by B. V. Larson
“Got to get his attention,” Straker muttered to himself, and sent a long burst of gatling fire into the Sledgehammer. He concentrated on a hip, knowing the joints there were underrated for the heavier loads of the modified ’suit. A mobility kill was his best chance until his force-cannon readied itself again.
The Sledgehammer spun with the impact of the cannon stream, and it took a snapshot at him with its particle beam, coming startlingly close before expending its bright blue energy against the soil.
“Won’t get me so easy,” a voice said on Straker’s comlink.
“Karst? Is that you in the Sledgehammer?”
“Straker? Are you behind this?”
Straker crouched in a low spot, extending a telescoping optical from his sensor head to gain line of sight. “Yes, it’s me, and you’re the only thing stopping me from liberating this base. I already slagged your buddy, and I’m a hundred times better at this game than you are, so fucking stand down.”
“I can’t. They’ll kill Cynthia. Sergeant Yates is on another channel right now, talking in my ear, with a knife to her throat. I have to fight.”
“Not if he thinks you did your best. I’m going to shoot you now, straight in the chest. It won’t penetrate, not on the first impact. As soon as I do it, scream in pain, fire a shot over my head and punch out. Then don’t talk to anyone on a comlink. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, all right. I know you tried to help me before, and I owe you.”
“Yes, kid, you do. Here we go.” Straker stood, moving laterally as naturally as breathing. He trusted Karst, pretty much, but there was no reason to bet his life on it. The kid’s Sledgehammer was walking straight toward him, aiming his heavy railgun slightly to the side.
Without conscious thought, Straker put a deliberately widened, attenuated force-cannon bolt straight into his opponent’s chest. The armor there should hold. Karst pitched backward as if kicked. To Straker, it looked as fake as a ballplayer’s flop, and he hoped any watchers weren’t familiar enough with the nuances of mechsuit motion to tell the difference.
Karst’s railgun penetrator streaked upward across the cylinder and struck the other side with a flash. A moment later, Karst’s mechsuit seemed to explode, though it was only the ejection sequence, blowing him clear within a cocoon of superfast-expanding hardfoam.
Still running laterally, Straker fired a gatling burst at the remaining Sledgehammer, which was staggering in a circle, still unable to lock up a target. Sixteen percent power remained.
His opponent must have managed to get a view onto his HUD right then, because he raised his arm and triggered a particle beam. Before he fired, Straker had already thrown himself into a diving roll that placed him behind a low building, some kind of storage shed. The beam sizzled through the space where he’d been a moment before and blew a huge divot out of the ground.
Reversing himself, Straker charged out the way he’d come. As intended, he caught the newbie aiming at the other side, expecting him to continue in the same direction.
If he’d had a full power charge, he would have taken the Sledgehammer apart piece by piece, stripping off its legs and weapons until the pilot had nothing to work with. However, he was mindful of Murdock’s words about sabotage to the south-end sidespace engine. He had to put an end to this mismatched contest and get on with the liberation.
So, using a low-gravity maneuver a Sledgehammer pilot could never replicate or even expect, Straker leaped over the other mechsuit and fired a bolt of plasma straight down, directly into the mangled head armor. It cut through and blew back out, giving the humanoid machine a crown of fire as capacitors and polymers ignited. Flame, electric charge and plasma leaked from every joint, tearing the mechsuit apart from the inside. The pilot did not eject.
“Dammit,” he said. That was one more death he could lay at the door of people like Ramirez and Yates.
In fact, he looked forward to finding Yates the rapist, and recovering Karst’s girl. He only hoped she would remain unharmed.
“Engels to Straker, Engels to Straker,” he heard on his comlink.
“Straker here.”
“I’ve been trying to get you for a while. There’s a shuttle of some kind making ready to launch off the south end. Should I let it go?” Engels’ voice sounded hopeful.
“Is it armed?”
“It has a small laser.”
