Fortunes of War (Stellar Main Book 1)

by Richard Tongue

“Wait,” Garcia said. “Listen. Up above.”

  “All I can hear is the rain,” Kruger said, shaking his head. “Endless, damned…”

  “No, listen!” Garcia said.

  Carter strained to here, and then heard the same as Garcia. It sounded like thunder, but it wasn’t thunder. A sonic boom, up above, high, high up.

  A ship was coming into land. And somehow, she knew that it didn’t have their best interests at heart.

  Chapter 15

  “Confirmed,” Wu said, shaking her head. “We’ve got company coming. Looks like an old Magellan-class scoutship.” Turning to Schmitt, she added, “Load up.”

  “With what?” he asked.

  “Guns. Lots of guns. This ship isn’t armed worth a damn, and it might have a nice tough hull, but it won’t stand up against serious assault. We’re going to have to beat back the bastards outside the ship, where it’s nice and safe.” She smiled, and added, “Looks like I’m going to get a chance to play with some of my new toys.”

  “Hippocratic oath,” Schmitt replied, shaking his head. “Do no harm.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means you’re on your own with this one. I swore a vow not to take life, and that means a lot to me. More than my own, if it comes to it.”

  Turning to him, her hands balling into fists, she said, “I thought you were in the Patrol? Didn’t they teach you anything about firing weapons in basic training?”

  “And I did rather well on the range, but I always made it quite clear that I would never take a life.” He paused, then said, “I was a medical officer. A staff officer. I was never going to be in a position to directly be responsible for the death of another. I always informed my commanding officer of that decision before I joined each ship, and they never had a problem with it.” Cracking a thin smile, he added, “I’m actually a pretty damn good doctor.”

  “You mean if I drew on you…”

  “You wouldn’t pull the trigger. Not in cold blood. Though you look a little too eager to walk into situations where you might not be given a choice.” Stepping forward, he said, “Have you ever seen battle? Ever faced combat trauma? Ever seen what happens when someone gets killed by the weapons you sell?”

  Nodding, she replied, “I was born on Nova Galicia. The Uprising was my fourteenth birthday present. My mother died, killed by a sniper, and my father and I ended up fighting our way to the spaceport with everything we could salvage from his ship, trading the last of it for enough credits to buy our way to Colchis. We arrived with nothing, and if an old friend hadn’t arranged a bank loan, we’d be on the streets right now. So yes, Doctor, I’ve seen people die, and I’ve taken lives, and while I know how horrible it is, and know what it feels like, I also know that there are some people worth putting down!”

  Taking a deep breath, Schmitt replied, “We don’t actually know whether or not we’re dealing with more of the pirates. This could be random chance. Or not so random, if someone found out we were heading out this way and decided to see for themselves whatever we found so interesting.”

  “Or it is the pirates, and they’re catching us by surprise with half our party playing in the jungle, and we’re in a hell of a lot of trouble.” Glaring at Schmitt, she said, “Take a pistol. Just to make me feel better. You don’t have to draw it, but it’s probably better that the bad guys think you’re as dangerous as I am. Let me do the talking and let me do the shooting.”

  Reaching for a medical kit, he swung it over his shoulders, tugging the straps in place, and said, “I’ve been under fire before. I know what to do. Just promise me that you won’t fire first.”

  “Dad always taught me to finish fights, not start them,” she said, strapping a pair of pistols in position, one on each hip, before pulling a laser shotgun out of the locker, sliding the charges into her pockets. “I’ll let them make the first move.” She reached for the airlock door, smoothly pushing open the outer hatch, and dropped down into the mud below, the rain pounding on her head. Schmitt followed, a cap on his head and another in his hand, which he unceremoniously placed on Wu’s head with a smile.

  “Thought it might help. I hope that gun of yours is waterproof.”

  “All of our weapons are usable in any terrain, any weather, any atmosphere. No point being caught wandering through an alien landscape with a gun that won’t work when it counts.”

