by M. D. Cooper
Abby sounded frustrated, like she was being pulled in a dozen directions. Andrews knew just how she felt.
This time she did give her grunt of annoyance over the connection.
17:44 hours to Intrepid escape maneuver
4:26 hours to end of Excelsior mission launch window
Commander Ouri rode the dorsal maglev with two platoons from the Intrepid’s 1st Battalion’s Bravo Company and a fireteam of FROD Marines from Charlie Company acting as Earnest’s bodyguards.
“Node eleven is seven levels down in Engine,” Commander Brandt, the CO of B Company said. “The maglev doesn’t go that close to it, but I plan to get off here anyway.” She pointed to a small station one level in.
“Agreed,” Ouri said. “There’s bound to be resistance and maglev tubes are no place for a fight.”
Ouri couldn’t help but wonder what Tanis would do. Tactics and training were well and good, but Tanis always seemed to do things her own way and get superior results.
At least the colonel had the foresight to form many of the colonists with military background into a division. The regular GSS ship security types were good at policing and manning guard points, but fighting rogue AI in a powerless starship was a different story.
Getting Bravo Company had been a challenge in and of itself. No military units had been in stasis chambers that were under Bob’s control and she had ventured on her own into one of the dark areas to bring Commander Brandt’s company out.
Ouri didn’t think of herself as someone who was easily scared, but moving through those dark corridors with nothing but her meager IR and a hand-light tested her resolve more than she cared to admit.
She had only encountered one rogue servitor and taken it out on the way to the company’s stasis chamber. Once she had brought the soldiers out of stasis, she felt relief—not for their protection, but against the quiet and dark.
The barracks had auxiliary power and the soldiers had suited up in light armor. Ouri and Brandt had conferred and sent platoon one to protect Abby and her engineers while platoons two and three had the task of securing node eleven and stopping the rogue AI.
“What about the plasma conduits through that path?” Lieutenant Arin asked as she studied the train’s holo display. “If the RAI breaches them we’ll have nowhere to hide.”
“I doubt that’s likely. Judging by where the impellers are they don’t have power—the lines should be clear,” Brandt said.
Commander Brandt was a slight woman with thin, almost pixie-like features. Ouri wasn’t alone in this assessment, she had heard several soldiers refer to her as “the Pix,” something Ouri was certain no one had ever called her to her face.
“Commander, I don’t see how you can be sure—” Lieutenant Smith began to object but received a cold stare from the smaller woman.
“Face the possible threat of plasma on the ship, or the certainty of it on the surface of that star out there. Your pick.”
Ouri wasn’t certain if it was the best team-building response, but time was of the essence. “Casey. Send the route to the platoon sergeants; they’re going to need to arrange their teams.”
Commander Brandt cast Ouri an unreadable look. Though they both shared the same rank, Ouri was GSS and her oak leaf put her above the other woman’s bars. However, the fact that TSF didn’t regard the civilian GSS ranks as legitimate didn’t help her credibility.
“Make it happen, Casey.” Brandt’s glower turned to an expression of concern as the train suddenly lost power and slowed to a halt.
“Damn, we’re still a klick from Engine,” Brandt said.
“Looks like we’re not taking the AI by surprise,” Earnest said, shaking his head.
Brandt gave her orders and several fireteams pried the doors open and secured positions outside the train.
The information went out on the combat net and the soldiers and Marines prepared for 0g maneuvers.
Ouri stepped out from the train. As expected, the maglev tube was too narrow and provided no cover. A fireteam from platoon two was pulling open a hatch that would lead to the access tunnels that ran alongside the particle accelerator.
Because the twenty-five kilometer long particle accelerator brought whatever the ramscoop collected to relativistic speeds, gravitational waves were produced. When it was fully operational it provided gravity for much of the crew areas of the ship. At present, the minute gravity it offered was more problematic than helpful.
Ouri and Brandt worked up a plan with the platoon leaders and determined that platoon three would take access tunnels on the starboard side of the ship and platoon two would stay portside. Earnest and his Marines, as well as the company HQ elements, would proceed with platoon two.
Ouri checked her rifle’s load-out and loosened her pistol in its holster. Even though she was not an active combat participant in the platoon, she expected to be using her weapons.
The drop through the hatch caused an unpleasant lurch in her stomach as her organs shifted in 0g. Ouri still remembered the first time when she realized that being without gravity created a constant ‘drop’ feeling, like being in a fast moving elevator or a roller coaster the entire time. It took a lot of the fun out of low gravity work.
