The access opened onto the three-assembly, a long space between cargo nets and rows of strung accelerations slings, typically filled with marines awaiting access to their shuttle. Half of those marines were now gone, vanished into the hatch amidst the grapple hydraulics on the hull, and Lisbeth shoved herself hard that way.
“Pilot coming through!” Vijay yelled behind her, knowing she’d be reluctant. “Pilot coming through! Make a path!”
And the armoured marines looked about with shouts of ‘pilot!’ and her path cleared enough that she sailed past them and straight to the airlock, where the next marine in line paused for her as she dropped straight in.
At the bottom, a familiar turn from the upper level hatch access, and a fast shove after the marine ahead of her, marvelling at how fast he moved in his bulky armour. At the cockpit she found Second Lieutenant Dufresne already strapped into the pilot’s seat and well into pre-flight, instrument displays alight and blinking. God knew how she’d gotten down here so fast, her quarters weren’t any closer to midships than Lisbeth’s.
“I’m here,” Lisbeth said breathlessly, squeezing past the pilot’s seat on her way to the co-pilot’s just ahead. “They’re about half loaded back there.”
“Ms Debogande, take a seat,” said Dufresne, cool and professional. “Systems startup has commenced, checklist ETA is two minutes.”
Two minutes for you maybe, Lisbeth nearly muttered as she pulled herself into her chair and tried to strap herself in — no small task when you weren’t as accustomed to zero-G as some, and every surface you touched tried to bounce you back off. She got it managed as the automatic fastening yanked her tight, and began to run furiously through her checklist — at least she was in a familiar civilian shuttle. She’d been practising with Lieutenant Hausler in her off-time, as he’d graciously agreed to get her simulation hours up, but that had been in PH-1 and those military systems needed serious training to get familiar with. Behind her, Second Lieutenant Dufresne probably felt she was flying a toy spaceship by comparison. Gratifyingly, Hausler hadn’t laughed at Lisbeth’s skill-level, and had even politely said she’d make a fine Fleet co-pilot… given about three more years of training.
Halfway through her checklist, Lisbeth remembered to pull on the helmet from its rear headrest clasp. Once the visor was over her eyes, filtering the cockpit light, she could suddenly see the stars outside. Billions of them. In the far distance ahead, a yellow globe growing brighter… no, two yellow globes, a binary system, two suns together, as was the case in more than half of the galaxy’s systems larger than a red dwarf. Far too far away from TK55 to see it yet, but it was always a shock to see the stars, after so long on a spaceship where you rarely had a view. Out this far from home, none of them were familiar.
* * *
“He’s leaving fast,” said Second Lieutenant Geish from Scan. “He’s full thrust and none of the tavalai mines are pursuing.” Erik could see TK55 much more clearly now, the twin, grey bulbs with a narrow ‘waist’, with scan conveniently highlighting in red all the surrounding tavalai mines. None of which were posing any threat to the sard vessel, which as Geish had said, was now leaving hard on a white tail of flame.
With an open channel to Makimakala, Erik didn’t need to ask Shilu for access, and just blinked on the icon. “Hello Makimakala, do you have any idea why the sard vessel is completely untouched by your defences?”
“Hello Phoenix.” A short pause, as though wondering what to say. That wasn’t comforting. “It is a known feature of hacksaw technology to manipulate foreign computer systems.”
“You mean gain control of them by remote?” Even more alarming.
“No. I mean hacksaws can disguise signatures and convince enemy systems that foes are friends.”
“Semantical bullshit,” Lieutenant Karle said from further across the bridge, and off-coms. “He’s talking about the same damn thing.”
“I copy that Makimakala,” said Erik. “Are there any records of hacksaw-technology vessels reprogramming automated systems to fire upon friendly vessels?”
Another longer-than-necessary pause. “To my knowledge, no such records exist.”
“Well that’s just great,” said Shahaim. “Nav, I think we’d better arrange a plan for a very rapid withdrawal if the impossible happens.”
