Rikas Marauders
Page 120
Piper announced.
Rika pursed her lips as she dodged a technician who was pushing a rack containing what appeared to be antimatter bottles.
Nine minutes later, they reached a secured bulkhead that led into an old section of the base. Four guards stood before the sealed door, and Rika signaled that she’d go right and Leslie should take out the enemies to their left.
Leslie flashed an acknowledgement, and moments later, a pair of lightwands flared, appearing from nowhere moments before they drove through two faceshields, instantly killing the guards behind them.
Without hesitating, Rika slashed to the right, cutting into the neck of the second guard on her side before jerking the electron blade up and into the woman’s head.
She glanced over to see that Leslie had performed a similar move, and that both her Niets were down as well.
he finished.
On the far side of the door lay a long, sloping hall that ran down for a hundred meters before curving around to the right. Niki had already sent a set of drones ahead, and the two women took off after them.
* * * * *
The two women ran for another ten minutes through the ancient facility, the passage they were taking curving periodically as it led deeper into the moon.
After descending over a kilometer, they came to another door. Rika was about to drive her lightwand into it, when Leslie touched the controls, and it slid aside.
“Unlocked.”
“And if it triggers an alarm?” Rika asked as they walked through into a wide chamber.
“You can see the feeds above; they’re a minute from finding the four guards we killed. Good thing this base only has a two-squad complement, ‘cause we’re going to have to fight them off while Piper does his thing.”
Rika nodded while gazing across the chamber they found themselves in. It was nearly three hundred meters across, and fifty deep. The floor was a large bowl with a hole in the center, and above that hole, suspended on a complex gantry, was a large AI node.
It wasn’t as large as some of the NSAI nodes that Rika had seen in the past, but at five meters to a side, it was certainly larger than any SAI core she’d laid eyes on.
Above was another shaft stretching up into darkness, and Rika set about finding its control systems. When the lights came on, she could see that it stretched all the way up to where she gauged the surface of the moon to be.
Well, looks like that’s our way out.
“I’ll cover the door,” Leslie said from behind her.
She glanced back at her friend, who sported only a PR-109. “Here.” Rika pulled her AC9CR from its hook, and tossed it to the scout. “You’ll need some more boom. Just be careful, he’s my baby.”
Leslie snorted. “One hell of a baby. Don’t worry, I’ll burp him when I’m done.”
Rika wagged a finger at her before continuing to the center of the chamber.
Niki highlighted a device on Rika’s HUD that sat on the deck next to the node.
The AI made a strange noise.
Rika wasn’t surprised. She’d never been this close to a black hole, and had no intention of repeating the experience anytime soon. She approached the physical network restrictor, and examined the connections. There were four of them, and she simply had to disconnect each line from the restrictor on each side, and then directly connect them all.
the AI replied.
Rika peered at the expanse over her head, and realized that there were regularly spaced orbs set into the grey plas. Each one was a meter across.
Rika drew a deep breath, nodding slowly.
GETTING REAL
STELLAR DATE: 10.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance, near Delta Moon
REGION: Epsilon, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Though Chase knew Heather’s recommendation to remain on the Fury Lance made sense, it didn’t feel like the right move.
Half the Marauders are on stealthed shuttles approaching the various stations surrounding Delta Moon, and I’m up here. Pacing across this bridge again like a damn impotent fool.
On the main viewscreen, a group of Harriet carriers moved into a higher orbit around Delta Moon, with destroyers and cruisers in a widely dispersed escort pattern around the massive ships.
Chase set his jaw, glaring at the screen.
“Stars,” Chase muttered aloud. “Nietzscheans really do suck balls.”
“Sir?” Chief Garth asked.
“Potter was just telling me how there might be AIs down in those moons, keeping their orbits stable in the rosette. Word is that they’ve been shackled there for some time.”
“Damn,” Ona whispered. “That’s terrible, especially considering what Captain Heather said. Alone out here in the dark for that long.”
“AIs don’t view starlight like we do,” Garth replied.
“You’d just drift forever,” Ona whispered.
Chase rubbed his eyes. “Stars, we’re too fucking melancholy. We’re on the cusp of getting Rika and Leslie back—and we’re going to get them back, no two ways about it. Any objection to some music?”
“You like Ontaran Punk?” Ona asked. “When we were at Pyra, I picked up a new stream of a group called, ‘The Pink Knickers’.”
“Let’s check them out,” he agreed. “Sounds like just the thing to keep us from perseverating on what’s about to go down.”
