by Will Crudge
“Then you’ll play into hands of the Crimson’s other two fleets and be helpless. I know. Be that as it may… I spoke earlier about what you can do, versus being overwhelmed by what you can’t control…” The War Master let his words end there.
“What I can do, has been done. The majority civil government has the power to order Fleet forces to engage in civil enforcement activities. Which is why I am powerless to pull back our overextended fleets. However, when it comes to training and certifying fleets and conducting full-scale military exercises, I have complete control.” Gerhardt stopped to study the face of the War Master. He wanted to see if his wise friend of many years would anticipate what he would say next.
“You were saying.” The War Master prodded calmly.
“Over the past several months, I’ve extended exercise durations, and increased the number of battle groups required to participate in them. Our ships can legally be fully equipped with heavy weapons, armor, and have crew strengths exceeding 100%...”
“Well done.” The War Master knew his friend was the cunning ally he had grown to admire, but this meant his boldness had come full circle.
“Still, that won’t be enough if we’re caught off guard. The training boxes aren’t in very strategically valued space. Even with FTL, it may take days or even weeks to respond to a surprise incursion.” Gerhardt spoke with confidence. Strategy was his comfort zone.
“We don’t know how the Crimson Fleets will make it into the inner systems to strike any strategically valuable targets without being intercepted. Granted, with what you have to work with, the Crimson must be betting that the UAHC response will be light, and slow at first. They won’t waste time with ground engagements… At least not at first. UAHC Soldiers are superior in every respect, and the Crimson will avoid having to face our greatest advantage at all costs. They’ll bypass systems and installations where ground operations will be required in any significant measure, and focus on strategic targets that are prone to attack by bombardment from Capital ships. That will force the UAHC Fleet to fight ship to ship battles. Normally, I would say UAHC Fleet would have an advantage in that arena. However, the spreading of UAHC Fleet resources coupled with little or no time to amass significant combat power, means that the technological advantage of the UAHC Fleet would be significantly marginalized, and wouldn’t be a factor at all.” The War Master spoke like a seasoned professor of strategic thinking.
“I concur with your assessment, my old friend.” Gerhardt nodded. “I can only pray those things of which we have set in motion will turn the advantage back to us.”
“Remember… There are more resources that are at play, than what the UAHC is even aware of. Unum and, by extension, my Guild will not fail you or your people.”
“It’s a little off topic, I know… But where is Death-Nail? How did you and Blizzard travel here so quickly?” Gerhardt spoke as he scanned the landing pads directly in front of the building through his office window.
“Unum freighter. And as such I shall depart. My fighter is with my daughter. She is in a dangerous position at the moment, so she needed a prompt means of escape if her situation deteriorates. It’s in the best of hands, trust me.” The War Master stood and began to walk towards the office door. The thumping noise that came from the pads of massive paws impacting the polished wood floor dominated drowned out any other background noise.
“By the time we meet again, there will be little need for secrecy.” The Consul said with a confident nod.
“After two centuries of reclaiming my people and heritage from the Crimson Alliance’s grand schemes… I look forward to being out of the shadows, and standing within plain sight of my enemy.
Kung Fu Panthers
Location: CSS Cerberus
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/28/4201 0035HRS Local
System: Creole System, 331 Light Minutes from Heliopause Inner Edge
Darius barely had time to consider what had just happened, or anything that came out of Val’s mouth for that matter. Gigantic pet panthers that can talk and pull off complex Taekwondo style spin kicks would have to be put on his mental back burner. He sifted through the unconscious heaps of metal and flesh that were previously enemy combatants, and started grabbing weapons, ammo, or anything of remote tactical value.
“I think I’ll need a bigger gun! But I’ve never used anything that can throw metal projectiles before. What kind of rifles are these?” Kara asked as she scanned back and forth down the corridor with her pistol at the ready.
“These are 8 kilo war crimes is what they are.” Darius’ words contained more than just a hint of disgust at the Crimson’s choice of weaponry.
“Illegal or not, I agree that you’ll require more firepower, my dear.” Val said as he nodded towards the large rugged looking rifles. “They’ll kick somewhat harder than a plasma thrower or pulse energy launcher, but they are horrifyingly effective against armor.”
“Ok. Illegal gun. Big kick. Kills anything. Useless against human hands. I think I’ve got it!” Kara feigned seriousness quite well.
“I wouldn’t try that yourself, my lady.” Darius said while he scurried his hands methodically between inspecting magazines and performing a myriad of functions checks on the newly acquired cache of weapons.
“So, yeah… You going to explain that miraculous bullet catchy thing?” Kara made no attempt to be tactful with her words.
“He consciously manipulated time, space, and matter by tapping into the less dense energies of higher plains that overlap this third dimensional reality you call the real world… Now, if we could promptly move on to our next objective that would be lovely.” Shadow spoke as is he was repeating common knowledge, and let the words spill out as if he had given a lecture on it hundreds of times…. But Darius could get an earie sense of urgency coming from the creature.
“Okay… I’m too sober to pretend to understand. Let’s move on. Darius? You all set?” Kara shifted her eyes to the large man hunched over a pile of chaos.
