By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  “Doesn’t matter if you’re officer or enlisted, people depend on you, and the higher up you are, the more important you’re supposed to be. Failing to live up to your responsibilities might be fine and dandy in the civilian world, but doing that in the military gets people killed. This isn’t just a military setting, Eric, we’re stuck here with nothing, with no one else. If we fuck up, everyone dies.”

  Eric glared at the tumbler on his desk, trying to keep his emotions at bay.

  “Liz, I don’t think you understand,” Eric managed to squeeze out through the building haze of anger.

  “What’s there to understand? You’re an officer. Act like it.”

  Eric snapped, “Oh, so I’m supposed to just switch off? I’m supposed to pretend nothing happened, that nothing bothers me? How exactly is that supposed to work? I tried that already. The memories don’t just go away, Liz. The pain doesn’t just disappear. Why the fuck else do you think I’ve been drinking?”

  Liz closed her eyes in frustration and slowly sat down.

  “Eric, do you know the hardest lesson to learn when you’re a good officer? Good officers give a shit about their people. The problem is that any decision an officer makes can get their men killed. Any one of them. Any number of them. The first death, accident or not, can make any person doubt their ability to lead. That doubt holds you back, which leads to the second death, and so on until you can’t see past your nose anymore.” She paused. With a sigh she added, “Sometimes it only takes the first one to get you there.”

  Eric took his eyes off the tumbler in time to see the angry officer in her face dissolve.

  He quietly asked, “How do I get past this?”

  “You have to learn to compartmentalize. Every leader, from the NCOs up to the officer corps, has a duty to the men and women they lead. No obligation gets changed because you’re having a bad day, Eric. Feelings aren’t part of the equation in determining what the right thing to do. Duty doesn’t care about fairness either. If you want to lead, you need your people to trust you, to respect you. So that means keeping your shit together when you’re out there. They’ll respect you more for it.”

  “But how do I handle what I’m locking away? Bottling shit up isn’t healthy.”

  “No, it’s not. You still have to deal with it, just not in front of folks you command. You have friends here, Eric. You have peers to talk to. You could have gone to Turing, Hadrian, Byron, or even Julien or Pascal at any point. You could have come to me.”

  “Come to you? I thought everyone had enough to worry about without dealing with my problems, too.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Eric, we’ve all been through some shit, but being there for each other is what counts. Doesn’t matter what we call it, soldier, sailor, marine; you’re always there for your friends. Sharing the pain makes it easier. You and I have been through a lot together. Let me help you.”

  “But--”

  “I just want to help. Talk to me. Talking to another woman isn’t cheating on Leah’s memory if that’s what you’re worried about. Hell, as if I could replace her to begin with. That’s not how love works. I miss her, too. She was my friend and I’d like to not lose another one.”

  Bounty

  Day 1308

  “What do you see?” Turing asked him.

  Eric lowered the binoculars.

  “Looks like a supply ship,” he replied.

  Turing nodded. “And about five degrees prograde and retrograde?”

  Eric checked the black overhead, taking his time to dial in the advanced optics.

  “Prograde looks like a destroyer. Retrograde, I think that’s a cruiser. Is that the Relentless?”

  Turing nodded again. “Yes. The Relentless and its escort, the Silent Hunter. The supply ship is the Bounty.”

  “So why’d you want me to see this?”

  Turing’s eyes fell to his feet and he said with sorrow, “This much of the cordon for Solitude in one place only happens once a year.”

  Eric glanced back and forth between Turing and the sky.

  Suspiciously he asked, “Okay?”

  “I promised you’d be the first to know.”

  “Know what, Turing?” Eric asked as the man pulled his tablet from his coat.

  “It’s easy to get in a rut, Eric. It’s easy to lose all hope and believe things will never change. Easy to believe you’re responsible for things you’re not, or that you’re not responsible for things you are. We all do it. We did it this spring, this summer. The naval forces overhead have been in the same rut the last five years.”

