Storm Fleet

by Tim Niederriter

  She flipped over and kicked, driving herself and her new burden down toward the passage entrance.

  Fire overwhelmed the shattered cockpit of the fighter. Yajain and the unconscious pilot angled down the ramp into the safety of the tunnel.

  Yajain caught up with the other rescue team members in a narrow passage within the terrace. The group strung out in a line against one wall. Yajain’s legs ached from the shock of landing after the last kick she had used to propel herself down.

  She carried the unconscious small, fighter pilot in both arms, gliding on her arc lifts every few steps to ease tension on her limbs.

  She used this technique for carrying heavy loads when collecting samples with Dara, having learned it helping her family on Kaga. Yajain set the pilot on the floor of the passage beside the big cabler.

  He glanced at her, faceplate pulled back.

  “Spotted another life to save?”

  Yajain shrugged.

  “She saved us. It seemed right.”

  “You make a good medic, Doctor Aksari,” said the cabler.

  She smiled at him.

  “My name’s Yajain.”

  “Ogidar.” He pointed his thumb at his chest. “Looks like this mission isn’t going to be all search and rescue. It figures they wouldn’t tell us grunts.” He looked down the passage. Narayme finished patching up Boskem’s wounded arm and bandaging his side.

  “You think he knew?” Yajain whispered.

  “He might have.” Ogidar looked down at the woman between him and Yajain.

  She wore a white flight suit with a sensor mask covering her eyes. A black burn marked the chest of the suit down to the navel, but it didn’t appear to have gone through. Yajain found a pulse in the woman’s wrist.

  “She’s still alive.”

  Ogidar nodded.

  “That’s something.”

  Yajain reached down and felt at the metallic sensors on the mask. Black wires ran to the back of the woman’s head over either shoulder, almost hidden by dark hair, though several were broken. She felt the wires at the back of the neck where they connected to a small box.

  “What is this?” she said.

  “A command implant.” Ogidar frowned. “Some great minds require this kind of thing in their officers.”

  “Ija must be one of them,” Yajain said. “That would make this woman an officer.”

  Boskem walked over to them, arm bound to his side.

  “That’s Gellen Chakal,” he said. “She’s the commander of the flight corps here at Rakati Hub.”

  “How do you know that?” Yajain asked.

  “I’m an intelligence officer,” Boskem said.

  She nodded.

  “Well, we’re all stuck here now. Devrim, do you know a way to get off the terrace while staying underground?”

  The soldier sat against the wall, ruined arm extended to the floor.

  “There’s a way.” He gritted his teeth as he looked at his arm. “Or at least, there was.”

  “Lead on,” said Yajain. “We don’t have a lot of options.”

  The tunnel led into the settlement’s lower atrium fifty kilometers from the core. Yajain stopped at the edge of the tunnel’s mouth. Empty streets and deserted windows greeted her. Birds squawked here and there. Somewhere, a lone power generator hummed. Aside from those few sounds quiet ruled.

  She motioned for the others to climb out of the tunnel.

  “Where is everyone?”

  Devrim limped forward, supported by Loattun. He broke his gaze from his maimed arm to glance at Yajain.

  “The civilians must still be in the shelters.”

  Yajain nodded to him, grateful for the knowledge, especially given his condition. She hung back as the group passed and waited for Narayme to reach her.

  She spoke in the medical officer’s ear, “Devrim needs help. I don’t think we can treat him here.”

  “Castenlock has the facilities,” Narayme said. “But who knows when we’ll get back there?”

  Ogidar passed them, carrying Gellen Chakal. Yajain glanced at them, then turned to Finder Boskem who was right behind the big cabler. The agent’s eyes were downcast and he shuffled in his step.

  “We need to do something,” said Yajain.

  Narayme nodded.

  “If that sniper stopped shooting we’d have a chance to call the tumbler.”

  “There’s at least one other sniper too,” Yajain said. “One with a bigger weapon that shot down Chakal’s fighter.”

  The medical officer shuddered.

  “They’ve got to send more ships.”

