Onyx Javelin

by Steve Wheeler

  Marko could not help himself, knowing that they all really wanted to know the answer to the destination question. 'Absorbed, Patrick? What do you mean, absorbed?'

  'The males attach themselves to the queen and become parasitic, eventually being completely absorbed by her. Now the other answer: she will go to Storfisk as she says it is a good warm planet and she craves the warmth.'

  There was a long silence. Stephine was the first to say something. 'Oh, now that is most intriguing. From what we know of Urchins, it is too warm, too thick an atmosphere and at almost a full standard gravity so far, too big a gravity well for her to survive in let alone be able to climb out of back into space. So there must have been a thought contamination.

  Either Nail or Fritz were thinking of Storfisk when the transference occurred. Hold on. I shall ask them.'

  'So it is going to kill itself anyway,' the major said, sounding relieved. 'That takes the burden off us at least. Patrick, keep us appraised of the conversation. Stephine, did you learn anything?'

  'Yes, Nail was chewing on a piece of licorice from Storfisk at the time of the transference. I am not entirely certain how the knowledge of where the planet is came into Zawgyi's collective mind, but it could be that at the instant of the mind-snatch, Nail and Fritz wished they were somewhere else, and then from Fritz's extraordinary conscious mind the coordinates were gained. Patrick, is there any way that Zawgyi can be convinced to go somewhere else?'

  'Nope. I would doubt that very much. This is a harsh martial mentality that we are dealing with. 'It is just on the level of reasonable human sentience, although more advanced than the Urchin infant we had dealings with at the octopoid library, which I considered had the intelligence of a parrot. This one is more like a petulant seven-year-old standard human. I don't think we could sway it.'

  The major quickly headed off any more discussion. 'Right, as far as I am concerned the entity is going to die of its own volition. So we do not have to hasten its demise on that count. Patrick, could you ask how many jumps it will have to make to get to Storfisk, and how long it will take it to get there? Stephine, Veg and Marko, thanks, now everyone back to work.' He reached out and tapped his comms screen. 'OK.

  Stephine, Lily, Jasmine, have you come up with any other ways of painting these things so we know where they are?'

  'We know how,' Jasmine said. 'Need three of the Fast Mover drones with plenty of fuel, and three of Patrick's hull laser radar units. Send them out, have them fire off a burst of laser, move, and do it again and again. Stephine's information said that the killers will react to the lasers as they will know that the Urchins will also go looking for them. The Fast Movers send the information back to Patrick after each shot and he paints up the maps.'

  The major smiled. 'Good work. Harry, how many of those heavy firework bombs did you make?'

  'What! How the fuck did you know about them?'

  Michael laughed for the first time in hours. 'Because I am the commander of this ship and I should know everything! So, how many and how big?'

  'Ten. Good big ones. You need 'em? We were building them as a surprise for Waipunga's bicentennial celebrations and I know that you love 'em as well.'

  The major's smile was broad. 'OK, send them to the Fast Movers' equipment loadouts. Set command fuses on them. Might as well have as many surprises as possible and I don't really want to maim or kill too many of the Urchin killers if we can avoid it.'

  'Thought that you hated Urchin?' Harry grunted.

  'Yeah, but that is a bit like hating ocean predators. They are what they are and are just trying to get along with their lives like the rest of us, even if they are operating on instinct. Thanks, Harry. Jasmine, Harry is sending down ten 200-millimetre fireworks bombs. Instruct the loadouts to attach the mortar tubes to all of the Fast Movers. Go with three, three, and four. Wire them for command firing and delayed detonation. And go ahead and attach a cobalt missile on each one as well. You will have control of them. Launch when ready.'

  Jasmine's fingers flew over her screens, waking up the ten metre-long, wasp-shaped drones, dropping their instructions into their semi-autonomous computer controllers, then instructing the loaders to attach what she wanted to the Fast Mover drones. The machines slid out of their storage units, rotated, and tucked themselves up against the robotic waldos that seized the long-range fuel tanks, placing and locking them on. Then the cobalt missile was presented, which was grasped and placed up against a uni-mount. Seeing where Harry's mortars were, she instructed ammunition magazines to load them into their individual mortar tubes, then had them sent via the heavily armoured delivery tubes out to the waiting drones.

