by Will Crudge
“Laser designator almost ready?” Thomas asked.
“Roger that.” Todd finally looked over at Thomas. “Data just finished updating, and the hardware checks out. Self-test came back green also.”
“Outstanding.” Thomas said calmly. “It’s not like those things grow on trees, so we’re lucky we even had a back-up.”
“Technically it wasn’t a back-up.” Lisa chimed in as she stood up with a long stretch. She reached her arms to the ceiling with the screw driver clasped between the fingers of her right hand, and then she relaxed back down to a regular standing position a moment later. Her shoulder length sandy hair seemed to graze her shoulders as it flowed back into place.
“Not a back-up?” Todd asked.
“Not at all.” Lisa asked. “This one is the latest spec, and the old one was scheduled to be turned in for refurbishing. Gail didn’t want to give it up, because she didn’t trust new tech. She wanted time to put the new one through its paces before the quartermaster made her cough it up.”
“Makes sense.” Thomas noted. “They’re highly sensitive devices, with top-tier crypto. Fleet is funny about having too many security concerns in one place.”
“How did she get away with not turning it in right away?” Todd asked Lisa.
“War changes priorities in funny ways. We were pulled out of Alpha Sight by the time the exchange was scheduled to take place.” She replied.
“Yeah, and the Broadsword Squadron got to go chase all the glory at Tangine while our battle group had already been there for weeks!” Thomas huffed. The vastness of Alpha Site meant that by the time the AI controlled drone squadron had made it to rendezvous with the Broadsword Squadron, the battle had been over, and the Iron-sides Battlegroup was still half a light year out from the closest hyper gate. The Battle of Tangine had been decided before the battle group could arrive.
The team had no shortage of frustration from the how things turned out. The bulk of their battle group had been ordered to join the main body of UAHC and Unum forces at Titan, but left behind a small group of ships to actively patrol for any threats that may still lurk in the inner stars. Now their small force was at least two to three light years from their closest sister ship. They felt like they’d been left out of the main effort altogether, and thus were relegated to patrolling for pirates or isolated Crimson vessels.
“Any news from the head-shed?” Lisa asked Thomas.
He nodded, and then gave a dismissive shoulder shrug. “Looks like INTEL believes the main Crimson forces have been ordered back into Alliance space, and are taking up some kind of defensive posture. But they also suspect that there are a handful of Crimson assets that have stayed behind for some reason. Either they didn’t get the memo, or are willfully ignoring the order.”
“Meaning?” Todd asked.
“Meaning – we’ll be stuck in this desolate sector for the foreseeable future!” Lisa huffed. Thomas knew she was right.
Thomas just nodded. “We’ll be here protecting the inner stars from rogue baddies and pirates until further notice.”
“Damn!” Todd exclaimed. “And if the Crimson ships learned what happened down on that rock, they’ll avoid a ground engagement from here on out.”
“If they can, then yeah.” Thomas acknowledged.
“And us FISTER’s will just be along for the ride, with no terrestrial battlefront for us to work our death magic!” Lisa shook her head as she spoke.
“All we can do is…” Thomas was cut off as the ship lurched suddenly. The small cages of equipment and the armored suits in their jigs rattled along with it. A moment later, the alarms sounded and the team scrambled to climb in their suits as if by instinct.
***
“Sir, KEPL has Joy.” The Ensign announced. Commodore Zedd nodded in response. He knew that Joy signified a successful engagement. He turned to his brother and smiled. The taller brother’s face was obscured by the spec ops helmet and visor that he wore, but he returned a nod.
“It would seem we’ve taken them by surprise, brother!” Zedd said as a crooked smile emerged. He looked back over to the holographic display, and saw the listing UAHC Light Cruiser. The image showed the flickering of an over-loaded energy shield, and the ripples of venting atmosphere.
Even though the Cerberus at least two hundred meters longer, and had at least half a million tons on the Light Cruiser, it was still slightly out-matched by the UAHC vessel’s firepower. Ambush was the only option. Neither of the brothers wanted to risk an engagement in open space, but when the ship appeared on one of their probe’s feeds, they couldn’t afford to risk being detected. The UACH had superior scanning range, so the Cerberus would likely have been detected without transitioning to slip-space.
But the prospect of securing a UAHC long range shuttle or fighter that had the latest transponder codes, was too tempting to pass up. Flying the Cerberus into inner Sol would be suicide, otherwise.
“Their shields generators must be damaged. Don’t give them a chance to re-route their power grid to their back-up shield generators! Concentrate all firepower on their engineering decks!” Zedd spouted out the order.
“Nice play, little brother!” Peterson replied via his suits external speaker. “Crimson doctrine would have told you to focus on their coms array, or main thrusters.”
Zedd just huffed a forced laugh. “You and I haven’t lived this long by being stupid!”
The image on the holographic display spoke volumes. The successive KEPL shot, in concert with medium range missiles and beam fire, had completely destroyed the engineering decks as planned. Flaming atmosphere spiraled out of the hull of the light cruiser, and quickly flamed out as the oxygen was consumed.
