Oort Rising

by Magnus Victor

  Someone muttered, “Where the hell’d they get those? They're supposed to be —?”

  “System malfunction, lieutenant?” demanded Conagher. She would not permit idle chatter on her bridge, especially not in the midst of a battle.

  “No, ma'am. Triple-checked.”

  That meant that those ships out there had the proper encryption. Supposedly impossible to duplicate, especially illegally. But she was certain they were hostile, and was willing to bet her career on that. Better than betting the lives of her crew on the opposite. She called to her weapons officer. “Can we work around the programming?”

  The officer glanced up from her console and grimaced. “No, ma’am. It’s base-level.”

  Conagher chided herself. She already knew that, of course. A good safety precaution under most circumstances, but a critical block now. “Authorize the gun crews to go to independent targeting.” The basic targeting computers built into the ship's batteries were little better than aiming the guns by eye, but they were better than nothing.

  “They’re closing the range!” The tactical officer's voice came through loud and sharp, clearly surprised. “Ma’am. Eighty-three enemy ships, now closing at ten thousand KPS. Sixty-two closing on us, the rest are going for the Tannenberg.”

  Conagher frowned. That made no sense. Why would the enemy want to advance to such a close range, when the Overlord could neither aim her guns effectively at long range nor dodge incoming fire? The ship's deflector shields were strong, yes, but not invincible. Even relatively simple weapons would be effective against the crippled warship, if fired en masse and from a safe distance.

  But at closer ranges, even the individually-aimed guns of the Overlord would be deadly. What were the enemy thinking? Captain Conagher would certainly not complain about her foe making such a critical mistake, but she also doubted that they were that stupid. They certainly had not been stupid so far.

  “Range closing to four-hundred fifty thousand klicks, eighty-two ships remaining under power. One disabled and floating without power. Intercept in forty seconds.” He looked more closely at his screen. “Enemy ships match Navy design specs.” The officer glanced up, meeting the Captain's eyes. “Ma'am, it sounds crazy, but they show as boarding craft from the Verdun!”

  "They are, crewman," She confirmed. She locked eyes with Petrakov. No more doubt that the Verdun had been captured. Surprisingly capable, these rebels. "Treat them as hostile."

  "Aye, ma'am."

  Petrakov leaned toward the Captain, his voice low, "So they stole the IFF tags from the Verdun?"

  "Not possible," she answered, "No way to break the encryptions in time." She gnashed her teeth, and added to herself, "Not without help."

  But still, were they really aiming to board? Board a Navy capital warship? That would be outright suicide against a ship of her size!

  Would be. If the Overlord had had her full crew complement, especially her full Marine loadout. As it was, things could easily get somewhat touch-and-go.

  Commodore Petrakov ordered “Rotate ship, max velocity. Shift power to the deflectors facing the enemy. Ready the crew to repel boarders. Copy the order to the Tannenberg.”

  At least the Tannenberg had her full troop complement.

  *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

  The blare of the klaxon pulled Klaus' attention away from the heat-distribution layout. What now? He frowned at the tone— that couldn't be right. But that alarm pattern was very specific, if his memory was correct.

  Boarding?

  The hatch to the compartment hissed open, and a troop of Marines spilled in, clad in full power armor. One of the hulking figures waved to Klaus and cleared his faceplate.

  “Antoniy! Haven’t seen you since, what, Saturday?” Klaus said, gesturing outside the hatch. Several of the other Marines were setting up a series of mines to cover the entrance. “Shouldn’t you be setting up closer to the hull?” He waved at the machines behind him. "Away from the important bits?"

  “No can do. We’ve only got less than a quarter of the normal Marine complement aboard, so can only defend the key parts of the ship.”

  Klaus frowned. “Wouldn’t the ship’s integrated defenses be enough?”

  “Nope. The bad guys’ ships have stolen Navy transponders, so we’re assuming that their boarders got 'em as well.”

  “What the hell? Those are supposed to be absolutely secure!” Doubtless the technology itself still was. Some idiot must have sold off the codes. “So the automated defenses won’t target them?”

