Cry of War: A Military Space Adventure Series

by R. L. Giddings

  She shrugged. “What are these things?”

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s jealous, that’s all.”

  Elina eased herself out of her chair and came to sit beside him on the bed.

  “What has he got to be jealous of?”

  Noah found it hard to be in such close proximity with her, especially as he could feel the swell of her breasts pressing against his arm.

  “I don’t know. You and me, I suppose. Working together.”

  “It’s not going to be all work though, is it?”

  She reached up and ran a hand through his hair. Noah was suddenly aware of the sound of his own breathing. A gentle pressure from her was all it needed to ease him back onto the bunk and it took all Noah’s resolve not to just grab hold of her.

  “He’s afraid of change, that’s all,” she said as she pulled his head around to face her. “New opportunities frighten him. You’re not afraid of new opportunities, are you Noah?”

  “Er, no. No, I don’t suppose I am.”

  “Good.”

  She brought her face down to his, her lips touching his mouth. Her body arched against his and then he felt the weight of her lips crushing his own.

  Noah couldn’t remember the last time a woman had kissed him but he definitely enjoyed the sensation.

  When she broke away from him, he tried to sit up, moving towards the door.

  “I’d better lock it,” he said. “Don’t want your men walking in on us.”

  “Don’t worry about them. They know better than to interrupt me when I’m in the middle of sensitive negotiations.”

  With that, she started to unbutton her blouse.

  *

  Faulkner had toyed with the idea of switching off the main screen, or at least showing something other than the vast sprawl of space but then he’d realised that to do so would be simply dishonest. These were Confederation officers he was dealing with, after all. These people were willing to put their lives on the line for him, the very least he could do was to be honest with them.

  So, instead he ordered that the screen focus on the meteorite in question. Truth to tell, there was very little to see: a virtually black object flying against a star speckled background didn’t make for the most thrilling viewing but at least it gave the crew something to focus on – let them know what they were up against.

  The Da’al had cut it very close when it came to avoiding the meteorite. That way, they hoped to be able to cover their tracks, waiting until the very last second before boosting, thereby throwing everything into forward thrust.

  They only had to wait another ninety seconds for the second part of the plan as Loki launched two conventional missiles straight at the meteorite.

  The first detonation was something of an anti-climax and for a moment Faulkner wondered whether the Da’al might not have got this one wrong. That their plan might not work. Because only small chunks were blasted off the meteorite and he watched with a real sense of relief as the comet continued along its original path, largely unaffected by the impact. On reflection he thought that the meteorite must have encountered thousands of similar impacts on in its journey through space. Why should this one be any different?

  It was the second missile which did the damage, catching the meteorite towards the tail end and succeeding in blowing off an entire section. In a sobering display of destructive power, the missile had succeeded in shearing off slightly less than a quarter of the thing’s overall mass. And Faulkner had seen the analysis. The meteorite had been assessed as possessing a mass of several hundred million tons. A quarter of that, moving at speed, would be more than enough to kill every single person on-board.

  *

  The sound of gunfire woke LaCruz and she immediately reached for her weapon.

  But before she could locate it, a rifle barrel poked her in the chest.

  “What the hell?”

  She pushed the barrel to one side and tried to sit up. The gunman stepped back, bringing the rifle up so that it was pointing at her face.

  She rubbed at her eyes while she tried to work out what was going on. She had a terrible headache and was having difficulty thinking straight. She couldn’t, for example, remember what had happened prior to her turning in for the night.

  The lighting in the cargo bay was stuck in night-time mode and so apart from a few lights around the walls, it was difficult to see much. She guessed they were still in the early hours of the morning. The perfect time for a surprise attack like this.

  But what had become of the sentries?

  Then she remembered the gunfire.

  It took her a while to recognise the guy standing over her, largely because he was wearing a respirator. He was one of the men who’d come over from the Peter the Great earlier. He had some ugly scarring round his right eye and a nose that had been broken multiple times. He tried to poke her with the rifle barrel but she batted it away.

  “Try that again and I’ll show you where you can stick it.”

  “On your feet. We’re going for a little walk.”

  But LaCruz wasn’t listening, she was too busy scanning the room.

  Markham was over to her left, kneeling down, still in his underwear, with the albino standing behind him holding a pulse rifle. It was when she realised that he was also wearing a respirator that she started to piece together what might have happened.

  They Peter the Great crew had clearly planned this in advance. They’d waited until most of the Marines were asleep before tampering with the oxygen feed coming into the cargo bay. The sentries probably hadn’t even realised what was going on. That was one of the things with being deprived of oxygen, it tended to leave you feeling disoriented.

  It also meant that the sleepers on the ground would be less likely to wake up when the raiders moved amongst them trying to locate their targets.

  Because, of course, they’d had a comprehensive list of who was who.

  Ferguson had given it to them.

  There was a group of scientists in the middle of the room who were only now managing to rouse themselves. Like Markham, they were still in their underwear and were being watched over by two guys in respirators she hadn’t seen before.