  Fifteen minutes later the drones were ready, so she tapped the comms icon of the major. 'Boss, the Fast Movers are prepped and ready to be deployed. Shall I arm the antigravity self-destructs? And is it worthwhile to consider an enhanced neutron device?'

  'Yes, arm the self-destructs, plus the antimatter containments. Launch two. Get them underway and let me think about the END weapon for a couple of minutes.'

  Looking at his displays, he tracked the two Fast Movers as they rocketed away. His fingers drummed his chair armrests as he thought about the three radiation weapons in the magazines, knowing that, strictly speaking, Basalt should not have them as they were banned by most factions. He grimaced a little, also knowing how hard it had been to get them in the first place. Making up his mind, he tapped Jasmine's icon.

  'Yes, place a neutron device on the third unit, but we don't tell anyone else about it, OK?'

  'Of course, major. Will launch in five minutes.'

  'Thanks, Jasmine.' He tapped another of the comms icons. 'Fritz. How are you getting on with those bola units?'

  'Done. Loaded into a crude, but hopefully effective, launch mechanism and will be placing them in the back of the Albatrosslander in a few moments.'

  'The Albatross ... and in the back? I thought that we had decided to use drones?'

  'You might have decided that, major, but I can't see how to make it work in the hellishly fucking short time frame we have. They will have to be manually released.'

  Michael Longbow furiously rubbed his scalp, very unhappy with the prospect, but knew that Fritz, even in his not quite all there state, would have thought through every possible solution and the resultant scenarios.

  'OK, do what you have to do to make it work, Fritz.'

  He closed that icon off and tapped Harry's. Before he could ask the question, Harry answered it: 'Yeah, I know, boss. Bit scary, eh! Actually, it's not quite as bad as you think. Marko will pilot, Minh and I will deploy the units only if we have to. We have a good launch unit which is three pieces of channel that we are about to bolt to the floor of the lander to create a separation of the three parts. Cobalt in each one and the middle one has a micro-missile attached to it. The cables tie the whole thing together. Press the tit and the missile drags the whole thing out the arse end of the lander.'

  'Holy shit, Harry, that is just mad! Hellish risky for everyone involved!'

  The big, solid grinning man agreed. 'Yeah! I know! We have been laughing about it all the time. Nuts! That's why we love it. But it's OK as Stephine and Veg will be riding shotgun in Blackjackanyway. It's all good.'

  'Yeah, fucking nuts.' The major shook his head and sighed. 'So how long before you are ready? Oh, and you had better have wire-timed self-destructs into the cobalts. Those we do not want flying through this star system for years.'

  'Not a problem. Veg has already sorted that, and destructs along the mooring lines as well. Should be good to go in about fif ty minutes.'

  Haast

  Above Gas Giant Moon

  Bob Thompson looked over his entire crew, lined up and standing to attention in their respective units, wearing their dress uniforms. Behind him was a Games Board monitor recording everything, and he could see down the length of the one deck of the carrier that was kept clear of everything just for such occasions, three other monitors.

  Major Nick W
arne had called the crew to attention as their commander walked across to the slightly raised platform. They saluted each other as Bob took Nick's place. He then looked out over the non-smiling faces and barked out, 'Stand at ease, stand easy, please sit.'

  The crew did as ordered and sat, almost totally synchronised except for the rare few whose skills he valued higher as technicians and highly skilled individuals than soldiers who were good at their parade ground drill.

  Everything was completely still. The only sounds came from the air-circulation systems and the monitor closest to him turning on its antigravity and panning its recording units across the assembly and up to his face. He marvelled at the Hauler's perfect control of the ship's deceleration, tail first towards the target moon of one of the star system's enormous gas giants at a precise one gravity, so allowing the crew to move about inside Haast with ease and comfort; the carrier was due to be placed outside Rose Foxtrot in a few hours.

