by Unknown
"Go burn," Oswald whispered into a dead mic. "Mathesse, deliver that box to the crater and get back on the double."
"Yes, sir. I'll be at the airlock in just a moment."
"What in creation have you been doing all this time, Lieutenant Major?" McFarran's question dripped with suspicion.
"Well, I wasn't expecting to be the one delivering it, Major. I got out of my suit to climb down."
"Just get to it, Asher." Oswald watched from the landing camera as Mathesse bounced in an EVA suit over to the crater, dropped the case in it, and bounced back. Oswald couldn't see the action very well from the angle of the camera but he thought that Mathesse had flipped an obscene hand sign towards the nearest habitat. Soon Mathesse was suited up in his vacc-suit and strapped into his station.
"This is your last chance, Danner."
"If you do anything stupid, Oswald, I'll fry Roland's brains. Go."
Countless curses and cusses flooded towards Oswald's lips, crowding so tightly that not a one was able to get out. He felt his face grow hot and his breath get short. Oswald had lost and it hadn't been about the numbers. It had been about people, silly, stupid people. Not only had he been ambushed, he knew that it would affect his ability to carry the fight to Beta Hydri. Only stupid engineers and bureaucratic bean counters thought automation could fully replace a crew.
"Norris, begin countdown to launch," Oswald ordered bitterly.
+++ Hours later all the rockets had been found and removed. They would have done what was promised but they were disabled easily. Mathesse attributed that to Danner not being able to go through with anything like a man should be able to. If you were going to threaten a man then you'd better be willing and able to carry it through—like he was.
Still, Mathesse had to give the dip-tard some credit. The placement had been clever and he had managed to get Kepinski to join his little suicide cult. She was possibly the best looking woman on Roland and was normally known for her 'by the book' attitude. He doubted that Danner would get into her flight suit no matter how desperate things got.
The remains of Luna City were pulled up on the big-eye display. Roland had made two orbits and gained enough altitude to be invisible to the naked eye from the surface before someone had come out and retrieved the box. They were visible just for a moment before entering the habitat's air lock. Mathesse wondered if that little turd had gone out and done it himself or sent one of his flunkies.
The fourth and last orbit passed and two people in vacc-suits were standing near the habitat leaning back trying to see Roland's last fly by.
"Too late for you," Mathesse whispered to them. "One way or another."
He went through all the pre-jump steps for Tactical again and helped the good doctor, who found himself the only survivor of the Life Support department after the mutiny. Mathesse was familiar with that work from previous assignments.
He liked Hines. The doctor was often criticized for his lack of bedside manner, but Mathesse saw him as a man who spoke true, who called them like he saw them. The doctor was not a warrior, but he had a spine and knew what he was about.
It was the same reason he liked Oswald. The flight commander had a tendency to try to hear everyone out, no matter how stupid they were. But when it came to it, Oswald didn't put up with anyone's noise. And even if he was sometimes too conciliatory for Mathesse's liking— talk about a killer! No flight commander he had ever served under knew how to frag those freaks like Oswald.
He trusted that when it came time to it, Oswald would choose right. He'd choose to go out fragging Centauri instead of begging for scraps from Earth's killers like that French pansy. And Mathesse was just the man to help Oswald out.
Luna City was just coming into view for what the tactical officer knew would be the final time before the planned jump. "Command, Tactical."
"Go Tactical."
"I'm going to run some calibration comparisons between the laser sights and the big-eye just in case," Mathesse lied easily. "I'd like to take it off-line and finish the diagnostics before jump. Now that we're away from Luna, I just want to make sure everything is pointing the same way."
There was a slight pause and Mathesse feared he was going to have to come up with a better lie for his cockamamie request. As the pause grew he suddenly wished he'd have spent time on a better one. But Oswald was apparently busy doing flight commander stuff.
"Uh, roger, Tactical. Don't take too long. You see the jump counter."
