Strike Battleship Engineers (The Ithis Campaign Book 2)

by Shane Lochlann Black

  To be fair, an engineer who tinkers with weapons wasn’t unusual in the slightest. It was just that Yili was really good at it. So good, in fact, she had already made a career out of effective improvements in her own personal sidearms and had advanced the art of handheld weaponry a few paces just from her own research.

  It was for those reasons nobody should have been surprised when she emerged from the Angel rescue unit wearing a reinforced tac-suit outfitted with a mechanical powerframe, twin independently powered combination medical casts and braces for her feet and knees and not one, but two autonomous anti-personnel bots floating along, one on either side. She had also made some semi-approved changes to her powersuit helmet so she could use its rangefinder and targeting systems to guide the weapons on her AP bots.

  The floating attack units were deceptively simple-looking contraptions. They were essentially counter-grav-equipped lookbots each built around a high-powered rapid-fire anti-personnel rifle very similar to the ones installed in the deck alert systems aboard ship. If armed, they would independently target anything Yili looked at using infrared or LASER-guided optics, essentially turning Argent’s chief engineer into a walking attack helicopter.

  What made the whole thing three times as dangerous was the fact Lieutenant Curtiss wasn’t planning to cover ground on foot. Skywatch Engineering had planned way ahead when they came up with the schematics for the Copernicus corvette. Surveying planetary surfaces was something all engineers knew might be necessary, especially if they were tasked with finding energy, food and water sources on unfamiliar worlds. They also knew air or space platforms might be obscured, down or absent. So, they went back to the drawing board one more time to invent the Tanto.

  Miniaturized counter-grav was never intended to be limited to autonomous machinery, at least in fleet engineering circles. There were all kinds of applications of the technology possible, and the officer corps knew the difference between a successful operation and a beautifully executed masterpiece of an operation usually involved some measure of altitude.

  The father of the Tanto recon bike was an old motorcycle mechanic and Skywatch marine NCO who never sought promotion above the rank of Sergeant. He spent his off-duty hours in a garage tinkering with one idea or another until he took the wheels off a civilian superbike one day and started adding military-grade hardware to what was left over. Before long, he had a flying motorcycle. Not long after that, he had enclosed the mechanism with a 360 canopy, added standard communications, lights, life support and sensors and then re-installed the wheels as an optionally deployable all-terrain drive system.

  The result delighted the Skywatch engineering fraternity to the point where the Tanto’s inventor was twice decorated: Once by Skywatch Fleet for Meritorious Achievement and then again by the Skywatch Marines with an Outstanding Commendation medal. Sergeant Joseph E. “Big Mountain” Gerard thus became the only NCO in Skywatch Marine history to wear competing achievement medals.

  Chief Engineer Yili Curtiss happened to be one of the engineers most impressed by Gerard’s invention. She insisted on hauling at least two of the bikes with her whenever the engineering corvette was sent on a mission. It had only been hours since Copernicus One had crash landed, but its commander had already rebuilt practically everything fixable and was now sitting on an idling Tanto, lashing up a command net between herself, her AP bots, the two lookdown probes she had launched hours before and her boat. Zony had provided her with the coordinates of the unidentified human personnel four miles from the crash site. It was time to figure out just who those people were. Yili suspected they were Copernicus crew members in need of rescue, which was one of the reasons she had evacuated the Angel and restocked its power and consumables. Once she had bearing and distance, she would be able to offer medical assistance and bring some of her team back to base so they could get their boat back into the action.

  After all, Orbital Engineering had been deployed to the surface of Bayone Three to complete a mission, and a battleship’s Chief Engineer was the least likely crew member to leave any mission unaccomplished.

  Curtiss flipped up the ground clearance releases, revved the engines of her sleek recon bike a few times and then roared off towards Zony’s coordinates with her AP bots racing along on either side.

  Twenty-Seven

  “Lieutenant, we’re not getting anything from Black Seven. We have one strong life sign aboard, but we’ve been hailing the ship now for almost twenty minutes, and we’ve got nothing.”