The bulk of the damage was about a third of the way back from the stern, and the thruster arrays appeared to flame out. The abrupt cloud of ions from the failing thrusters formed a cloud on the energy scan overlay.
“Take out their coms array, and then prepare a covering fire solution for the boarding team.” Zedd ordered. The Ensign nodded, and got back to work at his control station. Then Zedd looked up at his taller brother. “Looks like it’s your turn.”
Peterson nodded, and then turned towards the door. Zedd watched him leave, and then turned his focus back towards the crippled ship. Icons began to appear on screen, and the dialogue labels began to populate. Escape Pods! This may be easier than I initially thought!
“Sir, do you want to engage the escape pods?” The Ensign asked.
“Not before you scan for life signs.” Zedd replied. “I don’t want to tax our beam generators, or waste missiles, on malfunctioning pods that have no humans on board. We have a boarding team to cover, remember?”
Zedd paused for a moment to consider her suggestion. “Ensign, have the prisoner transferred to the main docking structure immediately!”
“Yes, Sir.” He replied.
Trixie added.
***
All three members of Murder FIST raced down the corridor that led away from their armory, and headed towards the fore section of the ship. They set their armored suits to operate with full internal atmospherics, as the ship’s environmental systems were experiencing a cascading state of failures. They rushed past floating bodies of personnel who had died be
fore making it to EV suits, or their own armor. Their magnetic boots were all that kept them moving.
They could have been moving faster by floating and using their suits’ thrusters, but then they’d have limited ability to respond to hazardous debris. Thomas led the way, and was followed by Lisa with Todd taking up the rear. All three of them were loaded down with every piece of gear they could carry. Rifles, batteries, med kits, and even field rations were draped over their hulking battle armor. The cumbersome figures couldn’t help but bump and scrape the sides of the corridor as they went along. Small items were occasionally dislodged and floated away, but none of them stopped to retrieve anything.
First order of business was making it to the pods. Thomas abruptly stopped, and Lisa barely stopped in time to avoid a collisions. Todd wouldn’t be so lucky, and slammed into Lisa.
“Fuck!” She shouted through their audio net. “Watch it, dumbass!”
“Sorry!” Todd replied nervously.
“Stuff it, you too!” Thomas scowled as he slapped the access panel on the pod door. The blast doors slid away, and Thomas wondered how loud it would have been for a one ton door to abruptly unlatch so fast, had there been enough atmosphere to hear it. But he shook off the thought and snapped back to the present. He side-stepped away from the entrance, and motioned for his teammates to pile into the tiny pod. He knew the pod was built to accommodate six to eight unarmored Soldiers, or four fully armored ones, but the additional gear would make it a very cozy experience for all of them.
Thomas followed Todd into the airlock, and pivoted to face back out into the corridor as he backed in. It was an instinctive maneuver that had been beaten into him from countless emergency drills. The last person entering the pod would always enter back-first. This ensured that an over-crowded pod always had someone within arms-length of the launch control panel… Not to mention, if the pod was captured by enemies then the Soldier facing outward, would already be positioned to face anyone trying to pry it open.
The Lance Corporal slapped the launch button, and the world turned black for a moment. With the inertial dampening systems down on the ship, they would feel the full pull of massive g’s upon launch. Within a fraction of a second, the pod’s dampeners kicked in. Thomas blinked rapidly, and his vision returned.
He checked his internal HUD, and realized that the pod’s atmospherics were already pressurizing to a tolerable level. “Alright folks! We can breathe in here!”
All three Soldiers retracted their helmets, and they disappeared into their shoulder plating. “One more thing…” Thomas added. “Our suits have one cool feature that the infantry fucks don’t have.”
“Bio-dampening.” Lisa asserted.
“Right!” Thomas replied. “We stand a better chance of survival if we blank out our bio-markers. The Crimson may be gracious enough not to waste their ammo on a derelict pod.”
Unlikely Bonds
Location: UAHC Detention Frigate, Morton, Orbiting Earth
Date Time: Post Interstellar 10/18/4201 1111HRS UAHC Standard Zulu
System: Sol System, Inner Region
Five Days later…
Shade gracefully entered the main cell block of the high-security detention frigate. She lumbered down the rows of empty cells until she came to the one that contained Peterson.
“And how is my favorite Crimson Agent doing today?” She said with her growly – but motherly – panther voice. Her voice module attenuated her speech pattern, and allowed it to be readily audible to human ears.
The man in a bright yellow jumpsuit was sitting on his sparse cot, and looked up with a smile. “It’s not like I couldn’t feel you coming, Shade.”
“I know, but I enjoy classic exchanges.” She winked as her furry left eyelid momentarily covered the large green eyeball. “How was your lunch?”
“I have to admit, it was good!” He shrugged. “I can’t say I ever expected to be treated so well.”
“The UAHC aren’t animals, dear!” She said with a laugh. He just chuckled in response.