"Roger that, Colonel." Mathesse let out a relieved breath and cut the video feed from the big-eye to everywhere except his tactical station. The landing pad slowly panned into view and then the habitat.
"Curiosity blew the crap out of the cat," Mathesse gleefully sang. He recognized the tell-tale pattern of debris that spread from the hatches and portals of habitat one. Two death angles had been swept into existence in the bone dust regolith by the throws of the now unmoving EVA suits that birthed them. They would be the final hints of the life that once existed in that lunar necropolis.
Mathesse tittered and rubbed his hands together. Danner was, after all, not the only one who knew how to rig up a bomb. It was true that he had to use the one he'd already built and stashed away after the jump disaster, but with the reduced crew and few watches it should be easier to build the next one.
McFarran didn't notice the pattern in the dirt near the habitat and he wasn't sure why two of Roland's children looked to be sun bathing. Perhaps they were out looking at the rocket they had abandoned one last time. But he did know that when Mathesse returned the big-eye to service no diagnostics or calibrations had been performed—and he did know that meant trouble.
Chapter 24 The jump counter now blinked a glaring red '-10' and continued into the negative. On any other jump, Oswald would already be jumping down Breen's throat. But despite the months past, and the countless prior successes, no one on Roland was able to forget their fiery entrance into Sol.
"Breen?" Oswald asked gently.
"Yes, sir. Uh, will do sir. Uh..."
"That thing’s gone. Please activate jump."
"Right away sir."
Oswald waited patiently for another minute. "Breen. Activate
jump."
"Yes sir!"
Oswald waited another minute and barked angrily into the mic.
"Breen, you stand relieved! I'll do it." Oswald understood the trepidation all too well; he'd had nightmares about what he'd seen and felt often. But it was time to stand tall and realize there wasn't much choice. He opened up the jump control panel, booted Breen as the sole user, and logged in as flight commander.
Oswald then proceeded to watch the counter defiant continued to count into the negative, his finger quivering instead of pushing the virtual button that would initiate jump. He chuckled derisively at himself and the whole situation; the whole crew of an Earth Force battle rocket afraid to jump.
"Here we go," Oswald said out loud but for his own benefit. "Jump activated."
"Oh, God!" someone breathed. Someone whimpered. Two others sounded like they were in a contest to inhale all the air from their vaccsuit first. Oswald thought someone might have started riding the vomit comet early.
Everything stopped.
Everything started.
"Flight, give me a T3 report." Oswald had already determined— thankfully—that the jump had gone as planned before the remaining crew reported to him the same. They had zero momentum, all temperature readings normal, and all of Roland's systems showed green. Navigation and tactical arrays showed no nearby hazards.
"Oh, thank God," Norris muttered into her mic.
"Command, Life Support." Hine's voice sounded unemotional. Oswald immediately flipped over to the crew vitals display; one showed red. It was one of the gunner girls, Gilweh.
"The suit's trying, Colonel," Hines sounded decidedly unapologetic. "The suits trying but she's just not responding. I don't think—"
"Then go take care of her! You're the freakin' doctor," Oswald
barked. "I can read the display myself."
"Sir, there's—"
"Hashi, either get the doctor to Gilweh or get her to him. You are free to use any means necessary if either gives you any guff."
"Sir! I am on the way." McFarran immediately unstrapped and exited his station. It was immediately apparent by his clumsy, exaggerated flailing that he'd been in gravity for a while.
"Colonel, there's no need to—" Hines sounded almost hurt before Oswald cut him off again.
"Get to it, Doctor." Oswald clenched his teeth, turned off his headset, and screamed curses into his helmet until his ears rang and his throat throbbed. "All other stations, go passive. Sensors, get the bigeye scanning. Let's see who we woke up."
The crew sat quietly as Roland stealthily sniffed out the Beta Hydri system. It would take hours to come up with anything like a reliable tactical map, having jumped blind into a new system. The crew waited silently in fearful anticipation.
