by J. L. Doty
“Did I miss anyone?”
“No, sir.”
They’d converted the ground floor of the saloon into an armed camp, with heavily armed guards posted at all exits. Most of the guards were toting rifles, and two were actually carrying rotaries. York nodded toward the guards. “Where’d we get the firepower?”
Palevi smiled. “Salley’s ex-marine, keeps some stock on hand for emergencies.”
York didn’t comment on the legality of a civilian possessing such weaponry.
Most of the marines didn’t look to be in any better shape than York. Simorka looked absolutely green. Elkiss was still drunk, or drugged, or both, and none of Kalee’s instant remedies worked. York took her off the active list.
People and surface vehicles completely jammed the streets outside. Commandeering transportation would have been useless, so York decided to lead a squad of thirty on foot to the navy yard. He needed to get the two pilots, Hackla and Blake, to the shuttles so they could ferry marines to the embassy. The Drop Zone was nicely secure, and with a little over a kilometer of panicked civilians between there and the yard York decided to take Palevi, Notay, Hyer, and one of the rotaries as insurance. Nominally, Simorka would stay behind in charge of the saloon, but just before leaving York pulled the young lieutenant aside unceremoniously. “Between you and me,” he told her, “you’re in charge as long as you listen to Yagell and the other NCOs. You understand?”
Fear showed plainly in her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Just hold the place secure until we get back with the shuttles.”
York marched to the main entrance of the saloon where Palevi had his squad lined up to one side of the door. He took his customary place in the front of the line. He looked at Palevi. “We all set?”
Palevi had on his grin. “As set as we’ll ever be.”
York switched his implants to the open marine frequency. He looked at the four marines guarding the entrance, nodded. They swung the doors open to reveal a sidewalk filled with confusion. York stepped through the doors, moved to one side and pressed his back to the outside wall of the saloon. Palevi was right behind him, took a position on the other side of the door. Ten marines followed on his heels and formed a tight semicircular perimeter the width of the sidewalk.
A half-dozen civilians, in the midst of a free-for-all, paused and suddenly took notice of them, and for a moment several of them seemed ready to turn their panic on the small group of marines. But the uniforms, the discipline, the weaponry—the rotary out in front—any thought of attack disappeared quickly.
York barked into his implants, “Squad two, go,” and again ten marines filed out of the saloon, but they moved to York’s right, expanding the perimeter up the sidewalk. York followed them, at the same time calling out, “Squad three—go.”
It went rather smoothly, leapfrogging by squad down the crowded streets to the navy yard, diligently maintaining their perimeter. On their way they picked up a number of Invaradin and Nostran crewmembers who’d been trying to make their way to the navy yard in small groups, and only once did they have any trouble with civilians: a large mob that outnumbered them so heavily it was not intimidated by uniforms or discipline. York had the rotary lay down a volley at their feet, and that discouraged them quickly. In all, it took them just over a half hour to get to the yard.
The yard was actually just a small shuttle port, with a junior officer in charge of a meager maintenance crew and a few marines for security. York and his marines swept past the gate and took charge of the place quickly. The two pilots went immediately to check out the shuttles while the rest of the marines found a small arms locker and started stripping it quickly of its contents. York spotted the young officer in charge of the yard having a difficult time trying to push his way through the marines. When he saw York he started waving frantically, shouted above the confusion, “Sir, Commodore Berkma wants to speak to you immediately.” He waved a small handset above his head.
York sliced his way through the crowd of marines, took the small handset and put it to his ear. “Ballin here,” he said.
“Ballin!” Berkma shouted. She was as close to panic as any civilian, and that confirmed what York suspected about her combat experience. “Where the hell have you been, Ballin? Why haven’t I been able to contact you?”
“Sorry, commodore. Without a combat harness I had to lock my implants to the marine frequency while we made our way to the yard.”
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She calmed down a bit. “Where are you? We need your help. There’s a riot going on here.”
“I’m at the yard with thirty marines. I’ve got two hundred and forty-two actives, most holed up in a saloon about a kilometer from here. We’ve got two shuttles we’ll use to ferry them over to you. Should have the first batch to you in less than half an hour.”
Berkma’s voice filled with relief. “Excellent, Lieutenant. Excellent!”
“Ma’am?” York asked carefully. “May I ask what the situation is?”
“So far we’ve had four feddie warships down-transit just beyond heliopause. But we’ve picked up transition wakes for another two out beyond that. It doesn’t look good.”
The gravitational well of a stellar mass made it difficult to maintain an accurate transition vector, so the feddie ships had down-transited just beyond heliopause to compute a course correction. They’d try to transit in as accurately as possible from there.
Telyekev was standing-to just beyond Dumark’s nearspace, waiting for them to make that second short jump. The gravitational well of the planet would compound their inaccuracies, allowing him to ignore those with badly perturbed vectors. He’d target on the transition wakes of the rest while they were blind and nearly helpless in transition.
“Captain Telyekev said you were setting up an evacuation plan?”
