Retribution_Downfall of the Republic

by T. C. Shrader

  Rachel had gathered the crew in the mess hall for a meeting. She'd taken the role of XO quite seriously and saw it as her job to keep the crew informed on every aspect of every mission.

  “I have to ask,” Stewart interjected, “is our major mission still to attack the Burmean Pythons in response to their attack on The Omarra Kahn?”

  Rachel pondered the question and realized his meaning. She'd imagined them hunting down a few pirate ships and sending a message, and maybe hitting one of their bases. But The Bloody Fang was loaded up with slave ships and they didn't want to inflict any collateral damage. That, coupled with the state-of-the-art shielding and firewall technology the cartel had been using to conceal their cargo and movements, meant the fight had been pretty slow going.

  “I think I know what you mean, Richard,” she said. “So far, our offensive against the Pythons hasn't had the intended effect of sending a message. They know somebody hit them at The Bloody Fang, but we were incognito – they didn't know it was a response to their having attacked a civilian ship. But we've had so much trouble tracking them that our rapid response capabilities are... lacking.”

  Stewart nodded. “I know that hitting their main base will definitely inhibit their operations in the Burmean sector. I just wanted to make sure that all of us, as a crew, are still on track with what we hoped to accomplish.”

  “The one thing that worries me,” Cairenn added, “is the biological weapons Achilles detected. Not only should they have no need for something like that, but the Republic has an ironclad grip over any special chemical or biological weapons facilities.”

  “When I was serving aboard the URS - Iron Storm, we did a few raids on illicit chemical plants,” Garcia said. “They were mostly making narcotics and stims for unlicensed buyers, but they had all of the equipment and expertise to manufacture something more complex.” Garcia had seen some significant action with his time in the corps, even if he had never actually fought in a war against a rival super power. His targets mostly consisted of criminal syndicates and gangs.

  “But manufacturing biological weapons is a different challenge entirely. Chemical weapons have the capacity to kill large numbers of people with the proper method of dispersal, yet something biological can spread far and wide after it's set loose. And manufacturing those types of agents is considerably more challenging,” Cairenn countered.

  “Regardless,” Rachel wanted to keep them on topic, “we need to find out what they're up to. Yes, I want to avenge The Omarra Kahn. I'm pretty sure all of us do. We all saw your suits' feeds and it was heart wrenching seeing those families torn apart that way.”

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to stray from that line of thought. It wasn't the time.

  “But now, like Cairenn said, it's about something else. We know they have something much worse than the typical corsairs and slave galleys, which is a terrifying thought. What they intend to do with it, however, is going to keep me up at night. With the right bio weapons, the Burmean Pythons could wipe out entire colonies.”

  “So what are our options?” Garcia asked.

  “We could send our scan results and all of the intel we've gathered to the Republic and hope they deal with it. If we do that, however, we should keep digging until we have enough evidence that they're forced to act.” Despite what he'd gone through, Stewart still supported and trusted the Republic at large.

  “And what if we end up getting caught and arrested in the process? We're all fugitives, except Mel and Cairenn. And you're both probably doomed by association.” Rachel hated the thought, but she had to remain pragmatic.

  “Then we can at least go out saving lives,” Garcia said, and the rest of the crew agreed.

  “Alright. Then we'll start checking these points and scanning for the bio weapons Achilles found. It could take time, though, so if anybody has any where to be, now's your chance.”

  Alistair, who'd remained quiet thus far, looked at Lili. They were both in attendance at Rachel's meeting, but neither had voiced any opinions up until this point. She caught his gaze and shied away.

  Maybe she'll stay after all, he thought. I can't fault her for not being interested. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person. He let out a sigh, then reset his focus on Rachel.

  “So let's make sure we have all of the provisions we need before setting out, including medical supplies and printing materials.”

  “Garcia and I can handle that,” Cairenn said with a smile.

  “It's all settled, then.”

  The crew, once again, broke up the meeting and set upon their individual tasks. Everybody seemed to have something to do. Cairenn and Garcia would see to provisions, Rachel and Stewart would work with Achilles to plot the most efficient course between their targets. Mel headed to the captain's quarters to study up on the ship's weapon control systems.

  Before they knew it, Alistair and Lili were alone at separate benches in the mess hall, lost in thought.

  Alistair took a deep breath and went to sit across from her, being cautious not to come across to forcefully. He knew exactly how she felt about him and only wanted to clear the air.

  “Look, I get-”

  “I'm sorry,” she interrupted. “I came looking for you after ripping you a new one, and when I came to look in the main hold, I overheard you and Mel talking. She's absolutely right.”

  Alistair just stared at her. He was not expecting an apology.

  “What I saw in the pit was only one side of you. And I .. I don't want to judge your actions without knowing how you got to where you are. She was right that you're a good man... and she was right that I don't deserve to have somebody in my life who is such an overwhelming force for good.”

  “Lili, you don't have to apologize.”

