He gently stroked her cheek, her neck, and began to trace her neckline lightly with his fingers. An involuntary inhale on her part sent him a message. What exactly that message was, she wasn’t sure herself, but before she could think he retreated and regarded her with a quiet gaze. She bit her bottom lip as she stared back at him, not wanting to leave the moment they were sharing behind, but very uncertain about going forward.
“It’s too soon,” he concluded without a hint of disappointment.
She caught him as he started pulling away from her and everything stopped. Ayan didn’t know how to say what was on her mind, articulating the problem without being embarrassed seemed impossible. With a sudden surge of courage she burst; “Everything is new again,” and was immediately mortified. She blushed so hard she was sure her hair was turning back to its old shade of red.
Jake held her silently for a moment before she felt him laugh more than she heard.
“Oi! Not funny!” she squeaked, pinching his arm.
Jake looked into her eyes, and in a gesture completely unfamiliar to her, he tipped her chin up with his finger and whispered; “There are no expectations here, only time.”
“What about people decorating your footlocker with frilly underwear if they find out we’re not there yet?”
“I’ll just pass them on to you.”
“Clever.” She said, kissing him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him on top of her. A nervous giggle escaped her lips as he murmured his surprise. “Promise to wash them first,” she chuckled.
“Only of you model-“
“Ayan, a visitor from Drifton has come asking for you,” Lewis announced from her comm unit.
Jake pushed up and looked at her. “And I thought you were the one who would be getting some rest tonight.”
“I was hoping, though with the connections we tapped today, I should have known someone would come calling,” she sighed. “Who is it Lewis?”
“An Axiologist who claims to be of the Samaritan path, whatever that means.”
Ayan was surprised, inexplicably embarrassed and immediately eager to meet the rare earth trained religious man. She'd only met two before. The first was one of her guest teachers as a young woman in school, before she entered the Junior Academy. The second was aboard the Triton, Chief Grady. “He's a Catholic?”
Seeing her excitement, Jake smiled and rolled off the centre seat.
“I don't have much information on Axiologists, but considering the story of the Samaritan originates from the ancient Catholic bible, then I would assume-”
“It was more of a statement.”
“You know, I could meet him so you could get some sleep,” Jake said, watching her pull a thin hooded over shirt from her carrying bag.
She caught sight of his smirk as her head emerged from the smooth garment. “No, that's-” She stopped and shook her head. “Teasing me. You'll pay for that later. How do I look?”
“Too good to go out there,” Jake said with a wolfish smile.
“Flatterer, won't make up for teasing,” Ayan replied, straightening the neck of the blue over shirt. It wasn't what she'd prefer to wear while meeting someone of importance, someone educated and trained on Earth but it would have to do. The few articles she had brought with her from Freeground were still on the Triton, and with a fleeting thought she dismissed everything she owned as being too informal, or to practical to be fit. “It'll have to do,” she sighed.
Jake was already beside the door. “Well, when you get back from talking to our visitor, I'd like you to get some sleep here. I'm stimmed up, so I'll be helping with security, repairs and making sure everyone gets to where they're supposed to be.”
“Aye, Captain. How long is your dosage going to keep you up?”
“Another twenty two hours. Should be enough time to deal with most of the initial fallout I'm expecting when people find out I'm here.”
“That's a stretch. Are you sure it's a good idea?”
“That's more a question for you, since I'm going to leave you in command while I sleep it off for eight or ten hours, if I get the chance.”
Ayan had command training and experience, but she didn't feel ready to be in charge. At least not while everything was so tentative and disorganized. “Can you make sure a few of the Samson crew are ready at the same time I am? Especially Stephanie, I’d like to at least try to start building a bridge. Might be too soon, just yet, but I need her experience.”
“She's seen rough spots before, maybe more than I have. Still, I wouldn't have signed the Clever Dream to you, or sent you to Greydock unless I thought you were up to it. I think we'll do fine here for as long as we have to make it home port.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” she chuckled ruefully.
“You'll see, we'll be fine. Once the smoke clears we'll have enough people left to turn our luck around.”
“It almost sounds like you've given this speech before,” Ayan said with an exaggerated suspicious squint.
“Probably. I have a bit of practice at getting back up and dusting myself off, a lot of our people do.”
Of all the things he’d told her; that bolstered her confidence the most.
Chapter 35
Invaders
Frost’s stump tingled again. It happened every few hours, after his shin started itching, then burning and then his vacsuit would administer pain medication and nanobots would repair the worn, irritated skin as soon as it broke and began to bleed. He almost wished he hadn’t checked his prosthetic during their last break. It might have been better if he wasn’t aware of the crack filled with blood and pus. When it cracked, he couldn’t have guessed, but it had been bothering him since they were first knocked clear of their wormhole.