The unlikely pair of friends had deeply bonded over the preceding weeks. She even learned the man’s real name, Jack. She’d learned that his identical twin’s name was known as Charlie. Peterson was just an assumed identity. The brothers had jumped from one identity to the next over the many years of their extended life-spans.
The exposure to a Zodiac was certainly by design. Shade spent several hours with Jack every day, and she was his only company. She managed his food delivery, escorted him to the lone shower stall, and made sure all of his basic needs were attended to. Darius wanted it that way. He and Shade agreed that it was better to make the man soften up to her by kindness-emersion, then to have the standard detention personnel treat him with disdain.
Any hope they had at cracking the enigma of this man’s place in the cosmos would be of some value in the future. The potential to turn him from adversary to asset was also intriguing. But since they’d learned of his genetic heritage, and kindship with the War Master Guild’s blood-line, they knew that bonding him with an elder Zodiac would reap rewards. Or so they hoped.
“How goes the war?” Jack asked. Shade felt that it didn’t hurt to fill him in on the basics, but she felt he wasn’t fully trustworthy just yet. Centuries of brooding with his brother had hardened him, and she had no idea how many defensive emotional layers the man had in him.
“The UAHC and Unum fleets are combining.” She replied.
“I figured as much.” He nodded. “The Alliance strategy was to manipulate the UAHC government into spreading their own military assets too thin. The idea was to leave the forces too thinned out to defend against a concentrated attack. It would seem that building up a strong allied core is the only rational course of action.”
“Indeed.” Shade responded. She enjoyed listening to the man’s wisdom… Even if his hubris had made him side-step that wisdom, and allow a War Master to nearly kill him. If he hadn’t shared the undeveloped genetic gifts of a War Master, then he would have died instantly when Jep crushed his spine on his knee. The impact damage on a normal human would have been fatal.
“It’s ironic…” Jack said, while shaking his head.
“What is, dear?” Shade asked.
“Here I am… a captive. All the while I’m happier now then I’ve ever been.” He said with a seemingly authentic grin. Shade studied his expression, and searched down into her mental connection they shared. She sense no sign of deception, but she was resolute to remain diligent.
“Well, you’ve had only five minutes of cumulative human interaction in the last two and a half months, so forgive me if that strikes me as odd.” She said empathetically.
“I suppose you would see it that way.” He nodded in acknowledgement. “But then, you Zodiacs are often more intelligent than most humans. I suppose you can key in logical discrepancies better than most.”
“Perhaps.” She said with a head tilt. “But being a hyper-intelligent predatory animal with superior genetics, doesn’t make me omnipotent by default.”
He smiled and slapped his knee. She just studied the man’s subtle movements, body language, and verbal ques in great detail. She supposed he knew she was studying him, but his undeveloped genetic gifts meant that she could feel him far more completely than the other way around. She imagined if he was too old to undergo the process of unlocking his full potential. It was normally something done during infancy. The theory of doing the procedure at that young age, was to allow for the natural developmental process to embrace the genetic enhancement more completely. Although she supposed it was merely theoretical.
But before she could formulate a response, something emerged in her awareness. Something cold and dark. It was the same presence she felt when she first began caring for Jack, and she knew it could only mean one thing…
She looked up at him, and his face was pale. He feels it too! She thought to herself.
The sound of the proximity alarms overwhelmed both of their senses, and a
startling announcement came over the loud speakers.
[This is the Captain… We’re under attack… All hands prepare to repel boarders… This is not a drill… I say again… This is not a drill!]
“I’m sorry I have to do this, Jack… But I can’t afford for you to get hurt until we know what we’re facing!” She said begrudgingly. But she figured they both knew what was coming… More specifically, who was coming.
Jack just nodded. “I understand, Shade. Do whatever you feel is best.” Shade felt sincerity in his words. She almost felt like Jack didn’t want to be rescued. But she had no time to assess his feelings… She had someone to subdue… Perhaps even kill!
She sprinted to the end of the hall and reached up to the main control panel on the side of the cell block entrance. Even with her dinner plate-sized paws had enough dexterity to manipulate the controls handily. Steel plates appeared from the ceiling, and then slammed down to cover up each cell. The four inch plating was reinforced with ceramic layers to resist the intense heat of plasma cutters.
She knew that the doors would only delay the inevitable breech of a determined extraction team, but perhaps it would slow them down long enough for the Air Force’s exo-atmospheric fighter squadrons to arrive.
She ran out of the cell block and secured the blast door behind her.
The message was only one way. Jack had never undergone a full unleashing of his genetic heritage, nor had he been mentored on how to use them correctly. Even still, she could feel his warm feelings of gratitude come back through her awareness. He can hear me, at least. She thought as she tried to take comfort in it. But she had a lot of people to kill, and not a lot of time to do it… She knew she could manage in vacuum for a few minutes just fine, but even with her battle-tank physiology, she wouldn’t be able to function much past that… let alone survive.
