Under A Different Sun

by J. F. Holmes

  At that moment, the door opened, and Agostine walked in, struggling with a heavy, military- grade containment box. Ahmed Yassir, the team sniper, was on the other end, and he smiled at the sight of Meric.

  “Nathanael, Salam Alaikum!” said the Afghani, who, like Meric, was also from Earth. “Well met.”

  Agostine was a bit more abrupt, struggling with the box. From inside came a muted voice, which he ignored. “Brit, get the guys to give us a hand. This sucker is HEAVY, and I took a stunner in my leg, shorted it out.”

  She called into the back room, and Jones appeared, lifted the box with one hand, and took it back with him. Agostine collapsed on the couch next to Meric and started unstrapping his leg.

  “Can I assume you’re here on business?” he asked while unjacking the leg from the nerve implants above his knee.

  “Since you already heard about what happened to Team Knife, I’m sure you can figure it out.” It was one thing he liked about the man, no nonsense, down to business.

  Agostine looked at him sideways, and Meric shook his head imperceptibly. The two were the only ones in the room who knew each other’s other life, though Meric suspected that Brit O’Neill guessed. She and the team leader were…close.

  Lieutenant Colonel Nick Agostine was also in the United States Army, like Meric; cut loose into the stars to ‘see what he could do’, as was his second in command, Sergeant First Class Rob Hamilton. Meric and Agostine were on separate courses, and neither had a clue as to what the other was up to, but they both knew of the other’s existence. And each knew of others. When the time came, when the call came. If it ever came.

  “I’ll put it to you straight. I need another boarding team, and I don’t have time to train one up right, so I’d like to hire you all for the next couple of cruises. What’s in the box?” he asked, knowing full well what it was.

  “Seventh generation military grade Artificial Intelligence. Flag grade, capable of running an entire battlefleet.”

  “Holy crap!” exclaimed Meric. “That’s worth billions of pounds!”

  “One point five billion,” interjected O’Neill. “And not what you went to get.”

  Agostine shrugged, and said, “Closest thing handy once security got blown. You know how it is.”

  “Which means Versacorp goons are going to beat down our door any minute,” she scowled.

  “No, we disabled their coms and security system, so they didn’t get a good look, and we didn’t leave any DNA for their sniffers. We SHOULD be OK. They can have it back when they pay us.”

  At that moment, alarms started blaring down the street, and Doc Hamilton walked in the door. “Anyone know why there’s a full armored company of port security setting up perimeter around the building?” he asked, grabbing a donut off the table and shoving it in his face. Whereas Jones was a giant, Doc was just burly, a competitive weightlifter.

  “Nick,” asked O’Neill urgently, “was that AI jacked into anything?”

  “Um, yeah?” he replied. “So what?”

  She groaned and started tapping on her keyboard. “At that level, it was probably linked to the Twelfth Fleet G-3, doing operations analysis. We are in DEEP SHIT. Probably has an embedded tracker, too. You’re such a moron sometimes, Nick.”

  “Not to worry, Ms. O’Neill. I assume you can remove the tracker with your smooth computer skills?”

  Brit shot him the finger, but disappeared into the back rooms. Meric looked at Agostine quizzically, and the mercenary laughed, nit looking worried. “Last year, when we took this office, we created an access panel to the offices below us, right into their storeroom. You can’t see it unless you know what you’re looking for. Peterson’s bunch of dickheads. They’ll find the tracker and the empty box, assume they hustled it off someplace else.”

  Hamilton reappeared with a grin and a thumbs up. Thirty seconds later there was a muffled explosion and shouts of fear, anger and pain, making the floor vibrate under their feet. Gunshots rippled back and forth for about ten seconds, and then the shouting stopped.

  “Even so,” said Agostine, watching out the window as bodies were hauled away, “I think we’ll take you up on your offer. Two months, standard crew wages and prize shares?”

  “Extendable on request,” answered Meric, “and any of your people are free to join the crew at any time, no questions.”

  “Done,” said Agostine, and the two men shook on it. Under his breath, the mercenary whispered, “E Pluribus…” and the ship’s captain answered, “…Unum.”

