by D. J. Holmes
“We managed to shoot down the frigate’s missile. They have fired two more but we should be able to jump out before they reach us,” Becket said, vacating the captain’s chair.
“Good work,” Gupta said as she surveyed the plot on the holo display, confirming the information for herself.
“Commander, we have passed through the mass shadow,” McClure called.
Becket looked at Gupta who nodded at her. “Jump us out of here,” Becket ordered.
With a bright flash and a release of electromagnetic radiation Innocence disappeared from the pursuing frigate’s sensors into safety.
Chapter 8 – In Chang’s Footsteps
The Haven colony started off as an attempt to escape from the politics of Earth yet in the end it would come to play a significant role in the establishment of the Empire.
- Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
4th April 2466 AD, HMS Endeavour, Andaman system
James was excited. Finally, Endeavour was going to play her role in apprehending Chang. They were cruising into the Andaman system under stealth. Innocence was lying back in the outer system with her systems powered down. They didn’t want any sign of their presence to get back to the Indian gas mining station that was their target.
Andaman was a bare system. It only had four planets, one of which was the gas giant they were approaching. None of the other planets had anything of value on them so the Indians had only established a gas mining station in the system.
After reviewing the data Gupta and Banik had recovered on the Dawon’s schedule, Andaman had jumped out as the most likely location Chang was hiding. Dawon was an ore freighter and had no business going out of its way to visit a gas mining station. On top of that, it was only scheduled to stop at the station for several hours. Long enough to offload an important passenger and some cargo but not long enough to do anything else.
Agent Bell, Major Johnston, Gupta and James had concluded that Chang had to be on the gas mining station. Endeavour was now on her way to prove their theory.
“What are our passive sensors picking up?” James asked the Sub Lieutenant manning the sensor terminal.
“It looks like there are currently two freighters docked with the station. Neither of them looks like the Dawon.” Malik answered.
“Ok, pass on the information to Major Johnston, he will have to detail some marines to commandeer the two freighters,” James ordered.
“Ferguson, I want you to take over tactical,” James said turning to the First Lieutenant. “I want you to use the passive sensors to identify any point defense weapons the station has. Once we’re close enough we will bring up the active sensors to get a firm lock on your targets. As soon as you get a lock I want them destroyed. Our point defense plasma cannons should be more than powerful enough to take out their defenses at close range. I don’t want the station to have anything left that can shoot at our shuttles. And make sure our plasma bolts are not strong enough to punch through the hull of the station. We don’t want to kill Chang by depressurizing a part of the station he is in.”
“Understood Sir,” Ferguson answered as he vacated the First Lieutenant’s chair and moved over to tactical.
Now all they had to do was wait. Endeavour had already proven the effectiveness of her stealth capabilities on this cruise and so James had no doubt they could sneak up on the station. Major Johnston had his Marines ready to go and by the time they got in range Ferguson would be prepared to neutralize the station’s defenses. For four more hours James sat in almost silence as he watched the station grow ever closer on the holo display.
When it was time he opened a channel to the shuttle bay, “Ready to go Major?”
“Ready when you are Captain, my boys are looking forward to getting our hands on this Chang bastard,” the Marine replied.
“Just remember,” James began in his best Captain’s voice, “we want Chang alive. He is no use to us dead. Make sure your men understand that.”
“I’ll do my best Sir but shit happens in war,” Johnston said without much concern.
“I expect nothing less than your best, and Major, cut the swearing on official ship communications,” James said as he closed the COM channel.
“Are you confident you have identified all the point defenses?” he asked the First Lieutenant.
“Yes Sir,” Ferguson replied, “a few seconds with the active sensors will confirm but we’re as confident as we can be just using the passives.”
“Ok then, on my mark you can deploy the active sensors, engage your targets as soon as you have a lock. Communications,” James said turning to the COM officer. “Ten seconds after we activate the sensors give the go ahead to the marines.”
“Acknowledged,” the Sub Lieutenant said.
“On my mark then, three, two, one, Mark!” James announced.
Endeavour’s main radar array powered up and fired over five terawatts of energy at the station. James had managed to get his ship to within a light second of their target and Ferguson had almost instantaneous readings on it. Three seconds after the radar was switched on the battle computer alerted Ferguson that it had a firm lock on all of the targets he had identified. With a single tap on the tactical terminal over fifty of Endeavour’s small point defense plasma cannons fired low powered shots at the station, causing a wave of explosions to ripple across its surface. Before the command crew aboard the station even knew what was happening, Endeavour’s battle computer analyzed the first shots, identified a number of point defense instillations that were still functional and targeted them again. The First Lieutenant took a couple of seconds to review the readings before he approved a second volley of plasma bolts. Eight seconds after the first volley, another fifteen explosions erupted around the station. Meanwhile, Major Johnston’s four shuttles, fully loaded with marines in combat armor, left Endeavour and charged for the station.
