by M. D. Cooper
A half hour later, they were certain that Leslie was not at the bunker. The silver lining was that wherever the captain was, chances were that she was near Rika.
The two of them can take on anything, Kelly thought as she got ready to report in to Captain Chase. They have to.
PULLING UP STAKES
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance in orbit of Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Dropping a battalion of mechs on a planet was a lot easier than getting them back into space again.
In the end, Chase had left the B’muths and a squad of mechs under Vargo Klen’s command to finish the cleanup and keep Kansas from devolving into chaos. He had no idea how twenty mechs would manage to maintain order across an entire planet, but Chase told Squad Sergeant Abs that if things got too messy on the surface, they were to hightail it into space and leave the Blue Ridge System behind.
The SMI-4 gave a throaty laugh.
Chase replied.
Chase resisted a groan. Chances were that Lieutenant Carson was doing no such thing, but he didn’t have time to go check. Not only that, but the Lance was Heather’s ship; he wasn’t going to go checking up on her.
Even if I am the de-facto leader of Rika’s Marauders right now.
The thought brought a weight with it, and Chase wished he could just lie down for an hour, try to catch his breath.
He was, but he was more worried about Rika.
Chase nodded in appreciation.
* * * * *
Twenty-seven minutes later, the Fury Lance’s mighty engines thundered to life, their thrum sending a vibration through the deck plates that no amount of a-grav dampener calibration seemed to be able to deal with.
Chase didn’t mind, he liked the sensation. He could tell Captain Heather, did as well. I wonder if Smalls tweaks the calibration just enough to keep the slight shudder in place.
The Fury Lance’s captain approached him, standing across the holotank that displayed the Blue Ridge System.
“Those Nietzschean cowards gotta be heading to one of those three jump points,” Heather said. “They’re the ones that lead deeper into Nietzschea, and they’re closer than any others.”
Chase nodded. “They’re the most logical. Agreed.”
On the holotank, icons flashed showing the positions of the four Marauder ships.
Buggsie had the Capital boosting for the furthest point, while Travis was taking the Republic to the second furthest. Ferris had the Undaunted en route to a station which sat midway between the first and second points. It was still firmly under Nietzschean control, and a possible stopping point for Rika’s abductors.
The Fury Lance was headed for the closest of the three points, a marker currently twenty-five AU from the ship. At their current thrust, it would take the Lance two days to make their destination.
“What’s got you looking like that?” Heather asked. “Other than the obvious.”
Chase glanced up at the ship’s captain. “What makes you think there’s something else? Isn’t Rika being missing enough?”
Heather shrugged. “Just seems like you’re having reservations.”
He lifted a hand and ran it across his forehead, pulling it away greasy from sweat. “I hate the thought that Leslie could still be back there.” He jerked his thumb back to where Kansas lay. “Not to mention the fact that fucking Alice took off with Alison and her team…. How did this all go so wrong so fast?”
“Alison can handle herself, and we know that Leslie isn’t back on Kansas,” Heather shook her head. “Kelly was thorough. You know that she of all people would not leave any stone unturned if it meant finding Rika. If she says there was nothing left at that bunker, then there was nothing left. Leslie got on the Nietzschean ship with Rika.”
“As a prisoner?” Chase asked.
Heather only shrugged in response, and he sighed.
“I’m going to hit the san. Let me know if anything changes.”
“You got it, Captain.”
STOWAWAY
STELLAR DATE: 10.13.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: NMSS Spine of the Stars
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Even though Leslie’s armor kept her warm, she couldn’t help the shivers that continually wracked her body. She knew it was psychosomatic, the result of knowing that she was crammed into a small compartment with the ship’s landing gear, enjoying the cold vacuum of space.
Or maybe it was that she was less than ten minutes from the end of her fresh oxygen supply. After that, she’d have to make do with only recycled air from her scrubbers.
Even though she’d been tucked away in the Nietzschean ship’s folded landing gear for hours, Leslie still felt like her heart was pounding in her chest. The fight at the Nietzschean bunker had been one for the books, and she couldn’t help but think it a shame that no one else had been there to witness it.
Using the three remaining Goon-Mechs, she’d taken out dozens of Niets, but hadn’t managed to head off the enemy brass, or their precious cargo. In the end, the ship had lifted off from the pad, leaving Leslie on the ground to slog it out with a group of their special forces soldiers.