  “I bet the captains weren’t counting on an attack here,” Yajain said. “It could take a while to get help."

  “Then what’s your plan?” Narayme asked.

  Yajain frowned.

  “My plan?”

  “You’re the one who took charge out there. You got any other ideas?”

  “Not really, Officer Narayme.”

  “Call me Sonetta. That cabler sergeant goes by his first name.”

  Yajain smiled slightly.

  “Alright.” She looked up at the tunnels spaced here and there over the ceiling of the atrium. “Maybe I do have a plan. Follow me.”

  The group met up with each other in the center of a deserted food court. Ogidar set Chakal on a long table top. Yajain approached in the rear. Boskem glared at her.

  Yajain took the unconscious woman’s pulse and the wires at her linker.

  “She’s in some kind of neural shock.”

  Boskem’s eyes closed, pain wracking his face.

  “Detachment failure. She needs to link to a core or she’ll die.”

  Yajain looked from Chakal.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Ninety Percent,” Boskem said.

  “How fast can we get to the core from here?” Yajain asked.

  “With a flier, minutes,” Devrim said. “I think I can find one if I get some help moving around.”

  “Sonetta, can you go with him?”

  “Sure.”

  Yajain turned to the big cabler.

  “Ogidar, carry her.” The command in her own voice surprised her.

  Her time with Dara had accustomed her to authority more than previously realized.

  Boskem’s eyes opened. He stared down at Chakal.

  “I’ll go with them. I might be the only one here who knows how to make the connection properly.”

  Yajain nodded.

  “Loattun, that leaves you and me.”

  “I understand,” the cabler said. “We need to take out those snipers.”

  Yajain folded her arms.

  “Do you think we can get the drop on one of them?”

  “Maybe. But their fields of fire probably cross if they’re on adjacent struts.”

  Yajain took a deep breath.

  “We’ll need to attack them each simultaneously to keep from being shot by the other.”

  “With all due respect, I thought you were a doctor?” Loattun said.

  “My father taught me how to hunt.” Yajain released her breath. “Can you hand me your sidearm?”

  Loattun took a liquid-coil pistol from its holster.

  “Know how to use it?”

  Yajain took the weapon. She lowered the barrel toward the floor. Her fingers moved over the surface, feeling the safety catch and the trigger, the smooth workmanship of a Dilinum forge. She nodded to Loattun.

  “I’ll be alright.”

  Sonetta turned to Yajain as Ogidar lifted Chakal from the table. Boskem wrapped his good arm around Devrim’s shoulder to support him. The young medical officer met Yajain’s eyes.

  “Good luck.”

  Yajain circled her heart with the point of her finger.

  “See you later.”

  Loattun and Yajain made their way through tunnels to the higher atrium and then split up. She went through passages of white stone, p
ast empty homes, down vacant streets, heading toward the strut where they’d seen the first shooter.

  Loattun followed her directions toward the spot from where the big gun fired. She kept in contact with him through her headset as she switched her hunter’s ears to maximum sensitivity. She held the pistol at arms-length.

  The sniper could be just outside a passage in the pillar’s shell. Yajain’s heartbeat quickened as she advanced toward the exterior. She kept her hands steady and listened with care, analyzing each sound that came to her through the hunter’s ears. A low female voice reverberated softly down the passage as she stepped carefully into it.

  Despite the sound of her feet on stone, Yajain didn’t dare activate her lifts. Any arc sensors the sniper used would notice that. She slipped around a corner.

  The light of Rakati’s Solna bathed the passage. The outside of the pillar and the top of a strut appeared. The female voice came from outside, audible but indistinct against the hum of the nearby banner ship’s flight systems.

  The banner ship hovered over the terrace. Turrets aimed high. Coil-shot sizzled into the distance.

  Yajain fell into a crouch and crept toward the tunnel’s exit. Her thumb switched off the weapon’s safety. Her father’s words returned unbidden to her mind. Taking a life is no easy thing.

