Recruiting Drive: Jethro 4 (Jethro Goes to War)

by Chris Hechtl

  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one,” Captain Shelton said with sick dread as she looked at the acting captain. “Oh gods of space I'm sorry, Paul,” she whispered, hand over her mouth.

  He gave her a bittersweet smile. “I know, Kali,” he said softly. He seemed to shake himself and then touched his head wound. The bleeding had been stopped by his implants and some biofoam, but he still had a headache. “We know our duty here,” he repeated.

  “Jumping to Protodon may be our only answer. They've cut us off. If we change course, keep ahead of them, we can barely make it,” Captain C'lax said carefully, putting the plot up of his plan. “We'll have to keep Rose and Farragut behind as rear guard to intercept anything they throw at us to slow us down. From there …,” he stopped, voice faltering.

  “We don't know if it is safe to go to Protodon or not. We could be headed, as you humans say, from the frying pan into the fire. And returning to B-452c is out, they are between us and the jump point now.”

  “So we're stuck.”

  “Yes. Eventually they will run us to ground one way or another. Either we'll run out of fuel or they'll get a big enough piece of our drives to cripple us. Then it will be over.”

  “All over but the crying and shrieking you mean,” Lieutenant Chaing said. “We need a miracle.”

  “No, but I wouldn't object to one,” Lieutenant C'lax stated.

  “Sir, I've got a Hail Mary in mind,” Lieutenant Chaing said slowly. “It's risky, and shit, I don't know if he'd go for it. I'm not certain I would in his place. But we don't have much to lose.”

  The Veraxin clacked his mandibles for a moment. He had two damaged frigates against a pair of Nelson class destroyers. Anything that could possibly even the odds he'd take at this point. “Tell me your plan.”

  <(>~^~<(>

  “I feel so damn helpless,” Lieutenant Queen growled, fists clenched. “I'm a Marine; we shoot shit, but not like this!” She froze when she got orders from Lieutenant Chaing over the ship's network. “You have got to be kidding me!” She snarled, eyes wide as she turned to Jethro.

  “What?” He could see her expression; it didn't bode well. Instantly Bast's ears went flat.

  “Here,” Lieutenant Queen said simply with a slight hitch in her voice, looking disturbed as she passed the orders to him through the local network. He opened the file with a click and then frowned as he read it. Bast read it in less than a millisecond and instantly had her ears back, eyes flashing red and spitting mad.

  “We'll need to get to my armor,” he said, rising to his feet.

  “No protests?”

  “It's better than sitting here waiting to die, ma'am. I suggest you prep the squad to prepare to repel boarders if it comes to that. I'll get to my suit.”

  “Damn. It's packed in there too.”

  “Then we'll just have to dig it out in a hurry,” Jethro said simply.

  <(>~^~<(>

  He worked with a pair of cargo handlers and a pair of cargo robots to dig the suit out as fast as they could. They used the robots and a quartet of grav lifts as well as brute strength to dig a hole through the cargo to where his suit was. He had an unerring knowledge of where it was so it made it easier.

  Cargo went out into the corridor and started to pile up until a couple of the marines arrived to help keep the area clear for them.

  Once they had enough of the cargo shifted, Bast had the suit run a power-up test and then kick the wall of its coffin out. It tore through the metal container like it was paper and then bound over to Jethro like a metal cat wanting to get its chin scratched.

  “Time to suit up,” Jethro said as the suit stood and started to open for him. “I'm going to need weapons and ammunition too. Get on that while I finish here,” he said. “But get the rocket pack out next,” he ordered. “It's going to need fuel and so am I,” he said as Bast blinked the power gauge at him. He nodded tightly as he stripped off his uniform and started to suit up.

  <(>~^~<(>

  “You look wicked,” a familiar female voice said from behind him.” Jethro turned from where they were loading the rocket pack into the airlock to see the Lieutenant at the airlock ten minutes later. She crossed her arms, noting he had his hands full. She couldn't see it, but Bast was busy sending tendrils of nanites throughout the suit and pack. She'd cleaned up the throttle problem, picked out some debris in a fuel line, a bit of flash in a hose, repaired another hose, and rewrote the software to make response time faster.

