Breach the Hull

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  On a whim, he rose and went to the door control panel. He punched in his ac-cess code, called up the past six months’ entry records, and scrolled through the list. His own code appeared over and over again, sometimes two or three times a day, and here and there he saw Lieutenant Nakata’s, and less frequently but still regularly Captain Ambrov’s. Major Wyle’s appeared only once, logged in eight weeks ago barely a minute after Lieutenant Nakata’s, suggesting a mood-setting ren-dezvous, something done out of facility rather than desire. Why did Wyle never come here, Camden wondered. Was the sight lost on him? Did he truly prefer to be sequestered in his quarters doing whatever he did to pass the time? None of the KE soldiers were much for socializing, but a thing as raw and powerful as Vegas Strip possessed a gravity that tugged at something deep and primal in human na-ture, something that, perhaps, Major Wyle had lost or forgotten or, worse, feared.

  Camden spared a last glance at Vegas Strip’s stunning luminosity. Then he left the observation chamber and moved to the armory. He selected a shotgun and a pulse rifle to complement his uniform sidearm and prayed he wouldn’t need to use any of them. Then he steeled himself and returned to the command deck.

  It surprised Camden how calm he was when he stepped through the entryway and leveled the shotgun in Major Wyle’s direction. No one spoke for several seconds. In that time, the color leached out of the Major, just as his bearing seemed to turn quite brittle. Captain Ambrov rested her hand on her sidearm but didn’t draw it, and Captain Nakata regarded Camden with pure shock.

  “Ell,” she said.

  The way she said his name, the way she breathed it as though it were part of the elements that sustained her life sent shivers down Camden’s spine, and in that moment, any flagging doubt remaining within him evaporated.

  “Captain Ambrov,” Camden said. “Power up the D-E-W and prepare targeting coordinates for Spaceport Omega at 09:00.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain, but no. I already have my orders,” she replied.

  “Yes, you do, and Major Wyle won’t object now if you follow them. He’s gotten a little confused today, but we’re going to help him through it,” said Camden. “This is mutiny,” Ambrov said. “It’s insane. Put the weapons down before some-one gets hurt.”

  “Sorry, Marnie,” Camden said, watching Ambrov’s face crinkle at the sound of her first name. “But mutiny is when you don’t follow orders. Now you can do as I told you or I will fire on Major Wyle.”

  Moving with fluid speed, Ambrov drew her sidearm and aimed it at Camden. “Then I’ll have to kill you where you stand.”

  Camden hadn’t expected her to be so fast, hadn’t anticipated that she’d take Wyle’s side. Her hatred of the Weeds was almost a running joke, and he’d assumed she’d leap at a chance to hurt them. But she was disciplined, moreso than himself probably, and Camden considered again the possibility that he’d made a fatal mis-take. He didn’t want to kill Wyle, wasn’t sure he could act against Ambrov before she killed him; but they had their orders and something deep inside Camden urged him forward, insisted that at 09:00 hours their weapon must be fired. As much of a gam-ble as it was, as much of a risk as it presented, instinct told Camden it was right.

  “I’m sorry, Marnie, but I intend to see that weapon fired as ordered. If you need to see Major Wyle and myself dead to prevent that, that’s your choice,” said Camden. “Two people can man this station as well as four,” said Ambrov. She cocked her weapon.

  “No!” Lieutenant Nakata’s voice shattered the icy tension. In a second the balance shifted, and with Nakata’s sidearm prodding her torso, Captain Ambrov shuddered and lowered her gun.

  “Ginny,” said Camden. “Don’t. I didn’t mean to involve you in this.”

  “It’s all right, Ell. I trust you,” Nakata said. “I really do. It’s like those dreams you told me about. Maybe they mean something. Maybe you know something the rest of us don’t. I don’t know. But I know you. Better than these two at least. I know you’re a real person.”

  Nakata prodded Ambrov with her gun barrel. “Now, power up the D-E-W, Marnie.” Ambrov grimaced and complied. Camden inched across the room and gently re-moved Major Wyle’s sidearm and tucked it into a pocket of his uniform. The Major did not resist.

