In fact, it mellowed me out, bringing a cool, steady calm to my mind.
And then, just as I was really getting into the timeless groove of watching the universe pass by, Tulip leaned forward, cracking her knuckles. “All right, everyone! Here we go!”
With a single press of her screen, the Orion lurched in space, the universe suddenly wrenching back into the proper order of things as we broke back through the vibrational barrier into normal space. We all, save perhaps Clara, got our first proper look at Exo-7813 and its defenses, even if we were at the outer edge of our sensor range.
The first thing that struck me was that it was as dingy as possible and still be classified as a Matriarchy space station. Built into an asteroid maybe half the size of Earth’s moon, it wasn’t the shining white and gold of their traditional construction, or at least it wasn’t anymore. Though the depot still had the typical sweeping curves I was used to, consisting of one massive dome with arched tunnels connecting it to three smaller hemispheres set into the plain grey rock, the metallic surface was pitted, dented, the once pristine white now a chipped and dusty off-white. One of the smaller buildings was completely inert, without a single light showing, the entire side caved in from an errant asteroid strike.
The only thing that struck me as remotely dangerous from here was a few orbiting chunks of rock, smaller asteroids pulled into the gravitational pull of the much larger chunk of stone. Each one of those four or five rocks had the stubby metal barrels of Beetle-class rail gun emplacements. Of course, the Beetles were a hundred-year-old design, reliable but woefully antiquated in terms of targeting … and speed … and firepower.
We had caught them with their pants down so far that there wasn’t even a single Zultar on patrol.
“Turner …?” I called to one side as I stood up, the better to make my grand speech.
“Already launching!” he said with unadulterated glee, massive fingers stabbing at his screen. “Shields coming up as well, but prioritizing engines and weapons. Let’s make some noise!”
Tulip couldn’t help but grin, feeling his infectious enthusiasm. “Making our approach now!”
“And, darling, opening to broadcast on all Matriarchy frequencies,” Clara announced, tapping her screen and flashing me a smile over her shoulder. “Now the entire station can take in that irresistible face of yours.”
I was personally hoping for intimidating and awe-inspiring, but I’d take irresistible. Focusing my attention on our forward viewscreens as the Orion began to rocket toward Exo, I folded my arms over my armored chest and began to speak.
“Forces of the Matriarchy, I am Resistance Captain David Briggs of the Orion, and as you no doubt already know, I am the dragon of prophecy.” To add a little oomph to my proclamation, I slammed my Cestari together, channeling just a little bit of dragonfire through them to create a spark of flame. “You will lay down your arms, power down your defensive measures, and let us dock with no resistance this very moment, or I promise I will personally burn your station into a melted slag with my fire.” I pointed at the screen. “You and the Matriarchy cannot stop us, no matter what you try, so do the smart thing and surrender.”
Alyra’s tight lips curled into a smile, while Clara glanced back at me, nodding enthusiastically as she gave a surprisingly elegant thumbs-up. I glanced at my captain’s console and saw an update from the science station, showing a priority transmission being sent from the station to Leonis.
Perfect, especially as the station commander, whoever it was, decided to answer my message as I tapped the channels closed.
“The Beetles are powering up, darlings,” Clara called back as her full attention snapped to the sensors. “And while it doesn’t appear they have the courage to reply to us, I’m detecting a burst of encrypted signals and multiple reactors powering up in hemisphere number 3, their docking bay.”
Turner clapped his meaty hands together and laughed. “Perfect! We will crush them, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentation of their Matriarchs!” He grinned at me. “That was —”
“Conan,” I finished for him as I dropped back into my chair, snapping the five-point harness into place. “Appropriate, but I don’t think they have any Matriarchs here.” My attention snapped back to the forward screen, the defensive turrets starting to turn and maneuver via a series of sluggish maneuvering thrusters. “Let’s see if we can take out those turrets before we have fighters on us!”
