Home Front: A Science Fiction Adventure Series (Sever Squad Book 4)

by A. R. Knight

  “Looks like a fun place,” Rovo said as they walked along. No moving walkways speeding things up here, maybe due to crowds, maybe due to the hazard. “You ever come back here, Gregor?”

  “Once,” Gregor said. “A long time ago, to get my hammer.”

  “Hammer?” Zaydi asked, honest curiosity in the question.

  “My favorite weapon,” Gregor replied. “Most prefer rifles. I find them too easy.”

  “I . . . see,” Zaydi said, clearly not seeing. Instead, she pointed at a yellow-clad door, one sporting an ID scanner. “Here’s the lab we’re using.”

  The label over the door marked what lay beyond as Weapons Three. Further down the concourse, then, would be Weapons One and Weapons Two. The latter had been where Gregor earned his hammer, bought with most of the DefenseCorp cash in Gregor’s account at the time, and very much worth it.

  “Remember,” Zaydi said. “Not a word of what you see in here.”

  The door whooshed to reveal . . . another doorway with a slight, featureless hallway in between. A control gap, meant to keep anyone peeking in from seeing inside. The trio bundled into the space, Zaydi tapped her ID on the second door, and with a chirp, their way back shut and their way forward opened.

  Weapons 3 wasn’t much larger than the Prisa’s central gathering space or the living room in the pod Gregor had lived in on the comet. Not that it needed to be: the ceiling crawled with mechanical arms and other devices, all slid into brackets that could be released by the massive control center opposite the door.

  The room’s middle, though, held the star. While the outside floor mirrored the polished silver seen throughout the Nautilus, a hard yellow-painted steel circle claimed center stage. That yellow paint bore scratches and burns from trials long since over.

  Though, given the huge power armor suit resting on that circle, perhaps ready to start again.

  Gregor had worn his fair share of the suits, had destroyed enemies aplenty with their kinetically-charged arms and legs, their holsters for a hundred different weapons. The older suits, though, had been designed with movement in mind, with giving the body a shell that would move with its owner’s demands.

  This one looked more like a tank that would surround the user and render them a slow-moving death machine. Arms and legs stuck out from the dense crimson metal, but surrounding the limbs were numerous other, well, limbs. Most sat empty, attachments waiting for an enterprising owner to decide which deadly implements they wanted to take today. Some looked set up for Weapons 3, holding a tube-like rifle, a spiked ball plugged into a narrow launcher, and one bearing a big case with a white cross on the suit’s back.

  “Big one, isn’t she?” Rovo said, and Gregor grunted an agreement.

  “Right?” Zaydi said. “We were a little surprised to find it here. Your Deepak has a sense of adventure, certainly.”

  Not the words Gregor would use to describe a man who hid from the front lines and sent squads to do the work, but fine.

  “What did you want us to do?” Gregor asked.

  Zaydi went further into the room, all the way to the control panel and started tapping away, “See, you two said you use power armor. I haven’t. So I’m not sure whether this is working or not.”

  Something Zaydi did had an effect, and the power armor lit up. Gaskets across its body released, causing the armor’s front to swing out and away. Ready for its next user.

  “You want us to get inside it?” Rovo said.

  “One of you,” Zaydi replied. “Unless you think you both can fit.”

  “Power armor is solo,” Gregor said. “Rovo, this one would match me.”

  “Go right ahead.” Rovo rubbed his own shoulders. “I’m fine staying outta power armor for a while. Bad memories.”

  “Oh?” Zaydi asked, crossing back to stand by Rovo as Gregor moved towards the suit.

  “Building fell on him,” Gregor rumbled. “Tough break.”

  Approaching the armor, Gregor positioned his face near the visor and stood still. The power armor picked up on his stance, and a slight blue light shot out from within the suit as it measured Gregor’s size and shape. The big suits couldn’t completely morph themselves, but by tightening and loosening various bolts and bands, they could hit as good a comfort as possible.

  The light blinked green and Gregor stepped forward. As his feet closed into the boots, the armor’s back swung into place, sealing Gregor into the suit. Hisses and clicks rattled around as the armor settled itself into Gregor’s size.

