by Richard Fox
A bolt warbled past Hale’s head and smacked into someone’s armor with a thump. He whirled around and found Walsh with a hand over his forearm. His icon didn’t register any serious injury, but Walsh was wincing.
“You alright?” Hale asked.
“Armor took it, just stings like hell.” Walsh shook his hand out and opened and closed his fist.
“One of the bots is still functional. Want me to get it?” Torni asked. She pointed into the expanding clouds of debris where a red light pulsed on the spinning thorax body of the robot, its mandibles shot off and grav drive wrecked.
Hale checked the timer. There wasn’t much time to recover the forklift bot’s computer core, which should have code logs of what caused their malfunction. Hale knew what his Marines could and couldn’t do—there was only one person for this job.
“I’ve got this. Cover me,” Hale said. He stepped onto a railing and launched himself into the air. As a former champion high diver, Hale’s kinesthetic senses were second to none. He made micro adjustments to his course with bursts of anti-grav from his boot emitters, flotsam of robot fragments bouncing off his helmet as he neared the robot core.
Hale held his arms out and snagged the core as he sped past. He flipped over and used his boots to pull him to the cavern wall. Bullet rents scarred the core, but the central processor looked intact. If there was some new malicious code inside it, there was no way he could risk tapping into it outside a firewalled lab on the Breitenfeld.
“Sir, you feel that?” Cortaro asked. Hale put a hand against the cavern but felt nothing out of the ordinary.
“Like…footsteps,” Cortaro said.
“This rock doesn’t have engines. What is that?” Torni said. Hale finally felt what Torni was talking about as a vibration shimmered through his feet.
“Sergeant Cortaro, I think it’s time for us to go,” Hale said. He squatted against the cavern wall and prepared to disengage his boots. He felt the vibration again, then another one.
“No objections here, sir,” Cortaro said.
At the end of the cavern, one of the larger ammunition crates spun into the air and a shrill keen filled the space. Franklin popped his ammo can loose from his Gustav and fumbled for the spare he had hanging from his lower back.
“I told you it was aliens!” Standish cried.
A beast climbed on top of the far ammo boxes. Black segmented legs gripped into the boxes and a dual-segmented body the color of bruised flesh hovered in the air. A red laser swept over Hale’s team and the thing skittered toward them, its half-dozen limbs pulling it forward faster and faster. Hale recognized it instantly and almost wished Standish had been right about aliens.
“It’s a heavy construction bot! Suppression fire, now!” Hale shouted. He tossed the forklift bot core away and switched his rifle’s energy setting from personnel to anti-materiel. The rifle showed a forty-second countdown before the capacitors could provide the power for the shot. This would be over in twenty.
Gauss rifles snapped as they sent bolts into the construction robot. Half of the robot’s arms folded into a shield in front of it, deflecting rounds from its key systems but robbing it of forward momentum.
The construction robots were designed for punishment and the massed gauss shots his team could put out were a child’s touch compared to the hammer blow needed to put the machine down. Franklin slammed a fresh ammo can home and Hale came up with a very bad idea.
“Franklin, let it get another ten feet closer then let loose. Be ready to lift fire on my command,” Hale said as he touched his control screen and a knife shot out of his right gauntlet, extending six inches beyond his fingertips. The blade glowed red as the laser field around it activated.
“Closer?” Franklin asked.
“Yes! Ready—loose!” Hale ordered.
Franklin’s Gustav roared and the construction bot brought all its limbs forward to shield it. Hale leapt off the wall and steered himself toward the bot. The bot’s arms were canted forward, deflecting Franklin’s bolts away from Hale as he approached.
Hale swung his legs forward and crouched to put his blade between his feet.
“Cease fire!” Hale yelled. The fusillade ended and Hale activated his grav boots to full power. He shot to the construction bot like one of Franklin’s bullets and his blade slammed into the forward segment of the robot’s body. The impact drove the blade deep into the bot and ended when Hale’s fist met the robot’s armor.
