Renegade

by Joel Shepherd

  “Dammit.” Erik powered the thrusters, and watched the redlines build. “Well my shuttle flying’s so rusty we’ll be lucky I don’t put us through the control tower.” He pulled on the headset, and activated full coms. “Everyone buckle up, we’re leaving.”

  Lei Quan control was still issuing terse instructions. “Lis, talk to them would you?” And now navcomp was showing him some nasty-looking traffic at high speed coming from the military spaceport. “And make it convincing, because it looks like they’ve just sent gunships after us.”

  “Hello Lei Quan control,” came Lisbeth’s voice from behind him, “this is Lisbeth Debogande. I repeat, this is Lisbeth Debogande. I am a willing passenger on shuttle AT-7. Please rebroadcast this to all Fleet vessels, I repeat, I am a willing passenger on shuttle AT-7. If we are shot down, Fleet will be at war with the entire Debogande family. Tell them that.”

  A perplexed silence from coms. The poor tower controllers would have no idea what was going on, only that an Allied Transit shuttle was leaving recklessly without authorisation, and Fleet were telling them to keep it grounded or else.

  “They’ll know,” said Erik. “Fleet will be patched in and listening to everything whether control want it or not.” His eyes flashed across mains indicators, control systems, nav, coms, all on the display before the forward windshield. Nothing like as advanced as Fleet shuttles, his eye had to move a lot more between dash and HUD to find the relevant data… but everything checked green and they had to move.

  He powered thrust and they lifted with a shuddering roar, any groundcrew not yet clear now scampering to become so as massive jet-wash blasted the apron. He wondered if they should kill running lights, but decided no — with this traffic around they might need it. A slow pivot atop their axis of thrust, you couldn’t rush anything when hovering three hundred tonnes atop a column of hot air. Then facing out toward the suburbs, he violated every rule traffic control had and swung thrust forward.

  More alarms on the nav screen, and squawks in his ears from the tower, but they accelerated fast enough that as they passed over the perimeter fence the thrust was already angling behind them, and cars and houses were spared the low altitude blast, though not by much. “Lis, get me Phoenix position, where the hell are we?”

  The gunships were curling around to target them — whether they were locked or not he couldn’t tell, the civvie shuttle had no military systems, nor any form of countermeasures. If the gunships fired, they’d know about it when the missiles hit. Though bringing down a three hundred tonne shuttle over suburbia didn’t seem likely.

  A course-plot came up on nav as Erik poured on power and altitude. “Well crap,” he said conversationally. “Phoenix is on the other side of the damn planet. Good timing Major.”

  “Stop whining,” came her reply from the back.

  “Lis, orbit will be variable, I’m going to shave as much time off as possible but it’ll be hard and nasty, we’ll break every orbital lane code there is.”

  Lisbeth’s projected trajectory began out over the ocean, but if staying over populated areas was going to give Fleet another reason not to shoot at them, Erik would use it. He powered up full as they passed a thousand meters and thrust locked into full forward, and the shuttle thundered and shook. The speed wasn’t actually so great, the very earliest chemical rockets in human spaceflight’s infancy accelerated faster and were a lot more aerodynamic. But mobile fusion meant you didn’t run out of fuel for nearly a full day’s burn if necessary… and you could get to orbit at walking acceleration if you had unlimited gas. Soon they were climbing hard, cloud layers flashing by and falling behind, acceleration increasing as atmospheric pressure dropped.

  “Lis, you got that orbital feed?” It came up, a display of all the orbital traffic across their path… and good lord it was tight. Most of the long-term stuff was parked in higher orbit, he’d have to keep it low. Nearly everything orbited spinward, by long tradition even now that propulsion technology made it no longer necessary, but with Phoenix currently on the planet’s far side he was going to do a polar route that was going to cross an awful lot of higher orbits. “Well that looks interesting.”

  He rolled them onto their backs in the upper atmosphere, heading north along their plotted course as their velocity passed mach four. “LC, status?” asked Thakur. On a civvie shuttle without her familiar uplinks, she was blind back there.

  “Quiet,” Erik told her, to see how she liked it. “Lis, that thrust alignment seems a little off, run the diagnostic please.”

