Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7)

by Jason Anspach

  “All craft,” the CSG called, urgency in his voice. “Concentrate all firepower on the hostile frigate. The captain and I want it left a junk field.”

  Responses of confirmation poured in.

  Over his shoulder, Dax saw the Intrepid pummel the small freighter with its overwhelming batteries. Raptors unloaded their full complement of missiles before doing striking the hull with their cannons.

  The shuttle pilot must have realized what the Republic was playing at. The transport vehicle began turning away. But its movement was like that of a geriatric mule—these suckers didn’t come close to handling like a Raptor.

  Dax smiled as the shuttle pilot made a fatal error, exposing its starboard engine unit to him. He locked on with a concussion missile, but rather than firing, he primed it for a mirror position. He would go in with cannons first, loop, then fire at the opposite engine as quickly as possible, trusting the missile to home in on its pre-arranged target. “Thank you very much!”

  Blaster bolts tore into the shuttle’s starboard engine unit, causing the ethereal blue glow to fade out into a lifeless, scorched black even as the shuttle’s wings adjusted for hyperspace travel.

  Dax began his loop.

  “They’re about to jump away!” warned Reaper Two.

  “C’mon…” Dax pulled his Raptor hard, pushing it to the very peak of its ability. He fired nanoseconds after seeing the green lock flash, then watched two spectacular things from the view out of the top of his canopy window. The first was the frigate Monstrous erupting into scores of miniature explosions, which blossomed and bloomed until a flowering eruption seemed to issue forth from the center of the starship, causing it to break apart as if pulled by a thousand dragons in a thousand different directions. The second thing Dax saw was his missile arcing to the last operative engine on the shuttle. It drew nearer, nearer… and then exploded in a white concussive wave of energy…

  … just as the shuttle made the jump to hyperspace.

  Wide-eyed and with a small voice, Dax cried, “No.”

  It was gone. The shuttle was gone.

  “Reaper One,” called in the CSG. “What’s going on, what happened? We’ve lost visual on the shuttle. Advise—did it reach hyperspace?”

  “Yeah, it did,” Dax sighed. “Be advised, they—” A new ping from the sensitive scanners in the nose cone of his Raptor arrested the words as he uttered them. “Hold up. I see them, Mother! They jumped, but it was a nanosecond too late. Sensors show the disabled shuttle not a hundred kilometers away. That’s as far as she got.”

  “Roger that, Reaper One. Protect the target until we can recover with tractor beam. Nice work, Reapers.”

  08

  Legion Destroyer Intrepid

  Hangar Bay

  Olik System

  Masters’s leg jittered up and down like he’d just consumed fourteen cups of caff before entering the tight confines of the assault pod. Chhun tried to pass the seemingly endless time by counting each time Masters’s knee went up and down, but he couldn’t keep up.

  Finally, Bear gripped the volatile limb at the lower thigh and held it down. “Dude. Relax.”

  Shaking his head as though he were trying to remove water from his ears, Masters said, “Sorry. Can’t.” His opposite knee began its own nervous ride. “These things are death traps. I’m not going to be able to relax until the doors open and I’m shooting bad guys.”

  Fish leaned forward from his jump seat and looked past Bear to Masters. “You do realize that we haven’t even left the ship yet, right? Shuttle’s still on the deck.”

  “No kidding it’s still on the deck,” Masters bit back. “That makes it even worse. Because that means there’s probably a huge dogfight out there and they’re holding us back so we don’t get blown up. Only they’ll still send us out into the blaster fire if it looks like Nero might get away, and then everybody will know why we’re there and it’ll be like a game of smear the stier.”

  “That’s not gonna happen,” Chhun said. He didn’t want his men to dwell on the unpleasant idea of being vaped inside their cramped tube, never knowing what hit them until they were consumed by a gaseous fireball. “Focus on your job, KTF, and we’ll all be fine.”

