Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4)

by Joel Shepherd

  The parren in the cars all saw, and said nothing. Parren never would, so Lisbeth said it for them. “Oh shit.”

  Their driver maxed the power, the cars ahead fishtailing a little as they accelerated to unsafe speed. Lisbeth spun to stare out the rear window, and saw the Domesh shuttle rising higher and turning, all big lights now pointing away from the temple, and straight at the departing three cars. Lisbeth had flown front-seat in Phoenix assault shuttles — much smaller and more agile machines than this troop-carrying monster. No doubt it had firepower to match… but would it use anything heavy within the Kunadeen grounds?

  Heavy red tracer fire fell like rain, and all the view of pavings before and about disappeared in a hail of bullets, and the most awful thundering roar of impacts. Cars evaded, and Lisbeth realised she was about to die… except that the fire suddenly stopped. The driver fought for control as he hurtled through clouds of pulverised paving, then slammed on the brakes when he saw something wrong — a car spun out in a cloud of tire smoke.

  Lisbeth stared back again, as a huge flash lit up the night, and saw the shuttle falling in a giant ball of flame, struck by multiple missiles from somewhere ahead. It hit the pavings before the Domesh Temple with a crash, partly hidden behind the trees of intervening gardens, and burned among the running soldiers. Some outgoing fire leaped from the temple’s base, aimed at whatever had destroyed the shuttle, and return fire came back, fearsomely more powerful.

  Lisbeth’s driver powered quickly to the side of the halted car, as did the second car. Doors were thrown open, and she could see the halted car had taken multiple hits, big holes through its soft skin, peeling the steel like paper. One of the unbroken windows was spattered red where high velocity rounds had turned at least one occupant to a bloody smear. But here from an open door strode Gesul, robe swept over one shoulder in unhurried disdain of the inconvenience. Red tracer rounds leaped and streaked across the temples behind, and bounded into the night sky from crazy ricochets. Gesul climbed into the front seat, as the guard there squeezed beside the driver.

  “Kimran and Tobeth are dead,” Gesul informed them, as the door slammed, and both remaining cars accelerated once more, the other car holding the two surviving guards. “That missile was a present courtesy of Tobenrah. He sees that we could be trouble for Aristan, and so he helps us escape. No doubt he will ask a reciprocal favour in return, should we live that long.” He turned, and glanced at Lisbeth in the rear seat, squeezed between Timoshene and Semaya. “Lisbeth Debogande. Is your protector friend still with you?”

  “I imagine so,” Lisbeth said shakily. She’d been nearly killed so many times just now, her brain had somehow stopped processing the individual instances of fear. Now she just felt dazed, and incredulous. “Usually I only know that he’s around when someone tries to kill me.”

  “Well,” said Gesul, facing forward once more. “We may find that out shortly. Aristan’s people guard our shuttles at the spaceport. Tobenrah may do us another favour with them, but on this I cannot guarantee.”

  9

  Phoenix came out of jump an hour after Aristan’s forces. They held V and hurtled toward Pashan and Cephilae at a considerable portion of light, passing through the outward-bound com signals of what had already happened ahead of them.

  The vessel that had been damaged en-route to Brehn System had not yet rejoined them, and so it was with six ships that the Domesh Fleet struck into Cason System. Phoenix saw one diverted for a high-V pass on a fifty-degree offset run toward the star to guard the route from a prominent jump-point to Tarimal System on the far side — Tarimal being the capital system of the entire Dofed Cluster, where all the system’s warships were based. Another two went chasing a Tarimal System militia vessel that had been orbiting Cephilae, and gone running when the Domesh ships entered the system. The remaining three headed for an approach to Cephilae orbit, where the small, zero-G ground-service station made plaintive queries as to the intentions of the new arrivals.

  That station had several small insystem runners attached, no more than a ten-person crew for each. More troublingly, a second Tarimal System militia vessel remained in independent low orbit, apparently shielding a deployment of marines to the surface below. A training mission, Shilu informed Erik, after some minutes spent listening to coms traffic. Cephilae’s atmosphere was not hospitable, but not utterly hostile either — a good spot for inexperienced marines to practise surface deployments in an atmosphere more forgiving of mistakes than some. It was good procedure, at a very unfortunate time, for them at least.

