by Ryk Brown
Cameron nearly jumped to the tactical display, just in time to see the track of the harvester as it came speeding toward the Aurora from the starboard side of her stern, on a collision course with the unknown approaching ship. Cameron quickly activated the transfer airlock’s outer door.
The little harvester slid in under the unmarked ship, positioning himself between it and the Aurora, forcing the unmarked ship to pull up sharply at the last moment. The unmarked ship was unable to pull up enough, and it slammed into the hull just above the bay opening to the flight deck as the harvester entered the outer bay just below the unmarked ship’s point of impact. The unmarked ship crumpled and flipped as its momentum caused it to slide up the hull before it spilled out over the top, chunks of it flying away as it continued to tumble out of control and break apart.
“Whoo-hoo!” Josh cried out. “I never flinch!”
“Oh my God. He’ll never stop in time,” Cameron declared as she watched him approach on the flight deck monitoring display. He was coming in nearly four times the normal landing speed, and he had all his thrusters burning at maximum to try and slow down before he traversed the transfer bay and slammed into the inner bay door. Cameron watched, grimacing even more intensely as she watched the harvester hurtle toward the inner doors. Suddenly he killed his thrusters and spun his little ship around, firing his main engines at full power. The harvester finally came to a stop less than a meter from the inner door, as he killed his engines.
“Oh my God, you did it!” Cameron shouted, unaware that her mic was open.
“Of course I did it, love!” he answered as he spun his ship back around, dropped his gear and settled onto the deck. “Sorry I scorched your doors, though.” Cameron quickly keyed off her mic, slightly embarrassed at her outburst. “You gonna let me in or what?”
“Commander, Hangar Bay reports all secure,” the comm officer reported.
Cameron took a deep breath and sighed. “Tell me that guy doesn’t remind you of someone,” she said as she started closing the outer bay door.
“Commander,” Kaylah said. “That contact is back. It just came out from behind the gas giant.”
Cameron had another sinking feeling. “Let me guess.” Cameron muttered.
“Transferring track to tactical.”
Cameron looked at the tactical display, watching the ship ID display as it searched for a match. Within seconds, the ID system displayed the specs for a Ta’Akar cruiser, just like the one they had faced on their way out of the asteroid field a few days ago. “Tell Mendez to get his ass up here,” she ordered as she left the tactical station and made her way to the helm, “I need him at tactical. Call all hands to battle stations,” she added. “We’re leaving the rings.”
The sniper peered into his electronic sighting system, studying the little screen that showed a close up view of the distant greenhouse. Suddenly, the helmeted head and armored shoulders of one of his comrades made his way through the greenhouse back the way he had come a few minutes earlier, in a standard tactical crouch so as to maintain a low target profile. It was an unnecessary effort that the older, more experienced sniper found amusing, attributing the extra caution to the inexperience of many of the newer members of the assault team. Satisfied that his teammate had dealt with the threat in that vicinity, the sniper continued his search for targets of opportunity.
After entering the reactor shack, Jessica removed the helmet she had taken from the soldier she had killed minutes earlier. “Jesus! Do these guys ever clean their gear?” she cursed as she tossed the helmet aside and removed the shoulder armor.
She looked around the dimly lit room until she located the target of her search-the shield control panel. There were four rows of toggle switches, about a dozen or so in each row. At one side there was a rocker switch and a lever. Unfortunately, they were all marked in a language that she did not understand.
“When in doubt, turn them all on.” She quickly flipped all the toggle switches up and depressed the rocker switch. All of the little green lights above each toggle switch lit up. “So far so good,” she said as she grabbed the lever and moved it all the way over. One of the large metal boxes in the room began to hum loudly, sending shivers up her spine. “Whoa. I hope it’s supposed to do that.” A moment later, the red light above the lever turned green, and she heard a strange whistling hum coming from outside. She moved over to the outside door of the shack and peeked out. Above the sinkhole, there was a shimmering glow of slightly opaque white with little specks dancing about. “So that’s what a shield looks like, huh?” She looked over at the main farm house, not more than ten meters away. She could see soldiers about to enter the back of the house, obviously hoping to get the drop on Tug and his wife who were still firing on the troops near Tobin’s ship. To her right, she could see Tobin through his cockpit windows, a nervous grin on his gaunt face as he watched the assault from the safety of his ship. “I knew we couldn’t trust that skinny little fucker,” she mumbled to herself, as she turned her comm-set back on.
“They’re coming around to your side!” Ranni warned.
Tug looked out the broken window in front of him and saw two black and gray soldiers running for cover. He opened up on them, managing to kill the second one but missing the first when his battery pack gave out.
“Mine is dead!” he hollered.
“Take mine!” Ranni ordered, tossing her weapon to him as she turned to run towards the kitchen. “I’ve got another one in the kitchen!”
Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open and two red bolts of energy burst forth, striking Ranni in the chest, knocking her backwards and killing her instantly.
“RANNI!” Tug screamed as he ran to her. He dropped to his knees at her side, clutching her still smoldering and lifeless body as two soldiers stormed into the room from the kitchen door and grabbed him, wrestling away his weapon and holding him face down to the floor. They were followed by their squad leader, who strode confidently in, full of swagger. “Pick him up,” he ordered.
