by M. D. Cooper
Three minutes later, they reached airlock A17-2 and entered, cycling it quickly before pushing off into the zero-g umbilical.
“Stars, I feel so naked,” Keli muttered. “We’re just one torn umbilical panel away from sucking vacuum.”
“OK, enough chatter,” Rika said as they reached the station airlock, and she palmed the access panel for the external doors to slide open.
The display flashed ‘Equalizing’ for a few seconds, then the door retracted into the station’s hull, and the three women stepped into the station-side airlock.
Rika did her best not to fidget or check her weapon. There would be no reason for a Nietzschean officer to do so. It probably wouldn’t be that suspicious, but Rika expected her team to be under surveillance, and wasn’t about to give the Niets any reason to suspect her.
She’d spent years in Nietzschean space after the war; she knew how they operated. It should be a piece of cake.
Heck, this isn’t even Nietzschean space, just a vassal system.
Of course, she’d never actually tried to impersonate a Niet before, let alone an officer. She barely knew how to behave like a Marauder officer.
The inner airlock cycled open, and Rika stepped out into a long corridor. The three women walked down its length to a room where several other docking corridors converged. At the far side were a pair of unoccupied customs booths.
Rika glanced at Keli and Kelly before walking toward the booths as though she owned the station.
As they walked past the customs booths, Rika detected a brief scan, and hoped that the MK99’s mimicking systems would pass them off as organic humans. Finaeus had said it would, but it was one thing to say that back in the lab, and something else entirely to test it on a station filled with thousands of their enemies.
No alarms went off, and Rika let out a cautious breath of relief.
They reached the far end of the room, and a pair of doors slid open. The three women walked through, only to come face to face with Major Reg.
“Major,” Rika said with a nod, keeping in mind that officers at the same rank did not salute in the Nietzschean military.
Reg just scowled at Rika in response. “Major…?”
“Jessa,” Rika replied.
Jessa was a woman who had looked similar to Rika. She’d been deployed to Hudson, which Rika knew because she had killed Major Jessa in the operation to free the hostages at Trigger Ridge Lodge.
“I don’t recall a Major Jessa aboard Colonel Muenos’s ship,” Major Reg replied, still scowling.
“I wasn’t,” Rika replied. “I got off Hudson on a pinnace we stole from the locals, and managed to hook up with the Empire’s Glory right as the colonel started his outsystem burn. Lucky thing, too; those fuckin’ Scipians would have burned us out of the black, otherwise.”
Major Reg scowled at Rika. “Huh, he didn’t mention that.”
“Sorry, I can’t speak for what the colonel does and does not tell you, Major. He’ll be coming out before long; Admiral Fels has called him to a meeting.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m invited, too. All the ships’ captains are.”
Reg meant it to be a barb, but Rika could have sung for joy. That meant when her attack commenced, none of the ships would have their captains aboard.
“Well, I have my orders. Need to see about resupply, and some other tasks the colonel has assigned,” Rika said as she stepped around Reg. “You waiting for the colonel?”
“I was,” Reg replied his scowl deepening. “Just messaged him. Seems like he’s busy for the next bit, I guess I’ll catch him at the meeting.”
“Good to hear, Major,” Rika said and walked away, Keli and Kelly following her.
Surveying the dense crowds on the dock, Rika was glad they’d decided to go out in uniforms. One thing that the ISF had strongly advised against was trying to move through crowds while invisible. She observed dozens of near misses as the people wove around one another—going out there stealthed would have been a recipe for near-instantaneous discovery.
Rika glanced at her old friend, then looked at Keli. “OK, you have your orders. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
Kelly and Keli both sketched salutes at Rika, then the three women separated, each going to a different station vendor to secure supplies for the ship.
The orders on the Nietzschean subrosa network had given all the ships two days to secure provisions through legal means before the military occupation and pillaging began. From what Rika could tell, this was to ensure that any easily damaged goods were secured first.
