by M. D. Cooper
She dropped a sticky EM grenade on him and dashed toward the other sniper, firing proton beams as she went.
Behind her the grenade detonated while in front the second sniper’s active camo flickered off as her shots scorched his armor.
He twisted on the ground, bringing his weapon to bear on her and Jessica dodged to the side, her vision showing the heated air where his beam had lanced out. She hit him two more times before a form in powered armor slammed down onto him from above.
Trist dropped her own EM grenade on the enemy soldier before running out of its range.
The bridge crew busied themselves as best they could while the holo counted down to the grapeshot rounds. Stewards entered the bridge and provided food. Tanis grabbed two BLTs, the first disappearing in an instant.
“You’d think it was going to run off your plate,” Captain Andrews said with a smile before taking a bite of his sandwich.
Tanis returned the smile. “You never know when you may get to eat again in situations like this.”
The captain raised his eyebrow and Tanis got the message. If they missed their next meal it would likely be due to this one being their last.
A short time later the countdown on the holo reached zero and the first two rails fired their shots. Two minutes later the other rails slung their deadly payload into the black. Tanis sent new positions to all the railguns while intently watching the holo projection of the battlefield.
Tactical updated and showed the relativistic missiles also in the final minutes of their countdowns. The bridge net brought two more NSAI online as the myriad calculations required to predict all the possible battlefield configurations grew.
All eyes were either on the holo or personal VR representations of the same data. It looked like the tactic was going to work until, seconds before impact, one of the dreadnaughts jinked out of range.
The RMs had their own smart NSAI which would seek targets of opportunity as they came into range—better than the grapeshot which wasn’t smart at all. If the enemy ships deviated even a hundred kilometers it would miss entirely.
“One ship out of the pocket. They’ll miss the head-on grapeshot,” Priscilla called out.
“They must have caught a reflection off it,” Andrews mused.
Two other ships managed to shift out of range before the grapeshot met the rest of the Sirian fleet. Optical scopes on both the Intrepid and Anne’s surface showed seven ships being torn to shreds by the hail of pellets.
“That’s brutal,” Ouri whispered as the ships all but disintegrated under the barrage.
The other Sirian vessels were lashing out with their forward beams, hoping to break apart any shot coming their way. ES scoops flashed on in an attempt to shift the pellets and shrapnel from their fellow ships away.
In some cases it appeared to be working, the scoops lit up sporadically as shot was deflected, but in two other cases ships didn’t get their scoops up in time, or jink far enough.
“Nine ships down, eleven others have visible hull breaches,” Priscilla reported.
“That puts their total at fifty-two,” Andrews said. “Let’s see if the crossfire hits any of them.”
“It’s going to require them to not change velocity for the calculations to work,” Tanis said.
“One other ship just went dead,” Priscilla added. “We’re down to fifty-one with fifteen of those having suffered some sort of damage.”
“Ten seconds to the grapeshot crossfire,” weapons said. “It’s hard to tell what our spread will look like at this range, but you appear to have predicted their dispersal pattern well,” the officer said to Tanis.
They only had to wait a moment more before the holo updated with four more ships getting hit by the shot.
“Enemy ship count at forty-seven,” Scan gave the update out loud. “They’re breaking formation, looks like they’re scattering into four separate groups.”
“RMs have locked onto targets in three groups,” weapons added. “We have fifteen missiles, six each on two of the groups and three on the other.”
“Could finally even the odds,” Sanderson said softly. “I’ve never rooted so hard for an RM before.”
“I know what you mean,” Tanis said.
Jessica sighed. Wiping out a whole police squad was not the sort of thing that made long-term relations better. Especially when it was at the hands of armored Marines.
Borden replied.
From her rooftop vantage point she saw one of the assault transports arc toward Borden’s position. A self-guided missile un-racked and lanced toward the ground. Moments before impact it exploded into a cloud of foam. Jessica knew from experience that once that foam hit it would solidify into a firm, yet breathable cocoon, and the enemy police force wouldn’t be going anywhere.
The combat net showed the embattled squad on the move once more. Overall, the net was tightening. Two fireteams had also engaged presidential guard in powered armor, but otherwise all opposing forces had been police or civilian.