Earnest and his guards took up position next to Ouri as the platoon worked its way down a darkened corridor.
“This certainly makes things a bit more interesting, doesn’t it?”
Ouri looked at the engineer, surprised to see that he was grinning.
“That’s a curse if I ever heard one,” she replied.
“Yes, yes, but an interesting one,” he winked. “I almost feel better. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and now, at least, it has.”
“Isn’t the ship severely damaged? We must be facing a serious delay in reaching New Eden.”
Earnest nodded. “However, I’ll get the opportunity to fix it out here with limited resources. Now that’s a challenge!”
One of the Marines was shaking his head ruefully and Ouri had to shrug and put it from her mind. The only thing that mattered right now was eliminating the rogue AI and regaining full control of the ship.
“Stay sharp,” staff sergeant Turin said. “Scan shows motion ahead.”
As if to punctuate the AI’s message, a particle beam lanced over Ouri’s head and she hit the deck. The Marines forced Earnest down and took positions around him, weapons at the ready.
“Give me blanketing fields of fire on that location!” a sergeant yelled. “Squad three, fall back to that cross-corridor and see if you can flank.”
“Contact rear!” one of the Marines called out.
Ouri looked back and saw the shapes of servitors behind them. They were trapped in a narrow corridor with only a few conduits for protection.
The platoon’s engineers were rapidly setting up stasis shields that were able to stop the particle beams, though they reduced the Marines’ firing opti
ons.
Ouri took a position assisting the Marines in holding the rear of the formation. Her ship’s security pulse rifle wasn’t as effective as the Marines’ but she had brought some of her riot control gear and clipped to her belt were three EMP webs.
She signaled her intent to the leader of the fireteam and lobbed the ball at the servitors. It bounced once and then sprayed a web over the robots. They were not hardened for battle and the web knocked them offline.
The soldiers in squad three saw the opening and dashed back down the hall to a cross corridor. Ouri’s ship map showed that they would be able to flank the servitors attacking the front of the formation in roughly four minutes.
As she was checking the maps, there was an explosion and a part of the ceiling fell near her.
“Sweet gods…” she whispered while watching plasma splash across a stasis shield.
17:35 hours to Intrepid escape maneuver
4:15 hours to end of Excelsior mission launch window
Security drones had Tanis and Joe pinned down. The hovering robots were proving to be a far more effective foe than the welders and haulers had been.
Joe was across the corridor from Tanis, both were crouched behind a series of shafts that rose vertically through the deck. The shafts offered scant cover from the focused laser beams the security drones fired. Tanis’s armor could take a few hits, but there were over two dozen of the drones out there—more than enough to overload its diffusion abilities.
“I really don’t get why some AI is giving Bob so much trouble,” Joe said as he ducked behind his cover—their IR vision showing a string of heated air where his head had been a moment before.
“Probably because he’s doing his damnedest to get control of the whole ship from just one node. I don’t think he, or the ship, was designed to work like that.”
Tanis crouched low and darted into the open and back again, drawing fire. Joe used the opportunity to take out the drone that fired on him previously. The EM pulse hit the hovering bot and it fell to the deck in a shower of sparks.
“One down, what? Twenty more to go?”
“Something like that,” Tanis said. “I can’t get a good read; they have ionized fields that are blocking the nano. Angela can’t get a probe past it to take them over. Even if she did, these things have good internal defenses. It would take an army of nano to knock ’em down.”
“Sure would be nice if we had some of that pico tech,” Joe said.
“I’d rather not be the first to try it out in combat conditions.”
Joe laughed and took his turn drawing fire while Tanis hit two bots in quick succession.
“They’re wising up,” Joe said. “Nearly got me again.”
“We need a new tactic.”
“We need to bring pulse grenades next time.”
Tanis laughed. It felt good to be back in the thick of it with Joe. They made an effective team as they fell into their old, comfortable place. She really liked that place.
“Then we need to improvise,” Tanis said. They were still out of contact with the shipnet and neither had schematics for this section of the Intrepid. There had to be something in one of these conduits that could help.
Tanis suspected that her AI couldn’t even be bothered to get worked up about life and death situations anymore.
Tanis decided not to extend the conversation and held back her reply. It was nearly impossible to win a battle of acerbic wit with Angela. It was likely the AI spent the hours Tanis slept just thinking of comebacks and comments.
“So what’s the plan?” Joe asked as he sprayed EM pulses at random.
“Angela’s got a possible conduit carrying particulate matter for nano assembly in the fourth vertical conduit down on your side.”
“Particulate matter? Isn’t that engineering speak for explosive?”
