Not With A Whimper: Destroyers

by D. A. Boulter

  Tieff gave him a thumbs-up. “Made contact. Pilot’s name is Terry Givens. He’s a bit of a shady sort. Probably smuggles stuff to outbound ships while doing his job as a work-boat pilot. Just the sort of man who won’t balk at transporting us to the ship of our choice.”

  “Good. Next we have to figure out what the ship of our choice is. Oh, and we’ll need one extra space. Burnett’s assistant, Dr Grant will be coming with us, too.”

  “That makes 42 of us. I don’t think there’s any way in hell we’ll be able to do this peacefully – and sure as blazes it’s going to be impossible for 42 of us to stow away. Hijacking seems the best bet.”

  Jensen nodded. “Get Macintosh to put out some feelers. She’s good at that sort of thing. She’ll chat up some of the crews – maybe even make them an offer of bed time. Hell, I’ll do the same if you find me anyone acceptable.”

  Tieff grinned. “What’s acceptable?”

  “Of age, female, willing, and has contacts on anything outward-bound.” He laughed at Tieff’s expression. “Yes, even if she’s ugly as sin, mean as a rattler, and 73. Let the others know. We’re looking for a good time while we’re up here and, as long as it doesn’t interfere with our duty, we don’t much care who with.”

  Tieff shrugged. “Might cause us some problems with the colonel.”

  “No. He knows soldiers. So long as we maintain discipline and don’t give the Army a black eye, we’ll be good.”

  He picked up a bottle of water, and took a long drink. “We’re in it deep, James, but we’re going to make it. I never thought she’d be able to get us this far. I thought she might give it a small shot to ease her conscience, and then sorrowfully back out. But she didn’t. She’s the real thing, and we have our chance. Let’s make it count.”

  Tieff looked at him sideways. “As long as she’s not playing Westorn’s game. As long as she didn’t bring us up here so that we’d be easy for the colonel to control, and then give us the real goods while she’s at it.”

  Jensen turned on him. “She’s not like that. She was ready to die for Walker and the other sentries – gave in just because she didn’t want us taking them with us.”

  Tieff laughed, and patted him on the shoulder. “I just wanted to see it for myself.”

  “See what?” Jensen glared at him.

  “See the great Sergeant Jensen unmasked, much to his chagrin.”

  Jensen grit his teeth. “Say what you mean.”

  “And that proves it. Jensen, old man, you’re in love with her. Wait until I tell the others.” Tieff raised an arm in a block for the blow he expected.

  But Jensen said nothing, made no move.

  “Frank, you okay?”

  Jensen refocused his eyes. “Yeah, I guess so. Don’t say anything, James. Because if they believe you, they’ll start to doubt me. And if they doubt me, it might all start unraveling.” He took a deep breath.

  Tieff brought his eyebrows together. “Why would they believe it?”

  “Because I think it’s true. I know you were ragging on me, trying to lighten things up, but, damn it, I think you scored one.”

  “Jesus, Frank, watch yourself, then. We need you sharp.”

  Jensen laughed bitterly. “See, already you begin to doubt.”

  NINETEEN

  AZORES

  Saturday, August 14th

  “I doubt that I can take much more of this,” Kelner said, throwing in his hand. “Since Command cancelled all leave – even a four-hour pass – I’ve lost more money than I would have spent.”

  Schmidt laughed as he raked in the chips. “By my reckoning, you’ve lost less than one hundred New Euros. You would have spent so little? What do you save it for? Think you’ll live forever?”

  Kelner pressed his lips together, stood, and left the table without a word.

  “Easy, Erich,” Müller said quietly. “The tension gets to us all.” He looked up at the chrono in the mess hall. “And we’re fourth to leave right now.”

  Schmidt nodded. “Sorry, Karl. I didn’t think.”

  He gathered the cards together, and placed them in the holder. “I’ll go and talk with him.”

  “And I’m going to check out the ship again.”

