by Tim C Taylor
Killing them was Arun’s job.
“This is Catcher,” he said as Zébulon’s bombs hit home and New Order signal traffic suddenly dropped ninety percent. “We’re going in.”
The Barracuda shook as the engines opened up to maximum thrust. At 30g, any other crew in the galaxy would be crushed to a smear, but not Misfit Flight. Some said the X-Boats broke the laws of nature. They didn’t. But sometimes in matters of love and war, it paid to cheat a little.
Boudicca, Lard and Cheb came in hot too, acquiring targets Lissa was painting for them. With a few painful breaks – and some even more painful reconciliations – he’d been working with her since they were children. In battle, even if in nothing else, they understood each other perfectly.
Lissa was selecting the ground near the force bubbles. To penetrate the force shields, the X-Boats would have had to concentrate all their fire on a single point, but percussion munitions set to shatter the rock their bunkers were dug from would kill them just as dead.
With Zébulon’s boats easily evading the missiles 6437 had flung at them, Arun’s group unloaded devastation across the Hardit cluster, speeding away and taking just a light dusting from point defense on their exit that was no trouble for their aft shields.
Behind them, the rocks of 6437 shattered into a dozen fragments. Initially, they tumbled apart in slow motion, but the rocks smashed into each other, flinging smaller chunks out at high speed, which smacked into their larger neighbors.
Misfit Flight had spun about to face 6437 and was decelerating to come in for another attack, but it was clear there was nothing left to take out. Some of the Hardit force bubbles had detached from the rocks they had been embedded within and were now carving clean paths through the debris field, trapping inside them ice, rock, equipment, and Hardit bodies – some still alive but not for long.
“Target destroyed,” Lissa pronounced.
“That was just a warm up,” said Arun. “Next stop Ceres.”
— Chapter 04 —
For Marine-Grenadier Rosenburg, there had been plenty of chances for payback since reaching the breach holes carved into the Carbuncle’s outer hull. The assault cutter teeth of his carbine dripped with Hardit blood from some of them, the redness pooling into fat bulbs before budding off and coasting in the low-gee toward the outward facing deck.
Unfortunately, the enemy had their own ideas of revenge. He’d only just returned from escorting stretcher parties to the field treatment station to find the passageway held by his platoon choked with wounded Marines.
Others were rendering care as best they could. Their way forward was blocked by blast shutters. It was time for the Marine-Grenadier to prove he deserved his specialism.
“Welcome back, Rosie,” said Sergeant Heffernan. Rosenburg’s HUD indicated that the sergeant was also looping in Tidball and McNair, the other two grenadiers. “Keep to your assigned lines of attack.” The NCO was painting a crude tactical map into their HUDs. “I want breach charges here, here, and here. And I want everything inside fragged to buggery.”
“They’re as good as dead, Sarge,” said McNair. Rosenburg wasn’t so convinced, but he acknowledged and primed one of the breach charges from his pack.
Twenty seconds later, he was charging into roiling clouds of sensor-confusing smoke with the air screaming from suppressive Legion darts and New Order counterfire.
He threw himself at the blast shutters, praying his AI was filtering out his screams from the platoon net.
A couple of strides later and he couldn’t care less. It was him, the barrier, and getting his breach charge into the right position before the enemy gunned him down.
Nothing else mattered.
— Chapter 05 —
Ceres was the highest priority target south of the ecliptic. The huge ball of rock and ice was technically a dwarf planet according to the tactical planning teams who’d helped the Legion high command plan for the liberation of the Solar System. It was a moon in Arun’s book, a moon floating free of the embrace of any planet, and which followed its own eccentric orbit around the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
Hollowed out, fortified and strengthened, an enemy could turn Ceres into a heavily defended bastion that couldn’t be broken up easily like the little rocks of the 6437 cluster. It had to be cleared out properly.
Wary always of counter-attack by Hardit fighters, Arun sent the Barracudas of Misfit Flight diving again and again against the Ceres entrenchments, using the incredible thrust from the starship engines in the back of little warboat fighters to dodge away before ground fire could reach them.
