Battlecruiser Alamo: Aces High

by Richard Tongue

   Nodding, Orlova replied, “I’m with you.”

   “Wait a minute,” Nelyubov said. “Who’s commanding the ship while you two go flying off?”

   “Feel free to take the conn,” Caine said.

   “He’s right,” Orlova said, shaking her head. “Someone has to stay behind.”

   “You,” the two of them said simultaneously.

   Caine’s face locked into a scowl, and she said, “I’m the senior officer.”

   “Which is why you need to stay behind. You are in command while the Captain is incapacitated, and we’re scheduled to break orbit in six hours,” Orlova replied.

   “As Operations Officer…”

   “I could go,” Nelyubov said. “While you two are arguing, I mean.”

   “You know I’m right, Deadeye,” Orlova said.

   Caine looked up, shook her head, and said, “Go. Before I change my mind.”

   Without waiting for a second, Orlova raced for the elevator, sprinting through the doors and slamming the controls to take her down to the hangar deck. She reached for her datapad, ready to order a shuttle to the pad, but Nelyubov had already organized one, pre-flight already underway.

   It seemed to take several years for the elevator to proceed on its track, Orlova tapping her toe on the deck while she waited. For the last three months she’d helped supervise Alamo’s long-awaited refit, helping Quinn and his engineers tear the ship apart and put it back again, for the first time in years having an opportunity to properly repair every system, upgrade where they could, even get the paintwork pristine. It looked like a new ship, ready for action. Maybe now they’d get to see what she could do.

   The doors smoothly slid open, and she stepped out onto the hangar deck, bustling with activity, supplies and personnel moving back and forth from the station as Alamo prepared to depart. Everything had slowed to a halt with the combat alert, technicians scrambling to get systems ready for battle.

   “Want us to go up?” a voice said from the ceiling; she looked up to see Lieutenant Grant, the recently arrived fighter commander, climbing into his cockpit.

   “Not yet,” she replied. “You and Tanner had better get into launch stations, though.”

   “Who are we shooting at?”

   “Anything that moves,” she replied, stepping into her shuttle. Lounging in the cockpit was a green-haired figure, her fingers moving across the controls.

   “Still got that forged flight certification, Harper?” Orlova said, moving up behind her.

   “Figured it might come in handy,” the hacker replied, getting up from the console. “I thought you could do with the help.”

   “I haven’t got time to argue with you. Clear us for launch.” She glanced down, then said, “Did you plot the course?”

   Shaking her head with a smile, she said, “I’d have taken us somewhere more interesting. Frank’s got it all programmed in for us, and Caine called down with clearance for launch. We can go whenever you want to.”

   “Good.” She tapped a series of controls, and the outer hatch slammed shut, the elevator airlock moving into position to drop them through the hull, releasing them outside with a gasp of atmosphere tossing them away. Within a second, the ship stabilized, and Orlova executed the course to send them racing towards the nearby station.

   “Three minutes,” she said, the acceleration pushing her back in her couch. “All systems go.”

   “Just out of interest, aside from harassing the local security boys – which isn’t something that bothers me, don’t get me wrong – what exactly are we going to do?”

   “Damned if I know,” Orlova replied. Noting Harper’s expression, she said, “Hell, you wanted to come.”

   “It’s been a very dull three months. This beats sitting around.”

   “Couldn’t Logan find you anything to do?”

   Blushing, Harper said, “I couldn’t tell you about it if he had.”

   “What the hell happened to the kid I left behind at Spitfire Station?” Orlova asked, shaking her head. “How high is your security clearance these days, anyway?”

   “That’s…”

   “Classified,” Orlova interrupted. A light flashed onto her console, and Caine’s face appeared on the heads-up display.

   “Change of plan,” she said. “I’m sending you a new course.”

   “At least now we have a plan,” Harper muttered.

   “Where are we going?” Orlova asked.

   “Corpse retrieval.”