“Inertial dampers to full,” Tulip reported as her fingers danced across her screen. The faint ever-present hum in the air increased as the Orion burst forward, twisting forward toward the much slower rail gun emplacements. “Defensive approach alpha-ten, Alyra! I’ll keep us safe, you turn them into rubble.”
“My utmost pleasure.” My Wing was already at work, our railgun turrets already focusing on the four available targets at once. She glanced sidelong at Clara, completely calm as we fired a pounding barrage of silvery spikes from our guns. “I’m almost ashamed by the state of this facility. If I were still the Left Hand of the High Priestess, I would be reprimanding you for the lack of foresight to modernize this depot.”
Clara flashed a perfect smile back at her. “Oh, but I did request the resources to do so.” She winked across the gulf between their two stations. “It was you that denied said requisition if you recall.”
Alyra paused for a moment, then simply focused on the screen as the first Beetle was torn to shreds before it could get off a shot, our targeting sensors far superior to theirs. “Oh. Well, in that case, I have to commend myself on the foresight to deny it, preparing the way for our present victory.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed at the back-and-forth, shaking my head. “Okay, ladies, as much this is kind of hilarious …”
“Understood, darling,” Clara cooed back. “Consider it dropped, but speaking of out-of-date weaponry, six last-generation Zultars have launched ahead of us.”
True to her words, six dully glinting needle-like shapes launched out of the largest of the intact satellite domes of the station. While they might have been older models, they were still fast and well-armed. We couldn’t sit on our laurels with them.
“Well, then,” I said as my jaw clenched, “it’s time to actually work for our pay. Let’s take them out!”
That turned out to be a well-intentioned lie. Not the ‘take them out part’ though. It was the ‘time to actually work part’. I knew better. Even though the older Zultars could conceivably be a threat, they would only be one if we all decided to fall asleep and let the ship’s auto-pilot do our fighting, and let’s not even talk about the century-old Beetles. It was a miracle those clunkers were even operational, let alone able to even track us with Tulip’s advanced electronic countermeasures running.
I had said what I said to keep everyone on their toes. It was easy, way too easy, to slip into overconfidence, and no matter how well we pulled this raid off, Leonis IV would be an entirely different situation. Even though I knew we had this assault in the bag, I didn’t want us to get cocky.
Of course, that’s hard to do with the quality of badasses I happened to have surrounding me.
“Clara,” Tulip called forward, her cat ears folding back in concentration as she kept the Orion spiraling forward, “I’m sending a Judas Hack to your station. Can you …?”
“Transmit it through their decade-old control channel?” Clara cooed. “My pleasure, darling. I’d expect nothing less from the legendary Null-K!”
Another asteroid turret exploded under a barrage of pinpoint railgun shots as the entire ship buzzed, our particle cannon overcharging. Alyra glanced back at Turner. “I will have my shot lined up in a second, Bolderian. Will the cannon be ready?”
“Ready for a Briggs shot?” the engineer grinned, his fingers sliding up the power transfer to the main gun. “You know it!”
I grinned at the reference as we broke through the defensive perimeter, literally ignoring the last two satellite guns as we rocketed towards Exo’s
hangar bay. It made me feel good that my little trick back at the Blue Skies had so quickly become a named maneuver.
A near-invisible pulse burst from the Orion’s sensor array, only noticeable as the shattered debris and chunks of space dust in the asteroid belt scattered, carrying Tulip’s hack into the scrambling Zultars. Instead of breaking into their pre-programmed offensive pattern, something that would have surrounded us with a storm of particle bolts as they flanked from all three axes, the tarnished space needles wavered for a moment before wheeling on each other. That kept them all in a dogfighting clump, wide open for what was about to come.
Alyra stabbed the fire button of the particle cannon hard. “And it’s over,” her angelic voice growled as the entire ship bucked once, the inertial dampers practically screaming to compensate for the massive recoil of the overcharged blast.
