by Ryk Brown
“And why, Jalea? Tell me, why would they want to help our cause?” Tug asked, pointing outside.
“They need that power source. Without it, it will take them months to get home instead of weeks. And their world is also in dire need of their jump drive. Helping us will help them.”
Tug stared at Jalea a moment. “You may be right. But still I cannot join you. I made a promise to Ranni and my children.”
“You made a promise to your people, as well.”
“Do not go there, Jalea. I fought as much as any man-more so! I was fighting when you were still in braided-tails and studying Angla with your father. I have shed as much blood as any man could and still live to tell. This last battle was nearly my undoing. My wounds are still not yet fully healed. If I was to leave yet again, I do not think I would have a home to return to should I survive.” Tug dropped to sit on the edge of one of the beds. “My days as a Karuzari are over, Jalea. It is time for another to pick up the flag in my place.”
Jalea moved to sit on the bed next to him. She picked up his hand and held it in her own. “I do not mean to cast disrespect on all that you have done for our people, you know that. No man has fought more bravely than you. You have been an inspiration to many for more than two decades. And you will not be soon forgotten.
Tobin nervously paced the hangar deck while Ensign Mendez and a few members of the Aurora’s crew finished unloading the molo from his ship. The ensign noticed Tobin’s anxiety and stopped to inquire. “Everything all right, Tobin?”
“Yes, yes, everything is fine. Why do you ask?”
“You seem a little anxious,” Mendez told him.
“I’m just in a hurry to retrieve your crew from the surface,” Tobin insisted.
“Yeah, you and the XO, both.” Tobin ignored the ensign’s words, returning to his ship, pretending to inspect one of his thrusters. Mendez watched Tobin as he returned to the ship to carry another load of molo.
A few minutes later, Tobin’s ship was unloaded. “That’s the last of it,” Mendez told Tobin.
“Excellent,” Tobin declared, as he strode back up the ramp to his ship.
“Do you need any fuel or anything?” Mendez asked.
“No thank you, ensign. I have quite enough,” he assured him as he headed for the cockpit.
Mendez headed down the ramp. No sooner had he stepped off the ramp than it began to fold back up into Tobin’s ship. A moment later, his ship began to back up slowly, pivoting to bring its nose facing aft before it began to roll forward toward the transfer airlocks. Ensign Mendez was forced to quicken his stride in order to get clear of Tobin’s ship. “Damn, that guy’s in a hurry,” Mendez exclaimed to the sergeant as he reached the edge of the bay.
Just offshore, a small, unmarked ship sped toward the coastline. Even though its body never touched the water, its turbulent wake of thrust still parted the waters below as it hurtled across the shoreline and continued inward. Within seconds it reached Haven City, decelerating quickly as it approached the space port. No one challenged its arrival, and no one questioned its purpose. All who noticed it also knew they were better served to look away.
The ship bypassed the usual approach paths, instead skimming over the rows of berths until it reached its destination. Upon reaching its target, it dropped quickly to the deck, its landing gear extruding to full deployment a fraction of a second before the ship touched down, her boarding ramp deploying before she had even landed.
The cargo shuttle from the Aurora’s harvesting crew had just finished off-loading the shipment when the strange ship swooped down and landed next to them in their berth. It had been quite unexpected, and the pilot of the cargo shuttle was more than irritated.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he hollered as he strode arrogantly toward the unmarked ship’s boarding ramp. This is a private-”
A blast from a well-aimed energy weapon ended both his sentence and his life as it struck him square in the chest, hurtling him backwards at least two meters. He landed in a smoking heap directly in front of the indentured workers he had been ordering about only a few seconds earlier. The workers stared in disbelief at the sizzling chest wound on the body of their pilot.
