Emancipation

by Jason Paul McCartan

  “Captain,” said the sensors officer. “The Shiveen ship is following and accelerating.”

  Laroux smiled wryly at his XO.

  “Let’s show them what this girl can do.”

  The noise in the loading dock was almost deafening to Jack when he entered the docking bay with Nathine. He located his staging point and glanced at her, nodding his head in its direction. She nodded, and they both moved towards their assigned dropship, dodging through the mass of moving bodies in the area.

  In the main loading bay of the Dauntless, marines and vehicle support crews moved with purpose, swarming to their assigned staging area, flowing around each other like birds swarming in flight. Four large Raptor-class dropships filled most of the loading bay along with the APCs they carried; each of the wheeled Armored Personnel Carriers could carry up an entire squad of fully armed and prepared marines in standard combat load-out directly to the combat arena, two APCs per dropship. In addition, each dropship could carry one or more Mobile Combat Mech squads, smaller versions of the towering war machines that provided firepower and support in battlefield engagements. Jack had always wanted to pilot one of those, but his aptitude tests had placed him elsewhere. Three of the APCs were in load out position.

  Jack and Nathine were in different squads. Every graduate from Arianne Station had been allocated to a fireteam within onboard platoon, taking up the fourth position, the scouting one, within the fireteam.

  Nathine rested a hand on Jack’s arm.

  “See you soon, Jack Conway,” she said, before turning and walking towards her squad.

  Jack made his way towards his fireteam and squad, all assembled in front of the camouflage-gray vehicle with the name Stormbringer painted in white in cursive on the side of it. Two APCs sat just beyond the dropship loading ramp, waiting for their passengers to embark.

  As Jack approached, Stone looked up and acknowledged him. Jack’s AHUD lit up with information as Stone registered him being present. This updated Jack’s AHUD to show that his fireteam was designated Echo Team and assigned to the second APC along with the rest of its squad. The other two squads would in the other APC. The platoon was led by First Lieutenant Simon Hughes and Sergeant Lita McConnell. Jack had met the platoon leader and his right hand woman in the mess hall as Hughes had made the rounds. The lietenant was well-respected, and Jack’s searches on him had shown several meritorious awards during his years of service. That had also been when Jack had met his new squad leader, Liam Morales, who even Conway seemed to respect.

  “Got to work on that speed, Conway,” said Stone. “Lucky for you the Shiveen are just a little slower today.”

  “What’s the situation, Corporal?” asked Anderson, already kitted out in his heavy weapon harness and attaching the heavy machine gun to it. Seeing him set up that way in simulations was not quite as impressive as seeing him do it in person.

  “Shiveen are chasing our tail - we came out of linkspace early. LT will update us in the APC.”

  “How early?”

  “They jumped us as we hit the sun,” said Bandura. When Stone looked at her, she shrugged. “I’m the tech and communication specialist. You know I find this stuff out.”

  “So, how early?” repeated Anderson.

  “Probably about four hours.”

  “Fantastic. We get to be sardines for four hours. Whoopee!”

  “Stow that,” said Stone. “You know the routine. Gear up.”

  Jack did too. Textbook routine stated that as soon as there was an engagement, marine units were to assemble in vehicles immediately. This made sure that they were not only combat ready, but also gave them some additional protection if parts of their transport ship was exposed to the cold of space. While marines in MCMs or in some power armors had enclosed life support systems, the vast majority of combat armor didn’t, only having air filtration systems or a limited amount of oxygen in the neck-sealing helmets. Being in an APC or a dropship meant improving the odds of survival for anyone that could get inside it before the atmosphere blew. Hopefully rescue wasn’t too long away, but it rarely was according to the data Jack had read.

