by Mark Wandrey
They got off the lift on Deck 22, one of the shuttle/dropship maintenance and service decks. The lifts each only ran half the length of the ship to minimize secondary damage in the event of combat losses. They crossed a bay to reach the lift in Section Three. The space was mostly devoid of maintenance work, with most of the crew en route to the two gravity deck entrances. Crew morale was good. Despite the casualties, they were finally going Home.
“Is it bad?” she asked as they again began to descend.
“Problematic,” Paka said.
Alexis was used to her XO’s restrained nature. When the situation called for it, she’d quickly relay whatever information Alexis needed. But in situations like this, the Veetanho’s nature took over, and she would draw it out to a dramatic reveal. Alexis didn’t fight it; you left a good dynamic in place, even if it had a few issues.
The lift stopped on Deck 29, currently its lowest location. The missile damage had played hell with secondary systems down here, the lifts among them. They left the lift and floated toward Section Two. Deck 29 was a missile magazine, and the bulkhead was segmented to allow blowout on each section in case of accidental detonation. Each section was fifteen feet, top to bottom, filled with racks holding missiles of all types. Automatic feed mechanisms moved the missiles up to the rear missile launchers on Deck 28.
At the gangway, a Tri-V flashed across the downward ramp. “Caution – Pressure Maintenance Underway!” Alexis nodded her approval, glad Guylan was doing his job. They floated through the warning and down to Deck 30, the marines’ deck.
This deck was double the normal size at 30 feet high. The extra space allowed the marines ample room for their billeting as well as a separate mess, armory, CASPer ready room, and maintenance shops. It was also home to another set of docking collars, one in each of the pie-shaped sections. These facilitated easy egress for maintenance and the loading of dropships or assault pods for combat. The damage was apparent the moment they entered.
Alexis looked at the torn wall, the blackened decks and ceilings, and the scattered maintenance equipment used to bring basic function back to the holed deck. The entire bulkhead between Section Two and Section One had blown toward Section Two like a soda can someone put a firecracker inside.
The missile had slammed into the hull by the collar on Section One, punched through the exterior armor, and detonated inside. Several hundred pounds of K2 in a shaped charge had struck the interior like a wrecking ball. Section One was mostly marine barracks and sanitary facilities. Most of the marines not on alert had been sealed in their staterooms. They never knew what hit them.
The explosion tore through the section and blew out the bulkheads between Section One and Sections Two and Four. Section Four held office space, officers’ staterooms, and training and equipment spaces. Section Two contained the marines’ small mess hall, CASPer storage, and one of their three armories. All three sections were completely destroyed.
The explosion didn’t have quite enough force to breach the central spine, or continue into Section Three opposite the impact point. The lack of damage to the spine was particularly good as it held the main power, data, and fluid transfer lines for the entire ship. Section Three was home to two additional armories, a small weapons testing range, and the marines’ ready room where their troopers geared up. Their only surviving members had been there, ready for action when she’d set Condition One.
Alexis moved toward Section One, but Paka put a clawed hand on her leg.
“They’re in Section Three, ma’am.”
“I know,” she said. “I just want to see the impact point.” Paka let her go, and she drifted to the blown-out bulkhead. She touched the bent metal almost gingerly, as if part of her mind expected it to still be hot. The metal felt rough to the touch, the aftereffect of the incredible explosive forces. She pulled herself through into Section One. All the individual rooms and other spaces were gone, the force of the blast had compressed them like a stack of potato chips. Seeing an interior section like this blown open reminded her of the shuttle deck. It was unnatural.
The hole in the exterior pressure wall was small, less than five feet across and 10 feet long. The missile had hit at an oblique angle from far aft; its impact hole was almost oblong. Striking at several thousand feet per second, its armored tip penetrated the hull like a bullet, then triggered the warhead a millisecond later. The hole was patched with several steel plates welded in place. A typical field expedient repair, the entire affair was sprayed with a layer of super-crete sealant. It wasn’t as strong as the actual hull, but if another missile hit the same point, it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.
