Captive Embers (The Wardens' Game Book 1)

by Brian Mansur

  Before they had a chance to work, the Tsu completed its turn. And then hell burst from the cargo ship. A red line signifying a hostile beam appeared between the freighter and Tsunami. Sean felt his thirty-thousand-ton warship jerk and roll from maneuvering jets. Claire shouted, “Laser fire from Lima Juliet 12! Tracking a high megawatt pulse from their dorsal side!”

  Before she could finish speaking, an electronic beep signaled that the enemy emitter had been neutralized. “Threat negated,” Claire said.

  Sean was speechless. No one was supposed to be able to hide something so large in a container box, much less shoot it accurately.

  While Sean struggled to react, the captain came on the net. “Helm, quick turn our bow shield back to the threat and cut drive.”

  On the trail of her words, he added, “Claire, fire twenty Goblins in anti-missile mode.” An instant later, conventional warhead rockets streaked away from the Tsu’s map icon.

  Reigning in his shock and fury, Sean keyed the ship-wide comms and read from an automated damage report. “All hands, this is the CIC. Enemy took out Laser Furnace 1 along with two forward compartments. Lines to the spinal mirror have been severed. No casualties. Priority is repairs to the main laser battery.”

  At that, Sean stabbed the channel closed in disgust. A cargo ship had knocked out their main weapon and severely crimped the firing rate of the secondary laser batteries. It was unprecedented. Why hadn’t Blake warned them that the enemy had such an improbable capability?

  Sean spared an accusing glare for the back of their guest intel officer’s head then looked to Captain Paulson. Her stern features betrayed none of the anger or embarrassment Sean felt.

  “Orders ma’am?” he asked.

  On a private channel, she said, “You’re still the watch officer. You know what to do.”

  He nodded. Ignoring a twitching eyelid, he affected a mild, business-like tone to settle himself and the staff. To the CIC, he said, “This is still not exactly a challenge, people.” Lending credence to his words, a thunk signaled the death of another enemy missile.

  As the seconds mounted, hostile ordnance continued to drop off the map. Then Claire said, “Counting twenty-two inbounds remaining. They’re converging for flanking strikes. Estimated contact in sixty seconds.”

  A shrill alarm sounded. “Laser Furnace 2 has shut down,” the A.I. said. “Electrical fault in the cooling system.”

  Suddenly, the Tsunami had to choose between using its remaining laser furnace to ignite its hydrogen-boron fusion drive or to shoot at missiles through the auxiliary turrets. Sean heard a crewman swear over the net. Another said, “Did someone not do the preventive maintenance checks?”

  With determination etched in his face, Sean said, “Quick-turn ninety degrees evasive.” Sean’s inner ear sloshed about as jets fired at the ship’s bow and stern. “Stand by for a ten-second max burn to get us out of the debris path of the smashed inbounds, then aim our tail at the highest concentration of survivors.” The side-ways acceleration reversed, arresting the Tsunami’s rotation. A few heartbeats later, he commanded, “Military thrust, now!”

  At the engine’s exit nozzle, a ton of hydrogen slush poured every second from cryogenic tanks to be ionized by the fusion burn. Though far less efficient than a pure fusion reaction, the added reaction mass boosted the ship’s thrust by orders of magnitude. Sean briefly regained a third of his normal weight.

  As the ship completed its run and began to turn again, Claire said, “Countermeasures defeated half of our Goblins. Still tracking eleven inbounds. Impact thirty seconds.”

  Biting back an obscenity, Sean replied, “Fire thirty more Goblins on the inbounds.” His innards coiled as he watched their final wave of non-nuclear ordnance converge on the threats.

  Once the missiles met, however, Claire said, “Still seven inbounds. Impact is imminent.”

  For the second time in the engagement, Sean’s jaw swung wide. How could so many have missed?

  Before he could react, Claire added, “Point defenses engaging.” At that, the heavy caliber weapons on the hull fired in a last-ditch effort to disable or deflect the attack.

  It was then Sean realized they probably couldn’t avoid being hit.

  “Fire all remaining Goblins at the inbounds!” he called. In answer, Claire flashed an error message onto his HUD. The launch control system to the reserve missile cells was failing to respond. That left only the point defense guns.