  “Have a seat, Major,” said Camden. “This will all be over soon.” “What if you’re wrong?” the major asked.

  “Think about it,” Camden replied. “If the orders are legit, then we’re doing what we’re supposed to. What’s the difference if they’re not? If the Weeds have caught on to our communications tech, then we’ve lost the last hope we have of keeping one step ahead of them in this bloody war. If they track us, interfere with our communications, then we’re lost, and we need to hit them hard with everything we’ve got right now—before they get their act together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the signal is a Weed ruse, it’s a clumsy one. A kill order broadcast blindly? And the jamming signal? Maybe they’ve got an idea how the tech works, but they don’t understand enough yet to really use it against us. They’re like children picking up a telephone for the first time. They get the idea, but they keep trying to talk into the ear piece because that’s where the voice comes from. But they’ll learn. They’ll get better at it, and they’ll take away our only edge in this fight. So that means, no matter where the signal came from, it’s now or never.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Ambrov. She backed away from the control deck and sat beside Wyle. “D-E-W is primed, firing coordinates programmed.” Nakata confirmed the gun settings, and all four soldiers settled in to wait. It was 08:36.

  Camden tried to clear his mind, tried to think of what position Vegas Strip would be in now, tried to summon the vision of Ginny in his bed this morning and the way her hair and skin had smelled. He tried to recall the sound of his brother’s voice and the rough way he shook hands. And then he dove back deep into memories of his par-ents whom he had known for precious few years. He wondered what they would have made of his life and Varrow’s, whether they would’ve been proud or horrified, and whether or not their presence would’ve made things turn out differently. The time passed too quickly, not at all like Camden had expected, and when the moment came, he strode to the gunner’s station and eased Nakata aside. This was his deci-sion, his act, his lashing out at the inhuman enemy that confronted him, at the inhu-manity that jeopardized mankind’s survival. If there were one like him on every KE station, then perhaps there really was a chance, he thought. As the digital countdown ended, he entered the execution order and then—listened.

  Unseen machinery whirred and vibrated. The entire station quivered with a deep, basso thrumming that ran through the soldier’s bodies and set their teeth chattering. The entire place throbbed like a beating heart, its pulse building on the rising whine of energy pooling in the chamber. Camden listened to the others breathing: Wyle tak-ing in air in curt, staccato inhalations; Ambrov huffing with frustration; Nakata panting with shallow gasps. Camden realized he was silent, holding his breath, immobile. He exhaled in a long stream and let his chest begin to rise and fall once more.

  The external hissing of the torch firing lasted for several minutes, and then in a moment, it ended.

  Camden imagined the searing blast of ivory fire pouring out of the dark structure of steel and titanium embedded in Freeloader’s harsh granite, pictured it slicing through space, progressing minute by minute, second by second until it reached its target with merciless and incinerating fury. The blast would strike ground at 09:12, and when the time came and Camden knew the act was done, the order fulfilled, he dropped his weapons, slumped in the gunner’s chair, and sighed.

  Minutes passed and nothing happened.

  No one moved; no one spoke.

  They sat motionless, draped in a corrosive quiet that Camden despised. “Did…” Nakata finally uttered, “Did the other stations fire?”

  Ambrov swiveled to the nearest keyboard and summoned up the sensor outputs. “E
verything’s flat,” she said. “No, wait! I’ve got an incoming signal.” The radio comm crackled as Ambrov shunted the transmission over to speakers. “Philip Station to Chang Station,” a voice said. “Come in, Chang Station.” Tendrils of ice crept through Camden’s mind.

  “Come in Chang Station,” the voice repeated.

  “This is Chang Station,” Ambrov responded. “We read you Philip Station. What is your status?”

  “Chang Station, our status is active. We are at war and have fired upon a target,” the voice repeated. “We have confirmation from Addams Station, Lodi Station, and Tesla Station. Please confirm weapon discharge.”

