by Terry Mixon
When the fresh cloud of debris had thinned, Reese gave the order to board. The ramp opened at the back of the pinnace and the marines swarmed across the gap with practiced ease. She made the jump without problems, the grav assist in her armor taking her exactly where she wanted to go. Her long hours of practice were paying off.
Part of her mind noted with amusement that Commander Meyer was having a much more difficult time of it. Sergeant Coulter was shepherding him across like a sack of potatoes.
Talbot and her guards hemmed her in protectively as the other marines set up a portable airlock and forced their way into the main body of the ship. They wanted prisoners, so spacing everyone wasn’t on the menu.
Her external speakers picked up the howling of alarms as she cycled through. The ship’s artificial gravity was still on, so that made moving around simpler.
The marines were taking fire from the forward part of the corridor. A dozen men and women in Fleet coveralls cowered under the guns of a marine fire team aft of their airlock.
She opened her senses and was surprised to discover they didn’t have implants. She’d expected them to have the same AI controlled virus that the Pale Ones did. That would’ve made them puppets for the AIs.
Kelsey consulted the diagram of the ship she’d downloaded. They were three levels away from the computer center. They needed to find a lift or stairwell.
That’s when the sporadic fire from up ahead became more intense. They must’ve run into heavy resistance. Then they started taking fire from aft.
“Enemy units moving behind us,” Talbot shouted. “Take cover!”
That meant dodging into compartments to the sides of the corridor. It meant being pinned down. A destroyer couldn’t have many marines aboard. Athena had only had thirty. With the four strike forces, they had almost two hundred marines.
Rather than ducking into one of the side compartments, she sprinted toward the fresh enemies and leapt.
The move took them completely off guard and she landed among them without taking a single hit. There were four men in unpowered armor. She lashed out and took two of them out before they could jump back. The other two threw themselves back and fired at her with their flechette rifles.
High-speed tungsten penetrators rang off her armor as she drew her pistols and shot them. One died as her darts took him in the throat. The other dropped as her neural disruptor stunned him.
Her armor was gouged where they’d shot her, but nothing had penetrated. Yay powered combat armor.
“Dammit! Will you stop that?” Talbot covered the cross corridors as his men took up positions. “You’re going to get killed.”
“We don’t have time to get pinned down. We need the AI intact.”
“We also need you alive. I need you alive.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m being careful. Now let’s get our people to this stairwell over here. We can get up to the computer center through it.”
“Wait for the LT.” Talbot must’ve sent a message to his commanding officer because other marines streamed past their position and up the stairwell.
Reese stopped next to her. “Good work, Princess. Don’t ruin it by running ahead of us. The enemy will be guarding the computer center. We want it intact.”
She felt her eyes narrow. “Are you saying I’d blow it up?”
“Your track record on capturing AIs is filled with explosions. And floods.”
“I only wrecked one,” she sniffed. “And that wasn’t my fault. You were sleeping on the job.”
“It’s called being knocked unconscious by the anti-boarding weapons. I’m surprised they haven’t tried that. Doctor Leonard rigged up something that we put into our armor to protect us, but they haven’t even tried.”
“Knocking out the fusion plants might have taken them offline.”
“True. The other teams report they’re moving forward under heavy fire. The bridge is secure, but there were no prisoners. The officers attacked with pistols and our people had to return fire. Engineering is still up in the air, but it looks like we might capture some people. We’ve secured a number of prisoners.”
“The ones I saw didn’t have implants. That’s odd. The Old Empire implanted everyone in uniform from the lowest recruit to the Admiral of the Fleet.”
The marine officer shrugged. “We’ll sort it out. The advance fire team reports the enemy has sealed the computer center. No surprise there. I’m afraid Commander Meyer took a ricochet. His armor mostly held up, but he’s got shrapnel in his leg.”
“Is it serious?”
“He’ll be okay once the doctor takes care of him. Time to move on to the AI.”
The armored hatch to the computer center looked very much like the one on Courageous. The marines were setting up a perimeter on one side of the area. The other one was conspicuously empty of people.
“Exactly what is your entry plan?” she asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.
“The same one you used last time. You use your plasma rifle to breach the corridor wall and we swarm the compartment.”
That was what she’d done on the sunken battlecruiser, though she’d had to attack all by herself. And, while the plan had worked, it had wreaked incredible damage to the area. Plasma weapons weren’t the subtlest of weapons.
“That’s always good for a last resort, but maybe we don’t have to go that far. Let me try something.”
She closed her eyes and reached out, looking for the AI. It wasn’t there. At least there wasn’t any way to connect to it.
“I thought the AIs had power sources other than the ship’s fusion plants. I’m not feeling it.”
Reese frowned. “It should have an independent power supply good for months. The area doesn’t look damaged, either.”
Kelsey opened her search to look for implant capable devices. There were some, but not nearly as many as on board Courageous. There was one set of implants in the computer center. So, someone was inside after all.
“I’m sensing someone in the computer center. A set of implants. I’ll try communicating with that person. Perhaps we can get them to surrender.”
