by Ryan Krauter
Lazaf was ready to go, and had his knife pressed tightly against Velk’s side. Loren could see, as he dropped out and replaced his last energy cell, that Lazaf had already cut through the uniform and was ready to end the Priman if it came to it. Velk seemed to understand.
“Last energy cell,” Halley said for their benefit as she changed hers.
“Try it now,” Loren heard Roxis’ voice. Halley hit the door plate, but nothing happened. “No joy, Ensign,” she replied.
“Ok, only two more ways to go. One of them has to work.”
Halley yelled over to Lazaf. “Get Velk up here with me. When it opens, he goes through first. If we don’t get him out, this whole thing was a waste.” A blaster bolt smacked the bulkhead right next to her; she dropped to the floor by reflex, a surprised look on her face.
Lazaf shoved Velk towards Halley, who grabbed him with unexpected strength and lifted them both to a standing position in the door alcove.
Without warning, a small sphere lofted over the desks and landed in the middle of the group, accompanied by a halt to the Priman weapons fire.
“Shock grenade!” yelled Halley, and dragged Velk in front of her to shield herself. A shock grenade was basically an EMP weapon for humans, causing a very effective disruption of neural and motor functions for a minute or two. Velk was enough to shield Halley from the effects, but everyone else was on their own, and could either stay covered from the Primans and take the effects of the weapon, or relinquish the safety of their cover in order to stay conscious but exposed to the enemy.
Web and Loren both leapt onto the desktops and rolled behind them, away from the Primans and closer to the outer bulkhead. Lazaf tried to kick the grenade away, but it went off as he connected, and he was enveloped in a field of blue static discharges. An instant later, he lie still on the floor.
Loren and Web got up slowly, aware that there was still no Priman fire. As they poked their heads up over the bench, they saw over a dozen Priman troops, heavily armed and pointing their assault rifles their way. Loren saw a few of them that had been the recipients of SSK shots, as evidenced by blaster burns on various parts of their torsos. Body armor had helped a few of them, but Loren was pretty sure more than a few were down for good. He knew his own meager armor wouldn’t do much more than slow down the heavy duty blasts those rifles would send out.
The Primans gestured with their rifles to stand up, and Loren and Web slowly complied, hands held up in the air. Loren had no plan, but he needed to think of something. He was farthest from the door, behind a table that he’d need to get over in order to make his escape. There was a final row of tables between him and the outside wall, but there was nowhere to go after that. Web stood between him and Halley, where all he’d have to do was slide around the end of the table and make a dash for the alcove where Halley, Velk, and the inert form of Lazaf were. If only Roxis would open the damn door, they might get through if he could find a way to distract the Primans.
He looked over at Halley, who was holding up the limp form of Velk with one hand, using the other to point her SSK at the many Primans just fifteen feet away. Her face said what Loren was thinking: what now?
“Confederation soldiers!” a voice cried out from the middle of the group. A Priman woman stepped forward, pistol held low to indicate she wasn’t going to fire while they were talking. At least, that’s what Loren hoped it meant. Keep talking, Priman, Loren thought, and give us a few more seconds to get that door open.
“You are surrounded,” she continued, “and outnumbered. If you turn over Representative Velk and surrender, you have my word that you will be treated honorably as prisoners of war.”
“Do we have another choice?” Web asked, trying to sidetrack her and stall them.
“We can open fire and kill you all,” she replied matter-of-factly. “The Representative is valuable, but not more so than the integrity of this base.”
Integrity, Loren thought. It gave him an idea that was the sort of thing that only popped up when all other avenues were exhausted. It was an idea born of desperation, a last ditch effort that said he felt he had nothing else to lose. He really wished Roxis would say something over his earbud, because if he didn’t Loren was going to have to go through with his plan, and he didn’t particularly feel like dying today. However, if he had no other choice…
“Depends on how long we feel like threatening each other,” Loren said, not sure he was going anywhere with it, but desperately hoping to earn them each second he could.
“Ok guys,” he finally heard Roxis’ voice. “I have both workarounds loaded. You can try the door any time. It will open now, or I’ll come over there and stand next to you while it all goes wrong.”
Loren wished he could answer, but the tense situation wasn’t going to allow that. There were a good half dozen rifles aimed at him, almost that many aimed at Halley and Velk, with only a couple pointed at Web, who held no real strategic position. He couldn’t just start talking, or the Primans would know they were getting help over the radio.
“XO, Halley, are you there?” Roxis asked. There was a touch of nervousness in his voice. Loren had to say something to clue him in that they were still working on their exit, plus he had to provide a means of distracting the Primans so that the team could get through the door without getting shredded by Priman rifles.
“Personally, I think I would like to explore other options,” Loren said calmly.
Halley’s head snapped over to him, and she fixed him with a hard stare. He’d said it with the serenity and clarity of purpose that usually came with reaching a difficult decision. Halley had heard it before, and worried about what he was thinking.
Loren noticed Halley’s gaze, something of a cross between worry and regret, and he figured she’d guess what he was planning to do.
With her augmented hearing, she was probably the only person who heard the soft ‘tick’ of Loren thumbing the switch on his SSK, changing firing modes from blaster to armor piercing.
