by Joel Babbitt
“What you got, Bug?” Alexander looked skeptically at the kiz’zit specialist. “Throw it on the big screen, please, so the rest of us can see.”
In a moment the crystal clear millimeter-wave image of a Sea Skimmer lying upside down on the ocean floor appeared on the monitor.
Alexander whistled softly. “Looks like we got ourselves a dud,” he said.
“Sir,” Ryker said, standing next to him, “you realize that if we could crack that thing’s control matrix that we can prove who made it and who launched it?”
“I’m quite aware, Jim. And that’s why we’ve got to go do just that,” Alexander said as he turned to Captain Washington.
“But sir,” she began to protest, “if we get close enough to launch the Dewa drone to interrogate the control matrix on that Sea Skimmer, we could trigger whatever surveillance system may be over the area.”
“I’m aware, captain,” he answered. “I don’t think we have a choice. If we’re going to prove who attacked us we have to risk getting close enough to launch the Dewa drone. We’ve got to crack that control matrix—make it talk to us so we know who we’re dealing with here.”
“Yes, sir,” Washington answered, then spun on her heels and began walking quickly back toward the pilot house.
“Alrighty, then,” Alexander said as he clapped his hands together. “Party’s over. Specialist Krrrz, you keep watching the vids and let me know if you see anything else interesting. The rest of you position the weapon stores and get ready just in case whoever sunk our ship doesn’t appreciate us snooping around.”
Chapter Four
Not everyone was focused completely on the ship, and not all the sensors and communications capabilities aboard the Glenda were brought by Marik’s Marauders. In fact, the most advanced communications interceptor to show up on the planet in years, other than what was available to the highly secretive Solkin Assassins that occasionally carried out missions for their Overlord masters, was currently on Jim Ryker’s hip—and it was buzzing.
Lifting the little box out of its holster, Ryker walked out of the pilot house to ensure he had the clearest signal possible. As he stood in a corner of the ferry deck, surrounded by the smell of sea salt and rust, Jim looked around before bringing the dark matter radio interceptor, DMR Interceptor or just ‘dimmer’ as it was called, from behind his back. On the screen was just what he had been hoping to see—a hit from someone communicating on a fringe resonance, one that the Solkin wouldn’t be monitoring. And he knew just who that would be…
‘Rianna, where did you go?’ he tapped intensely, his fingers awkwardly tapping the words out. Reconsidering what he had just typed, he cursed himself for being a fool and tipping his hand.
‘Rianna, it’s me. Come home,’ he tapped his plea.
Several moments passed with no response. Just as Jim was about to give up hope, a slight buzz quickly brought his attention back to the screen.
‘Not time yet. Maybe later.’
Jim stood there looking at the screen. She had responded! His hopes began to rise that perhaps he could convince her to stop running.
‘Why not now? Family misses you,’ he tapped.
‘You know why not,’ was all the answer she gave.
‘Uncle Marik will forgive,’ he replied.
‘Perhaps,’ was all the answer she gave, then suddenly the connection broke.
Ryker tried reconnecting several times. Rianna Firstwave had apparently switched her transmitter off, but not before the dimmer was able to plot the track she was traveling. Tapping the link button on his situence glasses, he passed the coordinates over to his mapper… and quickly discovered that Rianna Firstwave was flying low over the North Sea on a direct course to Principay Colony.
* * *
“Dewa Drone is launched,” Sergeant Thompson said as he walked in the door to the pilot house and clapped his gloved hands together. “And yes, it’s as heavy as it looks.”
Colonel Alexander smiled. “You know you could have had your specialists or the yazri help you put it in the water.”
Thompson’s lower lip bulged out in a deep frown. “The only one that has the collective muscle to be of much use is Ya-da-na, and I got them manning a gun. No sir, I managed just fine by myself.”
“Showing off again, huh?” Captain Washington commented from up at the Glenda’s controls.
Thompson just huffed moodily.