  From the many, one.

  Chapter 34

  The refit was going well; their interrogation of the prisoner wasn’t. They had tried everything they could to break him, up to and including exposing him to the vacuum of space. He hadn’t spoken a word.

  “You know,” said Ski, looking at the prisoner over a camera feed, “I think he might actually have a hypnotic block against saying anything. I’ve heard of it.”

  “Which leaves us,” said a very frustrated Nate Meric, “exactly nowhere. And they want us to move out next week, start conducting exercises with the destroyer squadron.”

  His meetings with Commodore Pennington had gone exactly as he expected. “You’re in His Majesty’s navy now, put on a uniform, you’re a damned pirate and should be hung, there should be a Britannic crew on your ship, yadda yadda.” Meric had almost called him out onto the Jamesport dueling grounds, but honestly, his Lordship would probably have run him through. Britannic nobles grew up on sword fighting.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Nate,” said Ski. “He was our best lead, and Sparky hasn’t turned up anything else.”

  “OK, turn him over to the BNI, might as well make a gift out of him, try to garner some goodwill,” grumbled the Captain. Of course, it would pretty much be an admission of guilt for the raid on the warehouse, but screw them.

  His comm blinked, and Merrifield’s face appeared on screen. “Hey AJ, how are things going?” He was a bit surprised; they had a staff call at 17:00 to review repair progress.

  “Not what I’m calling about, Captain. I have a volunteer for the crew; found a decent pilot you might want to interview.”

  “Send her up,” he said.

  “Him, not her.” Which was a bit unusual; male pilots who could handle the hot shuttles usually stayed in whatever nation’s service they learned in. Ego thing, he figured.

  “OK, either way. Let me know if you’ve had any luck recruiting a team of bangers.”

  “Can do,” answered Merrifield.

  To keep French intelligence off their trail, and to bring them up to speed, Team Scout had been working on their ship boarding skills, along with Team Poison. They’d rented a small personnel transport and gone to the Graveyard, to where Meric kept two captured ships. They could only be called ‘ships’ because they had power and their hulls held atmosphere; other than that, they’d been stripped.

  He’d been expecting Rob Knight to be screaming back to him over the ansible, but so far not a peep, which was both good and scary at the same time. The hardsuit for their team had been a problem; getting one to fit either Hamilton or Jones would have been impossible to keep quiet, so they’d been forced to operate without one. That was OK with him; when or if they cracked that agent, he expected some ground ops, which the Scouts excelled at.

  “Jesus H. Christ, look what the cat dragged in!” exclaimed Alex McHale. “Chao Lin! Crash! What the hell are you doing here?”

  The short but stocky Chinese pilot grabbed McHale in a bear hug and squeezed. “I came into Miranda station, finally retired from the Emperor’s Navy. Figured I’d go make some money, heard you were looking for a pilot,” he said in heavily accented English.

  “Well, you came to the right place. Meric runs a good ship, and cares about his crew. You’ll be working for me, piloting an attack shuttle to land combat teams on hulls. You OK with that?”

  Lin smiled and said, “Do I get paid?”

  “Hell yeah, you get paid,” answered Mc
Hale. “Come on, let’s go see the old man.”

  McHale introduced Lin to the Captain in his office, giving him a run down on what he knew of the pilot’s career. “He’s a legend, Nate, I mean Sir. Tell him about the time you put a drop ship in between the engines of a Russian carrier to place that listening device!”

  “I get it, Alex,” said the Captain, amused at McHale’s enthusiasm. “Give me a few minutes with Mr. Lin, will you?”

  When the door closed, Meric sat back and said, “You come highly recommended, apparently. Why do you want to fly with us against the Frenchies?”

  “I don’t particularly care who I fly against, Captain Meric. I’ve heard that you’re relatively humane in your treatment of prisoners, and I’d rather have some choices in what I do.”

  “That’s fair. Welcome aboard; I’m going to give you provisional rank of Ensign. I’m not trying to ignore your age and experience, but that’s the way things work here.”