The inside of his vacsuit stunk with the smell, and he quietly regretted turning down the replacement limb that had been grown in the medical bay. The thought of a nafalli in charge of the attachment surgery didn’t appeal to him in the least, but the stench of a wound that opened over and over again, combined with the irritation of walking for so many hours he’d lost count made having one of the hairy non-humans affixing the limb more appealing.
The Sol Defence Encounter Suit was the perfect infantry command platform. Even the intelligence expert, Jason Everin, who had become his partner in the boarding operation, used one whenever he could. It limited them both, however. The height of the suits restricted them to large storage areas and main hallways. If he didn’t have competent, well armoured teams backing them up, they would have had to leave them behind.
The gunnery deck crew along with a few security personnel made for one mean unit of one hundred twenty six men and women. They wore the heaviest vacsuits, and a third were in the smaller loader suits. They’d outfitted most of them with weaponry at the last minute, and it didn’t take them long to refine their jury-rigged solutions.
Jason Everin was a genious. Frost had worked with several infantry commanders, and considered himself fortunate to know Jacob Valance, but this man was a different breed. On the bridge the man seemed easy going and competent. Nothing seemed like much of a challenge while he was running communications and helping with security. Since the counter boarding action began Frost had formed a different impression. Jason Everin was colder than anyone he’d ever met. The crew of Enforcer 1109, the destroyer attached to the ship, was the enemy. There was no compromise whatsoever. He also improvised at a moment’s notice. Pride seemed to have no place in his thinking process, and recognizing that a plan had to change because an assumption or idea was wrong happened as though by reflex.
Frost watched as Jason and a quarter of their forces moved around one of the shorter hallways towards the main crew habitation area. It was a fitful firefight, with enemy crew members backtracking towards the largest berth on the ship. At its centre was a galley, several offices, showers, and the convenience store. “Second team, move up. Put down barriers for cover,” Frost commanded as the second quarter of their people moved i
n from the other direction. “Make sure they don’t split into another section of the ship.” He would never admit that he could feel a cold sweat on his palms as he watched the plan come into place.
The remainder of their forces surrounded his encounter suit. There was another such suit beside him, fourteen battered loader suits, and a few dozen Triton crew in armoured vacsuits. “How goes the rush, Jason?” Frost asked.
“They’re falling back, and the rearmost are starting to run into team two. Looks like they’re going to have no choice but to retreat into the main habitation area,” replied Jason over the sounds of pulse and particle rifles firing all around him.
With a glance at the retinal tactical display projected at Frost’s eye, he could see Jason was getting close to the front of his team. Crewcast reported that he had depleted more than eight percent of his sidearm’s ammunition in the past six minutes. “Stay out of it lad, you’ve got fire teams with you so you can use that big brain o’ yours instead of getting it blown away.”
“Right,” Jason Everin replied flatly.
There was no arguing. He simply stopped firing and fell back to the middle of his team. It was the right thing to do, but Frost wasn’t used to working with someone who gave in to reason so quickly. His people followed orders quickly, but Frost was used to hearing some kind of counter argument when he gave advice to an equal or higher ranked officer.
The second team finished moving into place perfectly, and when the enemy crew tried to retreat around the corner behind them, they were greeted with a hail of gunfire. They were sandwiched between the Triton forces, and even though they had more numbers, they were hoplessly outflanked. In under a minute they retreated into the only door available to them; the central living quarters.
“That’s it, they’re contained. Your turn, Frost.”
All the other exits had been welded shut with an extra layer of plating affixed atop the door. “You said it, they’re contained. No need to follow through,” Frost said as he glanced at the locked panel in the wall beside him.
“We don’t know what kind of tools they have inside, and there are four to seven hundred people in there. This is going to be a problem moving forward.”
Frost watched as Jason took his team further up the hall to one of the main data access lines. “I still think we’ll do better using this as leverage. We go through with it now and we’re shooting any trust we can build with the Command Crew out the airlock.”
“We’re not in a situation where we have time to build trust with anyone, especially their Command Crew. If they have any intelligence training at all, and evidence says they do, then they’re not going to bargain with us.”
“This doesn’t sit right with me lad.”
“Frost! I’m not going to argue with you. I can’t move ahead without your back up and we can’t afford to get taken from behind when those people break through the doors. Either cut into that environmental panel or I’ll go back there and do it myself! It’ll delay my hack into the trunk line, and you know we can’t afford the time.”
“Aye. You’re right, guess I best get used to it,” Frost acquiesced. He turned and took two steps towards the heavy dividing wall. The three and a half meter tall encounter suit followed his every movement perfectly, even his limp. The enhanced plasma torch mounted at the end of the suit’s index finger cut through the ten cenimetre structural wall like it was made of tissue paper and he pulled the block of metal out with the other hand. After placing it against the wall he examined the wiring that was hidden behind. “I’m through.”
“Were the schematics right?”