  The visor clicked on, flooding what had been a black nothing into a clear view of the control center. Flashing yellow words in the upper left indicated the armor was in trial mode. No weapons enabled, so Gregor couldn’t go around destroying the ship because he’d had a bad day.

  Rovo and Zaydi came into view, the latter going back to the control center. Rovo waved at Gregor’s face, and Gregor waved back, the slow hand sluggish and heavy. Whomever was designing this suit would have to tweak those settings, because having to heave an arm just to wave would get tired fast.

  “What’s it like in there?” Rovo said. “Feel like the future?”

  The future? Gregor started to say that it felt like a prototype when the blinking trial mode in his visor changed to a hard red LOCKDOWN. Not a mode Gregor had used before, but old training had told him its purpose: keep the suit from doing anything stupid while you made changes.

  Through the visor, Gregor saw Zaydi stand away from the control center, her movement answering who could’ve put the armor in lockdown. The suspicion Gregor had felt in the mess hall flared into full-on danger.

  Zaydi wasn’t moving like a flouncy inspector anymore. She had a professional’s sure stance, carrying out her mission.

  “You hearing me, buddy?” Rovo said, leaning in towards Gregor and laughing. “I know you’re in there!”

  Gregor tried to move. Spoke the keywords that should’ve triggered an emergency release from the suit. Nothing worked. If the arms had been heavy while the suit was on, in lockdown mode and without any assist, they were immovable.

  Rovo rapped a hand on the armor’s visor. Behind him, Zaydi reached into her uniform, pulled on a set, hard face, and drew out a small pistol.

  Gregor heard his shouts.

  The rookie did not.

  Four

  Show and Tell

  Sever thought they’d returned home when the Prisa landed on the Nautilus, but Eponi understood the reality: the Prisa was the squad’s true home now. Stolen, yes, but their home nonetheless.

  And Eponi couldn’t be happier about it.

  Not since she’d raced karts had Eponi found herself piloting a ship this fast and sharp. A three-pronged body with its narrowing cockpit set in the center, the Prisa kept things svelte. Two turrets dotted both side prongs, controllable by whomever took the gunnery seats at those ends. A retractable laser cannon and hard missile launcher sat beneath the cockpit if Eponi herself wanted to get frisky.

  Right now, though, Eponi stood in the Prisa’s aft, the wide back stretching across those prongs. The ship’s crew quarters, tight for a half-dozen, sat above Eponi while her current locale, the engine banks, flared out beneath. The Prisa used cluster thrusters, nestling a hundred tiny jets in clumps along its back. What sounded like a nightmare, and was very expensive, gave the pilot precise control over where to aim, how fast to fly.

  “I’ve never felt this way about a ship before,” Eponi said, running a finger along the console outlining, in happy greens, the Prisa’s tip-top shape. “You and I, we’re going to get along just fine.”

  At least, Eponi hoped so. Given that Sever was apparently wanted by the most powerful corporation in the galaxy, and they’d just landed on one of DefenseCorp’s heavy cruisers, making it off with the Prisa still intact was far from a given.

  A bright chime interrupted those thoughts, echoing through the Prisa and repeating every few seconds as Eponi clambered from the engines back to the cockpit. Maybe someone from Sever had come bac
k early, finding the Nautilus not quite up to their memories.

  Instead, Eponi saw a single person waiting below, holding up their wristlet to show they were the ones pinging the Prisa. The stocky man had on a formal DefenseCorp uniform, crimson with some new black stripes along the sides that gave the suit a racing vibe. Not a bad addition.

  “Hello?” Eponi asked, settling into the cockpit chair.

  By reflex, she eyed the Prisa’s energy counts. The shields, weapons weren’t active, but could be flipped on in a heartbeat. The engines could boost the ship into space soon after. The Nautilus, as part of Aurora’s negotiations—and at Eponi’s insistence—had left the bay doors open. The ship’s magnetic shielding would keep air, people, and everything else from getting sucked into vacuum anyway, and Eponi had no desire to get herself locked into a ship with people trying to kill her.