  “That’s a middle-range cruiser,” said Shahaim after some long moments studying the feed that came back from Aristan’s forward ships. None of them were familiar with parren ship classes, but if anyone could discern a warship’s capabilities simply by studying its outline, and judging the proportion of engines to crew compartment and Midships, Suli Shahaim could. “It’s probably outclassed by any one of Aristan’s ships, let alone by us. Only big enough to hold two deployable shuttles, I’d guess they’ve only got marines enough to fill one, while keeping the second empty in reserve. It’s got engines enough to have run if it chose, but they’ve got marines on the surface. Looks like they didn’t want to leave them stranded.”

  “Brave of them,” said Geish.

  “Brave and stupid,” said Kaspowitz. “Marines are made to be left behind for a few days, that’s why they’re marines. Aristan won’t send troops down for a ground fight, and orbital bombardment against surface targets is extreme and ineffective if they get good cover.”

  “Any idea of where on the surface those marines are?” Erik asked.

  “Captain, I’m checking that,” said Shilu. “But their ship’s in low orbit, so there’s no way to tell the grounded location from that, and they don’t have a drone up at geostationary, it looks like they were using that station for coms relay. Aristan’s ships don’t know, and those coms signals aren’t directional enough to tell.”

  “If they’re smart they’ll stop transmitting,” said Shahaim. “Their best bet is to hide and cover. They’ll have plenty of air and food, they just have to hide their shuttle… the surface has lakes and caves, they can hold out indefinitely. That outbound cruiser will jump in another half-hour, and it’ll be back in three days, tops, with plenty of help. It looks like it’s heading to Tarimal System, where the Dofed Cluster Fleet is. We all need to be gone by then.”

  “I want up-to-date topography on Cephilae as soon as possible,” Erik told them. “I don’t care how you get it, if you have to hack that station’s database or whatever. We know where we think the data-core is, but I want some other records to compare ours to, before we start our own geoscan. Anything to shorten the amount of time we have to spend here, so we can eliminate some possibilities upfront.”

  Recent topographical maps of Cephilae had been frustratingly hard to come by, in Brehn System. All ships, and thus all stations they docked with, were theoretically supposed to share up-to-date information about planets and shipping lanes, but parren were very good at censoring information they deemed sensitive. Pashan and Cephilae were very minor worlds in a House Fortitude Sectoral administration, and the various divisions of parren government simply did not share very much. What they had been able to find had been several thousand years out of date, and unable to portray the changing climate wrought by a warming sun. Engineering had run simulations, but even Styx-assisted simulations were lacking too many data-points to yield anything beyond guesswork. Thus far, they’d been able to narrow down the possible location of the data-core to thirty-one locations. Within the first few hours of orbit, Erik wanted to narrow that to less than ten. They had to have marines deployed on the surface within the first rotation, or the recovery itself could push them into the return-time for the House Fortitude Fleet from Tarimal System. When they came, they’d have dozens of ships, and would be very, very angry. House Fortitude, unlike House Harmony, had a reputation for letting their feelings show.

  It did not take l
ong to reach the entry-point to Cephilae’s orbit, which at these velocities involved a truly hair-raising loss of energy, cycling into hyperspace and back, right where the gravity slope strengthened to the point it became dangerous to do so. Phoenix lost sight of the still-orbiting House Fortitude cruiser, and its new Domesh escort, when they passed onto the far side of the moon. But twenty minutes later they were back, and the two Domesh ships were very close, within fifty kilometres, in higher parallel-orbit that trapped the Fortitude ship against the planet’s atmosphere.

  “They’re not making any threatening moves,” Geish observed. “No active scan, no weapons, nothing. It looks like lasercom though, they’re talking in private.”

