by M. D. Cooper
Danella set her samples in several different pieces of equipment, humming softly as she worked. Suddenly, her head snapped up and she glanced over her shoulder at Rika.
“Ah, my emperor calls. Don’t worry, though, I’ve taken precautions against any nano you sent along, and I’ll still have my eyes on you,” she smiled sweetly. “Oh! And there’s a whole platoon just outside the door. You’re safe and sound.”
“Oh, it feels so good to be cared for,” Rika said in a dour voice.
“You’re so saucy,” Danella laughed as she strode across the room. “I can’t wait until I get your helmet off. I want to see your eyes so badly. You know what they say.”
“That if looks could kill?” Rika asked.
“Oh, you!” Danella paused at the doorway, turning to look Rika over one last time. “No, they’re the window to the soul…and I plan to suck yours dry.”
Then she was gone.
Rika hoped that Niki was right. The thought of suffering under Danella’s tender ministrations was enough to make her vomit.
ROCK AND ROLL
STELLAR DATE: 05.07.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Undaunted, approaching Belgium
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Chase strapped down in the assault shuttle’s main cabin. Outside, the Undaunted’s engines thrummed, the vibration reaching all the way to his feet as the engines burned at full power, blasting the cruiser toward Belgium.
The terraformed planet in orbit of Luxum was only ten light seconds from Capeton—at the closest point of the two planets’ uncommon co-orbital pattern—and from the course Ferris had plotted, the cruiser wasn’t going to start braking till the ship was almost kissing atmosphere.
The Undaunted wouldn’t hit the right angle to roast the planet, but there would be one hell of a northern aurora for folks on the night side.
Checking the ship’s sensors as they continued to pick up speed, Chase saw four enemy destroyers and a cruiser shift onto a vector to match the Undaunted.
<’Sir’? You OK, Ferris?>
The lieutenant gave a nervous laugh. Ferris paused a moment before continuing.
* * * * *
All of Ferris’s concentration was on the Undaunted’s helm control, only tangentially aware of his bridge crew as they unleashed unrelenting fire on the enemy destroyers chasing his bird.
Don’t fail me now, girl, he thought, trying to remain calm as the ship screamed toward Belgium, still accelerating though they were only one light second from the planet.
“Rotating in five!” he cried out and then executed the pre-programmed burn, spinning the kilometer-long cruiser and firing all the engines at once, a narrow cone of thrust blasting through an opening in the stasis shields.
Below, a small defense platform passed too close, trying to get a shot up the Undaunted’s skirt. The maneuver was ill-advised, and Ferris altered his vector just enough for the cruiser’s engine wash to burn away half the platform’s weapons and most of the hull.
“Suckers!” Ferris called out as the ship continued to bleed v at a ferocious rate, the planet below growing larger at a faster pace than he’d like.
“Sir…” his weapons officer said. “We good? Looks—”
“Shut it, Marv,” Ferris growled. “And don’t call me ‘sir’.”
“Uh…OK, just wanted to know if we’re gonna die.”
Ferris ignored the comment, finessing the burn until the ship was on a vector that would have it passing four hundred kilometers off Belgium’s north pole.
Chase and Borden sent confirmations, and Ferris opened the bay doors, silently wishing the four dropships and the Starcrsusher a safe drop.
He kept one eye on the enemy ships still tagging the Undaunted, the enemy’s beams splashing harmlessly against the ship’s stasis shields. His other eye was on the drop vector, watching as it approached optimal.
“Countermeasures and missiles away!” Marv added.
Ferris nodded silently, watching as every tube on the Undaunted fired. Half launched chaff and countermeasures, while the rest fired a barrage of missiles at the planet’s orbital defenses.
He didn’t expect to take many out, but it would be enough to provide a screen for Chase and Borden’s craft.
At least, it better be.
* * * * *
The dropship shuddered violently as its engines burned on max thrust, desperately attempting to slow the ship as it streaked toward Belgium. Within, the mechs in Squad One might as well have been drones, their only movement a few jerks and sways as the ship slewed through the planet’s nearspace.
Chase was tempted to watch scan, but he knew it didn’t matter. Halley would get them down or she wouldn’t. At this point, it was out of Chase’s hands.
The seconds dragged toward a minute, and he knew they were almost there when the ship jerked like a giant’s hand had slapped it, the vessel groaning in protest.
The mechs called out a resounding “Ree-kah!”
And then the dropship slammed into the ground.
Chase shook his head, feeling a moment of disorientation. Someone shouted to cover the flank, and he knew the back hatch was open, but he couldn’t see it, with the impact foam all around them.
Mechs were pouring out the back of the dropship by the numbers, grabbing foam and tearing it free to make way for their comrades.
Thirty seconds later, the mechs were out of the dropship, and Chase had moved to a small rise to survey their position. Three other trails of smoke were visible to their right, and the other dropships reported in that all hands were alive, though a few were dented.
two ships over.
She didn’t reply. They both knew that their only two options were success or death.
Moments later, a shadow passed overhead, and then Borden’s Starcrusher slammed into the ground a kilometer ahead of the mechs.
Beyond the seventy-meter-tall monstrosity lay their target: Mount Genevia, with Casa Mons at its peak.
And Rika.
Missiles shot out of a bunker at the base of the mountain, streaking toward the Starcrusher, but Borden’s monster fired point defense cannons, shredding the incoming air breathers before the six-legged walker fired its rail cannons at the missile’s launch site. Plumes of fire and dirt soared into the air as the Starcrusher pummeled the enemy’s position.
Chase called out to Borden on their command net.
Chase looked down from the hillock he stood on, noting that two teams of SMI and RR mechs were already racing into the forest surrounding the mountain.
