by M. D. Cooper
“No good thoughts lie that way,” Markus cautioned Dmitry. “We have to remain focused on how we’ll get through this.”
“Well, you’re lucky. With no small amount of divine intervention, we got the intercoolers installed. It’s not pretty and if any other chief engineers see it I’ll deny I had any part in that installation, but we’ll get the operational efficiencies we need out of the engines.”
“Then we need to light those pion drives,” Katrina said. “Making them alter v and thread the belt to meet up with us will buy us some more time.”
“I have our four biggest tugs fueled up and ready to go as well,” James added. “We’ll get this thing underway in no time.”
No time, as it turned out, was just over two hours. James’s crews carefully selected anchor points on the newly balanced station and the new engines threw a few final curve balls before they were running just the way Dmitry wanted.
The Hyperion lay deep within Sirius’s second asteroid belt, just over three AU from the star. The engines and tugs strained to pull the platform stellar north and out of the field before the platform could begin the hard burn toward the star for the gravity assist slingshot outsystem.
The belt was not densely populated, but enough so that the platform had to alter course several times to thread their way past errant rocks and dust clouds. It was just over seven hours after their burn started that the path to the star was clear enough to push the engines to their maximum output.
Markus watched the scan on the main holotank in overwatch, keeping an eye on the positions of other platforms and asteroids, as well as the spotty ghost-echo of the pursuing ship.
Several times the platform had been hailed by system traffic control stations as to the nature of their unscheduled movement, but each time the Hyperion did not respond. With each subsequent hail, a hushed silence deepened across overwatch—and across the entire platform—as the crew waited for the inevitable confrontation.
“I have a contact,” scan called out. “It looks like a patrol ship leaving a nearby garrison station.”
“To be expected,” Markus nodded and looked to Katrina. “Do you think it’s synchronized with the strike force?”
“Hard to say,” Katrina replied. “It could be, but I don’t think that the strike force would want to tip their hand. It could be a feint, either way, if I were their commander, I would look for an opportunity to use the distraction this will cause.”
“That interceptor ship couldn’t get all the way here without us picking them up on scan, could they?” James asked.
The yard-master’s day-to-day work was some of the most dangerous on the station. Wrangling cargo and asteroids where the smallest mistake could result in disaster. Markus had rarely heard him sound anything other than calm and serene, but there was more than a waver in the man’s voice.
Katrina caught Markus’s eye and he nodded, people needed some assurances. He switched his chair’s comm to station-wide.
“People of the Hyperion, you have shown incredible fortitude during our endeavor thus far, and through our initial actions today. It is likely that things are going to get exciting soon. A patrol ship is on an intercept course with us and it’s possible that our friends on the destroyer could use that distraction to their advantage. I want all teams to be ready for boarding at any moment and everyone monitoring external hatches to be ready to blow them at a moment’s notice.
“Stay strong, stay vigilant, we will weather this and see a new star.”
James grinned. “Good speech boss.”
Markus didn’t reply and turned back to scan. Three hours until the patrol ship was in weapons range.
“Patrol ship entering range,” scan called out one hundred and eighty-two long minutes later.
“They’re hailing us,” comm added. “Nothing new, though their tone is considerably more irate,” the woman running comm added with a smile.
“Put me through,” Markus said.
The comm officer pushed a button on her panel and nodded in his direction.
“This is the sovereign ship Hyperion, formerly known as platform SK87. Do not come within ten-thousand kilometers of our platform. Doing so will be considered an act of aggression and we will fire upon you.”
Markus put the comm down and wiped the sweat from his hands as he exchanged looks with the overwatch command crew.
The response was quick and angry as expected.
“What are you playing at SK87. Your platform is the property of the people of Sirius and you are contractually bound to it. You will open your main bay for our shuttles to dock at once.”
Markus picked up the comm handset with both hands, praying no one noticed the slight tremor he couldn’t suppress.
“Negative, patrol ship, by our calculations our people paid back their transit debt seven hundred and twenty-six years ago. In the intervening years we have paid for this platform and are, in fact, owed a steep remittance for our labor. We’d prefer to be paid in Sol credits.”
Katrina stifled a laugh as he switched off comm.
“I wonder if anyone has ever told them that before?” she asked.
“First time for everything,” Markus forced a smile.
“They’re launching two boarding shuttles,” scan called out. “Looks like one is headed for the main bay, and the other for the north bay airlock.”
“Can we make good on our threat to shoot them?” James asked.
“Negative,” scan replied. “Not all our weapons got mounted and they picked approaches where we’re wide open.”
“I should get to the main bay,” Katrina said. “I’ll direct the crew at the north bay lock to prime their charges and detonate as soon as the outer hatch is opened.”
Markus nodded grimly. “Good luck.”
With the rushed departure there were a lot of steps in their insurrection that the crew of the Hyperion had not managed to complete. One of which was to complete the various computer overrides necessary to completely lock the shorts out of the platform’s control systems.
