by Shane Black
The first rail cannon shot missed, but the subspace disruption didn’t. The flash from the passing projectile caused all of the cruiser’s polarization systems to reflexively darken its external-facing ports. By the time the cruiser’s automatic systems realized they were under attack, they had no time to evade the second shot, nor did they realize Yili had echeloned her weapons in a continuous firing cycle.
The second shot ricocheted off the cruiser’s dorsal engine cowlings, slamming against already weakened armor and re-igniting the fires damage control parties had fought to control ever since the torpedo attack. The cruiser stumbled, but continued to close range with Argent, waiting for the moment when it would reach optimal range for another missile barrage.
Yili waited patiently, living up to her brief reputation, except now she was a girl with some rather larger guns than before. She maintained her weapons and their synchronization with Nemesis Eight’s sophisticated targeting computers. Rail cannon three finished reloading, snapshotted the targeting data and fired again, lighting up space for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The deuterium slug punctured the cruiser’s secondary hull through-and-through, blasting a cloud of mangled circuitry, armor and metal fragments into space.
The cruiser began to skid, as a secondary explosive decompression event over-thrusted the vessel’s port side. This gave T-Hawk Six a magnificent target against its already damaged ventral engine superstructure. Lieutenant Abee opened up with his brawler cannons again and began landing punch after overloaded punch into the largest chink in the besieged vessel’s defenses. Fires re-erupted and secondary explosions started to answer the lightning-fingered impacts of white-hot plasma energy one after the other. Seconds later, the vessel performed its final maneuver, attempting to bank away while protecting its vulnerable port side.
Argent’s rail cannons both chose the exact same target bearings. Twin slugs, each roughly the size of a WWII diesel submarine, ripped through the cruiser’s center of mass at appreciable percentages of light speed. The resulting detonation blew the forward section of the cruiser clear moments before a secondary explosion vaporized her engines. Alert Three veered in all directions and spiked their escape jets to reach a safe range. Argent’s fifth shot was a pinpoint impact on the enemy ship’s fusion assembly. There was a brief sun-bright nova of explosive energy and then only debris strewn darkness remained.
Nineteen
“Notify Flight Two and Flight Three I want an alpha-strength strike force on a fifteen minute alert as soon as possible.”
“Affirmative, Lieutenant, Skywatch out.”
Yili unlatched her shock harness, drew her blaster pistol and went to the hatch. She had just about finished configuring her life support alarm and commlink when the sound of a fist pounding on the outside metal almost made her jump out of her boots.
The fist pounded again. “Is anyone in there?”
Curtiss thought the voice sounded familiar, but after what she had been through the last hour she wasn’t about to take any chances. She leaned close to the hatch, her blaster at the ready.
“Identify yourself.”
“Room service!”
Yili tried to keep herself from smiling.
“I didn’t order anything!”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. I thought you said you wanted some earplugs!”
She unlocked the hatch and Moo stepped through. He had burn marks on his armor and Yili instantly noticed his weapon was down to 15% reserve energy. Smudges and soot residue covered his chiseled face, but he still managed a grin.
“You’ve been through hell.”
“That’s affirmative, Engineer. We’ve still got intruders on Deck 31 but they’re pinned below the vital energy conduits for Reactor Six. They got two of our fusion plants and cut power to all the control systems above deck six just before the missile attack. It couldn’t have been timed better.”
“Any contact with the bridge yet?” Yili asked with concern in her eyes.
“Negative. To be honest, the only people I’ve had a chance to talk to in the last hour have been wounded marines and medics. Sickbay set up a triage in the machine shop loading area on deck 19.”
“Then you need to take command, sir.” Yili said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I’ve got a boarding party to neutralize, Lieutenant. Are you sure there aren’t any officers reachable?”
“The bridge has been cut off since the first missile impact. I’m in nominal command because frankly, I couldn’t find anyone who outranks me until now.”
“You stay in command, Lieutenant. You know the ship a hell of a lot better than me. I’ll make sure you get to the bridge or at least someplace where you can run things until we figure out what happened on deck one.” Moo keyed his mic. “Dog block, this is Chuck Wagon. Brass secured. Rendezvous at point Indigo. Confirm.”
A moment passed.
“Confirmed, Chuck Wagon. Dog block out.”
Moo hefted his weapon. “Let’s go join the party, Lieutenant. I’ll take point, you cover.”
“Anything to get out of this phone booth for a few minutes.”
Twenty
A few minutes later, a dozen members of “Dog Block” were escorting the Argent’s Chief Engineer to the deck 29 magneto-lifts. The ad hoc marine defensive unit had been formed by the Major from the unwounded strays and mongrels he managed to scavenge after the Aux Con Seven explosion.
Damage above and below the strike point had prevented reinforcements from helping the stranded soldiers directly, so the Major had ordered the men he could find to cut their way through to the lower deck and fight their way back to the lifts. It was the long way around, and it was dangerous, but they had finally joined up with a squad of fresh rifles without sustaining any further casualties. Now that they had access to the lifts, they could form a perimeter and isolate the threat.
