by TR Cameron
Diaz barked into the channel, "Wickrens, Keziah, Winstel, projectile fire." Flying metal filled the air as her people switched modes on the rifles, sending bullets speeding at the robots, who were now frighteningly close. Each gave a small fiery bloom as they hit. The explosives in the tips weakened the impacted area so the slug could penetrate deeper. One of the four fell, the victim of multiple precise shots at the junction of head and neck.
The lead robot pushed forward into melee distance, and Diaz engaged it, raising his armored arms in an X to block the downward arc of what looked like a giant hammer. He was forced to dive back and to the side immediately after as two of the other arms swung across—one of them holding a long knife and the other a cutting torch.
"Aim for the heads," Kate instructed, "and sight on my target."
She triggered the targeting beam built into her rifle, and a bright green dot appeared on the face of one enemy. She unloaded with laser bolts, and her team followed with a mix of energy and projectile fire. The robot dropped, beheaded.
"Again," Kate instructed, and those with rifles eliminated the robots while Diaz and Wickrens kept the aliens from reaching melee range with the shooters.
When the four had fallen, the group advanced again, demonstrating caution in every step. "Pandora, can you give us advanced warning of the defenders?"
"No, Commander. I haven’t yet broken that far into the base's defensive systems."
"Okay, keep trying. How about a route to the control center?"
The ship didn’t reply, but a map appeared in the corner of her helmet's display, and a path appeared, glowing faintly on the floor in front of them.
"Nice AR," Winstel said. Kate had to agree. The line was perfectly mapped onto the floor, as if painted there.
"Forward," she said. "Diaz, Wickrens, you take the lead. We’ll concentrate fire on any defenders that show themselves, but you’ll have to hold them in place if they get close. It's lucky that they're so tall. Makes head shots easier."
"Not to be negative, Commander, but I wouldn't count on that luck holding," observed Diaz, strangely happy-sounding.
"Roger that," Kate said, and gestured her people forward.
They moved cautiously but with a purpose. The team quickly marched down long stretches of unbroken corridor only to creep, heel-to-toe, near every doorway and intersection they encountered. The awareness that additional defenders could appear at any moment forced them into a much slower pace than Kate would've preferred.
"Enemies approaching," announced Pandora, and the team fell back into the same firing positions. From the intersection ahead, a new type of enemy appeared. This one was visibly a security model, with all six of its arms carrying legitimate, fear-invoking weapons. Its twin stepped out from the opposite corridor. The two faced the humans without moving. Only the lights shining from what were likely target designators showed that they were functioning at all.
"Fire," yelled Kate, and the team opened up on the newcomers.
None of their barrage reached the enemy, as a protective barrier shimmered into place that defeated the incoming blasts and deflected the projectiles.
"Fall back," Kate commanded, and not a second too soon, as the aliens opened tiny holes in their protection and returned fire. Blasts of energy connected with the humans' armor, but were absorbed or otherwise dealt with, so caused no damage. Gouts of flames followed, and Kate's team crouched behind corners, momentarily safe from the blasts.
"Pandora, suggestions?" Kate asked
"The sentries are designed for this purpose, Commander. In the small corridors, it’ll be impossible to flank them. Your only hope is to fire through the same gaps they’re using in the protective shield."
One of her team members groaned, and another piped up, "Well, that'll be easy."
"You heard her," Kate growled, no nonsense in her tone. She called up a schematic of the alien sentry in her display, and marked each of the gaps that Pandora had located, assigning them to individuals. "On my mark, we’ll jump out and fire at those spots. Our armor has proven adequate thus far, and I think it’s safe to assume that’ll continue for the rest of this short battle." In the part of her that always doubted, Kate was sure of no such thing, but she forced those thoughts sternly back into their box and flicked the lock. "Shorter is better, of course. Standby." She moved, then said, "Mark."
Her team barreled into the corridor, finding clear firing angles and pouring energy through the gaps. They blasted away the weapons on the other side of those holes, and their concentrated fire removed an arm from each before the sentries shifted tactics.
The openings closed as the robots spun their weapons back into holding brackets on their bodies. Blades extended from each of the arms, and they stalked forward.
"Same routine as before, people."
Her melee fighters moved into the front and busied themselves deflecting the wicked chops of the sentries. Each guard lost a weapon when the robots proved capable of hacking through the rifles that were the humans' only blocking tools.
Closing into melee had required them to drop their shields, however, and the rest of the team combined fire to decapitate the first sentry in thirty seconds before moving on to the second, which fell in a similar amount of time.
As the smoke cleared, Kate saw one of her two melee fighters on the ground.
"Wickrens?" she asked. There was no reply.
The team's designated medic, Lieutenant Emmilee Lachance, moved to the wounded sailor's side, and sought to make a connection between the UAL gear she was most familiar with and the alien suits.
"I can't do it, Commander. They won't talk."
"Pandora, can you tell us the status of Wickrens?"
"The Lieutenant is unconscious from shock, Commander Flynn. He’s lost his left hand, and a significant amount of blood. The suit has deployed a tourniquet to stem the blood loss and has sealed itself against the vacuum. However, due to differences in physiology, it cannot administer treatment."