  “I dunno, man,” insisted Masters. “We’ve been in here, what, fifteen minutes? And no one has said nothing to us about it. If the shuttle was out there, we’d have gone for it. If it was on the surface, we’d have dropped. If it was on board a ship, then we just sit tight until the fighters clear a path and then it’s us plus a bunch of hullbusters against whatever. But what if it’s one of those three gigantic ships they have? That’s gonna be a lot of work, man.”

  Owens shook his head. “Calling it a frigate over the battlenet. If it were a destroyer, we’d feel it rockin’ the shields.”

  Masters seemed not to hear it. “It’s gonna be one of those huge ships and then we’re gonna punch in and have to fight through three miles of phonies. That’s what it’s gonna be, man. I know it.”

  Over a private comm channel, Owens asked Chhun, “What’s up with this kid?”

  “It’s how he deals with waiting,” Chhun said, not at all concerned. “He’s got a neurotic side. We’ve learned to live with it; it’s best to just let him go.”

  “Huh,” answered Owens. “I don’t remember him being like this when I was still active with the squad.”

  “Lots of things have changed since then. No offense.”

  “All good. You hearing anything on your comm that I’m not?”

  Chhun smiled inwardly. “Don’t figure they’d tell me something they aren’t telling you. I was about to ask you the same thing. All I’m getting is ‘kill team stand by.’”

  Owens made a clicking noise with his tongue and said, “Let me contact the hullbusters, see what they know.”

  “It’ll pass the time if nothing else.”

  “Marines,” Owens barked into his comm on their open channel. “This is Major Owens embedded with Legion Kill Team Victory. One of you hullbusters have any hints about what’s going on? We’re sitting in the dark here—literally.”

  “Just waitin’ on you, Major,” answered a voice from the Marine comm channel.

  “Say what?” Owens switched to a private comm with Chhun. “They say they’re waiting on us.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, sir,” the marine answered. “Orders are to follow your team to assault the shuttle. We’re all waiting here outside the containment dock.”

  “The shuttle is on board?”

  “Yes, sir. Tractored in and isolated in the CD.”

  The CD, containment dock, was a specially armored and shielded bay used to contain hostile or suspect starships brought on board with tractor beams. Vessels were kept there until a team could scan, clear, or otherwise sweep the ship to make sure it wasn’t rigged or outfitted to explode or attack. An unfriendly starship could do a lot of damage if it was allowed to go hot inside the general docking bay; it could wipe out entire fighter wings, not to mention the scores of crew nearby. But in the containment dock, the damage an explosion could do was minimal. A ship turned into a bomb would be free to detonate, but it wouldn’t matter—the force of the blast would be channeled and vented through shielded release ports, causing no significant damage to the ship itself. And if they started firing blaster cannons, the offending ship would barely make a dent in the quadruple-thick, shielded walls.

  “Looks like the shuttle is there, waiting on us,” Owens informed the rest of the kill team.

  “For how long?” asked Fish.

  “How long?” Owens relayed the question over the marine comm.

  “Been waiting about five minutes. I was about to send a couple boys to wake you leejes up.”

  “Cute,” Owens said.

  “Nice if someone would’ve told us,” Bear said, adjusting his helmet between a pair of mammoth hands.

  Chhun hit the button to open the assault pod. “We know about it now, so let’s get going.”

 
Outside the assault pod, Fish pointed toward a couple dozen marines on the far side of the hangar bay. “I see the hullbusters. Containment Door A.”

  “Hustle up,” ordered Chhun, setting the pace for his men to follow as they moved toward their objective. He looked from left to right, counting Raptor starfighters as he went. There were fewer of them here than there had been when his team first entered the assault pod, but Dax’s black-and-green starfighter stood out among the ships that had returned. The pilot had done his job, and now it was up to the kill team and marines to finish it.

  As the team moved, a naval petty officer approached. “Are you the kill team?”

  “No,” Masters shouted, “we’re the basics parade. Next show is at fourteen thirty.”

  “I have orders for you to report to Containment Dock A.”

  “A little late, spacer,” Bear said, shouldering his way past the messenger.

  “Orders received,” Chhun said. “We’re on it.”