  “I see it,” she said. “I think it’s the number three gimbal hasn’t locked out entirely, just watch it.”

  They left the atmosphere completely, and now the acceleration truly started. In a few minutes they were passing mach 24, orbital velocity on Homeworld. Erik kept the thrust maxed, and they began building plus-orbital speed, which would throw them out on an elliptical orbit if he didn’t correct. He did, pushing the nose down at ever-increasing increments as the thrust continued, sliding them around the planet sideways like a teenager drifting a car on a gravel road. The acceleration remained a constant 4Gs, and in minutes they were speeding far beyond safety requirements for heavily trafficked orbits.

  “We’ve got company,” said Lisbeth in a strained voice as they approached Homeworld’s north pole, and the first sunlight glinted upon white icecaps along the horizon rim. “Combat shuttle on high-G approach behind.” As navcomp identified it for Erik to see — sure enough, while everything else was whizzing by on previous orbit, this one was trailing them, and apparently burning much harder than the civvie shuttle could.

  “They don’t need to be tailing us to shoot us down,” Erik replied. “A long range missile would do it.” Sunlight grew to a glare as they passed the pole, the forward view polarising to shield their eyes. At the turnover point Erik kicked the shuttle’s tail around and over, still thrusting to slow them while skidding them around onto a new orbit, chasing Fajar Station and Phoenix. Barely fifteen minutes at these velocities, approaching at plus twenty thousand kilometres an hour.

  Five minutes later, Phoenix called, in the form of Lieutenant Shilu, second-shift coms officer. “This is LC Debogande,” Erik replied. The signal was bounced off various remote coms in orbit, there were so many up here that Fleet couldn’t jam them all without shutting down all orbital coms — a dangerous proposition in a system this crowded. “How is everything with you, Phoenix?”

  “Full complement of marines aboard,” came the reply. “Elements of first and third are coming aboard now, they’re commandeering various vehicles from Fajar Station to do it.” Erik wondered if that meant they were doing it at gunpoint. There were other uniformed and armed personnel on Fajar Station, it didn’t seem a safe situation. “Sir we’re locked in standoff with several nearby armed vessels, we’ve got full weapons lock and engines active. We could come and get you if you liked.”

  “No, you need to stay close to station to pick up our crew and gain protection in their shadow. We’ll be there in ten. What’s the situation with our crew on station?”

  “Sir, anyone stopping them will be committing an aggressive act against Phoenix. We’ve told them.” So Phoenix was threatening to fire on station. Dear lord. Firing on a crowded civvie station was what the bad guys did in the movies. If HQ didn’t have enough to demonise them before, they sure would after this. “We’ve got a shuttle at the hub, it’s getting the last of them. Sir, a lot didn’t come up. We’re short about a hundred crew, even if we get everyone aboard.”

  It was actually more than Erik had thought. They were being asked to go renegade. Most probably just wanted to go home to their families, and now to sacrifice everything on the say-so of Major Thakur and LC Debogande… Well the marines would go. Thakur said all her marines were aboard and that wasn’t surprising, they’d charge into a star if she told them to. But while spacers respected her, Thakur was still a marine, and spacers didn’t take orders from marines unless bullets were flying. Most of third-
shift would probably do it for LC Debogande, he thought — but third-shift was just twenty people, all bridge crew and reserves, compared to about three hundred each for first and second-shift. Third-shift commanders were often teased as ‘Captain Appendix’, because compared to the vital bodily organs of first and second-shift, that was what third-shift was.

  But all shifts had loved the Captain. And now Major Thakur was telling them the Captain had been murdered by HQ — unthinkable if anyone else had said it, but Kulina never lied about their age, let alone anything serious. Lots of them would have been asking themselves which loyalty was superior — the loyalty to Fleet, or to the Captain. Most would decide the latter, but even then, to throw one’s life away just on the brink of peacetime, for a cause that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the powerful, connected officers who commanded them…

  Damn right they were short a hundred. And Commander Huang’s second-shift had been posted to Phoenix for docking duty, before any of this mess had happened. If they were given the option, probably a third of them would get off right now if they could. Which raised the question — should he let them?

