The Battle for Terra Two

by Stephen Ames Berry

  “Could be a trap.” Atir was younger than he, but just as tough, a thin kid from a grimy industrial planet who’d risen through the ranks of the pre-war Fleet, becoming third officer of a light cruiser—and a successful drug runner. When the Scotar had annihilated most of the Second Fleet, she and Kotran had been quick to take advantage of the chaos, going corsair.

  “Could be a trap, but is it?” said Kotran, looking up from his desk. “Why should they suspect anything? We’re what they want—reinforcements.”

  “The skipcomm buoy?”

  Kotran shrugged. “Machines sometimes fail.”

  “Still . . .”

  He waved a hand, his gold Academy ring catching the light. “You worry too much. This is our chance to add a heavy cruiser to our little squadron. We can start raiding closer in—hit primary shipping points. And that world down there—Terra—is open for some leisurely looting.”

  “You’re so greedy, Yidan,” she said.

  “Of course I’m greedy,” he laughed. “I’m a corsair!”

  “Listen,” she said intensely. “I say we blast Implacable now, while her shield’s down, divide up our money and disperse. With the war over, Fleet’s going to hunt us down and kill us.”

  “They’ll try. We weren’t expecting the Valor Medal.”

  She stood behind him, long tanned fingers massaging his muscular shoulders. “There’s this grade-seven planet, Yidan, that’s been offchart since the Fall. No people. I know a stretch of coast where the mountains tumble into the sea—lush, tropical, fruit growing wild. Warm night breezes under triple moons. We could . . .”

  He stood, shaking her hand off. “We could what?” he said. “Eat fruit, live naked, love in the sand? You sound like a travel broker, Number One.”

  Atir’s face reddened.

  “We have two commissions to execute,” he continued. “For our primary client, remove Implacable. For our secondary client, fill those forty-one brainpods we’re carrying. Seizing Implacable accomplishes both tasks and gives us a Laal-class heavy cruiser. And perhaps a side foray to Terra—pillaging perks up morale.

  “We’ll take all but a skeleton crew to the reception. How many shuttle craft is that?”

  “Twelve,” she said, emotions tucked back behind her usual diffidence. “Three hundred and twenty-one crew, dressed and armed as Fleet personnel.”

  “Eleven boats to land,” Kotran said. “I want you to command number twelve—thirty of our best fighters. Once inside Implacable’s shield, turn back for New Hope reporting engine trouble. Proceed parallel to the top hull . . .” He touched the complink. A schematic of Implacable’s forward outside hull appeared. “Here.” An access pod just behind the bridge began glowing orange. “That’s the lift. Free drop as near to it as you can. Reaching it, take it down to the bridge entrance.”

  “Fine,” she said, looking at the screen. “We get to the bridge doors. They’re armored and locked. A blastpak strong enough to take them out will destroy part of the bridge.”

  “Use this.” He handed her a small black wedge.

  “What is it?” she asked, turning it over in her hand.

  “Shaped charge—pre-production model from Kronar via our primary client. See those rills along the bottom edge? That side is magnetized. Put it on the bridge doors and count to ten. It’ll punch through them with no blowback.”

  “Cute,” she said, carefully pocketing it, the magnetized side toward her body. “What about detection?”

  “You’ll be well inside the perimeter scan. Just avoid the hull-sensor clusters. If computer picks up an input anomaly, it’s going to alert the bridge. Get to the lift and you’re in.”

  “It may work,” she said grudgingly.

  “Of course it will work. I planned it.”

  “So, we take the bridge while you’re shooting up the crew. Then what?”

  “Seal compartments—coordinate with me on that. Cut life support to weapons batteries, engineering and armories. I don’t want some heroes shooting up our ships, scuttling equipment, booby trapping the corridors. We’ll let the survivors surrender, brainstrip the ones we need and space the rest.”

  “And how are we going to crew Implacable with?” she asked. “Don’t you want to try for converts?”

  “No. I’d rather run her short. That’s Lawrona’s ship—Detrelna’s before that. Trying for converts would be a waste of time.”

  He looked at the time readout. “Operation launch minus fifty. Brief your assault team, meet me on the hangar deck at minus ten.”

