by Greg Dragon
“We have an incoming EDS,” an officer shouted, and the bridge went red with spacers scrambling and the holos from every computer sending out warnings.
“Proximity?” the captain asked coolly.
“It’s within range of our tracers, Captain. 8.4km to be exact and charging weapons,” a small-framed ensign nasally reported from the communications platform above them.
Captain Lede consulted his holographic starmap, where he saw the new outline of a Geralos destroyer. Cecil Bo-Antar walked over to join him. “This can’t be happening,” he muttered, walking around the table to get a better view of the massive warship.
It was a bulbous mass, reminiscent of a potato, the hull’s material seemingly organic, with cannons stacked in five rows, and launching pylons mounted around what would be considered the stern. What it lacked in beauty it more than made up with the fear it evoked in every Alliance vessel. Destroyers against any ship less its mass was an instant death sentence, and they were strong enough to hold their own against starships fighting alone.
Bo-Antar mouthed a curse and tightened his fists.
“It will be coming out of shift where our stern is exposed, but we’re already arming our cannons.” Captain Lede indicated with his hands for Bo-Antar, and two other officers that had come up to converse with him.
Commander Homerus Cho, Missio-Tral’s officer in charge of tactics, kept hands tucked behind his back while he inclined to scrutinize the incoming Geralos vessel. Chief Engineer Chrystal Ma-Ren thrust a finger at the static from whence the destroyer had emerged. “Coming out of shift, they will be low on energy and have to recharge before they can fire anything stronger than ballistics,” she informed her captain.
“Low shields and delayed tracers,” Captain Lede considered. “This gives us advantage, but the Harridan is compromised. That leaves us exposed if we focus our attentions on the lizards.”
“A team of Shrikes and Marines aboard a pair of cruisers is all I need to penetrate Harridan’s defenses,” Cho added confidently. “Our fighters can work at weakening her shields, distracting her cannons and induce some panic. If that’s the captain on the fleeing cruiser, the crew may not be as willing to keep up his defiance. With all that going on, the Shrikes can be secreted to a hatch while the Marines storm the hangars. Distractions everywhere, with limited casualties should the Shrikes gain the bridge.”
“And what about our runner?” Cecil Bo-Antar asked, ever the skeptic whenever it came to Commander Homerus Cho, whose confidence he viewed as youthful naivete.
“Horne’s Blood Wraiths have already launched, Commander,” Cho explained. “The cruiser is cloaked, so the shield is exposed, making them easy for our squadron to disable. My only concern is that the cruiser is heading for the planet or to another warship, which could put our fighters in a vulnerable position.”
“You think that the crew isn’t complicit, Mr. Cho?” the captain asked, looking directly at the tactician, who shook his head in disagreement. “And you, Cecil?” He gave his second a measuring look. The humorless Bo-Antar may have thought his second-guessing of Cho had gone unnoticed, but Felan Lede, ever observant, did know.
Bo-Antar confirmed. “I agree with Commander Cho, Captain. The spacers serving on Harridan’s decks are most likely hostages, unaware of what’s happening. If we can reach them, we can take that ship. Their XO did seem unsure, didn’t he?”
Captain Lede had to agree. “Let’s see where their loyalty lies then. Commander Cho, carry out the plan, and Lieutenant Ma-Ren, I want that lizard jumping back out of this space. Cecil, we need reinforcements sooner than later in case this is the first of a fleet of lizards coming for this prize.” He stopped to wipe at his brow, where he’d started perspiring from the intense light coming from the table. “Communications team, patch me through to the Harridan on a secure channel.”
“Patching you through now, Captain,” a voice said, and in less than a minute he was back on the line with a frazzled Leon Anu.
“Harridan, you are suspected of mutiny,” Captain Lede informed him. “You were offered a chance to explain your behavior, and what do you do? You launch a cruiser, cloaked, while talking compromise to placate me. Not only that—” He cut Leon Anu off, who kept trying to proclaim their innocence. “A Geralos destroyer appears within range of our tracers. Hell of a coincidence, Commander Anu? Now, you have one last chance. Stand down, and allow our Marines to board without any interference.”
