by J. L. Doty
“I’m getting a minor leak in my left gauntlet. I guess I could ignore it since we’re not doing any vac work.”
“Don’t take any chances. We got spares. Change it out.”
York considered what he was hearing, then said, “Computer, detailed diagnostic scan of all turret functions, verbose output.”
He rarely ran such a full analysis since it took more than an hour, but he had the time, and the way the marines were behaving told him to be extra cautious. He flagged a couple of minor concerns for later review, no more than maintenance issues, nothing that would affect performance during the coming drop. He finished the diagnostic scan about ten minutes before launch, and heard the clatter and clang of the marines boarding the gunboat in the bulky, full-combat armor. The marine com channel remained silent.
York switched to the gunboat’s intership channel.
“Launch in five minutes and counting.”
The marines had finished strapping in and Three now clung to an unnerving silence.
They cut gravity in Three Bay, killed the lights, and the whine of the vacuum pumps echoed through the boat’s hull. The large doors of the service bay opened, and the docking gantry shoved Three out into the blackness of space. York caught a momentary glimpse of One and Two, then Rodma kicked in Three’s drive.
“We’re not going in fast enough for hi-gee,” Rodma said. “But we are going in fast, less of a target that way.”
York tapped into the gunboat’s telemetry feed, saw that Rodma was accelerating at thirty G’s, the maximum at which the boat could compensate for an internal field of one G.
“Turrets out,” Rodma said, and York’s turret telescoped out from the hull.
After a little more than a hundred seconds at thirty G’s, Rodma reversed the drive and decelerated. They hit atmosphere at Mach 40, the air screaming past Three’s hull. York’s screens blanked for an instant, then recovered as the computer processed images so he could see through the burning reentry plasma.
At Mach 3, Rodma launched the boat’s drones.
The gunboat had twenty small combat drones, and York heard the chug-chug-chug as Three spit them out. On his screens, the computer flagged them as friendlies with a green reticle. He spotted another green blip about two hundred meters out which the computer identified as One.
At three hundred meters, they dropped below Mach 2 and leveled off. York now understood what Shernov meant by “… go in fast and loud.” It must have been an impressive sight from the ground to see the three boats scream by overhead, sonic booms blasting the entire city.
York spotted quite a few damaged buildings below them. Some had walls missing, exposing the interior of several floors, and some were mostly rubble with no more than a portion of one wall still standing. All appeared badly burned.
As they approached the outskirts of the city, there were fewer multistory buildings, and the streets opened out into broad, multilane avenues. Three slowed considerably and banked to York’s side, and his stomach lurched as the ground rushed toward him. Rodma leveled off at a hundred meters and circled a large compound with several buildings protected inside a masonry wall. York saw the blip of Two also circling as One settled down lazily on the ground inside the wall, then dislodged its marines, many of them lugging heavy equipment. After One lifted into the air Two took its turn unloading its marines, then it was Three’s turn.
York swallowed hard as again the ground rushed toward him. He felt no physical sensation, since all motion was fully compensated by the boat’s internal gravity fields. But something primal inside him cringed, his mouth filled with saliva and he gulped back nausea.
“Gunners,” Rodma said as he settled the boat toward the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, “stay alert.”
While they were still three meters off the ground, the main hatch slammed open with a clang that echoed through the hull. At one meter, Rodma said, “Zoned for drop.”
York heard the marines clambering out of the boat. He sat in his turret scanning the wall of the compound, not sure what he was supposed to be alert for. Then Rodma lifted the boat straight up in a gut-wrenching vertical elevator climb.
Rodma leveled off at an altitude of a hundred meters above the compound wall. “Gunners,” he said, “watch the streets below. If you see any movement, flag it with a targeting reticle so the combat grid can analyze it.”
York heard a bunch of chatter back and forth between the pilots of the boats as all three circled the compound. The majority of the buildings in the vicinity were only one or two stories, and with wide streets separating them he now understood Shernov’s comment about “reasonably defensible.”
He kept his eyes on the streets below, was surprised at the complete lack of activity on the outskirts of such a large city. He guessed the civilian population must be huddled in their homes, awaiting the outcome of the transition in power.
When all three pilots were satisfied there was nothing going on within a hundred meters of the compound wall, One and Two accelerated in a vertical climb back to Dauntless.
Rodma lifted Three to five hundred meters and slowly circled the compound about two hundred meters outside the wall. York’s turret was on the side that faced out into the city proper. He thought he saw something moving, flagged it with a targeting reticle, but the computer told him it was a false alarm.
Rodma said, “Calm down, Ballin. You’re jumping at shadows.”
“Better to jump at shadows that aren’t there than miss one that is,” Sissy said.
Meg said, “Good point. Stay jumpy, Ballin.”
They flagged several more false alarms, then York spotted something and flagged it. In a fraction of a second, the computer showed him an enhanced image of a young boy standing in the doorway of a residential structure. It flagged him as yellow, meaning it was up to York whether or not to take a kill shot. The kid wasn’t more than six or seven years old, and York couldn’t imagine him menacing the heavily armed gunboat. Then an adult woman swooped into the picture, swept the boy up in her arms, and closed the door.