“Samples indicate it could be aluminum oxide.”
Joe paled. “Maybe we shouldn’t be shooting at those things.”
Tanis knew what he meant; few things were as frightening as a burning cloud of metal in an enclosed space.
“Everything is offline, it’s not pressurized.”
Joe’s glance indicated how that knowledge failed to encourage him.
“EM isn’t going to do the trick. I’m going to fire a focused pulse blast and see if I can crack it. You be ready to fry one of those things the moment the spray comes out,” Tanis said.
Joe nodded, they were committed to this course of action and the only real option was to make it work.
Tanis used nano probes to get a good view of the pipe she had to hit. She held her gun out around her cover, using remote sighting to line it up with the target. A nod to Joe and she let loose with several shots. On the third shaped pulse impact, the pipe fractured and a cloud of aluminum filled the air.
The security drones were surrounded by the cloud and Joe took his shot at the closest bot. It exploded and ignited the powder. Joe’s light armor wouldn’t provide enough protection, but Tanis was ready. She leapt across the corridor the moment his finger pulled the trigger and landed astride him, shielding his body with hers.
The explosion was deafening and the pressure wave forced her body against his. Her armor locked up, protecting her—and, by extension, him—from the brunt of it. In a moment it was gone, having blown itself out.
“Wow, you are really heavy,” Joe grunted.
Tanis sat up on her knees. “Is that any way to speak to a lady?”
Joe delivered one of his patented grins. “I know my lady isn’t vain, she can take it.”
Tanis laughed and stood, offering him a hand.
“Maybe I’m vain and you don’t know it.”
Joe glanced at her matte grey flow-armor. “You could make that any color or pattern you want and you picked matte grey.”
Tanis shrugged. “It blends in with the ship down here.”
Joe laughed and gave her a light peck on the cheek. “Yes, incredibly vain.”
They walked through the remains of the corridor. The bulkheads had buckled and most of the pipes were cracked.
“Effective,” Joe said.
“Appears to have been. Abby is going to kill us.”
Joe kicked the remains of one of the drones. “Good thing those weren’t hardened units.”
Tanis nodded. “We’re down to four hours. Based on the last reported readiness, it’s going to take three to get the Excelsior ready.”
“We can do it in two if we have to, we may just miss something we really wish we had later,” Joe said.
“Like I said, three hours.”
Tanis moved past the destroyed security drones and sent her nano scouting ahead. She followed slowly, leery of another attack.
“You have no sense of adventure,” Joe grinned at Tanis as he caught up.
Joe laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. I forgot who I was talking to for a moment there.”
Tanis gave him a sour look. “I have a sense of adventure, but it’s not like I go seeking trouble out.”
Joe’s laughter turned into coughing and Angela sent a series of incredulous faces over the private net.
“I’m serious,” Tanis said. “I just seem to be around when trouble shows up.”
“What about on the Steel Dawn III when you
ran toward the nuclear bomb and not away from it?” Joe asked.
Tanis shrugged. “Someone had to take it out.”
“I was there in the hall when they attacked.”
“I seem to recall you going up into a crawl space to cut a plasma line. Then you jumped down with nothing more than a pulse rifle and your dress above your hips not three meters from the mercs.”
Tanis shrugged as they rounded a corner into a wider, but still dark and net-less corridor. Her nano ranged far ahead, confirming the coast was clear and she picked up the pace. “Seemed like the best course of action at the time.”
“That was classic Tanis,” Joe nodded. “Only surpassed by our ‘let’s be bait’ mission on Mars 1.”
“OK, so maybe I don’t actively avoid trouble.” Tanis shrugged.
“If memory serves, we were talking about the timeline, and the prepwork for the ship.” Tanis gave Joe a somewhat annoyed look and sent a quelling thought to Angela.
Joe assumed a serious look, but a smile still played at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, so we will probably need to fuel the ship up. Bob was going to see if he was able to make a connection to the bay on a highband channel. Docking control systems require pretty secure connections and he can’t pass the encryption commands on the lowband wireless.”
“What if there’s no power?” Tanis asked as they turned into another powerless corridor.
“Docks can generate their own local power. Need it in case of emergency.”
“How thoughtful.”
Joe laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is fortuitous. Fueling the Excelsior could take an hour, depending on the pump specs; we don’t have access to which system are in that bay right now. Then there’s some equipment checks we’ll need to do, system initialization processes, supply loading, that sort of thing.”
“It occurs to me,” Tanis said, “that with all these other ships onboard, couldn’t we use them to help alter our trajectory?”