  “Prepare for six-minute-plus burn for orbital entry,” Erik told them all, watching those trajectories line up with satisfying precision on his screens and glasses. Like a 3D physics equation, where matching the dots felt as addictive as popping bubble wrap. “Commencing in seventy-five seconds.”

  “Captain,” said Shilu, “we’re getting directional query from that station, they don’t want Aristan to hear. They’re asking what the hell is going on, sound pretty scared.”

  “I don’t blame them,” Shahaim murmured.

  “Coms, do we have that polar coms satellite yet?” Erik asked instead. This was the most intense concentration he’d ever known, juggling trajectories, tactics, communications and a dozen other factors all at once. It was exhilarating, especially with this much power at his fingertips, and he nearly forgot to feel alarmed by the possibilities.

  “I’m working on it Captain,” said Shilu. “The encryption’s tight, they’re not letting us in easy.”

  “Styx,” said Erik without hesitation. “I want access to that satellite, don’t care how you get it.”

  “Yes Captain,” said Styx, and Erik spared a glance at the Operations screen on his right — all three combat shuttles primed and loaded, three platoons on board and awaiting their respective marks. Erik knew that Suli was displeased that he’d used Styx, but the polar satellite gave coms and scan feed from the far side of the planet Pashan. Without it, they had a blind spot. Normally he’d deploy a drone to serve the purpose, but Phoenix had to maintain the appearance of trusting their ‘allies’, who insisted that their various feeds were enough. But those feeds could be doctored, and Erik needed a direct feed of his own that he could trust.

  “Second query from the station,” said Shilu. “Captain, I can lasercom the station if you’d like.” And added, as his screens blinked new data, “Captain, I now have secure the polar satellite. The encryption’s new.” Alien, that meant. Drysine, more specifically. “Captain, I’m now getting a query from Toristan, registering strange satellite activity, wondering if it was us.” Shilu’s hands were flying, juggling so much activity, and Erik again reconsidered the need for another Coms officer.

  “They know,” Suli observed. “They’re alert to anything Styx might do.”

  “Captain,” said Styx, “there was no other way to acquire that feed.”

  “Orbital burn in ten,” Erik told them, swinging Phoenix sideways to line up the mains on the course Kaspowitz fixed for him. Klaxons would be ringing through the ship, warning the crew of impending manoeuvres, but the cylinder had gone zero-G before jump and not resumed after it, so no one was unsecured. “We will peak at two-point-eight-G, five seconds.”

  He hit thrust, and the mains roared with a thunder through the ship — little more than a tap compared to the steel-bending power those engines could generate, but enough to slam everyone back.

  “I’m getting some good reception on geoscan,” said Jiri from Scan Two. With Geish covering the big tactical stuff at Scan One, surveying the moon’s surface fell to Jiri. “I’m starting the sweep, full power.” Phoenix had a very powerful active-scan suite, but bouncing high-energy signals off a distant surface made them the sittingest duck in the system. Even the dumbest of homing missiles or half-decent armscomps could line up a shot on something that screamed ‘hit me!’ to everyone within a half-million kilometres.

  “Scan,” Erik asked, “what’s the likelihood a lasercom to station will be seen by Aristan’s ships?”

  “At this distance to moon and planet we’ve got glare off the atmospheres,” Geish said confidently. “Almost no chance.”

  “It’s a big chance to take though,” Suli cautioned. “If Aristan catches us talking to them…”

  “I know,” said Erik. “Tell them to be quiet and careful, and we intend no harm. That’s it.”

  “Aye Captain,” said Shilu.

  Erik had no time to explain his thinking to Suli now, but then he bet he didn’t need to. She warned him because that was her job, to present him with options he needed to consider. But if Aristan screwed them, and Fortitude were furious at them, then even if they survived, they’d be stuck in parren space with no friends at all. At least this way someone in Fortitude might get the idea that Phoenix were only cooperating with Aristan under duress, which might gain them one less enemy in the long run… if one were very optimistic, and the local Fortitude administration were extremely forgiving.

