by neetha Napew
The one advantage of suits was that you didn’t have to find a closet when you needed one; the suit could handle that, and much more. She saw by the relaxation on several faces that hers hadn’t been the only full bladder. Minutes lurched past in uneven procession - time seemed to crawl, then leap, then crawl again. From the Ssli’s input, they knew that the escort was sliding in on their supposedly blind side. If it had external visuals, Sassinak thought, it probably had a good view of the damage - and blown pods would look impressively damaged. She’d seen one once, like the seedpod of some plant that expels its seeds with a wrenching destruction of the once-protective covering.
Closer it came, and closer. Sassinak had given all the necessary orders: now there was nothing to do but wait. The Ssli reported contact an instant before Sassinak felt a very faint jar in her bootsoles. She nodded to Arly, who poured all remaining power to their tractor field. Whatever happened now, the escort and cruiser were not coming apart until one of them was overpowered. With any luck the escort wouldn’t notice the tractor field, since it wasn’t trying to escape right now anyway.
Interior visuals showed the docking bay where she expected the attack to come. Sure enough, the exterior bay lock blew in, a cloud of fragments obscuring the view for a moment, and then clearing as the vacuum outside sucked them free. A tracked assault pod straight out of her childhood nightmare bounced crazily from the escort’s docking bay and its artificial gravity, to the cruiser’s, landing so hard that Sassinak winced in sympathy with its contents, enemies though they were.
“Bad grav match,” said Helm thoughtfully. ‘That’ll shake ‘em up.”
“More coming,” Arly pointed out. She was hunched over her console, clearly itching to do something, although none of her weaponry functioned inside the ship. Sassinak watched as two more assault pods came out of the escort to jounce heavily on the cruiser’s docking bay deck. How many more? She wanted them all, but the docking bay was getting crowded: they’d have to move on soon. A thin voice - someone’s suit radio - came over the intercom at her ear.
“ - Can see another two pods, at least, Sarge. Plus some guys in suits - “
That clicked off, to be replaced by Major Currald, the marines’ commanding officer. “Captain - you heard that?” Sassinak acknowledged, and he went on. “We think they’ll stack the pods in here, and then blow their way in. We’ve bled the whole quadrant, and everyone’s in position; if they can fit all the pods in here we’ll take them then, and if they can’t we’ll wait until they unload the last one.”
“As you will; fire when ready.” Sassinak looked around the bridge again, meeting no happy faces. Letting an enemy blow open your docking bay doors was not standard Fleet procedure, and if she got out of this alive, she might be facing a court martial. At the very least she could be accused of allowing ruinous damage to Fleet property, and risking the capture of a major hull. That, at least, was false: the Zaid-Dayan would not be captured; she had had the explosives planted to prevent that, by Wefts she knew were trustworthy.
Two more pods came into the docking bay: now six of them waited to crawl like poisonous vermin through her ship. Sassinak shuddered, and fought it down. She saw on the screen an enemy in grayish suit armor walk up to the inner lock controls and attach something, then back away. A blown door control was easier to fix than a blown door. The white flare of a small explosion, and the inner lock doors slid apart. One pod clanked forward, its tracks making a palpable rumbling on the deck, steel grating on steel.
“Three more waiting, captain,” said the voice in her ear.
“Snarks in a bucket,” said someone on the bridge. Sassinak paid no attention. One by one the assault pods entered the ship, now picked up on the corridor monitors. Here the corridor was wide, offering easy access for the marines’ own assault vehicles when these were being loaded.
“They can do one hell of a lot of damage,” said Arly, breathing fast as she watched.
