Act of War

by R. L. Giddings

  Ardent considered that for a moment. With no real armaments at their disposal they were going to be feeling incredibly vulnerable right about now.

  “They could do with us setting up some kind of distraction for them. Keep the Da’al off their backs. But it’s going to take us too long to get this armada up and running.”

  “The armada!” Farnese scoffed, searching under the bed as he tried to locate his shoes. “Can you even hear yourself? Those ships might look impressive from a distance, but they wouldn’t last five minutes against a well armed cruiser.”

  Ardent was almost laughable how quickly Farnese’s attitude had changed - and all because he felt she’d out smarted him. That was the problem with bedding these young men – they all had such fragile egos.

  She went over and stood behind Farnese, hoping to placate him. She didn’t want him going off and doing something stupid. She was relying on him for support, here.

  “My hope is that they won’t come within a million miles of the enemy. That’s not my intention. Really, all I’m doing is getting the ball rolling. That’s it.”

  “You’re hoping that you’re somehow going to shame the Serrayu into getting involved?”

  “Not just the Serrayu. I want the Renheim to step up as well.”

  Farnese didn’t get a chance to respond to that as they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “That’ll be the captain,” Farnese said, moving quickly away from the bed. He shouted, “Just a second!” before ushering Ardent towards the bathroom.

  Ardent stayed where she was, her skin was starting to cool. She wasn’t frightened of Meyer but it would be unfortunate if he discovered their plan before they had the chance to get it up and running properly.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Meyer asked from the other side of the door.

  “Not at all, sir. I was just taking a shower.” Farnese kept gesturing towards the bathroom but Ardent ignored him, pulling on a bathrobe instead.

  In the end - with Farnese almost pleading with her - Ardent stepped into the bathroom, positioning herself so that she could see through the crack in the door.

  Finally, Farnese let the captain in.

  Meyer stepped inside, quickly scanning the room. He took in the discarded towel and the unmade bed but didn't seem surprised by either. The man might be ineffectual but he wasn’t stupid.

  “Can I help you with something, sir?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s a protocol issue. We can’t ignore it.”

  A protocol issue? Ardent was intrigued.

  “We have to make arrangements for this VIP visitor,” Meyer said.

  “Someone from fleet?” Farnese said. Then after a moment’s consideration. “You’re not talking about the Yakutians are you?”

  “No, of course not. A visiting dignitary. In fact, she’s already here.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, you’ve lost me.”

  “The Ardent woman. I’ve just received a communication. She’s been re-instated as governor.”

  Ardent lurched forward. It felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “What about the other guy. The vice governor. Parnashikan?”

  “That’s what the communication was all about. Seems he’s dead. Someone blew up his flier.”

  Ardent grabbed the sink in an effort to steady herself.

  Farnese said, “So, she’s been re-instated?”

  “It would seem so. I haven’t got all the details but we’re going to have to raise our game with such a high ranking official on-board. I’d like you to organise a little celebration in my state room, though I’m not sure how she’s going to react when she finds out.”

  “Let me clean up in here, sir, and I’ll get right onto it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  LaCruz was nervous, which was unusual for her.

  For the past few weeks, all she’d felt was a kind of raw numbness.

  Ever since Grimes’ death she’d been operating on auto-pilot, just trying to keep busy. She trained when the others trained, she ate when the others ate and slept when the others slept. Or at least she tried to.

  She’d been having trouble sleeping of late. And it didn’t help that her bunk was so constricted that every night it felt like she was climbing into a coffin. When she couldn’t sleep she got up and paced around. She’d expected the others she crewed with to say something but none of them did. They were leaving her alone – for now at least.

  The sergeant had been the only one she could talk to about it. He’d lost people in the past so he had a handle on what she was going through. Didn’t talk to her like she was some newbie who was about to have a meltdown. Likewise, he wasn't expecting her to snap out of it.

  One thing she did notice though was that all the weapons in her area were securely locked away. She knew because she’d checked.

  They didn’t want her chowing down on someone’s side arm when no one was looking. Didn’t want her making a mess of the ceiling.

  The corpsman had been to see her, offered her some meds, but he was just a kid. She hadn’t wanted to take her frustration out on him, though it had been damned tempting the way he kept asking her those questions.

  Did she have any suicidal feelings? That one came up a lot.

  They were just trying to cover themselves but it was incredibly aggravating hearing the same thing over and over. If she hadn't been having any suicidal feelings at the start, she sure was now.

  The toughest part initially had been the tedium of just sitting around. With nothing to distract her, it had been all too easy to fixate on what had happened and what she might have done to have prevented it - which was why all the VR stuff had come along just at the right time.

  She normally didn’t hold with all that gung-ho Armoured Personnel nonsense but she’d taken to the training from the moment she’d slipped on her helmet. It had all felt so natural. She’d played video games with her brother when she was younger, of course, but that had been nothing like this.

  Fully Immersive. That’s what they’d called it and they weren't wrong.

  Felt exactly like being there: working as a team, locating the enemy, then killing the enemy.

