by Nick Webb
Two other men, both in IDF uniforms, appeared at the door, and as the flailing handcuffed man sailed back toward them, one of the newcomers bashed his face with the sidearm he was holding. The handcuffed man started spinning, blood flinging off his face in all directions.
“Last chance, Underwood. Where is it? This is the last time I ask.” The man with the gun leveled it at the bound contractor’s head, who now was being held in place by the other IDF officer. Zivic didn’t recognize any of them, though Watchdog Station was pretty large, hosting over three hundred IDF personnel and contractors at any given time.
The contractor struggled against the handcuffs, but it was a futile effort. “You people are freaks. This place is going to blow, and all you care about is the—”
Another blow to the face from the sidearm silenced him.
“Last chance.” The man holding the gun checked the safety, and then pointed it at the man’s forehead. The other officer let go of the contractor and pushed himself away—up toward the ceiling, and then back down to the door to float next to the officer with the gun.
The contractor swore under his breath. “Fine. It’s already loaded onto one of the shuttles.”
“So you lied to me earlier?”
The contractor was getting frantic as he watched the barrel of the gun pointed between his eyes. “I had orders. You have to understand. I was just—”
“I have orders too.” But he smiled, and lowered the gun. “You passed the test, my friend. I knew it was on the shuttle already.” He started to push the gun into his belt, fingering the safety on. “We may just take you with us. Save your life, you know? Pay you back for finally coming around to see reason. A reward, you see?”
The contractor breathed a little easier, and nodded vigorously.
“I need the authorization code to open the shuttle. What is it?” He peered out through the thick composite glass windows into the actual shuttle bay. “And which shuttle is it?”
“Shuttle Fenway. Code is Fenway-bravo-shovik-orion-one-one-two.” A distant explosion shook the room, and the contractor eyed the walls nervously. “Please. Please hurry. We’ve got to get out of here.”
The man with the gun nodded. “Agreed.” He pulled the gun out, flipped the safety off, and shot the contractor through the forehead.
The body jerked once, and started somersaulting backward, blood trailing out from the head in a spiral as the corpse slowly rotated.
“Let’s go.” The man nodded at his companion, holstered the gun, and they both sailed over to the fighter pilots’ lockers, searching until they found flight suits and helmets. “Bay’s at vacuum. Be ready for explosive decompression.”
Zivic tried not to gasp, but he knew what was coming. And before he could even breath deeply a few times to prepare, the whole room exploded in a rush of air as the thick doors opened into the shuttle bay.
Chapter Nine
Irigoyen Sector, Bolivar System, Bolivar
Bridge, ISS Independence
“It’s firing at us, sir!” yelled Lieutenant Whitehorse.
Proctor spun around to face the screen, her eyes darting back and forth across the other vessel, searching for the expected energy beam or whatever the Golgothics used for their weapons.
“With what?”
The entire deck jolted under her feet.
“With that,” said Whitehorse. “They’ve got mag-rails. But … holy shit….”
“Spit it out, Lieutenant.”
“These are mag-rail slugs all right, but they’re bigger than anything I’ve ever seen—at least a hundred kilos each and solid iron—and they’re going faster than, well, anything I’ve ever seen. Fifty kps, at least.”
Proctor’s eyes bulged. A hundred kilos accelerated up to fifty kps in the space of a few milliseconds? The power required to achieve such a feat was … formidable. Terawatts at least.
“Damage?”
“Blew a hole clean through the Independence, Admiral,” said Captain Prucha. “Receiving reports of casualties on several decks. Hull containment is compromised, but backups are in place.”
“It’s firing again!” yelled Whitehorse.
The deck lurched and bucked. Proctor grabbed her chair and pulled herself into it, fastening the restraints to keep herself from flying out. For the last dozen years or so of her career as an IDF captain she’d served aboard Legacy Fleet ships—Constitution, Warrior, Victory, Chesapeake—massive behemoths that didn’t, couldn’t, shake so much. The Independence was far smaller, far lighter, and she could feel it in the tremors in the deckplate.