  Zony gently veered her fighter out of Argent’s Flight One approach ILS corridor and activated all her friendly transponders. She knew Black Seven had to be operating on autosystems. If it was and she crossed its defense perimeter without identification, she could very easily find herself nose to nose with yet another very dangerous opponent.

  Jackrabbit Nine Nine Four pressurized her cockpit, waited for the temperature and gas mixtures to stabilize and then unfastened her flight helmet. No sense in scaring her sister in arms. Minutes later, her fighter approached to a range of two miles and slowed to station-keeping.

  Zony was appropriately impressed. The gunship hovered in space, damaged battle screens still active and weapons fully charged. It was hurt, but still ready for the next fight. The sight was reminiscent of a big jungle cat sitting on an outcrop watching the nearby forest. Black Seven was even oriented away from her mothership, as if vigilant for new threats. The Argent Signals Officer ran an EM scan and queried the vessel for systems status. The gunship’s power systems were fluctuating at just over 60% capacity, but life support and drive field integrity were well within specs. It was still nearly 80% battle-worthy, which was astonishing, considering it had taken a full-power alpha strike at near-point-blank range only minutes ago. For Zony, it was all a profound relief, as it meant she could remotely pilot the ship home. But first, she needed its pilot’s help. Black Seven’s center ComSat screen activated.

  “Hi! My name is Zony. What’s your name?”

  Aibreann was still trembling. Her shock harness, pilot’s station, helmet and stuffed animals formed a cocoon around her on the gunship’s flight deck, and she was fully prepared by this point to scratch, bite or kick anything that got within five yards of the command couch.

  But she was looking out the corner of her eye at the pink-haired girl who had suddenly appeared on her communications panel. Zony was smiling. Aibreann thought she looked nice enough, but she wasn’t taking any chances after what she had been through.

  “Aibreann.”

  The girl’s voice was almost too quiet for the commlink patch to pick up. Captain Islington and Ensign Grant stood on Argent’s bridge, and Lieutenant Meier stood on Minstrel’s bridge, all watching the conversation and hoping Zony could gain the girl’s trust before something else went wrong. A Tarantula-Hawk gunship gone haywire would be a medium-sized nightmare. The only nearby ship heavy enough to stare it down was Argent herself. Every officer on the scene was well aware she wasn’t exactly at her best at the moment.

  The fact was, they needed Aibreann’s help. Black Seven’s battle computer was still on alert and wouldn’t allow the kind of remote connection Argent’s crew needed to recover the vessel without either the command pilot’s authorization, or powering down the ship and having it towed, which wasn’t practical with its current on-board personnel. Essentially, the only person who could persuade Black Seven to come home was nine years old and she wasn’t in the best of moods either.

  “Hi Aibreann! That’s a neat name. You know what? You did such a good job piloting your spaceship that me and my captain want you to join our pilot’s club. Do you want to?”

  No response.

  “Everyone in our club gets a special badge and their name goes on a big screen in our clubhouse. And you can visit our ship’s kitchen any time you want for every flavor of ice cream you can think of!”

  Zony was working as hard as she could to be patient. She knew there hadn’t been a nine-year-old yet born that wouldn’t respond
to offers of free ice cream. After a long pause the command net clicked.

  “Can Boots and Checkers be in it?”

  The captains on Argent and Minstrel’s bridges almost collapsed from relief.

  “Sure! Anyone who sits in a pilot’s couch and flies in one of our ships can be in our club!”

  Another pause.

  “Okay.” It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but some things were to be expected after going a round with an alien warship.

  “Yay! We love it when new people join our pilot’s club! Okay, we’re going to fly back to my ship now, so there’s just one thing I need you to do. Right next to your seat there should be a little checkerboard of square buttons, and they should all be the color red. The top buttons are numbered one through five. Do you see them?”

  There was a pause. “Does one of them say ‘lectrical?”

  “Yes. That’s the one. What I need you to do is use the top row of buttons and press the number 3135 one button at a time. Say the number printed on the button when you press it, okay?”

