by Gavin Smith
The aerostat mine looked like a technological mushroom covered in industrial hardware. Interconnected pre-fabricated machine rooms, tool sheds, atmosphere flyer hangars, storage bladders and sleeping quarters sprouted haphazardly from the spars of the mushroom’s superstructure. Trunk-like appendages hung from the refinery machinery at the base of the mushroom. These huge tendrils, dangling into the planet’s stormy upper atmosphere, harvested the gas giant’s hydrogen and helium-3. Miska could make out the lights of the numerous automated aerostat platforms in the upper atmosphere. They fed on the huge planet’s resources like a swarm of blood-sucking mosquitoes.
There was an assault shuttle docked with the aerostat atmosphere-mining platform. It belonged to the Dogs of Love mercenary collective employed by the Colonial Administration and under the command of MACE. The tactical information overlaid in her IVD made her aware of their own shuttle missile-locking the Dogs of Love’s shuttle. She watched hypersonic tracers from the prison shuttle’s new railgun batteries turn the aerostat’s bolted-on weapon emplacements into so much scrap with short controlled bursts, only a minimum of collateral damage.
Despite the upper atmosphere turbulence, Grig and Bean had buttoned up their combat exoskeletons and, along with the Ultra, who had also sealed his borrowed spacesuit, made their way towards the airlock.
‘Piper Sierra to unknown shuttle, please be aware that the articles of conflict prohibit all space warfare. Your attack is an act of piracy and will be dealt with as such.’ The voice was calm, just a hint of tension. Miska assumed that it was one of the mercenaries rather than one of the miners.
‘I think it’s best if you handle this,’ the Ultra told her over a private comms link.
‘They’ve got two combat exos in the air,’ Grig relayed over the group comms. ‘Look like older generation Honey Badgers to me.’
‘Okay, the shuttle will hunt them, we engage only if fired upon, stick to the plan,’ the Ultra reminded them.
‘Piper Sierra, your gas mining station is within a planetary atmosphere and therefore a legitimate target. If that shuttle attempts to leave its dock we’ll blow it out of the sky. This is the Bastard Legion, surrender now.’
‘Let’s go,’ Gunhir told them. Despite him being a newcomer the Ultra had put him in charge of the boarding element. If Kaczmar minded he hadn’t expressed it in any way.
‘Piper Sierra to the Bastards, aren’t you supposed to be on our side?’ the voice asked. Miska could hear a little more tension now. She didn’t answer. The Dogs of Love would fight. They would have to if they ever wanted another mercenary contract in the Epsilon Eridani system. Miska managed to stand up, somewhat unsteadily, as the deck bucked underneath her. In the external lens feed she watched as Grig and Bean jumped from the shuttle’s airlock, the Ultra, in Miska’s spacesuit, wrapped tightly around Grig’s Wraith. The torches on their flight fins lit up as they jetted underneath the aerostat in between the dangling tendrils of the huge vacuum hoses.
Miska picked up her boarding shield and followed the others towards the airlock, moving from handhold to handhold as best she could, the molecular hooks on the soles of her boots helping her remain on her feet.
The shuttle was now playing hide and seek in between the superstructure with the two Honey Badger combat exoskeletons. She heard the faint staccato drum beat of electromagnetically-driven 20mm rounds powdering against their shuttle’s much improved armour. In the external lens feed the upper atmosphere glowed red as the shuttle’s point defence lasers destroyed incoming missiles fired from the Honey Badgers’ back-mounted launchers. It was a very unfair fight. The two Dogs of Love Combat Exoskeletons had little going for them except their manoeuvrability. Any cover they found was quickly chewed away by the shuttle’s railguns as it chased them around the aerostat. A stray round caught one of the Badgers’ flight fins and sent it spiralling down towards the gas clouds.
Miska had taken up position at the corner of the corridor that led down to one of the shuttle’s airlocks. Gunhir was next to her. On the other side of the corridor Nyukuti waited with Kaczmar. She heard Kaczmar chuckle.
‘He’ll be so tiny,’ the huge serial killer said quietly. His voice was soft and surprisingly high pitched.
‘Are you in this, Fatman?’ Gunhir asked him. Kaczmar just grunted at Gunhir by way of reply.