  “Howdy howdy,” the man chuckled, throwing up a disarming grin as he waved. “Hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I’ve never seen a ship quite a beautiful as this one. Where’d you find her?”

  Eponi sat back in the chair, looked at the man. She’d worked on the Nautilus long enough to know people didn’t just wander into random docking bays and chat with pilots. DefenseCorp kept you busy, and this guy was in his uniform, so he certainly wasn’t off-duty.

  “We got lucky.” Eponi decided to play it neutral. See what she could pull off the man. “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “Very lucky, I might say.” The man leaned forward, as if scoping out the Prisa’s forward landing strut. “Are you giving tours?”

  Hah, no way.

  “Sorry, she’s closed for visitors.”

  “That so?” The man gave the most exaggerated head shake, his whole body half-turning with the motion. Eponi had the impression he wasn’t capable of standing still. “Too bad. Maybe you could talk me through, then? Or at least let me meet the pilot lucky enough to call this ship home?”

  Eponi tapped on the Prisa’s communications program, flaring it up on a panel to her left before remembering that Sever didn’t have any damn wristlets anymore. She wanted to ring up Aurora or Sai, let’em know there was a pest bugging their ship.

  “Look, buddy,” Eponi said, trying to think of a different tactic. “Appreciate the interest, but we just landed here. I’m busy taking care of my ship. Maybe come back later?”

  The dude spilled into a frown, crossed his arms and looked down at the bay floor. Didn’t walk away though. Eponi went back to her communications panel. Decided to give Nautilus central a try.

  “Hey, Nautilus, this is the Prisa, in bay—” Eponi looked at the big black-painted number on the bay’s back wall. “Seven. I’m looking for Admiral Deepak, and really, someone he’s with. My captain, Aurora? Mind helping me out?”

  The comm crackled, “Prisa, Admiral Deepak’s currently unavailable. We’re not familiar with your captain. Anyone else we can reach?”

  “Maybe?” Eponi looked back outside, but the man had disappeared. She focused on the bay’s exit doors, closed and quiet. No way he’d left that fast. “Mind sending some security down here? I’ve got someone snooping around that I don’t like.”

  The comm crackled again, “Of course, we’ll send a couple along.”

  “Thanks,” Eponi said, and cut the line.

  Tapping away, Eponi swapped the panels from communications and systems status to the cameras wrapping around the Prisa. Standard issue for any ship nowadays to give a total visual outside. The view out the front showed the Prisa’s long nose skewering the frame’s top, and nothing below. Both sides revealed pristine bay walls, empty aside from standard repair and charging equipment.

  The back showed static. Eponi flipped the camera on and off. Still static.

  Cameras could malfunction.

  Sure.

  Eponi turned to the last view, the one right beneath the ship’s belly. The man stood there, holding what looked like a small pistol. He squinted up at the camera, aimed, and fired. Another black view.

  “Nautilus,” Eponi said, punching the comm again. “Where’s that security force? This guy’s shooting out my cameras, and I’m going to charge you for each and every one of them.”

  “Sorry, it looks like the team heading your way has been re-routed,” the comm officer replied, sounding like she didn’t quite believe what she saw. “I’ll, uh, get in touch.”

  “You do that.”

  Eponi cut the call, stood up and went to the storage cabinet behind the cockpit. Opening it showcased a rifle, pistol, and Rovo’s strange scythe weapon that he’d won on Wexer and insisted on keeping nearby. As Eponi pulled the rifle out and checked the power pack so she wouldn’t be left spewing fumes, the Prisa pinged a different sort of alarm.

  “Now you notice,” Eponi said, slinging the rifle over her shoulder and clipping on the pistol with its holster. “Next time, tell me when the guy zaps the first camera, why don’t you?”

  There were two ways off the Prisa, a long central ramp and a faster, cockpit-adjacent elevator meant, so Eponi assumed, to get the crew right where they needed to go in case a fast escape was necessary. Escape, though, wasn’t the only option.

  “Hey,” Eponi said, back in the cockpit and broadcasting over the ship’s loudspeaker. “I’m going to lower the ramp, and then we can chat, okay?”

