by A. D. Bloom
When he was close enough to reach out and touch the alien gun towers, Jordo spiraled down around a single beam that spat determined and spiteful bursts as if the alien gunners who fired it knew he was coming for them and now, it was personal. Jordo's six autocannon rattled the frame of his fighter, and as he fired, the space to port and starboard and above and below him filled with shells, too. A furious deluge rained down from all the Lancers' guns.
Jordo didn't stop firing as he circled and descended, rolling down, around the beam until the flashes and the secondary detonations at the base of his fire stream told him he'd destroyed the Squidy gun battery. Others around it lit up with fire and secondaries.
He was still headed right for the hull, but to get off the collision course on a path that avoided the rest of the Lancers' and Hellcats' fire, Jordo had to rotate on his maneuvering jets and blast out of his line of travel harder than his Bitzer was designed to.
He guessed it was a 45-gee turn as he cut it. Whatever it was, it produced more inertial gees than his inertial negation could counteract. An elephant sat on every inch of him, inside and out. The force of his own maneuver crushed him. His vision grayed over and then went red with all the bursting vessels in his eyes.
In Jordo's next, half-absent seconds, the on-board artificial intelligence in his 151 completed the maneuver he'd initiated. It knew he was losing consciousness. It also knew the maneuver was killing him, but in order to avoid impacting against the Squidy warship's hull, the simple AI was forced to ignore what the maneuver did to the pilot and continue to veer away. At the bottom of the turn, where the inertial gees were heaviest, the last thing Jordo saw through that crimson haze was the broad side of the alien hull.
Then, he was gone, somewhere else, adrift and numb in an incorporeal place where all that remained of the battle were thin, far-off cries on comms. If it's over, then this isn't such a bad way to go, he thought. In less than a millisecond, Jordo made his peace with it and embraced a warm and blissful, welcoming darkness. It was a place he wanted to stay, but the chatter on comms still nagged in his living ears. He heard the voices of his pilots. They cut through the peaceful medium in which he floated like invading rays of dawn and convinced Jordo that no matter what he wanted, he wasn't fucking dead yet.
He clawed his way up a well and climbed back to consciousness, back to his pilots, and back to the war.
*****
Matilda Witt said, "No! No! No!" For a moment, it looked as if she wanted to clap her hands over the squadrons projected in front of her and crush them between her palms like so many flies. Instead, she exhaled, stepped back from the tactical display, and said, "Mr. Morrisey, please explain what is happening. Why are the 133rd and 55th attacking out of sequence and not responding to orders?"
"There are no comms issues," he said. "The problem is not on this end. The signal is getting out. Our command and control relay net is cutting through the jamming and any storm noise. The squadron leaders of the 133rd and the 55th appear to be ignoring us."
"Since the Lancers and the Hellcats engaged that ship," Dana interjected, "there's been a 47% reduction in fire density faced by your other squadrons. The 133rd and the 55th are cutting your losses."
Witt said, "What those pilots don't understand and what you don't seem to understand is that I needed those fighters where they were. That's why I gave them orders to hold position. Their presence was preventing the alien from breaking orbit in that direction. Look. Look at it now." Witt pointed at the alien warship. It was damaged and half-toothless, but it was very clearly accelerating and getting under way.
Dana confirmed it on the NAV console. "The alien is accelerating and moving to a higher orbit now. It's going to break away from the planet. It's running."
"Now, do you see?" Witt said. "It's making for the hole left by the Lancers and the Hellcats. If they'd followed orders, then this wouldn't have happened. Now, my only option is to chase it and peck at it while it steams away. It'll outrun Hardway's bloody ore haulers, that's for sure."
She meant Hardway's junks and Biko took visible offense to that. "A junk is not an ore hauler, Ms. Witt. Our torpedo junks and the boarding parties have plenty of speed to catch that alien ship."
Witt looked to Dana at NAV. "Ms. Sellis, can the junks with the torpedoes catch the alien cruiser?"
Dana looked at Cozen first and shook her head before she answered Witt's question. "Not before it reaches the Pollux-Denebola Transit."
"Any Squidy ship that size can breach space by itself and escape the system," Witt said. It was true.