  “Understood. There’s another matter I’d like to bring to your attention. While I was at Miranda, I was approached by a man who asked me to carry a message to you.”

  “How did he know you would see me?” asked Meric.

  Lin shrugged, and said, “It was well known that I was looking for the Lexington.”

  “Well, let’s hear it then,” said the Captain.

  “I’ll show you,” said the Chinese pilot, holding up a tablet. He placed it on the desk, and flipped it on.

  Amanda Schmetzer sat tied to a chair, repeating her cover story. Off screen, a hand reached out and jammed a cigarette into her eye. She screamed, her whole body going rigid with shock. The screen slipped, and she spit at someone. Her knee erupted in a spray of blood, and she howled with agony. Then the picture flicked out.

  A voice, heavily accented, spoke from the deck. “An honorable man, Captain Meric, will come get his crew. Of course, you’re short a few people, unfortunately. Not that it would matter, since you are just some American scrapdog. A defeated rat from a defeated people. I’ll give you one chance to give yourself up, in return for the life of your pilot. I will see you on Miranda, in three weeks.”

  The recording stopped.

  Chapter 35

  “Box, get me an open line to Commander Merrifield.”

  The alien unfolded from the wall and punched open a line. A minute passed, then his XO’s face appeared on the screen. “What’s up, Sir?”

  “AJ, wrap up the resupply negotiations. I want the entire crew back onboard; we need to start doing workups.”

  A look of surprise appeared on Merrifield’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a neutral look. “Aye, Sir. Twelve hours to round up crew.”

  “Eight. I want to be as ready as we can be,” said Meric. “I’m sending Lin back down to get you all.

  “Even without another bruiser crew? The new attack shuttle is on its way up.” Merrifield played along with the façade of still being short crew; Agostine had made a big show of accepting a contract with a corporate outfit having some trouble with aborigines out in the wild. They had rented a ship and filed a false flight plan, meeting Zlatcov in the Graveyard.

  “I’ll send it back with Ensign Lin. I don’t see us dropping in on prizes any time in the near future, working with the destroyer squadron,” answered his captain. “Just load everyone up.”

  He switched channels and put in a call to Chief Sparks, who was on planet that day, picking something up for him. “Sparky, recall in eight hours. Did you get that J-box circuit relay?”

  “Yes Sir, I’ll have it back there, PO Gar is working on it. No sweat,” came the quick answer. He flicked off without replying. The less said over open coms, the better.

  ****

  The last two crew to drag themselves in were Petty Officer Gar and Specialist Torres. They were carrying a large crate between them, a heavy thing that they set down into the shuttle and sat on.

  “What’s in the box?” asked Specialist Dal as she did pre-flight checks.

  “Uh, trade goods,” said Torres, looking at Gar a bit nervously. The amphibian just belched and used his tongue to swipe a fly out of the air.

  “Did you see that, Dal? Do you know why human women love me? It’s the tongue. Prehensile.”

  Dal, who was indeed a female human, said, “I’d rather suck vacuum. You’re disgusting, Gar. I hope you didn’t exceed your mass allotment.”

  With that, she hit the controls to raise the ramp door, and the shuttle started to wind up its engines. Gar looked over at Chief Sparks as they all strapped in and gave her a big wink. She pretended not to notice, but it was actually her box that they were babysitting. The last thing she wanted was for BNI or MI7 to see her moving something heavy off planet.

  Ensign Lin kept acceleration under one G until they cleared atmosphere, not wanting to piss off Jamesport control. Once clear of any low orbitals, though, he punched it up to three, rocketing toward the yards where the Lexington hung in orbit. Torres grabbed a headset and begged the pilot to turn on the inertial compensators, but Lin just laughed and said, “Train as you fight.”

  “Great,” grunted Torres, “why do the bruisers always pick up the wacky ones?” There was a few seconds of freefall as the pilot spun the engines and reversed thrust, hammering them into their seat restraints at a punishing seven G, coming to a graceful stop just outside the hangar bay. A suited figure waved them in, and Lin gently set the assault shuttle down on the hangar deck. As soon as they got the green pressurized signal, Dal dropped the back ramp. As she did so, the General Quarters alarm rang out through the ship.

