Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

  "Sometimes I wonder if I should've accepted th' flight academy offer," Cera admitted. "Through Tyrone, I mean. They're our sister planet, an' we get residency rights an' have since before they joined th' Coalition. Anyone from New Connaught can move there an' on into th' CDF."

  "So you almost signed up for the CDF?" Piper asked, genuinely curious. As friendly as she was, Cera didn't always talk about the past, especially painful bits.

  "I filled out th' paperwork an' everythin', would've gone t' flight school an' flown in th' CDF. I'd be fightin' th' good fight."

  "You'd be in the war now." Piper considered how long ago that'd be. "Maybe even a squadron commander."

  "Bollocks t' that. I'm no commander," Cera protested. "I'd probably still be a lieutenant, lots o' black marks on my record for fightin' an' boozin'. They'd never trust me t' command or train. I'd still be flyin' as a regular pilot. Or already killed." Cera shook her head. "Or worse, given what Oskar's said about how th' sassenach Leaguers treat POWs. Today, I'm glad I took th' other path. But at th' time… well, it seemed right. Lots o' New Connaught folk enlisted through Tyrone. I almost sent in th' final admission notice. But then my da an' mam got upset an' guilt-tripped me into not signin' it. I figure I upset th' CDF recruiters somethin' fierce when I backed out." Cera chuckled softly. "Poor bastards did all th' work, an' I let my parents talk me out of it. Instead, they got me work flyin' in-system cargo ships t' tide me over, keep me home."

  Piper knew that Cera was an orphan. Her parents were dead. She was therefore careful when she asked, "And after your parents…?"

  The brief wince on Cera's face was joined by the gratitude in her eyes at Piper's delicate reference to her parents. "By then, I admit, I had second thoughts about servin'. An' I figured th' CDF recruiters wouldn't be t' pleased t' see my name again. So I moved on t' interstellar transports. Then I got hired on by Captain Henry an' had everythin' I ever wanted. A tall ship an' th' stars t' steer her by." Cera's eyes grew distant for a moment, as if she could see into that other history, where her counterpart was fighting for her life against the League. It was clear she had no desire to switch places with that Cera McGinty.

  "Captain's been good to us both," Piper agreed. "You fly, and I get to see the stars my grandpa showed me when I was a little girl. See them and fly by them."

  "Aye." Cera drew in a breath. "Th' captain's got us in a bit o' a mess, he has, but I think he'll be gettin' us out."

  "He'll certainly try." As Piper said it, she briefly recalled the terror of the fight with the Tash'vakal and shuddered at the thought that more such fights might be coming. I want to get this ex-spy whatever-she-is to Lusitania and get past this entire damn job. We're not out here to be heroes.

  While Cera couldn't read her mind, it wasn't hard to guess what Piper was thinking. "Aye, he'll get us out, an' we'll go on t' th' next job. Leave th' fightin' t' th' people gettin' paid for it."

  That was a sentiment Piper wholly agreed with.

  * * *

  Henry did his part with the repair work, helping Felix patch a minor hull breach on the upper deck, and headed on to the office to begin the work he dreaded. Before they made dock, he had to ensure the station had a hangar rated for repair equipment, which would cost more than a simple dock for cargo transfer, and he had to purchase the materials to fix the ship. Even with Trinidad Station having more starship hull-grade metal than it had grain, that was not going to be cheap. Hiring repair workers would add to the strain on the budget.

  There was a knock on the door. "Come in," he called, looking up as the door slid open. Tia stepped in, looking both worn and cross. Henry breathed out a sigh while she closed the door behind her. That’s never a good sign. "You don't have to say it."

  "But, I will anyway." Tia shook her head. "I told you this job would go bad. I damn well told you."

  "You did."

  Evidently, that wasn't good enough, because Tia kept going. "We survive out here by staying out of these kinds of messes. Now, you've thrown us in. And nearly got us killed."

  "I did nothing," Henry answered, a finger pointed nowhere in particular. "I didn't volunteer us for this job. I was shanghaied into it."

