by D K Evans
“Begin the attack,” he ordered.
-
Cheng keyed his radio twice as the docking clamp disengaged and he floated free of the carrier’s hull. Those two bursts of static were all the prompting his guys needed to get to work. Like awakening hornets, the swarm of fighters lurched forward and streaked towards their nearest targets. Cheng selected two sentry gun platforms and aligned his ship. Neither installation reacted as he pulverized them with his guns, preferring to save his missiles for more dangerous prey. He carried on flying straight, moving outside of the rings and watching as all around him, his pilots made light work of the surprised Federation defenders.
“My scope looks clear,” Ajax said over the radio, “You see any fighters?”
“Negative,” Cheng replied as he swooped on another turret platform, “Clear for me too.”
The rest of his outfit was mopping up the remaining defenses and shooting up a few hapless patrol craft who had been caught off guard. The path for the strike craft was almost clear. Cheng frowned. Surely it couldn’t be this easy. He looped around and looked up through his fighter’s canopy, searching with his heads-up-display for any sign of some proper resistance. At last, he found it. A few dozen red streaks appeared around the far side of the station’s massive receiver dish. The tell-tale exhaust of Federation fighters.
“Tally bandits,” he grinned as he sent the information to his fellow pilots.
“Hostiles on my mark!” Ajax shouted, sending across a data burst showing fighters appearing at extreme range. The perimeter defense ships must have finally realized something was going on.
As his computer placed the number of potential hostiles at somewhere in the low hundreds, Cheng let his grin turn into a smile. Now it was a party.
-
Ellery adjusted her helmet as her copilot steered them out and away from the carrier. The rest of her flight stayed in a tight formation as she double-checked her weapons systems. A bunch of friendly fighters streaked down past them, heading for a distant scatter of red pinpricks in the darkness. The battle had truly started.
“All right, listen,” she said to her fellow pilots, “We do it just like in the simulations; hit one target at a time and concentrate your firepower on the weak points. Let’s get to it.”
With that, the formation around her scattered and started weaving as the shooting around them started to intensify.
Her flight computer chirped a warning and Ellery whipped her head around. A couple of Federation fighters were closing in on them fast. She hit a button and launched an air-to-air missile their way, smiling as the pilots wheeled around and started executing a series of textbook evasion maneuvers to get out of its way. Ellery increased her own ship’s thrust in the opposite direction, keeping one eye on the tactical readout as her fellow strike craft converged on the same position. As they closed in, she used her ship’s infrared laser to designate the target – an exposed section of one of the rings’ superstructure. At last, she pushed the weapons-release button and watched as a slow and exceptionally bulky missile streaked away from her craft towards the target. The rest of the strike force fired at the same time and followed her as she banked towards their next waypoint. Just before her ship’s wing obscured it totally from view, Ellery saw her missile strike home, pulverizing a chunk of the massive construct. A bunch more explosions rippled around the same spot and she watched with fascination as the ring was forced open, spilling its finely engineered contents into space as it ore itself apart amidst the battle raging around it. She turned her attention back to the tactical readout as they lined up on the next target.
-
Ford groaned and forced himself onto his feet. He put one hand against the wall to steady himself and immediately felt the vibration from the firing of the carrier’s air defense cannons. They were already in battle. How long had he been out?
It didn’t matter, he told himself as he opened the airlock door and stumbled into the corridor. All the mattered was that Sub had stolen his ship. For what purpose, he didn’t know. But he did know that he was going to stop him if it was the last thing he did. He considered going to the bridge and reporting this whole mess. But what good would that do? They were in combat and one stolen ship was the least of their concerns. Ford could hear voices shouting up ahead and quickened his pace, turning a corner to find Pim standing arguing with a couple of technicians next to a closed airlock door.
“It doesn’t fucking matter if you’re sorry if I’m locked out of my ship!” he shrieked as Ford drew nearer.
“We’re working as fast as we can!” one of the techs replied.
“My ass, you are!” Pim shouted, “You know what people will think if I don’t get out there?”
“They’ll probably still think that you’re an idiot,” Ford grunted as he approached, “The hell’s going on?”
“The door to my fucking ship’s jammed!” Pim threw up his hands, “What’s your excuse, Ford? Couldn’t handle the pressure and decided to leave the big boys to deal with…”
Pim crumpled to the floor as Ford slugged him in the mouth. The technicians glanced at each other as he stepped over to them.
“What’s the problem?” Ford jerked his head at the airlock.
“The central retaining lever won’t fully disengage,” a technician shrugged, “Can’t get to the ship if the door won’t open.”
“You try cutting it?” he peered at the wedge of metal in between the two doors that was keeping them stuck firmly ajar.
“We sent for a saw, but the guy hasn’t come back yet!”
“Alright,” Ford drew his pistol, “Stand back.”
