Rogue Battleship

by Jake Elwood

  Something mechanical hummed close by, and Tom flinched, envisioning aircraft and armored vehicles. But a panel in the ceiling began to glow, and a man's voice called, “We've got power!”

  “Good job, Fred,” said O'Reilly from another room.

  A mechanical clatter from the kitchen was followed by a sigh like air escaping from a pipe. A woman said, “There's still no water.”

  “You have to turn the pump on at the well,” said a stocky woman beside Tom. She stood at the living room window, clearly on sentry duty, staring out across the yard.

  Tom said, “The well?”

  She spoke without turning her head. “It's there in the yard, about halfway to the trees.” She nodded to indicate the direction. “That metal box, not quite knee-high, with all the yellow weeds around it.”

  Tom leaned past her and looked outside. He realized he'd seen the box without properly noticing it. “I'll go,” he said.

  She glanced at him, just long enough to raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you have wells like that on Earth?”

  “I assume so. Somewhere.” Tom flushed. “All right, maybe I'm not the best person to go.”

  “Fire team!” O'Reilly said. “Get ready to provide cover while Fred turns on the pump at the well.”

  Five people lined up just inside the front door, three men and two women. Two of them carried blast rifles; two carried laser rifles. A tiny woman held a slug thrower almost as long as she was tall. She carried it with a casual familiarity that said she was more than competent with the weapon.

  Fred appeared, a chunky young man with a strap around his forearm holding a selection of fine tools. He looked frightened, but he didn't complain, just took deep breaths as he prepared for his run.

  A voice called from the far side of the house. “The plane's over here!”

  Fred threw the door open and dashed outside. The fire team hustled out behind him, leaving the door open. Tom stepped to the window, looking past the sentry.

  The fire team spread out in the yard, forming a loose cluster with no one closer than three meters to anyone else. All five rifles swung up to train on the same spot in the sky. The barrels moved slowly, tracking the aircraft as it circled.

  Fred, running like an Olympian, reached the metal box and skidded to a halt on his knees. He fiddled with the case, then flipped open a panel on the side. For ten endless seconds he didn't move, just stared. Then he poked something inside the case.

  A pipe rattled below Tom's feet, and the sound of gushing water came from the kitchen. By that time Fred was halfway to the house. He staggered inside, circled around Tom, and sank down to sit with his back against the wall under the window. He panted and gasped as if he'd just run all the way from the crashed battleship.

  The girl at the window said, “Are you going to be all right, Fred?”

  Fred, breathing too hard to speak, flapped a hand at her. The fire team filed in, safeing their weapons, and someone pulled the door shut.

  “That pilot is good and spooked,” said the woman with the slug thrower. “He's not taking any chances.”

  O'Reilly came into the room. “Well, he might be waiting for just the right target. So we're all going to be careful, and stay away from the windows.” He looked pointedly at Tom.

  Tom took a step to one side. “Sounds like a sensible precaution.”

  There were five wounded in the house, and four more in the barn. That didn’t include minor injuries among people who continued to serve as scouts or sentries, or waited, ready to fight.

  A couple of stretcher cases had died in the first strafing runs from the aircraft. Some stretcher bearers had died with them. One stretcher case, a woman in her sixties, died during the long afternoon of laser burns taken during the space battle. They laid her down in a corner of the barn, and Tom knelt beside her, thinking sadly of the price people were paying for his clever idea of stealing a battleship.

  He knelt among the wounded in the middle of the barn, making awkward conversation and doing his best to offer comfort. There was a gray-haired man who reminded Tom strongly of his father. Bloodstained bandages covered his chest, and he grimaced and whimpered as he drifted in and out of consciousness. There was a woman who looked so much like Alice that it hurt to look at her. She had a bad leg injury, but a pain patch just above the bandages kept her downright cheerful.

  Dominguez was the only one Tom knew by name. He'd served aboard the Kingfisher, the light cruiser Tom had commanded before the battleship came. He looked almost healthy at first glance, but he had a head injury that made him too dizzy to stand.