Only five feet from the plated-over wound was the bulge of a secondary cableway. Loss of life aside, the hit had done very little actual damage to Pegasus’ combat capabilities. The crazy bastards in the escort frigates could have thrown missiles at Pegasus’ shields until their magazines ran empty and she’d still have had more than enough defenses to continue on.
“Lucky, and unlucky,” she said as she surveyed the damage. Paka let her be. After a minute, she floated back out and around to Section Three. The bulkhead doorway was gone, the blast wave had blown it off its hinges. As she floated in she could see it, embedded in the opposite bulkhead. There was conversation on the other side.
“Captain on deck,” Paka called ahead, and the conversation died out.
“At ease,” she said as she drifted in. The ready room was a bit worse for wear, though not as bad as the other three sections by far. It was difficult to imagine the squad all strapped into their armor and holding onto handholds here as the missile blew apart three-quarters of the deck. She looked at the scene and immediately wondered what the fuck was wrong. “Explain?”
The squad leader, Sergeant T’jto, was hovering to one side of the room on her rear legs, the middle and top set crossed over her thorax, her multifaceted eyes taking in everything. Zit clung to a bulkhead, its eyestalks moving this way and that. It appeared to have been working on a laser carbine, though now the pieces just floated nearby, ignored. The only surviving Human member, Corporal Johansson, was sitting on a bench, anchoring herself to it with a leg bent back underneath. Like Zit, she’d been doing some maintenance on a piece of equipment from her CASPer. Unlike the Goka, she was using a sticky-mat to keep the parts from floating away—the downside of only having two manipulative limbs. She pretended to continue her work.
The last two members of the team were the creatures of interest. Private Jeejee was floating next to the wall, whiskers twitching in an obviously agitated state, eyes fixed on the point of his anger. That point was their heavy weapons and general mayhem specialist, Oort.
The Tortantula was a hulking 10 feet across from tip to tip of her nine legs. She currently was somewhat curled where she’d wrapped around a bench in a posture Alexis had never seen one of her kind assume.
“She’s being an idiot,” Jeejee barked and jabbed a finger in the spider’s side. It didn’t react.
“She looks ill to me,” Alexis said.
“Mentally,” Jeejee grumbled.
“Maybe one of you can tell me what’s going on?”
“Captain?” the MinSha sergeant said.
“Please, Sergeant T’jto,” Alexis said.
“Private Oort,” she said, gesturing with a mid-hand, “is having a crisis of conscience.” Alexis looked from the MinSha sergeant to the Tortantula who was curled up on the bench and cocked an eyebrow.
“A Tortantula? Conscience?” The sergeant gave a shrug. “Jeejee, maybe you can explain?” She hoped someone could.
“It started with the fight on that heavy hauler. One of the SleSha shot at her with a laser rifle. I mean, mag dump, hosed it all away at her.” He looked at his partner. “Didn’t score a single hit.”
“Happens in combat all the time,” Johansson said and snorted.
“Not when you’re the size of a tank,” Jeejee pointed out. The Tortantula was a huge target. Maybe not as big as a tank—
perhaps just a small car. “Then when we were attacked after entering the system here, it was our squad on ready-alert rotation. Our squad, not any of the others. Call it 25 percent odds that we’re the ones in the only part of Deck 30 to survive. The other three squads, instant death.
“We scuttle in and start getting geared up. Oort hates her vacuum armor. Tortantula don’t like armor that covers their entire body. She takes her time. She’s still finishing as you start juking us all over the place.” Sergeant T’jto nodded, managing to make it look disapproving. Not an easy feat for an insect.
“I kept yelling to hurry up,” the NCO said.
