Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

  "Yes, sir." Zervakos showed little sign of appreciation for the compliment. The man was a professional about the entire thing, and Hartford appreciated it. "Engineering reports the drive will be ready to take us back to base in ten minutes. All scanners are clear, and we have confirmed the vessel did not successfully transmit a distress signal."

  "Then the device is working as planned. Quite good. Take us back to Pluto Base when ready, Captain."

  "Aye, sir." Zervakos disappeared.

  Hartford considered his blank vidscreen for a moment before calling up one final image, a message from Fleet Admiral Pierre Seville, commander of the League's Expeditionary Forces Sagittarius Arm, the architect of the war by which the divisive reactionaries of the Terran Coalition would be ground into defeat. Seville was in charge of a grand plan to turn their enemies' sentimentalism and war-weariness against them, and when successful—Hartford would not allow himself to use the qualifier "if"—it would significantly undermine their enemies.

  But Seville was not a man to trust victory to just one act. Hartford's project would soon bear fruit as well. His old mentor was counting on that as part of his strategy to finally bring victory over the Terrans.

  As always, we are just gears in the great machine of Society, Hartford considered. And that is why we will prevail in the end. The individual may fail, the gear may be stripped, but the machine will go on. A pity our enemies do not yet understand that.

  * * *

  Minutes remained before Miri Gaon met her doom.

  The necessities imposed upon her by her past had prompted the meticulous planning the quiet woman was now enacting, even as her comrades on the Kensington Star remained docile for their conquerors. They were confined to their quarters by the guns of the League Marines and would not work up the nerve to pose any threat.

  Perhaps they would fight harder if they knew for sure what awaited them. The League's socialization camps were a new take on the old totalitarian idea of the reeducation camp, where an individual could be pounded down by psychological manipulation and physical control until they accepted what the State wished them to. Miri knew firsthand what they were like. She was not interested in a repeat experience—although if the League found her, it would be an improvement upon her fate.

  She stood in the cramped little quarters she called her own, at one end of the Kensington Star's living spaces. Her skin was a slightly pale bronze tone, the paleness from a relative lack of exposure to UV rays inside the confines of the Kensington Star and similarly shielded space habitats and stations. Her brown hair was cut neck-length, and an old scar from her past life marked her temple, just above her hairline. Her pale-green jumpsuit, marked with the ship's name on the back, was standard for the crew of such a vessel, and like many of the same kind, it was made for everything from standard operations to providing a functional underlayer for an EVA suit.

  She was also alone, which was by design. Technically, her crew rating would not have afforded her private quarters, but hers were right beside the waste circulators. The unpleasant smell and the constant noise of the machinery made them undesirable for everyone else, and her volunteering to take that space relieved her peers of the need to draw straws. None of them realized she had her reasons to take the room and keep some privacy.

  After checking to be sure she'd packed away what few things she needed to keep, Miri gave a last look to the smelly, dingy chamber and its uncomfortable cot before lowering herself through the floor plate she had so carefully loosened months before for just this occasion. She dropped to a crouch inside the crawl space that curved under the corner of her quarters. The stench was heavy—old Tomlin was right about the leak in the processor. But it couldn't be helped. She had to get to her destination immediately.

  Miri followed the dark crawl space toward the port access airlock, imagining the layout of the decks and the route she needed to take while she counted down the seconds. The lack of light was in some ways good practice for what was to come. Her plan was a desperate one, certainly, but the moment the League ship pulled along the crippled merchant ship, it was her only chance of escape.

  She was not a slight woman, nor very brawny or big, making the crawl space a challenge but not a severe one. Physical training and practice built her figure for speed and agility, and that was about to come in handy.

  In the darkness, she reached what she knew to be the bulkhead on the portside access way running down the ship. The crawl space was meant to terminate twenty meters down, but that would take her to the engineering area, and they would likely be guarding that heavily. Instead, she gently felt around in the dark until she found the tool she'd left there months before, an autospanner, which she put to work on the bolts holding the plate in. Her heart raced faster with each bolt. Her pre-loosening was, for obvious reasons, only superficial, requiring several seconds each before the whirring device finished removing each bolt.

