by Jason Kent
Idiot.
Another hit, more powerful than the last and certainly more violent than Kate thought the shuttle should be able to take, rocked their tiny ship. Kate cursed under her breath. Everything she knew about combat came from remotely monitoring comms or online games.
What are you doing out here? Kate wondered and cursed her eagerness to have a place aboard the assault shuttle. Assault. Duh Kate, you don't know the first thing about combat. There are dozens of more effective ways to—
"Tral! Decatur's gone!" Garrett reported over the tacnet. As the pilot, he was tied into the overall fleet status. There was an edge to his voice not present earlier in the battle.
"Tral," Kate agreed. Then again, maybe this was the best place to be after all. She would still have been aboard SUNSS Decatur if she had not boarded the shuttle ninety minutes ago.
Curses filled Kate's headset as the troops reacted to Garrett's news. Everyone on the shuttle knew someone back on the ship. There was no way to know right away if any of them made it to escape pods or survived in the wreckage.
"Focus, marines," Black called out. Calmly, the Captain added, "Let's make it worth something."
"Oorah," several of the marines called back.
"Yeah, Oorah," Kate breathed. "Enough of acting like dead weight." She shut off her monitor and reached over to the weapon rack beside her. It was mostly empty since the rest of the marines were already armed. Kate snagged one of the remaining space assault rifles and pulled it close. She spent a few moments gazing down blankly at the weapon. The M-35 was augmented with a micro grenade launcher. Her mind wandered from imaging the grenades sailing out the barrel to thoughts of Rachel Lane and Jess Portilla, her two technical assistants back on Decatur.
Not just co-workers, Kate reminded herself, they were her friends. Kate clenched her gloved hand until the added stress of the hydraulic-assist servos started to make her knuckles ache.
"Clips," Merrick advised. Kate noted the Master Sergeant was using a private link.
Kate looked at the hulking marine. He was shorter than the others but she remembered the care with which he always readied his gear and the methodical way he laid out his armor kit in the ready room. The man wasted no movement and no words. Merrick lifted his armored forefinger towards the load bags hanging above the weapon rack. Kate took two and, after checking to see where Merrick stored his extra ammunition, attached them to her frontal armor just above the waist.
"Good," Merrick commented. "Watch." The marine proceeded to run through his weapons check again. Slow. Methodical.
Kate followed the marine's example. The marine weapon was different enough from the rifles she fired back on Earth she was not about to refuse a quick tutorial from an expert. The oversized rifle was designed for operations in any environment with protrusions and controls Kate knew from manuals but never actually toyed with herself. The sniper's rifle was a little different from the assault rifle in her hands, but the similarities were close enough to figure out the basic catches, safeties, and functionality.
"Lock and load!" Black called.
"Make it worth it something," Kate added softly. She stared at the assault rifle in her hands and thought of Jess and Rachel again. She sent out a quick prayer they made it to an escape pod and pushed doubts they had not out of her mind.
Kate chambered a round and initiated a link between the rifle and her suit's computer processors. Her weapons status went from red to green as the suit detected the new peripheral device. Chalk one up for integrated EMTEC systems, Kate thought wryly. She gave up being positive after a moment. What she really wanted was to kill something.
"Now I just to need find a Tallinn," Kate breathed.
Chapter 2
Mechs
"Five seconds," Garrett drawled calmly despite the increased staccato rattle of debris hitting the shields. "This shuttle is the rally point. I will hold my position until you all come home."
Kate wondered how true the pilot's statement was as she braced herself against his latest evasive slew. She looked around the bay at the soldiers crammed alongside her and realized they believed Garrett would stay just as he promised.
Good enough for them, good enough for me, Kate thought.
