Beyond the Rim (Rebels and Patriots Book 2)

by A. G. Claymore

  Why else use a cargo ship for secretive purposes? Cargo ships were really only remarkable for one thing, and that was their holds.

  She deployed her helmet and led them toward one of the central risers, where she stopped and turned to them. “Let me check everything first,” she ordered. “I can soak up a lot of hits and neutralize all the small resistance that your talents would be wasted on. If I find something worth your skills, I’ll draw their attention while you take your shots.”

  She dropped down the riser, her suit’s sensors mapping as she went. When her CPU identified the landing that coincided with the ship’s exterior loading doors, she pushed away from the back wall and jogged out into the main companionway.

  There was nobody there so she leaned back into the riser and waved her two gunners down.

  They followed her to the next corner, where she looked aft. Still no sign of anybody. She led them down toward the mapped location of the outer cargo doors and suddenly stopped, holding a hand up. “I’m picking up two Marine transponders,” she told them, careful to whisper, letting the CPU know to keep the suit’s speakers on low volume.

  She pointed down the hallway. “Fifty meters down, on the left,” she told them. “You guys missed the lesson, so aim for the CPU on the spine or go for a head shot to blind the suit and kill its driver.” She jabbed a finger into the dark seam between the frontal plates. “Fixatropic armor in there, so you might take out the driver but the suit’s still going to keep fighting. Not a weak point.”

  She pointed at the cargo containers that lay against the inner wall. “Take up firing positions here and wait till I get them both out and looking the other way.”

  A.J. raised an eyebrow. “How exactly are you planning to pull that off?”

  “My suit can mute my own Corps transponder,” she told him, “but the minute I pop my helmet, they’ll realize a Brigadier General is shouting at them.”

  He grinned wickedly. “Oh yeah, I forgot you belong to them too.”

  She was glad the helmet hid her reaction. It was always good to hear evidence that your forces considered you to be one of them, but you didn’t want them to think you were desperate for approval.

  Once they were in place, she resumed her progress down the hall but then she saw a team of Starbucks round the corner at the far end. She waved them back, hoping they’d realize it was her and not start shooting.

  She cursed. They were crouching, bringing their weapons up. She really had no choice but to accelerate her own plan and hope they could react in time. She retracted her helmet and continued to wave them off.

  Fortunately, one of her men recognized her and began pulling the rest back around the corner. It was just in time. She could hear the sudden thumping of heavy feet and two armored Marines came around the corner turning to face her. She fought the urge to look beyond them as the last men scrambled out of sight.

  “Ma’am, we weren’t told anything about a senior officer being aboard,” the man on the left said, his nerves evident through his helmet speakers.

  She ignored him and stepped to the side, bringing her rifle up to aim down the hall behind them. “You’re being boarded!”

  Both turned and aimed their own high-caliber assault rifles at the corner where her crewmen were hiding.

  The first rounds struck them low in the back and one of them failed to penetrate the composite plating. The other man, cut nearly in two and wearing a dead suit, simply dropped to the floor, his blood collecting inside the heavy armor.

  The second man spun around as Julia dropped to the deck. As he searched for his assailants, she slid the muzzle of her own rifle up under the lower abdominal plate and fired two bursts. Coming in at an extreme angle, the rounds slid up the flexible plate and broke the seam holding it to the lower abdominal composite plate. The rounds tumbled inside the suit, punching into the man’s chest cavity and shredding vital organs.

  He was done, but his suit was still set to platoon flow as a backup. She got up and the suit mimicked her orientation. Her helmet had snapped shut when she’d dropped to the deck and she opened it to shout at her team around the corner. She immediately wished she hadn’t.

  The other suit opened and the dying man coughed out a mouthful of frothy pink blood. She accessed his menus and had his suit inject him with an overdose of painkillers before setting his helmet to remain closed and locking the follow mode to her own suit.

  She saw a helm officer lean around the corner and waved him up. “The guy inside’s dead but his suit’s still mostly functional. It’s leaking power from half its systems after all that damage but we should be able to use it unless its reactor has to shut down.”

  The rest were coming up to join her. “Stay out of sight when I go through those doors,” she told them, nodding at the doors the two marines had been guarding.

  She closed up again and walked to the door, pressing the red icon on a screen set into the frame. The suit containing the dead guard came to stand behind her and slightly to the left.

  The door opened and she walked in, followed by the second suit. She didn’t need any help figuring out what the cargo hold contained. Row upon row of stasis pods, each row twenty high, stretched off into the cavernous hold. They were of Gray manufacture.

  As if proof were required, there were also two Grays emerging from a temporary, modular control room near the entrance. The first one was turning a slightly darker gray and his head was tilted a couple of degrees back and to the side.

  Though most Humans would have taken their demeanor for cool and dispassionate, Julia knew rage when she saw it. She’d caused that emotion in enough of their kind to become something of an expert on Gray mannerisms.

  “You were given clear orders to stay out of this compartment,” the angrier one droned. “Colonel Kinsey will be informed of your insolence.”

  Julia retracted her helmet. “Calm yourself. Such rage is unseemly.” She grinned wolfishly. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

  She didn’t think it was possible for a Gray to get any darker and, yet, here was clear proof of its possibility. The clone in front of her was absolutely livid.

