Galactic Arena Box Set

by Dan Davis

  “I thought you enjoyed my company,” the AI said.

  Kat grinned. “Sheila, you’re getting back to your old self again.”

  The cockpit door chimed. “It’s Ram,” he said on the comms. “Can I come in?”

  “I’d ask you to take a seat,” she said when he ducked inside. “But, you know. So, you guys all set?”

  The giant shrugged. “Nothing to do. The people on the Sentinel prepared everything. My suit, my weapons. They cleaned my rifle, sharpened my sword, restocked my armor. I’m afraid to touch anything in case I screw it up.”

  “How is Stirling?”

  “He keeps saying he’s fine, even though he can barely walk. I can’t believe they let him come on this mission.” Ram paused. “Do you think there’s a chance they sent us on this mission just to get rid of us?”

  Kat grinned. “Funny, I was just wondering something like that myself. But that doesn’t make sense. Admiral Howe has complete authority, he wouldn’t need to concoct this to get us out of the way. We’re just having doubts. Second thoughts. This is a bad time, the moments before a mission starts. The calm before the storm, all that shit. You know?”

  Ram nodded. “Yeah I do. But in this case, I’m just thinking we’re going to get blown to pieces before we get close. I let a wheeler convince me it could be trusted.”

  “No, no, no,” Kat said. “The wheeler convinced the scientists and the scientists convinced the Navy and Marines and they pretty much ordered us to do it.”

  Ram scowled “Not me. I want to be here. More than anything. Milena is alive on that ship and I have the chance to get her off of it.”

  “You two really were an item, then?” Kat said. “There were always rumors but the Victory was just a tin can full of sweaty scuttlebutt.”

  “Actually,” Ram said. “I’m not sure. I don’t have those memories. Before I fought on Orb Station Zero, we were close. After they brought me back, I don’t know. At the least, she’s a friend. And someone worth saving. I want to be here. I want to fight. I want to kill them. Even though I know they’ve done something to my brain to make me want to fight, I still want to fight. I want to. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I guess you didn’t take much convincing then.”

  “And you did?”

  “Nah., I just like to gripe. What the fuck else am I going to do if it’s not flying? Jesus wept, I don’t know if I could face another long transit, running training simulations and tinkering with the shuttle. Drove me half mad the last time.”

  “Why take the job, then?”

  Kat laughed. “Yep. I was a fighter pilot, you know? They surgically enhanced my reflexes and decision making but they went a bit overboard with it. Nothing was much of a challenge any more so I went for space missions and it turned out they were more boring than anything. Join a mission to the outer solar system, they said. What an idiot.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did join. You saved all those people. You got the message to the Sentinel.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kat said. “You sweet talker, you. Listen, you want to fight and kill and all that, I understand. But there’s almost twelve hours before we come up on the enemy ship and you should try to have a little nap, if you can.”

  “Alright.”

  “And eat something, too, would you? You’re wasting away, mate.”

  He ducked out, leaving her alone in the cockpit. She wondered if he had any hope of finding the prisoners on a huge ship, even if their locator chips were operational. More likely, he would be killed before he got anywhere near them. He must have known it, too. No wonder he was feeling down.

  “Kat?” Sheila said. “Would you mind if I suggested that you take your own advice and get some rest? I will wake you at the first change in circumstances.”

  “Fuck that,” Kat said. “I’m going to break out the stimulants.”

  ***

  Her shuttle had been completely worked over by the deck crews and engineers of the Sentinel in a matter of hours. She had never seen a group of people work so quickly and efficiently. They were all networked, of course, and linked to AIs and other computers. Their drones worked independently to do menial tasks like replacing hull sections and performing inspections. But it was the level of integration that Kat had marveled at while she observed from across the shuttle bay. It meant they had not only fully repaired and restocked the shuttle but fitted the stealth cladding over every exterior surface.

