Earth Colony Sentinel (Galactic Arena Book 2)

by Dan Davis

  “Yeah he seems miserable.”

  “The others pretty much just have low level mental health issues that impacted their performance so much they were taken off duty.”

  “What caused it?”

  “Space madness.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, it’s just the relentless claustrophobia, the homesickness, the fear of sudden death due to decompression or explosion or radiation. We’re all resilient until we’re not, you know.”

  “What about Sergeant Stirling? He seems fine. I mean, he seems like a terrifying, giant bastard but he doesn’t seem the type to be suffering from anything.”

  “Just grief, I suppose. When your old friend started a shootout on the Victory, we lost four Marines. One of them was Private Sanctuary Nara. She and Stirling were very close.”

  “Oh, shit. They were together? Romantically?”

  “That kind of relationship isn’t allowed within a unit and certainly not where there is a difference in rank. But, yes. After she died, Stirling has been like he just doesn’t give a shit any more. Look, no offense, sir but I have a lot to do and we’re in the way here, so…”

  “So I’ll take my massive guns and get out of here, got it. And thank you, Sergeant. Oh, one last thing. Feel free to tell me to go to hell but, the geographical location and tracking devices in our suits…. Is there a way to turn them off? Or at least mask the signal for a while?”

  ***

  When darkness fell across the outpost, it seemed to happen abruptly. Wind speed increased and the clear skies filled with low cloud. A light rain fell. All around the outpost, illuminated by powerful beams and glowing lamps, work continued as the night watch began. Defenses were developed, with anti-vehicle ditches cut with pneumatic drills hammering ceaselessly into the black bedrock. The bulldozer worked tirelessly, scooping up and mounding the shattered stone into long banks designed to funnel the enemy into specific fields of fire.

  Spaz Squad had a few hours to rest before beginning their scheduled work again before dawn. The team were assigned an empty lab unit to sleep in. It was a small space and with their suits, weapons and equipment, there was barely enough room for all of them to squeeze in between the benches and shelving that lined the walls. Ram was beginning to feel claustrophobic and desperate to get away, to get after Milena.

  “You will leave your suits on,” Ensign Tseng commanded. “And your helmets and weapons will be within arm’s reach at all times.”

  “This is bullshit,” Cooper said. “I get that I can’t have my own bunk but I have to get this suit off me or I’m going to lose my mind.”

  “Again.” Harris said, with a grin. “Lose your mind again, Cooper.”

  “Yeah and I’ll show you what losing my mind looks like, you stuck up piece of shit. I’ll lose my mind all over your fucking face.”

  “That’s enough!” Sergeant Stirling said. In the silence that followed, every metallic surface hummed faintly from the force of his voice. The noises in the corridor outside dipped momentarily, until the people out there recovered from their surprise.

  The members of Spaz Squad remained cowed by their sergeant’s wrath. Even Ensign Tseng.

  “It’s crowded in here,” Ram said. “I’ll find somewhere else to bed down.”

  “No you don’t,” Sergeant Stirling said, blocking the doorway. “Our team stays together.”

  “I won’t be far away. Just need more leg room than is possible in here.”

  “Fine,” Stirling said, without referring to the Ensign in the room. “Just leave your weapons.”

  “No.”

  Stirling offered his ear. “Come again?”

  “I have to keep them on me at all times. Standing orders, Sergeant.”

  “Are you reminding me of my orders, Seti?”

  “I don’t know. Have you forgotten them?”

  The Sergeant didn’t move from blocking the door. “You’re up to something.”

  Ram felt the eyes of the others on him. “Am I?”

  “What’s your plan?” Stirling asked.

  Ram shrugged, hoisting the ammo boxes in each hand up and down. “Like I said. Find an eight-foot by three-foot bit of floor and—”

  “Shut up.” Sergeant Stirling was the biggest human on the planet, other than Ram and Sifa but still was dwarfed by the genetically engineered clones. And yet he spoke with such perfect, calm confidence that Ram did, in fact, shut up. “Stop bullshitting me. You’ve been sneaking round all day. Eying up the ETAT driving controls. Asking everyone about the geolocators. Asking the geologists how we can track the wheelers back to their base. You downloaded the most recent satellite images of the wheelhunter base area to your suit screen. And now you’re sneaking off again, during the night. You would make the worst spy in history.”

  “Is this true?” Ensign Tseng asked, stepping forward. “Are you attempting a rescue? Alone? Right now?”

  Ram sighed. “It’s that obvious? Does everyone know?”

  “Just us,” Private Harris said. “Probably.”

  “What are you going to do?” Ram said. “Report me to Cassidy?”

  A predatory grin arced slowly up Stirling’s huge face. “No, sir. We’re going to help you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Victory was not a war ship. It was designed to transport the Subject Alpha to Orb Station Zero at the correct time and to deliver that individual in peak physical and mental condition. To fulfil that primary mission required an enormous support team of trainers, technicians, physicians, psychologists, therapists, surgeons, administrators and the support crew to provide services to them. The ship’s crew kept the vast machine running and heading in the right direction, meaning engineers for the engines, the life support systems specialists in water and air, the electrical engineers and the power station workers who kept everyone alive. The command structure directed the whole orchestra, with the ship’s crew all members of the UNOP Navy and overseen by Captain Tamura and his officers. The mission Director dictated the civilian operations. The UNOPS Marine Corps company existed to provide security in case of an alien attack on the ship and also to provide a crowd control and policing force, should it prove necessary.

