Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Yeah, I hope she earns a new call sign soon, she’s getting tired of that one.”

  “I’m afraid to ask about how she got it,” he said.

  “Oh, she was complaining that there was something sticky on her seat during the whole first afternoon of orientation. It, um, stuck.”

  “Well, that’s a lot tamer than the possibilities that were in my head,” Jake replied.

  “Dirty minded Captain,” Ashley said, playfully scolding him. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.”

  “I don’t have a dirty mind,” Jake replied. “Well, no more than anyone else.”

  “Sure, sure,” Ashly teased. “I’ll find out when I have more time to hang out with Ayan. We’ve been meaning to get together, you know, all the ladies in your life. She really wants to hear more stories of you on the Samson.”

  The alert alarm whooped once. “Captain Valent and essential staff to the bridge. Combat stations, all hands make ready,” Agameg’s voice announced.

  “God, I hope that’s Minh,” Ashley said as she left his quarters and crossed the hall to the bridge. Captain Valent was right behind her.

  Agameg was training several officers on the new shield system, including the senior Sensor and Sciences Officer, Kadri Dutta, who seemed more interested than anyone else. Jake was the first person Agameg trained, and he was thankful that he already had an understanding of the new drive technology, the interface was functional but still a mess.

  The repairs on the Revenge were happening at a frenzied pace, and Frost had somehow managed to finish automating another heavy railgun turret. The two that were damaged during their last encounter with the Order of Eden were sealed off and abandoned. There would have to be rebuilt completely, especially since three of the barrels came off during the battle. One beam electromagnetic beam weapon was brought back online, and Jake ordered all further repairs on weapons to cease until they were finished with other critical systems.

  Trying to catch up with what Ayan had learned and devised from the technology in the dimension drive system distracted him for most of the three day wait for Minh-Chu and the Pursuer III. He combined that with as much supporting knowledge from the Lorander database as he could, but the simple truth was that her understanding had leapt years ahead of all but a few people who seemed to have an aptitude for understanding physics in new dimensions. He understood what he needed to and a little more, but it would take more time and effort than he could spare to catch up completely.

  By the time Ayan reached Haven Shore, she would be even further ahead. He could picture her quietly working for hours at a time in the back seat of the Uriel that was taking her home, surrounded by the glow of the trans-dimensional corridor taking her through a highly energetic space that no human had ever laid eyes upon. He was sure she must be safe. He had no reason to think she was in any trouble, and even if she was, there was no one more qualified to handle it. He would have to wait and see.

  “What do we have on scanners, Kadri?” Jake asked.

  “Twenty eight wormhole arrival points, multiple transmissions coming in, all hails,” she replied, settling in at her station. “One is from the Pursuer III using its backup broadcast systems.”

  “How are our new shields?”

  “The barrier shielding from the Dimension Drive are running at full efficiency,” Agameg announced. “Nearly no power draw at this time, and holding at nearly five times the strength of our old shield rating.”

  “Kadri, can you tell if those wormhole exit points are friends, or if they’re chasing the Pursuer?”

  “It looks like they were all simultaneously generated, wait, I think I know these identifiers, Sir,” she replied, listening intently to transmissions and looking over the data flowing through her station. “Sir? They’re Nafalli. Message coming in from the Pursuer.”

  “Hello!” Minh-Chu’s voice filled the bridge. “Ronin here, I found a few friends. We might want to give Haven Shore a heads-up, a million or so Nafalli are coming for dinner.”

  The Pursuer emerged from its wormhole, followed by a giant Nafalli carrier that looked like it had been sculpted instead of built. There wasn’t a square corner on the outer surface, but rounded shapes and curves instead. Dozens of smaller destroyer sized fighting ships accompanied it, most of them had signs of recently repaired damage.

  The other wormholes revealed large colony ships, formidable carriers, and a few vessels that looked like old battleships. The fleet was immense, enough to defend a planet or carry an entire culture.

  “Hello?” Minh-Chu asked. “Anyone home?”

  Jake realized that he’d been stunned by the sight of the all-Nafalli fleet and cleared his throat. “I think we’ll need a bigger table. Welcome back, Ronin.”

  Chapter 34

  Dock 38

  The small transit car doors opened and Remmy’s tactical system lit up with the details of a violent firefight between Freeground soldiers and the Order of Eden before the doors finished opening. There was no time to relay orders, so he followed his Ranger training and grabbed the front of Liara’s vacsuit before running out of the car. Cover was six metres away, and he knew Dotty would have no problem adjusting to the changing conditions. Liara tripped half way to the mouth of the hall leading to their waiting ship, and Dotty picked her up by the belt. “Just tell me where you want to go!” Liara said, but her objection took longer than they had to get behind the thick wall they had to use as cover.

  When he was sure none of the framework soldiers had turned to attack and they were settled behind cover, Remmy took a moment to reply. “Sorry, I can’t always tell you what has to happen before we have to move. Sometimes it’s faster to move you like luggage.”

  “That’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” Liara said, her astonishment clear in her tone. An explosion shook the deck and Remmy saw her flinch from head to toe. “I get it,” she said with a chuckle.