Ona nodded, and was reaching across her console, when one of the Harriet carriers fired its engines, and shifted into a lower orbit around Delta Moon, a dozen dropships falling from its bays.
“Shit” Chase muttered. “What’s that all about?”
* * * * *
As Rika worked at reconnecting Piper to the network, the shoom of her AC9CR sounded from the entrance to the chamber, and she saw Leslie silhouetted in the glow of the weapon’s rail discharge.
At the same moment, every one of the NSAI-controlled drones dropped from the ceiling, drifting down on a-grav while deploying armatures and weapons as well as sensor suites.
Several moved toward the door and began firing at the approaching Nietzscheans.
Leslie sent a pair of angry eyes over the team’s network.
Rika tabulated the NSAI drones that Niki had managed to take control of, surprised to find that it was twenty-three. Nine of them were firing at the Niets trying to come down the passage, while the other fourteen were forming up near Piper’s node.
Rika didn’t waste any more time. Taking aim at a bot, she fired her electron beam before spinning and sending a trio of DPUs in rapid succession at three other targets. The drones were torn apart by her barrage, which was joined by the drones under Niki’s control. In seconds, the chamber was filled with crossfire and very little cover.
Glancing at Piper’s node, Rika realized that the NSAIs were taking care not to fire in his direction at all. Makes sense, she thought. No point in having your defensive system accidently destroy the entire installation.
With that in mind, she leapt up to the catwalk that ran around the SAI’s node and began firing with impunity at the drones. Though the machines took care not to hit Piper, several moved into positions where they could get clear shots at Rika without striking the node.
Piper said.
A low boom echoed in the chamber, and Rika saw the doors high above begin to slide aside.
A moment later, she felt her stomach lurch, and then a weight settled on her—it was as though a giant was standing on her shoulders. Around the chamber, half the drones slammed into the deck, and Leslie cried out.
Suddenly, the weight lifted, and Rika felt like she was going to fly off the catwalk and up the shaft above.
* * * * *
Alarms blared across the bridge, and Chase felt his stomach lurch.
“What the hell!?”
“Which ones?” Chase asked, watching as the thousands of ships surrounding Epsilon began flaring their engines, adjusting orbits. To his right, one of the holodisplays was tracking the shuttles that had left the nearby Harriet Carrier. Two of the craft had been close to touching down, and they slammed into the moon’s surface at the edge of the dome they’d been approaching, explosions casting a bright light across Delta Moon’s red surface.
“I mean…I see it, I don’t know if I can ‘confirm’. What the hell is happening?”
“It has to be black holes,” Chase muttered, shaking his head. “That’s how they always manage masses like this in the stories, right? They use black holes and put them in the moons. You can adjust their spin and magnetospheres to push and pull them off one another and the planet.”
Potter said.
The AI put up a display on the central holotank, showing Epsilon and its six moons.
“Into the planet?” Chase asked.
“Will it be enough to destroy Delta Moon?” Chase asked, certain that’s where Rika was—it was the only moon with carriers dropping ships to the surface.
The projection showed three annotated points, moving around Epsilon and slowly approaching the planet until they collided with the other moons, and devoured them. The singularities combined in blazing bursts of light until there were three. The annotations showed that their orbits as unstable, and soon there was just one black hole, feeding on the ring of debris surrounding Epsilon, and even drawing wisps of gas off the giant planet’s cloudtops.
“Shit,” Chase muttered. “How long will that take to happen?”
“A week…maybe,” Ona said, standing next to the holotank. “But at this rate, the first three moons will be destroyed in hours.”
Chase squared his shoulders. “And once that happens, our options to rescue our ladies all but disappear. Potter, recall all the teams. None of our other ships can get down to Delta Moon while withstanding all those Harriets. It’s going to have to be the Lance.”
Chase drew in a deep breath. “Stars, I hate this. You’re right. OK, we have tactics other than brute force. We need to use the Capital and the Undaunted to drop out of stealth and draw the Harriets that are in higher orbit away. Then we come in with the Republic and park on either side of that carrier in a low orbit around Delta Moon, and broadside the ever-living shit out of it.”
“Sir?” Ona asked, her eyes wide. “Broadside? That’s….”
“Normally insane,” he admitted, nodding solemnly. “But think about it. Half the Harriet’s main guns are rails that can’t fire on short-range targets right next to it. Many of its beams won’t be able to hit us at those angles, either, but we can target their lateral beams with ease at that short range.”
“If they know we have to crack open our shields to fire, we’ll be in trouble,” Garth warned.