  Like any well drilled crew, they sprang into action, no questions. Merrifield and Lin ran for the aft cargo hold, where a shipping container had been turned into an alternate control room. Dal, Torres and Gar secured the shuttle to the deck, then ran for their own positions, Dal in the engine room and the other two to damage control stations. Torres had just settled his headset on, plugging into the manual communication system, when the Captain’s voice came over the command channel, overriding everything else.

  “To all crew,” he said, in a level tone, “we will be departing Jamesport space without permission of the Royal Navy. Midshipman Schmetzer is alive, and in the hands of the French. I made a promise to you as my crew that I wouldn’t leave any of you in the hands of the enemy if I could help it, and she saved our lives. We’re going to get her. The ship need to become a really dark hole in space until we can jump, and I expect you all to do your jobs. Meric out.”

  “Well,” said Petty Officer Gar, “at least he’s loyal to us. But this is going to suck if they find us.”

  “Agreed,” said Torres, and they both sat down to wait.

  ****

  On the bridge, there was nervous anticipation as McHale slowly backed them out of the dock. They had filed a flight plan to do some workup exercises on the far side of Boudicca, the largest of Jamesport’s moons, but Meric didn’t trust the BRN, just as they didn’t trust him, he was sure.

  “OK, Buckley, start running a trace on all systems installed since last month,” he ordered.

  “Why?” came back the electronic voice.

  “Because I told you to?” answered the Captain.

  “Only if you tell me why there is a seventh level AI in that box that—” Meric slapped the com switch before Buckley could continue out loud, but he still heard him through his headset “—those two idiots brought on board. You’re going to replace me, aren’t you? After everything we’ve been through together!”

  “No, Buckley, I’m not replacing you. It’s for another project, in fact I was thinking of selling it to the Chinese. That’s why Lin is aboard,” he answered, saying just about anything to shut the AI up and get him to do his job.

  “I doubt it. But for my own sake, I will tell you that there is a passive tracking device and a pound of HEX embedded in the port sublight engine fuel supply lines…It’s Britannic Military Grade.”

  Meric switched over and called Commander Lynch. “Pat, there
’s a demo charge in place on the port engine. Buckley will pinpoint where. Remove it and set it on a target drone.”

  “On it. My apologies, Captain. I looked, but didn’t find anything,” said the engineer.

  Buckley broke in on the conversation with a decidedly thick French accent, saying, “That’s because you’re incompetent, you drunken Irish moron. It’s disguised as a primary fuel pump, fully functional, just made out of binary explosive components.”

  “Who is the incompetent? You missed it too when they were installing it,” shot back the engineer.

  “I certainly did NOT miss it!” shouted Buckley back at him.

  “Oh, so you knew about a major threat to the ship and didn’t notify me?” said Meric, inserting himself into the argument. “Buckley, you WILL do everything to assist Commander Lynch, or I will set the cook on you.”

  There was silence on the other end, and Meric switched back off. Now, it was time to wait. “Alex, estimated time until we’re hidden behind the moon and can initiate maneuvers?” he asked.

  “Well, we’re not actually going to be hidden. They still have monitors there, and of course the base, but I can give us a two minute window as we cross their horizon to execute course changes.”

  “Good. Here’s the plan,” said Meric, and he proceeded to explain.

  Chapter 36

  The Lexington slowly rose on thrusters from a deep crater on Boudicca, going slowly to avoid generating heat from her engines. It had been a very tense sixteen hours, while the Britannic fleet had scrambled throughout the system to try to head them off. Now, however, was the hardest part.

  Lt. Commander McHale sat with his hands poised on the controls, gently bringing the ship through a deep canyon on the moon, which had been split in half by some long ago collision. They drifted slowly through the methane atmosphere, leaving roiled clouds in their wake.

  “Just hope no one has IR sensors pointing down this way. Vaporized methane all over,” said Asote.