Battlecruiser Alamo: Tales from the Vault

by Richard Tongue

   “Only for as long as it takes you three to refuel the ship and me to collect our pay. I don't think it's going to be a healthy place for us to stop.”

   The two weeks passed slowly. It was a great relief when the ship emerged from hyperspace with Zemlya's green orb looming large in the viewscreen. A greater one when they were cleared through traffic control without a hitch, Logan bringing the ship down to a smooth landing.

   Logan unstrapped himself from his chair and eased to his feet, checking that his guns were holstered and ready for use.

   “Right, I'm going for a walk. Boris, call the port authorities and whistle up an ambulance.”

   Boris looked over from the engineer's console. “If you're doing what I think you are about to do, I should probably arrange for a second one. Why don't you let Anna or I accompany you?”

   “I need you to keep to the ship. When the Senator's office calls, tell him that I'm on the way to see him.”

   “Why not ride with the ambulance?”

   “I think it will be safer if I go separately.” Logan walked out of the cockpit, heading for the airlock.

   Boris asked, “Safer for who?” under his breath.

   Logan took in a deep breath of fresh air as he strode out onto the tarmac of the spaceport. A couple of technicians were already working on the ship, preparing a maintenance report; a fueling truck flew out, landing beside the ship as he watched. He was completely unsurprised to hear someone move up behind him, and to feel a gun in his back.

   “Colonel Winter returns.”

   “You can stop the nonsense. I could have avoided you if I wanted to.”

   “No you couldn't.”

   “Not forever. But I could have today. I know it's a nice day, but we might be better off having this conversation under cover. The same office as before?”

   “Naturally.”

   The pair headed back to the same offices, clambered up the same steps, and found themselves in the same room. The man sat in a chair, pistol still drawn, and regarded Logan.

   “I presume you have come up with some sort of sophisticated scheme to try and force me to give you money. Our people are tracking Valeria, of course; she'll make contact with us when she has recovered.”

   “She doesn't even know who you are.” Logan sat down. “Her second memory cracked when she got shot.”

   “Ah, I see. That was always a risk, of course. She was supposed to record a report for us if it looked like she couldn't make it home. Do I have to tear your ship apart to find it?”

   “No.” Logan pushed his pad across the table. “File one-twenty-three-bravo. No password, no restrictions.”

   “You surprise me. I would have been willing to pay for this information.”

   “I don't want your money. I don't want anything from you.”

   “I had you judged as a mercenary. Was I mistaken?”

   “No. My contract was with the Senator, and I will collect from him in due course.”

   The man frowned, rubbing his finger over his mustache. “Then what do you want?”

   Logan frowned. “Why?”

   He smiled. “Why the operation?”

   “There must have been a thousand people who would have volunteered to stick their heads in a noose for you.”

   “It had to be someone who would not be suspected. Valeria fit the bill perfectly. And our assessment of her psych profile suggested that she would be a natural leader for the rebels.”

   “Which you will now wipe out.”

   “With this information, we ought to be able to eliminate the terrorists.”

   “Wouldn't it have been easier not to found them in the first place?”

   The man frowned, rose to his feet, and looked out over the window. “Our job is to fight threats before they form. Look out there, look at the scurrying masses. They have no idea what is lying in wait for them.”

   “Why not tell them? Let them choose whether they will fight or not. Let them decide whether your Empire is worth fighting for.”

   “That never works. Look at history. Two interstellar empires, collapsed at the height of their power. Your own System States Alliance, founded in a blaze of glory when a group of Triplanetarians decided they knew more than the government.

   “And if they did?”

   “It doesn't matter, Colonel. You should know that. Government is about keeping the wolf from the door for one more day. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is just pabulum to keep the masses in line to allow us to do our job.”

   Logan rose to his feet. “So you admit that the only reason for a government is because you think a government is better than the alternative.”

   “I think Jefferson proved that quite conclusively. Three thousand-megaton bursts. The planet will never be the same again. Too much damage done to the ecosystem. Do you want that here?”

   “No.”

   “Valeria doesn't matter. You don't matter. I don't matter. What matters is the people.”

   “The people you refuse to trust. You could have told me what my mission was. Told me that I was collecting the malware, not delivering it.”

   The man sighed. “You've been very effective, none the less. A difficult mission, handled well.”

   “And my reward will be a bullet in the back, I presume.”

   “Not at all, Colonel. You are a tool that can be used more than once.”

   “I'm not your tool.” Logan stood up to leave, picking up his pad from his desk. “You've got what you wanted.”

   “Enjoy your fifty thousand kopeks. I'll be in touch.”

   Logan cautiously made his way into the city, working his way through the streets to the Legate's office. Major Voldeschi was waiting for him on the street, and ushered him through a side entrance.

   “Major, the Legate and I are going to want some privacy. Has my crew given you the medical reports on Valeria?”

   “The Legate has them. I'll be outside, Winter.”

   Logan smiled grimly to himself, and walked into the Legate's office. The man was a wreck, the reports scattered across his desk. His tie was low round his neck, suit unbuttoned.

   “Captain Winter!” He leapt up, and pounded Logan's hand. “You've no idea how grateful I am for you bringing my daughter home.”