  In silence, everyone except Anderson who was already in his, put their combat armor harness on and began checking each piece of their modular ceramic combat armor before attaching it. Jack followed the sequence that had become almost second nature to him now: underframe first then the chest and back, shoulders, arms, and forearms. Finally, the thighs and lower legs. The modular nature of the armor made it easy to replace or discard parts damaged or made useless in the field. The underframe provided the power source for the armor diagnostics that connected via aleks and helmet AHUDs. As Jack attached each piece of his armor, he saw diagnostic information appear in the AHUD. Everything looked good, and he sent a confirmation to Stone that his armor was ready before helping Bandura put Anderson’s oversized and heavy armor pieces on him.

  “Okay, people, let’s do this,” said Stone, turning towards the single APC that was being loaded on the fireteam. The rest of the fireteam fell in behind him, following him up the short step into the APC. Before Jack entered, he saw a squad of thirteen MCMs moving up into the other dropship to where the second APC would have been.

  As the first fireteam inside the APC, they took the seats furthest from the rear deployment door. Anderson unhitched his heavy machine gun and placed it in the heavy weapon’s rack, next to the dozen regular rifles that were already there in their transportation configuration. The heavy rifle’s shortened and flattened a little, taking up slightly less space.

  Jack had been in a real APC only a few times before, although he’d ridden in them during simulations many times. What the simulation didn’t quite get right was the mixed smell of metal and oil; simulations were used for decades in one form or another, but the one sense that they couldn’t fool was smell. To fix this they overcompensated and made smells a little stronger, which played havoc with anyone that had allergies.

  He found a seat next to Bandura, who had already jacked in her alek to the APC’s relay systems, her fingers fluttering in the air in front of her as she ran through diagnostics.

  “You ready for this, Rook?” she asked, not even looking up at him.

  “No. Are you?” said Jack, pulling the safety harness straps around him.

  “Hell, no. You’re never ready for this stuff. And if you are, you’re either lying or lying.”

  Anderson sat down next to Jack, filling it and pushing his large frame against Jack.

  “Hope you brought some in-flight entertainment, amigo. This will take a while. Thankfully I bought a whole a book of dad jokes to read. Some of them are classic.”

  “Any kid that has you as a dad,” said Bandura as she finished her diagnostics, “needs to realize that they’re the adult in that relationship.”

  “You know it,” replied Anderson, pointing finger guns at her.

  Other marines stepped into the APC to take their seats. Their heavy weapon specialists followed the same routine as Anderson, stowing their weapons in the weapon rack. Jack counted them as they came in. One full squad, made up of three teams of four marines, including Echo Team.

  Last to enter the vehicle was Sergeant Morales, the squad leader, who locked the door behind him. The lighting brightened a little and Jack heard the air circulators activate, drawing air in from the loading bay.

  Morales stood at the head of the APC, in front of the sealed cabin door where the vehicle specialists pilots were now cycling the APC through its startup sequence.

  “A little over twenty minutes ago,” he began, “a Shiveen cruiser interrupted our linkspace travel, pulling the Dauntless back into normal space as we hit the zenith jump point of the Pallas sun.”

  Anderson made a big thumbs up at Bandura, who grinned back at him. The APC whirred into life, a high-pitched whine accompanying its nuclear reactor engine spinning up. It rumbled forward slowly, pulling itself up the loading ramp of the dropship.

  “We’re moving as fast as we can
towards Pallas I to get back into linkspace,” continued Morales, “but it’s possible the enemy has not only got ships there are the jump points, but have seeded ships all along the path to that planet, and the others. If God is with us, then we’re only looking at a couple of hours delay arriving at our final destination. If not, we’re in for the long haul. So buckle up and stay frosty.”

  5 Space Combat

  The Dauntless bucked as another Shiveen missile impacted near its aft, the dreadnought’s point defenses destroying it before it hit its struck it.

  “That’s twelve now, Captain,”, said Nambo. “But we’re almost out of range.”

  Of the twelve shots that the Shiveen cruiser had fired over the past hour, only the first two had done any real damage to the Dauntless, and only because they were fired so close to the dreadnought. The Dauntless, with its superior realspace drives, was pulling away from the range of the Shiveen ship’s armaments.