"New signal on the Squidy-band frequencies," Biko said. Patched through the speakers, it sounded like insects underwater. "Now that they're clear of the electrified magnetosphere around the planet, I think they're calling for help."
Matilda Witt said, "We won't have time to board that ship now, not if they've called their friends to help them." She turned and spoke to Morrisey. "Order the junks to launch two-dozen, fusion-tipped warspites to finish the enemy off. Pull the fighter squadrons back and bring in Hardway's junks as quickly as you can. We're done here." She turned and began to cross the bridge, making for the lift. "Harry," she said as she passed the command chair, "set a course to rendezvous with my carriers at the Groomsbridge Transit immediately. It's time to bloody go." The elements of the tactical display projected from Morrisey's glasses vanished. Witt said, "Mr. Morrisey, have Taipan send a longboat to Hardway now to secure my prisoners when they land."
"Yes, ma'am."
Cozen said, "What prisoners? What are you talking about, Matilda?"
"The squadron leaders, Harry. The squadron leaders of the Hellcats and the Lancers. Discipline must be reestablished."
"How do you intend to do that?"
"I intend to shoot them."
Chapter Seven
The doors of bay 12 opened for Gold Coast, and Chief Lee called Ram Devlin on local suit comms with fear in his voice. Salty redsuit Chiefs like Lee don't get scared without a good reason. "Mr. Devlin, you've got to get inside fast. Matilda Witt's personal Guards came from Taipan. They took Jordo and the other one... the Hellcat squadron leader."
"Where are they now?"
"Primary bays, Deck One."
Ram didn't have to tell Pardue; she knew what to do. "I'm landing hot," she said, "Chief, tell your redsuits to clear bay 12 if they don't want to get crispy." She scraped off some paint coming in and fully cooked the bay with her jets. The four nacelles blasted the bulkhead with plasma and blew jets of molten steel mist in all directions as they filled the bay with fire that rocketed out for 30 meters before Pardue cut the engines.
It was the fastest anyone had ever landed a junk without crashing - fast enough that he made it out of the air locks and up the tube to the next deck in time to see six Witt's personal Staas Guards marching Jordo down the passageway in restraints. As Matilda Witt's goons turned to go down the tube, he shouted for them to halt. He ordered it, but the Staas Guards kept going. They weren't his Staas Guards. They'd only obey Witt.
Questions came at Ram from the redsuits up and down the passageway. "Mr. Devlin, what the hell is going on?"
"Where are they taking those pilots?"
Ram caught up on the next deck. Six more of the hired, company goons were already there, holding the Hellcat squadron leader as their prisoner. When the six guards escorting Jordo met their friends outside the airlock into bay 2, their squad leader looked right at him and reached up for the airlock control panel. The maintenance crews in the passageway looked like they wanted to do something and Ram actually considered letting them before he noted that the Staas Guards from Taipan had worn their sidearms.
Lucy Elan and the boarding parties were just landing now. They were still prepped and loaded for bear. "Lucy, this is Ram," he said using suit comms, "Get your boarding party down to Primary One, Deck 2. Full arms."
"On my way."
The Staas Guards' squad leader put the flight helmet on Jordo's head, secured it, and then mad
e sure Pooch's was locked down tight as well. Then, he and the rest of his dozen put on their own helmets and disappeared into the airlock. By the time Ram got to the doors, they were all inside, waiting to cycle out to the vacuum. On the far side of the doors was their longboat. The launch bay was already open. Seconds after they got out that lock, they'd be gone.
"Lucy!" he shouted into comms as he reached for the airlock control panel.
"Thirty seconds..." she said. "We're almost there."
Ram fumbled inputting his command codes to override the airlock's cycle. He cleared the register and began to punch in the twenty-digit sequence again when alarms went off and made him jump half out of his suit. The red light glowed solid above the airlock doors. Inside the airlock, the Staas Guards mashed at the button, telling the doors again and again to open, but they wouldn't open more than a few centimeters before closing again. It happened over and over. The squad leader mashed the button five times every time it happened.