  “Oh, no,” Dotty whispered.

  “What?” Remmy said as his tactical overlay finished displaying the action in the area. The Order of Eden forces were using scanner scramblers, so some hallways nearby looked distorted, while the rest of the scan took longer than normal to populate. He was just starting to get a clear picture of the three groups of Order soldiers and their movements when he heard Liara laugh.

  “She’s getting the giggles,” Dotty said.

  “Take deep breaths, Liara,” Remmy said.

  He heard her start inhaling and then break down with a peal of laughter. “Luggage,” she managed to say before she was wracked by another wave of giggling.

  Remmy spotted five Order of Eden soldiers getting chased towards their part of the dock by Freeground forces. “We’re in the way, gotta move,” he said. “Can you take care of her?”

  “I got her,” Dotty said, brandishing her sidearm in one hand while gripping Liara’s upper arm in the other. “Ready to follow.”

  Remmy took two grenades from Dotty’s belt and rushed towards the next hallway. “Stay there until these go off, then rush through,” he ordered as he moved. The hallway they were on was T shaped, and they were crossing through the top of the T as Order soldiers were entering from the bottom. They were headed for an escape pod or intended to steal a shuttle so they could get off the station. There was another possibility, they could be headed towards an open docking bay where their own people were picking them up, that was the worst case scenario. Either way, Remmy and his people would most likely be a target they wanted to take out on their way through.

  As Remmy ran across the end of the joining hallway, he lobbed the first grenade at the Order of Eden soldiers without stopping. He watched its progress on his tactical scanner and even through the static he managed to set it off with his remote just as it bounced up in front of them. The suppressive gel inside the grenade expanded with so much force that it registered as a hot explosion, trapping all five of the Order of Eden soldiers in a mass like bugs in blue amber. “Done, come across!” he said. “Freegr
ound will have a few frameworks to study.”

  Dotty was there with Liara, who was coming down from her laughing fit. “That was amazing,” she said, catching her breath. “I’m sorry, guys, I don’t think I was the right person for this mission, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “You were the right person for most of the mission,” Dotty said. “We’re the right people for this part of the mission, don’t worry.”

  The trio were half way down the next hallway, and Remmy could see the heavy doors leading to their ship when the deck nearly shook them to their knees. Dust and smoke filled the hallway, and Remmy turned towards the racket. His tactical scanner was useless, the jamming signals were interfering with every sensor he had. He turned around so he was running backwards, his sidearm pointing back the way they came. “Get her aboard, I’ll cover you.”

  “Aye,” Dotty said, redoubling her pace, her long stride made her an extremely fast runner, and she half carried, half dragged Liara alongside her. The doors started opening slowly. A bolt of energy hit Remmy squarely in the chest, depleting his personal shield by eighteen percent, and he saw the outlines of two Framework soldier and shadows of more behind. A shipping crate offered a little protection as he returned fire, blue rounds turning yellow as they burned heavy dust between him and his enemies. He knew he struck the first two, peppering them each with superheated rounds, but there were more.

  The little he could see through the static on his tactical display managed to tell him that they had come through the ceiling using explosives. The main docking bays above were most likely more heavily guarded and sealed, but the floor beneath had smaller docking bays with doors that weren’t as well armoured. He tossed his second and last suppression grenade into the smoke and set it off. He couldn’t tell how many soldiers he caught, but the mass created enough of a blockage so they’d have to blast through it to continue towards them.

  Without a moment’s hesitation he turned and ran for Docking Bay Thirty-Eight. He hadn’t made it two steps before a violent explosion knocked him onto his stomach. Remmy got to his feet before the dust settled, and looked over his shoulder in time to see two Order Knights in their heavy power armour striding through the smoke. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted at Dotty and Liara as they waited for the doors to open more. “Push her through!”

  Dotty understood what Remmy was saying immediately and shoved Liara through the space between the doors hard, there almost wasn’t enough space between them for her, but it worked. “Get aboard, now!” Dotty shouted after her. She was far too large to fit through.

  Remmy set his firearm to fire at maximum intensity and speed with two flicks of his thumb, ignoring the warning that informed him he’d only be able to fire for fifty three seconds at that rate. Through the swirling smoke he was able to blast the Order Knight on the left in the chest and head several dozen times.

  The Order Soldier on the right scored several hits on Remmy’s chest before he could drop a portable shield disc. His personal shields were depleted, and the pain of several direct strikes of the enemy’s weapons fire was already fading as drugs were automatically administered. Dotty was beside him, firing as accurately as he did in his first volley. “Don’t put me out, dammit!” he said to the medical support system in his suit. “Keep me on my feet, you piece of shit!”

  His personal shield was only charged to twelve percent when the shield disc he put down died. It took the concentrated fire of him and Dotty’s sidearms to knock one Order of Eden soldier down, and Remmy knew he’d regenerate in less than a minute. The other one was still coming, and the shapes of more framework soldiers moved behind him. Dotty dropped her portable shield disc and grabbed him by the back of his suit. “Your turn, Sir,” she said as she pressed him through the doors behind them as they slowly ground open.