  “Discharge confirmed,” Ambrov breathed into the mouthpiece. “Philip Station, our order signal was cut short. Can you confirm orders?”

  “Negative,” came back Philip Station. “Orders were false. Repeat. Orders were a false signal from the Weeds, combined with a jamming transmission. We have destroyed the source, but the situation has left us no choice but to act. Check your radar, Chang Station, because we are not done fighting yet.”

  Nakata moved to a work station and ordered up the radar display. “Ships,” she said.

  “Hundreds,” muttered Ambrov. “Some of them are huge.”

  “Looks like the Weeds finished their new destroyer ahead of schedule,” said Camden. “Marnie, can you get a bead on one of the big ones with the torch?” Ambrov nodded and dashed around to the gunner’s seat.

  “You were right, Ell,” said Nakata. She reached for the scraps of folded paper in the center console. Camden placed his hand on hers and stopped her. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Gambling only counts when you’ve got something real to lose.”

  Ambrov ignited the torch again. Chang Station sang with energy and the strain of cold metal shifting and churning together. The hum of the blast filled everyone’s ears. Camden turned to a keyboard and began plotting their next target. In his mind appeared the image of the energy beam lancing through space, cutting the darkness, destined to claim the lives of hundreds, even thousands of Weeds—and silent all the while. Silent in its glory; silent in its devastation. As silent as Camden’s dreams and the forever stilled lips of his parents and his brother.

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  COMPARTMENT ALPHA

  Jeffrey Lyman

  COMMAND TO ALL AFT GUN BATTERIES.” THE XO’S MESSAGE FLASHED ACROSS MY MIND ON THE ship’s neural link. “Alert, five minutes to flares away. Countdown to Operation Slowdown begins now.”

  Alarms brayed for general quarters across the Glory. A five-minute countdown timer ran behind my right eye.

  There was a lot of chatter on the neural link and I tuned it out. My nerves were tight enough. The engineers had struggled to keep us elevated in hyperspace his long. We should have fallen out hours ago, but they were milking the batteries for all they were worth. Forty-seven hours and counting, and now we were out of time.

  I was the gunnery sergeant in charge of the aft, port gun, nicknamed “Annie”. I hadn’t left her remote feeds for all of these forty-seven hours. Other avatars came and went, quick as a wink, checking on our pursuit, but I remained at my post. I had stayed awake for longer periods before. With our bodies suspended in the core of the ship we didn’t require much downtime from the link, and I needed to keep my eyes on the enemy. Our sister gun-cruisers had died getting us this far.

  Square in Annie’s sights sat Bandits 1 and 2. The Aylin destroyers glowed in the dim, roiling light of hyperspace. They weren’t gaining and they weren’t falling back; they were biding their time. They knew we would fall out of hyperspace before we reached inhabited space.

  It had taken twenty-nine gun-cruisers to bring down four of their destroyers and three of their big carriers, so what could the Glory do alone? We had lost Upsilon Station, we had lost the Tarish system, and that was only the tip of the Aylin incursion. We had to warn Fleet. We had to survive in realspace long enough to launch a message-drone. That was the captain’s orders.

  Operation Slowdown was a crazy scheme cooked up by the navigators. It relied on the accuracy of the Aylin tracking computers. Those computers were waiting for us to drop out of hyperspace. They could calculate the emergence-time for a ship of our mass vs. a ship of their mass and drop in behind us with guns firing. We wouldn’t have enough time to launch the message-drone. Unless we could somehow drop into realspace faster than their tracking computers calculated.

  The navigators were going to hook us on a heavy gravitational mass, use it as a momentum yoke, and drop into realspace half a second faster than standard. The destroyers should over-shoot us by a kilometer. Then our forward and midship gunbatteries would rake them from behind while the message-drone sped away. The Captain made it clear we were protecting the drone. He didn’t mention survival. So I remained at my post, unable to take my eyes off my killers.

  “Eight-five seconds,” I said to my targeting techs. “Let’s push these flares up their noses.”

  Back in basic training I used to fantasize about being a hero. I figure everybody does at some point. Now at my final battle, my entire contribution would be a bunch of EMP flares.

