Outriders

by Jay Posey

  Sahil knelt next to her, opened his faceplate, smiled at her.

  “Ms Reyes,” he said, holding out his hands, open towards her. “Can we get those cuffs off ya?”

  He was close enough to take her arms, but instead he waited for her to make the first move, to present her wrists to him. She did so, cautiously. Sahil cut the bonds with a surgeon’s care.

  “How ya feelin’, Ms Reyes?” Sahil asked. “Sustain any injuries while you been here?”

  The girl blinked at him, dazed.

  “Any persistent pain?” he asked. She slowly shook her head.

  “I’m gonna keep an eye on the passageway and check in,” Lincoln said to him, over internal comms. “You good here?”

  “Yeah.”

  Lincoln stood and went back over to the door, while Sahil walked María through a series of questions, probing for any health concerns before they got her up and moving. He double-checked the passageway, saw that Sahil had already moved the bodies of the two hostiles. If they hadn’t been armed, they might still be alive. Lincoln hated that part of the job, necessary as it was. Seemed like Sahil might have had similar feelings. He had laid the two with care along the right side of the passageway, positioned them with an obvious respect for the dead. No longer the enemy. Without their weapons, they were just people again.

  “Alpha, clear,” Lincoln said on the team channel, then waited. If the others were still busy working, he didn’t want to do any more than notify them of his team’s status for the moment.

  A few moments later, Thumper replied, “Bravo, clear.”

  “Roger that, Bravo,” Lincoln said. “Precious cargo is secure. We’ve got two hostiles, KIA, no friendly casualties. Status?”

  “Power and G restored,” Thumper said. The adrenaline was still apparent in her voice and breathing, even though her words were calm and steady. “Obviously. Bay is secure. Control room is secure. We have five enemy, KIA; one enemy capture, wounded. With your two, all hostiles accounted for. No friendly casualties.”

  “Alpha copies all. Sahil’s checking the VIP over. We’ll move her topside when he’s done, link up with you in control.”

  “Yeah, roger that. See you in a few.”

  Sahil completed his evaluation of the girl, gave the OK to move her. They escorted her out of the room, into the passageway, and she followed along without any resistance. But when she passed by the second hostile, the woman, she stopped abruptly.

  “Why did you do that?” she said. Her voice trembled. “Oh, why did you do that?”

  Lincoln looked back over his shoulder to see her standing with her hands pressed to her mouth, tears already forming in her eyes. She was staring down at the body of the woman.

  “No… no, why would you do that?” she said.

  Sahil gently took her arm and led her on, past the bodies in the passageway. The girl allowed him to pull her away, but she kept her body angled so she could keep her eyes on the two unmoving figures left behind, until they took her up through the hatch and out of view. Once they’d reached the upper deck, María went quiet and nearly limp. When they reached the control room, Sahil took her off to a quiet corner to talk with her and keep her under his watchful eye. Though Lincoln had only been involved in a handful of hostage rescues in his day, he knew that an acute stress reaction could have unpredictable and sometimes dangerous consequences. Sahil’s concern for the girl’s health was undoubtedly genuine, but his first priority was his team. If María took a bad turn, Sahil was on hand to control it.

  Wright met Lincoln near the entrance and gave him a quick rundown of the events that had unfolded since the team split; the short, violent encounter with the two men in the bay, the more prolonged assault on the control room. There was a gouge in her suit, near where the left shoulder component merged with the neck.

  “That giving you any trouble?” he asked, pointing to the damage.

  “Nah, round deflected, probably won’t be more than a bruise.”

  “Probably?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and then jerked a thumb back towards the front of the control room. “But these guys wouldn’t let it go easy.”

  Near the front, a man was seated on the deck with his back against the bulkhead, Mike standing guard over him. Wright handed Lincoln a weapon; a short personal defense weapon. It was high grade and well maintained, well used, and familiar to him. Disturbingly familiar.