"Dammit," Kate breathed. "Okay, Lachance. Take him back to Pandora. Get him into the med bay and get him stabilized. If we’re still in here when you're done, come back to us."
The medic nodded, stood, and grabbed a ridge on the fallen man's armor. She handed off the mostly useless med kit to Winstel as she passed, bound for the exit.
"Onward," Kate commanded.
They encountered several more enemies along the way, but they were of the first type, which Kate had concluded were most likely repair robots hastily reconfigured for defense. Pandora confirmed it when asked.
Finally, they reached the command center. The door slid open before them. "I take it you’ve penetrated the systems to a greater degree," Kate said.
"Yes, Commander, I have. The station continues to fight my intrusion, so I cannot say how long I’ll be able to maintain the connection."
"Gotcha," she replied.
"Is the path clear to engineering?" asked Trey Winstel.
"Yes, Lieutenant Commander."
He turned to Kate. "I'd like to go check it out."
She frowned, but she knew the desire to explore all too well. "Okay, but at the first sign of trouble, hightail it back here, right?"
"Right on, Commander," he said as he dashed off. Kate shook her head in amusement and stepped into the command center.
The only thing familiar about the space was what were clearly separate control stations, arranged in a large circle. An outer row of stations, spaced at regular intervals, was oriented toward the external wall. One tier down, the inner row faced the middle. At the center of the room was a single position, demarcated by a metallic disc on the floor. Kate crossed to one of the stations and sat in the oversized chair. As her armored gauntlets drew near, sensors in the station detected them calling the instruments came to life. The display blurred, then resolved again as Pandora overlaid a translation of the information into her helmet.
Security protocols were apparently not present, or were disabled, and Kate was able t
o dive into the records with ease.
"This says that at the end of the war with a winged alien race," an image of the Xroeshyn appeared.
Diaz laughed grimly and interrupted, "Seems like they have a talent for ticking off everyone they come in contact with."
"After the war," Kate continued over the laughs of her team, "the Domeki withdrew into seclusion. According to this, they have hideouts all over the place, and are lying dormant, awaiting," she paused, and hit a few more buttons. "Pandora, do you know how long the dormancy is supposed to last, or what could trigger its end?"
"I do not, Commander. My role was simply to wait until activated."
Kate grunted and returned to her displays. "It appears that this race is incredibly old They’ve engaged in battles or wars with," a hushed tone fell into her voice, "hundreds of other species."
Kate's voice failed her. None of her team found a reason to break the silence. Contemplation of their relative importance or lack thereof in the universe overwhelmed them until Kate shook herself out of it.
"Pandora, make a copy of all of this data so we can investigate it at leisure."
"Affirmative, Commander," Pandora replied. There was a momentary pause, and then her voice came back again, "I’m unable to download the information, Commander. Worse, my attempt has triggered a higher alert level, and more defenses are coming online."
"Time to go," Kate said, as she stood and turned toward the exit.
"Commander, I think you need to see this," Winstel called over the comm.
"Are you saying it's worth fighting our way through more robots to see this thing?"
"I believe it is," he replied.
Pandora added new information, "I’ve locked down the corridor leading to the chamber, Commander. I should be able to hold the passage long enough for you to reach it. Your egress will be no harder from there than from your current position."
Kate shrugged. "Seems everyone wants us to take a look at the chamber. Let's do it."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Anderson Cross bolted down the corridor at a run, having spent too long overseeing repairs on the Washington and not long enough donning his dress uniform for the meeting. He slid to a stop outside the appointed door, pausing to catch his breath and straighten his tunic. Running a quick hand through his hair, he slipped into the room.
The entrance was at the very back of a space that could easily have held a conference table big enough for sixty. Instead, there was a smaller one that ran perpendicular to the length of the room, the far side of which was clustered with admirals. More than one of those august officers narrowed their eyes at him as he entered.
I guess my reputation precedes me.
As he walked forward, he tried to catch the eye of his friend and mentor, Admiral James Okoye, but he was engaged in conversation with the officer next to him and didn’t look up. Cross thought he recognized the salt-and-pepper hair of one of the captains with his back to him. He sat down beside him to discover he was right.
"Hello, Dima."
"Hello, Cross."
He was about to discuss the purpose of the meeting with Dima when the admiral across the table from him cleared his throat and slapped his palms down with a loud bang. The assembled officers fell silent.
"Now that I have your attention," Earnest Stefan said, "let's get this meeting underway. I’ll ask Admiral Wilder to bring you up to speed on the current situation."
"There are indications that the enemy is amassing in sector sixty-one to make a push. Until now, we’ve been trading space for time, but we’re rapidly running out of territory to abandon."
Cross risked a glance at Dima, but the AAN captain's gaze was locked forward. He knew they were of like minds on the space-for-time strategy. He returned his attention to the speaker.
"The admiralty feels it will be an effective strategic choice to meet the enemy in force at this next engagement. It should take them by surprise, and with the commitment of the majority of our available forces, should give us a numerical advantage.