“Roger that. Here!” Darius grasped a rifle with his hand and held it out for Kara to grab. She quickly stowed her pistol and brought the large weapon up to her shoulder with ease.
“Looks pretty standard to operate. Will it feed my neural net with targeting solutions?” Kara asked without intending the question for any one in particular.
“Yes. Deploy nano to sync with its targeting processor here.” Val pointed to a small rectangular section on the exterior covering of the stock. She nodded in acknowledgment and let a small stream of bots flow out from her forearm section of her armor. The seemingly liquid like cluster of tiny bots covered the targeting processer completely before retreating back into her arm. “Boom! Targeting is synced. I’m good to move.”
The motley party of four began to follow Val’s lead. Nobody even brought up the point that Darius and Kara clearly had no idea what the next objective was, or even where it was. Darius seemed to have an overwhelming sense of calm and acceptance that he couldn’t rationally understand. He noticed that the closer he was in proximity to his new companion, Shadow, that the more focused he was. He just felt an odd state of acceptance and peace. Kara, on the other hand, just was focusing on scanning for enemies… She would rather be lost for hours in the bowls of a ship, then to be caught in the open again by another marine.
Val led them from corridor to corridor, deck to deck. No one dared spoke. It was all about going undetected at this point.
“Contact!” The voice was none of theirs. Shots rang out and impacted all around them. Darius realized they had skirted the back wall of some sort of mess hall. Polished metal tables with bench seats were laid out in neatly organized rows. Some projectiles seemed to skim the surface of the tables and make an evil sound that seemed to project straight at them. With one arm, Darius grabbed the bench at the nearest table and flipped it up on its side for cover. The sounds of metal impacting metal seemed to make Kara flinch uncontrollably as she knelt down behind the table. The dents from
the impact were forming at an alarming frequency as the fire intensified.
“Deploying nano!” Darius spat the words as a small cloud of bots flew out and seemed to instantly disappear from view. Seconds later the firing abruptly stopped, and were followed by many well-conceived examples of profanity. “We don’t have much time! It will be a matter of seconds before they strip out the disabled tech, and go full mechanical!”
Shadow seemed to adjust his stance as Darius thought of his next move. It was like the big cat could anticipate his actions. He had to drop it out of his mind and he sprint around the corner of their only source of cover. Shadow launched his massive form out on the other side in order to present two targets to concentrate fire on, versus just the one.
The half dozen marines didn’t stand a chance… Oblivious to the two attackers, the marines were still in their skirmish line and totally focus on stripping down their weapons to their basic mechanical components. Shadow let out a blood curdling roar that drew the attention of the marines away from Darius’ approach. Two marines frantically tried to take aim and fire, but their weapons were useless. Two more tried to run the other way, but were intercepted by two precisely timed rifle burst from Darius. Their bodies dropped and made a loud crunching sound that came from the lose bits of covering from the partially disassembled rifles that were being crushed under the weight of the heavy armor. One marine fired on Shadow with a direct hit, but it did nothing to slow the cat’s 55 kmph momentum. Darius dropped the shooter with a single shot to the face.
The remaining three marines may have been wise to surrender, but they would never get the opportunity…
Darius plugged one dead in the chest as he fired at full sprint. Shadow tackled the remaining two at full speed…. The impact alone would likely have killed them, but the shredded throats would prevent any hope of survival.
Darius could feel a slight pain on the side of his right chest, but saw no damage. His MED nano didn’t register and injury either. “You hit?” Darius looked over at Shadow, who didn’t appear to be bleeding.
“Yes. No penetration. Will be sore for a day or two is all.” Shadow’s mouth articulated the words with his growly feline voice, but the flashing voice module refined it to clear human speech.
“How the hell? You can do magic bullet catching too?” Darius barely got the words out before he had to take another long breath to recover from his 75 meter dead sprint – shoot fest.
“No. But if you can genetically modify a panther to be hyper intelligent, weigh as much as moose, and live for centuries, then bullets are child’s play!” Shadow said with what Darius could only describe was a smile.
“That’s the last of the armed marines.” Val spoke as he and Kara approached at a jogging pace. “There are at least 5 more that could pose a threat if they’re given access to weapons. So, let’s disable these and head to the bridge.”
Darius nodded. Val’s logic was solid. “What about the battalion of marines in the drop pods?”
“We forced their hand in initiating damage control protocols by blasting into the dock. The pods can’t be opened from the personnel inside them until the airlocks are manually inspected for damage. Only the bridge crew can open the door remotely, but it requires someone to manually activate the remote override from the outside of the airlock itself.” Val spit it all out in one breath.
“Genius, actually.” Darius was getting used to being surprised by Val’s brilliance. “What’s to stop one of the unarmed marines from hitting the override?”
“Nothing. Which is why your cousin has been covertly placed on the bridge crew.” Val said with a wink.
“My cousin? I’ve never met a blood relative before, so why shouldn’t the day a handful of poorly armed folks completely take down a fully armed warship?” Darius use of humor wasn’t fooling anyone there as to how he really felt. His emotions should be out of control by now, but they seemed oddly stable.
