by M. D. Cooper
The attack on the Intrepid was odd in that respect. Most mercs didn’t go for the big jobs—too much negative impact on life expectancy. Something like yesterday’s assault would only be taken on if the pay was very high or the job was expected to be easy enough to make it attractive.
Tanis couldn’t imagine anyone billing yesterday’s attempt to capture several high value VIPs as easy, so it had to be the money. Even if she discounted the mercs’ salary, the sums required to get the shuttle, fool the docking AI, and facilitate whatever the getaway plan had been would be in the millions of creds. More than most people made in a lifetime.
“So let’s go over this again, Mr. Drayson.” Tanis leaned back in her chair. “You were hired by a man you never saw, never talked to, and whose name you never heard. You didn’t broker the deal, that came through your organization. You simply took your cut and did the job.”
“You got it, lady. That’s how it works. I get paid, then I do the job. I don’t hear names, I don’t want to hear names. Things go a lot smoother that way, you get me?”
“Yeah,” Tanis sighed. “I get you. Here’s the thing, though. We’ve got a few of you guys, so if you’ve watched any vids where scum like you gets caught, you know that standard operating procedure is to offer a deal to the first guy that gives us good info. Everyone else spends a good long time helping in some public works projects on some frosty world.” Tanis smiled. They both knew that frosty meant working on scattered disk objects at the edge of the Sol system.
“So what makes me so special I get the fancy deal? The other boys wouldn’t play with you?”
“Nothing. I’ll be offering it to everyone, you just happened to be first.”
“An’ if I tell you what I know I’m off the hook?”
Tanis snorted. “You stormed a GSS colony ship intending to capture or kill some very important people. No, you will be doing some time for this; you can just choose to do less time.”
“How much less?”
……………………………
“So he talked then, did he?” Commander Evans asked.
“Actually, they all talked.” Tanis leaned against the entrance to her office looking out into the SOC.
“You offered them all the deal? After what they did?” He leaned on a railing across from her.
“Yup, and they all took it, every last one of them.”
“So they all get off with a light slap on the wrist?”
Tanis locked eyes with him. “I’m the Butcher of Toro. Do you think I’d do that? Angela gave them all minimum sentences.”
The commander looked away, a slight flush rising on his cheeks. “That still doesn’t sound all that bad.”
Tanis relaxed her posture, unsure what was bothering him so much. “You didn’t ask where they’d be serving it.”
“OK, I’ll bite, where?”
“Affixing boosters to comets,” Tanis grinned, a twinkle in her eye.
“I thought you told them that they weren’t going to be stuck on some ice ball.”
“Commander Evans! Are you saying that I’m not a woman of my word?” Tanis’s expression was one of mock shock.
The commander paused, unsure how to respond to Tanis’s informality. “Uh… Kinda, sir.”
“Well, they’ll be working on diverting comets as they approach the sun, so they’ll probably be fairly warm.”
“Man, those poor schleps would have been better off if they never talked to you.”
“I’m certain they’ll share that sentiment.”
Tanis did have a moment of pity regarding where she sent the men, but not that much. They had assaulted a colony ship. Her colony ship. It wasn’t something that she would easily forgive.
“So then.” Evans ran a hand through his hair. “What did we learn?”
“Two main things.” Tanis looked down at a sheaf of plas sheets. “Firstly, that they never did meet the person that hired them—not that surprising. Secondly, that his name was mentioned once or twice, and it was Trent.”
“Your nuke buddy from the Dawn.”
“It not being him would be the coincidence of the century.”
“I assume that you’ve tried to find the man in their org that arranged the deal,” Evans said.
“I’ve got Terry working on it. She has a team looking at each prisoner’s every move for the last year. She’s also got a financial forensics expert trying to trace the money, but she’s hit a bit of a dead end.”
“How dead?”
“It appears that the money came from Tau Ceti.” Tanis scowled.
“They’re what, nearly twelve LY out?”
“Yeah, and I don’t think anyone planned this little visit twelve years ago.”