  She raised the pistol and stepped out onto the strut just as the sniper turned. Yellow hair gleamed in the solna and fire-light. Long strands drifted over silver armor. The sniper carried a rifle as tall as herself. She leveled it at Yajain, then hesitated, blue eyes icy.

  “Who are you?” The sniper’s nose wrinkled.

  Yajain trained her weapon on the sniper’s chest.

  “Don’t move.”

  The sniper smiled.

  “You either.”

  A loud hiss erupted from Yajain’s right. An explosion echoed from the adjacent strut.

  The sniper cursed.

  “It’s just us now,” Yajain said. “Put down the gun.”

  The sniper said nothing, but her smile broadened. Her eyes brightened with recognition.

  “It’s you. He said you’d be here.”

  Yajain’s grip tightened on the plasma pistol.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Doctor Coe told me he misses you, Yajain.”

  Her hand made a vice on the weapon’s grip. Her trigger finger barely kept still.

  The sniper’s eyes fixed on Yajain’s face.

  “You came out here to hunt him. You must hate him.”

  “Shut up.”

  Yajain pulled the trigger. Darts of searing coil fluid sliced through the air over the sniper’s head.

  The woman ducked and swung her rifle’s long barrel across Yajain’s legs.

  Yajain tumbled backward, clutching the pistol in both hands. The sniper straightened and leveled the rifle at Yajain.

  Yajain’s second coil shot went straight into the barrel.

  The woman pulled the trigger in the next instant and the rifle whined, but the shot never left the weapon’s fused muzzle. Yajain surged up and grabbed the gun out of the sniper’s hands. She steadied her feet, pistol in one hand, rifle barrel in the other.

  “How do you know Mosam?”

  “My name is Adya.” The woman smiled, head turning in profile away from Yajain. The banner ship ascended higher. “You can imagine the rest.”

  Arc lifts activated. Adya kicked off the strut. She sailed to the lower shuttle port of the banner ship just as Yajain raised the coil pistol again. The ship drew back from the strut. Yajain lowered the pistol and dropped the rifle. She activated her arc lifts.

  She launched herself after Adya. The sniper drew a blade and hurled it at Yajain in one motion. The knife tumbled end over end, slashing across Yajain’s outstretched arm. An energy charge in the weapon activated, expanding the blade half a centimeter with a sheath of hot energy, its edge slicing deep.

  Adya tucked into a passage on the banner ship’s side.

  Agony cost Yajain her flight form. She angled toward the strut, vision blurring. Yajain fell, and the banner ship climbed. She rolled onto the strut midway down its side and looked up, hand clapped on her bleeding arm. The banner ship darted away from the terrace, away from Rakati Pillar.

  Sonetta bandaged Yajain’s slashed arm as the tumbler flew toward Solnakite. Though the cut hurt, it had not been as deep as she first thought. She sat back.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

  “Probably.” Yajain flexed her fingers, testing the nerves in her arm and hand. Everything worked. “But I couldn’t just let her get away.”

  She looked along the cabin of the tumbler. The smaller of the two cablers, Banedd Loattun, sat by the sealed rear door. Beside him sat a dazed, but conscious Gellen Chakal. On the Chakal’s other side sat Ogidar.

  The cabler sergeant didn’t look much worse for wear despite his missing armor plate and wounded shoulder. Devrim lay on a stretcher between the seats with his arm still fused to his rifle now bound in a brace and dosed on painkillers. Last of the group, Boskem sat on Sonetta’s other side, his head down and silent, wounded arm still tied to his side.

  Solnakite caught them, giving Yajain the usual lurch in her stomach. Somehow it seemed smaller after hearing Mosam’s name spoken by Adya as if it no longer mattered. Yajain leaned back in her seat, gaze on the ceiling. She sighed.

  “Did you know her?” Sonetta asked.

  “No.” Yajain frowned. “But she knew me.”

  Sonetta gazed at Devrim’s still and misshapen form.

  “You know that sounds suspicious right?”

  “Yeah.” Yajain turned to Sonetta. “I guess I didn’t know what we were in for.”

