The Movement of Pawns (Gravity Book 3)

by Jeremy Kester

  “Fire when ready, gentlemen,” Captain Black called out. His ship, The Yardbird, was a capable ship and normally was quite able to take on any Alliance vessel. He was growing concerned over the large numbers of fighters now joining the fray, however. He expected that his one small squadron would have been sufficient. The Yardbird could in itself take on the Nimitz.

  “Anti-air arrays firing!” one of the men of the deck of the ship yelled.

  Harper pulled on the controls desperately trying to avoid the fire. Three fighters were swiftly chewed up and destroyed behind her. Alarms starting ringing in her helmet and cockpit as she fought with the controls. Just then a pirate short-range fighter came within range and activated the automatic targeting. Taking the opportunity, she fired off one of her plasma rockets.

  The flash of the pirate’s fighter burned in front of her. A small smirk came across her face before melting into a frown as she realized that she was losing fuel and stability controls.

  “Nimitz,” Harper said into the com. “I’ve taken considerable damage. I am returning to the ship.”

  A voice immediately responded. “Understood Squadron Leader. We are switching leadership over to Commander Klein. Opum, you have com.”

  “Anti-air bursts worked!” the gunner yelled excitedly. “We knocked out 7 Alliance scumbags!”

  Just then, the ship lurched to one side. “Stability sensors were just knocked out. Gravity is losing power!” a technician yelled.

  “Close off power to the cargo grids. Concentrate fire on that damn ship! We need to knock it out!” the Captain ordered.

  ISS Regalia

  Off in the distance, just outside of sensor range, the Regalia sat watching the skirmish. They had seen the Yardbird and the Nimitz before they could have been seen. The crew thanked Haden for the upgraded sensors.

  “Should we call Trike up here?” Harriet asked. She was taking a turn manning the helm of the ship.

  Looking glumly at the scene, Ned pondered whether to alert the rest of the crew. “Go ahead and get him up here. He’ll need to see this.”

  Harriet brought up the inter-vessel communications and hailed Trike. After a few minutes, Trike’s voice was heard. “What do you guys need. I thought this was a cake run.”

  “We seem to have met up with two ships: one Alliance and what looks like pirates and they are in the thick of it,” Ned explained.

  “I’ll be up,” Trike replied before the communications turned off again.

  DASS Nimitz

  “Trajectory is off, abort landing sequence, lieutenant!”

  Harper was beginning to sweat. She tried desperately to correct her vectors as she was coming in to land. Another hit to the ship shattered her hearing. She tried to focus as everything around her appeared to reverberate. “I can’t hear!” she yelled into the com. Replies were returned, but she couldn’t hear them.

  She only had seconds left to abort before she collided with the ship. In a final effort, she ejected the breathable air hoping that it would alter her course enough to at least hit the runway. As she watched, the com lights continued to flicker though she tried to ignore it. There was no reason to try.

  The trick worked as she felt the air pressure drop out and her breathing became difficult. Her fighter slammed into the runway rattling her entire body as it skidded quickly to a halt. During the landing she felt her chest burn as it tried to breathe. All of her muscles screamed for air as her heart pumped violently trying to satiate them. It was no use though. The air outside of her helmet was the same as the inside now. In the few thoughts that accompanied the desperate pleas for survival, she wondered whether allowing the ship to impact against the ship would have been a better choice.

  Her vision began to tunnel out and darken as she noticed a small light set on the inside of her helmet begin to flash green indicating that the air outside was breathable.

  ISS Regalia

  “Shit,” Trike said as he watched the battle. He couldn’t help but feel the ominous presence.

  “That’s an enormous ship,” Harriet commented. “I’ve never seen one that large.”

  “That’s the Yardbird,” Trike continued ignoring Harriet.

  “What’s a yardbird?” Harriet asked plainly.

  Trike snapped out of it for a second to respond. “The Yardbird is the ship from another privateer. That other large ship is a carrier. All those little blips on the radar are the fighters that the ship carries with it. They’re short range, pretty fucking lethal little shits.”

  Harriet was listening uninterestingly. Though the size struck her, she was not the least curious about anything else. “What does it mean?” she inquired.

  “The fighters?”

  “No. This battle.”

  Ned was sitting behind them both. He added, “it means that the Alliance is no longer minding their own business out here.”

  “It means we have to be extra careful. We should get back to Rhea. We need to warn our friends.”

  ISS Yardbird

  “Gravity systems are regulated to the bridge! All other power diverted to shielding!” the Yardbird’s first mate was calling out. “We’ve got hull breaches in 3 sectors and we are rapidly losing defense systems!”

  The Alliance fighters were quickly breaking through the flak and destroying the turrets with extreme prejudice. They were taking heavy casualties that were swiftly being staved off by the depletion of the cannons and firepower of the Yardbird.

  All of the pirates’ fighters were also destroyed and no longer gave any concern to the Alliance. Captain Black looked at the sensors in anger as he listened to the call out. “Prepare ramming shields!”

  A ship like the Nimitz would still be severely damaged by a ramming from the Yardbird. The pirate’s ship was outfitted with special plating that could be put altered from the sides and tracked to the front of the ship. It made the ship nearly indestructible from a front-end attack. Captain Black knew that it was their last attempt at victory.