The GM had short-burst jump jets, and Leslie had used them to boost up to the departing ship, getting within ten meters, only to have it fire on her with its point-defense cannons.
The second shot had rent a hole in the pod, and Leslie had made a do-or-die decision.
She’d jumped the final distance.
At that po
int, they were over a kilometer in the air. She’d almost missed the ship, catching a single finger on a landing strut, before whipping her tail up and around the beam, barely clambering up its length before the strut had folded up into the ship.
I didn’t bite it out there, and I’m not going to freeze to death in here, either! Leslie declared as she finally managed to breach the control systems for the maintenance hatch a meter above her head. I may not be all brained up like Rika, but this isn’t my first time hacking my way into a Nietzschean network—even if it’s taken hours.
Though the hatch was now unlocked, she still had to get up to it. Thanking the stars that she hadn’t mech’d up along with Chase and Barne, Leslie wormed her way past the landing strut’s armatures to the waiting hatch.
After keying in the access code she’d lifted from the ship’s network, Leslie pushed the hatch open and squirmed into the tiny airlock. She cycled it, begging the stars to let the taps she’d placed in the ship’s maintenance network keep the airlock activation from showing on anyone’s board.
Last thing I need is to find the barrel of a gun in my face when the other side opens up.
She fought the urge to close her eyes as the airlock’s inner hatch opened—not that it would have mattered. Though she hadn’t gone full mech, she had taken her share of mods from the ISF, and one of them was the ability to parse three-sixty vision.
With her helmet pushing feeds into her mind, there was no way she could avoid watching the hatch open.
However, nothing but an empty service tube awaited her, and Leslie offered up a silent thanks to the stars and Jerry’s soul.
She thought of him less these days, but Rika’s comment earlier had brought him back to the fore.
I bet you’d love this, Jerry; kicking Nietzschean ass, just like we were always meant to. Only this time, we have them on the run.
Leslie carefully accessed the ship’s schematics in the maintenance system she’d tapped, and downloaded the vessel’s full layout.
She’d not seen the ship’s name before, but the map denoted the vessel as the Spine of the Stars. It was a rather large name for a ship that was somewhere between a corvette and a destroyer.
It was small enough to boost out of a planet’s gravity well without too much trouble, but large enough to carry the fuel to power its engines for a long burn while running the reactors hot enough to power the ship’s three dozen beams.
A smile spread across Leslie’s lips. Once, she would have considered three dozen beams on a ship this size to be almost overkill; that was before seeing the I-Class ships the ISF had built. Ten thousand ships like the tub she was on wouldn’t even come close to an I-Class’s firepower.
Leslie put the comparison out of her mind and focused on her next task: get her armor clean and repaired so her stealth would return to peak efficiency.
Once she could move about the ship with impunity, she’d assess the enemy’s strength, and work out the best plan to free Rika.
Though Leslie would have liked nothing better than to blast her way through the ship and rescue the colonel as quickly as possible, chances were that her friend was in the most heavily guarded portion of the ship. There could be dozens of Niets and automated defenses waiting for her.
She’d have to wear down their numbers first.
* * * * *
“Who are you?” the man standing at the door to Rika’s cell asked. “Where did you get those Nietzschean ships you attacked Kansas with?”
Rika was still wrapped in the CF net, laying on the floor of her cell, arms pressed against her sides. Her power reserves had been working their way up over the past few hours, and she activated her armor’s external speakers to respond to the man.
“I’m Colonel Rika, 9th Battalion, 7th Marauder Fleet. As to where I got the ships, pretty sure it was from your mom. Right after I kicked her ass.”
“A mech officer?” the man’s voice dripped with disdain. “You Genevian mercs must be scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
“That’s where they kept us,” Rika replied, her tone even. “Lucky for you. If we’d been allowed to operate at our full potential in the war, I’d have your emperor over my knee right now.”
The man rolled his eyes and sighed. “I highly doubt that.”
“So you have my name and rank, what are yours?”
The man straightened. “Fleet Admiral Gideon.”
“Ah, the civilian killer himself.” Rika gave a derisive snort. “Pretty damn small fleet. I take it the rest got sent to Thebes? I guess they left the dregs behind. How’s it feel to be down at the bottom of the barrel?”
“I’m not going to share intel with you, squib.”
