“So…” Vampire pulled a couple of coffee bags out of an overhead bin and handed one to his tech. “… What will our Gray commander decide to do, knowing he has an Imperial Navy scout watching him?”
“Smart money’d be on scampering.”
“Smart money rarely follows the Grays,” Vampire advised, “because their thought processes are too different from ours. They say learning the language helps to understand their mindset.”
“Tried that at the sensor school,” the tech admitted. “Wanted to go into intercept analysis but the language just sounds like constant moaning. Damn classroom sounded like a brothel.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Not for eight hours a day, it wasn’t. Anyway, I didn’t have the ear for it so now I’m stuck working for your sorry ass…, sir.”
“Well, the job does have its perks.” Vampire waved a hand at the holo. “Front row seats to the fight.”
“You really think we’ll commit?”
“I’d put a year’s pay on it, if we were still working for the Navy and not running our own little sideshow. The General’s had our data long enough to make a decision. You know she doesn’t waste any time making up her mind.” He nodded at the comm-log window in the holo.
“No new messages recalling us, which means the fleet is gonna be coming through the wormhole any time now.”
As if to prove that Vampire had access to inside information, six icons sprang into life, just on their side of the wormhole.
“Wei! You were right, oh Wise One! They’re jumping in!”
The icons disappeared as the six ships slid the Universe past their positions, reappearing to the side of the Gray ships but far enough off axis to prevent destroying them with the drop-wash.
Now the game would escalate another notch.
Unconventional
Julia stood outside the pick-up range for the ship-to-ship holo system, face-to-face with Windemere but at three meters’ distance. Letting Windemere do a bit of play-acting was one thing, but this was going to be a much hairier engagement and she wasn’t about to take any chances on a relatively untried officer. Windemere’s combat experience was entirely as a junior officer.
He was still useful as the face of the operation and so she kept him in the middle of the pick-up circle. It wouldn’t do for the Grays to learn of her involvement, at this time. They considered her to be a renegade from CentCom. Her presence would blow the impression they were working so hard to create.
She checked the deployment. As already planned, the carrier approached from behind the three heavy gunboats and the two frigates. “Tactical, sitrep,” she demanded.
“Aye, ma’am,” the tactical officer replied, still looking at his reports. “Showing no capacitor buildup consistent with prepping their main guns. The shuttle activity has come to a full stop. There’s bound to be Humans on the return legs but we can’t see inside the hulls. One comms burst, but it’s on the new encryption key, so we can’t crack it.”
“How much you want to bet it said ‘everybody stop what you’re doing while we sort this out’?” Windemere ventured.
“Remind me never to play cards against you.” Julia nodded his way. “Rattle their cage, Vance. This time, we’re taking the initiative and we’ll shove it right up their pellet-holes.”
A Gray shimmered into holographic view in front of Windemere.
“We’ve picked up a distress call,” Windemere spoke over the Gray’s beginning remarks. “We’re here to render assistance to Humans in distress.”
“We will gladly deliver them to your vessels,” the Gray droned, “but it will take some time to complete the transfer. Our shuttles are insufficient to move large numbers with any real haste.”
Julia’s lips drew back at the corners. There was a very good reason that the phrase ‘let’s go to that Gray improv theater’ had never been uttered anywhere in the Universe. This one was playing for time because he’d been caught with gods know how many Humans already in stasis – something he’d be hard-pressed to explain.
The Grays were certainly able to move large numbers with haste. They’d been doing just that when the Human force had surprised them.
She gave Windemere a nod.
“No need for the wait,” Windemere told the Gray. “As you can see, we’ve brought our own aviation assets. Stand by to receive our shuttles.”
Julia used her menu to cut the channel. She selected a fleet-wide channel, nodding at Windemere again. “All vessels, this is General Windemere. Execute Romeo Seven Two.”
***
Twelve heavy combat shuttles left the main hangar door in three waves. They split up, one each heading for a frigate while two angled toward each of the cruisers. The remaining three moved toward the vessel the Humans had been stranded on.
The Iron Hands came next. The brutally ugly Navy fighters bristled with weapons and three squadrons of them began moving around the Gray ships. The threat was implicitly obvious, for the most part, but there was an element to their menace that the Grays were unlikely to notice in time.
The INV Dark Star was a Navy carrier, so she didn’t carry a heavy ground attack force like her Marine counterparts, but she did have a sizeable Marine contingent aboard to handle shipboard security as well as assisting in boarding operations. At just over one hundred twenty enlisted men and six officers, the Marine complement was more than sufficient for their current mission.
As the shuttles reached the halfway point to the enemy ships, the pattern flown by the Iron Hands gradually coalesced. Each Gray vessel had an IH fighter pass beneath their ventral Engineering trunk at roughly the same moment, slowing for a brief moment.
A fire-team of Marines detached from among the clutter of sensors and antimatter auto-cannons of each IH and drifted toward the escape trunks on the Gray ships. They used thrusters to align themselves and to slow their final approaches, landing softly on the enemy hulls so as not to alarm the crews inside.