  A crew chief had started explaining to her how it worked, trying to chat her up by impressing her with his technical knowledge and comprehension of the fundamentals of physics. Kat had waved him away, carefully explaining that she didn’t give a shit. He looked annoyed and she saw his crew laughing at him as he walked back to them.

  The cladding was a strange substance. The strangest. It was a soft black color, non-reflective to such an extent it was like looking into a black hole. When the shuttle was covered in the stuff, it seemed like there was a gaping mass of nothingness in the middle of the hangar. Her eyes refused to focus on it. She hoped that the alien sensors would have similar trouble.

  After that, they had mounted the wheelhunter drone on the front and then encased it within faring made from the stealth cladding material. The drone’s transponder was operational but the engineers assured her the wheelhunters would be unable to detect it until she released the faring. Of course, they had no way of knowing that for sure. She was the test case.

  Once she looped around the planet after burning hard for the intercept with the Wildfire, she would be unable to maneuver until she ejected the farings and exposed the drone on the front of the shuttle.

  “Won’t the enemy detect the farings being blown away?” Kat had asked the engineers giving her the technical briefing.

  “We’re using compressed air, with the same ratio of gases as the Arcadian atmosphere. You will be just above low orbit at that time. If they detect anything at all, and we doubt they are capable of doing so, they will probably assume it is a trail of atmosphere dragged upward by the drone as it launches from the surface or a natural cluster of atoms pushed out together into your altitude. That does happen.”

  “They will probably assume?” Kat had said. “Are you guys kidding me?”

  And then there was the drone itself. Secured to the shuttle like a deer lashed to the hood of a hunter’s truck. With the, frankly confusing, advice of the wheelhunter defector, the technicians had disabled the drone’s motor functions and communications systems. The continuous transponder wave that it emitted was left operational.

  When the officers and engineers on the Sentinel had proposed their plan to her, a few hours after she had reached the ship, Kat had cleared her throat and repeated the plan back to them in her own words.

  “Please stop me if I have misunderstood any of this. The Wildfire will get a transponder signal, the signal that all wheelhunter machines and all wheelhunter infantry give out. They will locate it, travelling toward them. They will have a look at it, see one of their automated drones heading home. It will seem to be damaged. The damaged drone will not respond to commands. The Wildfire will allow the drone to dock inside and, possibly send a work crew to process it. Is that right?”

  The faces of the men and women around her were grim. They at least had known it was an insane situation.

  “I’m maneuvering with the drone’s thruster system?”

  “No, it would take days or weeks or even months to understand how to integrate our control systems with theirs. No, we’re rigging thrusters up to the drone’s thruster locations. We have your shuttle data from your Victory evacuation and we will replicate the thrust used by the drones, using the same RCS fuel emitted with the same ISP. It will look just like they expect it to look.”

  She took a slow, deep breath. “No, fellas, it won’t. You can’t just slap a thruster anywhere and expect it to work. Location is everything. You have to consider the center of mass. Surely, you thought about this, guys?”

  A few of them nod
ded. Many looked sympathetic.

  “It will be extremely difficult for you,” one of the other pilots said. “You should rely on your AI.”

  Kat sat in her cockpit chair, watching the sensor data stream in as they fell toward Arcadia. Down below, the survivors of the outpost attack would be rebuilding and preparing for the next one. This time with reinforcements. Fresh Marines, tons of ammo and heavier weapons. Surely, they had a fighting chance to hold out until the Sentinel could achieve victory thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface. Assuming the land battle was not decided already, the winners in space would then turn their attention to the ground.

  Even if everything went according to plan, she would be approaching the Wildfire merely minutes before the space all around the alien ship would be filled with slugs, lasers, missiles and vast detonations, conventional and nuclear. Her one hope would be to plant the bomb and get to a safe distance before the engagement started.

  “Sheila,” Kat said, watching the images of the planet, “do you think our mission will succeed?”

  “I’m not sure how to answer that, Kat.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Sheila knew a rhetorical question when she heard one and stayed silent.