  The last casualty was a middle-aged woman named Nancy. Her left foot was gone at the ankle. Each time she looked at her legs her face would go slack with horrified dismay.

  Guilt twisted Tom’s stomach, but he saw no accusation or resentment in their faces. He saw pain and fear and resignation and regret, fierceness and quiet determination, tears and stoic despair. They were volunteers, though it was all but impossible to stay behind when everyone around you joined up. They'd come on this mission with eyes wide open.

  Still, all the noble ideas that had set Tom on this path seemed hollow now, abstract to the point of foolishness when compared to the stark reality of good people dying in pain. We're liberating Novograd. What does that even mean? We're trying to change the course of the war so one group of politicians instead of another will claim ownership of these worlds. Is that truly worth killing for? He looked from Dominguez to Nancy to the gray-haired man and back again. Is it truly worth this?

  A memory came to him, a different group of people slowly dying in a prison camp on Gamor with the medicine that would save them locked up a short distance away on the other side of a barbed wire fence. He remembered the bleak despair of watching friends die, knowing that if they recovered from their fever they would just die a bit more slowly, starved by their captors.

  Once, that memory would have triggered a flash of hot fury. What he felt now was a faint echo, like a memory of heat. Is that the real reason I brought these people here? Because I'm still angry? Because I want revenge?

  He looked inside himself, but the anger he expected to find simply wasn't there. There was regret, and guilt, but less than he might have thought.

  We had to come here. We have to do this. The freedom of the Green Zone worlds isn't a political abstraction. It's not about what the colonies are worth, or who invested the money to terraform these worlds. It's about the utter savagery of the Dawn Alliance.

  If no one stands against them, they will rule these worlds. And I've seen how they rule. They have to be driven out. It's worth fighting for.

  He looked down at the row of stretchers and swallowed. It's even worth this.

  “Commodore.” The voice sounded urgent and frightened, and Tom's stomach tightened. The hammer is finally going to fall. He squeezed Nancy's hand, turned, and stood. A traitorous corner of his mind was relieved that the attack was finally coming. I can leave the wounded.

  He pushed away the thought and the shame that came with it. Hendrix stood in the doorway to the barn, silhouetted by the afternoon sunlight in the yard behind him.

  “They're coming, Sir.” Hendrix pointed east. “Personnel carriers, and a heavy transport. I think it's mechs.”

  Chapter 11

  Tom hurried to the doors, and the two of them stepped outside. Tom scanned the sky. “The plane is gone.”

  “Left about twenty minutes ago.” Hendrix cupped a hand behind his ear. “Might be coming back, though.”

  “What else is coming?”

  “Francine spotted them. They're coming cross-country, in big all-terrain transports. She's pretty sure it's three personnel carriers and a carrier for armor.”

  “No artillery?”

  “Not unless it's in the heavy transport.”

  Tom sighed. “Well, that's something, at least.” Except that artillery might be easier to deal with than mechs. “Let's get some people into the tree line. Maybe we can slow them down.�
�

  “Plane's getting closer,” Hendrix said. He shaded his eyes and squinted at the sky. “I think there's two of them.”

  It took Tom a moment to spot the incoming aircraft. He was accustomed to the earlier plane, which had maintained a prudent altitude. The new arrivals came in low and fast, just above treetop level. Tom said, “I think we better-”

  Two planes flashed above the line of trees, so close that he could see flames when their machine guns opened up.

  Hendrix swore, and both men turned, lunging for the gap in the barn doors. They collided, shoulder to shoulder, and fell in a tangle of limbs as the ground on either side of them erupted under a hail of bullets. Tom curled his arms around his head in a hopeless attempt to protect himself, and then the guns went silent and the sound of the engines changed as the planes swept over the barn.

