Transition of Order

by P. R. Adams

  Rimes wished they had the bandwidth for a better video feed. He wanted to share a workspace, to engage Durban more directly, but they could barely keep the video running. Without explaining the thinking behind the plan, Durban would probably see the change as a lack of confidence in his abilities.

  Maybe it is? Am I being honest with myself?

  “I thought we were in agreement sending both teams aboard without knowing anything about the vessel was too risky?” Durban’s irritation came through despite the distortion on the channel.

  Rimes thought for a moment. “I’m concerned about you having to split your forces so much, that’s all. Especially with the…non-combatants. I know I wouldn’t want to be that exposed. If you’re comfortable with it, let’s go with the original plan.”

  The line was silent for several seconds. The video feed—grainy almost to the point of uselessness—indicated Durban was staring at a point over Fontana’s head. She watched him intently. When Durban spoke, his voice was calmer. “Amacker and Wang will hold at the passageway. I can put a shredder down the port side of the passageway before we secure the starboard junction. That should protect our flank.”

  “I like that. All right, we stick with the plan, but Amacker and Wa—”

  “They’ll be on full alert. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Shaw’s voice sounded over Rimes’s headset. “Approaching ready position.”

  No more second guessing. No more planning. Now we see what our genie friends have dreamed up for us.

  20

  26 October, 2167. Shuttle 259.

  * * *

  THE SHUTTLE DECELERATED HARD, and Rimes exhaled as the g-force threw him against the harness. All around him, the members of the team rocked gently in their seats. Theroux seemed to handle it well enough.

  He’ll break eventually. This has to be affecting him at some level.

  With their environment suits on and crammed in together, the team was generating a lot of heat. The air in the converted cargo bay was moist, and it verged on foul. Rimes swallowed; the foulness was in his saliva, too.

  Fear, anxiety. We’re in it now. This is the proof of concept, right here, right now.

  “We’re at our position.” Durban’s audio broke up, stretched and hummed and looped. The video feed winked out. A moment later, it returned and Rimes could see Durban’s team was active, gripping harnesses, checking each other’s gear, stretching.

  Durban looked at Fontana again, waiting until she nodded gently. “Approaching the airlock.” His feed shifted to a nervous-looking Lopresti. “Sergeant, are we good?”

  Lopresti nodded, her eyes large and wet. She sealed her helmet, then she helped Ito do the same. Ito fumbled at his assorted medical packs, trying to hide his anxiety.

  Rimes lowered his voice again. “Ito’s getting worse.”

  Durban’s camera shook as the shuttle performed final maneuvers and connected to the airlock. “We’ll do what we can for him. He should settle down once we’re onboard. We’re connected to the Erikson now. It feels like we passed through a slight gravitic field, so they should have gravity.”

  Watching Durban and his team left Rimes feeling powerless and impotent. He trusted Durban and the soldiers they’d been training for the last months. There was no trusting anything else, though.

  Durban unlocked his harness and kicked away from his seat, floating aft. His team moved into position. Their ready calls echoed in Durban’s helmet, became chatter over his open mic. He made his way to the shuttle’s airlock and waited for it to cycle; the rest of the first team—Fontana, Kershaw, and Xye—huddled close behind.

  Stay sharp. Remember your training.

  They entered the airlock, let it cycle again, then entered the Erikson’s airlock.

  Rimes looked the Erikson’s deck plans over again. He had to trust Theroux’s information was accurate. Rimes knew the ship inside and out now, but knowing its layout wasn’t the same as being aboard. All he could do was watch and wait.

  He and Durban had selected an aft personnel airlock that could handle no more than ten people at a time. The passageways coming off of it were of normal width—three meters across and tall. Most of the Erikson’s half-dozen airlocks were designed for cargo or large equipment loading, and the passageways coming off of them were also wide—five meters across. The airlock they’d chosen minimized exposure to potential concentrated firepower.

