Defenders (The Chaos Shift Cycle Book 2)

by TR Cameron

  One captain raised a hand, and Aguayo pointed at him. The man stood and said, “What about the forward colonies?”

  “To be honest, Captain Calvet, that question is above both of our pay grades. However, one captain to another, there has been no sign that the Xroeshyn are interested in colonies. So far, they seem content to carve a path through our starships. We can only commit resources to endangered targets, so for the moment the plan is to focus on their starships.”

  Another hand went up, and another question resulted. “Is it true the enemy has a new weapon?”

  Aguayo nodded, and motioned to an aide who called up an image of the Xroeshyn behemoth. “Yes, this is true. Besides the fighters, torpedoes, projectile cannons, laser weapons, and plasma cannons we knew about, the Goliath deployed something new in the last battle. Our researchers are calling it a gravity gun, lacking any more specific detail, I guess. Slow-motion replay of the destruction of the Cozumel reveals that she broke apart in a manner consistent with an alternating push and pull of a strong gravitic force. We are searching for ways to defend against this weapon. It doesn’t appear that our shields have any impact.”

  Someone in the crowd yelled out, “So our ships are defenseless?”

  Aguayo raised both hands and waited to speak until the ensuing chatter had died down. “There is always a first time. We know about it now, and we’ll find a solution. The good news is that the scientists also think it must use so much energy, given its power and the difficulty of manipulating gravity, that it’s restricted to the Goliath. The computers will program effective evasive patterns, and ships will use them against the Goliath at all times. Yes,” he said, his hands raised again to forestall the inevitable muttering, “this decreases the ability to target. We’ll overcome that as well.”

  “In closing, a reminder. We’re the ones that the sailors and Marines look to for leadership. If we show doubt, they will doubt. We can indulge our need to be human beings with all the attendant worries, concerns, conflicts, and weaknesses when we’re alone. The rest of the time, we are bedrock. We are solid. We are confident. We do not think we will defeat the enemy, we know we will defeat the enemy. Project that to your people, and they’ll not only believe, but also reflect that belief back to you.”

  He looked around the room, again meeting each pair of eyes. Only when the circuit was complete did he snap, “Get to work.”

  Dima raised an eyebrow at Cross, who shrugged before speaking, “Being human is overrated, anyway. Rocks have it easy. Let’s be rocks.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As Kate hammered down the starbase corridor, her breath echoed in the helmet of her borrowed combat armor. Nestled in her arms was a Marine standard rifle, and she also had a pair of grenades fastened at her waist. She had equipped an experimental combat armor loadout for this mission, as had her squad mates. She had direct communication only to the gunnery sergeants.

  Rhys St. John’s voice crackled in her helmet, “Cross passage ahead. No sign of combatants within infrared range. Sin, you go through. Red, take left. I’ll take right.” A click on the comm registered Cynthia Murphy’s acknowledgment of the order, and Kate clicked her own. “Execute on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”

  Murphy leapfrogged into the lead, crossing the relative danger of the intersection at high speed. Kate and St. John both low crawled into position, looking around the corners and waiting to see if enemy combatants showed themselves in response to Murphy’s run. None did.

  “Sinner, you’re point.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Murphy took the front, with Kate in the middle and St. John guarding their six. They knew without a doubt they were outnumbered, with two full squads hunting for them. Their target was in the center of a wide and twisting array of corridors set into the lower section of Starbase 12. Once they accomplished this goal, the Washington would ship out with the other UAL forces heading to Starbase 11. Kate wondered if the scientists had made any progress in finding a way through the enemy’s defenses.

  “Red,” Murphy’s voice barked in her helmet, “you’re lagging. Status?”

  Abashed, Kate replied with a simple, “All green, Gunnery Sergeant.” She had no doubt that they knew she’d been woolgathering, but in her defense, there was probably a reason she hadn’t opted to join the Marines. Nonetheless, gaining experience with them would be valuable when she accepted her own command. Exploration ships required officers and crew who were widely skilled.

  An image ghosted into the edge of her heads-up display and then disappeared. “Sonic sensors registering something, X forty-five, Y zero, Z approximately thirty meters.” Although every set of armor could access the full range of sensor types, each of them was responsible for an upgraded experimental primary detection mode. St. John had heat, Kate had sound, and Murphy had electrical output—a new technology that might sense active enemy combat armor. Part of the purpose of this run was to test out its capabilities. The other part was that Marines loved to train.

  “Affirmative,” Murphy replied. “It looks like there’s a cross corridor up ahead that we can reach by taking the next right and the following left. I lead right. Saint overwatch to the left. Red follows me.” Dual clicks sounded in response. They moved forward until they were at the mouth of the intersection and exploded into action at Murphy’s command.

  Murphy hugged the wall, moving into the right-hand corridor quickly with her rifle tracking at chest height. Simultaneously, St. John slid into the left-hand corridor, taking a prone position for minimal exposure. Kate followed in Murphy’s footsteps, using the larger woman for cover, her own weapon pointed at an angle toward the floor. The Marines had drilled into her that the barrel of a gun should always point in the safest direction unless it had a specific reason to be otherwise.

