by PP Corcoran
“Understood, sir, and good luck. I wish I was going with you.”
Alastair gave Quant’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before it was finally time for him to depart, leaving the sergeant alone in her darkened, underground bunker. Quant blocked out the sound of his receding footsteps and commanded her eyes to remain fixed on her display as she tried to make some sense of what was happening hundreds of miles above her head.
* * * * *
Chapter Four
No Time To Mourn
“Whenever you are ready, Mr. Horak,” Kate said, more of a command than an invitation. One which the Pendal pilot reacted to with calm, precise movements as his lower limbs engaged the Salamanca’s lift motors while his upper limbs were still running through the checklist to ensure the final personnel lock was secured and the ramp retracted behind the final person to board. Alastair Sinclair.
The same Alastair Sinclair, as if on cue, slipped into the only spare seat on the cramped bridge. His seat, sensing the ship’s acceleration, automatically deployed its restraints to secure Alastair in place. A good thing for Alastair as Horak steadily increased thrust, raising the nose of the ship, as the engines strained to push the 50,000-ton, fully-loaded merchantman skyward. Alastair and the rest of the bridge crew were pushed further back into their padded seats as the G-forces steadily increased. The seat deployed its G-shroud, wrapping Alastair’s arms, legs, and chest in its protective layers, contracting around his limbs and forcing blood to his brain to enable him to continue functioning. He spared a thought for his troopers, squeezed together like sardines in a can in their makeshift seats in the ship’s cargo holds, completely unprotected from the overpowering G-forces. The repeater display, which had deployed from the armrest of his seat, indicated Horak was pushing the ship toward the upper limit of the Human body’s ability to withstand the G-forces pushing down on it. Alastair felt his muscles straining as the G number passed six Gs. The G-shroud would allow him to continue operating until around nine Gs, depending on his personal tolerance, but he knew that his unprotected troopers would, at the current six Gs, be suffering from grey out, where their vision lost hue, while some may already have passed out.
After three minutes, Horak throttled the engines back as the Salamanca passed through the waning atmosphere and began to enter space proper. Alastair felt the crushing weight lift from his chest as he watched in strange fascination as a small slate that had not been secured before lift-off floated lazily past. Reaching out with one hand, he plucked it from the air and slipped it into the storage pocket on the leg of his utility suit. Better to be safe than sorry. If Horak was forced to make any radical, high-G maneuvers, that slate could very quickly turn into a ballistic weapon, either causing damage to equipment on the bridge or, worse still, striking some poor member of the bridge crew. And that included Alastair.
“Let’s keep all our active radio, radar, and lidar transmissions locked down good and tight, everybody. No need to give any of those warships a nice, new, shiny target,” said Kate from her seat at the center of the small bridge. “Mr. Jacobsthal.”
The dual-hatted communications and defensive systems officer, originally from South Africa, cocked his head so his sun-tanned face and searing blue eyes faced his captain.
“Bring up the feed from Sergeant Quant and put it on the main Tri-V.” An area of the bridge wall measuring twenty-feet-square resolved itself into a shifting, fuzzy, and confusing picture of the space surrounding the Salamanca out to fifteen hundred miles.
As expected of an industrialized planet, every type of craft filled the near-space of Earth: merchantmen, private cruisers, tugs, intra-system small craft, and many others of every shape and size. All had one thing in common. Each ship pushed their engines to the max to get clear of the deadly missiles and flashing, coherent-light weapons of the battling warships.
Alastair was the first to admit he was no expert on ship-to-ship warfare, and certainly not on this scale.
As the icon of a Human destroyer flickered and died, a palpable silence descended on the bridge.
The situation was dire. Even to Alastair, it was obvious that whomever the invaders were, they were rapidly gaining the upper hand.
Kate leaned forward in her seat, eyes flickering in all directions, as she sought to pick a safe route for the Salamanca and its precious cargo. “Aha! Mr. Horak, one-eight-six mark two-three should pass us well clear of that HecSha guided missile cruiser. Even if she picks us up, she’ll think we are just another merchie trying to get clear of the fighting and get away through the stargate.”