The Hardit gunners got wise at the end, anticipating the exit zone through which the Buccaneers would pass as they tore away from the attack runs, and seeding them with micro-mines.
Arun and Lissa’s craft lurched as the front shields collided with mines, bumping them across space and sending them tumbling across thousands of klicks before regaining control. One deflector node was burned out, but they were otherwise undamaged.
Flakes hadn’t been so lucky. Whether from Hardit fire, or from pushing to the limit an X-boat design already on the edge of Legion technology, her fighter-bomber broke apart at low altitude, its debris fragments caught in an elliptical orbit around Ceres.
But Misfit’s job was almost done.
On the next pass, they sent bunker busters screaming toward the enemy gun emplacements that had dared to fire upon them.
“That’s for Flakes,” snarled Lissa as she released the deadly munitions.
This time, as they pulled out of their attack runs, there was nothing left to fire at them.
Arun sent them in search patterns that stretched a web around the dwarf planet, making sure nothing of the New Order – living or machine – still functioned. Then he looped the flight further out to check nothing of the New Order remained in high orbit.
With Ceres a gleaming crescent in the distance, Arun made a fly past of the life-support canister that had been ejected from the breakup of Flakes’ X-Boat. Satisfied it was caught in the dwarf planet’s gravity, and would gently nudge itself down to a soft landing in its own sweet time, he was ready to press on to the next target, but Zébulon piped up, “What will happen to her body?”
Immediately, Arun muted his mike. “Drent-head machine! I thought Zébulon was supposed to be the clever one. We never leave one of our own behind, alive or dead. Everyone in the Legion knows that. Even the monkey-vecks would find Zébulon’s question bizarre.”
“He’s trying his best,” said Lissa. “You should too.”
Lissa’s right, said Barney. The combat AI linked to Arun’s brainstem from the slot in his human’s neck spent most of his time so tightly integrated with Arun’s thoughts that they made one composite individual. Sometimes Barney disagreed, and then he separated himself out to speak his own opinions directly into Arun’s mind. It’s the hash and fizz of a risky plan hitting the chaos of real-life. Roll with it.
Barney was right. He usually was. Arun’s nerves were shredding because of what would soon be coming if everything went according to plan. Dangerous though they were, it wasn’t the Hardits who were making him nervous.
With a thought, he unmuted. “Ceres has her now,” he answered Zébulon. “Let her remains come down and sink into the ice. It’s a fitting resting place. Once we’ve kicked the New Order out the system, we’ll come back and plant a marker so she’s never forgotten. Now, people, let’s leave Flakes in peace and get back to killing monkeys.”
“Do you think the Hardits bought that?” he asked Lissa as the five surviving Misfits flew off to the next target.
“They’ll have to,” she replied. “We’ve got no choice. We all knew your opening gambit was a big risk, more than sane people would ever contemplate. But you? Arun, you’ve taken bigger risks than this and laughed your way through them and out the other end.”
He felt her tap him on the shoulder, and he twisted around in his harness to look into her face.
She wa
s a Wolf. A human, but her skin infected with a symbiotic alien parasite that defended its host by providing a scaly outer hide tough enough to resist small arms fire. Wolf scales were also as brightly colored as a psychedelic dream. Lissa’s was no exception and deep brown eyes were marked by hypnotic concentric circles.
The scales muted a host’s capacity for facial expression, but Arun knew Lissa well enough to read deep concern in her face.
“Something’s cutting you up inside, Arun,” she told him. “Something you’re not telling me. Let me share your burden.”
Arun was caught in that hypnotic gaze, not daring to breathe. She’d seen straight through him, and the truth…? Yeah, that was kind of awkward.
“Contact,” warned Barney, a computerized version of his voice speaking aloud so Lissa could hear him too. “New Order Draesheg-class fighters de-cloaking.”
