Aeolus Investigations Set 2: Too Cool To Lose: The Continuing Evolution of Lexi Stevens

by Robert E Colfax

“This is Lieutenant Danders Y’Throthe commanding the three-fighter squad now approaching from the hyper-limit. Can you use our help?”

  Not surprisingly, he got a very quick, somewhat suspicious, response. “Where did you come from, Y’Throthe?”

  “Believe it or not, sir, we escaped from the Rathca flight deck. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s not part of Rathca base anymore. Someone stole it. The entire flight deck along with all of the craft parked on it. It’s currently in hyper. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s on it’s way to Ostrieachia.” He laughed. “The people who stole it may be clever, but they lack vigilance. We took the fighters from under their noses. I expect a promotion for this. Listen, whoever you are, I need to warn you that one of my pilots is very inexperienced. Still, so far she’s been doing OK.”

  “Good to have you, Danders. We know the flight deck is missing. We thought it must have blown up or something. I think you’re probably delusional, but you had to come from somewhere and there’s a huge crater where it used to be. We’ll figure that out later. Start making runs on the base. Target point defense. We’re executing SO-Two. If your three ships can take out the point defense for us, you may just get that promotion.”

  “Understood, sir. Destroy everything. A shame, there’s a woman I kind of like down there. Oh well, orders are orders. I’ll find another.”

  Lexi, listening in, was very pleased with Dander’s transmission other than the implication girlfriends were no more than plug-and-play components, at least as far as the raider crews were concerned. She seriously hoped that wasn’t actually Dander’s attitude. For now, he was on her side. She’d find out later if any of his attitudes warranted a slapping around. Or a prison term.

  His ad-libbing was better than she could have hoped for. He set it up perfectly for what she was going to do next. As the small fighters accelerated toward the planet, she messed with the steering thrusters and sent her ship tumbling more or less in the direction of the second Raider, still a few miles distant. Danders instantly started yelling at her, “Stevens, relax. Straighten out your fighter. Follow orders.” He was so good, she briefly wondered if he had led a squad before.

  “I don’t know what to do, Dan,” Lexi almost screamed. “I can’t control this horrid thing. I’m ejecting.”

  “Stay with your ship, Stevens,” Danders tried. His voice conveyed that he knew it was hopeless. Lexi had the attention of practically every pirate with access to a viewscreen on both ships as the canopy of her fighter slid back and her body went tumbling chaotically directly toward Raider Two. “She’s gone,” Dander’s muttered, his voice low as though talking to himself, although his comm was still open.

  His voice firming, he said, “Samue, I don’t want any foolishness from you.” He watched Lexi’s body pass through Raider Two’s wall shields. Suddenly she was in complete control, straightening out of the tumble and touching down feet first on Two’s hull, making it look effortless. He shook his head. Where did you learn to be that nimble in zero-gee? “Samue, forget about her. She’s gone. The Raiders might be willing to pick up her body after the engagement. Begin the attack.”

  With her feet planted firmly on the hull of the Raider, Lexi ejected the power pack from Geena’s Zapper, set the timer to twenty seconds and slapped it onto the hull amidships. Holstering the now useless Zapper, none of them carried extra clips this time, she detached and blasted herself toward the rear of the ship.

  She could see Danders and Geena making their run on One as the power pack detonated, blowing a large hole in the side of Raider Two. Lexi positioned the charge so as not to damage any critical systems, although it took environmental completely down when it blew. She wasn’t concerned about that. The life-support of the suits would keep them going until one of them could fly this Raider back to the flight deck. Besides, there really weren’t any non-critical systems on a ship this size. Even bunk rooms were near something important.

  Despite the fact that most of the destructive force was deflected outward by the tough hull, the resulting hole was seven feet in diameter and went halfway through the ship. The concussion shoved the entire ship a little bit sideways and sent any of the crew who wasn’t strapped down flying into whatever wall was in their path. They could use upgraded dampeners. Lexi adjusted her suit’s thrusters, flying into the ship through the hole, her own Zapper ready in her hand. And I designed those power packs for use as hand grenades. Sheesh! What an idiotic idea that was.

  She hated this new world she suddenly found herself in where not all pirates deserved to die. Some things just shouldn’t be complicated. She was grateful that Danders already indicated that Raider crews were among the worst of them. These guys were in the process of killing over three thousand others. That alone made the decision of who to Zap and who to let live trivial. Kill them all.

  She moved quickly through the damaged ship, prepared to be deadly with the Zapper. As she advanced through the corridors, she felt perceptions of where the people she was hunting were taking cover. Whether that was due to the Rose or the Channel or a combination of both she didn’t know. In the back of her mind was a concern that she could easily come to rely on her evolving ability when she wasn’t really sure it was reliable. Something else to discuss with Jis when she got back.