“Already got several,” Kaspowitz answered, furiously plugging in data, fingers racing across his screens. “But if we get deep in there and those bastards fire on us, we’re screwed.”
“Makimakala is going to need our help getting those sard out of their relic,” Erik replied. “Leaving troops behind like that is a standard sard delaying tactic. And the AI-facsimile from the drysine queen is aboard Phoenix as well, so we’re valuable to the tavalai.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re actually in control of this situation,” Shahaim replied. “They don’t look in control.”
“Against this new breed of sard,” Erik said grimly, “we might just have to get used to that.”
* * *
Combat V-dumps were disorienting to the point of nausea, but Lisbeth still found them preferable to main-engine deceleration, flattened on her back at 10-Gs and struggling to breathe. Now she had time for a sip of water from her collar tube, and remembered to recalibrate the shuttle’s scan for much lower velocities, now that the light waves from surrounding objects were not dopplered into unfamiliar colours. The other shuttles were all talking to each other, and that scared her because it was all operational chatter and she barely understood one sentence in three.
Then the hard clank and crash of grapples releasing, and Dufresne gave them a downward shove to get clear of Phoenix, the armoured sides of the massive warship suddenly falling away, and then Lisbeth could see it in a way you rarely got to see a warship — a huge, long, three-segment bulk, the first segment all armourplate and weapons about the rotating crew cylinder within, then midships separate yet integrated into the main hull frame, and finally the colossal main engines. Usually FTL ships operated further from the sun, in the big gas giant systems where the big stations were typically built higher up the gravity slope. But TK55 was an inner-system rock, and Phoenix’s matte-black sides, normally invisible in the dark, now loomed and shone.
Dufresne hit thrust, and Lisbeth felt 2-Gs pushing her back. She ran a nervous eye over her co-pilot responsibilities — coms, navigation, scan, load. She had to be like a high-class butler or personal assistant, standing by the pilot’s shoulder to hand her whatever she needed just as she needed it. To either side, she saw bright thrust from neighbouring shuttle engines… and here as she looked properly for the first time, was TK55, the giant space peanut as some were calling it, half-lit by the binary stars.
“Approach angle good,” she heard Lieutenant Hausler saying from PH-1. As senior pilot, he had formation command. “ETA thirteen minutes, primary deceleration in nine point five.”
“I have tavalai shuttles at eight-nine by fifteen, range fourteen klicks,” said Ensign Yu, Hausler’s co-pilot. “I count six, combat formation, parallel trajectory.”
Lisbeth did a fast calculation — Makimakala had seven shuttles, each with capacity for forty karasai. Marines organised in fours, while karasai preferred units of five — five to a squad, each platoon had three fire-squads and one heavy-squad for twenty total. So assuming they were fully loaded, Makimakala was sending in about two hundred and forty karasai, while Phoenix’s shuttles, operating below max-capacity as per the usual operating doctrine, had somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred and eighty marines… perhaps a little less, given recent casualties.
Her visor HUD was displaying red dots of navigation hazard — tavalai mines, she realised as scan struggled to identify them. Lots of mines, and close, zooming past them even now on approach.
“I sure hope the froggies know how to keep those things away from us,” Lieutenant Jersey remarked from PH-3.
“This may sound odd approaching a hacksaw base likely filled with sard,” said Lieutenant Hausler, “
but we may actually be safer up close or inside.”
“Phoenix assault team,” said Lieutenant Shilu in their ears, “be advised that Rai Jang is commencing a near recon pass of the target.”
Sure enough, Lisbeth’s scan showed the large, fast shape of the barabo cruiser gliding through the mines toward the lower side of TK55, making small course adjustments as she went.
“Gonna see if he draws fire,” Jersey observed. “That’s mighty human of him.”
“Don’t think that even for a moment,” said Dufresne at Lisbeth’s back. “Trust buys you sleep, distrust buys you life.”
“Copy that AT-7,” Hausler agreed. “Everyone keep your eyes wide open.”