  Rimes drilled down through the Erikson deck plans until he was looking through the airlock into the passageway. It ran forward and opened onto a much longer starboard-port passageway. The starboard-port passageway joined two parallel-running, stem-to-stern passageways, one ten meters away, the other fifteen. Those corridors ran the length of the ship. At the starboard junction, Durban’s team would be near the mess hall, labs, and living quarters. Those compartments could offer cover should a firefight erupt.

  Unfortunately, the compartments could also be hiding genies.

  Durban’s video feed became grainier and washed out around the edges. He was beyond the airlock, moving up to the starboard-port passageway. It was dark, lit only by the helmet lamp and the environment suit’s lights. The passageway’s dimmed panels also gave off minimal lighting. Kershaw took up position scanning to port, Xye took position starboard. Fontana stayed back, leaning hard against the portside bulkhead.

  At least they have gravity.

  Fontana stared into the distance for a moment, then shook her head: no genies.

  Durban moved forward. “All clear for the moment.”

  Would she be able to sense someone like Perditori? Just how strong is she? Dana didn’t seem to really know.

  Durban brought the second team through the airlock. Munoz and Siamwalla entered the passageway, Ito bracketed between them. Munoz almost completely obscured Ito from Durban’s view.

  The video feed shifted. Durban pulled a flat, palm-sized, almost completely transparent device from a belt pouch. It was a shredder, an anti-personnel grenade. Durban swiped a gloved finger up and down the side of the device until a circle of material—also transparent—came free, trailing a near-invisible thread. Durban inserted his gloved finger into the circle.

  “Rimes, I’m bringing the third team in, then I’m going to put the shredder down the portside passageway.”

  Shredders were ideal devices for situations like the Erikson. Made from an explosive with hundreds of integrated miniature ceramic flechettes embedded, most visual sensor systems wouldn’t detect the shredder or tripwire if it was planted properly. The blast would fill a sixty-degree arc, likely lethal a meter or two out, and it would wound and disorient as far out as five meters.

  More importantly, it would destroy most environment suits.

  As Durban set the grenade, Rimes remembered back to the assault on the Powell, his first real shipboard assault. Although they’d won out in the end, it had been a deadly learning experience. He searched his memory for any lessons from the experience that might apply to the moment.

  Nothing came to mind. Everything looked clear on the Erikson. There was nowhere for a genie to hide. For the moment, Durban had the advantage.

  Durban ordered Amacker and Wang into the airlock, then he checked the passageway one last time.

  He jogged forward, his left hand extended with the shredder’s tripwire, ready to lock it into place on the aft bulkhead. His right hand held the shredder’s explosive charge, which he would adhere to the opposite bulkhead.

  Durban’s breathing was loud and fast through the connection. Rimes realized he was matching his breath to Durban’s.

  Steady.

  Rimes calmed himself and listened in on the chatter flowing through Durban’s open channel. Rimes pulled up another window to watch the task force data flow over his display. His shuttle’s exterior camera feed showed Shuttle 332 connected to the Erikson.

  It was too much data to process, even with his earpiece’s assistance. He just hoped to gain a sense of the entire operation by skimming over eac
h display, focusing only on one or two elements from each. Mostly, he glanced at a feed and back at Durban’s video, then another feed, and then back to Durban’s video. The distractions not only provided a better sense of the entire situation, they helped quiet the voice—Kwon’s voice—demanding action, blood, and violence.

  Rimes lingered on the task force data for a moment, imagining he could sense tension in a moment of silence, then flipped his attention back to Durban’s feed. Durban’s left hand was extended, reaching for the aft bulkhead.

  “Charge placed,” Durban whispered. “Now setting the trip—”

  Durban’s left hand fell free from its wrist and bounced off the deck. He hissed and recoiled, gripping at the bloody stump.

  “Durban!” Rimes opened a channel with Lopresti. Despite the video feed’s graininess, the moment played out with frightening clarity. “Lopresti, Durban’s wounded.”

  Suddenly, the task force communications channel came alive. Ships were reporting signals, other vessels approaching at the edge of sensor range. The numbers shifted—three, four, six. General quarters sounded over the task force channel as the approaching ships doubled in number.