  “This is UAF issue?” he asked, looking up at Wright. She still had her faceplate closed, so he couldn’t read her expression, but she shrugged one shoulder. He looked at the weapon again. Whether it was issued or stolen, there was no doubt it was authentic to the UAF Navy. The model was favored amongst UAF Special Naval Warfare units, especially boarding teams. A combination of on-weapon sensors combined with smart munition capabilities to enable engagement of soft and armored targets, without fear of errant shots accidentally penetrating the hull. Not that those teams typically had many errant shots.

  Lincoln’s own team was running similar weapon platforms.

  “You talk to him yet?” Lincoln asked.

  “Some, but not much. Figured you’d want to handle it.”

  “Yeah, all right.” He handed the weapon back, and then walked over to the man. As he got closer, he saw the man had multiple wounds; treatment had been hasty, improvised. Mike stepped forward to meet Lincoln.

  “He’s hit pretty good,” Mike said, his voice lowered. “Won’t let us plug him up though.”

  Lincoln nodded. He secured his weapon and then crouched in front of the sole survivor. For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Enemies. Brothers.

  “I’ve got a trained medic over there,” Lincoln said. “Will you allow us to provide you with aid?”

  The man shook his head. “Not much he can do for me,” he said, his voice calm, steady, though Lincoln could hear the effort it took to keep it that way. His breathing was already shallow.

  “Fight’s over,” Lincoln said. “You don’t have to die here.”

  “I’m a corpsman,” the man said. “I know what’s going on with me. And I’m telling you, there’s not much your man can do for me now.”

  “You got a name, Doc?”

  The man smiled grimly at that. “You can call me Vector.”

  “Well, Vector. You feel up to explaining why you were holding that girl hostage?”

  Vector’s smile gradually faded to a neutral expression.

  “We know what you’ve been up to,” Lincoln said. “We know everything. And we’re shutting it all down. All of it. You lost.”

  The wounded man gave a languid blink, unimpressed, unmoved.

  “We know the whole story,” Lincoln lied. “I’m just curious as to why a UAF Naval Special Warfare corpsman would let himself get tangled up in all of it.”

  “I’m not that,” Vector said. “Not anymore.”

  “Yeah? You got a story about how you lost your way?”

  “Wasn’t me that lost it.”

  Lincoln waited, kept his eyes locked on the other man’s. Dying men usually had a habit of telling their secrets. But not this one. He seemed content to sit there and bleed.

  “I’m not going to force medical on you,” Lincoln said. “But the instant you pass out, my man’s going to patch you up. We’re going to take you in, and a lot of people are going to ask you questions, for a long time. That’s going to happen either way. Might as well let us get you patched now.”

  Vector remained impassive.

  “All right,” Lincoln said. There was a lot more work to be done, and there’d be time later to deal with the man. “I’ll talk with you later then.”

  Lincoln stood and turned around.

  “My people… any of the others make it?” the man asked quietly. And though the man’s voice was steady, Lincoln could hear the weight in the question, the burden. It had been his team, then. He was the man in charge.

  Lincoln turned back, looked Vector in the eye, shook his head. Vector dropped his gaze t
o his bound hands. Lincoln lingered, waiting to see if there was any more to be said. He remembered that turmoil all too well; the guilt for having put his people in harm’s way, and for having survived. Vector didn’t appear to have anything further to say, though. Lincoln started to move away.

  “You’re not gonna stop her,” Vector said.

  Maybe this was the moment after all. Lincoln looked at him casually, trying to seem as if he didn’t really care what Vector had to say. “Yeah? Who’s that?”

  “The woman,” Vector said, with curious emphasis on the words. He didn’t look up at Lincoln when he spoke. “Just letting you know. No matter how backed up and cornered you think you got her, she’ll find a way.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Lincoln went to join Thumper by one of the control consoles, and Mike returned to stand guard over their wounded adversary.

