“Specs the CAG gave me say ten cargo pods should have it all, and that’s what I’m seeing,” Edvard replied. “I hear you on the bull’s-eye, though. Are we far enough out to go FTL if there’s a problem?”
“Sure, if you want to leave Roberts and Glass behind,” Chownyk said with a chuckle of laughter. “I may be half-machine, but I don’t think even I can be that cold. If things go to hell, what are your odds on extraction?”
Edvard pursed his lips in thought.
“I’m going to have two platoons in battle armor in about a minute,” he pointed out. “Add in my HQ section and I’ve got a hundred and forty suits ready to go punch a hole. I don’t like to underestimate anybody, but that station is only big enough for about two thousand people.
“I don’t care if every damn one of them has power armor, they don’t stand a chance against a company of Castle’s damned Marines, sir.”
#
Despite the intentionally dilapidated state of the rest of Judecca Station, Trickster’s office was neat and clean. It could have belonged to any middle manager in human space. A plain wooden desk and a wall turned over to a wallscreen.
It didn’t look particularly different from Kyle’s own office aboard Chameleon.
The occupant of the desk was an…enigma. Trickster wore a hood and a mask painted in a checkerboard of white and black squares. Coupled with a surprisingly androgynous figure, a black suit with a long-sleeved white shirt and white gloves, there was no way to tell if Trickster was a man or woman.
“Come in, come in,” they instructed Kyle and Glass, their voice shifting modulations as they spoke, the mask clearly including some kind of electronic filter. “Mister Glass, Captain Roberts, it is my pleasure.”
“We’re here for our upgrade kits, Trickster,” Glass said, his voice impressively level, given the strange harlequin behind the desk.
“I know, I know,” the pirate replied. “I hope Jose was not too intimidating. The assholes who ‘upgraded’ him did his neural pathways no favors.”
“Jose” presumably was the mountain of a man who’d guided them there. Apparently, his cybernetics hadn’t been entirely voluntary.
Glass sighed.
“You clearly want more than your money. What is it?”
“Oh, I want my money,” Trickster replied, the modulator not hiding the smile in their voice. “I also wanted to actually meet you face to face, Mister Glass. I have attempted to put together the components of your operation, and yet I find myself coming up short. Not many are that skilled, though the presence of a Commonwealth Q-ship does suggest so many possibilities.”
“And how much will it cost us to keep those possibilities to yourself?” the spy asked.
“Discretion is an assumed part of my business dealings, Glass,” the pirate said flatly. “I would not have survived this long were it not. I merely wanted to meet you and Captain Roberts here. He, a legend forged by publicity and media—and you, who would be a legend, were the records not sealed. The contrast is…delightful.”
Trickster made a “pass it over” gesture.
“Nonetheless, I would like my money.”
Glass slid a datastick onto the table.
“Codes and numbers for anonymous accounts with the Bank of Golide Swaziland,” he said simply. “The agreed amount.
Golide Swaziland was an independent system the Commonwealth had so far left alone—most likely because even Terra could use a black-market banking system that asked no questions and took no names.
“Good,” Trickster replied. “My bank account is satisfied. My curiosity is satisfied. Yours is not, but that is the nature of the game. Your cargo is being loaded, Captain Roberts. I could, perhaps, see my way to providing additional hardware…but I suspect your plan depends on using hardware that can be more easily traced than my goods.
“Jose will escort you back to your ship. While you are on Judecca Station, you are under my protection. I will not wish you luck. We share an enemy but not a cause.”
“Thank you,” Glass said with a small bow.
The two Federation men rose. As they turned to leave, the door slid open behind them to reveal Jose’s immense form. The giant grunted, gestured for them to follow him, and then stopped mid-motion.
He spasmed once, his face contorting in pain. Despite whatever had just happened, he began to spin around—moving at a pace that Kyle couldn’t follow.
Then his chest exploded, spraying gore and metal everywhere as the armor-piercing grenade that had been fired into the massive cyborg’s chest detonated.
#
Chapter 18
New Edmonton System
08:10 May 27, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Chameleon, Ice Belt
Edvard had stepped out to join Riley’s platoon in running security in the cargo bay itself by the time the first pod reached Chameleon’s cargo bay. The leader of the armed men escorting the pod gave him what probably passed for a salute among the League’s condottieri.
“I’m Henry; these are my boys and gals,” he said brightly. “We’re just longshoremen today, but my folk feel naked without the guns.”
“Then you won’t mind if we watch you like hawks,” Edvard replied. “Edvard. I run security here.”
Henry snorted. “And if you ain’t somebody’s Marine, my momma’s a virgin. But it ain’t my business; I leave that kind of game to the boss. Move them on up, boys and gals!” He grinned. “Where do you want them?”
The harnesses included built-in small scale mass manipulators that reduced the mass of the multi-hundred-ton cargo pods to something that could roll on the small wheels included. Edvard gestured for one of the Chiefs charged with handling the cargo bay to take over traffic direction and stepped aside.
Henry moved with him.
“Ship’s more than she looks like,” he observed. “Cleaner than a few of the hulks I’ve worked on, too.”