  Within seconds she reached the bridge. The hatch, predictably, was locked. It fell outward as the Zapper sheared through the locking pins. Before leaving in the fighter, there had been no time to make the trip back to Urania for flash-bangs. Regardless, with the unexpected crash of the sealed hatch followed so closely on the heels of a massive wound being opened in the side of their ship, the startled pirates died while their brains were still processing the datum that they had been boarded and that a killer had just removed the hatch from their bridge. Alone on the bridge, Lexi wasted no time. Fingers flying over the navigation console, she started the ship turning. Jumping to the tactical console, she targeted both primaries directly at Raider One and cut loose. As Raider One was firing on the base with its own primaries, its e-shields were down. Lexi’s primaries took out its fire control. “Danders, contact the base, now. I’m firing missiles in thirty seconds. Get away from there.”

  She sent her first salvo of three of her twelve missiles thudding into Raider One, following up as soon as the tubes reloaded with three more. The second set penetrated the weakened wall shield, leaving an expanding cloud of debris where Raider One had been. She heard Danders finally contacting the base. Defensive fire from the base began tapering off moments later.

  According to base records, although these ships could carry a crew of fifteen, when on patrol duty the standard complement was eight. They worked ten hours on with ten hours off covering the short twenty-hour day maintained on Rathca. There was a good chance that with the excitement of the last couple of hours, all eight were awake.

  She only encountered, and shot, one man on her way to the bridge but also passed a dead guy in a ripped suit with a broken back. The four bridge crew were history. That left at least two others loose on her captured ship. Flipping on the all-ship comm, she announced, “My name is Lexi Stevens. I’ve taken your ship. If any of you are still alive, you can surrender and face justice or you can die here within the next few minutes. Your choice.”

  Switching to the ship-to-ship comm, she said, “Bring your ships in close and join me over here. I have a little bit of clean-up to do, but that should only take a few minutes.” Then she went to find the remaining two pirates who had not accepted her offer to surrender.

  Before they left the system, Lexi commed Rathca base. She knew who to speak to due to Urania’s access of the base’s datanets. “I want to speak to Admiral the First, Edgra Ruma. Please find her and put her on.”

  She wasn’t surprised by the almost immediate response. After all, Rathca had been defending against annihilation by the two Raiders. “This is Ruma. Who am I speaking to?”

  “My name is Lexi Stevens, ma’am. My forces liberated your base’s flight deck. We
are taking your Ostrieachian captives home. We are also the ones who came back to prevent the Unity Raiders from completely destroying your base and everyone still alive down there. I’m here now to negotiate the terms of your surrender. Is it safe to assume you would prefer surrender to being destroyed?”

  “You’re Accord forces, right? You must be. What world am I surrendering to?”

  “Yes, we’re from the Accord. That’s irrelevant. You will be surrendering to me, personally.”

  “That’s unusual.” Lexi heard a sigh come over the comm. “Most of my people are civilians. Very well, what are your terms?”

  “I don’t know what Unity’s propaganda has led you to expect from the Accord. I would suggest, however, you don’t believe everything you’ve been told. You are all prisoners of war until we can sort you out. We will do that as quickly as possible with a minimum of inconvenience to you. All personnel on your base, whether Unity or Ostrieachian, are to be treated by you and your personnel with respect and with honor. Is that much clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That is all I require you to agree to. You will be held responsible if my one condition is not adhered to. To ease your mind somewhat, we will come back to transport all of you to Ostrieachia as soon as we can. I would prefer your people to not put up a fight at that time. I know, Admiral, that not all of your people are criminals. We will deal harshly with those few who are. Others will have their freedom, although honestly, at this point, I don’t know where they’ll go.”

  The sigh came over the comm again. “We can live with that, Lexi Stevens. I will tender you my surrender.”

  Lexi said, “One other item, ma’am. I doubt you will have an issue with it. Lock up any Raider crews that are still loose down there. Any other military personnel I’ll leave to your judgment as to whether or not to incarcerate.” Ruma was so long replying, Lexi prompted, “Admiral?”

  “Your terms remain acceptable.”

  Chapter 26

  Ostrieachia

  Urania parked just outside of the planet’s atmosphere and waited, her hyper-generator holding her poised in hyperspace. This far inside of the planet’s gravity well, the hyperspatial turbulence was horrible, even with the new dampeners and without the hyper-drive being active. Lexi explained it was the proximity of the flight deck to the planet causing the issue. It was a full nineteen minutes before the freakin’ Ostrieachians got two warships into position to investigate and make contact.

  Kalia at least looked embarrassed, unless she was just getting space-sick. On the monitors, it was hard to tell.

  Lexi, Geena, and Danders were all situated at the controls of their respective transports. The raider Lexi blew the side out of, which they subsequently used to catch up with Urania, was locked down with the rest of the hardware on the flight deck. The three fighters, abandoned in the pirate’s system, were left in orbit around the system’s second planet where they would be relatively easy to retrieve but hidden if you didn’t know to look for them there.

  The Ostrieachians’s ships were patrolling close to each other, further out than Ostrieachia’s single moon. As Denem bemoaned more than once, their technology was inferior. That didn’t mean they were either stupid or unobservant. One of the ships had its hyper-bubble active, enabling it to see anything approaching the planet shortly after it breached the hyper-limit. Lexi was impressed. While the ship couldn’t light its hyperdrive in the gravity well, it was still a relatively clever workaround for not being able to afford the hyper-limit detector array most systems’ used. The second ship was in n-space.

