by M. D. Cooper
she commented.
The engineers continued to push Rika down long passages until they finally got to a large loading bay. The walls and roof were hewn from stone, and at the far end, the doors were open, daylight streaming in, bathing a corvette-class ship in its warm glow.
“Stars…I’ve missed being on a planet. Just can’t get that light anywhere else,” Rika said aloud. “Am I right?”
“Shut up,” another one of the engineers repeated.
Yet another glanced back at Rika. “I can’t wait to get her in stasis. Thing gives me the creeps.”
“Hey! I resent that,” Rika said, trying to quash the fear she felt at hearing the word ‘stasis’. There was little doubt in her mind that if they put her in stasis, it was likely to be the last thing she ever experienced.
The engineers were already pushing her up a ramp into a small bay in the back of the ship as she spoke, and Niki didn’t respond right away, the delay sending a wave of panic through her.
Without warning, the a-grav field shut down, and Rika fell, landing heavily on her side. She rolled away from the cage and leapt up, wobbling a little on her damaged leg as she lunged to the side and slammed into one of the stealthed soldiers.
He swung his rifle toward Rika, but she slapped it away with her ruined gun-arm and then lifted a foot, clamping her three claws on his neck, crushing the life from the Orion soldier while wrenching his rifle free.
Projectile rounds ricocheted off her armor, and Rika took stock of egress options, spotting a passage four meters to her right. She tossed the soldier’s body at the closest stealthed enemy before leaping toward the corridor and diving through.
In her mind, she played through the scene she’d left: four engineers, six stealthed soldiers.
Rika nodded, wildly firing rounds out into the small cargo hold before backing further down the passage.
Backpedaling, Rika switched to the e-beam and fired several blasts before she reached the intersection, only to get hit by a pulse rifle’s hammer blow on her right side.
The blast slammed her into the bulkhead, and she saw a heavily armored soldier with a scattershot pulse cannon.
Without a second thought, Rika kicked off the wall and lunged toward the soldier, firing twice with her electron beam before slamming her shoulder into his head and flipping up over his body.
“Doesn’t do much without a barrel,” Rika said as the soldier turned and took a swing at her, trying to get enough space between them to bring his pulse cannon to bear.
Rika ducked under a lumbering swing and jammed her gun-arm into the soldier’s groin, firing the weapon. Bolts of electricity arced out between them, and a muffled scream came from the soldier before his armor locked up and he froze.
Rika dropped the rifle and brought her fist down on the soldier’s hand, breaking his thumb. She wrenched on the scattershot, but it wouldn’t budge. Trying a new angle, she spun and placed her back against the soldier’s chest in an effort to get more leverage—which was when she just barely made out two stealthed enemies rounding the corner.
Mashing her fist against the armor-locked soldier’s hand, she managed to fire a trio of blasts from his weapon, bowling the enemies over before she finally managed to pull the scattershot free.
“Right you are, Niki,” Rika said, turning to run further into the ship, hobbling slightly on her injured leg.
She leapt up the ladder shaft to the top deck and turned to the right, spotting the entrance to the corvette’s small bridge. A few seconds later, she was inside, pulling the door shut and slamming the manual lock into place.
A woman was sitting in the pilot’s seat, and she twisted to look at Rika.
“Who the fu—” was all the pilot managed to get out before Rika aimed the scattershot at her.
“We’re leaving. Now.”
“We can’t.”
“Think real hard about that,” Rika said. “Are you sure?”
Rika nodded, moving forward, when motion outside caught her attention. Something large passed in front of the bay’s entrance, shrouding the nose of the corvette in shadow.
“What the—?” Rika muttered.
Then the forward half of the docking bay collapsed.
A DROP AND A CLIMB
STELLAR DATE: 05.07.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Mount Genevia, Belgium
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“Shit,” Rika muttered as she pulled herself through the corvette’s ruined cockpit. “Well, there goes that way out.”
Twenty meters from where she stood, the underground docking bay ended. What had once been an exit leading to a clean getaway was now a pile of rock and twisted steel.
“Think so? I guess…who else would be shooting at the mountain,” Rika wondered as she reached back into the cockpit and lifted out her scattershot, noting that the pilot still seemed to be alive—despite the fact that a piece of steel was sticking out of her pelvis.
Rika didn’t need to hear it twice. She ran along the top of the corvette, mentally tallying the number of soldiers and engineers that may still be alive.
She reached the rear starboard side of the ship, across from where the cargo hold lay, and dropped down to the ground. She crept around the cradle struts to see three soldiers carrying two of their comrades clear of the ship.
“Sorry, guys,” Rika said as she rushed toward them, rapid-firing her scattershot
and bowling them over.
One of the Orion soldiers lifted a rifle, but she slammed a foot down on his wrist, clenching until she felt it snap.
A scream came from his throat, and she kicked him in the head, spinning to fire the scattershot at another enemy who was struggling to rise. A few meters away, one of the wounded soldiers rolled over, groaning as she reached for a nearby rifle.
Rika was still bringing her own weapon to bear when a section of roof broke free and fell on the woman, crushing her to a pulp.
“Shit!” Rika exclaimed as stones began to pour down all around her. She dropped the scattershot and scooped up one of the rifles as she ran as fast as her injured leg would take her.
Rocks rained down all around her, a house-sized slab coming down a meter to her left at one point. Then she was through the doors at the end of the bay, racing down the tunnel as dust and thunder followed after.
Half a kilometer later, Niki called out.
Rika looked back and breathed a sigh of relief as saw a hundred meters of intact tunnel before it was blocked by rubble.
“Damn…and here I was getting all happy to be on a planet again.”