  Victory Squad reached the gathered marines. Chhun, with Owens, approached a marine captain making himself conspicuous by the way he walked up and down his line of kneeling hullbusters, slapping them on the tops of their green helmets and giving final reminders and instructions.

  “I’m Captain Chhun, Dark Ops,” Chhun said, both hands gripping his N-4 at the ready, allowing a curt nod to do what a handshake otherwise would.

  “Captain Kenny Johnson,” the marine replied. “My fire teams are ready to seal off the containment bay and watch for any space rat holes they might try to use to get around you. I also have some men with experience doing CQC from Rawl Kima, in case you want an additional team assaulting the shuttle.”

  Chhun nodded. The captain was fresh-faced, young enough that had this been before Keller’s dismissal of the points serving among those loyal to the Legion, Chhun would have figured him to be an officer appointed to the marines because his government sponsor didn’t have the clout needed to get him command of a starship or in the Legion.

  “How long you been in?” Chhun asked, slinging his blaster rifle and opening his breaching kit, looking for the best tool to crack open the shuttle’s ramp. Since it was a Republic model acquired by the Black Fleet, a slice patch would probably be enough go get her to open up… though Chhun preferred the boom.

  “Eight years, sir.”

  “Good.” Chhun found the slice patch and paired it with the proper class and model of the shuttle he could see through the transparent blast door window leading into the containment bay. “Not a point?”

  “No, sir,” the captain answered, all business.

  “Good,” Owens said, speaking up for the first time. “Legion don’t like points.”

  “Sir, the Legion saved my father’s life on Psydon. I don’t like points, either.”

  “Ooah,” said Fish from nearby.

  Chhun caught the attention of his team. “Okay, I’m set to breach. I want a twin column formation with Masters taking lead. Captain Johnson, position your men to keep our backs and have your CQC boys and a corpsman standing by. We’ll use them as a Quick Reaction Force if things get ugly.”

  Chhun took a deep breath. He hoped that wouldn’t be the way this all went down, but with the general apparently in command of the entirety of the shock trooper force on board, and with the knowledge that men like Exo were serving as shock troopers… yeah. This could really suck.

  A warning siren sounded in the docking bay as the heavy containment doors pulled apart, revealing a damaged transport shuttle sitting inside. The ship had a pair of fixed swept wings at its rear and a sleek rounded cockpit at its fore. It had two forward-facing light blaster cannons, one built into the frame beside each wing. These looked to have been scorched and made inoperable, if that was the work of Dax and his Space Reapers, Chhun would have to buy them all a round.

  Chhun held up his arm, fist balled, indicating to his team that they’d gone as far as he wanted them to go. Of course, the L-comm provided him the means of simply telling his men to halt, so the visible symbol was more for the marines, who likewise halted. He then motioned the fire teams where he wanted them and waited as they ran around the perimeter of the hangar to set up crew-served N-50 blaster cannons.

  When he was satisfied that everyone was where they needed to be, Chhun and his team began moving toward the target. They moved smoothly, because being smooth meant being fast. And being fast was what kept them alive.

  The shuttle gave off a hiss, and its yellow underbelly lights flashed to indicate that the ramp was coming down. The kill team halted and took up fire positions. So much for having to blow it open. It looked like the general had ordered his troopers to go down with a fight. Chhun only hoped that Nero himself could still be taken alive.

  “Think they’re coming out to surrender?” Masters asked over L-comm.

  Bear pumped his shotgun for a maximum energy charge. “Would you?”

  “If I saw myself standing outside?” Masters asked. “Oh, hell yeah. Gotta be cray-cray to want a piece of this.”

  “You’re crazy all right.”

  “Maintain comm discipline,” said Chhun.

  The ramp lowered, a white cloud of vapors escaping and obscuring whatever lurked in the darkness inside the shuttle. In his mind’s eye, Chhun could see the brilliant intensity of blaster bolts zipping through like thunderbolts from a cloud. But none came. Instead the haze dissipated even as the ramp lowered. Then, as if they had been waiting against the ramp itself, the bodies of two shock troopers came tumbling out. The glossy, black-armored soldiers slid and rolled down the ramp, clattering onto the deck and then remaining still.