The assault shuttle did not land on the Tallinn ironclad, it crashed into the hull. The pilot pitched the shuttle's nose up so the belly of their craft was parallel to the targeted hull section and fired the braking thrusters. These engines served only to keep the impact from damaging the shuttle. Just before hitting the Tallinn ship, Garrett grasped one of the large levers embedded in the control console and shoved it forward with a grunt. Kate felt a thump under her feet as two-meter long hardened steel spikes deployed from the bottom of the shuttle. Each neatly pierced the hull around the desired entry point and ensured no maneuver on the part of the larger vessel would dislodge the shuttle. Kate's teeth ached from the crunch of metal-on-metal as the capture spikes punctured the skin of the ironclad. For incursions requiring a little more finesse, such as when the target ship needed to be taken intact, the pilot could use powerful electromagnets to attach to the hull. In this case, all Garrett needed to do was get his armored passengers inside to blow this bad boy to pieces. None of the surviving attack shuttles needed to take it easy on the cruiser's hull.
The violence of the impact lasted only a moment and was quickly replaced by even more destruction.
"Seal is locked!" Garrett announced. "Please, stand back from the edge of the platform!"
A section of the shuttle floor retracted. Kate got her first close-up look at the outside of a Tallinn ironclad. Despite the nickname, the hull was comprised of heavy steel plating. Patterns were etched into the plates, Kate could not tell if they were meant to be decorative or serve some other purpose. Thick pipes ran across the exposed hull, each nestled in a recessed channel.
"Torches!" Garrett warned.
Kate looked away from the center of the circular section of the shuttle floor which was about to become a door. Even with her darkened faceplate and head turned, Kate was still nearly blinded by the flash cutters. They worked fast as fiery electric scalpels created a new hatch big enough for two space suited members of the assault squad to fit through at the same time. The cutters hit a pipe and steam erupted into Kate's compartment.
Kate did a double take. Steam?
"Tral, sir! We can't see a thing back here!" Ross complained.
"Scanners are flaking out on me," Garrett ignored Ross' comment. "You should be dropping into a corridor."
"Long as it's not a coolant tank," Ross commented, "like last time."
"Just wanted to be sure you took at least one bath this year, Sergeant," Garrett came back. "Your door is ready! Give 'em hell!"
The center of the hold became a dark cavity as shaped charges blasted through the hull. The steam continued to pour into the shuttle and flooded the corridor now exposed below the shuttle.
Five assault rifles covered the opening as two marines hurled grenades into the Tallinn ship.
"Fire in the hole!" One of the marines shouted. Kate felt the double blasts transmitted through the deck to her heavy boots. As the grenades blew, Kate saw hard shadows inside the ship, cast by bulky equipment and pipes which seemed to run everywhere, all cloaked in steam.
"Get in there!" Anders shouted.
"Black death!" The two marines closest to the improvised entryway shouted and dove through the billowing steam. They went back-to-back, their weapons pointed above their heads in opposite directions. They were quickly followed by three other pairs until only Kate and Master Sergeant Merrick were left.
"Stay close," Merrick advised. "Remember chaos is my job."
"Maybe I should just stay—" Kate started.
"Yeah, but you'd miss all the fun," Merrick interrupted. He grabbed Kate's suit and pushed off through the hole into the Tallinn ship. Kate found herself pulled along for the ride.
"In that case," Kate responded, as she tried to look everywhere at once at the st
range interior, "How will I know when it's okay to shoot?"
"You'll know if you need to let loose."
"Got it," Kate replied, even though she did not have any idea what situation constituted an appropriate time to 'let loose'. She just hoped her hours playing War Blood—Galactic Revenge on the net would finally come in handy.
Kate was momentarily disoriented as she adjusted to a new frame of reference inside the larger ship; the corridor she found herself in was about forty-five degrees off from what she considered the floor of the shuttle.
"Weird," Kate stated, trying to get her feet on what should be the floor.
Merrick snagged Kate's arm and pulled her down the passage after him. "Don't think about it, just move. Tallinn ships usually don't have artificial gravity. Up and down don't matter much in here."