Ram grinned when he saw that. Someone had used a software daemon to crack into the airlock door's command queue. It inserted multiple countermanding orders for every order the Staas Guard gave. Repeated pressing of the button only added to the long list of commands in the system queue and ensured the Staas Guards remained trapped.
"My redsuits are jock-blocking them," Chief Lee said. "They'll never get out now." They did that sometimes during contract negotiations. Nobody would get out of that lock until someone cleared the queue manually.
The shoulders of the Staas Guards in the airlock slumped as they realized they weren't getting away as cleanly as they thought. They turned around and looked through the porthole at Ram. Jordo and the Hellcat squadron leader kept their faces pointed at the far-side doors. Ram swore if Colt turned around and smirked, he'd draw Mickey's gun and burn a hole right through the airlock doors, right through Colt's helmet and out the back.
Lucy Elan and her boarding party entered the passageway from both ends at once. They ran forward in full suits and took up positions with their MA-48s only ten meters from the airlock doors. She winked at him.
"You're late," he said.
"We can leave and come back if you're busy now."
Ram said, "I'm opening the doors." Lucy nodded as he began to input his command codes into the airlock control panel to clear the queue. Fifteen seconds later, the re-pressurized airlock opened and there was nothing but thin atmo between the Staas Guards and thirty MA-48 rifles. "Step out of the airlock, please," Ram said.
Their squad leader's voice was extraordinarily high-pitched and strangely distracting. "We have orders from Ms. Witt to take these pilots into custody."
"You're not leaving with those pilots."
The look on the Staas Guard's face said Witt didn't pay him enough for this.
"Mister Devlin!" Matilda Witt came down the passageway like a runaway bulldozer. "Step away from my prisoners or I will have you brought up on charges as well."
Asa Biko came out of the lift behind her and then, Harry Cozen. "Matilda, you don't have to do this."
"I most certainly do." She pointed. "Are you saying I should let this go? Is that how your XO, Mr. Devlin, handles discipline on this ship? That must be why the Lancers disobey my orders with impunity. Now, it's spreading to my squadrons. Pilots that disobey orders in wartime get a firing squad, Harry. I've done it before. Apparently, I need to do it again."
"You don't," Cozen said. "Not for this."
"You should thank me, Harry. I'm going to solve your discipline problem for you." She turned back to Ram. "Mr. Devlin, kindly step away from that panel and allow my people to board their longboat with my prisoners or I will declare you and all the rest of Hardway's senior officers unfit and have you all replaced with personnel from my carriers."
*****
Taipan had looked like a fortress to Jordo when he'd seen it from the cockpit of his Bitzer. Now, as it grew larger in the longboat's canopy, it looked more and more like a prison.
Disobeying direct orders in a time of war. That's what she'd charge them with. Jordo imagined they probably wouldn't even mention the fight with the Staas Guards. Everyone knew that coming after a combat pilot when he was just getting out of his fighter was asking for trouble.
The fact that Witt's thugs were all armed hadn't stopped the Lancers from jumping in. Paladin threw himself across three of them. Gusher rammed one with a maintenance cart. Dirty jumped from the cockpit. She put the choke on one. He almost threw her over his head in the low-gees, but she wouldn't let go.
For the briefest moment then, Jordo had pitied the Staas Guards because they all seemed so slow, as if they were fighting underwater. Jordo could predict where their lumbering forms and ham-fists would be in the next moment and the moment after that. It wasn't fair... The golden thread wove a perfect path through the goons and Jordo followed it, kicking balls and knocking heads until they pulled out those electrified truncheons. That evened the odds. It took a hit to the Lancers' exposed necks with double charges of zap to bring them down, but the Staas Guards enjoyed that part. Jordo could tell by the way they kept discharging the truncheons into his neck after he was down so his limbs danced.
They docked their longboat in Taipan's bay and marched him and Pooch up one deck in heavy gees to toss them in Taipan's brig. This, Jordo thought as he looked around his cell, this is a proper jail. This one had a head. It had actual bunks in the cells. It had a table and a chair and bottles of water and three pieces of real fruit.
They put Pooch in the cell next to his. Only bars separated them. She could hear him and see him just fine, but she wouldn't talk to him. She stood in the front of her cell and watched the door.