  Sonetta nodded.

  Ogidar stood up, bracing himself against his seat.

  “None of us knew, Yajain DiAksa.”

  Yajain’s eyes widened and she met his fierce gaze.

  “That’s not my name.”

  “It might have been,” Ogidar said. “If your father had not been exiled.”

  Yajain stared at him.

  “You’re Ditari,” she said. “Why do you bring this up now?”

  Sonetta cringed in her seat and stared at Ogidar.

  “You are too?”

  Ogidar bowed his head.

  “Formerly of the DiSayul Family,” he said. “I should have known you were the child of a hunter, Doctor Aksari. It explains your courage.”

  Yajain forced herself to soften her expression.

  “It’s alright. But please don’t call me DiAksa again.”

  “Of course, doctor.”

  The ramp creaked down. Ogidar and Banedd carried Devrim’s stretcher down the ramp. Sonetta glanced at Yajain, then followed the cablers. Boskem limped after them without a word. Yajain walked to the edge of the ramp, arm at her side. Gellen Chakal, standing a head shorter than Yajain, nodded to her.

  “Thank you, for saving my life, Doctor Aksari.”

  “I was returning a favor.”

  “Nevertheless, I can see why the cabler recognized your courage.” Chakal’s lips curved into a little smile. “Not many would have attempted to catch me.”

  Yajain shrugged.

  “I can accept that.”

  “Wise.” Chakal turned to the ramp and walked down. “Please excuse me. I must speak with the captain.”

  “Right.” Yajain followed Chakal out of the tumbler.

  Sonetta might need help separating Devrim’s rifle from his arm. She made it to the base of the ramp and found the ship’s Tei-Officer, Cava Sogun, talking to Finder Boskem. Gellen Chakal was already on her way to the bridge. Yajain wondered where Mosam Coe was now. She clenched her fist.

  Solnakite rejoined Castenlock in the arc field of Rakati Pillar. While more rescue forces deployed, Yajain got a day to recover. Her orders terminal informed her when she woke. She showered in the stall adjacent to her
cabin, careful of her bandaged arm. Dressed in an ill-fitting second uniform, Yajain walked down the passage and stopped in the watchroom.

  Sonetta and Loattun went to help on the terrace and inside the pillar’s settlement, taking Devrim with them. His arm might never work again. Time to consider replacements. Time to consider… Like Mosam had told Lin all those cycles ago. The other members of the rescue team were still aboard as far as Yajain knew. She wanted time alone.

  Adya.

  Mosam.

  Adya.

  She sighed. The names made a small poem in her mind. Of all the times to remember her classical bio-poetic training at the Fetayun monastery above Kaga’s settlement. She’d left the place behind for the academy but never forgotten it.

  The shine of dual solnas lit memories of her and Lin, back when Lin still had legs, before Mosam came.

  As children they ran along the terrace-top paths, gazing up at leaves falling from caphodel trees floating kilometers overhead like green clouds. Before the war, others accepted them without apprehension.

  No one could go back to childhood, but at that moment Yajain felt she could taste the fresh air around Kaga.

  Another figure entered the watchroom. The Tei Officer of the Solnakite, second in command to Kebrim Ettasil. Cava Sogun stood beside the table. She held a reading pad.

  “Doctor Aksari, the captain requests you join him on the bridge immediately.”

  Yajain nodded.

  “I suppose it’s time.”

  Sogun looked stern.

  “The captain wished me to inform you that Captain Gattri will be present as well.”

  “Good.” Yajain rose from the table. “I know the way there.”

  Sogun stepped out of the doorway and Yajain left the watchroom for her interrogation.

  The ready room of Solnakite didn’t have excess room to pace while she waited.

  Yajain took an uneasy seat on one side of the narrow oval table. The captains arrived together.

  Pale and nervous, Captain Ettasil took a seat across from her. He looked as if Dara had been laying into him again, though Yajain knew her friend was no longer aboard. Scarred, gray, Firio stood opposite Ettasil, hand on the back of another chair.