  The rocket pack was a glorified MMU on steroids. A sled some would call it, though he knew better. Normally a Manned Maneuvering Unit had ion thrusters to gently propel the user across the void from point A to point B. Ox's bastard child borrowed parts from various sources to give the user a massive acceleration for a period of time. His last addition had been an inertial dampener to soak up some of that acceleration to keep the user conscious.

  Since Jethro's suit already had better dampeners in it, Bast had used the material for her own purposes. She'd made small but telling alterations throughout the rocket pack to improve its performance by 10 percent as she did the final checks.

  She had also altered the control assembly to make responses faster. He would have to take that into account, noting the repair list scrolling on his HUD. She'd broken down several servos and one of the rocket tips on his right wing and then remade them with the nanites. He shook his head. The changes went on and on from there. She had made changes before … but all of it untested by him. He wasn't at all certain how well things were going to work out. It was definitely going to be interesting he thought as he checked his ammo.

  “Take the ship intact if you can, Gunny,” Lieutenant Queen said. When she saw the panther freeze and eye her, she shrugged helplessly. “That's not my idea; it's from Lieutenant C'Lax and Lieutenant Chaing. But it's an order,” she said clapping him on the armored pauldron. “Feel free to disobey; it is you who have to survive,” she said as she left him.

  “They aren't asking for a lot, are they?” He asked Bast wryly.

  “This is desperate and stupid,” the A.I. replied, eying him severely. He blinked in surprise. She hadn't said much at all, and now a full sentence? Wait, he had the suit on ….

  “You have a better idea?” She flicked her ears at him. “Yeah, thought not. It's time to try something desperate and stupid if we're going to survive,” Jethro said as he finished suiting up by putting the helmet on.

  “If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid,” Bast put up in quotes on his HUD in a text bubble. He snorted.

  “Desperate times means desperate measures. Let's try this before I get sane and change my mind.”

  “Cold feet,” Bast said.

  “That too.” Jethro said, thinking of the vacuum of space.

  Before he had left the cargo bay, Bast had had him pick up a pair of grav lifts that they had used to shift cargo around to get at his gear. He'd asked her why but she hadn't answered him, only directed his hands and nanites to alter them into primitive energy shields. Then he understood. “Let's do this,” he said, hefting the improvised energy shields in each hand. He had weapons and gear slung all over his body. He was trusting Bast to handle the calculations on mass and acceleration. If she didn't get it right they were going to become a spacer's worst nightmare, a Dutchman. Possibly permanently.

  <(>~^~<(>

  “Fire a delayed round,” Captain C'lax stated. His tactical officer blinked at him. “Sir?”

  “You heard me. Drop a couple missiles with a delayed fuse. I want them to kick off their drives when the enemy gets in close.”

  “Sir, like mines?”

  “No, I want them to kick their drives on. They should startle them. Put them here,” the captain ordered, pointing to a spot on the plot. “With any luck they'll get the ships to turn away.”

  “Yes, sir,” the tactical officer replied dutifully. “Missile one away. Missile two away, sir.”

  “Good.” The captain's eye stalks w
atched as the unpowered missiles tumbled away into the dark. “Com, lay a laser on them. We're going to serve as their fire control so they won't emit. Guns, make sure they are silent.”

  The tactical officer caught on immediately. He nodded. “Yes sir. They won't have much time to bring their drives up from start though. And they won't have the boost from our capacitors or missile tubes. They'll be slow.”

  “Hopefully, surprise will be on our side then,” the captain said, already putting the idea out of his mind. It was a distraction, nothing more in his eyes.

  <(>~^~<(>

  “Bast I need our A game here. Do you have the blueprints of a Nelson handy? We're only going to get one shot at this I think. We'd better make it count,” Jethro said as they exited the lock. He pulled the rocket pack out and then strapped it on.