Bones snapped from his knuckles to his shoulder. His scream of pain was lost as the bot’s trill overloaded his helmet’s audio safeties. Hale used his left hand to drag the impaled blade across the bot’s body, hoping that the blade would damage something vital.
One of the construction robot’s limbs hit his side like a jackhammer. The force of the blow sent him flying, removing the impaled blade from the side of the machine.
Hale tumbled end over end through the air, his world full of pain as he wondered what would kill him first, smashing into the cavern or the construction robot.
Something tugged at his boot, then at his arms. He slowed to a stop and found himself at rest in the air, an arm’s length from the wall…oddly alive.
“Got you, sir!” Cortaro said. The sergeant spun Hale around, his big face beaming with a smile.
“We need to—ah, shit! This hurts,” Hale pulled his broken arm against his body.
“Move. Let me see him,” Walsh, the team medic pulled Hale to the deck and ran a laser scanner over Hale’s right arm.
Hale’s world shrank to the deck plating beneath his feet. At the edge of his hearing, Cortaro was barking orders. There was a slight hiss and the pain subsided. Hale swallowed hard and tasted blood.
Looking up, he saw flecks of blood floating inside his helmet. The armor around his broken arm tightened into a vice and he lost feeling in it.
“Blood…there’s blood in my suit,” Hale said.
“You’ve got an open fracture on your ulna. I’ve got you patched up best I can until we get you to sick bay on Breitenfeld. You’ve got quite the contusion on your sternum, but no internal bleeding,” Walsh said.
“I’m…fuzzy,” Hale said. He looked up, his eyes struggling to focus on Walsh’s face in front of him.
“That’s the pain meds. Give it a few seconds and you’ll be right as rain.” Walsh helped Hale to his feet.
The construction bot lay on top of an ammo crate, bobbing against the limbs fastened to the crates. Whatever Hale’s knife had severed, it had done the trick. Torni held the forklift bot core up for Hale to see it.
Standish gave Hale a quick salute. “Damn, sir. That was some—”
The side of a nearby crate popped ajar. Gauss rifles swung to bear down on the sudden noise.
“God dammit! Don’t shoot me!” came from inside the crate.
Cortaro yanked the crate open and revealed a miner in a light vacuum suit. The miner held his hands up and turned his head away from the bright lights on the ends of the Marines’ rifles. A coffin would have had more space than the crate offered the miner.
“I’m so glad you aren’t dead!” the miner said. He glanced at the Marines, his face filthy and hair matted behind his helmet glass.
“Who are you and what happened here?” Hale asked.
“I’m John Thorsson, Ibarra Corp miner second class. The damn bots went nuts two days ago, killed the hell out of everyone. I got in this crate right before Garten bought it, figured someone from the fleet would come,” Thorsson said.
“Any idea what caused the malfunction?” Cortaro asked.
Thorsson stretched his arms over his head, groaning.
“I’m not positive but they’re running new sub routines for the…,” Thorsson caught himself and sighed. “For what you see here,” he waved an arm at the silver columns. “Corporate espionage, maybe. The Chinese trying to damage the corporation, more likely.”
“And what are those? And why didn’t we pick up your life sign when we scanned the room?”
Torni asked. She looked hard at the ammo crate, her fingers touching a lining made up of silver fractals between the graphene and carbon-fiber composite of the crate.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that information,” Thorson said.
“We just saved you from being torn apart and/or starving to death and you’re going to stonewall us?” Standish asked.
Thorsson looked at the column marred by Franklin’s bullets and clicked his tongue.
“The Ibarra Corporation has some very strict nondisclosure policies. I’m going to need you all to sign a series of agreements before you leave,” Thorsson said.
Standish mag-locked his rifle to his leg, freeing his hands, and grabbed Thorsson by the shoulders. “Buddy, why don’t I throw you back in that crate and wait until you’re ready to show a bit of gratitude for—”
“We’re leaving. Now,” Hale said. The timer on his visor to catch up to the Breitenfeld was running dangerously low. “Come on,” he said to Thorsson.
“No thanks.” Thorsson looked at the mess of robot parts and deformed gauss bolts floating through the air. “I have to clean up.”