  "There are other business contacts who work with us, and we don't need Vitorino or Lusitania. The smart thing to do would be to cut our losses, Jim, and back out of this whole thing."

  "We might not have that luxury," Henry said. "The repair costs are going to bring us to the brink, and we won't get paid by anyone if we don't get Gaon back to Lusitania."

  "We'll scrimp as we always have. But if we stay in this…" Tia let out an exasperated sigh. "We got lucky. We might not again."

  Henry went silent. It wasn't that she was wrong. They'd indeed gotten lucky, and it was true they might not again, and the situation was bringing them to the brink of being dangerously over their heads. Cutting their losses was the safe play.

  But he couldn't accept that. He couldn't sacrifice Jules Rothbard to Caetano's nonexistent mercy. And perhaps there was some remaining scrap of the CDF officer he'd been who couldn't let the League win this one.

  Tia shook her head. "You're not going to do it. I can tell."

  "No, I'm not."

  "We didn't sign on for this," Tia said. "We're spacers, not soldiers. It's not our war. It's not your war anymore, either."

  "I didn't say it was. But I'm not abandoning Jules… or Miri Gaon, for that matter. What do you think would happen to her if we left her on Trinidad?"

  Tia pursed her lips, pausing for a few moments. "Then let's hire her on. Whatever she was before, she's a spacer now. One of us."

  Henry chuckled. "Wow. Okay, have you thought this through? Because, first off, you're assuming she'll say yes, when she's made it clear she wants to ensure the League gets exposed as being behind the attack. Secondly, you want to talk about putting us in danger? The League wants this woman. They want her badly, and they'd come after us to get her."

  "They're after Oskar and Brigitte too. That didn't stop us from bringing them on!"

  "They're also not as dedicated to finding them as they are her," Henry pointed out. "Whatever she did, they want her for real. Have you ever known the League to hire Tash'vakal to do their work?"

  "I'm not surprised by anything the League will do," Tia said. Her expression remained hard, and she felt like the conversation had gotten away from her.

  "I'm not either, but that's a major MO change, and you know it. It means they've got a big reason to go after Gaon, bigger than Oskar or Brigitte, and they're not going to stop because we don't take her to Lusitania. If we leave her on Trinidad, even if they know we did, they might still come after us just because of what she told us or could have told us." Henry leaned forward. "I've thought this over, Tia. Trust me. Our best way to safety is to get her to Lusitania. Then the job's over, we get paid by someone, and we're out of this."

  Tia let out an inarticulate cry of frustration. "Damn you, Jim, you make it sound so reasonable, but we both know you're not objective about this. You want to save your friend's brother. You want to stick it to the League. And you're putting us at risk by trying to accomplish all of it."

  "Don't you think I know that?” Henry said with a raised voice. “Of course I do! But think about it, Tia. Cutting our losses sounds simple and easy, but it's not. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. They want Gaon silenced, and that's going to extend to anyone they believe she spoke to about what she saw. We're going to be on their list no matter what. It's too late to just cut our losses. We have to make going after us a moot point, and that means Gaon gets to Lusitania." Henry spoke with conviction, hiding the small part of him that wanted to agree with her, that wanted to get the hell out of Trifid right away. However, he’d done the calculations over and over again, and he'd considered the scenarios. His plan was the only safe way. Of that, he was utterly convinced.

  Silence filled the office. Tia and Henry looked at each other intently, eye to eye, neither yielding. The silent tension remained bet
ween them the entire time. It only subsided when Henry leaned back in his chair. "This is why I asked you to become first mate when Muammar left," he said.

  Tia nodded at the reference to her predecessor, New Arabia-born Muammar Qadir, a long-time spacer who’d retired a few years prior. "I still think you're wrong."

  "I know."

  "I'm going to check up on the repair progress. It's almost time for Yanik to be relieved, so…"

  "I'll be on the bridge shortly," Henry promised. "Just let me finish up these calculations for our repair bills. Then I can see how screwed we are."

  "Yeah." Tia sighed then turned to leave, getting to the door before looking back. "Do you think Ms. Gaon's testimony will work, given all of this? She's right that her corp will consider her suspicious for leaving Harron without a word."