  Burning through the course-to-orbit, and barely noticing the relatively light 2.8 Gs, he found himself examining the tactical display and thinking cold, deadly thoughts. Two Domesh ships in orbit escorting the Fortitude cruiser, and one more in high geostationary… that high ship was a problem, making cover up the gravity slope and ready to intercept anything coming from deeper down. But at a lower orbit, Phoenix would be farside of Cephilae frequently, and out of line-of-sight. The other two cruisers were preoccupied with their low-orbit prisoner, and as their relative positions stood now, Erik was confident Phoenix would win a fight against them pretty comfortably.

  Hit them now, while they had the advantage? No, they were hunting an artefact placed by Drakhil, and whatever Aristan’s failings where Drakhil was concerned, he still knew a heck of a lot more about the man than any human did… and more than Styx, who despite having met him, did not trust her comprehension of any organic being’s thought process. Parren expertise could still be useful, particularly Domesh expertise. Plus, if the search took longer than they hoped, or the local Fortitude administration sent reinforcements more quickly, they’d need help to make a fighting withdrawal in good order. Added to which, of course, they still had no actual proof that Aristan was going to betray them, just a very strong suspicion.

  And there was Lisbeth. Erik knew that he simply could not spend time self-analysing his decision on this, and wondering to what degree his reluctance to stab Aristan’s back before Aristan stabbed theirs was based on his fear for what would happen to Lisbeth if he did. He only knew that for the moment, the timing did not feel right. But as he waited, those two cruisers off chasing the escaping Fortitude cruiser toward jump would return, and then the odds would swing way back in the other direction…

  “General transmission from the Fortitude cruiser,” said Shilu, and put the translator on coms.

  “Hello station and human warship. We are at Cephilae conducting training operations for our marines. This is the Jusica-affirmed territory of House Fortitude, and this Domesh fool is in violation and about to start a war. We are assuming an unthreatening posture, we have troops on the ground, we request only honourable treatment given our disadvantage. Please seek reason. Starship Cobana out.”

  “Got some balls,” Suli observed.

  “They’re House Fortitude,” said Erik. “Balls come with the psychology. No reply, we can’t risk it, he’s too close to the others. Burn will end in two-point-five minutes…”

  “He just fired!” said Geish in alarm. “Toristan and Deara just fired… the target is running, full burn and return fire.” Erik saw the flash on Scan… the Fortitude cruiser was simply too close and too outgunned to stand a chance. “Multiple hits. Captain, I’ve got secondaries. That’s the ammo cooking off… he’s gone.”

  “Motherfucker,” Kaspowitz muttered into the bridge’s momentary silence. No one w
as particularly surprised, but cold-blooded murder demanded at least a perfunctory shock, and silence. “Captain, laying in now for possible intercept on survivors.”

  “Copy that Nav,” said Erik as those figures flashed across his screen. “Scan, we’re going to pass within a thousand of that debris in… about four minutes, get me a full scan and see if there’s any chance of survivors.”

  “Aye Captain,” said Geish. From Arms One and Two, Karle and Harris were aligning a counter-barrage that would completely destroy both Aristan’s ship, and his friend. Not yet, Erik thought grimly.

  “If we go after survivors, we piss Aristan off and gain little,” Suli told him. “And we need those shuttles ready for descent.”

  “We won’t have anything to descend to until we’ve got a fix on the data-core’s location,” Kaspowitz retorted. “We can spare a shuttle.”

  “Best to send a decoy early,” Suli replied, unruffled by the Nav Officer’s rough tone. “We can’t wait until we have a firm location on the data-core.”

  “We can spare a shuttle,” Kaspowitz insisted. Kaspowitz was an old-school spacer, and didn’t like leaving anyone behind, of whatever species. Enemies in a war were one thing, but victims of misfortune had to always be attended. Misfortunes didn’t get more unfortunate than the crew of Cobana.

  Scan showed both Domesh cruisers firing engines and thrusting toward higher orbit. “Well,” said Erik, “they’ve both acquired for themselves some tactical mobility, now they don’t have to escort a prisoner. I think that lets us know the kind of minds we’re dealing with.”