Fracture sf-5

by Randolph Lalonde

  "It's life. The sentence for piracy in this region of space is life for free crew or slaves. It doesn't make a difference," Jake told him quietly. He was reviewing the readiness of the torpedo banks, missile turrets, gunnery deck, and beam weapon emplacements.

  Until then the weaponry on the Triton had just been a list, like any other feature he'd never seen. As he looked at the tactical view of the ship, left of centre on the bridge he realized how very deadly the vessel was. Thirty six torpedo tubes in nine loading rooms across the port, fore, aft and starboard sides were loaded with driller rounds, set to detonate after punching through a hull and detecting an atmosphere. The fourteen missile turrets along the lower hull were loaded with two hundred eighty kilogram seeker projectiles. The gunnery deck's eighty four 280mm round guns were set with electromagnetic pulse rounds while its fourteen 450mm guns were loaded and ready with fragmentation burst rounds. The last of the weaponry, the eight carrier class electromagnetic beam weapons were half charged.

  "There she is with all her teeth bared," Oz breathed as he looked over the broad, gleaming stingray shaped vessel. The only visible flaw was the absence of half her massive main engines, leaving recessed swivel ports open in the lower aft quarter of the vessel.

  The first squadron of seven Uriel fighters, led by Ronin launched from the lower hull and began moving into position around Triton. "Where do you want me Jake?" Oz asked him.

  Jake manipulated a series of remote controls and gave the Palamo a heading that led it very close to the station, between it and the Triton before answering.

  "I need you here," he replied dryly. With a flick of his finger he engaged privacy mode around the command seating. "It's Ayan over there, I need someone who can command this carrier better than I can. I don't know what I'll have to do in the next few minutes."

  "What do you want to do right now, Jake?" Oz asked quietly.

  "I want to load every seasoned soldier we have into the Clever Dream, blast my way into the station and pull her out."

  "I don't think the standard smash and grab tactics will work here. We don't know enough and with the material that station's made of it may as well be a prison."

  "All the more reason to act sooner rather than later, I can put a plan together enroute."

  "Have you looked at that thing? From the way those turrets are moving it looks like they have weapons back online. If I'm not mistaken their guns could do serious damage to the Triton, the Clever Dream would be cannon fodder."

  "They'd have to get a clear shot first. The Palamo is moving in to provide cover on remote. I'll pass her controls on to you, her reactor is wired to blow, just in case."

  Oz looked Jake right in the eye. "What if Ayan's working a plan of her own? She could be in harm's way and we'd never know it."

  "I'll be careful."

  "You're not level, Jake. Let me put a plan together."

  Captain Valance sat back, his suppressed tension showed in the flexing of his jaw. "All right. You put it together, I'll lead it."

  "We're not trading the slaves, right?" Oz asked.

  "Hell no."

  "Had to ask." He brought up a listing of ships they'd taken from the raiders and chose the one in the worst condition. "Give me five minutes."

  Jake watched his old friend focus on a captured raider vessel. It was called the Jade Whisper. At just over seventy meters long, it was a distant relative of the Samson in design. Between the scars of long past combat damage and fresh damage caused by Minh's fighter wing, there wasn't much left, but it was basically operational. "Thank you Oz, I don't lose focus like this."

  "It happens to everyone. If I were in your shoes I wouldn't be much good for heavy thinking either."

  Jake realized he was practically breathing over Oz's shoulder and stood. The privacy barrier only extended a meter past the edge of the command seating, and he stepped outside of it. He was immediately confronted with the three main holographic displays, one focusing on the Triton, the central image was a more expanded view of the area and the right hand image had been switched to a visual representation of the asteroid field outside. The data was being updated by a Uriel starfighter holding station outside the obscuring barrier with a micro wormhole pointed towards the Triton. It was the early warning system, their only way of monitoring what was happening outside.

  "Jason, have you seen any more transmissions incoming or outgoing from the station?"