* * *
“Rai Jang has a visual feed,” came Lieutenant Shilu’s voice in Trace’s ear as she was pressed back in her armour at a mild 3-Gs on the final approach burn. “Hard to tell from this distance and angle if the tavalai defences put up any fight, Major. You’ll have to find out for yourself when you go in.”
Trace blinked the icon and stared at the visual projected onto her visor. A passing view of TK55’s underside from several Ks out. A broken, rocky surface, strewn with long shadows from the horizon-level suns. Amidst the rock, protruding like natural growths, were artificial portals, openings, short antennae, arranged in arcing lines. These were no crude steel structures, but advanced alloy, smooth and almost organic.
“Be nice if he’d gone a bit closer so we could actually see something,” Dale grumbled from AT-7’s hold.
“Captains of every species will look after their ship,” Trace replied. “There are the hangars, all look empty, no obstruction. Shuttles will release away from the entrance and pull back to cover positions.”
“Understood, Major.” There were a series of big openings smack in the middle of the concentric rings of habitat about TK55’s base. Ship hangars, into which full-sized starships would slide like rounds into an old-fashioned revolver’s chambers. The schematics Makimakala had granted showed that those hangars led to the main corridor linking the planetoid’s upper and lower bulbs together. Take those, and you had direct access to the once-beating heart of the base.
* * *
Final burn complete, Second Lieutenant Dufresne swung AT-7 end-over-end so they could face the target. From barely a kilometre out, the broken underside of TK55 was stunningly large, fractured and uneven in that clear, perfect detail that only objects in space could acquire, with no atmosphere to blur a human’s vision. Lisbeth tried hard to keep her eyes on her screens — it was unprofessional to stare, but impossible not to. The concentric rings of habitation swirled like the insides of a snail shell, fifteen-kilometres wide. So well-made did the structures appear, it seemed more as though the rock had been constructed about them than the other way around. Forty thousand years since first habitation here, thirty thousand since this latest renovation. Back then, getting this close would have been a death sentence for any organic sentience.
“Final approach,” said Dufresne. “Ten o’clock of target five appears clear.” A small burst of thrust to accelerate their approach as the planetoid surface came up real fast. Lisbeth recalled that there were sard now in those structures, it was thought, who might want to shoot at them on the way in. And that made her stare at her scans, with great intensity. “Lieutenant Dale, we are on approach, fifteen seconds.”
AT-7 was going in first with PH-1 because she had no weapons — PH-3 and 4 had the best positions for cover fire further back. Dufresne swung them about as the planetoid came rushing up, the huge, gaping hole of a hangar bay directly alongside. Lisbeth winced as thrust kicked in hard… and they stopped, close enough that dirt off the planetoid’s surface came blasting about the canopy.
“Rear hatch open,” Lisbeth announced as her screens showed it. Marines were their own loadmasters on shuttles, and on this shuttle in particular — no one wanted Lisbeth doing anything more than reading screens. “Alpha Platoon is deploying.”
Ten seconds later, Dale came back to them with, “Alpha Platoon is clear, AT-7 you are free to go.” And Dufresne rolled the shuttle a quarter-turn, then hit laterals to burn them gently away from the surface, rather than blast the marines with main engines. Distance increased, she swung them again, angled engines and gave a hard shove.
“PH-3 and 4, going in now.” Lisbeth’s scan showed PH-1 also climbing clear of the surface, and she had to resist the temptation to turn and look — finding things with your eyes in space was difficult and time consuming, Hausler had drummed into her on their sim runs. Trust scan, and don’t waste time looking for things that were probably too far and too fast to see anyway.
* * *
Seated up the front of PH-3’s hold, Trace was last out amid the thrust jets of fast deploying marines and many small collisions. But the chaos was organised, and quickly outside Bravo Platoon and Command Squad were forming into units and pushing fast toward the enormous hangar lip.
“PH-3, Bravo and Command are all clear,” Trace announced as tacnet showed her that on the visor overlay.
