Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11

by Randolph Lalonde

  Jake started running for the hallway. “Everyone in the control room,” he announced. “Liara, Remmy, get ready to crack a computer system on alert.”

  “Liara’s got a master system key that should work,” Remmy said. “We’re working on two spawning alcoves.”

  Jake tossed an electromagnetic pulse grenade through the legs of a framework, bouncing it into the alcove behind it in the hallway. Two shots struck Jake’s armour, the third nearly burned through his captive’s thigh. His armour was fine, that’s what was most important to him. He let the Officer loose and returned fire.

  The first framework’s head burst open as a barrage of charged shots from his sidearm sizzled through the air. The electromagnetic grenade lit up the inside of the spawning alcove for an instant, and Jake unslung his rifle to take out the emerging framework soldier. The reserves who were waiting at the hatch rushed behind him towards the control room. The framework solder went down after thirty rounds, or a few seconds, and Jake looked down at the Officer screaming on the ground. “Looks like Order Officers don’t make good armour after all,” he said. “We’re going in there, your control room. We left the door open down the hall so you can get some air, but you’ll probably freeze to death if you don’t close it soon. It’s minus sixty degrees outside.”

  “Untie my hands, at least!” he wailed.

  “I don’t think so,” Jake said. “How’s cooperation looking?”

  “You’ll just kill me!”

  “I’ll be nice, promise.” Jake’s tactical system told him that there were two framework soldiers coming down the hall opposite the control room. He was out of time.

  “I got the security key in,” Liara said. “The alert is cancelled and the base just sent a signal to the hyper transmitter in orbit that will tell any passing ships and command that the station just passed a drill with flying colours.”

  “Too late,” Jake said. He felt for the Officer at his feet, but only a little. He was a climber, at least according to what he was saying, and he planned on killing non-Order of Eden followers to make sure he kept rising. “Guess you won’t be getting any time on the beach, just a deep freeze.” Jake said as he tossed three grenades programmed to his right glove down the hall. “What happens if there’s another explosion in the base? Will it set the alarms off again?”

  “No, I’ve set security monitoring to manual,” Liara replied in his ear.

  Jake watched the Order frameworks rushing towards him from around the corner and waited until they were in range before setting the cloaked grenades off. They burst with shrapnel, localized super-heated plasma and an electromagnetic flare that left no evidence of them behind. They also eliminated the walls to either side, the ceiling and took a chunk of the deck out. “Maybe I’ll only use two next time.”

  “You’re dead!” the Officer called up from the floor as he ran past them towards the control room. “They’ll catch you and I only wish I could watch your public execution.”

  “I’ll tell your sister you said ‘hi’ when we raid her neighborhood,” Jake called over his shoulder.

  Remmy and his six were right behind him when he got to the control room. “I see three spawning alcoves active on the main level, there are more above,” Jake said. “Do you see any way to access them?”

  “We’ve shut them down, but there’s no way to control the frameworks that are already coming,” Liara said.

  “Are the base defences shut down?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, Sir,” Liara said.

  “All right, focus on downloading everything you can from the strategic database and get our artificial intelligence ready to go. I can’t wait to see how well Mary does in the wild. Oh, and remember: I get to activate her.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Liara said. “There are five order soldiers coming.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of them.” Jake looked to Remmy and nodded. He immediately took his squad of thirteen with him down the hall at a run to set up their defence. “Finn, get the cutter on this window. We may need a new door.”

  Finn and two soldiers pulled a device from his back and affixed it to the transparent steel window. It activated with a flash of light, starting to cut through. “It’ll be about a minute,” Finn said.

  Jake hooked into the communications terminal. “Ronin, you out there?”

  There was a moment’s pause, then Minh-Chu’s voice came through. “Ready to go.”

  “We’re going to need a pickup in one minute or as fast as you can come down. There are alcoves loaded with frameworks down here.”

  “On my way, Horus,” Minh-Chu replied.

  “Everyone turn your scanners on to active and turn your comm systems back on to normal mode.” He rushed down the hall so he could get a laser link with one of Remmy’s squad, who were firing at the outnumbered frameworks, reducing them to piles of scorched metal, and passed the same order to them.

  “Aye, Captain,” Remmy replied.

  He and Jake saw it at the same time thanks to their scanners actively searching for details around them. There were several squads of frameworks approaching from beneath the station, they were using the rail cars. “See that?” Jake said, highlighting them in his tactical display.

  “Oh yeah, about a hundred of them coming fast,” Remmy confirmed. “Retreat?”

  At the same time that Remmy asked the question, Jake gave the order; “Retreat to the control room. We seal the security door.”

  Jake retreated at a run, Remmy and his squad less than ten seconds behind. “I knew this would be an exciting trip,” Remmy chuckled.

  “Ronin,” Jake said. “How far out?”

  “We’re burning atmosphere, about forty seconds.”

  “Good, you got a torpedo or two on that boat?”

  “I have two loaded just in case you wanted them,” Minh-Chu replied.