“You’re a witness to several deaths,” Hale said.
“And you’re military and I’m Ibarra Corp. The treaty between the Union and my employer is pretty clear here: I don’t have to do a damned thing you say until my superiors tell me to. I do thank you for your help. There are stale cookies in the mess if you’d like some on the way out,” Thorsson said.
Hale glanced at the timer again and turned away from Thorsson.
“Let’s go,” Hale said.
Thorsson saw the bot core in Torni’s hands and reached for it.
“That’s Ibarra property!”
Torni slapped his hand away. “It’s salvage, Ibarra boy. Have fun cleaning up.”
Hale’s broken arm stayed mag-locked to his side as he led his Marines from the factory cavern. They had a drop ship to catch.
****
Captain Isaac Valdar, United States Space Navy, thumbed through the Breitenfeld’s manning roster for the umpteenth time since he left Armstrong space dock hours ago. His Ubi held detailed personnel records for the entire crew; whatever more he could learn in the little time he had left would be useful.
Normally, a ship’s captain had a great deal of say when it came to selecting his executive officer and senior staff officers but this situation was anything but normal. The last captain of the Breitenfeld, a venal career chaser named Riggs that Valdar had known of but never met in person, had been arrested for passing secrets to Chinese military intelligence three days ago. The arrest had been kept under wraps until her accomplices, if any, were swept up. The real reason Riggs was off the Breitenfeld and Valdar had suddenly been assigned to the escort carrier wasn’t common knowledge. Valdar would make due with whatever crew Riggs had left behind.
As such, Valdar couldn’t tell his family why he’d had to pack up and make orbit. His wife, who was used to his many sea and void tours and who understood their finances best, had taken it well. His sons, who’d graduate from high school during the mission to Saturn, not so much.
He closed out the record on the chief engineer and opened a picture folder: he, his wife and two sons at the Grand Canyon, the entire family at his father’s seventieth birthday party, an old photo of his wife on the beach during their honeymoon. He sighed, regretting the decision that put him on this drop ship—not that he had a choice to take the assignment.
Valdar stood up and shuffled from his seat to the aisle way. The mag soles on his feet would take some getting used to. He grew up in the wet navy, where the deck rocked but at least you knew it would catch you when you fell. Transitioning to the void fleet hadn’t broken him of his sea legs. He glanced at the Ubi on his forearm sheath and saw they should be there soon.
A crewman floated up to him, a big smile on his face. “Sir, we’re coming up on Breitenfeld. Pilot’s got room for you in the cockpit if you’d like a look.”
“Read my mind. Show me the way,” Valdar said.
The cockpit looked like it was surrounded by glass, the illusion of floating in space provided by three-dimensional perspective screens over graphene lattice steel around the cockpit. Valdar’s hand shot out, reflexively gripping a handle on the wall. The ability to look around outside the drop ship by turning one’s head was invaluable in combat and the fleet paid an enormous expense to give that edge to their pilots. A loss of power to the screens would cut their line of sight to only a few view panels to their fore. Valdar knew he was cocooned in the best armor the fleet could provide, but the illusion of floating in empty space was too strong to shake.
“Got me the first time too, sir,” the crewman said. He unlatched a panel from the wall and snapped it into a seat for Valdar.
The pilot, co-pilot and systems officer sat one behind the other, belted to their seats. The pilot craned her neck around and motioned to Valdar. The captain used the handrails behind each seat to get parallel with the pilot.
“Sir, I’m Ensign Jenkins, pleasure to meet you,” the pilot said.
“Jenkins…first void tour out of pilot school. Good marks at Annapolis. Implicated in an attempt to capture the mule from that other academy in New York back in ’73,” Valdar said from memory.
“That’s in my file?” Jenkins said, her eyes wide behind her void helmet.
“All but the last part. I had to call in a few favors to get those Rangers to let you all go,” he said.
“Sir, I can neither confirm nor deny my involvement in those activities,” she said.
“First rule of any spirit mission, ‘Don’t get caught.’” Valdar patted her on the shoulder. “You’re on the roster as a fighter pilot. Why are you flying a Mule?” Valdar asked.