“She finally got her armor on, and I mean, just finished, and kaboom!” The Flatar made an explosion sound and waved his hands around. “The whole fucking deck, blown to shit. The shockwave blew the damn hatch off and launched it across the deck like a stone skipping on water.” He floated along the deck, pointing to two scuffs between the hatch way and where the hatch was embedded in the bulkhead. “And, where was she?” he asked, and pointed a couple feet away, directly in front of the hatch he perched on. “She was standing right there. Right fucking there, squatted down and holding the deck plates with her claws. The hatch went over her body so close it threw sparks off the armor!”
“Lucky fucker,” Zit chittered from the wall.
“It was not luck,” the giant Tortantula grumbled. Everyone turned and looked at her.
“Then what was it?” Jeejee asked.
“I…don’t…know,” she admitted slowly. For a time, no one knew what to say.
“Private Oort,” Alexis address her.
“Captain?”
“I need you to get your shit straight.”
“I’m trying, sir.”
“No, you’re curled up in a ball like a house spider someone sprayed with pesticide. A few hours ago I lost almost all my marines. You five are all I have left to defend this ship. A large portion of the crew isn’t from a merc race, and if we get boarded, you’re it. In a fight, you are a black goddess of unholy death, and that’s how I want you.” The alien didn’t respond. “Can I count on you, marine?” Jeejee looked from the captain to his companion and back again, as nervous as Alexis had ever seen the Flatar.
No one completely understood that relationship, and it was a common one. The Flatars were probably the least imposing physical specimens in all the merc races. Only around one foot tall, they looked like chipmunks with rather long arms and sharp eyes, and they had a propensity for violence only equaled by the Tortantula. Some even said they were cruel by nature. Maybe it had been fated from the beginning that Flatar would ride Tortantulas in battle, relatively safe with an armored seat and a big fucking gun. They were great at picking off stragglers their partners might miss and watching behind them in tight quarters. They were basically living close-in defense systems.
“I need an answer,” Alexis said, crossing her arms and hooking a foot into a handhold. Her bearing was the ‘Captain ain’t happy’ one the crew constantly strove to avoid at all costs.
“I am here for a reason,” Oort said.
“Yeah, to kill shit,” Jeejee growled. Alexis motioned him to silence, and Oort continued.
“I do not know what that reason is, but clearly, my being spared the beyond three times in such a short period is a sign. I have to think on this.” Think? Alexis thought. Entropy, a thinking Tortantula? What next?
“Think all you want, marine,” she said, “but if that alarm claxon sounds will you fight?”
“I will fight,” the Tortantula replied without hesitation.
“Good enough for me,” Alexis said with a nod. If it were a Human she’d given a pep talk to, she would have patted them on the shoulder, looked them in the eye, and added a respectful nod. Oort wasn’t a physical-touching being. Her skin was covered in black fur tough enough to tear a Human’s skin, she had no shoulders to speak of, and there were 10 eyes all around her head. She settled on a nod for Oort, and turned to Sergeant T’jto. “Carry on, sergeant.”
“Captain,” the MinSha said, and gave her a brisk, insectile salute.
“Jeejee, a word?” Alexis asked. The Flatar glanced at his partner before holstering his huge laser pistol (cross body, it was too big for a belt holster), and followed her as she floated out the shattered hatchway. Paka followed a respectful distance behind. “I’d like your opinion, private,” she said once they were back in Section Two and out of hearing range.
“She’s fucking nuts,” Jeejee snorted. “I’d say she was done, except…”
“Go on,” Alexis prompted.
“Except she said she’d fight.”
“Anyone can say they’ll fight.”
“If a Tortantula says something, you’d better believe it. I’ve dealt with them my whole life. Our races have intertwined fates. We go to school together as children! Flatar parents put their kids with hatching Tortantula to teach them we aren’t food. The little bastards still bite sometimes. We’re somewhat naturally immune to their neurotoxin, and the occasional nip at that age just strengthens the resistance. Anyway, there’s two things you learn growing up around the big brutes. One is they don’t know how to say quit. Ever.”
“And the second?”