  After eight bolts in all, the plate came loose. She caught it with a free hand so it wouldn't clatter and carefully moved it away, allowing the light of the access way to shine into the crawl space. She checked for signs of League Marines and found none. She set the plate down and crawled out. The plate would stay where it was. By the time the League boarders realized what had happened, they would be in another system, and she would be, relatively speaking, safe.

  The airlock was ten meters astern of where she came out of the crawl space. It was a well-used thing, with a storage locker of EVA suits beside it. Miri moved with practiced efficiency. First, she divested herself of the gear she would need to have on the outside of her suit. Then the blue-painted suit's turn came, and she slid into it and sealed it up, helmet included. She used both the HUD interface and the manual reader to check her breathing air. With it maxed out, she would have some time, but just in case, she attached a second tank to her belly beside the rest of the gear she was carrying.

  As a last measure, Miri grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and opened the inner door of the airlock. She stepped in and let the airlock close behind her.

  It was the moment of truth. When she opened the outer airlock hatch, it would trigger an alarm on the bridge. If she left too soon, the League would halt the jump and come for her and would all too quickly find out who she was. If she went too late, she would be drawn into the wormhole their drives generated. Either they would bring her with them to their destination, or she would be in the wormhole's maw when it closed, killing her instantly. Suffice to say, neither outcome was desirable.

  Miri drew in a quiet breath and willed her heart rate to slow. To maximize her chances, she needed to maintain a slow breathing rate. There were drugs that would have aided the process, but the circumstances forbade their application. She would have to do it on her own.

  That thought distracted her until the crucial moment when she felt the ship's acceleration pick up. She was confident it was from the towing vessel accelerating for a wormhole jump. She yanked down the lever to release the airlock door and smashed the button beside it. The airlock door opened like an iris. The vacuum of open space sucked the atmosphere inside the airlock out within a second. The decompression effect pulled her with it, as was her intent, giving her a burst of velocity to carry her away from the ships. What she'd expected but not desired was that the air escaping the airlock chamber pushed her into a spin. She tumbled into the airless void, rushing away from her captured ship. The spinning effect kept her from getting more than glimpses of the League cruiser and the captured Kensington Star as the former pulled the latter with it into a generated wormhole.

  Once they were gone, Miri took hold of the fire extinguisher and started spraying its flame-retarding chemicals into the void around her. She did so carefully and, after a minute of calculated bursts, arrested the velocity of her spin so that she was no longer subjected to the disorientation of it. This task accomplished, she triggered the small transponder built into the suit and the more powerful transmitter she was carrying with her, raising the chance
that a ship in the area would detect her and pick her up. She glanced at her air level and the suit's estimate of how long she had. With her backup air tank, she had two days before she would run out.

  The prospect of two days alone in the vacuum of space was daunting. Minds did not do well when such an experience was forced upon them. To be alone in the infinite black of the void, with naught but the pinprick of light of a star millions of kilometers distant, ruined minds. Such an experience snapped them under the strain of that constant reminder of just how vast space was and how small and insignificant a single being was against that void. Even if rescued, Miri had to face the prospect that she might be mad by the time said rescue came.

  The consideration raised her heart rate and her breathing with it. She focused to bring it back down. From within the recesses of her oldest recollections, she found the memory of songs her mother sang to her as a little girl. Miri sang quietly to herself in her isolation, waiting to see if she had saved herself or merely delayed death and made it a lonely one, at that.

  1

  ISV Shadow Wolf

  New Hathwell System, League of Sol

  3 August 2460

  "Cutter's definitely coming for us."

  At that report from his executive officer, James Henry could only sigh at the utter predictability of the League of Sol's bureaucracy. New Hathwell was just one small colony among many the League had planted in its foothold in Sagittarius, but even here, the League kept all of the accouterments of power its system seemed to thrive on. One could set his watch by them, which, Henry mused, was the point.

