Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture

by Randolph Lalonde

  "All right, it's safe to assume that they know the ship is empty now. They're probably aware that it's a trick. We're crossing the distance to the secondary hangar doors at a jog. Be careful not to fall. If you feel that you're about to slip, call out and try your best to get a grip on something. Mag locks and hull spikes won't work because we're too heavy, so just grab something with your hands. Remain in single file." Jake told them as he clipped his safety line to the man in front of him. "I'm taking the rear."

  "This thing is huge, I barely see a curvature to the hull."

  "You're right, but the surface is irregular. There's probably a lot to trip on if we don't watch our step. Everyone clipped in?"

  All fourteen of the squad members checked in and Jake directed the group to start jogging. He nearly tripped over a hastily repaired reinforcement plate after only a few meters, and made an extra effort to be careful from then on.

  The sounds of the synthetic muscle in his suit ground and squeaked with the rhythmical movement of his legs and arms as he ran at an easily maintained jog. He couldn't help but be reminded of his jogs with Doctor Anderson on the First Light.

  Those polished hallways and smiling crew members were like ancient history. Things had been so different, it was as though they were some holomovie, the man starring, Jonas Valent, seemed so alien. He faced his problems head on and had close friends, confidants he depended on.

  The image atop the statue in the centre of the Triton’s botanical gallery came to mind. It was Jonas and Ayan who were remembered there, a short lived coupling that he secretly envied. Everything seemed simpler in retrospect, even facing his own demons.

  He hadn't even been down to see the monument to the man who was responsible for him coming into being, responsible for everything he had, even his daughter. How was it that he hadn't been to the rear hold to see what remained of the Samson? He wanted to, he'd even ordered all the Samson crew member's footlockers and bunks to be emptied and tagged so they could pick up their personal items.

  Ensuring that the people who served aboard that old converted hauler wasn't a problem or a chore for him. He was always quietly watching, making sure that they were getting on well aboard the Triton. Somehow seeing the remains of the Samson herself was more difficult than keeping tabs on his old crew.

  The list of things he'd been avoiding hadn't escaped noticed. Even speaking to Shamus Frost about his refusal to have the perfectly good foot waiting for him in medical attached was something Jake hadn't gotten around to. Stephanie had tried to get him to go, but that became a matter of pride. He knew that the moment he told Frost in no uncertain terms that he had to do it the old Gunnery Chief would be in medical. Jake had somehow let the simple task slide for two weeks. If it were the only thing, it wouldn't have been much of a problem, but atop everything else it forced him to ask why he was avoiding so many things. They were minor compared to Alice's passing that morning, but as someone who didn't like to walk away from anything, they nagged at him constantly. His already frayed nerves felt like they could burst into flames any second.

  As he carefully jogged around the base of a long antenna he decided that he'd make rebuilding his old ship a priority, as soon as he explained himself to Ayan.

  His reverie was interrupted as one of the squad members called; "Sir! We're taking fire!"

  "Halt and take cover." Jake ordered as he slowed to a stop and turned. At least two people were firing on them from the open airlock of the Jade Whisper. "Everyone wave," he invited.

  Several squad members raised a hand and did as ordered, waving, gesturing wildly for attention, or turning and offering their backsides. "It's right here! Come and get it!" One yelled.

  Captain Valance couldn't help but smile as he watched the more experienced squadron Oz had chosen for the mission enjoy themselves. Most of them knew full well that the suits could take several hits from most energy weapons before sustaining serious damage. The outer armour was made to survive more serious damage of a cosmic origin, and each of them came with a personal shield. "Here's the expensive bit," Jake muttered as he activated the explosive charges distributed along the main supports inside the Jade Whisper. Explosive bursts of air escaped the broad, thirty meter vessel as it began to collapse towards the mooring point and the station beneath it.

  The pair who had been firing at them from the open airlock realized the ship was crushing towards them and leapt. Neither landed gracefully. Their much older suits may have allowed them to survive, but it was unlikely that they fell without injury. It didn't matter for long, however. Large segments of the Jade Whisper’s hull came loose and crashed down on top of the station crew members, burying them under several tons of twisted metal.

  "Let's get going. Who knows what they'll send after us and where it'll come from," Jake said as he turned away from the crumbling wreckage.

  Before long they arrived at the large secondary hangar door. Captain Valance knelt down and took a point blank measurement of the metal with his command unit. It was a meter and a half thick slab of reinforced metal. He shook his head. "Explains why they haven't been able to cut through," he said. "All right, let's get the fusion cutters set up. I need the mini-reactors here and over there. We're going to extend the arms wide enough so the Cold Reaver will have enough space to fly out."

  A green spotlight a meter wide started to dance around Jake. It was a long distance laserlink.

  "Message for you sir," one squad member quipped.

  Jake stood perfectly still so the laserlink could hit him. Finally the light touched his suit and Minh's voice came through his comm loud and clear. "This is Ronin. We have a big problem Hitman."

  "A bigger problem?"

  "Right, much bigger. A command carrier with markings we haven't seen before just arrived with five heavy destroyers and a whole fleet of rescue and construction ships. It looks like they're just about to head through the obscuring field."