“How many?” Arun asked, still not able to tear himself away from Lissa’s gaze.
“Twenty-seven.”
Offering silent thanks to the Hardits for saving his ass, Arun closed his eyes to merge thoughts with his AI and take in the situation.
It was the perfect Hardit ambush. Three groups of nine enemy fighters were moving to intercept them, each coming in from a different heading, and each subdivided into flight trios.
Although the enemy fighters were oriented toward the Barracudas, so they were acquiring targets with as many weapons pods as possible, the fighters themselves were on a course to bank around and behind the Misfits.
As cadets, Arun and Lissa had two fundamental truths of void combat drilled into them. One: there is no up and down in space, and anyone who chooses to define up and down immediately limits their perception of the battlezone. Two: choose your vector carefully because you cannot bank or come about in space since there is no resistant medium to push against.
They had spent the last fifty years of war unlearning that second tenet of void combat. You still couldn’t push against the vacuum, but the Hardits had learned to cheat by pushing their keels, rudders and wings into compression-resistant lower dimensions.
“Catcher to all call signs. Turnaround and head for Ceres. We are gonna show the monkey-vecks how real pilots fly.”
The enemy Draesheg fighters were as maneuverable as a 20th-century fighter plane. At the beginning of the war, they would have outclassed anything but the best AI-operated drone fighters.
But X-Boats were still superior. Following Arun’s instructions, the misfit Barracudas simply dumped their forward momentum into the local Klein-Manifold Region, spun through 180 degrees, and reignited engines for max speed to Ceres.
Their aft shields made a pretty light show as they absorbed the heavy fire from the Draeshegs. But there was a cost to all this pirouetting and shrugging off missile impacts and laser cannons. The K-M Region where all this unwanted energy was being bled was rapidly heating up. As it warmed, the shields would degrade and while the engines would work just as well, the g-forces their crews could safely endure would also degrade.
Eventually a point would be reached when the flow of energy out to the K-M Region would reverse, and the Barracuda and its crew would be reduced instantly to plasma.
Arun estimated they had two minutes before they reached that point.
“You’re not supposed to be enjoying yourself,” Lissa teased, and Arun didn’t need look behind to know she was grinning dimples into her Wolf face.
“I can’t help it,” he said. “Being this close to death makes me feel alive. I haven’t felt this good in years.”
“Just keep your amusement off the comm. Oh, frakk it! Who am I kidding?”
Springer whooped with the sheer thrill of existence.
She might call herself Lissa these days, but when she screamed with excitement like that, she was the same Springer who had gone pressure suit skinny dipping around a Lagrange point, and told a blue joke to a Jotun officer on a dare and lived to tell the tale. Many rich memories rose from the depths of his mind.
Message from Boudicca, said Barney inside his head. If you hurt her again, I will kill you. You do realize that, don’t you? The insane frakk’s threat ends there. I would take it seriously. Boudicca’s completely loopy.
Arun left Lissa to her whoops and hollers. Over the next few hours, life for the crew – AI and human – in his X4B-Barracuda was going to get very messy.
— Chapter 06 —
Sector commander Khallsheg-Hihn gestured with her tail to her junior responsible for coordinating the defense of the southern zone.
She stood in the command pit of the sector control base orbiting Luna. From this deep well she could manifest her will and direct operations not just here around the moon but across the entire solar system beyond near-Earth orbit, the latter being the domain of generals such as Ulmack and Dine-Alegg, those who had the supreme commander’s ear – and any other of Tawfiq’s body parts they could access.
They were political. Chances, schemers – more concerned with saying the right things in the right ears, and giving the right scents into the right noses, than actually winning battles against the New Order’s enemies.
Khallsheg-Hihn knew herself to be better than them. She was a proper soldier. And that was why with the Legion having boarded the control base, and with dozens of enemy warboats flying freely around the moon, her mind was not upon the heat of the enemy assault, but far away on the cold dark wastes south of the ecliptic.
On Ceres.