  “Now you ask,” Bast said shaking her head.

  He felt a trace of alarm, looking up with wide eyes. “You mean ….”

  In answer Bast put the blueprints up on his HUD. He felt instant almost orgasmic relief when he saw them. “You could have told me.”

  “I just did. But we have to survive to get inside first.”

  “Get the timing down. You may need to take control of the suit and rocket pack. If you have to, go over the inertial dampeners. I can take it or black out, and you can wake me on the other side.”

  “Understood,” Bast said, clearly unhappy by the orders but not willing to argue. There was something to be said about her normal taciturn behavior Jethro thought.

  “I like hearing your voice. It's nice,” he said to her softly.

  “Thanks,” she replied, equally soft. “If this fails, we won't know it. I will, but you won't. I want you to know it's been an honor.”

  “Save that for the next round of beers. We're getting through this, one step at a time,” Jethro said simply as he made the final connections. He felt Bast surge through the linkage to the rocket pack, checking it over and running the final power ups and diagnostics. He ignored it for the most part as he pulled his remaining gear and the two improvised shields out of the lock. “We're clear,” he said over the radio to the ship.

  “Good luck,” Lieutenant Queen stated simply and then abruptly closed the channel.

  “Yeah, we'll need every bit of Lady Luck's blessing as she's willing to give us,” Jethro muttered as he kicked himself clear of the hull. “We're on our own. Let's make this count.”

  Bast and Jethro used the rocket pack to get to the Nelson carefully. His stealth was of little use, or so he thought initially. Bast didn't seem to hold the same opinion; she kept the stealth up anyway, draining power.

  What he was doing was a glorified suicide mission to distract the ship he thought just as the ship locked onto their latest engine flare. Bast cut the drive immediately, but they took fire.

  Jethro felt his arms rise as Bast used the improvised shields to protect them. His left shield took a glancing hit and put them into a tumble. It tore out of his grip and tumbled away from them before exploding. The A.I. cut everything, even life support, making it dark as a tomb in the armor. For the most part he was a passenger along for the ride he thought, a definite reversal between the two of them.

  Once Bast judged they were no longer considered a threat, she waited a long minute, long enough for the panther to get antsy until she fired up the rocket pack and RCS to orient them and then go in full bore on the nearest destroyer.

  <(>~^~<(>

  “Skipper! Whatever that is it's coming in full bore again!”

  “I thought you said you killed it,” Captain Tion snarled, clenching his fist in anger.

  “I thought I had!”

  “Get it!”

  “Too late! It's … it's piercing our shields!” the tactical officer said in disbelief.

  “Roll ship! It must be a torpedo or something!” the captain snarled. “All hands brace for collision!”

  <(>~^~<(>

  The second improvised shield was used to pierce the ship's shield and allow them entry. Its gravitonic field interacted with the enemy's shields, tearing a hole in them and causing sufficient interference for the shields to go down totally.

  Jethro remembered that when two gravitronic fields were brought together and weren't in synch bad things happened just as the shields went down and the rocket pack fired for the last time. Its burp was enough to send him forward through the shield to compensate for the lost momentum of his hitting it. Then Bast dumped the rocket pack. He felt it unlatch and then brought his legs up. The coiled energy let loose like a spring as he sprung the last distance to the hull.

  Weapon fire went off wildly around him as Bast increased the power to the cloak to get them past the final point defense fire and onto the hull of the ship. He bounced head and shoulders first but managed to grab a toe hold with toe claws as he started to ricochet off. He held on for dear life, digging the claws in and then slowly bending his knees to draw himself down so hull.

  “Made it,” he murmured. Bast flicked her ears at him and then put an arrow up on his HUD.

  “Yeah, um … problem, how do we get there?” he asked. He felt his claws flex. “Oh.”

  He tried to use his claws to rip into the hull but it was armored and smooth. Eventually he hit on the idea to use them to get between the seams for toe and finger holds to get to an airlock.