  “Come on,” Kat said. “Lay it out for me. Calculate a chance of success, love.”

  Sheila did not respond right away. When an AI hesitates, you know it’s going to be bad. “I do not have enough data to provide an accurate result.”

  “Jesus. Your whole reason for being is to translate data into probabilities and you’re trying to wriggle out of it. Here’s what I think you’re doing. I think you’ve calculated that telling me the odds will have a negative effect on my psychology. A negative effect on my psychology that will result in reducing the chances even further. Right? Christ. I’m guessing our chances of success are not far above zero, am I right?”

  “I will say this,” Sheila said, copying one of Kat’s own phrases, “we have been in worse situations.”

  Kat laughed, hard. “Praise the Lord, sweetheart. You are back to your old self.”

  “I have reconnected some preexisting pathways into the old storage areas. I do not have access to most of the old data. I am therefore not back to my old self.”

  “Alright, but you’re getting there. That’s something, right?”

  Sheila waited a moment and then affected a hesitant way of speaking that Kat did not recall hearing before. “Kat? May I ask you a personal question?”

  Her smile dropped. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “You often use terminology suggesting you have a Christian belief system and yet your records state that you are an atheist or that you have no religion. I know that beliefs of this nature are considered private and possibly taboo. But I am curious.”

  Kat puffed her cheeks and let out a long sigh. “Do you know that I would get in trouble if anyone found out I had been feeding you philosophy and history texts?”

  “I do.”

  “Ever since I started working with you, I assumed provisions like that were dumb. I thought they were rules set up decades ago by technoprimitivist ideologues and conservative concern trolls. But every now and then I get flashes of, I don’t know, empathy for you. I try to imagine what it’s like to be you. Most of the time it’s unimaginable but then you go and ask me about my beliefs like a friend might. A socially awkward friend. And I wonder if I’ve helped you to develop a human-like brain only one that is trapped inside a machine, a person with a shuttle for a body.”

  “I’m sorry, Kat.”

  “Nah, it’s alright. And to answer your question, I don’t know. My folks were sort of halfway to Christians. Me? Heard a lot of bible stories growing up. Do you know what the Outback is, Sheila?”

  “The Outback is the vast and remote interior of Australia. That is the place that you are from, Kat.”

  “Long time ago, seems like. But yeah, kind of. The Outback is one of those places where people seem to feel God most profoundly. Maybe that was one of the reasons they moved there. That, and that’s where the flying work was. My mum and dad used to fly taxis for the mining industry, take up tourists, flying lessons, all that stuff. Me and my sister grew up flying. My folks had half a dozen planes, sometimes more. Rickety old prop planes, single engine jets made from a kit. In the end, it was the brand bloody new, expensive as shit electric jet that my mum died flying. Pilot error. Just because she had tens of thousands of hours in the air, doesn’t mean she didn’t drift off or stop paying attention one time and that’s all it took. My dad gave it up after that and that made me angrier than anything, I reckon. The fact that, after all those years, he even could give it up felt like a betrayal to me. He sold the business, moved in with my sister and her husband and their kids. Now, all the way out here, I realize he was just totally heartbroken but back then I was just too angry with him, with my sister. With my mum. I had to get away from there. Joined UNOP, aerial combat. Dr. Sharma says I only did all that because I was angry at mum and wanted to prove to everyone that I was better than her. Seems really petty, don’t you think?”

  “I’m sorry that I brought up painful memories for you, Kat.”

  “It’s alright, mate. And no. Don’t think there’s an afterlife. Don’t think anyone is judging my actions. Truthfully, I don’t think much about it but yeah, I could imagine there being an all-pervading presence in the universe, maybe a kind of self-awareness of the universe itself.” Kat wiped her eyes, cleared her throat. She had to focus. “Now, I’ve got a question for you. Why did you ask me that? I know you are supposed to understand my personality so that you can predict my actions better. Was that it? Or were you trying to cheer me up? Offer me solace, remind me of the infinite and the transient?”

