Carbon Life

by HR Ringer

Taking another sip of water, Xiùlán set the glass down and replied, “Understood, Sir. I have to learn to float before I can learn to swim, correct? Is there anything else?”

  Shaking his head, Anderson answered, “Not at this time, Lieutenant. I’ll have Mr Nolen devise a schedule that will allow you to start applying some of the lessons General Park assures me you have learned to ‘real-world’ situations. For now, head over to the CIC… introduce yourself to my XO, Commander Tyler… Alicia Tyler. She’s smart… and extremely knowledgeable about every system on the Tokyo. I’ll send her a note right now, tell her you’re coming to see her.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” Standing, Yuán offered her hand as she added, “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  * * *

  The SSV Tokyo, along with five frigates, had been patrolling the shipping corridors between the Utopia System Mass Relay and the Antaeus System relay in the Hades Gamma Cluster; ships belonging to the batarian hegemony had been making increasingly frequent transits of the relay pair after arriving from the Kite’s Nest. These vessels invariably ignored the presence of the Alliance battle group, staying in-system only as long as it took for the relay to complete its ponderous realignment dance with the Antaeus relay. Additionally, their patrols took them to Elysium on an irregular schedule that was purposely designed to appear random when it was anything but.

  It was during one of these trips to the Vetus system that Yuán was able to demonstrate her technical skills. As the Tokyo entered the system, their comms came alive with distress calls from Elysium, reporting numerous shuttles landing slavers at several locations around the planet; the reports told of attackers concentrating their efforts away from the capitol city of Illyria. Anderson quickly assigned six fire teams – supported by four A-61 gunships – to deploy from the Tokyo in order to engage the attackers and prevent them from leaving Elysium with any of its citizens. The frigates accompanying the Tokyo would also deploy Marines to defend the colonies, while they and the Tokyo would locate and either capture or destroy the slaver’s ships in orbit around the planet.

  Yuán, aided by the ship’s VI, was operating the ships mid-range and short-range sensor suites; she was able to accurately plot the slaver’s support ships on the tactical map, currently displaying a digital representation of Elysium, along with the settlements under attack and her own battle group. She sent proposed course corrections to the navigator’s console; these were designed to bring the Tokyo into an optimum position to effectively fire its mass accelerator cannons and medium range missiles. As soon as the A-61’s and the shuttles carrying the ground teams launched, XO Tyler engaged the navigator’s seemingly unorthodox course change.

  With the inertia dampeners at full power, the pilots initiated the course and velocity correction, bringing the massive ship around to a new heading in a maneuver that had the hull creaking from the strain. The five frigates accompanying the cruiser had no trouble keeping pace, although their captains expressed surprise at the Tokyo’s new-found ability to fly as if it were a much smaller vessel. Once the ship had steadied up on its new course, Tyler initiated a short-duration FTL jump that brought the battle group within ten kilometers of the enemy ships.

  Immediately upon dropping back to sub-light velocity, Anderson ordered the weapons officer to fire both 490 meter cannons at the targeted ship as the ship’s VI jammed all comms frequencies to prevent the enemies from calling for help; although the attacking teams on the ground were a mix of humans and batarians, the support ships were batarian – LADaR had ‘painted’ one of the two as a Thar’Van class assault frigate – registration came back as the Plague Trader. At 380 meters in length, it was 30 percent smaller than the Tokyo, but its two 300m and two 150m mass accelerators made it a formidable foe for its size; its lack of missile bays, along with a decidedly inferior auxiliary targeting system, didn’t make the ship any less dangerous – it was reliable, durable, and being encountered in increasing numbers in the Terminus. The second ship was an Aeon class frigate, also well armored and armed, although its primary function here would seem to be as a transport for attacking ground forces coming in.

  The five frigates accompanying the Tokyo rapidly closed the distance to the pair, resulting in immediate attempts by both vessels to turn and run. The frigates began firing broadsides and missiles at both ships, targeting the engines and shield emitters of the Thar’Van assault frigate, while targeting the engines of the Aeon frigate.