  I masked my fear. There was already a strange combination of calm and fear smoking up the neural link. Some resignation, some eagerness. Battle fever sim-mered.

  My two techs crunched a thousand calculations a second in their heads and fed me preliminary vectors. Augmented humans are better than computers in hyperspace, but I still didn’t trust the data. You just can’t target in hyperspace. I prayed that one of our shots would come close enough to cloud the Aylin tracking computers. Give us a margin of safety.

  My two ordnance jockeys limbered up their remote servos beside the breechings of Annie’s twin, ten-meter long barrels and unloaded her 150mm warheads. Our only warheads! We had been ordered to ship them to the forward guns since aft guns would not be involved in the final firefight.

  I began to elevate Annie’s barrels based on the targeting vectors. I could hear echoes of the other gunnery sergeants prepping their crews. Bits of static that must have been nerves. Then the conveyers kicked to life and the steel balls housing the EMP flares rolled up from the armories.

  The Gunnery Officer’s voice came down from Fire Control. “Aft guns, load flares. You have been allotted twenty each.”

  I would have shrugged if I were in my body. Twenty flares, thirty flares, it didn’t matter. We would send them on their way and then sit idle while the other guns tried to save our asses. I was desperate to shoot something. I didn’t want to die with my barrel empty of warheads. Not after the Mariah.

  The Mariah was the reason we escaped into hyperspace. She was behind us, shielding us, when an Aylin rocket caught her amidships. The cores of our gun-cruisers are so compartmentalized that we can operate with multiple hull-breaches. The Mariah’s aft section continued to maneuver and fire long after her forward sec-tion had sheered off and exploded. She bought us an extra twenty seconds. This time, my barrels would be empty of all but flares. There would be no heroes at the aft guns.

  “Command to Navigation and Propulsion: ninety seconds to reentry.” The XO’s voice was crisp and calm. The Captain’s voice followed immediately. “Good hunting. I’m proud of the way this crew has manned the Glory. See you when they wake us up.”

  It was a joke, but it felt good to hear him say it. They couldn’t wake us up until we were back in homeport on Earth and they had offloaded our bodies. “Here we go,” I said to my crew, happy that my voice was calm on the link. Our countdown was at ten seconds and we did have a part to play. A hundred avatars from other departments joined us at the aft feeds to watch. “Final vectors received,” I said when my targeting techs sent me their best estimates. “ . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . Releasing.”

  I cut power to Annie’s magnets and the EMP flares rolled serenely down her bar-rels. You don’t waste warheads in hyperspace because you can’t aim, but flares had a much wider effect-radius. Eight flares dropped silently away f
rom the four aft guns. Immediately my jockeys loaded new flares and I let them roll, adjusting Annie’s bar-rel.

  As the flares fell further behind the ship, they gyrated and twisted in the fluxes of hyperspace. The timers on the first wave went off and they detonated brightly, some near the destroyers and the rest spread across 180 degrees of view. The second wave detonated similarly. Not close enough. All of the guns changed barrel-ele-vations again, striving for accuracy.

  “Mipship guns,” the XO’s voice came down, “begin rotation forward to PositionGamma on my mark.”

  All avatars vanished except those required to be here. Engineering returned to nursing the FTL batteries. Navigation prepared the momentum yoke. The forward and midship gunners sat on their 150mm warheads like chickens on eggs. I continued releasing flares as fast as my servos could load.

  “Mark.” The XO’s voice was accompanied by a neural signal and the four midship guns began rotating forward in unison on their gimbals. If one gun turned off-speed, it would change our center of gravity. The bow-shock would tear us apart. There is no turning in hyperspace.

  I ignored the thought and stared down Annie’s barrels, watching the flares detonate, praying for a miracle. As the reentry-timer counted down I pulled up a ghost image off the bow feeds. I needed to see the destroyers overshoot us when we dropped into realspace. I needed to be with the forward guns when they fired. If a compartment breached and a gunner’s body died, my avatar might be rotated forward to take over a gun.