* * *
G’Yal’s shortened, prehensile tail flicked involuntarily from side to side in short, sharp motions, and a pair of large, ovoid nostrils at the end of a long, flattened, lime-green snout flared, sure signs to G’Yal’s crew that the commander of the HecSha guided missile cruiser, Great Claw, was enjoying himself. In this assumption, they would have been correct, for G’Yal and his crews’ participation in this contract was no coincidence. Their employer had sought them out for they had known that money only buys so much loyalty. The need for revenge, however, goes much further. And that need burned deep within the HecSha aboard Great Claw and its sister ships. When the Human-led ships of the Winged Hussars burned his nest mates from the skies in the F11 rich Ligal system in the Praf sector, they had made a blood enemy of G’Yal. His ship, Great Claw, circled the Humans’ sparkling blue and white globe, and G’Yal struggled to keep his burgeoning excitement in check as he watched the few Human ships who had decided to fight be washed away in the eye-searing light of megawatt lasers and waves of missiles. G’Yal could hardly contain himself as he struggled with the conflict between the need to follow his orders—to remain in his blocking position over the landmass the Humans called Western Europe while sweeping its skies with his armed drone craft—and the desire to join the battle raging over the Americas.
“Commander,” called the HecSha manning the tactical sensors, “a ship approaches at high G! A Luka-class merchantman.”
“Point of origin?” Demanded G’Yal.
The crewmember interrogated his computers, swiftly backtracking the ship’s flight path. “The northern part of an island off the main land mass.” A corner of his thin, rubbery lip rose to expose razor-sharp, yellowed teeth. “The area is listed as one of those belonging to a Human mercenary company.” A thick, clawed finger ran down the electronic compendium supplied by their employer for this contract until it came to rest on a name. “Sinclair’s Scorpions.”
A merchant ship running from a known Human mercenary base made it a viable target by the rules of engagement set down in the contract, and it would bring a large bounty when the ship and its cargo was sold to the highest bidder. G’Yal flexed his triple-clawed hands, his claws raking the reinforced armrests as his elongated spine tingled with anticipation. The claws dug fresh scratches to join the numerous ones already there. “Helmsman, plot an intercept course. Weapons, bring the spinal laser on line and load the forward missile tubes. Tactical, re-task one of the drones to fly past the ship’s point of origin. If there are any more ships, I want to know.” One of the few inviolable rules of warfare in the Galactic Union was that no spaceship could fire on a planet’s surface from an altitude of more than ten miles. By using semi-autonomous armed drones which flew below this height, the HecSha and others could get around this rule. As long as they still did not order devastating mass strikes, the Union was willing to turn a blind eye to this ‘bending’ of the rule. In G’Yal’s case, the drones under his command were intended for reconnaissance purposes only, though they did, of course, carry several missiles ‘for their own protection.’
Orders given, G’Yal felt the familiar pressure of increasing G-force as the Great Claw came about onto the intercept course plotted by its helmsman and increased speed. Through his seat, he felt the thrum of the fusion plants coming to full power and filling the capacitors with the energy required by the cruiser’s main hundred-terawatt lasers, while wea
pons crews did final checks on sleek, telegraph pole-sized anti-ship missiles before loading them into their launch tubes. In less than two minutes, Great Claw was ready for combat.
G’Yal’s pink tongue flicked out to wet his lips as the thrill of the hunt filled him like it had his ancestors on the great plains of his home world. “Time to intercept?”
“Twelve minutes, Commander. Permission to paint the target?” replied the Tactical Officer.
G’Yal paused momentarily as he considered the request. If he allowed the Tactical Officer to activate the targeting and acquisition radar, his prey would almost certainly pick up the waves of electromagnetic energy directed at it and may take evasive action. On the other hand, his missiles and lasers would need the targeting data if they were to successfully intercept the fleeing merchantman, and, as G’Yal reminded himself, it was only a merchantman after all, what chance did it have against a warship?
“Granted,” said G’Yal.
