Knight's Move

by Nuttall, Christopher

  ***

  Jess Armstrong considered herself a practical woman. It had been that sense of practicality that had guided her from being a farm girl on a border world to joining the Federation Marines, where she'd known she could make a contribution. After all, she’d been shooting and hunting champion on her homeworld before the Dragons had landed and they’d been forced to flee. It had been quite humbling to realise that Marine snipers racked up far more interesting and extraordinary kills than anything she’d done on the farm, or that her shooting wasn’t good enough to join the elite, but she’d knuckled down and worked hard to become the best Marine she could be.

  Watching the raiders fight and die was acutely painful. If any of their leaders had been in the Marine Corps, they would have been charged with deliberately killing their own subordinates, an offense so vile that they would probably have been shot after the court martial. Only a handful had any real combat experience and most of them had been dishonourably discharged for one reason or another; several of them, she was sure, had made up stories of their military exploits out of whole cloth. She wouldn't have cared – apart from the one who had claimed to be a Federation Marine and hadn't even bothered to research the patter – but it offended her sense of how a military operation should be carried out.

  “Get the shuttles down on the ground,” someone shouted over the communications network. A moment later, someone else shouted a contradictory order, trapping the raiders in the air where the defenders could shoot the shit out of them. Jess had always felt helpless when the shuttles had been landing, even with Marine pilots who knew to get them down as quickly as possible, but this was absurd. She felt naked as well as helpless. “Get down ...”

  A dull crash rang through the shuttle as it struck the ground. Bad landing, part of Jess’s mind noted, as she jumped to her feet and led the way to the hatch. Her troops were ill-prepared for fighting; she’d seen recruits who had failed their first day at Boot Camp who would have handled it better. Half of them were still throwing up on the deck; thankfully, they hadn't donned their helmets in flight. She bellowed orders, wondering absently if she would be charged with treason if she were caught, and kicked open the hatch. Wonder of wonders, half of her troops followed her out into hell.

  The enemy had planned a robust defence of the spaceport, she realised, as she motioned for her troops to spread out. They’d clearly pre-targeted every square metre of the spaceport because the mortar fire was already coming down among the shuttles with terrifying accuracy. Normally, the shuttles would take off as soon as possible, but the raider pilots didn't seem to be up to the task. She saw one of them explode in a fireball that took out two more, then led her charges to cover. The whole situation was rapidly turning into a colossal cluster-fuck.

  Professionalism took over. “I want KEW strikes on those mortars,” she barked. She understood the raider reluctance to fire KEWs into the spaceport – or too close to their own troops – but at this rate the entire landing force was going to be wiped out. “Silence those bastards.”

  The ground shook, violently. Jess saw a colossal fireball rising up from the other side of the spaceport where, she hoped, the mortars had been concealed. The incoming fire slacked off, although it didn't stop completely. It took three more KEW strikes to take out the remaining mortars.

  She assessed her resources quickly, cursing – once again – the sheer inefficiency of the raider command network. Marines would have organised themselves by now, even if their commanding officers had been killed. There were seventy raiders on the ground; seventy, from an attack force that had been nearly a thousand strong. She couldn't tell if the remainder were dead, cowering in the shuttles or AWOL. If the latter, they’d be dead soon enough, if they were collared. Not all of her subordinates wore a collar.

  Once she had her force organised, she called in two more KEW strikes and then led the advance into where the enemy had been. Danger close strikes – strikes targeted near to friendly positions – were always hazardous, but she saw no alternative. Thankfully, the shock had smashed the enemy lines, allowing her to drive into them and force them to retreat. A handful of the enemy soldiers clearly had combat experience of their own; they left booby traps and primed grenades in their wake as they retreated, trying to bleed the raiders still further. Very few of them were taken alive.

  It took nearly thirty minutes of hard fighting to clear the path to the warehouses on the edge of the spaceport. Jess wondered just why the spare parts, destined for the Colonial Militia, were deemed worth stealing. They’d bring in money if sold on the black market, she knew, but hardly enough to keep the raider fleet operating. If the objective was to weaken the Colonial Militia, the warehouses and the spaceport could have been destroyed from orbit ...

  She shook her head as the heavy-lift shuttles began to land. There was no time for speculation. All that mattered was getting the shuttles loaded and back into the air ...

  ... But she couldn't help wondering just what she’d become. If she was assisting the raiders, had she become a raider herself?

  ***

  “Objective taken,” Dana reported. “That new girl is worth her weight in gold.”

  Jason nodded. He’d assumed that Major Finley could handle the relatively simple task of landing his forces and taking the spaceport, but Finley had screwed up by the numbers. The lunatic might have managed to regain control, if he hadn't been killed in the first missile strikes. His command network had almost shattered in the wake of his death, allowing more missiles to strike home and hammer the shuttles. Nearly six hundred men had been killed before they'd even touched the planet’s surface.

  He didn't have any experience commanding anything larger than a platoon, his thoughts reminded him, mockingly. You promoted him too far too fast.

