“Seriously?” said someone a few seconds later.
They were jumping to only several meters above the ground.
“Let’s do it, Eagle Wing. Sound off when your suit is active and you’re ready to jump out the airlock.”
I did a finger going down motion to Leanne, and the volume dropped on the fighter talk. Loud enough for me to hear, but not enough to distract me.
“Navy,” I said. “Form up into a wall formation, but prepare for dogfighting. Have your avatars walk yours and their combat suits with heavy Trixone guns to the living room, and prepare them in case we need to go down as well. If so, everyone will come to Long Water, and we’ll rift down from there.”
They all acknowledged.
“Shield,” said Serena, followed by “Eagle Wing, jump now.”
The Excaliburs vanished, and I put a mirror shield in front of us.
“Jumping in three,” I said, and we jumped down into the planet’s orbit, with the nearest mass of plant fighters in range.
The combined fire of thirteen corvettes shredded them, but they did get a shot of their heavy guns off, which bounced off my mage shield.
“Wrap it around us,” yelled Serena, and I did as she wanted, just in time to bounce another set of pulses away from us.
Serena and Tamsin were in control for the moment, so as Serena changed course, everyone did. Another four major attempts to get through my mage shield failed, and all we had left were stragglers.
“Break and attack,” I said, dropping the mage shield.
Small groups of plant fighters were no challenge for us. We all took some hits, but between the four of us able to do shields, we avoided any major ones.
I unbuckled, and stood.
“Pilots and avatars to Long Water. Leanne, show me where the best place to put us is.”
The three of them unbuckled and rose as well, followed me at the run down to the living room, where we stepped into the back of our suits, and checked they were fully activated. The others were already coming through the rift from Haven station one by one. It gave me a chance to see the differences in the suits properly for once. Like AI avatars, the shape of combat suits had also evolved to the shapes of Imperium members. So we had three extra-large ones in big cat upright stance, two taller ones for dragon dimensions, and four shorter ones. All were carrying the same big gun.
We formed up in a double line, limited by the spare space in the room. A screen popped up, showing me the capital city where what looked like a regiment of Trixone were closing in on the center of the city, while locals fell back before them, and a squadron of our pilots were attacking them from the rear.
I wasn’t expecting that sort of numbers. Immediately a popup showed me the locations of six large transports on the ground.
“Leanne, paint those transports as targets for the Excaliburs, please.”
“Confirmed.”
“Everyone ready?”
A series of yes answers convinced me they were. I opened a rift a half step in front of all of us, with the other end in an open area just in front of where Ralnor militia were slowly retreating.
“Go,” I said, stepped forward onto the ground, and immediately opened fire on the front ranks of plants.
We spread out into a firing line, and began mowing in earnest. The Ralnor behind us rallied, and a screen showed me they were dressed so as no skin was visible, but all the same, as we moved forward, we encountered bodies where obviously the stingers had made it through the clothing.
Woof started to run forward, and we all adjusted our stride to stay with him, firing constantly. It took us time to make it all the way through the formation, but it was nothing short of a massacre. Ralnor bodies were everywhere poking up through the covering of shredded plant, but the Trixone hadn't been prepared to face heavy weapons, and didn’t appear to have any.
Which was odd, since reports from our ground forces had indicated they were encountering more heavily armoured Trixone all the time, firing increasingly heavy weapons. Maybe here though, some commander had assumed they had a soft target, and hadn't anticipated any relief arriving in time.
When we met up with the pilots on the other side, I asked Leanne for the next best place for us, and I rifted all of us there. We repeated the massacre there, and then kept moving on. The Excaliburs were throwing fire down whenever they could without risking local lives or damage, but being a fight inside cities, they were of limited use.
It was several long hours before the job was done, with the last plants having to be searched out inside buildings. If any of the pilots had still had doubts about why we trained in the combat suits regularly, they didn’t now.
Thirty One
It was late afternoon before we left the planet.
Eagle, as flag officer on the scene, had been summoned by the local government, and been effusively thanked. Casualties had been greater than they’d have liked, but were still only a small fraction of the population, most of whom had been able to hide on the upper floors of buildings. While a small colony, the cities were modern, albeit a bit battle scarred now. Most of the dead had been militia and police.
While he was doing diplomacy, the Excaliburs collected their pilots, and we returned to Long Water by rift. Everyone returned to their own ships, the Excaliburs jumped back on board their carriers, and I took Long Water over to the jump point to seal it, and then returned to the planet.
Eagle requested our gigs to land on the surface spread across the cities, and they returned a half hour later with presents from the locals. These turned out to be mainly food and drink based, with messages on how to prepare the delicacies for eating, and which alcohol went with which delicacy. But given we’d be arriving home around dinner time, I put a hold order on actually doing anything with them. By this time, we were retrieving our salvage droids, which had made a few large piles of debris out in an orbit where they could not fall back to the planet any time soon.
The last Excalibur jumped into orbit, and then straight into its hangar bay. Eagle turned up a minute later through the rift from his hangar level, and took his now usual seat. He was wearing a slightly oversized Ralnor waistcoat over his flight suit, and some obvious decorations on it. No-one was game to ask, given his expression.
