But not everyone had forgotten the planet. Now, a bizarre organic "space station" hung in orbit.
“Magnify that,” Brattain ordered.
The organic station came into clearer view: Roughly circular, with translucent stomach-like modules connected by woven passageways like large intestine. It was about as large as the Republic docking station on Auris; but the resemblance ended there.
“What a pretty vacation spot,” Cruz commented. “Makes me wanna lose my lunch.”
Tethered to the station was a small ship. A Colonial vessel, she thought… based on the antique profile and jury-rigged look of it.
“That ship is the right class for the lifeboat we encountered,” Reynard observed.
Xon nodded. “And the... station… must be where the female prisoners are kept.”
Brattain rose and approached the screen. “Wait a minute. What are...? Magnify those.”
The image focused on many small pods floating in orbit around the Valorian station. Barrels protruded from each: Standard military hardware.
Republic hardware.
“Autocannons? Those're Republican ordinance.”
She looked to Xon for an answer… but the doctor was baffled.
“I can't explain it,” he said. “This is completely unlike them.”
“Black market, maybe, or raided from a shipment?” Reynard suggested.
Brattain shook her head. “Doesn’t really matter right now. What matters is… Are they a danger to us? Ensign… Xue… can you pilot through those?”
Cruz shot her a cocky smile “Sure. Unless they've got real good AI, it's just a matter of finesse.”
The next image appeared on the screen: An aerial view of the labor compound down on the planet where the Colonists were being held. Brattain recognized the fields and rice paddies—and those sinister vats—from Seutter’s descriptions.
Further on, there were ruined structures, what appeared to be the edge of an ancient city. Some of the buildings on the edge appeared to have been repaired by the Valorians, using organic, bony material.
“Xue,” Brattain said. “Possible change of plan. Can you get a shuttle close to that camp without being seen from the ground?”
Cruz laughed. “My nickname used to be ‘Groundhugger’ when I was in flight training. Riding the terrain is fun, yeah?”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“Even Jesus can fly the ship through the autocannons, it’s not that hard.”
“Sir,” Reynard interrupted, “I can do that, and I’ll respect your orders, of course… But I should point out that we have enough evidence to warrant action by Command or the Senate. We might start another war if we engage the Valorians ourselves at this time.”
The was force and conviction in his voice; Brattain wondered how many of the crew shared his concerns.
Brattain considered this, glancing at Xon. But he said nothing, leaving the decision to her.
“Oh, come on! It's already a war and they started it,” Cruz exclaimed. “Let’s get ‘em!”
Brattain sighed. “No, it's a valid point. But there's no telling what would happen to all those people while the wheels turned. I take full responsibility for what happens. Personally. Transmit the data to Command...”
She turned back to Xon. “Can they sense you from here?”
“Well, telepathy is less a matter of distance than familiarity. But, I've taken the liberty of borrowing some of Mister Seutter's suppressant. On top of my implant, I’m hoping that will be adequate to disguise my presence.”
She thought for a moment, pacing.
“Xon… Could you synthesize enough suppressant for the assault teams in a few hours?”
He seemed perplexed, frowning for a moment before his face broke into an excited grin. “Well, yes... Of course, it's brilliant! I'll start at once.”
39
The shuttle Otsu cut through the planet’s atmosphere, coming in hot in a blaze of re-entry fire which cascaded harmlessly off the ship’s thermal shielding. Brattain watched on the holodisplay in the wardroom as a tiny blue model of the shuttle, shrouded in red flame, approached the surface of the Earth.
“Give me cockpit view,” she commanded to the computer.
She watched over Cruz’s shoulder as the pilot brought the craft low over the ocean. The shuttle leveled off and skimmed the water, kicking up spray—
Reaching land, it zoomed across the terrain, slicing through narrow canyons.
“I assume you know what you’re doing, Xue,” Brattain said, addressing the pilot over the comm.
Cruz laughed. “Trust me, Commander. They are never gonna see us coming.”
“If we survive the trip...” added a gruff voice.
Brattain rotated the camera view. The door to the passenger compartment was open, and a somber Molokos stood in the doorway, his small group of three surviving marines behind him. They wore black ceramic armor, different from their normal combat nano-suits.
Stealth armor. I just hope it gives them an advantage over the Valorians…
Molokos wore Kane’s katana in a harness on his back, like a totem of strength.
Cruz turned back and rolled her eyes at the Sergeant. “Gimme some credit, will ya?”
“Be careful, Sergeant,” Brattain said, addressing Molokos. “We’re not sure what you’ll face down there. Xon thinks it’s unlikely that there are large numbers of Valorian Templars, but we can’t be sure.”
Molokos shrugged his massive shoulders. “The Void demands certainty, and instant action without hesitation. I don’t think that leaves room for being… careful.”
“What?” Cruz asked.
Brattain chuckled under her breath. “It’s a… philosophical discussion we’ve been having. We’ve been trying to determine how literally to take this philosophy.”
“We marines are trained in evasive action and self-defense,” Molokos said. “So perhaps that will reassure you, Commander. Just hope that the Doctor’s suppressant works… Psionic attacks were never part of our training.”
