by Rolf Nelson
Snapping his fingers as the plan clicked into place, Helton mentally came back to the bridge. “We can still take being underwater for a little while, correct?” Taj’s armored woman avatar winced visibly but nodded, and Quiritis’ skeptical look revealed nothing. “We don’t have a cloaking device, but they don’t know that…. If they think we left, they won’t look very hard, especially if they think their systems are totally compromised.”
Sharon looked at him skeptically. “Didn’t your computer just say you can’t cross the beach?”
Helton nodded to her and looked at Quiritis. “Women don’t believe me when I tell them. Even when,” he waved to the bridge around them, and Taj’s avatar, “they see it themselves. I love you because you have faith in me, even when you can’t see where I’m going. Thank you. Be ready to lift in five, whatever is happening.”
“Aye-aye, Captain Serious. I like having a plan. What is it?”
“Get hack-tastic on the local nets. Attack the battalion to the north, spoof their coms and hack them, have a chat with their commander and tell them we have a cloaking device. Then we disappear, poof, in a cloud of smoke.”
“Oh, is that all? Positively phizz-wizzing!” Taj’s avatar replied, drawing blank looks. The avatar morphed into the schoolmarm. “Oh, sorry. Been reading a lot to Quinn recently.” She morphed again, back into the armored tanker. “An excellent idea, Boss. Buuuut… I might need just a few more teenky-tiny details to make it work.”
Allonia worked fast to replace a couple of cargo deck screens and cameras so ramp-side communications were easier. The screen flashed to life with Taj’s armored woman avatar on it. “I think you have an acquaintance approaching. Care to have a word? Lifting in a half-minute.” In a corner of the screen a local street camera shows the banker walking fast towards them but not yet around the corner of the nearest building. She sighed and stood up, still obscured by the men standing on the ramp. She could hear Maurice call out as he came around the building and could see live people for the first time, the area streets being virtually abandon to the fighters.
“Hey there! I have to get out of here! Do you have room for one more? I can pay!” He walked quickly toward them, focused on the ship merely as transport and was totally oblivious to the fact that it was a beat up warship with soldiers aboard, seeing uniforms as little more than furniture unless they are officers who could help him. A few of the former conscripts watched him uncertainly, then glanced at Allonia for guidance, guns at the ready. She shook her head, but the troops still raised their barrels further as he got closer.
With a burst of departing gunfire from the far side of the ship to cover lift-off, Nesbit and three others ran back to Tajemnica’s side-entry and ramp, leaping aboard with mile-wide grins of excitement as they recovered the equipment and their breath just as the ship started to move. Allonia stepped past the soldiers and out on to the now level ramp. The banker stared up at her in surprise, suddenly halting his pleading and his approach at the sight of her. “Like I said… complicated,” she called down to him.
Kaminski looked at the receding figure, then his wife, raising an eyebrow.
“No competition for you by light-years. Still watching your back.”
“And I’ll keep watching your backside, too. It’s good to be the cavalry.”
The rest of Duke’s and Kell Moffett’s squads gathered together to plan the next operation against a somewhat different target. Kaminski and Harbin started getting the rifle squads prepared on what to expect, noting they needed to be very careful with the heavier weapons to avoid damaging the hardware they were trying to tap into, getting some men up to A-Deck so they could swarm top-side through the usable tank hatches. Other got ready for ramp and side-door work, talking about the basics of assault tactics while hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
Once Tajemnica cleared the local structures, she ceased her counter-battery fire and raced away to the north high enough to be seen, low enough to not pose an obvious target to any passing high-fliers that happened to be in the area. She also sent a few parting shots at the surrounding troops to ensure they kept heads down and mouths shut long enough to not watch them too closely or report back too soon.
Tajemnica passed through a gap in the low hills which hid the newly set up positions. She moved fast and close to the ground, her passage marked by perimeter riflemen freaking out; a few firing at her, most just dove for cover. The four cannon batteries of LtC Mark’s battalion had just fired a volley when Tajemnica was seen and an instant change of fire mission was made by the gun captains. The working turret lasers flickered, detonating some of the ready supply of ammo stacked near a gun here, and the back of a truck there. She flew directly over of one the gun batteries, hovering very low above the guns’ muzzle-brakes, blotting the sky for the crews and making a target that was impossible to miss. The gun crews were trying to reload and aim nearly straight up at the ship less than a meter from their muzzles.
One of the gun captains stopped, eyes wide, and wildly started yelling “CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!” as he realized the effect an artillery round will have on the men standing in the open between the ground and the flat wall of armor directly overhead. But in the desperate excitement, and after dozens of recent and loud rounds being sent down range, nobody could hear him. A gun fired, the contact fuse detonating the shell in the confined space and killing every member of the gun crew. Tajemnica lowered herself, crushing the guns amid shrieks of bending and breaking metal, into useless pieces lying flat or pressed into the ground, before lifting off and hovering over Second Battery’s guns. Having seen what just happened to First Battery, they wisely abandon their positions. They stood aside and watched nearly pristine hardware get crushed into the mud. Third Battery guns were disposed of just as easily. None of them wanted to pick up a rifle and make themselves a target for any of the weapons staring down at them from the elevated and well-protected tank positions above.