  They approached Fajar Station tail first with thrust blazing, and now station traffic control was squealing at them that this was most unsafe, and legal action would follow. Erik wondered exactly who they thought they’d prosecute — his corpse? Or his mother’s still very-living body, with her army of powerful lawyers and pockets so deep they accessed alternative dimensions?

  Fajar Station was quite a sight — five kilometres wide with its rim docking gantries full of weight-supported ships, nestled up to station in a nose-first ring as the station spun. But all traffic was now halted, save for a few runners and shuttles, because here parked barely a kilometre off the enormous spinning twin-wheel was Phoenix — four times the size of any standard freighter, two-thirds engines and jump-lines, the remainder a cage-like shell for a rotating crew cylinder, while the shell itself bristled with weapons, external pods and combat grapples for attached shuttles and aggressive interceptions. Even at zero-V that armament could shred a big station in minutes, and ships in seconds. Thus no one in the general vicinity so much as twitching.

  “Whoa,” said Lisbeth as they got close. “I just… the com feed just got taken over, I think… is that Phoenix?”

  “Just put it through,” said Erik, watching the mass of stand-off traffic now either leaving, or holding position so as not to risk Phoenix blowing them to bits. There in close parking orbit was Annalea, a strike cruiser with half Phoenix’s complement and a quarter its firepower, yet deadly enough at these ranges. Also Reggio and George F Latz, fellow Alpha Squadron Firsters. “Phoenix this is the LC, who’s in command on Annalea, Reggio and Latz?”

  “Um… one LC and two commanders, all three captains are downworld.” Good news at least when they ran — these three would be reluctant to follow without their captains, and most of their crew.

  “Anyone up here have full crew and command staff?”

  “I’m sorry sir, we don’t have full records on everyone.” Because Fleet, of course, didn’t tell lower ranks shit. And outside of combat ops, ships tended to mind their business. “We’re just asking around, getting the gossip. It’s likely some of the outsystem ships have full crew.” Because, being located in the outer system meant they were doing security, and hadn’t participated in the parade and celebrations.

  “And no one’s talking?” It was hard to speak, flat on your back at 4-Gs for the past thirty minutes. His augments helped, keeping blood in the brain and muscles from cramping, but still it was exhausting.

  “No sir, not a word. We’re not in the loop of whatever HQ’s saying, but we broke into their channels — they’re talking a lot about you murdering the Captain, and nothing at all about how you escaped from custody.” There was a hopeful note to Lieutenant Shilu’s observation.

  “That’s because Major Thakur busted me out personally, and my guess is they don’t want it known.” Because Major Thakur was known to be incorruptible. Any number of people would believe he’d murdered the Captain, because he was a Debogande with all the shady big-power interests that brought into play. People would always buy conspiracy theories about well-connected power players. But if it were widely known what Major Thakur had done to get him out, a lot of people would start doubting HQ’s version.

  “Sir. Should we broadcast that? We’ve got an audience out here.”

  Heck of a thought, Lieutenant Shilu. But there was that shuttle, docked at Fajar Station hub, loading the last of their crew, and very vulnerable to Fleet’s sudden whims. “Let’s wait until we’ve got the rest of our people aboard, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye sir. We’ve got you on near-scan now, confirm your current approach as within combat parameters.” Meaning he wasn’t breaking any rules according to the kind of rules Phoenix was accustomed to running by. “Sir, what is your manifest?”

  “Myself, my sister Lisbeth, Major Thakur, Lieutenant Dale, Private Tong, Private Carville, two marines I didn’t get a good look at, and… Lis, you bring anyone else?” Because he’d gone straight past upper level crew without looking.

  “My four personal security,” Lisbeth said weakly, her voice strained. It was at about this time, in Academy runs when recruits did a 4-G push for the first time, that you started wishing you’d black out and wake up when it was all over. In a pilot’s chair, that wasn’t recommended if you wanted to graduate.

  “Copy that, four more civvies plus your sister.” God knew what they’d make of that.

