Merchants in Freedom

by Richard Tongue

  The catch was that he had no idea how thick the ice was above him. The sensors weren’t giving him anywhere near enough information to tell him, and he didn’t have the knowledge for proper interpretation of the results. Nobody on board did. There had been little call for oceanographers when they set out on their voyage.

  He had to trust to luck. They were running out of time anyway. They’d live or they’d die. Fifty-fifty.

  “Strap in, Joe,” Winter said. “This is going to be rough.”

  “Not again,” Morgan replied with a sigh, testing his seat restraints with an experimental tug. Winter reached to his side and threw a lever, triggering the explosive bolts that jettisoned the ballast tanks with a dull roar. The submersible, instantly lighter, raced up to the surface, rocking from side to side, warning lights flashing as the stresses on the hull mounted. It had taken more than ten minutes to descend. It would take them ten seconds to ascend.

  The ice pack grew closer, closer, closer, and finally, with an ear-shattering crack, they slammed into it, a faint hiss sounding from the hull that Morgan hastened to deal with, a breach that was letting out their precious atmosphere. Winter looked up, and saw the sun. They were through. Despite all the odds, they’d made it back to the surface.

  “We’re secure,” Morgan said. “It was just a pinhole leak.”

  “Good. I’ll run a full hull check. You get on the communicator and find out what’s holding up the cab. Tell them from me that the tip’s going to be lousy if we have to wait much longer.”

  Chapter 15

  “Good God,” Volkov said, looking at the sensor display. “They’ve done it. The submersible has cracked the surface. Must have been one hell of an impact.” Shaking his head, he added, “I guess that means we can just sit this battle out, right?”

  “I wish,” Mendoza replied, pointing at the tactical view. “Look where Eudoxus is going. She’s seen what they’ve done and is preparing to counter. You want to gamble that they haven’t got something on that ship outfitted for a planetary strike?”

  “We don’t have anything that precise in the fleet,” the engineer protested.

  “Not necessary, Specialist,” Rogers replied. “If the explosion is large enough, they’re not going to need accuracy. Look at your readings. Outgassing of oxygen and nitrogen. That means they’ve sustained damage to their hull. Besides, the ice pack’s still thin down there. It wouldn’t take much of an impact to crack it again, and if they’re losing air, they’ll take on water.”

  “How long before they could hit the shuttle?” Mendoza asked.

  “Call it fifteen minutes for luck,” Rogers said, after a brief mental calculation. “I know what you are thinking. We could be down there in twelve, thirteen at the outside if we do a deorbit burn in forty seconds.”

  “Is that an order, Commander?” asked Volkov.

  “Let’s say that right now I am initiating a discussion,” the officer replied with a smile. “If we can’t do this, I’m not sending us down on a suicide run, but if we’ve got a chance to pull this off, we need to make the attempt.” Glancing up at the monitor, he added, “Most of the action is on the far side of the planet, and we’re not getting any feeds from the relay satellites.”

  “I can guess why,” Mendoza said, “but that means we’re going in blind. Anything could be happening out there. I suppose it’s even possible that the battle might be over, one way or another.”

  “Possible but unlikely. We’d know. Besides, Eudoxus is one of the most capable ships in the fleet, and her crew have the great advantage that they were prepared for the battle. The rest of us weren’t.” Rogers frowned, then added, “We’ve still got the same problem we had before. Executing a landing and return is going to send us flying right past Eudoxus. Their whole goal is to stop us getting whatever information that submersible managed to obtain. They’ve got no objection to a suicide mission.”

  “Then we need another option,” Mendoza said. “Any thoughts?”

  “Just one,” Volkov said. “Do we have to rescue the submersible?”

  “Specialist,” Rogers replied with a sigh, “that is the whole…”

  Turning to him, Volkov interrupted, “Commander, we need to retrieve the information that vehicle is carrying at all costs, and if at all possible, the crew, but that doesn’t necessary mean that we have to carry a huge lump of alloy into orbit again. Not now that they’re sitting on the surface.”