  Realization crept away from him, staying just out of reach.

  “I’m not quite following, Turing,” Eric said as he looked over at the man.

  “Once one is in that rut, one is blind. When things do change suddenly, to borrow a turn of phrase from you, one tends to lose their shit,” Turing said. The man looked skyward. As he pressed on his tablet screen Turing whispered, “Q.E.D.”

  A split second later a dozen searing white blooms flared to life across the sky.

  “What the shit, Turing?” Eric gawped. Each bloom sent a streak of angry light towards the same vicinity in the sky, toward Cerberus Station and her escorts. The shiny dots of the Relentless and the Silent Hunter flared and then began losing form. The binoculars came up. The debris field glittered as it dispersed.

  “Remember when I told you the surveillance satellites were also kill vehicles?” Turing said with predatory grin.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Have Hadrian and Byron meet me in my study. Go, we haven’t much time.”

  Eric’s tablet chimed fifteen seconds later.

  “I’m getting multiple reports of a disturbance in the sky from our spiders, Eric,” Julien’s voice echoed.

  “I know, Julien. It’s a surprise from Turing. Send a runner to Hadrian and Byron, have them meet me in Turing’s study. Put everyone else on high alert.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Eric continued onward. He found Hadrian waiting for him in the study.

  “I was already here. What’s going on?” Hadrian asked.

  Eric forestalled Hadrian with a raised hand.

  Moments later, Byron burst in the door. “What’s going on? Why did I just hear a description of multiple orbital detonations over the radio?”

  “It seems our friend has been playing his cards close to his chest,” Eric told the two.

  The Caledonians glanced at each other and back to him.

  “What do you mean? Turing set those off? How?” Byron asked.

  “How?” Turing returned the question as he walked in. “Thanks to Eric, it wasn’t terribly difficult. The drives he recovered from the drone contained a multitude of data. You already know about the surveillance data and what we managed to do with it.

  “But, I didn’t tell you about the security data I’d extracted. Using what I found, I infiltrated Cerberus Station’s surveillance network. Once I was in unnoticed, it was only a matter of time before I could move laterally. I’ve been watching them from the inside for the past year, waiting for the right time. That time is now. Rather, the window of opportunity opened a half hour ago when the Bounty docked with Cerberus.”

  “So those explosions were?”

  “The surveillance satellites. Their secondary function was to act as kill vehicles. I activated that function and targeted both escorts. The first pieces should be striking atmosphere in about two hours, give or take twenty minutes or so.”

  “Those escorts were?” Hadrian asked.

  “The Silent Hunter, a Tomsk class destroyer, and the Relentless, a Pobeda class strike cruiser,” Turing replied.

  “Good,” Hadrian responded, “This supply ship was the Bounty? Class?”

  “Zelenyy.”

  Hadrian’s eyes lit up. “A Zelenyy? Oh, very good.”

  Eric looked over at the man. “Why’s that good?”

  “One of my last missions, we trained to board a Zelenyy, lad. Tha
t, and the Zelenyy are fleet support ships. They’ve got a bit more in the propulsion department than normal supply boats so they can keep up with the fleet.”

  Turing smiled. “Write down what you can, we’ll need it. Your ride arrives in fifteen minutes.”

  Hadrian’s grin lit the room. “My memory might be a bit off, but, give me a second.” Hadrian grabbed a sheet of paper and started scribbling.

  “His ride?” Eric asked.

  “Your ride, too. I trust all of you will tell me if I’m wrong somewhere, but the plan is straightforward. The drone I co-opted will be landing in fifteen minutes in the field by the south gate. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering it to empty its weapons bays on the western side of the mountain, so they’ll be empty when it arrives. I would like you three, plus Commander Grace to stow away on it. The bays aren’t pressurized, which is why you’ll be riding up in the suits my father was selling the pirates. Trevor has gone over their seals and verified they should all still hold. Once aboard the Cerberus, you will do whatever it is you dirty soldier types do until you can reach the Bounty. Take the ship at all costs. Once that’s accomplished, Commander Grace returns here with a heavy lift shuttle. We evacuate everybody we can along with whatever supplies we can manage and depart before the other two escorts in the system can stop our escape. I do believe our numbers are a fair bit larger than the standard crew of a Zelenyy, so we’ll need plenty of food and water.”