Their disbelief quickly turned to horror as a dozen assault troops clad in black and gray armor poured out of the unmarked ship, their silenced energy weapons firing in almost inaudible clicks as they quickly dispatched their targets with pinpoint accuracy. The attackers quickly fanned out to either side, their weapons quietly clicking as they fired, the grunts and muffled cries of their victims, each one’s life ending with the sound of their own sizzling wounds. Within seconds, the assault was over and the workers lay smoking on the tarmac in much the same condition as their pilot.
“Clear!” the lead soldier called out.
A moment later, their commanding officer stepped out of the ship, surveying the scene from the top of the boarding ramp. “Get rid of the bodies and clean this place up,” he ordered as he descended the ramp. Another dozen troops deployed from the ship behind him. He turned around to see that the rest of his men had disembarked, then signaled to the pilot he was clear to depart. The ships engines, which had not been shutdown, spun back up quickly and the ship lifted off once more, heading off deeper into the countryside.
“Halo flight taking up control station inland,” the pilot announced over the commander’s comm-set.
“Copy that, Halo flight. Team two will contact you when they are ready for extraction.” The commander strode into the middle of the berth, watching as his men dragged the bodies of the workers into the nearby buildings. “We’ve got ten minutes until the next ship arrives, so let’s get to it!”
A few minutes later, the squad leader approached his commander. “All bodies are secure, sir,” he reported as he snapped a salute.
“And your assault team?”
“Positioned undercover in the service building, sir.”
“Very well,” the commander said, turning to head toward the captured cargo shuttle. “Mount up!” he ordered. The two rows of eight fully armored troops ran up the rear loading ramp of the bulky old cargo shuttle that had belonged to the harvesting team.
The commander touched the comm-band around his neck and began to speak. “Halo flight, Team One.”
“Go for Halo flight.”
“Halo flight, Team One. You may start the music.”
“Copy Team One, starting the music.”
The commander took one last glance around the berth as he turned and headed up the loading ramp into the cargo shuttle. Moments later, the old shuttle’s engines spun up and it began to taxi out of the berth.
“Sir?” Ensign Yosef called. “Tobin’s shuttle is not headed for the same coordinates as before.”
Cameron was standing behind the helm station, and turned toward Kaylah. “Where’s he headed then?”
“I’m not sure-”
“XO, Hangar Bay,” Cameron’s comm-set interrupted.
“Go ahead, Hangar Bay,” Cameron answered over her comm.
“Mendez, sir. I’m not sure it means anything, but Tobin was acting a little odd.”
“What do you mean, odd?”
“Sir,” Ensign Yosef interrupted. “I think Tobin’s headed for the spaceport.”
“He seemed anxious, like he was in a hurry,” Mendez reported.
“Standby one,” Cameron said over the comms before turning back to Kaylah. “Are you sure?”
“Well, the entry trajectory does suggest the port as his destination. But there isn’t much difference between heading for Haven or heading to the countryside outside of Haven.”
“There is if you’re a pilot, Kaylah,” Cameron insisted. “Maybe he’s going for fuel first?”
“Commander,” Mendez interrupted, having overhead their conversation through Cameron’s open mic. “I offered him a chance to fuel up before he left. He told me he had plenty.”
“That is odd,” Cameron mumbled, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Keep a close track on him, Kaylah.”
“Aye, sir.”
“So the emitters are not multi-purpose after all?” Vladimir asked, seeming somewhat confused.
“No, they are not,” Deliza explained. “Each emitter node can only generate a specific type of field, without variance. It’s only variation is the intensity of the field.”
“And by mixing the intensities of different combinations of emitters, different types of fields can be created.”
“Correct.”
Vladimir scratched his head. This teenage girl had been lecturing to him for nearly an hour, and he felt no closer to understanding the fighter’s shield system than he did in the beginning.
Deliza rolled her eyes, obviously losing patience with him. “That is how the system can not only change the type of shield being generated but can also alter the configuration of only certain portions of the overall field.”
“You mean between ablative and reflective, of course.”