  “There’s no airlock,” Mendoza warned. “This was supposed to be a nice and simple snatch and grab, though I guess the Tyrants had other ideas.”

  “That was always the problem with this,” Volkov said. “There’s no such thing as a simple operation, and the cleverer the ideas used, the more likely they are to go very, very wrong.” He glanced back to the rear of the shuttle, and said, “We’re carrying some charges on board. Nothing large, but probably enough to break into that ship, assuming we get the positioning right.”

  “We’re going to be under the gun,” Rogers warned. “And I mean that quite literally. Maybe we could do both. Grab the submersible with the docking claws, fly a few hundred miles to keep us out of the…”

  “No dice,” Mendoza warned. “We’re going to be hurting for fuel on this one. We’ve already pushed this shuttle hotter than I’d like. We can go down, and back up, potentially with the submersible, but if we’re going to get any advantage out of this at all, I’m going to need a fuel reserve to play with.” She looked at the planet below, and added, “Ten seconds to commit.”

  “Can we pull this off?” Rogers asked.

  “I think so, sir. I think we can. With me at the helm.”

  “Then we commit,” Rogers ordered. “Execute de-orbit burn. Bring us down as close to the submersible as you possibly can. You have the helm.”

  “On it,” Mendoza said, throwing the shuttle around on her thrusters and firing the engines. “We’re on a steady descent curve. Tracking down towards the shuttle. The enemy is going to start tracking us in about three minutes. I don’t see what they can do to stop us on the descent, but I’m going to bring us down on the steepest angle I can manage, just in case. The thicker the atmospheric cover we’ve got, the better.”

  “Bringing up the mid-range sensors,” Volkov added. “I’ll try and get a picture of the battle, see what’s going on as soon as we pass around the far side.” Glancing at the trajectory track, he continued, “We’re not going to get much resolution, though. If I’m reading this right, we’ll be in the middle of the plasma sheath while we have the best angles for observation.”

  “Just get everything you can,” Rogers replied. “If a full-scale battle fleet has turned up in orbit, we might have to make some changes to the plan.”

  “That’s the understatement of the day,” Volkov replied.

  Mendoza settled into the couch, her hands resting on the thrusters, her eyes locked on the control panel, on the hull stress monitors and the trajectory plot. Nothing else mattered to her right now. The rest of universe might as well not exist for her, all her attention focused on the critical readouts. She was trying to manage a compromise. To get the shuttle down to the right part of the planet below at the fastest possible speed whilst keeping the damage down to manageable levels.

  This was going to hurt the ship. That was certain. Warning lights were already flickering on, the computers alerting her that the course she was flying would damage the heat shield, send the temperature on the hull far over safe limits, but the ship was military-grade, had been over-engineered to provide a margin of error for maneuvers such as this.

  The Deck Chief would probably do nasty things to her soul when they got back to Xenophon, but from a purely mechanical standpoint, they should have no problem completing the maneuver and returning to the ship in one piece. Only the Tyrants could stop them now.

  “Hitting atmosphere,” she said. “Keep your seats.” Glancing back at the rear compartment, belatedly remembering their nervous passengers they were still carrying on board
, she said, “Get a spacesuit together and prepare the charges. I’m going to need to do this on the run.”

  “You’re going?” Rogers asked.

  “I’m the best qualified for this work, Commander. It won’t be the first time that I’ve had to blow a hole on Fleet property.”

  Frowning, the officer asked, “Just what did you used to do for a living?”

  “I was a freedom fighter with the Colonial Liberation Front. Until the war started.” She cracked a smile, and added, “Still feels strange wearing this uniform, given what I spent the last ten years planning.”

  Shaking his head, Rogers replied, “You’re telling me that I’ve got a…”

  “Freedom fighter, Commander. And I don’t think that this is either the time or the place for us to begin some sort of political debate, do you? There are rather more important things to worry about right now.”