  “I think we can worry about the advertising some other time,” he replied, following her onto the surface. The roaring of the new ship’s engines echoed through the terrain, and Wu sprinted along the path towards the settlement, Schmitt struggling to keep pace. “Where are we going?”

  “They can track us,” she replied. “Infra-red, at the very least, if they don’t have a visual track. Which they almost certainly do. We’ll have to be cleverer than that.” Gesturing down the trail, she said, “There’s a lot of nice cover just up ahead.” A shadow raced across the sky, the ship soaring over them, and Wu looked up to spot an arrow-head shape sliding smoothly into position above them.

  “Think they’re armed?”

  “Not with weapons that can hurt us on the ground. Or we’d already be dead.” She redoubled her pace, sprinting down the path, shrugging past the undergrowth that encroached on the trail. Up ahead, she could just make out the shadows of buildings, the prefabricated structures that the colonists had constructed on their brief stay on the planet. Schmitt paused, looking to the left, and she followed his gaze to a clearing, burned out even after all the decades, with thirty-eight mold-covered crosses rising from the ground. The last resting place of the settlers.

  “Eerie,” Schmitt said, shaking his head. “Downright eerie.”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “We’ve got to keep moving.” She pushed on, emerging in what had once been the single narrow street of the settlement, a dozen battered buildings on either side, shrouded in vegetation, the roofs and walls cracked and broken. Only the largest remained even remotely intact, and she raced towards it, ducking through the open door, wrinkling her nose as the smell from within hit her nostrils. Kruger had been using the old chapel as his living quarters, and the remnants of a hundred ration packs were scattered around, flies buzzing around an imperfectly-sealed chemical toilet in the corner.

  Ignoring the odor, she tugged a table from its mounting, tipping it forward and sliding it in front of the window, ducking down behind it, levelling her shotgun on the top to get a good field of fire down the street. She glanced at Schmitt, hiding behind his own cover, a pair of chairs by the side of the room, before kicking a third into the open door, blocking it open and hindering easy access.

  And then, the engines were silenced. The pirates had landed. They’d have been able to track them all the way to their destination, but evasion wasn’t the idea. They needed a defensible location, a place where they could hide from the incoming fire that would shortly be on their way. Pandora couldn’t provide that. The chapel could.

  “What about the others?” Schmitt asked.

  “Nothing we can do for them, but they’ll have heard the ship coming in.” Glancing at her watch, Wu replied, “They were scheduled back any time now, but I bet they’ll be late. We had enough trouble walking down the path. They had to clear a way through this mess. That’s not going to be easy.” Shaking her head, she added, “Neither Vicky nor Garcia are dumb enough to run into the middle of a firefight, and Kruger’s natural instinct for cowardice is impressive, to say the least.” A crack of thunder roared overhead, and she added, “That’s going to help.”

  She peered through the rain, sliding the first charge into the laser shotgun, aiming the sights at the end of the path, where the jungle reluctantly yielded to the open street. It had taken them less than five minutes to make their way into town, and she had to assume that the pirates, if that was what they were, would take no longer. They’d know that every second would count, that they would all too quickly be able to put themselves into a defensive position.

  All she coul
d hope was that the enemy hadn’t brought any heavier equipment to the table. Assault-grade weapons, drones, any of a hundred technological advantages that they had no response to. She looked across at Schmitt, quietly shaking her head. She needed a second gun in this fight. If she was wounded, the battle was over, and his skills would be irrelevant. He glanced back at her, throwing her a soft smile, and she turned back to the street, her eye locked onto the sights, trained on the end of the street.

  There was movement, something in the undergrowth, and she gently pulled back on the trigger, close to unleashing a devastating burst of energy into the distance, only relaxing her grip as she saw a small creature swinging from tree to tree, finding an unconventional way to pass the path. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her heartbeat, her breathing. Precision was her ally, her skills the best chance they had of living through the battle.