“I can’t imagine that being the case,” Evans agreed.
It went without saying; the list of corporations or governments with enough liquidity to send large sums to another star system, launder it, and send it back to sit in a slush fund for the day they felt like storming a colony ship was filled with powerful names.
“Well, it must narrow down the possibilities.”
“Yeah, from billions to mere millions.”
“Hey, if your job was easy, then a mere commander could do it.”
Tanis smiled. “You did OK. At this stage, even I’m not going to be enough. I’m going to need to bring in the big guns.”
INTERLUDE
STELLAR DATE: 3227165 / 07.31.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Stellar Comm Hub #10.A.459.B.230.C-934
Trent didn’t like where this was going.
Frustration seemed to fill the time lag.
THE 242
STELLAR DATE: 3227170 / 08.05.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Gustav Expanse, New Africa, Venus
REGION: Terran Hegemony, Sol Space Federation
The whine of railguns charging sounded nearby and squad one rushed forward to take cover behind a low concrete embankment in the equipment yard. Moments later bits of rock and dust sprayed up into the air as the pellets from the rails smashed into the cement.
Staff Sergeant Williams threaded a scope over the barrier and took stock of the situation. The enemy was slowly advancing behind large CFT shields, which absorbed and refracted the Marine’s lasers. The enemy’s railguns, on the other hand, would chew the concrete cover apart in just a few minutes.
“Chang! Where’re those heavies?” he hollered back to squad two, which was moving past several trucks on squad one’s right.
“Thirty seconds, Staff Sergeant,” Chang replied.
ommand net.
Squad two reached their designated position and the two slug throwers were assembled. Taking sight over the barrier, they readied the weapons with a smooth precision granted through plenty of practice. Once Chang was satisfied, squad two slid the weapons into position and let fire. Slugs over twenty centimeters long erupted from the barrels at velocities exceeding ten kilometers per second. CFT shields could stand up to pulses and energy beams without suffering so much as a scratch, but faced with the kinetic energy the slugs carried, the carbon fiber nanotube shields were torn to shreds.
What was once cover became deadly shrapnel as the shield fragments tore through the men behind them like they were made of paper. In a few short seconds it was over, and the heavies powered down the slug throwers.
Peering over the barrier, Chang grinned and swore. “Now that’s some messy shit, Staff Sergeant.”
“Just be happy I don’t make you go clean it up for taking so long,” Williams growled as he cast an uneasy eye at the amount of concrete the enemy’s railguns had dug out of the barrier protecting the Marines. “Squads, advance!”
Their objective was a communications array on the next hilltop. The original plan was to support an airstrike and catch any stragglers, but command had received intel regarding sensitive data on servers within the communications bunker.
The brass wanted to review it, so the Marines were heading in to do it the old-fashioned way.
“Man, I hate Venus.” PFC Arsen vaulted over the concrete barrier and established cover for his squad from behind a truck. “It feels like it’s spinning too fast. I swear it’s making me dizzy.”
“That’s just your head reeling from how much your mouth moves,” Sergeant Green said caustically. “Now shut up and keep your eye on that tree line. Scan’s clear, but you never know when someone has left a surprise for you.”
The two squads moved up; their fireteams advancing in a standard pattern until they reached the remains of the enemy troops. They were definitely a fringe group of radicals, their motley armor being the first sign, but the railguns they had were the latest spec. Several of the Marines were eying them and Williams signaled Lance Corporal Dvorak to wipe the ID systems on the guns. When they were safe to handle, he assigned one to each team’s assist.
“Swap that out with your heavy gunner as the need arises.”
Chang grinned. “I can definitely see the need to use this bad boy.” He checked the ammunition and the reload action. “Why doesn’t the corps give us weapons like this?”
“They’re too concerned your ham hands would put a hole in one of their pretty ships,” Dvorak said.
“They’re the TSF’s ships, don’t see why the corps would care.”
“Cause we’re all one happy military now,” Williams grunted.
