Katherine- War Master
Page 8
I’m too close to catching up to it to devote any additional brain power towards it. Now is when I jump on that fucker and find out what’s what. I’ve got the Doom-Raptor coming up to cover my flank, and Turnbuckle is at full burn about one hundred thousand clicks off of my thruster wash.
The fighters will encapsulate the ship, take out its defenses, and then I’ll jump into whatever hole they can rip in the hull.
That’s my plan, anyway.
“Can we raise Marbles on coms, yet?” I ask Throat.
“Sure. We’re close enough for near real-time traffic. You want I should hail him?”
“Do it.”
Punch asked.
I cut the feed, and see a firing solution waiting for me on the tactical HUD. I notice some little grey squiggly lines branching off of the firing angles as I toggle the weapons type displays.
“What’s this grey line thingy?” I ask Throat.
“Oh, that? That’s the combined solution between me and Doom. We NAV’s have a fetish when it comes to sharing targeting processes.”
“That sounds disturbing… I like it.” I say.
“Coming into our optimum engagement window now. Just say the word, Kat!”
“The word, Kat,” I repeat.
“Sounds like an engagement order to me!” Doom chimes in on the audio net. I feel the deck plating vibrate as the weapons bays open up to expose the two low-drooping cradles of weapons. I only wish I could see it from the outside. It makes an LRF look like the most dangerous thing in the cosmos when they come out.
The HUD flares to life, and I can see that Doom has launched a small salvo of short-range missiles. As is there plan, Throat follows it up with a burst of plasma fire from the Gatling cannons. If they didn’t see us before, then they sure do now!
The gunship tries to evade the missiles by executing an emergency burn to alter the ship’s forward orientation. As if by clockwork, the streaks of blue plasma strike directly behind the missiles. The shielding had been disturbed by the missile strike, and the heated plasma bolts drive a hole in the stern energy shielding. The ship’s thruster array takes a full blast of plasma, and a brilliant white plume of energy overwhelms my view from the canopy.
“Nice job, guys!” I shout gleefully.
“Killing ships is what we do, dear,” Doom replies as he sends a winking icon to my main HUD.
The gunship begins to list to port, and a moment later begins to wobble into a slow flat spin. I dial back the throttle slightly. The gunship may still be traveling at relativistic speed due to inertia, so a collision is not likely, but I need a broader vantage to choose a breach point.
“Oh, look!” Throat says casually. “They’ve got a launch tube for fighters!”
I look down on the tactical display and see the alerts flickering red. Red blips began to stream out of the ship. Fighters are coming out to play, I suppose.
“We need to clear the fighters before I go in on my approach. Can you handle that for me, Doom?” I ask over the audio net.
“No need.” He replies sharply. “Turnbuckle beat me to it.”
I check my proximity display and see the blue icon of the Titans Bane. The Mark-8 fighter is already in an intercept vector, and energy signatures of beam fire are populating on the scan. I look at the enemy blips, and one fighter is already breaking apart from the barrage. I zoom in on visual and see an older Mark-4 fighter hull tumbling away into the blackness.
“Give me hull types on those fighters!” I spout.
“Two older Mark-4’s, one late model Mark-6, and two…” Throat trails off.
“What’s the problem?” I ask nervously.
“Unknown hull types. Three in all. The chemical signatures of their thruster wash are the kicker!” He replies.
“Mwargoth tech,” I say in a matter of fact way.
“I concur.” Doom chimes in over the net.
“Get me on that gunship, and then don’t let those squid fuckers escape alive!” I spout off, as I spin the pilot’s seat around to face the berthing area of the LRF. I step out, grab my sword, snatch a vintage Colt 1911 pistol, and walk to the starboard side hatch.
“They’ve just launched long-range missiles at Marbles!” Doom reported. I gasp. I feel my adrenal glands flare up. Fear floods my spine and then pulses throughout my body. I cringe for a moment, and then I steady my breathing with my eyes closed.
“Knock out those missiles, Doom!” I order with a sense of urgency. “Throat, rip a hole in that fucking ship, and get me close enough to jump!”
Both respond with “Got it,” as if they were of one voice. “I’ll take out the human fighters, guys!” Turnbuckle keys in on the audio net. “Once you get her on that ship, I’ll link up with Throat, and we’ll pummel some squids!”
“Happy hunting, boys,” I say flatly. I lean into the hatch as if I expect it to pop open any second. Now I notice my fear for Marbles has taken a new form…
Primal Rage!
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Throat-Slasher’s superior inertial dampeners keep me blissfully unaware of the freakishly dangerous g-forces that it’s contending with. I can hear the vibrations of the weapon’s cradles in action. The vacuum of space doesn’t allow for sound waves, but the hard-mounted weapons can be felt as they work their sinister magic.