“Job well done,” he said. “Let’s head home.”
About half way there, we received a destination location, and found six dreadnaughts there waiting for us. Admiral Bentley received the battle feeds and a fast summary from Eagle, and then we all continued back to Haven. It turned out we’d not had any backup at all on this, as since we were supposed to be training, the dreadnaughts had been re-tasked somewhere else. They’d come looking for us only when Bentley had considered us late arriving back, and had sent the rendezvous message the moment we appeared back on the navmap.
All thirteen corvettes were given docking assignments on the military end of the station, and we let the pilots find their own way out through the cargo bay airlock. We of course walked through our rifts to our living room, and beat them all to a mess we hadn't been to before, which was nicely sized for fourteen squadrons.
Dinner was a lively affair, and during it, a number of pilots had their callsigns changed, amid great hilarity as to why. Eagle gave the room a formal ‘well done’, and while they hadn't done much in space except press buttons, the ground action had been all they’d been trained to expect, and then some. We’d done it before, but this was our first time in combat suits, and relying only on our guns. It was a good feeling to have saved a colony.
Admiral Jedburgh turned up when the coffee was being served. The rostrum here was smaller, but he stepped up and to the podium, as the room fell silent.
“We had a diplomatic communique from the Ralnor a short time ago, expressing their extreme satisfaction with your actions today. Well done.”
The room went wild with applause, but the admiral held a hand up to silence it.
“Since we can’t even make you train for a full day wi
thout you getting into trouble, Eagle Wing is now designated as an operational unit, subordinated to Navy Mage Squadron One as your carrier force. You’ve been assigned a mission to begin in the morning after breakfast. It will likely last several days, so ensure you have everything you need with you this evening. You’ll train and breakfast on your carriers in the morning. Eagle and Spacemage, I’ll see you in my office in a half hour. The rest of you are dismissed for the evening. Again, well done today.”
He left, and with nothing else scheduled for the evening, butlers started getting orders for alcohol. We tried what was supposed to be some sort of Ralnor after dinner liqueur, and those of us with flesh throats promptly needed medical monitor assistance with the burning effect as the liquid went down. None of us were capable of speaking for a good few minutes after, and we were not the only ones with the same issue, by any means. This didn’t stop a few almost incapacitated pilots from croaking for more.
Eagle came over as I was getting my voice back, informed me he’d put a lockdown on the rest of the Ralnor alcohol, and the two of us left the mess together. At the appointed time, we entered the admiral’s ante room, and promptly found ourselves on the bridge of Trident, one of the full titans. An officer of the watch waved us towards the ready room. He was one of three people on the bridge, and it gave me a look at the top end of the navy, where the word crew still had some meaning apparently. Or maybe it was because the captain was a full admiral.
Inside, the admiral waved us to seats in front of his desk, where there were already hollos waiting. One of them was Jane, another was Marshall Bigglesworth, and the third was a civilian I recognized but needed a PC prompt to name as David Tollin, who was the head councilor of Haven, and also the head of the Imperium council.
Once again, I felt seriously out of place. It was a meeting for a one star, who later on gives orders to a lieutenant. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to the way the Imperium military worked.
What was also bizarre at first glance, was the hollos were bidirectional, so from both sides of the desk, you could see their faces. Jedburgh looked at Jane.
“It’s your briefing Jane.”
Wait. A two star was briefing two four stars and the head of the Imperium? What the hell was I doing here?
“Thanks Darius. Bud knows something of what I’m about to say, and for now, I want it kept strictly between us.”
“And Jon, I assume,” interrupted Tollin.
“Jon doesn’t need to know.”
I wasn’t the only one shocked to hear something like that.
“Yet,” she went on quickly. “Jon knows I have a side project going on, but not what it is. And for now, I don’t want him distracted, or even the Imperium distracted.”
“I think you have our attention,” said Bigglesworth.
“Shortly before Rogue was stolen, I picked up a distress message which purports to come from Arthur. It was heavily damaged, and all I could get out of it was he’s deep in Trixone space, under serious attack, and can’t leave because there is something there which he believes needs to be protected at all costs.”
“The message can’t be that damaged if you got all that,” said Tollin.
“The message came in a dozen times over the course of a day, through a dozen different comnavsats. I pieced together that much from the fragments of all of them.”
“Why can’t Jon know?” asked Jedburgh.
“Because the Alpha team were all bonking some of Arthur’s crew, along with three of our Chaos drivers, two of whom lead squadrons. If Jon knows, they’ll know, and all of them will down tools and force Jon to go looking for them. And Jon won’t need any convincing to jump half the galaxy and then search for weeks or months, or however long it takes.”
“True,” said Tollin. “And we don’t have the military structure to cope with them vanishing. I mean, we’re talking an army general, three of our four marine colonels, and a handful of marine team leaders.”
“Surely not?” I heard myself say, and immediately clamped a hand over my mouth.
The others laughed.