“What about me?” Cruz asked.
“What about you?” Brattain replied.
“I thought you might want to tell me to be careful, to bring my pretty little butt back up there in one piece, yeah?” She shot Brattain a wide-eyed, questioning look, her black lips pursed in a kissy-face expression.
“You better come back in one piece, Xue, or I’ll have to consider serious discipline.”
“Can you consider discipline if I DO come back in one piece? I’m being very cheeky right now, yeah? Need to punish me later.”
“Fine, but after the mission’s done. I need you to be able to sit down comfortably in a pilot’s chair right now.”
Molokos grunted. “There’s some things about you ‘normals’ I don’t even want to try and understand.”
“All right. Just focus on the mission. We’re prepared to send the second shuttle at your signal. Brattain out.”
Switching off the comm, she and Xon watched the image change to the sinister, organic-looking Valorian orbital station.
Brattain shook her head. “I trust your recommendations, Doctor, but I'm worried about Seutter. You really think he should go with you?”
Xon had now changed out of his medical coveralls, and wore a nano-suit in the same Asian armor style as the rest of the crew.
He nodded his shaggy head. “His abilities will be useful. I myself am a little out of practice…”
“But his recent outbursts...”
“He’s made a lot of progress. The things he’s said… He’s angry, yes, but he’s at the point that he needs to take action. More than anything, I think he needs a chance to fight back against his demons.”
“And the Valorians are the literal embodiment of those demons?”
“To him, yes. They stand in for the Psionicist’s Guild, the pain of being taken from his parents as a child, for his brother’s cruelty… They’re monsters in a shape he can understand.”
�
��But isn’t that a liability, to have him so emotional about the mission?”
“For a Psionicist, emotions can be strength. And I am confident that the Valorians are not prepared for the kind of strength Seutter has.”
Lieutenant Reynard entered the wardroom with a sonic rifle.
“Team's ready when you are, sir.”
#
The pilot, Cruz, had her feet up on the control panel of the shuttle, and yawned loudly as Molokos and his marines prepared to disembark.
Irritating little creature, that one. Impulsive and complaining.
The Commander had some sort of mate-pairing with her now?
Well, it didn’t matter. So long as she was wake when they needed evac…
“Not gonna fall asleep, are you?” Molokos growled.
Cruz yawned again. “Oh no, black ops are sooo exciting.”
“Just be ready to fly,” Molokos said.
He felt tense… Afraid? Perhaps a little, even though he’d always tried to turn fear to other, more productive impulses.
The other Drones showed little emotion, though Molokos knew that they felt the loss of their brothers. Corporals Barton, El-Said, Trinh… All gone now, brutally snuffed out by these damned Psionic armored bastards. Killed without even a real chance to fight.
What had been done to them, to Captain Kane…
It filled him with rage. Made him a very angry Drone… the kind the “normals” most feared.
He’d always been taught to use his emotions to fuel his actions. To carry on, drill and fight and to gain pure satisfaction from knowing that he was a proud protector of the Republic.
“Rise above love and loss: exist for the good of humanity,” Musashi said.
But he’d never been truly respected until he’d met Captain Kane. Other officers had respected his deadly skills, had even shown fear of him… But Kane had respected him as an individual. Taught him the kind of ideals of ethics and honor that human marines used to embrace, but which had perhaps been seen as unnecessary for drones.
I’ve always been used as brute force, a blunt instrument.
But now I’m a sharp instrument… An expert blade, precise.
I am a warrior by nature, born and bred.
But I can choose what kind of warrior to be—and I choose to be an honorable soldier. Fighting as my calling, my art, my self-expression.
If they choose to think of me as only a grunt, it doesn’t matter.
“People are all the same aside from their belief in their own worth, regardless of what those around them may think,” Musashi said.
But Commander Brattain seemed to understand him. Molokos hoped to continue serving under her command… If he survived… if they all did.
But now was not the time for such ponderings.
Now was the time to act.
Exiting the shuttle, Molokos hit a pad on his armor. The nano-weave helmet formed around his head and his body faded, becoming almost invisible. He drew his katana; his arm and the sword were only visible as slight ripples in the air, like heat distortion.
The other marines followed his lead, activating their suits’ stealth modes as they headed out from the cover of the rocky hill which shielded the shuttle from the enemy’s view.
Molokos touched a nub on his helmet and switched to a green-tinted tactical view. Now, he could see himself and the other camouflaged marines beside him as semi-opaque green silhouettes.
They advanced as he waved them forward, crouching behind an outcropping of rock. Ahead, they could see figures moving. One, two… three tall figures in armor.
Valorians.
Best to take out their perimeter defense first, in case we get surrounded later.
Just hope the doctor’s suppressant works…
He knew, however, that there was a very good chance that killing one of the enemy would alert them all to his team’s presence. At least, if their telepathic network functioned as Xon and Seutter believed it did…
Then we have to make this first attack count.
#
The Valorian sentry swiveled, as if looking for something...