  “Should we shoot them just to be safe?” Fish asked.

  “Hang on,” said Chhun. His bucket’s IR could see a figure approaching the top of the ramp from inside the shuttle itself. He wore a black uniform and a long overcoat that went down to his mirror-shined boots. In his hand was a simple blaster pistol, held so the grip faced outward.

  “This is General Nero,” called the man from inside the shuttle. “No doubt there are legionnaires, perhaps even a kill team, waiting for me outside. I’m surrendering the pistol I used to kill these men you see before you.”

  Chhun’s bucket showed Nero slowly squatting, the weapon held out and visible the entire time. He placed the blaster on the floor, stood just as slowly, and kicked the weapon. It banged and spun down the ramp like a child’s toy dropped on a staircase.

  “I’m coming out now.”

  General Nero walked down the ramp, a look of supreme confidence on his face, even though both of his hands were resting on the top of his head. Chhun’s bucket tech scanned the man’s face, looking for a match in the Legion database. This guy was leading his own little Legion, using the same tactics and command structure. The presumption was that he was former Legion himself. But the processors came back empty—no record on file.

  The kill team moved in, weapons ready.

  “I surrender,” Nero said, a slight grin on his face. “I trust Legion Commander Keller wishes to have a word with me? We’re old friends, he and I. I was once a shining star in the Legion.”

  At once the kill team moved with a frighteningly unified speed and purpose that served to wipe the smug smile from Nero’s face and replace it with what Chhun knew to be a deep-seated concern for his own well-being. It was a look the kill team had seen many times before.

  Bear grabbed him by the collar bone and send him down hard on two knees while Masters ener-chained his arms. As Fish placed an isolation hood over his head, he held it open just long enough for Chhun to say, “He does. But my team wanted a word first: Go to hell, traitor.”

  09

  Cresweil Bazaar

  Porcha

  Technically, the Cresweil Bazaar was not a city, though if it were, it would be the most populous on the entire planet. The bazaar started as a sort of planetary initiative just after the Savage Wars. It was the brainchild of then–Cabinet General Muuvi the Belligerent: sell at the bazaar and pay
the government a flat three percent. No customs, no tariffs… no questions asked.

  Porcha managed to keep the Republic looking the other way by hemming and hawing over what they declared to be culturally exclusionary policies that prevented the planet from formally joining the intergalactic government following an alliance during the Savage Wars themselves. That line of negotiation—coercion through guilt—proved to be so effective that even when Muuvi the Belligerent was killed and dragged through the streets in a revolutionary uprising, the Republic stayed away.

  Or maybe they just liked to use the bazaar for their own purposes.

  For Captain Keel, it didn’t matter all that much. Porcha wasn’t unique to the galaxy, but it did mark a vital port where one could buy and sell just about anything. It had therefore become a regular haunt for Keel when he was first cutting his smuggler’s teeth after leaving his brothers in Victory Squad.

  Keel wore black trousers with yellow stripes running down the side and a generous, white open-collar shirt beneath a brown lurr-hide jacket. He had insisted that Exo and Bombassa dress the part of spacers as well. Exo wore some of Keel’s clothes—a blue vest above an orange shirt with brown pants and dusty black boots. The ensemble was both baggy and snug, as Keel was taller but less powerfully built than the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested former legionnaire. Bombassa was altogether too large to wear anything of Keel’s and had to settle on a pair of sandy coveralls. Keel didn’t remember where he’d picked them up.

  “I feel stupid,” Bombassa complained. The whine of one of the many observation bots and courier drones that thickened the sky sounded overhead.

  “You look fine,” Keel assured him. He looked up at a drone, which seemed to have taken an extra second to hover ten meters above their table. Most cities had ordinances restricting bot and drone traffic to make it less intrusive for the organics. But Cresweil Bazaar wasn’t a city.