   The color drained from her face, and she asked, “Whose?”

   “No-one we know. The assassin apparently suicided by blowing himself out of an airlock, and he managed to put himself on a trajectory that gives him only a few more minutes before he gets into Ragnarok’s atmosphere. I know it’s a bit of a risk…”

   “Executing course change now,” Orlova replied, working the controls to spin the shuttle around, the engines firing again to kick them into a descent trajectory. “What sort of time constraints are we talking about here?”

   “You’ll be alongside the body in thirteen minutes, with six more to retrieve. Then come back to Alamo.”

   “That’s going to be tricky,” she replied, furrows growing on her forehead. “Margin will be tight on the fuel. Can’t I top up down on the deck?”

   “The locals are asking for the body to be turned over to them.”

   “And you think we ought to run the investigation ourselves,” Orlova said, nodding.

   “It was two of our own that were attacked. I don’t want to hang around for weeks waiting for some Rockie investigator to poke and prod his way through the evidence. We’ve got everything we need on Alamo for a full analysis of the corpse, the same equipment they have over on the station.”

   “What do I do when they order me to head up to Hunter Station instead?”

   Raising an eyebrow, Caine said, “You’ve demonstrated suitably selective hearing in the past, Maggie. I wouldn’t dream of ordering you to reject orders given by higher authority…”

   “I’m already locking in the communication discriminators,” Harper said. “No-one else can talk to us.”

   “How did you…,” Caine began, before saying, “Never mind. Don’t take too many risks, Maggie. We don’t need to add to the body count today.”

   “Sorry, Deadeye. That selective hearing again. Shuttle out.”

   “Got it, I think,” Harper said, looking up at the scanner. “Hard to pick out at this range, but that must be it. On a descent trajectory.” Frowning, she said, “He really did want to get rid of all the evidence.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “That’s an optimum descent track he’s on. This wasn’t an accident, an unintended consequence. This was deliberate.” Shaking her head, she said, “How the hell did he do it?”

   “Shaped charge, placed to throw his body out at the correct course and velocity. I suppose technically it wouldn’t be that difficult…”

   “In practice, he had seconds to do it.” Harper interrupted. “Unless that was his plan all along.”

   Looking up at her console, Orlova said, “That window of opportunity looks to have been a little optimistic. I’d say we’ll have less than three minutes to get the corpse inside before we have to accelerate.” Glancing across at Harper, she added, “I’ll go and get suited up. Can you handle her?”

   “I guess we’ve only got one way to find out,” she replied with a smirk. “Don’t worry, I did take a few lessons.”

   “As long as you took the right ones.” Orlova unstrapped, climbing out of the couch with effort under the variable acceleration, and made her way back to the rear cabin. The passenger information display was flashing a series of warning alerts, unsurprising as right now they were on a descent trajectory that would lead to an unsurvivable re-entry. Even if they did decide to head down to the surface, it wouldn’t be easy to br
ing this bird down to a safe landing from here.

   Five minutes to get suited up, plenty of time. She ran through the familiar sequence of checks and procedures, forcing herself to relax as she donned her spacesuit. As the helmet locked into position, a series of green lights flashed up on her heads-up display, all the readouts indicating that her suit was working as it should. Clumsily, she stumbled into the airlock, clipping her safety line onto the interior catch.

   “Harper,” she said, “Send all the information on the course of that corpse to my suit computer. How close are we going to get?”

   “Closest approach will be a hundred and nine meters. You’re going out at four hundred. Velocity differential of twelve meters per second.”

   “Textbook. Give me a countdown from fifteen.” Behind her, the inner airlock door closed, and there was a fading hiss as the atmosphere was drained away, ready for her to jump.

   “Coming up,” she replied, as Orlova refined her approach trajectory. This was going to be close.