Several casualties had occurred—results of Jessica’s orders to push forward quickly. She tried not to think about it too much. It was imperative that they pin Myrrdan down in the Parliament buildings.
Jessica saw that Smith’s platoon was within a kilometer of the Parliament building and would reach its perimeter in minutes. Jessica was a half-kilometer ahead of Usef’s platoon, but the scouts were a kilometer further. She leapt to the top of a building and signaled Trist to double-time it.
The pair bounded across rooftops, using sensor data from the scouts to pick the safest path. It was a risk exposing themselves like this, but Jessica couldn’t allow Myrrdan to slip through her grasp.
Only a large plaza followed by a row of administrative buildings separated her from the Parliment when a call came over the Link from the scouts.
Jessica turned on her down jets and saw Trist do the same. They slammed into a rooftop, crashing through to the building’s top floor.
They rolled to cover against the wall and Jessica sent probes toward the windows and out onto the rooftop. Before she got a good look, artillery fire hit the roof and then the side of the building.
Fire raged around them and debris flew through the air. Trist dove out of the room and Jessica followed. They dashed down a long hall and then broke through a window and into another building.
Jessica was nearly out of nano, and Trist released a dampening cloud to mask their heat and radio signatures.
Usef acknowledged their situation on the combat net and his platoon moved to flank their position. The scouts pinpointed the locations of the artillery fire, but the mobile emplacements were too well shielded for their weapons.
Jessica shook her head. Why move troops out front wh
en the Marines were kicking in the back door?
Jessica gave the approval and signed her auth code to the combat net’s ledger. While much of the engagement had used non-lethal force, herding enemy troops in powered armor was going to take more serious firepower. LR2 missiles were like a shotgun of rail-delivered pellets in a short-range missile delivery system.
They were designed to tear through armored combatants while doing as little damage as possible to structures.
On the combat net she saw Assault 2 circle higher and launch four missiles at the enemy’s west flank.
Assault 1 was covering the northern approach and Tanis saw the combat net update with seventy seconds to weapon deployment.
Thirty seconds later Assault 2 called in.
Jessica sent an acknowledgement.
Fireteams from Usef’s platoon began taking up positions in nearby buildings, ready to engage the approaching enemy once the artillery emplacement was dealt with.
The seconds ticked by at a snail’s pace. Jessica glanced over at Trist and gave her a smile. Trist returned the expression and gripped her rifle tightly.
The building shook as a round from the artillery tore through the floor below them.
Jessica replied, praying to the stars that their position was masked well enough to buy them another fifteen seconds.
Jessica took several slow breaths, and then a long, relieved exhale as the deafening crack of the bunker buster tore through the air. The building shook and she prayed it would hold up after the punishment it had received.
Seconds later the Marines moved forward.
Jessica peered through the window, checking for enemy positions with her eyes while layering combat net data over top. If Myrrdan was with the enemy, he wouldn’t be one of the unarmored noncoms—they would be decoys. He would be armored. You didn’t survive as long as he did by being vulnerable.
Trist was at another window taking a shot.
Jessica sighed.
The firefight had only been underway for a couple of minutes when Jessica heard a loud shot to her right. It didn’t sound like any weapon Trist was carrying.
She turned to see Trist splayed on the floor, a large hole torn through her armor and torso.
A woman stood over her, a railgun cradled in her arms.
“Huh,” the woman shook her head. “I wasn’t sure that it would go completely through, her armor must have been weakened by that sniper fire earlier.”
Jessica rolled onto her back, switched her rifle to the proton setting and leveled it at the woman.
“Drop the rail! Now!” she yelled, forcing fear for Trist from her mind.
The woman’s mask cleared and Jessica recognized the person standing over her.
“What! Amy Lee?”
“Oh for stars sake, Jessica, try to keep up. Would Amy Lee shoot Trist? She died back in Estrella de la Muerte. I’ve been using her…leftovers…since then.”
Her mind reeled. Myrrdan had been amongst them, within their inner circle for over a century. She couldn’t even count the times they had discussed plans and strategies with her present.