  “Very well.”

  “Oh, and Shilo?”

  “Yes, Yidan?”

  “When this is over, we’re going to need a new base. Plan a two-man scouting trip to your grade-seven planet. Just you and me. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” She smiled faintly then left the room, mind on the assault.

  “Farewell, my unlovely,” said McShane, watching the dreadnought and its valley shrink in the rear screen.

  “Home in time for lunch,” said Detrelna happily, switching the view scan forward. Earth filled the screen’s center, growing larger as the shuttle raced away from the Moon.

  The commodore keyed into the commnet. “Shuttle one-nine-seven to Implacable.”

  “Implacable flight control,” said a hurried voice. “One-nine-seven, go ahead.”

  “Permission to land.”

  “One-nine-seven, hold.”

  Detrelna frowned. “Odd.”

  “What?” asked McShane.

  “Odd that I’m holding. Odd that flight control sounds harried—it shouldn’t. We carry a lot of shuttles, but only three are scheduled out now—this and the daily Terran runs.”

  “One-nine-seven. Other traffic is ahead of you. Enter shield at point three-five and assume station forward.”

  “One-nine-seven confirming. Enter point three-five, assume station forward. Out.

  “We’re to stand by off the forward part of the ship,” said Detrelna, anticipating Bob’s question. He pointed to a telltale. “Tactical summary. We’ve gained a light cruiser and two frigates.”

  “Reinforcements?”

  “Finally. They must be shuttling their complements over to Implacable for a reception. Tradition. No doubt Zasha will be there.”

  Five minutes brought them within sight of the four warships. A long line of shuttlecraft were leaving the light cruiser, making for Implacable.

  “Oh, no,” said Detrelna as they closed on the flotilla.

  “Problem?” asked McShane.

  Detrelna nodded, dropping their speed. “Big problem. Those shuttles are going to a formal reception. There’s only one place on Implacable that’ll hold that many—hangar deck. Hangar deck is now teaming with officers and crew, among whom is Ambassador Zasha. After the ceremony, Zasha, my officers and the new officers are all going to troop down to Sick Bay to look in on the ailing commodore and pay their respects.”

  “I forgot you’re ill,” said Bob. “Can’t you land and sneak in? Hangar deck’s huge.”

  “Yes, but all the lifts are at the back. Zasha will be between me and the lifts. People notice me.”

  They were gliding past the light cruiser, close beneath her engines. The shuttle would have been lost in any of those three great tubes.

  “I suppose I could steal in through the lift access pod, hullside aft of the bridge,” continued the commodore, “and send you and the shuttle in on auto . . . No.” He shook his head. “Then would come the questions of why you were piloting the shuttle, they’ll pull the logs . . . No. We’ll just have to land and brazen through it—somehow.”

  “What about—”

  Detrelna stopped him with an upraised finger, staring at New Hope’s engines, sliding out of forward scan range.

  He split the screen, putting the rear scan of the engines on the left half, shrinking the forward scan of Implacable and the other shuttles to the right half. Their shuttle was now in line behind the rest.

  “Quick lesson in starship architec
ture, Bob,” said Detrelna, suddenly tense. “Those oval engine tubes are unique—the only set ever made for a line vessel. They didn’t perform up to the expectation, so only the test ship, a light cruiser, ever had them. That cruiser was assigned to the Second Fleet. The Second Fleet was destroyed at the start of the war—all but that one cruiser. For years, Intelligence listed it as missing, possible corsair. With war’s end, they downgraded it to missing, presumed destroyed. Prematurely, it seems.”

  “Those are pirates?” McShane stared at the shuttles.

  “Smart money says so. And about to take over Implacable.”

  “Don’t just sit there, man! Sound the alarm, alert the bridge!”

  “No.”

  Their speed dropped further as they passed through the opening in the shield, just behind the twelfth shuttle craft. The shield reformed behind them, a faint shimmer in their rear scan.

  “A shootout this close to Terra could wipe your planet, Bob. Our ships brim with poison—drive components, sublight engines, n-gravs, fusion cannons. Those particles get into your environment and your world will slowly die.”