  “The higher-ups say they can program around it.” He grimaced at Klaus. “Of course, Murphy says they can’t. And that means they have access through all the exterior hatches, and ship's systems can't even keep them out of the damned transit corridors. All we can do is shut off transit power to the corridors for everybody.” Antoniy un-slung four duffel bags from his shoulder, and tossed them to the deck. The bags clanged as they landed.

  Klaus opened the bag, and pulled out segments of hard blue plas-ceramic, which clattered to the deck. Low-profile body armor.

  “So,” continued Antoniy with a wry smile on his face, “you get to join in the fun!”

  Klaus opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again as Antoniy emptied the bag. The armor was lighter than he remembered, and thinner. He hoped it was just as effective. Below the armor was a military-issue coilgun. Full spec, fully charged. Kudos to whomever came up with anti-boarding ready-packs. Still, though, close-quarters fighting was not his idea of 'fun.' Sure, he'd gone through basic training, and had even been in a few firefights with pirates during his early Navy career, but that was ages ago.

  He was getting too old for this shit.

  His voice was deadpan. “Joy.” He fastened the breastplate on. The two centimeters of alloy would stop a coilgun round, but it only covered his chest. The arm & leg plates which he strapped on next were less than half as thick. They would barely stop shrapnel, but better that than nothing. He could only hope that the boarders were good shots.

  “Look on the bright side! At least we get to shoot back, this time.” Antoniy grinned.

  Klaus shook his head. On board the Ad Astra, Antoniy had seemed way too eager to fight it out. And now, the youngster seemed positively happy about imminent combat. That was crazy. “All in all, I'd still rather it wasn't necessary.”

  “Can't blame you for that. All the same, we're looking for materials we can use for fortifications.” Antoniy glanced around the compartment, and pointed to the crates of spare parts stacked against one wall. “That’s replaceable, right?”

  “Yeah.” Sort of.

  “Good. Let’s move those into a barricade outside, then. You have grav-lifts?”

  The Marines wasted no time, and quickly wrestled the crates to build a makeshift wall across the corridor. It gave the soldiers a field of fire down the long hallway, which ran for nearly twenty meters before dead-ending in a T-junction. At the wall's center stood a twin-mount railgun, its two-man crew crouched behind the gun-shield, checking the ammunition feed. Further down the corridor, another team had placed half a dozen shaped charges.

  With a grunt, Klaus helped stack the last crate in place. He was thankful, for a change, for those long months sweating on a tramp freighter. He easily outpaced any two of the other sailors when it came to moving the quarter-ton crates, although his back ached despite the assistance of the grav-lifts.

  But he felt marginally safer. The long, narrow approach would force the attackers to advance head-on, and the lighting was being redirected to aim over the shoulders of the defenders, directly into the face of any attacker.

  “All right.” Antoniy commed. “This is good enough. Everybody check your rifles, contact expected in under five minutes.”

  Klaus examined the weapon Antoniy had issued him, running through the standard drill that had been drummed into him long ago. A standard-issue military-grade coilgun. It felt familiar in his hands, like the ones he had trained with before, but it was newer
and heavier.

  Hopefully, it would work the same. Capacitor charge indicator where he remembered. One hundred percent. Good. He removed the cell and visually checked it. Very nice – the capacitor itself was bundled with the ammunition magazine into one unit. An excellent improvement, although the whole thing looked undersized for this class of deadly weapon. Only one way to test that, though.

  Thumbing the capacitor back into the weapon, he cycled the diagnostic program. Indicator green and good to go.

  He found a spot on the barricade where he could fire without exposing too much of himself, and burrowed into it. The Marines around him seemed calm enough, running through their prep routines, but that did not help his nerves. They were specifically trained for this situation. He forced his hands to steady, and then looked over his own lines of fire.

  Antoniy scurried over next to Klaus, grinning. “Ready to get revenge for the Ad Astra?”