   “Do you know what happened to her?”

   “The terrorists shot her, you saved her life. The doctor said something about psychological trauma. She's going to have the best treatment money can buy.”

   “She was leading the terrorists.”

   The Legate collapsed into his chair. “What?”

   “You must have known it was a possibility that she had joined them willingly.”

   “I didn't want to think that.”

   “You don't have to. She didn't. Nor was her distance from you at university anything to do with you.”

   He looked up. “What do you mean?”

   “Imperial Special Forces grabbed her, indoctrinated her, then sent her in as a deep cover agent. The whole thing was a set-up, right from the word go.”

   “What!” the Legate screamed. He was on his feet, grabbing Logan by the lapels on his jacket, beating him limply with his fists. “For three years I have been in a living hell, analyzing every thought, every word, trying to work out what I did wrong. For three years I have spent every moment wondering where my daughter was, what had driven her from me.”

   “Now you know.” Logan backed away. “The question is what you plan to do with your knowledge.”

   “I'm going to kill those bastards. I'm going to drag their names into the muck.”

   “Then you condemn you and your daughter to death.”

   The Legate deflated into his chair. “What do you mean.”

   “Even City Hall can't fight City Hall. If you go up against them, you'll lose. They'll have no compunction about killing you. My crew
and I as well, probably.”

   “I must fight them, Logan. What if they are doing the same thing right now to someone else's daughter?”

   “Legate, whether you chose to fight or not is your own affair. I'll give you all the details I know. You have to decide whether the risk is worth it.”

   “And you and your crew?”

   “We're survivors, Legate. Ask yourself this question. You've spent the last three years wanting to get your daughter back. She's back. Give it a few months, and the psychotherapists will have her back on her feet. Do you want to jeopardize that?”

   “I don't know. I...don't know.”

   “We'll be leaving Zemlya in a few hours. I've recorded everything on this data crystal.” He dropped it down on the desk. “Don't let me know what you decide.”

   “You've given me a lot to think about. I don't know what I'm going to do next.

   “Oh, that I can help you with.” Logan smiled.

   “What do you mean?”

   “You can reach into your wallet and pay me forty thousand kopeks.”

  ORPHANS OF EARTH

  I

   Curtis' eyes snapped open as the alert siren sounded, rousing him from a troubled sleep. He looked around the cabin of the transit shuttle, the rest of the passengers already reacting to the alert, all but two moving to the rear, struggling to release the survival pods.

   Summoning all the authority he could muster, he barked, “Stay in your seats! That's not a decompression alarm, just an engine warning. We've got time to correct it, but if you try and get out now, it's a long, long way to the surface.”

   “Lieutenant,” Vice-Governor Burton, his nominal superior, and one of the two who had remained in their seats, ordered, “Find out what is happening. Now.”

   Nodding, Curtis unstrapped his restraints, struggling to his feet as the engine unevenly roared, acceleration varying wildly as the shuttle rocked from side to side, and made his way forward, entering an override code to release the cabin lock. His eyes widened at the sight inside, the pilot slumped over her controls, sparks flying from a wrecked autopilot, the monitor shattered and the controls burnt and blackened.

   “Someone get up here with a medical kit!” he yelled, gently easing her from the remains of the controls. A portly figure wearing the cassock of a Catholic priest stepped inside, the red-crossed case in his hands already opened and ready. “Get her back to the cabin and see what you can do. Her hands, I think.”

   “Yes, sir,” he replied, as Curtis settled into the pilot's couch, running a quick systems check. The diagnostic check was a catalog of bad news, the main engine failing, fuel tank damaged, communications destroyed. He reached for the throttle, easing the acceleration back as low as he dared in a desperate attempt to conserve fuel for the landing, and snapped the navigation computer on, trying to recalculate his trajectory.

   This had been a simple flight from Sentinel Station, the renamed Phobos that served as the primary spaceport for the fleet of the Terrestrial People's Republic, to the surface of Mars, the planetary capital at Port Lowell. Instead, they were heading out towards the northern polar regions, a thousand miles off course, their path hopelessly skewed. Few settlements graced that region, at least, few that were officially on the map, and most of those were isolated research outposts that would be unable to deal with their imminent crash landing.

   At this point, that was inevitable. Something had ripped the guts out of the underside of the shuttle, torn away most of the lateral thrusters and the lower sensor arrays. Even if he'd had perfect control, without being able to see the landing site, bringing the shuttle down in one piece would be a miracle. She was making her last flight, and would be reaching her final resting place in less than five minutes. All he could hope was that they'd walk away from the crash in one piece, and he was going to need all the fuel he could conserve if he was going to make that work.

   “Someone check out the engineering telltales!” he yelled, craning his neck to glance into the cabin. “And everyone else strap down! This is going to be rough!”

   “On it,” a woman wearing the rusty jumpsuit of a local maintenance technician, taking advantage of an empty seat on an unscheduled shuttle to visit the surface. “Reserve tank damn near empty, Lieutenant. I'll try and rig a bypass, funnel what's left in the primaries into it.”

