seen as a heinous crime in the service of something more noble, like recovering a vital intelligence asset for my homeworld?" Jacob thought his own question over for a moment. He'd been about to tell Agent Murphy to only worry about himself, but the man did have a point. "I won't freeze up again."
"That's not the same as being comfortable with the violence we're possibly about to inflict on someone just so we can take their shit," Murph pressed.
"Whether I'm good with it or not deep down in my soul is irrelevant," Jacob said. "I'll do my job. How about that one?" He pointed to a sleek, graceful ship with beautiful lines, though it looked like it had seen better days.
"Nah, that's an old Jepsen Aero piece of shit," Murph said when he saw the ship Jacob had gestured to. "The company hasn't even existed for the last thirty years or so, and that one looks in pretty bad shape. A good general rule of thumb: the blockier they look, the newer they probably are. For some reason, a lot of the aerospace firms are getting away from the sleek, swoopy designs like the Jepsens."
"Is knowledge of alien spacecraft design trends part of your NIS training?" Jacob asked.
"Not particularly. I just know a few of the bigger names flying around. For example, that bigger ship near the edge of the ramp is a newish Eshquarian design." Murph pointed with his nose to try and not appear so
obvious. "Sully will have definitely been trained on that type of ship, and it has a slip-drive capable of getting us the hell away from the Reaches in a hurry."
Jacob looked at the ship he was talking about and saw it was about a third of the size of the Corsair. It had a smooth fuselage and the grav-drive emitter nacelles hung off each side of the ship by two pylons each. He couldn't tell if anyone was aboard it or not.
"Looks like it'll be a cramped flight out of here," Jacob said. "Are we sure this is the one?"
"I think so," Murph said, looking around. "The rest of these junkers are either pieced together from other ships or way past their prime. Either way, not something I'd like to trust my life to. We could look at the landing pads closer to the starport terminal where the newer, bigger ships are, but then we're dealing with local security as well as a crew that probably has left their own security behind."
"Sounds like our choices have been narrowed down for us," Jacob said. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the fact that Murph seemed to be steering the ship right now despite Webb clearly stating that Jacob was still in command. Given his inexperience and lack of proper training, however, his hands were tied for the moment. All he knew for certain was that it was difficult to know who he could trust and who was actually who they claimed to be in this outfit.
Chapter 14
"Eshquarian, that's good. Real good. Their control layout is one of the most widely used, so unless that ship belongs to some amorphous blob that had the flightdeck reconfigured, I'll be able to fly it without any problem." Sully was looking over the specs of the model type for the ship Murph wanted to steal.
"Did we find out what was on the data cards yet?" Jacob asked. "Seems pointless to risk stealing a ship without a destination in mind."