  “What’s the word?” he asked, through internal comms. No reason to let the other guy hear what they had to say. She had her faceplate open, her weapon secured, and was already at work on the console.

  “We must have caught them on the tail end of things,” she said. “I’m guessing they were about to clear out.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  She pointed to a section of the navigational display.

  “Headed towards Mars,” she said. “Under AI. And they had a runabout prepped in the bay when we came through.”

  “Can you get us stopped?”

  “Looking into it, but I’m not feeling optimistic. It’s not your typical autopilot. There’s some kind of weird bypass in here. Like, a physical one. Something they put on the ship.”

  Lincoln looked at the navigational display. If the ship held course, it was going to take them right into Martian territory. About six hours of travel time. And Lincoln assumed whatever it was going to do when it got there probably wasn’t nice.

  “And there’s other weirdness in here too. Multiple manifests, looks like. It was the Yoo Ling 4 when we were inbound, cargo hauler. I didn’t see a lot of cargo coming in, though. And checking it now, it’s broadcasting as Pride of Europa. Civilian cruiser, fifty-seven passengers.”

  “I don’t recall meeting any of them on the way in, either.”

  “No, sir. There may be more. Manifests, I mean. But there’s a lot of encryption going on here.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’m going to go take a look around, see what else I can find. Keep working this end of it, grab everything you can. If you get any hits that might tell us what they’ve been doing out here, let me know immediately.”

  “Roger that,” Thumper said.

  “Wright,” Lincoln said, turning back towards the entrance. “I’m trading you Sahil for Mike.”

  “All right,” she answered.

  “Mike, you’re with me. Let’s go see what else they’ve done to this tub.”

  “You got it,” Mike said. Wright took charge of their captive, and Mike followed Lincoln out.

  According to all the reconnaissance they had done, every person aboard the ship was accounted for. That didn’t keep them from having their weapons out and ready while they moved down the passageways, checking each deck. It had never hurt Lincoln to expect surprises. They focused their first efforts on the middle decks. Lincoln and Sahil had inserted on the underside of the ship, and, with the exception of the trip up to drop the girl off in the control room, had confined themselves to the lower decks. Those decks had been very utilitarian; no frills, main focus on function. The middle decks were a step up, almost to something like a mid-tier pleasure cruiser. A long-distance passenger transport, maybe not for the rich, but at least for the aspirational. The compartments were largely the same in layout; small staterooms, with room for a comfortable two, or a very cozy four. Apart from the furnishings, though, they were all empty.

  “Doesn’t look particularly lived in,” Mike said.

  “Yeah.”

  They continued down the passageway, giving each compartment a cursory check, before heading to the deck below. And that was a different story.

  The passageway was wider, the staterooms gone. And here and there along the sides were a number of large, sleek containers; wider than tall, and rounded, like cylinders that had been compressed.

  “You guys come through this way before?” Lincoln asked.

  “Negative,” Mike said. “We came through the top, down the centerline. This is all new to me.”

  “I don’t think I like the look of this too much.”

  “Yeah, not so much.”

  Lincoln flipped through his suit’s sensor filters, scanning for the usual signs of threats. The canisters didn’t appear to be giving off any sinister signatures. Even so, there was something unsettling about the arrangement; a bizarre puzzle that clearly had meaning, but the meaning escaped any simple analysis.

  “All right,” Mike said. “Hang back. I’m gonna check it out.”

  “Hold up,” Lincoln said.

  “Nah, you got the good brains,” Mike said. “Better keep ’em at a safe distance, just in case.”

  Lincoln was about to protest, but Mike was already advancing down the passageway with careful steps and weapon raised. Lincoln kept him covered, even though he wasn’t sure what he was trying to keep him covered from.

  Mike approached the first canister, eight meters down the passageway, and cautiously knelt by it. He went still for a minute or so. Running deep, close-range scans with his suit’s sensor array, no doubt, trying to determine the contents of the container without having to open it up. And then, finally, he spoke.