In the external lens feed Miska saw the other Honey Badger dive after his plummeting mate.
‘Let them go but keep an eye on them,’ Miska subvocalised to the shuttle’s pilot and co-pilot, receiving an acknowledgement back. She was also keeping an eye on the DoL assault shuttle but it hadn’t moved. The Dogs of Love might have to put up at least a token resistance but they weren’t prepared to risk a resource like an assault shuttle. Very wise, Miska decided, though not the way she would have played it.
She checked the lens feeds from Grig and Bean. They were standing on an EVA walkway just outside one of the aerostat’s airlocks. Bean was attaching his very expensive plasma thermite frame charge to the external airlock while Grig covered him. When he’d finished Bean stepped away from the airlock, putting his back to the aerostat’s hull, unclipping his Dory railgun and readying it as the frame glowed white, turning thick metal and hardened composite molten as it burned through the external airlock. Grig placed an armoured hand in the centre of the airlock, pulled the glowing, molten-edged rectangle of dripping metal and composite out of the airlock, and let it fall into the crushing depths of the gas giant. He stepped into the airlock and attached another plasma thermite frame charge to the inner airlock door while Bean watched his back.
We very nearly look like soldiers, Miska thought, as the prison shuttle docked with the aerostat. Strobing light from the laser torch mounted on the ceiling over the shuttle’s airlock entrance bathed the corridor in red light as it cut through the aerostat’s external airlock door. Nyukuti moved down the corridor and kicked in the glowing rectangle of metal. The resounding clang echoed through the prison shuttle. Through the feed from Nyukuti’s helm-cam, Miska could see him attaching a hydraulic ram to the aerostat’s internal airlock door before returning to his position on the other side of the corridor with Kaczmar. The strobing light started again. Nyukuti nodded at Miska as he readied his grenade launcher, his own boarding shield leaning against the wall. He got down on one knee, using the corner of the corridor as cover.
Miska checked the lens feed from the Ultra. It was blank. She had expected no less. She was still going to have to discuss that with him.
Miska was gritting her teeth. She just wanted it to start. The time waiting for her action ‘hit’ seemed to stretch out in front of her and into eternity. Waiting for the laser cutter to do its thing was interminable.
Then came the clang of the hydraulic ram beating on the aerostat’s cut-through internal airlock. Nyukuti was already firing the grenade launcher. The first three-round burst of 30mm grenades was in the air before she heard the clang of the airlock hitting the aerostat’s deck. In Nyukuti’s hands the grenade launcher looked like a massively oversized carbine. He adjusted for the weapon’s recoil, fired another three-round burst, then another and finally a fourth burst, emptying the magazine. He ducked back behind the corner. The defenders hadn’t even started returning fire yet. All four of the Bastards turned away, closing their eyes, hands over their ears, mouths open. All the multi-spectrum stun grenades went off in quick succession. Even with her artificial eyes polarising, the bright phosphorescent glare managed to creep through her eyelids. Her audio filters had shut down her hearing. She was effectively deaf for the time being though she would still be able to receive direct comms. The stun grenades were individually designed to overwhelm protections like audio dampeners, polarising goggles and artificial eyes. Nyukuti had fired twelve of them. It must have been hell for the defenders in the aerostat.
A few moments after the final explosion she opened her eyes and looked at Gunhir. He signalled for them to move down the corridor. Miska nodded and readied the boarding
shield. She held it in her right arm. The medgel covering her hand allowed her to grip it just enough. She had the SIG Sauer GP-992 in her left. She could shoot with her left but she wasn’t nearly as good. She had the pistol resting in a small indent in the shield but she didn’t clip it in place. She was excited.
Gunhir touched her shoulder, the signal for her to move down the corridor. She did so. Nyukuti advanced next to her, his reloaded grenade launcher clipped to the boarding shield. As her hearing returned she heard the rapid popping noise as he fired fragmentation grenade after fragmentation grenade into the aerostat. The shockwaves from the detonations rocked them as they advanced. Through the holes cut in the airlock all Miska could see was the orange bloom of nearly constant explosions. They were getting shrapnel in the airlock corridor. She felt it hit the shield and the moulded ceramic armour plates strapped to her legs. The inertial armour hardened to absorb the impact. Her head was pulled back as a fragment bounced off her half-helm. She couldn’t make out any targets yet but she was mostly a shield carrier in this fight. Then she saw it. A silhouette wading through fire, force, and the storm of shrapnel like some impervious demigod. Miska knew she should be afraid. Instead, she found she was smiling.