“We run a tight ship,” Edvard said nonchalantly. “My boss has his standards.”
“So he does,” the pirate allowed. “We have ten pods for you. Each contains four upgrade kits for a Cataphract fighter—and unless I misread the specs, nine-tenths of the mass and volume is a replacement positron lance. Your flyboys are gonna be happy.”
“I look forward to seeing— “
“Shit!” Henry exclaimed, holding up his hand as his eyes glazed slightly, the expression of someone linked in to their implant communicator. “Son of a fucking Martian.”
“What the hell?” Edvard demanded, but the pirate spun to look at him.
“You’ve got more people than you’re showing,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Battle armor. Weapons. Marines. Right?!”
“Maybe…”
“One of the boss’s lieutenants just decided that right fucking now is the best opportunity he can find to make a play—and he sees your ship as a bonus. You’ve got a hundred guys swarming this way, half in battle armor.”
“I can handle that,” Edvard said grimly, sending notes to his platoon leaders.
“Can you pull my boss out?” Henry said flatly. “I got a warning from one of the guys I trust, then I lost coms with the station.” He swallowed. “I’m authorized to offer ten million Terran dollars for assistance in this case.”
“Let me deal with the boarders first,” the Marine said grimly. “But then I have to go in after my boss, too.”
#
“Launch! Launch! Launch!”
Russell’s voice echoed over both the implant network and in the cockpit of his starfighter as he barked the order.
No one was quite sure what was going on yet, but they’d lost communications with the Captain and Glass at the same time that Edvard’s new friend had lost contact with the station. Whatever the situation was, however, Russell was more confident in their ability to handle it with forty starfighters in space.
A giant’s palm slammed him back into his acceleration couch as the Q-ship fired his ship into space. With every mass man
ipulator on his ship dedicated to counteracting the force, it was survivable, but they could only absorb ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the over twenty thousand gravities he was subjected to for a fraction of a second.
“Alpha Squadron clear,” Flight Commander Churchill reported. “And…accessories.”
“I heard that,” Russell snapped back at his subordinate. Those “accessories” were his starfighter and the first of the black starfighters from his Echo squadron.
“Second cycle in ten seconds,” his deck chief reported. “Clear the airspace, people.”
Russell engaged his link with the starfighter. His implant kicked into a new gear, and suddenly he was the agile, four-thousand-ton starfighter. A moment’s thought brought the antimatter engines to life, moving his ship out of the path of the next wave of starfighters—and bringing his weapons to bear on one of the two defensive platforms trailing Judecca Station.
“CAG, you have incoming missiles,” Chownyk reported. “Both stations just launched; I’m reading a dozen capital-ship missiles from each of them. We’re trying to clear the gunports, but scans show someone mounted explosives on the cargo tunnel.
“If I break free to maneuver, I’ll blow a big enough hole in the side that we won’t need a carrier deck,” the XO told him grimly. “Missile defense is in play, but unless someone flies in front of our big guns, this isn’t going to be Chameleon’s fight. I’ve got one missile salvo; let me know if you see a use for it.”
“Will do,” Russell said distractedly, studying the incoming missiles and the stations behind them.
“Alpha Squadron, take those lead missiles. Cover Chameleon,” he ordered. “Bravo squadron, form on me as you emerge, we’re going after those launch platforms.”
“Wilco,” Churchill replied. Moments later, all eight of Alpha Squadron’s Cataphracts charged forward at four hundred and eighty gravities—not what the Falcons they were used to could achieve, but still more than the un-upgraded Cataphract was capable of.
Bravo Squadron and two more of Echo’s fighters were accelerating to catch up with Russell as he held his own acceleration down, studying the ice-encased weapons platform he’d designated as “Target Alpha”.
It was hard to say just how large the actual platform was, with the ice wrapped around it. The entire ice ball was a rough egg two hundred meters long and a hundred and fifty wide, but at least a few meters of that had to be ice.
They were hitting it with active radar now, which wasn’t helping as much as he’d like. The pirates had crammed a dozen capital-ship launchers into the thing—even if there was only a meter of ice on each side, the platform wasn’t big enough for more than a handful of small lances and maybe two good-sized ones.
The two platforms had to be primarily missile bases, which meant that they were a bigger threat to Chameleon than his starfighters. Even the Cataphracts were going to eat the stations alive—which meant there had to be starfighters somewhere, as he doubted someone with Trickster’s reputation would have missed the shortfall.
His attention was broken by the rippling explosions of failing containment on antimatter warheads. With Target Alpha only eighty thousand kilometers from Chameleon—and Target Bravo only a hundred thousand kilometers farther away—Churchill’s squadron had started in range of the missiles.
The weapons might be smart and maneuverable, but they weren’t that capable. The salvo from Target Alpha came apart in a series of one-gigaton explosions as they ran into Alpha Squadron’s positron lances, and Russell smiled mirthlessly.
He was even less sure of the station’s defenses than of its weapons, but at fifty thousand kilometers, his people had a decent chance of burning through its deflectors for a hit. Charlie Squadron was out behind him now, and once Alpha Squadron had finished shredding Target Alpha’s missiles, they could move on to Bravo’s…
Wait.