  He rose to his feet, and Hendrix stood beside him. The barn doors were a splintered mess, a sizable chunk falling away as Tom pushed one door open. He said to Hendrix, “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” Hendrix took a step, then stopped. He held up his hand. “On second thought, not quite.”

  The pinky finger on his left hand was gone. Tom and Hendrix both stared at the stump. Hendrix said, “Doesn't even hurt.”

  “Come on.” Tom grabbed a handful of the man's shirt and towed him into the barn. “Medic!”

  “We need a janitor, too,” said Hendrix. “I'm bleeding all over the place.”

  “Everybody back from the doors,” Tom said, then took his own advice, towing Hendrix with him. The order was completely unnecessary, of course. The stream of bullets had everyone cowering against the side walls. Hendrix skirted the edge of the crowd until he could circle around and join the medics behind the machine in the middle of the barn.

  Tom pressed his eye to a gap above the hinge where the closest barn door met the wall. He watched as a couple of scouts left the line of trees and dashed for the buildings, one heading for the barn, one heading for the house. One of the aircraft looped around and came in low over the yard, just moments too late. One scout slipped into the house while the other, panting loudly, charged into the barn.

  Her momentum carried her almost to the machinery in the middle. She stopped, hands on her knees, drew a couple of deep breaths, and straightened up. She looked around until she spotted Tom.

  “Soldiers are coming.” She pointed toward the trees. “They stopped the vehicles about half a kilometer back. They're coming forward in a skirmish line.”

  “How many?” said Tom.

  She shook her head, her expression bleak. “Lots.”

  “I want firing teams upstairs,” Tom said. “Two people at every window. Two more standing by to take over if there's casualties or someone runs out of ammunition.” He looked around. Tense, expectant faces stared at him from the gloom. “I want six people on either side of the big doors. Four more at the back door. Everyone else, stand by to move casualties or carry ammunition.”

  Someone shouted, an inarticulate cry of warning, and Tom ducked reflexively, hunching his shoulders. There was a blast of noise that he only later figured out was an explosion. The whole barn shook, and mortar-covered stones rained down from the front wall. Sunlight flooded in, making the dust-filled air glow, and the big doors shattered as the wall above collapsed.

  Tom stumbled back, coughing, his eyes watering. Bodies jostled him on either side as spacers retreated with him.

  If the walls are going to come down, maybe the safest place is by the wall that's already collapsed. It's certainly the best place to shoot back. He planted his feet, leaning into the press of the crowd. The last few people squeezed past him, and he wiped his eyes, squinting at the front of the barn.

  The highest part of the front wall still stood, forming a ragged arch below the peak of the roof. Beneath was a pile of rubble, a mix of stone and the wood from the doors. Everyone had pulled back from the doors before the explosion, so he figured there were no casualties.

  Yet.

  “Commodore.”

  Tom looked around.

  “Up here.”

  The last few meters were gone from the floor of the loft, beams ending in splintered ruin. A man stood at the edge of the break, hands on hips. The dust made him nothing more than a blurry outline.

  “It was a rocket. One of the spotters saw it.”

  Tom waved an acknowledgement. If we stay in here, they’ll knock the walls down around us. But if we run outside, they'll shred us from the air. “I need a fire team! We have to take down those planes.”

  Light flashed in the corner of his eye, and he turned his head. A rocket streaked through the air, white smoke billowing out behind it, and Tom cringed.

  But the rocket rose, climbing too high to hit the buildings. The explosion when it came was muted, no louder than the popping of a paper bag.

  An aircraft tumbled from the sky. It slammed into the yard between the barn and the trees, tearing a great furrow in the earth. It bounced, flipped over, hit the ground once more, and skidded until it came to rest against the spruce trees. Tom didn't see the next rocket, but when he glanced up he saw a trail of smoke. He heard an explosion when it struck, and felt a vibration through his knees when the other plane crashed.