“If it’s just evacuating, leave it alone, but if it tries to damage the sidespace engines, you have to destroy it. If we can’t move Freiheit, all of this is for nothing.”
“Aye aye. Engels out.”
With no enemy that could stand against him, Straker turned to mopping up the remaining Unmutuals.
* * *
Engels aimed her corvette’s short-range comlink at the shuttle and blasted it with several standard contact frequencies. “Small craft, small craft, this is Liberator. Respond or be fired upon.”
“Hey, don’t shoot,” came a woman’s voice. “We’re just trying to get away!”
“Major Ramirez?”
“No, she’s over at Aynor Base. My name’s Nassimi. You win. I just want to get away. We have civilians on board. You shoot us, you’ll kill them.”
Engels remained suspicious. The voice sure sounded like Ramirez’s. “I have you locked up tight. One shot and you’re toast. You can head for your base, but if you try anything…”
“I understand. Nassimi out.”
“That was Ramirez,” Loco said from the communications station. “I’d bet my next hooch ration on it.”
“But what can we do?”
“Chase it down. Try to board.”
“Very tricky in open space with a shuttle. Those things are fragile.”
“She’s probably lying about the civilians.”
“Maybe, but I can’t take that chance.” Engels found herself wishing she had the ruthlessness to fire anyway. Ramirez deserved to be punished for what she’d done, but such a small craft would be hard to disable without killing everyone aboard, and not every Unmutual was equally responsible. Some were only guilty of not being able to restrain their peers. When the chain of command was against you, that was a tough spot to be in. Besides, the part about civilians might be true.
Watching closely, she made sure the shuttle didn’t drop anything off or fire its tiny laser to sabotage the sidespace engine bolted to the south end. She was just beginning to relax when the transit detector pinged.
“I have sidespace traffic inbound,” said Loco. “From the signature, of frigate size.”
Damn the luck. “Carson?”
“Getting opticals now. I’d say yes.”
“Designate it Carson. Give me system tactical.” Engels gazed at the main holoscreen, rotating the view this way and that until she got it the way she wanted.
Fortunately Carson had transited in at a position optimum for approach to the gas giant Bayzos and the Unmutual base at the Aynor moon. That put it all the way across the system, far from Freiheit.
The frigate would be hearing about the attack on Freiheit and getting instructions from DeChang. The single-pilot attack ships off Aynor would also be launching about now, given the lightspeed delay in learning of the Breakers’ attack.
Therefore, Straker’s Breakers had at least eighteen hours until a naval counterattack came, probably more like twenty-four unless the Unmutuals decided to go balls-out and make one speedy pass, rather than engage normally. But it would take four days for Freiheit to spiral outward far enough to enter sidespace.
She switched channels. “Engels to Straker.”
“Here.”
“Bad news. Carson or something like her just jumped in. We have about a day before they can get here. What’s worse, Freiheit is a sitting duck. In about sixteen hours, assuming a normal approach profile, Carson will be able to bombard it from extreme range with railgun slugs or shipkiller nukes. I might be able to intercept a missile, but not a speeding bullet. Not with this little corvette. There’s no way to protect the s
idespace engines.”
Straker replied, “They won’t use nuclear shipkillers right away, if at all. They want to recapture Freiheit, not destroy it, and they know they have four days to stop us. We also have to believe they don’t know about the Ruxin ship, or at least, what it can do. That’s our ace in the hole.”
“It had better be, because this corvette can’t stand up to a frigate for long.”
“Is Zaxby hidden?”
“Yes, he’s parked behind the rock. DeChang should be completely in the dark except for whatever reports got sent from the initial attack. Oh, and Lockstep’s ETA is two hours.”
“Thanks. I have to finish up here. Keep in touch. Straker out.”
* * *
Straker cursed under his breath at the report. His primary plan, the one that depended on the Unmutuals’ lack of real warships, was now shot to hell. Secondary plans? He had several, depending on the circumstances, but they were all of the more desperate variety.