Just at that moment, Specialist Krrrz came running through the door, his agitation showing by his antennae that were waving about erratically, almost barreling Ryker over who had just come into the pilot house behind Thompson.
“This can’t be good,” Alexander muttered. “What is it, Specialist?”
“We have several bogies on the long-range sensors,” Krrrz’s voice projector boomed in the tiny pilot house.
Captain Washington immediately switched views, projecting the long-range sensor sweep from the jetcar onto the ferry’s main pilot house display. There, coming onto the very edge of the display from the northeast, she could clearly count twenty small objects flying much faster than any bird on Camallay could fly.
“What’s the ETA, captain?” Alexander asked evenly.
“Sir, estimated time of arrival is… four and a half minutes,” Washington answered.
“Flanagan!” Alexander called out.
“I see them, sir,” Lieutenant Flanagan’s voice answered from Washington’s linker.
“I want you to get out there, swoop around behind them, and see how many of them you can shoot out of the air.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Thompson,” Alexander turned on the towering sergeant. “Have everybody gear up, then post the yazri team up on the rear superstructure with area burst weapons,” he said, motioning at the four yazri warriors who had been lounging about back in the crew area. “Give them seeker rounds. Those bogies may be coming in slow enough that they may get off two or three shots each. Hopefully between the jetcar’s multi-laser and the two multi-lasers mounted on this boat those two or three shots each will be enough!”
Sergeant Thompson turned without a word and started bellowing at the four yazri who quickly grabbed their thick black armor plating and ran from the crew quarters toward the open weapons crates on the deck. They slapped the armor plates over their nanomer weave jumpsuits as they went, and within moments were grabbing bandoleers sporting five large bullets the size of liter canteens each and grabbing large caliber, short-barreled rifles by the carrying handle and dragging it all up toward one side railing of the ferry to stand between whatever was coming their way and their ship.
Back in the crew quarters area Doc Pastore was starting to panic, so Jim Ryker took her outside to get her out of the intensity of an operations center in full battle mode. He was surprised when she immediately popped some pill, but figured she knew what she was doing.
“Pete, what do you see?” Alexander growled into his linker as he slapped black armor plates on his thighs.
“Almost there, sir,” the reply came. “From their heat signature they look like… probably SKAD drones, sir. I’ll be able to confirm that in about thirty seconds.”
Alexander gave a quizzical look at Washington, who was shaking out her breastplate to get it semi-rigid before slapping it onto her chest to get it to stick. The light armor plating was called ‘slap plates’ by those who wore it, and for good reason.
“Swarm Kamikaze Aerial Drones, sir,” Washington clarified. “They’re flying suicide drones that are usually deployed in a swarm of five to fifty… twenty in our case.”
“What payload do they carry?” Alexander asked as he pulled out his own breastplate and repeated Washington’s maneuver without thought, having done this thousands of times.
Lieutenant Flanagan’s voice came back over the linker. “Sir, SKADs usually carry an anti-personnel load, typically a large shrapnel-producing payload but not capable of destroying a hardened vehicle.”
“If they hit the hover fans on this beas
t, there’s no way she’ll stay afloat,” Alexander said.
“It is made to float, not just hover, sir,” Washington answered.
“True,” Flanagan’s voice answered over the linker, “but the shrapnel alone would tear up the hover fans, not to mention rip up the superstructure of the ferry and likely kill anyone in the blast radius.”
“Then we’ll just have to destroy them all before they get to us,” Alexander said calmly as he slapped his last plate into place.
“Sir,” Flanagan’s voice came back over the linker, “confirmed that they are SKAD drones.”
“Well, at least we know what we’re dealing with,” Alexander said.
“Yes, sir,” Flanagan responded. “You also need to know that standard SKAD drones have a diffusion screen.”
Alexander and Washington looked at each other in wonder.
“Did you say that whoever makes these drones put diffusion screens on them?” Alexander asked in disbelief.
“Stellar Corp, sir,” Pete Flanagan answered. “And Wolfman just confirmed that these ones do have diffusion screens.”