‘Skel! Skel! Skel!’ she shouted out loud and over the comms. Skel was short for combat exoskeleton. Gunhir was firing immediately, putting plasma pellet after plasma pellet dead centre in very quick succession. Miska could feel the heat of the weapon as it was triggered in close proximity, felt her skin blister. Her hair was mostly tucked under her helmet but she was a little worried that it was about to catch fire. Miska’s hearing cut out again as Kaczmar fired his railgun. The front of the Honey Badger was lit up. Gunhir had emptied a very expensive magazine into the combat exoskeleton and was rapidly reloading the plasma weapon. The tungsten-cored penetrators fired by Kaczmar’s railgun were splashing into the Honey Badger’s now-molten chest at hypersonic velocity and travelling straight into the merc wearing the armour. The Honey Badger tottered and fell over.
‘Grenade!’ Nyukuti screamed. It had bounced off his shield and landed just in front of him. Miska didn’t have time for anything else. She just hunkered down behind the shield, aware of Gunhir doing the same behind her. The fragmentation grenade exploded. Miska’s own shield hit her in the face and she found herself lying on top of Gunhir some distance back down the corridor. Her head, arm and most of the front of her body felt like one big bruise. She managed to push herself on to her feet with Gunhir’s help. Somehow Kaczmar had stayed upright. It looked like Nyukuti had bounced off him. Miska noticed that Kaczmar had blood running from his ears. The fool hadn’t worn any ear protection and was probably deaf now. He was, however, still laying fire down the corridor.
‘Skel! Skel! Skel!’ Nyukuti shouted. Instinctively Miska raised her shield, her wired reflexes slowing the moment down as she sped up. It looked as though her shield was being eaten away. Then she felt the impact. The arm holding the shield felt broken. Then the impact picked her up off her feet, spun her in mid-air and slammed her into the wall. She felt someone grab her and drag her back around the corner to momentary safety and saw Kaczmar move with surprising speed as he ducked back around the opposite corner. Nyukuti was in the air. Miska half expected to see him torn apart by the Retributor fire but a stray round must have caught his shield or just winged him. He slid to the ground and half crawled, half dived back round the opposite corner.
‘It’s wild fire!’ Miska shouted over comms as she took a fast-release thermal smoke grenade from her webbing with her good arm, flicked off the cap with her thumb, depressed the arming button and threw it round the corner. The Honey Badger jockey either wasn’t risking direct fire, which was reasonable, or had panicked and wasn’t using his Retributor’s smartlink targeting system. Either way it had saved their lives.
‘La-las!’ Nyukuti shouted over the comms link. Miska pushed herself up, trying to get the shield into position so it protected Gunhir as well as her. The two light anti-armour missiles exploded in the air.
When she came to Miska felt like somebody had beaten on her with a sack full of hammers. She’d only been out for a second or two but that amount of time was crucial in a fight like this. She forced herself to move through the pain. Opposite her she saw Nyukuti slowly pushing himself to his feet. Kaczmar was some way further down the corridor, but he wasn’t moving. Miska glanced behind her. Neither was Gunhir. She grabbed the plasma rifle. She didn’t have time to run a diagnostic on the notoriously finicky weapon. She just checked that it was loaded.