  There. Something else. For real this time. She saw three figures moving towards them, all with pistols in their hands, one with something heavier slung over his shoulder, a laser cannon with a heavy power pack strapped around his waist. He’d have to be the first target, the greatest threat. She glanced across at Schmitt again, who shook his head. She couldn’t yield too big an advantage. Not without risking all their lives, and those of their friends, and taking a deep breath, she rose out of cover, ducking back a split-second later, just as a pair of laser bolts flew through the air towards her, hammering into the far wall, the stink of ozone filling the air.

  She’d kept her word. The bad guys had taken the first shot. Now she could start work. She opened fire, a huge bolt of energy racing towards the heavily armed pirate, exploding at his feet and sending him falling into the undergrowth, crying out in pain, steam and smoke rising into the sky as the rain continued to pour down upon them. The other two dived, each in different directions, the first running for the trees, the second ducking into a nearby building, one that was obviously on the verge of collapse. Wu’s second shot completed the process, a perfectly-aimed bolt placed into the single remaining structural joint, the dormitory crashing down atop the luckless pirate.

  One left, but he was evidently determined not to go down so easily. Pandora’s rapid departure had left Wu short of some critical equipment. Notably, image-intensifier goggles. Somewhere in the undergrowth, the sole remaining pirate was hiding. If he was retreating to his ship, then there was probably little she could do to stop him. Not within giving away her position. She didn’t think he was. She thought he was pressing an attack. Her mind frantically worked, trying to determine the path he would take, and a pair of shots flew into the air, over on the right, smashing two windows in a half-ruined storage hut. A distraction, but one that might give her the trail she needed.

  Six shots with the shotgun. She laid it down, pulling out the pistols instead, one in each hand with the cables trailing down inside her sleeves, out of the way. Her eyes scanned the terrain, waiting for the movement that would give the pirate away. Then, at last, she saw him, for a brief second, and she fired, both bolts racing from her guns as one, but it had been the same trick she had played earlier, and the man dived out of the way before she could even pull the trigger. His shots were no more accurate, sending shards of shattered roof raining down upon the two of them.

  All was silence. Even the animals had decided to quieten, and aside from the constant rain, there was no movement. A duel, two warriors facing off across an empty, abandoned settlement, waiting for the other to make a mistake.

  Then, Schmitt’s foot caught one of his chairs, sending it skittering across the floor. Wu’s eyes darted across for a split second, then back at the undergrowth, this time fast enough on the trigger to catch the pirate before he could take the chance to slaughter Schmitt, both bolts catching him square in the chest, sending in collapsing to the ground, dead.

  “Are you crazy?” she asked, turning to Schmitt. “If I’d been a little slower…”

  “It worked, didn’t it,” he replied, cracking a smile. “Just because I won’t take a life doesn’t mean I can’t be useful in a battle. Should we head back to the ship, or wait for a second attack?”

  Before she could reply, a loud explosion filled the air, back in the direction of Pandora, and she said, “I think that decision’s been taken out of our hands. Come on. Let’s see what’s gone wrong now.”

  Chapter 16

  Carter crashed through the undergrowth, pistol in hand, racing towards the downed pirate ship resting next to Pandora in the clearing. Behind her, Garcia followed, with Kruger taking the rear, wearily watching their path of retreat. All of them carried the plasma weapons from the cache, Garcia’s quick check determining not only that they had withstood the storage period without damage, but that their power connectors were compatible with the power packs of their laser pistols.

  Of course, all of that was theory. They had to put it into practice at the worst possible time. Over by the settlement, columns of smoke were rising into the air, the acrid smell of burning plastic assaulting Carter’s nostrils. A battle was raging in the abandoned colony, and she could guess who was fighting it without recourse to the communicator. The pirates had taken them by surprise, but now, she might be able to turn it back at them.