   “Fifteen seconds, mark. Fourteen. Thirteen.” She braced herself, hands over her thruster controls. “Nine, eight, seven.” The outer door slid open, bathing her in reflected light from the surface. She could clearly make out surface details rushing below, the white and brown of Ragnarok laid out beneath her. Looking up, a green rectangle popped up on her helmet, surrounding a small dot in the distance. Her goal.

   “Now!” Harper yelled, and Orlova jammed on her thrusters to hurtle her out towards the corpse. More warning alarms sounded, her suit registering her altitude. They were low enough that the first faint wisps of atmosphere were beginning to tug at her, slowing them down, and her thrusters were struggling to keep her stable.

   The seconds raced by, and she could see the body up ahead, slowly rotating, its arms outstretched as if the corpse was reaching for her. Another warning flashed onto her helmet display, sixty seconds already gone, less than a hundred and fifty to go. She started to decelerate, matching velocity with the target, slowing to an apparent halt, though Ragnarok was still moving beneath them, a white carpet above which she was flying.

   Contact. There was no obvious place for her to secure a line, so she quickly made a loop and wrapped it around the torso of the dead would-be assassin, giving it a tug to make sure it was secure. Gathering it in her arms, she turned, looking back at the shuttle. It seemed an awfully long way to go.

   “Maggie, you’re at the half-way point,” Harper’s voice echoed through her helmet. “Better get a move on.”

   “Roger,” she said, tapping another control to activate the shuttle’s winch, pulling the cable back to drag her and her grisly cargo home. There was a kick of acceleration as she began to move, the shuttle slowly drawing closer, and she glanced down at the body. There was a look of grim determination fixed on the corpse’s face, leering up at her, as though challenging her to fail.

   She reached forward with a hand to grab the airlock as soon as she approached. There would be no second chance if she messed this up, she had to get inside the shuttle on the first try. Ten seconds to contact. Five seconds. She could see the handle she had to grab, and swung down to snatch at it, locking her fingers around the bar, sending herself slamming into the hull.

   Taking a deep breath, she tossed the corpse into the airlock and dove in after it, letting the re-pressurization cycle begin its work. As soon as the door closed, she could feel acceleration building, Harper wasting no time. Quickly tossing the corpse into one of the rescue balls to keep it intact, she raced through the inner hatch, still wearing most of her suit, and made for the cockpit.

   “How’re we doing?” she asked a nervous Harper.

   “Not good. We’re lower than estimated, beginning to get some heat building on the outer hull.”

   Glancing sharply across for a second, she looked down at the panel, her fingers dancing over the controls as she changed the angle of attack. They were too low to simply accelerate out of the situation, they couldn’t gain speed quickly enough for that. The only answer left was an atmospheric skip, altering their trajectory to get the planet itself to do the work for them.

   “Strap in,” she said. “This might get a little rough.”

   “What about our passenger?”

   “His problems are over. Ours are just beginning.”

   Tossing her suit gloves across the room, she concentrated on her course plot, trying to pull the shuttle up and onto the correct course, burning the thrusters for everything they could give her, one hand making manual corrections while the other started reprogramming the navigation systems. Harper was looking out of the viewport shaking her head.

   “Hell of a wild ride!” she yelled.

   Nodding, Orlova tapped the final control, then sat back, saying, “We’re in the hands of the computers now. Nothing we can do but sit back and watch.”

   “And if it goes wrong?”

   “Ragnarok gets a new crater.”

   There was nothing she could do to change anything now. The computer was flying the ship, making millisecond-to-millisecond adjustments in course and speed to keep the shuttle in the right path. The lower hull was beginning to glow a dull red, the ground racing away beneath them as they sped through the outer atmosphere.

   “Message from Hunter Station,” Harper said with a smile.

   “What do they want?”

   “Asking what the hell we’re doing. I’m wondering the same thing myself.”

   The force of acceleration was pushing them back in their seats, warning alarms rushing across every terminal, the hull stressed beyond the usual safe limits. An altimeter popped up on the screen, numbers running down, and she shook her head.

