“Ten seconds,” said Ops. Lisbeth was incredibly scared. Her heart was hammering so fast it threatened to burst out of her chest. With the Gs and dizziness, she thought she might faint. And then thought again that it was just as well she was so physically distracted, because otherwise she might burst into tears. Fear was an exciting thing to contemplate in the movies or in books, but real terror was like a crushing weight from some heavy object that had fallen on you. You could wriggle and strain and try to free yourself from it, but escape was impossible as it slowly crushed the air from your lungs and the sense from your brain. She didn’t want to die young, and she certainly didn’t want to die painfully, and if she’d learned one thing in the past few weeks, it was that death in combat was rarely quick and painless. She tried to recall the things the Major had told her about fear, about battling and conquering it, but she was flat on her back in a 6-G burn in an unarmed shuttle about to plunge toward a moon base where people would almost certainly shoot at her with intention of blasting her shuttle into a scorching ball of flame. And there was no rational thought to be comforted by.
“Four,” said Ops. “Three, two, one, release.” With a crash, and then they were free, and Lisbeth gasped for air as for a brief moment the crushing pressure on her chest was gone. Then Tif kicked the shuttle thrust in once more, and the pressure resumed… but not as bad. Four-Gs, the relevant screen showed her after a search… and then she noted the same figure on her visor HUD. Maybe useful after all, she thought.
Ahead now she could see Phoenix, her tail ablaze with bright blue light, the damaged wreck of Adventurer dangling bits of wreckage that flapped helplessly in the bigger ship’s talons. Tif murmured something that might have been an oath. Tif certainly understood their situation or she wouldn’t have volunteered… probably she knew just enough to know how crazy-good a ship and its commander had to be to pull off a move like that. And her loyalty in this situation was without question — her little boy was still on Phoenix. Why Tif thought that this risk was worth taking, with those odds in the balance, Lisbeth couldn’t begin to guess.
“Altitude one-fifty klicks,” she announced off the screen. If she glanced back, she could see the huge, silver horizon of Faustino arcing off to one side. No atmosphere plus low gravity, which made approach easier. And also dramatically extended the range of surface defensive weaponry, she figured. Dear god, what was she doing here?
“Hello ladies!” came a cheerful voice in her ears. “This is Lieutenant Trey Hausler on the Phoenix assault shuttle PH-1! I see you have dropped into what I’ll be calling Hausler-controlled-airspace and are about to commence your run into Crondike… you’ll be pleased to know that I’m about to shoot the crap out of the Crondike communications tower, which ought to lighten up some of this jamming they’re doing and give us a better idea where the Major is currently located.
“In the meantime, please commence descent on the co-ordinates my lovely co-pilot will be forwarding to your screens shortly, it will bring you down just over the weapons horizon of Crondike’s defences where you will maintain an orbit and await my further instruction to come and pick up our marines. For this run, since I have the weapons, I’ll do the shooting and you’ll do the carrying. If you have any difficulties with this plan of attack, please lodge your complaint at the Office of Lieutenant Hausler affairs, courtesy of Kiss My Ass, Shiwon Homeworld and have a nice day.”
Lisbeth could barely stop grinning, despite the Gs. The fear was far from gone, but far more manageable. She’d never actually met Lieutenant Hausler face to face, but she wanted desperately to hug him.
“What say?” Tif asked. It had of course been far too much for her.
“My pilot barely got a word of that,” Lisbeth told Hausler, teasingly. “Don’t worry, I’ll fill her in. Just remember that she doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak military.”
“AT-7 I will try to remember. PH-1 out.”
“Tif, navigation coordinates. Nav computer Tif…” a flash as they came through from PH-1 onto Lisbeth’s screen. She transferred to the pilot’s screen, and felt much better for having something to do. “Follow course, Tif. Do you have it?”
“Have got,” said Tif, quite calmly. “Nice shuttuw. Debo-gand nake good, yes?”
Actually Debogande Inc didn’t make these shuttles, just used them. “Debogande make good, yes Tif. Altitude one-ten klicks, ETA to surface orbit four point three minutes.”