The scintillating bolt of charged particles, growing to the size of our three-story tall starship as it built up charge as it went, surged with pinpoint accuracy through the center of the scrum of fighters with predictable results. If their next-gen brothers couldn’t withstand this, these old warhorses could fare no better. As a convenient side effect, the particle blast rocketed through the Zultars to blow a huge hole in the depot’s hangar bay doors, which had been desperately trying to close in an effort to keep us from boarding the station.
“Are we working now, David?” Tulip giggled as she sent the ship through the debris field and sliding through the punctured blast doors.
“Well, you’re all kicking ass, so I guess that counts,” I grinned as the Orion slipped through the crack in the doors like butter.
The hangar bay itself, now fully depressurized, was filled with floating bits of debris and loose starship parts. An old Xohna-class freighter still docked there hung lifelessly as the cold vacuum of space filled the dome, its side crunched in as the last bits of the cannon’s blast had sideswiped it. A few flash-frozen Quibs, caught off-guard before they could seal their own suits, drifted past. Too bad our suits couldn’t absorb power credits from kills the ship made, though the Orion did record all space combat for purposes of qualifying for new ship equipment.
As Tulip fired the maneuvering jets, neatly turning our ship around on a dime and pushing us sideways towards the emergency airlock that would lead into the rest of the depot. There was a loud clunk as our underbelly landing clamps latched onto the wall of the bay, and the big green ‘Docking Successful, Underside Airlock Ready’ icon flashed in the corner of all of our screens. Tulip let out a purr as I popped my harness loose. “And a perfect landing!”
“I would expect nothing less from one of your reputation and skill,” Alyra said with a nod of affirmation, rising out of her chair as I did. “I am ready to join you in taking this puny facility for your greater glory, my dragon.”
Turner was up as well, hefting a huge-bore, double-barreled Firefall plasma shotgun up from where it had been locked to his console, his bulky demolitions case already clamped to his back. “I sure hope you don’t intend to leave me behind on this one, David Briggs, especially as I have rigged a special surprise from the leftover Annihilator warheads for just this occasion.”
Before anyone else could enthusiastically volunteer, I raised my hands. “I can’t really argue with that, can I? I sure as hell don’t want to try to rig up one of your babies without you around.”
“The last thing we need is to be blown to atoms ourselves because Turner didn’t label the timing switches again,” Tulip teased, her tail swishing with amusement. “Take Alyra and Turner, David. There’s something I think we can do to attract even more attention from Leonis, but I’ll need Clara’s help to pull it off.”
Clara spun her chair towards the catwoman, a coy smirk playing across her lips. “Oh, sister, please tell me we shall be up to some delightful mischief!”
“As if I would do anything else,” Tulip scoffed before flashing me a wink. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. We’ll be a comm buzz away if anything happens, and we’ll signal if elements of the fleet arrive early.”
I nodded, confident that whatever trickery the pair was up to would reap nothing but benefits for us. “Right, though I suspect we’ll all feel it when that fleet shows up, and those smart bombs go off.” Gamma bombs, after all, were powerful enough to rock capital ships, and our minefield wasn’t too far out from the depot. I swung my rifle to the read.
“Turner, Alyra, you’re up. Let’s go make a withdrawal.”
7
I had to give whoever was in command here credit for guts if nothing else. Well, a lot of guts or a lot of stupidity. A less dedicated or smarter commander would have surrendered right off the bat with what we had brought to bear against this run-down outpost. But no, this guy had locked the entire place down, well, as locked down as possible considering the state of the station.
Alyra, Turner, and I drifted through our boarding tunnel, latched over the airlock door like a lamprey, and touched down on the sealed bulkhead doors. Outside of the Orion’s hull, we were in the native gravity of the asteroid, only a smidge above zero-G. Alyra used her wings to give her a subtle push down, while Turner and I made do with the micro-thrusters in our power suits, installed solely for space maneuvers.
“I don’t suppose either you or Alyra have access codes for this place, Clara?” I asked over the comms, certain I already knew the answer.