Alexander’s face turned dark. “I’m really starting to hate these Stellar Corp folks. As though throwing a whole swarm at us wasn’t enough, they put diffusion screens on them as well. I’d say that’s a bit unfair. That’s just overkill.”
Captain Washington was busy turning the Glenda about and accelerating away from the swarm at max speed to give them as much time as they could possibly get to engage the SKAD swarm.
After a moment Alexander held up his linker. “Pete, please tell me you’ve already started engaging these drones.”
A gruff voice came over the linker. “Sure enough, boss. He be shooting them, but they be dodging pretty well,” Wolfman answered between maneuvers, the sound of laser-fire cycling from the jetcar’s multi-laser filled the background.
Alexander stepped out of the pilot house and onto the deck. “Ryker!” he called down to the rear railing of the Glenda’s superstructure where Ryker was trying to calm the almost frantic doctor.
Ryker turned and looked at the colonel without a word.
“Get some life rafts ready to put in the water!” Alexander called. “We’re going to shoot down as many of them as we can, but they have diffusion screens, so our lasers will be less effective. I think we need to prepare for the worst.”
Ryker’s eyes grew wide. Despite her drugged state, Sandra Pastore screamed and balled up in the fetal position. Running for the side sponsons where the inflatable rafts were stored, Ryker threw one after another on the deck, pulling inflation cords and trying to figure out how to mount the outboard propellers on each raft.
Up on the superstructure to either side of the deck Specialist Chewontonpipat had sighted in on the incoming drones and began firing his multi-laser. Not a second behind him, with one body running the targeting while the other two aimed, Specialist Ya-da-na began firing as well.
* * *
Lieutenant Flanagan was determined to take out as many of these drones as possible, and the genmods Marik Corp had paid for were perfect for the job. With almost superhuman precision and agility, Flanagan locked the jetcar’s targeting system onto the rear drones and fired repeatedly, striking each one with precisely one laser bolt each. He smiled at the feat.
Normally, one of the powerful bolts would bring down such fragile drones, but today was an exception. Wolfman, who sat as copilot and sensors watch, counted off the kills as they occurred.
“One!” he said as the rearmost drone lost a wing and spiraled into the sea, exploding in a mess of shrapnel on impact. He watched as four of the drones in a row wobbled as bolts struck them, but their diffusion screens protected them from all but a scorch mark here or there. Then, finally, one of their diffusion screens failed as Flanagan’s shot hit dead center. The drone exploded in a mess of shrapnel, taking three other drones along with it, each spiraling out of control down to the sea’s surface below.
“Five it is!” Flanagan pre-empted his copilot.
“I think ye focus yer fire, boy, and stop trying to show off,” Wolfman said.
“Already on it,” Flanagan said as three bolts ripped into another drone and it exploded, taking a second drone down along with it.
Laser bolts from the Glenda’s two multi-lasers were flying through the center of the SKAD formation, so Flanagan juked off to one side of the group, circling around it like a lion stalking its prey before cycling another burst into the midst of the drones.
“Bossman,” Wolf called over the T-link. “I don’t know if pretty boy here will get many more before they be on you.”
Colonel Alexander’s voice came back over the T-link. “Do what you can. We’ll see if we can get the rest.”
* * *
“I got one! I got one!” Specialist Chewontonpipat called out excitedly.
“Put your face back in the targeting reticle, Alphabet! Keep firing!” Thompson reprimanded him.
“Okay, okay,” Alphabet said as he refocused and brought the gun to bear on another target.
Meanwhile, Colonel Alexander was in the pilot house with Captain Washington who was counting the targets down while pushing the engines for all they were worth.
“Sir, I don’t think we’re going to make it.” Worry was clearly evident in her voice. “I still count eight drones.”
Alexander leaned out the door to the deck. “Incoming! Get the guns ready!”
Thompson hooked the tow rope and threw the lifeboat he’d been helping Ryker with into the water before running for the railing to join the yazri he had posted there with area burst rifles.