"Our purpose here," Stefan said, "is to finalize our strategy for using this as a moment to delay the enemy's advance. I want to reiterate, we don’t see this as a final battle of any sort. The war will not be won in the next day, the next week, or the next month. However, we can bloody them and put them back on their heels. With a little luck, a counteroffensive isn’t outside the realm of possibility."
"Please take ten minutes to gather your individual thoughts on the upcoming battle. Feel free to discuss with those around you. There’s coffee and tea on the sideboard," he gestured toward it, "and the ensign will take requests for anything else you'd like to snack on."
The admiral began a private conversation with the officer next to him, signaling the beginning of work time. Cross turned to Dima, who was already facing him. "What do you think, Dima?"
"I think it’s an interesting play by the admiralty, to say the least."
Cross nodded. "It’ll give us the advantage of surprise, for once. After so long running from them, they should not expect us to turn around and resist."
Dima was nodding even before Cross finished speaking. "That is true, that is true, but..." The unfinished end of his statement hung.
"But it seems like an unexpected opportunity, doesn't it?" Cross asked.
"It does, indeed. And when something like this occurs, you must ask whether it’s an opening that occurred naturally, or whether it’s been deliberately left open."
Cross frowned as Dima put into words exactly what he’d been thinking. "The Xroeshyn have proven to be capable of the long game. This could easily be an effort on their part to appear weak, then hammer our ships with additional forces and take us out completely."
Dima's face mirrored Cross's own grimace. "It’s true. One would assume the admiralty has considered this. It isn’t as if they are untalented."
"No question. Several of them literally wrote the book on the strategies we were taught at the Academy. Nonetheless, it’s always possible for the view from the rear to be occluded."
Dima gave him a look. Cross returned a sheepish one. "All right, I get it. I have too little respect for the admiralty. Still, it’d probably be a mistake to assume that they’ve already thought of this, rather than making sure of it."
Dima made a gesture toward him as if to invite him to do so at the same moment that Admiral Stefan called the group back together. Several other people at the table offered ideas and refinements that were blended into the battle plan. When a moment of silence occurred, Cross cleared his throat. The attention of all the admirals in the room drilling into him at once was disconcerting, to say the least.
He swallowed hard, then said, "Admirals, Captains, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this could be a trap. An effort to get us to commit our forces, only to be confronted with a larger enemy force than we expect."
"Commander Cross, thank you for stating the obvious. Was it the consideration of such clever ideas that caused you to be late to the meeting?"
Several laughs followed that question, and Cross added Stefan to the list of admirals he disliked on a personal level. "In any case, your strategic brilliance isn’t required. We considered this possibility and rejected it. A careful reconnaissance of the sectors around the target sector has been conducted, and they’re being monitored. No enemy forces are in range, and if any arrive, we’ll have warning."
Cross settled back, frustrated, but less angry than he ordinarily would’ve been. He’d made the choice to intervene not for his own benefit, but because he felt that someone had to take that responsibility. The answer was nothing more than he’d expected.
As the meeting broke up, Cross walked over to Okoye and tried to engage him in conversation, but the admiral brushed him off, instead moving to speak with Admiral Margaret Flynn, the only other higher-ranking officer Cross had any interest in speaking to. He shrugged, figuring that at the moment being seen with him wasn’t necessarily a positive. He’d believed Okoye was be
yond such things, but undoubtedly the rules of the game changed once one became an admiral.
It probably happened during the mandatory lobotomy that removed independent thought, Cross mused and quietly laughed his way out of the room.
THAT EVENING, Dima, Cross, and Jannik sat together around the board, their tumblers of whiskey nearby. Jannik and Dima were in the end portion of the middle game, and exchanged pieces at a rapid pace, sacrificing their smaller forces to gain an advantageous position for the more powerful ones.
"So, Dima tells me you humiliated yourself today, my boy," Jannik said.
Cross choked on his whiskey, and set the tumbler down, coughing. When he regained his composure, he replied, "First, I very much doubt that those are the words Dima used." A smile and a nod from Dima confirmed this. "Second, I wouldn't say I was humiliated. Perhaps the better phrase is dressed down. That's fine. I've been dressed down before, and for worse reasons."
"But you’re sure it's a trap, right?" Jannik asked.
"I, for one, am sure," Dima replied. "The more I think about it, the more certain I am. They’re setting up a force to possibly be sacrificed in an effort to draw us into this engagement. Why, I cannot say. But it’d be unlike them to present such an advantageous opportunity."
"But of course, the admiralty is aware of this, right?" Cross asked.
"Of course," the other two said together, with entirely different inflections. Dima seemed sincere, while Jannik expressed his usual distrust of the admirals outside the engineering division.
"And yet they seem ready to let us fly into it," Cross said with a shrug. "I'm willing to take part in their game, but I'm not willing to be a pawn." He reached over and grabbed a piece from the board, holding it up to the light and admiring it. "I prefer the bishop, or perhaps the rook."
"It’s the knight for me," said Dima.
"I always choose the queen," Jannik said, sweeping that piece forward to take one of Dima's pawns and threaten his king.
“Even the queen can be fooled, though, my friend," Dima replied, making a canny move that isolated Jannik's regal attacker from her protectors. The chief engineer scowled.