  That was the primary mission requirements. In addition, secondary- and tertiary-tier activity was planned, especially scientific activity including astronomical and biological experiments to be performed in the deep space, long term mission environment.

  Other contingencies were included. The possibility of having to abandon ship somewhere in the outer solar system was a distinct possibility, due to mechanical failure or possible hostile alien activity. The Victory had supplies for an extended mission timeframe and also the capability to land the crew on a moon, minor planet or asteroid by shuttle or by landers constructed from parts already on the ship.

  The possibility of traveling through the Orb Station’s artificially generated wormhole into a new system had not been discounted and, after precisely that event had occurred, the crew had prepared for little else other than establishing a presence on the most habitable world while genuine colony ships arrived from the Solar System.

  Combat contingencies were also written into the design brief. Not least of which, the relatively large complement of Marines was far in excess of what would likely be required to police the crew, unless a rebellion of some kind was implemented by a majority of the crew, for example, which no one thought was likely. Instead, the maximum number of Marines the ship could support was calculated so that they could attempt a boarding of the wheelhunter spaceship, in the event that the primary mission would end in failure and so open up Earth to an authorized invasion.

  A key element of that offensive strategy was to arm the Victory with ship-to-ship weapon’s capability. The enormous power output of the fusion reactor allowed for lasers to be mounted, fore and aft. The destructive power of nuclear warheads mounted on high thrust rocket engines was intended to provide strategic flexibility and deadly blasts that would surely wreak hav
oc on any spaceship even close to Earth’s level of technology. Canons on opposite sides of the ship would spray chains of unguided slugs at ludicrous speeds that would destroy any incoming enemy missiles before they impacted the hull but also had the capability to inflict damage on the alien vessel.

  But the Victory was not a war ship. Its armaments were compromises. Even the vast engines could drive only so much mass at the required velocities. They were not prepared for a prolonged space combat engagement and would be unable to resist much damage from the wheelhunter weapons.

  Whatever they were.

  Despite all the drills and simulations over the years, the remaining crew onboard were apprehensive. With so many people already on the surface of Arcadia, when Kat made her way through the corridors and rooms to hunt down the key personnel for the evacuation, she had the feeling of being on a ghost ship. It wasn’t simply the scarcity of the people. Half the interior of the ship had been transferred to the planet by shuttle or by the automated landers that dropped the cargo containers through the atmosphere for onsite assembly into the structure of the outpost. The remaining crew moved with their heads down, making final preparations.

  She stopped by the A-Ring’s escape capsule section, where an engineer leaned his upper body inside an open wall panel, his tools spread on the floor at his feet.

  “Omar?” she asked as she passed him. “That you?”

  “Busy here, Kat,” he said, glancing out. “Got to get this operational, quick. I keep feeling sudden course corrections. Has the battle started yet?”

  “I think we’d know if it had,” she said. “Just maneuvering. Anyway, I know your game, Omar, you cheeky bastard. You’re just hanging out by this capsule so you can be first in the thing if we have to abandon ship.”

  He stood up, outraged. “How dare you? I was performing final checks as ordered and the ignition system failed the test firing.”

  She laughed. “Sure, mate. Anything you say. Listen, they’re stopping rotation in forty minutes so you better clear your tools up before they float away.”

  If the rest of the ship was empty and bleak, the CIC was the opposite. The command crew buzzed about the space with activity and every console had at least one officer peering intently at it. Even Director Zhukov, the overall commander of the mission was there, standing with his back to one of the few sections of wall without a screen on it.

  Captain Tamura stood in the center, his chair behind him, legs planted wide, arms crossed looking up at the screen suspended from the ceiling. Data streamed down one side, numbers indicating distances and speeds of the Victory and its networked fleet of drones that extended around it for hundreds and thousands of kilometers. The other side of his screen showed the telescope view of the enemy ship as it decelerated toward them. Just like their own ship, the enemy Wildfire was performing irregular, random course changes that would throw off any attempts at long range sniping.

  “Shut the damned door, Lieutenant,” the XO shouted from the other side of the room. “You’re letting all the air of professional competence out.”

  “Sorry, Commander,” she said, jumping to it. “Wouldn’t want any of that leaking into the rest of the crew.”

  “Quite right,” he said as he came over and guided her to one side and lowered his voice. “Thanks for helping relieve some of the tension in here. Jesus, you’d think someone had died.”

  “Is that why you sent for me?” she asked. “Comic relief?”

  “You reported that Dr. Fo is refusing to evacuate?”

  “That’s right, sir, he said he didn’t have time to go sit in a shuttle and if he was going to die then he was going to die. He said he’d been alive far too long as it is, anyway. I tried to persuade him, sir, it’s just that I have no authority to—”

  The XO waved a hand. “No, no. He’s never listened to us about anything. He’s UNOP royalty, he basically thinks this whole ship and everyone on it works for him. But he’s not far wrong and that’s why he needs to be on that shuttle.”