“The flight controls are almost identical between the fighters, bombers and this flying brick. Air boss wants us cross-rated on more than one plane. He tells stories about flying evac missions out of Okinawa and he didn’t exactly know how to pilot the Mule he used.”
Valdar’s lips twisted in a half smile. He’d been on Okinawa when the Chinese broke through the Kadena defense lines. Nightmares of civilians begging him to take them away on his overloaded patrol boat still dogged his sleep.
“How far out are we?”
Jenkins grabbed a holo screen visible only to her and tossed it at Valdar. The screen popped to life on the perspective screen and a wire diagram of the Breitenfeld came to life. A distance meter and alert information filled the space around the diagram. Valdar reached out and tweaked the display with his fingertips.
“Why is she running so hot?” Valdar asked.
Jenkins gave Valdar a double take. “How do you know that?”
“The engineers always hide a status feed in the sub routines, just have to know where to look. Do you know why?”
“Right, sir. Breitenfeld went out to investigate a mining operation that went dark. Then Admiral Garrett decided he wanted to get to Saturn a little bit earlier than planned. Breitenfeld had to burn hot to rejoin the fleet. Looks like the orbital strike team they sent to investigate just made it back,” Jenkins said.
Valdar chewed on the inside of his lip, an old habit his mother claimed he’d had since he was a baby. There was one of two reasons the Breitenfeld would join the fleet anchorage above Luna—one good for his executive officer, one very bad. He hoped it was the former as the Breitenfeld had had enough leadership turnover in the past few days.
“There she is,” Jenkins said, pointing to a red light twinkling in space. In a vacuum, starlight was constant; a ship’s engine burn flickered.
“Breitenfeld control, this is Mule Zero-Two on approach with the ash and trash and the precious cargo,” Jenkins said, the mic on her throat transmitting her words to the approaching Breitenfeld.
“Precious cargo?” Valdar asked.
Jenkins shrugged. “You…and we’ve got the alcohol ration in the cargo hold.”
“Don’t tell me which is more precious,” Valdar
said. He leaned forward as the drop ship came around the Breitenfeld.
By the standards of the void navy, ten years of service made the Breitenfeld an old maid. Most of the fleet above Luna had been built in the last five years by Ibarra Corp to accompany the Saturn colony mission, and if the navy was to keep up with Ibarra’s ships, it would need their new slip coil engines integrated in their construction. The Breitenfeld spent a year in dry dock before the new engines were installed but none of the cash-strapped governments of the combined NAU militaries complained so long as Ibarra foot the bill.
The drop ship came up on the Breitenfeld from behind, Valdar’s first look at her clouded by the exhaust of her ion engines, two banks of three engines apiece flaring with garnet-red light. The rear launch bay’s blast door was closed. The rear point defense emplacements, quad-barreled gauss guns designed to shoot down incoming torpedoes and attacking fighters, tracked the drop ship as it approached. Good, Valdar thought. Take every chance to train.
The drop ship nudged closer to the escort carrier as it cleared the engines. The ship had a long rectangular hull painted a deep blue with gold trim. Four-point defense turrets surrounded the super castle housing the bridge. Two batteries of rail cannons, their bifurcated rails crackling with electricity, filled the space from the forecastle to the prow. The forward launch bay entrance, flanked by gauss cannon banks, was open, bright guide lights around the entrance making the fore of the ship look like an open maw.
Not for the first time, the Breitenfeld reminded Valdar of the twentieth-century battleship Alabama he’d visited as a child. Breitenfeld measured more than five hundred yards from stem to stern and displaced over a hundred thousand tons of the finest technology the Ibarra Corporation’s engineers could muster, all of it surrounded by graphene-reinforced composite steel armor. Modern ships of the line had to take a punch and keep fighting.
Three thousand sailors and Marines made the ship live and breathe, all his responsibility once he stepped aboard.
A motto in gold lettering beneath the fore rail cannon caught Valdar’s eye.
“Gott Mit Uns?” Valdar said aloud.