  “Start loading up the shuttles,” he ordered. There would be time to reward and promote the newcomer later. “Time is running out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  If there was one advantage about working for the raiders, Jess decided, it was that she was authorised to use deadly force if her subordinates refused to obey. Marine commanders never had to shoot their own men in the field, unless it was a mercy killing. But anyone who had survived Boot Camp would know how to obey orders, particularly in combat. Looking at the raider troops, she was reminded – again – that most of them had never seen any action at all.

  “Women,” one of them carolled. “I found women!”

  Jess scowled. She was far too aware that evacuation plans and exercises always left out the emergency, but leaving a couple of dozen people cowering in the spaceport terminal was just plain stupid. Most of them appeared to be spaceport workers, rather than civilians or defenders. Maybe they’d just seen the troops outside and hidden, unsure just who was setting up to defend the spaceport. Or maybe they were just idiots.

  “Don’t hurt them, just get them over to the warehouses,” she ordered, shortly. She was not going to become a party to rape, as well as murder. “I want them helping us to load up the shuttles.”

  The pirates who found the women looked rebellious when they pushed the workers into view. Two of the women looked to have been molested; one of their male companions had a black eye and a broken arm. Jess scowled, hefted her rifle, and shot the senior raider through the head. His former subordinates stared at her in utter shock; they were used to their superiors giving them carte blanche to play with prisoners, not defending them from their captors.

  “Get to work,” Jess snarled, daring one of them to make a move. He met her eyes, then carefully lowered the pistol he’d been raising to point at her. “They’re going to be needed here.”

  The pallets inside the warehouse were standardised – the Bottleneck Republic, thankfully, had copied the Federation’s standardised procedures – but few of the pirates knew anything about actually loading the shuttles. Finding the spaceport workers had been a blessing in disguise for the raiders, Jess realised sourly; it was simple enough to get them to do the
hard work, while the raiders just kept a wary eye on them. But there was no way to know what had been loaded into each crate. The manifests had vanished along with the spaceport computer network.

  Not my problem, Jess decided, as the first shuttle took off and clawed into orbit. It would be docked, then unloaded once the fleet entered hyperspace. It might delay them before they launch a second raid.

  The defenders seemed to have fallen back completely, she decided, in some relief. She hadn't wanted to engage the locals any further, not if it could be avoided. They’d probably decided that there was no point in trying to prevent the raiders from loading up the shuttles and gone to ground. No doubt there would be ambushes aplenty if the raiders headed for the city, but she knew that there was no intention of trying. All they wanted was the goods in the warehouse.

  She scowled as a second shuttle took off. Whatever else happened, she’d become an accessory to mass slaughter, planetary invasion and looting on a grand scale. The Captain had given them permission to do whatever they had to do to blend in, but she knew that the Marine Corps would take a long hard look at her activities once she returned home. And, if the politicians became involved, it would become impossible to predict the outcome. There were few politicians who really understood the choices that had to be made by those on the front line.

  “One of the girls is growing tired,” a raider muttered. “We could find a use for her that involves her lying down ...”

  “You fucking halfwit,” Jess snapped. It was distressingly easy to slip into the raider persona. “The feds could wave a naked whore at you and you’d walk right into jail!”

  She glared at the raider until he shrank back, unwilling to meet her gaze. Quite apart from any moral or ethical considerations, there was just no time to let down their guard. If her homeworld was any indication, the locals would throw caution to the winds and attack if they believed that women were being raped. God knew that sort of over-protectiveness had always got on her nerves when she’d been a little girl, but it did come in handy at times. But now, she didn't want to have to kill some colonials who merely wanted to protect their womenfolk. She didn't want to have to kill anyone at all.

  One by one, the shuttles were loaded. Jess took one final look at the warehouse, then motioned for the prisoners to remain inside and led her men back to the assault shuttles, pretending to ignore the muttering from some of the younger men – or the itching between her shoulder blades. It was easy to guess what stories they'd been told; they’d do a little fighting, then have their way with the women while the town burned to death around them. She gritted her teeth in irritation, remembering a brief stint at Boot Camp before her promotion. The Marines normally knocked such delusions out of their recruits before allowing them to qualify as new Marines. But the raiders didn't want to have soldiers who actually thought.

  She pushed her men onto the shuttle, then muttered a command to the pilot. The shuttle, thankfully, had been designed for hard landings, even though she’d been on planetary assault missions that had included gentler landings. It powered up and leapt towards the edge of the atmosphere, then darted out into space. Jess refused to allow herself to relax. Once they were back onboard the ships and in hyperspace, then she would relax. And maybe Sandy would have some idea what to do next.

  ***

  “Commodore,” Dana said formally, “all shuttles have withdrawn from the surface.”

  “Excellent,” Jason said. He studied the display, thinking hard. They’d taken a battering from the defenders, but luckily his forces had railed and taken the spaceport intact. And they’d picked up most of the supplies too. “Take out the spaceport.”