But right now, he had to finish the task at hand. He switched on his external loudspeaker. “Straker’s Breakers,” he bellowed, “I have eliminated the mechsuiter threat. Follow me and let’s finish off these Unmutuals.”
He paused and aimed his loudspeaker forward. “Unmutual combatants, this is Captain Derek Straker in the Foehammer. I don’t want to kill you. Lay down your arms and you will be treated in accordance with the laws of war. Keep fighting, and I’ll slaughter you like dogs.”
Straker repeated these sentences as he strode toward the southern end, aiming for the auxiliary base control center. Unmutual resistance crumbled, and within minutes, all of the enemy had raised their hands and allowed themselves to be captured.
When he reached the control center, he dismounted from his Foehammer. Breakers clustered around him cheering, exuberant after their first battle. Aldrik Ritter found him and saluted proudly. “We’ve secured the control room, sir.”
“Get me a weapon and ammo,” Straker said. “Spread out and start telling the populace that it’s safe to come out. Brief them to report any Unmutual stragglers hiding out. Collect all the prisoners at the brig the Unmutuals set up, not that they really used the thing right. Where’s Heiser?”
“Wounded, sir, but he’ll make it.”
“You’re my Spear for now, then. Carry out my orders. Go.” When Aldrik ran off to organize the occupation, Straker took a laser carbine and ammo belt someone handed to him. “I need five men with me.”
Inside the auxiliary control room, Straker tapped at keys and tried to get comlinks to work. “Dammit, come on. There has to be…”
“Captain Straker, I see you,” Murdock’s voice said from one station. “Talk to me. Over here. Touch the flashing icon.”
Straker slid into the seat, tapped the screen and spoke into a microphone. “I’m here. SITREP!”
“I should have the power restored in about an hour. Then I’ll be able to get this pig moving on impellers. There’s bad news, though.”
“What?”
“My readouts aren’t good. Go check on the sidespace engine at your end. Back door, six flights down, look for a raw tunnel drilled into the wall. Call me when you get there.”
“Tell me—” But Murdock had already clicked off the intercom, and Straker had no portable comlink. He waved the five men to come along and headed for the back door. Following Murdock’s directions, he soon debouched into the engineering room of the massive sidespace engine.
Straker growled in frustration. All the controls and much of the machinery had been wrecked by weapons fire.
Chapter 37
At Freiheit’s southern end cap, Engineering.
“Guard this facility from further damage,” Straker told his squad of five as he surveyed the damaged sidespace engine controls. “Someone should be here in an hour or two to start repairs.” He left the wrecked machinery and returned to the auxiliary control center. “Murdock, this is Straker.”
“Kinda busy now, Straker.”
“The sidespace engine down here is a mess. Laser burns and bullets, mostly, I’d say. No explosions. You have four days to fix it.”
“If it can be fixed.”
“You have factories and machine shops on this rock.”
“Sidespace engines have highly specialized parts.”
“No excuses. Keep working. Requisition techs from the populace if you need to. Tell them if we can’t transit this base, the Unmutuals will take over again.”
“Public relations is your job, Straker. I can’t take time off to go recruiting. Send me everyone who thinks they can help and I’ll sort them out.”
Straker thought a moment. “Could you use Zaxby?”
“The Ruxin?”
“He hacked your network pretty easy.”
Murdock paused. Maybe he was overcoming his irritation with a rival. “Yeah, I can use any Ruxin technicians you can spare.”
“I’ll send them when I can. Keep up the good work. Straker out.”
Straker struggled with the communications console for a few moments. Eventually he gave up on trying to figure out how to make it function for him. He ran outside to mount his mechsuit and activated the comlink. “Zaxby, this is Straker.”
“Revenge here, Captain Straker.”
“The southern sidespace engine has been damaged. Murdock needs Ruxin help to repair it.”
“Of course he does. He is a competent enough tinkerer, but nothing like me.”
“So quit talking and start doing. Assemble a team and report to him at the BCC.”