“That would be nice,” Reese said. “If not, we’ll pry them out the hard way. We’ve taken the major areas of the ship. Resistance is falling off.”
She pinged the implants inside and requested a connection. The person accepted. Not the best time to chat. There’s a bunch of people in the corridor outside. What’s the status on rigging up a self-destruct device?
He must’ve assumed she was one of his shipmates. I’m afraid that it isn’t going well. In fact, the entire ship has fallen. My name is Kelsey and I’m one of the people in the corridor. We’ve taken this ship and I’m calling on you to surrender. This fight is over.
A moment of silence ended with a mental snarl from inside. Damned traitor. I’ll never give in to the likes of you. The only way you’ll take me is in a body bag. The connection terminated.
“Well, that could have gone better,” she said out loud. “Let me go in first. I can handle one person and we need prisoners. Cover your eyes.”
She brought the plasma rifle up off her back and trained it on the armored hatch. If this worked out like it had on the sunken battlecruiser, the hatch would hold and the corridor would suffer. That would leave most of the computer center intact.
The bright bit of plasma exploded when it hit the armored hatch and engulfed the corridor beyond in flame. The bulkheads, ceiling, and floor failed.
Kelsey slung her plasma rifle and took a running jump down the corridor. She bounced off the bulkhead across from the hole and vaulted into the computer center. This one was in much better shape than the last one she’d seen. Everything was functional and clean.
And there was more than one person in the room. There were five, all of them armed with pistols. They opened fire as she came hurtling in.
Much as she’d done in the earlier fight, she knew her advantage was in moving fast, so she used her suit to spring
to the left as soon as her feet hit the floor. One armored fist smashed the pistol out of the hand of a woman in a rating’s uniform. She’d have broken bones, but they could regenerate them.
Kelsey’s neural disruptor came out as she rolled under a console. The enemy flechettes tore it apart as they tried to kill her.
She opened her weapon to its widest setting, popped up, and fired. Three of the enemy dropped, including the one in an officer’s uniform. The remaining man, his eyes wide with fear, shot her at point blank range.
This time the flechette went through her armor and her left arm exploded with pain. She managed to tag him before he could shoot her again.
“Got them,” she said through clenched teeth. “Hang on while I open the hatch.”
She assessed her damage while she hunted for the manual override to the hatch locks. The flechette had hit one of the damaged areas on her upper arm. The weakened armor hadn’t quite failed. The high-speed penetrator had deflected a piece of her own armor into her arm.
The pain dropped to almost nothing as her pharmacology unit dumped something into her bloodstream for the pain. She’d pay for it later, she imagined.
The manual lock worked as she remembered and the armored hatch slid open. The marines flooded in and secured the room.
Talbot rushed to her side and cursed when he saw her favoring her arm. “How bad is it?”
“Not serious. I had two shots hit the same area. Just bad luck.”
“Good luck that it wasn’t your head. If it can wait, I’d rather not open up your armor until we’re sure we’ve run down everyone on this ship.”
Lieutenant Reese oversaw the securing of the prisoners, but he’d obviously been listening in. “We’ve locked down the primary ship’s systems, but there are holdouts in the maintenance conduits. That gives them access all over the ship. We’re starting at engineering and working our way forward, but it’ll take a while to flush out all the stragglers. Is there any chance we can subvert their computer systems?”
Carl Owlet, their resident computer expert, brought up one of the consoles. “This is unlocked, but it says the AI has been wiped. Everything. All data drives scrubbed.”
Well, while that was better than having the enemy get a warning out, it wasn’t much help. They’d lost the freighter with its precious cargo and failed to get any hard data.
Kelsey looked at their newest prisoners. They’d have to do this the hard way.
Chapter Thirteen
Jared breathed a sigh of relief when several Pentagaran warships flipped into the system. He’d been feeling a little bit naked out here all alone.
The news from back in the Erorsi system was less reassuring. Shadow was in almost as bad a shape as Athena had been after her fight with the Pale Ones. She’d suffered heavy casualties and her primary systems were offline. Rescue operations were ongoing. Her captain had survived, but he was in critical condition.
Breckenridge ordered Jared to abandon the destroyer and return at once. An order Jared was pleased to ignore with Kelsey’s blessing. They’d give the destroyer a good going over and decide what to do after that.
The marines had scoured the other ship twice. A good thing, because they’d missed a couple of holdouts the first time. They’d lost a dozen marines in the attack, with three times that number wounded. Including Kelsey.
She’d assured Jared that her wound was minor, but he worried until she came back over with the wounded and the prisoners.
He’d sent Dennis Baxter and some of his people to the destroyer. He’d rather not abandon it. If anyone could salvage something from the ship, it was his chief engineer.
While he waited for their report, he went down to the area Reese had set up for the prisoners. Courageous had a brig, but it was insufficient for the number of people they had in custody. They’d captured about fifty men and women, many injured in the fighting.
The officers had fought to the death. Only the one from the computer center had survived. He was also the only prisoner with implants.
They had him secured in a separate holding cell, strapped to a table. He’d become violent when he woke up. Now he glared at them from the table, continuously struggling with his bonds.