While the captain spoke, Missio-Tral’s engines came online, and she turned in such a way to angle her broadside towards the destroyer. This put her stern out of range of their weapons, as a squadron of phantoms raced out towards the enemy ship. Kinetic cannons came online, starting to bark as explosive rounds soared across the soundless vacuum to whittle away at the shields protecting the destroyer’s hull.
As the Chief Engineer had predicted, the ship’s depleted energy hurt its defenses to the point where it had to commit everything to its shields. This rendered the ballistics nearly worthless, but the fighters were already adding their own ordnance to the attack. Without the energy to go evasive, the Geralos launched their own zip-ships as a counter, and brought their ballistic cannons online to volley bullets back at Missio-Tral.
Missio-Tral, however, was loaded with energy reserves, and a crew of spacers who lived for destroying Geralos vessels. Her helmsmen kept her coming about until she was lined up perpendicular to the destroyer, presenting a smaller target for the Geralos cannons. She would turn one way, presenting enough of her broadside to unload a salvo before shifting back to become a thin target again.
Back and forth they peppered one another, lines of tracers from Missio-Tral swiping back and forth across the destroyer’s hull refracting harmlessly from the still-intact shields. The squadrons flew wide arcs out of range of the crossfire, and collided with the zip-ships buzzing about the mothership, playing at defense. Two cruisers loaded with Marines launched from a private dock, reserved for VIPs and the captain’s vessels. They crossed the space to the Harridan, escorted by five phantoms from the squadron.
From the bridge of Harridan, Commander Leon Anu tried to keep his composure as he watched the vessel approaching against the backdrop of the warring ships. He thought back on the past, the madness of the captain, which had only gotten worse over time. First it was the command to stay in this region of Genesian space where nothing was happening: no trade, no Geralos for them to fight, and no missions from Helysian.
For an infiltrator whose role was to hunt the enemy, that command had struck him as odd, but he let himself think that the captain had a reason. The cruisers transporting ship parts, trading for fuel with a shipwright who operated directly from the planet. That too was odd, but when he had brought it to his captain’s attention, he was threatened and accused of insubordination, a night where he believed his career as an officer was finished.
With no communication coming from Helysian in months, Harridan had become a small empire with an authoritarian ruler in Jawal Kur. Leon Anu had been a part of it; he had been complicit, so why should he deserve better from the Alliance than Kur himself? Whatever his captain had done, he would be made to answer for it, and as the XO, he couldn’t use ignorance as a defense. “This is my last chance,” he mouthed the words so that no one in his vicinity could hear.
“Commander, we have seven vessels on approach to our hangar,” a voice announced over comms. “Two armed cruisers and five Phantoms. They are asking for permission to come aboard.”
“Let them in,” Leon Anu snapped, suddenly irritated. “It’s the thyping Missio-Tral, what else would we do, take on a starship? I will follow orders and meet with Captain Lede, but first have master-of-arms Morin get me the names and ranks of every spacer that has visited Genese since our arrival. This includes officers and Marines. Send the information to my personal mail, and tell Major Virden Josk that I need to see him on the bridge.”
18
Since their first day
of construction, the Basce City tenements had been given a variety of names by both those who were forced to live there and those who looked down on them from the spires above. Streets strewn with refuse, spice vials, and filth of every variety, were the playgrounds for children, whose destiny was limited to two paths: become an enforcer or someone that had to be enforced.
Stacked, tiered housing made privacy near impossible, and the narrow roads too dangerous for the security force to chance. Due to this, the gangs became the law of the districts, a role respected over time, even by the government, who entertained some of their demands in order to keep the peace. Wanted criminals, out of favors and credits for bribes, would be turned out of the zones, where BasPol could make an arrest.