“What was that?” Nathan asked when he heard the hum from outside.
“She did it,” Jalea announced as she headed out the door. “She got the shield up.”
“Wait! Where the hell are you going?” Nathan watched as she ran out across the compound, stopping momentarily at the vehicle. “Is she crazy?”
Jalea sprinted the remaining distance from the vehicle to the back of Tobin’s ship.
Nathan struggled with his fear as he tried to decide what to do. He didn’t know what Jalea was up to, but he was pretty sure it was a better plan than sitting on his ass waiting to get shot. At least with the overhead shield active, the snipers couldn’t pick them off.
Nathan knew the shield might not last, and his fear of dying doing nothing quickly overcame his fear of dying doing something. “Stay here!” he instructed Deliza as he exited the shack in pursuit of Jalea-who by now had already circled around the aft end of Tobin’s ship.
Jalea peeked around the engine cowling of Tobin’s ship. His engines were still idling, and while in such close proximity the noise was almost deafening. After seeing that there were no soldiers in sight, she moved around and made her way quickly and quietly up the cargo ramp into Tobin’s small ship.
She stopped at the top of the ramp to peek inside toward the cockpit. Seeing only Tobin, she strode calmly into the ship and headed forward toward the cockpit, her weapon held down at her side.
Tobin was happily enjoying his view of the capture of Tug through the front windows of the main house when he sensed someone’s presence and spun around. “Jalea,” he said, his expression suddenly becoming anxious. “I can explain-”
“A little early, aren’t you?” Jalea asked coldly as she raised her weapon.
Tobin’s eyes widened. “Wait. We had a deal-”
Jalea fired a single shot, striking Tobin in the head, turning his skull into a mound of burnt skin, hair, and bone that slumped forward against the console as it smoldered.
N
athan came charging up the ramp a moment later, his weapon held ready. He came to a sudden stop, repulsed by the sight and smell of Tobin’s smoldering head.
“What happened?”
“He was working with for Ta’Akar,” she exclaimed.
Nathan was furious. “I thought you said we could trust him!”
“I said we had used his services many times in the past,” she corrected. “I never said I trusted him.”
“But-”
“Apparently, the Ta’Akar offered him greater payment than we did,” she explained as she turned to exit.
“How the hell are we going to fly this ship?”
“I will fly it.”
“Oh, so now you’re a pilot as well?” he asked as he followed her.
Jessica slowly opened the back door to the main house and crept inside the storm porch. As she carefully closed the door, she noticed Tug’s youngest girl hiding in a corner, huddled down low. Jessica smiled at her, and held one finger up to her pursed lips, gesturing for her to stay quiet. The little girl nodded agreement. Jessica made a goofy face at the girl to ease her tension but only got the slightest of smiles. Jessica continued on, hoping the little girl would be smart enough to stay hidden.
She continued through the next door into the kitchen, where she could hear the conversations of the soldiers who apparently had already captured Tug and his wife.
“Do you know what they will say when we bring him in? Alive no less?” the voice came from the living room.
Jessica moved across the kitchen, coming to stop against the cabinets along the living room wall just beside the door.
“We’ll all be promoted at the very least! We may even be decorated by Caius himself!”
“Sir!” another voice spoke. “One of our snipers reports that two targets have entered the ship, and they’ve lost contact with Tobin.”
“Oh no, I will not have this moment taken from me,” the squad leader cursed. “Bring him!”
Jessica peeked through the crack in the door and saw them drag Tug out the front door of the house. She pushed the door open just enough to see Ranni lying dead on the floor of the living room, with no one else in the room.
“Is anybody on comms?” Vladimir’s voice came across Jessica’s comm-set.
“Vlad, is that you?” Jessica whispered.
“Yes, Jessica, I am here. Where are you?”
“Main house, in the kitchen. Where are you?”
“In a transfer shack, to your left, just in front of the house.”
The two soldiers dragged Tug out onto the front porch, stopping just short of the front edge. Their squad leader stood directly behind Tug, holding his hand gun at the back of Tug’s head.
“You! In the ship!” the squad leader yelled. “Come out or we kill him!”
“Can you see them?” Jessica asked Vladimir.
“Yes. There are three. One of them is the squad leader, I believe. They have Tug. They are holding him in front of them, on his knees. The leader has a gun to Tug’s head.”
“Where’s Nathan?”
“He is in Tobin’s ship, with Jalea. They are standing in the cargo doorway.”
“Does he have his comm-set on?”
“Yes, surprisingly.”
“I heard that,” Nathan chimed in.
“You guys take out Tobin?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah, Jalea did the honors,” Nathan answered.
“Nice,” Jessica said. “Vlad, how good a shot are you?”
“Very good.”
“Think you can take out the guy nearest you with a head shot?”
“No problem.”
The squad leader looked around as he waited. “I said come out! Or I will kill this man here and now!”
“Nathan, how about you? Think you can take out the one on the right with a head shot?”
“My right or your right?”
“My right, your left. Can you do it?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Nathan admitted.
