Straker's Breakers

by David VanDyke

  Those rescued seemed to be stunned, pitiful, haunted. Many had to be sedated by the limited medical staff pending more extensive measures—brain rebalancing, therapy, counseling, rehabilitation. It brought home to Straker the height and weight of the responsibility he now bore.

  At one time he’d been responsible for all of humanity for what seemed like a brief moment, but this little slice and these few people seemed much more real to him. Men, women with babies, traumatized children. They gathered around, begging to thank him for their freedom, touching his clothing reverently or simply breaking down in tears.

  Their gratitude brought tears to his own eyes, and it was so moving and painful, that he had to leave them in the hands of the medics, as kindly as possible, but firmly. He thought of himself as a hard but humane man, but this… these people crystallized those parts of himself further.

  That resolve made the next battle, an easy one to destroy the Korveni sub-base, even more satisfying.

  It felt like righteousness—pure justice.

  Chapter 26

  Straker at Utopia

  The Breaker task forces rejoined near the Utopia Dyson cylinder—Straker could hardly call it a “star system” with its micro-star within a giant hab. He shuttled from Caribou to Samarah, which was Gray’s command cruiser—rather than observing from within his suit brainlink-cyberspace.

  The mass of the tiny star and the hab together created enough curved space to push sidespace arrivals out to a distance of an hour’s travel. That meant no surprise attack but also gave him time to confer with Gray for the final approach.

  Samarah’s bridge wasn’t built for managing multiple ships, but it was crammed with extra personnel and put to work doing it anyway. Watchstanders and officers squeezed into every corner, flinging orders through comlinks and augs plugged into their brainlinks. They made way for Straker who stepped to Gray’s left shoulder as she occupied her captain’s chair.

  “The beaters are moving to their positions,” Gray said. “We’re coming in with sensors and weapons hot.”

  “I see,” Straker said as he examined the holotank. The “beaters”—like those who beat the bushes to scare up game animals and drive them to the guns of the hunters—were the three cruisers and six armed transports. The transports had extra emitters to convince any onlookers that they were also cruisers. The nine ships had arrived in a hemisphere, all on one side of the cylinder.

  Deliberately.

  “Two Korveni ships,” Gray said as her Sensors officer pushed the data feed to the holotank and two icons appeared, one red, one orange. “Rather, one ship and one local defense cruiser—a mini-monitor, according to Jilani. No sidespace engines—just extra armor and weaponry.”

  “The Mangler, they call it,” Jilani said, standing at Gray’s right. “Nasty and tough, according to the info I gave you. Can you handle it?”

  Gray lifted one eyebrow in amusement. “If your information was accurate, we’ll be fine. The Korveni have never fought a genuine professional military force before. Nasty and tough to other pirates is routine for the Breakers. These are former Hundred Worlds ships, the best humanity’s ever built, made for one thing: to kill other ships and live to tell about it.”

  “Just don’t get complacent.”

  Gray held her tongue, and Straker refrained from rebuking Jilani. Her mouthiness bordered on disrespect, but she was only a provisional Breaker and not part of the military. Maybe that was better in the long run. Protocol could get in the way of useful frankness.

  “I’m sure Commodore Gray will execute her orders with her usual excellence,” Straker said mildly. “Will their frigate join the Mangler in fighting?”

  “Probilamente no,” Jilani replied. “Not two against nine. If they knew it was more like two against three, they might.”

  “She’s right,” Gray said. “Look, the frigate’s running.”

  The Korveni frigate was the only sidespace-capable ship allowed to visit the golden goose of Utopia. The holotank showed the Mangler moving to interpose while the frigate accelerated in the other direction. She skimmed close to the cylinder and arrowed out fast directly away from the threat—heading for flatspace and escape.

  “I love it when my enemies have no imagination,” Gray muttered. “Do we have friendly transponders?”

  “Nothing yet, ma’am,” the Sensors officer replied.

  “Those skimmers better be there.”