Fourth Battery got off a couple of rounds while Tajemnica was hovering over the nearby guns, but rifle-fire and a short series of laser hits that vaporized metal from the controls dissuade further offensive action.
Tajemnica flew over the last battery, sending the crews scattering like cockroaches from the foot of a giant which got lower, and lower…. The ramp dropped. One rifle squad manned the edge, keeping up an irregular flow of cover fire while others streamed down the lowered ramp. Harbin led the way, with Moffett’s and Nesbit’s teams close behind him to search for a com wire to tap into. The return fire was minimal and sporadic, but Harbin was still yelling at them to keep their heads down and return fire when they could. After a few minutes of searching a line was found by a battery commander’s pit, little more than a hole obviously hastily dug in a natural depression and barely sandbagged, near the middle of the gun cluster. After a cursory examination by Nesbit he got to work, and soon an RJ323 was clamped over the line.
A moment later, Taj’s voice came across his head-set com. “I’m in. Wow, great view from in here! Keep it secure and give me a minute!”
With the crackle of rifle fire popping occasionally around them, they hunkered in the “bunker” pit facing outwards, rifles ready, except for the two squad leaders and a couple of the techies examining the equipment, seeing what else they might be able to do with or to it. As they rummaged around, a grenade, flung blindly from some other firing position and barely making it to them, came rolling down the side and into the confines of the command center right between Nesbit and Harbin. Reacting instantly for perhaps the first time in his life Nesbit snatched the deadly sphere and pulled it in tight, curling around it as tightly as possible, moving so fast his feet left the ground as he tucked up. His body muffled the blast that killed him instantly, long before he hit the ground, efficiently absorbing the lethal blast and shrapnel. Harbin returned fire and called for support from above. Some recruits joined him in firing back, others blanched and pulled back down further into the pit, staring at the mangled and shatter
ed man that was all but vibrating with a newfound zest for life just moments before.
Moffett slung his rifle and started yelling for help hauling the downed man up to sick bay, refusing to believe what his gut told him must be true. Quickly two of the others assisted him in carrying the lifeless body back aboard. His voice cracked with emotion, and he moved as fast as he could while encouraging others to move faster.
The source of the thrown grenade was quickly identified and dealt with, but it was too late.
Taj’s voice drifts into Harbin’s ear. “Looks good, Nesbit, First Sergeant, the away team. Back aboard with you!” Crouching, blood-splattered, and moving fast, the rest followed the three carrying Duke’s lifeless body, heading for the ramp and the safety of Tajemnica’s armor.
On the bridge images flashed by, tactical displays updated with current data from the wide-ranging network of sensors and known positions of men and surveillance cameras. Soon the responses to queries came in as Taj got a handle on protocols, databases available, and people she could impersonate to intercept and redirect current conversations on the “secure” network. As the data flowed by Helton’s and Quiritis’s eyes, they nodded in appreciation of what could be found by Taj’s long-honed skills and direct access to a mil net.
“Your crazy plan might not be so crazy after all,” Brother Libra observed. “It might just work.”
Sharon looked nervous. “Isn’t adding to your problem by breaking into a government network awfully risky?”
Quiritis shot her a look. “You sure she’s your sister? Seems a little slow on the uptake to be related to you.”
“And he said you were the calmest lady he’d ever met,” Sharon retorted sharply.
“She’s got your sarcastic streak, Helton,” Libra noted.
“She’s not really used to this, and she’s been under a lot of stress recently,” Helton defended.
“Like we haven’t been?” Sharon snapped. “Playing secret agent, all but hijacking a banker’s private shuttle and-”
“Oh, yeah, really rough! We’ve been nuked twice by a carrier-fleet sized herd of frigates with orders to kill on sight, and swimming at the bottom of an ocean in a four century old starship, after fleeing one of the most epic sword fights in five hundred years and lighting up a star. Yeah, you’ve had difficulties, watching my husband conscripted, while he’s been fighting for his life against two armies with a load of civilization’s detritus!”
“Ladies, how about you put away the claws and focus on the task at hand,” Taj’s armored lady said from a screen, single green eye flashing, and the red Possenti cross on her eye-patch glowing faintly as well. “We’ll need to time this right, and make sure we haven’t missed anything. I think I’ve found the spaces I need, but let’s run through it one more time, quickly, before we run out of time. There’s going to be a cruiser overhead in twenty minutes, and we’re only getting one chance at pulling off this disappearing act.”
LtC Marks was tracking the newest developments while a couple of sergeants were unpacking the command bunker around him. He always had a few people working on bunkers ahead of time for possible future moves, and this one had been roughed out and nearly finished just in time, even if it wasn’t yet fully equipped. He had his coms and a few screen, always the first things to be set up, but the majority of things had not yet been hauled in and unpacked. The move seemed necessary, but there were minor problems from the start. The rifle company had met resistance around the town where there were supposed to be nothing but neutral police, and he’d lost five experienced men and half his conscripts. He hated mixing forces, but it seemed the best move in this case… right up until they started taking fire and killing civilians. Someone out there was a very good shot, and it was making the second guessing even worse. Then some damn ship showed up with injured, and the public feed was his best news source for a few minutes. But now the different videos showed a half dozen different images, none of which looked like the badly crippled ship he’d first seen. But something was shooting down the artillery he had finally decided to call in on those damnable snipers holding things up.