“Of course. If you wish to accelerate to superluminal velocities, then the entire field must be configured for mass reduction only. To introduce any of the other nodes would destabilize the mass reduction field.”
“Bozhe Moi,” Vladimir exclaimed. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen, why do you ask?”
“Do all sixteen-year olds know so much about field generation and superluminal mechanics?”
“I do not believe so,” she admitted, slightly embarrassed. “It is a hobby of mine.”
“A hobby? The only hobby a sixteen-year old girl should have is chasing sixteen-year old boys.
“I’m afraid I do not leave the farm very often,” she admitted.
“That explains it,” Vladimir mumbled.
“I’m sorry?” she said.
“Nothing. Now, tell me about the pulse cannons you spoke of earlier.”
“Tobin is definitely headed for the spaceport,” Ensign Yosef reported. “He’s decelerating and losing altitude. He’s preparing to land.”
“Damn it,” Cameron swore. “Comm, see if you can raise Tobin on the tight-beam.”
“Aye, sir,” the communications officer responded.
“What the hell is he doing?” Cameron muttered.
“Captain,” the comm officer reported. “I’m unable to establish contact with Tobin’s ship. In fact, I’m no longer picking up any transmissions from Haven, sir.”
“What? How can that be?”
“Either our receivers are down, or that entire moon has stopped transmitting.”
“Keep trying,” Cameron ordered. “And use the wide-band if you have to.”
Tobin’s ship rolled off the taxi-way and turned into his berth. Tobin had paid particular attention to adhere to the same landing patterns as always, so as not to attract undue attention to his ship. As soon as he rolled to a stop and dropped the loading ramp on his starboard side, the black and gray armored troops came rushing out of the service building and boarded his small ship. Only being designed to seat six people at the most, the assault team was forced to stand for the short flight yet to come.
The squad leader stepped up to the cockpit door, leaning his head inside. “Get us airborne,” he ordered.
Tobin nervously applied power, backing his ship out of the berth and back out onto the taxi-way, turning and heading forward once more toward the nearest launch apron. Applying more power than usual, he rolled a bit faster than the maximum taxi-speed. He wanted to get this last trip over as quickly as possible.
Without even coming to a complete stop at the launch pad, Tobin applied maximum thrust to lift his small, heavily laden ship into the air, turning inland.
“Tobin is airborne again,” Yosef reported.
“That was fast,” Cameron commented. “Any luck raising him?” she asked her comm officer.
“No, sir.”
“Something is not right,” Cameron said to herself. “Kaylah, keep a close eye on Tobin, and let me know-”
“I’m going to lose him before he reaches the landing party, sir.”
“What?”
“The moon’s rotation, we’re going to lose line of sight in just a few minutes.”
“Damn it! Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Cameron complained.
“I’m sorry, sir. It didn’t occur to me until just now.”
Cameron chastised herself for admonishing Ensign Yosef. She was a science officer after all. She had been serving as the Aurora’s only sensor officer for just a few days, and without the benefit of proper training. “That’s all right, Kaylah,” Cameron said, regaining her composure. “Track them as long as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Comm, try to raise the captain, any way you can. Warn him to be ready for anything.”
“I’ll try, sir,” the comm officer promised. “But even if he were on the air, once we lose line of sight, contact will be impossible.”
“We’ll reach the first touchdown point in thirty seconds,” Tobin shouted from the cockpit.
The squad leader turned to face the men. “Snipers! Prepare to deploy!” The four snipers were standing in pairs at the front of each line of men standing in rows down the center of the ship. Each held tightly onto the overhead rail to steady themselves as the ship turned and banked on its landing approach.
Outside, the small ship kicked up dust and debris as it touched down on the barren ground a few hundred meters from the sinkhole which contained Tug’s farm. Both the cargo door on the starboard side and the personnel door on the port side deployed as soon as the ship touched down, and the four snipers bounded down the ramps, each pair deploying in opposite directions. The snipers all ran low, heading quickly for whatever concealment they could find in their dash to take up positions along the rim of either side of the massive sinkhole.