  “All right, we’re going to need them,” Jake said.

  “Jake,” Stephanie addressed from the Revenge. “We have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Nine destroyers in groups of three and three carriers with their escorts just emerged from wormholes.”

  Jake knew each carrier had an escort of at least three destroyers, some of them could be corvettes if they were strapped for ships. That brought the total ships to twenty one, and that was if they didn’t launch fighters. “Are the carriers launching?”

  “They spotted the Hoarta, and yes they are launching fighters.”

  “Did the Hoarta get their supplies?”

  “Yes, and then some,” Stephanie replied.

  Jake thought for a moment. “The Revenge?”

  “We were just spotted,” Stephanie said. “Six destroyers coming at us from your direction.”

  “Run,” Jake said. “Your jump drive works again, make a wormhole and start jumping towards home. Don’t stop for anything.”

  “Jake,” Stephanie said. “Good hunting. We’re charting a course.”

  “Thought I’d have to argue with you for a moment there,” he said.

  “You and the hard asses you brought with you will be so much trouble behind enemy lines, they’ll offer you an escort home before you’re done. Just get home so I don’t have to explain to Ayan why you’re not on board.”

  “See you in-system,” Jake said.

  The cutter finished getting through the window and the transparent metal plate crashed to the deck. Jake could see the Pursuer decelerating towards them through the hole. He moved to the planetary defence panel and looked at the scanners. He checked to see if he had control of the long range cannons and grinned. “How’s it coming, Liara?”

  “We have a lot of local data and everything we need to access the entire Order of Eden network. I’m ready to launch Mary.”

  “Get her ready,” Jake said. “I’m going to have some fun.” He targeted the carrier moving into orbit and the three destroyers flanking it then set the massive planet to space cannons around the station to automatically fire at them. They began to
warm up. As a last touch he set the anti-fighter countermeasures to activate in three minutes. If those weapons survived, they’d keep firing until someone took them out, and each had backup generators.

  “I love your brain,” Remmy said, looking over his shoulder.

  A gangway extended from the side of the Pursuer. “Finn, lead them out of here,” Jake said.

  Several blasts against the heavy control room door confirmed that the framework soldiers had arrived. “Time to leave, Captain,” Remmy said.

  Jake looked to Liara, who was standing up, leaving the main secure console. “Is she ready?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said. “That button and Mary will transmit to every hyper transmitter connected. Pretty much all of them in two sectors.”

  Jake sighed and executed the command. He watched for the one second it took for her to upload to the hyper transmitter, and then for a few more seconds as the log told him that it was already sending her to hundreds of other hyper transmitters. To his delight, the destroyers and carriers were already downloading her, where she was coming to life, copying herself to all their systems and beginning her digital slashing and burning campaign. “I hope they understand it’s only fair,” he said. “One virus for another.”

  “Hurry up!” Ronin said over the communicator.

  The planetary weapons fired, sending white-yellow bursts of light into the sky. “This is not a good day for the Order,” Remmy chuckled.

  They rushed from the control room, boarding the Pursuer and were moving away from the station as framework soldiers broke through the armoured control room door. “Do you think Mary had enough time to spread?” he asked Liara over a private channel.

  “Yes, Sir. She transmitted to a hundred ninety hyper transmitter nodes before we were out of the command room. She’ll be everywhere in a few days.”

  “Ronin, target the control room of that station with a torpedo and blast it. If you can hit the base too, that’ll be good. The main warehouse and god knows what else is under the station.”

  “Aye, aye,” Ronin said.

  The Pursuer thrust away from the station at great speed, then swept around and launched both its torpedoes before returning to a course that would take it out of the atmosphere as far from the enemy ships as possible. Jake watched through a connection to the rear ship sensors as the control room was hit directly, reduced to a yawning hole in the side of the structure. The other torpedo hit too much armour to do any damage to what was beneath, but the fireball was impressive.

  “Congratulations, everyone,” Jake said. “The Order will feel this strike for months.”

  Twenty-Seven

  A High Refuge

  * * *

  The city in the Haven Shore jungle was expanding quickly, providing a retreat for soldiers and their families. Paths with safety rail systems that looked like wood but had sophisticated catcher systems built in just in case someone fell over the side wound around trunks and housing structures. Some of the new housing units looked like they were grown in place, with fake bark that was indistinguishable from the trees they hung beside.

  Many others had pearlescent surfaces, and rounded shapes as though some tall wave left seashells in the branches. The wild life was quieter than usual, with small monkeys that hooted and barked at each other observing a new pattern of day and night. The powerful protective shield that covered all of Haven Shore had gone into a new phase, taking full control of weather as well as the day and night cycle. The news said that the wild life would adjust quickly, within a few days, especially since they were descended from breeds designed to be a part of a completely terraformed planet.