  Rimes bit his lip.

  “Captain, what do you want me to do?” Lopresti sounded confused.

  She’s hearing the task force feed. He muted it. “Get your team back into the shuttle. Have Kershaw pull Durban back to the airlock.”

  “Roger that—”

  Lopresti’s response died in a roar. Rimes twisted in his harness, straining as if he might see through the hull. He barely noticed Watanabe’s worried face in his peripheral vision or Theroux’s inexplicably calm face. Rimes expanded the shuttle’s external camera feed.

  332 was floating away from the Erikson.

  Two bodies twisted weakly in an expanding bubble of debris, all drifting away from the ruined airlock.

  Amacker and Wang! Shit!

  “Lopresti!”

  Static and distracting audio artifacts were his only answer.

  Rimes looked around, saw Meyers and Theroux watching him, analyzing. Calm. Rimes took a cleansing breath. “Lopresti, do you copy?”

  “—copy, Sir.” Lopresti’s voice was unnaturally steady. “The Erikson’s airlock…was booby trapped.”

  “Can we get the team out?” Rimes waited a few seconds. “Sergeant Lopresti, is your shuttle airlock still functional? Can we get the rest of the team out?”

  Lopresti made a soft, whimpering sound. “Ours…our airlock is functional.” Her voice took on more energy with each word. “The Erikson’s airlock is…no, it’s not functional. We lost—”

  “Okay. Lopresti, listen to me. We’ll need the team to move to the next-closest airlock. That’s two decks up and twenty meters to port. Can you get them there?”

  “I’ll try, Sir.” Lopresti suspended the communication channel.

  Rimes un-muted the task force feed. The chatter between the ships filled the relative silence. Signals flowed across Rimes’s consolidated feed. He expanded the display in the hopes it would make more sense.

  The Valdez was firing railguns at the approaching ships and readying missiles. The rest of the task force was focusing on defensive countermeasures. The other ships were tens of thousands of kilometers out, and they were already in full-on battle.

  Lopresti finally re-opened the channel. “The lieutenant’s lost a lot of blood, Sir. Nanocables. Ensign Ito has the wounds sealed and they can move him. We’re maneuvering for the port airlock now to meet them.”

  “Be quick about it. Watch for more traps.”

  Two vessels broke off from the main attack force.

  They could be aiming to flank the task force, or they could be coming for us.

  “Three minutes, Sir.” Lopresti’s voice was still calm.

  The two ships continued on their course, adjusting slightly, angling now more clearly for the Erikson.

  “You seeing that, Shaw?”

  “Yup. Two bogeys on approach. Sensors should have a profile soon.”

  “ETA?”

  Shaw whistled softly. “Four minutes, tops.”

  “Might want to let 332 know.”

  “Oh, they know. We’re always talking about party time.”

  Rimes debated not telling Lopresti about the approaching ships. She was in a tight enough spot as it was and so much was beyond her control. The secrecy seemed a betrayal to him, though.

  “Lopresti, we’ve got two bogeys inbound. They’ll be here in…three and a half minutes, maybe less. The second you’re docked, we need you to get everyone into the shuttle and into their harnesses.”

  “Understood, Sir.” The calm was gone. Her voice shook.

  “Shaw, can you get a shot on them with the belly gun?” Rimes tried to put the task force’s feed into a sensible perspective. The two approaching vessels seemed to be below the plane of most of the task force, possibly leaving them open to some careful fire if Shaw was willing. With the Erikson at their back, the shuttle would momentarily be safe from the genies returning fire.

  Unless they didn’t care about the Erikson.

  Why should they care? It was just a lure.

  Shaw whistled. “We’ll need to reposition.”

  “Do it. Maybe it’ll buy us some time.”

  The shuttle maneuvered, and the railgun fired. Its hum vibrated up through the hull. The approaching vessels changed trajectory, dropping lower. They nosed up, the Erikson no longer in their field of fire, and then they returned fire.