“All mag-rail crews, target the vessel and open fire. Laser crews, same. Open up hell on that thing.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Lieutenant Whitehorse signaled to her tactical crew, coordinating firing patterns. “All mag-rails engaged. Lasers….” she frowned. “Lasers having no effect, sir. They’re just bouncing right off.”
Proctor snapped her head towards Captain Yarbrough. “You said those are terawatt lasers.”
“They are!”
“Then how the hell can that blasted thing out there repel a terawatt beam?” She watched her video feed, and indeed the laser beams, rather than turn the other ship into glowing slag or a rapidly expanding cloud of vapor, just bounced off like the Independence was shining handheld pointer lasers at the other ship.
“And the mag-rail slugs?” She watched the video feed, but she knew she’d never see the damn things going over ten kilometers per second.
“They’re, uh, also bouncing off, ma’am.” Whitehorse’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand—they shouldn’t do that. Ever.”
Impossible. “Are the mag-rail calibrations off? Are they moving at the right speed? The only way a slug bounces off is if it’s only moving very slowly—”
“No, ma’am.” Whitehorse pounded the console in frustration as another burst of slugs shot out from the Independence, and bounced off, faster than they could see. “I don’t understand it, sir. It’s almost like there’s different physics governing that hull over there. Terawatt beams of photons and slugs of tungsten don’t bounce off any surface, no matter how well engineered it is.”
An explosion tore through the rear of the bridge, sending Captain Prucha flying forward, along with two ops technicians. They landed in a crumpled pile after hitting the front wall. Proctor ripped the seat restraint away and ran towards them, but she could see immediately there was nothing she could do. Prucha bled profusely from his neck, and it seemed his head was only half attached. All three officers were completely scorched.
Admiral Proctor’s breath caught in her throat. It had been decades since she’d seen such visceral gore and violence, and with the sight of the erupting blood came the memories of the Second Swarm War, rushing back to overwhelm her. “Ensign Riisa, get us out of here.”
“Ma’am?”
It was a retreat, but there was no choice. They’d be picked apart without so much as touching the mysterious ship.
“Now! Any heading!”
Proctor supposed that the inertial cancelers were damaged because she nearly fell down as the Independence started speeding away from the Golgothic ship, shooting eastward above the upper atmosphere of Bolivar. Smart move, she thought. If they were to lose engines, orbiting in the same direction as the planet’s spin would make a crash landing that much easier.
“Pursuit?”
Whitehorse shook her head. “None. The alien ship is proceeding along its heading as if we’d never met it.”
“Course?”
“Looks like its heading out towards Ido. Bolivar’s moon.”
“Ido? What the hell would it want with Ido? A billion people on Bolivar … and how many on Ido?” She looked over to Commander Yarbrough with her brow raised in a question.
“A few hundred. Tops. It’s only used as a ship supply depot and transfer point.”
Proctor turned back to look at the dead Captain Prucha. They’d served for years together on the Chesapeake. He was her confidan
te, her rock during the most difficult days of that assignment. But she forced the tears back and swallowed the growing lump at the back of her throat. Mourn later. Survive now. At the back of her mind she thought it was remarkable how the old survival instincts she’d developed during the Second Swarm War thirty years ago came back so readily. Like riding a bicycle.
Except this bicycle was on fire, made of dynamite, and she was speeding over a cliff—her ship status schematic on her command console was a sea of flashing red.
“Does IDF have any defense assets out at Ido?”
Commander Yarbrough shook his head. “Barely. Just a single orbiting defense platform. A couple mag-rails. Crew of twenty, tops.”
“Madam Ad’mril, think you should see this, ma’am.” The comm chief, Lieutenant Qwerty, was waving her down. The urgency of the situation was exacerbating his southern twang. “Pickin’ up a shit-load of comm chatter on IDF frequencies.”
“What is it?”