One of the gun deck team stepped forward and wrapped a band around the bundle of wires, then opened a panel on the side of Frost’s encounter suit so he could connect the other end with the data jack there. “One minute,” Frost said as he watched his on board computer interpret the raw data coming from the lines. With dread he saw all the raw environment system connections, and after a few seconds the encounter suit computer devised a control screen that encompassed all the options available. “Aye. Interior pressure, temperature, it’s all here.”
“Good. Do it, Frost.”
He tried not to think about what it would be like in a bunk, the commissary, latrines or mess hall when he did what he had to do. He’d seen it first hand when he stripped Burke of his vacsuit and reduced the temperature in an unused crew compartment. The man had taken every credit he had, marooned him on an unfriendly world, and deserved the serious frostbite he suffered. These crewmen were only defending their ship, and had been beaten back so efficiently that they had no choice but to take refuge in what they probably felt was the safest part of the ship. Most of them weren’t even soldiers.
“Frost!”
“Aye, taking care of it now,” he said as he directed the temperature down past critical limits. Next he reduced the pressure until it passed well into the negative range and finally he ordered the biohazard seals in place for the entire section. The audio pickups on the outside of his encounter suit transmitted the screaming through the comparatively thin wall behind the wiring and Frost closed his eyes. “It’s done. Anyone without an atmosphere suit or emergency compartment should die in a minute. Emergency biohazard measures sealed them in.”
“Considering how few of the regular crew wear environment suits or liners there won’t be many left. What does the system say about containment breaches?”
“The pressure drop that’ll happen when someone busts out will force the nearest emergency door to close. They’ll have to bust through one compartment after another.”
“Good, nothing to worry about behind us then.”
Frost turned away from the makeshift access panel and ordered his people forward. He was keenly aware of the absence of sound coming from the next room.
It took them minutes to catch up to Jason and the rest of the invasion force. Jason was back in his encounter suit, and the third surviving suit stood beside him in front of a thick bulkhead door. “They know we’re comin’,” Frost stated.
“Open fire whenever you like, Gunnery Chief,” Jason said as Triton crew members rushed around in front of the heavily armoured encounter suits, placing directional charges two metres away from the bulkhead door.
“Aye, time to pick a fight,” he growled as he fired all the available weapons on the suit. The armoured door in front of them immediately began to degrade as a hail of particle weapons fire assaulted the metal. Triton soldiers took cover behind portable energy shields set several meters behind the suits. After a few seconds the air around them read over two hundred degrees, not enough to stress anyone’s vacsuit. Frost couldn’t help but smile a little as he heard the encounter suit’s environmental systems kick in. “At least it’s a dry heat.”
Several chuckles came in reply to his wise crack. The door surface had turned white right to the endges and Jason asked; “Think we’re ready?”
“Just a little more. It’s still loosening up on the other side.”
The sounds of warping deck plates and creaking metal added to the relentless auditory pounding of their suit’s weaponry until Frost finally saw the temperature he wanted at the door surface and he stopped. The other two encounter suits stopped as well. “Check energy shields,” Frost ordered. With a glance he could see all three suits were at over ninety percent. It was still best for each pilot to report in regardless.
“Ninety one percent, good,” Jason said.
“Ninety three point five,” reported the third pilot, Mark Hunsler.
“Blow it!” The directional charges exploded, sending most of the white hot bulkhead door down the hallway ahead of them in thousands of white hot chunks. “Cover fire!” Frost shouted, relishing the feeling of engaging in a straight firefight instead of resorting to hacks and work arounds. While soldiers fired between the encounter suits, Frost, Jason and Mark led the way, marching forward with most of their generated power ready to recharge their energy shields. They were taking a fortified positio
n that the enemy had hours to prepare.
As they expected, there were explosive charges in the walls ahead, and the hail of weapons fire didn’t disable all of them. All the suits were rocked hard as the main hallway erupted. Jason’s suit reported a full depth pressure break, indicating that his suit couldn’t seal properly. “Fall back, lad! You won’t survive another blast.”
“There’s no way they’ll risk the structural integrity of the ship with another blast.”
“Fall back you git! I’m not going to tell your wife you got slagged because you were too stubborn to fall back.”
Jason didn’t argue, he simply took several steps back and turned his suit away from the advancing group.
Frost watched his shields charge back up from twenty percent and wished his tactical scanners would calibrate faster. The burst of hot metal and following explosions had blinded everyone. Particle scoops mounted on the shoulders of the encounter suits kicked in, dragging all the smoke filled air into the compression systems so they could be dumped into the dematerialization systems and converted into energy or redirected towards the nanobot resivour to be used to repair the suit’s ablative armour layer. The air cleared and the wreck of the hall ahead became visible. “These grunts are smarter than I thought. We’ve got six metres of no man’s land.” Frost griped. The deck plating was so badly damaged that even his command and control unit chirped with an environmental warning and painted it red on his head’s up display.
“Yup. We’re going to have to be careful. No loader or encounter suits either,” Jason said.
Fragments sf-6 Page 33