  Laroux looked at the navigation data being fed to his AHUD. They were still about a quarter of an AU away from Pallas I. Another two hours, but hopefully a clean flight to the planet followed.

  This was one of the border star systems that Laroux hadn’t visited before today. Even though he had been in command of the Resurgent, the border systems he’d been patrolling were in a different spiral arm. It had been only two hundred years since panhumanity had stretched its legs beyond the home Terran star system, and even then they hadn’t visited even one percent of the two hundred billion star systems in the Milky Way. Most of the visited systems had uninhabitable worlds with precious resources that could be mined. Until the invention of the atmosphere engine over four decades ago, those worlds had stayed uninhabitable. Now any world could become viable with technology and enough time.

  Unless, like Pallas IV, they were designated official planets of interest.

  “Captain,” said Nambo. “I’ve got this. Why not take a break?”

  Laroux rubbed his eyes and shut off his AHUD.

  “Very good, Mister Nambo. I’ll be in the ready room. Set Condition Two.”

  Laroux awoke to a soft pinging alarm from his alek, letting him know the Dauntless was almost at its destination. He stretched in his well-worn leather chair, an artifact of his first command that he’d taken with him everywhere he went, and enjoyed the feeling of his body waking up along with his mind. These days short naps were becoming more effective than several hours of scheduled sleep. Laroux’s let his legs fall off his desk and stood up from his chair. He poured himself a drink of the fruit-infused water from the magnetic flask on the desk into his ever present magnetic mug next to it. Ensign Bowers was doing a good job keeping it filled.

  He looked around the ready room. Not every military starship had one of these, but they’d become more common in the most recent designs, including the Excalibur class. They were never large, only a few dozen feet square and attached to the main CIC, but they gave captains and their seconds a place away from the crew to have important discussions. Every ready room had a privacy mode that dampened noise and disconnected it from the ship’s computer networks. Like most captains, Laroux had his own portable VI that could penetrate the privacy mode and still keep him informed of what was going on in the ship.

  Sophia’s hologram sat in another chair, facing towards Laroux, watching him as he stretched his legs and arms, a soft smile on her face, her recreation almost perfect apart from the slight haziness and the glow from her projection mandatory of all VIs. VI engineers were experts at recreating emulations of individuals and they had nailed Sophia’s look, mannerisms, and personality from the thousands of hours of vidcasts they’d had access to. The likeness was uncanny, from her long brunette hair to her piercing green eyes.

  Sophia wasn’t Laroux’s first VI assistant. In fact, when he’d had first request Sophia’s creation, something that he’d wrestled for years about doing, he still had Cecille in his service. Cecille was now Nambo’s assistant and had accepted the position, even though Nambo didn’t have his own command yet and wasn’t warranted one. Laroux knew Nambo would have his own command soon; the XO had proven his capability many times over being in charge of a starship.

  Laroux sipped from his cup.

  “Evian,” said Sophia in French, the VI perfectly capturing his dead wife’s speech pattern and pronunciation. “What’s worrying you?

  “You can always tell when I’m worried.”

  “You’re not that difficult a book to read.”

  Laroux supposed he wasn’t. As years went on you became stuck in your ways, had habits and certain ways of doing things. Which had all been fine until the Panhumanic Sphere ran into its first real sentient alien race and picked a fight with it.

  Laroux sighed and returned to his chair, using both hands to hold his mug as he drank from it.

  “It’s a damn trap,” he finally said. “And I don’t know how bad it is.”

  “And you hate that.”

  “Who doesn’t?” he said, taking another drink. Sophia got out of her chair and sat on the edge of the desk. The strapless summer dress, sun yellow with a pattern of chrysanthemums towards the hem, she wore flowed and settled on her. That was the dress she had been wearing when they had first met, and she had always been so beautiful in it, even as she had gotten older. Laroux had the VI engineers model Sophia’s look and use an aging algorithm. If Laroux couldn’t grow old with her for real, he could at least grow old with her this way.