  At the launch pad, Müller found Feldwebel Hirsch doing his own inspections.

  “It comes soon, Herr Major, I can feel it.” Hirsch looked like he hadn’t slept in two days. Perhaps he hadn’t. “Your ship is in top shape.”

  “Good, good. It would not do to have something go wrong just when we need her most.” Müller wondered if the man had prepared like he had suggested. “I want to live to fight again,” he added.

  Hirsch looked at him. “I, too, wish to live.”

  “Then, perhaps, if the gods are kind, we shall do so together.”

  Their eyes met, and Hirsch gave a minute nod. Then he stiffened to attention. Müller turned around and saw Oberst Dreschler approaching.

  “Dismissed, Feldwebel,” Dreschler said, and the man walked quickly away. “Problems with your ship, Major Müller?”

  Müller kept himself as relaxed as he could. “No, Oberst Dreschler. Alles in Ordnung. But one more check will not hurt.”

  “I understand you filled the provisions lockers for your flight.” Dreschler’s cold eyes regarded him in a way that Müller didn’t like.

  “I gave that order”, Müller agreed. “Unless we have der Herr Gott solidly on our side, we will not be able to land here again for quite some time – should the Americans attack.” He had to remove any suspicions that Dreschler might have developed. “I want my flight able to fight without taking extra time for resupply. If I have no need for provisions, we can dock, refuel and rearm, and get back to the fight much sooner.” He smiled. “More efficient.”

  Dreschler nodded, apparently satisfied. “Very good, Major.”

  The pair of them walked around Anton One. “I only wish we had the dedicated fighters that Command promised us,” Müller said. “With them, we could take out more of the enemy faster.”

  Dreschler looked bitter. “Agreed, Herr Major Müller. Agreed. But events do not appear to take us in their favour.”

  “We do what we can.”

  “We do what we can,” Dreschler replied, “even when nothing goes right.”

  * * *

  TOPSIDE ONE

  Monday, August 16th

  Sergeant Frank Jensen wandered the main concourse of Topside One. Nothing much had gone right since they arrived. Their pilot had misgivings, only taken care of by doubling his bribe. No one had made a useful contact, though they all had tried. And the three days of testing to get the baseline that Doctor Burnett needed had passed. Now they would begin in earnest – and Jensen had a bad feeling about that.

  Colonel Westorn seemed on edge. And he’d brought up fifteen more of the super-soldiers. That made twenty-five of them on the station – at least. Westorn didn’t need that many to take care of his little group of “volunteers”, should he decide in that direction. There were only forty of them, and they had only a few weapons. The fanatics could take them out relatively easily. Why bring up more? He stopped short.

  “Christ,” he muttered. He needed to talk with Tieff and the others. Westorn hadn’t brought them up into space just to keep Burnett on board with improving the programming. The colonel wanted them on Topside One for a reason. He wanted sixty-five or more of his soldier-fanatics on the station – or maybe many more if he lifted another shuttle or two with them. And that meant he had an operation he intended to complete up here.

  “What do you think it is, Frank?” Tieff asked, when Jensen had made known his thoughts. Tieff didn’t doubt his conclusion for a moment. “Take over the station?”

  “I can’t see him needing to take over Topside One,” Macintosh said. “It’s pretty much under the control of the USNA government. Hell, our patrol ships dock here.”

  That was something else they hadn’t figured on, something which did nothing to help the situation or improve their ne
rves.

  “Any of them here, now, that he could call on should someone figure out we’ve hijacked a ship? I understand they have impressive acceleration. They could catch us before we reached a place where our ship could initiate jump.”

  “Relax,” Macintosh said. “According to one of the detector boys, who thinks I’ve got a great body, they rarely come in. They spend most of their time patrolling for pirates.” She picked up a textured-protein sandwich and bit into it.

  “Gave him a good ride, did you?” Private Davis asked.

  “He’d be a keeper, if that’s all I wanted. It’s not,” she said, grinning, “but he walked away with no complaints.”