“A Tortantula can’t lie. I don’t think they know how. Just like they don’t understand humor, and barely understand metaphorical statements. The ones who are too small or weak to go to war end up going into other trades, but they still pair off with a Flatar as an assistant. We guide them through interactions that are difficult for them to handle. Most Tortantula would rather eat a Human than talk to one.”
“We’re a very humorous race,” Alexis agreed.
“You’re a race of assholes,” Jeejee said, then looked at her. “No offense, sir.”
“None taken,” she said. “So, you’re saying she’s all messed up, but she’ll still fight?”
“Correct on both accounts,” Jeejee agreed.
“You’ll keep an eye on her, then?”
“Of course; it’s my job.”
“Let me ask something else?” Jeejee nodded in his no-neck version of a nod. “Has she always been off like that, in other ways?”
“I have no idea.”
“What? You mean you aren’t sure?”
“No, I mean I have no idea. We’d only been together a few weeks before we signed on with the Hussars.”
Alexis grunted and nodded. “Huh, I just assumed you two had always been together.”
“Lots of other races think that. You should see some of the porn that gets published.” Alexis looked askance, and he laughed. “See, we do understand humor. The truth is, though, we often do spend our lives with them. We both get killing and violence; it comes naturally to us. Unlike Humans, we’ve embraced that side of our being. You hairless monkeys seem to spend more time trying to explain away your bloodthirsty side than you do embracing it.”
“So how did you two end up together?” They’d stopped at the gangway up to Deck 30. The three moved aside to make room for an elSha maintenance team that came bounding down, the little reptilians as comfortable in zero-gravity as fish in water.
“We met on Telka in a merc pit. It’s a shit world over in the Jesc arm.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Kinda place you end up in when you’re low on options. Oort had just been dropped from her company. They’d done an assault with a Besquith company, and as usual the spiders had soaked up most of the fire and casualties. Only a couple of her teammates survived, and her rider wasn’t one of them. Ever notice part of one arm is missing?” The captain nodded. “Lost it in that fight. A Tortantula can lose one or two and keep going. Hell, I’ve heard of a few with cybernetic arms, but never met one. They’re almost spiritual about it. Once you lose a limb, you’re done. No unit will take you. Some shit about ‘being chosen, but not going.’”
“Going where?” Alexis asked. Jeejee made a twirling motion with one hand above his head.
“The great beyond? How the hell should I know? A
nyway, they’re damaged goods. A lot of them end up with non-Tortantula units as hired guns. Problem is, most are bat shit crazy because they’re not with their own kind. They’re communal, you see? I met her there, trying to broker a pit fighting deal. She didn’t realize they were trying to get her to fight five Oogar at the same time. Not actually sure she would have cared if she did. I helped her out, we teamed up, and here we are.”
Alexis nodded her head. It was an interesting story and explained a lot about the enigmatic pair. She found it interesting that she’d just learned more about the Tortantula and Flatar in five minutes than in all her previous decades.
“Thank you for your insight, Private.” The little Flatar shrugged.
“Her ass is my ass,” he said; “if she goes limp in a fight, I’m as easy a target as she is.”
“You have a good point. Please let me know if you need anything.”
“Or if I notice she’s gone over the edge?” Alexis gave him a nod. “Will do.”
“Dismissed.” He caught a handhold and pushed back toward what remained of the marine’s area, and she floated up the gangway. Paka fell in next to her. As they reached the top, the all hands’ warning sounded.
“All hands, prepare for spin.” The two stopped and held onto the wall as the horn sounded twice, and Pegasus began to rotate on her axis. After a minute it reached five RPM and stabilized. “Gravity Decks One and Four are now open,” the voice said. “All off duty crew are at liberty until we reach the stargate. That is all.”
Now that the ship was spinning, there was gravity as they worked their way upwards. Both experienced spacers, Paka and Alexis merely took advantage of it and walked up the ramps at an angle, hopping between steps.