  “You think we’d fare any better with those thugs?” said McShane. “Or the Scotar?”

  The shuttle in front of them suddenly broke away, climbing to disappear over the top of Implacable.

  “He’s up to something,” said Detrelna. He dropped the shuttle to fly beneath the ship, paralleling the bottom hull. “Let’s see what.”

  The commodore slammed the shuttle forward. McShane pressed back in the flight chair, sure they’d collide with one of the turrets or pods flashing by, meters away.

  “Number twelve shuttle reports engine malfunction and is returning to New Hope,” reported flight control.

  “Acknowledged,” said Kiroda. He stood beside Zasha in the great cavern of hangar deck, watching as the last of the shuttles landed with a faint whine of n-gravs.

  The corsairs’ shuttles were parked in a long line just inside the atmosphere curtain, spanning hangar deck from maintenance bays to berths. Outside, Terra was visible, a blue-and-white sphere just above the shuttles.

  “Would one of your shuttles leaving now come to grief, Commander?” asked Zasha, watching the corsairs form ranks in front of their craft.

  “Without a doubt, sir,” said Kiroda, noting the Mark 44 cannon turret atop the center corsair shuttle. He couldn’t see if there was a gunner—the turret was a black pod, sheathed in armorglass.

  Wearing Fleet uniforms, almost three hundred corsairs were drawn up in four ranks of eleven units, M32s at order arms.

  Kotran walked down the ramp from the last shuttle, turning right past the flank of the last unit, then right again. As he stepped in front of the first corsair, the entire formation came to present arms, two hundred and ninety gloved hands slapping one-two against the polished M32 stocks.

  “That man is very dangerous,” said Zasha as Kotran executed a right-face at the front of the formation, smartly returning the salute, hand-to-head at just the right angle for just long enough. The rifles crashed back down to order arms, butts clanging to the deck as one, the echo ringing through the hangar. “He’s molded that rabble into a crack unit. Imagine what he could do with two cruisers and those frigates.”

  “Only the inner quadrants would be safe,” said Kiroda.

  “For a while, Commander. For a while.”

  “Formation!” called Kotran, eyes sweeping the ranks, “Port . . . Arms!” The rifles came off the deck, held at a forty-five-degree angle in front of the body. Heel and toe perfectly aligned, Kotran executed an about-face. “Formation . . . Forward, march!”

  “A mistake,” said Kiroda as the corsairs advanced with flawless precision, a column of eights with Kotran at their head. “They should be at right-shoulder arms. To be at port arms displays either ignorance or hostile intent.” The one-two cadence of five hundred and eighty-four battle boots striking battlesteel boomed along the deck.

  The corsairs entered the long, narrow corridor formed by twin rows of commando assault craft parked nose-to-engine half the length of the hangar, their march resounding through the hangar.

  “Tactical three,” said Kiroda into his communicator. “Remember,” he said softly, his voice heard only by the thirty-man honor guard a few meters behind him, “when it starts, fall back to the lift access corridor and take out any who get through.”

  Zasha was watching Kotran as he grew closer. “There’s a Fourth Dynasty painting, Commander, in the museum ring on Kronar. It’s done in old style—paint on spun plant fiber. The artist’s name doesn’t survive, but it’s a brilliant work, ‘The Assessor comes to T’Gan.’ Do you know it?”

  “No, sir,” said Kiroda, hoping Kotran wouldn’t notice the unfastened safety strap on his holster.

  “It depicts a man at the head of a column of Imperial Marines, striding down the street of this squalid Agro town—you can all but taste the dust and smell the manure. The few people about are scurrying fearfully away. The artist’s perspective is from the end of the street, watching the Assessor come. The Assessor is well-dressed, handsome, with an assured, intelligent air to him. There is something cold and ruthless about the man’s face, Commander, that holds one. It’s the sort of face that now comes toward us.”

  The deadly parade halted, grounding arms with a crash that rattled off the distant ceiling. Kotran quickly closed the distance to Kiroda and the Ambassador, halting before Zasha and snapping a brisk salute. “Captain Taral, Task Force One-Seven-Five attending, Excellency!”

  “Welcome, Captain.”