* * *
Heavy grenade fire came down Kono’s third tunnel first, and big explosions rocked the wellhead. The other two tunnels followed, with little warning now that someone had figured she might be listening. Trace pressed flat, eyes closed and held her breath with long experience as blasts pounded her skull and chest like body blows. Secondary explosions blew a pipe, then flames were roaring near, screams and yells as gunfire and attackers darted in.
She primed and lobbed one captured grenade, knelt and aimed with bloody-minded focus despite her ringing ears and head, and put one running figure down, as others hit their near cover and dove. Incoming fire came from the tunnel mouth cover and she ducked back as shots snapped past, then dropped off the gantry and slid in a low-G fall behind the pressure tank. Warning lights flashed red and sirens howled, machinery shutting down with emergency overrides as she bounced down and scampered low amidst the thicket of pipes and supports at ground level, hot air blasting up from the grille floor below, malfunctions in the pipes kilometres deep feeding the backwash up to the surface.
Her move put her immediately in position to target the covered, attacking soldiers’ next move, and she shot one more through the side of the head as they broke. More fire roared above and to her side, her other marines returning fire, and she heard Singer yelling that Walker was dead. That put first tunnel under pressure on her left, so she rolled and scampered that way, lobbed her remaining grenade behind the most obvious cover on that side — a big pipe relay — and shot two more as they ran to avoid the explosion.
Another big explosion nearby sent metallic debris crashing around her, then fire from near cover where attackers had gathered. A shot hit steel beside her head, another clipped her body armour as she rolled for better shelter… and found Private Singer on the deck where that last explosion had blown him, face half-shredded and arterial blood jetting. He screamed and writhed, and Trace grabbed him, hauled behind some machinery yelling, “Singer and Walker are both down! We are weak on Tunnel One! We are weak on Tunnel One!”
Tension bandage on in as fast as she could, pressed it down, then grabbed up the rifle to lay down fire on movement beyond the immediate tangle of pipes. “Hang on Sing, hang on buddy.” As his eyes rolled back in his head, insensible with pain. Fingers on his left hand were missing too. She couldn’t stay here and tend him, she had to fight or they’d be overrun.
“Major!” came Romki’s voice behind her, and she looked to find the bald academic crawling toward her, a pistol someone had given him in one hand, looking terrified but still coming. “Major go and fight, I’ll move him back! The gravity’s only low, I can move him!”
“You got first aid?”
“Yes yes, I have it back there…”
“Good, keep your head down.” And she darted away, leaped to a new walkway level, and found Private Teale from Walker’s section pressed by a feeder pipe and firing, one leg bloody. “Heading left Gigi,” she said as she went, neither of them with time to patch the leg, and swung under another railing to where she figured the big left flanking manoeuvre would have gone… and sure enough, here was more shooting on the First Tunnel flank, a marine was wedged into the gantries behind smoking, sparking generator pumps, holding the attackers back or the whole flank might have fallen.
Several of them made a low-G sprint or leap to the far side of a pressure tank, and Trace refrained from firing so as not to give away her position. Suddenly her uplink crackled; “Major Thakur, this is Lieutenant Hausler PH-1, requesting your position for immediate extraction.”
; Trace ducked back so they wouldn’t hear her talking either… though with the racket of gunfire, yells and explosions beneath the low, echoing ceiling, that didn’t seem likely. “PH-1, immediate extraction requested from Crondike Wellhead Seven. A landing pad is on east-side proximity.”
“Crondike Wellhead Seven, landing pad on east-side proximity, roger that Major. Extraction will be by AT-7, PH-1 will be flying cover, ETA four minutes and counting. We are now taking special requests.”
“We will attempt to keep an airlock clear for you, request immediate fire support once inside, severe firefight in progress.” ‘Special request’ meant fire support, but masks alone were not enough to save her marines from explosive decompression, and that was the only way a combat shuttle could give direct fire support in here. They’d have to land and get in through the airlock to cover their retreat… assuming they could survive the ground fire to get here in the first place. Hausler must have blasted the Crondike coms tower to cut the jamming, she thought.