At a coordinating signal from the Dark Star, the fire-teams, arranged around the Engineering escape trunks, initiated the boarding process, opening the hatches and forcing their way in past the rush of escaping air. Ignoring the dying Gray engineers, the Marines moved to secure and deactivate the self-destruct devices on every ship.
By the time the combat shuttles had reached their assigned Gray ships, the Marines of the first phase had removed the nukes from their cradles and had secured the Engineering spaces.
It was more than likely, once the Grays shook off the surprise of being caught in the act, that they would give serious consideration to blowing their ships. Once the first combat shuttles landed in their bays, that likelihood would only have increased. Deactivating the self-destructs would open up tactical options and taking them away afterward would only deepen the enemy’s sense of humiliation.
***
“Tactical, any sign of a change in their combat stance?” Julia’s face was aimed toward the Captain’s holo, but from the other side, seeing as Vance was standing in the command circle. Her own internal CPU was linked to the ship and three small holo-projectors near her left eye gave her a HUD that moved with her.
It was still difficult to monitor everything, though.
“No change, ma’am.”
“Keep a sharp eye,” she ordered. “If they’re going to think about fighting, it will be in the next few micros.”
***
The first combat shuttles thumped down onto the Gray deck plating, causing some sections to buckle slightly under the heavy Human-built craft. The back ramps were already half way down and smaller doors snapped open on each side, disgorging armored Marines.
They fanned out from the shuttles, weapons at the ready, pushing the Grays back. One of the Humans, a Marine captain, stepped away from the perimeter, approaching a long row of capsules floating on suspensor fields. He retracted his helmet and leaned over to gaze through the inspection window of a capsule.
His face grim, he opened an unsecured channel, one t
hat the Grays, as well as the Humans, would hear. “Command, this is Foxtrot Two Six Six. The Grays have our people in stasis pods. This is an abduction. I say again, this is an abduction. Request command concurrence that the conditions of the Rim Armistice have been breached, over.”
The Rim Armistice, which had ended hostilities between the Gray Quorum and the Imperium more than five centuries earlier, spelled out clear consequences in the event of any attack by one party on the other.
It had been ignored by CentCom after the failed Gray attack on Irricana, but that didn’t mean it had no teeth.
“Foxtrot Two Six Six, this is Command,” Windemere’s voice responded. “Video feed from your call sign viewed and verified. Command concurs. Armistice breached. All call signs foxtrot, seize all Gray vessels and conduct inspections. Command out.”
***
“Forward!” The Marine captain shouted. “Alpha, link up with the team in Engineering and then clear the lower decks. Bravo, take the middle. Charlie and delta, with me.
The gloves were coming off.
Any Gray foolish enough to stand in their way was hammered aside with a rifle butt or a simple swat of an armored hand. The captain led his team to the forward riser and two of his men leaned in the shaft, aiming their weapons up to cover the route. He hopped into the zero-gravity column, his momentum carrying him up toward the bridge deck. The rest of his team followed as he reached back to push off the rear wall, falling out into the transverse hallway behind the bridge with a heavy clang of armored feet.
He moved immediately toward the bridge, his men hammering onto the decking behind him. Just as he reached the bridge hatch, the Gray captain must have come to his senses because it slammed shut, leaving one enemy crewman outside.
The Marine captain grabbed the Gray by the arm and tossed him away from the hatch. One of his two fire team leaders stepped up to the door, pulling a half-kilo charge of C32 from a small heated chamber on his torso. He pulled at the elastic mix, creating a long ribbon of explosives that he used to frame a rough door to the right of the sealed hatch. He stepped back a few paces and looked to his officer.
The Marine captain sealed his helmet. “Blow it.”
The blast, though heard, was barely felt inside the heavy armor. The two fire teams rushed into the bridge, shouting and pulling crewmen away from terminals. The officer entered and approached the Gray captain, who appeared slightly disoriented from the blast.
The alien didn’t seem to miss a beat, despite the shock of the breaching charge. “You have no right to board our vessels. We are in the territory of the Gray Quorum.”
The Marine officer retracted his helmet. “You were found to be in possession of Human prisoners, taken from a Human vessel broadcasting an Interplanetary Standard distress call.”
“Prisoners?” the Gray droned. “You are mistaken, we…”
“They were in stasis,” the Marine cut in, looking down at the Gray, “and those who weren’t yet incapacitated on your other ships are reporting that they were removed from their ship against their will. It seems they were given to believe that their vessel would be destroyed and them along with it, if they failed to surrender.”
“They were intruders in Gray space…”
“The Rim Convention only mentions attacks. It lists no provisions regarding the location of those attacks,” the Marine interrupted again and with more force in his voice. “Your ships are in violation and we intend to adhere to the letter of the law. Any ships found to be involved in attacks on Humans will be seized in reparation.”
The Gray’s skin grew very light. “Himchellan, quoranta est,” he declared.
The Marine officer stared at him calmly. He was no linguist, but he knew the Gray command for self-destruct and he knew the inclusion of quoranta was intended to activate the self-destruct on his entire flotilla. “You just about done?”
The alien’s skin regained some of its color now that it was obvious that the ship wasn’t going to blow. “There will be repercussions for this act of piracy.”