  A lot of the other troopers had struggled to get the hang of it, largely because they kept thinking of it as a game. LaCruz never made that mistake. Her opponents might have been generated by a computer but she had no problem seeing them as a very real threat. One day soon they were going to be doing this for real and if she screwed things up, she wouldn't just be sidelined for a couple of hours - she'd be dead.

  Always respect your opponent, they’d told her in training – no matter who they are.

  It was a mantra she’d do well to remember.

  She was nervous now because this was all new to her: standing in the cargo bay in nothing but her underwear while a female trooper slathered cold jelly over her back and arms.

  “And this is absolutely necessary?” she asked for the fourth time.

  “According to the new guy, it’s essential,” Lance Corporal Grey said, applying a thick layer to the underside of LaCruz’s arm.

  The 'new guy' was standing over in the corner dressed in some fancy skin suit. Obviously some kind of spook. Nobody knew much about him but when LaCruz saw that even the sergeant was wary of him that got her attention.

  “Supposed to cut down on you getting electrocuted. Least ways, that’s what he told me.”

  LaCruz just stood there, letting the other woman massage the gel into her arm. It was a minor inconvenience especially considering how many other troopers there were eager to take her place.

  There’d been lots of rumours surrounding the suits’ deployment. At first everyone was supposed to have one, and then no one was going to have one. The wildest rumour she'd heard was that the troopers wearing them would be jettisoned from the ship with the intention that they’d make planetfall under their own steam. Actually, that wasn't the wildest. The wildest one was that the suits were tough enough
to withstand a nuclear strike.

  In the end, only four of them had been selected to wear the suits. They had had gathered in the main cargo bay to have their suits fitted. There wasn’t enough room for them all on the flight deck while the shuttle was being prepped so the plan was that once they were in their suits, they’d be escorted across one at a time. It would be a tight squeeze getting them through the corridors but it was only a short walk – the cargo bay lying directly opposite the flight deck.

  Other than herself, there was Mensah, Walker and Barnes. She didn’t like Mensah. When she wasn't pounding the heavy bag, she sat around putting her hair in braids. And she wasn't even black. This woman had issues. Walker and Barnes were kind of alright. Walker was quiet, didn't say much at all, and she liked that about him. Barnes was a Cajun which was a problem. Meant you couldn’t tell him anything he didn't already know or hadn't done twice before. What her mother would have called 'cocksure'.

  But he was funny. Which was more than could be said for Mensah.

  The plan was that they were going to accompany two fire-teams down to the surface. The decision had been made that instead of being 'suited up', the other troopers would be dressed in conventional cold weather gear. That way they could get everyone down to the surface in one trip. While she and Barnes would be assigned to the sergeant’s team - a simple Search and Rescue job - Mensah and Walker would be supporting Commander Webster and this spook guy, Nash, at the other location.

  That was it. That was all they knew. They'd get more details once they hit the ground.

  The armoured suits were supposed to provide over-sight, so, basically, the same gig she performed normally, only this time she’d be out in the open rather than sniping from cover.

  She knew which one she’d prefer. But, still, it was something different.

  “Okay, Jackson,” the corporal was waving her forward like she was driving a truck rather than standing around in her underwear with her teeth chattering. “You’re up next.”

  A set of steps had been placed there in order to give better access to the rear of the suits. The suits weren’t enormous but they were big – it was like climbing up into the cab of a truck.

  “Do yourself a favour,” the corporal said. “Keep your eyes closed until you get properly oriented in there. It’ll take you a moment to familiarise yourself with everything, so don’t rush it.”

  He took her arm while she negotiated the steps. Covered in gel as she was, they couldn’t afford for her to slip and injure herself at this point.

  “The safeties are on and will stay on until you reach your deployment. And remember, the biggest fatalities with these things come as a result of blue on blue action. Co-ordinate your lines of fire with Barnes and ensure that friendlies stay well out of your way. Got that?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Now, if you wouldn’t mind stepping this way,” he crab-walked up the steps beside her. So close, she could smell the coffee on his breath.

  The access portal was between where the suit’s shoulder blades should have been. There was a handle just above this and Jackson grabbed it now.

  “Deep breath in,” he prompted. “Let it out nice and slow before opening your eyes.”

  LaCruz brought her knees up in a tuck position before swinging through the portal. She’d practised the maneuver on a training model but even so she still managed to jolt her back as she over-extended. The air inside the suit was much cooler than it was on the outside and she allowed herself a few short breaths while she felt around for her manual controls. They were supposed to be right in front of her but she couldn’t find them.

  The interior was filled with clicking and whirring sounds as the suit adjusted itself to her exact physical requirements. Various armoured sections encircled her midsection while a heavy collar gripped her neck. The collar was there to protect her spinal cord in the event of a major impact but, as it tightened its grip, she had the distinct impression it was trying to break her neck, not protect it.

  She slowly opened her eyes.