  Sick tension prickling across Sean’s upper body as missile after missile continued to vanish from the plot. In the space of three seconds, he watched the target count drop to five, then four and finally to three. At the last second, the remaining missile icons turned a flashing orange. This signified that their momentum all-but guaranteed interception with the Tsu. One of them passed through the blow-torch fury of the ship’s engine, which swatted it onto a harmless course. The other two drove into the Tsunami’s sides.

  The ship bucked, throwing Sean against his straps. Brilliant flashes, like a dozen camera bulbs going off at once, overwhelmed the CIC. Next he knew, angry lights and shrill alarms filled his helmet.

  A shift in the room’s lighting to red told Sean that the compartment had lost integrity. Of course, there’d been no sound of an explosion in the airless room. His suit, however, told him that he had been injured in his left thigh and back. He felt an uncomfortable constriction grow on his left leg near the groin. The automatic tourniquet hurt.

  “Report,” he said.

  Claire began reading off their damage. “Main nozzle and the CIC have been struck.”

  “No kidding,” Sean spat.

  Claire continued. “Reaper missiles have impacted on Lima Juliet 12.”

  Sean regarded the radar plot. It showed the hauler bursting into a cloud of chunks that hurtled in all directions. He shook his head. Not soon enough.

  The A.I. droned on. “Multiple compartments breached forward. Laser Furnace 1 will need replacing at drydock. Laser Turrets 2, 3, and 4 are down. Missile cells are damaged. Autoloaders are disabled. Forward and mid water tanks breached. Casualties include six dead, four urgent and two priority wounded. Lieutenant Redding and Chief McKnight in the CIC are dead.”

  Sean triaged the list. The hit to the main engine bell had him the most concerned. The engine, or candle as astronauts called it, stood out as their most valuable yet most easily targeted feature. He pictured sections of the nozzle shattering, leaving gaps in its magnetic bottle. Fortunately, the engine had automatically shut down. If it hadn’t, the plume of super-heated exhaust plasma would have shredded the delicate assembly beyond hope of repair.

  At the end of her litany, Claire tacked on, “Lieutenant Merrick has suffered a penetrating wound to the left thigh and an indeterminate wound at his left posterior seventh and eighth ribs. His suit’s sealant gel is holding, and a tourniquet has been applied.”

  Sean ground out, “And believe me, that tourniquet is almost as annoying as you are.”

  On a private channel, Claire said, “Hush, sir. You’ll frighten the junior crew members.”

  Sean opened his mouth to retort when Paulson said, “Okay, Sean, I have the CIC. Damage control, get the candle, missile cells, and Laser Furnace 2 back online. See also about restoring the spinal mirror. Remaining hands, seal the ruptured tanks and dispatch litter teams to the casualties.”

  Dejected, Sean said, “I can get to sickbay, ma’am.” He detested the thought of being hauled around like a storage crate.

  “The CIC’s casualty will self-evacuate,” Paulson amended. “Chief Benson, police up our K.I.A.’s to Cargo Bay 3. The rest of you—”

  “Incoming fire, Captain,” Claire interjected. “The trailing cargo ship, Lima Juliet 19, has launched from extreme range. Counting twelve missiles.”

  Paulson calmly observed, “LJ-19 is almost ten thousand kilometers away.” They had almost an hour before the salvo would reach them. “Extend radiators.” She punched a few controls. “Hey, D-Con. No pressure
, but if you can’t get the candle and some weapons fixed in, oh about fifty minutes, we’re all going to die.”

  With a shudder, Sean thought, Thank goodness this is just an exercise. He unbuckled himself and pushed off for the access hatch, grateful that the fleet didn’t simulate injuries with pain probes the way the marines did. The fully tightened tourniquet was bad enough. Floating free from his chair, he said with grinding frustration, “Commander Blake. Respectfully, sir, but how are we supposed to believe that the enemy can mount a laser like that?”

  The intel officer regarded Sean with a bland expression. “They could cut holes between cargo pods to chain a particle accelerator together. The power sources wouldn’t show up on a heat scan if housed near the refrigeration units. The big optics could fit in a jumbo pod.”