The Marine leaned in. “So, you claim to being engaged in an act of piracy? I’m not sure I buy that. I think you’re just trying to shield the Quorum from the fallout.” There were distinct advantages in forcing an adversary to use your language.
“That was not my intended meaning…”
“Your final disposition will be determined by our commanding officer.” The Marine turned to his men. “Corporal Ward, take your team and help get the Human prisoners rounded up and identified. Check ‘em off the manifest we got from their ship. Sooner we get ‘em all accounted for, the sooner we can get off this bucket and finish our dinner.”
He put a hand to his ear. “Roger that, if he’s only been in stasis a few minutes… Exactly. Bring him up here so we can involve him in the process.”
He turned to the Gray captain and shoved him into one of the holo-pickup circles. “Wait there.”
***
Windemere looked at the three individuals shimmering before him. Urbica stood behind the image of the Marine officer, a large holo display projected from the left side of her face.
He turned to the middle holographic image. “Captain Chase,” he nodded politely, “we’re very glad to have been of assistance, but I’m afraid we don’t have the necessary parts to repair your vessel. Were you carrying much in the way of valuable cargo when you were attacked?”
The civilian captain shook his head. “Just wheat, but the consignee had insurance. We were dead-heading back to the Masran system with a few hundred religious pilgrims to help pay for the repairs that, obviously, I’d put off for a little too long...”
“What’s your capacity?”
“Ten thousand cubic meters,” the captain replied. “I know it isn’t much, but she’s our livelihood. We’ve got every cent sunk into her.”
“Sorry, Captain, but she’s a dead stick,” Windemere insisted. “Under the provisions of the Rim Accords, a plaintiff is entitled to lay claim on seized goods in replacement of lost property. I’m thinking one of those frigates would suffice.”
“Wait,” Chase looked to the side, spoke to someone and then looked back. “General, are you suggesting that I take one of the frigates that attacked us?”
“They displace eighty thousand cube and already have about six thousand storage,” Windemere said. “If you pull a couple of those main guns, you’d double your existing capacity easily.”
“The remaining guns would give you the ability to protect your passengers and cargo as well,” the holographic Marine captain added.
“Pardon my mistrust, gentlemen, but my better nature has already taken quite a beating today,” Chase said, looking from the Marine to Windemere. “What’s the catch?”
“The catch,” Windemere said, looking back at the holographic list Julia was projecting, “is that I can’t leave you on a dead ship and I just don’t have room to take you all aboard my own fleet. Space is always at a premium on a warship.
“The Accord gives us a perfectly reasonable solution,” he continued, “and those Gray guns are modular. My boys could have those out for you in a few centis. We can float them over to the Dark Star and grav ‘m down in a corner of the flight deck. I’m sure we can find a use for them.”
Chase frowned down at the floor, perhaps trying to figure the value of the guns against the cost of having a dockyard remove them. In the end, having the ability to take on more cargo on his next stop must have won out. “That sounds acceptable, General, and thank-you!”
“You can’t give one of our ships away,” the Gray insisted.
Julia’s holographic teleprompter simply said; You’ve got this. Have fun with him.
Windemere smiled at the Gray in front of him. “Oh, certainly not, but your ships are now mine. Now, don’t be a sore loser, Captain. You’ve been caught with your head up your pellet-hole and it’s time to pay the price for that.”
“And how do you propose I get our crews home?”
“I’m no
t in the business of offering travel options,” Windemere corrected. “I’m far too busy serving His Imperial Majesty to be running a gods-damned rickshaw service for disgraced pirates.”
“You accuse us of piracy and yet you plan to murder my crews?”
Windemere rolled his eyes. “Gods! It’s a wonder you have no entertainment industry, what with all the drama every time I run into your kind.” He affected a thoughtful expression for a moment.
“Here’s what we can do,” he said suddenly. “We’ll leave you one ship so you won’t die waiting for rescue.”
Having expected death from exposure to space, the Gray seemed willing enough. “Very well. As we have no choice, we’ll remain aboard my flagship.”
Windemere chuckled. “You’ll do nothing of the sort, Sonny-Jim! I’ll issue orders for you to be transferred to the freighter you were caught raiding.” He turned to the Marine captain. “As you remove Humans from the stasis pods, start putting the Gray crewmen into them.”
He looked back at the now dark-gray captain. “Propulsion is out and life-support’s on its last legs,” he explained. “Wouldn’t want you to die before your people find you, now, would we?”
***
The Marine officer grabbed the Gray captain as soon as the holographic projection of Windemere disappeared. “Let’s get you down to the hangar bay. O’Neil, bring the rest of the bridge crew down with you. I want them asleep first. Who knows what mischief a bridge officer can cook up if left too near their stations?”
Though the rest of the bridge crew were being herded along on foot, the Marine officer chose to throw the captain over his shoulder like a sack of coffee, just to grind in the humiliation a little more.
He slid down the riser and bounded heavily out onto the hangar deck, the Gray on his shoulder smacking his head on the armor with every step. He stepped over to one of the pods and dropped the captain in next to one of his crewmen. “These should be big enough to take two Grays each,” he declared over the battle net.
The Gray Matter (Rebels and Patriots Book 3) Page 20