“Got a nice hole for you, Kat!” Throat announces.
“Just give me three seconds notice before you open the hatch… I can survive vacuum for several minutes, but I still have to breathe!” I chuckle. I mentally note that my humor is in full array. What I used to believe was a defense mechanism against stress, is now a sign that I’m empowered by forces beyond time and space. I am a killer.
I am become death… The destroyer of worlds!
“The mag-shielding will seal in the atmospherics, so that’s not necessary. I just don’t want any flak cannons to come alive before I get into position. That hatch can survive a direct hit from a missile… You can’t!” He replies.
“Pfft! Don’t bet on it!” I say. Of course it’s true, but the Rage has me feeling like an invincible demigod… Some people believe that War Masters are demigods, after all.
“Almost there! Que the hatch!” Throat sounds off. I don’t even bat an eyelash.
>
The hatch opens up, and I can see the invisible mag-shielding clearly. My senses are in tune with the cosmos, and I see things in dazzling arrays of mathematics and symmetry. But I have no time to gawk.
I see a hole in the top of the gunship. Somehow the interior lighting must have survived the particle beam strike, because I can clearly see the illuminated deck plating within it. Throat maneuvers the LRF to sync vector and azimuth with the slowly tumbling gunship, and from my vantage, the ship may as well be stationary.
“Good luck!” Throat shouts, but I am in the black before I can give a reply. I launched myself with a single lunge, as if I were launching myself down a luge during the Winter Olympics.
I fall feet first, and quickly close the gap between me and the gunship. The mag-shielding is keeping the ship from venting atmosphere, but the protective shielding is off-line, so there’s nothing to impede me from entering the ship like a human missile.
I slam into the deck plating in a perfect ‘Superman landing’, and rise to my feet. The corridor is lit with amber colored emergency lighting, and has an almost romantic glow about it. I take a second to get my bearings, and I decide to head in the direction of the fore section of the ship.
I hear shouts of men and women up ahead, so I slow my stride, draw my pistol, and wait for them to crest the corner of an intersection ahead. I see the barrels of some after-market multi-purpose rifles first, but by the time the human figures emerge behind them, my wrist-mounted shield is already snapped into array.
Bolts of red plasma, and bursts of ballistic slugs harmlessly impact my shield, as I press it forward with my left forearm. I see the whites of the enemies’ eyes before I slam head-long into them with my shield. They tumble back, but before they can find their footing, two .45 slugs hit them between their eyes in rapid succession.
I snap my shield out of array, so I can listen for additional threats. The humming of the shield isn’t what I would consider ‘stealthy’. I take stock in the dead attackers. One male, and one female. Both wearing after-market light body armor with lose fitting grey jumpsuits underneath. Decidedly not pirates.
At this point I’m wishing I had more experience outside of the training temple, or off of the rock I spent decades on. The disposition of these two dead people would probably trigger some kind of clue as to what’s up with this gunship. I shake off my frustration, and look around.
The adjoining corridor that the attackers came from runs port to starboard. I see a junction a few meters away, and it appears to track further forward. I also take note that the ship must have some series tech installed. Most ships lose all or part of their anti-grav systems when the thruster array takes a serious hit. This is not the case.
Pirates piece together warships from civilian vessels, and typically have to find low tech solutions to keep them flying. This hull type is certainly commercial in origin, but it appears to have been skillfully retrofitted for warfighting. That kind of work is only done in an advanced ship yard with highly skilled starship architects involved.
And lots of credit to finance it.
Mwargoth fighters, well-groomed crewmembers, uniformed after-market tech… There’s a seriously ominous revelation brewing in my gut. I have no time to speculate, however. I have to keep moving to maintain my initiative. I need to close the gap between me, and the CIC before an organized defense can be formed against me.
I move through the center corridor and pass a myriad of doors as I go. I remain vigilant with my footing, and take great care not to pound my feet down on the deck plating. I’m likely being remotely tracked, given the sophisticated tech onboard, but so far there’s no sign of other crewmembers.
That just means they’re holding up around the CIC… I’m sure of it. I consider going down to try and disable their fighter launch tube, but I think better of it. This ship has finite tonnage, and the likelihood that they have any additional attack craft is slim. It’s a risk to benefit ratio, and the odds of affecting a positive outcome are better by taking control of the ship.
I come to another junction, and I stop to press myself against a nearby bulkhead. I pause, take a calm breath, and then slowly crane my neck around the corner. Good thing too!
Just around the corner, and to my left, I see a row of hardened shipping containers arranged in a general ‘u’ shape, and bulging outward from a fore-facing blast door. I wish my body could tolerate tactical nanotech, because this would be an ideal opportunity to take advantage of it.