  “He said he would get in the escape capsule if he needed to flee.”

  The XO laughed. “Flee? That old bastard cracks me up. Come with me, Kat.” He approached the civilian leader and she followed behind like the inferior being that she was. “Director Zhukov? May I speak to you, sir?”

  The Director was as humorless, sober and boring as they come but he was efficient and he took his job seriously, which was what you want in a leader, Kat supposed. He listened without comment as the XO explained the situation. When the XO finished, the Director nodded once and stood up straight as a tail fin.

  “I shall speak to Dr. Fo at once.” He strode from the CIC, opening and closing the blast door with perfect efficiency while Kat and the XO watched with fascination.

  The XO turned to her. “No other problems?”

  “Everyone is either onboard, making their way to the shuttle or assured me they would be there before the deadline. A few people made requests to bring additional gear over their personal mass allocation which I denied in all cases but I’d be willing to bet some of them will try their luck.”

  “What additional gear?”

  “The scientists wanted to bring their experiments or specialist equipment that isn’t on the surface and cannot be printed or manufactured. Same old shit. Sir.”

  “Can’t you make allowances?”

  She shrugged. “Could do. Up to you. But if I need to drop out of the shuttle bay and accelerate away in order to avoid damage or destruction, then every kilogram counts.”

  “Alright, well, use your discretion and just don’t get into any fights or anything, alright?”

  “Me, sir?”

  Kat’s belly lurched as the ship changed course and velocity again.

  The idea of changing course randomly during the approaches to the enemy was a simple one. If the enemy ship is one light minute away from the Victory, would take one light minute to observe the actual location of the ship and another light minute for the enemy laser to arrive. A minute for the light to travel each way.

  On top of the limit of light speed might be a reaction time of some kind for the aliens or their AIs or some system to aim and discharge a weapon.

  If the weapon is an unguided projectile—such as a slug of metal—that travels slower than the speed of light, there is additional time for the projectile to reach the target.

  Guided weapons, like missiles, would have to track their target in wider arcs, and so travel further and take longer to arrive. They could then be intercepted by the Victory’s defensive swarm of drones and anti-missile laser batteries.

  The Victory accelerating in a random direction at 1g would result in a possible location, as far as the enemy observer is concerned, anywhere within a 70km sphere. The same size sphere of uncertainty can be achieved if the distance is twice as far and the acceleration half as fast. Increase the distance and the speed and the uncertainty over the ship’s position also increases.

  “We’re really jinking about here, sir,” Kat said.

  The XO nodded, watching the screens and people around him like a hawk. “The AIs are increasing the frequency and distance as we get to within theoretical range.”

  “Still much too far for a laser, though, right, sir?”

  “For us.” He nodded. “For them?”

  The door swung open and the scrawny old Dr. Fo strode inside. A scowling Director Zhukov followed after.

  “Captain Tamura!” the doctor said. “I must speak with you. Do I have your leave to remain on the vessel during the coming battle?”

  The commander glanced at his XO, who was already moving to intercept. “I am rather busy right now, Doctor, but if you would like to discuss the matter with Commander—”

  “Please inform Director Zhukov that the surface of the planet is hardly a safer environment than up on this ship.”

  Director Zhukov attempted to take the doctor’s arm. “You may always return to the ship once the enemy is destroyed.”

  “T
ake your hands off me. Are you fleeing this vessel, Director? No, you are not—”

  “My duty is to remain here. With Zuma on the surface we are spreading the risk of—”

  “I am not overly concerned with the prospect of my own death and I would rather die than be inconvenienced.”

  Zhukov sneered. “Oh, come off it, you—”

  “Gentlemen!” Captain Tamura turned on them. “Remove yourselves from my CIC, immediately, or I will have you removed.”

  Dr. Fo and Director Zhukov stared at the commander. Zhukov nodded and grabbed the doctor and yanked him toward the door. The XO turned to Kat and nodded at the pair. She returned the nod and went to help propel the doctor all the way back to her shuttle.

  Someone in the crew interrupted with a loud cry.

  “Sir! The alien vessel is doing something different. It either launched something or deployed a—”

  Alarms blared from a number of consoles all around the room. Warnings of all kinds. There was one alarm that Kat knew and feared most of all and could pick out of the symphony of aural panic.

  Radiation alarm.

  The ship shuddered. The lights flickered and the consoles blinked, the data and images glowing.

  The lights went off.

  Kat’s ERANS surged to life along with her fear. Was the ship about to explode? They had been hit by something, some sort of weapon that travelled at the speed of light but that could travel much farther than a laser that humans were capable of constructing.

  “We have no control,” someone was saying. “We have no control.”

  Voices babbled all around her as the officers struggled in the darkness. She had more time to react than most of them and could feel Dr. Fo in front of her standing upright with his arms out, not moving his feet. She filed away the knowledge that the doctor was a man who did not panic in the face of danger and confusion.