  Immediately upon taking a hit from one of the Tokyo’s mass cannons, the Plague Trader rolled and ‘dove’ in order to present as small a silhouette as possible; once safely ‘below’ the cruiser’s line of fire, the enemy captain cut his engines while spinning his ship on its axis. Drifting backwards away from the Tokyo, he attempted to ignore the three Alliance frigates that had followed his maneuver while taking aim at the Tokyo’s belly with his own mass accelerators.

  Before Anderson could respond to the threat by turning and accelerating away, the Tokyo was the recipient of one of the two 10-kilo slugs fired from the Plague Trader; the round penetrated the kinetic barrier and destroyed the armor plating at its impact point. The concussion rocked the ship and caused several electrical fires in the propulsion control compartments in engineering. Tyler was on the comms, calling for DC teams to extinguish the fires before they got out of control; as the Tokyo attempted to move out of the firing line of the Plague Trader’s weapons, Anderson had the pilots pivot and roll the ship on its axis in an attempt to once again bring his own mass accelerators to bear.

  At the same time, the Aeon frigate was now adrift, leading the frigate SSV Midway to move alongside it in an attempt to land a boarding party. Xiùlán had been busy gathering sensor data from the Plague Trader; returning her attention to the Aeon class frigate, she keyed her internal comm and said, “Commander, core breach imminent, secondary target.” Commander Tyler reacted immediately, ordering evasive action as she activated the fleet wide comms to order the Midway to stand off. Captain McKay was responding to Tyler’s order, saying the enemy ship needed to be boarded – his message was cutoff in mid-transmission by an explosion, seemingly all out of proportion to the size of the enemy frigate destroyed by it.

  The bow section of the Midway’s port side, including the cockpit and CIC, had been breached by the concussion wave of the Aeon frigate’s core explosion; additionally, the ship had been hurled violently away and was in an uncontrolled spiral towards the planet below. Tyler’s desperate attempts to contact the Midway were to no avail… The crew in the CIC could only watch their instruments and hope that a few people were able to make it to escape pods before the vessel succumbed to atmospheric friction and burned up.

  Captain Anderson had repositioned the Tokyo and fired four missiles at the Thar’Van frigate just as an incoming comms signal intruded. Tyler answered the call, only to discover a four-eyed vision from hell on the other end. “Tokyo… This is Fleet Captain Sorish Pad’falor of the Hegemony ship Plague Trader. You have caused the deaths of over thirty of the people taken from Elysium, along with the batarian crew of the Aeon frigate that just exploded.” He tilted his head to the right in a blatant show of contempt, while the sounds of his own ship being hit by missiles fired by the Tokyo and accompanying frigates wafted through the connection. “You obviously feel no sorrow or compassion for the loss of the… what was the name of that ship? Ah, yes, the Midway… and her crew complement, Captain. Your misguided attempt to prevent us from taking a few of the people from your illegal colonies on Elysium has cost your kind nearly a hundred people.”

  As the batarian captain was speaking with Anderson, Xiùlán was probing the Plague Trader with every sensor at her disposal. Based on her readings from the Thar’Van frigate, she sent a recommended course and speed to the navigator’s console while messaging XO Tyler that the Eezo core inside the batarian ship was exhibiting increasing signs of a critical overload. She was also collecting and collating damage and injury reports from the DC teams below, which she also s
ent to Tyler’s console.

  Tyler reactivated her own terminal, transmitted the navigator’s course and speed recommendations to her own pilots and to the four surviving frigates, along with an order to standby for maneuvering; she then returned her attention to Captain Anderson, who was in the midst of telling the batarian captain he should prepare to be boarded. Cutting the connection, Anderson ordered the firing of another round of missiles while instructing Commander Tyler to reposition the ship in order to bring his broadsides to once again bear on the Plague Trader. “Do you have a damage report, Commander?”

  “Damage was confined to control circuits inside number two main engine interface compartment, Sir,” she replied. “Fourteen injured, three severely… and… one casualty. All fires have been extinguished and engineers are bypassing the damaged circuitry. Hull plating is buckled between frame 295 and 305, keel left 20.”