  "You're right, that's a bigger problem. Tell the Clever Dream that they're going to be picking us up. We don't have time to cut a whole big enough for the Cold Reaver."

  "Aye, we'll cover you while you get everyone out."

  "Start by taking out their turrets. Good hunting Ronin."

  "My pleasure."

  The communicator closed the channel and Captain Valance turned to the squad leader. "We're making a hole a meter wide. Use both fusion cutters."

  "Aye, Captain."

  "This trip keeps getting more and more expensive," Jake grumbled.

  * * *

  Minh-Chu relayed the message he received from Jake and waited for Oz to review it in the cockpit of his Ramiel fighter. He'd loaded his ship down with as much firepower as he could muster without unbalancing the thrusters. His rate of acceleration and manoeuvrability were effected just enough for him to have to make a few adjustments early on in the flight.

  "All right, I reviewed it. I'm surprised they can jam their comms with them standing outside the station though." Oz told him from the bridge.

  "I don't know how it works, my comms jam up when I come within fifty meters of the hull. It's like they're using the frame of the station to transmit a low powered jamming signal. Speaking of the station, my squad will move on and take out those big cannons. If we come around so we're skimming along the station's hull there's no way they'll fire at us. There's too much risk of them hitting their own assets."

  "Hold off on that. I'm going to try to hold off these people diplomatically. Maybe there's something I can do to get us out of this."

  "Gooood luuuuck," Minh sang back. "From the scans our spotter outside the barrier took it looks like they came here expecting trouble."

  "And we took care of the raiders for them."

  "There's that. I'll be out here, ready to go if you need me," Minh said as he took his fighter into a tight roll and looked down at the nearest cannon mount. It was over fifty three hundred kilometres away, slowly rotating back and forth.

  * * *

  Terry Ozark McPatrick
stood in front of the command seating as the image of the Caran Enterprises control Ship Ellis Commander appeared. At first he thought it was the intentionally squared graphical representation of an artificial intelligence, then he realized that the Captain's image was rendered roughly to obscure his or her identity. Oz found that insulting, but set his irritation aside. "I'm Commander McPatrick of the Free Ship Triton. We've come to the assistance of Ossimi station and rescued a number of slave crews."

  "I'm the Admiral of this emergency response fleet, you may call me by my rank. We have come to re-assert our claim on this Caran Enterprise interest and require that you leave this space immediately."

  "We're retrieving a number of our people and will require at least half an hour to complete operations."

  "Please state your vessel's business here again?"

  "We responded to a distress call, freed a large slave crew and restored power to a large section of Ossimi station after defeating a number of raiders inside. We're just picking up some of our people and-" Oz was interrupted as the holographic figure disappeared. He looked behind him to Jason and shrugged.

  "They dropped the transmission. I can tell that the relay line they're using to speak through the energy barrier is still active but they're not speaking to us."

  Oz motioned for Jason to move up to the command seats as he sat down. "Do a check on the crew profiles, see if anyone has dealt with Caran Enterprises before."

  "I already did, we don't have anyone aboard who's run into them."

  "Fantastic."

  "Oops, tall, blurry and mysterious is back."

  "Put him through," Oz said, standing up again.

  The vague image of the Admiral reappeared. "The Station Keeper, Foreperson Amanda Dimitri has informed me that you have failed to meet her reasonable demands and your people have cost her the lives of several workers. It's also come to my attention that there is a Galactic Warrant out for this vessel and her crew. Specifically one Captain Jacob Valance, also known as Jonas Valent. I'm instructing you to power down all but essential systems and prepare to be boarded. All compartments are to be opened for scanning, any weapons you have will be secured in arms lockers, your crew will stand at stations for inspections and all senior officers will meet the inspection team at the airlock when they arrive with the command codes for all vessels. Any show of resistance will be met with brute force."

  "Please, give me a moment to begin making arrangements," Oz said as he cut the channel with a tap on his comm unit.

  The Admiral's holographic image disappeared.

  "Ronin," Oz addressed.

  "Here and waiting. How is diplomacy going?"

  "If it looks like any of those turrets are about to take a shot at the Clever Dream, then take them out. Cover them while they pick up our people."

  "That well, huh? I'm on it."

  "Flight Operations, launch the Clever Dream. Tell the commanding officer to deliver this message to Captain Valance; 'We're out of time.'"

  "Yes sir. They're ready and will be off the deck in twenty seconds," Replied Chief Angelo Vercelli from where he stood at the central podium below.

  Oz turned his attention to the tertiary main holographic display on the bridge. It was the control Ship Ellis exterior scan. The vessel was six and a half kilometres long with four main columns that extended upward from a large misshapen base. At a glance he could tell it was built to be a massive, combat ready mobile space station in its own right. The Triton seemed huge, but compared to the Ellis she was completely outclassed.

  What was worse were the five battle cruisers that accompanied her. Their sleek hulls curved around short central structures that contained at least one fighter bay and what appeared to be a considerable arsenal. The thrusters set above the main protective hull segments were disproportionately large, suggesting that the ships were made as much for interception as they were for combat at various ranges. The Triton could take on two of the roughly four hundred meter long ships, but Oz knew five were just too many. His thoughts shifted to the botanical gallery and the families who lived there. The orphans of Pandem came to mind and he shook it off.

