Iron Legion Battlebox

by David Ryker

  I coughed, and then laughed a little. “No, I’m Red.”

  Volchec’s lip quivered, maybe with rage, but then she laughed and slapped Greg’s hull. “You’ve got to be the stupidest pilot I’ve ever met! All this for a goddamn AI.” She shook her head and turned away. I heard her boots on the rungs of the ladder heading up to the cockpit, and then the door wooshing closed.

  She must have sealed the cockpit and opened the rear doors to catch me. I mean, I was hoping that’s what they were going to do, but it was a relief to know they cared enough to try.

  Alice was shaking her head at me. “You’re an idiot,” she muttered, resting her elbows on the edge of the hatch. “A brave idiot, but an idiot all the same.” She pushed off. “Now come on, we’ve got a goddamn Tenshi to catch.”

  She moved away from Greg and headed back up toward the cockpit. I flexed my hands, willing the blood back into them. My breath was still misting in front of my face but I could feel the warmth seeping back into my bones. “Greg? You still with me?”

  “Yes, James.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Me too, James.”

  22

  The thing that I’d clanged into was Alice’s Mech. Greg lay slumped against it, lame and half destroyed, his left leg in tatters, his left arm a stump at the wrist, the plasma pistol missing altogether. But it didn’t matter, because he’d survived, and everything else was worth it.

  I strapped him down and made for the cockpit, dropping into one of the seats at the back next to Alice. Everett was up front next to Volchec, and cast only a cursory glance over her shoulder as I came in. She nodded, and I returned it, a smile flickering across her lips for a second before fading.

  “How we looking?” I asked, pulling on my harness.

  Alice looked across at me, over her folded arms. “Since you told Mac about him, Volchec’s been scanning the station, the ports, the airlocks — a couple of ships got the hell out of Dodge before shit hit the fan, just best practice I suppose, but we’ve narrowed it down. Only two left that were real cruisers with any sort of go in them. One was a merchant’s private vessel registered to a private trader off of Venneron, a little planet in a Kubo system. The other one was an unmarked envoy ship registered to the TC. There was no crew or cargo manifest attached, and it’s hauling ass.”

  “That’s got to be him,” I said, nodding.

  “That was what we were thinking. We’re tailing him right now, got him tracked at about thirty clicks.”

  “Eighty,” Volchec called over her shoulder. “Scooping your stupid ass out of space cost us fifty.”

  I hung my head. If we lost him because of me, then that was another fuck-up on my shoulders. Alice was smiling and jabbed me in the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. You survived, and you saved our lives, too. So what you almost died protecting an AI. It’s not like you’re the first.” She shrugged.

  That was good to hear. “Really?” I said, perking up a little.

  She barely stifled a laugh. “Oh, you thought I was serious? No, you probably are. But hey,” she said, raising her hands, into an emphatic shrug. “I’m not judging.”

  “Quiet,” Volchec called again, touching her hand to her ear and the comm-dot she was wearing. “Fuck!” She slammed her fist into the center console and sucked in a hard breath. She tapped a few keys and static filled the cockpit. “This just came through. Galactic broadcast.”

  A voice cut the air, the transmission already in progress “ — at approximately seventeen hundred hours yesterday, a group of rogue operatives aboard the Athena overpowered several Federation employees and commandeered a Federation vessel. They escaped with four mechanized units, bound for Notia. The attack that occurred there in the last hour was a direct result of their unsanctioned actions, and was not approved by the Federation, who hold no responsibility for the acts of war they have perpetrated. The suspects are presumed armed and extremely dangerous, and will be dealt with by the Federation swiftly, and without mercy. It is the intention of the Federation to preserve the state of peace that exists between them and the Trading Collective. Do not attempt to approach these individuals, who are acting outside of their stations in the Federation, which have already been revoked pending formal investigation. All people, one Federation.” There was a few seconds of white noise, and then the transmission looped back around.

  Volchec punched the console again. “Goddammit!”