“Alright now. One shot each, that’s all the time we’ll have,” Thompson huffed.
The four yazri all grimly brought their rifles to bear, while out on the water the jetcar peeled off so as to not hit the Glenda with its multi-laser.
“Ready!” Thompson called from behind his weapon’s sights.
Suddenly a bolt from Triplet’s multi-laser connected and two of the drones exploded in a blinding flash of shrapnel and fire.
“Fire!” Thompson roared at the line of yazri.
All five guns fired simultaneously, launching liter-sized rockets in a heat-seeking trajectory toward the drones. Within seconds each had connected. The resulting explosion rocked the waters, echoing for tens of kilometers in every direction.
As the washout from the intense light faded, everyone looked up to see a sky that was empty, except for the jetcar that was heading back toward the east.
With shouts of joy and excitement, the entire crew danced about as bits of spent shrapnel fell like rain over the Glenda, celebrating having survived this near-death experience—until Flanagan’s voice came over their linkers.
“Sir, there’s a second wave, on the heels of the first wave!”
Chapter Five
It wasn’t long before Colonel Alexander, Captain Washington, Jim Ryker, Sergeant Thompson and Specialist Krrrz, and Sergeant Hobbs’ team of four yazri had fully loaded four life rafts with everything portable that sat on the deck of the ship, which was good because they didn’t have long. Alphabet and Triplets were both up on the multi-lasers firing at the drones as quickly and accurately as they could, but the drones just weren’t disappearing fast enough.
Behind the SKAD drones, Pete Flanagan’s multi-laser was cycling its barrels as fast as possible, throwing out beam after beam of deadly energy from below his jetcar, but he knew it would be too little, too late. Whoever was launching these drones had set the second wave of drones to fly in evasive patterns and further apart. He just wasn’t scoring enough of the type of hits on them he needed to score. And when they did explode, they were too far apart to take another drone with them.
“Wolf, let the colonel know we’re not going to stop them all!” Flanagan said.
At that exact moment one of the SKAD drones suddenly flipped about, stalling in mid-air just long enough for the jetcar to get close to it.
“Watch out!” Wolf ye
lled unhelpfully as Flanagan jerked on the controls, sending the jetcar into a desperate left spiral. He had barely spun the jetcar halfway into the spiral when the stunning impact of the exploding SKAD reached the bottom of the jetcar, shattering the clearweave cockpit cover as shrapnel tore through one of the engines and perforated the hull of the craft. The jet engine spun itself into shrapnel, throwing fins and engine housing in all directions.
Through all this, Wolf had somehow remained intact, other than a few minor bits of shrapnel in his hide and an arm that was likely broken. The explosion had righted the spiral of the jetcar, and now the fatally wounded craft was dropping in a slow, almost graceful arc into the North Sea far below. Shaking his head to clear it of the explosion and to free his face of the remnants of his situence glasses, Wolf grabbed the quick-release switch from his harness and, with a quick tug, suddenly found himself flying free through the air beside the jetcar. He looked back toward the jetcar and saw Lieutenant Pete Flanagan, his head slumped at an odd angle and his arms sitting by his bloody side, sitting so peacefully and serene as the jetcar flipped over.
Wolf quickly pulled the ripcord on his paraglider, wings unfolded rapidly and he was thrown around like a ragdoll, torn away from the certain death that had been waiting to receive him in the choppy waters below.
* * *
Marik’s Marauders weren’t able to save the multi-lasers, or the advanced sensor and display suite they had set up on the deck of the doomed ferry, but as the SKAD drones impacted, one after another in quick, staccato sequence, each booming with the force of an angry god’s thunderbolt, each and every one of the company who had been aboard the MCS Glenda took cover behind whatever they had thrown in the life rafts with them and thanked whichever version of God they believed in, or their ancestors in the case of three of the four yazri. Five SKADs into the attack, the fuel tanks for the backup internal combustion engine ignited causing a fireball that flashed blood red on the belly of the afternoon clouds for several kilometers in all directions.