  He caught Ashley's dark brown eyes looking at him. She was picking up on his anxiety. Oz flashed a quick grin and nodded to himself. "Time to leave," he muttered as he took the central command chair. "I'm sure Ayan and Jake have things under control on their end."

  Chapter 17

  Run

  Ayan was just hitching back into her combat engineer's tool backpack when the main doors leading further into the station creaked and groaned. The raiders had failed to cut through the thick armoured doors, but they'd managed to leave behind a great deal of damage.

  "Someone's trying to come through from the other side," one of the squad members with them commented.

  "Your grasp of the obvious is astounding," Alaka replied as he started to charge his beam cannon. "Take cover."

  Ayan and the squad scrambled to get behind the heavier crates, taking cover in pairs. She finished securing the last clip of her backpack and took her rifle from Victor. "Thank you."

  "Sticking with white?" he asked, gesturing at the colour of her armour.

  She looked at the mixed coloured crates and the pocked metal floor. There were whole swathes where the floor's coating had been blasted away, leaving the metal bare. "It's better than black for camouflage right now. Besides, it was always my favourite colour."

  "I thought white was a non-colour."

  "Nope, white is a colour, black isn't a colour."

  "I thought black was the presence of all colours."

  "No, you're thinking of painting. If you combine all your paints except for white you sometimes end up with black. In the real world white is the brightest colour, black is the absence of light."

  "Well, that changes everything," Victor smirked.

  "Now you're having a laugh at my expense."

  "Just putting your education to work."

  The deck shuddered as the doors spread open a crack. With an ear splitting scrape and grind the motors managed to draw the meter thick, dense metal doors apart. They were three meters tall, made for transporting major components deeper into the station.

  "Ayan? Is Ayan from the Triton here?" asked a panicky looking bald woman at the front of fifteen mismatched station staff members. They looked around the cargo area warily, some with their hands raised, others in awe at the damage the area had sustained.

  Ayan drew back the faceplate of her armour, leaving the hood up and stepped into the open. "I'm here."

  "I'm Larissa, we spoke on the comm. We're seeking asylum on the Triton. You have to hurry, alarms will be going off now that this door is open and Amanda will know someone's trying to escape."

  "You're prisoners?"

  "We're workers, but after what's happened they'll never let us leave."

  "Yeah, we're prisoners! Can we go now?" added Bradley. "That's what you are if you get paid but never get to leave," he spat at Larissa so harshly she flinched. "Bloody wazzock."

  "We were just leaving," Ayan smiled. It had been a long time since she'd met anyone with such a thick Britannia accent. It was good to hear even though the speaker's dialect was rough. "All right, cover these people. We return to the Cold Reaver at a run," Ayan ordered Alaka.

  Ayan scanned the fifteen newcomers and was surprised to find them unarmed. A few of them had medical kits and bundles of personal items very hastily packed together but other than that they had nothing. They were ready to run, however, and kept up with the group of militia handily.

  "I hate to ask, but who's your sponsor? I've never seen the kind of armour you're wearing," Bradly asked as he fell into step beside her. He clutched a large medical kit to his chest with both arms.

  "Triton is an independent ship. We manufacture our own equipment."

  "Are you originally from Earth? We noticed it was built in the Sol system."

  "No, I can't go into the details just now, but we're not from Earth."

 
; "See? Like I was saying. Pirates," Larissa said to Bradley, who gave her a wide eyed stare. She turned to Ayan with a thin smile; "Not that I look down on it, mind you. Pirates are fine if they're just stopping for supplies or to spend time at the pub."

  "Right now we're just looking for a place to make repairs so we can move on and find an ally. Privateering is more our calling."

  "Against anyone in particular?"

  "The Order of Eden," Ayan answered without an instant's hesitation. "A number of us were on Pandem when they took it."

  "What happened to Pandem?" asked one of the newcomers behind her.

  Ayan's heart began to sink, but she steeled herself against the terrible memories of what happened to the place. "I'm sorry. The virus that made your automated systems go mad here struck there, then the Order of Eden and Regent Galactic stepped in to finish the job."

  "Oh my God, I knew people on Pandem, took my last vacation there. I've never seen a place like it," he said sadly. "What is it like now?"

  "It's better that you remember it as it was."

  "Oh. Any chance anyone from Verona survived? That's where I stayed."

  Alaka dropped back to run along side the fellow, his long, loping steps and great size was intimidating even when he withdrew the plates covering his head to reveal a furred, pointed nose and mournful dark eyes. "I'm sorry. The resort islands were struck first. Few people survived Pandem, my family and I were fortunate."

  "So you fight with the Triton against the people who destroyed your home."

  "Yes, that is the promise."

  "Ayan, look," Victor directed her to look through the hallway window.

  The Triton was positioning itself in front of the station, drifting at speed to cover their escape. The torpedo tubes all along the edges of the hull came to life, the sleek projectiles turning as soon as they were launched towards some obscured foe. "That's a lot of firepower, they must be in some serious trouble."