  Light from the plotting holotank in front of his seat played over Henry's face, a grid of gold and crimson light over his dark skin. The blinking crimson dot that lit up over his forehead drew closer to the center of the display. He didn't need to hear his piloting crew confirm the numbers he'd already crunched in his head—they would intercept the Shadow Wolf about five minutes before they were far enough from New Hathwell and its gravity well to initiate their Lawrence drive.

  Seated to his right, at a control panel that monitored ship systems, Tia Nguyen gave Henry a concerned look. "I told you this would happen," she warned. Her skin had a bronze tint to the faint yellowish tone that reflected her ancestral origins in East Asia, just as Henry's tone testified to the ancestors who hailed from the continent of Africa. Gray eyes met his brown ones with irritation and a degree of challenge. "And we don't have a legitimate export license."

  "There's no such thing as a legitimate export license for what we're carrying. Not with the League," Henry reminded her. In the cargo hold of the Shadow Wolf were containers loaded with lithium ore mined from New Hathwell. While not always rare on a planetary level—on Earth, it was one of the more abundant elements—at the scope of an interstellar stage, with the voracious demands that an interstellar economy could have, lithium was much rarer. "But don't worry."

  "Don't worry?" Tia frowned at him. "You're telling me not to worry about the League catching us with a load of export-restricted cargo? They'd send all of us to a gulag for that."

  "And throw poor Oskar out an airlock." The lilt of Cera McGinty rose from the pilot’s seat. The diminutive Irishwoman, from the independent world of Connaught, kept her eyes on the controls. "Just say the word, Cap, and I'll show th'sassenach what my girl can do."

  "The last thing I want to do is let the League know about the Wolf's fusion drives," Henry said. "And there's no point in running otherwise. Trigger deceleration. Signal we're standing by for customs inspection."

  Cera's face betrayed her worry, but she obeyed.

  "Time to intercept is now ten minutes," Tia said. "Do you mind telling us lesser mortals what you've got in mind, or should I get down on my knees and pray?"

  Henry looked at her with amusement. "Says the agnostic."

  "Retorts the lapsed Methodist," Tia replied.

  "I wouldn't call myself lapsed. Vidia thinks I'm just spiritually scarred." He stood. "Let Oskar know to take Brigitte and put up the quarantine sign. Just in case."

  "I'll inform the good doctor now," Tia said, worry still in her voice. "Jim…"

  Henry looked back to her from the hatch leading out of the Shadow Wolf's control bridge. At his height of nearly two meters, he could be imposing, if a little on the lanky side. But there was nothing intimidating about the confident grin. "It's handled. Don't worry, and let's not give them a reason to be suspicious, eh?"

  "Right," Tia said breathily. "We're just a perfectly innocent cargo ship, nothing suspicious or wrong about us. Just the load of export-banned ore worth a fortune."

  "That's the spirit." Henry left the bridge at that point. The hatch slid closed behind him.

  * * *

  The League’s customs cutter was not an impressive ship by any means. Thirty meters long and eight meters wide, with just two internal decks, the little vessel was shaped somewhat like a supersonic airliner without wings. The cutter was no match for a torpedo skiff, let alone any real warship. Even an armed merchantman stood a good chance of turning it into a cloud of debris, if the owner was willing to risk the wrath of the League.

  It went without saying that the vast majority were not.

  The Shadow Wolf had a certain aesthetic charm of its own. At one hundred and thirty-three meters' length and thirty-two meters' width, it did have a rough, boxy shape, but the four landing struts gave it the look of having legs when lowered, and there was an almost lupine shape to the control bridge jutting from the front. It was painted with a shadowy dark-gray hue. The top of the hull included the housing for the atmospheric stabilizers that helped the ship burn through the atmosphere for planetary landing, while the bottom of the ship had takeoff-thruster ports for getting the vessel out of a gravity well. Both port and starboard sides had the benefit of large airlock loading hatches and man-sized airlocks for docking with smaller craft.