  “I’m sending these new kids right into the dragon’s mouth. Everything we’re doing is backwards. This might fail.”

  “And yet, it may work.”

  “Yes, it may. But I have my doubts.”

  “Evian, you always have doubts. That’s why you’re so good at this. You’ll bring as many of those kids back home with you as you can, or do your best to do so.”

  “Bona is trying to reach you.”

  “Let him through.”

  Nambo’s voice spoke over Laroux’s alek.

  “We’ve arrived, and we have company.”

  “Another two, one at each jump point,” said Laroux, looking at the telemetry data.

  “Yes. I have a feeling that they did this at every planet on the way.”

  “Me too, Mister Nambo. The Shiveen are nothing if not cold and calculating bastards. That’s one thing we do know about them. Looks like we have two options.”

  “Flight or fight,” said Nambo.

  “Which ship is closer?”

  “The secondary one.”

  “Then that’s our target. Navigation, plot a course for the secondary of Pallas IV. Include combat solutions for engaging that ship. It’s in our way. Let’s change that.”

  Laroux felt a subtle shift in the positioning of the dreadnought as it changed its heading slightly, aiming now for the secondary point of Pallas I. The Dauntless didn’t need to be directly on top of it to use it to leap back into linkspace, just close enough to hook into the gravity well. The only thing complicating that was the alien starship guarding it. The other Shiveen cruiser could be a problem, but Laroux hoped that it’d stay at its location, guarding that.

  “How long, Mister Nambo?”

  “About fifteen minutes.”

  “Let’s warm the weapons up.”

  “Yes, sir. Set Condition One throughout the ship,” said Nambo as he sent authorizations through to the weapons systems via his alek.

  The CIC turned red as the combat lighting engaged.

  Laroux stood at the central holographic combat desktop, scanning it, looking at the positions of the two detected enemy ships at the planetary jump points.

  This was all a gamble, predicated on the Shiveen cruiser being told to make sure that the Dauntless couldn’t jump to linkspace. It had to do that either by keeping the dreadnought away from the jump point, or throwing up interference to stop the jump like the two ships guarding the sun jump points. Only larger Shiveen ships could create interference, and the two cruisers at Pallas I were smaller than those that the Dauntl
ess had just outrun.

  There a chance that the Shiveen had planted multiple ships behind Pallas I that couldn’t be detected yet, luring the dreadnought in to then swarm over it before it even got near a jump point.

  “Mister Nambo,” said Laroux. “Make sure that the linkdrive is spun up and ready for when we hit minimum safety.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  As Laroux surveyed the combat desk, he saw the second Shiveen ship at the primary jump point advance towards them. Dammit. This would be trickier than he wanted.

  “XO, are the mass drivers primed?”

  “Sir. All three are ready to go.”

  “Then lets force-feed these Shiveen cruisers a nuclear breakfast.”

  Nambo typed on his alek’s interface, then flicked his hand across it, sending a command to the combat desk. Above the combat desk a larger holographic display sprang to life showing what the exterior cameras were transmitting. Pinholes of light shone in the darkness around a small orb in the center of the display.

  Pallas I.

  This was the part that always made Laroux nervous: the wait until actual engagement. It would take at least ten minutes for both ships to get within firing distance of each other. Like the ships of old traversing the Terran high seas, how one approached an enemy was just as important as what you finally did when you got there. Opening your ship up to broadsides, even if you had powerful lateral weaponry and could attack back simultaneously, this was still a dangerous approach for a defending ship.

  Excalibur-class starships like the Dauntless broke from standard design by front-mounting their primary weapons instead of having them available within a firing arc. Any change to the firing arc was achieved by manipulating the ship’s relative position in space. The long rifle-like body of this starship class not only increased the power of the mass drivers it bore but also reduced its tactical footprint exposed to enemy fire. Secondary combat systems, in the form of short- and long-range missiles improved the firing arc, while the point defense across the length of the ship provided protection against oncoming attackers.