by G J Ogden
“Then I assume this is about your son, Marshall?” Sterling asked, again trying to railroad the older man into getting to the point.
“You admit that you killed him?” the Marshall replied, his eyes narrowing a fraction, which brought his silver-grey eyebrows below the rim of his hat.
“He double-crossed me then tried to kill me and kidnap a member of my crew,” Sterling said, upholding his rigid posture and level tone. “For a lawman, he was remarkably unconcerned with the law.”
Sterling saw the older man’s jaw tighten. The Marshall chewed the inside of his mouth, as if shuffling gum or tobacco from one corner to another before finally answering.
“The law is set by the Marshalls, Captain Sterling,” Masterson replied. “Fleet don’t make the rules out here. What you consider fair, or a double-cross, or ‘illegal’ is beside the point.” The Marshall leant in closer, making his lined face grow larger on the viewscreen. “Fact is you killed a Marshall, Captain Sterling,” he said, anger now bleeding into the man’s words. “That he was also my son don’t matter a god-damned bit. You killed a lawman and you must be judged and punished for your crime.”
Sterling shook his head. He’d hoped to be able to reason with the man, but it seemed clear that he could not. Commander Banks' console then chimed an alert and Sterling felt a neural connection form in his mind.
“The destroyer’s engines are shot, Captain, and it’s drifting rapidly toward the planet,” Banks said, through the neural link. “Unless we grapple it, the Marshall’s ship will start to fall through the atmosphere in the next few seconds.”
Sterling glanced at his first officer. “He’s not going to leave us alone, is he?” he asked through the link.
Banks shook her head. “No, he’s not.”
Sterling sighed again then tapped his neural interface to close the link before turning back to the viewscreen. He saw that the Marshall’s destroyer had already hit the upper atmosphere and was shrouded in a corona of flames.
“Your son got what he deserved, Marshall,” Sterling replied. “And now you will too.”
Sterling then cut the transmission from the ship, leaving the image of the incensed older Marshall imprinted on his retinas.
“Shall I destroy it, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Shade, with her usual cold detachment.
Sterling shook his head. “They’re already dead, Lieutenant,” he replied. “Let them burn.”
“Aye, sir,” replied Shade. The weapons officer pressed her hands to the small of her back and joined Sterling and the others in watching the destroyer descend deeper into the atmosphere.
Sterling knew that allowing Shade to finish the destroyer would have perhaps been the more merciful thing to do. However, he wasn’t feeling merciful. He was angry. The older lawman and his crew hadn’t needed to die. Only stubbornness and pride had prevented Masterson from saving his own skin. It was a pointless death. Yet, it was also necessary. Sterling was not about to allow one man’s inconsequential vendetta to risk his crucial mission.
“I’m picking up what looks like an old Fleet outpost on the surface of the planet,” said Commander Banks, this time speaking out loud. “We didn’t detect it previously because we were too far from the planet.”
“Do you think it could still contain some supplies?” Sterling asked.
Banks worked her console for a couple of seconds then shrugged. “I can’t get a reading from up here, but the storage vaults in these places were shielded and below ground.” She stopped working at her console then folded her arms and turned back to Sterling. “Assuming, no-one else has raided it, there’s a good chance it has what we need.”
Sterling considered this for a moment while continuing to watch the Marshall’s ship fall faster through the atmosphere, burning up like a meteor.
“Lieutenant Razor, how are our fuel reserves looking?” Sterling asked, glancing back to his straight-talking engineer.
“They’re looking empty, Captain,” Razor replied, bluntly. “If there’s a chance this planet has what we need, I’d recommend we take it,” she added. “I can ration enough fuel for us to reach orbit again in case it’s a bust, but after that we’ll have to land at Bastion on the main colony planet and try to barter for what we need there.”
Sterling glanced at Banks and his first officer’s expression told him that she liked that idea even less than he did.
“We’d have more luck bartering with the Sa’Nerra than with the inhabitants of Bastion,” Banks said, speaking her mind.