  “They will be,” Straker said. “Zaxby’s a pain, but he’s punctual and precise. He’d never pass up a chance to play hero.”

  “Well, it’s out of my hands now,” Gray said. “Time to dismantle this pirate. Pass to the cruisers: close to long range and begin coordinated volley fire of primary weaponry. Transports to remain in reserve, out of range.”

  A pause, and then the Comms officer spoke. “All ships have acknowledged.”

  Straker watched the cruisers shrink their triangle, drawing closer to each other as they advanced against the oncoming Mangler. A holoplate off to the side showed a constructed detail of the enemy ship. Unlike the cigar-shaped human vessels, the mini-monitor looked like a lumpy brick, with weapons and armor haphazardly built on.

  “See?” Gray asked, pointing at the holoplate. “No spinal weaponry, so there’s no way her beams can reach us at long range. Railguns, the same—utterly inaccurate at this distance. They have missiles, but not enough to penetrate our defenses. I won’t let them get close enough to board, so it’s just a matter of time.”

  “How long to take her apart?” Straker asked.

  “A few hours to batter her to a hulk from long range—assuming the goal is zero casualties, zero damage on our side.”

  “It is… but I don’t like waiting to land our ground troops. The longer it takes, the more time the Korveni overseers have to do something horrible to the population. I’m going to skirt your battle and begin the assault if I can.”

  “Understood. If the Mangler turns to intervene, we’ll close in and rake her. Good luck, sir.”

  “Thanks, Ellen.”

  Jilani spoke up. “I need to launch the Cassiel and join you.”

  “What? No, you can come along on the transports,” Straker replied.

  “Cassiel needs to guide you into the cylinder. I’ve got the codes to unlock it and you don’t.”

  “Oh really? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Jilani gave him a bored grimace. “Because you might say no. Now, you have to let me do it—or find your own way in.”

  An instant of fury swept through Straker. He could order a withdrawal, force Jilani’s hand by threatening to leave her people in the lurch—but that was a petty impulse, and she was right. She wasn’t one of his officers, and he might have said no.

  “You should have trusted me rather than twisting my arm.”

  “Sorry, General. Trust doesn’t come easy to me.” Jilani paused. “Okay, look, I’ll give you the codes—but I still think I should be first in. What’s it gonna be?”

  “You can launch and take point, but you spring any more surprises on us and I’ll lose trust in you. It goes both ways.”

  “Yeah. Got it… Bossman.” She grinned, eager to begin.

  “Better… Captain. Get moving.”

  Jilani bounced away.

  “What an annoying person,” Gray said.

  “She’s not military. As long as she doesn’t keep pulling stunts like that…I think she’ll work out. I’m going back to Caribou now.”

  Gray grunted, evidently not convinced. “Good luck, sir.”

  “Thanks. See you on the other side.”

  By the time Straker brainlinked into his suit and tapped into the command net, the cruisers were taking the Mangler under fire from long range, causing her shields to flare repeatedly. The Korveni monitor accelerated toward the trio and launched a cloud of small, fast missiles.

  The cruisers picked most of those off and shields caught what remained. All exploded with merely conventional strength—no nukes
, no antimatter—but Gray was remaining cautious. She held the range open and pummeled the enemy with triple salvoes. These had no visible effect, but would be straining the enemy shield generators and burning up their energy supply.

  As the two forces dueled, Straker ordered the transports to swing wide in a ring around the enemy and approach the Dyson cylinder. Jilani’s fast sloop Cassiel was already speeding in an arc which skirted the battle.

  Far in the distance, the Korveni frigate was approaching flatspace. Straker focused his attention, and the VR-HUD in his brainlink obligingly zoomed in and sent his viewpoint into an illusion of nearness to it.

  Suddenly, a powerful explosion rocked the Korveni ship, highlighting her spherical shield—then another.

  The first blast took down the shield.

  The next broke the frigate in half.