  “So you managed to get your hands on Colonel Kinsey, did you?” She advanced on the angry Gray. “I suppose he had enough friends at Home World to arrange for a quiet exile.”

  Kinsey, one of Seneca’s cronies, would prove a useful tool for the Grays, acting as a rallying point for members of the recently disbanded 538 Marine Expeditionary Force.

  The Gray’s third eyelids fluttered in shock. He’d been so focused on his anger that he’d forgotten his outburst. For someone who felt vastly superior to Humans, the embarrassment would be extreme.

  “Dremana chimela est,” the Gray said loudly. The slight forward tilt of his head seemed to indicate that he expected some reaction from Julia.

  “Yeah,” she agreed sarcastically. “Took the words right out of my mouth!” Frankly, she had no idea what his cryptic comment signified. The Grays were not given to cursing but, given the context, she was starting to wonder.

  “You were bound for Thoria.” She waved at the rows of pods. “And you’re carrying hundreds of Humans in those pods. I have to wonder what your purpose is.” She looked down at the diminutive figure. “You’re heading away from Gray space, not toward it, so I can only surmise that they aren’t intended for telomere research.”

  The clone glared at her. “You will pay for your…”

  “Yes,” she cut him off, sketching a sarcastic gesture with her hand, “I’ll pay for stealing a Gray ship that was invading Imperial space, not to mention stealing over forty thousand Imperial citizens from your research labs on Narsa.

  “It’s pointless to waste time explaining the hypocrisy of your anger, considering your limited perspective.” She felt a warm flush of pleasure at the fresh rage evident in the subtleties of the clone’s face, not to mention the chuckles of the boarders who’d filed into the room behind her.

  “Let me put this in terms you c
an understand.” She spoke as if to a child, knowing that Human subtleties were not lost on the Grays. “I’m taking you back to my flagship where our questioning will exceed your pain tolerance. You will talk. Even Grays are not completely immune to aggressive interrogation, and then your long existence will almost certainly come to an abrupt end. There will be no new body for your consciousness to transfer into.”

  “Stand clear of that control room,” she called out, snapping her head to look at the crewman who’d moved toward the door the Grays had exited.

  “We’re leaving them in stasis for now,” she explained, “until we know what’s been done to them. And speaking of which…” She turned back and scooped up the Gray, the second suit following her lead and grabbing the second clone.

  “Secure this hold and see what else you can find,” she told her boarders. “I’m heading for the bridge.”

  Perhaps her small prisoner was beyond words because she heard no protests. She jogged all the way to the central riser and worked her way up to the bridge, taking care to give the Gray an occasional bump against the walls.

  Three bodies lay under a sheet in the main companionway, just around the corner from the bridge. The signals coming from their citizen chips confirmed them as Starbucks.

  These were the moments when she almost hated her implants. Her CPU, though not as powerful as Paul’s, was horribly efficient at turning the three signals into detailed individuals. She was acutely aware of the young children who’d just been orphaned. A young wife was on her last credits, back on Roanoke, and now her husband wouldn’t be coming home. A baby was about to be born without a father.

  She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on the details, not when she still had the living to worry about. Still, she would have to make sure the families were looked after.

  And if that weren’t enough, her armor was starting to glitch. She was getting a persistent warning that the left knee was inoperable and, yet, she was walking just fine. That likely meant a few circuit failures. HMA was designed with multiple redundancies but they didn’t always work the best and false warnings usually started to generate as the chips failed.

  She might be able to scavenge chips from the suit walking beside her or the one down by the main cargo bay, but it was still a short-term solution. They were a long way from Santa Clara and the locals couldn’t make the kind of chips needed for military gear. Sooner or later, the damn thing would fail and someone might have to cut it off her.

  Still, despite the suit’s warning, she continued toward the bridge.

  The sentries at the bridge entrance were Starbucks. They lowered their weapons when they recognized her face and then they noticed what she and the second suit were carrying. They goggled at the two furious Grays.

  She gave them a friendly nod, taking a deep breath to compensate for the long jog. “N’Zim told us there was something going on in this ship!”

  She walked past them and onto the bridge where a small pile of dead crewmen lay against the forward windows. She looked at Harrison, the prize master, who probably hadn’t counted on having the commodore on his new bridge.

  “Captain, what’s our status?”

  Harrison managed to tear his eyes away from the dangling Gray. “The ship is ours, ma’am.”

  “Excellent! Signal the Ava Klum, if you please.”

  Harrison grunted. It was an approving sound, perhaps because he knew Julia could tap into the Naughty Helot’s systems using her implants and contact ships directly. It was a good indicator that she intended to respect his control of the ship. He made contact with the flagship and turned to her. “Flag captain standing by, ma’am.”

  “Captain Hale,” she greeted her former weapons officer. “What’s our status?”

  “Good to see you’re in one piece, ma’am. We’re just waiting to hear from the last boarding party. We’re already recovering the other five shuttles and the sixth will keep station off the…” Hale turned to check the display. “… the Rusty Dog, until they take control, and then it’ll dock with them until we reach the rendezvous.”