The walls of the command pit were heaped with visual and scent displays warning her of minor victories, defeats and ongoing skirmishes, of dangers and opportunities. She ignored them all. Where was Spear Head Chaeykz?
The image of a Janissary soldier spouted from the high priority bank. It was not Chaeykz.
“Clear the channel, Haarfyorun,” she growled at her junior who was in charge of the computation and data storage zone, a technician more than a soldier.
“But sector commander–”
“Route your communication to the base defense sub commander.” Khallsheg-Hihn blocked Scent Leader Haarfyorun’s transmission and was rewarded with a fresh image: a far nobler one of a Janissary pilot in her pressure suit, which reflected the multicolored light from the control bank of her advanced space fighter.
“Spear Head Chaeykz begging to report, Sector Commander.”
The fighter pilot’s head snapped violently to one side. A moment later, the fighter shook violently. Chaeykz, however, appeared unhurt from her vessel’s extreme maneuvers.
“Spear Head Chaeykz, there is something unusual about the enemy you are engaging. I cannot place my tail on what, though. Can you advise?”
“My spear is in pursuit of five of the enemy’s fighters of the three-seat fighter bomber variant. We are intercepting and recording their communications for later analysis. With humble respect, Sector Commander, my priority is to kill the nefnast scum.”
Khallsheg-Hihn’s fur flattened in dismay. The sub commander responsible for the base’s defense was forcing her image alongside Chaeykz, and she was bringing a subordinated image of Haarfyorun with her. This did not bode well.
“Fly free,” Khallsheg-Hihn told Chaeykz. “Kill the nefnast humans, and when you have destroyed your enemies, inspect their corpses. It is possible that you will find the sector command base to be temporarily out of communication due to enemy disruption. In such a case, I am ordering you to report your findings as far up the Earth command hierarchy as you can push them. Do not delay.”
Chaeykz didn’t reply at first, too busy being flung against her harness by high-gee maneuvers.
“Make it quick,” Khallsheg-Hihn told Haarfyorun while she was waiting to hear back from Ceres.
“We’re breached,” said Haarfyorun. “Legion Marines are flooding into the CDS Area. They will reach the data core within moments.”
Ever since the nefnast enemy had penetrated the outer perimeter, Khallsheg-Hihn had secretly known this would be her final day, even though to admit the truth wo
uld be disloyal to Supreme Commander Tawfiq. But Haarfyorun’s report brought with it such a terrifying new possibility that the sector commander was temporarily stunned into petrification. Not only would she die, but she would die dishonored with failure.
Her mind freewheeled in horror. Her jaw moved but she could not say the words that were necessary. This was the moment when she proved her worth. Every second counted, but she remained locked in horror.
Unless the few remaining moments of opportunity drained away, a failure became more likely, trapping her ever more completely.
“What are you?” The Computation and Data Storage scent leader sneered at her. “Are you Janissary or foul-smelling human? I need to burn the data cores, and I require your authorization, Khallsheg-Hihn. Give it now!”
At any other time, the sector commander would have had Scent Leader Haarfyorun publicly tortured and executed for such insolence. But in the circumstances, it was well done.
And still it was hard to voice the truth.
Supreme Commander Tawfiq Woomer-Calix had predicted the enemy course of attack. The Legion was so thoroughly compromised by the New Order’s unwitting spies within their ranks that Khallsheg-Hihn had been able to mine the precise approach path they would take to assault the base. It was simply bad luck that the enemy had spotted the minefield at the last moment and turned aside.
But to admit that the sector base was lost was to acknowledge that the supreme commander was wrong.
To order the data cores burnt when Tawfiq had insisted that this opening battle would be won… To do this amounted to blasphemy.
But Khallsheg-Hihn was not like Ulmack, Dine-Alegg, and all those other brown-tailed fools. She was a real Janissary.
“I, Sector Commander Khallsheg-Hihn, order the destruction of all data stores and equipment that might be of value to the enemy. Burn it all, Haarfyorun. Do it now.”