“PH-3 copies you clear Major,” came Lieutenant Jersey’s reply, the shuttle already sliding away on attitude thrusters. “Good hunting and we’ll be right nearby if you need us.” A blast of power somewhere behind as PH-3 kicked in the mains, but Trace was focused ahead as Bravo’s forward sections cleared the hangar rim and burned hard to change direction, Trace close behind. Command Squad in formation about her, she cleared the rim and burned hard as she twisted into the hangar beyond…
…and nearly lost all the breath in her lungs, for sheer astonishment. She’d never seen an interior space so big. She’d known from the tavalai schematics that a hangar for starships had to be huge, but seeing it first hand was something else again. The interior was not rock but steel alloy, as artificial as any space station, and complex with station-sized gantries and grapples that turned the hangar into a maze. A lot of it looked broken now, and old beyond imagining, but in space nothing rusted, just faded and drifted in the endless passing millennia.
“Bravo Platoon advance,” Lieutenant Alomaim commanded. “Vertical formation, keep against the wall, I want Second and Third deployed forward, First stays back, let’s create a crossfire between us as we advance. Use those gantries for cover and watch your spacing.”
They jetted forward, then cut thrust and drifted at a steady relative fifty kph. The hangar stretched another kilometre-and-a-half before them, comfortably large enough to hold Phoenix, and possibly even Makimakala as well. These huge grapples would have gripped hacksaw warships in a tight embrace, allowing repairs, refuelling and rearmament, possibly modular reconfiguration. No need for pressurised access tubes as human stations used — hacksaw drones needed no atmosphere to breathe, and would have swarmed around these vessels like spiders in a nest.
Trace and Command Squad held back behind Lieutenant Alomaim’s central First Squad, as they deviated now to avoid some huge gantry structures, and Trace spied odd alcoves in the walls, like control centres but stripped of panels and function. Had hacksaw drones once plugged directly into the walls? And had the Dobruta removed those panels for study, like they’d supposedly stripped much of the useful technology out of this base?
“All platoons report,” she commanded. Lieutenant Alomaim retained command of Bravo even with her here — she was busy watching everyone else, multiple clusters of dots on tacnet, in four major formations, all gliding into adjoining starship hangars.
“Alpha Platoon is advancing,” came Dale’s voice. “We have signs of recent fighting, maybe twelve dead sard warriors floating, a lot of expended ordinance, holes in the walls. Some disabled tavalai tracker cannon, all destroyed with firepower. Looks like the sard shot their way in.”
“Charlie Platoon reports the same,” said Jalawi. “Maybe seven dead sard, some disabled cannon, some detonated mine clusters. Guess they were pretty determined.”
“Echo Platoon reports all clear so far,” came Lieutenant Zhi.
“Bravo
is also clear,” said Alomaim, more for the Lieutenants’ benefit than the Major’s.
An icon blinked on Trace’s visor. “All platoons advance, looking good,” Trace told them, and flipped to the new channel. It was karasai, Major Naki of the Makimakala. “Hello Djojana Naki, go ahead.”
A pause for automated translation, as Naki spoke about as much English as she did Togiri. His voice when it came was metallic, clearly synthesised. “Hello Major. Tavalai base defences have been queried and responded. Communication is ongoing, defence protocols are stable. Damage has been taken, we report multiple dead sard warriors, perhaps twenty.”
All of which meant that the tavalai defence grid wasn’t about to open fire on humans or tavalai, Trace guessed. “I copy the defence grid is stable,” she replied. “We also have dead sard, about twenty. Phoenix marines will proceed as planned into central power to secure the reactor.”
“I copy Major, Makimakala marines also proceeding as planned.” Marines, the translator said, not karasai. Which was a reminder not to take anything the translator said too literally.
“Major, it’s the LC,” Erik cut in as the tavalai disconnected. “We’ve been talking about why the sard are here and it doesn’t make sense. They can’t hold us up, it’ll take days until that ship brings back any reinforcements.”
“I’m a little busy for the theory, LC,” said Trace, adjusting her course as the formation flexed and spread about the gantries, rifles swinging to cover possible ambush spots.
“If the sard wanted to slow us down, they’d have shot at you on the way in, so…”
Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) Page 31