Berkma’s voice rose slightly, edging toward panic. “We’re trying to reach Cinesstar. She’s been parked in a synchronous orbit for the past two months going through systems checkout after complete overhaul at the station. Limited crew plus maintenance personnel, evidently with no one manning the com because we can’t get a response. Any way you can get up there?”
“There’s a courier ship here,” York said, trying to formulate a plan as he spoke. “Should be able to get a few of us up there.”
“You have my authorization to use any means you choose.” Berkma switched off.
York keyed his implants. “Palevi. Notay. See if you can find any vac suits around here, then meet me at that courier.”
They came up with seven standard issue vac suits, no plast or armor. The courier had seats for a pilot and four passengers, cramped, no air lock. York put Palevi in charge of the marines going to the embassy, decided to take Notay and five of her people with him. Kalee gave them all a good strong dose of higee, and backed it up with nerve jackers.
They stuffed anything they could find as padding around the two marines that didn’t have seats. York climbed into the pilot’s couch, started throwing switches, felt the hum of the drive as it warmed up. He rested his hands on the controls, hesitated for a moment, realized he was just simply enjoying this. He had screens in front of him, could see the feddies transiting in, could see the positions of those already under drive to engage Telyekev, and he enjoyed the danger, the adrenaline, the fear, the drugs, the overload. It was what he always wanted, needed, when he wasn’t there. It was all as it should be.
CHAPTER 11: DESPERATION
By the time York reached Cinesstar there were five feddie warships standing-to just beyond heliopause, and more on the way. They were still too far out to target accurately on the planet’s surface, but soon they’d make their second jump in-system and Telyekev would have his hands full.
York cut the courier’s drive about three thousand meters from Cinesstar, let the small ship drift toward the larger one while he shook off the numbing effects of higee. He threw a full visual
on one screen, picked the ship out as a large, bright glint resting among the background of stars, turned his attention back to the navigational display.
He opened a secure hailing channel, broadcast a clearance request and received a coded denial response from Cinesstar’s computer. He repeated the request as he nudged the courier into place about fifty meters from the ship, but apparently there was no one manning her com. He keyed the com in his vac suit. “Notay. We’re going to have to board her. Flush cabin pressure and get that hatch open while I get us in as close as I can.”
“Yes, sir.”
York glanced at the visual on his screen. Cinesstar was a heavy cruiser, even bigger than Invaradin, a blunted, spear-blade shape pocked with weapons turrets and gunnery pods.
Notay blew the courier’s cabin seals, and as York’s vac suit began to expand he nudged the courier sideways with her attitude jets, positioned her about twenty meters from Cinesstar’s aft personnel hatch.
“That’s perfect, Cap’em. Hold her right there.”
York locked the courier’s autopilot onto Cinesstar so it would hold the relative position of the two vessels. He cut the courier’s internal gravity, popped the release on his harness and floated free of the pilot’s couch. By the time he got to the hatch Notay and four of her marines had already jumped the gap between the two ships and opened Cinesstar’s hatch. The next marine made the jump while York test fired the small steam jet in each heel of his suit.
He’d positioned the courier with its hatch looking directly at Cinesstar’s personnel hatch. He triggered a quick, hard burst from his heel jets and the rim of the courier hatch fell away from him, suspending him in the vastness between the two ships.
At the halfway point he tucked his knees into his chest, rolled over backwards half a turn and pointed his heels at Cinesstar’s hatch, then fired his heel jets in a slow, gentle deceleration that brought him to a stop almost within the hatch. One of the two marines waiting there snagged him, pulled him into the airlock, closed the outer hatch and activated the pressurization cycle.
For a moment a blast of air buffeted him as the suit went limp. Then the inner hatch burst open and he and the two marines floated out into a maintenance bay. The fact that they were still floating free inside Cinesstar’s was not a good sign.
Notay and the other three marines had already stripped off their vac suits. York hooked his legs around the arm of a maintenance robot, got his helmet off, tossed it to one of the marines, pushed off toward the lift while trying to break the seals on his suit and barking orders over his shoulder. “Sergeant. Go below and check engineering, see if there’s anyone down there who can get this bucket fired up. I’m headed for the bridge. Stay in contact.”
The lift wasn’t programmed to respond to his vocal commands and he lost precious moments breaking the seals on his gauntlets before he could manually punch in his destination. When the lift doors popped open York pulled his way to the scan console and tried to fire it up: nothing. Without access codes he was locked out of the system. The com was at least open for general non-critical access, but the helm, damage control, fire control, and engineering consoles were all dead and locked up tight. Berkma had mentioned a limited crew. Where the hell were they?
He strapped down at the com, opened up an exterior channel, found that Telyekev had set up a command grid and was broadcasting a coded combat summary. He threw the summary up on a screen, flinched at what he saw—four more feddie warships had transited in at the edge of the system for a total of nine. One had tried to make a second jump to within targeting range of Dumark, had taken a direct hit in transition and was no longer a threat. Another four had moved more cautiously, transited in to a distance safely beyond Invaradin, Nostran, and Irriahm. The remaining four were scattered out at the edge of heliopause, probably setting up transitions at that moment to join their comrades. With those odds, the time Telyekev could buy them was minimal, but it might make the difference. It had to make the difference.