   “I take it that isn’t a good sign,” Harper said.

   “Not if you’re shooting for orbital rendezvous,” she replied, forcing a brief grin.

   Her eyes locked on the numbers, slowly starting to slow as the computer struggled to compensate, and then began to reverse as they pulled back out of the atmosphere. For a heart-rending second, the numbers dropped again, before finally beginning to rise at an ever-increasing rate.

   “Call Alamo,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Tell them we’ll be coming on board shortly, and that Quinn’s boys had better take a long look at this ship when we get home. I think we just advanced the maintenance schedule a little.”

  Chapter 3

   Midshipman Pavel Salazar raced down the corridor to the hangar bay, his footsteps echoing on the deck platings. He was late for his shuttle, not of his doing, but that wasn’t going to matter if he managed to miss his ship. Bursting into the room, he raced for the nearest open airlock, trusting that it was the right one.

   “Hold the launch!” he yelled, speeding across the deck, his carryall swinging by his side, smashing against his legs as he ran. As he reached the airlock, a hand reached down and pulled him in, just as the hatch began to close.

   “Thanks,” he said, panting for breath. He looked up at the man who helped him, and added, “Sir.”

   “Not a problem, Midshipman, we all run late sometimes. You heading over to Alamo?”

   “Yes, sir,” he replied, nodding. “I just arrived on the Forrestal.”

   Raising an eyebrow, the man said, “That ship only arrived half an hour ago.”

   “I hustled.”

   “Evidently. The other midshipmen arrived on the Don Lind. You miss your transport?” “No, sir,” he said, red-faced. “My orders were changed at the last minute. I was halfway to Carter Station when someone back home changed my mind; the Forrestal was the best I could do.”

   “I love it when the top brass decides to play their games. Who’s the unlucky one, or don’t you know?”

   “Sir?”

   “As far as I know, Alamo has three midshipmen on board already. We’re rated for three, so I assume you’re replacing someone.”

   “Not as far as I’m aware, Capta
in.” He looked up at the insignia, then said, “I thought Fleet Captain Marshall was commanding Alamo.”

   “That’s a long story,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant-Captain John Cunningham, and my position in the command structure is rather complicated.”

   “Midshipman Pavel Salazar.”

   “How’d you end up with a name like that?”

   “Martian father, Callistan mother. I grew up on Titan, just to make it more interesting.”

   The shuttle was on the move, and the two of them made their way over to two of the vacant couches, settling down for the short flight across. Salazar peered out of the viewport, taking his first look at the long, sleek ship up ahead.

   “I’ve never been on a battlecruiser before,” he said.

   “I thought this year’s cadet class did a tour on the Gilgamesh?”

   Blushing again, Salazar said, “I missed it.”

   “Medical?” Cunningham said, raising an eyebrow.

   With a sigh, he replied, “Disciplinary.”

   “I have access to your records…”

   Facing forward, he said, “I was in flight school, and I washed out. Catastrophically. Two other cadets were killed, but they decided to transfer me over to the main academy to finish my course. And no, sir, I haven't the first idea why I am still in the fleet.”

   “Don’t take this the wrong way, Midshipman…”

   “I don’t know how I ended up on Alamo either, sir. I was heading for Carter Station to work in their admin section when I found myself transferred. I didn’t put in for it.” Looking up, he said, “Are you going to be my commanding officer?”

   “Maybe.”

   “Then I guess I’ve managed to get off on the worst possible foot. Again.”

   Cunningham broke into a smile, and said, “Every middie has a problem on his cadet cruise, kid. Maybe you just got yours out of the way right at the start. Relax. I don’t know what we’re going to do with four midshipman, but I’m sure we’ll think of someone interesting for you to do.”

   Alamo was growing closer in the screen, the shuttle drawing in underneath it, and Salazar found himself tightening his grip on his carryall.