“Moo to bridge.”
“That’s not going to work until we can restore power above deck six.” Yili sighed.
“How long will that take?”
“No clue from here. I have to see what they did first. My guess is the damage control parties can’t restore the connections because the intruders found their way into one of the automatic routing subsystems. Until I get up there and switch the system back to manual routing, they’re on emergency power only. That plus the fact the anti-intruder system is off controls presents us with a number of related problems.”
One of the escorting marines punched the code in for the magneto-lifts.
“What about their personal commlinks?” a fresh-faced young PFC asked.
Moo raised an eyebrow.
“Uhh-- ma’am,” the PFC added quickly.
“Power levels, private. Argent has been jamming everything except wired connections. Since they set off that firecracker in Aux Seven, so have the intruders,” Yili replied. “I’m sure Zony is up there trying to make it work right now, but without those subsystems, she just doesn’t have the horsepower yet.”
“Where to, Lieutenant?” Moo asked as the gantry gate opened.
“Skywatch STC. If we can’t get to the bridge, we’ll have access to most of the command functions from there.”
Twenty-One
The magneto-lift opened into a scene of abject chaos. The observation deck outside STC Command was nearly covered in scoring, scorch marks and impact points. Flashes of weapons fire were going off inside the darkened control room. Moo gave the rest of his squad an abrupt hand signal and the marines advanced on the access hatch.
Forward and aft of the starboard side bulkhead, Yili could see the sweeping dorsal surface of Argent’s hull. She felt a little twinge of pride when she noticed rail cannons three and four were still oriented for an off-starboard shot. It was pretty clear at this point they may have been the difference.
A debris cloud and intermittent venting atmosphere were occasionally visible over the leading edge of the port quarter. From this vantage point, Yili could see the superstructure of the bridge, but at
this angle it was hard to make out any details or possible damage. She did note all the forward running lights were still dark. She cursed the fact she couldn’t get forward far enough to evaluate the problem.
The fact remained DSS Argent was badly wounded. Lieutenant Curtiss felt the difficult to ignore urge to get out there and evaluate the damage, everything else be damned, but she also knew the ship needed stable command and control. Without it, they were defenseless, and based on the events of the last hour, she was fairly certain there were more attack cruisers out there. If the next one arrived at the wrong time it could make the situation dramatically worse in a hurry.
Two heavily-armed marines bracketed the hatch while two more took up head-on positions, ready to fight their way in to the room if need be. The STC control room had become unsettlingly quiet in the few moments since their arrival, as if whomever was inside was preparing for something.
Moo moved up and keyed his command access code into the small control console. The lights shifted from amber to green and the hatch opened.
“Argent Marines! Acknowledge!”
Silence.
“Argent Marines!”
Moo looked to Yili and she nodded. He signaled his men to advance. The two at the door moved inside and took up defensive positions with side-to-side fields of fire. The two head-on riflemen advanced quickly and secured lines of sight.
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
The major rolled around the edge of the bulkhead and stood the doorway, TK40 at the ready.
“Nobody home, sir.”
Yili was getting that feeling something was just off enough that it didn’t make sense. She had just ordered Skywatch to ready a strike force on the flight deck. There was weapons fire. Where did everyone go?
“I don’t like it Moo. I gave this station orders ten minutes ago.”
“Correction, lieutenant. You gave me orders ten minutes ago.”
Moo whirled. Yili felt the cold business end of a blaster pistol press against the side of her head. The voice behind her spoke in a commanding tone.
“Weapons down, gentlemen, or I’ll vaporize the lieutenant’s head and most of this deck with it.”
Standing behind Yili in a somewhat dilapidated marine colonel’s uniform was a man that looked to be at least in his sixties. He wore a fancifully styled mustache and had thin slicked-back gray hair. His eyes were small and gleamed with menace.
“That was not a request, major. This entire facility is wired. If I don’t activate the deadman switch in my coat pocket in twenty seconds, you’ll have a front row seat to the biggest explosion since the Gitairn primary went nova.”
The major looked like he was weighing his options right up to the point when the colonel announced there were explosives wired into the STC control facility.
“Stand down, marines,” Moo said coldly. His arms relaxed and he let his weapon drop. After placing it on the floor, he rose back to his full height and glared at the colonel. The rest of his men reluctantly followed his lead.
“You too, lieutenant.”
Yili carefully placed her blaster on the deck, making sure it was within reach in case things got dicey.
“What’s this all about, colonel?” Moody challenged, putting a particular sarcastic emphasis on their opponent’s supposed rank.
“This is about a young crew that doesn’t seem to want to listen. I warned you to stay away. I told you this sector was a trap, but you wanted to do things your own way. Now you’re tangled up in this, and you’re going to have to pay your own freight to get out of it.”
The man pulled an electronic detonator out of his pocket and clicked the deadman switch. “That buys us another sixty seconds.”
“Colonel, if you’ll kindly lower your weapon, I will promise you no tricks.”
“Very well, lieutenant,” the colonel replied calmly. “No tricks.” He relaxed, pistol in one hand, detonator in the other.