Too late now, Molokos thought. Guess the drug worked.
You have no idea what’s coming, do you?
Suddenly, a katana blade popped through its chest.
The armored Templar’s black faceplate obscured its face as it looked down silently at the impaling blade.
With a grunt, Molokos pulled the blade free. Gouts of amber fluid pulsed from the hole in the thing’s armor, mixed with crimson threads of blood.
The Valorian fell heavily, face first, into the dirt.
To Molokos’s right, another Valorian was riddled with bullets from Corporal O’Connor’s slugthrower.
The wounded Templar turned, raising his gauntleted fist—
But it was already too late for him. His chest was shredded in explosions of bony armor fragments and fluid, and he fell back, twitching.
That’s two, Molokos thought. Good.
He allowed himself only this microsecond of satisfaction…
To his left, another Valorian threw himself forward, his armored body landing prone on the ground just as the bullets from Lowry and Cox’s guns pierced the air where he had been an instant before.
But then, this prone sentry raised his gauntlet. Energy emerged from it, like a sheet of lambent lightning—striking the two marines, flickering over them. They didn’t appear to be harmed…
But their silhouettes flickered on the tactical display—and then their solid, detailed forms appeared.
Revealed. They blew out the stealth circuits somehow…
The two marines returned fire, hitting the prone Valorian square in the faceplate, eliciting an explosion of pink tissue and gushers of fluid.
But now, a fourth Templar rose up from behind a rocky outcropping further down the field.
Four of them! What was that one doing back there the whole time we were scouting? Sleeping… praying?
This fourth enemy removed a bony disc from his armor, and threw it towards the two exposed marines. It sped with preternatural velocity towards them.
The disc shrieked as it passed through the air—
And then, it exploded.
One of the marines, Lowry, was still too close. He was thrown into the air as pale lightning washed over him…
His armor cracked with a horrible crunching sound, and black shards of it exploded outward. Blood gushed from the sundered faceplate of his helmet.
Molokos deactivated the stealth mode on his own armor, and charged forward.
Can they all see what you see? Can they feel it?
Then let them feel this!
Leaping into the air, he slashed out with the katana. The monomolecular edge sliced at a downward angle into the Valorian’s armored neck, cutting down to where the sternum would have been in a normal human.
Spewing fluid, the armored enemy fell onto his back…
And Molokos rode his twitching foe’s body down, then wrenched his sword free.
Katana in one hand, blazing slugthrower in the other, he charged forward...
40
The Musashi charged at the Valorian station, blasting the opposing autocannons in a storm of fury.
The ship pitched and rolled as it sped forward, avoiding the grazer beams of the automated weapons.
At the helm, Lieutenant Reynard’s eyes were locked on the main viewscreen as he worked the stick intently. He grunted softly, as if the strain of the maneuvering was a physical effort.
Brattain watched anxiously on the tactical holodisplay as the tiny projection of the ship swam through the fire of the autocannons—the beams of those weapons highlighted in threatening red on the display.
The Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Simak, had put the Musashi’s own grazers into computer-assisted mode. She was sweeping her hands back and forth over her own console, guiding the weapons towards their numerous floating targets.
One of the autocannons flared in a small
explosion, which faded, leaving nothing but a cloud of fragments. Another autocannon followed suit.
The Musashi rolled just as the beam from another autocannon impacted the starboard side of the hull. It was a grazing shot; but the tactical display lit up red, to show that contact had been made.
“Damage report!” Brattain requested over the comm.
Sivarek’s voice reported back. He sounded strangely giddy as he told her: “Nothing, Commander! I mean, uh, the beam made contact with the hull, but the diamond nanoweave refracted and channeled all of the energy. It’s… it’s just like I hoped! Nothing short of a sustained barrage of grazer fire could pierce the hull now.”
“That is good news,” Brattain said.
They were getting closer to the organic Valorian station. Once they got in close proximity, the remaining autocannons stopped firing—as if they’d been programmed to do so in order to avoid harming the station itself.
“Lieutenant Reynard, are you sure you’re up for leading the boarding team?” Brattain asked.
He nodded. “I have experience in zero-g ops, Commander. Near top of my class in orbital small group tactics. I’m the natural choice.”
“Then get us close to that Colonial ship. You agree it would be easiest to enter through the airlock of the vessel that’s already docked with the station? Considering that we have no idea as to how the Valorian airlock mechanisms work.”
Reynard nodded towards the wedge-shaped Colonial vessel which now loomed close on the main screen. The ship was battered and patched-up and seemed held together with welded scraps, and Brattain could now read the name crudely painted on its side: FS Spartacus.
FS for “Free Ship,” she recalled. The Colonial’s typical designation.
“That’s an old Monterrey-class intersystem heavy shuttle,” Reynard said. “One of ours, originally—an antique model. Or it was one of ours, before those Colonial mongrels started tinkering with it and replacing parts with any junk they could find, and grafting weapons onto it. The security’s got to be ancient, though… I can use a nanokey and get in within seconds. So yes, that’s the best way in.”
Space Cruiser Musashi: a space opera novel Page 19