In a rush to identify the source of the incoming attack and get over their initial shock when Endeavour powered up from stealth, the command crew on the station didn’t even detect the shuttles’ launch.
“Hail that ship,” Station Commander Chowdhury demanded.
When James’ face appeared on screen Chowdhury was taken aback to be facing a military officer from another naval power. His anger soon won out, “How dare you fire on an Indian station! This is an act of war. I demand you turn your ship around and leave this system immediately.”
“Now, now. No need to lose your temper,” James said calmly. “Let me introduce myself, eh... Commander is it?”
Without waiting for a response he continued, “I have reason to believe you are harboring a war criminal, former politburo Minister Chang. On behalf of the UN and the British Government I am here to take him into custody. If you turn him over immediately no further damage will befall your station.”
“Listen to me Captain,” Chowdhury said, pouring as much scorn into the title as he could. “Britain holds no power in India, you British might think you can just bully whoever you want but not India and not me. If you make one more act of aggression I promise you I will see you taken before a UN court on charges of war crimes.”
“So be it,” James said with a smile, “prepare to be boarded.”
“What?” Chowdhury said, half to James and half to his command crew. “Quick, close all the external doors to the shuttle bays,” he ordered.
“Too late,” one of his staff called. “I’m detecting shuttles entering bays two and four.”
“Alert our security teams,” Chowdhury ordered. “Tell them to prepare to repel boarders!”
*
Finally, Johnston thought to himself as he stepped out of the shuttle onto the deck of the gas mining station.
His marines had already secured the shuttle bay he had landed in and one of his Lieutenants approached him when he stepped out, “We’re ready to move out,” she informed him.
Keying his COM unit to address the marines who had landed on the station he said, “Listen up marine
s, whichever squad finds me Chang first gets free drinks all night the next time we’re in port. Happy hunting, and remember,” he added for Somerville’s sake, “stunners only, but if you encounter some hard resistance you have my permission to switch to your side arms.”
Typically, marines were equipped with heavy plasma rifles when they were on operations along with a chemical propellant side arm. Captain Somerville had ordered them equipped with stunners instead of plasma rifles as the station was a civilian operation but Johnston had allowed them to take their side arms. They would follow Somerville’s instructions at first but if his men’s lives were at risk they would switch.
“First two cargo bays have been secured Sir,” another of his Lieutenant’s reported.
“Acknowledged,” he replied.
Confident that his subordinates had the systematic search of the station in hand he opened the schematics of the station on his combat armor’s HUD. Chang was most likely to be in the crew’s quarters and that was where he wanted to be.
“Sergeant Harken, I’m coming to join you in your search,” he said over the COM to the marine overseeing the search of the crew quarters.
Once he identified the quickest route to the Sergeant he set off at a run. The fire team designated to protect him took up positions around him.
“I hope you are ready to see one of the most powerful men in the galaxy grovel at your feet,” Johnston said to Fourth Lieutenant Becket who was keeping pace beside him in her own battle armor. Somerville had sent her to accompany him in case he needed any technical assistance controlling the station. He was ok with that, Becket had been training with him on board Innocence and although she wasn’t a marine, she continued to impress him.
“Ready when you are,” she replied with a grin. “Let’s just make sure he is alive long enough to do some groveling before the UN too, it would be a shame for the entire world not to see it.”
“Humph,” Johnston said, not so sure he agreed.
“We’re encountering resistance from the station security force,” a Lieutenant reported over the COM. “There were three of them. Two are down, the other has fallen back. They were armed with chemical propellant weapons.”
“Keep pushing them back,” Johnston ordered, “don’t be afraid to use some live rounds yourself to scare them off. They have no business standing up to combat armor.”
Brave fellows, Johnston thought as he neared the crew quarters, or stupid. Nothing but a high explosive round or a bolt from a plasma rifle would penetrate the marine’s armor.
“We’ve got five or six security guards who have barricaded themselves into a section of the crew quarters, at least one of them has a plasma rifle,” Harken reported. “We can take them but if we stick to our stunners we’re going to take causalities.”
“Use your side arms,” Johnston approved, “but stay behind cover. Mark their position on the schematics and we’ll see if we can flank them.”
As the information on his HUD updated it became clear that there were two or three routes they could take to flank the defenders. Whoever had designed the station hadn’t been thinking about defending from boarders.
“I guess all your extra training is going to be put to use,” Johnston said to Becket, “come on, follow me.”
“Side arms out,” he said to the rest of his marines.