  Wood crackled and crashed, and a spruce tree along the windbreak toppled forward and flopped down in the grass. A massive shape appeared, almost humanlike but twice the height of a tall man. Gleaming armor formed metal legs with backward knees, a lean waist and a deep chest, and metal shoulders mounted with rocket launchers. In place of the head was a low sensor dome with an antenna sticking up from the top. A mech. Tom shivered. “This isn't going to be easy.”

  More branches crackled and broke and another mech stomped into view, pushing its way between two spruces. Soldiers in burgundy appeared between the trees, staying well back from the machines. The men took cover behind trunks as the mechs lumbered into the yard.

  Three tiny rockets shot from the shoulder of the nearest mech. They flew parallel to the ground, flashing between the buildings, aimed at a target Tom couldn't see. Return fire came immediately, a rocket that exploded in a flash of red flame and a noise like a thunderclap against the chest of the mech. There was an instant when Tom thought the machine would recover, but a second rocket struck and the mech toppled backward.

  The second mech had both arms up and extended. Machine guns blazed from one wrist, blast shots from the other. A rocket struck the point where the mech’s right shoulder connected to its arm, and the arm spun free, bouncing on the grass.

  Tom held his breath, waiting for a second rocket, but it never came. The mech turned slowly in a circle, like a drunkard trying to get his bearings. Smoke billowed from the destroyed shoulder, and the mech’s remaining arm sank until the blast guns pointed at the ground.

  The knees bent several degrees, and the mech went still.

  A roar rose behind Tom, beginning with a few voices and rising until almost everyone in the barn was screaming. Men and women, their nerves stretched to the breaking point, certain they were about to die, responded to this reprieve with a startling ferocity. Tom twisted around, then hunched down as the crew of the Icicle charged toward him. People went past close on either side, scrambling over the rubble.

  They charged out of the barn in a mob, shouting, howling. They ran at the tree line, and the troops there broke and fled.

  Tom picked his way over the rubble and hurried out onto the grass. A growling sound filled the air, like a saw cutting through metal. He turned, looking for the source.

  Two aircraft loomed behind the buildings, hovering just above rooftop level. They were as different from the Dawn Alliance warplanes as an armed freighter was from a corvette. This was colonist tech, old-school machinery that you could maintain with a wrench and a welder and repair in the field.

  The two aircraft, quite mismatched, had superficial similarities. They were huge, one half the size of the barn and the other nearly as big. Each had four roto
rs in protective cowlings. They hovered, the wash from the rotors whipping the grass below.

  They had the look of machines designed for agricultural use, then repurposed for war. The larger machine, with bright green paint streaked with rust, had mismatched strips of armor plating covering it here and there. She was essentially a flying bucket with a hopper descending from bottom, likely designed to scatter seed or fertilizer. Now she had gun turrets at the front and back, and a tripod atop the hull with a long-barrelled rocket launcher surrounded by vertical sheets of armor plating. Tom could see the operator, a burly man with a helmet and goggles, peering over the top of the armored nest.

  The smaller craft had no fixed guns. Instead, men and women with rifles leaned out from half a dozen hatches and ports. Both ships swept low over the tree line, blowing cones from the highest branches. Then the guns opened up as they fired on fleeing soldiers.

  By the time Tom reached the trees the battle was over. A dozen or so soldiers knelt in a cluster thirty or forty meters past the tree line with armed spacers in a circle around them. Bodies littered the ground, all of them in Dawn Alliance uniforms.

  In the distance, three bus-sized armored vehicles fled for the horizon. The aircraft followed them for a short ways, until turrets on the roofs of the personnel carriers began to spit fire. The ground vehicles continued to flee as the aircraft broke off their pursuit and turned back.

  Tom reached the cluster of prisoners, where he found a jubilant Alice with a pistol in her hand standing guard over a pile of confiscated weapons. She jerked a thumb at the sky. “Who are our new friends?”

  “No idea,” said Tom. “I guess we found the local resistance.”

  “And what a resistance!” Her eyes shone. “You don't just land troops on Novograd and expect to have an easy time of it.”