“I think he should report to me.”
“He’s in charge, Zaxby. Take overall direction from him, but you make the repairs happen.”
“He’s not even a military officer. He has no rank.”
“You want me to appoint him a rank exceeding yours? Because I will if that’s your main complaint.”
“I believe you are favoring him because he is human.”
Straker rolled his eyes. “No, I’m favoring him because he knows this rock and its systems inside and out. It’s all he’s been doing for the past weeks. You might be a better engineer, but he has the local knowledge. Besides, this is temporary for you. You’ll have to return to the Revenge to fight the Carson. It makes no sense to put you in charge of the repairs, then give Murdock back the position when you have to leave.”
“You make a strong case, Captain Straker. I will comply.”
“I shouldn’t have to make a case every time, Lieutenant Zaxby. You’re under my command. In fact, I wouldn’t take this kind of pushback from a human, so actually, I’m favoring you because you’re Ruxin.”
“And it makes perfect sense to do so.”
“Oh, favors go only one way?”
“They go the way that will get the job done. Will that be all, sir? I need to get started on saving the day yet again.”
Straker concentrated on controlling his temper. Command was the art of getting people to willingly do what you wanted, he recalled from Academy. It didn’t matter whether Zaxby pissed him off, as long as he did the job. That’s what he told himself, anyway. “Yes, go. Do you have a comlink?”
“Integrated into my suit, of course.”
“Good. Let me know if you need anything. Straker out.”
Next, Straker used his Foehammer sensors to find the largest concentration of people. That ought to be the Unmutual prisoners and his Breakers guarding them. They crowded around the brig, not too far from the mechsuit factory. He quickly strode over to the area, keeping to the paved paths to minimize damage to the fields and crops.
What he didn’t expect were the many Freiheit citizens that had begun to gather there. More were arriving all the time, drawn by word of mouth and, no doubt, local comlinks, information passing quickly in the manner of small towns everywhere.
The prisoners had been crowded into the building. Breaker soldiers faced outward, holding back the crowd with the threat of their weaponry, but the locals apparently were in the mood for frontier justice. The
y yelled curses, and a few began throwing things. The dimness of the artificial night only enhanced the situation’s instability.
Well, if darkness emboldened them, then brightness should take some of the starch out of them, Straker thought. He activated his floodlights at maximum power.
Breakers and locals alike raised their hands against the illumination, and Straker stomped forward to take a position in front of the main concentration of citizenry.
“This is Captain Straker,” he said using the loudspeaker. “All of you people need to disperse. Go back to your homes. We’ll hold trials for these Unmutuals, but it has to be done according to law. I promise you, justice will be done.”
Instead of calming the crowd, this seemed to get them more worked up. Rocks bounced off his mechsuit. He tried to sort out what they were saying… something about “give us the Butcher?”
“Who’s your leader?” Straker blasted, cranking up his external speakers to maximum. “If you act like a mob, I’ll have to treat you as a mob.” He swept the muzzles of his weapons across the crowd in naked threat. “I’ll consider your grievances, but I need someone to talk to, man-to-man.”
“How about man to woman?” he heard as the noise died down. A plain woman in a plain skirt and jacket stepped forward, squinting against the light. Her lined face was set in an expression of determination. “You gonna shoot me?”
The locals all gave her room, and suddenly became focused on her instead of on the Unmutual prisoners.
“I’m not going to shoot anyone unless I have to,” Straker said. He keyed for dismounting. His mechsuit opened, overlapping plates separating like beetle wings to allow him to step out of the cockpit and climb down. He held out his hand. “Derek Straker. And you are?”
The woman stepped resolutely forward and shook his hand. Her grip was firm, dry, and callused. “I’m Bella Weinberg. My husband was the mayor here until the Butcher chopped him up. Now most of the folks seem to think I’m the boss.”
“Who is this Butcher?”
“His name is Yates,” she said. “He’s Ramirez’s right-hand man, and the worst of the bunch.”