Jessica scoured her memories, trying to remember any instances where knowledge of the Gamma site may have been discussed with Amy Lee present. The disaster was unimaginable, all their careful plans—.
Jessica’s eyes flicked to Amy Lee’s railgun, and time slowed down as she watched Amy—Myrrdan’s finger curl around the trigger and twitch ever so slightly.
A moment later, everything went black.
Jessica gasped for air and her entire body arched as her armor shocked her heart back into motion. Her HUD flickered to life and showed an alarming amount of physical damage. She looked down at her torso to see compression gel oozing out of several cracks and a large hole just below her heart.
She took a deep breath and nearly screamed as agony lanced through her body. Jessica forced herself to calm, and took several shallow breaths as she scanned the room.
Myrrdan’s body lay at her feet, completely missing its head. Beyond, Trist was slumped forward over her rifle.
Jessica pulled herself across the floor to Trist’s side and gently flipped her over. A second hole was in her wife’s chest, green silbio spilling out of both wounds.
Jessica rushed her own nano into Trist’s body, attempting to slow the bleeding, but it was too late, she had lost too much blood and the biological silicon which had supplanted her original organs. Without an internal AI, her body didn’t have the direction to repair itself.
Jessica let out a gargled cry before remembering she could Link and get help. When she re-initialized her connection a message from Trist was waiting.
Jessica bit back a sob as her own wounds sent pain searing through her body.
Trist was gone.
Squad three found her like that, sobbing uncontrollably beside the bodies of Trist and Amy Lee.
Tanis heard the gasp from the comm officer before she spotted the report on the planetside combat net.
“Oh gods,” Ouri gasped. “She’s dead!”
Tanis’s first thought was of Katrina. She cursed herself for letting the woman go with Jessica, but Victoria was her world too.
“Who are you referring to?” she asked, her voice strained with suppressed emotion.
“Trist,” Ouri said softly. “She was killed by…Amy Lee?”
Tanis’s mind reeled. She pulled up the report, found the officer on the scene and grabbed his visual feed.
The few seconds of light-lag felt like an eternity before the lieutenant’s reply came back.
Tanis surveyed the room through Lieutenant Usef’s eyes. The upper half of Trist’s body was destroyed, likely hit at close range by the rail gun beside Amy Lee. Jessica was leant up against a low wall, a medic looking her over—taking stock of what would likely be a lot of internal damage.
She shifted her attention back to her physical location to find tears streaming down her face. A sob threatened to erupt from her throat and she turned, taking deep breaths to calm
herself.
Trist…She had become one of Tanis’s closest friends over the years. She couldn’t count the times they talked about their plans for retirement on New Eden, how nice it would be to finally kick back.
Tanis sensed real pain in Angela’s voice.
“One minute to RM impact,” the weapons officer called out, wrenching Tanis back to reality.
She wiped her face and turned back to the bridge. All eyes were on her; even Andrews and Sanderson seemed to be waiting for her lead.
“I’ve had few friends as dear as Trist,” her voice rasped as she spoke. “But we need to focus, we’ll win this fight and mourn her properly when we blast these sons of bitches to pieces.”
Nods and few soft statements of affirmation followed her words and then everyone turned in silence to watch the last seconds tick down before the RMs hit their targets.
Right on cue, nuclear fire bloomed in space, obscuring three of the enemy ship formations. The multiple detonations were so bright, that to observers on Victoria, it would be visible in full daylight.
“It’ll take a moment to sift the ships from the debris,” Priscilla reported. “It’s a mess out there.”
Scan updated and the holo showed a wide cloud of debris and radioactive dust heading toward the planet.
“Will it hit?” Terrance asked from Tanis’s side.
“The Sirians were still accelerating toward the planet. Now that the debris is on a fixed vector it will miss. Though only by a hundred thousand kilometers or so,” she replied.
“They lost nineteen ships,” Priscilla announced and the bridge erupted in cheers. “Don’t get too excited,” she said. “Most of those were destroyer-class. We’re still looking at two of their dreadnaughts, twenty-three cruisers and three destroyers.”
Tanis looked over the holo and saw the remaining ships breaking into two widely dispersed formations. They were changing course, arcing stellar north and south to catch the Intrepid in a pincer.