I hear whispered voices of some defenders that are coming from the door, but just out of my vantage. I can’t decide if they just don’t have neural interfaces to silently communicate, or if they’re just morons with no notion of sound discipline in combat.
I decide my pistol will do no good in this situation. Ideally, I could make a strafing run past the front of the crates, and then duck out of the way to draw my sword and finish them off, but that won’t work. My old pistol lacks the rate of fire required to pull it off. Besides, I would need to score several rapid headshots to take them down with confidence. That after-market armor may be thin-skinned, but it will likely stop the blunt .45 slugs handily.
So, what’s my plan? Glad you asked. Watch this shit!
I burst around the corner, snapping my energy shield into full array, and draw my sword with a single fluid motion. As I clear the bulkhead that obscures my line of sight from the defenders, I hop out to plant my right foot, and spring off of it to bound over the closest container.
The five defenders never saw it coming. I smashed my shield into one of them, and send him crashing into the blast door. By the time he slumps to the floor in a heap, I swing wide with my sword and decapitate one more enemy. The remaining three stumble back in shock, and the closest one attempts to spray a wild burst of ballistics fire at me.
Most of the rounds are harmlessly deflected off of my shield, but I take a slug to my right shoulder, and my arm jerks backward, sword and all.
I felt the impact, but not the pain. Unbeknownst to me, War Master Armor is highly effective against the typical lower velocity ballistic rounds that are commonly used on starships.
The man’s burst ends when I bring my right arm back around to slice his barrel in half. His eyes go wide, and he stumbles back into a scamper. He loses footing, lands on his ass, and then trips up the other two surviving enemies.
The other two flinch, as I press my shield forward while firming up my attack stance. I pause for a moment. I gesture at their weapons with my eyes, and then point my head to the side. They catch my drift, and then toss their weapons aside.
“Who the fuck are you?” I scowl at them. The man on his ass exchanges nervous glances with his peers, and then tries to babble something incoherently. I stomp my foot, and flex my sword arm. The threatening movement works, and the man begins to spit out something I can understand.
“We-we are just doing a job!” He sheepishly spouts. “I didn’t – we, didn’t…” He seems to have something on the tips of his tongue. I reach down with my shield arm, as it snaps out of array. Then I grab him by the collar rim of his body armor, and lift him off the ground with one arm. I can see the planet sized eyeballs of his peers form.
The sight of someone without power armor or noticeable strength mods, lifting a one hundred kilo man wearing twenty kilos of light armor, is novelty enough for anyone. But watch a thin woman do it with one arm certainly makes people shit themselves… At least that’s what my nose is telling me.
“Spit. It. Out!” I growl, as I accentuate each syllable. I’m guessing he’s watching his life pass before his eyes… Good.
“We didn’t know that squids would be involved!” One of the other men shouts desperately. I don’t budge, but continue to glare into the dangling man’s eyes.
“Who hired you?” I say sternly, still holding my eyes in place.
“He just said his name was, Charlie!” The dangling man spat. I tiny spec of spittle strikes my cheek, as a result. I low the man down to his
feet, and then shove him back against the bulkhead. The other two men cower back to where he now stood.
“I call bullshit! Charlie is dead. Killed by a War Master like me.” I say in a lecturing tone. I notice the expressions on their faces switch from fear to confusion. One of them even began to scratch his head.
“War Masters are real?” The man I previously held said, completely astonished.
“I think you can answer that for yourselves!” I say as a matter of fact. “What were you paid to do?”
“Only our captain knows the full details! Please, don’t hurt us!” The head scratching guy pleads. I can feel his mental intensions, and he believes in his words. But I’m not ready to get all warm and fuzzy with them yet.
“Convenient!” I say sarcastically. “Where are the rest of your goons?”
“Trapped in engineering, out in their fighters, or further forward beyond this door!” The dangly one answers. It makes sense. Engineering is often located near the thruster array. The damage back aft must have triggered an emergency lock-down to preserve the forward compartments. I don’t recall passing anything other than crew berthing, a galley, and administrative facilities. Most of the operational based positions would be fore, aft, or down below in the fighter bay.
“Why did they leave you all out here to defend a blast door out in the open?” I ask. In truth, it makes no sense to me. There’s a perfectly good armored blast door to provide a natural choke point from the other side.
“The door was sealed before we could make it to our action stations.” Mr. Dangly explained. “We never expected to be attacked, and we were off shift.”
“Well, now. I guess I’ll have to just cut my way in, then.” I say casually.
“There’s no way!” Mr. Head-scratcher blurts. “The door is twelve centimeters of high-grade steal, and it has layers of ceramic to resist cutting torches. Plus, it’s got internal channels for argon gas to counter excessive heat!”
“Sounds imposing… but stupid.” I say. The men just shoot me incredulous stares. They must not know the first thing about installing security systems on an, otherwise, civilian ship.