  “Okay. Three. One. Three. Five.”

  “Very good. Now there’s just one more thing to do. On the pilot’s console right below the screen where you can see me, there’s a big wide green button that says ‘commit’" Zony spelled it for her. “Can you see it?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Okay, reach up and press that button just one time.”

  Zony watched her own ComSat console and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Black Seven’s battle computer status switch over. She rapidly configured her own flight systems to instruct the damaged gunship to follow her back to Argent.

  “Okay, here we go!”

  Buck Four’s pilot banked her fighter around and nudged the engines forward to a velocity of 25 fps. The tactical track displayed the larger gunship as it banked to starboard and fell into line.

  “What’s happening!?”

  “Everything is just fine, Aibreann. Your ship is going to fly itself all the way back to our clubhouse and land, just like my ship. After that we’re going to see about your badge and new member party!”

  Zony would have freely admitted she had no idea what she was doing, but she had known more than a few trained flight officers who had considerable trouble handling the unique stresses of interstellar combat. She had no idea how it would affect a girl barely old enough to know how to do division. She did note with some relief Black Seven was holding her course. Zony authorized ILS for both ships and keyed her control microphone.

  “Argent Skywatch, this is Jackrabbit Nine Nine Four requesting approach clearance to Flight One. Acknowledge.”

  “You’re looking good, Buck Four. You are approach clear for landing on Flight One. Four miles. Call the ball.”

  “Affirmative, Spacelane Control. Buck Four has the ball. Thirty seconds.” Lieutenant Tixia switched Black Seven’s autosystems over to lock its approach with the ILS corridor and performed the same ritual to clear the gunship’s landing course. Once inside Argent’s battle screen and drive field, the capital ship’s tractor beams guided both the fighter and gunship into side-by-side approaches and brought them both into the aft bay of Flight Deck one for perfectly synchronized landings. Decon sensors scanned both ships and detected no medical conditions or contaminants. The flight deck’s aft directional screens re-stabilized. The fighter’s egress indicators switched to green and Zony popped the canopy on her fighter. She was halfway down the deck ladder when Captain Islington and Chief Brogan ran up.

  “Welcome back, lieutenant!” Islington exclaimed. “I hope we left your ship in better shape than we found it.”

  Zony hopped down to the deck. “I’d say you did the impossible, captain. And then one-upped yourself. Nice to finally meet you in person.” Tixia put her helmet under one arm and shook Islington’s hand.

  “Likewise. Of course, I stand down and relinquish command. Normally I’d return to my ship, but for the time being, the six of us are your entire crew.”

  Zony wasn’t entirely sure what to say. It was the first time she had ever assumed command of any vessel larger than a Yellowjacket fighter. “Understood.” She keyed her commlink. “Command computer access.”

  “Identification, please,” came Dominique’s familiar voice.

  “Senior Lieutenant Zony Tixia.”

  “Lieutenant Zony Tixia acknowledged. How can Argent help you today?”

  Zony swallowed. Major steps forward in her career often seemed to happen unexpectedly, and this was one of the biggest. She closed her eyes, hoping she wasn’t about to make a giant mess of things. “I assume command of this vessel. Authorization Hummingbird Eight Eight Seven Seven.”

  A pause.

  “DSS Argent now under the command of Senior Lieutenant Zony Tixia.”

  “Congratulations, captain,” Islington said with an encouraging smile. “Any orders?”

  Zony’s eyes were still a little wider than normal. She set her helmet on the wing of her fighter. “As my first official act, I have to make sure the newest member of our pilot’s club gets the ice cream she was promised.”

  Twenty-Seven

  “Commander, I don’t want to seem insubordinate–” Ensign Joss Aherne began.

  “Best way to do that is to not actually be insubordinate, ensign,” Commander Doverly replied. She was already suited in her standard issue zero-G powerarmor and doing the final checks on her improvised weaponry.