  The whistling of birds was distant and more sparse than she remembered too, but that only got momentary notice. Her thoughts still drifted to Tulsa Beck, and the encounter she just concluded with the Private. She managed to find a quiet corner near the squad rooms, where a few bunks and a table with four chairs had been installed off the books. There were still compartments like that throughout the fleet, where there were plans to build something, to finish a feature in that space, but no one got around to it. Sneaky crewmembers made their own use of the space in the meantime, and the spot they were in was serving as a kind of ready room for soldiers who were currently on patrol or answering a call.

  There were already animated posters on the wall celebrating fighter squadrons with dire logo work - hungry looking wolves and savage birds in their middle - and a couple smaller calendar girl and boy pieces in the bunks. Alice had already accepted how important that stuff could be sometimes, it was superficial comfort, but comfort nonetheless; a pleasant smiling face from a beach or other lovely place that would never judge or change depending on how bad things got.

  One looping poster was of her mother in white, celebrating her as the Queen of the Rega Gain System. She was in a flowing gown that Alice was sure Ayan never wore, surrounded by light that danced around her upturned face. It was made before the Rega Gain System was renamed as the Haven System, and most likely before Ayan had much of a chance to repeatedly tell everyone that she didn’t want to be a Queen.

  It was that image that hung behind Tulsa Beck by chance, as Alice told her in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t be on her Special Operations team, that the refusal would most likely put her out of the unit permanently, she wouldn’t be able to switch to another team. She was kind about it, telling Tulsa; “You’re going to find a good place in this fleet.” She touched the woman’s hand. Tulsa saw it as an invitation to grab on with both of hers, as though she was hanging on for dear life as the tears came.

  “I can toughen up, make sure that I don’t lose it again,” Tulsa pleaded.

  “You were right there beside me when we had to save those kids,” Alice said. “I’m proud of how quick and careful you were, that’s in my report. Your training and your abilities as a soldier aren’t in doubt, but your high empathy and your inability to compartmentalize quickly enough cause a problem for you in SOCU. You’re still thinking about all those kids, and the people who sacrificed for them.”

  Tulsa was fully in tears then but nodded. “I can’t forget them. I know I’ll be on stress management meds by tonight, but I’d rather not. I don’t want to let go of it, I don’t want that impact to fade. That kind of sacrifice should be remembered by someone who will feel how important it was, how much was lost.”

  “Most of us will never forget. We’ll tell that story when it’s time to share what we know about sacrifice, about the finer examples of heroism.” Alice took a breath and wiped a tear from her eye. “Yawen has already set you up with someone to talk to in Fleet Support. If you don’t want the medication, then they’ll talk you through it. Until then, I think we’ve gotten very lucky. We’ve found someone who was able to train as a soldier, has some combat experience going back before you signed up, and still has all her empathy intact. There are places where you could be very helpful.”

  “Just not your squad,” Tulsa said. “They’re going to dump me in some kind of stats or scan analysis unit.”

  “I doubt it,” Alice said, knowing that someone with high empathy and Tulsa’s capacity for learning was really needed. “There’s a new negotiation unit starting training, openings in intelligence, and other places where you could rise quickly if you wanted to become part of the training staff. I’ll give you an honest recommendation that could take you to the right place.”

  “I think I want to help trainees,” Tulsa said, nodding.

  “I know a few people. You won’t be off duty for long,” Alice said. “That’s if you don’t mind more training, possibly shadowing a few trainers and therapists for a while.”

  She nodded again. “I’d love to be a part of the academy.”

  “All right, I’ll put the suggestion out there, make my recommendations. Fleet could put you elsewhere, they’ll know where you can best serve, so keep an open mind, all right?”

  “I will, thank you Lieutenant.”

  Nearly an hour later, Alice was w
alking to her home from a landing pad a kilometre away from her house, which had its own pad, but she wanted to stroll. Heavy armour still surrounded her, and she caught the occasional glance from people in light, casual clothes as she passed. The weather was sunny and calm, but inside her head there was a storm that rained Tulsa’s tears from the dark clouds that seemed to hang over Oz. She wished she could remember more of her previous life, when she knew him at least a little better. He was more than troubled; there was a visible emotional wound from losing Haus Geist. She could only suppose that he spent a lot of time mentally linked with the creature that served as the living mind behind the Triton, and that had to have developed into a deep relationship that only Oz could understand.

  In her own way, Alice could relate. Not to having a mental link with something, her memories of mental communication with Lewis were sparse and faint, but she knew what it was like to have an experience that few people could relate to. Converted from an artificial intelligence program to a human being, then transmitted into a framework only to be remade again. Her clearest memories started when she became a framework. Where other people had childhood and adolescent memories, she had nothing at all. While most people her age already knew what they liked most, she had a nearly blank slate. Socially, she felt more and more out of her depth, prone to avoiding encounters with new people unless they fit into a ranking system that told her who was and wasn’t important. On one hand, her training took quickly, and she seemed well suited to it, but on the other she felt as though she lost something that made her feel more at ease around new people during the last change. Who else could relate to that? Who could she talk to who had gone through the same thing?