  “Yes, I do. After losing my ship, my crew, my people – I went on an emotional tailspin and I took it out on you. It wasn't fair. I've been a fucking mess since I woke up on your ship and you've been nothing but kind to me. I saw you kill four people without a second thought, then I killed one myself – it wasn't you I was scared of. It was me. I don't know who I'm becoming. I saw Rosco reach for his weapon and I didn't think, I just acted.”

  Alistair knew what she meant. He knew how she felt. And he understood how she was projecting her fears and insecurities onto him. But he didn't know if having people so vulnerable to their own personal problems was conducive to a successful mission. He understood why Mel was so unstable at times, but she'd been rapidly becoming his rock. And she wasn't a successful naval captain before joining the crew.

  “I understand your fears, Lili. But I won't be your punching bag because you can't keep your feelings under control. Are you the captain of my ship or not?”

  She looked him dead in the eye. “Yes.”

  “And do you want to find out why the Pythons have been moving bio weapons unchecked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Than that's it. I won't put any other expectations on you outside of what we have to do to accomplish our mutual goals. Once that's done, we can revisit the issue.”

  Alistair stood up and walked away. He knew the people on his ship had each been hurt, but they all had their individual burdens to bare. He wasn't going to give any of them an axe to grind as well.

  Lili, meanwhile, was left alone in the mess hall to ponder her thoughts. Eventually she left to her own quarters to try and catch up on sleep.

  Chapter 49

  “You know,” Mel said, “you're a dipshit.”

  “What?” Alistair replied, taken aback. All he'd done was walk into their shared room.

  “You ever hear the phrase 'you always hurt the ones you love?'”

  “Yeah, but I don't see how-”

  “It doesn't actually mean you hurt people. It means when you trust someone enough, you're comfortable venting to them. She wasn't actually mad at you, dummy. She needed you to be there for her. And you snubbed her. Hence, you're a dipshit.”

  Alistair immediately felt like said dipshit.
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  “I'm getting tired of learning life lessons from a teenage girl,” he said. He knew she was right and could only defend himself by going for her personally instead of the argument.

  “Then stop doing dumb things!”

  He shrugged, not sure if he could help it. He started making his way to one of the chairs, but was interrupted.

  “Go talk to her, ass!”

  He immediately turned tail and left the room having been thoroughly chastised by a 14 year old orphan.

  Chapter 50

  Liliana was in her room, trying to figure out what to do. The emotional outbursts weren't like her. But then again, she'd never felt loss like this before. Had she earned the emotional snub from Alistair? She felt like she could be honest with him and in return he'd practically rubbed it in her face.

  God, I'm a mess, she thought. I was a naval captain. I had my own ship, my own crew. My own purpose. And now I'm hiding in my room like a child.

  Her door buzzed and she didn't budge. She wasn't in the mood for Rachel's latest update, or Garcia's questions about their O2 usage changing a fraction of a percent.

  I'm not fit to be captain. Not now, anyway.

  It buzzed again and she shot it a glare. Maybe if she glared hard enough, whoever was would feel it and leave.

  She knew they wouldn't, and decided to swallow her pride. “Come in.”

  The door opened and the last person she wanted to see was standing behind it.

  “You sure? I'd hate to invoke any more of your wrath,” he tried to joke.

  “Yeah, because I'm the scary one around here.”

  His face sunk and she immediately felt guilty.

  “I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..” She sighed. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I gave it some thought and realized that you're going through a lot more than you're letting on. I wanted to just.. let you know that I am here for you. I snapped because you .. kinda scare me, too. But on a different level.”

  “So by 'you've been thinking' you mean you had a teenager talk some sense in to you?” She allowed herself the slightest smile and it lightened the mood considerably.

  “She's probably the most mature one on-board,” he replied with an equally cautious smile. “I don't want to take too much of your time. But you're important to me. And I respect you. When I first saw you on The Khan, I was speechless. Your beauty, your grace, your strength, your confidence... I was trying to impersonate the marshal I was years ago and instead I ended up bumbling along like an idiot. I feel drawn to you, Lili, and I hate myself for trying to push you away. I don't expect anything to come of this, but-”

  Lili interrupted him with a kiss. She had to stretch on her toes to reach him and wrapped her arms around his thick neck for balance. Caught off guard initially, Alistair happily embraced her, and the two made their way to the bed.

  Chapter 51

  It took The Ubik and her crew four days to reach the first of five points on the plot Rachel and Stewart had outlined. It turned out to be a low grade distillery for illicit liquor. They decided to start as close to Burmea as possible and work their way to the outer most points, which were as far as three weeks out.

  It wasn't until they reached their third point, 19 days after starting their search, that they found what they felt they had been searching for.

  “This one makes sense. It's deep in a dark space asteroid field,” Rachel said. While Lili was captaining The Ubik, she fully trusted Rachel to handle the day to day operations.

  “Would you look at the size of that thing?” Stewart said.

  “It must have been a mining operation, but the asteroid is hollowed out. It's nine kilometers in diameter at its widest point. They've turned it into a shipyard, if I had to guess.”

  The brown and gray asteroid had a massive hole in one side, which was dotted with docks both large and small. Only a handful of ships were visible around it, but quite a few were being maintained or constructed at its various hard points.