  Those around the table laughed.

  “I don’t doubt that for a moment,” Tieff said.

  Macintosh winked at him. “I know you don’t. You walked away, too, but none too steadily, if I recall correctly.”

  “All very fascinating,” Jensen said over renewed laughter, trying to return order to the discussion. “Now, anyone have any leads at all?”

  “No leads, Frank,” Tieff said, “but I just had a thought. According to the news, our relations with the South American Union are just about as low as they’ve ever been. Do you think that we intend to take that a step further – invade their station?”

  “Dear God,” Davis said. “I think you’ve got it. We’ve more regular soldier boys on this station than usual – and add us to that, plus the colonel’s super-soldiers – that’s a lot to feed.”

  Jensen didn’t like that thought at all. If the colonel were planning something like a station take-over, he’d want everyone up there for the least possible time. Which meant they needed to get out ASAP.

  “If they have something like that planned, they’ll need weapons. That’s something else we should look for now.”

  Davis, appearing a little haggard, said, “Rogers has been giving me the eye. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel like he suspects anything, but like he just wants to take me out purely for the pleasure of it. He never felt quite right before the programming. I think he’s become a lot less than human.”

  And, sooner or later, Jensen decided, he would have to take out Rogers. “Leave him to me.”

  “You got it. I want nothing to do with the man.”

  “And I need to talk with the good doctor.”

  “Don’t let them catch you.”

  * * *

  Thursday, August 19th

  “I have Sergeant Jensen in now,” Christy told Colonel Westorn. She could put him off no longer. “We’re using the modified program. What we want him to do is navigate in zero-g, pick up the set of tools and change a field node on the outside of a starship – of course all that takes place within the training-room mock-up. If it works, we’ll ask to borrow the Navy’s training ship, and have him do it on the real thing.”

  “It’s about time.” Westorn’s temper had become chancy. “And I expect all the men to go through the training simulation within the next day.”

  “That’s cutting it a little fine, Colonel,” Arch said, exchanging a glance with Christy.

  “No,” he stated, “it’s not. We’re well behind schedule. You will do this or I’ll cancel the whole thing and send you back down.”

  So, the first threat. Jensen had pegged it. Westorn had something big in the works, and he wanted his obedient robots. Well, she told herself, he wouldn’t get them.

  “We can get them done,” she said, nodding. “We’ll use all fifteen suits. We have our baseline data; we can do this. You’ll have the first results by end of day tomorrow.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  That solved, they turned their attention back to the zero-g room.

  Jensen went quickly into the relaxed state, and the bio-back suit had him moving in all the proper ways. The program set this into both muscle memory and active memory. He should be able to complete the exercise with little help from the suit on his next pass.

  Westorn watched with extreme interest. And, for that matter, so did she and Arch.

  “Sergeant Jensen, can you hear me?” she asked.

  It took a minute. “Loud and clear, Doctor.”

  “We need you to go to the other side of the room, pick up the toolbox, and then change the node on the ceiling. Do you copy?” She had begun to get a handle on the lingo they used.

  “Affirmative. Get tools, change node.”

  He kicked off gently, twisted just so, and grabbed the handhold that allowed him to change his direction in order to pick up the toolkit. With it in his hand, he gently shoved off the floor, twisted in mid room, such that he landed feet-first on the ceiling, using the techniques taught to cancel his momentum and latch on.

  “Excellent,” murmured Colonel Westorn.

  “He’s never used zero-g tools – just had the sensation of their use,” murmured Arch. “Now we’ll see how it worked.”

  Jensen attached a tether to the toolkit, and fastened it to what was now – to him – the deck. He pulled out the wrench, and began the change-out. It took him five minutes. The light showed green, telling them that he’d successfully done the work.

  “Now the fun begins,” Christy said. “Private Innis has received the same instruction on how to change the node, but without the ‘practice’ with the zero-g tools.”