“You did qualify, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” Nathan defended. “And I scored quite well, I might add. I’ve just never had to kill anyone before.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, skipper. You gonna step up or what?” There was no answer. “Nathan?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m in.”
“Okay. Step out slowly. And both of you keep your weapons up and your safeties off. Let’s not make this anymore difficult than we have to.”
“We’re coming out!” Jalea yelled from the ship.
The squad leader smiled, confident that his bluff would work. Jalea was the first out, her hand gun held high pointed at the soldiers. Nathan was next, his automatic close-quarters weapon held high and tight against his shoulder, aimed at his assigned target, the soldier on the left. “What’s our signal to shoot?” Nathan whispered.
“My count guys. On three, repeat, on three.”
“Much better,” the squad leader said. “Now lower your weapons?”
“One,” Jessica started calmly.
“That would be unwise on our part,” Jalea responded.
“Two.”
“Not doing so would be equally unwise,” the squad leader argued. “Lower them, or he dies now.”
“Three.”
All three shots rang out simultaneously. Jessica’s round entered the back of the squad leader’s head, passed through his brain, and came out the front, bringing most of his face with it. Vladimir’s shot entered his target in the neck, just below the jaw under his helmet line, severing his carotid artery before it exploded his cervical vertebrae spewing blood, tissue, and bone fragments all over Tug and the squad leader standing behind him. Nathan’s shot, much to his own surprise, entered dead in the center of his targets face shield, shattering the bridge of his nose as it entered his brain, passed through and exploded the back side of his helmet, which was not designed to protect against objects trying to get out. All three soldiers dropped to the porch in dead heaps, the squad leader most dramatically as his lifeless body tumbled forward over the still kneeling farmer.
The compound became eerily still, the only sounds being the idling engines of Tobin’s ship and the hum of the overhead shield. To that was soon added the sound of Deliza’s cries as she ran across the compound to be by her father’s side, despite the blood and bodies.
“Are we clear?” Jessica’s voice asked over Nathan’s comm-set. “Nathan?” she repeated. “Are we clear?” Nathan lowered his weapon as Deliza fell into Tug’s arms, weeping.
“Yeah, we’re clear,” Nathan answered. “All three targets are down. Tug’s fine.”
Jalea placed her hand on Nathan’s shoulder as she holstered her weapon. “The best of men are sometimes called upon to do the worst of things,” she told him before she walked away to join Tug and Deliza.
Nathan watched her walk to the porch, where she met Jessica and took Tug’s youngest daughter into her arms. Nathan could see the anguish in Tug’s face, and knew that his wife had not survived.
Vladimir walked past the bodies, taking note of their wounds as he passed them on his way to Nathan. “Nice shot, Nathan. To be honest, I did not think you had it in you.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted.
Suddenly, there was a loud crack that caused the ground to shake and the overhead shield to flash a blinding yellow-white. Nathan and the others instinctively ducked, as if they were expecting the very sky to come crashing down upon them. The noise came again and again, each time nearly knocking them off their feet as the blinding flashes repeated above them.
Another ship, dark gray with black trim and no markings flew over their heads less than one hundred meters above them as it continued bombarding them from above.
“They’re trying to drain the shields!” Vladimir yelled above the din.
“They cannot,” Tug assured them as he got to his feet. “They can fire a thousand times, it will not weaken.”
The enemy ship, satisfied t
hat no one was returning fire, began to hover a hundred meters above the shield as it continued its bombardment.
“Maybe not!” Nathan said. “But as long as that ship is up there, we’re not getting out of here either!”
The ship, realizing the futility of its efforts to break the shield, instead turned its fire toward the edges of the sinkhole, pounding away at the ground. The walls of the sinkhole shook violently with each blast. Soon, large chunks began to shake free, falling onto the greenhouses below and shattering their glass roofs.
“What are they doing?” Nathan asked.
“They’re trying to collapse the walls!” Jessica cried out.
“If they collapse the right sections, they will take out some of the emitters!” Tug warned. “When enough of them are gone, the shield will lose its integrity and collapse!”
“We’ve gotta get outta here!” Nathan ordered. “Everyone into the ship!”
“That ship will blast us out of the air the minute we take off!” Jessica objected.
“On the ground we’ve got zero chance! Up there, well, it’s better than nothing!” he pleaded.
“All right, you heard the captain! Everybody on board!” Jessica barked.
“We’re entering orbit around Haven now,” Cameron reported from the helm. “How far behind us is that warship?”
“By the time we come back around Haven, she’ll have guns on us,” Ensign Mendez advised from the tactical station.
“Comm, tell the surviving workers that if they want to return to Haven before we depart, they’d better do it quick.”
“Yes, sir,” the comm officer reported.
“Kaylah, any sign of Tobin’s ship?”
“No, sir, but we’re still a few minutes from line-of-sight with the landing party’s last known position.”
“Find them for me, Kaylah,” Cameron ordered. “And comm, keep trying to hail them. And don’t be afraid to use the wide band.”
— 9 -
Nathan dropped into the seat to the left of Jalea in the cockpit of Tobin’s ship.