‘Lay down smoke,’ she told Nyukuti over comms. He started removing smoke grenades from his webbing and throwing them down the corridor. She was pretty sure that the remaining Honey Badger would try and capitalise on the missile strike. ‘Draw its fire,’ she told Nyukuti. He hesitated for a moment but then unslung his Xiphos squad automatic weapon, leaned around the corner and fired off four grenades from the SAW’s under-barrel launcher. Then he ducked back as the returning Retributor fire ate away the bulkhead. Miska lay on the floor and rolled out into the open and found herself looking at a corridor of hot smoke. The smoke would confuse the Honey Badger’s thermographics. She hoped. And with Nyukuti drawing the combat exoskeleton’s fire they wouldn’t expect her to just be lying in the centre of the floor. She hoped. Nyukuti fired two quick bursts and then ducked back round the corner as more returning Retributor fire ate away yet more of the bulkhead. Miska felt the hypersonic 20mm rounds flying overhead, saw their passage in the eddies they made in the hot smoke. She held the Appolion plasma rifle awkwardly in her left hand, forcing her right, which felt broken but she knew wasn’t, to grip the weapon as well, despite the medgel covering the hand. ‘Now fall over,’ she subvocalised over the comms. She was aware of someone else talking to her over the comms link but she ignored it, she had to concentrate. The Honey Badger’s Retributor sounded again. She was aware of Nyukuti falling backwards as though hit. Even in her periphery it hadn’t looked convincing, but he had stopped firing.
At first she wasn’t sure if it was her mind playing tricks on her or if it was actually the Honey Badger moving down the corridor through the smoke, very cautiously. Miska felt sweat beading on her skin. She shut down the comms link. She needed to concentrate. It was the Honey Badger. The combat exoskeleton’s Retributor was moving from side to side in the smoke.
Just a little closer, Miska whispered to herself. The first shot went wide, just glancing off the Honey Badger’s shoulder, making it glow. The second shot went straight through the Retributor, burning through the weapon, splitting it in two and then catching the combat exoskeleton in the armoured face. The third round hit centre mass, the chest area. Behind the thick armoured plate was the pilot’s compartment. Miska fired again and again until the magazine counter in her IVD read zero. It was a very expensive way to kill. The Honey Badger was frozen mid-stride, burning. Nyukuti emerged from round the corner, covering the combat exoskeleton with his SAW. Kaczmar had sat up and Gunhir was stirring. The boarding shields had saved their lives. Miska opened up the comms link message that had seemed so desperate to get her attention.
‘-render. Repeat, we’re offering an unconditional surrender to the Bastard Legion, please acknowledge … please …’ Words were replaced by sobbing. It was the same voice as before but tension had been replaced by terror. Miska assumed that the Ultra had a blood-stained knife pressed to the man’s throat.
‘This is Colonel Miska Corbin of the Bastard Legion, we accept your surrender.’
Chapter 10
‘Smells like barbecue,’ Kaczmar growled. His voice sounded wrong because he couldn’t hear it any more. Miska could smell the Honey Badger pilot cooking as well. She was staring at the combat exoskeleton. Watching the armour burn. Something didn’t sit quite right with her about this but she wasn’t sure what. Miska was not feeling her warm, post-combat rush. She shook her head, momentarily worried that Torricone’s bleeding heart was somehow contagious.
Gunhir had
staggered to his feet and retrieved the Appolion, changing the magazine.
‘That thing’s expensive, try to use the PDW if you have to,’ Miska told him as she retrieved her gauss pistol. She wasn’t really expecting trouble but she was still going to act as though she was until she was happy that the aerostat was secured. Miska checked the feed from Grig’s and Bean’s combat exoskeletons. Both of them were standing guard over prisoners. Bean was watching over the Dogs of Love mercenaries in what looked like a briefing room. They were all down on their knees, hands behind their heads. Grig’s prisoners looked more comfortable. He had the civilian aerostat staff sat around tables in a rec area. There may have been a few stragglers hiding in the aerostat but she couldn’t see them wanting to start anything. She noticed that Gunhir was swaying.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
‘Hit my head pretty hard, it’s reinforced but still,’ he told her.
‘Nyukuti, check him out,’ Miska told the stand-over man. All the Bastards had now received rudimentary field medic training. Nyukuti slung his SAW and moved to Gunhir. Miska was pleased that Kaczmar was covering the corridor that led to the aerostat without being told. Not that he would have heard her anyway. They hadn’t even left the shuttle yet.
‘Miska?’ Even over the comms the Ultra’s voice sounded like sex.
Get a grip! she told herself. She was trying to ignore how much pain she was in.
‘Report,’ Miska told the Ultra over the comms link.
‘Lieutenant Larouc has very graciously provided us with access codes for all of the aerostat’s systems,’ he told her.
‘Good of him, thank the lieutenant for me, and you can probably stop terrorising him now.’