  She didn’t wait for the bastard to reply. Eponi told the ramp to drop, then went to the elevator. She waited until the Prisa hummed as the ramp began its descent, counted to a quick three, then hit the drop button for the elevator. As the platform shot down, Eponi raised the rifle and squared it right on the man’s crimson-uniformed back.

  “Aww, didn’t see two exits coming?” Eponi said as the platform settled to the bay’s floor and the man, still facing the ramp, raised his now-empty hands. “Keep those up, and start talking. Who the hell are you and what’re you doing to my ship? If you answer real quick, I’ll tell Deepak to kill you quicker.”

  Again the man did that whole-body head shake, this time punctuating it with a rippling sigh.

  “Shucks,” the man said. “You weren’t supposed to make this so difficult.”

  “Did I say be all cryptic?” Eponi countered. “No, I did not. Talk straight.”

  “You’re traitors, and we can’t have that.”

  “Wrong, bucko, we’re deserters. Big difference. But who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about? This a royal we situation?” Eponi had run into plenty of high-minded kart pilots who adopted haughty talk with their trophies. Nothing felt better than taking away glittering hardware from the pompous drivers. “Or do you have friends, hard as that is for me to believe?”

  “Friends aplenty, I’m afraid. Bad news for you, little lady, no matter what you’re planning on doing with that rifle there.”

  Eponi rolled her eyes, “Call me little lady one more time.”

  “Can do, little lady.”

  Fine. Guy wanted to get shot? Guy was gonna get shot. Eponi tilted her aim just outside the lethal zone, put her hand on the trigger, when, behind her, the docking bay’s doors shot open. Holding the rifle with her right hand, its weight made easier by the Nautilus’s limited gravity, Eponi opened her stance, drawing the pistol with her left and pointing it towards the opened doors.

  Some might call it paranoid to greet a sudden sound with a drawn weapon, but Eponi’s shit-on-a-stick meter had hit maximum, and she wasn’t playing around anymore.

  Three people came through the door, carrying rifles and the security vests common to the Nautilus’s personnel. Relief that should’ve iced Eponi’s hot temper froze when she noticed, beneath those vests, the same crimson-black uniforms as the camera zapper. More than that, the damn vests weren’t even on right, their straps hanging loose and the sizes all wrong.

  As if they’d punched out a real security force and threw on their gear.

  “Stay back,” Eponi said, and the trio stopped, though they didn’t drop their rifles. “I’m getting a real ugly vibe right now, but if one of
you wants to explain what’s going on, I might not act on that vibe and shoot you all.”

  “The reports all said you’d be violent,” said the camera zapper. “Too bad, really. Would’ve liked to see this ship, you know.”

  Eponi flicked her eyes between both sides, knowing that she couldn’t keep beads on both groups. The longer this standoff went on, someone would make a mistake, and Eponi couldn’t afford that someone to be her.

  “Can’t argue with the reports,” Eponi said, and pulled the triggers.

  The rifle shot hit home, burning into the zapper and sending him howling to the bay floor. The pistol shot went wide as the trio scattered, bringing up their rifles and hunting for cover in the barren bay. Eponi didn’t wait, hitting the lift’s riser with the back of her hand.

  The Prisa obeyed, sucking Eponi up before any return fire came her way. As soon as the lift clicked into place, Eponi took two long strides into the cockpit and slapped the button to raise the ramp. Heard its grinding as she flipped the Prisa’s panels to those cameras, cursing as a black void showcased where the zapper ought to be.

  The ramp clicked up. Eponi turned around, raising the rifle and the pistol, and saw nothing, nobody out from the cockpit all the way into the ship’s central space. She let out a long-held breath real slow, then snuck a look out the ship’s front.

  Two men dragged the zapper along the floor, leaving a bloody trail towards the bay doors.

  Two men.

  A metal clank rang through the Prisa, echoing through its quiet insides. Then another.

  Footsteps.

  Five

  Bad Hit

  The power armor’s visor didn’t show much from the outside, but Rovo caught Gregor’s eyes, and that was enough. The big man’s orbs were narrowed, angry, and focused behind Rovo. Couple that with Zaydi’s overall weirdness, and Rovo turned, crouching and moving aside at the same time.