  “Good God,” he said.

  And he turned and looked at Lincoln.

  “Lincoln. There are people in here.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “HAVOC LEAD COPIES WHIPLASH,” Lieutenant Colonel Will Barton said. “Send your traffic.”

  “Havoc Lead, we’ve just received orders to withdraw immediately,” the communications officer responded. “We are to return to station at Point Artemis.”

  The order came as a surprise to Will, lead pilot for Whiplash’s escort element. His wing had been assigned to provide protection to the Corsair-class ship, far forward of the main UAF-led fleet. Whiplash was a deep reconnaissance vessel, pulling double duty in this case thanks to its low signature as a launch craft for a special operations delivery vehicle. The Lamprey had gone out a few hours before, and as far as Will knew, it hadn’t come back yet.

  “Say again, Whiplash,” Will said. “Did you say you’ve got orders to pull out?”

  “That’s affirmative, Havoc Lead. We’re withdrawing to Point Artemis, effective immediately.”

  Point Artemis was an arbitrary point in space; a rally point for one component of the Terran fleet that had been moved into position to monitor CMA Naval maneuvers. Whiplash and its escort weren’t in Martian territory yet, but they were far enough forward of the rest of the fleet that it’d be hard to convince any CMA vessels that they weren’t up to something. Will was all for heading back in before anybody noticed they were out this far.

  “Roger that, Whiplash,” he said. “I didn’t see Lamprey come back in, I must have missed it.”

  “Uh… that’s a negative Havoc Lead,” the comms officer said. “We have not linked up with the Lamprey.”

  “Then why are we withdrawing?”

  “That’s… that’s under discussion at the moment. But apparently the mission was unauthorized.”

  “What do you mean unauthorized?” Will asked. “We wouldn’t have launched if it hadn’t been authorized.”

  The comms officer apparently wasn’t in the mood. His professionalism slipped.

  “Well,” he said, “then it’s been de-authorized. I don’t know man, we’re just following orders here. We’re prepping to change course and return to Point Artemis as directed.”

  “What about the team you just inserted? You talk to them yet?”

  “Negative, they’re on radio silence.”

  “So… how are
they going to know who to call when they’re clear, then?”

  “I’m sure they’ve got another solution worked out. Another ship or whatever. Different approach vector, probably.”

  “You’re sure because Command told you that?”

  “No, Havoc Lead, I’m sure because we wouldn’t just leave our people stranded,” the officer answered. “Look, I’ve got other lines to work here. We’ll be pulling out in five mikes, stand by and be prepared to maintain relative position off starboard on the return trip. Whiplash, out.”

  “Five mikes, copy that, Whiplash,” Will answered. He switched over to wing communications. “Havoc Two, you copy all that?”

  “Roger, Havoc Lead,” his wingman answered. “Five mikes, we’ll hold off starboard on the return.”

  “Negative, Havoc Two. I want you to hold position until further notice.”

  “Uh…” the other pilot said. “OK, copy, Havoc Lead, we’ll hold for your call.”

  Will closed the external channel, leaving open only the internal one to his weapons officer, seated behind him. Major Noah Barton, who also happened to be his little brother.

  “Hey, Bear,” he said. “Any of that sound right to you?”

  “No, buddy, it does not.”

  Will checked the tactical scanner display, but nothing concerning showed up. No imminent threats that he could see.

  “You got anything on the scopes back there?” he asked.

  “Negative,” Noah answered.

  Will shifted in his seat, rolled his head around to loosen up his neck. It was possible that another ship had been assigned to take over for Whiplash, but it seemed unlikely that UAF would risk having two ships this far out, especially since that meant putting additional escorts in harm’s way as well. Maybe CMA had intercepted the Lamprey. That seemed like the kind of thing that Whiplash would have communicated though. Something just wasn’t sitting right.

  “Do me a favor and get a line open back to Command, would you?”