Sterling nodded and turned back to the viewscreen. Either option presented risk. However, if he could recover the supplies without having to visit a colony planet that was vehemently hostile to the Fleet, it was worth a shot.
“Ensign Keller, configure the ship for planetary entry,” Sterling announced, making his decision. “Then take us down to the Fleet outpost.”
Chapter 7
Clanging balls of steel
Sterling and Banks stood at the edge of the landing platform at the abandoned Fleet base and surveyed the lush forest that surrounded the former hilltop fort. The base was on the second of two habitable planets that existed inside Middle Star’s goldilocks zone. The original name of the planet, before the start of the war relegated it to the Void, was buried somewhere in the recesses of Sterling’s memory. Now it was simply known by Fleet’s formal designation of, “Colony Two: Middle Star.”
In the distance, Sterling could see the fires of primitive industry sending plumes of acrid smoke into the cool atmosphere. However, while the war had not driven humanity from the Void Worlds completely, the reality was that few human settlements remained on the planet. It was also true that many – though not all – of the towns and broken cities that had survived were now treacherous places. They were blessed with technology from the twenty-fourth century but cursed with the lawlessness and brutality of Europe’s middle ages. Even so, Sterling still preferred setting down on Colony Two to their only other option of landing at Bastion. At least on Colony Two they would be left alone. On Bastion, they would be seen as being no better than murderers.
“You wouldn’t think that the Sa’Nerra bombarded this planet only forty or so years ago,” said Banks, standing with her hands on her hips. A fresh breeze was whipping through the valley and pushing back her shoulder-length chestnut hair so that it acted like a windsock.
Sterling drank in the breeze, grateful for the opportunity to taste real air, at least for a few hours. He then glanced to his right, towards the fractured remains of a once great city. Now, it was merely a blackened wasteland of rubble and death.
“This planet was one of the most developed United Governments outer colonies in existence at the start of the war,” Sterling said, thinking back to his Fleet history lessons at the academy. Then he held out his arm and gestured to the broken city in the distance. “Now look at it.”
“I remember reading about the Battle of Middle Star,” said Banks, turning her head to look at the city. The wind lashed her hair across her face, forcing her to brush it away. “It was quite a story, though a little maudlin and over-dramatic for my liking.”
Sterling turned back to his first officer and smiled. “You old romantic, you,” he teased.
Banks folded her arms. “Don’t tell me that a cold-hearted killer like you sympathizes with what Fletcher did?” she asked, sounding astounded by Sterling’s comment.
“Not exactly,” replied Sterling, still smiling. “If we all acted as selfishly at Lieutenant Fletcher did all those years ago, we’d have lost the war already.”
“But…” pressed Banks, evidently still curious about exactly which part of Fletcher’s story he empathized with.
“But I admire his determination and, quite honestly, his solid-steel balls,” Sterling continued, drawing an even more astonished look from Banks. “In many ways, he’s not all that unlike us.”
“How exactly is a mutinous bastard like Christopher Fletcher like us?” Banks demanded. She’d now switch
ed from being simply curious to downright offended.
“He made a hard call,” Sterling retorted, undeterred by his first officer’s ire toward his statements.
“He made the wrong damned call,” Banks hit back. Sterling could see that the muscles in her arms and legs had tensed up. She wasn’t just playing devil’s advocate – she was genuinely riled up.
“Make no mistake, Mercedes, I disagree with his reasons and motivations,” Sterling was quick to add, since Banks was now turning slightly red in the face. “He was selfish. He disobeyed orders and his actions cost the life of his captain.”
“But…” Banks said again, sensing that Sterling still had more to say.