Gah! Nothing was going as planned. He’d lost contact a few minutes ago amid intense jamming after a very brief report from the advanced rifles of a ship attacking him, which sounded illegal if it belonged to the opposition. As he sat, pondering his next move, a report flashed on his screen. A shell got through! His one remaining radio with the stalled rifle company reported details as the jamming disappeared. Hit the side of the hospital. Damn. Just what he didn’t need. Another flash report of an impact; just missed the hospital, uncertain impact. A sergeant came running into the still incomplete bunker yelling about a ship attacking them directly, and the sound of exploding munitions and rifle-fire came in the doorway right on his heels to confirm action on the threshold.
The lawyer was trying unsuccessfully to raise higher command and the compliance monitors. The tech team started moving extra-fast to set up the rest of the equipment so they’d have a better understanding of events, and Marks tried to get an intelligible description from the sergeant so he didn’t have to stick his own head out there under fire if he didn’t absolutely have to. It sounded like the original images of the craft he’d see landing at the hospital. If so, it was definitely a warship, and someone had stepped on his dick somewhere, big-time, because it was way outside the bounds of permitted weaponry for this conflict. Unless it really was an unallied civilian mercy ship that he’d shot at. That seemed improbable, as mercy ships were not supposed to be armed, let alone heavily armed, though some contractors carried officially unobserved weapons in case someone got trigger-happy.
A massive shudder went through the bunker, kicking up dust and sand, matched by the huge thunder of numerous shells going off at once nearby. The power and lighting flickered with the blast, then returned and hold steady. Going outside to check on details seemed like a bad idea as the sounds of continued gunfire reached his ears. Keeping one eye on the entrance, he tried to get images or a live feed from anywhere local that was useful, but most of the cameras that would normally be set up were either still boxed, indicating no signal, or showing nothing but dirt or sky.
No more explosions reached his ears for a minute, only the distant-sounding crackle of rifles. Without any move from him, a small window popped up on his screen with a face he didn’t recognize smiling out at him. “Good shooting, Colonel,” Helton said. “Shot us down and almost killed us yesterday. Too bad we were not really your enemy at the moment.”
“Who are you, and how did you get into this net?” Marks demanded to know.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, eventually, though if your higher-ups do it first I doubt they’ll tell you, or give you all the details. If they let you live at all. We’re the ship and crew that Fleet is so worried about. We were having a problem with the cloaking device when we got nuked a couple weeks ago. But it’s back online, now. Planet Mover technology has some pretty cool applications.”
“How did you get on this net?” the lieutenant colonel repeated.
“Oh, that’s trivial. Got a few smart programmers on board. I’d strongly suggest you stop using conscripts and robotic troop scows, because we’ll be publishing How To and What to expect when you are picked up manuals on how to take them over pretty soon, in ways you can’t block. You’ll just be arming your foes.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Can, did, will again.”
“We will crush you. You are only a single ship!”
“Even Noah’s flood started with a single raindrop. Life’s changing. Freedom is coming, and you can’t stop it.”
“But that leads to anarchy! Undisciplined disorder!”
“Maybe. But that’s life. Would you want your son to get conscripted? By anyone? We’re working on making surprises of that nature happen. Make things a little more personal for staff officers and politicians. Re-arrange a few press-gang sweeps, muck around in the ID databases so they are wanted p
etty criminals. Suddenly commanders that don’t cooperate with us find themselves the proud owners of irrefutable records of graft and corruption. So, if you are sent conscripts, sideline them and do nothing more or less than train them and integrate them into your battalion, regardless of higher orders.”
“You can’t blackmail me like that, brigade will see through your ploy in a moment!”
“What makes you think they will not be facing the same problem?”
LtC Marks glared at Helton’s wry smile and armored figure. “I will hunt you down, you can’t get away, you know. We run everything.” Suddenly the officer laughed at Helton. “There isn’t a safe place in the system you can hide. Your family, your friends, everyone will be hunted down. You’ll die alone.”
The sound of rapidly firing big guns reached his ears as Helton’s face was replaced by Tajemnica’s armored woman avatar. “Laugh while you can, monkey-boy. Everyone faces the afterlife alone. Some are just surrounded by more friends than others when they leave for it, and we are making more friends every day. And we don’t have to hide here because we can fly into The Deep, out of your reach. And we’ll take anyone who wants to go with us and make a new start. Join up and live, or square off against us and die. Now then, if you want to see something few alive have ever witnessed, I suggest you come out of your hidey-hole.”
The avatar image froze, then all the screens halted, dimmed, then went dark. “Sergeant!” yelled Marks, waving to the black screens. The sound of firing outside slackened off drastically, then all but ceased. He licked his dry lips, looking back and forth between equipment and stairs leading up from the door. One of the non-coms, who had been watching the exchange, leaped for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Marks followed more cautiously.