“Sounds like Admiral Mullins down in CENTCOM Bolivar finally managed to muster his planetary defense fleet. They had been dispersed throughout the sector helping with relief operation for Sangre de Cristo. But there’s a slight problem….”
What could possibly make this situation worse?
“I’m sure we can handle it.”
Qwerty nodded. “Much of Bolivar’s defense fleet has mustered at Ido to face the Golgothic ship, but from the sound of things, several of the captains have … uh, declared for the GPC, and are threatening to shoot any IDF vessel that intervenes.”
Chapter Ten
Irigoyen Sector, Bolivar System, Ido
Bridge, ISS Independence
“Are they crazy?” Proctor asked, turning to look at the schematic map of the fleet layout, which showed the ships arrayed at Ido. Several of the blue icons had turned red, indicating which ones had supposedly declared for the GPC.
Commander Yarbrough came up behind her. “They actually could be crazy, judging from the … effects from that alien ship. I confess, when that ship was close to us, I half wanted to take over the helm and get us out of there, and half wanted to grab the nearest gun and blow my own head off I was so scared.”
She looked back at him and nodded. “I agree, it was harrowing, but this is different. I didn’t sign up to reign in a bunch of separatist malcontents.” She turned back to the screen. “I don’t care what that alien ship is doing to their judgment, they’d better stand down now or face a very angry former fleet admiral,” she added under her breath.
“Do we have time to babysit a bunch scared IDF captains?” Yarbrough asked.
“Or fight a civil war? Because that’s what this looks like—you don’t take over an IDF warship and think United Earth is going to come after you with kid gloves.” She approached Ensign Riisa at the helm. “Get us out there. T-jump. Put us right in the middle of the ships that haven’t declared for the GPC.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Moments later she felt the now familiar vertigo from the t-jump, and the viewscreen shifted to reveal Bolivar’s planetary defense fleet, with the gray regolith of Ido behind them.
Almost immediately, the earlier feelings of raw fear, rage, lust, and terror returned. The Golgothic ship was near.
“Open a channel to the whole fleet,” she said.
Qwerty nodded. “Open, Admiral.”
“All IDF ships, this is Admiral Shelby Proctor, acting under the direct authority of Fleet Admiral Oppenheimer. As you’re all well aware, we’re under attack.” She clenched her jaw, weighing her next words carefully, which was ten times more difficult under the influence of the Golgothic’s emotion-disrupting broadcast. “I’m under the impression that several captains have chosen this moment to declare their … political leanings. This is unacceptable, especially in the face of an existential threat that we face in the form of that alien ship. While we don’t understand yet its intentions, I think we can assume—”
The comm erupted with a booming voice that interrupted her. “Admiral Proctor, please spare us your speech. We’ve suffered under the oppressive regime of United Earth for too long to have to suffer through the empty threats of a washed-up former wannabe war hero.”
Proctor’s face flushed red with anger. On the split screen she saw the Golgothic vessel was approaching the moon, and their fleet. They had minutes at best to prepare themselves. And here she was arguing with a political idealist who was under the influence. She glanced at the fleet layout schematic and noted the captain’s name, and ship.
“Captain Shee, I presume? Look, Captain, we can discuss your political grievances later. But what matters now is that you bring the Davenport with us into battle with the alien ship. Our very survival depends on it.”
Lieutenant Whitehorse called from the tactical station. “Admiral, they’re arming mag-rails and laser turrets. Targeting computers are locking onto us.”
“Oh, for the love … Riisa, move us away. Get us in orbit around Ido on a course that won’t pass us anywhere near these assholes.” She motioned towards the comm station for Qwerty to open up the channel to the entire fleet. “All IDF ships who are willing and able, follow the Independence to Ido to intercept the alien ship. Any IDF vessel that chooses not to engage with us will face severe repercussions when this is over. Proctor out.”
On the screen the intransigent IDF vessels shrunk to small white dots as the Independence accelerated away, accompanied by over half of the Bolivaran fleet. They started swinging around the moon, passing the terminator and into the darkness of Ido’s night. After a minute or so, the sense of rage and dread induced by the Golgothics dissipated to just a background murmur, like shadowy fears in the corners of her mind.