“Can we go now?” Tobin asked the squad leader.
“Give them two minutes, then lift off and proceed to the insertion point,” he ordered.
Tobin took a deep breath, rolling his eyes as he rubbed the sweat from his hands on his pant legs.
“Commander,” Ensign Yosef announced. “The cargo shuttle is on approach.
Cameron had no interest in the cargo shuttle, until an idea hit her. “Comm, see if you can contact the cargo shuttle.”
A moment later, the comm officer reported back. “Cargo shuttle answers comms, sir.”
“Then the problem is only long range. Did you check the comm array?”
“Yes, sir, ran the diagnostics three times. It checks out.”
A painful thought suddenly occurred to Cameron. “Are we being jammed somehow?” The question was directed at the communications officer.
“I don’t know, sir. This console doesn’t have the capability to determine the cause of the loss of signals. But if we were being jammed, wouldn’t I hear static or something?”
“I’m not really sure,” Cameron admitted. Their electronic countermeasures officer had been killed when his console had exploded in his face when they had rammed a Ta’Akar warship days ago. And the ensign now manning communications from an auxiliary console also lacked the proper training for his current position. It was the same way throughout the ship. Key positions were being filled with anyone remotely capable. Right about now, Cameron was sorely in need of both those particular skill sets.
“Did you hear that?” Jessica asked as they strolled across the compound. She stopped dead in her tracks, trying to listen more intently.
“Hear what?” Nathan asked, stopping as well.
“I thought I heard a ship,” she told him.
“I don’t hear anything,” Nathan said.
Jessica listened intently for a moment longer. “I could’ve sworn I heard a ship coming in.”
“Are you sure it is safe?” Vladimir asked, standing at the top of the boarding ladder next to the cockpit.
“Of course,” Deliza promised with excitement. “My father and I have been working on this for years. We have powered up the reactors m
any times. It is completely safe, I assure you.” Deliza opened a small access panel on the underside of the ship, revealing externally mounted controls for the starboard reactor core. In a few moments, the panel came to life as the small ship began to hum almost imperceptibly. “See, I told you. The starboard reactor is now running at ten percent.”
A steady beeping sound began to emanate from the cockpit next to Vladimir. He leaned down to locate the source of the alert, and found a large red lamp along the right side of the forward console, flashing repeatedly in time with the beeping. “What is this flashing light?” he asked, unable to decipher the symbols that identified the light’s meaning.
“What light?” Deliza climbed up the boarding ladder, squeezing in next to Vladimir to look for herself. “That’s the proximity alert. But it should only go off when an enemy is nearby.”
Vladimir froze as he noticed a distant sound. Within seconds the sound became louder-the engines of an approaching ship. “Go find your father,” he told her, pushing her down the ladder.
“It’s just a malfunction,” she insisted.
The sound of a ship descending to land in the middle of the compound became quite evident. Vladimir recognized the sound of Tobin’s whiny engines, and they were working harder than they should for an empty ship. “Go now!” he barked. “And stay within the tunnels. Do not go outside!” he added as he jumped down the ladder behind her.
— 8 -
Tobin’s ship came in low over the large barn at the opposite end of the sinkhole from the main house, immediately descending into the middle of the compound.
Jessica watched in surprise as Tobin’s ship touched down rather quickly, without rotating first as he had done before. She had a terrible feeling that something wasn’t right-she just couldn’t figure out what that something was.
Tobin’s rapid touchdown kicked up far more dust and debris than before, which told Jessica that he was heavily loaded. The dust wash from his landing thrusters forced the others down behind the Tug’s flatbed cargo hauler. As the engines wound down somewhat and the force of the thrust-wash subsided, they came out from behind the vehicle to greet Tobin. At the angle at which Tobin had set down, they could not see him in the cockpit.