The two crewmembers jumped aside and he fired a rapid succession of shots into the lock, flinching as it finally broke off and went flying across the compartment, the doors hissing open in its wake. Without hesitating, Ford put on his helmet, marched into the airlock, opened the outer doors and started clambering into the fighter on the other side.
“Hang on! That doesn’t belong to you!” one of the engineers called out.
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’d worry about how angry he’s going to be when he wakes up,” Ford nodded to Pim’s unconscious form as he closed the airlock doors behind him.
He strapped himself into the spaceship’s cockpit and powered up the engines. It had been a long while since Ford had flown any kind of proper fighter craft, but he could just about remember the basics. Plus, the amount of time he had spent in a simulator on the way there had sharpened his skills up somewhat. He pulled up the tactical readout and queried the computer about the whereabouts of his own fighter. It had gone in the opposite direction to the battle, the map showed, heading off to a smaller station that was set a short distance away from the main facility. It was his first time seeing it.
Ford inhaled sharply. He’d known that there was something wrong with the schematics that Sub had shown them. Something that didn’t quite make sense. Sub had erased something from them. The main facility itself was big, there was no doubt about that, but it was mostly comprised of machinery and engineering decks. There was virtually no space to house the control and logistic functions that such a massive operation would surely need. Or the scientific staff who would no doubt be present at a place like this. As Ford watched Sub’s craft approach the smaller station, he knew what the place was. It was a command module. And the answers to all the craziness of the past few days no doubt lay inside. Ford disengaged the docking clamp and wheeled his ship around.
CHAPTER TEN
The command module’s hangar bay doors were still open. Ford made a couple of careful passes before moving in for a landing. The station’s defenses were ominously unresponsive. Given the battle that was in full swing nearby, he would have expected to have at least been subject to some kind of sensor lock as the Federation crew tried to determine if he was friend or foe. His hands sweating on the controls, he steered his fighter inside.
There were a couple of deserted shuttlecraft sitting
on their respective landing pads and Sub’s ship was haphazardly parked near the hangar doors with its engines left idling. Aside from that, there was no sign of life. Ford set down on one of the available pads and left his ship facing towards the exit, ready for a fast escape at a moment’s notice. Disembarking, he immediately realized why the place seemed so deserted. Near one of the doors, two guards were slumped against the wall with neat bullet holes in their foreheads. Their weapons weren’t even drawn. Ford could see that they had been taken completely by surprise, probably before the alarm had even been raised that a battle was raging outside. No wonder Sub had insisted that they jump so close to the station. Ford drew his pistol and opened the door.
The rooms beyond were a slaughterhouse. Sub had moved through the place indiscriminately shooting Federation personnel. All Ford had to do to locate him was follow the trail of bodies. In places, he could see where some token resistance had been put up – scorch marks on bulkheads from grenades and holes torn through doors by carbines – but none of the defenders had survived. He passed one Federation marine who had been impaled on a length of exposed piping and shuddered, remembering how he himself had been on the receiving end of Sub’s unnaturally augmented strength. The path of destruction led through the main corridors, leading Ford past sign after sign marked ‘Command Center’. Sub obviously had a singular objective.
At long last, he reached a pair of blast doors that marked the end of the hallway and the edge of the station’s control room. Muffled gunshots could be heard coming from the far side. Sub. Ford worked fast and pulled his data pad from a pocket on his flight-suit before smashing the external cover off the keypad lock beside the door. Gingerly, he plugged the data pad into the exposed circuitry and used the touchscreen to run a new application. It was an automated password breaker that some whiz-kid in Rebel command had whipped up to help with search and rescue missions, where getting through a wrecked ship’s locked doors in a short amount of time could be the difference between life and death for any survivors. Nothing too fancy, but it if given some time, it could make light work of most standard digital locks. The only thing to do now was wait. Ford left the data pad plugged into the lock and took up a position behind a bulkhead at the side of the corridor, aiming his pistol back the way he had come. He didn’t want any more surprises that day.
-
Duuven watched on the bridge’s tactical display as another one of the massive rings split apart in a shower of sparks and debris. Ellery’s squadron were doing well. It was time he started heading for the rendezvous point.
“All right, let’s get going for waypoint six,” he announced without taking his eyes off the map.
Without further prompting, the helmsman plotted the course on his terminal and eased the throttle forward. The carrier briefly vibrated as the engines shrieked into life before settling down into their more familiar background hum. Duuven watched on the map as a couple of red chevrons – enemy fighters – made a sharp turn towards them. A brief rumble announced the firing of the carrier’s defense turrets and the chevrons abruptly blinked off the map. He smiled to himself; commanding this ship was every bit as satisfying as he had hoped. He returned to the captain’s chair and keyed the radio, opening a channel to their strike craft.
“Ellery, you’ve got about fifteen minutes until we reach the jump point. We can’t hang around much longer than that. Think you can make it?”
“That’s more than enough time for us,” the strained reply came back, “Just make sure you’re punctual.”