“Yeah, I’d like to see those vacuum jockeys down here taking on enemy troops.” PFC Perez kicked the twitching body of a fallen foe to make sure he was dead.
“I’d like to see you doing it too.” Corporal Taylor gestured for Perez to move out.
Williams checked the command net to make sure that squads one and two were in position relative to squad three. The command net showed Lieutenant Grenwald making better time. Williams signaled his men over the combat net to pick up the pace.
Salas sent an acknowledgement over the combat net and led his fireteam off to the left, down the access road, then into the tree line.
Something felt off to Williams. The enemy had hit them too hard over the last several miles for this last skirmish to be their final hurrah. With the platoon nearly at the comm tower, a last line of defense was only logical.
He posted his concerns on the command net and waited to see if anyone agreed.
Lieutenant Grenwald put in his two chits,
Williams acknowledged that, but pressed his point,
The LT didn’t counter the order, so Green informed Dvorak to keep an extra close eye on scan. Williams was glad that Grenwald had taken his word on the possible danger. He was a good CO as far as they went, though only two years out of OCS. Williams didn’t mind so much; it was easier to shape the younger officers.
The Marines advanced down the slope toward a small creek at the bottom of the valley. From there it was up the hill to the communications array. He could see it poking through the trees: several directional and omnidirectional antennas jutting into the sky. Orders were to take as much of it intact as possible, but Williams’ first concern was always for his Marines.
Williams had started his military career in E Company, 8th Battalion of the 242. Working his way up from PFC to Staff Sergeant had built into him the knowledge that this wasn’t a job, it was a life. The men and women around him were family, closer than any flesh and blood. He was responsible for them and he was going to make sure that every single one of them survived this mission.
He kept that attitude firmly in mind; it was his mantra. The minute a sergeant started accepting the loss of the men he or she was responsible for was the minute to get out of the military. His platoon needed him, needed his protection and he wasn’t going to let them down.
That being said, he didn’t mind if they were scared shitless of him. It made the enemy seem a lot less threatening.
Sergeant Li said over the command net.
The comms went silent, only passive systems online. Even with the tech available to them, Marines still trained in using hand signals. They were silent, efficient, and needed no electricity to convey.
Once the teams were in position, Williams signaled Chang to set up one of the slug throwers in case the enemy was shielded. Then he signaled Jansen’s team to make their way across the stream. One/one made the crossing at a point where there were several large rocks in the water—providing enough cover and white noise t
o mask their approach.
One/one’s active camo made them hard to spot as they moved down the bank and into the water. Cassar, one/one’s heavy gunner, was reaching the far shore when he spotted movement and lowered himself quietly into the water, propping his newly acquired railgun onto a rock. He held up four fingers and pointed to his two o’clock. Williams watched him slowly scan the tree line in front of him before the Marine flashed a full five fingers twice and pointed to his nine o’clock.
The Marines silently passed the counts down the line and Williams signaled his commands for the flanks to cautiously advance twenty meters across the stream and prepare to repel a flanking maneuver by the enemy. Once the teams were in position, he signaled Jansen’s fireteam to begin.
If there were only fourteen of the enemy, the two squads had numbers on their side. He wasn’t counting on it, though; intel suspected that the radicals holding the communications array had upwards of one hundred armed combatants in the facility. If things went the way they usually did, there were at least thirty of the enemy across that stream, all ready to take out the first clear target.
Of course, that’s why the brass sent in Marines for jobs like this, not the glorified space force security guards.
Cassar opened up with the railgun, flinging fifty-gram ballistic shells at over twenty kilometers per second. They hit with the force of several sticks of dynamite. Instantly the Marines all realized he was firing fragmentation rounds—something which had not been apparent when the enemy was shooting at the concrete.
One thing was certain, it was effectively clearing the underbrush. A green-brown mist filled the air as the rounds tore through everything in their path, a red bloom appearing here and there as the rounds hit flesh. A minute later he was out of ammunition and the squads waited for the mist to settle. From the looks of it, six men were hit. Silence rushed in, broken only by the crack of a branch tearing off a tree.