One that was proving to be more difficult than expected—short of destroying it entirely—was removing remote access for the main bay doors.
As Katrina approached the main bay’s control shack she called into the techs frantically working on the bay door’s software.
“Let it be,” Katrina advised. “We’ll deal with them once they get in. We could use another ship,” she added with a wink.
The Hyperion’s main bay was just over a hundred meters deep and three hundred wide. Two smaller tugs rested on cradles on each side. Just inside the main lock between the bay and the rest of the platform, stood two dozen of the platform’s newly formed militia.
Katrina knew she’d find Sarah leading this group and nodded to the other woman.
“I expect that they’ll settle their shuttle on the main platform.” Katrina said by way of greeting.
Sarah nodded in response, her eyes boring into Katrina’s.
“We should take up positions behind those tugs and under the deck plates there, and there,” Katrina pointed to several maintenance hatches.
“They’ll be too close; the shorts’ll take anyone in that position out in seconds.” Sarah shook her head. “We should ambush them in the corridors.”
“If we do that it will be too late. They’ll have a foothold on the ship and they also may lase us right through the bulkheads. We have to take them quick and by surprise.”
Katrina looked around at the militia, many of whom she recognized after spending so many months on the platform. She singled out four of the men and women who she knew had young families.
“You four, take up positions around the main hatch. Take a couple of pot-shots at them as they disembark and then run. It’ll focus their attention forward and then give them a false sense of security when you run. That’s when the rest of us will attack.”
Katrina looked at Sarah who slowly nodded. She could tell the other woman may not like her, but understo
od why Katrina picked thoes four individuals for the diversion. Perhaps she’d win her over eventually.
Katrina split the rest up into the sharpshooters who would take up positions behind the tugs, and those with less accurate, close range weapons, who would hide under the deck plates.
While the people of the Hyperion knew for some time that they would likely fight a battle on their decks, there had been no way to properly train them in combat. She had to hope that the vids and desire to free their home would be enough.
“Remember,” she cautioned the men and women. “It’s close quarters in here. It’s going to be terrifying and confusing. Pick your targets carefully. Don’t shoot wildly; the last thing you want is to hit a friend.”
Her words were answered by solemn nods and sidelong glances. Sarah nodded to the militia and they moved to their positions. Katrina took up a position on the heavy equipment maintenance shed. It was in a corner of the dock and its roofline was above any lines of sight from where the boarding craft would disgorge its soldiers.
She would only get a few shots off as the assault transport’s weapons would make short work of her position once they had a lock.
She unslung the slug thrower she had smuggled onto the station several months earlier. It was a brutal weapon and not the sort of thing any civilized combatant would use, but it would keep as many of the Hyperions alive as possible.
The external bay doors began to open scant moments after the last of the fighters slipped into cover. Katrina found herself holding her breath, and forced a slow exhale. She eyed the four fighters at the dock’s main hatch. They held their weapons securely, but Katrina could see their nervousness in the twitch of a finger and subtle shifts of position.
“Hold steady,” she whispered to herself, wishing—not for the first time—that the Hyperions had Link technology.
The assault craft was the size and model she had expected, it held between six and ten lightly armored soldiers, likely under the command of a lieutenant. A pair of pilots would stay with the craft and man its weapons.
Before it had finished settling into the cradle the ramp was lowering and four soldiers jumped to the deck. On queue the four Noctus fighters at the dock’s entrance took a few shots before retreating into the corridor, using the bulkhead for cover.
Only one shot hit a Luminescent solder. It was a good shot, center-mass, but the force was absorbed by the advanced armor the soldier wore. A second later, several more soldiers had spilled from the craft and Katrina saw all but one of the fighters disappear from the dock’s hatch.
“Go, move!” She whispered to herself.
The Noctus fighter was too late, a solder fired, his shot true and a figure fell forward through the dock’s hatch, face slamming into the deck plate.
The soldiers responded as Katrina expected. Believing the Noctus had retreated, they fully deployed from the assault craft. She held her breath for a second, praying to whatever gods may listen that Sarah took the cue.
She sighted along her rifle’s holoscope and let a long breath escape her lungs. As the last wisps of air passed her lips, the Hyperion Militia burst from beneath the deck plates, and, gods bless them, began firing without asking for quarter.
The soldiers were flanked and their ranks nearly collapsed under a concussive blanket of pulse rifle fire. Their armor took the brunt of the attack, but two fell in the initial volley from the militia. Katrina didn’t give them a chance to regroup and lined her sights on one of the soldiers at the front of their formation. The command raced from her mind to the rifle and it fired the slug.
As though she had simply sent a signal to a bomb, her target’s head exploded. Pieces of burning metal, brain, and bone slammed into three men behind the soldier. Two of them went down, and the third stood screaming, trying to tear his helmet off—a difficult task with a piece of his teammate’s skull protruding from his visor.