  Everett reached out and grabbed her arm. “Hey — they had to put that out. They’re just pre-empting the backlash. Once we pass on what we know, they’ll change their tune — hell, they’ll probably reward us! We’re about to expose the biggest conspiracy in Federation history — the Trading Collective and the Free — working together? It’s going to change everything.”

  “Not if we go back empty-handed,” Volchec grunted, seething.

  Everett smirked and tightened her harness. “Then we’d better catch up to this fucking Tenshi before he gets away.”

  Volchec cracked her neck and grabbed the controls. I felt the engines open up overhead and then the pull as we started accelerating.

  I could see a green reticle on the screen ahead, though whatever it was focused on was too far away to make out. It had to be the Tenshi’s ship. Next to it was a number that was counting down. It said seventy-six thousand, four hundred and twenty meters, but by the time I got done reading the number, it was down to seventy-five.

  No one said a word as we reeled them in, the engines screaming as Volchec pushed us harder. I could see her knuckles white around the controls, even from the back of the cockpit.

  “They’re going to know we’re on them real soon,” she almost whispered, her jaw clenched..

  I swallowed and looked down at my hands, like pincers around the armrests. Alice’s attention was undivided on the screen ahead, all of ours was. She shifted in her seat and put her hand on top of mine.

  I stared at it for a few seconds, but she didn’t move. I looked up at her, but she didn’t turn her head. I could feel her squeezing gently, but there was no way she didn’t know it wasn’t my hand. Hell, it was swollen and purple and bandaged. But she didn’t take it off, and I didn’t move.

  “Alright,” Volchec announced. “Strap in, it’s showtime.”

  The ship loomed into view, a spec of white on a black canvas. We were coming up on it fast.

  Volchec reached down to the controls between her and Everett. “Arm cannons,” she said assuredly. “Prep flares and sidewinders. Let’s incapacitate this fucker before he even knows we’re—”

  Before she had chance to finish the sentence, a shockwave rippled out from the craft ahead. It was tinged with blue and shot out in all directions like an expanding orb.

  It hit us and the ship rocked violently, all the controls blinking on and off. Alice’s grip tightened on my hand and Everett clutched at her ribs, hissing in pain.

  “What the fuck was that?” Mac yelled.

  Fish’s gills were flapping.

  “Jesus — I don’t know,” Volchec said, furiously working through the starter sequences to get everything back online.

  “Looked like an Iskcara-pulse,” Everett groaned. “That’s how it feels when they engage the wormhole-engine on a destroyer.”

  “It can’t be — that ship’s tiny,” Volchec said in response.

  “EMP?” Mac chimed in. “To stop us?”

  “No, all systems are normal. A little stutter, but we’re good now — we’d be dead weight if it was.”

  “Then what… Holy shit,” Mac trailed off, leaning out of his chair and staring out the window.

  We were still coming up quickly on the other ship. It seemed to have come to a complete stop, but not for no reason.

  “Please tell me you’re seeing this,” Mac said.

  “Seeing… not believing,” Everett answered.

  Volchec was muttering to herself, typing wildly into the center console.

  Ahead, the ship was hovering, a thin blue line firing out
of a cannon mounted on the nose. It lanced into space a few hundred meters and then seemed to hit nothing, ending in a blob of sparks and pulsating energy.

  “What the fuck are they—”

  “Shut up, MacCalister!” Volchec yelled, pulling back hard on the throttle. The ship juddered to a halt, decelerating sickeningly fast.

  Ahead, the blob of energy was growing. I could feel waves of energy pulsing through the ship, the shell groaning and bending under the stress ever so slightly.

  A second burst of energy sent off another shockwave and we rocked backward like a canoe in the tug of a wave.

  Where the beam ended, a circle suddenly appeared. It was about twice as wide as our ship, and just wide enough to accommodate the one creating it. The beam seemed to shoot into the middle and then disappear into a blue haze. The outside of the ring rippled like plasma and hung in space. The beam cut suddenly and the ship started trundling toward it, its engines flaring.

  “That’s a fucking wormhole!” Mac yelled.