“You’ve met me… And Shadow. So you’ve met two already.” Val said and padded Darius on the shoulder. If anyone was confused by now, it was Darius. However, after the series of strange life-changing events that had happened to Darius over the past several days, he was beginning to build up a tolerance for confusion.
“Now I’m part cat… Effing wonderful!” Darius said as he shouldered his rifle and followed Val towards the bridge.
***
“Status?” The Captain Zedd turned his gaze at Ensign Alba. She supposed he was intentionally ignoring asking questions from anyone else on the bridge crew, because she was the only one who seemed to have enough spine to lay it out the way it really was, versus what the others thought he wanted to hear.
“Getting a signal from all armed marines neural interfaces. At least six fatalities, and the rest are critically injured or have catastrophic equipment failure, Sir.” Alba straightened her posture and turned to see his reaction to the news.
“I need any personnel still mobile to make their way to the drop pods and hit the manual override, now!” The Captain’s words came through as a mixture of fear and anger.
“Understood, Sir. I’ve been trying to hail the off duty personnel, but I’m not getting through. Without their armor to enhance the signal, their neural interfaces can’t pick up on it. The only option is to announce it on the open voice net, but that would alert the intruders to the situation and embolden their actions.” Alba spoke with no emotion, but feigned fear for the man’s response.
“Seal the bridge door! That’s our only option unless the marines figure out what’s going on and start cutting their way through the airlocks.” The Captain’s face looked as if the blood was draining and he was grasping to regain control of his circumstances.
“Aye, Sir. Locking it down.” Alba said, but time was up….
The bridge door slid open and two rifles were the first thing the Captain saw. “All hands! Look alive!” He shouted. The two helmsmen, the Chief Engineer, and the Alba stood up at once… side arms drawn. The forms of Darius and Kara entered the room. “Surrender your weapons! You’re out-gunned!”
At that moment, Ensign Alba stepped towards the command console and placed the barrel of her pistol on the Captain’s shoulder. “Order them to drop their weapons.” Her eyes locked onto the incredulous Captain as he met her gaze. Sheer terror filled his eyes.
“Drop ‘em.” He said meekly. The crew complied without a word.
“Darius meet your cousin, War Master Jimma Alba.” Val said softly as he walked in behind the pair.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Cyrus!” Alba turned her eyes to smile at Darius while keeping her pistol trained on the once imposing Captain.
“Now I’m part cat, and my name is… Cyrus?” Darius lowered his rifle and looked back and forth at Alba and Val.
“Awk-ward!” Kara let out a whistle.
Cops and Criminals
Location: Tangine Station, Interstellar Port, Open Space
Date Time: Post Interstellar 07/28/4201 0433HRS Local
System: Sol System, Mid Region
“Do you think he had too much to drink, and stumbled into this alley and into trouble?” Tangine Civil Police Corporal Johnson asked as he kneeled over the body.
“No. My initial scan hasn’t picked up any traces of alcohol. Besides, these Security bubba’s aren’t allowed to drink in public while in uniform.” TCP Sergeant Griffith replied. Johnson stood up and fixed his eyes on the more senior officer. The two men were the same over-all height of slightly under two meters. The elder had angular features and was slight of build. The younger was muscular and his body language hinted to the older officer that he was eager and impatient.
“We’ll need to notify Tangine Security, but the body is in our jurisdiction.” Griffith spoke while holding his chin in deep thought.
“Already done, sarge. But… they want to take over the investigation.” Johnson said, but didn’t seem sure what Griffith’s reaction would be.
“Hell, no! When it comes to d
ocks, flight ops, and securing restricted areas, these fuckers are all powerful! But this is not their domain, damn it! They can all go to hell as far as this poor bastard is concerned.” Griffith spat with disgust as he spoke. Johnson suspected that Sergeant Griffith had one too many run-ins with Station Security.
“Why not let ‘em just take it off our hands? This guy had visitor’s credentials, so he’s not one of our locals… Besides, it’s their man. Let them hit all the dead ends that we’ll probably face. We find bodies all the time down here in general pop.” The Corporal seemed eager to move on to something more exhilarating, and didn’t make any effort to conceal it.
“Are you totally dense?! We can’t hand him over to them.” Griffith scowled at the younger officer.
“But why not?” Corporal Johnson threw up his hands in sheer confusion, as if he were asking the question solely by body language.
“Because, something hasn’t been right with those bastards for a long time. I’ve got sources that tell me they’ve seen pirates operating with impunity all over the station… which has never happened in such a heavy volume before. It’s Station Security protocols that enable known pirate vessels and personnel from landing without being handcuffed on the docks…”
“If your sources are being truthful, then the protocols need to change.” Corporal Johnson let his ego through as his statement was dual purpose as both an observation, and a stab at his superior.
Griffith turned his head and flared his brow at the younger man. “Listen, boy… My sources ain’t entirely scum! Besides, protocols don’t work if the people who establish them don’t follow them to the letter. They haven’t failed before… so, what’s changed?”