  “And her crew.” Klaus growled. He hefted his rifle. “Y'know, I haven’t fired one of these in anger for years.”

  “Well, hope you’re still in practice.” Antoniy tapped the side of his helmet. “Just got news – they’ve boarded the ship.” He paused. “Dammit. Where’d they get those?”

  “What?”

  “They’ve got priority-tagged transponders, the whole lot of ‘em. The ship registers they’re on-board, but won’t let us track them.”

  Hell. Klaus looked down the corridor. They'd have no warning of the enemy's advance.

  Antoniy must have realized the same. “Gutierrez! Get up to the corner and keep an eye out!” One of the Marines dashed down the corridor.

  A soldier to Klaus' left pushed on the barricade, which swayed ominously under the power of his armor. “Hope they don’t have weapons to match those transponders.” A logical worry – the barricade wouldn't be worth much against heavy weaponry. But...

  Klaus groaned under his breath. “Goddamnit, did you have to say that?” Never tempt Murphy like that.

  *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

  Captain Conagher peered intently at the holographic display which flashed bright pinpricks and lines in the air in front of her. It showed a comprehensive three-dimensional overview of the battle in neighboring space, and she used her controls to zoom in on one sector after another, yet she could not find what she sought. “Sensors. Any sign of the Verdun?”

  “Nothing at all, ma'am.”

  It would be a mistake for the rebels to hold back the only true warship they have, she though, and yet they were doing just that. Their fifty-two remaining boarding craft were just reaching the Overlord's effective weapons range.

  If those boarders wanted to reach the ship in enough numbers to matter, they needed covering fire. Yet nothing had appeared. The enemy vessels were dodging, of course, but they kept charging headlong into the teeth of her defenses.

  Another volley of individually-aimed main-battery fire burst forth from the Overlord. Eight more enemy ships disappeared from the display, their icons changing color from hostile red directly to destroyed black. No orange of 'damaged' — the Overlord's railguns were designed for ships far larger and better-protected than the flimsy craft.

  The secondary batteries accounted for another dozen shattered wrecks, although each of those guns needed several hits before they took out a ship.

  And then the icons for the rebel craft overlapped the Overlord on the display. The ship was far too large for Conagher to actually hear the thumps and clanks of the boarding shuttles, but she could imagine them.

  “Board count?” Commodore Petrakov asked. “How many of them have trapped themselves on-board?”

  An interesting way to view the situation, very in-line with his reputation. But not in-line, she feared, with the actual situation. The rebels must have spent hundreds of lives in order to get their soldiers onto the Overlord. She could not bring herself to believe that they had merely thrown away those lives without a greater plan in mind.

  “Twenty-three enemy craft reached the hull, sir.” reported the tactical officer. “We can't track their troops individually, but their boarding craft cannot carry more than a dozen troops apiece. A total maximum of two hundred and seventy-six boarders. Half that if they are in heavy armor.”

  *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

  “Contact!” shouted the Marine lookout, as he leaned around the corner. He raised his weapon.

  Next to Klaus, Antoniy jerked his head up above the barricade. “Hold your—“

  A drawn-out ripping noise echoed as the lookout poured fire down the corridor.

  “—fire.” Antoniy pounded the crate he knelt by. “Damnit, now they know we're here.”

  The lookout ceased fire, the 'ping' of his emptied capacitor cutting through the echoes of his fire. He dashed back to the defensive line, hurdling the barricade. The barrel shroud of his coilgun glowed a dull red, hot enough that Klaus could feel it nearly a meter away. “Got two of 'em, sir!”

  Antoniy shook his head. “Good shooting, at—“

  Bang!

  The first of their defensive landmines detonated, the sound harsh even around the corner where the defensive bulwark was located. Klaus reeled at the concussion, ears ringing even through his helmet.

  Antoniy's Marines, less affected in their heavier armor, opened up before Klaus could regain his bearings. The roar of coilgun fire cut through his deafness, pierced by the sharp reports of the railgun.