  As Anderson was listening to the damage report, the pilots completed repositioning the ship – a chime sounded on the fire-control panel, indicating the broadsides were once again in a position to fire effectively. Anderson brought his fist down on the firing key as he said, “Fire everything at that bastard!” Nineteen 30-meter cannons fired sequentially, all but two rounds striking the Plague Trader’s engines, shield emitters and weapons pods; this resulted in several explosions in the batarian ship’s engine nacelles, leaving it with only maneuvering thrusters to navigate. There were broadsides firing back at the Tokyo, but their fire control system, never a strong point when it was operating at 100 percent, was damaged as well, leaving the weapons operators with no effective way to accurately aim their guns.

  Anderson pointed at the comms tech, who sent a message request to the Plague Trader. Fleet Captain Pad’falor answered, although the video image was filled with static, to the point the image was ‘tearing’ and ‘rolling’ sporadically. “Ah, Captain Anderson. The Plague Trader is now yours to command. We will stand by for your boarding team.”

  With a murmured, “Lā shǐ!” [拉屎！- Shit!] Xiùlán stood up and said, “Captain,” as she made a slashing motion with her hand. Anderson was smart enough to realize none of the crew in the CIC would interrupt him unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Cutting the audio ‘send’ portion of the comms, he looked straight at Xiùlán as he said, “Lieutenant?”

  “Sensors indicate a massive energy overload being applied to their Eezo core, Captain. A catastrophic explosion appears to be imminent. We should get clear, Sir.”

  The corners of Anderson’s mouth turned up slightly as he un-muted the audio comms. “Fleet Captain Pad’falor… standby. Our boarding teams will be joining you shortly.” Cutting the comms, he looked to Yuán and asked, “How long, Lieutenant?”

  “Estimate less than thirty seconds, Sir.”

  “Commander Tyler, at fifteen seconds, begin moving away from the Plague Trader. At five seconds, jump to FTL.”

  Tyler relayed instructions to the four remaining frigates; watching the countdown timer on her own terminal, she sent the command to the pilots at sixteen seconds. She counted down to six seconds, commanded the jump and held on.

  The Tokyo and the remaining four frigates jumped through the upper fringes of Elysium’s atmosphere, leaving a brilliant trail of blue-tinged ionized gases in their wakes as the Plague Trader disappeared in a blinding flash of intense blue-white, colors similar to that in the center of the spinning rings containing the Eezo core that was at the heart of every Mass relay.

  Chapter 35: An Assassin’s Erroneous Judgement

  You must understand: they fear you. There is nothing scarier in their minds than a girl who knows the power of her flames. – Nikita Gill

  * * *

  ANN – Alliance News Network

  Bhakolwa - demon name in the Bihar region of India – similar to the Bogeyman in England

  CIC - Combat Information Center

  Húdié dāo-蝴蝶刀– butterfly sword (knife in English)

  Inamorata – A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover (Italian)

  NDA – Non-Disclosure Agreement, signed by Yuán and Traynor at termination of their program

  SDU – Standard Duty Uniform

  VI - Virtual Intelligence

  XO - Executive Officer

  * * *

  * ALLIANCE CRUISER SSV TOKYO, NEAR THE PETRA NEBULA MASS RELAY *

  Yuán Xiùlán slipped into the med bay, intent on finding Lieutenant Olivia McKenzie, injured during the recent action against batarian led slavers over the colony world of Elysium. After speaking with the med-tech near the entrance hatch, she quietly made her way past twelve medical beds, six on each side of a central aisle; turning to her left as she walked past the sixth bed, she approached the seventh, where she found Olivia lying on her back, head of the bed tilted upwards slightly. The still form under the sheet and blanket looked tiny, as if she had been deflated by the explosion in the under decks near the engine controls.

  Standing silently beside McKenzie, she observed the slow, measured rise and fall of her chest, thankful that the woman was still alive, even as she mentally kicked herself; a crewman had died today, dammit, a fact that could not be forgotten. Gazing down upon the serene face of the only person on this ship that knew Xiùlán from her former life in Special Ops training on the moon, Xiùlán wished she could wake the comatose woman.