Katrina took a second shot, killing a man on the flank—this time with no collateral damage.
Moments later the remaining Luminescant soldiers threw their weapons to the ground and Sarah led half her squad into the assault craft to subdue the pilots.
Katrina didn’t wait for report of their success, she saw the ship’s upper turret begin to turn toward her and dropped from the roof of the maintenance shed, sliding down a ladder and rushing across the dock toward the militia and the relative cover of the assault craft.
Two women were smashing the point defense lasers on the front of the craft, and four others had surrounded the remaining soldiers. The rest were losing their lunch off to the side of the cradle.
Katrina sent a message over the platform’s meager Link to Operations.
Sarah walked down the ramp with the two pilots at gunpoint, wearing a grin so large it almost wrapped around her face.
“Nice work, Sarah,” Katrina smiled, hoping to gain some points with the surly woman. “Markus tells me that the other assault craft is making for the south service bay.
Sarah’s expression turned serious. “Sven!” she called to the leader of her second squad. “Stay here and lock these asshats down, Katrina and I will take second and third squad to take care of their friends.
They jogged out of the bay to the sounds of the remaining militia stunning the captured soldiers before they stripped and cuffed them.
Katrina thought she knew the platform well, but Sarah led them through a twisting maze of passageways, some so narrow they had to pass single file.
“These aren’t all on the official blueprint,” Katrina commented at one point.
“Noticed that did you?” Sarah replied with a smirk. “Good to know you didn’t ferret out all of our secrets.”
Katrina decided not to respond; it seemed like she still had a way to go before she wasn’t one of them to Sarah.
Weapons fire greeted them before they reached the dock and Sarah raised the leader of the squad defending the bay on her comm unit.
“We’re pinned down! We couldn’t stop them from getting the bay doors open without blowing them. We’re trapped behind the port-side maintenance crane.”
“We’ll get you out of there,” Sarah replied and broke into a full run, Katrina trailing behind with the two squads.
“How many of them are there?” Katrina asked.
“A dozen at least. The ship is firing on our position too, but they haven’t pulled out the big guns yet.” The response was accompanied by the sounds of a man screaming in agony.
“Sarah, split the squads up between the two entrances. Is there another, less well known way into the bay?” Katrina asked.
Sarah nodded. “If you go into the dock master’s office there’s a ladder up to a service hatch that gets you onto an observation deck. Not as much cover, but maybe you can get a shot or two off again.”
Katrina nodded and pulled up a station map. The route Sarah described overlaid her vision and she took the last few twists fast enough that she slid into the bulkheads.
Her work as an infiltrator required her to have far fewer modifications and physical enhancements than most in Luminescent Society. Normally she didn’t mind. She had earned a respect for how the Noctus worked with pure biological bodies. However, today she wished she had taken the agency’s suggestion that she take a few mods in case of emergency.
The service hatch was just where Sarah said and Katrina climbed onto the narrow observation walkway. Below her she could see the assault craft resting unevenly in the bay’s center cradle. Four of the soldiers wer
e working their way toward the beleaguered militia who had been guarding the bay while the remaining eight had taken up positions defending against Sarah’s troops who were firing from the two entrances.
Katrina lay prone and checked her magazine. She had three shots. With the cover the observation catwalk offered she would likely not get a second. She looked through the holo sights and prepared to fire into a group of soldiers.
A second before she squeezed the trigger she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She shifted her scope and realized that the assault craft’s main turret was about to fire down the corridor into Sarah’s people.
She shifted her weapon, took aim and fired one slug and then a second into the turret. The ship’s gun exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel.
Below, several of the soldiers looked around for the new source of weapons fire and one spotted her, likely marking her position on his HUD.
Katrina considered her options. Chances were that she wouldn’t be able to fire the slug thrower again in this fight. Getting back through the service hatch would take precious seconds she didn’t have. A glance down told her that jumping would hurt, but there would be cover.
She rolled off the edge of the catwalk twisting in the air and landing behind a row of tool chests. There were some spare parts and tools scattered on the floor and her right foot came down sideways on one.
The snap told her that something in her ankle was broken a moment before the pain set in. Luckily the ability to dull pain was one mod she had taken—in case of capture and torture.
She put it from her mind and drew her sidearm while gingerly moving to the end of the tool chest row. It was certain that one or two soldiers had been dispatched to secure her location.
The small pistol was normally used for stunning, but it also contained a high velocity flechette cartridge and she flipped the toggle to that mode.
Ahead of her, the barrel of a gun peeked around the corner; the end of the weapon pivoted, trained on her. She fell to the ground as a pulse wave blasted above her, numbing her back. The soldier must have thought his shot hit her as his leg stepped forward.
Taking aim, Katrina fired a flechette at the back of the soldier’s knee, where the armor was weakest. With a cry of pain, the soldier, a woman by the sound of her, fell to the ground. Katrina sighted for a moment and then fired a second shot under the woman’s chin, another weak spot.