  Now, that was worrying.

  Where had these guys come from?

  They must have come in on another shuttle. Which meant that someone had given them access. Which either meant that the Peter the Great crew had complete control of the ship or someone on the Motar had been helping them.

  Could it be that Kapinsky kid? She knew he was young but surely, he had a better grasp of operational security than that?

  LaCruz slowly got to her feet. If they were going to make a move, now would be a good time. But from the way her captor stepped back to cover her, he was obviously thinking the same thing.

  “Heay, sarge! You alright?” she called.

  “Thick head but, other than that, I’m fine. How ‘bout you.”

  “Oh, you know, I’ll be alright once I’ve had my morning juice. Say, what was with all the shooting?”

  Before he could answer, the albino stepped forward and kicked him between the shoulder blades, driving Markham to the floor.

  “Our timings here are pretty tight,” the albino said, pulling his mask down around his neck. “So I’d appreciate it if we could keep things moving.” At that moment, the guy with the broken nose drove his rifle stock straight at her stomach. He’d assumed that she’d been distracted by Markham’s plight, but all the time she’d been watching him out of the corner of her eye.

  LaCruz spun around, catching the rifle with her knee and knocking it to one side. At the same time, she was bringing up her elbow and drove it into the side of his neck. The impact staggered him though not enough for him to drop the rifle.

  Instead, she stepped inside his guard and proceeded to rip the respirator off his face. The natural response when that happens is for the person to throw up a hand in an attempt to save the respirator and that’s just what he did, leaving himself ope
n all down his right-hand side.

  The guy was that much taller than her, so she had to rise up on her tiptoes in order to bring her knee high enough to target his ribs.

  She felt something give as she drove her knee home using the full power of her hips causing the man’s right leg to give way. He crashed forward onto his hands and knees, trapping the rifle under him. So then, rather than try to wrestle it off him, LaCruz simply wrapped her arms round his neck and started to squeeze.

  “Not nice when someone cuts off your oxygen supply, now, is it?” she whispered.

  But the guy still wasn’t finished and he tried to plant his foot on the floor with a view to launching himself back onto his feet.

  Only, this wasn’t LaCruz’s first rodeo.

  She simply stepped away from him, while still maintaining her choke hold, effectively pulling him off balance. It was a position which granted her all the advantages.

  She could probably keep that up all day long.

  But before she got the opportunity, a shot zinged past her head. She glanced across to see the albino lining her up for his next shot.

  “Okay, you’ve made your point. Let him go.”

  “What? So you can take my head off?”

  The albino lowered the pulse rifle before swinging it round in a lazy arc. When it came to rest, it was angled in Markham’s general direction.

  “I won’t ask again.”

  LaCruz gave one last squeeze and then released both arms. Without her support, the raider fell backwards onto the deck plates.

  If the albino was going to shoot her, now would be as good a time as any.

  But he didn’t. Just kept his gun levelled at her while her guy managed to stagger to his feet.

  She looked over at Markham who gave her an exasperated look and then shrugged his shoulders. No doubt, he’d have done things differently.

  Only he wasn’t a woman in a man’s world. She needed to send these guys a clear message: if they intended to come for her, they’d better bring their A-game.

  *

  They’d gone over the data countless times and, as far as Katherine Schwartz was concerned, they had no alternative.

  “We have to divert. We have to change course now, while we still can,” she looked to McNeill. “How long left?”

  McNeill winced. “It’s difficult to say exactly. The Loki has initiated three boosts in the last fifteen minutes. Each time we’ve been forced to re-calculate. From scratch. It’s all part of their plan to keep us guessing. Cut down our options. If you ask me, the safest thing would be to break off now. We’d minimise the damage that way.”

  Faulkner, who was leaning against the workstation, shook his head.

  “If we break off now there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to pick them up on the other side. It’s too risky.”

  McNeill had his face buried in his hands and when Faulkner looked over to Schwartz she just shrugged. A long thirty seconds passed before McNeill finally looked up.

  “Sir. The way I see it we’ve got about thirty minutes to make up our mind. After that, we’re past the point of no return and hand the initiative over to them. If we do nothing, we’ll continue on into the middle of this debris cloud with all that that implies. Crash, bang, wallop! Meanwhile, the Loki gets away without so much as a scratch. Even if we were able to survive this, the ship would be so badly damaged that we’d be in no position to give chase.”

  Faulkner was standing over a separate console, watching the various scenarios they’d mocked up run through, trying to make sense of them. In each one, the Renheim suffered catastrophic damage to most if not all of her main systems. In a number of cases, the ship was completely destroyed.

  Schwartz moved to stand behind him. When she spoke, her voice was so soft that the others had to strain to hear her.

  “I realise that it looks bad, sir, but if we’ve called it early enough and - thanks to Fin here - I think we have, then we do have a viable alternative.”

  “And that is?” Faulkner said, his voice sounding hollow.