  “It can’t be a wormhole, it’s impossible to—” Volchec started.

  “It bloody fucking is! And they’re going through it!”

  “We’re going to lose them!” I couldn’t help but yell myself.

  “I’m not taking us through that thing—”

  “They’re getting away!” I was straining against my harness.

  “We have no idea where it’s going to—”

  “If we don’t then they’re fucking gone and we’re going to get killed for this!”

  “Maddox, shut up!”

  “Volchec.” Everett was talking now, suddenly tapping into the console. A big square appeared on screen, encapsulating the ship and the wormhole. The word RECORDING appeared in the top corner. She kept typing and the word TRANSMITTING joined it. “I’m capturing this and sending it back to the Federation — we have to go after them — at least this will tell them what the hell’s happening…” She didn’t sound sure, but how could she be?

  Volchec looked at her, face pale. She swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay,” she said, digging her feet into the throttles. The engines roared and we slingshotted forward. She reached for her neck and touched the dot behind her ear. “This is Major Annelise Volchec. We are currently in pursuit of a possible Tenshi. If you’re seeing this footage and hearing this recording, then know that we did all we could on Notia,” she paused, watching as the ship ahead slipped effortlessly through the portal and disappeared. “Ahem — Smith was entangled with the Trading Collective, and revealed that they are working together — them and the Free — he was killed in the crossfire, but we discovered the presence of a Tenshi onboard, and are in pursuit—”

  “It’s fucking closing!” Mac yelled again, pointing at the screen. He was right. It was. The ring was starting to fizzle and shrink. “Faster!”

  “ — we have reason to believe,” Volchec kept going, her voice shaking with every meter we gained towards the portal, “that the Tenshi is reporting back to Katherine Fox, known fugitive from the Federation, and we are being forced to—”

  We were nearly there, the wormhole snapping shut. Volchec’s feet were pinned to the floor and we were all pressed against our seats. Alice’s hand was white around mine, her jaw set, pulse hammering in her neck. The blue ring loomed. It was like looking through a window at the ocean floor.

  The waves of energy were stronger now. Every bolt in the hull was rattling. The screens started stuttering and went static. My teeth started tingling, my hands vibrating. My stomach turned over, and then over again, and then we were there.

  We hit the blue haze at speed and it felt like we were hitting a wall. We all slammed forward in our harnesses. Everett yelled out in pain, her broken ribs taking the brunt of it. Alice hissed, the graze on her hip pulling against the strap.

  All the wind was knocked out of me and when I pulled my head back, gasping for air, we were very, very far from the Notia.

  All of our screens were dark. We really were dead weight this time. The big ships were shielded for wormhole travel. Ours wasn’t. Wasn’t made for it. Wasn’t made to withstand the stresses. We’d gone through one side, and been spat out the other. The windscreen was nothing but a window, and Volchec had stopped speaking. We weren’t transmitting anymore. Everyone was as silent as the grave, staring in awe out of the window.

  Ahead we could see the Tenshi’s ship, sweeping down toward what could only have been described as an armada.

  Our ship tumbled slowly through space, nose down, tail rising. I could feel the hair rising off my head. Our gravity core was shot, too. Everything was offline.

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Volchec broke the silence first. Her sentiment was shared.

  Below us I could see a huge cuboid at the heart of a makeshift station, and I recognized it immediately. It was the missing construction plant that Fox had stolen all those years ago. But it wasn’t just a plant anymore. Ships and other structures had been affixed to it. Hundreds were docked and flying around it, too, like bees at a hive. Behind, a planet with a yellowed surface loomed. The station was in orbit around it and a dirty orange sun burning in the far distance.

  Between us and the station, though, was the most worrying thing. I didn’t recognize the model but there was no denying what it was — a destroyer, armed to the teeth.

  Volchec had clocked it immediately, and it sure as hell knew we were there, too. It lumbered up toward us, twisting through space. She was jabbing at buttons and pumping the manual engine starter, but nothing was happening. “Come on, come on,” she was muttering.