  “That sounds remarkably workable,” Byron said.

  “Also, here is the old layout of Cerberus before they refitted her for her current duties. The drone bay is the old observation deck. Transit time to the station should be twenty-five minutes, which gives us,” Turing paused and his face bunched up as he did calculations in his head. “Somewhere around three hours from your arrival to be underway on the Bounty. We’ll be able to make two sorties with the shuttle safely, three if we push it.”

  “Or we could augment with the drones? Stow gear in the bays like we’re doing on the way up,” Eric offered.

  “Oh, yes, I don’t know why I hadn’t considered that,” Turing said.

  “Let’s get those suits,” Hadrian told them. “We’ll plan while we get dressed and hash it out on the way up.”

  “Good. Eric, take this,” Turing told him as he handed him a bundle. “It’s a weaponized pad. Strap it on your forearm, everything else is pretty straightforward, all the standard plug adapters. Just in case I can’t access something from where I’m at.”

  His heart beat in his ears as momentum pushed him into the loading clamps he’d spent the last twenty minutes nestled against.

  “Crystal clear,” Turing’s voice came over the radio, “That’s the last major course change. You’re on final approach. It looks like they fixed the ‘damaged’ sensors I gave them in the reactor space. I’m seeing traffic that tells me they’re trying to figure out why none of the transmitters are working. You’ve got maybe ten minutes before someone gets bright enough to poke around in places they’ll find me in. They don’t have time to actually fix what I’ve done completely, but figure another five or ten minutes after that for them to start shutting it all down. Catch them before they catch me, otherwise you’ll be on your own until you can bring the grid back up. If you can bring the grid back up.

  “By the way, the Bounty just tried to undock. I’ve put the clamps in a diagnostic loop. That should stall them for at least twenty minutes before someone realizes what’s going on and can cut the power.”

  “Well, shit,” Eric sighed.

  “The only easy day was yesterday,” Byron said.

  “How’s this change the plan?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We’ll split up,” Hadrian said. “Eric, you and Byron secure Cerberus proper. There’s only a dozen crew, mostly eggheads. Elizabeth and I will board the Bounty and head to the bridge. So six kills for each the two of you, and two dozen or so between me and Liz. Sorry, looks like we’re going to win by points.”

  “Leave it to the operational detachments to steal all the glory,” Byron snorted.

  “Steal it?” Hadrian jibed. “Old man, you’ve been off the teams at least a decade now, if not two. I’m just looking out for you. I did give you some decent backup.”

  Eric felt Bryon’s helmet shift by his feet.

  “There is that. He’s passable, I guess. Think we should keep him?” Byron asked.

  “He’s a better shooter than he is a scholar. We’d be doing academia a favor,” Hadrian replied.

  “Hey!” Eric protested.

  “Alright, cut the chatter,” Hadrian told them all. “Do whatever you do before all hell breaks loose. Five minutes to showtime.”

  Eric closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. Every heart beat pushed his chest against the chain sandwiched between it and the suit. Leah.

  “However rigorous the task that awaits me,” Elizabeth’s whisper filtered over the radio. “May I fulfill my duty with courage. If death should overtake me, grant that I die in the state of grace. Forgive me all my sins, those I have forgotten and those I recall now: grant me the grace of perfect contrition.”

  “Amen,” Byron whispered and the drone shook.

  A grinding whine filled his ears and then ceased with a jolt. Eric fell against the straps holding him in the bay.

  He activated the video link to the drone’s external sensors as Hadrian announced, “Showtime.”