  “We re-set our course. The Navigation team are working on it now. We find our way around this thing and, in so doing, we manage to avoid the worst of it. With any luck, we’ll come through this with a little damage to our paintwork.”

  Faulkner didn’t say anything straightaway. Instead, he simply looked up at the main screen where their forward cameras were showing the live feed of the fleeing enemy. The magnification was such that the Loki appeared to be more or less within striking distance.

  “How soon before she comes within weapons range,” he asked.

  “Another forty minutes at least,” Schwartz said. “I’m sorry, sir. We had no way of knowing it was going to be this tight.”

  “And yet the Da’al managed to work it out.”

  He said it as a flat statement but there was no denying the overall sense of disappointment. They’d allowed themselves to be out-maneuvered.

  “Sir,” Schwartz said. “There was no way of anticipating this. It’s a totally unique situation.”

  “That’s right and like any other unique situation where there is adversity there must also be opportunity. All we have to do is to work out where that opportunity lies.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. No doubt wondering whether he was suffering from some kind of relapse, a delayed reaction to his surgery perhaps.

  Except, his mind had never been so clear.

  “Sir, the clock is ticking,” Schwartz said.

  “Which I’m well aware of, First Officer. Mr Leyton, could I have a word.”

  Second Lieutenant Leyton was the principal helmsman who was about to go on duty. He was slim with fair hair and a face full of freckles. He had the air of an earnest, young insurance salesman.

  “Mr Leyton,” Faulkner began. “What if we were to simply avoid this debris field altogether and just go around it? How would that affect our course in relation to the Loki?”

  Leyton appeared to be at a loss for words and looked to Schwartz for support but she simply pointed him back to Faulkner.

  “Sir, you’re right of course,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “A course change at this juncture would be highly significant,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “And it would put us at a marked disadvantage if we wanted to track down the Loki at a later date. But I don’t see what our alternatives are. If we press ahead then we risk the safety of the entire ship.”

  Faulkner scanned the bridge, the majority of eyes were turned in their direction. It was clear that they’d reached a significant moment in their pursuit. What happened now would have serious consequences for all of them.

  They all looked so anxious. Everyone that was, apart from McNeill who was standing on the back of his chair taking it all in. McNeill looked excited.

  The rest were probably wondering whether he could be trusted. After all, wasn’t he the one who’d sacrificed the Mantis, along with all those crewmembers?

  “How significant a disadvantage?” he asked, careful to avoid looking directly at Leyton. “Timewise, how far would this put us back?”

  “Best case scenario?” Leyton said. “It’d be another twenty hours before we could hope to get anything meaningful from our long-range scans again. The backwash from the meteor cloud would see to that. It’d just scramble everything.”

  “Twenty hours? That seems like an awfully long time,” he looked over to McNeill. “Would you agree with that?”

  McNeill blew out his cheeks. “I’d imagine that would be a very conservative estimate, sir.”

  “So, what do you think our chances would be of finding her again?”

  McNeill looked to Leyton who just shrugged.

  McNeill said, “If they stick to basically the same trajectory then we’ve got half a chance.”

  “And if they’re clever and diverge from that path?”

  “Then, chances are we’ll be left looking for a needle in a quantum haystack.”

  “Just hoping to get luc
ky?” Faulkner said.

  “Exactly, sir.”

  Their little gathering fell silent for a moment as they considered their options.

  It was Leyton who spoke first.

  “Sir, if we’re to program in a new course then we’re going to have to do it in the next few minutes. Just so we’re clear.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply but went over to relieve his colleague at the helm.

  Faulkner indicated for Schwartz to walk with him over to McNeill’s station. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

  “We need to make a decision. Is there any way we can fly through this debris?”

  McNeill furrowed his brow, “We could look at a trajectory that would hopefully allow us to avoid all the major fragments but that’d be less than ideal. We’re going to absorb an awful a lot of damage here no matter what we do. That’s unavoidable, I’m afraid.”

  “Is there anything else we could do to improve our chances?”

  “However strange it might sound,” Schwartz prompted.

  “Well, if you’re looking for strange, I think I can help with that,” McNeill pulled at his jaw, deep in thought. “Look, I know that our evasion software is first rate but we’re going to encounter stuff in there that you just can’t program for. Not with the time we’ve got, anyway.”

  “So, what?” Faulkner said. “You’re talking about a manual over-ride. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “Yes, one man,” McNeill glanced at Schwartz. “Or woman, in complete control. We need to keep things simple.”

  Faulkner lowered his voice even further. “Are we talking about Mr Leyton?”

  McNeill gave him a disgruntled look. “Not unless we can teach him how to interpret all this data while effectively flying blind.”

  “So, who then? Not you, surely?”

  McNeill threw up his hands.

  “All I’m saying is that my impact recognition software is highly effective but it’s not very intuitive. You’d have to know precisely what you were looking for.”

  “While still being able to fly the ship accordingly,” Faulkner couldn’t keep the scepticism out of his voice.