Recon- the Complete Series

by Rick Partlow

  He paused for a long moment before answering me, but then…

  “No,” he said. “No change in attitude, no active sensors.” Another pause. “Three minutes until ignition.”

  “Are we sure it’s worth it, Munroe?” I blinked at the incongruity of the question and saw on my HUD that it was Bobbi and she was on our private frequency; no one else could hear.

  “What?” I prompted, though I had an idea what she meant.

  “We could disable that ship without boarding her, take her off the table as a threat,” she said. “Are we sure it’s worth the risk to avoid killing Marquette? He’s just a half-crazy war burnout.”

  “And what are we?” I asked her, perhaps a bit more harshly than I should have. I took a breath and softened my tone. “He gave himself up to keep the Cultists from hurting those civilians. He didn’t have to do that.”

  “You’re the boss, Boss.”

  That wasn’t quite the answer I’d been hoping for, but it was as good of a one as I was going to get.

  “Ignition,” Kane announced matter-of-factly…and then the fusion drive slammed us into our seats with five gravities worth of acceleration.

  It wasn’t enough to make me black out, but it sure as hell hurt, especially wearing all that gear. I forced my eyes open so I could watch what happened on the screen; the Nomad was rushing up to match orbits with the Cult lighter, using brute force in trade for time. The enemy ship grew closer with frightening speed, and suddenly I could see the details of her.

  She was an unattractive, bulbous thing, with a slapped-together look shared by most of the makeshift ships in her nebulous class. She had started out as a typical, pre-war cargo hauler designed to ferry supplies within star systems; but a few decades ago, she and many others like her had Teller-Fox warp units installed to let them do the same work in systems without a jumpgate. She’d likely changed hands a dozen times since she’d come off the corporate shipyards, and her latest owner had slapped tons of BiPhase Carbide armor plating over her critical areas and jury-rigged weapons pods onto her flanks, adding to her chubby, ungainly appearance.

  There was nothing amusing at all about the proton cannons she carried in those weapons pods, though, and they were Kane’s first target. The blast of protons from our main gun was mostly invisible in the near-vacuum of high orbit; but the computer simulated it just fine, and I could see the flickering, blue-chased line of white connecting the bow of the Nomad to the lighter’s port-side weapons pod for just a fraction of a second. That was enough. The pod burst in an expanding globe of vaporized metal that sent the ship spinning on its axis through a cloud of gas and fragmented shielding until an automated burn from a maneuvering thruster halted the spin…and made it a target again.

  The second shot took out the other weapons pod, though not as spectacularly; the ship was still braking from its spin and the burst of proton fire only grazed the forward edge of the bulbous protuberance. The explosion was more restrained than the first, but it took out the starboard beam emitter, so it did the job. The response was almost immediate: there was a flash of light from the ship’s drive bell and she began to climb out of her orbit on a star-bright fusion flame.

  “I’m busy, Munroe,” Kane mumbled. “Get the antennae please.”

  I unfolded the weapons’ control joystick on the armrest of my couch and a targeting hologram popped up in front of my station. It controlled the ship’s secondary armament, a heavy Gatling laser concealed in a turret that could retract into what had once been the missile bay. Kane was maneuvering the Nomad around to the rear of the lighter and the g-forces tossing me against my restraints made it difficult to traverse the turret; the targeting reticle was dancing around over the image of the accelerating ship as the Nomad gave chase.

  There was a second where our relative motions were in sync and I lined the crosshairs up on the dish antennae and jammed down the firing stud. Again, the pulses were simulated by the computer and a flashing red line reached out to the dish, blowing it apart in a spray of molten metal and hot gasses. Everything was silent, just the rasp of my own, labored breath in my ears, less real than a ViR game and incredibly impersonal. I was suddenly glad I’d joined the Marines instead of Space Fleet, glad that when I killed someone, I saw them and remembered that they were a sentient being. This was too easy.