  “With all due respect, ma’am, why are you doing this? We can wait these guys out. Why take the risk and set off a possible shooting match? We don’t have the guns or the horsepower to engage even one of those ships.”

  “We don’t win wars by running and hiding, Ensign. That’s the first thing I learned in fighter weapons training. We run up and pop the enemy in the mouth and see what they’re made of.”

  “What they’re made of, ma’am, is three heavily armed frigates!”

  “That’s true.” Doverly waited. The look on her face didn’t change. Through the faceplate on her powersuit she looked pleasant enough, but there was a hard fire in her eyes that told Ensign Aherne he wasn’t dealing with any ordinary doctor here.

  “Then why–”

  “Ensign, I flew two combat tours with my Jack squadron. I was on Jason Hunter’s wing when he made Ace. I shot a carnivorous acid-crusher off his hull aiming from the hip one fine morning and just about blew the upper half of his body all over a fuel depot. Later that week he stood watch while I delivered twins during a steam springs flood on Sabasaba Two and then put me in for a commendation which I lost. He almost started a fistfight in the officer’s mess over that little incident. That all happened before we turned 20. Nobody in my team had the luxury of wondering if we were doing the right thing at the time, because we were too busy trying to win wars and save lives.”

  Aherne listened. His expression gradually became more strained as Doverly continued.

  “We won none of those fights by stepping aside and playing it safe. I’ve been hearing it from Skywatch for years. They used to call me “Doctor Blood’ because my less aggressive colleagues thought I should make a choice between killing people and patching them back up.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No such thing as fair in this fleet. Especially when we’re up against tough odds. Jason Hunter is my captain. He gave me an order to investigate a distress signal and rescue Saratoga’s survivors. Those three ships out there are in my way. So I’m going to take them out, and if that means I have to fly out there in a cocktail dress with a lit candle and a steak knife to get the job done I’ll have a pair of shoes picked out before the orders finish printing. Do I make myself clear, ensign?”

  Joss straightened his posture. “You do, commander.”

  “Very well. Check my medical sensors and let’s do a radio test.”

  The ensign watched nervously as Commander Doverly hefted the three magnetic charges she had built. Each was easily capable of blasting a ten-foot hole through a Sarn frigate’
s hull armor. Properly placed, any one of them could seriously cripple a starship for quite some time.

  “You’re going to hit all three targets, ma’am?” Aherne asked, doing everything he could to strengthen his voice.

  “Negative.” Doverly snapped the seals on her wrist attachments and powered up the displays on her tactical gear.

  “Then what–”

  “I want a mission kill on ship one. Based on what I’ve seen, those other two ships aren’t prepared for an enemy engagement out here, especially if they don’t know who or what they’re up against. By the time the smoke clears, we’ll be aboard Saratoga.”

  “Why would we abandon the Nightwing?”

  “We won’t. We’ll dock with the cruiser.” Doverly’s eyes met the ensign’s for a moment and realization dawned.

  “They’ve already scanned the Saratoga and found nothing. They won’t bother going back until their salvage team arrives,” Aherne said with a reverent tone of discovery.

  “And when it comes time to run, I’d like my pursuers to be flying through several dozen missile strikes all the way to the jump gate.”

  Ensign Ahearn lifted one of the heavy charges and followed Commander Doverly towards the airlock. In the space of about six minutes his entire outlook on Skywatch had changed, and his opinion of his commanding officer would never be the same again.

  Twenty-Eight

  Lucas Moody and Jason Hunter stood at the edge of Smuggler’s Paradise. After having been offered everything from preserved fish to rocket fuel to stolen spacecraft, the teeming crowd of fugitives finally began to tire of their sales pitches. Most of the marketplace’s population weren’t all that enthusiastic about the two humans being Skywatch Fleet. The clean boots and tailored uniforms were the first clue. The two officers’ rank insignia might as well have been signs around their neck marked “we don’t belong here.” The captain and his marine commander had already been written off as potential customers. Everyone present knew Skywatch didn’t pay their officers enough to afford anything fun.