“Guns, what the hell are Target Bravo’s missiles doing?” he demanded of Alvarado.
Even as he was noticing the change in Bravo’s missiles’ path, so was Target Alpha. The weapons platform had so far been relatively quiet other than launching the missiles, but it sprang to life as Target Bravo’s missiles charged toward it, not past it.
Lasers and defensive positron lances flared to life in flashes of vaporizing ice, but Bravo’s commander had timed the change in their missiles’ course perfectly—there wasn’t enough time for Alpha to shoot down all of them.
There was, apparently, enough time to fire Alpha’s main weapon, though. In the moments before the surviving trio of missiles impacted, a megaton-per-second capital-ship-grade positron lance flared to life, connecting the two platforms with a beam of pure antimatter.
Both platforms vanished in near-simultaneous explosions, vaporized ice and metal flaring out in every direction.
“Well, that’ll make things easier,” Churchill noted. “I’m guessing some of our friends don’t like each other much.”
“What the hell have we stumbled into the middle of?” Russell asked aloud.
“I don’t know,” Chownyk interrupted, “but we’re not done yet. Judecca Station’s weapons aren’t online yet, but we’re running active pulses and picking—son of a bitch.”
Everyone’s sensors were suddenly overwhelmed with a brilliant flash of Cherenkov radiation as a starship emerged from Alcubierre drive barely two light-seconds away.
#
It took Edvard a moment to realize what he was seeing after the massive door at the other end of the cargo tunnel slid open again. Something was moving forward, but it wasn’t armored troopers. The incoming things were each about a meter high, four-legged—and armed.
“Combat drones!” he finally realized aloud. “Stand by to take them out.”
He glanced over at Henry. Trickster’s people had joined his in taking cover as they prepared to defend the cargo bay.
“Please tell me those are remote-controlled,” he said calmly. Fully autonomous war machines were banned by treaties and agreements dating back to pre-Alcubierre Earth—and the occasional secret project by various governments tended to blow up sufficiently to keep those treaties honored.
“No,” the pirate admitted. “Fully self-directed. Supposed to ignore people who are unarmed or wearing a certain badge, but…well, let’s just say these ones ended up in a black marketer’s inventory for a reason.
“Usually, just the threat is enough to get a ship that’s being stubborn to surrender,” he added. “Boss only actually used them once that I know. On the Dictator’s people.”
“No wonder he hates your guts,” Edvard muttered. “Any particular weak points?”
“The override codes?” Henry grunted. “Which I tried ten seconds ago. They’ve either taken out the three I know or just outright disabled the override. Bastards.”
From the sound of it, disabling the overrides turned the drone into an area-denial weapon—they’d probably shoot at anyone they saw.
“Great,” Edvard replied, watching the distance drop. He doubted the pirates had sent the drones unless they had some way of getting through Chameleon’s hull.
“Commander.” He raised Chownyk. “How are we doing with those explosives?”
“Chief Radnick says he’s just disabled the remote detonators,” the XO replied, a distinct tone of relief in his voice. “The pressure detonators are still in place, so we’re not going anywhere, but they aren’t going to have any luck blasting their way in, either.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to let them knock,” Edvard said calmly. “If the Captain wasn’t in there, I wouldn’t let them do more.”
“You have a plan, El-Maj?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then go get our Captain back.”
“Wilco,” Edvard replied with a grin, turning his attention back to the cargo tunnel linking the two ships.
The drones were almost to the access to Chameleon, and he could see people starting to move in the station itself. At least some were in battle armor, though it d
idn’t look like all or even a majority.
“Door opens in ten seconds,” he barked. “Pick your targets. Put down those fucking drones, then assault the station. These bastards have no clue what it means to deal with Castle’s damned Marines.”
A yipping wolf-howl echoed from the speakers on his Marines’ battle armor, and then the door slammed open, exposing the incoming robots to their fire.
The robots might be fast and self-directed, but they couldn’t scan and target through starship armor. The Marines, however, had access to the pickups on the outside of their ship. They’d already picked their targets before Edvard hit the command to open the door…and he had two hundred Marines and black-ops troopers, plus two dozen of Henry’s people, targeting barely a hundred drones.
Henry had clearly thought the drones were tough, a credible threat—but Edvard’s people were firing tungsten penetrators designed to take down battle armor, and each drone was hit by at least half a dozen of them.
Moments after the door opened, his howling Marines charged over the junkyard that had been the pirates’ first wave.
#
Chapter 19
New Edmonton System
08:15 May 27, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Judecca Station, Ice Belt
Jose blocked the door for a long moment, his shattered corpse still sufficient to stop a spray of bullets from reaching the room. As his immense form finally fell, a security shutter slammed down to seal the room away.
“We’re being jammed,” Kyle told Glass after an abortive attempt to reach Chameleon. “What’s going on?” he demanded of Trickster.
The pirate was busy opening a concealed locker in the wall and pulling out weapons.
“They’re jamming you because I just shut down Judecca Station’s defenses to be safe,” they said calmly. “I think I managed to ping people I believe are loyal on the defense platforms as well, which should stop their weapons being turned on your ship.”
Q-Ship Chameleon Page 11