"Great," Kate muttered. She swallowed hard and managed to push off the bulky equipment mounted on the corridor wall and followed her Marine escort. She held up her rifle but kept finding Merrick in her sight. Each time the targeting reticle passed over the sniper, a tiny ping sounded in her ear. After five pings, Merrick grabbed a handhold along the wall and spun to face Kate.
"So, just a note, if you light me up again I will be forced to shoot you," Merrick stated matter-of-factly. "Stow your weapon for now and find us the engine core."
Nodding mutely, Kate managed to attach the rifle across her chest plate as demonstrated by Anders back in the shuttle. She used her armored pinkie to hit the keys on her datapad until a holo-display showing the notional interior of the ship appeared. The image flickered then stabilized.
"Akil, Locate closest energy source." Once activated, Kate could direct the display with the suit's audio command function. Her avatar, Akil, would do the rest from within the circuits of the data pad.
"Closest power source located," Akil replied a feminine British accent. A red arrow appeared on Kate's display pointing behind her. "Distance twenty-seven-point-seven meters."
"That would be the shuttle's engines," Merrick noted dryly. "Probably not the best thing to blow up if we plan on using it when we leave."
"Thanks, Akil," Kate said. "Uh, let's try finding the largest power supply within a five hundred meter radius."
"Of course," Akil replied. The red arrow spun and then settled. It pointed down the corridor, to the aft end of the Tallinn vessel and slightly upwards from their current location. "Objective acquired. Distance two-hundred-twe...." The avatar's voice faded away to nothing.
"Close enough," Merrick remarked. He spoke loudly over the interference on the squad's tacnet and started giving directions to the men ahead of him.
"This isn't right," Kate declared as she tapped at her keypad, "Akil, run a full..." Static crackled in her earpiece and the holo flickered and dimmed. "Tral," Kate muttered and started a check of the rest of her gear.
Kate's sensors stopped working and Akil remained silent. Nothing she tried brought the datapad back to life. Kate fought the tingle of panic which crept up her spine. She needed this gear to work.
"Targeting system's down," Merrick noted from Kate's side. He swept the corridor with his rifle, scanning for threats. He glanced at Kate's dark datapad. "Care for some advice?"
"Sure," Kate replied with a nervous laugh. She stopped tapping on her dark screen. "This situation," she paused and waved her hand in a gesture which took in the steaming corridor, "would appear to be more in your line of expertise."
"Forget the tech," Merrick stated, not looking away from the visual sites of his weapon. "The Tallinn machines are screwing with our gear." He gave a lop-sided grin, added, "Even if it is from EMTEC."
"Shouldn't we just get back to the shuttle?" Kate suggested quietly. "I mean, if our tech is trashed, what are we supposed to do?"
"Complete the mission," Merrick said matter-of-factly. "Find the power source of the interdiction machine they're using. Take it out. Bang. Fleet's translation drives work again."
"But..." Kate stammered and tapped a frustrated finger on her datapad, "what about all this? None of this stuff works!"
"Don't sweat it," Merrick said. "My low-light scope and range finder may be off-line—"
Kate screamed as a Tallinn trooper dropped into the corridor.
Merrick demonstrated the full functionality of the rifle. He fired a round before Kate even remembered she had a weapon with her. The trooper was slammed back into the wall from the impact of Merrick's high-powered round.
"Bullets work," Merrick noted. He edged toward the slowly spinning trooper, ready to fire again. Merrick nudged the Tallinn's side. A second shot was not needed.
Breathing hard, Kate slowly approached the downed Tallinn. She swallowed. Kate did not want to get any closer to the dead man. Still, she could not resist the temptation to get an up close look at real Tallinn mechology. Kate looked over Merrick's shoulder. The trooper's armor was crude when compared to the reactive ceramic-carbon plates the Stellar Union Marines used. There were other obvious differences. Kate's eyes were drawn to the optical sensor flipped down over the Tallinn's right eye. She bent closer to examine the green crystal set in a brass frame.
"Some sort of heads up display," Kate noted, her voice shaky, "or maybe a filter."