  At three klicks out Erik cut thrust and flipped them end-over so they could see where they were going. Homeworld glowed blue and white to one side as they approached the night-side once more, while Balise glowed huge and red on the other. The colossal steel bulk of Fajar Station rotated slowly by, twin wheels affixed to a central axle, fifty berths to each wheel-side, two hundred in all with smaller vessels squeezed in the middle between the wheels, larger on the outer rims. Fajar had over three million people at any given moment, a lot of them transitory from on and off those vessels.

  Phoenix’s com feed now linked into nav, and gave him ship names, mostly civvie and mostly human, though three of the two hundred were chah'nas, and another two kuhsi. In parking orbit nearby, another hundred and seventy one, and quite a bit of that was military. Insystem freighters were thankfully few, they mostly used the smaller industrial stations that processed the bulk freight most insystem traffic dealt in. But some of that was Debogande-owned…

  “Shuttle’s undocked,” said Lisbeth, and Erik looked and saw that with his own eyes, a tiny silver speck lifting from the station axle’s huge protruding docking cone. “I think they’re going to beat us there.”

  Manifest came through on the shuttle — Lieutenant Chia was the pilot, one of the shuttle specialists and very skilled. The rest were mostly first-shift plus a couple of his third-shift crew… Dean Chong was there, his buddy who’d come to the Debogande party after the parade. Several others, all he’d be very glad to have back.

  And then Chia was on coms. “All Fleet ships, this is Lieutenant Chia commanding shuttle PH-2. We are commencing flight return to Phoenix with thirty-six Phoenix crew aboard.” It was general coms, Erik saw — Chia was talking to everyone, on general frequency. “Request that you do not point guns at us, we’re all friends out here, and if you seriously think LC Debogande killed our Captain you’ve got rocks in your head.”

  Erik’s blood ran cold, and his heart nearly stopped. “Oh god no Chia, shut up!” But he dared not broadcast it.

  “Our traffic is that Major Thakur busted our LC out of the brig herself, and if you think she can be bought by the LC’s money you’ve got even BIGGER rocks in your head…”

  A flash came from station. The silver dot departing the docking cone vanished in a bright flash. All transmission stopped.

  “LC this is Phoenix!” Second Lieutenant Shilu yelled in shock. “They fired on PH-2, she’s hit!”

 
“Phoenix this is your commander!” Erik replied. “Find who fired that shot and destroy them! That is a direct order!”

  “Sir… sir, I think…”

  “LC this is Shahaim,” came a familiar voice — Lieutenant Suli Shahaim, first-shift Helm, technically fourth-ranked on Phoenix, and acting captain. “We fix that shot came from a docked ship, Berth 30, that’s Gloria out of Halifax, armed Fleet merchant.”

  “Lock a viper solution and strike with terminating round.”

  “Sir, target is affixed to station…”

  “I fucking know that Lieutenant! Either you kill it, or every docked ship under Fleet control will assume they can fire on Phoenix vessels without retaliation and then this shuttle is dead, and Phoenix will be under fire shortly thereafter!” He flipped channels to general broadcast. “This is LC Debogande of UFS Phoenix, unarmed Phoenix shuttle PH-2 has been destroyed by a shot from Fajar Station, you all saw it. This is how HQ deals with anyone who speaks out of turn — first Captain Pantillo, then me, now thirty six innocent Fleet lives. Let this stand and you’ll all be next. Advise Fajar Station in proximity to Berth 30, brace for impact.” And he just hoped to god that Shahaim did actually fire, or he’d look like the biggest idiot possible.

  A small flash from Phoenix’s side, and a small missile flew. A tiny fraction of Phoenix’s arsenal, arcing out wide as it acquired the plotted trajectory. “We’re moving,” Erik advised them, and hit thrust hard. “Phoenix we’re coming in hot, prepare to leave, don’t wait.” Because however justified, they’d just fired on station, and in spacer moral code that was like punching your grandma. Of course, grandma wasn’t supposed to stab you in the back with a steak knife either…

  The gradually approaching warship suddenly came up real fast. Erik stared at the tumbling wreckage of PH-2 as they passed it… there were only fragments, it had been a mag-rail shot and at these ranges and velocities there wasn’t much a shuttle could do about it. Thus his haste.