  Innis, quickly picked up the toolkit, launched himself, and tethered the toolkit. From there it all went sideways. She glanced to Arch to see him close his eyes in embarrassed pain for the man. He flopped, twisted, and otherwise contorted himself.

  Westorn’s gaze went back and forth from the timer and Innis. “Fifteen minutes, and he’s only half-way there. You can stop him anytime now.” He sounded impatient.

  “I wouldn’t advise that, Dr Burnett,” Arch said. “We need the total time in order to compare.”

  Westorn pressed his lips together, but said nothing. Finally, when Innis had successfully completed the repair at twenty-two minutes he stood.

  “Was that necessary?”

  “Yes,” Christy said. “As you saw, the private learned on his own, and began to adjust organically to the new situation. If we had stopped at the half-way mark, we would have thought that we had achieved a 600% gain, whereas it topped out at 425%. Nonetheless, an excellent start. Now we’ll get the others through. After that, we’ll have something to go on.”

  Westorn got up and left in a hurry.

  “Something’s bothering the colonel,” Arch commented. “Okay, take a break. I’ll run the first fifteen through the wringer.”

  “Gladly. I’ll go debrief Jensen.”

  She went down to watch Jensen remove the bio-back suit. He gave Christy a bleak look, and she understood that all too well.

  “I’d like to debrief you, Sergeant.”

  “Can we do it over lunch?” he asked, which caused her eyebrows to go up. “We don’t get to eat before a zero-g test – just in case.” He gave a tight smile at that. “I’m starving.”

  But his look, more than any discomfort of an empty stomach he might have felt, caused her to agree. “I know a good restaurant on the concourse.”

  He shook his head. “Sergeant’s pay doesn’t go that far. I found a good one that caters more to my class – the workers rather than the tourists.”

  “Fair enough.” She could have offered to pay, but realized that he had picked his place for a reason.

  They walked together down one flight from the concourse level and into a busy eatery, where the noise of conversation drowned out most everything. They’d almost have to shout to hear each other. But Jensen led her past the open part of the restaurant and into a small alcove. The sound level dropped considerably.

  “We’ll both have the special,” he told the wait staff, who nodded and left at once.

  “Choosing my food for me?” She didn’t like that.

  “It’s the best you’ll get here, closest to what you’re used to. Now, let me tell you something else. It’s now definite: something big’s on the hor
izon. Our good colonel has an attack planned – on who or what, we don’t know. But he’s getting very anxious, which tells me that very shortly things are going to become interesting. You don’t want to be around ‘interesting’.”

  She shuddered. “And he wants you as recruits.”

  “Yes. That new program you gave me, it worked too well.” He gave her a steely look that had her shivering. “You will, on no account, give that to him. He has his own little lab set up, and he’ll try re-indoctrinating us with your recording. It will work.”

  “On a few of you, maybe,” she told him.

  His eyes narrowed. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that I personalized it. Each of you has a personal program. I’ve calculated that the one for you would do absolutely nothing for Sergeant Rogers, for example.”

  Jensen stared at her. “Then it’s not that he’s somehow better, or more susceptible than me?”

  “No. The frequencies we used on the lot of you fell closer to his ‘sweet spot’ if you like the term. And,” she added, grinning, “I programmed this especially to work on the part of you that operates the skeletal-muscular system rather than the language system program that I used back in Denver. On top of that, I’ve input a frequency that will keep you conscious. You need to input a 180 degree out of phase one to cancel it out. If he tried to program you using this tape, it would fail – well not utterly, but I’m pretty sure that any of you could still fight it off with little difficulty.”

  “But twelve of us went through your language training. He’ll have those programs. That’s twelve more for him, twelve less for us … and we twelve might betray the others.”

  She smiled. “Our contract at Denver was for physical work, not language learning. I didn’t bring those programs with me. There was no need. I’d have to start all over again, if that’s what he wants.”

  His eyes gleamed. “I could kiss you.”

  And then he did just that, the server bringing their food just as she escaped his lips, feeling thoroughly devastated – in a good way.