  “Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said. A moment later, a KEW dropped down through the planet’s atmosphere and struck the spaceport. It vanished in a colossal explosion. “Target destroyed.”

  New icons appeared on the display. “Enemy contacts,” Dana snapped. “Seven starships, all Colonial Militia; I say again ...”

  “I heard,” Jason interrupted. “Give me a breakdown.”

  He glared down at the icons as they took on shape and form. Two escort carriers, two light cruisers and three destroyers, the carriers already launching their starfighters. He had the firepower advantage, but all they had to do was disable his ships and he’d be stranded. Given the sheer bravado of the attack on Xenophon, the Colonial Militia had to be hopping mad. Their comfortable assumptions about just what sort of targets the raiders wouldn't hit had been proved spectacularly wrong. No doubt there was a hell of a lot more firepower racing towards Xenophon.

  “Pull us away from the planet,” he ordered. There was nothing to be gained from exchanging blows with the Colonial Militia, not now. Besides, even if they won, they'd be battered and vulnerable to whatever else was coming. The Bottleneck Squadron might also be on the way and there was no way his force could stand up to a single superdreadnaught or fleet carrier. “And then take us into hyperspace as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dana said. “Do you wish to hammer the planet before we leave?”

  Jason considered it. He was furious at just how effectively the planet had resisted, despite losing their orbital battlestation before it could fire a shot. Part of him wanted to bombard the planet to dust and ashes. But he knew that there was no time to indulge himself. Besides, the longer they stayed in orbit, the greater the chance of losing a ship or two to the enemy fleet.

  “No,” he said, finally. “Take us out of here.”

  Dana looked disappointed, but the remainder of his bridge crew looked relieved. None of them liked the thought of coming to blows with either the Colonial Militia or the Federation Navy. Even though they outnumbered the enemy, there was too great a chance of taking serious damage. And if they did bombard the planet indiscriminately, they could expect no mercy from either foe.

  He sat back in his command chair as the squadron pulled away from the planet. They’d captured most of the supplies they wanted, so they could keep the squadron operating for a while without Mr. Ford, if necessary. And they’d broadcast the message Mr. Ford had ordered, as well as taking out the refugee camp and proving themselves a serious opponent by taking out the battlestation. That trick wouldn't work more than once, he knew, but it would make one hell of an impact. The Colonial Militia would have to make some hard choices about which worlds to protect ...

  ... Or the Governor might wind up making the choices for them.

  ***

  Sandy had watched in horror as portals opened and disgorged a small squadron of Colonial Militia starships. There seemed to be no way to avoid a direct confrontation, one where she would have to fire on her fellows or try to sabotage the starship’s systems, risking certain death if – when – she was caught. But instead the CO made the decision to retreat, leaving the remainder of the system alone. She barely managed to hide her relief as she worked her console, trying to manipulate the system.

  One aspect of Federation Navy hardware that was rarely found in commercial systems was just how closely everything was linked together. At a pinch, systems intended to monitor the health of the crew could be pressed into service as life support monitors. Given enough time, Sandy knew, she could set up a subroutine that transmitted messages automatically and then wiped them from the records, but she hadn't enough time to be sure the message would remain undetected. Instead, she sent a brief message in a high-security militia cipher and prayed that she could remove all traces of its existence before the raiders ran a security check. If they’d been watching ...

  ... But her collar didn't activate, killing her or stunning her. Nothing happened.

  Instead, the portals opened up in front of the ships, allowing them to escape into hyperspace. Sandy watched, beyond being surprised, as they dropped a static bomb in their wake, then headed out on a course that seemed largely random. Which it might well be, she reminded herself. The raiders would normally be safe from detection, but there would be military warships racing towards the system and one
of them might well catch a sniff of the raiders and give chase. They wouldn't want to set out on a direct-line course towards their base.

  “Well done,” her supervisor said, as the section stood down from battle stations. “Get some rest. We’ll discuss your performance tomorrow.”

  Sandy nodded and left with the rest of the crew. Thankfully, she’d been moved to a new set of sleeping quarters, ones quite close to a computer node. With a little bit of luck, she could get into the system, erase all traces of the message and then get out again before anyone noticed. Because if she couldn’t ...

  She knew she was no coward. She’d joined the military and stayed in when she could have resigned, after the end of the war. But this was different. The hammer could be lowered at any time, without a hope of resistance. She touched the collar and shuddered, slightly. As far as she could tell, there was no way to get rid of it without the proper code. None of her half-baked schemes for removal seemed likely to succeed.

  I hope Jess finds something, she thought, as she reached the shared cabin. Because otherwise we’re screwed.

  ***

  As the shuttle circled around, President Coffey surveyed the remains of the spaceport with a growing sense of absolute displeasure. There was little left of the once-proud structure; there was a giant crater where the main buildings had once been, rendering the spaceport effectively useless. Billons of credits up in smoke, just like the orbital battlestation he'd been told guaranteed his world’s safety. It was gone now, along with the sense of security. They were naked against a hostile universe.