Jordo didn't know what else to do, so after he ate the apple and the orange and drank some water that didn't taste like chlorine, he reclined on the bunk. It was the best way to deal with Taipan's heavy gees. He looked up at the immaculate metal above him, without a blemish or a spot of mold on it. Wait. There was one spot. His eye picked out another. And another. Dark, little, crimson spots – splatter of some kind. He decided to ignore it.
"This is a top-notch jail," he said to Pooch. "I could stay here a while." It was an old joke with new convicts and Pooch didn't get it.
"Matilda Witt is going to have those goons shoot you in the head," Pooch said. "And then, she's going to have them shoot me because I was dumbass enough to follow you in and lead the Hellcats with me."
"Just let me take the fall for it. I outrank you. Say I ordered you."
Her face twisted up. "I make my own goddamn mistakes. I don't need you or anyone els-" Pooch's words caught in her throat like the muscles in her larynx had spasmed out of control. Seconds later, she got her voice back and became a fountain of expletives of such volume, color, and caliber as Jordo had only ever heard from senior redsuits and company marines.
"I'm trying to help you," he said. "What the hell is it with you? Ever since you got here, you've had a hardon for me and the 133rd. You've picked a fight or escalated the situation every bloody chance you got. What is it? Is it because we're convicts? Are you a pissed-off victim of crime, Pooch?"
"No."
"Is it me? You got something against 1st Lt. J. 'Jordo' Colt?" Her eyes narrowed when he said that like he'd gone somewhere he didn't have the right to go. "That's it, isn't it," he said. "It's me. Who the... What the... Where do you even get off ju-"
She said, "You don't even remember me."
The violence in her stare made the spot between Jordo's eyes itch like mad while his mind ran through every woman he could remember ever meeting. There had been a lot of them before he'd crashed and gone to Bailey – a lot of women before Bailey Prison."
"Don't you look at me like that," she said.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm some forgotten piece of ass from your past. I'm not some shore-leave hussy you popped on Sagan Station."
When he finally did remember, a wave of inexplicable fear flashed through him. "Tranquility 5," Jordo said.
Pooch confirmed it with a mirthless grin. "Tranq 5."
It was an H3 dome town on the moon. Tranquility 5. Jordo and Burn flew there in their Bitzers. It was the first stop on their recruiting tour. Hardway was under repair and he'd gone out with Burn alone. They ignored the lanes and skimmed over the silver surface of the moon leaving momentary plumes of glittering dust in their wake. With no atmo, they were gone almost instantly. Jordo remembered zooming next to Burn, just meters above the surface, silent on comms, watching her through the cockpit.
When they rolled up and over the last ridge, Tranq 5 came into view. Burn told him it was a rake and bake town and he remembered hating that – hating them for a half-second. Raking out crushed rock and baking it to extract the Helium3 was what they'd done back at Bailey Prison. Jordo didn't know which pissed him off more – the fact that things were rough enough on the outside that people had to do the same thing for a living that he did in prison or the fact that they did it of their own free will. Jordo remembered thinking how if he had his freedom, then he wouldn't waste it in a place like that.
Tranq 5 was the first, big, lunar dust bowl town they visited and it was the first place Burn and Jordo did a little airshow over the dome – just some fancy flying up close so the yokels could gawk at the 151s. Burn took the recruiting seriously. "Fighters are sexy," she said. "So we're gonna show 'em off." And they did. It was fun chasing Burn through maneuvers as she tried to throw him off her tail. They even blazed the guns a few times while flying low over the dome. The rounds all went out into the black, but the tracers streaked over the town like a meteor swarm and the range det shells went off like fireworks.
Hundreds of dust-bowlers pressed up against the edge of the dome, looking out at the pads where Jordo and Burn set their fighters down, all of them gawking. Burn told him to wave from the ladder before he climbed down from his cockpit. The figures he saw inside the dome were a hundred yards away and silhouetted, but when he waved, they waved back, and Jordo felt like a hero. He knew it was stupid. It was exactly as stupid as those yokels were for cheering. Instead of welcoming him and Burn, they should have welded the airlock doors shut.