  "It's out of our hands" was his reply.

  25

  ISV Shadow Wolf

  Magella System, Neutral Space

  10 August 2460

  The wounded Shadow Wolf burned into orbit of the gas giant Trinidad, the biggest of the gas giants in the Magella star system. The gas giant's particular mix of elements in its atmosphere gave it a bluish-brown hue that showed on one side of the Shadow Wolf's bridge display. The holotank provided a more complex picture, showing all of the gas-miner ships loitering in the atmosphere, using tethered collection arrays to draw up helium-3 and other useful elements from Trinidad.

  Trinidad Station itself was in far orbit of the gas giant. It was an O'Neill cylinder of over ten kilometers in length and a little over two kilometers in diameter. Internally, a pair of cylinders rotated in opposite directions, eliminating gyroscopic effects that could alter the station's orientation relative to Magella and Trinidad. The exterior of the station was divided into six sections. Three were transparent, allowing for the giant mirrors arrayed from the end of the station to reflect sunlight into the interior during the station's scheduled daylight time. The other three provided the interior ground space. On the outside, they were navy blue, with lights running along the spine of each section. While one far end of the station provided the framework that supported the mirrors, the other end was tipped by the docking area for the station, which extended outward in eight arms that did not turn as the station's interior cylinders did.

  "They don't make stations like that anymore," Miri remarked. With Henry’s permission, she was watching their approach. "Most stations use gravity generators exclusively now."

  "In the Coalition, sure," Henry remarked. "But out here in neutral space, torus and cylinder stations that generate their own gravity with centrifugal force are still worth building. They're easier to provide power to without the need for big graviton generators and the fusion cores to run them."

  "The design's a century and a half old too," Tia added. "The Coalition was probably building them back then."

  Henry heard a snappish tone in her voice. He knew she was still unhappy about his choices and their situation, and a chance to get in a dig at the Coalition on behalf of non-Coalition worlds like her own was not something she was going to avoid, given the mood she was in.

  "Trinidad Traffic Control has cleared us," Cera said. "They're givin' us a repair dock on th' third arm."

  "Khánh's arm," Tia said with relief. "Good. I didn't want to deal with her peers."

  "Neither did I. A good thing we stay in with the harbor controllers here. Speaking of which…"

  Felix, standing in a corner and quietly watching Miri, nodded. "I've got that case of bourbon. I'm sure ol' Chief Hagerty'll love it."

  "And keep us in good with the harbor controllers." Henry rested his elbows on the arms of his command chair. "Cera, take us in."

  "Aye, sir. Conformin' t' traffic control instructions now."

  Cera's piloting was skillful as always. She applied just enough thrust as the Shadow Wolf needed to negotiate her course to the arm in question. Some of the docks were external, mainly made for big ships that couldn't fit inside an internal dock, but the Shadow Wolf was just small enough to squeeze in. Cera used thrusters to bring the vessel in, port side facing the opening dock doors. A forcefield gently resisted their landing, but it was made for keeping atmosphere in, not keeping medium haulers out. The resistance only slowed the process. Cera adjusted and finished bringing the ship through. With seemingly little effort, she set the Shadow Wolf down on her landing struts smack in the middle of the repair dock.

  The moment the ship was down, gantries swung into place. They secured the vessel and provided the means for repair crews to move over the ship's hull and do their job. One gantry also worked to secure an umbilical tube to the waiting external support port for the Shadow Wolf's life support and power systems. The universal-fitting umbilical ends detected the ship type and conformed appropriately, resulting in a physical link that would provide the Shadow Wolf with the atmosphere of Trinidad Station while topping off the ship's oxygen tanks. The attachment also provided electrical power to the vessel and a hard line to Trinidad Station's GalNet uplinks and quantum entanglement transceivers.

  "We're secure. Shuttin' down engines," Cera said.

  Henry keyed the intercom. "Engineering, we're landed. Go ahead and shut everything down."

  "Doing so now, Captain," answered Pieter.