  Kotran turned to Kiroda. “I await your salute, Commander.”

  Kiroda nodded, looking into the other’s pale blue eyes. “You’re fronted and flanked, Kotran,” he said. “Surrender or die.”

  A brief flicker of surprise crossed the corsair’s face. “Nicely played, Commander,” he grinned. His hand a blur of motion, he drew his blaster and fired point-blank at Kiroda.

  “He’s going for the bridge,” said Detrelna, bringing the shuttle out from under Implacable, racing toward her top hull.

  “The lift access?” asked McShane.

  “Yes.” Reaching the top hull, they leveled off, Detrelna keeping the shuttle so low that it barely skimmed the top of the highest turrets.

  “What are you going to do?” asked McShane.

  “Kill them,” said the commodore, “before they kill us.”

  “Push that read button to your top right. Yes, that one,” he nodded as McShane reached out.

  A targeting overlay appeared on the screen, five concentric phosphor circles surrounding the familiar cross hairs.

  “There!” cried McShane.

  A line of space-suited figures were moving toward the bullet-shaped pod housing, magnetized boots keeping them on the hull.

  Detrelna fingered a touch pad, sending a stream of tracking data across the bottom of the scan.

  As the shuttle swooped toward them, all but the corsair nearest the bullet-shaped lift pod stopped and opened fire.

  Oblivious to the red blaster bolts, Detrelna waited until most of the corsairs were within the two smallest rings of the targeting overlay, then pushed the firing stud, twice.

  Two small silver missiles shot out from the shuttle, flashing along the hull to explode silently among the corsairs, twin bursts of blue sending thousands of suit-and-flesh-rending flechettes into the corsairs.

  The shuttle slowed, drifting over the carnage. McShane shook his head at the sight of torn bodies, severed heads, limbs and perfect spheres of blood slowly scattering into space. “What were those?”

  “Anti-personnel missiles,” said Detrelna. “Crude but effective.” He frowned at the screen readout. “Almost effective.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The pieces down there equal twenty-nine corsairs. One got on board.” He punched into the tactical network. “Bridge. Detrelna. Beware boarders! Halt forward Lift 47!”

  Kotran whirled as pneumatic hissing filled the hanger
. The sides of the assault boats dropped—three hundred warsuited crew stared down their M32s at the corsairs.

  “Lay down your arms!” the command boomed across the deck. “Lay down your arms!”

  Orders filled the air and the corsair column split down the center, forming two double lines facing each row of assault boats.

  “You can’t win against warsuits,” said Kiroda, picking himself up from the deck, the silver gleam of a warsuit visible through the blaster holes in his tunic.

  Kotran glanced at Kiroda, coolly surveyed the long lines of grim-faced crew, then turned back to Kiroda. “Commander, I can do anything. Shalir!”

  The fusion beam snapped from the center shuttle’s turret, tearing into the ceiling. Sparks showered the deck as the hangar’s primary power nexus shattered.

  “Fire!” shouted Kiroda as the lights died.

  The fire from hundreds of blasters turned hangar deck into a red-lit battleground.

  “Engineering!” shouted Kiroda over the din. “Light!”

  “Hold on,” grumbled Natrol over the commnet. “There’s a glitch in the no-break.”

  “Identify and authenticate,” said the bridge security station.

  Ignoring the computer’s challenge, Atir slapped the black wedge onto the nearly invisible seam dividing the armored doors. She waited directly in front of the explosive, pistol in each hand, knowing if there was any blowback they’d have to scrape her off the bulkhead.

  With a loud whoomp! the shaped charge punched a man-size hole through the doors. It was still sounding as Atir plunged through the smoldering opening, firing.

  “Hanger deck’s gone black,” said Detrelna, bringing the shuttle in toward the dark rectangle. Gone were the green-and-orange guide lights rimming the opening, gone to the warm wash of yellow that greeted incoming shuttles. Red lightning flickered from within.

  “Blaster fire,” said McShane.

  “Flight Control’s not responding. We’re going in.”

  Straddling Kiroda’s chest, the corsair squeezed harder, teeth bared, basking in the pleasure of another life throbbing desperately between his fingers.