“PH-1 copies Major, hang tight. If you haven’t heard from us in five minutes, we’re dead.” Which was not flippant, but professional. If the rescue couldn’t reach that airlock, then no point hanging around waiting for it, that meant. Trace didn’t think it would make much difference — there was no getting out of this wellhead. If the shuttles died trying, she and her marines would die right here.
* * *
Wellhead Seven showed as a red mark on Lisbeth’s navscreen as PH-1 relayed it, and Lisbeth had it on direct relay to Tif. “Tif? Red mark. Target, you see it?”
“See,” said Tif, as they arced in a low, clockwise turn about Crondike. The mining settlement formed a low cluster of dull metal buildings on the near horizon. Faustino itself looked like a sea of cold and dirty ice, cracked like broken porcelain and sliced by the occasional dead-straight pipeline. In low-G with no atmosphere the shuttle was barely using engines at all — without drag all thrust accumulated as V, making airless worlds a V-hazard to approach. Atmosphere made for hot reentries and sometimes poor visibility, but at least it slowed you down without thrust. Tif turned them now by tipping them ninety-degrees right and applying gentle thrust, careful not to add more V until they needed it.
“Lieutenant Zhi, you have that position?” Lisbeth asked.
“I’ve got it,” Zhi confirmed. “If you come under fire on the pad, the priority is to dispatch all marines into Crondike. With combined firepower we could take over the entire base and take whatever ship we need by force to get back to Phoenix.” If this shuttle was lost, he meant. Lisbeth was no soldier, but she could see numerous problems with that scenario, including delays that could get Phoenix killed while waiting. And herself, off-ship, in ground combat. The flightsuit she’d pulled on before departure could become pressurised enough to keep her alive for a few minutes in vacuum, but if they came down any further from a Crondike airlock the walk would be fatal even if the crash wasn’t. And behind her, Tif hadn’t been able to find any helmet that fit.
“AT-7 this is PH-1. Crondike have four defensive magfire emplacements that I can see, and there are at least four more armed flyers of some description that are staying hidden for now. On my signal I want you to come in on a heading of 290 degrees on the Crondike compass, past those big habitat buildings, and put it down on the landing pad outside Wellhead Seven. Make certain you land in contact with the airlock extension arm, it’s a tough thing and it can take damage, Lieutenant Zhi can get aboard from there.”
“I’ve got it,” said Lisbeth. “I mean I copy. Tif, Crondike compass 360. Compass 360, understand? Our heading, 290.”
“Unnstan,” Tiff agreed.
“290 to target…”
“Welled Sefen,” Tif interrupted. “Good, got.” No doubt she’d absorbed a little of what else Hausler had said as well. Two-ninety degrees on the compass was coming around fast, and scan showed PH-1 make a hard cut from its orbit opposite them, and come racing in low. Lisbeth’s heart hammered — she’d thought she still had thirty seconds!
“AT-7, commence run now!”
“Go Tif!” But Tif was already going, a sudden, slamming roar that crushed Lisbeth into her seat, and sustained as Crondike’s position on the silver horizon moved across, and finally lay before them. Tif kept the thrust on for a moment, then eased off until they were skimming the silvery ice at barely fifty meters. It was breathtaking and surreal, for the speed made no noise, just enough thrust to hold steady altitude. A pressurised vehicle flashed beneath them, a thin line of tire tracks on the ice behind… possibly a scout? Or just a civilian miner minding his business?
Ahead, a bright flash, then some terse chatter from PH-1 that Lisbeth missed. Another flash, then the terrifying sight of silver streaks shooting high away from Crondike at scary speed, arcing into the black and starry sky. Magfire, aimed upward from the surface at something flying over. Another bright flash, and another line of fire, hosing the sky. Closer now, Lisbeth saw pieces rising from the explosion, tumbling over and over. Then the deadly arrowhead-shape of an assault-shuttle, low and fast across the ice, turning belly-out and thrusters flaming as it came around for another pass. Then the buildings were rushing up, and it was their turn.