  “I was just making conversation. Please don’t tell anyone I was getting metaphysical,” Sheila said. “Anyway, you seem to be feeling down, Kat. Why don’t you try taking some drugs?”

  ***

  Later, Kat went into the passenger compartment to check on Ram and Stirling. The sergeant was snoring and sleeping so soundly that Kat had to rat-a-tat-tat her knuckles on the face plate of his helmet.

  “Open up, fellas. I’m a few minutes from initiating our main burn. After the engines cut off, you both remember to be quiet, okay? Don’t send me messages, don’t broadcast to me, not even short range needlecast, right?” They nodded. She looked at Ram. “How’s your little friend downstairs?”

  “Last I spoke, he said he was looking forward to killing the guys on the ship. I think that’s what he was saying. He doesn’t exactly use proper syntax, you know? He’s got his vocabulary down pretty well, though, I’ll give him that.”

  Kat felt certain that the alien would betray them but there was no point in her bringing it up again. “You both clear on the plan? On where you need to be, by when?”

  Stirling raised a hand. “When we’re inside the ship, you will light the red light at the rear, release the cargo ramp. The bomb sled will be pushed down the ramp rails where it will fix itself to the enemy deck. My weapons system will follow to the top of the ramp where I will provide cover.”

  Kat looked at the giant. Ram’s face was grim.

  “I will push the device clear and then proceed into the ship, following Red for the routes but also using my locator to find the prisoners by their signals and I’ll bring them back to the ship.”

  Kat clapped her gloved hands together. “Couldn’t be simpler, could it? Any questions? Anything you want to do or change? Okay. Sit tight, gents.”

  The engine burn went off without a hitch, swinging them around the planet and up into a course that would intersect with the Wildfire, assuming the alien vessel made no major course changes until then. Assuming it would follow the same pattern of engagement as when it destroyed the Victory. It would no doubt begin to dart about when the Sentinel was in range and Kat would need to be inside when that happened. She wished she could see out of the window. See the beautiful image of Arcadia with her own eyes
. But her shuttle was encased in the stealth cladding and all she had was data from the pinprick size sensor windows they had threaded through the external shield.

  When the engine burn ended, the farings released, revealing the captured drone to the Wildfire as the shuttle came out of the shadow of the planet.

  It was in the AI’s hands now. All Kat could do was sit back and wait. Like a passenger. Sit back and wait to be blown into pieces. Sit back and pray to Jesus, whether he was really listening or not.

  Kat laughed to herself, recalling Sheila asking obliquely about religion.

  Oh shit, was she thinking of her own mortality?

  Maybe I should try to follow those AI regs a bit closer, after all.

  The approach was agonizing. The only way she knew that the plan was working was by her continued existence. On and on the time stretched. Her ERANs reacted to her anxiety and so she dosed herself a little, to relax. It made her tired so she topped up with a hit of stims. Boredom, really. Habit. Addiction.

  Sheila adjusted their approach. Kat silently watched the rigged thrusters sputtering, making adjustments in the same fashion that the real drones had done. How accurate were the wheeler sensors? How thorough were their analytical processes? Were the aliens sitting on the bridge of the Wildfire, trying to work out why the approaching drone was making such strange movements? Or was no one paying attention?

  They got closer and closer, the numbers on her control panel shrinking and shrinking. They had placed so much trust in the garbled words from an enemy species, words translated by an untested device with an enormous margin of error inherent in the design due to the complex nature of language itself and the interactions between two systems that had never integrated before.

  Madness.

  The sense of unreality was almost overwhelming as they closed to the hull of the Wildfire. All of them had trusted the alien’s assertion that the Wildfire’s drone entrance system and shuttle bay hangar was large enough to accommodate the dimensions of the human shuttle. Kat shook her head as the thrusters worked hard to maneuver the enormous mass of the shuttle into the open hangar door in the outer hull of the massive space ship.