  “We’ve got their attention,” Shaw said as the shuttle juked.

  “Captain Rimes?” It was Lopresti. “We’re at the airlock now. Thirty seconds.”

  A round glanced off the shuttle’s hull. A second round dented the floor a dozen centimeters from Rimes’s left foot, barely missing the reactor compartment beneath him. “We’ve got hull damage! Sergeant Lopresti, I’m going to hold you to that thirty seconds.”

  Shaw continued maneuvering the shuttle and firing the belly gun. Rimes watched his team for any sign of panic. Everyone seemed to be holding it together, although a third hull strike clearly rattled a few of them.

  The sensor profile finally came back; the approaching ships were fast assault craft, essentially oversized orbital shuttles similarly armed but faster, larger, and sturdier. Rimes thought back to the battle in orbit over Earth and realized how the genie pilots must have felt going against overwhelmingly superior vessels.

  Lopresti’s voice filled Rimes’s ear. “We’ve got them!”

  “332’s away.” Shaw grunted as the shuttle juked again. “The task force is ordering us to stay clear.”

  “If we stay out here, those ships are going to shred us.” Rimes glanced over the feeds, looking for anything that could turn the situation to his advantage.

  Another round ricocheted off the hull, and Shaw whistled. “Not liking that whole being shredded thing. Suggestions?”

  The planet filled Rimes’s display. It beckoned. It was their only chance. “Get us onto the planet.”

  “Roger that.”

  The shuttle accelerated, juking and tilting. Every few seconds, the belly gun fired. Rimes reviewed the data they had on the planet, unconsciously licking his lips as videos of never-ending desert played on his display. Their choices were bleak, but the expanse of sand and cliffs offered more hope than a straight-up dogfight against superior spacecraft and superhuman pilots.

  We just need to make the atmosphere to even the odds slightly, get in among some of those canyons and cliffs and take advantage of our smaller craft. We have to be more maneuverable than they are in gravity.

  Another round bounced off the shuttle’s rear, and a warning light flashed.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  21

  26 October, 2167. Fourth planet of the COROT-7 system.

  * * *

  THE SHUTTLE SHOT through the thermosphere at thirty-five thousand kilometers per hour in an unpowered descent. The g-force shoved Rimes into his h
arness and pressed against him so that his heart and lungs strained to function. Sour, watery vomit shot into his mouth and sprayed across the bottom of his helmet. Heat pressed against him, pushing the suit’s cooling limits.

  Rimes felt like he was drowning and boiling in his own vomit. The stench of it threatened to bring up more.

  He was no worse off than the others. In the dull, amber light that bathed them, they were all rigid, sunk into their seats, trapped by their harnesses.

  Warning tones sounded in his helmet. The damaged hull was losing integrity and growing dangerously hot. Rimes had feared they would tear apart once they hit full velocity.

  It looked like his fears were coming true.

  “Telemetry.” Even speaking one word was a strain, but it was easier than working a virtual interface or relying on eye tracking at the moment.

  Data filled his helmet display.

  “Shaw.”

  Whether the system was overwhelmed by the data it was overlaying, or Shaw was distracted, there was a momentary delay.

  “Yeah?” Shaw’s voice was strained. It was something Rimes hadn’t even thought possible.

  “Hull temperature. How big a problem?”

  Shaw gulped noisily. “Not as bad as being perforated by our buddies.”

  “Nothing you can do about it?”

  “Doesn’t matter what condition the hull’s in. The computer’s controlling things right now. No radical maneuvers, no sudden stops. Anything like that, the systems won’t even have a chance to throw an alarm.” Shaw groaned softly.

  “Sorry. I know I’m asking a lot.” Rimes closed his eyes to block out the outside world. He wished he could shut out the smell. Even with the suit slowly reclaiming what he’d thrown up, the helmet was going to stink until it was cleaned. “You said before they can’t fire on us? Their ships can’t handle this better than ours? They can’t maneuver for a shot?”