Across the room, Hubbard chuckled. Even in the midst of combat, she had to get the last word in.
-
The data pad eventually did the trick. The doors clicked and whirred and at last slid aside. The command center was a cavern of a room, with a lower level crammed full of control terminals and monitoring computers and a platform on one side of the room that looked to be far more important, sitting regally atop several flights of metal stairs. Ford had to admit, the Federation’s décor was much more impressive than anything he had seen in the rebellion. He entered with his weapon raised, his eyes darting around for any kind of movement as he moved towards the stairs. There was none to be seen on the lower level, just the bodies of the staff lying amongst the workstations. The upper platform was a different story.
“Don’t fucking move an inch!” Ford commanded as he levelled his pistol.
Sub was standing with his back to him, his gun trained on the head of a middle-aged man in a lab coat who was feverishly typing commands into the main terminal. The massive display screen in front of them looked to be going haywire. Document after document was being opened up, massive amounts of data scrolling by almost too fast for the eye to see. Ford got the gist of it though. It was the information they’d collected here. Vast amounts of data on signal transmissions all across Federation space. And beyond, judging by some of the maps that flashed by on the screen.
“For some reason, I’d thought that you would take my advice and stay put,” Sub calmly said over his shoulder, “But it’s nice to have you here to help.”
“Help?” Ford shifted his grip on the pistol, “Is that what you think this is?”
“Of course!” Sub kept his eyes flitting between the scientist and the screen in front of him, “Why else would you follow me?”
“To take you back! To find out just what the hell you’re doing!”
“And how exactly is shooting me going to make accomplish anything?” Sub asked, glancing at him bemusedly. As he turned, Ford caught a glimpse of a data drive plugged into the terminal. He was copying all the damned data for himself!
“It’d give me some peace of mind for one thing,” Ford answered.
“But then you’d never get any answers,” Sub sighed as he leaned past the scientist and tapped some commands of his own into the control panel. The images on the screen shifted slightly as more documents started to open.
“That’s… that’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he faltered.
“Oh? You have it all worked out then?”
“The broad strokes,” Ford nodded, “This place isn’t just a listening post, is it? It’s some kind of science experiment. And your employer wants whatever data the Federation has accumulated. I guess it would sell for a pretty nice amount on the black market. I’d be surprised if you gave one solitary fuck about this rebellion.”
“Close, but yet so far,” Sub gave another cold smile as he tapped some more commands into the console and brought up an image on an adjacent wall screen, “Does this help clear the waters?”
Ford wrinkled his brow as he gazed at the picture. It was a heat map of some sort. With different types of transmissions logged in different colors. The facility’s location was in the middle and a kaleidoscope of color fanned out in one direction. Federation space was lit up like a Christmas tree with millions of tiny red dots, each one a regular source of transmissions. Looking closer, Ford even recognized some of the systems that had been illuminated as Rebel strongholds. It was comprehensive, to say the least. However, on the fringes of Federation space were a few smatterings of bright blue dots. A stark contrast against the rest of the map, and with an unusual trait. They formed a trail, heading out of the Federation and beyond the limits of explored space.
“What are these?” Ford asked, “More Rebel signals?”
“No,” Sub snorted, “You think this place is just for real-time signal monitoring? Guess again.”
Ford wracked his brains. The answer was just at the edge of his mind, the piece that would fit it all together. The transmissions. The massive expense that the Federation had gone to in order to build this place. Their burning desire to kill Sub. The map he was looking at right now. And what did he mean that it wasn’t just ‘real-time monitoring’? Then it hit him.
“They don’t give a shit about the Rebellion,” Ford murmured, “They’re looking for something else.”
“Go on,” Sub raised an eyebrow.
“This pl
ace isn’t looking inwards, into human space and the Federation itself,” he stared at the fan-shaped overlay of dots on the map, “It’s looking outside the borders. These blue dots aren’t transmissions coming from inside the Federation, they’re coming from outside! They’re trying to sort these from the others, like wheat from the chaff. All the intelligence they’ve gathered on us in the process is just the icing on the cake.”
“I’m impressed. I thought you might be a bit slower on the uptake.”
“So what are they trying to find?”
“No idea,” Sub shrugged, “That’s where my information runs out.”
“Bullshit.”
“If my employers had the answers to that question, why would I even be here?”
Ford opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by a mechanical whirring from downstairs in the control room. He moved to the edge of the command platform in time to see another set of blast doors yawn open. A group of Federation marines walked in, a figure clad in an officer’s uniform in their midst.
“Hello, Ford!” Aeton called up to him, “It’s a shame I’ll have to make this meeting quick!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ford ducked back out of sight and took up a position behind one of the computer terminals, training his gun on the nearest stairway. The Feds had the exits blocked and the advantage of time on their side. He looked at one of the massive screens overhanging the command center and saw that yet another one of the massive ring arrays had been blasted apart. If he didn’t get out soon, he’d be left behind.