  It sounded like she might have time to bring over N’Zim from the Ava Klum. “Excellent news, Captain. One of your crewmen would find this ship particularly illuminating. I’d appreciate if you could send him over.”

  It was taking a lot of getting used to. In the Imperium, a flag officer didn’t simply give a captain specific orders regarding his or her crew or equipment. They were given objectives. It was up to the captains to accomplish their objectives with the tools at their disposal.

  Ordering a shuttle diversion was simply not the done thing. She had to phrase such things as a request or a suggestion, though no captain was likely to refuse. It was even more important here than in the Imperium.

  Back home, she’d only lose the respect of her captains. Here, she’d lose their votes as well.

  “We’ll send him over right away,” Hale assured her. “He’s been hounding me so much about it that I’ve already got him sitting in a shuttle down in the hangar.” Hale was no fool. He knew they were surrounded by enemy-aligned freighters and he carefully avoided direct reference to their pet monk.

  She closed the channel before offering Harrison her hand. “Congratulations, Captain! By the way, I’m bringing over our intelligence specialist before we jump for the rendezvous.” She chuckled. “He’d be croaking at me all the way back to Roanoke if I didn’t satisfy his curiosity.”

  Harrison shook her hand. “Ma’am, what the hell is the story with this ship?” His eyes drifted down to the Gray held by the second suit.

  “Gray pods,” she told him. “Down in the holds. Our two friends here…” she hitched up her grip on her prisoner, “…were monitoring the pods.”

  “Hmm,” Harrison replied in mild surprise. He gestured at the pile of dead enemy by the windows. “We only fired two or three shots when we stormed the bridge,” he told her. “They fired the rest – at themselves.”

  She nodded. “Like I said, something’s up.”

  Who Are We Really Fighting?

  Turning Over the Rock

  “It really is beautiful out here,” Paul mused. Two moons reflected off the lake, shimmering in the early-evening darkness of the valley. Bathed by both direct and indirect moonlight, Segusium’s waterfront glowed like a beacon in the deep mountain valley.

  Ava was walking beside him, smiling as her daughter snatched a pastry from her older brother’s hand. “It is,” she agreed, “though I hadn’t really noticed for a long while.”

  They’d gone for a walk to the nearby bakery. Her house had become a beehive of activity, captains and senior division officers coming and going at all hours, and they’d wanted one more moment of peace before Ava took her fleet of privateers back out into the black.

  “Speaking about beauty,” she continued coyly, “what about you and Julia?”

  Paul felt his ears redden. “What about us?”

  She grinned. “I know that creaking wasn’t from the trees!” She looked back at her son and daughter. “That’s the kind of thing that can change your life, if you let it.”

  He shrugged. “We haven’t really talked about it,” he said lamely.

  She leaned in a little. “Well, you should. I’ve seen how you two look at each other. She’d welcome the conversation.”

  She said it with such certainty. He looked over at her. “How did you meet their father?”

  Her smile remained but it took on a sad quality. “Peter was the chief engineer and I was the operations officer on an ore carrier called the Henny Penny. She had no weapons to speak of, and we got jumped on a return run from some miserable little dirt-ball in the middle of nowhere.

  “They were just raiders. This was years before the war started.”

  “The only crew they didn’t kill were women,” she raised an eyebrow at her brother. “Real gentlemen, right? Anyway, I was already seven months along with Saoirse, but they didn’t clue into the fact until the killing frenzy was over. I suppos
e they didn’t want to kill a pregnant woman in cold blood so I just sat there, in the mess hall, while the screams echoed up and down the halls.”

  “Bastards!” Paul hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I’m sure a few were born in the months to come,” she replied dryly. “But after they’d had their fill, they decided to give me a shuttle and turn me loose. I think my condition was a constant reminder of what they were doing. They always looked guilty when they saw me, even though I hadn’t been touched.” She shook her head. “Funny thing about that kind of situation,” she mused. “When I got back, I found out it had actually lasted a couple days longer than I thought. Pregnancy always did make me fuzzy about stuff like time.”

  “Mom had Thomas with her?”

  She nodded. “A freighter was no place for children. The bastards killed more than a few kids when they took our ship. Before I left, I promised to kill every one of them.”

  “They still let you go?”

  “Well, they laughed at me first, but yes. You have to remember, I was just a commercial deck officer at the time.” Her eyes grew cold. “It would be another ten years before I’d win command of a privateer and come after them.”

  Her face softened as she looked back at her kids. “You know why the Grays find us so unsettling?”

  “Aside from the fact that we have an empire that they feel should be theirs?” he asked archly.

  “Immortality,” she replied, answering her own question, “which we also have, after a fashion.” She nodded toward Saoirse and Thomas. “We pass much of our personality and traits on to our children. The neural patterns that make us who we are are carried forward through constant close contact with our kids. In a way, we’re never really gone after we die.

  “But we also accept death in a way they can’t. For us, the end of consciousness is inevitable but, for them, it’s a tragedy.”

  “You’d think they’d grow tired of it all after a few thousand years.” Paul shook his head in wonder. “Moving from body to body, duty without end…”