  “War does weird things,” Volkov added. “I’m here, aren’t I. Getting a picture of the battlespace now. I’m not picking up any combat. Looks like Eudoxus is pretty much where we expected, holding the high ground, ready to pick us off, while the rest of the task force seems to be preparing for an attack. I’m no tactician, but it looks pretty conservative to me.”

  “I am a tactician,” Rogers said, “and I agree.”

  “There’s probably a good reason,” Mendoza said.

  “Oh, I understand,” Rogers replied. “Bianchi’s playing it by the book, gathering her forces and getting ready to strike with maximum strength. That’s sensible enough, and she gets some bonus points if the plan is to use the attack the enemy is planning to launch on us as part of her battle plan. That’s what I’d do.” He paused, then asked, “I don’t remember hearing about her before. I was an instructor at Staff College for two years, and the timing would be…”

  “She’s a politician,” Volkov interrupted. “Not an officer.”

  Rogers’ eyes widened, and he asked, “Does anyone in this task force actually have any formal training in spaceship combat?”

  “Commander Winter and Major Morgan are two of the best tacticians I’ve ever seen,” Mendoza replied, carefully adjusting their descent path with a quick burst of a forward thruster. “Unfortunately, neither is available to make proper use of their skills at the moment. In retrospect, sending them down to the surface was a really bad idea.”

  “You’re still upset you didn’t get to go,” Volkov said with a smirk.

  “I’ll take the Fifth on that one, Specialist,” she replied. “Closing for landing. Commander, will you take the helm? I’d better go aft.”

  “I have the helm,” Rogers replied, switching the guidance controls back to his station. “Watch yourself out there.”

  As Mendoza scrambled out of the cabin, Volkov yelled, “Eudoxus is on the move, Ronnie. Heading into position to nail us with missiles. I’d say we’re going to have four minutes minus before we have to get out of there.”

  “Got it,” she said, tugging on her spacesuit as one of the nervous technicians passed her the component parts. “See if you can set up a datalink with the submersible. Just make sure you keep it secure. If Eudoxus steals the information, then all of this was a total waste of time.” She glanced at the nearest viewport, watching for a second as the shuttle skimmed over the terrain, then scrambled into the airlock, taking the holdall containing their three remaining charges. The shuttle lurched, and she stumbled forward, almost tripping over the hatch as she dived in, reaching for the controls.

  She wasn’t going to wait for the landing. There wasn’t time for that. She immediately started the exhaust cycle, purging the shuttle atmosphere and replacing it with the mix from outside, amber lights flickering to warn her not to open the outer hatch until the shuttle was at rest.

  “Thirty seconds to landing,” Rogers said. “We’ll be about thirty feet from the submersible. It’s going to be a jolt. I can’t use the landing thrusters for final descent, or we’ll melt the damn ice ourselves.”

  “She can take the drop,” Mendoza said, with more confidence than she felt. “Vent atmosphere from the lower jets. That’ll help.”

  “Doing it,” Rogers replied. “Final burn. Here we go.”

  The shuttle slammed into the surface, jarring Mendoza’s knees and bringing a grimace to her face, but she hit the control to release the outer hatch, sprinting across the too-familiar terrain to the waiting submersible, the ice cracking and creaking even under her weight, the shuttle sliding noticeably to the side as the thin surface layer began to give. They weren’t just fighting the missiles that would soon be raining down upon them from orbit. They were fighting the terrain as well, a foe every bit as fearsome.

  “Mendoza to Winter, do you read me?” she asked.

  “Loud and clear,” Winter replied. “What’s going on?”

  “Time for that later, sir. We can’t take the submersible. We don’t have the fuel or the time. I’m going to try and crack the hatch. Put on your suits and stand by to run for the shuttle.”

  “We’ve only got respirators, Tech.”

  “Then we’re just going to have the make this quick, sir. We need the data you gathered. Can you uplink it to the shuttle?”

  “Way ahead of you on that. Transfer will be complete in one minute.” There was a brief pause, and Winter added, “We’re ready when you are.”