“They’re going to take one hell of a lot of damage,” said Sass. The first pod came to a corner, and split open, disgorging a dozen armored troops who flattened themselves to the bulkhead on either side. Now the escort’s last pods were entering the docking bay. “And any time now they’ll start wondering why no one seems to have noticed - “
A wild clangor drowned out her words, until Communications damped it. The enemy should take it that the damaged sensors were finally reacting, and that the
Zaid-Dayan’s unsuspecting crew were only now realizing the invasion. On the monitor, the first assault pod, its troop hatch now shut, trundled around the corner and loosed a shot down the corridor to the right. That shot reflected from the barrage mirrors placed for such occasion, and shattered the pod’s turret. Its tracks kept moving, but as they passed over a mark on the deck a hatch opened from below and a shaped explosive charge blew a hole in its belly. Sassinak could see, on the screen, its troop hatch come partway open, and a tangle of armored limbs as the remaining men inside fought to get free. One by one they were picked off by marine snipers shooting from loopholes into the corridor. By now the second and third pods were open, unloading some of their troops. The second one then lumbered to the corner, and around to the left.
“Stupid,” commented Arly, looking a little less pale. “They ought to realize we’d cover both ends.”
“Not that stupid.” Sassinak pointed. The enemy assault pod, moving at higher speed and without firing, was making a run for the end of the corridor. With enough momentum, it might trigger several traps, and open a path for those behind. Sure enough, the first shaped charge slowed, but did not stop it, and even after the second blew off one track, it still crabbed slowly down the passage toward the barrage mirror. This slid aside to reveal one of the marines’ own assault vehicles, which blew the turret off the invader before it could react to the mirror’s disappearance. Another shot smashed it nearly flat.
“That’s the last time I’ll complain about the extra mass on troop deck,” said the Helm Officer. “I always thought it was a stupid waste, but then I never thought we’d have a shooting war inside.”
“It’s not over yet,” said Sass, who’d been watching the monitor covering the docking bay itself. Three more assault pods had entered, and now the foremost started toward the inner hatch. “We’re going to lose some tonnage before this is done.” Even as she spoke, high access ports in the docking bay bulkheads slid aside to reveal the batteries that provided fire support in hostile landings. The weapons had been hastily remounted to fire down into the docking bay, with charges calculated to blow the docking bay contents - but not that quadrant of the cruiser. Even so, they could all feel the shocks through their bootsoles, as the big guns chewed the attackers’ pods to bits. None of the troops in five of the pods escaped, but the foremost one managed to unload some into the corridor beyond, where they joined the remnants from the first three pods.
With frightening speed, that group split into teams and disappeared from the monitor’s view. Sassinak flicked through the quadrant monitors, picking up stray visuals: gray battle armor jogging here, flashes from weapons there. Fleet marine green armor sprawled gracelessly across a hatchway - she noted the location, and keyed it to the marine commander.
The computer, faster than any human, displayed a red tag for each invader, moving through the schematics of the cruiser. Marines were green tags, forming a cordon around the docking bay, and a backup cordon of ship’s crew, blue tags, closed off the quadrant.
Almost. Someone - Sassinak had no time then to think what someone - had left a cargo lift open on Troop Deck. Five red tags went in ... and the computer abruptly offered a split screen image, half of troop deck, and half of the schematic of the cargo lift destination. The lift paused, airing up as it passed from the vacuum of the evacuated section to the pressurised levels. But it was headed for Main!
In one fluid motion, Sassinak slammed her helmet on and locked it, scooped her weapons off the console, and ran out the door. She tongued the biolink into p
lace just under her right back molar, and felt/saw/heard the five who followed her out: two Wefts and two humans. Fury and exultation boiled in her veins.
The cargo lift opened onto the outer corridor, aft of the bridge and behind the galleys that served the officers’ mess. Instead of going forward to the cross corridor, and then aft, Sassinak led her party through the wardroom, and the galley behind it. Through the exterior pickup, she could hear the invaders clomping noisily out of the lift, and in her helmet radio she could hear the marine commander even more noisily cursing the boneheaded son of a Ryxi egglayer who left the lift down and unlocked. Forward, the nearest guardpost on Main was in the angle near the forward docking bay. Aft, the same. Main Deck had not been built to be defended; it was never supposed to be subject to attack.
They heard the invaders heading aft; Sass’s computer link said all five were together. Cautiously, she eased the hatch open, and a blast of fire nearly took it apart and her hand with it. They were all together, but some of them were facing each way. Too late for surprise - and the standing guard might walk into this in a moment. Sassinak dove out the door and across the corridor, trusting her armor; she came to rest in the cargo lift itself, with a hotspot on her shoulder, but no real damage - and a good firing position. Behind her, the two Wefts went high, grabbing the overhead and skittering toward the enemy like giant crabs. The other humans stayed low.