  The League cutter pulled up to the rear port hatch. From that distance, anyone on the Shadow Wolf could look out a port-side transparent alloy viewing port and see the lithe shape of the cutter approach, its hull alabaster in color and the League's emblem in full color on the main body of the ship. The sun outline with a clenched fist was not the most pacific of symbols, but it did the job, conveying the League's determination, will, and readiness to act even violently to further the goals and purpose of Society.

  When the airlock opened, Henry was waiting in the presence of one of his crew. Like Henry, Felix Rothbard hailed from the Terran Coalition, but there was no visible sign of that origin, nor would it have particularly mattered, given the independent nature of their ship.

  The Caucasian man was stockier than Henry, two inches shorter, and sporting a thin beard of wheat-colored hair that matched the hair on his head. Both wore crew jumpsuits typical for that kind of ship, dull-gray outfits with cargo pockets on arms and legs as well as hips, all capable of being sealed by zipper. The jumpsuits’ collars looked rigid, necessary for them to seal correctly with a helmet in case of an emergency. While it was no EVA suit, it could function as the layer of clothes underneath such a suit and provide limited protection in case of atmosphere loss.

  "You know what you're doing, right, Jim?" Felix asked.

  "I've dealt with customs before," Henry answered. "I know how to talk to them."

  "They say that hell hath no fury like a League bureaucrat who's been crossed," Felix noted.

  Henry blinked at him. "I thought it was 'a woman scorned'?"

  "It used to be."

  The light above the airlock door flashed from red to yellow. The Shadow Wolf's environmental systems were cycling breathable atmosphere into the chamber. After about thirty seconds, the light turned green. The panel beside the airlock lit up to inform them that someone had opened the outer door.

  "Isn't it rude to open someone's outer door for them?" Felix asked.

  "Not if you're a customs agent."

  Seconds later, the inner door opened. A man in a dark-gray jumpsuit appeared. Emblazoned o
ver the heart was the seal of the League Secretariat of Trade and Resources' Trade Enforcement Bureau. It was essentially the same as the League emblem but with a stylized T and R to either side of the fist. He had a faintly bronze complexion, the kind people used to associate with the Mediterranean, with a shaved face and close-cut brown hair.

  Henry didn't let himself curse, but he was worried. The man wasn't just any League customs officer but a new customs officer. All kitted up, full of piss and vinegar and ready to prove they can boot-stomp merchants' faces with the best of 'em. Henry started to wonder if he shouldn't have had Cera gun the drives as she'd asked.

  Too late to reconsider.

  "I am Trade Inspector Third Class Orlando Montaine," the young man declared. Henry figured he hadn't sounded like that since he was a fresh lieutenant. "Your vessel is under inspection by order of the Trade Enforcement Bureau for suspicion of violating the Trade Secretariat's export restrictions."

  "I see."

  "I require access to your holds."

  "Of course." Henry ignored the look he got from Felix. "This way."

  From the airlock door, they traveled astern to a hatch. Henry noted the air-tight sealant looked loose along the right side. He would have to get Brigitte on that later, if they had a later.

  After a flight of metal stairs to the middle deck of the Shadow Wolf, they emerged into a corridor leading to more hatches. "Your vessel is a Holden-Nagata Mark VII Medium Cargo Hauler, is it not?" Montaine asked in an officious, clipped tone.

  "It is," Henry said.

  "So you have six standard holds. Yet you are passing by the stern ones. I consider this suspicious."

  Henry sighed and led him back to a hatch they had just passed. He tapped a key at the panel and brought up the status screen. "We had a micro-asteroid strike a couple of months ago while hauling ore from the Alpha Trifid Belt Refinery," Henry explained. "Hulled our two stern holds. I haven't been able to get an atmospheric patch applied yet."