“Dammit,” Rika muttered. “Where’s the closest lift?”
Niki highlighted a location twenty meters into the rubble that filled the passage.
“Well, that sucks. Stairs?”
“Yay, my favorite pastime.”
BATTLE FOR GENEVIA
STELLAR DATE: 05.07.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Fury Lance, Capeton Command, Capeton
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Heather paced back and forth in front of the holotank, periodically glancing at Barne, who was staring intently at the display, muttering to himself as reports from Capeton Command reached the Lance.
“First strike confirmations!” Chief Garth called out. “The Nostroma and Asora have hit their targets in the outer system!”
“Just those two?” Heather asked, knowing it would take more attacks before the Nietzschean fleet would begin to disperse.
Right then, there were over a thousand enemy ships converging on Capeton. If some of those vessels didn’t get pulled away to other targets, she was going to need to signal Admiral Carson to make the jump prematurely.
“Not that it’s the end of the galaxy,” Heather muttered. “Just going to make this battle take a hell of a lot longer.”
“What’s that?” Barne asked.
“Nothing, just bitching about how long this is taking.”
“And?” Heather demanded, glancing at Ona, who was selecting priority targets on the inbound ships.
The battle around the Lance was in a brief lull, the ship’s beams having already taken out a group of nine destroyers that had moved in to intercept as Silva’s team dropped on Capeton Command.
“Will the Nietzschean ships even take it?” Barne asked. “I mean, CC’s under attack, and it’s sending out fresh updates.”
Heather wasn’t so sure. She had to believe that many Nietzschean captains would think twice about accepting data from a compromised Capeton Command.
Several long minutes passed, Nietzschean ships tagging the Fury Lance with ranging shots, while Heather directed Ona to wait until the enemies were closer.
Heather saw a group of destroyers escorting a pair of cruisers become highlighted on the main holotank. The ships were boosting toward Belgium in pursuit of the Undaunted, which was still braking after dropping Chase’s team.
“When will they blow?” Barne asked impatiently.
“It makes sense,” Heather said, nodding in agreement, even though she wished the wait wasn’t necessary.
She forced herself to relax, knowing that most of her anxiety came from not knowing if Rika was safe.
Nothing I can do about that. The mechs on the ground’ll do their job, and we’ll do ours up here, she thought as she came to a standstill in front of the holotank.
She took some measure of comfort in the fact that, although hundreds of ships were moving on dozens of vectors around Capeton—some toward Capeton Command, and others toward Belgium—the majority of the Nietzschean warships in the Genevia System hadn’t yet moved from their prior vectors.
Still tens of thousands of ships out there…. Just gotta wait for them to get primed.
“Orders just went out for a formation to go after Vargo. They’re saying weird things about him…some sort of cat insanity,” Garth announced with a frown. “And there goes another, after the Capital.”
On the holotank, Heather watched as the markers for the ships in question changed from red to green, an indication that they’d taken the update.
“Oh hell yeah,” Barne said, a grin forming on his lips. “Push those engines, you fuckin’ bastards.”
One by one, more indicators on the holotank flipped from red to green, until over half the ships within a light minute of Capeton had taken the update.
“Shit,” Heather muttered. “Not the best ratio.”
“Better than nothing,” Barne said.
Heather nodded silently as they watched the clock tick down from the ten-minute limit on the NSAIs. Heather held her breath as it finally reached zero.
“C’mon,” she whispered, watching the ships that were boosting toward Capeton Command. “Blow, you fuckers, blow.”
The AI stop speaking as four ships were flagged as destroyed. Heather flipped the main holodisplay to an optical view and saw that three of the ships were twisted wrecks, while the fourth appeared to have suffered a smaller explosion in one of its engines. It was offline, and the ship was drifting.
“Holy shit, it worked!” Barne cried out. “I was really starting to think this was just a stupid boondoggle.”
“You’re such a peach, Barne,” Heather muttered. “Do you really think Piper would have pushed for this plan if he didn’t think that Jeremy’s sabotage would work?”
“What?” Heather exclaimed. “You said you were certain.”
More ships began to experience engine failures. Some suffered crippling explosions, while others only had minor failures that disabled their engines, but didn’t further damage the ships.
As the wave of dying Nietzschean ships rippled out from around Capeton, Heather decided that there was no reason to wait any longer. She activated the QuanComm blade and sent a single word.
[Come.]
Without waiting for a response, Heather turned toward Ona. “OK, bring us in close to Capeton Command. Time to pick up our people and smash some starships.”
/> RIKA CONQUEROR
STELLAR DATE: 05.07.8950 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Casa Mons, Mount Genevia, Belgium
REGION: Genevia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Rika crept down the passage as quietly as she could.
Her left knee creaked softly with each step, and the electron emitter on the remains of her GNR gave off a few sporadic sparks before shutting down. Her armor was battered and scorched, but she was still better off than the dozens of Niets she’d carved her way through to get to the top of Casa Mons.
Rika stifled a laugh.
As if to punctuate her statement, the mountain shuddered, and a light fixture came down behind her.
Rika nodded as she finally came to the end of the corridor. The map they’d pulled of the level indicated that beyond lay the western viewing room. They’d checked all the others on this level and found them to be vacant.
If the emperor wasn’t within, Rika would have to admit that he’d made it out somehow. Either that, or Casa Mons contained secret passages.
Which I suppose isn’t really that far-fetched.
She sidled up to the door at the end of the hall and released the last of her nanocloud, letting it filter into the room. Once she got a clear visual, Rika bit her lip in anticipation as she spotted the emperor sitting in a chair near the window, looking out over the battle below. And then she saw the dozen guards standing on the perimeter of the room.