  St. John climbed to his feet and walked backward. The helmet displays offered a 360° view, and Saint had explained to her that extensive practice allowed him to pay attention to where he was going while still maintaining overwatch along a different vector. Kate couldn’t split her attention effectively in that manner, reducing her utility as rearguard.

  They reached the next intersection, and they all agreed that warm bodies were making sounds and possibly showing electrical discharge, off to their left. Sinner spoke, “Recommendation, Red?”

  Kate thought about it for a precious second before responding, “Lead with grenades. You and I down the corridor. Saint as rearguard and support.”

  Murphy gave a small laugh. “That’s the bloodthirsty attitude we welcome in the Marines, Red. You’re going to be one of us yet.” Her helmet dipped as she did a quick equipment check. “As the commander called it, on my mark. Standby.”

  A communication window opened in Kate’s heads-up display, showing her the take from Murphy’s sensors. The IR signal was minimal, suggesting that their opponents had activated the cooling function of their armor. Though they were motionless and silent, they couldn’t disguise their internal power, so several ephemeral silhouettes ghosted on the screen. It appeared as if they had to be in the main corridor and two secondary corridors for support.

  “Wish we had some spiders,” Kate muttered over their comm channel. This drew a laugh from both gunnery sergeants.

  Saint spoke, “Sometimes you’ve got to make do with will, muscle, and a sense of righteousness, Red.”

  “And a ton of firepower,” Sinner added.

  “Affirmative. Let’s show these upstarts what’s what.”

  Murphy’s voice turned serious again, “Standby.” She moved, and then said, “Mark,” giving her a lead on Kate. Part of Kate appreciated the extra protection, the other part took offense at the perception that she needed protecting. Stepping into the corridor, she rolled her grenade at ground level as hard as she could, and then slipped behind Murphy.

  Kate’s grenade exploded moments before Murphy’s. Flash bangs delivered simultaneously at both head height and along the ground rattled the enemy, despite their armor. Murphy’s rif
le belched out staccato bursts of three, striking the lead defender in the chest. Kate wasn’t accustomed to shooting in semi-auto, so she doled out her ammo a single round at a time, but to great effect. Both defenders in the corridor stumbled backward in succession as her rounds impacted their helmets. The first round hit in the center, dropping that opponent. The second was only a graze, and that defender dove into a side corridor before she could finish him.

  “Advance, quick, before they can recover,” Murphy said, dashing across the vulnerable territory between their current position and the cross corridor. “I’m high left. Red, go low right.”

  There wasn’t time for acknowledgment as Kate ran, diving at the last moment to skid across the intersection on the floor and blasting a series of shots as she traversed the space. When she was in cover again, she stood and placed her back against the right-hand wall. Behind her, St. John stopped before crossing the intersection. Murphy’s charge had taken her further down, crossing the intersection in a long bound, firing down the left-hand corridor and smoothly rolling to her feet just opposite of Kate.

  “I winged mine, but I don’t think he’s down,” Kate said.

  “Same here,” replied Murphy. “That one you damaged is definitely down. The other’s still viable. They have at least one grenade launcher.”

  No sooner had Murphy finished mentioning the launcher than a grenade came flying into the four-way intersection. “Shields,” snapped St. John, and each of them triggered a high-intensity personal shield that drew a ridiculous amount of power from the backpacks they wore. The grenade exploded, and its charge slammed against the barrier but failed to penetrate. Four seconds later, the shields depleted their energy supply and dissipated.

  “I know I complained about the weight,” Kate said, “but that’s really pretty handy.”

  The two much bigger and stronger Marines responded with a chorus of “If you think that’s heavy, you should have been there when…,” and Kate pointed down the hallway to remind them of the enemy’s position.

  “Right, right, business before pleasure,” said Murphy.

  “As if, Sinner.”

  “Shut it, Saint.”

  “If you two are done talking,” Kate said, hurling her second grenade down the corridor, “I suggest you do some shooting.”

  After clearing that set of opponents, they planned for their target. “I’m sure that they have a final line of defense in the target area, ready to deploy when they discover our approach route.” Murphy reloaded her grenade launcher as she spoke.

  “Agreed,” said St. John.

  “So, the only choice,” continued Murphy, finishing her reload and priming the first round, “is to split up across these routes.” Three paths lit up in Kate’s display, along with a faint electrical detection signature. Their intelligence suggested that the target area was electrically active, rendering the new sensors unable to discriminate individual bodies.

  “I’ll take the middle,” St. John said, seamlessly switching leader roles. “Sinner, go right. Red, go left.” The three advanced to the next hallways that would lead them to their assigned paths. Before they split, Murphy tossed Kate two more grenades from her belt.

  “Always good to have a little extra boom in reserve,” Murphy said, departing with a wave.

  Kate took a moment to slot the grenades into their holders, then moved on with her rifle up and ready as she hugged the corridor wall. She decreased the volume of her teammates’ communications in her helmet and increased the audio pickup from around her. Now that she was on her own, she needed as much sensory input as possible.