  Often this trick was employed to split smaller ships allowing for the salvaging of valuables from the dead rather than risk the fight. Moving all of the defense plating forward though would leave the ship increasingly vulnerable on the rest of the hull.

  On the Nimitz: “They’re moving the ship forward. Looks like they’re prepping to ram us, Captain.”

  The Nimitz’s Captain, Polina Jeffreys stepped over to the sensor displays. “Scan the ship’s hull integrity,” she instructed to the ensign monitoring them.

  A few moments later, the Yardbird’s image was glowing red from the rear of the ship forward and growing while it continued to adjust. “Risky move, Captain,” Polina remarked realizing what they were planning. “Sanders!” she said as she stood and turned slightly to the flight coordinators. “Have the raiders concentrate fire on the rear of that damn ship! Its hull should be easy to compromise!”

  “Yes, Captain!”

  Polina was a well-seasoned captain who earned her tour on the Nimitz a few years before. She had been captaining less combat necessary vessels and found the pace and lifestyle dull. She was an energetic woman of 6’2” with a slender, sinewy build. She was deeply tanned with dark brown hair and blue eyes, a genetic abnormality that occurred with the genes from her father’s side.

  Inside her mind, she toiled with the endless run-throughs of the battle going over every possible scenario. She found solace there. Her heart pace increased to the level that she could almost see the pulsations of the blood through her eyes. It excited her to no end.

  “Captain,” another ensign reported. “The lieutenant survived.”

  Polina nodded. “Good. Now let’s make sure these pirates do not.”

  “Is there any indication that they’ve spotted us?” Trike asked as he reached up to view the sensors. He wished that there were step-stool that would appear as he needed.

  Harriet thought about picking him up to help him look as though he was a child.

  “None,” Ned answered.


  Harriet stepped over. Only the three of them remained in the bridge. The rest of the crew was actually getting shuteye. “What do you suggest, Captain?” she asked of Trike.

  Rolling his eyes, “We’ve got to continue on through there, but it would take too long to wait or to go around…” The words almost trailed off as though he were bored with the conversation. He stepped away and began to walk off the bridge.

  Both Harriet and Ned looked at each other and then at Trike as he walked off. Then they looked back at each other than. Each assumed the other would ask for the decision, but then Trike yelled out: “So we go around!”

  Emergency lights were flashing all over the ship. Captain Black remained at the helm after instructing for only volunteers to remain. All of his remaining crew were to take all available escape pods. He watched in anger at the Alliance as the pods were being picked off as soon as they got into range of the Alliance fighters. The two mates that remained tried to fight back the tears as they watched their friends die.

  “Hold your fire on the escape pods, dammit!” Polina slammed her fist down next to the flight coordinator. Her face was flushed with anger after stepping up to the sensor array and saw the signals from escape pods being eliminated. “Instruct them to keep fire concentrated on the ship’s defenses. Pods are of no danger or concern!”

  “All Alliance vessels are to ceasefire on pods immediately! Do not fire on escape pods!” the coordinator disseminated to the squadrons.

  “Understood!” the replies came in.

  “The ship appears to be disabled,” another communication came in from the squadron. Captain Jeffreys walked over to the sensor array behind the ensign manning the station. She nodded in approval.

  “Prepare the marines for boarding. Launch the HIPO with fighter escort.”

  HIPO stood for High Impact Personnel Operations Carrier. Affectionately, the “C” was often left off and the ship was termed a hippo. Its design and use centered around the forced boarding of a ship. Like the ramming shielding on the Yardbird, HIPOs were nearly indestructible from the front end. The design was for piercing hulls rather than for general ramming.

  Once the HIPO pierces the hull, it latches on and then forms a temporary atmospheric patch on the hull killing off the breech and allowing for marines to embark and take over the ships.

  They were used when the possibility of weapons fire prevented a safe use of standard docking between ships.

  Within minutes, the HIPO departed from the Nimitz and quickly picked up an excessive amount of momentum and took only seconds to reach the Yardbird where it slammed in through the hull of the ship. Air began to escape in large quantities into the open space.

  Quickly, large arms supporting what looked like the neck-frill of a bearded dragon swung up and attached themselves to the surrounding hull and closed off the pressure loss. The marines were ready to engage.

  Polina slumped in the soft chair in her quarters. It was moved considerably from its former location after the battle with the pirate vessel. Contrary to the conventional thought, she disliked combat, though she found herself exceedingly good and excited by it. After each successive battle however, she found that it took a heavy toll on her.

  She closed her eyes trying to push out the images of the escape pods being picked off by her squadrons. She was deeply disappointed in her crew, specifically the squadron for taking it upon themselves to fire upon them. It should have been readily apparent that those crafts were not armed and posed no threat.

  Harper would have never permitted that the Captain thought to herself. It was a factual dissemination of logic. Had Harper not needed to return to the flight deck due to damage, she’d have kept all of the other fighters in order.

  Now Polina was tasked to discipline some of the pilots for their actions.