Everyone fired: bolts of light and stunner buzzes and old fashioned projectiles that tore chunks from the bulkheads and deck. That was one of the enemy, and whatever it was fired rapidly, if none too accurately, knocking one of the Wefts off the bulkhead in pieces, and smashing a human into a bloody pulp. The other was wounded, huddled in the scant cover of the galley hatch. His weapon had been hit by projectiles, and the bent metal had skidded five meters or so down the corridor. One of the enemy went down, headless, but another one apparently recognized Sassinak by her white armor.
“That’s the captain,” she heard on the exterior speaker other helmet. “Get him, and we’ve got the ship.”
You’ve got the wrong sex, Sassinak thought to herself, and you’re not about to get me or my ship. She braced her wrist and fired carefully. A smoking hole appeared in one gray-armored chest.
“He’s armed,” said a surprised voice. “Captains don’t carry - “ This time she checked her computer link first, and her needler burned a hole in the speaker’s helmet. Three down - and where was that Weft?
He was flattened to the overhead, trying to position a Security riot net over the two remaining, but they edged away aft, firing almost random shots at Sassinak and the Weft.
“Forget capture,” Sassinak said into her helmet intercom. “Just get ‘em.”
The Weft made a sound no human could, and shifted, impossibly fast, onto one of the enemy. Sassinak heard the terrified shriek over her speakers, but concentrated on shooting the last one. She lay there a moment, breathless, then hauled herself up and locked the cargo lift’s controls to a voice-only, bridge-crew only command. The forward guard peeked cautiously around the curve of the corridor, weapon ready. Sassinak waved, and spoke on the intercom.
“Got this bunch - you take over; I’m going back to the bridge.” The Weft clinging to the dead enemy let go - reluctantly, Sassinak thought - and shifted back to human form. Inside his armor - a neat trick.
“I’ll call Med,” he said. On the way back through the galley and wardroom, Sassinak queried the situation below. No other group had broken out; in fact, none had reached the outer cordon, and the marines had lost only five to the twenty-nine enemy dead. Two of the enemy had thrown plasma grenades, damaging the inner hull slightly, but Engineering was on it. The marine assault team was about to enter the escort, and someone on it had signalled a desire to surrender. “And I trust that like I’d trust a gambler’s dice,” the marine commander said grimly.
Sassinak came back onto the bridge to find everyone helmeted and armed and as much in cover as the bridge allowed. She nodded, popped her helmet, and grinned at them, suddenly elated and ready to take on anything. Other helmets came off, the faces behind them smiling, too, but some still uncertain. Most of the consoles had red lights somewhere, blinking or steady . . . too many steady.
“Report,” she said, and the reports began. With portable visual scanners, Engineering had finally gotten a view of the portside pod cluster.
“Not much left to work with,” was the gruff comment. “We’ll have to use the replacement stores, and we may still be one or two short.”
“But we can shift again?”
“Oh, aye, if that’s all you want. I wouldn’t go on another chase in FTL, though, not if you want to live to see your star. It’ll get us home, that’s about it. And that’s assuming you find us a quiet place to work. From what I hear, they’re in short supply. We’ll need three to five days, and that’s for the pods alone. What you did to the portside docking bay is something else.”
Sassinak shook her head. Engineering always thought the ship counted for more than anything else. “I didn’t blow that hole,” she said, well aware that a court martial might think she’d been responsible anyway.
Fire Control was next, reporting that their external shields were still operative: to normal levels except in the damaged quadrant, where they would hold off minor weapons, and offer partial protection from larger ones. Their own distance weapons were in good shape, although the detection and ranging systems on the port side were not. “Soon as we can get someone outside, we can rig something on the midship vanes, and link it to the portside battle computers - except the one that got holed, of course.”