“I’m afraid not, David, considering we are most assuredly counted among the enemy now,” Clara replied in my ear. “However, I’m sure that you can get access easy enough.”
I chuckled to myself and glanced at the others in the tube. “Yeah, we’ll just knock.” Focusing on Turner, I frowned a bit. “I’m guessing explosives may not be best in here, eh, Turner?”
“Maybe a properly shaped charge implanted through a laser-drilled hole, but best to not risk it when we don’t have to. We could blow out the Orion’s tunnel and maybe us in the process.” Good on the demo man to show a little restraint for once. Turner knelt, running his gauntleted hand over the door. “They did build these old hulls sturdy, tougher than an Anceroan’s tail plates.”
“Not a problem.” I looked over at Alyra. “You’ve pried open vault doors. I’m sure you can handle this without a sweat.”
She had already plucked her Wander off her hip, the crystalline tip surging with magic. “It would be my pleasure, my dragon.” Her clear blue eyes gave me a sidelong glance. “If the Quibs have the least bit of tactical knowledge, they will be massed just past the airlock, waiting for us to breach.”
Glancing down at the door, then back up at the boarding tube, I nodded. “Mag-boots on then. Turner and I will go a bit up the tube and have some house-warming gifts ready.”
Following my own order, I activated the magnetic soles of my armored boots as I shifted myself to standing on the ‘wall’ of the tube, what would be the floor in a normal docking situation. Turner took the opposite wall, reaching back into his demolitions pack and rummaging for something. He had shown solid restraint so far, so I trusted him to keep doing so as I reoriented myself on these new axes. That was the real fun trick of zero and low gravity combat. There was no up, down, left, or right, and the faster you realized that, the better.
Alyra just pushed off from the floor, getting significant height due to the reduced gravity and flaring her wings to practically hover above the two of us. “Are you both prepared?”
Turner produced a well-used but well-maintained sidearm from his pack. Well, to call it a sidearm would only be correct in the most technical of terms. The Diamar 47 was a pistol in the same sense that a rusting Chevy Nova was the same as a finely-tuned Shelby Cobra. The burnished metal of the bulbous barrel housing contained not one, not two, but four rotating barrels, each the size of .50 caliber revolver, but the Diamar didn’t fire mere bullets. No, that simply wouldn’t do, especially for Turner! No, the Diamar was a gyrojet pistol, each round being for all intents and purposes micro-rockets, complete with armor-piercing, explosive warh
eads.
I had to ask him where he got it, or maybe I could ask for it as a present on my next birthday.
Settling down on one knee and taking aim with my Arclight, I chuckled. “With that hand-cannon, we had better be ready.” Turner’s shit-eating grin provided his answer to that, so I simply nodded to Alyra. “Do your magic, my dear.”
The ex-Matriarch preened a bit at that, the glowing force plates of her armor surging with light as magic built up in her Wander. “As you command!”
Alyra drifted slowly toward the door, thrusting the crystal-tipped pistol downward. A tapered ray of pure white force lanced outward, and the foot-wide hard light crowbar punched right where the two doors of the airlock met, the initial strike going deep enough to send a hiss of atmosphere as the seal broke. Gritting her teeth, her muscles tensed as another pulse of light rode down the beam, the construct seeming to twist as the tapered end started to grow and shift into a rectangle. The little bit of air we had from the breached door was enough to carry the screech of tortured metal as the airlock tore the rest of the way apart under Alyra’s force magic.
And just as she predicted, and I expected, the moment the doors pried apart, the air was filled with the hum of charging energy weapons from the space beyond. Again, to give the devils their due, they had cut the lights to the airlock proper, no doubt switching to light-amplification mode, so that all we could see beyond was darkness and the pinprick glows of laser emitters and charging particle chambers. Still, we had three things going for us, the dull glow of Alyra’s construct to give us faint outlines, our own preparedness, and our battle-hardened reflexes.
Star Conqueror: Recompense: An Epic Space Harem Adventure Page 6