  Henry triggered the intercom for ship wide address. "Okay, everyone, we've made it to Trinidad. While we don't have cargo to move, we do have repairs to make, and all hands will be on deck for that. Yanik will give you shift assignments. Off shift, all I ask is you come back sober enough to work."

  "Like I'll be drinkin' any of that swill th' moonshiners make." Cera guffawed, wincing as she spoke.

  Henry smiled back at her but ignored the remark. "I'll call a crew meeting before we get underway again, give you all a chance to get things off your chest. Henry out." He flipped the intercom off with a flick of the switch on his armrest. "Tia, if you'll join me?"

  "Of course," she said.

  The two left the bridge and made their way to the upper-deck airlock adjacent to the gantry walkway. By the time they stepped out, a small group of figures clad in green jumpsuits approached the ship. One was a Tal'mayan, another a Matrinad—his suit joined by a conformal helmet that contained the high-moisture atmosphere his species' physiology demanded—and the rest were human.

  The lead was a woman of Tia's general complexion, although darker in skin tone and with brown eyes and short dark hair. A toolbelt hung around her waist, and her right hand was conspicuously ungloved and dark gray in color. Its gleam in the light of the dock was the shine of metal and not skin. "So how'd you get it shot up this time?" she asked pointedly. With a hand motion, she sent the others onward to finish their examination of the ship.

  "You act like I always show up with my ship shot up," Henry replied. Although he didn't grin, he hoped his tone showed he was taking the teasing barb as it was meant to be taken.

  "It is his fault this time. Partially." Tia approached and took the lead woman in a hug. "Comrade Linh."

  "Comrade Tia."

  "I ran into Felipe in Gamavilla. He sends fraternal greetings."

  "No, he doesn't, because the son of a bitch has gone Leaguer on us," Linh Khánh said hotly. "He came through here six months ago to ask me to sign the amnesty, go home, and join the Social Solidarity Party. I nearly threw him out the airlock."

  Tia winced. "I hoped to spare you that. He did the same to me."

  "You told him no?"

  "Yes, and I changed the subject rather than throw my Thanh liquor in his face."

  That caused Linh to chortle. "Who are you, and what have you done with my dear Comrade Tia, who spat a shot of Thanh into the face of the company security agent sent to arrest her?" she demanded jokingly.

  Tia laughed. "Like I'm going to waste even a shot of good Thanh on Felipe's idiocy. Besides, I have learned some restraint." With that, she cast a look at Henry.

  Not particularly caring about Hestian exile politics, Henry remained quiet through t
he exchange, even though it was becoming time-consuming. Given the look on Tia's face, he grinned and nodded with a wordless reply. He didn't need to say anything.

  After another giggle, Linh finally got to business. "So, who shot you up? If it was any of ours, I'll have their reproductive organs rendered into lubricant."

  Tia shook her head. "We had a run-in with the Tash'vakal."

  Linh frowned. "You did? What did they want?"

  "A passenger we took on," Henry said. "It might be for the best if we don't go into detail, Khánh. It's a complicated thing."

  Tia's expression turned neutral, and Henry had the feeling he'd only delayed the inevitable. Linh answered with a nod and let out a sigh as she beheld some of the damaged hull on the Shadow Wolf. "Well, you got your girl shot up, and we can fix her, but it's going to cost. Materials are scarcer these days, prices higher."

  Henry nodded. He pulled a tablet from his pocket and handed it to Linh. "Here's our damage list and what we'll need."

  Linh looked it over then shook her head. "Your estimate's about fifteen percent off," she said sympathetically. "Price hike just went through the guild, thanks to shortages from all the missing ships killing trade."

  Tia ran the numbers in her head then gave Henry a concerned look. The same math went through his mind and with it the same conclusion: the repairs were going to bankrupt the Shadow Wolf's operating accounts.

  It was clear that Linh recognized what was wrong. "I know independents run on a tight budget, usually, and jobs aren't too easy to find."

  "Tell me about it." Henry sighed. "I… well, I'll need time. If I can get her spaceworthy to get back to Lusitania…"

  "Jim, the trouble's not over. We can't go back out if half our holds are hulled," Tia said. She gave a pleading look to her old friend. "Is there any way to shave something off?"