  Then we were around the aft end of the lighter, at an angle to its fusion drive, and the proton cannon lashed out again, striking at the juncture of the drive bell and the main body of the ship. The shielding was heavy there, so there was no huge explosion, no massive destruction; but the drive went dark and the ship began drifting forward at the velocity it had built up. Our own acceleration cut off and I found myself back in zero gravity for a moment before I heard the insistent bang of maneuvering thrusters firing and saw the view on the main screen spin around with our ship.

  “Get the point defenses, Munroe,” Kane said. He didn’t have to tell me why; the Gatling laser turrets arrayed around the bridge and docking bay could tear us a new one when we came in to try to board, but taking them out with the proton cannon would blow holes in pressurized sections of the ship and just maybe kill the guy we were trying to rescue.

  Deceleration pushed me back against my seat again, more gently this time, barely two gravities and for maybe a minute, to match velocities with the lighter. The point defense turret around the bridge came into view first and it was already firing on us, but we were coming in drive-bell first and the laser pulses weren’t hitting anything that couldn’t take the abuse. Another bang of maneuvering thrusters and the ship spun halfway around on its axis and our Gatling laser had a clear shot.

  The turret burst apart under a hail of laser fire, and there was a brief flare of flaming atmosphere from a shot that had penetrated the hull near it, but it quickly went out as the emergency systems sealed it with a quick-hardening foam.

  “Docking bay in thirty seconds,” Kane told me.

  “Everyone into position!” I ordered over the general frequency. “Bobbi, get them ready. I’ll be right there.”

  I couldn’t see her with my helmet on and my attention focused on the targeting screen, but I knew she was unstrapping and heading for the utility bay by the tone of the orders she was giving on the general frequency, chivvying the squad into motion. The Nomad wasn’t under thrust, so they wouldn’t have to worry about getting slammed against the bulkhead by a sudden maneuver; Kane was taking it gentle and easy as he brought the boat around to the docking bay nestled under the lighter’s bridge, at the bow of the ship.

  I tensed, waiting for the point-defense laser turret to come into view. It opened up on us before we were even in its firing arc, the long burst of laser pulses passing wide of the stern of the Nomad as we drifted backwards across the front of the docking bay. The fusillade actually began spalling off the exterior of our drive bell before I had the weapons emplacement in my targeting reticle. I was so intent on taking out the turret that I nearly didn’t notice when the assault shuttle rocketed out of the lighter’s hangar, hitting its fusion drive close enough that it actually melted and vaporized a meter-wide section of hull plating just outside the docking bay.

  “Shit!” I hissed, putting a last burst into the turret and seeing the view outside spin around as Kane hit the maneuvering thrusters and turned our nose around to line the proton cannon up with the fleeing shuttle.

  “Can’t get a shot,” the cyborg pilot said. “They’re boosting straight away from us.”

  I could see it on the screens: the shuttle was accelerating straight down into the atmosphere. Oh, they’d have to deviate from that course pretty soon or they’d burn the hell up, but it would get them out of range of our main gun long before that.

  “Dump us in the bay, then go after them,” I told him, yanking the quick-release for my safety restraints and scrambling out of the cockpit with desperate speed. My words were coming out fully automatic, faster than I intended, trying to keep up with my physical movements. “Once y
ou do, contact Bobbi and see if she needs help before you head down to the landing zone.”

  I was out in the passageway and halfway to the utility bay, but I knew he could still hear me as if I were right next to him. “Don’t get blown up, you’re our ride out of here.”

  “Be careful,” he said, a hint of uncharacteristic amusement in his voice. “You get killed, we don’t get paid.”

  Divya, I noted, didn’t say a word.

  The utility bay had an emergency seal that could close it off from the rest of the ship, and I saw Bobbi’s hand hovering over the control as I clomped by her with the awkward stride of magnetic boots in zero gravity. She hit it before I was completely through and I felt more than heard the deep, metallic clunk of the seal sliding home centimeters behind me.

  “Pop it!” I yelled at Victor, who stood next to the controls for the belly ramp.