  There were pockets of construction across the outer shell of the asteroid as well, with scaffolding and massive metal plates dotting its surface. The crew figured they'd found what they were looking for, but now had the difficult task of coming up with a plan to take out the ships and the station.

  “So are we looking at nuking the station?” Garcia asked.

  “Not if we want to know what kind of bio weapons they've got stored there,” Alistair answered.

  “We'll have to hit the ships floating around, which shouldn't be a problem. From here they all look like corsairs, although they've got a cutter docked that looks functional. If we go all out on the offensive before they know what's wrong, we can stack the odds in our favor before they even realize we're here.” Lili said.

  After her night with Alistair, she had regained much of her confidence. She had taken command of The Ubik with all the strength of a true naval captain and was happy to be in the lead once again. It wasn't the fact that Alistair was attracted to her that helped – it was the contact and support. She felt like their tumble and the subsequent talks had proven to her just how wrong she was about him.

  “Worst case scenario, that cutter launches. How do we respond?” Alistair asked.

  “We use our medium railguns to take down these two corsairs,” she said as she pointed at the screen. It was updated in real time courtesy of Achilles, a holographic scale replica of their current targets. “Then we launch two plasma torpedoes at these two, here and here. The final one we can hit with our spinal cannons and, if that cutter decides to join the fight, we'll have all of our weapon bays locked and loaded.”

  “So that just leaves us with the station. Does it have any defenses?” Alistair wanted to be sure that they weren't in for any surprises.

  “Negative, Mr. Crowe. The pirates must have thought their isolation and sensor disruption to be ample security. The patrols themselves are most likely an added precaution to fill any gaps in coverage.”

  “Alright. So if the station isn't defended, what can we do with it? The rock is too thick to scan through, and we need a sample of that agent as proof if we're going to petition the Republic for help,” Stewart said.

  “We can try a hands on approach,” Garcia suggested. “Board the station, weapons on full charge. We go in hot and don't concern ourselves with collateral damage. This station is so far out of the way there won't be any civvies to worry about.”

  “I'm down,” Stewart said with a smile.

  “Three men against what could potentially be an army of pirates? I know you guys think pretty highly of yourselves, but there's no reason to be suicidal about this.” Cairenn was enjoying poking fun at the macho attitudes of the marines and figured now was no time to start holding back.

  “Let's get in a bit closer so we can get a scan of the station itself and see how many crew it's hiding. Maybe we can narrow down the search for those bio weapons while we're at it,” Rachel said. She was on a never ending crusade to keep her meetings on topic. Sometimes it seemed like an uphill battle. “Achilles, can you take us a bit closer?”

  “Additional sensor contacts exiting the station. Do you still wish for me to accelerate, Ms. Sahlinz?”

  “No, belay that Achilles,” Lili interrupted. “What is..? No. That isn't right.”

  According to the sensor contacts, a Republic freighter had undocked from inside the station and was now slowly lurching out. It was flanked by two Republic corvettes.

  “No, no, no. This doesn't make any sense,” Lili said as she stared at the blue and green images in Achilles' holographic projection. “Why would the Republic be here?”

  Alistair had a bad feeling about the entire mission before, but now it was more than just a feeling. They'd stumbled on something terrible.

  “All I know is that the answers to our questions aren't out here. They're in that rock,” he said.

  “So we board, shoot some pirates, and then what. Confiscate their contraband? Blow the station?” Garcia
was practiced with station boarding, but still didn't like their predicament.

  “We look for answers,” Rachel said with a steely determination.

  She had no faith in the Republic before they started this mission and was now bordering on outright hatred. If they had any hand in using these weapons, she would make them hurt for it. No matter the cost.

  Chapter 52

  The Ubik inched toward the station, scanning as much as possible while dampening its own signals. As a reconnaissance ship, it was second to none. And soon, it would test its mettle in battle as well.

  “Alistair, can you head down to the mess hall real quick?”

  He'd been in his quarters cleaning his weapons for the umpteenth time and was a bit aggravated to hear from Garcia. The man had recommended he take a look at Alistair's pristine armor over a week ago, and had yet to return it. They'd be assaulting a rogue pirate station soon and he knew he'd have to undo all of the 'improvements' the marine had made.

  He got up and left his room, which was empty for once. Mel had preoccupied herself on the bridge, also getting ready for the upcoming fight.

  As he entered the mess hall, he saw a truly beautiful sight.

  His armor – silver and gray with black accents – stood as a shining beacon in the middle of the room. Attached to the left arm was a shield, two inches thick and glorious. It reminded him of the scutum used by Roman legionnaires thousands of years ago on earth, but without the curve. In the right hand of the suit was a hammer – flat on the forward facing head, and a razor sharp crow's beak on the back side. It was the same silver color as his armor with matching black accents.

  He stopped, stunned, and was totally speechless.

  “Please tell me you like it,” Cairenn said. “We worked our asses off to make sure it wasn't just pretty but also totally field ready.”

  “You... made me a shield and a hammer? Why?” Alistair didn't understand.