  Her boosted visuals stripped the cargo bay of all its shadows giving her a greatly enhanced view of her surroundings. She could see every last detail in super sharp resolution and only had to look at one of the troopers to bring up their name and rank with an option to access all their available bio-data.

  She picked out Private Mungai and had a quick look at his stats. Blood pressure and heart rate were slightly elevated but, apart from that he appeared to be in excellent health. Born and raised on Earth Prime. Well. Not a lot of those around these days.

  She switched across to Lance Corporal Grey, bringing up her inoculation history by accident, then struggled to hide her file. Not the sort of thing you wanted to happen during a fire-fight.

  “Jackson, they need you to move your ass,” Mensah’s voice was loud in her ear. LaCruz adjusted the volume with a glance at the appropriate icon.

  Lance Corporal Grey was indicating for her to move forward. She had her finger-pressed to her ear bead and was clearly talking to her but for some reason, LaCruz couldn’t hear her. Another glitch.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Nash in his skin suit, moving over towards the big blast doors. She got a lock on him and tracked him as he walked. It would be a moment’s work to send a couple of missiles flying over in his direction.

  Guy was an idiot.

  Nice ass, though.

  Moving forward took a great deal of concentration, with her feet feeling as though they were clad in ferro concrete. Engage servos, raise knee, extend leg. Ten times harder than in VR where all you had to do was walk.

  She managed three steps before everything suddenly shifted.

  “What’s happening?” Mensah said.

  The whole ship had tipped on its axis with everything falling away to her left. She didn’t move, of course, the suit’s magnets took care of that, but everything else did, including the massive packing cases the suits had been stored in. They slewed across the floor before smashing into the far wall, instantly transformed into so much driftwood.

  Private Mungai was the first casualty. As the whole room lurched, his legs flew out from under him. His head struck the deck once, snapping his neck. Next thing he was like a rag doll sliding across the floor. His plight was ignored by the other ground crew who were themselves scrambling to stay on their feet.

  There was a hollow clang when a roll of heavy cable caught LaCruz from the side before bouncing harmlessly away. Not so harmless, though, if she hadn’t been wearing her suit.

  Suddenly, the entire contents of the cargo bay had somewhere they needed to be in a hurry. A mini trailer swung across in front of her before launching itself into the air. Other items followed.

  “Something’s wrong,” Barnes said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Mensah said.

  They were losing atmosphere at an alarming rate which could only mean one thing: they’d been hit. There had to be a breach further up the far wall. They might not be able to see it but it was there somewhere. Otherwise, where was all that materiel going?

  A warning strobe was flashing over on her right and when she looked across, she saw that the blast doors had sealed themselves. The safety over-rides had activated to preserve the atmosphere on the rest of the ship but in the process had sealed them in.

  LaCruz’s eyes fixed on Lance Corporal Grey who’d managed to grab hold of a hand rail but looked like she was in danger of being sucked out through the hole. She had a bad cut in her forehead and was having to contend with lose items that went barrelling across the floor, threatening to hit her. Her position was starting to look more and more untenable with every second that passed.

  “I’ve got this,” Mensah was already moving past LaCruz, the tremor of her steps reverberating up through the deck plates.

  Mensah hadn’t got far before she was blind-sided by a tool cupboard which had worked itself free from the wall. If she hadn’t been in a suit, the impact would probably have killed her. As it w
as, it was enough to knock her off her stride

  She was staggering around like a drunk, one bulbous arm swinging around in Grey’s general direction. Watching her, LaCruz was reminded of a crane caught in a hurricane, spinning uncontrollably. The impact must have damaged her servos somehow because, all of a sudden, she wasn’t in control.

  LaCruz gritted her teeth as she tensed for the inevitable impact.

  As if in slow motion, she watched as Mensah’s huge hand caught Grey solidly across the back. After that, it was game over. Grey’s arms flew out as the blow knocked her from her perch and she went into a kind of inverted swan dive before being subsumed by the slurry of junk fast disappearing off into the darkness.

  “Move,” she shouted into the tactical link. “Move now.”

  Warning icons were popping up all over her display.

  “Walker? You with us?”

  “Only just,” there was real urgency in his normally laconic voice.

  “What happened,” she asked.

  “Total shit show. I hadn’t even suited up when it all started kicking off.”

  “So how did you get inside?”

  “Don’t ask me. One of the ground crew guys just stuffed my ass in here.”

  “And what happened to him?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  *

  Webster was in the corridor when the first attack came, the impact slamming him and the private who was accompanying him hard against the wall.

  He grabbed the nearest hand-rail and hung there for a few seconds until he got his breath back. The private had been knocked to the floor but he sprung back quickly enough, extending a hand in Webster’s direction. Webster took it and the pair of them proceeded down the corridor. He had only recently changed into his cold weather gear and he could hear his water-proof trousers rubbing together as they walked.

  They hadn’t gone very far when they were sent sprawling again, as the Dardelion began the first in a series of evasive maneuvers.

  He was in the process of contacting Silva when a corporal appeared, coming from the opposite direction

  “Corporal, what’s going on?”