“But he won, Mercedes,” Sterling said, throwing his arms out wide. “He commandeered the Bismarck then rallied twelve other ships to mutiny before surging back to Middle Star and kicking the Sa’Nerra off their planet.” Banks’ eyes narrowed. She still looked deeply skeptical, but she didn’t interrupt him. “That’s the sort of grit the Fleet will need if we’re to win this war,” Sterling sighed, peering back toward the ravaged city. “Fleet ordered all ships to withdraw from Middle Star,” Sterling went on, his tone turning wistful. “We abandoned these people to the Sa’Nerra then ran away, just like Fleet is doing now by retreating to F-sector. At least Fletcher stood his ground and fought.”
“Fat lot of good it did him,” Banks replied, seemingly unmoved by Sterling’s speech. “He mutinied so that he could go back and save his wife, the same as the others did in order to save their own families or lovers. But Fletcher’s wife was already dead by the time he got back; killed in the first wave of Sa’Nerran bombardments. So he did it for nothing.”
Sterling considered his first officer’s argument and could not fault her logic. It was true that Fletcher had made a hard call that day, but it had been for self-serving reasons. The whole point of the Omega Taskforce was to make the hard calls, but only when it served the greater good. Every life that Sterling took was in order to save more. Fletcher and the other mutineers had acted in their own self-interest and, in the case of Fletcher himself, he still lost. Yet in defeat, he didn’t crumble or run. He stayed at Middle Star and fought the Sa’Nerra so hard that eventually they gave up on the system and left. He showed that the enemy could be beaten. It was a lesson that the Fleet admirals of today – Griffin excluded – could stand to learn, Sterling thought.
“You’re probably right,” Sterling said, finally admitting defeat. “It’s a shame though. If we had more captains with the grit that Fletcher showed at the Battle of Middle Star, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“What would you have done?” Banks wondered, stirring Sterling from his musings. “Imagine if it was your wife on the planet, and you were ordered to leave her, knowing that she and the other colonists would be killed.”
“I’m not married, Mercedes,” said Sterling, defensively. He already didn’t like his first officer’s little thought experiment.
“Just imagine you are,” Banks hit back, not letting him off the hook. “Or imagine it’s me on that planet when the order comes in for you to withdraw. What would you do?”
Sterling scowled and folded his arms. “You know what I’d do, Mercedes. I’d leave,” Sterling replied, a little huffily. “Middle Star had little tactical value and the Fleet ships were needed to reinforce more critical sectors.”
“Then why defend what Fletcher did?” Banks said, sounding like a prosecution attorney grilling a witness.
“I’m not defending the reasons for his actions,” replied Sterling. “I just think Fleet could use a bit of Fletcher’s passion right now.”
“Passion?” repeated Banks, again looking a little stunned. “Passion was his whole problem, if you ask me. He was thinking with his pecker and not his head.”
“I didn’t ask you, actually,” Sterling hit back, a little peevishly. He was now growing annoyed by the conversation. “But if you want to get down to brass tacks, think of what’s happening now.” He took a step closer to Banks. “Earth is Fletcher’s wife, Mercedes, and we’re being asked to let it go. The UG and war-weary Fleet admirals have lost the hunger for battle. They already think we’ve lost, that’s why we have to fight for our home. We have to show them the Sa’Nerra can be beaten, even if that means flying in the face of orders.”
Banks cocked her head to the side and studied Sterling for a few moments, though she still looked unconvinced.
“I know what you’re trying to say, Lucas,” his first officer eventually answered, “and I don’t disagree that Fleet could do with growing a pair of clanging steel balls.”
“But…” said Sterling, mimicking his first officer.
“But Fletcher isn’t anything like you or me,” Banks continued. “In fact, he’s the opposite of us. He fought to save someone he cared about. We make the impossible decisions, even if it means killing the ones we love.”
Sterling frowned, intrigued by the phrasing of Banks’ last sentence. However, he didn’t get a chance to quiz his first officer before Lieutenant Shade came jogging over from the entrance to the Fleet complex.
“Captain, Commander, we’ve found the entrance to the underground vaults,” Shade said, sounding slightly breathless. “There are signs of several attempts to break into them, but nothing that appears recent, and nothing that was successful either.”