"Colonel," McFarran called sadly over the net. "Sir, I'm afraid Gilweh could not be saved. I can vouch for the good doctor's efforts, Colonel. We will see to her body, sir."
"Roger that, Hashi," Oswald sighed heavily.
"Burn it," Mathesse whispered. "Nora was a good operator. And then there were eleven."
Oswald drummed his fingers absently against the side of his station. Something about the distance made these jumps more dangerous. He'd made many jumps in his career and hadn't seen such a cardiac failure rate. Unfortunately the Earth Force Flight Surgeons department consisted of one doctor and at the moment and he wasn't really able to carry out a study of the data.
"If it makes any one feel better, like it doesn't me, we have now broken two jump records." Oswald was satisfied that there were safe for the moment. The Centauri would surely know someone had jumped into their home system, but it was a big sky and Roland might remain unnoticed for a short time if they were careful. The question was, where to go from here?
"Let's work on that map."
Oswald's display flashed to life with Beta Hydri in the center and the beginning of orbital plots from the two planets they had discovered so far. No thermal signatures of quick reaction fleets had flared up but multiple jump communication pulses had been detected. Four more conventional RF signals had also been detected, definitely Centauri but Roland's data banks were over four-hundred years old and didn't know the cypher.
"I bet we could run those through the Q-puter," Breen offered. "I’m not C'n D savvy but if we need to try to crack a code at least we might have a chance."
"True," Oswald agreed. "OK, Roland. Our main priority is to get a tactical map and pick some targets. If they use jump comms often, we might not even have been noticed. We could even mask jumps in the noise instead of using long LANTRn transits. But let's keep in mind that the Centipedes are four-hundred something years more advanced than the ones we had to deal with."
"They were pretty big jerks back then," Mathesse said genially.
"For now, let's dress down and start shifts." Oswald shut down the displays on his visor. "Let the processors fill out the signal analysis. Aux, go ahead and take first watch and get a watch rotation going. Put my name in there if you need to."
"Sir, I have Roland. Get some shut-eye."
Oswald had intended on doing just that but the sleep wouldn't come. He already missed Luna's gravity. He added Beta Hydri to his official EF list of visited systems, though the record would never mean anything outside of Roland's mainframe. Not even replaying Anahita's messages calmed him enough for sleep; he had been listening to her voice every night and watching the hologram whenever he had a private moment. He tightened the sleep restraints slightly and turned up the somnolence generator.
Oswald attached his tablet to the wall of the sleeping space and stared as the navigational and tactical maps updated piece by piece. After three hours of null sleep the map had filled out nicely. The planets all had beacons and the various space assets blared transponder signals. Knowing that Beta Hydri was definitely a target rich environment helped finally lull him to sleep.
McFarran's voice woke him what seemed like minutes later. "Sir, your watch in thirty. If you need a little extra—"
"Thanks, Hashi." Oswald's voice was thick with sleep and his eyes didn't really want to open. "I'll be there."
"Sir, as you wish."
Oswald slipped into his fresh flight suit, rinsed his mouth, and ate part of his bland ration. His shift was spent doing the same, watching the navigation map slowly blink into place with an occasional stolen nap in between. No Centauri challenge had been issued yet, but Oswald was sure their eyes were always scanning. By the end of his watch Roland had plotted three rocky planets, two gas giants, and a large solid body of some sort well into the outer system.
The massive EM emissions and thermal signature of the second planet marked it clearly as the Centauri home world. Oswald already had visions of raining down nuclear fire on it. Each of the other planets had some sort of station or settlement from the signals Roland picked up from them. Even the very distant body had sent two signals.
Oswald pondered the incomplete navigation profile of that outer planet. A large, rocky body that far out was rare but not unheard of. What piqued Oswald's inner astronomer was that it seemed to have negligible orbital velocity and no spin; it was just sitting there. Had he not seen so many strange things lately Oswald would have dismissed it as sensor trouble. He had one too many mysteries to solve at the moment and he needed to focus on tactical discoveries, not scientific ones. They probably wouldn't be around for the latter anyway.