  The destroyer came closer, already blocking out most of the window.

  “Come on you son of a bitch,” Volchec snarled, punching the console. “Fucking start!”

  The destroyer leveled and came about, a huge cannon on its bow rising and turning toward us.

  “Volchec…” Mac started.

  “I know, MacCalister.”

  I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. There was nothing we could do. Nowhere to go.

  Volchec kept pumping the starter and the engines turned over heavily, chugging but not catching.

  My mind was whirling. The Free. The Federation. Draven. Telmareen. Smith. Fox. That’s how she’d gotten halfway across the galaxy and back in a day — the Free, they had some sort of device — compact, but able to create wormholes. They had free rein of the universe with it. But how could the Federation not know? Why did the Free have it but not us? I knew how big our wormhole drives were. Ten times the size of our Tilt-wing alone, and the energy needed to spin one up was enough to power a planet. And yet the Free had them in ships barely bigger than the one we were in. It didn’t make any sense. It was beyond reasoning.

  The destroyer seemed to halt, the barrel of its main cannon pointing right at us. A faint glow began to emanate from it.

  “Volchec, if you’re going to start this thing, now would be a good time.” It was weird hearing Mac’s voice without any humor in it.

  Volchec yelled something indistinct, ripped the handle out and jammed it so hard into its housing I thought the console was going to shatter.

  The engines overhead coughed a couple of times, and then everything in the cabin lit up. She jammed her feet into the floor and we zoomed forward. The cannon flashed in the side window and a beam of light blasted past us — a rail pulse. The bulk of it missed, but we weren’t far enough away to get out clean. The heat and the force warped the hull and the near side engine exploded in an eruption of white flame, taking half the wing with it. It filled the side of the windscreen and the force tossed us sideways, end over end. We spun toward the planet, the sun strobing in the window as we twirled, all fighting against the centrifugal force. The second engine was wailing but it was no good; we were out of control.

  The quickening pulse of the remaining engine as it wheeled over itself was like a heartbeat, straining at its limits.

  The destroyer seemed to fade into the distance, the cobbled-together station growing qui
ckly. Every snatched glance we had through the windows as we tumbled brought it closer, and then it was moving away again.

  The yellow dustball filled the screen in seconds and all the controls and screens started flashing red, warning us of imminent entry.

  No one could speak. Everyone was just trying to hold on. Debris flew around the cabin, hitting the ceiling, then the walls, and then the floor before shooting upward again.

  Fish hissed and squealed. Mac was grunting. I was screaming.

  I could feel sweat beading on my face, the breath hot in my lungs. We were encased in flames, hurtling down through the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

  Volchec was still trying to fight the controls. I could see her fingers outstretched, desperately reaching for the console, her arm waving violently like a cornstalk in a tornado.

  She scrabbled at it and then jerked back in her chair, using her other hand on the armrest to pull herself across for a second attempt.

  She reached out and held on with fingertips, making a grab for a handle under the main screen. Everett was holding onto her harness, her blond hair whipping around. Alice was the same, her fingers still locked around mine.

  Volchec grabbed the handle, and pushed.

  My back clicked violently and I thought my spine had snapped. Red hot air howled through the flaps as Volchec deployed them and the sound of rending metal cut through the cabin. One of them snapped off and whipped into the atmosphere with a dull thwop like spinning rotors.

  We went into a flat spin, the motion no less difficult to deal with or sickening.

  “We’re coming in way too fast!” Volchec yelled hoarsely. “Get to your rigs! It’s your only chance!”

  Mac unstrapped first, Fish with him, and they lurched past us, panting. It was hotter than all hell in the cabin and I could hear the fluids in the guts of the ship boiling and bursting.

  Alice reached down to her chest and unfastened her harness. She struggled to her feet and then sprawled past me. I still had her hand and she swung around on it and out onto the catwalk.

  “Maddox, get out of here!” Volchec was yelling, still trying to pilot the ship, but it was no good. We only had one wing, the second engine had overheated and cut out, half our flaps had ripped off, and we had no way to slow down.