“Riisa, increase speed to ten kps. We’re going to slingshot around the moon and hit it with a barrage of mag-rails slugs.” She sat down in the captain’s chair and fastened the restraints. “Granger’s favorite move,” she muttered.
“I thought his favorite move was hurling other starships into Swarm carriers,” said Yarbrough.
She shrugged. “They did call him the bricklayer for all the bricks he sent through the Swarm’s windows. Starships were expendable to him. To me they’re not.” She glanced up at Yarbrough. “Yet.”
But the memory of Granger’s … unorthodox tactics gave her an idea. If Captain Shee and his cohort were going to get in the way of her tactical operations….
“Ensign Riisa, adjust our heading. Come up on the alien ship from the direction of the rebels. Reduce speed until we’re right up under their noses.”
“Ma’am? That’s going to expose us to their fire,” said Whitehorse.
“Yes,” she said, gripping her armrests. “But it will also let us use them as a shield.”
Chapter Eleven
Irigoyen Sector, Bolivar System, Bolivar
Watchdog Station, High orbit
Zivic gripped the storage locker so hard that the edges dug into his palms, but mercifully the maelstrom of air, debris, and the contractor’s blood ceased soon after it began as the bay doors shut behind the two officers. He counted to ten before launching himself out of the container. The station was going to blow any second. He had to balance that impeding death with the possibility of being seen by the two unknown assassins, who would surely kill any potential witnesses to their crime.
What were they looking for? Why was it worth killing for?
He didn’t have time to think about it. He ripped one of the fighter pilot lockers open. Empty, except for a few personal effects. The next three lockers also showed no signs of a flight gear, or any other kind of emergency environmental suit that would let him survive the hard vacuum of the bay.
The last locker, marked Johnson, bore fruit. He wondered where Lieutenant Johnson was as he pulled the man’s suit on, locking the seals in place and struggling to squeeze into something that was obviously meant for a slightly smaller man, a situation made worse by the fact that he was floating in the air, pulling the suit on without any levera
ge from gravity. He rammed the helmet onto his head. Stickers, insignia, and graffiti covered the exterior of the well-worn helmet, but it looked serviceable—the oxygen indicator suggested the reserves were full, and the power backups were at full charge. Thank god for the diligence of maintenance crews. And Shovik-Orion, military equipment supplier extraordinaire.
He hadn’t even locked the helmet seal in place when the pressure in the ante-chamber blew again, this time because of a hull containment force field that had failed. The air in the room flooded towards a hole in the wall separating him from the bay, and any object in the room not nailed down suddenly became a deadly projectile.
But projectiles weren’t his immediate concern. He gasped as the air thinned, and he struggled against the fierce wind to seal the helmet. At the moment he felt like his lungs were about to burst into his mouth and his eyes pop, he managed to crank the seal shut, and the oxygen system automatically engaged as it sensed the near-vacuum condition of the suit.
“That was too close,” he told himself, pushing away from the locker towards the door to the bay. The override code unlocked the door, but it didn’t even move. Emergency power reserves were probably completely drained, as evidenced by the lack of a shimmering blue screen over the hole in the bulkhead. He managed to wedge some fingers into the opening and forced the doors open inch by inch, though these were far heavier than the lift doors he’d forced earlier.
Finally, twelve inches later, it was open just enough to let him squeeze through. Debris, hydraulic fluid, ordnance, tools, and bodies all floated in the bay, obstructing the path in between him and the two operable fighters at the end of flight platform. He didn’t know if the surrounding chaos was the result of the two mysterious assassins, or the earlier bombardment from the equally mysterious ship. But a quick glance at the giant bay doors that opened out into deep space told him that the two murderers had left; the shuttle they piloted careened out the doors, which started to close behind the small craft. Before it darted out he just barely caught sight of the nameplate affixed to the rear. Fenway.