Yili backed away a few steps and stood near the major. “What do you mean ‘tangled up in this?’ What are we tangled in?”
“What you’re experiencing here, lieutenant, is what happens when two opposing groups are in charge of the same military operation. The Dunkerque wasn’t sent here to ‘show the flag.’ Admiral Hughes was out here to make pretended peace overtures. His real orders were to mine the Reach side of Gitairn Sectors Eight and Ten and try to lure the enemy’s strength into it.”
“A sneak attack?!” Moo exclaimed. “Why start a war against a superior force?”
“Because they won’t be superior any more if the minefield goes off, boy!” the colonel shouted.
“Everything was going according to plan until some handwringing apron-wearing busybody at Skywatch Command took Hughes’ cover orders seriously and declared him overdue. Then you geniuses show up with your big shiny battleship ready to make a name for yourselves. If enemy command sees you here without a good explanation they’ll think Hughes is up to something, and it will blow the whole operation straight to hell!”
“Then it was you who fired on a Skywatch vessel, sir?” Yili asked. “You tried to blow up two of my reactors?”
“You had to be stopped.”
Moo wasn’t buying a word of it. There was something else going on here, and he was bound and determined to get at it one way or another. “Colonel, where is this enemy fleet of yours? So far we’ve seen one ship.”
“An old automated hull with a set of pre-programmed drills plugged in to its navicomp and battle computer. You saved us the trouble of disposing of it.”
The colonel clicked his deadman switch again.
“That old hull almost took our port quarter off!” Yili snapped. “That’s an act of war, sir, no matter what your rank or your supposed orders!”
“Grow up, lieutenant. I didn’t come all the way out here to listen to your idealistic accusations or your histrionics about who hit who first.” The older officer gestured in the direction of Barker’s Asteroid. “The strike force on the opposite side of that asteroid field is anchored by twelve heavies including four carriers. When they move on Core’s Edge, there will be fifteen billion lives at stake, and that’s a hell of a lot more important than a new paint job. Now I’m going to ask you this one time, major, as I’m presuming you are in charge of this little field trip. Are you going to join the winning side or not?”
Moo’s face darkened. The colonel stared right back at him.
“If not, I’ll just drop this switch down the lift shaft and let eight tons of explosives solve your problem for you.”
Twenty-Two
“What’s it going to be, major?!”
The edge in the as yet unidentified intruder’s voice was unmistakable. Even Yili could tell the man was in a rush for some reason. His face looked drawn and his fingers were white around the grip of his blaster pistol.
“I can’t speak for the entire ship, colonel. I’m not in command.”
“Well then who is!?”
At that moment a faint greenish glow appeared all across the colonel’s body. It flickered and shifted back and forth a few times before focusing bright and sharp. It was a targeting matrix. The intruder looked down at his shoes and pants.
“What the--?”
By now he was covered in a pattern of two-inch-square glowing green targeting lines. From somewhere nearby, Yili and Moo felt and heard sympathetic vibrations in the floor and walls. The nearby observation window darkened.
“That’s a drive field,” Yili muttered.
A moment later, the unmistakable sleek lines of a Two-Gen Yellowjacket fighter rose into view outside the Skywatch access bay observation port. It was roughly the size of three racing boats parked side by side, and the sharp leading edges of its weapons emplacements made it look like an angry metal bird of prey. On its forward edge was the proud emblem of Argent Squadron Four - the Tigersharks.
At its controls was Captain Jason Hunter.
A blinding green targeting laser illuminated the shocked
colonel’s face and then performed a mass and position scan of his entire body. The fighter’s short range guns rolled out of their inboard weapons bays and locked into place. The targeting grid reflected from the colonel’s jacket and clothing shifted red. Hunter’s voice came over the intraship.
“I believe I have you covered, colonel.”
The intruder did not speak. He looked as if he were trying to catch his breath.
“Major, relieve the colonel of his weapon and take him into custody.”
Moo activated his commlink. “All due respect, sir, he’s holding a detonator.”
“It was a bluff, Moo. He’s just trying to buy himself time. His co-saboteurs have been cut off, and we’ve got some fascinating information about the little operation going on all the way out here at Shangri-la.”
Twenty-Three
Zony, Moo, Yili and Annora were seated in Captain Hunter’s in-board cabin once again. This time they looked a little less awestruck and a little more determined to get to the bottom of whatever was happening to their ship. All four officers were armed with blaster pistols and Moo was still wearing the wrist appliques from his powerarmor.
They were engaged in a boiling discussion over what went right, what went wrong and just who exactly they should consider their enemy.
“Attention on deck!” Moo snapped. All four of the Bandit Jacks rose to academy-perfect postures.
“As you were,” Captain Hunter said quickly. He was also armed and the look on his face told the others this meeting was at least going to start all business. “Be seated.”
Hunter placed a tablet on the conference table. Behind him, the crystal projection screen was displaying the Argent emblem and vessel designation. The letters spelling out the ship’s name were at least a foot tall.