* * *
“Shit! Shit! Shit! That’s not good,” Kate Preissman exclaimed to no one as the Tri-V dispassionately noted the course change of the HecSha missile cruiser.
From his seat against the rear bulkhead, Alastair Sinclair strained against his restraints as he tried to see what caused his aunt’s outburst. Without the benefit of access to the repeater screens which sprouted like multiple arms from Kate’s seat, he was reliant on others telling him what was going on. A situation Alastair found most uncomfortable.
“What’s happening?” he demanded.
With a tap of the foot release, Kate spun her seat to face him, worry lines plain on her face. “Looks like that cruiser wants a piece of us. What the hell is going on here, Alastair?”
Alastair shook his head slowly. “I truly wish I knew.”
Kate’s eyes hovered on her nephew for a few more seconds, realizing eventually that she was not going to get a better answer to her question, before spinning her seat around again and locking it in place. With a tap of a control, she activated the inter-ship comm, and a three-tone whistle sounded throughout the Salamanca, followed a heartbeat later by Kate’s stoic voice. “All hands. Prepare for radical maneuvering!” Cutting the comm, Kate addressed her bridge crew. “OK, people, this isn’t going to be pretty, but those HecSha bastards have no idea what they have bitten off with the Salamanca.” Focusing on one crewmember she gave the command that committed the Salamanca to the fight. “Mr. Jacobsthal, if you please.”
A predatory grin spread over Jacobsthal’s face as perfect white teeth, appearing prominently in his darkly-tanned features, were bared. With a command through his pinplants, a dozen protective housings along the upper and lower spine of the speeding merchantman slipped obediently aside to reveal stubby-nosed, rapid-fire railguns. The guns may be as useful as spit against the oncoming cruiser’s multiphase shield array, but, when used as a close-in weapon system, the clouds of the baseball-sized tungsten balls they threw into the paths of incoming missiles, drones, or small crafts, were deadly.
“Keep the array and electronic countermeasures off-line for the moment, Mr. Jacobsthal,” said Kate, anticipating and staying the man’s next move. “They think we are just a plain old slow and dumb merchie ripe for the picking. Let’s keep them suffering from that delusion for as long as we can. Knowing the HecSha, they’ll try and seize us as a prize, and to do that they’ll have to get within knife-fighting range. Probably send over a boarding party, so let’s keep the really good news under wraps till then, shall we?”
A short burst of laughter echoed around the bridge, and a confused Alastair stared open-mouthed from face to face. Were these people nuts? There was no way a merchie like the Salamanca could take on a HecSha guided missile cruiser, but it looked like Kate was about to. Well, if she was going to fight, then he was damned if he would sit idly by and do nothing. Kate had mentioned a boarding party, and Alastair knew exactly how to give a boarding party a warm reception.
“Permission to leave the bridge, Captain?” Alastair asked as he fumbled with the unfamiliar seat restraints.
Kate’s seat spun to face him. “And where the hell do you think you are going, Alastair?” she demanded.
The last restraint came free, and Alastair stood, shrugging off his utilities, to reveal the thin haptic suit beneath. He was now held in place only by two-foot holds as the lack of gravity vainly attempted to float him across the bridge. “You mentioned a boarding party. Would it not be polite of us to greet them properly?”
A wicked grin tugged at Kate’s lips as a throaty chortle escaped her. “You, Alastair Sinclair, are a bad man.” She glanced at one of her repeater screens. “You have nine minutes until we begin maneuvers, and God help anybody who isn’t strapped in.”
“Understood.” Alastair slipped out of the foot holds and pushed deftly for the armored bridge doors, which opened with a hiss of hydraulics at a command from Kate. Pulling himself hand-over-hand toward the cargo bays where his troops and their CASPers were situated, he activated his link to Jamie and Tim.
“First Platoon Zulu and Third Platoon Gamma, prepare to repel boarders. You have seven minutes to get suited up and ready to move.”