  The first one dropped its bubble. The second ship took its place a few minutes later presumably after reporting there was something in the space immediately above Ostrieachia. Lexi and her people weren’t sure what the Ostrieachian warships saw. Since it was a few additional minutes before any attempt at contact was made, they suspected the Ostrieachians weren’t sure what they were seeing either. Urania had very advanced shields that normally made her invisible to other ships, but with the huge disk of granite on her head, she wasn’t expending even the little bit of extra power that required.

  From the warship now with them in hyperspace, they heard, “This is Captain Mrragraan commanding the Ostrieachian Nationalist Defense Cruiser Brockzer. Whatever you are, drop into n-space and drop your shields or we will commence firing on you. This is your only warning.” He was transmitting his instructions in Ritue, the most widely spoken language in Accord space. He turned briefly to his aide and, switching to Trakish, asked, “Do we still think that is what it looks like it is?”

  “Yes, sir. As far as our sensors can tell, it really is a mobile flight deck. Made out of stone. Amazing. We’re getting further analysis on the hardware, can I say ‘grounded’ on it? If they launch, we won’t stand a rat’s chance in a bucket, sir.”

  Kalia was still on the transport with Ron, sitting in the second pilot’s seat. He nodded to her and said, “Talk to them.”

  “Captain. My name is Kalia. I am an agent extraordinary and plenipotentiary appointed by the One World Council returning from a diplomatic mission to the Accord. I am currently associated with the crew of the Accord scout ship which is holding this flight deck in hyper.”

  “That doesn’t register as a scout ship, Citizen Kalia. I think it would be wise of you to do as I instructed.”

  “Captain, I am transmitting my security encryption now. Verify it and then get Admiral Citizen Orgiazz on a ship and get him into hyper so we can talk. This is so far above your pay grade you should be suffering nose bleeds about now. My authority reaches that high and higher. Do it now, Captain. And be quick about it, we are in dire straits over here.”

  On verifying the identification code, Mrragraan’s hair stood out from his body and his claws extended as he momentarily contemplated what he might have just landed in. “Citizen, your encryption is verified. Stand by.” Blockzer exited to n-space and tight-beamed a communication to the planet. Within five minutes of the transmission being received on Ostrieachia, a fast courier lifted from the planet’s surface and immediately entered hyper. Again there was an inexplicable lag before it established communications with Urania. A man’s voice said, “Citizen Kalia, I’m Admiral Orgiazz. What am I seeing? Where’s Denem?”

  “First things first, sir. My mission was to solicit the Accord worlds for help against the pirates. We were hoping they would loan us a fleet of warships. We returned with something far more effective.” She winked using both of her eyes at Ron. “I brought back three rather extraordinary agents. The little ship you see on the underside of this block of granite is theirs. It is supporting what used to be the flight deck of a massive pirate base three hours from here via hyper.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She paused, expecting further comment. Getting none, she continued, “I am currently on board one of four military-grade personnel transports parked on that flight deck. All together the four transports are holding over six hundred men, women, and children, most of whom are Ostrieachian, rescued from the pirates that have been troubling us. We are also carrying almost the entire hardware inventory of that base consisting of the troop transports and over forty other warships. We have forty-six, short-range, one-man fighters alone. Denem is in a holding cell. He was in bed with the pirates.”

  Orgiazz was an adviser to the One World Council on military matters. As such, he was already in the know concerning the diplomatic mission to the Accord. His advice during those discussions had been that the mission was a waste of time. He had been fairly adamant about it, but the politicians had gone ahead anyway. The Accord wouldn’t help. He knew that. His people would never see the fleet the mission hoped to acquire for them. Kalia had now both proven him to be absolutely correct in that respect and horribly wrong about the mission being a waste of time. Unless he was mistaken, there was a fleet sitting on the surface of the flight deck on his viewscreen. “What do you need, Kalia?”

  Ron broke in. “Admiral, my name is
Ron Samue. First thing, let me warn you to pull all of your ships in close to the planet. The pirates have impenetrable cloaking technology. You’ll never see them coming. We destroyed all of their ships not grounded on this flight deck, but they could be reinforced at any time.”

  “Understood, Samue.”

  “Very good, sir. The flight deck we’re supporting approaches a hundred-thousand tons. It was already in the process of fragmenting from our trip through hyper. Sitting this close to your planet for the last several hours isn’t helping structural integrity any either. We don’t have sufficient power to put it in orbit. Once we cut our hyper-generators, this entire structure is going to plummet like the rock it is.”

  He gave the admiral a few seconds to start thinking about that before saying, “The flight deck will shatter the moment we collapse our hyper-bubble. Our only option is to crash into one of your oceans. We believe our shields, tractor beams, and gravity generators will hold things together that long. To a certain extent, we can control the fall, but we’re still going straight down and making a big splash when we hit.”

  He paused, and Orgiazz asked, “What can we do to help?”