  He had to hit the emergency override first, just to let the ship’s systems confirm that no, we weren’t suicidal dumbasses and yes, we really did want to vent the atmosphere out into space by opening the ramp in a vacuum. Alarms sounded and lights flashed and I barely noticed because I was pulling on an Extravehicular Maneuvering Unit that had been left floating in the bay for me, tethered to the bulkhead. I’d barely finished fastening the chest straps when the air began rushing out of the compartment, taking with it a few dust bunnies and a ration-bar wrapper.

  “Probably the cleanest this compartment’s been in years,” Bobbi commented dryly, coming up behind me and yanking at the EMU to make sure I was securely strapped into it.

  “Are we up?” I asked, too nervous to be amused.

  There was an antiphonal chorus of affirmation, with Vilberg and Anatoly chiming in a fraction of a second behind the others. The cyborg looked incongruous inside the largest vacuum suit we’d had on board let out as far as it would go, his bionic hands filled with what was nominally a crew-served Gatling laser. It didn’t have weight in microgravity, but it sure as hell had a lot of mass, and none of the rest of us could have handled it.

  “Go, go, go!” I chopped forward with my right hand in concert with the words and Victor led us out of the ship and into open space.

  I watched Sanders follow him, triggering jets of steam from his EMU, and then it was my turn. I disengaged my boot magnets and twisted the left-hand control stick of my maneuvering unit and a surprisingly violent jolt from its steam jets kicked me in the back. The bulkheads of the Nomad spat me out like a watermelon seed, and for a moment that seemed to last for eternity I was suspended alone and terrified in the absolute blackness of the dark side of a deserted world. I felt a shudder run through me along with a very real sense of panic, and I had to fight to keep from squeezing my eyes shut. Then I was across and inside the glow of the lighter’s docking bay and I knew the Cultists could start shooting at me any second, but I felt suddenly and irrationally safe.

  The bay yawned empty, the assault shuttles having left the two docking collars free and all the machinery meant to secure them naked and open. Victor had headed straight for the service lock between the docking collars and was pressing a cracking module over the security plate while Sanders covered him. I twisted my control the opposite direction and felt my shoulder straps bite as the braking jets fired; then I was gently coming up against the side of the lock beside Sanders, fastening the magnets of my right boot to the bulkhead.

  “Victor?” I asked, unlimbering my Gauss rifle. Through the transplas of the lock window I saw only empty passageway, but that could change in a heartbeat.

  “Just a second,” he mumbled, making one last adjustment to the module’s settings.

  Then the outer door slid smoothly aside and the three of us piled in. I saw the others still waiting in the docking bay, guns pointed outward. Trying to squeeze all of us into the airlock at the same time and putting our whole squad into one kill box would have been tactically unsound…not to mention crowded.

  Victor shut the outer door and started the lock cycling. That was going to set off an alarm somewhere, and it was anyone’s guess if they would get there before the inner door opened. I tried not to think about it, just waited with one boot magnet fastened to the deck and watched the status bar across the top of the inner lock travel slowly from the red towards the green.

  “Get ready,” I told Victor and Sanders. “Concussion and smoke.”

  The two men pulled a pair of grenades from their tactical vests, switched off the safeties, and waited. They didn’t have to wait long; the status bar hit full green only seconds later and the inner lock slid aside. It wasn’t even halfway open before Victor and Sanders had tossed their grenades through, one of each in opposite directions. Our helmets blocked out the ear-spitting thunderclaps and the blinding flashes from the concussion grenades, but the smoke was electrostatically charged to disrupt electronic and thermal sensors as well as visual ones and it would blind us as well as the enemy.

  But as Gramps used to say, it rains on the just and the unjust, and we’d just have to deal with it. I squeezed a short burst out of my EMU and rocketed out across the cargo bay, getting just a glimpse of a clear route through the strapped-down crates that were scattered through it like obstacles. There was only one hatchway into the compartment and I needed to secure it before the enemy did. I took the impact on the far bulkhead feet first, leaning around the edge of the hatch…and then jerking back just a fraction of a second ahead of a burst of laser fire that nearly took my head off.