He looked at Halley one last time, and tried to wish his thoughts into her head. How he’d do anything to get the cure for Toral and his wife. How, as long as the rest of them made it out of this base, that was possible. And how he didn’t know any other way the Primans were going to let their guard down long enough for all of them to get through that door.
A look of calm came across his face, and Halley simply nodded.
With a speed that caught everyone by surprise, Loren spun, extended his arm, and pointed his SSK at the large viewport, pulling the trigger as fast as he could. He sent four armor piercing rounds right into and through the viewport before a stunned Priman fired at him, clipping him in the back and knocking him down.
There was no time to wonder how badly he’d been hit, because the air was busy rushing out of the room with explosive force. The viewport exploded outward as it was sucked out into space, taking the room’s air with it. The decompression pulled out anything that wasn’t attached to another surface, from tools, data cards, a few Priman assault rifles, and even a surprised Priman who had been standing out in the open and couldn’t grab onto anything. The room was chaos, everything whirling around and heading for the large opening out into the black void above the surface of the moon.
Halley triggered the door, throwing Velk through as hard as she could in the hopes of knocking him completely out. She grabbed Lazaf next, and beckoned Web to follow. He shook his head, pointing to where Loren had fallen. Loren had been lucky enough that the worktable he fell behind was serving as a backstop so he wasn’t pulled out the viewport as well. Halley couldn’t waste time arguing with Web; atmosphere was rushing past her through the open door where she stood, taking air from the rest of the base. They needed to seal off the maintenance room in order to keep enough oxygen in the base for the rest of them to breathe.
She lunged into the room and grabbed Web, again throwing him through the door that she’d tossed the other two through. The air stream passing from deeper in the base was ge
tting weaker now; the base had been sealed off further in, and she just hoped it wasn’t at the galley, or they’d still suffocate before escaping. She tried to gather one last breath, but could barely get a shallow one down. She stumbled into the room another few feet. She had to give Loren a chance, but they also had only seconds for her to delay. She could see where he’d fallen, just on the other side of the worktable. She looked at the Priman troops, also on the ground, some flailing, others already still.
“There has been a development,” Tana Starr said to Dennix and Enric Shae in the security of the Senator’s inner office. She looked pointedly at Shae, sending the message to Dennix that she wanted the Senator’s aide to leave.
“Enric, if you would please,” the Senator said quietly, with an air of discomfort, “we need to talk for a minute.”
Shae simply stood and left, and the Senator knew he’d have to either fully admit to the man what sort of arrangement he had with the Primans or replace him with somebody who had far less ambition.
Shae closed the door behind him, and Tana Starr rose from her chair to take his seat next to Senator Dennix.
“What do you need now?” asked the Senator impatiently, absentmindedly spinning the ring that he’d taken off the body of his former handler Ples Damar and now wore on his own hand. Part of him wished he could get rid of Ms. Starr in a similar manner and keep a memento, but he doubted the Primans would look past that sort of action twice, even if they probably couldn’t prove he’d killed Damar in the first place.
“We have an opportunity to engage one of your fleets in an ambush. We have recently defeated a Talaran scouting force in the Anderson system, and have reinforced our own fleet there as a response. Since I have not seen any military dispatches addressed to you that mention this event, I think this fleet movement might have gone completely unnoticed, am I correct?”
“The military doesn’t send me a memo every time something happens.”
“But occupations of planets or large scale engagements do get reported, Senator,” Starr replied smoothly. “Therefore, we are planning an ambush. We’ll have you send in the nearest Confederation fleet, or at least one that is of sufficiently lesser strength than ours so as to assure our chances of victory.”
Dennix looked at her flatly, but remembered an earlier warning from her. She’d told him in no simple terms that he needed to stop pretending to be shocked and offended every time she told him to do something unpleasant, that he belonged to the Primans, and that his continued existence, not to mention his political influence, were dependent on timely cooperation.
“And what exactly is it you want?” he replied.
“I need to know which Confed capital ship groups are near enough to Anderson that you can order a recon in force. We destroy the reconnaissance element, and chalk it up to the vagaries of war.”
Dennix grudgingly picked up a datapad and brought up the list of current fleet movements, handing it to her. He’d locked out any further information, but doubted he’d hold his ground if she demanded more information. Still, it felt good to pretend he had some say in the matter.
Tana Starr took the datapad, leaned back in her chair, and perused the information at her fingertips. It only took a minute before she set the pad down and showed the closest thing to grin that Dennix had yet seen.
“I see that the Ninth Fleet is anchored near enough to Anderson to fit our requirements,” she said in a very upbeat tone. “I also see that they are very understrength. They are down on ships due to overhaul, regular refits, combat losses, and detached vessels for other duties.” She pondered something, then looked at Dennix again. “The Ninth will fit our needs nicely. In addition, I’m sure you are aware of their numerous dealings with our own forces. It would be agreeable to take them out of the equation.”
“And at what point can we stop destroying Confed forces and worry about managing the Confederation instead?” the Senator asked a little too bitterly for her tastes. Still, it was best to give him something to hope for. After all, the most dangerous enemy was one with nothing to lose.