“Brace for manoeuvres!” Lisbeth thought to say… and then suffered the anti-climax of ongoing silence as Tif dropped even lower, buildings zooming past left and right, then an abrupt right bank and a big roaring kick in the pants as she dodged an upcoming obstruction. A connecting skyway forced them to climb, and Tif rolled straight upside down and roared thrust again. For a heart-stopping moment Lisbeth thought they were going to power straight into the ground, but Tif flipped them again and nudged more power to flatten them out barely thirty meters from the surface, then edged the thrusters forward and slowed them with a roaring burn that slammed Lisbeth painfully forward against her straps.
Around another low, pressurised structure, skidding and turning left while slowing… and suddenly before them was a shuttle, barely half their size and ugly-industrial, but clearly armed and rotating their way with bursts of attitude thrust to acquire them. Tif dropped the right side and hit full thrust, powering them sideways and around as the enemy shuttle fired and missed, then looped them upside down again as she rolled for opposite thrust and came around behind it… a bright flash, and Lisbeth saw the shuttle explode. Then a streak on scan as PH-1 came by.
“Nice move AT-7, I got him. Proceed to target and keep your eyes peeled, these bastards are tricky.” Lisbeth tried to process that people had just died back there, but couldn’t. She was too pleased it hadn’t been her to care.
A slide across some open ice, then big steel passages like great pipelines on the icy surface, three of them culminating on a central, low domed hub. Scan read that as Wellhead Seven, and sure enough, the fourth side with no tunnel attachment had a hard steel landing pad alongside, with an extension arm waiting for them. And most incredible of all, the light above the extension arm was flashing, meaning someone was waiting for them. Someone friendly, Lisbeth hoped. Though given their payload, it wasn’t her who needed to worry about that.
Tif somehow came out of the move directly on course, angled them straight to the pad then kicked forward thrust hard and dropped them near-motionless onto the pad. Skid wheels brought them straight to the extension arm, and then it was reaching above the cockpit toward the dorsal hatch — a big, worn and dirty thing that looked like it could handle four marines abreast in full armour.
“We’re down!” she shouted for everyone’s benefit, and Lieutenant Zhi in particular. “The extension arm is coming, dismount, dismount!” Suddenly she was gasping, as though she’d suddenly remembered to breathe, and could hear Zhi and his men speaking in short, fast grabs down back as they clattered and moved. And then her breathing tightened once more as she realised how exposed they were here, sitting on a pad atop a blank expanse of ice, with enemy shuttles around playing hide and seek with PH-1 and looking to kill them both.
* * *
If s
he survived, Trace was certain this would be the last time she operated in light armour. She leaped across a yawning gap between gantries, across the blaze of burning generators below, smoke choking her lungs and accumulating below the domed overhead where the air filters were no longer clearing it. And hit the opposing railing just as the latest grenade exploded behind her, and something smacked her back armour and thudded her leg with a hideous pain.
But the leg still worked, and she swung herself over, rolled low through an exposed patch as fire smacked the steel around her, then slithered the last bit on her belly beneath a red-hot pipe that hissed and steamed. Her move exposed the four who’d been trying to flank between the big east-side slurry processors — two saw her and fired, but she took more time and snapped one’s head back, then the others dove and covered. Another grenade, predictably, and she rolled off the gantry and held on beneath it, using the walkway as a shield. It exploded too far away — throws under fire in low-G were hard to judge, nothing dropped where you’d intended, but still she had about six shrapnel injuries and was losing blood, though not enough yet to slow her.
She dropped to the floor and pressed to a steel side amongst the tangled machinery, there was shooting to her left where Kono’s section were still fighting, less to the right where Walker’s section had once been, but had now fallen back with only one left and fighting. Movement as an attacker tried to get a shot at her from the right, then was slammed into pipes and slid as someone else shot him. The attackers had them surrounded in the steel maze, but were having trouble closing the deal, as every time they squeezed, several of them died. Hurt and exhausted, marines kept fighting, point blank, outgunned and hopeless, they didn’t care. Just hold position and make the attackers leave their cover if they wanted to win.
Renegade Page 49