Telyekev’s command grid also showed sixteen more transition wakes out beyond the system, all at distances of less than a light-year and converging on them rapidly, though only three were close enough to arrive before it was all over.
Notay’s voice spoke from his implants, “Cap’em. We found a maintenance crew down here. Chief in charge, name of Cappik, wants to talk to you on ship’s com.”
York activated an interior com channel, and on one of his screens brought up the image of a middle-aged chief petty officer dressed in stained and smudged coveralls. Cappik spoke without waiting for York. “Your people tell me we’re under attack.”
York nodded. “That’s right. Not specifically this ship, but the whole system. Where’s Cinesstar’s crew.”
“Crew?” Cappik asked. “There’s no crew on this ship. We’re the only ones here, and we’re just running final systems checks before they install her access codes.”
“No access codes?”
Cappik shook his head. “Just certain open access points so we can do our job. We’ve . . .”
York stopped listening. No access codes! None! Without access codes the ship was completely locked up. There was nothing he could do but gather up his marines and get the hell out of there, make a run for it, try to get back to the embassy without being targeted by a feddie warhead. The courier had no shields, not against that kind of firepower, and as those feddies got closer even a small ship under drive was a wonderful target—
York’s thinking froze suddenly as Cappik’s words hit him: “. . . certain open access points . . .” The man was still talking; York interrupted him. “When did they program these open access points?”
The man paused, thought for a moment. “About two months ago, just before they pulled her out of the station yard and put her in orbit.”
That meant someone in the system had the ring-zero access code, and there was only one person the navy would trust with that. York looked carefully at Cappik. “If I get you access, how soon can you get me full combat status?”
“Combat status?” Cappik asked. “That’ll take hours. We’re on minimum idle, barely above complete shutdown. We’d likely—”
“We don’t have hours,” York growled. “I’ll get you access and I want full combat status five minutes later.”
Cappik frowned angrily, leaned toward the pickup. “Five minutes! You’ll have to override every safety interrupt in the ship’s systems. Do you realize the chances you’d be taking, the damage you could cause?”
A crewman questioning properly issued orders! Behind Cappik Notay stiffened, frowned, and something angry crawled up York’s throat. “Do you realize the damage a warhead would cause if we don’t have shields?”
Cappik shook his head. “This is all irrelevant. We’re noncombatants, station personnel. This is a combat situation and we don’t get involved in that.”
“Don’t get involved?” York asked.
“Exactly. We leave that to you people. My people and me are leaving, going back to the station.”
“Chief,” York asked carefully. “We need your help. We need this ship to evacuate the embassy, and without you we’ll be a cloud of radioactive gas long before we can protect ourselves.”
Cappik shrugged. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to handle this yourself.”
York nodded, and his voice came out low, calm, and hard. “Then I’m making it an order.”
Cappik stiffened. “You don’t give me orders.”
“The entire system is on full alert,” York said. “I’ve been properly placed in command of this ship, no matter how briefly, and you’re on this ship. Failure to obey my orders constitutes a capital offense.”
Cappik bared his teeth. “Don’t give me that space lawyer bullshit. My crew and I are leaving. Now.”
In the periphery of the screen York saw the man’s people milling about behind him. A few were angry, most were scared, their attention more on Notay standing directly behind their leader than on the man himself, or on the res
t of Notay’s marines who’d quietly edged back a few steps, were now behind everyone else, their hands resting carefully on the weapons at their sides.
“You’re refusing my order?” York asked.
Cappik growled, “Yer god damn right.”
“Ok,” York said. He looked at Notay. “Sergeant, take Chief Cappik out and shoot him, vent him to space, then put his assistant in charge. Now!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Notay said calmly, and before Cappik could react she grabbed him by the back of his collar with one hand, pressed the muzzle of her sidearm under his chin with the other, and yanked him out of the pickup’s range.
“Wait,” Cappik screamed angrily. “You can’t do this. You have no right.” His people stood frozen, terrified, and the tone of Cappik’s voice suddenly shifted. “This is insane. It’s an outrage.” York heard the sound of an opening hatch. “Wait! Wait! Stop. Stop. I’ll do it. I’ll do what you want.”
York shouted, “As you were, Sergeant.”
York heard the sound of scuffling off camera, then Cappik was thrown heavily against the pickup, blocking the view. He straightened slowly, stood upright, the collar of his coveralls torn half away, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, his lips and hands trembling. Notay stepped into the picture behind him, gun in hand. Behind them all the other marines had pulled their sidearms.
York looked at Notay. “Notay, you and your people stay down there, keep an eye on them. When I give an order, if one of them hesitates for so much as a second, shoot ‘em and replace ‘em with someone smarter.”
She smiled. “Yes, sir.”
He looked at Cappik. “I’m going to have access shortly, so get ready to give me full combat status five minutes later.”
He didn’t wait for an acknowledgment, switched off the circuit, put in a call to the embassy. A com technician answered and York didn’t have time to be polite. “Where’s Berkma?”
“The commodore’s in her office though—”
“Put me through to her, now.”