  "No. They've gone silent. My guess is they've consulted their backers and are operating under their instructions until help arrives."

  "Do we have any idea who these people are associated with?"

  "It's an independent station as far as I can tell. The cargo containers adrift in the area are marked with a lot of logos." Jason grimaced and shook his head in aggravation. "Why can't I figure out why we're not getting an active signal from our people in there! It's not like any jamming I've seen!"

  Jake walked over to the communications station, a semicircle with all five seats filled, Jason was in the centre. "Would a tether work? Maybe an actual line leading to a ship breaking through the hull?"

  "Of course, you can't jam a hard line without tapping it."

  "Okay, start working under the assumption that we have a rescue party getting ready to go."

  "Do we?"

  "Oz is working on something."

  Jason couldn't help but pause a moment before nodding. "Okay, then I'll work under that assumption and move on to other things."

  Jake walked back to the centre of the bridge and looked at the curved lattice work of the station. He had a sinking feeling, like the situation was slipping out of his control. "We're coming, hang on, we're coming," he muttered.

  Chapter 15

  Diplomacy

  Victor watched as Ayan was boosted into the shaft that would lead her directly into the ruined communications hub of the station. According to what she said it had been severely damaged well before they arrived. His forensic scanners couldn't so much as penetrate the bulkhead so he took her word for it.

  "Vic, you're following her," Alaka told him.

  It wasn't like him to hesitate or question, but being singled out to protect the darling of the Triton alone wasn't exactly what he expected when he followed Alaka off the Cold Reaver back into the station proper. He also couldn't agree with her need to make some kind of diplomatic appeal to the people who were keeping them locked in.

  "You're the narrowest, get on up there," Alaka reinforced, offering him his big cupped hands to step into.

  "Sorry, just taking the situation in," Victor replied as he handed his rifle off to another soldier and unholstered his side arm. He tucked his handgun into the back of his belt then stepped into Alaka's waiting hands and was boosted up to the narrow service shaft entrance at an alarming speed. He didn't get his arms up in time and had to wriggle in head and shoulders first.

  In the narrow dark passage he could hear Ayan ahead, but without the enhanced vision of his visor he wouldn't have been able to see her. She had gotten several meters ahead and was already at the point where the shaft widened.

  He couldn't help but feel as though the station was pressing down on him, however. When he moved his shoulders to wriggle ahead his shoulder blades grazed the top of the shaft. It felt as though he was crawling through a long, shallow coffin. Panic threatened to grip him as he tried to get his hands up in front of him but failed.

  "Are you all right Victor? Your stats are climbing," Ayan called back.

  "I'll be fine as soon as I catch up." He redoubled his efforts and pushed ahead, using his knees, chest and feet to push his way along the shaft. Finally he came to the portion of the shaft where it widened and got his hands in front. Victor sighed in relief as he squeezed in beside Ayan, making sure she still had enough space to work in.

  She had fine tools out and was just finishing bridging two wires with a clamp. "Now that the station has power in these sections, we can force doors open by powering their locks manually."

&n
bsp; "Maybe you can. I'm not exactly a tech."

  "This is the easy stuff. I bet I could teach you how to get past most locking mechanisms in an afternoon. The challenging part is finding a way to get at the wiring." A pair of wires sparked and something in the bulkhead in front of them clicked. "Bloody hell," she muttered. "The bolt drew back, but I have to hotwire the hatch so it'll move."

  "This is the hatch here?" Victor pressed against the metal plate between them.

  "Yes, but it's on a rail that won't move without the motor."

  "Where do you see that?" Victor asked, looking around.

  Ayan reached up and pushed her fingers into a narrow crack. "You can feel the rail right here." She withdrew them and went back to carefully tracing wires, figuring out what each was attached to.

  Victor almost confirmed for himself but stopped. "Oh, I believe you, I just-" he shrugged.