  “Roger. Planting charges now. Out.” She reached into the holdall, pulling out the explosive charges one at a time, using her helmet scanner to work out the weakest places on the hull, the most vulnerable spots. Moore and her team had built the submersible tough, but they couldn’t have anticipated that someone would be actively attempting to blast their way in.

  “We’ve got missiles on the way!” Volkov yelled. “Two and a half minutes before they reach us. Nuclear-tipped, estimated yield fifty kilotons each. Countermeasures are not working and our ships can’t take them out in time.” He paused, then added, “They’ve got us bracketed.”

  “I’m almost there,” she replied. “Get the airlock ready, set for emergency cycle, and lift off as soon as we get on board. Commander Winter, detonation in ten seconds. Run for the shuttle. I’ll help you to the airlock.”

  “Ten seconds, got it,” Winter replied. “Don’t wait for us.”

  The time seemed to be an eternity as Mendoza waited on the ice. She’d never expected to return to this planet, and she could have done without her current visit. Finally, there was a burst of light, a pillar of smoke racing to the sky and a blast of atmosphere strong enough to register on her sensors, followed by two lightly-dressed figures ducking through the new opening.

  Battered and singed from the red-hot debris all around them, the two men staggered through the steam created by the raining shrapnel, Mendoza half-guiding, half-pushing them towards the waiting shuttle. Neither could survive out in the open for long, their skin already turning blue from the cold, but almost before she realized it, she was pushing them into the airlock, the outer hatch slamming shut and the engine cycle beginning.

  “We’re lifting off. Impact in fifty seconds,” Rogers said.

  Atmosphere raced into the airlock as Mendoza tugged off her spacesuit, the others helping her as the inner hatch slid open, admitting them into the cabin. Winter sprinted for the cockpit, Mendoza an instant behind him, watching as the ground raced away beneath them, the final seconds draining away before the missiles slammed into the ice to their rear.

  They felt the shockwave, even from miles distant, the shuttle tossed forward with the force of a mighty hurricane, Rogers struggling with the controls, fighting to keep the ship from being dashed to pieces on the ice, somehow keeping the vessel on an even keel and holding course, slowly rising into the sky as the nightmarish inferno rolled into the wasteland behind them.

  “That was too damned close,” Winter said. “Great work, everyone.”

  “Signal from orbit,” Volkov reported, crouched in the co-pilot’s seat. “Eudoxus just self-destructed, seconds before the task force woul
d have opened fire on them. Looks like a total loss.”

  “Eudoxus?” Winter asked. “Specialist, would you care to tell me…”

  “We’ll give you a full report while we return to the ship, sir,” Mendoza said. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Maybe. I just hope we get a chance to find out.”

  Chapter 16

  Winter walked into the briefing room, his arms still sore from the burns inflicted upon them as he escaped the wreckage of the submersible. Morgan followed a pace behind him, trying to conceal a limp, while the other officers rose to their feet, most of the chairs empty, taking their seats as he took his. He’d kept the briefing tight. Just Bianchi, Moore, Bryant, Zhang, Mendoza and Rogers. Nobody from the other ships in the fleet.

  “Commander,” Bianchi asked. “Why just us?”

  “I trust you,” Winter replied. “The incident with Eudoxus has revealed a significant flaw in our testing programs. Doctor Zhang?”

  The grim-faced medic said, “Everybody in this room, myself included, has been subject to the most intensive examination I can undertake short of a post-mortem. We’re clean, as far as the best investigation can determine. Though given what just happened, it would be very wrong of me to make any guarantees.” Shaking his head, he added, “If you want my resignation, sir, then you can have it whenever you want, and I will be glad to give it.”

  “We’re dealing with a totally unknown threat, Doctor, and we don’t have the tools and facilities we need to face it,” Winter replied. “I know that you are doing the best you can, and I cannot ask any more of you than that. Nevertheless, having said that, we’re going to have to start taking a greater level of caution than has been the case in the past. Technical Officer Mendoza, you’ve been working on the data Major Morgan and I retrieved from the surface. Could you please tell the others what you told me half an hour ago?”