  McKenzie had been fairly close to the equipment explosion caused by the heavy slug – fired by the batarian’s mass accelerator cannon – hitting the outer hull at a significant fraction of light speed. While small, the pressure wave had been strong enough to toss her bodily against an unforgiving bulkhead, causing a moderate-to-serious concussion. The ship’s doctor, after relieving the pressure inside her skull, had induced a coma in order to give the lieutenant’s brain a chance to recover from its trauma. He assured Xiùlán that Olivia would recover once she’d had a chance to heal. Yuán felt she was beginning to understand Sammy’s enmity for the majority of batarians she came in contact with – even those professing friendship seemed as if they’d turn on you without warning.

  Yuán was aware that the SSV Midway had, in fact, succumbed to its uncontrolled entry into Elysium’s atmosphere, breaking apart and falling to the surface in flaming bits of wreckage; all but nine members of her 56-man crew dying amid the destruction. There had also been injuries among the crews of the other four frigates accompanying the Tokyo during its attack on the batarian ships supporting the slave raid on the planet; additionally, many of the Marines deployed to the surface had suffered wounds at the hands of batarian and human slavers, who had fought to the last man rather than surrender to the Alliance.

  Xiùlán felt a profound sense of sadness that so many had been injured or had died in order to repel the attacks on several of the outlying settlements, but her heart clenched in her chest at the thought that McKenzie could have died. Other than Heather Gonzales, murdered by a Cerberus agent on Mars in 2180, Xiùlán had never had to deal with the death of any close acquaintances.

  As she thought about her shared past with McKenzie, tears welled up in her eyes; taking a deep breath to steady herself, she started to turn in order to walk back to her quarters, nearly running into Commander Tyler as she moved.

  “Sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t realize you were standing behind me.”

  Tyler had grasped Xiùlán’s upper arm to steady herself; looking into sable-brown eyes, she said, “No harm done, Lieutenant. I just came down to see how our injured crewmates are doing.” Flicking her eyes towards McKenzie, she said, “I take it you two were acquainted from before… were you and McKenzie close, Lieutenant?

  Xiùlán wiped the tears from her eyes as she explained to the XO. “Not particularly, no. She was a group lieutenant at the… vocational school I was attending.” Looking back at McKenzie briefly, she added, “I haven’t had to deal much with injuries of acquaintances due to hostile actions. One of my classmates… uh, well actually, I expect that may be something I’m prohibited from
speaking of.”

  “Really? Seems odd that you’re not supposed to speak about people you knew during that time, especially friends.”

  Xiùlán thought about that for a few moments before fixing her gaze on the commander’s eyes. “Well, she was a classmate. Without naming names or locations, I believe it would do no harm to tell you she was murdered – by another classmate – for no other reason than she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This… classmate… and her companion… were actually agents, employed by Cerberus.” Xiùlán could see the question forming on Tyler’s lips, so quickly added, “And before you ask, I cannot speak to their reasons for doing what they did.”

  “My God, Yuán,” Tyler said in near disbelief. “Were these two captured? Did they have to face a trial, at least?”

  Yuán’s mouth was set in a straight line. “Yes. And, no, they didn’t. Suffice it to say they paid the ultimate price for their crime, just… not as a result of an adjudicated decision.”

  The commander frowned as she mused, “The implication being they both died while in custody.” The question in her eyes was plain as she continued to look up at Yuán.

  “I don’t believe I’m at liberty to confirm or deny your speculation, Commander; I may have said too much already. What I do believe, however, is they each paid a steep price for their crimes. Was that price too severe? In my opinion, neither of them deserved to continue breathing after the way my friend was killed.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant, I’ll quit pestering you about it,” Tyler grinned. “Can’t be an easy thing… having to agree to having over thirty months of your service history locked away. Come on… let’s go up to the officer’s mess, have a hot beverage, maybe a snack.”

  Yuán grinned as she answered, “Lead the way, Commander.”

  * * *

  Crew members from the Systems Alliance Cruiser SSV Tokyo were assisting in salvage efforts of the lost frigate Midway; they had recovered three of the destroyed warship’s escape pods. Unfortunately, one had been empty; of the crewmen rescued from the other two pods, one had died of his injuries shortly after being taken to the med bay. The other eight people, while physically uninjured, had been shaken up by the closeness of their escape. All had been working in the Midway’s lower decks, well away from the shattered bridge and CIC areas on deck one.