“Squib?” Rika felt a laugh building. She did her best to stop it, every muscle still ached, but the chortle broke free nonetheless. “Well, this squib has killed more Nietzscheans than she can count. Gotta be closing in on a quarter million now. But that’s nothing compared to what the Allies did to your people at Thebes.”
She gained a modicum of satisfaction as the admiral’s expression paled. “Allies?”
Rika gave a small nod—all that she could manage. “I guess technically it’s called The Scipio Alliance, but it’s really run by Field Marshal Richards of the ISF. She brought a fleet in that obliterated the forces your moron of an emperor sent into Thebes. My fleet chased after the cowards that ran away to Sepe. We mopped the stars with them and left their surviving ships for the Sepians to use in case any of you dickheads decide to wander into their system again.”
Halfway through Rika’s recitation, Admiral Gideon began to shake his head.
“No, there is no way. Scipio is in a cold war with the Hegemony; there’s no way they could send a force large enough to Thebes…not that they’d have any reason to.”
“Your intel’s ancient, Admiral Gideon,” Rika scoffed, reveling in the act of turning this Niet’s world on its head. “Scipio is in an active war with the Hegemony, now. But you missed the key point—the ISF is the driving force behind the Allies. Well, them and the Transcend. Either way, they crushed your fleet with a numerically smaller force, and only lost a hundred ships doing it. You have no idea how outclassed you are.”
The admiral’s jaw tensed, and he shook his head. “Nice try, squib. But that tale’s a thousand klicks too tall.”
“Curious what the ‘I’ stands for?”
“In your fantasy fleet? Sure.”
“Intrepid. Remember that ship that showed up twenty years ago in the Bollam’s World System? Remember how it had impenetrable shields and defeated five fleets on its own?”
The admiral’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. “They disappeared.”
“Sure did.” Rika wished the man could see her grin. “And then they got busy. Some folks found them and poked the hornet’s nest. Now they’re bound and determined to get payback while knocking down all the asshole empires. Think Nietzschea is an empire of assholes? I sure do.”
The admiral didn’t reply, and Rika saw him cock his head, his eyes losing focus.
The admiral’s face grew troubled, and he turned away, pausing to glance at Rika before the cell door closed. “We’ll have to continue exploring your fantasies later.”
“I look forward to it,” Rika said as her parting rejoinder.
* * * * *
Leslie peered around the corner, checking to ensure that no enemies were in the corridor, biting back a curse when she saw a pair of men wrapped in one another’s arms halfway down the passage.
&
nbsp; She’d cleaned her armor off as best she could in a maintenance closet, bringing her stealth effectiveness up to seventy-two percent, but that overall number didn’t represent even coverage. Patches of her armor had no stealth capability at all, making it all but useless at close range.
She paused to consider her options. If I kill these two lovebirds, then I have to deal with bodies, and I start the clock ticking.
Leslie decided to see if she could slip past the pair. Given how into one another they were, she might just manage. If not, she’d take them out and deal with the consequences as they came.
One of the men had untucked the other’s shirt, and pushed it up, his lips working their way across a well-muscled abdomen.
Leslie wondered at the state of discipline in the Nietzschean military, that couples would just bang out in the open.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they just started fucking at some point.
She held back a laugh, half wishing they would. There’d be no way they’d notice her, then.
Moving quietly, and as slowly as she dared, Leslie was almost past the pair when a voice called out from behind her.
“Hey! What are you two assholes doing?”
Shit! Leslie thought, watching a burly sergeant stride into the passageway.
“Uh…hi, Sarge,” the tummy-licking Niet said, rising to his feet right next to Leslie.
“I’ll show you, ‘hi, Sarge’. We got brass running for their scrawny li—what the fuck is that?”
Leslie could see that his eyes were fixed on her. More specifically, on a patch of armor on her shoulder that was completely visible.
“What?” one of the lovebirds asked, then his eyes fixed on Leslie. “Wait! There’s—”
The man’s words were his last, as Leslie extended her claws and tore out his throat with a single swipe. The other amorous Niet cried out in horror as a spray of blood splashed across him, though the utterance was cut short as he suffered the same fate as his former lover.
Leslie didn’t give their deaths a second thought as she ran toward the sergeant, well aware that her form would be completely visible now, half covered in blood as she was.