Two more shifts and a shower later, Oswald was back in his bed, feeling like he was finally about to drop into a deeper sleep. Two women stared at him from opposing walls of the sleep tube, both long dead.
It saddened Oswald how fast he'd accepted Misty's remarriage and death, that his heart and mind so easily wrote her off. She was dead centuries ago but Oswald had kissed her passionately, had made love to her, only months ago by his master clock. Yet he was finding it much harder to let go of Anahita than his own wife.
Was it because the whole situation was too surreal to get a true grasp on? That he had a current and vivid video message from Anahita? Oswald believed that there had probably been a similar message from his beautiful wife of so many years before whatever cataclysm befell Earth had killed her. Anahita spoke as if he had been more than a friend to her.
"There is no love like your first love," Oswald whispered.
Guilt and more guilt. But why? Both were long dead. And Misty had died happily married, possibly not even knowing her fate, while Anahita had faced her alien executioner still wallowing in the pangs of her unrequited love.
He had loved Anahita. Loved her deeply. He had to admit it and it brought globs of cathartic tears to his eyes. Oswald loved Misty, had never cheated on her. He knew that his marriage to her had been far more fulfilling than one to Anahita could ever be—it would have been nightmarish. That's why he had decided not to, after all.
But in the recesses of his imagination Oswald always had Anahita waiting in the wings for something to happen. If anything had ever happened to Misty or to their marriage, he'd be free to explore how real that relationship could become again. More guilt washed over him like a cold tide. He was glad that he had never fully realized how much he loved Anahita.
Oswald always assumed such a fantasy would be rebuffed by the reality of Anahita's love of Earth Force. But her message had answered the question plainly in her subdued manner. He was the one she was thinking of on her last day; it was his name she said over and over. He was supposed to have rescued her. He was her love.
Oswald was the one she saved while sacrificing Gryphon and Baker—and their crews. He saw it very clearly now, though he had suspected it even then. The suggestion that he was merely an asset had hurt her more than she'd let on.
Sleep came to chase the women away from him, but they only followed Oswald deeper inside.
Chapter
25 "I bet it's because those goat lickers got lazy and downsized their space fleet after murdering all the evil Earthlings." Mathesse's commented with his usual vitriolic jocularity, but Oswald thought he was right. There was very little in the way of identifiable military traffic or patrols of any kind. Only slow moving transports and impressivesized space stations over each planet. A large moving chunk of ice that had to be several kilotons was gliding gracefully on a course that would put it in orbit around the third planet in about four months; the origin point appeared to be the large outer body. Perhaps the Centauri would tell him about that strange place if they captured him.
"Possibly," Oswald agreed. "That will make this a bit easier but we can't count on them being helpless. With our luck, the giant intergalactic Centipede armada will jump right in behind us."
"Maybe they have cloaking devices," Breen offered with a laugh. Other joined in nervously.
"Basic plan one more time," Oswald interrupted. "We deploy one
remote at each identified station. We jump to waypoint alpha and
release all remaining ORBAM on the target cities and laser everything
we can in orbit. If we aren't immediately slaughtered we go full burn
with the LANTRn and boosters and slingshot to waypoint bravo then we
jump to waypoint Charlie and repeat.
"The plan gets us within laser range of three planetary stations. I'm
not planning on living that long frankly, but it'd be nice."
"That's a lot of jumps," Kirsk said with dread. "Not to mention long
time to survive in a hostile battle space in between."
"But Colonel Oswald succeeded with just such a plan in Barnard's
Star," McFarran reminded them. "It will be hard to catch us if we can
get escape from our initial attack."
"We can do it, Colonel." Norris smiled at Oswald from across the
table. "And we'll just see where God takes us after we've spent all of
our deltaV."
"Roland will ride to the fray bringing a bloody sword to sweep her
enemies aside and leave the universe in a flash like a shooting star."