  “Contact!” I snapped out of long-ingrained habit, but Victor and Sanders were already spreading to either side of the door and taking cover behind cargo crates, seeking concealment in the smoke.

  The laser pulses flashed in red traces through the dark, roiling clouds, spalling off the far bulkhead, and I knew I had to shut it down before the others cycled through the lock and walked right into a firefight. I magnetized my right boot sole and attached it to the overhead, then straightened just enough to aim my Gauss rifle down the passageway and cut loose with a half-dozen rounds. The recoil tried to push me back, but I tightened my leg and stomach muscles and leaned into it, using my one foot as an anchor and trying to hit thermal signatures that were being obscured by my own smoke.

  There was a scream of pain that echoed eerily through the passageway, and the laser fire stopped. Suddenly, someone was next to me at the hatch, firing three or four shots of his own; at first, I thought it was Sanders, but then I realized from a glance at the IFF readout in my helmet that it was Vilberg. Bobbi’s team had made it through the lock.

  “Vilberg, Anatoly, go after them!” She ordered. “Don’t give them time to regroup!”

  The two of them flew through the hatchway on jets of steam from their EMU’s and Bobbi was only a half-second behind, jetting past me without a glance backwards.

  “Sanders, find me a life-pod, fast,” I ordered before switching over to Bobbi’s private frequency. “We’ve got to drop,” I transmitted to her. “I told Kane to check on your team after he’s done hunting down that shuttle.”

  “Good luck,” was all she said. I figured she was busy.

  “Boss, over here!” I heard Sanders call. I was about to tell him I couldn’t see where “here” was through the smoke, but he must have thought of that and added, “To your right, if you’re facing the docking bay.”

  I made my way through the cargo bay carefully, following the curve of the bulkhead around until I nearly ran into Sanders, who was busy cranking the manual release wheel of a life-pod. There were three of them lined up abreast, mounted in the hull just starboard of the docking bay, but we’d only need the one.

  I let my rifle retract to my chest on its sling and locked my boots to the floor to help Sanders with the hatch.

  “Victor,” I grunted, putting my back into it and feeling the lock release with a solid clunk. “Get over here and get inside the pod.”

  “I hate these damn things,” the big man complained, tossing aside his EMU before helping us yank the massive hatch aside a
nd then pulling himself into its cramped confines. “Gives me claustrophobia.”

  I didn’t blame him; I felt a tingle of unreasoning apprehension run through my gut as I watched him and Sanders squeeze through the entrance hatch while I unstrapped from my propulsion unit. I tossed the EMU across the cargo bay, then cut loose the magnets in my boots and wormed through the narrow passage, gritting my teeth against the gentle whisper of panic. There were four acceleration couches in the tiny pod, and none of them were built for a man in combat armor, but I did my best to squeeze into the one next to Sanders, then pulled the straps across my chest and locked them down.

  The control panel was in the center of the pod, and it seemed fairly simple and universal. I yanked a lever and the hatch swung shut, locking in place with a metallic finality. The navigation system was basically point-and-shoot, and I guided the targeting circle to the landing spot where we’d seen the other shuttle, then locked it down with a squeeze on the joystick control. I took a deep, shuddering breath and flipped up the safety cover for the ignition switch, revealing the ominous red button beneath.

  “Hold onto your stomachs, gentlemen,” I said with more bravado than I felt. “Here we go.”

  I mashed the button down and we dropped out of the sky.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dawn was breaking and the light of the primary glared at us harshly through the thin atmosphere as we tumbled unsteadily out of the remains of the life-pod. I tried to maintain a watch for threats, but it was all I could do to keep from puking or, alternatively, rolling up into a ball on the rocky ground and taking a long nap. I looked askance at the flapping white nylon of the braking parachute, fluttering slightly in the wind as it flattened itself onto the rough ground. I wasn’t sure why it was there, because it hadn’t done a great job of cushioning our fall. Thank God the gravity here was just a bit over half Earth-normal.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Sanders moaned, limping out of a haze of smoke from the explosive bolts which had separated the halves of the pod. “I’m going to be shitting blood for a week.”