* * * * *
Rika heard General Garza before she saw him. He was speaking to one of the soldiers outside. The guard was insisting that she had orders from the emperor that Rika was not to be moved. Garza, on the other hand, was attempting to convince the woman that it would be better if she and her squad found somewhere else to be.
Seconds later, weapons fire erupted in the passage. It wasn’t more than a few dozen quick staccato bursts, and then silence fell.
“I guess you outclass the Niets a bit,” Rika said to the empty room.
“Noticed that, did you,” General Garza asked as he walked in.
“Makes sense, what with you being Orion Guard and all,” Rika replied. “So, I take it that this is the part where you whisk me off to the far reaches of space?”
“You’re a smart girl, Rika.” Garza stopped in front of her, his gaze traveling up and down her body as he assessed his prize. “Honestly, I may not get that much out of you, but I’m certainly not going to let Constantine get first dibs—especially not with his pet monster-maker.”
He waved a hand, and a team of engineers entered and looked the cage over.
“It’s still secure, sir,” one of them said after a moment. “She’s good to transport.”
Garza nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Get her to Illium. I’ll be following behind in a couple of days. I want to see if Constantine is capable of dealing with this mercenary incursion on his own.” He turned to Rika, a feral smile on his lips. “That’s right, Colonel Rika. I know all about your little band of ships. Wieck was very forthcoming with everything he learned about you.”
“Wieck?” Rika let out a string of curses, ending with, “I’ll kill that fucker.”
“Oh, well, Wieck didn’t turn on you willingly. I’ve been following your progress for some time, Rika. I knew you’d come to Genevia. My people set up some honeypots and identified a few resistance members. In turn, they gave us the whole network. By the time Wieck got back from Faneuil, we already knew almost everything, he just helped fill in a few details. Then it was just a matter of waiting for you to walk right into my trap.”
Niki sent a feeling of agreement.
“You done blah-blahing?” Rika asked Garza, wishing she wasn’t wearing her helmet so he could see the sneer on her lips—and the unbridled rage in her eyes.
The general snorted. “I guess—” He stopped, his eyes darting to the right. “That fucker…”
Without another look Rika’s way, Garza turned and strode from the room, throwing an order over his shoulder for the engineers to hurry up with ‘the mech’.
The four engineers quickly activated the a-grav pad beneath Rika’s cage and pushed it out into the corridor, where the bodies of dead Niets were being pulled aside by a dozen soldiers in gear Rika hadn’t seen before.
“The vaunted Orion Guard,” she said as she watched them work.
“Shut up,” one of the engineers replied.
As they pushed her down the corridor, Rika watched as the soldiers disappeared one by one until they were all invisible.
The engineers continued to push Rika down long passages until they finally got to a large loading bay. The walls and roof were hewn from stone, and at the far end, the doors were open, daylight streaming in, bathing a corvette-class ship in its warm glow.
“Stars…I’ve missed being on a planet. Just can’t get that light anywhere else,” Rika said aloud. “Am I right?”
“Shut up,” another one of the engineers repeated.
Yet another glanced back at Rika. “I can’t wait to get her in stasis. Thing gives me the creeps.”
“Hey! I resent that,” Rika said, trying to quash the fear she felt at hearing the word ‘stasis’. There was little doubt in her mind that if they put her in stasis, it was likely to be the last thing she ever experienced.
The engineers were already pushing her up a ramp into a small bay in the back of the ship as she spoke, and Niki didn’t respond right away, the delay sending a wave of panic through her.
Without warning, the a-grav field shut down, and Rika fell, landing heavily on her side. She rolled away from the cage and leapt up, wobbling a little on her damaged leg as she lunged to the side and slammed into one of the stealthed soldiers.
He swung his rifle toward her, but she slapped it away with her ruined gun-arm and then lifted a foot, clamping her three claws on his neck, crushing the life from the Orion soldier while wrenching his rifle free.
Projectile rounds ricocheted off her armor, and Rika took stock of egress options, spotting a passage four meters to her right. She tossed the soldier’s body at the closest stealthed enemy before leaping toward the corridor and diving through.
In her mind, she played through the scene she’d left: four engineers, six stealthed soldiers.
Rika nodded, wildly firing rounds out into the small cargo hold before backing further down the passage.
Backpedaling, Rika switched to the e-beam and fired several blasts before she reached the intersection, only to get hit by a pulse rifle’s hammer blow on her right side.
; The blast slammed her into the bulkhead, and she saw a heavily armored soldier with a scattershot pulse cannon.
Without a second thought, Rika kicked off the wall and lunged toward the soldier, firing twice with her electron beam before slamming her shoulder into his head and flipping up over his body.
“Doesn’t do much without a barrel,” Rika said as the soldier turned and took a swing at her, trying to get enough space between them to bring his pulse cannon to bear.
Rika ducked under a lumbering swing and jammed her gun-arm into the soldier’s groin, firing the weapon. Bolts of electricity arced out between them, and a muffled scream came from the soldier before his armor locked up and he froze.
Rika dropped the rifle and brought her fist down on the soldier’s hand, breaking his thumb. She wrenched on the scattershot, but it wouldn’t budge. Trying a new angle, she spun and placed her back against the soldier’s chest in an effort to get more leverage—which was when she just barely made out two stealthed enemies rounding the corner.
Mashing her fist against the armor-locked soldier’s hand, she managed to fire a trio of blasts from his weapon, bowling the enemies over before she finally managed to pull the scattershot free.
“Right you are, Niki,” Rika said, turning to run further into the ship, hobbling slightly on her injured leg.