  'Crew of Gjomvik Corporation Boltz light carrier Haast. This is our last few hours of peace before we are placed in orbit around the designated moon. The battles commence with the Gjomvik Corporation Aquila carrier Berkut at first light tomorrow morning, above the designated combat area on the planet below us. Before the formal orders and information packs are distributed, I just want to say that so far it has been my great pleasure to be your commander. You are an excellent hand-picked crew and this is a very fine ship. I hope that within a week we shall be at the after-match banquet together, all in fine spirits, having fought a good-quality battle to decide which of the two corporations is granted the mining rights to the nickel asteroid. Be proud in yourselves, be proud in all you do, fight to the absolute best of your abilities, and then some. Let us make good AV and justif y the faith that our employer Baron Willie der Boltz has placed in us.'

  He turned to Nick Warne and saluted again. Nick called the room to attention as Bob exited to climb up the central staircase heading for his ready room behind the bridge. He wondered at the point of the little rah-rah speech and having everyone spick and span in their best uniforms, looking beautiful for the AV, but knew that it was the way it had always been done for the Games Board presentations and so had become the tradition.

  Before he got to the bridge deck, the crew lifts were already busy disgorging crew getting straight back to the flight deck, or back to their quarters to get changed into their ship suits and put their precious dress uniforms back into storage.

  He walked in through the doors of the ready room, quickly checked if any messages or urgent decisions needed attention from him and, finding none, then made his way into his accommodation and changed out of his pearl white uniform with its perfect creases and back into his considerably more comfortable ship suit. Just as the suit finished sealing itself against him, his comms chimed with the smiling face of the Countess Michelle dressed in the Administration Council's emerald-green uniform of an adjutant captain.

  'I was expecting you to give a long battle-rousing speech!' she told him. 'Most welcome change having a short low-key one. Not sure if the Games Board was happy, but the crew love you all the more for it. Can we have a quick meeting, please? Have something interesting to share with you.'

  He frowned, listening to the few key words that Michelle had spoken, knowing that whatever she wanted to talk about was very important. 'Of course. My ready room in five minutes?'

  'See you shortly. I have some quality blue cheese and I shall bring a fruit platter.'

  A few minutes later they were sitting at a low table with food and drink spread out in front of them. Bob raised an eyebrow and Michelle flicked across a recognition laser message from her right eye into his. His own bio-sof tware checked it, and recognised the sender as Michelle and sent back his codes. He then separated one part of his brain from the other as the two started a verbal conversation about the merits, or otherwise, of the local wines, while on a higher level they conversed with non-interceptable light.

  'Well, Michelle?'

  'It's as we suspected, Bob. I now know who it is and where the messages are going, but as yet I am not able to find out the contents of the data packages.'

  'Who?'

  'Flight maintenance, Staff Sergeant Adrian Crow.'

  'He was foisted upon us by his high-ranking aunt. Nick wanted to throw him off the ship as soon as he presented himself with his papers. Have you informed Uncle and Haast? Dumb ... did he not know that we would be watching him closely?'

  'I know that he has at least one accomplice here onboard. As yet we cannot identif y that individual. The data packages were going to the Hauler orbital Angelito.'

  'And Angelito, as we know, Michelle, is in the sway of Jet the trickster. It is a logical fit. What do you suspect his game is?'

  'Exactly that. Fixing the game or a part of the battle. That would be the easiest money for him. But, Bob, Ithink that there is a much bigger game afoot. Ibelieve Adrian is being played for a fool. He is dancing to someone else's tune.'

  'Really! Michelle, you have never struck me as one to take flights of fancy. What do you know?'

  'Haast knows something. And these two crews -both us and Berkut -are so stacked, not just with stars of the Games Board world of entertainment, but a whole lot of other masters at their game. And Iam talking about really good combat specialists, to say nothing of one of the most notable strategic and tactical masters anywhere. Did you stop to ask yourself why Brigadier Mortlock would be here?'