This was the system, a nefarious partnership, unknown to most but the men and women who lived at the top of the tenements. Those crime bosses with small armies at their beck and command, and penthouses that could rival those elites who paid them to smuggle in vice. Violence was a way of life in Basce City, so for the citizens born within her walls, seeing armed patrols was so normal it gave no cause for alarms.
The Nighthawks had been cleared by Thrall to enter the tenements, and had arrived in the middle of the night to the tightly set facade of multi-tiered buildings. There were hundreds of these settlements, similarly constructed, though rundown to the point where some were literal ruins. Stone stairwells and iron lifts gave access to the upper floors, some climbing as high as eight stories with bridges spanning the rooftops for convenient access.
Every door was a business, or a former home made into something else, and every tier was its own plaza of shops, apartments, and entertainment. Signs were painted on wood for most of these enterprises, but there were a few who spent the credits on more decorative signage using lights.
Even at night the streets were filled with people going about their business, some milling about with drinks, winding down the day with their friends. Helga had seen that despite their attempts at dressing down, they still stuck out amongst the brightly colored hair, loose-fitting clothing and masked faces. There were chemicals in the air, a sweet pungent addition to the sewage and aromas coming from the carts that several vendors were manning.
Here was society the way it would have once been in Vestalia, ignoring the dilapidated state of everything. When they arrived and parked, a trio of teens—two boys shouldering rifles— introduced themselves as “runners for Thrall,” sent to make sure they wouldn’t be bothered by the residents. Despite a few knowing looks among themselves at the absurdity of armed children protecting Nighthawks, Cilas and team fell in with the youngsters.
The parking lot had been outside the tall wall that separated the stockade, or stocks—as the natives named it—from the free-standing buildings and beach that bordered the property. Once inside, it became a market, and outside of the smell, no one dared try to speak or approach their party. Children were everywhere, running and laughing when they weren’t crying or screaming from some mischief.
It all rang similar to the hubs that Helga had experienced, and though she stayed guarded, it just didn’t feel as ominous as it looked from a distance. The adults looked hardy, and the gangsters became evident to the Nighthawks once they realized that they were the best dressed, and the only ones brave enough to stare. No BasPol presence was felt here, unless they were out of uniform to mask their identity.
It all seemed like just another night for the residents, without any of the violence that they had been told to expect from agents of William Vray. The Nighthawks walked in silence, bowed in cloaks against the drizzling rain, which didn’t seem to bother the residents. Eventually they reached Fio’s building, a six-floor stack with a busy, open market on the ground floor. Fio’s home was on the third floor between a hair salon and a gun store.
“Who are you?” a child’s voice shouted, and Helga looked up to see a bundle of limbs and rags drop from above, though their guides didn’t seem too concerned that they were being attacked. It was a boy, no older than 11 years old, with a shock of red hair, freckles, and a ratty brown raincoat that had seen better days. He had stuck the landing masterfully, bounded up and walked towards them, unafraid of the two armed boys, and the strangers draped in cloaks.
The shorter of the two armed boys stepped forward to intercept his path, mumbled something unintelligible, and the boy stopped his approach to mumble something back. “This one knows Miss Fio,” the boy relayed to Cilas in a broken attempt at Universal Vestalian. “He is, what’s the word?” he asked his taller partner, who made a sign with one hand before falling back dutifully to watch the upper tiers. “He is a lookout, you understand? Fio’s friend. Maybe you speak to him?”
“Is this really necessary?” Helga muttered. “We’re completely exposed out here.”
“Exposed is why he’s on us,” Raileo explained over comms. “Like a hub, these stocks aren’t exactly safe for anyone, even if you grew up here. Fio likely pays the neighborhood children to be her eyes and ears. This little man is only doing his job. Could be useful actually, if we can convince him that we’re with her.”
Cilas pushed back the hood of his cloak and approached the boy, who shrunk back hesitantly when he saw the Nighthawk’s tired red eyes above his rawboned, unimpressed visage. “Fio hired us to come because she’s in trouble,” he relayed flatly. “She cannot come home until the bad men are gone. We will be here for a few days, waiting, so when they arrive, they have us to deal with and not her. Understand?”