Shade then sucked in another deep lungful of the cool hillside air and rested her hands on her hips. Sterling imagined that his weapons officer had just run the entire distance from the vaults back to the landing pad in order to relay her report.
“Thank you, Lieutenant, but why are you not using neural comms?” Sterling asked, curious as to the purpose of the weapon’s officer’s unexplained calisthenics.
“Neural comms can’t penetrate below the surface, sir,” Shade answered. She then gestured to the dark stone surface of the landing pad. The smooth rock glistened under the evening sun, as if it had been sprinkled with a wafer-thin coating of glitter. “There’s something in these rocks. Lieutenant Razor says it scatters the signal. She’s working on building some portable relays, in addition to modifying the relays on the ship to work with the new boosters.”
Sterling then looked over at the Invictus and saw Lieutenant Razor standing on top of the hull. She had an equipment bag at her side and was working on one of the external transceiver antennae.
“What the hell is she doing up there?” said Banks, who had also spotted the engineer.
“Planning to fall to her death from the looks of it,” Sterling replied. He tapped his neural interface then began pacing back toward the ship. The connection formed to Razor, but the signal was choppy and weak.
“Lieutenant, we have repair drones that can do that work,” said Sterling through the link. He had opened it so that Banks could monitor.
“Aye, sir, but they can’t do it as well as I can,” replied Razor, while continuing to work on the antenna. “Besides, I like to be hands-on.”
“And I like my engineer to be one piece, rather than pancaked onto the rocks below the ship,” Sterling hit back. “Finish what you’re doing then get back to the bridge. That’s an order.”
There was a brief silence, during which time Sterling could see Razor wrestling with a wrench. If her foot slipped or she took even a single pace back, the engineer was liable to fall forty meters to her death.
“Aye, Captain,” Razor finally replied, tossing the wrench back into her equipment bag. “I’m all done, anyway, though I’ll still need to test and calibrate the system, so you’ll be radio dark down in the vaults for a little while longer.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” replied Sterling shaking his head. If it wasn’t aliens, vengeful Marshalls or turned Fleet crew trying to kill them, it was their own eccentricities.
“Sir, I have a commando squad standing by with breach gear and cutting tools ready to break into the vaults,” Lieutenant Shade announced, oblivious to the dressing down the ship’s engineer
had just received. “Commander Banks and I are ready to proceed on your order.”
“Get them ready to move out at once, Lieutenant,” said Sterling, turning to his weapon’s officer. “But grab an extra set of body armor and a pistol for me too. I’m coming with you.”
“Aye, Captain,” Shade replied before briskly moving toward the lowered cargo ramp of the ship.
“I didn’t have you down as a tomb raider,” said Banks, with a wry smile. “Are you hoping to find some buried treasure?”
Sterling smiled. “In a manner of speaking,” he answered, slapping Banks on the shoulder and setting off toward the steps that led down into the old Fleet complex. “There might be some vintage Fleet meal trays in storage down there. And knowing your tendency to hide away the good ones for yourself, there’s no way I’m letting you inside those vaults without me.”
Chapter 8
What lies beneath
A drop of freezing cold water fell from the ceiling of the tunnel complex below the abandoned Fleet base and rolled down the back of Sterling’s neck. A shiver ran down his spine and he slapped his hand to the spot, as if he’d just been stung by a wasp. Shining his torchlight up, he could see thousands more shimmering globules of water clinging to the ceiling, just waiting to drop more ice-cold bombs onto his head.
“Your earlier quip about tomb raiding seems oddly appropriate now,” said Sterling, returning his torchlight to the corridor ahead. The beam of light illuminated the back of Commander Mercedes Banks, who was a short distance ahead of him. “It feels like no-one has been down here for thousands of years, never mind just a few decades.”
Banks smiled, appearing far more at ease in the dank underground complex than Sterling was, then continued to survey ahead. She pushed through a door, which creaked like a coffin lid from an old horror movie, stepped over the threshold and peered inside.
“It looks like the crew left in a hurry,” she said, shining her light inside the room.