His uniform indicated he was a lieutenant commander and his nametag said Richards. The sight of him snarling at them raised the hackles on Jared’s neck. It was very much like the reactions of captured Pale Ones.
Or maybe he was only snarling at Doctor Leonard. The elderly scientist had a modified headset on the man’s head and was scanning him.
Jared stepped up beside the table and looked down at their prisoner. “Commander Richards, my name is Jared Mertz and I command Courageous in the name of the Terran Empire. You are the senior surviving officer of your ship, the destroyer labeled R-7386. I imagine we’ll be seeing quite a lot of one another over the next few months. Is there anything I can get you?”
Richards didn’t respond, other than to growl.
“He won’t talk with me, either, Captain,” Leonard said. “His implants have a corrupted version of code that is very similar to that used in the Pale Ones. It’s not exactly the same, though. Based on what I can see, he probably has somewhat more ability to carry out his orders. He works with the implants rather than being solely under their control. This is significantly more sophisticated than the hack used during the rebellion.”
The technical people from the Erorsi knew Old Empire programming and were able to isolate the specific corruption used on the Pale Ones. The savages’ implants overrode the human host when certain criteria existed. It was pretty blunt about it, too.
“Is the hardware the same?” Jared asked. “Can you reverse the virus?”
The older man nodded. “It is and I can. That should eliminate the unreasoned portion of his response. He has a Fleet officer’s implants, by the way. No nanites, though. Just the cranial implants. I’m still not sure why they don’t use them.”
A woman Jared vaguely recognized as part of the Erorsi contingent chose that moment to push the Old Empire implanting device into the room. “Here you are, Doctor,” the woman said.
The old scientist glanced at Jared. “Shall we proceed, Captain?”
They’d been through this process with several captured Pale Ones. It replaced the compromised code with the original Imperial version. Not that the change improved the Pale Ones’ disposition. Savages were still savages. It had eliminated the unreasoning attack compulsion, though.
“Go ahead.”
The scientists maneuvered the machine until they had it around the prisoner’s head. Doctor Leonard initiated the software reversion and the workstation began overwriting Richards’ implant code. The process wasn’t quick. It took just over four hours.
He’d been told that it could be done faster, but not without putting the implantee in significant danger. That’s why the Old Empire couldn’t keep up with the rebels. They didn’t care if the subject died.
Jared let the scientists do their work. He’d come back once the process was complete.
His next stop was the medical center. He’d already been through once to talk to the injured. As always, the damage after a battle made him sick. These people were the lucky ones. The unlucky rested in the morgue.
An exhausted Lily Stone sat in her office, her head in her hands. He startled her when he rapped on the hatch.
She ran her hand through her hair and stood. “Captain.”
“No need to stand for me. You and your people have done miracles. Again. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you have.”
Stone gestured for him to take a seat. “It’s the same for you, isn’t it? We count the eggs broken rather than whole. It feels like we’ve had this conversation before.”
“That’s because we have. As long as we keep fighting, we’ll keep losing people. We use that as our measure. It has to be how many lives we’ve saved. Have you had a chance to examine the prisoners?”
The dark-haired doctor nodded. �
��Our technicians ran them through the scanners. No implants, other than that one officer. No sign of nanites, even in him. They were all in good health, though.”
“Was the officer’s surgery done with a regenerator?”
“Probably sometime in his late teens or early twenties. A regenerator removed the scarring.”
He cocked his head. “I thought regeneration masked any kind of time assessment. How can you tell?”
“The skull bones. Regenerators don’t work that well on bones. The rate at which the incisions remodeled tells me about how long ago he had the surgery. If he’d had the graphene coating on his bones that Kelsey has, it would’ve been more difficult, though I could’ve finessed it.”
That made sense. “They’ll be sending the dead from the destroyer over shortly. I want each of them examined, particularly the ones with implants. I don’t want you to rush it, though. We have time. Tell me about Kelsey.”
“The scans showed that she had some shrapnel in her upper arm. Her armor shattered under multiple hits and some of the fragments went into her arm. I removed them and sealed the wound. Her nanites will heal the wound in a few days.”
He nodded. “Good. I want you to make a pass through the destroyer’s medical center when you have time. I need to know how they compare to us, technology wise. I also want to know if they have any equipment for performing implants. That can wait for now, though.”
Jared rose to his feet. “Seriously, Lily. You did everything you could. Get some rest.”
He resisted the urge to go oversee the interrogation of the prisoners. Graves had that covered. If he needed Jared to come glower at someone, he’d call.
Feeling like he had nothing to do, he returned to his office and called Baxter. The chief engineer was over on the destroyer, examining its systems. He came on after a moment, some large piece of equipment behind him.
“Baxter, give me some good news.”
The engineer shook his head. “I don’t have a lot of that in stock. Carl Owlet was right. They wiped the AI. It’s gone. They scrubbed every bit of data on the drives. That’s not to say that there isn’t anything to recover, though. We’re finding tablets and other data sources, but it’s going to be like when we collected everything on Courageous, though. Slow.”