Merrick flipped the trooper over and studied his pack. Clockwork springs and gears ticked erratically. Each sound was accompanied by a twitch in the power-assist machinery attached to the Tallinn's arms and legs.
"Is that a computer?" Kate pointed at a clockwork device nestled in the center of the pack. Her fear ebbed as the excitement of discovery began to take over.
"It would appear so," Merrick replied. The sniper reached into the pack and pulled out a handful of gears and rotors. A spring flew out and hit Kate in the faceplate. As the clockwork computer's clicks ceased, Merrick prodded a bundle of wires and copper tubes which linked the mechanism Kate was studying to a series of pressure cylinders. "Environmental gear. Probably for vacuum ops."
Kate checked the manual pressure dials on her suit. They worked despite her pad's failure and showed the atmosphere inside the Tallinn ship was breathable, if a bit on the hot side. Kate lifted her faceplate and leaned closer to examine the Tallinn's exoskeleton.
"I'd love to tear this apart and figure out what makes it tick," Kate remarked, "literally." Her eyes landed on the dead soldier's face. She winced; embarrassed by how her fascination with the mech-tech of his suit made her forget about the man inside. The Tallinn was young. "Could be anyone from our unit."
"Except he's dead and were not," Merrick noted. He picked up the Tallinn's weapon and studied the auto-fed mechanism.
Kate detected movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look down the corridor. Suddenly, she wished the rifle in her hands was a lot larger. She also realized seeing vids of Tallinn clankers and finding yourself facing them were two very different experiences.
The mech was basically humanoid in appearance but unlike the Tallinn trooper at her feet, had no one controlling it's movements. Mechs were pure killing machines. Its heavy central body was supported by squat, piston-driven legs. Like Kate and Merrick, the mech appeared to have magnetic soles in its steel feet as it alternated between planting its feet firmly on the deck plates and pulling itself along the wall with its mechanical arms. Each arm sprouted both an articulate hand and a weapon. The machines left arm was equipped with a six-barreled Gatling-style gun fed by an ammunition belt which disappeared into the mech's body. A shortened assault rifle was welded to the left forearm. An array of pressurized lines ran from the tanks mounted on the mech's back to pistons and hydraulic controller valves. A boxy head sat atop the body and featured a single optical sensor glowing with an angry red light. Steel plates served as armor and covered vital parts of the mech. Between the chinks, Kate could see clockwork components ticking and turning. The chinks presented an obvious weakness, but the opportunities to exploit them were fleeting as the armor shifted and realigned itself with each movement the mech made.
Kate
remembered she laughed the first time she saw the tech read-outs from captured mechs. For the life of her she could not recall what was so funny. The mechs and armored Tallinn troopers got their power from the compact high-pressure boilers and compressed gas reserves. A maze of hydraulics controlled the joints and power-assist motors. There were no targeting computers and no radio communication. Despite all the differences from Stellar Union technology, steam power never looked as deadly as it did standing right there in front of Kate.
While Kate gawked at the first mech, a second appeared behind it. She was startled into action when Merrick fired. His shot put a deep furrow into the black paint of mech's armor but did no other damage. Merrick cursed and fired again. This time, his bullet found a chink and ruptured something important. Steam exploded from a punctured pressure line. The violent flow hissed for a moment then slowed. Somewhere in the back of her head, Kate realized the machine must have redundant mechanical isolation circuits.
Smart. But, she really did not care at this point. Staying alive, not professional observation, seemed to be the order of the moment. As Kate watched, the mech recovered then continued advancing, presumably with its back-up lines functioning just fine.
"Tral," Kate hissed.
The mechs raised their spinning Gatling guns. Kate saw a flash from their optics as the machine's eyes scanned for targets. She remembered her amazement at what could be accomplished with a mechanical computing system. The resulting computational device was cheap, easy to repair, and could provide enough brain power to allow a mech to locate a target, determine friend from foe, and attack anything not found in its database. Kate realized this consisted of her and Merrick.