  Skimmers appeared—from underspace or from stealthy hiding, it was hard to be sure—and fired a few desultory beams at the hulks to ensure all weapons were destroyed. They then grappled. Ruxin marines would be checking for surviving captives—and executing any Korveni they found.

  Problem solved. No warning, no Korveni reinforcements.

  Straker returned his attention to the approach toward Utopia. The Mangler was outmatched and now backing up. She had begun a slow retreat toward the Dyson cylinder, still not aware the transports were not really cruisers.

  Jilani’s ship sped ahead and approached the giant hab near one side of its axial hub. It was the logical entry point for any spinning cylinder. The transports followed in a tightening flock, and as Straker shifted his synthetic viewpoint he saw an entry port large enough for the sloop—but not for the cruiser-sized transports.

  “Straker to Jilani.” No answer. He cursed, remembering that Indy wasn’t there to monitor all comms and route everything perfectly. “Straker to Comms.”

  “Comms here.”

  “Get me a comlink to Jilani.”

  There was a momentary pause. “Comlink established.”

  “Jilani here, bossman,” a feminine voice said.

  “The entry port isn’t wide enough for our transports,” Straker said. “We’ll have to use small craft. Once inside, is there a way to get down from the axis?”

  “The sides are sloped, very slightly, and almost null-grav at the middle, so you could walk down, theoretically… but it’s a damn long walk of 20,000 klicks. I suggest you use landers.”

  “Dammit, Jilani, this is info that would’ve been useful a long time ago!”

  “Hey, I didn’t think about the diameter of your ships—and none of your people asked, either! And remember, there’s atmo inside near the ground. Almost nothing up in the middle, but it gets thick down low.”

  “Atmo…?” That gave Straker an idea. “And you don’t know what’s facing us on the ground?”

  “No. I was never able to get inside—I’m working from twenty-year-old memories. I’m going in now—I’ll recon for you.”

  “No, wait—” he began, but the comlink had dropped.

  “Lost contact, sir,” Comms said, coming onto the line. “We’re out of line-of-sight of her ship inside the Dyson habitat.”

  “Keep trying,” Straker ordered. “Do you have a relay drone?”

  “No sir, we’re not equipped.”

  “Never mind, then.”

  Captain Desautel broke in. “Liberator, we’re not equipped for carrying the whole ground force at once either—especially not mechsuits. Not into full gravity at sixty tons apiece.”

  “I know. Put as many Hok as you can into landers. Coordinate with the other transports to do the same. The mechsuits will get down on their own.”

  “Sir?”

  “We’ll drop.”

  “Sir… I’m just a simple transport captain, but I never heard of a suit drop from twenty thousand klicks up.”

  “Me neither, Captain. First time for everything.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  “The mechsuits will go into the hub first to recon. You hold the landers outside the hab. I’ll take a look and give you further instructions soon.”

  “The Caribou’s at rest to the hub entrance now, five hundred meters away. Should I open the cargo bay doors?”

  “Confirm all suits are sealed, then open when ready.”

  The doors opened a moment later, revealing a magnificent sight wired directly to Straker’s optic nerves. He seemed to stand looking into a long pipe with a bright light at its far end, set in the middle of a vast plain, stretching in all directions, filling half of space. The plain was actually the side of the tall, narrow cylinder, appearing like a disc falling away in all directions as Straker floated outside the axis of its wheel.

  He fought a moment of vertigo as he opened the Guard channel. “Mechsuit squads, report in order when ready to deploy to the entry port,” he said. “First squad is ready.”

  “Second squad ready,” Loco said.

  The rest reported ready after a few pauses as the transports carefully jetted into position with thrusters.

  “Launch in numerical order. Don’t start until the squad ahead of you reports they’re down. Conserve suit fuel—it could be a long day without resupply. First squad, make ready.”

  The other Jackhammers joined Straker in the open cargo bay door. They were like four men readying themselves to skydive out the ramp of an old-fashioned aeroplane, except this time they’d be floating easy across the gap.