  Bemused, Paulson asked, “Is there any good news in that analysis?”

  Blake said, “Yes, Captain. They’d have the capacity for only a few shots. And, of course, our missiles should have performed much better than they did.”

  Sean wanted to rub at his skull. He settled for banging his helmet on the bulkhead by the hatch. Did fleet intelligence really suspect that their enemy could hood-wink, blackmail, or bribe every dockworker, port controller and customs official on Lakshmi to make something this big happen? He immediately decided that he didn’t want to know.

  8

  Location: MSV Tsunami, Belian Space_

  Once Sean moved outside of the CIC, the command net switched off. His progress faltered in the gloomy corridor. The total lack of sound, aside from his own breathing and suit fans, left him feeling isolated. He reminded himself of all the good reasons for draining the ship’s atmosphere. It made most types of fire impossible and precluded explosive decompressions from blowing debris and people around.

  People, his mind echoed. Dying people.

  He imagined an apparition of someone’s panicked form. He pictured it tumbling, end over end, through the corridor’s center, limbs thrashing like a drowning person.

  Sean shook himself and moved toward the access ladders. He muttered, “This place feels like a tomb.”

  “And I’m its ghost, Lieutenant,” Claire said in an ethereal manner. “Bwuah ha ha ha.”

  Sean’s apprehension transmuted into annoyance—and a smidgen of relief. “It’s comforting to know that if the ship goes down, at least you’ll go down with it.”

  “Only most of me. Even if you get off, I will still be your suit’s computer voice.”

  Sean rolled his eyes. “Haunted from beyond the grave indeed.”

  “By the way, sir, your wounds aren’t getting any better.”

  Sean harrumphed and pushed himself headfirst to the next level. He had no fear of falling should the engines abruptly switch back on. The best acceleration they could muster ran about one-third of a gravity. Besides which, the ship’s designers had staggered the openings between decks, so one had to stop at every level before proceeding to the next.

  As he approached sickbay, Sean remembered who would take care of him and paused at the outer hatch. Part of him wondered at his reluctance to go in. He found their new nurse pleasant, with her almond-shaped eyes, slim figure, and genial manner. He’d reviewed her file briefly—a habit he exercised whenever new officers arrived—and couldn’t help noting certain things they had in common. She’d make someone a great companion.

  Surprised at himself for entertaining such a thought, he growled as though straining to cast some burden off himself.

  “Something wrong, Lieutenant?” Claire queried.

  He ignored the A.I. and stepped into the sickbay’s airlock. He realized that the inner door had been closed and the room beyond repressurized. Sean peered through the hatch’s tiny viewport.

  He saw Sarah in her protective armor leaning over a patient. She lifted a magnetic boot to step closer to the person’s head. This allowed him to see her face in profile. Her smile radiated like a sunbeam: warm and reassuring. From beneath her helmet’s black-eared cap, a wispy lock caressed her forehead. Abruptly, Doctor Apple moved into sight, blocking the view.

  Sean jerked his head as if a spell had broken.

  Claire asked, “Aren’t you going to wait for the other casualties?”

  Sean snapped his gaze back the way he had come. “What? Are they close by?”

  “No. Their litter teams are starting to move them.”

  Sean marveled at Claire’s ability to aggravate him. “Then why did you ask?”

  With mock sweetness, she replied, “Because you didn’t think to ask first.”

  Sean wanted to plaster a palm over his face. She was right. Had this been real, he might have delayed someone with a more serious injury from getting help.

  Claire continued. “You’re not usually this absent-minded. What’s wrong?”

  He snarled and said, “Why don’t you try thinking straight with a strap pinching your thigh.”

  “Now you’re whining, sir.”

  “Then stop nagging.”

  Sean punched the airlock’s controls to pressurize. He felt thankful the process didn’t take anywhere near as long as suiting up had. When going to battle stations, everyone had exercised and breathed under pure oxygen masks for two hours to eliminate any risk of the bends. It took less than a minute for the compartment to match his suit’s thirty-two kilopascals of pressure. When the safety lights turned green, he opened the inner hatch.