* * *
The silence of the communications bunker was broken by the steady hum of the electronics which were the only thing keeping Katrian Quant company. The tech sergeant’s full attention was locked on the feed she was getting from Traffic Control. Dozens of ships highlighted in red were now either in Earth’s orbit or descending into the atmosphere.
“Fuck!” A command enlarged the area around the projected flight path of the Salamanca as one of the red icons—the computer identified it as a HecSha cruiser—broke from its orbit and powered toward the ship carrying her friends and colleagues. Almost without conscious thought, Quant sent a query to the central comms computer to ensure the feed was still being relayed to the fleeing ship in real-time. As the computer confirmed her link was still strong, a voice intruded on the silence of the bunker.
“Comms, this is Lapole. I have forty-two souls aboard, and I’m ready to lift. You better get your ass over here if you want a ride.”
Quant threw another glance at the screen upon which the computer had helpfully traced the intercept course of the HecSha cruiser. It took Quant only a moment to come to her decision. “Negative, ma’am. It looks like the Salamanca might be in trouble, so I think I’ll stay right here in case they need me.”
For a long second, silence lingered over the comms link before a softer voice, which Quant barely recognized as belonging to the tough-as-nails Supply Officer, replied. “Understood, Sergeant. Good luck, Trooper, and I’ll see you at the Lodge. Lapole, out.”
* * *
Cristin Lapole gently eased the throttles forward, and the assault flitter rose from the pad in response. In the co-pilot’s seat beside her, Mhairi Sinclair set her jaw and busied herself with the controls arrayed before her. Cristin spared a sideways glance at Mhairi, who had overheard the exchange between Cristin and Quant, so there was no hiding the fact that her father-in-law, Alastair, her brother-in-law, Jamie, and the other troopers aboard the Salamanca were in danger. However, like the professional pilot Mhairi had been before marrying the eldest Sinclair son, Charlie, and retiring from mercenary life, she was entirely focused on the job at hand—ensuring her two children, strapped into the rear of the flitter, and the thirty-nine other family members and dependents of the Scorpions—reach the safety of the Lodge.
“Power coming up nicely, Cristin. Twenty feet…thirty feet…forty feet…fifty feet. Ready to transition into forward flight.”
In the left-hand seat, Cristin deftly twisted the stick, bringing the twin turbofans from vertical to horizontal, allowing the nose to dip as the flitter picked up speed.
“Estimated flight time, twenty-six minutes,” called out Mhairi. Out of muscle memory more than conscious thought, Mhairi brought the assault flitter’s threat detection systems online, only for the system to immediately scream.
Mhairi
’s eyes widened.
“HecSha search radar! Five miles and closing.”
Cristin responded instinctively, dropping the nose of the flitter even further and adding power, hoping to confuse the radar searching for them by hiding in the back clutter from the towering pine trees.
* * *
“Commander. The drones are reporting a second launch originating from the same area as the merchantman. A Human assault flitter.”
G’Yal had been concentrating on the chase, calculating the minor adjustments needed to place his cruiser on course with the merchantman’s in order to bring his main laser batteries to bear before launching his armed boarding party and seizing the vessel. The interruption of his Tactical Officer was unexpected and he reacted without considering his actions fully.
“Probably a group of mercenaries trying to escape before we round up the cowards. Order the drones to engage and destroy.”
The Tactical Officer acknowledged his orders and input the necessary commands, his attention returning to the bigger prize of the merchantman as he imagined the riches it carried and how he would spend his share.
At an altitude of thirty thousand feet, the central processor deep in the heart of the plastic and gel brain of the drone received the command.
Processing…confirming location…location confirmed.
Mode—Track and survey…off.
Mode—Attack…on.
Much faster than any Human reaction, the drone switched modes and targeted the armored flitter.
The radar in the nose increased its pulse until a near constant stream hammered the skin of the flitter with electromagnetic energy. The fire control computer took account of the back scatter caused by ground clutter but dismissed it. A thin seam along the bottom of the drone’s radar-absorbent material split and widened, exposing the weapon’s hold and a rotary drum from which six evil-looking missiles hung.