“Perhaps this last action is all we’ll need for a while,” she reassured him. “If your combat losses require you to pull your forces back or even give up some ground to us, it would make you less of a threat to our push towards the galactic core. If that was the case, we could see you more as a territory to isolate and govern than a force to crush. And at that point, Senator, you would become very useful to us as the ruler of our new domain, especially if we insist for the benefit of the Confederation people that you remain as our Governor during the transition.”
Roxis stood at the hatch of the Keeper ship, all pretense of being calm and collected long gone. He’d heard Loren’s words, heard the shots and the overwhelming sounds of the room venting atmosphere. He’d heard Halley and somebody else grunting, swearing, a few bursts of gunfire, but nobody was saying anything on the comms, and he didn’t know what the hell that meant. Were they barely making it? Were they just too busy working with other issues?
So he waited there, hatch unlocked and ready to flip down. He finally heard Web’s voice over the comms, and the order was simple. “Open up, we’re coming in hot!”
Roxis hit the button to send the hatch down, then kicked it for good measure. He caught his breath when he saw the scene before him. Halley was in the lead, looking pale and worn down. Lazaf followed, the unconscious Velk draped over his shoulders. Last was Web, who had Loren over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry as well. “Is he ok?” Roxis asked worriedly as Web lunged up the stairs and past him.
“Don’t know,” Web said shortly. “We need to get out of here first, then we’ll take care of him.”
Web raced back to the berthing area and placed Loren on a bunk, then felt Roxis’ hand on his shoulder.
“Go,” the Ensign said, “I’ve got this.”
Web nodded blankly, then dashed back up to the front, where Halley was already warming up the engines. There wasn’t much point in pretending to be on a Keeper profile anymore, and as a result they just planned to blast off and make tracks to anywhere that wasn’t in the Gartha system. Roxis quickly reached over Loren and tried to straighten him out so he could lie flat and was caught by the nauseating smell of burned flesh. He didn’t really have the stomach for it, but he couldn’t help trying to catch a glimpse. The XO’s uniform was singed on the left side of his back, and there were scorch marks all around the side of his torso. He could see Loren breathing, but it was shallow and ragged.
Roxis looked around for some sort of medical equipment, but found none, then remembered his own briefings on how Priman and human physiology were different enough that most medical equipment was ineffective.
Web flew the ship with a vengeance, throwing in every trick he knew. The base itself was lightly guarded in order to keep a low profile, and he avoided the few point defense turrets with some simple rolls and acrobatics. As soon as they cleared the moon and the base started broadcasting its’ alert signal, however, things changed. Web altered course one more time to avoid a destroyer sized patrol ship that was in the area; at the same time, he noticed a flight of four Priman fighters headed their way.
“Halley,” he said through clenched teeth as he tried to fly, plan, and talk at once. “What sort of weapons does this thing have?”
“Sorry to say, none,” she replied. “This ship’s advantage is speed. Those fighters will never catch us, and you’re going to clear that patrol ship. The problem is meeting up with Avenger. If they’re on the ball, they’ll see what’s going on and be ready. We just have to figure out what they’ll have planned.”
“Well, my plan for now is to head straight for the rally point as fast as this Priman barge will go,” he countered as he pushed the throttles harder against the stops, hoping for just a tiny bit more acceleration. The sooner they got aboard Avenger, the sooner they could turn Velk into a science experiment and Loren could get into a proper sickbay.
“Captain,” Ensign Caho s
aid from her station in the rear of the bridge, “new contact. It matches the Keeper ship profile.”
Elco was instantly on his feet and taking the half dozen steps to the station behind his chair. “Is it the XO’s team?”
“Not sure. We only have one profile in the computer, so I can’t tell if different ships read different on scanners the same way capital ships do.”
Elco only had to think about his orders for a second before he walked back to his chair and hit the button that was his direct line to C3 and Lieutenant Commander Mastruk, who was in charge of C3 and all weapons deployment in Loren’s absence. “Lieutenant Mastruk,” Elco began without preamble, “scramble the Vipers. Keep half for Combat Area Patrol, send the others out five hundred miles and have them ready to intercept.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” was the Drisk woman’s immediate reply.
Chapter 14
From his Talon in the ready position at the front of the Vipers’ hangar bay, Merritt heard the launch order over the radio in his flight helmet. There was nothing for him to do; orders had been given and his plan had been laid out. The deck officer simply told the computer to carry out the program Merritt had laid in.
The tractor emitter on the underside of the hull outside the hangar grabbed his Talon as soon as he lifted off the deck, flinging his ship out into space. He rapidly banked down and away from Avenger to clear the area for the next launch. The fighters of his squadron were all ready and hovered into position over the launch pad, where the computer took control of their flight computers and used the tractor beam to pull them out into space, at which point control reverted back to the pilots inside. A well trained and confident (some might say cocky) squadron could launch in five second intervals, the next fighter already coasting towards the pad as the previous fighter began its’ journey through the ray shield that kept the air inside the hangar and the emptiness of space outside.