The boy looked over at the Genesians to get their cosign, and when they gave it, he stepped back and bowed. “I will watch too, for Fio,” he responded dutifully. “I live upstairs, but come down using the pipes.” His grin was a child’s grin, full of mischief, shattering Helga’s icy defenses when she realized he was trying to be brave for his friends.
“If anyone comes, we would prefer you stay inside,” Cilas instructed him. “There will be—”
“BasPol,” the boy blurted out. “They come before, for Fio. This is why she hired you, I understand. My name is Aquilo, I can see far from up there.” He gestured to the floor above Fio’s level. “I saw when you come in, I warned everybody. I will do it again when they come tomorrow. You can count on me. Hey, I gave you my name, what is yours?”
“Cilas. I am Cilas, and those four are Helga, Ray, Q, and Anders. You say you live upstairs, with your parents?”
The boy shook his head hesitantly as if he worried that in admitting to having parents, he had somehow compromised his family. “
When you see them coming, Aquilo, you and whoever you live with need to look out for yourselves. Do you understand?” Cilas opened his coat to expose the shiny black auto-rifle hanging from his shoulder, and the young lookout’s face lit up with amusement.
“I understand,” the boy said quickly, scanning each of their faces with a newfound respect.
“Give us a moment.” Quentin’s deep voice brought their attention around to where he shambled forward towards Cilas and their new friend. He knelt on the wet floor to level his eyes with that of the child, and started talking to him in a language that Helga did not understand. “We can go in now, he does understand the situation,” he finally said, touching fists with the young man, who was astonished to find that one of their number was a fellow Genesian.
Cilas tipped their guides and let himself in using Fio’s door code. Inside was a tiny, three-room apartment with cream-colored walls, soft black carpeting, and humble furnishings. It was all so normal and neat that Helga had to reassess her thoughts on Fio Doro, and how she knew next to nothing about their resident fugitive. They placed their packs near the door and laid their wet cloaks and boots on top of them. It was cold inside the apartment, but Raileo located the heating unit and soon they were comfortable.
“It’s a shame she had to leave all her things,” Helga said, reaching down to pick up a baby doll that seemed to have been waiting for her owner. There was a handgun wedged into the cus
hions below it, prompting a nod of appreciation from Quentin Tutt.
“That Fio’s no fool,” Raileo said, plopping down next to Anders, who looked ready to pass out at any minute. “She had us come here to collect her things. Shelter’s just our payment.”
Cilas seemed to find that amusing. “I was thinking the same thing. Look at this place. She must have worked years to have it look so nice? Compared to all the schtill she’s made to live in.”
“Can you imagine living down here?” Helga said. “Stuck between that vast ocean and all of this schtill?”
Raileo raised his hand sheepishly, followed by Cilas, and Anders, though reluctantly. All three had been born on hubs, the spatial equivalent of the tenements. She felt foolish and exposed, wanting to reel back time and lock her lips. Of course, they could imagine this miserable life; it was the reason their parents had sent them to the Alliance. Her story was different. She was the child of a Marine and an architect. There was no poverty, just loss, and she had been practically raised on a starship.
“Well, guess who looks like an ass now,” she surrendered, rolling her eyes. “Q, a little help? You see me bleeding out here?”
“I don’t think the lieutenant is questioning the conditions so much as the fact that there’s no access to space,” Quentin tried, earning him a chorus of boos from the three men.
Helga threw up her hand to get their attention. “I’m just trying to say that I admire Fio,” she explained. “I admit it, I underestimated her. Thought her to be just a lucky survivor who needed protection. Being here really gives me perspective on the reality of her situation. You can say it puts the story together. We don’t get to pick the conditions of our birth; I get that. The majority of our recruits do come from hubs. I just want you all to know that’s what I meant.”