  "Haven't been in many maintenance corridors?" Ayan smirked. He couldn't see it, but he could hear it well enough, especially with her light Britannia accent.

  "I wouldn't call this a corridor. Tunnel fighting could be a bit like this, but there's normally more breathing room. Completely different if you ask me, except for the claustrophobia."

  "You did tunnel fighting even though you're claustrophobic? That's well beyond the call."

  "Well, it was either go with Alaka into the tunnels or fight in the open where we made half the progress and lost twice as many people."

  "I remember. Pandem was bad for everyone. I had to hang upside down over a docking pit with nothing but my wits and a vacsuit. My fear of heights nearly did me in."

  "You're a starship engineer and you're afraid of heights? What do you do for space walks?"

  "You're a trained soldier with claustrophobia," Ayan retorted with a rueful chuckle.

  "Good point."

  Ayan worked in silence as Victor watched her strand different uncut wires together while tugging others to the side. "Actually, I don't know."

  "Don't know?"

  "What I'd do for space walks. It hasn't come up since I realized I was afraid of heights again. I was hoping I'd be all right on a space walk, but as you know that's rarely the case."

  "I suppose you'll find out when they install the new engine pods."

  "I was hoping to give it a go well before that, but from the way things are going, you might be right. Not like I should supervise that sort of thing from a distance."

  "Most senior starship engineers would, from what I've seen on past tours."

  "Well, I'm not most engineers. I supervised the build on those engine pods, I'd rather see they get installed properly." Ayan cut four wires, stripped the insulation off and pinched them together. Her Vacsuit protected her from the raw current as a loud crack sounded. The small, thick hatch was drawn aside swiftly, giving them a clear way into one of the station's comm rooms. "You go first. I'll make sure these don't come loose."

  The sound of the motor clicking and whining as it continued to run, stripping its gears with the door as far along the track as it could go was loudest as Victor pushed his shoulders through the opening. There was no graceful way down.

  Once most of his torso was hanging in the open air above the communications room he let himself fall past the nearest console. With a violent crash he narrowly missed a chair on wheels, sending it spinning across the room as he fell face first on the floor. The vacsuit's armour and inertial dampening systems kept him from physical harm, but his pride was a little injured as he listened to Ayan burst out laughing. "Three point five!" she called after him.

  With him out of the way, and her lesser size, she had just enough room to turn around before lowering herself down feet first.

  He stood and moved to the deactivated console she was slowly lowering herself down to. Victor could see her feet feeling in the air for the top of the console so she could carefully step down and put his hand reassuringly on her leg. "I'll catch you, just drop out."

  She pushed off more quickly and he caught her perfectly in his arms. Even through the overlapping slats of the vacsuit armour she felt much more feminine than she looked.

  "You don't weigh a thing, my suit didn't even kick in."

  "Flatterer," Ayan waited a moment then kicked her feet a little. "Ahem,"

  He stepped away from the console and gently put her down.

  "Thank you."

  Her gaze scanned across the dimly lit oval room. In the centre was an island with six chairs, the walls were covered with two dimensional displays and seating. It was a long counter top, broken by two inset track doors. "Do you see anything that's displaying something?" she asked quietly, beginning a slow walk along the oval room.

  Vincent did the same in the other direction and then it struck him. There was nothing he understood on the screens, nothing coming out of any of the older holographic projectors. He traced one of the circular emitters with his finger and snickered softly.

  "See something?" she asked.

  "No, sorry. These holographic displays are ancient. My sister and I saved our allowance for three months when we were kids so we could get one for the rear cabin of the family cruiser. She'd have a laugh at seeing one being used in a room like this."

  Ayan didn't reply, she kept inspecting the control panels, what she was looking for exactly, he couldn't tell.

  "She made it off Pandem with her husband after the bots went homicidal."

  Ayan looked at him, mild relief plain on her face. "Oh, I forgot transports escaped that mess."