Rika turned a corner and nearly jumped at the sight of a Nietzschean squad approaching. The soldiers stood aside, making room for her, and she hoped as she strode past that none had spotted her momentary alarm.
Rika laughed and shook her head.
SUSPICION
STELLAR DATE: 09.19.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Fury Lance
REGION: Ursa Station, Sepe System (Independent)
Heather laughed aloud, catching a curious look from Chief Ona.
“Potter’s cracking jokes,” Heather explained.
“She’s got a real sense of humor,” Ona grinned. “I often get her to tell me jokes before I go to sleep to help me unwind.”
Heather’s brow lowered as she regarded the chief. “Really?”
“Great, how come I got
assigned the ‘funny’ bridge crew?”
“Teams are deploying,” Garth said, glancing back at the rest of the crew. “You know…if you all care about the operation.”
“Easy now,” Heather pointed at one of her displays. “I’m monitoring it, too. Looks like everyone’s in the black.”
Heather pushed the smiling babies off the main holo and switched it back to the view of Ursa Station. The display now showed the station—which had one hundred and eleven Nietzschean ships docked on it—and the surrounding space, where eighty-nine more ships hung around the three inner moons orbiting Crag. Another hundred ships were docked at other stations, noted by red markers on the display.
Rika’s plan was a risky one, but after breaching the Nietzschean ships within Armens’ clouds, this mission seemed almost easy by comparison. All the assault teams had to do was trust in the ISF’s stealth armor and drift through the black to their target ships.
Granted, there was one major difference on this operation: the number of Marauders assigned to each target. With just over three hundred and fifty mechs and sixty target vessels to seize, some enemy ships only had a single fireteam assigned to breach and secure.
Of course, they weren’t trying to capture all the enemy ships. Scuttling them was a perfectly acceptable option, so long as the assault teams were able to do so without damaging the station.
“Have we picked up Klen and Buggsie?” Heather asked. “I don’t see them on the tactical display.”
“True,” Heather mused as she rose from her chair and walked to the holotank to the right of the scan console. She brought up space for four light seconds around Ursa station.
It wasn’t the largest station in orbit of Crag, but it was the one with the highest concentration of Nietzschean ships. What she found interesting was that over five hundred ships in the Sepan Space Force had moved into wide orbits around Crag as more and more Niets arrived.
Given that they were allied with the Niets, it was a strange maneuver, especially since the ships weren’t taking up especially good offensive, or defensive, formations.
“Stars…it’s like they’re trying to look as innocuous as possible,” Heather muttered.
“You got that right,” Ona added. “The Niets sure have everyone cowed.”
“It’s sad,” Garth said as he turned to look at the holo. “But then again, they have no reason to believe that the Niets are going to wipe them out.”
Heather ran her hands through her long, red hair, tucking it behind her ears. “Yet. They don’t have a reason, yet.”
* * * *
Chase couldn’t see the members of his squad around him, but knew they were there, courtesy of the ISF’s MK99 armor’s IFF systems sending out periodic pings on seemingly random frequencies.
Unless the listener knew what the signals were, they would just seem like static. Not only that, but the amplitude was so low, the signals dissipated after a few meters.
At least that’s what the manual says, Chase thought, looking nervously at the dozens of ships around them, all capable of obliterating his team in an instant, should they be detected.
Ahead, his team’s target grew larger with each passing second. It was the only other dreadnought in the Sepe system—the Peerless, Admiral Fels’ flagship.
A massive target, assigned to just himself and Sergeant Alison’s squad of mechs. Four kilometers of ship filled with hundreds of Niets, versus eighteen mechs.
Looks like the odds are in our favor.
Chase felt an itch in his left thumb and tried to ignore it. Not that he couldn’t scratch a finger when stealthed, but it wasn’t actually there. For this mission, he’d opted for an FN-88 on his left arm. It was a weapon that the ISF had retrofitted from their own stock to work for the mechs.
