by M. D. Cooper
“AIs don’t view starlight like we do,” Garth replied.
“You’d just drift forever,” Ona whispered.
Chase rubbed his eyes. “Stars, we’re too fucking melancholy. We’re on the cusp of getting Rika and Leslie back—and we’re going to get them back, no two ways about it. Any objection to some music?”
“You like Ontaran Punk?” Ona asked. “When we were at Pyra, I picked up a new stream of a group called, ‘The Pink Knickers’.”
“Let’s check them out,” he agreed. “Sounds like just the thing to keep us from perseverating on what’s about to go down.”
Ona nodded, and was reaching across her console, when one of the Harriet carriers fired its engines, and shifted into a lower orbit around Delta Moon, a dozen dropships falling from its bays.
“Shit” Chase muttered. “What’s that all about?”
* * * * *
As Rika worked at reconnecting Piper to the network, the shoom of her AC9CR sounded from the entrance to the chamber, and she saw Leslie silhouetted in the glow of the weapon’s rail discharge.
At the same moment, every one of the NSAI-controlled drones dropped from the ceiling, drifting down on a-grav while deploying armatures and weapons as well as sensor suites.
Several moved toward the door and began firing at the approaching Nietzscheans.
Leslie sent a pair of angry eyes over the team’s network.
Rika tabulated the NSAI drones that Niki had managed to take control of, surprised to find that it was twenty-three. Nine of them were firing at the Niets trying to come down the passage, while the other fourteen were forming up near Piper’s node.
Rika didn’t waste any more time. Taking aim at a bot, she fired her electron beam before spinning and sending a trio of DPUs in rapid succession at three other targets. The drones were torn apart by her barrage, which was joined by the drones under Niki’s control. In seconds, the chamber was filled with crossfire and very little cover.
Glancing at Piper’s node, Rika realized that the NSAIs were taking care not to fire in his direction at all. Makes sense, she thought. No point in having your defensive system accidently destroy the entire installation.
With that in mind, she leapt up to the catwalk that ran around the SAI’s node and began firing with impunity at the drones. Though the machines took care not to hit Piper, several moved into positions where they could get clear shots at Rika without striking the node.
Piper said.
A low boom echoed in the chamber, and Rika saw the doors high above begin to slide aside.
A moment later, she felt her stomach lurch, and then a weight settled on her—it was as though a giant was standing on her shoulders. Around the chamber, half the drones slammed into the deck, and Leslie cried out.
Suddenly, the weight lifted, and Rika felt like she was going to fly off the catwalk and up the shaft above.
* * * * *
Alarms blared across the bridge, and Chase felt his stomach lurch.
“What the hell!?”
“Which ones?” Chase asked, watching as the thousands of ships surrounding Epsilon began flaring their engines, adjusting orbits. To his right, one of the holodisplays was tracking the shuttles that had left the nearby Harriet Carrier. Two of the craft had been close to touching down, and they slammed into the moon’s surface at the edge of the dome they’d been approaching, explosions casting a bright light across Delta Moon’s red surface.
“I mean…I see it, I don’t know if I can ‘confirm’. What the hell is happening?”
“It has to be black holes,” Chase muttered, shaking his head. “That’s how they always manage masses like this in the stories, right? They use black holes and put them in the moons. You can adjust their spin and magnetospheres to push and pull them off one another and the planet.”
Potter said.
The AI put up a display on the central holotank, showing Epsilon and its six moons.
“Into the planet?” Chase asked.
“Will it be enough to destroy Delta Moon?” Chase asked, certain that’s where Rika was—it was the only moon with carriers dropping ships to the surface.
The projection showed three annotated points, moving around Epsilon and slowly approaching the planet until they collided with the other moons, and devoured them. The singularities combined in blazing bursts of light until there were three. The annotations showed that their orbits as unstable, and soon there was just one black hole, feeding on the ring of debris surrounding Epsilon, and even drawing wisps of gas off the giant planet’s cloudtops.
“Shit,” Chase muttered. “How long will that take to happen?”
“A week…maybe,” Ona said, standing next to the holotank. “But at this rate, the first three moons will be destroyed in hours.”
Chase squared his shoulders. “And once that happens, our options to rescue our ladies all but disappear. Potter, recall all the teams. None of our other ships can get down to Delta Moon while withstanding all those Harriets. It’s going to have to be the Lance.”
Chase drew in a dee
p breath. “Stars, I hate this. You’re right. OK, we have tactics other than brute force. We need to use the Capital and the Undaunted to drop out of stealth and draw the Harriets that are in higher orbit away. Then we come in with the Republic and park on either side of that carrier in a low orbit around Delta Moon, and broadside the ever-living shit out of it.”
“Sir?” Ona asked, her eyes wide. “Broadside? That’s….”
“Normally insane,” he admitted, nodding solemnly. “But think about it. Half the Harriet’s main guns are rails that can’t fire on short-range targets right next to it. Many of its beams won’t be able to hit us at those angles, either, but we can target their lateral beams with ease at that short range.”
“If they know we have to crack open our shields to fire, we’ll be in trouble,” Garth warned.
“There’s no way they know that, yet,” Chase replied. “And if they do, we stop firing and hightail it out of there. If they come after us, all the better.”
Ona glanced at Garth and shrugged. “I think it could actually work. We just never speak of this. We’ll be the laughing stocks of the Marauders.”
* * * * *
“Stars!” Rika cried out in frustration. “Another wave of these damn things?”