  Coilgun in hand, he poked his head above the crate, trying to see through the thick smoke, unable to make out any targets. The coolant on the railgun's barrels had vaporized, filling the corridor with an acrid haze. It looked like something out of an ancient black-powder war documentary.

  The Marines on either side of him, though, kept up their fire, their helmets' integrated IR sensors providing them with a much sharper picture.

  But there! Blurry shapes showed through the smoke – more of a mist, a corner of his mind detachedly noted. He triggered a half-second burst at the target. No visible effect!

  An instant later, the railgun walked its fire onto Klaus' target, sending the figure collapsing to the ground.

  There came a brief lull in the firing, the smoke clearing enough to reveal a suit of powered armor. A rather sloppy green paint-job didn't quite cover the Federal blue underneath. Captured equipment? It looked much more solid than the armor Klaus wore.

  More to the point, two smoking holes through the figure's chest meant it wasn't a threat. That armor hadn't helped him, in the end.

  Behind the dead man, a flash of movement as another suit retreated back around the corner. Another suit of military-grade heavy armor. These could not be run-of-the-mill rebels – not with that armor. Where the hell had they gotten that?

  A small cylindrical object flew out of the smoke and clattered towards them. Klaus ducked behind the crates, just as Antoniy shouted “Down!”

  But it was no explosive. With a loud pop, a thick plume of black smoke filled the corridor, thick enough to look downright solid. Streams of fire tore through the dense smoke from both sides.

  The gas was IR-refractive, which eliminated the Marines' advantage. It also told Klaus that the rebels must not have IR vision in their helmets, so their theft of military gear was not complete. Both sides were firing equally blind. That still gave the Marines a small advantage, since they had cover. Ricochets sparked off of the crates, the walls, and even – someone was truly panicking – the ceiling. A shot whistled past Klaus' head, close enough that he felt the displaced air more than he heard the sound.

  The Marine to Klaus' left dropped like a marionette with cut strings, a hole punched neatly through his visor. Cover wouldn't save you if your number was up.

  Klaus returned fire through the cloud, trying to guess where the shot had come from. No effect, at least nothing which he could hear or see.

  Right. Armor.

  He thumbed the selector to over-charge, and fired again. The surge of power which ran through the coils singed his left hand even through t
he barrel shroud. This time, an armored figure stumbled out of the smoke, clutching an arm held on by only a few fragments of his shattered armor. Two of the heavy railgun rounds caught the enemy soldier square in the faceplate, severing the helmet and knocking it flying back into the smoke.

  Good shooting, that, thought Klaus as the headless corpse collapsed to the floor.

  A moment later, a grenade detonated at the base of the hastily-built fortification, right under the railgun. Lucky throw. The railgun's full-throated suppressive fire stopped instantly, and the dual-mount weapon flew through the air to land next to Klaus. There was not much left of its crew.

  Tensing his back muscles against the shot he feared would kill him, Klaus quickly reached out and tugged the heavy weapon closer. As he did, the deck began to shake. Someone, he didn’t know who, shouted. “Here they come!”

  The railgun’s tripod had been bent into modern art, so Klaus unclipped it. He wrestled the barrel up onto the crate in front of him. He had no idea where the ammo indicator was on the thing, but he prayed it wasn't empty. And it had two triggers. Which one?

  The enemy was coming. No time to figure it out.

  He squeezed both.

  The left barrel exploded, sending fragments whistling around the crowded hallway. Something heavy ricocheted off his left arm, and a burning pain shot clear to his bones. Both ears rang, and it felt like someone was pushing a dagger into his left ear. He gritted his teeth against the pain, but he kept his grip on the gun's trigger. He felt, more than saw, a stream of high-velocity rounds leap from the right railgun barrel.

  Even with his armor, Klaus weighed much less than a power-armor-clad Marine, and the railgun was a heavy weapon – the first five shots went down the hallway, more or less, but the sixth ricocheted off of the ceiling above. He grimaced and unclenched his finger from the trigger. He had to control the recoil, or his firing would be pointless.