“I got a live one,” Sissy shouted. The alert signal started bleating at him, telling him they had incoming, but York had no targets on his screens. York heard Sissy fire three bursts, then she said, “Got him. But that asshole was no local insurgent. He was in full combat armor, with a shoulder-fired RPG.”
Rodma said, “I’m relaying that info up to—”
The alert system blared a warning, but York didn’t have any targets on his screens. He heard the other turrets firing burst after burst.
“Taking evasive action,” Meg shouted.
The boat slewed heavily to starboard as Rodma swung it into a sharp turn. York’s turret swung downward as the boat banked and a target came into his range of fire. He didn’t have time to do anything but swing the turret around and fire a burst. Then the boat lurched so violently York actually felt the motion, and his helmet speakers cut out to deaden the sound of an explosion.
Below him, buildings raced past as his telemetry feed showed him Rodma trying to gain speed and altitude, and failing. It also showed him that his turret supports were damaged.
“We’re going down,” Rodma shouted.
“York,” Meg said. “I can’t retract you, and you don’t want to be there when we bury the starboard side in dirt. I got to cut you loose. Listen to your onboard computer.”
His internal gravity died, then explosive bolts on his turret supports fired, pressing him into the acceleration couch and ejecting his turret from the boat.
Rodma had managed to gain some altitude, but from eight hundred meters up the ground rushed at him all too quickly.
His computer said, “Cutting feed to all nonessential systems to conserve local power reserves. Recommend you initiate manual operation of external gravity fields for a controlled landing.”
York was going to die. His turret would slam into t
he street and splatter bits and pieces of him all over the place, and there was nothing he could do about it. Then the computer’s words hit him. … manual operation … controlled landing.
His training kicked in; hundreds of hours in the simulator produced a strange sort of autonomic response, as if he were a robot controlled by some exterior mind.
“Computer,” he said, his voice trembling, his gut tightened with fear. He gripped the crude control yoke and attitude stick, nothing as sophisticated as the gunboat’s. “Activate external gravity fields and manual flight controls.”
“Controls activated. To conserve power, it is recommended that you maintain freefall for another six seconds … five … four … three … two … one …”
York powered up the external gravity field, decelerating the turret at a uncomfortable three G’s, only then realizing that while his hands were calmly controlling his descent, his mouth was screaming, “Ahhhh!”
The ground rushed toward him, closer and closer, then the turret came to a stop, floating about two meters above the street.
He sat there for several seconds, gulping, trying to calm his racing heart.
“Hovering without purpose is depleting power reserves.”
York settled the turret gently onto the street.
“Hang in there, Three. We’re on our way, thirty minutes out, hi-gee drop.”
A blip on his screens showed him that Three had gone down about four hundred meters west of him, but he noticed another friendly blip a hundred meters north. He switched to visual, saw an oblong object canted to one side in the middle of the street. A hatch in the side popped open and Chunks climbed out. They must have ejected the portside turret as well.
Fifty meters beyond Chunks, he spotted a soldier in mottled green combat armor, carrying a rifle and jogging toward Chunks, followed by a half dozen other soldiers in similar garb. York wanted to believe the marines from the compound had come out to rescue them, but that was more than a kilometer away, and there was something different about the armor the soldier wore, something not imperial. York’s fears were confirmed when the soldier stopped about ten paces short of Chunks and aimed his rifle at him. Chunks raised his hands high above his head.
On ejection from the gunboat, the computer had automatically put a display of his power reserves in the corner of one of his screens. He could sustain flight at a little more than one G with no internal gravity compensation for about ten minutes. Or he could fire twelve three-round bursts, but not both.
Another soldier jogged up to the one holding the gun on Chunks, and the two conferred for a moment.
“Computer,” York said as he gripped the control yoke and attitude stick. “Turret weaponry on visual tracking control.” The computer would now control aiming of the turret’s guns by tracking York’s eyes, leaving him free to control the turret’s flight with his hands. He could fly in one direction and shoot in another. He scanned his readouts; the turret was hot and ready to go.
The two soldiers finished conferring. The first turned to Chunks, and without warning swatted him in the face with the butt of his rifle. Chunks crumpled into a heap on the street. The second soldier stood over Chunks and lowered the muzzle of his rifle toward the gunner’s head.
York applied power to the external grav fields and his turret sprang up off the street. He focused his eyes on the street to one side of Chunks and fired a burst. It tore up the tarmac and both soldiers looked his way. He slammed the attitude stick forward, screaming toward the enemy troopers, fired another burst that caught one of them in his chest plates.
Compared to the weapons a marine could carry and power with a reactor pack, the guns on a turret were seriously heavy firepower. The three-round burst splintered the feddie’s armor and slammed him to the ground. As York drove toward them, the remaining soldiers turned and sprinted up the street away from him. York followed, dropped two more of them, but each burst of rounds reduced his energy reserves by a minute. With rifle rounds pinging off his turret, he chased them about three hundred meters beyond Chunks’s turret, where they took cover in the rubble of a damaged building. York had just more than a minute of power reserves left. He spun the turret about and retreated back toward Chunks. His turret ran out of power two meters up and twenty short of his comrade. The turret dropped like a rock and slammed into the street, jolting York in his acceleration couch. It rolled and ended up on its side. York popped the hatch and climbed out ten paces from Chunks, who lay unmoving.