Lower powered than a GNR-50, the FN-88 rapid-fired kinetic slugs that were chemically accelerated. They could do a hell of a lot of damage. If that wasn’t enough, the weapon also sported a pellet railgun. Its third mode was a pulse cannon that could bowl over a dozen people.
He couldn’t wait to use them in combat.
The itch persisted, and Chase briefly wondered if he had been crazy to let the ISF turn him into a mech. If he were honest with himself, he had to admit that he didn’t quite know his own reasoning for the change. Did he do it for himself, to be a better warrior? Was it to gain acceptance by Rika’s Marauders? Or was it for Rika herself?
Maybe it’s a bit of all three.
The crazy thing was, aside from Vargo Klen, who was practically a madman to begin with, Chase might have been the only person he’d ever heard of who had volunteered to be a mech.
Then again, from his perspective, half the people on the I2 were voluntary mechs. Their tech was just good enough to hide it in a human-shaped package.
Which, I suppose, we can do now, too.
As he mused, movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he saw a frigate moving toward Ursa Station, headed for the berth next to the Peerless.
Chase analyzed the braking speed of the frigate, and his own team’s trajectory.
Shit, it’s going to come in right in front of us.
Then the frigate pivoted and slowed its approach.
Oh, damn…not in front of us, on top of us!
* * * * *
“Lieutenant Fuller’s teams are ready,” Lieutenant Colonel Alice said as she strode onto the bridge. “Ships are on the rails and ready to drop.”
Heather nodded, never quite sure how to behave around Alice. The woman seemed overly deferential, especially given her rank. It was as though she was constantly in a state of kissing ass.
It was obvious to Heather that the battalion’s XO was a rulebound desk-flyer. On several occasions, Alice had begun to critique the more informal behavior of the mechs, but stopped herself each time, almost always with the same shit-eating grin on her face.
Rika seemed to regard Alice with a mixture of tolerance and appreciation. Heather wasn’t sure why the colonel put up with the woman; it was obvious that Alice was a plant from MHQ, sent to keep an eye on them—and to right the ship if Rika steered it wrong.
Of course, Rika’s Marauders would never side with a squishie like Alice over Rika.
Not a tulip’s chance in a black hole.
She supposed that’s why Alice kissed so much ass, something her shit-eating smile was well-suited to. The woman knew that she served only so long as Rika tolerated her.
Thoughts of dumping the lieutenant colonel into a stasis tube gave Heather some cheer as she watched Alice take a seat at one of the auxiliary consoles, where she began to scowl at the operation status data.
“Leslie’s team is moving too fast,” the battalion XO observed.
“We’ve noted that,” Heather replied. “Nothing we can do about it now. Borden’s managed to brake when they were occluded by a departing freighter, so at least he’s back in the pocket.”
Alice glanced over her shoulder, that smile on her lips again. “Have you tried reaching out to her?”
“And give her away?” Heather asked, not sure if Alice was messing with her or not. “She can see it as well as we can. One way or another, she’ll just have to deal with her early arrival.”
“And if it gives away the op?” Alice asked.
“Then it gives away the op, and we crush the Niets the old-fashioned way,” Heather replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Not that I’m worried about Leslie’s team and their ability to be stealthy. I’m a lot more concerned about what Chase and Alison are going to do about that frigate that’s about to collide with them. They’re going to have to brake, and when they do…”
“Shit…” Alice whispered. “That’s going to mess everything up. Potter, can you…?”
“Hack the Nietzschean command network and issue new docking instructions? Maybe. Can I do it without alerting their network security teams that something’s up? Probably not.”
Alice’s eyes were wide as she turned back to Heather. “So what are we going to do?”
Heather pulled her lips back into a toothy grin. “We’re going to do what mechs do best. Roll with it.”
* * * * *
Rika didn’t reply as she turned left down a narrow passageway lined with conduits. From the markers laying atop her vision, she only had to traverse another two hundred meters to the rendezvous.
Niki continued, laughing softly.