  Apple turned at the sound. Beyond him, Sarah continued working. The doc smiled at Sean and in his Neuvo Texan drawl said, “Okay Miss Riley, the flood begins. Finish with Crewman Jazz so you can get to our next customer here.”

  “Aye, sir,” Sarah said.

  Sean craned around Apple to glimpse the diminutive nurse. Some sixth sense, the one he’d generally ignored as a younger man, warned him their cruise would have fewer complications if she didn’t see him any more than necessary. He’d always been popular with the girls and had indulged in some workplace romances before. Most had proven far more trouble than they’d been worth. Then again, he argued with himself, none of them had been as unassuming as Miss Riley seemed. Would it be so bad to let himself get comfortable around her?

  Shaking himself of the notion, he switched off his suit microphone and moved to the doctor’s side.

  “Listen, Stile,” he whispered, “I need to get back to the CIC. Can you reset my tourniquet and call it good?”

  Apple regarded his friend with a toothy grin. “Well, that depends on whether or not you want to notionally exsanguinate all over my nice clean sickbay. You did take a hit to the thigh, right?” He turned back to Sarah before Sean could respond.

  Apple told her, “Go ahead and get crewman Jazz onto the wall.”

  “Yes, doctor,” Sarah said, turning to her new task. She released the straps holding their patient’s torso to the exam table. Then she shut her boots off. Sean tried not to stare as Sarah tucked her legs and maneuvered along the bed. After anchoring again to the deck, she unlatched the remaining straps. At last, she grasped the crewman’s legs and steered him toward the bulkhead.

  As Sarah tied the patient down, Apple said, “Not bad, Lieutenant. Not bad at all. Claire, remind us to check on poor Mr. Jazz every ten minutes, please. He did lose an arm after all.”

  Sean, who’d been transfixed by Sarah, registered that the patient did indeed have a limb missing. A practice dummy.

  Apple said to Sean, “Alright, amigo, time to screen you for your place in our gallery.” He gestured to the wall full of litters. The doctor began to dismantle Sean’s armor and said, “Claire, how are those inbound casualties coming along?”

  “Actually, Doctor,” Claire answered, “there is a problem with the access ports in their section. They aren’t responding to my commands. The marine medic is with the wounded and wants to know how you want her to proceed. I think we should consult with the captain about the evac.”

  Apple stopped tinkering with Sean’s gear and said, “Before I bother the busiest person on th
e ship, why don’t you show me what is going on first.” At that, the Tsunami’s schematic and a video feed from a litter bearer’s helmet cam appeared on his face shield. Apple grunted before saying, “Doctor to CIC, medical emergency. Our casualties in the forward section are cut off. Can you spare some hands to make me a way through?”

  Captain Paulson soon responded. “We can get a cutting team on it, Stile, but you’ll probably reach them faster if you space-walk through the forward hatch.”

  “Agreed, ma’am. I’ll be forward if you need me. Lieutenant Riley will staff sickbay.” The doctor clapped his hands together, delighted to be doing something outside of his routine. “Miss Riley, that’s enough fumbling with the fluid regulator. Give Lieutenant Merrick here a thorough workup while you have the chance. I should be back in ten minutes or so.”

  At hearing Sean’s name, Sarah swung around, her mag-boots clunking with an awkward little two-step. “Oh, sir!” she said, an azure twinkle in her eyes. “Nice to see you again.”

  Sean tilted his head in greeting, a minimal smile breaking out in spite of himself. His fingers played fretfully at his constricted thigh. “Lieutenant,” he said.

  Apple put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and made a show of studying Sean’s face up and down. “Why Lieutenant Merrick,” the doctor said, “you look deathly pale. You’d best stretch parallel with the table and let Miss Riley take care of you.”

  Sarah, however, remained in place. Affecting annoyance, Apple said, “Don’t just stand there, Lieutenant. This man may be dying.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, bolting. Her magnetically planted foot lifted with an awkward jerk, and she began to fall face-first. She uttered a small cry and tried to compensate by planting the other leg forward. Fumbling for her boot controls, she triggered the off button mid-stride. Momentum sent her careening into Sean’s armored chest.