“You don’t know their origin stories,” said Jane, who hadn't laughed, “and just how loyal they are to who they call friends or lovers. The bonking I mentioned was well before the Imperium began, then the Alpha Team was more or less disbanded, and they all took leadership positions in the Imperium military. If they were still a mercenary team, and Jon wasn’t the Imperator, I wouldn’t worry about them going off to search. I’d be with them. But that’s why I want this kept quiet until we know where Arthur is, and what his and his people’s situation is. We can afford to give our people a couple of days to go off on a jaunt to rescue someone who needs rescuing, but not weeks or months on a search for someone we don’t even know for sure is in trouble.”
“Fine,” said Bigglesworth. “I take it you were responsible for Rogue being stolen?”
“I had Rogue built because we need the next evolution of dreadnaughts, but I allocated the first one to go find Arthur, because the mission was fraught with danger, and one more dreadnaught here and now wasn’t going to make much difference being here or not.”
“Don’t tell that to Susan Bentley,” muttered Jedburgh.
Thirty Two
“I told Susan she couldn’t have Rogue.”
“And assuming the ship comes back, it’s Jon’s ship for when he needs a more powerful one than BigMother. Sceptre of Kali is in the process of being modified to allow docking of both BigMother and Rogue internally, using jumps. Finding the space wasn’t easy, but the front end of the ship has more which can be converted, because the titan turrets don’t retract quite as far. He’s on Sceptre at the moment breaking in his new rear admiral, but he doesn’t want to be there as much as Algy here didn’t want to be. So I’m organizing him an easy way of choosing which ship for which mission.”
“Ah,” said Jedburgh. “I wondered what was going on.”
“Anyway, I knew someone was going to try and steal one of our advanced ships. I knew when the group of American soldiers was going to try and who they were, and handpicked the ones for the job. One of my avatars is on board, but I’ll stay hidden until they either find Arthur, or something happens worth revealing myself for.”
“Do we have any idea where Rogue is now?” asked Tollin.
“I’ve a pretty good one. Rogue is leaving behind bread crumbs in the form of comnavsats, and I have a comnavsat layer freighter following them, filling in the gaps between them. It’s necessarily a few days behind them, but according to a message I left myself in the buffer of one of them, they’ve had some delays along the way, and are not jumping while they sleep, which has allowed the freighter to catch up somewhat. I estimate it’s about two or three days behind them at the moment.”
“Why so far?” asked Lacey.
“Because they’re dropping a single comnavsat into a system after they jumped over several, and the freighter has to drop between three and five in each system to connect them all. They however, are jumping slower than the freighter is, due to the fact they are jumping manually, and have to stop periodically to computer generate the next set of jumps. With their sleep time factored in, the freighter isn’t falling too far behind each day.”
“There’s no AI on Rogue?” asked Jedburgh.
“No. It was the only way of making it easy for them to steal the ship, without having to bring anyone else into the loop at the time, and at the same time making it harder for them to move rapidly. And provide a reason for not jumping for part of the day.”
“Do they know they’re on a mission for you?” asked Bigglesworth.
“Not for me specifically, but yes, they now know there is a rescue mission, and seem to have accepted it.”
“How do you know that?” asked Tollin.
“I keep sending myself messages, albeit they get delayed before I get them. After they left Trixone, they came across a station run by civilian Trixone.” She held up a hand, stopping anyone from asking further. �
��And that’s another story for a different time. They dropped into the middle of a Trixone battle with what I gather is a species of ant, both sides of which fired on them, and which in true marine style, they exacted a measure of arse kicking for.”
“You said they were soldiers?” asked Jedburgh.
“Yes. Mainly marines, but the colonel in charge is a put out to pasture battalion commander, with an impressive record.”
“Sounds a bit like Annabelle Smith,” said Tollin.
“Indeed. The whole team is like an expanded version of her Alpha Team, only I had to limit them to twelve, because Rogue only accommodates thirteen, and this group are not as social together as Annabelle’s teams have always been. The result was a mainly male team as well, which I know certain people will bristle about when they find out, but I chose the best of them. And so far, they’ve turned into a pretty decent ship crew. Especially since they’re doing most things manually.”
“So why are we meeting about this now?” asked Bigglesworth.
“The Rogue team is now well over on the other side of Trixone space, and they had to go looking for better maps of that side.”
“What are they doing over there?” asked Lacey.
“They wanted our best and baddest they could steal to set up a new home world for their people, and so were trying to get home. I hid the rift to Gold Coast from them.” This caused some chuckles. “So they aimed for the Long Bar, which sort of joins the core to the first couple of arms, and allows very long jump access to the Orion Spur if you want to take the risk. It’s the long way home, but it takes them in the general direction I thought Arthur was in.”
“You said were?” asked Tollin.
“Yes. The latest message from myself said they’d met a new species, who’d told them of the existence of the distress message, but not the contents. So I don’t have the full message yet, but they did what all good military teams do, and decided to look for the message as they went along. They know who Arthur is from the ship database, and they know the message was addressed to Jon. At some point soon, they’ll obtain a copy of the full message, and start searching.”
Lieutenant Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 3) Page 13