  'Well, no, Idid not. Ithought that maybe the Baron was giving me a set of lessons. That is what Mark de Ruyter told me.'

  The next lasered message had icons of mirth attached to it. 'Oh, I love you, Bob, you really are such a gentle soul. And Mark is being a little bit bad in saying that. Maybe he did not want to hurt your feelings. Look, the brigadier is one of the most highly paid of any of the Gjomvik forces. The Games Board must have groaned very loudly when told that he was going to be on this mission. His continuation of life fees would be exorbitant, even by the Games Board's standards. No, the brigadier took over that crew for a much greater purpose than showing you a few pointers on how to run a battle.'

  'Bloody hell! So why am I here? This is not doing a great deal for my confidence you know, Michelle.'

  The next icon was of a shoulder shrug and the following a humourless laugh. 'Don't be foolish, commander. You are here because you are hellish good at what you do, which is get the job done. I think that you need to have a private conversation with Brigadier Mortlock. I shall set it up with Haastthrough the ACEs' private comms channels. Stand by ... it is set up, Bob. The call is going through now. Focus your eye on the light on the wall to the right of the door. Haast will encrypt it. Uncouple your left eye and focus that on me so I can help if necessary.'

  Seconds later, the softly spoken voice of the brigadier came into Bob's head via the laserlink and his own internal hardware. 'Ah, my friend, the commander. To what do I owe this not totally unexpected call via the ACEs' network?'

  Bob wondered about swapping pleasantries, but decided that the brigadier would probably appreciate a straight no nonsense approach. 'Why are you here, Roger?'

  'The same as you, Bob. We are here to fight a fearsome battle with every level of excitement to entertain the great unwashed, of course. Why else would I be here?'

  'As a backup for something much more important. Something that is happening on the planet Storfisk, maybe?'

  Without a second's hesitation the brigadier changed tack. 'You, Haast, the countess and Uncle. We meet on Rosein fifteen minutes. Oh, and if you have some spare, more of those excellent sausages created by Mr Antipas, please.'

  The connection was severed.

  The verbal conversation between Bob and Michelle continued for a few more minutes, concluding on the subject of what Michelle considered to be an excellent Merlot, and as it happened, Bob agreed with her choice.

  He lasered a final message to her. 'Well, that is intriguing.

  Dress?'

  'Combat, full camouf
lage. Uncle and Haast are on their way to Rose. A invitation from her has just arrived for them to see Daisuke Suzuki about a sword. Both have logged as going off ship and the Games Board monitors are showing nil interest. We have five minutes to get to the airlock.'

  Bob allowed himself a tight smile as he stripped and backed up against one of his suit containers for it to form around him. He glanced across, seeing Michelle doing the sam.e; the room, on her instructions, locked itself into a privacy setting that told the monitors the room was closed to their scrutiny. Let them think what they liked, he thought.

  In one part of his ready room wall, a holographic image was generated in the outside corridor that showed normal wall, while a panel slid silently aside allowing them, with suits activated, to step into the hallway and make their way unseen to the airlock, where Uncle and Haast were waiting.

  Haast and Uncle could see them from their suit recognition codes and nonchalantly activated the airlock, letting the two inside, as they themselves walked in and cycled the party through. Once they were inside the connecting tube Bob called a halt and another silent conversation started.

  'Haast, Uncle. Time to fill in your part-time, commander. What is occurring on Storfisk? We are about to go into a meeting with the brigadier, and no doubt some of his top people, and I want to know what is happening, please.'

  The great bird looked at the commander for a few long seconds, then finally said, 'It is a long-term intelligence operation. 'Itinvolves an alien predator created by the octopoids that is, at present, loose amongst the herds of herbivores on the Haulers' continent. We are here to be humanity's cavalry and ride in over the horizon and save the day, as we, so conveniently, just happen to be in the neighbourhood, fighting another battle.'