  "A few dozen. Some of us old soldiers were able to help the police get them away from Damshir early on. The first time we got control."

  "I never heard what exactly happened during the early days of the virus."

  "Well, most of the Andies, that's the police androids, managed to resist long enough for deactivation. Then something reactivated them while most of the police force was inside the Mount Elbrus police station. A few of us retired military types ran into Alaka and we got more organized. Then the real fight began."

  "I'm sorry."

  They were walking in a slow circle, inspecting the screens closely. There was nothing to see, even Victor could see most of the computers were stuck in a diagnostic loop or frozen altogether. "Don't know why you're apologizing. Even Alaka said without you people we may not have made it off Pandem."

  "You give us too much credit. I couldn't imagine doing what you did for weeks. When I remember Pandem I think about the people who we couldn't save."

  "Can't do that. Survival is about small victories. Is this something? Looks like some kind of terminal ID."

  Ayan walked over, withdrew her faceplate, leaving the armoured hood of her vacsuit up and looked at the lower corner of the wall display. He was pointing at an unchanging square with EL-147 blinking inside. The rest of the screen was streaming thousands of seemingly random numbers, letters and device symbols. She touched it and the whole screen froze. "I wish Jason were here, he might understand what half this says."

  "Didn't they teach you about this in some engineering program?"

  "Well, I can read it, but it's just a fragment of some sort of software package. These are hardware identifiers, storage, power, backups, comm lines, gravity and thermal sensors but what's between what this computer does with it all is still a mystery. Reading it like this could take a while and it still might not tell us how to get the doors open or if the hallways outside have pressure."

  "Right, so we open the wrong door and we end up getting sucked out and falling to the planet surface."

  "Exactly."

  "Isn't this a navnet symbol?" he pointed to lopsided plus sign.

  "You're right," Ayan tried pressing the square again and let the screen scroll through several thousand characters before tapping it once more, pausing the program. "This shows a dead comm line with a safety warning."

  "Probably warning the operators to repair the communications array before they end up with a hundred ship pileup at the docks."

  She
scrolled to the next screen and was rewarded with an eyeful of electronic schematics. Ayan smiled brightly and laughed to herself. "Repair instructions."

  "Isn't the comm tower a slagged mess?"

  "It is, but it also shows me how to rewire console three so we can speak over the intercom in an emergency."

  Victor looked around and found a worn number 3 painted on the edge of the counter several meters down. "There it is."

  Ayan pulled a narrow screwdriver from her thigh pocket as she walked over to the console. With no effort at all she had the main panel open and several connections on an ancient main circuit board bridged and shorted. "Good thing this place's computers were built on the cheap. Looks like they spent all their money on the superstructure and the gravity mill."

  "How exactly does that work anyway?"

  "Do you have two days?" Ayan asked him with a crooked grin. "Let's just say it's a little like a water wheel only not."

  "Right, I'll stick to soldiering, you can keep trying to get in touch with someone."

  "Ayan!" Called Alaka through the shaft.

  "Yeah, we're just a few meters in."

  "Oh, good. Contact anyone?"

  "No, just figuring out the intercom now. How is the other team doing?"

  "Finn just updated me. He says it would take at least twenty hours to cut through the hangar door without using explosives. I think he's leaning towards using the Cold Reaver's weapons to blast through."

  "At that range? We'd be lucky to have half a ship left."

  "He said he'd work on the math, see if there was something he could do to minimize blow back."

  Ayan thought a moment before shaking her head. "Tell him he's welcome to do the calculations, but if he actually gets somewhere he has to run it by me before putting it into practice."

  "Will do, good luck in there."

  "Thank you, I hope this lock down is some kind of big misunderstanding."

  "You and me both." Ayan looked into the open control panel, pulled a short wire free and pressed it into a tiny black box. The terminal display flashed red for several moments and then started displaying a large audio symbol: a white dot with increasingly large concave lines emanating from it.