Nav reported that they were almost out of LOS of the oncoming ships from the planet. “They only had a two minute window, and apparently were afraid of hitting their own ship: they didn’t fire, and they won’t be in position for the next five hours.” Sassinak grimaced. Five hours wasn’t enough for any of the repairs, except - maybe - rigging the detector lines. And she still didn’t know how the fight for the escort was coming.
Just then the marine commander came on line, overriding another report. “Got it,” he said. “And they didn’t get word off, either: we had to blow a hole in the bow, and they’re all dead - nobody to question - “ Sassinak didn’t really care about that, not now. She didn’t want to worry about prisoners on board. “You wouldn’t believe this ship,” he went on. “Damn thing’s stuffed with weaponry and assault gear: like a miniature battle platform. Most of the crew travels in coldsleep: that’s how they did it.”
“Anything we need?” she asked, interrupting his recital. “Never mind - I’ll patch you to Engineering and Damage Control: if they’ve got components we can use, take ‘em . . . then clear the ship. Twenty minutes.”
“Aye, captain.” Med was next: eighteen wounded, including the man who’d been with Sass, and the Weft she’d thought was dead. Its central ring and one limb were still together, and Med announced smugly that Wefts could regenerate from that. Minor ring damage, but they’d sewn it up and put the whole thing in the freezer. Sassinak shivered, and glanced around to see if the other Weft had come back in yet. No. She looked at the bridge chronometer, and stared in disbelief. All that in less than fifteen minutes?
Chapter Eleven
By the grace of whatever gods ruled this section of space, they had a brief respite, and Sassinak intended to make the most of it. She had the grain of an idea that might work to buy them still more time. Now, however, her crew labored to dismantle the escort’s docking bay hatch - although not as large as their own, it could form part of the repair far more quickly than Engineering could fabricate a complete replacement. Another working party picked its way along the Zaid-Dayan’s outer hull, rigging detector wires and dishes to replace the damaged portside detectors. Inside the cruiser, the marines hauled away the battered remains of the enemy assault pods, and stacked the corpses near the docking bay. That entire quadrant remained in vacuum.
Red lights began to wink off on consoles in th
e bridge. A spare targeting computer came online to replace the one destroyed by a chance shot, a minor leak in Environmental Systems was repaired without incident, and Engineering even found that a single portside pod could deliver power - it had merely lost its electrical connection when the others blew. One pod wasn’t enough to do much with, but everyone felt better nonetheless.
One hour into the safe period, Sassinak confirmed that the escort vessel had been stripped of everything Engineering thought they might need, and was empty, held to the cruiser by their tractor field.
“This is what I want to do,” she explained to her senior officers.
“It’ll stretch our maneuvering capability,” said Hollister, frowning. “Especially with that hole in the hull - “
“The moon’s airless - there’s not going to be any pressure problem,” said Sass. “What I want to know is, have we got the power to decelerate, and has anyone seen a good place to go in?”
Bures, the senior Navigation Officer, shrugged. “If you wanted a rugged little moon to hide on, this one’s ideal. Getting away again without being spotted is going to be a chore - it’s open to surveillance from the ground and that other moon - but as long as we don’t move, and our stealth gear works?” Sassinak glanced at Hollister.
“That’s all right - and it’s the first time I’ve been happy with it where it is.”
“ - Then I can offer any patch of it,” said Bures. “ - the only thing regular about it is how irregular it is. And yes, before you ask, our surface systems are all functional.”
The next half hour or so was frantic, as working parties moved the enemy corpses and attack pods into the escort - along with escape modules from the cruiser, a Fleet distress beacon and every bit of spare junk they had time to shift. Not all would fit back in, and cursing crewmen lashed nets of the stuff to the escort’s hull. Deep in the escort’s hull and among the wreckage in its docking bay, they placed powerful explosive charges. Last, and most important, the fuses, over whose timing and placement Arly fussed busily. Finally it was all done, and the cruiser’s tractor field turned off. The Zaid-Dayan’s insystem drive caught hold again, easing the cruiser away from the other ship, now a floating bomb continuing on the trajectory both ships had shared. The cruiser decelerated still more, pushing its margin of safety to get to the moonlet’s surface before any of the pursuit could come in sight.