  She paused at the edge of the clearing, waiting in cover, looking over the lines of the pirate ship. Small, far smaller than Fortuna, barely large enough to traverse interstellar space at all. A crew of four to six, possibly. Assuming they were hot-bunking, and good friends to boot. It couldn’t carry much in the way of cargo, and the hardpoints were bare, empty.

  They were after the same prize that had brought Pandora to this planet. The plasma weapons that would turn an unarmed exploration ship into a vessel of war. She smiled, glancing at Garcia, and gestured for him to move to the side, surrounding the enemy as best they could. Kruger looked up with a frown, his face pale, but he nodded as well, taking his place in the line of battle.

  Garcia she could depend on. He was a soldier, he knew what war was like. Kruger was an unknown quantity, but she was willing to bet that at the very least, he’d defend himself if attacked. For the present, that was the best she could do. A loud explosion roared in the distance, the battle in the colony taking another turn, and she looked to the side, futilely peering into the undergrowth. It could do no good. There was no way that she could know what was going on in the colony, and she didn’t have time to check.

  The primary airlock was on her side. Garcia had the secondary. Any defenders inside would have them covered, would be ready to repel boarders. Which hopefully meant that they were waiting in the airlocks themselves, in order to surprise anyone who might attempt entry. Holding up her plasma pistol, she smiled. That plan would probably have worked if they’d only been wielding laser pistols, had been forced to burn their way in over a long period of time, but they had somewhat better armament at their disposal, thanks to Garcia’s late father.

  Without warning, she ran across the clearing, at first angling as though she was attempting to reach Pandora, then turning towards the enemy ship, running from side to side. Bolts of laser light raced through the air all around her, slamming into the ground and sending splatters of mud into the air, hidden point-defense weapons opening up. On the far side, she could hear the same cacophony of death, the concealed gunners trying to bring down Garcia. Kruger was nowhere in sight, as she had expected.

  She drew close to the airlock, heard a loud hiss, and saw the outer hatch begin to slide open, the man within choosing to enter the battle at a time and place of his choosing. She had no intention of cooperating with that demand, raised her plasma pistol, and squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried it again, and this time a pair of red lights flickered into life on the barrel, warning of an improper connection to the power pack. Her fingers fumbled with the connecting cable, and with less than a second remaining, she fired again, and this time a ball of purple plasma flew from the barrel, slamming into the airlock with the heat of a
thousand suns.

  The pirate didn’t even have time to scream before he died, and the smells of burning meat and simmering metal filled the air. The airlock was destroyed, both outer and inner hatches breached, but the plasma pistol now had five red lights, warning of a catastrophic malfunction if she dared to use it again.

  Her power pack was history, so her laser pistol was useless. Holstering her weapon, she pulled out her knife, carefully stepping over the threshold, steam rising from the molten metal as the rain continued to hammer down upon the ship. She hadn’t heard a similar explosion from the far side of the ship, had to assume that she was the only one inside. There’d been no chance to look at a floorplan, but she could guess that there were two corridors, one connecting the two airlocks, the other heading for the bridge. She crept forward, knife in hand, poised to throw rather than stab, and saw a figure in the shadows, turning to face her.

  She threw her knife, the blade spinning through the air, slicing towards the man lurking in wait. The blade rattled against the bulkhead.

  She’d missed. And she wouldn’t get a second chance. She turned, hoping desperately to escape, then saw Kruger standing in front of her, pistol at the ready, aimed square at her chest. Throwing herself to the deck, she felt the heat of the laser blast race over her, heard the anguished scream of the pirate as he crumpled to the floor.

  “Nice shot,” she said, picking herself up. “Assuming you weren’t aiming at me.”

  “I don’t like guns, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use them,” Kruger said, sliding his pistol into his holster. “I think that’s the last of them.”

  “It is,” Garcia said, walking around the perimeter. “There’s no sign of anyone else, and I haven’t heard any fighting from the village for a few minutes.” Turning to the path, he added, “I might head over that way. Just in case the bad guys won. Come on, Kruger.”

  “I’ve fought…”