  They still weren’t open wide enough for her. “Be right behind you,” she said with a smirk before she turned to face the Order of Eden night and his soldiers.

  An explosion sent Remmy the rest of the way through the doors and across the deck.

  Chapter 35

  Suit Week

  The immediate future looked more stable to Alice after the first few days of the Apex Program. Her fears going into the training were that the classes and challenges would be as fast paced and as difficult as preparing for the qualifier tests. While the curriculum was quick, and Alice didn’t have more than an hour or so of spare time left at the end of the day, it wasn’t nearly as high pressure or as dense as what she had to tackle to cram for the qualifiers.

  At least, that’s how it seemed to her and Iruuk. They met each other every day along with the soldiers that they were assigned to help supervise. That was the first time she saw Alaka, his father. The massive Nafalli made his son look small, and he demanded excellence of the hundreds of soldiers in training that were in his charge. They didn’t wince at his appraising gaze, but definitely showed that they didn’t want to draw his direct attention.

  When Alice and Iruuk joined their few trainees along with the other Officers in training that could make it, there were only three that first day, the soldiers seemed relieved. Alice took charge immediately, using every scrap of experience she had to help them though a competitive maze where they stunned the opposing teams. The maze forced the teams to use their tactical heads’ up display. All the walls were flawlessly white and resisted markings. The floor and everything around them emitted light, so there wasn’t even a shadow to track. To make things even more challenging, there was sound dampening everywhere, so you couldn’t hear the other teams until you were nose to nose with them. The tactical systems were limited so only what you had directly seen was revealed, and the whole exercise was timed, they only had fifty one minutes to score as many points as they could. It was a short amount of time to navigate the maze, but a long time to stay alive for. From the look of it, the effect of the stunners they used seemed painful.

  After thirty eight minutes of staying alive and stunning a dozen competitors, Alice’s team came in third after counting all the points for team work, strategy, kills and how far they managed to get through the maze before they were wiped out.

  It was Iruuk’s team that somehow managed to outflank her when she was down to two soldiers, but it cost him. She managed to take out two of his people before she found out how painful the stunners were first hand. The electric impulses were intense enough to force her to the deck and twitch for several seconds before they relented and she laid there, playing dead for a minute before removing herself from the maze.

  Alice did have the pleasure of seeing one of her soldiers take Iruuk out before he and the other team member she had left were gunned down. He was left with two of his own team left on their own. Nivee Izen’s team wiped them out only minutes later, and she took first place that day with three soldiers left. At the end of the exercise, the one hundred and forty soldiers and five officers in training stood in a line along the west side of the maze wall.

  “I’m impressed,” Alaka said, addressing everyone there. “I did not expect anyone to make it through this maze the first time through, especially without cheating. Credit goes to all the groups who had an officer with them, you all performed well enough for a first attempt. The rest of you, the ones who had volunteer leaders from the training pool, disgraced yourselves. One hundred five of you were cut down as though you were frightened children. We’ll find leaders amongst you yet though. Your poor performance doesn’t reduce the shortcomings of the Officers, however. All of your victories are hollow, since no Officer survived this exercise. Your tactical skills are notable, and self-sacrifice is honourable, even necessary under some circumstances, but there was only one situation in this exercise where I feel it was warranted and it took place in the first thirteen minutes when Officer Ute Shulikeet nearly turned the tide by running along a wall as a distraction, taking down two enemy soldiers and allowing her team to break through when they were surrounded. I was astonished at your bravery, especially since amphi
bians feel the effects of stunners much more keenly. We’ll look at turning those effects down for you tomorrow if you show up.”

  “That will not be necessary, Sir,” Ute chirped loudly. “And I will be here.” Judging from the smiles on her team’s faces, it was clear that they already liked their Officer Trainee.

  “So heard,” Alaka replied, an eyebrow raised. “But please, hear me on this; you must work with your teams and adjust your tactics so your overall survivability is higher, especially for the Officers. Few of you have extensive leadership experience in the field, so you have to use your time here wisely so the right instincts are nurtured and you learn the right lessons before you begin active duty, otherwise your roles in the fleet will be adjusted. For anyone who finds that consequence vague, let me tell you what it means. If you cannot lead, you will be assigned to a technical position on a staff under strong leadership. While not an utter failure, that is not the kind of Officer we’re looking for. We are looking for leaders who can manage large departments, so make that your focus. Dismissed.”

  Alice only had a brief moment to shake the hands of her seven recruits, four of which were young women, all of whom were human, before they were all called away to muster for their next training session elsewhere on the ship. She still had an entire unit on Lorander construction technology and instrumentation to study that day, so she attempted to clear her head and get to it. The unit was meant to be studied over the space of a week, but by the time her midnight alarm went off, she was over seventy percent finished. That was still short of her goal – she thought she would be finished that day – but it put her ahead. Alice knew she was distracted by the results in the maze. It slowed her down.

  “How was the maze today? From what Iruuk told me over dinner it sounds like I missed out,” Yawen, the skinny blonde whose bunk was across from Alice’s asked.