This is what I have been afraid of, Becket thought to herself. Using lethal weapons could very quickly lead to an ‘incident’ when they found Chang, of course it would be an ‘accident’ according to Johnston’s official report but Becket knew he wouldn’t lose any sleep over the war criminal’s death. There was nothing for it but to keep going though so she gritted her teeth and increased her pace to keep up with the Major.
Two corridors away from their targets Johnston came to a dead stop as the distinct sound of chemical propellant shots being fired could be heard. The marine in front of him peeked his head around the corner. Becket was able to read most of the marine’s basic hand signals and she moved forward with the rest of the marines when he signaled it was all clear.
They stopped at the next corner. By now the low thrum of a plasma rifle firing out multiple shots was clear through the louder cracks of the other weapons. This time when the marine poked his head around the corner it was met with a number of hardened tungsten rounds bouncing off the durasteel walls of the station. “Contact,” the marine signaled.
“Harken, we’re in position to the east of the security forces. They have line of sight on us but if we rush them together we’ll be able to take them,” Johnston said over the COM. Every station had its own internal geographic layout to help humans navigate it and the marines were using one of the schematics for the station they had been able to retrieve from the RSNI data files.
“Acknowledged Sir,” Harken responded.
“Stun grenades in five, four, three,” Johnston began but Becket didn’t hear anymore as she dialed her audio output on her armor way down. Stun grenades had hardly been upgraded in the last three hundred years but they still proved to be potent weapons against unsuspecting opponents. They were actually more harmful to soldiers in combat armor in closed spaces as the armor greatly increased a soldier’s hearing.
Even with the gain way down, she heard three distinct thuds as the grenades went off in the adjoining corridor. She upped her audio and charged around the corner with the rest of the marines. All of them had their side arms out and were firing a hail of bullets into the barricade the security guards had set up. Momentarily embarrassed that she had forgot to pull hers out she nevertheless added a flurry of electric bolts to the ordinance that was raining down on the defenders.
As they got closer she could see two guards were already down injured. The others tried to pop out of their cover to return fire. A number of bullets rattled off a nearby marine’s combat armor and a single plasma bolt struck a marine on the leg. He went down with a grunt, his armor pumping him with meds to reduce the pain.
Before the guards could get any more shots off, the marines with Major Johnston and the marines with Sergeant Harkin zeroed in on them with their weapons. In a blink of an eye, all of them hit the deck as multiple bullets hit their mark.
Harkin was the first to reach the barricade and he hurdled it in one jump and spun around with his weapon pointing at the injured security guards. Coming face to face with a marine in combat armor was a fearful thing and they threw away their weapons.
“Good job Sergeant,” Johnston said, “let’s help our wounded and finish searching this section of the station.
Five minutes later Becket entered the last room in the crew’s quarters to find it empty. “Damn,” Johnston shouted as he punched the room’s durasteel wall with his power armor.
“Report,” he said into his COM unit. “Any sign of Chang on the station?”
“Negative,” came back the replies from his two Lieutenants. The Sergeant who was leading a search team came on the COM channel, “Sir I have found something you might want to see. There are a number of Chinese artifacts in cargo bay seven. They look packed up and ready to ship out but I haven’t seen anything remotely like them in the rest of the cargo bays.”
“Thank you Sergeant, I’ll come right away,” Johnston replied with a bit more excitement.
“Agent Bell, can you meet me in cargo bay seven?” he said.
When they got to the cargo bay Becket understood what had drawn the Sergeant’s attention. There were a number of large crates filled with ancient pots, vases, rugs and art. Many of the designs looked Chinese to her but she wasn’t sure.
She turned as Bell entered the cargo bay and let out a long whistle. “Well, well, this is a find. It looks like we have half the Chinese national museum here. I’d say we are on the right track as far as finding Chang is concerned,” she said as she lifted a few of the items the marines had already unpacked from one of the crates.
“No sign of Chang himself then?” Bell asked as she turned to face Johnston.
; “No,” he replied. “But he was here. And I bet our Station Commander knows where he is!”
“Lieutenant Adams, have you secured the bridge?” Johnston asked over the COM.
“Yes Sir,” the bridge is secured, “we’re moving all the crew to one of the cargo holds so we can watch them.”
“Hold the Commander, I want a word with him,” Johnston ordered.
As he stomped off towards the bridge Becket knew there was about to be trouble. Still, Johnston hadn’t done anything wrong so she didn’t know what else she could do but follow along.
Once they got to the bridge they found the Station Commander on the ground with a large red welt developing on his cheek and a marine standing over him.
“He tried to reach for my side arm Sir,” the marine reported when he saw Major Johnston heading straight for him.