  “Contact,” St. John said in a businesslike tone. “Two opponents. One down, the other has retreated toward the target.” The communication channel fell silent again, and Kate progressed along her designated path. A beeping sound called her attention to the upper left corner of her display where the icon for St. John had turned to yellow. His voice overrode the alarm and sounded decidedly uncomfortable, “Grenade got me. Armor’s locked up. Can’t move. You’ll have to finish this without me.”

  An affirmative click from Murphy sounded. Kate offered the same. If everything went well, they’d be able to rescue him after they completed the mission. But now the odds were guaranteed to be against them. Kate made it unimpeded to the target area entrance and caught the appropriate icon with her eye and blink pattern to let Murphy know.

  “Okay, Kate, it looks like it’s three of them against two of us, and we’re gonna fight it out in the main room. I need you to be the distraction.”

  “Affirmative. Grenades then rifle?”

  “Negative. We can’t risk the grenades damaging our objective. I want you to deactivate them, but still throw them around the corner before you enter the room. Hopefully that will give you a few moments of distraction to dive in and shoot. After you go in, I’ll follow. If everything goes well, their fire discipline will be inadequate, and they’ll react to you coming through the door rather than protecting themselves against me. I should be able to take them. Then I can recover you and Saint.”

  “Affirmative, Sinner. Make sure you get them all. I don’t think I could stand the humiliation of being taken out in anything less than a victory.”

  “You got it, Red. Countdown started. Go at zero.”

  The clock ticked down in the upper corner of her screen, giving her just enough time to take a deep breath, ready her grenades, and think about what a bad idea this was. When the timer reached its end, she took a running start and bolted through the door, throwing the deactivated flash bangs and seeking a target for her rifle. Before she could pull the trigger, three weapons unloaded into her, and she fell into the pure darkness of a no-longer-functional suit of armor.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, THE EIGHT “ENEMY” soldiers joined Saint, Sinner, and Red for a debriefing session at a starbase bar. Kate was nursing a beer and a bruise, the latter of which covered most of her upper right arm. One of the Marines saw her wince and apologized for shooting her.

  “It’s fine, Gideon,” she replied. “Some knocks and dings are to be expected during the training sessions that you people run.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Murphy said, and followed her words with action.

  “Me, too,” chimed in St. John, and did the same.

  “I would have to say, based upon my decidedly rudimentary understanding of such things, you eight performed very well.”

  “You weren’t half bad yourself, Commander Flynn,” said Corporal Jeffrey Baker, call sign “surfer.” “I especially liked the part where you shot Huge over there in the face.” Across the table, Lance Corporal Hugo Galano grimaced.

  “Yeah, that wasn’t the high point of the exercise for me,” he commented in his deep baritone.

  A round of laughter followed, and then they got down to discussing the lessons learned. Kate mused once again about all she had in common with the Marines. They were passionate, disciplined, and while not immune to fear, they were trained to overcome it to get the job done. She would like to think she shared these characteristics. She was glad they were aboard and even enjoyed the way the gunnery sergeants—both of them—flirted with her occasionally. If nothing else, it was entertaining to watch Cross consistently try—and fail—to not be irritated by it. She looked forward to telling him about the exercise.

  With an impish grin, she ordered another round and settled in to enjoy her evening with the ground pounders—an exclusive club of which she was now an honorary member.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kate and Jannik were in the engineering tank—an area with a central table, rolling chairs, and three sides of customizable displays. On one, a monitor showed images of engineers from several of the other ships in the sector, a virtual hodgepodge of people and places.

  The chief engineer of the Caracas, the designated leader of the sector’s scientists, yelled in a threatening growl, “Alright, everybody shut the hell up.”

  Individual conversations fell silent as faces turned expect
antly to their displays.

  “There are three primary issues to address. First, offense. Our new torpedoes were ineffective against the Goliath. At a recent briefing, it was suggested they might be useful against smaller ships. Dandy, and worth trying. But we must find a way to take out that monstrosity.”

  He coughed and flicked his eyes down at his notes before continuing, “Second, defense. The Goliath has a gravity gun that appears to evade our shields. We need to come up with some ideas to deal with that and get testing, right away.”

  He waited for the buzz to die down, then finished up his list. “Third, transportation. The bastard Xroeshyn have found a way to track us through wormhole space and through tunnel space. We need to figure out how they’re doing it and put a stop to it. At the same time, it would be nice to flip the tables and track them more effectively. Finally, we need a strategy to overcome those pesky little devices that keep us from being able to tunnel.”

  He paused letting it all sink in, while he stared into the monitor. “It’s going to work like this. For the rest of today, you all take on one, two, or all three problems on your own. We will reconvene tomorrow to relay our findings and our ideas, and to see if a multitude of heads are better than one. I’m not going to lie to you, this is probably something that should happen at the fleet level by a bunch of white-coated brainiacs who spend all their time thinking up stuff like this.” Laughter erupted across the channel, and both Kate and Jannik joined in.