Hopefully, the enemy marines would move cautiously against the firepower of a turret. It would take them a little time to cover the distance, moving cautiously forward. He figured he had two or three minutes at most.
Chunks was still breathing, but out cold. York gripped him by the heels and dragged him toward his turret, grunting and sweating, thinking if they survived this, Chunks needed to lose a few kilos. He leaned through the hatch in Chunks’s turret and checked the reserves. He had about twenty minutes. Chunks had apparently not wasted any time hovering above the ground in shock.
There was no possible way he could get them both into the turret; there wasn’t enough room, and York wasn’t foolish enough to believe he could lift Chunks. But all vac suits had a retractable, plast utility line, most often used as a tether in EVA vac work. York reeled out a couple of meters from Chunks’s suit, locked the reel in place, then tied the end of it around one of the turret’s gun barrels.
He climbed into the turret, flopped into Chunks’s acceleration couch and was thankful Chunks hadn’t shut the turret down completely. He lifted off the tarmac, Chunks dangling beneath him, turned the turret toward the spot where Three had gone down, and applied power to the external gravity fields. He stayed low, didn’t want to give the feddies an easy target.
He found the gunboat at the edge of a large, empty parking lot situated at the end of a wide avenue. Its nose was crumpled against the ground, with its tail leaning against the wall of a building. He lowered Chunks gently to the tarmac, then set the turret down beside him. He had eighteen minutes of reserve power left.
He left Chunks there and sprinted to the gunboat. The main hatch was still open so he climbed inside, found Meg and Rodma still seated in the cockpit. Meg’s head lolled to one side, her eyes staring vacantly at nothing, a trickle of blood running down her face. Rodma was conscious, but groaning in pain. The nose of the craft had crumpled, pinning his leg in a mess of twisted plast and broken steel.
“First-aid kit,” he said through gritted teeth, pointing at the kit clipped to the back bulkhead of the cockpit. “Get me a kikker.”
York ripped the kit off the bulkhead and tore it open. Combat kikkers! He’d heard of them, a mixture of drugs to kill pain and jack up alertness at the same time. As he fumbled one out of the kit, Rodma said, “Give it to me. You go check on Jack and Sissy.”
York handed him the kikker, then scrambled toward the aft of the gunboat.
There wasn’t much left of Jack. When the boat’s tail had clipped the side of the building while coming down, it had crushed his turret and him with it. York found a hand in the twisted wreckage, but when he pulled on it lightly, it came away without an arm attached to it. When he spotted the gunner’s head, leaking gray matter, he emptied his stomach down the front of his vac suit.
He found Sissy still alive, but trapped in her turret. She had blood smeared across her face, which frightened him, especially since her systems were down and they could only communicate by shouting at the top of their lungs through the plast and steel of the turret armor. She assured him she wasn’t hurt badly. But the crumpled nose of the boat had damaged the turret’s hatch. They’d need more than a wrench to get her out.
The gunboat’s computer said, Enemy combatants approaching, two hundred meters out. They appear to be Federation regular troops, numbering approximately fifty.
Fifty feddie marines. York recalled the way they had tried to exec
ute Chunks, no taking prisoners. He asked Rodma, “How far out are One and Two?”
Rodma looked a little better. The kikker must have helped him. He grimaced as he spoke, “More ’n twenty minutes.”
York tried to calm his breathing, tried to think of what to do. The feddie marines would be there in under five minutes, and they’d all be dead before help arrived. He could grab a rifle from the weapons locker, try to slow them down. But one rifle against fifty … no, Chunks’s turret was their only chance.
York scrambled out of the boat, untied Chunks’s plast tether from the turret gun barrel, and dragged him back to the boat. Then he climbed into the turret, sealed the hatch, and strapped in. He ran a quick check on the systems, changed a few settings on the turret to configure it more to his liking.
His screens showed a cluster of red target blips approaching the boat. They were leapfrogging, the rear elements running forward and taking a position behind whatever cover they could find. The nearest were about a hundred meters out. He let them come, waited until they were at fifty meters, then slammed power into the external grav fields, lifted straight up off the tarmac, firing three-round bursts as he climbed to about twenty meters. He caught the enemy marines off guard, dropped four of them in those first few seconds.
Every time he fired a burst, his estimated reserve power dropped by a minute. He zigzagged side to side as they fired back, tried to hold off on expending the power too quickly, the turret ringing with the clatter of dozens of rounds pinging off its armor.
The computer said, “Power reserves at ten minutes.”
York shot up then down, right then left, then fired a burst. One of the feddies stepped into the open with a shoulder-mounted RPG. York drove straight toward the rocket plume, then pulled up at the last instant and the missile shot past him. He fired a burst, took out the feddie with the RPG.
“Critical hazard warning, power reserves at three minutes, and altitude too high.”
York shot downward, feeding excessive amounts of power into the external grav fields.