Around Piper’s node lay the smoking wreckage of the spherical drones that had fallen from the ceiling. Only four of the original group Niki had breached remained, but there were three jammed into the corridor leading to the surface, which was helping to keep the encroaching Niets at bay.
They’d thought it was over, but on the far side of the chamber, another thirty drones were emerging from the walls, lifting into the air and moving around Piper’s node to attack the two women.
Leslie had joined Rika on the catwalk, and took a moment to sag against the railing.
“And we always say the heavies have all the fun.” The scout laughed before checking her remaining loadout. “Starting to run dry, here.”
“Is this new bad news, or ‘we figured this would happen’ bad news?” Rika asked.
the AI said.
“What!” both women cried out at once.
“How?” Rika added, while firing her electron beam into a drone that was easing around Piper’s node. Stars, I wish I’d brought one of Finaeus’s whip-arms along. Those things would make short work of these bots.
Niki made a sound of consternation before replying to Rika’s prior question.
“Great!” Leslie muttered as she fired both her rifles at the onrushing drones, driving several of them back around Piper’s node.
“Sorry,” Leslie replied while continuing to fire on drones that came around the node.
Rika followed suit on her side, while also accessing her taps into Delta Moon’s STC and reviewing the scan data.
“Well I’ll be a comet’s asshole,” she said with a smile. “The Lance and the Republic are out there! They’re absolutely pummeling a Harriet at close range…they just broke the shields! Oh, shit!”
“Stars, Rika share the feed!” Leslie shouted over the sounds of weapons fire, and Rika nodded, swallowing as she shared the datastream.
“They got nuked,” Rika whispered.
“Nuked shmooked,” the scout shot back. “We saw the pounding the I2 took from the Niets at Pyra. Stasis can handle…wow, that was a lot of nukes.”
Rika whistled, unable to find the words. Then she realized that with control of the STC, she could reach out to her fleet. Not even bothering with proper protocol, she leapt across the networks and burst into Chase’s mind.
AN UNUSUAL EVAC
STELLAR DATE: 10.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance, near Delta Moon
REGION: Epsilon, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“Nice metaphor, Potter,” Ona said. “Heather is actually sending pictures of her rampage through Farthing Station. She’s nuts.”
Chase gave a quiet laugh, his gaze fixed on the Nietzschean Harriet Carrier only six hundred meters off the Fury Lance’s bow. Even at dock, ships this large were never so close to one another. He could read the name emblazoned on the enemy vessel, Star Hawk, and make out the eleven spears that noted the number of capital ships it had destroyed.
“I have…wait…no…” Garth said, sounding confused.
“What is it, Chief?” Chase asked.
“I had two Nietzschean ships on a direct course for Delta Moon, a cruiser and an older-style dreadnought. They were three light seconds away…and now they’re gone.”
“There are a lot of ships out there,” Chase gestured at the holotank where thousands of Nietzschean ships were pulling away from various stations, and the impending destruction of the moons surrounding Epsilon. “Could have been a sensor ghost.”
“Maybe,” Garth allowed. “Not a lot are flying closer to the moons, though. Doesn’t matter, they were a long way off.”
“OK,” Chase said, glancing at the holo to see that Travis on the Republic had signaled his readiness. “Let’s do this.”
The two Marauder ships shed their stealth systems, and activated stasis shielding. Both ships were positioned perpendicular to the enemy vessel, beyond the firing angles of the H-Class carrier’s main guns.
Potter and Ona had pre-programmed the opening barrage, as had Dredge and his counterparts on the Republic. The bridge crew didn’t have to lift a finger, as both vessels unleashed every forward-facing beam they possessed, weakening the Star Hawk’s midship shield umbrellas.
One-ton slugs launched from the Fury Lance, tearing into the massive carrier, which had begun to rotate to bring its main guns to bear on the Marauder ships.
“Keeping us in position,” Garth announced.
The Republic breached the Star Hawk’s shields on the other side as well, and began slinging kinetics into the enemy vessel.
Chase glanced at another holotank, watching as the Capital and the Undaunted dove between the four Harriets at higher orbits, drawing those carriers further from the moon. The tactic appeared to be working, but then one of the enemy carriers shifted course, dropping toward Delta Moon and the fight surrounding the holed carrier.
At the same time, hundreds of missiles streaked out from the Star Hawk’s aft and fore launchers, the weapons arcing out from the carrier and slamming into the rear of the Fury Lance and the Republic, nuclear blooms surrounding both ships.
Chase held his breath. All sensor data winked out as the stasis shields fully enveloped the Lance to protect it from the blast. Seven long seconds later, scan came back online, though the ionized plasma surrounding the ship limited visibility.
“Bringing us back around,” Garth reported.
Ona laughed as she pushed an image up onto the main display. “They hurt themselves more than us with that!”
Much of the Harriet Carrier’s hull was blackened, and atmosphere was venting in several locations.
“Taking fire from the other Harriet!” Garth called out a second later.
“Dammit,” Chase muttered, knowing he couldn’t get a dropship out of the bays and down to the moon in the midst of this battle. Even with stealth enabled, a shuttle would light up like a beacon, flying through all the plasma from the nukes.
Suddenly he felt a Link connection.
Her laugh filled his mind, and suddenly every worry, all the fear and stress, just disappeared. Rika was alive and well; anything and everything was possible again.
Chase thought of the available shuttles on the Fury Lance and Republic. None of them were large enough to take a core that size—not without ripping out all the seats and cutting a rather large hole in the bulkhead.
Chase laughed aloud.