   “Don't wait too long,” Curtis said, struggling to keep the shuttle stable as the mass began to shift. Even in the thin Martian atmosphere, re-entry was going to be rough, the heat shield a shattered ruin, maneuvering thrusters running on little more than fumes. He struggled with the controls, trying to keep the shuttle steady, to keep on some sort of trajectory, while his eyes roamed the planetary map for a target, anywhere that might save their lives on impact.

   Finally, he found it. Rising Dawn, a hundred-year-old settlement from the dying days of the old Terran Hegemony, established for some long-forgotten reason, but large enough that it should have the rescue equipment they would shortly require. He looked with a scowl at the dead communications console, no means of warning the surface of their plight. One quick distress signal to Sentinel would have sent emergency vehicles racing in their direction, but without any contact from the ship, help might be hours away.

   The ship rocked to the side, one of the thrusters running dry, sending them into a long, dangerous arc. Beneath them, the gleaming white of the ice cap opened up, a few scattered domes thrown across the surface, lights shining into the night. Most of them were outlaw settlements, taking advantage of the inattention of the Fleet to hide in plain sight, knowing that the effort of wiping them out would, for the present, be out of the Republic's reach. One day, perhaps, it would be different.

   “Lieutenant,” Burton's voice barked.

   “Strap in!” Curtis replied. “And don't distract me! This is going to be rough.”

   His world reduced to the remains of the console, the stink of ozone still leaching into the air from the damaged panels, and the sensor display on the screen, data rushing down to warn him of the imminent danger to his life and the integrity of the ship. New alarms sounded as the hull struggled in the thickening atmosphere, the heat shield burning away in fragments that left a black-strewn trail in their wake.

   Finally, he settled into the glide path, reaching down to run the engine up to minimum thrust, trying to gain a measure of control into their descent, desperately aiming for the one safe haven in range. He could hear shouted protests from the rear cabin, blocking them out with an effort as he nursed the wounded bird into place.

   At last, he found what he was looking for. A double-dome of the old design, a long landing strip running along one side with navigation lights flashing into view. The little-used landing field was strewn with dust, but already buggies were racing out of the vehicular airlock, making for the runway. Someone in their operations suite was paying attention, realized that something out of the ordinary was about to happen.

   “Thirty seconds!” he said, as the engine died, the last of the fuel spent. He was on trajectory, had reduced his speed as much as he could, and was now reliant on what was left of the landing jets, themselves almost bereft of fuel. He played the controls like a master pianist, working to a tune only in his head, gentle thrusts to counter the faint crosswind, air leaking out from the underslung emergency tanks, the ship providing her own turbulence to make the landing still harder.

   Tugging a long lever, he heard the faint whine of the landing legs dropping down, the alert lights that would have assured him they had locked into position failing to glow. One more problem to face, one more risk he was running as he killed the last of his forward velocity with a single pulse from the thrusters. The fuel was gone, and the shuttle was falling now, sliding the last two hundred feet in the reduced gravity.

   “Hold on!” he yelled, gripping the armrests of the couch. He had one final trick up his sleeve, and reached across to the emergency oxygen vent, re
leasing the bulk of their air into the near-vacuum outside to provide a last kick to reduce their descent, the blast of atmosphere sending clouds of dust flying into the air, sweeping across his camera pickups and leaving him blind for a brief second. With an angry report, they were down, the hull creaking and groaning from the strain of impact. A final chorus of alarms sang into the air, the tones that every spaceman dreaded. Decompression alert.

   “Suits on, now!” he ordered, tugging off the restraints and reaching up to the overhead locker, the components of his suit dropping down all around him. A low hiss was filling the air, and they had little time to save their lives. He couldn't think of the people in the cabin, now forced to provide their own salvation. He'd barely have time to save himself.

   Tugging himself into the suit, assembling it a piece at a time, he glanced at the post-flight reports sweeping onto the screen, the final words of a dying ship, a testament of betrayal. His nimble hands pulled attachments into position, long training giving him extra speed, and finally he was able to lock the helmet down, text racing onto his heads-up display as the suit computer booted, bringing a heady blast of oxygen to his lungs.

   Stepping out into the passenger cabin, he looked at the survivors with a frown. One of the passengers was dead, his neck broken, the restraints snapped free from the force of their landing. The priest and the Governor were both in suits of their own, the others waiting in the hastily-deployed rescue balls. Curtis walked over to the airlock, tapping in an emergency code to open both hatches at once, the remnants of the atmosphere leaking away.

   “Shuttle One-Nine-One, do you read?” he heard, a faint voice in his helmet.

   “This is Lieutenant Curtis,” he replied. “Identify yourself.”

   “Qing Chin Zhu,” the clipped voice responded. “Technical Director of Rising Dawn. Welcome to the surface.” A buggy bounded into position outside, and its airlock opened to reveal a suited figure in the threshold. “I'll forgive the mess you made of our landing field.”

   “I am Vice-Governor Patrick Burton,” a stentorian voice proclaimed. “You will immediately place us in contact with Sentinel Station, and prepare a vehicle to take me to Port Lowell at once. Then you will help our wounded, and arrange for the recovery of the shuttle.”