  The display flickered in the corner of his visor for several moments before showing a sizable open bay lined with smaller chambers, each containing a drone. The control arm that had guided the drone inside the bay detached as a man in a vac suit approached. The man’s mouth moved. Eric started to frown.

  Block lettering appeared at the bottom of the feed:

 

  A second man joined the technician as he walked to drone’s port side. Our side.

  Eric tapped Byron’s helmet with his boot.

  “On three,” Byron said.

  “One.”

  Eric shifted, drawing his sidearm.

  “Two.”

  With his offhand, he grabbed the hooks, Turing’s specially made hooks, securing the cargo netting to the loading clamps.

  “Three.”

  Eric tugged the first hook free as Byron disengaged the magnetic clamps for the weapon’s bay. Gravity pulled his torso down, freeing his arm for the rest of the draw. He fired three shots the moment his hand reached full extension, echoed by another pistol near his feet.

  Two bodies dropped before him. Byron and Eric freed themselves from the rest of the webbing and dropped to the floor.

  “Mountain home, fox one. We are in the henhouse and are oscar mike,” Hadrian announced over the radio.

  Eric swapped a fresh magazine into his pistol and holstered it. Bringing up his rifle, he made his way to the primary hangar access hatch. Byron came up behind him and swiped the fallen technician’s badge by the reader. The light flashed green. The airlock cycled open and the team stepped in.

  Ten seconds later, they passed into the secondary lock.

  “They still haven’t found me,” Turing told them. “Just a heads up, starting the lightshow. Disregard any and all alarms you don’t cause yourself. Oh, cutting their internal comms, too.”

  The inner hatch opened and immediately the lights died. Moments later, a series of yellow lights dropped from ceiling while a loudspeaker made a looped announcement, “Fire, fire, fire. Class delta fire in the drone bay. Fire, fire, fire.”

  “That’ll get their attention,” Eric muttered as the team bounced the length of the access passage in pairs. Metal fires are no joke.

  “We’ll take this access-way,” Hadrian said, tugging open a small hatch near the end of the passage. “It’ll put us a few frames short of the docking clamps and keep us out of sight.”

  �
��Good hunting,” Byron told Hadrian as he climbed through the scuttle.

  “You, too,” Hadrian replied. Byron shut the scuttle behind Elizabeth.

  “Company should be here any second,” Byron said. He hefted his rifle and nodded toward the central elevator.

  Eric took a knee as the elevator display lit up. The number began counting down. At one, the doors dinged and opened. Between Eric and Byron, the pair dumped an entire magazine into the four surprised occupants.

  “Fox One, Fox Three. Fifty papa. Oscar mike. Primary ETA thirty seconds,” Byron called out as the pair stepped into the elevator.

  “Fox Three, Fox One. Oscar mike. Docking bay ETA three minutes.”

  Byron punched the button labeled bridge. The backlighting on the button cycled red.

  Eric’s radio chirped and Turing said, “I’ve got that.”

  The backlight went green and the doors cycled closed.

  “Huh,” Byron said. His grin was audible. “Looks like putting up with him was worth it after all.”

  “I heard that,” Turing said.

  “Good,” Byron said with a grin.

  The elevator announced their arrival with a cheerful ding. The doors slid open to reveal an open layout filled with displays, workstations, four bridge crew in their emergency breathers, and three armored Protectorate marines. Oh shit.

  The station’s captain and one of the marine’s looked over at the opening doors.

  “Oh, sorry, wrong floor,” Byron’s suit speakers crackled. Byron opened fire while Eric dove behind the nearest workstation for cover.

  Moments later Eric came up firing to give Byron time to find cover.

  “These rifles aren’t doing shit with that armor!”

  “Of course they aren’t. Focus on the bridge crew, the marines aren’t armed.”

  Pivoting between the crew, Eric put lead on target. The three stunned marines slowly held their hands up.

  “Now let’s not get any funny ideas,” Byron told them. “We’ve got you outnumbered two to three.”

  “What? We out number you and your guns are useless against us,” the marine on the left said.