  <(>~^~<(>

  “Sir, we have an airlock cycling on the port side.”

  “We have a what?” Captain Tion demanded turning to the rating.

  “It's opening from the outside.” the engineering rating stated flatly.

  “Some sort of malfunction?”

  “I'm not sure, sir,” the rating replied helplessly, shaking his head.

  “Focus on getting our shields up now. Did anyone find out where that torpedo went?”

  “It must have been a dud, sir. Or the guns hit and destroyed it,” the JTO stated, looking up from her seat.

  “Find out! And get my shields back up now!” Captain Tion frowned thoughtfully and then shook his head. Engineering had finally gotten the short to the airlock motors fixed so he could deploy the fighters. “Get the fighters out. We only have the three so have them cover us while the shields are down.”

  “Fighter pilots to your planes,” the communication's rating said, cupping his hand to his ear piece.

  <(>~^~<(>

  Jethro boarded the Nelson class ship the Idiot's Array carefully, ever aware of someone spotting them. He cycled the inner airlock and then stepped through and into the ship. He was tempted to vent the airlocks, jam them open or something, but if he did undoubtedly engineering would react by closing airlocks in the area to cut the loss off and then send engineering teams to check it out. He didn't want them to be alerted to his presence quite so soon. “What the hell? Why would anyone name a ship that?” He commented until he saw a hand of cards painted under the name. Each of the cards had a skull instead of a face.

  Bast warned him of people on his plot. He noted it and then moved out, following her directions to get to main engineering. “We need to get to a terminal so you can upload your virus payload,” he said to her softly.

  “No need to whisper,” she whispered back.

  “Funny,” he said in a normal voice just as a technician came around the corner too fast for him to avoid. He rebounded off the cloaked panther and sprawled backwards into his buddy.

  “What the hell?” the crewman demanded, rubbing at his mouth.

  “Tripped over your own feet?”

  “No man, I ran into something!” He reached up as Jethro moved away and his hand hit Jethro's knee.

  Bast lashed out instinctively, immediately tearing their throats open with a clawed hand. They grabbed at their throats, but they were done for.

  “Now you've done it,” Jethro moaned as another crewman down the way came around to see the flopping bodies. Arterial blood spray had hit him, painting his form. When he moved and dropped to all fours the crewman gibbered wide eyed and then stabb
ed repeatedly down on the button to shut the airlock.

  “Frack!” Jethro snarled as the door closed in his face. “We have to find another way,” he growled. An alarm began to sound. “And that's just perfect,” he growled in disgust, eying Bast.

  “Sorry,” Bast muttered.

  “Too late now,” he said, turning to slash at a station. He ripped the panel open and then found the EPS conduit. He pulled a grenade out of the pouch on his thigh and stuck it inside and primed it to go off by remote detonation.

  “We've got to get to engineering or at least do as much damage to this ship as we can. Screw taking her.”

  “We can.”

  “We can try. I'm not sure. We'll see,” Jethro said as he stalked off. When he rounded the corner beyond the nearest knee knocker and damage control lock, he triggered the grenade to detonate. He grinned as it went off and ruptured the EPS conduit. Hot plasma vented into the corridor and surrounding area. Alarm klaxons went off again, warbling in a higher pitch.

  “That should keep them busy,” he said, moving out as Bast used his nanites to clean the blood off.

  <(>~^~<(>

  “What the hell is going on? Who set the security alarm off?” the captain demanded just as damage control alarms went off. “What's going on?”

  “Sir, we've been boarded! Some sort of apparition, the crewman is in shock!”

  “Sir, the damage is in the same area security is reporting the boarder is in! DCC is trying to route around the damage now, sir.”

  “Frack!” the captain swore, then cursed for a moment. When he wound down, he ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Get DCC on that as soon as security clears the area. Get the marines in gear. We're going to need them now.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, that EPS line feeds the boat bays. We've lost power in both boat bays. We can't open the doors or launch fighters.”