  “Go.” Straker leaped, relaxed, his stability jets keeping him oriented and ready to land. The others followed. They touched down with magnetics in the entry tube, which turned out to be thirty meters across—roomy for mechsuits and landers, if too small for the transport ships.

  There was some recognizable machinery here and there—what looked like clamps for ships and a rail transport system with unlit control panels.

  Some was not so recognizable, and the symbology on the panels was unknown. It did have the feel of something that could eventually be deciphered like hieroglyphics and in colors not too far from human norms.

  The builders may not have looked like humans, but their senses must have been similar—their size was perhaps only a little larger from the dimensions of the rail vehicle cockpits. The seats were big enough for a battlesuited man to ride, though the padding hung in scraps, suggesting great age.

  “You gonna get out of the way, boss?” Loco asked.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was gawking at alien stuff. First squad, follow me.” Straker led the way down the tunnel. There was no perceptible gravity, so he simply stepped off and let his SAI fly him in the middle with thrusters—accelerating to a comfortable fifty KPH or so.

  The other mechsuit squads followed in turn for over five kilometers, the thickness of the cylinder wall. As Jilani had reported no opposition in her flight through the tube, he didn’t expect to run into any enemy, but he remained vigilant, weapons at the ready. He shut them down when he reached the other end and looked out upon the vast inner space.

  The distance was great—more than 10,000 kilometers to the far wall, more than 20,000 kilometers to the floor, the “ground” of the habitat. The only thing visible other than the inner wall nearby—what appeared to be painted metal or perhaps plastic—was the oddly dim mini-star and its moon off to the side apparently in orbit.

  There must be a filter or barrier, Straker thought, otherwise the tiny sun would have appeared as a blinding blaze. Instead, it seemed no more than a bright light. What’s more, it was completely blocked for about half its circumference, making it appear as if he stood above a lighthouse looking directly down upon it, its broad searchlight aiming at the inner rim to create the day.

  The brainiacs had wondered how day and night were provided inside, and it appeared their most popular theory was correct. There was some kind of hemisphere, like a huge bowl, a focusing dish, that rotated around the light source in the center. This formed a large, diffuse beam that swept across the surface, alternately lighting and darkening the ground.

&nbs
p; The moon Jilani remembered hung in the sky, a tiny body in orbit around the central star. It didn’t appear to be exactly like a normal planet’s moon, but its likely purpose was not primarily to light the night but to provide the tides that churned the rivers and seas of the large inner surface area. Straker wondered idly whether, if he leaped for the moon thousands of kilometers away, could he land on it? And what was it made of?

  Someday soon, a Breaker ship would fly over and see... but right now, there were Korveni to kill.

  All six squads of four mechsuits had joined him at the rim, standing with their magnetic boots on the edge, heads pointing inward, an odd sensation. “Straker to Jilani.” He couldn’t see her ship, but it was in here somewhere.

  “Jilani here.”

  “We need a bead on our target. Have you located them?”

  “Yes, bossman. Sending you the info now.”

  Straker’s HUD showed an unseen target near the wall below them. Lucky it was below, he thought—then realized that every direction was ‘below’ from the axis. It was lucky, though, that the Korveni and their plantation wasn’t near the opposite wall. The Breakers would have needed to exit, re-load the transports and fly around the giant hab to the other side.

  “Captain Jilani, where are your original colony ships?”

  “Taken by the Korveni long ago, I figure. My people left them docked here, and after a few years they assumed it was safe to mothball and leave them without a watch. They wanted no contact with the outside.” She snorted ruefully. “So they had no warning when the Korveni dropped on our settlements. Idiots.”

  “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” Straker said. “But don’t be too hard on them.”

  “I hate them,” she snarled over the comlink. “I was a child, and they failed to take basic precautions to protect their children!”

  “So you’re coming back to save them because you hate them?”

  Jilani didn’t answer for a moment. “I can hate them and love them too, General Straker. Now get your asses down there, se tu per favore, and kill those figli delle puttane... sir. I’ll be right with you. Jilani out.”