  The Alliance did not allow for the termination of any enemy upon the moment they are neutralized or pose no other threat. Unfortunately this behavior was rarely enforced outside of Alliance space, but Polina was not going to allow for it. They didn’t need it.

  Stepping up to the communication center in her quarters, she requested that Harper join her. “I need to speak with her.”

  “She’s coming into consciousness now, ma’am.”

  “Good, good,” Polina replied. “Just get her well enough to take care of some things. I can give her time to recuperate later.”

  Oberon Colony

  Blood was rushing down David’s leg. Moving through Uranus 13, neither David nor 356Q expected to be so easily caught. David tried to cover his uniform, but they had not been capable of finding alternative clothing. Such things were short in supply there. It was the attempt to steal some that gave them away.

  The young girl that stabbed him was unconscious on the ground. 356Q had been ready to decapitate the girl before David stepped in. “Please!” he called out. “Leave her be,” he insisted as he clutched the fresh wound. “She’s not worth it. Just grab the clothing.”

  Begrudgingly, she complied and left the girl. “You gave us away,” she pointed out. She was not usually given to recovery missions, so keeping someone safe was somewhat new to her. Instinct instructed her to just kill.

  David grunted. “Clothes,” he repeated, ignoring her.

  “They won’t fit you,” she said plainly. “We need to move on.”

  “Christ,” cursed David. “where the hell did the operative in you go?” His frustration was only made worse by the pain of the stab wound. Through his mind he recounted the moment in happened over and over again. The girl saw the uniform and called for him. When he turned and answered, she plunged the knife in.

  He could feel it enter his leg cutting his flesh as it went deeper. What amazed him though was the sheer amount of pain that pulling out the knife caused. It stuck to, tore, cut, and tugged at his flesh as it inched out. That more than the initial entry made him yelp.

  “I am not trained to escort and guard,” she said in her typical manner. “I do not operate on those standards.”

  Taking the clothes that wouldn’t fit angrily from 356 Q, he tore one right away to make a tunicate. Pain rippled through his leg as he tightened it. 356Q found herself impressed by the portly officer’s ability to reach through the pain. She had assumed that he was just another officer resigned to the easy life of command. His appearance only furthered that perception. Though she already found herself interested in him, his behaviors elevated that.

  She had no idea how to deal with it.

  “Did command give us any indication as to how to contact the operative?” David asked expecting the answer he was given.

  “No.”

  “Of course not,” David responded sarcastically. He was losing the sense of nervousness. It was the traits that Captain Martinez had seen in him, but David could not see in himself. “Get up,” he instructed the girl. “We need to get the hell out of here before my time here becomes permanent.”

  Without assistance, David stood and began to limp away. 356Q followed leaving the attacker to lay on the ground behind them.

  DASS Nimitz

  The pilots all gathered in the mess hall shortly after to celebrate their victory.

  Laughter echoed in the hall. The tone of the room was jovial. Every one of the pilots danced, drank, and ate. It was the first genuine combat situation that most of them had ever been in. Many in the flight crew were only a year or two out of flight school. The handful of those more senior ignored the celebrations and simply remained in their own quarters.

  Harper stood at just inside the entrance of the mess hall observing the calamity. The scowl on her face shown her deep disapproval for their behaviors, but she decided to allow them to continue longer before she cut them off. Most of them would be grounded. With groundings came reassignment and often was only a step away from reclassification.

  They were kids though, and Harper knew such things. The more senior pilots learned how to control themselves on the battlefield. They learned that the enemy one must watch mo
st closely is themselves.

  Beside her, a few quiet tables were filled with the deck crew and other ship’s personnel. They shuffled in and out of mess saluting Harper as they passed. Some shook their heads at what they saw. Some laughed. Some looked as disturbed as Harper.

  After finding herself full of watching the mayhem continue to build, she walked through the crowd. “You missed the action!” one of the younger, more brazen pilots exclaimed when he saw Harper step near the table. “Too bad you got your ass waxed by that pilot!” he laughed and most of the table erupted in laughter with him.

  Completely still, Harper kept the disappointed scowl upon her face. Slowly, one by one the pilots each noticed that she was not laughing along with them. The first was the brazen pilot.

  Polk was a bullish, cocky pilot with more belief in himself than he was able to carry. None of what he boasted came to fruition; however, it did not hamper his ego. Harper didn’t like anything about him except for his purple eyes. She merely tolerated his attitude in most cases. In this instance, he was only one of a handful of pilots that weren’t on her list to be grounded. Not once did his targeting system register an escape pod. Harper couldn’t decide whether it was dumb luck or if he genuinely got it right this time.

  Once the table was quiet one could feel the entire mess follow focusing its attention on her. She remained still, not saying a word but slowly scanning each of the pilots’ faces as they grew more uncomfortable at her presence. “Did I interrupt something?” she asked plainly. No response was offered. “The lot of you looked like you were having a pretty good time out here. Which of you think that this is a good time to celebrate?” Again there was nothing. “Surely some of you believed that this is a good time to celebrate and that I am certainly interrupting that celebration. Which of you believe that?”

  “We just thought-“ one of the pilots began to answer.

  “Think?” Harper quickly interjected.